The Sleepover: a Sapphic mini-story (Adult theme & NSFW)

I July, 1973 I was nineteen that summer, and had come home from art college with flecks of paint still stuck to my nails and a stack of drawings I had no intention of showing anyone. It was an adjustment, being back. The rooms in what had once been a vicarage seemed smaller, while sounds carried more—footsteps on wooden floors, and the ticking of the hallway clock. But my parents still moved around each other the way they always had. They didn’t speak much. They didn’t raise their voices. It was the kind of house where nothing was said twice. At college there had been space. Back in the village, everything narrowed again. Or almost. My mother told me about Katie as if she were handing me an errand. "Mrs Wilkins has moved into the Simmons’ old house. She has a daughter your age," she said. "Home from university. She doesn’t know anyone." Which meant: go round, be polite, don’t embarrass me. So I went. Katie opened the door barefoot, her ginger hair unbrushed. She looked straight at me when she smiled, not shy about it. "Hello," she said. "Mum said you'd pop round." The house behind her was different from mine. A ’60s new-build made of sharp angles and exposed stonework on the inside. It felt looser somehow. Things left where they landed. Music playing in the background. Doors left wide open. Katie noticed me noticing, and didn’t comment. Just stepped aside and let me in. We had coffee in the kitchen. Everything looked new, and expensive. She moved around it easily, gathering cups and switching on a percolator, which began to make a bubbling sound. I watched her, unsure what to say. She talked over that awkward moment of silence. "So, you’re an artist," she said as she settled onto the high stool opposite me. "What do you paint?" "I'm trying out different things," I said. "The tutors encourage us to experiment." She gave me a long look. "I wish I could draw," she said after a pause. "It must feel good, being able to do that." I shrugged, but I felt myself blush. From then on, I kept going back. We listened to records, or sometimes took a bus into town—me to window shop, she to buy things. Katie had this way of making what we did feel already decided. And I was happy to tag along. II "My parents are away this weekend," she said one afternoon. "Stay over. Your mum and dad won’t mind." I wasn’t so sure about that. But my mother surprised me by agreeing, with no caveats attached. "Such a nice family," she said. "Mrs Wilkins let slip that they own a villa in Spain. I do hope you mind your manners when you're over at theirs." I was tempted to say that Mr and Mrs Wilkins hardly ever seemed to be at home. "Yes, Mummy," was what I actually said. And the weekend came around soon enough. Katie’s house felt larger at night, and the air inside the living room was scented with incense. I sat in the corner of a sofa while she poured drinks from a cabinet as if no one would ever check how much was missing. I wasn’t used to that. Or to how quickly the gin went to my head. It loosened something I usually kept in check. I talked more than I meant to. Laughed more. We watched some TV, though we talked over most of it. After a while she said, without warning, "Do you have a boyfriend at college?" It felt like I was being tested, and was in danger of being caught out. "No." "But you’ve had boyfriends?" I shook my head. She tilted her head slightly. "So you haven’t…?" I didn’t answer directly. It seemed safer to answer the question with a question. "Have you?" I said. She held my gaze for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah. I mean—I’ll try most things once." She leaned back, stretching her legs out in front of her. "My parents keep this book in their room," she said. "About sex. It’s got lots of pictures of a couple in different positions—different ways you can…" She broke off, smiling faintly. "You know." I said nothing. But she wasn’t going to let it drop. "There was this girl I knew when I lived in Bristol. We used to look at it. Try things out." I nodded; it was the best I could do. Katie glanced at me. "I pretended to be the man. It was fun." She said it lightly, then took a sip from the tumbler she was holding. "We could look at it, too, if you want," she said. I suppose I could have laughed it off, or simply said no. I did neither. "Okay," I said. III We lay side by side, the book open between us. I turned the pages more slowly than I needed to, gazing at the pictures without really taking them in. It was easier to look than to think too closely about what they showed. Katie’s shoulder rested against mine. After a while she reached out and touched the page. "Shall we try that one?" I looked at the photograph and understood it differently this time—not just what it showed, but what it would mean to do it. My chest tightened. Katie didn’t look at me. She had already leaned back, undoing the buttons of her blouse one by one. I watched her a second longer than I meant to. She unclipped her bra, and I began fumbling with my own buttons, because it was easier to do that than look at her undressing. The bed shifted faintly under us as I struggled out of my jeans. I was suddenly aware that the two of us were naked, with nothing but air between us. "Ready?" she said. I glanced once at the book, then knelt and leaned forward, placing my hands on the mattress that dipped and creaked beneath me, adjusting my weight until I was in the same position as the woman in the picture. It felt awkward at first. For a moment, nothing happened. Then she moved behind me. Her hand came to my hip, light at first, then firmer. She leaned in. The pressure followed—slow at first, then more certain, as she found the rhythm, pushing against me until there was no space left between us. I could feel her groin rubbing against me, the tempo quickening. Then it stopped. She drew back slightly, and the air touched my skin again, Before I could turn—her hand came down on the curve of my bottom. Sharp. Sudden. I gasped. Heat followed, rippling through me. Another pause. Then a second slap, harder, jolting me forward. I heard her breathe out, as if she hadn’t expected that either. Her hand came to my shoulder. "Turn over," she said. I hesitated. Then turned. On my back, it was different. There was nothing to hold onto now—only the bed beneath me and her above me. She took my wrists and held them tightly, pinning me there. I tested it once. She didn’t loosen her grip. When I looked up again, she was closer. "We could try something else," she said. I blinked. "Like what?" Her smile was almost sly. "You’ll see." She shifted her weight and knelt until the points of her knees were pressing into my shoulders. Then she tilted forward. The crease between her thighs hovered over me, and I could see beads of wetness in the dark weave of curls. "We could watch each other touch ourselves," she said, "or—" The pause stretched. A pink bloom was rising across her cheeks. "Or you can lick me." The words landed low in my body before I had time to take them in. The muscles down there clenched as a pool of warmth started spreading, making it difficult to think of anything at all. I drew in a breath. "I like it when you tell me what to do," I said, half-whispering, and saying it felt like a kind of release. Katie grinned. "Careful," she said. "You might mean that." I did. I knew I did. IV I couldn't sleep for a long time afterwards. Katie lay beside me, her breathing slow, one arm resting loose across the sheet. The room had gone quiet, but my body hadn’t. It was everywhere. My skin felt tender, the heat still there under the surface. When I moved, even slightly, it emerged again—a dull ache that lingered rather than sharpened. I savoured the sensation. Savoured the memory. And I knew that I didn't want what we had shared to end with the morning. That was the clearest thing of all.