CHAPTER 4 - Girls Watching Girls.

On a weekend morning, free from the demands of a school timetable or anything she needed to do, Katherine would normally take it easy. She'd sleep in, watch TV in her pyjamas with a big bowl of some sugary cereal, and probably not actually get dressed until close to lunchtime.

Which would explain why, at 10 o'clock on this particular Saturday morning, she was struggling to resist yawning. Who was up and about this early by choice? she grumbled to herself.

She was at school. Or, more accurately, she was at the small sports hall on the school grounds. This was available to the public outside of school hours and acted as a normal, albeit fairly small, leisure centre. Katherine had never heard of such a thing but nobody else thought anything strange of it.

The reason why she was in this particular hall, far too early for a weekend, lay in the assorted bits of gymnastic equipment that filled the space. It was all being used by a collection of girls, some young and some her age or older, for a variety of exercises she couldn't follow.

Gymnastics had never been Katherine's thing. As the victim of bullying in her previous school, she'd steered well clear of anything that drew attention to herself. She had preferred to instead spend her free time either on her own or with her mother, a woman who appreciated the challenges redheads can often face.

It wasn't that she didn't know what gymnastics was, she just wasn't interested.

"I like your top. It's very retro."

This was Yolanda. She and Katherine were sitting, along with some other people, on one of two long wooden benches that had been placed along one side of the hall, far enough away to give the various gymnasts some space.

Katherine's very first impression of Yolanda had been somebody whose clothes somehow looked smarter than everybody else's, even though they were all wearing the same school uniform. And this impression still applied. Katherine didn't know much about fashion but even she could tell how well Yolanda's clothes fit her, and how well they complimented her dark black skin. Yolanda looked good.

By comparison, Katherine felt badly under-dressed. She had very deliberately chosen the most inoffensive, impersonal, clothes she possessed for this morning. This was the first time her newfound friends would see her in anything other than school clothes and she was determined not to take any chances.

She muttered her thanks and tried to resist the urge to cross her arms thus 'accidentally' covering her t-shirt. It was 'Retro'? What, she wondered, was so retro about it? She'd only got it a few months ago...

"We shoulda have brung popcorn. Anybody bring a snack or something?" came a voice from the bench behind her.

"We're not at the movies, Fi." a second voice replied. "You should have had a proper breakfast."

"Feck." the first voice grumbled.

These voices belonged to Fiona and Claire. That Irish twang and that sarcastic note couldn't possibly have come from anybody else.

In the days since Katherine had first encountered these girls, she had come to a much better understanding of them. She spent every lunch break with the group and shared some of her classes with them, although not all at the same time.

Yolanda was very clearly the one in charge. She was the one who told the other girls what to do. They often complained about it but Katherine noticed that, more times than not, what Yolanda said was what was done. Perhaps because it was she who hosted the big sleepovers where the bulk of the group's sapphic shenanigans took place. Katherine had heard a lot of stories about the girls' kinky exploits by this point. It did nothing at all to help her sexual frustration.

Fiona, the one who asked about popcorn, was a nice and friendly girl who was more than prepared to hit somebody if they crossed her. It wasn't so much that she had a temper, Katherine had realised, but more that she wasn't afraid to stand up for what she believed in, which was something Katherine found very intriguing.

She was also intrigued by Fiona's accent. It seemed to come and go according to the strength of her feelings. When Fiona was particularly annoyed or excited about something she was practically incomprehensible.

Claire was an interesting one. Katherine had come to realise that the tall blonde probably wasn't the cold-hearted monster she first thought. Claire had a fine line in sarcastic, dry, humour. Combining that with having a perfect example of 'resting bitch face' made the girl seem far nastier than she actually was.

Probably.

Claire was still a bit of a mystery to Katherine, if she was honest. She didn't feel like she had really cracked the other girl yet. But the two got on reasonably well and that was a result in Katherine's eyes.

That just left one person in her new group of friends. The short, irrepressible, hyper-energetic, ball of chaos that was the reason why she was here so early.

"Hey, there she is! Over there!" said Claire, echoing Katherine's thoughts.

She followed the pointing finger and realised with a shock that she wouldn't have noticed the last member of her friend group if they hadn't been pointed out.

Standing by a large mat, talking to an instructor, was Terri. Her long, jet-black, hair was tied into a simple ponytail that exposed the serious and sober expression on her face. There was no hint of a smile about her and she looked somehow fragile and delicate. In fact, Terri looked so different to how Katherine normally saw her that she almost didn't recognise her.

