Chapter 15

For the rest of the week, things were mostly normal.

Gina and I apologized to each other for getting angry. She was still upset with Kendall, but she knew that I shared some of her frustration. For her part, Kendall refused to even discuss the party or its aftermath whenever I brought it up. So I stopped bringing it up.

When I arrived at Kendall’s apartment on Thursday afternoon, she greeted me as if nothing were amiss. And she was wearing her white bathrobe, which always meant she was horny. I was surprised, though, because she practically attacked me.

After fooling around on the living room couch for a few minutes, she shed her robe and began pulling off my clothes. When she had me naked, she knelt between my legs and gave me an extra-long blowjob. Then I gently pushed her to her back and spread her legs. Her smooth pussy simply begged to be licked, so I went down on her, teasing her until she cried out in ecstasy.

When we recovered, we went to the kitchen to get something to drink, but ended up having hard, frantic sex against the counter. Afterward, we got the drinks we came for in the first place and then relaxed in the living room.

We were both still in the mood, and she began teasing me. I chased her down the hall and caught her before she could make it to her bedroom. She was laughing as I bent her over her desk and gave her ass a few playful swats.

Then she wiggled her hips and gave me a suggestive look. In an instant, I was hard. I fucked her long enough to get my dick completely lubricated, then pulled out and set the tip at the rosette of her ass. She groaned as I pushed past her sphincter and entered her. Slapping noises filled the hall as I thrust into her. After my orgasm, I collapsed against her and we lay panting on the desk.

Later, we took a shower to cool off, but I ended up fucking her from behind, her breasts crushed against the ceramic tile as I thrust into her. I didn’t come, but that didn’t stop me from reaching around and playing with her clit until she had a shuddering orgasm.

After our shower, as we relaxed on her bed, we talked about everyday things. I desperately wanted to talk about our deteriorating three-way relationship, but I didn’t want to spoil the mood.

So I settled for idly fondling her. Her breasts were as responsive as ever, and she quickly grew excited. When I went down on her, she ran her fingers through my hair and writhed in ecstasy.

After licking and sucking her to two mini-orgasms, I knelt between her legs and rubbed my hard-on along her slit. She was puffy and slippery with arousal, and begged me to fuck her. I let her beg for almost a minute before I slid into her. When I did, she groaned softly and wrapped her legs around me.

We fucked for almost thirty minutes, in a half-dozen different positions. When I finally reached the point of no return, she wanted me to come on her face. I pulled out, knelt over her head, and began stroking my pussy-slick cock. As I worked myself toward release, she played with her clit, her fingers a blur.

With a groan, I erupted. When the first spurt hit her cheek, she cried out softly. The next spurt landed on her lips and chin, and she cried out again. After that, I kept stroking, but only a few gushes came out. Finally, I used the head of my cock to spread my semen over her face. As I did, she tensed up, her climax imminent.

When she came, she came hard. And I mean really hard. Her face and chest flushed as she held her breath. Then she groaned deep in her chest. Finally, she cried out in release, her body quivering with pleasure. Her orgasm seemed to last forever. As I watched her shudder in its grip, I rolled and tugged her nipples, driving her higher still.

Afterward, we cleaned up and then relaxed in her bedroom. Abby was due back by 5:30, so we reluctantly got dressed.

In the span of little more than four hours, I had come four times. And I’d lost track of Kendall’s orgasms and mini-orgasms. In a way, it seemed that Kendall had been in a Gina-like state of sexual overdrive. I wasn’t about to complain, but I did wonder what caused it.

That weekend, the UT football game was against Memphis State, in Memphis. Gina, Regan, and a bunch of other Chi O girls drove across the state to go to the game. I was disappointed that Gina and I wouldn’t be together, but I knew she’d have fun.

Trip and I went down to Kendall and Abby’s apartment to listen to the game. Luke and Tara joined us as well. To our surprise, Jeff asked if he could bring someone. We said yes, of course, but none of us expected him to actually show up with a girl.

Her name was Meredith, and she was a Phi Mu pledge with a sunny personality. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, and in spite of being a little pudgy, she was cute. Jeff was practically beside himself simply being near her.

