The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

When Suzy woke up the next morning, she had a differently feeling than when she’d last been conscious: before she’d fallen asleep yesterday night, on Friday. She’d been pretty drunk. Her head had been spinning. Now she only had a bit of a headache; she was feeling just a little groggy.

Yes, she felt different than she had before she’d gone to sleep... but she didn’t feel any different from the last time she’d been in this situation: having slept over at Magdalena’s, to sleep off the alcohol, to sleep off her drunkenness, then waking up hungover in the morning. She’d only done this once before but it already felt familiar to her. And she still felt like herself: she was recognizable to herself as herself.

She always imagined that drunkenness might change her somehow. One too many warnings about underage drinking from her mother getting to her, probably. She imagined there was some alcoholic identity waiting inside to burst free, and if she had one too many drinks, one past some arbitrary number, that identity would be unleashed and she would be unable to resist the impulse to ruin her own life, not to mention her own body, to chase a drunken stupor.

She knew this was an irrational belief. She knew it wasn’t grounded in any sort of reality, and on days when she was feeling more sober, she could acknowledge that she didn’t really believe it, not fully. It was kind of like a superstition for her; she didn’t believe it until she was confronted with a situation where it might suddenly unfold. Then she didn’t believe, so much as fear... and when those fears were dispersed by daylight, she always stood with a little more ease; lost some of the tension in her shoulders that fearing put there.

This morning was another occasion of relief. She found she was still completely herself: no part of her had changed, no suddenly destructive identity had emerged unexpectedly. There were no irrepressible impulses towards hedonism at any cost; no irrepressible impulses that would lead her to drastically change her life or disrupt it. She was the same Suzy Benton she had been before she’d gotten drunk last night; and now in the light of day, she could laugh at that small part in the back of her mind that always privately feared.

The reason she even drank as much as she did was because most of her knew how ridiculous that small part was, how completely unfounded its fears were. There was nothing wrong with drinking. It was okay to lose control sometimes, to indulge, when somebody knew how to do it responsibly. And Suzy knew how. It was about knowing when you could afford to cut loose and when you had to stay held together; when you needed to be capable of higher mental functioning and when it didn’t matter. She never got drunk on school nights. She stole from her mother’s liquor cabinet, but only ever a few swigs at a time; small enough quantities they were negligible, to the point that her mother never noticed that anything was missing from them.

It wouldn’t have been smart to get completely drunk at home, at least, not when her mother was home. Sometimes if her mother traveled for work and left her alone in the house, then she would get drunk, or even have Autumn and Barry over and have a drinking party with them. But as long as her mother was home, she might stumble across Suzy drunk, even if Suzy shut herself into her room. It was just better not to risk it.

Suzy’s hangover this morning wasn’t too bad. She sat up in the very comfortable queen guest-bed that Magdalena had stumblingly led her to last night. Her head didn’t spin hardly at all; she had no rush of blood to it when she made her body upright, and that happened to her sometimes with hangovers. Her hangover last time drinking at Magdalena’s had even been worse than the one she was feeling this morning. Her headache was only throbbing at a rate of pulse that only worked out to be a couple times a minute. A slow throb; the dizziness was just a touch, not a full grip.

She moved back the heavy white duvet that she’d slept quite comfortably under the night before. Her body was smaller, and she was thinner, so she was often cold in the night; and during the day. That was one of the things that made it so nice to live in California; the constant external heat always compensated for the naturally low body temperature of her smaller body.

With the blanket moved back, she moved her legs over the side of the mattress, and stood on the fine cherry-hardwood floor of the room.

She, Autumn and Barry had all told their parents ahead of time that would be spending the night at Magdalena’s this time, so they wouldn’t have to call from Magdalena’s house once they were already drunk to explain where they were or to get permission. But none of them had actually packed overnight bags or brought them with them, so now as Suzy was standing in front of the cherrywood dresser which matched the floor, she realized she had no change of clothes to change herself into.

If she had brought a bag, she would also have had pajamas to put on last night. But her coordination skills had been poor; she’d barely managed to stumble after Magdalena to this room, she’d been so dizzy at that time. Once she’d collapsed into bed, she’d been down for the night. She doubted now that she would have been able to delay her bedly collapse by stopping off at some overnight luggage to get a set of pajamas out. She’d collapsed because she’d been unable to remain upright any longer with the room swooning around her, seeming even to swing as well as to swoon; and with her fumbling fingers and clumsy body, she probably wouldn’t have been able to work a bag-zipper anyway, let alone get herself through the entire task of dressing herself.

But because she had no clothes, and last night had had no pajamas, that meant that she was going to have to wear this outfit out of here: the one she’d worn over to Magdalena’s last night, that she’d worn at school all day the day before, and that she had now slept in.

It wasn’t like her friends would judge her; Magdalena would be the only one wearing new clothes today, since she had clothes here with her; Autumn and Barry would have slept in yesterday’s clothes too and would still be wearing them.

The upside to having no change of clothes was that it made getting ready for the morning very quick. And Suzy was always all about trying to find the upside in any situation, so she was glad to find one here. If she’d had clothes it would have taken a much longer time; first taking off the ones she was already wearing, then putting on the ones that were new. But as it was, all she needed to do to “dress” for the day was to smooth out the sleeping-crumples that had gotten into her outfit.

She was already standing in front of the cherrywood dresser, and luckily this had a mirror built into it behind and above the dresser’s surface; she was a little short in the reflected glass that gave her reflection back to her, but she was used to this. The dresser was tall and she was short. She could still see herself; and what she’d worn yesterday and would now wear today.

She’d come here in a light jacket but that had been left downstairs in the entry foyer; under the light jacket she had worn a light periwinkle blue shirt; made of soft sheer material that layered over itself many times; it was so loose and free flowing that the hang of it was a straight line which more or less hid her breasts; it was sleeveless—she always liked wearing sleeveless shirts, and she liked to wear them as late into the year as she could; a California fall had plenty of hot days, still, so a lot of the time she could get away with it. But even on the cooler or more breezy days she liked to do it sometimes too, and on those days she compensated for the coolness by wearing a light jacket like the one she had downstairs.

She’d worn loose flowing pants with her top that were a faint gray; but both of these were still rumpled from being slept in, so she put her hands first against her stomach and began smoothing the sheerly-layered material out to flat. She thought it was a little of the buzz left from last night—when she pressed her hands into the material and then the material into her skin, she felt a tiny shiver of warmth. It was a pleasant sensation, and she could have stood there longer, still pressing her hands into sheer and sheer into skin, but she was just as eager to get on with her day as she was to stand there and enjoy that sensation which her buzz was predisposing her to.

When she’d done as much as she could to flatten her top, she did a little shimmy in her body, and shook out each leg, one after the other, to make the crumples fall out of the fabric; it only took doing this once, and she’d basically gotten her pants flattened again too.

She was presentable; even a little better than presentable, maybe; she’d chosen this outfit yesterday morning because she thought it looked good on her, and considering herself from a few angles this morning in the mirror of the cherrywood dresser, she thought this again. But whether she was presentable or better, she was ready to officially start her day. Her shoes—athletic running shoes, even when she wasn’t exercising, she never liked to wear anything else on casual occasions— had been kicked off inside the front door of Magdalena’s house, so she could pad downstairs with just her white ankle socks on her feet. Her grey soft pants hung down to just above the arch of her foot; so there was a strip of skin visible from there to the beginning of her ankle socks, which sat just halfway up her ankle.

Even with a slow pulsing inside her head, that patient throb of her headache, and even with that touch of dizziness resting on her, Suzy remembered the way to Magdalena’s kitchen. Down the flight of stairs, around the corner—on the opposite side of the layout from the study... Magdalena had given them a quick tour the first time she’d brought them to her house, and Suzy remembered. She seemed to have retained that information very well.

When she got to the kitchen, she found Magdalena was already there, and as Suzy had expected, wearing new clothes today as Suzy could not.

She looked good in what she was wearing; a bold green dress that offset the brown of her hair. It was clearly off a designer label; it came just a quarter above her knee, and Magdalena’s quite toned legs were on skillful display.

The dress wrapped her tightly. It was un-patterned, only that solid green, but the material had a bit of a shimmer to it, that the green shifted by a few shades in either direction, either lighter or darker, depending on how it shifted in the light.

