by KT Morrison
She was crossing the quad on a beautiful fall day with her bedding balled up in a hamper, another man’s semen all over it. She wasn’t cheating. She knew she wasn’t. But it was so close. This had to be stopped. Watching another man masturbate and ejaculate wasn’t cheating, but it was not good. Not good at all. It filled her with enormous guilt. Twice now she’d watched him. After the first time she’d been sick over it. Jay leaving her dorm, door closed behind him, she rushed to the bathroom and bent over the toilet and almost barfed. It was so disgusting. Max was her man. She watched Jay empty his balls onto his stomach muscles for her. His disgusting seed shooting out of him. She watched it like a pervert. It made her wet. She hugged that toilet and swore that was the last time. By the next morning she couldn’t wait to see Jay again. Pushed the thought away but there was awareness in her, something unacknowledged but its presence was there, hiding—she would watch him masturbate again.
While this wasn’t cheating...Max would leave her if he found out. And he should. If Max had a girl in his room and he thought it was okay if they didn’t have sex but she could get naked and show him the thing between her legs while she masturbated for him—came for him—she would be done with him. Probably wouldn’t talk to him again. It was different when it was her. She knew she meant no harm. Now she had a different perspective.
She looked both ways as she crossed the street, heading off-campus now, just over into the edge of the Village. There was a small square building there, facing the school. FarmFresh in raised wooden letters above the door of the laundromat that looked like it might have been a gas station in the 1950s. There was a lineup, students in a ragged vine, twisting right out the front door.
Max was still her love. She wasn’t wavering at all. Jay was just setting her hormones on fire was all. What she told him on the bed was honest. She had no sexual experience. There was no way around it though. Come this August she would marry Max, and that was absolute. Determined. She loved her Max. If she’d never been presented with Jay, she would never think about all she missed. It was only when Jay’s obvious sexual power was shown to her that her mind started to work in nasty ways. What would it be like to have sex with him? He was beautiful. His body was incredible. His shape, his form, was perfection. And his penis was so incredibly large. What would that feel like?
“Shit,” she hissed as someone poked the back of her knee with their sneaker and made her slump and stumble, trying not to fall—also scaring the fucking daylights out of her.
“Maggie!” Cole standing behind her, no hamper but his laundry hanging over an arm.
“Scared the crap out of me,” she laughed.
“You were off in fantasy-land...I called your name, didn’t even hear me.”
She laughed it off, pulled her hair back from her face, shrugged and smiled. “What are you doing here?”
Comical bewilderment, frowning, he said, “What do you think?” hoisting his arm with the laundry.
“No, I mean, where’s Max?”
“I don’t know.”
“He told me he was going to see you.”
“Yeah, I texted him to come have a beer, but he didn’t get back to me.”
“Oh, really? I wonder what happened to him?” she said as she thrust her hamper up onto the stainless counter. Farm Fresh was a student-run business that handled laundry. Independent from the school and run for profit, they offered a premier service—drop off, pick up, fluffed and folded, and reeking of soap and softener. Expensive, but most of the kids at Farmingham could afford it.
“Fluff-fold, the works,” she told the kid at the counter with a purple Farmingham sweatshirt.
“Run it twice,” Cole said, and she turned to see him fanning his nose and talking to the kid, “her boyfriend has bromhidrosis.”
The kid looked to her like she might need it run twice.
“You could just say B.O.,” she said to Cole, then to the kid, smiling at him, “but he doesn’t have that either...”
Cole dumped off his laundry and then said, “Hey, you come have a beer with me. We’ll track down that errant turd of yours.”
“Yeah, all right. He’s going to take me out for dinner later. Wanna come? We’ll grab a pizza? ...”
He nodded, going through his phone, texting Max.
They walked the sunny quad and chatted and she was so grateful to have his company. Took her mind away, at least for a little while, from the gruesome fact she held another boys balls today and watched him jerk off.
When Maggie left the room, her dirty duvet bundled in her hamper, Max masturbated. Not in the closet, he clawed his way out of that crap Jessie had accumulated in there. Found he was crying. Tears wet his cheeks, a painful erection dug itself into the front of his khakis. He put his back to her door, locked it anyway, and he sobbed and fantasized and he stroked himself into the handkerchief Maggie and Jessie used to let each other know things inside were hot and heavy. Took less than a minute.
He hated what he’d watched, but it had set something off inside him he never knew existed. Never in his entire life had he been so carnally consumed. The serpentine lust that slithered through him right now was an awful thing. He hated himself for being aroused by it. His Maggie had put an emotion through him he couldn't even comprehend. How could that have aroused him? And so powerfully. He pictured it over and over again. When he blasted his watery seed into the handkerchief, his mind’s eye focused on his Maggie’s hand holding another guys balls. The way they wrinkled and sagged in her pale thin fingers.
Then he got the heck out of her room before he got caught with a rag full of his sperm. Went out to the quad, out into the sun, having it touch his skin made him squirm; his face was hot already. He touched his cheeks. Felt them hot, knew they must be red from crying and from enduring the horror he’d just witnessed.
Steve’s brother was still there, he said, “Hey, Max, you okay?”
