We bring you this update, already in progress...

"Hey, does this count as a date?"

"What, tonight? Yeah," I supposed. "Dinner and... after," I selected.

She giggled. "'After'. I like that."

"Not like you're GONNA like it."

She laughed.

When she had basically stopped, I asked, "So this is where I kiss you?"

"Yeah," she smiled.

 

---

 
 

Well, all good things must come to an end.

I've had a really good writer's block... points to above line

Get it? Get it?

This got sparked by the Valentine's Day contest, and I've had this weekend percolating in my brain for, oh, ten years or so. Except one of the characters surprised me a few weeks ago when I was looking at it in my head, by boldly inserting herself into the middle; and then there was Jill's don't-wanna-be-alone-tonight which I hadn't thought of but made PERFECT sense...

I am a right tease when talking about my writing, aren't I?

Anyway, this is regular Tuck, not Seasons Tuck or some sort of alternate history. A lot has happened in between the last published episode and this one, but it should all be congruent in the end. And duh! I'm not going to spoiler myself by explaining what's happened in between, as I plan (haha) to write it.
Don't hold your breath, though...

Also, many of the "TG Elements" tags are sort of bollocks, at least as far as most readers are concerned. They are important; just not at the, er, volume level of most stories.

While one ought have read previous Tuck to know what's going on, or you will not understand Tuck's character, or why he's getting his hair done, this part itself is nearly standalone. Missing a great deal of explanation, yes; but you should be able to get the gist of it (if you know about Tuck).

Also, it is suggested that you not ingest food or drink during reading; there are some humorous bits that may make you choke if you have something in your mouth.

And if you really like it (or have some money you don't want lying around), throw some money into my donation PayPal account.

And now, the lights dim, the trailers are cut out, and the theme music swells...

---

Tucker Home For Valentine's Day

---

 

***
12:18 14 Feb

"Well, I dunno, you know?" Nicole said.

"That is really... Do- Did you even hear what you said?" I asked her. "It didn't make any sense."

She giggled. "Yeah, I know, sorry... Just, I mean, I kinda like him," her facial expression said she more than 'kinda' liked him, "and I THINK it's going well, but I dunno yet. You know?"

"Oh, yeah, that," I agreed. "That stage. Where you just started," I explained, "and everything's kind of up in the air, and you don't even know if you like him or not, but you hope so, and you HOPE things are going to go well, and everything he does is like, 'What does this mean?' Or does it mean anything at all?"

She was nodding at me enthusiastically. "Yeah! Like, he said he works a lot, and so that's good, it's like a job and money and stuff, but he can only see me like one or maybe two nights a week, so is that like a good thing or a bad thing?"

"You see him less but he has more money," I pointed out. "So you could do more..." She was nodding, and looking happy that I'd gotten it.

"And look what he got me for Valentine's Day!" she bubbled as she clawed at her throat.

 

***
12:43 14 Feb

I wished Nicole wouldn't smoke, but she would, did, and was.

"Don't even," she warned as she inhaled, her eyes closing momentarily.

I protested, "I didn't say anything!"

"You were thinking about it," she growled, visibly. "I can tell."

*I am going to punch you in the face,* I thought, hard, but she relaxed, indicating that it wasn't telepathy. Which was sort of a relief, I guess.

"Besides," she said before she took another drag, "I don't really know... I mean, it's kind of nice, but it's really a pain in this weather."

"Yeah, I know." I'd dressed for it, since it wasn't really a surprise that she'd want a cigarette during lunch, nor that she'd want my company during it. I couldn't tell if it was just my company, or if there was some kind of peer pressure thing going on and she was trying to get ME to start smoking; but there was absolutely no way THAT was going to happen. I liked being able to breathe. "Why is it nice? I mean, you don't get stoned or anything, from what I've heard."

She shrugged. "Yeah, but it kind of takes the edge off. Like a drink or two, except a lot faster."

I shrugged back. "I guess..." I'd rather have the alcohol, but that wasn't practical. Or especially legal, at my age. Not that Nicole was old enough to be smoking, either, legally speaking.

"Anyway, are you doing anything for Valentine's Day?" she asked.

I sighed. "No..." Everyone was busy, or not-THAT-way with me, and so I was going to spend the day alone. That was one of the reasons I'd come to practice today; it was less depressing doing this than sitting around thinking about it, and unless I could twist myself into Deep Hack, I'd be aware of it and thus thinking about it a little, even if I was programming or reading or something.

After another hit, she sighed it out, saying, "Me neither." After a pause, wherein she exhausted the rest of the poison cloud, she added, "Don has to work tonight, evening shift, so he'll be like busy until after eleven."

"That is kind of shitty," I nodded, "but, I mean, it's not like it would be a year from now, if you'd been dating all that time I mean. Like-"

"Oh yeah, right," she nodded, not sarcastically at all. "I mean, it'd just be nice, y'know? You know," she stated before I could, but not before the depression took another bite out of me.

"This is depressing," I realized. "So, how many times have you seen Titanic?"

She laughed at me. "Oh man! I LOVE that movie!" I'd guessed; most everyone female did. I kind of liked it too, but not THAT much. Not like I'd really had a choice, though; if I wanted a pseudo-date with one of the Pack or their littles, they were always ready to go see it again. And if they wanted to go see it again, most boyfriends had already reached their EPA exposure limit for the year - if they had boyfriends - but apparently I hadn't.

 

***
16:19 14 Feb

As I was finishing up the latest in a too-long line of plastic tips on Nicole's fingernails, she asked, "So, like, could I ask a favor?"

"Yeah, but I might say no," I warned her. I wasn't THAT easy.

"Could..." Her face kind of went sour. "Like, I was thinking about stopping by the restaurant where Don works, just to see him a little?"

"Like how little?"

"Just for like a few minutes? At like five or so?"

"Yeah, I guess..."

I must not've sounded sincere - probably because I wasn't - because she tried to entice me with, "I'll give you a dollar?"

I didn't really want to, but I didn't really have anything else to do; Kim was sick, and nasty about it, and Jill was doing something with someone - I wasn't sure she knew yet WHO she'd be doing it, whatever IT was, with; but she'd yelled at me that she was damned well doing something with someone tonight - and my parents were doing something disgusting like a romantic dinner out of the house, and even Brian was elsewhere for the evening. And every one of the Pack claimed to be busy tonight, doing something or another. Or they were specifically Not Going To Date (Or Even Close) Me. And tonight was too emotionally charged to push it, or even think about asking again, really.

"Yeah, I guess," I sighed, feeling kind of sick.

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it sympathetically. When I looked up at her, her face said the same thing. "I really appreciate it... I- Just for a few minutes. I PROMISE. Oh, and could you take me home too?"

"Sure," I sighed again, and nodded.

"What happened to that girl you were dating last?" she asked.

I did not want to discuss that. "So, do you think the Reds are going to suck this year?"

She made a face, like 'oh er you don't want to talk about that either', which was utterly true, 'oh dear um uh'. "Oh, I'm not sure... At least we beat Chicago last year. The Cubs REALLY suck."

 

***
16:59 14 Feb

We'd gotten done early; or, we'd mistimed things so that we had a while after taking the last set of (my) nails and et cetera off, but not enough time to do another set without being there a lot longer than Mrs. Singley wanted to be there. And she hadn't wanted to give me a set of keys to the classroom, and I didn't feel like mentioning that I could do without a set if I had to. It'd be rude.

Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones in the lab, nor the only ones hungry for fresh meat. Or, in our cases, hair.

Which was why my hair was up in a braided chignon, with a few tendrils of spiral curls next to my face. Nicole had been hot-curled into an amazing confection, though she'd talked them out of a perm and a bleach job. Talking them out of such things was a weekly job, and it was only going to get harder the more they learned how to do. I'd told them that my dad would cry if I got any more girly-looking, which got them to leave me alone. And leave my eyebrows alone.

"You look just darling," Nicole smirked at me.

"You look spectacular," I smirked back at her, which made her turn to look at herself in a mirror again, and I laughed a little out loud.

"This class is making me so damned vain," she grinned as she turned back.

I questioned, "'Making'?"

"Bitch!" She reached up with both hands towards my head, which made me duck and twist away.

"Stop it! Or I'll fuck yours worse than you fuck mine," I told her as I got some distance. "You've got more to lose," I pointed out. 'And more to grab and yank,' I did not point out. She had ribbons braided in hers.

 

***
17:30 14 Feb

With my hood up and over my hair, I didn't feel so conspicuous, which was a good thing. Nicole had observed, more than once, that if I'd just put on a little makeup - which she and the rest of the cosmetology classes were always ready and eager to do, if it counted for practical hours - I'd have 'all the guys' chasing me. I'd reminded her, more than once, that I had nightmares exactly like that, regularly.

She squeezed my hand as we entered the restaurant where Don worked. Apparently it was a family-owned and -run Italian place, which was the best kind in my opinion. I hadn't even known this place existed, either; which was often even better.

"God, I mean, do I- I mean-"

"You look great," I assured her for the Nth time. She did, except for the worry.

"Oh god," she said as she led us back, past the waiting area where people were already pooling in clusters. I was not especially happy to note, dimly, that most of them were couples.

"He just, I mean, he's working as a waiter, and so he could be anywhere," she said sort of over her shoulder as she kept walking like she knew where she was going. This did not make sense; but I'd noticed that pointing that sort of thing out tended to get me abused, or cried on, and I didn't want either right now.

There weren't that many tables, but the restaurant proper was sort of divided into four- or six-table pseudo-rooms with arches and half-walls and interior windows and things, which was kind of a nice idea but kind of a pain in the ass as we almost got run over by a busboy with a full bin of used stuff trying to go past us in a semi-hallway.

Then I spotted Debbie. *Oh dear.* While we weren't quite as on edge with each other as we had been, I didn't think she'd be real happy to see me here tonight while she was with some guy. Or Lisa, or whoever was absent from the table-for-two she was sitting at, with a couple of plates of demolished appetizers (I guessed) scattered around.

Then Debbie spotted me.

I shook my head at her, then pointed at Nicole, who was still going and chattering nervously as she looked for Don. Thankfully, Debbie nodded.

"Damnit!" Nicole hissed. Then she apparently spotted Debbie, because she said brightly, "Oh hey, isn't that Debbie Carstairs?" and changed direction.

I rolled my eyes for Debbie's benefit, and it looked like she was having the same thought as Nicole weaved through the crowded restaurant towards Debbie's table.

"Good lord, it looks like you got the works today," Debbie said as Nicole got close enough. "It looks fabulous! Hey Tuck," she smiled blandly at me, which was fine with me.

"Yeah, but you look great," Nicole commented sincerely. Debbie did, of course; she always did, though she was wearing the sort of thing that suggested she was on a date tonight, and looked even better, or at least more polished, than usual. As if she was going out for Valentine's Day or something, haha.

Debbie smiled and said, "Thank you!" as if Nicole's opinion actually mattered to her.

"So wha-" Nicole started to say before a door flew open and a guy popped out with a tray and turned and started dishing up Debbie's table with entrees.

"So here's your rigatoni," the guy said, "and I added some extra garlic just for you, okay?" Debbie smiled at him as he threw another plate down on the other side - something like veal - and put the tray against the wall as he sat down in the other chair. And smiled warmly at Debbie.

"Don?" Nicole asked.

Click.

It was sort of amazing, I noticed as time shifted to low gear, that Nicole sounded not at all upset when she asked that.

'Don' turned and, as I knew was going to happen, his face fell when he beheld Nicole standing there. "Ah."

Debbie eyebrows were up but she was blank otherwise.

I was compelled to say, "Uh, Debbie?"

She focused on me.

"This your boyfriend?" I'd heard second-hand scraps about him for a couple of months, though I hadn't connected the name.

Her eyes went to him, and I could tell the answer was 'Yes'.

"Can't see you but one night a week? Saturday?" I guessed.

Her eyebrows started to drop.

I didn't want to, especially, but I felt I had to. "Meet Friday. Three weeks."

And then pointed at Nicole just in case she thought it was me.

"What are you doing?" Nicole asked Don, as the avalanche just barely started to slide.

Debbie, and I for that matter, had already figured it out. Or admitted it to ourselves.

"Oh, ah, hey," Don said with a smile to Nicole.

Debbie's head went down in pain.

"With her?" Nicole added.

"My car's in the shop," Debbie said to me as she grabbed her purse without looking. "Could you give me a ride?"

I said, "Sure," because... I had to.

Debbie stood up in one graceful arc, and then grabbed the bowl of pasta in front of her and flipped it at Don. It went all over his food, but at least a good portion splashed his shirt. "I'm sorry," she said to Nicole.

"What?" Nicole whimpered as her avalanche started to really get going, but Debbie took her upper arm and turned her and started to pull her along. I dodged the two of them and then, before I really considered it, I was between the girls and Don.

Don sat there. He looked somewhat astonished, but not enough. He'd known what he was doing, and it was sinking in that he'd gotten Really And Truly Caught.

"Double dating," I told him, and anyone else who was listening and watching, which I would've bet was the entire section of restaurant that could see us, "is the mark of a cad. Don't make it worse by getting up or saying anything," I told him, because if he did either, it was entirely too possible that either Nicole or Debbie, or gods help me both of them at once, would go prompt-critical and then I'd be stuck in the middle of the firestorm, in a mid-sized and cramped Italian restaurant, with nothing more than my usual armor vest and my two batons.

He looked at me, and then sort of shrugged and sort of smiled, and I almost pulled the batons and started beating the shit out of him, just for that smile and that shrug.

 

***
17:34 14 Feb

"Could you take me to Lisa's house? She's home tonight," Debbie said. She probably sounded to someone who didn't know her like she was fine, maybe a little tight; but I could hear the scream.

"Yeah."

"I thought he-" Nicole squeaked.

"I know," I told her, and put my arms around her.

"I really did!"

Debbie stood there, in her green dress, and just bled.

 

***
18:13 14 Feb

"Thanks," Debbie sighed as I stopped in front of Lisa's house. Nicole was still crying in the back seat.

"Sure. Debbie?"

She looked at me.

"I'm... really sorry," I said, which was totally inadequate.

She moved her lips the same way she would've for a smile. But it wasn't a smile. "Me too," she sighed. "Thanks."

 

***
18:25 14 Feb

Nicole finally pulled back, and the sobs stopped. Or, more likely, paused. "Can- Can we leave? Go somewhere?"

