The crowd cheered as the dean stepped back from the mic. I and nearly three thousand
of my classmates threw our caps up into the air.

Finally, it was over.

True, something else was starting, but for us, college was now officially behind us. No more all-nighters.
No more "campus coffee" which, I’d discovered, was a phenomenon only found on college campuses,
and which resulted in almost chewable coffee, with enough caffeine to throw an elephant into cardiac arrest.
No more self-important professors, who always insisted that their class was tantamount,
that no other needed worrying about except theirs. No more worthless advisors,
who would sooner sign the change-of-major or class schedule forms simply to get rid of you
before they sat down to give you any advice about what you were doing. No more labs,
where the manuals were written in some obscure dialect of english which was legible, but completely imcomprehensible,
and the chemicals unpronounceable, but much too dangerous all the same. No more days spent in the library,
searching for one elusive face about the daughter of the wife of the manservant to the king of Scotland in 1107.
No more dining hall food, where everything but the cereal was cooked to near inedibility,
and even the cereal was sometimes circumspect. No, all of that was finally over.
The shackles of academia had finally been removed, and we were free. And as the dean
stepped up to the podium to make his final remarks, I looked out into the audience for my friend Sam.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

I’d first met Sam more than a year ago—nearly two—
when she was a freshman and I was in my first senior year. Only the fact that I’d failed one class that year—
one crucial class, the one class which only met in the spring—kept me from graduating that first year, last year.
I’d met her during a class she’d taken that I had to TA. I’d insisted on the insane notion-
or so I’d thought of my idea on the first day I had to TA—of getting to know each of my students individually,
and when I’d spotted her among the eight I was deigned to assist, I was ecstatic, at least
initially. My first glances at her had my libido roaring.

She was very petite; at five feet tall, I’d had yet to meet anyone smaller in height. That in and of itself
got my curiosity piqued. In person she was even more impressive—hazel eyes; long, thick, black hair halfway down her back;
golden, honey-colored complexion; that day, I’d imagined that her skin would taste just as sweet.

"Jessee?"

"Huh?" I blurted, knowing immediately that I’d missed whatever the last thing she’d said was.

"You were staring." Her voice was soft, slightly husky, but unmistakably feminine. She gave me
a look, her expression momentarily unreadable. Then she spoke, wetting her lips first.

"36C, 28, 40."

"What?" I asked; even as I was giving voice to my question, I already knew the answer. "Wait," I said,
right on the heels of my question, stopping her before she really had a chance
to start, "What was that for?"

"Most guys," she began, as if she’d prepared this "speech" before, "when they look at me like that,
they want to know my measurements. I just thought that I would get that out of the way,
this time."

I was upset at myself, but even moreso at the cavalier way in which she’d spoken about it.
To have gotten used to men leering at her to the point that she rattled off her measurements
as if they were no more important than a grocery list made me mad, mad at the whole male species
for a moment, and I resolved then that I wouldn’t make her feel like that again.

"Well, I offer to you my apologies, for staring at you," I said, paused, and then continued,
"Miss Samantha Garrison, you and I, we are classmates, peers, and maybe one day, friends;
I know I’d like that." I paused again for a second. "But, I can say that I have no intentions of anything more."

The look on her face this time was truly unreadable; I couldn’t tell if she was relieved,
disappointed, or what.

She had a beautiful face. Dark eyebrows, almond-shaped eyes, a small, full nose, and full, petite lips,
with an olive-smooth complexion and framed by a head full of hair that I longed to run my fingers through; she was a goddess.

"I will tell you this," I said, breaking myself out of my reverie; I’d been admiring her for less than
five seconds, "you are a very pretty woman."

She seemed to search for a moment, looking for an appropriate response; she looked slightly
embarrassed. She wet her lips again; a nervous habit, I learned later.

"Thank you," she said, inflecting her voice intentionally; I understood what she meant.

I nodded briefly. And that was the start of our beautiful friendship. After that, there was almost
no sexual tension between us. After that first semester, I started tutoring her, then we stared
getting together to catch a movie, or have lunch. We started becoming friends, then,
good friends. We became very close; she was like a sister to me, and I felt like her big brother;
we were as platonic a couple as two friends can be. As friends,
we were nearly inseparable; often one of us would be asked where the other was,
because everyone saw us together. People- well, those who didn’t know us- frequently wanted to know
if we were dating, since we seemed to spend so much time together. While we'd been out on dates together—
as friends, of course—we’d shunned the idea of really dating. We’d talked about it,
and we’d figured that dating would ruin our friendship. Each of us had seen
what happened when one of our friends tried to date another; only once did it last, and stay friendly.
And besides, I had never thought that she was really interested in me;
she’d never give me any reason to think otherwise. So us dating was out of the question, anyway. And we simply stayed friends……

*** *** *** *** *** ***

When I finally trudged down the steps from the stage, Sam was waiting there for me, along with another friend of ours, Marcus. Sam leaned up and gave me a big sloppy kiss on my cheek.

