Chapter 3: Substitutes

Connie Steffano was sure that she and her friends weren’t gay or anything like that. It’s just that St. Wigbert’s was an awfully strict school. Boys weren’t around very often, and -- when they were -- they and the girls were very closely supervised. Most weeks, a few maintenance men and the Episcopalian rector were all the males who were even on campus. So the pleasure the girls brought each other was merely a substitute for what boys would bring them after graduation.

In the beginning, it hadn’t even been that. As the new girl in a room with five girls who had been together the two previous years, Connie wasn’t brought any pleasure at all. Many nights, after lights-out and the brief visit from the hall monitor, only four of the six beds would be occupied. Two would have two girls apiece, and two -- always including Connie’s -- would have only one. Connie might bring herself the pleasure, or she might wait until she was absolutely alone.

The schedulers at St. Wigbert’s tried to put the girls from one dorm room in the same classes. But the only girl from her room who took Gym Mondays and Wednesdays with Connie was Michelle. She kept staring at Connie’s boobs in the shower. They were both still small, but they were nearly the same size now. Connie thought Michelle very rude to stare. Still, Michelle had been through two years with the other four girls; Connie was an outsider. Connie wasn’t going to pick a fight.

“Connie,” said Michelle as they were both walking back to the dorm from gym Wednesday of the second week. “Could I ask you something?”

“Yes, Michelle.” Connie couldn’t afford a feud; she would grit her teeth and bear it.

“Where did you get that tan?”

That was a much nicer question than she’d been expecting. “My parents own a vacation cabin. I spent almost all summer there. I’d lie out in the sun while I was studying.”

“They let you go topless? I wish my parents would.” There seemed to be admiration in Michelle’s voice.

“Mostly, they weren’t there. I didn’t go topless around either one of them. And it wasn’t as if anybody else could see, either. I kept a shirt near me in case the mailman or somebody came by.”

“I’d go crazy. You don’t need other people at all, do you?”

“I like conversation; I like friends.” Except when the friends betray her as Kristen had the year before, but she wasn’t going to say that. Anyway, Kristen had been much closer than merely a friend, and nobody was going to get that close to Connie again.

“You don’t sit with us at meals.”

“I can’t at lunch. I have plane geometry then.” There were two lunch periods, and most juniors ate in the second one.

“How about dinner?” Michelle seemed to have forgotten Connie’s first dinner with her roommates.

“You want me to join you tonight?”

“Oh, yes.”

So she did. The others, if not particularly welcoming, were not offensive either. “Thank you, Michelle,” she said as they were walking back to the dorm. Michelle smiled at her.

One place that Connie didn’t want to walk with the other girls was church. Connie went to the early service, and the others went to the later one; most of the student body did. When Connie was back in the room, it was all hers. She took off her shoes, pantyhose, and panties. Lying under the sheet on her bed, she opened her blouse and loosened her bra. Then she played with her nipples, pulling them, rubbing them, twisting them gently. She prolonged this until she needed a finger in her genitals. Even then, she stroked around the sensitive point as long as she could resist rubbing it directly.

The fourth Sunday in her room she’d reached the point where she couldn’t resist any more when the door at the foot of her bed banged open. She froze, but it was only Michelle.

Michelle glanced at the sheet over Connie, gave a searching look up and down the corridor, and closed the door quietly. She walked over to her bed and pulled off her sweater. “I’ll be gone in a minute,” she said. She put on another sweater, checked herself in the mirror, and left. Somehow, all the desire Connie was feeling before Michelle had come in had evaporated.

Connie got up and dressed fully. Although she stayed in the room awhile, she was one of the first girls to lunch. Michelle was there, but the conversation was innocuous. After lunch, though, Michelle called to Connie as she was leaving. They talked about schoolwork until nobody was anywhere near on the walk.

“You know,” Michelle said, “I had that bed, the one next to the door, for two years. I slept with my head at the other end, though. It doesn’t give you much privacy, but it gives you some. If you want me to, I’ll help you move the mattress today.”

“You slept there. I thought it was Cathy’s bed.” Cathy was the girl who’d been in the room the year before.

“No. It’s the worst bed. When we knew Cathy wasn’t going to come back, Joan and I flipped for her bed. Joan won, and I got Joan’s bed.” The mattresses and pillows were identical. Anyway, Connie doubted that they were returned to the same frames after summer break. (Having come early to St. Wigbert’s to take some tests, she knew that the mattresses didn’t stay on the beds over summer.) The only thing objectionable about that particular bed was its location. It gave the least privacy. Both Michelle and she avoided actually saying that, though.

