Sally Ross tossed in her bed, unable to sleep despite the comfortable breeze from her open window. The nineteen-year-old sat up in bed, looking at the clock on the night table. It was half past one in the morning.

"Wonderful," she said to herself in sleepless frustration, "only six more hours and I can get up and start a new day."

Home again less than a day, the short haired redhead had to admit to herself that coming home for Spring Break hadn't been the best idea she'd had recently. It wasn't that she didn't get along with her family or anything like that. The problem was that no one seemed to realize that she wasn't the same girl who went away to the State University half a year before. In her parent's eyes, she might as well still be in junior high, much less college.

"They probably still think I'm a virgin too," Sally laughed silently as she got up to answer nature's call, recalling that virgin wasn't a term that could be applied to her since junior year of high school.

Reaching the bathroom she shared with her younger brother, Harry, Sally flipped the light switch as she stepped inside. The overhead head bulb flashed bright for a brief moment, then went dark as the filament burned out.

"Figures," Sally said under her breath as she debated for a moment replacing the bulb.

Like most of the second floor windows, the one over the bathtub had been left open on the warm night. The moonlight coming in through it was enough for the young woman to find her way. After all, it wasn't like she needed to see what she was doing at this point in her life. Replacing the bulb could wait until the morning.

Quickly taking care of business, Sally was about to press down on the handle on the side of the toilet when she glanced out the window and noticed a light on in the house next door. Only a narrow driveway separated the two houses. Unlike her parent's home, the one next door was a two-family rental.

The second floor, Sally knew, was occupied by Phyllis Wallace. Thirty-four years old, the curly-haired brunette had, until last year, lived there with her husband and ten-year old son. Her son, Billy, still shared the small apartment, but her husband, Glen, had been asked to leave just before the New Year. The teenager remembered her mother mentioning at dinner the other night that Phyllis was in the middle of divorce proceedings.

The lighted window was that of the older woman's bedroom. Sally had baby-sat for the Wallace's many times while in high school and was quite familiar with the layout of their apartment.

Thinking about the Wallace's bedroom brought another memory to Sally's mind. One from early last summer that her brother had shared with her. A story that caused the coed to smile as she remembered it.

It had been a night much hotter than this one, with Harry standing pretty much where Sally was now. The sixteen year old had come in late from a night with his friends and wanted to take a quick shower to wash the sweat off his body before going to bed. As he turned off the water, he looked out the window and saw the Wallace's light on. Never having looked out the window at that time of night before, it came as a surprise to the young man that he could look right into the bedroom across the driveway. Or more specifically, into their marriage bed.

Despite the two-year difference in their ages, Harry and Sally had always been the best of friends. They shared confidences that few brothers and sisters would dream of exchanging. Harry passed along to Sally what guys were saying about her, and big sister did the same for him. More importantly, at least from her younger brother's perspective, Sally was only too glad to clue him in on what girls were willing to do what on a date. A little piece of inside information that made his social life a lot more fun.

So it didn't seem all that odd to Sally that Harry would want to share his late night discovery, telling her how he had watched Mr. and Mrs. Wallace go at it for over a half hour. What he'd left out, Sally had been sure, was that he probably had more need of a shower after that than before.

Letting her curiosity get the best of her, and at the same time feeling a little silly, Sally climbed into the tub and tried to look across the driveway. It wasn't as easy as Harry had said, the windows didn't exactly line up for a clear view, but with a little doing it was possible. The odds that Phyllis had some man over for the evening, and that they were doing the nasty seemed pretty long, but then again the nineteen-year-old teenager had nothing better to do.

"Oh my God!" Sally gasped as she braced herself on the side of the tub, totally surprised by what she saw across the way.

Sally had been right when she thought the odds that Phyllis Wallace had a man over for some late night fun were long indeed. Not as long, however, as the odds of coming across the soon-to-be divorcee cavorting in the buff with another woman. Yet, less than two dozen feet away, there was Phyllis with another woman's blond head buried between her legs.

"Who'd have thunk it?" Sally said to herself, using one of her favorite silly phrases.

One secret that Sally hadn't shared with her brother, or anyone else for that matter, was that twice before, she herself had been in the position that she now watched Phyllis in. The first time had been at one of the numerous graduation parties at the end of high school. She and Carol Johnson had gotten both a little drunk and a little carried away. By the time morning and sobriety appeared, the two had become quite familiar with the more intimate aspects of each other's bodies.

Her second experience hadn't required any considerable amount of alcohol to fuel her desire for a fellow freshman that she'd met at a welcoming mixer. While not having much of a relationship out of bed, she and Donna Clancy had nevertheless returned to that bed a number of times over the last few months.

