Bren took a breath, gently used his fingertips to grip the corners of the small kitchen table, one of which lay jammed against the wall of the cramped space, and recomposed himself to fix a steady gaze back at Sally.

“So, we’re starting this story,” he cleared his throat again, “with you… playing with yourself?”

Sally sighed, tilted her head, and glared back at Bren, hoping her face hadn’t reddened. She closed her eyes and swept smooth lengths of dirty brown hair back past her ears. When a few seconds had passed, she opened her eyes again and looked at Bren.

“Do you want to hear the story or not?” Sally asked.

“Well, sure,” Bren answered.

“I mean, really,” Sally retorted. “You’re a guy. You spend half your time jerking off.”

“Don’t usually talk about it, though,” Bren’s voice carried a warning note of discomfort.

“Grow up, Bren,” Kendra muttered over her fist before stuffing her knuckles back in her mouth..

“Not that I don’t want to hear Girls Masturbating Stories,” Bren said, “but why are you telling me this?”

“It’s not what you think,” Sally warned him.

Bren took in Kendra’s nervous state and Sally’s anxious attitude, and quickly asked, in a smoothly mocking tone, “No three way?”

“No,” Sally declared.

Slightly chilled by the utter lack of humour from either of his friends, Bren calmed his voice and gave Sally a bewildered look

“So what, then?”

“We need your help,” Sally explained. “Something weird started happening a week ago and, well, there might be a bit of trouble.”

“You weren’t masturbating in public, were you?” Bren asked. “I’m not a lawyer.”

“Just shut up and listen to the story,” Kendra hissed at him.

Bren twitched, his eyes focusing past Kendra, staring out the open window over the kitchen sink.

“What is it?” Sally asked, looking out the same window.

“Nothing,” Bren shook his head and looked back at her. “Thought I saw someone out there.”

Sally and Kendra shared a suspicious glance and turned back toward Bren, their expressions mirrors of exaggerated patience.

“Alright,” Bren held up his palms in surrender. “Tell me your delicious, scary story.”

“It started at that Halloween party, the one we hit two weeks ago,” Sally began. “Kendra and I both went and you chickened out? Remember?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

=============================

The front door of the house opened and a giant Wookie greeted Sally and Kendra. Bass thumped its way out onto the street and the sounds of party goers shouting over the music poured into their ears.

“It’s like there’s a hundred people here,” Kendra’s eyes went wide as she heard the noise. “I didn’t think it’d be this big.”

“Come on in!” the furry beast shouted. “Drinks are in the kitchen!”

Closing the door behind them, sweeping their Elven cloaks past the door, they entered.

“Rivendell! Represent!” someone hollered from a living room down the end of a long hallway, prompting Sally to raise her bow triumphantly.

“Looks like our crowd, though,” Sally put as much encouragement into her voice as she could.

“Guess so.”

Sally held in a sigh. After years of confidences and nights spent celebrating and crying together, dissecting first dates and strange boys, stressful exams and parental issues, she counted Kendra as a great and reliable friend. But Kendra needed little pushes, every now and then, to experience new things and socialize.

“You gotta meet people,” Sally said. “People make life fun.”

“Playing D&D makes life fun,” Kendra replied quietly. “I like Halloween because this is the only time I can dress up in public.”

“And we’re here,” Sally drew Kendra into the throng of party goers, “Let’s have a drink and have fun.”

Kendra shrugged and followed Sally in to the kitchen.

xxxxx

“When are we getting to the masturbating part?” Bren asked.

“Wait,” Sally threatened. “This part is important.”

xxxxx

When they reached the kitchen, they found a vampire and two Stormtroopers staring into a sink in the kitchen’s island.

“Hey!” one of the Stormtroopers looked straight past Kendra and Sally to wave someone else into the kitchen.

Sally turned to see the Wookie approach the others and look into the sink.

“Well, fuck me,” he cursed.

A quieter discussion ensued, which ended with the Wookie marching off into the living room. A moment later, they watched the Wookie drag someone covered in green face paint through the hallway to the front door.

