Chapter 4

But dealing with Becky had been a part of life since the start of the school year. Why now? Why?

Kara curled up on top of her bed. She sniffled a little. She thought about Julie. Julie in the vice principal’s office. Julie standing defiant before Becky. Julie’s words that still echoed in Kara’s head.

Kara got up off the bed, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and padded down the hall. Mother was still cleaning up dinner.

“Oh, honey.” Kara’s mother reached out.

“Mom, can you call the school? It’s not Julie’s fault. She was protecting me.” Kara sniffled. “Please mom? Her parents aren’t home much and I think—”

Kara was wrapped in her mother’s embrace and couldn’t get any more words out until she let go.

“She’s my friend, Mom.”

That night Esmeralda, captain of the girl’s track team, took a vacation. Kara stood beside her bed. As she shed her sleep shirt and panties, leaving them on the floor next to her bed, close enough to reach in case she got cold in the middle of the night, her thoughts turned to Julie.

Kara didn’t know if friends did the kind of things she was thinking about doing with Julie, but that night they would.

Kara slipped between the sheets, feeling the cool cotton brushing against her bare skin. She imagined Julie standing beside the bed. She had just punched Becky in the face, but instead of being sent to the vice-principal’s office, she hopped up on her bike, handed Kara a helmet, and went riding off into the sunset. Until…

Until, they came to be here, to Kara’s house. Mom had ordered pizza and made fresh chocolate chip cookies as a thank you for being her daughter’s protector.

Now, Julie was standing over Kara, admiring her nude form. Kara’s nipples tightened as she imagined Julie’s gaze.

“I’m all yours tonight if you want me,” Kara whispered as she canted her hips enough to slip her hand down below.

“Of course I want you,” Julie said as she began slipping the buttons on her shirt. “You’re my friend.”

Kara parted herself, burying her finger in soft wetness. “Take me.”

Kara imagined Julie covering her from above—the weight of her body pushing Kara down into the mattress. She imagined her hand was Julie’s hand as she made another tentative foray with her finger.

“Do you like this?” Julie cooed.

“Anything you want,” Kara heaved. “Tonight, I’m yours.”

Julie had Kara in multiple ways that night. On her tummy, on her back. Julie wanted all of her. Kara was happy to give. Julie was gentle.

After shuddering three times on sweat soaked sheets, Julie decided Kara had given enough and they settled down for the night.

Kara lay exhausted, and after a long sigh, she reached over to clutch the pillow. Sometime in the middle of the night, a chill ran the length of her and she pulled up the covers up.

On Monday after school, Julie Zhang went straight home. She made a video call to her mother, per their agreement.

Julie saw Mother was in a hotel room somewhere—exactly where she couldn’t remember—they all looked the same anyway. Mother was still dressed in her work clothes, though she was kicking off her shoes. She was not smiling.

“I’m at home. Look.” Julie panned the phone around as she leaned against the kitchen island.

“Remember our agreement, young lady.”

“Yes, Mother. I know. No friends over.”

“And straight home. I don’t want any more calls from your school.”

“I know. Gotta do homework, Mom. Bye.”

Julie tapped disconnect and set the phone on the counter top. Kara popped up from the other side, grinning.

“You totally lied to your mom,” Kara giggled.

“Technically, I told her I knew I wasn’t supposed to have any friends over. Not that I didn’t have friends over.”

Kara threw a hand over her face as her giggle turned to a snort. Finally, she said, “Plausible deniability.”

“Something like that. So what do you want to do?”

Kara shrugged. “Can we work on the engine?”

“I love my grandfather to death, but I can’t count on him not slipping word to my mom. Not that I think he would do it on purpose, just that he’s getting older and, I don’t know…”

Kara shrugged. “It’s okay.”

“Wanna order pizza or something?”

“My mom wants me home for dinner.”

“Desserts, I stressed?” Julie grinned.

Kara chewed her lip for a moment, turning her eyes skyward. “No lemons, no melon,” she said.

Julie pressed her lips in a tight line and pulled in a long slow breath. She let it out in one big sigh. “I got nothin’.” She shook her head. “Food palindromes. Who the heck knows more than one food palindrome?”

Julie stood. “Better not keep you.”

Together they trudged to Julie’s front door.

“Want me to walk you home?”

“Tell your mom thanks for calling the school.”

Kara waved at the end of the walk and then turned toward home. Julie closed the door and let out a long sigh.

“Damn it,” said Julie.

Kara felt a flush in her cheeks. She still couldn’t get used to Julie’s casual cursing, even if it was a minor curse. But, in front of her grandfather made it worse in Kara’s mind.

“Let me send it to the shop,” he said.

“This is probably their fault.”

Kara wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. She picked up the cylinder from the work bench and looked again at the scarred interior. It looked as if someone had left the retaining ring off the wrist pin that held the piston to the connecting rod. The loose pin rattled around, gouging out the cylinder over time. It certainly would explain the oil burning.

“We’ve already got it apart,” Julie said, frowning.

“Maybe they could machine it out?”

“It’s pretty deep.” Kara offered, running her grease stained fingertip over the edge of the groove. Kara smiled a little as she did. She liked the smell of the engine parts.

Julie’s grandfather pulled his phone from one pocket and reading glasses from another. After several taps and a few swipes, he looked up and said, “Original equipment or big bore?”

Julie’s eye lit up. “You’re the best,” she said. “Original is fine.”

