Three Hearts free porn video

Three Hearts "You can't be serious! This is only March 31! Save that stuff for tomorrow. Really, now Bailey, you don't expect us to believe that, do you?" "You got that candle from an old Gypsy lady in a horse and wagon right here in Lilyville? There hasn't been a horse and wagon in this town in sixty years! C'mon now, Bailey, can't you wait for April Fool's Day?" "I'm telling you, girls, it's true. Do you think I'd lie to you the night before our birthday? I tell you she had a real horse and wagon, that's what caught my attention. It was white with lots of red trim - the wagon, that is - and a window on the side and a little chimney on the top like she lived in it. This would make a great story for the school paper, I thought, so I went right over and started talking to her. "She said she wasn't a Gypsy, but her accent was so thick I couldn't make out just where she said she was from. She said she lived her life on the road, just her and her old horse, and she sold candles to support herself. I said I'd buy this one because it was so pretty, with these three little hearts. Green and blue and brown, just the colours of our eyes. And look at these little flecks of colour - they almost look like our real eye colours! I told her it would be great for our birthday sleepover, that me and my two girlfriends were all born on April 1 and we always have a sleepover the night before. "She smiled a little smile and her eyes lit up - you know how in books they say they twinkle? It was just like that. She said you very kind girl, I can tell. I give you wise old woman's gift. You and friends sit in circle at midnight. Light candle. Join hands. Close eyes. Greatest gift - to see heart through other eyes. You good girls. Now go." "Okay, Bailey, I give up. It's just too late to talk about it any more. Put the darn candle on the floor and let's get it over with. It's almost midnight and we've got school tomorrow." Bailey put the candle in its holder and placed it in the middle of the bedroom floor. The three girls moved close it. Kayla was the smallest of the three, and the cutest. She had honey blonde hair past her shoulders framing a pretty little face. Button nose, deep blue eyes, busy mouth and dimples galore: the kind of little sister look that high school boys everywhere love. And they loved Kayla. Everything about her was sexy and little and teasing. Truth to tell, the girl was a born cocktease and, the high school cock being so eminently teaseable, seemed to be quite enjoying herself. But of course appearances don't always tell the whole story. Kayla wasn't the breezy little thing she appeared to be. Two years earlier she had dated an older boy. She had hardly dated at all before and was flattered by his attention. She felt like such a little princess sitting at the movie with him, so grown up when she got into his car. But the car had pulled into a darkened lot and it had all happened so fast. There wasn't even really a kiss before he'd forced himself on her. She knew she should fight but she was so confused and he was so strong and she was just a little girl really and when she said "Stop, you're hurting," he'd just pushed all the harder. Thank God it was over fast. The worst thing was when he dropped her off on the sidewalk outside her mother's apartment and she'd just stood there sobbing in the cold, ashamed to go in. Now Kayla's flirting and primping had a hard edge to it. Let them look. Let them want her. Let their nasty little cocks burn for her. They couldn't have her. They couldn't touch her. No boy would get that close to her again. Kayla lived with her mother in a flat over Mr. Lee's Cantonese and Canadian Food Restaurant. Her mother tended bar at the only club in Lilyville. She left for work early in the evening and was still in bed when Kayla left for school in the morning, so Kayla didn't see too much of her. Kayla washed dishes at the restaurant on Saturday and Sunday mornings. School didn't seem to interest her and she just barely scraped by. Nothing else seemed to interest her much either, nothing except endlessly poring over the cosmetics ads in her mother's magazines. "Okay, I've got the matches. Turn out the lights, Shannon." Shannon was the artistic one. She had sharp, handsome features and glittering green eyes. Her reddish hair always looked unkempt in spite of its expensive cut. She stood a little over medium height and moved with the fluid grace of a dancer. Indeed, she'd taken ballet lessons for four years until her instructor moved to the city. She'd taken piano lessons since she'd been old enough to sit at the keyboard, and her verse graced every issue of the school paper. Shannon's father was the town's only surgeon, and he was a very good one. He would have left for a larger centre long ago but Shannon's mother refused to leave Lilyville. Arrogant and cold, he was detested by the townspeople. Shannon took more after her mother, a watercolourist of some regional renown, who did her best to immerse her daughter in such culture as their small town had to offer. The only student who got higher grades than Shannon was Chad. Chad was every bit as cold and as arrogant as Shannon's father, so it seemed only natural to everyone at school that they should be an item. An item of sorts. Their relationship was pretty much limited to school dances and sports team functions where Chad needed a date, because Chad was Lilyville High's leading athlete