General Chemistry II Ch. 07

List of Characters

Jack: Our point of view. Smart, corny, neurotic, Jack has few friends at school outside of his study group. White. Lifeguards in the summer and has a big dick.

Pri: Jack's ex(?). Brilliant and reserved, she plays varsity soccer with her best friend Liv. Indian-American. Short and athletic with ass for days, darkly tanned with thick black hair.

Liv: Pri's best friend and Jack's study buddy. Funny and dynamic, she plays varsity soccer and does what she feels. Jewish. Tall with a heart-shaped face. She has a deep tan, small breasts, and sprinter's legs.

Marco: Liv's boyfriend and long-time friend. Charming and almost offensively handsome, he teaches tennis and studies literature. Colombian-American. He's fashionable, with a lean, muscular body.

Sylvie: Liv's long-time frenemy and Marco's ex. Grim and sarcastic, she's pre-law at NYU. Pale, Jewish, and tiny, with a cute face and a bull ring septum piercing.

Kay: Sylvie's friend from NYU. Laconic and up for anything, they study film and play volleyball. White and non-binary, they're over six foot and covered with tattoos. Bleached pixie cut and dark eyelids.

Grace: Liv's friend from college. Perky and energetic, she's All-State softball and loves to party. Chinese-American. She's muscular but feminine, with thick legs, big breasts, and fun tattoos.

~

As I reached the top of the stairs and turned to Pri's door, I had an understandably violent wave of deja vu. A week ago I'd walked these same steps to find her after our first fight. The memory arrived almost nostalgically, how I'd sprinted up here like a madman, no plan, no words prepared, just desperate not to lose her forever.

This time, I repeated to myself mantra-like, I don't have any expectations. I wasn't here to save us. I didn't believe in magic. I was here to use my words, to explain my feelings, and to listen to whatever Pri had to say.

It was a lie, obviously. I wanted Pri to take back the cruel things she'd said, to admit that she wanted me, that she loved me in fact, that the shitty world would be so much better if we were in it together. Me and Pri and Grace and Liv and Marco, everyone together and happy.

God, that was fucking stupid. I was embarrassed to have even thought it.

I knocked, imagining my hand as the great brass knocker on a castle door. My armpits were warm with sweat. I knocked again, and considered knocking a third time when the door opened to reveal Marco, a foamy toothbrush in his mouth.

He said something unintelligible then rolled his eyes at himself. He nodded and headed back to the en suite.

Dull anger appeared inside me, thumping like an emotional toothache. I wanted to slap him on the back of the head, the thought so visceral that my hand actually twitched. I followed him to the bathroom, fingertips tapping, and watched him spit in the sink, watched him drink from the faucet like a ten year old. Couldn't he stop fucking her for five fucking minutes? When things were this bad, couldn't he—

"You're not looking for her, are you?" He seemed tired. "She's in our room, or Liv's... Whatever. She's not here."

That angry ache in me pulsed rapidly for a moment, and when I looked around the room, it faded with a whimper. The blankets and sheets were half tucked in, the way a hotel bed looks after you've crawled into it alone.

"She's not here," I said.

"I said that."

"You did. I'm sorry."

"Oh, you thought...?" He laughed, almost sadly. "No, I left when they—I came over here at like midnight."

"Do I want to know?"

He sighed, scratching his chest. "I mean, it's Liv and Pri. First it gets emotional. Then the crying starts. Once the crying starts, it gets touchy-feely..."

"They fucked."

He spun two fingers in the air, like So it goes.

"She was so fucking mad at the beginning," he said, unscrewing a fancy little container of face cream. "She must have been chewing on it for a while. Like, she was giving you the Firestarter treatment all through dinner. It's a book, never mind. It was, like, nine when she came to our room, total rage monster. Pissed at you, pissed at Grace, pissed at herself, which I found to be gratifyingly self-aware."

"I told her," I said, just glad someone else had seen it too. "Getting Grace and me together was, like, her entire plan."

"You are a fucking moron, dude." He shook his head. I realized, with some embarrassment, that I recognized his night clothes: Nike running shorts and a worn-out Shakira t-shirt. He searched around in his toiletry bag for a moment, then looked over. "I say that with all due respect, as your friend."

"I moved too fast, I know."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Permission to speak freely?"

"Do I want to hear this?"

"Question is: 'Do you need to hear this?'"

"Alright, Dad."

"You guys joke that I'm your dad but, first of all, we all fuck each other so that's super fucking weird. Second, I seem like a dad because I actually know things. I have EQ. You fucked up because you're in a totally unstable situation with Pri, with us, and you still caught feelings for some girl in a week. Like we're all supposed to get on board with Grace instantly? I like her and all but no wonder Pri is mad."

"But she—"

"Ah! Ah ah ah!" He tutted, holding up a palm. "I don't care what Pri did. You need to be better. You need to act like—Oh my god, I really am your fucking dad. Fuck me. Let's try this again. God. It's not because you 'moved too fast.' You fucked up because you went outside the boundaries of our relationship by bringing in a new person—Two new people actually! I still can't believe you're actively fucking Syl. I don't care that she's my ex. Physically, it's whatever. If you're all clean and you're having fun... But in terms of respect, not just for me but for our thing—"

"Polycule."

"Whatever you feel like calling it today. Just because the lines weren't explicitly laid out doesn't mean there are no lines. Syl was clearly over the lines. Dating Grace is triple-backflipping over the fucking lines. You took a dump on the lines, dude."

"I know," I said, shutting my eyes for a moment. "I know, I know, I know. But what about Kay, then?"

"What do you want me to say? Liv sucks too? If you want to talk about how Liv operates outside the law, we'll be here all day."

"Why didn't anyone say anything to me?"

"You move really fucking fast! You went from flirting to intercourse in, like, a day. Does she even know you're here?"

"Grace? Yes. Of course, yes. It was—I mean it was basically her idea. She told me to find out where I am with Pri, to apologize, and to listen."

Marco nodded appreciatively. "I think she understands this shit better than you do. It's a shame she's getting sucked into our whole dysfunctional thing because she seems cool. Has she considered, you know, not pursuing this relationship? Does she know we're fuckups?"

I recalled my conversation with Grace this morning, another brain dump followed by us getting painstakingly, point by point, on the same page. "Yeah, she is not going to back off."

He'd been applying his deodorant and he turned it into a shrug, his shirt lifting just enough to reveal his stomach.

I scratched my head. "So... Pri is still in your room? How is she?"

"You're still gonna do this, then?" He seemed at a loss. "I don't know, dude. At first she was mad as hell, then Liv actually calmed her down. She went to bat for you, hard, and Grace too. She pointed out that the circumstances were the bad guy. The parents, the Southeast Asian gender norms, the—Dude, I didn't realize the parents were already finding matches for her. All that just made her cry. Liv expected me to help but I was fucking exhausted. And to be honest, I was getting a little tired of comforting Pri. Surprise surprise, I was third-wheeling their relationship again—I probably sound like a callous dickhead..."

"You don't."

"No, I do. I just mean... She really did engineer some of her misery. I don't want to absolve you. You're a dumbass, but you're also a predictable dumbass. Grace is hot, with a big ass for Jack the ass-man. As long as you thought you had the green light—Which, given how Pri and Liv were acting, I can see why you believed that—As long as you thought it was okay, you were always gonna go for it. It's like Pri built a Rube Goldberg to punch herself in the face and then it punched her in the face and she got upset about it."

"You don't like her, do you?" The question slipped out. The feeling had been lurking behind the scenes for a while, not fully-formed, not something I'd ever put into words. A word here, a gesture there, small moments that Marco had done his best to hide.

"It's not that. Or—I don't want it to be that way. I don't like feeling like I'm competing with her. It's just that Liv..."

He trailed off, processing something. After a moment, he grabbed a little bottle of clear liquid and squirted it into his palm. I didn't think the skin routine was making him handsome, but given the amount of products going onto his face, I figured it was helping.

"You know what it's like," he went on. "When you've got her attention, it feels incredible. I know that Pri needs her now, so that spotlight moves away and... I don't know if you can understand this but this is where the poly thing breaks down for me. It's not jealousy. It's envy. I can watch Liv kiss you, I mean a nice romantic kiss, not some sloppy porn thing, and I feel good. I can watch you fuck her and I feel good. I like that you get to experience that too.

"But with Pri, there's something between the two of them I can't come close to touching. Liv can't even admit it exists, much less describe it, but I know it's there. I used to think it was a gender thing. Freudian maybe, like my penis made me dangerous to her id or some shit. It's probably just friendship, deep friendship, something they'd been building since they were kids. School and soccer and relationships and parental shit, things I only got to see pieces of over the years. When it turned into sex—I mean Jesus, falling in love with your best friend is the most lesbian-fucking-thing I can think of..."

"I'm sorry."

I felt like I'd been watching him bleed out for a week straight and never even noticed. I didn't know what else to say. I wasn't good at giving speeches like he was.

He unscrewed a third container of mysterious cream and dabbed some onto his finger. "If Grace really wants to join the Study Group, it's because she thinks we know what we're doing. We do not. We are majorly fucked up. I don't just mean your slut antics. Pri is having a nervous breakdown, Liv is literally cheating, and I'm still chasing after her like when we were sixteen, praying she'll love me as hard as I love her..."

His voice had tightened and he'd paused again, halfway through massaging his face. He stared into the sink, skin shiny, and took a deep breath. My heart squeezed until it pushed up into the bottom of my throat. Maybe I made a noise and reminded him I was there, or maybe his dark thoughts had simply passed on, like a cloud being pushed by the tireless wind. Either way he violently rubbed the remaining lotion into his skin, spiked the jar of cream back into his bag, and turned away from me.

For all the talk about EQ, he didn't want me to see him cry.

I put a hand on his shoulder and, through a little resistance, turned him towards me. His eyes were red but his cheeks were dry and he looked down, embarrassed. I don't know what possessed me but I leaned in and I kissed him once, properly, his warm, moisturized lips pressing against mine, his stubble scraping my chin. When it was over I squeezed him into a hug.

"What was that for?" he said into my shoulder.

"You needed it," I said. I wanted to say something funny, something to make him feel better, but I didn't want to cheapen the moment.

"What am I going to do?" he asked.

