SPH-THEMED EROTICA STORIES

First – Ron and Jenna

Uber’s politics talk was still in my head when I hit their buzzer.

Three times.

I missed the button the first time because my hand was unsteady. I was still in the clothes I had gone out in: dark jeans, Chelsea boots, T-shirt, leather jacket. My brown hair was a mess. I knew I looked bad.

It was around midnight. The hallway smelled like leftover Thai food and carpet cleaner.

The door opened.

Ron filled the doorway.

He was six foot three, broad through the shoulders and chest, with short brown hair and a plain, tired face that always looked more serious than he was. He had on an Iron Maiden shirt, boxers, and no shoes. Even dressed like that, he looked solid. Strong arms. Thick neck. Thick legs. He looked at me for one second and knew I was drunk.

“Jesus, man,” he said. “What happened?”

“Need to talk.”

He moved aside and let me in.

Their apartment was small, but better than most college apartments. White walls. Clean counters. Leather couch. A standing lamp in the corner. It smelled like weed, red wine, and Jenna’s perfume.

Jenna was on the couch with a wine glass in her hand.

She had straight black hair to her chest, a fringe across her forehead, and dark eyes behind square glasses. She was very pale. Very slim too, narrow shoulders, small chest, long legs folded under her. She had on sleep shorts and a thin white tank top, which showed her nipples. We had lost all shame a while ago, and Jenna was comfortable around me. She looked at me once and sat up.

“Sit down,” she said. “You’re shaking.”

I sat in the chair across from them.

Ron picked up a beer from the coffee table, handed it to me, then opened one for himself.

I looked at the can in my hand and said, “It’s Katie.”

Jenna’s face changed right away.

“What about her?”

I rubbed my forehead.

“Mark told me something.”

I had to start with the bar. There was no other way to explain why I had shown up like this.

An hour earlier, I had been standing at the bar with Mike and Mark. Mike, my roommate, was talking about an econ class. Mark was barely listening. He kept looking at me like he had something to say. Mark and Katie had a brief fling, by her decision, and I’ve never disclosed that I was going out with her, although I’m sure he suspected it, or at least suspected I had feelings for her.

Then he said, “You know Katie’s been seeing Jack, right?”

My stomach dropped. Jack was part of Mark’s fraternity. In some sense, he was his mentor. The funny guy that can flirt without making girls realize they are doing it—a player in every sense of the word.

“What?”

Mike looked at him. “Katie? No way.”

Mark shrugged. “What do you mean, no way?”

“I mean, Katie,” Mike said. “That Katie.”

Mark laughed at that.

“Yeah. That Katie.”

I stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

He took a sip of whiskey and leaned on the bar.

“Since that party Hannah dragged her to. The one you and Ron skipped because you wanted to stay in and watch basketball.”

I remembered the party.

I had stayed at Ron’s place. Jenna and Hannah had gone out. Katie had gone with them.

Mark kept talking.

“She hooked up with him that night. They’ve been meeting up on and off since.”

I looked at Mike. Mike looked back at me, then at Mark.

“You sure?” Mike asked.

Mark gave him a look.

“Jack told some people. He’s not exactly the type to not kiss and tell.”

That made it worse. That people knew about it.

Jack was older. One of the guys from Mark’s frat. He was one of those people who was always touching somebody’s shoulder, smiling at somebody’s girlfriend, acting like everything was already his. He had once helped me get a girl at a party and still managed to insult me while doing it. “Not bad for a short guy”.

I looked back at Mark.

“You’re full of shit.”

“I’m not,” he said. “Ask around.”

Mike frowned. “Katie doesn’t seem like his type.”

Mark laughed again.

“No, she is exactly his type. Nice girl. Quiet girl. Virgin. He loves that. A girl to ruin.”

I felt my hand tighten around my glass.

Mark saw it and kept going anyway.

“He said she doesn’t let him do much, but every time they meet up, she goes down on him. He thinks she’s going to sleep with him soon.”

For a second, I could not hear the room because I had gone out with her four times and had done almost nothing.

I was not even sure what I was angry about. Katie had every right to do whatever she wanted. We were not together. I had even hooked up with another girl after our first date, though I barely counted it. Still, hearing Jack’s name next to hers made me feel sick.

Back in Ron and Jenna’s apartment, I looked at both of them and said it again.

“Jack. She’s been seeing Jack.”

Jenna took a sip of wine. She looked suspicious, and then it hit me.

“You knew?”

She set the glass down.

“I knew something was going on.”

I stared at her.

“And you didn’t tell me? You are my best friend…”

She looked at me like I was being dramatic.

“It’s not my job to report on Katie’s life and break her trust, Johny. She also thrusts me.”

I looked away and laughed once, short and ugly.

“Right.”

Ron sat on the arm of the couch, beer in hand, watching both of us.

Jenna leaned forward.

“You’re jealous,” she said.

“I know.”

“You should be. You like her.”

“I know that too.”

“No, John. You really like her.”

I dragged a hand through my hair. Jenna knew better than anyone, even better than Ron knew me. It’s like me, and her were siblings in a past life.”

“Can you not do this right now?”

“She likes you, too,” Jenna said.

Ron nodded. “She does.”

I looked at him. “How do you know?”

“She asked me what your deal was.”

“When?”

“A few times.”

“Then why is she with Jack?”

Jenna answered first.

“Because you’ve taken her out four times and still haven’t made a proper move. You kiss her, hold her hand, and treat her well. But have you considered just slapping her ass to show how much it makes you horny?”

I looked at her.

“That’s your answer?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s my answer.”

Ron drank from his can and said nothing.

Jenna kept going.

“She’s nineteen, John. She wants to feel desired. She wants to be wanted. Jack makes those things easy. Jack shows how much he wants her and doesn’t ask permission to go further.”

I stared at her.

“But Jack?”

“Yes,” she said. “Jack. Bad choice. I didn’t say I approve it.”

She reached across the table, took my cigarette pack without asking, and slid one out. I watched her do it and did not stop her.

Ron shifted beside her.

His jaw tightened.

“You’re talking out of both sides of your mouth,” he said.

Jenna turned to him.

“What?”

“You told Katie not to sit around waiting for him,” Ron said. “You told her to live a little. To stop building her whole life around one guy.”

“And now I’m telling him to stop wasting time,” Jenna said. “That’s not hypocritical.”

“It kind of is.”

She rolled her eyes.

“No, it isn’t.”

Ron stood up.

He looked bigger when he was angry. He had that kind of build. Big hands. Thick arms. Weight in his shoulders. He pushed a hand through his hair and looked at me.

“She’s acting like she isn’t in this,” he said.

Jenna gave him a hard look. “I am in this. That’s exactly why I’m advising my best friend.”

Then she looked back at me.

“Katie is my friend. So are you. If you keep doing this thing where you wait and wait and act like wanting her is some giant moral issue, then yes, I’m going to tell her to move on.”

Ron laughed once.

“Tell him the rest.”

Jenna took a drag from the cigarette and blew the smoke out to the side.

“John,” she said, “do you still love her?”

I nodded before I even thought about it.

She watched my face.

“If she keeps seeing Jack, or anybody else, are you still going to love her?”

“I don’t know.”

She reached across and took my hand.

“Yes, you do.”

Ron spoke over her.

“And you told her he’s not going to go out and actually get over her with some other girl.”

Jenna looked at me and ignored Ron.

“It’s not that I think you can’t get girls,” she said. “You can. You’re attractive. Girls like you. You just don’t do anything unless you really care.”

That part was true.

She went on.

“Katie is different. She still has that whole first love idea in her head. A charming prince to marry and lose her virginity. But I know, deep down, she is also someone with desires, a dark inner sexuality.”

Ron cut in.

“And you told her she can have both, at different times…”

Jenna looked at Ron, pissed, like he was speaking too much already.

“Yes. Exactly.”

She looked back at me.

“She’s confused. She has this dream, but at the same time, she is slowly discovering herself, and she doesn’t believe she can be one at the same time.”

I took a cigarette from the pack. Ron pushed the ashtray toward me. Jenna immediately stole that cigarette, too.

I looked at her.

“You’re unbelievable.”

She smiled a little. “I know.”

I lit hers, then mine.

She leaned back into the couch and crossed one leg over the other.

I smoked and looked at the floor.

“I still don’t get what you want me to do.”

Ron answered before Jenna could.

“She thinks Katie likes you enough to keep coming back to you. She also thinks Katie is stupid enough to keep messing around with Jack while she figures herself out.”

“That is not how I said it,” Jenna said.

“It is what you mean.”

Then Ron looked at me.

“And she thinks you’ll still be here. That’s the part my girlfriend is not telling you.”

I looked at Jenna.

Her face did not change.

“Did you tell Katie that?”

“I told her you care about her,” she said. “Because you do.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”

She leaned forward again. Her eyes were steady on mine.

“You act like this is only about Katie. It isn’t. It’s about you, too. You built this whole image of her in your head. Sweet. Innocent. Different from everybody else. And now that image got cracked.”

I sat there with the cigarette between my fingers and said nothing.

She softened her voice, but not by much; she leaned in, and I could see her pink, pointy nipples looking at me. Her chest was very small; if you just looked at her torso, you would only see that she was a girl because of the nipples, because her boobs had no weight. Her bones were small, and even though she had some hips and a little bit of meat in her thighs, she was very slim in every part. I’ve always considered how it worked between her and Ron, because I could not imagine how disproportionate this giant’s dick must be next to her small frame.

“If you want her, go to her. Talk to her. Stop circling this and do something.”

I took a long drag, then exhaled slowly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s the problem. I really don’t know.”

Ron had been quiet for too long. I could tell he was getting angry with me, not just with Jenna. His whole body had changed. His shoulders were tight. His mouth was set. He looked at me like he was deciding whether to be careful or honest.

Then he chose honest.

“This is where I disagree with her,” he said.

