"Elle, you've heard him," Nicole was saying. "He tells you all the time that he thinks you're attractive. It's not something you have to worry about."

"Yeah, but I don't just want him to say I'm pretty," Elle gritted. "I want to be pretty."

"You are pretty," Nicole said. "Go ask some of the other people down the hall if you have to, but—"

A knock on the door interrupted them. For an instant Elle panicked—was Tom here already??—but then she glanced at the little clock Nicole had placed on a shelf next to the mirror, and saw that it wasn't nearly time yet. She went to the door and opened it.

It was David. He understood her rather elaborate state of dress in an instant; he had always been quick on the draw. "Wow. Umm. Is this a bad time?"

"David, you tell her," Nicole said. "She's got a big date with Tom in ten minutes and she isn't sure she looks nice." Nicole had been just as flabbergasted with David's presence as Elle had been, but he'd been coming by, or Elle swinging by his room, almost daily for the entire year. Now it was Valentine's Day, and Nicole was as accustomed to his presence as Elle was.

David gave her a practiced appraisal. "Well, obviously I'm biased, but I think you look lovely. That's the shirt you were talking about from Abercrombie, right? You were right about the color."

Nicole giggled. "He has really good fashion sense, you know."

"Well, of course," Elle said, a little miffed. "I trained him."

As Nicole went back out of the closet compartment to accomplish whatever she was going to accomplish that night, David stepped in close for a low conversation. "You're going back to his place tonight, I assume?"

She questioned that statement with a glance.

"Well, you said that you thought it was... time. For you two to become... Better acquainted. And, if it is time, then you can hardly bring him here. Not with Nicole around."

That much was true. "Yeah, but..." She actually hadn't thought it out very far. "The thing is, Tom lives with his parents. I mean, their house is ten minutes away."

"Do they like you?"

"Yeah, they seem to... But going there to chat and watch TV is different than going there to, you know, do stuff. In his bedroom. Alone."

"So you're not going to his house."

"But I'm not going here either. Not with Nicole in the picture."

"Have you talked to her about it?"

"No, I... Well, what am I gonna say? She'd..."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Heart attack. Umm... Do you want me to bring her with me?" He and some friends—guys and girls both—were having a "Singles' Appreciation Day" bowling night, on the premise that this way they'd get to fondle somebody's balls. The funny part was, David's roommate and his girlfriend were going, 'in solidarity with their singleton brethren.' "I mean, we're not leaving until like seven-thirty, and we'll probably just hang out in my room afterwards, which should give you some time. At least until 10. And they won't traumatize her; they aren't gonna drink or make a mess or anything. They're not that type."

"Would you?" she said. "That would solve all my problems."

"Sure," he said.

"Really? It wouldn't be a bother?"

"Not at all," said David. "She's a nice kid. And besides, I gotta help you have the most memorable night you can." He smiled.

"Jeez, I totally owe you," Elle said. "Next time you need your roommate sexiled, I... Well, what? I'll probably have to seduce him to even the debt."

David burst out laughing. "Nellie!"

"Well, he is pretty hot," Elle said.

"Nellie," David laughed, "your boyfriend is gonna be here in three minutes to take you out on Valentine's Day. Can't you keep your thing in your pants for five minutes?"

"Excuse me," she said. "You're the one with a thing in your pants."

"Nellie, we both knew that you were the guy in our relationship."

There was no arguing with that.

The two of them left the closet partition and sat and talked with Nicole. Elle was reminded again of just how easily David had become 'one of the girls.' Most of the time, when men were in the room Nicole was shy—polite, and not withdrawn, but not animated or particularly engaged. It was only when the boys were gone that she really came out of her shell. ...Well, any boy except David, at least. Two weeks ago, Elle and Nicole had noticed that their periods had become synchronized—a discovery that involved a lot of questions and some Internet research, since Nicole had no idea that this sort of thing actually happened. They'd discussed the intricacies and confusions of the female body—from synchronized cycles to heavy flow days—while David sat on Elle's bed, occasionally contributing his own perspective, without Nicole asking him to leave the room or, indeed, expressing discomfort at his presence. Was it just because she was used to him? Or was it something about David himself? Elle thought it was some of both.

