Chapter 3: Study Breaks

“So what happened then?” Belle’s eyes flicked to the prominent bulge in my shorts, but she quickly returned her attention to my face.

I shrugged, folded my arms behind my head, and reclined back against the headboard in her bedroom. Only an hour earlier I’d sent Holly home un-fucked but satisfied nonetheless. I took a shower, felt the need to talk to someone, and walked next door to see Belle.

“I ate her out until she pushed my head away and curled up on her side, just like before. She actually tried to teach me for five minutes, telling me to go softer or harder or to push another finger inside her. But after her first orgasm she kinda got incoherent, so I just went to town making up stuff as I went.”

“Well she obviously enjoyed it.”

I nodded. “When she finally recovered, she took one look at my throbbing erection and pounced on it. She said she wanted to try deep-throating me, but she kept choking and couldn’t quite pull it off.”

“Was your dick too long or too fat?”

“I, uh, I dunno. I didn’t stop to ask.”

Belle laughed.

“In the end I came in her mouth, she swallowed it all, and then gave me a quick peck on the lips and said thanks for a fun evening. We got dressed and she left. That’s it.”

“That’s it? Did you make any plans to hook up again? Maybe go on a date?”

“A date? Didn’t you hear the whole part about how she’s not into having steady boyfriends?”

Belle shrugged. “One date does not make a steady boyfriend. I’m just saying, if the whole night was that enjoyable for both of you, one would think you’d talk about doing it again.”

I shook my head. “Not a good idea. She’d want to have sex, and I’d have to turn her down again, and she really didn’t like the feeling of rejection.”

“Yeah, exactly why DID you reject her?” Belle screwed her face up. “I mean, when the rest of us went home last night, I assumed you were going to wake up this morning an ex-virgin.”

I averted my eyes and shrugged. “I just told her I wasn’t ready yet. That I had performance anxiety and couldn’t go through with it.”

“Yeah, you said that. But knowing what I know about Holly, she would’ve just tried to convince you otherwise. Believe me, that girl was HOT to get you buried deep inside her pussy last night, and all you’d have to do was lay there and let her ride you. If you popped off early, so what? She’d just suck you hard so you could try again. I can’t believe she’d back off with so simple a deflection. And then despite your rejection, things were patched up enough that you still went down on each other afterwards. So what DID you say to her?”

“That was it,” I lied, shaking my head. “I told her I wasn’t ready, and she wasn’t going to rape me or anything, so she accepted it. And maybe I really am that good at eating pussy that she was happy to settle for a few more oral orgasms. Simple as that.”

“Matty, this is me. I can tell when you’re hiding something.”

“Belle, seriously.”

“Alright, alright, I won’t push you. Yet.” She got a teasing smirk on her face that let me know she was going to worm the truth out of me eventually.

I sighed, trying to figure out how I was going to hide the truth. I knew the idea that I was saving myself for the BTC would be a bomb that could fracture the whole group. The girls might feel obligated to have one of them put out for me, which could start a chain reaction of them squabbling about which one of them should get my cherry (Neevie, maybe? Hopefully?) and disrupt the balance of the group for the same reasons none of them was allowed to date me. And let’s say one of them started having sex with me, then maybe one or more of the others would want to because it would only be “fair”, and girls could get jealous about that sort of thing, right? And even if some of them started having sex with me, maybe some of them would NEVER want to have sex with me, and the pressure of hanging out with a guy you KNOW wants to have sex with YOU could strain my relationships with them and ruin the comfortable, “safe” bond that we’d formed over the years. And that didn’t even consider the peer pressure part the girls had already discussed about feeling obligated to “keep up”.

I’d explained all this to Holly and asked her to not tell Sam the exact reason I’d turned her down. Holly had offered to lie and claim she DID get my cherry, and I’d been sorely tempted to take her up on that offer. But the idea of going around pretending I’d lost my virginity - and then somehow answering the avalanche of questions I’d get from the BTC about said de-virginization without losing my mind - did not appeal.

Fortunately, Belle was no longer scrutinizing me and didn’t notice my contemplative state. She looked pretty contemplative herself, reclining on one side across her bed propped up on one elbow and holding her cheek in her palm.

