Fresh Meat

Angie frowned suspiciously at the note: Meet me behind the music room at the beginning of afternoon break. It was signed by Rayan Khan. Being in some of his classes, Angie knew it was his handwriting.

What 'behind the music room' meant was in a thin patch of ground open to the sky but surrounded on three sides by blank brick walls. The music room appeared to have been built as an afterthought branching off the corridor connecting the main school building to the sports hall. For some reason, it was only attached to its neighbours by their connecting corridor. The result was a thin tarmac-covered cul-de-sac barely six feet wide and three times as long.

Angie huddled at the extremity of this dead end. It was the beginning of the last week of school before the Christmas holidays, and the region was experiencing a bitter cold snap. Luckily, it wasn’t raining, and there would have been some protection from the enclosing walls, but still, Angie felt vulnerable to more than just the elements.

Rayan’s typically composed face peered nervously around the corner. On recognising Angie, he looked around and then entered the covert alley. She scrutinised his approach, feeling more curiosity than excitement and kept looking past him to see if Kelly was following.

Rayan’s handsome features betrayed a furtive look. “I broke up with Kelly,” he declared, keeping his voice low.

Being the last thing she had expected, Angie couldn’t hide her surprise. “Wow, er, good for you. I-I mean, she didn’t seem very good for you.”

Rayan didn’t seem to hear her in an effort to get his words out. “I broke up with her because it’s you I want, Angie.”

Angie was speechless. It should have been a moment which was the pinnacle of her teenage life. The boy she had secretly lusted after was chasing her affections but measured against all she had done with Victoria since October, it fell flat. If they started going out, what would that mean, apart from provoking Kelly’s ire, heavy petting behind the bike sheds? She had been tied up and run ragged for weeks by a mature and dominant lover, the last two weeks involving her being taken anally. What could she expect from Rayan? A snog on the back row of the cinema?

These thoughts rolled through Angie’s mind in a few seconds as she gazed at the captain of the school football team in mute bewilderment. Rayan had begun to frown.

“What do you mean 'she wasn’t good for me'?” He sounded genuinely curious.

Angie returned to herself and remembered her words of a few seconds previous. She shrugged non-committally before thinking about how Kelly and Rayan looked together as a couple. “She was pretty demanding,” Angie pointed out before more observations began to tumble out. “She didn’t seem to respect you. She only seemed to want you when she wanted something. I mean, you looked good together, but when you looked closer, it felt like you were her trophy boyfriend. Sorry.” Angie added the last as she could see how her words were affecting the ego of the teenage boy.

“Well, you’ve left her now. That’s a positive step.” She paused, unsure how to address the rest. “And you want me? Despite all that gay stuff Kelly kept spreading?”

After seeming momentarily distracted, Rayan focused on her. “Yeah, I never believed any of that crap. It’s what she does when she feels threatened by someone. You’re the one I want, Angie. Really.”

Angie looked the boy over, unconsciously replicating Victoria’s 'assessing' look. Her heart should have been pounding; she should be falling at his feet. Having the popular boy come to you just didn’t happen in Angie’s experience. Victoria was perhaps a special case, given she had her own agenda of pleasure to satisfy. And definitely not a boy.

She remembered what her grandma had told her about opportunities. Without rushing, Angie cupped the apprehensive boy’s cheek in one hand and the nape of his neck with the other to draw them together gently, in the way that Victoria did when she was being tentative. Rayan looked surprised, perhaps because he didn’t expect her to take the lead or because they had moved right on to kissing, but Angie didn’t want to waste any time. The situation would either go somewhere or nowhere, and the best way to find out was to kiss him.

Angie’s tongue delicately explored while her partners' seemed initially afraid to reciprocate and then flailed and floundered for a while before allowing Angie to continue to take the lead. He smelt of Lynx deodorant and hormones and tasted of salt and vinegar crisps. The kiss wasn’t the epic Angie had been hoping for or even worthy of Victoria’s standard fair. She sighed as she pulled away, comprehensively cured of her teenage crush.

Rayan seemed dazed and blinked at Angie as he returned to himself. He was about to say something when a loud, slow hand clap began to echo between the surrounding brick walls.

