Alistaire at USC: Realizations

Time for some reality checks, wonderful and otherwise.

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The One With Realizations

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It was now spring, and Britney had not been at the Café for two of her regular shifts in a row. I felt excited, as it likely meant that she had had a couple of auditions. Hopefully, she would get some work from at least one of them. I didn't text her to ask what was up because she hated saying anything about any opportunity until she knew whether or not it was going to pan out.

And, good news or bad, I wanted to be there in person for her when she told me.

As I walked toward the shop, I especially hoped that she would be in this morning. I missed seeing her, but more to the point, I had gone ahead and bought tickets to a movie I really wanted to see, and of all my friends, Britney was the one who would most enjoy the film.

Also informing my eagerness to see her was the fact that, in the unlikely event we made it through the film without me managing to get her off at least once, it was a dead solid certainty that we'd definitely get each other off afterward. And the timing was getting tight, since the tickets were now only two days out.

Movie theaters in LA were surprisingly shitty for the most part, mostly old and past their prime. And crowded. But there were a few more modern ones with armrests that flipped up between seats...

I stepped into the café, and saw that Britney was back at work, turned away from the counter as I entered. There were a number of customers sitting around enjoying their coffees and so on, so I refrained from audibly appreciating the view of her from behind. But I sure as fuck inaudibly appreciated it.

"Glad to see you back at work," I grumbled before she had seen me.

"Alistaire!" she exclaimed, whirling around and giving me the most brilliant smile I had ever seen on her lovely face.

"Wow, I assume you had a good audition or two?" I asked. I'd have been super bummed if she had not been happy after two days of missed work.

"Audition? Nope. I had a screentest. And there were negotiations," she beamed.

"You got a job!" I enthused.

"I got a..." she looked around. "I don't want to, can't really, talk about it here in public," she said in a suddenly quiet tone. "What time are you done with classes today?" There was a gleam in her eye that I, and select portions of my anatomy, thoroughly approved of.

"I am finished with my last class at 1:00," I said immediately. "I can drop my stuff off at my place by 1:30. Tell me where to meet you after that. Back here?"

"I get off at two," Britney said. "I'll just come over to your place as soon as I can get there. Just wait." She paused. "This is really big news, Alistaire. I expect you to be ready to celebrate extravagantly over my achievement," she finished in a voice freighted with meaning.

"Yes, ma'am!"

Yeah. After that conversation, my last class of the day felt like it took fucking forever.

But not as long as the wait after I got back to my apartment felt.

The knock came on my door less than 15 minutes after her shift ended. She had hustled over.

I opened the door wide and bowed to usher her in. "Welcome, Miss Monroe," I said.

"Nope!" was all she said, looking at me and not entering.

"What?"

"I told you I wanted you ready to celebrate extravagantly when I got here," Britney said with a stern grin. "I expected a shitload more nudity than this! I'll be back in three minutes. Use them well."

My own door closed in my face.

Well, this was a new game. She must be feeling awesome. I mused about how fun this was going to be.

Fuck! I had already stood there speculating for over a minute!

I ripped my clothes off as fast as I could, nearly toppling myself to the floor when I stupidly tried to pull off my jeans over my Converses. I had just managed to throw my stuff away from right in front of the door without killing myself when the door rapped again.

With a grin, I pulled it open and was greeted by a much more pleased smile from Britney.

"There we go," she said outright lasciviously, dragging her finger down my half-chub cock dangling before her. "I have plans for..."

She was interrupted by the sound of a deadbolt being opened from Mrs. Dunwoody's apartment right across the hall, and here I was, standing in my wide-open door with my naked dong growing rapidly!

"Eeep!" I yelped and sprang sideways, out of sight of the door across the hall. Britney had frozen at the sound of the deadbolt, but recovered and sprang forward into my apartment. She was through, but my door was still open when my neighbor lady appeared. For a 72 year-old woman, she could move fast.

Britney let the door close behind her and we both sagged.

"Which one was that?" we heard Mrs. Dunwoody ask herself, apparently not having seen Britney's face.

My friend and I giggled at each other.

"Player!" Britney chuckled teasingly.

"I am not a player," I grumbled, but with less heat than my usual denials. It had started to become apparent to me recently that I really had, in fact, become a bit of a player. I had mixed feelings about that epiphany.

"I didn't mean you had to be nude," Britney laughed. "I was hoping for, like, a robe or something. But I guess a player's gotta player..."

"You have awesome news?" I asked, trying to change the subject from my player-ness. "Get a national commercial?"

"I got a role, Alistaire!" Britney said, rapidly unbuckling the belt of her uniform. "A major supporting role in a six-episode Netflix series! No, better than that! I'm the ingenue. I even get an 'Introducing' mention in the opening credits!"

"Wow," I breathed. Film and Television are hardly my industry, but even dumb old me knew a life-changing, career-launching event. I also said, 'wow', because Britney was making short work of the buttons on the front of her 50's-style uniform.

There was no bra underneath.

Only a girl with Britney's, um, structural reinforcement could have worn that uniform through a whole shift and not have the world know she had omitted a bra that day. The depth and majesty of cleavage that I could see in the rapidly opening dress rather focused my attention.

She grabbed the lapels but did not fully open the dress. "You know," she said, suddenly hesitant, "pretty soon, you won't be the only guy seeing these naked."

"Huh?" I asked, confused. "You mean that guy, Harry? The one I like to watch hit on you at the diner? I thought you've beenhooking up with him for a while."

"Not for a month now," Britney said, distracted.

"So who is the new member of the Luckiest Guys Alive Club?" I asked curiously.

Britney took refuge from her sudden uncertainty in a withering gaze at me. "Nobody. Well, I mean..." she cut herself off. "Look dufus, I have three topless scenes, including one that is meant to be long and steamy as shit."

"Oh, wow!"

"I mean, the script as currently written only calls for two scenes where the girls make an appearance, but my contract has an option for a third to be potentially added in re-writes. My agent, the old horndog, is certain that with a girl that looks like me, they will find an excuse to add that third scene." She paused, looking at me. "I hope you don't disapprove."

I stared at her. "First off, my opinion doesn't matter. You know that. Second, I'm a fan of boobies on screen," I added. I reflected briefly on how much a couple of pairs of really nice boobs, almost as nice as Britney's, and a stray naked dong on screen in a horror movie had contributed mightily to how awesome my entire life had become.

Regardless, Britney was not asking my permission, only respecting my opinion.

"Are you okay with it?" I asked. That was my only problem.

She took a deep breath and shrugged her uniform off her shoulders and to the floor as she resumed talking, now regaining her animation. "It's a big step," she admitted. "But honestly, I had already pretty much decided I was okay doing it before I even went to the first audition. My agent told me from the start that the show is going to be drenched in skin for everybody in it, even the male lead. I can't tell you who he is, but I can tell you his ass is out for all to see in Every. Single. Episode!" She giggled. "And I can also tell you that he is nowhere near as hot as he looks on the screen."

She grinned widely. "But he is still plenty hot enough for me to summon some pretty good chemistry with him."

I was ecstatic for her, but my mind was nevertheless drawn to the sight of her boobs in front of me, floating there, perfectly formed in a shape that seemed utterly natural... assuming they were in lunar gravity. Her nipples were sure as fuck enthusiastic about being shown off to millions worldwide.

Or maybe they just wanted to be sucked on by one, apartment-wide. If that was the case, I should not disappoint them. "Go on," I invited, but spoiled the appearance of interest by cupping her tits and bending to suckle an adorable nipple.

"Not much more to tell," she breathed excitedly. Again, what all she was excited about was unclear, but I had to be some of it. "The pay is better than scale, a lot better if they pick up that third scene. And if the series gets renewed for a second season, my salary gets big," she breathed, running her fingers hungrily through my hair as she spoke.

Her hands pulled my face even harder against her breast as she went on. "The story is really good, Alistaire. And Teddy and his production company have produced some major shows already for both Netflix and Amazon. This thing could be a hit. A big one. If it is, I'm going to be a genuine star!"

"Nobody deserves it more," I said, lifting my head and kissing her lips. I could already smell her arousal, and I tucked my fingers into the waistband of the extremely modest undies she always carefully wore under her short uniform skirt.

But she slapped my fingers away. "In a minute, eager beaver! Sit," she ordered, pointing at my lone easy chair. "I really need a celebratory protein snack from you," she giggled.

Britney really did enjoy sucking cock...

I was hardly going to argue about her excellent plan and flopped into my chair. In a flash, she was kneeling on the floor between my legs, stroking my long ago now hard cock and licking up the length. I moaned as she drew me in between her lips and suckled on me gently.

"You know," she said, pulling me free of her lips in brief, intermittent bobs, "I cut things off with Harry in part, gluk, gluk, because his dick and especially his jizz just tasted bad," she went on, doing something extremely wonderful with her tongue. "He's a sweetie, but I'd never tasted any that was, mmmmm, bad before, and I just, mmmm, could, mmmm, not, mmm, gluk, take it."

She sucked a lot of me into her mouth. More than usual.

Sucks to be Harry.

"Teddy tastes great though," she chirped. "Almost as good as you." She plunged down on my cock again.

"What?" I yelped. I wanted to leap to my feet in concern, but the gentle, inexorable force of her face on my dick made such an act impossible. "The producer made you suck his cock for the role?" I exclaimed in horror.

"No! Shame on you, Alistaire," she said, popping off my cock and glaring at me. But her hand kept making wonderful strokes. "Teddy is a perfect gentleman. Neither he nor anyone at the production made any such suggestion. Nor would they. Ever!"

She let her tongue roll over and around my swollen, near-desperate tip, ignoring my sudden tension. "But he is awfully charming. And, well, by the time I decided that I wanted to, I was pretty sure the part was almost certainly going to probably be mine anyway." She looked sternly up at me. "I sucked his cock because I really, really just wanted to suck his cock, and I wanted to celebrate." She reminded me then, in the best possible way, that she did very much enjoy doing what she had done to her new boss. It was a forcible reminder that had sweat beading my brow suddenly.

"But I will admit I thought it might be a good way to remove any lingering doubts," she admitted wryly.

Then she stopped talking and really got going hungrily. It was a really good blowjob.

Fuck.

I could see how she could seal a deal this way, dammit.

Her tongue tortured my helmet as my mind alternated from trying to relax and enjoy, to manufacturing more doubts. I guessed I was not going to need to find this guy Teddy's offices and have a word with him. Not that I would have anyway, because harming Britney's big break would be the worst thing anyone had ever done. An even worse thing than Teddy letting her blow him.

I doubted seriously that he had not at least hinted at the idea.

And Britney? My friend? She of the fabulous tits and the fabulous everything else? And the even more fabulous love for and skill at sucking cock? I could not judge her.

