Chapter 4

Josephine did not go to the movies very often. Because of the nature of who she was, she did not usually go anywhere where she would have to sit in a confined space with many other people. Experience had taught her that she would often end up being overwhelmed by the smell of so many humans in one place while any males within twenty feet of her would end up paying more attention to her than the event they were supposed to be watching. There had even been occasions, back when she had still been new at the life she was now living, when guys had left their dates to come over and sit next to her.

For this reason, when Meghan called her up and asked her if she wanted to meet her at the movies for the eleven PM showing of The Grocer's Daughter, her first instinct was to say no. And, to give her a little credit, she really did try to turn Meghan down at first.

"You and Ken should be alone for a movie like that," she told Meghan. "I would just be intruding." The Grocer's Daughter was a film about a forbidden love affair between a British redcoat and an American peasant girl from Philadelphia during the American Revolutionary War. It was being haled by most of the critics and by general word of mouth as being one of the best and steamiest romance movies of the past thirty years — a shoe-in for multiple Oscars next year.

"Are you kidding?" Meghan asked. "I couldn't drag Ken to this flick with a tractor and a set of battleship chains. That's why I haven't seen it yet. He calls it the chick flick to end all chick flicks."

"He's staying home?" Jo asked, surprised.

"He picked up an overtime flight tonight," she said. "Apparently Charlie called in sick and all the reserve PICs are already covering vacations. That's why I'm calling you. It's the perfect opportunity to see it on the big screen. You simply must come with me."

That was when Jo started to waver. In the two months since first having dinner with Meghan and Ken, she had gotten in the habit of visiting their home at least once a week. Never, however, had she socialized with Meghan alone. "I don't know," she said. "I'm not real big on crowded theaters. All those people sometimes get to me."

"I don't think there's going to be much of a crowd," Meghan said. "It's Thursday night, after all, and it's the eleven o'clock showing. The movie has been out for almost two months now. It's almost at the end of its run before they release it for DVD. How many people could possibly be there?"

"You do have a point there," Jo had to admit.

"Of course I do," Meghan told her. "So you'll be there?"

"Yeah," Jo said, making an impulsive decision. "I'll be there."

At first Jo tried to tell herself she had agreed to go because she really wanted to see The Grocer's Daughter. In general, she did not care for modern films. It was her belief that ninety percent of what Hollywood put out these days was garbage, movies with simplistic and implausible plots that were held together by computer generated special effects. The Grocer's Daughter, however, seemed, at least by reputation, that it might be one of the rare gems. She had been planning to wait until it came out on DVD and see it then, but ... well ... there really was something about seeing a film on the big screen, wasn't there? And Meghan's points about the theater being mostly empty were valid ones, weren't they? She thought so. It was a good case of reasoning. It also wasn't the truth and Jo knew it.

The truth was she wanted to spend time with Meghan. She would have been equally happy to spend three hours of an evening alone with Ken. In the two months since she'd learned that the Pattersons were an actual mutually loving couple, Jo had been spending as much time as she could with them. She was enamored with them in a way she had never experienced before. She liked being around them, talking to them, watching them interact with each other. Their shared love gave her hope for the future of the sad species that were human beings and validated all that she had been taught to revere by her elders.

But even that was not the true reason. The simple truth of the matter was that she had come to love the Pattersons, both of them, individually and together, although if she had to choose one over the other, she would have chosen Meghan.

Jo had never defined herself as a lesbian, mostly because she had always had a strong attraction to certain types of men. She had never defined herself as straight because she had always had a primary desire toward the softer sex. With men, her tastes were picky and her desires almost always no more than sexual in nature. It was with women that she had always associated feelings of love, companionship, and relationship.

In Meghan and Ken she had found a couple in which each of them represented what she found most attractive in their respective gender. Ken was tall, boyishly handsome, soft-spoken yet authoritative and commanding when he had to be. Meghan was wholesomely beautiful, smart, self-assured, and had a sense of humor that was both playful and more than a little naughty at times. Neither of them seemed to have any idea how attractive they really were, which kept either from being arrogant or narcissistic about it. To find these traits in even one person was rare enough. To find them in a couple who actually loved each other was a rarity on the order of winning the Powerball lottery jackpot.