"Feck, she looks nervous," Fiona observed quietly.

"This is her last one, isn't it?" asked Yolanda. "After this, it's the next level?"

"If she does well enough, aye," Fiona confirmed. "If not she'll have ta rethink the whole routine. Like, the whole thing. Not something I'd want ta have ta do."

"No, that's true. I know she's been practising for ages. That would be really disheartening, even for her."

"She's looking for us. Quick, everybody look happy." interrupted Claire.

Terri was now on her own, the man she'd been talking to having walked off. To Katherine's mind, she looked scared. Like a little girl lost in the forest in some old fairytale, the wolves slowly circling her. Certainly not the feisty and enthusiastic sixteen-year-old Katherine had come to know.

But then Terri saw the group waving, her face lit up with joy, and she was back to her normal self.

And then she grinned.

"Urgh, dammit. I knew I should have brought my sunglasses."

"How does she do that? Ya could power the whole town with that face o' hers, ya really could."

"Ladies, please." Yolanda admonished gently.

Katherine said nothing. She wasn't immune to Terri's legendary megawatt grin but, now she wasn't worried so much about her friend's happiness, she began to notice just what the other girl was wearing. And she felt her pulse start to increase.

Really, it was nothing out of the ordinary. All the other girls were wearing leotards as well. Katherine had owned one herself when she was young. It was a practical item of clothing for any activity that needed free movement of the arms and legs while keeping all the naughty bits hidden away from view.

But there was something about the one that Terri was wearing. It seemed almost like it was painted on. While the other leotards around the hall were clearly designed to draw attention away from what was underneath, clothing manufacturers not being stupid, Terri's looked like it did the exact opposite. It accentuated her body and highlighted her curves.

Terri's breasts, not being something Katherine had ever really thought about while at school, were clearly defined by the taut fabric. Katherine could see exactly how small they were and couldn't help but picture how they'd vanish in her hands.

The material continued over Terri's flat stomach, bulged over her public mound, and passed between her legs to cradle her small bottom. It was as though nothing was left to the imagination. Although Katherine couldn't see what was beneath the leotard she had absolutely no difficulty imagining what Terri looked like beneath it.

To make matters worse, the garment was cut high on the hip. Terri was only four foot six, a mere one hundred and thirty-seven centimetres. Despite actually being one of the oldest in the group, she was positively tiny compared to the rest of the girls. But it seemed that most of that height was made up of pure leg. They seemed incredibly, unbearably, long and Katherine marvelled at how, thanks to the leotard, she could see every single square inch of them.

"Are you alright, Katherine?" Yolanda's voice came as if from far away. Katherine forced herself to look away from the vision in front of her and turn to her neighbour.

"Yeah. Yeah, no I'm fine." she managed.

"You look a little flushed. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, definitely. Nothing to worry about. Just a little hot, that's all. It's kinda warm in here." Katherine replied, improvising madly, "Besides I'm a redhead. My people blush easily."

She cursed herself. 'My people'? 'My people’? Did she really say that? And did she have to say that to Yolanda of all things?

Yolanda, for her part, simply raised an immaculately trimmed eyebrow and glanced back to where Terri was doing some warming-up exercises.

"Rrrrrright..." she said, dragging the word out in an amused tone.

Katherine felt herself blush for real and turned back to face the hall, hoping to bring it back under control. As she did so, she looked back over to Terri and realised with a shock that her friend wasn't wearing something scandalous. It was just a normal leotard, nothing more or less. The rush of sexually-charged fascination that had torn through Katherine's mind had been entirely her own imagination. Yes, the garment was close-fitting but no more so than any other in the room.

What was wrong with her? One slight hint that somebody she knew might have tits and she was a mess. Get it together, Katherine! she screamed at herself.

And then the music started.

"Shaddup now," hissed Fiona, "she's on!"

Terri now stood, still as a statue, at the corner of the mat. Her arms were straight out at her sides as the sound of a stringed instrument filled the hall. No melody yet, just one long note rising slowly in pitch.

As the pitch grew higher, so too did Terri's arms, rising higher and higher towards the roof of the hall. Just as her arms reached the top, her fingers pointing straight upwards, the note stopped. Then the bass and the tune kicked in. A fast, intense, track with a beat that got into the brain.

Then Terri moved.

Katherine felt her jaw drop. She had no idea what to expect. She knew that a floor routine involved some rhythmic movement to go along with all the actual gymnastic stuff... but she never expected this.