I didn’t know when Trip had done it, but he and Abby had obviously had a talk. According to Kendall, Abby was disappointed, but she understood why he didn’t want to get serious.

Trip sat with his arm around Abby, although it was comfortable and friendly, nothing more. Abby looked happy, and Trip quietly mentioned (later) that she understood his situation.

During the commercials, Luke told Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes, which kept us in stitches. I don’t think Meredith knew what to make of Luke, but she was having a good time. Jeff was as goofy as ever, which seemed to endear him to her even more.

UT won the game easily, and we went out for pizza and beer afterward. Luke and Tara had to leave for a post-game party with his fraternity, but the rest of us had a good time.

Unfortunately, the next month seemed to be a steadily worsening series of headaches.

Gina and I had another fight. Once again, it was about Kendall.

Kendall and I got into a heated discussion about, you guessed it, Gina.

Gina accused me of spending too much time with Kendall, and Kendall quietly resented my time with Gina.

Worse, I didn’t have any idea what to do about the growing friction in either of my relationships. Susan had told me that I’d have to figure it out on my own, but I didn’t seem to be doing very well.

As a matter of fact, I was doing a lousy job.

So I had to balance my time between the two girls. Neither of them wanted to have anything to do with the other, and I was at wit’s end. I loved them both, but the strain was tearing me up inside.

Unfortunately, the rest of my life was just as stressful.

In Calculus, Professor Tow started teaching derivatives of inverse trigonometric functions, which I’d never done before. So I had to do dozens of sample problems and study hard to keep up. Aside from Design, Calculus was my most challenging class, and I was determined to make an A.

In American Literature, we began studying Late Nineteenth Century authors, and I had a lot of reading to do. I’d gotten an A on my Faulkner paper—as expected—but I wanted to earn my A for the class overall. I even had to stop reading my for-pleasure books, since I had so much to read for class.

Professor Spielman’s Intro to Architecture class was a welcome relief; it was easy. We were studying the architecture of the Roman Empire (the Western Roman Empire; Byzantine architecture was covered in Intro II). I already knew enough about the period that I didn’t have to do much to keep my grades up.

Art History wasn’t that bad either, although Professor Dubois was as dull as ever. We were studying early Christian art in Western Europe, from the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. It was interesting, but not something I wanted to spend hours looking at.

Out of the blue, Professor Ledbetter assigned me more “extra credit”—even though I was already making an A in his class. He wanted me to do more drawings, and to pay attention to details, of course. I suspected that Joska was behind the assignments, but what could I do?

On top of all that, Professor Joska assigned us another team project. Not surprisingly, it involved drawings as well as critiques of our teammates’ drawings.

For our drawings, we had a choice of several buildings in Washington, D.C.: the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, or the Lincoln Memorial. Not only did we have to create plan and elevation drawings of one of the monuments, we had to include the grounds and other public spaces. It was a daunting task, especially given the scale of the sites.

We also had four more intramural football games. To my surprise, we won all four games and made it to the quarter-finals, thanks in large part to Trip’s skill as a quarterback. The Pike team also made it to the quarter-finals, and we were scheduled to play them the Monday before Thanksgiving break. The winner of our game would face the winner of the ΣΑΕ versus Morrill Second Floor game.

I was excited that our team had done so well, although it was an added responsibility. I had a ton of schoolwork to do, but I didn’t want to let my teammates down—even T.J., the little weasel.

In addition to everything else, I finally worked up the nerve to check my weight. The Sports Bubble had a nice scale (the kind you find in a doctor’s office), and Kendall and her roommates had a small bathroom scale.

On the Sports Bubble scale, I weighed 179 pounds. That was less than my wrestling-days high of 185, but still more than I wanted to weigh. On the bathroom scale in Kendall’s apartment, I weighed 174 pounds. I trusted the Sports Bubble scale more than the girls’ bathroom model, so I adjusted theirs to read 179, to be accurate.

