16: Becoming Us

The weeks that followed Sarah’s first real lunch with Bharath and Marisol unfolded like something out of a dream she never knew she could have.

Her little house off-campus had never seen so much life. Where once the silence clung to the walls like mildew, now it rang with laughter, late-night debates, the rhythmic thump of reggaeton and 90s pop and hip-hop, and the clatter of pans as Ravi and Jorge inevitably argued over how to properly make instant noodles versus real pasta. Tyrel started calling the place “Club 10,” a nickname that stuck for reasons no one could explain - though it may have had something to do with the three beautiful women under one roof.

Most nights, the gang was there - sprawled on the living room floor, half-sitting on worn beanbags or leaning against Sarah’s low couch. Video games on Fridays alternated between Sarah’s and Smith 202, depending on whose fridge was better stocked. On Sarah’s turf, the real party started when the girls - Marisol, Camila, and Sarah - claimed the kitchen.

“Arepas or tostadas tonight?” Marisol would ask.

“Make both,” Sarah would reply, rolling up her sleeves. “We’ve got four nerds to feed and three queens to impress.”

They cooked together. Cleaned together. Ate together. Fell asleep on each other sometimes, like a tangled, oversized litter of exhausted cubs. It felt ... right. Like this was what college was supposed to be. Something no textbook could teach.

And through it all - Bharath remained the anchor.

He was a better version of himself now. Focused, confident, still awkward sometimes but fully stepping into his strange, magnetic presence. He tutored Ravi and Tyrel when they fell behind, explained pointers to Jorge during CS homework reviews, and helped Camila fix a syntax bug in her assembly code that had her threatening to throw her laptop into a wall.

Sarah, to her own surprise, became their second tutor.

They had known she was a junior but they hadn’t realized how brilliant she was. Her quiet command of chemical theory and mathematical clarity quickly earned their respect. Soon, Ravi started calling her “Professor Sarah” in mock awe, and Tyrel insisted he was only pretending to flirt so she wouldn’t give him extra homework.

But beneath the laughter and late-night takeout, beneath the card and board games and movie marathons, Sarah’s favorite moments weren’t loud.

They were intimate.

They were those casual, domestic glances between Bharath and Marisol when no one else seemed to notice - but Sarah always did. The way Marisol melted into his side during a slow evening on the couch, her head nestled under his chin while Bharath traced soft circles on her bare thigh without looking up from his notes. Or how he always seemed to tilt his coffee mug so she could take the last sip without asking. Or how Marisol whispered Spanish into his ear at the grocery store, her voice low and syrupy, and Bharath - who pretended not to understand most of it - would smirk like he knew it wasn’t innocent.

Sarah would sit at the kitchen island, pretending to scroll through her books, heart thudding in a rhythm that had nothing to do with caffeine or anxiety.

She longed for that kind of quiet certainty.

And every night, when Marisol “slept over” to avoid dorm checks, Bharath would come too.

They stayed in the guest bedroom - technically.

Sarah never asked. They never offered details.

But the walls were thin.

And by the second night, Sarah wasn’t just hearing. She was listening.

At first it was innocent - or so she told herself. She’d catch the muffled rustle of sheets and assumed they were settling in. Then came the soft gasp, the low murmur. Then the sounds no part of her could ignore.

Marisol’s voice - unfiltered, wrecked with pleasure. The sound of flesh meeting flesh in a steady, punishing rhythm. Bharath’s voice - low, in Tamil, half growled, half whispered, a language Sarah didn’t understand but felt down to her bones.

Marisol would cry out in Spanish, her voice rising and dissolving into pleasured sobs. “Dámelo ... más ... así, así ... cabrón, me vas a matar...”

And Bharath would growl back, something primal - short, sharp commands that made her body jolt with involuntary heat even when she didn’t know what the words meant. There was a rhythm to them. The beat of domination. The melody of surrender.

What shattered Sarah, though, was the way it happened.

She had never experienced anything like it.

There was a night she couldn’t forget - when she heard Marisol gasp, “Si amor, don’t stop, pull my hair, please- “, followed by a sharp thwack and a sobbing cry that wasn’t pain, but ecstasy.

Bharath’s voice had dropped so low it was nearly a snarl. He was spanking her. Pulling her hair. Taking her from behind with a force that made the headboard softly, rhythmically tap the wall - and yet every moan that followed was laced with love, with reverence.

“Idhu enadhu.”
This is mine.

She didn’t understand the language.

But she understood the message.

