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Beach Week	By : seyunolu Category: Web Comics > El Goonish Shive Views: 15676 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own EGS or any of Dan Shive's characters, and I make no money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Chapter 6 – "I Kissed a Squirrel and I Liked It"
Angst, Exhib, F/F, M/F, Xeno

Monday, 9:22 AM
The first thing Sarah noticed when she awoke was the sunlight in the window, the drawn blinds diffusing it around the bedroom. The second thing she noticed was Elliot's arms draped around her bare form like a comforting blanket, and his body snuggled up against her from behind.
She sighed contentedly, bringing her hand up against his and savoring the feeling of his breath slowly washing across the back of her neck. While they had gotten good at sneaking off alone at each others' houses and their families seemed to accept what was going on, they never pushed their luck and actually slept together, at least not all the way through to the morning. The thought of being caught in bed together (again) by one of their parents was just too mortifying. The last time they'd been together all through the night had been a year earlier at the infamous camping trip, and while it was wonderful those tents weren't the most comfortable sleeping quarters.
This, though... this was heavenly. The blankets were warm, the bed was soft, and her boyfriend's touch gave her a completely different warm feeling even as he slept. Sarah very carefully rolled over, doing her best not to disturb Elliot, and settled herself facing towards him, gazing at his face. He'd morphed back to normal before slipping under the covers with her; his relaxed sleeping features were as cute as ever. His tousled brown hair, his dark eyebrows, his strong jawline... she reached out and lightly embraced him, resting her free hand on his side over the blankets.
Her dreamy smile widened as her eyes passed his neck and she noticed that he still wore the collar he'd more than earned the night before – with its little dangling 'S' tag. “Mmm... my Elliot,” she whispered – and considered getting another one to match, but smaller with an 'E', for her bag of tricks.
Glancing past her boyfriend at the clock, she saw it was approaching 9:30 in the morning. As much as she loved sleeping in, she was already fully awake and sure everybody would be chomping at the bit to get to the beach. So, slowly and deliberately so as to not wake him prematurely, she leaned in towards Elliot's face, raised up on her arm a little, and brought her lips down to meet his.
An effective way to wake him it was – not five seconds later, his eyes opened, registering confusion for a moment before closing in appreciation as his lips began working against hers. They kissed gently for who knew how long, his arms coming alive and holding her body loosely as she rested hers on his chest. At last parting, her eyes opened and she simply said, “Morning, dear.”
He replied, looking over at her as she lay her head down on the pillow. “...Oh wow... this beats an alarm clock, any day.” He smiled. “Beats Ellen's wake-up calls, that's for sure!”
“Well, you're in for quite a few nice ones this week,” Sarah replied, carefully ignoring a brief twinge of jealousy that mentioning 'wake-up calls' from Ellen in this context brought up in her subconscious. She was distracted though, as both of them looked up, hearing the sound of something metallic being dropped upstairs.
“They're already up?” Elliot asked incredulously, glancing at the clock.
“It sounded like it came from the kitchen,” Sarah opined – and grabbing the sheets, threw them down to the foot of the bed off their nude bodies. After giggling a moment at Elliot's inevitable morning wood, she said, “Come on, let's get a quick shower and head up, we don't want to miss breakfast.”
The lovers grabbed some casual clothes from the dresser, and headed into the bathroom where Sarah kissed her boyfriend as she unfastened the collar behind his neck and hung it on the towel rod. They showered together, filling the time with just a few too many soapy embraces and gropes to really allow it to be considered 'quick', before quickly drying each other off and throwing some clothes on for the first time in nearly 11 hours. And so it was with contented smiles, telling glows, and wet hair that the couple made their way upstairs to the common area.
There they found Ellen and Justin presiding over the kitchen while Nanase and Susan talked and flipped through the channels on the TV remotely from the dining area. Nanase turned her head and said, “Hey, you're up!” Susan turned and waved, her usual imperturbable self. Ellen and Justin greeted them from where they were nursing large frying pans full of bacon and scrambled eggs respectively. Sarah thought she caught a grin from Ellen in excess of even her usual enthusiasm. She wondered if something was up – though Elliot seemed oblivious.
Elliot and Sarah sat down next to each other at the table, already with a stack of 8 plates and a bunch of glasses set out. “Need us for anything?” Sarah asked.
“No, we have it under control,” Justin replied. His face stayed mostly neutral, but Sarah could tell he was suppressing a smile as he said, “Heh, we weren't expecting you two up this early anyway.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Elliot asked.
“Nothing, nothing,” he said dismissively, returning to mixing the eggs as the burner warmed up. Sarah's smile started to droop; she had a sinking suspicion as to what was going on.
“Hey Elliot, you thirsty?” Ellen called, going to the refrigerator.
Elliot was oblivious to Sarah's sense of impending doom. He pulled a glass from the bunch in the middle of the table. “Yeah, did we get any milk?”
“Yep,” his twin replied – and pulled something out from the counter next to the refrigerator, where it was hidden from the table. “Za?” Elliot said, confused at the unexpected item, as she crossed the floor and put it down on the table directly in front of him. “Here you go, just the way you like it.”
It was a saucer full of milk.
Sarah's cheeks turned six shades of red. She was just mortified. Elliot looked from the milk, to his sister, back to the milk, back to his sister... and slowly, theatrically, put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. “...Were we *that* loud?”
