Chapter 9

"What does the rest of your day look like?" Danny asked as Devlin got off the bed and started collecting her clothes. The rain was drumming against the window of the hotel room and Devlin could hear the hissing sound of tires on the street below. Danny was lying on the bed, still nude.

Devlin paused, watching the raindrops run down the window. "I have class in an hour," she said. She could feel the coolness radiating from the window and it made her shiver slightly. "English composition followed by math, advanced algebra. What about you? Another business meeting?" That was his excuse for getting out of the office today.

"No, just more of what I've been doing for the last two weeks," Danny said. "I've got several loan applications to review." He studied her profile. "Is something bothering you?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Want to talk about it?"

Devlin put down her underwear and sat on the chair next to the window, still staring at the rain. From time to time she could see bits of snow hitting the window. The forecast tonight was for falling temperatures with the possibility of snow. Even if it didn't snow there were going to be plenty of icy roads in the morning.

"This last weekend Jeff and I were going to go to the football game with some friends of his from his engineering classes. I was looking forward to it, just a couple of hours where we could be together with friends."

"But... ?"

"His Church called, said they needed him to help run a Youth Camp that weekend. They called him Friday morning." She looked at Danny helplessly. "No advanced warning, no notice, just bam, out of the blue. They do this every weekend, Danny, and it's always something different: Youth Camp, Prayer Meetings, Missionary Calls, the list is endless. He's gone from Friday afternoon to late Sunday evening. He's so busy with Church activities that he never has time to study on the weekends."

"He never has time on the weekend for the two of you, does he," Danny said quietly. "They don't let him."

"No." Devlin started crying, wiping furiously at her tears. "Its like they don't want us to be together."

Danny got off the bed and gathered her into his arms, holding her as she cried. "Why?" she whispered. "We're great together, and I don't mean in bed, either. Can't they see it? Why don't they want us to be together?"

"They probably don't want him seeing anyone outside of the Church," Danny said after a bit. "Some religious sects are like that. For them the Church is the center of social life, not just the center of religious life."

"I met with a couple of the elders," Devlin said. She pushed Danny away and stared at her clothes. "I met with them a couple of weeks ago, just before Halloween. I'm not wild about the idea of joining that Church, but I will if I have to."

"Are you sure about that, Devlin? Are you sure you want to throw away your life like that?"

She looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean throw away my life?"

"In the last 10 years the Bank has loaned that Church a lot of money, mostly construction loans so they can build a new church and do some serious remodeling. They've repaid the loans, too, every penny. But because I'm a senior officer in the loan department I've had a chance to study them. Most of the women in that Church, with the exception of a few elders, stay home and raise kids. Most girls in that Church get married soon after graduating from high school and have their first babies nine months later. They have another one a year later, and so on. The average family has 5 or 6 kids. Tell me, how many sisters does Jeff have?"

"Four." Devlin snuffled her nose, then reached for a tissue. "Jeff has four sisters; three of them are married, and the other is engaged."

"How many nieces and nephews does he have?"

"Three... oh." She seemed to slump as she saw where he was going. "His oldest sister, Sarah, has two kids. Miriam has one, and Ruth is expecting. She's due in March, which will be ten months after she got married. I think Sarah or Miriam has another one on the way."

"My point exactly. Now this is just my observations, but personally? I don't like that Church one bit. It goes beyond that. I don't trust them, either. The elders are into some sort of power thing. They control everyone's lives, and I think they like doing that. They have some scriptural verse that supposedly justifies it, but that's a lot of hogwash. You can find justification for anything if you look hard enough in the Bible and twist the verses in the right way."

"But..."

"My honest opinion, Devlin," he said, holding up his hand. "My honest opinion is that if you join that Church, everything you've wanted to do, everything you've hoped and dreamed for, will fly right out the window. You'll stay at home and make babies. That's all they'll let you do."

"Ruth went to a business school for a year after high school."

"Yeah, right, big deal. Imagine yourself as her. They might let you go to a business school, but they might not. Suppose they do? You'll end up as a secretary or a file clerk or something, if that. Oh, and you'd be pregnant nearly all of the time. You'd be so busy raising kids you wouldn't have time for yourself."

Devlin glanced at the clock and started dressing. "I want to have a few years before I start having kids," she said in a low voice. "At the very least I want to be out of college."

"They'd make you drop out of college." Danny crossed the room and collected his clothes from where he had dropped them. "My opinion, again, but that would be a terrible waste."

"But what can I do?" She resettled her bra and stared at the traffic on the street below. "I want to be with Jeff, but if his Church won't let me..."

"That's it, isn't it. They're forcing the situation, and you'll have to make a choice, either Jeff and the Church, or no Jeff."

"That can't be it."

"No? That's what it looks like to me."

"But Jeff doesn't go along with a lot of what they believe."

Danny started to reply, and saw her face. "You need to talk this out," he said at last. "Eventually things are going to come to a head and if you haven't come to a decision, if you haven't talked it out with someone, you'll burst."

