A friend in need

You awaken to a knocking at your dorm door. It is a harsh sound against your ears. Everything is still a little sore, but you can at least move now. Your balls ache, a definite knot in your pants but it's bearable. You groggily peel yourself out of bed, your sweaty sheets sticking to you until you pull free. Your alarm clock says 5:00 PM. You wonder to yourself how you managed to lose a whole day sleeping. The knock knock knocking comes again, faster than before. You half stumble through the kitchen to the living room. You look through the door’s peephole. Alice is outside.

“Alice.” you mumble under your breath. “What could she want?” You raise your horse voice. “Who is it?”

“It’s Alice!” comes the quick, almost apologetic reply. “I wanted to check in on you. You didn’t show up to the archives today and after what happened I was really worried.” There is a hitch in your throat. You slowly unlock the door. As you open the door Alice’s eyes rise from the doormat to meet yours.

“Hey.” You flatly say. This is weird, you add to yourself.

“Feeling better?” She meekly smiles. You shrug.

“I’ve had worse.” You sigh.

“Well that's something,” she says. “But I think I know something that will make you feel much better.” She lifts up the grocery bag in her hand. Oh she’s good, you think, apologizing with food. Your belly is empty, painfully empty. “Still a fan of my tikka masala?” She grins. She has you dead to rights. Damn this woman! Her tikka masala was one of the first dishes that she ever made for you way back in prehistory, and you were smitten ever since. This isn’t fair to you, you think, that’s just plain fighting dirty. Your stomach growls long and loud, doing its best to imitate a whale’s call. She looks at your stomach and then back to you. You feel your dry mouth start to wet.

“Come in.” You open the door for her, beckoning.

“Nice place.” She says, taking her shoes off and stepping inside with shopping bags in hand. “All yours?”

“Eh.” You answer “Not quite, I have a roommate but he spends most of the nights over with his boyfriend.”

“So you're home alone?” She queries. What is with all these questions you grumpily ask yourself.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Can’t imagine it’s fun taking care of yourself after getting hurt.”

“I’ve been managing.” You smile facisciously. You have most certainly not been managing. You have been getting managed. Entangled in Faustian bargains and all!

“Oh.” She replies, setting down her bags on the kitchenette table, pulling out an apron and putting it on. “That’s good. I’ll get the food started.”

“Ok.” You say. You think that it might be good to get changed out of the clothes you were sleeping in and shower. Might make you feel better. You grab a towel and a change of clothes and walk into the bathroom. You peel your sweaty clothes off you down to your briefs and turn on the water. As you do you catch a glance of an unfamiliar figure in the mirror. You do a double take. You tiptoe up to the mirror as if you’ll scare the figure off.

“Is that me?” you audibly whisper. Your body looks subtly tighter, harder. No popping muscles like a bodybuilder, but you can see that your, well everything, is definitely different from how you remember it. You pose, and then pose again. “How you doing, baby?” You drawl, posing and pointing at yourself in the mirror. “I look good.” You laugh under your breath, steam starting to obscure the mirror. You peel your briefs off and get a look at your cock. Again, subtly different but mostly the same. Maybe a little longer, a little thicker, you think. You click your tongue. “I’d need a ruler to check.” You feel your balls, which still ache like all Hell. You look up at the door. Too risky, you think, to try and **** your chicken while Alice is here. You shower fast. You brush your teeth on the way out of the bathroom, feeling squeaky clean in sweats and a t-shirt.

“Dinner’s almost ready.” You hear Alice call.

“Ok.” You reply.

“I hope you don’t mind that I used some of your white wine.” Alice says as you pass by her on the way to the fridge.

“That’s what it's there for.” You chuckle, searching for the gin, lemon, and tonic water. The chicken sizzles on the pan wonderfully. You sit down, reclined at the table while you make yourself an extra strong gin and tonic. The first sip is refreshing, splendid even. You sigh.

“Cheers.” Alice says to you, raising her glass of wine.

“Cheers.” You reply.

“So” Alice says, turning back to the stove. “How’s student housing treating you?”

“Eh.” you reply. “I’m glad they put the transfer students in dorms like these rather than the itty bitty broom closet ones for the freshman over on campus.”

“I remember those days.” Alice shivers. “Fire alarms going off at all hours because of some pothead thinking a sandwich bag or condom over the smoke detector will protect them from getting caught lighting up. Thin walls means you know everybody’s business and everybody knows yours. Nearly blowing up the building because of a gas oven.”

“I beg your pardon?” You interrupt.