There was a knock on the door, and Tom appeared through the makeshift curtain Nicole had hung across the door to the closet compartment. "Hello? Tom Gilmore here, seeking one Elle Mayer." His eyes alighted on her, and lit up. "Ooh. My dear, you look lovely."

She felt her cheeks flush. "Thanks."

"Miss Smith, Mister Glass," said Tom. "Please excuse me for depriving you of Miss Elle's company, but I believe we have an appointment." This formal speech pattern was just something he would do for the first five minutes or so; they'd all gotten used to it by now. She slid off the bed, he offered her his arm, and with a wave to her friends, they were off.

One of the advantages to dating someone who was native to the area was that they—and by 'they,' of course she meant Tom—knew all the local hideouts and hangouts. When spending time with friends who were, like her, from other areas (or even other states, like Nicole), nobody could ever decide what to do or where to do it, because they just didn't know the geography. (David and his pals, for instance. Singles' Appreciation Day was all well and good, but, bowling?? Just about the only thing dinkier would've been an Easter Egg hunt.) But Tom knew every good restaurant—and every bad one—for miles around (or could find out, pretty quickly), and that advice was serving her well. She was even getting to be popular in David's circle—his roommate Paul, Paul's girlfriend Stacy; their friend Angus Rocklinson who preferred to be called Rock; Jessie Schaefer, Don Wilson, Karina Mandelskaya—because she had a lot more knowledge about the local hotspots. Tonight Tom was taking her to a celebrated Indian restaurant; she'd never been to one before, but one try couldn't hurt, could it?

"So, Elle," said Tom as they drove. "A lot of the time I come by, I see David hanging around with you guys."

Elle felt a jab of irritation. Did this have to come up? Again? "Oh?" she said.

"I thought you two had broken up," Tom said.

"We have. But... We're still friends."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I mean, you know. There was a lot we had together. We decided not to give up on it." She shrugged.

In truth, his presence made such a difference in her life. She felt saner, more balanced. Even if everything was going wrong in her life, there was someone she could fall back on—someone who would be sane and stable, who would think clearly, who could help her make sense of her life. And she could contemplate spending time with Tom, being with Tom, even making love to Tom, without that overriding sense of panic. Because David was in her life now; she had her center back. She no longer had to hesitate, to hold back, to wonder what she would have to give up in order to bring everything back into balance—in order to, well, to have David in her life again. Because he was. And now she was free.

Every now and then, she caught herself wondering if it was healthy to be this way—to need him so much that she couldn't function properly without him. Then she stopped wondering. Whether it is or not, it's who you are right now. And you have more important things to worry about.

"Let me guess," she said. "You feel like he's a bit of a threat."

"Well..." said Tom. "I'd have to be superhuman not to wonder. But if you say he isn't, then he isn't." He smiled.

It wasn't what she had expected to hear. "Do you mean it?"

"I mean it," he said. "I mean, we all have friends. And sometimes we have history with those friends. Some of those histories are just... more extensive than others. As long as it doesn't cause problems, I don't see what the issue is."

"Cause problems?" she said. "To you?"

He gave a shrug. "...To anybody. I mean, what about friends who aren't, actually? Who are just dragging you down?"

She thought about Shelly Baumgarter and the manipulation she liked to use. "If there was something like that, you'd be concerned?"

"Yeah."

"I mean, even if it wasn't bothering you directly? If it wasn't your business?"

"Shouldn't I be?" he asked, smiling.

The kindness of his heart always amazed her. "I wish there were more people like you in the world."

The Indian restaurant was, perhaps predictably, filled with Indians; more of them than she'd realized there were out here. The food was spicy but flavorful, with an emphasis on sauces and creams. The naan bread was her favorite, especially when Tom said to order it with garlic; he showed her how to dip it in the leftover sauce from her chicken vindaloo. Even better, the restaurant offered a buffet option, so she could try anything. And did.

Tom was a complete gentleman throughout, offering to seat her, getting her water, suggesting good food ideas. They had never lacked for anything to talk about; though they didn't share too many interests, he could make anything seem interesting, and could listen to almost anything. Today their conversation wandered the gamut, from Elle's most difficult class (Calculus) to her easiest (intro to Digital Photo Editing, a prerequisite for many of the more advanced and interesting things in the future) to politics and religion (particularly Nicole's, which were convoluted enough to provide endless talking potential even before being put into the context of college) to the general irrelevancies of university life. They had had many such conversations over the last five months, and Elle knew a lot about him now.

