Annie was working in their room when Michele had come hobbling through the door tears running down her cheeks. For a moment Annie had just watched, not sure what was happening; why Michele was crying.
The girls weren't close, but were friendly. Annie hoped that they would become friends, that Michele might help ease the way for her socially at their new school. Both had transferred in as sophomores. Michele who was 19 had come from a school Down South. Annie, who was a year younger, had transferred in from an accelerated program for "the gifted". So both were starting out the year on their back foot socially. Michele, who was a head taller than Annie, had thick beautiful brown hair that Annie coveted, was athletic, stylish, and was gorgeous to boot. And while Annie believed she was pretty too, she was pretty in a pixie way. Shy, with short cropped blonde hair (a recent experiment with bangs gone horribly wrong) and a slight frame, she wasn't even boyish compared to her roommate's womanly frame. She was little-boyish. Not a head turner like Michele.
After just a little over a week of knowing her, Annie already idolized Michele. Self-confident and socially assertive, but not vain or snarky, Annie felt she was strong in a way that she would like to be. But here she was flush and in tears.
Annie stood, her arms hanging uselessly at her sides. Michele had her hair pulled back in a thick pony tail and was in running gear - a tight white tank top over a sports bra, little red short-shorts, and clunky beige trail-runners. Her legs were spattered and smeared with mud. "Did you fall?"
"No!" Michele almost bellowed, then drew in a sharp breath, tears beginning to stream down her face. "I mean I did, but it's not", she sucked in another breath. "My legs are cramping!" she hissed through gritted teeth as she stumbled forward.
"Lay down!" Annie urged her. Michele toppled face down onto her bed, her feet hanging off the end of the bed, her legs twisting flexing with the cramps. Annie started grabbing her shoe and ankle, preparing to pull it off, but stopped, suddenly unsure of of herself.
"Can I rub it for you?"
Michele, face buried in her pillow was now sobbing, but Annie squeezed her ankle and Michele nodded her head in the affirmative. That was enough.
Annie's only experience with massage was rubbing her mother's stiff neck after a long work day, and sometimes her feet to help her relax while they sat together watching TV together on the couch. This was something entirely beyond Annie's ken.
Annie knelt at the end of Michele's bed and quickly pulled her shoes and socks off. Unlike the idle foot rubs she gave her mother to relax, Michele was writhing in pain her feet bunched up like fists. Annie grabbed her feet and began to squeeze and rub them both with all the force she could muster. She pressed much harder then she would ever would have dared using on her mother's feet.
She could feel corded tendons through the soles of Michele's arches and used her thumbs to grind into them. Michele, her face still buried in her pillow, cried out, but didn't protest, so Annie pressed on. Still kneeling at the end of the bed, she began working even harder into the arches of her friend's feet with all the strength she had, then using the heal of her hand to stretch Michele's curled toes, and using both hands to hinge each her frozen ankles as best she could.
Rising onto her knees, Annie began to work her hands up Michele's calves. She brushed away dry mud and jealously admired the other girl's long muscular legs. Her skin was perfectly smooth and still tan from summer. Annie burned easily and jokingly described herself as "skinny fat" feeling her own skin was pasty and doughy. Her hands looked suddenly tiny and pale; bird like and inadequate against Michele's bucking calves.
Shaking off the harsh thoughts, Annie focused on squeezing as hard as she could. Her forearms ached with the strain but she felt like she was hardly having any effect on the stronger girl. She wished was stronger. She worked the cramping muscles as best she could, sweating and grunting with the effort. Like her feet, the tendons in Michele's calves felt rigid, her muscles spasmed, fighting Annie.
With Michele's feet still hanging off the side of her bed on either side of her, Annie did her best to work both legs at the same time. But more often than not she needed both hands for one leg, or to abandon the calves altogether, in order to return to the work of pulling open Michele's cramping feet. But slowly Annie worked her way upward, pressing her hips into the mattress, reaching forward as far as she could.
Annie wiped sweat from her lip and climbed onto the foot of the bed, kneeling again, but now on the mattress between Michele's legs. Annie wasn't sure, but she thought she could feel the other girl beginning to relax. If nothing else she had finally stopped sobbing.
Now, rather than kneading and grinding with all her force, Annie began to rub and massage more gently, working from Michel's toes upward; straddling one leg and then the other. She allowed her hands to climb a bit higher now, less and less worried with each pass that her feet would begin to spasm again.
Clearly the crisis passed, Michele was breathing deeply, almost as if asleep. She made no move to try and get up or otherwise end the massage however, so Annie continued. The only time Michele would shift, even slightly, was as Annie shifted from stranding one leg to the other.
Allowing herself for the first time to reflect on what she had done. Annie felt curiously proud of herself, like a hero - something she was very unaccustomed to feeling. But she also realized, now that it was no longer an emergency, how much she was enjoying messaging Michele.
Annie had always thought her mother was beautiful, and loved touching her, making her feel good. The neck and foot rubs she had given her were discrete, however, not like what she found herself doing now. As she worked up and down Michel's long legs in turn she found the contact itself pleasurable - even erotic.
Annie wondered why she had never massaged any of the boys she dated - it wasn't a long list, 'three' she thought glumly. Part of the problem was that the boys she seemed comfortable with were as timid as she was. She had been too afraid of things going "too far" to allow any of them to do much more than kiss and grope, and paralyzed by the idea of instigating anything herself. But as she pressed into Michel's thigh, she was enjoying the feeling of her legs in her hands, the skin on skin, pressing into her muscles, the idea of the pleasure she was giving. She realized with a start that she was getting turned on.
Until then, Annie had been cooling down from the heat of the hard work of the crisis, but now she felt herself blush with sudden embarrassment. She had been so lost in the effort and then the pleasure of what she was doing, but now she looked down at Michele with new eyes. Her face was still hidden from view, buried in her pillow. And while her breathing was heavy and slow - still hadn't stirred - Annie was sure however that she wasn't asleep. Michel's jaw was clenching. Her arms, wrapped around her pillow above her head, were flexing, her hands squeezing the pillow as Annie continued to massage her legs.
Watching the pulses of Michele's fists, clenching and unclenching, Annie felt her own breathing shorten, become a little shaky. Her stomach seemed to fill with heat as her wrapped-hands moved up the back of Michel's thigh. She let them climb higher now than she had been before, sliding upwards until her fingers were just brushing the red hem of the running shorts; she felt lightheaded. Again she worked her way down, feeling herself relax as she did, almost as if she were moving away from danger.
She studied Michele as her hands moved slowly up again. The muscles of her bare shoulders were better defined than any of the boys she'd dated. And while her back was muscular and sculpted, her chest and waist were narrow and delicate. Down and up her hands moved, pressing inward, feeling abruptly cool and oddly light as they climbed - as if they had bird bones.
Annie started to rise. Intending to stop but Michele seemed to anticipate she was just switching legs again, she shifted. Annie watched as Michele's back arched ever so slightly, lifting her ass a tiny fraction, almost imperceptibly parting her legs. 'Making room for me', Annie thought.
Annie went still, hovering there, watching the red shorts shifting. Admiring Michele's hips and round muscular ass. 'Plump' she thought, surprising herself.
Annie placed her hands on either side of Michel's hips. Suddenly aware of how quiet the room had become; the failing light. Twilight was falling. Climbing off her right leg Annie let her head droop and elbows flex. Her face very close to the small of Michele's back, and those red shorts. She listened as Michele take a shallow stuttering breath.