I looked up.

He stepped closer.

“You’re not just upset because it’s Jack. You’re upset because you had Katie on a pedestal.”

“Shut up.”

“No. You did.”

“Ron.”

“You did,” he said again. “You liked that she was sweet. You liked that she was inexperienced. You liked that she was a virgin as if that proved anything about her.”

“Fuck you.”

His face tightened.

“I’m serious.”

I stood up too.

I was not small, but next to Ron I always felt leaner and lighter than I actually was. I was fit, but not built like him. Good shoulders. Flat stomach. Clean-shaven. Sharp jawz. A smile that made girls melt when I actually used it. None of that mattered right then. He was still taller. Still heavier. Still one step from blocking me out completely.

“That’s not what this is,” I said.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s Jack,” I said. “It’s him. It’s the fact that she likes me and still went to him. If she didn’t like me, that’s one thing. Suppose she liked Jack, ok. But she can do those things to a guy she is not at least interested in?”

Ron did not move, but he grew tense and played an ironic voice.

“Oh. So that’s what this is about. You judge her just because she is a girl with desires.”

I opened my mouth and stopped.

And he saw that.

His voice got more aggressive.

“You’ve never had sex. You’re insecure about it. Fine. I get it. But don’t turn that into some judgment about her.”

My face got hot.

“I’m not judging her.”

“Are you sure?”

Jenna stood up fast.

“Okay. Enough.”

Neither of us looked at her.

Ron kept his eyes on me and touched me on my chest.

“I love you, man. I do. But you made her into something perfect in your head, and now you’re acting like she betrayed that. Have you considered that that doesn’t actually change who she is? That those two things are not related?”

I could feel my pulse in my face.

“It’s not like that,” I said. Then, because I was drunk and angry and too honest to stop myself, I added, “But she is fucking acting like a slut.”

Ron pressed his lips; Jenna gave a small gasp.

Then I said, “We’ve been going on dates for four weeks, you said it yourself that she likes me, and she is giving blowjobs to random douche?”

Ron looked at me with his whole face set.

“Yeah,” he said. “She’s blowing him. That’s what he said, right? Because he actually makes a move, unlike you. You sit there waiting for the girl to do it for you. And yeah, Katie is a human being. She’s sexual. Grow the fuck up.”

“Ron,” Jenna screamed.

He did not stop.

“You know what she told Jenna? She said she can’t help it. Because he has a big, thick dick and every time he takes it out, she ends up on her knees and can’t resist it. So what? Does that suddenly make her a different person? No. It just makes you insecure.”

“Ron,” Jenna shouted. “Bedroom. Now.”

That cut through him.

He looked at her, then at me. His face changed fast. The anger dropped, and something embarrassed took its place.

He stood there for a second, breathing hard.

Then he said, “I’m sorry, man. I just… I’m sorry.”

He stepped in, gave me a quick, hard, awkward hug, then let go and walked to the bedroom.

The door shut behind him.

I stayed where I was.

I kind of knew why he had reacted like that.

Jenna had let part of it slip once, months ago. Before that, I had thought she and Ron were one of those high school couples who had done everything first with each other. That was not really the case. I just had not understood how deep it went.

Jenna took another cigarette from my pack.

“He thinks you pity him,” she said. “And judge me.”

“I don’t.”

She lit the cigarette and looked at me over the flame.

“Don’t you?”

“I said I don’t.”

“Then why are you judging Katie for blowing some guy?” she asked. “Why are you acting like you wouldn’t love her if she weren’t a virgin? Why are you acting like you wouldn’t go for her if she slept with someone tomorrow?”

“It’s not that.”

“I know it’s not,” she said.

I looked at her.

She took a drag and tapped ash into the tray.

“Because, unlike Ron, I know that’s how you rationalize things. It’s not how you actually feel them.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means Ron has a short memory,” she said. “He forgot where he was a few months ago, when we almost broke up.”

Second – John and Jenna

“Tell me,” I said.

I was half smiling. The beer had me loose, stupid, and a little mean. Part of me wanted the story because I was curious. Part of me wanted it because Jenna had accused me of judging her and pitying Ron, and maybe she was right. Maybe hearing something ugly would let me feel better than both of them.

“I won’t judge,” I said. “Swear.”

Jenna laughed.

She was very drunk by then. Her cheeks were pink. Her glasses sat crooked on her nose. She reached for the wine bottle, knocked it over, caught it before it tipped all the way, then started laughing harder.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Okay. Fine. You want gossip? You have to smoke with me.”

She tossed me the pack. I lit one for her and one for myself. She took a drag, coughed right away, then tucked her legs under herself on the couch.

“So,” she said. “Ron and me.”

I waited.

“In school, we were not really friends, not like that. He was the huge, quiet guy in the library playing Magic with his nerd friend. I was somewhere else.”

“Where was somewhere else?”

She looked at the cigarette for a second, then said it flat.

“I lost my virginity during a Summer camp. A Counselor named Tyler.”

I stared at her.

“Yeah,” she said. “Exactly.”

She took another drag.

“It was bad. All the girls liked him, thought he was hot. In truth, he was just an older guy who smoked weed and played it cool. I looked him up on Instagram a few months ago, he is working in a gas station because even back then he said that ‘college is for NPC’s'” She said, smiling.

” He led me to his room, and I let it happen. It hurt. I bled on my shorts. He gave me his T-shirt after and basically never spoke to me again.”

“That’s fucked.”

“I know.”

She said it lightly, but her face changed when she said it.

“The weird part is that after that, I wanted sex more, not less. The sex was terrible, but I just wanted it, and the worst part was already gone.”

She reached for the wine, poured some into the glass, and drank it.

“So I started sleeping with guys during that year,” she said. “One guy from swim. Then his friend. Then parties. Then more parties.

I was shocked, but curious.

“How old were you?”

“18. Remember, I’m two years older than you guys.”

“I always forget.” Jenna moved from school to school all the time, so she sometimes got delayed in class, and therefore, she was older than the rest of the group, though one wouldn’t have noticed because of her jovial vibe.

“By senior year, I think it was fifteen or sixteen guys. Maybe more. I stopped counting.”

I watched her. She was not showing off; she was saying it like it was nothing, all with her high-pitched, sweet voice. I was shocked. Jenna? Sleeping around? The girl who has the perfect notes in class, studies every day, and wears hoodies?

“At first I felt used,” she said. “Then I realized I was using them too.”

“For what?”

She shrugged.

“Attention. Power. Relief. Curiosity. The feeling of being wanted. The feeling of a thick cock inside me, pouring its juices. Guys slapping my ass and making me feel small. The rush of doing forbidden things no one thought a girl like me would.”

Then she smiled a little.

“I just liked sex. Getting fucked, Johny.”

I swallowed. Hearing this doll-looking girl speak like this was getting me horny.

“How many did Ron know about?” I asked.

“0 at first.”

She drew her knees closer.

“He asked me out in February of senior year. Just walked up to me in the hallway with a folded note in his hand. He was shaking.”

“That sounds like him.”

“It was adorable,” she said. “I thought I knew exactly how that was going to go. I thought I’d sleep with him and move on.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

Her voice dropped.

“He was too kind. Too careful. He remembered little things. He got me hot chocolate because I once said that I hated coffee. He actually listened to me.”

She gave a small smile.

“I liked him almost immediately. That was also the problem.”

“So you waited.”

“I waited.”

“Why”

“Because girls know that you kind of keep a guy by holding to the forbidden fruit.”

She looked down at her glass.

“Then I found out he was a virgin.”

“How?”

She laughed once.

“We were in his car. It was his 18th birthday, so I thought it would be a good gift. I touched him through his jeans, and he froze. Completely. Then he admitted it.”

She shook her head like she still found it hard to believe.

“This giant eighteen-year-old boy with shoulders like that, and no one had ever touched him. And instead of being turned off, I felt protective. I didn’t want to be careless with him.”

I leaned forward.

“So what happened?”

“We stayed slow for a while,” she said. “Holding hands. Kissing. All of that. Then prom. He was so handsome in that tuxedo, and I was wearing this beautiful blue dress. I was his first.”

She said it simply.

“He tried to be all gallant, going hard. He sucked at it, but I loved it, because I loved him.”

“And like, did you know he might view you differently from what you are?”

“I suspected. I mean, deep down, I wanted to believe he knew and didn’t care. That that specific part didn’t matter, as it shouldn’t.”

She got more serious then, pressing her lips.

“I did know he viewed me differently. I just didn’t have the guts to tell him. I told myself, ‘It’s 2017, none of this matters at all.’ But if it did to him? I should have told him. He would have stayed, I think…”

Then, put her hands over her mouth to muffle her hysterical high laugh and looked at me.

I asked, “What?”

“Promised you won’t tell Ron I told you this?”

“Of course.”

“Ron asked me like 15 times before our first time if I was sure, if I really wanted to, and all. It was so sweet, but I just wanted to eat him alive at that point. And honestly, only a virgin like him wouldn’t have noticed what I looked like down there.” She looked me in the eyes, then to my crouch, probably realizing I was hard, and continued.

“Oh, sweet John. Can you picture it? There I was, naked, my legs open, my pussy soaking, and this sweet giant looking at me like I’m the most precious thing in the world. I didn’t need to tell him to go down on me; he just went and said, ‘It’s so beautiful. So different. And I’m like, ‘yea of course. You like hentai, those little sweet imaginary pussies, and I’m wrecked, open from so many cocks.”

I was looking at her, shocked and horny, my dick was pulsing. She moved a little, now facing me, her nipples were hard, and I saw a small wet point in her shorts around her pussy area.

“Seriously, John, he sucked my labia like it was the most flavorful thing in the world. And like, it was not ‘good’, but it was, because I liked that he liked it. He liked my dark labia, which I used to hide…” Then she looked at me again, my eyes wide open, “Oh, John, you are such a virgin.”

