Beth and I have known each other literally forever. We met at infants' school, and I can truthfully say I have no earlier memory than her smiling face asking my name as we stood on the school playground waiting to go into our first lesson. We were inseparable through that school and into the next, somehow always ending up in the same class, sitting on the same table for reading and drawing when we could. The fact that she was a girl and I was a boy generated mild comment, but the consensus was that these days it was all to the good that kids -- especially so young -- didn't seem to discriminate when choosing friends.
When we went up to secondary school, it wasn't even a question whether we'd do homework together every night, and our parents just shrugged their shoulders and agreed who'd cook on what day, Beth's eyes lighting up when my mum produced her favourite spaghetti sauce.
We talked about everything -- TV, our other friends, music we liked, school work. Sometimes our families went on holiday together, the usual places -- Spain, Italy -- but when our trips were separate, the first thing we did when we got back was breathlessly bring each other up to date with what we'd done, seen.
Of course we'd gone through the "I'll show you mine, if you'll show me yours" phase, playing doctors and nurses, but somehow it had never translated into any more experimentation, and Beth and I never really touched, except for the frequent hugs of celebration, comfort, commiseration, depending on what life brought us. Beth confided in me when her periods started -- school sex education lessons had made sure we knew how things basically worked -- and I could tell that her body was changing, breasts and hips more noticeable, but she was always my best friend above all else, and somehow it never occurred to me to think of her in any other way.
Of course we had to think about what would happen after A-levels, but the problem solved itself -- a town with two universities, one that had a good reputation for Beth's chosen subject, the other that offered a top-notch course for mine. We'd celebrated our eighteenth birthday parties -- I'd cried unashamedly, brushing away the tears running down my cheeks, at the heartfelt speech Beth made at mine. I tried to reciprocate at her party, then sobbed my heart out again when she chose Westlife's 'Safe' for us to dance to at the end of the night.
What people thought of us by then didn't really trouble us -- from overheard comments, those who didn't really know us assumed we were boyfriend and girlfriend, 'obviously' sleeping together, but by then our friendship was so well-known that it wasn't even a matter of jealousy. Perhaps envy; but we tried -- Beth especially -- to be gracious, generous to everyone, so only the most petty minds could find anything to complain at.
Of course we'd talked about sex -- after those embarrassing classes at school, I'd admitted to Beth that I masturbated, and with pink cheeks she'd confessed the same. We even went as far as to look at a porn site on my laptop, and Beth raised her eyebrows, pretending to fan her face at the scene playing out on the monitor. "But it's all staged, right?" she shrugged. "It's bound to be more clumsy and messy for real." The conversation moved on to something else, and the topic didn't come up again for a while.
The months rolled round to August -- lazy days after exams, too soon to make serious plans for university, and Beth and I were sitting in her bedroom as usual. Beth was sketching something on her art pad, and I was picking photos from our last trip to put on our blog. But something was niggling at me, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. I glanced across at Beth, and her pencil stopped moving. "Tim?"
"Hmm?"
She closed the pad, put it on her desk. "Can we talk?"
I blinked. "Since when did you ever have to ask me that?" I shifted my chair closer. "Something bothering you?"
She nodded. "I'm thinking about freshers' week."
I gave her a puzzled look. "Cheap beer, kids away from home for the first time going a little crazy, uni clubs touting for members. What's the problem?"
Beth twirled the pencil distractedly in her fingers. "Well, I'm thinking, there'll be a lot of boys there, perhaps I'll get chatting to one, maybe he likes me, I ask him back for coffee --"
"I get the picture," I nodded. Something unexpected stirred in my emotions, but I pushed it down. "You know guys will say anything to get into a girl's panties, right?"
Beth smiled wryly. "I know. But let's say I think he's genuine, I can trust him -- at least for a night, anyway."
"So you take care," I reminded.
She nodded. "I have my pills, and Mum's already given me a box of condoms, bless her."
"But..." I prompted. "You said you wanted to talk, right?"
Beth looked up, a pink tinge suffusing her cheeks. "Tim, if I had a girlfriend -- I mean a friend who was a girl -- half as close as you, I'd talk to her about this. But I really don't. I want to talk about, well, what I might like, when it comes to it."
I gave her the most reassuring smile I could manage. "I can handle that. And there's a definite upside -- I can give you the male perspective on the whole thing."
She glanced at me sideways. "OK."
"So where do you want to start?"
"Well," mused Beth, her eyes taking on the faraway look that I knew meant she was creating a scene in her imagination. "Let's assume we've done the kissing part, and somehow -- how does this even work? -- he's asked me if... and I've told him Yes. I think I'd like him to undress me."
She chuckled. "Of course I'd make sure I had decent knickers on, and a bra that hadn't gone grey in the wash."
"So he'd be fumbling with buttons, and those fiddly clips," I teased.
"A little bit of clumsiness would be reassuring," Beth shrugged. "I wouldn't want to think he'd had too much practice."
"Would he take everything off at once?" I wondered.
"Well, maybe everything except my panties -- he ought to wait till last for those."
I couldn't help the image that formed in my mind -- I had a fair idea what Beth looked like without her clothes, we were quite casual around one another when we were changing. "As a man, I'm pretty sure he'd be entirely distracted by your breasts."
She grinned. "Fine by me -- I'm rather hoping he'll pay them some serious attention."
"Tell me how."
Beth breathed in. "Well, he could touch them, stroke them --" unconsciously her hands demonstrated her meaning, though without touching herself -- "and maybe just ever so gently pinch my nipples with his fingers."
She shivered with anticipated pleasure. "But what I'd really want him to do is to put his mouth on them, I can almost feel what it'd be like for my nipples to be surrounded by warmth, wetness, and then to be suckled softly..."
"Wow," I breathed. "And then?"
"That would really get me turned on. I'm so -- I mean, I'd be so wet, and I'd want him to slide his hand up between my thighs until he was touching my panties. He could -- oh, god -- press against me with his fingers while his mouth was still busy on my breasts."
Her face was definitely flushed now, but she kept her eyes fixed on my face. "It wouldn't be long before I'd whisper, 'You can take them off'. So he'd hook his fingers through the elastic, and I'd lift my hips for a moment while he slid my panties down, then past my feet."
"Are you ready for him to go inside you?" I breathed, starting to lose myself in Beth's fantasy.