as well as its leading student, and a jock had to have a date. Chad would occasionally condescend to talk to her in the halls or walk home from school with her but not much more. Most of the kids considered Shannon a bit of a snob and figured she and Chad deserved each other. Shannon's father doted on her, in his own way. He'd buy anything for his little girl, anything she wanted. But she didn't seem to want much. Clothes didn't seem to be her thing. She just grabbed the first thing in her closet, preppie one day and peasant the next. Her father had offered to get her a horse a few years ago but she hadn't been interested. She did however devour books at an alarming rate, both serious literature and the trashiest of romances. Last year's Booker Prize winner may have been on her bedside table, but there was a steamy bodice-ripper hidden in the drawer. Shannon could have had just about anything she wanted, but she couldn't have the one thing she really needed, her father's love, and without that nothing else really mattered. "Now everybody sit down in a circle. Can you see okay? Those hearts almost glow in the dark, don't they?" Bailey was a busy girl. She was editor of the school paper, she taught Sunday School, and she was much in demand as a baby sitter. She was the tallest of the girls, and the least pretty. Not homely, mind you, just lacking a little something. She wasn't the hot little thing Kayla was, or the pale poetess that was Shannon. She was more the girl next door type. She had dark brown eyes that always looked moist, dark brown hair that always looked combed, a dark complexion that always looked scrubbed, and big full lips that always looked puckered. But what everyone noticed about Bailey was her breasts. Bailey noticed them too, because they were so new. She'd been slow to develop, and then boom! there they were, almost overnight. They were big. They weren't ungainly but they were, well... ample, and they showed to great advantage on her tall frame. She was suddenly the envy of every girl in school, and you can just imagine the reaction she got from the boys. She was proud of her breasts. Just the way they changed her body made her feel more...substantial, more to be taken seriously as a physical presence. She'd always been considered goody-goody and nondescript, easy to ignore. Now she basked in the attention, she loved to be looked at. It gave her a little thrill to walk through the halls at school, feeling all the boys' eyes on her and paying them no mind. She hadn't quite worked out why yet, but she liked it. Most of the time. Trouble was, the attention was all of the time. It didn't matter if she were having a bad day, if she were mad at the world, or if she were having her period, those idiot boys still stared as if they'd never seen a boob before in their life! Even last Sunday after church when she'd been telling the minister how much she enjoyed the sermon, she couldn't help but notice how the his eyes kept falling to her boobs as she talked. And the Vice Principal was no better, or the man next door who was old enough to be her grandfather. She'd played with Barbies long enough to know that big breasts were something every girl wanted to have, but she was beginning to think that sometimes they were just a plain nuisance! Bailey didn't really have a boyfriend, but she had her eye on George. Poor George! All skinny and gawky, he just couldn't do anything right. He tried to be a nerd and spent all his time studying in the school library, but he couldn't even manage that. Her marks were always way higher than his, even though she was too busy to spend half the time on her schoolwork she should. He was hopeless at sports, and when she'd tried to recruit him for the school paper he'd gotten so flustered he'd hardly been able to get out the words, "I don't think I have the time." When she'd tried to chat him up at the drugstore where he worked after school, he'd gotten all red in the face and, backing away from her, tumbled over into a display of Kleenex boxes! It had been just like an old Jerry Lewis movie! Even she had had to laugh to herself as she left the store. She'd only asked where the school supplies were - imagine if she'd asked for tampons! Poor George. He always looked so lonely and hurt and scared. She thought he liked her, but she just couldn't get close to him. How she longed to comfort him, to hold him close to her warm soft bosom, to hold his silly head against her shoulder, to whisper in his ear and make everything alright. Bailey's father worked in the office of a small local construction firm. Her two older brothers were away at university. She loved her younger brother and was never happier than when she was playing a board game with him or helping him with his homework or just making believe. Because to tell the truth, Bailey was growing up more quickly than she wanted to. Womanhood was happening too fast. She missed her little girl world of Barbies and stuffed toys, of Nancy Drew and skipping ropes. Sometimes she wished she could just be a little girl again, curled up under a blanket on the couch with her doll while the boys watched the game on TV and her mother rocked the baby to sleep. "Alright everybody, it's lit! Now let's hold hands." "What a funny light! It's not that bright but it seems to be filling the whole room!" "Look at those colours! Blue and green and brown. They seem to be switching around." "Okay, girls, let's close our