WESLEYAN PARTNERS

by Holly Rennick

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Society spends a lot of effort belittling kids who delay having sex.  We say it's about personal choice because we're liberal, and then let MTV dictate.

Come be one of us at Wesleyan.

PREFACE

I was twelve and knew.  He'd slapped me twice, but I wasn't crying from that.  I wasn't even crying from the pain.  I was crying because I was going to die.

My parents, the nurse at the hospital and the policewoman were the only ones with whom I ever talked about it.  The officer was nice, but they never caught the man.  I was glad, as I'd have had to talk some more.

It's a long time not to talk.

WESLEYAN

Some of my classmates went to places like Ohio State or Purdue, but Wesleyan was right for me.  Smaller classes; Dad researched the statistics.  Safer, my Mom's prod.  Both true, but from the perspective of a 20-year-old, also more fun.  Hayes Hall was definitely the place to live, not in some snotty sorority.  We did stuff as dormies, made popcorn, bought a six-pack one time.  A half-can was enough to give me a hangover, sort of a headache, anyway.  People who think Wesleyan's pretty straight can think that, if they wish.

Junior year was when I'd have to decide between English and History.  Or even a double major if I chose enough classes that counted both ways.  Maybe I'd go to graduate school in American Literature, but if I did that, wouldn't it be smart to have the background in American History?  Keep thinking ahead.

The problem with Liberal Arts, of course, is that it's liberal.  Science, for example: a full year of something.  In my opinion, a semester of Intro to Astronomy, followed by, say, Intro to Environmental Awareness is "Liberal".  But something both 101 and 102?  Punishment.

The survivable sequence was Chemistry.  I'd aced it in high school and everybody said that Chem 101 was the same material, balancing chemical equations and learning to use graduated cylinders.  101 would bring back what I'd learned in high school and I'd be more-or-less set for 102.  I'd memorize my notes, of course, and probably hardly jeopardize my grade-point.  But who really cares about valences?

I probably should have knocked off science my Freshman year, but what Freshman thinks ahead?  It's, where's the bookstore?

Plan of Study: Chem 101, Fall Semester.  Chem 102, Spring.  Science requirement, goodbye.

But the first 101 lecture made me realize how old I was.  I'd just come from "Writing in Postmodern World".  Really interesting and there were Seniors taking it too!  I'd hardly known an author in the reading list, and I read a lot!  Postmodern would be so much fun!

Then this!  Almost everybody in the Chemistry lecture was an underclassperson.  (Not "underclassman".  Wesleyan women are not "men".  Am I already a postmodern writer?  Maybe not, as I see I said "Freshman" a couple of paragraphs earlier. )

The smirks of fellow note-takers when the professor defined "chemistry" dispelled my hope of academic advantage.  Half these kids were probably just out of AP class last year.  I wrote down the definition, "the branch of natural science dealing with the composition of substances, their properties and reactions."  She'd probably ask it in a test.

At least the text appeared to emphasize current issues.  Global warming, reproductive health in Africa and aquaculture merited mention in the first chapter.  No electrons, though they'd be coming.  When I thumbed up to the diagram of Nitrogen doing different things with Oxygen, it looked sort of familiar.

*****

Lab was once per week.  The first order of business was safety: Safety glasses; Reagent labels; Never suck a pipette; How to light a Bunsen burner; Excess chemicals don't go down the drain.  Maybe I should have tried Astronomy, I wondered?  Telescopes are pretty safe and a lot less boring.

Only at the end of the session were we told to pair up for locker assignment.

I looked around for a girl, realizing too late that the candidates were vaporizing.  By the time I'd figured out that much, it was down to me and a guy in a red and white Wesleyan sweatshirt.  Why would anybody wear one to class?  He was still looking around the room.

Well, it's just once a week, I figured.  "Need a partner?"

When he looked at me, I saw it.  It's not something most people catch, because they don't know.  It's your flash of relief when you realize that you're not totally alone.  You got chosen, at least this time.  If you're not alone a lot of the time, you wouldn't know it.  It's not about being where nobody else is.  It's about even if they're there.

"Sure.  I mean if you need one."

"Why not?"  It wasn't as if we had much choice.  "I'm JoAnne."  Being a Junior made me a little more socially adept.

"I'm Arthur," sticking out his hand as probably his parents instructed him.  "At least I had this stuff last year," he added,  "You?"

