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Title: The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle – Educated Women (Part 230)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe as set up in “The Wish” though reference is made to events that occur in both realities. Very little is referenced that occurs after S5 though. Guess why? Most “spoilers” would be for the first chronicle of this fic rather than the show and if you haven’t read that then much of this will make no sense but you can try and get round it by reading the preface to Part 104 which summarises most of what went before.
Distribution This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens (This applies to all of the Sidestep Chronicle)
Summary: Willow and Tara emerge from their last exams. And what else do they do? Party…
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories. You know the drill.
Rating: R – a general rating for occasional content. Individual parts might be less than this level.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever – others couples as necessary but nothing unconventional.
Notes: Okay, lots of explanatory notes. This part gave me chance to do a few things. 1) Show that the girls had a life, and friends beyond each other and the Giles’. I’ve been meaning to demonstrate that for a while. This was a good chance. 2) To show that they don’t even have all the same friends… 3) Mess with Willow at a party, cos we all know how good she is at parties. 4) At least mention a couple more canon characters, even if not by name.
If it’s a little expository about their friends, that because I hate cardboard cutouts and they need to be the people they are, Tad especially. But I wouldn’t read too much into the impact they’ll have on the plotline.
Next, the crush I mention. Hmm. It suddenly struck me. Why the hell not? When you look at the woman Willow becomes, the girl she was and how certain canon events affected her… You could argue it. Also, it’s just a bit of fun.
Finally, this is also the calm before the storm of the ending sequence…
Thanks To: My own special woman Louise who helps me so much with this on top of everything else. Those other friends and family who’ve also helped us overcome everything that was put in my way. Celia and Kerry who shaped this story and continue to do so when I think back to what they told me in the past. Xita for keeping the story hanging around and continuing to give us TKTWATBW.
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle
Educated Women
By
Katharyn Rosser
A week or so after Part 229
Tara smiled as she saw her girlfriend come around the corner towards her. Yes, she could have waited for Willow outside the exam hall, but there was no telling whether she’d have finished the paper before the final lock in or not and then where would she have been? Waiting outside a dreary old hall for no reason. It’d been much more pleasant to sit here in the sun for a quarter hour, trailing a hand in the fountain and thinking about what they’d both just done.
They done it individually, but they had both done it.
It seemed like Willow was aware of how important it was too. Her girl was almost bouncing as she walked – and it didn’t just seem that way because Tara’s eyes were inevitably – if momentarily - drawn to her chest.
A hug and a long kiss as they met and then they both sat down by the cooling fountain. Tara had already found that occasional drop of water splashing onto her almost bare back was deliciously refreshing. Maddening when it started to dribble downwards, but still…
Just a few years ago she’d never have been relaxed enough in herself to wear such a free flowing summer dress around campus. But then again a few years ago she hadn’t even had a wardrobe to keep it in.
Times changed. And this was the kind of ‘revealing’ that she could be comfortable with – a revealing she couldn’t see and didn’t expose anything anyone could judge her for. Was it her fault that Willow loved her bare back as much as her bare front?
They kissed again, just because, and then Willow broke into a broad smile and nuzzled up to her. “That’s it baby, we’re all done.”
Tara had to chide her girl one more time, knowing Willow had said it just to get her to bite. “You might be done, I’m looking at another year – if I pass my courses with a high enough grade to get in.” Teacher training – she was already looking forwards to it. “Someone took an eternity to decide where she wanted to go for her post-grad course, so now I have to sweat it out.”
“Sweetie, we did the math. You turned up right?”
She nodded.
“Well, unless you sat there and wrote ‘I am an antelope’ for two hours and forgot to put your name on all of your last three papers, then you’ll do more than enough to get the overall grade.” Willow paused for a beat, uncertainty clouding her face.
“You didn’t do that did you?” she asked. “The antelope thing?”
Tara smiled. “No… I definitely put my name on and I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention antelopes at all.” No antelopes on any of her answer papers. There’d been absolutely no need to refer to the creatures they’d been watching on Discovery last night.
She didn’t have any guilt about taking that break with Willow either. Okay, so it’d been a break from studying that’d turned into a break from everything but each other. And it’d proven how resourceful they could be without moving from the couch.
No matter how distracting it’d been at the time, she knew now it hadn’t hurt her examination at all.
“Good girl,” Willow said and gave her hand a squeeze. “Antelopes would be bad.”
“Enough about me. How did you do?” Tara asked. That was what she really wanted to know. She was okay about her own exam performance; it was just tough to admit that she really might’ve finally succeeded after they’d been working for so long.
Tara knew that, unlike Willow, academia wasn’t her natural environment.
But no one fitted into college - as an educational place - like Willow fitted into college. Willow was happy to admit that her whole life had been a build up to coming here… At least until it had gotten sidetracked by a slight matter of death.
Undeath.
Death.
Resurrection of a kind.
Rinse and repeat.
Willow frowned slightly, perhaps have the same thoughts, and it caused Tara to touch the corner of her mouth and tease it into a smile. “I had a nightmare,” her girlfriend said, after a playful lick of that finger.
Now that surprised her, and not in a good way. Willow didn’t have academic problems. She had academic nightmares in her dreams but not real-life academic failures. That just wasn’t Willow. Was this some doppelganger? “Really?” she asked.
“Well, okay, it was really more of a dream – but it was a super bad time to have it,” Willow said. “A nightmarish time to have it. Hence the nightmare thing. I didn’t mean to scare you though.”
It hadn’t exactly scared her, but then they were scared of very different things… But a dream?
“Oh baby, you didn’t really fall asleep did you?” Tara couldn’t believe it. Willow – her Willow – asleep in an exam? Impossible. It wasn’t like they’d had any trouble getting to sleep after their resourcefulness on the couch. They’d stayed in bed late too.
She couldn’t have been that tired, could she?