eyes. That's what the old woman said to do." "Okay, they're closed. Now what?" "What's that noise? It sounds like the wind but it's right here inside the room." "That clomp clomp jingle jingle can't be a horse outside, can it?" "Hey! What are we doing up here? How can we be looking down at ourselves? And what's that old woman doing, putting her hands on our heads?" "That's the old woman from this afternoon...what's she saying? I can't make it out over the wind, and that accent of hers..." "I'm getting dizzy. I can't stay up here much longer! We're falling back!" "Something warm - no, something HOT's going through my hands! It's going around and around the circle!" "We can't stay up here much longer! We're falling back! Everything's getting blurry!" "I can't see anymore! It's all black!" "Is that your hand?" "Is that my hand?" "...all fuzzy...can't keep awake anymore...falling back..." "Oh!" "Oh." "Ohhh..." * * * * * * * One week later. Kayla took a long drag from her cigarette and pushed aside her breakfast of dry toast and coffee. She exhaled with a sigh. She never would have done this when she was Shannon. It was all muesli and yogurt and kiwis. Being Kayla was so different. She looked down at her bitten nails. The ends of all her pencils and pens were chewed. This girl had some kind of oral fixation. She crushed out her cigarette in disgust. Filthy habit! She'd have to quit. The other girls had never suspected she smoked. If they'd smelled smoke on her clothes, she'd blamed her mother. Damned apartment smells like an ashtray! They hadn't suspected the makeup either, how skillfully she applied it. They thought she always looked so fresh and natural. They didn't know how pale and drawn she looked without it, how she looked haggard even at sixteen. School again this morning. God, she was getting tired of it! Faking her way through class after class, always having to smile and pose and mince through the halls. It had been fun for the first few days, the eyes on her, the stolen glances. Then she noticed the glares and the leers, the muttered comments and the sneers, the bitchy freeze out from the girls in the washroom. Her thin lips formed an ironic smile. All this time Shannon and Bailey thought they were riding on the coattails of her popularity. What kind of popularity was it when you couldn't get through a day without being called a horny little bitch? Kayla smiled again, this time distantly, without the hard edge. Horny little bitch. Maybe that wasn't a complete misnomer. She'd masturbated way too much when she was Shannon and it had been okay...but as Kayla it was just unbelievable! This body was one hot little firecracker! She's been almost shocked the first time she'd taken off Kayla's padded bra and seen just how small her breasts were underneath it, but when she touched them! And when she'd slid her hand down there in the shower... She had just had no idea. Funny thing was, though, she just didn't feel like doing it very often. It was fun but it wasn't good, if that makes any sense. She wanted something else but she wasn't sure what. One thing for sure, there were going to be some changes made. As Shannon, good things had just come to her. They hadn't made her happy, but getting them had been easy. Not anymore. Kayla was going nowhere, and if she ever wanted to get anywhere, it was going to have to be by her own efforts. First of all, the smoking had to go. Then that job at the restaurant. She was only working there because her mother had coaxed Mr. Lee into ignoring her age. Now that she was sixteen she could find something better. What was the use of being so cute if all it got you was washing dishes? Maybe she didn't have much to work with, with Kayla's skinny little body and average brain, but she was going to do the best she could with what she had! Shannon turned the page of the nocturne she was playing. As Bailey she'd never cared much for music. Whatever was on in the background was fine with her as long as it wasn't too noisy. If she thought about classical music at all she thought of it as something that should be played so low you didn't have to listen to it. She just had no idea of the depth of feeling, of the passion, in every note. And how to bring it out, that was the problem, how to take it from the page and bring it to life, to breathe your life into it, some one else's genius but your expression of that genius, something universal yet uniquely... Darn! That should have been a flat! She'd missed it the last time too. Mrs. Rostov the piano teacher was right, she didn't practice half enough. She might peck away half-heartedly at a piece once or twice, then go over it a couple of times the night before her next lesson just so she wouldn't totally embarrass herself. As Bailey she'd always thought Shannon was such a whiz at the piano - she could play half of the first verse of any song you could name - but now she realized that this girl just didn't take her music very seriously. And that lout Chad! He certainly didn't take her very seriously. Hadn't looked at her for three days, then sees the book in her hand and starts lecturing her on Salman Rushdie. Facile third world showman, he called him. He'd never even read him! Him and his Kurt Vonnegut! He talks to me like I'm a child and I should be in awe of him! Bailey had never been able to see what Shannon saw in Chad and why she put up with him the way she did. Now she knew. It wasn't that Chad was so great, it was