“Melissa Collins, my roommate, didn’t turn the gas off after using the oven in the community kitchen in the middle of the night, probably would have killed us all if some RA did not happen to pass by and smell the gas.”

“Wow.” You say.

“Yeah wow is right.” Alice sighs. “You’re really missing out on all the antics.”

“Thank God I am.” You laugh. “I am sure you were up to all sorts of antics too, wild child that you are.” You add, sarcastically.

“Put a pin in that.” Alice says, making your eyebrows rise. She smiles mischievously at you.

“Oh my, haven’t you changed.” You chuckle.

“People do in college. And besides,” Alice adds, “I think everybody goes through a bit of a wild phase when they’re first off the parental leash.”

“Sure.” You say.

“You’re the exception to that rule, you went wild in high school.”

“I was not that wild.” You retort.

“You painted that you love me on the town water tower in letters five feet high.” She snorts.

“That was calculated.” You shoot back, crossing your arms. “It was completely safe.”

“Climbing a hundred foot tall water tower is hardly safe.” Alice scoffs.

“Au contraire.” You smile, counting your fingers. “I made sure to do it on a night that there was a full moon. I had a rope harness. I had a hard hat and a headlamp. There was nothing but a regular chain link fence around the base, which took like two seconds to climb. And, I knew the route your bus took every morning to school.” You take another sip. “Besides, it worked didn’t it?”

“Don’t remind me.” Alice sighs, cracking a grin and rolling her eyes. “Food is almost ready by the way.”

“I’ll set the table then.” You say, rising to your feet.

“And I’ll pour myself another glass.” Sings Alice. The smell of food wafts through the air, the wonderful scent of sautéd garlic and ginger filling your nose. The rice cooker plays its little melody and the table is set. You and Alice sit down for dinner and dig in. You eat voraciously, even more so than you usually do. Like a starving man. You do your best to be respectful, not to shovel it into your mouth, but you are really famished.

“If I had known that you were that hungry.” Alice says, “ I would have brought more chicken.” She has a smile on her face looking into her wine glass as she swirls it. She’s pleased that you’re eating her food, that much is patently clear. It is not long before you are up to your third helping, and finishing off everything in the pan. Alice offers you her leftovers. You don’t even hesitate. You obliterate the little pile of food she had not eaten, and with it, finished everything. You finish off your drink. Then Alice fills your glass with wine, and refills hers. You raise your glass.

“My compliments to the cook.” You say. She tinks her glass against yours.

“Thank you.” She beams, taking a sip. “So.” She says, pushing up her glasses. “Do you still want to know about me being a wild child?”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t” You chuckle, Alice’s brows furrow incredulously.

“Sure.” She snorts.

“Since you seem quite intent on telling me though, I’ll abide it.” You say, standing up. “But first, let me start the dishwasher.”

“Ok, I’ll go get comfortable.” Alice says, getting up too. She passes by you, and you make note of how without her heels on she’s maybe five foot six. You hear the bathroom door close. By the time you’ve started the dishwasher, Alice is back. She has the blanket from your bed that you’ve been sweating in all day wrapped around her shoulders, and before you can say anything, she nabbs the bottle of wine and her glass off the table and is in the living room. You keep up, grabbing your glass and sitting down on the couch with her.

“I’m not sharing.” She says impishly.

“The wine or the blanket?” You shoot back.

“Both.”

“Sure.” You snort.

“You should turn something on, I can’t stand silence.” Alice says. You sigh and grab the remote. The TV whines on the shapes and colors of The Sport Place™ dancing on the screen, the volume a low whisper.

“So,” you say “Begin?” She takes a big gulp of her wine, her face lit up by the changing colors on the TV. It’s dark outside now, and the TV is the only light on in the living room. The kitchenette light throws an oblong carpet of yellow on the floor.

“So, what do you consider a slut?” She asks, looking at the screen. You mull it over in your head for a moment. You crack a smile.

“A derogatory term for a woman who enjoys sex?”

“Eh.” Says Alice, “Good enough. So I was a bit of a slut in freshman year.” You gasp sarcastically. Alice snorts at you, nose crinkled. “Oh don’t you start with me you horny toad I remember―”

“Guilty as charged.” You chuckle.

“Guilty indeed.” Alice huffs. “But at least you never made me puke.”

“I beg your pardon?” You flatly ask.

