DISCLAIMER: Bad Girls is the property of Shed productions, this story depicts a loving/sexual relationship between women...okay, disclaimer done.

Twirling her chair round towards the window in her office Nikki Wade wondered if she had ever been this bored before. Things were going really slow today ... it was one of those days that everything dragged, apart from the work which seemed to flash past really fast. Pulling her legs up she propped her feet on the end of her desk and contemplated the laces of her boots. ‘This is what it has come to’ she thought. Sitting in a stuffy office, clock watching. Usually when that happened she knew that it was time to consider a career change, but something stopped her from reaching for the telephone and putting out feelers for a new position. She liked it here at Larkhall Incorporated. Sure it had it’s downsides like most jobs but there was a real good feel about this company, it was going places. She was only bored today because it was a bank holiday and most people had decided to take the day off rather than sit in a stuffy office. She would stick at it for a while, see what happened. Maybe she would change something else in her life instead ... get a new car perhaps ... or a new girlfriend. Now there was a thought, she hadn’t really been out with someone since her and Trisha had spilt up eighteen months ago. Then again maybe she was just having a mid-life crisis.

Nikki turned back to face her desk when there was a knock on her office door and the shapely figure of Karen Betts walked in. Nikki had known Karen since school and they had been flatmate’s for the past six months, ever since Karen had found her husband cheating on her with the daughter of her next door neighbour. They were the best of friends, they had been through some tough times together, but when all was said and done they were still there for one another. In fact if it wasn’t for Karen, Nikki didn’t think she would have coped with her split from Trisha after nearly ten years together. And Karen had been the one tell her about the job at Larkhall when it had come up, thus getting her away from the same company that Trisha worked for.

“Hi was just wandering if you are as bored as I am today? This place is dead” the blonde said as she sat in the chair opposite the desk.

“You too uh? Listen do you want to go for a drink before heading home”

“Ah actually that’s why I came to see you. You know that guy I’ve been telling you about from H.R?”

“Wouldn’t be Dominic by any chance would it” Nikki guessed. They both started to laugh, Karen hadn’t shut up about the new guy since he had started working there two weeks previous.

“Yeah, that’s the one, well he’s asked me out for dinner tonight and I said yes so ............”

“So don’t expect you home tonight?” Nikki asked raising her eyebrows mischievously, although secretly happy that Karen was getting back out and about after that prat of a husband Jim.

“Well fingers crossed ... no” Karen giggled. “Not too disappointed are you?”

“Don’t be silly, go out have fun, I'll see you when I see you” Nikki smiled, thinking it looked like another night in front of the box for her.

“Why don’t you go out, go to a club and have a few drinks”

“Nah it’s ok, I’ll find something to do, got that new program to install on the computer still so I’ll probably do that or get a video from Blockbuster. I’ll find something to do” Nikki trailed off seeing the concern flash across Karen’s face. “Don’t worry about me Karen. I’ve got plenty to do at home, you go out and have a fun time with Dominic”

“Alright. Just don’t spend all your time on that computer. I know you, you say your only going on for ten minutes and your still on there three hours later”

Nikki could almost see Karen’s finger wagging at her. “Yes Mom” she said sarcastically. They both looked at each other for a moment then burst out laughing. “Alr... oh oh alright go, go on get out of here. Have fun tonight, see you when I see you” Nikki said shooing Karen out of her office, still laughing.

Nikki sat there staring out of the door after Karen had left. She hoped Dominic behaved himself otherwise she would have to pay him a visit, Karen didn’t deserve to be hurt again. Especially by some bloke who only wanted one thing. Nikki could still remember with relish what it had felt like the morning she had left the flat only to find Karen bawling her eyes out on the stoop. After getting her settled in the spare room and making sure she was asleep she had gone round to where Karen had lived with her husband to collect a few of her things, when she had been leaving the case had broken open spewing clothes all over the steps. The bastard had had the audacity to laugh at this and Nikki hadn’t thought twice, she had swung round and punched him square in the eye, catching him off guard. He hadn’t been laughing then, but clutching the side of his face and spouting off obscenities. Nikki had just collected the clothes off the ground and walked off with a smile on her face. The smile had grown bigger two days later when she and Karen had seen him at the shops with the biggest black eye she had ever seen. Karen had stood there shocked staring intently at his eye while he mumbled an apology for what had happened before they had walked off and left him standing there.