Tom was an only child, whose father was a mid-level corporate manager; his mother had been the real breadwinner for a while, giving up her job only when Tom came along and when his dad started to get promoted. Tom had grown up lucky: no siblings to compete with, enough money to live comfortably, friends and family everywhere he looked. As a child he had loved soccer, which had only worked to his benefit as girls became more interesting to him. But as he matured, the exertion of sports (and the incompetence of his fellow players) began to lose its appeal. He had felt the need to begin to contribute something, to leave something behind. "I started to realize that soon nobody would remember me. It wasn't that good, I wasn't that talented, I wasn't that skilled. And I wanted to be remembered. It's... you know. It's the wish of every human being: to leave something behind. To leave something lasting, and eternal, and permanent. It's why people do art, it's why people do architecture or sculpture, it's why people have babies. They want to be... They want to still be there, after they themselves are gone."

The shape his need had taken was paint. He had loved the malleability, the texture, of oil paints from an early age, and played around for fun; but it took until a high-school art class for him to remember just how much he loved it. He began to spend more time practicing, more time experimenting. "I don't claim to have any particular skill," he said. "I just got lucky. All the things they used to tell me about—texture, lighting, perspective—I just happened to understand naturally. So I can do this stuff without having to work on it or think about it; I can just do stuff that other people have to learn. That makes me talented; that makes me lucky. It doesn't make me good."

"Well, doesn't it?" she had asked him.

"No. 'Good' is a measure of skill. I might not have any skill. Just talent. And talent isn't something you earn or create, it's something you just get given. Or not. Something is only 'good' when you have to sweat over it."

She had to disagree. She had seen some of his paintings, and they were good. He did not constrain himself by style; one piece might be in the spare calligraphic lines of Chinese art, the next photorealistic to the extreme, and a third iconic, with bold lines and minimal shading. His best work combined multiple techniques into an idiosyncratic mishmash of dreamy depiction; her favorite of his was a semi-nude woman whose clothes seemed to become either wings or clouds, perhaps both. The woman looked perfectly right, so realistic as to seem like a photo, but with dreamy, pearl-washed lighting that made the transition from mundane (the woman) to fantastic (the clouds/wings) not only believable, but inevitable. He said his favorite artists were Edgar Degas, Salvador Dali and Ian McConville.

Tom said he didn't tell most people about his painting, because he wasn't yet sure how it would be received. "It's such a dying art form nowadays. I mean, they're doing all sorts of cool things on the computer, yeah... But if you can do it on the computer, you can do it on canvas too. And I figure, why not stick to the old methods? That's how I challenge myself. I don't wanna give up just 'cuz it's easier to do it some other way. If it can be done, I wanna do it." Now he was a sophomore, a year older than she, and well on his way to proving that you didn't need a modern computer to make digital-quality art... Just some paint, some canvas, and a whole lot of patience.

It was impossible to overstate how easy he was to get along with. He didn't seem to have a single bit of malice in his body. David had been present at some of their more casual hang-outs before, and not once had Tom made any comment, but simply accepted the other man's presence as the natural state of things. He was consistently positive, preferring to look at the bright side of life; he was amenable, easy to compromise with, deeply empathetic. It was as opposite from Weston as she could imagine. Her whole life felt more comfortable with David in it, so he probably had something to do with how much she felt at ease in Tom's presence. But some of it was doubtlessly Tom himself too.

And here she was, chatting with him, riding in his car, ready to sleep with him after only five months. Clearly, Weston could take lessons. And David too. Maybe constantly wheedling her about something was not the right way to go.

True to David's word, Nicole was nowhere in sight when Elle and Tom got back. They passed the time with inconsequential banter—mostly observing just how much their clothes smelled like food now—but after a little while Tom began suggesting that perhaps he should leave.

"Leave?" she said. "Why? What makes you say that?"

"Well..." he said, clearly picking his words with some care. "You're here. And I'm here. And your roommate's not. And... It's Valentine's Day. And, call me a pig, but... My mind is going in certain directions."

She leaned in to kiss him. "Why do you think my roommate's not here?"