“One of the fuckboys I was with, a junior named Kyle, was not gentle at all. No aftercare, no nothing.” Alice says. “One day, I’m drunk hanging out with him after a party, and he asks me to blow him while we’re at the Greasy Spoon, and I am like, ok, I’ve blown guys before, I should be able to do it in a rinky dinky bathroom right?” You nod along. “But Kyle, apparently, believes that a blowjob begins and ends with shoving it straight down a girl's throat.” She sips her wine. “So when I go down on him, it's just” Alice grabs her own hair and pantomimes being roughly shoved down onto a cock. You chortle.

“Oh no.”

“And of course, there’s this little thing called a gag reflex.”

“Oh my God.” You laugh.

“So I just hack my dinner straight onto this guy. Right there. In the Greasy Spoon bathroom.”

“What?” You recoil. “Alice, what the fuck?”

“Not my proudest moment. I cried for like a half hour after that. He left me there, too. I had to walk home with my own puke on my dress.” She says, looking down at her drink.

“I assume you two were through after that?”

“Heh.” Alice chuckles.

“You’re kidding.” You groan. “Alice.”

“Not right after.” She says. “A girl’s gotta experiment. I mean, I would not have learned that I like girls if it were not for his” she air quotes “girlfriend.”

“Oh this is news to me.” You lean in conspiratorially.

“For you.” She grins, leaning in too. “Her name was Stacy, and wow what a woman. I know that I’m stacked, but this girl.” Alice leans back, grabbing her breasts with her hands and nearly spills her glass. “Like the size of volleyballs.”

“Wow.” You say, eyes fixed on Alice’s own jiggling breasts.

“I know, right? I didn’t know I was bisexual until she strutted in my life. She was smart and sassy and really only kept Kyle around as a pet. To pay for stuff. I don’t even think she every fucked him, just gave him handjobs when he got bitchy. She was in control of her life. She knew what she wanted in life and took it, me included. I felt wanted, you know? And I loved her, a lot.” Alice’s voice gets low, almost husky. “She’d take me and Kyle out on dates, and make him pay, and then insist that I drive her back home because I wasn’t old enough to drink yet.” Alice gets a faraway look in her eyes, the TV’s colors dancing across her face. “The things she could do with her hands. Magical.”

“Huh.” You say, taking another sip of your drink to cover you shifting your package around inside your sweats. The pain in your balls now seems to be rising with renewed vigor. And it definitely feels warmer here than it did a moment ago, you think.

“She’d pin me down, and eat me out until I was a puddle. She knew how to take a girl on a ride too.” Alice says, breathing harder.

“Oh my.” You reply. “You two end up becoming an item?”

“No, it wasn’t a happy ever after for me.” Alice sighs. “She graduated, ran away with all his money and went off to live her life as she pleases. Sometimes she’ll call me, usually asking for money, and she’ll hang up once she realizes that sweet talking me isn’t opening my purse. Kyle, is still pissed, but fuck him.”

“Literally?” You snort.

“Actually no.” She replies. “Always used my mouth.” You sit in silence. You don’t know how exactly to respond to that. Your cock twitches. Alice looks at you. “Sorry.” She says “I’m rambling.”

“Ramble on.” You say, reclining back on the couch.

“You sure?” Alice says, scooting closer to you. “I mean you really should be resting.”

“Eh,” you say “So after Stacy moved away what happened?”

“Well, with Stacy gone I stopped seeing Kyle.” She says. “I hooked up with another girl right at the beginning of sophomore year but we did not end up working out, just the wrong personalities.”

“Oh?” You say, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh God, Claudia was a piece of work I will tell you what. Her family is super, shall we say, traditional, which is fine and all, but when you are a girl who knows that they are going to have strong opinions about your girlfriend, you should not under any circumstances bring your headstrong and opinionated girlfriend home for Thanksgiving Break. I had to live under their roof for a whole week, which she told me was going to be fine.” She makes unbroken eye contact with you, waiting.

“I am guessing it was not fine?” You say, refilling your glass.

“You would be correct in that conclusion.” Alice huffs, eyeing her glass and taking a sip. “So then I get to sit there at family dinner where grandma is hounding Claudia about ‘well why don’t you marry Joseph the nice boy from down the street he’s going to law school.' and 'Claudia you’d better be careful you don’t end up an old maid, you're 20 and still haven't found yourself a good man’ and ‘Claudia you should wear dresses more often or else all the boys at college are going to think you’re a dyke’ and Jesus Christ the fit Grandma threw when she found out that Claudia and I were dating. I thought that the woman was going to have a heart attack on the spot.”

“Yikes.” You whistle.

