Chapter 15

I must have slept soundly because when I woke Larry was snoring loudly in his bed. I hadn’t heard him come in. I stretched and got up and went to shower. Then I found clean clothes and went for breakfast. By the time I was done I was feeling almost human again.

I had work to do. I’d been putting it off, but there were papers due, and I had a chem quiz coming up, plus I needed to check over my other homework. The idea of going to the library and continuing my own research seemed laughably distant now.

Back in the dorm room I turned on my PC and brought up the draft of my first paper. I found where I’d stopped and started typing, expanding the central argument of my paper.

From his bed, Larry groaned. “Do you have to type so loud, Carter? Have some sympathy.”

“I can hold a pillow over your head if you think that’ll help. No? Maybe ease up on the drinking next time.”

I couldn’t hear his response from under the blankets, but it didn’t sound particularly friendly. A few minutes later he finally gave up and crawled out of bed. He looked dreadful, miserable. He wandered off to the shower.

I was on a roll now, typing quickly, knowing how I was going to end it, bringing together the elements into a strong conclusion. Larry came back, looking cleaner but not much happier.

“I looked for you last night, Carter, but you must have left early. Cops came, but the guy whose party it was told ‘em we were just breaking up anyway, and they left. The party went on for another three hours.”

“Larry, that kind of competitive drinking does nothing for me. It’s not fun. I left when I saw what it was turning into. Did you actually have fun there?”

“I think so. I remember laughing a lot, but I don’t remember what we were laughing at. Anyway, I think I need some coffee. Where’d you go, anyway?”

He didn’t need to know the details. “I came back here and read for awhile, wrote to Karen, then went to bed.”

“Oh. Well, your loss, great party.” And he was gone.

I suppose he wasn’t my problem, but I was a little worried about him. Perhaps he was taking his joking remark about intending to make lots of mistakes that he’d regret when older a bit too seriously. He couldn’t maintain this party pace and still do his work.

I returned to my work and in another hour I thought I had it pretty well formed. There were a couple of tweaks I wanted to do, but I’d let it sit for awhile and see how it read later. I opened up the draft of my history paper and started fleshing that out.

When I looked up again it was after one and I realized that my back ached. I surprised myself with how wrapped up in a task I could get, but now I was paying the price. It was lunchtime, so a good reason to take a break. I backed up both papers to diskette, a habit I’d gotten into when I lost an essay that was due the next day in high school and had no backup. I’d had to stay up all night to recreate it. I always backed up after that.

I got lunch and more coffee, then took a walk around campus to get some exercise before I dived back into the paper. Across the quad I saw Katrina walking with friends. She shouted hi and waved, but didn’t stop. I wasn’t offended.

One of my high school buddies had said to me, just before graduation, “It’s gonna be completely different in college, man, just random hookups, then they’re gone, and afterwards you don’t need to call ‘em or take ‘em out to eat or anything. It’s gonna be awesome!”

Me, I kinda liked the process of getting to know women better, so part of me would miss that. But when in Rome...

Anyway, I’m rambling again. Long story short, papers done with decent marks, good grade on the chem quiz, and now midterms were looming, so the pressure continued. Part of it was me wanting to do well, to make the most of this. And I was discovering that I actually liked being challenged like this, being thrown a barrage of sophisticated ideas and told to juggle them until I made sense of them. I got some satisfaction from it.

It was quite unlike high school where we were presented a list of facts, names, dates, formulae, and told to memorize them and repeat them on the exams. Then we could discard them. No one checked to make sure that we retained them.

We had to retain it here, because a lot of what we learned we were expected to know for advanced classes. That did occur to a lesser extent in high school, but they always reviewed the earlier stuff before moving on.

It was a little like being thrown into the pool, and the guy on the edge is shouting instructions on how to swim at you, and you’d better make sure you assimilated everything, or you’d drown. I liked showing that I could do it.

By the end of the week I was feeling a temporary sense of relief, papers done, problem sets submitted, quizzes taken, and I let out my breath. I had skipped martial arts club on Wednesday, but by the next day I was sufficiently relaxed that I decided to go to Psych Club, just to do something different.