“So what was it like?” she asked quietly, without looking at me.

“What was what like?”

“Oral. What did it feel like to have her mouth on you?”

I grinned at the memory. “It felt incredible.”

“Better than masturbation?”

“WAY better.”

Belle shivered, and I noticed the way her nipples started poking through her sweater. I also noticed the way her free hand drifted down from her hip, rubbing her thigh as it moved closer to her crotch.

“You imagining Holly putting her mouth on me?” I asked quietly. “Maybe imagining you putting your mouth on me?”

“Matty!” she yelped and gave me a scandalized look.

“Imagining ME going down on YOU?”

“Matty.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Ah, I see. Imagining Holly going down on you.”

She sat up and threw a pillow at me while I laughed.

“Hey, fair’s fair. You girls are always teasing me.”

She pursed her lips and mused on that. “You’re right. We do.” Sitting up straight, the petite strawberry-blonde crossed her legs and leaned forward with a gleam in her eyes. And in a sensuously thick voice, she began, “Fine, I admit it. I AM fantasizing about putting my mouth on you, and this isn’t the first time. I fantasize about sucking your big, throbbing dick a lot, actually. Two weeks ago, we were eating dinner with my dad. I pictured myself crawling underneath the dining table and cramming every last inch of your beautiful cock between my lips and giving you the most incredible blowjob until you filled me with gallons of sperm. But in MY dreams, I can do the deep-throat Holly couldn’t quite pull off. I’d be better for you than she was.”

“Okay, okay, you can stop now.” I averted my eyes and held up my hands defensively. “You’ve made your point.”

Breathing hard, Belle slid one hand beneath the hem of her sweater, which was tight enough for me to see the outline of her fingers inching upwards until she’d started cupping one of her own D-cup breasts, all while adding, “And yeah, I was imagining you going down on me. You have no idea how many nights I lay awake, fingering myself while imagining you and your long tongue are between my thighs.”

“Belle...” I warned.

“I’m so jealous of Holly, you know that? She actually got to feel you cumming down her throat while I can only fantasize.”

“Belle,” I said a little more strongly.

“Do you realize how many times I’ve wished you’d come lick ME to an orgasm?” Belle’s other hand slid into her crotch. “And then fucking HOLLY ... who you barely even know ... got what, six from you? Seven?”

“BELLE. Stop it.” I barked quite loudly, grabbing one of her pillows and throwing it at her. “The teasing’s not fun anymore.”

She’d pulled her hand out of her sweater to block the pillow, and now sat up straight as well. In a challenging voice, she intoned, “Who’s teasing?”

“Hell, B. You don’t need to make up crazy shit like that just to mess with me.”

She gave me a serious look. “I didn’t make up a thing.”

I blinked twice and frowned at her. “What?”

She repeated, more slowly this time so she could enunciate each word, “I didn’t make up a thing.”

I kept blinking and shook my head, not quite believing what she was telling me. “Seriously?”

“Is it really such a surprise? We ALL fantasize about you. Just like YOU fantasize about us, don’t you?”

“That’s different. I’m a guy.”

“And what, girls don’t fantasize? Please, I ring Baby Belle at least three times a week,” she scoffed.

“But you never said anything like THAT before. All the stuff about crawling under the dining table while your dad was there, that shit was real?”

“That shit was real.” Belle shrugged. She reclined back on her elbows and raised her knees, spreading them out to the sides. Biting her lip and giving me an intense, sultry gaze, she slid her right hand beneath her waistband, murmuring, “So many times I’ve been in this position, rubbing myself while dreaming about you crawling between my legs and eating me out to incredible orgasms.”

My eyes got big. Was she actually masturbating herself right here and now? I blinked a few times and muttered lamely, “Uh ... Do ALL the girls have had these kinds of fantasies about me?”

“Well, you, Keanu, and Brat Pitt.”

I thought about that. “Fair enough.”

“You gonna say you haven’t had the exact same kinds of fantasies about all of us?”

I was about to nod, but caught myself and winced. “Well...”

Belle noticed and frowned. “I know. Everyone but me, right?” Shaking her head as she pulled her hand out of her shorts, she turned and slipped off the bed.