“What happened?” Kendra wondered.

“I didn’t see,” Sally said. “Maybe the guy brought drugs or something?”

“Is it safe to drink, you think?”

“Just have a pop, if you’re worried,” Sally said.

Kendra nodded and, when one of the Stormtroopers offered to mix her something, took a can of cream soda.

“Thanks,” she said meekly.

“Nice costume,” he remarked. “Elf or Eladrin.”

“Eladrin!” Kendra smiled.

“Thought so,” he nodded. “Way fancier clothing.”

Sally asked for a fuzzy navel, which they quickly served over ice.

“You feel safe drinking that?” Kendra asked as they walked away.

“I know these guys,” she said. “Besides, I watched them make it. It’s fine. On top of that, I got you to watch out for me.”

Kendra rolled her eyes and sipped her pop.

“Let’s check out the basement,” Sally told her. “That’s where the music is.”

With a touch of trepidation, Kendra nodded and followed her friend down the stairs. The music grew louder as they descended, the bass pushing right through their skin into their bones, almost strong enough to reprogram their heartbeats.

“Now that I can feel!” Sally announced.

“Yeah!?” Kendra called back, a dubious sort of yell.

Sally pulled her friend out on the dance floor, declaring, “Just go with it!”

xxxxx

“I’m having a tough time believing you started masturbating on the dance floor,” Bren put in.

“No,” Sally said. “Only when I’m alone.”

“Anyway,” Kendra insisted.

“Right,” Sally continued.

xxxxx

Sally and Kendra bumped into several more of their friends from class, forming a cramped, awkward circle of dancers trying to keep in sync to the thumping from the sub-woofers.

“Goddammit,” someone burst into the circle, dressed as a dominatrix complete with the tight black, shiny shorts and the puffy hat.

“Wassamatter?” Sally yelled back, wishing she could remember the girl’s name.

“My flogger,” she said. “I’m sure I left it right on the table over there.”

“Someone stole it?” Kendra asked. “That’s awful.”

Sally saw the look on Kendra’s face, the expression that said she might just crawl back into her shell and never come out again in the incredibly dangerous world Sally had thrust upon her.

“It’s okay,” Sally insisted. “I’m sure it’ll turn up.”

She leaned in close to the dominatrix, “What’s a ‘flogger’ look like?”

“Black. The handle’s about this long,” the girl held her hands about thirty centimetres apart, “The strands are about the same. Gotta be around here somewhere.”

“It’ll turn up,” Sally promised.

The girl grumbled and wandered off, but didn’t argue.

“That sucks,” Kendra observed.

“Yeah,” Sally agreed, “But let’s be honest.”

“About what?”

“Somebody probably borrowed it to use it for a little while.”

“Really?” Kendra’s eyes widened.

Sally nodded and turned back to dance with a guy she recognized from one of her lectures.

xxxxx

“Which guy is this?” Bren wondered.

“It’s not important,” Sally waved him off.

“None of this seems important,” Bren pointed out, “But you’re telling me everything else.”

“Fine.”

xxxxx

Sally nodded and turned aside from Kendra to rub up close to Finn, the big German guy from her English Composition class. She’d always had a bit of a thing for guys with faint accents, and his lederhosen seemed to hit just the right spot for her that night.

You don’t really understand Sally if you don’t know about her penchant for getting aroused at the most inopportune times. She’d never thought her hair trigger sex drive separated her from other people, until she realized that none of her female friends ever had desperate urges to masturbate in the middle of the day while at school. Boys and men? Sure. But girls and women, at the least the ones she knew, never admitted to feeling that insane level of desire.

Finn, probably, could have made out with her if he’d wanted to, but too many people lingered around and he seemed inhibited, so Sally spent some time dancing up against him, again and again throughout the night, but also frequently let him go to return to the circle of dancers.

She and Kendra took a few breaks for drinks, but spent most of the evening on the floor until the host finally turned the music off and started shooing people upstairs.

