Listaire at USC: Reconnections

A number of you seem to be wondering where I am going with this, the longest of the Alistaire Cycles. A few entries have been and are just me wanting to riff on college memories or tropes, and how Alistaire would, um, handle them. But every cycle of Al's tale has a purpose, both of its own and for the overall tale, and almost everything serves that purpose. Unless I'm just having fun... Just relax and enjoy this hopefully plausible and certainly ridiculous ride!

If you don't get the joke of the introductory scene here, great. It means you have lots of other stories of mine to read! If you want to know what I am having fun with in the 'cold open' here, check out WIWAW -- Chekov's Babes.

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Like every other person who comes to LA, I briefly dreamed of being in The Business, and by The Business, I do mean The Industry. But I sure as hell, no matter what Britney said about my body's suitability for on-screen work, was not going to act, so my daydreams leant toward being a writer.

Alas, bad fan-fiction is not really in demand in Hollywood, no matter what the current recycled IP offerings might imply.

Yes, bad. You would think a word nerd like me would be able to write a good script. You would be wrong.

Here's a sample of a Star Trek reboot I doodled out:

Camera zooms down and into the bridge from out in space. Red Alert sirens blare and the bridge seems bathed in blood from the lights. Captain Kirk leans forward in his chair, but then turns toward Lt. Uhura.

Kirk: End transmission!

He bangs his fist on the arm of his chair.

Kirk: Damn it! If that's what they want, that is what they will get. Mr. Chekov, you may fire when ready!

Chekov: Vit pleasure, Keptin!

Phaser fire pours forth from the belly of the majestic Enterprise disk.

See? Terrible, right?

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The One With Reconnections

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As my third fall semester at USC began, I was technically a Senior, between AP credits and summer classes, but I still thought of myself as a Junior like the majority of my friends. Four years was the plan. Four years was the budget. I was disinclined to rush my exit from USC.

I was still living in my off-campus phone booth of an apartment, but once school began again, I found myself spending a lot of time on campus. That's where classes were, that's where most of my friends were. That is where the resources were.

That was where most of the sex was...

I mean, other than Britney, I had yet to make one friend that I could hang out with, sexually or otherwise, who was not a part of the USC community. I was neither proud of this, nor happy about it. But it was what it was.

That said, I still had a rich, full social life, sexual and otherwise, on campus, so I was seldom lonely. And I honestly had little motivation to seek elsewhere... I wanted to meet people, both new strangers and my existing friends, and campus was where that was most likely to happen. I still had not found the same depth of friendship that I continued to feel for many of my older friends back east, though I felt several relationships growing and maturing. I hoped.

USC, like most campuses, is a web of crisscrossing pathways outdoors, making foot traffic a tangle during class changes. I usually pay close attention to where I am going at such times, for my own safety.

As a freshman, I had once been run over by a tight end who was as late for class as I was. It was an instructive experience. Look, I have sort of come to grips with the fact that I am large. At least, I'm tall and in pretty good shape, not the tiny string bean I was up through most of high school. But there is a difference between normal people large, and USC football tight end large. Carl had been really nice as he peeled me off the pavement, but I resolved to pay attention to where I was going from then on.

Yeah.

Three weeks into my third fall at college, there I was, walking across campus, not paying attention.

Confession: My face was buried in my phone.

In my defense, I had just come up with a great meme that I was sure would go viral worldwide and was uploading it to everywhere I could think of. (Spoiler: The rest of the world had a different opinion about the transmissibility of my 'viral' meme...)

Further confession: I had already uploaded my doomed meme everywhere and was perusing baseball posts on Instagram, still not paying attention.

Look, Nolan Ryan facts are always mind-blowing.

Suddenly I felt a collision from my right. Fortunately, my fellow collider was nowhere near the size of former USC, now Minnesota Viking, tight ends. I was the one to knock her down this time.

Yes, it was a girl. I could tell instantly.

I was about to apologize when my mind registered the sound of her phone clattering to the sidewalk as she fell away to the grass. Instantly, I pocketed my phone for plausible deniability while exclaiming, "Oh, my God! Are you okay?" and leaning down to help her back up.

I was so flustered, the platinum blonde hair didn't register at first. It was not until I was staring into brilliant, cornflower blue eyes that I recognized Liz.

Wow.

Um.

"Alistaire!" she said, recognizing at the same time who it was that had crashed into her.

"Are you okay?" I asked again, because, wordy bastard though I am, I can get thrown into a repetitive loop when I'm panicking.

Yes, I was panicking. I had not actually talked to Liz since we had broken up. Since she had broken up with me. True, USC is not a huge campus, and we had both seen the other at a distance many times in the intervening almost two years. But I had always somehow avoided actually getting within talking range. She must have also avoided it, and the fact that she had been doing so had made me even more determined to stay away. I was vaguely aware that this was stupid, childish, and not how other adults handled running into exes, but Liz was my only ex ever, and I vapor-locked whenever I saw her.

But now, we had spoken to each other. I couldn't run away and avoid her right at this point. It would be rude. Also, Liz was, as ever, a totally gorgeous eyeful, and my eyes were enjoying being filled.

"So, Liz, where are you off to?" I asked as she straightened her icy pink polo shirt over juicy breasts.

"Um, nowhere, actually," she replied. "I was just wandering and reading TMZ on my phone instead of watching where I was going," she admitted sheepishly.

"Me too," I confessed, shaking my head just as ruefully.

"I understand my stupidity," Liz said, actually smiling. "But I thought you had learned your lesson after you got creamed by Carl Greene, back when we..." she cut herself off before she could finish with, 'were dating.'

"I guess I'm learning disabled," I shrugged, tapping my temple. I looked at her awkwardly. I hated being awkward with a nice girl.

Sometimes, the only way to get past awkward is to lean into it and make it worse, until things resolve.

"Listen," I said hesitantly, "it's been a while. If you aren't busy, want to hit Annenberg's, grab a drink, and catch up a little?"

"Yeah," Liz said, seeming to surprise herself. "Sounds good!"

I grabbed a chai tea latte and Liz bought some kind of mocha cream whatsit. We grabbed a table and fell into a nice conversation about whatever. As was the problem to begin with, we did not have a lot of academic or even casual interests in common, but we did have a lot of time to catch up on, and people we knew in common. Most importantly, I was remembering that I just flat liked Liz.

"Still running much?" I asked, turning to the one public activity we genuinely had in common.

Liz shrugged. "Sure. I'm doing about sixteen miles a week, all told."

"Yeah, about the same for me," I agreed. "Gotta keep in shape!"

Liz snorted at that involuntarily, then covered her mouth in embarrassment.

"Huh?" I asked.

Her eyes widened at being caught in some internal joke, and then she grinned. She had always been irrepressible. She blurted sheepishly, "I was just remembering that it was a good thing I was so in shape back when we were together!"

My eyes widened a bit at that.

"I had to be," she grinned. Then she teased me, "You are keeping, what, four girls satisfied full-time right now, with two more as regularly recurring guest stars?"

I was a little taken aback. I mean, her numbers were right, but none of it was public knowledge. "How do you think that?" I asked incoherently.

"You hadn't heard? I was invited to pledge back in the spring."

"There is a sorority out there that talks about me?"

That was disturbing. But it could also have some potential...

"Not just some sorority, I mean The Sisterhood, Alistaire."

I face-palmed. Gina had been serious last year about Liz! But then why had it taken Gina eight months to drag Liz into the mayhem? "They got you, huh?"

"Yup. Seriously, dude, it was an eye-opener. You had sort of let me know there had been others, but holy fuck!"

I looked at her hesitantly. "I'm glad they asked you to join," I said, finding that I meant it.

"I am kind of an oddball outsider in the group though," she admitted.

"What? Why?" I objected. Mean Girl Behavior was not on brand for any of my... friends.

Liz caught my concern. "There was some tension at first, but mostly, they were all amazed that I could keep up with you all by myself. Petra once suggested that I must secretly wear a cape."

"Tension?" I bore on, never one to be distracted from concerns.

"Whatever made you say you treated me badly in any way, Alistaire?" Liz asked plaintively by way of reply. "Look, it was a little tense with a lot of them at first, and I understand they deliberated for a while before adding me to the list. Half were a little bit jealous that I'd hoarded you all to myself for a while. The other half were a little suspicious at what I had done that could make you claim you'd been anything other than sweet to any girl you liked."

"You didn't do anything," I protested.

