Chapter 3

Chris listened apprehensively to the key turning in the lock, waiting for her roommate to step through the door. They'd have to discuss their money tragedy, Chris knew, and this might be the last free moment of Sandy's man-hungry day before the telephone started ringing and the doorbell buzzing.

"Hi, ya!" beamed Sandy, closing the door behind her handing Chris her mail. "Here... look." She thrust an official looking envelope in Chris' hands. Food-stamps. First of the month. What do you say we buy a couple of Porterhouse steaks and celebrate? God, it seems like an eternity since we've had a real meal," she complained, collapsing on the faded velour couch with a squeak of the protesting springs. "Mine came too, only I got them for a whole family."

"What?" But Sandy, you don't have a family. How did you get $128 worth?" She waved the envelope accusingly in the air, one hand on her levied hip.

The black-headed girl shrugged casually. "Simple, I just told them I had a husband home sick, and this neat looking guy told me to follow him and fill out the forms." She pulled open her shoulderbag, and, searching for her pack of cigarettes, found them and tore open the top and shook out two, one for each of them.

Chris hissed through clenched teeth. "Damn it, Sandy. That's fraud! Don't you read the newspapers?" she blurted heatedly. "They're cleaning house down at the welfare department. Anybody who's caught telling lies to get foodstamps is up for fraud, and that's a federal offense."

Sandy tutted. "Oh, don't be silly Chris. How is anybody going to find out I don't have a husband and two kids? Why don't you look at the bright side?" The green eyed girl spread her hands and shrugged. "We're getting $128 worth of free food and you're complaining? It was easy: I borrowed somebody's kids in exchange for a joint. No big deal." Her long lithe arm reached over to the end table and long red fingertips clutched the match book.

Chris' platform shoes made clunking sounds as she nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Oh swell. Just don't call me up when the authorities start looking for you!" They were riding the red line of poverty, and it was wearing on both girl's patience.

Sandy stood up on one foot to light Chris' cigarette off of her own smoldering one, then handed it to her grateful roommate. That last cigarette butt just hadn't cut it.

"And what about the rent?" Chris blinked as the pungent smoke attacked her eyes with the first heavy draw on the virgin cigarette. "Any idea how we're going to pay that? God, do you have any idea of how much we owe Roger as of tomorrow? She counted it out on her fingers, letting her lit cigarette dangle unfemininely from her lips. "$140 for last month and the same for this month. That's $280 we have no way of earning."

Sandy's green eyes fastened on her roommate, and blinked in downcast acquiesence. Chris was right, there was no way to avoid that horrifying truth. Yes, they were in trouble and it was mostly her fault. But why couldn't Chris understand that was why she'd gone to the welfare office and lied to the social worker. The dark haired girl drew in her breath with a desperate gasp. The Aid to Dependent Children form she'd filled out this morning was a lie too! What if Chris were right? What if she did get caught for welfare fraud! Oh, Jesus! But at the time, she thought defensively, she was certain she was doing the right thing. And everybody did it; it was no big thing. California the welfare state and all that jive...

"Listen," gestured Sandy with the palm of her hand. "I'll talk to Roger myself. I know that creep who ripped off your money was my responsibility. I'm in the wrong... as usual," the emotional girl said for the thousandth time in her life, "and I'll go down to talk to Roger. Okay?"

Chris, seeing the distraught look in her roommate's eyes, felt instantly repentant for her emotional outburst and accusations, though most of them remained unspoken. "I'm sorry, Sandy," sighed Chris, sinking to her knees and grabbing her friend's hand in hers. "I don't mean to sound like such a bitch. It's just that I'm really disappointed in everything that's happened to us since we've been in San Francisco. No job, no money, no chance to go out and explore... and no dates... well you've had no problems in that department, but I'm not as outgoing as you are," she admitted with a wince. "I don't mean to get so uptight."

Sandy stroked her friend's hair with sisterly affection. "That's okay, Chris. I understand. But I hope it won't hurt your feelings if I tell you that since you and Mark broke up last spring you've been really uptight. I know what you need," grinned Sandy with a knowing smirk. She nodded her head for emphasis. "Yeah, that's the problem," she giggled giving her friend's head a loving pat.

Chris stared up into her roommate's twinkling, devilishly green eyes. The truth was written there by the hand of experience. If anyone should know the merits of a healthy sex life, it was Sandy -- unattestably Sandy.

"Hey, friend," soothed Sandy. "Why don't you go in and take a good hot bath. I just brought some vanilla scented bubble bath from this neat store that sells nothing but organic products. " She tutted with self-recrimination. "I know I shouldn't have spent the money," she admitted, rolling her eyes in her flirtatious manner, and sticking out her pouty lower lip like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar and trying to lie his way out of it. "But the clerk told me it had the correct PH balance and all that... well, I just couldn't resist. Anyway, take a hot bath, calm down and sprinkle some of that vanilla bubble bath in. It smells so sexy!"

"Sounds good to me," smiled Chris heading for the bathroom, wondering how Sandy could con her into anything, marveling at her magic touch.

With Sandy's giggle still ringing in her ears, Chris turned on the radio and sauntered toward the bathroom and pulled off her tee shirt and Levi's, leaving her bikini and bra on long enough to dart to her bedroom and pull a fresh towel from her bureau drawer.

Later, as the blonde haired girl prepared to step into the warm, sudsy bath water she had drawn, her reflection in the cracked mirror caught her eye. On the whole she was satisfied with what she saw. She was not as full breasted as her teasingly voluptuous roommate, but her breasts were firm and round. Testing the bathwater with her toe, she unsnapped her bra and pulled it from her arms, then pulled down and kicked off her panties.

Chris stared into the mirror again, this time running her hands over her satin-smooth skin, and bringing up both palms to cup the rounded swells of her lushly ripening young breasts, rolling the erectile nipples between her fingers until they were distended and the areolas puckered up around them, the warm flush of tumescence spreading through her -- the feeling of need, of desire, of sexuality. She turned for a profile view. Maybe Sandy was right: what she needed was a good long roll in the hay.

If only Mark were here, she thought temptingly, stepping into the tepid bath tub and sighing as the warm water lapped at her worried body. Yes, Mark, she ah-ah-ed, slipping down in the tub 'til her blonde hair floated on the vanilla bubbles. Mark had been her steady date through most of her sophomore year in college and into her third year, too. It had been mostly for companionship that they spent time together studying and going to football games; suddenly, and without their even knowing, their innocent infatuation filled with hand-holding and necking, gave way to desperately passionate sessions in Chris' apartment. Chris' resistance weakened further every time until finally there had come the inevitable loss of her virginity.

Being a virgin wasn't something she had particularly relished, not a life-creed to be carried around on a signboard, just something that seemed right for her. The voluptuous blonde had never really made any plans about keeping her virginity, or about losing it, for that matter. But when it happened, it just happened. It was something she regretted now, not only because her parents had come for that god-awful surprise visit the next day, but because she hadn't anything... or anybody... to show for it now.