Chapter 27

It was about twenty minutes, by my watch, then he turned onto another unmarked road which turned out to be a driveway. No gates, but also no indication that there was a house here, either. I wondered how they got their mail delivered.

Turning a corner found us approaching a paved area in front of a large garage, next to a good-sized house, lights blazing. Larry parked and turned off the engine.

“I don’t know who’s gonna be here, because Amelia tends to invite people at whim, as the thought strikes her. It could just be us and her friends, or the entire lacrosse team. But it’ll be fun. Follow me.”

He rang the bell and in moments the door flew open. The girl standing there threw her arms open and enveloped him. “Krugs! I’m glad you’re here. C’mon in.”

“Muffy, this is my friend Tom Carter. We’re roommates at college. Tom, this is Bethany, but everyone calls her Muffy.”

We exchanged hellos, and Larry asked, “Who else is coming? I haven’t seen you folks in so long.”

“I’m not sure who’s going to show up. Bree’s here, and Amelia, of course. We asked Cynthia, but she has to do some family thing with her parents, said maybe she could come later. Amelia asked Thad and Bryan, but she never got an answer from them. So your guess is as good as mine. Let’s go in.”

She led us to a room off the entryway, where two other girls were sitting and working hard at mixed drinks. “Oh, Christ,” said one, “there goes the neighborhood.”

“We’re here to bring a little class to this no-class operation. Nice to see you, Bree.” They did cheek kisses without actually touching lip to cheek.

“Ladies, for your amusement and edification, allow me to present the esteemed Tom Carter, master of languages and higher mathematics, lover extraordinaire, and all-around nice guy. You met Muffy, Tom, and this is Bree, and over there, looking glamorous, is the mistress of the house, Amelia.”

Bree, apparently well through her second or third drink, said, “Hi. Prove that you’re who he says you are. Say something in higher mathematics.”

“Okay, but there’ll be a quiz later. Bernstein’s theorem says that every real-valued function on the positive half-line that is totally monotone is a mixture of exponential functions. Was that what you were looking for?”

“It’s true,” she said to no one in particular, “he’s for real. What’s an exceptional function?”

“Maybe time for a refill, Bree,” said Larry. “Okay, fill me in, what’s been happening?”

Then they started chattering, the four of them, about common friends, and schools, and gossip about people they knew. I felt a bit out of place, with nothing in common to talk about. I found an open bottle of white wine and poured a little into a glass, just to have something to do.

Amelia got up and went into the kitchen, bringing out a bowl of chips and dip. Okay, snacks, I like snacks. So I ate potato chips and dip, though I wasn’t particularly hungry, and watched the back-and-forth, like a tennis match.

Muffy, the one who’d let us in, was athletic without being muscular, firm muscles, blond, possibly from a bottle, nice legs. Amelia, the hostess, was taller, also blond, but I thought hers was her own. Nice butt, round, with prominent butt cheeks, and a decent sized chest. Bree, who was looking just a bit inebriated, was a brunette, nice smile, green eyes, good legs and an impressive set of boobs. I couldn’t tell her height, because she hadn’t yet ventured out of the chair.

I had parked myself on a couch, with ready access to the chips and dip. Amelia got up again to get a drink refill, and when she came back sat on the couch next to me. She pulled her knees up under her so she could turn and look at me. “They’ll be gossiping for a while, trading dirt. What’s your story, Tom? Where are you from?”

I gave her a little background, mentioning Cleveland, and she interjected, “Oh, do you know the Campbells? They’re big in Cleveland, we summer together sometimes.”

I told her no, we probably belonged to different clubs and hadn’t run into each other, and that seemed to satisfy her. Bree and Muffy and Larry were getting a little loud now, as they laughed about things that had happened in their common past, and Amelia squirmed a little closer so she could hear me.

“They sometimes get a little tipsy and that makes them noisy. They’ll be fine. Is that wine you’re drinking? Can I make you a real drink?”

I said I was good, and asked her what school she was attending, what she was interested in, the usual questions you ask. She was a student at Barnard, Columbia’s “sister” school, and was an English major, the fallback for everyone who doesn’t know what they want to study. I commented that Barnard/Columbia was a competitive school, and she said, “Overrated. I don’t think a lot of the folks there are that bright. It doesn’t seem that hard to me. I’m getting by.”

