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I know I'm kissing one woman, but I feel as if there are three. I feel my lover, the one I'll never know again. I feel Elizabeth, the need I've held chaste and secret. I feel Rebecca, the pa.s.sion I want to know but never will. Then a seed of common sense takes over, and I slide my hand away from Elizabeth's neck, stroking her cheek as I pry my lips from hers.

I'm hot and embarra.s.sed, but try to sound cool. "How was that?"

"G.o.d almighty." She sounds breathless. "You need to give Jared lessons."

"I thought he could kiss the silver off a dollar."

"He kisses like a baboon." Elizabeth scoots back to the end of the sofa and grins as she fans her face with her hand. "d.a.m.n, girl. You turned me on."

"You're just being nice." I settle into the corner of the sofa and cross my legs. No sense letting my groin get any big ideas; that kiss was a once in a lifetime thing.

She catches my eyes as she reaches for her water bottle. "I'm not being nice, and don't try to tell me that didn't turn you on a little."

I stifle a giggle. "I'm not comatose, you know."

"Well, I know one doctor who's going to get lucky tonight."

Elizabeth fans her face again before taking a long swallow of water.

"And if you've got one lick of sense, I know one restaurant manager who'll get lucky tomorrow night."

"Don't tell Jared about this, okay? We're silly for even doing it."

"I'm not going to lie to my husband. Besides, we're not talking about wife swapping here. It was just one little friendly kiss to work up your courage. He'll understand."

"But he'll look at me funny." I cover my face with both hands.

"He won't look at you funny."

I drop my hands and stare at her. "How do you know? Men can get defensive about things like this. I don't want him to think I'm trying to move in on his wife."

"Honey, men don't get defensive about girl-on-girl action. They get excited. Truth be told, he'll probably be mad that he wasn't here to see it."

It hits me harder now. I just kissed Elizabeth. I slap my hand to my forehead. "Oh, my G.o.d."

She doesn't seem worried about what her husband will think, and it strikes me as a little odd. But there are all kinds of relationships in this world. Maybe Jared won't mind.

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Elizabeth sits up and dead-eyes me. "If I'd thought it would create a problem, I wouldn't have suggested it. And it was my idea, not yours.

Besides, think about it. If you can kiss me, you can surely lay a big wet one on Rebecca."

"My neighbor's going to think I'm a pervert."

"He's thought that since you moved in." Elizabeth grabs my elbow.

"Don't worry. I promise, it's okay."

I look at Jitterbug, who is busy licking her privates. "Jit, don't ever p.o.o.p in Dr. Kingsley's yard again. I've left enough mess in his territory for the both of us."

Elizabeth laughs as she stands up. "I'd better go make sure the kids aren't burning the house down." Before she opens the front door, she looks back at me. "Bring a date Sat.u.r.day night. Larry Maxwell is coming, and I don't want you to suffer through his boring stories at dinner."

I wave her away and watch the door close. The house is quiet except for the sound of Jitterbug's incessant licking. The silence pushes against my eardrums and makes my head throb. I reach for the TV remote, turn the set on, and flip through the channels. The choppy news dialogue and intermittent commercial music warms the chill inside me.

Finally, I get up, pick up my discarded pantyhose, and wander toward our bedroom. Jitterbug knows the drill and leads me down the hall.

"Jitterbug," I call from behind her. "What do you think of me? The first person I kiss is Elizabeth. How does that make sense?"

Jitterbug stops and glances at me before entering the bedroom. For some reason, she'll wander all over the house in pitch dark, but she won't go into our bedroom till I turn on the light. On some level, I think she knows something isn't right. After all this time, her instinct still tells her someone is missing.

I toss my pantyhose into the hamper, take off my work clothes, and put them back on their hangers. A quick snap of my bra hook, and I crawl under the sheets naked.

I still have the urge to reach for her, to feel her hand slip into mine as I drop away into darkness. Some nights I swear she's beside me, whispering nonsense in her sleep, snuggling against my back when she hears distant thunder. I rub my hand across the sheets, but she's not there. I am alone.

I shudder and reach for the sleeping pills on the nightstand. No way am I going to fall asleep without help tonight.

CHAPTER 11.

It's scary how your life can change so quickly. In one instant, you can turn into a whole other person, someone you'd never have recognized in the mirror. The day my life changed didn't start out so different from any other Sunday. I'd gone to early church services with Mom and Dad, had our usual Sunday fried chicken lunch at home, and headed to Lora's house to catch Terror Theater on channel six.

The afternoon lingered on like the dreary black-and-white movies flickering on the ten-inch portable TV sitting on Lora's dresser. Jock and Matthew were out of the picture on Sundays. Vincent Price and Boris Karloff were our boyfriends of the moment as we gobbled up handfuls of popcorn and Oreo cookies and tried to scare each other to death.

