The Neighbor l

-- SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2005, SUMMER BREAK --

"So, how well do you guys know your neighbors?" I asked innocently enough over Sunday brunch. And then I immediately stuffed my face full of omelet so that I wouldn't have to elaborate.

Lynne shrugged. "Uh, well enough I guess," she explained. "I think you ran into Joe and Ella once next door to us."

I nodded with a full mouth. Joe and Ella were a married couple of Stanford Seniors whom I'd met once while school was still in session. But they'd moved out after the school year ended, and the apartment had yet to be filled. I assumed residency rates were down in the summer, and the place would be occupied again in the fall.

Kady though, wasn't buying my innocent act. Arching an eyebrow, she gave me a look and then grinned. "You ran into Amber, didn't you?"

My blush was all it took. I really was a horrible liar. Frowning, I stared at my plate and shoved my hash browns from side-to-side. "Has she always been living there? I was just wondering why I'd never seen her before."

Noelle shrugged. "She's a doctor or something. Keeps really weird hours. She's friendly enough..." Noelle immediately blushed after that, and shared a curious glance with Kady.

I caught the glance, and now it was my turn to glare at Kady. "What?"

The impish redhead laughed and waved me off. "Amber's a viper. Coldest sexual predator I've ever seen, and she's into girls, too. The week after we unpacked the apartment, she put a move on Noelle and nearly swiped my girlfriend out from under me." Despite the somewhat serious statement, Kady laughed in amusement.

"I wouldn't have let her seduce me," Noelle pouted.

"Sure, honey. Keep telling yourself that," Kady drawled. "Anyway, I talked to her and straightened her out. She respects our relationship and has butted out. In the meantime, the walls aren't perfectly soundproofed and we've heard a few things. She'll come home late at night with some guy, or some girl, or sometimes both. The sounds they make will rival the stuff we've been hearing from you two downstairs." Kady waggled her eyebrows, causing Lynne to blush.

Lynne was now eyeing me carefully. "So how did you two meet?"

"It was just this morning, actually," I said after swallowing my latest bite. "You'd just gone off running, and she was coming down the stairs. I was still just in my pajama bottoms and she gave me a pretty good once-over."

Lynne rolled her eyes. "I'll bet you gave her quite the once over. I've talked to you about your type, and Amber is definitely it."

"Hey," I protested defensively. "I haven't done anything. I'm still with you."

Lynne shook her head, taking a deep breath and then covering my hand with her own. "No you're not. We're just friends, remember?" She patted my hand and then let go, picking up her fork once again and resuming her meal.

I sighed and leaned back into my chair in resignation.

"Yeah, what's that all about anyway?" Kady asked with a frown, gesturing back and forth between us with a piece of waffle on the end of her fork. "No holding hands. No little kisses. What gives?"

"Nothing," Lynne said, not looking at me. "We just agreed to maintain the boundaries of our friendship."

Noelle blinked quickly. "You two broke up?"

Lynne took a deep breath, readying to defend herself. But before she could, I spoke up and got everyone's attention. "It's not a breakup if we were never together. We all talked a long time ago about why it's not a good idea for Lynne and me to get into a romantic relationship or anything. Well, quite obviously we started getting a little too close to just that. We're stepping back, ensuring that we don't get our emotions too wrapped up in this. We're friends, really good friends. And we want to keep things that way."

Beaming at me, Lynne reached out and patted my hand once again. We shared a bittersweet smile, and then returned to our meals.

Kady and Noelle gave each other significant looks. But then shaking their heads, they simply shrugged and dug back into their food.

I felt proud of myself for sticking to the plan. Obviously, both Lynne and I wanted more than being 'just friends'. But we were also smart enough to be aware of the romantic pitfalls, especially with the specter of Dawn hanging over us. And I valued my friendship with Lynne enough to make this work.

But despite my tough talk, I still felt a pang of longing in my heart. Lynne had done a wonderful job of filling the void left behind by Dawn. But now who was going to fill the void left behind by Lynne?

"Hey, the weather's great. Wanna come hang out by the pool with us?" Kady asked Lynne as we returned to the apartments.

"You know what? I think I'm going to go out, do some shopping. We need to stock up on food and other things," Lynne replied.

"Ugh, shopping?" I grumped.

Lynne shook her head. "No, just me. Why don't you go with the girls to the pool?"

"And leave you alone?" I complained. "Besides, if you're shopping for food, then I need to pay my part. I'm still your roommate."

"You can pay me back later." Lynne took a deep breath, giving me a measured look. "I'll be fine. You know what, I'll call up Marcy. I haven't spent nearly enough time with her lately. I'll see you tonight."

With that, Lynne pecked my cheek and then waved to the girls. Twirling about, she fished her keys out of her purse and returned to the parking lot.

"So what'll it be?" Kady sidled up to me. "Come hang with a pair of dykes by the pool? There are worse things you could be doing with your time."

"Oh, you guys don't want a male around, ogling your nubile bodies and making you feel all uncomfortable."

"Who's uncomfortable? I, for one, get turned on knowing a guy only dreams he could mount me, knowing that I won't ever let him," Kady snarked with a smile. "Why do you think I always kept flaunting my ass at you in High School?"

Speaking quietly, I leaned in and replied, "If you'll remember, I actually did mount you."

Kady was breathing a little hard now in excitement, and as she looked up at me with sparkling dark blue eyes, she murmured, "I remember. And if you play your cards right, you just might get to do it again."

That surprised the hell out of me, and I jerked my head back with wide eyes. Giggling, Kady started up the stairs, with Noelle shaking her head in disbelief at her girlfriend's antics.

"So see you at the pool in fifteen minutes?" Kady called over her shoulder. She then stopped and blocked Noelle from coming up, taking her girlfriend's arm and turning the busty dirty-blonde to face me. "Oh, and Noelle's got this new, really sheer bikini. I think I'll make her wear it just for you."

"KADY!" Noelle hissed while blushing pink.

"Oh, you'll love it," Kady drawled, whether to me or Noelle I'm not sure. Laughing gaily, she then dragged her girlfriend up the rest of the way and into their apartment.

Breathing heavily myself, I decided, what the hell? Kady was right: there were worse things I could be doing with my time.

Twenty minutes later, I arrived at the apartment complex's pool. Though it was almost noon, it was still pretty early on a sleepy summer Sunday, so there weren't very many people around. I used the resident card that Lynne gave me to get in through the security gate. And with a towel hanging over my shoulder, I walked across the pool deck with my flip-flops flopping until I arrived next to two lounge chairs where Kady and Noelle were sunning themselves.

Kady was right again: I loved the view. The auburn redhead herself wore a navy blue bikini with white trim and little snowflakes over her nipples. The top was cut like a bra with deep cups and a front-clasp that rode low on her chest, making her tits look bigger and rounder. The bottoms were attached at the hips with strings tied into loopy-knots, just inviting me to tug on a loose strand so that the whole thing would come undone. And her nearly-naked body was the personification of trim athleticism.

Noelle, on the other hand, was just a stunningly attractive young woman. Her bikini was an electric blue, shading toward aqua, that brought out the color of her light blue eyes. The fabric was some sort of sheer, satiny material that reflected the light unevenly, making it appear even wispier than it was. The top molded skin-tight to her D-cup breasts, meaning it wasn't difficult to imagine what her tits were shaped like unsupported. And the bottoms were basically a thong, tiny triangles of fabric that proved she had to shave her nether regions completely bare.

Lynne talked about how my 'type' tended toward tall, busty, blue-eyed blondes. I still thought her face was more "cute" than drop-dead gorgeous, like Adrienne or Dawn. But otherwise, Noelle fit that type to a T.