"Congratulations!" she shouted, beaming a 300-watt smile at me.

"Yeah, man," said Marcus, on the other side of me, giving me a light punch in the arm, "You’re getting out of here."

"And if you hadn’t slept through so many classes of Dev Psyche, you’d be leaving, too," I said to him. He grinned at me.

"I had a good reason-"

"Uh-huh, and I’m sure that if you told her that you’d been skippin’ class to stay with her, she’d’ve kicked your butt back up this hill."

"She’s definitely worth it."

"And her daughter?"

"I like her, too. T’kid’s smarter n’ hell."

"What’s her name again?" This, from Sam.

"Selina."

"So who do you think about kids?" It took me a moment to realize that Sam was asking Marcus that question. We were thus dutifully sidetracked from talking about Marcus’ romantic relationship with an older woman, a nurse from downtown. I’d have to thank Sam for that, later; Marcus was almost disgustingly happy with his love life, and neither of us really wanted to hear more about it, again.

We continued our conversation to Rycker’s Island, where we had lunch in the cafeteria. The building was actually named the Milton Rycker Union Center, but among my peers we called it Rycker’s Island, like the prison in New York; sometimes, being here had felt like being in a prison. But, that wouldn’t apply to me, anymore.

After lunch, the three of us walked back to my campus apartment building, where they helped me finish packing all of the things that would be going with me to New York when I left. That was where I was going; it was pure luck that the MacArthur Group, a research psychology team whose primary work involved clinical studies, had had a position open for me to intern with them. I’d majored in Psychology, concentrating on sexual and abnormal psychologies, and working with the MacArthur Group was something of a Godsend.

Marcus declined having dinner with me and Sam; he’d said that he didn’t want to be a third wheel—he constantly teased us, saying that we "just oughta be" a dating couple, for as much time as we spent together—and then said to me, that,

"I’ve a dinner date of my own,"

and grinned lasciviously at me, as he grabbed his jacket and left. Sam and I cooked, ate, and cleaned the dishes, then plopped down on my futon, and watched tv.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

Our friendship was an easy one, and in the going-on two years we’d been friends, we had come to know each other very well. I knew, for instance, that Same was scared of thunderstorms. She’d never been able to explain to me why; I’d simply accepted it as fact.

I remember the first time I found out. It had been early in the year; I was still TAing her class then, and I’d let it be known that she—as well as any others who wanted more study time with me—could stop by just about anytime, as long as it wasn’t after 11pm, or on a weekend night. We had a tentative friendship started by then, and I especially encouraged her to visit when she liked. Late that afternoon, a serious thunderstorm sprung up; no rain, just lots of lightning and thunder. I’d been just about to fix dinner, when there was a knock at my door.

It was Sam.

Of course, I invited her in, and to have dinner with me; she accepted on both counts, and I’d wondered what I’d done recently to have won the luck of having Sam dine with me. I turned around, just about to ask her that; she’d had her back to me, looking out of my balcony window—although I technically lived on the second floor, the ground was only about eight feet below my window—and then lightning struck. I saw her silhouetted against the flash, and for a moment, I was without words. A few second later, the thunder boomed, and I saw Sam jump. She settled herself as best as she was able to, then, and then turned back towards me...and froze. I realized right about then, I’d witnessed something that she hadn’t wanted me to know about, or at least, not know about so soon.

I put down the things I was holding, turned down the heat on the food, and walked over to her.

"It’s okay to be scared," I said, opening my arms out to her, seriously doubtful that she’d accept, especially now that I’d seen her vulnerable. Instead, she clung to me as if I’d glued her on.

"Thank you," she said in a whisper, her voice wavering; she was trembling, and I held her, until she’d gotten herself under better control, and the storm passed.

From then on, whenever a storm came through, I knew that I could expect a visit from Sam. On a number of occasions after that first time, she’d stayed the night, when the storm had raged on longer than we’d thought; she slept in my bed, and I on the futon in the living room.

But one night, one night I realized now that had brought a significant change in our friendship, there was a particularly bad storm—it had snapped me awake briefly a couple of times, rattling and shaking the building—because Sam shook me awake (though I was already mostly awake, anyway) and asked me if she could sleep with me. Even in the half light of the night, and especially when the lightning flashed, I could see the embarrassment burning in her cheeks. But I could also see the just-checked fear in her eyes, and in her being as she started and trembled with every boom of thunder. Even though I knew about her fear of thunder, and even though she couldn’t find the words to explain it—to me, or herself—she was still embarrassed about being so afraid. But it was her fear that compelled her past her embarrassment, at least with me, to ask this personal favor from me.

I simply pulled back the covers, and she climbed in the bed with me. And from then on, it became a habit; whenever she spent the night, she mostly slept in my bed (with me on the futon, as usual), but whenever a particularly bad storm raged outside, she knew that she could sleep with me. And we grew comfortable with that.

