“That was some bullshit,” Charlotte tells Carol on the way out of class.

They registered for the Race in America course together at Sunburn Community College because it fulfils their diversity requirement, and more importantly, it’s supposed to be an “easy A.” Charlotte and Carol–or Char and Car as they call each other–do everything together. They even went to the same boyfriend in high school (at different times). Or the same escort, to be more precise. Neither’s parents allowed them, serious suitors. All the further they got with Christopher, respectively, was necking in his car. He’s now with Charlotte exclusively.

“What do you mean, Char?” asks Carol.

“That stuff about ‘Hands up, don’t shoot,’ and cops targeting blacks. Chris’s uncle is a cop and told him they take it easy on blacks compared to how many crimes those people commit.”

Carol is taken aback. “Whoa, watch it, Char. You can’t say ‘those people.'”

“Why not? I’d like to know,” Charlotte retorts.

“Professor Jackson wouldn’t like it.”

“Pfft. I care,” Charlotte says sarcastically. “…only because he might take it out on my grades.”

The girls sway across campus in their low skirts toward Charlotte’s car. First few weeks of school, the female half of the student body dresses up, which invariably means showing skin, with cleavage front and back. That golden period is beautiful but fleeting. Soon it’s back to pajama pants and flip-flops.

No exceptions, Charlotte and Carol sport their third new outfits of the term, bought specially to show off for the Sunburn College crowd. Both display generous cleavage and long, bare legs. Carol lacks Charlotte’s blessed C-cups, but her A’s breathe freely. As if to balance things out, Charlotte’s butt is no match for Carol’s. Certainly, the black students in class prefer Carol’s. Not that Charlotte wants to attract attention from their kind. Her narrow hips and flat backside are good enough for her fiance.

Christopher and Charlotte got hitched at Bible camp over summer break and moved into Chris’ apartment just before the fall semester. Carol bears no jealousy. (She has her own boy, kept secret from Charlotte.) The couple’s parents approve of their cohabitation, and though Father Hubert might have preferred they wait for the honeymoon, Chris took Charlotte’s cherry the night she moved in

Sexual anticipation had been building ever since Charlotte’s cousin Mary taught her to masturbate in the 8th grade. However, Chris didn’t make the birds sing. (Charlotte’s euphemism for cumming.) In fact, she could hardly feel him. She enjoyed his caresses and the look of his cute penis, nevertheless.

Ever since Charlotte sneaks her cums in the middle of the day while Chris is at work. He’s a salesman at a used car lot. He comes home each night to a meal prepared by his wife-to-be in a huff over the low-lives who won’t buy from him. In their part of town, the only potential customers stepping foot on the lot are niggers, beaners, and white trash. (His terminology, and increasingly hers.) Charlotte isn’t much of a cook, but she tries. Okay, she doesn’t try hard; microwave dinners, mostly. But she’s busy studying and working part-time at a stationery store.

When Christopher’s done complaining, they watch t.v. or videos for a couple of hours, then shower individually. She’s always second and comes out wearing nothing. He waits on the bed, also nude. They never sleep in clothes. She giggles to herself each time she sees his little fella standing up and staring at her. He’s always hard when she comes to bed. They measured it once: 3 and 1/2 inches. He seemed satisfied with the number, but she Googled it later to discover it wasn’t very big.

Ah, well. Charlotte is glad to let her man grunt out the day’s frustrations on top of her for 3-5 minutes. The only catch, he must finish outside of her. She keeps a washcloth on the bed next to them for that purpose. No way she can be showing at her wedding in six months.

One time Chris got too excited and came inside. Oh boy, was she mad? For a week, she wouldn’t touch him. He had to jerk off while she was in the shower. She let him watch if he was a good boy.

“Well, what if Dre was standing behind you when you said it?” asks Carol about the “those people” comment. “Dre” is Andre, a classmate with whom Charlotte and Carol are paired for a project due the following week on the disparate reactions of white and black audiences to the O.J. verdict.

“I don’t know. I suppose I’d be embarrassed, but it’s just us. We don’t have to care what niggers think about what we say,” answered Charlotte.

“Char!”

“Geez, Car, don’t let that class get inside your head. It’s just a bunch of PC junk,” says Charlotte as she opens her car door. Carol is dumbfounded.

*****

Three days later, Charlotte and Carol enter the conference room Dre has reserved at the library. They’re in the midst of a heated exchange, apparently not prepared to study, to Dre’s chagrin. The fit, sly young black man sits in front of a sea of papers. He’s been researching all week and hopes the pretty white girls will offer at least a modicum of help. These two seem to him like the type to flirt their way through life.

