Charlotte’s mind was a whirl for the next few days. She found her thoughts drifting between Dortz, the guy she’d met in the bar and Fiona, Emma’s older sister who had kissed her and made her cum later that night.
 
On Monday morning, she sat in the school art room with her two new friends, Emma and Deirdre, and relived the weekend with them. Occasionally, they did some sketches of the stuffed duck that stood forlornly on the desk in front of them.
 
Deirdre was describing how she’d had to sneak a very inebriated Emma into her house, while Emma just sat there, looking sheepish.
 
“Did you get home ok? Fiona didn’t bore you to death with her stories of how cool art school is?”
 
“No,” Charlotte managed to reply. She desperately hoped she didn’t blush as she tried to nonchalantly brush off further inquiries.
 
“So will you see Dortz again?” Emma’s face peered intently at Charlotte. “He’s very cute.”
 
Charlotte blushed, relieved at last to have a distraction from all the talk of Fiona and a proper excuse for the reddener she could feel creeping up her neck.
 
The post-mortem on the weekend continued over lunch as they discussed the bands they had seen.
 
“Emma was in a band once,” Deirdre giggled.
 
“No way? Tell me more.”
 
Charlotte was really interested. She’d been messing around with the guitar for a couple of years and could play a few Cure songs but had never had the nerve to play in front of anyone before and the thought of standing up on stage terrified but also intrigued her at the same time. She summoned up the courage and told her new friends she played the guitar too. It turned out Emma played bass and had been in a band with a couple of boys from the school down the road. There was a practice room in the community centre you could hire for a couple of quid and they provided the amps and a drum kit and everything.
 
“We should form a band.”
 
Both Emma and Charlotte turned to stare at Deirdre, who hadn’t shown any interest in the musical conversation up until that point.
 
“I’d be the singer, obviously.” Deirdre continued.
 
“Obviously,” Emma laughed, “since you can’t play anything.”
 
“I’ll woo them with my presence and beauty,” Deirdre laughed, sweeping back her hair and dancing like Siouxsie Sioux around the table.
 
That night, alone in her bedroom, Charlotte strummed along as she sang the lyrics to the Cure song, ‘Just like Heaven’ and imagined standing on stage.
 
Being in a band would be fun, she reasoned, even if it was just the three of them singing covers of Cure songs. They’d need to get a drummer though. Charlotte made a mental note to ask Emma tomorrow about who was the drummer in her band.
 
The next morning, as soon as Charlotte walked into the art room, Deirdre held up a piece of paper. Charlotte looked at it. It was a black and white drawing of three silhouetted figures, all backcombed hair, short dresses and boots. She looked at the writing underneath.
 
“The Whirling Dervishes?”
 
“I was just messing about with some cover art.” Deirdre blushed.
 
“I like it,” Charlotte grinned. “But more importantly,” she looked at Emma. “Who was the drummer in your band?”
 
It turned out the drummer had been a few years older than them and he’d left a few months ago to go work on the building sites in London.
 
“We could ask around and put a notice up in the music room in the centre.”
 
Charlotte nodded. She knew no one in the town apart from Deirdre and Emma so couldn’t make any suggestions.
 
That evening, Charlotte brought her guitar around to Emma’s. Deirdre was already there and the three of them practised a couple of Cure songs until they were finally in time and in tune. Charlotte was pleasantly surprised at how good Deirdre’s voice was and how well she could sing.
 
Deirdre quickly found her role as the driving force behind the band. It was her idea to try a mellow, slowed down, almost ethereal version of ‘Just like Heaven.’ Deirdre’s haunting voice was supported by Charlotte’s soft picking of the chords and Emma’s slow mournful bass track.
 
The Whirling Dervishes first practice session was rudely interrupted by Emma’s mum knocking on the door and informing them that since Emma’s little sister was going to bed, the music would have to stop.
 