just that there wasn't anyone else for her in Lilyville. She couldn't settle for less. What heroine would settle for a stable boy (except in a moment of passing weakness) when she could have the lord of the manor? Nothing less would do, no matter how much of an ass he made of himself. Bailey had never thought having a boyfriend would be like this, but now that she was seeing the world through Shannon's eyes, the pattern was familiar. Shannon could never really be Chad's girl just like she'd never been able to be Daddy's girl. But as much as the distance hurt her, it stirred her pride. Her father couldn't buy her no matter how many horses he offered, and she wouldn't give up Chad no matter what the rest of the school thought. She would do things her way no matter how unsatisfactory it was. Being Shannon sure was different. Her life was so much more spacious now, if she could put it that way. Instead of being filled with church and family and the paper, there was so much more room now for her spirit to soar. Books, for instance - as Bailey she always seemed to be researching something in the library, but as Shannon, to lose yourself in a novel, to put a book down and realize that you've been reading for four hours and it's dark outside...Or to be able to play music like this...This piece is going much better the second time through...Or just to breathe the spring air, to see the first robin hopping on the frozen ground, the sunset through the bare trees... As Bailey she'd never done these things, never taken the time, never noticed. Now whole new worlds opened up to her every day. She could stare into one of her mother's watercolours for ten minutes, for fifteen minutes, for half an hour, and only begin to fathom its mysteries. And the CD of Bach partitas she'd come across in her mother's collection - it took her to places she'd never dreamed existed, and took her farther in each time she listened . Everything was a door for her now, a door that opened into a garden, a garden whose every blossom, every dewdrop, was hers to explore. That wasn't the only exploring she'd done. The first thing she'd noticed about being Shannon was how light her body seemed, how movement seemed effortless. She didn't miss the big breasts. Shannon had to admit that she had admired them, just like everyone else, but now she saw her own breasts in a new light. They were so firm, so saucy, so nicely formed. And when she touched them... As Bailey she had understood that a young woman should acquaint herself with her own body. In the privacy of the bathtub she had dutifully rubbed her nipples to erection and tried masturbating a few times, but either she was doing it wrong or the results just weren't worth all the time and effort. But as Shannon...she had just had no idea! She'd just been soaping herself in the shower and it felt so good on her breasts that she'd soaped down lower and that felt so good the she'd soaped some more and the more she soaped the better it felt and when it happened the first time she thought she was blacking out, that Shannon had some weird medical condition or something. She had just had no idea. And she just had no idea how often Shannon did it! This just couldn't be healthy. Once every week or two probably wouldn't be harmful, but she'd done it twice in bed last night before she went to sleep! That just couldn't be normal, although she did have to admit she'd slept very soundly. No, there were going to be some changes made. First of all, this girl needed some discipline. It was all well and good to be sensitive and fine-feeling, but it had to be channelled, and you couldn't channel it by practicing the piano twenty minutes a week. And a little more attention to her appearance would go a long way. She really was quite pretty. She was at least combing her hair before school now, but a little bit of makeup would be a big help too. Just a little. She'd never been much good with makeup when she'd been Bailey. Maybe Kayla could help her get started. And it was great to have the second highest marks in the class, but if she spent a little more time studying and a little less time with her fingers where they shouldn't be she knew she could be first. Wouldn't that bring Chad down a peg! And speaking of Chad, there were going to be some changes there too. One week, two conversations, and already she was sick of hearing him talk through his hat. He just assumed he was so superior. Was he in for a surprise! What it really reminded her of was babysitting a spoiled child. She'd dealt with that situation more than once as Bailey, and she'd deal with it again now with Chad. Come to think of it, the same thing might work with her father. Make them understand that you must be treated with respect, that anything less is just unacceptable, and there's no problem. Let them run on you and you're dead. Bailey logged off the computer and slumped back in her chair. Whew! Another edition of Lilyville High Happenings in the can! And a day early! That was good, because she was babysitting tonight and she wanted to spend tomorrow evening preparing her lesson on the Good Samaritan for Sunday's class. It was great to be organized. As Kayla, the days had just melted into one another like chocolate chips melting in a pan. All that time just leafing through her mother's magazines, dreaming about...dreaming about what? She realized with a start that as Kayla she hadn't had any dreams, hadn't had any plans, didn't look