Throwing the blanket back, I hopped out of bed and retrieved the slim white volume. Returning to bed, I pulled myself up against the headboard to sit cross legged in the light of my nightstand lamp and flip the pages.

  The first half of the book was titled Things Every Young Woman Should Know for Her Health and Happiness. And it was . . . Huh. The first chapter was almost a “So you’re a woman now,” guide, as detailed as but a lot more playful than Dr. James’ stuff. Then there was a short chapter on boys that was even more playful in a “Know the male of the species,” vein.

  Then there was a chapter of love and dating advice, talking about romantic feelings and including trenchant observations of amorous young male behavior (with warnings). Also lists of things that Sophie (assuming she was the “I” in the first-person prose) liked about them. That was the first half of the book and I only skimmed it.

  The second half of the book was titled Things Every Young Woman Should Know for Her Enjoyment. The very first chapter was On Practicing Onanism. Solo-sex. Masturbation. And it came with pictures. The illustrations looked like someone had handed a master calligrapher the job of portraying anatomy, persons, and actions in stylized ink strokes. It went beyond my own explorations real quick, advancing to such techniques as pillow humping and use of a detachable shower head (which I had in my bathroom). Mostly it encouraged young women to get to know themselves very, very well in preparation for the next step, partnered sex.

  That was the next chapter, and it covered both straight and lesbian sex with dozens of the same elegant, stylized illustrations and very personal observations rating different techniques and positions and describing their strengths and weaknesses.

  The last chapter of the book, which I only slowly turned to (the renderings of copulating couples made me feel warm and weirdly fluttery but only as long as I didn’t imagine myself involved in any of it), was a collection of poems. The first one made me laugh and clap a hand over my mouth.

  What poor creatures men are!

  For them when the thunder crashes, the storm is over,

  While we weak women may feel the lightning strike again and yet again.

  They are the source of our delight,

  Yet their return is small though they make so much of it.

  I snorted into my hand. But the next one . . .

  When we met I was still a child,

  Although a woman in my desire,

  And he seemed to me a god of love,

  An object to worship in helpless delight.

  Surely if he had known

  The helpless longing of my heart and loins,

  He would have fled–the god fleeing from the nymph!

  Or transformed himself into unwelcoming stone.

  So I kept my secret,

  Precious treasure waiting for its rightful time,

  To offer up when I could proudly captivate my god,

  And make him mine.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Wow. The implicit instruction to “Cherish your perfectly valid feelings but wait,” with the unapologetic declaration of a triumphant consummation, conjured a few dim memories. I’d “worshipped” a few girls, crushes I’d known would never be reciprocated if I’d dared act on them. No consummations, there, but the words . . .

  I swallowed and there was that pulse deep between my legs, what I’d felt when I’d realized my attraction to Carl (which hadn’t been repeated, thank God). I almost panicked, but my mind wasn’t suddenly flooded with images of everything Carl—just an awareness that, as I was now, this was a possibility. To captivate someone and make them mine. And to be theirs. My breath hitched and I didn’t stomp on that pulse this time. Putting the book down and sliding my night shorts off, I slid a finger into my crease to rest above the center of that pulse-point, over that bit I didn’t like to touch directly.

  Okay, that’s . . .

  With my pre-menses sensitivity I didn’t play with my breasts, instead moving my other hand down to my thighs to stroke the tiny, sensitive hairs on my legs. Pushing my fingers further down, I found that I was wet—That happened fast—and slipping my middle finger inside, found the throb in the core of me. Had it always been there when I was like this? Had I not noticed it because of all the other sensations? I didn’t think I could ask May about this.

  My fingers found their rhythm, my free hand wandering, and in my head I was chasing a fleeing god, laughing. It was a sudden and full-blown fantasy; me in bold pursuit of broad shoulders and strong legs, bare feet hitting a forest floor as we danced through the trees, he, whoever he was, wearing what amounted to a short white tunic dress—the costume of ancient Greek males! The race went on and my fingers and breathing quickened as my hands stretched out in fantasy and brushed a dodging back, a pumping arm, and then my whole body seized as I caught him and he spun to grab and hold me as I shook, laughing as I came apart in his arms.

  **************************************

  So, I’m definitely not a lesbian.

  Groaning, I put my face in my hands, elbows on the table. It wasn’t that last night’s fantasy bothered me—it didn’t, even though I couldn’t contemplate the actual, detailed, mechanics of sex involving me without feeling more than a little squicky—it was that now the fantasy and the feelings it had conjured wouldn’t leave me alone and I was trying to study.

  I’d set up at the dining room table again, thinking I could ignore the movers going up and down the stairs as they took the old furniture out of my bedroom and brought in the two new bedroom sets and carried them upstairs under May’s direction. The dining room was down the hall from the entryway and staircase, and I wouldn’t see them trooping by. But I could hear them calling to each other, passing questions and instructions, and their male voices were distracting me—especially one male voice, deep and rich with an unidentifiable accent and a lot of humor. The man attached to that voice was joking about something almost every time I heard him go by and his laugh was getting to me.

  That laugh had added itself to my Greek god (And how could one poem that wasn’t even explicit mess with me so much?), and now I was fighting the horrible urge to abandon my post and go out there to see if he looked as good as he sounded. I didn’t know if it would be worse if he did or he didn’t. He probably didn’t—my imagination was telling me he was a complete Adonis, and I was pretty sure nobody could live up to that expectation.

  Maybe checking him out will break the spell.

  I stood up, sat back down, screamed inside my head, and retreated to the kitchen for a water bottle and then out to the backyard where I couldn’t hear them.

  God, this is awful. It wasn’t that I was now one hundred percent positive that my sexual orientation had changed with the rest of me; it was that I hadn’t been this distracted by the opposite sex since I was a teen and I’d seriously forgotten how bad it could be. My skin felt prickly and warm and I couldn’t think about anything else. At least my new pulse down there wasn’t back.

  In my mind’s eye the Adonis of my imagination now had dark, thick, curly hair.

  And there it was, the thump. “Fucking hormones!”

  “Language.”

  I spun around as a laugh drifted over the tall white fence. “Mrs. Thompson?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Scrambling to the top of the half-shed I looked over the fence to find Mrs. Thompson sitting out on her patio wearing long sleeves and a gardener’s hat, sipping from a water bottle of her own. She gave me a strangely knowing smile.

  “Fled to safety, have you? Come down from there, I’ve unbolted the gate.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” Hopping down, I tested the gate and poked my head into her yard when it opened.

  “Well, come on in.” She nodded to the white-painted iron patio chair beside her at the matching table.

  Closing the gate behind me, I came and sat down, arranging my skirt. “How did you know it was me?” I hadn’t been screaming, maybe some volume had been involved but she’d never heard me shout. “I’m sorry we haven’t been over yet, it’s been kind of busy.”

  “So I’ve noticed.” She smiled.

  “How? Except for this morning, I mean. Have you been listening with your ear to the wallpaper?” I laughed. “I thought our shared wall was thicker than that.”

  She didn’t laugh. Instead she studied me for a long moment before nodding to herself.

  “It’s quite thick,” she said at last. “But I hear you anyway. I’m a changeling, too, you see.”