The rain drummed steadily on the roof. It had obviously decided to stop horsing around and have a real night on the town.

Cherie and Karen lay in bed. Cherie was reading a text book, the contents of which she pretty much had down pat anyway, but it didn't hurt to keep her hand in. Karen was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling.

During their lengthy embrace in the kitchen after Julie had left, Karen had fought down her confused tears. When she was sure she would not be overwhelmed by her feelings, she slowly broke the clinch and said she should be getting tea started. She knew she couldn't fool Cherie nor, indeed, had Cherie been fooled, but it had bought her some time.

Cherie looked over at her lover a couple of times, but Karen did not break the train of thought that she was obviously riding. The afternoon's events had obviously affected her and Cherie knew that had their love not been set in quick-dry cement, as it were, there was a very real danger that she could have lost Karen to Julie.

Keeping her own feelings of the encounter detached, Cherie still recalled Julie sneezing helplessly, again and again, the heavy spray from her mouth cascading down onto Cherie's face. Cherie had never felt such a thing before, nor was she likely to again as Karen’s cute, but tiny sneezes allowed no such emission.

Finally, Karen broke what had been nearly an hour's reverie, as though she had just been reading Cherie's mind. For all Cherie knew, she had.

"That was a pretty powerful sneeze, wasn't it?" Karen asked softly.

"Yes, it sure was," replied Cherie, putting the book down. "And now I know what it feels like when I do it for you."

That got a slight smile. It was something they had discussed before on long cold nights. Now, Cherie decided it was best to be blunt.

"This afternoon really got to you, didn't it?" she said.

Karen hesitated. "Yes, it did," she admitted, knowing she couldn't lie her way out of this. "It just seemed strange doing the same thing with someone else other than you, even though you were there."

"Did you enjoy it?" asked Cherie.

"Yes," was the prompt reply. "Did you?"

"Yes, in the end I did," Cherie confessed. "When she sneezed on me. Now that was magic."

There was silence for a moment, giving Cherie time to reflect that at least she'd got Karen talking again.

"I got this feeling," Karen rejoined, "that you were determined not to."

"True, but that was jealousy, baby. Forget it".

Karen digested this. "You were jealous of me?" she asked incredulously. "After everything we've done?"

"Yes," said Cherie sadly. "I thought you might find her more interesting than me."

Karen opened her mouth, thought better of it and snapped it shut again. After a moment, she found a suitable reply. "She was interesting, we'll both admit that, but we also agreed it was a one-off. There's no way I would ever have let it come between you and I. Do you really think I was going to leave you for her just because she had a bigger and wetter sneeze?"

The thought had more than crossed Cherie's mind.

Karen had rolled over and propped herself on one elbow as she wound up. "Canberra’s even colder than Melbourne in winter," she went on. "And to be honest, I don't know Julie all that well. Do you really think I would run off up there with her on some sort of a nasal whim?"

Cherie suddenly felt out of her depth. This was as close as they had ever come to arguing and she didn't like it. She tried to regain ground by trying a different tack.

"Would you have gone off with her if I wasn't your partner?" she asked softly.

Karen subsided, rolling on her back again to resume her roof gazing. "If you weren't my partner," she said after a moment, "I probably would never have come out."

She turned to Cherie, a sly smile on her lips. the tension evaporated.

"I'm sorry," she said. "This has been a very unusual day. "We can't allow it to come between us."

She rolled again and moulded herself up against Cherie who half-turned into the embrace. They lay wrapped together for several minutes and slowly began to kiss. Not for the first time that day, Karen's vagina pulsed like a generator at idle.

"Sweetie," she said quietly, after some minutes had passed. "Would you analyse my sneeze?"

"Analyse it?" Cherie frowned, askance.

"From start to finish, break it down into quarters."        

Now Cherie understood. "Will you do mine if I can do yours successfully?"

"Yep."

Cherie thought for a moment, putting all the years with Karen and countless sneezing fits for them both, into perspective, into one analytical description.

"There's a tickle," she began softly. "Creeping up into your sinuses. You know you're going to sneeze, Karen. You won't be able to hold it back because now it has you in its power."

