Turkey Day

"Oh fuuuuck... yes..."

John grunted and pushed again.

"Ohhh my... yes, right there, baby..." Carrie's voice strained. He could only imagine the contortions her face was making. "Harder..."

He let out the breath he had been holding unconsciously as his body shook, his muscles seemingly at their limit. "You... sure?" he asked. This has got to hurt.

"Yes, baby, it feels so good," she answered over her shoulder, her face pressed against the mattress.

"Alright," he said, then, after taking a deep breath, pushed his thumbs into Carrie's lower back as hard as he could manage. It looked and felt as if he was going to dig a whole right through her skin, but the moan she let out contained more than enough pleasure to overwhelm any pain.

"Now that's a massage," she sighed. She turned onto her back as he climbed off her, rubbing his own, now slightly sore, thumbs.

"Really?" he asked. "I feel like I'm going to break your spine."

"Yeah," she answered, pulling herself up onto her elbows. "It sometimes feels like you probably should. No sensation at all might be preferable to how my back feels after being on my feet all day."

He could sympathize, even if his own back's complaints had more to do with sitting in an office chair while some middle manager blathered on about "synergy" than being on his feet as Carrie apparently had before she'd popped by for a massage.

"You want me to do you?" she asked.

He took a second to look her over, gorgeous as she was, even in the sensible blouse and skirt that apparently functioned as today's work uniform. Her adorable face tilted slightly to the side as she awaited his response.

"I mean a massage," she added, evidently reading his mind.

"Oh well, then nah, I'm alright," he answered. "Anyway I'm sure you have to get back to Chloe, and if you waste too much time that massage might end up turning out a little more 'full body' than you have time for."

"Yeah," she replied, then wheeled her legs around off the side of the bed. "You're right. I probably shouldn't even have dropped by at all but fuck if my back didn't hurt like hell."

He gave her an acknowledging nod. "Yeah. Chloe doesn't give you massages?"

Carrie rose up off the bed and started slipping on her shoes. "She does if asked," Carrie replied. "You know her, she'd do anything for a friend."

John's face automatically twisted into a smile. "Anything?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Shut up, perv. You know what I mean. But she's got those dainty little fingers. They're no good for really getting in there and fucking up your back."

"Ah," he said. He rose to his feet to join her. "So I guess that's what I'm good for. Fat, beefy fingers."

She considered him for a second with a thin smile. "Pretty much," she said, then proceeded to the bedroom door. When she reached it she paused, and turned to him, her smile gone. "Are you really going to go to Thanksgiving with her?"

His only answer was a look and a head motion, a sort of nonverbal "I guess."

"Alright," she conceded.

He followed her down the stairs. "Speaking of Thanksgiving, are you going to take that box of wine you left here some time between now and then? I'd hate for you to have to suffer through Thanksgiving with Henry completely sober."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get it," she responded without looking at him as she picked up her hoodie from where she had casually tossed it onto the back of the couch upon arrival. "Definitely not in condition to carry it at the moment."

"You know," he said, "I could just drive you home, carry it up to your place for you?"

She shook her head. "No, that's no good. Chloe's going to be there. Very suspicious. Girl code." She watched his reaction, and upon evidently seeing something in it that John had not consciously tried to put there, added, "Plus I don't want you having another breakdown when you see her. You sure you're going to be able to handle a whole holiday weekend pretending to be with her?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, why not?"

Even we are not that stupid, the voice in his head chimed in.

The look on her face seemed to indicate Carrie concurred with the voice's assessment.

"You think I shouldn't go? Just tell Chloe she's asking too much or something?" John asked.

"Yes, I think you should not go, for your own good, but it's your life. I don't know what you should tell Chloe." She sighed again. "You really are stupid, aren't you?"

"Yeah, probably," he said. "I guess I just sympathize. It's not like she can really explain why we broke up. Not to her family."

"Did she explain it to you?" Carrie asked, her eyes watching his reaction in a way that made him uncomfortable despite their tenderness.

"She tried," he answered. When she did not react, he continued, "You think she's being unreasonable now? Or just that asking me to play act as her boyfriend for a day or two is a bitchy thing to do?"

"No," she shook her head, then looked around the room for a second before continuing. "Anyone that accuses that girl of being a bitch is in need of a good slap across the face. She's a sweetheart and I love her to death, but I doubt she realizes what that might do to you. I kind of doubt you do, too."

He shrugged.

She sighed. "But like I said, it's your life, it's your heart. She probably just thinks because she'd happily tear out her own guts if it meant making someone else's life easier that anyone would."

"I don't know," he said, "I'll probably be alright. I'll just put myself into a food coma and it'll be over before I know it."

"If you say so," she said before turning and opening the front door. "Just don't count on my sympathy if you get your heart broken again. There are limits to my... compassion."

He had to chuckle, despite his suspicions that it was not, in fact, a laughing matter. "I know," he said.

Her face expressed suspicion, but she said nothing else before she turned to go.

***

How can she make just standing around so endearing?

John pondered this question as he pulled into the parking lot of the apartment building that housed Chloe and Carrie, the former being the subject of his musings; she was standing near the edge of that parking lot, dressed in a hoodie and, despite the mild chill in the autumn wind, which repeatedly pushed her long brown hair across her face despite her continued efforts, a pair of shorts which showed off her thin but shapely legs. She had been looking slowly this way and that, her hand resting on the handle of a rolling suitcase that seemed far too large for a two-day trip, especially one to her parents' house, but upon noticing John's car roll up, her face lit up into a smile.

This had the puzzling effect of filling John's stomach first with butterflies and then, after a moment's reflection, with a pit. It's just a favor for a friend, the little voice in his head reminded him. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't get your hopes up.

What hopes? he thought as he opened the car door while Chloe began her struggle with rolling the hefty luggage towards the car, resulting in it toppling over as it rolled off the sidewalk and down onto the surface of the parking lot. This then resulted in the suitcase popping open, followed by the wind catching a couple of the now exposed garments.

"Oh crap!" Chloe scrambled to grab her clothes as John rushed over to help. That the wind persisted even as she tried to cram her clothes back into the suitcase did not do anything to improve the situation.

With a little effort, John managed to snag an errant pale pink garment that fluttered away from her in the wind and brought it back to her just as she had succeeded in getting the suitcase closed enough that the wind would not capture anything else. When he extended his hand to offer it to her with a "hey" that he hoped came off as appropriately casual, he realized that what he had snagged was in fact a pair of her panties.

It's almost as if she had that blush all ready to go beforehand with how quickly she managed.

She snatched the panties away and shoved them haphazardly into the suitcase before snapping the latches shut. John noted but decided not to comment on the cloth sticking out. "Sorry," she offered sheepishly. Her expression of frustration melted into a smile before she quickly suppressed it.

"Oh, no problem," he responded, taking hold of the suitcase's handle before she could and beginning to lug it towards the car, keeping an eye on the precarious latches.

"Yeah," her attempt at casualness transparent as she scrambled to follow him. "I mean, I guess it's nothing you haven't seen before, anyway, right?"

John took a look at her as he opened one of the car's rear doors. God she's really just going to be this adorable the whole time? Maybe Carrie was right about this being a bad idea. He chucked the suitcase into the unoccupied back seat. "Not sure if I ever saw that particular pair, actually..."

She smiled, looking like she wanted to say something, but then thinking better of it.

"Well," John said, breaking the short yet somehow awkward silence, "I guess we should get going, right? Kind of a long way to go today."

"Right," she nodded, feigning seriousness, then, her smile fading slightly, "I want to say thank you for doing this. I know it's, like, very much not cool of me to ask you to, I mean, you know, but like..."

"Sweetheart," he cut her off. "It's no big deal." He took a second to evaluate her response, found it unreadable, and added, "Might even be fun, right? Make it like a, I don't know, a secret little game we're playing. Plus, pie. There is going to be pie, right? When I agreed to this, I was operating under the assumption of pie."

"Definitely," she replied, her smile returning a second later. She opened the passenger side door as John made his way around to the driver's side. "Thanksgiving is, like, my mom's time to shine. I think there will be at least three distinct pies and you will be required to have at least one piece of each if you don't want to break her heart."

It's not her heart we need to worry about, the little voice in John's head interrupted as he began the process of getting the car rolling.

Shut up, you, he thought back at it. It'll be like a fun little game, like I said.

Right, and the winner gets a fabulous trip to their empty bed and a tear-soaked pillow...

Seriously, shut up, he thought.

"So did we need to pick something up from your house first or..."

Chloe's words interrupted his thoughts, bringing them to a fortunate halt, although also being impossible for his rapidly track-switching mind to parse. "Huh?" he asked.

"I mean," she said, "you're going to wrong way if you want to get on the highway."

"Ah, shit," he replied before even looking over into her blue eyes. "Sorry, force of habit. I got all my stuff ready to go." He turned onto a side street to begin the process of righting their direction.

Good god, she's beautiful, he thought, his momentary annoyance at the mistake disappearing with a look at her smile. "It is only going to be two days, right?" He motioned vaguely towards the suitcase in the back seat.

"Yeah," she answered. "Why?"

He chuckled to himself, turning his eyes back to the road, conceding that he would probably never understand the algorithm by which women decided what was necessary for a trip. "Just making sure I brought enough clothes. I wouldn't want to run out or anything."

"Don't worry about not having clothes," she said.

He turned to her with a questioning look, holding it only for as long as he judged safe while driving.

"Oh! Oh, no, I didn't mean like that," she said. "I just meant we can do your laundry or whatever."

"Ah, good," John replied with a smile. "I'd hate for it to get awkward."

"Gosh, I know," Chloe said. "I'm really, just like, so sorry. I mean, I know it's kind of a baby thing to do, to even worry about it, like, why can't I just say, 'oh, mom, we broke up' or whatever, and it's totally like..."

"Sweetheart," John cut her off, eliciting a concerned look from the girl. "It really isn't a problem. It's only as awkward as we let it be."

"Right," she said, seeming to convince herself before a smile appeared on her face again. "So, how do we make it not awkward?"

That is the operative question, isn't it? John considered for a moment. "Well, it wouldn't be awkward if we were really dating, right?"

"Right...?" Chloe responded.

He could feel her eyes on him as he pulled onto the highway. "So what would we be doing if we were still dating?"

"Oh my god, are you serious?" Chloe asked. "In the car?"

John laughed. "Sorry, that's not what I meant, bad at words, remember?"

She sighed. "Oh, right, good, obviously."

John tried to suppress a grimace at her "good". She did not seem to notice, fortunately. "Right, I meant like, how would we kill a couple hours in the car?" He chuckled again. "Other than that."

"Right," she said, a smile on her lips so adorable that John had to force himself to focus on the road. "Well, we could play a game?"

"What have you got in mind?" John asked, trying to keep his eyes on the road.

She gazed out the window. "Well, I spy with my little eye..."

***

"... something..." John paused mid-sentence, took the time to look out each window, safe in the knowledge that they were at well more than safe stopping distance from the next car on the interstate, which was so far in front of them that he had not seen it for the last ten miles or so, then finished, "something corny."

Chloe made a noise in a failed attempt at sounding frustrated rather than amused. "Uh, is it corn? Like your last three turns have all been?"

John could not suppress his smile. "In my defense, there's not much else to spy around here."

"Fair enough," Chloe giggled. "I think we may have gotten all the mileage out of I Spy that we're going to get." She let out a little sigh. "Are you hungry?"

"I could eat," John said. "Although I feel like eating to relieve boredom is bad for my waistline."

"Your waistline is fine," Chloe said.

He could feel her eyes on him again and so he glanced over at her. "But I think it might be a while to the next exit. Not sure about what there might be when we get there, anyway."

"Oh," she said, seeming surprised. "I mean, I, actually I made us some sandwiches for the road. If that's ok, I mean..."

"Sounds amazing, to be honest," John said.

"Cool," she smiled, "let me just grab them." She unfastened her seat belt and sat up on the seat, drawing her legs under herself and reaching back into the back seat. John could not help noticing that this brought her butt, which showed ever so slightly from the bottom of her shorts, up to eye level. She wiggled it as she dug through the suitcase.

It's only two days...

Fortunately, it lasted only a few more seconds, Chloe plopping back down into the passenger seat, now in possession of a pair of plastic-wrapped sandwiches. She extended her hand, offering John one of them, which he took with one hand. For a few seconds, John struggled with the plastic wrap with one hand while driving with the other.

"Oh, sorry," Chloe said, "let me get that for you."

Before he could even think to refuse the help, Chloe had snatched the sandwich back from him and begun unwrapping it. "Uh, thanks," he managed by the time she had it unwrapped.

Rather than pass it back to him, she held it in front of his face while he drove. "Here you go," she offered.

He glanced at her, finding her face wearing an expectant look, then took a bite. If she had been expecting anything else, she did not show it. "Mmm, thanks," he said when he'd swallowed it. "Are these turkey sandwiches?"

"Yeah," she said, then a moment later. "You don't like turkey?"

He chuckled. "If I did, I probably wouldn't have agreed to Thanksgiving," he said.

"Oh, right," Chloe said. She giggled. "Sorry, probably should have gone with PB&J or something, huh?"

"Nah," said John, "no such thing as too much of a good thing, right?"

***

Quadrangles, thought John, must be like snowflakes. Each one the same and yet slightly different. He paused to look across this one, largely empty, as he and Chloe made their way across campus, and imagined that on less blustery days and less blustery months, the student body made better use of it; he could almost picture the girls tanning while shaggy dudebros serenaded them with Wonderwall, all while texbooks sat opened but unread nearby. Do guys still play Wonderwall? They have to, right?

"I think," Chloe interrupted his musings, "the coffee shop is over there."

"Alright," replied John, following her pointed finger to a fine looking but unremarkable building that he was certain bore the name of some small-time local tycoon, a midwestern Ozymandias, having spent up a good deal of his fortune for what amounted to a plaque everyone would ignore.

"At least I hope so," Chloe said. "Cammy said she'd meet us there but that was a couple hours ago and she hasn't answered any texts since then."

"Well at least we can get some coffee, right?" John said.

This, unfortunately, had not turned out to be the case; they indeed had found a coffee shop as Chloe had predicted, but it was, like the rest of the campus, already abandoned as students fled home for the holiday.

"So much for the coffee," Chloe sighed as she slumped into a chair next to a table which was, like all the others in the shop, completely empty.

"Any word from your sister?" John asked, taking a seat opposite her and looking about the place, finding no signs of life.

Chloe pulled out her phone and began manipulating it. "I'll try texting again." When she had finished doing so, she sighed again and looked around the deserted room.

"Thinking about old times?" John offered.

She responded with a little laugh "Yeah, right," she said. "My wild college days."

"You mean you and Zoe never got up to anything wild?" John asked. "Hard to believe."

She looked at him with a funny little smile for slightly too long for comfort before answering. "I was never really... you know... before."

John indicated with his expression that he did not, in fact, know.

"I mean," she said, "like how we, I mean, you and me..."

"John!"

Chloe's gradually slowing explanation was cut short by a voice that John could not place, at first literally in addition to figuratively. He looked left, then right before his eyes settled on a rather shapely girl standing with one hand resting on the coffee shop counter. Her jeans hugged her generous curves tightly, and her little white top barely managed to contain her ample chest. Her hair threw him for a second in that it was a bright shade of blue, quite different from when he had last seen her.

"Phoebe?"

"In the flesh," she responded, making her way over to their table. "If you're cruising for college girls, I think you came at a bad time."

John could almost feel Chloe's inquisitive gaze on his face. He forced a chuckle unconvincingly. "Not quite. Uh, Phoebe, Chloe, Chloe, Phoebe," he gestured.

"Oh, I guess you already found one," Phoebe said. "Nice to meet you, Chloe." She slid into a chair between the two. "Nice pull, by the way."

Chloe, looking confused asked, "So, uh, Phoebe? How do you know John?" Her eyes went immediately to John upon finishing the question.

"Oh," Phoebe answered, "I wouldn't say I really know him. Knew him, I guess." She shot a wicked smile at John.

Thanks, Phoebe, very helpful.

"Phoebe and I went on a date a while back," John clarified. "Months ago. What a weird thing to run into you here. I thought you graduated?" He watched Chloe's reaction out of the corner of his eyes as he spoke, yet was unable to parse its subtleties.

"I did," she said. "I was actually just looking for a college girl of my own. You didn't happen to see a little spicy Latina with a great rack around here anywhere did you? I thought she had a shift but I guess not."

"We haven't seen anybody," Chloe answered. "I'm not sure there's even anyone else left on campus."

"Ah, too bad," Phoebe said. Her tongue danced playfully across her lips. "Although I guess it does let you two have a very intimate coffee date. If you don't mind the lack of coffee, anyway."

"Oh, we're just..." Chloe began, waving off Phoebe's implication with her hand. She stopped mid-sentence, leaving Phoebe and John both waiting. "Cammy!"

They both turned to see Chloe's referent, having seemingly snuck in like some kind of beautiful shinobi. She wore a green cardigan over a black top, neither of which did much to hide her cleavage, but did have a way of making her eyes even more vibrant than John had remembered, and pair of jeans sporting holes which showed off the smooth skin of her thighs here and there. "We're just what?" she asked.

"We're just... waiting for my sister," Chloe stumbled through a response. "She's always doing that, being inconsiderate and never showing up on time."

"Hmph," Cammy made a little noise that sounded, to John at least, more amused than truly indignant before taking the one remaining chair at the table, placing herself opposite Phoebe and between John and Chloe. "Hi, John," she said. "So good to see you again."

"Uh, you, too," John managed. Is it, though?

