"God, I hate this town," Dayna snorted. "Mount Pleasant? Where in hell did they come up with the ‘Mount’ part? It’s no wonder people call it Unpleasant Flats! This place is like Bradford; the highest hill around is the freeway overpass outside of town! I swear to Christ, it’s gonna seem like forever until spring!"

"Yeah," Sandy shook her head. "It seems hard to believe that we were working a beach in our bikinis just the day before yesterday, and look at all that miserable white shit."

"One thing we’ve got going for us," Dayna smiled. "It’s only a couple months to spring break."

"Dayna, are you thinking the same thing I’m thinking?" Sandy laughed.

"If you’re not thinking the same thing I’m thinking there’s something wrong with you."

The class load was a little harder that semester, but still being freshmen, it was just about as simple and useless. Dayna did get into an Intro to Marketing class that actually proved to be useful to her, mostly because she was sitting there thinking about how to market their act. She did come up with a few ideas – and an "A" on her midterm. Sandy got into a guitar class, but she was way ahead of the students and right up with the grad student who taught it. She wound up doing a fair amount of the teaching, although she did pick up a few tricks.

They played a few parties, but decided to stay away from the ones that had a reputation for being more rowdy. For whatever reason, their getting paid to do the frat guys back before Christmas didn’t seem to stick around campus – or if it did, it didn’t surprise anyone – and without discussion they agreed that they’d better downplay any reruns. With it cold and snowy, they did little busking, although a few times they worked the lobby of the college basketball games while the crowd was filing in. That proved to be more keeping in practice than anything else. The pitches were only about an hour long, and sometimes they made as much as thirty bucks. They still did an afternoon every other Saturday afternoon in a local mall, and worked out a deal to do the opposite Saturday afternoon in a mall in Saginaw. It kept them going.

Addicted? Yes, they were addicted, and those two months were mostly withdrawal symptoms. When you get right down to it, busking is an outdoor business and there’s only so much guitar playing you can do wearing gloves.

Needless to say, they were chomping at the bit to get moving for spring break. They cut the last day’s classes and left after the last class the day before, figuring that if they drove straight through and leaned on it a little, they might be able to get in a pitch before dark the next day. They were right; twenty-four hours later, they were wearing string bikinis, slathered in sunscreen, and were working a beachfront pitch at Daytona – and this time, they didn’t hold back at all. Suffice to say that they never had to rent a room but never lacked for a place to stay – and usually were paid for their companionship, though not a thousand bucks apiece. Although they were still under age, they did a fair amount of drinking, and they played a lot of music, some of it about the bawdiest stuff they’d ever done.

One evening, with a bunch of rather rowdy college kids, and with several margaritas in her, Dayna actually dared to do a song she’d learned out of one of Tim’s notebooks: the complete, uncut, unedited version of Eskimo Nell. It’s about two guys terrorizing a group of prostitutes with their powerful screwing, till they get their comeuppance from the toughest whore of all: Eskimo Nell. It’s actually a poem, but they had set a little background music to it. It’s also very dirty and rather long – so long that Dayna stopped in the middle and said to the group, "I’m gonna pass the hat around and see how much you really want to hear how it comes out."

"Hell, I’ll even throw in twenty bucks," Sandy snorted, also feeling the effect of several margaritas. "I haven’t heard how it comes out myself yet."

They cut it pretty close for time on the way back, delaying their departure until the last possible minute before pointing the Chevette north. They were carrying pretty healthy hangovers, laundry that consisted mostly of several string bikinis and the odd tank top for when it got cool, and, unlike most of the college kids who’d also hit the town that weekend, they had several thousand bucks more than when they’d arrived. "I wouldn’t want to do that every week," Sandy commented, her head still hurting, "but by God, I needed that."

"I think I needed it more than you did," Dayna yawned. "Christ, now it’s back to the salt mines."

"Yeah, we may be able to make it till the end of the term, now," Sandy sighed. "Do you realize it’s only seven weeks until the Indianapolis Renfaire?"

"Forty-seven days till opener, to be precise," Dayna replied. "If my head didn’t hurt so much I could tell you the hours. The day after classes break, which means that’s forty-six days."