Another time, later on, after the new semester had begun, we’d actually sat and watched a storm, from outside on my balcony. We sat on the futon—I’d dragged it out onto the balcony—and watched as the storm blew through. And Sam wasn’t afraid—much. She even said so.

"When I’m all alone, it’s so scary……but, when I’m with you, I’m not scared anymore."

She paused for a moment, and almost as if waiting for her silence, lightning flashed, followed almost immediately by a deafening crackling boom that reverberated throughout the building. She jumped slightly, but that was all. I could feel her heart pounding against my chest as she gently hugged herself against me.

"Well, okay, I’m not so scared, anymore," she amended with a small smile. Then she was quiet for a short time.

"Being out here in nature like this," she began again, stopping for a second, "It’s so erotic."

She looked into my eyes, smiling.

"Oh, really," I said, cocking an eyebrow, looking back. A smile threatened to break out on my face.

"Yeah," she said, turning to look back out into the night storm. "It’s all so primal, so wild and untamed. The force of the storm, unleashed and free, running rampant into the night… All that power, that no man can control. It makes you feel small and humbled… but connected. The wind swirling around you, the rain in your face, the thunder rolling through you, with the sky opening up overhead, and the heavens pouring down on you……God, that’s so erotic."

And it was. I couldn’t argue with her on that.

We’d sat a while longer, as the thunder and the lightning part of the storm moved on, and left just the rain; suddenly, Sam looked up at me, a wild gleam in her eyes.

"C’mon," she said, briefly grasping my hand as she sprung up from my side.

"Huh? What?" I’d mumbled, confused, "where’re we going?"

"Just follow me," she replied enigmatically. I watched as she practically skipped out of the door; she didn’t take her jacket, so I didn’t think for a minute that she was going outside.

I was wrong.

She trotted down the hall, to one of the exit doors. She glanced back at me, a small smile on her face, and then dashed out of the door. Without thinking about it, I followed her out the door, out into the night, into the rain.

My first thought was that it was cold—at least, the rain was, and I was instantly soaked. I almost commented on these thoughts to Sam, but then I looked out into the field at her. She was standing out in the middle of the field that ran behind my apartment building, just standing; her arms were straight out from her sides, and her face was tipped up into the falling rain, her eyes closed, and a smile on her face.

Kinda spellbound, I’d walked out into the field, for the moment ignoring the rain, until I’d reached Sam. I stood there for a moment, looking at her.

"Y’know, Sam, just in case you haven’t noticed, it’s kinda raining out here."

"I know," she replied.

"And you’re soaking wet."

"I know."

"I just thought you might have missed that, that’s all," I remarked, good-natured sarcasm in my voice.

She didn’t say anything right away, only standing there; after a moment, though, she dropped her head, and looked at me. The smile was still on her face, and the wild gleam was still in her eyes; there was a hunger there, or something like it, something that needed to be released.

"It’s so erotic," she grinned at me.

For the briefest of seconds, I looked at my friend, standing out in the rain, soaking wet, wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt; they clung to her like a second skin. Then, I thought about the fact that I was standing out in the rain with her, dressed very similarly, and about what she’d said a little while ago, and those thoughts, with what I thought about the look in her eyes, and I decided that I could agree with her.

She stepped closer to me, and leaning up, kissed me.

On the lips.

Granted, it was a chaste, closed-mouth kiss, but she’d never kissed me before.

I was stunned.

Still smiling, she pounced on me.

The next thing I knew, we were both on the ground, and she was on top of me. Laughing. And, as I watched, she slowly scooped up a handful of muddy dirt. I could almost see what she was thinking.

"Sam, don’t you dare," I said, trying to sound stern and serious. I failed miserably.

Still, she said not a word. Still looking at me, she slowly pulled up my shirt.

"Sam," I called out, my voice rising; still I did nothing to stop her- why not, I don’t know. Part of me was afraid that she was actually going to start a mud-fight; part of me knew that she was going to do just that, and that this was part of what she’s meant by "follow me!"

I squealed like a stuck pig when she did slap my chest with that mud; it was much colder than the rain was. She sprang up, and ran—or tried to; I caught her foot, and gave her a righteous jerk. She fell to the ground with a satisfying "splat!"

We were outside for more than an hour, playing in the mud, tackling each other, or throwing mudballs around, or simply dancing in the rain. Finally, we started seriously shivering—our teeth chattered—and so we trooped back inside, muddy from head to toe. I told Sam to take a shower, while I went and put our muddy clothes in the washer. And, after I’d given her a t-shirt and some boxer shorts to wear—and a solemn promise not to soil her virtue; she knew that I had no such intentions, and I knew that she was simply playing around (and a hilarious pun, considering how "soiled" her "virtues" had gotten in the horsing around outside)—she agreed, and hopped into the shower. I took our wet and nasty things—she tossed them out of the bathroom as she took them off inside; I waited until she was in the shower before I stripped and donned my bathrobe—and with some detergent, trudged down to the laundry center.