“I knew you’d fall for it, like a bitch in heat.” There was no way to mistake Kelly Williams’ obnoxious sneer.

With dismay, Angie turned from Rayan, who was suddenly overcome with a look of guilt, to find Kelly pacing down the ally, followed by her giggling entourage.

“I know you’re a dyke, but even you can’t resist my Rayan,” she declared triumphantly, as much to her supporters as to her victim. Angie’s cheeks flushed a little. They had watched them kiss, but on the other hand, she had finally gotten to snog Rayan Khan. It hadn’t been all she’d hoped for, but that wasn’t the point.

“So you're whoring him out now, is that it?” Angie asked. Both she and Kelly glared at each other, ignoring Rayan, who was standing awkwardly behind.

“You should count yourself lucky I let you have a taste. It’s the only one you’re ever going to get. It just goes to show how desperate you are.” Kelly’s face became a snarl. “You should go back to your little lezzy friend. I bet she’ll let you take her as hard as you want just to get some action.”

All the gay bashing made Angie sense that she’d put Kelly on the back foot, perhaps because she had unexpectedly decided not to burst into tears and run away. Not that getting past them all in such a confined space would be easy. “One taste was all I needed.” Angie stared back, suddenly tired of the whole affair, her voice screaming indifference with every word. The time she spent with Victoria was above all of this playground nonsense, and all the better for it. She suddenly realised how childish they all were and that she didn’t feel the need to engage with it any longer.

“One kiss was all I needed to know that he’ll be better off with any other girl,” she pointed behind her to Rayan with a thumb but didn’t bother turning, “and I’m better off with Freya.” The giggling had stopped. Perhaps the watchers hoped that the silence would be filled with a classic catfight. Instead, Angie shook her head in contempt and strode forward, pushing passed Kelly and using her superior height to dare everyone else not to get out of her way. As she left the ally, her heart was really pounding. While the jibes didn’t hurt any more, the physical threat had felt real. She heard yelling behind her, both male and female. It didn’t seem directed at her. Either way, she ignored it and went to find her friend.

---

“I thought it would remind you what my face looked like,” Angie suggested as Victoria unwrapped a framed photograph of herself. “You’re so often staring down at my bum or my boobs these days.” Victoria could tell she was being teased. The frame was cheap, and the embedded picture was a simple 5 by 4, but the photo within displayed her beautiful smiling girl. It had caught her in the chest unexpectedly.

They had mutually agreed on a two-week break for the Christmas period. Angie’s taxi was due in a little while, and they were reclining, fully clothed, on the sofa, the girl half lying on top with her back to Victoria, whose arm was around her waist, holding her possessively. She continued to stare silently at the photo, feeling it represented something more than the sum of its parts.

Angie was out of uniform again, the previous day being the last of the autumn term. She had her hair carefully braided, as she always did now. She suspected Angie coiffured it thus because she knew Victoria liked it. Before she had expressed her liking for the braids, Angie had been satisfied with a simple ponytail.

“I’m sorry it’s not much,” Angie put in to fill the unexpected silence.

“I love it, Angelica,” Victoria responded to reassure the girl.

“Do you know what I’d really like for Christmas?”

“What?” Victoria was genuinely curious.

“I’d love to go to bed with you. Actually, to sleep and to wake up the next morning in your arms.” Angie’s voice had a wistful quality to it. Victoria entertained the idea for a brief second before moving to vocalise her protest. But there was no need.

“I know we can’t,” the girl admitted, resigned. “I’m not ready to tell my parents about any of this right now. I think I’d just love to spend the night with you without having to cut it all short and sneak off home.” Angie stroked Victoria’s arm comfortingly. “It’s just a wish.”

Victoria was finding it a difficult request to refuse. Nothing would have given her more pleasure than to spend the night with the girl, but discretion was still her watchword. Just a little longer, and she could have the girl to herself for as long as she wanted. Victoria squeezed her gently in response.

Reaching over, Victoria presented Angie with her gift. “I had to think of something which wouldn’t arouse suspicion.”