I wanted her to keep describing her pussy, I needed her. I just wanted to see it. By now i could see her nipples through her blouse, her beautiful, small chest, her pointy nipples. She looked so innocent. But as I looked at her slim white thighs, all I could picture was a gaped hole, dark labia, beaten meat. I was so horny.

“I took him to me fast and made him slide. I wanted to make it sweet, but his cock slid into me in one swift motion, making me gasp. Still, he asked me if I was liking it. If it was hurting. I touched my clitoris while he went, and after he came, he just continued touching it. Our sex life was amazing. He was learning so much…”

“Until,” I asked

And then she turned serious.

“During the summer, one of my old hookups saw us at a party and decided to be disgusting. He made a joke about my body. About the way I look down there. About things I used to do. He said, and I quote, ‘that used butterfly pussy’. Ron heard all of it.”

I did not say anything.

She tapped ash into the tray.

“That was the first time I saw Ron look at me like I had tricked him,” she said. “He thought I lied, even if I didn’t. I never told him anything because he never asked.”

“You almost broke up.”

“Yeah.”

“Because he thought you were innocent like him, you look like it.”

And she did. I already knew she had partners before Ron; she let it slip once, and even then, I was shocked because everyone thinks they are the typical high school couple that lost their virginity together. Or if they don’t, they think Ron was the one taking her virginity.

She looked at me for a second.

“Yes,” she said. “Or at least he wanted to be first in a way that felt important. He wanted innocence. He wanted to feel special. Or maybe he didn’t want to hold hands with a girl who made every guy laugh at him. I don’t blame misogyny, I just hate that it affected me so much at one point.”

Her voice was calm, but anger lay beneath it.

“He got me. All of me.”

I looked down at my beer.

“That’s why he snapped tonight,” she said. “He heard you and thought you were doing the same thing he did. And worse, that means you would also laugh at his back.”

“Was I?”

She held my eyes.

“A little.”

I let out a breath.

Jenna took another drink and kept going.

“That’s the part boys still don’t get. Girls our age are having sex, learning things, and making mistakes. Good luck finding a 19-year-old girl with fewer than 5 bodies. Meanwhile, the inexperienced are the ones who are sweet and decent. We know that. We are fine with it. Some even like it. We know.”

She pointed the cigarette at me.

“You think Katie cares that you’re a virgin because she is also a virgin?”

I said nothing.

“She doesn’t,” Jenna said. “That is not it. It’s what it actually means. 20 years ago, you would have had sex by now, broken some hearts. Girls just dated, so guys like you have options. Now, we get to explore with those guys we never could because we knew they weren’t boyfriend material, or the ones who would have already been taken. The ones we fantasized in smut. So guys like you and Ron now have to wait.”

I looked at her, confused.

“She likes that you’re inexperienced,” she said. “Not because she’s a virgin too. But because she loves you, and that also proves you are not a douche. The husband material guys are virgins now. And also, in my opinion, she likes the idea of not being the small girl. She still has this romantic idea, which is why she’s saving herself. If she could only let that part go…”

The room felt smaller all of a sudden.

I shifted in my seat.

Jenna noticed. Of course, she noticed.

She leaned back into the couch.

“But that’s the thing. Most guys, like you, the good ones, leave in confusing times. The girl you will marry probably already fucked more guys than they can imagine, while you will get there virgins. You masturbate looking at pornstars with open pussies, used, big labia, you crave it, you want that. It’s your brain fantasizing about reality. But then you freeze when that shows up. And then we get this limbo of single girls and guys that could be together if you just admitted it.”

I rubbed a hand over my face.

My body had already reacted to what she was saying, and I hated that she could probably tell. It made everything worse. The jealousy. The humiliation. The fact that I was still listening.

Jenna’s voice softened.

“She wants tenderness from you,” she said. “She wants to feel like she matters. She wants someone she can relax with. Someone who won’t make everything feel like force.”

I looked at her.

“And you,” she said, “want her to be less real than she is.”

She let it sit for a second, then said, “Ron is mad because he knows what it feels like to realize you were not first and hate yourself for caring. Part of him still cares. He hates that too.”

She looked down at her hand around the glass.

“He thinks of himself as later in the story,” she said. “He thinks of himself as number twenty, or whatever is the number of guys I’ve fucked, and he hates that it means anything to him at all. He wants to be above it. He isn’t.”

She looked back at me.

“I wish he loved me without that part. I really do.”

The alcohol had made her looser, but not less sharp. If anything, she was sharper because she had stopped trying to be careful.

Then she said, “But you are softer than Ron.”

I gave a dry laugh. “That sounds insulting.”

“It isn’t.”

She reached over and took my hand.

“You think more. You are kind.”

I looked at her. Put my hands on my face and said, “She sucked Jack’s dick. How can I? And she told people it’s because she can’t resist his thick cock…”

She looked at me with a grin; she loves this part, where she gets to mock me.

“About that. That’s not an issue either. First, I’ve had too many big cocks to know that’s not important. It’s just how our bodies react when we see them. But it’s not important. And thrust me, Ron is not lacking at all there. But what makes sex with him good is that I actually love him. And besides. She already knows what you look like, and she prefers it to Jack.”

“How would she know?”

She smiled in a way I did not like at all.

“Because of that moment last semester when Hannah and I put you to bed.”

My face went hot.

“What?”

She did not look sorry.

“You told Katie?”

“Hannah did,” Jenna said. “And Katie got defensive immediately.”

I could feel my whole body go rigid.

“What did she say?”

Jenna’s expression softened.

“She said bigger is not better. She said big hurts sometimes. Just retelling what she heard once. She said you sounded perfect.”

I did not move.

Jenna watched my face.

I did not answer.

She squeezed my hand once and let go.

“Here’s the other truth,” she said. “If what you really want is to be first, to get the innocent version, to get her untouched, then you need to move now. Tonight. Tomorrow. Before Jack gets there first.”

I looked at her.

She was drunk enough that her words blurred a little at the edges, but the point was sharp.

“You can’t sit here forever,” she said. “Either go after Katie, or you will get her when she is Jenna.”

She leaned back, almost slipping sideways into the couch cushions, then laughed at herself.

“I am so drunk,” she said. “This is probably too much.”

I stood up. A little too fast.

My head was buzzing. My chest was tight. My thoughts were worse than before, not better.

“I should go.”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning in, “You should.”

She put her hand on my croch, I was hard.

Then she said, “John.”

I look at her.

“It’s not always that a girl will see your small dick and find it cute,” Jenna said. “Remember that part.”

She gave a peck on my cheek, and we both got up.

“I’ll go to her place.”

She slapped my ass and turned her back.

I heard her speak when she got into her room.

“Ron, I want fuck.”

Then I left.

Third, John and Katie

Two weeks later, I was in Katie’s dorm room with a warm beer in my hand and no real idea how I had made it there without losing my nerve.

Her dorm room, which she shared with Hannah, smelled like cheap vanilla body spray and damp towels. There were fairy lights over the window, blinking red and green for no reason except that she liked them. A pile of clothes sat in the corner. The desk chair was covered in books and a denim jacket.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed.

She was standing between the closet and the mirror in her underwear.

That alone was enough to make me hard.

I had seen her in swimsuits, tight jeans, short dresses, all of it. This was different. White bra. Black high-waisted underwear. Light brown hair is still messy from the towel. Round tortoiseshell glasses were back on her face. Katie was hot, not hot magazine, but hot when you really took your time looking at her. She was small, like Jenna, but thicker. Her thighs were thick, not fat, giving her a more compressed frame. Her ass was big, in a way that stood out when you looked at her from the side. Her chest was small, but bigger than Jenna’s, as one could actually hold her boobs, a handful is enough, as 50 C would say. Her waist was thinner than her hips, but close to her shoulders, giving her this pear shape, and she had some, but not much, fat on her belly. A real body. Strong and soft at the same time.

Hot. One that screamed ‘ready to procreate,’ in biological terms. She didn’t usually wear sexy clothes. Only on special occasions, and even then, she was more modest. In college, you would spot her wearing tight jeans and a hoodie, at night maybe a sweater, a button-down shirt, or a top, maybe a skirt if she wanted to feel cute.

She bent to pick up a skirt, and I saw freckles across her lower back.

Then she looked at me in the mirror and caught me staring.

“What?”

She was smiling when she said it.

“Nothing,” I said. “You look really good.”

She turned toward me properly then.

Freckles across her nose, too. That soft face. She still looked sweet. She still looked shy.

She crossed the room and knelt on the bed in front of me, one knee between my legs.

The mattress dipped under her weight. Her hands came up to my shoulders. Her skin was still warm from the shower.

“We should talk about tonight,” she said.

I put the beer down on the carpet before I dropped it.

My hands went to her waist. I could feel the softness there under my thumbs, the shape of her, the heat of her skin through the thin fabric. She was solid in my hands. Real.

“Yeah?”

She leaned in and kissed me.

 

 

At first, it was soft. Then it wasn’t. Mint gum—a little beer. The faint taste of the vape, she thought, I had not noticed. I kissed her back and forgot every decent thought I had been trying to hold on to.

When she shifted closer, I felt her thigh against me and had to stop myself from making some humiliating sound.

She pulled back just enough to look at me.

Her glasses had fogged a little.

“I’ve been thinking about this all week,” she said.

My stomach dropped.

“We don’t have to do anything,” I said quickly. “I mean it.”

“No,” she said. “I know.”

Her hand moved to my belt and rested there. Not undoing it yet. Just there.

“I want to,” she said. “I just didn’t want to push.”

Katie smiled.

Her hand stayed on my belt. I could feel it through the denim. I was getting hard, and she knew.

I nodded.

She kissed me again, slower this time.

Then she said, against my mouth, “And because I really want you inside me.”

That went through me so hard I had to grip her waist to keep my hands steady.

She sat back on her heels and looked at me.

