Chapter 20

"... it was like that guy at Emma's a couple of weeks ago," Devlin said. "You know, Henry." It was Saturday morning and they were sitting in Linkins having an early lunch.

"That bad?" Krissi murmured. "Yuck. I take it he was never like that before."

"He wouldn't even touch me down there." Devlin shook his head. "He used to love doing that. Now..." She shrugged. "And he kept badgering me to do it without a condom."

"Look at it from his perspective, Devlin. The one person you should be able to do it with without using a condom is your girlfriend."

"I was only using one because I don't know who he's been seeing."

Krissi looked surprised. "Do you think he's been seeing someone else? You really don't have any proof of that."

Devlin hunched forward, staring at her half-eaten sandwich. "No, I don't have any proof, but I don't know that he hasn't been having sex with someone else, either. I admit, given his church, that it's unlikely he is, but I don't know."

Krissi nodded. "It's funny," she said after a bit. "We're much more aware of our health than people in the straight world are." She laughed briefly. "And they think we're the ones who are at risk."

"Well, in a way we are. Look at all of the studies and reports."

"And how much of what we're hearing is from people who don't want anyone to have sex except to make babies."

Devlin nodded thoughtfully. "One of the girls on my floor is like that. She would have been at home with the Puritans. She doesn't get invited to the late night bull sessions any more, not since she cut loose at everyone whom she thought was having sex."

"Which was probably most of the girls on the floor."

"Most of us," Devlin nodded, "whether they've openly said they are or not. We all generally know who's doing what, though I think what's going on with Danny flies under the radar. People know about Jeff."

"Do they know about us?"

Devlin smiled and shook her head. "No, but that's something I want to talk about, but later. My roommate Connie summed it up best. This was, oh, about a month ago. Nicole was sitting in on one of the bull sessions and Connie went right after her. She said Nicole seemed deathly afraid that somebody, somewhere, was having fun. Said it right to her face, too. Nicole got all red and huffy and stomped off. She hasn't been invited back since."

"Does Connie know about you and Danny?"

"Sort of, well, she knows something is going on with someone other than Jeff, but that's all. She knows about Jeff, though. I really twisted her ear about him yesterday afternoon. She's been telling me to dump him."

"I've never met him, but I agree with her. I think that pretty much makes it unanimous."

Devlin nodded glumly. "You, Sue and Danny, Connie, and nearly every gal on my floor. I guess that's just about everybody."

"I mentioned this to my boyfriend," Krissi said, staring down at her sandwich.

"Boyfriend? When did you acquire a boyfriend?"

"You remember that guy I told you about, the one who first showed me a good time?"

Devlin nodded. "Yeah, I think you told me he was the second guy you were with."

"Well, I ran into him last Monday after my 1:30. Well, we got to talking; I think we talked most of the afternoon and a good part of the evening."

Devlin smiled. "So, did you drag him into bed and have your wicked ways with him?"

"Not exactly. We've done a lot of talking. I haven't gone to bed with him, but I think that's just a matter of time. He's working on a dual degree, Economics and Math, and we were amazed at how many things we have in common."

"You'll have to make sure he's safe before you hop in bed with him."

"I know, I know. Yesterday he got the full range of tests; he's clean and healthy. Like I said, once I got to talking with him he turned out to be a lot more interesting than any of the other guys I've met. His name's Steve, by the way."

"And he wants to go with us tonight?"

Krissi shook her head. "No, I haven't told him about Emma's. I'm not sure I'd want to take a guy to Emma's. That's not exactly where you'd want to take a date."

Devlin laughed. "That would be hoot, wouldn't it? Where did you go on your date, Devlin? It was so romantic. We went to dinner and then stopped by at Emma's where we had sex with everybody but each other."

Krissi had been sipping her coffee; she almost sprayed Devlin as she laughed. "God, that would be something, wouldn't it. If I ever wrote pornography I'd have to write that story. They can have casual sex with anybody but each other. Hah! Try figuring out how to make that plausible." She stopped laughing long enough to pull out a small notebook and make a few notes.

"You're not serious about that, are you?" Devlin asked.

"An idea is an idea." She finished writing and dropped her notebook in her purse. Her hand hovered over her purse for several seconds, and then she drew out a business envelope. "I did get this in the mail this morning." She passed it across to Devlin, looking down and obviously trying not to meet her eyes.

Devlin opened it slowly, reading through the letter twice. "This is great, Krissi. She wants to see your whole book." She handed the letter back to Krissi, who dropped it in her purse.

"I know, which is why I'll have to take my laptop with me tonight. I want to go through my novel one more time before I send it off to her."

"You're not going to spend your time at Emma's writing, are you?" Devlin looked at her friend and started laughing. "Somehow that just doesn't seem like the thing to do at Emma's."