Still, Kady and Noelle were good friends, and I was perfectly aware of their homosexual orientation. Sure, Kady had dabbled in switching sides with me once upon a time, and she'd made reference to possibly doing it again more than a few times in the past month or so. But I chalked that up to Kady's typical teasing and vowed to respect the girls' lesbianism.

But that didn't mean I couldn't look. Girls didn't wear skimpy bikinis like this to cover themselves up and prevent people from looking. And as long as they were fine with lying there within a few feet of my roving eyeballs, I was content to let my eyeballs rove.

We weren't the only ones by the pool. After all, it was still a July Sunday around noon. Most everyone within sight was college-aged, with a mix of guys and girls that ranged from the attractive to the fugly and everything in-between.

The three of us chatted for a little while. When the conversation seemed to wane, I suggested that we hop into the pool and swim around. Noelle kept her sunglasses on and tied her hair atop her head so that she wouldn't get it wet. The three of us basically hung around in the relatively shallow end, chatting amiably until Kady got it into her head to splash Noelle and get her precious hair wet. She roped me into splashing around as well while Noelle shrieked and complained. Finally, Noelle just gave in, bull-rushing her girlfriend and then lifting the slender redhead into the air before throwing her a couple of feet across the pool. I went to assist Noelle, as payback against Kady was always fun. But when faced with a common enemy, the girls teamed up and proceeded to do their best to drown me.

Oh, my head got dunked alright. I probably could have fended both of them off if I really wanted to, as I had several inches and a ton more strength than either of them. But where's the fun in that? I let the girls climb all over my body in their attempts to submerge me under the only 3 and a half feet of water. And in return, I copped MORE than a few feels of their nubile bodies. It was just like being in high school again.

Kady didn't bother to protest every time I grabbed her ass or squeezed a boob. She just laughed and kept pressing her attack. Noelle, on the other hand, objected at first, squawking in surprise that "safe Ben" would actually fondle her, but then she just got into the fun of things and grabbed at my package a few times herself.

"Enough!" I finally bellowed, brushing water out of my eyes and tugging my swim trunks back up to my waist. I hadn't quite been exposed, and there weren't any kids in the pool, but it was better safe than sorry.

Noelle, on the other hand, escaped relatively unscathed. I had been careful not to be too aggressive with her, with only fleeting touches and nothing strong enough to actually dislodge her skimpy attire.

Kady, though, had to tuck a breast back into her bikini. Blushing, she made sure that her body had been turned to me as she did so, and so only I got to see the dusky, erect nipple before it was put out of view. She quickly glanced up at me as she did so, and popping my eyebrows, I quickly stuck my tongue out and licked it across my lips with a teasing grin.

Perhaps I was imagining it, but I thought I saw Kady smile enticingly before she'd turned away.

We all got out of the pool at that point, returning to our lounge chairs and waiting towels. Drying off, the girls sat back down and began to reapply the sunblock we had worn away in our roughhousing and waterplay. And I just sat there with a dumb look on my face as I watched them lathering up their breasts.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," Kady snarked with a smile.

"Maybe we should go into the apartment and I'll do that for you," I shot back.

"Well if you're nice to me, I just might let you," Kady drawled.

"Maybe you two should stop flirting before I get jealous," Noelle laughed, with no actual malice in her voice.

Kady and I grinned at each other. And then we went back to reapplying our sunblock.

"Hey Ben, can you do my back?" Kady then offered, reclining her lounge chair flat and then rolling over onto her belly.

I arched an eyebrow at Noelle questioningly.

She smiled and waved me to her girlfriend. "Go right ahead and do her. As long as you do me next."

Arching an eyebrow, I said, "You girls really have to come up with phrases other than 'doing her' and 'doing me next'."

Kady laughed. "Why, are we making you uncomfortable?"

I leered down at her, dragging my hand up her thigh and over the exposed part of her buttcheek before taking the sunblock out of her hand. "Not at all. But if you keep inviting me to 'do' you, I might end up doing just that."

"Mm, better clear that with your girlfriend, first," Kady shot back while unhooking the front clasp of her bikini top and then shrugging to let the material slide up toward her neck.

I grinned and shrugged. "Lynne and I are just friends, remember? I can have you fucked into unconsciousness before she gets home from her shopping trip." With a twinkle in my eye, I reached up and pulled away Kady's bikini top entirely, dragging the shoulder straps down her arms and dropping the wispy material off to the side so that she was completely topless, albeit with her chest pressed down against the lounge chair.

"Tough talk," Kady said a little more quietly. And when I looked down, I saw that she was rubbing her thighs together. "But are you man enough to back it up?"

This was getting a little bit serious, so drawing away, I looked over to Noelle. "I don't think your girlfriend would approve."

"You might be surprised," Noelle said softly, staring at her girlfriend and then flicking her eyes to me.

I didn't know how to handle that, and neither did Kady. We looked at each other in momentary shock, not sure what to do. But searching for some way to move on, I simply uncapped the sunblock, poured a generous glob into my hands, and started rubbing them together. "One sunblock/backrub combination, coming up."

As usual, giving Kady a sunblock/backrub combo required that I do the same to Noelle. The dirty-blonde's D-cup tits were squished out to the sides as she lay on her stomach. And while Kady kept up a constant stream of verbal sparring, she also threw in more than a few comments about how I needed to go lower and make sure her girlfriend was properly covered.

Feeling horny, I went ahead and swiped my middle and ring fingers across the side of Noelle's left breast, causing her to inhale just a bit and flash me a look. I blushed in embarrassment for a moment, feeling guilty for letting Kady goad me into it. But Noelle smiled and said quietly, "Do it again."

Emboldened, I got some more sunblock on my hands and rubbed Noelle down a little further. I let my fingertips dip lower and lower across her sides and lower back, until I was literally fondling the sides of her lush tits. Noelle kept her eyes closed and sighed dreamily. And then Kady had to go and blurt out, "Looks like something is trying to crawl out of your trunks."

Noelle tensed and my hands froze up in the safety zone of Noelle's shoulder blades. I peeked down and found that I indeed was pitching quite the tent in my swimwear. And I announced while leaning back to sit on my own lounger, "I think you're done."

Noelle nodded and reached behind herself to re-fasten the back clasp of her bikini, even though she probably wasn't done sunning just yet. I decided that jumping back into the cool water was probably a good idea, but just as I turned to face the pool, a mermaid exploded up from somewhere deep below the surface.

Gouts of water flew up into the air with her before splashing back down into the roiling pool, with several large droplets impacting on the deck as well. This mermaid had long blonde hair, now darkened by moisture. Standing fully upright in the 3-foot depth, she ran her hands over her forehead and smoothened out her hair to slick it back against her scalp. Piercing sky blue eyes stared right at me as she ignored the beads of water streaming down her face. And with a crooked grin, she planted her hands on the swimming pool's edge and then pushed herself up to swing a distinctly non-mermaid foot onto dry land and elevate up onto the deck.

Amber's bright yellow two-piece actually had about twice as much material as Kady's. The thing is: it was made of some sort of cotton-like fabric that clung to her body like a wet T-shirt. The boyshort-cut bottoms molded themselves around her hips and the top clung to every crevice of her tits, making it appear as if the buxom blonde bombshell was completely naked and wearing only yellow body paint, albeit a thick layer of body paint that extended off her skin by a quarter of an inch and completely obscured her nipples.

Still, it wasn't difficult to envision a totally nude Amber as she stood, dripping wet, less than five feet away from me. And with a little smirk, the statuesque blonde kept her gaze right on me the whole time that she waltzed over to a chair by the security gate, picked up a terrycloth bathrobe, sunglasses, and her slippers, and then sashayed her way right back over to me.