"I want to tell you to hold out a little longer. Things are going to be different in a few weeks, really different. Who knows where we'll be by the time school starts?"

"You want to tell me that, but you can't?"

"I know you think your capacity for pain is endless, but eventually, if you let it get that far, you'll have suffered too much."

"Oh, don't go all Hozier on me now..."

We released our hug but stayed close, holding each other's forearms. He looked at me somberly, really looked at me, and I nervously added, "But don't let me lecture you on love. You know Grace said I was 'in, like, four fucking relationships!'" I imitated her peppy directness in what I hoped was a flattering way. "And I think I'm fucking them all up."

"You're doing alright with this one," he said, looking at my lips. Suddenly, as if taken by some urge, he cupped my face with both hands and smiled, a little glimpse of sunshine. He shook me lightly, with mock seriousness. "I know it was you, Fredo. I know it was you."

I grinned. "What is it with men and the Godfather?"

We finally released each other, static in the air that couldn't seem to express itself.

"We're probably late for the fucking meeting," he said. "Unless you changed your mind."

"Grace is waiting for me. It's good. It'll be good."

He nodded blankly. "I guess we'll see. Now if you don't mind, I kinda need to use the bathroom."

He walked me backwards out of the bathroom and I gave him a silly salute. "One or two?" I asked as he closed the door. "If you're late, I'm telling them two!"

I took two seconds to breath, to gather myself, and when I stepped into the hallway I saw Liv skipping down the stairs. She hooked a hand into the railing and swung to a stop.

"What are you doing up here?" she asked with an odd smile.

"Talking, apparently. I wanted to do some more of that with Pri if you know where she is."

"No," she said shortly, her mood flipping polarities. She marched back up the stairs and, as if she thought I'd bullrush her bedroom door, she planted herself in the center of the carpet, one hand out. "No no no, we're not ready for you. You're still radioactive."

"I need to talk to her, Liv."

"I don't care. She doesn't want to talk to you. Not yet."

"She's not going to the meeting?" Liv didn't respond. "She can't stay in there forever."

"Oh my god, just fuck off for a little while. She'll talk to you when she's ready."

We stood, staring at each other, at ten paces. She gave me a look, like Pardner, I don't mean to shoot, but I will if I gotta. A tumbleweed blew across the mezzanine in my mind.

"Okay," I said. "Sure. I'm sorry. Are you going down?"

She pointed at the stairs with her chin. "Right behind you."

Together, or more accurately Liv behind me like I was at gunpoint, we went down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Syl sat at the head of the table, her laptop and a well-scribbled notepad open in front of her. She barely glanced up from her screen. Kay was, delightfully, making themself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Grace was hunched over at the table opposite Syl, playing some incredibly frenetic phone game, exploding with multicolored pixels. When I touched her shoulder, she looked up at me and smiled. Rainbow bursts marked her death.

When I leaned in to kiss her cheek, she whispered, "Pri?"

"She wouldn't talk to me," I whispered back. "I mean, Liv stopped me. Both I guess."

She glanced past me, watching as Liv wandered over to Kay and opened her mouth, shark-like, until Kay gave her a bite of their sandwich. Grace turned back to me and said, simply, "Don't give up."

Marco arrived a moment later, retrieved a seltzer from the fridge, and sat on the bench by the windows.

"When Pri gets here," said Syl. "We can start."

"She's not coming," said Liv, elbows on the counter. "She's not going to do the orgy any more."

Grace caught my eye but I couldn't read her expression. I was surprised, but not as surprised as I should have been.

Syl chewed on her upper lip for a moment, searching for the right response. "Can you expand on that?"

"No."

Sylvie looked at me and Grace, then back to Liv. "But I would like to know more."

"I'm sure you would," she replied. "It doesn't need to fuck anything up. Proceed, Madam Secretary."

I looked at Marco and found him already looking back at me. I knew what he was thinking. It should fuck things up actually.

Sylvie flipped back one page on her notepad, rubbing her forehead and scanning.

"Syl?"

"Ok," she said. "It's not a disaster. I don't see anything here that wouldn't work the same with six instead of seven. Are there any objections?"

There was a pregnant pause.

Through a sticky mouthful of sandwich, Kay said, "We really need to do this?"

"Oh, come on," said Liv. "You're gonna back out too?"

Kay looked offended, covering their mouth. After a chewy moment, "I mean the meeting. The... Are you taking notes?"

"Minutes," corrected Syl. "In case there are any arguments later."

I put on my best Baltimore accent. "Is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?"

"Chill, String," said Kay. "Syl, put this in your minutes: Kay says 'Can't we just fuck like normal people?'"

Grace had covered her mouth but a huffy laugh went right through it.

"Just—It'll be quick, it'll be quick." Syl flipped through the notebook again, cross-checking with her laptop. "Okay, start at 7 p. m. tomorrow. No dinner, just snacks. Little sandwiches, chips, stuff like that. We'll prep everything at 4. Don't drink or smoke too much before or during. Too much meaning, like, don't get sloppy. It's, uh, natural to be a little nervous—"

I fixed my face. Syl hadn't had sex in the two years before this vacation and the rest of us were frankly oversexed. I expected that most of the nerves would be, by percentage, hers.

"—but it's nothing you all haven't seen already. I know you all signed the release but I want to doublecheck: is everyone okay going without condoms? Everyone who can use birth control is already doing that and the STI panels are recent—Not perfectly recent, but recent. Obviously I didn't get tested since I haven't been sexually active, or at least I hadn't been until—You know what I mean..."

"We're gonna do it in the great room?" asked Liv.

"Uh, thank you. That was my next bullet. If we move the coffee table and put down those extra blankets we can make an... area between the couches—"

"D'you mean pillow fort?" Grace rapped her fingertips excitedly on the table, seeming a little loopy.

"Should we just use a bedroom?" I asked. "I know we can't all fit on a bed—Assuming that's what we would even want to do, i. e. literal six-way—but the big rooms have their own bathrooms and tons of floor space."

"No," said Syl firmly. "No, it's important that everyone has a safe, private space to go to when they need it, especially if they want to sleep for the night. It has to be in a neutral location."

I held up my hands. "Okay, okay, it was just an idea."

"It's fine. It was a good idea. Well-reasoned." She took a steadying breath and checked the bullets again. "Blankets, condoms... Again, if we need condoms, we have to go to the sex shop in Dénia because we need unusually large ones. Okay, no one is saying anything so I assume that's fine. Uh, towels, baby wipes, boundaries—Oh! We have to talk about boundaries now so there's no confusion. Some people here are clearly open to gay contact but this needs to be explicit. So, speak now if you'd prefer exclusively gay contact during the orgy."

She was picking up confidence. Something about the establishing of rules, the reading of charters, it seemed to click with her logical brain.

"Sentences I never thought I'd hear for 600," said Marco.

"Okay, nobody? Then does anyone prefer exclusively straight contact? Jackson? Grace?"

Like a magic eye picture clicking into place, I realized that I'd just kissed Marco. In the moment I'd thought of it as a friendship kiss, a kiss to comfort him. I didn't regret it. He needed it and I was happy to provide.

A friendship kiss? Jesus, who the fuck would believe that? I need to figure out what's going on with me—

"Uh, straight is fine," I said.

"I've never even kissed a girl," said Grace, clearly embarrassed in front of the libertines. "I mean, I wish, right?"

I felt like straight women always joked that they wished they were bi and bi women always joked that they wished they were lesbian. In both cases, subtracting men seemed to be the thing that was funny.

"I'm not—" continued Grace, searching for a second. "I mean, I wasn't going to hook up with anyone but Jack. I thought I could just... watch. I'm sorry, if that's not okay I can just, um, participate more I guess. I like gay stuff sometimes, mostly yaoi but..."

"Watching is fine," said Liv. "Really, watching is great. In fact, Jack loves being watched." She attempted to give us both a lascivious wink but couldn't quite commit to the bit. It came across as somewhat twitchy.

"That's very good information, Grace," said Syl. "That's exactly the type of stuff I want to know. We'll use wristbands to communicate what we're open to. There will be a bowl with hair ties: red is for 'just watching,' yellow for 'ask before you do something,' and green for 'anything goes.' You can change your hair tie out whenever you want—"

"Kay," said Marco abruptly. "How does 'gay' or 'straight' labeling work if you're non-binary?" He narrowed his eyes and thought loudly. "Doesn't it kinda assume that the other person sees you as male- or female-presenting—But no, you'd have to be sure they clock you as the correct thing for it to work..."

"That's why I fuck all genders. Literally the only reason."

"Ah," he said, enlightened. "The path of least resistance."

Kay raised a finger and nodded sagely, like Nailed it.

"Anyway," said Syl. "Do not feel any pressure to do anything you don't want to. For example, I would describe myself as a Kinsey 1 but I'm certainly not going to kiss any women here. Or—Sorry, I didn't mean to say 'certainly' like that, like it's bad. It's just a little close to home for me." She scratched something out on her notepad. "I'm going to assume, by process of elimination, that everyone who didn't speak is open to sexual contact from any—"

"Speaking of close to home," said Liv. "I was thinking that—For someone in your position, Syl—that there might not be that much variety. I've been texting with Isa and thought maybe I should invite the three of them."

"The... Danish kids?" asked Grace.

"Dutch," said Kay. "Netherlands is Dutch."

We'd met Isa, her boyfriend Simon, and their friend Yara by accident a few days ago. We'd spent one afternoon with them on the beach and I hadn't thought of them since. Clearly Liv had exchanged numbers.

"No, no, no," said Marco roughly. He seemed about to punch his palm for emphasis and visibly reined himself in. "We just fucking talked about this."

"Pri is out." Liv shrugged. "We could use a couple more people. We know them."

"We don't know them."

"You didn't already ask, did you?" I asked, taking a different approach. "Because it'd be the biggest red flag ever if they said yes. I mean, if someone I met a few days ago invited me and my friends to an orgy tomorrow I'd probably have to block them."

"I didn't ask—"

"I should hope fucking not," said Marco.

"I'm sorry, why?" asked Syl. "Why could we use a couple more people?"

"I'll do the math if you insist. You're not hooking up with girls and you're already hooking up with Jack. Or...? Did you think you were going to sleep with my boyfriend?"