She paused and fixed her eyes on Karen's intent gaze.

"Then you take a breath," she continued, "deeply through your nose. The breath meets the tickle and you're nearly ready. Sometimes you cup you hands around your mouth and nose, sometimes you don't, you just shut your eyes and enjoy it. But this time you're going to cover, so instinctively, up come your hands. You can't help it. It’s time to let go. You take another breath and your nose releases its tension with that beautiful soft sound:  Atchoo....choo....choo....choo......choo."

Cherie paused, her lips almost on the attentive Karen's. After a beat, she went on

"You uncover your mouth. There's no spit on your hands. There never is because your sneeze is so light. Now your nose is relaxed. It's sneezed all the tension out. But you, my beautiful little Karen, are getting a bit horny. That often happens when you have your little sneezies. But Cherie's eager tongue can fix you right up."

Cherie was straight-faced as she whispered this last, but Karen got out a giggle before her lover's lips descended. They kissed slowly for several more minutes and then paused for breath, surveying each other.

"Hmmmm....you did that pretty well," observed Karen.

Cherie cocked an eyebrow. "Pretty well?"

"Alright then, really well." Karen poked her tongue out in the half-light. Truth was, Cherie had got the majority of it right, although the build-up she had described was less commonplace. Karen usually got about three seconds warning, enough to take a couple of breaths and prepare. The tickle, however, Karen always found pleasant, and Cherie was right. Karen's nose always felt relaxed after it had released  its sneezes, but its owner was usually a little aroused.

"Now, what about me?" Cherie questioned, tracing a finger between Karen's breasts.

"What about you, indeed?" Karen deadpanned, Cherie's finger giving her goosebumps.

She lowered her voice down to the same sexy whisper Cherie had used. "You've got a little tickle too, my darling. It won't go away. You know you're going to have a big wet sneeze. It's inevitable when you get that feeling."

She paused and wriggled a little, trying to mould her nude body even closer to the equally nude Cherie.

"You're wearing your satin nightie, sweetheart," she continued. "You're going to make love to Karen soon and Karen just adores satin. But right now, that tickle is getting closer. There's one pocket in your nightie, Cherie. In it is the one thing you need right now. A lovely clean handkerchief. Yes, you've found it. You're taking it out and unfolding it. You're beginning to gasp a little. Your sinuses are tickling and burning furiously. Handkerchief held in both hands, you take a final, big breath and........ Atisshoo!....Atisshhoo!......big breath again, sweetie and....Atisshhoo!!"

Karen stroked Cherie's hair and the other girl almost purred. All this attention.

"Oh my goodness, Cherie, you've caught three big sneezes in your hanky. Good girl. Now wipe your lips and let's have a look inside it."

Both of them were aware that Karen had switched to her "little girl" mode, a playful persona she had occasionally, as part of foreplay, brought out when they were still teenagers. She hadn't used it since the final months of high school.

"Oh Cherie, look at all that wet saliva you've sneezed into your hanky. They were certainly big sneezes too. Now, let's find a dry spot and you can blow your nose. Ahhh....good girl, that was a big wet blow. Let's take a look....oh yes.....it's warm and fresh....your nose certainly needed to get rid of that. Here comes Karen now. She'll be so pleased to be able to help you examine your hanky before you make love."

Lips locked. The analysis was over.

* 

A few minutes later, they broke apart.

"So that's our two sneezes analysed," mused Cherie. "You did it as good as I did, except I seldom have to blow my nose afterwards, these days. I generally sneeze through my mouth. That's why they're so wet."

"And I wouldn’t have it any other way," said Karen.

For a few minutes, there was only the sound of the rain on the roof as the girls nuzzled each other. Finally, Cherie spoke.

“All this talk about sneezing…..I feel like a quick round with the talcum powder.”

“You naughty little thing,” Karen admonished.

She frowned. “We can do that, of course. But do you think they’ll be able to hear you?” she asked, meaning Helen and Li.