"See, at least somebody's happy to see me," Cammy said. She shot him a look that he was sure was fraught with meaning but he made the conscious decision not to attempt to determine what it could be.

"Yeah, so, uh, I guess we should get going?" he asked, already starting to get up.

"Chloe, did you not tell him?" Cammy asked, clearly feigning annoyance. "Brian's class doesn't end till seven tonight so it's a lot easier to stay the night." She had been, despite addressing him, completely focused on her sister, but turned her attention to him at this pause. "I'm sure you wouldn't mind staying the night, right?"

He looked to Chloe, whose face wore a mildly annoyed expression, but directed towards her sister. "Yeah, uh, I guess, I mean, your place or your parents' house, what's the difference, anyway, right?"

"Oh, I'm sure we'll have way more fun in my apartment here than we would with the old folks," Cammy replied, then turned back to her sister. "Just you and me," she paused "and Chloe, of course. No parents enforcing gender-segregated bedrooms here in the liberal indoctrination factory, right, sis?"

"Right," said Chloe.

Phoebe, who had been watching the exchange with a look of mild amusement, reminded them of her presence. "Ah, well, I guess I should stop intruding on this family affair," she said, getting up to leave. "Nice meeting you, Chloe, Chloe's sister."

"Cammy," she introduced herself.

"Cute," Phoebe replied. "Phoebe." She turned to leave.

"Seven's pretty late for a college class," John remarked. "Or maybe things have just changed since I graduated a million years ago."

"Aww, it wasn't that long ago," Chloe offered.

John was about to confirm that it certainly felt like another lifetime, but Cammy spoke first, "Not that late for grad classes."

"Ah," John replied. Grad student, eh? I guess she does have a thing for older guys...

Chloe made a little sigh. "So I guess till then we just wait around for your boyfriend?"

Cammy smiled. "I've still got some packing to do and I guess you two will want to see where you'll be sleeping tonight."

"Alright, lead on," Chloe said. Cammy got up and started towards the closest exit onto the quad. A second later, Chloe was on her feet and offering John her hand.

He returned her offer with a questioning look.

"Come on, boyfriend," she said, "let's see the accommodations."

They trailed a few feet behind Cammy, making their way across the deserted quadrangle under a gray November sky. Chloe's hand had felt cold in John's but after a few minutes of walking, it had grown pleasantly warm. Am I doing alright? he tried to beam the question to her telepathically, but the little smile she offered in response could have meant anything.

Just as he was mentally conceding that he might not, in fact, be the world's most powerful telepath, his phone vibrated in his pocket, and he stopped to fish it out.

party at i-house tonight if you're really sticking around

get a taste ???? of that ol' college life

Phoebe, you little minx, he thought as he checked the sender.

"What's up?" Chloe asked. She had stopped beside him, letting Cammy grow farther away from the two of them as she reached a building which, judging from how she began working the lock, housed her apartment.

"Nothing," John replied thoughtlessly. "Apparently there's a party tonight on campus." Seeing Chloe's questioning expression, he continued. "That Phoebe girl just texted me about it."

"Oh," she said pulling her hand from his and stuffing it into the pocket of her hoodie. "I mean, if you want to. It's not like we're really... you know..."

"And leave you alone with Cammy?" John asked.

Something in her expression as she shrugged told him this had not been the right question. "Whatever, I mean, I meant we can go. Or just you if you want, whatever. I can cover on my own. I'm sure she and this Brian guy are going to want to spend one last night in before they're forcibly separated by good old Christian family values tomorrow."

John opened his mouth to speak, but the next sound either of them heard was Cammy's voice. "Are you two coming?"

"Be right there," Chloe responded. She glanced at John before turning and heading towards the apartment complex, leaving John to catch up. On the way in the apartment's front door, he could have sworn he saw Cammy's eyes sparkle.

Cammy closed the door behind them, then turned to face them as they stood, somewhat awkwardly in what passed for a hallway in the little apartment. To one side, it opened on a living room, furnished with a couch, and on the other, a staircase, running along the wall. A door under the stairs led to, John was guessing, either a closet or a bathroom to which "half" might be applied generously. "Welcome to chez Cammy," she said. "My room's upstairs." She paused. "Not that you'll need to go up there. As a poor college student, all I can offer you in the way of accommodations is this couch, unfortunately." She indicated it as she led them into the living room. "It'll probably be a cozy night, but I suppose you two won't mind."

Probably should have considered sleeping arrangements at least a little before agreeing to this little charade, John mused to himself under the gaze of Cammy's almost unnervingly green eyes.

"And I'm guessing my dear sister has forgotten her PJs," she said, shooting Chloe a look. "Unless of course you were planning on sleeping in the nude. I don't really mind but I'd rather you not soil my couch. I've only got the one."

"Oh crap," Chloe muttered. "Yeah, all my stuff is in the car." She sighed, "I guess I should be able to find my way back."

John took one look at Cammy, and the thought of spending even a few minutes alone with that smile sent a shiver down his spine. "I'll get it, honey," he said.

Yeah, "honey", nice touch.

"Aww, you don't have to lug my suitcase for me," Chloe said.

"Sure I do," he responded, already making his way to the door. "What else are these big manly muscles of mine good for, anyway?"

Chloe rolled her eyes at him as as he opened the front door.

"What indeed," Cammy said.

"Anyway, it should give you some time to get caught up with your sister," John said. And me some time not to he added mentally. "I'll take the scenic route back."

The look on Chloe's face just before he left told him this time was not required, but he decided to ignore it.

And now to rely on my keen sense of direction to get me back to the car, he thought.

What sense of direction would that be? the voice in his head responded.

The one I... where'd I leave that?

John had, while amusing himself silently, actually managed to get a bit turned around, and so paused for a moment to get his bearings, then, trying to plot out the sequence of turns required to go from car to coffee shop and from there to apartment, he plotted out a course that he believed would get him to the car more directly. It would involve cutting through a building he'd seen earlier but that had appeared open, and even if it weren't, it would be easy enough to go around, so he headed toward the building, a plaque on the side of which announced it as housing the humanities.

Inside he found, to his lack of surprise, no students milling about the main area. Nor did he see anyone down the hallways he passed crossing toward the quad. He took a second to look upwards at the rather impressive glass roof two floors up that he imagined would have looked pretty cool in a thunderstorm and vaguely recalled something he learned long ago in a different humanities building in what felt like a different lifetime about cathedrals being built to draw the eye upwards to the heavens.

"You here for office hours?"

Is this a university or some kind of museum of my past lovers?

John turned in place, doing an about face as if called to attention by a commanding officer.

"Because they're almost over," E continued. "But I might make a special exception for an old friend."

She looked, John had the funny feeling, exactly the same as she had the day she'd walked out of his life, and yet, her hair now grown out and tied back sensibly, a quotidian brown rather than whatever color had been cheapest that month, her face, beautiful as ever, now sporting glasses, and far more sensibly dressed than he remembered ever seeing her in a pair of pants and and honest-to-god blouse instead of a ratty t-shirt, like an entirely different person.

"E?"

She chuckled. "E. God, nobody's called me that in the last decade, probably. How are you?"

He chuckled right back, although he was not sure at what, exactly. "Oh, sorry, it's Dr. E now, right?"

She smiled, a sight that John realized just then that he had seen so few times he could count them on one hand. "Ever the smartass, I see. How've you been?"

"You mean over the last decade or so?" John asked. "You know, ups and downs, strikes and gutters. You?"

She smiled again. "I guess I haven't been the best at keeping in touch." She seemed to consider something for a few moments, then added. "If you want the Cliff's Notes version, I actually do have office hours."

I guess I was planning on the scenic route...

***

"And so yeah, if it's publish or perish, I guess I'll choose the former. Keeping my head above water, anyway. But we'll see what the tenure committee thinks."

John shook his head. "They'll say 'yes, please,' if they have any sense at all," he said.

She smiled. "I appreciate the vote of confidence but they may be a little less easy to win over than present company ever was."

"Fair enough," he said, stretching in the chair opposite E's desk. He let his eyes wander over the books on the shelf behind her, not so much as skimming their titles. "I guess you never had to work that hard to impress me."

Her lips made a little movement, adjusting themselves as if in response to some inner thought that John could not hope to guess at. "I guess," she said, then after drawing in a breath, "So, you never did really tell me what you're doing here. And don't tell me it's to see me. My office hours aren't long enough to disentangle your flirting."

John sighed. "Ah, nothing really. Just passing through." Her look told him this was insufficient, so he continued, "Just giving a ride to a friend."

"A friend, or a girl?" E asked pointedly. She picked up a pen from the surface of the desk between them, letting it dangle between her fingers as she eyed him with a mix of suspicion and, John thought, amusement.

"A friend," John repeated. "And a girl, to be fair."

"A senior, at least, I hope? Junior?" E smiled, leaning back in her chair and continuing to toy with the pen.

"No," John answered, "well, yes. I mean, her sister goes here. Not sure what year she is. But the... friend is... no, I mean, let's say more 'age appropriate'. Well, slightly more, anyway." He let out a little sigh at the sound of his own fumbling words.

She smiled for a moment before responding. "I see. Well, no judgement from me on your choice of... friends." She twirled the pen around in her fingers a few times and then continued. "I'm certainly in no place to say anything."

"Just a friend," he said as if by reflex. Her amused if slightly bewildered expression to his sudden, stilted response brought back a sudden but ill-defined flash of sitting in an office much like this one a decade or so prior with a much younger E. "I mean," he began again, collecting his thoughts even as he spoke, "So I guess you're still... I mean, there's no Mr. E?"

She chuckled. "How strangely poetic," she replied. John was starting to feel oddly warm under her gaze, so it came as a relief a moment later when she continued, "No, there's... two body problem and all, you know. No complaints, though. Just nobody at the moment."

"Ah," said John. "Well, there's always next semester, right?"

Her smile disappeared. "Yeah," she said. She gazed at the office door, which had remained unmoved from its half-open position since they had entered; in the minutes that had passed, no other humans had passed it. "Not really..." she started again, quieter, then paused and finally, "not really my finest hour."

"Mine either," he sighed. He tried to catch her eye but found it would not meet his. "Sorry."

She waved it off, the pen doing a little dance as her hand moved back and forth. "How is she?" she asked. "I mean, I'm guessing from your presence and your friend that you two didn't end up happily ever after."

"Maddy?" John asked, finally making contact with her eyes again, only briefly before shaking his head. "Couldn't tell you. Last I heard she was married. Off in Oregon or something as I recall. But that was probably a couple years ago now so..."

E responded with nothing but a little movement of her head to the side.

"We didn't exactly end things on good terms," John said, instantly regretting the pointless explanation, then quickly adding, "But, you know, college relationship, right? Probably not destined to be, anyway. I think she's probably happier for it."

E made another little dismissive motion before speaking again. "I guess you don't really think about her a lot. Why would you, right? Think about it."

"Nah," John replied. He looked around the office, which suddenly seemed very cramped, a bookshelf lining the wall to his right filled with any more books than he had probably read in his life in total. Do you think she's read these all? Maybe they're just here for show. "Do you?"

She shook her head. "To be honest, no. I mean, that probably sounds terrible. But like I said, it was not really my finest hour. I kind of can't afford to think about it much, if that makes any sense." She paused for a few moments before continuing, letting the tip of the pen in her hand touch the surface of the desk, "Not till you showed up, anyway."

"Sorry to be so Proustian," John replied.

She smiled. "Not the word I would choose but sure. So this friend..." She trailed off meaningfully.

"Just a friend," he said. The words sounded hollow in his ears, but more than that, her expression, or rather lack thereof told him he had misjudged her intent. "... who's probably waiting on me. I should probably let you get back to your office hours, right?"

She shrugged before standing. "Office hours officially ended fifteen minutes ago," she responded. "But I guess you've got something better to do than reminisce."

He stood instinctively in response to her movement. His mouth moved as if to form some suitably dismissive response that would extricate him politely, but no words formed.

She stepped past him towards the office door and took its knob in hand. It was not till that moment that John had realized that other than the glass window overlooking an empty and steadily darkening quad behind her desk, that the office had no windows, leaving that door the only way an outside observer might have seen their conversation, though surely none had. She paused, neither closing nor opening the door, but rather just looked into his eyes.

"I... no... it's not..." words seemed to fall randomly out of John's mouth and he was suddenly very aware of having nothing to do with his hands. She was not exactly blocking the door, but he would also, he surmised, not be able to pass through it without passing very close to her.

For what must have only been a few moments but felt like hours, there was no further conversation, and then finally she said. "Well, if you're sticking around campus for the night and feel a little pull of nostalgia, you know where to find me." She opened the office door, stepping to the side as she exposed the empty halls of the academic building. "I have kind of an open door policy."

"Oh, yeah," John said. He tried consciously not to turn his motion towards and then out the door into too much of a scramble. "I'll.. uh.. yeah, thanks."

He did not look back as he turned down the hall, heading in the direction he thought would get him most quickly to the quad and, from there, the parking lot.

***

"Hi, honey, I'm home," John announced as he wheeled Chloe's suitcase through the front door.

"Hi, honey," Cammy replied, having appeared from around the corner even as the words left lips, which then proceeded to curl into her apparently typical wicked little smile.

"Uh hi," John replied. "Chloe around?"

"I sent her out for dinner," Cammy replied, her lips returning to that magnetic if somewhat unsettling smile between sentences. "Since she'll probably get lost it looks like you're stuck with little old me for the time being."

John forced a chuckle, dragging the suitcase past her and into the living room, where he let it topple over onto its side near the couch. "Ah," he said. "And your boyfriend? Brian, was it?"

"Class," she replied simply. "Till seven. Remember?"

"Right," John said, getting down on his knees beside the suitcase. He popped it open before realizing he had no reason to do so, as it was not his, then shifted the small backpack of his own belongings he had off onto the floor beside it. "So I guess he'll be over after that?"

"I suppose," Cammy replied. She had, while John was dealing with luggage, evidently managed to slip silently towards him, now standing mere inches from him, her crotch separated from his face by a few inches of space, a layer of denim, and potentially an undergarment he was attempting with all his might not to picture, instead focusing on his bag, searching more for a reason to be searching it than any particular item.

John took to his feet, taking the opportunity to move a step away from her in the process and noticing that she had at some point removed the cardigan she'd had on earlier, leaving her arms bare. "So he's joining us for dinner or no?"

She shrugged, casually taking a step towards him. "Anxious to meet him?" she asked.

He shrugged, trying to take another step back but bumping into the sofa as he did so. He almost fell back onto it, sinking down into the cushions, which felt as if they had seen better days.

"Or maybe you're just a little jealous?" she teased

"Not the green-eyed monster I'm worried about," he responded.

"You're thinking envy," she replied. "I said 'jealous'." With that, she flopped down onto the couch next to him.

"Never really understood the difference to be honest," he said, "but then again I was always kind of a mediocre student. How are classes?"

"I manage," she said. She spun, bringing her legs up onto John's lap and lay back against one armrest of the couch. "How are things between you and my dear sister?"

John struggled to find a place to put his hands, opting to lean back and stretch his arms across the back of the couch. "They're good," he managed.

"Huh," she said. "You know when we met before I never pegged you for the committed type. It's almost funny that you'd be playing the part of the good boyfriend for her."

"Playing the part?" John asked. How could she possibly know?

"Forgive my poetic license," Cammy shrugged. "Spending too much time with the Bard lately, maybe."

"Ah," replied John. He briefly considered pushing Cammy's legs from off of his, but upon determining that he would likely have to touch the bare skin of her legs, which was visible through the holes in her jeans, opted against it. "I was always more of a Tennessee Williams guy myself."

"Streetcar?" Cammy asked, that little smile too difficult to ignore.

"Night of the Iguana, actually," John replied. "I thought going into it it would be one of those giant monster flicks."

"Hmph," Cammy made a little noise. "I hope you weren't too disappointed."

"It had its moments," he responded. Just as he was about to give in and attempt to extricate himself, Cammy pulled her legs off them and sat back up. "Could have used a giant iguana or two, though."

"It's all about those little moments, after all," she said before rising to her feet. "He does have a way with dramatic tension, wouldn't you say? Or maybe you're just a fan of his subject matter?"

John made a non-committal head movement as his only response.

"Lies, sex, infidelity, problematic age gaps..." she smiled. "Seems right up your alley."

He was just about to attempt a clever response when he was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. "Hey," came the sound of Chloe's voice.

John breathed a sigh of relief loud enough that it drew Cammy's attention momentarily back to him even as Chloe entered, struggling with a pair of plastic bags containing what appeared to be Styrofoam take-out containers.

"I guess you found the place," Cammy remarked as Chloe took the bags into the kitchen.

Chloe returned a moment later without the bags and leaned against the doorway connecting the two rooms. "Yeah," she replied. "Your directions were not super helpful."

"Sorry," Cammy replied in a tone that made it clear she definitely was not. She turned her attention back to John. "You're going to love this," she said. When John replied with only an interested look, she continued, "Chloe told me you love Asian food. She wanted to just make some ramen noodles or whatever but I couldn't have that, not with you driving all the way out here to give me a ride and everything, so I had her run out and get some stuff from the local Vietnamese place."

John smiled. "There's a local Vietnamese place?"

"College town," Cammy replied. "The local economy is built on extracting parents' cash from hungry college kids, so it's pretty much all liquor stores and take-out places."

"Cool," John replied, "Excited to see what culinary pleasures Vietnam offers for a college kid budget." He got up and followed Cammy, who had whirled around and walked past her sister into the kitchen.