The room was quiet except for the fairy lights clicking faintly and somebody yelling down the hall.

“Do you have condoms?” she asked.

I blinked.

“What?”

She laughed under her breath.

“Condoms, John.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I have them.”

“Good.”

She bit her lip, then shook her head at herself like she was embarrassed by how direct she was being.

“I’m serious,” she said. “Because if we keep doing this tonight, I’m not going to want to stop.”

Fourth, the party

The Uber dropped us at the corner of the fraternity row, and the bass was already coming through.

Hannah leaned forward before the car had even fully stopped.

“Oh my God,” she said. “This is packed.”

She was already drunk. She had been drinking vodka cranberry out of a pink Hydro Flask in the backseat, and now she was hanging off Mike’s arm with that loose, reckless energy she got when she was two drinks past caring. Her blonde hair kept catching in her lip gloss. She kept brushing it back and laughing at nothing. Her skirt was too short, her white, cropped shirt rode up every time she threw her hands in the air, and the pink SATURDAYS ARE FOR THE BOYS letters across her chest looked stupid enough to be perfect for her.

Mike looked at her and said, “You are going to be unbearable tonight.”

“I’m always unbearable,” Hannah said. “That’s why you love me.”

Katie squeezed my hand when we got out.

Her hand was warm and a little damp. She was nervous. She was trying to hide it, but I could feel it in the way her fingers kept tightening around mine, then loosening, then tightening again.

“You okay?” I asked.

She looked up at the house, then back at me. “Yeah.”

“You don’t sound so.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just too loud already.”

She wore a black dress that fit close through the waist and hips, showing enough when she moved. Her hair was down, wavy past her shoulders. Her glasses were on because, as she had told me twice already, she was not walking into a frat house half blind for the sake of looking hotter in photos.

Behind us, Ron shut the Uber door and straightened his shirt.

He had actually worn a dark blue button-down. Sleeves rolled once. He looked too put-together for the street we were standing on. Jenna was tucked under his arm, already a little tipsy, black hair sticking to her cheeks from the heat of the car.

Hannah pointed at Ron and laughed.

“Look at you,” she said. “You look like a dad.”

Ron looked down at himself. “It’s one button down.”

“It’s an ironed button-down,” Jenna said. “But next time you’re ironing it yourself.”

“I iron all my shirts.”

And Jenna laughed, “I wish, honey.”

At the door, a pledge with a buzz cut and a neon tank put one arm out.

“List.”

“We’re with Mark,” I said.

“List.”

“I’m calling him.”

The guy shrugged. “Call him.”

He was not looking at me anymore. He was looking at Hannah.

Hannah smiled at him like she was about to cause him trouble on purpose.

“Hi,” she said.

He tried to stay serious and failed for half a second.

I called Mark.

He picked up on the third ring.

“Yo.”

“Yo faggot” I shouted, “We’re outside. Your guy’s blocking us.”

Mark laughed. “Of course he is. Hold on.”

A minute later, he shoved through the doorway in khaki shorts and loafers, looking smug before he had even spoken.

“Jesus Christ,” he said to the pledge. “They’re with me.”

The pledge stepped aside.

Mark clapped me on the shoulder and looked at the rest of us.

“Hannah, you look so hot.”

“I am hot.”

“I know,” Mark said. Then he gave me a bro fist, “Ready to have fun, Romeo?” and blinked at Jenna.

I looked at him. “The real fun will come after,” he said, opening his eyes. Jenna didn’t like it, as she squeezed my hand, but I needed to answer Mark.

He grinned wider. “Welcome in.”

The house hit all at once. Heat. Beer. Sweat. Vape smoke. Cheap cologne. Some girl screaming the chorus of a song she definitely did not know.

“Okay,” Katie said quietly beside me. “This is awful.”

I laughed. “We can leave.”

She looked at me and smiled. “Not yet.”

We got pushed into the kitchen with everyone else. There was a makeshift bar made from a board on top of two trash cans. Bottles everywhere. A bowl of pink punch that looked like a medical risk. Somebody had spilled Fireball, and the whole counter smelled of sweet, burnt alcohol.

Hannah went straight for it.

“Shots,” she said.

Mike caught her wrist. “No.”

She pulled free. “You are not my father.”

She grabbed Fireball anyway and poured it into red cups with a shaky hand, spilling some down the side of the bottle.

“Oh, tragic,” she said, then licked the spill off her hand and handed cups out.

Katie took one from her and looked at me like she wanted permission to regret it later.

“Just one,” I said.

“Famous last words,” Jenna said.

Katie drank it, coughed, laughed at herself, then took another one when Hannah shoved it into her hand.

That was when I saw Jessica.

Jessica was a girl from my class, never too astonishing to be noticed, with whom I had hooked up on some occasions in the past, and who Katie always despised, the reason I only found out later.

She was across the kitchen in a denim skirt and a black bralette, hair in a messy bun, talking to some guy from another college who was getting all the attention. Then she saw me and her whole face lit up in a way that made me immediately want to leave the room.

“John,” she said, pushing through people. “Hi.”

Before I could do anything, she hugged me.

It was too tight and too familiar.

By the time she let go, Katie had gone still beside me.

I turned and saw the exact expression Jenna always called her ass face. Mouth closed. Eyes narrowed. Nostrils just slightly flared. Not loud jealousy. Worse. Focused jealousy.

Jessica smiled at Katie. “And you are?”, pretending not to know the girl you have side-eyed for the past year.

I said it before thinking.

“This is Katie. My girlfriend.”

Jessica blinked once. Then smiled harder.

“Oh. Cute.”

Katie looked at me after Jessica walked off.

Then she bit back a smile.

“I don’t hate the sound of it ‘girlfriend'”

And I kissed her on the cheek.

“But,” she said, stepping closer, “don’t let her touch you like that again.”

I laughed. “Noted.”

Then the music changed, and Hannah appeared out of nowhere, already in motion.

“Dance floor,” she shouted.

She grabbed Katie’s wrist, and Jenna grabbed Ron’s hand, and suddenly we were all getting pushed into the living room where the furniture had been shoved against the walls.

The room was darker there. Blue and purple lights. A floor that stuck slightly when you stepped. Too many people are moving too close together.

Hannah was gone immediately, pressed up against Mike, dancing like there was no one else in the room. Mike looked half-embarrassed and half-thrilled. But he knew what he was doing. Nothing better than dancing with a baddie to get girls’ attention.

Katie turned to me.

She had that flushed, glassy look she got when she was right at the edge of drunk. Her glasses had slipped lower on her nose. A piece of hair kept falling across her mouth, and she kept pushing it away.

Then she put her arms around my neck and moved in close enough that I forgot every useful thought in my head.

She looked up at me. “You look really hot in that, you know?”

Since we started dating a month ago, a day after that night with Ron and Jenna, she has taken the time to improve my style, going from button-down shirts under a sweater to now rocking an open shirt, a tank top, and black trousers. Like she was making me the bad boy she was attracted to, while maintaining the husband-material guy. I guess for her was the best of both worlds in a way.

“Well, I have the best fashion counselor advising me,” I said, grabbing her ass like Jenna had told me to.

She turned, guided my hands to her hips, and leaned back against me. Then she started moving slowly to the beat, and I had to look away from everybody else in the room just to stay normal and not get a hard-on right there.

Next to us, Jenna was dancing with no self-consciousness at all. Ron kept trying to act like he was above it, while Jenna was pressing her butt against him.

Jenna looked over once, saw my face, and laughed.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Look at him.”

“Shut up,” I said.

Katie twisted just enough to look up at me. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Jenna grinned and whispered while pointing. “He’s hard.”

Katie actually blushed at that, which only made it worse.

Then Ron tapped my shoulder.

“Beer pong,” he said. “Mark’s setting up in the back.”

I looked at Katie.

She stepped away from me and fixed her glasses. “Go.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m getting water anyway.”

“You’re getting more punch,” Jenna said.

Katie smiled. “Maybe.”

Ron grabbed my arm and pulled me through the crowd before I could say anything else.

The back room had a folding table, warm beer in a cooler, and about six guys pretending beer pong was a varsity sport.

Mark pointed at me. “Finally. We needed someone with fear in his eyes.”

Ron handed me a beer. “You’re on my side.”

I twisted the cap off and looked back toward the kitchen.

I could see the girls from where I was standing.

Katie had a cup of beer. Jenna was talking with both hands. Hannah was laughing too hard at something and nearly spilled her drink on herself.

Then Bryan walked over.

I knew who he was. Friend of Jack’s. Same kind of confidence, but Bryan was less confrontational—same habit of acting as if he belonged in every space before he even opened his mouth.

He said something to Hannah that I could not hear.

Hannah laughed, touched his arm, and said something back.

Bryan leaned in. Jenna rolled her eyes. Katie laughed.

Then Hannah slid her hand down his chest and left it low on him, right over his crotch, like it was a joke and a challenge at the same time.

Jenna snorted into her drink.

Katie said, “Hannah.”

Hannah did not move her hand.

Bryan just grinned.

Something in my chest tightened so fast it felt physical.

Because it wasn’t only what I was seeing; it was what it pulled up.

Jenna is trying not to laugh and failing.

“John.”

Ron’s voice sounded far away.

“John, are you throwing or what?”

I did not answer.

*4 months ago*

The club was called Vortex.

Purple sign. Purple lights. Purple wristband at the door. The kind of place that took pride in being sticky.

It was cold outside and disgusting inside. Too many bodies. Too much perfume. Too much spilled vodka. Music so loud nobody talked, they just shouted directly into each other’s faces and pretended that counted.

We had a booth near the bathroom hall.

Mike was already gone enough to be dancing with somebody he would not remember. Mark was at the bar with his father’s card. Ron had one arm around Jenna, his expression that of a man pretending he had not agreed to be there. Hannah was in a silver dress that caught every light in the room. Katie had on dark jeans, a white cropped top, and lipstick darker than usual.

