Chapter 6: More Than Friends l

-- NOVEMBER 2005, SENIOR YEAR --

Having come to our renewed agreement to be "just friends", Sasha and I met up with Bert and Kim for Isakova's class in the late afternoon. But once class was over, Sasha excused herself to head home straightaway instead of joining us for dinner as usual. It was just as well, since I had an idea percolating around my brain, and even though Sasha claimed she was neither jealous nor upset about my feelings for DJ, I would feel more comfortable if the beautiful brunette wasn't there.

An hour later, Brooke and DJ walked through the door with their backpacks slung over their shoulders. Brooke poked her head into the living room, inhaling deeply before remarking with a smirk, "Smells delicious. Must be Kim's turn to cook today."

Even though I was playing Xbox with Bert, I reached over to my notepad and stripped off the top sheet, wadded it up into a ball, and then chucked it in my little sister's direction. It arced in a lazy parabola with a decided fade, missing her by two feet.

DJ was right behind her, giving me a beaming smile as if royally happy to simply see my face again. After all, the hours since she first left the house this morning were the longest we'd been apart since I first started coming home in the middle of my day to take care of her. I smiled back casually, straining to keep my face from giving anything away. And then she turned to dump her backpack in her room while I cocked my ears, listening attentively.

Bert gave me a strange look, wondering why my attention hadn't returned to the game. But moments later, I was rewarded by the shriek coming out of DJ's bedroom. It was loud enough that Kim came out of the kitchen with a curious frown, and when I glanced over at Bert I found him arching an inquisitive eyebrow at me.

Brooke came thumping out of her own bedroom and crossed over to DJ's open door, but DJ was already coming out and making a beeline for me with an energy I wouldn't have expected given that she was still recovering from the flu. Planting one hand on the couch's armrest, she hurdled over it and at me with such speed and force that I scarcely had time to drop the Xbox controller and fling my hands up defensively. But fortunately, most of her weight landed on the cushion beside me and then suddenly her arms were around my head as she bent me backward and shoved her tongue down my throat.

Five minutes later, Bert started tapping my shoulder. "Uh, sorry to interrupt dude. But we got a game to finish?"

Not letting my lips separate from DJ's, I flipped him the bird. Bert chuckled, having expected the response. I cracked an eyelid, just in time to see him jerk a thumb at my direction while looking over to Kim, saying, "That looks like fun. Wanna try it with me?"

Kim rolled her eyes, going back into the kitchen. "Call your girlfriend."

"You know, that's not such a bad idea." He got up from his spot next to me, grabbing his phone and heading for the relative privacy of the hallway.

Five minutes after that, Brooke started tapping my shoulder. "Hey guys, either let go of each other's faces or get a room. You're making me antsy, here."

"Dinner's ready," Kim announced from behind us.

But dinner was the last thing on my mind, and DJ seemed to agree. Sliding down my body, she reached out with her feet looking for solid ground like a rock climber backing over a ledge, all without letting go of my lips. Finding her feet, she pulled me up with her, separating our mouths for just a moment. But once we were both standing, she yanked me down to her mouth once again, sighing happily while doing her level best to intertwine her arms and legs around mine.

Brooke gave us a healthy shove, and I think she deliberately tripped me, because I had to break the kiss off to regain my balance without yanking DJ to the floor with me. My little sister's best friend blushed sheepishly while burying her face into the crook of my neck, and Brooke pointed rather ... uh, pointedly ... toward the bedrooms.

Grinning like an idiot, DJ took me by the hand and tugged me after her, dragging me toward her bedroom while we passed Bert on the phone in the hallway. She then shoved me inside and closed the door behind us, letting me get another look at the setup I'd created in her room.

It really wasn't all THAT dramatic. I'd been able to pick up the materials in a single trip to the grocery store of all places after class while Sasha headed for the BART station and Bert and Kim went straight to the house. But I was willing to bet this was the first time in DJ's young life that a boy had littered her bedroom with rose petals in a path that led to her bed, placed a multicolored bouquet upon her pillows, and finished things off with an array of scented candles throughout the room while adding three balloons, each one larger than the next, that read: I Love You, I Love You, and I Love You, all in different scripts.

I'd come to a decision in the aftermath of my discussion with Sasha. It was a realization that had begun before Isakova's class started, but not ended until after the class was over. Needless to say, I didn't pay very much attention to the lecture. But that wasn't such an important thing, as I not only came to grips with what I wanted to do, but also put to bed any lingering concerns over the potential consequences of my actions.

Sasha was right: I loved DJ, she loved me. There was no ambiguity about what DJ wanted, and all that remained was for me to remove my head from my ass and let go. Let myself love her. Let US be together the way we both really wanted.

Little more than a week ago, I had told both Paige and Kim that I wouldn't take this course of action. Really, the only reason I had for doing so was because I wasn't sure how I would feel once Dawn returned to my life. I STILL didn't know how I would feel, and I would NEVER know how I would feel until Dawn actually returned to my life. How COULD I know? Even if I thought I had my head wrapped around it, even if I reasoned and analyzed and plotted my way through a billion different scenarios and variables to assure myself I'd figured out how I would react, I would never truly know until I stared at her live and in the flesh. And if I really waited for that time to come, if I really waited for Dawn to come back to me and only then figure out if I was fully over her, that would mean keeping DJ on the back burner until next Fall, if not longer.

I couldn't do that to her. It wasn't fair to her, and I wouldn't be fair to ME. I owed myself more than simply biding my time for the next year, waiting to see if Dawn and I could salvage something out of our broken relationship. I was under no obligation to her. SHE had cheated on ME. SHE had up and run off to Morris Camp instead of coming back to school and letting us work things out.

Well I wasn't putting my life on hold for her anymore. I wasn't putting my FEELINGS for DJ on hold anymore. I loved the girl. I really did. I loved her enough to say, 'Screw this Dawn-bullshit. I'm moving on with my life.'

I had not always loved Dorothy Jean Evans. At first, she was just Dawn's bratty younger sister, only slightly less annoying than my own bratty younger sister. Then, she was Dawn's hottie younger sister, who wanted me to introduce her to the wild and crazy pleasures of wild and crazy sex. But up until that fateful summer at camp when I was reeling from my break-up with Adrienne, not to mention all the drama around Adrienne's brother Adam's abrupt and deadly return, I had never truly considered her a potential mate for life. Smoking hot and eminently fuckable pretty girl? Certainly. Fun-loving, big-titted cumslut? Absolutely. But a girlfriend? Or even ... seriously ... a wife? No way.