“Yeah we broke up shortly afterwards. Like that very night. It was messy. Lots and lots of tears.” She sighs. “But I ended up getting some sloppy seconds out of it and that made Claudia have a conniption.”

“You what?” You ask.

“So Claudia had this cousin there, Scott. Scott, what a guy, asked for my number on the way out of the house the morning after the big fiasco at Thanksgiving Dinner and we got to chatting. He was kinda hot in a ‘smart and rich boy whose a knowitall asshole’ way, and I thought hey why not I just got dumped. Turns out he also goes to Poly State. We met up and then we started hooking up. Paid for everything, took me to a whole bunch of fancy places, but very unimpressive hook ups overall.”

“Please go on.” You chuckle, taking another sip of your drink. Alice holds up a finger to say wait, and down her whole glass in one go. Then she pours herself the last little bit of the wine in the bottle into her glass.

“So!” She says, a sly smile crawling across her face. “I seem to remember that you were a good size down below, right?” You nod, feeling your cock grow just a little bit after being complimented. “Scott, he was really only average, maybe five inches or so” You snort, both of you sipping your glasses. “Hey, I will say till my dying day that it is not about how much you got, it is about how you use it. Scott? Could not have used it any worse.” Your eyebrows express your curiosity as she takes another sip of her wine. “He would not eat me out even when I begged him to. It was like he was afraid of vaginas. Which, hello, he came out of. It would take forever to get him off if I blew him but he would bust instantly when we had sex. His favorite thing to do was to just fuck my tits and cum in my mouth, which I hated. I still hate the taste of cum. But he would always pitch such a fucking fit if I didn’t let him cum in my mouth like a big baby. One time he tried to shove his cock in my mouth when he was cumming and I just about bit his dick off.”

“Alice!” You say, gripping your own package reflexively in horror.

“Relax, I didn’t chomp down on it, just a little love bite you know? Besides, shoving your anything into someone’s mouth without permission is a good way to get it bitten off.” She beams.

“A excellent point.” You say, taking another swig. “Continue.”

“Oh and he made no attempt,” Alice scowls, her face turning red, “I repeat no Goddamn attempt, to get me off if he came early so whenever we did do it so I usually ended up rubbing myself to sleep anyways. I think I orgasmed once in the three months I was seeing him before I finally kicked him to the curb.”

“Oh my God.” You cackle, enjoying the tales of someone else’s misfortune. It’s humanizing to know that others can suffer too. Alice and you fall quiet for a moment, just there together on the couch having a good time, talking like normal human beings for the first time in three years,

“I’m really happy you let me cook for you.” Alice says, staring at her nearly empty glass. “Honestly I half expected you to open the door just so you could slam it in my face.” You flinch.

“Honestly Alice,” you sigh “If you had done this only a few days ago I probably would.”

“You’re still that mad at me?” She asks, leaning forwards, her bangs hiding her face from view.

“Not mad,” you say “More just worried I was getting punked.”

“That’s fair,” she sighs.

“But,” you add, resting a hand on her back, “I am willing to bury the hatchet.”

“Be friends again?” She asks.

“Sure.” You say, tracing a lazy circle on her back with your hand.

“And what if I want to be more than friends?” She asks, still hiding her face. Your hand stops. Your brain stops. You are pretty sure you feel your heart stop. Your dick throbs. Your balls hurt. Your mouth, suddenly very dry, cannot make words. Alice turns to you, her eyes wet with tears about to pour down. Those big sad eyes behind her glasses. You make a sound like a deflating tire. She cocks an eyebrow.

“You good there, John?” You are not good. You are in pain again. Your heart hurts. Your dick hurts. Your head hurts. Your balls hurt. You are pretty sure Alice sees it on your face. She scoots closer, shoving her face, glasses and all, against your chest. You feel her tears bleed through the fabric. “I know I’m being selfish just like before, but I can’t explain it.” Her arms wrap around you, trembling. She’s scared. You feel it now. Oh God does it feel good to be held. Way way too good to think straight. Your rational mind is throwing pure vitriol at Alice, thinking that you are dense enough to take her back after all she did to you. After the humiliation, breaking up with you at the Senior Ball in front of everyone, no you will not bite. If she thinks all it will take is some sweet talking and dinner to smooth things over then she belongs out on the doorstep. But, the irrational brain has other plans, here is Alice, basically offering herself up on a silver platter. How better to test out the gifts of Vernius? She is letting you dictate the rules of engagement here. In the struggle between your irrational and rational trains of thoughts, which is it that wins?