The dress also had a little matching sweater that only came to Magdalena’s elbows, and Magdalena was wearing this too.

She was pouring a cup of coffee— from the espresso machine that her parents were clearly rich enough to keep in their kitchen— when she noticed Suzy come in.

Magdalena finished pouring and moved around the kitchen island, leaning over it, holding the mug between her hands. “You can pour yourself a cup too—help yourself.”

The coffee smelled really good to Suzy, especially smelled to her hungover mind; intuitively it seemed to understand its remedy was in that machine, and Suzy nodded as she walked towards the espresso coffee maker. “Thanks,” Suzy said; it looked like Magdalena had already taken out three mugs which matched hers—clearly ready for her three guests to drink some coffee too.

Suzy took the outside mug, and set it under the espresso machine’s dispenser, then pressed the button she’d seen Magdalena hold down. The rich, heady scent of coffee filled her nose, and she watched as the liquid flowed into her cup.

Still holding down the button she turned to look at Magdalena. “Where are your parents this morning? Don’t they eat breakfast?”

Magdalena swallowed the sip she’d had in her mouth. “They do,” she said, when she’d finished. “But they were out at that charity gala until pretty late last night. I think they’re sleeping in until later today to make up for that. They must be tired.”

Suzy had gotten her cup full, and moved to stand across the island from Magdalena. She took a sip of her coffee—it was probably the best blend she’d ever tasted, which shouldn’t have come as any surprise. If Magdalena’s parents were rich enough to keep a fancy coffee machine like this in their kitchen, they could easily afford fine coffee blends that were shipped in from distant locales, made of so many subtle flavors that it was almost like a work of gastronomic art. It wasn’t the kind of coffee blend which could have been found in Suzy’s mother’s kitchen; nor in the kitchens of Barry or Autumn’s parents; and Suzy hated to think how much a cup of coffee like this would cost in a coffee-shop; it could probably only be gotten in expensive coffeeshops, if it could be gotten at all.

So it was definitely a treat to have it; one more thing to appreciate, another upside to this day, and Suzy felt her mood brightening as she kept drinking. She didn’t know when she’d have the chance to taste coffee this finely made again, so she wanted to fully savor the experience while it was here in front of her. Although if coming over to Magdalena’s house became more and more of a pattern (they’d now done it twice) there might be more opportunities in the future. It had been thoughtful of Magdalena to get the mugs out for them; none of them would have known where to find them if Magdalena hadn’t gotten them out.

Her parent’s entire kitchen was done in golden tile, brown tile, bronze, copper, and the mugs both she and Magdalena held matched this color scheme. They were red, and plain, and looked totally at home against this warmly tinted backdrop.

The kitchen warmed Suzy, just by standing in it—the coffee was helping with that too. She took another contented sip.

Magdalena also seemed to be enjoying her coffee. She made a satisfied sigh as she withdrew her mouth from the mug, un-pressing her lips from the rim. “This is my favorite blend,” she chatted. “Daddy ships it in for me from Europe just because I ask him; if he ever hesitates, all I have to do is bat my eyes at him a bit, and he caves.”

Apparently the pressures of keeping up her family’s image came with some benefits too, Suzy thought wryly. She wished Barry had already come done that morning; that was the kind of comment she would have whispered to him and the two of them would have laughed themselves silly over. Or else they could have just shared a look; and known the other was thinking that same comment; and could have laughed from the look without having to actually say any of it out-loud.

“It’s really good coffee,” Suzy agreed. She set her elbows on the counter and leaned onto them, holding her mug with both hands. “Thanks for letting me have some.”

They passed some time just drinking in companionable silence then, for a few minutes. She liked that both she and Magdalena were becoming comfortable enough around each other that they could stand together in pleasant company without feeling the need to talk.

Suzy was definitely starting to feel the effects of the caffeine, and they were welcomed. They cleared her partially fogged mind; they lifted the resting hand of dizziness from off of her shoulder, they stopped that slow throb of a headache inside her head.

The caffeine didn’t just alleviate her hangover symptoms, though. When she’d had enough to do that, the caffeine moved past that result and kept increasing its effect. Pretty soon Suzy was starting to feel wired; it was a different feeling than being drugged, certainly, but it did make her feel a little outside of herself in the way drunkenness often did. She wasn’t impaired in this case, but she felt a bit looser. Previous times she’d allowed herself to get jacked up on caffeine she’d been known to get pretty manic and make a fool of herself, if she didn’t become just outright silly. She should stop drinking before she became even more wired.

But... Magdalena had already seen her drunk. Suzy had been vulnerable that way in front of her, and her other friends too. Suzy had actually been drunk in front of Magdalena twice, now. And Magdalena clearly hadn’t gossiped the first time. Enough time had passed since that night that if Magdalena had spread a rumor, it would already have gotten back to Suzy by now, and nothing had.

Besides; Magdalena had been vulnerable in front of Suzy and the others in the same way they’d been vulnerable in front of her. And they’d respected the confidence she had shared with them, when she’d opened up the pressures of maintaining her reputation for the sake of her family’s status in the community. It seemed almost like a mutual respect was developing between all four of them, as they and Magdalena seemed to keep growing closer and closer. Suzy thought that was nice.

She always wondered, when any substance affected her so dramatically, if her size was to blame. She was small; only average height at her 5′3, and she was thin; any substance that wanted to travel through her body didn’t have to travel far; it could circulate probably in half-time compared to how long it would take a substance the go around Magdalena’s much longer body. Whether that substance was alcohol or coffee, it could do its job twice as fast, zipping around Suzy’s smallness. Suzy didn’t mind; she liked her body, her weight, her weight, her shape; and she’d never cared enough to read up and find out if this suspicion of hers was true. But she wondered about it every time she felt the strong effect of something come over, like the caffeine was doing right now.

But she didn’t worry about getting too wired. She didn’t worry about becoming manic or acting foolishly; or becoming silly and laughing or joking too much. She knew her friends would understand; and she thought it was nice, after all, that she was starting to consider Magdalena a friend, too, after so much time spent in her pleasant company. She hoped that Magdalena felt the same about her, them all.

After a while, Suzy thought to ask if Autumn or Barry had come down yet; thinking they might have come down and then gone back up briefly. She knew Barry was one to wake up early morning, get some food in him, and then go back to sleep until early afternoon, when he could get away with it.

But Magdalena said she was the first one down.

If Suzy had waited just a few minutes more, she wouldn’t have needed to ask; because both Autumn and Barry had produced themselves; entering into the kitchen only a minute or two apart; Autumn first, looking pretty collected for someone who had also had to sleep in their clothes last night, and Barry, looking like a very tired and groggy-teenage boy; both Suzy and Autumn had clearly expended the effort to smooth out their clothes, but Barry had just come down all rumpled, still.

The four of them chatted for a while; Autumn was reluctant to take one of the remaining two cups on the counter that had been left for her, she was afraid of the buzz that Suzy herself was already experiencing, but with a little encouragement from her friends, she took a cup for herself and tried some of the coffee that Suzy had been boasting of and talking up to her in order to convince her.

Barry was rarely worried about anything; he was very que sera, and it took no encouragement to get him to try some coffee; he just saw that there was a cup for him, took it, filled it, drank. He could be straightforward in a very simple way. It was easy to appreciate that him about him, Suzy had always thought.

After they’d all finished their coffee, there was a lull in the conversation, and Magdalena asked them if any of them were hungry. None of them particularly were, so instead, she asked them if they were already for a ride back home, and the three of them, her houseguests, decided that they were, so they followed her out to her car.

It was a convertible car, and it was painted a golden color. It was becoming more familiar to all of them; Magdalena had been given them more and more rides in it, and giving these more and more frequently. It seemed to have a top that could be put up; but none of them had ever yet seen that top up.

The car would have been instantly recognizable as Magdalena’s even if she hadn’t so often been driving them in it. Even before she’d taken them driving around in that car, they had all seen her driving it around the school. It was some expensive make of car, though Suzy had never paid a lot of attention to cars and couldn’t remember the name, even though she was sure she’d heard it whispered about in the halls of the school in admiration. She wanted to say it was a European import... or maybe it had been a different body, and there’d been a European motor imported? Suzy really didn’t remember.