"Three years ago and never thought of it since," I admitted as we headed toward an open bench.

"No sweat.  So how come you're in here," acknowledging my seniority.

"English major," seeing no reason to note that it might be History too.

"Pre-med," he confessed.  "My Dad's a doctor."

"Cool."  My dad sells Ford tractors, but I didn't say it.

"I guess," his halfhearted response, then changing the subject.  "Know Barbara Kingsolver?"

He read her?  "Absolutely.  You wouldn't want to study American Literature if you just had to study Washington Irving."

"I sorta feel like she's writing about me, in my head, I mean."  He paused, probably remembering that I was in English.  "But maybe I missed some stuff."

"Prof. Gillespie uses her in Creative Writing.  You see how her characters make each other real."

"But my dad's a doctor," explained my Lab partner as we practiced titration for the instructor check-off.  He looked around.  "You got a calculator?  We can figure out how much of this stuff we'll use and just write that many milliliters in our books.  Not exactly, just close."

Arthur seemed sort of like whom you'd want for a Lab partner.

"I bought one for this class.  It says it does exponents," I was pleased to reveal.  I wasn't that sure Chemistry used exponents, but it didn't cost any more.

My acquaintance indicated his sweatshirt.  "Need my lab coat so I don't mess it up.  Graduation present, free from this place for doing early admission."

Maybe once a week in Lab would be enough, I realized.  A Junior wouldn't in a million years admit she'd done early admissions.

*****

The semester chugged along, Chemistry Lab being a manageable part: "Formula of a Metal Oxide", "An Equilibrium Constant", "LeChatelier's Principle".  Not that I understood LeChatelier, but I'm pretty good at reading.  Chemistry was just a requirement, nothing related to my life.

But maybe I liked Lab just a little bit.  Lab was where we'd do something more than take notes and balance electrons and protons.  Lab was where we'd see things happen.

"Partners" was how the instructor named us, not our doing.  All it meant was that we did a job together.  But Arthur's being there was a thing I came to appreciate.  Doing something together is more than doing nothing alone, if that makes sense.  Arthur and I were good partners, taking our turns measuring and note-taking, adjusting the flame, washing our glassware.  Despite his insight into fabrication of believable results, we always did the whole experiment to make sure we had the technique.  We'd always wear our safety glasses.

And maybe he didn't mind my presence.  Sometimes it's just nice to have someplace to go, knowing that somebody's counting on you to do your half.

Once Arthur brought two brownies.  We might get hungry "waiting for the precipitate."  Why was that so funny?  His mom had sent the brownies by mail, a mom-type thing.  I ate mine, even if it was a bit dry, and told him we could maybe brew herbal tea in a beaker.  But we didn't want to jeopardize our grade, the instructor being serious about glassware.

One time we were recording temperatures to see if energy was being released ("Exothermic", the answer to a certain quiz question) and I ended up with Arthur's pen, one of those ballpoints that make you want to doodle.

"How 'bout you keep it and write a story about Chemistry someday."

Anyway, I kept the pen.  Nobody had ever just given me their pen before.  Birthday presents, sure, but not their good pen.  ("Nobody" and "their" are grammatically incongruent, according to Prof. Stewart, but an acceptable alternative to "his or her".  Want a fun assignment?  Inclusive Hemingway!  I got a 94.)

I put the pen in the inner pocket of my backpack where I'd not lose it.  How'd anybody write a story about Chemistry?  Na plus Cl makes salt.

"Thanks," I replied, rather pleased.  "So here, you keep my yellow highlighter, then."  I couldn't think of why he'd need it, but suddenly I wanted him to have something of mine.

He didn't ask why, just seemed pleased as well.

*****

We were converting a carbonate to a chloride, according to the handout, when Arthur and I bumped, an accident on both our parts, me leaning to get the flask, him reaching for the stirring rod.  It couldn't have been more than a second.

But it didn't take the second for me to jerk away, so quickly, in fact, that I nearly spilled the solution.

It took Arthur more than the second to register my reflex.  By the time he linked having accidentally bumped my breast and its consequence, I was appallingly embarrassed.  JoAnne once more the fool!

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize..." he volunteered.

"My fault.  I wasn't..." interrupting to erase the moment.  "I don't think I spilled any," I assured, maybe just assuring myself that it was already behind me.

Arthur started to say something more, then tried to get me to smile. "They wouldn't want a klutz like me mixing up the formula for a Plutonium bomb."