"That's got to feel really nice," Sally thought as she watched Phyllis react to the attention the other woman was paying to her.

Without thinking about what she was doing, Sally released one hand from one the shower rods she had been using to keep her balance and dropped it down between her legs and under the light nightshirt she was wearing. The teenager rarely wore underwear at night and her fingers quickly found her now excited clit.

Even as she stroked herself to a higher level of excitement, Sally kept her eyes on the action across the way. She could imagine the pleasure that Phyllis was feeling from the still hidden woman's tongue, comparing it to that she was bringing herself with her fingers.

It didn't take long for Sally to bring herself to a small but enjoyable climax. One that mirrored, based on the facial expression she could see, the one she was sure Phyllis had just enjoyed as well.

Basking in the afterglow of her small orgasm, Sally continued to watch with interest as the two women began to move apart. They shifted position on the bed and for the first time, the younger woman could see the blonde's face.

The surprise of her identity was almost a bigger shock than seeing the two of them in the first place. It was enough to cause Sally to lose her carefully maintained balance.

"Holy shit!" Sally cried out loudly as she grabbed another of the shower bars and managed to prevent an ignoble landing. "That's Leslie Cooper."

Leslie Ann Cooper was the wife of Thomas Cooper, who owned both Delmonico's restaurant and the Double Diamond Pizzeria over on Main Street. A pillar of the community, the thirty-eight-year old mother of three would be the last person Sally would ever have imagined as being involved with another woman.

Sally tried to get a better look at the woman but at that moment, the light in the Wallace bedroom abruptly went out. For a long few seconds, the younger woman was afraid that she had been caught spying. Leaving the bathroom as quickly and quietly as she could, Sally practically ran back to her bed.

The feeling that she'd been seen didn't pass entirely until ten minutes later when she heard a car door in the driveway below her window open and close. It was followed seconds later by the sound of a car starting up and backing out into the street. Only then did the redhead feel safe.

Her breathing and heartbeat now back to normal, Sally closed her eyes and relived what she had just seen. Despite her earlier restlessness, she soon found herself fast asleep.

Eight hours later, Sally woke from what she had to say was one of the most restful sleeps she'd had in a long time. Crawling from beneath the sheet she'd pulled over herself during the night, Sally pulled off her nightshirt and tossed in on the small pile that contained yesterday's dirty clothes. Rising to her full five foot six height, she stretched her body to work out the stiffness of a long sleep, examining her reflection in the mirror at the same time.

The girl in the mirror was pretty, there was no doubt of that. But there had been times that she doubted that simple fact. All though her early teen years, the redhead had been convinced that her breasts were much too small. That belief had finally faded when she discovered that few of the boys she'd been with, and neither of the girls, seemed to mind.

Stepping into the bathroom to take care of her morning toilette, Sally thought back to the scene she had witnessed during the night. It seemed almost like a dream and part of her wondered if it had been just that. A thought she was quick to dismiss. Dreams, however realistic, had a certain feel to them. What happened last night had been quite real.

Dressing quickly in black shorts and a white short sleeve shirt, Sally headed downstairs to grab some breakfast. The rumble in her stomach reminded her that she'd gotten home last night after dinner and had only had a small snack before hitting the sheets.

"Morning Mom," Sally said as she walked into the room.

"Well, nice of you to join the world of the living," Lisa Ross said as she looked up from her morning paper and coffee, her tone making it clear that vacation or not, she expected her daughter to show up for breakfast the same time as the rest of the family.

"I'm sorry, Mom, " Sally said as she helped herself to what was left of the pancakes that were still sitting on the counter in a warming tray. "I guess I was a little overtired."

Lisa had already turned her attention back to the morning news, leaving Sally to eat in silence. The nineteen-year-old was already wondering if there was any excuse she could use for cutting short her trip home and heading back to campus.

"Where are Dad and Harry this morning?" Sally asked as she got halfway through her meal.

"Harry and your Father left an hour ago to go over to Jack Taylor's garage over in Castletown," Lisa said without looking up. "They're going to work on that old car Jack's been restoring. They said they wouldn't be back until late tonight. So I guess it'll just be you and I today. I want to leave before noon before the traffic gets too bad."

"Traffic where?" Sally asked, totally in the dark as to what her mother was talking about.

"Where I always go the last weekend of the month," the older woman said as she looked up in annoyance, "to see your Aunt Janet. I told you last night that I wanted you to come with me. Don't you remember?"

Sally definitely didn't remember. In fact, she probably hadn't even heard her say it. Sally hadn't even been home an hour when her mother had shifted into lecture mode and the college student had countered by going into her own ignore mode. It was no wonder Harry and her Dad had taken off while the getting was good. A visit with Aunt Janet was at the bottom of anyone's list of fun ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.