"It still seems like forever," Sandy shook her head. "Dayna, how are we going to manage it this summer?"

"What do you mean?"

"It’s a hell of a long way from Warren to Indianapolis, and I don’t want to stay with my folks, anyway. I mean, I can’t avoid stopping in and saying ‘hi,’ but I don’t want to hang around there. That’s why I did Cedar Point last year, after all."

"I didn’t think it was a problem," Dayna said. "Indiana-no-place is about three hours from Bradford, so I figured we’d probably drive down there Friday night, set up the tent, and maybe even stay over till Monday morning. We’ve got a couple of weeks free after the Indianapolis dealie; I figured we’d just get some road time in and maybe busk some farther away renfaires on the weekends, or maybe some local festivals. Maple Leaf is only about forty miles from Bradford; we could drive over every day. It’ll be camping again for Flint, but school will be back in session for part of it, like this year."

"I missed something there," Sandy said. "Are you suggesting I stay in Bradford with you and your folks?"

"Don’t see why not," Dayna said. "It’s boring, but we won’t be there that much. Probably less than half the time, maybe way less. Oh, I suppose if we hit a patch of nasty weather we can lay around the house and diddle each other with that strap-on vibrator you keep threatening to buy, or watch TV or something, but if the weather’s nice, let’s get in some road time. We probably won’t get great hats during the week, but we might pay for gas and eats."

"Are you sure your folks will go for it?"

"Don’t see any reason why not," Dayna shrugged. "Oh, we can offer to cough up a few bucks for room and board, but they’ll probably turn us down."

"My dad isn’t going to be happy, and my mother will shit a brick."

"Your mother would shit a brick if you told her you were going back to Cedar Point for the summer, too."

"True," Sandy conceded. "My mother knows we were planning on working renfaires on weekends, but she keeps telling me that there’s no reason I can’t have a job up there during the week so she can keep an eye on me. She wants to run my life and not turn me loose."

"I know," Dayna sighed. "That’s the best reason to do it this way. Yes, she’ll bitch, but she’ll bitch anyway. I only met your mother those couple of times, real briefly, but I’d be willing to bet that she’s got some guy picked out for you to marry, and she’d love to cram him down your throat."

"His name is Robbie Buehler," Sandy said. "He’d take her up on it, too."

"He any good in bed?"

"I have no idea but I would be very surprised if he was. He’s a jerk, but his parents and mine are friends. I’m about half tempted to tell her that you and I are all-out lesbians instead of just a little bi, just to get her off my ass. But I don’t think it would work."

"Probably not," Dayna sighed. "You might have to consider it sometime, though."

"Maybe," Sandy shrugged. "I just wish my parents were half as supportive as yours are."

"They’re not all that supportive," Dayna said. "I think resigned is a better word. Maybe they hope it’s a phase I’ll burn through if they give me enough leash. Maybe they’re right." She let out a long sigh. "I mean, I can see how Tim and Charlene burned out on it. I don’t think I’d want to do it all my life, either. But shit, I think of Tim buried under all that insurance paperwork and wanting to be out on the road again, too, and don’t know how the hell I could ever manage a straight life, at least not right now."

"You know, I’m coming to just about the same viewpoint. I think I’ll burn out on it eventually. God, weeks like we just had were a blast, but you’d kill yourself in short order."

"Yeah, I wouldn’t want to party that hard for much longer than that myself," Dayna admitted. "But maybe it’d be easier for you, since you know you’d have this Robbie dude available as an alternative."

"Easier to give it up?" Sandy snorted.

"No, easier to stay with it," Dayna laughed. "Look, let’s not get into detailed, long-range planning, but let’s figure on spending what time we can for the next few years playing music and having fun. Maybe somewhere in there we can figure out a way to turn semi-straight before we kill ourselves in the process."

"Sounds like a plan," Sandy smiled. "What sort of places do you have in mind to look for pitches during the week?"

