Chapter 44: Countdown

The last week of classes was a total whirlwind. It seemed like there was an infinite amount of work to do, and a finite (and totally inadequate) amount of time to do it in.

I was awakened Friday morning - the last Friday in November - by the sound of Ian going into the bathroom. I got up when I heard him coming out again, and went to use the facilities myself. Cheryl woke up as I got out of her bed. She looked very tempting, but I didn’t want to leave Ian hanging, so I gave her a quick kiss and left her under the covers.

Ian was already dressed, in his clothes from the day before, by the time I got out to the livingroom, still in only my boxers. He followed me to the kitchen, and sat down at the table while I got the coffee going. Cheryl appeared, in a tank top and yoga pants, just as I sat down at the table with Ian and two mugs of coffee.

“Morning, Ian,” she said. “Hungry?”

Ian nodded. “Starving.”

“Me too!” Cheryl agreed, as she opened the fridge door and looked inside. The fact that she had to bend over to do so gave both Ian and I a great view of her ass. I looked. And I noticed he looked too. There were no obvious panty lines, and her pants were tight enough that if she’d been wearing panties, the lines would have been obvious. “Damn. We need to go grocery shopping. There’s like no real food here at all.” She straightened up. “Ok, so we all have tons to do today, and we need good energy. Want to go out for a big breakfast?”

Ian hesitated. “I really d-d-do need t-t-to get going,” he said.

“C’mon, Ian,” Cheryl insisted. “We’ll go someplace between here and your apartment. It’ll be right on your way. And you need to eat.”

Before he could respond, Cheryl left the room and headed down the hallway. Ian raised his eyebrows at me, and I shrugged. We heard Cheryl shouting outside Megan’s door. “Hey! Roomie! Get your lazy ass out of bed!” Then she came back and joined us at the table, sliding into my lap and drinking some of my coffee.

It was only two or three minutes later that Megan appeared in the kitchen, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She was wearing what she’d slept in - a tank top and a tiny pair of panties. I thought Ian was going to choke on his coffee.

“Morning,” she mumbled, then noticed Ian staring at her. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Ian. I should have pulled some pants on.”

Ian was speechless. I laughed.

“Hey,” I said. “At least you have a shirt on this morning. That’s a plus.”

“P-p-ping!”

Megan looked at Ian. “What was that?”

“M-m-my imagination, snapping.”

“Oh, Ian,” Megan laughed, going around behind his chair and leaning over to give him a hug from the back. “You do say the sweetest things. So what’s the plan? Why did you wake me up?”

“We’re all going to breakfast. Pull on some clothes. You too, John. Let’s try to be out the door in 10.”

It was closer to 15, but we made it. And Cheryl was right - we all needed to eat, and a good high protein breakfast was a perfect start to the day. Ian insisted on paying for our meals, in return for the bed for the night, he said. We all said goodbye to him on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant - both of the girls hugging him and kissing his cheek, and he and I shaking hands - and then he headed home, and the girls and I walked back to their place.

And then we all immersed ourselves in our books and our laptops and our notes, reading and writing and studying. The rest of the morning passed quickly, and a little after noon, Cheryl stood up and walked to the kitchen. She rummaged for a bit, then came back into the livingroom with a bag of cheezies and a can of Coke.

“This is all I can find for lunch,” she said. “And I don’t know about you two, but if I live on crap for the next week, I’m going to feel like crap. So I’m going to go and buy ingredients, and make a super big pot of chili for supper for tonight.”

“But you don’t have time for that,” Megan protested. “You’ve got shit to do.”

“I know,” Cheryl agreed. “We all do. But we need to eat, and not just junk food. And we can’t go out all the time. It takes too long, and it costs too much. John’s short on cash, and I know you are too, Megan. And I can’t work 16 hours a day every day, anyway. So I’ll take a break today and feed us. If I make a big enough batch, we’ll have a couple of meals of leftovers for next week. And if you both do the same thing, and make something tomorrow and Sunday, we could have decent leftovers for the whole week.”

Megan looked thoughtful. “That’s actually a good plan. I’ll make chicken stew tomorrow.”

“You’re on,” I agreed. “I’ll do something Sunday. Maybe lasagne.”

“Great,” Cheryl said. “I’ll pick up some fruit and some veggies and sandwich stuff as well - so we can grab something quick for lunches and breakfasts that is still good for us.”

“You want help with the shopping?”

“No, Love. Stay and work. It’s more efficient this way, if we take turns.”

She gave us both a hug, pulled on her coat and boots, and headed for the car, leaving Megan and I to work. She was back within an hour, and spent some time tucking groceries away, then came out of the kitchen with a tray containing crackers, cubes of cheddar and brick cheese, carrot sticks, and some grapes.

“Wow!” Megan exclaimed. “When did my slob of a roommate turn into Susie Fucking Homemaker?”

Cheryl blushed. “It’s like I said. I’ve noticed that when I eat nothing but crap, I feel like crap. And I can’t afford to feel like crap right now. I’m track to do well this term, and I don’t want to screw it up now.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Megan said, reaching for a handful of food. “I appreciate this. I really do.”

“So do I,” I added. “You’re the best.”

