The best and basically only perk of being a counselor was, of course, getting a private room, and Kelsey managed to make it almost four days into the summer before one of Julia’s campers barfed in her bed in the middle of the night. They weren’t going to make the poor kid sleep on a bare plastic mattress, so the camper got Julia’s room, and, well. Neither Julia nor Kelsey got a room to themselves tonight.

The consolation perk was a smuggled-in bottle of cheap, nasty rum. They hadn’t actually drunk much–just a couple of swigs each to try and relax after their 2 am sheet-change wake-up call. Kelsey could still taste it on her tongue, though, and while it had helped make things fuzzier, it had made her feel warmer all over too. The warmth did her no favors. These tiny cabins had no AC, and they hadn’t even bothered pulling the sheets up when they’d climbed into the little twin bunk. Her skin was damp; she could feel stray hairs sticking to her temples, her forehead, and see her bunkmate’s doing the same.

It occurred to her to wonder if Julia’s mouth tasted like rum too.

“Julia?” she whispered, barely more than a breath.

“Mmmm,” sighed the other girl. “Hey, ’m real sorry about this. I can sleep on the… floor or whatever, if you want…”

“Don’t be ridiculous! It’s fine,” said Kelsey, her voice still soft. “I just wanted to see if you were still awake.”

“Not f’ long,” said Julia, scrunching her head back down into the pillow. “Thanks for letting me crash, I appreciate it.” Her eyes were dipping shut again, her lips parting slightly as her breathing slowed and deepened. “Just sorry it’s too hot to…” Her voice trailed off.

Kelsey blinked. “To what?” No response. She bit her lip. They were both exhausted, but… “Hey. Jules. To what?” she whispered, leaning down toward the other girl’s ear.

“Hmmm?” Julia inhaled sharply, eyes opening and struggling to focus. “Kelsey? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah!” Kelsey bit her lip. “Jeez. Sorry. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.” Selfish, she berated herself. It’s three in the damn morning! Let your friend rest!

“‘Kay,” said Julia, sinking back down again. “Kisses. Cuddles.”

God dammit.

Kelsey lay back on her half of the bed, staring at the dark ceiling, feeling much more awake than she had a few minutes ago. Julia almost definitely didn’t know what she was saying–just talking sweet nonsense as she drifted off to sleep. Unless. Unless she was… pretending? To give herself an out? Kelsey could imagine herself doing the same thing all too clearly.

Kelsey thought hard through a slightly rummy fog. If Julia were not actually asleep, and really did want to… kiss and cuddle, then touching her would be fine. If she were actually asleep again already, and Kelsey were very careful, she wouldn’t necessarily even know, which wasn’t really all that bad a thing. It might even give her some nice dreams. Right?

So just one hand, resting on her waist, thumb under the hem of her pajama top.

Julia didn’t stir. Emboldened, Kelsey let her palm brush back and forth a little: despite the summer night heat, goosebumps prickled on Julia’s soft skin, over her ribs and farther up toward her shoulder. The moonlight through the window caught the tiny, fine hairs on her skin, and Kelsey was entranced. So entranced that it was almost an accident when her next brush touched the bottom of Julia’s nipple.

Julia might have inhaled a little deeper; it might have been a trick of the light. It might have just been a stirring in her sleep. But Kelsey, breathing faster and faster, found herself with half of this pretty girl’s soft breast in her hand. She still wasn’t sure if Kelsey was doing all this just to be cuddled–though a nagging voice in the back of her head said she already knew–but she didn’t want to move her hand. Not yet. She just wanted to marvel at the fullness, the gentle movement of breath, the–the sort-of-accident of it. No apologizing and jerking her hand away. No waking sleepy Julia.

Julia pushed her hips back against Kelsey’s leg.

Kelsey forgot to breathe for a bit. Soft jersey cotton against her bare thigh, and the curve of Julia’s back with her tank top rucked up to the bottom of her ribs. Kelsey knew that posture, thighs clamped together and knees a little bent, toes vaguely pointed. She’d woken up like that herself before. Julia was having a nice dream after all.