"I didn't—I hadn't—" Syl stammered, turning pink. "Uh, I have it on the bullets here. I thought we would talk about—"

"Isn't Jack your boyfriend too?" asked Grace. "Or does he not count for some reason?" She tried to seem calm, unaffected, but there was an edge to it. She was defending me, but in a roundabout way she was also defending the concept of polyamory. If she was going to be part of the Study Group, she needed the rules to make sense.

"It's different."

"Sure," said Grace, smiling flatly. "Can you explain to me why it's different?"

"Okay, okay, we're at, like, an eight," said Liv, notching the air with the edge of her hand. She lowered it quite a bit. "Can we take it to four?"

"I am a possession," said Marco, staring at nothing. "I am the face we show to the world."

Liv groaned. "What does that even mean? Ladies, never date a philosopher."

"What if it's a lady philosopher?" asked Kay. "Uh, female-presenting."

"Yeah, I'm out." Marco stood, wiping his hands together as though they'd been dirtied somehow. "It's not a good fit for me."

"No, c'mon!" Liv sagged a little. "I don't need to invite them. It was just an idea."

"Show me," he said. "Show me what you sent her."

"Relax, Jesus." She held out her phone. "If you want to look, fine, but if you're not gonna do the orgy then I won't either."

"Great. I'm going for a drive."

"What the fuck? Don't leave." Liv tapped on the table like she was trying to get the attention of a child. "Hey, don't fucking leave!"

"God, we're so cooked," said Sylvie, clenching her eyes. "This was such a stupid fucking idea..."

"I'll come back when I'm ready," said Marco. "Don't text me. I just need to get out for a while."

"God damnit..." Liv dropped her forehead to the countertop. "Fuck."

Kay clapped their hands together, one time, cracking like a gunshot. We all froze, even Marco. Liv startled, her head jerking up.

"Cut the shit," said Kay, somewhere between tough-as-nails coach and drill sergeant. "I am not doing this again, with the drama and the avoiding and the secret god damn fucking meetings all fucking night. Fuck the orgy, I don't give a shit. The trip is almost over and you're not gonna ass-fuck the time I have left. Get your shit together. We're going to the fucking castle. Now."

"It's a million degrees—"

"Cool. Turns out I don't give a shit. Everyone back in this kitchen in fifteen. With walking shoes. I'll get Pri. Don't make me come find you."

~

We marched up the mountain in the blazing heat, single file, like prisoners. Overgrown trees and bushes and hanging vines crowded the narrow road up to Xativa castle. No one spoke, leaving only the sounds of our ragged breath, the slapping of our sneakers, and the occasional hiss of some truck on the unseen motorway half a mile down. The air was thick somehow, like it was resisting us, like it was offended that we'd dare to walk through it.

Half of us were pissed off, the other half on edge from the pissed-off ones.

Marco and Liv had each driven their rentals, the rest of us dividing up according to some obvious but unsaid logic. Pri had gone with Liv, of course, so Grace and I went with Marco to give her space. Despite their little tiff, Sylvie went in Liv's car rather than risk the optics of choosing Marco yet again. After an hour's drive, we'd unloaded ourselves in a parking lot by the train station, letting Kay take over, relying on them to navigate us towards the castle on foot.

The town of Xativa had felt limp and lifeless. I'd read that this was a known tourist spot. The brutal sun had chased away all but the youngest and dumbest vacationers.

We saw no one else on the climb, though there was a cheerful older fellow manning a desk by the gatehouse. It wasn't a particularly romantic feeling to pay four euros to enter a castle, to see flags and arms and armor displayed in glass cases, or to be handed a glossy, high-production-value brochure showing the layout over the centuries.

It should have been crumbling, gripped by ancient ivies, and scarred by swords and cannon-fire. Haunted, if we were lucky. It wasn't even square, or rectangle, or otherwise shaped like I imagined. Instead it meandered along the top of the mountain, several times longer than it was wide. Curtain walls swooped and curved along the terrain, the gatehouse in the center like the clasp on a necklace.

My American brain couldn't comprehend it.

At least it was mercifully cold beneath the stone. We rested for a minute, sweaty, breathing heavily, before some anxious energy took Liv.

"I'm going this way," she said, turning left.

Wordlessly, Marco went right.

In ones and twos we dispersed.

Alone, I wandered down a gallery, the walls clean but scorched by ancient torches. I walked through a small, well-planted courtyard. It had orange trees and flowering bushes, a burbling fountain in the center, built in the Muslim style by some governor a thousand years ago. I stared at the mirror-like reflection of the pool, sweating. I thought of nothing. It was possible that I was meditating.

I saw movement along the parapet. Grace looked down on me, the sun smashing her in the face. I waved.

"How do I get up there?" I asked.

She just smiled, shrugged like she didn't know, and disappeared.

I saw a standing sign pointing towards el Torre, the biggest of the towers. It was tall and narrow, the edges sharp in the blue sky. The stairwell up was worn smooth, each step divoted by those that had come before, the soldiers and squatters and eventually tourists like me. The highest level could only be accessed with a wooden ladder through a hole in the floor, like an attic. I climbed up, carefully, in case someone suddenly decided to come down and stamp my fingers.

It was both empty and deserted. No furniture, no signs, a totally bare room except for ancient pillars. There was, however, a spectacular view. I looked east, down the mountain, back the way we'd come, and saw a tourist couple walking up the road towards us. I imagined I could hear their feet slapping the pavement. More north, I saw the monastery, another ancient structure that was featured on the brochure as a Don't miss if you're in the area. At least, that's what I extracted with my elementary school Spanish.

Further off I saw a passenger train slithering through the trees. The day was flat and windless, the forest in every direction totally still like an oversaturated photo. The view, the isolation, was more soothing than I realized. It was as far from being yelled at or spilling my guts or trying to predict the future as I had been all trip. Whatever my issues were, they couldn't follow me up here.

The ladder squeaked, snapping me out whatever trance I'd been in. I decided to leave, to give whoever it was some privacy and at least a chance at the experience I'd just had.

Their hair was thick and black and curly, tied into a ponytail. Of course, in the perfect cosmic order of the universe, it was Pri.

It was only after she'd stepped on to the stone, in the moment before she turned to see me, that I realized I should have warned her I was there. I should have given her a chance to turn around.

"Fuck," I said. "I'm sorry."

She turned, her eyelids fluttering in disbelief. Sweat glistened on her forehead and soaked at the collar of her t-shirt.

"God," she said. "I should have known..."

"I can go. I'll go. Sorry, it's amazing up here and you should see it. So I'll go."

She stepped aside, too quickly to mean anything other than Go, now, please, and fast. As I put my foot on the top rung, she looked away, and it wasn't until I was half into the floor that a sigh rattled out of her, her shoulders shuddering.

The sound of her crying kicked me in the chest, just like it always had.

"I'm sorry," I said again.

It was, like a lot of things I'd done in my life, insufficient. I looked down between my feet at the creaking wood. Now was my chance to talk to her, to listen to her, but when I was finally faced with it, I didn't know that I was strong enough.

Run or speak, I thought. Standing still with piss running down your leg is not how you want to remember this moment for the rest of your life.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have hooked up with Grace, or had sex with her, or anything. I shouldn't have gotten attached to her so quickly. Not physically, not romantically, not anything. I was wrong for that. I should have talked to you first, to everyone. I should have communicated and understood your... boundaries, even during the break. Especially during the break. I got confused with how... With the way things were going. It happened so fast.

"I still love you." It had been harder to say than I thought. I took a deep breath. "I'm not saying that to make you feel a certain way or say something back. I can't undo it all, I can't unfeel it all, but I'm here if you want to tell me... anything. Anything you want to say, I'm listening. But if you don't, I don't—You don't need to respond. I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry."

The air was thick and silent and dreamlike. I stood on the ladder for a few tense seconds and, realizing that every second I stayed was just imposing on her more, I determined that I should go.

"It really is an amazing view," she said with a wet laugh.

She turned, hand on her hip, the other rubbing at her nose. Her eyes were dark and tired. I waited for a long time, hoping that some random tourist wouldn't come up the stairs below me, staring up at my be-shorted ass, oblivious to the emotions above them.

"I didn't want you to like her," she said at last. "But I also did. You were right."

"I was?"

"In the store, when you were... yelling at me. I said some mean stuff to you but you were right. It's very annoying when you're right. I pushed you two together. I pushed you as hard as I knew how to. It made perfect sense at the time but—I know now that I was sabotaging myself. Us. I think it made me feel in control? I don't have a lot of that right now. Control, I mean. I'm sorry if I say dumb stuff. My brain is like soup in this heat." She brought a hand to her cheek and sighed. "I'm totally lost and... God, I hate it here. It's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be the fantasy, but I can't stop thinking about home and my parents and... you. Maybe it sounds stupid since we're, like, trapped in a house together, but you're everywhere Jackson. And I can't be there for you any more. Not the way Grace can, or Liv even. And I can't force you to pretend everything's okay because very soon it won't be. I can't do that to you again. My... stuff, my baggage, my issues, they're too heavy. I can't carry yours too.

"When you're sad I want you to be happy. You're always carrying around so much sadness and you don't deserve it. But now, when I see you happy, happy with Grace, it makes me mad. It makes me so angry. If I have to lose you, if we have to lose each other, you shouldn't be okay. If I'm suffering, you should be suffering too. It's not fair. I want you to be miserable."

"I know," I said. When she didn't respond, I went a little further. "I've been trying everything not to feel. Not to feel like shit every time we're in the same room, not to feel how we're pulling away. If... If it makes you feel any better, we'll both be miserable when we get home. There won't be any more distractions. We can be miserable together. Separately, I mean. Without each other, we'll both be miserable at the same time."

"You'll have Grace," she said, and immediately regretted it. "And I'll have Liv. I know. We can cry into our pillows and work out too much and masturbate just to have something to do." She laughed then. A small laugh, maybe a pity laugh, but it was pity for the both of us.

"I guess we have that." I looked between my legs at the ladder, shifting my feet, thinking. We needed to be clear with each other. More specific. Final. "So that's it, then? It's over."

Pri took a breath, then stretched big, arms raised, the truly exhausted kind of stretch that makes you shake and your face scrunch up weird. "Yeah, I guess it is. Maybe someday, in a thousand years, we could..." She trailed off, not able to commit even to the hypothetical. "If 'friends' is still on the table, I'd take that. But I get it if it's not."

