I woke up next to Alura and sighed contentedly. I had a lot of weird, but peaceful dreams last night. Dreams that should have been a nightmare, but weren't. I laid back and looked over at Allura. Her hair was a graceful mess around her. She sighed in her sleep, the hair over her mouth lifting from her face and then back down again. I could see the peace in her face. Does she have an angry face? I wondered as I watched her breath. I looked around the room quickly looking at her things. On her dresser was a bottle of Harajuku lovers perfume, more than thirty plastic bracelets; and the plastic ranged from Pony beads to the I <3 Boobies Bracelets. I stood from the bed and walked over to the dresser and picked up some of the bracelets to look at the close up. There were really awesome looking ones like a Hello Kitty, Super Mario, there was one with a cassette and a couple music notes on a rainbow back ground.
"There is a story behind that one." I jumped at how close Alura was to me. I quickly dropped the cassette bracelet and turned to Alura who was right behind me.
"I was just."
"Looking I know." She picked up the bracelet I had dropped on the floor and smiled.
"Are you les?" I asked. It would make sense since she didn't care if I looked at her body. That made her laugh. I waited until she finished laughing.
"Well not really. I'm not straight either, but I prefer guys. That is a long psychological theory that I am not going to get into right now. No the rainbow with the notes is supposed to mean I like all music. The background was purple on the original outline that I used to make this one, but I like rainbows anyway and I like all kinds of music, from Screamo to folk music." I raised an eyebrow at that and she smiled. "I like some songs I didn't say all." She placed the bracelet back on the dresser and stretched.
"So, when did you wake up?" I asked watching her muscles ripple while she stretched. The female body was amazing.
"I woke up the second you moved out of that bed right there." She letting her one arm down to point at the bed, but still not letting her arm rest from the stretch.
"Oh. My apologies then." She gave me a sweet smile and pushed me back onto the bed. My eyes widened as she joined me on the bed.
"Don't apologize, just get on that bed and let me go back to sleep." She said. My eyebrows rose and she giggled at my face. Laying down under the blankets she sighed. "Your breathing helps me sleep. I couldn't hear it all the way over there." She smiled at me and closed her eyes.
"Well, alright. I don't mind sleeping in!" I said and laid back down on the bed with her. I didn't move to pull her close to me, and I didn't put an arm around her. We just laid there. Soon she was back to sleep and I did watch her then. She had just showed me another side of herself that was, well, different. CC liked all kinds of music as well, but it seemed that she REALLY didn't like just one kind of music. I reached to the night stand table over Alura andgrabbed her ipod that she had been playing with last night. We had been playing with Tiny Tower. Renaming all of her floors things like Jinxxx's Ballzzz for the bowling alley, and Ash's Blow Jobs for the glass blowing studio. The new apartments we named Slutty Apts. It was a lot of fun laughing when we had to find people and she would say, She was in Jinxxx's Ballzzz!
I flipped through her play list to see that she wasn't joking when she said she listened to everything. Samantha James, Black Veil Brides, Celtic Woman, Tiesto, DJ S3rl, Alesana, Acoustic versions, violin covers, sounds of nature, Black Eye Peas, Eminem, Lil' Wayne, The Beatles, Elton John, Books, I tapped on songs and hit shuffle and just listened. I skipped songs I went back to listen to more. It wasn't long before I hit book chapters and flipped past those. She had great taste; I couldn't say anything against that. I found a few country songs as well, but not many. Not a country song fan I guess. I drifted off to sleep listening to a violin cover of nothing else matters.
"But he is me! Lyra said. If you come, he must stay. But we can't! We'd die! Isn't that what you want?" I jumped up at the voice and the crying at the woman speaking into my ears. My blissful sleep was interrupted by a narration of a book on Alura's Ipod. Alura was gone from the bed and I didn't see where she was, but I heard her in the bathroom. Taking out the ear buds I wrapped them around the Ipod and placed it on the night stand table. I slipped off the bed and stretched the whole way to standing. There was a knock at the door then. Not thinking about how I was still wearing just boxers, I had taken off everything else because Alura liked to sleep with the heat pumped up to 100 degrees. I opened the door.
"Yea?" Everyone was on the other side of that door. Andy's eyes widened, Eliza's mouth dropped open, Sammi Doll and Juliet had confused looks on their faces, Jinxx moved his hair from his face and scratched his head, CC smirked, and Jake just stood there with a look like "Ashley you have some esplanin to do."
"Ashley is it room service?" Alura asked as she came out in her bra and panties, her not realizing that I had the door wide open.
