Hype ll

-- DECEMBER 2004, SENIOR YEAR --

"Ben? Earth to Ben?"

I blinked twice and looked up to see the beautiful face staring down at me, her face oriented at a 90-degree angle to my own. She grinned, flashing me twin rows of pearly teeth. And her shimmering hair cascaded down, with fresh-picked flowers intertwined amidst the dirty-blonde tresses hanging over her ears.

"Where did you go?" she asked mirthfully, her green eyes twinkling.

"Nowhere," I mumbled, content to remain lying in Chevelle Morrison's lap.

It wasn't quite true. For the umpteenth time in the last week, I'd gone back to that Thanksgiving afternoon in Dawn's bedroom, lying in bed with Adrienne thinking about what might have been.

It wasn't that I was in love with Adrienne. She was off on her new adventure, in the Bahamas on her Sports Illustrated shoot at this very moment. And I was very, VERY happy to be with my Dawn. I didn't regret breaking up with Adrienne, and my adoptive sister was no threat to the relationship I was building with my soulmate. Instead, I was more thinking about how life would be if Adrienne were still here at Cal with us, and about how much BETTER my life would be to have her in it more often.

Chevelle raised an eyebrow at me, fully cognizant of my contemplative state. But she didn't press the issue. Chuckling to herself, she simply bent over, bringing her nice, unsupported breasts tantalizing close to my lips. "Told you it would be just as comfortable as Dawn's."

I smiled drowsily. It wasn't quite the same as lying in my girlfriend's lap, but it was still quite comfortable and warm. Despite being bundled up in my winter clothes, I still felt rather chilly. "It IS nice."

"Nice enough that you drifted off again. We're supposed to be working!" Sasha sighed wearily from somewhere to our left. "Now get up before I call your girlfriend."

I snorted in derision, but exhaled and did a sit-up. After working out the kinks in my neck, I surveyed my team members minus one. Dawn had caught the seasonal flu and was at home huddled up in bed. We had a group presentation on Monday, and the rest of us would just have to pick up the slack. "Go ahead and call her," I replied sardonically to Sasha.

The brunette just sighed and shook her head. We both knew Dawn wouldn't care. For one thing, the rumor mill about Big Ben's conquests wouldn't stop, and my girlfriend had shown absolutely zero jealousy on the subject. Some of that probably had to do with the side-rumors than Dawn was just as involved in most of those conquests. And if Dawn didn't mind my schtupping some random sorority girls, she certainly wouldn't care about some harmless flirting between Chevelle and me.

Especially since Chevelle's flirting wasn't exactly new.

Ever since that aborted girlfriend swap with Tito, the hippie chick had made plain her desire to take Big Ben for a whirl. There was no romance. Chevelle had no desire to poach me from Dawn or fall in love with me or anything like that. She was just a sensual young woman who felt a carnal attraction to me, lacked any sort of censor over her mouth, and believed that such a casual encounter was not outside the realm of possibility.

I'd rebuffed Chevelle's more blatant attempts to cajole me into bed with her. It wasn't that I didn't find her fuckable. It was more that I really wanted to keep my academic life strictly separate from the "Big Ben" world, and as long as Chevelle was my team member I didn't want to complicate anything. Even more of an issue was that Chevelle had a boyfriend. I'd had enough run-ins with boyfriends – most especially Brandi's ex Matt Kanemura – to know that attached girls just weren't worth the trouble, even if Tito was supposedly okay with the whole thing.

But just because I kept turning her down didn't mean Chevelle stopped flirting. And as long as nothing crossed the line, I wasn't averse to playing along. She'd goose my ass and then scamper away like it was a second-grade game. I'd just smirk and cop a feel of hers in return. Heck, she'd goose Dawn's ass too, just to play around. She did the girly things like hair flips, twirling her locks around a finger, and subtly leaning toward me. She slapped my shoulder whenever I said something particularly funny, and she never failed to bend over low enough for me to catch a glimpse of her unfettered cleavage.

For more than two months this had been going on, so when Bert cracked a joke about me missing my favorite outdoor pillow, Chevelle promptly volunteered herself and then literally dragged my head into her lap. We worked like that for about fifteen minutes, and then my mind had started to wander.

"So where are we?" I asked, after taking stock of the situation and regaining my upright balance.

"Drucker decentralization," Kim informed me.

"Okay then," I nodded. "Professor Ice's key takeaway from that is outsourcing, so we need to build on that. Whose turn is it?"

Sasha pointed. "Bert's."

Bert nodded and looked at his notes.

Chevelle piped up. "Back into the lap?" She smoothened out her skirt, a thicker, plush material due to the weather.

I looked down for a moment, letting my dirty imagination take my fictional x-ray vision beyond the skirt and underneath to what lay beyond. My frequent ass-grabbing exercises with Chevelle had proven to me that the dirty-blonde skipped her panties almost as often as she wore them, and I wondered on which side of 50-50 we'd be today. But I quickly cleared my head and returned my gaze to the pretty girl's face. "Nah. Sasha's right. We've got to work."

Chevelle pouted plaintively.

I shook my head and gestured over to Bert. "Take it away, dude."

"Hey Ben! Where're you going?"

I stopped ten feet down the sidewalk, glancing over my shoulder to see that Chevelle was walking after me. The dirty-blonde gave me a lopsided grin that matched the rakish angle of her multi-colored knit beanie. And she reached up to cinch the two halves of her knit wool wrap a little tighter against the December chill.

"Your house is that way." Chevelle jerked a thumb westward, where Bert and Kim were already halfway down the block.

"I'm picking up some soup for Dawn," I explained, pointing ahead of me toward Bancroft.

