Jock Rule

by Sara Ney

  I didn’t expect this to be a big deal. Share blankets, stay warm—simple, easy. Any idiot could do this without a problem.

  I should be able to do this without a problem; I’ve been keeping people at a distance for years. I friend-zoned Teddy within seconds of meeting her, and she has no interest in me, either.

  Except…

  Maybe I’ve been fooling myself.

  Maybe I’m not as immune to women as I thought I was. Or maybe I’m just not immune to Teddy Johnson—sweet, beautiful, naïve Teddy.

  Maybe I knew as soon as I saw her at that first party that we’d end up here. Because she’s different.

  She yawns beside me, nestling her toes deeper into the crux of my bent legs, their temperature having climbed twofold.

  I don’t exactly hate it.

  “You don’t think it’s weird that we’re in bed together?” Her question comes out of nowhere.

  “Why would I think it’s weird?”

  “Uh, because it’s weird? We’re not even friends—not really. And we’re not dating, but you have this weird…” Pause. “I know you’re protective of me, and I can’t figure out why, but I also know I don’t hate it, either. It’s…nice.”

  Right.

  “I just didn’t think I’d ever be in some guy’s bed platonically, that’s all. College guys are such pigs sometimes.”

  “I’m not a pig.”

  “I know you’re not—that’s what I’m saying. Sometimes it’s confusing. You’re not gay, but you don’t date, and you’re not sleeping with anyone. You must spend a lot of time…you know.”

  The word she’s looking for here is masturbating.

  “Don’t you?” I’m curious. “Spend time doing that?”

  “No!” She’s shocked.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know how? God, Kip.” The answer—which is in the form of a both a question and a confession—comes out halted. “I can’t believe I just said that. I must be delirious.”

  The air around us crackles. Kip bolts upright, twisting his body toward me.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know how? Everyone knows how—you put your hand down your pants, move it around, and boom, orgasm.” Sounds like she needs a tutorial of Masturbating for Dummies.

  “I don’t think it’s that simple.” She giggles, patronizing me.

  “Oh, but Teddy, it is. It really, really is that simple.”

  “Yeah, probably because you’ve been jerking off since you were like twelve, and all you really have to do is move your hand up and down on your penis. There’s barely any work involved.”

  No comment.

  Suddenly I twist my body to face her, bending my elbow and propping myself up in her direction. “So let me get this straight—you’ve never touched yourself?”

  “Of course I’ve touched myself.”

  I roll my eyes. “The shower to get clean doesn’t count.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh, she says,” I tease. “You’re really missing out if you’re not rubbing one out a few times a week.”

  She groans, embarrassed. “Rubbing one out? That’s one I haven’t heard before.”

  “It’s all part of self-love, Teddy.”

  “And I bet you love yourself a whole lot,” comes her low chuckle.

  She has no idea.

  “Why do you even care?” she asks.

  “I don’t. You’re the one who brought it up—I’m just the one who ran with it.”

  “Actually, I didn’t.”

  “Yes you did. You were all”—my speech gets high-pitched as I mimic her girl voice—“You must spend a lot of time blah blah blah…you know.”

  “I do not sound like that.” In the dark, I hear her eyes roll.

  “But you did say it.”

  “Fine. I’m curious, all right? Sue me. You’re this giant of a guy, who must be—”

  She stops herself.

  “Spit it out, Teddy. Stop hesitating.” It’s driving me nuts!

  “Fine! You’re this giant of a guy who must get…excited a lot. There, happy now?”

  “And by excited you mean…”

  “Horny, okay?” The words burst out of her. “Thank god it’s dark, my face is on fire.”

  Yup. I made her say the word horny, and she sounds horrified, and it’s perfect.

  “And you’re not? Horny?”

  “Uh…when would I have the time? And please stop saying that word—it’s awful. It’s worst than the word moist. Or squirt.”

  She hates the word moist? What’s wrong with the word moist?