Willow looked a little sheepish, and Tara knew then that it wasn’t that serious at all. She should’ve known from the lick. Willow couldn’t have been playful, not if it’d really gone wrong. “Well no… It was kind of a waking dream,” Willow said.
“What about?” she asked.
Again with the sheepishness, how beautifully – and typically - Willow. “You know when you told me, if you could, you’d have come with me into an exam to be my mascot?”
“Yeah,” Tara remembered saying something like that. It’d been in the middle of a moment of Willow-panic the night before her first exam.
“When they gave the papers out, I was thinking about what you’d said.”
Tara wasn’t quite sure where this was going… “And?”
“It all started because obviously you couldn’t be sat on my desk,” Willow said. “I wouldn’t have room to write. So I was worried about that.”
“You were worried that a person who wasn’t sat on your desk wouldn’t leave you room enough to write? Is that a roundabout way of saying I have a big butt?” Tara asked, trying to keep her tone as serious as possible.
“No! But it was a teeny desk,” Willow said. “Teeny tiny. Much tinier than your butt.”
“I’m not sure you’re helping,” Tara said. “But okay, then what?”
“Well, then I was thinking that if my mascot couldn’t sit on my desk. Then – to keep her out of the aisle - she’d have to be under my desk and then my mind turned to what she might be doing under my desk. You know, how you’d probably soothe my nerves and help me relax?”
“Hmm,” Tara said, waiting for more – and then a moment later she realised just what Willow was talking about. Now there was a long period of time from sitting down to when they let you turn the papers over but… that? “Ah.”
“Don’t you think about stuff like that?” Willow asked.
Tara looked into her lover’s eyes, wanting her to understand just how sincere she was about this. And she was.
Okay, this was one thing Willow needed to learn about her. “I can honestly say that when I’ve gone into an examination, I’ve never thought about what it’d be like to have you under the desk at that moment. Never, ever. I’m usually just thinking about wanting to remember my revision notes or passing the key words through my mind in order until I can note them down when we start.”
Willow frowned once again. She seemed a little bothered at being an atypical examinee. On the other hand, Tara had to admit to herself that the possibility existed that she was the atypical one. Perhaps exams did something like that for most people…
No.
It was Willow. Only Willow could get taking an exam mixed up with a girlfriend under the desk… relieving her tension. Tara supposed she was lucky she rated above academic achievement on the Willow scale. And that a fourteen-year-old Willow had ever managed to get over her crush on Jenny.
Okay, so Willow denied there’d ever been such a crush, but you know… a girl who turned out to be a lesbian, a hot, female computer teacher – and Tara was willing to admit Jenny remained hot to this day – and evidently all things academic being a turn on for her… Do the math.
Or the programming in this case.
Yeah, she could see that Willow might’ve had a thing for the woman who’d been going by the name of Jenny Calendar back then. And that admitting it now was next to impossible.
“But it’s completely okay for you to think about that – if it helps,” Tara said as she wondered when might be the best time to… probe Willow about her adolescent crushes. She had ways of making this woman talk. “It did help didn’t it?”
“Not really,” Willow said. She paused and then said, “I forgot my name.”
Tara started to laugh, assuming her girlfriend was joking, but then she saw Willow’s face had remained absolutely straight. “You didn’t?” she asked disbelieving. How could anyone forget her own name?
“I did. I forgot who I was. I knew your name. I knew Rupert and Jenny’s names. I even knew the names of the other people from my classes who were in the room. But I couldn’t remember mine. I started to write ‘Maclay’ under surname because I couldn’t think of anything else to put.” Willow flushed bright red.
Tara had to fight the urge to laugh again, knowing it would only make Willow feel worse. But she’d be teasing her in the future – she was sure Jenny would too. Once she knew about this. This was pure gold. “What did you do?”
“Well… Eventually I had to ask you. The dream you I mean. The under the desk, dream you.”
“The one who was…” Tara asked.
Willow nodded.
“What did I say? Did I help?” She wanted to have been helpful, even if she’d been a dream.
“You wanted to,” Willow said. “But everything you said was kinda muffled. I couldn’t make it out, and you wouldn’t, you know… stop.”
This time Tara couldn’t help it; she had to let some of the laughter escape. “Oh, you poor baby. You know how I hate to stop.”
“And I know how you love the muff,” Willow told her as they kissed again.
Her girlfriend wasn’t wrong. “I do love the muff, I really do. But lets not pretend I’m the only one,” Tara said.
“So true,” Willow acknowledged with an appreciative sigh.
Tara had to say that muff, in general, was a good thing – whatever you wanted to call it. They did tend to share and share alike as much as possible too. “So what did you do then, when everything was… ‘muffled’?”
“I read the label on my pencil. You know, ‘This belongs to Willow Rosenberg.’”
The pencils Willow had by the hundreds in a box back at home. She’d had them at High School and Ira had kept them for her through all the bad years. And now they’d paid off.
Who’d have thought?
It wouldn’t have done for Willow to use her name on the paper instead of her own. Someone might’ve wondered why a) Tara Maclay was even taking some kind of physics exam and b) how she’d have been sitting two exams at the same time.
“So it all came back when you saw the pencil?” Tara checked.
Willow nodded. “It all came back, and everything cooled down too as the real panic set in. I’d lost a few minutes of the paper by then, but that was better than…”
A few minutes wouldn’t have hurt Willow too badly.
“No more muffled assistance?”
“No more muff anything,” Willow said, and was that a hint of disappointment she detected?
It was good, and unsurprising that Willow had ‘cooled down’ though – a state of arousal really wasn’t any way to sit an exam.
Or so she imagined, she’d never had to put it to the test.
“That’s okay,” Tara said. “Physics isn’t a sexy subject.” Art, now there was a sexy subject – or what could be a sexy subject. It depended on what you were looking at – or who your model was.
“You’re right,” Willow said. “I like physics but it’s definitely not sexy.”