Cautiously, Kelsey scooted closer, trying not to shift the mattress too much, and touched her nose to the hair at the back of Julia’s neck. She smelled good, like girl and pine trees and campfire smoke, and a hint of sweat and floral shampoo. Opening her hand, she began to brush her fingertips very, very lightly along the inside curve of Julia’s breast. It hadn’t been her idea to put the two of them in the same bed, she reasoned. So there wasn’t anything really wrong with this. People in bed ended up touching. That’s just how things happened.

Julia turned restlessly, and Kelsey felt a moment of panic at being caught, but she was just shifting in bed–and throwing her leg back to get one of Kelsey’s thighs between both of hers. The movement had put her nipple right between Kelsey’s fingers, too, and she was arching into it, stiff and trembling with tension. Kelsy brushed it lightly, so so lightly, while her other hand found itself very near Julia’s waist. If Julia was as deep a sleeper as she seemed to be, then she probably wouldn’t even notice.

Kelsey tried not to reflect on the sheer sketchiness of that thought, took a breath, and slipped her hand into Julia’s pants.

She’d never done this before. “Practiced” kissing other girls in her bedroom, play-fight wrestling that ended with someone pinned, glancing over each other in the locker room or skinny-dipping–that was all well and good. But this was… more. She could feel the curve and dip where Julia’s hip met her belly. Kelsey realized her hand was trembling. She reminded herself, once again, that Julia was not apparently conscious, not a partner, just someone she was treating like…

Little curly tuft in her fingers.

Julia’s breathing was still deep and even, but not so slow anymore. Her little pink tongue touched her lips, and she swallowed, and Kelsey was holding her breast gently with one hand, holding the swell of her sex in the other. A little lightning bolt shot through her when she realized that. She was actually doing this. She was actually exploring with her fingers, finding the part of Julia’s lips and hesitantly opening them. Opening her.

Very warm, and very damp–no, not damp. Slick. Wet. Julia’s tongue flickered again, forming a few silent words, while Kelsey felt like she hadn’t let out her breath for a solid five minutes. Julia was starting to press her hips back again, keeping Kelsey’s thigh against her, as if she wanted Kelsey to trap her pelvis there, to give her room to squirm and buck. Kelsey did.

She’d started out barely daring to touch Julia’s skin, thinking the pressure would wake her, but she seemed to have only fallen more deeply into… whatever this was. She cradled her friend against herself, not caring now how warm their bodies were against each other, and nervously caught Julia’s nipple against her thumb. Roll and push and tug. It was stiffer than before, if anything, and responsive, yearning for pressure.

Then, very quietly, Julia mumbled one word Kelsey could actually make out. It was “Daddy.”

It dizzied her. Kelsey didn’t know what to think, what to do. How much of this was Julia aware of? How much would she remember? Who did she think–did she have someone who–what if.

What if she was Daddy, then? Just for one night?

The thought was a fucking rush, a flood of heat and need and desire from her spine down to the bottom of her belly. She wasn’t older or bigger than Julia–an inch shorter, in fact. But the thought of being some kind of authority figure to her, taking control. Taking care. Holding her, just like this. The breath she’d been holding rushed out of her, and she pressed the base of her hand against Julia’s pussy, feeling how it made her whimper and grind.

“Yeah,” she whispered, so soft she could barely hear it herself. “Daddy’s here.”

Julia was trying to hump her hand, trying to hump her leg: wherever her mind was, there was no more doubt about what her body wanted. Kelsey instinctively wanted to hold those wriggling hips still against herself, to make Julia struggle. (It was, she thought, what she’d want if their positions were reversed.) So she did, and Julia’s next breath was a quiet little whine. Her whole body rolled back and up, trying to get pressure up against herself, and when Kelsey shifted her hand she found Julia’s swelling, slippery clit between her fingers.

She was fucking a girl. She was fucking a girl at summer camp. The thought made a nervous, silent laugh twitch in her throat. People joked about the counselors sneaking off to the woods to get high and screw around, but here she was in her own cabin, with her friend jerking around like a fish on the dock, caught in her shaking hands.