Until suddenly I was considering it. Yeah, our first relationship was a rebound. DJ got the fantasy older man she'd been crushing on since she first hit puberty, and I got a nymphomaniac younger girlfriend who was only too willing to let me use and abuse her body in any way I saw fit. That she was an Evans was the cherry on top, the rationalization for my romantically-inclined heart to believe I was still on the path toward fulfilling my destiny of uniting our two families. The truth was: I was lonely then, and I just wanted somebody to love me.

Things weren't like that anymore. The two-year age gap that once seemed to separate us by an entire generation was now little more than a footnote. We were both now college students, fully-formed young adults old enough to fight our country's wars. Despite my frequent jokes about DJ and her friends still being "froshlings", I certainly didn't think of her as a little kid anymore. She was all woman, and she'd certainly experienced enough to know what love is.

And she loved me. She really, really loved me. Whether she admitted it publicly or not, she'd broken up with her boyfriend because she loved me. She knew it; I knew it. I'd been her only male lover since then, and she desired no other but me. It's nice to feel wanted, isn't it?

But my love for her was more than that. It would have been easy to fall into the same trap I did before, to love her because she loved me. But I wasn't that guy anymore. This wasn't a rebound. I'd been deliberately cautious about my feelings for her, about my feelings for anyone, really. The absolute last thing I wanted to do was enter into a new relationship, with DJ or anyone else, because up until now I couldn't trust that my heart was really in the right place.

Now I could trust it. Now, I was ready to be with her, because I'd finally come to the point where I really had no choice but to be with her. I couldn't string her along any further; that wouldn't be fair. I wasn't going into this relationship because I desperately needed "a" relationship. In fact, it was now quite the opposite: I was going into this relationship because I absolutely couldn't NOT be with her.

To continue being single – to continue being "just friends" – wasn't an option anymore. It wasn't fair to her. It didn't properly honor the way she felt about me. To put her off, to tell her "not yet", was to spit in the face of her love and devotion, and I couldn't imagine giving her that pain any longer than I already had. She'd stuck with me for this long already, faithful to me despite the lack of formal title, open and willing for my sexual attention at my slightest whim, all the while burying her emotions and waiting patiently for me to come around.

She deserved better. And I intended to give her better.

Because deep down, I really believed I could love her too.

Maybe Dawn would come back and throw a monkey wrench into everything.

Maybe once actually IN an adult relationship, DJ and I would discover new things about each other that would show us we weren't really meant to be.

Or maybe THIS relationship would be the LAST relationship for either of us, ending only in death and hopefully not that until long after we'd given each other children and grandchildren and a lifetime of tender affection and love.

I believed it could. I believed it SHOULD. But I wasn't going to get wrapped up in all that just yet.

One thing at a time. Stop measuring every girl for a ring. Stop worrying about all the myriad obstacles that could be thrown up in the way between me and Mrs. Right. Life is more than just getting married. Love is more than finding 'The One'. Just love, be loved, and see what happens.

I'd deal with Dawn when and if she ever came back. Meantime, I was getting over her. This WASN'T a rebound.

This was giving love a chance. This was giving DJ a chance. This was giving ME a chance. To love again. To live again.

To hope for the best...

It took a surprising amount of effort, given that DJ was supposedly only a few hours removed from being bedridden and exhausted, for me to pry her off my lips. But eventually I did, and as she stared at me with unbridled lust from two feet away, she decided this was the perfect opportunity to rip her shirt over her head and then start fiddling with the zipper to my jeans. But I quickly reached a hand down to stop her. "Wait, wait," I began, grabbing her wrist and pulling it away from my crotch. "I didn't do all this just to have sex with you."

"Then why did you?" she asked, wild-eyed and panting.

"To ask a question." I reached for her arms, sliding my hands up and down the sides of them before holding her by the shoulders and leaning in with a smile.

A little smile tugged at the corners of her lips as well. "What question?"

"DJ ... Will you be my girlfriend?"

She started crying immediately, nodding her head up and down. "Yes! Yes of course! I can't believe you even thought you had to ASK me that!"

I kissed her quickly, then pulled back just as quickly since she tried to turn it into another supervolcanic liplock that would send us on the path to getting naked and getting jiggy. I also had to pull her hand away from my zipper once again.

"Wait, stop. You really don't have to."

She winced. "Because I'm on my period? I don't care. Roll me over and stick it in my ass. You can do whatever the fuck you want to me."

"Right now..." I stated firmly while holding a finger up to her lips to silence her. "Right now, I just want to hold you."

She blinked fresh tears from her eyes, letting me ease us both down atop her bed. I cradled her in my arms until she reclined on her back with her head supported by a pillow.

I leaned over her, brushing my lips over hers gently. "We talked about this: You're still getting over being sick, and you're supposed to be resting."

"I don't feel like resting at a moment like this," she whimpered, but a moment later, an involuntary yawn escaped her mouth.

I smirked and brushed her bangs back from her forehead, kissing the exposed skin a moment later. "Well, your body does."

"My body feels like being filled up with almost eight inches of Ben-dick," she murmured, fire in her eyes. "Sodomize me while I'm sleeping if you have to."

I chuckled. "Soon enough. When you're healthy, I'll rock your world and knock you out from pleasure overload, and then keep humping your unconscious body until I fill it with my creamy sperm. Will that work for you?"

Sighing with a dreamy smile, DJ closed her eyes and surrendered to the energy crash after such an intense emotional moment, not to mention the physical exertion of getting through the school day and then spending ten straight minutes playing tonsil hockey with me standing up. "Yeah ... that'll work..."

"For now, just sleep. I'll stay here and hold you until you do."

A funny thing happened for the rest of the school week. Despite it being the first five days of DJ's and my new relationship, neither of us had any sex. We didn't fuck each other. We didn't fuck my sister. And I didn't even fuck Paige.

Part of the reason was that DJ was still on her period during that time. Part of the reason was that she was still recovering from her illness, popping pills and drinking Gatorade to replace her lost electrolytes from all the sweating and puking she'd done. Despite her assurances that she was both ready and willing for sex (orally, anally, or even vaginally should I want it), -I- was more focused on getting her healthy. I apparently liked playing nursemaid to this beautiful young woman I cared about so much, and as much as she insisted that she was "fine", her slow walking pace and the simple fact that getting up the stairs seemed to wind her said otherwise. I knew that even if we DID have sex, she would get too tired to fuck back in less than five minutes, and would probably fall asleep on me in less than ten.

But the biggest reason why we didn't have sex was entirely on me: I had something to prove to myself.

Our "relationship" up to this point had been based entirely on sex. DJ was a wicked hot babe, 5 feet 10 inches of blonde beauty, with a model-esque figure and a 34DD rack of supple firmness that would have put the Playmate of the Year to shame. She'd presented herself to be my fuck toy at my slightest whim, and even though I had chosen NOT to whim such things for the majority of the past three months, she had gone out of her way to whim herself into that position many, many times. We had pleasured each other and then returned to our bedrooms, with very little of consequence ever said. Even before this year, when I was dating Dawn and she was the little sister in the downstairs bedroom who got an itch she wanted me to scratch every so often, our relationship hadn't been anything more than that.