Angie delicately tore the expensive wrapping paper to reveal a CD of opera. “I know CDs are a bit of an aged technology, but it has the benefit of being untraceable,” Victoria observed.

Angie looked around, her face lit with a smile. “Thank you. I love it. My stepdad knows how to rip CDs so I can put the music on my phone. That way I can take it wherever I go.”

Victoria caressed the girl’s arms slowly as she examined the track listing. “I wanted to get you lots of things,” she admitted. “But most of all, I wanted to get you a really beautiful dress. I think you would look stunning in evening wear, my dear.”

Angie frowned. “I don’t really do dresses. Seeing my sisters obsessively dressing up as fairytale princesses when they were younger, all twee and virginal in their petticoats and white tights, turned me off completely.” Victoria could feel the girl cringing against her.

“I think we could do better than that.” Victoria’s words were a languid purr. After a few moments thought, she tightened her grip on the girl. “But now that you mention it, I think I would love to have Princess Angelica over my knee, all flailing white legs, muffled moans and struggle.” Victoria’s imagination bloomed, and she felt her arousal blossom in a way which only Angie could induce. “I would definitely be the wicked queen to imprison you so that I could break and corrupt you.”

“I suppose, as you prisoner, it’d be my duty to try to escape.” Angie’s voice had become husky with her own excitement. She gripped the older woman’s hand.

“Then it would be my duty to punish you whenever I caught you.” Their eyes met, and Victoria allowed amusement to show on her face. “And you would look around at me in that way that you do, annoyed but powerless to prevent me, your eyes filled with fire.” Victoria loved those moments, her bound and gagged submissive turning to stare at her over her shoulder, bothered by some unexpected discomfort but willing to take it for her mistress as long as her protest had been acknowledged.

They both breathed deeply for a few moments, caught up in their separate daydreams of torrid erotica.

“I could play Princess Angelica,” Angie conceded finally, “but only for you.”

Pleased at the admission but angry that she couldn’t take the girl now, Victoria leant over and kissed her forcefully.

---

“Earth calling Angie.” Freya waved her hand in front of her preoccupied friend's face.

“Sorry?” Angie came back to herself.

Freya signed. Angie had been off in her own world again. She hadn’t heard of anything momentous happening over the Christmas holidays to cause Angie to be so distant.

Of course, there had been the explosive break-up of Kelly Williams and Rayan Khan just before the end of the previous term. There had been some rumour that Angie had been the cause, but she had claimed that the couple had unsolvable issues and didn’t seem interested in the subject at all. Indeed, Kelly’s influence and the size of her entourage had waned and whenever she passed Angie in a corridor, Freya noticed her looking daggers at her friend, who ignored her.

Freya realised that the changes in her friend extended back further than that. When they’d met at the beginning of the autumn term, Angie had been shy, lacked confidence in herself and struggled with group interactions. Now, she was different. Freya couldn’t put her finger on a more definitive description. But that difference had begun to mean a certain distance in her friend.

Freya still liked Angie; she certainly hadn’t suddenly turned nasty or anything. They were still friends after all, but she got the impression that her friend was holding something back, not necessarily something bad, but something important in her life, which was growing and changing her in the process.

“I asked why you always style your hair after P.E. on a Friday afternoon. There’s nothing else to do after that but go home.”

“I wouldn’t want to have to undo it all to get through the showers; that’d be a waste. Anyway, I always go to my Grandma’s on a Friday,” Angie responded, guarded.

“Which means that you’re doing your hair for your grandma’s benefit?” Freya knew Angie was close to her maternal grandmother, but she didn’t have the impression that she was the kind of family matriarch who demanded Angie look her best in her presence.

Angie flushed and hesitated for a brief moment. “Sometimes she wins big at the Bingo. When she does, she takes me out to dinner. I want to look good for that, don’t I?”

“I suppose,” Freya conceded, sensing that Angie wasn’t telling her the whole truth. “You look good, though, when you do your hair up. You should do it more often.”

“Thanks.”

Where months ago such a compliment would have produced a cringing embarrassment from her friend, Freya watched as a smile of contentment spread across her face and her look diverged off into the mid-distance.

