"Are you going to the mixer?" Mark, freshly showered, fixed his hair in the mirror. Mark was my roommate, the best friend I'd made in my frosh year. He was probably the only person I could stand living with. Mark said I was antisocial. Personally, I thought I was just choosy. One person was always more than enough to be around at a time.

"I wasn't planning to, why?" I asked, sitting on my bed and reading a Sandman graphic novel. It'd be the last pleasure reading I'd have until winter break, and I was determined to enjoy it.

"Because that's where you meet people."

"I've met enough people."

"How about a woman?"

"They're under the same heading as people, you sexist."

Mark sighed. "No, you need to get out and talk to somebody with breasts. I can't live with you for a full year of moping over Diane."

"I'm not moping," I said defensively.

"You're reading the gothiest shit I've ever seen. Come on. Get up, take a shower, go meet some frosh."

Mark wasn't going to give up. I think he saw me as a project and I probably needed that. The worst part was, he was right. I was moping and Diane kept booting open the door in my mind and interfering with the story. Morpheus could wait, I suppose.

I took a quick shower, shaved, and put on what passed for my best outfit. Then Mark and I headed out to the quad, where tables had been set out with food and big coolers of lemonade and iced tea. A DJ was set up against the north side, the techno at an almost reasonable volume. Perils of going to a function organized by the school, I guess. Meant the lemonade and iced tea were actually, and more importantly just, that. If this mixer was anything like the one last year, there would be a lot of talking, but the real party would be more granular and in dorms while upperclassmen laid the foundations on the frosh of their choice.

I spotted Diane across the quad, talking to a skinny blond guy. I damn near turned around. I couldn't deal with seeing her flirting, not right now. Give me a month or two...and I'd still not be able to handle it. But it would be a month later.

"Stay on target," Mark intoned, following my attention.

"I hear you, Red Leader." I looked away, anywhere else than Diane.

"Are you going to need me, or can I trust that you'll actually try to have fun?"

"I'm okay. It's just a bit of a shock, that's all."

"Okay good, because that gentleman over there is desperately trying to pretend he's not eye-fucking me."

"You bullseye that womp rat, buddy. I believe in you."

Mark grinned and set off to talk to the guy. That was how he met Troy, who became Mark's boyfriend for the rest of their college tenure. He wasn't the only one who had a life-changing visit to this thing, though it took me a bit longer.

I tried to block out Diane's ostentatious flirting--was she being intentionally showy for me or was that my imagination--and went to get some lemonade. I needed to spend enough time here that Mark wasn't going to read me the riot act, and I could then slink back to our room and see if Rose was going to make it out of that serial killer convention.

Only Diane wasn't making that easy. Seemed like every time I looked over she was draped over her guy in a different way. And yeah, maybe I shouldn't have looked over quite so much but I never said I was a paragon of willpower.

The pull of my room was growing stronger and I was considering just loading up on the fried snacks and calling it a night. Besides, Mark was distracted and might not even notice a surreptitious exit. I was about to make my move when, "Hey! There you are!"

I turned to find a group of ten or so people, half of whom had been the friend group thrown together by the housing director our frosh year. We'd all been on Hall L in Caulfield Dorm, which we had nicknamed only semi-ironically as the L-Train. In the lead was my friend Anders, the self-appointed conductor of the L-Train.

"Hey," I said, shaking hands with him. That was back when we did that. As with most things, it started ironically but eventually took on a life of its own.

"You weren't going to cut out, were you?" Anders asked.

My eyes fell on the new faces. Two in particular. "Uh...no?"

"That's too bad. Kevin's an RA this year, and me and Jon are suitemates, so that means party suite. We were gonna grab some food and take this up there."

"So same thing but inside."

"Jon also has a fake ID and his parents' credit card. There's enough beer up there to incapacitate an elephant."

Jon, a pleasantly round guy with the beginnings of a dwarf beard, grinned proudly. "You in?"

I did my best not to glance at either of the young women who'd caught my attention. "Yeah, I'm in. Let's go make some bad decisions."

The only bad part of Jon's room was that he liked ska, so that's what was on the stereo. Me, after plainly not being over Diane, the ska felt like another way to punish myself. At least there was beer. Warm piss beer, but we were sophomores in college. We didn't know any better. Frankly, knowing better hasn't done more than make me pay more for drinks. I took the beanbag chair against one wall and started drinking, wondering if I actually was going to talk to either woman, or if I was just marking time before returning to my room.

Truth be told, I was more into one than the other. I was trying not to watch her as she talked with Jon, but it was hard. She wore a short sundress that hugged an hourglass figure. Her skin was a pleasant olive hue, with cute brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. She had wide brown eyes with a subtle slant to them, a narrow nose, and a heart-shaped face. Her chin-length chestnut hair had a slight wave to it. Her body was sexy, her face was cute. It was a juxtaposition I found intensely alluring. Her name, I'd find out later, was Zora Davidova.

I made the decision to talk to her and was about to get up when the other girl plopped down in front of me. "Hey! We haven't met yet. I'm Bridget."

Bridget Kim was barely five feet tall and not one hundred pounds. She was petite bordering on tiny, a slender-limbed beauty with the lithe muscles of a dancer. She had almond-shaped eyes, so dark as to be nearly black, a button nose, and full, cupid's bow lips. Her face was expressive, her smile wide and welcoming. Her glossy black hair went past her shoulders. She was wearing cut-offs that stopped at the tops of her shapely thighs, a bodysuit, and a flannel over that. A gold cross hung between her modest breasts.

"Hi." I introduced myself.

"It's awesome to meet you! Okay, would you rather fight a hundred chickens or one bear?"