Smiling at the memory Nikki pulled her legs down off the desk and decided to call it a day. While packing her bag and tidying her desk she thought about what movie she would get on the way home, finally deciding that it was a comedy night and so she would rent the Scream trilogy and have a good laugh at Sydney and co.

Two hours later Nikki wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. God these movies are so corny she thought to herself. Switching off the tape, she got up to get a drink before going back to watch the sequel. As she walked back she stopped by her computer and picked up the programme she had been meaning to install for over a week now. Leaning down she turned the computer on. Now was as good a time as any she supposed. While she waited for the computer, she went into the front room to turn the TV and lights off now that she wasn’t going to be watching the rest of the trilogy. By the time she went back to her study the automatic dial up prompt was up on the screen, without thinking Nikki slid the mouse over to the yes button and clicked. By the time she was online Nikki had forgotten all about the programme that she was meant to be installing.

First she checked the message boards that she was a member of but they were very quiet this evening and didn’t hold her interest for too long, so she decided that she would play a few rounds of Pyramids on Yahoo games before turning in for the night, so she logged onto yahoo to see if she had any emails first. Most people used her other email address but you never knew when someone might use her yahoo address.

“You have email” a tinny voice said into the quiet room.

“Yeah well I don’t need any viagra but lets see what you got” Nikki said to the computer. “And then after that I’m going to call the funny farm and have me taken away for talking to a computer” Nikki scanned the three emails she had and decided they were all a load of crap so deleted them and left for the games room. After twenty minutes of not getting past level one Nikki decided that this just wasn’t her night and quickly exited. She was just about to close down and go to bed when an advert in the bottom caught her eye. “Lets have some fun” she thought and clicked on the icon for AOL Profiles. Taking a swig of her beer she sat there and searched through the profiles for anyone interesting. She clicked on a few names and read what some had written, then decided that there were some sad people out there. Taking the top off another beer she went to click on a another profile but the mouse slipped and she clicked on something else. When the page finished loading she saw that it was a proforma for putting her details on the site. “Oh well in for a penny in for a pound” she thought as she inputted the relevant details, stumbling only over a personal message that would grab someone’s attention. After sitting there for a while she decided that it wasn’t as easy as it looked and so left it for a moment while she went to get another drink.

She was in the kitchen when she heard the front door close and a few minutes later Karen stumbled into the room.

“Hiya, wasn’t expecting you back tonight. Do you want a coffee?”

“No thanks” Karen giggled. “So what have you been up to this evening?” she asked barely containing her excitement.

“Not much. Watched a movie, been on the internet mostly but it’s been boring so I decided to have a coffee and go to bed” Glancing at Karen, Nikki could see that she was looking extremely pleased with herself. “So I take it the night was fun?”

“Oh yes extremely successful ... well as successful as it could be seen as I am back here at 12.30am. We had the most amazing meal at Fredericks, truly gorgeous ... and the meal wasn’t bad either.” Karen started laughing and Nikki could tell she had had a few glasses of wine throughout the night. “Oh Nikki it was wonderful” she said dreamily, and then started to recount in amazing accuracy everything that had happened during the course of her date with Dominic.

An hour later Nikki stifled a yawn behind her palm and drank the last of her cold coffee. “Well I'm beat, think I’ll call it a night. You don’t mind do you?”

“Course not think I might go up as well, I’ll just get myself a drink. See you in the morning”

“Yeah good night mate” Nikki said between a yawn as she stumbled out of the kitchen. When she got to the top of the stairs she shouted down to Karen “Don’t forget to lock up will you Karen?” and before Karen could answer she walked into her room and got ready and into bed.