"It could be," I said. I felt off, a little wobbly in the brain. After everything, it didn't feel real. We were supposed to be friends still? Weren't we supposed to just flee in opposite directions, melting down every time we happened to run into each other? "I mean, I hope so. I need some time to think about it. If that's okay."

She shook her head wearily. "Of course it's okay. You don't have to... think about that right now—"

"Yes," I said. "I want to be your friend. I'm sorry for trying to think about it. Maybe I'm dumb for even thinking this but I'd like to keep you in my life. And besides..."

"I know, the Study Group. I think we—I think we have to try. I can do that. I can try with you." She seemed about to say something else, then yawned and stretched again, catlike. "God, I'm frickin' tired. I just want to hide under a blanket and eat garbage and watch some braindead romcom."

"You want to leave?"

She huffed a laugh. "I never wanted to come, but Kay is terrifying." I laughed too. She rubbed her neck absently. "Are you gonna...?"

I was still halfway through the floor. With a sigh, I descended, Pri following right behind me.

We wandered the castle, slowly gathering our friends like joining beads of mercury. First, Kay and Grace standing together in the courtyard garden, Grace smiling a little to see the two of us. Sylvie we found in the gatehouse, exactly where we'd started, as though she'd never left its cold enormity.

Grace summoned Liv and Marco with a text to the group chat but I was surprised when they appeared from around the corner at the same time. They weren't holding hands or even talking but they were unmistakably together, their body language back to something like normal. Somewhere in the castle they must have found the time and space to talk. Whatever the hell they decided, I guessed that we'd find out in time.

In relative silence, we walked back down the mountain and drove home.

~

If my isolated little kingdom in the basement had an upside, it was that I didn't have to share the bathroom. While the others drew metaphorical lots upstairs, I took a long, steamy, languorous shower. The stall was small, tiled in gray stone, with a waterfall shower head and horizontal jets. I stood for a long time, hand against the wall, being pressure-washed and buried in steam. It was the kind of shower that exhausted you even if you weren't already tired. It was a knockout blow.

Afterwards I sat on the toilet, naked, brain dulled, trying to remember how to pee. Thoughts tried to rise to the surface, thoughts with big nouns like "love" or "girlfriend" or "Grace" or "Pri," but they quickly sunk back down into nothingness. I was reminded of this past summer where I'd swum for hours every day to turn my mind into exactly this type of mush.

There would be no more higher thinking today.

Eventually I summoned an embarrassing little stream, dressed in whatever I had laying around, and took the stairs up. I was looking for someone, anyone, to tell me what we were doing. Ideally they would inform me that lunch was served, served with a joint, followed by naps.

"Anyone" turned out to be Pri and Grace alone in the kitchen. Pri was hunched over the island, in sweatpants and her sister's forest green UNC Wilmington hoodie, hovering over a bowl of cereal like she thought it might try to run away.

"Oh my god, you haven't been to Tres Tacos?" I heard Grace say. "I'll take you when we get back. Ellie Chen works there and she hooks me up." She was digging around in a plastic grocery bag and looked up as I entered.

The three of us paused.

"Oh, don't look so terrified," said Pri. "Not everything is about you."

"We're gonna watch a movie," said Grace.

"Brokeback Mountain."

"Yeah, we're watching Brokeback and I'm getting the snacks. What do you like? Sweet stuff, right?"

I tried to remember what snacks we had in the house, then remember what it is that I actually liked, then attempted to cross-reference. Grace walked to the cabinet and began to search the shelves. The sight of her switched my brain off and I couldn't have responded if I wanted to.

She wore a gray henley, the sleeves bunched up around her beefy forearms. The shirt was tight, enough that it clung to her belly chub and showed the lines of her sports bra beneath. More importantly—and this was the thing that short-circuited my speech center—were her paisley flare pants, wrapped like a second skin around her thickly muscled ass and thighs, holding everything high and tight. On her tip toes, reaching for the highest shelf, her huge butt wobbled like jello.

"Sweet stuff," I said when sentience returned. We'd hooked up again last night and, despite worshipping that ass like a holy golden altar, it was incredible every time. The flare pants were almost more erotic than if she was naked. I peaked at Pri shoveling corn flakes in her mouth. Thankfully my cock was too tired to do anything. "I like, um, candy. Like M&Ms. Stuff like that."

"Great," she said perkily. She gave me a once over then nodded over her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. Definitely."

I gestured towards Pri with my eyes, not sure what I was indicating. Grace and I sat beside each other in the car and we'd texted all the way home. She knew my side of the Pri story but it looked like she had her own half in progress.

Behind Pri, Grace gave me a modest little Okay with one hand. I couldn't begin to imagine what they'd talked about but apparently it had been positive.

"Can you take this first bag for me?" asked Grace. "They're already setting up in the movie room."

The request wasn't that odd but I felt, for some reason, like she wanted me to go. Glad to be gotten rid of, I nodded, grabbed the bag and a bottle of water, and left.

If a celebrity-mansion-home-theater was a ten, our movie room was a seven. It didn't have tiered seating or a suite of armchairs but it was way nicer than any home setup I'd ever been in, with a high-end projector mounted high on the wall, silky plush carpeting in vivid, cardinal red, and two sectional couches like Ls in the back corners.

Marco was kneeling in front of the screen like a pagan, trying to divine the true and holy remote from a pile of five pretenders.

"So if this is the volume," he said to no one. "And this is the cable..."

Kay was fully stretched out on the far sofa, their long, sinewy legs poking out of a pair of bike shorts. They looked up sleepily and nodded at me, their hands tucked in the pocket of a black hoodie that said TURNSTILE across the chest.

Syl sat on her hip beside her college roommate, tapping away on her phone. Unsurprisingly, while the rest of us had dressed in the most comfortable clothes we owned, Sylvie had chosen a billowy pink romper covered in flitting birds. She'd added a pair of silver studs that matched both her necklace and her septum piercing, and enough makeup that she couldn't be accused of not trying. We all looked like shabby college students compared to her, which, of course, is what we were.

A wooden end table was set dead-center against the back wall, separating the couches from each other. As I dropped the snack bag on it, I wondered what idiot designed the place to give a piece of furniture the best seat in the house. I sat in the next best, opposite Syl, sinking heavily into the cushions.

I was too tired to even pull out my phone. Instead I watched as Marco slowly uncovered his audiovisual mysteries. After some time, he disposed of all remotes but two and cued up the beginning of the movie. Against a cloudy, threatening sky, the words Brokeback Mountain appeared on screen, washed out against the house lights. He paused it, then scooched back against the couch, relaxing below Sylvie's knees. After a moment, he lazily tilted his head toward me.

"Sup?" I asked.

"Nada. Y tu?"

"Same."

"Bueno."

We sighed and waited. A minute later, Liv entered with sodas and seltzers in her arms.

"This is the gay one, right?" she asked, stepping over my legs to carefully dump her beverages on the table.

"As gay as the night is long," replied Marco. "Beautiful movie."

"Ang Lee?" I said.

"Ang Lee," he agreed.

"Weird."

He shrugged.

"It's fucking freezing in here," said Liv. She wore only a pair of linen shorts and a Ben and Jerry's t-shirt. Goosebumps flushed on her legs. "Can we fix that or...?"

"We've got quilts and stuff," said Syl, patting one that lay over the back of her sectional. She didn't look up.

"Alright, gimme."

Liv took a moment to gather pillows and a quilt, then enlisted Marco in building a cushy home on the floor for them both. I was beginning to realize that I did not understand their relationship at all. They must have come to some kind of peace during their castle-talk. The way things were going it was hard to believe it would last.

I wondered if she had actually apologized or if Marco had simply given in, again, for the thousandth time. It was, probably, a shitty thing to think about her, but after this morning's heart to heart with Marco I was feeling more protective of him than ever before.

Pri and Grace arrived shortly, Grace bringing conversation with her like smallpox on a blanket. Inside thirty seconds everyone was talking again. Snacks were distributed. Napkins were provided. Cans and plastic bottles hissed upon opening.

Grace asked me for a cushion and then, winking, flopped herself face-down on the carpet, legs kicking in the air like a little kid. Her full ass stretched her form-fitting pants to the limit, her cheeks rolling forward and back like waves as she settled. It was exactly like her to watch a movie in that position, but with the wink I knew she understood the effect the view would have on me. I kicked her waggling foot with mine, once, then twice, and then we were simply kicking each other blindly for no reason other than it was funny.

Pri sat just about as far away as she was able, tucked into the deep corner of our sectional with a blanket over her legs. We caught each others' eye over the five foot expanse of empty cushion between us.

"You know this is my favorite, right?" she said with a little smile. "Top ten for sure, maybe top five."

"You said that. Why?"

"Ask me again after the movie. If you don't get it then, there's no hope for you."

She leaned forward, grasping for the switch and lowering the lights. Marco took the hint and started the movie.

It was slow and methodical and filmed beautifully, with wide sweeping shots of the Rocky Mountains mixed with intimate closeups of our protagonists, Jack and Ennis. The two were established early on as men cut from the same cloth. Hard workers, tough types, just two young roughnecks taking a not-so-desirable job herding sheep.

It was early in the movie, early enough that it surprised me, when Jack and Ennis had sex for the first time. They were practically strangers then, having only shared some beers and a few conversations. In a burst of passion, sudden and unexpected, they kissed in their tent. Then, dirty and sweaty from work, still in their denim, Ennis bent Jack over and took him.

We watched raptly as the movie progressed. The two talked and shepherded and bonded, grappling with their sexuality as they grew into their romance.

Under the blue-gray glow of the projector screen, Liv snuggled closer to Marco, laying her head on his shoulder, their legs intertwined beneath the blanket. I let myself stare at them, wanting to think rude things but ending up smiling dumbly at how cute they were. Despite my attitude about it earlier, I had to admit that it was good to watch them as a couple again, being sweet like they ought to be.

When I returned to the movie, it had become noticeably more melancholic. Jack and Ennis broke apart and then came together repeatedly over the years, their straight lives and marriages and families developing in the other's absence. It was sometimes funny or provocative or dramatic, but mostly it was heart-achingly sad.

