Adults Only
Shiny Faces
.
Copyright 2006 Rachael Ross all rights reserved
Story Codes: f/f, First, Mast, Rom
Shiny Faces
by Rachael Ross
It was time for my shiny face. That's what Mrs. Elgin called it. And not just mine, but everyone's. We were salesmen, the bunch of us, boys and girls. Some of us were as young as five and some as old as fifteen, and even one boy who was sixteen. He was the old man in our midst. Most of us were between 8 and 13, but we were older than that really.
Being an orphan is like that. It makes you old really fast, cynical and realistic. Even the little kids knew that every day that passed in the orphanage was a bad thing. Babies get adopted quick, everybody knows that. Then the toddlers and pre-schoolers, they had okay chances. Even a 6 or 7 year old had a shot at life, a real life with parents and everything. Once you hit puberty though, it was all over but the crying, and by age 12 we were much too old for that. And God didn't make that many tears anyway.
I was 13 and over the hill by adoption standards. But I put on my shiny face anyway, because that was all we had. It was all I had. Hope dies hard, even when you think it's gone, hope can surprise you. I felt it like a needle in my heart, just a pain, an ache like a sharp cramp. But I couldn't tell anyone, not least because I knew we all felt it and nobody wanted to admit it.
"Shiny faces…shiny faces…" Mrs. Elgin was smiling, ever optimistic and smiling, clapping her hands, telling us exactly how many minutes we had. She'd been working the adoption road for a long time and her heart had broken a million times I bet. But she'd had her victories too and that was what kept her going. For the kids who never went anywhere, Mrs. Elgin was the only mom they'd ever have.
We sold ourselves, and sometimes each other. If a couple came in looking for something in particular, a little girl maybe, or a little boy, we older kids had our favorites. My own was Kimmie and she was just 5 years old. Sarah, my best friend who was 12 liked her too, and if the people coming today wanted a little girl, we'd do whatever we could to sell them Kimmie. She was our little sister, she was a part of us, the part that still had a chance, and if she went home it would be like some of me was going too.
And that was true of anyone really. Anytime one of the kids got adopted, it gave all of us new life. But Kimmie was my favorite, my little sister, and if anyone was going to go, I wanted it to be her. Or me, but I was afraid to think like that, and I didn't have much of a chance anyway. People didn't want 13 year old girls. They'd miss too many birthdays, too many Christmas mornings and school pageants and Halloweens. All that was left when you were 13 was trouble, or so we thought people thought. And we knew people pretty good.
My shiny face was pretty. Not beautiful, or striking, or stunning. Those kids didn't get orphaned, just the pretty ones. My face was clean, scrubbed pink and smiling. I practiced smiling sometimes, we all did. I had happy smiles, and shy smiles, and even sad smiles, because no matter what happened you had to smile. None of us were truly happy though, or ever shy really. You couldn't be shy and sell yourself, that was impossible, and the older kids taught the little kids not to be shy. Being shy was a life sentence.
You just had to act shy. We were all good actors.
So I put on my nice dress, the one Mrs. Elgin had given me just for days like this, all bright with yellow flowers on it, with baby blue trimmings to match my eyes. A yellow ribbon for my auburn hair, which wasn't that long, but a little ponytail made me look younger, so I pulled it back and Sarah tied it for me. I was getting breasts, but I couldn't do anything about it. They stuck out like sore thumbs, little mounds to spoil my dress. Some white shoes, a little scuffed, but clean. No makeup or jewelry or fancy things. That was all of me, 4'10" tall and 85 pounds of thirteen year old girl for sale.
There were six couples, husbands and wives. Mostly they were young, people in their late twenties, some in their thirties, and one couple in their forties. They'd reached some point in their lives where they could afford a child. Not just with money, but with time and love and patience and all that stuff that we knew so little about. Some of them we understood instinctively, they had holes in their lives. Maybe a child would fill some of them, save their marriage maybe, or give their lives some new aspect they imagined was lacking. But that was cynicism, as I understood the word, and we had to ignore it.