“You’re gorgeous, B,” I said apologetically. “I just--”

“I know, I know. I’m like a sister to you.” She stretched out the word as if it was a curse.

“You’re my Annabelle. And that’s a good thing!”

“Is it?”

“C’mon. You can’t say I’m not like a brother to you.”

“You’re like a sexy STEP-brother to me.” Shaking her head again, Belle paced away toward the door, but she only took a few steps before turning back to face me. “Look, I know you try not to objectify me. I get where your heart comes from. But I don’t have the same problem fantasizing about you. I KNOW we’re not related, and I know you’d treat me right if we ever did cross that line.”

“But we can’t cross that line, even if we wanted to. We have The Rule for a reason, one that has nothing to do with our brother-sister relationship. We could never do that to the rest of the BTC.”

“I know, I know. I just...” Shaking her head, she gave me a helpless look. “You’re hot and sexy and I can’t help but fantasize. A girl can dream. Just like I’m sure you dream about sticking your dick between Sam’s big tits and blowing a load all over her face. That would be crossing a line, but you still think about it, don’t you?”

I sighed. “Well I certainly am now. But fantasizing about Sam is one thing. We’re friends and all, but if something happened and things got awkward and our friendship got ruined ... I’d get over it. But I wouldn’t get over you. You’re my Annabelle. My feelings for you are just so much stronger and more important to me than my feelings for Sam. YOU’RE so much more important to me than Sam.”

Belle smiled at that. “Good.”

“I don’t want to risk screwing things up between us. Do you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then don’t push me on this, alright? I...” I took a deep breath and gave her a serious look. “I love you, Annabelle. You mean the world to me, but ... not in THAT way. You’re my little sister, and I can’t sexualize you. And to be honest, to hear that you’ve been sexualizing me ... It’s kinda freaking me out.”

“Really?”

“It’s kinda weird, actually.”

“No-no-no-no, please don’t be weirded out.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m trying not to. It’s just ... I thought things were cool between us. We’ve grown up together. We hang out all the time. I know Mari’s your bestie and I’ve spent most of the last five years playing video games with Alice, but I share my entire life with you and I really had no idea you were ... like... masturbating to thoughts of me.”

“They’re just random thoughts.” She waved dismissively. “I really don’t want you weirded out about it. I’m sorry. Can we please just forget I ever said anything?”

I shrugged helplessly. “I dunno. Those fantasies you told me are gonna be kinda hard to forget.”

“Then do it as a favor to me, your Annabelle. Maybe fantasies should just be left as what they are: fantasies. Everybody’s entitled to a little fantasy, right?”

“Of course, of course.” I took a deep breath and calmed myself.

“I just really want to make sure I haven’t screwed up my relationship with you. You’re my Matthew as much as I’m your Annabelle. We can’t afford to get awkward around each other just because you know I’ve masturbated to thoughts about you.”

“I know. I just need to wrap my head around it a bit.” I paused, collected myself, and then gave her a reassuring smile. “I mean when I really think about it, it’s actually quite flattering. I’d like to think ALL of the girls have masturbated to thoughts about me.”

Belle nodded. “Oh they have. They’ve all told me about some of their fantasies. It’s just part of ... Well ... Let’s just say the BTC has a unique social dynamic.”

I grinned. “I’ll say.”

“So we’re good? No awkward feelings?”

I nodded. “We’re good.” With that, I opened my arms.

Holding back tears of relief, Belle ran and launched herself into my hug.

In the morning, the BTC girls didn’t waste any time coming to get the first-hand scoop about what really happened between me and Holly last night.

It started with Alice. She was waiting for me and Belle at the parking lot and came over to us as soon as we stepped onto the curb. Literally, the first words out of her mouth were, “Is it true that you turned down Holly because you were saving yourself for the BTC?”

I blinked twice and looked around to make sure nobody else was nearby. Other people were walking in from the parking lot, so I quickly grabbed Alice by the elbow and pulled her toward a quiet corner where I could at least have my back to a wall and see if anyone was eavesdropping, and Belle followed. “Where the hell would you get that idea?” I hissed.