Friday night came round again and as they were getting ready, Charlotte nonchalantly asked if Fiona was about. But Emma informed her Fiona was heading to London for an interview for art college on Monday. She would be spending all weekend panicking and rearranging her portfolio for the seventeenth time.
 
Charlotte did her best to hide her disappointment and was soon distracted when Dierdre announced that she might have a drummer. Charlotte felt her interest grow as Deirdre explained who he was. He was the same age as them and went to the boy’s grammar school down the road. He was a Curehead too. Deirdre blushed a little when she said both she and Emma had gone out with him in the past. 

“So if I go out with him, he’ll have been with the whole set?” Charlotte giggled and had to duck as Emma threw a can of hairspray at her.

Charlotte looked around as they entered The Alleyman’s Bar. It was dingy and the walls were plastered in old music posters. There were heavy metal, pop and country music posters with no discernible theme or genre. Emma saw her looking at them and told Charlotte that the owner got them from the local record shop and put up whatever the record shop gave him. 

Deirdre ordered three pints of snakebite and blackcurrant and while she waited for change, Emma put some money in the cigarette machine to buy a packet of Marlboro Lights. Charlotte noticed there weren’t as many alternative people as there had been in Derry the week before but a local band was going to play a bit later and at least Joy Division was playing over the PA system.

They were on their second pint when a couple of guys walked up to them.

“Alright Deirdre, how’s it going?”

“Hey, Fergal.” Deirdre threw her arms around the taller man and hugged him while giving him a peck on the cheek. When she’d disentangled herself, she turned and introduced him to Charlotte.

It turned out that Fergal was the potential drummer and Charlotte could see why Emma and Deirdre had both gone out with him. He had the most amazing blue eyes, high cheekbones and long full eyelashes. Charlotte found herself staring at them as he smiled at her and asked her how she was finding life in Strabane so far.

Deirdre butted in and explained to Fergal that they were looking for a drummer. She described the band; their name, that their musical influences ranged from Siouxsie and the Banshees to The Cure and back again and that Charlotte was the guitarist and she was the singer. He smiled at Charlotte and said he’d love to help them out with getting started but he couldn’t guarantee how long he’d be around. School was breaking up in a couple of weeks and he might head off to London to look for a summer job. They agreed that he’d book a practice slot and let them know when the first proper rehearsal was.

After he was gone, Deirdre was buzzing and despite the band being a pretty average pub band, Charlotte really enjoyed herself. As they walked back home, all the talk was on their new band and what songs they’d play.

Wednesday evening came and Charlotte and Emma carried their guitar cases down the road towards the community centre. Deirdre had her ghetto-blaster and a compilation tape with all the potential songs for cover versions. As they turned the corner, they heard the hiss of static and an English accent calling out a car registration number.

“Just hold it there, girls.”

The order was polite but definitely an order. The three of them stopped and waited. A soldier with his machine gun strapped across his chest approached while two other soldiers covered them from vantage points on either side of the street. 

“They’re guitars,” Emma snapped sourly at him before he had opened his mouth. He shrugged and unslung the machine gun and held it in one hand while he told them to put the cases on the ground.

“Open them.” 

Charlotte and Emma reached down and unclipped the flight cases and lifted the lids. Charlotte’s pride and joy, an imitation black Les Paul guitar sat in the red velvet-lined case. The solder barely glanced at it before moving to look at Emma’s black bass guitar with the IRL car sticker slapped across the body. Emma rolled her eyes in anticipation of a remark about the sticker but he just nodded and told them to carry on. The girls quickly closed the cases and hurried away from the patrol.

When they got to the Community Centre, Fergal was already waiting for them in the rehearsal room. He’d the drums set up and was tapping the sticks against his thigh as he read the latest edition of NME.

Deirdre handed him a piece of paper with the names of the four songs they’d been practising over the past week and talked him through the sound she wanted. Fergal politely listened then suggested the three of them started the song and he’d join in with what he thought would suit best.