(The day after I adjusted it, all of the snack food in the girls’ apartment disappeared. They replaced it with rabbit food: lettuce, carrots, celery, radishes, etc. I didn’t eat snacks anyway, but I still chuckled at the thought of Kendall and her roommates panicking because they suddenly “gained” five pounds. I never admitted what I did, though. I simply reset the scale and mentally added five pounds to whatever it told me.)

While I hadn’t gained weight, I hadn’t lost much either. So over the course of a month, my schedule was gruelingly simple. When I wasn’t doing schoolwork, playing football, or spending time with Kendall or Gina—but never Kendall and Gina—I was working out and venting my pent-up frustration. I was exhausted, but I didn’t know what I could give up.

Siobhan’s drawing class was the only consistent bright spot in my life.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, immediately after Design class, I went to Studio 6 and sat in the hallway. Christy usually got there about the same time I did. She took out her sketchpad and I took out mine. While I drew buildings or design elements, she drew sketches of me.

My drawings were simple. I focused on tightening my style and paying attention to details. I heard Professor Ledbetter’s voice in my head, “God is in the details, Paul.” It was a weird turn of phrase, but it stuck with me. And, of course, I heard Professor Joska’s sibilant voice, “You’ll have to do better than this, Mr. Hughes.”

In the course of a month, I must’ve gone through half of my sketchpad. I drew everything from simple roof styles to façade elements. Christy sketched at least a dozen of my expressions: concentration, melancholy, delight, pensiveness, and more.

I was always amazed by how she captured my mood. In some drawings, I could see the tension in my shoulders or jaw. In others, I wore an expression of childlike wonder and concentration, and I knew that I must’ve been completely absorbed by my own drawing.

Once, when I was particularly upset (after an argument with Gina), I looked up to see tears in Christy’s eyes. She smiled bashfully and wiped her cheeks, her charcoal-smudged fingers simply adding dark smears. Impulsively, I reached out and tried to clean her cheek. My hand had pencil smudges on it, though, and I only made things worse.

We ended up laughing about the situation, the release of tension almost palpable. After we cleaned up and washed our hands, I asked her why she’d been crying. She wouldn’t tell me. When she asked why I had been so upset, it was my turn to demur.

“We’ve both got our secrets,” she said softly.

I nodded.

“Maybe I’ll tell you ... someday.”

Her smile was so sad that I wanted to put my arm around her and comfort her. When we got back to the hallway outside Studio 6, neither of us returned to our sketchpads. Instead, we sat and talked about everything but what was really on our minds.

During the drawing class itself, Wren and I played a little game. After an initial period of taking turns undressing in the studio office, we decided that it was a waste of time and simply shared. After all, we’d both seen each other nude. Each day, as we undressed, she teased me and tried to provoke a reaction.

Once, she bent over in front of me, giving me a good view of her pussy and ass (she trimmed her pubic hair, so I could easily see her labia). Another time, she absently tweaked her nipples as I was getting undressed. Yet another time, she “accidentally” brushed against my dick.

While we posed, she was almost as bad, although she couldn’t do anything truly outrageous. She would occasionally look at my dick, make eye contact, and then moisten her lips. Other times, she would take a deep breath and subtly thrust her breasts at me when she knew I was looking. Once, she even managed to sit through an entire class while giving me a fantastic view of her pussy (she was sitting with her knee tucked under her chin, and my body blocked the view of her sex from the rest of the students).

Then, for an entire week, we had to pose standing next to each other; I stood behind her with my hands on her hips. My dick was perilously close to her ass—close enough that I could feel the heat of her body. Siobhan wanted her students to draw the contrast between our bodies. For three days, Wren teased me with subtle movements and not-so-inadvertent contact.

When we posed so close together, it took a fantastic degree of willpower and control not to react to her antics. A couple of times, I felt my dick begin to swell. The first time, I got myself under control. The second time, nothing I did seemed to work. I spent at least ten minutes with my hard-on squarely planted in the crack of Wren’s ass.

She turned and grinned at me, but then grew annoyed that she couldn’t actually see the fruit of her labors. At last, I imagined Professor Dubois droning on about illuminated manuscripts, and that did the trick.

When my dick finally shrank, Wren turned and made a mocking pout, her lips pursed. I closed my eyes and kept my mind firmly occupied.