He must think I'm a real jerk!

Leaving Lab, though, I guess I felt I owed Arthur something.  It wasn't his fault.  "Sorry about that, me being weird."

"It's not weird to want your space.  Everybody does."

I thought about it.  My space?

He must have guessed what I was thinking.  He could have just done the easy thing and not helped me put on my backpack, me being apparently big into some kind of personal space fixation.

But I guess he saw the strap was twisted.

*****

Wesleyan's not that big a campus, but it's big enough to fade to where people who see you didn't really see you.  But when someone sees you every week, you get seen more often.

I'd be climbing the steps to Appleton Hall and down would race Arthur.  "Hi, JoAnne," rushing onward to wherever Freshmen rush to.  They don't know to work out efficient schedules.

Or in the Library.  There would be Arthur laden with atlases.  "Hey, JoAnne.  I'm parked up by the fire exit.  Plenty of space if you want to spread out."  I'd follow and we might share little more than, "Gotta go.  See you," when the time came.

Or in Chemistry lecture.  Arthur liked sitting up towards the left.  We'd even sit side-by-side so I could check his notes for the +'s and -'s on the ions.  I'd had lectures in that hall before, but sat wherever, not by a partner.

Sometimes I'd get to Appleton a little too early and be on the steps.  "Hey, Arthur.  Fire's that-a way!"

The thing about Wesleyan is that it can sort of work out to see somebody a few times per week.

*****

It was heading into the corridor after lecture that Arthur noted the looming midterm.  We might want to drill each other on at least the inevitable vocabulary.

I guess it was all the hype about "inclusiveness" that sparked my suggestion that we study in the Women's Center.  It's probably the most comfortable lounge on campus.  I'd go there a lot and almost decided one time that maybe I could talk to someone about when I was twelve.  But all the posters were about more important issues.

Arthur balked, but I told him it was "Women's Center" in its name, but it's about removing boundaries.  None of the women in the inner sanctum had nerve enough to expel us.  Maybe they thought he was a journalism student.  Actually, I kind of liked knowing they were pissed off, that maybe we'd interrupted a discussion of menopause, or whatever.  I didn't tell Arthur, though.

They invented this place to empower girls like me, so they love to say.  And here I am getting empowered by waltzing a guy right into their Goddess study area!  I hoped Arthur didn't mind pictures of women giving birth.  He says he's going to be a doctor.

We ran through the vocabulary until we knew the definitions cold.  Me, literally; Arthur, conceptually.  Having assured one another that we were first-class chemists by midterm criteria, at least, we pulled ourselves up to go.

But Arthur wanted to add something.  "I'm really glad we're Lab partners, JoAnne.  It's kinda fun sometimes, even."  Did the Georgia O'Keefe posters empower him too?  I wouldn't think so.

Well, shoot, Arthur, I thought, it's kind of fun for me, too.  But so what? I countered.  We're just Lab partners.  It's good to know with whom you'll be working, that he knows what the experiment's about and does his share at cleanup.  It just made good sense.

But my voice outpaced my analysis.  "Arthur, that's so sweet!"  Why did I say that?  Sure, he's a nice person, but why'd he be sweet?  To me, anyway?

But, damn it!  (And I never swear like that, but I know that's exactly how it flashed through my brain.)  It was sweet what he said and he is sweet and it's OK to know it.

But where do you go after you admit to someone that he's sweet.

When he helped with my backpack, I know I protracted that extra instant when his hand was between the strap and my shoulder.  My space.

*****

I suppose most real dating starts out seeing enough of someone to decide to make it more deliberate.  In my case, though, Dating 101 (what we called it in the dorm) was more of a theoretical issue.  I hadn't done much lab-work, so to speak, unless you count Methodist Youth Fellowship outings.  In high school, I'd always been super busy with things like Yearbook to even notice that the Prom was coming.

At Wesleyan, there was always lots to do around the dorm on weekends.  Maybe some of us would go out to a movie.  Maybe we'd order a pizza.  Once we even had a sleepover in the hallway, which makes no sense, which was why it was so fun.

Besides, I was two years older than Arthur.  Besides, I was really busy with my reading lists.  Besides, I probably knew so much about Barbara Kingsolver that I'd bore him to death.  Juniors don't date Freshmen.