If was obvious that Lisa was waiting for an answer to what Sally had first thought to be a rhetorical question. A dozen excuses for not going with her mother popped into the younger Reed's mind, none of which were likely to improve her mother's mood. Thankfully, a sudden interruption left them all unsaid.

"Knock, knock," a voice said from the side door that led to the driveway as the door swung open. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"

Both of the women at the table turned to look at the new arrival. At a face familiar to both, if for different reasons.

"Oh hi, Phyllis," Lisa said as her face instantly shifted from disapproval to her public happy face.

"I just wanted to bring back the Tupperware from that casserole you sent over the other night," Phyllis said as she walked past the door frame, a bright green bowl in her hand.

Taking the bowl from Phyllis, Lisa failed to notice that her daughter hadn't said a word to their neighbor. She wasn't ignoring her, in fact far from it. Sally couldn't keep her eyes off Phyllis.

Four years younger than Mrs. Ross, Phyllis stood an inch taller than Sally and had the kind of figure the teenager had dreamed of when younger. A bust twice the size of her own filled her field of vision, the centerpiece of which were a set of large puffy nipples, visible even through the bra and T-shirt Phyllis was wearing. Sally knew that the older woman's nipples tended to show in a lot of the clothes she wore, but she had never paid that much attention to that fact until now.

"Welcome home, Sally," Phyllis said with a smile, wondering why the young woman, who was hardly a stranger to her, was staring at her.

"Well aren't you going to say hello?" Lisa said, offended by what she took as her daughter's bad manners.

"I'm sorry, Phyllis," Sally said apologetically. "I was preoccupied for a minute."

"That's okay, honey," Phyllis said with an even broader smile. "I know how it is."

"I bet," Sally thought but didn't say.

"I was hoping that Harry might be able to help me with some work in the apartment today," Phyllis said as she declined Lisa's offer of a cup of coffee. "With Billy spending the week with his father, I finally have a chance to really clean up that mess he laughingly calls a room. I just need a hand moving some of the furniture."

"I'm afraid Harry went off with his father this morning," Lisa said in reply to Phyllis's request. "Male bonding, that sort of thing."

"Oh, I see," Phyllis said. "Guess I'll just have to make do."

"Maybe he could help you tomorrow?" Lisa suggested.

"I'm afraid tomorrow's no good," Phyllis said, "I have to work the dinner shift."

"I'd be happy to help," Sally interrupted.

"Excuse me?" Lisa said.

"I said I'd be happy to help," Sally repeated, thinking that even manual labor was better than enduring Aunt Janet for the day. "I've seen the furniture in Billy's room, I'm sure the two of us could handle it."

"I appreciate the offer, Sally," Phyllis said, "but didn't I hear your mother saying as I came in that the two of you were going somewhere. Seeing that you're only going to be home for the week, I couldn't ask you to give up any time with your mother."

"I'm sure it would be okay with Mom," Sally said, not giving Lisa a chance to say anything to the contrary. "After all, we've been neighbors like forever — almost family. And you can't turn your back on family, can you Mom?"

"No, no you can't," Lisa reluctantly agreed, thinking silently however that was exactly what her daughter was doing.

"So it's settled then," Sally quickly concluded. "Mom will go visit Aunt Janet and I'll stay here and help you. Everybody comes up a winner."

"Are you sure it's okay, Lisa?" Phyllis asked before giving her own assent.

"It's fine," Lisa said, unsure if her daughter had just put one over on her or that she was genuinely going out of her way to help a friend.

"Wonderful," Phyllis said.

"I'll be over in a half hour," Sally replied, thinking that she wasn't going to give her mother any chance to question her motives. Not when chance had given her the perfect out of what she thought of as a trip to hell and back.

Surprisingly, once Phyllis had left, Lisa made no attempt to bring the subject back up. Instead, she decided that since she was the only one now going to visit her sister, there was no reason not to leave right now. With that, she picked up her purse and the bag of things she'd planned to bring and walked out the door. It took all of Sally's will power not to burst out in relief-filled laughter until after her mother's car pulled out of the driveway and headed down the block.

"Phyllis?" Sally called out as she walked passed the apartment door that the older woman had left open for her.

"I'm back in Billy's room," the brunette called out from the rear of the apartment.

Walking through the hall that led to Billy's room, Sally paused at the open door to Phyllis's bedroom. Looking in on the carefully made bed, she could just picture the woman in the next room lying naked on top of it. Only this time, it wasn't the blond from last night between her legs, it was Sally herself.

"Better get to work and leave the fantasizing to later," she told herself as she turned away.