It was a decent turnout, considering we never knew what the talk du jour was going to be. I got the sense the organizers put each session together at the last minute. I got settled in a chair, and the undergrad president of the club got up to introduce today’s speaker.

“Good afternoon, everyone, thanks for being here. Today we have an interesting presentation I think you’ll all enjoy. Our speaker this afternoon is Prof. Andrew Willing of the Psychology Department, who is going to talk about some of the dark corners of psychological research.” He smiled smugly at his little in-joke, then turned and said, “Please welcome Professor Willing.”

There was some polite applause and an intelligent-looking middle-aged man stepped up to the lectern. “Thank you, Mr. Evans, for that evasive introduction.”

Hmmm. A little academic backbiting there. Why is that?

Willing went on. “What I’m going to talk about this afternoon is one of the areas that sets establishment researchers all a-tremble for fear that they might be tainted by ideas that are out of the mainstream. Much like Mr. Evans. And to be fair, there is reason enough to avoid these research backwaters for fear that one will be labeled as a zealot or wacko, and your legitimate research brought into question.

“Yet, if you go back and look at the history of psychology and psychiatry, there are theories and treatments that are commonplace today that were once ridiculed, derided. That’s true of all science, in fact. We learn new things, new facts, and it sheds a different light on what we thought we understood. The germ theory of disease. Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. The idea that the earth revolves around the sun.

“You don’t have to go back too far in history to find people literally laughing at Sigmund Freud’s new ideas. So don’t be put off by an idea that looks odd. You’re studying to be scientists. You evaluate an idea, a hypothesis, by examining it, testing it, seeing if there are better ways to explain a phenomenon.

“And yet there are still ideas, even in psychology, that are verboten. Even when the evidence for it is strong. Why? Perhaps it conflicts with people’s other strongly held convictions, perhaps accepting it might force them to reject or revise some other firm belief.

“So. What is it that strikes such terror into the hearts of psychologists?” A few people chuckled.

“Here’s one. ESP, extra-sensory perception, what people usually say when they mean telepathy. Precognition. Actually, any of the science-fiction-y concepts that writers and movie producers love to beat to death, like telekinesis -- moving objects with your mind -- or perhaps the ability to “read people’s minds”, not the same thing as telepathy.

“You bring that subject up in a group of psychologists today, and they’ll all start to edge away, lest they be discovered listening to ideas that are not acceptable.

“The various facets of ESP have been studied for a hundred and fifty years, by trained scientists and amateurs alike. Almost all of the claims have been debunked. You’d think we would have moved on by now.

“Most have, except for a few disquieting research results. The mainstream, establishment areas of research are quick to say, ‘Oh, probably a flawed study, nothing to worry about.’ Except that the studies have been reproduced and similar results obtained. That’s hard to dismiss, if you’re trying to keep an open mind.

“So, it might not be good for my career, but I retain an interest in the various areas of ESP research and spend perhaps a little too much time trying to understand the psychological, biological and physical phenomena that might help to explain the results.”

Willing went on to summarize a few long-term studies that presented tantalizing results, such as the study at Maimonedes Medical Center by Montague Ullman published in 1985 and summarized several decades of data collected on ESP in dreams. Another was an ongoing study by Daryl Bem at Cornell University, who had shown reproducible results unexplainable by other means over a period of years.

Willing even pointed out that the U.S. government had spent millions of dollars funding psychic spies during the Cold War.

He went on to speculate about some of the mechanisms that might explain such results and why this kind of research was so difficult to conduct and the results so tentative.

He talked for about forty-five minutes. I’d made a few notes about his references, things I could look up in the library. He reached the end of his talk and thanked everyone. Evans, the club president, invited questions, and there were a few puzzled queries from a few students. I chose not to participate because I was still thinking about this.

He was right, insofar as the mechanisms that would explain ESP were as much of a puzzle to me as they were to him. Still, nice to know that there were a few people with open minds. I’d look up those studies and see what they suggested.