"Never had Vietnamese food?" she asked, turning her head only momentarily to look back at him.

"Uh I think I had Pho once," he replied as Cammy had started unpacking the bags.

"Pho," she corrected his pronunciation. Or at least he assumed it was a correction; he had no idea how to pronounce the stuff. "Didn't slip over while you were in Thailand?"

Did I ever mention that trip to her?

She looked up from the small kitchen table that looked built for one as Chloe joined her in unpacking things that John did not recognize but did like the smell of. "I guess you were too busy with other cultural activities?"

"Yeah," he replied uneasily. "Just never had a chance. So what've we got here?" He took a seat in one of the chairs around the table, hoping he had adequately changed the subject.

"Um," answered Chloe. "This is a... bang me...?" She looked at what looked to be a sandwich wrapped in white paper with a slightly confused expression before handing it to John. "At least I think that's what the guy said."

"Oh I'm sure that's it," Cammy replied with a devilish little smile.

John decided to dismiss Chloe's confused look at him with an innocent shake of the head, and only a few moments later they were well into the meal. The food was delightful, although even more than that, he found the lack of needling conversation from Cammy, who seemed to be satisfying herself with the flavors and an only occasional look towards him, a true godsend. She finished her bánh mì and with a barely noticeable lick of her lips, turned her attention to him once again.

All good things...

"So what do you think, John?"

"Oh, very little in general," he answered. "But mostly about the decline of social cohesion in late capitalism as system seeks to exploit even..."

To his left, Chloe rolled her eyes. "She means about the food."

"Oh, right," he replied, shooting her a smile, which only elicited another roll of the eyes, although one accompanied this time by a smile. "It's pretty good. Quite different from Thai food, actually."

"I guess you're something of an expert on Thai food since your trip," Cammy said. Her tongue paused on her teeth for a second before she continued. "Did your ex turn you onto it?"

John felt a response coming, but it was formless, and his mouth held in an open state for a few moments. "My ex?" he asked finally.

"Carrie's not Thai," Chloe answered for him. "I told you, she's Chinese. Or, like, Chinese-American. Her parents are Chinese."

"Oh, that's right," Cammy replied to her sister without taking her eyes from John. "I was just confused for a second, sorry." She then turned to look at her sister. "Either way, I think it's cool how you don't mind living with his ex. I know it would drive me nuts, knowing that she was there." She turned her attention back to John before continuing, "I would always be worried she'd be trying to get her claws back into you, into my boyfriend, that is, watching for any sign of trouble to exploit. But maybe that's just me."

This girl might literally be the devil, John thought. "Speaking of your boyfriend," he managed to get out just before Chloe opened her mouth to respond, "will he be joining us?"

Cammy's response, which amounted to nothing more than a shrug, might have been annoying if it hadn't at least put a button on the talk about Carrie. That Cammy even knew of his ex and Chloe's roommate told him that the latter's conversations with her family regarding him had been more detailed than he would have expected; it was perhaps odd that Carrie had come up in them at all, but he supposed she had been exceptionally relaxed about the situation while they had been dating; maybe she'd been secretly venting to her family, although he had a hard time picturing this, especially the idea of Cammy as confidant.

"So after dinner, we were thinking..." Chloe began, only to be interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

A moment later, a voice came from the front of the house. "Cammy? You here?"

They all turned in time to see a man, whom John judged to be in perhaps his late twenties, white and with medium-length brown hair, enter. He was dressed in a button-up shirt and khakis, and his face was adorned with a pair of glasses. In one hand he held a jacket and a backpack was slung over his shoulder.

"Hi, Brian," Cammy replied, it seemed to John in almost a sigh.

"Hi," the man replied as John got up to greet him.

"This is my sister Chloe and her boyfriend John," Cammy introduced them while half-heartedly searching through the now empty containers on the table. "He's driving us to my parents' tomorrow." She looked up at him and then added, "Since you don't have a car."

"Oh, right," he responded. "Nice to meet you, uh, John? And Chloe?" He offered John a hand, which John took and awkwardly shook; it seemed far too formal but he imagined he would be no less awkward in Brian's place. Chloe likewise stood and after a few moments of non-verbal negotiation on what the appropriate greeting for "boyfriend of sister" was, ended up giving him a loose hug.

"Anyway," Cammy said, "since Brian's finally here, I suppose we should get to packing and leave you two lovebirds alone." She stood and, taking her beau's hand, started pulling him back out towards the living room.

"Did you guys have dinner already?" Brian asked as he just barely managed to get himself facing the right direction before toppling over from the force of Cammy's pull.

"Yeah, you can grab something later," she answered him as Chloe and John shared a look. "We have packing to do." She guided him up the stairs towards her bedroom, then called down, "Make yourselves at home. We'll leave the door unlocked if you want to go out on the town or anything."

Her bedroom door closing signaled the end of their interaction, leaving John and Chloe to exchange a look.

"So..."

"Uh..."

They each began at the same time, then stopped, leaving a silence hanging in the air for a few moments before John decided he would take the initiative. "So I guess we've got a few hours to kill. I mean, unless you want to hit the hay exceptionally early."

Chloe glanced over at the sofa for a moment before replying, "It's a bit early even for me."

He followed her gaze, silently trying to envision a sleeping position for the both of them that wouldn't be awkward and failing. "Yeah, maybe there's something good on the tv?"

Chloe looked at him hopefully, but before she could say anything else, they were interrupted by the sound of Brian's voice, echoing down the stairs.

"Oh fuuuckk..." he groaned.

John and Chloe's eyes met for just a moment before hers darted away awkwardly toward the tv.

"Oh my god..." Brian groaned again.

"Or maybe we see what's happening on campus?" John offered.

Chloe agreed with a hasty nod and a moment later they were out the front door and making their way up to the quadrangle.

"So..." Chloe began, watching her feet as they walked up the street which was, besides the two of them, completely empty.

John waited for an end to the sentence for a few moments, but upon sensing that it was never coming added his own "So" to the mix.

"Yeah," Chloe said, then stopped suddenly, prompting John to follow suit. When he had turned his attention to her, finding her still looking at her feet, she continued, "Sorry about this. I know it's, like, weird and awkward and you're probably thinking you'd rather be anywhere else."

"Well not anywhere else," John replied. "I mean, it beats listening to your sister's... packing... back there." He heard her let out a little laugh as he turned back to look at the apartment, now unsure of which in the block of identical apartments it was.

"You're really a glass half full guy, aren't you?" Chloe asked. For the first time since back at the apartment, her eyes met his.

"Eh," he replied. "I mean, like I said before, what's to be upset about? Getting a free Thanksgiving meal with my beautiful girlfriend's family. Maybe just a pretend girlfriend, but..." Her eyes watched him intently as he trailed off, so he added, "But it's fun to pretend sometimes, right?"

"Yeah, right," she said sarcastically.

"Yeah, right," he repeated genuinely. "It is fun. I mean, maybe not the listening to your sister bit. Or the driving for hours to sleep on a couch, which, by the way, we probably need to figure out what we're going to do, right? Or the general awkwardness and bumping into girls I've slept with. But, hey, that sandwich was pretty good, right?"

Her only response was a little laugh before she started walking forward again. After a few more seconds of silence, she said, "You're being very sweet," she said.

"Sweet like maybe we..." he started, then, thinking better of it, closed his mouth.

She shot him a curious look without stopping, then shook it off, visibly shaking her head while smiling. "But I really am sorry about it. I know it's such a crappy thing to do to a guy. And not really even for a good reason. It's just my sister drives me crazy, like, you know, you were there. She's just like... and I'm just so, like... I was never the good student or the popular one or whatever and now she's got this new guy and I'm just doing this crappy temp job while she's on, like, full ride scholarship and I'm alone because of my own stupid..."

"Hey," he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him with an expression that read almost as fear. "Look," he said, not actually knowing what he wanted to say. Her lower lip moved anxiously for a few seconds before she bit it, holding it in place. "Look," he started again, "you have to stop."

She responded with a look that he could not have described if asked but that had the effect of putting a pit in his stomach.

"You have to stop," he tried again, "comparing yourself to her and putting yourself down and second-guessing and all that. And, I mean, I love you, but for the love of god you have to finish a sentence."

At that instant, her expression melted into a smile that managed to somehow make the jump to John's face as well.

"Sorry," she said. "I get really... I'm not good at words, as you know."

"And also stop apologizing," he said through the smile. "If it were that terrible, I wouldn't have agreed to come."

She turned and started towards the quad again, pushing her hands into the pockets of her hoodie as she walked. "I don't know, maybe you just didn't have anything better to do."

"Nooo," John replied sarcastically, "couldn't be that. I happen to have a very crowded social calendar."

Chloe shrugged and then turned to watch him as he caught up to her. "Carrie said you were just going to be sitting around in your underwear getting drunk."

"Yeah, very crowded social calendar, like I said," he smiled back at her.

"Right," she replied sarcastically. "So where exactly are we going?" They had reached the quad a few moments before, finding it totally empty, the academic buildings surrounding it all with darkened windows.

"That depends," he replied. "I hear there's a party at some place called 'i-house'. Could be one for the ages. If you're up for it, that is."

She smiled.

***

"I'm gonna guess this is i-house."

John turned his head to find Chloe giving him a questioning look. "Are you sure?" she asked. "I don't see a sign or anything." She moved her head here and there to take in the large, mostly brick building they were standing in front of.

A wide porch held various revelers drinking from plastic cups and generally milling about as a loud, thumping beat rattled the windows of the house, which, despite its apparent age, or perhaps because of it, held a certain charm for John; he surmised the place had probably been acquired by the university as additional housing rather than having been built for that purpose: it looked like the type of place an old WASPy type would have left the institution in their will. The card table that had been set up near the entrance, which was being, it seemed, manned by a scruffy looking college kid puffing a cigarette as he bobbed his head in time to the music had not, John guessed, been part of the original decor, nor had the cheap plastic lawn chairs that had been discarded on the front lawn separating the house from John and Chloe.

He looked slowly down the otherwise quiet street, then turned his head 180 degrees back the direction they had come, finding it equally deserted. "Call it a hunch," he said.

"Alright," she replied as they set off up the little cement path leading to the house. "I just don't want to barge into someone's house or anything."

John chuckled. "You did actually go to college, right?"

"Wassup, bro?" the scruffy looking guy sitting behind the table greeted them as the reached the top of the stairs in a thick accent that John could only place as Eastern European.

"Not much, my friend," John answered, to which the kid responded with a vague smile. "Hear there might be a party going on here."

The guy responded with a sort of half laugh, then "Cup's ten dollars."

"Oof, was five back in my day," John responded with a smile as he pulled out his wallet.

"Inflation, bro," the guy returned John's smile before glancing at Chloe. "Five for the pretty girl."

John forked over the cash happily. A few moments later they were inside, each with red plastic cup in hand. John guessed that a keg or two would be found in the house's kitchen, wherever that might have been, but getting to it would entail passing through a throng of college kids who seemed to be representing all nations on the planet at this moving vaguely in time to a beat competition.

His scanning of the crowd was interrupted by the sudden sensation of Chloe's hand grasping his, and he turned to look at her. She tried with a head gesture, John interpreted, to indicate she wanted to stick close while they made their way between the bodies. He squeezed her hand and pushed forward, the crowd making way for them. It was not difficult to find the kitchen and in it, a keg as expected. A brown skinned college-age kid was pouring himself a beer. When he finished, he looked up at John and greeted him with a "sup" before looking past him and in an accented but unmistakably college bro voice shouted "Daudi!" to some guy behind him, then vacated the spot to embrace this Daudi figure, an impressively large and dark skinned fellow who seemed equally excited.

"Rahuuuuul!" the other man replied, a beer sloshing in his extended hand.

Ah, college, John thought as he began filling a cup, which he subsequently traded for the empty one in Chloe's hand.

"This place is nuts," Chloe almost shouted at him as he filled the second cup.

With the noise, it took an extra second for John's brain to fill in the missing bits of audio, but when it did, he had to agree. "International students," he said, unsure from her expression whether she could even make out his words. "They always know how to party."

Finishing up, he joined Chloe in a sip of the beer, which was, despite being obviously the cheapest option available, surprisingly refreshing, although he decided to chalk that up to it coming after a long day of driving and trying not to think too hard about his reasons for doing that driving. A couple of brown girls had crowded near the keg, so John gently pulled Chloe away to make room.

They made their way out of the kitchen via a different door than they had entered and found it led to a hallway with a staircase. A few partygoers had staked out positions on the stairwell, a guy flipping through something on his phone with one hand while a plastic cup, presumably full of beer hung over the railing from the other; a guy who looked to be successfully chatting up a girl near the top of the stairs. The scene was, all in all, very typical of any number of such parties John vaguely recalled getting a little too drunk at back in his own college days, but he was happy to see that it seemed the second floor, which promised a small amount of relief from the thumping bass notes rattling the first, appeared not to be off limits. With a motion of his head, he suggested finding out and Chloe followed along.

They found, having reached the top of the stairs, that indeed it was slightly less ear-splittingly loud than the first floor had been. Most of the doors on the second floor were closed, John surmised precisely to keep folks from wandering in drunk, but a handful were open, with the motion of shadows projected from within indicating the party had seeped into these rooms as well. He leaned against the railing and took a sip of his beer, taking a moment to let the motions of the crowd below, just visible beyond the entry to the hallway, wash over him.

"Hey," Chloe drew his attention to her. She smiled that little smile he had never quite managed to get out of his head as she tilted her cup slowly back and forth.

"Hey," he replied.

"Thanks for dragging me along," she said.

"Ah, they wouldn't have let him in if he didn't have a cute girl with him," the reply came before John had a chance to formulate one himself. They turned to find Phoebe standing a few feet away. She had, it seemed, at some point between their earlier chance meeting and that very moment changed into a pink party dress which, John had to imagine, was of very little use against the night air outside but probably quite comfortable in the body-heated house. In any case, it was only barely doing its job of containing her decidedly ample curves. In one hand, she grasped a clear plastic cup by the rim, not unlike the ones he and Chloe were clutching. It appeared to contain some clear liquid, which swirled lazily as she moved the cup back and forth, smiling all the while. "Luka's very serious about his bouncer position, despite appearances."

John smiled. "I guess you got in no problem," he replied.

"Yeah, he's got a soft spot for me because I sucked his cock freshman year," she answered. John could almost feel Chloe react wordlessly, but Phoebe continued. "This one's cute enough to get in on looks alone, though. How you doin', sweetie?"

"I, uh, thanks," Chloe stammered. "I mean, I'm good, I'm chill, we're just chilling."

Phoebe smiled. "Good, you seem chill." She glanced at the cup that Chloe was holding against her chest for a moment, then continued. "Don't tell me you're actually drinking that horse piss." She turned to John with a faux sour look. "You can't drag a beautiful girl like this to a dogshit i-house party and not at least buy her a bottle of something palatable."

"No," Chloe answered, "I mean, yeah, no I mean it's good. Well, it's not good but it's fine. I don't really, I'm not much of a drinker. I can't drink that much. I mean, I can't hold my liquor is what I mean."

Phoebe shook her head, sending her blue hair rippling in a way John found strangely entrancing. "Sweetheart, you're adorable. Now come on, I've got a bottle of vodka. You like vodka? What am I saying, of course you do." She took the cup from Chloe, pushed it into John's hand, and then dragged Chloe into one of the open rooms, leaving John to watch two of the cutest butts he'd ever seen waggle their way into a nearby room. He downed the remaining beer in his own plastic cup, then stacked the one he'd just received in it.

John was just about to follow the girls when he felt a hand on his arm stop him. He almost spilled the beer in his hand when he turned to see the hand belonged to Cammy now wearing an almost absurdly short, black, form-fitting dress and the same wicked smile that he was starting to wonder if she even could wipe off her face. "Enjoying campus night life?"

John chuckled despite himself. "Hasn't changed a bit," he answered, "despite that I went to a different school a decade or so ago. I guess Brian's getting you a drink?"

Her eyes flicked down toward the noisy scene below. "Brian couldn't make it," she answered, still watching the revelers as she spoke. "He's just plain exhausted, you know." Her eyes jumped back to meet John's. "So fortunately that frees me up for any gentleman who'd care to buy me a drink."

"Unfortunately for you, I think gentlemen are few and far between in these parts," he replied. He swirled the beer in his cup idly, trying to ignore her eyes on him.

"In that case, I might have to settle for a scoundrel," she said. She stopped his swirling with a hand placed gently on his wrist. "Know any who are available?"

"Can't say I do," he answered, pulling away from her. Her expression played at disappointment unconvincingly. "But I suppose I could cough up the few bucks for the sister of my date."

"For that horse piss?" she feigned disgust as she indicated his drink with a motion of her head.

He shrugged. Before he could respond more substantively, Phoebe reappeared, with Chloe and an unfamiliar man trailing her. The man held a bottle of something clear in one hand, and Chloe had a cup of what John guessed was the same stuff pressed to her lips, which she then took a sip of.

"Hey, buddy," Phoebe said. "Did you get lost or something?"

"Just ran into..." John paused mid-sentence, meeting Cammy's eyes only for an instant before turning his attention back to Phoebe, "a friend. A friend in need of a drink who's too good for beer, apparently."

Phoebe looked between the two for a second, then said, "Cammy, was it? Lucky for you my boyfriend Will here knows exactly what a girl like you needs." She snatched the bottle from her boyfriend's hand and passed it to Cammy, who unflinchingly took a swig directly from it.

"Mmm," Cammy said. Rather than pass it back, she admired the bottle, which appeared to be some kind of flavored vodka; the thought of which alone was turning John's stomach.

