Chapter 10: Based on Sex l

-- OCTOBER 2007 --

"Right pick, right pick!" I hollered.

I give Dawn credit for trying, but the reality was that she didn't play basketball very often and didn't instinctively know what to do with my warning. If she'd had time to think about it, she'd realize I was telling her that Bert had snuck into her blind spot on the right, setting a screen for his teammate. But she didn't have time to think about it, so when the ball-handler crossed over and dribbled to Dawn's right, she slammed right into Bert's chest and came to a dead stop.

No matter, I was prepared and set my defensive stance in the middle of the lane. Dribbling with her left hand, DJ curled around Bert's screen and grinned as she approached me. I briefly glanced at her tits – those beauties were squished together and put on display by her well-fitted low-cut sports bra – before lowering my gaze down to her belly button, knowing it would tip me off as to which direction she'd try to go to get to the hoop.

When DJ had first suggested we play basketball last month, I'd mentally told myself to take it easy on her. After all, she was a girl, and guys just don't go 100% against girls. Besides being unchivalrous, it simply wouldn't be fair – we're better than they are...

... mostly. I've no doubt a 6'3" WNBA star would wipe the court with my sorry ass, but I'd been pretty sure I was a much better basketball player than DJ. And even after we played, I confirmed that I indeed was a better basketball player than her ... but not by that much.

I was taller, stronger, could jump higher, and had played a lot of streetball. But DJ was athletic, coordinated, and had the fundamentals drilled into her by the high school team for a couple of years. I'd sorta forgotten about that last part. She knew what she was doing, could dribble with either hand, and had enough range to make a decent percentage of 3-pointers. After playing turnstile defense for the first few minutes and watching her score bucket after bucket after bucket, I'd been forced to take her seriously as a player and at least put out a little effort.

Tonight was the third time we'd played two-on-two in the last few weeks: me and Dawn versus DJ and Bert. I was a better player than Bert, but DJ was a better player than Dawn, and I wanted everyone to have fun much more than I wanted to hog the ball and single-handedly try to win. We won some, they won some, no big deal most of the time. But tonight DJ had caught fire, Bert was playing better than usual, and Dawn and I hadn't won a single game.

That was about to change. No more Mister Nice Guy, no more going out of my way to set Dawn up for a mid-range jumper at the expense of my easy layup. We'd gotten down 8-3 while playing to 11 straight-up (ones and twos) this last game, and dammit I was tired of losing.

Keeping the ball in her left hand, DJ first tried to drive past me on my right, but I shuffled my feet and cut her off. She quickly stepped back, giving herself a couple of feet of breathing room, gathered the ball with both hands, and jumped to take her shot.

I immediately lunged forward and leapt into the air, swinging my arm to swat the ball into the bleachers. But DJ instead flashed me a maddening grin, and from mid-air she bounced a pass just beyond my extended left foot, the ball going straight to Bert as he cut to the basket for an easy layup.

"9-3," DJ drawled smugly as she returned to the top of the key.

Now I was getting annoyed. Dawn checked the ball to DJ. Bert rather lazily circled the 3-point line to get the inbounds, and DJ nonchalantly passed it to him. Ordinarily I'd let them complete such a simple inbounds pass, but my competitive ire had been raised and I darted into the gap with my hand extended to cut it off...

... only the ball wasn't there. DJ had kept both hands on the ball during her passing motion, and she'd never let it go. My momentum from going for the steal carried me out beyond the 3-point line, leaving a HUGE opening for Bert to head for the basket, gather in the lob pass DJ had tossed over Dawn's head, and score another easy bucket.

"10-3!" DJ sang musically. "Game point!"

She got a little greedy just then. Had she given it her best effort, DJ probably could have scored on Dawn and ended the game then and there. But instead she called for a screen, solely to get me switched onto her defensively and bust the winning shot in my face. And after faking another drive, she stepped back behind the 3-point line and hoisted up what she hoped would be the final dagger.

No such luck. The ball clanged off the front iron, Dawn boxed out Bert (and he didn't try very hard to get around her), and I gathered in the rebound. DJ was still shaking her head over the missed 3-pointer, so she didn't react quickly enough when I raced out to the line and just as quickly raced back in toward the hoop for an easy layup of my own.

"4-10," I growled challengingly as I motioned for Dawn to inbound from the top of the key.

Giving me a silly grin, my best friend rather lazily moved to underhand the ball to me. Now it was DJ's turn to recognize the opportunity for a steal, and she darted to her left to cut the ball off...

... only the ball wasn't there. Dawn had held onto the ball, waited for me to cut, and swiftly sent me a chest pass. Bert was still guarding me and stuck to his assignment, but as he moved into a defensive stance against my back, Dawn ran right past him and neatly caught the short lob I'd tossed backwards over my head.

"5-10," Dawn announced after she watched her layup fall through the net and bounce right into her waiting arms. Sticking her tongue out at her little sister, my teammate added, "Payback's a bitch."

DJ rolled her eyes, stood at the free throw line, and held her hand out to check the ball. Three seconds later, I jab-faked to put Bert on his heels and swished a 3-pointer (worth 2 in this scoring system) from the left wing, making the score 7-10. A few seconds after that, I lowered my shoulder and drove past Bert for a tough layup to make it 8-10. Next, I planned to drain another 3-pointer (again worth 2) to make it 10-all, and then I figured I could easily find just one more bucket to win the game.

At least that was the plan. My 3-pointer was off-left and bricked out of bounds. DJ next tried a driving hook shot that wasn't even close. Then, I drove into a double-team and probably should have passed the ball to Dawn for an open look, but my ego made me instead put up a well-contested jumper that just barely rimmed out. And after DJ raced around another screen, instead of doing another bounce pass to a cutting Bert, she put up a jumper that I got a hand on and deflected away.

For the next three minutes, DJ and I took turns trying and failing to single-handedly take over the game. We hustled after rebounds, outworked our opponents, and yet never quite managed to put the ball through the hoop. After she attempted three straight drives against Dawn to end the game, I told my best friend to switch defense with me. And after another minute or two Dawn and Bert basically decided to stand off to one side and just watch me and DJ go one-on-one. Seriously, they didn't even bother to inbound the ball with us. DJ and I simply checked it to each other and just went from there.

One-on-one, there was really no way DJ could have won the game. I was taller, stronger, and faster than her. Driving, she had a limited set of moves and no real underhand scoop to speak of, so I pretty much could block any of her close-range layup attempts. If she tried to back me down in the post, I would enjoy having her ass pushed up against my crotch and knew I would be in perfect position to block her turnaround fade. And if she stayed on the perimeter, I more or less got right up in her grill so that she'd have no chance of getting off a clean shot. No more taking it easy on her because she was a girl.

My 8-10 deficit became 9-10 when I drove right, put a spin move on her, and laid it in with my left hand. I got to 10-all with a short stop-and-pop just in front of the free throw line. And though I bricked my own attempt at a 3-pointer to win it all, her subsequent attempt to stick her ass against my crotch and back me down into an awkward hook shot was well off the mark.

But the rebound bounced straight to Bert, who was still standing off to the side. He calmly corralled the ball, and instead of passing it to me so I could check the ball in against DJ, he set his back foot and sent a neatly spinning 10-foot shot straight through the hoop.

"11-10! We win!" DJ crowed with her fists thrust up into the air.

"You win? What are you talking about? Bert's not even playing anymore!" I gathered up the ball and set it against my hip.

DJ frowned at me. "When did we decide that? Bert and Dawn were certainly in all the other games we played today. They were certainly playing for the first 18 points of this game. Just because neither of us has passed the ball in the last five minutes doesn't mean they're not playing. This is two-on-two, he's my teammate, and he just scored off my miss!"

I rolled my eyes. "They stopped playing when they stopped playing. If this is two-on-two, then neither of us can dribble off the checked ball without an inbounds. None of those last few points would have counted."

DJ sighed. "Fine, none of those points counted. Back to 8-10, Dawn and Bert start playing again, and it's our ball."

"What? No-no-no. This became personal when it became one-on-one. 10-10, you and me, next point wins. And you missed a hook shot that would've gone out of bounds, so it's MY ball." I went to the top of the key, bounced the ball to DJ, and gestured for her to check it back to me.

DJ fixed me with a skeptical look as she scoffed, "Such a manly man that you need your ego inflated by beating a girl?"

"Don't pull the sexism card with me. You're not some helpless maiden in distress. You wanna take your cheap win and walk home? Fine. See if that gives you any satisfaction."

"Well maybe I have to take my satisfaction where I can get it, because somebody here refuses to give ME any!"

"Deej!" Dawn barked a warning, her eyes looking around the indoor court, full of echoes. It was evening on a Friday night and not as crowded as it could have been, but there were still plenty of people within earshot.

DJ sighed and shook her head. "Do YOU really need the satisfaction of beating me in a one-on-one game of basketball? Really?"

"After losing every single game today? I wouldn't mind, yeah."

"Then, fine. Check. Go get your win." DJ bounced the ball to me, got into her defensive stance, and gave me an expectant look.

I faked a step left, dribbled right, and sprinted right past her. But instead of going with me, DJ dispassionately watched me go by. She didn't move her feet or even bother to turn around. Sensing her lack of defense, instead of finishing the layup I grabbed the ball with both hands and walked back to her. "What gives?"

Suddenly smirking at me, DJ popped her eyebrows. "Nothing. All I did was stand still and hope you'd do exactly what you just did."

"Do what?"

"You traveled. Turnover. My ball." Still smirking, DJ snatched it out of my hands.

"Wha--?" I frowned, caught in a stupor. DJ checked me the ball; I checked it back and got into my own defensive stance. But still caught up in my stupor, I wasn't prepared for her to immediately set her feet and hoist up a shot right then and there. Too late to defend it, I turned to watch the ball arc through the air, impact the square on the backboard, and bank right through the hoop.

"Nice game. I win," DJ drawled smugly, even reaching out to shake my hand before strutting over to Bert. "C'mon, teammate. Tonight, drinks are on them."

Drinks were free, of course. Sure, everyone in our group was old enough to enter a bar, but why pay for overpriced cocktails around other guys who might hit on our girls when we could relax and enjoy ourselves at home?

In this case, it was Bert and Lynne's home that we all went to after the game, a second-floor apartment on Durant within easy walking distance of both the campus and the BART station, and not too far from the family Berkeley house, either. While Bert was only starting the second year of his MBA program, Lynne had already received her Master's degree and found a job in Richmond. She'd been working late on a project tonight but still beat us to the apartment, having already opened a bottle of red wine and settled in to relax after the work week.

"Hey there, stranger," Lynne greeted me at the door, a mock expression of surprise on her face. "What is this now, three weeks in a row?"

I chuckled and nodded. When we'd first come by her apartment, Lynne gave me a bunch of crap about not visiting more often while I reminded her that the BART traveled in both directions. But despite not spending a significant amount of time together over the past year, I knew that my friendships with Bert and Lynne were the kind that would never require frequent visits. We'd see each other whenever we saw each other; and we'd feel just as comfortable around each other after a long absence as we would if we'd met up only yesterday. Lifelong friends are like that, you know?

Still, getting Bert to come out and play basketball made for a good excuse to visit, and I leaned in to peck her cheek while she likewise pecked mine.

Looking past my shoulder, Lynne then stepped forward to greet her fiancé with a kiss, but pushed him away when he tried to get a hug. "Go take a shower you sticky, smelly man," she laughed while he settled for tickling her in the ribs. We really weren't that sticky anymore, the sweat having dried off and cooled on the walk over in the chilly October evening air. And besides, we'd all put on clean shirts, so I wasn't worried about soiling Lynne's couch or anything.

Bert obediently toddled off to go take a shower while Dawn, DJ, and I went to take seats on the couch. Lack of "girlfriend" title or not, Dawn wasn't shy about cuddling up beside me while graciously accepting Lynne's offer of a glass of wine. But while DJ couldn't help but notice her sister's intimate position by my side, she honestly didn't seem to mind. She got a glass of her own and proceeded to spell out the details of her triumphant basketball victory over Team Evil, having gone undefeated on the day and beating me one-on-one in the final game.

No one had eaten yet, so I ordered pizza delivery. I took the good natured ribbing I deserved at having been outsmarted by a girl and promised sweet revenge the next time we played. And the four of us settled into an amiable conversation as we caught each other up on the past week.

Lynne, of course, wanted to know what Adrienne was up to. My fiancée was in Paris this weekend, and they'd given her a companion ticket so she'd taken Sasha with her. Brandi and Dayna were on baby duty tonight since June had come over to visit Kim. Brooke was out with Andrew on a Friday night date, and the twins spent most evenings with their friends, period.

When the pizza and wine were gone (along with a six-pack of Coronas), Dawn, DJ, and I bid the young couple adieu and walked back to "our" house.

"You're not still mad about losing, are you?" DJ asked me as we ascended the steps onto the porch while Dawn fished out her house key.

"Me? Nah. I'm annoyed, to be sure, but not 'mad'. I'll get you guys next time."

"Good to know. I love the competition and all, but I feel like we've been making a lot of progress in our friendship, and I don't want any sore feelings over some game affecting the way we treat each other."

I shrugged. "Since when have I ever been the kind of guy to have lasting sore feelings over something trivial like a game?"

"Well..." DJ drawled while unzipping her Nike warm-up jacket and hanging it up on the hallway coat rack. "There was that one time we played chess together my freshman year and you weren't too happy about losing. I started teasing you mercilessly and you bent me over your knee to spank my ass."

I snorted while eyeing her freshly-exposed cleavage squished together by her sports bra. "Don't think I was actually upset about that. Just wanted the excuse to spank you. And don't pretend that you didn't love it at the time."

DJ stuck her tongue out at me and turned around, bending at the waist and bracing her hands on her left knee to give me a good look at her amazing ass encased in her skintight black workout pants. "It wasn't the spanking itself I really loved so much. It's what you did to me after you spanked me that I loved."

I felt my balls twitch at the heat in the lovely young blonde's voice, the sight of her spandex-clad ass, and the memory of the night she'd brought to mind. "Yeah, that was a pretty fun night. I shoulda lost at chess to you more often."

Standing up straight, DJ shrugged and continued on toward the stairs. "Well now you lose to me at basketball often enough to make up for it." She glanced back at me with a suggestive waggle in her eyebrows.

I sighed and shook my head. "Doesn't matter. I'm not gonna get payback the way I used to."

DJ stopped and turned around, arching an eyebrow. "Well maybe you could get the same kind of payback if you really wanted..."

I frowned and muttered, "Please don't tease me."

"Who's teasing?" Planting her hands on her hips, DJ stood erect and thrust her chest at me.

"You are. We've talked about this, about redefining our relationship into one that's not based on sex."

"Easy for you to say. I haven't had sex in a month while you're still getting laid as often as you want."

"And you can, too. There are thousands of guys on this campus who would kill for a chance to be with you."

Sighing and shaking her head, "But only one that -I- really want to be with. And I can't have him."

I sighed. "We've talked about that, too. I love you, DJ, and I'll always love you. But I can't give you the dedicated, center-of-my-universe kind of relationship you want, not at this stage of my life. If all you wanted was to be a harem girl and enjoy some fun like Dayna, that would be one thing. But you'd be lying to yourself if you said that was all you needed, and you deserve better than to settle for something less."

Turning away from me, DJ hugged herself and headed for the stairs again. "You're right, of course. It would be so easy to convince myself it wouldn't mean anything: just you scratching that itch for me to tide me over for another few days..."

"But we both know it would mean more than that."

"And what if I've changed my mind? What if I've decided we can work on being platonic friends again after I've found myself a new boyfriend who can scratch these itches for me?" Two steps up the stairs, DJ turned around to face me as she reached down and pulled her sports bra up and over her head with a fluid crossover motion. Her big beautiful breasts bounced free and settled into perfectly shaped firm teardrops high on her chest, hard pink nipples staring me right in the eyes.

I groaned as my balls twitched again, my quarter-hard cock thickening past half-hard almost immediately. "Deej..."

"You could do that for me, couldn't you? As long as it's what I really want?"

"Is it?"

Biting her lower lip, DJ glanced past me at Dawn, who stood silently beside me with her eyes clicking back and forth between us. DJ's gaze returned to me as she explained, "It's been a month since you made me go celibate, a month without cock, and even the Ben Juniors can't completely satisfy me. Can we just make tonight 'not count' or something? Can you just help make my mind go blank for a couple of hours? You're good at that, no matter what interpersonal turmoil might be going on between us. That's all that happened last time after I dumped Doug's cheating ass, and things have gone pretty well since then, right? We've been developing a good friendship based on things other than sex."

"But if you use me for sex tonight, that resets us right back to Square One."

DJ shook her head. "I don't care. We'll work it out again in the morning. Tonight I need you, alright? You can even bend me over your knee and spank me again."

I groaned once more, my cock now fully hard. But I tore my gaze away from DJ's naked torso and took a deep breath. "You know we can't. Tease or no tease, this is a test for both of us – our first real test to see if we'd fall back into old habits of convenient, opportunistic sex. And if we fail this test tonight, how much easier will it be to fail the next, and the next, and the next? I don't want to start a cycle we'll never get out of. I care about you too much to trap you like that."

"Trap me?"

I shook my head slowly and turned back to look at her, this time keeping my eyes firmly on her face. "I have to let you go, and you have to let go of me. You said you wish you could stop needing me, stop being in love with me, and that's not gonna happen if I... 'scratch your itch' ... every time a craving hits."

"These itches aren't about love so much as plain fucking horniness..."

"Perhaps, but deep down you don't really want me to give in. That would mean my lust for you was more important than my love for you, and you'd rather know that I can continue to be your friend and love you the way I always promised I would. You need me to prove that I'll still love you just as much, and care about your interests just as much, and want to be around you just as much, even though you're not bending over for me every time I want you to. Then and only then will you believe that our relationship isn't based solely on how awesome the sex is."

Sighing heavily, DJ crossed her arms over her chest, this time covering her naked boobs from view. "You're right, you're right," she muttered before pressing her lips together and sighing with sagging shoulders.

"I promised I'd love you like a brother, like Family, and that means considering what's really best for you above my fondness for your hot, sexy, incredible body." I let my eyes yo-yo up and down that fantastic half-naked physique for emphasis.

"Hmph." DJ put her hands back on her hips, revealing her impressive bosom to me once more. "I'm not sure whether to be glad you care about me so much to say no, or peeved that you actually can turn down this hot body when I'm throwing myself at you. Girl's got her ego to protect after all."

"Well," I winced. "To be honest, if I'd gone more than a month without sex like you have, there's no way I'd be able to say no. Plus, it's much easier for me to turn you down when Dawn's standing right here by my side, and I know she would be more than happy to help me out with my not-so-little problem."

DJ smirked as she stared straight at the tent in my basketball shorts. "I'm sure that having her beside you is the ultimate easy way out for you, and I'm sure she would be more than happy to help you out, but unfortunately she won't be able to do that for you tonight."

I frowned, not understanding. "Huh?"

DJ's smirk widened into a smug grin. "Dawn and I made a little bet before that final game. We all knew you two hadn't won a game all night, and she said that your competitive spirit would kick in to make sure that you guys won no matter what, while I assured her that Bert and I would win. So we made a bet, a bet that -I- won, and Dawn's the prize."

"Wait, what?"

"Dawn's the prize, so I get to keep her tonight. A bet's a bet."

"Waitaminute! I never agreed to this bet!"

DJ shook her head. "I never bet with you; I bet with her. She's not your girlfriend, and even if she was, you don't own her. She lost, so she has to be my sexual slave and spend the night with me tonight."

"But ... but..." Wide-eyed, I turned to gawk at my best friend.

Dawn stared at her feet sheepishly, her face bright pink. "Sorry. I never thought we'd actually lose that last game. I would've rather enjoyed having her as my sexual slave tomorrow after you're gone."

Stepping back down onto the main floor, DJ reached out with one hand to grab Dawn's elbow and tug my best friend over to the stairs. The motion made DJ's big tits jiggle nicely, drawing my attention for just a moment.

"We're both sweaty and grimy," DJ drawled, "so we're gonna start with a shower together. Then we're gonna take our time drying each other off before retiring to my big bed and buckling her into a Ben Junior strap-on, all while leaving my bedroom door WIDE open so you can hear. If you want, you're welcome to come in, watch, and jerk off; but you know you're not allowed to touch me, and since she's my sexual slave tonight, I can order her to not touch you, either."

I groaned and sagged my shoulders. "Seriously?"

"A bet's a bet," DJ repeated smugly.

Rolling my eyes, I muttered, "You know I could just go home and get laid there. Or even pay a spontaneous visit to the Tri-Delt Chapter House."

DJ shrugged. "You could, but then you'd basically be telling me that your sexual gratification is more important than proving to me you'll continue to love me the way you promised even without a safety valve like Dawn helping you flush the pipes. Go ahead ... get laid ... and show me that you can only resist fucking me if there's a convenient other body to lie beneath you."

I clapped a hand over my forehead and groaned. "Laying on the guilt trip pretty thick, aren't you?"

"Perhaps. But are you gonna deny the truth in what I'm saying?"

"I'm staying, I'm staying, alright?"

DJ smirked again. "Don't feel so glum. Your abstinence tonight only makes our friendship stronger."

"Yeah, yeah, stop rubbing it in."

"Besides," DJ continued. "If you bailed, you'd be leaving Dawn without her weekly shagging – the same weekly shagging -I- have to listen to every weekend without being allowed to join in just to prove your stupid point about maintaining a relationship not based on sex. You could never do THAT to her, right?"

"I already said I'm staying, dammit!" Shooting her a dirty look, I shook my head and turned to head back into Dawn's bedroom to grab my towel and a change of clothes for my own shower.

But before I got away, DJ suddenly tugged on MY elbow. A moment later, her arms snaked around my neck as she shoved those big naked melons into my chest and planted a fat kiss right on my lips. She moaned and hummed in obvious heat, raising a leg around my hips as she began to grind her pelvis against the bulge in my shorts. But just as suddenly as she'd started the kiss, she broke it off and backed away.

"I DO love you for this, and thank you for staying and showing me that you care," she stated sincerely.

"I do," I assured her, still blinking in surprise at the kiss.

With a coy smile, DJ took Dawn's hand in hers and started up the stairs. Dawn gave me a helpless shrug and an apologetic look, but she followed along. I watched them go out of sight, remaining rooted to my spot on the floor until I heard the shower turn on, followed by feminine giggling. And only then did I turn around to take a shower of my own.

I did NOT go upstairs to watch and jerk off. Instead I remained downstairs, cleaning myself up and then watching TV, trying VERY hard (and failing) to not listen to the noise.

Erections are interesting things. They're very hard to control and act as if they have a mind of their own. It's nearly impossible to mentally "will" a penis to become hard if it doesn't want to, and almost as difficult to mentally "will" it to remain hard if it doesn't want to. Generally-speaking, a penis responds to a physical stimulus by increasing blood flow and becoming hard, and similarly responds to a mentally erotic stimulus in the same way.

And then you have erections like the one I got that night, the kind that get hard and stay hard without any kind of mental OR physical stimulus and sorta refuse to go away. There are pharmaceutical advertisements that warn men to see their doctor if they ever have an erection lasting more than four hours, but what would I tell a doctor about an erection I couldn't get rid of without having taken any funky pills?

Okay, that's an exaggeration; I didn't keep the same erection for more than four hours or anything. I'd sorta get an erection, slowly let it go away, and would then get another erection a few minutes later ... all without any physical or mental stimulus.

Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, too. My penis really didn't have any physical stimulus, unless you count the almost imperceptible stimulation of my junk moving against the fabric of my boxer shorts each time I adjusted my position on the couch, which I don't. But I did have a little mental stimulus, since DJ did leave her bedroom door wide open. And while I tried very hard to ignore the noises floating down the stairs, I sorta failed to do so completely.

But still, even the occasional feminine moan or orgasmic cry shouldn't have been enough to keep me getting hard off and on over and over again for more than an hour. After the life I'd led, and after all the great actual sex I'd had, you'd think a few distant moans wouldn't be enough to keep my motor running for that long.

Of course, there was the knowledge of who those distant moans belonged to: two of the hottest, sexiest, most physically AND emotionally attractive young women I'd ever known. Listening to the two of them gasp and sigh and groan and cry out in orgasmic ecstasy would make it easy for anyone to imagine what the pair of them were doing to each other. Making things even harder for me (pun intended), was that I didn't even have to imagine what they were doing to each other – I vividly remembered. I also vividly remember what the THREE of us had done together in that very same bedroom a month ago. And instead of sitting in my San Francisco apartment surrounded by wet and willing women waiting to worship my weapon of wonder, I was all alone in an otherwise empty house with nothing to assist me but my right hand.

Big Ben, Sex God™ was horny. Big Ben, Sex God™ wanted to get laid. Big Ben, Sex God™ wasn't used to being unable to get laid. And dammit, Big Ben, Sex God™ doesn't masturbate himself anymore.

So you'll understand that despite my best efforts to drown my consciousness in the white noise of television, I couldn't help but let my ears perk up to the sounds of Dawn and DJ fucking the shit out of each other. And every time I did, my still-hadn't-gotten-to-ejaculate penis kept raising his little head in the fruitless hope that he wouldn't finally get to do so.

Thankfully, even Dawn and DJ couldn't keep going forever. After a while, the distant moaning petered out. And while a few faint giggles could still be heard every now and again, it definitely seemed like the girls were finished with each other.

It means they're ready and waiting for you. Dawn and DJ aren't lesbians, which means their notion of sexual satisfaction still requires a cock... your cock, to be specific. And in this state of hazy, hormone-flushed arousal, DJ really won't give a shit about little concerns like the currently (stupidly) platonic nature of your relationship. Go up there, plug it in, and you know she'll only be singing your praises.

I'm not worried about whether or not she'll be singing my praises WHILE I'm fucking her. It's the aftermath of crossing the line that I'm worried about. We're finally getting our friendship back together, and the last thing I want to do is reset back to Square One.

No, the LAST thing you want to do is spend the night in this house alone and unfucked. So get your ass up there and go FUCK something.

I can't.

Pussy. Seriously, with that attitude, the only pussy you're gonna get tonight is yourself.

Shut the fuck up.

Look down at him ... poor guy ... straining so hard to climb out of your pajama pants. It's pitiful. It's sad ... so sad ... He just wants to be free, man...

Shut UP.

But the little voice inside my head was right, and the little head inside my pants wanted out. I glanced down at the tent in my lap, sighing in resignation.

Sorry, buddy, but it's only one night. I'm sure Dawn will make it up to you in the morning.

Just then, my ears picked up a noise very different from a feminine moan. It was the sound of a key jiggling in the front door lock, and I glanced at the clock to check the time while wondering who had just come home.

My baby sister Eden came around the corner into the living room, her twin Emma right behind. Both girls jumped in surprise when they saw me. "Hey," I greeted them with a little wave.

"What are you doing here?" Eden barked in lieu of a similar greeting, a hand placed on her chest over her rapidly-beating heart.

I frowned. "I've come over every Friday night for like the last month."

"No, what are you doing out here." Eden gestured around the living room. "Aren't you and Dawn usually in her room fucking each other's brains out by now?"

"Oh. That." I sighed wearily while pointing at the ceiling. "Long story short: I lost at basketball so DJ gets to keep Dawn for the night."

The girls shared a glance before Emma turned to me with an arched eyebrow and a disbelieving expression. "That makes NO logical sense."

Rubbing my face, I sighed again and shrugged. "Yeah, well, a bet's a bet. Now it's just me and my hand tonight."

With a matching arched eyebrow, Eden glided into the living room and circled around to my side of the couch while Emma followed a second later. In all this time, the horniness I felt after listening to Dawn and DJ for the past hour had never faded. The anxiety I felt at being so close to getting laid without being able to actually do so still remained. And the obvious tent in my shorts had never gone down. Big Ben still wanted out, and he may have even sniffed the scent of fresh pussy, because even though Eden and Emma were my twin baby sisters, they were also beautiful young women.

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which means that each person decides for him or herself what is beautiful, and any two people might very well disagree. In that sense, the person I am today is different from the person I was years ago, and the two versions of me can very well have different opinions regarding the type of woman they each find sexually attractive.

For example, when I was a 15-year-old virgin, I was surrounded by female classmates who were likewise in their teenage years, and therefore still growing into what would become their adult bodies. Skinny frames, narrow hips, and coltish legs were far more prevalent around me than developed curves, and the faces of the girls I found attractive were still in transition from child-like roundness to adult definition. Those teenage girls were the examples of female beauty around me, and I had no trouble fantasizing about fucking their nubile bodies every time I closed my eyes.

But time had changed me. Growing up, going to college, finishing school, and moving on into the adult world had changed my perceptions of beauty. Meeting (and fucking) grown women like Taylor Brynn and "Angelica" from Nocturne had redefined what I found sexually attractive. Sure, I had always liked big boobs, but now I liked elegant posture, curvy hips, and maturely-defined faces. A high school girl in jeans and a t-shirt would instantly turn me on when I was fifteen and wearing jeans and a t-shirt myself, but now I'd come to appreciate pencil skirts, fitted blouses, and complicated hairstyles. Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder, but the beholder himself had grown up.

Nowadays I might come across the same kind of 15-year-old girl I would have fantasized about in my youth, but instead of beholding her as a prime example of female beauty, I would see only an underdeveloped little girl not yet blossomed into the flower of womanhood. The very idea of having sex with her would now curdle my stomach instead of fuel my loins, and I'd wonder what I'd ever seen before in a girl like that. Seriously, teenage girls just looked so... young.

Now all of this is just to explain a fundamental shift in my way of defining attractiveness in the opposite sex. In short: adult woman = sexy; gawky teenager = not as sexy anymore. Coming back to the UC Berkeley campus after more than a year since my graduation, I noticed this distinction right away. The school was full of girls I would have found perfectly fuckable when I myself was a student, and most of them I continued to find eminently doable; I was still only 23 myself, and a well-dressed, well-developed 18-year-old hottie could still quite easily turn my head. But I also noticed that a lot of freshmen and sophomore girls weren't quite as caught up to their peers in terms of physical maturity, or even just manner of dress (still in their high school jeans and t-shirts). After more than a year of living and working in downtown San Francisco, socializing with older co-workers and the lingerie models Adrienne called friends, I simply didn't get very aroused by the sight of underdeveloped freshmen girls in baggy Cal hoodies and jeans.

Unfortunately, Eden and Emma were NOT those kinds of freshmen girls. The only Cal-branded clothing they owned were hand-me-downs from Brandi and Brooke, the sort of "old" clothes they couldn't bring themselves to throw away but would never choose to wear out in public either. Having grown up around older sisters and modeling their fashion choices after Brandi's, Adrienne's, and Brooke's, the twins always dressed to impress and wouldn't be caught dead in an unflattering sweatshirt or ill-fitting jeans. And I've already mentioned more than once that they had physically developed much earlier – and much more – than either Brooke or Brandi.

The twins wouldn't turn 18 until December, but the way their bodies had filled out, and the way they dressed and wore makeup, it would be easy for them to pass for 21 with the right I.D. At 5'9", they'd grown up to be the tallest of all my sisters. Their breasts were the biggest, their hips were the widest, and one could say that apart from their hair color and some facial features, they physically had more in common with the Evans sisters than with Brooke or Brandi. So in my sexually-deprived/still-horny state, it was easy to watch them sashay around to my side of the couch and view them not as 17-year-old teenagers, but as sexually-attractive (and sexually viable) young women.

"Poor guy," Eden clucked motheringly as she sat down beside me, her eyes zeroing in on the tent in my lap. "So sad ... It looks like he's trying to climb out of your pajama pants."

That's what -I- said.

Shut up, you.

I quickly sat up straight and leaned forward while clasping my hands together over my bulge in an effort to better conceal it while perhaps only drawing more attention to it.

"Must be rough," Emma chimed in with a little smile as she sat on the coffee table. "You're not used to being left alone like this, especially with Dawn and DJ right upstairs. Why the hell would you ever make a bet like that?"

I scowled. "-I- didn't even make the bet. Dawn did."

"She bet herself?"

"Not important." I waved the girls off and took a deep breath. "I'd rather see this as an opportunity to spend some quality time with you two."

"Mmm..." Eden breathed in a husky tone, still staring at my bulge. "It's been a LONG time since you spent quality time like that with us."

I clapped my hands down tighter over the tent. "Not that kind of quality time and you know it."

"Phooey." Eden stuck her tongue out at me, and all of a sudden the sexually-attractive young woman visage evaporated into the image of my bratty baby sister. I started to breathe again, and I could feel my erection begin to fade.

"I'm serious," I said. "It feels like it's been ages since I got to talk to you."

Emma shrugged. "You're never here."

"You're never here, it seems," I shot back. "I've visited more in the past month than ever before, including a couple of school nights, and you two are always out."

"We hang out with our friends. This house is really just somewhere to sleep and stash all our clothes."

"But don't you guys ever have to study?"

Eden shrugged. "We study with our friends, too."

"Not tonight you didn't. Not in dresses like that." Both of them wore skimpy LBD dresses that really showed off their legs and emphasized their big and yet still-growing bosoms.

"Well no, not tonight. It's a Friday."

I glanced at the clock. "Then what brings you two here tonight? It's too early on a Friday night for a college freshman to be going to sleep."

The girls exchanged a look and Emma sighed. "Eden's got boy trouble."

"Emma!" Eden protested.

"What? You wanted to ask for older sibling advice, but Brooke's obviously not here, otherwise she'd be taking care of Ben's not-so-little problem. And if there's anyone in this family who knows about relationship issues, it's Ben. He's certainly been through more of them than anyone else."

"On the guy's side. He obviously doesn't understand what it's like from the girl's side, otherwise he wouldn't have had so many failures."

"Hey!" I protested. "Who's the only one in this family currently engaged?"

Eden rolled her eyes. "That just states the obvious that Adrienne would never, ever refuse you anything, including marriage. It doesn't mean you 'understand women'." She raised her hands to mime the air quotes.

"Maybe that's a good thing," Emma suggested. "Maybe Ben could give you unbiased insight into what's going through Andrew's head?"

I blinked. "Wait, Andrew? Brooke's boyfriend?"

"No, of course not Brooke's boyfriend," Eden drawled condescendingly. "Different Andrew, but I get how that could be confusing."

"I'm just saying," Emma continued, "that when you cut past the hormones and the peer pressure from his buddies, you might realize that Andrew really does like you for you."

"If he liked me for me, then he'd listen to me better."

"He's a stupid boy thinking with his little head. Now that doesn't excuse his behavior or mean you have to forgive him, but ... Ben'll tell you ... it's HARD for a guy like that to ignore his little head."

"Wait-wait-wait," I interrupted. "Exactly what are we talking about here?"

Eden shrugged and gave me a 'well, duh' look. "Sex, of course."

Closing my eyes and waving my hands, I shook my head and said, "No-no-no. You two are NOT talking to me about sex."

"Why not? It's like your Field of Expertise."

"No-no-no," I protested again. "We haven't seen each other much and I'd love to talk to you both and I get that Eden's got some issue going on with some boy named Andrew who's not Brooke's boyfriend ... but we are NOT talking about sex."

"This is college. We're not little kids anymore," Eden insisted.

"I'm aware that you're in college. And I'm only too aware that you've moved out of Mommy and Daddy's house, that you're all grown up, and that you're old enough to do grown-up things. But you're still my baby sisters, and the mere thought of you two doing grown up things with pimply-faced 18-year-old dweebs pisses me off."

"Andrew's not a pimply-faced dweeb," Eden drawled. "He's a Senior linebacker on the football team, almost as old as you are."

My eyes popped open wide. "That's even worse. You're still seventeen, Eed, and only two months into your first year of college. I don't even WANT to think about you getting taken advantage of by some older football jock."

"And I didn't," Eden stated proudly, maybe even a little smugly as she shot Emma an I-told-you-so look. "Look, Andrew's cute and muscly and the mere sight of him makes me all squishy inside, but deep down I know he's just a hotshot jock looking for the next freshman football groupie to go down on him."

Emma shook her head. "If all he wanted was a football groupie blowjob, Ashley woulda given him one in a heartbeat. He was staring at you all night, and Marcus spent half an hour telling me how Andrew hasn't been able to shut up about you all week."

"Marcus is trying to get into your panties," Eden shot back. "Talking about Andrew is just a ploy for him to spend more time with you and get you to trust him when really he just wants you flat on your back with that skirt hiked up to your waist so he can--"

"Seriously," I interrupted. "Can we please not talk about this stuff?"

Eden shot Emma another look. "See? Told ya he still can't think of us being old enough for sex stuff."

"Fine, fine," Emma grumped.

I rubbed my forehead while grimacing in pain. "It's not that I don't think you're old enough. I know you are, and I'm not even gonna pretend you two aren't sexually active. But I'm your big brother, and a big brother must maintain some illusion of his baby sister's innocence."

Eden arched her eyebrow. "You weren't thinking very much about my innocence when you were on top of me in that cabin at Big Bear."

I rubbed my forehead again. "That was years ago."

"When I was even younger."

"It wasn't meant to be."

"Because Dawn made a phone call," Eden groaned before smirking at her sister. "Good thing we got our revenge on her, didn't we?"

Emma giggled as the twins exchanged mischievous glances.

I looked back and forth between them, tried to let it go, and failed. "Fine, I'll bite. 'Revenge'?"

Eden's eyes sizzled as tried to shrug nonchalantly, putting on an air of indifference as she pointedly looked off to the side. "Oh, nothing you want to hear about..."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, now ready to let it go. "Fine then. Don't tell me."

Eden frowned and gave me a challenging stare as she explained anyway, "The first week we moved up here, I told her she owed me for that phone call. We tied her up, bent her over face-down, and handcuffed her wrists behind her back. Emma and I both wore strap-on Ben Juniors and DP'd the hell out of her."

I grimaced and held a hand up. "Really, I don't want to hear--"

"We started by spit-roasting her, with Emma's dong in her throat and mine in her cunt from behind," Eden continued, ignoring my protest. "By the end, she wound up cowgirl on top of Emma, feeding her swollen tits to your dear baby sister while I spanked the hell out of her the whole time I was plugging up her ass. She couldn't even scream since we'd stuck a ball gag in her mouth."

"Jeezus, Eed."

Emma giggled and added, "She came buckets the whole fucking time. For a second there, I thought she might actually start lactating into my mouth."

"I really DON'T want to hear about it."

"We know, we know," Eden drawled before chiding in a mocking tone, "We're you're baby sisters and you're trying to maintain some illusion of our innocence even if we're anything but."

"I just..." I clenched my eyes shut, trying to get the visual of the twins and Dawn out of my head and failing miserably. "I just can't. I can't handle the idea of you two being sexual beings. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. We've heard this apology before," Eden muttered in annoyance, shaking her head with a sigh. "So after Big Bear, we sorta gave up on the whole thing."

"I'm glad."

Eden's eyebrow arched again. "Are you? Are you really glad I stopped chasing you?"

"Eden had this idea that you'd miss the attention and go after her," Emma drawled. "Like, us chasing you was what kept putting you on the defensive, so if we kept ourselves within reach but didn't push you, you'd get tempted into crossing the line yourself. Especially after having come so close to actual sex without actually doing it."

Frowning, Eden reached out, slapped her sister's upper arm, and shot her a dirty look for revealing that.

I shook my head. "You're my sisters," I explained.

"Like that ever stopped you with Brooke or Brandi," Eden grumped.

"You're my baby sisters. You're not even eighteen."

"Not eighteen yet," Eden clarified, a waggle in her eyebrows. "So what, once we become legal in the State of California, then it'll be okay to think of us as sexual beings like our older sisters?"

I shook my head. "It has nothing to do with you being legal or not."

"Says the guy who just complained that we're not even eighteen."

"It has nothing to do with the number of years you've existed on this planet, and it has everything to do with the fact that you're my baby sisters."

"But why? Mom talked to us about why she was okay with you getting Brooke's cherry but not ours. The age gap was part of it, but it was mostly about you being able to be around for Brooke that first year or so, seeing her every day and sharing those experiences together. With us, you were already in college 400 miles away and we wouldn't get to see you very often. Mom said, quite plainly, that being with you would ruin us for high school boys our own age, and that she wanted us to learn and develop socially like normal girls."

I shrugged. "And she was right, wasn't she?"

"She was ... emphasis on 'was'. Newsflash:" Eden snapped her fingers in front of my eyes. "We're not in high school anymore, we're not 400 miles away anymore, and we're not virgins anymore. We've developed socially just fine. So I have to ask: Why do Emma and I still have to be the only ones left out?"

"You're not in high school anymore, but I'm not in college anymore. I'm engaged and I've got a kid and a job and a whole life in San Francisco. We weren't in the same place in our lives three years ago when you turned fifteen, and we're not in the same place in our lives right now."

"You're not in the same place in your life as Brooke, either, but don't try to claim she wouldn't kneel right there on the floor at the snap of your fingers and suck you off while Dawn and DJ did their thing upstairs."

"Would you like us to do that right now for you?" Emma asked quietly, almost shyly, but with obvious earnest. "Just since Brooke isn't here to do it. You really look like you could use the relief."

Li'l Ben started to try and climb out of my pants again at that. But I took a deep, calming breath and clasped my hands over my lap again. "No, no thank you," I replied a little tightly, mentally forestalling the comment my little voice was about to make. "I'm not going to be so hypocritical as to accept something like that while telling you we can't do everything else."

"Why can't we do everything else?" Eden bitched. "What's really so different between us and Brooke? We're all your little sisters, so it's not the incest thing. And you say it's not about our age, so what gives?"

"What do you want from me?" I sighed, a little exasperated. "You just wanna fuck me and get it over with? You just want the Big Ben Experience everyone talked about so you can get your cookies and go about your college day?"

Eden grinned wolfishly. "I'll tell you straight up that if you'd screw my lights out once a week every time you came by to visit, I wouldn't have to bother dancing around guys like Andrew and Marcus from the football team or any of the other dozen boys all trying to get me into bed. I'd love it to have a reliable, dependable, experienced big brother who'd satisfy my sexual needs without the hassles of dating or the obligations of a relationship. Would that really be so bad? For either of us?"

"Is that all I'd be to you? A regular booty call? A living, breathing vibrator to scratch your itch?"

"You make that sound like it's a bad thing."

"I thought sex between us would mean more to you than just that."

"It would. You're my brother. I KNOW you love me, and always will. That's what would make it work so well for me. I couldn't get just any guy off the street and make him my regular booty call, because there wouldn't be anything special there. Not like it would be with you. Not like it IS for you and Brooke."

"But I'm NOT Brooke's booty call. You'll notice that most times I visit, she and I don't have sex. She's got her boyfriend for that."

"She still says you're better," Emma commented quietly.

"The point is: my relationship with Brooke is not based on sex. She's my sister, and we're very close – closer than I am with either of you, I'm afraid – and the sex between us is an extension of that relationship, not the source of it."

"So you're saying you won't have sex with us because you're not that close to us," Emma theorized.

I grimaced. "That's oversimplifying it, but kinda. Brooke and I developed our relationship over years. We've been integral parts of each other's lives for a long, long time. And the truth is, I've spent most of the past five years away from you two. We don't have the same kind of bond. You said yourself, Eden, that you'd given up chasing me, and that's alright. Because if we'd ever had sex in the last three years, it would have been almost entirely for physical lust without the deep-seated emotional connection you deserve."

Shaking her head, Eden folded her arms over her chest and grumped, "Screw emotional connection. I just want my big brother to fuck me silly the way he does everyone else in this family."

"Eed..." Emma intoned cautiously.

"Look, I'm not saying never," I hedged as Eden got up and paced away from the couch in a huff. "I'm just saying that I'd prefer you think of me as more than just a hookup, you know? I AM your brother, and I DO love you as my baby sister. Don't we deserve better than a relationship based on sex? Don't -I- deserve better than to be treated like a piece of meat?"

Eden narrowed her eyes at that, scowling for a bit before averting her gaze and looking just a little guilty.

"Of course you deserve better than that," Emma assured me, reaching out to touch my knee.

"You're NOT just a piece of meat to me. You're my brother. You're ... you're Ben," Eden sighed. "I just ... I mean ... After everything we've been through, all the things we've already done together, and the kinds of relationships you have with our sisters, am I not allowed to be hot and horny for you?"

I shrugged. "Of course you're allowed. But you have to admit, you haven't acted like it very much over the last couple of years. You said you'd given up on chasing me, and I honestly thought you'd outgrown your infatuation."

Shaking her head, Eden walked back to the couch and sat down again. I couldn't help but watch the way the hem of her dress rose up her long legs as she did so, and she smirked a little when she noticed. "Not outgrown it, but put it on the back burner, yeah. Like you said, we've been at different places in our lives. The last couple of years of high school ... well..." She shared another glance, and another smirk, with Emma.

I grimaced with my eyes shut and waved my hands again. "Doonnn't want to hear it," I complained, momentarily thinking about June's use of the same phrase.

Emma giggled, and she gave me a naughty look that made me seriously question her innocence.

"The point is," Eden continued, "we may still be at different places in our lives – you working and BJ and Kim and all that, and Em and I just starting college – but at least we're no longer geographically in different places. You've already proven that San Francisco isn't really so far away with how often you've been coming to visit, and even if we never had the same kind of time and opportunity to build a relationship with you the way Brooke did, things can still change."

I nodded. "Of course they can. I'd be thrilled if they did."

Eden and Emma exchanged another look, and this time both twins started to grin. "Alrighty then," Eden began, seeming to be much more enthused. "Prepare to see a lot more of us around than you have been lately, because the three of us have some catching up to do with you."

I smiled warmly. "I look forward to it. It's really been too long since I got to spend much time with my little rugrats."

"We're not rugrats anymore," Emma said coyly, tilting her head while fiddling with the spaghetti strap over her shoulder in a way that was much too flirty to be coincidental.

"You'll always be my rugrats," I replied with a chuckle.

She giggled and shrugged back at me. "Well, if we spend more time together, maybe we can figure out how to get the message through your thick skull that these little two rugrats have finally grown up."

"We could start..." Eden drawled while sliding off the couch and kneeling in front of me, "by taking care of this not-so-little problem of yours." She looked up at me while batting her eyelashes and puckering up her lips invitingly.

"Nothing we haven't done before..." Emma intoned in a similarly heated voice, sliding off the coffee table to kneel beside her sister with the exact same expression on her face.

"Girls..." I warned through a half-lidded glare.

"And we're told we're REALLY good at it," Eden added with a giggle.

"O-KAY," I barked while standing up and side-stepping around my baby sister. Shaking my head as I walked away from the couch and over toward the hallway, I muttered, "Fastest way to get me OUT of the mood is to make any sort of reference to you two sucking some other boy's dick."

"Phooey," Eden complained, rolling her eyes and sharing an annoyed look with her sister.

Emma sat up and tapped her chin. "You know, this isn't such a different situation than the one you're in with DJ right now. She and you are trying to build a new relationship that isn't based on sex, right?"

I shrugged. "That's right."

"So what happens when you succeed? You can start having sex with her again, as an extension of your relationship, not the source of it, right?"

"Uh, well..."

"Right? You're not going to continue denying her, are you?"

"Well..."

Both twins glared at me, daring me to lie.

"Probably not, no," I admitted.

The twins exchanged another look, grinning broadly as they apparently shared the same thought. And it was Eden who turned to me with a smirk saying, "So we get the same deal, don't we? When we build a relationship with you that's not based on sex, THEN you'll be ready to fuck us!"

"Now wait-wait-waitaminute," I stuttered, raising up both hands. "My relationship with DJ doesn't have anything to do with my relationships with you."

Eden shrugged. "Same difference, really."

"Relax, relax," Emma reassured me. "This is a GOOD thing for you; you're getting what you want. Eden and I will back off for now, and in the meantime, we're really going to make an effort to bond as siblings and develop a real relationship with you that's NOT based on sex."

"For now," Eden hedged.

"It's a win-win all around," Emma explained. "The three of us spend more time together, you get to know us beyond the little rugrats you used to know, and--"

"And in the end," Eden interrupted, her eyes sizzling again as she stared at me with undisguised lustful heat in her gaze, "you'll have to get used to seeing us as grown-up young women with grown-up sexual urges."

I groaned and rubbed my forehead. "Do I really have to?"

"Of course," she replied confidently while putting her face back into the same eyelash-batting/lip-puckered alluring expression. "Because even though my 'infatuation' with you may have been put on the back burner for a while ... well..."

I raised my eyebrows as Eden's grin turned downright predatory, her eyes zeroing in once more on my bulge.

After glancing at Emma one more time, Eden finally turned back to me and finished, "Well in the end ... I always get what I want."