More movement on the carpet. Liv had shifted a little higher onto Marco's chest and was slowly kissing him, running her hands through his dark hair. It was gentle and it was sweet. At least, that's how it started. Soon their jaws began to work, Marco's hand drifting down to pull her closer.

At first I felt that same warmth, the good relationship warmth, but the longer it went on, the feeling twisted, becoming a little more off-putting, a little more unpleasant. My brain really was running half-speed because I realized, with embarrassment, that I was getting ick from them.

I almost laughed. I was annoyed that they weren't watching the damn movie! As Liv ran her tongue along Marco's teeth, Ennis's marriage was falling apart on screen. It was so moving, so heartwrenching, but they couldn't care less.

I looked over to Pri to see if she'd noticed but of course she hadn't. Her blanketed knees were drawn up to her chin, eyes shiny as she watched the film.

It didn't really matter, I knew that. I decided not to say anything. That is, until I heard the smacking of their lips, and a coarse moan from Liv's throat.

"Hey," I said, low but clear. "I'm trying to watch a movie here. Hey." I stretched my toe to nudge her in the back.

Liv looked back over her shoulder placidly. She took me in for a moment. "We're not stopping you," she said.

Marco, beneath her, looked a bit dazed.

"You're missing out," said Pri from my left in a perfect stage whisper. "It's a good movie."

"Great movie," I agreed. "And you're distracting me."

"If your eye makes you sin, gouge it out."

Marco blinked rapidly, as if shaking off some spell. "Are you quoting the Bible? Damn, you're getting me hot, Livvy..."

She laughed and kissed him again but my scolding must have meant something to her because she laid her head back down to watch.

I gave Pri an exasperated look, trying to show how offended I was on her behalf. She half-smiled and waved it away.

A few minutes later, I saw movement again from Liv and Marco's quilt. They were snuggled close, like lovers getting comfy in front of a roaring fire, except that Liv's arm was clearly rocking back and forth under the blanket. She kissed and whispered against Marco's neck as she gave him, by her standards, a fairly chaste handjob.

I sighed, then glanced around the room, hoping to find someone to make eye contact with. I expected that we'd laugh and tell Liv off and roll our eyes at yet another of her little stunts.

Pri was watching the movie with a tear in her eye as our main characters quietly fought for their love. Grace couldn't have seen anything from that close to the screen, and Syl hadn't moved in twenty minutes, head propped on her arm, so still that she might have been asleep.

But Kay was already watching the two of them, the hot yellow light of the frame reflecting off their lidded eyes. Some sixth sense must have triggered and Kay glanced up at me, not seeming embarrassed, not really reacting at all. They just shifted onto their hip to get a better view.

Marco moaned gently, kicking his feet, and the blanket slipped off his waist, revealing his shiny brown cock. Liv purred in his ear, pulling her hand away just long enough to drool into her palm.

"Oh, fuck," he whispered. He reached across his body, pulling her head into a kiss, thrusting weakly into her hand.

Grace, flat on her stomach, finally looked back over her shoulder, her eyebrow raised, wondering what the disturbance was. She blinked, eyes narrowing. Whatever she expected to see, it probably wasn't a wet handjob four feet away from her head, but she didn't look at me or anyone else. Like Kay, she froze, almost entranced.

The movie flipped to a night scene, darkening the room. Liv's hand began to pump faster in the quarter-light. Marco moaned again, a little louder this time, kneading Liv's breast through her t-shirt. She must have been giving him the "party trick," the perfect tightening of her fist at the top of her stroke, pushing down hard, simulating a fast fuck into a tight pussy. The party trick was Liv's signature, if she had such a thing. It was her special move to make her victim cum as quickly as possible.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Marco whimpered, turning his hips towards her, thrusting quicker. The very tip of his glistening cock peeked out from her fist over and over and over, balls drawing high. He was going to shoot.

Suddenly, Liv released him and pressed down on Marco's shoulders with both hands, pinning him to the garish red carpet. He thrashed, moaning, his engorged cock waving wildly but not ejaculating.

"Hold on, baby," she said softly. "Don't cum yet and I'll make you feel so so good..."

For a long moment, the movie flickering behind them, I held my breath, wondering if he would. His cock was so full of blood it was almost purple, raising and lowering in the still air as he clenched his pelvic floor. Eventually the clenching stopped and Marco laid back, limply, drawing heavy breaths through his nose.

No one said a word. Recognition bloomed in me, the understanding that something that wasn't supposed to happen had just happened. We'd very clearly canceled the orgy.

Hadn't we?

The spandex of their bike shorts made a shhh sound as Kay slid to the floor. On their knees, they leaned over Marco, the hood of their black hoodie flopping over their short, bleached hair. Holding his chin and the top of his head in each hand, Kay kissed him deeply. Then they raised their head, threaded their fingers into Liv's hair, and pulled her in for her own kiss, taking a heavy-handed squeeze of each of Liv's breasts in turn. Finally, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, Kay turned and dropped their mouth onto Marco's still throbbing cock.

"Jesus," he groaned. "Go slow, go slow..."

When I finally thought to look at Grace, she was looking off to the side, mouth tight. I followed her eyes and realized she was staring at Pri, and Pri was staring straight back. They were totally still, saying nothing, and it took me a long moment to catch that they were, in some way that I didn't and probably would never understand, communicating.

Grace tilted her head. Pri bit her lip. Grace shrugged like she didn't know. Pri shrugged back. Grace gestured with her chin.

"Fuck," said Kay from off-camera. "Deeper. Ohh fuck, that's it..."

The three of them had rotated slightly, Marco now sitting up, Kay still on their knees sucking his cock. Liv had circled behind Kay and had shoved her hand down the back of Kay's bike shorts, her wrist deep between their ass cheeks, rapidly finger-fucking their pussy. Marco was resting an encouraging hand on the back of Kay's head, his other arm angled awkwardly to grope Liv's ass.

I felt movement on the cushions and turned to find Pri sidling over to me on her knees, looming in her oversized sweatshirt. She had been moving slowly and stopped when I saw her, as though trying not to startle a nervous animal.

"It's okay," she said quietly. "Right?"

Her brown eyes searched me, the whites reflecting the square light of the screen. She reached out to touch my shoulder and my skin tingled.

"It's okay," said Grace. She was crawling towards me too, her wide, paisley-printed ass swaying from side to side. She spoke softly, encouragingly. "We can do it together. You want us both, don't you?"

I went mute, watching as Pri drifted closer, her purple-blushed lips inches away, watching as Grace squeezed my thigh, lifting herself to her knees. My eyelids fluttered as Pri kissed me, nuzzling her nose against mine. At the same time, I felt the tip-tap-tip-tap of Grace's hot fingertips as she slowly walked her hand up the leg of my shorts, slipping into my underwear, and cupping my flaccid cock.

"He's soft," said Grace with a smile. " He's never been soft before."

"I'm tired," I said into Pri's mouth. I gave her a wet parting kiss, sucking lightly on her lower lip, and looked down. "I'm so tired, I don't know if I can..."

"It's okay," said Grace. "I like sucking it soft. C'mon big guy, let's get these shorts off..."

She tugged at the fabric suggestively but I didn't move. Some flicker of anxiety lingered and I looked at Pri again.

"We don't have to," said Pri, looking at my mouth, her uncertainty growing. "I'm not trying to mess you guys up."

"I don't want to stop," said Grace. "This is what we talked about, isn't it?"

I looked between them, shaking my head. "I want to, but—Pri, we're supposed to be friends."

Pri touched her fingers to my lips. "This is what I do with my friends."

She replaced her finger with her mouth and all was lost. I shifted from side to side and Grace undressed me easily, tossing my bottoms, I thought, to the far end of the couch. As I lay back, Pri gently lifted the hem of my shirt above my happy trail.

"Off."

I took my shirt off and sat back, naked. Despite what Grace had said, I wouldn't have described myself as "soft" at that moment. Exhausted as I was, watching the others forming their sexy little pile had pushed some blood into my shaft, just enough to plump up, revealing a web of fat, blue veins along the beige skin. Even half-hard it was probably five inches and thick, laying threateningly against my thigh.

Grace had settled between my legs and was now inching them open with her elbows, stroking the top of my thighs with her fingertips. She stared at my cock and then, as if preparing her instrument, she wetly licked her lips. As Pri kissed my neck, sucking at the skin, Grace leaned in until her nose was buried in my pubic hair. She closed her eyes and smelled deeply.

"Mmmmm," she hummed. "You smell good..." She gave a brief, almost friendly kiss to my balls, then used her long, wandering tongue to scoop my cock into her mouth.

"Shit," I said weakly. The first wet touch of her lips was incredible. The heat inside her was indescribable. "Oh god, that's nice..."

Pri teased my chest, tracing circles onto my skin. I returned the favor, finding her nice handfuls through the formless shape of her hoodie. Her nipples responded quickly, stiffening, and I realized dumbly that she wasn't wearing a bra.

Grace's tongue danced around my spongy, swelling cock, swirling in circles over the head, occasionally flitting out the bottom to tickle my balls. Despite my worries about performance, I grew quickly in her mouth, which made her hum in pleasure and work herself even harder. She sucked deeply, hollowing her cheeks, working my half-erection to the back of her throat with slurps and moans.

I had no idea if Grace was actually that in love with my cock or if she simply put on a flawless performance each time. In a way, the second excited me more, that she was so into me, so desperate to please me, that she acted completely cock-drunk just to show it.

As if reading my mind, Grace looked up at me with big eyes, laying a long, sucking kiss on my frenulum and slit. One hand left my thigh and slipped carefully under my balls, teasing them for a moment. Then, her polished nails dull in the darkness, she used her thumb and forefinger to cinch around the top of my sack, right where it joined my body. The remaining fingers closed gently around my testicles, forming something like a handle to my cock that she now had full control of.

Grace smiled around my shaft and used the ballsack-handle to pull her mouth down on me, swaying her face from side to side, dropping deeper and deeper, trying to open up her throat for me.

"Holy fuck," I slurred. "Holy fucking shit." My bare feet kicked frantically against the ridiculous red carpeting, my toes kneading the threads.

"Oh my god," said Pri, a little shocked. It was only then that I noticed she'd stopped kissing my neck. "She's good. Gracie, Jesus, you're really good. I think you're better than Liv even."

"Oh fuckkk," said Liv from across the room. "I heard that. If I wasn't getting my soul sucked out of my pussy, I would come defend my honor."