“I don’t know. Can’t the person coming in see as much, maybe more?” When Connie was playing with her nipples, she lifted the sheet a bit. She didn’t want anyone to see that from the hall.

“Well, it’s your decision,” Michelle said. “You don’t listen much to others, do you? Sometimes I envy your ability to live without others; sometimes I think it must be hell.”

Well, it was hell as often as not, but what choice did Connie have? “I don’t avoid people. I eat with you guys now. I did the first night, and I just didn’t feel welcome.”

“You never visit other beds.” And nobody visited hers either, but saying so might sound like complaining.

“If I visited yours, would you pull back the sheet, or would you make me get out?”

“I’d pull back the sheet,” Michelle said. “Why don’t you try Tuesday night and find out?”

Connie couldn’t see what was special about Tuesday; this was Sunday. But she waited. On Tuesday night, two girls went visiting. It was now or never. Connie got up and went over to Michelle’s bed. Michelle pulled back the covers, and Connie slipped in. Michelle’s nightie was pulled way up under her shoulders. Connie didn’t know what was expected, so she started with what she’d learned from Kristen, except for the kissing.

She stroked Michelle’s boobs. When the nipples got hard, Connie moved down in the bed to suck them. When she rubbed Michelle’s labia, they were already juicy. When Michelle stiffened, Connie moved on to her clitoris. She alternated between the clitoris and the labia until Michelle pushed her hand away.

While Michelle lay there beside her, Connie raised herself quietly and pulled up her own nightie in back. She lay there listening to the rustling from the other two beds. Occasionally the springs of one of the beds squeaked, as they would if she sat on it. That this sound was infrequent showed how careful the girls were being.

She lay unmoving when Michelle’s hand touched her. It pulled the hem of her nightie above her waist. Michelle stroked her boobs only briefly and didn’t kiss them at all. When Michelle reached her labia, Connie raised her knees a little to give her better access. She could feel the slickness as Michelle stroked her labia. Then the rubbing concentrated on her most sensitive point. She would have got there much more slowly, but Michelle’s technique was enough to take her over. Shortly afterwards, Michelle climbed out of the bed and returned to her own.

Wednesday, Miss Frazier the gym teacher called Connie a slacker. She had to run laps after all the other girls got out of class. By the time Connie had taken her shower and dressed, all the other girls were gone. Michelle got up from the grass and joined her as she left the gym. “Thank you, Michelle.”

“Thank you. You’re good.” Well, Connie wasn’t good at gym. Michelle must have meant the previous night.

“You want me to visit again?”

“Sunday? Would you? I’d like that.”

Sunday? If she was good, why did Michelle want to wait ‘til Sunday? But she didn’t ask. Michelle was a friend, somebody who would wait for Connie when the others left. Such friends were valuable; Connie hadn’t had many in her life, none at all at St. Wigbert’s. She’d been the girl the teachers liked, and her fellow students didn’t.

Ironically, just when she had made a new friend, the teachers no longer liked her as much. None of them, except Miss Frazier, were giving Connie a hard time, though they gave her less praise than she had received the previous year. They knew she’d skipped a year and were understanding about her having to struggle to catch up with the others. They were more understanding than Connie was herself. Aside from French, where all the girls were starting together, and history, which was world history and didn’t depend much on the previous year, Connie was behind the others. And she wasn’t used to being behind her classmates. Even in plane geometry, where she had the edge of having studied it the previous summer, Connie didn’t shine. She studied hard and learned all the proofs, but Mrs. Grover kept asking for proofs which the book hadn’t given.

That night, Michelle went to Joan’s bed. If Connie could keep track of the almost inaudible footsteps, Deborah was alone. Connie was tempted to visit Deb. She couldn’t call a hall monitor; four girls would be really pissed if she did. She could, on the other hand, tell the others about Connie’s presuming she would be welcome. They’d all laugh. But she thought she saw a pattern.

She asked Michelle to walk with her from lunch to class. When they were alone, she asked, “Who am I supposed to visit tonight?”

“I don’t know. I know who I’m supposed to visit.”

“Deborah was alone last night.”