“You must be smarter than me, then. I had to sweat at --------, and sometimes I feel like I’m just faking my way through.”

“Ah, don’t take it so seriously,” she advised me. “You’ll do okay, if you were smart enough to get in. Have a good time while you’re there, that’s what I do.”

I must have raised an eyebrow, because she felt the need to explain, in case I didn’t know how to have a good time. “Look, do your work, pass in your assignments, cram for your tests if you have to, but party on the weekend. Or whenever the opportunity presents itself.”

“We have a bunch of people with that philosophy at --------, but I’m not sure I could maintain the pace. They work at it pretty hard.”

“You have to experiment a little, find the pace that works for you, the kinds of things that relax you. Like Bree, she likes to drink, it mellows her right out. Muffy, well, a little booze, an occasional pill, a little sex, and she’s good for another week.”

“And you? What’s your prescription?”

She smiled. “Tom, I don’t think we know each other well enough. I’ve got things that work for me, found through trial and error. That’s what I recommend.”

“Thank you, doctor, I shall return to my studies with renewed vigor now that I know the secret to success.”

“Glad I could help.”

Across the room, Muffy had moved from her chair to sit in Larry’s lap, one arm around his shoulders. Bree leaned closer so she could rest a hand on his arm. I thought, wait, is this the Larry who was trying so desperately to get laid from the moment he arrived on campus? He seemed to be a different guy here.

She must have seen me looking, because she said, “They were an item, off and on, all through senior year. It was more like friends with benefits than true love, and Bree was sometimes there when Muffy wasn’t. Sorta share and share alike, no hard feelings anywhere.”

“I don’t remember high school being anything like that, not at all.”

“Well, the school we were at, Mount Mackey, has a reputation for being progressive like that. Not something they put in the brochure they use to try to sell the place to the parents, but the word gets around among students and prospective students. Everyone comes in knowing what to expect and what the unwritten rules are.”

“Sometimes I feel like my education has been shortchanged.”

“There, there, don’t feel bad, there’s lots of time to catch up. I’m a bit bored now that they’re wrapped up in each other again, like high school. You want to see the rest of the house, get the tour?”

“Sure, why not? Impress me.”

“Well, I’m not sure about impressive, but we’re comfortable here, I like it. Let’s go.”

She took my hand and pulled me off the couch and into the kitchen. Way larger than mine at home, but I suspected nowhere near as large as Larry’s. Still, lots of space, nice professional range, double-door fridge, and so on. If I ever cooked anything more serious than eggs, I’d look into getting one. Right after I win the lottery.

A large-ish dining room and a comfortable den for Dad finished the first floor. I noticed that Amelia was brushing against me as we walked, putting her hand on my shoulder to direct my attention to some feature.

Upstairs looked like every upstairs in every house, just a little larger. A couple of bathrooms, two guest rooms and a master bedroom for her parents. The last room on the floor at the end of the hall was hers. “I spent way too many hours in here in school. I didn’t get along with my parents for most of high school, but we’re okay with each other now. Either I’ve grown up or they have.”

It was a pretty big room. Perhaps a little “girl-y”, but I suppose that’s what you like when you’re in high school. I noticed some trophies on a bookcase. When I got closer I saw that they were horse jumping trophies, puissance and six-bar. I knew just enough to recognize the names.

“Impressive. There’s a lot of firsts here.”

“It was my thing when I was in middle school and part of high school. I really like horses. We have a couple, but I haven’t been able to ride since I’ve been away at school and we may have to rethink horse ownership for the time being.”

She chattered on about horses and school, what it was like to go to school in a city like New York, and I contributed the occasional comment.

I heard voices in the hallway, I recognized Larry’s, and a couple of female voices, probably Bree and Muffy.

Amelia heard it, too. “That’ll be the three of them. I wondered how long it would take.”

I must have looked puzzled, because she added, “They’re taking over one of the guest rooms. They’re going to have their own party. I told you that Muffy likes a little sex to mellow her out, and Bree wants to make sure she isn’t left out, so threesome.”

