Jessie stared at the dull grey sky out the window and gave the deepest sigh of her life. Why did things have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t she lead a normal life, settle down with a husband and a couple of kids and have a nice, respectable office job? She’d never truly been cut out for that, though. As far back as she could remember she’d wanted to be special in some way. Her childhood had been hard and she had always wished for things to be different. Her strong craving of wealth and power had led to her joining Team Rocket, but somewhere along the way her plans had gone horribly wrong.

    She was a failure. Plain and simple.

    Looking back, it hadn’t always been that way. She wished she could turn back the clock and start her training all over again. Things had been so different when she’d first joined up. Hell, she’d consistently been at the top of the class in every aspect of Team Rocket life. She’d been such a free spirit back then. Taken risks and let her instinct rule over her common sense. She used to have such enormous curiosity. Where was that now? Then again, it was her curiosity which led to the trouble.

    She glanced across the small room in which they’d taken shelter for the night. This was the same company she’d had day after day for the last couple of years. A self-obsessed cross-dresser and a walking, talking freak Meowth. Was she doomed to spend the rest of her life with them as well?

    She watched James as he used up the last of her favourite eye shadow without even asking and admired himself in the mirror. Jessie had always known about his sexuality. Just because he’d never come straight out and said it to her face didn’t mean it wasn’t blatantly clear to see. It wasn’t just the cross dressing or his mannerisms, it was the way he watched the men they encountered while never giving the girls a second glance. Not even her. Which was just as well. Inter-team relationships could only lead to trouble. She knew that only too well.

    They were friends, of course. Close friends even, but that was as far as it would ever go. Jessie could talk to him in the way she would to a woman; discuss make up and hair care with him, give each other fashion advice. But it all seemed so shallow. There was a barrier which stopped her opening up to him about other things. Deeper things.

  “Oh, James,” she sighed to herself, “why can’t you see you’re not the only one with a secret?”

    It was a time of her life which she thought was dead and buried. If she’d known it would reappear then she might have tried to find a way to tell him before. The last thing she’d expected was that face from the past to return.

    She cringed as she remembered how close she had come to losing her secrecy the day two Team Rocket groups had met. The look in Cassidy’s eyes had almost given it away on the spot as she remarked slyly how it had been a while since they’d last met. Jessie wished they’d never met at all.

    She still remembered the day the girl with the striking yellowy-orangey hair had singled her out from all the new recruits to take under her wing. Jessie had felt like Cassidy’s pet project at first.

    ‘We’ll be good together,’ she told Jessie over and over, ‘just you wait and see. Team Rocket will never have a pair better than us.’

    Cassidy was a very intense person. That was the only way to describe her. It was easy to get drawn into her excitement and to end up following her to the end of the earth just to see what would come next. Jessie was unable to resist her. She clung to her every word. Although not much older than Jessie herself, Cassidy seemed worldly-wise and knew something about everything.

    The night they’d passed their first round of training exams was the first time Cassidy kissed her. The excitement was electrifying that night and so were Cassidy’s eyes. From the moment she’d greeted her that day Jessie could sense something was burning there, something just out of reach. It grew inside her all evening until she broke away from the mass-Rocket celebration just before midnight and grabbed Jessie’s wrist.

    “Come with me,” she’d whispered.
    “Come where?”
    “Up,” was all Cassidy said.

    She pulled the naive red haired beauty up a couple of flights of stairs and led her onto the roof. A breathtaking sight greeted them both. A city of tiny lights stretching across the world as far as the eye could see.

    “It’s beautiful,” breathed Jessie.
    “Not as beautiful as you,” whispered Cassidy.

    The traffic down below had taken the edge from her hushed words and Jessie believed she’d caught them wrongly.

    “Hmm?” she said as she turned back to her mentor.

    Cassidy’s fingers rose slowly and brushed Jessie's cheek. The sensation took her by surprise, and although it felt strange she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.

    “You’re beautiful, girl,” Cassidy told her, “just remember that.”
    “Cass? I don’t get it,” Jessie frowned.

    Cassidy pushed the soft flesh of her lips against Jessie’s and held them there until she could feel Jessie twitching. Then she sucked gently for a moment until she knew for sure she wouldn’t pull away and slipped her tongue firmly in past her beauty’s lips. Jessie had never been kissed before. As much as she hated to admit it she had never felt the pressure of another’s lips against her own. A shudder burst through her body, sending tingles down her spine and along her arms. Something inside her head reminded her this was wrong, but something in her heart changed the tingle in her arms to pure energy and before she could stop herself she’d brought her hands up to touch the face of this girl who kissed her so beautifully. They laid awkwardly against her skin and rested there, perfectly still, until Cassidy’s mouth slowly parted from her own.