Treacherous organ.

When Wren got dressed after each class, she took her time putting on her clothes. I think she enjoyed looking at me as much as I enjoyed looking at her, but we always had our little game to play. Since I didn’t respond the way she expected—usually—she took it as a personal challenge.

Each day, Siobhan had to leave shortly after class, but Christy was always waiting for Wren and me when we emerged from the office. Afterward, the three of us would walk back to Morrill, sharing Christy’s bag of snacks. (For such a petite girl, she had a voracious appetite, and she always had food with her, from carrot and celery sticks to fresh fruit and granola. In my head, I started thinking of her as “Bunny,” since she ate like a rabbit.)

While we walked, we talked, and those were the times I enjoyed most of all.

Wren and I talked about growing up and going to school in the suburbs of Atlanta. Her father owned a half-dozen successful restaurants, and I was familiar with several of them. She was on the swim team in high school, and had come to UT to be a swimmer. After a bad bout of mononucleosis when she was a freshman, however, she decided to give up racing and focus on her health and classes.

Christy had also been a high school swimmer. She raced in the relays, but her primary focus was diving. Unlike Wren, she had come to UT to study with Siobhan (whom she’d met at a gallery opening in San Diego). The auburn-haired professor had originally been teaching at Notre Dame, but when UT lured her from South Bend to Knoxville, Christy applied to Tennessee.

Christy and I also talked about growing up with fathers who were pilots. While my father left the Navy and took a job as a commercial pilot, hers stayed in and rose through the ranks to command his own squadron. In Japan, he commanded an Air Wing. When Christy told me that his current job was as a commander of an entire Carrier Battle Group, my jaw nearly hit the sidewalk.

“What is your dad,” I asked, “some kind of Admiral?”

“Why yes,” she said, her blue eyes dancing with laughter, “he is.”

“So you’re the Admiral’s daughter?”

“The Admiral’s only daughter,” she stressed, her eyes still twinkling.

“The Admiral’s only daughter, huh? Then I bet your boyfriend must be completely squared away.”

To my surprise, Wren snorted.

“What?” I asked.

“Simon?” the brunette said to Christy, ignoring me. “Squared away? Ha!”

“Wren,” Christy warned.

“What?” I asked, more confused than ever.

“Simon’s actually her fiancé,” Wren explained, “which makes it even worse.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he’s hardly squared away, if that means what I think it does.”

“Fiancé?” I asked, my throat inexplicably tight.

Christy shyly held up her left hand and flashed her ring finger.

I’d seen the small diamond ring before, of course, but its significance had never occurred to me. I guess I just couldn’t imagine someone her age—my age—being engaged.

“Simon’s the least ‘squared away’ guy I can think of,” Wren continued.

“Wren, stop,” Christy said.

“Why? You know how I feel about him. I don’t like him any more than your father does. Besides, you don’t love him.”

“Yes ... I ... do,” Christy said. “He was there for me after ... you know.”

“After what?” I asked.

The girls completely ignored me.

“He took advantage of you,” Wren said.

“He did not,” Christy shot back.

“He did so. He knew what you were going through and he still asked you to marry him.”

“Going through what?” I asked, my curiosity completely overwhelming my manners. Once again, the girls ignored me.

“He loves me,” Christy said.

“Of course he does,” Wren said. “But do you love him?”

“Yes.”

Even I wasn’t convinced.

“Wren, please, I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Christy said a moment later. “You know how I feel about Simon.”

Wren looked like she wanted to reply, but she shut her mouth and simply scowled.

In the awkward silence that followed, the girls looked at each other, an entire unspoken conversation passing between them. Finally, Christy seemed to remember that I was there.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “What were we talking about?”

“I don’t remember,” I said.

She looked like she wanted to say something, but when she gazed back at me, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She tried to blink them back, but they just kept coming. At her look of anguish, I started to reach out to her. She offered a wan smile at my gesture, but then her emotions finally overcame her.

Before she broke down completely, she turned and raced into the dorm. Wren looked at me helplessly and then chased after her friend.

