Chapter 11: A Very Serious Commitment

Lisa decided to rinse off and brush her teeth before settling on her cot for the night. She showered as quietly as possible to avoid waking the other pledges, shaved her armpits, legs, and pelvis, and finally brushed her teeth as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was tired, but apart from that she felt that she looked pretty good considering everything she had been through over the past four days.

She took a closer look at her cheeks to check for signs of blemishes. She was very mindful of blackheads, because she had endured a rather severe period of acne during her first years in high school. Sure enough, after nearly a week of not having time to attend to her face, she found several sizable ones that needed to be pinched out of her cheeks. Once that task was completed, Lisa soaped her face and rinsed off. She looked at her reflection again. The pinch marks would fade in a couple of minutes and her appearance would return to normal, minus the offending blackheads.

Lisa was quite attractive, but that had not always been true. As a teenager she had been too tall and too skinny, her teeth covered in braces, and her face and shoulders covered with painful pimples. As she thought about her previous appearance, her thoughts returned to Mike, her old boyfriend from high school. When she contemplated her past she always thought about him, because in Lisa’s life her time in high school and her time with Mike went together. He was the one person in high school who was nice to her before her appearance blossomed, her only source of fun and social interaction for nearly four years. Yes, it was true that he was a bit controlling and way too serious, but he was kind to her most of the time and, anyhow, her appearance denied her any other options. When her braces came off, her figure filled out, and her acne receded, Mike continued to be constantly at her side during her senior year in school. It seemed that he was destined to reap the benefits of his kindness and patience and stay with her.

That certainty came to an abrupt end with the young couple failed to get into the university they wanted and decided to study out of state. They left California to study in Chicago, which at the time seemed a very logical thing for them to do. However, they could not have foreseen that the change of environment and personal circumstances very quickly would force them apart.

Lisa’s exposure to a new city and new people began making her less interested in her boyfriend. Her tense relationship with Cecilia Sanchez, who was simultaneously a friend and a rival, forced Lisa to become much more assertive in her own personality and actions. Lisa’s relationships with the other residents of her dorm floor also forced her to be more assertive, because Cecilia drafted her to tutor several freshmen who were struggling in their classes. Lisa became used to giving instructions and orders. Over time she was much less willing to take orders herself.

Another part of her life that brought about a change in her personality was Lisa’s relationship with the other two members of her small social group, Jason and Ken. Cecilia’s dominance of her boyfriend Jason fascinated Lisa, as did the apparent willingness of Ken to experiment with his sexuality. Seeing the other two guys close-up made Lisa aware of other sexual possibilities besides Mike.

Lisa’s feelings towards her former boyfriend and what she wanted in her sexual life began to change as the result of a single incident, a game of strip Poker that she played back in September with Mike, Jason, and Ken. Lisa easily won and ended up in a dorm room with three naked guys. That night her imagination ran wild as she made Jason and Ken submit to penalties; forcing them to pose for pictures, then ordering them go streaking across the university to the Student Center and back. The real fun, however, was when she made Ken do an extra penalty. She put her nude friend over her lap and gave him a spanking. She completely enjoyed the experience, having a naked guy over her lap while she slapped the hell out of him. Lisa was having some real fun as she punished Ken, more naughty fun than she ever had enjoyed in her life. What was interesting was that Ken enjoyed the spanking as well. Lisa discovered something sexual that she really enjoyed doing.

What ruined the evening for Lisa was Mike. While she was cavorting with Ken and Jason, Mike was becoming increasingly jealous and pissed-off. At the time she felt bad and was desperate to make it up to him, but deep inside she resented not being able to pursue her fantasies because of her damn boyfriend. That seed of resentment, planted that night following the Poker game, secretly grew inside Lisa’s soul as the semester progressed.

Mike is so fucking serious and boring. He’s got no imagination at all. He doesn’t have a clue about having any fun...

Shortly after the first Poker game there was another event that changed Lisa’s personality and made her feel even more restricted by her relationship with Mike, her participation in the Tri-Alpha nude 10-K campus run. The run was the result of a second strip-Poker game, one set up by Cecilia for a specific purpose. Cecilia wanted to get some residents from her floor to participate in the race, and decided to use a Poker game to recruit her friends into running. In playing Cecilia was taking a risk, because she was no better at Poker than Lisa and the two women stayed tied almost right up to the end. However, ultimately Lisa made a couple of mistakes as the game was about to wrap up and it was she, not Cecilia, who lost and had to join the guys in the running event.