Hard to say if Professor Jackson is O.J. enough to give into white girl charms, Dre thinks. His class is plenty “woke,” but not on the sex issue. For Dre, the center of “race in America” is and always has been sexual. Uncoincidentally, he’s an expert in helping white girls “go black.”

Won’t date ’em. I wouldn’t want to disappoint the sistas like that. But Dre fucks white girls. He considers it a “teachable moment” for them. If they didn’t know how good sex could be with a black man, what else don’t they know? Ya know? Plus, he loves sticking it to white boys. They exploited his women back when; he fucks theirs now.

The only drawback is that he confirms the crude stereotype about brothas having it, and then somewhere it counts. Dre regrets satisfying the white people’s expectations about young black bucks being overly sexed and well-endowed. He’s about more than that. He’s an enlightened brotha. But he wouldn’t trade his gift for anything.

Anyway, it’s worth it to see the looks on white girls’ faces when they see it and when it goes in. He also loves it when they tell him he puts their white boyfriends to shame.

Sunburn Community College is new territory, as yet unclaimed by Dre, a recent transfer. Lots of curious white girls. He wouldn’t mind teaching his cute project-mates a lesson or two, but coursework comes first.

“I told you, at work,” says Carol defensively.

“But you always have your phone on at work,” responds Charlotte.

“Not last night, I guess.”

“Girls!” says Dre authoritatively. “Can we get to work, or am I interrupting?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Dre,” Carol reassures him. Her sheepish smirk causes a twitch in Dre’s pants. She’s obedient already. He better be careful, though. He’s wearing one of his tighter pairs of pants today, and Dre Jr. becomes conspicuous easily.

The girls’ outfits don’t help. Charlotte has a bare midriff, showing off her flat stomach. Her plump boobies jiggle in her low, loose blouse. Carol, meanwhile, has a form-fitting tube top, with a compact body underneath and a pair of white cutoff shorts barely holding in an ass that ought to belong to a sista.

“Nothing, right. Car’s only got a boy she won’t tell me about,” says Charlotte.

“Char! I do not!”

“What makes you say so, Charlotte?” asks Dre, not actually interested.

“A million little things, but that’s not important. What matters is why she won’t tell me.”

“I’m sure she has her reasons.”

“Yeah…I mean, no,” says Carol, flustered. “There aren’t any reasons because there’s nothing to tell.”

“Can we move on?” asks Dre. He has places to be and doesn’t want to waste his Saturday afternoon on white girl gossip.

“Whatever, fine. Where were we?” Charlotte asks as she plops down in the seat next to Dre. He sits back casually, admiring her scent, mostly shampoo. Charlotte sneers at his laid-back posture, taking it as a sign of laziness. She especially doesn’t like Dre’s man-spread, which she estimates covers the space of three normal human spreads. Arrogance.

“We must explain why the verdict went the Juice’s way, as I was saying in class,” Dre starts.

“Why ‘must’ we?” asks Charlotte, mocking the pompous manner of speech Dre puts on.

“So the class has a understands the Two Americas’ reactions. [That is a phrase Professor Jackson constantly repeats: the Two Americas] The same perspectives you found out there in the world were represented within the jury, in different proportions.”

“Wha?”

“Shut up, Char. Let him finish,” interjects Carol. Charlotte notices her friend has been hanging on Dre’s words. She could almost think Car has a thing for this admittedly handsome, tall, strong black guy. That is, if Charlotte hadn’t guessed, Car already has a boyfriend.

“As I was saying, Marcia Clarke fundamentally misread the jury. She was looking at it from a gendered perspective when she should have been thinking race,” Dre continues.

“How do you mean?” asks Carol, with genuine interest.

“Well,” Dre says, loving the opportunity to pontificate, “she thought women would respond to her domestic abuse angle, but she didn’t realize black women would never sympathize with Nichole, battered wife or not.”

“Why not?” asks Charlotte. “I would.” She thinks of all the times Nichole called the cops on that black brute and how they never really listened, on account of him being some big, black sports star.

“You’re not black,” says Carol.

“Duh.”

“That’s right,” rejoins Dre. “Nothing black girls hate more than white girls stealing their men. It goes back to the plantation…”

“Not this again,” interrupts Charlotte.

“Let him finish.”

“Thank you, Carol…Masters were allowed to sexually exploit black female bodies, but blackbucks were kept far away from Massa’s previous wives, sisters, and daughters. This engendered great desire in white women for black bodies and also in black men for white girls.

We call it ‘jungle fever.’ Black girls resent this mutual attraction because naturally, they want to keep their men for themselves.”

“Bullshit!” interjects Charlotte.

“Char!”