“Yes,” came the instant synchronized response from all four of them, even Susan who otherwise seemed to be paying entirely too close attention to the weather channel. Ellen burst out laughing, as she picked up the saucer and put it away at the sink, and soon Nanase and Justin couldn't help snickering a bit. Susan rolled her eyes at their antics, and absorbed herself more thoroughly in the forecast, waiting them out.
Nanase made her contribution, her eyes full of amusement under her sleep-fluffed red hair. “Heh, sorry guys, but it was kinda impossible to miss.”
Justin piped up. “You woke me up. I've slept through smoke detectors!”
“You two were going at it like *animals*!” Ellen said to a chorus of groans.
Sarah's face was burning. This was infinitely worse than last summer. She glanced over at Susan, who was looking back at the group with an expression that most would've seen as just annoyed. “Alright, everybody, give it a rest now would you? It's none of our business.” Turning to Sarah, her expression didn't change but Sarah could see sympathy for the teasing in her friend's eyes. “Just keep it down next time, okay?”
Elliot looked around the table. “...Well~ll, this is kinda awkward -”
“Hi!” an unmistakable bubbly voice interrupted from the stairway.
Sarah's head whipped around, wide-eyed relief on her face. “Oh, thank GOD! It's Grace and Tedd!”
“I'm... happy to see you too, Sarah...” Tedd replied as he reached the top of the stairs, hair disheveled from sleep. Seeing breakfast in progress, he smiled. “Sweet, eggs!” He walked over to the table and sat down next to Elliot, not noticing his best friend's hastily-hidden consternation or Sarah's fading blush or Susan's uncomfortable posture.
Grace padded behind him in full squirrely-hybrid mode, wearing nothing – drawing a momentary wide-eyed look from Justin before he remembered her tendencies. “Morning everyone!” she burbled, antennae held high. As she sat down next to her boyfriend she glanced at Sarah's face, an unspoken question passing from the chimera to Sarah about what was bothering her.
Justin spoke. “Morning Grace. We were just -”
“-Planning today's beach run!” Sarah interjected, hastily changing the subject at last. “You excited?”
Grace's face lit up and her tail flicked in excitement, in spite of the knowledge that Sarah was diverting attention. “Ooh, yeah, I can hardly wait! The water's so blue! I wanna go swimming!”
“We can make sand castles,” Tedd said, putting his arm around Grace's shoulder. Her grin got even wider.
“I vote we just head down the street today” Sarah cut back in, “but sometime this week we should head South. You go a few miles down the road and there's no more beach houses and the beach is practically deserted.”
Susan finally spoke up again as Justin and Ellen transferred the completed breakfast to the table, and the gang started shoveling bacon and eggs onto their plates. “I hate to break it to you, but no doubt contrary to Tedd's hopes and dreams I think you're gonna need to slip on a swimsuit.”
Grace pouted in annoyance, though Sarah could tell she was still happy underneath it. “I *still* don't understand those things. Swimming is like the least convenient possible time to wear clothes. I don't care how modest you are – I mean, all it's going to do is keep you wet longer after you get up, get sand caught inside, and give you tan lines,” she said, and began digging into her eggs.
“Amen, sister,” Ellen replied reaching across the table to high five the squirrel-girl as she sat down to her own plate, Grace reciprocating enthusiastically. “Whole darn country's fulla prudes.”
As the eight of them quieted down and started eating in earnest, Nanase already reaching for seconds, Sarah's heart settled back into a more normal rhythm. Well that was more than a little embarrassing, she thought. She and Elliot shared a glance.
Maybe kitty mode *isn't* the best idea for here...

***************************************************
3:55 PM
Sarah looked up from her book as she sat under the umbrella. It was a beautiful day. The sky was a deep blue, the water a deep green and cold but not painfully so. From where she sat, half buried in the sand, she could see Susan, Justin, Nanase, and Tedd off playing Frisbee in an open area of sand where nobody had set up camp. It was nice to see Susan having a good time at last, running around in her conservative dark one-piece swimsuit and shorts that contrasted with the shirtless boys and Nanase's bright bikini. Her friend had been irritated in one way or another ever since they'd arrived – but now she finally seemed to be enjoying herself. Suze was all too prone to going all broody, especially in the last few weeks since graduation. Sarah wasn't completely sure what that was about, but from the looks of it this vacation was just what the doctor ordered.
Looking off in the other direction towards the more crowded sand near the beach access boardwalk, she spotted Ellen out in the surf where she herself had waded out earlier, her head bobbing out of the water as she sought another wave to ride. Just inland of her was Grace, wearing the briefest of green bikinis and crouched at the water's edge where she stared fascinated into the sand; no doubt she'd just discovered another little mollusk or starfish or sand-dollar or something.
Her gaze returned to her immediate surroundings though, when her boyfriend piled another bucket of sand onto the mound that enveloped her legs and lower body. “You know, I think you have my legs deep enough.”
“Blasphemy. There's no such thing,” he said, digging down into the hole next to his beach chair again and piling more cool subterranean sand onto her stomach. Shaking her head, the blonde opened her book again but was interrupted as Elliot leaned in to peck her on the lips. “Mmm... a good start to the beach week?” he asked, gesturing around to their friends.