I couldn't help it. My eyes were glued to her as she approached. Her hips swayed left and right in a way that made my already hard dick begin to throb. Her big tits wobbled enticingly, as her bikini top seemed designed more to seduce than to support their massive girth. And I simply couldn't stop myself from yo-yoing my gaze down to those glorious mounds before settling my eyes onto her exquisitely beautiful face.

My heart was pounding. My breath was heavy. Sweat that had nothing to do with the air's temperature trickled down my spine. With my hormones already battered by the flirtation with Kady and the fondling of Noelle's tits, I simply didn't have enough self-control to stop myself from gawking quite obviously at this gorgeous creature. In simple fact: not since Adrienne Dennis in High School had the simple movement of a girl walking so completely overwhelmed me with powerful lust.

"Is this seat taken?" Amber asked in a melodic voice while drying herself with the terrycloth robe.

Thankfully, I wasn't a 16-year-old boy gawking at Adrienne Dennis anymore. I was a 21-year-old young man with all the experience in the world. Blinking just once, I reasserted my self-control and shrugged nonchalantly. "Looks free to me."

Flashing me a smile, Amber opened up her terrycloth robe and bent at the waist to drape it across the lounge chair. This caused her big tits to sway down and forward, offering me an enticing view of her cleavage. I was looking, and she knew that I was looking, but neither of us said anything as she finished and then turned around to sit down atop it.

"Hey Kady. Hey Noelle. How's it going?" Amber asked sweetly across me.

Kady had a little fire in her eyes, a jealous rage I wasn't expecting. Somewhat calmer, Noelle sat up and replied in a friendly tone, "Lazy Sunday. We can't complain. How are you?"

"I'm great, I'm great. I've got a rare day off today," Amber replied with a smile.

"Oh, that's right. You normally work Sundays," Noelle commented. "Change in schedule?"

Amber nodded. "New job responsibility. I start tomorrow. So I'm just going to lay out here, soak up some sun, and enjoy the view for a while." That last part ended with Amber raising her sunglasses onto her forehead for a moment before tracking her eyes up and down my half-naked body rather appreciatively.

I wasn't a muscled behemoth. I didn't even go to the gym. But sex is an extremely cardio exercise, and pounding a girl missionary-style is a great way to develop one's pectorals. Doggy-style really works the abs. And holding up a girl against a wall while thrusting into her really developed my glutes and hamstrings. The point is: I had an extremely toned body by now, and six-pack abs. Even though I considered myself rather ordinary looking, many of the girls I'd been with found me quite sexy once out of my clothes. And as hard as I'd been ogling Amber just a minute ago, she was now carefully eyeing me.

"Those are gunshot wounds, aren't they?" she asked, flicking her eyes from my left side up to my left cheek.

Blushing, I immediately raised a few fingers to trace over the cheek scar. "Uh, yeah."

"You from a rough neighborhood?"

I grinned, thinking of quaint O.C. "Uh, not exactly."

"Defending the woman you love or something?" she teased with a smile.

Caught off-guard by the accuracy of her question, my eyes popped open in surprise.

So did hers. With wide eyes, the gorgeous blonde gave me a frank look while I just blushed in further embarrassment. "Wow, really?" She whistled, clearly impressed.

Kady coughed somewhere behind me, drawing my head around. She flashed me a dark look while pinching her lips together. So I took the opportunity to calm myself down a bit while looking over at my redheaded friend and giving her a helpless shrug. Clearly, Kady wanted my attention back, but what could I do?

Just then, the wet sound of flesh squishing against itself drew my attention right back. Amber had popped open a bottle of sunblock and had started to lather her upper chest. Looking at me innocently as if she wasn't currently fondling her own tits, she asked, "It's Ben, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah. We met just this morning."

"I remember. Lynne's 'friend'." Amber nodded with a sparkle in her eyes. "I saw you rubbing sunblock into Kady's and Noelle's backs. Can you please do me as well?"

I felt my cock twitch as a girl again asked for me to 'do' her. At first, I felt an impulse to turn her down. It was one thing for me to rub sunblock into Kady or Noelle, who were both friends and both girls I'd already laid hands on over the past several weeks. My sense of loyalty told me that Lynne probably wouldn't approve of me doing the same to a total stranger, and especially not such a beautiful stranger like Amber.

But then my rational brain reminded me that Lynne and I were 'just friends', in actuality now more than just name. For me to turn down a simple sunblock-rub would imply that Lynne and I were still boyfriend/girlfriend. And I remembered quite vividly how Adrienne would get pissed at me for turning down the flirtations of someone like Helene McGregory over our 'not-relationship'.

"Um, sure," I replied to Amber after the slightest hesitation, reaching my hand out for the sunblock.

But before she could hand it to me, Kady quickly chirped, "Actually, we need to get going." She swung her legs off the lounge chair and made a big show of checking her watch. "We're meeting up with some friends this afternoon, and we still need time to clean up. Come on, Ben."

I blinked in surprise, clearly unaware of any such plans. But the fire in Kady's eyes brooked no dissent, and Noelle was already moving to follow Kady's lead. "Uh, yeah. Sorry, Amber," Noelle said apologetically. "We'll see you around next time."

"Do you have to go right now?" Amber pouted playfully. "Who's gonna get my back?"

Kady rolled her eyes. "I know you're pretty damn flexible. You can cover it yourself." Then Kady jerked a thumb behind her. "And if not, I think there're a half-dozen guys who all intently watched you climb out of the pool a few minutes ago. I think any of them would be happy to assist."

Amber smiled thinly, clearly not pleased with Kady's rather blunt reply. But that was Kady being Kady.

"C'mon, Ben," Kady practically ordered. "Let's go meet our friends."

"Fucking predatory bitch," Kady muttered as the three of us walked back to the apartment.

"Hey..." Noelle soothed gently, stroking her girlfriend's back.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I'll remember in the future that Amber is off-limits. I didn't realize that you girls didn't like each other. From the way you described her at brunch this morning, I thought everything was cool."

"What?" Kady popped her head up. "Oh, it is, it is..."

"Uh, sure didn't look like it," Noelle ventured.

Kady glanced back at the pool, then over to me with something strange in her eyes, and then finally back to Noelle. Shaking her head, she stopped walking and grimaced. "Ugh. I must look like such a bitch right now."

"No you don't," Noelle soothed.

"Yes, I do." Kady just frowned. She looked at me and explained, "Once I told her to back off Noelle and she did, everything has been fine. Amber's a great neighbor, actually. She doesn't judge us for our relationship, and we've been able to borrow things back and forth more than a few times over the last year. A cup of sugar here, a busted vacuum cleaner there. We're friendly. We get along great."

I raised my eyebrows and glanced back at the pool. "So ... what then? Are you protecting me for Lynne?"

Kady grimaced again. "No, no. We've talked to Lynne about that, actually. When you two got... 'nottogether' ... I told her we'd help shield you from other girls who might come onto you. But Lynne expressly told us not to interfere. 'He's not my boyfriend' she said more than once."

"But we didn't have to do anything anyway," Noelle explained. "You did a pretty good job of waving a big sign above your head screaming 'I'm taken, so don't bother trying to come on to me.'"

I blinked in surprise. "I did?"

Kady smiled and nodded. "Yeah, you did. It was sweet. We were happy for Lynne."

Her comment brought back the anguish of my 'not-breakup' with Lynne this morning. Yesterday, I'd thought I was happily enjoying the intimacy of a budding relationship with a dear friend. Today, I was told flat out that I was still single and that we had no future together. I sighed and shook my head to clear it, wondering just how two extremely short encounters with a hot blonde had gotten me so screwed up so fast.

