FFFF The General Store
The generator's hum fades behind us as Janna and I pass the rusting town services guide sign.
Well, what services?
Only the ones us girls are going to supply.
My boots scrape against the bitumen, already heated and Janna's fingers thread back through mine like they belong there.
"Mrs Williams said they'd be packing fast," Janna says, "General Store closing today."
The store, windows boarded, hunches against the desert sky like a wounded animal. The sign above the entrance—WILLIAMS' GENERAL STORE, painted in my mother's generation—has faded to the colour of old bone.
Janna stops at the door. Her thumb traces circles on my palm, and I feel the question in her touch.
I grab her shoulder bag. Hell, we ain't had this much fun since the night at the pub when the mine closed. Both of us shagged senseless, too many times.
I knock three times, our old signal from childhood. The door opens before the third rap finishes. It's Maisy and her chubby dimples.
Mrs Williams, her step-mum, is fussing over nothing in an empty store, fifty-something and solid as the red gum posts that hold up the pub veranda. Her grey hair is pulled back in a practical bun, but her eyes are red-rimmed, and she's wearing lipstick for the first time I can remember. Desert orange.
"Girls." Greets the old duck.
The smell hits me—cardboard and dust and the ghost of a thousand transactions.
The store's gutted. Shelves stand naked against the walls, their labels peeling like sunburned skin. The floor's marked with rectangles where coolers once hummed. In the centre of the space, where the bulk bins used to sit, someone's spread a quilt—patterned with faded roses, the kind my grandmother had.
Maisy sits on it, cross-legged, her chubby thighs spreading against the fabric. She's twenty but looks younger in her oversized t-shirt, some band from Perth I've never heard of. She likes the head-banging metal.
Her dark hair's wet from a shower, dripping onto her collarbone, and she's not wearing a bra. The cotton clings to her heavy breasts, nipples dark and obvious through the worn material.
"Josie." Her voice cracks. "Janna. Mum said you might come."
Mrs Williams locks the door behind us. The click echoes through the hollow space—thick walls. Walls meant to last.
We are past lasting.
We are not past a final giving. A farewell gift.
"Your mum said you wanted something to remember," Janna says, dropping my hand to cross to the quilt. She moves like water, loose and certain, and sinks beside Maisy without asking permission.
"Something that doesn't need a fuckin removal truck."
Maisy's lower lip trembles. She's been crying, I realise. Crying for this town, for the fibro house she's leaving, for the life she thought she'd have.
Damn it; like us, born in the frickin ripped-down miners' base hospital.
"Nothing fits," she whispers. "Everything's too big or too small or—"
"Or just right," I finish, joining them on the quilt. The fabric's thin, worn soft by decades of use. I sit across from Maisy, close enough to smell her shampoo—coconut, same as mine, same as every girl in Desert Edge who buys from the one shelf of products at the long-gone chemist.
"We brought you something."
Janna pulls the bag from her shoulder tote.
It's just a plastic shopping bag, crinkled and reused, but Maisy flinches when she sees the shape of what's inside.
Two shapes, actually. One longer, curved. One shorter, thicker.
"Parting gifts," Janna says, and her voice has gone low, the tone she used with Billy when she told him exactly how to touch me.
"One for each hole no girl should ever ignore."
Maisy's face goes scarlet. Her hands press between her thighs, that automatic gesture of shame I've seen on every girl in this town, taught to keep themselves small and quiet and contained.
"I—I don't—"
"You've got a vibrator," Mrs Williams says, and I startle.
I'd half-forgotten she was there, standing against the locked door with her arms crossed.
"You girls don't think I don't remember being twenty?"
She pushes off from the door, crosses to the quilt with heavy steps.
"You think I don't know what it's like, leaving everything behind? Wanting to feel something real before you go?"
She sits beside me, her weight making the fabric pull tight. She's wearing a sundress, I notice, something she must have kept for special occasions. The neckline shows freckled cleavage, the skin there paler than her arms. She's not wearing a bra either, or if she is, it's the kind that doesn't show lines.
"Josie." Mrs Williams turns to me, and her eyes are fierce, desperate.
"Janna. Show her. Show my girl what it feels like to be full before she goes empty."
Janna's already moving. She raises the dildos—one purple, veined, realistic in that absurd way that makes me laugh; one pink, curved, with a flared base that means business.
She holds them up like offerings, and the fluorescent light catches the silicone, makes them gleam like candy.
"Choose," Janna says to Maisy. "Or don't. I'll choose for you."