  “You hate horny? You don’t have time to be horny?” I say it again, twice, just to embarrass her. “You’re shitting me, right? Everyone has time to be horny. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “It’s perfectly normal not to be turned on all the time.”

  “No. It’s not.” At least, I don’t think it is.

  “How would you even know? You’re not a female.”

  “No, but I’ve seen enough of them around campus and at parties to know most are sex-crazed lunatics.”

  “Are you high right now?” she barks at me through the shadows. “Who are you hanging out with? Absolutely no one is running around campus like a sex-crazed lunatic, except maybe the guys.”

  “False. I am not a sex-crazed lunatic.”

  “What are you then? Because I doubt you’re a virgin.”

  Definitely not a virgin. “No. I just swore off girls when they became too much trouble.”

  “Trouble? How?”

  “You know, wanting to get serious and shit.”

  “Ah, so you’re one of thooose.” She drags the word out, as if she’s finally cracked my code, satisfaction lacing every syllable. “A commitment-phobe.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Pfft. Try me.”

  “Nope. We are not having this conversation.” Especially not in the middle of the night.

  “Oh, but we are.” If we were seated at a table, she’d be crossing her arms and leaning back, waiting for my reply like a boss. Giving me the stink eye. Puffing on a cigar, killing me with silence.

  “Let’s just agree to disagree, okay? I don’t need to justify why I’m not into dating, and you don’t need to justify why you don’t like touching yourself downtown.”

  “Oh my god.”

  I uncurl myself, rolling to my back, gaze staring up at the ceiling in the pitch black.

  “I have a question for you: what if I like it so much I never want to have sex with a guy?”

  “What if you love jerking yourself off so much you never want to have sex with a dude? I don’t even know how to respond to that, Teddy.”

  The thought is inconceivable.

  “But that’s what happened to you, right? You masturbated yourself single. You don’t need a female. You have two hands to keep you satisfied.”

  There’s probably an element of truth to that, but, “Sometimes it’s not enough.”

  Jesus. Why did I admit that out loud?

  “I could have told you that, and I’m not even doing it. You can’t replace real intimacy, Kip, no matter how hard you try.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Teddy only gives me a few seconds of reprieve before she hits me with her next assault. “Why don’t you like having people over?”

  I sigh, long and loudly into the dark, tucking my arms behind my head. “Who said I don’t like having people over?”

  I feel her shrug when the mattress dips, though I can’t see it.

  “I just assumed since you never have people over.” She pauses, uncertain. “Is it because you’re embarrassed?”

  Is she serious? “Embarrassed about what?”

  “That you…that your…” She falters, searching for the right words.

  I wait her out.

  “It’s pretty obvious you come from money, okay?”

  Teddy has no idea.

  “I don’t think you should be asham
ed of it,” she goes on in the dark.

  “I’m not.”

  “Whatever you say, Kipling Carmichael.” Teddy laughs, wiggling her feet. They’re dainty, and small, and feel good still tucked beneath me. “God, even that name sounds…rich, like you should be on a yacht somewhere in the Pacific.”

  The Atlantic, actually. That’s where the boat is docked, at some marina with a yacht club, near one of several Carmichael vacation homes.

  “It’s not a crime coming from money, just like it’s not a crime for me to be—I don’t know, poor, I guess. A scholarship kid. I’m not ashamed, though I used to be. Not anymore. I work my ass off, and so does my mom.”

  Her body shivers.

  “You can move over a little if you’re still cold.” I know I am. My nuts are shriveled up, practically ascended into my body.

  “No funny business.”

  As if.

  “Just scoot your ass over here.”

  “Okay, okay. So bossy.”

  Teddy’s feet pull out from under me and soon the heat from her flat stomach, from between her legs, and from her tits are burning my skin where she’s pressed up against me.

  Goddamn. When I told her to scoot over, I didn’t mean Singe me with all your best parts. How the fuck am I supposed to sleep with the apex of her thighs straddling my hip?