Falling into the habit they’d all more recently formed together around Magdalena’s car, Suzy sat in the passenger seat, and Autumn and Barry sat in the back. Barry got in first and immediately looked back out of the car towards the houses around. But Autumn didn’t move so fluidly. She hesitated at the open car door, and Suzy watched her in the rear-view mirror, though Autumn didn’t know she looked.

She was clearly deliberating on where to sit: if she should sit closest to the car door, now open, which would close behind her—the right side of the back seat. Or if she should sit herself in the middle seat in the hopes of brushing up against Barry on some particularly sharp turn, or uneven bump in the road. Suzy knew her best friend well enough to know this was what she was thinking of; she’d confessed similar fantasies, innocent as they were, to Suzy in the past.

Ultimately, it seemed Autumn decided she didn’t have quite the courage to sit down in the middle of the backseat. While she’d been deliberating, Magdalena had taken out a tube of lip-gloss; Suzy had to admire her fashion sense, glossy lip-gloss definitely matched better with the green shimmery ensemble Magdalena was wearing than any shade of lipstick she could have chosen. But when Magdalena had finished applying the fresh coat, she clearly getting impatient, so she called back to Autumn, “hurry up back there,” and Autumn gave a little girlish start in place, and then scuttled into the right side of the backseat, then shut the door after herself.

The speed limit— on the streets that spanned from Magdalena’s house to the block which held Autumn and Barry’s— wasn’t too low, so Magdalena made good time, and Suzy had to admit it was fun to speed all the way there with the wind moving through her hair. She might have been dizzy riding in a convertible if she’d still been hungover; but it seemed the coffee she’d drank had kicked the last lingering part of that hangover away, so the ride in the convertible was only fun. It was the kind of experience she used to wish for when she’d secretly hoped to get in with Magdalena, and she was grateful again for the way things had worked out.

As always, Barry and Autumn were dropped off first; between their two houses which stood side by side, and as Autumn stepped out of the car she told Magdalena that she liked the addition of her lip-gloss, and Magdalena told her she could just have the tube and use it herself; she could easily get more to replace it, and a bit flustered, Autumn took it.

Then she and Barry were up the paths to their own separate houses, but Magdalena and Suzy were already driving away; Magdalena told Suzy she would see her on Monday, and then she was gone, car pulling away as Suzy turned and entered her own house.

“So beyond this study group and improving all of our grades, what are all your goals?”

It was Tuesday afternoon. The weekend had gone quickly, and Monday had gone faster, and now the study group was meeting. Magdalena had just looked up from her book and let her pencil fall back onto her text.

Autumn looked up too; Suzy was already looking up to have been able to see this. Barry was last to pay attention, apparently absorbed by his own math textbook, but when Suzy looked over the top of his cover she saw he’d hidden a comic book behind the pages, and that was what so fully had his attention.

It was a very Barry thing to do; and if Autumn caught him, she would scold him. But Suzy let it be; it didn’t seem so serious to her. After all, his grades like all the rest of theirs, were up. Suzy figured he could afford to slack off just a bit. It wasn’t like back in the days when he used to slack off in spite of the fact his grades were dropping.

“Goals?” Autumn repeated. “You mean after graduation? After high school?”

She said it with a faraway sound in her voice like she couldn’t imagine such a time ever coming to pass.

“Yeah,” Magdalena said. “After high school. I feel like we haven’t really talked about any of that stuff, but I’d feel like I knew you all a whole lot better if we did.”

Autumn’s brow furrowed in thought— even determination was cute on her face, but it was clearly going to take moment for her to answer so Suzy decided to speak first, to take some of the pressure off of Autumn. So she didn’t feel she had to rush her thoughts.

“My grades have been better lately,” Suzy started. “But my transcripts for the past few years are pretty bad. With what I have, I think I’ll barely make it into a community college. Sure, I’m turning things around now, but that can’t rewrite the past.”

“Community college,” Magdalena echoed. “Well, maybe that will be good.”

Autumn still looked lost in thought.

“Yeah, if I can get in. But even if I do, I’m not even sure I want to go. To tell the truth, even though my one academic proclivity is bio, I’m thinking more of doing something else. I’m in pretty good shape, at the peak of my form physically, and athletics and exercise have always come easier to me even then bio. So I think I might actually like a career in law enforcement. I might explore that... as an after high school option.”

Suzy felt sheepish admitting to this; she’d been thinking of it with increasing seriousness in the past few months. For whatever reason, and she couldn’t quite explain, the interest had just arisen in her from a seemingly mysterious source; and since then, these past few months, she’d been thinking about it, but she hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else, not even her mother. So it was always a little frightening to admit a private hope, even to friends, even if it was the first time.

But Autumn’s face brightened. Nevertheless, Suzy noticed Autumn was wearing the lip gloss that Magdalena had given to her.

“Law enforcement! Suzy, that would be such a good fit for you! You’re such a fair and patient person; and so kind. People like you should be in law enforcement!”

Suzy flustered and flushed at the unexpected praise. She truly hadn’t been fishing for it but it was nice to hear Autumn gush about her and support her decision.

“Law enforcement definitely sounds interesting, Sooze,” Barry contributed. So he had been listening, but his eyes were still following along with his hidden comic.

“I just have to hope my height doesn’t screen me out,” Susie added, a bit half-heartedly. It had been fun to live in the dream for just a moment; and especially, to have Autumn buoying her up in it further. Dispersing it with the regrettable mention of reality, the ways the dream could fall apart was not fun, and Suzy preferred not to dwell on it.

“What about you, Aut?” Suzy redirected; Magdalena was watching closely as the exchange happened. Apparently she really was interested in this, like a friend would be. She was becoming more and more like one of those all the time. “Are you ready to share your plans for conquering the world post-graduation? We all know you’re gonna.”

Autumn flushed like Suzy had; it felt good to pay forward that feeling of importance, of specialness, which Autumn had encouraged her into first.

“Well I’ll have my pick of options,” Autumn started a bit shyly. Where was the newfound confidence she’d since been sprouting in the context of this group? Apparently Autumn still wasn’t quite to the point of being able to out and out boast. “With the way my academic record is looking right, I’ll probably make a valedictorian of our year.”

Magdalena snorted. “Just by paying attention to our fellow students, I’d say it’s clear you’re destined to be, no ‘probably’ about it. You’ve got literally no connection, Autumn. The next closest person after you is still miles behind.”

“Maybe,” Autumn said, non-committal. She wouldn’t take on all the glory of that assessment; probably still didn’t think she deserved it. “The most important thing for me though is getting into a good career. All my smarts don’t really mean anything to me unless I can do something meaningful with them.”

This is what finally drew Barry to look up from his comic book and its text cover-up.

“She’s not kidding. When we were kids, I always liked to play superheroes, but Aut liked to play ‘I have a responsible adult job.’ Usually whichever one she’d been reading about in her parent’s encyclopedia that day.”

Suzy and Magdalena turned surprised eyes to Autumn, but Autumn didn’t look embarrassed at once. She tittered a little in laughter.

“What can I say? My parents are career-oriented people; that got into me even though I was so little, and it’s still important to me all this time later. I can probably have my pick of some pretty prestigious schools, but until I’ve decided exactly what I want my career to be I can’t make any final decisions. But I probably want to do something that helps other people. Or humanity as a whole. I don’t know what yet.”

Suzy imagined that was why it had taken Autumn a few minutes to come up with her answer.

Barry clapped Autumn on the shoulder; today they had ended up kitty corner from each other at that end of the table. “Our Aut,” he said. “The humanitarian. But don’t you think it’s a little silly to plan out your entire life at eighteen? Why not wait a bit before you choose your career for good? You don’t need to put so much pressure on yourself. You can do like I do... just relax yourself about all this and assume it’ll all workout for the best in the end.”

Barry leaned back in his chair, putting his hands over each other against the back of his head, so his arms were up and butterfly’d. He was looking pretty comfortable leaning into his chair.

Autumn’s cheeks had pinkened a little when Barry had touched her, and as usual, Barry had missed this, but Suzy hadn’t. Autumn seemed to be recovering from that now, but Magdalena’s had narrowed when Barry expressed his laissez-faire philosophy.

“It’s dumb to have no plan,” she said bluntly. “Are you really so much of an idiot that you’re just going to leave your future undecided?”