"I’m not sure," Dayna admitted. "Especially in May, before school gets out. Maybe we’ll just have to drive around and see what we can find, like if a Wal-Mart or something that looks busy. Once school gets out, things change a little. There are several places up along the Lake Michigan shore where we might be able to find a pitch, like maybe the beaches at Saugatuck or Muskegon. I was thinking Mackinac Island at one point last summer, but I never went up to check it out. But from what I remember when the parents and I were up there a while back, I’ll bet we could set up on Central Avenue in Mackinaw City on a nice day and make it worth the drive up there. I know Put-In-Bay over on Lake Erie gets pretty wild on the weekends, but I have no idea what it would be like during the week. That’s not all that far from Cedar Point; do you know anything about it?"

"Some kids and I went over there for a day off once," Sandy admitted. "It was a Wednesday. It wasn’t real busy, but it is a tourist town. It might be worth a try."

"We’ll have to take a look at it, then. The thing is, if we have Monday morning until Friday evening to kill, we can go a pretty good distance if there’s the prospect that it might pay for itself. And there’s bar gigs, too. It’s gonna have to be like Florida over Christmas, we’re just gonna have to look till we find something."

"You’re probably talking a lot of camping out, but we might be able to pull a campground gig once in a while like we tried that time in Florida."

"Yeah, that almost worked, too; we had the people pretty well talked into it before that couple with the RV got in the middle. And it worked out anyway."

"It’d be nice to have an RV like that, even a small one. If we’re going to be camping out, that sleeping on the ground shit gets old after a while."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing," Dayna admitted. "But I don’t think we want to invest in an RV until after we’re out of school. It’d spend an awful lot of time parked. But unless something real serious happens, I’d say let’s keep driving this thing until that time comes, and save our money for a good one. I mean, a small one that’d be easy to maneuver and not too bad on gas, but one that’s going to be in good enough shape that it’s not a mechanical nightmare. As far as this summer goes, the next time we get a chance, let’s go to K-Mart, or Sears, or even drive up to Clare to Jay’s Sporting Goods and see about buying a decent tent we could stand up in, and a couple cots. That’d be a pain in the ass to set up every night; we could keep the small tent for that, but when we’re going to be in the same place for a few days, it’d be worth the effort."

"Yeah, maybe a couple folding chairs and a small table, too," Sandy agreed.

"We’d have to watch it that we don’t collect too much crap. This thing isn’t that big, even if we work out a way to yank the back seat out."

"Gee, and just as I was going to make the suggestion about something else," Sandy smiled. "Another thing I’d like to get is one of those boxes that converts battery power to house current. There’s been a thousand times I’ve wished I could have the electric keyboard instead of having to use a guitar. The twelve-string is nice but there’s some stuff that just can’t be done with it."

"Well, hell, if we’re going to go that far, the next thing you know we’ve got a beat box, then amps and speakers, and we’ll need the RV to haul everything and still have to sleep in a tent. Right, the electric piano would be nice and we could have some fun with it, but we’ve got to watch we don’t overdo it. The nice thing about guitars is that you can just walk away with them."

"The keyboard would be nice for planned bar gigs, though," Sandy protested.

"I suppose, but we really need to keep from overdoing it. Let’s see how we load up, and how it works after a while."

"As long as we’re not ruling it out entirely. While I’m thinking about it, does your mother have a sewing machine?"

"Yeah, she uses it once in a while. That’s something I never learned."

"If we have to spend time hanging around your house, maybe I could come up with a couple new costumes. I hate like hell paying a hundred bucks for something I could make for ten. You remember up at Flint last fall, some of those gals running around in belly-dancer outfits? I think we’d look cute in them, and there might be a time setting up on the street dressed like that would draw some attention. It’d be good for a laugh sometime."

"I saw some of those outfits," Dayna agreed. "For some reason there were more of them down at Maple Leaf. I think I’d look pretty authentic in one, at least with a good tan. You’re too blonde, and your hair is wrong, anyway."

"Authentic, pshawthentic," Sandy laughed. "Carrying a twelve-string at a renfaire isn’t real authentic, either. It’s nothing that has to be done right away, in any case. I didn’t get that good of a look at some of those outfits, and I want to spend some time thinking about how to do it."

"It’s fun to think about, and yeah, I could see how it could be a blast in the right situation."

"I can too, but you know what pisses me off?" Sandy snorted. "My mother is going to be thinking we’re sitting on our asses and fooling around. But you know what? We really are working pretty damn hard for our money. Yeah, we’re having fun making it, but there are a lot of hours, especially when you figure in the road time; sometimes the pay is lousy, too. It’s not sitting on our asses at all, but she’ll never understand it."