He nodded, couldn’t think of anything to say. Took off then, speed-walking through the paths under the trees. Back towards Heany-Hansen where his lecture had been, wound up going no farther than a wood and iron bench in the Oren Glen. Sat for a good long while and looked at his shoes while people passed him, oblivious to what this poor guy on the bench had suffered. His lust waned as his heart beat returned to normal. The inner scale being tipped, drops of rage upending it. Now he was mad. Now he hated her face. He hated her voice. He hated that another guy turned her on. What a whore. What a dirty rotten slut.
And that piece of shit guy. Flexing and posing, showing an engaged woman his cock. Fucking asking her to jerk it for him. The fucking disrespect. He slammed his fist on the lip of the bench. He’d been slighted. Forgotten. Oh, I love my fiancé, Jay. Yet that fucking whore watched him once, then again today, holding his balls while he came. She wanted it. She wanted that big cock. She was strong today but less than last week. Two weeks from now she’d be fucking him, sucking him, taking that monster up her ass. Laughing at Max behind his back. Quick, you have to get out of here, Jay, my dumb fiancé, will be here soon. Kiss me. I’ll see you tomorrow.
“Fuck!” he yelled.
His phone buzzed.
Cole: hey buddy, beer? I got your girl with me. Sam House rec
His girl? Maggie? Maggie was with Cole? Doing what now?
He didn’t answer, slipped his phone back into his pants. Rolled his sleeves up because while it was sixty out, the sun was warm and his lust and rage inside him was like a coal furnace. He sat a good while longer wondering how he would go on.
Max found them in the rec room of Samuelson half an hour later. They’d been drinking. They were on the couch together wrestling for an Xbox controller. Cole was big. He was a vicious midfielder on the Rangers, Farmingham’s lacrosse team. A little over six feet and very strong; Maggie looked so little draped over him. He had an arm out, holding the controller, and she was climbing him to get it and he was keeping it from her. Maggie was giggling. His heart was clutched again. The woman he’d proposed to was not
who he thought she was.
Her face was rosy again, from effort, maybe from drink. She looked like she was having fun climbing on Cole’s body. He pictured her hand slipping between Cole’s legs, curious about his size. His brow lowered with anger and his cock swelled. This was fucking something.
He stood and watched. Even though her face was turned towards his she hadn't noticed him, busy with Cole. Laughing and giggling. Trying to tickle him now. He tickled her too, and they both disappeared to the cushions below the back of the couch. He couldn’t see them anymore. On the coffee table there were cups there, the plastic ones with lids they used when they wanted to drink beer when they were in the rec. How many had they had?
They weren’t alone. Behind Max was a ping pong table, the tapping staccato of ball on table and paddle as two guys played a vigorous game. A boy sat and read with a girl resting her head in his lap, her back on the couch, reading her own book. What would happen if they were alone? Would she want to draw Cole? Want to watch him come?
As he walked to the back of the couch, Cole’s arm raised to the ceiling, controller in his big mitt, holding it up and away from small Maggie, taunting her.
“Hey,” she laughed, “Give it!”
Max loomed over the back of the couch, his face grim as he took this spectacle in. Maggie on her back, auburn, blue, and platinum hair spread out on the cushion of the couch. Her face was cheery, drunken and happy, a shine on her nose and on her cheeks. She was beautiful. She grappled with Cole’s arm, her own wrapped around him while he held her at bay, controller thrust high where she couldn't reach it. Maggie was in shorts and a flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up, top buttons undone, her pale perfect skin visible there just above the top of her low scoop neck T-shirt. Her legs were bare, her feet bare. Her flip-flops kicked under the coffee table.
“Max!” she laughed when she saw him.
His face was stone. He said, “What’s happening here?”
“He won't...agh...he’s being a jerk...” She struggled again to get it.
Cole laughed, his hand going higher. “Reach for it, Maggie...show me you want it...”
“I’m tired,” she said now, giving up, wiping at her face and pulling her shirt down to cover her bared belly.
“How much have you had to drink?” he said.
She blinked at him, finally noticing his sullen expression. “What?”
“Drink? You drunk?”
“Max, no...” She struggled to sit, seemingly aware now how it looked to come in and see them like that. She looked to Cole briefly, got on her knees and bent over the back of the couch to him. “Max...” she said, her hand holding his arm above his elbow. He pulled away.
Cole said, “Hey, whoa, Max, come on, bro...” He stood up, throwing the controller aside.
Max turned his back to them and walked away. This was too much for one day. Everything was upside down. Yesterday his life had been perfect and now it was shit. He got past the ping pong table, Cole calling after him. When he got to the hall, to the bottom of the wide stairs that went up a half flight to the main lobby of the House, Maggie caught up to him, running in her bare feet.
“Max, Max, Maxy,” she called. She grabbed him. “Maxy, hey, what’s going on?”
He turned to her. His little fiancée. The most important person in his life. He hated her. Her evil almond eyes, those glimmering amber orbs, her pouted mouth, her porcelain skin. Fucking hated the knife she stuck in him. He looked at her with no expression.