"Oh! I'm heading that way. I'll walk with you." It wasn't a question. Chevelle just came alongside me, slipped her hand into mine, and began tugging.

Smiling, I let her lead the way.

I expected Chevelle to immediately launch into her flirtatious banter, but we were quiet for a minute or so while just walking down the pathway. It was highly unusual for the erstwhile hippie, who usually chattered non-stop going from class to our group meetings. As I've mentioned before, she pretty much blurted out whatever popped into her pretty little head. And to see her staring forward with a clearly contemplative expression on her face was a little disconcerting.

In fact, I was so bewildered that I just had to ask, "Is everything alright?"

Chevelle snorted and glanced over at me. "I'm fine. Why?"

I shrugged. "Uh, well ... You're awfully quiet."

"Didn't know I was capable of shutting up?"

"Now I didn't say that."

She giggled. "Just thinking. I do that sometimes."

"Thinking about what?"

"Well you, of course."

The dirty-blonde shrugged and went silent again, walking forward casually while still holding onto my hand.

I didn't know how to respond to that. At first, I thought Chevelle would explain her comment further, again used to hearing her just ramble on and on and on. But she remained silent with that thoughtful look on her face. And again I had to prompt, "Uh ... what about me?"

She shrugged. "Well sex, obviously."

All of a sudden, I wasn't so comfortable holding Chevelle's hand. Innocent, playful flirting was one thing. But this felt more serious somehow. She wasn't joking around, and the light-hearted tone of the past few months was pretty much gone. I stopped walking and gently tugged on my hand to free it from Chevelle's grasp. And she stopped as well to turn and look at me.

This time, I didn't have to prompt her. She gave me a dead-serious look and said, "I've made it obvious what I want. When's my turn?"

My jaw didn't actually drop, but it sure felt like falling. I stuttered for a moment, trying to gather my bearings. Stalling for time, I began, "Chevelle ... I don't think-"

"What's wrong?" she asked, cutting me off. That had been happening a lot to me lately. "It can't be that I don't turn you on; I see you staring often enough. And I know a bulge when I see one."

"Of course you do," I stated quickly, knowing better than to mess with a girl's sense of attractiveness.

"And I don't think it's Dawn. She's clearly not the jealous type. Heck, I've caught HER checking me out more than a few times."

"No, this isn't about Dawn."

"I was starting to think it was the way I was approaching you. I thought you'd like it better if things happened naturally, with flirting getting into innuendoes and eventually leading to some sort of invitation to meet up or do something together. But clearly that's not getting me anywhere. So I figured I might as well just come out and say it. I want to fuck, Ben. I want to fuck NOW."

"Chevelle!" I exclaimed, startled by her bluntness, although I probably shouldn't have. She'd never been one for delicacy or tact.

"I'll do you right here if I have to," she huffed, stepping forward and reaching in to grab my crotch. I wasn't hard, and she couldn't get much of a grip through the coarseness of my jeans, but that wasn't stopping her from trying to grope and fondle me.

"Chevelle!" I exclaimed again, this time grabbing her wrist and turning it up between our chests.

"I want you," she whimpered, her lip quivering and moisture forming in her eyes. "I can't help it. I have this craving. I want you. I want the Big Ben Experience. I keep hearing about it, and so many girls keep asking me about it since we're on the team together."

"I'm sorry," I sighed, thinking of Brooke. "I never meant for anyone around me to get harassed over-"

"Did you know that I secretly eat chocolate?" she interrupted, oblivious to my statement. "It's bad for me, I know. It's processed and has all these refined sugars. Tito would KILL me if he ever found out I was smuggling Snickers bars into the house. I have to eat one every couple of days or so, just to keep the edge off. Not a big one, just those mini ones they give away at Halloween."

"What?" I asked, not understand where she was going with this.

"But sometimes I can't get away to buy some. Or sometimes I can't sneak around Tito to get to my stash," she continued. 'I go more than a few days without and I get this ... hunger. It consumes me. My stomach gets queasy with the craving and it quickly becomes all I can think about. The craving is twice as bad when I'm getting high. Munchies, you know."

This whole time, I was still holding her wrist as she simply leaned into me, breathing deeply as if to take in my scent. She closed her eyes and pressed her nose against my neck. I was so weirded out by the situation that I just stood there and let her. Nervously, I glanced around the campus, wondering what bystanders were looking at us and speculating on whether or not I was hurting her.

"I've had more chocolate in the last week than I did in the month before that," Chevelle finally said, backing away and opening her eyes to stare right into my soul with bright green eyes. "It doesn't help anymore. I still think about you when I go to sleep. I still fantasize about you when Tito's on top of me. You're in my dreams. And the craving isn't going away."

"Chevelle ... we can't."

"Why not? Please ... I need you."

I felt the tug at my heart as she inadvertently used my trigger word. The White Knight in me couldn't resist a damsel in distress. And it wasn't like I needed to dive in and fight off three guys to save her. All Chevelle really wanted was for me to fuck her, which was something right up my alley.

But that was old Ben. New Ben had his sexual urges under control. New Ben was more aware of the consequences of his actions. And the circumstances of our situation just weren't right.

"Chevelle, we can't," I stated a little more firmly.

"You and Dawn have an open relationship, don't you?"

"Well, yes. But-"

"And the rumors are true, aren't they? Tell me the truth. Didn't you sleep with some sorority girls in the past couple of months?"

I winced, my conviction not to discuss other girls' sex lives coupling with my urge never to add fuel to the fire with these rumors. But there was such desperation in Chevelle's eyes that I just sighed and admitted, "I did."

