Chapter 4

On Thursday, Alicia’s Sociology small group met to discuss their papers on sexuality. She took her usual seat next to Megan who only glanced up for a moment as she thumb-typed on her phone. After booting her laptop, Alicia stared at the screen displaying her final draft and waited for class to begin.

The previous evening had surpassed all of her expectations and left a tingling ache between her legs. The guys might have only been enthusiastic virgins, but Alicia had rarely enjoyed sex more. The thrill of her first threesome with two guys was multiplied by their youthful energy. And knowing they were going to be together later kept her simmering. The only damper was the continuing tension she felt with Megan.

“So how was the party?” Megan asked as she put her phone down.

“What party?” The comment confused Alicia until she remembered Megan’s comment after she had seen the condoms at the store. “No, I told you. I was just stocking up.”

“Yeah, but you have that freshly fucked look I know so well.” Megan raised her eyebrows and waited.

Alicia tried to ignore the look, but anger welled up. She snapped, “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I knew you were lying,” Megan sneered.

Kendal, the thin, black-haired teaching assistant, came in and clapped her hands. “Ok, everyone take your seats.” She pushed her glasses back up her nose and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Megan murmured something under her breath as she yanked out her laptop and lifted the screen. The scowl on her face infuriated Alicia even more.

“I’m happy to announce that everyone got their papers submitted on time,” Kendal said, then paused a beat. “For a change.” That got a few chuckles. “I just shot out a link to the papers you’ve just turned in. Your topic was to explore our society’s perception and response to the differences between sexuality and gender. After skimming through the titles, I’m looking forward to reading them all and hope you are, too.”

“Do we have to read them all?” A muscular guy asked with a slight whine.

“Yes, Dillon. We will be discussing six papers per class until we meet up with all the other groups for the next lecture. Today you’ll start reading them here in class and be ready for our first discussion on Tuesday. Please start with Alicia Tucker’s paper. She got hers in early enough for me to read before class and I found it very insightful and thought provoking. Hers will be the first we discuss on Tuesday, but please have them all read before then.”

Alicia flushed at the recognition. Dillon shot her a look, along with the rest of the class. She returned his frank appraisal with one of her own. When he saw the interest in her eyes, he gave her a half-grin and raised his chin in her direction.

Megan let out a huff. “Looks like you found someone to use some of those condoms with, assuming you have any left.”

“Why do you have to be such a bitch?” Alicia whispered as she turned her attention to her computer.

“Why do you feel like you have to hide how much you hook up?”

Alicia ignored Megan and clicked on a paper at random to read. She made it through two of them before she’d calmed down enough to read Megan’s paper. It explored gender differences in intimate relationships, especially social expectations based on gender.

Megan argued that male-male friendships rarely involved emotional intimacy. Many men only had a single person, typically a girlfriend or wife, with whom they shared both physical and emotional intimacy. The strong link between physical and emotional intimacy fed into the fear that any physical contact between men was implicitly homosexual.

Women were more willing to share emotional intimacy and often had a larger base of emotional support. As a result, women were generally more open to physical intimacy with other women. Hugging, holding hands, and touching were all more socially acceptable between women than men. There was even less social stigma associated with sexual relationships between women than there was with men.

The social pressure to maintain masculine gender roles comes with a deadly toll. Men are over three times more likely to kill themselves than women in the US. That could be tied back to the expectations regarding men and their role in society. They are valued for what they produce, not who they are. And a failure to produce, to succeed, becomes a personal failure. So by pressuring them to isolate themselves for fear of being viewed as unmasculine, she argued that society was complicit in their suicides.

It was an interesting argument. Some of the men Alicia had been involved with sexually had assumed their physical intimacy naturally implied an emotional intimacy she hadn’t felt or wanted. Her situation with Megan went the opposite direction. They had been emotionally intimate for years, but adding physical intimacy had made Megan assume their relationship was more than it was. Maybe Megan couldn’t keep the physical and emotional parts separated as easily as Alicia could.

When the bell rang, Alicia put away her books while Megan stood nearby looking pensive. Before they could speak, the muscular guy came over with an easy grin.

“Alicia, right?” he asked. “I’m Dillon.”

“Hey Dillon,” Alicia said as she stood to shoulder her book back. “What’s up?”

“You did a great job on your paper! You interested in talkin’ about sociology Saturday night? I think you get this stuff better’n me.” He offered his phone to Alicia so she could add her number. “And my roommate will be gone for the weekend.”

Alicia took his phone and texted herself cute guy from sociology so he would have her number and she would know who he was when he texted. “Sounds good. Text me later. I’ll see if I’m free to hook up.”

His smile widened as she handed his phone back. “Cool,” he said and backed away. “Cool.”

When he was out of earshot, Megan turned away muttering, “Fuck it, nevermind.”

Alicia’s irritation smoldered into flame. Before she could bite back the words, she hissed, “You’re not my fucking girlfriend.”

Megan walked out of the classroom without a word or glance back. When she turned at the door, Alicia saw her wiping at her eyes. The irritation flamed out and left a weary bitterness behind.

She usually ate lunch with Megan between classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That obviously wasn’t happening now. Alicia had lost her appetite anyway. She tried to rationalize how agitated Megan made her feel. There were the constant questions about her leisure time, asking who Alicia might be seeing or what she might be doing when they were apart. And the surprise visits at her dorm room along with the flimsy excuses she gave for them. The lingering looks. The strained silences.

Alicia had hooked up with a guy in her senior year of high school that had stalked her in much the same way. He was always just around the corner, bumping into her at parties. It had never gone beyond the point of being creepy. At the time, Megan had laughed at how obvious he had been. Now she was doing the same damn thing.