Our sex life would be awesome, of that I had no doubt. But I wanted our relationship to be MORE than that. I wanted the foundation of our love to be built on understanding each other, and on an EMOTIONAL connection that would be difficult – if not impossible – to sever.

We knew a lot about each other already. There was no need to ask about majors or hobbies or family the way a budding young couple might do. Given that those first five days were also school nights meant that we weren't even dating yet. No trips to the movies, no drives into The City, no walks holding hands around the campus.

Instead, we continued along our lives just like normal: I went to class, ate lunch with Bert, Kim, and Sasha, played Xbox, and went to my Project Ben evening classes. DJ went to class, hung out with her clique at Vivian Wang's, and did whatever else she usually did without me. The only times we saw each other were at dinner, for DJ insisted on joining me each and every night, and in the late evenings after we were both ready for bed. I'd come home from ballroom dancing or Krav Maga, shower, and then change. DJ would invite herself into my bedroom while I was still in the shower, meeting me on my bed dressed in her pajamas (or less, on Thursday, when she failed in her attempt to seduce me). We would kiss, we would cuddle, and we would talk about... whatever ... until we both fell asleep. And then we would wake in the morning and do it all over again.

Sure, there were more subtle changes in the way we acted around each other. Both of us wore perpetual smiles that seemed impossible to wipe off if the other was within view. We kept glancing over at each other, even if engaged in conversation with someone else or across the room entirely. And there were the little touches, the way our hands seemed to find each other whenever we were within reach just on instinct, without consciously thinking about it.

One night, I had to eat dinner left-handed because DJ wouldn't let go of my right.

Our blissful honeymoon phase was obvious to anyone who observed us, although nobody saw fit to comment. Bert didn't tease me with jokes about gagging at how syrupy DJ and I acted around each other. Kim and Brooke accepted the changes in stride. Even Sasha just grinned at us and went along being my friend and project teammate, business as usual. It probably helped that for our part, DJ and I weren't doing anything overt to rub our new relationship in everyone's faces. And again, we still weren't having sex.

The closest either of us came to getting jiggy were Paige's Tuesday and that aforementioned Thursday when DJ failed to seduce me. Paige was very understanding when I told her I was saving myself for when my new girlfriend felt healthy enough for sex. It didn't feel right to have anyone OTHER than DJ be the first girl to get my dick wet after asking DJ to be my girlfriend. Paige spent the first hour or so of our time together interrogating me about my new relationship, making sure I knew what I was getting into and had gone into this decision with my eyes open, especially since I'd told her the morning after the Halloween party that I would NOT be dating DJ just yet.

By the end of the hour, Paige was convinced, which made ME feel a lot better about what I was doing. But she was still horny, and despite understanding that -I- couldn't yet have sex with her, she asked if ME going down on HER violated my self-imposed moratorium.

Well, my dick wouldn't get wet, and I figured I couldn't leave her completely hanging. So I did what any good boyfriend would do: I texted my girlfriend, asking her permission to give Paige an oral orgasm. Even though she was in class, DJ sent me back an 'OK' less than thirty seconds later, with the caveat that I owed her an extra-special rug-munching whenever we finally agreed to do it with each other.

At 3:40pm Paige and I walked out the front door of the house together, Paige skipping down the steps feeling much refreshed after two cunnilingus climaxes. I hadn't even been trying to give her the second one. Not MY fault Red was multi-orgasmic.

The second time DJ and I came close to having sex was that Thursday. I came out of the shower wearing just a towel, and DJ was wearing even less. Her black shelf-bra with half cups left her erect nipples exposed. Her pussy lips were freshly shaved and neatly framed by the matching black garter belt and hold-up stockings, although her matching panties were nowhere to be seen. She even wore six-inch black heels with straps that criss-crossed their way up her calves, heels I fondly remembered holding in my hands the last time she wore them, my throbbing cock doing a little burrowing at the time as well. And she'd even put her hair into those fucking braided ponytails again.

Schwing.

But I'd resisted. We kissed and kissed and kissed until she nearly fell asleep from exhaustion, her energy levels still not quite where I wanted them to be. And even though she wasn't wearing a tampon or a menstrual pad, I knew her period wasn't completely over just yet. I still wanted our first time making love to truly be MAKING LOVE, missionary and vaginally while we stared into each other's eyes. And I also wanted our first time to last, not just with me thrusting into her limp body while she weakly panted for oxygen.

Besides, I liked cuddling.

But then Saturday came. And DJ's period was over. And after breakfast, she took me by the hand upstairs and insisted that she wasn't taking 'no' for an answer anymore. She'd finished her 10-day prescription, she was feeling healthy, and as she put it, we'd done "enough mushy-talk-bonding-relationship-foundation-building".

"Imma horny," she insisted. "And Imma gonna get LAID."

We both got what we wanted. I got to make love to my new girlfriend missionary-style, feeling my toes curl as I poured out the liquid essence of my love into her warm, receptive vagina while she moaned in mutual orgasm, her crystal clear blue eyes sparkling. She had enough energy to flip me over, suck me hard again, and then go for a cowgirl ride while I sat up and motorboated myself in those glorious breasts until she pulled off at the last moment and let me explode all over her face. Then she lubed us both up and bent over doggy-style, screaming like a banshee as I sodomized the fuck out of her. And when she passed out from both exhaustion and her seventh orgasm of the morning, I rutted myself in and out of her unconscious body for about a minute until I slammed forward a final time and filled up her colon with all my creamy sperm.

And that was just the start of what would become a WONDERFUL relationship.

I thrust forward a final time, grunting my orgasm into my lover's ear as a quart of spunk flowed out of me and into her sucking pussy. Moaning in ecstatic pleasure, she dug her heels into my ass and tightened her arms around my back to pull me deeper as she felt the cum flowing out of my body to crash against her insides like waves cresting on the beach. The first wave would start receding only to be met by the second coming forth, and both our bodies twitched and humped together as I finished filling her up with my jism.

"Holy shit..." Brooke breathed, her forehead dotted with sweat as she slowly came down from her orgasm.

"Holy shit..." I groaned, feeling my limbs turn to jello and my weight collapse down to crush my sister's body beneath me.

"Works every time," DJ giggled, pulling her finger out of my ass. "I TOLD you we need to hurry up. SOME of us have a class before 11am on Mondays."

My face buried into my pillow, I couldn't respond except to whimper quietly in ultimate exhaustion. I'm talking TOTALLY exhausted. Sexually satisfied, yes, but exhausted nonetheless.