Mrs. Elgin gave a little presentation while the couples sat in their chairs and listened, but mostly looked at us. We were quiet and still, showing off our good manners and smiling shyly. These people had all been screened and investigated and interviewed and whatever else was required to make sure they were both fit and serious enough to adopt a child. This was their trip to the pet shop and they could pick what they wanted to bring home. They'd look and leave and think about it and talk to their wives and husbands and then maybe they'd come back for a second look, or maybe they'd come back and say ‘We want that one…' and that would be a little victory for Mrs. Elgin and the rest of us. But most of those couples we'd never see again.
There were a lot of pet shops in the world.
It was easy to figure out what they were looking for. People look at what they desire, all we had to do was watch the eyes. None of them were looking at me, although they were too polite not to, but they'd see me and smile and move on. It was rejection and it hurt, because that's what rejection does. You don't ever get used to it, no matter what you want to believe. That was why I needed Kimmie, she was the part of me that wasn't rejected.
"Good afternoon." It was one of the younger couples, a good looking man and his wife, and I'd walked up to them as soon as Mrs. Elgin was done, holding Kimmie's hand. "I'm Mark and this is my wife, Jill."
It was always kind of awkward for them, because they were shopping and they didn't want to hurt anyone. But I'd seen them looking at Kimmie and so they couldn't hurt me at all. We had little name tags, but it was always best to say your name. People better remembered what they saw if they heard it too.
"I'm Stacy," I smiled my confident smile. "And this is Kimberly. We call her Kimmie." I looked down at the girl to make sure she was giving them her shy smile. "Say hi," I whispered, just for their benefit.
"Hi Kimmie," the man knelt down a little. "How old are you?"
And so it went, I'd stay there for a little while, doing whatever I could to sell Kimmie, but she was good and practically sold herself. I just made sure there were no awkward silences, no opportunities for the couple to look around at anyone else. I told little stories about Kimmie and how she was smart and funny and the best little girl in the whole world. But I didn't have to say too much anyway, they liked her a lot.
But there were other kids and Mrs. Elgin knew the game too, and she would give us our 10 minutes and then it was someone else's turn. The wife gave Kimmie a hug though, and offered me a little smile, one of the hopeful kind that was genuine, because she'd never had to practice smiling in her life. It was a good sign, I thought, a real good sign and I told Kimmie how good she'd done as we walked away, heading towards another prospective buyer, another maybe mommy and daddy for my little girl.
"Hi there…ah, Stacy," a man said, reading my name tag. It was the older couple, the man and his wife in their forties, probably late forties.
I was standing close to Kimmie, watching her talk to another couple, but they seemed to be looking for a little boy, more than a little girl. But we were trying. Kimmie was working hard and I was smiling. I hadn't really expected the other couple to talk to me. I knew they were there, approaching us. I knew exactly where every couple was, every second, but I didn't think they'd talk to me and I almost forgot to smile.
"Hi," I looked at them and did smile. It had been a long time since I'd tried to sell myself and for just a second there I didn't know what to say.
"This is Rita, I'm Bill," he nodded as if agreeing with himself.
"Hi," I smiled at the woman, "it's nice to meet you." I offered my hand, even though I knew some people liked to browse without touching anything.
"Nice to meet you too, Stacy. My, that's a pretty dress." She was 45 I decided, and her hand was strong and calloused with short fingernails. She had a pleasant face, and a healthy body, tanned skin and sensible short black hair with a little grey in it.
"Thank you," I said, looking down at it. "Mrs. Elgin bought it for my birthday."
"And how old are you, Stacy?" the man, Bill, asked me.
He was large, like John Wayne maybe, except John Wayne was bigger than anyone. Bill was just reminded me of him, barrel chested and sort of leathery, with wrinkled eyes and a strong jaw. He looked uncomfortable in the slacks and sport coat he was wearing. His hands were big and I could see little scars and fresh cuts, just the little kind you'd expect on a farmer. I thought I had them pegged, but I'd been doing this a long time and these people looked like what they were.