“Then it’s Liz. She visits me the night after I visit Deb. It’s not a good bed, but it’s better than yours.”

“What bed isn’t?”

She caught up with Liz after dinner. “Would you walk with me for a minute, Liz?”

“Sure.” They got where they couldn’t be overheard.

“If I were to visit you tonight, Elizabeth, would you object? Or would you welcome me?”

“You’ve been awfully standoffish,” said Liz. “What makes tonight different?”

She hadn’t been standoffish. They had. But she didn’t want a fight, especially a fight she would lose. “I didn’t know all the rules. Somehow, they didn’t put them in the student handbook.”

Liz laughed at that. “Why don’t you try and find out?”

She would be the laughingstock of the room if she tried and found out that the answer was no, maybe the laughingstock of the school. But she could tell she wasn’t going to get a better answer.

Liz had the bed next to hers, so it was a short trip. When she stood by the head of the bed, she could see in the moonlight that Liz was watching her. When Liz didn’t make a response, Connie drew back the sheets and slipped into the bed. She held Liz’s boob through the nightie. Liz wasn’t giving her any cooperation at all. Well, she couldn’t return to her own bed. She’d make Liz want her next visit, and maybe she wouldn’t make a next visit.

She pulled the hem of the nightie up. She stroked one boob and kissed the other. She liked to pull her own nipples; she’d do that for Liz. She was in the midst of giving Liz’s boobs all the attention she could when Liz grabbed her hand and moved it to the labia. She played with those for a while. When she moved on to Liz’s clitoris, she shifted so she could kiss her other boob. When Liz stiffened, Connie stroked harder and sucked more deeply.

“Ah!” Liz said. The bed rattled. Connie got up as fast as she could while keeping silent. She walked the few steps back to her own bed and stood beside it listening. There was no sound from the hall. Liz owed her one. Should she go back? No. It would be too dangerous. She climbed into bed.

That morning, after wakeup, all the girls but Connie gathered around Pat. They sang ‘Happy Birthday to you’ to her.

“Happy birthday, Pat,” Connie said on the way to breakfast. “Sorry I didn’t say it earlier, but I didn’t know. You didn’t miss much having me not among the singers.”

“Thanks, Connie. No reason you should know.”

But Connie caught up with Michelle after breakfast. “I didn’t know it was Pat’s birthday. Do you celebrate all of them?”

“Sure.”

“Will you tell me when the next one’s getting near?”

“That will be Joan’s in November. I’ll look up the date.”

“And when’s yours?” Connie figured that Michelle might feel strange about telling her just before.

“You don’t need to worry about me. Liz and I have birthdays in the summer. Miss the singing. On the other hand, my mom still buys me a cake.”

The next nights, she waited until the others had begun their visits. Then she visited the girl who was alone. She did her best in each case, and that seemed plenty good enough. She didn’t think the others were giving her their best; actually, she had enjoyed her own services more. But the girls did start to give her social acceptance. The list which she kept in her head ran: Liz, Joan, Pat. Then it was Sunday, and she was back to Michelle.

When she stood beside Michelle’s bed, the sheet was raised in silent invitation. If Connie had taken her time with snotty Liz, she was going to take more time with friendly Michelle. She held one boob while she kissed all over the other, only moving her hand to Michelle’s labia when she’d spread lots of kisses over the boob. Again, she stayed away from Michelle’s clitoris for a minute, rubbing the labia well away from it. Then she touched it once and returned to the labia. When Michelle stiffened, Connie had an idea. She kissed Michelle on her mouth and rubbed directly on the clitoris. She felt Michelle’s gasp, but no-one heard it.

She lay there holding Michelle as she recovered. At Michelle’s push on her shoulder, she lay down flat. Michelle still rubbed her most sensitive point too soon, but she did kiss her boobs while she was doing it. After Michelle had taken her over, Connie lay there for a minute. Then she got up to go back to her own bed.

Connie had looked great the first week in plane geometry, knowing all the definitions and axioms. She’d been adequate for a while longer. That Monday, she came away from a test knowing that she’d done miserably. She couldn’t figure it out. She knew every proof in that part of the book, had worked hard memorizing them.

She came back to the room right after dinner and headed for the shower as she usually did. The other girls from her room came into the shower room a minute or two later. That was unusual. Everybody seemed to be staring at her. “See,” Michelle said. “I told you so. She went topless! Her parents let her.”