“I’m having a hard time reconciling the Larry I’m seeing here with the one I know at school. He’s quite the operator.”

“Here’s the thing. To certain women, money is an aphrodisiac. Larry’s family has money. Muffy and Bree are turned on.”

“That seems a bit ... callous,” I said.

“Fact of life. Not all women, of course, just some. It doesn’t do much for me, for example. Larry’s a nice guy, but I don’t get all wet and turned on when I’m near him just because I can smell money. Like Muffy.”

I thought these girls were close friends. Amelia didn’t seem to averse to a little backbiting if the opportunity presented itself.

“Okay. As long as they’re happy. But I don’t think Larry’s ready to settle down yet, if she’s looking to stake a claim.”

“No, it’s not that, she’s just reminding him that she’s around and that they’re compatible, so that when the time does come, she’ll have an edge over the competition when she makes her move.”

I shook my head and Amelia laughed and slapped my arm. “I knew it! We’ve shocked you!”

“I feel like the country hick on his first sojourn to the big city. Lots of things I didn’t expect.”

“Poor baby. I’ll protect you.” She moved closer and put an arm around me.

I’m not an idiot, I could sense she had an agenda, but she was being a little cryptic, unlike Bree and Muffy. Instead of looking into her epicenter, I decided to just ask her.

“So you implied that you had things that mellow you out, help relax you, but you were a bit evasive. Do you think you’ll shock me?”

She got a bit wary now, and took her arm down, careful to frame her answer in a particular way. “Well, I wasn’t deliberately trying to be evasive, it’s only that we’ve just met, and there are things we’re not all comfortable sharing with strangers. I might really shock you. That would make the rest of the evening somewhat awkward, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so, if I were some hothouse flower, experiencing the world for the first time. But I’ve seen things, done things, that might surprise you, so I think I wouldn’t be easily shocked.”

She looked doubtful, so whatever it is that gets her engine running she must think is pretty embarrassing, almost shameful.

She stayed quiet, until I finally said, “Okay, you don’t believe me. Suppose I tell you some of the weirdest things I’ve done, so you’ll believe I’m telling the truth.”

She looked at me with the beginning of a smile. “Ooo, shared secrets so early in the relationship? Now I’m turned on. Okay, let’s hear it.”

Oops, I may have just been snared in my own trap. All right, what can she do? Refuse to speak to me for the rest of the evening?

“Let me preface this by saying that even if I’ve done some of these things, it doesn’t mean that I get a rush from them. I’m a big believer in people trying to work together, to compromise, so they can satisfy their partners. There’s only a few things that I really won’t do.”

“Like what?”

“Later. Okay, where to start? Well, I’ve had a couple of threesomes, I don’t know if that’s a run-of-the-mill thing in your circles, but there you are. One was with two women, another was me and another guy DP-ing a woman who happened to get turned on by the idea.

“Let’s see ... Oh, I’ve had a couple of women who got seriously turned on by bondage, being restrained and fucked without having a say in how it was done. Another woman got her jollies from being ordered around and spanked. I think she actually came when I did it.”

“I think I’m going to need some explicit details,” said Amelia. “Just to make sure you really did it.”

“I think there’s got to be some give and take here, Amelia, it’s not a one-way street, detail-wise.”

She looked panicked again. She said, “Wait,” and stepped into her walk-in closet. She came out holding a pint bottle.

“I think I need another drink first.” She unscrewed the cap and took a swallow from the bottle. She offered the open bottle to me, but I shook my head. She capped it and put it on an end table.

She looked at me, waiting for me to continue, but I had asked her a question and she had yet to respond. Her eyes started darting around when she saw that I wasn’t going to continue.

“Damn it, Tom, I’m really not comfortable with this.”

“If you’re not, you’re not. I won’t force you. So what are we gonna do? It looks like Larry and the rest of the party are going to be occupied for the next couple of hours. So, what? Scrabble? Bake some oatmeal cookies together? Strip Monopoly?”

That got a chuckle and eased the tension slightly. She thought a little more, then said, “Wait.”

I could hear some alcohol-fueled laughter coming from the guest room, where things seemed to be heating up. She walked over and closed the bedroom door.