Jo wanted them, wanted both of them, individually, together, it didn't matter to her. She knew, however, that she couldn't have them, that she was involving herself in a relationship that would lead to nothing but frustration for her. Even without the moral and ethical taboos, there was the unshakable fact that she was different than they, quite literally a different species of human being. There could be no casual sex with them because of their mutual love for each other and there could be no lasting love between them because of their fundamental differences.

Maybe that's all the infatuation is anyway, she thought as she pulled her car into the parking lot of the theater. Maybe it's the forbidden fruit aspect that makes me want them so much. Maybe these feelings will start to fade soon.

This struck her as plausible, maybe even something that was true. Not being able to have something was a powerful enticement mechanism, after all. That was historically true for any human species. Wasn't that why thirty year old men lusted after teenage girls? Wasn't that why single women lusted after married men? Couldn't this be nothing more than a case of wanting the unobtainable?

This line of thinking lasted only until she stepped out of her car and saw Meghan standing near the box office. It was a warm night and Meghan was wearing a pair of white shorts that contrasted quite nicely with her long, tan legs. Her top was burgundy in color, sleeveless, and snug against the swell of her breasts. When she saw Jo she smiled and waved at her. This caused the bottom of her shirt to ride up and show her smooth belly and the silver ring in her navel.

She is so beautiful, Jo thought as she returned the smile and the wave. And I have absolutely no business torturing myself like this.

She knew she should walk away from this, right now, right this minute. It would be the best for all concerned. She should make an apology to Meghan, tell her that she wasn't feeling good, and then leave. Tomorrow she could bid on a different line that worked the other half of the week and be shut of the both of them. She should never talk to either one of the Pattersons again.

She didn't do this. She couldn't. Instead, she walked forward, the smile still on her face.

"Hey you," Meghan said brightly, holding out her arms for a hug.

Jo hugged her, feeling the push of Meghan's breasts against her own. She resisted the urge to maintain the embrace longer than propriety dictated. "Hey you back," she said. "Thank you for inviting me."

"I wouldn't see a chick flick with anyone else." She gave her a naughty look. "I even wore my extra thick panties ... just in case the movie really is as good as everyone says."

Jo laughed. Meghan might have been joking (or she might not have been) but Jo actually was wearing an extra-thick pair of panties beneath her jeans. It was a standard precaution when she went out in public and did not want to attract too much attention.

They paid for their tickets and went inside the building, finding their way to the theater where The Grocer's Daughter was playing. As they entered the semi-dark room Jo saw that Meghan's speculation had been correct. There were only six other people in the room; two male-female couples in their mid thirties who were all sitting together in the middle, and two individual females — one in her late forties, one in her late twenties — who sat on either end of the back rows.

"Where should we sit?" Meghan asked, looking around.

"How about over this way?" Jo said. She led Meghan to the right side seats along the aisle. It was a little bit off center but still enjoyed a good view of the screen. Jo figured that no one else would sit in this particular vicinity.

"Why here?" Meghan asked. "Shouldn't we go in the middle somewhere?"

"We can move if you want," Jo said. "I just like being on the aisle where no one else will be stepping over us to get in and out."

Meghan shrugged. "This is fine."

They took their seats, Jo on the aisle seat, Meghan directly to her right. They chatted about Ken's overtime flight and about a hostage situation that was going on just south of downtown that had delayed the final press time of the paper for almost an hour. As they talked, advertisements and trivia flashed on and off the screen and a few more people trickled in. A college age boy and girl came in and found seats in the very back row of the left side of the theater. Another two women came in together. They were in their thirties and looked like upper-middle class housewives (or stay at home moms, as they liked to call themselves). They sat near the back of the middle row, only about five rows behind Jo and Meghan, a little closer than Jo really would have preferred, but there was nothing she could do about it.