"Then why not me?"

"It's not like that. I'm not the Big Ben from the rumors. I don't just sleep with whoever comes on to me. I'm not a guy who's prowling the campus looking for his next score. I'm in a committed relationship with Dawn. And even our sex lives outside of each other ... well ... they have limits. The Tri-Delts and I go way back. The Chi Omegas were ... kind of a one-time thing. I'm not... 'in circulation' ... as you put it once before."

"And that's it?"

"That's it."

"But that's not a reason why you won't fuck me."

I winced again. She had a point. "You're my teammate. I told you before I wouldn't mess around with our group."

"Because sex would cause a distraction?"

"Yes."

"Well you're causing a distraction right now!"

I took a deep breath. "It doesn't have to be a distraction if we don't let it. Status quo. We're friends, classmates."

"And fucking each other won't change that. Please."

"And you have a boyfriend. A very big, very strong boyfriend. I swore to myself that I wouldn't get involved with attached girls anymore."

"Even though you have a girlfriend? Sounds kind of hypocritical."

"Maybe. But I don't do ANYTHING without Dawn's knowledge and approval. Does Tito know what you're doing with me?"

Chevelle diverted her eyes away from me for the first time, biting her lower lip. "Of course," she stated without any conviction.

I grimaced. "Man, I thought I was a bad liar."

She blinked away tears as she looked over at me again. "I don't ... I don't have much practice at lying."

"So Tito doesn't know."

"Oh, he knows I want to fuck you. But he expects a fair swap with Dawn. We've done it before."

I shook my head. "Not happening. Not Dawn's thing."

Chevelle's jaw continued to quiver. "He doesn't have to know."

I set my face. "NO. Absolutely not. This is exactly why I won't mess around with taken girls anymore."

"But I need you. I can't stop thinking about this."

"I'm sorry. Really..." I took a deep breath and took a full step back away from her. "Chevelle, you're gorgeous. But this is something that can't happen and you're just going to have to accept that."

The tears burst forth just then, full on waterworks that began streaming down her cheeks. Chevelle was the kind of girl to wear her heart on her sleeve, and I was amazed she'd been able to keep from crying this long.

Without another word, she spun on her heel and literally ran away, bawling all the while.

I stood in the middle of the pathway, watching her go. I knew I was doing the right thing. I didn't lead her on. I didn't use her and throw her away. But somehow, I still felt like a complete asshole.

It had been a quiet weekend. Every flu has one really evil day, and Dawn's was Friday. But lots of rest – plus having me wait on her hand and foot – had done wonders for her health. And while she was still rather weak, liberal doses of DayQuil had Dawn up and back to school on Monday.

"I still say you should've made Ben push you up here in a wheelchair," Bert cracked as Dawn struggled up the incline past Wurster Hall.

"I still say you're asking to do the team's library research on Drucker's Wall Street Journal columns for the last 20 years," I cracked right back.

"Begone, ye demon from hell!" Bert hissed and held up his index fingers in a symbol of the cross. "Release this earthly body and give me back my friend!"

Everyone chuckled, even Dawn, who found the strength to make it the last twenty feet. It probably helped that I was more or less pulling her up the hill. And once we leveled out, my girlfriend patted my forearm in thanks.

Eventually, we made it to Professor Ice's classroom. We were a little later than usual in arriving with the morning's slower walking pace. Sasha was already sitting in our team's usual spot, but she had a rather antsy expression on her face.

"Morning," I greeted. "What's up?"

Pinching her lips together pensively, Sasha took a deep breath and then head nodded to the front of the class. There were always a couple of students hovering around the Professor to ask questions, especially right after the weekend. But this morning there was only one: Chevelle.

"What's going on?" Dawn asked.

Sasha sighed. "Chevelle's dropping the class."

"What?" I blurted.

"But this is a requirement for Undergraduate Business," Bert cut in. "If she doesn't pass, she'll have to drop out of the whole Program."

"That's what I told her," Sasha stated, bewilderment on her face. "I don't get it."

My focus was on Chevelle by this point, and Viktoriya had the same bewildered concern on her face as Sasha. "There are less than two weeks of class remaining," she explained to the young student. "You will pass as long as you just show up."

"I'm sorry," Chevelle apologized. "But I have very personal reasons. I simply can't continue."

Viktoriya clenched her teeth, clearly not wanting to let a promising student drop out like this. But class was scheduled to start, and she couldn't delay everything for this one conversation. "Miss Morrison, I am not accepting your withdrawal. The add/drop deadline has long passed, and you either complete the course or get a failing grade. We need to discuss this. Can you come to my office after class?"

Chevelle turned around, seeing that her entire team had now arrived and was staring at her intently. Her green eyes flicked over to me, burning with an intense fire. For a second, it looked like she was about to start crying again. But instead, she turned back to the Professor and conceded, "Alright. I'll see you after class."

Viktoriya nodded and then gestured Chevelle to sit down. But shaking her head, the dirty-blonde simply clutched her bag and walked straight down the aisle, not stopping as she went out the lecture hall doors and into the sunlight.

My mouth agape, I watched her go in stunned silence. It may have been a little self-centered of me to think it, but in that moment I knew her dropping out had nothing to do with school and everything to do with me.

Viktoriya seemed to know it too. When I turned around to face forward, I found my professor giving me a strangely inquisitive stare. But after another few seconds, Professor Ice schooled her features and brought the class to attention.

"Ben, please stick around for a moment."

I glanced at my team, looking nervous. Our group presentation had been a near-disaster. We'd all been thrown for a loop by Chevelle's abrupt departure, and it showed in our disorganization. But a moment later I realized Viktoriya wasn't asking me to stay because of the presentation.