Suzy thought that was a bit rude; it reminded her that, whether she was becoming her friend or not, Magdalena was still Magdalena Banks and this kind of behavior was what Suzy had come to expect from her over the course of the past three years. Magdalena was still herself, even if lately she’d been showing a softer side, a more friendly side.

Barry was unperturbed, and stayed leaning back in his chair. “Look, I barely put any work into my schoolwork. You guys holding me accountable and forcing me to do it is the only reason my grades have started turning around. But honestly, I’ve always been more interested in making everyone around me laugh than I have been in making good grades. I’ll probably just end up working at my parents’ restaurant anyway, so why should I stress myself coming up with some elaborate plan that I’ll never follow through on?”

“So you’re not really risking anything by just putting off deciding your future, if you have a guaranteed option waiting for you,” Magdalena baited. “All you’re really doing is letting it be decided for you— from the sounds of it, by your parents.”

Barry shrugged. “What do I really need a post-secondary education for? Let alone a secondary one? Working in the family restaurant for life isn’t so bad. It’s something to do, it can be pretty laid back there at times, and that’s more my speed. Besides, I like food. I like being around it too.”

“Well, let’s hear more about this restaurant.” Magdalena sat up, crossing one leg over the other in her chair.

Barry shrugged. “What’s to tell.... it’s pretty successful. Dad is chef, Mom is manager... the restaurant is pretty much my safety net for after-grad life, and I just might use it. There’s nothing wrong with that, Ms. trust-fund safety net.”

Autumn let out a little sound of delight at how quickly Barry had thought on his feet and turned the tables back on Magdalena. Even though Autumn and Magdalena were getting along these days, it probably still felt good for her to see Magdalena be put in her place after Autumn had been bullied by her for so many years before this one.

Magdalena didn’t try to offer a retort to this cutting comment right away. Suzy wondered if she might only be bidding her time. “So you think a good life will just fall in your lap if you just sit back and wait for it to happen?”

Barry smiled with all his teeth. “That’s exactly what I think. Exactly in my lap. Hasn’t it been that way for you? Don’t you just have to bat your eyes at Daddy to get to what you want? Seems like the good life came pretty easily to you and keeps coming.”

Barry was joking, teasing, and it seemed a little meaner than his jokes typically were, but Suzy couldn’t help snickering a little anyway. Autumn looked a bit more uncomfortable now that it had gone farther, but didn’t look in any hurry to intervene.

“For your information, Barry Pierce— with my grades, I could get into any university I wanted, and I’d actually apply myself and work hard if I chose to go to university—”

“And your parents will pay all expenses,” Barry guessed, apparently correct, given Magdalena’s reaction.

“But university isn’t the path for me. When I was just a kid, I did some modeling for a clothing catalogue, and I never got over how much I loved it. Modeling is the path for me, but I’m not just gonna wait around for it to be dropped in my lap, thank you very much, no matter who my daddy is.”

It was not so much what Magdalena said so much as the way she delivered it; but from the tone of her voice and the timing of her speech, it was clear she’d matched up to Barry’s teasing of her.

Barry gave a slight nod, apparently acknowledging he’d been matched. Magdalena shifted forward in her chair, wearing a little satisfied smile; and she went back to reading her textbook, apparently ending the chat diversion on her own terms.

The others went back to reading; Suzy had to credit Magdalena. She might not have known enough about Barry to counter with criticisms of his life. As one of the school outcasts he didn’t figure as prominently in school gossip as she did, but trust Magdalena to use the stylistic flare of an action to do her heavy lifting for her rather than the substance. And in the end it had been an equal match; with no one holding any grudges.

Suzy thought how nice that was.

Magdalena clearly hadn’t been too offended by Barry’s teasing the next day. In fact, in a move that would potentially prove damaging to her own reputation, and would serve to benefit the reputations of Suzy and her friends, she invited them all to sit with her at her lunch table the next day. She made her usual posse shift down so that the study-group four could sit together in a little square.

And though Magdalena’s lackeys (or, that was how Suzy and Barry had always jokingly referred to them anyway), seemed displeased by this, Magdalena still held enough influence over them that she seemed able to bring them in-line with a quick cutting glance, and despite the vast gulf between the social importance of Suzy and her friends and Magdalena’s other contemporaries, they were, soon enough, being very polite; even a bit friendly, in the cases of some of them.

Suzy noticed that Magdalena had left the cap off of her bottle of water; everyone else at the table had done this too, apparently desperate to copy Magdalena in everything she did, no matter how impractical it was; she took the cap from her own drink; Autumn and Barry did the same, and then the four of them enjoyed their lunch, sometimes talking to each other, sometimes talking to Magdalena’s other companions.

Their attention was all centered on each other, though, for the most part; until one of the girls across the cafeteria dropped her tray of food on the ground, and everyone took a moment to ogle her; some of the other girls around Magdalena laughed, but Magdalena herself didn’t; Suzy, Autumn and Barry didn’t either, from what Suzy could hear; she only knew Magdalena hadn’t laughed because by now she had learned the tone of the other girl’s laugh and it had been conspicuously absent amidst the jeers which had come from her general direction—the people sitting beside her. Maybe Magdalena had been distracted by something else, not paying attention the distraction itself; Suzy couldn’t know because she was watching the girl scramble back to her feet, and silently cheering her on.

Then the moment passed, and the lunch-time break returned to its strange new standard; the three of them with Magdalena among her peers, all sharing lunch together. Eventually that particular lunch hour came to an end, but that was Wednesday’s lunch. They ate with Magdalena on Thursday again; in study group after last class both days, Magdalena had made no reference to the fact that their friendships with her had all just shifted forward in a big way, so neither Suzy nor Autumn nor Barry mentioned it either.

On Friday morning, Suzy woke up feeling a bit different. A bit... weird, in her body.

She thought back to the night before as if it might explain the why of it to her. But she’d taken no substances; she hadn’t drunk any purloined liquor, and hadn’t had coffee yet in the past few days. She was just waking up now so she definitely hadn’t had any this morning—she hadn’t even eaten yet, let alone gotten up or even left her room. But she hadn’t had any coffee last night either; wouldn’t have been able to sleep if she had, she was very susceptible to all effects of any substance. Hadn’t woken up in the night and drank or eaten anything different. But she definitely felt... changed.

She felt a little as if her impractical fear might have come true, for a second. Only it was a hidden alcoholic’s identity inside her which had been waiting to burst free and come out, to live it up or otherwise destroy her life. She didn’t know what identity this was that had been waiting inside of her; only knew she didn’t feel quite like herself. She felt a bit like somebody else, instead, in that moment, though she knew if she looked into the mirror she would only see Suzy Benton looking back at her. Suzy Benton looking at herself, trying to figure what part of her Suzy Benton-ness was missing; or had changed. She was somebody else though she didn’t know who she was or how she was different. She just felt... different...

She mulled over the feeling as she moved carefully through the process of preparing for the day. She felt like she was looking at everything with a different set of eyes.

It took her a long time to place what this new feeling in her was.

It was a looseness. It made her think a little of Magdalena... speaking that night, a short while ago now, about responsibility... and letting go of responsibility to lose control and just enjoy it. Or Barry saying just a few days past that it was better to relax and let things fall into your lap... someone, Suzy realized, she was just feeling very unbothered about everything suddenly, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like that.

Having dressed, she went down the stairs towards the kitchen. Her mother had left toast on a plate for Suzy to eat on the walk to school. But suddenly taking it didn’t seem that important... she always took toast in the mornings because she was always thinking about contingencies, about stressors. What if she got hungry during the walk to school? What if she got hungry during first period? What if she didn’t have as much change left in her wallet as she thought, to be able to buy something from the vending machine? What if she only had just enough money for her lunch, and buying a snack would mean she came up short later when she needed her midday meal? What if she under-ate today, and so underperformed at her next track practice?

These were just a few of the question that, even yesterday, would have led Suzy to reach for the sure thing, the thing she could be certain of which was right in front of her, instead of putting it off and hoping for the best.

But today, as Suzy had already realized, she felt different. What Barry had said in Tuesday afternoon’s study group meeting sounded really good to her. Why should she worry about any of these things, when she had no reason to believe they would even happen? And why should she have to stop and grab this toast when her body was feeling so good walking that it just wanted to keep doing it, keep moving? She’d skip the toast today, and trust that everything would just work out. That she either would get hungry or would, but would be able to do something about it. That she’d have enough funds in her wallet to cover both a snack and lunch, if that was what it would take.