I was not unhappy at the idea of getting away from Lisa's house myself. "Sure."

"I don't care. I don't care where," she amplified.

 

***
19:04 14 Feb

"Plus, I'm sort of hungry," I admitted to Nicole as I opened the back door of my house. Despite the fact that I'd had lunch earlier - a lunch I'd had to pay for - I could probably eat something approximating a meal. Even if I had to cook it.

Not Italian, of course. Not with Nicole.

She asked, "So you like cook too?"

"Yeah..." I shut the door. "In fact..." I realized, just in time, that mentioning they wanted to marry me would probably be a big lump of salt in her bleeding psyche. "I cook Sunday dinners. That's part of how I got my laptop, was agreeing to cook Sundays. And then my friends started coming over. Free food, you know. Do you like Chinese style?" I asked.

"Um... sure," she agreed with a nod.

"Would you mind helping a little? Just chopping and things; it makes it go faster. And I'm kind of hungry."

"Yeah, me too..." It bit her again, I could tell, as she looked down at the floor.

"Come up front, take your coat off," I ordered as I unzipped mine.

 

***
19:06 14 Feb

"Your hair," she smirked.

"What?" My hands went up to touch it before I remembered. "Oh. Yeah."

"Wh- I mean, are you going to get in trouble if your parents see you?"

"Naw. They're out."

She gave me a skeptical look.

"What? Oh. I mean, if you want to go home, that's cool-"

"No..." She looked around the front hallway. "I don't know. No," she decided. "I just... I mean-"

"So you can cut vegetables, right?" which I thought might distract her a bit.

"Wh- Oh, yeah..."

"Nicole?" She looked at me. "Seriously, if you don't feel comfortable alone in the house with me, I can take you home or wherever. I just... I mean, I'm kind of hungry, and I don't want to pay any more for food; and Mom's stopped buying junk food, y'know, the good stuff." She smirked a bit. "And it'd be at least as easy to fix you something at the same time."

She sighed, "Yeah... That'd be cool, I guess."

 

***
20:31 14 Feb

"This is really good," Nicole said again, still astonished.

"Well, it's 'cause you helped," I lied. She HAD chopped and sliced and et cetera; and I wouldn't have bothered for just me, so in that sense she was the only reason I was eating this well tonight. On the other hand, brown rice in the steamer, plus two different stir-frys, and recycled (so to speak) soup and a large salad were not really a culinary stretch.

She laughed a little. Then her nails - or the tips I'd applied - caught her attention again, and she fanned her fingers to look at them, then tapped both hands' worth on the table a few times.

When she looked up again, she blinked in surprise, then smirked at me. "Your hair like that," she grinned.

"What? Oh," I remembered. "Hey, you know, it was actually cooler tonight, cooking," I realized.

"And it looks so darling on you," she sneered, though not seriously.

"Doesn't it though?" I smiled back at her.

She dropped the sneer and commented, "God, you know... I mean, no offense, but you really do look girlish like that."

"I know," I sighed.

"You ever think about cutting it? I mean like REALLY short?" she asked as she picked up her fork again and used it.

"Like a buzz cut or something? Yeah, but I don't think it would actually help; I'd just look like Sinead O'Connor, or Ripley in that bastardization of an Aliens movie."

"Hm?" She swallowed. "What?"

"Aliens Three?" She nodded. "The movie sucked."

"Where she shaved her head, though?" she confirmed. "I thought she looked kind of good in it!"

"SHE looked good," I admitted. "The movie, though, sucked BIG time."

She took a sip of her wine cooler - which was going to cost me money to replace, but she'd begged too cutely to resist - and complained at me, "Why? Because it didn't have all those guns in it like the second one?"

"No, because like everything that she got in the second one was fucking killed off, before the movie proper even really started! I mean, all you see is the corpses! It's like, it makes the second movie totally pointless because everything's even worse."

"I think that's why it's good," she argued.

"WHAT?!"

 

***
21:17 14 Feb

Nicole smiled at me as I finally dumped the dirty dishpan water and refilled the now-empty dishpan. I'd had to do a lot of the cleanup, but with her helping it wasn't bad. Too bad.

"That," she commented lazily, "was really good."

"Thanks." I assumed that she was referring to the food, rather than to the dishwashing.

She closed her eyes and communed with her belly for a while, never quite losing her smile. This was, in my opinion, a Thumbs Up for the cook.

I leaned against the counter. "So... What now?"

 

***
21:49 14 Feb

Fortified with a second wine cooler - I was going for caffeine instead, though the idea of combining caffeine with alcohol was kind of intriguing - she was now sitting on my bed in my room, looking not entirely like she wanted to escape. "You read a lot."

"Not entirely; a lot of it's overflow from friends," I told her. "And, I don't read as much as I used to. Been kinda busy lately." Which was an understatement.

"Yeah, no kidding," she sighed.

 

***
22:03 14 Feb

"Hey, Tuck?" Nicole asked after a pause.

"Yeah?"

She stopped.

*This is probably not a good sign,* I realized.

"Yeah?" I tried again.

She sighed, and looked at her wine cooler bottle, and then put it to her lips and drained it.

*Definitely not a good sign...*

She looked up at me when she'd finished. "You know... You said that you were, like, dating or something that girl Jill in our class, right?"

"Yeah?" I admitted. "But that was over a long time ago."

"It was like November or something, though, right?" She'd stopped looking at me and was kind of manipulating the bottle. You could've called it 'fondling', but it wasn't really like she was fond of it, more like it was there and was neutral and something to do with her hands and eyeballs.

I had to think about it. "Ummmm... Yeah? I think so."

"And then there was that other girl, um..."

"Pam?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "And you and her were..." She wiggled, somehow managing to convey 'having sex' without actually saying it out loud or looking sexual. "Right?"

"Um... That might possibly be so," I said.

"And there were another one or-"

"Oh- Well- Um."

"So are you dating anyone right now?"

"Wh- Well, no. Not- Well..."

She glared at me, which suggested that wasn't sufficient.

"Well, I mean, not dating-dating, no. I- The girls I can- I mean, there's some girls I go out with, if they want to go out and just have a kind of date-like evening, without the pressure of, y'know, actually having to like DATE someone."

"Kind of friends, right?"

I breathed, "Yeah," relieved that she'd gotten it.

"And, like, th- Jill and that other girl were kind of like that, right?"

"Yeah, I guess." Another glare prompted me to firm up to, "Yeah."

She sighed, opened her mouth, closed it, rotated the bottle in her hands a few rotations, opened her mouth again, closed it, sighed, opened it a third time, then blurted, "How do I get into that? I mean," she said, talking faster, "Don's like- I'm never talking to him again, and I'm like, I don't know anyone I really want to go out with and date, like you said, 'date-date', except they're all with other girls, the ones I'd want to date... And," she looked up at me, "I'd really like to, to..."

I guessed, "To go out and do something fun?"

"Have sex. Oh shit," she moaned, and tried to put her hands to her head except she was still holding the bottle, which clanked on her skull. "Did I say that?"

"Uh." I wasn't sure myself. "I can pretend you didn't," I offered.

"Yeah," she breathed, sounding relieved. "No, wait. Tuck," she complained, "you're a nice guy, and Jill said you were cool, just kind of, like, not masculine, but she said you were good in bed-" She stopped and closed her eyes. "I'm fucking this all up."

I wasn't going to argue with her; I was really wishing I hadn't had my one wine cooler, or food either, because I'd be sharper and then maybe able to figure out what she was trying to say. Because she couldn't possibly-

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, stared at me, and stated, "I'd like to get what Jill had."

I thought about this for several seconds, then got up and went and sat on my kneeler chair. She looked hurt. I told her, "I'm gonna try and say... what I think you're trying to say. Or ask or whatever. And I'm going over here in case I get it wrong, so it'll be harder for you to kick me if I- if I misunderstood."

She still looked kind of hurt, but at least it didn't seem to get any worse.

"I'm not joking around or teasing you or making fun of you, okay?" I said. "I mean, if I get it wrong, I'm really trying to guess-"

"Yeah," she nodded, "I mean, just..."

"Yeah, so, not making fun of you or anything... You'd..." *Oh please, don't let me get this wrong and get the shit beaten out of me...* "You'd like to be friends, with me." When nothing happened, I prompted, "Right?"

"Yeah, but-"

I interrupted her, "But I mean, that's part of it, right?"

"Yeah."

"And... you'd..."

"Like to, to, to have sex with you," she pushed out in a rush. Then she looked down and started to flush. "I mean, like you did with Jill, like no pressure, just kind of a- a friendly thing, kind of, at least that was kind of what I thought you did, and that other girl over Christmas was kind of the same way right?"

"What? P-" I did not want to say names. Even though names were the one thing I was sure about in this conversation; the rest of it was really fuzzy. "Yeah."

"Can I go outside and have a cigarette?" she pleaded, directly to my face. "This is one of those times I could really use one."

"Oh god. Okay," I allowed. It wasn't like my parents would think it was mine, after all.

 

***
22:08 14 Feb

Nicole lit up and sucked on it and held it, and held it, and finally let out the cloud, which diabolically tried to envelop me. "Damnit!" I complained as I dodged.

"Sorry," she sighed, and took another deep hit as she moved around to try and get downwind of me. I thought that's what she was doing anyway. She expelled a plume, pointing it upwards - she was, it turned out, downwind at the moment - and slowly said, "You have NOOOooo idea, how much I need this right now."

"I think that'd be 'addiction', there," I pointed out.

"Yeah and your point?"

I just gave her a look, which hopefully would trigger memories of all the lectures she'd ever heard.

"Yeah yeah yeah," she said, and inhaled again. Maybe it had worked. Except it wasn't stopping the smoking. "Anyway..."

Pause.

She wrapped an arm around herself. "I mean... It's fucking Valentine's Day, the guy I THOUGHT might amount to something is like utterly SHIT," which I totally agreed with. Debbie would've agreed too, I thought. "...I'M alone tonight, YOU'RE alone tonight..." She took another hit and held it for a while. "I just don't- I mean... You're nice, and kind of sweet..."

"And I'm sort of getting the impression you don't want to DATE-date me, right?"

She made a pained face and agreed, "Not really, I mean, I dunno, I kind of... I mean it would REALLY suck if we like broke up and then had to be there in class like that, and you're going for the thing over the summer and next year right?"

"Yeah."

"So that'd be like over a year and everything... So, I mean, but you were still- You still ARE friends with Jill, and Kim, and I think you still hang out with those other girls right?"

I decided not to mention sleepovers. "Yeah."

"So, I mean, that's kind of what I want, except I don't have any guy fr- other guy friends I could do that with. You're my friend, right? I mean kind of, right?"

"Well, yeah, I guess..."

"I mean," and she shrugged as she had another hit, "I think you're nice. And I thought you were like a geek, but you don't like do it around me too much, so..."

I warned her, "I AM a geek, though."

"Yeah maybe!" she argued. "But you don't act like it! I mean, you can actually TALK to girls and stuff."

"'Socially retarded' isn't 'geek'."

She challenged, "Yeah it is. I mean, you can talk about OTHER things, and geeks I mean CAN'T, like they don't KNOW anything else. You, I mean, you know other stuff. Like girl stuff, and I don't care what people say about it being gay, it's like COOL to have a guy that I can talk about stuff like clothes with." I wanted to know what 'people' said about 'it' being gay, but then I already basically knew it.

"You know what I don't get?" I mentioned. "Okay, so, you like it, YOU like it, OTHER girls like it, if I know something about 'girl stuff' like clothes and hair and periods and," I sighed because it was irritating as shit when they did it, "talking about guys you're interested in and things, and all that. So why is it GAY if I get girls to hang out with ME, by talking about that stuff with 'em? I don't get that." I'd obeyed it, though some of that had been because of association with the previous incarnation of my sister, the evil one. But I hadn't really thought about it. Now that I'd thought about it, I wanted to kick the younger me and scream at him for being so immensely stupid.

"I dunno! It's like stupid isn't it?" she half-grinned at me. "Stupid guys," she said contemptuously.

"Stupid guys," I agreed. I hated them, in a general sort of way.

"But you ARE like that, and I'd... I'd kind of like to, to..."

I smirked, "Take advantage of me?"

She tilted her face and smiled darkly as she looked at me. "Totally molest you. Oh shit did I say that?" she gasped as she staggered away from her words, throwing a hand up to her mouth.

"You're not that drunk, Nicole," I told her, though I couldn't help grinning myself.

"Oh shit, oh shit..."

I rolled my eyes to myself and leaned against a vertical beam to wait her embarrassment out.

 

***
20:10 14 Feb

When it seemed like she'd forgiven herself for stating what was actually on her mind - which took way longer than it should have, in my opinion, but despite Nicole's compliments, I still wasn't entirely too sure how these humans actually worked - I said, "So, you'd like to, basically, have some friendly sex with me, yes?"

I'd also spent some time thinking, to get the right words to balance between being too subtle to be understood, and being too blunt and scary.

She took a deep hit off her cigarette and held it for a while. I was beginning to think that she did that when she was stalling for time. She also looked rather pained; maybe I hadn't gotten the balance right. But she blew smoke out and nodded, then said, "Yeah. Just, like, friendly?" She risked a glance at me from under her eyebrows.

I didn't hate the idea. "Well, though, I've got some rules."

"Rules? Like what?"

"Like... Like, you don't talk about what goes on in my bedroom with anyone else, and I mean ANYONE else. We shut the door, it's private, between the two of us." I was going to have to bitch at Jill for mentioning that we'd had sex like she had. Well, maybe. Whatever she'd told Nicole hadn't put her off, apparently.

She looked a little weird, so I added, "It's not like I'm going to do something really perverted or anything; I just don't want to be talked about. As you might have noticed, like you've talked about it, I'm not really that masculine, and I don't want you telling everyone I'm like even worse than I look with clothes on."

That really didn't sound like I wanted to have said that.

I tried again, "I mean... Sex isn't really, y'know, dignified, not when-"

"DIGNIFIED?" she shrieked before she started laughing.

 

***
20:16 14 Feb

She'd recovered and we went back in, but found Jill and Mike coming in the front door about the same time.

Mike complained bitterly, "What the hell did you do to your hair?" and Nicole broke up as I put my hands up to find out what Mike was complaining about.