Terri moved like a snake, dancing to the music in ways Katherine never would have thought possible. The girl was impossibly lithe. Every single step, every single movement, was perfect. She was graceful yet sensual and, through it all, incredibly agile. And she'd only just started.

After a few seconds of dancing, Terri set her sights on the opposite corner of the mat and took off, exploding into a run like a champion greyhound.

As she ran, she fell into a cartwheel that somehow turned into a pair of backflips that saw her flying through the air, twisting as she soared, before thudding back on the mat with both feet. She posed, completely steady as a rock, and Katherine's friends applauded enthusiastically.

Katherine did not applaud. Katherine did not think of applauding. Katherine could barely think at all.

The whole thing had taken just seconds but had completely blown her away. Terri was so fast and so nimble, the whole sequence seeming completely effortless to her. Katherine had absolutely no idea her friend could do anything like this.

But, before Katherine could even try to think about raising her hands to start clapping, Terri was off again. Katherine's mind gave up and, for the rest of Terri's performance, all she could do was watch. The petite, raven-haired girl tumbled and spun. She flipped and rolled. She stretched and bent. She did things with her body that Katherine knew she would never be able to do in a million years.

All of it was perfectly in time with the music. All of it was perfectly in control. And all of it was absolutely, genuinely, astonishing to watch.

When the routine finally came to a close, and Terri bowed to the judges and made her way out of the hall to, presumably, get changed, Katherine felt as though she was a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut.

Distantly she became aware that her friends were talking.

"Of course, I could do that. Ya know, if I wanted ta."

"Do you think that was good enough for the judges?"

"Beats me. I've no idea what they look for, do they?"

Yolanda stood up and brushed some non-existent dust off her skirt.

"Well, we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed then, won't we?" she stated. "Come on, let's go and meet her outside."

Katherine rose with the others and noticed that the girls were the only ones to do so, which took her by surprise.

"Aren't Terri's parents here?" she asked.

Claire gave a derisive laugh.

"Ha! No chance. They don't exactly get on."

"But this is a big deal to her, isn't it? I mean I would have thought..."

"Yes, but the thing is, " Claire cut in, "the Freeman family have problems. It's kind of a long story. Let's just say that the day they show up at one of these things is the day you know the world is going to end."

Katherine thought about this as they walked. If she was in Terri's place, her mother would have moved Heaven and Earth to be there. The two of them were incredibly close. She just couldn't imagine a parent just not caring about their daughter like that.

It made her incredibly grateful to have somebody who loved her and looked out for her as much as her mother did. Her mother even changed jobs and moved to a different town for her daughter. That's what a parent should be like for their children.

This train of thought made Katherine think how lucky she was. Not just to have a great mother but to have found friends like the girls she was following. She had experienced such a bad time before she moved here that she once thought she'd never actually be happy again.

But, even though she still wasn't sure how she felt about her friends' sexual lifestyle, and even though part of her was worried this was all a trap and that things were about to go wrong, she realised she was in a much better place. The future looked promising for once.

And it was all thanks to the four people she shared a table with on her first day here. The people who were the first ones ever to invite her to do something outside of school, not because they had to but because they wanted to.

"Guys," she said as they were about to leave the corridor they were in and head outside, "can you wait a sec?"

She took a deep breath and, before she had a chance to lose her nerve, she started talking.

She told the three other girls, Yolanda, Fiona, and Claire, what had happened to her in her previous school. She told them why she had moved so far away from where she was living. Katherine told her friends all about how she'd been bullied.

She'd keep it silent for so long. She hadn't really intended to tell anybody. But the girls had made such a difference to her already.

When she finished, her cheeks glowing with embarrassment, there was silence.

Then Fiona stepped forward and put her hand on Katherine's shoulder.

"Kat," she said, looking her dead in the eye, "if anybody, an' I mean anybody, ever treats ya like that again ya let me know. An' I will beat... tha... ever-loving... shite... outta... them."

The other two added their own words of agreement.

Katherine didn't trust herself to speak. She felt worn out. The morning had been an emotional roller-coaster for her and she was wiped.

"Come on," said Yolanda after a moment or two to let Katherine recover, "Terri will be waiting."

Terri was not waiting. Terri was nowhere to be seen.

"Of course," Claire said, shaking her head, "she probably has to get showered and all that first. We've come out early - even she isn't that fast."

This took Katherine by surprise. From what she understood, Claire and Terri had spent most of their childhood together. Surely Claire would know how long these things took.