As Sally had said earlier, the furniture in Billy's room was indeed light enough for both she and Phyllis to handle, but not without a lot of hard work. Helping to clean the room reminded the teenager just how much of a slob her own brother was at Billy's age. Not that he was much neater now, seven years later.

It took the better part of the morning and half the afternoon, but between the two of them the job got done. What only hours before could honestly have been described as a disaster area now looked like it could be photographed for the department store catalog it had been originally bought from. Of course how long it would stay that way after Billy Wallace came home was anyone's guess.

"I think we're just about done," Phyllis announced, much to Sally's relief.

"Great," the younger woman echoed.

"I really appreciate your help, Sally," Phyllis said as she ran her duster across the headboard of her son's bed one last time. "This would've taken forever if I had to move it all alone."

"Trust me, I'd rather do this for the whole week than spend an afternoon at Aunt Janet's," Sally smiled.

"Seeing as I've met your Aunt Janet a few times, I tend to believe that," Phyllis laughed. "Still, that doesn't lessen my appreciation for your help."

"Could I trade some of that appreciation for a cold drink?" Sally asked.

"Of course, I should've thought of that myself," Phyllis said. "Why don't you have a seat in the living room and I'll get it."

Sally had settled into the large comfortable recliner in the living room that she usually sat in when she visited her neighbor. Over the years, as she was growing up, she had developed a pretty good friendship with Phyllis. Despite the difference in their ages. she found that she could talk to the older woman on a number of subjects that she couldn't imagine asking her mother about. Phyllis in turn had always given her honest answers to her questions, giving her the benefit of her own life experiences.

"We have juice and soda if you want," Phyllis called out from the kitchen, "or if you promise never to tell your mother I gave it to you, cold beer."

"I'll take the beer," Sally answered.

"I figured that would be your choice," Phyllis smiled as she appeared in the doorway a second later, a cold bottle in each hand. It was obvious she had taken them out of the refrigerator before even asking the question. "I know that technically, you're not of age yet, but my own college days weren't that long ago that I don't remember what they were like. I'm sure you've managed to have a drink or two now and then."

"Something like that," Sally laughed as she took the offered bottle and took a long sip of the cold brew within. "Oh that tastes good," she said when she finished.

"So tell me what college life is like," Phyllis said as she took a seat on the adjacent couch and a long drink of her own beer.

"Well there's not much to tell," Sally replied, "the classes are pretty good, although some of them are kind of hard and..."

"Oh forget that stuff," Phyllis interrupted, "those things never change. What about the fun things, the parties, the guys?"

"Well they're pretty nice too," Sally said, "and I guess that sometimes I spend more time on some of those things than my classes."

"You just have to work out a balance between the two of them," Phyllis offered. "Going away to college and spending all your time studying would be such a waste. College is a time of growing, of learning about a lot more than what you find in books and trying new things."

"It certainly has been that," Sally said without offering any details, then shifting the conversation before Phyllis could ask any. "You said you have to work the dinner shift tomorrow. I didn't think Rose's was open on Sunday."

"Oh that's right, I was still working at Rose's when you went away," the dark haired woman said. "I'm the hostess at Delmonico's now. The pay is a lot better and so are the benefits."

"Delmonico's," Sally repeated in her mind. "Then that was Mrs. Cooper I saw last night. Phyllis works for her. Talk about fringe benefits."

"Is something wrong?" Phyllis asked, seeing Sally's expression suddenly change.

Sally didn't answer, at least not right away. A rush of thoughts flashed through her mind. Thoughts that she earlier considered a fantasy but now took quite seriously. That is if she had the nerve to act on them.

"Sally?" Phyllis repeated. "Are you all right?"

"Sorry, I was just thinking," she finally answered.

"Must've been some pretty deep thoughts for you to zone out like that," Phyllis laughed softly as she took another sip of her beer.

"I guess you could say that," Sally replied, her own smile hiding a secret.

"So, anyone special back at school?" Phyllis asked.

"You might say that," the redhead said, "but not that I'm in love or anything like that."

"A lover but not a Lover," the older woman clarified with a stronger emphasis on the second use of the word.

"That's one way of putting it," Sally agreed.

"Well I don't think you should mention that to your mother," Phyllis said as she finished her beer. "It's really not the kind of thing I think she'd understand."

"No shit," Sally laughed as she downed the last of her own bottle. "In her mind I'm probably still a virgin."

"Well that's the sort of thing mothers like to think, however unrealistic the view might be."

"Anyone special in your life?" Sally asked as she put her bottle down on the coffee table.

"Well, you know Glen and I are getting divorced."

"Yeah, Mom told me during one of her many check-up calls."