"I'll meet you guys at the glade," I stated to the others.

"I'll wait for you outside," Dawn offered, checking with Sasha, Bert, and Kim.

Everyone nodded and went on their way. I picked up my bag and went to the front of the lecture hall. Professor Isakova fielded a few questions from other students while packing up her own materials. But after about five minutes, I was the only student left.

"What is going on with Chevelle?" Viktoriya asked me as I approached.

"I'm not sure," I replied, shrugging.

My professor just kept looking at me, clearly waiting for me to elaborate. As Chevelle's team leader, I had to have SOME insight into the girl's personal life.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, composing my thoughts. "Honestly, for her to drop out of the program is catching all of us off-guard. This is completely out of left field." I didn't mention the sex stuff. Even if it had something to do with Chevelle's actions, those issues were very private and between her and me.

But my professor knew me better than that. She read something in my eyes and took a step closer. "Ben," she began, an intimate softness in the way she said my name. In this moment, she was Viktoriya again, not Professor Ice. "Did you sleep with her?"

"That's none of your business," I stated defensively, taking a step back.

Viktoriya continued to study my eyes. "Ben, I am not trying to pry into Chevelle's or your personal life. I am just trying to understand what is going on. She's a great student. She gets a little ... spacey ... at times, but there is a sharp mind in there. And she is ready to throw the entire semester's worth of classes out the window over ... what? And with only two weeks before Christmas break? It doesn't make sense."

I pinched my lips together, wanting to protect Chevelle's privacy but also believing that I could trust Viktoriya with this. "Well ... it might have something to do with me."

"So you DID sleep with her."

"No!" I stated sharply.

"So you turned her down."

My eyebrows furrowed.

"I am a woman," Viktoriya explained. "And it was not difficult to see the desire she had for you."

"It's not like that."

Shaking her head slowly, Viktoriya hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. She turned to head up the aisle for the exits, but before she actually walked off, she glanced back at me. "Maybe you should..."

I arched an eyebrow in confusion. "Should what?"

"Have sex with her," Dawn shrugged as we walked along the pathway, heading for Faculty Glade.

I rolled my eyes. "That's what Viktoriya said."

"Then you've got the same advice from two people whose opinions you respect."

I shook my head. "Do you realize how crazy this sounds?"

My girlfriend grinned at me. "Any crazier than me telling you to seduce your professor? Or how about telling you to seduce Felicia at camp? Or the Chi Omegas, or-"

"This is different."

"How?"

"The Chi Omegas were pure hookup, nothing more. Felicia was kind of a revenge thing for you and Adrienne. And Viktoriya was the result of months of mutual teasing."

"You've been flirting with Chevelle."

"But never seriously."

"Why not?"

"Chevelle's ... a teammate," I sighed.

"So?"

"She has a boyfriend."

"Actually, Sasha told me that they broke up."

"What?"

Dawn nodded.

"Well ... she's still a teammate."

"Which isn't SUCH a big deal. Yeah, it might be awkward, but no more awkward than her dropping the whole program if this is because of you."

"That's the thing. If Chevelle IS dropping the whole program just because of me, then it means this is more than just a hookup to her." I shook my head. "Chevelle wants this too much."

For once, Dawn didn't have an immediate comeback for that. Frowning while deep in thought, she processed my statement, then nodded slowly and shrugged. "Okay, maybe you're right."

I blinked rapidly a couple of times and then leaned in to my girlfriend. "Say that again? I don't think I heard you."

Dawn immediately broke into a smile that carried all the way up into her sky blue irises and giggled. "I don't think so."

"No, seriously, here," I chuckled, miming that I was clicking a tape recorder and holding it up to her face. "You said 'maybe you're right'. Say it again!"

"No!" she laughed, pushing my hand away.

"Say it! Say it!" I pushed, laughing now as I kept trying to push my imaginary tape recorder into her face.

"My brain has been slowed down by the flu!" Dawn laughed, batting my hands away. "You've caught me at a bad moment!"

I kept pushing, and Dawn kept slapping my hands away. Instead, I started aiming my jabs at her midsection instead, and our hands quickly became a flurry of tickles and pokes that had us both giggling our heads off.

Eventually, tickling turned into one gigantic hug. And eventually, a gigantic hug turned into a big, wet kiss.

It's good to be in love.

The team wasn't getting much work done. Oh, as team leader, I tried to get everyone to focus on our group project. (Plus, I'd rather the conversation didn't wind up steering toward Chevelle's obvious desire to fuck me.) But pretty much everyone wanted to speculate about why our resident hippie had dropped out of class.

As the only two team members who weren't part of my inner clique, Sasha and Chevelle had become pretty good friends, despite their radically different personalities. That meant that Sasha felt the most blindsided by Chevelle's abrupt departure, with her rational brain unable to come up with a logical explanation.

"You'll just hurt your head if you keep trying," Bert cautioned. "Whatever that girl is, 'logical' isn't part of her definition."

"She's flighty, sure," Sasha reasoned. "But that doesn't necessarily mean she's irrational. She HAS to know she's throwing away an entire semester's worth of classes, tuition, and time. If she doesn't pass this class, she has to change her major!"

"Maybe that's what she wants," Kim commented. "Perhaps she thought she wanted to pursue business, but after a semester's worth of classes has only now realized that it isn't for her. She's going to change her major anyways, so why go through the angst of two more weeks of this stuff, not to mention Finals."

"She should at least finish just to keep the credits," Dawn pointed out. "Even if the courses won't be prerequisites into her future classes, the credits will still count toward graduation. It's hard enough graduating in four years as it is."

