Chapter 26: Cinderella and the Devil

October 9, 1982

"Seven card stud, deuces wild," Barry declared, as he started to deal out the cards, face down, to the five people (counting himself) seated at the table. We were in the floor lounge, down the hall from our dorm rooms.

I received two cards face down, then one card face up, which was the eight of hearts. I peeked at my two down cards: a deuce and an eight.

Dennis had an ace showing, so he started the betting. He threw a nickel toward the center of the table. We were, after all, struggling college students, which meant that we played poker with nickels, dimes, and – if things got really serious – quarters.

Barry, seated to the left of Dennis, saw his bet. So did Kevin, who was next in line.

Next up was me. I wanted to find out right away who were the real players in this hand. I took a dime from the pile of coins in front of me, casually tapped it a couple of times on the table, and threw it into the pot.

"I'll raise you ten cents."

That left the lone female player at the table, Julia. She squinted her eyes, seemingly not quite sure how to proceed.

I was discovering that Julia had quite a tomboyish streak in her. Actually, it could have been more correctly described as fierce competitiveness. She loved taking part in male-dominated games and activities, and tried like hell to beat us. She understood the basics of poker, but I was worried that in this company, she was in a little over her head. I gently tried to warn her. But Julia was stubborn and determined.

Saturday nights had evolved into poker night among our group. We all had busy schedules, so we'd made attempts at coordinating our leisure time. For the first couple of weeks in September, Sunday afternoons had been devoted to NFL football in the room of Barry and Dennis; they had a color TV. But the pro football players had gone out on strike, which wiped out part of the 1982 NFL season. As a result, we'd adopted a different Sunday tradition; we simply went outside and threw around a football. Julia took part in this activity, too. I certainly didn't mind, and thankfully, neither did any of the other guys.

The poker hand continued. Barry dealt out the final face-up card to each of us, the sixth card overall. My card was a deuce. That gave me a pair showing, but four eights in actuality.

"Pair bets," said Barry. "That's you, Pat."

I picked up a quarter and threw it into the pot. Twenty-five cents was our declared maximum wager.

"I'm out," said Kevin, putting down his cards, not even bothering to wait for his turn.

"Me too," Barry followed, flinging his cards into the middle of the table.

Dennis inspected his hand in silence, then looked over the remaining hands on the table.

"Nope. Not worth it. I got nothing." he said before folding as well.

That left just Julia and I still in the game. I looked at her face-up cards: the five, seven, and nine of hearts, and the jack of diamonds. The first three cards were a little worrisome. But the eight of hearts was already showing in my own hand. Plus, I had two deuces in my possession. I figured the odds were overwhelmingly in my favor.

"I'm gonna lose," Julia sighed, before throwing down a quarter, seeing my bet.

"She's calling you, Pat," said Dennis. "Let's see what you got."

I turned over my face-down cards, revealing an eight, a deuce, and an extraneous four of spades.

"Four of a kind," whistled Barry. "Not bad!"

"All I have," Julia sighed again, in mock despair, "is these goshdarned twos." She then displayed a couple of deuces in the pocket.

"Holy shit," exclaimed Kevin, "a straight flush!"

"She done smoked your ass, Pat," Dennis laughed heartily.

"You mean I won?" Julia crowed, sounding way too innocent. She raised her hands over her head, and then dragged the pile of coins in the center of the table over to her side.

"Next time we go out," I told her lightly, looking at her sideways, "you're paying."

"I love you too, honey," she said smugly. Everyone, me included, cracked up.

"Wait a minute," I interjected, as I considered what had just happened. "You were holding a straight flush. Why didn't you raise my bet?"

"Because you're my boyfriend, and I felt sorry for you."

October 13, 1982

My relationship with Julia had escalated rapidly, in an emotional sense. We were completely exclusive. The L word began to creep into our conversations. Regarding sex, however, things were continuing to progress in a much slower fashion. And I continued to not mind.

Oh, don't get me wrong. We passed up no chances to be alone together, and the physicality of our interaction was definitely moving forward. Although living in a dorm might seem to inhibit privacy, the fact is that we were able to get plenty of it. Jeannette, Julia's roommate, had a similar situation with Kevin, her boyfriend. As a result, Jeannette was frequently out of the room, and she and Julia had gotten adept at tipping each other off when one of them needed a little time for private play.

Also, my room was available on Friday and Saturday evenings, when Dale was at work. We took full advantage of that opportunity, as well.

At this point in time, we'd gone no further than being naked from the waist up. I'd viewed Julia's bare breasts, and for me, they were perfect; firm, round orbs that were good-sized without being cartoonishly out of proportion. I'd gone so far as to put my mouth upon them, several times. But up to now, nothing had transpired south of the equator. And my only outlet continued to be masturbation.

Still, even though we hadn't engaged in sex, we'd talked about it. Quite frequently, in fact.

"I want to do it with you, don't get me wrong," Julia declared on this particular evening, as we lay in her bed, under the blanket, both of us topless. "But I want the first time to be special. Not just some quick rutting for the purpose of saying we did it."