forward to anything. It was all just now, endless TV shows and cigarettes. Filthy habit! She couldn't believe she'd really smoked! Everything was so wholesome now. Having a father and a mother and brothers was just like something out of those hokey old fifties' TV shows or an Archie comic or something. Even her underwear were wholesome, the big full panties and the functional white bras. It all just felt so comfy and cozy and secure. Best of all was that she didn't have to carry all that baggage now. That awful memory wasn't hers anymore. It was still awful, but it was the kind of thing that happened to somebody else. It was just a cautionary tale, not something that lived in her heart and hurt her every day and never went away. Now, as Bailey, boys were just boys and girls were just girls and life was full and busy but she could handle it. There was one thing that bothered her, though, one thing that took her back to her days as Kayla. It was the looks she got from boys, the looks she even got from grown men. As Kayla it had been different. As Kayla, she'd worked for those looks, she'd gloried in them. Maybe "gloried" wasn't quite the right word. It was hard to explain now, looking back at it. She wanted the looks but she wanted to use them to hurt. She realized now that it had cut both ways. As Bailey she didn't have to work at attracting attention. Just this morning a boy had walked right into an open locker door because he'd had his head swiveled around about 135 degrees trying to catch one last glimpse of her boobs. She hadn't even noticed him till she heard the bang. She couldn't help laughing! Boys could be such children sometimes! But all these looks all the time...didn't they ever get over it? This Bailey may be smart and organized and capable, but she can be so stunned sometimes too. Kayla had never realized that all these looks bothered Bailey. If she minded so much, why did she always wear such tight tops? She realized that Bailey'd just never given it any thought. Big chest, tight top. Always worked for Barbie. Something looser could still look good. This girl's wardrobe needed a serious overhaul. And her makeup! Kayla always knew that Bailey didn't have a clue when it came to makeup. No matter how she tried to coach her, she always ended up looking like a little girl playing dress up. She'd examined Bailey's features in the mirror. There was lots there to work with. This girl should be beautiful, but she always looked so dowdy. It wouldn't take much. Just a little blush to emphasize those fine cheekbones, maybe a little something around the eyes, and just a little lips gloss instead of that god-awful bright red lipstick that she plastered across her face on rare occasions. But with Bailey, it always seemed to come back to the boobs. As Kayla she'd always envied Bailey's breasts, just like all the other girls. More than most, probably, in light of her own little mosquito bites. Having Bailey's breasts still seemed like a miracle. She'd pose in front of the mirror trying to get used to the look of them. She'd cup them in her hands, amazed at their weight. They gave her a kind of authority or confidence...there must be a word for it...they made her feel that people had to take her seriously as a woman. The funny thing was, though, that they didn't make her feel sexy or get her aroused. Ten times as big, ten times as sexy, made sense, didn't it? But it just didn't add up that way. Kayla's breasts may have been small, but when she touched them they just wanted more and more. These new ones just kind of hung there and didn't seem to care if you played with them or not and all that sexy stuff that used to run through her like wildfire when she was Kayla just didn't happen anymore. The hottest Bailey ever got was dreaming about being cuddled. And cuddled by George! George! Kayla and Shannon had just had no idea! George was the easiest-to-ignore person in the whole school! Kayla had never even bothered to wiggle when she walked by him! As Kayla she never would have understood. As Bailey she did. George was just like her, blindsided by puberty and everyone else's expectations. George just needed someone, someone to bring out what she knew was in there somewhere, somewhere behind the ink-stained shirts and the pocket protectors, behind the messy hair and the frightened eyes. She shook her head. Bailey just had no idea how to get close to George. But Kayla did. * * * * * * * One month later. Kayla felt the cock hard in her mouth. Sure beat a cigarette. There seemed to be two schools of thought on fellatio. The girls at school all said it was the sluttiest thing you could ever possibly do. Her mother's magazines made it out to be the height of sexual sophistication. She didn't know. It made her think...mmmm...maybe of riding a bucking bronco, something irresistible, explosive... animal. It was a wild ride and it didn't last long, but it was such a charge to be almost in control while it did. She'd only done it three times, but that had been enough to break her stallion. She didn't know just why it was so different with him. He was so shy and such a gentleman. She'd almost been sick to her stomach the first time he'd asked her out, a clammy patina of perspiration had come over her, because she knew she had to say yes. And he'd treated her like such a little queen, holding doors, almost afraid to touch her, having to work himself up just to squeeze her hand when he said good night! She