“I’m sorry, but bullshit is bullshit. I can’t listen to his crap anymore,” Charlotte says, indicating Dre.

“Don’t worry, Carol. Her reaction is to be expected. It’s called denial.”

“Asshole!” shouts Charlotte. She considers slapping Dre but realizes hid offenses, if any, don’t rise to that level of punishment. Instead, she storms out of the room. Carol jolts up but doesn’t follow.

“I’m so, so sorry, Dre,” says Carol after a pause.

“That’s alright…Carol, let me axe [He’s let his pomposity slip]: you are seeing someone, aren’t you?”

Carol hesitates, bites her lip, then continues. “Yes. How did you know?”

“He’s black, isn’t he? That’s why you won’t tell Charlotte.” Dare reached that deduction as much from Carol’s booty as from her reticence to confess to the obviously racist Charlotte.

Caro can’t find a reason not to tell Dre. “Yeah. How did you know?” Underground railroad of gossip? “I can’t find a way to tell her. She’ll never understand.”

“Give her time to get used to it. Be gentle. She’ll come around.” Dre has moved over next to Carol and wraps an arm around her waist. She lets him. She smells like lavender body wash.

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think I can.”

“Do it. Trust me. I’ll be around to help. Tell me when it’s done, he says, gently rubbing his large hand over the top of Carol’s prodigious hips. She lets him.

Dre has decided to make Charlotte a special project, with predominance over the O.J. project. He’s seen the engagement ring on her finger, but he doesn’t care. That racist bitch needs to learn.

*****

BANG!

Charlotte slams the door in a huff. Christopher is startled. He’s been waiting for her to come home for hours. Girls’ night out for his fiancee and her virtual Siamese twin went overtime. She crosses the room in her shiny club dress and crashes into him on the couch. Who is Chris to complain about slammed doors and angry fiancees if it leads to hot girls in sleek dresses on your lap? Down goes the zipper. Charlotte fishes his already-hard penis out.

This never happens. Their sex life is routine to within an inch of its life, and it hasn’t yet involved groping on the couch. Charlotte’s breath smells of cocktails. She kisses him with an unfamiliar urgency. Her hand awkwardly strokes his hard little penis. First hand-job of her life. So this is that foreplay thing everyone’s always talking about.

“Take me,” Charlotte whispers. Right here on the couch? Chris ponders as Charlotte lets go of his penis to pull down her panties, but the foreplay was too much. Chris squirts his load onto their imitation leather. Charlotte doesn’t try to salvage his pleasure. Chris realizes no one taught her about ruined orgasms. She’s sympathetic, no longer in a huff. A tad frustrated, but she feels sorry for her hubby-to-be. It’s almost comical. She outflanks the cum, sits down on Chris’s other side, and hugs him.

“There, there. That’s okay, hunny. Let’s get ready for bed.”

Dumbfounded, Chris rises to head for the shower. He doesn’t even clean up his mess, either assuming Charlotte will take care of it or not thinking of it at all. Strange night, Charlotte acting that way. A head’s up might have prepared him to show her a better time.

Charlotte cleans up, waits for the shower to start, and begins rubbing herself as her cousin taught her. She only knows one way to get off. Being wet already makes it easier.

The night had been disastrous. Carol informed her she was dating some nigger, and that she had been confiding in Dre of all people. She went on and on about how they used to share everything, and it killed her that they couldn’t talk about sex now that she finally lost her virginity, just because of some silly racial thing.

Ugh. As if sex were so important. Charlotte knows she and Chris have a full relationship. Sex problems can’t bring them down. If Chris doesn’t know there’s a problem, how much can it mean?

Carol went so far as to guess Charlotte is unsatisfied, though she keeps that part of her life private. Apparently, this black lover of Carol’s gets her off regularly and lasts hours. That’s what she says. Who wants to have sex for hours? A few minutes is sufficient if done right.

The worst part was, according to Carol Dre was the one who guessed Charlotte is unsatisfied. Where does that thug get off speculating about her, Charlotte wonders? And why is she thinking about him while rubbing around her clitty? The squishy sounds intensify as Charlotte tweaks her large, pink nipples through her dress and bra. (Carol can get away with clubbing braless; Charlotte can’t.)

Quick, think about Chris. No, too late, Charlotte tenses up, her mind on Dre’s arm muscles and man-spread. I can’t help it. She’s cumming. Normally she saves an image of Chris for her climax, but that bastard Dre interrupted.

The shower turns off. Chris is done. Charlotte’s turn next. She sits there in her juices, fuming again. That orgasm didn’t provide lasting distraction. She’s already planning to confront Dre for sticking his nose into her sex life.

To be continued…