Alicia found it hard to concentrate during her Intro to Business class that followed her non-lunch in the library. She tried to follow the lecture topic of business ethics with little success. Luckily, the hall was filled with over a hundred students, so she could hide in the crowd during the lecture and discussion that followed.

Megan. The whole mess left her feeling guilty for no reason. They had hooked up. It had been amazing. Now it looked like Megan was going to ruin their friendship in the aftermath. Alicia had other friends, but it didn’t make losing one of her oldest friends any easier.

Her attention was drawn back when the professor assigned a new paper to write. It required researching a company that had been caught in breach of accepted business ethics. Using news stories and court records, if possible, she was to summarize the issues and identify policies that might have prevented the breach.

Alicia packed up her books and went back to her dorm for a quick shower and shave before heading to Madeline’s house. She hated to admit it, but what had started as a fun romp with the step-brothers had now become something of an emotional crutch. Her college workload and the situation with Megan had left her so stressed that only the prospect of enthusiastic sex later kept her going.

When she got there, Madeline answered her door with a distracted smile. “Hey, come on in.”

Alicia followed her into the kitchen and looked around for the guys. “How’s it going today?”

“I don’t know,” Madeline said. “They came home and have been up in their room ever since.”

“No fights or anything?” she asked. Her rule about ending things if the guys fought was foremost in her mind. The idea of not having sex suddenly bothered her more than she liked.

“No, nothing like that.” Madeline took a tray of broiled fish out of the oven. A couple of pieces were already missing. She carried the fish and a plate of pan-fried potatoes to the table and sat them on hot pads that were already there. “But something is off. Maybe something happened at school. Let me know if you find out?”

“I will.”

Madeline gathered her purse and paused with her hand on the doorknob.

“Can I ask a favor? Some of us have been hanging out after class to discuss the material. I’ve been ducking out to get home on time, but I really need to nail down the difference between process groups and knowledge areas. Would it be okay if I was a little late from now on?”

“Sure, no problem. I’ll nap on the couch if I get tired. Just text me when you’re on your way.”

“Thanks, Alicia. You’re really saving me.” Madeline squeezed her hand and smiled as she headed for the door to the garage. “See you later!”

“Bye.” Alicia turned to the stairs to see what was up with the guys. Their door was shut, so she rapped on it with the back of her knuckles. When she didn’t get an answer, she cracked the door open.

Adam was sitting across his bed, leaning back against the wall and wiping his eyes. Carlos was reclining on his bed on the other side of the room, staring at the ceiling with his arm over his forehead.

“Everything okay?” Alicia asked as she stepped into the room.

“We’re not fighting,” Adam said, his voice unsteady.

“Okay, but something obviously happened.”

A desk with a computer was between the beds under the window on the far wall. Their dresser ran along the wall next to her. Alicia leaned her hip against it to wait for them to speak.

In the silence, Carlos turned his head to stare at Adam. Carlos raised his eyebrows, as if prompting Adam to speak. Adam looked down and sighed.

“Earlier ... we were talking about,” Adam started, then stopped to look up at Alicia with a flush growing across his cheeks. “About tonight. About things we wanted to learn or try.”

Alicia nodded to encourage him.

“I was talking about how great it was watching you and Carlos, last night, at the end. How hot it was.” Adam shifted around, clearly adjusting his jeans. “Then Carlos asked why I kissed you. Afterwards.”

“What did you say?” Alicia asked, curious herself.

Adam paused, sucking in his cheeks a few times. “That the idea of doing it turned me on.”

“That’s okay.” Alicia started to put the pieces together and wanted to help things along. “It turned me on, too.”

Carlos rolled over on his side to face them. “Yeah, but you’re a girl.”

“So what?”

“He likes to taste my cum,” Carlos exclaimed with a look of disgust. “That’s fucked up.”

“Why?” Alicia asked, but already knew the answer.

Carlos swung his legs over the side of the bed and opened his arms. “Because it’s gay!”

“No, wanting to marry a guy makes you gay. Adam just likes cum.” Alicia smirked and watched them carefully. “I mean, I’m not gay and I like the taste of pussy.”

Both guys looked at her with identical shocked expressions.

“You’re bi?” Carlos breathed.

“I don’t feel the need to use labels.” Alicia had to chuckle silently at them.

“But you’ve hooked up with a girl?” Carlos couldn’t mask his enthusiasm at the idea.

“So girl cum in my mouth is okay for me, but what Adam did is gross.”

Carlos frowned. “That’s different.”

“Not really. You can’t choose what turns you on. It runs deeper than that,” Alicia said as she considered how to make her point. “Adam, are you sexually aroused by guys?”

Adam blushed deeply before answering. “No, girls definitely turn me on. I want a girlfriend, not a boyfriend. It’s just that there’s something about watching a guy cumming. It’s not like I want to suck a dick or anything. I don’t know why it turns me on.”

“Exactly! There is no explanation. It’s one of the mysteries of life. People get turned on by whatever turns them on. Some people are obsessed with particular body parts or being restrained or socially taboo things like—I don’t know—peeing on someone. I’d never thought about being with a girl before someone dared me to kiss my friend at a party, but I liked it.”

“It’s different with girls,” Carlos grumbled.

“You’re right. It is. And it shouldn’t be. If I held a girl’s hand at school, as a friend, no one would care. If you two walked around like that, everyone would make uncomfortable comments until you stopped. Even if you just wanted to hug a guy friend having a hard time, you couldn’t. It’s really sad.”

“So you don’t think I’m weird?” Adam asked as he stood, his gaze on the floor.