I figured that it was only fair. She’d woken me with my cock in her mouth. So I woke her a few hours later with my tongue pressed tight against her clit. I knew that after Ash came, she was a little more pliable, and I really wanted to hear that story. I’d never been able to get Lynn to tell me, but Ash might.

Ash pulled my hair. “Ow.” I lifted my tongue long enough to complain.

“Sorry,” she murmured, easing her grip. I set back at my task, until she was a gasping and pleading mess against my face. And when she finally came apart, it was amazing.

Ash was never softer than after an orgasm. She purred as I kissed the inside of her thigh, wiping my face on the sheets.

“You give really good head,” she said, her breaths coming fast as she came back down.

“Thanks.” I moved up to where I could lie on my side facing her. I tickled her naked, damp-with-sweat shoulder and she groaned and rolled onto her side too. “So do you.” I kissed the tip of her nose. She scrunched up her face like she didn’t like it, but I knew she did, so I did it again. She giggled and grabbed my hands, holding mine in hers between us.

How quickly could I segue into the questions I wanted her to answer, without offending her?

Suddenly, she barked out a laugh. “You’re trying to figure out how to work me.”

I grinned. “Maybe a little.”

She heaved out a sigh. “Just ask it.”

“Roll onto your stomach,” I said. “I’ll rub your back.”

She did as I wanted, but she pretended not to like it. “That feels nice,” she said quietly as I got up on my knees and began to gently rub her back. “You want to know about how Lynn and I met.”

“Yes, please.” I moved to straddle her back. I didn’t want her to see my face as she talked. I wanted her to be totally relaxed and at ease, and I didn’t want the emotions she could probably see in my eyes to affect the way she might or might not censor her memories.

“A little harder,” she said, as I worked her shoulders. I applied more pressure with my thumbs and she purred.

“How did you meet Lynn, Ash?” I asked.

“We met at school, and she asked her mom if I could come over and play. The first couple of times, it was okay. Her mom made sure no one else would be there but us. Then her dad came home early one day…”

“And what happened?”

“We were playing in her room after school,” Ash said, like she was anchoring herself in the memory.

“How old were you?” I worked my way down her spine.

“Five or six?” she replied. “I can’t remember.”

“What were you playing?”

“Dress up. Her mom had given Lynn a few of her old dresses and she kept them in a trunk in her room. She had some shoes and some hats in there too. My favorite was the business suit with the black belt. And leather shoes. A white blouse.”

My hands stopped moving. “Seriously? You?”

“Don’t stop,” she said, waving her hand over her shoulder to get me moving again. “And yes, there was a time when I was all about conformity. I wanted to be just like Lynn’s mom. She was so sophisticated and worldly.” Her muscles tensed under my fingers and I could tell she was angry. “Then that day happened, and I didn’t want to be like her anymore.”

“What happened?”

“Her mom was usually really kind, but that day, she rushed into the room and told Lynn she had to hide in the closet, that her daddy was home early. ‘He smells bad,’ she said. I didn’t learn until years later that ‘he smells bad’ was code for ‘he’s piss-drunk.’”

“He came home drunk in the middle of the day?”

She nodded her face against the pillow. “Yeah. He’d done it before, Lynn said, but that day, he’d also lost his job. He was in a terrible mood, and I could hear him throwing things and screaming downstairs. Lynn took me into the closet with her and shut the door. We stared out of the dark space through the slats in the closet door.”

I continued to rub her back like this didn’t affect me, taking great care not to press hard in anger, or soften in sympathy. “What happened next?”

“Her dad busted into the room, and we could see him through the slats. ‘Lynn,’ he called, his voice so soft and pretty. I almost expected him to tell her to come out so he could take her for ice cream, but I was wrong.”

She turns her face so she can bury it in the crook of her arm.

Her voice takes on a lilt, but it’s muffled by her arm. “‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ he sang so softly. He tiptoed around the room, pretending to look for her. I almost opened the door and told him where she was, he was that nice. He had me fooled.”

“You were a child,” I remind her softly.

“So was Lynn.”

“What happened next?” I whispered.

“Finally, he got about ten feet from the closet. Lynn turned to me and whispered, ‘No matter what you hear, don’t come out.’ So I didn’t. I didn’t go out, and I’ll always regret that.” Her voice broke and she wiped her eyes. “I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Did she go out alone?”

She shook her head. “No, he came in and got her. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out of the closet. She flailed around, trying to stand, but he just dragged her. He dragged her all the way out of the room by her hair. She barely made a sound, aside from the scrambling.”

Ash started to shake.

“Where was her mother?”

“I don’t know. I never found out.”

“What did he do to Lynn?” I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t.

“I don’t know. I didn’t come out of the closet. But whatever it was, he’d done it before. She was expecting it. And despite her fear, she kept me safe. She let him take her, and she left me there so I wouldn’t see it.”

“When did you come out of the closet?”

“I don’t remember. I didn’t get to see Lynn for a few days after that. When I finally did, she was quiet and reserved. She was a different Lynn. He’d hurt her. I just didn’t know how, because she protected me from all of it. I wish she’d told me. I wish I knew what he did.”

Again, I said nothing.

“After about a week, I went to talk to her at school. She looked down at the picture she was drawing and she said very quietly, ‘I wish Shelly had been there. Shelly would have grabbed him by his nose, chopped it off, and then fed it to him.’”

I remained silent.

“I looked down at her drawing, and she had drawn three girls. There was me, and I knew it was me because she’d written my name underneath. And then there was Lynn. And on the other side, there was someone else. She wrote Shelly’s name under that one. All three of us, in the picture, were clasping our hands together.”

“Had you met Shelly before that?”

“I didn’t meet Shelly at all. Not until years later. She was part of Lynn’s life, not mine. But it made Lynn feel safe to think of us as a unit, so she often drew pictures of us together, even though we’d never met.”

“And Shelly was the fierce one?” I asked.

She smiled, finally. “Shelly was the fierce one. Everyone was afraid of her. Teachers. Lynn’s mom. The school principal. Even Lynn’s dad was afraid of Shelly.”

“Did they have a need to be afraid of Shelly?” I asked softly.

“Oh, yes,” she said on a sigh. “Everyone needed to be very, very afraid of Shelly. She’d do anything to protect the people she loved, even back then.”

I didn’t know what else to ask.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked me so quietly that I barely heard her.

“Sure. You can tell me anything.”

“Shelly scares the fuck out of me,” she whispered. “She’d do anything to keep Lynn safe.”

That was what I was afraid of.