"Yeah, my parents haven’t exactly figured that out either," Dayna said. "But damn, I love it. It’s a challenge; it’s our wits versus the world. We’ve done pretty well with it so far, Sandy, paying for college and even putting some money away, and we’re only getting started. You know what I’d love to do?"

"What?"

"Get a Rand McNally Road Atlas and a highlighter, just to mark down where we’ve been. Not just hit every state in the country, but busk in every county at least once, even if it’s only for a single goddamn dime."

"That could take a while," Sandy grinned.

"So it takes a while, fine," Dayna snorted. "I figure if we’re even a little lucky we’ve got sixty years to accomplish it. But we’d see more of this country than anyone could dream."

*   *   *

It was still cold in Michigan and there was snow all over the place. They cut the time so tight that they pulled into Central only about an hour before their first class of the week, with just time to take a shower, change clothes, and head to their separate classes for a badly needed nap. They weren’t the only ones; there were a lot of kids who had taken off for the sunshine state that week and lived to tell the tale, some still with very big heads.

It took a few days to get back into gear and recover from the trip. Later that week, they sat down one evening with a brand new road atlas they’d bought at a truck stop on the trip home, and started marking it up with highlighters – blue for places that Dayna had been, yellow for Sandy, and green for both of them. Other than Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Florida, the marks in the book were pretty sparse, and they agreed that they’d have to do something about that sometime over the next few years.

As the days dwindled down, they recovered their studies a bit, but the oncoming spring and the Indianapolis Renaissance Faire got them busy. For four straight weekends in the month of May, they were going to be doing four shows a day, and they’d decided to put together an all-new act from the one they’d done the last weekend in Flint the year before. The music was straightforward, but getting a fast-paced show with the assortment of patter and wisecracks they wanted for the sake of laughs took some practice, since they wanted to have things pretty well together from the beginning. That, along with getting set for finals and doing a little freelance busking when the opportunity arose kept them fairly busy and out of mischief for a while.

But not entirely.

Dayna’s twentieth birthday fell on April 1, which Sandy thought was pretty appropriate, considering some of the ideas and stunts her roomie had come up with over the past few months. For most of the day they didn’t do anything special to celebrate the occasion, but after a run through of the act in their room in the evening, Dayna commented, "I’m bored. Can we think of something to celebrate my birthday? Maybe we could get into a bar or something."

"You want to celebrate?" Sandy grinned. "Actually, I’ve got a pretty good idea."

Dayna looked cockeyed at her. "Something scares me when you say it like that."

"Oh, it’s something I’m sure you’d like," Sandy said, her grin beginning to resemble that of the Cheshire Cat. "The perfect way to make your birthday something to remember."

"I don’t know," Dayna said dubiously.

"Come on, Dayna. I go along with your weird ideas. After all, who got buried in the sand first?"

"Actually, as I remember, it was your idea," Dayna laughed.

"Well, yeah, but you were the one who took advantage of it and started the ticklefest. Besides, you’ll like this, no fooling."

"All right," she said dubiously. "I’ll take your word for it. What do I have to do?"

"The first thing, we get on our bikinis," Sandy grinned. "It’d be fun to busk the lounge in bikinis, wouldn’t it?"

"It’s a little late down there, and it’s kind of chilly," Dayna protested.

"Take me at my word, it’ll be all right," Sandy laughed, starting to peel off her clothes. "I know what I’m doing."

"You’re screwy," Dayna snorted, peeling out of the heavy sweatshirt she was wearing, and unfastening her bra.

"I’d have to be to hang around with you."

In a few minutes, both were wearing their string bikinis. "All right," Dayna said. "I still think this is screwy, but let’s grab the guitars, get down there and get it over with."

"Oh, we’re not going down to the lounge," Sandy smirked, going over to sit down on Dayna’s bed. "This is a special birthday surprise, after all. I’m doing this because I know you and love you, and I want you to thoroughly enjoy it."

"This gets goofier and goofier," Dayna shook her head, but went over to sit down on the bed next to where Sandy was patting on it.