"Never 'actually' together with Lynne or not, it doesn't change the relationship that we really had. I guess I'm not honoring that memory very well if I'm flirting with another girl this fast. I'm sorry. Thanks for bailing me out," I said to Kady.

"Uh, sure," she chirped in surprise. Clearly, the thought of honoring Lynne hadn't crossed her mind.

I frowned. "Uh, so if this wasn't about Lynne, and you've been friendly with Amber up until now, then what was that all about?" I gestured back to the pool. "If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought you were acting all jealous."

"Jealous, what?" Kady snorted. She reached out and grabbed Noelle's waist, drawing her girlfriend against her side. Noelle herself was strangely silent, eyeing the clearly angry redhead.

"Kady..." I said with a confused frown. "What's going on?"

Kady sighed in resignation, glancing over to her girlfriend. Noelle just held her gaze, raising her eyebrows slightly. And setting her jaw, Kady shook her head in annoyance before nodding to the apartments ahead of us. "Let's go inside. I don't want to do this out here."

I'd thought the three of us would go into the girls' apartment and talk, but I thought wrong. Instead, Kady ordered me into my own apartment to take a shower and clean up. And she told me in no uncertain terms not to come upstairs until she called me.

So I went and took a shower, cleaning away the chlorine-grime and dressing myself in shorts and a polo shirt. I then flopped onto the couch with my laptop, catching up on email and other surfing just to kill time.

Ten minutes passed by, and then twenty. I heard people walking around in the living room above me, and twice I nearly went upstairs to knock on the door. But if there was anything that a lifetime of living with multiple girls had taught me, it was that trying to talk to a girl before she was good and ready was a one-way ticket to hell. All I could possibly accomplish by doing that was to piss Kady off even further.

So I waited ... and I waited ... and I waited.

It was over an hour later when my phone finally rang. But to my surprise, the display did not read "Kady Jacobsen". Instead, the phone read "Lynne Arian", and I quickly flipped the clamshell open. "Hello?"

"Just get up here," Lynne sighed wearily, annoyance clear in her voice.

"Lynne?" I chirped in surprise. "Up where?"

"Upstairs you big doofus. I'm in Kady's and Noelle's place. Just get up here." She hung up without waiting for my response.

Quickly, I moved to do as ordered. Locking up the apartment behind me, I hustled up the stairs and knocked at the front door. And as I stood there, I found my eyes being drawn to the apartment immediately adjoining the one in front of me. I wondered if Amber had returned from her trip to the pool. I wondered if she was naked in the shower, cleaning away chlorine grime while soft droplets of water cascaded out from the shower head, bathing her silky long blonde locks with moisture that drizzled down the creamy smoothness of her skin while-

The lock right in front of me flipped, shaking me out of my daydream, and I quickly brought my attention front and center. I heard arguing come through the open doorway immediately, and standing alone, Noelle gave me a helpless shrug before gesturing me into the apartment.

I'd been up here a number of times over the past few weeks. The apartment was an identical floorplan to the one I shared with Lynne, albeit with radically different furnishings. Whereas Lynne's living room was built around being a group hangout, with three couches all facing the center coffee table, Kady's and Noelle's place was just for the couple, with their one couch facing a big screen TV on the opposite wall.

Lynne and Kady were at opposite ends of this couch, each sitting with a leg tucked underneath them so that they could face each other as they argued. As I walked in, I saw that both of them were already pretty heated, which scared the crap out of me. Kady wore her emotions on her sleeve, going from playful to pissed in half a second. The fiery redhead wouldn't hesitate to roast me if she were so inclined. Lynne on the other hand was typically quite measured, the epitome of calm amidst the chaos of a young adult's drama. She had a slow fuse, but when she finally got upset, she could be seriously intense.

As I approached, both girls stopped talking and stared right at me. At this moment, I fully understood the meaning of the phrase "deer in the headlights". In this case, I was a week-old fawn who could barely walk, and the headlights approaching me were that of two semi-trucks barreling down the 2-lane highway side-by-side. I had nowhere to run. "Um ... hi..." I mumbled.

Lynne frowned at me and said, "Ben, I need you to fuck Kady's brains out."

I choked immediately, going into a coughing fit as I jabbed my right fist against my chest, desperately trying to dislodge the huge gulp of saliva that had just gone down the wrong pipe.

Noelle was soon behind me, patting my back as I raised both eyebrows and stammered. "Uh, excuse me?"

"Shouldn't be a big deal for you. She's cute, she's got a rockin' bod, and you've done it before," Lynne explained. "It would totally get her out of my hair about this."

"Wha-, wait, what???"

Lynne's eyebrows furrowed angrily as she glared at me. "Am I stuttering? Did I not make myself clear? You. Fuck. Kady. Got it?"

"Lynne, you're being ridiculous!" Kady protested. "LOOK at you! You're completely off your rocker! This proves you're in love with Ben more than anything else! If you didn't care, you wouldn't be so adamant about this!"

"She has a point," Noelle said quietly.

"Stop taking sides!" Lynne barked.

"I'm not taking sides," Noelle replied just as quietly, trying to use a calm voice to help calm Lynne down.

"It doesn't matter if I'm in love with him. Not that I'm saying I AM in love with him. Because I'm not," Lynne insisted. "We're friends. We're JUST. FRIENDS. He's a single man, free to flirt with whomever he wants and free to fuck whomever he wants. And he's going to prove it by fucking YOU!"

"I don't want to fuck Ben! I'm lesbian, remember?"

"Mostly," Lynne emphasized. "You said yourself you're a 5 on the Kinsey scale, not a 6. You've done it before, and you want to do it again!"

"I'm just messing around and you know it!" Kady insisted. "I joke a lot because I like teasing Ben. I love screwing with his head. That doesn't mean that I actually want to-"

"FINE," Lynne cut her off before turning to face me. "Ben, I thought I heard the shower go off through bathroom wall. Amber must be done over there. Why don't you go over, ring her doorbell, and then go ring her bell."

"NO!" Kady exclaimed before wrinkling her nose and averting her eyes, blushing in embarrassment.

"You're jealous!" Lynne barked.

"Am not!" Kady protested. "I'm just trying to protect him for you!"

"Wait-wait-wait," I interrupted, tired of this conversation going on without me even though it seemed to revolve around exactly who I was supposed to be fucking. "Just an hour ago outside, you insisted that you weren't trying to protect me for Lynne."

"That was before I realized she's in love you, ya big doofus!" Kady exclaimed, whirling back to Lynne. "You had me convinced, actually. I really believed that whole spiel you gave us about just being good friends and getting caught up in the moment and realizing that you were getting too close to each other. You made me think that you hadn't fallen in love with him yet. You made me think that it was just fun affection all this time and that you were just enjoying the wild sex while you could. You had me convinced that you'd realized you were STARTING to develop feelings for him. But really, you'd already fallen head over heels and you are just too fucking CHICKEN to keep him!"

"And YOU had me convinced that you were just being a playful tease the way I've seen you be with a LOT of guys," Lynne shot back. "You looove pushing their buttons and getting them all hot and bothered for you, knowing that the furthest they'll ever get is whacking off in their bedrooms while fantasizing about you while you get it on with your girlfriend. But that's not the case this time. You really WANT him. You haven't had any dick since Ben plowed you when you were 16, and ever since he showed up again a month ago, you've been getting this niggling itch inside to try it again! THAT'S why you called me here to ask how I really felt about him!"