"Oh, man," Jill answered as I figured it out, "if you don't get the hell out of there on the weekends, they just GRAB you- See what happened to her? Hey," she said to Nicole. "'Sup?"

 

***
20:19 14 Feb

Coats and hats came off and sodas were acquired and opened and then we were all sitting in the front room staring at each other. I knew why _I_ was kind of nervous, and I could guess why NICOLE was nervous, but I wasn't entirely sure why Mike and/or Jill was.

Then I got a clue, because Jill was wearing a skirt.

"Uh, Jill?" I said.

"Yes?" she smiled, looking entirely too womanly for Jill.

"Are you wearing makeup?"

"Fuck you," she complained as her eyes narrowed. Which answered the question, 'Is someone impersonating Jill to get into the house?'

"It looks good!" I complained.

She still looked like she wanted to hit me.

"Leave me alone," I whined, feeling entirely too like my evil sister was back. In Jill's body. *Which would explain the skirt and the makeup,* I realized.

"Don't whine," Mike told me.

"Bite me! Jill, it's fine, you look good..." Nicole was nodding, though she looked confused. "I'd say you should do that all the time 'cause it looks so good except you'd really kick my ass for it, a-"

"What? Why?" Nicole asked.

"Aw, man," Jill complained, sitting back and looking around. Which was MUCH better than leaping over the coffee table and engaging me in hand-to-hand.

 

***
20:22 14 Feb

"Yeah, so- Mike? Can I talk to you for a minute?" I asked as I got up. "We're gonna go to the boys' room," I smirked, which made Jill laugh, and Nicole a few seconds later.

"Don't forget your purse!" Jill called as I exited, hopefully far enough ahead of Mike he couldn't reach me.

"Okay, wait," I said as I turned around and - thankfully - didn't get a fist or a foot. "Seriously... Mike?"

"She said she didn't want to be alone tonight, and your parents said it was okay," Mike said as I think he blushed. It was hard to tell on Mike; he had the genetic advantage of Chinese Inscrutability.

"Oooohhhhh..... kay," I breathed.

"Dude, what do I do?" he gasped in a whisper.

"What?"

"Shutthefuckup whaddoI-DO?"

I KNEW he wasn't asking me to explain the basic mechanics; he'd seen porn. Hell, he'd given me most of- Well, some of mine. He filtered what HE got from Dan, which I appreciated, since I didn't want to spend half my waking hours filtering it like some Dans I could mention. Nor did I necessarily want what Dan considered erotic. I shook my head. "Mike, seriously, not a problem." I knew Mike was a virgin - for a while yet, anyway - and Jill wasn't, so...

"Oh.

"No, seriously, NOT a problem," I reassured him. "She... She knows what she's doing, okay? Just, y'know, ask her what she wants, and tell her what you want. This is one situation where being all girly and talking about things actually works."

He had his hands in his pockets - I refused to make a comment about him playing pocket pool because he would surely beat me unconscious, and I'd deserve it - and looked around at the floor. "You sure?"

"Pretty sure." He was going to kill me. "Mike! I mean, yes, I'm sure." I made sure my volume was very low and said, "She... She likes guys, which is why she sort of dumped me-"

"You were only doing something for a week!"

"Shut UP!"

He checked his watch and complained further, "And what is with Nicole being here this late?"

"Are you gonna get mad at me, or did you want to talk about Jill before she clubs you over the head and drags you up to her room?"

His telepathy worked long enough for me to be glad he didn't have a real flamethrower and that he wasn't a pyrokinetic. Then he stopped himself with a few deep breaths.

"Look," I said, quiet again, "just... You want a couple of hints?" He glared at me. "Okay. Um... If you want oral sex, from her I mean, just do NOT grab her head and pull, okay?"

He got all round-eyed.

I signed, <T-R-U-S-T me,> and mimed vomiting.

"How- Oh JEEZ Tuck!" he almost shrieked in disgust.

I complained back, "Well?" and signed, <I know!> And added, "Besides, do you want to piss her off if she's..." <... doing that,> I finished silently. "She likes it the other..." That was too sensitive to say out loud, so I signed, <Ask to do her. O-R-A-L.> *That's no good,* I realized, and spelled, <C-U-N-N-I-L-I->

"I get it. Any tips for that?" he asked desperately.

<P-U-S-H B-A-C-K to breathe.> That was important. Girls would get all indignant about being gagged with a dick, and then do nearly the same thing to you with their entire groin and upper thighs.

"What-" He lowered his voice even more. "What's it taste like?"

"Oh..." I closed my eyes, because he wasn't going to like the answer. "Not much of anything, kind of, and..." I shrugged, "it tastes like a girl's parts. I mean, it's just different than anything else. It's not bad, at ALL," I emphasized.

"Good." He looked really nervous.

"But seriously, the best thing to do is ask her what to do, what she wants, okay? And, Mike?" He was still kind of round-eyed about it. I motioned him closer so I could whisper in his ear, "She likes it; she likes YOU enough to ask you to. Just be a nice guy and talk to her, and it'll be good. It won't be GREAT, the first time, 'cause it's the first time for you, but it'll be good. If you talk- and LISTEN," I remembered to add, though I shouldn't have to with Mike. "But she asked you. Just remember that," I remembered. "She wanted to be with you tonight, or she wouldn't have asked YOU."

He let out a breath as we moved away from each other, then he grabbed my hand and we clasped. "Thanks..."

I grinned as something occurred to me, and said it. "I'd say 'Any time', but I don't think this'll- tonight will happen twice."

He sort of grinned weakly. "Shit I hope not."

"It'll be okay," I nodded at him. "So how'd you get her in a skirt? And MAKEUP?"

He assured me, "Dude, she did that all on her own."

"Sheewwwww," I breathed, "she must really..."

"I do not think," Mike said, "that you should say the word 'desperate'."

I agreed, "Or think it."

"No. So what IS Nicole- Oh no. No."

I ran.

"HOW DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS!" he screamed as he chased me.

"Make him stop!" I shrieked at Jill as I ran through the front room.

 

***
22:26 14 Feb

"Okay, but make it quick," I told Nicole as she lit up again. She'd demanded another, and Jill had stopped Mike by taking him upstairs, which was getting a new kind of meaning for me now. "My parents'll be home soon."

"Oh, uh, like how soon?"

"What?" I checked my watch. "Any time, so if you- Wait, what were-"

"What about him? Mike?"

"He's spending the night."

She boggled. "With HER? I mean like WITH her?"

"Yeah? Oh. Yeah. My parents said, they'd rather have us having sex or whatever," except I meant sex, "HERE, instead of in a car or someplace. It's safe here. So, I mean, they know-"

"Is SHE living here?"

"Um..." I kind of wasn't cleared to disperse that, by Jill; and I was sure Nicole wasn't cleared in to get it. "Kind of, but I can't tell you anything about why, it's classified. DON'T ASK," I insisted when she was going to. "Suck up," I told her as I mimed smoking. She did. "Wait, did you want to spend the night?"

After a few moments she exhaled, "I dunno!"

Pause, wherein she took another hit and held it.

"Do you... want to?"

She looked at me like she didn't know what she wanted and she desperately wanted me to tell her. Then the interrupt kicked in and she turned her head and blew.

I thought about it. "I'd kind of like you to," I said.

"I told my parents I'd be at a friend's house, when I thought maybe..." She got angry.

"Yeah, but forget him, you've got me." I grinned at her, and she eventually halfheartedly grinned back.

Then, since I kind of wanted to test her commitment or some such, I held out my hand to her, kind of at waist level instead of up in her face.

She looked down at it, and licked her upper lip, and then reached out and grasped my hand in hers. And squeezed.

And gently smiled at me.

I smiled back. And squeezed back.

 

***
22:35 14 Feb

She'd just finished and was stabbing it into the guest ashtray when the garage door lit up, like someone was pulling into the driveway. And since it was unlikely that my sister - either the good Susan or the evil one - was coming to visit, and Brian knew better than to steal a car and bring it here, it was probably my parents. I'd wished, though without really believing it possible, that they'd get a hotel room.

"Oh shit."

"What?" The garage door opened.

"If you're here, and we're out of my room, you're gonna have to meet the 'rents."

She looked horrified.

"See what kind of trouble smoking gets you into?"

She flipped me the bird as Dad's car pulled into the garage. "Fuck you bitch!"

I cursed to myself, "Damn damn damn damn..."

"What- I mean, what's-"

"They're my PARENTS, Nicole. That means they are inherently humiliating. Just having them is almost more than I can stand." She laughed, but it was true. Well, in a jeez-I'm-fucked-in-the-head sort of way that made no sense to anyone who wasn't a teenager.

"Oh your hair!" Nicole gasped.

"What about my- Oh." I put my hood up before they came out of the garage, and then all I could do was hope. It wasn't really 'illegal' for me to have my hair done like it was, but I had a feeling Mom would get pissed off. And, judging by the way she was clinging to Dad - disgustingly - she had a nice alcohol-induced mellow going on that she would NOT appreciate me harshing up. By, say, displaying some excessively feminine hairstyle.

And then they were approaching the back porch and giving Nicole the Eye and then giving ME the Eye.

"Mom, Dad, this is Nicole, a friend of mine from cosmetology. Nicole, these are my parents, Bill and Sarah Tucker."

"It's nice to meet you, Nicole," Mom said, slurring a little which suggested she'd gotten overly drunk I mean mellow while they were out. "I take it you're staying overnight?"

Nicole whimpered, "Um yeahifthat'sokay?"

"Yes," Mom said slowly, then her eyes got narrow and she sniffed. Then she pointed a finger at Nicole. "It gets harder to quit every cigarette you have."

Nicole glared back at her. "I know," she snarled. "I got the lecture. From him!" she pointed.

Mom nodded in satisfaction. "Good."

"Did he give you the house rules?" Dad asked Nicole, and she nodded, nervous again. "Have a good evening, then," he said.

"Oh," I remembered to tell them, "Jill's home, and Mike's staying over."

They stopped, and looked at me, then at Nicole.

"Um, with Jill," I added.

They looked at each other. Then Mom giggled. Dad said, "Guess it's..." before he took Mom's hand and left. "G'night!" I don't know if they were doing anything else; I had closed my eyes when it got gross. And it was only going to get grosser.

"That's it?" Nicole asked, which made me open my eyes.

"Well... Yeah, I guess," I said. That wasn't nearly it, but if I was lucky I wouldn't have to see any more of it. Or hear it. Or, dear gods of darkness preserve me, smell it. "That went better than I thought it would."

She shook her head and commented, "Man." Then she looked at me. "Y'know, it wouldn't be this easy if you were a girl."

"Yeah it would," I countered. "They'd rather my sister do it here most of all." She got really wide eyed. "That did not sound right," I complained. "But, yeah, the policy was put in place because of my older sister, and I can't talk about why."

She shook her head and said, "Your family is WEIRD."

"N- Well, I guess," I admitted. "That's what everyone else says."

She made a face. "So if like EVERYONE says it..."

I stuck my tongue out at her. "Wanna go in?"

She stopped, and hugged herself, and looked around.

"Nicole," I sighed, then stopped to think.

She complained, "I know! It's stupid, but I keep having second thoughts."

"Probably fifth thoughts by now."

She laughed a little. "Yeah... I mean, I want to, but I keep... I mean, SHOULD I? Or am I bad for even wanting to- Yeah, I know it's stupid!" I must've let something show on my face. "But..."

I reached out for her hand and, when she let me grab it, I squeezed gently. "Nicole, you're worrying too much about it."

"I mean," she looked around again, "I've never..."

"Never what?"

She looked at me, kind of annoyed, and said, "I'm a virgin, okay?"

*Oh BOY,* I thought.

"So," she continued, "I don't- I mean, what if I don't like it? I mean that's stupid," she said rapidly before I could, "but I'm worried about that, and should I keep my virginity? But it's stupid, 'cause no one else is, and then it's like, what if I don't like what you're doing, or-"

I interrupted, "Then you tell me to stop and I stop." That part I could handle.

"But what if you don't!"

"Then it's rape, and my mom'll pull my intestines out."

"Ech," she commented.

"It'd hurt a lot worse than 'ech'. That is NOT going to happen with me. Besides, my parents are right there. And you know the bunk bed in there? If you want to stop, we stop, and you can sleep up there, alone, if you want. If you REALLY need to go home, I can turn off the alarms and take you, but it's really a pain in the ass, and I don't know what your folks would say about you coming home at two in the morning. But you can, okay? You just need to give me a few minutes."

"Okay," she said, not sounding convinced. On the other hand, she was still holding my hand. My other hand, haha.

"Nicole?" She looked at me. I squeezed hands, and said gently, "The best way to, to make love, is to talk about what we both want and don't want. If you want something, or don't, then you're SUPPOSED to tell me. That'll make it fun, and good."

She just squeezed back a few times. "And you've really done It before," she confirmed.

"Yes." I didn't yell, which I was a little proud of.

She didn't say anything, she just stood there, holding my hand firmly, while looking off into the yard.

Finally, she turned a little bit and looked into my face. And nodded.

"Would you like to kiss me? I think it's traditional," I joked.

She smiled, and leaned over and gave me a little dry kiss on the lips.

Before I could joke or complain about that, though, she gave me another, and another, and on the fourth one she opened her mouth against my lips and it lasted a good long while. A very good, long while.

 

***
22:41 14 Feb

Nicole broke the kiss and said, "I'm getting cold."

While she was holding my body - when had she done that? - it was, in fact, getting colder out here. "Me too." I almost asked her if she was sure, but decided that that would just complicate things. So instead I let go of her, which got her to let go of me, then took her hand and led her inside - pausing to lock the back door - and up to my room and shut the door behind us.

She looked nervous again.

"I don't think we're doing the kissing right," I tried. "Want to try it again?"

She grinned, and didn't say anything as she pushed me up against the door and tried it again, her arms going high because mine had gone low, and wrapping around the back of my head and pulling me towards her mouth.

She was the same height as me, and not wearing heels, so I actually got to kiss her 'straight on' as it were. It was a new, and nice, experience.

 

***
22:50 14 Feb

"Sorry! All the girls I've been with, they just kind of pull their own clothes off and look at me like, 'What's taking you so long?'"

She laughed at that, and flopped on the bed. I was once again glad I'd gotten taller uprights for the upper bunk; people didn't complain when they didn't bang their head into it. "So, what, I should just strip naked?" she challenged.