“I doubt it,” Cherie answered. “You know how thick the walls and doors are in this place. Plus the sound of the rain covers a bit more.”

Helen and Li had the bedroom at the other end of the long passage. The construction of the big old house gave it natural soundproofing and noise from the two couples did not travel far with the bedroom doors shut.

“She’s a strange one, that Li,” Cherie mused. “I was sitting with the paper on Thursday when I felt a sneeze coming on. She was in the living room as well, though I didn’t pay much attention. I got a tissue out of my dressing gown in time to catch them, but she gave me this really weird look, almost like she was scared of me. Just because I’d sneezed.”

“Some people just don’t understand beauty,” Karen said gravely.

“Sure don’t, now where were we?” Cherie slipped out of bed, practically scampered to the dressing table where she snared the talcum powder and a box of tissues. Back into bed in an instant she made her preparations, so casual that she could have been making a cup of coffee. Karen watched without comment. She had seen this countless times.

Folding two tissues neatly, Cherie placed them on the bedside table. Then she pulled her side of the quilt down to expose her breasts. Propping her pillows at an angle, she leaned back against them.

Picking up the talcum powder, Cherie glanced questioningly at Karen.

“If you’re ready, so am I,” said Karen. “Can I catch the third one?”

“If there’s a third one,” answered Cherie. “Should be. I’ll try for you.”

She sprinkled a measured amount of the fragrant powder in her hand and inhaled deeply. Almost at once the rush started in her sinuses. She inhaled again and quickly dusted her hands off over the side of the bed.

“How do you feel, sweetie?” asked Karen, gently grasping her hand.

“Like I deed to sdeeze,” said Cherie, her nose already clogged as the irritating powder worked its dubious magic. She panted violently in build-up.

“I’m gon HAISSHHOO!….ATISSHHOO!”

The words “I’m gonna sneeze” were ripped away from her by the two gigantic explosions that jerked her head off the pillows, spraying her breasts and upper chest with a sheen of saliva, just as she had sprayed Julie’s breasts that afternoon.

Cherie already had the pre-sneeze look back on her face and they both knew she was not finished. Promptly, Karen had her hand across the other girl’s mouth, just as she had done that life-changing afternoon all those years ago.

“HA….ISSHOO!” sneezed Cherie a third time, this one a little lighter than the first two, but no less wetter. Karen caught it neatly in her hand.

“Whoo!” gasped Cherie and grabbed for the tissues she had set aside before. She dabbed the worst of the spray from her breasts, then wiped her glistening lips. Last, she folded the tissue again and gave a huge one-handed blow. True to her word, she had released the bulk of her sneezes through her mouth, but whenever she induced, her nose had to be blown afterward, the irritant making it congest and run.

Karen, meanwhile, had dried her sneeze-dampened hand by merely rubbing it on her face, an action that, like many others, was not unusual between them.

“That powder really puts some pressure on your nose,” said Karen.

“Enormous pressure,” answered Cherie, just over the sound of the rain. “I can’t help it. When my nose tickles I just need to sneeze. It’s something I just have to do.”

She spoke with heavy emphasis as though trying to convince them both.

“Just need to sneeze,” she repeated.

Then she looked across at Karen and her expression was unmistakeable. In one fluid motion, she turned, put the used tissues on the bedside table and switched out the reading lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

“Now come here, you,” Cherie growled playfully.

With a giggle, they pounced on each other. Outside, it was cold and wet, but in the bedroom of the big old house, things were warming up nicely.

*

Time blurred. Karen very gently disentangled herself from Cherie who was fast asleep, her breathing barely audible. She checked the clock. 1.15……hmmmm…..Hang on! 1.15! Hell, she’d been asleep and for over three hours.

They had been making love. Karen clearly remembered that. She had brought Cherie to a shuddering, gasping climax with skilful manipulation of her fingers and some serious “tonsil hockey”.

Resting afterwards before returning the favour, Cherie had dozed off while Karen had let thoughts drift and then, it seemed, had done likewise. What an odd thing sleep was. Karen cocked her head in the pitch black. Something was amiss. What was it? Then she realised. There was silence. The rain that had fallen on and off since Thursday night had stopped completely.