Her mouth fell open as she struggled to comprehend the boy she loved, that she had shared so much with. There was fear in her eyes. Worry. He knew what it was. She was guilty. She felt judged, knew what she knew about herself and was so worried someone knew her truth. In those eyes he could see her fear that her fiancé somehow knew what she had done today.
Does he know something? Can he smell it on me?
Yes, I can. I fucking watched you, whore. I fucking watched it all.
“Max, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Her head tilted, her eyes wavering, tears welling there, threatening to spill. “Max,” she sighed, and she gripped him, hugged her face to his chest, and her touch, the feel of her warmth against him, eased him. She felt so good. He didn't hate her. He loved her. He hated what she did. But even that had made him hard as he'd ever been. He jerked off in her dorm room, just like she did. He couldn’t be without her. This was just a crazy blip. Just a weird day. His arms went around her and he could feel the relief that put in her.
“What's going on, Max?” she said, but she couldn't look at him.
I watched what you did. The words formed on his tongue but stayed in his mouth. He could say it but then he could never come back from it. It would be out there and that was what they would have to deal with. It would consume them. The thing she'd done. He wasn't ready. He didn't even know what he thought. He needed time.
“Nothing.”
“It's Cole?” she said. “Is that it? Is that why you're mad?”
“What do you think?”
“Was that weird? ...It’s Cole, Max. It's Cole.”
He looked in her eyes. He saw her fear, and he didn't want that for her. Her words on the bed with Jay were honest. This was the woman he would marry. She wasn't perfect, she was going to have problems but they would work things out together.
“Is it Cole, Max? Was that it?”
“Yes, Maggie,” he said. He kissed her forehead, said, “I’m all right. Don’t worry. I’m over it.” If she had problems, they would work it out together. If she could be honest, they could work this out as a couple.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, pressed her face into his collar; he could feel damp heat from her. She was going to cry, her breath hot, wet, preparing for tears.
“I...hold on,” she grunted, her voice tight and squeezed. She covered her face and turned and disappeared into the bathroom behind her and closed the door. He heard her sob before the door closed shut.
He watched the closed door for a while, thought of all the things he’d like to say but was afraid. He went back to the rec. Cole was still standing, looking concerned.
“Max,” he said. “Where’s Maggie?”
He tossed a thumb over his shoulder. “She's in the washroom...it’s fine, I’m...”
“Max, man, I’m sorry...it’s me...” he said, looking earnest with lowered brow and eyes heavy with concern. He came around the couch. “Dude...you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m fine.”
“It’s me...Maggie? ...c’mon. I’m your Best Man. She’s like my sister. I look out for her...it’s—”
“It’s not you, Cole. It’s her. It’s me.” He turned to look back over the ping pong table eager for her to return to him. “We’ll be fine,” he said. “We’ll work it out. We will.”
Part Two
Chapter Six
Altieri’s
Tuesday, September 19th
Outside the border of the campus, on the quaint main street running through the heart of the Village of Farmingham, there was a seventy-year-old Italian restaurant called Altieri’s. Max’s favorite. When he proposed she was surprised it wasn't at this restaurant. Both of them had spent so much time here in the last four years.
She’d met Max at an off-campus Greek. Lamda Theta Theta had a two-story Georgian at the end of the Village. Farmingham didn't want Greeks on campus but they still had presence. She was eighteen and so was he, though he was almost nineteen. He had a dorky T-shirt on. A girls shirt, with a unicorn on a cloud, prancing under a rainbow. It was ironic. He had a stubbly beard back then and he looked so cute. An adorable boy with a great sense of humor, a big smile that showed his white teeth. It was love at first sight. He was with Cole and Sam and Tyler and they were playing King’s Cup. She was with her friend Sara and she pushed her—literally pushed her—into Max. He was at that happy drunk stage where everything is fun and funny and has promise. He roped her into the game and she pretended she didn't want to play, didn’t unders
tand Max’s rules, but she definitely wanted to. He taught her how to play. Putting his kind and warm hands over hers and she looked in his eyes, smiling at him, and she could see a life together with him. He was a good person.
The Max next to her tonight, sitting in his place of gastric nirvana, was a different Max. She'd never seen him like this. He was not prone to moods. He was positive. Always fun. She was the one who would get depressed sometimes and he would be there for her. Only he wasn't depressed. There was something stark in him. Something had been taken out of him, made him hollow. The light behind his eyes was gone. No sparkle in his chestnut browns tonight.
He’d rallied after that weird exchange in the basement of Samuelson—smiling now but it was as empty as his eyes. He was putting it on. Whatever it was inside him doing this it wasn't gone, he was merely fighting it.
When she’d looked up, laying on the couch and having fun with Cole, saw his face looming above her, she’d been hit with an icy dread. He knew. She thought somehow he knew. His eyes were a thousand miles distant, but there was an intensity in them. He was different. She’d scrambled, shot up, looking to do anything for him not to hurt—to tell him she was sorry for touching Jay. Wondering who told on her, who knew besides her and Jay?
Their pizzas arrived, two thin and crispy whites with pepperoni and another pitcher of beer. He’d had a few now since they got here, though she stopped after hanging out with Cole. Cole could sense trouble in his friend too and he worked with him, trying to bring out his laugh.