Finally, the lights dimmed down and, after fifteen minutes of coming attractions and advertisements, the movie began. It really was as good a story as everyone said. The background was reasonably accurate historically and the back-story of life during the early days of the American Revolutionary War was quite interesting. The romance was also well done, starting, as any decent romance should, with the two participants in an antagonistic relationship. Annie Swanson was a nineteen-year-old American girl struggling to keep the family grocers in Philadelphia running after her father died from typhus and her mother became locked into a hopeless depression. George Stevens was a twenty-four year old corporal in the British Army who came marching into Philadelphia in September of 1777 and remained as part of the occupation force. The two of them slowly warmed to each other as part of George's duties were to secure supplies for his garrison from the grocers. Gradually, they fall in love and begin a passionate though doomed relationship.

Jo was enraptured with the film until sixty-eight minutes into it. That was when George and Annie consummated their love for each other in a steamy, extremely well done love scene that lasted nearly three and half minutes. Jo lost all interest in the film as her sense of smell suddenly caught the sharp, exciting odor of sexual arousal erupting all around her.

Oh my god, she thought, half-alarmed, half-aroused, as her extremely acute olfactory sense identified the strong musky odor from eight different women and the weaker but sharper odor from three different men. Every woman in this room just got wet and every man just got hard. The two stay at home moms behind them were particularly turned on by the scene based on the sheer volume of scent they were collectively putting into the air.

But, by far, the most powerful and most exciting of the individual scents she detected was that coming from Meghan, who was sitting only eighteen inches from her. Thick panties or not, Meghan was juicing up quite nicely as George's pants dropped to the floor, as Annie's dress and petticoat were rucked up around her waist, as her bodice was torn open, as George took her quite un-gently on a storeroom table while suckling on her breast. It was a heavy smell, clean yet soft and very feminine. It hit Jo almost like a drug and she actually shuddered a little as she drank it in. She felt her own sex start to juice up and had to fight to keep herself from dropping her hand down onto Meghan's leg.

The scene went on. There was a shot of Annie's hands clasping George's bare buttocks, the nails raking into his flesh. It was followed by a close-up of the two of them kissing, of their tongues intertwining lustfully. Meghan squirmed in her seat a little, her legs rubbing together a few times. This caused a fresh gush of musk to come pouring out of her nether region. The smell was so powerful now that Jo could almost see it. It was slowly permeating out through the material of Meghan's shorts and rising into the air around them.

This started a chain reaction. Jo was powerfully turned-on by Meghan's smell, by the knowledge that the woman she wanted so badly was in a state of sexual arousal right next to her. This caused her own musk to start flowing and, despite all the precautions, some of her pheromones started leaking into the air around her. It wasn't much, certainly not enough to start affecting the men in the room, but it was enough to start affecting Meghan. Her breathing started to get faster. Her tongue came out and began to lick at her lips. Her hand came up and started to twirl her brunette hair. Jo saw that her nipples had become erect and were sticking out quite noticeably under her shirt.

Fortunately, Meghan, like Ken, had been around Jo long enough now to have developed somewhat of a tolerance to the pheromones. Had that not been the case, had this been the first time that the two of them were sitting in this close of proximity to each other, Meghan would have all but attacked her by now. Even so, Jo instinctively knew that if she were to put her arm around Meghan and try to kiss her, Meghan would allow it. This knowledge, in and of itself, was making Jo flirt with temptation.

Do it, part of her brain whispered to her. Pull her into your arms right now! Kiss her! Put your tongue in her mouth! Put your hands on those boobs you've been drooling over ever since you first saw her! She could be yours tonight! She'll let you go down on her right here in this theater! You could taste what you're smelling right now right from the source!

She didn't do it. It was taboo. It was perhaps the greatest test of her self-control she had ever been faced with, but she didn't do it. She kept her hands in her lap and her upper arms pulled tight against her body to keep the pheromone release from her armpits as minimal as possible and she kept her eyes on the screen instead of on the appetizing points of Meghan's nipples.

