No Sanctuary

I mean, make the sparks fly.

Float her boat until she screams for more.

Hell. She was no fucking expert at dykedom herself.

What experience had she had? She only knew that from age fifteen-ish she’d been significantly different from the other girls in class.

Always awkward around guys, she’d never actually dated one—not that she’d ever been asked. Wouldn’t have gone with one even if she had.

Neither was she in awe of guys. Not like the other bimbos, describing in ecstatic terms how they’d been to the movies/ the game/the beach with this fantastic guy etc. etc ...

Instead, she’d always aimed to come out top. The guys didn’t like that. At college she’d always had to be better than they were. Better at everything, sport, science, cultural studies—all of that ...

And then there was that, well ... call it an exploratory fling, if you like, with Deena Alvarez, her Cultural Studies tutor.

Dark, sensuous Deena.

She of the sensational body, full, voluptuous breasts and nipples like dark, ripe berries.

Okay. She’d been too wary; scared that she wouldn’t make the grade. And in the end she’d come away feeling totally exasperated with herself. Embarrassed. Pissed off. In a nut-shell, she was just too damned inexperienced. The demanding Deena had eventually gotten impatient with her—she, and her fumbling, inadequate responses. Within a week Bonnie had been out on her ear with a bunch of insecurities as high as the Empire State.

And Deena moved onto that total dork; the dumbest of all dumb broads, Caroll Helliman.

Bonnie flushed at the memory of that particular put-down. Yeah. That really had been a swinging blow to her pride and dignity. She knew she was better at most things, including sex, than that slut Caroll, who acted no better than cheap trailer trash, with her minis up to her ass and those fancy low-cut blouses of hers. Plus a gnat-size brain that got no further than the color of her lipstick. Jeez, Deena musta been desperate.

Caroll’s folks were loaded, though. They were in real estate. Had a hunk of their own the size of Disneyland. But, no matter how many sackloads of dough they had, Bonnie decided, it’d never buy “class” for their sleaze of a daughter.

What the hell. She’d bounced back from that and had had a smoldering affair with raven-haired Lindy Carson, nubile daughter of one of the night porters at UCSC.

That went sour when she caught the lovely Lindy naked and cavorting in the shower with half of the college baseball team. From then on in, it had been “no way, Jose” for Bonnie. Sex was off the menu.

Romance was for the birds, so to speak.

Then along came Andrea. Fragile, elegant, graceful Andrea, with her upturned nose, glossy blond hair and slender legs that went on forever. Yeah, Bonnie decided. Andrea was the one for her, all right.

Now, here on vacation in the Sierras, the question had to be asked. Was she the one?

I’ll work on her some more. She doesn’t play ball, I’ll find somebody else who will, thought Bonnie, knowing that if Andrea didn’t come across now, she might as well chuck it in.

Plenty of others out there.

May well be, but there’s only one Andrea.

It’s make or break time.

“Bonnie ...” Andrea twisted her hands, looking slightly embarrassed.

“What is it? You can’t stand the sight of me? You wanna phone home and ask your Mom if it’s okay to be a dyke? What’s the problem, Andrea? Spit it out.”

Andrea spat it out. Slowly and with feeling.

“You know how I get these hunches sometimes ... like premonitions?”

Jesus Christ, that’s all we need ... Three teenage fuckin’ hoods.

Now we get a message from beyond.

“You have mentioned them before. Go on.”

“Well,” Andrea twirled a strand of sweat-damp hair around her finger.

She was obviously ill at ease. Bonnie prepared herself for some bad news.

“What would you say if I said don’t let’s go back by way of Dead Mule Pass?”

Andrea picked at the hem of her T-shirt, uncomfortable, knowing that Bonnie was staring at her, open- mouthed.

“I just get this feeling, Bonnie,” she went on quietly. “It’s a really strong feeling that we should take another route.”

Andrea slipped off the rock and faced Bonnie. Then, reaching out, she caressed Bonnie’s shoulder. The touch was gentle and timid, like the flutter of a small bird. With mounting impatience, Bonnie shrugged it off.

“Please,” Andrea said in a small voice. She knew she would cry in a minute if Bonnie didn’t say something nice to her.

Like, lt’s okay. You’re with me. I’ll look after you. Or, Don’t mind me, I didn’t mean what I said about you and Rick.

Instead she got a gesture of bored resignation from Bonnie and, “Er ... okay. If that’s what you want.”

Bonnie slid off the rock and hunkered down to open her pack.

Pulling out a well-thumbed map of the Sierra Nevada mountains, she spread it on the rock before them and began to trace out another route.

“There isn’t another recognized route to Mulligan Lake,” she announced eventually. “We could go up this ridge, here, and then drop down, by-passing Dead Mule Pass. But it’s out of the way; we’re not likely to meet many other backpackers along there. You get into trouble on the Mulligan Lake Route, and you’d see other hikers and maybe a ranger on patrol to help out.

“Sorry, but the way I see it, Andrea, the main route is the only way to go.”

“Damn.”

“But we’re not likely to hit a problem, are we? I mean, the terrible trio have gone their own way by now. And the mad preacher is probably rounding up repentants somewhere else.”

“PietISt, Bonnie.”

“Hey. Somebody’s gotta act responsible around here. We can’t go wandering off down some lonesome ol’ trail nobody uses. Nobody except those with no business on the official route, that is. Talk sense!”

“Okay,” Andrea lifted her chin defiantly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She swung up her pack, shrugged her arms into the straps and adjusted her load. Bonnie followed suit. She glanced sideways at Andrea’s self-righteous expression.

“Okay. Okay,” she said, with a dramatic sigh. “We’ll do it the hard way. Main route to Mulligan Lake, it isn’t. Trail of the lonesome pine, it is.”

Bonnie stomped on ahead. She wasn’t happy about choosing the ridge route. They had their knives, and could throw a mean rock if trouble broke out. And she still had her brother’s hatchet ... But what if one of them broke a leg or fell into a crevasse—anything could happen.

And probably would, she thought, gloomily.

One of them had to stay behind, they could get chomped by a goddamn cougar.

“You’re not happy with this, are you, Bonnie?”

Andrea was striding out, abreast of Bonnie now. She took a peek at Bonnie’s set face.

“The hell I’m not happy with it. But, my mystic munchkin, if you’ve got a funny feeling about reaching Mulligan Lake by the tried and tested, we’ll go the ridge route. No problem. The map says it’s the quickest route anyway, so that’s one consolation. ”

They were climbing now; a cluster of pines up ahead told them that the trail— what trail? —began right here. They kept on trucking. This way, they’d soon get through and back to their vehicle in no time.

Not worth hassling about.

Who needs the main route anyway?