"You want some?" Will asked.

John took a look at the kid; even if he hadn't vaguely recalled Phoebe mentioning at least one boyfriend around her own age, he would have pegged Will at mid 20's at latest and, though it could certainly be debated, maybe the prettiest boy John had ever seen: not feminine exactly, his body, through a tight black t-shirt clearly that of a man who worked out just the right amount, but the kind of guy he imagined that in another lifetime would have adorned the walls of many a teenage girl in poster form.

"I'm good," John replied, snatching the bottle and passing it back to Will who, John noted, did not take a drink of it himself. What are the odds Phoebe brought this guy to the party for the express purpose of carrying her bottle around for her while she looks for other potential partners? Pretty good, I'd wager.

"Probably a good choice," Will responded.

"It's really good, actually," Chloe said. During the conversation she had managed to sidle up to John without so much as a word. He was a bit surprised when she wrapped one arm around his waist while sipping from the cup. He turned his attention to her unthinkingly and found her smiling, the cup still pressed to her pink lips.

"Instant panty remover," Phoebe interjected.

"I doubt he needs the help," Cammy said, drawing John's attention back her way for just a moment.

The moment did not last, as Chloe, her fingers digging gently into his side, started guiding him to the stairs. "Come on, I want to dance." He just barely managed to keep his beer from sloshing out onto the floor as he followed her down the stairs and then through the crowd until they reached a relatively open space. He would have liked to say something witty but she took a few steps back and began that little awkward Chloe dance he had grown accustomed to, a smile growing on her face; his brain stopped trying to put the sentence together and he joined her in moving to the music, instead focusing on trying not to focus on looking like a complete dork.

By the end of the song, he found that the combination of the movement and the ambient heat in the room had produced a bit of sweat on his forehead. He wiped it away with one arm while quenching his thirst with the remainder of the beer, actually thankful for how watery it tasted just as another song, which, for all John could tell from the beat was actually just the same song playing again started up.

Chloe wiggled her way over towards him, increasing the heat as she moved within a few inches of his body. "Fun party," he thought she said over the music before taking what looked to be a far too large swig of her drink; she was close enough that even with the mixture of sweat and beer that was filling his nostrils he could make out a distinct note of artificial fruitiness.

"Yeah," he replied while she downed more of the stuff. "Maybe you should slow down?"

She put a finger to her ear in the universal sign of "I can't hear you" then danced her way back a few steps with a smile on her face.

The only thing that's going to be even more fun than figuring out sleeping arrangements with Chloe is figuring out sleeping arrangements with drunk Chloe, he mused sarcastically to himself. "I'm gonna get another drink," he raised his voice in an attempt to cut through the music.

Whether or not the message got through, Chloe just nodded, as she had already gotten back into her awkwardly cute little groove. He slipped through the crowd, dodging elbows and asses and made his way back to the kitchen.

"Rahuuuuul!" someone shouted. He could not pinpoint the source of the shout but the cute little Asian girl who was pouring herself a beer seemed to giggle at it and quickly gave up her spot at the keg to investigate, leaving John free to pour himself another round. When he had, he took a moment to drink in some of the atmosphere along with the watery beer.

So this is fun, he thought. Maybe if I'm lucky I can avoid Cammy long enough that Chloe will inevitably pass out and then I can carry her home.

And do what with her? the little voice in John's head asked.

Put her to bed, or couch, rather, then crash on the floor, he thought back.

And you think Cammy's not going to come home and find that suspicious? You sleeping on the floor while your beautiful "girlfriend" sleeps on the couch?

He grumbled at his own thoughts. I don't know, I could probably play it off as Chloe just being too drunk.

Which seems like it would be a golden opportunity for her to take advantage of, the voice responded.

So maybe she does, so what? John was annoyed that the noise of the party was doing nothing to drown out his inner dialogue. Maybe I just tell her I'm not interested.

Alright, we both know that's not going to work.

"Hit me up?"

The voice, barely audible as it was over the noise of the party did the job of cutting through John's thoughts. He looked toward the source of it and found Will, an empty cup in his hand.

"Oh, sure," he responded a moment after his brain finally kicked back into gear, taking the cup from Will and filling it up.

"So you and Chloe, huh?" the kid asked.

"Uh," John's brain went into playacting mode, "yeah. Me and, uh, Chloe. We're... us, yeah."

The kid chuckled, then after a second of flashing a smile John couldn't help reflecting, added. "Didn't realize it was that difficult a question." He took the beer from John with a slight nod and took a sip.

"Oh, it's, no, it's not," John answered. "I was just, uh, my mind was somewhere else is all."

"Uh huh," Will answered. "I gotcha. What you're saying is you'd be the one to worry about should I get the urge to try and take her home tonight."

Something about the kid's smile was disarming more than it should be and John found himself at a loss for what to respond with.

"I mean like how I would be the guy whose girlfriend you fucked," Will continued.

"I uh..." John was now completely at a loss for words, despite, or maybe because of Will's evident lack of anger.

"Relax, man," Will said with a chuckle, "I'm fucking with you. Phoebe and me, it's, let's just say it's very open."

John let out a sigh of relief. "I kind of got that impression," he said, adding "at the time, anyway."

"Yeah," said Will. A frat bro stereotype walked between the two of them and filled his cup, leaving them to trade silent looks for a few moments before he vacated the kitchen. "She fucks who she wants, I fuck who she wants. You know how it is."

John laughed. "Will was it?" he said. "I like you. Can I buy you a drink?"

Will, in true college student form, downed his beer and handed John the empty cup. "I'd be obliged," he said. While John filled the cup, Will continued, "I'm guessing from that answer that things with Chloe and you are similarly, let's say, unconventional?"

"You might say that," John responded. Another group of guys, looking to be from various corners of the globe had made their way into the kitchen, and so John casually started slipping out of there, Will following his lead as he went. John turned his head slightly as he walked to keep some semblance of eye contact and, more importantly, to try to direct his voice in the hopes of overcoming the throbbing beat. "So, yeah, I guess, uh, best of luck should you have been at all serious about taking her home. I just need her back in the morning."

"Need who back?"

John's face snapped forward again as he stopped short of running into Cammy. For some reason, the first thought that entered his mind was wonder at how she had made herself so easily heard despite not seeming to raise her voice at all.

"Uh, you, sweetheart," John replied. "I was just telling Will here how Chloe and I will need you back in the morning if we're going to make it to Thanksgiving."

She eyed Will with a little smile before responding. "I think your girlfriend is looking for you, by the way," she said.

"She always is," replied Will. He gave John a look that could only be interpreted as "best of luck" before disappearing into the crowd.

Cammy took a step forward and John a step back. Just then, someone behind John evidently felt the urgent need to get by, as he felt an elbow press into his back, canceling his step back and sending him nearly toppling over onto Cammy. He managed to right himself but not without spilling his drink onto her dress.

"Ah, shit, sorry," John sputtered as Cammy watched him with a mildly annoyed look on her face.

She waited, giving John just enough time to squirm, then said plainly, "Trying to get me wet?"

"I..." John began, but she cut him off with a look.

"Come on," she said, turning on her heel, "you're helping me get cleaned up."

Despite himself, he followed her, unable to stop his eyes from watching her shapely backside as she strode past some partygoers having a loud but incoherent conversation and into a hallway which led to a small and evidently unisex restroom. As she entered it, John found himself wondering how she seemed to know exactly where to go; perhaps this was not her first party at the place. In any case, it was, to his mild surprise, evidently otherwise unoccupied, though the lack of a lock on the door and the multiple stalls and urinals lining one wall told him it was unlikely to stay that way for long given the situation on the other end of the hallway.

"Watch the door," she said simply.

"Uh, ok," he responded, feeling somehow even stupider now, with a mostly empty cup in his hand as he stood near the entrance, than he had a few moments ago, fresh off pouring that beer directly down the front of Cammy's dress.

"I mean," she said, stepping towards him, "make sure no one comes in." She placed her hand on his chest and pushed him back against the door. "There," she said, evidently satisfied with his ability to act as a barricade, "now don't move." She hooked a finger under one of her shoulder straps and pulled it down, the dress barely managing to keep her breast hidden, then turned away from him and repeated the process with the other strap before slipping out of the dress entirely, leaving it around her ankles for a moment while she turned her head to meet his gaze.

He forced his eyes away from her, trying to focus on the ceiling instead of her hourglass figure, covered only by a pair of black panties. She stepped away from the dress, then bent down and picked it up; the image of her beautiful round ass forcing its way into John's brain despite his best efforts.

"John, John, John," she teased, tossing the dress into a nearby sink. "When did you get so prudish? We both know it's nothing you haven't seen before."

He felt rather than saw her step towards him, her body warm against his. "You should probably try to get that beer out as quick as you can. Wouldn't want to wait too long and have it ruin your dress." His gulp sounded comically loud in his own ears.

"Oh no," she feigned concern, "what's this? I think you got some on my panties, too."

"Seems unlikely," he responded, trying to look away to one side but feeling her warm fingers on his jaw guide his gaze back to her.

"Oh, John," she teased, pouting adorably for a moment before continuing, "You're really going to try and keep up this act?"

"Act?" he managed to squeak out.

"This whole monogamy charade," she answered, her green eyes boring into his. "You don't need to pretend with me."

He tried to slip to one side and only managed to bang into the doorknob. "Very sweet of you," he said. "I'll have to remember to tell Brian what a lucky guy he is."

"No, you won't," she said; her voice hinted at neither anger or fear, simply stating a fact that he had, he realized just then, already known. She took a step back, giving John a second to breathe; his eyes fell on her pert breasts, her perfect little pink nipples already standing at attention; his eyes disobeyed for a moment before he was able to force them back up, stepping away from the door and letting his muscles relax.

Of course it was at that very moment that a girl chose to throw the door open as she proceeded to charge at the stalls at full speed. That it was a girl took John a moment to process; initially it had just seemed to be a vaguely caramel-colored blur which nearly bowled him over. If the girl had noticed Cammy's state of undress as she flew in, she didn't mention it. Nor did she mention anything else, as the next sound out of her mouth was that of retching, and it did not stop.

"I think she might need you to hold her hair," John said. Before Cammy had a chance to respond, John was out the door and down the hallway, ducking into the crowd in case Cammy got that dress back on.

He returned to where he had left Chloe but found nobody familiar, and thus began the search for her. It seemed to John that the party had only grown wilder in the relatively brief interval he had spent with Cammy, having spilled up even to the second floor, which made traversing the stairs something of a hassle.

The party gods are against me tonight, it seems, John conceded. As if in some kind of bizarre propitiation ritual to these very gods, someone had decided that the thudding bass from the first floor was insufficient and had added another track to it, this one coming from one of the open and illuminated doors on the second floor. Something told him he was heading in the right direction, and he proceeded towards it, the dissonance between the two beats disappearing as he approached and the newer replaced the older.

He found, to his complete lack of surprise, Chloe, her dancing having escalated to what could only generously be called "gyrating" inside, moving this way and that to the beat, constrained in her motions by Phoebe in front of her and Will behind her. His eyes met Will's, who responded with a wink before peeling off, leaving the girls to writhe. "Yo, Miloš, gimme that bottle," he shouted to a dark-haired guy who responded by passing Will a bottle of something blue before heading back to a group of partygoers.

Chloe had evidently not even noticed John's entrance, lost in the dancing as she was, but Phoebe had tracked Will's movement and joined him a moment later; Chloe, now alone with a cup that John noticed was disturbingly full of what looked to be whatever disturbingly blue beverage Will had in hand, took a second to recognize the situation before her face lit up and she scurried over to him, spilling little drops of the blue liquid as she moved.

"Baby!" she called out as she wrapped her arms around him. He felt a few drops of her drink get absorbed into the back of his shirt as she hugged him, a price he was certainly willing to pay for the gesture, but he noted how unsteady she already seemed despite them having arrived not too long before by his estimation.

"Hi, baby," he returned her curious appellation as she pulled back from the hug. "Having fun?"

"Mmmhmm," she replied, accompanying her answer with a comically exaggerated nod. "Your friends are a lot of fun."

"My friends?" he responded, shooting Phoebe a glance.

Chloe giggled a particular giggle that John had only ever seen surface when she was drunk. "I mean, your Phoebe. Or whatever. And Will's so yummy!" She followed her little squeal of delight with a too-large drink from the cup, taking around half of its volume into her mouth. Some of it trickled out of the corners of her smile as she swallowed it, then giggled again.

"Oh I meant this stuff is yummy!" She laughed at her own Freudian slip, then leaned in close to John and stage whispered "He is really yummy, though!"

John caught Will's eye, who offered a shrug as a response before Chloe stuck her arm out towards the boy, offering him her cup. "Can I have some more? Please?"

He started opening the bottle, but John placed a hand on her cup first. "Maybe we should get you some water first? You know, slow down a bit?"

"Boo," she teased, sticking out her tongue. Then after a moment of what seemed to be consideration, added, "Yeah, you're probably right."

John pulled his hand away from the cup. What am I doing? I'm not her dad. I'm not even her real boyfriend. If she wants to get plastered for whatever reason, why not just let her? "Ah, you're probably alright," he said, "Just wanted to make sure you're alright for tomorrow, but you can sleep it off while I drive. Have fun and just, uh, watch out for this guy, maybe." He winked towards Will.

She smiled. "Thanks, baby. Now, come on, let's have some fun." She passed him her cup and, despite himself, he tried a drink of it. He immediately wished he hadn't, barely able to keep the vaguely fruity, sweet and almost syrupy beverage in his stomach.

"Actually I think I'm going to need that water," he said.

"Boo," she repeated, sticking her tongue out again. "Come on, Will, let's see if we can't make my boyfriend jealous enough that he changes his mind about having a good time." She dragged him away a few steps and began gyrating once again.

John noticed Phoebe giving him a curious look out of the corner of her eye. When he turned his head to meet her gaze, she said, "You know, I'm actually kind of thirsty myself," she said.

"You seem like you're always thirsty," he replied with a smile.

"Ha," she said, "I am, but let's see what we can do about it, anyway. Come on, I'll help you find a faucet." She turned and headed out to the common area, leaving John to catch up. To his surprise, she led him not down the stairs but rather to a door marked with a clear EMERGENCY EXIT - ALARM WILL SOUND sign which, appearances notwithstanding, did not, in fact trigger any sort of alarm when she pushed it open, leading to a fire escape.

"Were you thinking of rainwater, maybe? Because I don't think we're due for any." John asked, looking up to the clear night sky, which, he noted with a small note of pleasure, showed slightly more stars than he was used to at home, when the door had closed behind them.

"Not quite," she answered without turning to look at him. He followed her gaze to the railing of the fire escape, leaning against which stood the scraggly fellow John recognized from the front door. He appeared to be looking out at nothing in particular, the seemingly residential streets that led away from campus being absent any sign of life, as he puffed on a cigarette. The smell of pot in the air wafted into John's nostrils. "Scram, Luka," Phoebe said, drawing the man's attention to her after a mild delay.

"Eh, fuck you, Phoebe," Luka answered in a playful tone, "I was here first."

"Yeah, well, I'm here now," she replied, extending her hand to him to take the joint that he offered. "And if you don't want that little girlfriend of yours to find out about that party freshman year, then you'll go find somewhere else to smoke up." She placed the joint between her lips, sucked in and then, with an admirable lack of coughing, John thought, offered it back to Luka.

Luka's mouth curled into a smile that was no less endearing for how lopsided it was as he waved off the joint. "Alright, you want to suck this guy off out here, fine." He got up and moved towards the door, stopping to address John for a moment. "Watch out for this one, bro. Too much teeth. All teeth. She'll bite your dick off." He chuckled to himself as he rejoined the party, letting the music leak out the entrance for a moment before John and Phoebe were left in the relative silence of the fire escape.

She leaned against the railing, which, to his relief did not give way, despite its rickety appearance and shot him an amused look as she sucked on the joint again.

"Or maybe you had something else in mind? You didn't drag me out here to try and make out with me or anything, did you?" He leaned back against the building, not putting his faith in the opposite railing.

She shrugged. "If you want," she answered. "But I kind of get the feeling there's enough drama in your life without me sucking you off out here, which, just to be clear is an option." She offered him the joint.

He took it from her and chuckled. "Yeah, no, maybe I should take you up on the offer, actually."

She made a little "the offer stands" gesture, watching him smoke for a moment, then said, "So as much as I'd enjoy your juicy cock, you know I'd be happy with juicy drama as well. So what's your deal this time? You don't look like any more jilted exes have rearranged your face since last we spoke."

"Ah fuck, where to begin," John sighed, blowing smoke which faded into the night sky.

"Well, as I recall, on the occasion of our first and, unfortunately thus far only, one night stand, you were nursing a broken heart over both a girl and a guy as well as a jaw inflicted by, what was it, an ex's friend's boyfriend? Something like that."

"Spot on," he answered, handing her back the joint. "Good memory you've got there."

She smiled. "Well it was something of a night to remember, after all. I haven't had my ass eaten like that since, well, since last night, but you were still pretty good. And anyway I like the drama. When I'm not involved, of course."

He shook his head, stifling a laugh. "Yeah, I recall something to that effect. Alright, so..." he took a deep breath, mentally assembling the last few months of his dating life.

"So I'm going to guess you didn't take my advice about getting your dick wet without getting emotionally involved," she said. She watched him, her tongue playing along her teeth as she smiled.

"No," he said, watching the little curl of smoke drifting up into the air from the joint, "I did. I went to Thailand, fucked some ladyboys, the whole nine yards, really," he said. "I was doing great, actually. Just then..."