"What did you guys do?!" CC asked laughing. Alura looked at me, then at CC and her eyebrows knitted together very cutely.
"Why is it just because we are in our skivvies, does it mean that we had to have had sex?" She asked putting her hands on her hips.
"Skivvies?" Andy said. I can't say I wasn't thinking the same thing. Last time I heard that was from my mother, when I was ten.
"Yea Skivvies! Under ware. Bra, panties, boxers." The look on her face, mixed with how she was standing all high and mighty and angry, in nothing but her bra and panties while calling them skivvies made us all crack up laughing. She just walked away after that. "Just because Ashley sleeps with woman around the world, doesn't mean I will sleep with him the same night we get on vacation." She said as she walked away. I got my composure first. I walked over to the side of the bed and grabbed sweats.
"Well, we did come over to ask if you guys wanted to come with us. We were going to go get food, but it looks like you two have already had a bit to eat." CC said laughing hard at his own joke.
"I would love something to eat." Alura said as she walked into the bathroom to change into something different. "Lets go to the beach afterwards. I wanna swim."
"Where should we go to eat?" I asked as I walked down the hall to my own room and left the door open. I grabbed some clothes and started putting them on when Andy walked into the room.
"You didn't have sex with her did you?" He asked serious now. I looked at him while I changed into a fresh set of boxer briefs and stepped into a pair of pants.
"No man, chill. I know your procedure enough to know not to have sex with her until she signs that damn contract." I rolled my eyes and put on a white wife beater and a black over shirt over that. I didn't button it up. I left it open and got a pair of black and white sneakers on. I flicked the light on and plugged in my straightener. As I let it heat up Andy talked in my ear.
"Alright, well don't scare me like that again. You know what could happen." I picked up the straightener and looked at him through the mirror as I grabbed a piece of my hair and clamped the straightener on it. Guiding the straightener down my hair I spoke.
"I know what could happen; we just take precautions so it doesn't happen. Just because something could happen doesn't mean that it will. You didn't even think about the consequences until John said something about it one day on tour." As I shook the piece out with my fingers to both dry it off and make sure my hair didn't stick together I moved it out of the way to pick another piece. It didn't take me long to get through all of my hair. It was already straight, it just needed touch ups. Soon everyone was out in the hall. I stepped out of my door and slipped the key card into my pocket.
"Let's go!" Eliza yelled and ran down the hall with her fist in the air. I looked at Alura and she smiled and shrugged. I saw a moment of pure ease pass over her eyes as she took her purse handed it to me and ran after Eliza. She jumped into the air and clicked her heals together, landed and Eliza turned around getting to her destination of the elevator and laughed with Alura. Alura bent over, putting her hands on her knees to support herself as she laughed. Straightening up she gazed down the hall. We all looked at them and I could tell that everyone relaxed, seeing this side of Alura that I had already seen. She was wearing a white tank top with a bright blue sarong, doubled over and tied at her waist to make a short skirt. You could see her black and blue bikini under the tank top. Her hair was down, but held back from her face with a pair of black sun glasses. We all got into the elevator and the day began.
"Ok, Jake your turn!" Eliza said dipping a fry into some ketchup. She popped the fry into her mouth and chewed as Jake thought.
"Alura, what is your biggest fear?" He asked looking to Alura. We had been questioning them about themselves as they asked us about us. Five against two wasn't that fair, so to every one question from the five of us, they each got two. Alura looked back at Jake and she thought for a moment.
"Not being able to have a long lived life. To have waste all the money I used to go to college and to never live out my dreams." She said.
"So why don't you live them out?" Asked Andy.
"Because, my dreams consist of two people, and a family that I can't fully support yet." She smiled at him and Andy nodded.
"So you just want a family." Jinxx supplied. Alura nodded and took a sip of her smoothie.
"A family, with two kids. A nice house maybe a couple dogs, a cat. You know, the white picket fence family, without the white picket fence." She smiled and I nodded. We had learned a lot about our fans. They were talkative, but not crazy, they let us talk too.
"What about you Eliza. What is your greatest fear?" Jinxx asked wrapping an arm around Sammie Doll. She leaned into him and looked at our two fans.
"My greatest fear is…probably being an old cat lady." She laughed and we all laughed with her. "Nothing as profound as; 'not living out my dreams' but still a fear." Alura stuck her tongue out at her friend and brushed her hair lightly from her face.