Emma nodded in agreement and started up the bass line to ‘A Strange Day’, the standout track for Charlotte from the Pornography album. Fergal brought a loud pounding tomtom beat to complement Emma’s bass line and Charlotte slowly picked her way through the lead guitar solo. All three of them watched Deirdre as she stepped up to the microphone.

Deirdre seemed to move in a trance as she sang. She gripped the mic stand and closed her eyes and Charlotte decided haunting was really the only word to describe her voice. When they’d finished, Fergal suggested they run through it again and he had a few suggestions for each of them to try things a little differently. By the end of the session, Charlotte was buzzing. It had gone much better than she’d thought and Deirdre was already scribbling down lyrics for a new original song. 

Fergal said goodbye to everyone and waved a cheeky salute at Charlotte before heading out the door. As soon as he was gone, both Emma and Deirdre turned on Charlotte. 

“Whatever you do, don’t go out with him. It’ll only wreck the band when you two split up.”

“Jesus, you really are the optimistic sort. We’ve barely said two words and you already have us getting together and splitting up again.”

"No, seriously. We both know he’s drop-dead gorgeous but don’t do it, for the sake of the band.”

Charlotte reluctantly agreed and the three of them headed through the now deserted streets back to their houses.

“Oh, by the way,” Emma announced, just as Charlotte was at her front gate. “Fiona got into Central St Martins. She’s over the moon. I said we’d help her celebrate on Friday.”

Charlotte and Deirdre both agreed and she went inside, just in time to hear her Dad tell them all about the latest scandal at the knicker factory.

Friday night and Fiona chauffeured the three friends like before. As Charlotte watched the band, she saw Dortz in the melee, dancing, his fringe flopping from side to side as he danced from one foot to the other. He looked as cute as the last time she’d seen him and the memory of her giving him a handjob in the alleyway made her blush.

Their eyes momentarily locked across the dance floor before the dry ice machine kicked in and the room filled with smoke. He appeared through the mist and smiled, his head cocked to one side.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he grinned. “I thought you’d been kidnapped.”

“Sorry, no, just exiled in Strabane.” 

She grinned back at him, biting her bottom lip as she took a step closer.

He wrapped his arms around her, lowered his head and kissed her. They played tonsil tennis as their tongues swirled. Charlotte felt herself melt into him as they kissed. She felt him guide her towards the hard plastic chairs that dotted the perimeter of the room. They slipped into two empty chairs in the corner and continued to make out.

Dortz’s hands slid over Charlotte’s laddered tights as he edged his fingertips under the hem of her skirt. Charlotte relaxed a little when she realised no one could see what he was doing. His other hand was wrapped around her shoulder with his body shielding her from view.

He kissed his way along her jaw, forcing her to tilt her head back. She felt his teeth on her earlobe as he whispered how much he’d enjoyed her wanking him off the week before. His hand was on her inner thigh now, fingers thrust between her legs. She spread her legs a little wider to give him the access he needed and moaned softly, biting her lip as his fingers brushed the gusset of her purple satin knickers.

She knew he wouldn’t be able to get through the layers of nylon and satin but squirmed as his fingers teased her. She felt his stubble rubbing against her neck and sighed as she felt her knickers get damp. She nodded in agreement to his whispered offer, “Do you want to go outside?”

She surreptitiously tugged her skirt down as she stood up and followed Dortz down the winding staircase and out into the back alley, unaware that several people had noticed her leaving.

In the alley, Dortz pushed her against the wall and his fingers pawed at her breasts as he kissed her again. She thought back to the previous summer and how she’d lost her virginity in similar circumstances. That time was up against the wall of the community centre back in Bootle. By this time, Dortz’s hand was inside her tee-shirt and scooping her left breast out of the bra. The fingers of one hand gripped her hair while he rolled the nipple with the other.

His tongue swirled in her mouth as he kissed her. Her eyes gazed at him as he pawed at her. His hand dropped, tugging the front of the skirt up. He squirmed his hand under the skirt and tried to put his hand inside her tights and knickers but the layers of clothing were too constricting.