"YES! ALRIGHT? I ADMIT IT!" Kady yelled, standing up from the couch and throwing her arms in the air. "I admit it! I want Ben to fuck my brains out! Noelle knows, you know, and now Ben knows! But that doesn't change the fact that you're fucking in LOVE with him!"

I started to understand what the hell was going on. Kady now admitting that she'd fantasized about having me fuck her again was the starting point. But since I'd been having my 'nottogether' relationship with Lynne, she'd kept her hormones in check. But this morning, with Lynne re-declaring that we were just friends, Kady had let herself start to fantasize again. We'd gone to the pool, where Kady started flirting with me outrageously. And when Amber had shown up and drawn away my attention, the redhead had indeed been rather jealous.

When I'd called her on it, Kady had sent me inside to clean up and wait while she and Noelle returned to their apartment. And in the meantime, with the intention of seducing me later, Kady had called Lynne to come home so that she could be sure that Lynne wouldn't mind.

"Wait-wait-wait," I interrupted, realizing that I was pushing myself into dangerous territory here. Both Lynne and Kady were quite pissed off. And if I said the wrong thing, I would only make them both pissed off at ME instead of each other. But I wasn't just going to sit this out and let the girls discuss ME without me.

"Let me get this straight," I said, pointing to Kady. "YOU want to jump me. But you don't want to do it since you believe Lynne is in love with me."

Kady folded her arms across her chest, pouting angrily. Not exactly the most alluring pose, but she nodded her head.

"And you want me to just nail Kady," I said, pointing over to Lynne. "Because you want to prove that you're NOT in love with me."

Lynne just frowned and avoided my eyes.

"Well, I'm making this simple," I said. All three girls now stared at me. What I was about to do would probably piss them all off, but I didn't care. After years getting pushed around by Adrienne, DJ, and every other girlfriend I'd ever had in the name of pleasing the person who was giving me regular sex, I just didn't want to deal with this right now.

"I'm leaving," I said. "I'm going to go downstairs, get my car keys, and drive over to Bert's place in Fremont. I'm going to play video games and get dinner with my good buddy. And sometime later tonight, I'm going to come home, pull up porn on my laptop, and masturbate myself to sleep. You girls can work out whatever the hell you want between each other, but I'll thank you very much to stop tossing me around like I'm a piece of meat that can be pointed in some direction and ordered to fuck somebody just to prove a point. I'm not that easy anymore."

Lynne's eyes came back to mine, and she blinked in surprise at my words. Kady bit her lower lip nervously, looking embarrassed. Noelle just gawked with an open mouth.

"Lynne, you are a dear, dear friend. I care a ton about you, but you've made it clear to me that you either think a relationship won't work long-term between us, or that you don't want a relationship to work long-term between us. I'm sad about that, but I'm going to respect your wishes. We're friends. We're 'just friends'."

The petite brunette took a deep breath, still sitting on the couch. She sighed and nodded, looking thankful.

"Kady, we're pals, we're buds, and I know you love teasing the hell out of me. It would be fun, really, if we hooked up. I know it would just be for meaningless pleasure, and I know we'd both enjoy it. But all we could ever be is physical, and right now there are just too many emotions involved for it to work. We're platonic friends, and for now, I think we'd better keep things that way. Okay?"

Surprised, Kady stewed over that for a second. But with a glance at Noelle, who reached out and squeezed her hand, she returned her gaze back to me and nodded.

"Noelle," I began with a smile, backing away toward the door. "See ya around."

"Laters, Ben," the dirty-blonde replied with a little wave.

And then I walked out the door, shutting it behind me.

Girls... I sighed to myself. I spent years being the 'safe' friend as an underdeveloped teenager, hanging out with all the girls without a hint of sexual tension. I'd grown up with four sisters, observing and analyzing their little daily dramas. Over the course of my dating history I'd learned all I could about the female psyche. And I STILL didn't have Clue One when it came to understanding women.

Taking a deep breath, I started forward to go down the stairs. But before my foot hit the first step, a voice spoke behind me. "That sounded like quite the knock-down fight."

I turned my head to see Amber leaning against the doorjamb. Her hair was wet, likely from the shower that Lynne had overheard. She wore a different bathrobe, this one a plush velvet of the kind you'd pick up at Victoria's Secret. The belt was tied low enough to expose a great deal of Amber's cleavage, showing me nearly half of each breast with the nipples themselves just barely out of view. Immediately, my racing heart that had only started to calm down after that verbal showdown with Lynne and Kady sped back up again. I found my breath coming up short. And I could actually FEEL my blood redirecting out of my brain and into the lower part of my anatomy.

Fucking 'A', I didn't realize a girl could get me this turned on this fast just by looking at her.

Amber smiled as she caught me ogling. "Aww, you look rather wiped out after that conversation in there. Would you like to come inside? I'm sure I could be very good company for you right now."

My mouth was dry, and my brain was a little slow. But I still had enough presence of mind to know that I would be making everything I'd said to Lynne and Kady a total lie if I went into Amber's apartment right now. "Why are you doing this?" I asked, my tongue thick.

She flashed me a brilliant smile, full of pearly white teeth and again, quite predatory. "To be blunt, I want you. I heard the number you pulled on little Lynne last night, and I think you might underestimate just how fucking HOT that sounded. When you told me this morning that you and Lynne were just friends, I decided that I just had to get some of that myself."

Blinking quickly, I took a deep breath and arched an eyebrow. "You work fast. We only met this morning and already you're trying to seduce me?"

She laughed, a musical lilt that somehow lifted my heart just to hear it. Damn this girl was dangerous. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not in the habit of going around seducing every hot guy I see. In fact, I can honestly calculate that I turn down 99 percent of the guys that come onto me."

"Well this is one guy you're not going to have to worry about coming onto you," I said simply, looking back at Kady's and Noelle's apartment. "You're very pretty, and I'm flattered. But it's just not going to happen."

Amber's blue eyes narrowed as she took two steps out onto the porch. "You're wrong. This is going to happen. You see, I'm just a spoiled little rich girl, and I'm used to getting my way. When I see something I like, I go after it. And I don't quit until I get it."

"Well then you'd better prepare yourself for disappointment," I replied with more than a hint of annoyance in my voice, especially after what I'd just told Lynne and Kady about using me like a piece of meat. "Because I promise you: it's never gonna happen."

Amber didn't reply immediately. Instead, she slid herself up to me, molding her pelvis against my hip and pushing her cleavage against my arm. I didn't back down, so her breasts ended up being split to either side of my bicep, the hot and slightly damp titflesh rubbing against the bare skin of my arm. Her eyes flicked down to watch this happening, the same as me. And as I brought my gaze back to her face, she slowly did the same as well, ogling me obviously the entire way up.

Leaning forward, she brought her nose up to my cheek, nudging it against my skin and dragging its cute tip from my jaw line up until she nuzzled it against the tip of mine. At the same time, her right hand dropped down, tracing the exceedingly hard shaft that was now pointing vertically up through my shorts and literally poking above my waistband and underneath my polo shirt.

With a musical giggle, Amber's eyes sparkled deliciously before she pulled away, whispering in a deep, husky voice. "We'll see."

Immediately, she turned around and sashayed back into her apartment, her ass swishing left and right like a runway model. She stopped at the door and turned to face me while she closed it. And long after the door was closed and her spectacular body was gone from view, I could still see the piercing gaze of her blue eyes, locked rigidly onto mine.

Girls... I sighed to myself. I'll never understand them.

I then looked down at my erection, even lifting up the hem of my polo shirt to see the purple helmet that seemed quite angry to be pressed up against my belly. I'd told the girls I would masturbate myself to internet porn later tonight. But maybe I should go to my room right now and get an early start.