I had tossed all of our clothes into the machine, all except her underclothes; something held me back for a moment, looking, feeling, wondering… These were the things that she wore next to her skin, and I could, for a moment, imagine her wearing them; I could see her clearly, first wearing them, then without, now that I had them in my hand, and I thought—

I threw them into the washer, and slammed down the lid.

I shouldn’t- couldn’t- have thoughts even remotely like that about my best friend.

Later, after my shower, and after I’d brought back our clothes from the laundry, I prepared for bed; Sam asked to spend the night, since she didn’t want to go. Nor did she want to be bothered by her new roommate, a previously-trailer-trash-now-turned-rich little bitch, who tried to look down her nose at Sam and complained to her nouveau rich friends back home that having a roommate like Sam was "beneath her standing" and who, in my opinion, flaunted her new money around whenever she could, trying to intimidate Sam with her financial largess. We never heard her complaining to her friends, of course; even if we didn’t hear her, Sam and I knew enough about her type to know that she was talking about her. I very nearly went to tell her roommate exactly who she was, money or not, and tell her just what she could do with her money; Sam convinced me that it wouldn’t be a good idea, for the least of reasons being that it wouldn’t help her out any, especially when I wasn’t around. With that logic, I agreed.

Since the spring semester had started, and brought her a new roommate, Sam had spent quite a bit of time with me. Like that bothered me. And like Sam still needed an excuse to stay the night with me.

As we climbed into the bed— by this time, she’d gotten used to the idea of sleeping next to me; as I’d said, she’d slept next to me enough to have gotten used to it, and now often slept with me in my bed whenever she spent the night— she turned to me.

"Jessee," she began, "it’s been bugging me since we came back in, and I have to say something about it. Y’know that thing we did outside, that thing almost like a kiss?"

I knew, and it wasn’t like a kiss; it was one. But, I was sure that—

"I didn’t mean it," she said, looking guiltily at me, "I mean, I was caught up in the moment. It didn’t really mean anything."

"I know. I understand." And I did. Either she’d really been caught up in the moment, and didn’t want me to tag her kiss as something meaningful, or she’d known what she was doing, then had second thoughts, and needed an "out" to save face. Either way, I understood.

"Good…I had to make sure you understood that I didn’t mean that." With that, she turned out the lamp next to the bed, and we slid underneath the covers.

And a while later, just as I was drifting off to sleep, she said something.

And damn it if I hadn’t forgotten about that by the next morning.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

But now, sitting on the couch next to her, running through my mind the times we’d shared together, I suddenly remembered her words.

She’d said, "Now, if I could only convince myself of that…"

*** *** *** *** *** ***

Sam knew things about me, too.

She’d even seen me naked.

Just before the spring semester ended last year, and summer began, I’d decided to try to make some money. As luck would have it, the art department was looking for a few people to model for the final projects of their "Body and Mind" art classes; the fact that they were paying $250 dollars for each model to sit through five classes kinda grabbed at me. After I’d gotten my student loans, paid my tuition and all the other important stuff, and bought a few things for my apartment—like the futon, and my computer—I’d finally run out of money, and my summer job—and the classes that I was going to TA—wasn’t supposed to start for another two weeks. So I figured that I’d do it.

I talked to the head of the art department, who put me in touch with the art teacher, who put me in touch with student services, who was handling the business end of things. Then, back to the art teacher, to find out what day she wanted me to pose. That’s when I discovered, having already pledged myself to her, that I would be posing nude.

In the buff.

Naked.

Au naturel.

After a moment of shock, I figured that I’d mad my bed, and so, I’d lay in it; besides, there wasn’t anyone I knew who was taking any art classes this semester, especially in this class, so I wouldn’t see anyone I knew personally.

Something at the back of my mind told me to think about that fact.

Needless to say, I ignored it.

The art finals were set for the last week of classes, and from the time I’d signed up until then, I’d been working out in the gym a little bit extra, making sure that I wasn’t going to make a complete ass out of myself. Finals started in the morning, around seven, and ended in the afternoon, around four or so; we’d get an hour to go to lunch, and of course, we’d get breaks between classes. I showed up a little early, and got a second shock of the day; I wasn’t the only model on display here. Another guy, and three other women were also posing; no one had yet gotten undressed, since it seemed that they’d just arrived, as well.

One of the women was someone I had tutored last semester; her name was Angelita. A hispanic woman, she stood about five and a half feet tall; she had smooth, satiny mocha-colored skin, and a very nice figure. She wore her hair in Shirley Temple-like little ringlets; the overall effect was that she was a very attractive woman.