So when Arthur asked me if I wanted to watch the women's volleyball game, I said, "Yes" before he got to "game".  I should have at least asked whom we were playing, but I'd already accepted.

Maybe he'd figured I'd be busy or something, or at least have some convoluted response, because the brevity of my acceptance left him with no more follow-up than a sheepish grin.

Probably that's how I looked, too, except it probably wasn't sheepish.

Wesleyan's the "Battling Bishops".  Tall girls diving for saves are Bishops?  It's possible one or two of them will become Bishops in the United Methodist Church (almost obligatory, to make up for historical imbalance, they argue), but basically it's a bad name.

We won, even!

And every girl on my floor knew that I got asked out and did things like giving me high-fives in the hallway and nobody cared if he was a Freshman.

*****

The walk to the football stadium (Homecoming against league-leading Wabash, pure animals) was how Wesleyan recruits.  Fall skies, yellow and orange and red foliage, fans toting picnic baskets, the marching band's drums.  Come be one of us at Wesleyan!

It was just two idle hands, Arthur's left and my right, that found each other.  Come be one of us at Wesleyan!

It was the long pass, half the length of the field, that got the Battling Bishops on our feet.  Thousands of eyes watched the ball loft into the hands of the receiver already behind Wabash's defense.

I grabbed Arthur's arm in the frenzy of promised victory.

The band was blasting when I realized how tightly I was holding.  Ten times, no twenty, more than when we'd bumped doing the experiment.  I guess he knew.  He didn't mind, anyway, still cheering about the Hail Mary.  (You can't say Methodists aren't ecumenical.  We'll use whatever theology gets us across the goal line.)

I stayed like that all the way through the extra point.

Wesleyan's about excellence in education, not necks bigger than hat size.  We scored decisively, just not as many times.

Walking back, we again held hands, but I didn't take his arm, not having a touchdown for context.  You can't just take the arm of a guy, though with the briskness of autumn, maybe you could.

We promised to meet at the Library tomorrow, but not for Chemistry.  We agreed that we had that under control.  It's easier to study if somebody else is studying hard too.  That's what I said, anyway, but wasn't sure what I needed to study.

That night I put my arm against me the way Arthur's had been.  I can't really claim I fooled my body, that I didn't know it was my own arm against the side of my breast, but something happened that wasn't only me.

The Women's Center bookshelf says that some victims have difficulty with orgasm in their adulthood.  Something got stolen.  Me, though, I could masturbate maybe even too easily.  It hardly took more than just two fingers.  I suppose it wasn't too healthy, but I didn't really care.  It wasn't the penis that the man made me watch.  What I envisioned making love to me wasn't like his at all.  His was forgotten for a few minutes.

Thinking about Arthur, his arm against my breast, was different yet.  Nobody was making me naked, making me watch.  Arthur and I were jumping together, cheering.

When I came, Arthur and I weren't even nude together.  I was just holding his arm while autumn leaves whirl-winded around us with every convulsion.

*****

Every girl in Hayes was happy that I had a boyfriend.  Maybe I said earlier that sorority girls are sort of snots sometimes?  Not all of them, just some.  Well, dorm girls are really nice!  Arthur said that it was so embarrassing how he'd be walking across campus and some girl he hardly recognized would call out, "Hey, Arthur."  But I knew he liked it.

I've no idea at all what the guys in Arthur's dorm thought, but I suppose they figured that an older girl would probably really put out.  Guys think more that way.

But I didn't do anything I shouldn't.  I let Arthur kiss me when he'd drop me back at Hayes and I'd let him kiss me behind the Library.  There was a bench there and I could kiss him back better.

I didn't mind if we touched when we walked.  You just take their arm.   Some girls say to go without your bra so he'll know you like it, but I never did that.  He knew anyway.

When we hugged, wherever he touched was fine.  Even if I were sitting on his lap in the dark and he'd have his arms around my chest, it was OK.  We were hugging.

But I just didn't want Arthur reaching for me.  The man had reached and I'd just stood there.

After a few deflections (which left me uncomfortable, too), Arthur realized where my space started.  He accepted it, but he wasn't dumb.  "Dumb" means "stupid", right?  He wasn't stupid.  But he also wasn't dumb the way I was, where "dumb" means "silent".  Partners sometimes just ask.

"You got hurt, right?"  He didn't seem sure of how to ask, but at least he tried.

"I guess."  Sometimes a partner knows what's being queried.