I had a rum and Coke in my hand and was trying to talk to a blonde girl from econ who was smiling but not listening.

Then I saw Katie stand up.

She took somebody’s hand.

Not Mark. They stopped talking a few weeks ago.

Some other guy. Dark hair. Leather jacket. Smug face.

I watched her let him pull her away from the booth toward the smoking area.

My stomach dropped so hard it felt like a physical fall.

I leaned toward Ron.

“I’m getting air.”

He barely glanced at me. “You good?”

“Yeah.”

I was not.

I followed them.

The alley was cold and wet and lit by the red light over the exit door.

They were against the wall before I had even fully stepped outside.

His hand was in her hair. The other one was down the front of her jeans. She was kissing him back, as if she wanted him there, as she had already made the decision.

I stopped walking.

For a second, I could not make myself move.

I remember thinking very clearly, They are leaving together.

I remember thinking, He is going to take her somewhere private, then home, fuck her, and I am going back inside like an idiot. By then, I did not know she, like me, was still a virgin. But I also didn’t think she was the type to have one-night stands.

I went back in and started drinking more, way more.

Tequila. More rum. Beer. Gin. Whatever Mark shoved into my hand.

At some point, Hannah was dancing on a bench, and Ron was telling her to get down.

I drank more.

Then I was in the bathroom. On my knees. Throwing up until my ribs hurt. I heard somebody outside the stall door.

“John?”

It was Jenna.

I tried to answer, but I got sick again instead.

“Oh my God,” Jenna said. “Ron.”

A second later, Ron was there.

“Move,” he said.

“I’m moving.”

The stall door opened, and Ron looked down at me with that specific expression he only got when one of us was truly pathetic.

“Jesus, man.”

“I know,” I said, except it came out broken and wet and barely understandable.

Hannah appeared behind them, leaning into the doorway.

“Oh no,” she said, then started laughing. “He is destroyed.”

I was — wet, from the bathroom water, my puke, probably piss as well.

Ron looked back at her. “Helpful.”

“I’m just saying.”

Mark was somewhere behind all of them, still loud, still drunk. “I can get him an Uber.”

“No,” Ron said. “I’ll take him.”

Hannah pushed forward. “You stay. We’re closing the tabs. Jenna and I will take him.”

Ron looked at Jenna.

Jenna looked at me, then at Hannah, then back at Ron. “We can get him home.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Ron bent down and hauled me up by the arm.

“Don’t die,” he said quietly.

Then I was outside in the cold between Jenna and Hannah, each of them holding one of my arms while I stumbled.

In the Uber, Hannah kept talking.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Did you see his face when he came back inside? He looked haunted.”

“Stop,” Jenna said.

“I’m serious. He definitely saw something.”

“Stop.”

“Do you think he saw Katie with that guy?”

Jenna was quiet for a second.

Then she said, “Probably.”

Hannah let out a little high laugh, the one that crinkled the corners of her nose.

“He likes her, one can see.”

“You think she is fucking him? He’s ugly,” Hannah said.

Jenna stood still for a few seconds and then said, “She should. Get over it. Lose that V card and start enjoying. But she just texted me saying she is in her dorm already.”

Hannah poked her. “Maybe she is having some action. Our little bird.”

Jesse didn’t laugh. “Have you ever met a girl who texts her friend right before getting laid?”

Hannah agreed, “She’s wasting her freshman year.”

By the time we got to Jenna’s apartment, I was barely conscious, my eyes were closed, and I only heard vague sounds. Jenna and Hannah went to Jenna and Ron’s apartment.

I remember the white walls.

I remember Jenna fumbling with the keys.

I remember Hannah saying, “He cannot lie down like this. He smells disgusting.”

Jenna turned on the lamp. “I know.”

They sat me down on the edge of the bed in the guest room.

“Arms up,” Jenna said.

I tried, but by that point, I was more on the other side.

“He’s already asleep,” I heard Hannah mumble, kind of annoyed.

They pulled off my jacket. Then my shirt.

Jenna recoiled. “Oh, my God. Yeah, no. Everything has to come off,” she spoke in an assertive voice, no malice at all.

“Oh no, Jenna, please, I don’t want to…”

“What? He threw up on himself. His pants smell like piss. He is not lying like this.”

They took off my shoes. My jeans..Then they pulled off my boxers. They didn’t comment on it before; it was just normal procedure.

The room went quiet for one second.

Then Hannah laughed.

Not a huge laugh at first. One short burst. Sharp and high.

Jenna put a hand over her mouth.

“Hannah,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Hannah said, already laughing again. “I’m sorry. I just was not expecting that.”

I tried to cover myself. My arms felt heavy and useless. Jenna noticed “John? Are you ok?” worried. She put her ear to my mouth, and I tried to speak, but all I made was make a sound.

“He is not here, I think.” She said.

Hannah looked at me, then at Jenna, and her eyes were already bright with the kind of mean amusement drunk people call honesty.

“It’s tiny,” she said.

“Hannah.”

“It is.”

“Hannah, seriously.”

She leaned in a little, not touching, just looking with the absolute lack of boundaries drunk girls sometimes have with men they do not think can hurt them.

“It’s like a thumb,” she said, then looked at Jenna for confirmation. “Right?”

Jenna was still trying not to laugh.

“I hate you,” she said, which in that moment meant yes.

Hannah laughed harder.

“Oh my God, it really is.”

I wanted to disappear. I wanted to stop existing. I wanted them both out of the room. I wanted clothes back on.

Instead, I was drunk, half-naked, and stuck there while they looked at me like I was something between a joke and an accident.

Then my body betrayed me.

I felt it before I fully understood it, that awful involuntary reaction to being looked at, being exposed, being humiliated. I was getting hard.

Hannah saw it immediately.

“No way,” she said, then laughed so hard she had to sit down on the edge of the bed. “No way. Jenna, oh my God.”

Jenna turned away for one second, laughing into her hand now, shoulders shaking. But he couldn’t hold it.

“This is not funny,” she said, still laughing.

“It moved,” Hannah said. “It actually moved.”

“Stop saying it like that.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t. This is crazy.”

I was awake enough by then to understand every word and helpless enough to do nothing about it.

Hannah wiped at the corners of her eyes.

Then her face changed. The laughter stayed, but it got crueler.

“Do you think Katie knows?”

Jenna dropped her hand.

“What?”

“Do you think she knows?” Hannah repeated. “Like, actually knows.”

“Hannah, shut up.”

“I’m serious.”

“She’s obsessed with him.” Jenna breathed, “Pretty sure she hooked up with that guy to make John jealous.”

“How would she know, Hannah? Does Katie have X-Ray vision?”

Hannah thought about it and then said, “Well, he does have small dick energy? Doesn’t he? But I guess it’s also Katie’s vibe.”

Jenna put her hands on her hips, kind of mad. “Hannah, stop it already.” But then she looked at me, my dick was pulsing, and she gave a small giggle. She said, “Oh, sweet Johnny,” and she touched my hair.

“She should know what she’s getting.”

Jenna stared at her.

“That’s disgusting.”

Hannah shrugged. “I’m just being honest.”

Then she looked back at me.

“Does she think you’re bigger than this?”

“Shut up,” Jenna said again, sharper now.

But Hannah was in it. Too drunk. Too pleased with herself.

“You know what’s funny,” she said, talking to Jenna now but still looking at me, “I hooked up with that lacrosse guy last night, the tall one with the scar on his chin. And now I’m looking at this, and my brain genuinely cannot process both things existing in the same universe.”

Jenna laughed once despite herself.

“Oh my God,” she said. “That is awful.”

“It’s true.”

Then Jenna, drunk and slipping back into amusement, actually looked at me again and said, “It’s kind of cute, actually.”

Hannah pointed at her. “You are a fucking hypocrite. You always say Ron is huge.”

Jesse was now looking for sheets and answered, “Yes. And I love it. But it’s cute. I like cute, and Katie seems the type to love cute.”

Hannah laughed, “She does. Maybe she should have fucked that guy to learn.”

My face burned so hard it hurt.

I managed, “Please.”

It came out weak.

They both went quiet for a second.

Jenna looked guilty.

Hannah did not.

She tilted her head and looked at me with fake pity.

“Aw.” Hannah touched my cheek and then moved to my dick, and just gave a little wiggle, which made serious and ethical Jesse burst with laughter.

The blond pulled out her phone.

“What are you doing?” Jenna said.

“Nothing.”

“Hannah.”

The flash went off.

I shut my eyes too late.

Jenna stood up. “Are you serious?”

“I’m deleting it.”

“Delete it now.”

“After showing it to Katie.”

Hannah laughed and tucked the phone into her bra. “Relax.”

Jenna did not stop her.

Then they left the room.

Still laughing. Lower now. More tired. But still laughing.

I lay there with no clothes on and the taste of vomit still in my mouth and understood, in the most complete way I ever had, what humiliation could do to a person.

The worst part came later.

Not that night exactly. Later. After.

That night, I jerked off 5 times, thinking about Hannah and Jesse watching me naked. I felt disgusting, but I just couldn’t stop.

After that, Hannah never had to say much.

At breakfast the next morning, she looked at my plate and said, “Do you want baby carrots or is that too on the nose?”

Jenna choked on her coffee.

A week later, on the quad, Hannah saw me from twenty feet away, held up her pinky finger, and smiled like we shared a joke.

If Katie walked into a room, Hannah would glance at me, then at Katie, then bite back a laugh.

Hannah apparently told her, probably even showed her that picture, but Jesse was right, Katie did like it.

Back in the frat house, somebody hit my shoulder with a ping pong ball.

“John,” Mark shouted. “Wake up, man.”

I blinked.

Ron was staring at me.

“You good?”

I looked back toward the kitchen.

Hannah still had her hand low on Bryan. Katie was laughing at something Jenna had said. Nobody was looking at me.