She was so serious that I nearly snarfed my beer. "What?"

"It's an important question. Get it right and I'll hang out. Biff it and I'll find somebody else."

"Am I armed?"

"You have a baseball bat and a copy of Oprah's biography."

"Why do I have the biography?"

"Because."

"I don't think I could take the bear, and I don't think I could distract it with Oprah. So I think I have to go for the chickens."

She settled down next to me. "That's the right answer."

We got to talking, and I found myself having a good time. Bridget was fun and she had just enough quirk to make her entertaining. I didn't even realize that Diane had completely fled my mind either.

It was a week later when I was down in the lounge watching TV. Joe Bob Briggs was doing Lost Boys and Near Dark and I wasn't gonna miss that. I was settling in for a long evening when the door opened. Zora came in wearing plaid flannel pants and a Star Wars t-shirt, carrying a soft blanket over her shoulders.

"Didn't think I was gonna have to fight anybody for the TV at this hour," she said.

"Careful, I've been training."

"I have four brothers. Wait, what are you watching?"

I explained what I was doing there and felt a little silly.

She brightened. "That's what I was going to watch."

"Pull up a couch."

She settled on the other end of the couch and we introduced ourselves for the first time officially. Joe Bob had the power to double the length of a 90-minute movie, especially once commercials were thrown in. As the evening wore on, fatigue stripped inhibitions. By the time the final credits rolled at the end of Near Dark, Zora's head was on my shoulder and she was snoring softly. I briefly considered just staying there all night, but she awakened with a light snort.

She wiped her mouth self-consciously. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine.".

"No, it's just...I have a boyfriend."

"Oh," I said. Anyone who'd been to college had heard this one. Just about every woman goes in with a high school boyfriend she still thought was The One and they were going to try the long distance thing. It never worked out, but no one wanted to hear that. I was going to be diplomatic until she inevitably decided that a boyfriend she could see was better than one she couldn't. "Walk you back to your room?"

"Sure, yeah." She picked up her blanket and as we began to navigate the off-white corridors of Caulfield Dorm, she said, "That was fun. We should do it again sometime."

"Any time."

Zora opened up her door and, lit by the harsh glow of a desk lamp, Zora's roommate was on all fours, a guy absolutely railing her from behind. "Zee, fuck!" the roommate screeched.

"Stacy, sorry!" Zora slammed the door and leaned against the wall. "Well, shit. Maybe I can sleep in the lounge?"

"You can stay in my room."

She gave me an indulgent smile. "I have a boyfriend, remember?"

"Which is why I mean sleep. If you try anything, you'll get the business end of my hatpin."

She giggled. "You're sure?"

"It's no problem. As long as you don't mind snoring. Not me, my roommate. Guy has a chainsaw up his nose."

She thought it over, and gave a ghost of a nod. "Okay. Sleeping."

"Sleeping," I confirmed.

Mark sawed logs in the dark room as Zora and I crept to the bed. I slept by the wall, my back to her. We barely fit in the twin bed, but I had one of the best nights of sleep of my life. My pillow smelled of her for days after.

Zora and I remained in our holding pattern until Halloween. We stayed up late often, watching movies, her falling asleep on me each time. Mark gave me shit whenever Zee slept over. "When I said you needed to meet a woman, I meant a girlfriend. Not someone else to pine over."

"Long distance boyfriend. I just need to wait him out."

"You're in a better mood at least," he observed.

I was also impatient. Zora was taking longer to break up with her boyfriend and sleeping in a bed with a gorgeous woman I couldn't touch was taking its toll on my willpower. I started wondering if maybe there was another option on the table. Just one that would bridge the gap until Zee dumped the ghost.

Bridget was obviously volunteering for the job. She always seemed to turn up no matter where I was. In any conversation, I had her undivided attention. She was good for the ego, I'm not going to lie, and she was beautiful and interested. The only problem with her is that she wasn't Zora.

On Halloween we had a dorm-wide party. As broke college students, our costumes were as cheap and half-assed as we could come up with. I found Zora looking incredible in black tights and an orange dress with a few construction paper black triangles pinned to it. "What are you?" I asked.

"A Jill-o-Lantern. What about you?"

I held up the milk carton and bared my vampire fangs. "Lost Boy."

She shook her head and laughed. The two of us went to Kevin's room. The punch was basically antifreeze and it tasted like Kool-Aid. Dangerous stuff. Zora and I were tipsy inside the hour. We never strayed far from each other. Bridget joined us for a little bit, and Zora ended up talking to her more than I did. At the end of the night, I was walking her back to the room and I wasn't sure which one of us was leaning on the other. Zora paused at her door, listening, and her face changed.

"Sleep at your place?"

"I have a boyfriend," I warned her.

"Dick," she said, taking my hand. I don't remember the walk to my room. We were just suddenly there and I was surrounded by her heat, the smell of her shampoo. I unlocked the door and the two of us were together in the dark room, and all I could hear was her breath. Impulsively, I leaned in, my mouth finding hers. Her lips were soft, her mouth willing. Her tongue tasted of the dangerous punch.

"I have a boyfriend," she whispered.

"I'm sorry." I could feel her breath on my face.

I felt her lean in, brush a kiss over my face, and I caught her again. "We're drunk," she said, breaking away and finding my bed, climbing in. I sat down, pulling off my shoes, wondering what the hell we were doing. I wanted Zora more than I'd wanted any woman in my life.

"Where's Mark?" she asked.

"His boyfriend's local. Lives off campus. If he's not here now he won't be here all night."

"We're alone then." She kicked off her shoes. "I'm not a cheater."