"Well it doesn't change anything, but it makes me sad, too."

"Who says I'm sad?  You don't even know."  We were just Lab partners, I made myself remember.  And it wasn't like I went around looking glum all the time.

"No, but I guess I care."

Nobody had ever really cared except for my folks and the policewoman.

"It was a long time ago, anyway," I concluded, looking for my pack.

But I started to cry.  Right there in front of somebody.

It wasn't what the man had done that I most remembered, though everything he'd done I could list.  Those memories were film from the eyeholes of an empty statue.

No, it was knowing I'd let the man make me touch him.  That after I'd done that, I'd just lain there, too scared to even say no.  That I'd moved the way he'd made me, knowing that I was going to die naked.

Mine weren't large, purging tears, but stingy ones congealing the sadness.

"Jeeze, JoAnne.  I didn't know.  It's so sad."

I stared at my Lab partner, not remembering how my hand got to his.  What did he know about it?  None of the facts.  Not that I saw the man's face every day, wherever I was.  For guys, it's about ten minutes, not a lifetime.  Why would I ever share that with someone I measure pH with?  Someone maybe I'd made out with a little.  But even that, anybody could see, was just what a lonely Junior would do to the first boy that paid her any attention.

But I didn't pull my hand away.  Maybe he really was sad.

Maybe he cared.  I put his hand on my breast, just the outside of my blouse where he could feel my heart.  He didn't do anything to make it sexual, though of course it was.  It couldn't have been more sexual.

Once a boy holds your breast, it's real.  Most girls, though, get felt up by lots of guys before they get there.  I just happened to find one that cared the first time.

*****

We'd just submitted our last experiment, electrochemistry, which couldn't have been under-exceeded in terms of generating enthusiasm for Chem 102.  We'd wandered behind the Library, feeling good to have it behind us.

"JoAnne?"  Arthur had something to say, something that must have been confused in his own mind.  He started again.  "JoAnne, you're as sexy as hell.  You really are!"

Sexy?  Sure, he'd felt inside my bra by now, played with my nipples.  It was nice of him to not complain about the under-wire and all the hooks and everything else about me that probably frustrated his intention.  The guy was a guy, after all.

Sexy?  Not by my self-assessment.

But at least I felt a little bit sexy around him.  The girls in the dorm told me about loosening my hooks beforehand.

"Thanks, Arthur."  The guy was so sweet; that much I knew.  "As hell," was probably the top of his superlatives.

He paused another moment, then plunged ahead.  "But maybe I'm not too ready yet...  I mean I'm not that experienced or anything.  I don't want to mess things up."

What's he trying to say?  That he's a virgin?  Like I thought he wasn't?

"I like us just the way we are," a truthful answer.  "And what you do makes me feel very sexy."

"I think about it, though," he pressed.  "Us, I mean."

The irony didn't escape me, though I'd not have called it ironic.  We're talking about sexual intercourse, but don't have a word with which we're comfortable.  We're at the point in a relationship where it would commonly begin.  And he wants me to know he's not there yet.  Like he's weird, or something.

"Sure, me too," I admitted to help him out. "Just not specifically, maybe," to dodge admitting too much.

I guess most girls just haul off and do it, but the more I listened in the dorm, the more I realized that girls serious about themselves want to talk first.  That's not to say it doesn't just happen, but shouldn't that be the exception?  But wanting to talk isn't the same as able to talk.

Arthur maybe recognized my own reluctance.  Making love isn't that easy a subject.  But clearly he wanted to bare his own persona, to make me see his own imperfection.  "I can't help it sometimes, I want to so bad."

"It's natural," trying to deflect his admission, too much like my own.

He looked at the floor.  "Sometimes I come," just three words, not in boast; but rather in confusion in something beyond his will.

He didn't expect me to understand, but of course I did.  He had a space, just like I had mine, but he didn't want to hide in it.  But what was I supposed to do with that information?

"I'm not very experienced," he repeated, as if in explanation.

Then I knew what I wanted to say.  "Arthur...  Nobody's ever said I was sexy before.  I've never had anybody come, I mean."

He looked back up.  "Nobody's ever come before?" recognizing the virgin in me, too.

We didn't need to talk.  Maybe we didn't even know each other that well in some ways.  But we knew we were the same.  Unsure.  Our spaces almost touching.

"Arthur, thanks."  It sounds so pompous, written.  But I meant it.  Not that he'd come; that was his business.  That he'd tell me.