"I'm thirteen. My birthday was a couple months ago, last April," I was still smiling, all shiny faced just for them.
These people already knew how old I was, maybe, if they were really interested in me. Sometimes people came to the orphanage and just changed their minds right away for some reason, then they'd usually find one of the older kids to talk to, just to pass enough time so they could leave without making it look like they were running away. Thinking about adopting was a lot different than doing it, I supposed. It frightened some people, just because they'd never gone through it, like it was the worst thing in the world maybe. But it wasn't, it was just life.
If they were interested in me, this Bill and Rita, then they might have already picked me out. We all had our little files, like sales brochures, with photographs and a little history, nothing too personal I don't think, but enough to say who we were. People could look through the files and see if there was a girl or boy they might like and then meet them on a day like this one. But we couldn't know about that and it was better that we didn't. It would have meant these people had expectations and we had to assume they didn't, even though it was a lie in any case.
Bill and Rita owned a horse ranch, out in the country and it wasn't hard for me to smile about that. I'd ridden a horse before, just once on one of the occasional outings we had. It was easy talking to them and I didn't think they were just killing time and it made me a little nervous. I'd had talks like this before, when I was younger, but it had been awhile since anyone had cared enough to spend twenty minutes with me. It felt good and I was so afraid of that feeling I started getting a tummy ache.
They left finally, moving on to talk to Sarah, whom Mrs. Elgin was walking over. I'd had my fair share of time and that was okay. Sarah was like my sister too and if they didn't like me, maybe they'd like her. But I really wanted them to like me and that thought, that bit of hope was so strong I had to go to the bathroom and be sick. I was throwing up and crying, just a little, but only because I'd been trying so hard not to want it. When you wanted something and didn't get it, that just hurt too much, so it was better not to.
I stayed in the bathroom for long time, until Sarah came in.
"Are you okay?" she asked me.
"Yeah," I was washing my mouth out in the sink, catching water in my cupped hands.
"Did you like those people?" Sarah went into one of the stalls.
"I don't know. I guess so," I shrugged at myself in the mirror. "Did you?"
"Yeah," Sarah answered from nowhere, like disembodied voice echoing around me. "You think they'll adopt you?"
That was just what I didn't want to think about and Sarah knew better. I wondered if she was trying to hurt me, I mean they must have been comparing us, me and Sarah, maybe just with each other, maybe with some other girls we didn't know. I didn't answer; I just listened to Sarah pee and looked at myself in the mirror.
"Kimmie's gonna get adopted," Sarah said, flushing the toilet and opening the stall door. "I bet you a dollar."
"You better not say that to her!" I said, frowning and then I caught myself when I saw the look on Sarah's face. "You don't have a dollar anyway."
"I know, but someday…" she shrugged.
"Yeah someday," I smiled at her and all was forgiven. We'd probably never see Bill and Rita ever again, but we'd see each other everyday, so it wasn't going to do anything being mad or jealous or whatever.
"I gotta do homework," Sarah told me. "You wanna come to my room?"
"Yeah, I got homework too," I nodded.
Even though we were orphans we still had to go to school. The girl's went to St. Agnes, which was just up the street. It was a private school, but they took us for free I think and sometimes it was okay, but mostly we stayed by ourselves. We weren't really like the other kids, the ones who went home everyday and complained about their parents and brothers and sisters. I had some friends, some of the girls with families, but not very many. It was like we talked different languages sometimes, but other times it was alright.
Sarah was my best friend and she was almost 13, just about 6 months younger than me. She was pretty and very nice, except she said dumb things sometimes. But that was just because she hadn't been an orphan very long. Just since she was 7 and so she'd really had to grow up fast. I'd been an orphan since I was 4 and I remembered having a mom, sort of, but I didn't remember my dad at all. Maybe I didn't ever have one, I wasn't sure and Mrs. Elgin wouldn't tell me. But I didn't ask very often either.