"Okay."

She pulled me to her, her mouth finding mine, her hands finding my face, tongue caressing mine. "We can't have sex," she murmured into my mouth.

"Not a problem," I said. I'd been drinking so much I wasn't sure I could get it up, even for her. Better this way anyway, let her keep her vow and give her a good time. Our kisses were passionate, made sloppy by the drink and a need for the other brewed over a dozen late night movies. I found her neck, exploring the graceful arc with my mouth. Periodically she would murmur, almost to herself, "I have a boyfriend," and every time after, when her mouth found mine, the kiss was more passionate than the last.

My hands went to her pillowy breasts. I was obsessed. I'd seen a few pairs close up by then, but Zora's were incredible, the heavy and teardrop-shaped, still buoyed by youth. I hadn't thought of myself as a breast man, but as I explored the soft flesh beneath her dress, I thought she might make me one. My mouth fell to her cleavage, and I sucked in the scent of her sweat mingled with her light perfume.

"I'm not usually like this," she breathed.

"I'm not here to judge you, Zee." My mind was overheating. I'd wanted this since the moment I'd seen her, and though it had only been two months, those were long months without her. My hand crept up her thigh, taking the hem of her dress with it.

"What are you doing?" she asked, shivering.

"I want to watch you cum."

The trembling turned to a shudder, her mouth reaching for mine. "This is crazy."

"I think you like being a little crazy with me."

She lifted her hips, her dress bunching up around her waist, and I was able to find the top of her tights. I slipped beneath, brushing the hot skin of her belly, then ranged lower. She sucked in a breath when I touched her panties. I sat up, in the dark room, my eyes finding hers. She held my shoulders, tensed and alight. Deliberately, I probed between the soft cloth of her panties into the sultry heat beneath. She spread her legs with a moan as I made my way down the patch of downy fleece. She grew wetter and wetter until I arrived at her lips, soaked and nearly too hot to touch.

I pulled my fingers out, popping them in my mouth for my first taste of her. She was spicier than I had imagined. I wanted her on my tongue desperately, but knew that was too far. She wasn't a cheater, she said, and this wasn't cheating, she implied. I knew that if I put my face between her thick thighs that would be in the warped calculus that drink and desire had performed in her mind. Her thighs were pressed together, trapping my hand, her new lover. Her white panties were bunched up just below.

I kissed her savagely, wishing her mouth was her pussy. My hand was able to do what my lips could not. She let out the loveliest whimper as I entered her again. Her hips worked against the intrusion. I circled her, penetrated, again and again. I wasn't an artist that night. I needed to see her cum and I wouldn't wait. I felt it in the hammering of her heart, the quick gasps of her breath, the increasingly desperate note in her moans. She was ready.

Her fingers sank deeply into my shoulder and bicep and she let out a cry. Her sweet body descended into helpless shuddering against me. I held her as the aftershocks worked their way through her.

I looked down at her once. Her dress was hiked up to her waist, her naked hips shining, her panties rolled into a band midway down her thick thighs. I threw a blanket over us and cuddled her, kissing her temple as she recovered her senses.

"Did you want...I feel like I should give you a turn," she murmured.

"It's okay."

She reached over and felt me "Are you still wearing your jeans?"

"Zee, I'm fine. You don't have to."

"I want to."

I'm many things, but I'm not dumb enough to turn down a handjob from a beautiful woman I'd been mutely in love with for two months. "Okay."

I felt her taking first my pants and then my shorts down, and she gripped me. "Oh. Wow."

"What?"

"Nothing," she said. I felt her running her palm up and down me, exploring.

"Lick your palms," I said. "It's too dry otherwise."

She brought her hands to her mouth, tentatively licking them. "Are you sure? This feels weird."

"Trust me." That had been Diane's trick. A good way to get me to forget whatever it was I was mad at her about. Lick the palm, go to work, and five minutes later everything's fine.

"Okay. Tell me if I do something wrong," she said, beginning to stroke. She was clumsy, but I didn't care.

"You're so fucking sexy, Zee," I said, kissing her. My hand came up between her legs.

She shied away like a tickled fawn. "I don't think I could take it."

I took my hands away, content that this would just be for me. "Just stroke. Don't pull, don't mash. Stroke and I'm all yours."

Her eyes shone in the dim light. She began to run her slicked palms lightly over my length, root to crown. I didn't need much, not after watching her cum. That was an even more beautiful sight than I had imagined over these long months. She milked the orgasm from me swiftly with me clutching at her.

She yelped when I splashed over her belly, but didn't move aside. I leaned in, kissing her. Now her kisses were suddenly hesitant. I did the wrong thing and thought that more ardor would be just the thing, and she leaned away. "I have a boyfriend," she said.

"Right. Okay," I said. I didn't mention that she was drying on my hands and I was drying on her tummy. The magic of the night had been broken. "We should probably get some sleep. I'm really drunk."

"Yeah, so am I."

I rolled over and so did she. We lay like that, back-to-back, until sleep claimed us.

Things were awkward with Zee for a few weeks. We never mentioned that night, even though all I wanted was a repeat performance. She talked about her boyfriend even more, and I took the hint. We'd been drunk, that was the end of it. I needed to look elsewhere for a girlfriend.

Bridget was right there, being cute and funny and so obviously interested that it was getting awkward to ignore. One day two weeks after Halloween were hanging out in my room, studying for the intro psych class we were both taking. I had the book in my lap, leaned back in my desk chair. She was on my bed. "I can't concentrate," she said, getting up.

"After this test, you won't have to."

"Until the final," she said. She went to my shelves. She stopped at a binder. "What's this?"