“Yep, very good. 'Cept for the welcome wagon at brunch.” Elliot winced, before shaking his head in a self-depreciating chuckle. Sarah blushed and reached down to her beach bag, and rooted around for a minute before finding her watch. “It's almost four now. People're gonna be getting hungry soon, yeah?”
“Hm. Probably. I mean brunch was big but there's only so long you can trust Nanase without food,” he said, deadpan.
About to reply, Sarah saw Grace and Ellen approaching up the beach, the darker girl carrying a plastic bucket and Elliot's double shamelessly reaching into her top to scoop out wet sand and pushing her hair out of her face. “Bit of a wipeout?” Sarah called.
“Yeah, smacked the bottom hard. Got a towel?” Elliot threw her one from the back of a chair, and she stood dripping and wiping her face just out from under their umbrella.
“I found shells!” Grace said, pouring her bucket out over the sand covering Sarah. “You guys never told me there'd be so many!”
“Well, there are!” Ellen said through the towel pressed into her face.
“Not so much at the more built up beaches,” Sarah elaborated. “The sea life's less disturbed around here.”
Grace picked over the pile of shells, putting her favorite ones back into the bucket. “You think we should head back yet? I'm getting a little hungry.” Grace and Sarah had earlier volunteered to go back to the beach house first and set up dinner.
“I can come with -” Elliot began, but was interrupted as Justin came jogging over.
“Hey, anybody up for ultimate Frisbee? We need a few more players!”
“Grace and I were just going back to the house,” Sarah replied. She looked over at Elliot. “You can stay, its fine, Grace and I can take care of things.”
Sarah stood, spilling the sand piled on her everywhere, and brushed as much off her legs and purple one-piece as she could while slipping on her flip flops and grabbing her towel. Grace, not having bothered to bring shoes, just clutched her shell bucket and hung her towel across her shoulders. One quick goodbye kiss with Elliot later, they set off across the sand, waving their goodbyes at their friends.
They reached the small boardwalk up and over the dunes, stepping around the smattering of beach towels set out by other vacationers. Climbing the stairs over the beachgrass-covered piles of sand, Sarah asked Grace, “So, what do you think of the beach?”
“It's amazing!” she said without hesitation, stopping for a moment to look over her shoulder at the blue water filling half the horizon. “The wet sand is so sticky and the water's so cool and there's all those little animals burrowing in the sand and the sand squishes under your toes in the surf – I'd heard it was fun, but nobody ever mentions the little things.” They reached the top of the dunes and started down the long wooden path to the street. “The Frisbee and everything's fun too, the breeze keeps you from getting too hot. Oh, did you see Susan running around with everybody? I'm *so* glad she's having fun, she's been in serious need of chilling out lately.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
Grace didn't seem to mind the asphalt on her bare feet as they reached the small residential street and began the short trek back to their house. The pair kept talking about the day's events, Grace's fresh impressions of the place making Sarah think about it in ways she never had before. They reached the house and walked under the overhang, Sarah reflexively following the path she'd used on her last visit here, around the back of the storage room and the hot tub and coming to the set of outdoor shower stalls to wash the sand off her – and stopped, remembering that the wooden walls contained just one large compartment.
She stood at the door and gestured at the interior. “You can have the shower out here, I'll take Elliot's and mine -”
“Oh, you don't need to do that!” Grace protested. “You'd track sand in your room. I don't mind,” she said, stepping into the stall.
Sarah stood at the door, hesitating for several seconds as Grace turned on the far showerhead. Shrugging, she figured, 'eh, what the hell,' and stepped inside. The showers were one double-wide stall, a wooden bench running along one long wall and two showerheads and appropriate knobs sprouting from bare pipework along the other. Grace was already standing under the spray at the far end; Sarah turned the knobs in her adjacent space and washed out her shoes as she waited for the water to warm up. As she stepped under the spray herself, out of the corner of her eye she saw her friend nonchalantly pull her top up and over her head, and slip her fingers under the waistband of her bottoms and slide them off in one quick motion. She wasn't really uncomfortable around Grace when she wore no clothes, not anymore, but she still couldn't shake habits of respect and modesty, pointedly staring straight ahead as she wiped her arms and legs and let the water saturate her hair – but she found herself slipping a few glances at her friend, unable to help comparing Grace's ample rounded breasts to her own modest figure, Grace's uniform dark brown skin to her own light complexion tanned at the arms and legs, and unable to avoid trying to see if she had trimmed her pubes to be able to wear that bikini -
“You don't need to sneak looks at me, you know,” Grace said suddenly, startling the hell out of Sarah.
“Wh- what?”
Grace looked over at her friend as she picked up her bikini pieces and held them under the spray directly, washing out any traces of sand. “I've told you, I really, really don't care if you see me naked, or look at me naked, or compare my 'equipment' or whatever. If you want to look, just go ahead and look.”
Sarah turned to her friend, but her eyes remained trained resolutely on her face. “Oh, no, it's not that – I don't need to-”
Turning to actually face Sarah and tossing her bikini on the bench, Grace continued. “No, really just look, you'll probably be seeing lots more of human-me this week anyway and you might as well get over that bridge now.”