The crowd began to break up, and I moved out, too. It was close enough to dinnertime that I just went to the cafeteria and got dinner. I planned out my weekend and the following week in my head, as I would have to cram for midterms. I still had better than a week to do this, but I was still a bit intimidated by the school’s academic reputation and didn’t want to fall too far behind.

Back at the dorm, there was a note taped to my door: “Carter, call Gail.”

I dropped my books on the desk and went back to the pay phone. She answered on the third ring.

“Carter. I was wondering if the doofus who answered actually knew how to write when he said he’d take a message. He had a hard time putting an English sentence together.”

“He might have just been terrified at having to talk to a real, live girl. I think it’s rather a new concept to some of these guys, and the reality of it paralyzes them.”

“Your problem to deal with, thank goodness. Anyway, my art project’s done -- got a B+ in it, too -- and I wondered if you wanted to try session two of Art For Dummies. You got Fridays off, right?”

“I do. And I’m delighted that you’ve promoted me to the dummies section. I’m always trying to improve myself.”

“Well, I’m taking a chance on you, Carter, so don’t disappoint me. So, whaddya think, same time, same place to meet up?”

“Sure. That was two o’clock, right?”

“See? I knew I was right to kick you up to the dummies class. Yes, two. Look, gotta run, see you then.” And the line clicked.

Okay, so that was Friday covered. I actually was looking forward to having her explain whatever came after Renaissance art. She was good at it, and her enthusiasm was contagious. Plus she was gorgeous, which didn’t hurt the learning process at all. Plus, there were all the possibilities for what might happen after the museum tour. I was beginning to love art.

Back in the room, there was a short email from Karen, who expressed relief when the results from the last CS test came back. She’d complained about the test being so difficult, but had not done as badly as she’d thought. She got a A- on it. She was not being ironic. She was so used to getting A’s and A+’s on everything that it was a sobering reality when she got an A-. I was a little annoyed with her pursuit of perfection and tempted to poke her about it, but instead I told her I shared her relief.

I read Gail’s Art History book till bedtime, trying to guess what she’d cover tomorrow. I occasionally looked at Larry freaking out about a Calculus quiz he was prepping for. But, I noted, he was forcing himself to work through it and didn’t call for help from me. I took that as a positive sign.

The next morning I had breakfast, then reviewed everything we’d read so far in English and history, pausing every few minutes to quiz myself to make sure I remembered it. I got most of it, I think.

Around one I closed my books, grabbed a jacket, and went to get lunch. From there I walked to the museum entrance and found a spot out of the wind. It was starting to get colder now, and soon I’d have to start wearing the winter jacket my mother had insisted I bring along.

I put my hands in my jacket pockets and stamped my feet until I saw her walking up the steps. She smiled when she saw me. “You ready, Carter? Got your notepad and pencils? There’ll be a quiz, you know.”

“I’m ready, drill sergeant. Lead on.”

She stepped through the doors, saying “Hup, two, three, four.” I was pretty sure she was joking. I paid the admission and she led me through the halls. She could probably do it in her sleep.

She turned in at one gallery and pulled up short. “Okay,” she said. “The Renaissance continued for quite a long time. By the time of the Late Renaissance, which ended around 1600, styles began to evolve. The first one was something called Mannerism. This took the central features of Renaissance art, proportion, balance, and ideal beauty, and exaggerated them to make them more pronounced.

“Look here. These are copies of two paintings by Parmagianino and Giulio Romano. If you remember, for example, Raphael, you can see how some of the elements are over-emphasized.”

I could see that it was different, but couldn’t yet explain how, but I nodded.

It was like she was reading my mind. She pointed out what I hadn’t seen.

“You see how the body has been elongated, how the proportions are exaggerated and distorted? See all the dark colors? They used that to force the eye to focus on the figure. You see the objects in the background, how they’re intentionally made fuzzy or blurred, so they don’t draw attention away from the subject.”

She went on, leading me through the gallery, reciting from memory the important artists and what their contributions were. I recognized Cellini and El Greco, but only by name until she showed me their works.