“Neevie told me,” Alice whispered, understanding the need for secrecy. “She got it from Zofi, who got it from Sam, who talked to Holly like five minutes after she left your house.”

Belle stepped in closer. “That’s why you turned Holly down? You told her you were saving yourself for us?”

Belle read the stricken expression on my face and already knew the truth. Alice did, too. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I muttered, “I asked her to not tell anyone.”

“Wow,” Belle breathed. “Okay I guess that makes sense...”

“Wait, which of the girls are you saving yourself for?” Alice interjected, looking confused. “Which of the girls are you in love with? It’s not me, is it?”

She looked genuinely worried and I smirked at her. “Would it really be so bad if I was in love with you?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed a little too loudly and immediately caught herself. Taking a deep breath, she explained in a calmer voice, “It would ruin our friendship. I like messing with you and feel safe teasing you. I’m not an overtly physical ‘pay attention to me and make me feel beautiful’ girl like Sam, but it’s nice to know that even with all the hot girls around, I can still give you a boner.”

I thought to the last time Alice climbed into my lap wearing a bikini, rubbing her butt into my crotch and sticking her big boobs under my chin. “Yes, you certainly can.”

“See! THAT look in your eyes. It’s quite validating.”

I smiled and shrugged.

“It gives me a rush and I don’t have to worry about you grabbing my ass or taking things the wrong way. But yes, you being in love with me would ruin everything. You’ve been my friend since we were kids on the elementary soccer field. You’re the one guy that doesn’t treat me like a potential mate, and I cherish that sense of comfortability. I’ve tried to make friends with other guys, but there’s always the tension of whether or not they’ll ask me out, or if I’ll get interested enough to ask him out. It’s all too nerve wracking and I’d hate it if that kind of will-we-or-won’t-we-start-dating tension ever cropped up between us.”

Nodding, I replied, “I totally agree.”

“So you’re not in love with me,” Alice said, more statement of confirmation than a question.

I nodded.

Alice not-so-subtly flicked her eyes to Belle.

“I’m not in love with ANY of the BTC,” I stated firmly.

Alice mused on that for a second before shrugging. “If you say so.”

I shook my head and gestured toward the school. “C’mon, let’s get to class.”

Sam and I shared our first and second periods, so we always walked together from one to the other. Sam was busy talking to the teacher before class (she was a pretty driven student), so there wasn’t time for us to talk before the period started, but as soon as we walked out the door she wrapped her arms around mine, leaned in close, and started whispering just loud enough for me to hear while we kept walking to our next class.

“Are you or are you not in love with one of the BTC girls and saving yourself for her?”

“Ah, hell,” was my only response. Her accent somehow made her sound pretty angry.

“So Zofi and I think it’s either Belle or Neevie. Belle because you two have always been close, and Neevie because it’s clear you’ve always been super attracted to each other, you think she’s the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen, and if it wasn’t for The Rule you two would’ve hooked up already.”

“I’m not in love with either of them. Belle’s like my little sister and that’s never gonna happen. And yes, Neevie is super hot, but I’m not in love with her.”

“Then which one of us? Me? Zofi?”

“No, no, none of you,” I cut her off before she kept naming names. “I’m not in love with any of you. Lust, certainly. But not love.”

“Then why didn’t you fuck Holly?”

I winced at her saying the f-word aloud, spotted an out of the way corner, and pulled Sam towards it. She still clung to my arm closer than any non-dating couple would, so we got a few stares, but we paid them no mind before I got my back against a wall. Surrounded on three sides, I felt a little more comfortable having this conversation. At least our second period wasn’t far away.

“Why didn’t you fuck Holly?” Sam repeated.

“I still don’t really know,” I said, a little exasperated. “I’m starting to wish I did just so I wouldn’t have to deal with all these questions about why I didn’t. Yes, she’s really sexy and we had a great time and under normal circumstances I would have plowed the hell out of her. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I did that, I’d ... I’d...”

“You’d be giving your virginity to someone you didn’t really love,” Sam finished for me. “Hence all the questions about which one of us you’re in love with.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Holly said you said that.”