She gave me a kiss, then went to the kitchen again, and started cooking. She emerged from the kitchen an hour or so later, and joined Megan and I in working. And, sure enough, at suppertime there was a huge pot of lovely homemade chili ready for us, along with some nice French bread. As we ate, we agreed that Cheryl had been right. She’d spent an hour getting groceries and an hour making us all dinner. Megan and I offered to do the cleanup - but even so we’d spent far less time than if we’d all gone out to eat together, and of course it cost less, and it was likely healthier as well. And we had enough left over for at least two meals next week. My girlfriend was a gem.

And a few hours later, after we’d all done some more schoolwork, and after we’d gone for a short walk to stretch out our tired-from-sitting muscles, I spread my girlfriend’s legs apart and put my mouth on her pussy and ate her to three orgasms as a way of showing her just how much of a gem she was. As she lay, panting, trying to catch her breath after number three, she told me that I was welcome to take her in whatever way I wanted. But I wrapped my arms around her, and told her to go to sleep. I was happy to wait for my turn another day.

Saturday passed much like Friday had, with all three of us occupied most of the day with school. In the early afternoon, after a lunch of cold meat and cheeses and vegetables, Megan and I went to the grocery store together, and bought what she needed for stew as well as what I needed for lasagne. We also followed Cheryl’s lead, and stocked up a bit more on quick options for lunches and breakfasts. Megan made dinner, and Cheryl and I did the dishes.

At bedtime, we went for our now-customary late night walk through the neighbourhood. When we got back, Cheryl used the bathroom first, and while I was peeing and brushing my teeth, she pulled on the sexy dark green lace robe that she’d gotten when we went to Toronto for the weekend, with its matching green satin panties. She had the lights turned down low when I arrived in her bedroom, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I got hard instantly. She met me at the door as I closed it behind me, and gave me a deep kiss, with lots of tongue, her hand roaming down to feel my cock, which was threatening to push through the fabric of my jeans.

“Mmm,” she moaned, pulling her mouth away from mine. “Nice and hard. Just like I like them.”

She knelt at my feet, unzipped and unbuttoned my jeans, and pulled them down to my ankles. Then she leaned forward and kissed and nuzzled my cock through my underwear, running her tongue over the wet spot that was beginning to appear. She lowered my underwear as well, and took me into her mouth. I put my hands on her head, not to control her, as she was doing just fine on her own, but just so I could play with her lovely, soft, red hair.

“Shit, Cheryl,” I said, quietly. “If you keep going like that, I’m gonna fall over.”

I felt her giggle, which was an interesting sensation. Then she pulled off, and helped me step out of my pants, underwear, and socks. That was good. At least I wasn’t going to trip! She stood and unbuttoned my shirt, sliding it off my shoulders, then led me, naked, to her bed.

“Lie down,” she said. “Your mouth worked its magic on me last night. Now it’s my turn to return the favour.”

I didn’t argue. When a girl tells you to lie down so she can give you the blowjob she thinks she owes you, you don’t stop to tell her that she doesn’t owe you anything. I know I’ve said before that my girl has a pretty damn talented mouth. And she brought her A game to this one. She took me to the edge twice, and both times she backed off before I could come, before she finally allowed me to explode inside her mouth. When she had licked me clean, she stood up, untied the robe and shrugged it off, then climbed into my arms wearing nothing but that tiny pair of green panties and a smug, spermy smile.

Sunday was much like Saturday, except that instead of working at home all day, I spent most of the morning at the library with Ian. But I made sure I was back at the girls’ apartment in lots of time to put together two pans of lasagne. Cheryl and Megan had cooked for me, and now it was my turn. I was pleased with the result, though it wasn’t quite as good as my mom’s - I don’t know how she gets her layers of meat and cottage cheese to be as defined as she does. But Cheryl and Megan seemed happy with it, and it was healthy and hot and cheaper than going out. The only downside was that it created a lot of dishes - more so than Megan’s stew, for example, which really only required one pan and a cutting board. We’d been following a pattern where the two people who didn’t cook did the washing up, but I’d felt guilty about how many dishes I’d dirtied doing the preparation, so I’d washed those up quickly myself once I had the pans in the oven baking, leaving only the dinner dishes for Cheryl and Megan.

Before bed, after our nighttime walk to stretch our legs and clear our minds, the three of us chatted about we felt about the weekend’s progress. Each of us felt like we were entering the final week of classes in reasonable shape. We all had lots of work left to do, but significantly less than we’d had on Thursday - and on top of the work we’d done for school, we’d also filled the fridge and freezer with enough leftover meals to last us almost until crunch time ended. All in all, it had been a pretty successful three days.

And having determined that, I took my red-headed girlfriend to bed, and we had a pretty successful fuck session. No. Scratch that. I can’t use the words ‘pretty successful’ to describe sex with Cheryl. Our Sunday night fuck session was as utterly amazing as always.

Monday, the first day of December, was an incredibly long day. And it was amazing to walk home with Cheryl and find Megan heating up chili for our supper. I had a paper that had to be done for Tuesday, so Cheryl and Megan ended up going for the late night walk without me. Ultimately, I stayed up ridiculously late finishing it off, but as I snuggled into bed beside Cheryl (who’d already been between the sheets for a good couple of hours before I joined her), I was feeling pretty good about the finished product.

I was awakened on Tuesday morning by Cheryl, who was already showered and dressed. She had brought a cup of coffee into the bedroom for me.

“I left you sleeping as long as I could, John,” she said, once my eyes were opened. “You get up and get showered, and I’ll go pack us lunches.”