Well, she'd dumped me with my dick still inside her, but we both believed that had been for the best...

"Other than just assume us into a relationship?" Liz asked, both in challenge and apology. The gang must have been open with her about what I had said at the time. I wasn't sure whether that was going to be good for me or not, but I also appreciated the way all of them in that chat were so honest with each other.

"I did consciously agree to the relationship," I replied firmly. "That's why I was the bad one. I never saw it as even potentially meaning anything."

Liz just rolled her eyes. "How can you, the world's most experienced twenty year-old, be so clueless about how guys operate?"

I shook my head. I didn't care how other guys operated. "Relationships should matter," I said almost sullenly. I did not bring up my father's stories. It had been almost impossible for me to wrap my brain around the idea that my idol had ever behaved anything other than wonderfully. I had finally settled the cognitive dissonance by simply taking his words about that time to heart.

"Sometimes relationships do matter," Liz replied quietly. "I've had three since we were together, Alistaire. All ended with either me or them bailing. There was one that was pretty good for a while, until I found out it wasn't."

I pondered asking for details about what had happened there, in case corrective action was needed. Now was not the time, but I filed it away for future investigation.

"Your and my problem was simple," Liz shrugged. "The only thing we really had in common to make us friends instead of just friendly, was running."

"True," I admitted. "I really don't run with anybody anymore. No one wants to hit the road with anyone out here. Hell, most of them want to get in their strides on treadmills... indoors!"

"Seriously, right?" Liz agreed. "What a bunch of losers."

We basked in the warmth of agreement about treadmill posers.

"Look," I said, taking an opportunity to maybe put our past completely behind us. "I live off-campus now, but I have a noonish class on Fridays. I've been thinking of getting in my run on campus that day. Want to pace each other?"

Liz cocked her head at me. "I think I'd like that. I'll put Taylor on my earbuds instead of my collar speakers, if you promise not to yammer on about baseball and homers and RPIs or whatever while we run."

RBIs, dammit...

"Liz?"

"Hmm?"

"You, um... you have been pretty much avoiding me since... right?"

She shrugged sheepishly.

"I have too," I said in agreement. "Not actively, but if I saw you across a room or hall, I'd always find a reason to change direction."

"Yeah, that's pretty much been my MO as well," Liz admitted.

"Well, I'm not doing that anymore," I said firmly. "Yes, neither of us needs a steady diet of each other like we had. You aren't the One for me, just as I sure as hell am not the One for you. But you are cool, and I do like you."

She looked at me. "Me too. Even when you are trying to bore me to tears, you are still always funny... whether you are meaning to or not!"

"Thanks," I said drily at her intentionally left-handed compliment. "And you are the best gossip I've ever known. I've missed getting the scoop on all those people I don't know!"

From then on, it was good to have someone to run beside again--someone I felt like hanging out with for a bit after. I tried not to fall behind very much, but the temptation of the improved view from back there did win out every once in a while...

*

I like sports other than baseball (he said defensively). I had picked up a fondness for watching volleyball the previous Fall, and this year it became a very regular thing. Dave and I went to around a game a week.

Yes, it was mostly girls' volleyball games.

Fuck you.

We went to some guys' games too. If there was a really good opponent. But we preferred the women's game. It was more elegant. At least that's the story Dave came up with, and I'm sticking to it.

And for the record, both of us really had gotten into the sport itself, not just the, um, spectacle. We were the only two guys I knew who meant volleyball when we nerded out about The US National Team.

In early October, Dave and I arrived early for a match against Arizona State's women's team. We were eager because ASU had about as much talent as our team. They played volleyball well, too.

The stands in the arena were not crowded, which was surprising, given it was early on a Friday night, and Dave and I spied some open seats on our favorite row, right near the center of the court. We slid down the row, and as we sat it was clear there was some kind of stir going on. The players were not even out on court yet, but there were some laughs and jeers in the air, mostly right around us.

I was looking around the arena, especially on the mostly empty court, in confusion, when Dave laughed. "Holy shit, Alistaire! Cheerleaders?"

Two rows toward the court, and right in front of us, Dave pointed at four girls, sitting in the stands, wearing cheerleader uniforms.

It was immediately apparent that these were not USC cheerleaders, nor part of the ASU squad. Not because they were in the stands, but because they were wearing the sky blue and yellow of UCLA uniforms.

"What the actual fuck?" I mused.

"Think they are really cheerleaders?" Dave asked me.

"Nah," I scoffed. "Why would they be at this game?"

We both examined the girls, just like everyone else. They were uncomfortably keeping to themselves, and staring resolutely at the empty court, so we had a limited view. "Hard to tell," Dave mused, "but they might be cute enough to be cheerleaders; definitely the two on the ends."

I mostly agreed with him, especially the one on the left who was clearly of Asian extraction, what with the skin tone I could see on her enticingly bare shoulders and the long, straight, jet-black hair. Seriously, her shoulders alone were sexy enough to almost give me a boner. The blonde on the right... Probably. Very probably. Not stellar enough to be among our cheerleaders, of course, but certainly other schools' best.

Then the crowd around us, and, more to the point, around them, just kind of turned all of a sudden. As I said, there had been laughs, and snide comments made a little too audibly, and a lot of pointing. But all of a sudden, one douchebag somewhere around us went and called out to them directly. That gave apparent permission to other people who should have had more class, to also start hooting derisively and otherwise giving these girls shit. My dad had to prosecute some people after a riot, and he'd gone on at length about mob mentality.

The girls in front of us just huddled a little toward each other and kept their heads down. Why had they chosen to pull such an embarrassing stunt? They were not in physical danger, I hoped, but things were careening toward it becoming just awful for them.

I just looked at Dave. "Nope," I said. "Not happening."

He nodded back firmly.

We both stood up. I get joked at about my white knight impulses, but they were needed here. Giving in to the instinct was a lot easier, knowing that Dave 100% had my back.

"Hey! Trojans!" I shouted, making sure the crowd knew I was yelling at them, and not these poor girls. "What the heck is wrong with you people? Get a life!"

"Exactly," Dave added. His voice is actually a little deeper than mine, so that helped. "Shut up and quit acting like you are from Oakland or something!"

It quieted almost immediately. No one wanted to be thought of as from Oakland. Even my friend Franklin Walsh, who is from Oakland, doesn't spread it around much.

A couple of guys who were in the stands with girls or girlfriends, and who had been among the offenders, were summarily poked. The other male offenders backed off unpunished. There were plenty of girls who had been part of the sudden surge of nastiness too. A few looked huffy, but most looked like they had woken up.

The four girls turned around and looked at me and Dave. One of the two plainer-looking ones in the middle said a quiet, "Um, thank you." She had pretty eyes. My eyes went to the other girl in the middle who was waving shyly at us. But then she nudged her friend and they looked around at the stands, as if still worried in a different way about someone behind us. "And, uh, Go Bruins?" the first girl said tentatively.

"Alistaire? Is that you?"

My eyes shot to the dark-haired girl on the end. She had stood up and was smiling at me in surprise.

Heather Quong?

"Heather?" I said incredulously.

"Al Taylor is my hero," she said to herself, shaking her head in amusement. "And who is your friend, our other hero?"

"My buddy Dave," I said automatically. "What are you doing here? And why are you guys dressed like that?"

"It's a thing," said the girl next to Heather skittishly.

"Yeah," Heather said, much more amused. She looked at her row. "Hey, no one wants to sit next to us because we have BruinCooties or something. Will you guys come down and sit with us? You can keep on being our knights in shining armor!"

I looked at Dave.

Dave looked at me. From his look, he was thinking, of course you know the hottest of these girls, Alistaire. Do they even go to USC?

"Move," I said, and we slipped back along our row to the aisle, then stepped swiftly down to theirs.

"Of course you know the hottest of these girls. Do they even go here?" Dave hissed at me.

"I went to high school with Hannah," I said. "She was in the class after mine. I guess she chose UCLA over someplace like Stanford for some reason."

"She's that smart?"

"Pretty smart, but that rich."

"So you were banging rich underclassmen in high school?" Dave asked dubiously as we moved back through the row toward the girls.

"Never touched her," I said firmly, keeping all my various regrets about that out of my voice. Dave just grunted skeptically.

There was indeed an empty seat to either side of the girls. Hannah waved at me in invitation to pass her friends and take the empty seat next to her, leaving Dave to take the one at the other end, next to the other hot girl, Jasmine.