I made a face at her, then countered, "Yeah, you should!"

"You first!"

I made another face at her, which she returned as she bounced a few times on the bed. Then I decided, *Hell with it,* and started undoing my shirt.

When I pulled it off, Nicole looked puzzled. "What is that?"

"Body armor," I said before I started making ripping noises with the velcro.

"No shit? Why are you wearing that?"

"I was at school today, remember? Any time I'm there, or around there..."

"Dude, like ALL the time?"

"Yeah? Remember I was out for a couple of weeks 'cause I got the shit beaten out of me?"

She shook her head, then got up. "Can- Would you mind if I tried it on?"

"You're a little bigger than me," I warned her as I got the last strap and pulled the armor off.

"What?"

"Breasts. It'll squish 'em, which is not fun." It was not fun, every day; and right now I was wishing I hadn't mentioned it because mine hurt now. "Here, head through- Yeah," I said as I slid the one strap over her shoulder. "Lemme do the other one..."

"Ow," she complained.

"Yeah, hurts, doesn't it," I agreed as I pulled the other straps tight.

"Is there like a metal thing in here? I think it's off-"

"Yeah, that was for my ribs. Extra rigid where I needed it." I got the last strap on her side. "So. That's what I wear all day."

"Jeez. What do you- You've got boobies!" she gasped and pointed. "Ohmigod!" she squeaked.

At least she wasn't screaming it. Not like anyone in the house would be surprised; they'd just be annoyed. *This is why I didn't want to date other girls,* I remembered.

"Remember how I said I don't want you to talk about what happens in here? That's why." *One reason anyway.*

"Oh, jeez... Are they like... Do they hurt?"

"Especially after being in that thing all day," I pointed at her.

"Oh..." She stood up, and felt herself up, which I had to specifically not watch. "It's not that bad... Well I guess it would be after a few hours," she corrected herself before I could.

"It is," I assured her.

"But, I mean... Have you seen a doctor about those? They really seem kind of... big..."

"Yeah, I did, and..." I shook my head. "Can't really do anything about 'em. Not right now." I was NOT going to explain this tonight to her.

"Do you wear a bra? Oh god I'm sorry, I mean, I just-"

"No."

"If mine were- I mean, I was wearing one before they got that big-"

"They're not THAT big!"

She countered, "Oooh yeah they are. I mean, I'm sorry if I'm like pissing you off, I don't mean it like that, but..." She shook her head.

"Hey, if you're going to talk about 'em, means I can rub 'em," I realized, and proceeded to rub a lot and scratch a little.

She giggled, but then started pulling at the armor as she said, "That looks like a good idea. Does this thing..."

"Just velcro, so just pull 'em off." She made a lot of ripping noises, and I had to interrupt myself to take the armor from her and set it up for quick-donning and put it on its stand.

Now she was rubbing her chest. And had a goofy look on her face that was probably what I'd looked like when I'd been doing it to myself.

"Want to take your bra off?" I suggested.

She moaned in pleasure at the idea, then asked, "Um, would you mind not watching?"

I turned away before I said, "Um, I was planning to keep the lights on, so, I mean, if you still want to... to 'do something'," I emphasized, "I'm gonna see 'em anyway."

"And I'll get to see yours. Ohhhhh," she moaned lustily.

"What ARE you doing?"

"Scratching," she sighed.

"Sounds like you just had an orgasm."

"Jeez I wish. Oo!" she squeaked and started giggling.

"Did you have another one?"

"No!" In a slightly calmer tone she said, "It just feels good."

"Orgasms usually do," I said, and got slapped on the shoulder. "Hey! Not into that! Are- Did you put your shirt back on?"

"Yeah okay," she said, so I turned back around. There was a bra draped across my kneeler chair and she was still fondling herself, through her T-shirt.

When she noticed me watching - what else was I supposed to do? - she giggled and then grabbed her breasts, one in each hand, and squeezed them at me.

"Ow! Don't do that!" I complained before I un-protected my breasts. Not for the first time, I observed I now had new reflexes which I hadn't tried to program in. Which was a little disturbing.

"Do yours hurt?"

"Only if you do something like that!" I lied as my arms came back up. "They hurt when they grow."

"Oh yeah- Oh really? So yours hurt like too?" She made a weird little face for half a second. "Can I- Would you mind if I looked at 'em?"

"You have to take your shirt off too," I said. I had standards.

She giggled but did, so I did the same thing, and then we were both topless.

"Wow," she said. She wasn't staring at my face when she said it.

I said gallantly, "I like yours better."

"What? Oh-" she started to complain as her arms flew up to cover her breasts. "JEEZ this is weird!"

"My whole life has gotten weird like that," I sighed.

"I'm sorry, I mean I don't- I'm not trying to be mean," she said hurriedly. "It's just..."

"I've had to play show-and-tell with some of the girls I hang with," I admitted. "They want to see me too."

"Yeah... Are they sensitive?"

I growled, "Ooooh yeah."

She laughed. "You sounded so BUTCH when you said that and you were talking about your tits!"

"Okay okay, shut up," I told her, trying to keep from smiling.

"Sorry, sorry..." She wiped her face, then looked around.

"Want to sit on the bed? It's the only place in the room to sit unless you can sit on that," I pointed at my kneeler chair. "I think I'm the only person that can, though."

"Yeah I mean I CAN, but yeah," she said as she flounced onto my bed. I sat sort of next to her, trying to fit myself between too-close and not-close-enough. "Can... Can I touch one?"

"Which one?"

She gasped, "What?"

I snickered. "Let me touch yours?"

Her breath caught and she had to force it, but she nodded as she flushed, and then said, "Okay. Okay."

"Scared?"

"Yeah." She grinned weakly at me and added, "I've never gone this far with a guy, I mean taking my shirt off."

"Really? Okay. Just remember, if you want to stop, we can, but you HAVE TO TELL ME," I emphasized.

"Yeah okay, thanks," she smiled.

Pause. She was kind of excited, judging by her respiratory rate.

Finally she asked, breathlessly, "Do you like my breasts?"

I smiled - not grinned or smirked; it was deliberate - and said, "I think they're beautiful." They were, too. But I was kind of prejudiced, or maybe 'partial' was the word, since they were right there in front of me, in my room.

She smiled back.

 

***
23:01 14 Feb

"You like it?"

"Yeah... It's kind of stimulating," I admitted. I was 'kind of' extremely hard and jammed painfully into my underwear. "Is it your turn again?"

She giggled, and stopped touching me, so I resumed touching her. She liked to be caressed a little more firmly, at least on her breasts, than I did.

Suddenly she complained, "Hey wait! Shouldn't we be kissing first?"

"Is that a rule?"

She giggled, "Yes!"

I snickered back as I asked, "Do we have to put our tops back on?"

Then we just laughed.

"Hey, does this count as a date?"

"What, tonight? Yeah," I supposed. "Dinner and... after," I selected.

She giggled. "'After'. I like that."

"Not like you're GONNA like it."

She laughed.

When she had basically stopped, I asked, "So this is where I kiss you?"

"Yeah," she smiled.

We had to wriggle around so we didn't jam hard parts into sensitive breasts - four total - but then we ended up face to face at very close range.

"You're pretty," I said as a starter.

"Your hair's still pretty," she smiled, and reached across and touched it. Then she stroked it.

"You're prettier than I am, though, and so's your hair."

She made that sort of noise that's halfway between a giggle and a sexual sigh. I decided that now would be a good time to kiss her.

It apparently was.

 

***
23:04 14 Feb

We stopped kissing, and Nicole smiled lazily at me, and stroked my hair some more.

I ran a finger along her bare back, and she shivered, though her eyes stayed open. She smiled more, though.

"How's it going so far?" I asked.

She laughed, and pulled my head towards her and kissed me some more.

 

***
23:09 14 Feb

Having satisfied the kissing prerequisite, we had moved along to oral stimulation of breasts, which Nicole was enjoying immensely.

"That really feels- Oh wow, you DO know how it feels!" she realized, again I think.

I stuck two fingers in my mouth long enough to get them very wet, then used them together on her other nipple.

"Ohhhh," she moaned happily, and pulled my head against her chest a lot harder than I would've done. Then she let go of my head with one hand and pushed my rubbing fingers against her other breast. I winced at the thought of jamming fingers that hard against mine, but she seemed happy.

I would've stopped after a few minutes, or mentioned trading or something, but the longer I kept at it, the harder she pulled and the more noise she made and the harder she pushed the rest of her body against mine. I figured she knew what she was doing - well, sort of, at least as it applied to her - and kept on keepin' on.

 

***
23:15 14 Feb

Nicole exclaimed, "Ooowwwwwwwww-OOOOHHHHHHHHH!" and pulled hard enough to hurt ME as she arched and thrust against me before going rigid.

This is where me not being a virgin came in handy, I noted, partially as a way to ignore the pain she was putting me in; I knew that stopping was nearly the worst thing I could do at the moment. So I didn't stop.

"Oh oh oh oh oh oh OHHH OH! OH! Ohhhhhh..."

Then she deflated and relaxed, and I stopped and pulled a little away from her. Then I realized she'd probably want something, and repositioned myself so I could kiss her, which I did, but just for a moment because she was breathing fast like she was trying to catch up to her own exertions. Heh.

"I think you liked that," I told her.

Her eyes half-opened and she smiled wearily. "Yeah?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she sighed.

I kissed her again, which made her stroke me along my side.

 

***
23:17 14 Feb

"That was really good," she mentioned.

"Glad you liked it." She laughed lazily. "But!" She opened her eyes and looked at me eventually. "That doesn't, technically, count as losing your virginity, just as a reminder."

She gave me a heartbreaking smile, tender and loving, and stroked my hair again near my forehead.

"So," I continued, "IF," and I touched her nose very lightly with a fingertip, "you want to, tonight, then we have to keep going. And do some more. Like take off our pants," I remembered.

She started giggling, then hugged me (which unfortunately hurt, but I didn't say anything) and kissed my neck before giggling some more.

Since I couldn't kiss her in this position, I stroked what I could reach, which was mostly her bare back. "Or, we could stop," I reminded her, though I kind of had a feeling she didn't want to.

"No?"

"You don't want to stop?"

"No?"

"C'mon," I teased, "say it like you mean it."

"NO we are not stopping!" she said forcefully enough to hurt a little, and then started giggling again. "Damnit!" she giggled.

I got a thumb on her nipple, which stopped the giggles with a gasp. "So," I asked as I made circles, "what would you like to do next?"

"What about you?" she wondered, or maybe accused.

"Oh, I'll get my chance eventually," I teased, "When you're too tired to say no."

That made her giggle, but she said, "No, come on, it's your turn." Then she laughed. "Taking turns like kindergarteners!"

"That's so we both get a chance to play, though, right?"

She laughed more. "This is fun!"

"It's supposed to be fun!"

"No, I mean..." She pulled away a little, so I let go. "I mean, I was like all nervous about it, everything, but..."

"It's SUPPOSED to be fun," I repeated, and stretched so I could kiss her lips. "'Not-fun'... wouldn't be any fun." Which was lame but true, or true but lame.

"Yeah," she said, and hugged me before kissing me some.

Then she pulled back and lifted herself on one elbow. "So... like, I can ask you to do ANYthing?"

"And I can say no," I reminded her.

"Well yeah," she said sharply, "of course!" with a 'duh' included as a bonus.

When nothing came out, I trailed a finger across her bare belly, and asked, "So, what did you want to ask?"

She took a deep breath. "Ummmm..."

Nothing else came out.

"What is it about girls that they can't just say it?" I wondered out loud. "Everybody gets like this unless they are really drunk."

"Maybe I could have another wine cooler?"

I countered, "Maybe you could tell me what you wanted? Silly," I said to soften it. "Or," I got a clue, "maybe I should tell you what I want?"

"Yeah!" she said, relieved. And then she giggled and added, "And then I could maybe say no!"

"Of course," I agreed. "Um..."

*Okay, this is why girls can't just say it.* I suggested, "How about I go down on you?"

"What? REALLY?!" she gasped in shock. "You'd do that?"

"What? I've done it several times," I told her. "Do guys not do that normally?"

"No?"

"What? Are you serious?"

"'S'what I heard," she claimed. "I mean _I_ dunno but that's- I mean, I've heard it's really hard to get guys to go down on you."

"Wow. What a bunch of assholes," I commented, which made her laugh a lot. "See, this is why I'm not gay, 'cause men are assholes." That made her laugh a lot more.

 

***
23:32 14 Feb

She was greatly enjoying her first taste - so to speak - of oral sex, and I wasn't having a bad time either. I was beginning to like having women gasping how I should keep doing what I was doing and begging me for more. Sort of made up in a way for all the times they, as a class, had been shits to me before. Plus, as vengeance went, I was pretty sure no one would mind this.

*Yo, take it, bitch! Take it like the slut you are!* I thought, and sort of smiled to myself. Nicole couldn't see my face and she was rather preoccupied anyway.

 

***
23:40 14 Feb

"Kind of aerobic, isn't it?"

She panted at me, and squeezed my hand. She'd had rather a few orgasms.

"Good so far?"

Eventually, she nodded.

 

***
23:44 14 Feb

"So, um, so do I like have to go down on you now?"

"You don't have to."

She smiled a little. "I wouldn't mind..."

I detected falsehood. I wondered, "Have you ever done it?"

"Gone down on a guy?" I nodded. "Once?" she answered like she was asking me if it was okay. "It was kind of gross."

"Gross?" 'Painful' I could see, since the way you had to hold your mouth was abnormal, and tended to cause cramps. "What'd he do, try to deep-throat you?"

"No, he- he came, in my mouth."

"W- No condom?"

"No."

"Eyuch. That would be gross."

"He didn't- He SAID he didn't know he was going to cum so fast," she corrected, and I think we were both skeptical. "Can guys- I mean, could he have had like a surprise orgasm?"

"Well... I mean, if you're going down on him he should've figured he was going to," I stated the obvious. "But, I mean... Yeah, I guess. Still. He should've been wearing a condom."

"Do you have condoms?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes! And not from eighth grade sex ed either."

She giggled. "So, um, would you like me to?"

"To what?"

"You know!"

"I want to hear you say it. You're my little slut tonight," I teased her, and stroked her side down to her bottom, while she giggled madly.

"Do you want me to go down on you?! Stop it!" she shrieked, so I stopped. After a few seconds, she said, "No, wait."