Angelita was a junior that year, majoring in Biology, with a concentration in Veterinary Medicine. I’d tutored her in Biology, since I seemed to have a natural talent for tutoring in Biology, and knew the basics of it like the back of my hand. She was very intelligent, and that, more than anything else, had been what had attracted me to her. We’d dated briefly, and though there was some definite interest between us, something seemed to hold her back, and I figured that there wasn’t the spark there that would have let us take it to another level; we’d parted ways amicably, and now, here we were again. We’d only had a few brief sessions of making out before, both of us very reserved in our actions; now, we were about to see each other naked. I knew what she looked like in a bathing suit—we’d gone swimming together once or twice, since she seemed to like it—so I knew that I was going to have trouble keeping her nudity out of my mind. I most certainly didn’t want the art class to know what I thought of her.

She smiled sheepishly at me as she moved in my direction. Her smile became much bolder as she stepped up to me. She pressed herself up against me, wrapping her arms around me in a hug; I returned the gesture with feeling.

"So how have you been this semester?" I asked her, rubbing my hands up and down her back briefly.

"Doin’ well." She bulled back from me, and I let her go. She grinned wolfishly at me.

"Y’know, if I’d’ve known that I could get to see you naked for an art class, I’d’ve changed my major a long time ago," she said, smiling at me.

Her remark caught me off guard; she’d wanted to get into my pants? I thought I’d been the only one thinking like that. Funny how life throws you curves like that; both of us wanting, but neither of us brave enough to make that move.

I didn’t let it show that she’d momentarily stumped me, however.

"I was just about to say the same thing," I replied. Her eyebrows bounced for a second.

"Oh, really?" she queried, "then what held you back?"

"I could ask you the same thing," I replied, smiling as she was.

"You first," she taunted.

"I didn’t want to scare you," I said, "I didn’t want you to think that all I wanted was to get into the pants of a gorgeous, intelligent woman."

"Is that all you wanted?" she shot back, her smile turning into a smirk.

"No, that’s not all," I responded, "but it was definitely in the top five."

She chuckled briefly at me, her eyes giving me a quick once-over, and then said, "Y’know, it’s funny……I hadn’t wanted you to think me unladylike, for lady Lita wanting to seduce someone she’d found attractive and smart, someone who found her interesting for more than just her cute curves……and you were holding back for the same reason." She laughed again, and I joined her, this time.

She put her arms around me again, for another hug.

"If I’d known that then," she said, pulling herself even closer to me, and then whispering, "we could have arranged a more, ahh, private, display." She grinned at me again, then pulled back from me. She began to walk off, then stopped. She turned around, and said, softly,

"I wasn’t kidding about the, ahh, display."

then walked off to the other side of the room.

I started to think about that, then stopped. The class would be here any minute, and I didn’t need to be any more embarrassed than I would be already.

The room was set up with two dividers on opposite sides of the room, like an off-stage right and left, where the men and women posing could undress, away from the prying eyes of the class, and yet away from the eyes of their opposite-gendered modeling partners. I was nervous, but the guy next to me didn’t seem fazed at all. Then came the moment to bear it all; the other guy had already walked out, and I’d spotted the other two women standing in front of the class already. I peeped out from behind the screen, and as I made up my mind to face the crowd, I spotted Lita doing the same as I was. She saw me, and we smiled at each other; as one, we both walked out, and stood next to each other.

I purposely kept my mind wandering for the next hour and a half; the image of a naked Lita was trying to invade my thoughts, and a couple of time I could feel my loins tingling, threatening to embarrass me by exposing my thoughts to the class. But I made it through that first class.

In the fifteen minutes between classes, Lita and I looked each other over, and sat and chatted. I couldn’t help but admire her figure; wide hips, a comparatively narrow waist, a little tummy, full breasts, and gorgeous skin. Not knowing much about women’s sizes, she was probably about a size 14 or 16, but she was quite athletic. All I knew was, she made my mouth water, and she saw my thoughts. Her laughter at my predicament made me aware of just how much she was looking at me, and made me wonder what might happen between us this summer, since in our conversation I’d found out that she was also hanging around, and wanted to get together with me.

Fortunately, I got myself together before the next class, and the time passed uneventfully.

I figured that if I could do it so far, the rest of the day would probably be simple, maybe even boring.

Boy was I wrong.

By the end of the forth class that day, I was bored, holding back yawns with willpower alone now. I was zoning out during classes; doing nothing other than posing was, ironically enough, tiring.

And then Sam walked into the room.

All of a sudden, I was painfully awake. I’d forgotten that Sam was taking this class, and it was entirely too late for me to back out of posing. Could I ease behind one of the dividers before she saw me? I could only hope that—

She set up her easel and materials, and looked at the models.

Looked at me.

She turned bright red when she noticed me. And she continued to be bright red throughout the entire class time. I was all too aware of her presence, and even though there were times her blush grew even stronger than before, it never really left. I’m sure that if I’d had light enough skin, I’d have been blushing, too. This was like a breach of friendship, kinda sorta, but not really. I hadn’t gotten naked for her on purpose, and she hadn’t looked at me naked on purpose. Just a simple case of coincidence and bad luck.