I did my math homework, algebra, and I kind of liked it. I was always good at math because it had a lot of rules. Once you knew the rules you could do anything, figure out any problem. It was as far away from life as anything could get, I figured, because the only rule I knew for life was that there weren't any. You just lived it and it happened and you even after something went right or wrong, you couldn't know the reason. All the answers were right and all the answers were wrong and I didn't even know what the questions were. Math was a lot easier.
Sarah was doing her English, using her dictionary to look up words and define them. Sometimes she'd cheat and ask me, but I wasn't very good at English like that. My vocabulary has always been a small one.
"What's stoic mean?" Sarah asked, she'd pronounced it 'stoyk' and I shrugged.
"I don't know. Umm…a person who can't fall down?" I grinned because I liked making up weird definitions that made no sense at all.
"That's what you said turgid was!" Sarah giggled. "And that meant fancy or fat."
"So um, a turgid stoyk is a fancy person who is so fat he can't fall over," I laughed.
"Like a weebles!" Sarah laughed too.
"Yeah it's a weebles, put that down," I nodded.
"I'm tired of writing all these stupid words. I never heard anybody use these words. We should learn the other ones," Sarah dropped her pencil.
"Like what? We know all the words we hear around here," I laughed at her and she stuck her tongue out at me.
"I mean like the other words," Sara lowered her voice. "Like fuck. What's that mean?"
"It's a swear word, it doesn't mean anything," I was speaking softer too. Mrs. Elgin didn't care for swear words a whole lot.
"Then why's it bad?" Sarah asked me, like I knew about anything.
"Cause it's bad. I don't know, look it up," I shrugged.
"It's not in here, I looked," she gave me a crooked smile.
"Then it's probably not even a real word," I said, going back to my math.
"Fuck fuck fuck…" Sarah leaned back on her bed, I was sitting on the floor. "It's gotta be a real word, I heard it a lot."
"Yeah, me too," I said, sort of not thinking about it.
"I bet it means like sex, cause Karen said she saw her parents fuck once."
"Maybe…" I had too many x's in my parenthesis.
"I wish I could see somebody fuck," Sarah sighed.
"I just wish I had parents," I said, without really thinking about it.
"Hey," Sarah said and then said it again when I didn't look at her right away. "Hey!"
"What?" I still didn't look, I was almost done.
"You wanna do that stuff some more?" Sarah asked and then I did look at her.
"We can't," I said. "It's the middle of the day."
"Yeah, but everybody's outside anyway," Sarah licked her lips. "Please? Just a little?"
She was really pretty sitting there, still wearing her pink dress. Neither of us had changed clothes. We'd just kicked off our shoes and Sarah still had her socks on, little white ankle socks with lace around the tops. She had blonde hair, kind of wavy, not straight, so the ends curled a little. She just wore it loose on her shoulders. Sarah had got her first period about a year before and her boobs were growing too, but real slowly. She just had puffy nipples mostly and they must have been trying to grow right then because I could see them poking underneath her dress.
"Tonight, okay? I'll sneak out and…"
"No, come on…" Sarah was smiling the way she did when she really wanted me to do something. We'd been best friends for almost 5 years so it wasn't hard.
"Okay, just a little," I looked at the door. We couldn't lock it or anything, but it was a nice day outside and almost all the kids were playing in the courtyard behind the orphanage.
We'd started doing this stuff just recently, and mostly it was just kissing and hugging and stuff. I don't know how exactly, or even why. We were just friends and we spent a lot of time together, so maybe everyone did it. What started as innocent touching turned into something that felt good, and because it felt good we wanted to do it more, even though maybe we shouldn't. I couldn't pick a day and say this was when we hugged for the first time, or this is when I kissed Sarah. It just seemed like we'd always been doing it.