“On the other hand, you are a very sexy woman,” Tara said. It was difficult to deny. Sitting in an exam room, thinking about your girlfriend under the desk doing special things to you. Now that was a woman who was sexy…
Or at least suitably sexual.
Or maybe just sex crazed…
But it was all to do with the sex.
“I am,” Willow agreed. “I really am. But am I just sexy?”
“Oh no, you’re very sexy,” Tara said. And she thought Willow was looking particularly sexy right at this moment.
It was easy to step up and increase the level of sexiness when confronted with Willow… right here with her and as beautiful as ever. All she had to do was think of the moments they had, would and could share. Then Willow just got sexier and sexier. She’d have been sexy wearing a sack.
A splash from the fountain landed right on the tip of that perfect nose, and Tara obliged by kissing it off for her girlfriend. Any excuse.
“Hmmpf, kisses will get you everywhere,” Willow said. “But ‘very sexy’ isn’t sexy enough.”
She wanted more? “How about ‘hot mama?’” Tara asked.
“Better,” Willow agreed, “but still no cigar, sweetie.”
“I don’t like cigars,” Tara said will a frown. Tobacco… eww.
Willow thought about that for a moment. “Okay… close, but no banana.”
Bananas huh? “Ooh, that’s okay then. I’ll try harder for a banana. How about ‘zinging hot woman’?”
Willow paused, considering the words, saying them to herself. Tara watched in familiar appreciation as her girlfriend rolled the words off her loving tongue. “I like that – ‘zinging hot.’ That’s a definite improvement over just ‘sexy’.”
“Good, so do I get my banana?” Tara asked.
“Well, we’ll have to go see what’s in the fruit basket,” Willow said. “But you’ll definitely be getting something, lover.”
Now there was an indelicately phrased suggestion. A suggestion she wasn’t at all averse to and she confirmed it with a kiss. “Mmm. And its not like we said we’d go around to the party until later,” she pointed out. “We only told Tad and Jamie we’d be there. But not what time we’d be there.”
Willow smiled and moved right up to her on the edge of the fountain, arm around her, gently caressing the bare skin around the bottom of her dress’s scooped back. Tara felt everything start to stand on end as Willow touched her that way. It was almost electrifying.
And there was no almost about the promise it held for the rest of the day.
“Even if we’re late they’ll know we were celebrating alone – and what we’re doing. But that’s all part of being out and proud,” Willow said.
“You are proud aren’t you?” Tara asked. It wasn’t something they’d gone into much. She couldn’t remember them ever making a ‘choice’ to be out as a couple – they’d just lived their lives and everyone who’d had cause to know… knew. It was nice to hear Willow refer to something like that though. Something that had never really been an issue to them – but was nice to know all the same.
“Heck yes, proud of you. Proud of us. Besides this is a special occasion,” Willow said.
“It needn’t be that special. I’ll call you ‘zinging hot’ as often as you like now I know to,” Tara assured her, enjoying the feather-light play of her lover’s fingers against the tiny hairs at the small of her back.
“I meant finishing our exams. We’re educated women now,” Willow said.
They were, they really were. But she couldn’t let Willow get away with being totally right. It wouldn’t be playful to let that go. “All bar the piece of paper that says so,” she teased.
“We don’t need no piece of paper to tell us anything,” Willow said and Tara understood the other meaning behind the words.
One day… maybe… a piece of paper would be more important. She’d be happy just to have the choice. “Shall we skip graduation then? We could stay in bed and celebrate in our own way.” Tara already knew the answer to that question.
“Much as I love you dear-heart - heck no, I’ve been waiting for that since – ”
“Since what?” Tara asked.
“Since I was two,” Willow admitted.
Two? She’d been thinking about graduating college since she was a toddler? “Willow, I love you but you’re the queen of all geeks,” Tara said.
“Darn tootin!” Willow confirmed. “Now tell me love, do you think educated woman are any different in bed?”
Tara smiled. “How would I know anything about that?”
“I think we need to find out,” Willow told her, those gentle fingers insinuated into the elastic at the back of her underwear now. The touches… Willowtouches, Willow needn’t have said a word to get her agreement to anything. Not all the heat in her body right now was due to the bright sunshine.
Years and years into life together it took only a look, a few touches, or a couple of words from her lover to produce this effect in her. “All in the name of research?” Tara asked.
“Yes love, research now – party later.”
“It’s the responsible way for educated women to behave,” Tara told her looking deep into Willow’s increasingly lust filled eyes, pleased to see her own emotions reflected there.
“Do you think we’d have time to do even more research later? After the party?” Willow wondered.
Thinking ahead to more ‘research’ after the ‘research’ they were already about to go and do? Now that was forward planning. That was… educated. “If we don’t get done then sure, I think I can arrange that. You know, if the results aren’t conclusive or anything.”
“Good,” Willow said and gave her a kiss as they stood up. They had a lab-cum-bedroom to go make their explorations in.
“But your not taking notes,” Tara insisted, worried in case her lover should take research too literally. Yeah, as if she’d let Willow’s attention wander from her to a notepad.
“How about pictures or diagrams?” Willow joked, taking her hand.
Tara snorted. “I can see I’m going to have to muffle that dirty mouth of yours,” she said.
“Promises, promises.”
------------------------
Mmm, this was definitely the way to be. Past the last set of college exams she’d ever have to do – at least until her post-graduate exams kicked in – young, free and with a beautiful woman on her arm.
Not just on her arm either.
Until they’d halted their research into the endlessly fascinating subject of ‘The Effect of the Completion of Education on Lesbian Sensuality,’ Willow had been on her face, her fingers and much of the rest of her body at one point or another.
Earning her new title as ‘zinging hot woman.’
And they’d only stopped because they’d promised to be here. Otherwise… Yeah, they’d still have been there. After all it was an endlessly fascinating subject.
Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately - there’d been no unusual uses of items from the fruit basket, despite the earlier talk of bananas. Maybe because all they’d in had was a pineapple and… no.