It was after 10pm when I got back to Stanford. I'd spent hours and hours playing video games with Bert and just generally catching up. I missed having a male friend around, and I told him that we should spend more time together for the remainder of the summer. His parents liked having me around, and his Mom made some exotic Korean dish that made my stomach melt with happiness, so it seemed like a good plan.

The apartment was quiet when I entered. There was a light under the door to Lynne's bedroom, but I let her be as I went into my room and started undressing. A minute later, I emerged and went straight to the shower. And after a long, luxurious soak under the hot water, I dried off in the bathroom and then wrapped the damp towel around my waist for the return trip to my bedroom.

Out of habit, I walked in the door and closed it behind me, dropping my towel to the floor while I headed to the dresser that had all my underwear and pajama pants. I was still reaching for the drawer when I realized that my room wasn't empty. Sitting upright on my bed, clad in a thin sleeping shirt with no bra and a baggy pair of women's boxer shorts, was Lynne. She stared right at my crotch with an amused smirk on her face.

Even though I was surprised to see her, I didn't react much. I felt like I'd walked into my room a million times to find an unexpected female awaiting me. You'd think I would start to look around before dropping my towel. But unashamed of my nudity in front of a girl I'd already been intimate with, I simply shrugged and opened up the drawer to fish out my boxers.

"Have a nice day?" she asked my ass.

I shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, it was fun." I hunched over as I stepped into my shorts, taking my time to go ahead and let Lynne ogle my toned buttcheeks. She was the one who wanted to scale back on our relationship, and the small vindictive part of me wanted to rub it in.

Sighing, Lynne waited for me to stand up and turn around before she said anything further. Taking a deep breath, she fiddled with her fingers for a moment before looking me in the eye and saying, "I want to apologize. You were right about this morning. You were ALL right. We got too close. I fell in love with you. But I don't want to be."

I started forward, "Lynne-"

"No," she interrupted, breaking eye contact and holding a hand up palm out. When I went silent, she added, "I have to say this."

I pinched my lips and swallowed my protest.

"My heart tells me to just love you and hope for the best. But my head tells me it'll never work out, and I always try to listen to my head. I'm trying very hard not to be in love with you anymore, and because of that, I might've been a little overboard in pushing you to nail Kady or Amber or really... anyone other than me. It'll be easier for me then, once I know you're not monogamous to me anymore. It'll be easier for me to move on."

I looked down, nodding slowly. Even though I didn't like it, I could understand Lynne's rationale.

"But that doesn't excuse my actions. I didn't respect you when I told you to go out and fuck somebody. You're not a walking dick. And I didn't give you credit enough when I assumed you'd just go out and do it. I'm sorry."

"That's okay. Apology accepted."

Taking a deep breath, Lynne nodded and finally looked up at me with a smile. She uncrossed her legs and then slid off my bed, coming up to me and burying her head into my chest as she wrapped her arms around my midsection.

I hugged her back, patting her gently. And the two of us just enjoyed the simple embrace for a long couple of minutes.

Sighing, Lynne finally let go of me. I let her back away, but then out of the blue, she reached up and bopped me on the forehead with the heel of her hand.

Startled, but unhurt, I frowned and held my head. "What was that for?"

"You're a moron, you know that?" Lynne gave me a wry grin.

"Huh?"

"You could've been upstairs, plowing the shit out of Kady Jacobsen all freakin' afternoon. If you'd played your cards right, you might even have gotten Noelle, too."

"What?"

Lynne smirked at me. "Noelle's really curious about straight sex. She's been 100% lesbian her whole life; never even kissed a guy. But hearing Kady talk about what it was like fucking you back in High School has piqued her interest. She likes you; she thinks you're a safe guy to try it with. I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but there's some interest there."

"Wow."

Lynne shook her head. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that, but we're friends. Good friends. And a good friend helps the other get laid."

I chuckled and shook my head. "Thanks."

"Hell, you could've been nailing Amber right now, too."

"What?"

"When you stormed out on us, I immediately went after you, but stopped when I saw Amber come out in that sexy robe she was just barely wearing. I saw how she was coming onto you."

I shook my head. "Never gonna happen. She's too much of a stuck-up bitch for my tastes."

"Really? She's always been nice to me." Lynne shrugged. "Whatever. You're still a moron. You know, I'd planned on still sleeping with you tonight. We had our little talk about being 'just friends' this morning, but I didn't want you to think that I was totally cutting things off between us. Even though I'm still freaking SORE from everything you did to me last night, I was at least going to give you a blowjob."

My eyebrows rose, and I noticed that Lynne's nipples were poking through her sheer shirt. And after all her talk about me nailing Kady AND Noelle AND Amber and now herself, I'd started to get a little chubby in my shorts.

But Lynne shook her head. "But I can't. You went and made that big, dramatic speech about not needing us and masturbating yourself to sleep. So I'm going to let you do just that."

"But-" I protested, still thinking about that blowjob she'd just mentioned.

Lynne's wry grin was back. "Nuh-uh. You made your bed and now you're gonna sleep in it. I hope you enjoy the internet porn."

I just gawked at the pretty brunette as she patted my arm and then walked past me. Stopping just outside my room, she turned and gave me a final smirk. And then she closed the door.

Fuck.

I couldn't sleep. For once, I hadn't anesthetized myself with a few powerful ejaculations into the body of a beautiful, willing female. The internet porn just hadn't done enough for me. I stared at the ceiling for over an hour, desperately trying to push aside the thought that had popped into my head long ago.

But it wouldn't go away. Just last night she'd told me not to call her again. But I couldn't sleep, and after long enough, I realized that I would NOT be able to go to sleep until I at least tried.

Rolling over, I reached for the nightstand and found my cell phone in the darkness. Opening it, I quickly found the number 2 and held it.

After three rings, I heard the line go live, followed by the soft breathing of a human being. But seconds later, I heard a plastic [clack] as her phone snapped shut, followed by the triple-tones of a dead line. She didn't even let me go to voicemail and leave her a message.

I got the hint: When she'd told me not to call her anymore, she really meant it.

-- MONDAY, JULY 11, 2005, SUMMER BREAK --

"Meetings, meetings, meetings," Hieu Dao muttered. The designated Engineer on my BioGen internship project frowned as he dropped into the conference room chair beside me. "How am I supposed to get any analyses done if I'm spending all of my time in meetings?"

"Welcome to the world of business," I chuckled. "Sorry to pull you away from your computer, but this one couldn't wait. Amir told me that our liaison from Packard just arrived."

"Is she cute?" Keith Myers cracked. Our team biologist was a noted horndog, although not a very successful one. He loved to talk about chicks and the latest things he'd read in Maxim magazine, but the one time a girl from Finance had come over to talk to us about expense reports, he'd turned pasty white and practically hid behind me while gawking at her.

I laughed and shook my head. "I have no idea. Amir made all the arrangements on this one. We're probably going to get a middle-aged guy with an oversized paunch. But be nice. We need to be on this guy's good side if he's going to help us at all."

The guys on my team nodded, and we settled into our chairs. Everyone knew the stakes. The business plan we were developing depended on a partnership with Stanford Medical's pediatric research. We were a bioengineering firm, but Stanford was the actual hospital. They were the ones having patients coming in and out every day. And if they didn't see the benefit in sharing anonymous patient data with us, we had nothing with which to do our research long term.

A minute later, the conference room door opened and our boss Amir Shadkam walked in. But my eyes weren't on him. I was too busy gawking at the person immediately behind him.

"Team, I'd like you to meet Amber," Amir started as he gestured to the gorgeous blonde who had followed him inside. "She's just finished her second year at Stanford Medical School, and is currently beginning her clerkship at Packard Children's Hospital."

