Chapter 12

I woke slowly, with morning light peeking through the curtains, and Gail nuzzling into my chest. I squeezed her hand and I yawned. Underneath me she mumbled something. I said, “Huh?”

She moved her head a little and repeated, “I don’t want to move.”

“No one is forcing you. You can stay here till Tuesday, if you want.”

“I feel good, Tom, so relaxed.”

“Why am I not surprised? How many times did you cum last night? That was really impressive. I’m envious.”

“I don’t know. A lot.”

She was quiet for a while, then said, “I was surprised at how many boundaries I stepped over yesterday. I don’t normally do that, I think I told you.”

“Regrets?” I asked.

“No ... not really. Which in itself is surprising. I don’t think I can talk about this right now, ‘cause I’ve got to think about the why of this.”

“You mean why you crossed your boundaries?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah, you’re right, you should sort out your feelings, figure things out.”

“Let’s just lie here for awhile, then maybe a shower.”

So we spent twenty minutes or so, just enjoying the feeling of each other’s bodies, until she finally turned onto her back and stretched. I immediately felt my dick twitching. Did she do that on purpose, I wondered.

She rolled off the bed and grabbed her robe. “C’mon, Carter, let’s hit the showers. Don’t know about you, but I sure need it.”

I got up and pulled on my pants and shirt, leaving it unbuttoned. She took my hand and led me to the bathroom. I saw no sign of Carol, so probably still unconscious.

In the bathroom, she was out of her robe and into the shower in a second, allowing the water to warm up. I stripped and joined her. God damn. I was reproving myself for having missed this opportunity the last time. Gail in the shower was like something out of one of those Penthouse photo spreads.

But she was all business, rubbing herself down with soap and scrubbing, while I could just watch in awe. She passed the soap to me and I washed quickly, then rubbed the soap on her back in the hard-to-reach places and rubbed my hands over it.

“Thanks, Tom.”

“My pleasure. And I mean that, literally.”

I got some more soap on my hands and made sure that her butt was properly polished. When I cleaned in the crack she moaned and had to lean against the wall. “You’d better stop, Carter. This could get slippery and dangerous. Someone might get hurt.”

“I guess. Just want to make sure we get all the places you can’t reach.”

My hands were still sliding over her ass, and I slid one soapy finger in and out of her asshole a couple of times. She moaned and said, “Oh, you bastard, Carter.”

“All done.”

She glared at me, half angry and half aroused. I stepped under the shower-head to rinse off and her hand grabbed my ass and she pushed one finger into my butt. I jumped several inches.

“Oh, you little bitch. Just you wait.”

“Just wanted to make sure I got to all the places you couldn’t reach. I think I’m done.”

She turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. She grabbed a towel and dried herself off. I had a full-fledged boner on, but she ignored it. She pulled another towel off the rack and tossed it to me. “Dry yourself off and meet me in the kitchen. I’m going to get dressed.” And she was out the door.

Well, nothing to do now, so I dried off and got dressed, having to force my stiffy into my pants. My shoes were still in her room, so I walked into the kitchen in my socks.

“Oh, good, you figured out how to use the towel.”

“Sarcasm’s really not a good fit for you, Gail.”

“I’ll work on it. I promise you I’ll get better. You want tea?”

I nodded, and she pulled two slices of bread out of the toaster, and put one on a plate for me. “There’s strawberry jam on the table if you want.”

The kettle boiled and she poured it into a teapot and let it sit.

“You look a little worn around the edges, Tom. Why might that be?”

“Are you being ironic here?”

“Just making conversation.”

“I am a bit worn around the edges. I blame it all on you.”

“I think we both share the blame. And the aftereffects. Here’s your tea.”

We were quiet for awhile, sipping tea, eating toast. She had a kind of energy in the morning that I hadn’t noticed before, plus a glow about her, which I had.

“Before I forget to say it, Gail, I really do appreciate the art tour and lecture yesterday. It helped a lot. Sometime I’d like to go back and find out what comes after the Renaissance.”

“We’ll work something out, Tom. And I’m happy to play lecturer every so often. It’s fun.”