Tapping my shoulder, Brooke wriggled underneath me. "No falling asleep on me, bro. I gotta get a move on."

"Hrm," I mumbled, still face-down in the pillow. But I allowed Brooke to push me, and DJ to help yank me, over onto my back. And my chest heaved up and down after the tremendous exertion of satisfying TWO horny 19-year-olds this morning.

It wasn't that I couldn't handle Brooke and DJ teaming up on me, not normally at least. But this weekend had been anything but normal. After all, DJ and I had spent pretty much every waking hour of both Saturday AND Sunday making up for lost time, having each gone without sex for two weeks straight. We were young, we were in love, and we were really, really horny.

With Kim home with her family, we weren't shy about screwing whenever and wherever the urge struck us. DJ didn't even bother putting on panties the whole weekend, and the only reason she put a skirt on was because I enjoyed the teasing glimpses of her bare beaver from time to time, and because the act of tucking the hem of that skirt into her waistband was like unwrapping a present each and every time I did it.

Brooke, of course, was still home, but DJ had asked to keep me all to herself one-on-one for those first couple of days. On the other hand, we weren't shy about fucking in front of my sister, not even the time DJ got the sudden urge to do it on Brooke's desk, quite specifically because my little sister was in her room sitting at that very desk trying to do her homework.

Having been forced to watch me and DJ fuck on the living room couches, the dining table, the washing machine, and in the girls' shower, Brooke said enough was enough when we commandeered her desk right in front of her on Sunday afternoon. Well, she said enough was enough AFTER she masturbated herself to an orgasm watching us screw on her desk. At that point, my little sister packed up her books and departed, claiming her intent to go over to Vivian Wang's house to study. Instead, she found her boyfriend and dragged him into his bedroom right in front of his apartment-mates, temporarily satisfying her carnal urges. But this morning when Brooke woke us up with her right hand pumping my dick and her tongue snaking a full inch up DJ's twat, she proclaimed that Joel alone hadn't quite done the trick, seeing as all of her wet dreams for the past two nights had involved getting sandwiched between DJ and me.

My new girlfriend and I made my little sister's dreams come true, at least until the girls realized they might be late for class and DJ wormed her finger into my prostate. Fortunately, Kim had heard the ruckus and put two and two together, making breakfast for everyone that included ham and egg sandwiches Brooke and DJ could take with them on the road. And then all three of them left the house, my girlfriend giving me a searing kiss goodbye on the porch, and I tottered back inside to take a shower and attempt something resembling recovery before my own 11am class.

I was ... mostly ... successful.

"Hey there, stranger," Bert greeted me with a fist bump as we met up at our usual intersection, a logical rendezvous point for his path to class from the BART station and my path from the house. "You get hit by a truck or something? You look like shit."

"Really?"

"Black bags under your eyes. Skin's pale. And you're sweating even though it's like ten degrees out. Or did you finally catch DJ's flu?"

I shook my head. "No flu. Just ... it's been a long weekend. My first weekend since DJ and I got together. C'mon, you know how it is."

Bert's grin would have lit up half the campus. "Oh, yeah. The first weekend after Lynne and I got together, we didn't come up for air until Monday."

"So you understand."

"Sure, but ... Well, that was the first time Lynne and I were having sex with each other. We were exploring each other's bodies, you know? Not to put too fine a point on it, but you and DJ were screwing well before you got, quote, 'together'."

"The first weekend isn't just about sex. It's new love. Plus, we were making up for lost time."

"I'll bet."

The two of us got to class, and afterwards we met up with Kim and Sasha as usual for lunch. An hour spent trying to stay awake and pay attention to the lecture did NOT help my sense of restfulness, so when I slumped into the booth at our usual Thai joint and immediately braced an elbow on the table to support my sagging head, Sasha smirked at me and said, "Somehow, I don't think your current state of exhaustion has anything to do with getting exercise the old-fashioned way."

Despite my heavy eyelids, I managed a smirk. "Nope. Why, jealous?"

"Hmm, maybe a little."

"Shoulda nailed me when you had the chance."

"Maybe I should have." Sasha thought about it for a half-second before shoving me in the shoulder, causing my head to fall off my hand as I leaned partway into the aisle before I caught myself and sat up straight again.

"Your loss," I replied with a shrug.

"Of course, then we'd be all awkward and I couldn't get away with doing this." Sasha promptly shoved me even harder, grinning as I fell off the chair and nearly hit the ground, only just managing to catch myself with one hand and one knee on the floor.

"Eww. Some sort of peanut sauce," I grumbled as I got back up, looking at the sticky, brownish substance clinging to the heel of my hand. After a moment's thought, I reached over and smeared it along Sasha's sleeve, causing her to squeal and bat me away with two fluttering hands.

"Stop flirting, children," Bert drawled. He turned to Kim, jerking a thumb at us while muttering, "You'd think they would have stopped after he got together with DJ."

Kim leveled a look at Bert and deadpanned, "Not while they still want to bang each other."

Sasha stopped flailing at me and we both turned to face our friends. "We do NOT want to bang each other. Not anymore," she insisted.

"We're just friends," I added.

Bert and Kim exchanged a look. "Yeah ... riiight..." Bert drawled.

After lunch, Bert had to head across campus and Sasha left to study with some other classmates for her next period. Kim and I had some free time to kill before our 2pm class, so we headed for one of our usual on-campus hangout spots, which turned out to be the very same bench Sasha and I had been sitting on last week when we agreed to be 'just friends'. I was making small talk as we walked, content to figure out if the conversation went anywhere and if it didn't, we'd settle in on the bench to look over some of our school materials. But once we sat down, Kim put herself in a lotus position facing me, all her attention on my face with her backpack an afterthought on the ground behind her.

"We need to talk," she stated without preamble.

I smiled. Whenever Kim's social graces went out the window, I knew she was dead serious about something. For someone who was supposedly a submissive, she could be surprisingly forceful when she had a specific goal in mind. "Okay ... Talk about what?"

Kim leveled a look at me, and for some reason I shrank involuntarily. Something about the way she'd raised her eyebrows reminded me of my mom's expression whenever she was about to scold me, and indeed, Kim's next words came with a disapproving tone. "You seem to be in violation of a very important rule."

"Rule?"

"In fact, by my count you've violated this particular rule for two weeks straight."

"What, the overnight cuddling thing? Um, if you haven't noticed, I'm kind of in a relationship now."

"You weren't supposed to do that, either."

I canted my head to the side, giving Kim a bemused look. "You may like to think you're a grand puppet master pulling my strings and manipulating my life from behind the scenes, but I AM capable of making life-altering decisions on my own."

"Are you?"

"I'm ready. We're ready, DJ and me. This isn't a rebound."