Just no.
There were no uses for pineapples like that. None at all.
Lack of fruit notwithstanding, so far research into the sensual performance in bed of an ‘educated women’ was proceeding well, but was still ultimately inconclusive. More research would certainly be required to come to any kind of preliminary conclusion. Luckily they didn’t need funding, just a bed and each other.
Tara was quietly confident that with some more experiments they’d be in a position to make an initial finding. One they’d then confirm or refute over a longer period of time.
She giggled as Willow, her arm looped through hers with their hands linked, leaned against her and whispered. Like everything Willow had said on the way over here, they weren’t sweet nothings. No, no. Not for her girl. They were more like… sweet somethings.
Technically they were promises, and ones Tara was sure her girlfriend would keep.
“Whay! Finally!” a familiar voice called out above the music, but his identity could only be confirmed when the man in question pushed his way through all the people. “Tara, Willow. Long time no see, dudettes.”
“Hey, Tad,” Tara replied, smiling again as Willow continued to whisper in her ear, tugging on her lobe before she left that spot alone.
‘Educated woman’ Willow might be, but she was also capable of being a ‘deliciously filthy woman’ when no one else could hear her and she was in the right frame of mind. But then Willow wasn’t saying anything they hadn’t done or intended to get to later.
That was for after the party though. There was more fun to be had here first, the sort of fun you could have with friends. But without getting into the kind of scene the Giles’ had managed to… slip into with a certain trio of vampire sisters.
“Hey,” Willow added, pulling even tighter against her just for show.
Tad was the only person who’d somehow managed to be in both she and Willow’s classes from day one. His major had changed twice along the way, funded by a mother who already had a wing of the college laboratories named after her. They cut him a certain amount of slack, especially while the plans were being drawn up for an art gallery to be funded the same way.
For all the college liked – or loved - his family, Tad never referred to it. He definitely wasn’t playing the rich kid on campus; though there probably weren’t many who had richer families. Witness the fact that Tad’s only fraternity was the one he’d built around himself here in Porter Dorm.
One where the only code was ‘Thou shalt party to the max.’
But switching majors like that, and having electives that coincided with what they did, had kept him around she and Willow more than most other people through the years.
He’d hate to hear anyone say it, but despite his surfer dude image, he was more than smart enough to have graduated through both sets of courses. Probably at the same time.
No matter how much he partied – and there’d never been a ‘Tad’s not at the party’ party – he’d never missed a class. Nor had his grades ever slipped as far as Tara had been able to tell.
Even Willow felt competitive with him, and that was a mark of just how smart he must be. Willow didn’t compete with just anyone, only the cream of the academic crop was on her radar.
And Willow just hated it when she was competing against someone who didn’t even seem to have to try.
Liking him just made it worse, Willow couldn’t even bitch about him because he really was their friend.
What was obvious was the college wasn’t going to throw him out any time soon. If he wanted to stick around, keep doing good work and never venture into the outside world – and if his Mom wanted to make any more donations – the Dean wasn’t likely to object.
Why?
She’d never asked Tad why he’d never graduated. But Tara was privately of the opinion that he just didn’t want to leave Porter, at least not until all his friends were gone.
The trouble was he made new friends with every freshman intake to Porter. How could he fail to? Porter – home of the ‘someone grew mould in a milk carton’ party. And a million others over the years.
If Porter was the party dorm, Tad was Mr Party. Maybe it was a self-styled title, but it fitted him like a glove.
He stood back and looked at them. Smiled that charming smile that should’ve melted a hundred hearts and took it all in. Oh yeah, he knew what they’d been doing this afternoon. “Looks like you two came to the right place,” he said.
Willow, head rested on her shoulder and obviously totally content, was the one who asked the question. “What?”
He grinned. “Well, you found your way to the ‘Someone just had sex party!’”
“Tad!” Tara accused, shocked but not really surprised. When you came right down to it, someone had. Sometwo, technically.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said.
Willow kissed her cheek, then pulled her face around into a proper kiss. How could she deny it now?
“I knew I wasn’t wrong!” Tad said.
But Willow wasn’t just using the kiss as an answer. Willow just kept kissing her. In part it was obviously because she wanted to, but the rest was just to tease Tad after his outburst.
Tara was entirely comfortable with the teasing, and definitely very happy to kiss Willow, but she was obviously less of an exhibitionist even than her usually more introverted girlfriend.
Said girlfriend was clearly drunk on sexual appreciation though.
Tara could admit she was pleased about that, and pleased with herself too. She’d spent most of the last four hours focused on Willow’s pleasure. To the point that Willow had actually been begging her to stop, pleading she couldn’t take any more, couldn’t deal with one more.
But her flame-haired witch had always pulled her back, always offered herself for just one more…
And the words Willow had whispered to her now, they’d been promises of what was to come. Literally and figuratively. Promises Tara knew would be fulfilled. Over and over. She was going to receive just the same treatment when they got home… Willow-style.
“Hey girls, you can stop teasing Tad now,” he said.
It didn’t seem like Willow was paying attention him though.
“Enough already. Enough,” he insisted.
“We didn’t mean to come to that party,” Willow said when their lips eventually parted. She looked up at the banner above them. “And that’s not what the sign says either.”
“Oh, yeah.” Tad said. “It’s a sub-party.” As usual he had a twinkle in his eye.
Tara laughed as Willow looped her arms around her neck, moving to the music. “A sub-party?” She’d never seen Tad in a bad mood, never seen that twinkle absent itself.
He shrugged now, watching as Willow tried to find a beat but somehow started one of her own instead. Rhythm wasn’t her thing.
“Jamie here?” Tara asked after a few moments. No matter what Willow was doing, there were some people she wanted to see. Tad’s ex was another friend from their freshman year in dorms. Good old – party-rare – Stevenson Dorm. The kind of place that only had parties for big, major events.