I hadn't looked at those in a while. "My portfolio."

She pulled it out, and opened it, finding laminated black and white photos in sheet protectors. And yes, that's pretentious, but in college there's nothing more profound than a simple black and white image. She progressed through hilly landscapes and stormy beachscapes, arriving on what I liked to call my Diane Period. Last year, when we'd been together, she had been my muse. A dark-eyed nymph, I'd photographed her anywhere and everywhere. I didn't like to think of those images now, as they reminded me of a time before Zora.

"She's beautiful," Bridget said. "She looks familiar."

"She goes here."

"That's it. You got so much..." she turned the page and her breath caught. Diane stood in high grass, shadows pooling in the contours of her nude body. I knew that I should take those out of the book at least, but I couldn't bear not to have them around, even if I wasn't looking at them anymore.

Bridget turned the page, finding a shot of Diane in a pool, the surface of the water distorting her form but giving an outline that implied her slender body.

"Do you still do these?" she asked.

"I haven't done them in a while." I nodded over to my closest where my camera, a Nikon FE2 I'd found in a pawn shop, sat in its case. "But I have my things."

"Would you take pictures of me?" she asked, hopping up on the bed.

"Yeah, I'd love to." She pulled her top off, revealing a lacy bra. I almost stopped her because I didn't have anything set up and the light in my room was really only good for capturing existential despair. "I could do some test shots, but if you want something really pretty, something really worthy of you, we'd need to go somewhere."

"You think I'm pretty?" she asked, and she was so vulnerable there, sitting on my bed in her bra, that my heart broke a little.

"Yeah, of course. More than pretty. Beautiful. You don't know that?"

"It's just that you don't seem to notice me."

"I noticed you, Bee. Let me get the camera."

I went to the closet and dug out the case, assembling the camera. I returned to find Bridget kneeling on my bed, wearing only her bra and panties and the tiny gold cross around her neck, arms folded, shielding herself. Her eyes were unsure. "Is this okay?"

"You're gorgeous," I told her sincerely. I put on some music to get her to loosen up a bit and I talked her through the posing. She had no idea what she was doing, but being beautiful goes a long way, and her lack of artifice wrapped around from amateurish to adorable.

With her body, lithe and compact, she looked amazing in her matching teal bra and panties. The first time she turned, revealing the thong disappearing between the pert globes of her ass, I fumbled the camera. Her eyes lit up and the posing loosened.

"Okay, out of film," I said when I clicked the last image. "And technically we have studying to do."

She stuck her lip out. "Okay," she said. "Really thought you were gonna forget about that." She lay down on my bed on her stomach, propped up on her elbows. She was showing off as she read.

I joined her on the bed. "I'm having a hard time remembering," I confided.

"Oh?" She asked, her teeth worrying her lip as she looked me over. Gooseflesh sprouted over her arm. Her little body was tensed like a bowstring.

"I'm going to kiss you now," I told her.

"Okay," she said, suddenly shy. I leaned down. Her lips were soft, her kiss eager. I wrapped my arms around her, lifting her up into my lap. She was as light and willing as a feather. I brushed her thick hair from her face, my mouth seeking more.

I felt her moving against me and a thought occurred to me, and not one that I'm proud of. I started to wonder how far she would let me go. Her slender hips were already rocking as she clutched at my face, her tongue desperately caressing mine like she was trying to lay claim. This was the apotheosis of a crush she had nursed for months. This was her Halloween night, only I would be a far more willing partner than Zee.

I pushed her back onto the bed, kissing my way to her throat, then down her flat belly. I glanced up, found her staring back at me, her eyes misty with need. I gripped her panties, rolling them down her thighs. Her pussy was in front of me, the silky hair over her slit soaking. I kissed her, catching a flash of pink, and she cried my name. I opened her roughly, spreading her legs. She hooked her knees over my shoulders, thrusting into my face. I gripped her, eating her like fruit until she ran down my chin and my tongue was soaked through with her.

I felt her growing to a fever pitch, but there was another threshold. Yes, I wanted her. She was beautiful, her smooth skin shining with perspiration, her chest heaving, her hips rolling. I wouldn't let her cum this way. Not when I could see how far she would let me take this.

I stood, pulling my shirt over my head, then taking down my pants. My cock, turgid and wet was over her like a blade. Her eyes widened. I dropped down, pulling her bra off, covering her nipples with my mouth, lashing the hard pebbles with my tongue. I knelt between her legs, angled my cock, ready to impale her.

"No," she murmured.

"What?"

"I'm a virgin," she said.

She might as well have thrown a bucket of cold water on me. "Oh fuck, I'm sorry." I recoiled, ready to de-escalate.

"No, don't stop. The front door's closed, but the back door's open."

"Back door?"

She whispered so softly I could barely hear her, the blush hot on her cheeks. "Anal."

"Seriously?"

She nodded. "Come on. I'm close."

"Hold on." I ran to the bathroom and returned with a bottle of lubricant. She sighed in relief. She wasn't going to ask why I had that, but the girl I dated in the summer before college had a similar rule to Bridget. With Diane, the back door had been locked, but the front was open for all comers, which really had been the root of the problem.

I squirted some in my hand, massaging it along my length. Then, as roughly as before, I turned Bridget over, pulling her up to all fours. She stuck her ass in the air, a lewd invitation I planned to accept. Her asshole peeked at me from between the spread cheeks. I caressed it with my lubricated finger, tracing around the rubbery opening. She quivered, breaking into a moan when I pushed the slick digit inside her. First one knuckle, then two, working it in and out. The waves from earlier had subsided, but now they returned with whitecaps.