Sally could feel the slickness between her lips, the heat building every time Finn snuck up behind her or “accidentally” bumped into her.

Unfortunately, he disappeared at the end of the night, leaving Sally wondering if he had possibly gone off with some other girl, the beneficiary of Sally’s efforts.

With some regret, she marched upstairs with her friend.

“Did you have fun?” Sally chided Kendra as they waited at the front door.

“Yes,” Kendra sang out her polite admission, “thank you for dragging me out.”

“Good,” Sally nodded.

At that point, she noticed the frantic dominatrix, still searching.

“Haven’t found your flogger-thingie?” Sally asked.

“Somebody swiped it, I’m sure,” the girl frowned.

“I’ll have a look in the basement,” Sally promised, “You check upstairs.”

“How could it be upstairs?”

“Just check.”

Sally, naturally enough, had already developed a deep, easy, warming sensation between her thighs. She’d hoped to make it home before having to take care of herself, but the basement looked promising and she’d spent far too long rubbing up against the Bavarian while lightly inebriated. Also, masturbating in dangerous places turned her on the more she thought about it.

Marching down the stairs into the darkened basement, she faced the inevitable consequences of her desire. She caught her breath, realizing the party goers had entirely abandoned the space, now only lit by a few candles burning on ledges around her, faithfully maintaining the ambience of Halloween without anyone to notice. Checking the stairway, she chose a long, black couch up against the wall, out of the view of anyone at the top of the stairs, but guaranteeing Sally a warning glance at the feet of anyone coming her way.

Should be a good spot, she hoped as she sank into the soft cloth upholstery.

The couch felt about right, but not perfect. With the white spandex pants she’d worn as part of her Elvish costume feeling so thin, she didn’t even need to reach inside to start rubbing herself. Sally only had to slouch down until her cheeks reached the edge of the couch and spread her legs.

With an eye on the stairs, she gratefully began rubbing along the length of her lips, but the more she rubbed, the more she realized how badly the couch served her.

It’s soft enough, she thought, but somehow it’s just not right.

Her back almost ached where she curled her upper spine against the back of the couch.

I’m twenty. This shouldn’t be a problem, for Christ’s sake.

Nevertheless, the position gnawed at her with its awkwardness. The farther she slid her cheeks down, however, the stronger her pleasure became. Walking her feet away from the edge of the couch, suspending her hips over the floor, she slid farther and farther off the couch, until only her shoulders rested on the edge of the seat cushion. Surrendering to whatever drove her, she let her ass sink to the floor as the three fingers of her right hand pushed through the spandex, into her vulva, and started making circles around her clitoris.

Once her cheeks pressed hard against the floor, Sally found she could stroke herself more frantically, the energy of her impending orgasm surging into her body. While she tried to keep her eyes open, lest anyone come down the stairs, the wave of pleasure forced them closed and she held her scream to a high pitched squeak as her legs seized up, clamping her thighs together while she jammed her fingers hard between her lips.

Shuddering, she opened her eyes, and that moment marked the beginning of the strangeness that had pervaded the last several days.

A faint purple glow hung in the air around her, and someone dressed in black whipped past her in the darkness, the candles having all burnt out.

The glow faded quickly and Sally sat up.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

“Did you find it?” a female voice called down the stairs.

“I, um,” Sally stood up too quickly, the purple glow turning to stars in her vision.

Behind her, she discovered she’d taken the seat cushion to the floor with her and picked it up to replace it. She paused when she noticed a small, leatherish rod where the cushion belonged.

“Yeah!” she called up. “It was under a cushion on the couch.”

“Oh, good!” the relief in the other girl’s voice echoed gratefully down the stairs.

xxxxx

“So, some creepy guy was watching you masturbate?” Bren asked.

“I don’t know,” Sally answered, “I was sure the basement was empty when I got down there, but I guess he could have been hiding by the back stairway or something.”