Sarah stood for a moment, and then let her eyes roam down over Grace's shower-dampened body. She'd seen her human body naked before, more than a few times in fact ever since that awful night when she'd tried to leave them to rescue Elliot from the Nest. Their graduation party had been the most recent time, Grace convincing those in attendance to play strip poker (though only Grace, Ellen, and Justin had actually wound up briefly without clothes). None of those times had Sarah really openly taken her in, though. She'd NOTICED her dark brown nipples, but never the way they seemingly relaxed to a larger diameter in the warmth of the shower in a way that her own didn't. She'd NOTICED the lack of tan lines, but not the way that it made her seem more confident and natural in her nudity; there wasn't the ghost of an outfit on her body to remind you that something was missing. She'd NOTICED Grace's dark curly bush before, but now saw that it was short and neatly trimmed, matted down from the water flow but not really obscuring much – she wondered if Grace had done that manually or just managed to morph it into that arrangement to go with the swimsuit...
Grace saw her friend's eyes return to her face, mirthfully implored, “See? Was that so bad?” and went back to washing the salt out of her waist-length hair with a chuckle. Seeing that the girl would be at that for a while, Sarah turned to her showerhead with a chuckle of her own, and pulled her neckline out to let some water run down the inside of her suit.
Grace interrupted her thoughts again. “Speaking of which, you're not gonna keep that thing on in here, are you?”
Sarah's heart once again jolted. “...Huh?”
Grace, completely relaxed, continued. “That swimsuit. You were buried up to your belly! It's gotta be full of sand. You should take it off and run it under the water or it'll be all gritty tomorrow and you'll be sitting with sand in your pants tonight.”
“But-”
Grace smiled gently. “Come on, Sarah, you know I don't care. There's no reason for you to keep it on. And we're even both girls – well, most of the time anyway.”
Sarah stood still under the spray for a time. She knew Grace was technically correct, she could feel the sand in her suit – and, truth be told, she was starting to feel more than a little out of place, in her full one piece swimsuit in the shower with her bare but confident companion. Eventually, modesty lost to the combined onslaught of logic and this other form of embarrassment, and she slowly pulled her shoulder straps aside, and peeled her swimsuit down off her body, freeing her slight figure for Grace's visual inspection – which, thankfully, was unobtrusive and quiet.
No sooner had she finished self-consciously washing the sand out, though, than she heard a question from Grace in a playful singsong tone she'd become familiar with over the last two years. “Sooo... you like Elliot's kitty morph, eh?”
Sarah froze, before scrunching her eyes closed and groaning. “Oh, great... you guys heard that too?”
Grace sensed her discomfort, and quickly worked to counter it. “Oh don't be embarrassed, it's nothing to be ashamed about! Tedd and I have fun with kitty forms all the time.” Seeing Sarah's eyes widen, she dropped one last bundle of hair she'd washed and combed with her fingers, and continued in a quieter conspiratorial tone, eyes playful. “And sometimes... I take the TF gun to him and we both get in animal forms... and then we just can't keep our paws off each other...”
Sarah was done washing, but stood there without moving for a few seconds. “You're... really open, aren't you? About sex, I mean.”
“Yep.”
An idea crossed Sarah's mind. It was tossed back and forth between parts of her that trusted Grace, parts that were embarrassed, parts that wanted privacy, and parts that wanted resolution – and as had happened several times in the last few minutes, embarrassment lost. “Um... can I ask you something?”
Grace was intrigued. “Of course!”
Sarah worked up her courage for a few seconds, and spoke. “There's this... thing, that's been bothering me lately. About me and Elliot.”
“Oh, no! It can't be that bad, can it? I mean, you two seem so happy together -”
“No, no, we're happy! We're happy.” The concern in Grace's voice had been palpable. “Its not like that. It's just... can you keep a secret?” Grace's solemn nod under the water spray was confirmation enough. “Well, Elliot and I... we haven't been totally 'exclusive' with each other...” Grace nodded again, seemingly unperturbed. “...There's been another person, another girl, that he's been messing around with. I've known about it the whole time, I told him that I didn't mind...”
Grace nodded again. “Its Ellen, right?” Sarah gasped in surprise, and Grace quickly added, “I heard about it from her. We... hang out a lot, and it came up.” Sarah slowly nodded, somewhat unsettled.
“Um... right. Anyway, I know Elliot loves me. I know this is nothing but a bit of fun. But sometimes, not when we're actually together but still sometimes, it feels like when he, um... has sex... with Ellen, that he's diluting what we do. Like I have to, I don't know, share him now...”
Grace could see that Sarah was having a hard time talking about this, and that despite the appearances she put up this had been gnawing at her, at least occasionally, for a while. Thinking quickly, she decided honesty was the best policy, that her friend's relationship and happiness was more important than seeming 'normal' – not that she ever gave that much effort anyway.
“Well, I'll let you in on a little secret. Tedd and I aren't exclusive either.”
That got her attention. “...Really?”
“Really. For the last three or four months now, I've had another lover. A girl.” This was news to Sarah – Grace always professed not to be bisexual when asked, though she supposed that her views on sexuality were different enough from most people's that she might not feel like she slotted perfectly into that neat little category, even if she liked girls as well as guys. Although for that matter, Sarah knew that one didn't have to be attracted to both sexes equally to have a little fun with another girl – memories of one very special night back in freshman year stirred in her mind as she found herself compelled to imagine Grace in bed with a woman.
Another thought struck her, interrupting that line of association. “Who... um... Is it Ellen? Or maybe Nanase?”
Grace nodded, surprising Sarah with her candor. “Yeah actually, Ellen. How'd you know?”