"I agree," I told her, affectionately rubbing her nose with my finger. "And I won't put any pressure on you. When you feel it's the right time, we'll do it."

"That's sweet of you," she replied, "especially since you're more experienced than me. You probably aren't used to this kind of a pace." It was a startlingly frank comment, but my Truth or Dare revelations, plus some follow-up discussions, had given her an inkling as to my personal history.

"Let's just say that I've come to appreciate the allure of savoring each step of the journey." I kissed her on the forehead, and gently swiped a finger across her bare nipple.

"Mmm," she moaned softly, and shifted positions until she was laying flat on top of me. My erection, contained within my pants, was pressing into her leg; she acknowledged it by gently pressing back and smiling. But she made no verbal comment on that concern. Instead, she chose that moment to make a revelation.

"When we do it," said Julia, her large, expressive eyes meeting mine, "it won't be the first time for me, either."

I had suspected as much. She was far too knowledgeable about sex to be a virgin. I wasn't about to ask her to elaborate, but she did anyhow.

"I had a boyfriend for awhile junior year in high school. We went all the way, and probably – make that definitely – went too fast. I actually didn't enjoy it all that much. He made it all about him. We were together for just a couple of months."

Then, she threw an unexpected question at me.

"How many girls have you had sex with?" I'd come to know Julia well enough to realize that this query was not borne of jealousy or insecurity, but simply curiosity. I was comfortable with giving her an honest answer. I began to count in my mind ... Kaci, Lily, Evie, Diana. And I probably had to count Lucy Green, who I'd bedded prior to my transfer to this timeline. I elected to adopt the Bill Clinton definition of sex, which means I would leave out Renee, the one-timer from freshman year, who'd done nothing more with me than administer a blow job.

"Five," was my reply.

She laughed. "If you'd asked me to guess ... that's pretty close to the number I'd have come up with."

"Anyhow," I remarked, a little embarrassed at this turn in the conversation, "it's not the quantity, it's the quality."

Julia was silent for just a minute, her mind appearing to be hard at work. Then, she voiced her thoughts.

"Like I said, my ex-boyfriend made it all about himself. I used to go down on him, but he refused to go down on me. He said it was disgusting. Now that I look back on it, I can see that he was really an asshole."

It was all I could do to keep from sitting bolt upright.

"Not only was he an asshole," I declared, "he's nuts. Like, completely out of his fucking mind."

"So that's how you feel about it," Julia said softly, a twinkle in her eye.

I merely nodded in affirmation.

"Can you do that for me? Go down on me?" she said breathlessly.

"Right now?" I asked to clarify. She nodded with an eagerness that was both sexy and endearing.

"All you ever had to do was ask, my dear," was my response. I began softly kissing her neck. Of course, I wasn't about to rip off her pants and unceremoniously initiate a rug-munching session. I wanted to work up to it. I slowly moved downward, and before too long I was raining kisses all over her bare tits. Soon, I had my mouth on her nipple, and she was struggling to remove the pair of sweat pants she was wearing. I used one free hand to assist her in this endeavor, but when she tried to remove her panties, I stopped her. I wanted those to remain in place for now.

I lifted away the blanket to fully reveal her body, that pair of panties providing the only concealment. She giggled in slight embarrassment as she caught me perusing her form. With clothes on, she was more cute than pretty. But in this state, she was simply gorgeous.

I began to kiss down her torso, reaching her navel. I inserted my tongue, which made her laugh.

"Ticklish?" I asked her.

"Yeah," she giggled. I moved downward, away from her navel. Then I rose up for just a second and smiled at her.

"I'll cut you a break," I told her. "I don't want to tickle you. I have a different involuntary body response in mind."

"Ooh!" she cooed, getting my drift.

Finally, I reached the top of her panties. I'd asked her to leave them on for a reason. I wanted to make a small ceremony out of removing them. I hooked each of my index fingers around the sides of the fabric. She lifted up her hips, and I slowly and easily removed the undergarment, exposing her sex to me for the first time. She was already quite wet, and the scent of her arousal was unmistakable.

I could have dived right in. I didn't, though, instead directing my attention to the inside of her thigh, a very sensitive area for most women. I kissed, nuzzled and licked her on one side, and then the other, working her up into a frenzy.

"Please," Julia pleaded, "I'm so horny. Eat me!"

Then, and only then, did I finally pursue the jackpot. I concentrated first on her labia, with long licks in an up and down direction, painstakingly avoiding her clit. Then, I allowed the tip of my tongue to barely make contact with her little pearl. Her reaction was immediate and insistent.

"YESSS! Right there!" she growled.

But I continued the build-up. I resumed the vertical tongue motions, building up the tempo, and then once again touched her clit, with slightly prolonged contact this time.

"That's it! YES! Right th-- OOOOOOOOOHHH!!" Her hips began bucking wildly. I briefly worried that she might break the bed, or my nose, or both; such was the force of her climax. When she came back down to earth, she left no doubt about what she wanted.

"Again!" she implored.

I was certainly not inclined to deny that request. I ate her to two more orgasms, both fully as intense as the first. And then she got a glint in her eye. She rose up, and at once began to tug at my pants.