A Study In Scarlett
by Ann Douglas
(ann_douglas@hotmail.com)
Part Two
After only a few hours of sleep, Alice found herself awake and staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. Despite the long day, she found herself fully awake. Dinner had been wonderful, they had talked and laughed late into the night.
She lay there for a few minutes, listening to the sound of the soft crash of the waves against the sands beneath her window. Finally, Alice decided she had to get up.
The tall brunette sat up in her bed, dropping her feet over the side of the classic four poster. Alice was wearing a full length sheer black nightgown that she had been given at her wedding shower two years before. Her sister Donna had sent all the way to Hollywood for it so that Alice might have something really sexy to wear on her wedding night. A night that had never come about.
Conventional mores stated that a girl was supposed to go to her wedding bed a virgin. The reality was that having the ring on her finger was enough to open most girls' legs. Especially as was the case with Alice and the groom to be, who was nine years older and had seen military service during the war. Few men like that came home virgins and didn't want to wait until the wedding night.
Alice wasn't too disappointed when she lost her maidenhood in a wholly unsatisfying act. Both her mother and older sister had warned her previously that it would most likely happen like that. Both of their husbands had deflowered them in rushed, unfulfilling love making sessions. They did, however, assure her that it would get better with time.
By the second month of their intimacy however, Alice had concluded that it wasn't ever going to be any better than that first time. It wasn't that her intended was a bad or even an inconsiderate lover. Quite the contrary. Based on what she heard from other women, Jack was a most thoughtful and caring lover. And it wasn't as if she wasn't trying as hard as she could either. While in the Army, Jack had been introduced to the delights of oral sex by a Parisian whore. Unlike some of her more timid girlfriends, Alice didn't consider fellatio or anything else that brought someone you cared about pleasure an unnatural act and willing engaged in it. Jack enjoyed her efforts immensely, but it still left her feeling as hollow and unfulfilled as intercourse had.
Three weeks before the wedding, Alice had abruptly announced she was breaking off the engagement and joining the Army. She had enrolled in a program that would send her to nursing school in exchange for military service. Neither her fiancee, nor her family, ever really got an explanation for her sudden decision. The twenty-four year old had just packed everything she owned into two bags and left a week later. Alice liked to wear the nightgown while on leave since it didn't exactly fit into Army life.
Through the open window, Alice could see the reflection of the full moon on the water, but not the moon itself. No longer tired, she decided to step outside to have a good look at it.
The house was as quiet as could be and Alice measured her steps carefully as not to disturb Scarlett. The two small guest bedrooms they occupied were next to each other on the main floor. Passing through the kitchen, Alice was surprised to see small illuminations from out on the patio deck. Moving closer to the sliding glass door, Alice could see a half dozen lit candles spread around the verandah.
Gently sliding open the door, Alice stepped outside and could see a figure sitting near the edge in one of the recliners. Without being able to see her face, she knew it was Scarlett.
The redhead was wearing light magenta colored pajamas, embroidered with flowers and birds. Her rich red hair hung its full length, stretched behind her chair. She was staring out onto the horizon and as the taller woman moved closer, Alice could see that all of the buttons of the pajama top had been undone. It was also clear that Scarlett had one hand beneath the waistband of her bottoms.
Realizing that her younger hostess was energetically engaged in what her mother had described endless times as self-abuse, Alice told herself that she should just quietly back up the way she had come. She was too educated a young woman to believe her mother's description of the act she was witnessing. In fact, she really hadn't believed it when she'd discovered the act herself when she was thirteen. It was impossible for her to believe that something that felt so good could be bad.
Truth be told, the scene unfolding in front of her fascinated Alice. The first time she had ever watched a girl pleasure herself had been when she shared a room with her sister, Donna. She never really saw much, and definitely never had the nerve to ask her about it. Still it always enthralled her.