    “Do you get it now?!” Cassidy asked, bearing the strong smile Jessie had been captivated by so many times before.
    “This is so wrong,” Jessie whispered.

    Her tongue ran around her lips and brushed against the taste of Cassidy’s lipstick transferred to her own blushing face. She roughly wiped her mouth against her sleeve so no one could see the traces of pink and turned awkwardly away. A hand rested on her shoulder and the tingle returned.

    “Just because it’s not conventional doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” Cassidy’s voice drifted into her ear, “it’s only wrong if it’s not what you want.” She paused, giving Jessie a moment to reflect. “Is it?”

    Jessie was shivering by now. It might have been from the chill wind circling their bodies, or it might have been from the uncertainty surrounding this change of events.

    “Is it what?” she whispered, knowing full well what the answer would be but deciding anything that bought her more time was worth a try.
    “Is it what you want?” whispered Cassidy. Her fingers traced a line down Jessie’s back and Jessie’s shivers became visible. Her eyes stayed firmly fixed on the many tiny lights ahead of her while she struggled to find a reply.
    “I don’t know,” she whispered. She was shocked at how much her voice shook with each and every word.
    “Yes you do,” Cassidy whispered.

    Jessie felt the hand slip naturally from her back to just below her right breast. She breathed in sharply and tried to keep her cool but it was impossible in the face of such confusion. The hand began to massage her soft, young flesh through the rough material of her uniform and forced her nipple into becoming hard and erect. What was happening to her? Why wasn’t she moving? Why couldn’t she just tell Cassidy to stop?

    “Go with it, Jess,” Cassidy whispered.

    Jessie’s mind echoed the command as warm breath tickled her ear. Somewhere between the surprise and her belief that this was wrong, she’d lost a bit of the fear and let it be replaced by enjoyment. While lost in thought she felt Cassidy’s hand slip underneath her top and it was soft flesh that she now felt against her. In an instance of bravery she clasped her own hand over Cassidy’s and pressed it firmly into her body. Her eyes closed as a buzz rose from somewhere deep inside her and shot through every inch of her.

    It was a situation simply impossible to resist.
    She was going to go with it.

    Just this once.

    Jessie found herself shaken back into the real world courtesy of Meowth’s claws taking a short journey across her face. She screamed as loud as her voice could manage and threw the mangy cat to the floor.

    “What did you do that for, Meowth?!” she cried angrily.
    “While you’re busy staring into space, make up-boy there is stealing all the pizza!” cried Meowth.

    Jessie eyed him crossly but didn’t say a word. It wasn’t as though she even cared. She wasn’t hungry anyway. She gave him a swift kick to make sure he wouldn’t be bothering her again and then returned her gaze to the darkening sky outside. Her mind slipped back into her last train of thought. Cassidy. She went over and over her regret at the relationship they’d started on that weird and wonderful night, but the more she thought the more she found that particular regret was replaced by regret for the ending of it.

    She remembered how viciously their passion had drawn to a close. She’d never meant to hurt Cassidy. Hell, that was the last thing she wanted, but things spiraled so completely out of her control that she grew scared. She was falling in love with Cassidy, but for Cassidy it had grown into obsession. Jessie could hardly eat or sleep without her watching every move.

    It was endearing at first. No one had ever truly taken care of Jessie before but to Cassidy she meant the world and she was treated as such. They could sit and talk for hours together about any subject under the sun, they knew no one could hurt them while they stuck together, and as for the sex - well, that was simply fantastic. Jessie had wondered initially if it was even possible for women to get any pleasure out of being together. Cassidy proved that to her within seconds.

    In many ways it was a far more complete form of love than heterosexual sex. Every tiny movement was important and lapped up in a wash of passion. When Jessie closed her eyes she could still imagine the feel of her fingers tracing a line across her body, down from her neck, across her hot and clammy chest, then down to her belly-button and finally slipping down to her most intimate area where they rubbed back and forth faster and faster, exciting Jessie in the space of a heartbeat.

    She could still remember the first time they’d spent the night together, just a few short days after their rooftop moment of passion. No one had explored Jessie’s body before. No one had peeled away her clothes and laid her on the bed, touched her all over and caressed her curves the way Cassidy did that night. She let Cassidy take full control. Jessie recalled every moment of that first time as she continued to gaze at the growing darkness. She remembered Cassidy’s gentle kisses, spreading from her neck to her chest and crossing from one nipple to the other, leaving them erect and solid before her mouth continued down to where her fingers had already explored.