"Tell me more."

I took a deep breath, collecting my thoughts. It wasn't like Kim had any property rights over me; I didn't OWE her an explanation or anything. And yet I still wanted to give her one, not because I had to, but because she deserved to know. I understood instinctively that Kim still cared about me, for reasons that were still a mystery, and that she really was trying to look out for my best interests. And given that she'd waited until DJ and I had been "together" for a full week, not to mention how she hadn't protested when I'd started sleeping overnight with DJ a week prior, I gathered that Kim's current request for an explanation was more about confirming to her own satisfaction that I was indeed "ready" than it was about any sort of disapproval.

"We talked a long time ago about me not knowing how to be alone," I began. "About how I shouldn't cling to the next woman who got close to me. I needed to figure out how to take care of myself, to show that I could be less codependent and be strong enough without using a girlfriend for a crutch."

"That was less than three months ago. Awfully short amount of time to be single and prove that you've changed, don't you think?"

I chuckled. "I forget it's only been that long. Sometimes it feels like it's been forever."

"Lonely?"

"At first, sure. But you girls have kept me busy with Project Ben and I've done a good bit of self-reflection along the way. I'm not with DJ now because I was feeling lonely."

"Sure about that?"

"Positive. I was doing just fine being single. This new relationship with DJ is about more than just not being alone."

"Three weeks ago you told me you weren't ready to be in a relationship with anybody." Kim gave me a skeptical look. "A week later, you're sleeping in DJ's bed, holding her while she's sick. And then all of a sudden, you ask her to be your girlfriend."

"Things change, things I wasn't expecting. I certainly didn't anticipate DJ getting so sick."

"So what? Playing Florence Nightingale stirred your White Knight complex? Ben to the rescue?"

I frowned. "It's not a complex. And Florence Nightingale? Really?"

Kim smiled in bemusement.

I shrugged. "I can't fully explain what happened that week while she was sick. Yeah, seeing her so vulnerable probably opened up a lot of emotions for both of us. But I'm not trying to overanalyze what I felt and why I felt it. I can't go through some mathematical calculation and point to everything that happened between us as if I could define them as rational variables. It just sort of happened. It's not like I started taking care of her with the expectation that we'd fall in love."

"You just did."

"Yeah. We just did."

Kim scrutinized me, her eyes narrowing. "So where is this going then? Marriage? Kids?"

"I don't know. Maybe. We haven't really talked about it."

"Really?"

"Nope. Not at all. We're taking things slow, just letting the relationship develop naturally. There's no end goal in mind."

"So you don't want to eventually marry her and have kids?"

"Didn't say that. It certainly would be nice, and it's the logical conclusion to any relationship. But like I said, we're not in any hurry to get there. We're both only too aware of the pitfalls of rushing the romance, and of course with DJ there are extra-special complications."

"Dawn."

"And the rest of her family as well. We haven't told them yet. For one thing, we know both our parents would take this very seriously, and we want to give ourselves some breathing room before the fit hits the shan, so to speak."

"You're hiding your relationship from your parents? Must not feel all that certain about your love for each other," Kim scoffed.

I frowned. "No, that's not it at all. It's just early in the relationship. Lots of young couples wait until they're more serious before sharing it with family."

"Couples who aren't yet certain they're going to last. Not announcing the relationship is for people who've only started dating and don't want to also announce a break-up two weeks later."

I shook my head. "I know I love her. I'm not worried about a break-up."

"Then why not tell the world?"

"Nothing more complicated than NOT wanting my parents ... or hers ... calling us and giving their opinions on the matter."

"So you're afraid your family members will tell you things that might undermine your relationship?"

"What? No. Jeez, Kim, it's like..." I suddenly sat up straighter. "Wait, you're just playing devil's advocate here, aren't you?"

Kim blushed and stared straight down, a little smile drawing across her face. "Well ... Yes. Yes, I am. SOMEbody needs to do so."

I chuckled and shook my head. "You waited until DJ and I had been together for a full week before grilling me about this, TWO weeks if you consider when we started sharing a bed overnight. YOU think I'm ready for this relationship, don't you?"

"As devil's advocate I will refrain from answering that question."

I smirked. "If you'd had a problem or serious concern about me NOT being ready, you would have said something earlier."

"If you'd started spending overnights because of sex and not because of DJ's illness, I would have said something earlier. And even after you got together, you STILL weren't having sex. So I waited and watched to see what would happen once you two finally DID start fucking. That apparently started this weekend."

I shrugged.

"Back to the question. Are you worried about your family undermining your relationship with DJ?"

"No. Let 'em react however they'll react. I honestly think most everyone will react positively, especially after how bad things have been ever since Dawn and I broke up. Sure, a lot of them had this idea that Dawn and I would be the couple, but in the end, everybody just wants to see us happy."

"What about Dawn? When are you going to tell her?"

That brought me up short. I took a deep breath and looked away, exhaling slowly. "I ... I'm not sure yet."

"Why not?"

I shook my head. "That's complicated."

"You scared?"

"Scared? Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I have NO idea how that conversation is going to play out, for good OR bad."

"You should probably tell her before she finds out from someone else."

"Yes, I probably should. But she's way up there at camp and for now, if not even the rest of our families know about this, there's no way she's going to know either. Unless YOU'RE calling her without my knowledge."

Kim shook her head. "Of course not."

"You say that, and yet I still don't know how the hell you started talking to Lynne and Amber." I sighed and muttered, "You must've raided my cell phone contact list when I wasn't looking."

Kim blushed and looked away again.

"Okay, let me lay this all out for you, Miss Devil."

"Devil's Advocate, not the Devil herself."

"Same evil difference."

"Fine, fine."

I took a deep breath. "I spent a lot of time being single, just letting myself get used to taking care of myself and taking on all your Project Ben activities. I got my motorcycle license. I'm learning Krav Maga. I'm ballroom dancing. I'm playing basketball again, and I've even learned to cook. Not bad for not even three months, right?"

"A good start, yes."

"I'm not dropping all those things just because DJ and I are together now. We talked about that: I'm going to continue living my life, and she's going to continue living hers. She has her friends, and I have mine. Neither of us is going to be dependent on the other for sole companionship."

Kim's eyebrows went up. "You're having an open relationship?"

"I didn't mean it like that. I just meant I'm not counting on her to be stuck like glue to my side 24/7. We're two individuals who will happily come together for mutual benefit."

"Not so different from being fuck-buddies before."

"Perhaps not, but again that's why we feel ready for this. As far as day-to-day itineraries, being together won't change much. I don't want to dominate all her time and make her grades suffer for it. She doesn't want me to get clingy and codependent. We both know what we're getting into."

"And your expectations for the future?"

"The sky's the limit."

"Post-graduation?"