In the almost two years since she'd joined the Army, Alice had the opportunity to see several other women pleasure themselves as well. When you shared quarters like they did, it was impossible not to be aware of those late night acts. The unwritten, unspoken rule was that even if it was happening in the next bed, you turned a blind eye to it. Alice sometimes wondered if it was the same way with men. That had been one of the reasons she was so anxious to read the Kinsey Report.
Even more unspoken than the precept that you ignored another woman touching herself in a sexual way was the even more prohibited act of having another woman do it for her. Back when she was in nursing school, it had been rumored that two of the students had been guilty of just that. No one would actually talk about it, but everyone seemed to know.
The two girls involved had just failed to show up at morning assembly one day. No announcement was made of their status, but the word quickly got out that it was in your best interest not to ask. The one result that Alice remembered from the incident was that it was a long time after that before she heard the quiet sounds of self-pleasure from one of her bunkmates.
Another memory quickly reasserted itself as she watched Scarlett. The remembrance of the warm tingling between Alice's legs that watching and listening to those other young women had always produced.
It was the doubts produced by those feelings that had caused her to cancel her engagement at the last moment. The lack of those feelings in encounters with her boyfriend had sent Alice on her journey of discovery, without even knowing what it was that she was searching for. She just knew she wasn't going to find it in Ethan Falls or as Mrs. Jack Fisher.
"I hope you're not too shocked."
Alice's head snapped back at the sound of Scarlett's voice. It took her a moment to realize that the younger girl had been aware of her presence all along.
Scarlett turned to face her, the folds of her pajama top opening even more, giving Alice a clear view of her candle illuminated breasts. The sight sent a strong flush through the older girl. As a nurse, she had seen countless naked breasts, but none in such a sexual setting.
"Are you shocked?" Scarlett asked again.
"Was I supposed to be?" Alice asked in turn.
"I was hoping you wouldn't be," Scarlett said. "I was hoping that instead you might be ..."
Scarlett didn't finish. Instead, Alice watched as the look of self confidence that she had associated with her new friend faded from her face. The expression that replaced it was that of a frightened young woman.
"Oh God, what am I doing?" she asked herself aloud as a tear formed in the corner of her eye. "I can't believed I really thought this might happen."
"That what might happen?" Alice asked as she tried to control the beat of her racing heart.
"When I saw you come out here," she stammered, the tears becoming more visible. "I somehow thought that you could sense what I wanted. What I've been dreaming about since I met you. Somehow, I thought ... I mean I felt ... oh I don't know how to describe it. That you felt the same things that I was feeling."
The now crying young woman pulled the top of her pajamas closed as she bent her head down in embarrassment.
"How could I even think such a thing," she went on. "How could I have gotten it so wrong."
Scarlett hadn't noticed that Alice was now kneeling next to her chair. Or that the brunette was gently stroking her long red hair, brushing the strands away from her tear stained face.
"Scarlett," she whispered as she wiped away a tear with her finger.
The brief touch of flesh against flesh finally alerted Scarlett to the older woman's presence.
"Scarlett," Alice repeated. "You weren't wrong."
"What ... ?" Scarlett asked as she stopped her tears and looked up into the face of her friend.
"I don't know how you would describe it either," Alice whispered. "But all those things you thought I might be feeling as well, I do feel them. I know that women aren't supposed to feel such things for each other, or so we're told, but some of us do. Somehow I think we were able to see that in each other."
"I've never tried to do anything like this before," Scarlett admitted.
"Neither have I," Alice said. "But if I'm going to explore those feelings that have been inside of me, I've always hoped I'd have someone like you to explore them with."
"Oh Alice, I was so afraid that you'd think I was some kind of ..." Scarlett confessed.
"Never," Alice smiled, no longer wanting to contain the thumping within her breast.
As if to reinforce her statement, Alice leaned over and pressed her lips against Scarlett's. The warmth she found there spread to her very soul. A second kiss followed, this time initiated by Scarlett. Alice responded with all the fires within her, sliding her hand beneath the folds of Scarlett's pajama top to gently cup her ample breast.
"Oh Alice," Scarlett gasped as she felt the strength of her hand pressed against her mound.