"Whatever her reasons, they're her reasons," I interjected. "I think we should let what's private be private and move on. We still have a project to finish, and we're now one team member short."

"Oh, forget the project for one minute!" Sasha whined.

"Never thought I'd hear you say that," Bert cracked.

"Come on!" Sasha barked. "Chevelle is our friend. We have to do something."

"Like what?" Dawn frowned.

"She said her reasons are personal, and I know she broke up with Tito. What if breaking up with her boyfriend is only part of the problem? What if there's something bigger going on in her life that's making it so that she can't even function, let alone finish her classes? Shouldn't we find out?"

"It IS her personal life," Kim stated with just a hint of darkness in Sasha's direction. "Would you want people prying?"

Sasha immediately clammed up, old defensive barriers coming down in reflex to protect her own secrets.

But Bert sighed and nodded, "Maybe we don't have to pry. But I think we should at least try to talk to her. Sasha's right. Chevelle's still our friend."

Sasha nodded and fished out her cell phone. "Should we go find her right now?"

"No need," Dawn piped up, and then gestured back toward Cheit Hall. "She's coming here."

Everyone turned to look. Sure enough, the dirty-blonde hippie chick left the sidewalk and began cutting across the grass lawn, her multi-colored beanie and flowing skirts instantly recognizable.

"Hi, guys," she greeted when she arrived.

"How are you doing?" Sasha inquired.

"Did you talk to Professor Ice?" Bert asked.

"Are you still dropping the class?" Dawn queried at roughly the same time.

She didn't answer either of them. Instead, Chevelle's green eyes were locked straight onto me. And in a steady voice, she asked, "Ben, can we talk? Alone?"

We took a walk across the campus. I didn't want to bring her to my house, or to her house, or anywhere within twenty feet of a bed. Actually, I didn't want to bring her anywhere out of the public view. I'd like to think I had learned after all my teenage years feeling like something was a bad idea but doing it anyways. After all, I couldn't remember a single time one of those situations hadn't ended in complete disaster.

But I wasn't sure of myself. So despite my rock hard conviction that I would NOT have sex with her, I didn't trust myself not to give in should she really turn on the seductive charm. Fuck, I'd just thought the phrase "rock hard".

Still, I didn't want anyone eavesdropping on us, so Chevelle and I went looking for an out-of-the-way spot that was still outdoors. There were plenty of places across campus to hold a private conversation without being completely out of view.

Once we found a nice alcove, I started with the academics. "Did Professor Ice let you drop the course?"

She shook her head in the negative. "Rules are rules. We're well past the add/drop date."

"So you're staying," I said with relief.

Chevelle shook her head. "No, I'm not coming back. I can't deal with this anymore and my grade will be whatever it will be."

I frowned. "But why?"

"You know why."

"Because I won't sleep with you? That's ridiculous."

"Of course it's ridiculous," Chevelle agreed. "All you have to do is take me into the nearest room, let me pull your pants down and show you how I suck golf balls through garden hoses. And then I'd bend over and flip my skirt up so that-"

"Chevelle!" I barked.

She pouted, and then leaned back against a stone pillar of our little alcove. She turned her head to look off into the distance, a tendril of her hair falling down across her cheek with the tip coming to rest atop the swell of her bosom. Despite the cool weather, she wore another peasant shirt with quite the low-scooping neck.

"I can't handle this. It's like the worst Junior High crush ever. I want you. I want you sooo bad. But I can't have you, and it's driving me crazy."

"If it's just a crush, it'll pass."

"It would pass, if you'd just fuck me."

"That's not happening."

She scrunched her eyes shut, grimacing against the unholy anguish of rejection. I felt bad for her. I really did. But every fiber of my being told me that having sex with her under these circumstances was the wrong thing to do. And I was damn sure going to stick with my conscience on this one.

Chevelle took a deep breath, her chest expanding in such a heaving way that I couldn't help but glance down at her tits. I averted my eyes, forcing myself to look away. And apparently I was still doing so when she tried to meet my gaze. "Now you won't even look at me?" she pouted.

Taking a deep breath, I looked at her face. I saw the pain in her eyes, and it nearly made me crumble. But I stood firm. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "Professor Ice told me to try and talk to you. To tell you what I told her. But it's no use." She pushed off the pillar and looked at her feet. "Goodbye, Ben. Maybe I'll see you in another life."

She made it two steps away before I couldn't help myself from blurting, "Wait."

She stopped immediately, turning around to me with fresh hope in her eyes.

Angry with myself for not letting her walk away, I shook my head and asked, "What did you tell Professor Ice?"

Chevelle's face fell when I didn't immediately tell her I'd fuck her brains out. She sighed and then shrugged. "The truth: I can't handle being around you anymore. It's interfering with my whole life. I'm not sleeping. I'm not eating ... well ... except for too much chocolate. It ruined my relationship with Tito. It's torture, don't you see? Being this close to you? Always being around you? But unable to actually have you?"

"This is more than just sex, isn't it?"

Chevelle barked a laugh. "That's the crazy thing, it's not. I'm not interested in you romantically. You're just ... not my type. You eat meat. You don't really smoke up. You're too ... preppy ... for my tastes. And you're cute, but I like a guy with a little more hair and a little more ... I dunno ... a guy more like me. And that's not you."

I looked down at my polo shirt and jeans, and then at Chevelle's utterly bohemian attire. And I couldn't help but crack a smile.

"I know I sound like a crazy stalker right now ... but I just CAN'T get the idea of fucking you out of my head." With that, Chevelle started walking up to me again. She came right into my personal space, reaching up between us to put a hand on my chest. And got up on her tiptoes to bring her lips within inches of mine.