Just like a bunch of girls to not consider moving a seat left or right, so Dave and I could stay together; as if we wouldn't mind.

Just like a bunch of girls to be absolutely correct.

As I sat next to Heather, the guy to the other side of me gave me a look that spoke volumes. It spoke of my traitorous behavior of sitting with UCLA vermin. It spoke of grudging respect for standing up to the momentary ugliness before it got out of hand. It spoke of irritation that I was now blocking his view of Heather.

Sound reasoning on his part, all around.

Heather introduced her friends to us, and Dave introduced himself again.

The players came out on court then, which distracted things enough for me to quiz Heather without involving everybody. "Why are you here, Heather? And are you guys really Bruins cheerleaders?"

She smiled ruefully. "We are Bruins, but sure as hell not cheerleaders!" She waved at her friends' chests, then indicated her own. There was a small pin with greek letters on it. Heather left her hand on the breast the pin was attached to a good bit longer than necessary. I knew what she was doing, but was happy to take the excuse to keep looking at her tits, which filled out the front of that uniform nicely. "We are pledging our sorority. We are here as a required stunt. There are Sisters up higher in the stands, making sure we don't leave until the game is over."

"Clever play," I observed. "With all the drama over hazing these days, your sorority just outsourced the shit-giving to USC!"

"We were noticing..." Heather said drily. "That is, until our heroes came to our rescue!" she added in a decent imitation of a 1930's movie princess.

I rolled my eyes at her, and she laughed.

"So why did you choose UCLA?" I had to ask, trying not to let my opinion of the Wienies of Westwood sound too loud in my voice.

"I was done with New England winters."

"Not Stanford, then?"

"Please. I couldn't get in there," Heather scoffed.

"You? Pull the other one," I scoffed right back.

Heather's easy smile faded and she looked at me seriously. "Of course, I would have gotten in, Alistaire. I could have written nothing on the application but, 'My dad is Quong Qiáng,' in crayon, and I've been accepted," she said in a sour voice. "But there was no way I was applying anywhere that I would not have gotten in if my dad's name was Joe Blotz."

I gave her an approving look. I also gave myself an inner, sheepish look, because I had never, and would never shy away from lightly using what connections I had. But then, my connections were metaphorically small caliber weapons. Heather's connections were hydrogen bombs.

"Could have gone here," I suggested firmly.

"You Condoms are so cute," Heather giggled superiorly. "I like our campus better."

We stared each other down for a good-natured moment. "Also, my family has a house in Bel Air," she admitted at last.

"I thought your American house was in New York?" I asked.

"It is. It is also in Boston, and in Dallas," Heather said, unashamed. "But for the purposes of our discussion here, it, and its nice pool, is in Bel Air... a mile from campus!"

I laughed at her. She shoved me.

It was a pleasant shove.

The match was good, closer than we in the home crowd wanted, but exciting. The only problem was, whenever Dave and I wanted to discuss something that had just happened, we had to lean over the girls to talk to each other. Only the one in the middle with the pretty eyes contributed anything to those discussions. She had played varsity volleyball in high school.

I feel bad that I don't remember either of the two plainer girls' names. I only retained Jasmine's because Dave would not shut up about her for a while afterward (at least when Gina was not around). The thing was, I really just spent most of the game happily focused on conversing with Heather and thus ignoring the rest of them.

Also... sex pig.

Heather and I had never talked much back in school outside of the class or two we had together, but given that we were only a year apart, she had lots of scoop on what happened her senior year to people and things that were relevant to me. So we traded school stories as we watched the match, and gave each other some mild shit about each other's college. It was nice to know somebody else out here in California who was a fellow alumnus, and I found that Heather was fun to hang with regardless. Dave picked up my inattentive slack by talking to the other three. To be honest, he seemed to be doing okay with the hot one next to him on the other end.

In fact, he did well enough that by the end of the match, he made a move.

"Hey, Jasmine," he asked the statuesque blonde who, like Heather, was pledging as a sophomore, "how'd you like to come to a party with me tonight?"

That caught the attention of the other three girls. Heather leaned away from me to listen. I leaned after her.

"Ha!" Jasmine replied. "We drove down here in these outfits. I don't have anything to change into."

"Great!" Dave smiled. "I was really hoping to rock up at the kegger with a UCLA cheerleader and blow some minds."

"You're terrible," she snorted. "But I can't tell if you are a perv or suicidal."

"Whichever," Dave shrugged. "Just so long as you don't say no!" Dave had always been a pretty ballsy guy with some low-grade game. But between still hooking up with Dana sometimes and all the shit he, and sometimes we, got up to with Gina, he had elevated his ballsiness lately.

"I have better self-preservation instincts than you," Jasmine said tartly. "Plus, we all drove here in Heather's car."

"Great! I'll blow even more minds if I show up with four cheerleaders," Dave said, like it had been his plan all along. "You should tag along, Alistaire."

He and I exchanged glances. He would pay for that. He knew he would, too. But he was rolling and I was damned if I was going to interfere as he made his play. It might work, after all.

One of the two girls in the middle looked like she would have gone for it, but the others all had better sense.

"Wow, Alistaire," Heather observed loudly, "you found a buddy who has almost the stones you do."

"Almost?" Jasmine snorted skeptically. She had been treated to Dave at his ballsiest for nearly two hours now.

Heather pushed against me with her shoulder. "The last time I saw this guy was back at our prep school my senior year. He had graduated the year before, and was back for an alumni visit. As I was going down the stairs inside my dorm, I passed him coming up with a member of our faculty, on the way to her apartment. He then proceeded to bang her brains out in there all night long."

Wow. She was throwing me under the bus like that? Unfortunately, the first thought that registered enough in my mind to object to was... "Hey! I left about 2am! It wasn't all ni..." I decided to stop talking before it was too late.

As if.

"No. Way," said both Jasmine and Dave, in alarmingly close to twin-level unison.

"So Heather, I'm guessing from the way you're talking, she was kinda hot?" asked one of the extras.

Heather laughed like a supervillain and hauled out her phone, opening the photo library.

"Wait, you keep a picture of Nancy on your phone?" I asked, once again side-tracked from self-preservation.

"Sure," said Heather absently. "She was my advisor, and we are still kinda buddies. I guess I text her about every month or so, even now."

Uh oh.

"Here we are," Heather said brightly, holding up her phone with a picture of her and Nancy at what had to be the graduation party for her class, given the glasses of wine both were holding in the shot.

"Holy shit, dude! You never told me this story," Dave said, staring at the picture. He was crowded out quickly by the other girls.

I received a number of looks. "You hit that?" one of the middle girls asked me skeptically, pointing at the picture.

I did need a copy of that photo...

"Who said I actually..." I started to say.

"I do," Heather declared. "About ten of us piled into Frannie and Sue's room, which was right next door to Nancy's apartment, and listened until we all fell asleep on the floor." Then she turned back to the others. "He hit that repeatedly." She pointed down at the photo. "And then he hit that some more. I've never had the guts to call Nancy out about that night. I think I do now..."

"I'm going to hear about this little meeting from her aren't I?" I said grimly.

"Well, she is sure going to hear about it from me!" Heather smiled sweetly. "Wait, you still keep in touch with Nancy?" she asked in surprise.

"Of course," I defended myself. "I keep in touch with everybody."

"Everybody?" Heather asked.

"We have to go get ready for the party tonight, Dave," I said desperately.

Dave looked mulish for a moment, until Jasmine told him, "There is really no way I'm going to some run-of-the-mill party in this cheerleader outfit, Dave. But give me your number. Maybe you can ask me out another time."

Dave heard exactly what I heard. First, Jasmine was definitely open to going to some party, some time, with Dave. Second, for the right party, she might be open to wearing the cheerleader getup again...

Dave got a lot less mulish.

"I better get your number too, Alistaire," Heather said smoothly. "We alumni should keep in touch. And you never know when I will need a knight in shining armor again."

I looked at her... speculatively.

"Just text me that picture of you and Nancy," I said, reading out my number. "And I'll text you back so we can keep in touch."

*

After a few weeks of Friday runs with Liz, I realized they were a great thing. Aside from the obvious scenic enhancement, I found that having a pace partner was more useful than I remembered. I definitely found myself pushing harder when I ran with Liz (even if I inevitably let myself fall behind a time or two... for old times' sake). Moreover, I found my new pace bleeding over to my training runs back around my new apartment. I was finishing in five to ten fewer minutes on those runs too. The improved workouts showed in other ways than just my times.

