Meanwhile: Gary's Anatomy

"Facts define society. Likewise, society defines facts, of which this treatise is but one demonstration. In the end, the dynamic facilitation at play becomes reliant on the individual fixations of each culture, era, and its people; when the margin between perception and reality is indistinguishable from the other, the final product is the result of both their influence on each other and their respective spheres, in ways that correlate closely... even when, by way of lineage, they remain and are abjectly separate."

The sound of flipping pages crackled through the air. From it emerged a gravelly mumble.

"...what the hell."

"You get it, Gary?"

Gary, an undergrad with average everything's and lucky sneakers, twisted his neck back. "Jada, I'm stuck." He invoked the sound of being choked to ****. Or drowning. One of the two. "H-help me..." He rolled to his side, arm raised in mid-air, and let the cover of the book close shut. The title read "Horror of Powers".

The chocolate-skinned beauty that just strode into the room did her part.

"Told you it's a headache." She set down a plate of celery and dip. Gary reached for a green stick.

"So, what now, miss tutor?" He chewed down.

Jada snorted. "That's funny." She unwrapped herself, laying on the ground to stare up at the just as uninteresting ceiling. The snap of a celery went out every now and then.

"You got one of the highest scores on the last test, Jada. Don't play it off."

"That doesn't mean I'm some magical grade magnet, mister cheat-sheet-activist." Jada rolled to her side, elbow on the ground and face cradled laxly in her palm to look at her 'partner' scrupulously. Between them sat the plate of celery and their collection of papers and books they secretly began trying to put off, without in fact admitting it. Gary's eyes, however, couldn't help but focus on something else parallel to all the other distractions currently dragging him through the figurative dirt.

Jada, as you might have guessed, was quite well-endowed. Gary always appreciated a busty chocolate-skinned woman and their having curves in just the right places. And as Jada breathed instinctively, in and out, chew after chew, it affected her endowments quite visibly.

Endowments that to a normal guy would probably be criminal to look away from -- but alas, Gary was accustomed to this, even as his eyes dwelled on her cleavage for just a second longer while she flipped a page over. At the end of the day, though, he knew when to keep his dick in his pants and be business-first, move maker second.

After all, even if he loved boobies in all its round supple glory, in all its titty flesh and hand warming lusciousness just as much as the next guy, it's not like he was prowling around with his juvenile urges like some...

flash!

In a second the world was enveloped in a sharp flash. Then as quickly as it came it went away. Jada leafed through her packet, and Gary sat there in boredom. While she did so, he continued his internal train of thought.

As he'd been thinking while his eyes wandered by the window which provided beautiful glimpses of the shimmering sky outside, even if he loved to talk while making eye contact with beautiful women as much as the next guy, it's not like he was some prude. As much as his brain told him not to, he made sure, at least intermittently, to actually show how much he appreciated Jada as his friend, and how much of a hot bitch she was.

Gary suddenly cursed to himself. Speaking of which...

As if on cue, Jada looked up from her work. "Gary, I just realized," she sighed with the kind of patience that's been tested no shortage of times before, "you've been talking to me for this whole time and you've only looked at my breasts once." She held up a finger, eyes as stone-cold as the Rocky Mountains. Gary nearly ripped a page off his notebook with the way his hand moved over to shift his position in the carpet in futility.

His brain sighed right along. Sure didn't see that one coming. So much for gentleman Gary.

Gary chuckled nervously, looking down at her chest. "Well," he cleared his throat, quickly thinking of something to say, "it's... definitely there. Your chest, I mean. And it's..." Another clearing of the throat. "...it's nice to look at. Very round. Heavy looking. Bet it can be a bit of a strain on the back, though." He frowned. "Better make sure you maintain a good posture. You should really get a new desk chair, too, I've seen you slumping in that one. Wouldn't want those to just be spilling out everywhere." After making a show of looking at it closely like he was studying the exam on there, he nodded then smiled at Jada and returned to his work.

Jada almost laughed in disbelief and rolled her eyes. "Men," the word came off the tip of her tongue in almost a complete reversal of said disbelief, as if, in fact, it should've been no surprise in the first place. She returned to her book and grabbed a stick of celery. "You guys never could sum up the time or effort to treat us like actual women, can't you?"

Oh here we go again. Grabbing a celery stick of his own, Gary started, "Well, it's kind of unfair, isn't it? In spite of what society might try to 'suggest'," he emphasized sardonically, "you girls are really exactly the same as us. You prefer a decent conversation and having a, you know, a normal time hanging out sometimes too! Maybe we end up forgetting to ogle a boob or two--I mean, your tits, or not even groping you or whatever, but why is that expectation placed on only us in the first place, man?" Biting into the celery, Gary jutted it in Jada's direction. "It's secret sexism at play here. Not all of us can see a beautiful, gorgeous woman and instead of thinking, 'I wonder how she's doing,' go straight to 'Oh, oh shit, she's so hot I'm getting horny just thinking about her and want to fuck her brains out and rub my penis against her and slap her butt,' that's just not natural."

He chewed down his celery while Jada just looked at him and shook her head, mouth in a half-open, awe-induced smile.