“You’re good at it, if you didn’t know that already.”

“I had a good student.”

We talked for a few minutes more, then I said I’d leave her so she could resume her normal routine. With my shoes tied, she gave me a long kiss at the door and shooed me on my way.

I walked back to the dorm, half in a daze, thinking about yesterday, all the things we did, and especially all the things we didn’t do.

Larry wasn’t in the room when I got there, so I lay on my bed and closed my eyes. When the door opened I heard, “So, not abducted and probed by aliens after all. Should I ask?”

I smiled. He said, “Oh, you think you’re keeping secrets. I have spies everywhere, Carter, I’ll find out everything.”

“Larry, I think I’d like to nap for an hour.”

“Or a day. Anyway, I’m off on a shopping mission. Later.”

When I woke it was close enough to lunchtime that I just went, because the sparse breakfast had left my stomach growling. I had lunch and I felt a lot better afterwards.

I realized that I hadn’t checked my campus mailbox for a couple of days. I might have won the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes and been completely unaware of it, so I went to check. Even better than a sweepstakes, there was a letter from Karen! I took it back to the dorm to read it.

I lay on my bed and it was like she was talking to me in person, the same tone of voice, the same excitement about certain things that happened. She talked about her Computer Science classes and how challenging they were, and where her roommates were from and what they were like.

And at the very end, she mentioned that she’d gotten an email account, available to all students there, and that most of the big universities were part of the UUCP mail network and I should look into getting an account of my own. She printed out her email address for me.

I didn’t know a lot about email, other than AOL messages, but anything that would allow me to communicate with her more quickly was worth looking into. I looked over at my PC and wondered if I could do it through that.

The door flew open, and Larry came in staggering under the load of several large boxes. I jumped up and helped him unload them.

“Thanks, Tom, that was just a little too much to handle gracefully.”

“Is this from your shopping trip?”

“Yup. I bought a new laptop, and a laser printer, too. I have a desktop, but it’s a couple of years old and big, so I thought I’d get something newer and smaller.”

I looked at the pile. I was no computer expert, but I estimated that that was several thousand dollars worth of boxes sitting there.

“I’ve got a guy in one of my classes who lives for this stuff, he’ll help me set it up.”

I wondered about the email, so I asked and Larry just shrugged shoulders. “Beats me. But Kenny knows this shit, lives and breathes it, so he’ll talk to you about it till you’re about ready to hit him with a chair. I’ll call him for my stuff, and ask him when he comes by.”

So that’s what I did. Kenny -- and he did have a pocket protector -- came by the next day and had Larry up and running in minutes. Larry told me to ask Kenny my question, and I stated it as succinctly as I could, and Kenny nodded.

“There’s a LAN here in the dorm -- see that plug in the wall? -- and you just plug your LAN adapter into it and you’re on the network. I can set up the email account for you in no time, and yes, you can send and receive right here, even print them if you want.”

He looked at the back of my PC. “No LAN card, you’ll have to buy one for this to work.”

He told me where to go, what to buy, and said to call him when I got it.

So later that day I went off to buy one at the place he recommended. It was way more than I was comfortable with, but I had a little money in my checking account, so I bought it. And the next day, after five minutes of instruction from Kenny, I was composing my first email to Karen.

I kept it short, because I just wanted to know that it worked. She didn’t respond immediately -- she’d have to have been sitting there at her computer when it arrived -- but an hour later I heard my PC ping, and when I got up to check, I saw a message in my Inbox.

I’m embarrassed to tell you just how giddy that made me feel. Finally, no more waiting endless days for an answer to my letters. It could be almost real time! She didn’t say much in that email, just that she’d gotten my note and now we could chat whenever we wanted. It felt liberating. It was a weight off my shoulders. I’d write her again later.

But I had work to do first. I sketched an outline for the two research papers that were due, and I started on my math problem set.

After I did that and had dinner, I wrote Karen a long email. I found it was much easier to type than to write longhand. I somehow was able to formulate my thoughts better. And I could revise and edit them if I wanted to, before sending it! I sent it off and wondered what she’d have to say in reply.