Krissi shook her head. "Of course not. I figured that since you're going to be seeing your mother tomorrow on our way home, I'd just find a restaurant or someplace that'll let me plug in and write while you're doing that. Maybe the library, if there's a library in Toluca."

"There wasn't the last time I looked."

"Did your mother say why she needed to see you?"

"No," Devlin said, shaking her head. "I suspect she might be considering selling the house. Since I moved down here she's been all alone in the place, and it doesn't really make sense for her to keep it. She probably wants to tell me she's putting the house in on the market or something."

"And you don't mind?" Krissi asked. "Some people do. You know, the family home and stuff like that."

"It's an awfully large house, far too much for one person. It'd only be logical for her to sell it."

"Anyway, that's between you and her. I'll just curl up with my laptop and write. When you're done come collect me."

"Sure. What time do you want to leave?"

"Eager?"

"Yes... and no. I've been doing a lot of thinking this week, and, well, there are a few things I want some answers to."

"Answers?" Krissi studied Devlin's face. "Like what's... like between us?"

"That's a lot of it." Devlin picked at her sandwich. "I-I thought I had myself all figured out, and then we... well, the two of us..."

"I don't think you're a lesbian," Krissi said. "I know I'm not. I would have thought your daily with Danny would have told you."

"Krissi, he's like a habit. We've been doing this for more than five years, and a lot of it's the same. We get together, say hi and start undressing. Maybe we undress each other, but not always. And when we've gotten rid of our clothes we hop on the bed and get right to it. And when we've finished we rest a bit, and then do it again. If there's time, and these days there usually isn't, we'll do it again, but we only do that if we have all afternoon. Danny has a lot of endurance, but cumming three times in a couple of hours will wipe out most guys.

"But whether we do it a third time or not, after we're done he showers, dresses and goes back to his office. I'll put on enough clothes that I'm decent, and shower in the Women's Locker Room. Then it's back to class as if nothing happened, well, except I'll be in a better frame of mind for the rest of the day." She shrugged. "Nothing exciting in any of that."

"Sounds like it. You make it sound so mechanical and unromantic."

"In many ways it is. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of passion and heat, just no romance. We like each other, but it isn't love."

"Sort of like how I feel about the guys I meet at Emma's. I like them, but it isn't love."

"Precisely. And after, well, after the two of us, well..."

"I don't think you're a lesbian, if you're worried about it," Krissi said. "I have a very good friend who's a lesbian, and you're not anything like her."

"People are different."

"Not that different. I've seen Lisa around other women. It's like watching you around guys. There's that subconscious flirting that all straight women do around a guy; Lisa does that around women. Most women don't pick up on it, they just think she's being more, I don't know, more feminine than they are."

"And how did you figure this out?"

"It's the writer in me. You learn to take a step back and look. She was coming on to me, and I asked her about it. We sort of got to talking about that and a few other things."

"Have you been to bed with her?"

Krissi smiled, shaking her head. "Believe it or not, you're the only woman I've been to bed with. Somehow I'm just not comfortable with the whole idea of sex with another woman."

"Thanks a lot."

"Any time. You know, you and Lisa should meet. You're both bi-curious."

"Bi-curious? As in bi-sexual curious?"

Krissi nodded. "About a month ago Lisa asked me what it was like to be with a man." She shrugged. "How do I explain it to her? If you've had sex with a guy you know what it's like. If you haven't, you don't.

"Lisa told me that an affair between two women is such a hothouse emotional roller coaster--those were her words, not mine. I asked her about it, and told her I was asking as a writer, not somebody who wanted to experience it. She told me, and this is her view, that women, being emotional creatures, are more intense when they love each other, far more than what she's seen between a man and a woman."

"Do you think she's right?"

Krissi shrugged. "The only guide I have is what happened between the two of us. It was, I don't know, supercharged. Whatever you felt I seemed to pick up and amplify and give back to you. Things spiraled out of control pretty quickly."

"It's made me think that we should stay out of the bedroom," Devlin said. She'd thought this for several days, and it was just as hard to say as she thought it would be.

"I think so, too," Krissi said. She glanced at the other tables, then her foot caressed the inside of Devlin's leg. "I love what happened, but I think we need to keep things separate. You're emotionally on edge because of Jeff, and I'm obviously in the market for an intimate friend, and I may have found him in Steve. I want to keep seeing you--"

"I do, too."

Krissi nodded. "But I think we need to limit the intimacy." She gave Devlin a lop-sided smile. "There, how's that? Is that what you wanted to talk about?"

"You just said it so much nicer than I did," Devlin said, smiling.

"Hey, what can I say, I'm good with words."

Devlin picked up her sandwich, then put it down. "I still want to find out for myself. There's this thing back in my head that needs to know."