I got up and onto the bed, Sarah tossing her books on the floor with a soft thump and making room for me to lie down next to her. It was nice like that, just holding her. I imagined sometimes that this was what a family must be like, just a soft bed and someone who loved you being close. I put my arms around her and she nestled against me, smiling into my face with her bottle green eyes.
We didn't kiss or anything, not at first, we just hugged, lying on our sides. I moved my hands along her back, the same way she was doing to me, feeling each other through our pretty dresses. I could feel her warm breath on my face, we were so close, our noses were almost touching. My boobs felt swollen, like my dress was too small all of a sudden and my nipples hurt a little, feeling cold and then hot and sometimes both. They were trying to grow, the same way they always did when I was holding Sarah like that.
"Stacy," Sarah whispered and she just wanted to hear my name I think.
"Sarah," I smiled at her and shifted my hips a little, moving one of my legs between hers. She opened her thighs for me, dropping her foot behind my calf and I felt her hand going lower, just to the top of my butt.
I did the same thing and we were giggling softly, pulling each other's hips and tummies closer. I thought I could feel her puffy pink nipples through our dresses, pressing against mine and I wished we were naked, even though we'd never really been naked like this before. We'd always worn clothes, or at least our nightgowns and panties. It made me nervous and hot inside to think about what naked might be like.
Sarah kissed me, or maybe I kissed her, it didn't matter. Her lips were soft, like small tiny pillows and dry on the outside, but inside she was moist and sweet. We'd learned French kissing together, but we weren't really good at it, and it tickled sometimes, making us laugh. But I didn't mind. Other times it was nice and something about the way the tip of Sarah's tongue would touch me inside always made me shiver. She'd touch the roof of my mouth, or inside my cheeks sometimes, and when she found a spot that I liked I'd try to remember it so I could do it to her too.
I liked the way her teeth felt and I would run my tongue along them, feeling Sarah hard and sharp before pushing my tongue deeper. We looked at each other when we kissed, sometimes, and that would make us smile. Mostly I closed my eyes though and I think Sarah did too. I reached down as far as I could, feeling her soft round butt through the pleats in her dress, rubbing her body, pulling Sarah against me as I pushed my leg against her a little. She liked that, riding my thigh like it was a bicycle or maybe a horse, because she would start to move.
Sarah was making soft sounds, the way she did sometimes, and her hips were moving faster. I kissed her more then, never wanting to stop and I could feel her fingers pulling at my dress, lifting it up to bunch up in the small of my back. The air was cool on my thighs, my skin flushed and hot. Her fingers played along the waistband of my panties, sliding underneath and making me move my own hips. I found her leg with my body, with the place between my thighs, and I was rubbing myself against her, the same way she was rubbing on me.
"Is…this fucking?" Sarah asked me and she was breathing hard and smiling. Her face was red and her eyes were wide.
"I think so…" I licked my lips. I didn't know what it was. Sometimes we did this, but just a little, this time it was a lot and I was panting for air.
"I want to fuck with you," Sarah was saying and hearing those words from her soft lips was exciting to me for some reason.
"Me too," I nodded, gasping then as Sarah's hand went further, she was rubbing my butt, her hand inside my panties completely. "I want to fuck with you too."
We weren't kissing then, just breathing hard and our hips were moving together, just rocking and grinding sometimes, making us moan or catch our breath with sharp exhales and hard swallows. I felt a throbbing between my legs, like nothing I'd ever felt before. It almost hurt, but it didn't, it was just a good feeling. I was warm all over, but especially down there, and wet too suddenly. I hadn't realized it, but now I could feel myself like I'd wet myself, just a little. Not very much at all, but it wasn't pee either, I knew that.
And then I could feel Sarah's panty covered crotch against my bare thigh, our skirts had ridden up, slowly but surely, and I could feel her damp and so hot it was like a furnace against my skin. She was wet too, just like me, and her eyes were shining and wet I think, but not like she was crying.
"I…I feel funny, Stacy…" she told me, and her face was changing, looking happy and worried all at the same time. She was frightened a little, I thought, and so was I.
"Me too…I feel it down there…" I whispered.