Suzy’s body did feel good when it was in motion. She always liked moving, it was why she was so athletic, but it just felt different today as she walked out the front door of her mother’s house, backpack slung over her shoulders and hanging down her back now. She’d thrown it on with a carefree motion, not particularly concerned with the idea that she might have missed one of the arm loops as she otherwise might have been.

It felt so differently good to walk; it felt special, so special she was doing it differently than she would have done it were she walking her usual way; head down, moving fast, for fear of being late. But if she were a few minutes late because she’d walked to school at a more relaxed pace, what was the problem, really? She didn’t seem to fear consequences today; didn’t fear consequences, liked to move; but liked to move in exactly the way that she wanted to. Or maybe she just enjoyed doing things she wanted for the sake of doing them, now... she felt like walking to school more slowly, so she could appreciate the weather of the day and the houses as she went passed, so that was what she did.

She just wasn’t afraid. Her responsibilities were far away from her, and enjoyment was what was close. This new self that seemed to have come from nowhere was certainly strange... she was unafraid, unburdened with responsibility, prepared to do things her way with no hesitation, and to take enjoyment in that... the fact that she could reflect on this difference in herself without even thinking that it was particularly strange was a sign in herself that she was different. It didn’t feel wrong to be this way, or frightening, though it was new. It just felt... fun.

This mood only really lasted until Suzy reached school. When she saw Pine Ridge High rise up before her, the carefree, consequence girl seemed to go away. And once Suzy did feel more like herself, she could scoff at what had happened so far this morning. She hadn’t been a different girl. She had just been Suzy Benton, the same as ever. In the moment she’d fooled herself into thinking that that underlying self-ness had gone away, that thing she would have reached for in order to recognize herself, and so comfort herself. But it hadn’t gone away. Nothing had gone anywhere; she hadn’t changed, she wasn’t different. Another person might have diagnosed this as denial—if Suzy were to describe this to Autumn, who was even now waving to her from across the lawn, maybe she would say so too.

But it wasn’t denial. Nothing had been different; Suzy had just been happy. For some reason she’d woken up much happier than she’d been in a long time; much happier than she could remember since her parent’s divorce. But that just meant her heart was starting to heal from it, she told herself. It meant she’d been doing a good job dealing with one of the hardest things she’d had to deal with in the course of her young life.

She’d been doing her best to distract herself; with new friendships, with studies, with just all around having a good time, and having fun, in the company of old friends, too. Clearly it had just happened all at once. She’d sat herself in a butterfly garden day by day, and this morning for whatever reason, she had found a butterfly on her shoulder. She’d been doing all the right things, things her mother had also encouraged her to do during one of the many times they’d talked together about what was going on and how their family’s life was changing.

She’d just gotten good results, that was all. She didn’t need to be so dramatic about it—sometimes her imagination was too active for her own good! Imagining she was a whole other person! That there was some carefree, responsibility-free girl waiting inside to come out, and risk everything that needed to be risked, risk anything and everything just for a good time, or as good of a time as she could get at any given moment. She’d just been silly; she was Suzy.

She caught up with Autumn, and pretty soon they had found Barry, too, and the three of them went into their first class, where Magdalena was already waiting for them, and had saved three additional seats so they could sit with her, as well as the one or two members of her clique who happened to share that class with them.

Suzy didn’t have another morning like that Friday for a few days, and she found herself missing it. Had she been so long without happiness? It felt like that now; that she’d gone so long being sad and trying to turn her attention away from it than when it had come back to her, she had not recognized it, and had instead fancifully overdramatized and pretended like it was a foreign thing she’d never experienced before.

It had just been happiness; or not just, maybe in its small way it had been everything, but it had been happiness and she wished it would hurry up and happen to her again; it had been nice to wake up one morning without any cautioning ahead of time, and suddenly just find herself so settled and content. She’d like to have more mornings like that, but so far none had happened.

She did see her friends that weekend, and that cheered her up. It weakened the strength of those longing thoughts... they so easily became thoughts of frustration, or resentment, willing that ease to come back, which even Suzy knew had to be the best possible way to keep it away. She was distracted again and just enjoyed being with them. This time the four of them met in Autumn’s bedroom; her mother brought in snacks, and it was all a little elementary school, but in an endearing way.

Magdalena marveled at the computer that Autumn kept in her room. Even she didn’t have one, though her parents could have easily afforded it. Suzy thought Autumn had to be just about the only student at Pine Ridge High School who actually did have one, and Magdalena ran a hand over it, the screen, the box, the keyboard. “Maybe I should get one of these myself after all she said.”

Autumn stood a little taller; went on to her tiptoes and then rocked back onto her heels with her hands clasped behind her back, beaming one of the widest smiles Suzy thought she’d ever seen her face.

Afterwards, when Autumn’s mother brought in some drinks for them, they settled down into sitting on the soft carpeting that carpeted Autumn’s floor, and took up with the studying and homework that they’d decided to meet for that weekend, though Suzy couldn’t remember who’s idea this had been, before it had been decided it would happen at Autumn’s house. She felt a spark of happiness when she drank her drink, though there was nothing special about it. It had been another moment that had just unfurled; she was surrounded by her friends, laughing at some comment Barry had laughed so hard that her eyes had blurred with tears of joy, and then she had reached for one of the glasses on the tray, and drank it; and felt that spark of happiness.

She’d sat down in the butterfly garden again, gotten all the right conditions into place: these were good people, they were the right people, they were the people she needed to surround herself with and see more of, get closer to if it was possible: and then so fleeting that happiness had touched down in the moment she’d taken her sip, and then just as fleetingly, when her glass was empty, it had flittered away again.

But it left enough of a glow behind it that she could easily just enjoy it for what it was; and could easily enjoy the rest of the hangout with her three closest friends. And it still surprised her sometimes that Magdalena had snuck her way into that number; but she was there on a Saturday when she could have done any number of more glamorous things, though she looked like glamor itself sitting on Autumn’s carpet; looked like glamor at all times, and she was laughing just as hard as Barry, Autumn and Suzy were. She was one of them, at least when they were all together. Now, the four of them seemed to fit.

Suzy woke up the following Monday, and realized that feeling had come back to her again unexpectedly. It was once more pleasant to find it already there and waiting for her in the morning when she first became conscious. It did leave her wondering what her mind was doing in the night. What it had to work on or work through to produce this emotion for her by daylight, but she was glad to have it back. When she was feeling like this, all thoughts of upcoming school projects and track practices felt so insignificant to her, unbothersome. It felt like nothing negative could ever touch her—she could do anything that made her happy, and anything that could make her happy would be a good thing to do; this was a new facet to her happiness, she hadn’t noticed in on Friday.

Getting ready felt easier than the Friday before. There was no fear; she didn’t need to imagine what people might think of each outfit she might put on. That was the kind of thing that typically bothered Autumn more than it bothered her, and she liked to pretend she was never insecure, but especially on days she felt sad, she felt very insecure and she just liked to hide that she did and keep it to herself.

But today, she knew anything she put on would be the perfect thing, and she would wear it with the happiness exuding out of her; she was a cheerful, perky person but was not perhaps a happy person; though at this moment it felt like she was becoming one, or she would soon... she dressed and didn’t worry about it, forewent the toast her mother had left her again before she’d also left her for work... there might be questions about why she wasn’t eating in the mornings, but the thought didn’t disturb her. Nothing could disturb... all of this had the simplicity of a dream, and it just felt so good to move.

When she was happy every part of her body felt good; and movement felt like a dance, movement felt like a song that sang in her body and beneath her skin, in her blood; the more she moved, the more all parts of her shifted and agitated and worked up that pleasant buzz that accompanied physical activity for Suzy... the knowledge that she was doing something physical productive; when she was in a more glum mood, the knowledge that she was doing something which would improve her mood; her mood was still improving but it had started out so pleasantly that it was different than a case in which she started blue and it lightened her to neutral. She had started with golden joy and gotten gold-er. She felt like she was shining as she walked, even at the more relaxed pace she had fallen back into, remember how much she had enjoyed that on Friday.