Even Stevenson had managed one to mark the end of the exam season though.
“Oh sure,” Tad said. “She and Liz are down the hall. Billy’s room is chill-out tonight – just in case you want to be boring.”
Tara had liked Tad before she’d got to know Jamie, though their friendship had really come to be because of his then-girlfriend. But it was his response to Jamie’s realisation of her true sexuality that’d marked him out as a sensitive person she’d really like to know.
He’d even helped his ex find her first - long-term - girlfriend. Now how many people – gay, straight, guy or girl would do that?
Okay, so he hadn’t managed it before Jamie had cut a swathe through the likeminded women on campus in a rash of experimentation and pleasure. But then she’d eventually settled down with Liz, whom Willow just couldn’t stand.
All through it Tad had been Jamie’s best friend through. He still was. It couldn’t have been easy on him – they’d been a tight couple since before they came to college and all of a sudden... Not just ‘we’re breaking up’ but ‘we’re breaking up and you know what? Actually, I like girls.’
She’d heard that Tad and Jamie still – sexlessly - shared a bed sometimes. But without the pressures you’d expect, even if he’d never found himself a new, stable relationship. If Tad was pining for his ex, he didn’t show it. He actually always seemed genuinely happy for her.
Compared to how most break ups seemed to go, theirs was practically a fairy tale.
And if he hadn’t been cool with Jamie, Tara might not have found they were still such close friends now.
On the other hand, if there was a reason Tad and Jamie still got along so well, it might well be that - apart from Tara and Jamie herself - he was the only person who could stand Liz for any length of time.
Tara thought Liz was a shy girl trying to play up to having a girlfriend who lived in Porter Dorm. Willow’s response was less complex. She just thought Liz was scary. And not in a monsterific way.
What was it Willow had said? ‘It’s a good job she’s with Jamie, otherwise she’d be stalking someone else.’
Sometimes Willow could exaggerate.
Liz wasn’t a stalker.
She was just… intense. Quietly intense. And thinking of intensity, Tara eased Willow’s arms from around her neck as she spotted what was coming.
Drinks were pushed into their hands and Tad levered she and Willow apart, dwarfing them with a physique that belonged on a football field, an arm around each of them. “So how are my second favourite lesbo couple?”
Willow didn’t pause. “Ready to get down and shake our booties,” she said.
“Kay, it’s good that physics didn’t sap your will to live. How about you, Tara?”
“Just ready to blow off some steam,” she said. “See some people we haven’t seen for a while.”
“See,” Tad said. “I like Willow’s answer better. C’mon Tara, it’s a party! You guys have just been getting it on, I haven’t. Who should be the dull one here? Huh? Huh?”
It was always a party here, but she didn’t point that out. Instead she smiled and held a hand up. “Okay, okay. Bootie. Shaking. I promise.”
Another voice interrupted them from behind before he could lead them to what was probably passing itself off as a dance-floor. “Tad, just what is it with you and lesbians?” Jamie grinned as they turned around and pulled first Tara, then Willow away from her ex-boyfriend and into hugs.
“Room for Tad in there?” he asked.
Jamie sighed, hugging her ex too. “I’ve told you a million times,” she said. “You need to stop hanging out with lesbians if you want to get a girl of your own again.”
A lot of men in his position, dumped by the woman giving him that advice, might’ve retorted about having a girlfriend until she’d gone over to the gay side of the force. Not Tad. “You know better than that. You know there’s too much Tad for most girls to deal with.”
Jamie slapped his hand as it made a playful attempt to move to her breast. He probably wouldn’t have done it, but that wasn’t the point. “I know, boy do I know,” she said.
Tara always had to smile. It was always nice to see how good they were together, even if they weren’t together together. Compared to the disaster zones that littered dorms where two people still lived in the same space but had split up, it was… nice.
Three days. That was what it’d taken Tad to decide he still wanted to be Jamie’s best friend – no matter who she loved or who she was sleeping with. Frankly, it was an adult way to deal with things, but Tara still didn’t get how Liz dealt with the non-sexual intimacy between her girlfriend and Tad.
Willow, who didn’t even like Liz enough to be more than civil to her, understood it even less.
To Tara it seemed that it wasn’t that he’d stopped loving Jamie, it was more that he placed a greater value on everything about their relationship that wasn’t sex, jealousy and possessiveness. Maybe Liz accepted it because passing the Tad-Test had gotten she and Jamie together in the first place.
Liz had been the first relationship – since Tad – Jamie had been in that’d lasted more than a few weeks. And Jamie was Liz’s first serious girlfriend too. Somehow Tad had been the one who’d picked her out as the right girl for his ex. Even if they were polar opposites and it definitely shouldn’t have worked.
‘He’s trying to bore her back to boystown,’ Willow had declared when they’d first been introduced to Liz. Tara didn’t think her girlfriend had ever changed her opinion.
She had some sympathy though – even if Liz didn’t want it. She might’ve been a little like Liz if she’d come straight to college and Willow had been a resident of Porter.
What Willow dismissed as ‘false’ about Liz, Tara saw as a desperate desire to live up to the expectations of Jamie’s friends.
Tara was always at pains to put Liz at her ease, and usually that meant letting Willow keep out of it. “I’m going down to see Jamie and Liz,” she said, kissing Willow briefly then extricating herself from Tad’s renewed embrace, taking Jamie’s arm instead.
---------
“You and me, Tad,” Willow said, “Tad?” Someone had just pushed another drink into his hand and dragged him off. All he could do was stagger along and wave at her.
Leaving her all alone in the middle of the party.
Of course, she had a choice. She could find Tara, and put up with Liz for as long as necessary.
Or she could find someone else she knew here.
Maybe just hang out, let the party come to her. Be cool. She didn’t need her girlfriend to shake her booty with. She just needed Tara to make her look good. Or at least to make her feel like it really didn’t matter how she looked. Same thing really.