“Well it isn't me, and something tells me Susan isn't involved. You don't seem like the type to... mess around with just anybody, and they're your other close friends.” She shook her head, taking in everything. “Tedd knows?”
“Tedd knows, he was practically thrilled when I asked his permission. You know him and lesbionics. But permission's not your problem, you said you told Elliot it was okay. You seem like you just can't shake the feeling that you're sharing Elliot in a way that he can't be shared.”
She nodded, facing down away from the showerhead. She'd practically forgotten her state of undress. “My mind tells me it shouldn't hurt us... but it's just hard sometimes... how do you separate it? The sex and love? It's not some Uryuom or chimera thing, is it?”
Grace shook her head, the implications encouraging Sarah. “No, it's not. Being a shapeshifter might help, but that's not it.”
“Help?”
Grace collected her thoughts for a moment, and explained. “Okay. When you and Elliot make love, you're together. Together in every way, not just physically – body *and* soul. Am I right?” The corners of Grace's mouth turned up at Sarah's affirmation. “It's like that with me and Teddy too. That's a couple. That's Love with a capital L. When Elliot or I have fun with Ellen, it's different. It's lots of fun. It feels great. And don't get me wrong, it's a close connection. But it's not that heart to heart.” She gestured between her breasts. “It's not giving your deepest self. For me, that's easier to show than it is for Elliot.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Easier to show?”
“I was born a chimera. I'm not really human. I just make myself human to fit in or when it's convenient.” She lifted and looked at a hand, which grew short fur and claws for a moment before reverting. “My squirrely self feels the most me of all my forms. Its my original self. I mostly grew up in that body. And no matter how much fun I have with Ellen, or anyone else for that matter... my Teddy is the only one who will ever make love with me in that form. I save that just for him, to show him he's special.”
“Wow, Grace, that's... actually really, really sweet of you,” Sarah had to admit. She'd never thought about these implications of shapeshifting – various sexy implications, sure, but not romantic ones. The more 'interesting' suggestions that Grace had made for the trip that she'd heard through Elliot were also starting to seem less out of the blue, with the revelation that she too had been at this sort of thing for months.
Grace stepped towards Sarah in the stall, and startled her friend by patting a hand on her shoulder. “Yeah, but my point is this: Elliot may be a shapeshifter now but he isn't a natural-born shapeshifter. Until lately he only had the one form. So his expressions of these feelings have to be... well, subtler, but they're there. I've seen the way you two look at each other; you have something really special. When he's with you, something's going on in him that isn't even touched on when he's just messing around. Think about it – in fact, just think back to what happened last night. There's gotta be a way you can tell that he's pouring out his heart to you...”
Sarah considered Grace's words, and her and her boyfriend's last encounter. The way Elliot's face had lit up when he spied her laid out on the bed... The way he lavished attention on her body until she squealed in pleasure... the way he used his magic and indulged her kinks without a second thought, and had from the very first time she tentatively broached the subject... the way he said her name, full of passion and need and love, when he was inside her...
And his “I love you” that always just turned her heart to jelly...
“...Hello, Earth to Sarah -”
She snapped out of her dreamy-eyed smile. “Hm, what?”
“Well, I was going to say that it looks like you understand the way Elliot loves you and you don't need to be angsty, but now I think I'll just say the hot water is finally running out,” Grace said with a laugh.
The two girls rushed to shut off the flow together. Grace continued talking though. “So was that a smile I saw? You see what I mean now?”
Sarah wrung out her swimsuit, and replied. “I think so, yeah. When Elliot and I are... together... he's completely focused on me. We connect and he makes me feel so special. Like I'm the only thing in his world.”
“See? Now can you picture him being like that with Ellen?” Sarah laughed – but her laugh was cut off by a surprised, “Eep!” as Grace unexpectedly stepped forward and hugged her, their breasts pressed together and her hands against her back. “THAT's the difference between sex and love. Now promise me you're gonna try not to let this bother you anymore, okay?”
Once she got her voice back – the feeling of Grace's naked breasts against her own was unexpected to say the least and had brought up some old memories, as well as reminded her of her own state of undress – she raised her arms and slowly and tentatively hugged back, replying with, “...Okay, I'll try. Thanks.”
Opening the door facing away from the street, the girls grabbed their towels, did a quick dry-off before wrapping themselves up, and Sarah grabbed her keys from her beach bag and lead the way into the storage room and up the stairway.
“See ya upstairs in a minute,” Grace called to Sarah as she closed the door to the master bedroom, letting the girl get some clothes appropriate for cooking dinner. Grace herself, stopping for a moment in the entryway, just tossed her towel and swimsuit onto a drying peg and morphed to her half-squirrel form. Her fur was fireproof, thanks to her origins – she didn't need clothes to cook safely, though she had to be careful to keep her tail out of the way.