When she reached the school this time, the feeling kept on in her; and from the looks of the people around her, they were feeling that golden contentment rolling off of her; it seemed like some of it was splashing into them; maybe she’d improved the moods of some of the people around her as she moved ever closer to her locker. That was a pleasant thought, which turned her mouth up into a quiet, knowing smile.

This was how the day went: people giving second glances to her, because they sensed her glow within. Maybe she a different person... the happy girl inside had only been waiting. Maybe she was such a different person only because she’d gone so long without feeling this pre-last-Friday, but now she was feeling it again.

As long as she was glowing golden, she couldn’t really feel like a completely different person anymore. It felt too natural to be this way; if she had shifted imperceptibly so that after having this feeling twice it had become her new standard to aspire to, or what she’d adjusted too, but somehow it didn’t feel very important to think about... it only seemed important to appreciate that she was feeling this way inside after knowing its lack... and she was appreciative, everyone could see. That was the thing that was making her shine.

Because she was enjoying herself so much in every moment, the day was great fun, and it went by rapidly. In class every time she knew an answer it was a delight to raise her hand and share it; with her friends, it was nice to see them smiling more frequently, and a little wider, reflecting her happiness back to her. When she was writing in her notebook, when she had a particularly satisfying stroke of her pen, where the ink connected perfectly and just wrote to the page so that she could feel it flowing out to the paper, that brightened her shine that much more. When she found that the last bell had rang for the day, and she had to leave from her last class, which she shared with none of her friends, she felt even happier than she had when she’d woken up.

She’d lost the feeling on Friday, and imagined if it came back the feeling would be either static, or decreasing. She hadn’t thought it would slowly increase piece by piece all day long, as if every little spark of enjoyment in which all things were lining up and becoming temporarily perfect... she was so happy as she walked to the abandoned classroom; so happy she didn’t think she could possibly get any happier.

And then she opened the door and saw all of her three friends there, moving the two tables together, and getting four chairs together to send around it, and she felt her heart swell even more.

“You guys!” She said, clutching her books tighter to her chest, wanting to hug something to express the feeling. “It’s so good to see you!”

It wasn’t enough to hug the books, Suzy decided, and she’d already been making a series of tiny decisions all day that had bent her towards acting enjoyably; constantly opened the gate and stepped back into the butterfly garden, finding more and more butterflies inside each time she stepped in, counting them only when they touched her... she set her books on an empty desk, and stepped to Autumn, who was closest to her. She gave her a light tap on the shoulder, and when Autumn turned to face her, Suzy wrapped her in a heartfelt hugging, pressing their bodies together, holding them close together with the embrace of her arms.

“Saying it didn’t feel like enough,” Suzy said, savoring the hug completely. She swayed the two of them side to side, squeezing her eyes shut into the sensation. “It’s just really good to be with you.”

Autumn gave Suzy a hesitant pat on the back; but soon she embraced the hug, and pulled a little closer against her friend. “I thought you seemed extra cheery today; you’ve been a little brighter lately; Friday too.”

Suzy finally let Autumn go, but with a lingering movement that only slowly released her as she moved past.

Magdalena had been standing next closest, and Suzy didn’t even hesitate before reaching her for. Magdalena shifted in place; but didn’t step away, and though the other girl was taller, Suzy had no problem wrapping herself around where she could reach with true heartfelt sentiment, as it had been with Autumn. She had been genuinely happy to see Magdalena just as she’d been happy to see the friends that she’d known for longer; and she poured that emotion into the embrace once she had Magdalena in it; squeezing; rocking them; Magdalena didn’t move to hug her back, but still allowed the hug to happen, and that was just fine with Suzy.

“You’re not usually a hugger, Suzy,” was Barry’s comment, when Suzy had gotten to him; she wrapped him so tight she drove a little exhalation from his chest; winding him with a squeeze just tightly; he was tallest of all at his near six feet height, but Suzy hugged him all the more fervently for the fact that he towered over her. “None of us are,” Barry said; then with less hesitation than Autumn, wrapped his arms around Suzy too, to return the embrace he was getting from her.

There was an unspoken question in his voice—why the change? Why was she acting in a way that was different from her usual personality? Even before Suzy’s parents had divorced, she hadn’t been a hugger, or freely given out embraces to her friends, or even her family. Now she was doing that... but she didn’t want to think about that, or question why that might be. It seemed so much less important than enjoying the contact she and Barry were having with each other.

“Mmmh,” Suzy vocalized. “Barry-hug.”

He settled into the hug more, as if relaxing some kind of self-imposed restraint; letting himself enjoy it more too. She was just so overcome with satisfaction; she’d enjoyed holding each one of her friends so close, her body thrumming with the kind of enjoyment she usually got when she was moving in a way that was particularly gratifying for her; like when she hit the perfect running stride out on the track field, turning a corner and then just suddenly finding it there in her legs and the rest of her body.

Too overcome, too pleased to even want to ask herself why she was doing she’d never done before, and never done with these people.

That old fear in the back of her mind called to her, tried to ask the whys she wasn’t hearing... tried to say that maybe she was this other new person it couldn’t be sure of, this other new person it couldn’t sure was Suzy, anymore... who might have been someone completely new let loose in her again... or someone she was changing into... all of those thoughts came with feelings, but none of those feelings were happy-feeling thoughts, and Suzy couldn’t hear them over the sound of peace and ease that was now playing through her. She didn’t let that irrationality trouble her... didn’t let anything.

She’d hugged each one of them for a few minutes in the same way, and at last it was time to release Barry as well. Again, she lingeringly moved out of the embrace by walking past, letting her body trail her, her arms only slowly sink from him back to her sides.

The four of them were standing around the table again, over each one of their chairs, looking at each other.

“I guess Suzy’s a hugger now,” Barry observed. “Or at least, she will be, if she stays in such a good mood as she’d been in lately. So, does that make us a hugging group now?”

Suzy had not expected this adjustment, even if it was only a suggested right now. As if there was some kind of flow passing between all four of them that she had tethered, one to the next, with the hugs she had given each one.

Barry, Autumn and Magdalena looked among each other.

“Hugging group?” Magdalena echoed as her eyes met Autumn’s.

Autumn’s mouth quirked, her lips pressing together and coming forward in silent agreement as she thought it through quickly. “Hugging group,” she confirmed with a nod.

She took a step towards Magdalena, and extended her arms for a hug. This time Magdalena hugged back. The two looked a little hesitant at first, but settled into just as had happened with all the other hugs that had happened so far.

Suzy felt it still; as if there were some energy sluicing between them all; they were all specially connected in this moment... they had adjusted because she had adjusted... they had allowed for this new, different Suzy, if that was what she was. For her, it was easier to think of herself as a new, happier Suzy, flanked with butterflies by this point, but they had allowed for her, too. None of them had refused her, none of them had denied her; they had gone along with her hugs, and now, they were even changing themselves to adopt this newfound habit of hers. It hadn’t been the case, but now it seemed all four of them would be huggers now, because they’d accepted Suzy’s adaptation and were taking it on themselves.

Magdalena and Autumn finished hugging; then each one took turns hugging Barry, who eagerly hugged them back; they passed him off from one girl to the other like they were changing dance partners in some kind of round dance; so fluidly; Suzy felt her heart swell again after seeing that; then once everyone had hugged, they all sat down to their moved-together table and together, worked.

They hugged hello every day that week, in study group; after the first time, it didn’t seem so awkward for the others, so it felt more like a free exchange between all of them, not stunted by having to wait turns for each person to be done hugging, one at a time. They hugged more chaotically, all at the same time, moving person to person, sometimes getting someone twice or thrice before everyone caught up to the idea that hugging was done, and everyone had made contact with each other at least once.

They all ate lunch together each day that week, also, leaving all the caps off their drinks the way Magdalena always did; picking that habit up too. Suzy wondered if the fact that they’d all been spending time more often with each other was leading them to more easily take on each other’s traits, habits or foibles... if it was inclining them more to each other, making them all a bit more similar. She didn’t mind the idea... it was sweet to think they all meant so much to each other that they wanted to copy after each other.

But Suzy had no day the rest of that week in which she felt that golden shimmer, the shimmer of all things lining up at once; or where she put out the glow that everyone else could see and bask in. Sometimes she felt that moment of happiness when drinking something at lunch; felt all the enjoyment of her friends’ company coalescing in that moment, with the memory of that seeming drop of happiness present too.