Krissi resumed eating. "Emma's is just the place to find out that sort of thing."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. So, what time should I pick you up?"

Krissi looked at her watch. "It's 11:45 now, how about 4:30? It'll take at least an hour to get there, and we'll have to stop and pick up something for the buffet."

"Sounds like a plan," Devlin said as she resumed eating. She felt better than she had since the last time she and Danny had gotten together. She had been dreading how to tell Krissi that perhaps they shouldn't sleep together, and Krissi had agreed! And Krissi had known why, too. If that wasn't the best thing, she didn't know what was.

She walked to the Athletic Club practically humming to herself out of happiness. The weather had warmed up and the snow was melting, though the weather forecast was for another cold snap and more snow. But that didn't matter. The day seemed marvelous in just about every way she could imagine.

She openly knocked on Danny's door at the Athletic Club. Danny was there, but more important, so were Sue and the kids. In seconds she was dealing with two squirming little girls climbing all over her. Sue was in her wheelchair by the window while Danny was sitting at the desk next to her.

"All moved in?" she asked Sue as she balanced their youngest on her hip.

"Aunt Devlin, mommy's getting better." That was Diane, the oldest, who was tugging at Devlin's shirt.

Devlin gave Sue an apologetic smile and knelt to hug the little girl. "I know. Isn't that great?" She carefully put down the youngest, Anna, who promptly ran to Danny.

"So, all settled in?"

Sue nodded. "Pretty much. This was a great idea."

"I thought so. Danny has the room, you might as well use it."

"What are you two going to do about... ?"

"We'll think of something," Danny said. "I've been looking around."

"There's a pool an' all sorts of stuff," Diane said. "Have you seen it?"

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Devlin said, as Diane grabbed her hand and tugged it.

Thirty minutes later, after a tour of the pool, the sauna and the exercise machines, and especially after a stop in the cafeteria for a 'treat'--Devlin made sure to get something for Anna--they returned to the room. Anna was sitting on Danny's knee; her eyes lit up at the treat.

"Where are they staying?" Devlin asked as she deposited the two girls on the bed.

"Diane has school during the day," Sue said. "Anna is staying at a day care here in town."

"It gets a little complicated," Danny said. "We're still feeling our way with this."

"This is only for a couple of weeks," Sue added. "I spend most of my days at the rehab facility at the University Hospital. I'm wiggling all of my toes, now; we'll see how it progresses in the next two weeks." She smiled ruefully. "I've got more monitors taped to me while I'm exercising than I thought possible."

"You should see it," Danny said. "She's in this hospital gown, and she's got enough wires coming out of that robe that you'd think it was hair of something."

"They're monitoring everything." Sue stared at her foot, which was encased in a sock. Slowly the toes bent down and back up. "Goodness knows what'll happen when I start to walk."

"You'll probably trip on the wires," Danny said.

"Yeah, and then they'll play the video of me falling time after time, and somebody'll write a paper about it."

"You'll be famous." Danny chuckled and picked up Anna, who had scooted off the bed and come over with her arms up so she could be picked up. "You'll be in all of the medical journals."

"It'll be the most widely documented pratfall in history," Sue said. She looked at Devlin. "See what I put up with?"

"I think of it as better than the alternative."

"True." She flexed her toes again. "Much better than the alternative."

Eventually the kids ran out of energy and went down for a nap. Devlin took her leave and went shopping for something for the buffet. She had mixed emotions about the coming night. Krissi had assured her that she didn't act like a lesbian, but how did a lesbian act? It wasn't like they walked around with their preferences tattooed on their foreheads. She figured, what with one thing and another, that she'd find a couple, take care of the guy, and then find out from the woman.

Seven hours later she squeezed her breasts together while a man thrust his cock between them. His name was Sam, her name was Rita, and Rita was fondling Sam's balls as he thrust.

"God, baby," Sam muttered, "so soft, so hot."

"Give it to her," Rita said. "Show her your spunk. Cum, damn it, cum."

"I'm trying."

Devlin stared in fascination as the head of his cock turned a darker shade of pink. The hole in the end seemed to expand, and then Sam was cumming, shooting gobs of white jism across her face and chest.

After several thrusts he slowed, pulling his cock back as he collapsed on the side of the bed. Rita dove down on Devlin's chest, licking up Sam's cum. She also took time to suck Devlin's nipples and squeeze her breasts.

Devlin dutifully mimicked the woman, squeezing her tanned breasts--the product of a week-long cruise in the Caribbean--and trying to caress her face. But there wasn't the turn-on and excitement she'd felt with Krissi. And as Rita's hungry tongue lapped up the last of Sam's jism she realized that there wasn't that sense of electricity she'd felt with Krissi and numerous men.