Demi couldn’t sleep. Night after night she tossed and turned. Maybe it was homesickness. This was her first year at college, and while she did miss her mom and dad and little brother, she was enjoying her studies and being on her own.

Maybe it was her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. They’d been together through the senior year of high school, but then he’d gone to different colleges, and less than a week into the semester he’d informed Demi by email that they should start seeing other people. Demi didn’t think she was heartbroken, however; she and Brand hadn’t exactly been lovers, and she’d never really had an urge to go all the way with him. He wasn’t even that good a kisser. His hands on her body had made her uncomfortable.

Maybe it was her roommate. She liked Rita well enough, but they weren’t exactly alike. They were friendly but not ultra-close, despite Rita’s well-meaning chatter, and it was apparent to Demi that they wouldn’t get closer as time went by. At first, Demi thought her insomnia might be connected to sleeping in a nightgown or pajamas. At home she’d always slept naked. She was too shy for this in college. But after the first week of sleeplessness, she surreptitiously disrobed under the covers. It didn’t help. Demi wondered if she could be allergic to Rita. She’d heard of people being allergic to each other. But when Rita went home for a weekend visit, Demi slept no better.

It got bad enough that Demi debated going to the campus clinic. Would they prescribe her sleeping pills? She didn’t really want to take pills, or drugs of any kind. Still, not sleeping made it difficult to concentrate on her classes. During American Studies, she’d dozed off for a moment. She was pretty sure no one had noticed, it was a large lecture hall, but she blushed deeply nonetheless.

Finally, in a roundabout way, Demi mentioned her problem to Rita. “Do you ever have problems sleeping?”

“Hm, not really. Do you?”

“Sometimes,” Demi confessed.

“Do you have bad dreams?”

“Not really,” Demi said. How could she have dreams if she wasn’t asleep?

“I wish my dreams were better,” Rita said. “I wish there was more sex in them. But instead I just find myself wandering along country roads and city streets, trying to get back where I started, but having no idea which way to go.”

“Oh,” Demi said. “What happens? Do you ever get back?”

Rita said she never got back. She always woke up first. “But you know what I do if I can’t sleep?” she added.

“What?”

“Masturbate.”

Demi blushed. She’d heard some of the rustling. The liquid squeak. The muffled sigh. Yes, she’d thought that was what that was.

“It works,” Rita said. “You should try it. Do you have a vibrator?”

Demi’s blush deepened.

“I don’t either,” Rita confessed. “But I tried one out once. At a sleepover thing senior year. This girl Patty had one. It made me giggle. But it turned me on, too. Not all the way.”

“You shared it?” Demi said.

“Yeah, kinda gross,” Rita admitted. “But kinda sexy, too. Have you ever, you know, fooled around with a girl?”

Demi quickly shook her head.

“Me, neither. Not my thing at all. Maybe we should each order our own vibrator. You can get them online real easy. Here, open your laptop and I’ll show you.”

As if in a daze, Demi turned on her computer. Rita leaned over her shoulder. “Now type in buy dildo in the search box.”

Demi did as she was told. A whole screen full of sex toy stores snapped onto the screen. Near the top, the screen said “Results 1–10 of about 327,000.”

“Holy,” said Demi.

“Click on one,” Rita instructed.

“Which one?”

Rita put her hand on Demi’s and guided the mouse about halfway down the page. “Now click,” Rita said. The page came into view. Quimby Company—Intimate Bedroom Products Since 1973.

“Quite an assortment of stuff,” Rita said. “I think I favor the fat one in the middle.” She pointed at The Quim Master, our most popular vibrating dildo. Comes in cherry, cream, and moon glow.

But Demi’s eyes were drawn to a little section at the bottom right of the ad. Heirloom Quilt. She moved the cursor and clicked.

Handcrafted, cloud soft, comfy as a lover’s embrace. Demi took a deep breath. Her eyes flickered.

“You like the look of that blanket?” Rita said.

Demi didn’t answer. She clicked through the color choices. Avacado, Harvest Gold, Sunrise Sex.

Rita giggled. “Sunrise sex. Looks more like pink to me. I suppose that makes sense. But look, it only comes in Queen. You’d swim in that. You’d drown.”

The quilt arrived two days later. Demi carried the parcel from the campus post office up to her room.

“That express delivery really works,” Rita observed. “But the box looks too small for a quilt. I wonder if they sent you The Quim Master by mistake. I still think you should have gotten that. In cherry. Or maybe moon glow. Maybe it puffs up a lot. Well, aren’t you going to open it? What are you waiting for?”

Demi shrugged.

“Oh, you want privacy. After all, it’s like being in your lover’s embrace.”

“No, don’t be silly,” Demi said. “I just don’t have a knife.”

Rita had a pair of scissors. Demi carefully scored the length of the packing seal and then slit each end. Holding her breath, she pried up the lid. The cellophane encased quilt eased upwards.