It wasn't hard to be frightened in the Tyler house. Between Mrs.

Tyler, the prison matron, and Grandpa Kane sitting like a huge, bleary-eyed yard gnome on the front porch, I walked on eggsh.e.l.ls. But Lora's bedroom was less intimidating. Although the room was kept immaculate as a result of her mother's orders, Lora had managed to put a bit of herself into her private s.p.a.ce. She had draped a red scarf over the lamp on her bedside table, making the room glow like the fortuneteller's tent at the carnival. A bra.s.s-framed picture of Jock sat on the dresser by the television, and a half-dozen snapshots from her younger days were taped neatly to the full-length mirror on the back of the door. But Lora's bed was as hard as her mother's disposition, and I could never get comfortable on it.

The second film in a mummy trilogy was well into its first hour when Lora looked at me and out of nowhere asked, "Claire, are you a virgin?" She never took her eyes off my face as I squirmed for an answer.

I figured with Jock as her boyfriend, she was pretty experienced, and I wasn't about to confess my naivete. Looking like a prude to Lora would embarra.s.s me to no end.

"Are you?" was my best reply.

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"Yeah." She shifted her gaze back to the toilet-paper-covered actor chasing a buxom brunette down a darkened country path.

"Me, too," I murmured.

It would've suited me fine if she'd dropped the subject, but she added, "Jock wants to do it, but I'm not sure."

"If you don't want to do it, don't." I looked at her but couldn't get a read on how she felt. She seemed confused and frustrated.

"I want tokind of." She puffed out a grunt and leaned back against the headboard. "I don't know. It's like one day I'm ready and the next day I'm not."

"Think it would hurt?" I asked.

"They say it does the first time." Lora seemed twisted up in her clothes. She wiggled onto her side, then rolled onto her back. She stared at the ceiling, her unblinking eyes focusing on a thought I couldn't read but somehow understood.

I popped a caramel in my mouth and sucked on it. "Well, it's a big step. You should be sure before you do anything. You can't take it back, you know."

She looked at me from the corner of her eye. "I don't think I want Jock to be my first."

I was stunned. "Who, then?"

She shot me one of her devilish grins. "What's the most you've ever done with a boy?"

My thoughts turned to the night with Matthew as we flapped against our clothes, covered with sweaty need. Neither of us understood exactly what we were striving for, only that we had to have it. The incident was three weeks old and hadn't recurred, but it had left a mark on me, and my heart skipped.

"Come on," Lora said. "Tell me."

"It's too embarra.s.sing." I hid my face with my hands.

Lora sat up and leaned toward me. "I'll tell, if you will."

Normally I would've held out, but I felt a unique fascination with the idea of hearing about Lora and Jock. My stomach tightened at the thought of him kissing her, roving her body with his lips and hands. A spark flickered through me when I imagined her pressing against him, caught up in the heat of forbidden pa.s.sion.

"Okay." I was warm with antic.i.p.ation.

"I've let him take off my bra a bunch of times. About two months ago, I started letting him touch me down there." She pointed toward the zipper of her Calvin Klein jeans.

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The vision of his hand between her legs, her hips gyrating with his touch, had a strange, erotic effect on me. My palms got damp, my face flushed, and a hot, trembling sensation settled into my groin. Almost like the feeling I'd had with Matthew that Sat.u.r.day night at Fuller's Dam, but much more intense, almost unbearable. Was this normal? Was this how other girls felt when they talked about their boyfriends?

I had trouble looking at Lora and focused on the television as I asked, "On top of your clothes or under?"

"On top for now."

"Are you going to let him go under?"

"Sometime, I guess." She looked hard at me and settled back into the feather throw pillows resting against the headboard. "I know that's not going very far when three girls in school are already pregnant, but I don't want to rush it, you know?"

"Me either. Who wants to drag a kid to the prom?" A distinct tremor rattled my voice.

Lora giggled and caught my eye, her own voice low and throaty.

"Okay, your turn."

I tried to tell her, but words wouldn't come. "I... I can't. I'm sorry."

"I told you, so you have to at least give me a hint. I won't tell."

When I looked into Lora's eyes, an unusual burst of recklessness rose within me. "It was with Matthew a couple of weeks ago. I guess..."

But my courage retreated, and I turned away.

"It's okay, you can tell me. We're best friends, right? I swear, I won't tell a soul." Lora touched my arm, sending an odd vibration through my skin.

Reaching down into the pit of my quivering stomach, I looked back at her. "I think I got to second base."

Her eyebrows knitted together. She frowned, then smiled. "You mean he got to second base."

"Kind of. But I think I did, too."

"What did you do, get him out of his bra?" She chuckled.

"Well..." I couldn't go on. What I'd done with Matthew was the most natural I'd ever felt with a boy, but now it seemed freakish.