After the class was over, I didn’t know what to do; part of me wanted to hop into my clothes and run after her, to talk with her; the other part wanted to avoid her, embarrassed not only for myself, but for her, as well. Lita lingered, as well, and trotted naked over to my side of the room, once it was empty.

"So……about that discussion we had this morning…" she let her words trail off, as she pressed her naked form to my own. For a moment, thoughts of Sam were pushed out of my mind, as my body began to react to Lita’s presence. Of their own accord, my hands slid around her, rubbing up and down her back, molding to her hips, her buttocks—

I had to straighten things out with Sam.

"Lita…oh, God, I’d love to be with you right now—"

"I hear a ‘but’ coming up," she interrupted, the smile on her face fading from her eyes. She moved back just a bit.

"—but," I said, continuing, "my best female friend just bolted outta here. I had forgotten she was taking this class, and I didn’t tell her that I was modeling, and—"

"Ahh," she said, "one of those awkward situation things you wanna try and straighten out, huh?"

"Yeah."

"I’ve been there……in high school, I was something of a tomboy—"

"Naww, you?" I grinned sarcastically. She swatted me on my arm, smiled, and continued.

"Yeah, mee. I took someone up on a dare, to jump in the school pool nude. My so-called friend took my clothes from me, and I had to trudge through the halls, naked, to the nurses office to cover up, and wait for my friend to bring me back my clothes. Luckily for me, it was between classes, so no one else saw me in the halls. But, my best guy friend walked out of the nurses office just as I was about to go in. Boy, was I embarrassed." She grinned at the memory.

"Well, I’ve gotta go and work this out," I said to her, turning around and frantically putting on my clothes, "but, since you’ll be here this summer……" I let the sentence trail off. She smiled, understanding. I finished getting dressed, while she looked on, and then left.

Later that evening, I bumped into Sam, and after the embarrassed giggles and not looking each other in the eye, we managed to straighten things out. And she showed me the picture she’d done of me.

It was very flattering.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

"Whatchya thinkin about?" I broke out of my reverie; Sam was looking at me, a curious look on her face.

"Just remembering," I said, deliberately not telling her what about. I knew that would just make her more curious.

"About what?" she asked. I was right.

"About you," I said, looking at her, "and remembering that art class of yours that I posed for." I grinned, though I felt like it was painted on, because for a split-second, before I’d finished my sentence, I’d seen a strange look on Sam’s face. It was like I’d hit her with a Mack truck. Before the smile she’d given, before she remembered what I’d done, she looked at me as though I’d said something that stunned her. I made a note of it, but didn’t pursue it. Not yet. I’d do it later.

She laughed for a moment or two, remembering; then she looked at me again.

"Would it be okay if I stayed with you for these last couple of days?" she asked. She didn’t have to say that she’d miss me, or that I’d miss her, or anything about the amount of time left before I took off to New York. I understood.

"Sure," I said, actually pleased that she wanted to spend the last two days with me. And, I had to admit, something else inside me yearned for her company; with about half of my friends leaving to follow their destinies, and me leaving the rest of them behind in a matter of days, I didn’t want to face the wide open world just yet, not alone. I’d be doing that soon enough; there was no need to rush it.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

"What do you think about when you masturbate?" she asked me one day.

This happened early on, last semester, and happened to be just after one of our sexual education classes; actually, my sexual psychology class partly coincided with her sexual education class, in that my class joined with hers two out of four days a week. That day, we’d watched a couple of videos of male and female masturbation. This conversation, by the way, was taking place, of all places, at the table in the cafeteria of Rycker’s Island, as we had a late lunch, surrounded by the greater majority of the student body; ironically, it was probably the most private public place on campus.

Maybe it was because of my open and trustworthy nature. Maybe it was because I was studying the subject in psychology. Maybe it was because I seemed completely obsessed with it; whatever it was, somehow, whenever Sam had a question about sex, she always asked me.

Not that I minded.

And besides, I’d told her that if she’d ever had any questions, she could feel free to ask, no matter what they were. My strange luck that she seemed to think me the resident sex therapist on campus.

Sam was watching the people go by; she and I shared that habit, of simply people-watching, and from time to time, we’d do just that, sitting in the quad after our classes, and wondering what type of people our peers were beneath the academic surface.
"You’re assuming that I masturbate, huh?" I grinned; sometimes baiting her with her own words was too much fun for me to resist. By now, I’d learned that when it came to anything sexual, Sam was almost too easy to embarrass. I took a bite of my sandwich.

Sam’s head snapped back in my direction; shock sprung into her eyes, and her cheeks turned bright red.

"Well, that is……I mean, I didn’t meant to—"

"It’s okay," I said, smiling, laughing, "You didn’t assume wrong this time."

