Chapter 5

“Yesss,” Kara and Julie said together.

“You’re so sexy, Kara,” said Julie. “I want to watch.”

Kara pictured Julie, propped up on one elbow, letting her eyes crawl all over Kara’s bare flesh. “Like this,” Kara said, and plunged deep.

Julie was too engrossed to say anything, so Kara made sure to put on a good show for her. She pushed out her chest, all flushed pink. She moved in and out, all around. Every few minutes, Kara would bring her sticky fingers to her mouth and let Julie suck them clean.

After a while, Kara’s need was too great, and she wouldn’t let her fingers stray from their task. Throwing her head back into the pillow and pulling a great shuddering breath, Kara felt her thighs quivering.

Kara tensed. She let out the breath she held in a long, low moan. Soon she was shuddering again. And again.

Finally, it was too much. She couldn’t touch herself again without spasms that were almost painful. She put her fingers back in her mouth and cleaned them while thinking what it would feel like if it were Julie’s mouth.

With a smile and half-lidded eyes, Kara rolled onto the part of her bed that was not soaked with sweat and wrapped her arms around her pillow. Clutching it tight, she stayed that way until a late night chill woke her just long enough to pull up the covers.

Kara stood in front of the mirror brushing her bottom row of teeth, five little swirls for each one before moving on. She wore only a towel and her purple, sparkly cat ear headband. She thought about her wisdom teeth. Last time Kara was at the dentist, there was a discussion about her wisdom teeth and her mouth not having enough room to accommodate them.

Kara spit out the excess foam and moved on to the top row of teeth. Cats don’t have mouths that are too small, she thought. Cats don’t even have wisdom teeth.

Kara wondered if Julie had her wisdom teeth, though she wasn’t sure why. Julie had been intruding on her thoughts quite a bit, and not just during the night.

Kara smiled at the memory of last night.

Cats probably don’t have girlfriends either.

Kara thought about the word girlfriend. She decided she liked it.

Julie heard her phone buzz and scowled. “Mother,” she grumbled. But when she looked at the display, it was from grandfather. No hello, just a tracking number. Julie tapped the link.

Arriving tomorrow by 2:00 p.m.

Julie did a fist pump and then laughed at herself for being a cliché. Her laugh echoed in the empty house.

Julie returned to her contact list and tapped Kara’s name.

J: Guess what?
K: Chicken butt?
J: Ha! No. Motorcycle parts.
K: Still grounded?
J: Technically. I swore Grandfather to secrecy.
K: He did, eh? 😉 😉 😉

Julie picked up on Kara’s palindrome, even without the benefit of the three winking smilies.

J: I did, did I?
K: Good one! After school again?
J: Yep.
K: See U.

Julie stashed her phone in her pocket and smiled.

She found herself still smiling every so often—through a solitary heat and serve dinner and through homework on the couch while binge watching her favorite Netflix show again. Julie would often pause, looking up from her school issued laptop to the empty seat on the couch next to her.

She thought about Kara at home, sitting on her own couch, doing homework on her own laptop. Julie sighed and went back to her studies. On the television screen, a bunch of kids were setting off on their bikes to defeat some supernatural beast.

Julie thought about the motorcycle in pieces in Grandfather’s garage. She thought about Becky, the supernatural beast who got her grounded. And for what? A hairband. A cheap peace of plastic with fuzzy purple cat ears glued to the top of it.

But it belonged to Kara—her friend.

That night, when Julie crawled into bed, she hugged her pillow tightly to her chest and imagined what it would feel like to be curled up around Kara, slaying any supernatural beasts that might come knocking at her door, and then riding off together on Julie’s motorcycle.

Julie turned to wondering if maybe, just maybe, Kara might want to go to prom with her. She hadn’t planned on going before, and wasn’t sure why it seemed like such a good idea now. But still, the idea stuck. Julie clutched the pillow and sighed, drifting off while wondering if Kara snored.

“It should be pretty easy,” Julie said. “It just bolts on.”

Kara nodded and flipped through the pages of the manual that detailed reassembly steps. While she looked intently at the pages, Julie stepped up behind her to look over her shoulder. She watched Kara tracing out the lines on the page with her finger. Julie chewed her lip.

Kara whirled around to look Julie in the eye.

“You’re breathing on me.”

“Sorry.” Julie felt her face flushing.

“It’s okay.” Kara’s eyes moved to study her feet.

Julie did the same. She reached out with her hand and then pulled back.

Behind her, Grandfather cleared his throat.

“How long—?” Julie started.

“Long enough,” Grandfather said. “Just kiss her already so you can get this engine off my workbench. I’m tired of looking at it.”

“I love you too, Grandfather.”

“You know you’re my favorite grandchild.”

Julie’s grandfather threw his head back and laughed. “I’ll be inside. Don’t forget to clean my tools before you put them back.”

As the door closed, Julie turned to look at Kara again. Kara was grinning.

“Do you want to?” Kara said.

“You know… Kiss me?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I… I’ve… well… yeah, I think so.”

Julie almost laughed as she watched Kara look up, close her eyes, and pucker her lips. “You’re adorable.”

Julie leaned in, cocked her head to the side, and touched her lips to Kara’s. Somewhere in all that, she reached out and found her hand, too.