"Then Chloe?"

He laughed. "Yeah, then Chloe. Well, actually then Cammy and then Chloe."

"Jesus Christ, my dude," she laughed. "You fucked her sister and then decided it would be a good idea to get into a committed relationship with her?" She took another drag on the joint as she waited for his answer.

"I didn't really think about it at the time," John replied. "And anyway it was never supposed to be a relationship. It was always casual. We made sure of that."

She folded her arms as she blew smoke out again. "Doesn't seem like it," she said. "A lot of 'boyfriend's being thrown around casually in there. Maybe you two are not on the same page?"

John scratched his head. "No, I mean, we're on the same page. At least I think."

"And what exactly is written on that page? 'Open relationship'? 'Engaged'? 'Friends with benefits'?" She passed him the joint.

He looked up to the stars. "Nothing at all," he let out without a thought before taking another hit.

"You're going to have to explain that one, pal," Phoebe replied.

He took a look at her. I really should just take her up on that offer, if only to keep her from asking any more questions. "We're... god, it's so stupid. We're not even together. She left my ass weeks ago but never told her family, I guess, and she's just too embarrassed about it so she asked me to play the part for her. Just for Thanksgiving, but..." He shook his head as he trailed off.

She did not so much laugh as guffawed at this. "God damn you're stupid," she said when she'd finally suppressed the laugh. "You mean she asked you to pretend to be her boyfriend? And you just agreed to that?"

He gave a sort of non-committal head motion as a response.

"And you really think it's because she's too embarrassed about breaking up with you?" She could not stop shaking her head, it seemed, while talking to him.

"Well in her defense, she can't really adequately explain the break up, I think," he offered along with the joint. When he saw that her only response was a questioning look, he continued, "Because it was kind of because we had a foursome with her best friend and then I guess she freaked out about it the next day..."

Phoebe continued to shake her head but offer no other response.

"And so that was like a whole thing, I guess." He took a breath of cold November air into his lungs and let it out slowly, then added, "Oh and also I'm, well, I have been fucking her, that is, Chloe's roommate, who also happens to be the ex from before, the one who I got punched in the jaw for."

Just as Phoebe opened her mouth, he added, "Oh and also Chloe's brother sucked me off once, but she doesn't know about that. Or her sister. So there's also that."

This time, Phoebe waited a few moments, taking a long hit off the joint, before responding. "Is that all?" She pushed off the railing and stepped towards him. "Or is there some other girl involved as well?"

"No, that's it," John said, then paused and considered. "Well, I mean, I guess I should add that I also was fucking that other girl, the one who had a secret boyfriend, I guess secret fiance now, whatever, if you remember that little detail. But not until Chloe was already done with me, for what it's worth. I did actually manage to keep my dick in my pants for a while, though I guess it didn't end up making any difference. But that's... well, anyway there's that also."

She eyed him curiously.

"... and I guess that's the line, fucking an engaged girl. Yeah, not my finest hour." He sunk his hands into his jacket pockets for a moment, felt stupid for doing so, and then pulled them out again.

She shook her head. "No, I don't care," she said. "It's your life. Not a great idea, but honestly pretty much nothing after the Thailand bit of your story really is. I mean, fuck a girl, fuck her sister, hell, fuck them both, preferably at the same time. That's hot, no lie, but only give them your dick, not your heart. Did you not get that part of my advice?"

"In my defense, I'm a well-known idiot," John replied as he took the joint she offered him. It had burnt down to barely a stub at that point. "Anyway, thanks for listening. Got any other sage advice for me to screw up?"

She placed her hand gently on his arm. "Yeah," she said, "honestly, here's what you should do. Not what you're going to do, I already know, but just so I can tell you I told you so if you ever come around here cruising for college girls again. One, take these two girls to wherever you are contractually obligated and then floor it out of there. Two, drive directly back here and spend the long weekend competing with Will for who can cum in my ass the most times. And three, and I can't stress this enough, stop falling in love. You're not built for it. You're not built for monogamy and you're going to kill yourself trying to pretend that you are."

"Thanks," John said after finishing what he had decided should really be his last hit. "Really. I mean, you're right, I'm definitely not going to do that, as fun as step two sounds, but thanks for showing me what I should have done. Will have should have done, I guess. I'm not sure how to phrase that."

"Tenses are the least of your problems," she said, stepping past him to the door. She took the little nub of the joint, sucked it one last time, and threw it off into the night. "Now, last chance to whip it out and get a consequence-free blowjob. Otherwise, I need a refill." When it evidently became apparent that he was not going to "whip it out" right then and there she let out a little laugh, opened the door, and led him back inside.

"You really would have sucked my cock back there?" he asked as he caught up to her.

She shrugged and continued walking towards the room they had just left, but stopped suddenly upon reaching the corner of the hallway, just barely managing not to run into Cammy.

"Oh, there you are, John," she said, "and... Candy, was it?"

Phoebe eyed her with a mix of curiosity and annoyance that struck John as quite funny for some reason. "Phoebe, actually."

"Oh, right," Cammy replied. "I guess I just got confused with your whole... vibe."

John tried and failed to stifle a laugh that surprised even himself, leading both the girls to turn and shoot him a look. "You do kind of look like cotton candy," he said. Fuck, I'm high, aren't I? When was the last time I smoked up?

Phoebe took a look at her pink dress, then at a shock of blue hair that was hanging in front of her face. "Fair enough," she said. "Taste even better, though."

Cammy looked to Phoebe with an expression not entirely devoid of disbelief, although it was clearly being tamped down as much as possible. "Is that what John here told you?" Without taking her eyes from Phoebe, she added "Oh, John, have you been up to something naughty tonight?"

"Decriminalized substances notwithstanding," Phoebe said, similarly keep her eyes locked onto Cammy's, "John's been on his best behavior tonight." After a slight pause, she added, "So at least that makes one of us."

Cammy offered Phoebe only a curious look in response as John blinked his eyes, feeling he was processing the situation far more slowly than he should have been.

And then Phoebe turned her attention to him, wearing a smile. "She's hot," she said. "I see why you fucked her, even if she is kind of a cunt." She turned back to Cammy. "Let me know if you're interested in a taste test when you're done barking up the wrong tree here." With that, she stepped past Cammy on her way towards the stairwell.

Cammy, her head turned halfway in Phoebe's direction, watched the other girl walk away out of the corner of her eye while John stood, blinking, then seemed to shift back into her normal mode, facing John again and stepping towards him.

"You reek of pot," she said, having taken up a position only a few inches from him.

"Do I?" John asked. He pinched his shirt and pulled it towards his nose to check.

He quickly forgot about it when Cammy continued. "So I guess while you were off getting high with," she paused mid sentence, turning her head slightly in the direction Phoebe had disappeared, then turning it back, "... that girl Phoebe, my sister's had to find someone else to pay attention to her."

"Huh?" John asked.

Cammy's smile widened. "She just seemed to be enjoying herself without you, is all," she said. Obviously reading something off John's face, she continued. I'm sure you've noticed by now how she tends to get when the alcohol starts flowing. You might want to keep an eye on her, bleary as it may be, is all I'm saying."

"I'm not..." John started, then cut himself off.

Cammy raised an eyebrow.

"She's fine," he said. "She can handle herself."

"Oh, I'm sure of that," Cammy replied. "Just being a good sister. Well, enjoy the party." She turned and proceeded, John noted, in the same direction as Phoebe had, for a few steps, leaving John to watch her shapely ass and ponder what kind of game she was playing. She stopped suddenly, caught his eye over her shoulder, smiled, and then proceed back to the party.

John made his way back to the room where he had last seen Chloe. Inside he found a thumping beat and a crowd of college students moving vaguely in time with it, but not among them Chloe, or, for that matter, Will. Without much else to do, he decided to get a refill and consider where she might have gone. By the time he had reached the kitchen, finding it full but not so much that filling his plastic cup took more than a minute, he'd decided he should think about something else.

What's the matter? the little voice in his head prodded him. Are you seriously getting jealous?

Maybe I'm just worried. Chloe's not exactly got the best track record of handling alcohol. He took a sip of his newly topped off beer, finding it more distasteful than he remembered as he stepped back into the hallway.

Like that first night you met her? Afraid Will might not be so 'noble' as you were? his subconscious seemed to be enjoying pestering him to the point that he almost worried Cammy had somehow literally gotten into his brain as he looked down the hallway to the throbbing mass of people.

What business of that is mine? he grumbled silently. If she was in the mass of people in the main part of the building, he decided, he may as well just wait her out instead of trying to figure out where she was, and in any case, the cool night air had felt good earlier, and a glance down the hall the other direction showed a door that promised more of the same: the night sky was visible through a small window in it, so he proceeded that way instead.

He found that it led out onto a porch of sorts, which was occupied by a handful of young people, lounging in a couple of wicker chairs and against the wooden support beams of the porch. He paused, his head stopping involuntarily before he even had the chance to scan the small crowd for anyone he knew at a sound that was somehow comically familiar.

"And after all... you're my wonder wall..."

Some things never change.

He looked instinctively towards the source of the singing and found, an image that matched essentially perfectly his mind's platonic ideal of what he expected to see: sitting on a wicker chair, an acoustic guitar on his knee, a young man inexplicably wearing sunglasses despite the night, a perfectly unkempt five o' clock shadow on his face, and moving his trucker hat-capped head in time with his own music. John chuckled to himself as he noticed, watching in apparent fascination a few feet away, a group of attractive young women. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess.

His musings, which he was certain were being enhanced by the THC coursing through his veins, were interrupted by a gentle touch on his arm. He turned to find the source of the sensation was Chloe. Her fingers protruded slightly from the sleeves of the hoodie, the hood of which she had pulled up above her head in an apparent bid to keep out the cold. "Hey," she greeted him, then twisted her face up into an adorable mixture of amused and curious. "You smell weird."

"Uh, hey," John responded. "Sorry, I was just... " He paused, watching her sip more of the blue stuff from her cup.

"With Phoebe?" she finished the sentence for him, before once again hiding her mouth with the upturned cup.

"... yeah," he responded, unsure what, if anything, she was getting at. Leave it to Chloe to somehow get through four years of American university without ever learning what weed smells like. As he considered a more substantial response, his eyes drifted over to the dudebro performing again, the familiar lyrics passing in one ear and out the other.

"Definitely going to get some tonight," Chloe's voice interrupted his thoughts and he returned his attention to her, unable to stifle what must have been an amusingly confused look on his face.

"That guy," she continued. The guy in question did not seem to notice at all he was being talked about, focused as he was on ending the song with a suitably loud series of strums.

"Yeah," John replied. He noticed that one of the girls who had been hovering near the performer had managed to slip her shapely behind onto the arm of the chair he was occupying and was engaging him in what John was certain, despite being unable to hear it over the general chatter on the porch combined with the sounds from within the house, was some truly insightful observations about music. "It's an old code, but it checks out."

Chloe smiled a smile that was only barely perceptible. "Yeah, the whole artistically shaggy thing, just really screams 'I'm so passionate about the music, man'," she said. "It works." Then after a pause she added, "for some girls, anyway."

"Yeah," John shrugged as Chloe tilted her head back to pour the remainder of her drink into her mouth. "Kind of a wide net, but it's a time-tested strategy, I suppose."

She eyed him with curiosity but said nothing. "I mean, if you don't really care who you go home with."

She smiled, then turned and moved towards a corner of the porch, only to return with a bottle that John recognized as the one Will had poured from for her earlier. It was now running alarmingly low.

"Jesus," he chuckled. "Will give you that?"

She did a cute little shrug then answered, "I may have convinced him to let me have it." She seemed to read something off his face that he did not intend, because her little smile seemed to fade. "You want some?" she asked even as she poured more into her cup.

"Nah, I'm good," he answered. "Gotta drive tomorrow. You sure you're not going to be hungover?"

"I'm fine," she answered. "Maybe I just want to relax, you know?"

"Lower your inhibitions?" John asked.

He perceived a tiny little wiggle accompanying her shrug. "Maybe." A moment passed in which John considered his response but came up with nothing. "Anyway," she said, cutting through the relative silence, "if a guy really wants to pick up a girl at a party, there are way better ways than lugging a guitar around."

"Oh yeah?" John asked.

"Yeah, like, dance with her," Chloe replied. "Works like every time. I mean, if you're a good dancer, anyway. That's, like, instant panty remover."

"Panty remover?" John asked, stifling a laugh at her vocabulary. "Well, unfortunately for me I've got at least two left feet."

"That's not how I remember it," she said.

"I think maybe that stuff," John said, indicating the bottle in her hand, "might be clouding up your recollections."

She took a look at the bottle, then threw back the small amount of liquid in her cup before chucking it, empty, out into the darkness behind the house. "Come on," she said, taking him by the hand, "refresh my memory."

She tugged him gently toward the house and a few moments later they were in the heart of the party, squeezed between unfamiliar, sweaty bodies, pushed together by the motions of the other partygoers as much as by the beat that invoked those motions.

Chloe danced close, wiggling her hips in a way that John could only describe as adorkable, fully into the music as the small amount of blue liquid in the bottle she was still gripping tightly in one had sloshed around, and she only drew closer as the song wore on. He did his best just to move along with the music, thankful that the revelers around him were almost certainly paying him and his awkwardness no mind.

She pressed up against him, her body even hotter than the air, which was already causing him to sweat uncomfortably. He tried to look her in the eye, but with only the briefest moment of eye contact, she turned her head and took another drink, this time right from the bottle, managing to only spill a few drops even as she continued her "dance", which had gradually become more of a rhythmic grinding on his leg.

Is this...? Is she...? Are we...?

She finished her drink and when she looked into his eyes, it was with a lust he hadn't seen for weeks, and maybe not ever. She smiled, and her tongue darted out of her mouth just long enough to scoop up a thin trail of the blue drink that had overflowed one corner. He realized his hands were on her hips, having no memory of how they had gotten there. Her tongue hesitated between her lips as her hips stopped moving. The music may have continued; the other partygoers may still have been dancing; all he was sure of was how badly he wanted to kiss her. He tried to read her face but it instantly changed, from pure desire to something else. Disgust?

"Oh god..." she groaned as she stepped back from him, leaving his leg suddenly cold and lonely and making him aware of how hard he had been growing. He realized that the music had, in fact, stopped as she took another step back. "Uhhh..." her drawn out groan was now even drawing the attention of a couple of other partygoers, even as the next song, fortunately less loud if even more upbeat, began. "I think I'm..."

Chloe never finished her sentence, as she slapped a hand across her mouth and immediately made a break for it through the crowd. It was not hard to follow her, the crowd giving way before her, giving her access to the same restroom that had been the site of John's escape from Cammy earlier in the night. It was, he had to admit, pretty impressive that she had managed to find her way all the way there and pushed open a stall without leaving even a tiny blue trail of vomit. He watched alongside a stunned group of girls in party dresses as she collapsed before one of the toilets, supporting herself with one arm on the seat and trying desperately with the other to hold back her hair.

"Let me..." he began, lowering himself beside her, but she waved him off.

"It's ok," she panted, her voice echoing in the toilet bowl. "I don't think I'm gonna... It's ok..." She breathed heavily a few times, then made a noise that John took as more of a spitting than vomiting. "I just need a minute."

He got to his feet and backed up, feeling the eyes of the college girls on him. "I'll just, uh, be outside, then, ok?" When she responded with only a vague hand gesture, he added, already backing out of the room, "Just holler if you need anything, alright?"

Sometimes the nausea is your friend, sometimes not so much, John sighed as he took stock of the hallway outside the restroom. He tried to listen for the sound of retching from within but even if she had been getting sick, he concluded that he would almost certainly be unable to make it out through the door over the noise of the party.

"People are going to think you're some kind of pervert, hanging around the toilets like that," Cammy said, seemingly appearing from nowhere when John turned his head.

"I'd hate to give people the correct impression," John replied, hoping his surprise at her sudden reappearance was not too easily readable from his face.

She smiled that thin little smile for a brief moment before asking "I take it my sister has once again proven she can't hold her liquor?"

He considered how a face could be at once so cute and so evil. "Ah, she might have had a little too much fun tonight," he conceded.

"And you haven't even taken her home yet?" Cammy replied. "Doesn't sound like too much fun to me." She paused a second, evidently enjoying the puzzlement her statement had aroused in John, "Come on, I'll show you where she can lie down for a bit when she's done in there."

She didn't wait for John's reply, leaving John to follow her as she turned and proceeded to and then up the stairs. After an unfamiliar turn on the second floor, they came to a hallway bereft of any partygoers and which appeared, from the closed doors, unoccupied; presumably even some international students took the Thanksgiving weekend as an opportunity to leave. Cammy stopped in front of one of the darkened doors and opened it without so much as manipulating the lock.

"You just happened to know this room is unused?" John asked as he followed her in.

Her only response was a smirk over her shoulder, as she turned on a lamp John would never have even noticed in the dark of the room.

"Of course you do," John answered his own question. He looked around the room, finding two beds sporting bare mattresses, as well as a desk which appeared to exist solely to hold that lamp, as nothing else sat on its surface.

"Of course," she said as she stepped towards him slowly. "I've learned all the best little hideaways around campus." In the dim, yellowish light provided by the lamp, her usually distractingly green eyes seemed to take on a queasy shade, shifting to brown.

"Well, that's what you're here for, right? Learning?" John replied. Are we really going to do this again?

"And what are you here for?" Cammy asked. She stopped a few inches in front of him and looked up into his eyes, wearing that same smile as always.