I don’t know what triggered my ruminations, but I started thinking about learned behavior and how difficult it was to modify it. A pattern that one learns by dint of repetition is reinforcement. And long repetition makes for a really strong belief.

Imagine that you were from a religious family, had gone to church every week, done the Sunday school thing, read the Bible at home, and then someone comes along and asserts “There is no God.” You would be horrified to hear it, to begin with, because it contradicted everything you had believed from the time you were a child.

But your challenger is adamant, insisting that there is no God, and that all evidence for His existence is man-made. You have your beliefs, but the evidence for non-existence is strong. I suppose it comes down to a question of faith. Those of weak faith might be convinced to become atheists or agnostics. However, the battle of those competing ideas in one’s head would be powerful and traumatic. I thought it would be very difficult to convince a believer otherwise.

It does happen, rarely. So it’s possible, but does it leave some lasting effect on one’s mind? My gut said that the struggle would leave a field of intellectual rubble behind that would a problem for years. That’s one of the things I’m going to have to figure out.

Now suppose I have a statement or belief that’s equally strong in a subject. It might be as simple as a learned aversion, perhaps “I hate Brussels sprouts, they’re repulsive with an unpleasant taste.” How do I convince a subject that they’re tasty, and that what they’re perceiving is just a different and unexpected taste?

Or how about “Anal sex is disgusting and painful, and I’m never going to try it.” Learned behaviors are like certain weeds, persistent and quite difficult to eradicate. Clearly, some people enjoy anal and find it arousing and satisfying. How do those people convince the anal-haters to forsake their learned beliefs and take on a new set of beliefs?

I was finding many people who were afraid of oral or anal, either from some religious or social stigma, or perhaps because they had convinced themselves early on that it was unpleasant, without ever trying it to see what the reality of it was.

Was there a shortcut that could erase the learned behavior without leaving some residue of guilt and self-reproach? I didn’t know, but I thought it might be worth thinking about.

It was Gail and, to a lesser extent, Katrina who had raised the issue again. I thought it was possible over the long run to replace one set of expectations with a different set, but that would require an investment of time and effort.

Could I find a quicker back way around the obstruction? I put that in the back of my mind and let it simmer over a slow fire.

At the end of the day I was dead tired. I blamed Gail, but wished I could do it again. Still, a sense of self-preservation suggested I needed some down time. Larry tried to convince me to join him on the party circuit, but the thought of bed and sleep seemed pretty attractive right now.

Sunday was more of class prep, reading, and some research in the library, this time for the two papers that were due. But there was also an email from Karen that I spent some time answering. I missed her and I told her so. I also called home, feeling a bit guilty about having been neglectful. My mother wanted to know everything, and I thought it was more of her trying to relive her younger days vicariously through her kids. I’d gotten a lot of that while dating in high school. She wanted to know all the details. I would have to ask Mindy if my mother was on her about her relationships.

I’ll skip forward a bit here, since much of the class stuff gets repetitive. On the following Wednesday, during the morning recitation section for Chem I, I found that the TA’s mind was useful in a different way from that of the prof giving the lectures. The latter had a more profound knowledge of chemistry as a whole, including unrelated things like organic and nuclear chemistry, and her own research. It just didn’t apply to what we were trying to absorb in Chem I.

The TA, however, had a detailed knowledge of the more fundamental aspects of chemistry because they were more recent in his education. He’d had to brush up on the subject in order to teach the section, so it was fresher in his mind and I got a sense of the totality of the subject covered in the text. That would be useful for the quizzes and tests. I also got a strong sense of framework for beginning chemistry, and now felt confident about learning the subject. I would remember that for later technical subjects.

I called Gail midweek and asked if she had time on Friday for Lesson 2 of the Art Tour, but she said she had a big project due next Monday and would have to take a pass. It may have been my imagination, but she sounded a little disappointed at having to decline.

So the class week ended. I did a little more of my own research in the library on Friday, then concentrated on the two papers that were due next week. I felt I had a good handle on them, having gotten a sense from the profs what they were looking for in terms of assessing our knowledge of and insights into the topics.