Once again, they all saw each other on the weekend; going to Barry’s house this time. There were no cute snacks served up, the way Autumn’s mother had done it on a kiddy-like platter, but they didn’t mind it. Barry’s father happened to be home that evening; having closed the restaurant just that night for a night off the way Barry said he did sometimes, if rarely... and he willingly made up some “hors d’oeuvres” as he called them; nothing to outlandish after Barry warned him they didn’t want anything too strange; and though they seemed a little fancy to Suzy when they were done, they were also delicious, and the thanks she and the others offered to Barry’s dad were sincere.

Suzy hadn’t had another experience of getting lined up, but even remembering she’d felt it, twice now, and the second time, for so long and with it always getting stronger... even remembering that made her feel a bit changed. It had done her good to be happy in that way; maybe the good it had done had been powerful enough to make some subtle but permanent alteration. Something that would make it easier to feel that way the next time. She’d hardly been thinking about her parents’ divorce all that week, even though there’d only be the one occasion on which she’d really shone. That was an improvement... but she thought that maybe, when she sat and felt that drop of happiness sometimes sitting at lunch... that maybe it was getting easier to feel it each and every time.

That next school week, Suzy felt the shining coming out of her on that Wednesday. That was the day she and the others started hugging hello not just in study group, but every time they met up around the school, even when they met up for lunch. And still, even though Suzy had seen each one of her friends multiple times that day, and hugged them multiple times too, she still felt as if she hadn’t had enough of them; she was even happier seeing them at the beginning of study group than she had been the week before, and just hugging them wouldn’t be enough; they were already hugging each other in combination as they had all gotten used to doing, but when Magdalena pulled Suzy into a hug, Suzy wanted an outlet for her emotions of appreciation and affection, and the sudden, seemingly enjoyable impulse to press a kiss to Magdalena’s cheek seemed to present the solution to Suzy’s problem.

This she did, without a second thought, or a moment’s hesitation. A chaste, friendly, friend-like, friendly-like kiss to the center of Magdalena’s cheek, to the right of her face, Suzy’s lip grazing one of Magdalena’s impressive cheekbones along the arc of the movement.

Magdalena pulled back and looked at Suzy, touching the trace of wetness that Suzy had left on her cheek.

Suzy smiled shiningly; she knew it was shiningly, she had the gold light inside and it had to be radiating out; or beaming; “A hug wasn’t enough,” she said, by way of explanation. “I wanted to show you the affection I have for you. And a nice peck on the cheek seemed like a fun way to that.”

Magdalena kept looking at her, and didn’t say anything; Suzy moved to hug Autumn, and Autumn, having seen what last happened with Suzy and Magdalena was clearly a little bit trepidatious; but she still hugged Suzy the same, maybe not quite able to stop herself after so quickly habituating to the idea of hugging Suzy so frequently. And when Suzy had Autumn in her arms, she put a soft, sweet, equally chaste— equally meant in the manner of friendship— kiss on Autumn’s cheek too.

And when Suzy reached Barry, she did the same for him; though she noticed Autumn very deliberately looked away in that moment; Suzy imagined she had to be jealous, even though the kiss had no ulterior motives. Suzy didn’t want Barry like that. She would never have betrayed her best friend like that; she was just really enjoying putting her love for each friend into a kiss that she could give them, and that was all it was. A friend kissing a friend with a friend’s kiss. It all made perfectly sound sense to her.

When Suzy had given Barry the kiss, and pulled away, Barry cleared his throat. “I’m not sure we’re all “kissing hello” kind of people, Sooze... maybe you are now, and maybe we all decided to be huggers when you did. But kissing hello... I don’t know...” He reached up and rubbed his hand at the nape of his neck.

“I don’t know,” Magdalena said. “I didn’t mind it actually. It took a minute or two to process... but it’s actually pretty classy to kiss someone on the cheek when you greet them. If we wanted to get really classy, we could kiss twice on each cheek. Or twice on each cheek and once on the mouth.”

Autumn scowled; probably disliking the idea of two girls who she (falsely, in Suzy’s opinion) considered prettier than herself kissing her long-time crush, even once, let alone four or five times.

“And I always like anything sophisticated,” Magdalena summed up, with a definitive note in her voice.

“Well, if you guys wanna try it,” Barry said. He stopped rubbing at his neck and chased his fingers through his unkempt brown strands just once, absentmindedly, before dropping his arm again.

“Come on, Autumn,” Magdalena cajoled. “What do you say? Be sophisticated with us; be classy; at least once to try it.”

Autumn frowned again, but the three of them together, Barry, Magdalena and Suzy wore her down with only one or two more prodding comments in addition to this first one, and finally Autumn threw up her hands. “Fine,” she said, tossing her hands up. “Let’s be sophisticated together, then.”

The four of them moved in varying formations, like when they were hugging; so that everyone was always engaged with someone, on the way to cycling through everyone. Each one of them did as Magdalena had described, though they hadn’t agreed on it first; two kisses to each person opposite’s cheek, then two to their other cheek, then finally a simple peck on their mouth.

Once again, in cycling through everyone, some of them might have greeted each other two or three times instead of once, but eventually the greeting found its own end, and the four of them were sitting together at the table again, cracking their books.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Magdalena addressed to the others; Barry and Autumn, who had been at first reluctant.

“Not so bad,” Barry said; he looked like he was blushing a bit. Having three lovely girls kiss him four times across both cheeks and once on the mouth probably would have made any body blush, Suzy thought.

“Not so bad,” Autumn agreed, repeating Barry’s word; her voice was a bit more grudging, but she looked thoughtful. “I guess I can be a ‘kissing hello’ person.”

“I definitely can,” Barry echoed after her.

Magdalena smiled a small smile. “Then I guess that’s the kind of people we’re all going to be now.”

They all put their heads down and got to work, but Suzy was still thinking about her impulse to kiss, even chastely; it had felt fun; everything was so fun and carefree now, and even when she took a risk by acting in an uncharacteristic way, her friends seemed to have her back in it, to be willing to go along with her, and take up the behavior themselves. To excuse it, to find ways to normalize and justify it. Suzy really appreciated that; she was finding she loved these people more and more every day.

The kissing hello came seamlessly the last two days that week; they even made the immediate transition, Thursday morning, to kissing hello as soon as they saw each other around the school. Magdalena had excuses to give out to everyone for this strange new action; she told everyone who asked, and anyone who would listen, that the four of them were trying to bring a bit of European class to their friendships, and it was about time someone tried to class up Pine Ridge a bit.

After that, Suzy noticed a lot of people kissing hello to copy Magdalena; few of them went so far as the four of them did; to kiss twice on each cheek and once on the mouth. Most people who did it would just kiss once on one cheek; or maybe once on the mouth, always with a friend’s kiss. The teachers were a little bemused at first, it seemed, but sooner or later they seemed to glean through rumor that the act had originated with Magdalena, and then it had all seemed to make a lot more sense to them afterwards.

Wednesday was the only day that week that Suzy shined that week, though those moments of brief, transient joy each day at lunch seemed to happen every single day at lunch now instead of every handful of days; it wasn’t like a drop of happiness felt when she drank with her food; that still only seemed to happen every handful of days still. It was more like those times had become associated to every other time the drop of happiness wasn’t there, and since her body expected it, the feeling just happened, whether she imagined she was getting an external drop of it or not.

That weekend, as if they were rotating through houses, (though they had never officially planned on this), the four of them met one of that weekend’s afternoons at Suzy house that time. Her mother wasn’t home, but she’d left them cash for pizza; Barry said he could sympathize with having absent parents. The restaurant kept his busy, and he was often alone evenings, having to fend alone to make sure he ate super that night.

They stayed in the living room, with the radio playing an alternative station they all agreed on; it was trendy that year, so Magdalena was all for it, and it was Suzy, Barry and Autumn’s genre of choice, trendy or not. They kept the volume to a reasonable level so they could still here to work; and of course, they had all kissed hello when everyone had arrived. And after a few hours of working, they discussed pizza options; Magdalena was eager for pizza despite her impeccable shape; confident, she said, they’d she be able to work it all off her body again in tomorrow’s work out. She was disciplined in her exercise; Suzy could relate. She seemed to know her own body as well as Suzy knew hers, so Suzy didn’t doubt for a second that she was completely correct in this assessment.