“I...” I fumbled, looking left and right at the steady flow of human traffic going by, oblivious to whatever might be going on in this quiet alcove. Actually, people seemed to be deliberately avoiding looking at us, and once I realized how closely Sam was pressed up against me, I realized why.

There’s a reason people avert their eyes when they see a couple kissing in public. We’re trained to not involve ourselves in others’ intimacy. Sam had held my arm with both of hers for the entire walk here. And even now, I was hugging her to my chest so that our faces were only inches apart. I had done so for the purpose of keeping our volume down, but to everyone else, it must’ve looked like we were making out or something.

Like any number of romantic couples at this school. Committed couples.

And it hit me. I realized why I couldn’t fuck Holly. “It would have felt like cheating.”

“What?”

I hadn’t realized I said that last part aloud. “Uh, sleeping with Holly,” I explained. “It would have felt like cheating.”

“Cheating on who? You don’t have a girlfriend.”

“You’re ALL my girlfriends. the BTC. Now maybe I’m not technically your boyfriend or anyone else’s, but I DO belong to the club.”

“As our friend.”

“Let’s get real: I’m the only male. The rules are different. If I were to start dating somebody and spending time away from the club, feelings would get hurt.”

“Which is why we gave permission to Holly. We knew she wouldn’t try to take you away from us.”

“You’re just proving my point that the rules are different. If some guy wanted to hook up with Neevie, would he have to come ask your permission? Of course not. The simple fact that any girl needs to ask your permission to hook up with me proves I already belong to you.”

“Holly didn’t just get my permission. You can’t put this all on me.”

I shook my head. “She wanted permission from the club. I belong to ALL of you.”

“And you got permission. So it wouldn’t have been cheating.”

I snorted. “Just because a guy’s girlfriend gives permission for him to go flirt with another girl doesn’t mean she won’t get mad about it retroactively. Look me in the eyes, Sam, and tell me you wouldn’t feel a little hurt if Holly got my cherry. I saw the way you got up from the movie and stormed off. Now maybe if I fell in love with one of the BTC girls, we started dating, and finally took that next step, you’d understand. But not Holly.”

“Well...” Sam pursed her lips and avoided my gaze before admitting, “Okay maybe you’re right. But then that would still suggest there’s one of us that you’re in love with.”

“There’s not.”

“So what? You’re just gonna stay a virgin forever?”

I shrugged. “It’s not forever. At the very least, once we all finish high school and go off to college, everything will change and the BTC as we know it will cease to exist.”

“So you’re gonna stay a virgin until next year?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “That’s not such a long time, and it’s a fair price to pay for the special relationships I have with each of you.”

“But the idea that you’re saving yourself for the club isn’t fair to you. What if one of us decides to take matters into her own hands and breaks The Rule? That could ruin the BTC, and I don’t want that. I think we’re all better off if you find a casual hookup outside of the club, like Holly. It’s not too late for you to change your mind. That girl will drop her panties and bend over for you in a heartbeat.”

“Maybe someday I will, maybe even sooner than next year, whether with Holly or someone else who catches my eye. I won’t know for sure what will happen until another hot girl throws herself at me. I’m just trying to wrap my head around what happened last night. Everything spiraled out of control so fast that I couldn’t handle it and I locked up.”

Sam frowned and pursed her lips. “So lemme get this straight: Holly put on the full-court press, you got overwhelmed, had a panic attack over the impending loss of your virginity coupled with a fear that you were somehow ‘cheating’ on the BTC and got scared of the fallout, so you got cold feet. That about sum it up?”

“Uh, yeah, pretty much.”

“So it sounds like we basically need a notarized affidavit from each of the girls certifying that we don’t own you, you don’t need our permission to sleep with Holly or any other girl, and it would not be considered cheating on us if you did.”

I snorted. “I think a notarized affidavit would be a bit much.”

“What if we pinky swore? Would that help you not lock up the next time a pretty girl throws herself at you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s no way to know until something like that happens again. That said, having each of the girls tell me they wouldn’t get jealous really would do wonders for putting me at ease. But it’s one thing to say it and something completely different to actually not feel it.”

