"It's not much further, I promise," Laney wheedled apologetically, taking Esther by the wrist to physically restrain the young woman from taking off the blindfold. "Just another few minutes and we're there. I swear I'll be more careful about the branches, okay?" Esther reluctantly relaxed her arm, but she did very theatrically rub at the red welt on her forehead where an extra thick, extra whippy, extra low cedar branch had scraped hard against her face before she allowed Laney to lead her further into the woods.

It wasn't even the scratch that bothered her--Esther and Laney had been playing in the scrubby little patch of Texas brush out past their backyards ever since they were little girls, and they'd both collected scrapes and bumps much worse than this. It was... hell, it was the fact that Laney didn't trust her to see where they were going. They'd been going to the same school, the same church, the same dances and the same ice cream shops from the time they were four. Now at eighteen suddenly Laney was keeping secrets? It stung worse than the bright red mark across her forehead, and she couldn't stop her face from making an expression like she'd just smelled a skunk.

The last few minutes of their journey didn't help any--Laney tugged on Esther's arm just a little too hard in an effort to keep her from smacking into another cedar branch and wound up putting her right on top of a loose rock that rolled her ankle when she tried to get her balance back--but at last the blindfold came off and Esther found herself standing outside of a dilapidated old hunting shack hidden among a stand of sumac trees. "Okay," Laney said, screwing up her face into the most solemn stare Esther thought her friend had ever given her. "Before we go inside, you have to promise me you'll never tell a single living soul about what's in here, okay? If you do, I swear to God I'll tell everyone you're lying."

Esther started to roll her eyes, but the furious blush on Laney's cheeks made her think better of it. She'd never seen her friend this serious about anything, not the time she accidentally killed her goldfish or the time she helped Esther get home after she tried parking with an older boy and it went disastrously wrong or even the day Laney's mom and dad told her they were getting a divorce. "Okay, I swear," she said, trying to sound as sincere as she possibly could. "Now can we go inside and see whatever it is you want to show me before we both get eaten alive by mosquitoes?"

Laney glared at her for a moment, her cornflower blue eyes matching the Texas sky, before relenting. "This used to belong to my dad--my real dad, I mean," she said, putting her shoulder against the stiff, creaky old door and forcing it open. "He didn't know I knew about it, but he would come out here to drink and shoot and stuff when my mom got to be too much for him. Ever since he left, I started using it to hide when she got to be too much for me." That wasn't hard, Esther knew. Even by the standards of a God-happy town in a God-happy state, Laney's mom was a little bit too much into the Almighty. And her new husband was even worse.

For a moment, as they crossed the threshold into the cool darkness broken only by a few places where the sun shone in through the cracks between the boards, Esther thought maybe that's all they were out here to see. Laney had some blankets and pillows she'd put down on the rickety wooden floor, she had a few magazines, and Esther figured her friend might just be introducing her to her secret clubhouse. But as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and what she at first mistook for a heap of pastel pink cushions fully unfolded itself into a humanoid shape, she couldn't help a shocked gasp of surprise. "No way...." she breathed out, staring for the first time at a real, actual Girl(tm).

Laney stared a hole in the floor as the Girl stood up and crossed the room to stand next to her. "Her name's Kathleen, and I bought her with my very own money I saved up myself," she said, sounding as if she'd slap Esther silly at the slightest hint of mockery or derision. "I picked out her color myself and when it got to the delivery instructions I just put in the GPS coordinates of Daddy's old shack, and the next time I came out here she was sitting in the corner waiting for me. And when I finish school she and I are moving to California and I'm never talking to my parents ever ever ever again, and she can hear better than any person ever could and I told her to run and hide if she hears anyone but me or someone I told her I was bringing shows up and if you tell anyone about her I will say you're lying because you have a crush on Bobby Berkeley and he has a crush on me, so don't even think about it, okay?"

Esther nodded quietly, finally realizing why her friend was so intense about keeping her new possession a secret. Laney's stepdad had once spanked her so hard she couldn't sit down for a week just because he caught her watching reruns of 'Temptation Island'; if he knew she had a... a sex toy, and a sex toy that looked like another woman at that, it might not matter that she was legally a grown-up with a trust fund she'd gain full and unfettered access to the day she graduated high school. "I won't tell, I promise," she whispered, suddenly aware that her friend's actual life might be at stake here.

The shack filled with an uncomfortable silence, so thick and tense that Esther genuinely flinched when the Girl broke it with a calm, cheerful voice that sounded like it could have come from Mary Poppins or something. "Normally, I'd encourage honesty and transparency in her interpersonal dealings," she said, patting Laney gently on the shoulder. "But we do make exceptions when it comes to situations where our owner's safety is at risk." Esther felt as much as heard the tiny hesitation before the word 'owner', a subliminal pause she was sure the Girl didn't think anyone would notice. But she didn't understand what it meant.