But me being the older, I knew.  "Meet me in the Library at 8:30."

We didn't even bring books.  We just went to our bench.  I'd sat in his lap enough times to wonder.  I probably felt his erection, but it was accidental.

A bench isn't that great a place to learn, but we managed to twist ourselves to where our legs touched.  It's not "probably" when he's around your thigh.  It was the first erection I'd ever felt.  (It should be obvious, having admitted my inexperience, but I want to write it on paper.  But no, of course, it wasn't the first.  But that was so long ago.  Not like Arthur's.)

I was probably pushing more than rubbing, but maybe the anticipation was all it took.  I know he came because he held so still at the end, not like some girls say the guy shoves you around.

I was so happy afterwards!  I'd done something for Arthur, something real against my leg.  He'd let me.  It wasn't his secret now; it was ours.

******

But I still had my secrets.  The impossible one was about when I was little.  But maybe having that one, plus now knowing his, helped my other secret to come out.

Arthur never made me rub against him, but I knew how much he liked it.  If nobody was wandering around our bench and it was a little bit dark, we'd mesh ourselves together.  I'd always be happy, learning to feel the start of his shiver.

The women at the Woman's Center would have chided about symmetry, though.  Another male orgasm.  I was winning too, in my view, but maybe not the way they'd define.  Of course I orgasmed, just not there.  Mine was later, the way I knew how.

The odd thing (to me anyway) was for being in the Woman's Center only that one time, maybe Arthur wanted symmetry, too.

"JoAnne, it's not fair, I don't think, anyway."  He didn't know what to call it, but knew I knew.  "I get to, you know, and you don't.  I don't have to.  It doesn't matter," he offered.

"Criminy, Arthur!"  (A high-order expletive for me)  "I love it when you do.  It's for both of us."

I must not have sounded too convincing, to myself anyway, because I surrendered one of my two secrets.  "Besides, I have afterwards."

Did I mean to say that?  Not consciously.

"Afterwards?"

Like guys don't?  "By myself," for the closer leaves to hear.  Why pretend?

"You masturbate?" with such lack of guile that I knew it had never entered his mind.  He wouldn't have said "masturbate" if he thought one word ahead.  Maybe he didn't know that we can?

There's even an instruction book at the Women's Center with all the pages dog-eared.  And I don't mean, "Our Bodies, Our Selves".  I mean a photographic how-to.  Two hands with different nail polish so we know it's another woman helping.  But Arthur wouldn't know.

"I guess," I admitted which gave me the extra power to be bold, "Yes."

"By yourself?"

Maybe they have that book in his dorm or something?

"Oh Arthur, of course, by myself."  I should have been appalled, but even at the time thought it almost funny.

"OK."  I'd not have told him more anyway.

That night it even seemed funnier, so funny that I even told my floor-mates.  Nobody was laughing at poor Arthur.  We were just laughing at the idea of a boy realizing that we at least can.

The next time Arthur and I got together, he held back.  "JoAnne.  If we sit different, I don't mean really different, just a little bit, maybe?"

The fullness of the somewhat said!  "Sit."  Interlock and rub, I translated.  "I don't mean really different."  Still dressed, nothing direct.  "Maybe?"  Me climax.

"Maybe."  I wanted him to feel me come.  I wanted him in my space.

From what other girls said, you might want to just be in your panties and he'd have to be aimed just right and not come first.  Usually it doesn't even work.  And then, pretty much they all agreed, even if you promise each other you won't, your panties get out of the way and you do it for real.

"It's better for me, just my by myself," I lied.

"I can be with you."  The "with you" made it so different.

Our spaces, Arthur's and mine, were as close as they'd ever been.

He immediately sought retreat, sensing rejection.  "I mean, not for real...  Not 'with you' like..."

But I wanted to.  I didn't even know it, but I wanted him next to me, feeling it grow, crest, diminish.  I wanted Arthur to know me.

"Feel my heart," pulling his far hand into my sweater.  I let the beats draw him like the band's drums beckoned us to that game where we made the long pass and touched.

Had he wanted me to strip, I would have, right there on the bench.  But had he wanted that, it would have been about just the physical.

My jeans were loose enough to slip my hand into.  He watched my knuckles play against the denim.  He'd know I was already wet.  They say that boys get wet too.