Karen walked from room to room making sure any doors or windows were shut and locked. She had had such a lovely evening and hopefully her and Dominic would do it again soon. Turning off the light in the study she looked back in and noticed that the light on the computer screen and tower was on, indicating that the screen was on screen saver. Nikki had obviously been on before going into the kitchen for her drink. Walking over she moved the mouse to get the screen up and noticed that it was still logged onto the web page. Tutting to herself she noted it was a good job there were on AOL otherwise Nikki had just spent an hour on the telephone running up a big bill. Reading the web page it suddenly occurred to Karen what it was. “So Nikki has decided to get herself a new girlfriend eh” she thought to herself, while she read the information Nikki had already supplied. It looked to her as if all that was left to fill in was a little message. Sitting down Karen decided to help her friend out and started to type. “There! That ought to do it!” she said to herself a few minutes later when she had finished. This was harder than she thought. Reading the message through one last time

“Jaw droppingly sexy gal seeks like minded fem pal. GSOH. Likes going out, movies, cuddling , gardening and teletubbies!”

Karen clicked on the OK icon and waited for it to download. When it had been finished and Karen was assured that her information had been saved she logged off and closed the computer down. With a smug smile on her face she made her way to bed.

“What are you laughing at?” Helen called from the kitchen to Yvonne, who was sat at the computer work desk in her lounge.

“You should see what some of these wacko’s have written Helen. I tell you there are some really strange people in this world.” Yvonne shouted back, while intently viewing the screen.

“What stranger than you?” Helen laughed as she made her way back into the room.

“Ha Ha very funny”

“Here’s your drink. Show me what you are looking at?”

“AOL Profiles”

“Why?” Helen was truly perplexed.

“Because I was bored looking at that site you were looking at”

“And what’s wrong with the Harry Potter website?”

Yvonne didn’t answer she just raised one eyebrow as if that was answer enough. At this Helen started to laugh and soon Yvonne joined in thinking it had been too long since she had heard her friend laugh. Helen also realising this wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Oh Yvonne it’s been too long”

“Yeah it has. Now you’ve kicked the prawn into touch it’ll only get better.”

“You really didn’t like prawn .... I mean Shaun did you?” Helen asked her friend, it had always upset her knowing that her eldest friend didn’t like her fiance but it seemed that her friend had been right all along and he was worthless.

“I refuse to answer that on the grounds that it might incriminate me” Yvonne answered.

Both women fell about laughing again and Helen reflected on what Yvonne had always seen in her ex, Shaun. Over the two years they had been together Helen and Yvonne’s friendship had dwindled due to the fact that Yvonne hadn’t thought much of Shaun, but had decided to step back rather than cause a rift between them as Helen seemed to be really happy. That was until 6 weeks ago when Helen had come home from a conference early and found Shaun in bed with the local postman. Yvonne had opened her door that morning to a distraught Helen, who hadn’t stopped crying for hours. When Yvonne had finally got out of Helen what had happened she had told her husband Charlie and he and the boys had gone round to sort Shaun out and make sure he wasn’t there when Helen came back. When Helen had gone back the next day there had been no sign of Shaun and she hadn’t heard from him since. Helen and Yvonne’s friendship had once again grown strong over the ensuing weeks and nights spent in each others company were becoming popular, especially since Charlie had gone away for a while. However Yvonne was worried about her friend. It was time Helen started going out again rather that staying in every night.

“Earth to Yvonne? ... Come in Yvonne?” Helen said shaking Yvonne out of her reverie while waving her hand in front of her eyes like a mad person. “You alright? Thinking of Charlie again were you?” Helen asked with a mischievous smile on her lips.

Rather than admit she was worried over her friend she used the excuse Helen had given her. “Yeah, but he should be home soon enough. Now where were we? Oh yeah look at some of these personals” Yvonne said pointing to the screen.

“Yvonne why are you looking in the female for female section? Are you trying to tell me something?... does Charlie know?” Helen giggled at the look that came over Yvonne’s face.

“Give it a rest would you. I was just looking. Now would you look at this”

Yvonne pointed to the screen once more and Helen read the personal that was there. When she got to the personal message Helen had to read it twice. When she had finished she turned to Yvonne and in unison they both laughed out “Teletubbies??”