I simply stood there, more puzzled than ever.

“Hey,” Trip said as he pushed open my door. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Reading about the Jefferson Memorial,” I said absently. “I wanna make sure I’ve got my portico laid out right.”

“You know it’s right,” he said. “You’ve checked it ... what ... ten times?”

“God is in the details,” I said, unconsciously echoing Professor Ledbetter. “Which reminds me,” I added. “I’ve still gotta do critiques for Samantha and Antonio’s drawings. I hope Samantha forgives me. If I want a good grade on the critiques, I’ve got to tell her the truth. Her drawing’s not bad, and I’ve tried to help her as much as I can, but she’s probably our weakest draftsman.”

“She knows she is,” Trip said. “And she can handle the truth. She’s a lot stronger than you think.”

“Maybe.”

“She is. Trust me. Just be honest and don’t get personal. She knows you’re a good designer, and she respects your opinion.”

I nodded. I’d been surprised to find that Samantha turned to me whenever she had a drafting question. What’s more, Trip and Antonio did as well. Antonio could remember virtually anything he read, but he wasn’t the best draftsman either, so he often sought my advice.

I had sort of become the team’s official design expert. Trip was our leader, without question, but when it came to design, everyone deferred to me. Samantha scheduled our time—sometimes to the minute—and Antonio was a walking resource library. As a team, we’d really come together over the past month. We rarely argued, and we all respected each other.

(Since the four of us spent so much time together, I finally threw decorum to the wind and asked Antonio about the strange combination of his looks, name, and twangy accent. He simply laughed and explained that he was Korean, but had been adopted. His parents were Hispanic, obviously, and had given him his adopted grandfather’s name. “And don’t everybody talk like me?” he asked with a grin.)

I’d begun to wonder how much of our team’s cohesiveness was luck and how much was Joska’s planning. The man was crafty. I still didn’t like him, but I’d gotten a feel for his way of doing things. Contrary to what I’d thought at first, he didn’t set us up to fail. He set us up to succeed, and then threw dozens of challenges at us.

He still taunted me constantly, and I usually felt like I was one comment away from lunging at him. Even though I answered all of his questions, he seemed to mock me. He wasn’t nearly as hard on my classmates (except Gracie Fisher, perhaps), and he seemed to save his really biting comments for me.

“Hello, Paul?” Trip was saying.

I shook my head to clear it.

“Are you with me again?” he asked, smiling.

“Yeah, sorry. I guess I was daydreaming.”

“You’ve been working too hard,” he said. Then he sighed. “We all have. Anyway, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Yeah?”

“Look, with Samantha cracking the whip on our schedule, we’re ready. We’re disgustingly early, too. Even Gracie’s team isn’t close to being finished, and they’re really on the ball.”

I nodded.

“So I was thinking...,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s all get together tomorrow night. We’ll pull an all-nighter if we have to. I’ll review everyone’s critiques to make sure they’re honest and comprehensive. While I’m doing that, you can help Samantha and Antonio put the finishing touches on their drawings. Then we can write up our final critiques and make any changes to our drawings that we need to.”

“Dude,” I said, “the projects aren’t due till Monday. Why pull an all-nighter on Friday if we don’t have to?”

“Because we need to take the weekend and recover. We’ve all been killing ourselves on this project. Not to mention the fact that we’ve all got four or five other classes we’ve had to keep up with.”

I nodded.

“And besides,” he said, “you’ve been running me ragged with our workouts. I know they’re good for us, but you’re still driving pretty hard. And you work out about twice as often as I do. That’s too much.”

I started to shake my head, but he held up a placating hand.

“I know you’ve had a lot on your mind, with Kendall and Gina and all, but still, you gotta take a break, man.”

I felt my shoulders sag in agreement.

“Anyway, I was thinking,” he continued, “let’s pull an all-nighter if we have to, and then we can take the weekend off.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” I wearily admitted.

“And there’s something else I wanted to ask you,” he said.

I lifted my head and looked a question at him.

“My little brother Dale’s birthday is this weekend, on Saturday. He’ll be five, and my dad wanted me to be there for his party. I told him how hard we’ve been working, and he suggested I bring you along. So ... are you up for it?”