"Come on, Dayna," Sandy grinned. "Would I do anything to hurt you? You’re my best friend in the whole world!" She slid off the bed and got down on her knees in front of her. "You’ve taught me so much in the past year it’s like I’m not the same person, and I just want to show my appreciation in a way that I know you’ll thoroughly enjoy."

"I have no idea what you have in mind."

"Good," Sandy grinned. "Close your eyes, and give me your hand."

Really wondering now, Dayna did as she was told, feeling Sandy take one hand and lean her to the side a little. Suddenly she felt something cold and hard being fastened around her wrist.

"Sandy, what . . . "

"It’s one of the handcuffs that I bought down in Florida last winter," she smiled. "You remember we locked them on each other one time, just for the hell of it? Now, lean back and give me your other hand."

"What are you doing, handcuffing me to the bed?"

"Aw, you caught on," Sandy grinned. "The other side of that handcuff is around the leg of the bed. Now, you can either do it nicely or fight me, but with one hand already cuffed, I’ll win."

"Oh, all right," Dayna sighed. "I guess I don’t have much choice." In seconds, she was lying back on her bed, her head on the pillow but her arms handcuffed well over her head.

"Good girl," Sandy purred. "Now I really don’t want to do this next thing, but when we’ve done stuff that’s sort of similar you tend to be pretty loud, and I don’t think we want to disturb the rest of the dorm." She reached under her pillow and pulled out a ball with a leather strap through it.

"What’s that?" Dayna said, a little alarmed.

"A ball gag," Sandy replied conversationally.

"That’ll never go in my mouth!" Dayna protested. "It’s huge!"

"Shouldn’t be any problem," Sandy grinned. "You have a bigger mouth than I do. I mean, physically speaking, although you use it a little bigger, too. I wore it for an hour or so while you were in class a couple days ago, just to make sure it wouldn’t be too uncomfortable. Like I said, I really don’t want to do this, but as noisy as you get I think we have to. Now, open your mouth."

"Sandy . . . "

Sandy held the ball up to Dayna’s lips. "Wider," she grinned.

"Please . . . " As she opened her mouth, she felt Sandy put on pressure. She bit against the gag – too late; she felt it pop between her teeth.

"That’s a good girl," Sandy said, fastening the strap behind Dayna’s head. "See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Actually, it’s amazing how fast you get used to it. In a few minutes you won’t even be paying attention to the fact that it’s there."

"Mmmmmmffffffff!!!"

"Just relax, and save your breath," Sandy grinned. "Now, I’ve got a few other things to do, so just take it easy. Oh, before I get too much tension on, we might as well do a couple other things." Dayna felt her friend reach under her back and untie the back string of the bikini top, then the neck string. In seconds the top was laying on the floor.

"You know, Dayna," Sandy said. "I’ve always envied you those nice breasts of yours! You’ve got the prettiest nipples!" She leaned over and kissed one, then the other. "The times we’ve made out in the past I’ve never been able to play with them as much as I want. But I will tonight! Give me just another couple minutes to get everything arranged."

Sandy got up, took one of Dayna’s legs, pulled it way out to one side, and fastened one of the leg irons around her ankle. It took a little bit of arranging, but soon Dayna had her legs spread wide, her lower legs dangling off the side of the bed and actually under it a little, with her ankles chained together. In a final move, Sandy untied the strings to Dayna’s bikini bottom, and then stripped off her own.

"All right, now we’re ready," Sandy grinned. "I said you were going to get a birthday present you would enjoy. Now all you have to do is lay there and enjoy it while I do the work."

Sandy spent the next several minutes giving Dayna a tongue bath, with special attention to her breasts. She tickled her ribs a couple of times, just to prove she could, but was more busy with her hands and mouth in very sensitive ways. Finally, she slid down between Dayna’s knees, and very soon had her squirming against the chains in ecstasy, then bucking in pure orgasm. After a few minutes of gentle post-play, she got up on her elbows, and said, "There, did you like that?"

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!!"

"Good," Sandy smiled, "That was the warm-up, and now we’re ready for the main course." She got up, went over to her bedside stand and pulled out something Dayna couldn’t identify at first. "We’ve teased each other about getting a strap-on vibrator," Sandy grinned. "I finally found a place to order one. You know the nice thing about this, Dayna?"