As she padded up the stairs, she thought of Sarah's predicament. She'd promised to try to not let these things bother her anymore – but Grace knew these sorts of feelings weren't always reasonable. Sarah had already UNDERSTOOD that her fears and angst were unnecessary, but she hadn't felt it at a gut level. The odds that that one talk would fix things forever were pretty low. Her tail drooped, as she thought of the mental pain that her friend was likely to go through before she sorted things out. She wouldn't bring her insecurities up with Elliot, because she was sure they were unreasonable and didn't want to burden him. She'd suffer in silence – not all the time, not when Elliot was actually with her, but suffer she would. If only there was some way she could get Sarah to really understand at the basest level, some way to SHOW her that there was no need to be angsty -
Her antennae perked up and her eyes lit up as she reached the kitchen. She had an idea. An idea that, if she was smart about it, would show Sarah that she had nothing to fear from a little friendly messing around, illustrate it better than any pep talk. An idea that was tricky to implement but would, if done properly, be simple and self-explanatory. An idea that, on top of all that, would be lots of fun.
As the squirrel-girl busied herself pulling ingredients for dinner out of the refrigerator and pantry closet, she set her mind to thinking of how she would bring this idea to fruition...
************************************************
9:03 PM
As the sky faded to a deep blue and the last of the sun's orange glow disappeared on the horizon, Tedd, Elliot, Grace, and Sarah hurried from the beach, down the street and into their driveway.
From afar, it wouldn't have been clear why they were rushing – two teenage couples, on their way back from the sunset walk on the beach they'd embarked upon forty five minutes earlier; why should they be in a hurry? Up close, though, one would've seen that despite the fact that they were wearing normal casual summer clothes instead of swimsuits, they'd somehow managed to get soaked from head to toe and caked with sand.
Tedd, ever intolerant of cold, was already shivering as the sea breeze and lack of sunlight took its toll on their wet bodies. “Man, w-why does the wind have to be so c-cold?” he asked from the front of the group as they finally reached the beach house. He brushed some of his sandy purple hair away from his face as he started approaching the stairway leading up to the deck and front door.
“Wait!” Grace called from his side, slightly chilly herself with her hardened nipples showing through the single layer of fabric she wore on her upper body. Elliot and Sarah looked ahead to her as Tedd stopped and wrapped his hands around himself. “Shouldn't we rinse off and warm up first?” she asked, looking back and forth between Tedd and Sarah.
“Warm's good,” Tedd observed, and Grace grabbed his hand and lead the way around to the shower stalls again. Elliot started for the stairs himself – but Sarah grabbed his hand as well.
“What is it?”
Sarah hesitated, and said “We're covered with sand, we should at least do a rinse.” Elliot shrugged, apparently not caring either way, and went with her behind the storage room to the stall where Tedd and Grace were already starting up the showerheads, the warm water falling on their soaked clothes. Looking critically at the volume of the space, Sarah asked, “You think we could squeeze in here too for a minute?”
Grace smiled. “The more the merrier! I think we can fit, c'mere Tedd.” With that she pulled Tedd over to her side of the shower, so the two of them were under the same head. Sarah and Elliot walked in under the inviting spray, and the four friends shared a few sighs and comments about the warm water.
Elliot turned the clock back a bit, commenting on how they'd gotten in this predicament. “Seriously Grace, how'd you manage to knock all four of us into the surf?” There was no anger in his voice, just amused incredulity.
Grace looked sheepishly at the other couple. “Just lucky I guess?” Elliot and Sarah had been walking ahead of she and Tedd on the way back to the beach access, and she had taken Tedd's hand in her own and started to spin – and to all appearances, spun out of control right as a wave came in around their feet, personally smacking into Elliot and Sarah and dropping the group into the wave. In the resultant splash-fight, nobody was spared.
The shower was cramped but not terribly so – each couple had their own space, but Tedd and Grace were touching from the waist up, as were Elliot and Sarah. For a while, Tedd let Grace stand directly under the showerhead and wet her hair, before they switched places. As Tedd closed his eyes and let the water pour over his face, though, Sarah was unsurprised (and Elliot only mildly surprised) to see Grace sit on the bench, reach down to the bottom of her snug tank top, and pull it up and over her head before draping it over the top of the wooden wall.
Elliot's eyes didn't wander much as this occurred. What caused him to start sneaking quite a few glances, though, was when Grace stood up behind Tedd, and hitched her thumbs under the waistband of her shorts, and all at once slid them and her panties down around her bare feet. Around this time, Tedd finished washing out his hair, turned and said, “Okay Grace, your turn-” only to smile and give a chuckle when he saw that his girlfriend had disrobed while he wasn't looking. “Heh, I tell ya Elliot, I just can't keep her from tearing off her clothes around me!”
Sarah, at that point standing behind Elliot as he rinsed his shirt under the spray, frowned as his eyes repeatedly made the round trip between Grace's bush and bosom. You're not competing, you're not competing, you're not competing... Despite her best efforts though, something possessive asserted itself inside her. She normally never gave that side of her a chance to show itself – but the events of earlier in the day, strange as they were, were rather emboldening. And so with an, “Oh yeah?” she took a deep breath, pulled the hem of her shirt up to the underside of her breasts, and yanked it and her bra over her head.
It most certainly had the desired effect, and then some – both Elliot and Tedd whipped their heads around to stare wide-eyed at her unexpected act. As she blushed for a moment, she realized Tedd had probably never seen her topless before. She was going to run with this though. “...What, you never seen a pair of boobs before?”
Tedd blinked for the first time in fifteen or twenty seconds, and returned his eyes to her face. “Yeah... um... sorry, just unexpected.”
Elliot had gotten over his shock, and now a small grin appeared on his face. “Hah, I didn't now you had that in you!” He pushed his body aside, to leave her a route to the showerhead. “All yours, dear.”