I was enjoying listening to her talk, she was so enthusiastic about it, and she wanted me to love it, too. At some point she grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the gallery at a half-run.

In another gallery she stopped again and told me, confidentially, “This is where art starts to get really interesting because it exploded outside Italy. So even while Mannerism was still being produced, art was changing yet again, into the Baroque period. This spread through art and sculpture, and later through music. The first example of Baroque in art is probably the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica, here.”

She showed me a photograph on display.

“The dome was one of the new things in Baroque architecture, and it allowed the space underneath to take new forms, and it allowed light in in a different way, so the architects could show off the intricate details below to inspire the faithful.”

As she went on, I could see her getting wrapped up in the majesty of the evolution of artistic ideas, seeing the beauty of each period. And I was caught up in it, too.

“If you wander around and look at these examples, they have some common elements. There’s a real or implied movement, sometimes you might catch an artist trying to represent infinity. There’s an emphasis on light and its effects, and quite often a focus on the theatrical.

“Some of the things we take for granted today came out of the Baroque movement. For example, quadrature or ceiling painting, like in the Sistine Chapel. Or quadro riportato, which are frescos that incorporate the illusion of being composed of a series of framed paintings. Or my favorite, trompe l’oeil, which is a technique to create visual illusions in art, like using it to trick the eye into seeing a painted detail as a three-dimensional object.

“That stuff is so common today, but it all started during the Baroque era.” She stopped and took a breath, overwhelmed by the idea.

“Am I talking too fast?” she asked.

“There’s a lot to absorb, but I think I’m getting the high points. You seem really fascinated by this period. Did I read that correctly?”

“Yeah, you did. There’s other really fun stuff later, but this period was always a rush for me, because there was so much happening.”

“I really like watching you get excited about it. It’s catching.”

“Thanks, Carter. Anyway, we should at least get an overview of this period before we call it quits, so let’s finish as much as we can, okay?”

“Right behind you.”

And for the next hour she lectured almost non-stop. I wondered if she was going to get hoarse like last time, but she seemed to be pacing herself.

At the end of the hour, she paused in front of a large painting where she extolled its glory with an arm raised, trying to lead my eye to what was important.

And with her arm still raised, she stopped and was silent for a few moments.

“I sometimes get so caught up in this that I don’t know when to stop, but I just realized that this is probably a good place, because it marks a turning point. So maybe we’ll pick up here for session three, okay?”

“I’ve got a lot of studying to do. Is this going to be on the exam, professor?”

She punched me on the arm. “There are no unimportant details, Mr. Carter, I’ll say no more.”

“They told me this’d be a tough course.”

“They don’t know the half of it. If you knew it was tough, why’d you take the class?”

“Well, the instructor’s a babe. So I’m told.”

She smirked at me. “If you think that’s going to improve your grade, mister, you’re probably right.”

I laughed. “You want to grab a bite, or do you have someplace to be?”

“I’m free for the rest of the day. Got a preference?”

“Not really. You?”

“I found a coupon in the student paper earlier, 25% off at this Italian place. Wanna try there?”

“Can hardly ever go wrong with Italian. Maybe they’ll have pasta barocca.”

“Now you’re just making fun of me. Let’s go.”

We found that, alas, there was no such thing as pasta barocca, but we found some very good alternatives. We were legal to have wine, so we shared half a bottle, and she got a little giggly because she had more than her share.

I had a nice post-pasta mellow feeling when we left. She took my arm and said, “Y’know what’s really good after pasta? A joint.”

“Gail, if I get any more mellow, I’ll fall asleep.”

“Oh, c’mon, a little won’t hurt you.”

“I think you have a higher tolerance than me. But all right, just a little.”

She talked about her classes as we walked, then asked me how mine were going. And in no time, it seemed, we were at her building.

As we trudged up the inside stairs, she said, “Tim’s out again, not sure about Carol. We both came down on her pretty hard when she got drunk again last weekend. I wish I knew what was going on in her life that makes her try to escape like that, but she says everything’s fine.”