That was as close as I let her get. My left hand went up to her shoulder to hold her back, and my right closed around her wrist to remove it from my chest. "I love my girlfriend. The Big Ben thing is all hype. And even if we were to hook up, it wouldn't be what you were hoping for."

Still only inches away, Chevelle breathed, "Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there?"

I grimaced. "Well..."

"I've got an itch, Benno. You're it. It's consuming me. It's fucking up my life is what it is. I can't study. I can't sleep. I dumped my boyfriend. And I'm ready to walk away from the program just so I don't have to be around you anymore."

"You're throwing away your academic career up to this point."

"And it's your fault," she hissed sharply.

I winced, feeling as if she'd physically slapped me.

"Fuck me, and I won't drop out," she husked quietly.

It wasn't fair. Chevelle had no right to deliver that kind of ultimatum to me. She shouldn't have been able to blame her entire academic failure on my unwillingness to have sex with her. And on principle alone, I should turn her down. After all, her life was her life, and the choices were her own.

But I didn't want to turn her down. Chevelle knew it. I knew it. Hell, I was sure that Dawn knew it, wherever she was right now. It was the White Knight in me. I didn't have the stomach to stand idly by and watch someone I cared about crash and burn if I had the capability to take action.

But if that action was to have sex with her? This was different than running in to rescue Paige from three meatheads. It was different from helping to tutor a failing classmate. It was different from bringing Adrienne home after her father's death.

For me, it should have been simple. What, like I didn't know how to have casual sex? No one was being physically hurt. Dawn wouldn't even mind. And if this really wasn't an issue of romance, that Chevelle really didn't have any long-term designs on me despite my apparently significant influence on her daily life, then what was the harm? Tab A goes into Slot B, and everyone goes home happy.

But this was no ordinary hookup. Chevelle wasn't a random Chi Omega I'd never met before, and she wasn't a Tri-Delt with whom the ground rules had already been laid down. She was a friend, a teammate, and neither of us really understood what consequences there would be for such an action. And there would be consequences.

Maybe we'd get lucky and be able to still be friends like I was with Gwen and Robin. But maybe Tito would be like Gwen's ex-boyfriend and feed me a knuckle sandwich. Maybe casual sex wouldn't have any lasting consequences. Maybe it would fuck me over in the future in some way I couldn't even comprehend right now. I just didn't know.

What I did know was that I didn't want Chevelle to avoid me forever, or to blame me for her inability to complete her academic semester. But I also couldn't see myself having sex with her under these conditions. Fuck, even if we DID have sex, I wasn't sure I'd be able to perform.

SOMETHING was going on in Chevelle's head that made her so crazy that she was going to the extremes of completely avoiding me. Perhaps she was telling the truth, and she wasn't in love with me. On the other hand, even she acknowledged that she sounded like a crazy stalker.

I couldn't agree to sleep with her. But I couldn't completely reject her, either.

So I compromised.

Looking back, it wasn't the best idea I'd ever had. But I'd been backed into a corner and in the limited time I had, I stalled. I didn't invite her any closer, but I didn't push her away, either. Instead, from just a few inches away, I said, "Okay ... I'll think about it."

After months of flirting without getting anywhere, and the last few days of outright refusal, me "thinking about it" must have sounded like she'd won the lottery. Chevelle's face lit up with glee. "You will?"

I sighed. The die had been cast. "I'm not promising anything. But ... finish the class with us. Stick around, get your grades. And after Finals are done ... we'll see."

"Really?" Chevelle looked like I'd just asked her to marry me.

I managed a smile. "Really."

Within the comfort and privacy of our bedroom, Dawn leveled me with 'The Look'.

She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. I felt myself wilting beneath her gaze alone. "So..." Dawn exhaled wearily. "You told her that in little more than two weeks, you'll fuck her."

"What? No!" I blinked in astonishment. Had my girlfriend misheard me? "I told her I'd think about it."

Dawn sighed and rolled her eyes. "You told her you'd fuck her."

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did."

"I didn't! I was very careful with my words to explain that there were no promises and that I'd think about it."

"Doesn't matter. You knew what she wanted. She was ready to walk away from you. Yeah, dropping out may have cost her, but it was a price she was willing to pay. You could have let her walk away. If you weren't going to sleep with her, you SHOULD have let her walk away. Instead, you talked her into staying. There is a promise inherent to that."

My heart sank. "No there isn't."

"Yes, there is. You gave her hope. 'Stick around, finish the class, and I'll give you what you want.' That's basically what you told her."

"I told her I'd think about it," I stated emphatically.

Dawn shook her head. "We're girls. We don't hear your words; we hear your meaning. And your meaning said you'd sleep with her."

"Ah, HELL."

"Expectations, remember?" My girlfriend took a deep breath, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and turning to stare out the window. I could see the gears turning behind her irises, and I shook my own head to clear it. Dawn was trying to figure out how to get me out of the mess I'd created for myself, and I needed to do the same.

"You need to fuck her," Dawn sighed.

"What? No!" I barked. "I'm not that guy anymore."

"What guy?"

"The guy led around by his conscienceless dick. The guy who just sleeps around without consequence. I'm a better man now, more mature. And being a better man means NOT fucking girls like Chevelle."

Dawn furrowed her eyebrows and shook her head. "Actually, that's not what it means. Maturity doesn't mean you always have to turn down sex. You don't have to ignore every opportunity and stay pure and loyal and monogamous. Haven't we been over this already?"

I frowned, not understanding.