“Let me worry about that,” Sam assured me. “I just want to put this whole Matty-saving-himself thing behind us and get things back to normal. Don’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay then.” Sam nodded and checked her watch. “Shit, we’re gonna be late.”

When the entire BTC got together for lunch, everyone was pretty nervous, including me. By now, everyone had heard that I’d turned down sex with Holly because I was “saving myself for the BTC” and they’d discussed amongst themselves all of the implications therein. Sam took charge, and while she didn’t actually try to get notarized affidavits or anything, she did stress the importance of all of the girls understanding that I wasn’t actually their boyfriend (she got head nods around) and they had no right to get jealous should I actually end up sleeping with someone (the girls had to look at each other a bit first, but eventually they all nodded).

Then it was my turn to assure the girls that I wasn’t in love with any of them. I explained that I’d simply locked up and wasn’t ready for everything Holly was offering, simple as that. The girls seemed to accept my explanation, and we all promised things could go back to normal.

They didn’t.

For the next week, all six of the girls were a little standoffish, a little unsure how to act around me. It seemed to me that each of them was still wondering if she was the one I was in love with and saving my virginity for, and even if she didn’t think herself a likely candidate, she was at least stressed out overanalyzing the possibilities. Even Belle was acting weird around me despite my assurance that I thought of her as a sister, something her dad noticed at dinnertimes.

Nobody flirted with me. Nobody teased me. We still hung out together as a group, but the carefree joy wasn’t there. Small groups of us would meet up in the afternoons to do homework, but that’s all we did: homework. It was exactly the awkward “opposite sex” tension Alice had been worried about, and that whole week solidified in my mind the need for The Rule to keep the BTC running harmoniously. If the tension remained much longer, there wouldn’t BE a BTC much longer, at least not a version that still included me.

It was Alice, actually, who managed to break the tension. While she had always messed around and teased me the same as the other girls, she had done so far less often than some of the others. Alice and Mari were the less physically aggressive ones of the group, making fewer flirtatious comments, covering up a little more skin, and not copping quite as many feels of my body as the other four.

So it was a bit of a surprise Friday afternoon when Alice abruptly dropped herself into my lap while I sat in the armchair, greeted, “Hi, Matty,” and promptly shoved her tongue down my throat.

I stiffened up in surprise and at first didn’t kiss her back, but the lovely Korean girl held my head in a tight grip, kept up the pressure, and a moment later I found myself kissing her back while my arms circled around her body to hug her close. It wasn’t our first ever kiss, so I didn’t feel completely shocked, but I was pretty sure we hadn’t yet broken double-digits on the kiss count.

Kissing her was quite nice, though. While she was still a tomboy through and through in terms of personality, eschewing pretty dresses and makeup in favor of track pants and playing sports, her body was completely feminine. She was of average height for an 18-year-old American girl, which made her taller than most every other Asian girl in the school. She was also more muscular and curvier than most every other Asian girl in the school, sporting fat 36D tits and a nicely rounded ass. She grabbed my hands and planted them on that rounded ass while she ground her crotch against my pelvis and shoved those big tits into my chest.

But the kiss didn’t last long before Alice broke away. Panting hard, she searched my eyes and asked with deadly seriousness, “Are you in love with me?”

I blinked twice in surprise, not expecting the question and therefore not answering right away.

“Are you in love with me?” she repeated, setting her jaw and giving me a fierce look that demanded an answer.

So I stuttered, “N-no. I’m not.”

“Are you saving your virginity for me?”

“Uh, no. I’m not.”

Alice nodded in satisfaction, hopped off my lap, and looked at the next closest girl, who happened to be Mari seated on the near side of the 3-cushion couch. “You’re next.”

“Umm, what?” Maris face was the definition of deer-in-the-headlights.

Alice rolled her eyes. “Nevermind. Neevie?”

Naimh didn’t hesitate and quickly bounced to her feet. The busty redhead eagerly slid into my lap and attacked my face, devouring me, really. This time I returned the kiss with intense fervor, and our lip-lock went on and on and if it never ended, that would’ve been fine with me. But Alice was beside us, tapping Naimh’s shoulder impatiently. And we finally broke the kiss, staring at each other with goofy, giddy expressions.