He gave up with a muttered “for fuck’s sake” and unzipped his trousers. He put his hand on her shoulder and tried to guide her down onto her knees. She pulled back. Her eyes blazed as she told him, “No.”

He didn’t release his grip on her hair but instead, tightened it and tugged harder, trying to force her down.

“You fucking Brits are all the same, a bunch of dirty wee slags,” he growled.

Charlotte struggled but he was bigger and stronger than her and had a tight grip on her hair. Just when she thought he was going to overpower her, she heard voices calling her name.

“Charlotte, come on, where the fuck are you? We need to go.”

“I’m coming Emma,” Charlotte shouted back, giving Dortz a dirty look when he finally released her hair.

“Fucking slag,” he growled.

“Fucking prick!”

Charlotte quickly hurried to the entrance of the alley and hugged Emma and Deirdre. Deirdre gave a hmmph noise as she traced her finger over the stubble rash on Charlotte’s neck but didn’t say anything.

Everyone was quiet on the drive home. Fiona tried to liven the mood but Emma kept shutting her down. Finally, Fiona turned to Charlotte when she was stopped in the queue at a checkpoint.

“Charlotte, are you free tomorrow?”

“Should be, why?”

“I’m doing my final project for college and I was wondering if I could take a few photos of you for reference?”

“Sure, why not.”

The conversation stopped as Fiona wound down her window and produced her driving licence for the soldier. Charlotte watched the soldier crouched in the opposite driveway train his gun on them while the soldier at Fiona’s window shone his torch over their faces to see who was in the car. After a confirmation from the control room that neither Fiona nor the car was flagged on any wanted list on the computer, he waved them on.

“Call round tomorrow about 11 o’clock.”

Charlotte nodded in agreement and watched Fiona drive off to drop off Deirdre and take Emma home. She’d hoped Fiona would have got rid of the other two first so they could have some time alone again like last time but at least she’d see her tomorrow.

Both Emma and Deirdre had Saturday jobs so it was just going to be Charlotte and Fiona on the photoshoot. When Charlotte knocked on the door, Emma’s mum sent her straight up to Fiona’s old bedroom.

She knocked on the bedroom door and entered to find Fiona laying out several different outfits on the bed. She smiled at Charlotte and held a black lace dress up to her.

“I think this one should fit you. Do you want to try it on?”

“Here? Or should I go to the bathroom?”

“It’s up to you. Whatever you’re comfortable with.” Fiona smiled and Charlotte was sure she had blushed a little.

Charlotte took the dress from Fiona and laid it back on the bed and pulled off her tee-shirt and quickly pushed down her tied dyed gypsy skirt. She felt slightly self-conscious standing in only her bra and knickers in front of Fiona but she was determined for Fiona not to think she was a prude. She pulled the lace dress over her head and wriggled from side to side as she tugged it down and into place. She grinned sheepishly at Fiona as she straightened the bodice.

“How do I look?” she half-whispered.

“Perfect,” Fiona whispered back as she flicked a hair back behind charlotte’s ear. “Sit down here and I’ll do your make-up.”

Charlotte was in heaven. She spent the next twenty minutes just staring into Fiona’s smoky grey eyes as the older girl applied full goth makeup and styled her hair into a backcombed bird's nest.

“Just perfect,” Fiona whispered, smiling as she finally stepped back. She handed Charlotte a pair of fishnet holdups and asked her to put them on. Then it was time for the grand reveal. 

Charlotte could see Fiona nervously biting a fingernail but Charlotte couldn’t help a small gasp of excitement escape as she saw herself in the mirror. She looked so good. The purple eyeshadow and heavy kohl eyeliner gave her a moody haunted look. The hem of the dress flared out to show her stocking-clad legs and the fourteen-hole DM boots.

“Shall we go take some pictures then?”