She was silent for a moment or two; she seemed to be gauging what to say. Finally, she simply repeated her first question.

"People," I replied, then, knowing her next question, said, "some woman I know on campus, sometimes."

"Who?"

My brain rapid-fire sorted through a number of ways I could respond. I most certainly wouldn’t tell her anyone by name, and I especially wouldn’t admit to having thought of her once or twice; wild horses threatening to pull me apart couldn’t pry that out of me. I could always fall back on "it’s none of your business" or "I’d rather not say", if I really wanted to use those. Mostly, though, I drew a blank; how many men were asked by their female friends who they fantasized about then they masturbated? There were too many ways that I could answer her, but there was only one way that I was going to answer her.

All of this flashed through my mind in a heartbeat.

"I can’t tell you that!" I half-shouted, smiling- and with hardly any hesitation, "and besides, you might know one of them, and—"

"Oh? So you think about more than one female?" She seemed to think that that was funny.

"—and," I continued, still smiling, but emphasizing the fact that I wasn’t going to answer that last question, "it would ruin my reputation around you."

"What reputation?" Sam countered, looking incredulously at me; one eyebrow was cocked.

"My reputation," I repeated.

"Which would be…?" she trailed off the end of her question.

"My rep as a scholarly, distinguished gentleman-in-training—"

"Yeah, right!"

"—who is above the base, primitive, pulse-pounding desires and urges of the carnal pleasures of the body."

"You? You’re just about the most sexual person on the planet; Wilt Chamberlain couldn’t keep up with your libido," she laughed. I couldn’t help but join her; of course, she was exaggerating, but not by a whole lot; she had me pegged.

"Okay, so what if I said that one of them was you?" I said, smiling. I hadn’t really intended to say the words; the thought had returned, unbidden, and I was speaking it before I realized it. And, having spoken the words, I hadn’t realized just how embarrassed Sam might be until just now, and I couldn’t snatch the words back.

Her smile dropped off of her face so fast that I almost swore that I heard it hit the floor, even with all the general noise of the cafeteria. She refused tomeet my eyes, and her cheeks burned a deep red, deeper than any time in recent memory that I’d ever seen.

"Hey; I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have even joked like that," I apologized, my smile joining hers in oblivion, "I take that back; try and forget that I said anything like that." I leaned forward, and touched her hand, briefly, letting her know my sincerity. To my credit, she didn’t pull away from me.

I sat back, and for a moment, we sat in awkward silence.

"Okay," I said, breaking the relative quiet between us, "let me turn that same question on you: who do you think about when you do it?"

"Her eyes lit up again in surprise and embarrassment, and her cheeks started to turn red again; the blush crept up her face, slowly coloring her cheeks. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.

"Oh, great," I said, half to myself, "Look at me: open mouth, insert foot." I paused for a second. "Look, I apologize again; today must be my day for being a jerk. You don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my business whether or not you masturbate, and it’s not a question I should be asking you." I offered up a small smile, so that she would know that I wasn’t being sarcastic or insincere with her.

She sat for a second, not looking at me. Then, she looked up, and nodded. And that was the end of that conversation.

She even asked me about Angelita.

That summer, last summer, was definitely a nice summer. I was working as the summer office assistant to the dean of the Ag/Life Sci school, I was TAing a summer bio course, and Lita was spending her free time with me. After that day we’d posed for art class, we’d kept in contact, getting together for lunch, or seeing—or renting—a movie, or just talking over the phone; we each realized the tension between us, and now we knew that each wanted the other, but we were still a bit reserved with each other.

However, we got over that within the two weeks we saw each other, from the end of spring classes to the start of summer ones.

After summer classes started, we got together for more serious dates, sometimes to hang out—which we hadn’t had time to do, really (just hanging out, with no time constraints, that is) during the two weeks of "down time"—and sometimes we were intimate together. Yeah, I told Sam; she wanted to know, and she was my friend. I wasn’t graphic—in fact, I didn’t even say anything specific about my personal time with Lita—I simply stressed that she—Lita—and I had decided that, while we clicked, and we had fun together, that we wouldn’t work as a committed couple. Besides the fact that we recognized that we were headed in similar, but different directions with our lives, we also each realized that there was something missing, that kept us from becoming One; Sam seemed to understand what I meant when I mentioned that to her. But, Lita and I also decided that we wouldn’t lose touch with each other once we’d graduated. And I’d told Sam that, too.

After that, for a while, Sam quizzed me about other relationships I’d had; I frequently turned her questions back around on her, but I never got much info. I pieced together that Sam wasn’t as……initiated, as I’d been. I also figured out that much of what she asked me, she asked me out of curiosity, a need to know factually, if not from experience, although I didn’t let on that I knew that about her.

Was she planning, even then, to ask me what she did?