Grace, on the other hand, was grinning ear to ear. “Hah, nice one Sare-bear. Aren't you forgetting something though?”
“...Huh?”
Grace's eyes made their way downwards from her face. “The bottoms, silly!” she said, as she used her foot to fling her own up to her hand and stood up on her tip toes to lay them next to her tank top. As Sarah stood stock-still under the showerhead, the thought of disrobing completely in front of Tedd more disconcerting than just bearing her breasts, Grace continued. “Aw, come on, I'm tired of being the only person with no clothes around here. You were cool with it when we showered together earlier.”
Her cheeks turning even redder as Elliot's eyebrows rose, Sarah realized that no matter what she did now, she'd be embarrassed – embarrassed at exposing herself to Tedd, or embarrassed at not having the courage to cut loose a bit. And so a few seconds later, she slowly worked her fingers into her wasitband, and slid the rest of her outfit off, handing it off to Elliot who then placed it on the bench.
Tedd broke the silence. “Wait, wait, wait... you two showered together?”
“Yep” Grace responded instantly. Elliot's face betrayed some surprise at that.
“Naked???” Tedd continued incredulously.
“Yep. How else are you supposed to shower?” Grace asked with an innocent look on her face but a teasing tone of voice.
Sarah, surprised at her increasing feeling of ease in her nudity but still sounding a bit defensive, chipped in on Grace's side. “Yeah, so what?”
Grace's eyes glinted mischievously. “Speaking of which, isn't it your turn?”
The boys quickly turned to her, their grins disappearing. “Huh?”
“Oh, come on, you're not THAT dense! Sarah and I got naked, it's only fair that you guys get to be naked too!”
Elliot and Tedd turned to their respective girlfriends, then back to each other, then back to their girlfriends, and back to each other – and then the two of them tried to speak at once.
“But-”
“I don't-”
Sarah elbowed Elliot in the ribs with a slight smile, as Grace continued. “Consider it a viewing fee. Besides though, like I told you earlier, it's the only way to shower.”
After a long few seconds, the boys locked eyes one last time, sighed, and Elliot first started removing his clothes. Tedd, seeing no way of getting out of this, began to disrobe as well. And so in a minute or so, the shower was filled with four naked teens, each couple crammed together on their side of the stall.
Grace smiled as Tedd tossed his shorts up over the edge, and said, “See? Isn't it better to be out of those wet clothes?”
“I guess,” Tedd opined, followed by a similar affirmation from Elliot. The boys went back to washing, the small size of the stall ensuring that they were in contact with their girlfriends at some point of their bare bodies the whole time – much to their consternation, as both of them started sprouting erections.
Grace noticed first, as the boys studiously avoided looking in each others' direction. “Hah, someone's getting excited, aren't they,” she teased, as she reached around his body and hugged him from behind.
His face went red as his dick twitched at the contact of her nipples against his back. “I... I can't help it right now...”
“Mmm, I know,” she whispered in his ear.
Across the stall, Sarah had taken her own notice of Elliot's state. As the other amorous couple hugged closely, Elliot tilted his body in an attempt to hide his hard-on from them. “I don't think it really matters what they see at this point, dear,” Sarah advised him quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder from behind. She looked over at the other couple, where Grace had started pecking Tedd's neck from behind with a slew of tiny kisses. A sudden boldness, derived from the surreal nature of the whole situation, seized the blonde girl. She worked her way back under the spray, her butt sliding against Elliot's thigh. Hesitating one last time, she suggested, “Wash my back?”
“...We don't have any soap...”
“Darn... Rub my back then?”
Elliot stole another glance over at Tedd and Grace, where the dark-skinned girl was gently turning Tedd about his axis to face her. Turning back to his girlfriend, displayed in all her beautiful glory in front of him from her golden hair to her cute butt, he decided to go along with things for now. Reaching up to Sarah's shoulders, he worked his thumbs on the muscles of her upper back, circling from her spine out over her shoulders and ribs, hitting the spots he knew she liked. Sarah sighed, Elliot's strong hands relaxing the tension that the last few minutes had produced in her. She closed her eyes and smiled silently as he came closer to her to get a better grip, his erection settling between her asscheeks.
Over on Tedd and Grace's side, Grace had not-so-subtly pulled Tedd close, his erection poking her thigh as the two of them stood under the spray. She hugged him close, and the teen lovers shared a light kiss. Even under these surreal circumstances, there was just something about Grace that shut down his inhibitions and set him off like a rocket.
This being said, he couldn't help but notice the other naked girl in the shower with him, the one he'd never actually been naked with before. As he and Grace embraced, his eyes instinctively darted over to the lighter-skinned girl for a moment, standing in the other corner with her eyes closed, Elliot's hands on her shoulders. Her breasts, smaller with light pink nipples pointing straight ahead, her slighter figure, her rather cute backside, were all new to him. He finally got a chance to see the body that he'd heard stories about from Elliot when the two of them were BS-ing late at night -”
Grace suddenly whispered in his ear, in a voice the other couple wouldn't be able to hear. “Like what you see?” He tensed up, terrified at the thought of Grace being disappointed in his wandering eyes.
She chuckled at his sudden reaction. “Don't worry, I don't mind, look all you like.” She paused, and kissed his ear before resuming her speech. “Maybe you'll even get a better look in a little while...”