Sarah had bitten her lip so hard that night it left a mark the next morning. She lay curled in bed, barely breathing, legs trembling as her hand moved between her thighs - not enough to finish, just enough to ache.

Because it wasn’t just the sounds that ruined her.

It was the energy.

The dynamic.

Marisol had become someone else behind closed doors - raw, submissive, undone. She moaned like a woman who trusted completely, who wanted to be claimed. And Bharath - sweet, awkward, bookish Bharath - had turned into a man who owned her body. Utterly. Without apology.

Sarah had never seen - or heard - anything so erotic.

And it wasn’t just once.

There were nights Marisol wanted to be overheard. Sarah knew. She would enter the kitchen the next morning with her curls piled into a messy bun, cheeks flushed, skin interspersed with rude red marks that peeked out from under her oversized tee. Sometimes she moved gingerly, her gait just a touch off - like her thighs still ached from the night before.

She’d open the fridge, pour herself juice, and then lock eyes with Sarah. No words. Just a slow, wicked smile - and maybe a wink.

Sarah’s throat would dry. She’d pretend to look away.

But the damage was already done.

Marisol knew. And she wasn’t ashamed. If anything, she was proud.

And that drove Sarah wild.

There was one morning - the one that made her breath hitch for days afterward - when Marisol came into the kitchen in just one of Bharath’s shirts, thighs bare, hickeys blooming like wildflowers across her collarbone and neck, even her thighs!

She poured herself a glass of milk, leaned against the counter, and in a voice far too casual, asked, “You sleep okay?”

Sarah nodded, heart hammering. “Yeah. Fine.”

Marisol’s eyes sparkled. “Our man has a gift for keeping people up at night, huh?”

Sarah couldn’t even form a reply. She just stared at the cereal box in her hands like it held all the answers she didn’t have.

It was torture.

And it was intoxicating.

She hadn’t made a move. She hadn’t dared.

Because part of her was still healing. Still fragile. Still trying to remember what it meant to want something without fearing the cost.

But the way Bharath’s voice turned into thunder when he growled into Marisol’s neck in Tamil...

The way Marisol begged in Spanish, her words tumbling out with a rhythm born of need...

The sound of it all...

It lived in Sarah’s bones now.

She craved it - not just the sex, but the surrender. The freedom to fall apart in the arms of someone who would catch you. Someone who would worship you, even as they wrecked you.

She would lie awake after those nights, one hand clutching her pillow, the other pressed between her thighs - unable to finish, unwilling to forget.

And somewhere between arousal and ache, between envy and longing, a new truth took root in her chest.

She didn’t just want to hear them anymore.

She wanted to join them.

Not for pleasure.

Not yet.

But for belonging.

For the intimacy. The heat. The love. The safety of being held between them like something precious.

Sarah closed her eyes in the dark and whispered a promise to herself:

One day. When I’m ready. I will walk into that room and demand. Not to borrow. But to be claimed.

She respected them. She respected herself. But she knew now - completely - that she didn’t just want to be near them she wanted to be with them in every way possible.

The girls were becoming her sisters, and that alone was healing wounds Sarah didn’t know she still carried. Camila opened up over old heartbreaks. Marisol teased her into laughter when she got too quiet. Even Jorge - with his smooth game and subtle charm - always offered to walk her home if she stayed late after class.

These weren’t people who wanted to use her. These were people who saw her.

And it had changed her life.

Maria Rivera didn’t scare easy.

She’d raised two girls on her own, worked double and triple shifts, pinched pennies until they squealed, and still managed to hold her head high in a world that didn’t exactly roll out red carpets for single Cuban mothers with sharp tongues and no patience for nonsense.

But what she was seeing now in her youngest?

That scared her a little.

Because it was unbelievable.

She stood in the kitchen doorway, dishrag in one hand, brow furrowed as she watched Mia at the dining table - hunched over a thick AP Calculus prep book, a mechanical pencil tapping rhythmically against her cheek. Her face was drawn in deep concentration. Not the fake kind she used to put on for show. Not the pouty, “I’m busy” look she used when she was scrolling through fashion magazines and pretended it counted as reading.

No. This was different.

Mia was studying.

Voluntarily.

She’d come home from school, dropped her bag, and gone straight to the table with her laptop and a stack of college brochures. Georgia Tech was at the top - circled in pink highlighter.

Maria blinked. Georgia Tech?

Just a few weeks ago, Mia had rolled her eyes at the very idea. “It’s a nerd school,” she’d said. “All those guys smell like code and despair.” Now? She was writing essays, planning her personal statement, even calling the counselor to discuss scholarship requirements.