"Why don't we all head to the beach now?" Juliet asked from beside Andy. "I'm sure we all would love to get in the water." She looked outside at the air that was already shifting in the days heat. Alura grabbed her purse, stood and sat back down on her foot. Both of us were on the end seats of the very long conjoined booth so I saw a perfect view of her amazing thigh. She pulled out her wallet and motioned the waitress for the bill.
"How about we split it all up evenly?" She asked putting the bill on the table, which had easily reached over $100 with the nine of us. Actually, it was really close to $200. Rounding the bill up to $225 we all paid twenty five dollars and gave the waitress a really nice tip. We stood from the booth, each of us sliding out in turn, and walked to the car. The beach was only a few blocks away, we got out, put change in the parking meter. We had put enough money in the meter for maybe 5 hours of beach time. As everyone walked ahead Alura and I hung back talking.
"My family and I used to go to the beach every single summer at our summer house in Delaware." My eyes found their way to her face as she looked ahead.
"I didn't go to the beach very often, until I moved to Cali." I said moving aside so that she could walk through the opening in the boardwalk to go onto the beach.
"I haven't been to the beach in a while, but I do miss it. That and horses." She laughed at herself and I smiled.
"I love horses."
"I love to ride western. It's much more free, unlike English it's so structured, and I don't like the way that they hurt the horses to train them…but I guess here on the East coast there is a lot of pain and suffering with animals. I may not be a die hard activist, but I don't like hurting animals."
"Maybe when you come to the West coast to visit your mom, you can visit and we can go riding." I said shocking myself. Although, it shouldn't have been shocking. After this week, I didn't expect the nine of us to fall apart. Alura smiled up at me. Her eyes bright and happy.
"I have been thinking about moving away and to the West coast for a long time now. Let's face it. The way I think, is not very East coast. I will always be a East Coast person, like how I don't understand why my little sister got off school for two inches of snow. But! I know that I would love it on the West coast." I looked at her, she wanted to move away from her home, which is something you only found in Cali really, people who broke away from their homes to make their lives better and to chase their dreams.
"I love it where I live, having a great job like this does help, but it is amazing in Cali. Lots of night life, drive 20 miles in any direction and you are out away from the crowds. Perfect really." We found a place next to everyone and she set out a beach blanket that she had. She took off the skirt she had made and set it in a pile with her tank top. She took out sun block and started putting it on her skin.
"That seems really inviting." She said. Neither of us said anything for a while. She was thinking and putting on sun block, while everyone else was already in the water. I took off my pants and my wife beater and sat them down on the blanket.
"You know what."
"What?"
"I left my clothes in your room." It didn't take long for her to laugh.
"Well, I guess you'll just have to come and get them tonight then."
"If I didn't know any better, you were hitting on me to get me in your bed." I said smiling in her direction.
"Maybe I am." She said slyly and cast a glance my way. I chuckled, I hadn't expected the conversation to go in this direction.
"Well then, all you have to do is ask." I said and reached toward her. She quickly put the bottle of sun block in my hand.
"Get my back for me?" She asked. I blinked at the bottle and she turned around and moved her hair from her back. She pulled the cord on her bikini and held up her top while I moved closer to her.
"Were you serious about having sex with me?" I asked putting some of the sun block on my hand. The bottle was discarded onto the blanket and my hands slowly moved up and down her back.
"Maybe." She said a little awkwardly. I thought back to when she said that she was a psychologist for sex addicts.
"What got you interested in becoming a psychologist for sex addicts?" I asked rubbing in the sun block more.
"I used to be one." She was silent after that and I felt like I had crossed something in Alura's mind.
"Did I bother you?" I asked.
"No, It's just a dark time in my past. Being a sex addict makes you feel very alone. It's a time in my life where I tried to find love and acceptance in all the wrong places. When you are a sex addict there is always a reason. I found love in sex. Love I didn't find in my home. My parents always said no to dating, not like they needed to. No one wanted to date me anyway. So, in response to that, I found love in online relationships, where people didn't see me. Then it turned into a sexual addiction, with my neighbors and people I didn't know. People from school, friends brothers, it was bad. There wasn't a day where I didn't have some type of sexual contact, weather I gave it to myself, or I got it from someone else." Her eyes got that distant look when she spoke next. "Every day, every hour, every thought, every movement. Everything was sex. I would think, could I fit that in me to give myself that complete feeling? My electric toothbrush was for myself for a while before I turned eighteen. I used that in place of a vibrator. When I woke up, when I came home from school, after dinner, before bed. Anytime, anywhere, anyone. I finally got some sense knocked into me when I got in trouble with the law. I got help after that. I hated my psychologist. I hated her because she made me feel like I was scum. She looked down at me and I couldn't stand that. Finally I switched therapists because I hated her so much. I went to a new place, I hated it there. I was surrounded by people who I knew were there for reasons like mine and even far worse than mine. I felt even more alone. Not only that, but my parents knew about my problem then and I felt like a disgrace. Well this psychologist really helped. She was amazing and I opened up to her eventually. She had packets that I filled out and did. I think I still have them…" She was quiet for a while, while I put the cap on the sun block and rested it back on the blanket.