"Uh..." John replied, letting the response form slowly in his mind. He assumed that regardless of what he landed on, Cammy would simply turn it around with some altogether too clever response. "Why am I here, like, this room? Or the party? Your school? Or are we talking existentialism here?"

She shrugged, the one response he was not expecting.

"'Cause if it's the existentialism thing, I'll just tell you up front that I got a D in my freshman philosophy course so..."

"Why am I not surprised?" she responded. "I suppose I'll have to simplify then."

He felt her fingers graze his belly, then slide gracefully downwards, coming to a rest on his jeans. She watched her own hand with apparently great interest as it moved.

"I'll make it easy for you," she said, her eyes suddenly jumping back up to meet his. She kicked the door closed behind him, sending a little gush of air blowing into the room and silencing the already somewhat faint sounds of the party which had been drifting in. "Very easy."

"I appreciate that," John managed.

Suddenly she was on him, one arm around his neck, the other hand already jerking his cock through his jeans before he was even aware he was getting hard. He found her tongue in his mouth more surprising than anything, though certainly not unpleasant. What was even more surprising was how his own hands had reacted, one on her back, drawing her even deeper into the kiss, and the other planted firmly on her ass, the fingers already kneading the soft flesh through the thin fabric of her dress.

No no no no no no no bad idea! the little voice in John's head started screaming at him. He forced his fingers to relax and pushed her away from himself, the absence of her body heat leaving him feeling cold.

She wore an expression that was less surprised than it was annoyed. "Really?"

"What about Brian?" he objected.

"Fuck Brian," she answered without even a moment's hesitation.

Poor guy, John thought. "Really?"

"Yeah, really," she answered just as promptly. "It's not like TAs willing to trade dates for grades are some kind of rare find." She paused for a moment, looking him over with hungry eyes. "And besides, it's not like you're going to tell him."

He chuckled, despite himself. "And what if I do?"

"And what if I tell Chloe?" she countered.

He could almost feel the button inside him that she had managed to find click. "Tell her what? That you kissed me?"

"I doubt the distinction would matter," Cammy responded. She stepped to him again. "Besides, we both know it's not going to come up. We're both horrible sinners, remember? Now why don't you stop pretending at being my sister's faithful boyfriend."

"I'm not..." John began, but was unable to finish, so distracted was he by Cammy's nodding along, paired with her faux innocent pout.

"You're not what?" she teased when he had drifted off. "You're not pretending? You're not her boyfriend? You're not interested?" She giggled at the frustrated noise he made in response. "It can't be that. This little guy gives it away." She placed her hand on his cock and rubbed it through his jeans. "This big guy, sorry. I know you boys are so sensitive about that."

He made another noise and tried to back away but found his legs were cement.

"Would it help if I told you you're bigger than my boyfriend? That I haven't been able to get you out of my head since that day?" Somehow she managed to find the perfect balance of sincerity and sarcasm as she continued to rub his now fully hard cock through his jeans.

"It would help if you would stop doing that and forget about that day," he managed to respond.

"Hmm," she giggled, shaking her head. "Or maybe you'd stop being such a stick in the mud if I told you you can have my ass." She watched his reaction with a smile, evidently seeing in it what she had hoped for. "You know I don't even give Brian anal. Have to keep him wanting more, you know? Plus he's never really earned it."

She stepped back, her fingers gripping his cock, pulling him along with her as she moved towards one of the beds. "Come on," she said. "I've been needing something up my tight little ass for too long."

"Does it have to be him, or will anyone do?"

They both turned to find Phoebe standing in the door. She wore a playful smirk on her face as she stepped over toward them.

"Candy?" Cammy asked. Her tone told John that she knew this to be the wrong name.

"Ha," Phoebe replied, eyeing Cammy with a smile. "You really are a slutty little cunt, aren't you?"

Cammy's face pinched into a tight scowl before she responded, "Quite the mouth on you. Is that what John here liked about you?"

"You'd have to ask him," Phoebe responded. "Although I suspect he'd proffer a different part of my anatomy first."

They both turned to look at him. "It's a nice mouth," he answered, his voice rising in pitch towards the end of the sentence as if it was a question.

"Is that so?" Cammy asked; John could not tell whether she was intrigued or bored by the statement.

"I've never had any complaints," Phoebe answered for him. She stepped closer to Cammy, placing herself directly between John and the younger girl, and Cammy once more surprised John, this time by shrinking back a step. "From any gender," Phoebe added.

After a moment, Cammy straightened back up, her usual smirk returning. "They usually don't say it to your face."

"True," said Phoebe. She cocked her head to the side, placing a finger on her chin in a mockery of consideration. "Usually their mouths are otherwise occupied."

"Hmph," Cammy replied, "one of those performative lesbian sluts." She took a step to the side as if to evade Phoebe.

"I've never minded performing for a guy," Phoebe answered, seemingly unfazed. "What with you trying to fuck your sister's boyfriend I would have thought you were a real slut, too." She let out an exaggerated sigh. "But I guess you're just one of those fake sluts who wouldn't even make out with another girl to excite the guy she's trying to steal. Ho hum."

Cammy grew visibly annoyed. "Whatever, I don't know what your deal is, but you can fuck off now, thanks."

"Eh," Phoebe replied, she turned on her heel to face John, wearing a subtle but unmistakable smile. "Since it looks like you've finally recognized this monogamy thing is for the birds, I figured I'd throw my hat in the ring." She turned to give Cammy a look that John could not see from his angle, before immediately turning back to him. "So just letting you know once you get tired of missionary with this flat-chested little bitch I'm still available. And unlike some selfish little cunts, I don't mind the taste of another girl's twat on my man's dick." She took a step away from Cammy and towards the door, then paused and added, "The polycule's a little bit understaffed at the moment, but you know where to find us."

Phoebe made as if to move for the door again, but even John could see that this was a fiction; she was clearly unsurprised when Cammy, her hand suddenly jumping to Phoebe's arm, brought her to a halt. "Polycule, you say?"

"Yeah," Phoebe answered, giving the girl an obvious once over. "You'd probably fit right in." She let out a little scoff. "But I guess you're not willing to share so..."

John doubted that Phoebe had an end to the sentence in mind, but it didn't matter, as it was interrupted by a deep kiss on the lips from Cammy. The two girls embraced in front of him, their tongues dancing in and out of one another's mouths in the type of kissing one would be hard pressed to find outside of a porn movie. If he hadn't already been at full mast, the sight would have put him there, anyway.

Phoebe's hand drifted down to Cammy's ass, and then as they continued to kiss, around her thigh, where it disappeared from John's sight, although he could imagine perfectly well what she was doing with it from the way that Cammy reacted, the sudden jerk of shock at the initial invasion, followed by the rhythmic motion of her hips, ostensibly in time to Phoebe's ministrations.

The girls fell over onto the bed, Phoebe landing on top of Cammy as they continued to kiss, seemingly unconcerned about John's presence. He found himself smiling as he watched; a part of him of course wanted to join in. What part of me doesn't want to join in? Why am I not joining in?

Maybe we should just stop thinking about it and go check on our pretend girlfriend before our dick takes over.

Suddenly the girls stopped and Phoebe craned her neck to look back at him. "I think your girlfriend needs you," she said. She started to turn back to Cammy, but hesitated a second, adding, "You're welcome, by the way," before finishing her motion.

He was amazed to find his feet actually obeying, moving him towards the exit. He took one look back as he slipped out the door, allowing himself a last view of Phoebe's sumptuous ass up in the air just as Cammy pulled the dress up, revealing that ass to be unencumbered by any sort of undergarment.

Why am I not joining in again? he asked the voice in his head.

Ours is not to question why, the voice responded. Ours is to carry Chloe home and put her to bed.

John tried not to think about it further as he made his way back downstairs, finding it easier than he had suspected; the crowd seemed to be thinning out. He wondered how long he had been at the party, and tried to estimate how much of that time had been spent with Cammy in the room he had just fled from, fighting with his dick the whole way. He could only hope it was not so long that Chloe had recovered and noticed him missing. Upon reaching the restroom door, he decided to hope for the best as he did not see an annoyed or confused Chloe standing around, just a handful of unknown college kids loitering near the door. He briefly considered poking his head inside, but decided it best to just wait; he pulled out his phone in an effort to kill some time and was only slightly surprised to find he'd missed a few texts from Carrie, having not even glanced at the phone since before the party.

hey asshole

how's the trip?

wishing you were dead yet?

must be more fun than answering my texts

or you wished too hard

hope its the first one

actually second one. FUCKING ANSWER

fuck so boring. forgot my wine.

this sucks so much ass. fucking bitch sister in law

whatever say hi to Chloe for me

John was surprised by a pang of guilt at the wall of unanswered texts. He was just about done formulating a non-apology when the restroom door opened; when he instinctively turned toward it, he found Chloe. She looked exhausted, running her hand through her disorderly hair, her head apparently permanently tilted to one side as she exhaled what looked like a painful sigh. "Hey," she managed to squeak out.

"Hey," John quickly shoved the phone back into his pocket. If she even noticed the gesture, nothing in her hollow stare showed it. "Should we maybe...?"

"Take me home, please," she responded before he even finished the offer.

"Ooh, a beautiful girl wants me to take her home," he said, taking her by the hand. "I guess this was a pretty good party after all."

She closed her eyes even as she let out a little laugh, looking as if the exertion of even that was taxing her. "I feel like crap," she said. "So I'm sure I look like crap, too."

"You didn't check yourself out in the mirror?" he asked, already guiding her down the hallway, preparing himself mentally for the bit of blocking he would have to do to get her through the crowd, diminished as it was. Her only response was a shake of her head and a scoff.

"Then you'll just have to trust me," he tried to speak over the music as they made their way through the main part of the party and out to the front porch. He couldn't be sure whether she had even heard him over the noise, her only response being a halfhearted smile. Fortunately, the noise was largely bearable as they reached the front porch; the sudden rush of cold night air seemed to remind every cell in John's body that it had been probably a good decade since he'd last exited a party like this. "Are you good to walk back? I'd call us a cab but I kind of doubt we'd be able to pick one up here."

She pulled in close to him, keeping hold of his hand but pressing herself gently against him. "I'm good," she said. "A little cold, but I'm good."

He looked her over questioningly. She was, in her defense, at least not swaying uneasily. "If you say so." He let go of her hand and slipped out of his jacket, then put it on her shoulders. "Here, you can be slightly less cold, at least."

"You don't have to," she began, then cut herself off, pulling the jacket closed around herself. "Thanks."

"No problem," he replied as he started down the porch steps. "Gotta keep up the facade, anyway, right?"

She smiled and stepped gingerly down the stairs after him, hugging the jacket tight around herself. When she had caught up to him, she surprised him by once again pressing up against his side, which had the slightly embarrassing effect of almost knocking him over, although she seemed not to notice. This can't just be playacting, right? There's not even anybody around to see. Cautiously, he wrapped an arm around her, placing his hand gently on her shoulder. When he looked down at her to gauge her reaction, she just looked back into his eyes wordlessly, giving him only that small smile to judge by.

They had managed to make it to the far side of the quad, leaving only a couple blocks to go to Cammy's apartment before either of them said anything. He would have been fine with this state of affairs continuing the entire way, only breaking the silence in reaction to her stopping suddenly at an otherwise empty intersection. "You ok?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Just my legs are tired. Too much dancing, maybe."

"Too much of something, anyway," he responded.

"Hey," she said, "I told you I'm fine."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I recall you saying something like that before puking your guts out."

"Hey," she pretended to pout. "I'll have you know I didn't puke at all." She watched him for a moment, a smile gradually overpowering her scowl. "Seriously. I never actually puke from drinking. I just always feel like I'm going to puke. I'm fine, really."

"Uh huh," he said. God she's somehow even more beautiful in the moonlight. "Well puking or no you're definitely in the danger zone."

She laughed, a short sudden laugh that seemed to surprise her as much as it did John. "Danger zone? What are you talking about?"

"I mean," John answered, "you're like, clearly drunk enough that if we weren't 'a couple', I definitely would not be taking you home. Maybe walking you home. But like, only to keep other guys from taking advantage, you know?"

"Other guys?" she smiled. "You mean like Will?"

John shrugged. I kind of imagine Will is going to be otherwise occupied tonight.

"Oh, you're so noble," she said. She shook her head, then added, "Well fortunately we are 'a couple'. So you can take me home. For the night, I mean. I mean, we're a couple for the night. You know what I mean."

He was, at that very moment, not so sure he did. "Well I certainly can't walk you home if your legs aren't going to cooperate."

"Sorry," she frowned. "I'm good, I just needed a break."

"Alright, come on, dancing queen," he said. He squatted down, turning away from her.

"What?" she giggled.

"Piggy back ride," he answered. "Come on."

"Are you serious?" she asked, trying to suppress a smile that was evident even in the soft moonlight.

"Yeah, come on," he answered. "You're not that heavy." As he watched her over his shoulder, she took half a step towards him, then hesitated.

"It's ok," she said. "Come on, get up, I don't want to break your back, I can walk."

"I know," he replied. "But what kind of pretend boyfriend would I be if I didn't do at least one adorably goofy thing for you?"

He was just starting to rise back up when she hopped, full force, onto his back, nearly knocking him over in the process. He thought that he managed not to show the surprise, though he found it far harder to pretend she was not cutting off his air with her arms around his neck as he wobbled back up to his feet.

They'd made it nearly a whole block before she asked, "Are you ok? I'm not like too heavy, right?"

"No, no," he managed.

"You sure?" she asked, pressing her face up to his. She felt warmer than he remembered her ever being, though he chalked this up to the combination of the otherwise cold air and the alcohol, which he could smell on her breath. The slightly fruity fragrance, he found, mixed with the one she always seemed to exude naturally, somehow complementing it. That, combined with the sensation of her smooth, bare legs on his arms was almost enough in total to take his mind off the strain that carrying her was putting on his lower body. "My butt's getting so fat," she mused idly, seemingly blissfully unaware of his effort. "I've just been sitting around the apartment so much lately. Just sitting around and getting fat."

"I didn't notice," he responded just as they reached the apartment. "Think you can make it from here?" He did not wait for her answer, instead letting her gently down, much to the relief of his leg muscles.

"Thanks," she said, sliding off and fortunately not tumbling over in the process. She opened the door, which, true to her word, Cammy had left unlocked for them. A quick flick of the lights illuminated the living room, revealing a pile of neatly folded blankets lying next to the couch. "Crap, I'm tired," she sighed as she flopped down onto the sofa, kicking off her shoes in the process. She remained seated for all of perhaps a second before collapsing onto her front side, burying her face in what looked to be a spare pillow intended for a bed.

"Mmmhmm," John responded. He couldn't help noticing how nice her little butt looked, barely concealed as it was by her shorts. "So I guess you take the couch," he began.

She looked at him with that little smile, only barely turning her body enough to get a view. "Are you checking out my butt?"

John shrugged. "Well you said it got fatter, I just kind of wanted to confirm..."

She narrowed her eyes at him, pretending to scowl.

"But like I was saying, I guess you take the couch, and I'll sleep on the floor? I kind of get the feeling your sister's not going to be back till morning."

She rolled onto her side. "What makes you say that?"

"Oh, I don't know," John said. "I think Phoebe was saying something about a, uh, an afterparty or something." "Or something" doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

"Oh," Chloe said. Her eyes moved slowly, no doubt retarded by the alcohol, but it was nevertheless clear she was considering something. "Well, like, if she does come back, maybe you should, you know, like, be sleeping on the couch, too?" In her drunken state, she was even worse at hiding her evaluation of his reaction. "You know, like, so she doesn't think anything's up. Or whatever."

"I didn't want to..." John replied, trailing off, then, catching something in her reaction, quickly added, "make it uncomfortable or anything. For you, I mean. You know. Kind of a small couch and all. And, like, male physiology being what it is..."

She giggled. "It's fine," she said. "It won't be weird." She paused, then repeated, "It won't. It won't be weird. Come on, you don't have to sleep on the floor."

He couldn't help smiling. "Alright," he said. "But I get the inside."

She shook her head no, smiling even as her hair flopped side to side.

"Alright, we'll discuss it when I'm done brushing my teeth," he replied.

"Can you get the light?" she asked timidly, pulling a blanket up from the floor.

He flipped it off as he made his way to the little bathroom in the hallway, where he proceeded to rid his mouth of the cheap beer taste. What are the chances this goes somewhere?

Don't think about it, the little voice in his head replied. You're going to make it weird. Then morning wood will be the least of your concerns come the morning.

John spat the water from his mouth, sighed in resigned agreement, then headed back to the living room. "Alright," he announced. "Now I drove you out here and gave you a piggyback ride so I think it's only fair I get the inside."

If she found this amusing, she did not show it with a verbal response. He made his way over to the couch in the dark, knelt down beside it and found, to his chagrin, that Chloe had already passed out, having rolled over and buried herself as best she could in the corner of the couch.

Well, she was right about it not being weird, at least, he conceded as he began the process of trying to get comfortable on the carpet.

***

Bzz

Bzz

John sat up, awoken by the buzz of his vibrating phone; the sound was familiar enough that the identification was immediate, though it took him a moment to find the source and reorient himself. His back complained loudly as he picked up the phone, finding that he had not, in fact, forgotten to turn off the alarm for the long holiday weekend, but that the vibration was the result of multiple texts, apparently coming in one after another.

He felt rather than heard various joints popping as he checked the messages, finding they had arrived from multiple senders. One earlier in the morning from Carrie had apparently failed to knock him out of his slumber. It read simply rise and shine, asshole. He chuckled and made a mental note to reply to it when he'd finished with the others, which were all from Phoebe, it appeared.

