Chapter 19

"Did you ever notice how much soap looks like cum?" Grace asked the next day in the shower after PE. She pressed the button on the soap dispenser. "It's white, it's creamy, and it's kind of slick."

"It doesn't taste like cum," Anna said. She smeared some on her hands and began lathering Sam's back. "And the dispenser on a boy is a lot more fun."

The other girls in the shower laughed. "This dispenser gives green soap," one girl called. "Can you imagine a guy giving green cum?"

"I wouldn't even want a guy like that to look at me," Suzy said. "Yuck."

Laura, a quiet girl from higher up the edge of the valley, had been jacking off Ed, her boyfriend, in a corner of the shower. Now she held out her cum-covered hand. "You're right, Grace." She giggled. "Ed's stuff does look like soap." She licked it up. "Doesn't taste like it, though. It tastes better."

"Do you have to jack him off every day?" Grace asked.

"I don't jack him off every day."

"No, yesterday you two had sex here in the shower Doesn't that wear him out?"

Laura laughed. "He doesn't have Sex Ed until the last period of the day. If I didn't jack him off he wouldn't last 30 seconds in class. I'm doing this for his daily partner."

"Sacrificing yourself for others," Grace said. "That sounds so noble."

"It's about the only chance we get," Laura said. "I live way up on the ridge. It takes me more than an hour to get home after school, and Ed lives right on the edge of the school district in the other direction. If I went over to his place I'd have to go home in the dark, and I'd rather not go walking through the woods after dark. Last week we caught a giant sloth rooting up our garden, and that's one of the milder animals out there.

"Besides, it's fun," Laura went on. "Ed gets such a weird look on his face just before he cums. It looks like when he's trying to hold back a sneeze."

That was too much for Sammi. She had been quietly washing her hair nearby and wondering where Bob was. She had seen him before school, but he hadn't been in any of his usual classes. She had been half-listening to the conversations around her, but this last...

"Are you comparing an orgasm to a sneeze?" she asked.

"Well... sort of." Laura licked her hand clean. "In both cases they're sort of balancing right on the edge."

"I can see it," Grace added. "And she's right, they do look similar."

Sammi thought of all of the times she'd seen a boy trying to hold back his climax. Girls, too, come to think of it. They'd squint their eyes, their mouths would open, their faces would get rigid, they'd arch their backs and lift their heads... all just like before a sneeze.

"The aftermath isn't the same," Sammi said. "Admittedly you feel relief after a good sneeze..."

"And like a good climax, you can often sneeze again right away," Laura said.

"... true." Sammi wrung out her hair and reached for a towel. "I notice the boys don't have anything to say on the subject."

"Other than agreeing with you," Sam said, "what is there to say? A lot of girls don't react quite so visibly. I'm not sure why."

"Pressure," Ed said. "I've been working at a biomedical instrument company part-time as an intern. They have a graph of the blood pressure, nerve firings, and other vital signs during a climax. A boy's is like a rocket, with a sharp vertical peak, an equally rapid descent, and a gradual tapering off. A girl's rises, but plateaus out, and then gradually tapers off. A boy might get higher, but it's over faster."

"Which explains why a girl can go again right away," Sammi said. "We don't have as far to go to get to the peak again."

"Well, that, and a certain physical reaction," her brother said. "After a good hard climax there is absolutely nothing that will get it up again for a few minutes."

"We've noticed," Anna said, coming up behind him and squeezing his butt. "Believe me, we've noticed. Thank God for cuddling..."

"And multiple partners," Grace said. "There are times you just need another guy around. Your fingers just won't do it."

Sammi dressed and dried her hair while Grace and Anna took turns teasing Sam. Grace had a point about there being times you just needed another boy around. She wondered what the girls she'd met in Center would think about that. They were being brought up to think their husband would be the only one they'd ever have sex with. Part of that, she realized, was because they got sex and love all tangled up. They would only have sex with someone they loved, and they would reward that love with sex. That sounded so... mercenary.