I eased another finger into her, pulling a ragged moan free. I fucked in and out of her, loosening her up for my sex. Her little fists balled on my comforter, her face, one side pressed into the bed, was locked in a frown of concentration, cut with heavy sighs of pleasure. My cock demanded entry, and I already felt the white hot explosion building in my belly.

I took my fingers away, and she made a tiny, broken sound of disappointment. It turned into a sigh as she felt me pressing against her rosebud. "Oh, my word," she purred.

I cracked the final word in two as I pushed into her. She sobbed my name once, her knuckles going white. She spasmed like she had been hooked to a livewire. I pushed into her, inch by inch. Each time, I gave her just enough time that she couldn't quite adjust, and then took her further. The expression on her face, her eyes closed, was one of amazement, horror, and bliss. More than she bargained for, more than she thought she could take, and yet she still wanted more. It was impossible not to love her in that moment, and for the first time I found a need for her that went beyond the carnal.

I sank to the hilt, gripping her hips for leverage. She sobbed again, this time louder. Her body was tight around me. I stayed there, luxuriating in the depth I'd found, certain that I would burst from her. I began to fuck. Her asshole gripped me like a vise, trying vainly to hold me in place, fight the motion of my thrusts. She couldn't. She was murmuring something, punctuated by sobs, and I never knew what. The shivers rebounded through her, starting with where we joined and radiating out into her body in blissful echoes.

The sounds she made were enough to break me. The explosion would no longer be denied. I pushed as deep as I could and with a cry, emptied myself into her. She thrashed beneath me, jolting with each buck of my orgasm. I pulled out of her, and the shivers took her over, a long, relieved sigh escaping her lips.

She lay there, a rag doll, her little body heaving with breath, neither fully conscious or unconscious. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. Her eyes were closed, but a small smile lit her face. She'd caught me, and she knew it. I wanted to stay there with her, marinate in what we'd just shared, but a knock at my door broke the moment.

"Just a second," I called. I pulled on my shorts and shirt and made my way to the door. I wasn't even thinking who it was, but the immutable laws of the universe ensured it as Zora.

"Taking a nap?" she asked with a smirk. The bed was hidden from the door, but only barely.

I touched my hair, trying to come up with some kind of response, but what came out was "Uhhhh."

"Who's that?" Bridget asked from behind me. I turned and found her poking her head out from around the corner of the closet. "Oh, hey, Zora."

I caught Zora craning her neck, trying to see more of Bridget. I couldn't read what I saw in her widened eyes. Not quite hurt, not quite interest, but something alluring and mysterious. "I'm sorry, I'm interrupting. I'll talk to you later." She turned and scurried away down the hall.

"Come back to bed," Bridget languidly called. I heard the promise in her voice.

"One sec." Bridget was forgotten because Zora was there, and I had to follow, to fix whatever it was I'd broken. "Zee, wait."

She stopped. "It's nothing important. Go back to Bridget."

"Yeah, that's new...I'd have said something..."

"It's all right," she lied. "I have a boyfriend. Now you have a girlfriend I guess." She looked past me and I saw longing in her eyes.

"Zee, I feel like we should talk. I don't quite understand what's going on, and it feels like--"

"No," she said quickly. "It's nothing. I'll see you around."

"If we're friends, don't do this," I said. "If we're something else, then we should talk, right?"

She stared at me, then the floor. I watched a hundred different emotions blow over her face like the shadows of clouds. Finally, she simply nodded and left. Confused, I returned to my room and rinsed off in the shower. I wasn't sure if I was washing the conversation or Bridget off of me.

I rejoined her in bed and she cuddled up to me. "What did Zora want?"

"I wish I knew."

Bridget and I kept things up. She was up for anything that wasn't what she called sex, and even though her mouth and ass should have satisfied a sane man, I found myself wanting more. Sometimes I wondered if she offered her sex to me, I would have immediately lost interest. I didn't bother to try the logic of her ideas with her. That other girl had long since burned that out of me.

The next time Zora and I talked we didn't mention our conversation in the hall. If it meant I got to be her friend again, I didn't really care. Being away from her was an ache I couldn't massage away, no matter how pliant Bridget was.

Zora and I planned for another double feature, this one a Fulci twofer of Zombi and The House by the Cemetery. Bridget came along, I suspect because she didn't quite trust the two of us together. I couldn't really blame her for that, but giallo horror movies weren't something an unprepared person should really wander into. Luckily, she passed out early and was snoring in my lap before the eye trauma scene. Zora and I settled on opposite ends of the couch, Zee's toes nearly touching Bee's.

The second movie wrapped and we stayed there, relaxing in the togetherness, speaking in low tones so as not to wake up Bridget.

"I'm hungry," Zora said finally.

"Me too, but it's midnight."

"Denny's?"

"Denny's."

"You want to wake your girlfriend?"

"I should." I nudged her, and she yawned adorably. "Hey, Bee. Want to come to Denny's?"

"Tired," she said.

I lifted her easily, bridal carrying her to my room, where I tucked her in. Zee and I grabbed our jackets and shoes and made the short drive to Denny's. Everything else was forgotten as we picked apart the two movies over our midnight breakfasts. Truth be told, we mostly talked about the scene where a zombie fights a shark. How could you not?

We returned to campus somewhere between exhausted and wired. Zee looked in the direction of her room, longing in her big eyes. "I don't want the night to end."

"You could sleep over. Mark's with his boyfriend."

"There's a woman in your bed."

"True, but she's very small."

Zee giggled. "I haven't had a sleepover since I was a kid."