  Next, she throws her arm over my chest, fingers casually resting on the bicep opposite, hand falling limp.

  “Oh my god, you are so warm! This feels so amazing.” She hunkers down closer, squeezing me. “Mmm, heaven.”

  Her long, dark hair tickles my nostrils, and I draw in a breath to sniff it as discretely as I can.

  Clean and fruity and I want to bury my nose in it.

  And my hands.

  Those lie limply at my sides, one buried beneath her, the other on the mattress—

  “Your beard tickles.”

  “So does your hair.” Hair I’m tempted to sink my fingers into, to test its weight and feel how soft it is.

  We lie like this for who knows how long, my chest heaving up and down, heart rate accelerated like I’ve just run a mile. I wonder if she can hear it beating—if she knows she’s the reason it’s racing.

  “I’ve never been this comfortable in my entire life.” She sighs, content. “I could lie like this every night.”

  “Only because your survival instincts kicked in.”

  “Or because you’re like a giant teddy bear.”

  Suddenly, Teddy pulls away. In the shadow of the moon shining through the window, I watch her sit up and pull the fabric of her sweatshirt up and over her head, tossing it to the end of the bed.

  What’s left is the silhouette of her breasts veiled in a thin T-shirt, and when she lies back down beside me, the hard peaks of her nipples graze my ribcage.

  “It’s warm enough under these covers I don’t need that anymore.”

  She settles back in, curling into my side, really making herself at home against my body. Hikes her leg over my thigh, the warmest parts of her boiling my skin.

  “Mmm.”

  I can literally feel the fucking heat from her pussy against my leg.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa—what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  What I should do is shove her off the bed, onto the floor, and get the fuck out of my own room. Fast.

  She pats me on the chest, her touch more of a caress than a chastising reprimand.

  “Relax! You’re like one of those pregnancy body pillows I’ve seen in Target. Stop moving around so much or you’re going to mess up my positioning.”

  A pregnancy body pillow? What the fuck is she talking about?

  I can’t concentrate when her delicate hand, which was previously resting innocently on my arm, begins to wander, finger trailing over my left pec, hand pressing into my skin. Poking. Kneading at my muscles.

  “Could your body be any harder?”

  Yup.

  Yes, I can be harder.

  Keep that shit up and you’ll find out just how hard I can be.

  “Jeez, Kip—how often do you work out? All day, every day?”

  “Please stop.”

  Poke.

  Poke.

  “Teddy, stop.”

  “Oh please—you’re immune to me, remember?”

  I’m only immune to you when your perky set of amazing tits isn’t pressed against my body in the middle of the fucking night, reminding me how fucking long it’s been since I’ve boned someone.

  “I never said I was immune to you, Teddy. I said I wasn’t dating anyone or having sex.”

  “And I said I was curious. It’s harmless, I’m not going to try anything—I wouldn’t even know how.”

  That does not make me feel any better; in fact, that makes this whole thing worse, because now all I’m thinking about is being the one who can teach her…stuff.

  “Did you know I haven’t ever seen a guy this close up before? I want to take advantage of the opportunity—since it’s you.”

  A few things hit me at once. One, she doesn’t realize touching me, roaming her hands all over my body is going to eventually make me hard.

  And two: Teddy just admitted she’s a virgin.

  My brain kicks into overdrive, reacting to the soft glide of her palm over my cotton T-shirt. The path it takes down the center of my ab muscles, pausing when they involuntarily contract. Flex. Tighten.

  Oh shit.

  Ohhh. Shit.

  “Wow, I knew you were ripped, but these are…” Her voice is low, full of wonder, the hum inside her throat one of appreciation. “Ridiculous.”

  She makes another little sound of pleasure.

  I don’t know what to fucking do—take her hand off me and tell her to respect my boundaries? Do us both a favor and roll away, creating distance?

  Or let her explore and see where those curious fingers roam next?

  Inside my mesh athletic bottoms, my dick stirs.

  Twitches.