Charlotte nodded and grinned and followed Fiona outside to her car. The two girls headed down the road with Charlotte leafing through Fiona’s tape collection before finally settling on the ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ album, 

It was only when the large signs warning that they were approaching the border crossing appeared that Charlotte realised there were going to cross the border into the Irish Republic.

“Fiona, I’ve no passport.”

Charlotte stared confused as Fiona burst into laughter. “Oh, Charlotte. You don’t need a passport to go into Ireland.”

Charlotte stared around her. There were watchtowers, machine-gun posts and armed soldiers with dogs. It looked like the photographs Charlotte had seen in her history books of the crossing points between East and West Germany.

She watched a solder using a mirror on a pole to check underneath the car in front for bombs as Fiona wound down the window and handed the soldier her driving license.

“Where are you going, Miss McGuire?”

“To take photographs for an art project.”

“Is this your vehicle?”

“It is.”

Charlotte had never seen Fiona so tense and tight-lipped before. Every answer was given with Fiona staring straight ahead. It was only after they had driven over the ramps and had crossed the border past a very bored-looking Irish Customs official that Fiona breathed a sigh of relief.

“Sorry about that, Charlotte,” Fiona smiled. “I always get nervous that their computer will make a mistake and flag us as terrorists or something. A friend of mine spent six hours there one night watching the Army dismantle his car searching for explosives.”

“Did they find any?”

“No, of course not. Doesn’t stop them doing it though.”

Fiona drove on in silence while Charlotte tried to get her head around the fact all this was going on and no one in England knew anything about it.

As the roads became narrower and narrower and more and more deserted, Charlotte asked Fiona if she knew where they were going.

Fiona smiled and pointed in front of them.

“We’re just about here.”

She pulled into a layby on the side of the road, by a gap in a high stone wall. The wall was old and crumbling with ivy tendrils swirling all over it. When they stepped through the gap in the wall, Charlotte gasped. In front of them was a ruined church and all around them were dilapidated and overgrown headstones.

Fiona had a very expensive-looking camera around her neck and she explained to Charlotte what she wanted her to do. Charlotte’s role was to look moody and mysterious and gothic while Fiona moved around, directing her, posing her and snapping away with the camera.

It was a beautiful setting. Charlotte could hear the birds in the trees and realised she couldn’t hear the sound of traffic at all. They were completely alone.

“Ok Charlotte, can you lie down on top of the gravestone?”

Fiona indicated an old table gravestone that was overgrown with moss and ivy.

“I want it to look like it is your bed and you’ve just been ravished by your lover.”

Charlotte looked at her, one eyebrow raised. At least Fiona looked slightly embarrassed by the request. 

“But what if I’ve never been ravished by a lover?” Charlotte responded, biting her lip and twirling from side to side, rocking on her heels. 

Fiona put the camera down and took the three steps necessary to reach Charlotte and took her in her arms and kissed her passionately on the lips. Her fingers moved over Charlotte’s face and hair as her lips kissed Charlotte’s mouth and nose and eyelids.

Fiona guided Charlotte to lie back on the stone as her fingers ran down the bodice of Charlotte’s dress and climbed on top of her. She straddled Charlotte and leant down to kiss her neck. Her lips traced the girl’s collarbone. Charlotte arched her back, eyes closed, lips parted as Fiona tasted her flesh.

Fiona shuffled down Charlotte’s body, her fingers gripped the hem of Charlotte’s dress and tugged it up to reveal stocking tops and a pair of pink panties with an obvious damp patch. Fiona licked her lips as she grinned at Charlotte. Charlotte’s only response was to spread her legs wider as Fiona leant in and dragged the flat of her tongue along the length of Charlotte’s slit. She felt Charlotte’s flavour explode on her tongue as the girl writhed beneath her. She wrapped her fingers in the waistband of Charlotte’s knickers and gently tugged them down. She leant back, kneeling on the stone as she pulled the knickers off and dropped them onto the grass. 