“What?”

“Come home with me this weekend. You can meet my dad and step-mom, and my little brothers,” he added. “We can relax, enjoy the birthday party with a bunch of five-year-olds, and do nothing the rest of the time.”

“Birthday,” I mused, something tickling the back of my mind. Then, “Oh, shit!”

“What?” he asked, suddenly concerned.

“What’s today? The nineteenth?”

He nodded. “Why?” he asked.

I explained that November 19^th was my father’s birthday, and I’d completely forgotten about it.

“See?” Trip said. “You’ve been working too hard.”

I reluctantly nodded.

“Listen, call your dad and then come on over to my room. I’ve got this great concert tape a friend sent me. It’s a group from your neck of the woods, the University of Georgia. They’re called R.E.M., and they’re amazing. ‘Radio Free Europe’ is totally cool, man, even if you can’t understand a word the lead singer is saying.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Think about this weekend. My dad and step-mom really wanna meet you. And I know my little brothers would get a kick out of having you there. Besides, we need the break, man. Exams start after we return from Thanksgiving break, and we need to be fresh for ‘em.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

“Cool. I’ll see ya in a few.”

With that, he patted my shoulder and then left.

When I called home, Dad and Mom were getting ready to go out to dinner. They were meeting the Coulters and another couple at a classy restaurant. Leah was spending the night at our house and my parents were planning to return to the Coulters’ house with the other couple. I didn’t know who the other couple was, but I grinned when I imagined what they’d be up to.

Dad was dutifully surprised that I called. Mom was relieved; she’d been worried that I’d forgotten (which I had, but I didn’t tell her that). They needed to leave, however, so I wished Dad a happy birthday and then said goodbye.

After I hung up, I thought about Trip’s offer. Nashville was only a three-and-a-half-hour drive away, and I could use the time away from Kendall, Gina, and all of my frustrations.

Things hadn’t improved between the girls. In spite of their non-existent relationship with each other, however, neither of them pressured me to stop seeing the other. I think none of us wanted to open that can of worms.

As long as I didn’t talk about the other girl when I was with one of them, things were fine. But any time I brought up the other girl, all bets were off. Gina was snippy about Kendall, and Kendall calmly pointed out that Gina manipulated me.

I was still having sex with each of them, but even then, things were changing. Gina spent more and more time with Regan. The blonde had broken up with Rod and then gotten back together with him. When she wasn’t dating him, she monopolized Gina’s time. In other words, when Regan’s relationship was in a shambles, mine was too.

Kendall, on the other hand, was a calm, quiet presence (as long as I didn’t mention Gina). She and I had breakfast together every day, as well as our Thursday afternoons. We spent a lot of time together, since Gina was usually off doing something with her sorority or studying with Regan.

I was watching Gina slip away from me, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I’d been in love with her since I was thirteen, and we’d been together since we were fifteen. She was an integral part of my life, and I hated what was happening to us.

I simply didn’t know how to fix things.

Kendall, who was normally so insightful, wasn’t any help. She usually didn’t go out of her way to point out Gina’s shortcomings, but her actions certainly emphasized them.

In reality, I wanted some time away from both of them, so Trip’s offer was perfect.

“Okay, I’ll go,” I said when he opened his door.

“Cool,” he said. “C’mon in.”

“When did you wanna leave on Saturday?” I asked.

“As early as possible, but that really depends on how late we’re working on Friday night. If we get to bed early ... say, midnight ... we can get up and be on the road by eight. The party’s at two, but we gain an hour, since Franklin’s on central time.”

“Three o’clock, two central,” I said with a grin.

“Friday nights. CBS.”

We shared a grin at Luke’s expense.

“If we’re up really late,” Trip said, returning to our travel plans, “we can leave as late as eleven-thirty, but that’s cutting it close.”

“Hey,” I said. “I’ve got a great idea.”

“What?”

“Let’s fly to Franklin.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s fly to Franklin,” I repeated.

“Like on Eastern Airlines?”

“No,” I said, “like on Cessna Airlines.”