"Maturity means recognizing the consequences for your actions. Sometimes that means turning down sex because of what will result from it. Other times, you can recognize that it's all good fun, like with the Tri-Delts or the Chi Omegas."

"And Chevelle?"

"If she's falling in love with you, then no, you don't sleep with her. There are consequences and complications that just wouldn't be worth it."

"But if it's not love? If it's just pure, physical lust?"

Dawn grinned. "Then here's what we do..."

"FUCK! ME!" Chevelle screeched and then turned her head to the side, exposing her neck further so that Dawn could latch onto it and suckle like a ravenous vampire. Her left arm cinched around Dawn's head while her right reached back around my torso, trying to pull me even tighter against her back.

But I was already pressed flush against her. The only way to get any tighter would be to remove the clothes separating us, but we hadn't taken the time to do so.

Two days ago, my project team gave its final presentation in Professor Isakova's class. We all passed and got our course credit. Chevelle had immediately hugged me and whispered about how she couldn't wait until the End of Finals party Dawn and I had invited her to at our house.

Two hours ago, I was downstairs in the living room, cheering "Gan Bei!" while downing baijiu or switching to "Mabuhay" just for Jocelyn Canilao.

Most of our friends were still downstairs. I hadn't planned for this house to become a party zone the way Dayna and Brandi had run things, but I had to admit that it was a good excuse to bring a lot of distinctly different cliques under one roof. It was entertaining to watch them interact with each other when for the most part, their only links to each other were through me. And the mixer was turning out well for some of my friends, as Bert was busy making a love connection with a new froshling and Robin had taken an interest in a friend of Kim's.

For two hours, I'd kept putting off what needed to be done. I still felt weird about it. Having sex with Chevelle just didn't feel right, and even though the girl herself only got antsier and antsier as the evening went on, I couldn't quite bring myself to take her upstairs. You know how some guys say you just need to add alcohol to get a girl into the right mood? Well tonight, I needed more and more alcohol to get into the right mood.

Dawn, of course, finally instigated things. She'd sent Chevelle up into our bedroom just as the party was winding down. And then my girlfriend backed me into a corner where she proceeded to physically assault me with a tongue in my throat and a hand over my bulge, doing everything she could to rape me right there in the living room without actually removing my clothes. She got me hot and bothered and ready to roll. And my head was foggy enough that I completely forgot that Chevelle had ever been there.

Chevelle, of course, was still there when I dragged my girlfriend up into our bedroom. Dawn immediately left me to make out with the dirty-blonde hippie. Chevelle had been primed for hours, and the ferocity with which the two beautiful girls attacked each other made damn sure my alcohol-addled brain could comprehend nothing but the idea of fucking the both of them within an inch of their very lives.

As expected, Chevelle wasn't wearing any underwear beneath her sheer, off-white linen dress. So it was an easy matter to get my hands within her top to grope a naked tit, and it was even easier for Dawn to unzip me and shove my dick beneath the hem so that I could enter the dripping-wet hippie chick from behind.

"FUCK! ME!" Chevelle screeched in rhythm to my first two thrusts. Dawn worked her from the front while I rammed her from the back. And the three of us were off to the races.

Chevelle won, of course, getting double-teamed from both sides. Surprisingly enough though, the pussy ripples of her first orgasm set me off as well, and I stiffened up as I poured out my seed into her clenching cunt.

When Dawn realized I'd already popped my nut, her eyes went wide in surprise. She stopped what she was doing and backed away.

That gave Chevelle room to bend over my bed, bracing one knee on top of it while I finished squirting her from behind. "That was kinda fast," she remarked with a tease in her voice.

"Wow ... that hasn't happened in a long time," I marveled.

Chevelle chuckled. "I've heard that before."

Feeling defensive, I shook my head. "Maybe it's all this alcohol. I don't know the last time I drank this much."

"Doesn't matter," Dawn interjected quickly. "It's not how we start. It's how we finish." Tugging gently, she pulled Chevelle off my deflating cock and repositioned her flat on the bed. Lifting the dress out of the way, Dawn bent down to begin sucking my jism out of our new bed partner. And Chevelle beckoned me over so that she could blow me back to life.

"Hmm. With a nickname like Big Ben ... I was thinking this sucker would have been ... well... bigger."

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. "Get it hard and we'll see how big it feels up your ass."

Chevelle chuckled and began sucking away.

It had been a shitty beginning, possibly the worst beginning of my entire college career. Unfortunately, the rest of the night wasn't any better.

I did the best I could. Really, I did. Forget the alcohol; being drunk didn't seriously impair my sexual performance apart from the premature first ejaculation. I found Chevelle's lesser-known erogenous zones. I tickled the nerve clusters along her spine. And I tweaked her exceedingly sensitive nipples. Fuck, I did a good job on Chevelle, and Dawn and I wrung some really good orgasms from her body before we finished.

It just wasn't enough. My head was in it, but my heart wasn't. I wanted to enjoy what was happening, but I just couldn't really get engaged. Every time I tried to really focus on what I was doing to wring pleasure out of Chevelle's body, my mind kept drifting back to that one perfect afternoon with Adrienne when sex was just ... easier. With Adrienne, there had been no playbooks, no diagrammed schemes. I didn't think about it, I just made love.

It was everything that this ... mechanical ... fucking of Chevelle was not. I wasn't fully into it. I was hesitating, and the hesitation was killing my technique. It's like a basketball shot: you hesitate on your follow thru and you don't get good ball rotation. The shot comes off flat. Or like making the suicide left turn across Telegraph. You hesitate, and you're gonna get crunched. And even though I knew I was hesitating, I couldn't stop myself.