Julie’s grandfather turned the phone so they could see the replacement cylinder and piston kit. When both girls nodded, he tapped the order button.

“Four to seven days,” he said.

Kara set the worn out cylinder down on the workbench.

“Don’t forget to clean up my tools,” Julie’s grandfather said, as he stuck his reading glasses back in his pocket and turned to go.

“Guess I’ll see you in a week?” Kara said, focusing on the workbench.

“Pssh, you’re not getting off that easy.” Julie wrapped one arm around Kara and pulled her over in a half hug, half head-lock.

“You’re all greasy,” Kara complained.

“Have you looked at yourself?”

Kara wiggled out of Julie’s embrace with a smile on her lips.

“Let’s order pizza,” Julie said. “Come on. I feel like we should celebrate.”

Kara chewed her lip for a moment.

“What’s your mom’s number, I’ll text her for you.”

Kara shook her head. She wiped her hands on a shop rag, pulled out her phone and stared at the screen.

“Send her a pizza palindrome.”

Kara giggled. “I don’t know any pizza palindromes.”

Kara took a deep breath. Slowly and deliberately she punched in “Dinner at Julie’s okay?”

Kara hit send and blew out a long sigh.

She and Julie began cleaning the tools on the bench and putting them away.

A few seconds later, Kara jumped when her phone buzzed and vibrated across the surface of the workbench. She clamped her lower lip between her teeth and peeked at the screen.

Mom: “Have fun. Don’t stay out too late.”

Julie turned and looked at Kara with a blank expression, “I guess we’re at that stage of our relationship now.”

Kara swallowed hard. She had flashes of Julie standing beside her bed at night.

“Deep dish or thin? Meat or veggies?” Julie looked Kara in the eye. “How long have we been friends? I don’t even know if you’re a vegetarian. Weird, huh?”

“Five weeks and three days,” Kara blurted, “If you count from the first time we met by the track.”

She didn’t even have to think about it or do the math. The number just popped into her head. The calculation was made even easier, because Julie was her first friend.

“It’s been an adventurous five weeks and three days, hasn’t it?”

As they put away the last of the tools, Julie leaned in. “So, Kara. What’ll it be? Meat or veggies?”

“Um…” Kara had another vision of Julie beside her bed. How do you like it Kara? She felt her shoulders tense. “Um. Half and half?”

Julie grinned. “That’s what I always do. I figure that way I can tell my mom I’m eating my vegetables.”

Julie opened the service door to holler a goodbye to her grandfather and the two girls set out for Julie’s house.

It was almost dark by the time Kara opened the front door to her house. She closed and locked it as quietly as she could before looking around to see where her mother might be.

“I know what you’ve been up to,” Kara’s mother said.

Kara froze, holding her breath.

“You know I worry about you and I want you to be safe.”

Kara clenched her jaw.

Her mother held up a catalog. ‘Cycle City’ was printed at the top. Below that, ‘Gear and Accessories’.

Kara exhaled all at once.

“Motorcycles might be fun, but they can also be dangerous.” Kara’s mother set the catalog on the kitchen table, flipping it open to the riding jackets. “We’ll need to measure you.”

“Mom.” Kara stood fidgeting for a moment. She wanted to ask about friends and how they’re supposed to make you feel. Kara looked at her mother.

“Thanks, Mom. A jacket would be nice.”

“And a helmet, young lady. You will not be going anywhere without a helmet.”

“I know.” Kara scampered off to her room.

After her nightly ritual of tooth brushing and face washing, Kara once again stood at the side of her bed in a sleep shirt and panties with a cat ear headband still holding her hair out of her face. For a long time she stood frozen, thinking about pizza and Julie showing her how to put the meat kind and the veggie kind together as a pizza sandwich.

Kara thought about Julie’s grease-stained hands, pulling parts off the V-Twin and cursing whenever she banged her knuckles, but looking concerned and motherly whenever Kara did the same.

Kara thought about Julie standing up to Becky so many weeks ago—maybe not the start of their friendship, but the time at which they became almost inseparable. She thought about her dreams since then.

Kara touched her hand to the thin fabric of her sleep shirt. She trailed her fingers upward, letting the tips dance over her tummy, for a moment wondering why it was impossible to tickle yourself, and then seeing Julie’s face. Julie was wearing the same expression she had on after sending Becky to the nurse’s office.

Kara felt her knees give way just a bit. She continued trailing her fingers over the thin fabric. She reached her neckline and traced around the front of it. Kara brushed against the skin of her neck and imagined it was Julie’s mouth.

Kara let out a sigh, and pulled on the collar of her sleep shirt, encouraging Julie to explore. She threw her head back with a tiny moan. “Julie.”

“Is this what you want, kitten?” Kara’s dream Julie asked.

“Yesss.” Kara liked it when Julie called her kitten, even if real Julie never had.

Kara let go of her collar and the stretchy fabric snapped back into place. She raked her fingertips across the tiny nubs poking up under her sleep shirt.

“Tonight, I’m yours.” Kara reached for the hem, ridding herself of the shirt in one motion. Her panties soon followed.

On the bed, she lay with her back arched pawing at her chest with one hand and parted herself with the other. She imagined Julie wanting to taste her and brought up her glistening finger. But it was Kara’s lips that puckered up and slurped.

“Do you like that?” Kara whispered from the corner of her mouth.

Julie took Kara by the hand and guided her downward until Kara’s finger once again plunged into warmth and wetness.