    Jessie flinched as she recalled how good it made her feel. How complete and satisfied making love to Cassidy left her. She flinched from the pain of knowing how suddenly the end had come in their relationship. Cassidy’s strength had rubbed off on Jessie as time went by and Jessie began to resent the attention Cassidy devoted purely to her. She began to feel as though she was a prisoner of her own love; too strong to stay in the shadow of her lover but too weak to break away.

    Over time Cassidy’s attention turned into jealousy. Talking to anyone else became impossible as Jessie grew to fear the wrath of Cassidy’s temper. Rows became more frequent and the pair were constantly in trouble for disrupting Team Rocket’s training programme with their disagreements. The bad times had started to overshadow the good and as Jessie began to fall out of love she remembered that until Cassidy had taken her by surprise that night on the roof, she had actually liked men and never thought sexually about a woman in her life before. Had she really ever been in love with Cassidy at all? Or was she just curious and confused? Sometimes it can be very easy to mistake admiration for something deeper after all. Had she just become swept up in the excitement and been too weak to stay out of a situation she wasn’t sure of? Could it be that now she was stronger she finally felt ready to leave the relationship which was starting to make her desperately unhappy? There were far more questions than answers in Jessie's life, that was for sure.

    It was the night of the ‘End of Training’ party that things ended for good. Cassidy had gone for punch and returned to find Jessie dancing with someone else. A boy! Jessie had done that on purpose, to push her to the limit, so much had her resentment grown. Cassidy’s jealousy flared up in one vicious attack and Jessie had been left with a scratched face, bleeding alone on the dance floor. She remained in tears all night, sobbing until she could only hiccup for breath and until her face became so puffy it barely felt like a part of her any more.

    The next morning Jessie had been assigned to James and Meowth. She’d known James from Pokémon tech but hadn’t seen him at all during her training and the reunion was pleasant even if it didn’t quite take her failed relationship off her mind. Time went by and they became too absorbed in catching Pikachu to think about anything else, until one day Jessie found herself face to face with her old flame.

    It made Jessie’s blood boil when she thought about Cassidy’s little display of unity with Butch. Were they an item now? Was Cassidy flaunting her sudden heterosexuality in Jessie’s face? Or was that just what she wanted her to think. After all, a lot of people would argue that if it wasn’t for James’s love of cross dressing the two of them could easily pass for a couple themselves.

    “Appearances can be deceptive,” she whispered to herself. Everyone put on an act sometimes, after all - just like the way she’d made out she hated Cassidy with all her might. If she hated her then why would she be feeling so very low right now, and have so many regrets about the life they didn’t have together?!

    She cursed herself for dreaming of Cassidy touching her again. It was a thought never far from her mind these days and it was driving her crazy. She couldn’t even bear the thought of a man coming close to touching her in the places Cassidy had made her own. If only she’d known this was what she truly wanted all that time ago.

    “James?” she said quietly. She got to her feet and walked slowly across to her team mate as he examined his latest make up techniques. “James, can I talk to you?”
    “Jessie, do you have any eye liner to go with the shadow I borrowed?” James asked hopefully.
    “No,” said Jessie, “listen.... it’s about Cassidy.”
    “You think she might have some eye liner?”

    Jessie slapped his made-up face hard and scowled like a mad-woman.

    “You fool,” she snapped, “this is serious.”
    “So’s my make-up crisis!” blubbed James.

    Jessie flicked her hair over her shoulder and turned her back on him.

    “I should have known better than to think I could talk to you about this,” she hissed.

    James watched her walk away with wounded eyes.

    “I’m sorry, Jess,” he said, “I didn’t realize it was something important.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Jessie said quietly, her feet shuffling further toward the door.
    “Wait, come back,” frowned James, “what did you want to talk about?”

    Jessie gave him the briefest glance over her shoulder and started sadly at him.

    “It’s alright,” she whispered, “It’s not you I should be speaking to about it, anyway.”

    James could only watch in confusion as Jessie left the small building and headed into the cold night air where darkness had fallen sometime in the middle of her mixed-up thoughts.

    Jessie hugged herself to keep warm as she trudged along. She knew it was a fair old way to go, but if she carried on at the pace she was walking she could get there by morning. It had taken her a long time to get up the nerve to do it but she finally felt ready to confront Cassidy. It was the only thing she’d thought about since she’d reappeared in her life without warning and shaken her emotions as violently as she had that night up on the roof.

    Things would be different now; Jessie was the strong one. Cassidy would have to listen to her this time and hang on every word she said to her. And this time it would be Jessie who kissed her first. She hoped to God that Cassidy would be too weak to fight back. Otherwise she would be left broken hearted by her for the second time in a lifetime.

To Be Continued