The scene ended and the movie went on. The smell of arousal from the other women and men in the theater slowly dissipated and then disappeared entirely. But the smell from Meghan, though it faded a little as the minutes went by, remained. It remained even through the tragic and very sad ending of the movie, when George died of pneumonia in an American POW camp and Annie, ostracized and rejected by her family and friends, was forced to leave Philadelphia and start a new life in New York City.

It was one-thirty in the morning when they emerged from the theater building back out into the parking lot. The night was muggy and warm, a fairly typical Sacramento night during a summer heat wave. The air was scented strongly with smoke from yesterday's grass fires and automobile exhaust from the nearby freeway. Jo breathed it in deeply, trying to clear her head a little. After more than an hour of smelling Meghan she was about as horny as she had ever been in her life.

"What are you going to do now?" Meghan asked her. Even now, she was still exuding a powerful scent of arousal.

"I was just going to go home," Jo said. And once there, she planned to dildo herself with extreme prejudice and not stop until she had at least four orgasms.

"That's too bad," Meghan said. "I was thinking about having a few glasses of wine."

"Where at?" Jo asked. "Last call is in ten minutes."

"Not at my place it isn't," Meghan said. "And it's only a ten minute drive. Care to join me?"

Jo looked at Meghan's face, wondering exactly what was going on behind those green eyes. She knew Meghan's secret, after all. Meghan, like Jo herself, was bisexual. She had known this about her ever since that first dinner together. Only people who were attracted to women were affected by her pheromones. How much any given person was influenced depended on how strongly that attraction to females was. Five out of any ten given women would be completely unaffected by her at all, even if she stood naked, hungry, and dripping in sweat before them. Of the remaining five, three would only feel an effect if Jo was particularly hungry or turned-on, and only if she took no precautions to keep her pheromones dampened or masked — and even then, the effect was likely to be minimal. The remaining two out of ten women were those who reacted to her pretty much the same as men did. Most of these women were lesbians, women who, whether in the closet or out, whether they had even admitted it to themselves or not, were primarily attracted to other women. A small minority, however, were those like Meghan and Jo: true bisexuals who were attracted to both sexes.

Meghan obviously kept her bisexuality to herself. Jo was certain that not even Ken knew this about her. Meghan also had no reason to believe that Jo knew her secret and no reason to think that Jo herself was attracted to women as well. So what exactly was Meghan's motivation to inviting her over now? That was truly the question of the evening, wasn't it?

"A glass of wine would go down pretty nicely about now," she told Meghan.

Meghan smiled and clapped her hands together. "Yay!" she said. "I'll meet you there then."

"Sounds like a plan," Jo said.

Jo followed Meghan's car out of the parking lot, out onto Greenback Lane, and then onto eastbound Interstate 80 toward Roseville. Meghan drove at a steady seventy miles an hour, undoubtedly using her cruise control. About two miles before the Eureka Road exit, Meghan's car started to drift back and forth in her lane just a little. The drifts got worse until she actually drove halfway into the next lane for five or six seconds. Jo was alarmed enough that she almost took out her cell phone to give her a call and make sure everything was okay. Before she could, however, Meghan suddenly pulled the car back where it belonged and drove straight and level the rest of the way home.

She parked in her garage and Jo pulled into the driveway behind her. As soon as she got out of her car and walked within six feet of Meghan, she knew instantly what the swerving had been all about. The smell of Meghan's vaginal juices was much stronger now, coming off of her crotch in waves, so potent that even those without Jo's super olfactory sense probably would have been able to smell it. And that was not the only place the smell was coming from. Meghan's entire right hand, but particularly her index and middle fingers, were saturated with the odor as well.

Meghan, you naughty little girl, Jo thought salaciously. You were playing with yourself while you were driving! You came all over your fingers on Interstate 80, didn't you?

Meghan saw Jo looking at her and flushed a little. "Something wrong?" she asked.

"Not at all," Jo said. "I was just thinking how much fun it was for just us girls to go out."