He felt my heartbeat as I brought myself through my preparatory motions: parting the fold, unhooding my erection, provoking, pressing, needing, reaching, the tingling upward from the feet, the totality, the rediscovering.  The superficial would have been apparent.  Certainly the movement.  Certainly the wetness, though not by touch.  The thrashing.

But he couldn't have known that even with my eyes closed, I still saw him.  Under my sweater, I felt his warmth, warmth that flowed.

He kissed me when I'd returned, his hand still on me; mine, still between my legs.

"It's good, right?"

"With you," I agreed, holding my other breast to feel my nipple.

*****

It was inevitable that I'd want him to touch me.  Our bench would have worked, but a campus has so many places for lovemaking.

At first he only put his hand on my pants to sense my manipulations.  If I were in a skirt, I'd pull it up so there would be just panties between our fingers.

I knew he was ready when he didn't let go of my hand, but rather rode on its back when I reached down.  His fingertips on one side and his thumb on the other brushed my pubic hair.

When he interlocked his fingers between my knuckles, he touched first my labia and then my clitoris.  From watching, he knew the center of my excitement.  The extrication of my own hand left him in command.

He kissed me all the while.

Later, I faced away, letting him reach around, his free arm stilling me, his other hand stroking while I struggled to hold still.  Sometimes his finger would enter my vagina, my orgasm more visceral.

It was no mystery why Arthur himself climaxed.  I could feel his hardness against my hip, driving ever so slowly at first, then firmer and faster.  I could hear his breathing.  I could feel his wetness, though it must have been my projection.

*****

When I first helped him with my hand, I'd never held an erection before.  (What I'd held when I was twelve, I didn't feel.)  Probably my inexpertise confused his libido, but he drew in his stomach to make way for my wrist.  As soon as I freed him, he ejaculated gobs onto my abdomen, sticky rivulets trailing some to the left, some to the right, and some between my legs.

I'd not yet even touched his testicles.

Was it lovemaking?  It's not a stupid question.  Arthur and I made ourselves complete, not just by friction, but by knowing each other.

Everybody says that having intercourse is what it's all about.  Wrong.

Being partners is what it's all about.  Not everything is paced by semesters.  We could have had wonderful intercourse right away, I'm sure.  But maybe it's better to know the other's body, really being naked, by being more deliberate.

Why rush to where contraception's an issue?  Where (not with us, but too often), someone's exposed to other consequences?

If you're interested in liberal education, at Wesleyan we have Chapel.  It is one of our places.  (For a few others from Hayes, too, since we're pretty close, but Arthur and I have never slipped in when it was occupied.)  They leave the building unlocked, since we're really well behaved at Wesleyan.

PROLOGUE

When I was twelve, a man did a very bad thing to me.  He raped me.

Now I'm 20, almost 21.  I'm a second-semester Junior at Wesleyan, a top ranked university.  I have a double major.

I'm taking Chem 102.  It's good to take a whole year of a subject that complex.  102's Lab syllabus lists "An Enzyme from Pineapple".  Hardly-measurable chemicals help big reactions occur.

I have a Lab partner whom I doubt will become a physician.  He's going to take Creative Writing next year from Gillespie.

I have a pen he gave me that is very good for learning to write stories.

Here's a song -- "Turn, Turn, Turn" by Pete Seeger, recorded by the Byrds.  The words are adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

"To everything (Turn, Turn, Turn),

"There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn),

"And a time for every purpose, under Heaven.

   "A time to be born, a time to die,

   "A time to plant, a time to reap.

   "A time to kill, a time to heal,

   "A time to laugh, a time to weep."

We've sung it in Chapel.

I posted the first bars of it at http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/Holly_Rennick/Turn_Turn_Turn.wav.  It's a 12-string guitar.  Pete Seeger's Jewish and Roger McGuinn's guru was Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo.  Wesleyan's about Liberal Arts.

HOLLY ON THE WEB

Wherever you found this story on the web, thank you to the server.  My problem is that I've no systematic way to update the various servers.  As literary errors (or just poor word usages) are made known to me, I'll repair that which is salvageable on http://www.asstr.org/~Holly_Rennick/.  My website's not much graphically, I admit, but HTML isn't my native language.

You can contact me via the site's message form, that HTML code by the smart people at ASSTR.

I won't be changing the story significantly, so if you didn't like it before, that much will remain the same.  But if you did like it, an update may read a bit more cleanly.

   Holly