Or there was the safe option - she could stand here. Looking lonely and geeky. At least it wasn’t embarrassing.
Not as embarrassing as shaking a lonely booty anyway.
And she could still move to the music – not booty shaking – but moving. Try to find the beat.
“You’re a lesbian?” a woman’s voice asked from behind her.
What was it with people around here? Did someone put a sign on her back – ‘I eat pussy, ask me how’ - whenever she walked into Porter? Everyone knew. While she didn’t mind that so much, it’d be nice to have some air of mystery left to her.
But she supposed it was kinda cool as it avoided the inevitable flirting from the guys.
Of course, the fact that the enquirer’s voice was both young and female meant she might be on the receiving end of flirting of a different kind.
Still, at least she wouldn’t be stood here alone. Best be nice. There was nothing to fear about being flirted at.
Willow turned around and faced the woman who’d asked the question. Young, as the voice had suggested, dark haired and pretty in a stern kind of way. She had this large pendant around her neck and that was pretty too, but definitely out of place. It was like the kind of thing her Granny might’ve owned – but probably never worn.
The girl definitely wasn’t her type though. She could flirt all she liked, it wouldn’t lead anywhere at all. Not even to a lingering glance.
Her type was pretty specific. It was Tara shaped. With a Tara sort of personality. Answered to the name of ‘Tara.’ And there were all the other things that made Tara… Tara. Including that little birthmark, right above her… “Yes, actually – but we usually prefer to say ‘Hello’ before we leap right into outing ourse- ”
The young woman was already looking the other way though. Seemingly ignoring her. ‘Yes’ had been about as much as had interested her.
“I said, we like to say ‘hello’ before we out ourselves,” Willow repeated, tapping the woman on the arm. Who’d approached whom here?
“Who?” the woman asked, annoyed at being interrupted now. That seemed a little harsh. Who’d asked whom about their sexuality huh?
“We – we lesbians. Me. I mean, I do,” Willow stammered, taken aback by the sheer rudeness. Had this woman even been talking to her? Had she stepped into someone else’s conversation?
Or was this the Twilight Zone? The Outer Limits? Was someone controlling the horizontal? And the vertical?
Well, this afternoon Tara had had both ways, and no one else had been in control…
Or maybe this girl really was just rude? It seemed more likely.
“Oh, that must be nice for you,” the woman said and then turned back to looking for someone that was… else.
“Hey!” Willow said, grabbing the woman’s arm this time. Now she was getting annoyed. You couldn’t just go around asking people to out themselves and then ignoring them. That was very uncool – and not like the usual sort of person who made it to a Tad Party.
Drunk was one thing, but this was just rude.
“What?” The question accompanied the glare and made her let go of the arm.
“Why’d you want to know if I liked girls?” Willow asked.
“Because I saw you with your friend and I’m not looking for a lesbian,” the woman said.
Oh.
Ohhh.
What was it with her being rejected out of hand by ‘people’ who liked both guys and girls? What was up with that? Okay, the Brides of Dracula hadn’t been ‘people’ in the strictest sense, but still…
Was that what this was? A bi-sexual brush-off? Again?
It made a certain kind of sense though. This young woman was interested in someone who kissed girls, but not looking for a lesbian. Yup, she knew what that was. “So you’re looking for someone to join you and your boyfriend?” Willow suggested.
“What?”
“You’re bi?” Willow guessed. “I know some women who have no time for bi girls, but I’m not one of them. I’m not prejudiced like that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re looking for someone to join you in a threesome, with a guy? Right?” It took all sorts to make the world go round. Who was she to judge? “That’s why you’re looking for a girl, but not for a lesbian.” It stood to reason. Or at least she couldn’t think of another explanation.
Reason was a funny thing though. Sometimes you could have too much reason and it led you entirely down all sorts of blind alleys. “Unless you’re not,” Willow offered a way out. “You’re not, are you?”
“Go away. I told you I don’t do lesbians. Now… shoo!”
“Hey!” Willow said again, her aggravation overcoming her embarrassment. She’d tried to be nice. She’d offered a way out of the misunderstanding and all she’d gotten was… ‘shoo!’ No one had ever shoo’d her before. “You were the one who approached me, remember?”
“I didn’t approach you, I was ruling you out. Now, go away,” the woman said. Again.
“I think I will,” Willow said. “No, actually I think I won’t. You go away.”
“I was here first,” the woman said.
“You were not!”
“Was too!”
But then she did walk away, leaving Willow stood there alone again. She couldn’t even keep an argument going well enough to keep a stranger with her.
How pathetic was that?
Drink in hand, all alone in a room full of people.
Strange girl though. Whatever she was looking for, she definitely had issues of some sort. But Willow thought she’d handled it pretty well.
Right up to ‘No, you go away,’ at least. Then it’d all got kind of childish. Another few moments and there might’ve been a flurry of girly slaps and she hadn’t even seen that since the last fight she’d had with Xander.
Real, alive Xander. Girly slaps had been his main – and only – way of taking her on.
What happened next was either perfectly timed to her thought process or entirely coincidental. She was willing to bet on the latter.
The slap rang out across the room between music tracks and everyone turned to look. People who’d overheard her argument with the unknown ‘not-a-lesbian’ girl turned to look at her and Willow felt she had to shrug to show she didn’t know what was going on either.
She was half-expecting that woman to be holding her cheek after another enquiry had been taken the wrong way, or someone else was on the receiving end of her slap. But it didn’t look to be anything to do with ‘not a lesbian’ – she seemed to be just another interested observer. Instead it was some girl Willow was pretty sure was called Wanda, running through the crowd in tears.
A friend of Tad’s, Chris was it? Well, he was the one holding his face. And the blonde in his lap was looking very uncomfortable all of a sudden. It wasn’t anything to do with her balance or the remains of a drink that were making her already tight top cling to her. So… they’d been caught out, and drama had ensued.