It was a brief kiss and afterward Julie straightened up, her heart pounding in her ears, relieved it was over. She dropped Kara’s hand from hers and spent the next several minutes analyzing things in her mind. Did I do it right? Was it too soft? Too hard? Were my lips too dry? Has Kara kissed anybody before? Did she expect fireworks? Did she expect tongue?

“I think about you when I’m in bed,” Kara blurted.

“Um…” Julie muttered. Her mind flashed back to last night and the pillow she clutched while wondering if Kara snored. She wiped the sweat off her palm and reached out to grasp the tips of Kara’s fingers.

“Can I…” Julie squeezed Kara’s fingers tighter to stop her own hand from shaking. “Can we try that again? I’m not sure—”

Kara nodded vigorously and stepped forward to close what little gap there was between them. This time she puckered up with her eyes open.

Julie slipped her other hand around Kara’s waist, steadying herself. She paused to listen to Kara’s gentle breathing, to feel the rising and falling under her touch. Julie smiled and leaned in. It felt better this time—more natural.

“Make sure you clean those cooties off my tools,” Grandfather hollered from behind the closed door, right before letting loose with a mighty laugh.

Julie squeezed Kara’s hand and together they set their sights on the engine parts strewn across the workbench.

Over a period of several days, the mass of parts strewn over the workbench began to look more like the Evolution V-Twin they started as. Shiny new pistons were fitted into new, unblemished cylinders. The retaining clips on the wrist pins had been double-checked.

Kara poured over the pages of the manual as the engine took shape. She and Julie checked gaps and tolerances, they torqued bolts to factory specifications. And finally, one day, they mated the engine to the transmission.

“We should take it for a test drive,” Julie said.

“You should clean my tools first,” Grandfather said.

“I don’t have a helmet,” said Kara.

Julie frowned. “We should at least start it up.”

Julie hopped up and touched her thumb to the starter. The starter whined. Nothing happened.

She did it again. Nothing happened.

“Patience,” Grandfather said.

“Is that some kind of ancient wisdom?” Julie said.

“Yeah,” Grandfather said. “Confucius say, ‘No gas in carburetor bowl, no start motorcycle.'” He laughed, then made a rolling hand gesture in Julie’s direction.

Julie pursed her lips and hit the starter again. There was a brief catch and a backfire that made everyone jump and filled the garage with smoke.

“One more,” said Grandfather.

This time the engine roared to life. Kara put her hands together in an applause that was drowned out by the sound of the exhaust. But there was no more thick cloud of smoke to be seen.

Julie steered the bike to the end of the driveway and turned around to bring it back to the garage—the V-Twin idling with a characteristic roughness, but without the blue smoke from before. Julie was grinning from ear to ear when she killed the engine and hopped down.

Julie reached out toward her grandfather with open arms and squeezed him tight. She turned to Kara and did the same. Her beaming smile never wavered.

“Thank you,” she said. “Oh, thank you both. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Julie turned to Kara once again and kissed her full on the mouth. In her excitement, she decided to slip in a little tongue. Kara didn’t seem to mind, and Julie didn’t feel the need to analyze her kissing skills in detail this time. It just felt right. It felt natural.

“Don’t forget to clean up my workbench after you’re done sucking her face off.” Grandfather closed the door behind him.

Julie took a step back, still holding Kara’s hands in hers.

“You did it,” Kara said.

“Do you…” Julie kicked at the ground with her left foot. “I was thinking… Would you want to go to prom with me? On the bike. You know, to show it off a little. I wasn’t planning to go, but…”

Kara stood motionless.

“I mean, we don’t have to dress up. We could just go get pizza. And if the dance is lame we can leave. It’s just thought—”

“I’d like to,” Kara said, “but I have to get my wisdom teeth out.”

Julie stood a while with her mouth agape. “I’m pretty sure you can schedule that sort of—” She stopped when Kara leaned in to kiss her.

Kara slapped Julie on the shoulder. “Duh, I’m kidding. Of course I would.”

Kara jumped up off the couch just as soon as she heard the rumble of the big V-Twin in the driveway. “Mom,” she yelled. “Gotta go.”

Kara’s mother came striding into the living room. “Helmet,” she said.

Kara’s mother held open Kara’s leather jacket while Kara pushed her arms into the sleeves.

“Blue jeans and black leather,” she said. “If I had worn something like this to prom—”

The doorbell rang. Kara spun around to kiss her mother on the cheek. She marched toward the door and grabbed her helmet by the chin bar. “Bye!”

“Bye, honey. Have fun.”

“You look nice,” said Julie.

Kara leaned in to give Julie a peck on the lips.

Julie reached up and plucked the cat ears from Kara’s head.

“Hey!” Kara complained.

“You can’t wear ears and a helmet.” Julie said, opening Kara’s jacket just enough to tuck the headband into the inside pocket.

Kara put on her helmet. She hopped up on the bike behind Julie and wrapped her arms around her waist. Julie touched her thumb to the starter and the V-Twin roared to life.

Kara tried to think of a palindrome involving motorcycles, pizza, the smell of leather, and the word girlfriend. She soon gave up, deciding it really didn’t matter that much.

“Pizza first or do you want to cruise around for a while?” Julie asked.

“Whatever you want,” Kara said. “Tonight, I’m all yours.”

Kara squeezed Julie tight and pressed against her back. She smiled as they rumbled down the driveway and into the street.

Thanks for reading. As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments.