by Ian Dalton
Pausing, he remembered the shower in question and asked hesitantly, "Did you, um, catch the beginning... or the end of that shower?"
"How would I know? Uh—"
"Was I focused on one particular... area?"
"Focused is a good way to put it. You were really focused." She winced at him as if she was feeling his pain.
"That would be the beginning then." He dropped his face into his hands, mortified.
"I was honestly going to join you. I was so worked up on the court, but then when I saw you doing... that… I had to watch." Looking away, she relived the memory with her lips parted. "You... are really good at doing that, you know. I was moved."
His face remained in his hands. Unable to look at her, he said in a tired, slow voice, "I’ve had a tremendous amount of practice."
She gave him a wide smile. "It really shows."
Straightening up, he looked her in the eye. "So you’re telling me if I wasn’t doing... that... we would have done it?"
"Oh, definitely," she replied casually.
"I’m never doing that again."
She widened her eyes. "But Rob would have also walked in on us. Remember, that’s when he came home."
"Right, right, right." He exhaled deeply as he shook his head. "So, I guess it was lucky that I was abusing myself like that."
"That’s one way to put it." She grinned. Glancing at each other, they shared a laugh until Jillian put on a serious expression. "So she drove all that way and just showed up here, looking for you? That’s kind of sweet, isn’t it?"
"Well…" He looked away for a moment, embarrassed by the truth. He thought about telling her the whole story, but maybe to protect Rob or maybe so she wouldn’t think he was such an idiot for following Natalie back to campus when she didn’t even come to Miami to look for him, he chose to spare her the details. "Yeah, she did. It was sweet." He put on a slight smile. "I still think she may be completely nuts. I’m going to take it slow, but I think I just need to see what happens."
After pausing to collect her thoughts, Jillian looked at him with complete sincerity. "Out of the thousands of women on that campus, there has to be a least one who would appreciate an intelligent, attractive, thoughtful young man who can cook and who doesn’t take advantage of women when they’re... you know. You are a real gentleman. And if you don’t meet someone while at school, there’s a whole other world out there when you graduate. Don’t let her break your heart. Make sure she’s really into you before you open yourself up again. Really into you. Don’t let her string you along."
He met her gaze. "And don’t you go settling for some jerk, even if he does wear Magnums."
They shared another smile. Reaching down, he picked up a tennis ball and smelled it. "Am I nuts for liking the smell of these?"
Taking the ball from his hand, she sniffed it, closed her eyes, and smiled. "Especially right out of a freshly-opened can." After they both laughed at the realization they shared this bizarre bond, she scoffed. "What’s wrong with us?"
"I don’t know, but I don’t think I’ll ever play again and not think of you." He breathed in deeply while fighting back his emotions.
"We’ll always have that tiebreak." A single tear fell from her eye. After wiping it away quickly, she put on a fake smile.
He looked at her, grinning. "I’m starting to think that last ball may have bounced twice. That would have completely changed the, uh... I would have won."
She narrowed her eyes. "Maybe, but I don’t think you could have played another point."
"I still had a lot more tennis in me," he said with his expression dripping with manufactured confidence.
Jillian laughed, and he shook his head as he glanced up at the sky. Returning his eyes to hers, Brian leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She closed her eyes as his warm, moist lips touched her skin for the very first time. She desperately wanted to turn to him, to kiss him hard, but the moment disappeared.
Pulling back slowly from her, he stood. "Well, I guess I’d better be going."
She rose to her feet and struggled to maintain her composure. After he handed her the ball, they shared one last smile. Jillian watched as he walked toward the house, her emotions getting the best of her, hoping he wouldn’t look back. He didn’t.
36
On the drive back to Georgia, Brian decided not to ask Natalie any questions or allow her to give him any details. He thought that for them to have any chance, he would probably be better off not knowing. And since they hadn’t been dating exclusively, anyway, the worst that she did was lie to him, and even that was a stretch.
He told her he needed time to think about everything, but he spent almost the entire ride home thinking about Jillian and not about Natalie or Rob or the two of them together. He decided that he wouldn’t jump into anything with Natalie. As physically attracted as he was to her, he vowed not to have sex with her until he was sure that she was really interested in him, that she wasn’t just playing some game, and most importantly, that she wasn’t completely out of her fucking mind.
The more he thought about everything that had happened since he’d met Natalie, the more he was convinced that she was crazy or, at the very least, the kind of girl who enjoyed watching men suffer. He didn’t want to spend another minute wondering what she was doing, where she was, what she was thinking, and whether or not she was really attracted to him. Because maybe she only wanted to get him back on the hook just to have one more guy fawning over her.
When they arrived back on campus, she invited him to stay over, but he turned her down. That weekend, he did allow her to sleep in his room, where he was the one in control. When she attempted to unbutton his jeans, he stopped her, saying that he still needed time to get over all that had happened. He decided to give her a little of the same treatment that she had administered to him for so many weeks. When they went to sleep that night, Brian wore only boxer shorts while Natalie slept in a T-shirt and underwear. He pretended to fall asleep quickly and was amused to find that she pulled the same types of tricks that he and probably a lot of men pulled in bed when "sleeping over" meant literally sleeping over and not something a lot more active or fun.
Whenever she found his hand near her crotch, she would press against it, in the hope that his hand would somehow spring to life, realize the prize that awaited its touch, and go to work. Granted, it’s a little easier to jut your male parts out to a wayward hand then it is the female versions, but that didn’t stop her from trying at least three times that night. He held his ground all night, giving her whatever the female version of blue balls happened to be called.
He woke first and looked at her as she lay next to him, sleeping peacefully, but he hoped completely unsatisfied. When he lifted the sheet to look at her, he saw that her panties were pulled halfway down her ass, and her shirt had risen up, exposing most of her back. He figured that her underwear was pulled so far down that it had to have been a deliberate act on her part—some kind of ploy to seduce him in the middle of the night. He was sure she was hoping that a hand might travel from her back down to her perky little ass, discover that it was uncovered, and once it did, a finger would slip into that magical crevice and be powerless to do anything except venture further.
It was the female equivalent of the old male trick, where one’s thing just happens to sneak out of the flap of one’s boxers "by accident" in search of some fun. Brian was convinced that’s exactly what the guy had in mind when he came up with the idea to add the flap to boxer shorts. Were guys really using that hole to go the bathroom, or was it put there purely to make the "surprise slip" possible? That slip could lead to the discovery by your partner and the "It’s-already-out-so-I-might-as-well..." kind of mentality.
Exhaling deeply, he sat up looking at the exquisite small of Natalie’s back, as it tapered invitingly into the curve of her hips. Maybe he was giving himself a set of blue ones as well. He felt that familiar surge of excitement rushing to his groin, and he slipped off to the bathroo
m and took care of the problem. It would have been easy for him to fall off the wagon and be seduced by Natalie, but that would have given her back the power, and he was enjoying having that all to himself.
After the bathroom break, he went to his computer and searched for a gift for Jillian. Wanting to say thank you to her for her hospitality, he searched for tennis-related gifts and found a DVD copy of the McEnroe–Borg Wimbledon final from 1980, the match with the long tiebreak that reminded them both so much of the one they had played the last time they were on the court together. He ordered two copies, one shipped to him and one marked as a gift and shipped to her. Brian typed a personal message to be included with the gift, and it took him twenty minutes of editing his note to finally be satisfied with what he wrote.
Down in sunny Miami, Jillian was craving pancakes. She grabbed the pancake mix but then reconsidered. She put the mix back, found a recipe in a cookbook, and followed Brian’s advice about plugging the griddle in before starting and adding one extra egg white and more sugar, along with his tip about how to butter the griddle and make two test cakes. When she sat down to eat her three flawlessly-cooked pancakes with their perfect, golden brown air bubble marks, she sighed. After pouring on the syrup, she cut into the stack with her fork, took a bite, and smiled while thinking of him.
After breakfast, Jillian went to her study to write. She started a story about characters based on her and Brian. Except the characters actually began a physical relationship starting with the night at the movies. The story pretty much followed the events as they took place up until they arrived back home from the movie theater. In her novel, when the woman opened the door, her son was not there, and the horny couple ran up to the bedroom and spent a glorious night together.
After writing for so long that her eyes ached from staring at the screen, she spent an hour hitting against the ball machine, and while she smashed balls over the net, she wondered what might have been if Rob hadn’t been at the house when they’d returned. Would things have played out as amazingly as they did in her writing or would it have been a big mistake? When Jillian had exhausted herself on the court, she took a long bath, grabbed a light meal, and retired to her room to get back to writing. She spent the remainder of the week cranking out the story and hitting balls against the machine. Writing for about eight hours a day, she slaved over every erotic word in the filthy, steamy descriptions of the many long, amazing sex sessions that her two main characters enjoyed.
Natalie wanted to go to a movie, and Brian suggested they spike their drinks and really have some fun at the theater. She turned him down, saying it was too risky. She said they might be thrown out or get into some other trouble with campus security. They went to the movie anyway, but Natalie’s knee never rubbed Brian’s, not even once… or if it did, he didn’t notice.
Over the next week, Brian found the pre-Natalie masturbation routine was working quite well, even as she kicked things up a notch. She took to changing in front of him while he stood in her room, pretending to read a magazine. Her panties became sexier with each passing day as his will became more steadfast. She had never before bought him anything, but that week, she bought him a teddy bear (tennis-themed of course) and a new can of balls. She bought herself a racquet and a really sexy tennis outfit, and they set a date to play the following morning.
That night, they slept at Natalie’s, and Brian decided to ask her about the mysterious event from her past, which had prevented her from being able to touch a guy down there. She refused to tell the story until he threatened to return to his dorm.
She reluctantly explained, "I walked in on my brother while he was... touching himself. I was about sixteen, and he was a year younger."
He thought there had to be more to the story. "And…?"
"And... it was really traumatic!" She glared back at him.
Brian treaded lightly. "And... he just kept going in front of you, even after you walked in?"
"Oh, God no! He was facing the other way. I didn’t even see it."
"Then… it happened again, and he kept setting up situations where—?"
"No, he avoided me for weeks."
After staring at her with a blank expression for a moment, he had to ask, "And that’s the whole story?"
"Yes, that’s the whole story!" She angrily shot back.
He gave her a sympathetic look, even though his mind was telling him that she was a freaking lunatic. "I completely understand." He realized it wasn’t the ideal formative-years experience, but come on. "Can you touch one now?"
"To be honest, it was only yours that I couldn’t touch. This sounds crazy, but it’s your haircut. It reminds me so much of my brother’s that it was freaking me out."
He paused, unable to respond until he glanced at her to find she was staring and waiting for him to say something. "Oh, that isn’t crazy at all. Hair can be a powerful... trigger. I, uh... I had that psychology class last year. We talked about that... visual triggers or something." He calmly smiled at her, but on the inside, his brain was screaming, "Holy shit!" After enough time had passed with them simply staring at each other in silence, he gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder. "I have to go to the bathroom."
He stood in front of the mirror, making crazy eyes at his reflection; he couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking clearly about all this. After splashing water on his face, he returned to Natalie’s room. When he arrived, he found her under the covers, and her bare shoulders were showing.
Turning toward him, she batted her eyelashes. "I really want to have sex with you now."
He sat next to her on the bed, contemplating what to do, as she added, "I’m pretty sure I can touch it now."
"Oh, that’s good," Brian said slowly.
"But I have to tell you something first."
He thought, Okay this should be really good.
"I’m a... technical virgin," she announced proudly.
"What’s that?" He made a face as if he didn’t hear her clearly.
"A technical virgin."
"What does that even mean?"
"I mean I don’t have vaginal sex. I’m saving that for when I’m married."
He looked at her, trying to process all this. "So, what kind of sex do you have?"
"Obviously, all the other kinds."
"Could you be a little more specific?"
"Mostly anal and some oral. A lot of girls are now doing this," she said casually.
"Wow, that’s really specific." After attempting to process it all, he had to ask, "So, how many guys would you say you’ve done, you know, with?"
"Four."
"Four," he repeated, jumping a little out of his skin. "And Rob?" He made a hand gesture as if to ask if they had also done this act together.
"Yes, Rob." She widened her eyes. "Is that a problem?"
"Rob’s not the problem," he said quickly.
Leaning out of bed to her drawer, she pulled out a pack of condoms and a tube of lubricant, and then handed them to him. "Have you done this before?"
"No, not really."
"We can go slow, since this is your first time. It’s fun, and there’s no chance of getting pregnant."
He paused a moment, trying to let in all sink in. "Slow would be nice." Sitting there, he contemplated his next move. He glanced at the condom box, and then an idea hit him. He smiled. "Oh, these are latex condoms. I can’t wear those. If I do, my dick totally blows up big... but not in a good big way... at all."
She nodded with her mouth open slightly as Brian glanced at her, hoping she'd buy his excuse. "Plus I’m not feeling very well—my stomach hurts. Let’s do this some other time. I’ll bring the right condoms, and it’ll be amazing."
After giving him a disappointed-yet-understanding look, she slipped on her T-shirt and opened the covers to invite him in. "Will you hold me all night?"
"I will."
After stripping down to his underwear, he slipped into bed with her. She snuggled up to his shoulder and smiled. "I can�
�t wait to finally play tennis with you tomorrow."
"Me either." He reached over, turned off the light, and with the mention of the word tennis, he began thinking only about Jillian.
In Miami, Jillian sat out by the pool, drinking a cup of hot tea and thinking of Brian. It was almost midnight, and she was reminded of their pot-induced skinny dip as she looked out over the water. It was a hot night. She stood and walked to the edge of the pool, dipping a toe in the water. It felt warm but more comfortable than the humid air. Reliving a pleasant memory, she grinned and then removed her clothes and slowly walked down the steps into the water. She swam one lap, then climbed onto a big raft and lay on it face up with the cool vinyl sending chills through her warm skin. The air temperature was so close to the water temperature that she really couldn’t tell which parts of her body were in the pool and which weren’t, and it didn't occur to her that she was slowly sinking into the water, having bumped the raft's fill valve when she climbed aboard.
Kicking her foot lazily off the side of the raft into the water, she flashed back to Brian as he held her foot and gently kissed it that special night. The Jaclyn West narrative began in her mind, except this time she and Brian were the protagonists named in her story.
Jillian lay back on the float as Brian kissed one of her feet and then then other. Moving to the side of the raft, he began lightly kissing the top of her ankle, followed by her calf, as he ran his hands up her legs, toward her womanhood. She gasped and clutched the raft with both hands, feeling like she could be lifted from it, almost magically, just by the feel of his lips on her skin. Brian looked at her face and softly said, "I’ve been waiting for this moment since I met you."
Jillian brought her hand to his neck and pulled him into her as he began trailing kisses from her knee to her thigh and—
At that moment, Jillian’s body was completely underwater as the raft lost nearly all of its air. Her head remained above water for only another moment as she opened her mouth wide, still locked in her third-person narrative fantasy. As she sank further, pool water filled her mouth. In a panic, she swallowed, leapt to the surface, coughed up water, and then gasped for breath. She looked around for Brian, but he, of course, wasn’t there to save her. Climbing from the pool, half sad and half smiling, she remembered the joke they shared about how swimming alone is dangerous.