By the time Saturday night rolled around, I was pretty numb from study, reading and research. I took a break for dinner, and Larry started in with “Let’s find a party!” It seemed that he had, in short order, developed a network which cataloged all available parties within a one-mile radius. He had some sort of rating system that told him which ones were “hot” and most desirable. Everyone needs a hobby.

I was burned out with school work for once, so I didn’t resist as fully as I normally might, and allowed myself to be talked into going with him and a few of his friends.

And, by the way, whatever failings Larry might have had as a student or a ladies man, he had developed a pretty wide circle of friends in very short order. He was friendly, easy-going, and had some money to buy drinks, so maybe it wasn’t so surprising.

So after we ate, the two of us met up with a couple of his buddies and headed off-campus. Tonight’s party of choice was at someone’s off-campus apartment a few blocks away, within easy walking distance. Even drunk.

We could hear it before we got there. This was a student housing area, otherwise the neighbors probably would have been up in arms. And it was entirely likely that the police might show up once or twice anyway to put a damper on things.

It was a second floor apartment, and the party had already spilled into the hallway. This was my problem with Larry’s rating system. Part of the point system for the party was heavily weighted towards the availability and quantity of alcohol.

It was evident as soon as we walked in the door that they hadn’t skimped. There were bottles everywhere, and kegs of beer at strategic points around the place, plus bowls of potato chips, pretzels and nacho chips. No one was more than a few steps from some form of alcohol. And those present had been stress-testing the supply systems pretty heavily, and it seemed to be stable. Which is more than I could say for the people doing the testing.

So there were loud conversations competing with the recorded music. It seemed to be evenly split between male and female party goers, maybe a few more of the former.

I could see right away that it probably wasn’t going to hold my interest for long, but it was just what Larry and his pals were looking for. They headed for the drinks and did their best to catch up. I had to have something, so I found a clean plastic cup and got a beer. There was a place open in a corner where I could lean, so I drank my beer and people-watched.

Some guy across the room was putting the moves on a young woman pretty aggressively, probably fueled by the drink he held in his hand. And just as aggressively she pushed him off and walked away.

I was always amused by the number of guys who, in their own minds, became irresistible when they had too much to drink. It was likely the drinks that gave them the courage to try but also turned them into jerks, but they never seemed to learn. Because the alcohol made them forget that it had happened.

Beside me, a voice said, “So what does the smart money think? Is the rejection going to slow him down? Will he lose his confidence?”

I glanced to my right, and a brunette young woman with glasses was looking at me expectantly.

“Hell, no. He’ll have another drink and double down. He’s the catch of the evening, in his mind. This was just a fluke, an aberration.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think. They’re at every party. God’s gift to women, if we only knew what was good for us.”

“Doesn’t it get old? Why do you come to these things if you know it’s going to be like this?”

“I dunno. Mostly because there’s nothing else going on tonight, I guess. I need someplace to wind down, and this is cheap. As in ‘free’.”

“Well, there’s that to recommend it. I’m looking for the second reason, but haven’t found it yet.”

“The stimulating conversation?”

“Perhaps, though my money would be on the snappy repartee and bon mots.”

She giggled. “I’m here because of the networking opportunities.”

“The catered repast is worth noting.”

“Well, there you have it. I wondered why I keep coming to these events, and you’ve summarized it pretty succinctly. Here’s to you.” She raised her cup in my direction and saluted me.

“I’m Tom, Tom Carter. Who’re you?”

“Mandy O’Neill,” she said. “Two L’s. And what brings you to our part of town?”

“In the spirit of full disclosure, I normally hate these things, but I was looking for something to do as far away as possible from reading, writing and pursuit of higher knowledge. I’m burned out for the week. My roommate likes these things and dragged me along. That’s him in the yellow shirt with his buddies over in the corner, having a great time.”

She glanced and nodded. “There’s a lot like him here tonight, and more arriving all the time. It’ll get pretty raucous very soon.”

“Not sure I’m going to last the evening. Drunk and raucous isn’t really my thing.”

“Well, you’ll just have to start wangling invitations to the higher class parties, you know, the ones with the string quartets and the poets.”

“Oooo, can you get me in? I promise to wear my best tee-shirt.”