She let him take the lead again—let him reach for her, draw her into his arms, kiss her. She wanted to see where he would take this. There were certain things she could predict, of course: he'd play with her breasts, he'd wander down between her legs, eventually he would mount her. But she wanted to see how he did it.

And she was surprised: he took his time.

David had known exactly what to do with her, of course; knowledge borne of long experience and plenty of experimentation. He could bring her to orgasm more quickly than anyone else (herself included), knew how to play her like an instrument and delay her climax so that, when it came, it was earth-shattering. That was gone from her. Weston hadn't known any of these things; how could he? But, if the one time they'd done it was any indication, he probably wouldn't have bothered to learn. He saw what he wanted, and took it, and his only concession to her pleasure was to make sure she was aroused before he took the plunge. Weston would not have made a good lover.

Tom was making a much better showing. He spent time exploring, experimenting, whispering—telling her how beautiful she was, asking her if she liked what he was doing. He didn't just go straight for her nipples; he spent his time kissing his way around her breasts, paying attention to her reactions. She wasn't surprised he found the really sensitive spot, off to the side around her ribcage. His eyes lit up when he saw her shiver.

He began to divest her of her pants as they kissed, and once she was completely bare he kissed his way down her body—wandering, in no particular rush, going (evidently) wherever whimsy led him. He paid a lot of attention to her inner thighs. She didn't know whether he was going to go down on her or not; Weston's complaint, that she had a lot of hair down there, was a perfectly valid one, and it hadn't occurred to her to try to tame that mess before tonight. Would he— Was he brave enough to—

He was.

He laid gentle, delicate kisses all down the length of her slit, before beginning to lick his way up. His tongue felt smaller, less intense, than had David's, but she thought she liked his better—Tom had a delicate, teasing touch. Though, of course, she wasn't sure she quite wanted that now.

Though all she could only see him from the nose up now, she could feel. His tongue began to tease its way around her mound—painting little flyspeck kisses on her outer lips, and the her inner lips, and then beginning to separate them. Its little wet point slid into the crevice between her inner and outer lips, stopping to pivot back and forth when he found that one secret place she loved—she saw his eyebrows bob before her eyes rolled back—and then continuing its journey. She felt it leaf through her petals, turning them one way and then the other, before finally descending on her flower itself, and especially the little bud at the top that now longed for attention.

But again he surprised her. He began to kiss his way around her vulva again, and then took her inner lip between his own and sucked on it. It was not something that had ever particularly thrilled her, not now and not then, and he soon gave over; but she was glad that he had tried. His next trick was to slide his tongue inside her as far as it would go—which was not very far; one downside to his particular endowment. But he made it up by licking around the inside of her pussy—something completely new to her, since David had never done that (or, really, needed to). And when his lips finally closed around her clit, the relief was so intense it nearly sent her over.

He began to suck on her clit, gently, and then with increasing intensity. His tongue went to work as well, gliding over its surface. Her fingers gripped the bedspread; her hips flexed, her body arching; she must be moaning, but she could not hear herself above the rushing of blood in her ears. She had just enough sapience to recognize a master at work—whoever had trained him, or whoever he had taught himself this worship with, had been a very lucky woman. Then, his lips still tight around her clit, he hummed, sending a vibrating signal straight to her core.

Then she was gone. She felt her body clenching, felt her release pouring from her, heard her own voice crying out in ecstasy as pleasure rushed over her: her first orgasm from someone who wasn't her, in more than three years.

Her chest was heaving, her body dewed with sweat. She forced her fingers to uncurl, her arms to unlock. As he climbed his way back up, she found movement again, and pulled him (blindly, for her eyes were not quite in focus yet) over to kiss him. "You..." she gasped between kisses. "Are... Amazing."

She could feel the curve of his smile when she kissed him. "Thank you, darling."

"Has... Anybody... Told you that?"

"Umm... Well, I hate to sound like I'm bragging, but... Yes, they have." The grin—now that she could see it—was positively smug.

"Well," she said, for lack of any better response. Was it bragging to acknowledge a true talent? Was it humility to disavow it? "Well, one good turn deserves another, and, as soon as I have stopped being turned to jelly, I'm gonna do the same to you."

"Take your time, my dear," he said with a smile, "we have all the time in the world."