"She's, um, really cool," Esther murmured awkwardly, suddenly very aware of the Girl's long stiff nipples and exaggerated labia. "So why did you want to show her to me?" Esther had been kept out of health class when they got to the topic of sex, and even though she'd seen glimpses of girls changing in the locker room after gym she'd always averted her eyes and expected them to do the same. Seeing something so transparently and blatantly made for... for fucking, her brain finally supplied... felt intensely and powerfully uncomfortable, as though Esther was being with a temptation she'd never prepared for and didn't know how to handle. Even though the Girl wasn't making a move on her, it still felt like she was offering herself to Esther and she had no idea what to do with that offer.

But as shocked as she already was, nothing could have prepared Esther for Laney's answer. "I thought, um, maybe, uhhhh... you might want to try her out. With me." She didn't look up as she spoke, in fact she stared down at the dry wooden floorboards as if she was trying to set fire to them with her mind, but Esther could tell her friend was more focused on Esther than she'd ever been in her entire life. The anger was gone from her intense, riveted attention, but Esther could tell Laney was trying to read her emotions again with that same fierce desperation. If Esther said no, or even if she just let this silence keep stretching out while she tried to figure out what the hell to say to Laney that wouldn't wreck their friendship forever, it would break her heart.

But Esther just... she couldn't. "I, um, I'm sure she's nice and all," she rambled, trying as hard as she could to find a path through the conversation that didn't end up at the place it inevitably had to, "but I, uhh, I don't think I like girls that way. I mean, not, um, big-G Girls, but, you know. Little-g girls. I think it's great you do and all, and um, you know I won't say anything to anyone about it, but I... I'm sorry, Laney. I feel like it's a sin."

Laney's head shot up, cornflower blue eyes blazing with anger. "Then look her in the face and say that, Esther. Just you look her in the face and tell her you don't think you like me that way, huh?" Hot tears ran freely down her face, tears of stinging embarrassment and righteous fury, and for a moment Esther felt every bit as deeply ashamed of herself as if she'd pulled down Laney's underpants in front of the whole homeroom class. She couldn't meet that fierce, burning gaze. Compared to it, the Girl's strange glowing eyes felt downright soothing.

The least she could do was honor Laney's request. "I... I guess I've always had a crush on you," she heard herself murmur, her shock and confusion muted by the swirling tunnel of light that was the Girl's stare. "But I spent my whole life hearing that girls who like other girls are, they're bad and wrong and disgusting, and if I gave in to my urges now I feel like everyone in the whole wide world would hate me and I... I'm scared, Laney. I'm scared to tell you how I really feel and it's easier to lie and hurt you than it is to face up to who I truly am." The odd, insistent pressure on her mind finally abated as she finished her speech, noticeable now only by its absence. "Wha, why, why did I....?"

Laney glared at her with an expression of triumph on her face. "It's something about the Girl(tm)," she said, "something about her eyes. You just can't lie to eyes like that, Esther. It makes you be honest with yourself, even about the stuff that really scares you. The first time I talked to Kathleen about my mother I admitted that I really hated her, hated her the way a child wasn't ever supposed to hate their parents, and I didn't want to be family with her once I had my own money they couldn't take away from me. And I cried a lot, but I felt better afterwards because it was true. You're going to feel better, too."

Esther nodded loosely, her head bobbing up and down like a puppet on a string as she felt all her shame and anxiety disappear into the flowing tunnel of light in the Girl(tm)'s eyes. There wasn't anyone here in this room who didn't want her to be true to herself, who wasn't thrilled to see her finally accepting the urges she'd been pushing down for almost five whole years now. Kathleen was nothing but soft and warm and encouraging right now, and Laney... Laney couldn't take her eyes off of Esther as she slipped off her dress to reveal a slender, petite body that was flushed rosy red with shy, simpering arousal. Laney was eager to see Esther overcome her fears. "Better," she heard herself echoing in a drowsy monotone, the effort of coming up with her own words too difficult for her now in the face of those waves of hypnotic calm finally helping her to come to terms with herself at last.

Her hands moved, seemingly of their own volition, to unveil her curving pubic mound and the thatch of downy blonde pubic hair covering it, and even though a part of her wanted to hide from Laney's excited gaze another part of her reveled in the intensity of the lust behind those beautiful cornflower blue eyes. Laney helped her out of her bra, then began to explore her small pert breasts and puffy pink nipples, whispering to her the whole time, "We don't have to stay here, Esther. We don't have to stay in a place that makes us be someone we're not." The words dripped into Esther's sleepy mind like warm honey, until all everything inside her head was sweet and sticky and all she wanted to do was curl up in the nest of blankets in the corner and let her body go limp.

By the time it happened, the Girl(tm) lifting her up to carry her across the floorboards so she didn't risk a splinter, Esther could barely keep her heavy eyes open. But even when they were closed, she could still see those circles of light pulling her ever deeper into peace and pleasure, making it so easy to relax and let go of a lifetime of guilt that when Laney touched Esther's pussy her fingers came away trailing slippery musk. "I love you, Esther," she heard Laney say, and she only just managed to mumble the same words back to her friend before the bottom fell out of her consciousness and she drifted away into a foggy pink mist of pure rapture that swallowed up all her remaining thoughts.

She didn't know Laney was plummeting into the same delicious oblivion for her Girl(tm). But they both knew how good it felt to relax and accept the guidance that led them deeper into pleasure.

THE END