"I suppose."

"Don't give me that tone, young lady." Danny put a finger under chin and raised her face. "Listen. You can always ask me for advice. And Sue is there for you, too. We owe you, and we're here to help. If you need help we'll give it to you. If you need advice, we'll offer it, and it will be honest and unvarnished and what we think will be in your best interests. You know that.

"Now, other than that, how's the rest of life treating you? You haven't said much these last few weeks. How are you doing in school? Didn't you just have mid-terms?"

"I think I'm doing all right." Devlin buttoned up her blouse and pulled on a sweater. "I did all right on my tests, but other than that it's hard to tell. I'm so busy I hardly have any time to myself."

"Oh?" He grinned. "I remember my freshman year. I take it things are stacking up."

Devlin rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. Between studying and classes, my sales presentations, and you and Jeff I barely have time for laundry and food and all of the other things I have to do."

"I thought you looked a little thinner. Have you been eating properly?"

"I'm on the famous 'no time for anything diet," she said. She pulled on her thick wool socks and then slipped into her black dress slacks. "I may have lost one or two pounds, but..."

"One or two pounds?" Danny shook his head. "I think you've lost more than that. Your boobs look bigger, and I don't think it's because you're still growing there. Your tummy and butt are flatter and-"

"What?" Devlin jumped up and stood in front of the mirror, inspecting herself. "I don't have much of a butt to lose and..." She turned, looking at her bottom. "My God, I'm almost flat back there."

"And you're certainly not flat up on top." Danny paused to run his hands down her front, stopping to lift her breasts slightly. "It wasn't the light, they do look bigger."

"Of course they'll look bigger if you do that."

"Devlin," he said in a quiet voice. "You have to make time for yourself. You need to find time to eat better and relax a little; you need to learn to pace yourself. College can be very busy, but you have to watch your health, too."

"I watch what I eat. I'm exercising regularly in my dance class and I'm-"

"Have you weighed yourself? Your cheekbones really stand out, and I don't think your pale complexion is entirely from make-up."

Devlin pushed her hands against her face. Now that he mentioned it she did look thin, and pale, too. Right now her cheeks were flushed, but that was from the two hard climaxes she'd just had, not any make-up. Was she really neglecting herself that much?

"I don't know," she said at last. "There's never enough time to do everything."

"Then you'll have to cut something out, or budget your time better."

"How? I'm not sure I have any time to spare."

"Do you have a couple of minutes? I don't have to be back just yet."

Devlin glanced at her watch. "A few. What did you have in mind?"

"Let's draw out your schedule. Let's do it in graph form. I think that'll help."

Devlin nodded. Jeff had drawn out his schedule using engineering paper. She kept a few sheets with her because the small blue squares were kind of cool looking, and they did seem to make her math homework easier to follow.

Danny finished dressing while she drew. "That's just your class schedule," he said when she showed it to him. "Now put in things like when you get up, your morning dance class, your study sessions, and everything else that takes time."

"Including these little get-togethers?"

"Including these get-togethers." When she was finished he shook his head. "That's a pretty full schedule. That's almost too much. Look, one of the secrets to college is leaving yourself enough time during the day for other things. One of the things I learned was to leave time during the day to do my homework. It looks like the only day you do that is on Tuesdays."

"Yeah, that is pretty light, well, except for the study group I have that night."

"Freshmen always crowd their schedule. By the time you're a sophomore you know better. The only time I see you have for yourself is Wednesday and Friday nights."

"And the dorm always tries to have something on Friday nights."

"Have you started looking at what you'll be taking next term?"

"A little, well, some. The next semester doesn't start until January, and I have a few weeks left before registration."

"We'll have to work on it and see if we can make life a little easier for you." He looked at his watch. "Now if you want to get to your class you'd better hurry."

Devlin gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and ran for the lobby. This hotel was only three blocks from campus and her English class was in the first building she'd come to. She slid into her seat in English just as the bell rang.

The dorm held a mixer every Friday night in the dorm. Devlin didn't feel like meeting new guys that she'd ignore, and Connie was visiting her folks this weekend so she had plenty of time to sit in her room alone and think. Danny was right, her life was a lot more crowded than she had expected, and she needed to do something about it before things got completely out of control. She was doing so many things, was there anything she could change?

There wasn't much she could do about her class schedule. She was stuck with that for the rest of the term, but what about the other things in her life? She couldn't give up her sales meetings, she needed the income, and she needed the study sessions with the other business majors. She sat there tapping her pencil against the copy of her schedule. As far as she could tell there wasn't anything she could change about the way things were going.

Well, as Jeff had told her when he was working on his engineering homework, if the problem looked insoluble, that only meant you were approaching it from the wrong direction. All problems had solutions - though he had also told her that you had to learn when the costs of a solution were unacceptable.

What she needed was a brand new approach. She needed to wipe the slate and start over. What did she have to absolutely have to have on her schedule? She took out a fresh piece of paper and started a new list.