"I am waiting."

"Okay," she said, catching on. "Could you kiss- Why am I asking you this?" she asked as she caught some more clue.

"I don-"

She pulled me backwards on the bed and we twisted so we could kiss.

 

***
23:47 14 Feb

"So you get hard when I play with your titties," she observed, and giggled.

I shot back, "So do you! Your little clit sticks out."

"It does not! Wait, does it?"

"I bet it does."

"No way!"

 

***
23:50 14 Feb

It did, so we were now sporting sort of matching hard-ons. Mine was quite a bit bigger than hers, of course, though I wasn't really that large.

"Wait wait wait, can I go down on you?" she asked as she pushed me away from her again. Maybe I was distracting her, haha.

"Well... Seriously? I don't- This is one of those things you're not allowed to talk about outside this room, okay?" I waited until she nodded. "I don't really like it."

"What? Are you fucking SERIOUS? No way! You can't be serious! Why NOT?!"

"Well, I only get one shot at a time, unlike SOME people I could kiss," and I kissed her to show her who I meant, "and... and I'd rather be doing something else. I LIKE girls," I emphasized, "and I like their bodies and I like their faces and I like... Don't take this wrong, but I like their smells too, an-"

"Do I smell?" she asked, like I was afraid she would.

"You smell like an excited girl, and it's NOT bad. Plus I can taste your skin," which I did to show her what I meant.

"No, I mean, what do I smell like?"

I pulled back a little. "What? You smell like a sexually excited woman."

"You can smell that?"

"I had my nose stuck in it for twenty minutes!"

"Not that! I mean..."

"Yeah, a little. I've got a really sensitive nose, I guess." She made an unhappy face at me. "Nicole, LISTEN to me. You're SUPPOSED to smell like that. It's like getting wet when you're aroused; you smell aroused too."

Her eyes got bigger. "Seriously?"

I sighed. "Would I be saying it over and over if I wasn't serious? YES! And it's great!"

"Do you smell?"

That made me blink. "I... I don- Probably. I guess I would, but I can't smell it," I said as she - I knew she was going to do this - leaned over me and started sniffing at me. "Feel free to kiss anything that looks interesting," I mentioned, which made her giggle.

After a couple of minutes, she leaned back and shook her head. "I can't really tell."

"Smoking does kind of- You KNOW it's true," I overrode her as she started to protest. "It's like being in a rock concert and then you can't hear afterwards." She glared at me. "Look, I'm just saying... Why am I talking to you?" I leaned over and kissed her shoulder instead. "Me talking just messes things up."

She laughed, and stroked one of my breasts.

 

***
00:04 15 Feb

She pulled her mouth off my condom-covered penis, which was not especially erect - in fact, it was slowly fading - looked up at me from between my legs, and said, "Seriously, looking at this does NOT make you hot." It wasn't a question.

"Seriously... no. Does it make you hot?" I asked. She made a face and I hastened to add, "No, seriously. Does it?"

She rocked back on her heels as she - I hoped - thought about it. "I dunno. I guess not?" she asked as she looked up at me again.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "It's not you!"

"Good!" she agreed.

"So come back up here and let me show-"

"Let ME do something..." She started giggling as she started to stand up. I held out a hand and she grabbed it, the wrong way but we managed to get her upright anyway. "Lie down," she suggested, so I did, and she climbed on top of me.

"Um, I don't think I'm hard enough to penetrate you," I told her.

"What? Ahhh!" she shrieked in surprise, because I guess that wasn't what she'd been thinking about doing, and fell or threw herself off me. "OhmigodIalmost DID IT and I didn'tevenNOTICE!"

Through her hysterical laughter, I reassured her, "You would've noticed. It's not like it's going to jump up or chase you or anything."

"AHAHAHhahaha!"

 

***
00:07 15 Feb

I'd sat up to get something to drink, because I was a little dry.

When she'd almost stopped laughing, I caught her eye, then wiggled my dick towards her and made barking noises. She started screaming and holding her face. And laughing.

 

***
00:16 15 Feb

"If you do that again I am going to HIT YOU," Nicole emphasized. She was probably wanting to breathe for a while, which she hadn't been doing very well.

"Okay, okay, okay." Then I looked at her. "You have to admit, though, it was funny."

"Shut up!" she squeaked as she tried to repress another outbreak.

"Want something to drink?" I asked.

She nodded as she gasped for air.

 

***
00:18 15 Feb

She stated, "This IS fun."

"Yeah." I smiled at her, and she smiled back. "Best kind."

"Yeah," she sighed happily.

 

***
00:20 15 Feb

"I'd like to go pee," she said apologetically.

"Put a robe on," I told her as I handed her the good one I'd started keeping in my room when Pam started staying over.

"You have two?"

"Well, yeah... Comes in handy if a girl stays over for some reason or another," I mentioned with a grin. I would've tried to look innocent except there was no way I could've.

 

***
00:27 15 Feb

"Feel better?" I asked her as I shut my bedroom door again.

"Uhuh," she agreed before she yawned hugely.

"Oh, man, don't do that... we're still getting warmed up!"

She stopped and looked at me with wide eyes before starting to giggle. "Dude you're fucking kidding!"

"Ooooh, nooooo," I assured her as I shook my head.

"Ohmigod you haven't even cum yet!" she realized.

"That either. C'mere, little girl," I said as I reached - a bit slowly, in case she didn't want me to - for her hand, and grabbed it. I guessed she did want me to, or didn't mind anyway. "We- No. More kissing," I decided, and began kissing her lightly on the lips.

She called, raised with tongue, and then started slipping my robe off my shoulders.

 

***
00:32 15 Feb

Despite a rather forceful beginning, we'd sort of trailed off, as it were, and now were both nude on the bed, lying next to each other, as she gently licked and sucked one of my nipples and played with the other one. Unlike how she wanted hers done, I wanted mine soft and gentle, which had made her laugh at how girly I was; but she was doing it, to me, just like I liked it, which sort of meant I couldn't complain about the laughter.

Not like I really wanted to; I was kind of distracted, and feeling pretty good.

She stopped fondling a nipple and shortly thereafter started fondling my dick. "You REALLY like having your breasts played with," she stated. Probably because I was extremely hard.

When I collected enough of my wits to reply to her, I reminded her, "You're the one that had the orgasm from playing with 'em."

She snorted which devolved into a giggle. Then she pulled back a little to look in my face. "So, have YOU ever had an orgasm from someone sucking your little titties?" She brushed one to make sure I knew what she was talking about.

"Uh... Once, I think," I thought. *Wait, who was- Oh.* I didn't want to think about him. "I don't think that's gonna happen again, though. It was sort of the shock of it. Now," I grinned, "everyone's playing with them, so it's not that exciting any more."

"Awwww," she lied. "That's too bad," she said slowly as she slowly rubbed her palm across my breast.

"It is, but..." I took a breath, because I'd lost mine. "You know, I hate to bring this up, but I would REALLY like to cum sometime tonight..." I paused, because she was going to laugh.

"Uh huh," she cooed at me as she continued to play with my breasts. And did not laugh.

I was getting cross-eyed or something from the stimulation. "Oh, jeez, Nicole, can we have sex? Intercourse?"

Her hand stopped in shock as she sort of blinked.

"I'd really like to," I said, and started stroking her.

She started breathing deeply - or again - and nodded. "Right. We were gonna..."

"You asked, remember?"

She nodded.

"Hey, I mean, we don't have to, if-"

"No... I mean, I guess I kind of owe you or something."

Pause, in which we both stopped moving.

"Do you know just how stupid what you just said was?"

"Why is it stupid?"

"Because! It's your body; you don't have to give me sex just because I did something nice for you!"

"It wasn't just 'nice'!" she countered. "It was really great! And you fixed dinner too? You know nobody's ever done that before for me on a date. Not really," she said as she trailed off, looking depressed.

"What?"

"Dawn," I thought she said, and I glanced to the window which suggested it was still dark, and a glance the other way at the clock confirmed that it was REALLY dark, and then I remembered the asshole's name.

Then I had to think of what to say to get her out of the bad mood.

"Well," I tried, "the problem with him is, he just doesn't have any of these," I said as I framed my own breasts with my hands.

She gave me a look which said, 'I appreciate the effort, but it did not work.'

So I gave it up and just pulled her into an embrace.

She eventually said, "So, what happens if I decide I don't want to have sex, like the real thing tonight?"

"Uhhh... then we discuss whether you want to sleep in the top bunk, which I sort of hope not 'cause I like sleeping with girls- I mean, in the same bed. It's nice. And then, maybe we stop, or maybe we do something else sexual that isn't intercourse. If we want to." I kind of wanted to. I felt a little strained and swollen, actually; not the usual erection, but something a little worse, like a swollen runny nose.

"Do you- You said you wanted to," she corrected. "But, like if I don't..."

"Then we don't." 'Duh' I didn't add.

"What else could we do, though?" she asked. "I mean, you said," and she started to smile, "you didn't want a blow job, and I guess you didn't 'cause you kind of..."

"Went half-limp during it, yeah," I said out loud. "Well... You could try sort of a hand job, I guess," I guessed. It had been a while since I'd had to worry about it.

"I mean, you could just jerk off too, right?"

"Wh- Oh, yeah, I guess," I admitted. It had been a while since I'd done that.

"Do you- I mean, I'm curious... Do you like do it to porn?"

"Do wh- Masturbate?" She nodded. "Yeah, I guess... sometimes." That's what I had done, occasionally, back... "Holy shit."

"What?"

"What? Did I say that out loud?" When she nodded, I moaned, "Oh hell," because she was going to demand to know what that was about. "Um, it's been a while since I did it."

She did not believe me.

"I just don't have that high a sex drive when I'm by myself," I told her. "And I've, uh, I've been kind of busy lately. Or popular." That was just a wrong word, or concept, when applied to me.

"Yeah sure," she disagreed.

I was going to argue, but then I realized I'd look more normal if I let her think I masturbated regularly. I had no idea how often guys did it, but I was pretty sure I was way at the low end of the scale, since I literally could not remember the last time I'd done it. *Excepting rubbing myself when with someone,* I allowed, because I'd probably done that way more recently. Though not to orgasm.

Nicole said, "So, I mean... You like jerk off to porn, right?"

*One track mind,* I sighed to myself. "I guess, yeah." I knew where this was going.

"Can I see it?"

No I didn't know. "What?"

"I wan- I mean, I bet you have computer porn, not like magazines and stuff," she started to grin at me, "and I want to see what it looks like."

"Oh."

Pause, in which I tried to think and nuttin' happened.

"Tuck?"

"What? Oh. You really want to see it?"

"Yeah? I mean if you don't mind?"

I did, but I couldn't say why.

Yes I could; I was worried she'd make fun of me for it.

 

***
00:43 15 Feb

"That's it?"

"Well, I mean, there's more if-"

"I thought it'd be some kind of program or something," she said.

"Oh. Uh, no. Just pictures. And text."

"Like a story?"

"Yeah... uh, the pictures aren't with the text- I mean, not related or anything. Not like a comic book or-" I was going to say 'manga' but then I'd have to explain it, and possibly show samples, and that way just went to madness. "Or whatever."

"Oh."

"Pretty boring, I guess," I sighed.

"Yeah," she agreed, "well- I mean, I'm not, like, I'm not complaining or making fun of you or anything, I mean, it's cool."

"It's boring." I kissed her shoulder. "You're a lot more interesting."

"You're just saying that 'cause I am," she said, and laughed. "Can I see- like, you said 'text'? Is that like a story or something?"

"Oh, yeah, lots. Lemme see..." I didn't have much text myself, but I knew where to get it. "Hold on a second..." It didn't take much more than that to log myself out of X, then create a guest account for her, make a password, lock the account so it was only accessible through the console and would expire the password in 48 hours, copy a startx into the home directory, add her to the right groups, then log her in and start the browser again. "Lessee..." The Alt Sex Stories Text Repository had more erotic and pornographic text than anyone would ever want, so that's where I put her. Then I opened another window to show her the story codes.

 

***
00:50 15 Feb

Nicole was having a lot more fun reading than I'd imagined she would. Good ol' Internet...

Also, she'd needed a hand getting on my chair, but then she was fine on it. Most everyone else just looked at it and complained without even bothering to try. Or just ignored it.

 

***
01:03 15 Feb

"Oh man," she said. Luckily, I looked up then, so I was looking at her when she turned around to look at me. "Isn't this illegal?"

"What?"

"It's like porn!"

"Yeah? So?"

"So isn't that illegal?"

I pointed out, "YOU read it. Not MY fault."

"No, I mean... Is this, like, I mean, anyone can look at it?"

"If they know where to go, if they aren't blocked, yeah."

"Man," she shook her head.

I realized, though, "Oh, but, yeah, technically it's illegal for either of us to be looking at it. We're not supposed to know about sex for another couple of years or something."

That made her laugh.

 

***
01:16 15 Feb

I sighed, and looked up at Nicole. She wasn't looking at me, she was looking at the computer. *Man... I kind of had something else in mind...* "Nicole?"

"Yeah just a minute," she lied.

I rolled my eyes. Then I got up, got my robe, and told her, "Back in a minute."

"Okay." She didn't look up then either.

I was shaking my head as I opened my door, and luckily I shut it before I ran into Jill.

Jill smelled like sex. And looked rather upset. Or embarrassed.

"Oh man," I sighed. "Having fun?"

"Uh, yeah," she replied shakily.

She seemed embarrassed. "Are you embarrassed?"

"Fuck you, Tuck!"

*Definitely embarrassed.* "Sheesh," I complained. "I mean, what did you think I was going to think you were doing? You going to the bathroom?" I thought it would be nicer to ask her and maybe let her go first, rather than challenge her to a race like usually happened with my siblings. Well, we didn't usually issue a challenge, we just raced.

"I just went. Tuck, I mean... Is it okay?"

"What... you and Mike?"

"Yeah?"

*Dames!* "Yeah, it's okay... C'mere, Jill," I said, and gave her a hug. She returned it, which made me feel better. "I hope you two enjoyed each other," I said, pretty much meaning it, as I sort of let go of the hug and slid my hands down her arms to hold her hands.

She looked down at our hands - I'd grabbed each one of hers with one of mine - and it was only then that I realized the way I was holding hers was rather feminine.

As we both looked back up, she said, "If you air-kiss me I am going to beat the shit out of you."