"So…that's why." I said a little taken away by her honesty and openness about the situation.
"Yea. I still have it in me. It's a battle I will fight forever, because unlike other addictions the craving never goes away because I can't give up sex forever. I can't get away from myself, I did struggle with it for a while, but once I threw out all the porn I had collected, all the toys, all the things that made it that much easier for me to get that sexual high, it was easier." She pulled her knees up and rested her arms on them, then her chin on her arms.
"So are you afraid to let yourself go like that? Is that why you keep yourself closed up?" I asked. I must have startled her because she looked over at me, pulled out of her thoughts.
"Kind of, I do still have sex though. I just tried to get you to have sex with me." She laughed at herself, once again awkwardly.
"You are a very open person though, when it comes to talking that is." I pointed out.
"Sometimes. I'm open with you, because you, unlike the others, don't care. You listen and take everything in. You see everything from all different sides of the story before you judge." She smiled, "That is the perfect definition of an Aquarius."
"So what is your sign then? Let me guess. Aries?" I asked and she shook her head.
"Nope, that is my father though." She laughed and shook her head. "Fucking Aries, they are the most stubborn sign in the whole zodiac. The only sign more stubborn than mine."
"Well if you aren't Aries…"
"Think. We are known for our passion."
"Leo." I said looking at her face brighten even more with a bigger smile, I laughed.
"You a lion! You are not outgoing at all!" I said and started making a small sand sculpture beside the blanket.
"I am too! I just don't show it that often. However! I do love attention!" She said and smiled. I stood.
"You love attention, well then. Let's get us both attention then." I picked her up and as she screamed and tried to get out of my hold I ran toward the water and our group. She beat on my back and pushed trying to get out before I reached the water.
"Ashley no!" She yelled half heartedly as she laughed until I used all of my strength to heave her into the waves. She landed with a splash as foam covered over her. She came up rather quickly but stayed under the water. I could only see her head and as I walked up to her laughing hard.
"Come on out." I said offering my hand. She gave me the look of the millennium. "What?" I asked. She still stayed under the water.
"You never tied my top!" She whisper yelled at me. I stood there looking at her. The blush on her face was amazing. I laughed. I couldn't help it. I looked around us to try and find the top but to no avail. "I'm not getting out until you find mine or go buy me a new one!" She said crossing her arms over her breasts.
"Hey everyone!" I yelled to the others. "We need to find Alura's top it disappeared!" I laughed as Alura could do nothing to stop me if she wanted t stay under the water. Sammie Doll, Juliet, and Eliza all started looking quickly to save their fellow female from the embarrassment. I helped look after I laughed for a bit longer. After a while we found the top, well, Jinxx found the top washed up on shore. Lucky Alura. Andy, CC, and Jake had all swam out to deeper water trying to find the top. Once Alura had her top back on we all continued to fool around in the water. The girls tanned on the beach for an two hours and then came back into the water. Alura seemed to have given up on hiding herself from us, because the next thing I knew I was in the water with her over top of me. She was smiling in the bright blue water. I leaned up and kissed her quickly before we could both surface. Her face was priceless. Jake went to put more change in the parking meter twice before the sun set. While CC and Eliza talked, I sat with Alura leaning against me happily watching the sun set on the water.
"You know, I have never seen a sun set on the water before." She said. I thought about all the times when I watched the sun set on the water and thought, it is impossible to see a sun set on the water if you live on an East coast beach. Well, accept this one. It was an island.
"What are sun rises like on the water?" I asked.
"I'll take you to see one in the morning." She said and I smiled.
"We won't be sleeping tonight will we?" I asked her.
"No, we won't be." She said and as the sun set fully I wrapped my arm around her and felt a wave of serenity, comfort, and relaxation wash over me like the waves on this beach. Her head rested on my chest and that's when I started to realize I was falling for this girl.

Notes

A/N: You will notice that most of my stories have a psychological undertone to them. I'm studying to be a psychologist in school and I like adding it into my stories. :D Let me know what you thought about this chapter in the comments BELOW!!!
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