But I kind of did.

But I also was almost unbearably happy for her.

That, and the way we fucked three times that afternoon, seasoned in between with her own lovely flavors, was more than enough for me to put my mind at ease about the whole situation.

It was not until after she was gone that I started to get mad at myself. What had happened to me out here that I thought anything about this situation was okay?

*

BEN: So, are you coming, dude?

My old high school buddy had resumed trying to get me to go to yet another Alumni Day. It was only our class's third reunion, which was not really a thing. People did not go to their class's third anniversary. But Mrs. Sarnioki's husband was taking an early retirement from his job as the school's business administrator, and she was leaving with him. She had been a favorite of mine, but she had actually been Ben's advisor. He had been planning to go from the second we all got the email that this was her goodbye opportunity.

ME: I want to go, man. You know I love the lady. But the plane ticket's a lot of cash, and it is close to exams

There was a pause.

BEN: Beth is coming. She confirmed today

Oh.

Oh, wow.

If Beth was coming, Ben would be fucking her quite thoroughly.

If I also came, I would be fucking her quite thoroughly too. At the same time.

I missed Ben. I really missed Beth.

And dammit, much as I hated to admit it, I missed the adventure of double-teaming Beth with Ben. I obviously preferred being double-teamed, but the three of us had some magical history.

I hemmed for a moment. It wasn't like I didn't have similar threesome opportunities out here. Hell, one set of my friends and I had coordinated one of our occasional foursomes just two days ago. I was still recovering.

But Beth...

ME: Well then, I guess I'll see you there

*

I managed the trip, but the scheduling was harder than the money. I had to really shoehorn it in because the following Monday morning there was an absolute, no shit, can't miss class. I took a red-eye flight to JFK on the morning of Alumni Day. It was late, and I only made it up to school in the middle of the afternoon. There was, alas, no home track meet to watch this year, so I wandered over toward the varsity lacrosse field.

According to my texts, Beth had been on campus that morning for the parade, but had left for a while to finish and send in a paper. Ben had been delayed getting on the road by some drama with his roommate, his roommate's suddenly and spectacularly former girlfriend, and a very broken window that they had had to explain to his landlord. The three of us were all planning to meet up at the banquet in a few hours.

I moved through the crowd of mostly older alumni, along with a bunch of student spectators who had been frosh and sophomores when I was a senior. Didn't recognize a soul.

Then the crowd parted a bit in front of me and I saw a pair of corduroys and a tight sweater with contours that I would never forget.

"Jenn!" I exclaimed in surprise.

Jenn spun and saw me. "Hey!" she yelped and leapt toward me. She threw herself into my arms and we hugged tightly. I even lifted her up off the ground as we embraced.

I almost forgot myself and kissed her, but I remembered in the nick of time that she was blessed with a very serious boyfriend somewhere named Pete.

I set Jenn down and asked her how she got here, and why hadn't I heard she was coming to Alumni Day.

"I'm not here for Alumni Day," she snorted. "That is a coincidence. Pete and I are driving to his parents' place on the Cape for his mom's birthday tomorrow. This is on the way, so I thought why not stop and show him the old stomping grounds! Oh God, this is so great you are here," Jenn added enthusiastically. "I want you to meet Pete," she added, tugging me along toward a handsome dude with a bemused expression on his face.

Pete, best I had determined from various text conversations with Jenn, was her fiancé, and would probably figure that fact out at some point.

He stuck out his hand and said, "I assume that I am meeting the infamous Alistaire."

Infamous?

Yeah, I guess that checked out.

"Guilty," I said. "It's great to meet you, Pete. I hear almost nothing but great things." That earned me a shove from Jenn.

"Same for me," Pete said. She shoved him too.

I was a little uncomfortable at first, remembering Carla's comment about her lover for life, Ron, 'hating' me, even if it was just the idea of me. But Pete seemed genuinely confident in his status with Jenn. That made me even happier than the realization that I wasn't going to get punched in the snoot.

We all chatted companionably for a while, Jenn hanging happily on Pete's arm. I found that I liked the guy, and that made me glad. Jenn clearly doted on him, not that I had not already been told as much, and that warmed my heart.

They were getting close to needing to go, and Jenn had to run off toward the Field House to find a bathroom. She hesitated, but only for a second, before leaving the two of us alone without her.

He watched her retreating form. I'll admit, I watched it too.

He caught me looking, of course. And laughed.

"You used to intimidate the fuck out of me, you know," he said casually.

"Me?" I asked in surprise. I looked at Pete. He was three inches shorter than me, but probably outweighed me by five to ten pounds. And he had no more fat on his frame than I do. "I guess now that you see me, you can tell I'm not intimidating!" I laughed.

"You know what I mean," he grimaced. "I know a lot about you. Probably more than I should. Sorry about that. But when Jenn and I first got serious, I wanted her to know that I have a bit of a past. I detailed a few former girlfriends. What I got told about in return was... you."

What the fuck was I to say to that?

"I stewed over this dude out there that she still texts with a lot, and talks about even more," he went on, in this bizarre confessional out of nowhere. His face was serious. "Honestly, I worried that I was just to be some kind of place-holder until she could somehow one day reunite with this sex god with a heart of gold. But then, when I finally realized that no, I was who she genuinely preferred, genuinely wanted, I knew I'd found the win." He smiled at me.

I just stuck out a fist for him to bump.

It was good to be Pete.

"Can you keep a secret?" he asked, an almost dorky smile on his face.

"Usually, unless it is going to embarrass me personally," I said.

He snorted. Then looked around to ensure Jenn was not back yet. "I have a jewelry box in my suitcase. I'm going to ask her to marry me at my mom's party tomorrow."

Ah! So he had, in fact, figured out he was her fiancé. Good for him.

And good for me, because the love of her life would apparently be no obstacle to my remaining friends with my old buddy.

*

Jenn and Pete left soon after. I grabbed an Uber to go check into my hotel and change, only just making it back in time for the banquet being held in the massive Field House. My first reunion, I had dressed like a slob and felt crappy about it. This year, I put on a blue blazer and khakis like a proper New England aristocrat.

The three adjacent basketball courts in the field house were filled with two buffet lines, a dias, and a sea of eight-person round tables, each with a sign showing the class year of the people sitting at it. The Old Guard, those on their 50th or more anniversary of graduation were clustered right at the dias. There were a good number of survivors at those two tables, most with wives. A few of those wives were much, much younger...

Our school had been founded as a boys' school, butnwhen my class got to our fifth reunion, there would be female alumna for the first time in the Old Guard. How would that change things? Would any of those rich old ladies have 30 year-old husbands?

Probably.

I moved into the cavernous room, looking to see if I could spot Ben and Beth. We would likely have to shoehorn ourselves into a gap in an older class's table. But to my surprise, I spotted a table with our class's year on the sign. More surprising, it was almost full!

On the far side were four of my classmates, two guys and two girls, all of whom I remembered on sight, but never had much to do with. Next to them was Ben, and next to Ben was Beth. The last two seats to Beth's left were mercifully empty.

Ben saw me first, and popped up to smile at me. "Dude! You are here," he said. We high-fived.

Beth turned to smile at me. I tugged at the chair beside her. "Mind if I sit here, Beth?" I asked.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," she practically purred.

"Al, isn't it?" Gerry Perkins, one of our classmates greeted me. I smiled.

"Wait, wasn't it Alistaire?" asked Jo Silverman. I knew her a little, but she must have picked up on my name change back before graduation. She was sitting between Gerry and Ben.

"How the hell are there seven of us here for a third reunion?" I asked in mild wonder. Really, a third reunion was just not a thing.

"Same reason you flew here from California, dude," Ben snorted. "Sarnioki."

"Oh, is that why I'm here?" I asked silkily. Beth kicked me under the table.

"Well, I'm not sure why most of you are here," Danny Thompkins said. For a soccer and basketball jock I had only one class with in four years, he stuck out in my mind somehow. "But Ben, me, and Jo were in her advisory for four years."

An advisory was the group of students a teacher would take under his or her wing and provide guidance and advice. Some students became incredibly close friends with their advisors and stuck with them the whole time at school. For my part, I'd never clicked with any of mine and I had changed every year.

Franny added, "And Beth and I did that ISP together with her."

"The recommendation letters she gave each of us were glorious," Beth said. "I'm pretty sure it put me over the top to get in where I wanted."

Gerry, who had not been one of my favorite people when he arrived as a sophomore but who had improved his act over time, just shrugged at me. "I go to school nearby, my little brother is a freshman here now, and I just always liked Mr. Sarnioki ever since I took the one class he teaches. What is your excuse for flying all the way back from California?"

"Mrs. S was a great teacher, and I worked for her in the library," I shrugged.

That got a somewhat annoying laugh from Gerry. "You were one of her book geeks? I guess you had to return for some fond memories of fun in the library!"

I arched an eyebrow at him, feeling a little alpha and in no mood for shit from this guy for old-time's sake. "Oh, the library was great," I said smoothly. "I had so many fabulous times in there." I looked around Beth, who was kicking my foot again, toward Ben. "You had some good times there as well, didn't you?" I asked with a broad smile.

"The best," Ben beamed back. We leaned toward each other to bump fists, both pressing lightly against Beth as we did so. As we leaned back, he asked her, "You had some fun in the library too, if my fading memory serves. Right, Beth?"

Beth just lightly stroked both our shoulders for a fleeting moment and chuckled. "Gotta love the library. The quiet, the comfy seating..."

The other four at the table looked at us like we had lost our minds. I mean, they viewed Ben (if at all) as dweeb and me (if at all) as a nerd, but they seemed to expect more sanity from a star athlete like Beth. Who the fuck cares about the library?

Just then, everybody in the 5th reunion or younger was called to the buffet, and we all swiftly loaded up on food of dubious quality but significant quantity. Back at the table, we chatted briefly about our class president, who had legendarily flamed out at Georgetown and was now the first mate on a sportfishing boat in Key West.

But my mind was increasingly on the idea of later. Ben and I would soon have Beth naked and... Who was going first, to do what? You don't plan threesomes, but you do set some internal priorities. If I got my way, both Ben and I would compete at licking Beth cross-eyed before anything else happened.

I grabbed a tater-tot. Yes, there were tater tots being served to 75 year-old alumni. "Look, Beth," I said, holding it out close to her face. "This one kind of looks like Mrs. S's face," I bullshitted.

She looked at it cross-eyed, trying to figure out what the fuck I was up to.

"Try it," I said with just a trace of firmness.

Her eyes uncrossed in a snap and looked into mine. They narrowed for a moment, then she grinned. "Sure," she said, and opened her lips, her tongue extended just a tiny bit. She left her hands submissively in her lap.

Nice.