“Let her finish,” Kendra warned over her nervous fist clenching.

xxxxx

After turning the flogger back over to its rightful owner, Sally and Kendra thanked their hosts and headed for the nearest bus stop.

“Good party?” Kendra asked.

“Huh?” Sally replied. “Yeah, sure.”

“You okay?”

“Um.”

“You sound out of breath?” Kendra added, immediately after which her eyes bugged out. “Were you doing it again?”

Sally looked around them, scanning the empty street in all directions. “Well, yeah. You know how I am.”

Kendra shook her head and rolled her eyes, “You are insatiable. Especially when you get, like one drink in you.”

They continued walking, Sally’s eyes darting all over the street.

“What are we worried about?” Kendra prodded, noticing Sally’s discomfort.

“I think there was, like, a guy in the basement,” she said. “Creeping on me.”

“It’s not really ‘creeping’,” Kendra said. “More like he walked in on you while you were playing with yourself in public.”

“Yeah,” Sally grimaced, “but it feels like he’s still here.”

Kendra looked around them, surveying the emptiness, and shrugged.

“Still watching,” Sally whispered, unperturbed by her friend’s doubt.

“You think it was that green painted guy who tried to drug somebody?” Kendra asked, quickening her pace.

“He got kicked out,” Sally pointed out. “I’m sure he couldn’t get back in.”

“But he could be out here.”

“Nah,” Sally tried to shake her head to clear it. “It doesn’t… feel like that.”

“There’s whoever stole that flogger from Dakota,” Kendra said. “Thieves, right?”

“Somebody borrowed it,” Sally explained. “Or maybe Dakota just put it down on the couch and didn’t realize it fell between the cushions.”

Kendra wondered, “Or that guy you were rubbing against?”

“No,” Sally said, “Finn is way bigger than whoever this was.”

Kendra hummed doubtfully.

“Either way, this is something else,” Sally went on. “I-”

She cut herself off and twisted around as though she’d seen someone.

“What?” Kendra whispered in panic.

“I thought I…” Sally trailed off.

The two girls took off at a run and reached the glassed in shelter just as the bus arrived. Only when they got on the bus did they start feeling safe again.

xxxxx

“Okay,” Bren said. “Are you sure you weren’t just, y’know, over excited?”

“What?” Sally asked.

“Somebody walked in on you masturbating, right?” Bren clarified. “Maybe you just got a little paranoid.”

Sally shook her head, “There’s more.”

“Alright,” Bren glanced out the window and turned back to Sally. “Go on.”

xxxxx

Overnight, Sally couldn’t shake the constant nagging suspicion that someone watched her. Several times, she had to turn on the light and confirm no one had sneaked into her room. Eventually, she fell asleep, but dreamed uneasily. A green painted man tried to grab and take her clothes off. A Stormtrooper fought him off. A man in lederhosen taunted her, pointing at her crotch after he caught her masturbating.

She managed her way through her lectures the next day and everything seemed okay during the day, but started to fall apart as soon as the sun went down. Sally rushed home after her last lecture, hoping to reach her home before the late autumn sky went truly dark. Locking the door behind her, she searched through every part of the house she, Kendra and two other girls rented, making sure each room and even the closets all lay empty.

Despite this extreme effort, Sally couldn’t shake the gnawing at the back of her neck, couldn’t stop her panicked glances at every window, expecting to find her stalker waiting just outside.

When her housemates returned, putting more female bodies in the house, her terror eased and came to seem ridiculous.

The night came and she went to bed. No longer frightened, she felt her normal sexual urges returning and reached for herself under her bed sheets. Since she didn’t have to worry about anyone observing her, Sally turned over on her stomach and raised her hips in the air, just enough get her hands under her body while her shoulders rested on the mattress.

Pushing her panties aside with her left hand, the index finger of her right swept past her vagina, drawing its natural juices upwards toward her clitoris, lubricating herself so she could make the surges and gentle circles she needed to pleasure herself. Her body warmed up quickly and her heart began pounding.