As Willow watched, the strange – not-looking-for-a-lesbian – girl moved through the people in the room and after Wanda. No question, she was going after her. All of a sudden it was like all those people weren’t there. Like there was no one in her way. Wanda had struggled to force her way through. This young woman moved through the same crowd effortlessly. Like something just nudged the people aside before she got to them.
She’d seen Tara do the same thing, but never mastered the art of it for herself.
But that rude, young woman wasn’t using magic; she’d have felt it just like she felt every other kind of magic used near her. Could she just have a natural gift for clearing people out of her way? With a temperament like that it’d be more like a natural gift for clearing a room.
Still, this wasn’t likely to be the best time for Wanda to find herself being propositioned – or seeming to be. Willow, at a loss for much else to do, followed both of them, running into more people than not-a-lesbian girl had.
When she caught up to them in the shared bathroom, she found it was in the middle of not-a-lesbian’s rant. Of course.
“Men are bastards,” the woman said as she fed Wanda tissues. Dark eyes fixed on Willow as she came in, but then dismissed her presence with a shake of the head, returning her attention to Wanda.
Almost like she didn’t matter.
That was the second time she’d been dismissed as nothing, which just irked her even more.
And what was this? Militant celibacy recruiting?
If she thought men were bastards, and she didn’t do girls… Could be. New society on campus?
Willow, obviously, experienced celibacy when Tara was away for a few days. It wasn’t all that and she never seemed to want to try to keep it up when her girlfriend came home to her. Funny how that worked. Not.
“I just – I love him so much,” Wanda sniffled. For some reason she had the strange woman’s old-fashioned pendant around her neck. What was up with that? Did they already know each other then?
Was it the Celibacy Society’s symbol? Accessorise like Granny and get laid about as often?
“And no matter how much you loved him, he still treated you like shit,” the woman said. “He’s been two-timing you for weeks and not just with her.”
More sobs.
Did Wanda really need to hear that now? She was upset about the break-up, but they were already broken. The rest of it didn’t matter – even if it was true.
“But it’s better you know about it, right?” the woman said. “Now you can move on with you life.”
“I can?”
“You can just forget about him,” the woman said, shooting another glance at her. But Willow didn’t believe she really meant it anyway.
Wanda seemed to be listening though.
“I can’t,” Wanda sobbed.
“He hurt you so much, didn’t he?” the woman asked. “It hurts inside, it’s like your heart is cut in two.”
“Yes!”
“It’s a shame you can’t get back at him, isn’t it?” This time Willow was sure there was something else going on in that woman’s mind, but whatever she was doing, she wasn’t coercing Wanda through any means but argument. After how not-a-lesbian had moved through the crowd, Willow was alert for any use of magic.
But there really wasn’t any.
“Yes…”
“I bet you wish something would happen to him,” the woman said.
“To both of them… him and his slut,” Wanda said, something new in her wet eyes. She was getting with the programme and Willow had to admit to being fascinated.
Was this what hurt did to a person?
“Yes!” The woman sounded pleased by the idea, even though it’d really been hers. Would Wanda think that now though? “But what would hurt them?”
“Huh?” Wanda asked.
“What would you wish for?”
“Oh… You know, I don’t know,” Wanda said.
“Sure you do. You’re thinking of something right… now.” The girl had her head back, as if she could sniff Wanda’s thought in the air. Willow was pretty sure that the only smells around here were smoke, beer, vodka and altogether too much perfume.
It was an interesting mannerism though. Not normal. Maybe not even… human?
But there was no magic, she was sure of it. So could this girl really be as strange as she seemed? Or was there more to it?
“Oh… Well, maybe that they catch something from each other,” Wanda said, as if that suddenly appealed to her.
“Like what?” the woman pushed, seeming to want Wanda to narrow in on exactly what hypothetical things she wanted.
Things? Lets face it they were talking about diseases here. What was this? Some sort of therapy? The way not-a-lesbian was pushing it was like it really mattered.
“I don’t know… I never had… I mean… Definitely something painful and embarrassing – so everyone would know. And they’d have to tell the other people they’d… Not me, obviously.”
“Obviously.” Then not-a-lesbian girl looked at her. “Something we can help you with?” she asked Willow.
Caught out, and not knowing either of them well enough to butt into their conversation, Willow told a lie and gestured to the stalls. “I was just going to use...” She went in to the nearest stall without finishing the sentence.
From inside, their voices were a little more muffled, but she could still make out the words. “So is that what you wish for?” the woman asked.
‘You wish for’? Not ‘you’d wish for’?
Where was the hypothetical in the way she’d put that?
“Yes, yes it is. I’d wish for that.”
“Then it’s… done.”
Willow really didn’t like the way she’d said that final word. Even from in here. It hadn’t sounded like the not-a-lesbian girl. It hadn’t sounded like a woman.
It hadn’t even sounded human.
And there was something else… Not magic but…
Something. Something had… changed.
“Huh? What was…” Wanda sounded confused, concerned even.
“I mean you can only hope,” the woman explained, “that they’ll get their comeuppance. But you’re going to be okay, Wanda. I promise. You’ll get over this, and soon it won’t even matter.”
“But who are you?” Wanda finally thought to ask.
“Oh… a friend. A friend who wants to help you get through this. Believe me, I know how it feels. Anyway, I’ll be seeing you.”
“What about your pendant?” Wanda called, making it sound like not-a-lesbian was leaving.
“Oh, I’ll get it back from you another time… right now, you need it more than me.”
Then they left. Leaving Willow more than a little confused.
Confused and locked in a bathroom stall she didn’t need to be in. Another couple of drinks though and maybe she’d be hanging out with the porcelain.
What had happened here?
---------
“Having fun, love?” Tara asked, kissing her girl on the back of her provocatively bared neck.