*Identity authenticated...* "Mike'd help you do it too," I sighed as I let go. "Sorry. It's going okay with us, just kind of... girly, I guess."

Her eyebrows went WAY up. "She's a-"

"No! Well, not that she's said," I said, "and not like she's really acting or anything. Um." That wasn't quite true either... "Can you forget I said anything?"

She wobbled her head and said, "What? Why am I standing here in the hallway?" and wandered off to Susan's room in an apparent daze. She smirked at me and waved for half a second before she shut the door, though. And she locked it, but Susan's door wasn't that good a lock.

I slapped myself, because I really did NOT want to bust in and find... well, anything dealing with Mike and/or Jill and some kind of possible sexual anything. It was just reflex, I hoped.

 

***
01:20 15 Feb

Nicole was still on the ASSTR website when I came back in. I sighed, and opened one of the Dews I'd brought up earlier. I was vaguely tempted to get into bed and go to sleep, because I was getting annoyed at being ignored, but that would've been extremely rude. And if the Pack had found out about it, I would regret it.

*Plus, George might do something like that,* I realized. *And anything George would do, you gotta figure is probably going to piss someone off.*

Which is why I was having some Dew; I needed to not-sleep, at least probably, and if it turned out Nicole wanted to sleep, I'd cuddle with her until she went under, and then do some synth or something until the caffeine wore off.

"Hey is that Coke?" she asked, finally turning around.

"No, but we brought up-"

"Yeah, could I have one?" she asked nicely. "Please?"

I got up and got her one, and handed to her. She popped it one- handed and seriously imbibed. "I'm kinda tired," she mentioned as she turned back to the screen, "but this is REALLY interesting."

"Oh? What is it?" I asked as I came over to read over her shoulder.

"No! Don't look!" she squealed as she threw her hands over the screen.

I almost choked at the thought of all that phosphoric acid and water going all over my computers, but she was a pro or the equivalent and didn't spill any, so I didn't strangle her. "Jeez. What is it?"

"It's... I don't want to tell you," she grinned sheepishly.

"Nicole, I KNOW it's porn, that's what's THERE. Is it making you hot?"

She opened her mouth like she was going to say 'Awwww' but didn't; she just sat there looking kind of amused, and looking around as her mouth slowly closed. I think she was blushing too.

I had a series of wicked ideas come up in my head, and it wasn't like she was saying she wanted to stop...

So I knelt down facing my kneeler chair, and started to rotate it so she was facing me. "What are you doing?" she started giggling frantically. "Stop!"

"Really, you want me to?"

"What are you DOING?"

I said, "Distracting you," and - now that she was facing me - leaned forward and kissed her thigh. "Because, you know," I said as I stroked the outside of her thighs with both my hands, "here we are, naked, in my bedroom, and you're wanting to read? Nuh uh," I grinned as I started stroking towards her inside thighs.

She laughed, breathlessly, a little.

"Very," I said as I 'slapped' her thigh with one finger, "very," I slapped the other thigh the same way, "naughty." I reached out and stroked her belly around her navel with my fingertips. "And I think you ought to be punished..."

"Ahhhh!" she squealed and started to convulse, which made me reach up and try to grab her so she wouldn't fall off the kneeler-chair. It mostly worked. "Don't do that!" she gasped as we got her rebalanced and back on.

"What should I do, then? For your punishment- Oh, I know," I said as I got a flash. But, being all cruel and everything, I didn't tell her, I just stood up and waited.

She was breathing kind of hard, but eventually she recovered enough to remember her Coke, and she had some. That seemed to refresh her, or reset her, because she put it down in the can holder and asked, "Okay, Tuck, what are you doing?"

I said, slowly and in a sort of mix of sultry and male voices, "I'm going to punish you for being so naughty. Haven't you been naughty?" Her face changed, like maybe this was going to get not-fun. "Say 'yes'," I told her in a conspiratorial voice. "You'll like it."

"Hahaha," she laughed nervously.

"Haven't you been naughty?" I asked again, in the slower, deeper voice.

She had to have some more Coke first, but then she gasped as she swallowed the last of it, and sort of whimpered, "Yes?"

I nodded at her to indicate she'd made a good choice, and patted her shoulder in a friendly way. Then I knelt down again in front of her. "You've been reading to pleasure yourself, and leaving me all alone here... So, I think you ought to show me what you'd be doing if you were alone..." I almost added some more, but since I was speaking slowly, I could sort of listen to what I was going to say, and it was a little more bitter than I really ought to be, so I diverted the rest of it to /dev/null.

She breathed out a faint, "What?"

I stroked both her hips. "If you were alone, you'd be reading that stuff, and pretty soon, you'd be pleasuring yourself with one hand as you used the other on the mouse... sitting there, moaning, as you rubbed your... your most private parts, as you wished that was YOU in that story you were reading..." She was breathing faster, and not complaining, which told me she wasn't really upset with the way I was going. "Isn't that true?"

Her mouth opened like she was going to say something, but she just managed to breathe.

 

***
01:36 15 Feb

Mean and cruel ol' me had talked her into pleasuring herself as I watched, from very close range and with a supplemental light shining so I could see everything very very well. The noises coming out of her throat sounded almost like crying, but she did not stop fingering herself, or fondling her breasts with her other hand, and she was wet enough I was glad I'd made her bob up so I could slide a towel under her.

It was neat watching her, too. As much as I'd actually done - not that much - and as many women as I'd been with - not that many - I'd never really gotten to see what a woman's private parts actually looked like, not in good light. And, not surprisingly, I hadn't really been able to see what it looked like when they fingered themselves. Not this well, anyway.

Her face was awesome, too, because it looked like she was being tortured, but she was pretty much doing it all to herself.

Suddenly she changed a little, and actually pushed herself upright so she wasn't really 'sitting' any more; I had to catch her and hold her around the waist so she wouldn't tip the chair over and fall on top of me and the work light.

Now she sounded ANGRY. And the way her hand was going, I could see why they called it 'self-abuse'.

I was really regretting that I didn't have a hand free for myself at the moment, then remembered I was supposed to be a cruel person punishing her. "Sit back. SIT BACK," I snarled as I pushed her back to the seat.

"No SHIT I'm almost- PLEASE!"

I stood up and ran my hands along her arms, having to bend over a bit, until I could grab her wrists and forcibly pull them away from her crotch.

"NOooooo!"

"Stand up. You don't get to cum until you stand up!"

She wailed, "Fucker!" as she wriggled and I helped her up. "PLEASE! I NEED to..."

"Put your hands- brace against the top bunk," I said as I pushed her to where I wanted her. "Both of 'em!"

She did, and now she was a little bent over in front of my bed. I was behind her, like I was going to have anal sex, but that wasn't what I had in mind. Instead, I pressed up against her - telling her, "I am not actually going to fuck you like this," just to reassure her - until she was supporting both of us with her arms, and then I reached around her and down to her groin and I started to massage her thighs right where they joined her torso.

"Oh god what are you gonna do!?"

"Fuck you- fuck you with my fingers, you little slut," I said softly - but firmly - into her ear as I pushed my little finger through her pubic hair and down, until I found her swollen clit, wiped my finger through her wetness, and started rubbing it.

"Oh god oh god ohgodohSHIT HARDER!"

I rubbed harder, and faster, and used my other hand to rub the breast I could reach.

This was rather stimulating, I was discovering.

"Finger-fuck me! FINGER FUCK ME!" she almost screamed as she literally bounced up and down. This was even more stimulating, since my penis was jammed against her buttocks. *Fair's fair,* I thought - sort of - and slid my hand down so I could get a finger into her slit. Which required me to bend further down, which removed my penis from contact with her, which was probably a good thing since she was starting to make me make those sorts of noises.

I managed to get my ring finger inside her and keep my palm partially over her clit, while she made very encouraging noises, and then started going faster.

"Ooooohhhh," she squeaked in this tiny high-pitched voice, totally at odds with the way she was trying to fuck my hand. "Oooh!Oooh!Oooh! Oooh!" Then she made a noise that had all the vowels at once as she tried to ram herself into my hand. I thought this would be a good time to pull upwards and attempt to make my hand go like a vibrator, and apparently it was because she shouted something as she thrust really hard, before she sort of relaxed and began gasping.

"No, no, have two," I said to her, and backed off on the pressure but kept rubbing her.

"No, GOD, I'm sore, please!" she begged, so I stopped, pulled my fingers out - which made her gasp - and pulled her upright.

She wasn't standing too well as I turned her around, with her eyes glazed and looking kind of rubbery and gasping furiously.

"Lick my fingers," I told her, and put them where she could see them, if she could focus her eyes.

Instead, she started to bend, and I guided her to sit on the bed.

"?" she eventually asked.

"Lick your juice off my fingers," I told her, and presented my wet fingers at her again.

Shakily, she leaned forward and sucked my fingers into her mouth. She couldn't really keep sucking on them because she was breathing too hard, but she kept them in her mouth and tongued them a lot.

When she'd cleaned them, I pulled them out - her head came with for a few inches, like she wanted to keep sucking them - and stroked around her neck, which made her eyes close.

"See what happens when you're naughty?"

She smiled and her breathing hitched, like she would've laughed if she could spare the air.

"Want to lie down?" She managed to nod very broadly for that idea.

 

***
01:49 15 Feb

"You're evil," she said eventually.

"But at the same time, I'm good." That made her laugh a little. I don't think she was capable of laughing really hard at the moment; she might pass out from anoxia.

 

***
01:55 15 Feb

"God, I dunno," she replied. "I mean..." Her eyes kind of bulged at me. "It's been... kind of... intense. Tonight."

"Well, yeah... but, I mean, you should be so relaxed," or limp, or half-unconscious, "that you're not worried about it right now."

She looked at me for a while - or maybe not because it still didn't look like she was quite focusing - and then admitted, "No... Not worried."

"See? So."

She took a few breaths, and seemed to ascend to full consciousness. "Plus... Damn," she said admiringly as she shook her head. "I mean, I might as well, but I mean, at this point I'm kind of thinking 'why bother' since the rest of it... It's been really intense," she told me with wide tired glazed eyes. "I mean, I don't think sex could be any better than this; I'd DIE."

I laughed. "Actually, probably not as good."

That woke her up. "What? Really?"

I reminded her, "Bent over and getting finger fucked."

"Oh shit," she gasped as her eyes unfocused again. "Oh... DAMN... That was GOOD."

Unfortunately I found myself giggling. "Uh, sorry," I said when I managed to shut myself up. "Glad you liked it."

"Oh MAN," she sighed, and sort of rolled on top of me - maybe it was three quarters - and kissed me. "This's really awesome."

I laughed, happy, and ran my hands down her body.

 

***
02:09 15 Feb

"Yeah, just lower yourself on top," I told her from underneath, again.

She looked at me uncertainly, then sort of looked inside as she took a deep breath and started to relax her legs and lower her body.

When we touched down there, she bobbed back up. She giggled, "This is so dumb!"

I corrected, "It's not dumb, it's cute!" She chortled a bit, but tried again. "Just push yourself down on top," I told her as I adjusted myself, trying to aim.

"Okay- Oh!" she said as we touched again, and she flinched again but not nearly as much, and she started down again immediately. "Ohhh..."

"It's okay, Nicole, really," I assured her while wishing she'd get on with it. *Get ON it,* I thought, which made me laugh a little. "Do I have to- No, wait; don't you want to make ME crazy with lust?"

She nodded as her eyes closed, and her mouth opened but nothing came out, and she went down, slowly and gently, and didn't bounce this time when we touched, and I managed to slide myself into her as she ssslllooowwwlllyyy lowered herself until she was sitting on my hips.

Pause. This one wasn't awkward, though. I think she was doing the same thing I was doing, just feeling the other person and the difference and all.

"I like it," she said eventually.

"I like it too!"

She started moving slowly up and down, using her legs, and I think we both liked that better.

 

***
02:23 15 Feb

NOW, when it was way too late, I was beginning to regret being so cruel to Nicole earlier, because she really did not feel a need to go fast, and I think she was enjoying being able to make me slow down by using her weight on my pelvis, because she was chortling and saying things like, "So how bad do you want it, bitch," and playing with my breasts to a point I was about - but not quite - ready to orgasm from that alone.

She demanded in a harsh voice, "Beg for it."

"Oh god please Nicole, please, fuck me, it's making me crazy! Please! PLEASE fuck me! Oh god..."

She just laughed.

Then she bent down and started sucking on my nipple. That made my eyelids shut.

THEN she started moving her pelvis back and forth.

 

***
02:29 15 Feb

"Oh god Nicole NOW-"

"FUCK me BITCH!"

I fucked her, alright; I almost managed to bang her head into the revised upper bunk as I thrust into her and pulled her against me-

And then she pinched both my nipples and I died as my brain vaporized.

 

***
02:33 15 Feb

"You squeal like a little girl when you cum," Nicole mentioned into my ear. She was holding me gently, which was good, because I think I would've died without it.

It took a while for me to gather enough breath to reply, and so I got to think about it before I COULD say anything, so I was pretty proud of, "YOU make me squeal like a little girl."

That was it for the witty comments, or any comments, for a while, though.

At least from me. "God, you should've seen your FACE..."

 

***
02:37 15 Feb

I'd managed to get the condom - the second; the first had sort of been a misfire since I'd ended up needing to pee before I ejaculated - off and a towel between us, but that was about as far as I'd been able to go. Plus, I was having a really hard time letting go of Nicole.

"Are guys always this cuddly? After?"

"The smart ones are."

"Aww," she said, and pulled me a little closer. "You are SO sweet."

"So're you," I said, unable to keep from smiling and unwilling to try.

"God, I think I l-lov-"

I got a hand up to stop her mouth. "Don't say it."

Her head backed away as she complained, "What?"

"It's mostly the hormones. There's something about the after-sex part that makes you feel like that. It'll fade."

"Ohhh," she whined, "but I really-"

"You really feel like that? Yeah, me too," I told her as I stroked her body. "But, seriously... It'll kind of fade after a while. Don't get it confused with, like, marry-and-stay-together-forever stuff. Just enjoy it. I am. With you," I added, and kissed what I could reach.

Pause, in which I kept touching Nicole while getting sleepier and sleepier.

"That just sounds so cold," she eventually said. "So... like, mean."