She'd read about something like that in one of her history books. A lot of the problem was that when the social norms were first established, it was because there was no way a woman could control her fertility except by giving or denying her body to someone. Women spent most of their time either pregnant, or recovering from pregnancy. That wasn't the case, at least in Three Valleys; she suspected women outside of Three Valleys were also able to control when they got pregnant. If they didn't, there would be a lot of families with 10 and 12 kids. As far as she knew, most families had 3-4 kids.

"What are you looking so morose about?" Suzy asked as they left the locker room.

"Oh... things."

"Things?"

"Just putting some pieces together. You know, about life outside of Three Valleys. Things like that."

"You'll be a great scholar some day," Suzy said. "You think about things like that. I'm not sure I could like anywhere else." She headed for the food line, leaving Sammi standing at the door.

Sammi wondered what it would be like to live in Center. She'd have to live at the Three Valleys complex, but other than that there would be shows to go to, plays, concerts, shopping, and a lot of different things to do. There'd also be the things that went on in Three Valleys, the partners, the pool parties, and the casual ambiance; she could end up having the best of both worlds.

What if she met someone who wasn't from Three Valleys? Could they fit in here? She was sure she couldn't fit in with the way things were in Center. That was presuming, of course, that she and Bob didn't stay together.

She snorted. She hadn't seen him for one morning and she was already thinking of life without him. What did that suggest about their future together? Of course this was Three Valleys, and that didn't mean they would be exclusive with each other.

Sam and Anna were an example of that. They had each other, and she knew they were going to end up getting married. But she also knew there was somebody Anna had casual sex with where she worked. And she suspected the same of Sam, though she couldn't prove it. But did she have to? Everyone just assumed you had casual sex with people you found attractive, if for no other reason than just the fun of it.

She had Bob, at least she thought she did, but there was also Stan, whenever he got back from wherever he was, and maybe even Rod; she definitely had to think about Rod. And so why was she worried about Bob?

"It's because we just got together," she muttered to herself. "Sam and Anna have been together for almost a year."

Unsatisfied with that answer, she got a tray and began selecting her lunch. She was on her way to the table with the others when she saw Bob and Jeannette enter the cafeteria. Bob saw her, grabbed a sandwich and a drink, and headed right over. Jeannette was wearing a school uniform--she managed to look uncomfortable in it--and was staring at the food as if it was a foreign substance.

"Hi there," Sammi said. "I was wondering where you were."

"A special school project," Bob said as he sat down next to her. He glanced over at Jeannette, who was still studying the food. "Jeannette enrolled in the school yesterday afternoon."

"She did?" Sammi felt a moment of unease. This would be so different from what Jeannette had grown up with. "No wonder she's in a uniform."

"Yeah, she said she's not used to so much fabric at one time. But anyway, they called me down to the office after home room." He looked down, shifting slightly. "You remember how you had a boy you mentored?"

Sammi nodded, making the connection at once. "And they asked you... ?"

"And another boy. We're to help teach her. But I wanted to talk to you about it, too."

"Talk to me? About what? She's not interested in... girls... is she?" She found the idea unsettling.

"No, nothing like that. She definitely likes boys. But I know how much girls rely upon each other for emotional support, and, well, I know this is all strange and new to her, and so I was wondering if, well, you know."

"Ah." A wave of relief swept through her. "You want me to talk to her if she needs a girlfriend."

"That's it," Bob said.

Sammi nodded. "Sure."

It was all clear to her. She remembered how the teachers had always set aside time so the girls in the class could talk. At first, well, for the first five minutes, it had seemed awkward. But afterwards, after people began opening up to each other, it had been wonderful. They'd talked, compared notes, discussed their feelings, discussed what it felt like, worried together, and generally found support. She'd wondered what the guys did. They didn't talk about it, she knew that from Sam. But she knew she couldn't have gotten through those exciting--and, yes, frightening--early days without some support from the other girls.