Both friends once again fell about laughing. After a few minutes Helen finally stopped long enough to say that she needed to go to the toilet and that she would be back in a minute. Watching Helen go Yvonne had a moment of inspiration and started typing furiously at the keyboard. When Helen returned a few minutes later Yvonne was sat on the couch.

“Oh have you logged off?” she commented a little disappointed.

“Yeah babe I’m sorry but I really do need to be going now, Ritchie is due home tomorrow and I need to make sure his room is ready for him.”

“Yvonne it’s 3.30 in the morning, don’t you think it’s a bit late to start housekeeping?”

“Maybe but the earlier I get to bed the earlier I can get up and start. Look why don’t you come round for dinner tomorrow night, it’s been ages since you’ve seen your god son and I know he wants to see you. So come round for 7.00 eh?”

“OK, do you have a cab coming?” Helen said just before she heard a beeping from outside.

“That’ll be it now. Goodnight love, see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight Yvonne”

Helen saw Yvonne into the cab then went round and locked up before going to bed. Yvonne sat in her taxi on the way home with a smug smile on her face.

CHAPTER TWO

“You checked your e-mail's yet?” Karen asked as she entered Nikki’s office and sat down.

“Yes” Nikki said without looking up. “Which two unlucky saps are going to be the ones to go?” she added still studying the figures in front of her.

“We are” Karen said. She didn’t have to wait long for Nikki to look at her. “Careful you’ll get whiplash” she joked as Nikki’s head shot up fast enough to take off.

“We are?” Nikki repeated.

“Yep. 3 weeks from tomorrow we will be spending the weekend in Manchester at the annual customer care conference.” She couldn’t stop a tiny bit of sarcasm from entering her voice.

“Oh joyous. What did we do to deserve this?” Nikki replied, sarcasm obvious in her tone. If she hadn’t been looking at Karen she wouldn’t have seen the fleeting guilty look cross Karen’s face. “What have you done Karen?”

“Ummmm” Karen looked down for a second trying to figure the best way to tell Nikki how they had become chosen to represent their company at the conference.

“Karen”

“Well ... Dominic is running the conference and ... it’s his first one and he wanted a friendly face in the audience so to speak ... and well I kinda nominated us.” Karen finished on a rush.

“Oh Karen” Nikki mumbled from behind her hands.

“I’m sorry” Karen beseeched “But ... you never know it may be fun”

“What playing gooseberry to you and loverboy? or going to a conference with others from the company spending days bored out of my skull and nights drunk in the bar”.

“It won’t be like that I promise, it’ll be ....” beep beep beep “fun” Karen finished while reaching for her beeper off her hip and standing at the same time. “I have to go, we’ll talk about this later yeah?” Karen asked as she left the office.

“Yeah sure” Nikki answered the door as Karen had already left. “Damn” Nikki thought another fun-filled weekend to be had by all, before going back to the figures that Sales had sent up earlier.

“Yvonne how do you fancy a weekend in Manchester?” Helen asked down the phone.

“Sweetheart I know your just out of a relationship with some dipstick of a man but I am a happily married woman.”

“Ha ha Yvonne. I’ve a works thing coming up and was wondering if you wanted to come with me. The seminars shouldn’t take too long and then we can go out on the town and have some fun. What do you think?”

“Sounds good. When is it?” Yvonne asked.

“Three weeks. So?” Helen asked eagerly already looking forward to it but not really knowing why - after all she would be having to work over the weekend as well.

“Yeah sure, why not” Yvonne answered, glad that Helen sounded like she was finally getting over Sean.

“Great. Well I’ll let you know the details closer to the time, for now I have to get back to these figures. Oh by the way we have some celebrating to do tonight, still up for it?” Helen asked excited to share her news with Yvonne but with just a little desperation creeping into her voice at the end.

“You know me darling always up for a piss up. Where are we meeting?”

“Edgars.” Helen answered naming a local wine bar. “There will be others coming from work as well so it is going to be a lively group of us” She added before saying goodbye and putting the phone down and turning back to her desk full of papers. Sighing she started to work her way through the facts and figures hoping that she would be finished early enough to get home and get ready for tonight.