"Assuming we stay together that long, probably BioGen in Palo Alto, and I'll commute back on weekends to see her. Or maybe now I'll even take that MBA program ... DJ is certainly an incentive to stick around Berkeley."

"Breaking the news to your family?"

"We'll cross that road together."

"Breaking the news to Dawn?"

I sighed. "We'll cross that road together."

"Sex with other people?"

I grinned. "For now: Brooke and Paige are on the Green List, although Paige of course still doesn't know about Brooke. You too, actually, are on the list if you ever want. DJ went out of her way to say that."

Kim blushed, turning pinker than ever before in this conversation. "What about her 'Green List'?"

"It's the same list. Any other opportunities for either of us and we have to run it by each other first."

"Brooke, Paige, me? We're all girls. What about other guys?"

"For me? No thank you."

Kim barked a short laugh. "I meant for her."

I shook my head. "Absolutely not. DJ swore up and down she would never touch another cock besides mine while we're together. SHE believes that Dawn's experimentation directly led to our downfall, and she's hell-bent on avoiding that mistake."

Kim frowned sadly, looking at her hands as she interlaced her fingers while keeping the palms facing up. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly and then picked her head up, looking me straight in the eye. "You're really ready? You're certain of it?"

"I am. I'm not doing this because I feel lonely, or because I'm on a rebound. I'm not doing this because I need to have 'a' girlfriend. I'm doing this because I want to be with HER."

Giving me a warm smile, Kim nodded and said, "Okay then. You have my approval."

I chortled, raising both eyebrows. "I needed your approval to have a relationship with DJ?"

"Yes. Yes you did." Kim beamed for a moment before she leveled me with a quietly serious look. "Because believe me, if I didn't approve, you and DJ would NOT be together."

I frowned, furrowing my eyebrows. "Is that a threat?"

Kim grinned. "Not at all. Merely a statement of fact. Take my word for it. Besides, it's a moot point. I DO approve."

I gave her a bemused smile, not completely understanding. But then, there was a lot about Kim I still didn't understand. "Well then thank you for your approval," I replied, checking my watch and realizing that it was getting close to the time we should get to class. I then looked down at the ground, reaching for my messenger bag I'd left propped up against the bench leg.

"You're welcome. And Ben?"

I picked my head up, looking back at Kim before popping my head in surprise. While my attention had been diverted, she'd pivoted forward on her knees and I suddenly found her only inches away. Her hands cinched behind my head, gripping firmly. And then suddenly her tongue was in my mouth, her lips pressed firmly against mine as she moaned in obvious heat and kissed me even harder.

I scarcely had time to get over my shock before Kim pulled away as abruptly as she'd started. And then she was sliding her butt off my lap to stand on the ground beside us while I tried unsuccessfully to remember when she'd climbed INTO my lap.

"Okay, what was that?" I asked in bewilderment, blinking rapidly.

Kim flashed me a mysterious Mona Lisa smile. "It's not going to happen today, or tomorrow, or likely even in the next week. But some day ... someday soon ... I'm going to take that place on DJ's Green List."

While I gawked at her with my jaw on the floor, Kim picked up her backpack and started walking off to class. She got ten feet away, and then still walking, Kim craned her head around back to me and called, "You coming or what?"

After parking the Mustang, I turned the engine off and let my head loll back against the seat's headrest. My right hand fell limply to my thigh after removing the key, and I sighed the sigh of one completely and utterly exhausted. And for once, I didn't feel this way because of sex.

Well, not entirely because of sex. I'm sure my energy levels were at or near record lows because of the marathon fuck sessions DJ and I had been engaging in all weekend, making up for lost time. But the immediate culprit for my current physical state was Krav Maga. Tonight, I'd quite literally gotten the shit kicked out of me.

But that's okay. That's what I signed up for. Besides, I'd dealt out a good amount of butt-kicking myself, and I was gaining confidence in my ability to do so if and when called upon in an emergency. Buoyed by the knowledge that my aches and pains were the result of something useful, I exhaled and opened the door. Two minutes later, I staggered into the upstairs bathroom, shed my sweat-soaked workout clothes on the floor, and stepped into the lukewarm spray of the shower.

I rinsed off completely and realized that not all the moisture on my forehead was from the shower. Bracing a hand against the wall, I reached down and adjusted the temperature downward, sighing contentedly as the cool rain hit me right on top of the noggin and ran in rivulets down my entire body. I stayed like that for a long time, enjoying the refreshing sensations so much that I didn't hear the bathroom door open or the footsteps just outside the tub.

The first time I noticed someone else was in the room was when she pulled back the curtain. I turned my head and peered at her with one eye, closing the other against the still-steady shower spray. DJ smiled warmly at me, still dressed from the gym and with her own sheen of sweat dotting her skin.

I blinked in surprise and asked, "Don't you normally shower at the gym before coming home?"

She shrugged and broadened her smile. "Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. And in my case, they make me horny." And with a cute giggle, she jumped into the tub with me, clothes and all.

I barely had time to turn and guide her landing, lest she stomp on a foot or knock me over into the wall. I was already smiling and puckering up for a welcome kiss, but as the cold water hit her DJ stiffened immediately and let out an ear-piercing shriek.

"Why the fuck is it COLD?!?" she howled at me as I turned and lifted the temperature-control lever.

"Sorry 'bout that," I apologized, hugging her shivering body against me and rubbing her back vigorously to help her circulation. But her shivering was more out of shock than chills, and moments later she stood upright and finally turned her face to mine for that kiss.

"Bastard," she growled once we broke for air.

"Wasn't expecting you to jump in, especially not with all your clothes on."

"Whatever. I'm done with them and they'll dry out." DJ backed away, glancing down at her wet outfit. Tonight her sunny blonde hair was tied back in a functional ponytail, which showed off the structure of her shoulders and prominent collarbones. Her top was a black and aqua sports bra, heavily-reinforced to keep those 34DD's reined in. Already form-fitting, the wet fabric now clung to her mammary globes like a second skin, and with the cold spray her rock hard nipples poked through even the bra's front padding. Her matching black pants with aqua trim were practically skintight and cropped just below her knees, and showed off the gap where her thighs didn't quite touch in the middle. All in all she was the definition of the type of girl who attracted a dozen pairs of eyeballs every time she walked across the meat market of a college-area gym, and had guys fighting each other to run on the treadmill immediately behind hers.

But she wasn't attracting a dozen pairs of eyeballs right now, just mine. And there weren't any guys on any treadmills behind her, just me. And sore from Krav Maga or not, the mere sight of my new girlfriend wearing that outfit in my shower had my cock filling with blood and my heartbeat speeding up again just after I had gotten it to slow down.