"Haven't you been to one of these before?" she asked.

"Not for a while. This was always Te's thing, not mine. She's the fitness junkie. I like my morning lie-ins too much."

"It works though," Fiona interjected, "that was really good. Best floor routine I've seen in ages."

"Oh?" Katherine was surprised. Fiona hadn't mentioned anything about understanding gymnastics. "You follow this?"

"Pretty girls in wee leotards," Fiona answered with a shrug as if that was all she needed to say. Which it probably was.

"Terri's coming," announced Yolanda.

Terri was indeed coming, and was coming with good news.

"I passed! Nearly perfect scores!" she declared excitedly as soon as she saw the group.

Katherine tried to join in as the others congratulated Terri loudly and eagerly. She did her best but she was aware of how self-conscious it made her.

Fiona, on the other hand, had squealed with excitement when she heard the news and rushed to wrap Terri up in a giant hug. Fiona wasn't that big a girl but Terri was so small it didn't matter - big hugs just automatically became giant ones.

"Does this mean you've gone up a level?" Katherine asked, remembering the conversation from earlier.

Terri's face was lost in the depths of Fiona's curly hair but she must have heard the question.

"Yup! Gettin' a certificate and everythin'." came the muffled reply.

"Great. That's very cool. Very cool."

Katherine couldn't think of anything else to say. Her social experience didn't extend this far. She was happy for Terri, sure, but she didn't know what else to do about it. She certainly didn't feel like she could get away with offering a hug of her own.

"So what do we do now?" asked Claire once Terri had been released. "It's not even 11 o'clock yet."

"I need to do some clothes shoppin', I think," Terri replied. "The elastic on these things has pretty much gone. Look."

With that, she lifted up her top to just above her belly button, exposing her midriff and showing just how low her sweatpants were.

"For goodness sakes, Terri." exclaimed Yolanda who was standing behind her. "Do you EVER wear underwear? I'm looking at a good few inches of butt crack here."

Terri blinked innocently.

"See what I mean? If I don't get new ones soon, I'm going to end up flashin' everyone."

"You could always just wear knickers occasionally. You never know, you might actually come to like it. And then you can do it every day like a normal person." suggested Claire.

Katherine didn't comment. The sight of Terri's bare stomach had started unwelcome thoughts whirling through her mind again.

"Can we get some lunch while we're in town?" asked Fiona. "I'm starving."

Yolanda nodded in agreement.

"Sure, we could eat. Are you joining us, Katherine?"

Katherine panicked. She had just been able to convince herself to come out this morning, at least this was technically in school. But hanging out with people in an unknown town centre for an unknown length of time? What if something happened? What if somebody did something? What if her friends realised they didn't actually like her at all and left her there?

She couldn't. It was too much.

"Ooh, I would but I promised I'd help my mum finish the unpacking this afternoon. Sorry."

"Oh. That's not a problem. Next time, maybe?" Yolanda replied with a smile that was a bit too knowing for Katherine's liking.

She nodded and, after saying their goodbyes, the girls walked away.

She heard a quick snippet of conversation...

"Hey, I realised somethin'. This right here is our first official club outing."

"We are not a club."

... and then they were gone.

Katherine heaved a sigh and headed home. She hadn't been entirely untruthful, there were still boxes left to unpack, but she didn't manage to touch any of them. Instead throughout the rest of the day her mind kept returning to her earlier thoughts about Terri. In particular to the way she reacted to the other girl's body. There was no denying the intense arousal she'd felt.

Was that just due to her current sexual obsession, an obsession that was understandable with the people she spent time with. She was still a virgin, her friends were not. It was inevitable her thoughts would lead that way.

Or was there more to it?

She remembered how she had imagined holding Terri's breasts in her hands. Where did that image come from?

By the evening, she gave up. She said goodnight to her mother and went to bed early. She was tired, yes, but she wasn't intending to sleep.

But even in the privacy of her own room, with the lights off, and her head under the covers so nobody could hear, she found that she still couldn't give herself an orgasm. She kept nearly getting there but her body just wouldn't go that extra inch and give in.

Not even when she tried to imagine Terri in bed next to her, doing the same thing she was doing.

Eventually, drained and exhausted, she decided to try to get some sleep for real.

As she slept, dreaming bizarre and confused dreams, Katherine had no idea that something she had done that morning had started a ball rolling. A ball that was about to knock over everything that stood between her and all the sexual pleasure she could ever wish for.