I was done when I came for the third time, squirting a healthy load into Chevelle's pussy while Dawn munched on her clit in a sixty-nine. Sweaty and quivering from her latest climax, the dirty-blonde hippie collapsed on top of my girlfriend. I pulled myself out, leaned back against the headboard, and watched as the busty babes separated and lay on their backs, panting for breath.

"Hmm..." Chevelle sighed.

Dawn recognized her less-than-thrilled tone immediately. "What's wrong?"

Chevelle immediately glanced over and put on a quick smile. "Nothing ... really."

Chevelle was a really bad liar. Dawn frowned and shared a look with me. Usually by now, a girl would either be out cold or waxing rapturously about how we'd given her the greatest sexual experience of her young life. Not so with this one.

"It was good, really," Chevelle stated politely after realizing her fib hadn't quite gone over. "The two of you are so in tune with each other. It was kinda scary to watch how you could communicate what to do without even talking. It was nice."

"Only nice?" Dawn sighed.

Chevelle smiled. "It was good," she emphasized, but there was no sparkle in her eyes. "It's just ... after all that buildup, all that tension, all that will-he or won't-he drama ... It was just..."

"Disappointing?" I offered.

Chevelle winced. "Sorry."

I shook my head. "Don't be. It's not your fault." Indeed, I felt the same.

"It's not yours, either," Chevelle mollified. "You were good."

"You keep saying that," I drawled.

"Maybe it was just the hype," she offered. "I came here expecting the Greatest. Thing. EVER. I came expecting the much talked about Sex GOD. But..."

"I'm only human," I finished.

Chevelle sighed. "I guess."

"Well ... Now you know." I exhaled, turned my gaze away. I was disappointed in myself, sure. After everything I'd done, I'd started to buy into the hype myself a little bit. I took pride in rocking each and every girl's world, and it did hurt to know that I hadn't lived up to Chevelle's fantasy.

But I was also relieved. Chevelle was right: there had been a lot of buildup and tension and question over whether or not I'd finally sleep with her. Her pursuit of me – and my reluctance to give in – had long been weighing heavily on my conscience. For better or worse, it was now done with. Sure, maybe I could have blown her mind and gotten another adoring fan who worshipped at the Altar of Big Ben. But then maybe I would have gotten a stalker who was passionately in love with me and wanted to slit my throat so that she could take my corpse home and ride it every night.

Okay, that was morbid, but I was in a weird mood. Fortunately, Chevelle wasn't even remotely that crazy, and after dressing, she gave us both relatively chaste kisses goodbye and left the house.

And that left just me and my Dawn in bed.

"What happened?" my loving girlfriend asked. "Was it the alcohol?"

I shook my head. "I dunno. I don't think so."

"You never really wanted to sleep with her, did you?"

"You know I didn't."

Dawn sighed. "It showed."

"Did it?"

She glanced up at me, a little smile on her face. "We've done this together with a lot of different girls, babe. Sometimes with family, sometimes with friends, and lately with some near strangers. You're very different in each situation, and I can always tell."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Which was this: friend? Or near stranger?"

She shook her head. "Neither. This was: 'I don't really want to be doing this'."

"It's not that I didn't want to. Chevelle is a very pretty girl, and it certainly got me hard to think about-"

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what?"

Dawn shrugged. "You're a perfect lover, technically, but not always emotionally. You do everything right. You push all the buttons and apply just the right pressure. You're like the most well-programmed sex robot with all those girls. The difference is in how much of your heart you include. When you're with me, or Adrienne, or DJ or Brooke or anyone else in the family, you give us all of your heart. You put the 'love' in lovemaking."

I smiled.

"Your friends get a little less, but the care you show still gets through. You still have strong emotions for them," Dawn continued. "The Tri-Delts are fun; although you don't have romantic emotions, you're still quite enthusiastic. And even when you go all Seduce and Destroy – like with Nora and Whitney or the Chi Omegas – you at least have a sense of purpose in what you're doing. But just now? With Chevelle? Total robot. No feeling. No emotion, neither romantic nor enthusiastic. I don't think I've ever seen that side of you before."

I sagged. "I tried my best. Really ... Just ... maybe I can't-"

"You can't fake that," Dawn finished for me, nodding in understanding.

I smiled, reveling in the idea that Dawn was on the same wavelength with me, even at a time like this. I thought about how well she understood me, how she always got me, and how she would be ... forever ... my soulmate.

But it still didn't change how disappointing the night had been. "I guess it was all a mistake. We never should have done that."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Dawn drawled.

I frowned. "Chevelle's disappointed and I just feel ... used. You said it yourself: I didn't really want to sleep with her. So how is this not a mistake?"

My girlfriend smirked. "Well I, for one, had a pretty good time. All semester I've wanted to get inside that girl's peasant shirt. And you gave me that."

I arched an eyebrow while my girlfriend kept giggling.

"And if it's your conscience you're worried about, you can relax. Chevelle got her itch scratched, so she can go back to her normal life. You helped ensure she finished her classes and got her credits. And all it cost you was one semi-disappointing sexual encounter. You feel a little used? Maybe. But I can make that up to you."

"Huh?"

Dawn slid her naked body a little lower into the covers, a Cheshire grin spreading across her face. Surreptitiously, her hand had already begun stroking my cock, coaxing it back to life. And by the time she got down to my waist level, I was already sporting a half-hard wood.

"Think of it this way: Chevelle was just the appetizer," Dawn said while staring straight at my cock. She exhaled slowly, breathing hot air across my still moist tip, causing the stalk to twitch of its own accord. "But NOW we can start the main course."