I wanted to see what Liv was doing, to see who was doing what, but I couldn't look away from Grace. She bobbed her head joyfully on my nearly hard cock, skillfully adjusting as I grew thicker, spit and precum sliding off her chin. Almost at my full length, she could still take me three-quarters deep, more than the other girls ever had. My glans swelled large, massaging her tonsils, dripping my lubricant down her throat.

"I can't even..." said Pri with undisguised awe. "No wonder he fell for you so fast. Grace, you're incredible. You're not gagging or anything. You're not even, like, struggling. How do you do that?"

Blushing badly, Grace slid my cock out of her mouth like unsheathing a sword, stretching out web-like strings of saliva and cum as she did, careful to avoid her perfect white teeth ("Orthodontist uncle," I remembered her saying). While she'd glowed under my praise when we were alone, something about Pri being the one to say it embarrassed her. She slurped some stray precum off her lower lip, then blushed even worse because someone had seen her do it.

"It's nothing," she said, absently stroking my cock. The stroking was casual and automatic, like the idea of stopping my pleasure for even a moment was an amateur move that she never considered. Spit or precum or both ran down her wrist, but her henley sleeves were already rolled up her muscular forearms. "It's just 'ho tendencies.'"

It was Grace's joke from the other day, like "ho tendencies" was the slutty voice inside, the anti-conscience, that made us do the dumb sexual shit that we did. It was crushingly funny before, but at that moment, I realized it was her rationale for why she kept chasing assholes and sleeping with any halfway polite guy with a big cock.

She made a joke out of it to keep from being ashamed. In her mind, of course she was good at giving head. It came with the territory of being a helplessly promiscuous girl. A slut.

"You don't need to do that," said Pri, who'd seen everything already, who understood fully before I ever had my stupid little revelation. "Never do that. You're amazing."

Grace laughed uneasily. "I'm not doing anything. It's not a big deal. If you just do it enough times..."

"I wish I could do what you do. I can't even fit him in my mouth. You're, like, a blowjob goddess."

Still red-faced, Grace finally smiled a little. "Thanks, I guess. I like... being good at it."

A laugh jumped out of me, rough and unexpected, and Grace looked uneasy again.

"'Good at it?'" I said, shaking my head. "Jesus, Grace. That's like Caitlin Clark saying she's 'good at basketball.' You're something else entirely."

It took a moment for her to understand me, and she smiled, big this time, then rewarded me with a quick, swirling suck off my head.

"Ohh fuck," I moaned. "You better be careful. I don't know if I can cum more than once."

Pri's deeply browned hand, her fresh henna in swoops and swirls across her fingers, dropped to join Grace's. My cock jumped and flexed at her touch.

"You're insanely hard right now," said Pri. A second later, some thought struck her. "Oh my god, is this like the 10k?"

"Goddamn Jacky," barked Liv from across the room. "You were a fucking animal after the 10k."

For some reason, we all looked over this time. Liv was sitting on the ground against the far couch, facing us, fully naked. Kay was slouched between her legs, the enby's back pressed against Liv's bare chest. Kay wore only their hoodie, their long tattooed legs held high in the air by Marco's toned arms. Between those legs, a naked Marco pumped steadily into Kay's pussy.

From our angle we only saw Marco's muscled ass as it hollowed on the in-stroke and rounded on the out. Kay's arms draped over Marco's shoulders, their eyes still sleepy, their red lips parted. As Liv whispered naughtiness into Kay's ear, their head dropped back in formless ecstasy.

Sylvie still sat in her same spot on the couch, looking at us. She'd been staring at Grace as she worshipped my cock and suddenly glanced up, her cheeks flushed but otherwise calm.

"Oh," she said. "Right. Should I get the lube and stuff? Fuck, we're supposed to have wristbands too."

Sylvie popped to her feet and quickly crossed the room. Only then did I notice that someone had paused the movie, thankfully not on some awkward closeup or a blurry action frame, but on a bright green pasture full of sheep against a breathtaking mountain vista.

"Syl, we don't need anything," said Pri.

Sylvie didn't hear, or more likely, she chose not to hear. She left the room, letting the warm glow of the projector spill out into the hallway.

I felt responsible for Syl. It was an odd feeling to have for someone who was so violently independent. I didn't think she was sad or uncomfortable but I thought she must feel some kind of embarrassment at being left out, like being the last kid picked for basketball. After Liv had dumped on her in the kitchen, after we'd instantly tripled off on opposite sides of the room, I wondered if the orgy idea was seeming that attractive to her any more. If I was the only one she could hook up with and I was buried under two other girls...

Pri and Grace began to stroke me together, Grace's ball-fondling hand suddenly rejoining the party. Starting low, pressing gently into my testicles, was Grace's left hand, then came Pri's, then Grace's right stacked neatly on top. Even with their three full hands, the entirety of my fat, plum-sized glans stuck out the top, livid purple and oozing. Grace's thumb rubbed slowly over my slit, coaxing out more cum, spreading it around the tip until I was shiny.

I started some breathing exercises to keep from painting my chest.

"So, uh, what's the thing with the 10k?" asked Grace.

After a moment, Pri tore her eyes away from Liv and the others, lips wet. She visibly stowed away her lust, then laughed at the stack of hands on my cock. She capped the tower with her other hand, pinching around my head like a claw game.

"Jeez Jack, did you know you had a four-hander?" She squeezed me mid-shaft in a gratifying way. "Ah, um, do you remember the Alpha Kappa 10k? We all ran but Jack was so out of shape, and it was so hot that day." She suddenly smiled at the memory. "That night we were all together, all four of us. We used to do that a lot, but it was always an event, like we cleared our schedule and found a good place to stay. That night it was kind of an accident and... Well, we were all exhausted but Jack's dick was so weirdly hard. Like... a piece of wood, I swear to god. You're feeling this, right?"

Grace nodded thoughtfully. "Yah, he's crazy hard right now."

"But after Jack came the first time," said Pri. "His dick was like..."

"He was rock hard for like two hours," said Liv, as if she was part of our conversation. "And he was wild, like he was desperate to cum. He fucked, like, twelve orgasms out of me." She kissed Kay's neck wetly. "Oh yeah, you love that big brown cock, don't you? Is he going deep?"

"Fuck," mumbled Kay. "Really deep... Really fucking deep..." They turned their head into Liv's kiss and frenched her deeply, grabbing Liv's hand and moving it back over their breast.

"So you're saying we need to make him cum?" asked Grace.

"Only if you want to get your vagina destroyed today," said Pri.

Grace gave her a silly look, like Only a crazy person would want that, right?

"Have you... ever given head with someone else?" asked Pri.

"I like where this is going..." I said before I could stop myself. Pri reached up to smother my face, her hand sticky with my emissions.

"Like, at the same time with someone?" asked Grace. "Like a double blowjob kind of thing?"

"Yeah."

Grace shook her head.

"Well, maybe your ho tendencies are weaker than you thought because we just found something I've done that you haven't."

Under Pri's hand, I raised an eyebrow. She and Liv must have done it for Marco on one of their nights without me. Not that I was jealous. More envious. The word "envy" made me think of my talk with Marco this morning and I roughly stuffed the resulting bad vibes under my amygdala.

"I've seen videos," added Grace quickly. "But I've never done it."

"It's weirdly easier than just doing it alone. You're kind of, like, outsourcing half of it."

"And you've done it...?"

"With Liv. For Marco. A couple times."

"Oh fuck," I groaned. I pulled Pri's hand off my face. "Stop fucking teasing me."

Pri laughed and blushed at the same time. "I didn't want to assume for her. It's kind of a private thing—"

"Grace," I said. "Take your top off. You too. Then get on the floor."

"Oh wow," said Pri. "You're in charge now?"

I grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her into a dramatic, groping kiss, slipping my tongue in her mouth. It took her a second for her to react, and when she did it was fierce, turning her head, sucking back hard, squeezing my shoulder. When I pulled her face away, she was out of breath, eyes glowing like white-hot coals.

"Yes," I said. I flipped the hem of her sweatshirt up. "Take this off."

Grace had already stripped off her henley and was threading her elbow out of her sports bra. Her heavy, tanned tits swayed as she sat back on her heels. Pri quietly followed suit, pulling her gigantic hoodie over her head. Underneath she wore only a white cotton camisole, her areolas and nipples showing darkly through the fabric, but that too got pulled over her head.

Pri slipped to the carpet, and the both girls shuffled around on their knees, making awkward faces at each other, trying to figure out where to go. There wasn't enough room for two between my legs and Pri ended up hugging tight to the outside of my thigh.

Grace took hold of my cock again

I'd long since given up my disbelief. After the fifth or tenth or fifteenth time fucking Pri or Liv or both, I'd come to accept, to believe even, that this sort of thing did in fact happen to me. That the most attractive, erotic women I'd ever known regularly fucked me and had a good time doing it. It was part of my life, at least for now.

Even correcting for that, the girls at my feet were so fucking hot.

Obviously they were different, dramatically different, from each other. They were different heights, had different demeanors, Pri was ethnically Indian and Grace Chinese and all the physical and cultural differences that entailed. Still, there was something similar about them, like they were cut from some mold for thick, athletic beauties.

They both had full, round breasts, though Grace's were obviously much larger and hung lower on her chest. Both had pointy brown nipples and wide areolas, though Grace's were bigger and Pri's were so dark they were like coal. Both were layered from head to toe with dramatic tan lines, from sports uniforms and from bathing suits, but Pri's tan was so much darker on her arms and legs, a deep reddish-brown to Grace's golden skin. Grace was still a little burned from a few days ago, a faint pink across the upper breast and also, I knew, on her ass.

And the muscles. I was hopeless for their muscular bodies. Pri's stomach was completely flat, a trail of dark hairs reaching up between her abs and circling her belly button. Every inch of her declared her fitness, from the prominent collarbones to her sinuous neck to her toned arms.

While Grace had a chubby stomach that popped over her waistband, she also had traps rising from her thick shoulders and impressive biceps that flexed as she jerked me off. Veins traced subtly off the back of her hand along her thick, clenching forearms.

The best features of both were below the waist, and while they were kneeling I couldn't see much more than muscular thighs flattening out over their calves.