I thought this was taking an interesting turn. So far I hadn’t channeled or linkcast anything to her, I hadn’t looked into her epicenter, I hadn’t used any of my normal tricks. This was just conversation between two people, trying to break through the social and personal barriers. This was what psychologists and psychiatrists do.

But maybe there was something else going on. She had been really reluctant to expose her secrets, had erected a barrier when it first came up. Was it just my honest, trustworthy face that had convinced her to push past her reluctance and confess? I doubted it. So what had convinced her to let me in on her embarrassing secret?

What if my desire to have her tell me had somehow been linkcast unconsciously? How the hell would I even go about proving that hypothesis? I wouldn’t even know how to do that if I wanted to. As far as I’d been able to learn, I couldn’t convince someone to do something they didn’t want to do or which was against their principles

Nothing’s ever easy. I’ll put that in the back of my mind and think about it later.

She sat on the edge of the bed and for a moment looked like a little girl who had done something wrong and had been caught.

“How do I know if I can trust you?” she asked.

“I suppose you don’t. You have to make a decision, as in any other social situation, whether you think the other person is trustworthy, based on your intuition, your feelings. For what it’s worth, I’ll promise that whatever you tell me will go no further, unless you tell me otherwise. I guess in the worst case, if I break my word, you could have Larry write me out of his will. That’d hurt.”

That made her smile. Eventually, she made her decision. She patted the bed next to her, and I sat.

“The girls and I joke about our likes and dislikes, our proclivities, the things that get us horny. But I haven’t told them everything because, even though we’ve known each other forever, there are things, personal things, that I wouldn’t trust them with. Because they talk. Especially with a couple of drinks in them. So they don’t know.”

I waited for her to continue. She seemed to have hit a roadblock and was trying to figure out how to move on.

“So we all like pretty much the same things, sex-wise, y’know, fucking and getting eaten out, and we’re okay with blowjobs -- Bree can actually deepthroat a guy like it’s no big deal -- and we sometimes like getting a dick in the ass. But...”

Here she stopped, and I thought she was just going to say no, I can’t, and walk out. I waited for her, trying to look completely neutral.

“But ... while those things are fun and I like them, what really gets me right to the edge, about ready to cum is ... oh, fuck, this is hard.” She took a deep breath. “What really gets me off is being treated like a slut.”

She stopped and gasped for air. I think this was the first time she’d ever said it out loud.

“When I think about some guy treating me like some cheap whore, telling me I’m a worthless cunt who’d fuck some unwashed bum for fifty cents, I feel ashamed, humiliated. It also makes me so wet and I can feel my clit throbbing, and it takes almost nothing to make me cum. I don’t know why I’m like this. No one has ever treated me like that, it only happens when I watch a certain kind of porn. Then it’s like one orgasm after another, till I can hardly move.”

She stopped abruptly and breathed heavily, carefully inspecting the baseboards so she wouldn’t have to look at me.

I asked her, “So, you’ve never done this in real life, is that what you’re saying?”

She nodded.

“But it happens when you’re watching these ... special videos where someone is abused and humiliated. You imagine yourself in their position and you get off, is that it?”

Again, she nodded.

“Well, that’s a little out of the ordinary, but not completely unknown. Have you ever thought about why this turns you on so much?”

“I don’t understand it. I’m not at all like that in real life, subservient, seeking abuse. If anyone heard about it, I’d ... well, I don’t know, I’d have to leave school, forget my friends, move to Uganda or something. I don’t know where it comes from.”

“I can see this really upsets you, Amelia. Look, you’re probably right, some people wouldn’t understand this urge, but you’re not the first to have it. I’ve certainly heard of it before. But it doesn’t harm anyone. Someday it’d be worth your while to figure out where it comes from, mostly because it’s better to know about the things that drive us than not to know. Some shrink could probably get to the bottom of it pretty quick.

“But in the meantime, it’s not hurting anyone, unless you happen to run into some guy who gets off on abusing women, then it could get physical. But you’ve got good instincts.”

She was quiet again. Then she said, “So, pretty weird, huh?”