"Well if you're done with the clothes," I murmured, letting my eyes drink in every inch of DJ's fabulousness. I took a step toward her and extended my hands toward her hips. "I should probably help you get them off."

"Mmm, that was the idea..." she murmured back just before our lips met again.

The shower spray continued to surround us as I wrapped her up in my arms. I raised my hands to get a solid grip on the back of her sports bra, and she raised her arms to the ceiling to let me yank it upwards, although not without some difficulty as the material did its best to cling to her body every inch of the way. That cling gave me an idea, an old favorite of mine, and when the soaked spandex sports bra went over her face, I abruptly left it there to trap her shoulders next to her ears with her arms pointed straight up. Then, I seized her body behind her armpits to hold her in place as I ducked my head to ravage her now naked and upthrust breasts with my lips, tongue, and nose.

DJ wriggled instinctively, only causing those fleshy mounds to slap my cheeks while I motorboated myself in her mammaries. But then her wriggles took on more urgency and it occurred to me that she might not be able to breathe through the saturated fabric. So standing upright, I tugged her sports bra a little higher, freeing her nose and mouth so that she could gasp for air, but I left it stuck over her eyes as I held her head and kissed her a moment after that.

She kissed back for all of two seconds before tugging on my lower lip with her teeth, biting hard enough to draw a little blood. I jerked back at the unexpected ferocity, and she growled at me, "Let me fucking go or I'm gonna GET you for this!"

Laughing, I finally pulled her sports bra all the way off, letting her arms drop back down while DJ glared at me with mixed annoyance and amusement. "Your fault for wearing it into the shower," I commented off-hand.

"Hmph. Maybe I should NOT let you take my pants off tonight," she grumped, trying very hard to look upset but unable to wipe the smile off her face or the twinkle from her eyes.

Arching an eyebrow thoughtfully, I mused on her threat for only a moment before springing into action, using a Krav Maga move to rush at her, undercut her knees, and then practically tackle my girlfriend out from the bathtub and onto the floor outside. She shrieked again and tried to tuck herself into a ball as a brace against the expected impact, but cradling her body in my left arm, I broke our fall with my right knee and right hand. Setting her on the floor a moment later, I got to my knees, grabbed the waistband of her workout pants, and pulled, rapidly fighting off the wet clinginess and her kicking legs to remove both pants and thong panties, leaving DJ wet and fully naked on the bathroom floor.

"Got your pants off," I crowed triumphantly. And then for good measure, I leaned forward and stripped off the hair tie holding her ponytail as well.

"Okay. You've got my heart racing again," she conceded, raising herself up on her elbows and smirking at me. "Now stop fucking around and FUCK me. I came straight home for a reason."

"Yes, ma'am." Turning around, I shut off the shower and then yanked my towel off the bar. I gave myself a quick once-over, not getting myself fully dry but making sure I wasn't very wet, either. With a grin and the towel in hand, I then dove atop my girlfriend, giving the majority of her body a quick once-over as well but giving her tits a rather thorough pat-down while she giggled and laughed. One taste test later to ensure her nipples were each fully dry (well, at least they were dry), I then discarded the towel, scooped her up in my arms, and carried her into my bedroom, kicking the door shut with my heel on the way.

Our foreplay was quick and to the point. I mauled her tits with my hands while I mauled her pussy with my tongue, bringing her to a quick starter climax on my bed. I then stood up straight and yanked her knees to either side of me before getting a firm grip on her hips right at the edge of the bed. And after notching my cockhead into her wide-open folds without needing the use of my hands, I thrust forward and sank myself about three-quarters into her wet snatch.

"Ah, fuck," she swore happily, letting her head and arms fall back as I yanked her across the bed to meet my next thrust. "Fuck me, baby. Fucking pound me."

"As you wish," I replied. And then I proceeded to do just that.

I hammered DJ through two orgasms in that position, her jaw flapping and her tits wobbling while I held her hips and pistoned in and out of her at a rapid rate. She let her head flop left or right with the motions, her eyes closed as she enjoyed the simple pleasure of being fucked. And all my exhaustion from a weekend of sex and an evening of Krav Maga melted away in the face of my arousal, as if I had a secondary battery of reserves held for sexual activity alone.

Instead of blowing my nut inside her, when I felt myself about to lose control I pulled out and dropped to my knees. My tongue dove like a sea hawk into her depths, carving out her pleasure before rapidly withdrawing and worrying her clit, only to back off and then do it all again. I bracketed her love button between my lips and vibrated them intently, thrusting two fingers into her gaping slit and fingerbanging her for a minute or two before pulling them out and then shoving both of them through her anus. I clamped down on her clit just then with my lips covering my teeth, and with a squeak her pelvis bucked up against my face and she creamed for a fourth time tonight.

"Holy FUCK," DJ gasped when she came down from that high, my fingers still wriggling around her colon and my tongue gently lavishing her clit with love. But just when she thought she would have a moment's peace, I roughly stood up and flipped her onto her belly, pulling her half-off the bed so that she was forced to set her feet down to keep from falling. And right when she felt like she'd regained her balance, I knocked her forward by slamming my dick into her pussy from behind.

The next two minutes were all about MY pleasure, as I grabbed onto DJ's shoulders and leaned over her wriggling spine power-fucking her, my pelvis making loud slapping noises each time I impacted her tight buttcheeks. And right when I felt my testicles come to a boil, I yanked myself out, placed my cockhead right at her still gaping anus, and squirted her butt hole full of my hot, creamy spunk.

"Unnngh!" I grunted with the force of my ejaculation, gripping my own prick between thumb and forefinger to pump out more and more jizz. And just when I felt my shots begin to wane, I took a deep breath, gripped DJ's hips once more, and shoved forward HARD, successfully burrowing several inches of my cock into her back door.

"Fu-UUUCK!!!" DJ screamed as she first felt me pop through her anal ring and then ram those few inches forward. But though a tear rolled down her cheek at my rough entry, when she turned to look back at me there was no mistaking the silly grin on her face.

"Ride me hard, cowboy," she crooned, pulling her knees up onto the bed and working herself into position on all fours before looking back at me and nodding me on. "Sodomize the shit out of me!"

It took a little while. I felt my cock trying to soften in the aftermath of my most recent eruption, but with slow strokes through her incredibly tight rectum, I managed to maintain hardness and soon enough felt sensation returning to my momentarily deadened dick. I began to speed up, first holding onto her hips as I built up momentum, and then leaning over her spine to kiss the back of her neck as I slid my hands around to cup her swaying tits for handholds.

Her slow, deep breaths sped up along with my thrusts, and as we started to really fuck a crooning moan crept into each exhalation. Hanging her head, she absorbed the sensations I was causing in her, and she probably didn't even notice when slid open my nightstand drawer, pulling out first a bottle of Astroglide and then a small vibrator.