"Yeah," Elle grumbled, "at least until Nicole gets back at 10..."

She turned her attention to the puzzle at hand. She had seen how Tom had to curl up at the foot of the bed, his feet practically hanging over onto her desk, to get at her pussy. Even worse, Tom was taller than she. And, even worse than that... "Why are you still in your clothes?"

"Well," said Tom. "I've had more important things to think about."

She gave him a roll of the eyes and began to unbutton his shirt. Soon he was bare from the waist up. He wasn't as well muscled as Weston, but nobody could accuse him of being out of shape. A small trail of hair ran up towards his navel from below the belt line; otherwise his torso was bare.

One good turn deserved another, and she decided to take her time. Unfortunately, there was only so much to be played with on a male body—something she had bemoaned to David time and time again. Still, she made the most of it: speckling kisses down his ribs, across his collarbone, down the little hollow between his pectorals. But everything seemed to lead south—even that little trail of hair—and eventually she had his pants off and was seeing his cock for the first time. It was a lot thicker than she'd expected. Not quite as long, but definitely thicker. She wondered if she had the circumference to get her mouth all the way around it. ...Okay, it wasn't that big. But it sure seemed...

When she looked up, Tom was smirking again.

"What?" she said. "I thought you said you got lucky—which is not something to be proud of."

"True," he said, grinning. "But... I did get lucky."

"Shut up," she said, "or you won't get any luckier." She arched an eyebrow and returned his smirk.

"Your wish is my command, Miss Mayer," said Tom, and crossed his arms behind his head and gave a sigh of relaxation. Elle rolled her eyes and got to work.

It had been a while since she'd had one of these to play with, and she was scared for a moment that she'd forgotten what to do with it. But even as she put her lips around his head for the first time, it started coming back to her. The ridge on the back of his head; the frenulum underneath; the soft, sliding texture of the skin; the warmth and meatiness under her hand. This had all been natural to her once; and evidently it was again.

And it was her chance to show him that he wasn't the only expert in the room.

He had a lot more stamina than David had; that much was certain. And many of the tricks she'd tried on him, Tom didn't seem to enjoy; which was not to say that he didn't appreciate her mouth on his cock, her hands, her tongue, simply that they didn't make him jump the way they had David. Every person was different, after all. But she didn't have to find too many tricks; she didn't have that much time, in the end, before his breath was coming heavy and his balls were tight up underneath and she could tell his climax was near. She fastened her lips around his head and began bobbing up and down in shallow strokes; according to what she and David had found on the Internet, most of a man's nerve endings were there in the glans, and her experimentation with David certainly supported the theory.

As did Tom now. "Oh my. Oh my. Elle, I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna cum— Ahh!" And as she felt the hammer trip off inside him, she put her tongue to that little tiny ridge on the bottom of his head and began to rub it back and forth, the way she always had on David to give him the strongest orgasm possible. And then semen gushed over her tongue, salty and a little bitter, as his body hitched and flexed below her and his hands tightened against the back of her neck and his pleasure rushed out into her mouth, where she caught it all and swallowed it down.

Now it was her turn to crawl her way up, and his to look dazed at her return. "Oh my God," he said. "My God. Danielle Mayer, you are... You are incredible."

She smiled and twined a lock of his hair around her finger. "You never call me Danielle."

"Well, I know you as 'Elle'." He shrugged. "It's just... What's natural to me now. And besides, I did call you Danielle just now."

"That's true," she said.

"What's the big deal?" he said. "It's just a name, isn't it? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and all that. No matter what you call it, it's still a rose. There's things you can't change about it—what it smells like, what it feels like, what it looks like." That last was extra important to him, she knew, because of his art background.

But she wasn't sure she agreed. "I dunno, though. A name isn't just a name. It changes how people treat you. It changes how you treat yourself."

"Oh really?" he said with an arch smile. "How so?"

"Well, what about you?" she said. "Isn't Thomas different than Tom? And aren't they both different than Tommy? That's a little kid's name. Thomas is very formal, you could never use it."

"I could," he said. "I do. I'm formal sometimes, in case you didn't notice."

"Well, you probably got laughed at when you used it in grade school," she said. "I mean, 'Thomas'? On a six-year-old?