First, the sleepovers with Jeff, though on Sunday night all they did was study and sleep. Thursday nights were different, his Church hadn't intervened to take those away from them, not yet. But they spent most of Thursday night studying. It was only later, after they went to bed that they made love. She wished it was more often, but there just wasn't the time.

Second, her times with Danny; that was for Sue, but, she had to admit, it was for herself as well. There was nothing like it, even when she was with Jeff. Of course Danny knew her so much better than Jeff. He knew what turned her on, what didn't, and how to bring her to that absolute mind-blowing moment of total release that she'd only had a couple of times with Jeff.

Third, classes, of course, and she had to do a better job of finding time to study. That meant that next term she needed to pick and choose her classes a little better.

Fourth... She looked at the list and realized it was leading her right back to where she was at the moment. She'd have to start over and reassess everything.

One of the girls on her floor had said that the first two years of college were for experimenting. A girl should try different things, things she would never do in high school, things that she would or wouldn't do when she was older; after all, a girl had to find out what she liked and didn't like. Her first two years of college was when she could really learn about herself.

Devlin looked at her reflection in the mirror, wondering if there were things she could try out. She wasn't that interested in alcohol; she'd already tasted wine and beer and didn't care for the way beer tasted. Wine was all right, but she wasn't sure she liked the idea of getting drunk and losing control, especially around guys. She'd lost control a couple of times at Emma's - she'd never had a drink there, but it amounted to the same thing, and it just didn't fit the image she had of herself. Other things, though...

Remembering a discussion she'd had with Sabrina she got a small bowl of warm water. After finding her razor and scissors she undressed and looked at her sex. She'd always trimmed her pubic hair, more just to keep it trimmed back from her bikini line than anything else. She'd never done more because she'd worried about what the other girls would say. But in P.E. she'd seen girls who'd trimmed their deltas down to almost nothing, and nobody had said anything about it. Of course she only saw most of those girls during P.E. It wasn't like in high school where you knew everybody and everybody knew you and you were around them all of the time.

She took most of the hair off with her scissors, and then got busy with her razor. Most of the stubble came off easily, but she had to use a mirror and go slowly when she shaved around her labia - the last thing she wanted to do was cut herself. Fortunately most of her hair grew on her tummy, not down on her sex lips. She kept going over the stubble from one direction after another. Eventually she could run a nylon stocking over her sex and not feel it catch on anything.

She looked herself over in the mirror. It wasn't quite what she'd expected. She did look like Barbie; her boobs were certainly as big as the doll's. She didn't feel any different down there. Right now it felt a little cool, and she was certainly more aware of her sex than she normally was - she remembered having a discussion with Butch when she had just turned 14.

They were in his room recovering from their first time of the afternoon. She'd looked at his cock as it shrank back to normal size and asked what it was like walking around with one.

"You don't really notice it," he said. He touched her sex. "I don't suppose you really notice your pussy."

She shrugged. "No, not really. It's just a place on my body where my legs come together."

"Not even when we're, you know, when we're doing it?"

"Well, that's different. It feels..." She paused, thinking. "I'm aware of an, I don't know, an emptiness. It's hard to explain. Normally it's just..." She shrugged again. "It feels different when we're doing it, I can definitely feel that, but normally I don't... Look, I'm more aware of my boobs than I am of my sex."

"I can see where you would be." He caressed her breasts. "I see what you mean. I'm not aware of my chest, but my chest is flat. Yours isn't. You can't feel what you don't have, especially if you've never had it."

"That's it." She nodded. "That's it exactly. I can remember not having breasts; it wasn't that long ago after all."

"And wearing a bra probably helps."

"Some." She laughed. "The first time you try to run without a bra you are very aware of your breasts. It can actually hurt."

"Yeah, I bet. I can run without a jock strap or even shorts, but it feels a little sore down there afterwards. It's certainly not something guys would do very often." He ran his fingers over her sex. "A girl doesn't have anything to support down there, so I bet she'd never feel the difference."

Devlin smiled at the memory of Butch's touch. What would have happened if he hadn't moved away when she was 14? Well, she and Danny wouldn't have gotten together, and there wouldn't have been any parties at Emma's. It was too bad she and Butch had only liked the sex with each other, she hadn't been interested in him other than that.

She looked at the bare lips of her sex. She wondered if she'd notice any difference in the next few days.

Jeff didn't notice, but he was so tired when he got home Sunday evening that after some studying he went to sleep right away. Danny, of course, did notice.

"So you thought you'd try being a smoothie," he said as he gazed at her sex. "How do you like it?"

"It's... different," she said slowly. "There was this one gal at Emma's who said that if I tried it I should shave it every day. I have, every morning in the shower, but I'm not sure if I want to keep it up. It seems like a lot of bother."

Danny rested his chin on her tummy, smiling at her. She had her legs draped over his shoulders - they'd done this often enough she was comfortable with it, though she wasn't sure she would be if it was any guy other than Danny.