*** *** *** *** *** ***

Our friendship grew by fits and starts; trusting me with the secret of her fear of thunderstorms was one great step; trusting in me enough to confide in me and ask me all of the things that she was too embarrassed to ask anyone else was another. Giving me someone to really trust was one things she did for me, and one of the things that advanced our friendship. She also gave me something else, something that I couldn’t name, or describe, just by her presence. It was undefinable, but very real, and I think that I wouldn’t be quite who I was if not for her.

I cared for her, nearly as much as I believed she cared for me, and there were times when my feelings toward her manifest themselves in disturbing ways, making me feel traitorous. But I’d never really found a way to show her how I felt.

And here I was, three days from leaving her behind, leaving her to the rising walls of this academic institution, with no one to help her climb her way out. I didn’t think for a minute that she wouldn’t manage without me, but what she had with me, and what I had with her, wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, had with anyone else. My traitorous sexual feelings that I’d had for her when we’d met had, over the course of our time together, transformed into something else, something more friendly, more familial, more pure, I think. And even now, now that I could hold her in my arms and think of how good it felt to be with someone I cared for and who cared for me, I couldn’t think of a way to tell her just how I cared for her, just how much I cared about her.

Distracted as I was over this, I wasn’t so distracted that I wasn’t paying attention to Sam. All day—and, as a matter of fact, since the day before, and on various occasions during the past two weeks; I’d noticed it even then—whenever we were alone, and Sam thought that I wasn’t looking at her, she would look at me, a question on her lips, fear etched on her face, and a longing for something in her eyes. The way she’d been acting had been making me just a little nervous, like she had something deep, meaningful, important, and unpleasant to say. A number of times, I’d almost stopped her in her tracks and yelped, "What? What is it?" just to get the tension out of the way. It was starting to drive me nuts.

But, I realized that that might not be the wisest thing to do; if she were afraid of telling me what was on her mind, trying to force her to tell me would only make her more so. Maybe she’ll let you know what it is when she’s finally ready to put words to it, some wise part of me thought, and having thought that, despite my trepidations about what she might have to say, I couldn’t do anything else but wait.

When we decided to get ready for bed, I offered my bed to her, and the futon for myself.

"I wanna sleep next to you," she said—not an unusual request; my offer to sleep in a separate bed, and her request to sleep next to me were nearly lines of a play; I offered, she rejected—it was almost like we had to go through the motions—and then she continued, "plus……there’s something I wanna talk to you about."

The words were like a pronouncement; I began preparing myself. Always, in my experience, whenever that particular line came up, there was bad news to follow, and no matter what type of news it was, or who it affected, I tried to make sure that I was prepared for it.

Sam was first in and out of the shower; I gave her a towel and some clothes to wear. That suddenly struck me as odd; for as much as Samantha spent the night with me—sometimes as much as three times a week—she’d never brought any of her clothes with her to sleep in.

After she’d finished, I took my turn, and thought of all of the things that she might say to me. Was her financial aid not going to be enough for her to come back to school in the fall? Did she not want to be my friend anymore? Was it something personal? I racked my brain, trying to figure it out, so I could steel myself for it. Losing that battle, I finally came out of the bathroom, dressed in my usual attire of a pair of sweatshorts, and sat down in my chair, across from the bed, where Sam was sitting. Idly, I noticed-- and immediately dismissed—that she’d turned on my stereo, and Mary J was playing in the CD tray.

"Jes……I…I have to tell you something."

So it was about her, not me. I relaxed a little. But, only a little; I still hadn’t heard what she had to say. I pulled my chair up closer to the bed, and sat back down.

She opened her mouth to speak; instead she closed it again, wet her lips, and flushed a gorgeous salmon color. She tried again, with the same result. She made a third attempt; this time, she spoke.

"Jes, you…you are……you’re very important to me…you’re my best friend, and I……I wouldn’t……I wouldn’t say this to…to anyone else……"

The tension in the air was so thick now that you could cut it with a knife. I’d always thought that was a stupid metaphor, but now I really understood it. I waited as patiently as I could, like a man condemned, for the other shoe to drop.

"I want you to be my first." She said it in a rush, as though she would lose her courage if she didn’t.

Her first? Her first what? I thought quickly. Somewhere in the back of my mind, alarms were going off, trying to warn me of her implications, trying to warn me of just what she was asking, trying to warn me of the irrevocable consequences of her unspoken words.

My brain patently refused to listen.

I couldn’t answer.

Suddenly, she seemed even less confident than before, even less assured, if that were possible. "I mean, I haven’t…" she began, then trailed off. After a second, she opened her mouth to speak again, wetting her lips again in the process.

"That is, I’ve never……" Again, she trailed off. She hopped off of the bed and shuffled the two steps to my chair. Then, looking into my eyes and putting her hands on my shoulders, she sat down in my lap, straddling my thighs.

"Please," she said softly, breathlessly, her face mere centimeters from mine.

Then she kissed me.