They were standing in a line, waiting for their turn to bat in the softball game in their regular Friday P.E. lesson. Freya realised she had lost her friend to whatever world she went off to when left to herself and watched the performance of the players in front of her.

It happened so suddenly Freya didn’t even see how it began. All she heard was “You bitch!” from an irate Kelly Williams as her body crashed into Angie, who had been obliviously waiting in line. Kelly took them both over onto the floor of the gym.

Angie just about managed to defend herself against Kelly’s flailing fists. “What the hell?” was all she could manage in response from her position under the attacking girl.

“You took him from me, you fucking dyke! He’d still be mine if it wasn’t for you!” Kelly ranted before the disturbingly masculine looking teacher, Miss McKenzie, waded into the fray. She had to bodily pull Kelly off Angie.

“I don’t care what petty squabble this is about, after school detention, both of you!” She ordered angrily.

Angie recovered herself enough to get into a sitting position. “B-b-but, I can’t. I have to be somewhere!” Freya’s friend protested.

“Well, I’m sure we could call your parents to re-arrange things.” Came the angry response of Miss McKenzie, a teacher obviously experienced in the evasive excuses teenage girls are prone to. Angie’s lips compressed into a line, but she remained silent.

Freya felt incensed enough to speak up herself. “Miss, she didn’t even do anything! Kelly just ran into her.”

But McKenzie wouldn’t be swayed, as if to back down was to show weakness and to do that in front of her students would be the end of her career. “You stay out of this, Stephenson, unless you want to join her?”

Freya was tempted, and then Miss McKenzie would have to explain herself to her parents when they wanted to know why she was home late. She looked down at Angie and could see her staring back and faintly shaking her head. Freya held her tongue but didn’t feel good about it.

Miss McKenzie sent Kelly to a position on the other side of the gym and moved away.

Angie leaned close to her friend and whispered. “Don’t mess with McKenzie. Her bitch switch has always been stuck in the 'on' position. She’d put you in detention, too, without even thinking about it.”

Freya was furious. “But you didn’t do anything,” she hissed back.

Angie looked unhappy. “I know, but there’s no sense in making it worse. Thanks for trying, though.”

Freya wanted to say more, but her friend was right. There was a kind of futility in the injustice of teacher vs student, especially in her new school.

---

Victoria slumped down in her innocuous hire car and refocused her attention from the front door of 38 Albert Drive to her ornate silver watch. It was 16:40. Angie was very late. As soon as she realised that Angie would not arrive with her usual punctuality, Victoria quickly closed up the house and decamped to the car, discretely parked on the other side of the street.

Although now was the perfect opportunity to leverage any lapse in her target, Victoria also ground her teeth in frustration. It had been two weeks since their last tryst, and she craved release at the hands of the girl she had so carefully prepared. There had been a few outings and festive parties over the Christmas period, but nothing which rivalled having Angie satisfy her need with all the exuberance of youth.

A few moments later, Victoria spotted her mark, out of breath and hurrying down the street through the darkness of the mid-winter evening. Angie rushed to the front door and rang the doorbell, as was their agreed protocol. She waited ten seconds before ringing again, her body betraying her agitation. Under normal circumstances, Victoria would be eagerly waiting on the other side of the door and would have opened it almost immediately, her own need driving her impatience.

Victoria watched discretely as the girl desperately searched the curtain-covered windows for any signs of habitation. Finding none after a detailed search, she gave an overlong ring of the bell, seemingly more as an expression of frustration than a genuine attempt to rouse the occupier. Slowly, Angie moved back to the pavement and looked up at the silent house. She stood there for a whole minute, scanning for some sign of life before quitting. Her shoulders slumped, she slowly retraced her steps back up the street and into the night.

Despite her frustration, a new excitement entered Victoria. Her endgame had begun. It was time to make preparations to finally reel the girl in. She was adept at all of the bedroom duties which Victoria required of her, and now her need had been brought into stark focus. All Victoria had to do was pay out a little line and then tug and watch the girl come running. She flushed with a new kind of excitement: Anticipation of the end of the long race, and, oh, the prize for the winner.