"Wow," she said. "I can't believe you. What do you mean, normal time?! Yeah, on the surface it looks like a double standard; women don't need to be perverts like you guys do. But that's seeing past the point -- we are different, and if you want to see who owes who, just look at history, buddy; men have been oppressive while also being hypocritical prudes to women for centuries. Now is the time for change, not sticking to ideals from, from bygone eras." She laughed again. "Besides, I doubt you'd want us perving on you anyway, considering how much of a prude you look like right now."

"Well--" Gary tried to interrupt. In a sigh of defeat, his interruption was interrupted.

"And you just don't get it, do you?" His friend sat up and folded her arms. "Look at me." She gestured to herself. "What do you see?"

After a casual once-over, Gary replied, "My classmate, friend, dictator..."

"Do you think I'm 'beautiful'?"

Gary stared at her knowingly, and sighed again. "Very."

"Exactly!" Jada pointed at him. "Exactly! Don't you see the contradiction?! How can you men call a women beautiful or gorgeous or whatever," she circled her hand in the air dismissively, "and proceed to not even grow a hard-on?! Let alone grope them or at least tell them how hot they are! Is it that hard to restrain yourself? You have to realize just how backwards it is, Gary." She pushed herself up and folded her legs underneath her. "There was a study that showed the prettier a girl is, the less likely a guy is to grope her or treat her like a bitch like she deserves to be. What do you think of that?"

"I mean, that's--"

"I know," her interruption knifed through, "what you're gonna bring up already. Male arousal, and how it's virtually non-existent except during intercourse, and yadda-yadda. Biology 101. The thing is, at the end of the day, we all need sex to reproduce. It's in all of us. The weird thing about you men, or at least most of them, is that you always act like your sexual interest is your own, that no one else has that part of you. Well, guess what, if you can't control your own narcissistic urges, eventually you won't have any women who'll give you the time of day." She shook her head. "You know for a long time that 'perversion' was referred to as such because it was considered the opposite of 'proper'."

"Yes, yes," waved Gary, wishing he hadn't said anything, anything at all.

"But thanks to human decency," the hot, busty woman went on, "it became clear that a pervert wasn't the opposite of proper, but the opposite of 'natural'. It was being able to set aside yourself and focus some time, some attention, some affection to the women around you." Jada glanced at Gary. "About being nice, and thoughtful. And that's what being a true, confident man is all about."

For a moment, Gary was going to let it slide. He planned to swerve the topic over to their studies, or celebrity gossip. But for whatever reason, he felt himself needing to dig in one more time.

"Alright then Jada," he posed, "if that's the case, then tell me this." His eyes twinkled. "If being a pervert is so 'good', and being a prude is so 'bad'--"

"Wait," Jada briefly cut in, "before you get going, I just want to be clear that you don't generalize what I'm saying. The world isn't black and white, being too much of a pervert can be just as much of a problem as being too much of a prude, the key here is 'too'."

Gary rolled his eyes. Yeahh right. Prudishness doesn't exactly have a binary relationship with perversion anyway, it's just a social construct. Girls love pervs and will always love pervs for one reason: the attention. But say the shoe was on the other foot. Would we hold them to the same standard?

"In any given situation, Jada, wouldn't a man who's calling you by things other than your name, or treating you like a dog, or treating you like a friggin' object be demeaning? You know, instead of... 'honorable'?!"

"Oh you just don't get it," Jada sighed, surrendering then and there.

"And," Gary continued like a moving train, "wouldn't us guys technically be more in control of ourselves by not just constantly putting our hands on you or trying to get you out of your clothes?" He folded his arms towards his chest this time. "And most people don't know this, but, well..." He looked around then whispered, "we do, in fact, get aroused by looking at hot women, you know. All the effin' time."

For the first time, Jada actually saw a glint of perversion in his eyes, and in her surprise, felt her nipples harden and she took a sharp breath. Okay, that was pretty hot, she had to admit.

He was no 'true' pervert, though. However, she admired his boldness for once.

"We just don't like to express it by turning you into sluts on which we cum in public, and instead bring out our shining armor and make ourselves into gallivanting devils that kneel on one knee with a rose clamped between our teeth, and serenade Frank Sinatra!" This got a laugh out of Jada, and Gary chuckled too. It was good to see her loosening up finally. "In spite of what you might think, emotion is complicated," he winded down, placing his hands on the carpet behind him. "What you think is natural might just be what society has misconstrued as, like, a 'response to recurring phenomena'. I mean, sure, some of it is true, and does have to do with the actual physical make-up of the body; but, in the end, most guys are prudes at heart and society has accepted that not just because it can't be helped," he shrugged, "but because it believes it, too."

Suddenly, his eyes widened.

"Holy crap!"

"What?" Jada asked.

"I get it now!" In a rush, Gary pulled out a sheet of paper and started making a draft. "Jada, pull up the word processor, I'm about to get this done by evening, you watch."

Taking her laptop out of her backpack, Jada gave him an urgent look and passed it to him. "You better let me in on this too!" She then added, "I promise I won't bug you about looking at my breasts anymore if you do. You could go a whole two days without looking at them, or commenting on my ass or anything, I swear! Deal?"

Gary nodded and shook her hand. It was a deal.