With that, Amir stood where he was and started making introductions.

With poise and grace, Amber stepped forward and shook hands with Hieu, who was the closest person to her. He smiled and nodded formally, oblivious to her beauty. Keith was next, and the poor guy was so busy gawking in utter shock that he didn't even raise his hand to meet hers. Smiling patiently, she reached down and took his hand, shaking it for him. His arm dropped lifelessly immediately after like a wet spaghetti noodle.

And then at the head of the table was me. I managed to recover in time to meet her gaze, and caught the extra sparkle in Amber's crystal clear blue eyes as she smiled at me. "So very pleased to meet you, Ben," she offered with mock formality.

"Likewise," I replied evenly.

"It's so funny running into you like this!" She laughed and turned to the others, genuinely surprised. "Ben and I actually know each other already."

"Really?" Amir chirped.

"You wouldn't believe it, but Ben lives in an apartment just down from me."

The guys all gawked, and I nodded in confirmation.

Still giggling musically, Amber returned to me and beamed. "It must be destiny."

I scowled the instant she said the "D-word". After everything I've been through with Dawn...

Darkly, I replied, "I don't believe in destiny."

Amber batted her eyelashes. "Sometimes destiny happens, whether you believe in it or not."

After a rough weekend, the rest of the week really started looking up. After our initial meeting at BioGen, the team's interactions with Amber were strictly by phone and email, and she hadn't attempted to drop any innuendoes or otherwise flirt with me during those communications. So things were quiet on that front.

Likewise, Kady was chagrined by the way everything had blown up after her first attempt to arrange a hookup between us. She was taking my recommendation that we just stay platonic friends to heart, and while she'd returned to her flirtatious, teasing ways after only a day, she made no further comments to suggest we move beyond that.

And mercifully, Lynne re-started our friends-with-benefits relationship. After going three straight nights with nothing but my laptop and my right hand for company, I came out of the shower on Wednesday night to find Lynne sitting upright on my bed. But instead of wearing a sleep shirt and baggy shorts, she was clad in a sexy babydoll chemise and lace panties. We had a pleasant reunion that included the long-overdue blowjob and a sweet missionary fuck. And when we were done, she pecked my lips thankfully and returned to her own bedroom to sleep.

Paige brought April over to the apartment on Thursday, and all three of the Stanford girls had a blast cooing over the adorable infant. Lynne also pulled me aside that night, mentioning that Paige had asked her for help in convincing me to give the lonely single mom a little sexual relief.

Lynne and I actually stopped and talked about it for a long time in my bedroom, discussing our friendship and her complete lack of jealousy over this. The reality was that I hadn't had sex with someone OTHER than Lynne since the breakup with Dawn, with the single exception of that one morning with Adrienne. Lynne thought it was best for our friendship – and for my own healing in fully getting over Dawn – that I start to get out there a little bit more.

So after Kady and Noelle returned to their apartment upstairs, and Paige put a sleeping April into her infant carrier for the trip back home, I went over and offered to carry Paige out to the car for her. And once we were all alone in the parking lot, with April safely latched into her carseat, I drew the little redhead into my arms and asked, "Would you like me to come home with you tonight?"

Needless to say, Paige was absolutely thrilled. I drove the Mustang, following her all the way back to the Atherton house. After putting April to bed, I then followed Paige into her room. And there we both took care of each other's needs.

She was quieter than she'd been in college, especially with April sleeping in the next room. But Little Red was still an animal in the sack and she wiped me out so completely that I had to just lay across her bed for twenty minutes before regaining enough energy to drive myself home.

Everything seemed to be settling into balance. I still had my close friendship with Lynne. Kady and Noelle were fun, but platonic, friends. And even my relationship with Paige seemed to be destined for the kind of friendship that lasts forever, with the occasional opportunity to scratch each other's itch.

Yeah, things were settling down. But then came Friday.

-- FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2005, SUMMER BREAK --

"Oh, hey. It's a party!" I chuckled as I entered the apartment, looking around a scene I hadn't witnessed in a few weeks. Back when Stanford's Spring Semester was still in progress, it wasn't uncommon to arrive at the apartment to find between four and eight girls hanging around Lynne's living room. But ever since the school year ended and many of those girls returned home, there just weren't many reasons to assemble here.

But there were a bunch of girls assembled here now. After taking a quick glance across the familiar faces in the living room, I spotted Lynne and Noelle chatting in the kitchen immediately to my left. Heading into the kitchen first, I extended my left arm and Lynne automatically slid into it, giving me a welcoming hug. "Hey, what's the occasion?" I asked.

"No occasion. Just talking to the girls and we felt like a Friday night party was in order. Wine?" She stepped away from me and held up a bottle of Merlot.

I grimaced. She knew I wasn't much of a wine person.

Laughing, Lynne sighed. "Men ... There's beer in the fridge."

"Kady's already two bottles ahead of you," Noelle chimed in.

I nodded and left the kitchen, already hoisting my black leather messenger bag over my head on the way to my bedroom. A couple of familiar faces turned and said "Hi" to me as I passed. Marcy was Lynne's friend, and one of the few other straight girls around. Ricki and Emily were a butch couple. And Amber of course lived upstairs.

Wait, Amber?

I did a double-take, my eyes going wide in surprise to see the gorgeous blonde holding a wine glass while chatting with pretty Emily. She noticed I'd stopped dead in my tracks and turned around to face her. And after nodding to Emily during a pause in the conversation, she sauntered over to me.

I blinked rapidly, that deer in the headlights expression on my face again. I still couldn't explain what it was about her that affected me so strongly. Instead of the calm, charismatic Big Ben I typically portrayed at a gathering such as this, I found myself a bundle of nerves that didn't know how to react.

Amber, on the other hand, had no such reservations. Frowning in mock annoyance, she reached over and punched my arm. "You didn't even tell them we're working on a project together?" she complained loudly. "You must be pretty into me if you're hiding that little part of our relationship."

"What are you doing here?" I blurted.

Amber cracked up and shook her head. "Smooth. Real smooth."

I rolled my eyes, not interested in impressing her. But I still apologized. "Sorry. Just surprised, that's all. I never saw you hanging out with this group before."

Amber shrugged. "We've been neighbors all year. I was just super busy while these girls were in the middle of Finals, so we didn't see much of each other back then. I came home from work and heard the commotion. So when I came downstairs, Lynne just invited me in."

I nodded and then gestured to my bag. "Uh, I'm just getting rid of this."

Amber smiled at me and said coquettishly, "Don't keep me waiting."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I didn't. Just nodding slowly, I turned and went into my room. Only when I was safely behind a closed door with my bag on the floor did I realize my hands were shaking slightly and that my heart was racing. How the fuck did she do this to me?

It wasn't like I hadn't been around pretty girls before. Even as an underdeveloped 15-year-old, I wasn't this awkward around a goddess like Adrienne Dennis. I'd grown accustomed to physical beauty after years and years of hanging out with – and conquering – nubile co-eds and even older women like Keira and Viktoriya. And yet the merest glimpse of Amber had my lungs feeling tight and my underwear feeling tighter.

I realized that I couldn't hide in my bedroom forever. And I also realized I could NOT let Amber continue to get to me. She was pretty, for sure. Fuck, she looked so much like Dawn, it was scary. That was probably why her physical appearance affected me so much. Yeah, that was it. But she wasn't Dawn. And I resolved not to let her get under my skin so much. I was a grown adult, a mature 21-year-old. Even if Amber had some less-than-holy designs on me, I could handle them. She was just another girl, and I had hung around lots of pretty girls for the last few years without letting it bother me. I could do this.