He rose to his feet slightly unsteadily, his legs complaining about the sleeping arrangements as he opened the thread of texts from Phoebe, then nearly fell back to the floor upon seeing the first: a picture, taken from the classic selfie angle, above and to the side of one's head, of Phoebe herself, giving a view down to her lap. That she was clearly fully naked would have been enough, but John's eye was of course naturally drawn to her crotch, which, he found, was occupied by a head that was undoubtedly Cammy's. When he'd managed to take in more detail, he realized that with her non-phone hand, Phoebe was tightly gripping an erect cock, which he could only guess belonged to Will. He took a second to admire it before moving on to the next message, text that read coulda been you followed by another, evidently sent less than a minute later, reading see what you miss out on when you let your heart call the shots?

Following that was a series of three more photos, each similarly selfies, though from different angles, and largely focused on Cammy. The first and second showed Cammy with a mouth full of cock, which John had to guess belonged to Will, Phoebe using her free hand to guide the other girl, shit-eating grin on her face as she documented her night; the third showed the aftermath, a fairly impressive load of cum splattered on Cammy's smiling face. Another series of text messages followed.

in case you need blackmail material

or jerk off material

best of luck at Thanksgiving

look me up if you're ever in town and over this whole commitment thing

"What are you looking at?"

Instinctively John shut the phone off. "Ah, just some unsolicited texts," he answered Chloe, finding her rubbing her eyes as she sat up on the couch.

She seemed to accept this rather, to John's mind, suspicious explanation, responding only by stretching and looking around. Somehow the morning light pouring in through the window and illuminating her wild mass of bedhead made her look, he found himself thinking, quite angelic. "So I guess we should get going," she said finally, her voice straining a bit as she stretched.

"Not without coffee," John responded. "This is a non-negotiable clause in my boyfriend contract."

She smiled. "No arguments here. Maybe we got lucky and Cammy made some."

He helped her to her feet with a hand, finding hers warm and soft in his. "I imagine your sister will not be up and about yet," he said, adding mentally unless, as I suspect may be the case, Phoebe has indeed kept her up all night.

"She got up before me," Brian's voice surprised the both of them as he entered the room, rubbing his eyes. He was clothed in baggy pajama pants and a t-shirt that looked as if it had seen better days. "She's probably just out for some morning exercise."

Yeah, that's one way to put it, John thought. "Ah, good morning."

At just that instant the door opened and in walked Cammy. She was, to John's surprise, indeed dressed for an early morning work-out, with the attendant sweat to show for it. He certainly couldn't complain about the tight workout pants she was wearing, even if he did wonder how or if she managed to get any sleep at all.

"Speak of the devil," said Brian.

Truer words...

"I don't love that," Cammy replied. She unscrewed the cap from a bottle of water she was holding and downed the contents. "Good morning, John," she smiled her devilish little smile at him. "Has Brian not made you coffee yet?"

She reacted to John's expression before he had a chance to speak, snapping her head back around to her boyfriend. "I swear, you are useless. Coffee. We have guests."

"Hey," Chloe timidly announced her presence, which Cammy had, it seemed, completely ignored up to that point.

"Hey," replied Cammy. She looked to the couch, and then to the floor, each with their own crumpled blanket and pillow, then smiled ever so slightly. "Dibs on the shower," she continued. "Then I guess we should get going, huh?"

Before anyone had a chance to respond, she was already bounding up the stairs.

***

"So, Brian, what exactly is anthrobotany?"

Chloe's question, directed behind herself, toward the backseat of the car as John drove had all the hallmarks of genuine, if likely only passing interest. John worried little about keeping his eyes on the mostly empty interstate, taking the opportunity to look over at her in the passenger seat. She had fortunately given up on Carrie's advice and had switched to a far more sensible pair of jeans and a hoodie, halfway zipped over her sleeveless top, which showed just enough of her chest to distract him from driving as she twisted around to speak with the other two in the back.

"Don't get him started," Cammy answered. John could not see either of the other two participants, but in his mind's eye, her scowl was clear, as was Brian's deflated look.

"Come on, I'm curious," Chloe answered.

Cammy let out an annoyed sigh. "Cliff's notes version, please," she said.

"Oh, right, yeah, I wouldn't want to talk your ear off about it or anything. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. Actually, though, tea does present a particularly interesting example."

"Tea?" Chloe asked. John could almost hear Cammy's eye roll.

"Oh, yeah," Brian answered with a palpable excitement in his voice, "Camellia sinensis. Most people just think of it as a beverage, right? But in rural Sri Lanka, there's this incredible synesthetic ritual where the scent of the leaves is used to mediate grief. Not the drinking of tea, just the smell. It's called olfactive commensality. The idea is that aroma creates a temporary communal body between mourners."

"And that's the type of stuff you're working on?" John asked, glancing into the rearview and noticing Cammy aggressively watching nothing in particular out one window.

"Oh, no," Brian answered, "not me. But, well, things like that. My work is totally different, though. I'm working on the zoe-political aspects of quinoa in pre-Columbian Andean society."

"Uh huh," Chloe responded, more a question than an affirmation.

"My advisor said my thesis could really shake things up. But then again, it might end up being a bit too controversial, have to think about the job market and everything. But you know how academia is..."

"Right..." replied John.

"So, John," Cammy cut in before Brian had a chance to go on. "I just wanted to say sorry again if my couch wasn't ideal. I really appreciate you coming out all this way to get me."

As he glanced into the rearview again, John couldn't help noticing Cammy's tongue playing eagerly on her teeth, awaiting his response. It somehow reminded him vaguely of viper swaying this way and that, an unfortunate rodent in its sights. "Oh, it was fine," he responded.

"Oh?" she replied, just ever so slightly too quickly. "Because I noticed that you slept on the floor. That couldn't have been comfortable." She let it sit for a moment, the tiniest smile on her lips before continuing, "My sister really is lucky to have such a considerate boyfriend. Lots of guys wouldn't be so selfless."

"Ah, it's no big deal," he answered. "If it's just one night, it doesn't matter so much where one spends it, right?" He tried to beam the thought Unless there's photo evidence to her.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," she said. "It doesn't matter that much. Still, I appreciate the ride." The car was silent for a few seconds before she added. "I just would have thought you two would have wanted to, well, you know. Before spending the whole long weekend being physically separated. But..." she smiled as she drifted off.

John felt something warm touch the hand that he had rested between the driver and passenger seats, then looked down to find Chloe's hand resting atop his, her fingers finding their way between his. "Whatever," she said. "It's not like we a couple of horny teenagers. We can be separated for a while and be fine." As she spoke, she was looking straight into his eyes. When she finished, her lips remained in a faint smile.

"Uh huh," Cammy responded with evident disinterest as she gazed out the window.

"So, Brian, what do you mean when you say 'zoe-political'?" Chloe asked, her eyes still fixed on John.

"Oh, wow," Brian responded. "I can't believe they don't teach this stuff. It really is fundamental. Not your fault, though, that's the American university system for you.."

John smiled back at Chloe as Cammy let out a frustrated sigh.

***

"Dinner is served!"

Chloe's mother Christine looked genuinely happy despite the struggle of carrying a hefty and certainly quite hot turkey to a table already crowded with various side dishes. She had, in John's opinion, every right to be as pleased as she seemed as she took her position across the table and off to John's left, to the left side of her husband Bob, given how perfectly Rockwellian the bird looked.

"Well, it certainly looks wonderful, Chris," Bob responded as he took to his feet.

He had just picked up the utensils in preparation to carve the turkey, when he was stopped in his tracks by his wife. "Bob, dear, aren't you forgetting something?"

Bob's white, bristly mustache twisted up for a second as he visibly tried to recall what his wife could have been referring to. "Ah, right," he said, sitting back down. "Christine had the idea that we should all go around the table and say something we're thankful for."

Chloe, sitting to John's left, between him and Bob, who sat at the head of the table, caught his eye, her expression perfectly encapsulating "sorry about this."

"I know it's kind of cheesy," Christine said before John even had a chance to silently brush off the apology, "but I was just so thankful we had our girls back home like this. And they both brought such nice boys home."

"Mom..." Chloe objected.

"Well, I for one am thankful that your mother had such a good idea," Bob groused, although not without a bit of levity, even as he eyed his eldest daughter. "And she's right, it's nice to see you back again, John. Now if only Christian would show the same consideration to his mother."

"I'm sure he would want to be here if he could,"John said. "Actually where is he?" Not that I mind him not making this even weirder.

"He said he's going to a friend's house for Thanskgiving," Chloe explained. "I guess one of his track team buddies or something." She shrugged.

Sure, track team buddy... John flicked his eyes over to Cammy, but she was evidently uninterested in the plausibility of that designation one way or the other.

"We were really hoping he'd bring a girl home," Christine said. "But I guess he probably just didn't want to make her face old Bob here."

Yeah, I'm sure that's it...

"That boy and his sports. He spends more time in the locker room than the library," Bob grumbled.

"It really is nice to have you here," Christine interjected before Bob could grumble further. "You two really are so cute together. It's just been so great hearing our Chloe gush about her new guy."

"Uh, thanks," John thought he did a decent job of not fumbling the response.

"So great," Cammy added, wearing that little smile that John was starting to think he might be the only one who could see. "I'll go next. I'm just so thankful for the chance for us all to be together like this. Brian?"

"Oh, uh, right, I'm thankful for, uh, the invitation," Brian responded. He was clearly fumbling his way through his answer but was only slightly more awkward than John had surmised the kid to be in general as he stammered out something about the meal, which elicited the polite smiles that were about all one could hope for.

The general direction of the speakers meant that John was up next. That invitation bit was a good line, he thought. Kind of wish he hadn't taken it. He formulated an answer for as long as he could before the eyes of the others all began to look too impatient. "Well, at the risk of sounding cheesy myself, I'm thankful for Chloe. If it weren't for her, the most festive thing I'd probably be eating today would be a cold turkey sandwich." He could feel Chloe's smile more than the others, though he tried not to focus on it out of the corner of his eye.

"Well, you're certainly welcome," Christine offered, thankfully relieving John of the burden of having to speak further. "I just hope it turned out alright. It's always so hard with turkey, you know."

"Mom, I'm sure it'll be good," Chloe responded. "Now I'm thankful that we're done with this little ritual."

"Agreed," Bob said, taking to his feet once again to begin the process of carving the turkey.

John was already working out some benign topics he might try to steer the conversation towards when Brian spoke up. "You know, this actually reminds me of the bark feasts the Kweni people used to hold during the yam bloom. They'd have this elaborate ritual where the eldest male would split open a fermented breadfruit pod with a ceremonial leaf-blade. It was supposed to symbolize the breaking open of the earth. Very territorial, very gendered. There's this whole thing in anthrobotany about how food rituals encode land-use hierarchies."

"Huh," replied Bob, already cutting into the turkey.

"That sounds fascinating," Christine interjected.

"Oh, anthrobotany is full of fascinating stuff," Brian said, his eyes practically aglow, "These things that we never even think about, but like plants, they are ubiquitous in our lives, always there, a key component of the environment and, here's the key, in the very foundation of our cultures." Beside him, Cammy looked far less enthralled than her mother.

John shot a look at Chloe out of the corner of his eye. Maybe this meal won't be so awkward, after all, he thought. Or at least we won't be the source of that awkwardness.

"Like take for example tubers," Brian continued.

"Tubers?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah, like these yams," Brian responded.

"Which are delicious, by the way," John interjected.

"Why, thank you, John," Christine managed to get in before Brian continued.

"So, anyway, in cultures wherein the main carbohydrate is a tuber..."

John smiled to himself as he took another bite of tuber. He hadn't been lying about how good they were. At this rate we might be able to duck out of here before anyone even gets a chance to ask if the two of us are getting serious. He found Chloe smiling back at him as everyone, including Brian, despite continuing to expound on complex carbohydrates and something called "phytogenic stewardship traditions" served themselves, passing around various dishes. He could only infer that she had come to a similar conclusion.

This strategy of offering occasional questions to the somewhat charmingly overeager grad student was looking like it would pay off as the rate of consumption had slowed to a lull before the inevitable second spike that would accompany the appearance of dessert.

"Well, that all certainly sounds," Bob paused for a moment, moving his food around with his fork, "interesting." He smiled.

"I'm impressed," Christine added quickly to her husband's response. "Really, an advanced degree. That's really something. I'm sure that'll be a real feather in your cap on the job market."

Brian looked about to respond, so it came as a bit of a surprise to John when the next voice he heard was Chloe's. "Actually," she said, pausing while she considered her mostly empty plate, "I was kind of thinking about grad school myself."

Grad school?

"Grad school?" Bob asked the question that was almost certainly on everyone else's mind. "For what?"

"I don't know," Chloe shrugged, pointedly not looking up from her plate as she answered. "I mean, psychology is the obvious choice, but I think there are a lot of programs that would take an undergrad degree in whatever."

John was still working out the implications of Chloe's idea when Bob responded. He seemed less angry at than genuinely baffled by his daughter, though his words might have been mistaken for the former. "What would you want to do that for? You went to college to get an MRS degree as far as I know and you didn't even do that. Now you've got yourself a job and a good man in John here. Why would you want to throw that away to go get some useless degree?" After one of the most uncomfortable moments of silence John had ever experienced, Chloe's father, evidently realizing his company, turned his attention down to the other end of the table. "No offense, Brian."

Brian, for once, had nothing to say.

"I think..." Chloe's mom began, but drifted off when her husband started speaking again.

"What do you think, John? I don't know. I can't imagine you'd want Chloe here running off across the country for school." His expression read as completely genuine, a legitimate request for an opinion John was still too surprised to have even formulated.

Chloe turned to look into his eyes, adding their weight to the now uncomfortably heavy gaze of everyone else at the table.

"I think," John responded, pausing while he tried to formulate what exactly he thought about it, "that if it's something she wants to do, well, then, I mean... I love her and I wouldn't want to stand in the way of her dream." He thought he saw the tiniest hint of a smile on Chloe's face. "Even if that meant not getting to be with her."

Bob drew in a deep breath and then let it out loudly. "Well, I don't know. And anyway grad school's not free. I don't know. It just seems..."

"It just seems like everyone is ready for dessert," Christine interjected, shooting John a smile briefly before continuing. "Who wants some pie? There's pumpkin, apple, and Bob's favorite, pecan."

"Ooh, pecan," Bob evidently forgot his doubts, more interested in the "pea can" as he pronounced it, than in Chloe's ideas.

What followed was a flurry of activity, with the parents getting up from the table while Cammy and Brian began clearing dishes away. As John stood to help out, he felt Chloe's hand take his and give a little squeeze. They shared a silent smile for a moment before Christine interrupted. "Now, John, you have to try this pie. Which do you want first?"

First?

***

"I think I might actually die on the way back."

John had waited, despite knowing that their conversation could not be heard through the car windows, till they were at least a few blocks away from Chloe's parents' house before uttering these words, to which Chloe first responded with a look, holding it for a second, and then with words, "It wasn't that bad, was it?"

"No, no," John answered, "I mean I think I might explode. You know, from pie."

She rolled her eyes. "You didn't have to eat all three kinds, you know."

"That's not the impression that I got from your mom," John said. "In fact, I recall her saying explicitly 'you have to try them'."

"Yeah, yeah," Chloe turned her attention to the streets of her hometown, which were rapidly leading them to the edge of that town, and from there, a state highway, and eventually, miles and miles of cornfields. "She was just saying that. You could have said 'no'." She regarded him again with a little smile. "But I think she really did appreciate it."

John rubbed his almost painfully full stomach. "I hope so," he said. "Maybe my midwest English is a little rusty so I missed the nuances." He turned just long enough to get a general impression of her expression, turning back to the road before he got too distracted by her beauty. "Anyway I'm glad at least your mom was pleased."

"What?" asked Chloe. "You mean my dad?"

John responded with a little head bobble without taking his eyes off the road.

"It's fine," she said. "I mean, he can be kind of..."

"Old fashioned?" John offered once he had decided Chloe was unlikely to finish the sentence on her own.

"I was going to say a misogynistic butthole, but..." she responded.

John chuckled. "But?"

"But he is my dad," she said. "Even if... yeah."

This time John did end up looking at her a bit too long; fortunately he was able to judge this by her typical move of pretending not to notice when she was being noticed, turning to watch the last few buildings that might be considered "in town" pass, rather than by having run into anything. Even if he had lost control of the car, the wide midwestern roads, otherwise entirely empty, would have made an accident unlikely. "But I guess I was playing the part of a boyfriend, so maybe we just chalk it up to verisimilitude. I actually did great, if you think about it."

She stopped pretending to be interested in the lack of scenery and looked at him, biting her lower lip for a second before replying. "Yeah, you did pretty good back there."

"I appreciate it, coach," he responded, turning onto the state highway. "Now all I have to do is try not to pass out from all this tryptophan and in a couple hours we can get back to..." He tried not to notice her look, even out of the corner of his eye. "Get back to a less stressful long weekend."

"Yeah," she said. For a few moments she was silent, then spoke up again. "You know, I can drive part of the way if you want to sleep. I barely had any tryptophan, so I should be fine. I mean, if you want."

He turned his head just enough to shoot her a questioning look.

"What?" she said. "I can totally drive."

***

"How long was I out for?"