didn't want to lose him. She didn't want to scare him off by coming on too sexy, but she didn't want to let him get away by being too distant. It was a performance Kayla never could have managed by herself and one that Shannon never would have bothered to try. But Shannon-in-Kayla had pulled it off beautifully. She'd laughed, she'd been fun, she'd put him at his ease. Without him even knowing it, she'd taken the lead in the relationship. At the end of each date, she'd tell him what they were doing on the next one. It was about two weeks before they were really alone together, although they'd been out half a dozen times. Kayla just seemed to know what to do. She had him well aroused and he put up no resistance when she undid his jeans. It just felt so right, taking him into her mouth. She wanted him so badly, wanted his hands on her body, wanted his fingers down there, but she focused everything on the task at hand. When he started to buck, she'd tightened her grip, one small hand around the base of his cock, the other squeezing his testicles ever more firmly, setting her own pace and relishing the control. That night had bound him to her. He'd fallen hard and fast. She was already making plans. He worked at the local sawmill. She'd got him to enroll in an industrial mechanics course for next fall. Anyone can pile lumber. There's a lot more security in being able to maintain the equipment. She'd got a part time job at the cosmetics counter of the drugstore and it was going so well! She'd had ladies come back and tell her how happy they were with the makeup she'd helped them pick out, then they'd ask her opinion. A little too bold, did she think, maybe a little less here...Oh! Did she really think so? Yes, that was an improvement. Thank you so much, dear... They wanted her approval! They really did care what she thought! No one had ever valued her opinion before. She was already looking into cosmetician and hairdressing courses for next year. Her life was taking shape. As Shannon she'd been creative but her head was always too far in the clouds to actually create anything. Maybe cosmetics wasn't high art, but through it she was creating a future for herself and that was a kind of art too. Maybe she didn't love him, certainly not the way he loved her, not yet anyway. Her mother had told her to talk to her if she ever needed birth control and she thought the time was soon. She wanted him inside her so badly right now but she'd make herself wait just a little while longer. She was onto a good thing and she was determined not to blow it. Poor choice of words! She felt his engorged organ twitch in her mouth. She had meant to ease off, to cool down, to make it last longer this time, but it was too late for that now. He was past the point of no return. She bobbed franticly, hungry for the first surge... Shannon pulled her hair back in a short pony tail and looked into the mirror. A little help from Kayla had really worked wonders for her. No wonder all her mother's friends were flocking to the cosmetics counter to see her. Who would have thought just a little makeup would make such a difference? She knew Chad was downstairs waiting for her. She knew he hated to wait. She was in no hurry. He hated Julia Roberts movies too, but he was going to one, and he wouldn't dare complain about that either. He'd been surprisingly easy to manage. Once he realized that she wasn't going to put up with any more of his nonsense everything had been fine. It had started in class. He was used to spouting off at great length and bullying everyone, even the teachers, with his unsupported opinions. She had simply countered with facts. Undeniable, incontrovertible, verifiable facts. It had been so easy. Jaws had dropped the first time she'd shot him down, but after a few more times the surprise turned to admiration. Her marks had surged ahead his too, now that she was actually opening a textbook in the evenings. She now beat him regularly on tests and quizzes, even in physics class, Mr. Future Engineer. Her star was rising; Chad's was on its way down. The same thing had worked with her father. He'd been taken aback the first time she'd spoken sharply to him. His head had snapped back like he'd just been given a dose of smelling salts. The second time less so, and the third time she really thought he was just trying to provoke her. And he was! He was! He loved being told not to talk such nonsense. For the first time ever they were on some kind of common ground. It really was like babysitting a spoiled child. They might never be your first choice to spend time with but, if properly managed, the experience could be a rewarding one for both parties. And her music was coming along so well! Second place at the music festival, a major improvement on past years. Her mother said she should have finished first, but she knew in her heart that the adjudicator had been right: superior interpretation hampered by merely adequate technique. That would change. Improvement was incremental, but she'd play her scales till she was blue in the face if that's what it took. Bach wasn't for slackers. Elections were coming up for next year's Student Council executive. Everybody was after her to run for President. That was a switch. Usually nobody paid any more attention to her than she did to them. She rather liked it. And Chad had thought he was a shoo-in! Maybe he could be Vice President... But really, Bailey would make a better Vice