Alice then took Scarlett's hand and pressed it against the softness of her own lace covered bosom. An action that brought an even brighter light to Scarlett's emerald eyes.
Both young women stood and held each other hand in hand, gazing deeply into each other's eyes. Scarlett could see her own emerald orbs reflected in the deep blue of Alice's, as so many other things were reflected within the taller girl's body. She pulled her body against her own and held it as tight as she could, drawing on both the warmth and strength she found in it.
"I think I've fallen in love with you," Scarlett said as she held the taller woman.
"I feel the same way," Alice replied as she brushed Scarlett's long hair.
"What are we going to do?" Scarlett asked. "You leave in two days."
"We live those two days and not worry about what happens after that." Alice answered.
"Oh Alice," Scarlett said as she kissed her new found love once more.
The two women continued to kiss and fondle each other, removing bits of clothing as they went. Scarlett took hold of the straps of Alice's nightgown and slid them down her arms, until the sheer black lace was bunched around the brunette's waist. Her small rounded breasts stood exposed in the moonlight, the quarter dollar sized dark areola drawing the attention of Scarlett's eyes. In the center of each circle stood small erect tips the size of erasers. Fingers outstretched, the redheaded woman rubbed the tips of her fingers against the small stubs, delighting in both their hardness and the electric excitement just touching them produced.
"Oh yes," Alice said breathlessly as she felt Scarlett press her fingers against her nipples.
In turn, Alice ran her hand up along the sides of Scarlett's chest, pulling back the still open fold of the pajama tops. Scarlett's breasts were almost twice the size of Alice's, with bright pink areola and thick nipples. Alice pushed back on the magenta shirt until it fell back and down to the floor. Before the material hit the wooden deck, her hands were cradling the soft yet heavy globes.
The older woman bent over and planted a kiss on each nipple, rubbing her lips against the warm, excited flesh and then her tongue against the thick hardness. The action caused Scarlett to call out with joy.
As a nurse, Alice was well aware of the female body, and the sensitive spots it contained. This was her first chance to explore those spots and she approached the chance with unbridled enthusiasm. She continued to kiss Scarlett's rich mounds, running her hands all over the rest of her exposed body as she did.
Scarlett lifted Alice's face from her breasts, letting her lips replace her nipples. She kissed her new love twice more on her lips, then dropped to her smaller mounds. She found them no less delightful than her own.
Scarlett continued to lovingly kiss her way downward, pulling Alice's nightgown all the way down. When she reached the plain white panties beneath it, she kissed the damp center, before pulling them down as well.
Alice's mound was large and very bushy, the hair of which was as dark as that on her head. With two outstretched fingers, Scarlett parted the hair and pressed her lips against the brunette's womanhood. Her tongue pressed forward with an almost religious fervor, sampling that which she had only imagined on a hundred empty nights.
Alice opened her lips to respond to the warm wet embrace of her sexuality, but could only managed an exhaled breath of approval. Despite her previous sexual experience, it was the first time she had ever been touched in quite that way. Jack Fisher's interest in oral sex hadn't extended to cunnilingus.
Scarlett continued to gently explore Alice's womanhood, alternating her explorations between her tongue and her finger. She slid her index finger deep within the woman before her, both stimulating the walls of her pussy and coating her probe with the juices of her efforts. Removing it, she slid both her finger and the honey that covered it to inside her own mouth.
"Mmmmm." Scarlett purred happily as she savored the taste of another woman. A kitten presented with a saucer of warm milk couldn't have expressed more satisfaction.
The long haired redhead continued to lap at her new ambrosial treat, as her hand slid up and down Alice's legs and caressed the cheeks of her ass. She wanted to explore every inch of the woman's body.
Despite all of the quite expensive schooling her family had arranged for her in her life, none of those Institutions had a course in lesbian lovemaking. At least not an official one anyway. Following her eighteenth birthday, Scarlett had sought to rectify that discrepancy.