"Where the fuck did you find even more stamina than before, Alistaire?" Ursula had asked me one recent evening, in a panting, wondering voice.

Yeah. My ego hadn't need the fuel, but it appreciated it anyway. And took motivation from it.

*

Liz and I jogged in place at a traffic light, cheating and taking a breather instead of pumping our legs.

I looked over at Liz. She wore her hair very differently now, from when we dated. She had grown out the bangs, but cut the overall length up to just off her shoulders. Instead of pulling her hair into a short ponytail for exercise, she now wore thin hairbands in either pink or bright purple. I liked the new look, and told her so.

"Thank you," Liz said. We broke back into a run as the light changed, but we kept talking. "After... after the guy I dated after you figured out I was rebounding on him and ended things, I figured I needed to grow up. I decided that bangs were for little girls."

"I liked the bangs," I shrugged, deliberately.

"Sorry," she said, sticking her tongue out at me, but I could tell my words bothered her.

"I like your face without them better, though," I added, pushing the pace suddenly and breaking away in front of her. She yelled at me and caught up. We dropped back to our regular pace.

"Jerk!"

"Couldn't resist."

We finished the run by her dorm, as usual. She lived close to the student athletic center, and I always cooled down by walking over there, where I would shower and dress for class.

"Well, aside from the Induced Bang Anxiety Incident," Liz said as we dropped to a stop, "that was fun. As usual."

"It always was," I agreed, stretching my shoulders.

"I'm sorry I screwed things up between us," Liz said apologetically.

I rolled my eyes at her to show I was not upset. "We needed to break up, Liz."

"Duh. No, I'm sorry I started us dating to begin with!" she said quickly. I shot her a look. "I mean, we like each other, right? It's fun to hang out sometimes. We just don't have any of the things that would make us a couple."

"True," I said. "Your lack of a baseball gene makes you clearly not up to standard."

"Ass!"

"Seriously," I said slowly, "I am actually glad we went out like we did, Liz. I learned a lot that I think is important. I learned what a relationship looks like, especially one that is nice but going nowhere," I went on, getting a raised eyebrow. "And I've thought a lot about what a relationship would look like that is going to last. I need that info. Someday, I will need a relationship like that... whenever I see who I need to have it with." I screwed up my expression, as if in deeper thought. "Mostly, I just learned to not be with a Swiftie!"

I bent down to stretch my hamstrings, which was a mistake. She shoved me for my impertinence and I fell down. I laughed and Liz pulled me back to my feet.

That left us standing much closer to each other than we had at any point since we broke up. My mouth decided to do its thing and continue talking before I could stop it. "Well, let's be truthful. Aside from running, there was one other activity that made being together not horrible at all."

I was appalled at myself and looked for the embarrassed blush on Liz's face that I had probably induced. It was not there. Instead, she smirked. "I have not forgotten," she said ruefully. "Moreover, I keep getting reminded by a variety of women that our couple-hood had not been necessary to enjoy the... experience."

"It still isn't," my mouth said, continuing to run around like a Labrador that slipped its leash in the rain.

Instead of another shove, Liz looked at me... "Really?"

My mouth wanted to shout, 'Abso-fucking-lutely!' My mouth even more wanted to just kiss her hard. But I had some other things I needed my mouth to say first, and reined it back with difficulty.

"Honestly? A year ago, I think I'd have said no way, simply out of embarrassment. But time, and more importantly, hanging out with you again the last few weeks has let me pull my head out and realize there is only so much blame to assign, or shame to feel, for us doing the right thing and breaking up in the first place."

"I'm so glad you have had a growth experience," she snarked.

"Liz? To answer your original question more directly, I am currently having quite the growth experience. Furthermore, I would like nothing more than sharing that growth experience with you, preferably right now, up in your dorm room. And then doing so further from time to time, as we go forward."

With a grin, Liz turned and dashed for the entrance to her dorm.

Liz is a good runner. And I have never been considered a sprinter. But there was no way she was going to out-dash my long-leggedy ass, not given what keeping up with her meant.

I caught her right outside the door, grabbed her, and lifted her squealing, giggling form off the ground.

I tried to kiss her, but she kept squirming. "Not here, dingus! Take me inside! Now!"

I kept her feet up off the ground and pushed my way through the front doors with my hip. I then moved swiftly toward the elevators. As we pushed immediately between the set of conveniently opening doors, I pondered whether to let her down at any point on the ride up.

Unfortunately, the reason the doors had conveniently opened was because someone else had already pushed the call button, and two girls followed us into the elevator, looking at us... askance.

I set Liz down.

She pushed her hair out of her eyes in a futile attempt to look casual.

"Wait! Liz, isn't this your ex?" asked one of the girls who had gotten on with us, the brunette.

Oh, wow. Sarah Ustinov. I remembered getting to know her freshman year, from all the times I went in and out of Liz's old building.

"He doesn't look like much of an ex to me," drawled the other girl, a dishpan blonde that I had never laid eyes on before. I'd have most definitely remembered, if I had... Both girls clearly knew Liz well.

Liz blushed and I berated myself inwardly. She didn't need embarrassment!

But she made no move to remove her arm from around me. "Oh, Alistaire is still very much an ex," she chirped, to raised eyebrows. "But that just means he's very much a free agent," she added, well... outright lasciviously.

I smiled weakly.

The looks I got back were puzzled, but not very disapproving. In fact, there was some speculation there...

We slid into Liz's room quickly.

"You," I said, pausing to kiss Liz, "are evil. You were trying to get me in trouble with that banter back there, weren't you?" I scolded.

My evil friend's hands were already removing my pants.

Evil was perhaps too strong of a strong word...

"Maybe," Liz said, "I was trying to help you out. Sarah admittedly has sort of a boyfriend," Liz said softly, already working her hand up and down my shaft with that perfect grip she always had. "But Rachel? She is also a free agent."

Or perhaps evil is not strong enough of a word.

Her name was Rachel, huh?

"Liz..."

"I'm busting your chops, Alistaire," she laughed, sliding to her knees. "I'm just reassuring you one more time that I'm not trying to lock you down again," she said softly, before sucking my cock into her mouth. I was instantly re-acquainted with Liz's particular talent for encasing me all around with tongue and inner cheeks so I felt like I was in a weird and wonderful vagina, not a mouth.

And I also found that she had learned some things since I had last had one of her excellent face-fuckings. She was fucking me to a much greater depth than I had ever enjoyed with her back in the day. I was pretty sure that most guys did not have enough to reach as far in as Liz was taking me.

My dick screamed in delight as it passed the entrance to her throat over and over as she bobbed her head.

My hips twitched in desire, but Liz's firm grasp upon them reminded me that she was face-fucking me. I was damn well not to fuck her face.

I'd have bought her a pony right then, had she asked, so it was not as if I was complaining.

She looked up at me through those insane lashes. Damn, she had such glitteringly beautiful blue eyes...

Suddenly, her cheeks and tongue stopped pressing against me and Liz pulled off my cock. Her exacting grip resumed stroking me in the absence of her mouth. "You are lasting pretty well for the first of the day," she said slyly. We knew each other's foibles intimately.

"I've... been getting a little better," I gasped.

"We'll see about that," Liz said softly.

I was back in that beautiful mouth in an instant and being slid in and out, not quite as deeply, but more swiftly.

I had only said I was a little better. Not a lot.

I stroked her jawline, the way we had settled on my warning her when she was about to get what she wanted.

My feet shuffled and my spine snapped straight and tall. I felt a rush from my, um, everywhere and the universe pretty much collapsed down to the four to six inches of my cock still sliding in and out of Liz's lips. My cock then thrummed in delight as cum surged up its length.

The first drops of jizz leapt from my cock as it pushed barely into her throat. Liz had done much to largely eliminate her gag reflex, but she did not seem used to receiving cum directly into her esophagus. Not that deeply. She jerked back slightly. But her hand kept twitching around my base and she suckled hard on me. My cock poured out more jizz and I felt her savor and swallow it as it came.

Holy cow.

"Gowaaahh," I gasped wordlessly.

Liz let me slip again from her mouth. She was of course unsurprised that I was not losing my wood, and she clearly remembered how to make sure I did not, as she kept stroking me and sucking me clean.