With that cryptic comment, leaving Tedd's eyebrows scrunched up on his forehead in confusion, she pulled away from her love and said out loud, “That's probably enough, where're the towels?”
Sarah opened her eyes, and groaned. “Oh, man, I don't think we put any down here... they're all up in the bathrooms, I think...”
“Well, let's head out then,” Elliot replied.
He grabbed for his clothes, but Grace cut that short. “Leave them, they're soaked, let 'em dry out here overnight.” The four of them filed out of the shower, naked but warm, and hurried up the stairwell which disgorged them next to the master bedroom.
Stepping inside, the wet teens once again shivered in the air-conditioned air as Sarah stepped into her and Elliot's bathroom for towels – and emerged only carrying two. “These're all we got, sorry.”
Arms held tight against his midsection, Elliot said, “Y-you take it dear, I'll h-head to the bathroom.” He turned and padded quickly down the hall.
Tedd gestured to Grace and said, “Ladies f-first!” and turned to go – Sarah not quite able to stop herself from glancing at his butt as he left.
The corners of Grace's mouth raised slightly, and she reached over to Sarah for a towel. “Elliot's pretty cute without his clothes, huh?”
Sarah, drying her hair first, blushed. “Heh... yeah he is, isn't he.” She hesitated, and went out on a limb. “Tedd's normally pretty androgynous, but I gotta say, without pants he ain't too bad either.”
“Mmm... I know,” Grace replied as she bent down to dry her torso and then legs.
The girls toweled off in companionable silence, Sarah at last starting to feel at ease in her nakedness around her good friend. Soon enough, Grace straightened up, giving her hair a final once-over, and spoke up. “Hey, Sarah?”
“Yeah?”
“You remember what we talked about earlier today? About love, and what makes it special?”
Sarah wrapped her towel around her. “Yeah.”
Grace too finished drying off, but she simply walked over to the master bathroom and draped her towel over the rack. “And about sex, and how it's a part of love but there's a world of other things that go into love, and sex can mean something else too?”
She hadn't exactly worded it like that, but Sarah knew what she meant – and was starting to detect a tone in her friend's voice she hadn't heard before. “Yeah...”
The Seyunolu turned to face her, and walked to approach. “Did it help? You seemed... tense, when Elliot stole some looks at me in the shower.”
Sarah sat down at the foot of the bed. She wasn't quite sure how to respond. “Um... well, I get what you've been saying. It makes sense, I guess, and I know that Elliot loves me. But... in practice... it's hard to think like that.” She looked over at the door, wondering what was keeping the boys for so long. “It's like I can't quite get over the idea that when Elliot's with someone else, he's... I dunno... *replacing* me. Or when he looks to hard at someone else, he's comparing me.” She turned back to Grace. “I know I shouldn't. I really do... but it's so hard...”
Grace sat down next to the blonde – she morphed her antennae back, and they immediately reached over to rest on Sarah's head as she placed an arm around her friend. “It's okay, Sare-bear, it's okay... It can be hard, I guess.” She paused. “It might be hard to explain –”
Sarah was now kind of distraught. “I just wish I could get over it. I know Elliot loves me, I know Ellen could never steal him, I know there's a difference... I just wish I could instinctively *get* it, like you.”
Grace steeled herself, and spoke. “Maybe if I can't explain it to you... I can show you...”
Sarah straightened up. “...What?”
Grace pulled back, and looked Sarah straight in the eyes. “If you really want to get it... to *feel* it, I think you might need some help. Be shown what it's like. And... if you want... you could let me show you.”
Sarah was getting nervous. The last time she'd had a conversation like this was back in the 9th grade... and she remembered what that had lead to. “Um... I... I dunno, Grace...”
Grace was unperturbed. “Just give me a chance to show you. You and Elliot are happy now, I can tell how much you love each other. But this is going to stick in your mind. Let me try to help you.”
Sarah sat, looking at her friend's face. She suspected where this was headed... but something was pulling her. “... … W-well... I... I guess I could... give it a try,” she said shakily.
Grace smiled warmly. “That's great.” She puased, hearing Elliot and Tedd's voices down the hall and the squeak of door hinges. “But... if you're gonna agree to that, you have to trust me. No matter what.”
Sarah locked up, hearing the boys in the hallway and not quite believing she was having this conversation. “Erm... well...”
Grace turned on the spot so her body faced her friend as they sat next to each other on the edge of the bed. She reached up with both hands, and gently cupped Sarah's face. “I'm your friend, Sarah... I promise you can trust me, okay...?”
Sarah's eyes, filled with a mix of trepidation and a hint of anticipation, traced down her tan body, across her breasts and slim stomach and legs that hung off the bed – and then snapped back to her hopeful face. “Okay...” she whispered, hardly believing what she was saying. “I trust you.”
The girl smiled. “Thank you.” The dark-skinned chimera leaned over, pulling Sarah into a hug...
And with that, Elliot (his waist wrapped in a fluffy towel) and Tedd (wearing a pair of shorts he'd pulled from his dresser) at last reached the door to the master bedroom, stepping inside to ask what was taking the girls so long – only to gasp in awe as the nude figure of Grace embraced Sarah's towel-wrapped form, the two girls gently kissing with closed eyes.
The smacking sound of the boys' slack-jawed high-five was audible all through the house.
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Beach Week