"Yes, but, that's all in your mind," he said. "That's all in the eye of the beholder. Or the mind of the beholder, as the case may be."

"And a rose isn't? What if you're allergic to roses? What if you just don't like how they smell?"

"Then you're insane," he said primly, "because a rose is not subjective. It is concrete, unchangeable truth."

"That roses exist."

"And that they smell good."

She laughed. "You are so full of shit!"

"And people are concrete, unchangeable truth too. No matter what you call me, I'm still me."

"And it's the truth that people smell good? 'cuz I've smelled some pretty nasty ones."

"Well, a person isn't a rose, is it?" Tom said.

Elle laughed again. "This is getting in too deep for little ol' me. I'd better stick to the things I know." She gave him a kiss... And then another one, this one deeper, full of promise. "And there are things I know. About getting in deep. Or, about getting deep in me."

He made a face. "Okay, you only get credit for that segue because it was about sex."

She gave him a mock glare. "Shut up and fuck me, mister."

They kissed, letting their passion mount, their hands running across each other's bodies. His mouth dipped to her nipple again, and she cradled his head against her breast, moaning at the deep tingles inside her. Then, on a whim, she tried the same to his nipples, and was pleasantly surprised at how much he seemed to enjoy it. His hand was insistent beneath her, her clit nestled perfectly between his fingers, the heel of his hand pressing against her mound. Blindly, not looking away from him, she reached up to her nightstand and found one of the condoms she'd secreted there. In a moment he was clad and ready for action. Pushing her over on her back, he mounted her, positioned himself, and then slid home.

The condom made everything feel a little sticky and rubbery, as usual, and it wasn't the same depth she had experienced before with her other lovers. But he was as wide around as three of her fingers, and the pressure against her inner walls made a huge difference. She felt split open, more filled than she ever had before. And she wasn't the only one: Tom gave a noise as he hit bottom. "Ohh, darling... Has anyone told you how tight you are?"

"Well.... 's 'cuz you're so big," she gasped.

A flash of that grin. "Toldja."

"But not... Not that many things been in there. 's only my third time."

"Coulda fooled me, with that performance earlier," he grunted. Still seated in her, he crept up her body a little, and she gasped when his shaft came into more direct contact with her clit. "There we go," he said, and began to move.

It was heavenly. The memories of her time with David were starting to fade, and her one moment with Weston had been irrevocably tarnished; there had been nothing to remind her of just how good it was to be here. Her whole world was her lover: his chest above her, his hips pressing down on her, the muscles in his arms, his buttocks squeezing; the crunch of pubic hair, the smell of his sweat, the magnificence of his cock moving within her. She kissed and nibbled at his face, his neck, his ear; she drew her legs up to open herself deeper to him, pasted her arms around his shoulders, and let him plow her.

She didn't come, which didn't surprise her; she knew enough about sex to know that she probably wasn't going to. Besides, it made it easier to enjoy it when he came, grunting, stiffening above her, plowing into her one last time before the condom filled with his seed. Once again she cursed it; she promised herself that she was going to get on the Pill as soon as possible. She wanted this. She wanted more.

Unfortunately, there wasn't too much time to cuddle and canoodle afterwards, much less to do it again; it was nearly time for Nicole to arrive. And, in fact, she got back a few minutes early, when they had barely got themselves presentable again. Elle went out in the hall to give him a lavish kiss good-bye; and then he was gone again and the magic night was over.

She didn't hear from him again until Monday night. It was the longest two days of her life.

"Why isn't he calling??" she grunted, burying a fist in her other palm. She had been pacing back and forth for fifteen minutes at this point. "What the hell is he doing?"

"Maybe he's busy," David said in pacifying tones.

"Still? It's Sunday afternoon! What on earth could he be doing that would keep him from calling the girl he just fucked??"

"Oh," said Paul, "is that why Nicole came with us on Friday?" She was in David's room; there was, of course, no way she could've had this conversation in front of Nicole. Paul was tall but fairly heavy, with brassy hair, a ruddy complexion, and a little bit of a husky voice. His girlfriend Stacy balanced on his knees.

"It was their first time," David said, "they wanted some privacy."