"So, yes," Liz went on, as if our earlier conversation had not been so gloriously interrupted, "Rachel is hot. Hotter than she looked today. And she is very single!"

"You," I growled, pushing her to her back and following her to the floor, "are a big tease. And you," I went on, tugging down on her waistband, "are going to be fucked!"

Liz wriggled as if in distress, but mostly in an effort to help me get those damned shorts down and off her legs.

"Am I?" she chuckled in delight. "Am I being thanked?"

"Indubitably," I said, leaving her to kick her own shorts free of her ankles while I shoved up her running top so I could see those fantastic nipples again after so long.

"For what? The blowjob, or the info on Rachel?"

I paused at that for a fraction of a second.

"Both," I declared, sinking deep inside her. I reflected that I meant it.

*

Dave, the bastard, actually conned Jasmine into wearing the fucking cheerleader outfit to a Halloween party on our campus! I could not believe the dude pulled it off. Worse, I could not pull off the same miracle with Heather.

I mean, I grabbed my phone and called her the instant Dave told me of his impending accomplishment. But...

"Heather! How are you?"

"Hello, Alistaire," came a sardonic voice from the other end of the phone. "I am shocked, shocked to hear your voice on this of all days... Whatever have you heard that made you call me?" Her voice was sardonic, but in no way unhappy.

Excellent!

"I was hoping to convince you to ride over here for Halloween with your sorority sister Jasmine," I said eagerly. I tried not to sound too eager, but I probably failed.

"I was hoping you were going to ask, so I guess we both get our wish," Heather said sweetly.

"Excellent," I blurted. "I suppose you and she are coordinating your costumes?" I suggested happily.

"Fuck no," she laughed crushingly. "I am not about to return to your campus wearing that cheerleader outfit again! Jasmine is an idiot."

"Oh."

"I hope that is not a deal killer?" Heather asked, no shred of fear in her voice.

"Listen, you could show up over here in a costume consisting of baggy pants and a Clemson sweatshirt, and it would kill no deals," I snorted.

"Good," Heather cooed. "I still haven't decided what I am going to wear, but I am certain you will like any of my options."

I had not even bothered to leave Dave's room before I had called Heather. He laughed softly when he saw me having to adjust my pants from just a phone call.

"I am so looking forward to our 'alumni meetup'," I grinned so broadly Heather could probably hear it over the phone. "There are a bunch of good parties on that night for us to hop around between."

"Do any of them have a costume contest?" Heather asked.

I didn't know and put Dave on speaker as I asked him if he did.

He perked up at the question. "Actually, yeah, Heather. I know of at least one. They have a pretty good set of prizes, I hear."

"Jasmine and I want to go to that one," Heather said firmly.

Dave and I high-fived quietly.

*

I may have come off a little too excited when I related the situation to Hannah later, over tea at Annenberg's. She gave me a piebald gaze and shook her head.

Shit.

"Oh! Hey! I'm sorry! I didn't think you wanted to..." I started to babble.

"Easy, Alistaire," she giggled. "I have plans of my own. Three of my dorm-mates and I are entering that contest as the Scooby Gang. Dwight is even driving home and borrowing his parent's Great Dane for the evening!"

"You're Velma?" I guessed.

"No, Daphne," Hanna groused. "Melinda has way bigger tits than I do, and needs her glasses anyway."

"Sounds fun," I said, only sparing the briefest of moments to speculate on the hitherto unknown Melinda and her apparently large chest.

"You can come see us win the costume contest," Hannah said superiorly.

"Eww," I hemmed. "Sorry to disappoint you, but Heather and Jasmine are entering that too," I grinned.

"You are entering a costume contest, Alistaire? You, my sex beast wallflower?"

"They are. Dave and I are just there for the fun."

"It is a group, co-ed costume contest. You don't have to coordinate costumes, but they'll need you guys to enter with them," Hanna reveled in the dismay blossoming on my face.

Dave, you total dipshit.

I burst through the door to Dave's dorm. I don't live with him anymore, but I have still yet to ever knock. He just waltzes into my apartment, too.

"We have to do costumes," I growled.

"Duh. It's Halloween," he said, looking up from the Statistics text I knew he hated.

"No, we have to elevate our costumes. For the girls."

"I don't know that they care that much about what we do," Dave protested. "Halloween is mostly for letting the women go a little nuts, right?" He smiled in anticipation. We both had experience by now with what 'going a little nuts' looked like at Halloween on campus.

"You found us a fucking co-ed contest, douchebag," I growled. "Whether they enter together or separately, they will need both of us to enter as well!"

"Um."

"Yeah."

"Fuck, what am I going to wear?" Dave fretted. "A football player, I guess."

"Or a male cheerleader," I suggested dubiously.

"Not a chance. I don't have the body for that," Dave said absently.

"Oh, but you think you are going to carry off being a football player?" I said skeptically.

"Pads, man. The right pads can fake anything. But male cheerleaders? Have you even looked at those guys? They are so ripped they make gymnasts seem reedy."

"We have male cheerleaders?" I asked, surprised.

"It's a co-ed squad," Dave said incredulously. "They are always right fucking there!"

"I've honestly never noticed a guy out there," I said shrugging.

"You are one elemental dude, Alistaire," Dave said shaking his head.

Great, now I had guys calling me elemental.

But at least he had an appropriate idea of what to put together. I didn't even know what Heather was going as.

I called her back.

"Look, I will have to enter the contest with you. If you want to have a chance of winning, you have to tell me what you are going as, so I can coordinate."

"No."

"What?"

"Marvel." And she hung up.

Fuck.

Spandex?

Fuuuuuck.

*

Halloween, Dave and I waited for the girls to arrive. He was wearing a real USC football uniform with a genuine helmet. He and Jasmine had agreed that was his best choice. While Jasmine had certain definite, tendentious, and clearly wrong thoughts on USC football, she knew how to appeal to the crowd. Their metanarrative of a USC player carrying off a Bruins cheerleader would definitely work the room well.

Me? I had been stumped.

Then one afternoon, as I was visiting Gina and failing to avoid Tish, I heard two of their neighbors having an argument. Apparently, people other than Tish and Gina argued sometimes. Who knew?

"Dude! These rooms are not that large! You can't keep that chair in here anymore!"

"I do not have legs, asshole!"

"I know, but you have a new chair! It's awesome. You not only have no legs, but you only have one butt! You do not need two wheelchairs!"

While I am all in on the movies, I'm not really that much of a Marvel guy. But I suddenly had an idea.

I went and sought out this poor bastard with no legs.

Turns out, his name was Troy. The less said about how he came to mostly have no legs, the better. I discovered that he and his roommate had been together since freshman year, largely because the guy was the only one who didn't flinch (at all) about Troy's disability. In time, Troy and I would become great friends. But for right then, he and I were just two people in a commercial transaction.

Professor X had his rented wheelchair, meaning I did not have to wear any spandex, just nice clothes with a blanket over my lap.

I am fucking brilliant!

Heather drove up at last. Of course, she drove a fucking S-Class...

Jasmine popped out first.

It was good to be Dave.

It looked like the same cheerleader costume she had worn to the volleyball game, but it was not. It was either a replacement version of the same two-piece, out-of-date Bruins uniform, or she had had the first one extensively and wonderfully tailored. She had shown a little midriff before, but there were a couple of additional inches of bare, flat tummy visible now, and the top above that gap now conformed to her every excellent curve perfectly.

Her skirt was... unfair.

And now she was carrying pompoms.

It was very good to be Dave.

Then Heather's door opened and Emma Frost stepped out. I mean, Heather stepped out wearing a long, flowing white wig, high-heeled white boots that came midway up her thighs... and damn near nothing else. Oh sure, the costume had long sleeves that completely covered her arms, but, well... the rest, what there was of it, was a perfectly crafted leotard. It clung to her body in... impossible ways. I'd have said she used half a roll of fashion tape to keep it from simply falling right off her, but there wasn't enough fabric for her to have needed a whole half roll.

It was super comics-accurate in that it was an Emma Frost costume that was utterly impossible without the adhesive. In the few places it actually covered her above the pubic mound, it conformed to her body to perfection. As my brain began to register details, which took a while, I noted some incredibly cool, tiny features to it, like buckles here and textured striping there.

Remembering the rumors about just how rich Heather herself was, let alone her father, I seriously suspected that she had gone to the Marvel or DC Studios wardrobe contractors and commissioned this costume to be motion picture-level quality, but with damn near porn-shoot design sensibilities.