We went to my room and crept inside. Bridget was fast asleep, her breath soft. I carefully scooted her over and slid in next to her. Zora followed. To this day I have no idea how the three of us fit on that twin bed. Part of the magic of college, I suppose, when the laws of physics are momentarily suspended in the name of exploration. We lined up like spoons, Bridget's arm around me, my arm around Zee.

"My bed is empty right now," Zee whispered and giggled.

"Who's there?" mumbled Bridget.

"Zora's sleeping over."

"Oh, cool." She reached over my body and patted Zee's arm. Zora tensed for a split second, then relaxed.

We were silent for a time. "I'm not gonna wake up and find you grinding on me, am I?" Zora finally whispered.

"I'll be a perfect gentleman."

She was quiet again, the silence stretching out, but full. I knew there were words in it before she put them there. "That's a shame."

I lay there, wondering if I had heard what I thought I heard. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, I imagine. My mouth found her neck, my hand dipped low, a familiar path despite only being traveled once, on that one magical night together. Amazing what one can pick up when one cares to learn.

When I reached into her flannel pants I made my first discovery: Zora wasn't wearing panties. She had planned this, maybe from the beginning. The fleece between her legs was already wet. I was back in the first night we shared together. Despite Bridget's beauty and willingness to do nearly anything, the night that had stayed with me was the time with Zora.

I brought her along with care, chasing the little moans and the movement of her hips. I had forgotten anyone else was in bed with us until I felt Bridget's insistent hands on my cheeks. She moved my face to look into her eyes and she kissed me savagely, an expression of ownership. Bridget released my face, and I found her small hands on my turgid shaft. She stroked me as I stroked Zora.

I rolled onto my back. Zora made a confused noise, while Bridget grinned widely, working me faster and faster, believing herself triumphant. I pressed the fingers that had been inside Zora to Bridget's lips and they popped into her mouth. I felt her sucking, her tongue finding the new taste.

I pulled Zora onto her back next to me, my mouth finding hers. My right hand went to her, my left ran down Bridget's back. I eased her pajama pants down, tracing her ass down to her sex. Then I was inside both of them. At the same time, I felt Zora's hand join Bridget's on me.

The three of us stroked, our pleasure merging into a single, throbbing point. A spark and a squeak heralded Zee careening over the edge, her quivering hand stopping on me. Bridget pushed back on my intruding fingers, her hips pulling her own orgasm from her. I was poised at the point, desperate to follow the two of them.

Bridget grinned, pulling the covers away. Then she took me in her mouth, sucking me in to Zora's hand, where she still held my shaft. As Bridget's lips touched Zora's fingers, Zee started to milk, timing the strokes with the bobbing of Bee's head. Her other hand reached, hesitating and dreamlike, to caress Bridget's hair. I turned, my mouth finding Zee's, and the throbbing thing inside me exploded. I felt Bridget gulping frantically, her tongue washing over me.

Bridget released me, crawling up my body and pillowing her head on my chest, bringing the covers with her. We lay there in the beautiful aromas of us. Zora rolled into her side, kissing my cheek, and after a moment of hesitation, did the same to Bridget.

Sleep enfolded us soon after.

It was a bit awkward in the days after. Bridget thought of me as her boyfriend, and while Zora still halfheartedly insisted she already had a boyfriend, it was obvious that the three of us were something. At the time, we didn't have the term for it, and I don't even think we would have used it if we had.

The three of us were in my room, the air thick with promise. I think all three of us were waiting for someone to make a move. We still hadn't had another night like the last one. Something implacable and unnamable still divided us into individuals rather than the trio we fumbled for.

It was Bridget that took the action that would cement us, on that day when the sky was so blue it hurt, and cottony white clouds scudded overhead like ships made out of dreams. It was all because Bridget loved my portfolio, pouring over it whenever she had a minute. She always lingered on the shots of Diane. I wondered if it was because she wanted to be Diane or if she simply wanted her.

"Would you take pictures of us like this?" she asked, holding up the first nude of Diane.

"You want to?"

"Being young and beautiful forever? Uh...yeah!"

"Sure. I need to get my things together. How about I do that and you pick out some outfits and do your makeup?"

"Awesome!" Bridget hopped up.

"What about you?" I asked Zee.

"Next to her I'll look like a hippo."

Before I could say anything, Bridget spun on her. "No, you won't. You're so pretty. You're like if Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn had a baby."

Zora blushed, and when she looked at Bridget afterwards it was with need in her eyes. "Can't say no after that."

"Do your makeup here, but bring along what you need for touch ups," I said, already composing in my head. I would want to get out to the desert. Only an hour away, and the scenery would be perfect.

Bridget drove a pickup, which was always a funny sight for how small she was, and we took that east, where the landscape opened up and the Joshua trees grew like Seussian drawings come to life. We parked by the side of the road and walked out into the scrub, losing ourselves among the formations of boulders. I wanted privacy, space for the two of them to loosen up.

Bridget wore a lacy white bodysuit, a pair of ripped jeans, and an unbuttoned plaid flannel, Zora a figure-hugging floral-print sundress with a choker around her graceful neck. The first shots were of the innocent variety, just two gorgeous young women posing on the rocks, sometimes alone, sometimes together, lit by the desert sun. I encouraged them to laugh and joke with each other, so that their real personalities shined through. After an hour or so, I noticed that most of Bridget's energy was focused on the camera, but most of Zora's was focused on Bridget.

It was Bridget who undressed first. The overshirt came off relatively quickly. Her pants were next, and she preened when both Zee and I saw that the bodysuit was a thong, showing off her toned body. She put her boots back on after losing the pants, then turned and wiggled her ass at us.