I reached out just a few inches further and popped the tot into her open mouth. Then I pushed it further in along her tongue with just my index finger.

Her lips closed around my finger before she slowly leaned backward, drawing my digit gradually free of her mouth with a pop. She chewed slowly and ostentatiously.

By the time it was done, this little byplay had escaped no one's notice. The four outside our group stared at Beth and me, each clearly convinced they had missed something, and had not seen what they had just seen. My eyes met Ben's and he smirked at me.

Game on.

"Whether they look like Mrs. S or not," Ben said after a beat, "the tots are cold and soft. Have a carrot stick, Beth. They are nice and firm."

Beth had a quite visible stack of carrot sticks on her own plate. But she just purred, "Thank you, Ben."

She opened her mouth and let Ben begin to slide a carrot stick into it. But halfway in, she swiftly bit down with an audible crack, snapping off the orange goodness. She sat back so we could both see her face as she chewed on it with a face that suggested it had been $200 caviar, not a fucking cut-up root.

"Come on," Franny grumbled for the rest of the table. They had already been watching that time. Beth and Ben and I exchanged glances. Yeah, time to fuck with our classmates. But we clearly were going to approach it slowly, at first.

We were interrupted by Dean Fletcher dropping by our table, the latest in a series of faculty who worked their way around the room to schmooze with all the donors (or future donors in our case). She even sat in the chair next to me for a minute or two and we all fished for stories of disciplinary problems among the seniors, since they had been around when we were still here and we would at least know some names.

The Dean was unforthcoming.

After the older woman got up to hunt bigger game, I snorted as if something had just occurred to me. "Honestly, Gerry," I said across the table, as if picking up an old conversational thread, "I guess I also came back to see all the beautiful women around here." I let my gaze wander over the three girls at our table, but mostly Beth. Both Jo and Franny were worth looking at on their own. But they were not Beth. And unlike Beth, I was not going to fuck either of them later.

Franny snorted at that as my eyes wafted over her. "You are in LA, home of the hotties. You wouldn't fly all the way back here for that," she scoffed.

Okay. I looked at her a little harder, making sure she saw me do so. But then I quite openly turned to look at Beth. "One, LA is not the sea of pulchritude," SAT word, "that Hollywood would make you think. And Two, there are some true beauties around here..."

Beth smirked at me.

"I agree with Alistaire," Ben added. When Beth turned to him, he added, "I'd say that in some cases, our class had some real gems." They looked at each other.

Jo laughed. "You two are psycho. I'll bet you are wishing you got this kind of attention back when we were all still in school, Beth!"

"Yeah," Gerry added, apparently starting to feel the second glass of wine he was drinking a little. "You'd have gotten laid for sure!"

Jo elbowed him.

Beth silently stared at him until he flushed in embarrassment. But then she quite ostentatiously lifted both her hands from the tabletop and lowered them down and directly toward Ben and me beneath the table.

"What makes you all think," Beth said smoothly to our now wide-eyed companions, "that I did not, in fact, fuck both these guys back in school?"

There was no answer.

I looked at Ben and he looked back. In for a penny, in for a pound.

"Often at the same time," I added matter of factly.

All of them except Jo burst out into laughter. "God damn! You three got us!" Danny chortled, relaxing back now that he supposed we had been yanking their chains.

Jo did not laugh. She sat right next to Ben. She could see his lap. Since I assumed Beth was doing to Ben's cock through his trousers what she was doing to my cock through my trousers, Jo knew the only chains being yanked were Ben's and mine.

We all grinned at each other. I grinned at Jo, too. Just because. She blinked and gulped.

Beth gave Ben a dreamy look, then turned back toward me.

And suddenly, she sighed, her lightly powerful shoulders slumping. The hand on my cock retreated to her lap.

"Well, Ben," she said, sounding resigned but not unhappy. "It looks like you will have to do all the work for me back at the hotel later. Alistaire won't be joining us."

What?

Had I just beenejected? Why? That made no sense. I looked at Ben. The matching look of puzzlement on his face suddenly vanished, and he smiled, nodding.

Huh?

I suddenly realized they weren't looking at me but over my shoulder. Instinctively, I turned.

Coming across the field house, weaving through the tables, was Bridget.

I have never had the slightest recollection of what happened over the next few moments. I'm sure I never will. My next conscious memory is of finding myself three tables away from my seat, in the middle of the cluster of tenth reunion tables. I was holding Bridget with one hand on the small of her back, crushing her against me. My other hand had swept up under her mass of firey curls, and my fingers wove through the strands on the back of her head. Her arms were around me, pulling me just as hard against her. Between us, we had basically laminated our bodies together. My cock, already hardening from Beth's attentions, made its presence known between us, as did Bridget's lovely breasts.

We were kissing. Deeply.

Bridget, I damn well knew, had no boyfriend currently. She was not even dating anyone. Penn men must be total dipshits for that to be true. Yet somehow, it had been the case more often than not. I could inhale this woman in my arms with no compunctions.

There were no tongues involved. I just needed to meld with Bridget--to taste, smell, and devour her. She reciprocated in kind, making everything that much better.

It was not a short kiss.

In fact, it lasted too long.

"This sort of behavior is unacceptable," came a voice we both knew, and we sprang apart like two six year-olds caught trying to figure out a book of matches.

Dr. Sanfillipo stood there in his favorite tweed blazer, glowering at us. Did the old guy ever even get the damned thing cleaned? It was always covered in chalk dust. The son of a bitch even had his pink pad in his hand and was writing on it furiously.

Old Man Sanfilipo has a superpower. Any students who were doing anything in public, anywhere on campus, beyond simply holding hands, would find the bastard appearing as if by magic and writing them up for Public Displays of Affection on those pink demerit slips.

Neither Bridget nor I had ever been busted by him, or by anyone else, but Sanfilipo was the Boogeyman for everybody.

He glared at us over his wireframe glasses and peeled off a pink discipline sheet. He handed it to Bridget wordlessly. He resumed writing on the pad while he grumbled, "I'm disappointed in you two. I never had any trouble from you before." He peeled off the second sheet and handed it to me. I took it nervelessly, not even looking at it.

"Let this be a lesson to you two," he grumbled sternly and wandered off. The tenth class was all sniggering at us. Bastards were just glad it wasn't them. We hustled back to our table.

Bridget spied the two empty seats, saw which I had been sitting in, and took it, placing herself between me and Beth. I slid into the empty one, now right next to Danny.

"You didn't need to put yourself between me and Alistaire," Beth observed drily.

Bridget just looked at her with the same expression I used to have when I got candy for Christmas and was defiant about sharing any with Dad.

"Hi, Bridget!" Ben waved.

"Hi, Ben, Beth," Bridget said brightly. Then she turned back to me. "Hi, Alistaire. Fancy running into you here."

"Hi, Bridget," Danny said diffidently.

Oh, yeah! That's what made me remember Danny. He had gone out with Bridget that one time and been deemed worthy only of a courtesy handjob.

Sucks to be Danny.

"Well, I see Guiseppe wrote you up for that little display," said Mrs. Sarnioki from behind us.

We all turned and smiled at one of our favorite teachers, who had finally found the chance to come visit us.

"Yeah, what the fuck?" Franny asked. "Can he even give demerits to alumni?"

"You two had better watch your behavior the rest of the night. I'd hate for you to have to put in a disciplinary crew session before you head back to college!" Mrs. Sarnioki said to me and Bridget with a serious face.

"I have a one o'clock flight," I grumbled.

"I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell any current students," she said to the table at large.

We all leaned in. Faculty secrets were what being an alum was all about.

"Dr. Sanfilipo never hands in any of those PDA sheets until he makes sure they won't put a student over the edge to a screw crew," she confided to us.

Eyes widened around the table.

"I follow the same policy, I just don't write so many up," she added.

"You put me over the top with a fucking PDA!" Jo said hotly. "On the Valentine's Day of senior year," she specified.

"Did I?" mused Mrs. S, pretending to not remember. "Oh! Yeah. You had cut my class the day before!" She glowered at Jo. "The five demerits I could give you for that weren't enough to make sure you learned that no one cuts my class! And watch that language, young lady!"

"Ummm..."

"How many did he ding you for?" our former teacher turned to ask Bridget, Jo having been put in her place.

Bridget looked at her sheet for the first time. "Infraction: PDA. Three demerits. Description: Giving the tenth reunion old farts all heart attacks," she read, blushing.

"Nice. How about you?" Mrs. S asked me.

I looked at my crumpled sheet.

"Infraction: PDA. Four demerits. Description: Snogging the hell out of Bridget like a fiend from hell," I read. "Wait a minute! Four! You can't get four demerits for PDA!" I objected. "Three's the max!"

We had graduated three years ago. Why the fuck were Bridget and I so incensed about demerits that did not mean anything?

"That was a compliment, Alistaire," Mrs. S replied. "Consider both yourselves lucky, though. A few years back, it must have been your sophomore year, we had a Christmas party for the faculty who were stuck here over the break. Giuseppe handed out five demerits each to me and my husband for what we got up to under the mistletoe," she chortled.

"I don't know why he got more demerits than I did," Bridget grumped, suddenly competitive.

"I think he was making up for not catching what happened two years ago," Mrs. Sarnioki said merrily.

Bridget's eyes widened. Everyone else except Beth leaned in.

"What did I miss?" Ben asked. Everyone else had their listening ears on.

Mrs. S looked at me for a moment. I pled for mercy with my eyes, but it was denied.

"Two years ago, in this very gym, on this very day, Alistaire left the alumni banquet with Nancy Green," she said gleefully.

Eight eyes across the table stared at me, disbelieving.

Ben muttered, "You and Ms. Green again?"

Eight eyes swiveled toward him in shock.

"Alistaire and Nancy walked straight over to Gorham House, entered through the front goddamn door instead of the faculty entrance, went through the crowded common room, and up the main stairs," Mrs. Sarnioki gleefully recounted. "They then went into her apartment, from which he did not emerge until long after midnight," she finished.

Franny Todd looked at me in something akin to utter terror... with a bit of speculation.

"There was talk," our old mentor went on drily in what I was sure was massive understatement. "Among everybody. But most of the faculty, especially the headmaster, quickly shut up and pretended it did not happen. But I, Dean Fletcher, and Mrs. Ferguson, as the three faculty women who had been in her situation once upon a time, took Nancy out to dinner and dragged all the details out of her."

"Her situation?" Beth inquired.

"All the details?" I quavered.

"The four of us all had all come to work at this place as young, single women. It's a shitty circumstance," this monster in teacher's clothing told the table at large. "Nancy just did what we had all wanted to, at one point or another."

She looked at Bridget. "But to answer Alistaire's question, Nancy told us all about it. I'm not surprised you had a snog like that in your repertoire, Alistaire. But where the fuck did that particular display between you two come from? Bridget, did you and Alistaire...?" she trailed off.