“Karen you in?” Nikki yelled, juggling her files, briefcase, keys and mobile while trying to shut the front door as well. Eventually she gave up and kicked the front door closed as everything tumbled out of her grasp. Kneeling to sort out her files she raised her eyes as she heard someone descend the stairs.

“Wow” she uttered enchanted by the sight of Karen in a little black dress in front of her until she realised that it was her best friend she was ogling and snapped her mouth shut and looked away. “Date with Dom tonight?” she said, getting up and walking into the kitchen.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten” Karen mumbled as there was a hair pin lodged between her lips while she slid another into her blonde tresses. “We’re all going to Edgars tonight to celebrate your promotion. The whole office is going to be there. And Dom” She added with a smile

“Damn” I’d forgotten, all thoughts of her previous thoughts about Karen vanished when she was reminded of her plans for the night. “Can’t you go without me I was gonna have a quiet night in in front of the box”.

“No... Nikki... how can you even suggest that. Tonight’s your night, we’re celebrating your job, you have to be there, no point celebrating your promotion if your not there.” Seeing that Nikki still didn’t look excited about the night ahead Karen tried another tack, the ‘it’ll be over before you know it’ tack. “Come on, it won’t last that long, few beers and it’ll be over. You can sneak out and no one will notice, please Nikki.” and now the guilty tactic, “Please if not for me then for your future team, they need to see that your happy with the promotion, that your going to be happy working with them. Come on Nikki ... Please” And then after all that there was all out begging. “Please” and pouting. “Please”

Nikki couldn’t help it the look on Karen’s face just brought the laughter tumbling out of her. “Alright then, do I have time for a shower?”

“Make it quick” Karen answered her already turning to the mirror to apply her make up, her begging face gone as if it had never existed.

Nikki was ready to scream. If she heard one more ‘congratulations’ or had one more slap on the back from well wishers she was going to scream. Leaning back against the tiles of the bathroom she wondered if it was too early to leave yet or if Karen was going to give another little tearjerker to stop her. Reaching into her jacket for a cigarette and a lighter. Inhaling deeply she closed her eyes and blew a smoke ring into the air.

“Mind if I have one of those?” a soft Scottish voice enquired.

Opening her eyes Nikki noticed a gorgeous brunette stood in front of her and recognised her as one of the woman who was a part of their party from Larkhall. “Sure” she said offering her packet to the woman.

“Thanks” she said while lighting the fag. “I like my work friends and all but they are too much for me sometimes.”

“Yeah know what you mean, was just trying to figure out how I could sneak out of here without them noticing too much.” Nikki said still leaning against the tiles and puffing away on her cigarette.

“Why don’t you just leave?” Helen asked

“You’ve never met my friend Karen have you?” Nikki asked with a little rueful smile touching her lips.

Helen chuckled. “You obviously haven’t met my friend Yvonne”

Turning and smiling they both leaned against the walls so that they were facing each other. “So if you didn’t want to be here tonight why are you?” Helen asked.

“Karen!” Nikki answered. “She lay a guilt trip on me. Said I owed her and the others a celebration.”

“Celebration? No kidding. That’s why we’re here as well, we‘re celebrating my promotion”

“Same here. I just got promoted to head of my department.”

“Well congrat........” Helen started before Nikki interrupted

“No please don’t say it, I’ve heard it enough tonight and I don’t think I could hear it again without screaming”

“Been that bad has it” Helen smiled.

Nikki looked into the smiling eyes of the woman in front of her and suddenly had the overwhelming urge to kiss those smiling lips of hers. The feeling was so strong that it knocked the breath out of her for a moment before she got herself together enough to mutter. “Look I have to go ... It was nice meeting you ... see you around sometime” and she rushed from the toilets without knowing what had come over her.

Helen watched the door swing shut. “Well bye” she said as an after thought thinking that maybe she had said something wrong. When she followed a few minutes later she couldn’t see the woman anywhere and shrugging her shoulders she went to join Yvonne at the bar.