Once they’d all agreed that pepperoni would be best, Suzy stood up from around the coffee table, and took the phone out of its cradle to dial the number for the pizza company, which she knew by heart. It wasn’t too busy a night, the delivery guy told her over the line, and this assessment also turned out to be correct; in about fifteen minutes he was at their door, and five minutes after that, he’d been given the cash value of the pizza, plus a generous tip for being so fast, and left on his way again.

They enjoyed their pizza together; laughed around mouthfuls when Barry animated his pizza slice with his hand like it was a living thing acting out various ridiculous scenarios; even though Autumn pretended to be scared, yelped and jumped away when he steered it towards her. It was a good night; Suzy was getting used to the feeling of all the nights they spent together going well. They always seemed to.

That next week, well into the November of that fall by that point, Suzy felt herself light up gold on the Monday again; the whole day was a delight because of this, like golden days always were, but she wasn’t prepared for the overwhelm of emotion that came to her, again, once she made it to study group that evening.

Autumn gave Barry a peck hello, and apparently gave him the idea. He turned to peck Suzy hello, on the mouth. He was in the process of kissing her hello after hugging her first, but it was just in the moment before Barry’s lips touched hers that Suzy felt, again, it wasn’t enough. She just loved Barry so much as one of her best friends and she wanted Barry to know it, to know her love—she wanted to show him. When Barry pecked Suzy’s lips with his, and started to pull away, Suzy followed his mouth to keep his lips against it, and kept kissing him; kissing him with something approaching... passion... this was not a friendly kiss anymore, not a friend’s kiss; it didn’t bother Suzy, or scare her, even though it was completely out of character, out of line with who she thought she was. But it had been one more tiny decision, and they were getting easier and easier to make all the time; decisions that tended towards fun, towards happiness, towards pleasure.

This was pleasurable; Suzy had only ever kissed boys she liked and not friends, so that was all she had to compare it to, but it was a good kiss; she pressed her lips in more insistently to Barry’s, and it seemed to completely overtake him. He let out a little vulnerable moan at the feeling, and apparently couldn’t even seem to think of pulling back.

Suzy doubled down, kissed harder; it felt so good, her lips were tingling, and she could feel stirrings of pleasure throughout herself; and to Suzy’s harder kiss, Barry’s lips parted, and Suzy’s tongue surged in, seeking out Barry’s, and then the two of them were very hotly, very wetly Frenching as Barry whimpered in around the shape of it.

Suzy was the one to break the kiss, and when she did, her breathing was heavy; there was only the fleeting impression of a bug-eyed Barry staring as if he couldn’t believe what he’d felt. Barry’s hands were already up and reaching for Magdalena as he stumbled around the table, still breathing ragged and saying nothing. He must have felt he needed to show this feeling to each one of them; share it with each one of them, and make sure they could feel it too.

Magdalena let herself be reached, even though she stared at Barry coming in part-surprise, part-shock. She looked more responsive once Barry was kissing into her; Barry did not have to be the one driving the kiss, Magdalena was there, equal party in it, kissing Barry back with a lip-sticked kiss; not only being plundered like Suzy had done to Barry, but actually doing the plundering after those first few seconds of adjustment.

When Magdalena’s tongue went into Barry’s mouth and touched his, then twisted with it, Suzy could guess the romantic history of the other girl in the way she kissed Barry, and the way she kissed with such experience, to make it pleasurable for her kissing partner; tricks and shifts she must have learned with dozens of boys throughout her well-known dating history; by the end of the kiss, Suzy saw Barry was breathing even heavier, and his legs were shaking as he finally stumbled to Autumn.

She caught him in his shake, which must have looked to Autumn like something that was going to become a collapse, and he had to angle down, and she had to go onto her toes to get their mouths lined up; but her arms held him to make the extension easier, and for a moment, while they were still trying to get to each other, there was a moment in which they breathed into each other’s mouths, and then they were kissing too.

Suzy thought Barry had carried something with him from each of the previous two kisses with him; the skill of Magdalena, the dominance of herself, the physical enjoyment he’d clearly taken in both. He could take all of this and give it to Autumn as they kissed, roll into his mouth and then send into hers; or lick it onto her tongue while it thrashed with his. The kiss made him shiver; seemed to make Autumn shake, though she had been the one to catch and steady him; and was still holding him steady despite her own shaking.

When they both broke this kiss, and Autumn settled back to her natural height; and Barry’s hands left her, and left her cold, all four of them once again looked at each other.

“So,” Barry said, a note of downplay in his voice. “I guess we’re people who do this, now, too.”

“Well...” Autumn said. It looked like her mind was working on it: some way to justify what had just happened, why they had all been okay with it, more than okay with it, eagerly participating, and, from the looks of flushed faces, enjoying. Why they had been enjoying when at least one of them should have hesitated; or been shocked; but none had.

A light sparked in Autumn’s eyes almost golden-seeming, which was interesting to Suzy because she had thought she’d owned that feeling of golden-ness... but from Autumn’s look, her mind had evidently produced for her the excuse she had sought. “We were already kissing each other hello,” she argued. “That’s all we’re doing now... that’s all that it means... just kissing hello. We’re just... getting a little... enthusiastic about it. We’re just all really happy to see each other!”

There was a beat of silence; and Suzy looked around at everyone, to see if anyone else was going to accept this justification; or if this was the place that allowance would break. The place that would break allowance, the thing that would finally be intolerable; jeopardize their newfound friendships, or even disband the study group once and for all. The study group, which had so far survived friendly hugs of greeting, and European kisses of greeting. But could it weather Frenching? That was still unclear.

“That makes sense to me,” Magdalena shrugged. “Barry was a good kisser; whatever I have to agree with to be able to enjoy kisses like that, I’ll agree with.”

“Would I like to make-out with my three beautiful female friends every time we come to study together?” Barry asked rhetorically; the whimsy evident in his voice. “What kind of guy would want a thing like that? What torture!”

Suzy laughed; Barry was often able to get her laughing; Magdalena snorted, but had clearly enjoyed the humor, also. Autumn just looked relieved that everyone had agreed; that no one was going to call her out. And Suzy was surprised; clearly, they all cared for each other and respected each other that all of them were willing to allow for even this; for even French kissing and watching on, though it was clear from what Barry had said last that all four of them understood that the French kissing, at least, would have to stay behind study room doors; wouldn’t be understood, or so easily explained as the European introductions of greeting had been. It would not be a trend like those; it would be something to mock; or be questioned over.

But Suzy was satisfied by the thought that she could share her love physically with Barry, and he with the others, every day, before sitting down to study and work on homework with them. Nothing less would do, now; it had been so satisfying to kiss that love directly into his mouth, and watch him kiss it to the others, and to have them take it as if they were hungry for it, enjoying it just as much as Suzy herself had done.

Barry had kissed his way around the room, but now, after brief agreement, brief checking in, he was going around again; first Autumn, then Magdalena; Autumn moaning under the more demanding thrusts of Barry’s tongue. Suzy’s impression before had been right; when he pulled back, Barry stared at this vision of Autumn like it was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen, his eyes wide and trying to get wider, to be wide enough that they could filled completely, or wider than was actually physically possible so that the image he was seeing could be as large as possible in the ken of his sight; that he could bring it that much closer to himself.

Then Autumn kissed Barry, shaking harder than Barry had; it meant less to Barry than to Autumn, and he was still oblivious, but Suzy knew it was what Autumn had been waiting for... for so long... and she seemed to take the most pleasure out of this kiss with him when she ended it.

Magdalena and Barry kissed last, but there was something about them that seemed to click into place... to fit, when they were kissing together. They just... fit... each other. Maybe it was just the aesthetic appeal of seeing two brunettes together, their hair and coloring so similar; or the fact that they were the two tallest people in the group; but they looked good together, and the apparent visual chemistry seemed to have translated into something that was feel-able, something that could be sensed, and that was spurring their kiss on to hotter flames of passion the longer that they kissed.

When they finished, Barry’s lips were wet, a bit lipstick smeared, in the traces of the gloss smears he’d gotten from Autumn. All the residue came off on the back of his hand.

After that there didn’t seem to be anything to say. They sat down in the same companionable silence as ever, and did their study-work.