“Yeah,” I said.

Ron did not buy it. “You sure?”

Mark yelled again, “Are you two dating now or what?”

Ron grabbed a ball and handed it to me.

“Throw,” he said.

Fifth, where are they?

The cup went in.

Red plastic hit the beer, tilted once, then sank.

Mark threw both arms in the air as he had just won something that mattered.

“Game,” he yelled. “Game. Do not ever doubt me again.”

“You made one cup,” Mike said.

“I made the cup,” Mark shot back. “That is what history remembers.”

Everybody around the table shouted anyway. Somebody slapped the table hard enough to send beer onto the floor. Ron hit my shoulder with one of those heavy pats that always felt more serious than he meant them to.

“Nice shot,” he said.

I was barely there.

I had been drinking whatever was left in abandoned cups on the edge of the table because I was too drunk to care and too wound up to stop. Warm beer. Flat seltzer. Something sweet that might have been jungle juice. I could still see Hannah’s hand low on Bryan. I could still hear Katie laughing from across the room. The bass from downstairs kept coming up through the floor and settling in my jaw.

Ron looked at me properly then.

“You okay?”

“No,” I said.

It came out thick.

The room felt too hot. Too crowded. My skin felt tight.

“Where are they?” I asked.

Ron frowned. “Who?”

“The girls.”

He looked toward the hall. “Bathroom, maybe?”

I was already moving before he finished.

I hit a stack of empty cans with my knee on the way out and sent them rattling across the floor. Nobody cared. The whole first floor had gotten louder since we started the game. The living room was packed. Bodies everywhere. Sweat. Smoke. Perfume. Somebody was standing on the coffee table and yelling the words to a song nobody else was singing.

I kept looking for Katie.

Black dress. Glasses. Freckles. Nothing.

I found Mark in the kitchen, pouring cheap vodka into his own beer because, apparently, the night had reached that point.

“Mark,” I said, grabbing his arm.

He looked at me and blinked too slowly. “What?”

“Where are they?”

“Who?”

“Hannah. Jenna. Katie.”

He squinted at me, then at the room behind me.

“No clue,” he said. Then he grabbed a pledge walking past with a tray of Jell-O shots. “Hey. Bryan upstairs?”

The pledge nodded. “Yeah. Some truth or dare thing. A lot of people up there.”

Mark looked back at me and grinned in that way he had when he smelled drama.

“Oh,” he said. “That’s where they are.”

Ron had appeared behind me without me noticing.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Mike heard that and immediately pointed at himself. “I’m coming.”

“No one asked you,” Mark said.

Mike shrugged. “Still coming.”

We went up the stairs in a line that should not have trusted itself.

The second floor was quieter, but only in the way a closed door is quieter than a party. The music up there was slower. There was weed in the air. Somebody laughed behind one door. Somebody else was definitely having a bad conversation behind the other person.

At the end of the hall, one room was lit red.

Mark did not knock. He just opened the door.

The room was packed.

Too many people. Maybe fifteen. Maybe more. Most of them were on the floor. A few were on the bed. One girl was sitting on the windowsill with her shoes off. There was a lava lamp on the desk, throwing red light over everything. Somebody had a phone flashlight on for no reason except that drunk people loved making moments feel more important than they were.

There were bottles in the middle of the floor.

Truth or dare.

Of course.

I saw Hannah first.

She was sitting in Bryan’s lap with one heel off and the other hanging halfway off her foot. Her silver dress had ridden high on her thighs. Her lipstick was smudged at one corner. She was holding a bottle of tequila by the neck and laughing at something a guy across from her had said.

Then I saw Katie.

She was on the floor with her back against the side of the bed, dress hiked up more than she probably realized, glasses crooked, cheeks bright red. Her hair had come loose in the heat and was all over the place. She had a cup in one hand and was smiling at something Jenna was saying.

Then she saw me.

Her whole face changed.

“Johnny,” she yelled.

The room went quiet for one second, in that way rooms do when someone says a name too loudly.

Katie shoved herself upright using the bed frame for balance.

“Hi,” she said, as she had just found the thing she had been looking for.

Then she crossed the room badly and fast and ran into me hard enough that I had to grab her to keep both of us upright.

She kissed me before I could say anything.

Not a careful kiss. Not a sweet one. A drunk one. Immediate. Open-mouthed, too, and exactly what she wanted.

A few people in the room cheered.

Mike, somewhere behind me, said, “Okay.”

Katie pulled back just enough to talk against my mouth.

“Where were you?”

“Beer pong.”

“You were gone forever.”

“It was ten minutes.”

“It was horrible,” she said. “I hated it.”

Then she kissed me again, one hand in my hair, the other gripping the front of my shirt.

I could feel everybody looking. I could feel how hot her face was. I could smell alcohol on her breath and the clean scent of her shampoo under it.

When she finally leaned back, she kept one hand on my chest like she did not want me to go anywhere again.

“I was looking for you,” she said.

“I’m here.”

“Yeah,” she said, and smiled at me like that fixed everything. “You are.”

Then Jenna screamed.

“Ron.”

Not scared. Not upset. Just loud and demanding and very drunk.

I looked over.

Jenna was standing on the bed.

I still have no idea how she got up there without falling.

She had one hand on the ceiling for balance and the other held out toward Ron, as if she were calling him onto a stage. Her black top had ridden up, showing a strip of pale stomach. Her glasses had slid down her nose. Her mouth was open in a huge grin.

“Ron,” she shouted again. “Get over here.”

The whole room laughed.

Ron stood frozen for half a second, then muttered, “Jesus Christ,” and pushed past me.

Jenna pointed at him as he got closer, as he had finally done what she wanted.

“There you are,” she said.

Then she dropped to her knees on the mattress and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

He caught himself with one hand on the bed and the other around her waist.

She kissed him hard enough that a couple of people in the room started clapping.

Mark leaned in near me and said, “That is a lot.”

Katie, still pressed against me, said, “They’re so embarrassing.”

She sounded delighted.

Jenna broke the kiss just long enough to say, right into Ron’s face, “Sit with me.”

Ron looked like he wanted to refuse on principle, but he knew he had already lost that fight.

He sat on the edge of the bed. Jenna climbed right into his lap like the room did not exist. She leaned in close to his ear, said something too quiet for me to hear, and his whole face changed color.

Mike saw it and lost his mind.

“No way,” he said. “No way. What did she say?”

Ron looked at him and said, “Shut up.”

That only made everybody laugh harder.

Katie tugged at my hand.

“Come here,” she said.

She pulled me down into the circle beside her.

I sat cross-legged on the floor with her knee pressed against mine and my head still swimming from the stairs, the room, the alcohol, all of it. The heat up there was worse. The air felt used.

Bryan lifted the tequila bottle.

“Okay,” he said. “Whose turn?”

“Yours,” Hannah said at once.

“No,” said some guy from Sigma. “You just went.”

“Then spin it,” Hannah said.

Bryan spun it.

The bottle turned once, twice, slowed, and pointed somewhere behind me.

A girl near the desk groaned. “No.”

Everybody laughed.

“Truth or dare?” Hannah asked.

“Truth.”

“Boo,” Jenna said from the bed.

Then I looked across the room.

And saw Jack.

 

 

He was leaning against the desk with a beer in one hand and the same expression he always seemed to have, amused before anything had even happened—White V-neck. Hair done without looking done. One girl was beside him on the chair, another was standing too close to him, both of them paying more attention to him than to the game.

He was not looking at them.

He was looking at us.

At me. Katie is sitting next to me. In the whole room, like he already knew how it would end.

I went still.

Katie felt it immediately.

She leaned closer and said, “What?”

I did not answer.

Jack saw me see him.

Then he lifted his beer a little in my direction. Not a wave. Not even a real salute. Just enough to say yes, I know you’re here.

Then he smiled.

Katie followed my line of sight.

I felt her body change beside me before her face did. Not much. Just enough. Her shoulders tightened. Her hand, which had been resting loose on my thigh, pressed down once and stayed there.

Across the room, Hannah was still talking over the game.

“Do the dare,” she said. “You’re boring.”

“No,” the girl said. “Last time I listened to you, I lost an earring.”

Bryan laughed.

Jenna said, “That was your own fault.”

Sixth, truth or dare

The bottle scraped across the wood floor and spun in a slow, uneven circle.

It was a half-empty Smirnoff handle with the label peeling off. Somebody had spilled something sugary over it, so every time it turned, it stuck for half a second before sliding again.

The room had gotten hotter.

Too many people. Too much alcohol. Too little air.

I was on the floor with Katie tucked between my legs, her back against my chest. She was heavy and loose against me in the way drunk people get, all trust and bad balance. Her glasses had slipped low on her nose. Every time she laughed, her shoulders shook against me. Her hair kept catching on my mouth when I leaned close to say something.

The bottle slowed and pointed at Mary.

“Fuck,” she said, then laughed at herself.

Mary was a sophomore with bleached hair, dark roots showing, a pink, cropped sweater, and a belly button ring that kept catching the red light from the lava lamp.

Bryan pointed at her with the neck of the tequila bottle.

“Truth or dare.”

“Truth,” she said at once.

“Coward,” Hannah called from his lap.

Bryan ignored her. He leaned forward and grinned at Mary.

“Who’s the hottest guy in this room right now?”

Mary covered her mouth with one hand and looked around like she was deciding, but I could see her eyes already coming back to me.

“Oh, come on,” Hannah said. “Just say it.”

Mary laughed again and shrugged. “John.”

The room made a lot out of that.

Somebody whistled. Somebody yelled, “Damn.” Mike threw both hands up, as if he had personally arranged it.

Katie went still for half a second against me.

Then she turned her head just enough to look back at me over her shoulder.

“Too bad,” she said, voice loud and sloppy with alcohol. “This one is taken.”

She kissed the side of my jaw with a wet, careless smack, and the room laughed again.