"And the evening is not over yet," Meghan said.

"Nope," Jo agreed. "Not yet."

Ten minutes later, the two of them were sitting out on the back patio, the pool lights on and the fountain running, each with a glass of 2003 Merlot in their hands and the open bottle before them. Hannah had come down to greet them when they'd entered but after a perfunctory sniff and pet (she had seemed more than a little interested in both Meghan and Jo's crotches), she had gone back upstairs to finish her nightly slumber. Meghan had washed her hands upon entering the house but had not changed her clothes.

They talked about the movie, both agreeing it was one of the best romances they'd seen in quite some time. This, naturally, led them into a discussion of the sex scene.

"It was hot," Meghan said wistfully. "They stayed just this side of what would have gotten them an NC-17 rating and they did it very well." She giggled a little, her mischievous laugh. "And it's a good thing I wore those extra-thick panties."

"Oh yeah?" Jo said.

"Yeah," Meghan said with a sigh. "Let's just say it had the effect on me the director intended. It's a shame that Ken isn't home. I would've jumped him the moment I came in the door."

"That might've been a bit awkward with me here," Jo said.

Meghan chuckled a little. "I'm sure he wouldn't have minded."

"I'm sure you're probably right," Jo agreed.

"And what about you?" Meghan asked.

"What about me?"

"Did the scene get you hot too?"

You have no idea, she thought. "Yes," she said with a nod, casting her eyes down, as if embarrassed. "It did."

"And who do you turn to when you need a little ... you know ... release? I know you don't have a steady boyfriend or anything, but do you have a booty call guy or anything like that?"

"Just my BOB," Jo told her.

"Bob?"

"Battery Operated Boyfriend," she clarified.

Meghan laughed. "Ah yes, BOB," she said. "I have a few of those myself. Ken is gone a couple of nights a week, after all."

"Does he know about your toys?" Jo asked.

"Oh sure," she said. "He's even been known to watch me use them on occasion. Have you ever had a guy watch you masturbate?"

"Once or twice," Jo said carefully.

"It's very erotic, isn't it?"

"It is," she agreed. "In fact, I think one of the things any couple should do early in their sexual relationship is watch each other as they pleasure themselves. It can be very instructive as well as erotic."

"I guess that makes sense," Meghan said. "Do you do that with all your boyfriends?"

"Any that I care to keep around for more than a week or so," she said.

"I see," Meghan said, her eyes shining a bit.

The conversation turned away from battery powered phalluses and couples watching each other masturbate and onto more neutral things. They drank their wine and soon the entire bottle was gone. Jo was not affected by the alcohol — in order to feel even a slight buzz she had to drink a large amount very quickly — but she pretended she was. Meghan, on the other hand, was getting both giggly and, despite the lack of sexual talk, more aroused by the sip. It wasn't long before she got naughty again.

"Wow," she said suddenly, wiping a thin sheen of sweat from her brow. "It really is warm out here tonight, isn't it?"

"Yes," Jo agreed. "It's muggy and sticky."

"You know what would feel good about now?"

"What's that?"

"A dip in the pool."

A dip in the pool, huh? Jo could already see where this was going. Somebody wanted to see someone else naked. The question was, was that all Meghan wanted to do? She decided on the spur of the moment to follow this thread a little. "That would be kind of refreshing," she said.

"Let's do it then," Meghan said. "We paid forty-five grand for that damn pool. We might as well put it to use."

Jo's next line was just as easy. "I don't have a bathing suit with me," she said with feigned timidity.

Meghan gave her mischievous smile again. "Who needs a bathing suit?" she asked. "Ken and I hardly ever wear suits out here."

Jo was already looking forward to seeing Meghan in the buff but she knew she needed to put up some token resistance first. "Uh ... well..." she said coyly, "I don't know. Should we really do that? What if someone saw us?"

"Come on," Meghan chided. "It's just us girls. The neighbors can't see in here. Ken won't be home until at least eight o'clock. It'll be fun."