Sally found herself unusually wet. That could change depending on a lot of things and she never understood all of them. Sometimes, only her arousal mattered, but other times she thought it had to do with the time of the month and her hydration. This day she found her vagina as wet and leaky as ever, so much so that she easily pushed her middle finger inside herself without any resistance.

As she did so, someone smashed up against the window to her bedroom and she pulled her finger out, feeling her vaginal muscles tighten up in panic. Sally twisted around to look at the window, dim moonlight shining around dark blinds.

No one could have seen her through the black-out material of the window dressing, but the sense that someone had spied upon her burned strong. Sally felt, furthermore, that someone lived and breathed inside the room with her.

“Who’s there!” she hissed at the darkness, but only a faint, panicked breathing answered her.

Screwing up her courage, Sally crawled to the corner of her bed and, refusing to touch foot to floor, reached out to turn on her bedroom’s ceiling light.

The room lay empty before her.

xxxxx

Sally stopped speaking and looked over at Kendra.

“Okay,” Bren said. “So now I’m genuinely creeped out.”

He glanced out the window again, observing the ever darkening sky.

“You’re going to make it hard for me to walk home,” he grimaced.

“No one’s stalking you,” Sally narrowed her eyes.

Bren raised an eyebrow and shrugged it off.

“We don’t want you to walk home anyway,” Kendra told him.

“What?”

“You wanna tell the next part?” Sally asked her friend.

Kendra nodded and inhaled, pulling her fist regretfully away from her mouth.

xxxxx

Two nights later, overcome by fear, Sally showed up in Kendra’s bedroom.

“What’s the matter?” Kendra asked, instantly assessing the fear in her friend’s expression.

“I still feel like some creep is following me,” Sally said.

The black circles under her eyes and the dilation of her pupils told Kendra everything she needed to know.

“Holy shit, Sal,” she said. “Have you actually seen the guy?”

Sally shook her head.

“But you still feel like you’re being followed?”

“I was in my room,” Sally said. “Two nights ago. And there was this bang at my window.”

“Whoa,” Kendra’s eyes widened. “I remember hearing that. Should we call the cops?”

“I don’t know,” Sally held her hands out, palms up. “What would we tell them? I’ll just sound like a paranoid idiot. The blinds were completely closed. No one could see in.”

Kendra frowned but couldn’t disagree.

“Can we,” Sally started. “Can we sleep together? Just tonight?”

Kendra nodded, “You’re probably just freaked out, right? Get a good night’s sleep and you’ll be fine?”

That night, lying in bed next to each other, the two girls talked, trying to keep things light and simple before they slept, but Kendra sensed the stilted, awkward way their conversation went, and it soon felt as if she was interviewing Sally instead of talking to her friend.

“Still worried, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you feel him now? Like he’s watching you?”

Sally shook her head, probably. Kendra couldn’t make certain in the dark.

“Alright,” Kendra sighed, even as she tried to firm up her voice. “Let’s try and get some sleep.”

They stayed quiet for a while, both of them trying to find sleep, but eventually Sally rolled over.

“This is so dumb,” she told her friend, her voice heavy with frustration. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I was just playing with myself and probably some bird hit the window.”

“You were masturbating?”

“Yeah.”

“Just like at the party?”

“Um, yeah, actually,” Sally’s word came out slowly. “That is weird. That’s what made me think it was the same guy.”

“But no one could actually spy on you,” Kendra said. “Not inside the house.”

“Not without cameras or something,” Sally pointed out. “But cameras don’t bang on windows when I start masturbating.”

Kendra muttered, “You’re not horny right now are you?”

“Lying here next to you?” Sally huffed. “Sorry, you’re not my type.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Kendra sighed. “I’m saying all this stuff only happens when you’re horny.”

“It’s only happened twice,” Sally pointed out.

“Not much of a sample, I admit.”

“But?”

“But what?” Kendra asked.

“You were going to add something, I could hear it in your voice.”

“Well,” Kendra drawled out, “what if you played with yourself?”