In order to further improve her fluency in the French language, her father had arranged for Scarlett to accompany him on a government trip to Paris back in '46. She hadn't been able to rid herself of her embassy assigned chaperone long enough to sample some of the unadvertised attractions that had flourished in that city throughout war, occupation and later liberation, but she had managed to visit some of the more interesting book stores.
There, hidden among a score of French language books, she had purchased what could only be described as a very graphically illustrated guide to the secrets of lesbian love.
Scarlett had been very careful to hide the forbidden book when they got back to their hotel. She was sure her father would never understand. How could he, when she herself didn't.
Michael McMurphy loved his three children as much as any man could, and only wanted the very best for them. But he was ill equiped to deal with a daughter who began to develop into a woman at a rate he found disconcerting.
His wife, Diane, had died in childbirth, giving him their third child, Mary. An old fashion man in many ways, he tried to shield his oldest daughter from what he believed would only be premature male attention by enrolling her in one of the finest all girl schools in the country.
In was ironic that the absence of boys in their everyday lives had the opposite effect on many of the girls in the school, creating the very situations "Big Mike" McMurphy was trying to avoid. What self control they might have on those occasions when they got to be with young men was quickly lost as long supressed hormones took control.
Following a dance or sporting event that usually involved one of the associated all boys academies, many a normally reserved young lady found herself in the Dean's office come Monday morning, trying to explain how she came to be discovered in a compromising position.
It was during one of those weekend events that Scarlett had made an astonishing discovery about herself. She had known for quite some time that unlike most of her schoolmates, the sixteen year old had no interest in the numerous young men who vied for her attentions.
Nor did she enjoy the rather graphic late night discussions of individual male anatomy that usually followed each of those social events. To her bewilderment, Scarlett realized that she did however have an ever increasing interest in certain of her girlfriends and their own maturing anatomy.
The book, now safety hidden away in her luggage, had been her first chance to put names to many of the things she thought about.
On the way home, the hidden book had caused her a few moments of apprehension when a curious customs agent opened it when they went through Idlewild International Airport in New York. The strange foreign text might have been incomprehensible to the middle-aged woman, but the meaning of the numerous drawings and photographs were unmistakable. To the young woman's relief, the gray haired officer closed the book without comment, except to say "Enjoy it honey." as she handed back her travel case.
Scarlett had spent countless secret hours pouring over that book in the last two years, to the point where her near photographic memory could recall every page in depth. Now that the opportunity had finally presented itself, the twenty-year-old promised herself that she would sample every lesson.
Rising back to her feet, Scarlett wiggled her way out of her pajama bottoms, adding them to the pile of clothing now on the deck. To Alice's surprise and enjoyment, Scarlett wore no underwear. Unlike Alice's mound, the younger woman's was almost bare, except for a small red triangle of hair at the top. Scarlett had never been particularly hairy on any part of her body, and what there was of it, she kept neatly trimmed.
Scarlett and Alice stood naked in the moonlight, the warm breeze off the water caressing their skin. Scarlett reached up and stroked the side of Alice's face with her fingers, a look of pure joy on her face.
"I wish this moment could last forever," Alice said, her heart lost in the endless depths of Scarlett's eyes.
"We'll make it last forever," Scarlett said with all the intensity that young love could bring.
Hand in hand, the two naked young women raced through the house, up the stairs to the master bedroom on the second floor. Scarlett threw open the large double windows, filling the room with the light of the moon and stars beyond. Then she took Alice's hand and drew her to the large antique bed that dominated the room. An heirloom had been in her family over a hundred years. It only seemed fitting that it be the site of her most sought after happiness.
The carefully set sheets on the old bed were quickly tossed aside as Scarlett and Alice held each other tightly, rocking back and forth with abandon. Eager hands and soft lips explored the other's body as no one had ever done before. A passion born of love's fire burned in both of their hearts.
"Alice, I love you so," Scarlett gasped as she pressed her body on top the older woman and buried her face between her breasts.