Zora's posing grew more directed at Bridget after that. This was where I took what ended up being my favorite shot of the day, the two of them, Bridget looking at the camera with fire in her eyes, Zee at her, an expression of love on her face.

The sun began to set. The clouds had joined, turned pink. Bee reached between her legs and undid a snap. The bodysuit popped open and she pulled it over her head, now nude save for her boots, bracelets, and the golden cross around her neck. Zee and I were frozen, staring at Bee's sudden nudity. "Well, c'mon," Bridget prompted. "I didn't get naked for the two of you to stand there and gawk."

I snapped away. Bridget threw herself into Zora's lap, grinning mischievously. Zee laughed, creating an image both fun and sexy. Bridget sat up on Zee's lap and looked into her eyes, brushing the hair behind her ear. "Now you," she murmured.

Zora hesitated, kissed Bridget lightly on the mouth, then nodded. Bridget got up and Zee shrugged out of her dress. Then, after another pause, unhooked her bra, freeing her heavy breasts.

"All the way," Bridget said.

I don't think Zee could have disobeyed if she wanted to. I knew that I couldn't have gotten her naked, but Bridget could and did. Zora hooked her fingers over the waistband of her panties, sliding them down her legs and stepping out of them.

The two of them wouldn't stop touching after that. Maybe it was the gathering cold of the desert night or maybe it was a desire awakened by the primal feeling of being naked outdoors. Bridget's attention was off me then, captured by the voluptuous charms of Zora. I willed the sun to stay up, just for one more roll, but it failed, and the chill descended over us. The ladies shivered, pulling their clothes on and we rushed back into the car.

We piled in, running the heater. Bridget pinned the pedal to the floorboard with desperate energy. We were silent, knowing that the night was only getting started. We hadn't eaten, but food was the last thought in our heads. With one mind, we ran for my room. Mark was gone, and I mentally thanked Troy for living so close.

We fell into each other. Their mouths were everywhere on me, mine on them. Zora's flesh soft, Bridget's tight. Cloth whispered over skin and dropped to the floor. We were frantic, them to return to the freedom they had in the desert and me to join them in it, to erase the distance the camera had enforced upon me. I wanted to feel the softness of them beneath my touch.

I found myself between Zora's thighs, her sex blooming before me. The insides of her thighs were shiny and fragrant with her. I ran my tongue around her, spiraling to her center. Above me, Zora grasped Bridget's face, kissing the smaller woman with a desperate abandon.

Each of us shifted, again and again, an ever-tightening spiral whose terminus was the three of us as one. Bridget moved from Zora to take me in her mouth. Zora followed, fucking Bridget's ass with her tongue. Then I followed, unwilling to leave Zee's pussy even for a second. It spun, tighter and tighter, and I lost track of who I was against. I'd feel a mouth encircling my cock, then a gentle hand. The pussy in front of me would be small, barely covered with silky black hair, then plumper, haloed in soft curls. They were warm and wet, enfolding me in their attentions. We were clouds, the three of us, joining into a single thunderhead. For a moment, I felt like I could feel what they felt, the sense of a tongue inside me, the taste of cock and pussy mingled. And then, the pleasure overtook us, and we were shuddering in shared orgasm, our bodies quaking, juices splashing.

I came to, once again in myself, lying on the bed, their heads pillowed on my chest, their fingers intertwined between me. We stayed like that, in bliss, for a time. But the night was far from over.

I burst back into the room. My shirt was backwards and my boxers inside out, but I was dressed enough to get the pizza we ordered when the delivery guy showed up at Caulfield Dorm's front desk. Zora and Bridget were in bed, intertwined, finding kisses on each other's lips.

"You promised you weren't gonna get started again without me," I complained.

"I couldn't resist," Zora said. "She's adorable."

"It's true," Bridget said solemnly.

I put the pizza box on the bed. We realized we were starving after we came down from the high of our initial session. Even if the dining hall wasn't closed there was no force on Earth that would get us to leave the room, so pizza it was. I passed around the soda cans that I'd purchased from the vending machine downstairs. Zora and Bridget were still nude, now sitting up and getting slices.

I settled at the foot of the bed and picked a slice. We ate thoughtfully, the gravity of what we'd done together finally breaking through the sex haze.

"Why are you dressed?" Bridget asked.

"Because I didn't want to give the delivery guy a show. Or whatshername at the front desk."

"Yeah, but now you're back."

"She has a point. We're naked," Zee said.

They weren't wrong. I stripped down. "Happy?"

"You are," Zee said, giggling and indicating the erection now jutting obscenely from me.

"I'd be happier with one of you on it."

"Pizza first."

Bridget looked at her in shock. "Thought you had a boyfriend."

Zee sighed. "I think I need to have a long talk with him over winter break."

"Good. Because I have an idea." She grinned. "I know what we're doing next. Promise you'll do what I want?"

Zee reddened, nodding. "Anything."

"Eat up. You're gonna need your strength."

Zora and I were unable to make eye contact as we finished off the pizza. When the last piece was eaten and our sodas were empty, Bridget threw the box on the floor and clapped her hands. "Okay. Now who's ready?" Zora's hand went up. Bridget kissed her. When they parted, Zora leaned after her for more. "I knew I could count on you. It's time for oral."

Zora eagerly got up on her knees. "You want to lay back? Or you could sit on my face if you'd rather."

"Not me. Him."

I leaned back against the foot of the bed. "You heard the lady," I said.

Zee met my gaze then broke into a smile. "I was still hungry," she said, dipping her head down and taking me in her mouth. She stuck her ass in the air, waggling it back and forth at Bridget. I felt her tongue running up and down me in long, businesslike strokes, a preliminary moistening. Then she took me in hand and I felt her hot mouth enfold me.