That could come later. What I had in front of me was enough for ten lifetimes.

"Your breasts are so nice," said Pri.

Grace blushed. Her tits draped heavily down each side of her ribs, wobbling in circles in time with her pumping hand.

"I was just thinking that about yours," said Grace, sounding almost relieved. "They were bigger than I thought they'd be."

"Thanks. They're really big for a soccer player but nothing like yours. I mean, they're amazing, but how the hell do you run?"

Grace glided her free hand along the side of her breast, then lifted it, absently squeezing her nipple. "I wear two sports bras at once, or I have one that's like a size too small that holds them really tight."

Kay laughed. "Classic trans trick. Cheaper than a chest binder."

I'd lost track of the other group again, but at some point they'd stopped fucking.

Kay had fallen sideways onto their hip, their legs drawn up nearly to their chest. It gave us a perfect view of their pale, surprisingly muscular ass, their dangling labia squeezed between their thighs. They were still wearing their black hoodie. I wondered if today was a not-so-great day for their dysphoria, if they'd keep it on despite all the nudity around them.

Marco sat to the side, his head on Liv's shoulder, catching his breath, his cock still hard and glistening.

"Can I feel them?" asked Pri. "Like to see how heavy they are?"

It took Grace a second to answer. "Uhm, sure. I guess"

Pri reached out a dark hand, but instead of just lifting Grace's breast, she first trailed her fingers lightly over the sunburned skin.

"You should have listened to us. The sun is different here."

"I know! God, I know. I just wanted a real tan for once, not a crazy fucking sports tan. Like, Carolina Beach is like—Whoa!"

Pri had been hefting Grace's tit and, as she pulled her hand away, she'd run a knuckle over the thick nipple. Grace's areola raised with goosebumps and she squeezed my shaft extra hard.

"Sorry!" said Pri. "Sorry, I didn't even mean to do that. You just have very, very nice breasts. I thought, I don't know, since your butt is so nice that they'd be worse somehow. Like, karmic averages or something."

"I mean, thanks. You should talk. You've got, like, incredible everything. You could be an Insta model, easy."

"I said that," said Liv quietly. "She could be a fitness influencer. She's insane for someone natty." Liv had been caressing Marco's thigh and planted a kiss on his head. He just smiled in a glazed over sort of way, still breathing heavily.

"C'mon..." said Pri, suddenly shy. "Thanks though."

I had been slouched in the cushions for awhile now, content to be masturbated by Grace and listen to the conversation, but suddenly there wasn't much to say. I let my body do the talking and slid my hips until they were hanging off the edge of the cushion, spreading my legs.

"Oh, do you want your blowjob now?" asked Pri playfully.

"You don't need to. Bear, can you suck my cock? Pri can join if she wants to."

Grace blushed, and I quickly realized I'd used her sex nickname in front of the others. Before I could process what that meant, she shimmied between my legs and dutifully shoved my meat into her mouth.

Pri just watched as the slurping began. I didn't know if it was the nickname, or the joking way I'd excluded her, or just the fact that some new girl was sucking my cock, but something had her trapped in thought.

I watched her for a few seconds until she emerged, shifting closer and brushing Grace's shoulder. Grace, sex goddess that she was, understood immediately and began kissing her way down my shaft, making space. Despite the frigid air in the room, my balls hung low and heavy, and Grace lifted one to gently suck into her mouth.

Pri replaced Grace on top. There was no introduction or foreplay. Using my cock like a joystick, she swung it around in circles, sliding my glans across her puckered lips, her tongue occasionally darting out to caress my ridge.

As Grace sucked noisily at my sack, Pri looked up at me, trying to get my attention. With her lips wrapped over my crown, her eyes were softer somehow. She was trying to convey something to me in that look, something like I'm here. I'm doing this. Something like If this is the new reality, I can do that too.

I strained to sit up and, doubled over myself, lifted Pri's face long enough to kiss her deeply, trying to express my adoration. When I sank back into the cushions, Pri's eyes were already closed, and she began single-mindedly inhale my dick.

I gave in to the sensations, reveling in the feeling of two mouths on me. Grace sucked my nuts until they were drenched and shiny, giving me long, languid kisses on the inner thigh whenever she switched sides. When I caught sight of her between my legs, her nose and mouth were glazed over with saliva, looking like she'd been eating a mango the hard way.

While Grace was under my nuts, Pri pumped a slick, twisting hand up and down my shaft. I was still too thick for her thumb and forefinger to meet, but her grip was strong enough that it didn't matter. Waiting for my attention, she would repeatedly lower her head, mouth stretched as wide as possible, teasing like she'd attempt to fit my head in her mouth. We both knew she couldn't, that I was too thick, and at the last second she'd smile wickedly and run her teeth gently along my glans. Each time I had to prevent myself from kicking out a leg.

At some point, at the edge of my attention, I saw Sylvie return from wherever the hell she'd gone. That pang of sympathy hit again, a pang that was quickly drowned out by pleasure.

Grace didn't even ask before placing a firm hand in the pit of my knee, folding my leg back against my chest, and diving in to lick my perineum and asshole. I shivered, groaning weakly as she rimmed me, tracing circles around my wrinkled anus. She poked at my hole with a stiff tongue, the sensitive nerve endings firing, filling me with tingling warmth.

Whether it was my pathetic noises or some sense that Grace was going farther than her, Pri picked up her pace, punishing my cock with long, fierce strokes, her tongue spinning around my head like a whirlpool. She had to adjust to the new angle of my hips, bringing herself a little closer to the couch just to lower her breast into my open palm.

When I squeezed it, pinching the nipple hard, she moaned. Grace, hearing us, made her own throaty noises as she concentrated over my asshole, lapping hard like she wanted to penetrate me. I clenched, spurting a long shot of precum onto Pri's lips, what would have been a full load for most guys but was just a prelude for me. Pri let it dribble out of her mouth, down between her fingers to keep me nice and lubricated.

I would have cum by now, anyone would have, if I hadn't been so fucking tired. It was like my exhaustion was forcing me to edge. My orgasm built in my stomach, harder and hotter, like a bomb waiting to go off.

When Grace finally came up for air, letting my leg down gently, her face was smeared from the eyes down with spit and runoff cum. Her tits were spattered with the same, and they swayed in the glow of the projector as she caught her breath. She watched for a moment, watched as Pri tirelessly worked my shaft with little grunts and moans.

Someone said something I couldn't process and Grace looked over her shoulder bashfully. She found a smile and said something back, something that sounded like "TV timeout," but of course that made no sense. For twenty or thirty seconds, she watched Pri stroke my cock with both hands, one stacked on top of the other, forcing precum up and drinking it out of my slit like a straw.

Grace shifted closer again, her thigh nudging against Pri's, touching Pri's shoulder with an uncertain hand. Returning the favor from earlier, Pri immediately made room. Now inches away, Grace stopped again to watch Pri's mouth work, seemingly mesmerized.

"It's really that big, isn't it?" asked Grace.

"Oh my god, fuck..." My toes flexed into the carpet. "Wait, what? You've seen me before."

"Yeah but... When I'm looking at it, when it's in my hands, sure it seems huge, but it's totally different watching someone else." With an unbelieving look, she leaned closer, angling her head. "Like, it's longer than her face. It's longer than her entire fucking forearm..."

"God's own prototype," said Kay. "Too weird to live, too rare to die."

"Genetic freak," said Syl. "Honestly, it's kind of disgusting."

Mouth slack, I looked over. Syl still sat in her seat just across the table from me, staring. She'd never, as far as I could tell, even looked away from my throbbing member.

Laid out on the table between us were opened soda cans, bags of candy, and tubes of potato chips. Among the snacks were a pile of hairbands, a jar of coconut oil, and two bottles of lube, one of them the exact same lube that I used to fuck Syl all those days ago.

Sylvie met my eye, saw the lust written on my face, and fixed her pale face, not wanting to give me a reaction. I let my look linger, chewing my lip, promising her with my eyes that she'd be next.

The longer we locked eyes, the pinker her cheeks got, until finally, deeply blushed and blinking, she looked away. I let my attention move back to the girls at my feet.

I was sweating now, an impressive percentage of my blood now filling my cock. My testicles felt like they weighed four pounds each, and my cock had that grotesque, shiny-red, desperate look, as if I was moments away from cumming.

Grace leaned closer and closer until she was open-mouth sucking on me just above my overloaded balls. Each girl bracing on my knees, they kissed my shaft together, gliding their lips up and down their chosen side. Grace's eyelids fluttered dreamily and I knew, like a moment of pure, sexual telepathy, that she was pleased to have gotten the side with the massive cock-vein spidering down the length.

The girls were out of sync at first, one pleasuring me down at the base while the other was slurping over the tip, trying not to bump into each other when trading positions. Slowly, they started to align, gliding up and down at the same time. I groaned louder and more frantically, not wanting to pump my hips and disturb their rhythm but not being able to stop. Like the coordinated athletes they were, they incorporated my thrusts into their timing until I was fucking the gap between the two pairs of their puckered lips.

Guided by my whimpers, Pri and Grace glided their mouths over my swollen crown simultaneously, sucked at the ridge from both sides. My hips jerked erratically, and the less control I had, the more their lips began to touch. Both girls had their eyes closed, sucking dutifully, but on one of my mistimed thrusts, their mouths met loosely without my cock in between them. Rather than pull away, they kept their saliva-slick lips together, holding their mouths joined tight and steady so I could pull out completely and thrust back in. Resting a hand on each of their heads, I rolled my hips, again and again, smearing my cum against their cheeks, treating them like living pocket pussy.

I felt my balls rising, thinking that this is how I'd cum, that I'd blow my load all over their faces and inside their mouths, when Grace suddenly angled her head and took me straight on, my freakishly engorged glans slipping past her lips. She withdrew me from her hot, tight mouth with a slurping pop and offered me to Pri who did her best to imitate the fucking succubus. Together they sucked noisily, slowly passing me back and forth, fifteen or twenty times, like ice cream that wouldn't melt. Finally, when offered my glossy, slick cock for yet another taste, Pri simply grabbed Grace's face and kissed her.

Grace seemed dazed, her breath catching for a moment, then all at once she kissed back, greedily, rapidly pumping my cock while making out with my ex-girlfriend. As if she'd been waiting for the chance, Pri groped Grace's huge breasts, lifting them roughly, her brown fingers indenting the flesh.