Charlotte let her legs fall open, her thighs splayed, her labia glistened in a coating of her own juices. As Fiona leant in again, she pushed the dress higher and saw the triangle of matted brown curls pointing towards her dripping slit. 

Fiona spread Charlotte open with her thumbs and ran her tongue through the folds, scooping more of Charlotte’s flavour onto her tongue. She could hear the little breathless “Fucks” in Charlotte’s Liverpudlian accent every time she dragged the tip of her tongue over and around Charlotte’s clit. 

Fiona pushed her tongue inside Charlotte. She moved her head from side to side, pushing the tongue in deeper as her nose rubbed against Charlotte’s clit. The girl’s hips jerked in response and Fiona’s fingers squeezed Charlotte’s ass as she ate her out.

She pulled her tongue slowly out of Charlotte and ran it over and around her clit again. Two of Fiona’s fingers easily slid inside Charlotte. The fingers stretched the wet velvet and Charlotte cried out as Fiona curled her fingers inside her and tapped out a rhythm on her g spot.

Charlotte squirmed, pinned to the gravestone by one of Fiona’s arms across her stomach. Fiona sucked harder on her clit, sucking it into her mouth. Charlotte felt the orgasm build. Fiona’s long slender fingers were shoved deeper and harder and faster inside her. The combination of fingers inside her and Fiona’s mouth on her clit were pushing her closer to the tipping point.

Even though they were in the middle of nowhere, Charlotte clasped a hand over her mouth to muffle to scream as the orgasm washed over her. She bucked and writhed on Fiona’s face. She knew Fiona would be wearing her orgasm. She felt her juices splash on Fiona’s face as she wrapped her legs around the girl’s head.

Finally, she collapsed back onto the stone. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She dragged lungfuls of oxygen into her lungs as she felt Fiona licking the cum from the tops of her thighs with her tongue. 

She lifted her head and watched as Fiona reached down and pulled her short black denim skirt up and tugged her own knickers down. Then she crawled up over Charlotte’s prone body and straddled her, lowering her pussy down onto Charlotte’s face.

Charlotte stared at the triangle of blonde curls. The realisation Fiona dyed her hair flitted briefly in her head before she inhaled their scent and thrust out her tongue in anticipation of the taste. Fiona was soaked too and Charlotte greedily sucked and lapped at her pussy as Fiona ground herself down onto Charlotte’s face. Fiona gripped Charlotte’s spikey backcombed hair and pulled Charlotte’s face deeper into her. She circled her hips, smearing her juices over Charlotte’s face, marking her with her scent. Charlotte knew the carefully applied makeup would be smeared, covered by a glistening sheen of pussy juices but by this stage she was beyond caring. She was only the model and if Fiona wanted her makeup smeared with cum, who was she to stop her.

Fiona started to move her hips faster and faster. The grip on Charlotte’s hair tightened and she could feel Fiona tense. Her breathing had changed, she was now panting and little bird-like whimpers were escaping her mouth. As Charlotte thrust her tongue out to drag along Fiona’s slit and over her clit, again and again, Fiona threw her head back and shuddered as she came all over Charlotte’s face.

Charlotte drank as much as she could. She felt the honeyed cum running over her cheeks and chin as Fiona ground herself against Charlotte’s mouth until finally, Fiona stopped.

She collapsed on top of Charlotte’s face. She knelt on the stone, feeling Charlotte’s breath on her pulsing clit as the aftershocks ravaged her body. Finally, she dragged herself off Charlotte, pausing to kiss her once before whispering for her to stay there. Fiona picked up the camera and slowly circled Charlotte as she lay slumped on the gravestone. Fiona snapped picture after picture of Charlotte’s ravished, spent body as she lay slumped, one arm hanging over the side of the gravestone, the lace dress pulled up, exposing a fishnet stocking top and her hair and makeup dishevelled and smeared.

When Fiona had shot the entire reel of film, she walked back to Charlotte and kissed her tenderly on the lips. The two lovers gazed into each other’s eyes.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”