"Slurp," Bridget said. "Use as much spit as you have. You're gonna want him as wet as you can make him."

I felt her mouth fill with spit, washing around my cock. The slosh of the liquid milked my nerves, finding spaces on my sex I didn't know about. True to her orders, every stroke was now a wet and slutty slurp. That alone was enough to light me on fire. I stroked her hair, fighting the urge to push, make her take me until I hit the back of her throat.

Bridget watched us. I searched her face and I found what I think she was getting from this. She was powerful. The two of us were doing what she wanted. I watched her run her hands up Zee's buttocks, from the base up to the little dimples at the small of her back. She moved her hand down the crack, and I lost sight of where she went, but based on the throaty moan that now vibrated up through the root of my cock to my spine, she had found Zee's pussy.

Zee's hips worked back to Bridget. The smaller woman was now up on her knees, like she was fucking Zee doggystyle, but her fingers were her cock. Bridget's smile was in her eyes, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip so intently I was momentarily worried she'd draw blood. I found myself with an uncontrollable urge.

"Bee," I murmured, reaching to her. She came to me, and I kissed her, and for the first time it was a kiss for her and her alone. I needed her like I had never needed her before. I reached between her legs and found her ready for me. "I want you."

"Zee, move," she said, her voice ragged.

Zora obediently released me, sitting up. Bee, whatever vows she'd made forgotten in a haze of love and lust, straddled me, guiding me to her sodden lips. I pushed my hands into her thick hair, gripping a handful, pulling just hard enough to give her a twinge of pain. She sank over me, crying out as I filled her. Zee was behind her, caressing her breasts. Bee leaned back and Zee found her mouth. I thrust deep into Bridget, joining them in the kiss.

My thrusts were brutal, pounding up into Bridget with the force of desire I didn't know I had. Her cries were involuntary, muffled into our mouths. She was so small, I felt like I was past her womb, lighting her spine, behind her eyes, ready to explode from her mouth. We were faster and faster, a pace I couldn't resist, and then, I boiled over. I had the mad idea that I was filling her with the desert clouds, and that she was flooded with sunset colors, and we would drink them from her mouth and be filled in turn.

My pleasure lasted forever, my cock bucking inside her, my pleasure crashing into me again and again. Bridget clutched me, her own body vibrating. We were only halfway back to Earth when she murmured into my mouth, her small hands mussing my hair and caressing my face. "That wasn't what I was gonna do."

"This is out of our control," I told her. "You can feel it the same as I can."

Bridget bared her teeth, something between a grateful grin and the feral smile of a predator. She leaned back and Zora took her in arms. Then I was out of her, reveling in the pounding of my heart. Zora's hands were busy, stroking Bridget's body, teasing nipples, only staying away from her center, where our love leaked out in pearly threads. I eased the two of them back, finding Bridget's lips, then Zora's. Little Bridget was between us now.

I placed myself at Zora's gateway, and in the dark of the room, she gave me a tiny nod. The night had taken her too and she wanted to be filled with clouds. I slid into her easily. She was so different than Bridget, so much softer. With Bridget I always felt like I would burst out of her. With Zora, I had been taken in a warm and breathy embrace, lost in a labyrinth of sensation. Bridget looped an arm about Zora's neck, and with her other hand gripped my hair, kissing me as I thrust into Zora.

"Oh fuck, I can feel it," Bridget breathed, her body moving against ours. And she was right. It wasn't merely Zora that I was inside, but the both of them.

Zee gripped the both of us, her thick hips milking me. The clouds inside me were great mountains, filling the sky. The night had given me endurance. I could stay poised her, with every part of me yearning to explode forever.

Bridget freed herself from between us, first turning over then crawling up Zora, leaving a lewd trail of our combined juices running from Zee's belly, between her breasts, to her neck. Bee straddled Zee's face, cradling the back of her head, and brought Zora's mouth to her lips. As Zora tasted Bee's sex, her own movement grew more intense, gripping and pulling at me. The sight was enough to have me on the edge, little Bee's undulating body thoroughly dominating the bigger woman beneath her. Zora ate the banquet between Bee's legs, every scrap of the love Bridget and I had shared.

Bridget was cursing now, her little body shivering. I too was nearing the end. Zora erupted first, going rigid beneath me. I watched her knuckles go white as she gripped Bee's ass. Bridget reached back, her hand groping for mine, and I found it, our fingers interlacing. That was the final push I needed. The sunset clouds burst from me, flooding into Zora. Bridget followed shortly after, crying out and clutching at Zee.

The three of us settled into the dark, too exhausted to sleep.

"Are you okay?" Zee asked Bridget, where she was nestled between us.

We all knew what she was talking about. "Yeah," Bee said. "That didn't feel wrong to me."

"Are you okay?" I asked Zora.

She nodded. "This was pretty inevitable. I just need to officially break up. Then, I guess I have a boyfriend and a girlfriend." Bridget gripped her hand.

"I'm glad it was you, Zee."

I looked at the window. The sun was beginning to reach golden fingers through the narrow gaps in the blinds. "It's morning," I said. "We gonna get some sleep?"

"We probably should," Zee said. "I have a class at 10."

"There's still one thing I want to do tonight," Bee said.

"I don't know if I have the strength," I said.

"I think you'll get it up for this." She whispered in my ear and sure enough, I was swelling, ready for another round.

"You were right."

"Of course I'm right," Bridget said. "Now let me get the lube. Zee, you're gonna love this."

Classes were skipped that day, and when we finally went out, it was to greet a cloudless sky at sunset.