“Daddy,” Julia mumbled, “please,” and Kelsey discovered that you can push your thumb inside someone and still rub their clit if you have short fingers. Her other hand moved reluctantly away from Julia’s breast to her mouth, and Julia seized on her fingers hungrily, suckling and letting out little sounds halfway between need and contentment.

The only problem with this setup was that Kelsey’s own clit was starting to send her stern messages about how flagrantly it was being neglected. Julia’s insistent butt had helped with a little grinding action earlier, but as she started to pull in on herself, hands clenching, belly tightening, Kelsey was left out in the cold–well, out in the heat and damp, but still. She couldn’t bear to pull her hands out of either end of Julia long enough to shove one down her pajama shorts.

But she could take a second, just a quick second, to leave Julia’s hungry mouth and fumble around behind her on the desk next to the bed. She wasn’t even sure what she was trying to find. Just something she could hold between her legs, between the two of them, anything that would fit right and give her a shape to–there.

Kelsey’s fingers found the textured surface of the extra-large Maglite her dad had given her to “find your way to the outhouse and fight bears on the way.” Definitely not what it had been intended for, but it would do. She fumbled it down to their tangled legs, trying not to smack either of them with it, and managed to get the shaft wedged against herself, braced against Julia’s hindquarters. The next time Kelsey squeezed Julia’s clit, the next time Julia squirmed, it pressed itself hard against Kelsey’s pussy, rigid through the sopping fabric of her underwear.

Fuck. Yes. Julia felt it too, and let out an inarticulate little noise before Kelsey pushed her fingers back in her mouth. Then they were riding each other: grind and squeeze and gasp and pulse, cicadas outside drowning the creak of the mattress, wet and breathless in the stuffy summer night.

Julia was getting close. Kelsey could feel it. Her belly was tensing and shuddering and her breathing had long since abandoned the slow rhythm of sleep; she was a hitching, heedless mess, and Kelsey wanted to find out what happened next. She used her hand to turn Julia’s face toward her, and it wasn’t a total shock when they made eye contact, but it sent a jolt through her all the same.

Julia’s eyes were glazed, unfocused, dilated with sleepy desire. Kelsey didn’t know how much she was seeing now, or how much she’d remember later. She just knew she was about to get off just humping her makeshift sex toy, and if she was that far gone, Julia had to be much, much farther.

It took them both by surprise, though. Julia suddenly jerked, with a sharp, half-choked breath, and Kelsey felt her tighten and convulse around her slippery thumb. The little mewling sounds coming out of her throat made her throb herself, and she kept riding the metal shaft between her legs as Julia shook and clenched and slowly sagged back onto the sweaty bed. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them over and over, and Kelsey pulled her fingers out of her mouth, letting her gulp down deep breaths as her legs quaked with aftershocks.

“Oh fuck,” Julia said, finally, coming to herself. “Oh my god. Did I just… have a…” She hesitated. “A dream?”

Kelsey bit her lip. “I don’t know, princess.”

If the pet name was strange to her, Julia didn’t seem to notice. “I. Uh.” She shifted a little, and discovered the way their legs were positioned–and the flashlight pressing against her. “… Fuck. Wait.” She turned to stare at Kelsey’s face through the thick and heavy atmosphere in the room. “Did I call you…?”

Kelsey nodded.

It was hard to see, but Julia’s face seemed to flush bright red. “Oh Jesus.” She turned over, but didn’t pull away–just far enough to look the two of them over, and the mess they’d made of the sheets. She took a deep breath. “Can I call you…?”

“Do you trust me to take care of you?” said Kelsey, feeling the strange but gratifying new name thrill through her.

Julia swallowed and nodded, just a little movement in the dark.

“And are you going to take care of me back?” Kelsey grinned, wiggling, letting the flashlight bump her mischievously.

Julia caught her breath and nodded again.

“It only makes sense, then.” Kelsey smoothed the hair back from Julia’s damp forehead, then pressed her nose and lips to it. “I do have to say, though–if I’m going to be a father figure to you, I’m not sure I approve of your drinking.”

Julia squirmed and ducked her head. “Drinking?” she said in a small voice. “Drinking what?”

“Open your mouth for a second,” said Kelsey, pulling her close again, “and let me find out.”