"Okay, if it was just any old time, I could see him not calling," Stacy said; she was also a little heavy, but evidently Paul didn't mind, and it certainly helped keep her figure generous. She had stringy blonde hair and a little of the Valley Girl patterns in her speech. "But, if it was your first? He's gotta call back, or you oughta put him in the dog house."

"It's not her first ever," said David, meeting Elle's eyes for a moment.

"And trust me, it wasn't his," Elle said. "But it was the first time we were together."

"He could be busy," said Paul again. "Dating isn't all we do at college, you know."

"So busy he couldn't spare three minutes to phone in," Elle snarled.

"You could call him," David said.

"Yeah right. It's not the girl's job to call," Elle said.

"And since when have you ever been concerned with what a girl is supposed to do or not do," David said, meeting her eyes again.

"Maybe he knew you were gonna treat him like this and he didn't wanna deal with that," said Paul, which was so stupid that it actually almost made sense.

"What's the big deal anyhow?" said Stacy. "So he hasn't called you after doing you. Has he given any indication that he was gonna break it off or that you were, like, bad in bed or something?" She sounded like a ditz, but clearly she didn't think like one. "Has he given you any reason to worry? Most guys don't break it off after the first time."

"No, but she does," David said.

She swatted him as she stalked past.

"What?" said Paul. "Why? Are they that bad?"

"Well, for us, we had—"

"Wait, wait," said Paul, "you guys dated?"

Elle and David looked at each other.

"We've known each other most of our lives," David said.

"And, yeah, we dated," Elle said. "But now we're just friends."

"And... You guys did it?" said Paul.

Stacy rolled her eyes. "Wow. That's kind of a rude thing to ask."

Elle raised her eyebrows in a question. David shrugged. So she said, "Yeah. We did. We were each other's firsts."

"And then you dumped him?" said Stacy.

"Not five minutes later," said David with a rueful smile.

"We had a fight," Elle said.

"Must've been a bad one," said Paul.

David showed every indication of launching into a recounting of said fight, so Elle intercepted him. "And then right after I slept with the boyfriend I was with after David, we broke it off."

David laughed. "Don't try to put a spin on it, Nellie—you dumped him flat on his ass."

"Why?" said Stacy.

"'Cuz he was a jerk," said Elle indignantly.

"And... You only found that out by sleeping with him?" Stacy said.

"No, it... It just made everything a lot more clear."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, it was... I mean, you know? He just climbed on and went to town. And then afterwards it was all like, 'Hey, why didn't you do things the way my ex-girlfriend, whom I'm still not over, used to do them?' Ugh. I'm not gonna put up with that shit if I don't have to."

"Fair enough," said Paul. "But now... You're scared that... What, there's, like, a curse or something?"

Elle felt her lip twitch. "Well... Yeah. I mean, every other time I've done it with someone... That's been the end of things."

"And you're scared that's gonna happen again," Stacy said.

"And I don't want it to. For the first time, I'm doing it with someone I wanna do it with again." She said this without thinking much about it; it was only later that it occurred to her that it might hurt David to hear it. (It was only later that she remembered, for that matter, that it hadn't been true; she had wanted to do it with David long, long before she actually did.)

"And so... Because you want to stay together with him... You're not calling him... And griping that he isn't calling you," Stacy said.

Put that way, it sounded stupid. "Shut up."

David gave a laugh. "Elle, I think it's time for you to go home. You've probably got homework to do too, and some of us have midterms tomorrow. I mean, weren't you saying you have a midterm tomorrow?"

"All right, fine, fine, I get it," said Elle.

"It's not that we aren't sympathetic," said Stacy. "It's just that... Well, life goes on."

"Yeah," said Elle, a little grumbly. "Yeah."

So she went home and did her homework and studied, and even managed to focus a little, and thought she didn't do too badly on her midterm—worse than she would've if she didn't have a delinquent boyfriend ignoring her and driving her to distraction, of course, but not too badly nonetheless. But it was hard to focus, and every sound that could be her cellphone made her jump.

Finally her phone rang as she was emerging from her last class. She grabbed it up and felt her heart jump into her throat when the readout displayed the words Tom Gilmore. "Hello?"

"Hi."

"Tom, where have you been? I've been waiting for you to call all weekend!"

"What?"

She ducked into a side hall to scold him in more explicit detail. "You fucked me on Friday, and you thought it was okay to just go the whole time without calling me?"