Maisy's breathing hard, her chest heaving under the wet t-shirt. Her nipples have gone hard; I can see it; can see the way she's pressing her thighs together not to hide but to feel the pressure.
"The—the pink one," she whispers. "For my—"
"Your arse," Janna supplies, and Maisy flinches again but doesn't deny it.
"Good girl. You know what you want. And the purple?"
"My—" Maisy swallows, audibly. "Inside. Please."
Janna's smile is feral. She tosses me the purple one, and I catch it one-handed, feel the weight of it, the give of the material. It's bigger than I expected, thick enough that my fingers don't close around it.
"Josie will take care of your pussy," Janna says. "I'll take your arse. And Mrs Williams?"
She looks at the older woman, and something passes between them—acknowledgment, permission, the understanding of women who have survived this place.
"I'll watch, to start, join, when I'm ready," Mrs Williams says, but her hand's already at her neckline, pulling the sundress down to expose her breasts. They're heavy, sagging slightly, with large dark nipples that tighten as the air hits them.
"And I'll touch myself. And if my girl needs—"
"If your girl needs her mother's mouth on her fanny," Janna finishes, "you'll give it to her. Won't you?"
The word hangs in the air, filthy and sacred.
Maisy's whimper is the only answer, but it's answer enough.
I move first, because I need to, because the night with Billy and Janna has woken something in me that won't sleep again.
I crawl to Maisy on my knees, feeling the quilt bunch under my palms, and I reach for the hem of her t-shirt.
"Lift," I say, and she does, arms rising like she's in church, yep, that closed six months ago, the minister gave the township no last rites; like she's praying.
I peel the wet cotton up and off, and her breasts fall free, heavy and real, stretch marks silvering the tops where she grew too fast.
Fuck, her jugs are big. Awesome, mango size. Ripe and frickin ready.
Her belly softens over her shorts, that gentle swell that Desert Edge boys never learned to appreciate, too busy chasing girls with visible hipbones.
Puppy fat to pinch between fingers. Fuck, Rubens appreciated it. Any girl or guy should learn to.
Beautiful flesh in rolls. Rolls of flesh. Flesh, seriously, there never is a point of too much.
"Beautiful," I say, because she is, because the word needs saying. "Lie back."
She does, trembling, and I remove her granny panties while Janna works on the boots. We undress her like we're preparing a sacrifice, like we're worshipping, and when she's naked on the quilt—pale thighs, dark bush, the wetness already shining at her slit—I have to stop and breathe.
"Sheez, Maisey, baby, damn that is one inviting mound."
Janna's already slicking the pink dildo with lube from a bottle Mrs Williams must have produced. She's efficient, almost clinical, but her eyes are dark with want.
"Roll over, Maisy. Show me that arse."
Maisy whimpers but obeys, rolling to her stomach, presenting herself. Her arse is round and soft, spreading slightly against the quilt, and I can see the dark pucker of her hole already clenching in anticipation or fear.
Janna has to squeeze those generous wobbling cheeks. They roll and jiggle, those hills of flesh jelly.
"Relax," Janna croons, and her voice has gone soft, the way she talks to frightened animals, to me when I'm too drunk to stand.
"Push out, lovely. Let me in."
I don't watch Janna work. I have my own task, my own gift to give.
I settle between Maisy's spread thighs, feeling the heat radiating from her cunt, and I touch her there with just my fingertips. She gasps, hips bucking, and I press down—gentle, then firmer—finding the rhythm that makes her moan into the quilt.
Sweet Jesus, the girl has folds. Folds overlaying folds. Crinkly, textured winglets to her pussy, just plain adorable, between her folds.
"Your fingers," she manages, "your fingers are so—ah!—so firm—"
I don't answer. I'm busy spreading her open, watching her flesh part for me, pink and wet and desperate.
Wet is an understatement. She glistens. She leaks.
The purple dildo waits beside my knee, but I want her ready first, want her begging for it.
Janna chooses that moment to press forward. Maisy's cry is muffled by fabric, a sharp intake that turns to a long, shuddering moan.
"Ah—ah—off-that is so—it's so thick—ah!"
"Yep, not a bad start," Janna states, but she's smiling.
"Just a toy. But you'll take it like it's real. You'll take it as you need it."
I watch Janna's hand move, the base of the pink dildo disappearing between Maisy's cheeks, and I feel the vibration of it through Maisy's body, the way she clenches around my fingers.
She's tight, even with the preparation, and I can only imagine what Janna's feeling, the resistance giving way to acceptance.
"Now," Mrs Williams says, and her voice is thick, distracted.