"Not just her," Beth interjected chirpily.

Mrs. S looked back and forth between Beth and Bridget. Then she locked her gaze on a smiling, thoroughly blasé Ben. "Why are you so smug?"

Ben just leaned into Beth, an arm around her shoulders. "I can't imagine," he said, with a mouth that would not melt butter.

The woman stared at the four of us. "I am running away now," she announced to the other four at our table. She left, but with a really wonderful smile as she did so. "It is always the quiet ones," I heard her mutter as she bolted off.

"I wonder if she ever actually tasted any forbidden fruit herself," Beth mused as we watched Mrs. Sarnioki. She stopped to talk to the fifth reunion people at the next table.

"Mrs. Sarnioki?" Gerry laughed. "Come on!"

"I could see it," Ben said slowly. "I always thought she had an adventurous streak. But listen, while she is absolutely my favorite teacher ever, she is not exactly Nanc..."

"You guys all know I babysat for them for three years, right?" Bridget said sharply.

"And?" Jo said.

"So, it got boring. I've been through their photo albums a hundred times," Bridget said. "You should have seen that woman back when she was our age."

I thought about that.

Nah.

"No way," said Danny.

Conversation suddenly became that weird kind of talk where people are avoiding the elephant in the room. Mrs. S moved on from the nearby fifth reunion table, after what had to have been a much less entertaining discussion. For her.

Bridget's phone dinged.

She looked at it almost automatically and snorted into her hand.

"What?" I asked, curious. I leaned toward her and she yanked her phone against her chest.

"I can't show you this!" Bridget giggled as if scandalized.

"Show us what?" Ben asked, leaning across Beth. If he wasn't taking a liberty or two with her as he leaned across, he was dead to me.

Bridget bit her lip.

"Clearly she heard us talking about her after she left. So, honestly, she had to have meant for me to share this with you all," Bridget said almost to herself. "This is pretty much a flex..." she seemed to admit to herself.

She turned her phone toward me. She had just been texted a photo. A picture of a damned hot young woman in a damned small white bikini, about our age, but leaning against some fairly new-looking car from the nineties.

Holy fuck. I realized that the woman was Mrs. Sarnioki... when she was about our age.

"Fuuuuck!" I gasped.

Everyone else at the table lunged to see the picture.

"Fuuuck!" was the consensus response.

"Thank God I never saw that picture before," Ben said almost absently.

"Why?" Gerry asked, before I could.

"She was my advisor," Ben said. "She had that great little couch in her office. I'd hang out there and do homework all the time. We'd talk a little. You guys know," he said, waving at Danny and Jo. "You did it too."

"And?" Danny asked, confused.

"Dude. If you had that picture in your head, would you have been able to get any homework done while hanging out in her office?"

Danny said nothing, but damned near blushed.

"Send me the photo," Gerry said, unwisely. He got a look from every female at the table. He also got covert thanks for being the one of us guys to take the heat for asking, before any of the rest of us dared to do the same.

"Fuck off, Perkins," Bridget laughed good-naturedly. "I'm going to delete this from my own damned phone, I'm sure not sending it to yours!"

She fiddled with her phone and put it away. But I was sure the fiddling had not included deleting the file.

Franny had apparently been stewing over something and it boiled out of her mouth. "Bridget, what happened to you?" she asked.

"Huh?" my buddy asked, confused.

"I have never seen you dress like that," Franny said firmly. "I'd remember. All these fucking guys would certainly remember." She looked at Gerry and Danny, who both nodded. "Looking at you, I cannot understand, for the life of me, why you never wore stuff like that!"

Bridget's flaming red hair was shorter than I had ever seen it, at least since freshman year. It was still shoulder length, and the habitually tight curls had been smoothed out to rich, rolling curves. It was a very, very good look on her. But the change Franny was talking about was her clothes.

Bridget wore a light green sundress, with an elastic ruched bodice, spaghetti straps over her shoulders, a fitted waist, and a skirt that ended at mid-calf. She obviously wore no bra, the tight-fitting top providing the only support, and the only support needed to absolutely showcase her unfairly incredible torso.

After four years of baggy hoodies and strap-down sports bras, I was pretty sure I was about the only dude in our class who even was aware she had tits.

"Seriously, Bridget," Ben chuckled. "I really wish I'd known you looked this way back in school!"

That cocky remark earned him three completely different glares from me, Beth, and Bridget.

"Dream on, Ben," Bridget said witheringly.

He did not wither. "I'd just have liked to know! Unlike some people, I could not have handled both you and Beth..."

Our four table companions all choked on their food in one way or another.

And with that, our conversation reverted to Alumni Day-type shit. Since Franklin White was not present to be offended, we all rehashed the way he and our mighty football team had choked away an undefeated season our senior year with the interception he had thrown on what should have been a running down.

But it was an awkward conversation. This could have been in part because of all that had been discussed before. Also, because Bridget had her hand in my lap. Right where everybody knew Beth had had hers a half hour earlier. It wasn't blatant, but she hardly hid it from the people at the table.

Also, Beth definitely had her hand back in Ben's lap, and it was clear her hand was probably more active than Bridget's.

Sex literally hung over our class's table. I was torn between wanting to spend more time hanging out with Ben and Beth, and wanting to cut the evening short so I could drag Bridget off to whatever hotel she wanted to be dragged off to and get to all the wonderful things the two of us were going to get up to eventually anyway.

Bridget and I had said not one word about having sex that evening. But from the moment we'd laid eyes on each other, I thought neither of us had had the slightest shadow of a doubt that was where we were going. I realized that I expected it like I expected to be breathing. It just was.

But all four of us hung in there and talked about school with these other people we had mostly never hung out with, enjoying talking about old times and enjoying teasing the shit out of the four of them. They mostly pretended to ignore our antics.

But not always. Beth had just said... something. I think it ended up being a metaphor for dick size. The four of us all took it that way, even Beth, though she may or may not have intended it in the first place. But we were all leaning in toward each other, giggling like randy toddlers.

"So are you guys going to fuck off and have a foursome after this, for Christ's sake?" Jo groaned.

Ben snorted. Possibly wistfully.

Most of us laughed.

I just shook my head. "Foursomes are mostly not as amazing as you'd think," I observed.

"Fuck. Off," Gerry said, challenge in his voice.

"No goddamned way," Franny added.

"I mean, I've never tried it with three girls," I said, defending my honesty. "I'd be intimidated really," I mused. "I'm not sure how I could manage to get three girls off all at the same time."

I got stares.

"And no way I'm trying to pull off three guys with one girl," I added firmly.

"Yeah," replied Ben, thinking about that idea. "Not gonna happen."

Beth looked like she had other opinions.

"You are trying to tell us all that you once had a fucking two guys, two girls four-way," Franny said, clearly done with my alleged bullshit.

Despite having an infrequent, irregular, but very much ongoing four-way situation back at USC, I declined to fully share that last bit with the group. It seemed a bit of a boast.

"Listen," I said simply, "two guys and two girls is awkward, confusing, and clumsy. You never know who you are supposed to be doing what with, or who is just watching at any moment. That sort of thing. It's like a square dance. It's all complicated and there is no connection with anyone," I said, suddenly warming to the new metaphor. "To be honest, foursomes would be a lot more successful with some old dude calling the moves for everybody."

I was treated like some kind of exotic snake, and the topic moved on hurriedly.

"Who?" Beth whispered to me, leaning across Bridget, who definitely looked like she wanted an answer too.

I cocked an eyebrow. "Kate and Ronnie," I whispered back. Neither of them knew Flip, so I didn't name-check him.

Bridget thought about that. "Kate set it up, right?"

"Yes," I said, surprised and impressed by the guess. "And how fucking well do you know them to be able to guess, anyway?"

"I know everybody, Alistaire," Bridget said simply.

Gerry suddenly interrupted some tale of Danny's. "This is fucking ridiculous. I cannot believe that I'm getting so goddamned horny, just from hanging out with Al Taylor and his gang!"

Jo turned to him instantly and said, "I know, right?"

Everybody laughed.

"I think we are my gang, but okay," Beth said drily.

Danny and Franny were looking at Gerry and Jo like they were betrayers.

I suddenly realized that Gerry and Jo were mostly just looking at each other.

Really?

Less than two minutes later, Gerry announced, "I think I'm about done for the evening. I might go ahead and grab an Uber." He was speaking to the table, but I could see him keeping his attention entirely on Jo next to him.

"You know, I'm beat as well," Jo agreed. "Mind sharing the ride?"

The two grinned at each other, though they tried to hide it.

As if.

Trying not to look hasty, the two stood and damned near ran out of the field house after a few token noises about seeing everybody at the fifth reunion.

"What. The fuck. Was that?" Franny asked acerbically.

"That was two people who suddenly decided they needed to find some privacy and do something with it," I chortled.

"They never did anything back here," Franny said, almost angrily. "They didn't even hang out together!"

"Making up for lost time can be a beautiful thing," Bridget said, looking at me.

"The whole world is psycho," Franny grumbled, folding her arms across her chest. Suddenly she rounded on Danny, sitting between her and me. "Don't you go getting any ideas about dragging me off for sex," she said heatedly.

"Me?" Danny meeped.

"Yes, you. Don't you go thinking you are going to fuck me tonight!"

Danny sagged in visble releif. "Thank God."

"What?" Franny yelped.

"I was afraid you were leaning that way. You know, into their sex field," Danny replied, jerking his thumb in our direction.

"Wait a minute," Franny said, suddenly icy instead of heated.

Danny was an idiot. The rest of us saw it already. Ben and I were wincing. Danny still hadn't clued into what he had said.

"You are relieved to have escaped sex with me?" Franny informed him of his misstep. "I am so hideous to you?"

Danny got it now, poor asshole. "Oh! Hey! Wait!" He yelped. Even in a relationship like he had with Franny, which is to say--none, no reasonable quality guy wants to piss off a woman that way. "I... I mean..."

His shoulders sagged.

"Look," he said, now speaking to all of us, not just Franny. "It's not like I'm some vegan who has to announce that fact before they give you their name, so I have kind of enjoyed it not being an issue tonight," he said cryptically. "But last year, I, um, I kind of Came Out."

"You're gay?" Franny gasped, her face an unreadable mess of thoughts and emotions.

Danny shrugged almost apologetically.

"I find that hard to believe," Bridget said with a magnificent cruelty I didn't think she had in her. "My experience suggests otherwise."

"Wait, you fucked him too?" Franny almost hissed.

"No, but I assure you, he wanted me to," Bridget laughed. "And he sure as fuck enjoyed what little we did do."

Danny looked at Bridget like she had shot his dog. Or more accurately, like she was in the process of shooting his dog. But he felt Franny still stewing beside him. He turned back to her.