President. What about Secretary Treasurer? Yes, she liked that idea. Could we have last month's financial report, Chad? She smiled broadly. Did the Secretary Treasurer take the minutes too? There! Now she was ready! She tucked her crisp white shirt into her classis-cut jeans and bounded down the stairs to meet Chad. His eyes were like saucers. She knew her nipples were clearly visible through the thin white cotton and was pleased to see they were having the desired effect. She reached up to give him a peck on the cheek, letting her breasts brush lightly against him. "C'mon, Chad, we'll be late. Let's get going." And with that she slipped on a smart tweed blazer and buttoned it up against the evening cold. It was going to stay buttoned up too. Chad had seen all he was going to see for tonight...unless he was very sweet, very gentlemanly... and very very lucky. Bailey finished doing up her hair. It looked good pulled back from her face, or rather her face looked good with the hair pulled back from it. Maybe the bun wasn't the latest teenage fashion statement, but it did show off the classic bone structure of her brow, cheeks, and jaw. Kayla had showed her just how to emphasize them, how to bring out the beauty that had been there all along. Funny how ever since that night a month ago, Kayla just seemed to be able to see beauty in everyone and to bring it out with a little paint here, a little powder there, a little flip of the hair. An artist's touch. And wasn't it funny how Shannon had become so organized and businesslike. Everything had just come together for her: her grades, her music. She was a shoo-in for Student Council President, and Chad followed her around like a little puppy. Funny how things had changed with herself too. Now that she'd started wearing looser tops or jackets she didn't feel so self- conscious about her breasts. And with a little makeup and some variety in her hairstyles, she was starting to be considered a local beauty. Someone had even asked her if she was going to enter the Miss Lily Festival Pageant this summer! That was so silly! Imagine, her, Bailey, running for Miss Lily Festival! A month ago everyone would have laughed at the idea. But now...well, she smiled, she was only sixteen. Next year, who knows? She was still as busy as ever. Busier. She'd taken on that noon time job as student library monitor. The look on George's face the first time he'd walked into the library and seen her behind the counter! She knew she looked every inch the librarian, with her hair up in a bun and her glasses perched on the end of her nose. Oh George, that book on trains you ordered form the Inter-Library Book Bank is in! Come with me, it's back here in the office. She felt so authoritative and grownup, knowing that she finally had him where she wanted him. There was no getting away. Flushed and flustered, red as a beet and starting to break a sweat, he had no choice but to follow her back into the office and squirm in his chair while Bailey moved behind the desk and coolly completed the forms. She felt his gaze hard on her face frantically memorizing every contour. She looked up and smiled sweetly. I noticed that you'd also signed out The Model Railroader's Journal, so I took the liberty of ordering you the bound edition of last year's issues. I hope you haven't read them all. You know, I've always found model railroading so interesting! One of my brothers had a model train set once, but I've always wanted to see what a serious hobbyist could do. I've heard that you have quite a setup at home. I'd really like it if you could show it to me sometime. And of course he'd died a thousand deaths, and of course she didn't really give a hoot about engines or switches or cabooses, but he really didn't have any way out of having her over to see his trains on Saturday afternoon. And he hadn't been able to say no when she'd asked him to bicycle to the park with her on Sunday afternoon. Or the concert at her church on Wednesday night, or the movie on Friday. Bailey smiled to herself. Funny how it had all worked out. It was just a month since she'd seen the old woman with her horse and wagon, just a month since she'd bought that magic candle. Three lives, three hearts, all so different now. Had she ever really been Kayla? Or had Shannon really taken Kayla's place? Or did the soul that had once lived in this body now really live in Shannon's? It was all so confused; it took more and more effort to straighten it out. Probably in another month or two nobody would even remember who had been in what body and whose spirit was where. They'd all just be who they were. Funny. Bailey smiled again and turned away from the mirror. Another good thing about a bun was that it fit so well under one of her brothers' old ball caps. She hauled it on and zipped up her jacket. She was off to meet George to go looking for spring wildflowers in the hills behind Lilyville. She didn't understand everything that had happened, but it seemed to be all for the best. She didn't know how everything would work out, but she was a born optimist. One thing she did know, though, was spring weather, how a cold breeze could come up toward the end of even the warmest spring afternoon, how a girl could get a chill, how a girl might have to be cuddled and held close for a long time down among the dogtooth violets and the dry grass to get warm again. She smiled a good-bye to her little brother and closed the door behind her.