Provocative, like the rest of Willow, because it was there…
It seemed like ages ago that she’d left Willow. Since they’d parted she’d stood there and listened as Liz and Jamie went through whether they should move in together, and it’d struck her that it wasn’t really the stuff parties were made of.
When she’d envisioned spending some time with them, that hadn’t been what she’d had in mind.
But she hadn’t left them there. She had the experience of living with the woman she loved, and they did need to think about where they wanted to be. Graduation was bound to be one of those times in your life when everything was expected to change. Change was practically compulsory. And in a relationship you either made the commitment or you made the break.
Sure, so many people said they could make that long-distance relationship work. And sure, it might be possible. Maybe. But it was bound to be easier if you were both right there. If she’d gotten anything over to them, she hoped it was that.
She slid in behind Willow as she danced, hands on her hips now, moving with her and tapping into their connection to feel where the music would take Willow next. Otherwise, you know, it’d be tough to tell. Willow Rosenberg and rhythm were virtual strangers to each other.
Whereas Willow didn’t have any rhythm, Tara liked to think she did – it was just the dancing that eluded her.
“Hey Percy,” she greeted Willow’s former dance partner. Former because now she was back, and Willow was dancing with and for her.
“Hey Maclay, I guess this is my cue to step out?” he asked with a grin.
Tara slipped her hands around to Willow’s stomach as the track came to a crescendo and Willow raised her arms upwards. “Do you mind?” Willow’s head came back and Tara nuzzled her lover’s hair.
“It’s cool, I know I can’t compete with you when it comes to Rosenberg,” he said with a smile and went back to his jock persona, sidling over to another girl who’d been dancing on her own. “Hi… I’m Captain of the Basketball team this year, we just won…”
“Should I be jealous?” Tara asked. “You and Percy, huh?”
Willow twisted her head and kissed her, before she went back to her funky stuff. “He said I should dance with him because I dance like a spaz on my own,” she said.
Crass, but he’d had a point. Willow was much better, much more liberated when she was dancing with someone else. Look at this, right now… They might not be slaves to the rhythm but this was definitely sexy.
At least it felt sexy to her, but then this was Willow she was moving with.
Alone, yes, Willow was a self-confessed spaz. With someone else she could, at the very least, do the ‘white girl dance.’
And with her… Well, Willow was proving it could get… not dirty. But not really spotlessly clean either.
Tapping the upper reaches of their connection this way, they could read each other. Willow knew where her hands were going, and she’d alter their path by changing the movements of her body. It wasn’t that they were of one mind; just that they knew each other’s minds.
And yes, they did it because it felt good too. Even if they never let it get out of control.
Once, they had. Photo’s had ended up on the dorm website the next day and shocked them into some sort of caution. Still… her hand was under her girlfriend’s top, caressing her bare belly. This was probably as close as they were likely to get to belly dancing, Tara thought suddenly.
And it was the only kind of belly dancing she was interested in. Jewels in navels didn’t do as much for her as tongues there. Naturally Willow, sensing her interest, pushed against her hands even more firmly.
“You feel like your dancing just fine to me,” Tara promised her. “Not at all spaz like.”
And so they continued for a while.
“Did you see a dark haired girl?” Willow asked as Tara’s hand briefly found the bottom edge of her bra.
“Stop it,” Tara warned, because it was Willow’s moves that’d taken them there. Not that she hadn’t known it was coming, but still… She was the nominal ‘top’ in this dance. She got to be the one to chide. “And I saw lots of girls like that.”
“This one had off the shoulder hair, pretty but kinda weird. Cream top. She was always playing with a pendant, at least until she gave it to Wanda.”
Tara moaned a “No” as she nuzzled the slope where Willow’s neck met her shoulders and her girlfriend’s butt pushed back at her. Damn… Willow was winding her up. Intending to wind her up, knowing perfectly well what she was doing.
“Why?” she managed to ask.
“She was just weird – she was talking to Wanda after she split with Chris,” Willow said.
“Hitting on her?” Tara wondered.
“No, just being weird.”
“Hmm, well, Chris left. He moves fast,” Tara said, her hands on another fast mover.
“Not really,” Willow said. “He was two-timing Wanda.”
“Oh.” Why was Willow going through this when they were practically dirty dancing? Something about what they’d been doing before they came to the party – or what they’d promised themselves for after – was definitely infecting her girlfriend’s dancing now.
Their dancing really.
A few more minutes of this dirty dancing and Tara was going to have to push baby into a corner. “He was moving fast when he left for the drugstore,” Tara breathed, still not getting it.
And all at once she felt Willow melt in her hands, everything else forgotten. Pendants, Wanda and break-ups. All of it became unimportant.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Willow said.
“What?”
“Resist you. Or wait. Any of it.”
“Oh… well, you should definitely stop trying then,” Tara teased and suddenly Willow’s dancing was reduced to a slow sway as she hugged and kissed her girl from behind.
“There was talk of further experimentation about the differences in making love to an educated woman,” Willow said. “It was my turn to apply the loving.”
And my turn to benefit, Tara thought. “Get your coat,” she almost growled to Willow.
“Oh, yes ma’am.”
Of course Tad caught them on the way out. They’d done the decent thing, come here and made with the nice. Now… now they had each other to be nice to.
“Oh, I recognise that look,” he said. “Your teasing Tad again.”
“There’s only one person I’m going to be teasing,” Willow said.
“Stop it,” Tad insisted, faking a groan.
“Night, night, Tad,” Tara said, unable to suppress a giggle.
“Oh go on, get out of here and do the thing,” he said, dismissing them with a wave.
“Nope,” Willow said. “The only thing I’m doing is my girl.”
“Oh, God,” he cried and faked having to run away from them. “Is there an unattached straight woman in the house?” he shouted as he went back into the melee.
“Poor boy,” Willow said, shaking her head.
“Take me home and have me till morning?” Tara begged.
“What else would I be doing with my educated woman?” Willow asked rhetorically.
**********
_________________
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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance*
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