“Not that weird. There’s lots weirder people out there than you and me. I don’t remember if I mentioned it to you, but my firm belief is that anything two people do with each other, as long as they both agree and as long as neither one gets hurt, physically or emotionally, is okay. No one’s business but their own.”

“I think most people aren’t as open-minded as you are.”

“You might be right.”

She was quiet again, rubbing one palm along her other wrist.

“Umm ... thanks for listening. And for not judging. I don’t think I could have talked about this without a few drinks in me.”

“Okay. You don’t have to bring it up again. We can talk about something else. You can show me your vacation pictures. We could play Strip Monopoly.”

“Hmmm, you keep bringing that up. Is this a secret fetish of yours?”

“Doesn’t everyone have that one?”

“Must be a Cleveland thing, I can’t recall anyone doing that around here. Anyway, I don’t think I have a Monopoly set. How about if we just fool around instead. Why should Muffy and Bree have all the fun?”

Well, she’s pretty direct, isn’t she? Must be a prep school thing.

“It’s a good suggestion. I can’t come up with a sound argument against it.”

“Well, that’s settled, then. Why don’t I start?”

Even through the walls and the closed door, I could hear the party in the guest room. She stood up and watched me while she unbuttoned her shirt. At the last button, she shrugged it off of her shoulders, her eyes never leaving mine. She was showing off, I thought, assessing how she’d play what followed based on my response.

She was well toned, probably did some sport now that she didn’t ride anymore. Her boobs looked like a B cup, not large but well defined. The bra she wore looked like part of a matched set, and expensive, lacy with finely-stitched seams.

She’d moved on to her slacks, unbuttoning the little strap at the side, and sliding the zipper down slowly, drawing it out. I thought this was an act that she performed for every new partner, seeing how they reacted. So far she’d played it well.

She let the pants fall to the floor. I was right, the panties matched the bra. I guessed that it cost what my clothing budget was for an entire month.

She reached behind her to unhook her bra, and I stopped her. “Do you mind if I do that? I need the practice.”

She gave a short laugh. “I doubt that, but sure, have at it.”

I linkcast her the Foundation image to sensitize her, though I thought she might not need it. But better to have it and not need it than ... well, you get the idea.

I stood up and stepped in front of her, so I could look her in the eye. I reached behind her and got the bra open in one try. I pulled it over her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.

“Oh, hell, yeah,” I said. I reached up and squeezed her tits, massaging them. When her breathing picked up, I got her nipples between my thumbs and index fingers and rolled and pinched them.

“That’s nice. Do some more of that,” she instructed me. So I did. And I also leaned in and nibbled from under her ear down to where her neck met her shoulder. After a couple of minutes, I moved southward and got one nipple into my mouth and sucked and tongued it.

She put her hand on the back of my head to encourage me, but I had other plans. I dropped my hands to her waist and slipped her panties over her hips and they fell to the ground. She stepped out of them awkwardly.

She looked like she didn’t know what to do next, which I found surprising. I took a quick peek into her epicenter. There was some anticipation there, she liked fucking, but also a little resignation and disappointment because she had been hoping that the discussion of her secret fantasies would get me playing the part she’d been looking for, someone dominant.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. Some part of me found this demanding, domineering and abusive persona really uncomfortable, even if she wanted it, needed it. It clashed with the part of me that liked women and disliked people who demeaned them. Was there a middle ground I could find with her?

I put my hands firmly on her hips and turned her around, so she was standing where I had been, back toward the side of the bed. I took two small steps forward and her legs pressed against the bed. With my hands on her shoulders, I pushed and she fell backwards on the bed, with a surprised “Oh!”

“Pull your legs up, back toward your chest,” I told her in an authoritative tone. She did, a little puzzled. Once done, I grabbed her behind her bent thighs near her hips and pulled her roughly forward so her butt was at the edge of the bed.

Her pussy and labia were shaved, completely bare, but she had a nearly full mound of pubic hair above her slit. It was thick, but neatly trimmed, with defined edges.

“Hold that position till I say differently.” Now she was really confused. This was the dominance she was looking for, but not the humiliation, the degradation.