Karen lay on her back a minute, thinking. Images of Julie flashed in her mind’s eye. No way was she over this, irrespective of the depth of her love for Cherie and it troubled her. Climbing stealthily from the bed, careful not to disturb it’s other occupant, Karen moved with the night vision of a cat. Eight steps to the wardrobe. She slipped her dressing gown over her nudity. Seven steps to the doorway. Silently, she opened and closed the heavy oak door. Moving briskly along the passageway, Karen could see by the natural light that came out of the open door of the “workroom”, number three bedroom housing computers and writing desks, equipment and study materials used by all four of them. She passed Helen and Li’s closed bedroom door and then let herself into the living room, closing that door behind her as well.

Strong moonlight came through the big old-fashioned window. Karen moved the curtain back and looked at the still, rain-slicked streets of suburban Carlton. There was not a breath of wind and the air hung heavy. Melbourne was an odd city, she considered. It never shut right down at night, just seemed to doze with one eye open until it was time to get up. Whereas in Sydney, she knew the sleaze and tawdriness of Kings Cross and Darlinghurst kept the inner city revolving 24/7.

A line from a Midnight Oil song popped, unbidden, into her head: “So how stands the city on this winter’s night?”

She chuckled humourlessly to herself and let the curtain fall back. She wondered what Julie was doing at this moment and then mentally kicked herself. She was probably sleeping. Karen wasn’t the only one who’d had a full and interesting day. Now moving away from the window, Karen prowled the room restlessly.  Then she did an expert double pirouette, descending to one knee.

“Take me away,” she sang softly to the moonlit room. “A million miles away from here.”

Defeated, she rose and went to the big armchair in the corner, settling into it, legs underneath her. Cherie had been right, in a way.  If she hadn’t been Karen’s life partner, Karen would have run off with Julie in an instant. The attraction was there and both Karen and Julie had sensed it. Maybe Cherie had too.

Karen became aware that there were tears in her eyes and this time, she made no effort to stop them. The problem was that Cherie and Julie were not all that dissimilar when it came down to it. Why was she so scared of this sudden new attraction?

Then, quite suddenly, it came to her. Ten years floated away and her and Cherie were a pair of innocent high school girls. Karen had been unable to fathom her attraction to Cherie for the majority of their school years. She felt so at ease with the girl’s presence it wasn’t funny. And whenever Cherie sneezed, all sorts of strange feelings would run through Karen’s body. Finally, she had “come out” in one swift decisive action one afternoon, and their lives had changed forever. Predominantly for the better.

Now she understood. It wasn’t really Julie that she had the attraction to. It was Julie’s sneeze. She found some relief in this realisation, though she didn’t feel any better about jeopardising her relationship with Cherie.

This damn fetish! Heaven and Hell combined.

Time blurred. Karen let the tears come.

*

Karen realised she had been dozing. She looked at the clock. Nearly an hour had passed since she had left the bedroom. The tears had dried on her face. Strangely, she felt better, although her problems were not all solved. Perhaps they never would be.

Karen remembered the little bag of oleander leaves Julie had brought over. She hadn’t wanted them back and Karen said she would wash them down the sink. She hadn’t, though. She had hidden them in the cupboard under the sink. Leaving the armchair, she slipped soundlessly into the kitchen and retrieved them.

Returning to the living room, she resumed her seat with some trepidation. Did she dare do this again?

Karen sighed. She knew she had to.  Springing up again, she hurried across the room and collected the tissue box  from it’s table. Back in the armchair, she pulled out several, folded them  in her lap and then opened the bag of oleander. Her heart began to hammer. Excitement? Fear? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Raising the bag to her nose, she took a deep sniff of the pungent leaves. Immediately, her eyes began watering and a violent tickle, worse than the one she had experienced on the first occasion,  sprang to life. Almost straight behind it, was the “point of no return” feeling.  For some instinctive reason, she reached out her left hand to pick up the folded tissues. At the same time,  she raised her right hand to her mouth and nose, but stopped short of covering some ten inches away. Had Cherie been watching, she would have said it was one of the top ten in pre-sneeze gestures.