I briefly pictured Britney in this thing in an X-Men reboot. But no, I always pictured my friend as Black Canary for some reason.

Contemplating the idea of party-hopping all night with these two, well, hopefully not all night, made me realize that my costume, with the blanket draped over my lap to hide my legs, was not a lazy shortcut, but a stupendously important choice.

I am even more fucking brilliant!

We hit two parties before the costume contest. Both were fun. Dave and I ran into a few people we knew. Dave got some shit for sullying the team's name by hanging with a Bruin cheerleader. No one gave Jasmine any shit for her outfit directly though. Not in that iteration of the costume!

Heather was utterly in love with my 'costume'. "I knew you'd go X-Men" she told me with utterly misplaced confidence. "And I've always had a thing for Professor X," she added, rubbing my fake bald skullcap in a most gratifyingly suggestive manner.

Both girls also wanted to dance all the time. But when I tried to get out of the chair, Heather made me sit back down. Instead, we'd go out on the floor, with her bumping and grinding in front of me, and me twisting the joystick back and forth to wobble the chair around.

Turns out, I'm a pretty damned good dancer in a wheelchair.

I am absolutely goddamned brilliant.

At the second party we hit, Heather decided to dance in my lap on the chair, while I did the wobble thing with the joystick. Fortunately, the bunched-up blanket on my lap prevented her from feeling how much I was enjoying the half-naked super-heroine on my lap.

As the evening progressed, and my initial horny reaction faded (very slightly), I realized Heather's costume really wasn't actually all that skimpy. But there was a three-inch gap that ran from well below her navel all the way up, without so much as a thread bridging it anywhere. That gap, along with several other horizontal slits and cutouts, was the main reason the outfit should have just fallen right off, or at least off the good bits. And Heather had some very good bits, which she rubbed on me every time she climbed on or off my lap.

Honestly, we kind of made a spectacle of ourselves, yet few people really much noticed. There were a lot of girls in slutty costumes. A lot of them were pretty good-looking. A lot of those were acting as slutty as their outfits, so spectacles were everywhere.

Dave's alarm went off and he called to Heather and me, "Contest time!"

We worked our way free of the current party and Heather remained draped across my lap as we rolled down the sidewalk. Jasmine did not initially act as Halloween slutty as Heather, and she never was as overt about it. But by the second party, she was pretty much committed to staying within easy reach of Dave's increasingly roaming hands. It was funny. By the time we headed for the costume contest, the two of them were pretty much feeling each other up full-time, but managed to look All-American while doing it.

Registering for the contest was quick, and at first, I thought winning was going to be easy. Maybe it would be between Heather and me, and Dave and Jasmine... But more and more quality entries kept showing up.

I knew things would be a challenge for sure when the Scooby Gang arrived. 'Daphne' looked great, of course. She saw us, gave me a wave, and then an impressed but friendly look at Heather. Hannah even did me the solid of coming over to say hi in a way designed to rile up some jealousy from my date.

Heather was more amused than deeply motivated to 'claim' me back.

The problem was more than just the fact that Hanna's group all had very good costumes. 'Fred' was handsome as fuck, and somehow knew how to rock a fucking ascot. Velma was not gorgeous, but she did have it going on in the sweater-filling portion of the broadcast. The real issue was whichever one of them had brought the fucking Great Dane. How a dog that big could be that adorable was beyond me.

Heather and Jasmine loved the fucking beast, of course. They both bent down and fussed and cooed over him. He was so huge that neither had to bend far, but even bending a little gave a great view to those of use behind them.

"Oh, you are so cute aren't you?" Jasmine said like she was talking to a baby.

"Who's a good boy?" Heather oozed, losing points in the originality portion. "Who's going to make it so fucking hard for me to win this contest?" she asked the monster, much more entertainingly.

'Shaggy' must be gay, because he was behind them like me and Dave, and mostly didn't even watch this display. Not even with the way Jasmine's skirt rode up. 'Fred', on the other hand, was drinking in the two bending girls in a way that suggested that he thought Dave and I, especially Dave, had already won the night, if not necessarily the contest.

Really Fred? Daphne, I mean Hannah, is right there. Show some class and, moreover, don't be fucking stupid!

I figured 'Daphne' must have already shot 'Fred' down, because while Hannah did not have the vavoom Heather and Jasmine had, she was utterly pegging the sexy-cute meter that night.

Troy had shown up as well, 'to see if his chair won the contest.' I was glad to see that, legs or no, the guy had a high-quality date of his own. They were not in the contest, but she had on a very sexy, though in no way slutty costume. Even better for Troy, his date seemed to like all of Heather's antics, getting on and off and back on my lap in my chair, because out in the audience, she started employing similar maneuvers in Troy's lap.

Unfortunately for me and Heather, the crowd and judges were both going for more than just the hottest girl in the hottest outfit. And even if they had been, this contest was a hot girl magnet, and one or two other contestants had costumes that only fed the imagination to the extent needed to imagine they covered much of anything... But the judges especially were also into the vibe and the lore of the entrants. Professor X and Emma Frost are usually enemies or rivals in the comics, alas. I could feel us being dinged for being out of canon.

Also, the judges (not the crowd) unaccountably seemed to give a shit about the male contestants, and the majority of humans are quite free of the delusion that I am hot, unlike certain wonderful exceptions to that rule.

Heather and I still came in fourth, largely on the strength of Heather's outfit on Heather's body. Okay, Troy's chair probably helped. But our decent finish was certainly not on the back of my dance moves in said wheelchair. That could have been worse, of course. I could have been dancing on my feet...

Dave and Jasmine scored higher than us on the strength of their skit of him stealing Jasmine instead of the Victory Bell after USC (of course) beat UCLA.

But Hanna and her Scooby Squad beat us both. Darn those meddling kids!

But we all lost to two med students. He was an utter stud, but was dressed in a sexy, slutty nurse's dress! He had most girls and every gay dude in the crowd hanging their tongues out like window shades. The girl was... oh my goodness. Blonde and put together body-wise in a direct line somewhere between Bridget and Carrie. She was dressed as a studly male doctor, complete with tight black slacks, glasses, a tie, a clipboard, a stethoscope, and a white lab coat. But since she wore no fucking shirt, she tragically kept the lab coat at least somewhat buttoned. Scenically somewhat buttoned.

Didn't matter that it was buttoned. Between what was unbuttoned, and her partner who managed to make girls swoon all over the place despite wearing a fucking dress, nobody else had a chance.

As they took the trophy while Heather and I looked on from off the podium, I noticed Fiona was in the audience too. "Alistaire," she said in my ear over the applause. "That med student up there is the ex-cheerleader I told you about." Fiona shot a quick glance at Jasmine as if making a mental comparison. "I've seen video. If Stephanie had shown up in her old uniform, they would probably have just canceled the event."

I looked again at Stephanie. I still did not know what to do with this information.

We had a lot of fun after the contest, though. It is impossible to think yourself a loser with a half-naked, blonde, Asian bombshell on your lap, gyrating to the music.

It is possible that the wig was the most impressive part of her costume. I found myself checking more than once to make sure that she had not just gone so far as to bleach her real hair white!

Then all of a sudden, I realized that Dave and Jasmine had been missing for a while. I shared this observation with Heather, who chuckled along with me. "She's safe with Dave," I reassured her, "But do you need to check on where she is?"

"Oh, we both decided a while ago that we'd be safe with either of you guys," Heather said, suddenly running her fingers along my jawline. "For certain definitions of the word 'safe'."

I gave her a wolfish grin to reinforce her point.

"Professor X, I am growing weary of the fight for mutant equality," Heather went on. "Perhaps we could go... rest... in your dorm?"

"Unfortunately," I said sourly, "my apartment is a good distance off campus."

I'm always optimistic, but I had not let myself get terribly optimistic that Heather and I would reach this discussion this evening. Sadly, that meant I had not really planned for the possibility. And I realized that I could hardly go purple Post-It Dave out of his own room. Especially since I was quite sure he and Jasmine were already inside it...

"Hmmm..." Heather mused, tragically not sounding bummed.

"Tell me, Alistaire," she went on. "Ever made out in the backseat of a car like it was 1957?"

Well now.

"I have not," I said, perking up. "I have more than..." I shut up before I could get in too much trouble.

"More than what?" Heather pounced.