"Look, I guess really I am, you know, bi. But I haven't been with a girl since I started dating guys. I was conflicted just now!"

Franny did not take this like Danny had hoped.

I was enjoying the fuck out of all this, to be ashamedly honest. Turns out Danny babbled as bad as me.

"So you do still like girls, but I'm some kind of particular horror show?" Franny demanded.

"No!" Danny yelped. "I mean, I could get it up for you, sure..."

"You. Could. Get. It. Up. For. Me?" Franny said icily.

"I've got it up for you right fucking now," Danny said, snapping at last. "I just am not sure I remember what to fucking do, so I was hoping to avoid the question!"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure you'd remember quick," Bridget dug in the knife further.

Both of them glared at her.

"You are so full of bullshit, Danny Thompkins," Franny almost yelled. She was keeping it down, though. We all were. None of us wanted Sanfilipo to reappear to give us demerits for Disruptive Behavior. Then she sort of spluttered for a moment. And her hand shot out into Danny's crotch!

She froze like that.

"You are hard," she said, bemused. "Stupid hard, actually. Feels like a piece of broom handle in there."

"He gets that way," Bridget continued to be evil.

"Franny," Danny said in a lightly strangled voice. "Please! Either take your hand off my cock, or tell me why you still have it on there when you were so adamant my junk was a no-go just five minutes ago."

Franny yanked her hand away and bit a fingertip.

"Sorry. Look," she said in a low but still quite intense voice, "I was getting as horny as everyone else from the antics of Beth's Sex Gang over there..."

"See? I told you we were my gang," Beth chirped.

"Shh!" Bridget hushed her.

"But when Gerry and Jo just jumped up and vanished to Humpville with no preliminaries, I was feeling like I was about to be pushed into something, and you were the only available guy to push me," Franny went on. "And I don't like being pushed. So I pushed back."

"I wasn't pushing! I didn't think I was pushing! I was afraid you were going to push me, and I honestly didn't know what to think about that!" Danny protested.

They sort of stared at each other for a moment.

I was about to die laughing, but it would have broken whatever weird spell these two were under, and that seemed unfair.

And much less interesting.

I was not alone in that calculus, and all four of us, even Beth the blabbermouth and Bridget Torquemada, just shut up and watched.

"Afraid because I am hideous," Franny said glumly.

"What the fuck?" Danny said through clenched teeth. "I have always thought you were a total babe."

Please note. I find Franny to be perfectly fine looking, but hardly a total babe. Different tastes...

"But you," he ground on, "never let me even into the Friend Zone, much less out of it!"

"Bullshit," Franny said, sounding genuinely frustrated. "I crushed on you so hard for two years."

"Ha!"

"It's true," Beth observed casually. "Her drooling over you was a running joke, Danny."

The two of them stared at each other.

"We misread each other back then, and we did it again this evening?" Franny asked, sounding bewildered now.

"So we were both actually horny yet scared," Danny said slowly.

"But neither of us was pushing for anything," Franny replied, just as slowly.

"So neither of us has anything to worry about," Danny said, even slower.

"Just a mutual condition we could... help each other with," Franny finished for him.

Danny just gulped.

"Kiss me," Franny demanded.

"Here? Now?"

"Yes. I want to be sure you aren't actually gay," Frannie said.

Damn, she was insecure...

Danny stared at her, then lifted his hand to her chin, pulled it toward him slightly, and kissed the shit out of her for about fifteen seconds. Then Franny pushed him away swiftly.

"What?" Danny asked her. "Wasn't it good enough?"

Franny looked around desperately. "Sorry! I thought I saw Sanfilippo again," she said, flustered. Then she grinned. "I graduated with eight demerits sitting on my account. Three more for PDA and I'd be stuck here sweeping the floors for four hours tomorrow before I could go back to college!"

We all burst out laughing at that. Big credit to Franny for pulling off a joke in these circumstances.

The four of us were laughing so hard that it took us a minute to realize that Danny and Franny had quieted and were looking at each other. They then turned to look at us.

"In my experience," Ben drawled, "you get a car much faster when you order Uber Comfort instead of UberX..."

And just like that, both of them were gone.

"Alistaire, you have successfully made four people fuck by remote control," Bridget laughed.

"Me? We are Beth's gang," I replied hotly.

"Nice try," Beth retorted. "I was just fucking around. We are all your harem, dude."

"Not me!" Ben laughed.

"I don't know," Bridget said silkily. Ben didn't know her nearly well enough. She was on a roll, and he was in trouble. "You were getting naked with Alistaire for sex almost as often as I was for a while there before graduation, dude. Sure sounds like you are a part of his harem to me!"

Fuck. I was in trouble. How the fuck did the turn of events come around?

"Number one," I said firmly. "I do not have a harem. Number two, Ben sure as fuck is not a part of it."

That didn't come out right...

Ben was just speechless with horror.

Beth grabbed him and held him in what had to be a gratifying manner. But then she spoke. "Oh, come on, Alistaire! Ben can be in your harem! I mean you don't actually get to fuck Carla anymore, but she is still definitely in. And Jenn is practically engaged for crying out loud."

"24 hours," I interrupted.

"Huh?" asked Bridget, momentarily derailed from this horrifying conversation.

"In 24 hours, Jenn really will be engaged," I said. Both Beth and Bridget lunged for their phones.

"No!" I said firmly. "I swore to secrecy. It can't get back to her."

"You just met Pete today, and he's telling you, of all men, that he is going to get off his ass and finally propose?" Beth said wonderingly.

"We found that we have a lot of common ground," I said loftily.

"A lot of big-titted common ground called Jennland," Beth teased.

"This is my point," Bridget, my alleged best friend, drove on. "Like Carrie always says, any of us could be married even, and still be part of your harem forever, even though physically we'd be totally out of the question. Nope, Ben is in," she said, making a ruling.

"Oh my god," Ben moaned.

"Don't worry, my most excellent concubine," Beth said, her hand suddenly back in Ben's lap. "Before this night is over, your sultana will ease any worries as to your masculinity."

Ben perked up at her words. Or her sudden handjob. Whichever.

I just glared at Bridget, the hottest pain in the ass in the universe. "You are such an asshole," I told her. "You will make this up to me tonight!"

Bridget looked at me, sparkling challenge in her eyes.

Shit.

"Oh fuck, I'm sorry," I started to apologize.

"For what?" Bridget snorted.

Cue the babble. "I mean, I just made a pretty presumptuous assumption there. That we would... I mean, my earlier plans, with Beth and Ben were... I mean we weren't explicit about them, but they were discussed indirectly pretty directly, and..."

"And you would prefer to stick with those plans?" Bridget asked, deadpan.

"No!" I yelped. "I mean, sorry guys, I... but..." I went on, now babbling to a grinning Beth and Ben. Fuck them, they were not my concern. "Bridget, I mean I saw you, and my mind just blanked. All I knew was that I was going to... wanted to... I mean..."

"Shut up, Alistaire," Bridget hushed me. "The second I laid eyes on you, I knew I was going to be with you tonight."

"Bro, the second I laid eyes on Bridget, I knew you were going to fuck her," Beth added 'helpfully'.

"Well, if I have to be part of Alistaire's harem, I was wondering if we shouldn't revisit the foursome discussion from earlier," Ben chirped. Son of a bitch had rallied impressively.

Both Bridget and Beth turned their heads toward Ben with the sort of slow, eerie magic of stone gargoyles. He quailed. Understandably.

"Not a chance, dude," I growled possessively.

Bridget wordlessly cocked her head at my words and especially my tone, but did not take what had to be an uncomfortable gaze off poor Ben.

Beth just laughed at Ben. "No hope, Big Guy. It remains to be seen if you even have the stamina to satisfy just little old me without help."

That was the first time I ever heard a girl who, um, knew me, call another guy Big Guy. Ben deserved it though, I supposed.

Bridget released Ben from her Medusa's gaze, and turned back to me. "So I must make it up to you tonight for my temerity?" she grinned my way in mock submission. Bridget never once went in for being bossed by me.

We looked at each other. I could see right into her soul, and I could always feel her looking right into my soul as well.

"Maybe I should get started making it up to you as soon as possible, then," she said, her voice suddenly husky.

"So, Uber Comfort, right Ben?" was all I said.

"That'll do it," he grinned.

"Want to share the ride?" Bridget asked perfunctorily.

Beth waved the idea off. "You two get with the program. Ben and I probably ought to say goodbye to Sarnioki one more time. I want to bust her chops for that picture!"

"How are you going to do that?" I asked.

"I dunno yet," Beth said, suddenly thoughtful.

"We should just ask her to join the two of us," Ben joked evilly.

"You're awful!" Beth laughed at Ben. "What if she says yes?" she added teasingly.

"After seeing that picture, even after 30 years, I'd be down," Ben said firmly.

"Come on, Alistaire," Bridget said, holding my arm. "I don't want to see Mr. Sarnioki kicking Ben's ass."

"I personally would love to see that," I said smoothly, "but I'd rather be wherever you are, Bridget, so..."

We tried to behave in the Uber.

We really tried to behave.

We did not behave.

Our driver was a little old Arab lady of, like, 50 or something, and we still did not behave.

All our clothes stayed on. We managed to give her that.

That, and a 50% tip. She deserved it.

We bailed out of her car at the Holiday Inn. There had been no more rooms for the Alumni Day special rate at the Hyatt this year, and we saw it as fate that we had both booked at the same alternate hotel. We were both moving fast out of the car and left the driver with a chorus of, "Bye! Sorry!"

"What floor are you on?" I asked Bridget breathlessly as we tried not to sprint for the elevators.

"Five," she said. "You?"

"Seven."

"Five it is," she smirked, hitting that button and only that button as we entered the elevator.

Satan himself, in his guise as two twelve year-old girls, entered the elevator after us.

Fuck. And I had never made out in an elevator...

This cheap-ass elevator was slow enough to have given us time to fully try it out, too. But the devil's spawn who followed us in were going to a higher floor than we, and we really did have to behave this time.

In my impatience, I plucked her key card from Bridget's fingers... and promptly had to swipe it three times to get the door open. Bridget gave me shit for my clumsiness the whole time, right up until the millisecond the door clicked closed. Then she instantly applied liberal amounts of Bridget to my face and the rest of me.

I simply pushed her back against the door and applied an even larger helping of myself to her entire body.

Turns out, you can have a lot of fun, reacquainting yourself with an old friend's body, even without removing any clothes. All four of our hands roamed freely, almost frantically over each other, tracing, squeezing, caressing, pinching, even tickling a little. Bridget did most of the tickling, but she knew how to do it without making me unhappy.

But her clothes? Despite the awesome new look for Bridget? They had to go.