I admitted, "I guess... but it's real. Realistic. It's stupid to think- I mean, I know that's what all the songs say, and the movies and the TV and everything, but it's..." I was going to say 'bullshit' but that seemed too harsh and edged for the two of us lying here in the bed, naked and cuddling. "It's just Hollywood. Just enjoy it," I repeated. "We don't have to be together-forever just because of tonight."

"TONIGHT," she told me in no uncertain terms, "I LOVE you."

I agreed, "Tonight, I feel the same way," and I was going to say something else but she pulled me to her and kissed me, effectively shutting me up.

 

***
02:38 15 Feb

Which, I realized, she was probably doing on purpose, to shut me up. *You bitch,* I thought with a smile.

 

***
02:51 15 Feb

The afterplay had been, in a way, more intense than the foreplay, sort of. I knew I felt better, looser and less inhibited around Nicole than I had when we'd started, since I didn't feel like I was going to make a mistake and upset her by doing something like kissing her wrong. She seemed to be feeling the same way, or at least she was acting like it. Not like I was complaining.

 

***
03:00 15 Feb

"Uh, Nicole?" I said when I could pry myself loose.

"Hm?"

I took her hand and pushed it between us so she could feel it.

"No way."

"Yeah, I'm faking an erection. Well, half of one." It wasn't that hard, but it also wasn't getting softer.

"No WAY," she gently insisted, but she was smiling delightly.

"I think I find you arousing."

"I guess!" Then her eyes flashed and she said wickedly, "I find YOU arousing," before she giggled. "God I am such a SLUT tonight."

"You are," I agreed, and resumed kissing her. "You're my little slut, right? In here, I mean; I wouldn't say it outside."

"Your little slut," she smiled.

 

***
03:05 15 Feb

I hadn't really realized why she was concentrating on my breasts until she broke suction and asked upwards, "Do you have another condom?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we do it again?"

"I think so. I'd like to," I said explicitly, just in case there was any doubt, though by the way I was hard again I didn't wonder, and with her hand down there monitoring the state of things I don't think she was wondering either.

"I want you on top this time," she said.

"Okay."

 

***
03:16 15 Feb

I'd managed to torture her into admitting, "It's just not quite..."

"A lot of girls- well, like, half maybe? Don't get off on just intercourse," I informed her. "That's from the girls I've asked."

"You've ASKED?"

"Well, yeah; how else can I find out?"

"God DAMN," she said, shaking her head. "You're like..."

"And you're gonna tell me everything YOU like too, you know. I'll torture it out of you."

She squeezed her vaginal muscles and warned me, "And I'm gonna torture what YOU like out of YOU, you know."

"Eeek," I said with a grin, and we both giggled.

 

***
03:22 15 Feb

I was beginning to think that lying on our sides, with the girl masturbating as I was inside her, was my favorite position of all. The girls seemed to like it too. Which, I hoped, would lead to positive reinforcement of the behavior pattern.

"Ohhh, yeah, fuck me now," she requested as she had a little happy spasm. So I did.

 

***
03:26 15 Feb

"Oh!" she sang as her eyes went wide then shut and she spasmed around my dick.

"Ohh Nicole!" I said in about the same voice as it was too much for me this time and I came.

"Nnn!" she said as she removed a hand from my neck and slid it between us, and I felt her start to fondle herself again. "Oh!"

 

***
08:03 15 Feb

I did not want to get up, but I had to pee.

 

***
08:05 15 Feb

A little too late, I remembered to check if I'd removed the last condom from myself before sitting to urinate. I had, thankfully. I dimly remembered pulling it off, but I wasn't sure I'd been conscious enough to actually do it.

 

***
08:06 15 Feb

"Dude, how can I be hungry?" I asked myself. I didn't answer, which was good, sort of. But I really wanted to eat something.

 

***
08:22 15 Feb

"Dude," Mike said, and I looked around to find him and Jill wrapped around each other like they hadn't ever done before. That I'd seen. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Lover's breakfast," I smirked.

Jill asked, "Where's Nicole?"

"Still sleeping. I got hungry."

"You?" Mike questioned.

"Me. Want something?"

"Yes!" Jill smiled brilliantly, unexpectedly beautiful.

"This in no way implies that you and I had sex last night, Tuck," Mike disclaimed.

Jill hurriedly threw in, "Me neither!" And then smiled at Mike, who smiled back.

*Awwww!* I agreed, "True. But with me here, Jill can't really use the stove to cook YOU something."

"Plus you're better at it," Jill said, which I didn't say. Neither did Mike. He kissed her instead. And she let him.

"You're better at other things," he told her, and she got beautiful again.

*No, she isn't,* I smirked to myself as I went back to torturing eggs.

 

***
08:58 15 Feb

Nicole didn't like pork, so she wasn't going to get any; other people were. There was, however, some chicken that got chopped and recooked along with some goodies, and some beef sausage that I hoped Mom wasn't saving for something, and a few other bits and pieces.

And if I hurried, and hurried her, we'd both get to eat it before someone else ate it.

I slipped into my room, and Nicole was still asleep. In fact, she was drooling, I noticed when I got closer.

I thought she might appreciate not looking like that in the morning around her first lover - me.

Oh, that was a nice thought.

So I got a towel and gently wiped her cheek, and as she woke up I slid the towel under her cheek and over the pillow. "Good morning, lover," I smiled to her to distract her.

"Wh-" Then she started to panic, but within half a second she remembered and didn't. "Oh, god," she said with a HUGE smile.

"Want breakfast?"

She blinked at me, as the smile transformed into a different sort of smile. "You did not."

 

***
09:00 15 Feb

I got out a toothbrush for her and unwrapped it, but urged, "Hurry, or they'll eat everything."

"Can I- Wait, who?"

"Mike and Jill, they're up."

"I bet Jill cooked."

I couldn't believe she was so insulting.

 

***
09:05 15 Feb

"Why the hell do you think I'm living here?" Jill smirked at Nicole before forking some waffle into her mouth.

"Holy shit," Nicole said wonderingly.

"Hey, kiss me so I know you like me," Mike asked Jill, and she kissed him.

"Awww," Nicole commented, I think seriously and not nastily.

"So how was YOUR night?" Jill asked Nicole.

That started the giggling, and the hiding behind hands.

"That wasn't all we did," I felt it necessary to say.

Jill looked at me, and started to blush, and kissed Mike on the cheek as he was stuffing his face.

"I think I know how yours went," I mentioned.

They both gave me all four thumbs up. Mike said, "I am also holding my toes up," which I couldn't see because of the table. "Sturgeon!"

That took me a while, but due to common reading I eventually recollected the rest of the message from USS Sturgeon, a submarine in the Pacific side of World War 2. "Sweet!" I grinned.

"It was," Jill said. "He was good, for a first time."

"Jill!" Mike almost squealed, which made Nicole laugh. Well, she was laughing louder than Jill and I were.

"What about the second?" I asked with a smirk.

"That was better," she grinned. "MUCH better."

Mike was looking around as Nicole caught that she shouldn't really be laughing, or out loud at least, and stifled herself with her hands. "I- I feel vaguely insulted," Mike said.

"Don't be," I said as Jill shook her head and ate some. "I mean, some time had to be first, right?"

"And it was pretty good," Jill said through a half-mouthful of food.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," came out of mine.

Jill complained, "Just eat, you skank." Then she looked at Mike with a sort of appraising look. "Actually, I think it was good enough to maybe do it again sometime."

"Seriously?" Mike and I both exclaimed at the same time, while Nicole just exclaimed wordlessly into her hands.

"What? Yes!" Jill insisted as she started to blush. "It was nice!" Then she looked at me. "I think you gave him some hints," she tried to say sternly but was grinning too much.

"Well-"

"Never let it be said that I don't take good advice," Mike commented, "especially from someone who's done it before." And he tipped his head and waved a casual salute at me.

That made me feel strangely manly. Especially when Jill kept grinning at me like she approved, and Nicole just looked amazed but not unhappy.

Mike picked up his milk glass and presented it and said, "To Tuck!"

Jill picked hers up and added, "Best slut in the house."

I laughed as my face went red, but - I really DID love her this morning - Nicole picked hers up too, and said, gently, to me, "To Tuck."

 

***
09:39 15 Feb

"It'd be nice if I could take something to Kim," Jill said as she undid my hair. The style had not really survived the night.

"Yeah, that'd be cool," Mike agreed.

"Y-" A nasty thought occurred to me. "Um, Mike?"

He got suspicious.

"It's just a really bad thought, but- And I mean, I don't think so, just I gotta check."

"What?"

I motioned him close, and when he did, I whispered, "This isn't to like, tell her you two..."

"No," he replied firmly as he pulled back. "She's sick- ill, I mean. I'd JUST as soon she doesn't show up for breakfast this morning, here OR at the usual, and..." He shrugged.

"Okay," I breathed in relief.

 

***
10:07 15 Feb

"Well, I need to go... go to therapy," I told Nicole as I disassembled her hair, like Jill had done for me earlier. "But, you can stay here, and if you want you can have Sunday dinner here about seven."

"Oh god," she sighed sleepily.

"Or, Mike can take you home," I said. "Or, if you want to go right now, I could; but I bet you want to sleep."

"Yeah," she sighed. Then she smiled. "Kind of."

 

***
10:22 15 Feb

"Harder, like-" I rubbed her clit harder. "Yeah," she breathed. "Yeah, oh... Wait, don't stop fucking me too," she insisted.

"It's a lot to remember," I gasped out.

"But you're so good at it," she said, and while I realized it was probably a lie, or at least bare encouragement without worrying about the truth, I decided I didn't care.

"Oh yeah oh... Oh, yes..."

 

***
10:41 15 Feb

I really had to hurry if I didn't want to be late to therapy, but at least Nicole wasn't getting in my way at the moment. If anything, she was kind of inspiring. For a totally collapsed lump.

I really wanted to collapse next to her, and make one bigger lump, I admitted. "Damnit."

 

***
11:02 15 Feb

"You look happy," Rachel observed, which made me giggle.

"I am so fucking stoned on post-coital hormones," I admitted.

She giggled, "You are such a tart!"

"I am! And I'll feel really bad about myself, much later!" That made her laugh. Except, I didn't think I would.

I decided not to dress like a tart, though, no matter how well I'd been fucked.

 

***
11:33 15 Feb

"Yeah, they braided it into a chignon," I told Sheila. "And I wish you could've seen what they did to Nicole; I don't even have words. Hot curlers and LOTS of pins," which I would have to give back, which is why they were in a ziplock in my pack, "and ribbons, and all- It looked fantastic."

"So they just did this?"

"Yeah, if you don't run like hell, they'll get you," I said. "It's practice, and every time you do it can count, so the more times they do it, the more it counts."

"Oh, this is for class?"

"Yeah? What did you think I was talking about?"

"I didn't know, really," she said.

 

***
12:02 15 Feb

"I think that's a good point," Sheila said, and smiled at me. "I'm really glad you brought that up to her."

That made me feel REALLY good.

"Where did you- I mean, it's unusual for someone your age to... to be so wise, about sex and the feelings and all."

"Oh... the girls, and Mike- Mike's really the font of my wisdom," I claimed, though it was at least half true.

 

***
12:50 15 Feb

I almost passed by the mall, but I realized that Nicole would probably have liked a nightgown or something, and I didn't have one, so I did a co-ed turn (after checking, which was not really the co-ed thing to do, but saved on car repairs and insurance premiums) into the parking lot and sought a spot.

 

***
13:03 15 Feb

"Jeez!" *No wonder everyone sleeps naked, or in shorts and things.* This was unreasonable.

Except when I thought about Nicole in it. Or someone else. But mostly Nicole.

 

***
13:17 15 Feb

One nightgown in size sixteen - the largest they had in the nice white cottony one - one 2X sleep tee in pink with fake embroidery on it because that ought to fit at least anyone I knew - if not two of them at once - plus a filmy scarf that just needed to be wrapped around Nicole's hair, plus another one for me because they had a buy-one-next-half-off sale going, and I was done!

 

***
13:29 15 Feb

Except for the goddamned sale on shoes, which was so enraging I had to call Sabrina to see if she knew about it. She did, but didn't think they had as much left as I could see. I decided on the fly that waiting for her and anyone else to show up would be a bad idea, because no matter what I found for myself while waiting, they'd talk me into more when they got here. And I'd already found more than enough.

And then there was a pair of dark red boots which just belonged on Debbie, and were in a size eight, and were the last ones left, so I had to put those on layaway and call her too.

"Hello?"

"Debbie? It's Val. There's a pair of boots on layaway for you at the Dillards..."

 

***
14:02 15 Feb

"Oh, and condoms," I remembered. Damn, they were expensive... at least until you thought about, say, one treatment set of antibiotics. If it was susceptible to antibiotics.

 

***
14:49 15 Feb

"Oh there is?" Rachel confirmed.

"Yeah, and I was just there, and they still had some sizes like normal people wear," I said as I stripped hurriedly. "But I've got a load of groceries in the car, so I gotta go."

"Oh right," she nodded.

"You can come over, of course," I reminded her.

"Thanks!"

 

***
15:09 15 Feb

"Hey, Nicole?" I asked softly.

"Hnn?"

"Wanna get up?"

"Nnn," she said, and rolled over.

Pause.

I decided, after a couple of minutes, that that was a 'no'.

 

***
18:34 15 Feb

"Nicole?"

"Nnn?" She sounded so sweet, I just wanted to get in bed with her and cuddle; but I was way too sweaty.

I wasn't too sweaty to sit next to her on the bed. "Nicole? If you get up, you can eat Sunday dinner..."

She rolled over and looked at me. "Oh no..."

"What?"

She smiled lazily, "You did not..."

"You have been dating the wrong guys if you don't get this kind of treatment," I smirked.

She forced herself upright, the covers falling off and exposing her nude body, and hugged me.

 

***
18:38 15 Feb

I had to leave her to take a hurried shower - her, not me, unfortunately; and even more unfortunately, not both of us - and made it downstairs in time to almost run into Debbie.

And Lisa.

*Who let them in the-*

"Quiche, and brownies?" Debbie said as she held up some kind of professional looking carrier.

She was wearing a black skirt and a sweater that just about matched the new boots I could see. "The boots fit?"

"Yeah," she smiled. "Thanks for putting 'em on layaway."