At first Lisa and Mike were mortified at the thought of running naked for 10 kilometers in front of 50,000 university students, professors, and alumni. However, Lisa’s attitude completely changed when she actually managed to win the women’s division of the race. She cheerfully posed nude for hundreds of pictures and realized that she enjoyed being naked in public. Just as the first Poker game unlocked Lisa’s secret sexual desires; the 10-K race unlocked her exhibitionist personality. From that point forward she changed her wardrobe and dressed very provocatively, always wearing as little as she could without risking arrest for indecent exposure. Lisa’s new manner of dressing made Mike very uncomfortable, because her attractive and mostly uncovered body got plenty of attention from everyone on campus.

As the fall semester progressed Lisa became more and more impatient with anything Mike did. The biggest problem for her was their sexual relationship. Mike always made love the exact same way, always between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. and always took the same amount of time to climax. Try as she could, Lisa could not get him to experiment with any new positions, let alone explore foreplay or any variation such as oral sex or anal intercourse. Finally, by December boredom set in and Lisa began fantasizing about having sex with other guys. She later realized that by the end of the first semester the breakup with Mike was probably inevitable.

Even so, there were plenty of times that Lisa still missed him. He was smart, politically aware, and could answer almost any question she had about the world. Sometimes she had to keep reminding herself why they had broken up. They had gone their separate ways not over jealousy, or betrayal, or any other dramatic reason, but simply because the time for their relationship had come and gone. The first few months of college changed Lisa, but did not change Mike. As Lisa became more outgoing and more confident she got bored. He was smart enough to see what was happening, and after just one semester decided to go back to California and take Lisa with him. Lisa had no desire to go back, Chicago suited her just fine.

They went home together and had a very tense Christmas dinner at her mother’s house in Santa Cruz. The break-up happened the day after Christmas. Mike told Lisa that he had re-applied to study in Berkeley and this time expected to get in. In the meantime he would take community college classes in Santa Cruz. He told Lisa to resubmit her application as well, since he knew one of the employees in the admissions office and was sure it would be accepted. Lisa responded:

“That’s real nice, except there’s one problem. I don’t want to go to Berkeley. And I don’t want to sit on my ass taking community college classes until next fall. Fuck that!”

“Well, I don’t want to go back to Chicago. I’ve told you that several times, and it doesn’t seem you’re listening.”

“Who said anything about you going back to Chicago? I never said you needed to go back there! You can do whatever you want, but don’t you go making arrangements for my life behind my back! You can go to Berkeley, or Santa Cruz, or wherever the fuck else you want to go, but I’m going back to Chicago! Tell your friend in the admissions department to take my application and stick it up his ass!”

“ ... and so you don’t give a damn about our future? About me or anything I want? You’re telling me that Chicago’s more important than I am?”

“That’s right, Mike. That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Chicago’s more important to me than you are.”

Mike’s expression changed. He looked dazed, as if he had been hit over the head with a rock. He didn’t know what how to respond, because he had not expected Lisa to be so blunt with him.

One of Mike’s good points was that he was never willing to do anything that he thought would humiliate himself. He had backed himself into a corner, leaving only two options. He could cave in, beg Lisa to forgive him, and meekly return to Chicago, or get up and leave with the understanding they were breaking up. Either way, as far as Lisa was concerned the relationship had ended. Mike realized that as well, and did the one thing he could to salvage what was left of his dignity. Without saying another word he walked out, knowing that he was leaving behind the girl he had dated for the past four years.

Lisa was relieved to see Mike go. He would have disappointed her had he done anything else, because his stubbornness was one part of his character that she admired. They had drifted apart and broken up, but in spite of everything, Mike managed to keep her respect. She couldn’t share her life with him, but at least she could continue to respect him.

Less than two weeks later Ken had replaced Mike as Lisa’s sexual partner. They began as a couple on a bitterly cold January day, after he picked up her from the airport and listened to her complaints about her breakup with Mike. They later went shopping to pick up some textbooks. A day that stated out as a simple shopping trip ended with a bet, a strip Poker game, a spanking, and a night in bed.

That was the beginning of Lisa’s second relationship, one about as different from her first relationship as possible. She ended up with a boyfriend who was totally unsure of himself, could not match her intellectually, and who she was not particularly proud of. However he did the one thing Mike couldn’t do; he satisfied her sexual desires. Physically she was happy for the entire spring semester, as her body reveled in one new sexual experience after another. It was with Ken, not Mike, that Lisa learned how satisfying, and addictive, good sex truly could be.