Mary threw her hands up. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Spin again,” Mark said.

The bottle went around. Tyler got asked if he had ever jerked off thinking about a professor and said, after way too much fake outrage, “Obviously yes.” Chloe got dared to show the thong above her jeans and did it with more pride than embarrassment. Derek had to eat mustard out of a packet and looked like he wanted to die.

Then the bottle landed on Hannah.

She did not even hesitate.

“Dare.”

“Of course,” Jenna said.

Hannah grinned and straightened where she was sitting in Bryan’s lap.

She looked drunk in a very specific Hannah way. Too bright. Too amused. Her lipstick was smudged. Her silver dress had twisted slightly to one side. She pushed her hair off one shoulder and looked at Bryan.

“I dare Bryan,” she said, “to do a shot off me.”

The room erupted.

Bryan laughed once and said, “Where?”

Hannah looked down at herself, then back up with that little crinkle at the corners of her nose she got when she knew she was being watched.

“Chest,” she said.

“Jesus Christ,” Mike said, delighted.

“My chest,” Hannah says as she lies back on the carpeted floor right there in the center of the circle, her blonde hair spreading, then she lifts her top exposing her breasts completely; pale, freckled skin, pink nipples, hard. She holds them together, creating a valley between them. “Pour it here.” Jenna screamed, “You go, girl,” and Katie had her mouth wide open.

Bryan grabs the tequila bottle, kneels over her he pours. A slow amber stream that pools in her cleavage runs down her sides, drips onto the carpet, then he lowers his head, starts lapping it up with his tongue, dragging through the alcohol across her skin, sucking at her nipples briefly, making her gasp and giggle, covering her mouth with one hand.

He drinks messy tequila running down his chin onto her stomach, he sucks hard at her left nipple, then pulls back, grinning with white teeth flecked with silver sequins from her dress.

“Good?” Hannah asks, sitting up, pulling her top back down, but not putting her bra back on; her nipples are visible, hard against the fabric.

There was cheering. Hannah squealed, then started laughing. Bryan leaned down, finished the dare, and when he sat back up, Hannah grabbed him by the collar and kissed him hard enough that the room started clapping.

“Okay,” Mark said, laughing. “Okay. Keep your clothes on. Next.”

The bottle spun again.

Past Jack.

Past me.

Past Katie.

Then it landed on Jenna.

Jenna, who was half in Ron’s lap by then, one arm around his neck, her legs thrown across his thighs like she had forgotten there were other places to sit.

She raised her eyebrows and looked at Katie.

“Katie. Truth or dare.”

Katie shifted against me. I could feel the movement through both our clothes. She tilted her head and smiled.

“Truth.”

Jenna smiled right back. Soft. Sweet. Dangerous.

“How is Johny in bed?”

Ron went rigid beside her. He knew. Jenna had obviously told him that Katie and I still had not done anything yet.

Katie went completely still in my arms.

Then she reached back, found my hand where it was resting on her thigh, and threaded her fingers through mine. She turned her head and looked right at me over her shoulder, eyes blurry from alcohol but sharp enough in that moment.

“John,” she said, like she was answering me and not the room, “knows exactly what he’s doing.”

The room exploded.

Mark slapped the floor and shouted. Mike almost fell backward laughing. Hannah clapped over her head. Bryan pointed at me like I had won something.

I could feel my face burn all the way down my neck.

Jenna nodded once, slow and approving.

“Good answer.”

Katie squeezed my hand. Not long. Just once.

The bottle moved again.

Somebody had to drink hot sauce. Somebody else admitted to hooking up with two people in the room. Mark did a stupid body shot off a girl whose name he clearly did not know, and acted like it made him king of anything.

Then the bottle pointed at me.

Mark leaned forward immediately.

“Truth or dare.”

I should have told the truth.

I said, “Dare.”

Mark’s grin widened at once.

“Beautiful. I dare you to kiss Monica. Ten seconds.”

My stomach dropped.

I looked at Katie.

Her fingers tightened around mine so hard it almost hurt.

Then she smiled.

It was too quick. Too tight. But it was a smile.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Right? Just a stupid game.”

“Just a stupid game,” I repeated.

Monica was already crawling over before I finished saying it.

She came straight into my space, knee touching my leg, hand on my shoulder, that same overfamiliar look from downstairs back on her face. Her lip gloss smelled like candy and chemicals.

“Hi, dear,” she said.

Then she kissed me.

It lasted exactly as long as it was supposed to and still felt too long. She tried to make it more than the dare required. I kept it as controlled as I could. When she pulled back, she looked pleased with herself.

“He is a good kisser,” she said.

“Taken,” Katie said.

Same word as before. Different tone.

Softer. Strained.

I looked down at her.

She was still smiling, but she was not looking at Monica.

She was looking across the room.

At Jack.

Just for a second.

Then she looked away so fast I almost convinced myself I had imagined it.

“Your turn,” Mark said, shoving the bottle toward me.

I spun it harder than I meant to.

It blurred past faces in the red light and stopped on Jenna.

She clapped once.

“Oh, good. Revenge.”

“Truth or dare,” I asked.

“Dare.”

I looked at her, then at Ron, then back at her.

The alcohol made me meaner than usual. Or maybe just more honest.

I said, “What’s your body count?”

The room went dead quiet.

Ron’s whole body changed beside her. His jaw tightened so hard I could see the muscle jump.

“John,” he said.

Low. Warning.

“Boring,” Brian shouted, “high school sweethearts.”

But Jenna just laughed.

That high little laugh of hers that never matched the words she said when she was drunk.

“It’s okay, baby,” she told Ron, putting one hand on his chest. “It’s a game.”

She stood up too fast, steadied herself with one hand on the bed, then looked around the room like she was about to give a class presentation.

“Let’s see,” she said.

She started counting on her fingers.

“Tyler at camp. Matt from swim. Matt’s friend, whose name I genuinely do not remember. Homecoming guy. The twins. Yes, that counts as two. The lacrosse guy. The one from the party at Hannah’s cousin’s place. Then Brad. Unfortunately.”

The room was completely with her now.

Somebody laughed, unfortunately. Brian whispered, “Holy shit.”

Jenna ran out of fingers, frowned at her own hands, then switched to the other one.

“Seventeen?” she said. Then immediately shook her head. “No. More than that. Twenty? Twenty-five? Somewhere there.”

That got the reaction you would expect from a room full of drunk nineteen-year-olds.

“Oh, my God.”

“No way.”

“Damn.”

Ron looked like he wanted to disappear and punch somebody at the same time.

Jenna turned at once and dropped into his lap, took his face in both hands, and said, loudly enough for the room and softly enough for him, “But what’s important is that the number isn’t growing ever again.”

Then she kissed him.

Ron gave in immediately.

Of course he did.

The room cheered, or better, the girls cheered.

Jenna broke the kiss, laughed against Ron’s mouth, and settled back into him as if nothing important had just happened.

Brian said to Jenna, “I was not familiar with your game, Shannon.” Mark, ever being the inconvenient guy, tried to say something good while not being slapped, Ron on the back while saying, “Really adult of you, accepting a girl with that past. Respect man”

The bottle spun again.

A few more rounds went by in pieces. A girl named Amber kissed another guy. A guy from Sigma twerked. The room kept getting smaller as people paired off, got tired, got bored, or got pulled into side conversations.

It landed on me, and Ron made sure to get back on me.

“Truth,” I said immediately.

“So, Johny. What was the weirdest place someone gave you a blowjob?”

Fuck, he knew what he was doing. So I said it, and Jessica was laughing.

“In the handicap bathroom on the 3rd floor.” Katie looked at me, shocked. Jessica winked at us.

The bottle spun; a girl took her bra off but kept her shirt on. Then it landed on Ron.

The girl was smirking. Ron said, “Dare.” The girl told him to kiss Hannah, who was obviously ready to do it, and he decided, “Ok, truth.”

“There is no going back now.” Said Hannah

The girl smirked, “So, we know now that nerdy Jenna had a wild past. But what about you, hottie? What is your body count?”

Ron blushed, tomato-red, and stood there for 5 seconds. Jenna said it for him, “Ron is mine and mine only.” Getting up and kissing him. She turned again, “I was the one taking his virginity. Suck it, laddies.”

The room went silent. “Damn,” “Jesus,” the gis cheered, but the boys knew differently.

It spined again, and some guy took off his shirt and pants. Then it landed on Katie.

Jenna saw it and smiled.

“Katie. Truth or dare.”

Katie had gone quieter in the last ten minutes.

Not sober. Just quieter. Her fingers kept drifting over mine. Her eyes kept moving around the room in small jumps. And yes, once or twice, I had caught them going back to Jack.

She swallowed.

“Dare.”

The room leaned in.

Jenna tilted her head.

“I dare you to give Jack a lap dance.”

Everything in my body locked at once.

There was shouting instantly. Laughter. A couple of people slapping the floor like it was the best thing they had heard all night.

Katie went stiff in my arms.

Then she turned to look at me.

Her face was red. Her pupils were huge. She looked scared, excited, ashamed, and curious all at once.

“John,” she said quietly.

I could barely hear her over the room.

“It’s just a game,” she said. “Okay?”

I wanted to say no.

I wanted to say, “Get up, we’re leaving.”

Instead, I looked at her and saw how drunk she was, how alive she looked, how everybody was watching, how Jack had still not moved.

I nodded once.

Katie stood carefully.

Jack was sitting in the desk chair by the wall, one ankle over his knee, beer in one hand, looking like the whole thing had been set up for his convenience.

As Katie walked over, he set the beer down.

The room started chanting something stupid. Mark was laughing. Hannah had both hands over her mouth like she could not believe her own luck.

Katie stopped in front of Jack.

For one second, neither of them moved.

Then the song slowed.

Katie put one hand on the back of the chair and started moving to the music. Not much. Just enough. She kept her face turned away from most of the room, which somehow made it worse. Less like a performance. More like she was trying to get through it without thinking too hard.