"Well ... it does sound kind of fun," Jo said.

Meghan decided that was agreement enough and seized the moment. "Well all right then," she said, standing up. "Last one in's a rotten egg." She pulled her top up and over her head, revealing her bra-clad breasts and that smooth expanse of stomach Jo had been catching glimpses of all night. She then reached behind her and unsnapped the bra, letting it drop as well. Jo couldn't help but stare at her breasts. They were, in a word, magnificent. About the size of softballs, they jiggled in a way that only natural breasts could jiggle. Her nipples were erect, sticking out proudly.

"You're gonna be a rotten egg in a minute," Meghan told her.

"Oh ... right," she said, forcibly pulling her eyeballs away from Meghan's chest (it was a struggle). She stood up and pulled her shirt over her head, dropping it onto her chair.

"That a girl!" Meghan said with a giggle. She then unbuttoned her shorts and pushed them and her panties down in a bunch, leaving her completely naked. Her pubic hair was dark brown, like the hair on her head, and trimmed into a neat strip. Her vaginal lips were swollen and wet. The smell of her hit Jo anew and she had to bite her lip to keep moaning out loud.

This is such a bad idea, Jo's brain informed her. You can't do anything with her!

I won't do anything, she vowed to herself as she pulled her bra off and reached for the button on her jeans. She just wants to be naughty, so I'll give her naughty. I won't do anything.

Soon, she stood naked on the deck. Meghan looked her up and down and Jo could smell that the sight of her nudity and the essence of her pheromones were making Meghan very excited. At least the pool would take the pheromones out of the equation.

"You have a nice bod, Jo," Meghan told her, her voice almost ravenous. "We oughtta get you some more revealing clothes so you can show it off."

"Oh, I attract more than enough attention the way I dress now," Jo said. "Come on. Let's get in the water."

"Right," Meghan said, giving her one last glance. She then turned around, showing Jo her rather impressive derriere and the tattoo on her lower back. It was a purple morning glory that stretched from the top of her buttocks all the way to her mid-back. She took three steps and dove head first into the water, her lithe form gliding beneath and resurfacing on the other side.

Hands, feet, and especially mouth to myself, Jo told herself. She then dove into the water as well.

The swim actually did feel good. The water was cool but not cold, just the perfect temperature to be refreshing. The two of them paddled back and forth a few times, going from the deep end to the shallow and then back. Meghan did not make any kind of move on Jo, confirming her suspicion that getting Jo naked in the pool with her had been Meghan's goal the entire time.

Her naiveté is so adorable, Jo thought as they finally settled in the shallow end of the pool. Meghan sat on the bottom step, which allowed just the tops of her breasts to stick out of the water. Jo sat next to her, though not close enough so their legs or hips would touch. That might have made things a little too volatile. Jo did sit one step higher than Meghan, however. This allowed her entire chest to be exposed to Meghan's gaze. And she did indeed gaze upon it. She no doubt thought she was being surreptitious, but, in truth, she was as obvious as a teenage boy would have been.

Jo did not let this go by. "I know," she said sadly. "They're kind of small, aren't they?"

Meghan blinked, her face flushing again. "Whu ... what's kind of small?"

"My boobs," Jo said. "I saw you glancing at them. It's okay. I know they're small."

Meghan became very flustered all of a sudden. "I wasn't, uh ... I mean, I didn't ... uh ... I mean ... I don't think they're small at all."

"No?" Jo said, deliberately thrusting them forward a little. She reached up and gave them a squeeze. "I always thought I could use a little more up here. But then ... maybe you're right. There are lots of girls that are smaller."

Meghan was now looking directly at her breasts. She was chewing on her bottom lip just a bit. "I think they're very nice boobies," she said.

"Really?" Jo asked.

Meghan nodded. "Oh yes," she said. "They're not huge, but you won't have to worry about them sagging when you get older, will you?"

Jo smiled. "I suppose that's a good way of looking at it."

"Uh ... wow," Meghan said, stammering again. "That didn't come out exactly the way I meant it to."