One after the other, the crimson tressed fury took Alice's mounds into her mouth, lavishing on them all the loving attention she was capable of. Scarlett reveled in their softness, in the hardness of her nipples. Her tongue caressing them again and again, each touch bringing endless bliss.
Alice ran her fingers through the long stands of Scarlett's hair, guiding her to the most sensitive parts of her body. She now fully understood the depths of the emptiness she'd felt when she had laid with Jack. A void now filled by Scarlett's love.
Scarlett took her mounds in hand and pressed them against Alice's, rubbing their nipples together. The dark haired girl took Scarlett's larger globes in her own hands and lifted them to her mouth, sampling her lover's charms as she had just sampled hers. Now it was Scarlett's turn to close her eyes and enjoy the pleasing sensations.
They rolled over in the bed, bringing Alice to the top and allowing her greater access to the body now beneath her. Quickly she spread Scarlett's smooth legs and brought her mouth to the small red trimmed mound found there. She kissed the center, then each of the sides. Finally, she reached out with her tongue, driving it deep within.
"Ooooo," Scarlett moaned with excitement. "I always knew it would be like this."
Spreading Scarlett's legs even further apart, Alice began to bring even greater pleasure to the beautiful young woman before her. She didn't need her nursing skills to locate her prize, the small clitoris beneath the folds. Alice found it repeatedly, each time sending surges of orgasmic ecstasy through Scarlett.
"Yes, oh dear God, yes!" Scarlett cried out to the night sky, losing herself to a building eruption that she had only felt before by the touch of her own hands. Hands now gripping the bedsheet with all of her might.
Alice pressed harder, driving Scarlett deeper and deeper into the abyss. A chasm she couldn't wait to plunge into.
She didn't have long to wait as the demons of desire took hold of Scarlett's quaking body and hurled her over the precipice. She grabbed the back of Alice's head and wrapped her legs around the brunette's back. The explosion between those legs left its residue across Alice's face.
Finally, Scarlett released her tight hold on Alice, allowing her to roll off and drop down alongside her. She closed her eyes as she lay there, savoring a moment that she wanted to remember forever.
"The book," Scarlett said, not realizing she was speaking out loud, "didn't come anywhere near describing how wonderful that was going to be."
"What?" Alice said, not quite hearing what her lover had said.
"I love you," Scarlett said instead, realizing her error. "And now I want to show you how much."
In less time than it took to say it, Scarlett found herself between Alice's legs, duplicating the actions she had just enjoyed the benefit of. Her earlier brief taste of womanhood spurred her on as she remembered the many nights she had done this in her dreams.
Scarlett could hear the laboring of Alice's breath and feel the racing of her heart. The softness of her skin against her cheek was an aphrodisiac, causing her own heart to race as well.
Remembering her lessons well, Scarlett began with a touch, then a long loving caress. Finally, she continued with a hard, repetitive thrust. Soon Alice's body began to react to each loving stroke.
Alice buckled and spasmed as Scarlett increased the intensity of her attack. Sweat ran down her body as the brunette shook with each new ecstatic jolt. She could feel the rising crest of her own orgasm building within her.
Scarlett darted her tongue in and out of Alice, causing the waves of pleasure cascading up and down her to double. The harder and faster Scarlett moved her tongue, the more intense the waves grew. Faster and faster Scarlett went, each move bringing Alice closer to climax. Tears ran down the Nurse's cheeks as she tried to delay the fire within her. In all her encounters with Jack Fisher, Alice had only been to the mountaintop twice. On both occasions, she had fallen short of the summit. This time, as Scarlett had before her, the twenty-six year old spread her arms and leapt into the darkness, embracing its euphoric embrace.
Scarlett and Alice lay locked in each other's embrace as the morning sun filled the room. They had made love twice more during the night, each time more intense than the last. As they pressed against each other, their hearts now beating in unison, they knew they would be forever joined. No matter the distance between them, no matter the years, they would always share a connection. Regardless who else ever came into their lives, each would always forever occupy a special place in the other's soul.