*Yeah,* I decided. I'd sort of wanted something eggy today, for some reason, but hadn't really done anything since breakfast, and that was only one egg, since I had to throw some in the waffle batter, and then other people wanted eggs too. Quiche ought to be eggy. "Go put 'em- No, come on," I changed my mind. The kitchen would be insane; she shouldn't go in there without a guide.

 

***
18:56 15 Feb

"Why didn't you do this for me when WE were dating?" Debbie asked.

"'Cause I was stupid," I admitted.

"No kidding," Mike 'contributed' as he grabbed another two serving bowls to put out. "Hey, don't just stand around," he told Debbie. "Grab something."

"Hey," someone said, and I turned around and it was Nicole, smiling at me, and wearing the dress I'd snagged from my stash at Rachel's so she'd have something clean to wear. I didn't know if she was wearing the panties - CLEAN - I'd borrowed with Jill's permission, or the sport bra, but I didn't really need to know.

"Hey," I smiled.

She came up and hugged me, and I stuffed my nose into her now-loose hair, that smelled like the guest shampoo and unfortunately not at all like sex. Well, it was sort of unfortunate; she'd probably appreciate not smelling that that to anyone else, so to speak.

"Are you wearing the armor again?"

"So I don't have to try and wrap my breasts," I said into her ear. "Guys. You know."

That produced a giggle fit.

 

***
18:58 15 Feb

Mom and Dad were both giving me the Eye again, as I seated Nicole next to me. Mike had, decently, saved the two seats so we could sit next to each other. Probably not by coincidence, he and Jill were sitting next to each other, as were Debbie and Lisa, as were my parents. The rest of the freeloaders, except they'd best have brought some food if they wanted to be invited back, were scattered around chatting as they waited.

"Play ball!" I called, and there was a mad rush of utensils. "Just grab something or ask for it to get passed," I told Nicole. "It's not that formal."

She asked me, "What did you make?"

"He didn't make the pie, lemme tell you," Mike smirked.

"OR the brownies," Lisa threw in. "Or the quiche!"

I put my finger in the air and ordered, "Quiche!" and something that looked like a pie started moving my way.

"Or the spring rolls," someone said, and I looked for Sally, who was engaged in digging some food out of a bowl.

"Thank you Sally!" I called, and she smiled as she looked up, then bobbed her head at me. "I need some of those."

"What are spring rolls?" Nicole asked in disbelief.

"Ho ho!"

 

***
20:12 15 Feb

"Oooh no," I told Nicole, unable to keep from grinning. "Not only did I cook, but I went to the grocery store first. YOU slept all day."

"I was tired!" she protested before getting wide-eyed and giggling into her hands. "Oh..."

"So you get to clean up. Now git!" I said as I turned her around and gave her a tiny swat on the rump, then a little push towards the kitchen.

"That's why," Lisa said from behind me.

"What? That's why what?" I asked as I turned around.

"Why you didn't cook for Debbie."

"Hey, cook's privilege," I protested. "And YOU don't have to clean up. Debbie either, if she helped you," I decided. They probably hadn't had as many helpers as I did today.

"Thank you," she smiled. It looked kind of impersonal, so I tried not to take it personally.

"Actually, though, I had a thought," Debbie said as she swirled into conversational range.

 

***
20:19 15 Feb

It was an evil thought, but I didn't think it would work, because the chances of Don The Cad having a girl there for this one convenient (for us) time was unlikely. Assuming that he had THREE (or more) girls in queue, which I thought was really improbable.

Until George commented, "Dude I would TOTALLY do that if I could get away with it."

"George," Mike sighed.

"If I could get two girls to talk to me in the same month," George complained.

Jill mentioned, "If you wouldn't say stuff like that, it'd be more likely."

The thing was, if George was thinking it, every asshole would be thinking it. And Don was definitely an asshole.

 

***
21:02 15 Feb

"I do not believe this," Nicole said as Debbie led us into the depths of the restaurant.

"It could get worse," like if George was here, but I didn't get a chance to say that because I was saying, "Oh no."

Same table and everything.

Nicole complained, "He said that was OUR table!"

Debbie nodded from ahead of us.

"I think he's been practicing that line," I suggested. "Those lines."

"Yeah I was gonna say..."

Debbie said brightly, "Don!"

"Hi Don!" Nicole chirped, and waved her fingers at him. Or at the girl in the other chair at the two-person table Debbie had been sitting at last night. And, I guessed, where Nicole had been sitting Friday night.

"What the hell are you doing?" Don complained at us, like he was being unreasonably persecuted.

I reached back and made sure I had my batons, which I did.

"He told you," Debbie said to the girl, "that he could only see you one night a week, right? I was Saturday."

"And I was Friday," Nicole threw in.

The girl looked at Don, who was shaking his head in disbelief, then looked at us. "You're making that up."

"No." "Nooo."

"Nope," I threw in.

"Are you Thursday?" the unknown girl snipped at me.

Well, I couldn't leave that one lying around where someone might step on it. "Kinda! But I think I'd rather get a drink someplace else."

Debbie snorted, then said to the girl, "Just thought you'd like to know," and turned and ushered us towards the door again.

As she moved backwards, Nicole did a little finger wave at them. "Hope you choke on your food, Don," she said sweetly before she turned and pushed me, so I turned and we all left.

"BAHAHahahaha!" Debbie said when the front door shut behind us.

 

***
21:19 15 Feb

Not, I guess, surprisingly, Nicole wanted a cigarette before going home. Even mentioning that she'd be less likely to be detected if she didn't have one now, because it had been so long since she'd had one, didn't work.

I did not expect Debbie to pay Nicole for one, and then actually light it. "When the hell did you start doing that?"

Debbie shrugged, and blew a cloud out. "Oh, just sometimes."

"Not when you were with me!"

"You have asthma, remember? So I didn't do it around you," she said like that was totally reasonable.

"When did you start?" Nicole asked Debbie.

"Oh, thirteen."

"THIRTEEN?!" I protested, and they both looked at me like I was the retarded one. "Holy crap!"

"You?"

Nicole nodded, "Twelve."

"What the hell is the point of making it illegal?" I complained.

Nicole laughed; Debbie just gave me a very Lisa look that said I was being childish and overly idealistic.

 

***
21:33 15 Feb

"See you tomorrow?" I asked, or hoped, or... something.

"Sure. Unless they chain me up in the attic," Nicole groused. "Well..." She looked at Debbie, who looked away, and then Nicole kissed me in such a way that I thought she might like a repeat engagement, so to speak. Assuming either she wasn't chained up in the attic, or that I could get in.

 

***
21:35 15 Feb

"What a SHIT," Debbie sighed.

"No kidding," I sighed too.

Pause, in which I drove.

 

***
21:37 15 Feb

"So you and Nicole, hmm?"

"What? Oh, uh... Yeah," I admitted, hating the blush I was developing. Plus, there was always that fear, around Debbie, that she'd go psychotic if she actually SAW me dating anyone else. Or had it thrown in her face, or mentioned to her, or... I couldn't reach my batons from here, and it was too cramped in the car to swing 'em anyway, but I had a knife under the driver's side dashboard. I 'touched iron' and it was still in place.

I tried, "Did you and Lisa have a better night?"

"Than you two?" she smirked.

"No, than the way it started, or when I saw you or whatever."

She shook her head as she looked out the window. "I should've just gone out with her to start with. I don't even know why I bother with guys any more."

"Me neither. They're pigs."

"No SHIT! Gawd," she sighed.

 

***
21:44 15 Feb

"Hey," she said as she got out, and then turned around. "Could I get a ride tomorrow morning?"

"I have to be there at seven," I reminded her.

"Ooh," she winced. "Um, lemme think about it."

"Don't think too long," I warned her.

"Yeah it's almost ten now," she agreed. "Hey, I've got a couple bottles of champagne I was hoping to use, and I didn't have 'em last night. Want one?"

I thought about it. "Like how much?"

She smiled at me.

 

***
21:50 15 Feb

"No, she had to go to work early," Debbie reassured me again. I did not want to run into Helen again. "Do you think I'd have asked you in if she was here? I'm NOT that dumb."

I had to admit, "Well, no..." I was still worried, though.

"Well, here's to women," Debbie said, and we clicked our plastic champagne 'glasses' together.

"To women," I said, and smiled at memories, and sipped.

 

***
06:10 16 Feb

Someone had urinated in my mouth, I decided. That was the only reasonable explanation. Because, I would've woken up if a mouse had crawled in there to die. Especially since it wasn't a fresh-dead mouse; I would definitely have awakened if a zombie rodent tried to crawl into-

I really shouldn't have thought that because I had to crash-start and get to the toilet before I vomited. Luckily, I took the trash can along the way, because I didn't make it in time.

 

***
06:24 16 Feb

"C'MON, Deb, I gotta go!" I shouldn't have allowed myself to go horizontal; I'd blanked out.

"Oh shit fuck YOU," she raged impotently at me. "Here, put this on, and these..."

 

***
06:36 16 Feb

I dashed up to my house - I'd parked at the curb since I couldn't afford the time to pull in the driveway - and up the porch stairs and unlocked the front door and thankfully the alarms had been disconnected or something, so I could just run up the stairs, which was a mistake because I had to detour into the bathroom to vomit a few more times.

"Where the fuck were you!?" Jill complained.

 

***
06:42 16 Feb

"Gatorade," I told Debbie as I handed her the bottle, and she wasted no time in opening it and swigging some.

"Here," Jill said, and handed me one so I could do the same thing.

 

***
06:58 16 Feb

I bailed out, as did Jill, and we trotted for the Industrial Arts building. I wondered why Debbie was coming with us, and really wondered when she sped up and passed us, but then she ducked into a side door with a very unhappy noise and I knew.

In fact, hearing that noise made me go in the other bathroom, but the urge sort of faded, either because I wasn't hearing it any more or because I wasn't moving so fast. "Ohhh, god," I moaned and looked at myself in the mirror. There was, in fact, no fur coating my tongue. Nor was I wearing makeup that I could see, which was good; that was always a worry around Debbie. She had a long history of putting makeup on me, after all. No rodents visible either. That was also good.

I ran some water and splashed my face with it, which helped too. I tried combing my hair back with wet fingers, but I wasn't sure it would-

"Uh, Tuck?"

"Yeah?" I said as I turned around. "Oh hey Nicole," I smiled, because I felt really good about her. Even if she was looking kind of like I had a dead mouse somewhere on my face, though I was sure I didn't. Or the zombie had crawled out and was hanging out in my hair or something. Maybe my ears. "What?"

"Uh," Gabby said, and a couple of other girls giggled.

"Oh shit Debbie!" I gasped, and spun and ran, out the door of the women's room - the mirrors should've clued me in, or the other women in it - and in the other door, the one Debbie had gone into.

No one was happy to have Debbie vomiting in the men's room, judging by the looks I got. "Get the stupid bitch OUT of here!" someone snarled at me as they threw a punch at me, which I dodged in the hopes of finding Debbie before something horrible happened.

Well, nothing did. Unless you count Debbie standing up over a toilet, bent over more than ninety degrees, and retching. Which was, I had to admit, pretty horrible, but not as bad as I could imagine. Like, for instance, her kneeling on the floor; the men's restroom stalls were not as clean as the pre-Hercules Aegean stables. "Deb, got your back," I told her, and she flashed me an OK without looking, before she gagged again.

And again.

I almost had to get my own stall a couple of times, but not quite.

 

***
07:06 16 Feb

I was definitely tardy, but class proper hadn't started yet, and if Mrs. Singley said anything I would just throw up all over her gradebook, and then kill Shannon and a couple of others and claim it was the fever. Mrs. Singley just gave me the Eye, and I glared back until I could fall into my seat.

My head hurt.

"Man, what the hell happened to you?" Kim asked.

"Oh god," Jill said, which was good because that meant I didn't have to.

Also, I wasn't entirely sure.

"And when did you get your ears pierced?"

"Oh, ha ha," I sighed. "My ears are not pierced."

"Oooooo kay," she said slowly, and had some more coffee. She failed to offer me any, which I thought was very mean of her.

I then remembered to ask Kim, "Oh, hey, are you feeling better?"

"Kind of," she admitted. "Thanks for breakfast," she smiled.

"Sure thing." Which reminded me of Nicole, so I looked over at her. She looked kind of uncertain, at me, so I just smiled a little and turned away so I wouldn't embarrass her.

Jill asked, "What DID you do last night?"

"I don't know," I moaned, and rubbed my forehead.

 

***
07:50 16 Feb

The bell rang, and while most people ran for the doors, I ran - well, walked - for Nicole. Who was running for the doors, and got caught in the happened-every-day traffic jam. "Nicole?"

"Oh," she said as she turned around. "You okay?"

"Better than I was," I admitted. "Um..."

"What happened in there?"

"I... I'll tell you later. Not here. How're you?"

She smiled at me, in a sort of way that made me feel entirely not ready to expire, and even got rid of my headache. "Um, I gotta get to class."

"Yeah..." I hated school; otherwise, we could be making love again up in my room. Or eating. Or sleeping. "Can I call you tonight? After eight?"

"Yeah. Why so late?"

"I babysit, remember?"

"Oh right. Okay... call me right?" I nodded. She smiled again before she turned away.

 

***
07:54 16 Feb

"Yeah, I'll live," Debbie was forced to admit. "Thanks for the Gatorade, I think it helped." She looked a lot better, too.

"Great stuff. C'mon, we gotta get to class," Jill pushed.

"Okay, so," I said to Debbie, "I remember some champagne..."

"LATER," Debbie ordered as she got out of my car.

 

***
07:59 16 Feb

"Dude-"

I interrupted Mike, "I look like shit, I know."

"No, you DON'T, is the problem," Mike told me.

"What? Every day you tell me I look like shit-"

"You do look like shit!"

"Fuck you George!"

"Dude did you get your EARS PIERCED?!" Mike complained.

"What? Fuck you! No!"

"What the hell are those then?"

"What are what?"

"Those!" He grabbed my ear, which hurt.

"Ow! Fucker! There's noth-" There was a metal thing embedded in my ear. No, there were two of them.

No, there were two on each side.

"Oh FUCK," I moaned.

 

***
08:19 16 Feb

I really had to do some homework, but I couldn't get over, *What the hell did I do last night?*

 

***

---

The SO: "You shifted gears."
Ellen: ???
The SO: "For one thing, I didn't expect porn on the Internet."
Ellen: "You didn't expect PORN on the INTERNET?!"