Steeling my spine and taking a deep breath, I popped open the door and returned to the party. Amber was talking to Emily again and she looked my way as I returned to the living room. But I just passed her by and returned to the kitchen. Lynne tried to tempt me into a glass of wine again, but I just opened the fridge and grabbed a beer bottle. After popping the cap, I spotted Kady sitting on the couch chatting with Saffron and immediately headed over to them.

"Hey, how was work?" I asked casually as I sat down beside Kady.

"Fuck work. Who wants to talk about work?" Kady drawled, already a little buzzed. She dropped a hand onto my thigh, leering at me before elbowing Saffron in the ribs. "Let's talk about sex."

I arched an eyebrow as I realized Kady was dead serious. She turned first to Saffron, knowing full well that the pretty blonde was bisexual, and bluntly asked, "So when was the last time you did a guy?"

Saffron's eyes popped wide open, but then hummed as she sipped from her wine glass and thought about it. If anyone other than Kady had asked that question, she might very well have dismissed it. But this was Kady, and it was a party, and we were all friends. Smirking at me, Saffron then shrugged and replied, "That would be Leonard, back before we broke up."

"Oh, right, the ex-boyfriend." Kady nodded. "Do you miss it? Not him, the dick."

My eyes were getting bigger at the audacity of Kady's questions. Saffron was already chuckling into her wine glass. But as she pulled away, I realized that Saffron was going to go ahead and answer.

This was shaping up to be an interesting night.

By 10pm, there were twelve people hanging around the apartment. Couches had been pushed to the walls and the dining table as well, leaving a wide middle area where people could dance. The lights had been dimmed and somebody's iPod was docked to Lynne's speaker system. And everyone sort of rotated between dancing, drinking, and chatting by the couches.

Of the twelve people, nine were girls, leaving just three guys, including me. The other two guys were a gay couple, meaning that I was the only straight guy. Not that it really mattered. Everyone sort of danced in a group, and while people would pair off for the sheer fun of dancing one-on-one with somebody, there weren't really any rules about who could dance with whom. Gay girls danced with me. Straight girls danced with me. Heck, the gay guys danced with me, although I made it clear I didn't want one of their butts rubbed against my crotch.

The assembled group was a little too large for childish party games like Truth or Dare and Spin-the-Bottle, but wasn't so large that you could disappear into the background. Topics of all sorts were being discussed, ranging from gossip about other girls to the finer points of merlot versus cabernet and even a conversation about which was the best anal lube. Nothing was really off-limits. We had people across the spectrum of sexual orientations, we were all 19 and up in age, and most everyone had imbibed quite a bit of alcohol.

I chatted with whoever wanted to chat with me. I danced with whoever wanted to dance with me. And I drank pretty much anything someone put into my hands, even the wine. For the very first time since getting dumped by Dawn, I got hammered.

It was in this state of who-the-fuck-cares drunkenness that I found myself sitting on a couch with Amber in my lap. I'd been avoiding her all night, only making enough small talk to keep things from becoming TOO awkward. But she kept coming and coming. About twenty minutes ago, I just decided to fuck it and let her hang around me, and now she was sitting sideways with her left arm around my neck and a wine glass in her right hand. Butch Ricki was showing off her ear piercings, each one of which had a special story behind it. And Amber was asking questions to keep Ricki going.

But sweet Emily arrived just then, tapping her girlfriend on the shoulder. "Hey sugar. Time to go."

"Go? Why?" Ricki complained.

Emily jerked a thumb over to the door. "Chris is doing a shuttle run in his minivan. Best chance for us to get home without having to drive."

Ricki scowled but nodded. Chris didn't drink, so it made sense that he would collect some of the gathered guests and give them a safe trip home. Everyone here lived pretty close by.

"You ever want to get something pierced, you let me know," Ricki offered Amber before slapping me in the chest. "Can you imagine how fucking hot this girl would look with a tongue stud? Orgasm city!"

Ricki then stuck out her own tongue, showing off the silver ball imbedded in it. I quickly flashed my eyes to Amber, imagining what the gorgeous blonde would look like kneeling before my cock with a gaping mouth just ready to rub that kind of silver stud against the underside of my shaft. And from the sparkle in her blue eyes, I imagine she was thinking something along the same lines.

But then Ricki was gone, and the commotion by the front door as people said their goodbyes had pretty much everyone's attention. I found that I was losing myself into Amber's pretty blue eyes, and the longer I stared at her the more I started to see Dawn's face in front of me instead. My heartbeat quickened. My lungs tightened. And when she tilted her head and leaned into me, my heart sang with joy at the idea that my soulmate had come back.

Our first kiss was spectacular. Her lips were infinitely soft and yet passionately firm. Her tongue – tongue stud or not – was supple inside my mouth. And the merest scent of her intoxicated me in a way the plentiful alcohol could not even match. It was, in a word: volcanic.

But just as soon as it started, my brain woke up enough to realize who I was actually kissing. This wasn't Dawn, and the simplest fact that I was fantasizing it was made this kiss just so, sooo wrong. I quickly jerked my head away from her. Amber pouted at me for a brief second before I turned my head and distinctly avoided her gaze. A moment later, she leaned in and lay the side of her head against mine.

"I'm sorry," we both said at the same time. Startled by the simultaneous apology, I looked over at her. And to my surprise, I found that Amber was gazing at me with a look every bit as haunted as the way I felt.

Time slowed down to a crawl. I wasn't sure what I was expecting to see on Amber's face, but this expression wasn't it. She didn't look predatory, like a girl on the hunt to seduce me. She didn't look frustrated, like a girl trying to seduce me but not yet succeeding. And she didn't look embarrassed, the way someone might be after a kiss that shouldn't have happened.

Instead, Amber looked ... lost. She looked confused, as if she hadn't been sure exactly who SHE was kissing either. Biting her lower lip, she quickly turned and slid off my lap. And without another word, she picked up her wine glass and walked away.

Dumbfounded, I watched her go. She went straight to Lynne, bending down to hug the much smaller brunette and then saying something I couldn't hear. The two girls nodded, and then after glancing back to me with that same haunted expression on her face, Amber turned and left, presumably to go upstairs to her own apartment.

Confused, I remained where I was seated as the remaining guests said their goodbyes. One-by-one, they all departed until it was just me, Lynne, Kady, and Noelle. With the front door now closed, the three girls were talking about something in the kitchen while I just sort of stared off into the abyss. And with a deep sigh, I looked down into what was left of my beer bottle and then upended it into my mouth, chugging the last few ounces in a single gulp.

When I dropped my head back down and removed the bottle from my face, I found that Lynne was sitting right beside me. Reaching up with her right hand, she gently brushed her fingertips down the side of my cheek. And then leaning forward, she pecked the same cheek while saying, "See you tomorrow."

She was up and into the hallway before I really responded. My head still a little thick, I frowned and looked after her, mumbling, "Wait, what?" in confusion, but she was already just about out of hearing range.

No matter, I felt a pair of hands tugging at my own, and looked up to see Kady's perky face above me. "Come on, stud. I'm drunk. I'm horny. And you're finally gonna pay up for all the cunt-teasing you've done to me for the past couple of months."

My eyes went wide in surprise at her words. But then there was Noelle right beside me with an amused expression on her face. The two girls got me to my feet and then dragged me out the front door. Buoyed by their giggling voices and gentle exhortations of, "Come on! Come on!" I let myself be led up the stairs and into their apartment. And once the door was closed behind us, while Kady and Noelle launched themselves at each other in a wickedly hot Sapphic kiss not two feet in front of my nose, the sexual creature inside me reared up through the alcoholic haze.

What the hell. This should be fun.