Then, with a quick final breath, she began.

“Atchoo…choo…choo…..choo….Atchoo..choo….!” She took a quick breath. “Schewww.” That one came out as a half-sneeze, half-gasp.  Her nose and eyes were both running now and she dabbed at them with the tissues. In spite of the discomfort there, she was off and running down below, her vagina moistening as arousal set in.

“Last time pays for all,” she thought and took another deep sniff of the bag’s contents. The tickle in her nose, not completely abated, found renewed intensity.

“Ohhhh…..tickleicious,” she breathed, borrowing one of Cherie’s descriptions.

Then she started again.

“Atchoochoo…..choo…..choo…” She gasped for breath. “Choo… choo….. choo…oh bless me…choo!”

This stuff was dangerous.  For the second time in twelve hours and the third time in twelve months, Karen raised the tissues and blew her nose sharply. It was nothing like the long liquid blows that both Cherie and Julie were capable of, but she got out a moderate amount of mucus, her sinuses complaining angrily about the oleander. Then she wiped her streaming eyes and blew her nose again, softer now as the irritation abated.

For a moment, Karen sat and reflected on what she had just done. Induced sneezing. Is this what it did for  a girl? If  this was what she was allergic to, she reflected, eyeing the oleander bag, she would settle for natural sneezes every time. Now there was one last thing to be done. Her little pussy was throbbing with excitement as it registered her sneezing. She had missed out earlier because she had fallen asleep. It was time.

Karen swung one leg over the arm of the chair and let her pussy “breathe”. Then she coated two fingers with her fresh, wet saliva and slid them gently inside of herself.

She worked carefully, pacing herself and deliberately staying away from her clitoris. In her mind’s eye images flickered constantly. Julie, then Cherie.  Cherie, then Julie.  Both girls hugging. Sneezing heavily, tissues upraised, then Cherie, her nose firmly between Julie’s exquisite little bottom. Julie sneezing onto Cherie. Cherie sneezing onto Julie. Both girls lovingly helping the other blow her nose, then hugging warmly. So much love…..so much caring….

Now Karen moved to her clitoris and the images were only Cherie. Blowing her nose, hugging Karen, cuddling her in bed, pleasuring her, front and back.

Cherie’s voice echoed softly in her head. “Got a sneeze coming on, babe……sneeze coming on……sneeze coming on…..”

Then Karen exploded, waves of pleasure rolling through her body like an express train. It was almost two orgasms in one as she held the apex of it longer than she could ever recall doing. Gasping repeatedly for breath, she softly repeated Cherie’s name several times as her lover’s smiling face held in her mind’s eye. Finally the image faded as Karen began to descend.

For a couple of minutes, she just sat there, amazed. Then she giggled to herself. Way to masturbate, Kazz.

Her strength returning after the massive orgasm, she took two fresh tissues and wiped her juices up, carefully drying inside and outside of her vagina. As she did so, she became aware that the rain had started again, and quite heavily.

Sitting on the edge of the armchair, she considered. She felt better about Julie now. The girl had been their lover for one afternoon, but she would be their friend for life. Karen just knew that. An inner peace now told her everything was going to be all right.

She got up and went into the kitchen. Without hesitation, she poured the contents of the oleander bag down the sink, before putting the bag itself into the bin along with her damp tissues. Then she returned to the living room and checked that everything was back how she had found it. No evidence of an overnight masturbation session and a heart-to-heart with herself in more ways than one.

Visiting the toilet briefly, Karen finally returned to the bedroom she had left an hour and a half ago and the girl she loved more than life itself. Hanging up her dressing gown, she slid into bed. Cherie mumbled something, but didn’t wake, oblivious to the rain on the roof and the return of her previously troubled lover.

Karen snuggled against Cherie’s warmth, a smile lighting her face. This was where she belonged, who she belonged with. Still smiling, she let her thoughts drift.

Pretty soon, she couldn’t hear the rain either.