“That stalker is going to magically appear if I masturbate?” Sally asked.

“It sounds stupid when you say it out loud,” Kendra replied.

“Because it is stupid,” Sally told her.

“Just try it,” Kendra said. “Convince yourself it’s okay.”

Sally took several deep breaths, trying to find some kind of calm.

“Next to you?” she said. “In your bed?”

“Either it’s fake, in which case you have a problem,” Kendra pointed out. “If that is the case, you need to see a therapist.”

“And if it isn’t fake?” Sally asked. “If something actually happens?”

“Then we have a really weird stalker,” Kendra finished. “And we call the police.”

Sally inhaled softly and breathed out slowly, “It has been a while.”

“Two days is too long for you?”

“Well, four days,” Sally rustled the covers as she moved her hands underneath the blanket, “I couldn’t finish the other night.”

“Right.”

“Hush for a few seconds,” Sally begged.

Kendra listened quietly as little vibrations shook the mattress. Turning on her side to afford her friend a little privacy, her ear became flat to the bed, allowing her to hear Sally’s heart start to pick up its pace. Quick breaths came hard on the heels of the accelerated beating. Sally let out a little whine of a gasp and the bed shook suddenly.

“Whuh?” Sally gasped.

The bed jumped again, substantially more than it ought to for a single girl playing with herself.

Sally moaned, stroking herself harder and the bed began to shake as if caught in an earthquake.

“Sal…” Kendra warned, turning to face her friend in the dark.

“It’s fine,” Sally whimpered. “I need to-”

The window started rattling, as if a storm howled outside.

“Shit, Sal!” Kendra called out. “Do you hear-”

“It’s fine,” her friend begged.

At the moment, a pair of glowing eyes, like embers crinkling in the pit of a bonfire, appeared over the bed in the space between their feet.

“Shit!” Kendra shouted, leaping up for the light switch.

“Christ!” Sally yelled out, shielding her eyes against the light.

For a split second, in the blinding light, a black, vapor-like form appeared in the air, the eyes still glowing faintly, fighting a losing battle against the brightness of the halogen bulbs. The moment passed and the room appeared empty except for the two sweating, panicked girls.

“What the fuck was that?” Kendra whimpered. “What have you been doing?”

“I don’t know, Kendra. I don’t know.”

xxxxx

Bren stared at Kendra, noting the weepiness and worry in her eyes. She held his gaze only for a moment before looking down at the table. He turned to look at Sally, who held her chin up firmly, daring him to say anything.

“Well,” he choked out.

Sally continued waiting, folding her arms across her chest.

“Good story,” he admitted. “Had me going. But you jumped the shark with the last bit.”

“I didn’t imagine you’d believe us right off,” Sally retorted.

“Uh-huh,” Bren’s cheek twitched. “But besides messing with my head, why are you doing this?”

“We need your help,” Sally said.

“My help?” Bren looked back and forth between the two girls.

“Either we’re having some kind of weird hallucination,” Sally explained, “Or something really happened.”

“We need a third witness,” Kendra blurted out.

“You’re still going to push this ridiculous story?” Bren asked, his shoulders sagging. “Come on.”

“Bren,” Sally’s insomnia blackened eyes wearily looked into his. “We need your help. I need to sleep.”

Bren sighed and closed his eyes as he swept both of his hands back through his hair, adding, “Seriously?”

“What’s your worst case scenario, Bren?” Sally asked. “You sit in a room with us while I play with myself. What do you lose?”

Sally watched him lower his eyebrows, glaring into her eyes, trying to figure out what trick she planned to play on him. He turned his face slightly, his expression turning darker and suspicious. Finally, he blew out his breath and looked at the ceiling.

“I can’t see it,” Bren admitted. “If this is some kind of game, I can’t figure out what shenanigan you’re pulling.”

“So?”

“I’ll do it,” Bren held his arms up in surrender. “How’s this magic trick of yours work? Do we have to wait for midnight or a full moon or what?”

THE END OF CHAPTER ONE