While she gnawed at that puzzle, I sat on the bed and took off my shoes, then stood up and stripped, watching her watching me. I already had a half stiffy from looking at her presenting her pussy to me. I stroked my dick a couple of times and I could see that she thought I was going to get right to it, no foreplay.

Instead, I dropped to my knees in front of her. “Spread your legs a little wider apart, yeah, like that. Hold them there.” I leaned in and licked from her cunt all the way up her slit, avoiding her clit, then back down again. I heard her catch her breath. I did it again.

The third time, I went lower and flicked my tongue back and forth on her perineum. She was breathing in short gasps now, trying to find air. I put my right thumb where my tongue had been and rubbed it back and forth, and moved my tongue higher, doing my damnedest to push it into her cunt.

Right now I was just going through the motions, because I knew that most women liked this, loved this. Then I thought, y’know, I keep talking about refining these images and I never do anything about it. Why not now? If I get it wrong, I can always fall back on the tried and true.

So I imagined, not a wave, but instead an ocean swell, perhaps the harbinger of an approaching storm, which moves a ship relentlessly higher, then drops slowly into a trough, where the swells towered above it. The swell doesn’t break on a beach, it just rises and falls.

You should know how this works now: I create this image, with the instruction that it is a metaphor for rising pleasure and release, the target’s mind interprets it as they understand it.

That’s what I tried with her. I linkcast this slow, heavy ocean swell to her while I tongue-fucked her and rubbed her perineum. And over an extended few seconds I could feel her tighten, her muscles tense, then she moaned quietly, “Oh, fuck, oh, nice.” Then she relaxed.

My tongue was getting a little tired from all this pushing. It wasn’t used to it. So instead I put my thumbs next to her labia and spread them apart. I flicked my tongue back and forth, moving higher. I linkcast the image of the swell again, and again she tensed for some seconds, and finally released her breath slowly, relaxing into the bed.

Okay, working out fine so far. What happens if I make the storm more imminent, closer, the swells higher and more frequent? I linkcast that, my tongue still moving.

Her hips arched upward while she emitted a strange, high-pitched thin wail, ending with “Oh, my God!” She settled back into the bed. I couldn’t tell if she wanted me to stop or continue. I decided to keep going.

I hadn’t touched her clit yet. She’d been doing just fine with other things, but perhaps now was the time. I moved higher until I got to her clit but I didn’t tongue it, I grabbed it with my lips, pulled at it, nibbled it, while I took two fingers of my right hand and slipped them into her pussy. She gave a series of grunts telling me that that was the right thing to do.

While I finger-fucked her and pulled at her clit, I linkcast a small wave breaking on a beach. Yeah, I know, borrrr-ring. But not to her. She cried out, “Yesyesyes, right there, don’t stop! Don’t stop!” Her body trembled and her hands grabbed the back of my head, pushing me in, until she finally pushed me away.

“Oh, fuck me. Wow! Where did that come from?”

“Well, just a wild guess, but I think it might be connected to my tongue on your clit and my fingers in your pussy.”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean I don’t usually cum that hard. That was really nice. I could get used to that very easily.”

“Are you saying you’ve never had a guy eat you out? ‘Cause that’s just criminal.”

“Of course they have. They just don’t do it as well as you, and I don’t know what’s different. Do you think you could put together a short Cliff’s Notes handout on how that’s supposed to be done? It would be your good deed for the day.”

“I’ll see what I can do. So it was okay? I’m kinda trying to figure out what you like here, so there was some guesswork involved.”

“I liked that just fine. You have any more tricks up your sleeve?”

“Just the usual. Y’know, pulling colored scarves out of my butt, making my dick disappear, finding a live rabbit in your pussy, usual stuff.

“Wait, let me get my camera. That’s something I’ll want to remember. Come up here for a bit, will you?”

We slithered up onto the bed and she threw an arm around me. “That was really nice, and looking to get better. You have some skills.”

She got a little quiet and buried her face in my chest. “Look, Tom, I’m not quite sure how to approach this. I mean ... Y’know what we were talking about earlier? The slut thing? Oh, shit, this is so embarrassing. I told you I’d never done it before in real life, just watched it in porn and pretended. I’m ... I need to know if this is something that would work for me.