I ran my hands over her deliciously bare shoulders and curled my fingers under the spaghetti straps of her dress. Bridget instantly lowered her arms to her sides so there was nothing to prevent me from sliding those straps off to the side and down. As I tugged them lower, I leaned back to enjoy the view of the world's best breasts being peeled into view.

Oh, God.

The elastic of the dress held it up at her hips, and I smoothly pushed it down past the elegant curve of her ass.

"God damn, Bridget," I breathed in amazement. "How the fuck are you even better looking than before?"

She chuckled. "People's bodies mature, fill out, you know. Especially at our age. You should see Petra..."

I had not seen Petra since graduation. But she was not my focus.

"That's not my issue," I said, still drinking in her almost naked form. "I just don't understand how you, of all women, could possibly have become better-looking than you were before!"

She blushed. How could we both be suddenly awkward in this situation?

I looked at her some more, because looking at Bridget always helped everything. I cocked an eyebrow.

"Are you always wearing panties like this these days?" I asked. There wasn't much to Bridget's underwear, but what there was was extremely... arresting.

She blushed again. "I... uh, I was certain that you were not coming this year. I hadn't heard anything. But I was..." she sighed. "I was daydreaming about you maybe being here after all when I got dressed this morning."

"You could have asked," I said slowly.

"I almost did, a couple of times while I was still deciding whether I could manage to come see Mrs. Sarnioki one last time myself," Bridget admitted slowly. "But... I did not expect that you would come. And as long as I didn't know either way, I could dream. You could have asked me, you know!" she finished, suddenly piercing me with a grin at odds with her previous hesitancy.

"I, uh, had pretty much the same calculus in my head," I said, realizing it to be true.

"Seriously, though," I went on, shaking off the uncharacteristic sentimentality that had seized both of us. "You often wear underwear like this nowadays?"

"There are some people who appreciate that fact now and then," Bridget grinned defiantly.

I bit my lip and stared some more, experiencing a brief flash of something... jealousy, I supposed. It was not a familiar sensation. "Well, I certainly appreciate the fuck out of these things," I said firmly. "But I believe that I'm going to take them off now, so I can replace their gusset with my face!"

"Oh ho!" Bridget laughed, then she put her hand on my chest and spoke in a much lower voice. "If you want to, you may. But I'll just let you know something. The crotch of these panties was specifically engineered to make taking them off unnecessary for all sorts of activities."

I was dimly aware of the concept of crotchless panties but had never encountered a pair in my life. But here I was, not having the chance to fully appreciate the experience yet, and I was already instantly a fan.

"However, your always excellent plans will have to wait, panties on or off," Bridget went on firmly. "I was sort of dreaming about the world's most wonderful cock when I put these on, and I am going to suck it now." She foreclosed any argument on who went first by pushing me away from where I had her still pinned to the door and turning me to lean against the blank wall in the short entryway of the room. She knelt as she did so.

As she tugged my fly open, I bemusedly loosened my tie to take it off. I was not entirely happy about Bridget pre-empting my plans, fantastic as I knew the pre-emption was going to be, but I knew better than to argue. "There are bigger cocks in this world, you know," I said, uncomfortable for some reason with Bridget's evaluation, despite my own uncharacteristic thoughts a moment before.

"I am aware, though not first-hand" Bridget admitted, taking her time to peel my underwear down, eyes fixed on my cock which was absolutely on board with her going first. "But I refuse to believe that there are any better than this," she said firmly, grasping my shaft and slipping me swiftly and deeply into her mouth.

"Oh god," I gasped at the sudden, ecstatic sensation of being in Bridget in any way. It took me less than thirty seconds to be forcefully informed that Bridget had forgotten nothing, and learned some more, about sucking cock.

I stared down mesmerized at her dazzling mammaries, exquisitely framing her beautiful face from below as she looked up sweetly into my eyes, my cock sliding in and out of her lips. It should have been the picture of submission, but with this least submissive of all women, I was the one in thrall.

We were both quiet for a bit as Bridget proceeded. Her eyes held mine in an iron grip the whole time while her lips held my cock in a delicate caress that was just as unbreakable, her tongue doing magical things. I shuddered.

Please let me last longer for this, of all blowjobs...

I shuddered again, and Bridget let me slip from her mouth. She held the root of my cock firmly, but she wiped her lips.

"You aren't coming like this, Alistaire," she said with soft finality.

"What?"

You know I love the taste of your cum, dude," she went on as if thinking to herself. "But tonight... tonight I'm going to need you inside me whenever you orgasm. It's weird, but I just need to feel your release inside my core." She stood up and kissed me softly. "I hope you understand, because I don't think I do."

"I don't think I do either," I laughed softly. "But you know I will always give you whatever you need, regardless." I kissed her back. "Still, I hope that you don't mind sometimes coming when my dick is not inside you, because that shit is about to happen right now!"

Bridget snorted in laughter and enthusiasm as I picked her up.

Wow, I really had been putting in the work in the gym. Bridget was certainly no lighter than she used to be, but I never could lift her this easily before.

I did not look the gift horse in the mouth, and just carried my smiling friend over to the big king-sized bed. I plopped her down lengthwise on the mattress, and she actually bounced. Nearly-naked Bridget bouncing onto a mattress was a sight. I stared down at her, those panties framing my target.

Those panties...

They were made of black silk and were mostly, um, straps. The front, right above her crotch was a heart-shaped patch of red lace. An array of shiny black satin straps radiated from the heart, one straight up a couple of inches to the waist band, which was thicker, almost an inch. The others on each side fanned out to two vertical straps on each hip.

"Bridget," I said helplessly. "Sorry to delay things, but I just gotta say that these panties are nuts. I've never seen anything like them. I've never heard of anything like them!"

She shook her head in amusement. "You are so marvelous, Alistaire! How are you, of all male creatures, so sheltered and innocent?"

"What?"

"I know you don't watch porn, but dammit, don't you at least check out a Victoria's Secret catalog now and then?" she asked, smiling up at me.

I looked down at what was lying before me. "Why would I, of all dudes, want to see boobs that I can't touch?"

"You are always pretty enthusiastic about them in the movies. Britney says you were even pretty on board with her showing hers in her new series."

Shit. How the fuck did they get Britney's number for the chat? There were only a couple of suspects...

"Boobs that add atmosphere to a story are awesome," I admitted. "But just pictures or no plot? It doesn't seem worth the time."

I reached down and traced one of the silken straps. "But about these panties," I murmured. "These are so fucking hot."

"I really hate to derail what you are about to do," Bridget said, sitting up swiftly, "but there is a matching bra in my suitcase..."

So this is what a heart attack felt like...

"Bridget, I am torn," I said desperately. "On the one hand, I have some urgent business to attend to for you... and me. On the other hand, you are derailing me!"

"Turn around," Bridget grinned. She popped up from the bed. "Don't worry, I remember my exact position," she said. "No peeking," she added, and I heard her move across the room. I heard a suitcase zipper.

"Ditch your shirt while I'm putting this on," Bridget said behind me. "You look silly. Delicious, but silly with that ass peeking out from under your shirttails." Then there was an inordinately long pause. What sounds there were were maddeningly quiet.

Why the fuck were we wasting time putting on underwear?

"Turn around," she said.

I did.

Oh.

That was why we were wasting time putting on underwear.

The bra was indeed quite similar to the panties, in that it was mostly... no, all straps. For a garment with no fabric, only ribbon and tiny silver buckles, it did an admirable job of supporting and showcasing the world's best breasts. It did an even more admirable job by doing so without concealing her nipples in any way.

"Holy fuck," I gargled. She looked...

"Bridget, you look..."

She laughed. But she also preened.

"Fucking hell," I breathed. "I know this wouldn't protect shit, but why can't I help but imagine this design as some elven thief's leather armor in D&D?"

"Really?" she said, turning to the room's mirror to see herself. "I kind of saw it as assassin's gear when I bought it.

"Oh god," I gulped. That was a much better mental image.

Bridget could not help but look at herself in the mirror a little more. I didn't blame her. I stopped looking at her in the mirror, and just looked at her directly.

"Oh god," I gulped again.

"What now?" she asked.

"I'm just seeing the back of those panties for the first time," I groaned.

So many perfect straps, and nothing else. A showcase for the ages.

"You act like you've never seen sexy underwear before," she grimaced. But she kept preening for me.

"I have, though nothing that's a fantasy in and of itself like this," I said. "But honestly, until now the only thing I've ever really studied about underwear was the best way to remove it."

"This set is hard to get on with all the straps, but it comes off easy," Bridget said, reaching for the bra.

"Don't you dare!" I almost screamed. "The things I'm going to do with my elven assassin..."

I doubt Bridget had had any intention of taking off that lingerie, given my earlier reaction. She is awesome. "For the record," she said with a smirk, "my assassin character is a tiefling, not an elf. But I was thinking of her when I saw this set and had to buy it."

"That is your cosplay?" I yelped, unsure whether I had heard the most awesome or most horrible thing ever.

"As if!" Bridget said hotly. "And for the record, while I have some other really cool collections, you are the first person to see me in this particular set."

"I live a privileged life."

"Damn straight you do," Bridget snorted. "I'll admit I did wear this on a date a week or so ago, under my clothes of course, but the guy completely failed to earn so much as a look at it," she added sourly.

I suddenly laughed nearly hysterically.

"What the fuck, dude?"

"We did try cosplay D&D that one time, remember?" I said, holding my sides. "With Ben, Adam, and Tres? Can you imagine if you had shown up for that afternoon wearing that?"

Bridget thought about that. "I'd have been arrested for a quadruple homicide. Death by heart attack."

"I would have survived," I corrected her.

"No, you would not have," she said tartly. "That afternoon was during the winter. You were still a virgin!"

"Quadruple homicide," I agreed. "But I'm thinking cerebral hemorrhage."

I walked over to her and began to run my hands over her body wordlessly. I plucked at the straps, slid them a hair this way and that. I tugged her nipples, making Bridget hiss. I moved to see as I squeezed her ass. How could her ass look any better than it did naked? But this set of underwear kind of accomplished the feat.

Bridget returned my caresses, and between us, any relaxation of our arousal from all the banter was removed.

"For the record, you've gotten better looking naked, too," Bridget breathed into my ear.

I heard that. Better, not great. I was happy to take that from Bridget. Other girls felt the desire to tell me I looked studly or some shit. But she just told me the truth... with all the enthusiasm I could have asked for.

I trembled slightly, then embraced her and pulled her hard against me. Her hand, which was clasping my cock, was trapped between us. I kissed her deeply but briefly. "Back on the bed," I growled. "You said you remember your exact position. I have the first of numerous orgasms, dick-fueled and, in this case otherwise, to deliver."