“Oh my God! It’s alive!” Rita laughed gaily. “What are you going to name it? Take it out. Let’s see. When I was little I had a blankie I named after my uncle Ulli. I think it was his blanket when he was a boy, and my mother trimmed it down for me, and I carried it around everywhere. My Uncle Ulli blanket. I wish I could say it was soft, but I think it was scratchy. But I didn’t care. I loved it.”

Barely listening to Rita’s words, Demi stared at her quilt.

“I wonder what happened to my good old Uncle Ulli blanket,” Rita continued. “I guess I outgrew it. I probably wore it to shreds. I wish I still had it. I could make a handkerchief out of it for my kids. If I ever have kids. Aren’t you going to take it out? It might need some airing out. I could help you spread it. It looks nice, it really does. I think pink was a good choice, much better than avocado or gold, especially since it’s a gentle pale pink. You know, it sort of matches your skin. Just a little darker. I still can’t believe you got a Queen. Can I touch it? Okay, okay, I know when to leave well enough alone. I still think you should have gotten The Quim Master. I’ve got my psych class and then I’m going to study at the library. Oh, and I’ve got to pick up some candy for Halloween treats. Do you think any kids will come to the room? Maybe we should dress up as something. You know what would be really funny ... If we went as dildos. We could wrap ourselves up in crepe paper and you could be moon glow and I could be ... Okay, bad idea. But think about it. See you at dinner.”

With Rita out of the room, Demi spread the quilt over her little bed. It was big enough that she had to double it over, and still it covered the entire bed. Rita was right. It was a very pale pink. Sunset sex, she thought. No, sunrise sex. Demi wondered what the difference was. But the quilt was indeed soft. She smoothed her hand over it. It felt soothing but also exciting. Her skin tingled. The fine hairs along her forearm lifted. Demi noticed that wherever she touched the quilt, the color deepened. It wasn’t quite the same soft puffy pink, but something just a touch darker. She stroked her hand against the surface. The quilt grew darker yet. Where she’d pressed it down, it rose up. Almost as if it were breathing. Demi found herself breathing in time to the quilt, in time to the slow stroking. Her eyes grew heavy. Her arm moved slowly. She could barely keep her eyes open. She let her eyes close. Her hand moved slowly over the quilt. Stroking. Stroking.

As if in a trance, she removed her clothing. Shirt, shoes, jeans, and panties, everything on the floor. Naked, she opened the quilt from the side and slipped herself between the folds. Instantly she was asleep.

Timing is everything. After getting out of the service, Jeff Ashton went to work for his uncle’s paint factory in security—night watchmen—but two weeks after he had started they had to let him go, not because he had done anything wrong, but because they were committed to going with patrol dogs. “You know how it is, budget constraints,” Jeff’s uncle explained, “though to tell you the truth these dogs are more expensive than you are.”

Two nights later the paint factory burned to the ground, which gave Jeff doubts. He was reading about the fire in the morning paper while waiting for his interview at the college. Campus security. It seemed they were suddenly short-handed. One of the men was out on paternity leave and another’s reserve unit had been called up. “Marines, huh? You’re hired,” was basically what his interviewer, Mr. Bock, said between frantic phone calls. The department secretary was sick. Then the phone rang again, and Bock made some notes, looked at Jeff, and said, “Here’s your first assignment. Some scared coed over at Keller is afraid to go into her room. Probably a squirrel got in or something. Check it out, then come back here and we’ll polish off the paperwork.” Bock handed Jeff a map of campus on which he’d scrawled “Rita Cunningham.”

Jeff couldn’t talk to girls. He was shy. The girls he found attractive made him self-conscious. He was deeply afraid to reveal that he found them desirable. The girls he wasn’t attracted to made him self-conscious, too. He hated the idea that they’d discover he found them undesirable. The result: a very lonely four years of high school. The irony, of course, was that most girls found Jeff very attractive. A few of them were brave enough to approach him. He’d blush and stammer and turn away to hide his erection. The girls would giggle. In the service overseas girls weren’t a problem. What few women there were were easy to avoid. In the paint factory there was only paint, the smell of it, anyway. And, on the last day, a couple of dogs. But the college was full of coeds, each more lovely than the last. Walking over to Keller Hall, Jeff couldn’t help becoming more than a little aroused.

Despite his erection, he approached the slim brunette standing by the mailboxes. “Hi, I’m Jeff from security. Are you Rita?” She nodded and bit her lip. Something about Rita made Jeff’s pulse quicken. Jeff wanted to take her under his wing, so to speak. To hold her and keep her safe while fucking her brains out. He looked deep into her dark eyes. “What seems to be the problem?”

When Rita didn’t answer at first, Jeff thought maybe she was concerned he hadn’t shown her a badge. After all, he wasn’t wearing a uniform. He didn’t have a gun. “Listen,” he said, taking a small step closer, “it’s okay. I’m here to help.”