"Mmmmmm???"

"Even Frank got soft after a while and had to take a break," she smiled, strapping it on. "This thing never does. I’m going to turn this on high and go at you till the batteries give out. Oh, and I’ve got those batteries that just keep going and going and going . . . "

The batteries may have kept going and going and going, but Sandy had to stop on occasion to take a breather. But it was wild – Dayna spent most of the time squirming and bucking and moaning in pure delight, and Sandy found that the arrangement of the straps allowed her to get some good out of it as well. Neither of them looked at the clock, but Sandy kept it up until she could sense that Dayna wasn’t getting quite the fun out of it that she had started with, either from soreness or exhaustion or a combination of both. "You about had enough?" Sandy asked finally.

Dayna just nodded meekly.

"Then I suppose we ought to knock it off," Sandy smiled, pulling out, and rolling over to sit down on the bed next to her friend. She reached over, unbuckled the gag, and pulled it out of Dayna’s mouth.

"Oh . . . my . . . God . . . " Dayna panted.

"Did you like my special birthday present?"

"Oh . . . my . . . God . . . Sandy . . . that was . . . wonderful!"

"Just lay there, catch your breath, and relax," Sandy smiled. "I’ll get the chains off in a minute."

After a couple minutes, Sandy unlocked the leg irons, and started in on the handcuffs; Dayna was a little more together by then. "I’m sorry," she said to Sandy.

"Sorry? Why?"

"When we’ve done this in the past . . . we balance it off by going the other way . . . but I’m just too tired and fucked out tonight to do you."

"Not to worry," Sandy grinned. "My birthday is in nine days, and I’m already looking forward to you giving me a birthday present like this."

*   *   *

Dayna didn’t have the element of surprise on her side with Sandy’s birthday a few days later, but she added a few twists to the arrangement for the sake of making it interesting in different ways. As with Dayna’s birthday, they wound up spending the night together, sleeping in each other’s arms. They got up in the morning after Sandy’s birthday, both aching but feeling very relaxed.

"Well," Dayna sighed as she pulled on her underwear, "if our birthday parties don’t make us lesbians, I don’t know what will."

"I don’t think we’re all-out lesbians," Sandy commented. "At least I don’t think I am. While there’s no doubt we’re bi, I don’t even think we’re even all that bi. I mean, given a choice, under normal circumstances, I think I’d still rather do a guy."

"Yeah, me too," Dayna sighed. "But we’ve had good times with our birthdays."

"We sure have," Sandy grinned, grimacing a little at a twinge from a tender spot. "But something special like this, well, it makes it more personal if you do me rather than any guy I can think of. I mean, there’s no guy that’s anywhere near as special to me as you are."

"Sandy, we’ve often said we love each other. Are we in love?"

"I think so," Sandy nodded. "I mean, I don’t want to get sticky about the words, but it’d take a hell of a guy to be more special. I still want to do guys, and I think you do too. But, on special occasions, I don’t see anything wrong with celebrating."

"I guess," Dayna shook her head. "God, and to think I was the one who broke you into this, and I think you’re ahead of me, now."

"No big deal, and I’m not sure I am, anyway. It was just my turn to come up with a bondage gag. We both like that once in a while, don’t we?"

"Once in a while, but I don’t think we want to make a steady diet of it, just like I don’t think we want to make a habit of doing each other every night."

"Hell, no. I liked what we did down in Daytona last month, too, but we learned that there can be too much of that, too. Like I said, let’s keep it to special occasions."

"I guess," Dayna nodded. "You know the bummer?"

"What?"

"Your birthday is always going to be nine days after mine. How am I going to be able to surprise you on your birthday by coming back at you with what you’ve already done to me?"

"Good question," Sandy nodded. "And next year is special, since we’re both going to want to get legally shitfaced."

"Tell you what," Dayna smiled. "On my birthday next year, let’s just go out and I’ll have a single beer for the sake of saying I’ve done it. Then when your birthday rolls around, we’ll both get shitfaced."

"Sounds fair to me," Sandy laughed. "That’ll give you a year to think of a good surprise to pull on me."

"I’ll think of something, I promise," Dayna grinned.

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