  “You really are a gentleman, Kip.”

  “I’m really not.”

  She has no idea.

  It stretches toward the fabric, alerted to the presence of a foreign hand, to the soothing female voice not far from my ear.

  “Uh huh.” Her arms snakes around my middle, hugging me, body pressed so tightly against mine it’s as if we were one person. “Your skin is so warm. God you feel good.”

  God you feel good?

  Those are sex words, those are sex words, my body screams, even though Teddy isn’t being sexual—is she?

  Nope. She’s snuggling me, for fuck’s sake.

  Unless she’s not?

  No, she definitely is.

  Or maybe she’s not?

  Shit, shit, fuck my life.

  “Why are you so tense right now?” Comes a low, soothing voice. “Should I rub your back?”

  “Jesus no!” I shout. “I mean—no thanks, I’m good.”

  “You really must be tired, ’cause you’re so grouchy all of a sudden. Close your eyes and I’ll rub your shoulders.”

  As she lies next to me, her innocent hands are already there, slowly rubbing circles over my collarbone, clavicle, and deltoid. Goddamn, it feels good.

  Still…

  “Please don’t.”

  “Mmm, why not?”

  “Because…” Because you just went Mmm, and it made my dick stiffen up, that’s why not. Does she really not get it? Or is she playing dumb? She can’t be this clueless.

  Can she?

  “Just relax, okay?”

  “That’s not gonna happen.” I bark out a laugh, wanting to move away but paralyzed.

  Her fingers brush the bottom of my beard then lightly caress my cheeks.

  “Your skin is so soft where you don’t have hair—too bad there isn’t much of it showing.”

  “Yup, just how I like it.”

  “You know what girls always talk about when they see a guy with a beard?”

  “How repulsive it is?”

 
“Uh, no.” Teddy laughs. “They talk about what it would feel like between their legs.”

  “What?” Another laugh from her and I’m ready to fly off the damn bed. “You’re lying.”

  “Did you not know that?”

  “No.”

  “Kip, they make T-shirts that say Bearded for her pleasure. You should get one—I’d get you one myself, but I’m broke, ha.”

  “Wait—what?”

  “Have you been living under a rock? Beards are so trendy right now. Even I know that, and I’m the untrendiest person I know. That doesn’t mean I like beards, but everyone else does—girls, I mean.”

  That would explain so many things: girls still approaching me at parties, wanting to touch my beard. Touching my mustache at the bar. Making lewd comments. Telling me I should enter contests.

  I always thought they were joking. Shit, maybe I have been living under a rock—otherwise known as the Midwest.

  Teddy drones on, fingers at the base of my neck, kneading at a knot. “…and I saw a girl wearing one that said My other ride is a beard. Get it?”

  She says it so casually, yet the sudden image of her sitting on my face while I suck on her—

  Her throat gives a little mew, fingers still massaging my sensitive skin. “You’ve heard of a beardgasm before, haven’t you?”

  “Stop.”

  Her fingers stop.

  “I didn’t mean you had to stop doing that, I meant stop saying shit like that, about beards and orgasms and crap.”

  “Why?” She sounds about as perplexed as I’m feeling right now. “We’re just talking.”

  “Because it’s getting me hard.” Er. Hard-er.

  There. If that doesn’t scare her off, nothing will.

  Seconds of silence pass.

  Then minutes.

  “Is it?” Her voice is barely a whisper. Fascinated.

  “Yes.” Mine is gruff.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” I deadpan. “Because I’m in bed with a pretty girl, in the middle of the fucking dark, and her hand is on my body—one that hasn’t been touched in years, by the way. And you’re going on and fucking on about oral.” I pause to take a breath. “That’s why.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.”

  I lift my arm, hand searching for hers in the dark. Remove it from my shoulder, clasping her fingers. Place it back on my stomach, where it belongs—away from my chest and nipples and face.

  Where I hope it will stay.

  But apparently, I’m a fucking moron, because it doesn’t.