“I guess she’ll open up when she’s ready. Self-medication is always the first remedy when something’s bothering you.”

She called out when she let herself in but there was no answer, so it seemed everyone else was out.

“Park yourself there on the couch, Tom. I’ll fetch the self-medication.”

At least she wasn’t fooling herself about the weed. I lay back against the cushion and in moments she was back clutching the baggie.

She sat down next to me, flicked the lighter to get the joint burning, and took a hit, closing her eyes. She passed it to me. I wasn’t really in the mood but I took a hit anyway and passed it back.

She was quiet today. Normally she was a bit more talkative with a joint in her hand, but today she seemed more introspective.

Finally, she said, “Maybe it’s the combination of the carbohydrate overdose and the joint, but I feel really mellow right now, relaxed.”

“Me, too. This is nice, just sitting here.”

“Uh-huh. Do you get self-analytical when you’re doing pot? I do.”

“Not so much. I mostly get mellow and sleepy. I used to say that it didn’t give me the giggles, but I find that it does when I’m with you.”

“You’re welcome. Me, I sometimes start thinking about problems, or even just big questions, when I’m smoking. It makes me walk around my mind and ask myself questions. Sometimes I find answers. Sometimes I just find further questions to ask. And sometimes I come up against some things about myself that I’d been avoiding working on.”

“Who needs a shrink when you’ve got weed,” I said.

“Right. Someday maybe that’s what psychiatrists will prescribe. ‘Smoke two joints and call me in the morning.’”

I laughed at that. “I hope that happens sooner rather than later.”

“Yeah. So in the absence of qualified psychiatric assistance I did more weed than I usually do this past week. Partly it was to rid myself of some of the stress of preparing the last project. Did I mention I got a B+ on it? Anyway, I spent some time working on some of my issues.

“I bring it up because you were the one who brought them out. Not intentionally, of course. It just happened in the normal course of events and I had to deal with it. I’d pushed them away in the past, but I finally told myself that I had to think about them or they’d keep bothering me.”

“Oops. Did I do something that caused you some distress? I’m sorry, Gail, I wasn’t aware.”

“No, not like that. It wasn’t you so much as stuff I’ve been carrying around inside me for too long. You were wonderful, I told you that, very sweet in fact.

“This stuff really comes more from back in high school, earlier even. Geez, I hadn’t realized how difficult it is to talk about this out loud.” She took another hit from the almost-gone joint. She was quiet for a few moments, then started again.

“This came up when you started playing with my butt last time. You remember how scared I got? I think I told you how I hated to have things in my ass, even when I was a kid and my mother had to use a rectal thermometer. I used to get so fearful, sure it was going to be really painful.

“And the other thing was -- I think I told you about this, too -- sucking dick. I could get a dick partway in, but I’d always be afraid I was going to gag or that I couldn’t breathe. Then my throat would close up and I would panic and pull out.

“I think that may have come from one of my first sexual encounters at a high school party and some guy got me off in a corner and eventually talked me into taking his dick in my mouth. As soon as I did, he tried to force it down my throat and I gagged and nearly threw up. I ran off and tried to put it out of my mind. I think it’s still there.

“So here’s the thing that I’ve been wrestling with. It didn’t happen that way with you. You stuck your tongue in my ass and I didn’t pull away in horror. It felt good, and it surprised the hell out of me. You stuck your finger in my butt and I didn’t scream in agony. I had a fucking orgasm.

“You pushed your dick in my mouth and it felt good, and when it went back further than I would have thought possible, I came. I got off, Carter. No one’s made me feel like that before. In fact, I never would have let anyone come close to doing that in the past. So why now?”

She reached down to take another hit and found only a burning ember, so she dug out a fresh one from the baggie and lit it, took a deep hit and held it in. She blew it out slowly.

“So I decided I couldn’t avoid thinking about it anymore, I had to examine the sex things that scare me. I was surprised how difficult it was. I kept trying to push the problem away, deal with it later, but I made myself do it.