"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't think of it that way. Besides, I was painting. I was inspired."

She poured scorn into her voice. "What, my throes of ecstasy gave you all sorts of ideas and you painted a portrait of me?"

"Actually, yes."

She wasn't sure which one took her aback: that he said it, or that he said it with a straight face.

"And then after that I had a midterm to study for."

"What, all Sunday?"

"No, only half of Sunday. I didn't eat or sleep much until the painting was done."

That took her aback too.

"Anyway, I'm here now, and I wanted to know if you'd like to come see my work."

"Fine. Whatever. Tell me where your car is and I'll meet you there."

She tried to keep her irritation going, but it was hard to do so when the whole reason had imploded. She'd been convinced that Tom was just going to drop her now that he'd gotten his kicks; the fact that he was here, now, greeting her with a kiss and opening the car door for her, suggested otherwise. Evidently, there was nothing for her to have worried about.

Still, she couldn't help sniping at him: "I hope it's a good painting, at least."

He gave her a smile. "I think it may be the best I've ever done."

Once she saw it, she had to agree. She'd been wondering what she'd see; something vulgar, perhaps, or even pornographic? But no, it was a painting of her—nude, yes, but from behind in three-quarters profile, with a modesty bedsheet to cover everything that needed covering. She had a radiant smile on her face, and the wind made curls and ribbons of her hair and the trailing ends of the sheet. It was a completely modest portrait... And yet there was a hint here and there—in the expression, in the hooded eyes, in the slightly hip-shot pose—of seduction, that all modesty might go out the window at any moment. And the wind seemed to be tugging the sheet away.

"Wow," she said. "Do I... Do I look like that?"

"Painting is about truth," he said. "Objective, real truth. It's about capturing what is. So, yes; you do look like that."

She looked up over her shoulder at him. He stood with an expression of intensity on his face, as though straining towards some explanation he could not grasp. There was longing on that face. For truth? Or for her?

She might never know. But when she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, he responded quick enough.

She had never been in his bedroom before; by agreement, it was the one place they simply didn't go, to placate his parents. Today it was greyish with indirect, overcast light, a misty light that made all things cold. The walls were raw wood siding, weathered and splintery with age, and the floor was much the same, though much smoother and covered with rugs. It was quite a large room, possibly the entire attic structure; some of the windows were diagonal, set into the roof itself. The bed had dizzying geometric designs stitched into it, where it wasn't rumpled from use.

She intended to put some more rumples in it now.

Soon they were naked, and she kissed her way down his body, finding his staff alert and ready. Though she showered it with kisses, she had barely had a moment to really get going when he tapped her on the shoulder. When she looked up, there was a condom floating in front of her. She understood and had him clad in moments; then she moved back up, straddled him, and sank herself down onto him with a moan of pleasure.

They rocked together, body against body; his hands molded her breasts, supporting her, while hers plied the planes of his abdomen. She felt his hips against her inner thighs, and the new places within her that he touched in this position; she felt fuller, yes, but deeper as well than she had last time. Or maybe that was just the position. She let her head fall back and her mouth hang open; she felt his hands reaching further and leaned forward to let him cup her jaw, caress her cheek, stroke her neck. Then his fingers slid down her arms and, understanding, she took his hands, steadying herself on them as she pumped up and down. And always was the feeling of his cock inside her, buried in her, the latex-clad head sliding up and down her inner walls, caressing her from within, opening her lips, filling her need.

When she felt his orgasm rising, she whispered, "Look at me. Don't look away." And as his eyebrows went up and his mouth fell open around his steady eyes, she felt the pouring sensation into the condom and his body shudder under her, and knew her own power. And when at last he fell limp under her, she leaned down to kiss him.

"Not..." he gasped. "Not. Not bad for your, umm. Fourth time ever."

"And don't forget," she whispered. "My first time with the same partner."

"Are you serious?" he said. "Three times, three partners?"

"...And a breakup right afterwards," she said, embarrassed now about her insecurities. "Which is why..."

His arms fell over her, pulling her near. "Well then, next time," he murmured. "I'll call immediately. And tell you what I'm painting this time. And you can come over, and we can have round two right there."

"Fine by me," she said, kissing the stubble on his cheek. "Fine by me."