I glance up to find her dress around her waist, her hand working between her legs with frantic speed.
"Now, Josie. Fill my girl up. Make her feel it."
I pick up the purple dildo. It's warm from my hand, from the room, and I slick it with the lube Janna left open. The head is thick, blunt, and I press it against Maisy's entrance without warning, feeling her spasm around the intrusion.
"God, that is so—ah!—so big—" Maisy gasps, and I push harder, watching her stretch, watching the moment of resistance before she opens.
"My pussy—my pussy is being filled so—so completely— Oohh! Aahh!"
The dildo slides home, and Maisy's back arches, her face pressing into the quilt. She's making sounds I've never heard—broken, animal, beyond language. Janna matches my rhythm from behind, and I can feel it, the double penetration through the thin wall of flesh, the way Maisy's stuffed full at both ends.
Her partition trembles. So, her narrow gap should. She's getting the double banging. The two-fold thrust. The tandem yanked withdrawal to the cusp of her holes. Then the brutal push, twice, in the same instant.
"Ah—ah—" Maisy chants, and I realise I'm chanting too, some nonsense syllable that matches our thrusts.
"Ah—ow! I, I I can't stand it. I'm about to—! Help! Help! Ah—ahh—"
Holy Hell!
She comes like a flood, like the rare rains that turn the desert red and running. Her cunt clenches around the dildo, trying to push me out even as she pulls me deeper, and I feel the wetness spread, soaking the quilt, my hand, her thighs.
Fuck she could solo refill the empty community swimming pool!
She screams into the fabric, and Janna's hand finds mine where they meet in Maisy's body, our fingers tangling, pressing, holding her together as she falls apart.
"Orrghh!"
Mrs Williams makes a sound behind us—choked, desperate—and I hear the wet slap of her hand against herself, the creak of the quilt as she kneels.
Then she's there, beside her step-daughter's head, turning Maisy's face up with gentle fingers.
"Look at me," she whispers, and Maisy does, eyes glazed, tears streaming.
"Look at me while you come, baby. Let me see you."
Maisy sobs, but her mouth finds her mother's breast, latching on like an infant, like a lover. Mrs Williams cradles her head, rocking, and I keep fucking her, keep the pressure steady, because she hasn't stopped coming, hasn't stopped shaking.
Janna withdraws slowly, the pink dildo sliding free with a wet poppy, puck sound, and Maisy whimpers at the loss.
But Janna's already moving, crawling around to kneel by Maisy's head, offering her own breast—smaller, darker, the nipple hard as a bead.
"Switch," she says to Mrs Williams, and the older woman obeys, shifting to let Janna take her place.
I watch them rearrange themselves, this choreography of desire, and I realise I'm still fucking Maisy, still thrusting slow and deep while they settle around her.
Mrs Williams kneels between Maisy's spread thighs, her face level with my hands where they grip the dildo. She watches for a moment, her own cunt dripping onto the quilt, then she leans forward and licks—once, twice—around the base where the silicone meets skin.
"Sweet girl," she murmurs, and licks again. "My sweet, sweet girl."
Maisy moans around Janna's breast, and I feel the vibration through her body.
Mrs Williams licks higher, finding her daughter's clit with practised precision, and Maisy's hips buck so hard I nearly lose my grip.
"Ah—ah—" she tries, mouth full of Janna's flesh, and Janna cradles her head, crooning nonsense.
I watch Mrs Williams eat her stepdaughter's cunt, watch the dildo move in and out of her while her mother's tongue circles her clit, and I feel something shift in my chest—not arousal, though that's there too, but recognition.
This is what we're doing, all of us in Desert Edge.
Holding each other as we drown.
Tasting the salt of each other's grief.
Maisy comes again, or maybe she never stopped, and this time Mrs Williams drinks it, her face pressed tight, her tongue working frantically.
I slow my thrusts, let her feel the aftershocks, and when I finally withdraw—slow, careful, watching her flesh cling to the silicone—she's limp, boneless, a creature of pure sensation.
Still, her flesh rolls have a sweet tremble.
Janna releases her breast with a wet sound, and Maisy's head falls back, eyes closed, mouth open. She's smiling, I realise.
Smiling like I've never seen.
"Thank you," Mrs Williams whispers, and she's crying now, her face still wet with her daughter's juices.
"Thank you. Thank you."
We stay like that, the four of us, until the desert light filters through the empty shelves.
The store is empty, the town is dying, but here, on a faded quilt, we've made something that will outlast the leaving.
"Parting gift," I hand Maisy the two toys.