“I don’t know why I reacted differently with you, maybe I trust you more, maybe you just spent more time than anyone else making me loose and giving me a couple dozen orgasms, and it made me less fearful.” She nudged me with an elbow in acknowledgment.

“It took a surprisingly long time, Carter, working through this shit, and I’m not sure I have it entirely right, but what I decided was that you were probably right, that I was reacting to a perceived fear that I had constructed in my mind till it was way more awful than the reality.

“I don’t watch a lot of porn, but I’ve seen my share and all those girls who take dicks up their ass, sometimes more than one, they don’t look like they’re in terrible pain. They’re not good actresses, most of them, and they wouldn’t be able to hide it if they were in pain.

“And it seems like all of them give head just fine, even swallowing big dicks. I know they’ve had lots of practice and it probably gets easier the more you do it, but, geez, if they can do it...”

She sighed.

“So what I finally decided was that I was being a wuss, that I was reacting to a childish fear which was nowhere as awful as I had made it out to be. I ought to be an adult and learn to deal with it.”

She looked at me, as if awaiting my opinion.

“That’s a pretty profound step, Gail. I don’t want to make light of this, but if you had been discussing this with a shrink, it probably would have taken months of weekly sessions to get to that point. I admire your courage and perseverance in working through this. I don’t think I would have been able to do it.”

“Well, what I decided sorta feels right to me, but I’m not sure if the analysis is correct. I’ve gotta feel my way through this, see how it fits, y’know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I think I do.”

She got quiet again and took another hit off the joint. I think I’d had only one hit in all, maybe two. She’d gone through the better part of two joints.

“So, Carter, I find myself in an awkward position. I’ve made these decisions about myself and how I’m going to respond in these situations, but now I need to know if I made the right decisions. I have to ... test them and see how I react. It’s one thing to work this stuff out in your mind, it’s another to put it into practice and see if I was right.”

“Are you asking what I think you are, Gail?”

She put an arm around me and laid her head onto my chest. “I’m afraid to try this with other guys, Tom. Because most of them get really aggressive, thinking about shooting their load. They pay no attention to how I’m responding. They wouldn’t notice if I were uncomfortable or starting to panic. I don’t know why, but I feel safe with you.

“I’ve got to know, Carter. Can I do this, learn how to suck dick the right way, maybe even learn to like getting my ass fucked? Do you think you could be patient with me while I’m seeing if I can do this?”

She’s asking me if I’ll let her take my cock down her throat, if I’ll do her ass. I know she’s worried, but why would she think I wouldn’t do that for her?

“Gail, of course I will. Look, I know how scary this can be. I won’t go any faster or further than you want, okay? We’ll come up with a safe word, you say it and I stop what I’m doing.”

“I’m surprised how nervous I am. I don’t have a problem with screwing, hell, I like it. But this still scares me some.”

“We’ll take it slow. So slow you may get bored. You want to bring along a deck of cards, play some solitaire while we’re working through this?”

She snorted and punched me on the leg, then hugged me.

“Okay, Carter, let’s see where this goes.” She sat up and took a last hit off the joint, which was almost gone anyway.

She took my hand and pulled me up. “You should know the way by now, come with me.”

In her bedroom, she nudged the door closed and looked at me.

“And now I’m as nervous as I was my first time. I don’t know what to do, Tom.”

“I think I remember most of it. Let’s just spend some time exploring each other. Why don’t you start by undressing me?”

I was surprised by how shy she seemed now. I hadn’t seen this at all the first couple of times we were together. I thought that maybe some of her nerves would disappear if she started feeling good. I linkcast her the Foundation image which would sensitize and relax her.

She was fiddling with my shirt buttons now and soon had them open and tugged it out of my jeans. She nuzzled my chest, feeling my skin against hers while I shrugged the shirt off and onto the floor.

Her hands were at my belt, loosening it and undoing the waistband button. She found the zipper and I could feel my dick twitching and she fumbled to pull it open. My pants slipped over my hips and down my legs. She’d forgotten the shoes and had to backtrack, pulling up the pant legs so she could unlace them.