We couldn't stop, whatever it was we were doing, it wasn't letting us stop at all. My body was moving by itself, rubbing and I squeezed Sarah's butt hard, pulling her against me. I wanted to be as close as possible, or even closer than that. I wanted to be inside her somehow, to share what I was feeling with her, and know what she was feeling too. I moved a little more, sliding my hips up along her leg, forcing her crotch further along mine, so that the centers of our pleasure were closer. I wanted to feel it, that heat between her legs against mine.
"More…" Stacy swallowed thickly, nodding, and her cheeks were burning red, her eyes glazed. She knew what I was doing and I think she wanted it too.
I moved until I felt it, until I was almost completely turned, our legs scissored so that the crotch of my panty was against hers, our long dresses covering part of us, and pushed up in other places, wrinkled and disheveled. We moved together, just rubbing our panties together, our immature sexes protected and frustrated. It was hot, incredibly warm down there, and the fire seeped through my tummy, into my lungs and heart. My blood seemed to burn with it and I had to close my eyes, fighting to breathe.
Sarah held my leg tightly, pulling me as she pressed herself down, rocking her hips, rolling her butt and grinding her sex against mine. I was doing the same thing, unable to do anything else. It had never been like this before and it was fucking, I was sure. We were fucking and it was nice and confusing and I felt like balloons were filling me inside, my body being pushed from the inside out.
"Ohhh…oh ahhh…" Sarah was crying out and I felt her body jerking suddenly, just as my own began to spasm. It was like a fist was grabbing me between the legs, the softest, most gentle fist you can imagine, made of fire and water, grabbing me right there inside and shaking me. I couldn't think, or talk, or do anything except close my eyes and hold onto Sarah until it passed. I felt wetness spreading, like I'd peed myself, but I hadn't. Sarah too was wet and I knew she was feeling the same thing. My thighs were wet, as were hers and it was only after several long minutes that our bodies could stop moving.
I was tingling all over, but especially down there, and I didn't want to move. I just laid there on the bed, stroking Sarah slowly, feeling her body, her wet panty covered sex, still pressed to mine. I didn't know what had happened. I'd felt good before, but never like that, never in my life. I had strange thoughts that maybe we'd done something wrong, like broken something down there, between our legs. Or maybe I'd got my period suddenly and that thought made me blink. Could fucking make you have your period? I sat up, almost afraid to look, and I moved our dresses out of the way.
Sarah's smooth white thighs were wet and so were mine. We'd made a lot of water or whatever it was. But it wasn't pee and it wasn't our periods or anything. It was just wet. Sarah's white panties were soaked through and pulled tight against her so I could see the outline of her puffy sex. Mine were the same way, my sex all swollen and the cotton of my panties so tight I could see my slit.
Sarah sat up too, looking down at us and then at me. She was smiling but her eyes were wet, her flushed cheeks glistening with tears.
"Are you okay?" I asked, worried suddenly that I'd hurt her maybe.
"Yeah," she smiled and blinked at me. "It felt really good, I don't know why I was crying."
"Yeah," I nodded. We moved slowly, getting ourselves disentangled. "I'm really wet."
"I thought you peed on me," Sarah giggled. "But it was like I was doing it too."
I giggled too and then laughed and we just laid down together, looking at the ceiling and holding hands.
"That was fucking, right Stacy?" Sarah asked.
"I think so," I licked my lips.
"Okay," she sighed. "I bet getting adopted feels just like that."
"Yeah," I closed my eyes, thinking maybe she was right.
"Hey, Stacy?" Sarah whispered a few minutes later.
"What?" I turned my head to see her looking at me.
"You wanna adopt me again?" she giggled, squeezing my hand.
"Yeah," I giggled too. "You wanna adopt me some more?"
"Uh huh…Shiny faces!" Sarah imitated Mrs. Elgin softly.
I just kept looking at her, biting my lip and thinking it wasn't so hard not wanting it. As long as I had Sarah.