DJ felt me pause with only my cockhead still inside her, and certainly would have felt the improved lubrication when I shoved my dick back up her butt with a fresh coating of Astroglide on it. But even if she'd heard the drawer, she certainly wasn't expecting it when in the middle of our renewed buttfuck I slid the vibrator into her snatch and then thumbed it on.

"Holy SHIT!" DJ squealed as she felt the new invader thrum to life. Her back arched, her head jerked back, and I felt her anal muscles clamp down around my other invader. But I didn't give her a moment to think about it as I rapidly sped up to full force, really pounding my cock in and out of her ass faster and harder than before, now that I had a little extra grease on my pole.

"Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck..." DJ took up the familiar chant, whipping her still-damp hair left and right. I held her hips with my left hand and drove the vibrator in and out of her snatch with the right, until she batted my hand away and took a grip on the buzzing sex toy, bracing her forehead against her left forearm and using her right hand to work the vibrator herself, which freed up both of my hands to grip her hips and really lay down the lumber.

I cornholed the hell out of my girlfriend then, grunting from the exertion while she screamed out first one and then a second cascading orgasm. And right when her second one started to wane, the spasms of her butt muscles around my slip-sliding shaft pulled my climax from me, and for the second time tonight my creamy spunk started filling up her colon.

"UNGH!" I grunted, feeling the blissful relief of complete release.

"NGH!" DJ whimpered beneath me, feeling jets of hot cum geyser up her ass.

I thrust forward with my entire being, right down to my toes as they dug into the floor and my heels came up off the floor. DJ fell forward too, her body collapsing across my bed and the vise-grip of her ass around my fully-imbedded dick taking me with her. And we wound up both face-down on the mattress, pressed together from head to toe as I finished flooding her anal cavity.

DJ's left hand snaked out and captured my own, interlacing our fingers with the back of her hand pressed against my palm. We both looked to that side, my cheek against the back of her head while she felt me crushing her body beneath mine. But she didn't complain about my weight, simply smiling in the aftermath of our orgasms. And as we both came down from our climactic highs, the violent intensity of our fuck gave way to the intimacy of our post-coital cuddle, unorthodox position though it may be.

Leaning over, I kissed her cheek tenderly. She turned her face back toward mine, straining a bit until I could give her another tender kiss, this one on her lips. And as she set her head back down with a sigh, she murmured, "I think we need another shower."

"Yes ... yes, we do."

"Goodie. I haven't gotten your cock in my mouth since this morning and I'm still hungry for a late-night protein snack."

Miracle of miracles, DJ and I did NOT have sex Tuesday morning. That Monday night romp apparently drained even my emergency reserve sex battery, hers too, and we both overslept.

Fortunately for us, Brooke was already up and making waffles. And fortunately for DJ, she didn't have a class until an hour after mine. I scrambled into my clothes and sent DJ down to do the same, and then I went to the dining table to find Kim had already set out a plate and a glass of orange juice for me.

"Thanks," I offered.

"Always," she replied with a shrug.

I scarfed most everything down in record time, even before DJ finished her morning routine and emerged from her bedroom. And right when the clock hit 8:45am, my zero barrier for getting out the door so I would get to class on time, Kim hefted her backpack and nodded to me. "Ready?"

I nodded, swallowing the food still in my mouth and looking regretfully at the last piece I was leaving behind. Hoisting the strap of my messenger bag over my shoulder, I stood up and gestured at the plate to Brooke. "Can you... ?"

My little sister nodded. "Got it."

DJ breezed into the room, just in time to see me off. She went up on her tiptoes to give me a quick kiss, saying, "Bye, lover."

I grinned. "Bye. I love you."

"I love you, too." My girlfriend beamed, her blue eyes sparkling. She then reached down for my plate, not yet taken away, and scooped up the last bit of waffle. With a smirk, she shoved it into my mouth, and then took me by the elbow and shoved me over toward Kim.

I grinned at her with a mouth full. "Shall we?"

It came out, "Shuhwee?"

With a chuckle, Kim reached up to poke my cheek, making me puff out a bit of air and a couple of waffle crumbs down onto my shirt.

I rolled my eyes and wiped my chest.

"Yes, it's your week to vacuum again."

I groaned and followed after.

"You alright? You look like you just ran a marathon," Sasha commented as I dropped heavily into the seat beside her much later on Tuesday afternoon. My forehead was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, my skin was pale, and my eyes were a bit sunken. Plus, my hand had picked up some sort of tremor that I couldn't stop.

"Something like that," I wheezed.

Sasha cocked an eyebrow, giving me an appraising look. "Well, at least let me pretend for a moment that you're sick or something. Like you finally caught that flu going around."

From the chair on the other side of me, Bert chuckled and shook his head. "He's not sick."

"I know that," Sasha sighed mournfully, shaking her head. "Just tell me this: Did DJ do this to you alone? Or have you two started, uh... 'opening' things up a bit?"

Rather than answer, I arched an eyebrow at her inquisitively, wondering if she REALLY wanted to know.

She blushed, for a moment looking like she'd rather just drop the question than continue the conversation. She turned to face forward, looking thoughtful, but after hesitating briefly, she turned back to me and said, "It's just that you look so ... so... wiped. I couldn't help but wonder if any one girl could do that to you – in which case you and DJ are a match made in heaven – or if it took more than just her to make you like this."

I glanced back at Bert, who shrugged at me with a look that plainly said, 'You're wondering what -I- think you should tell her?' And then with a sigh toward Sasha, I replied, "No comment."

She pouted, disappointed.

"If I tell you we had an extra girl, you're going to start wondering who."

"Oh, that's easy," Sasha waved me off. "I know Paige visits you on Tuesdays."

I blinked, my expression giving me away. Indeed, DJ had decided the best way to make up for not having sex with me this morning was to join me and Paige for a three-way this afternoon, fully intending to top our previous threesome. I have to admit the girls succeeded, hence my dilapidated state at present.

Sasha then looked down for a moment, working around in her head what she wanted to say. And after shooting a glance over to Bert as well as a quick look around the entire classroom, she leaned in to my ear and whispered very, very softly, "Maybe ... if she's interested ... your new girlfriend might be open to me."

I pulled my head back, plain shock evident on my face. Breathing deeply, Sasha turned to face forward with an inscrutable expression. And then after a moment's thought, she grabbed her backpack and got up, rushing out of the room just as Professor Rutledge was coming in, bumping the man on her way through the door without so much as a backwards glance.

We watched her go, and then Bert jabbed me in the arm. "Hey, what did you say to her?"

I shook my head. "You were right there. -I- didn't say a thing."

"Then what did SHE say to you?"

He got no answer but a shake from my head. Class was starting anyway.