Jack watched her without touching her.

Then she turned and sat back onto his lap for maybe three seconds.

The room lost its mind.

Jack’s hands went to her waist. Just there. Not wandering. Not polite either.

He leaned in and said something into her ear.

I could not hear it.

Katie smiled without meaning to.

That was the part that hit me.

Then she stood up, slipped out of his hands, and walked straight back to me.

The room booed.

“Already?”

“Coward.”

“Round two.”

Katie ignored all of them.

She came back down between my legs, but this time she turned around and faced me. She put both hands on my shoulders and sat close enough that I could feel the heat coming off her skin through the dress.

“Finished with him,” she said into my ear.

Then, quieter, with a small, drunk smile that did something ugly to my chest, “Now you.”

She took my hands and put them at her waist.

I held there. Nothing else.

She leaned in and kissed me hard enough to shut the room out for a second.

When she pulled back, she stayed close.

“Touch me,” she whispered.

Her voice was soft, but urgent.

My hands moved up, then back down, not because I was doing anything clever, just because I did not know what was allowed in a room full of people, and I was too drunk to solve it fast enough.

Katie closed her eyes and moved against me anyway, like the confusion itself was part of it. Her breathing changed. Her mouth opened against my cheek. I could feel her trying to pull me fully back into her body, back into her version of the night.

Then I saw her eyes open.

And go past me.

To Jack.

Just for a second.

He was still in the chair. Watching.

When she noticed me noticing, she grabbed the front of my shirt and kissed me again, harder than before.

Mark clapped like an idiot.

“Okay. Next. Before they start something, I don’t want to mop up.”

Katie laughed against my mouth and leaned back into me, but the laugh was breathless now.

The bottle spun.

It landed on Lily in the corner.

Katie pointed at her at once.

“Dare.”

Lily blinked. “You don’t get to choose that.”

Katie grinned. “You’re picking dare.”

Lily laughed nervously. “Fine. Dare.”

Katie looked at Hannah.

Then back at Lily.

“I dare you to kiss Hannah.”

That got a whole new round of noise.

Hannah stood up without hesitation.

“Oh, easy,” she said.

Lily was blushing before Hannah even crossed the room.

The kiss itself started careful and got less careful fast. The room loved it. Hannah knew exactly how to play to an audience without seeming to try. Lily looked stunned by how into it she got, which only made Hannah bolder.

Bryan watched from the bed with a grin he had stopped bothering to hide.

Jack watched too, but less like he was entertained and more like he was taking inventory of everybody in the room.

I kept my arms around Katie and tried not to think.

After that, the room began to thin quickly.

Hannah left first with Bryan.

As she headed for the door, she looked back at me and gave me a wink that was all sharp edges.

The kind of wink that said I know things about you.

A few other people followed. Then a few more.

Mike disappeared with a brunette in heavy eyeliner. Somebody from the hallway shouted for Derek. Amber left in search of food. Mary got dragged downstairs by roommates who wanted cigarettes.

Soon it was just us, Ron and Jenna, Mark, Jack, and Tiffany, who had been glued to Jack’s side longer than I had noticed.

The room was quieter now.

The bottle spun again and landed on Jenna.

She laughed immediately.

“Dare.”

“Make a strip.”

Ron’s hand tightened at her waist. “Jenna.”

She looked at him like he had just said something adorable.

“It’s a game.”

Then she stood up.

Ron got tense before she had even done anything.

Jenna reached for the hem of her black tank top.

“Jenna,” he said again, sharper now.

She laughed and pulled the top off over her head.

For one second, she stood there in the red light, drunk and proud and covering herself too late to make it matter. She looked so fragile with her glasses and that fringe, but as the fabric cleared her skin, the contrast hit me like a physical blow. Her chest was pale and small, her nipples dark and straining, but there was a loose, confident way she held herself that didn’t match the “nerdy girl” mask. Looking at her, I couldn’t help but think of the way she’d once described herself to me, and my mind immediately dove beneath the hem of her skirt. I imagined the heat between her thighs and that open, used pussy with those big dark labia, hidden away under a facade of innocence. The room made the exact sound a room like that always makes.

“Jenna, put it back on,” Ron said.

He got up fast and grabbed her arm.

Not to hurt her. To stop her.

But from the other side of the room, some guy from the doorway, some random extra who had wandered in for the noise, saw exactly one second of it and got it wrong.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t do that.”

Ron turned.

“What?”

The guy held his hands out. “Just saying. Don’t grab women like that.”

While Ron stepped toward him, the heavy, slow beat of “The Weekend” by SZA began to pulse through the speakers. Jenna, completely oblivious to the tension and riding a wave of drunken energy, started to bounce. She wasn’t trying to be a stripper; she was just having the time of her life, laughing and glancing at Katie and the other girls, her movements erratic and joyful. She was shaking her shoulders and jumping in place, her small, firm breasts bouncing wildly with every move, her dark nipples flashing and dancing in the red light. She looked like a chaotic, extroverted nerd who had just discovered she had a body, her arms waving in the air as she laughed, totally uninhibited. To anyone else, she was just being a goof, but seeing her so loose and exposed, I couldn’t stop thinking about how thoroughly broken in she actually was.

Ron took one step toward the guy.

Mike would have been useful then, but Mike was gone.

I stood up too fast and had to catch myself on the bedpost.

“Ron,” I said. “Let’s just go. Seriously.”

The guy in the doorway said, “Yeah, man. Chill.”

That made it worse.

Ron’s face changed completely.

“Don’t tell me to chill.”

His voice dropped low enough that the whole room felt it.

Jenna, still shirtless, her nipples pointing forward and rock hard, finally snapped out of the music. She shifted her weight in a way that made her small breasts sway, a slow and unconscious movement that felt purely provocative. She looked like a librarian who had been thoroughly broken in, and the sight of her standing there, exposed and unbothered, made the air in the room feel thick. She looked at us and, somehow, still more annoyed than alarmed, said, “Oh my God. Can everyone relax?”

Mark got to his feet.

“Okay,” he said. “Enough.”

Ron stared at the guy one second longer, then looked at me, then at Jenna, then made the only smart decision available to him.

“We’re leaving.”

He snatched Jenna’s shirt off the floor, wrapped it around her, and hauled her against him with one arm around her waist.

She laughed the whole way to the door.

“Bye,” she called. “Sorry, my boyfriend is insane.”

Ron stopped at the door and looked back at me.

“Be careful,” he said.

Then they were gone.

The room got quieter after that.

Mark let out a breath. “Well.”

Katie, sitting back down between my legs, said, “That was dramatic.”

“You think?” I said.

She leaned back into me and smiled like she had forgotten half the scene already.

Mike was gone. Ron and Jenna were gone. Hannah was gone.

Now it was me, Katie, Mark, Jack, Tiffany, and Brittany, who had mostly stayed quiet all night.

The bottle spun again.

This time it landed on Jack.

Mark grinned.

“Truth or dare.”

Jack took a sip of his beer first. Slow. Easy. Not the behavior of a man with anything to fear.

“Truth.”

Mark looked around the room, as if choosing where to put the knife.

“Who’s the hottest girl in here?”

Tiffany’s hand, which had been on Jack’s thigh, tightened visibly.

Jack looked at her first.

Then at Brittany.

Then at Katie.

“Katie,” he said.

No pause. No joke. No softening.

Tiffany stood up so fast her chair scraped hard against the floor.

“You’re disgusting.”

Jack looked up at her like she had interrupted something boring.

“Come on.”

“No,” Tiffany said. “Actually, no.”

She grabbed Brittany’s arm and said, “We’re leaving.”

Brittany did not argue.

The door slammed behind them.

Now it was four of us.

Mark stretched like the moment had not changed anything and said, “I’m getting whiskey.”

His tone was too casual.

He looked at Jack once.

Jack looked back.

Not long. Long enough.

Mark slapped my shoulder as he passed.

“Be careful,” he muttered to me.

Then he left.

Now it was three.

Me. Katie. Jack.

The room felt smaller immediately.

I could hear the music downstairs again. I could hear the little electric hum from the lava lamp. I could hear my own breathing.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Katie turned to me at once.

Her face was flushed. Her glasses had slid down her nose again. She looked drunk, happy, and completely in the moment. Not careful. Not guarded and just lit up.

“No,” she said, smiling. “Don’t be boring.”

“We should go.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

She laughed right in my face.

“That is not a reason.”

“Katie.”

She put her hand flat on my chest and leaned in close like she was about to tell me a secret, but she was grinning the whole time.

“Baby,” she said, half laughing, half whispering, “I really want you right now.”

That hit me hard.

Maybe she meant it exactly as she said it. Maybe she knew exactly what it would do to me. In that moment, those two things looked the same.

“Let’s stay a little,” she said. “Then we go home.”

I stared at her.

She smiled bigger, like she thought I was being ridiculous.

“Seriously,” she said. “One more beer. Five more minutes. Then I’m all yours.”

Jack was still in the chair.

Still quiet.

Still watching.

“Katie,” I said again, but weaker this time.

She laughed softly, pressed a quick kiss to my mouth, then to my jaw.

“Please,” she said. “Go get me a beer.”

She pointed at the mini fridge like this was the simplest thing in the world.

“I’m thirsty. Then we go. Promise.”

She sounded like she believed it.

Or wanted me to.

I looked at the fridge. Then at her. Then at Jack.

Jack had not moved. One arm over the side of the chair. Beer in his hand. No smile now. Just that fixed attention.

I had a bad feeling.

That part was mine, not hers.

Katie was still smiling at me, still warm, still bright, still playing with the front of my shirt like none of this was dangerous at all.

“Okay,” I said.

I stood up and crossed to the mini fridge.

When I opened it, the cold air hit my face hard enough to clear my head for half a second.

I grabbed two beers.

 

The End.

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