She caught Jeannette's eye as she walked over, and made room for her at the table. "You must have a million questions," she murmured in the girl's ear.

"More like a million and one," Jeannette replied. "Or a million and two."

"We'll talk after lunch. But how was it? What happened today?"

"I... touched... myself," Jeannette said in a low voice. "You know, down there."

"You mean you never have?"

Jeannette shook her head softly. "No, never. It's not something you're supposed to do."

"Then how did you ever--" Sammi stopped abruptly. There would be time for questions later. Jeannette needed some time to think, and lunch would be perfect for it.

"So they let you transfer all of your credits over to this school?" she asked instead.

"Every one of them," Jeannette said. "I'm actually ahead in a couple of classes, and behind in a couple of other ones. And I haven't picked an area to focus on yet. I have to do that in the next few weeks."

"Seems a little early to be selecting your life's work," Grace said. "You can always declare a General Studies focus and put things off for a while."

"Or teaching," Sammi said. "That's what I did. That's the next best thing to General Studies. You have to look at everything because you don't specialize in teaching just one subject. You have to be ready to double-up on another class if another teacher is sick or something."

"I hadn't really thought about it," Jeannette said. "In Seaside you don't choose until you're a senior, and even then you don't really have to."

"I've wondered what people in Seaside do for college," Anna said. "As far as I know there isn't one down there, and you'd have to, you know, dress to go anywhere else."

"It's a fabric world," Jeannette said. She plucked at the sleeve of her blouse. "That's one of the things you learn when you live in Seaside." She smiled weakly. "Did you know they actually had a class on how to wear clothes? I had to take it before they school authorities would let me leave for the Center Cup."

"And how did you like it?"

"I didn't. At my aunts we don't wear clothes unless we're going out."

"Nobody around here looks twice at nudity."

"They would if I went nude all of the time," Jeannette said. "It's easier to just slip on a dress before you go out. Nobody notices you when you have clothes on."

"So all you did was touch yourself," Anna said in a lull.

"Well, I got to touch a boy's thing."

"It's called a dick or a cock," Anna said. "It's a dick when it's soft, and a cock when it's hard."

"And boys do a lot of thinking with them," Sammi added, "especially when they're hard."

"True," Anna said, "but I like the kind of thoughts it's thinking when it's hard."

"That's usually because we're the beneficiaries of those thoughts." Sammi turned back to Jeannette. "So... did you just touch them, or did you do more?"

"The boys stroked themselves until they, uh, you know, they completed."

"More terminology," Sammi said. "They climax, or cum."

"I knew that." Jeannette looked down, the color rushing to her cheeks.

"Then say it. It might be hard to do, at first, but everyone around you will be saying it."

"I didn't think it would be so... graphic."

"The language," Anna asked, "or the boy cumming?"

"The language. I was kind of prepared for what happened when Bob did himself. My mother showed me some pictures."

Sammi and Anna looked at each other. Pictures? "It can be messy," Anna said. "One of the eternal facts of life a girl faces is what to do when a boy cums."

"It's all right if he's using a condom," Sammi said. "But that's not always the case."

"I thought boys had to wear a condom when they, you know, with a girl."

"In school," Sammi said. "Away from school, not so much. Condoms are good for birth control, but they're really good at controlling the mess. You just tie it up and drop it in the nearest trash can. Without one..."

"Without one you'd have their stuff leaking out of you for hours," Anna said. "Whenever Sam and I get together I carry extra pads for my panties just in case."

"You can get them at the school store," Sammi said, "along with condoms and the other things no girl should be without."

"Things... ?" Jeannette looked hesitant.

"Your vibrator," Sammi said. "A pair of Ben Wa balls, a spare dildo if you want one, spare batteries, things like that."

"Dildo? Like something you put... inside... yourself? I didn't think..."

"Every girl has one," Anna said. "It helps, trust me."