I tried to remain mum, but while Heather had been draping herself over me all night, it was nothing like how she was draping herself over me now, as she tried to get out of me what I'd been about to say.

"Oh, hell," I gave in. "I was going to say that I have more than just made out on the hood of a car a couple of times, but I've never gotten up to anything in a backseat."

Heather smiled slowly. "Then let's go park this wheelchair beside my car up in the parking garage, shall we?"

I grinned at her.

"Wheeeeeee!" she cried as I sped us off toward the deck.

Despite the garage being barely half full, Heather had chosen to park on the topmost covered level, on the side away from the elevators. I had my pick of parking spaces for the wheelchair. "You didn't have to park all the way up and out here," I observed.

"I wasn't sure of your living arrangements," was all she said in reply.

Girls who plan ahead are just the best, no?

The car beeped as she unlocked it and we crawled into the cavernous back seat.

"Holy shit, it is huge back here," I observed in amazement.

"I can usually squeeze four buddies into the back," she grinned. "So I'm guessing that it should be more than adequate for two increasingly good friends to... get to know each other better."

I was not for one second buying the idea that Heather was not already completely familiar with what could and could not be done in this back seat.

I just pulled the door closed behind us, the slam echoing through the largely deserted parking level.

I turned to lean her way, and she pulled my chin toward her. We enjoyed a nice languid kiss for a while. I kept my hands in more or less appropriate areas (mostly), and Heather did the same (mostly).

"You are going to tell Nancy all about this, aren't you?" I accused once more. "Or have you already told her you ran into me out here?"

"I haven't texted with her since before that volleyball game," Heather said, surprising me. "But I plan to do so tomorrow!"

I sighed.

"First," Heather went on, in between a few more kisses, "I intend to finally, after a year and a half, bust the shit out of her chops for all that noise you and she made." I rolled my eyes at her. "Then, once I've rubbed it in good and hard, I'm going to detail what all you and I get up to tonight. We have a solid base laid," she added, kissing me yet again briefly. She smelled fucking crazy good. "A solid base," she repeated, "but how well are we going to finish, Alistaire?"

"I think we can probably give you some material to pass on," I shrugged. Any opportunity to blow Nancy Green's mind, even from 3,000 unfortunate miles away, was a good one, I decided.

"So tell me," I said, idly plucking at her costume where it held in place over her left breast through the power of comic book physics and double-sided fashion tape, "does this costume hurt to remove?"

"I like your ideas for how to proceed," Heather purred, unbuttoning my shirt a little as she spoke. "Can you be patient?"

"When it is going to drive a girl crazy that I am? Sure," I said, letting my gaze go ahead and outright eye-fondle her more openly than at any point so far.

"Good. Because this tape isn't like Band-Aids. You do not just rip it off. You need to go slow, or it will hurt. It will mood-killingly hurt."

I was going to do nothing--No. Thing.--to kill the current mood.

"Well, if it is going to take a lot of time to get you out of this suit, I had best get started," I mused, running my fingers over her breast some more, massaging it gently. I cocked an eye for permission to proceed.

Heather nodded swiftly. "Slowly," she reminded me, "but, um, also with all deliberate haste?"

I wanted to kiss her some more as I worked, but I also wanted to make sure I in no way hurt her. I went for safety, stealing just one more, long, tongue-filled kiss before I concentrated on the white leatherette cups that were doing a bang-up job covering the outside bottom 40% of each breast, from the nipple out and down.

It was totally incidental, I assure you, that I needed to caress and massage each breast as I slowly peeled the tape-bound costume down and away. Considerately, I paused to kiss and caress each square inch of flesh as I peeled it free of its cover. I made sure to provide extra treatment to each sensitive nipple.

You can't be too careful...

Suddenly, I realized that I was holding two magnificent, magnificently bare breasts in my cupping hands. They were not overly large, but they were firm, and dusky, and surmounted with puffy dark nipples that eagerly reached back against my grasp.

I paused to experiment with some of my recently researched and upgraded nipple-sucking skillset. Heather groaned happily as I worked. Yes, this issue had been definitely worth the mental bandwidth to start studying. I set to further research.

But she continued to scrabble at my shirt, and started pulling it free of my shoulders. I released my liplock to let her shuck the shirt from me.

I let my fingers return, but just below her breasts, and started teasing the tape there loose as well.

"Leave it," Heather said breathlessly. "Just... just peel the bottom waistband apart from the rest of the costume. The bottom isn't taped on."

Well now.

Wait.

"This is a two-piece? How'd I miss that?" I asked in wonder. I don't really miss things like that anymore. Of course, I already had worked out a plan to get the whole costume off hours ago. She had just derailed it.

"It holds together right here," Heather smiled, pointing to a near-invisible seam, low around the waist. "It fastens there with velcro, not tape," Heather smiled. "They did that because otherwise, I couldn't have gone to the bathroom tonight."

For me to have missed this seam, this costume had to have been made by pros...

More importantly, I realized as I ran a finger around her waist to release the velcro, her invitation to remove the bottom had laid to rest whatever meager doubts I had suffered about whether 'make out in the back seat' had meant just meant making out in the back seat... My batting average did not appear in jeopardy of falling this evening.

She was most cooperative in getting the very small bottom of the outfit off. And with no deliberation to her haste. There was no tape to care about.

"That," I said, my voice full of appreciation, "is once gloriously beautiful pussy, Heather." I gazed happily at the pube-less expanse of soft skin between her legs, a nice gap between her sleek thighs giving me an excellent view. "I hope you won't object, because I am about to absolutely devour that," I smiled, tearing my gaze back to her eyes.

They twinkled.

"Somehow, I just knew you'd be into that," she said in breathless anticipation.

But as I leaned toward her, she scooched away along the seat, as if unsure and trying to escape.

I followed until she fetched up against the far door. She leaned against it and relaxed, as if giving up.

This was perfect, I now had all the room I wanted to bend down and enjoy.

Which Heather had known very goddamned well as she moved over. I knew she knew how to make use of this space.

I began my slow run of kisses up the insides of her legs. In between busses, I asked her, "Why are you, of... all people, so experienced... with sex in the... backseats of cars?"

Heather just sighed for a moment. "I'm pretty sure my roommates are all on the payroll of my family in some way or another. And if I take a guy back to the Bel Air house, there is the staff to deal with. In either case, I have to put up with a delivery of 2.5 metric assloads of shit from my mother the next day. So, I am left with having fun in dudes' dorm rooms or in cars." She giggled at that, then gasped as I just barely missed kissing her snatch, then bounced over and started nuzzling her lower belly. "I prefer the cars. This feels so much naughtier!"

I caressed the unkissed one among her inner thighs, and set aside away for future discussion a few lessons for Heather on the fine art of finding privacy in unlooked-for places. "You like naughty, huh?" I murmured, resuming my kisses.

"Mmm hmm," she nodded.

"Well, let's get naughtier," I mused, and twisted to drag my tongue up her opening.

Heather proceeded to demonstrate that she was likely to be as loud a partner as Nancy.

Two more passages along her slit, and my tongue began to slip between her outer lips. Two more, and I was running deep in her tasty depths. In moments more, I was drilling deep as I could, while one of my thumbs was right under my nose, circling but not touching her clit.

"Oh shit, yessss," Heather hissed. "Oh wow! Oh," she suddenly reverted to her native tongue and I didn't understand what she said next. But I felt quite certain of the sentiments anyway. Making a girl lose track of what language she was speaking in her pre-orgasmic rush was a new thing. I resolved to see how much Chinese I could coax from Heather this evening.

Mostly what I got out of her next was more volume. I still did not understand what she was saying, but I doubted it was coherent either, as the pre-orgasmic rush gave way to her orgasmic one.

She banged her head against the glass of the door, her hips rocked, the one leg kicked against the floor, while the other wrapped around my back. She moaned on for a bit before she relaxed limply and her vocals trailed off. "Okay, that was a little bit good," she breathed, smiling down at me.

"Excellent," I purred and bent to resume tasting her depths.

Heather laughed... at first. Then, realization dawning in her voice, she yelped, "Wait! You are going on! More! Stop... I mean, don't, um, holy shit! Just..." her words trailed off in a gargling noise that morphed from there to a long string of creative profanity, including some phrases that I had to assume were Chinese idioms rendered in English. There was other stuff I was sure was just as profane, but actually in Chinese.