Bridget spun out of my grip and dashed to the bed, flopping back on it once more. She was not in the exact same position, but since she was closer to the middle instead of along the edge, that gave her room to let her legs spread invitingly. I pounced after her, landing between her knees.

"You were not kidding," I murmured, getting my first really good look at the crotch of her panties, or the lack thereof. There were only two thin straps that nestled against her thighs, framing the closely trimmed and neatly edged patch of crimson pubes adorning the gates to paradise. "There is absolutely no need to remove those panties."

"Remind me what you can do, Alistaire," Bridget said simply.

And so I did. Not immediately, of course. I had to tease her for a while first. That's part of my process after all. Also, I really wanted to play with those panties a little more. But I did not tease as long as I had planned. Bridget's aroma swiftly overpowered me, and I leaned in for a taste.

She reacted to my tongue's first caress like electricity had shot through her, and that reaction had me losing control and simply devouring her. Like a feedback loop, my efforts and her reactions drove us both rapidly wild. I desperately held to what little control I had as my tongue and a few fingers reacquainted themselves with her favorite buttons. I used those scraps of control that I retained to enforce gentleness on myself, but my pace ran free, unchecked.

It was an effort to keep my eyes mostly trained upward toward Bridget's face, and the intervening tits in that bra thing, because my eyes kept tryig to roll up in my head and close. But I really wanted to see an orgasm on this woman's face for the first time in forever.

I was richly rewarded in that desire. Her eyes had held mine right up until the moment of her release, then they ripped away, her head tilting backward. A blush rippled across her throat and breasts, and she moaned loudly, her hips pushing up against my face.

I just kept tonguing her clit in circles, caring for and nurturing that orgasm as it went on and on. I didn't want it to end. And when it did, I kept going, searching for the next within her.

But she shoved my head away... a little.

"For fuck's sake, Alistaire! I came already. Have mercy," Bridget gasped.

"You have another in you, ready to go," I argued. I knew her so well.

"I do, but I want to keep it on deck for when I feel you coming in me," she panted. "Now. Come up here and let me have that best of all cocks!" she tugged at my shoulders.

I shuffled upward like lightning. I should have embraced her. Kissed her. Teased, then gently entered her with the tenderness and emotion I felt. I did not. My need took me, and I took her. My cock sought her dripping entrance and dove inside. We both cried out in low voices as I sank inside her.

Bridget's hands clasped my ass and pulled hard. I was already fully inside her, so I pulled back against her grasp. Then I slid back in once more.

Again and again, I drove into my tiefling assassin. I kept my chest pressed to hers, reveling in the feel of her hard nipples. They felt amazing stroking me, even among the tiny buckles and straps of that bra.

We kissed and then stopped over and over again as I thrust. There were no changes of pace, pauses for intimacy, rest, or to prolong the experience. We were both driven by a need to simply share fulfillment together once more.

And we very much did, but not until we had taxed each other's considerable aerobic capacity.

Beneath me, Bridget moaned in a low tone, while I grunted a tortured high note with each thrust. A final whine ripping from my throat accompanied a titanic rush of jizz up and into Bridget. She felt my eruption and her low moan rose in pitch to match mine, and she thrashed beneath me.

That orgasm felt like it had lasted an eternity, but was over all too soon.

We came at last to rest. I refused to get off her, just shifting my weight to the right enough to brace most of it on her thigh and my arm on the mattress beside her, allowing me to keep my cock inside her. It softened, though only a little. How much had it expended, for it to relax even a smidge when I was with Bridget?

Bridget tapped my shoulder at last, after a minute of delicious, semi-conscious intimacy. "Roll over, Alistaire. I need to pee," she chuckled.

I flopped over with a groan and watched happily the sight of her rising and walking off to the bathroom. She was not long and returned to stand at the foot of the bed. I raised my head with some effort to drink her in.

Then she started taking off the bra!

"Hey! Wait a minute," I started to object.

"Fucking in this was astronomically more fun than I had expected," Bridget chuckled. "And I had expected a lot. But I sense that we are about to get athletic here, and this is way too expensive to risk tearing it!"

She made quite the production of removing the set, putting paid to any lingering softness between my legs in the process. Then she posed before me, totally naked for the first time that evening.

"Yeah," I sighed. "That is better anyway."

Maybe...

We fucked over and over that evening, trying every position we knew, especially the ones we had each learned in the years since we had last coupled. Mostly, we had learned the same ones, but we each had some new tricks to bring to the table. There was plenty of other glorious activity as well. Bridget blew me one time so well that we got carried away and I almost failed to follow her dictat. I had only just pulled free from her mouth and plunged barely an inch or so into her pussy before I had involuntarily let fly.

Later, we rested and relaxed together, sharing a half bottle of wine from the minibar. We drank the wine more for the novelty of being able to do so legally than from a desire to get tipsy. That, and we were definitely thirsty. I found myself lost in thought as I caressed Bridget's body. I hate making comparisons between girls. It isn't fair, and it is genuinely pointless anyway. But right now, with Bridget, it made perfect sense to me somehow.

The breasts I was caressing, tracing the outlines of, were the best I had ever beheld, I was sure. Better than Mary or Maddie's. Better than Sloane's. They were honestly better in absolute terms than Britney's bespoke crafted ornaments.

My hand slipped down and over her hip. I smiled at Bridget as my hand tremblingly squeezed her ass. She simply closed her eyes and sipped the last of her wine, enjoying my touch. This backside, with or without that amazing set of panties which I kind of thought might change my worldview, was similarly the best. It felt better even than Tish's, a realization that amazed me. And it looked better even than Beth's, which should have been impossible. I briefly tried picturing Beth's backside in those panties of Bridget's, but I could not do it. Honestly, the attempted image just faded away from my mind.

I carefully avoided comparing the flavor of Bridget's nectar with Jenn's, because, well, I didn't want to...

I idly thought about cataloging every part of this woman I lay with, but decided it was pointless. There simply was no one better. Not only in her particulars, breasts, face, waist, hair, legs, ass... but in the overall package, Bridget was in my book the most desirable being in creation. Hotter than Becca. Hotter than Nancy.

Hotter than Carrie...

I shook my head ruefully as I realized that I was lying here naked with the apex of femininity, thinking about other women. Well, trying and failing to think of other women. I abandoned that ludicrous gambit. Bridget needed more kisses. More a lot of things.

Never had I managed such a display of stamina as I did that evening. But eventually, I needed a break. Bridget was happy to pause as well and we cuddled up together on the bed for a while, pulling the ruined covers up over us to warm our exhausted, slightly sore bodies as I held her in my arms.

*

I awoke with an utterly new sensation: a warm body in my arms.

I realized that Bridget and I had slept together. I had never ever, with any woman, actually slept in the same bed or even room. We had also accomplished an impossible feat, spooning through a full night's sleep without requiring the amputation of one of the big spoon's arms. I don't know how it happened, and I sure have never been able to repeat it.

But here I was, awakening gently in a strange bed, with the most wonderful looking, feeling, and smelling naked form imaginable in my arms. You can bet your life I had morning wood, and its shaft was nestled firmly in the cleft of Bridget's ass.

A beam of bright morning light was lancing across the room through that small gap there seems to be in the curtains of every hotel room on Earth. There must be big money to be saved by not using three inches more fabric...

Anyway, I saw the light was about to reach Bridget's face, so I felt no compunction about waking her up in hopefully a more pleasant fashion than being blinded. I caressed my upper arm along her stomach, up to grasp a slowly rising and falling breast. I cupped it, squeezing gently, then I circled the nipple with my middle fingers. I nuzzled my face into the mass of crimson hair and kissed her neck.

Yeah, my cock insisted it should get to do some caressing as well, rubbing up and down in minuscule arcs along her backside.

Bridget stirred and her hand rose to clasp mine where it toyed with her breast. She murmured and turned her head. We kissed gently.

"Wow," she said softly, opening her eyes. "We fell asleep. I... I never actually slept with anyone before."

"I was just realizing the same thing," I replied, kissing her lightly again.

Bridget glanced at her watch, the only thing she wore. "Wow, we need to get moving," she grunted, but not stirring from my arms yet.

"Neither of us has to leave for a good while," I objected, seeing the time on her watch when she did.

"Exactly," Bridget said, stretching with her free arm. "But I feel a magnificent erection behind me, and I just woke up from a marvelous dream about you that has me wet and wanting to make that dream a reality. We need to get moving," she repeated, but this time with a leer.

If possible, I got harder.

In perfect, unspoken coordination, Bridget rotated in my arms onto her back, while I climbed over her, moving between her long legs. We kissed long and hard like that. I managed to deviate from our mutual aim enough to caress the breast I had not played with earlier, and Bridget stroked my back, but that was all the foreplay either of us wanted or needed. We both craved being together fully as soon as possible.

My cock entered her smoothly, with no fumbling, and in but a few exploratory thrusts, I was filling her to my root. Her hands went to my ass and directed my movements. We were like a single entity as we moved, answering each other's calls to action. As ecstatic as we both were, we were virtually silent in the easy, amazing coupling. I was lost, almost mindlessly, in her eyes.

Then something made me purr to Bridget, "Roll over."

Her eyes flashed in agreement, then we smoothly shifted arms and legs in accord until in moments Bridget was lying face down and I was again between her legs. Rather than pulling her up onto hands and knees, I just lay atop her ass and back and eased myself back into her pussy.

"Yessss," Bridget hissed as I slid into her depths and began to thrust once more. I rose and fell atop her, her body not just accepting my entry, but guiding my movements. I rode her like that as we both drew toward what would obviously be a shattering crescendo.

The finish did not fail to meet the expectations. Still, Bridget was uncharacteristically nearly silent as her body spasmed beneath me, hips rolling, and her cavity crushing around me. My motion became ragged, and my back arched up almost painfully as what felt like my very soul poured through our point of connection and into Bridget.

We froze as we each slid from the peak.

My soul.

My soul...

As the ecstasy of my orgasm fled, I saw tears drip from my face onto Bridget's neck, and I pounded the mattress beside her with an angry fist.

"What is it, Alistaire?" Bridget asked, but I could see wetness in her eyes as well.

"I can't... this... it's..." I struggled for words, seldom an issue for me. "Do you realize that this is the exact position we used to say goodbye that last time, right before graduation? I think we did this subconsciously, to mirror that beautiful moment," I sobbed. "But this isn't a beautiful moment, Bridget. This sucks. I. Cannot. Lose. You. Again."

"It does suck," Bridget cried in response. "But you are in California, Alistaire. That is your future. And I can't go there to be with you. It will be years... I hope. Hell, I pray it will be decades! While Mom is still alive and fighting, I can't live so far away from her. She needs me, sometimes at the drop of a hat!"