John turned his head just enough to confirm that the question had, in fact, come from Chloe, who was now doing what she could, while remaining in the confines of the passenger seat, to stretch as she blinked herself awake. "Oh, must be going on twenty years or so now," he replied, turning his attention back to the darkened streets of the city. Jokes aside, her timing was rather impressive: only a few blocks remained on the long journey back to her apartment. "You didn't miss much. Except I guess the great ape uprising. Oh, yeah, if anyone pulls us over, I'm just a slightly less hairy than normal chimp."

She let out a little laugh, followed by a yawn. "Oh, yeah, and what am I, an albino gorilla or something?"

"Gorilla my dreams," he replied.

"Pff," she scoffed.

"No, seriously," he said, "we'll say your my captive. They'll probably buy that, right, Fay Wray?"

She rolled her eyes, then looked out the front of the car for a few moments. When John pulled to a stop at a red light, which seemed particularly useless, as there were no other cars around, she said. "Sorry, I must have drifted off."

"What did I tell you about apologizing the other day?" John reached for the cup of coffee he'd picked up from a gas station over an hour ago and took a sip, finding it had grown lukewarm. This somehow had not diminished the quality, although this was likely due to it starting out fairly terrible even when hot.

"I don't remember," she answered.

He turned to find her watching him, a smile on her lips, but her eyes unflinching.

"What was it again?" she asked.

"Uh... not to do it," he replied, confused. "Not to do it so much."

Her smile didn't so much fade as transmute into an adorable little pout. "Yeah," she said. "So I guess we're almost there."

"Yup," he said. "And you woke up just in time for bed, so there's that." He turned the corner and pulled the car into the parking lot of her apartment, then found an open spot and put the car into park. "So I guess this is where I leave you," he said. "Or you leave me, rather."

"Yeah." She looked him over for a second, then said, "Hey, can I be a terrible, annoying, overstepping ex one more time?"

He chuckled, "Why not?"

"Can you help me with my suitcase? It's, like, so heavy."

"Sure," he answered, turning the key. They got out of the car and he pulled the suitcase out of the backseat. It landed with a thud on the asphalt before he righted it. It does have wheels, he thought silently.

They walked in silence up to the building, John pulling the suitcase along behind himself. It felt good to stretch his legs after the drive, but he could imagine it was going to feel even better to fall into bed. He was still trying to decide if he wanted to shower before passing out as they waited for the elevator when Chloe spoke. "So, you're probably pretty tired, huh? From driving, I mean."

He looked over at her but she did not meet his gaze. "Yeah, I guess," he said. "But it's a long weekend so plenty of time to sleep it off. No big plans for black Friday, anyway. You're feeling well-rested, I guess."

"Sorry," she replied. The elevator doors slid open and they stepped inside. "I guess I should have driven some of the way. Kind of selfish of me to sleep the whole time."

"It's no problem," he responded. "And what did I literally just say about apologizing?"

"Yeah, yeah," she answered.

How is there always elevator music in movies? I don't think I've ever heard actual music on an elevator. It's always just this standing around in awkward silence. John looked over to Chloe, who was busying herself examining her fingers while the floors passed. He watched her, evidently oblivious to his observation, as her lips moved ever so slightly in a silent conversation with herself. She seemed almost shocked when the doors opening interrupted her thoughts and she looked up, unexpectedly meeting his eyes for just a second before those lips curled up into her subtle little smile.

He caught the door just as it was starting to close, prompting it to open again. "This is us," he said.

"Yeah," she responded, then a second later, "Oh, yeah, right." She slipped out of the elevator, leaving him to follow her to the door of her apartment, where with a little bit of fumbling she managed the lock. Inside, the lights were all off. "I guess Carrie's not back yet," she said, flipping one on. It provided light that was adequate for getting to the bedroom without tripping over any of the clothes that John mostly recognized as Carrie's which had been tossed carelessly here and there around the common area.

"Were you expecting her to be?" John asked. He rolled the suitcase across the room, moving past her to position it near her bedroom door.

"No," she answered.

"Oh, uh, ok," he responded, unsure what to make of her minimal answer. "Anyway I'm sure she'll be back tomorrow. There's no way she's making it through the entire long weekend at her brother's without that wine..."

As he had spoken, Chloe had moved over towards him, and she was now only a step away. "Sure," she said, looking right up into his eyes.

"Right..." he replied. "Anyway I guess you'll want to get to unpacking without me around to perv on your underwear or whatever."

She said nothing, but her eyes were speaking volumes. Volumes of what, he couldn't tell, but volumes.

"Good luck getting back to sleep," he said, taking a step towards the exit. "And, uh, thanks for the Thanksgiving. It was... fun."

When he tried to take another step, he found her hand on his arm. "Uh...?"

"Can I ask you one more favor?" she asked, her eyes elsewhere.

He chuckled, despite himself. "Sure, what's up?"

"Can I kiss you?" She looked into his eyes, evidently pleased with what he was sure was a dumbfounded look on his face, as a smile crept over her lips.

He tried to say something, but all he could manage was to get his head to nod.

She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him towards herself as she pressed her soft lips to his. His nerves went wild with the sensations, her touch, her smell, all so familiar and missed. He didn't know how long the kiss lasted, only that it was long enough for her tongue to find its way, first cautiously, then excitedly, into his mouth, before she pulled away, releasing him.

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in and she giggled. "Uh..." he tried to speak but no words came.

"One more favor," she said. All he could do was nod. "Stay with me tonight."

His response was automatic, pulling her to himself and kissing her deeply. Her arms wrapped around him, then her legs, as she hopped up onto him, letting him carry her to the couch a few feet away. Their lips never pulled apart, their tongues dueling, even as he lay her down and himself on top of her.

His hands moved rapidly, matched by hers, each quickly moving under the shirt of the other; her skin was soft and warm against his fingertips and all he could think was how much he wanted to tear off her clothes. She evidently echoed his thoughts, pushing his t-shirt and jacket up with her hands even as her tongue wrestled with his. He got up on his knees, pulling of the shirt and jacket and tossing them carelessly aside with a speed that surprised even himself.

She, too, took the brief respite as an opportunity to pull her top up, exposing her white bra. She hadn't even managed to pull the two layers of clothing off before he was back on her, kissing her neck.

"Hey, I'm stuck," she giggled, squirming under his weight.

"Good," he replied between kisses, even as his fingers worked rapidly to remove the bra. With her arms above her head and still stuck in the sleeves of her top, she was unable to wiggle free of it, leaving John to push it up as best he could to gain access to her little pink nipples, already standing at attention even before he wrapped his lips around the right one.

"Nnn!" she moaned excitedly at the sensation. His tongue circled it, retracing a path it had taken countless times before and rediscovering its perfect soft hardness as Chloe finally wiggled free of her top. Having finally freed her hands, she placed one on the back of John's head, pressing him to her chest, squirming under the thusly intensified sensation. He pulled away, stretching her little nipple between his lips ever so slightly before releasing it, then kissed over to her other breast. Frantically she worked the bra off herself as he reached her breast, immediately engulfing the left nipple to the sound of another moan.

Her hands, now unencumbered, moved frantically up and down his back, neck and head as he licked and sucked her, moving back and forth from nipple to nipple. Her fingers crept as far down as she could manage, brushing the top of his jeans. He took the hint and kissed his way back up her neck and to her lips, her fingers greedily digging into his jeans. They felt warm against his ass in the moment before one of them moved around to the front of his body. Her fingers fumbled excitedly with his fly, unable to undo the button.

He rose up onto his knees, unable to entirely suppress a smile, and undid the button for her. She wasted no time, taking the opportunity to undo her own jeans with comparative

speed. As she struggled to wiggle out of them, he slid off the couch and took a hold of the jeans, pulling them and the white panties that peeked out of them down to her knees in one fluid motion. She tried and failed to wiggle them off further, pressing one leg against the other to no avail as she giggled.

In response, he pushed her legs up, exposing her beautiful pink pussy and perfect little asshole. "Come on," she complained, "help me out here."

"Another favor?" he teased. Before she had a chance to respond he pressed his lips to her pussy, eliciting a groan of pleasure. If she had any further complaints, they were overridden by the sensation of John's lips kissing up and down her already very wet slit. Her lips opened for him, letting his tongue explore her folds. He savored her juices, at once so familiar and so new, his tongue moving without purpose at first before honing in on her clit. He teased it, flicking it back and forth, then gradually transitioning to a slow, circular motion, before moving on to a rapid side to side motion.

With one hand he held her legs vertically, feeling her muscles relax as she succumbed more and more to the pleasure of his tongue, while he freed his cock with his other hand. It throbbed in his fingers, hot and hard, begging to be sunk into her sopping wet twat, but he refused, focusing instead on pushing her closer and closer towards a rapidly approaching climax.

"Oh god..." she moaned as the fingers of her left hand toyed with his hair. Her other hand was already occupied with teasing her nipple. He wondered if she was even conscious of this, so focused were her eyes on him through the thin gap between her thighs, her jeans and panties holding her now fully relaxed legs together. Her eyes closed tightly as his tongue pushed her to her limit. "Oh... ffff..." she bit her lip as her face twisted into a mask of pleasure. Her body shook, the hand on her breast stopping its motions as an orgasm rocked her every inch.

He pulled away, letting her legs fall gently as he wiped away her juices from his chin. Her eyes opened as her breathing slowly returned to regularity. "Please," she said.

Without another word, he pulled the jeans the rest of the way off her. As she pulled her legs back up onto the couch, once more laying herself along its length, he stood, stepping out of his own jeans and boxers with slightly more difficulty. Her eyes glowed warmly as she watched him, her lips moving slightly but forming no words, silently beckoning him down on top of her once again.

As he kissed her softly on the lips, he could feel her hand slide gently down his side and towards his crotch, where she took hold of his throbbing member. She wasted no time in guiding it to her waiting pussy; she was warm and exceedingly wet by this point. He pushed forward and she, moving her hand away, accepted him easily. His cock sank into her slowly but steadily, inch by inch. She quivered with excitement, breaking off the kiss while holding her gaze fixed on his.

She bit her lip, visibly controlling her breathing as he began slowly moving in and out of her. Her hot pussy gripped him tightly, making his motions almost excruciatingly slow and unbelievably pleasurable. "Mmm," the tiniest squeak of pleasure escaped her lips as he pushed into her, her juices overflowing. He kissed her softly again, holding their lips together as he continued to move, in and out, in and out.

"Oh god," she whined, turning her face from the kiss as it tightened with the pleasure that was building within her. "Oh god, I'm gonna..." She never finished her sentence, unable to as her body shook with the onset of another orgasm, barely a minute after the first. Her pussy clamped down on John's cock, trying to milk it as she let out a series of incoherent noises.

He held his position, his cock inside her up to the hilt, waiting for her orgasm to pass. When it had, to the extent that she could while still quivering speak, she pled quietly, "Don't stop..."

Again he drove into her, resuming his slow but steady pace. Every inch of his cock slid in and out, in and out, over and over as her tight little pussy continued to twitch intermittently. He kissed her neck, her gasps mingling with the wet sound of his cock pumping steadily in and out of her sopping wet pussy, her juices so copious that they were now coating his ballsack.

He slid his hand down her side and onto her ass, confirming with his fingers that those juices had dripped down her ass crack and coated her hole. She shivered when his fingers brushed her hole and he looked into her eyes for confirmation. She gave it with a tiny nod, her tongue peeking out of her lips for a moment. He pushed his middle finger into her ass and she reacted as if a wave had been sent through her, shuddering before she regained control of her breathing.

"Ohhh..." Chloe whined as John's finger began sliding in and out of her asshole, matching the pace of his cock in her pussy. "Oh god, oh..." It took what felt like only a few moments of this before she somehow exploded with her third orgasm, the force of which rocked her entire body; her tight little asshole squeezed his finger out while her pussy tried its best to suck him in. He barely managed to stifle the wave of cum that he could feel trying to escape him for long enough that she relaxed again and he was able to pull out, calming his now very slimy cock with his hand.

For a few moments, they each just breathed, neither saying anything as they looked into each others' eyes. Then Chloe broke the relative silence. "You can use my butt if you want."

Something about this statement, coming as it did with them each catching their breath, suddenly cognizant of the sweat coating their bodies, made John laugh, a short but loud burst of laughter that he could not have stifled if he had wanted to.

"You should use my butt," she said with a smile. She pulled her legs up towards her chest, hooking her arms under her knees to do so and exposing her cute little asshole, which glinted with the juices that had dripped down from her pussy, forming a dark spot on the couch beneath her. "Please."

With his cock throbbing in his hand, John took her suggestion, guiding the head up to her butthole. He paused for a moment, letting a shiver of anticipation run through her, before he pressed in. The head slipped in with a surprising ease, her pussy providing more than adequate lubrication. She gasped but held her position as his shaft began sinking into her slowly.

"Oh my god..." he groaned involuntarily, unable to take his eyes away from the sight of his cock disappearing up into her tight asshole. Having buried himself deeply enough into her that he no longer needed a guiding hand, he removed his left hand from his cock and placed it on her leg, in turn freeing her hand. In a move that struck him as surely practiced, she moved that hand to her pussy and began gently rubbing her clit in slow circles just as he began pulling back out of her, only to once more thrust in a few moments later.

"Oh yes, baby..." she moaned. She showed no signs of discomfort despite how tight her ass was around him, engulfing him entirely as he increased his thrusting speed. Her hand sped up rapidly to meet his pace, moving in tight little circles on her clit.

"Can you come for me, baby?" John found himself asking. "Can you come for me with my dick up your ass?"

"Mmmhmm," Chloe's voice was a high-pitched whine, her lips tight as she somehow brought herself to yet another orgasm. It came on even more rapidly than John had expected; he stopped thrusting, holding himself deep inside her tight ass when her own hand stopped. For a brief moment, nothing happened and then she exploded, her ass going crazy around his dick, squeezing it so tightly that it almost sent him over the edge himself. Fortunately for his endurance, this squeezing pushed him out. He watched as she writhed, eyes closed. His cock throbbed in his hand, begging to be allowed release, but he held it tight, practically forcing the cum which was already starting to ooze out the head back down.

Chloe's eyes opened slightly, even as she continued to shiver. "More," she begged.

"I'm not going to last much longer," he panted.

"Inside me, please," she asked, her hand beckoning him along with her eyes.

Her pussy made a wet squishing sound as he entered her again. A tingle shot up his spine as the ridge of his cock head passed her entrance. He slid in up to the balls; she gripped him tightly but gently, a hand on his lower back guiding him deep. "Oh fuck," he gasped reflexively at the sensation. He pulled out partway, then drove back in, each tiny motion threatening to push him over the edge. He buried his face in her neck and kissed the warm, slightly sweaty skin as he slid out and back in again.

"Please," she whispered to him.

"Oh god..." he groaned; that one breathy word had done it, and the levy broke inside him. The cum flooded out of him, hot and sticky. It shot out of him and filled her, his whole body moving on its own as he emptied himself into her. He could already feel it seeping out of her, oozing its way down to his balls.

He pulled out of her, sitting up for a moment before falling back against the opposite arm of the couch from Chloe. So... Even his inner voice was struggling to get a grip on what had just happened, only to be further confused by Chloe's next move, which was to crawl up on top of him, straddling him.

She kissed him softly on the lips, then reached down between her legs and took hold of his softening member. She stroked it a few times, the mixture of both their fluids making the shaft slippery in her fingers. As she pulled away from the kiss, it appeared his body had wrested complete control of the situation from his mind: no words formed in his mind. She slid the head of his cock up and down her slit a few times, sending intense tingling sensations running up the shaft and deep into his guts. He couldn't help flinching.

And then she stopped, pressing the head against her entrance, and sank down onto it. That she had managed to penetrate himself with his semi-flaccid cock was unusual but not all that surprising: it had not even had time to fully soften; that it responded to the slow, gentle gyrations that she followed this act with, hardening within her, was another thing entirely.

She kissed him again, extending her tongue slowly into his mouth as she ground against him, coaxing his cock slowly but surely back to life inside herself. He let his hands glide up the sides of her body and to her tits; she sat up, her circular gyrations shifting into a front-to-back motion, driving his now hard cock into herself as he played with her nipples. She threw her head back, seemingly lost in pleasure as neither of them said a word, the only sounds being the wet, sloppy sound of his cock pumping his own cum out of her as she impaled herself repeatedly atop him.

"Mmm," she moaned. Her hand, up to this point hanging unused at her side, drifted to his right arm. "More," she said breathily, leaning down and in so doing pressing her tit into his left hand as she guided the other hand down to her ass. He squeezed it, simply experiencing the sensation of her warm, firm flesh under his fingers a few times, but they both knew what she wanted. His fingers crept to her ass crack and quickly located her hole, still sticky wet with her juices. She smiled but said nothing more at the sensation, letting go of his arm to let him do as he pleased. His finger teased her hole a few times, moving in time with her motions, before slipping in. She let out a tiny little gasp of excitement. When his finger had penetrated most of the way into her tight asshole, she sped up, driving him into and out of both of her holes at once, faster and faster.

She leaned down into his neck, pressing her face against him as she rode. "Cum with me," she whispered.

How this was even possible, mere minutes after having released one of the largest loads of his life into her pussy, he could not tell, but his body seemed to refuse to be listening to anatomical realities as much as to his own mind, moving on its own. It did as she asked: when she paused her motions, her body beginning to shake with yet another orgasm atop him, his cock responded, jumping inside her. Somehow even more cum flowed out of him and into her.

He wasn't even sure when it actually stopped. It seemed to gradually die down, though he could not be sure what exactly he was even feeling. "I..." he started a sentence with no hope of finishing it.

"Shh," she said. Her voice trailed off, growing faint along with the light as his eyes closed, ushering him off into a welcome sleep.