The only time she didn’t worry about Tracy and her kissing was when her and Tracy were kissing. When they walked back from campus together, which they’d been doing every afternoon, Ellen’s stomach was in knots. The two girls barely said a word to each other. And then they were inside and lying on Ellen’s bed—they always went to Ellen’s, they knew they’d be alone there—and everything was soft and sweet and Tracy’s little coos and her lips, and sometimes her tongue, and they were floating together on like their own pink little cloud. He’d told them they had to go for at least half an hour but once they started they forgot all about the time. Yesterday they hadn’t thought to stop till Ellen heard her mom coming home.

Ellen worried about the moment when the knots disappeared and the flutter between her legs started up. She worried about Tracy and her falling in love. The thought was exciting in a way, but they’d been best friends since ninth grade and practically sisters and she was sure she didn’t want that. She worried she was liking the kissing too much, and might get ideas about trying it with other girls. She monitored her daydreams anxiously, and yanked her gaze in another direction if she caught herself staring at a classmate’s mouth.

She worried what he might want when he saw them again, and if they’d ever find a way to tell him no.

Tommy. Tracy’s face had gone fully red. Ellen thought she knew all of the boys her best friend had kissed but she had certainly never heard Tommy before. She liked Tommy herself. Obviously. Probably why Tracy was avoiding looking at her now.

“Sounds like he got you hot.” He sounded amused. “So what was it? What’d Tommy do nobody else did?”

Ellen hadn’t kissed anyone yet. Ellen was pretty but shy, whereas Tracy knew how to flirt. Tracy was pretty too, Ellen thought, but it was the kind of pretty boys didn’t seem to see that well. She wasn't a hot-girl type. That only made her the more approachable though. Not that she was easy, just that the stakes were lower. Like the boys thought of her as good practice.

“I don’t know.” Tracy shrugged irritably. Her gaze was still fixed to the floor. “He just,— just goes more slow I guess.”

They’d gone to the library after class to work on their English. He was this nondescript middle-aged white guy who'd shown up out of nowhere and told them to come with him. They went. Somehow there wasn’t anything else to do. He brought them to a bench in some kind of alcove, a deserted spot off the stacks where neither girl had been before. When he sat them down and told them to kiss each other they did, on the mouth like he said, but it was uncomfortable. Ellen understood the kind of kiss he wanted but her theoretical knowledge from movies and tv didn’t help her. She felt exposed. Her first real kiss and she was going to blow it. She felt herself tighten up as soon as Tracy leaned in, and the kiss didn’t last.

“More slow.” He sighed and looked up to the ceiling. “Well, whatever it was he rocked you with, try doing that. Kiss her like you’re Tommy.”

Tracy turned back to her friend, and their eyes finally met. There was a sullenness in her expression. “Close your eyes,” she said in a library voice. “Open your mouth a little. Just think about keeping your lips soft.”

Ellen wondered if that was something Tommy had told her. She closed her eyes and pretended she was Tracy, always up for things, and that made her less tense. She felt her girlfriend’s nearness; her breath on her cheek; and their lips found each other on their own, and the kiss just was. A kiss they belonged in. Tracy started alternating up and down, taking Ellen’s lower lip between hers, then the upper, brushing against them every now and then with the tip of her tongue, over and over, till Ellen felt the kiss moving through her like a wave.

“OK,” he said, with a kind of dismissal in his tone, and they separated. He snickered. “That really it? I hope for your sake I didn’t just see your boyfriend's whole repertoire.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Tracy shot back. “Anyway it’s different, we were lying down when we …” Her eyes flicked over towards Ellen and she ended on another shrug.

“Good note,” he said. Ellen stared at the floor, wondering if lying down meant sex. Wondering if he’d have them kiss again, if every time it’d feel more right. “Have you guys do your makeout practice in bed.”

They were side by side on their backs, looking up at nothing. Tracy had her arm hooked underneath Ellen’s shoulders, and Ellen’s head was canted ever so slightly over towards her friend’s, which felt to her like a daring closeness. Her impulse was to curl up against Tracy and close her eyes and just lie there breathing against her neck, but she was afraid if she did it Tracy would spook. She always seemed so wrapped up in herself after they’d made out. Off in her own world. In a minute she’d be stretching and getting back up and saying it was late and time to head home, and that’d be that.

Tracy slithered her arm back to herself and Ellen tensed in anticipation. But all she did was fold her arms over her chest and sigh. For a long moment Tracy contemplated the ceiling. Then she sighed again and asked the air, “Why do you think he’s making us do this?”

It was the first time either of them had mentioned him since the day. Ellen felt like she’d been cast in stone. She forgot to breathe. The stomach knots returned with a vengeance.

You knew that’s how it was going to be though, Ellen thought. She’s always going first. You always make her go first.

“Don’t you wonder?” The ceiling stayed mute.

He wants to make us lesbians. Ellen clenched her teeth. Don’t say the L-word, she told herself, but she was dying to know if it was on Tracy’s mind too.

“Like—“ Tracy paused, and turned her head at last. “Are we practicing so we’re good for when he makes us kiss him?”

Ellen gasped. “EEEEWWWW!” she yelled, and then the two of them were sputtering laughing and competing at retching noises and all the tension had gone from the room.

They ended up, when the energy spent itself, lying facing each other, eye to eye, their fingers intertwined lightly in the space between. Ellen’s head lay in the crook of her arm. They’d scarcely looked at each other the whole last week, she realized. It was nice being able to do that again.

Tracy seemed wistful. “I don’t mind it though,” she said softly. “This.” She raised herself on one elbow. Unconsciously Ellen shifted onto her back. Tracy touched her on the cheek, then smiled slyly and cast her eyes down. “I like the way your mouth tastes,” she said.

Ellen felt like the air around her was suddenly glowing. “I like smelling your hair!” she said, in a dazed voice. She didn’t even care that she said it. Tracy looked at her full again and the sullenness was back in her eyes. She brought her mouth over Ellen’s mouth and pressed down onto her, and Ellen pressed back and let herself be taken, and from now on she’d know what it meant when somebody said that a kiss was hungry.