Grace panted between kisses, licking at Pri's tongue, losing herself in the moment. Grace's first gay kiss was aggressive and desperate and very wet, and just as she began to nibble at Pri's lip, Pri came up short. She openly stared at Grace's body, at her fat, cum-glazed tits, at her enormous thighs shrink-wrapped in teal paisley.

"God," Pri, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry, my pussy is throbbing. I need it." She lurched to her feet and ripped her sweatpants and panties down her thickly-muscled legs. Her face was coated with Grace's saliva and my cum. Her wiry black pubic hair glistened, thighs shiny. The rich, heady scent of her cunt juices filled the air.

Grace watched with a mix of shock and jealousy as Pri climbed into my lap and straddled me. With a hand between her legs, Pri placed my cock to exactly where she needed it and sank down, groaning.

On her first day here, Pri's pussy had almost been too tight for me to get inside her. It had taken us twenty minutes of gentle, kissy foreplay just to get past her labia, and even then her pussy fought me in spite of her pleasure. I silently thanked Marco for stretching her out all week, and thanked God for Grace's impossibly erotic body, a body that clearly sent Pri over the bisexual edge.

Pri's drooling pussy slid down my around cock, burying it fully inside her in one stroke.

"Ohhhh my godddd," she moaned, head slumping forward. "It's perfect... so perfect..."

I heard laughter, then a long feminine moan as someone else in the room received pleasure.

I couldn't look over before Pri began to rock her hips. She started slowly but quickly sped up, ratcheting forward and back, forcing my cock deeper, constantly changing the angle, stirring up her pussy. I grabbed her full hips and thighs, incredible bulging thighs that were two sizes too big for her frame, and helped her rock, grinding her against me, until she was humping at a sprint. Long curls of glossy black hair escaped from her ponytail, bouncing around her face, her hips a blur against mine. Animalistic groans started low in her throat, her sweaty brown tits spinning in opposite directions from her manic thrusting.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit-t-t." Pri's face twisted in ecstasy. "I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna—Ah, ah, ah!"

"Cum on me, Pri. Fuck yes, fuck yes, cum on this cock..."

Her cunt massaged my rod in waves as she came, slumping forward until we were forehead to forehead. I was close, too close to stop now, and even after the tidal wave of her orgasm broke her rhythm, I picked up the pace where she'd dropped it, rocking her whole frame. She'd seized up, her body coiled like a spring, as I frantically fucked her onto me.

Pri's moaning cut off like a switch, her neck muscles taut like bars of iron, and she squirted into my lap.

As far as I knew, she'd never squirted before, or even known she could squirt, but I recognized the squelching sound and the feeling girlcum dripping down to my ass from playing with Liv.

"You're fucking cumming Pri."

"Fuck, I'm cumminggg..."

"No, you're squirting."

"No, no, I don't, I don't—Oh my goddd."

She gushed again, the hot liquid escaping around the girth of my cock as I continued to pull her against me, my shoulders and forearms burning from the exertion.

"Stop, I can't..." she moaned. "I can't, I can't..."

I wrapped her up and slung us over, resting her sideways on the couch. I spun to the floor, past Grace, down onto my knees. Grabbing Pri's hips, I pulled her until her pussy was hanging off the lip of the cushion. Her inner labia were gaping, her hole opening and closing as the waves rolled through her. Her hairy asshole spasmed as the longest orgasm of her life rewired her neurons.

I slid easily back inside. Pri gasped.

"Uh oh," said Liv, laughing. "The monster is out."

I lowered my ass and thrust up into her, searching for her anterior fornix, the A-spot we'd discovered together that first weekend all those months ago. It made the girls cum their brains out every time but now I needed it for another reason. She was so turned on that her vagina was soaked and sloshy and had lost most of its friction. I knew her A-spot would still be incredibly tight, able to take a pounding, even when her pussy was flushed and fully tented.

I quickly found the angle and pushed. Pri moaned senselessly. Her clit was inflamed and red, thrusting out from the dark brown of her hood and her wild tangle of pubes. Pressing my thumb against the thick bud, I stroked in gentle circles, feeling it slowly pulse in time with her heartbeat. Her eyes crossed, a little drool escaping the corner of her mouth.

I threw both of Pri's sculpted, muscular legs over my shoulder, raising her ass off the cushion, and stuffed my glossy cock into her dark, swollen box, then sliding out, then stuffing it in again. Each time I bottomed out in her fornix, the fleshy pocket crushing against my glans. A hot rush of pleasure started in my well-sucked testicles, building larger and larger, stretching my already turgid cock to its limits. Pri had simply given in, face slack, gripping the cushion behind her head with bloodless hands.

"Bear," I said hoarsely. "Come here. Right here."

Grace popped up on her knees and was at my side in an instant.

"I'm gonna—F-fuck—I'm gonna cum..."

"And—Oh shit, do you want me to...?"

"Yes. Fuck yes..."

"In my pussy or in my mouth?" asked Grace eagerly.

"Oh fuck," I said, reaching the end. "Mouth. Mouth. Fuck!"

I pumped into Pri faster and faster, black and white sparks flashing behind my eyes. I went rigid, shooting a long rope of cum inside her orgasmically defeated body, then a second for good measure. I'd been holding on to Pri's legs to keep from falling over, pleasure dripping through my whole body like hot sap, and when I pulled my long, slick cock out from between her pussy lips, she queefed and ejected a bubbly little river of my fresh semen.

Grace dropped her mouth as I turned my hips towards her, a third ribbon of cum splattering in a runny line across her cheek before she took me inside to swallow the rest. Gripping her by the base of her silky, black hair, I thrust shallowly into her mouth, my head falling back.

Grace had learned where to aim my cock so that I'd spray against the roof of her mouth, not down her throat where she'd choke. Eyes shut, she cupped my balls as they lifted, her other hand twisting along my shaft encouragingly. For a second my thrusts and her squeezing fingers moved in a clashing rhythm, bumping against each other, and I stopped to let her do her work. I came again and again, and after each squirt of steaming cum, she'd swipe her tongue along my crown and slit, as if making sure it was nice and clean for the next shot.

"Good girl," I said. "Oh fuck. Take care of me. Drink it all..."

With a shudder of limbs, I was done. Grace pulled me out of her mouth just long enough to swallow heavily, then began cleaning my softening erection with her mouth, not even looking up for my approval.

After a few seconds she paused, gingerly holding my cock by the tip. A ring of white foam had formed around the base, a whipped up mixture of mine and Pri's cum. Grace looked at it, blinking, as if suddenly realizing where it came from.

She didn't need to use her mouth for that. It would be fine, in fact totally reasonable, if that was a bridge too far. Never mind that I wanted her to. Never mind that my cock flexed and swelled in her hand as I imagined it.

Before I could tell her so, she lowered her mouth and tested it with the tip of her tongue. After a second she licked some up, then a little more, finally sucking up the remaining cream and swallowing that too. Businesslike, she moved on to my balls.

My brain suddenly buzzed on the wrong frequency, dizziness taking me, and I fell back before she could finish. I smacked into Pri's limp legs hanging off the couch, my bare thigh landing on the lush carpet.

Facing the couch, Grace scraped a hand over her face, trying to collect all the fluids that had collected there. She paused again.

Pri was looking at Grace through heavily lidded eyes, the neon of her orgasm still glowing deeply. Grace looked back, seeing the sweat on Pri's forehead, her brown chest as it rose and fell, and the flared and meaty lips of her well-fucked pussy. My cum left pearly, dripping trails from between Pri's thick labia, down her ass to the couch cushion.

Pri slid her thigh up, opening her legs a little wider, giving Grace a better view. Inviting her.

I was shocked at how quickly Grace decided to do it. She crawled forward, her sunburned tits swaying below her, and put her face in Pri's crotch, licking her pussy clean, darting her tongue into Pri's hole to eat out the creampie I'd left. It was tender and slurpy and went on for a long time, clearly longer than Grace needed to do the job.

"Okay, okay," said Pri finally. She cupped Grace's cheek. "Sorry, it's sensitive right now."

Grace pulled back, chin wet, blinking rapidly. Blushing was insufficient to describe the deep scarlet of her face. She looked like someone waking up from a trance, suspecting that they'd done something they shouldn't have but unable to truly believe it. She looked at me as if caught.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She opened her mouth slightly, searching for something, anything, but was saved from responding by Marco's deep moans.

A few feet from where I'd fallen, Liv was draped all over him, sitting on his cock, her breasts crushed against his chest, her chin on his clavicle. It seemed like they'd started in cowgirl before she fell forward on top of him. She was rolling her hips against his with tantric slowness, her knees rubbing raw against the carpet, her beautifully tanned thighs squeezing around him, using her otherworldly flexibility to get their bodies as close together as humanly possible.

"It's time," she whispered to him. "I can feel how ready you are."

"I need to..." he moaned, rubbing his hair into the rug. "Oh god, it's gonna... I'm gonna..." A long breathy noise slipped out of him and his face went red. "Oh fuck, Livvy, I'm—I love you."

"I love you, too. Ooh, baby, I feel it. It feels so good. I can feel how much you're cumming and it feels so fucking good..."

The room went still, the airy harmony of our breathing like background music to the sounds of Marco cumming. He sighed and clenched and writhed and shivered for a long time.

Kay stretched against the couch, toes flexing. Syl just sighed.

I thought I'd just witnessed Liv and Marco's first I love yous, and I knew I could have looked at Pri to confirm it. Her face would have revealed everything. I didn't. Whether it was the first or the tenth or the last, I'd seen something beautiful and I didn't want to spoil it.

"I thought there was supposed to be food at this thing," said Kay eventually. Most of them laughed, if tiredly.

"We need you," said Liv, brushing hair from Marco's face. "We dumb modern women don't know how to cook."

Marco groaned incomprehensibly. A few seconds later, he said, "There's a list."

"A list?"

"On the fridge. All the stuff." He covered his face with his arm. "I'll be there in a second..."

Liv did a press up from Marco's chest and looked around the room. She loved what she saw and she smiled a self-satisfied smile.

"Alright," she said. "Let's have lunch—Late lunch, early dinner, whatever—Then we can revisit the whole orgy thing. Tomorrow is my birthday after all."