Chapter 9

Sandra turned up a little after eleven Thursday morning. I had spent much of Wednesday just tidying and sorting things away and hiding my huge pile of knickers. Mrs Clarke had never gone into any of my cupboards or drawers, and while I didn’t think Sandra would, I still wanted them hidden just in case. In the end, a couple of bin bags in one of the cupboards in Mum’s room seemed just perfect. Over the next couple of weeks I would sort them all out onto various shelves and drawers in my parents’ room, which, for all intents and purposes, became my panty store.

Sandra seemed quite excited that we were alone in my house. To her it seemed exotic that I was living on my own. We sat on the settee in the living room, holding hands or cuddling up, and just talked. I put some music on and we compared our tastes. They weren’t the same, but there was a lot of overlap.

Cheese on toast and a mug of tea each suited us both for lunch, but then Sandra went and took my breath away.

“Let’s go and lie on your bed,” she said softly. Almost shyly.

“Er. Okay,” I said slowly, startled.

“Just lie,” she said. “Hug, maybe kiss, maybe just hold hands. That’s all.”

I smiled, very relieved and slightly disappointed.

We lay for a short while, just holding hands, but then Sandra turned over and laid her head on my shoulder, cuddling up close to me. I put one arm around her shoulder. It felt absolutely wonderful.

We lay there in a companionable silence for a little while. “Are you a virgin?” she whispered suddenly.

“Yes,” I breathed.

“So’m I.”

I didn’t move, wondering if this was a hint. I had just about convinced myself it was a hint, and was preparing to make a move, when she spoke again. “I’m not ready for that yet.” She raised her head slightly and kissed my chin. “Sorry,” she whispered.

I hugged her tighter for a moment. I couldn’t help thinking her reticence might be because of what was happening to Talulah. If it was, I couldn’t really blame her. Sandra had told me, in confidence, that she knew more about what was happening than either she or Talulah had let on.

“Have you had any sort of sexual um er, any sort of sex?” I asked softly.

She nodded slowly. “Sort of.”

“What?”

Sandra just shook her head.

“Was it good or bad?” I asked, suddenly wondering if she too had had problems like Talulah. Maybe just not quite as extreme.

“I’m not a dyke,” came the response, and she huddled even closer to me.

“Oh shit babe, what happened?” I held her tighter.

“It was when we were in year eleven,” she whispered. “Do you remember Marcie Tremlow?”

“I think so, yes. Why?”

“She and Tee were vying for power if you remember. Even back then I was Tee’s closest friend. People like Becky Miller and Gina Reeves were only ever hangers on.” These were two of the four or five girls Talulah surrounded herself with when she wasn’t with our group. Sandra went silent.

“So what happened?” I prompted gently.

“Marcie and a couple of others trapped me in the changing rooms after games. Three of them held me down on the tiles in the showers while Marcie sat on my face and made me lick her ... made me lick her.”

“Oh babe,” I said, holding her firmly. “I’m so sorry.”

“They said,” said Sandra in a slightly tremulous voice, “that I was so good at it I must have done it before. I must be a dyke. But I hadn’t,” she added in a tearful voice.

I buried my head in her hair and kissed her.

“I feel so safe like this,” she whispered after a few more moments.

“I’m here for you as much as we are both there for Tee.”

She looked up at me. “Thank you.”

“So did anything happen afterwards?”

“Don’t you remember the whispers about me being a dyke?” she asked.

I paused. “I don’t think I do. No. I didn’t really hang around with any of the girls, or with the boys who were likely to hang around Marcie or Tee.”

“You must have been almost the only one then.” She took a deep breath. “But Tee got the last laugh. She got a few people to trail Marcie as much as possible, until eventually one of them managed to photograph her kissing another girl. Now you know, I hope, that Tee actually has no problem with gays or lesbians, but what Marcie did to me was beyond the pale as far as she was concerned, so with the help of this photo, Tee trashed her. Marcie claimed she was straight and was going out with another boy, but we found out one of Marcie’s side-kicks was bullying and bribing him to say it was true.”

She raised her head and looked at me in puzzlement. “Do you really not remember any of this? It would have been in the spring term of year eleven.”

“I really don’t. I only had my eyes on one girl, well two really, and sorry but it wasn’t you.”

Sandra smiled. “Anyone at school?”

I shook my head. Mrs Clarke wasn’t at school in the same way, and Jo wasn’t at school. I wasn’t lying. “No. So go on. What happened to Marcie?”

I could picture Marcie now. In pure terms, probably slightly prettier than Tee, but also shorter. In those same terms Tee was a lot prettier than Sandra, but I didn’t want Tee, I wanted Sandra. Marcie, from memory, had a rich dark brown hair that she wore loose as much as she could. She always wore pale pinks or yellows and managed to get away, most of the time, without wearing proper school uniform. Tee on the other hand had always worn school uniform, but had managed to make it look far more glamorous. In retrospect, what Tee had done had been far cleverer. As upper sixth, year thirteens, we no longer had to wear school uniform, though in fact most people did, but more for convenience than anything else.

Sandra had taken her time to reply. “Suddenly Marcie was seen as a liar and all her popularity and support just vanished into mist. Even the girls who hung out with her suddenly didn’t want to know her.

“She changed schools that Christmas, but her parents moved home a little while later, so I think she’d have changed schools anyway.”

“Oh dear. So how did that affect your reputation?”

“Tee managed to persuade people that Marcie had said it in revenge because I had turned her down, but even so there were one or two girls who still think, say, believe I’m gay.”

“Oh dear,” I chuckled. “Well,” I said after a long moment, “you know that I would be taking four people, including you. Well, if you don’t want to you don’t need to have anything to do with them.”

Sandra chuckled and gave me another tight squeeze. “Thank you, but I don’t have a problem with it. I have kissed another erm, you know, and had mine kissed. That was afterwards, and it was nice.”

“Whose?” I asked, fascinated.

She shook her head. “Not fair on her or on anyone else.”

“No, okay.”

“Have you?”

For a moment I was puzzled. Had I what? Then I realised she was asking me the same question I had asked her.

“Just once.”

She chuckled and rolled on top of me, looking into my face. From this distance it would have been very easy to raise my head and kiss her. So I did. She just smiled, returned the kiss, then pushed me away again. “That time you came after I had told you I was naked?”

“Oh. No. I wasn’t including that time. I didn’t think that counted.”

“Any time we are both involved, even if we are not in the same room counts.” She gave a soft giggle. “If you’re just fantasising over me, then it doesn’t count and I don’t want to know about it.”

“Then twice,” I said.

“Which was first?”

“You were second.”

She gave a mock pout. “So what was the first time? What happened?”

I told her about the sexual orgy before the collection, and what I had seen. I told her that I had fondled and touched a number of the girls and women, that I’d had my cock sucked a few times, and that I’d licked a few pussies. I didn’t mention Mum or Joanne, but she quickly realised they must have been part of the orgy. I had already told her that they had all been taken together.

“Were your parents or your sister there?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see them naked? Or having sex?”