She was beyond sopping wet down there now, a condition I had been seeking, and my tongue moved easily about inside her. When she came a second time, I did not let her immediately relax in the afterglow. Instead, I just kept up flicking her button with the tip of my tongue until she almost crushed my skull between her legs.

Her thighs were surprisingly strong for such lovely structures...

She started pushing my head away but failed until she realized her own thighs were holding me in place. I popped up with a theatrical and wholly fictitious gasp for oxygen.

She laughed at my antics. "How come I am naked here, and..."

I looked at her. Sure, she was bottomless and her tits were out, but the rest of the suit was still firmly in place. She was hotter than if she had been totally nude.

"Okay, how come I am as exposed as I can be here, and you still have your pants on?" she started over. "We need those off, because I hope you are going to let me return that favor!"

"Yes, please," I almost giggled, and moved away just a bit to sit up.

Heather sinuously rolled forward and leaned over my lap.

Well, she did that as sinuously as she could, given that her whole musculoskeletal system was still trying to reboot its coordination. But her fingers soon proved dextrous enough and she worked open my fly.

In a rush, she coaxed me into lifting my hips and shoving down my pants. She ignored that process and grabbed the waist of my boxers and peeled them down and away from my cock.

She looked at it. She looked at me. She looked at it again. She looked at me again.

"Cocks do not come in this size," she told me flatly, somehow sounding utterly certain about this self-evidently incorrect statement.

"You'd be surprised," I drawled in amusement.

"I would not," she retorted. "This is some kind of fucking prosthetic!" she asserted. Then she grabbed me and tugged. Gently, thank God. The warmth, feel, and, um, irremovability of my penis convinced her quickly.

"No wonder Nancy was making all that noise," Heather mused.

"Oh, there were other reasons than just this," I laughed. This was yet another delightful new reaction.

She shot her eyes up at me, and then remembered the last ten minutes or so. "Yeah. I guess so," she murmured. She looked back down at my cock. "I wish I was a snake," she said.

"What?" I sort of yelped.

"So I could unhinge my jaw and maybe get all this shit in my mouth," she snorted.

"I'm not that thick," I protested.

"Yes, you fucking are," Heather snapped back at me. "This thing is... it... I can't..." then she shut up, took a breath, leaned down, and slid her lips around my cock. In a moment, she slid down and took me in several inches past her wide-spread teeth.

It wasn't even that hard for her, though she does have one of the smaller mouths I've ever encountered. She certainly had no trouble beginning to bob up and down on my cock, instilling all sorts of wonderful sensations throughout me overall.

All. Sorts.

Suddenly, she stopped at what I was beginning to feel might be a critical juncture and looked my cock over again. "How do you even buy pants?" she asked with a smile.

"Um, carefully?" I admitted.

She resumed for a wonderful bit, but stopped again to look me over. "Have you ever just, you know, fainted from blood deprivation when you saw a naked girl?" she asked, almost serious. I rolled my eyes, partly because that was ridiculous, and partly because she kept stopping.

I mean, I do last longer than I used to. I work at that about every time I'm with a girl. But I still don't have much stamina for the first round.

The fourth time she pulled off to examine me again, I stopped her just as she was opening her mouth. "You are doing this to keep me from coming, aren't you? I accused.

She smiled. "Yes?" she said, imitating meekness. "This is fun, I don't want it to stop!"

"Please!" I outright begged. "I refract just fine, don't you worry. But you are killing me here!"

She squinted at me playfully, then sucked a few inches of me back into her mouth and really went to town.

Look, I've been with girls and women who were obviously miles more experienced, who could take my dick in their mouths more easily, who had more moves... But Heather's blowjob had a rhythm and style all its own. And once she stopped fucking stopping, it did the job fabulously.

I was soon gasping a warning so she could handle it however she wanted to handle it. Heather popped off me again, but kept stroking me vigorously with both hands this time. She stared at my throbbing cock in anticipation. But then she looked around, probably at her upholstery, and sucked me swiftly back in her mouth.

Okay...

When I nutted, there was... Look, she had edged me four goddamned times. I was most righteously built up. She took it all in her mouth, but she gagged and choked as it spilled into her throat unbidden. Heather popped up, sputtering helplessly.

Yeah. That sent drops of jizz spraying all over the place. Over me, mostly, but there was plenty of stuff that, sigh, darkened the white leather of her back seats. She looked at the mess, and at me, her lips twisting. I was sure she wanted to say something tart but affectionate, but I could also tell that, as many times as she had swallowed already, her mouth was still full of enough jizz to drool out if she opened it.

I watched as she swallowed a final time, and smiled. "That... was a fuckton," she gulped. "And weirdly delicious, too," she added. "Like, crazily so."

I shook my head. "People keep telling me that tasty cum is not common," I mused. "I would think nature would select for toothsome jizz."

Heather laughed. "Blowjobs don't exactly perpetuate the species, dude."

"Maybe," I said dubiously. "But good ones do keep all involved coming back for more."

We argued about genetics for a bit, until she made the inevitable discovery that not only had I not gone limp, I was still hard as steel for her.

"Already? Fuck yeah," she said. She paused, yet again uncertain. "You've never, um killed anyone on that, have you?" she asked, half joking and full serious.

"All remain alive and undamaged," I reassured her. "Well, the are often some mornings with the Ministry of Funny Walks..."

Heather snorted at that. "Okay then," she said with a deep breath. I'm going to need you to fuck me with that now, please."

I grinned happily. "Lean back for a minute. I'm going to do some more tongue action here..."

"Really? I want sex, and you want to go back to oral. What are you? An alien?"

"I'm someone who felt how wet he had you before and wants to get you back there," I said, bending down again between her involuntarily spreading legs.

"Fuck! Nature should certainly be selecting more for this level of enthusiasm," she sighed.

I really didn't need to tongue her for long to get her slick as wet ice again, but I do have this level of enthusiasm, and took another minute to enjoy myself before I came to my senses. I sat up.

"Am I wet enough for you now?" Heather, who was already breathing hard and starting to make noise, gasped.

"Oh, yes," I growled.

"Thank the fucking lord," she said, as I pulled her legs toward me, letting her slip to her back on the seat. I had never done it on such a narrow surface, but I had ideas. I lifted her leg that was toward the back, so I could move us more onto the seat, and let one of my legs drop off the edge. Heather did the same with the leg I was not holding aloft. Cradling her raised leg in the crook of my elbow, I let my cock run over her dripping slit.

Heather had no patience for my dawdling, though, and grabbed my dong, pointing it instantly to where she wanted it.

I like to please women. I pushed in lightly and I heard Heather make the exact same gasp of fearful anticipation that I make at the top of a rollercoaster's first hill. I grinned and slid into her. She was very, very wet, and I let myself slide in much faster than I usually did the first time.

As I did, Heather made the exact same trilling hoot I do when the roller coaster plummets down that first hill.

I did not delve all the way with that first thrust, but I also did not pull back much at all before I just pushed back in, burying myself in her this time.

Heather gleefully spat a string of Chinese profanity, followed in English by, "How the fuck did Nancy stay so quiet?"

Her body clearly appreciated the sensation of me laughing as hard as I did while buried inside her. My body just as clearly appreciated the sensation of her laughing as hard as she did while I was buried inside her.

The first fuck was delightful. I even edged her once, in retribution for earlier.

She knew what she did.

I tried to do it a second time, but my body had other ideas, and we both came pretty close together, nearly falling off the seat in the process.

When we screwed our heads back on, we shared a stray bottle of water that was rolling around on the floor of her backseat. Then we went again.

Doggy style. My recommendation for backseat car sex is doggy style.

You are just more in control and nobody's spine gets bent weirdly, okay?

*

NANCY: Well, now. I knew, after the way she passed you on those stairs that night, that she'd track you down eventually. That is a determined, deep-thinking girl.

ME: What?

ME: We met up by accident at a volleyball game!

NANCY: Tell me, do your social media accounts show pictures of you attending volleyball games?

ME: Probably my Instagram. But come on! Their sorority had them there to be hazed!

NANCY: Yeah, but I wonder who suggested which sport, at what college...

ME: No way. She's not that devious

Was I sure of that?

NANCY: Either way, she'll never admit it.

ME: I'm not worth that kind of effort

NANCY: You are kidding, right?

This was nuts. On the other hand, I was nuts too these days. I was probably nuttier than I ought to be, because suddenly all I could think about was how to engineer a 'chance meeting' with Heather at her Boston house, on one of Nancy's days off from school...

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