"No," I refused gutturally. What felt like hundreds of thoughts, conscious and subconscious, about my life spun into place. Frustrations, aspirations, disappointments, opportunities, misbeliefs, and disillusionments became clear.

"Here is what I'm going to do," I said, my despair receding for the moment in the face of my sudden inspiration, though it was still hanging over me. "Bridget, I only have two courses left to fulfill my graduation requirements. Two. As it stands right now, I had planned to take one of them this summer, then take the last this fall along with two classes that just looked fun."

"How are you ready to graduate early?" she asked, distracted.

"I've taken a heavy load every semester, along with summer classes. Plus, I may not have had your scores and your grades back in New England, but I took more APs than anybody. All that matters is that I can pull it off. And there is an alternative to that fall course I need available this summer. I think I'm going to take that class too and be done and dusted by mid-August," I said, suddenly resolved. "The next week, I will be in Philadelphia, Bridget. I'll get an apartment near Penn, and lean on every string my mother can pull to get myself a job there. I'll be there to support you the rest of the way through Penn. After you graduate, I can decide one way or the other on law school. We can have a life together, Bridget. Together!"

"If you'll have me," I said, my nearly megalomaniacal voice growing small.

Bridget chuckled to herself. "I won't dignify that worry with a response. The others always say I am anyway, but I really will be queen of your harem now."

"Bullshit," I said heatedly.

"I know, I know," Bridget rolled her eyes. "You don't have a harem."

"Maybe I don't, maybe I really do," I said firmly. "I'm told by everybody it is a permanent condition in some senses. But Bridget," I went on, punctuating my words with firm movements of my somehow still hard cock, "I don't need a harem. I don't want a harem. I still want my friends, but not like that. I need you, Bridget. All I want is you. I want to have you, and I need to have only you, do you understand me? And for the record, I want you to have only me."

"Alistaire," Bridget responded, not confused but hardly certain, "I'm not sure I... where is this..."

"My father told me that I would know this weird, admittedly wonderful, part of my life would be happily over when I encountered the woman whose soul was the other half of mine. That's you, babe. We are everything together, and so much less apart. I obviously met you long ago, but for the first time, I see an opportunity and a belief that I can make it happen!"

She stared up at me over her shoulder, eyes wide as an anime character.

"Please tell me you agree," I begged almost desperately. No, absolutely desperately. "Tell me we can be us and just us."

"Alistaire," Bridget said slowly.

In my fevered imagination, she had agreed instantly...

"Oh wow," I moaned in apology. "I'm so sorry. It's different for you! But we..."

"What are you talking about, different?"

"I'm suddenly thinking, realizing about... I mean... well, Petra, for instance," I finished lamely. "I mean, I only want to be with women, which means I only want to be with you. But you have some... other interests. I guess it's only fair. I mean, if you want... need to have..." I bumbled to an awkward pause.

"You just want to keep your threesome options open," Bridget sort of chuckled.

That caught me short. "Um... no. I'm finding it hard to believe myself, but until you said that, the idea of hot bisexual guest stars had not occurred to me. And now, while it has a certain inescapable appeal, it is not what I seek. If you need that in some way, large or small, I can..."

"Alistaire! Shut up, you asshole," Bridget interrupted my babbling. "I have not so much as kissed a girl since four days before we graduated, when Petra and I finally managed to close the deal with just the two of us."

"What? I didn't know about that!"

"A girl needs some secrets," Bridget grinned. "And for the record, I am pretty sure that Petra hasn't been with another girl since then either... except once when there was a guy involved too."

"So I am being told to relax?" I almost sniffled.

Ignoring my question, Bridget asked quietly, "What size is your bed in your apartment in LA, Alistaire?"

"It's a king-sized," I admitted sadly. "But it will be empty now. Just me," I went on with a weak smile I hoped was reassuring.

"Bullshit," Bridget said almost humorously.

"I meant what I said, Bridget," I began.

"Alistaire, it will not be empty," Bridget said rather heatedly. "In 14 days, I have my last exam of the semester. In sixteen days, I will arrive in Los Angeles with some clothes, my computer, and all my sexy lingerie. Until then, your bed can be, better be, empty!"

I smiled stupidly, said even more stupidly, "What?"

"Mom is in great health right now. I can roll the dice to be an expensive plane ticket away for a few months. To paraphrase Meg Ryan in that You've Got Mail rom-com, when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as humanly possible."

We later figured out the line came from When Harry Met Sally. And it was Billy Crystal. Stand down.

"But you have an internship all this summer," I mumbled. "That's important. I can... we can wait until..."

"It is a remote job, asshole," Bridget snapped, using our favorite pet name for each other. "I can do the work from your desk, and then you can do me on it as soon as I log off each day."

"We are going to fight over the kitchen table, because I don't even have room for a desk and I will have a gruesome amount of homework," I giggled, "But I love the way you think."

"I love the way you think, Alistaire."

"Bridget, to be clear," I said slowly, these ideas still coalescing in my mind, "I am not, um, 'proposing' anything permanent. Not yet. It wouldn't look good for either of us when we start our careers to be there that young. Jenn is a psycho. But I am desiring a firm 'deal memo', as any good Californian, even an apparently temporary one like me, would put it. I love you, and I want to keep you."

Oops. The word just slipped out, and I saw Bridget freeze.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Everything was going so well.

"I love you too, Alistaire," Bridget said, her face blossoming in the most beautiful smile ever smiled. "I've known that since school. I even considered admitting it to myself consciously, at least a time or two. I never let myself because I just couldn't ever have you. But I've known."

I thought of how Bridget had always been there for me. How I had always kept her in the back of my mind, or even the front, even at some damned inappropriate moments.

I kissed her. Things progressed once more.

"Well... ungh... just like that..." Bridget grunted. "I guess... ohhhhhhh... I guess I will be taking the late train. I'm not stoooooopping in the middle of this!"

"Cool," I gasped in reply, thrusting into her at the most furious pace I could summon after all we had done the last twelve hours. "There are two later flights back to LA on my airline."

We soon realized that we wanted to shift out of our 'goodbye position', and I rolled over onto my back. Bridget straddled me, guiding me into her. But she did not sit up and ride me, instead lying intimately atop me. Sometimes she would slowly rock her hips, sometimes I would push my cock up into her languidly. We kissed and caressed each other throughout, celebrating the sudden oneness we were seizing.

Our mutual climaxes came on slowly, and when they arrived, we each experienced a warm, gentle flood of hormones and emotions as my cock pulsed languorously in her depths, rather than the shattering explosion that usually signaled the climax of one of our couplings.

It wasn't an end this time. It was a beginning.

But our first true lovemaking took the last ergs of sexual energy either of us possessed. My lovely Bridget rolled off me and flopped back on the mattress at my side. "I can't believe it, but even for you, Bridget, I could not get it up again any time soon," I groaned.

"I'd be horrified if you came at me with another erection," she giggled. "I'm dead too." She paused. "Now that we have fucked every last ounce of horniness out of each other, are you still wanting to do this crazy thing?"

I whipped my head around to look at her in horror. The look on her face told me that she wasn't backing out; she was concerned about me backing out.

"Absolutely," I said, reassuring her, and drinking in the reassurance she sent me. "Right now, with sex out of the way of my thoughts, I am even more committed," I said happily. "I am already cataloging all the myriad of ways we will have fun together with our clothes on!"

"Yeah, like I'm gonna let that condition happen very often," Bridget smirked.

"I'm very serious, Bridget. This is another lesson that I learned the hard way," I said softly, with a small amount of remembered pain about Liz. And a large amount of gratitude. "This is why we will work. We obviously fit together sexually like two matching jigsaw pieces. But I honestly believe that sex might be our area of least compatibility. There has never been another friend like you. We are meant for each other. In all ways."

She just leaned over and kissed me again; as chaste a kiss as the two of us had ever shared. "I am literally stoked to spend the rest of my life with you, Bridget," I sighed.

"Good," she smirked, and leaned across to grab her phone from her bedside table. She sat up against the headboard and started typing on it.

I just waited curiously. Could she be texting her parents? Should I be texting mine?

No, I would have to call.

But she paused and looked at me. "You are absolutely forbidden to look at any messages in The Sisterhood's chat, but I want you to see what I just sent. Don't look upward!"

I took the phone in somewhat awestruck, trembling fingers and looked at it.

BRIDGET: Hey guys! I am so looking forward to our meetup in Jamaica this July. It's gonna be lit!

"Wait! What?" I yelped. "What meetup?"

"We finally found five days where we could almost all get together in person and talk about all we have in common besides you," Bridget smirked. "We have booked a bunch of rooms at a resort in Negril, Jamaica."

"First off, I thought that the meetup idea was just a running joke!" I almost gagged on my tongue in shock. "And second, it was supposed to be at a ski resort."

"The dates never worked out," Bridget said dismissively. "This is better anyway. We can hang out on the sand in the sun. It'll be great. We chose a place that has its own topless beach."

"I cannot go hang out on a topless beach with all my ex-lovers!" I gargled. "I love you, Bridget, but I'd die!"

"You are not invited, mister!" Bridget laughed. "You never were! But I really like how quickly you have adopted that prefix." She made it a joke, but I saw how much my spontaneous use of 'ex' had meant to her. "But we were going to text you so many pictures from that beach. And we still will."

"What?"

"Oh relax. You will always have the harem, Alistaire. We've all talked about if and when you found someone, someday. We all knew it would happen. I'm just lucky enough to the someone, and to have this be someday!"

"You aren't lucky, Bridget," I said. "Inevitability isn't luck."

She smiled, then smirked. "But I know your brain, dude. You will never forget Tit One among the rest of them anyway, so you might as well still get the pictures." Bridget rolled onto her side and caressed my chest, letting my brain record some more indelible pictures of the real Tits One. "I do not begrudge a thing you did with any of them, Alistaire, and I never, ever will," she said softly. "They will always fill your memories, and they should. I'm not dumping any of my memories of other guys either," she chuckled at some tales I had clearly not been told. Yet. "Don't worry. I know what I am getting."

"Well, all right," I pretended to grumble. "As long as you are in all the pictures."

"You are putting conditions on receiving a week's worth of topless photos?" she laughed, deliciously non-compliant.

I just shrugged. Inside, I marveled. Bridget and I were still an awesome idea, but I was amazed at how the acceptance of a simple truth I had denied for so long could change the way I perceived that awesomeness...

"You haven't finished reading," Bridget prompted, indicating the phone I still held in my nerveless fingers.

BRIDGET: That said, there is a SLIGHT change in the air that, to be clear, does not alter our plans for this get-together

BRIDGET: He's mine.

The End

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Thanks for reading, all of you. It has meant so much to me.

It is hard to set up an ending without spoiling it. Let me know how I did for you.