Advanced Primatology Ch. 01

She didn't normally study chimps, but Brian had suggested the idea. Maybe if she could make some insightful comparisons between bonobos and chimps then her theory about female mate selection would get some more attention and respect. It seemed worth a shot. Most of her other ideas for summer fieldwork had failed to work out. So she agreed, more out of lack of better ideas about what to do with the summer then any real enthusiasm.

But the timing of her trip, much to her surprise and pleasure, had turned out to be perfect! A couple of days before they were scheduled to leave Chapel Hill the head naturalist at the field station called up to say that the group's "alpha male" had suddenly vanished (no one knew where or why) and the group dynamic among the chimps was shifting in ways no one had ever seen before. She couldn't wait to get up there! This would be a golden opportunity to study the role the female chimps played in choosing a new dominant male (if there even were dominant males!). If her theory was correct, primatologists had for too longed focused on the big showy displays of aggression among competing males. Typical guys! Including her husband, though she loved and admired him. But Kate was convinced that the real decisions about who mated with whom, and when, and how often, were being made behind the scenes, among the women. Females, she had meant to say.

Her mind raced thinking of the thousand little tasks she had to get done before the group set out by charter flight for the rain forest in two days. The stress alone would have been enough to keep her awake. But to make matters worse she was about to get her period, and for some reason (maybe the long plane trip?) she'd come down with an epic case of menstrual cramps. She really wished her husband were there. A good hard orgasm was always the surest remedy for her dreaded monthly cramps, and Brian was not at all squeamish about having sex with her while she was "on the rag." She hated that expression. So degrading. Why had she even thought of it?

They'd been together for fifteen years, and they'd been married for eight, but they still had an active and fulfilling sex life, though maybe not as electrifying as when she'd first met him back at Berkeley. She'd been an eighteen-year-old undergraduate who idolized Jane Goodall and was hell-bent on becoming a world famous primatologist. A strange dream for a young woman, she realized. He was a twenty-five-year-old graduate student and her TA in "Introduction to Hominoid Psychology."

They'd run into each other on the quad one summer afternoon after the class had ended. They were both staying on campus over the break to do lab work. He was on his way back from a pick-up soccer game and his sweaty t-shirt clung tightly to his hard body, revealing the shape of his chiseled chest and abs underneath. She was blushing like crazy as they chatted casually, Brian eyeing her up and down once or twice (she was sure she'd caught him) while praising her for her stellar performance in his lab section. His compliments about her schoolwork went straight to her heart, and the sight and scent of him went straight to her crotch.

Within a couple of weeks they were dating and having great sex almost nightly. They had to keep things quiet around the anthropology department with her being an undergrad and all, barely legal even. But by Kate's junior year she'd moved in with him in his tiny apartment in Oakland. After all these years together he was still an attentive lover. He almost always got her off. Yeah, she really wished he were here.

She reached a hand down into her panties, not even thinking about it really, and was surprised to find that she was dripping wet. She threw the sheets off, her frustration bubbling over, and realized that she'd taken off her shirt somehow earlier in the night, probably half asleep and tired of the oppressive humidity. It was a nice hotel but the air conditioners were on the blink.

"Ugh, Chad, fuck me, ugh."

The mattress vibrated a little harder as the headboard slammed into the wall. It felt like the sound was inside her head. She had a crashing migraine.

Chad? Wasn't that the name of one of her students from "Primate Anthropology" last term? One of the bright ones who'd signed up for the trip? She couldn't put a name to the face but she was almost sure of it. O my God! Were those two of her students having sex in there? And which girl, she wondered? Young woman, she meant to say.

Her eyes had adjusted by now to the moonlit room and when she looked down at herself she almost laughed out loud. The sight of her was too ridiculous. There she was, splayed out sweaty and nearly naked on a quaking mattress, with her hand down her panties as the couple next door continued to screw each other senseless.

"Ugh, Chad, so big, ugh god, Chad."

The headboard slammed so hard she thought it might break through the wall. Her own mattress began to rock rhythmically. "What are they doing in there?" she laughed to herself. Jesus, her own bed was shaking so hard it was almost like she was the one getting laid. If only! Her husband was probably asleep somewhere above the Pacific Ocean by now. She looked down and realized that her breasts were jiggling, quite a lot actually, keeping time with the frenzied thrusts of the couple next door.

She wanted to pound her fist on the wall in frustration, but she was too embarrassed. What if she ran into them in the hall tomorrow and they realized it had been her? What if they were her students? She lay still for a while, fuming silently.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, the most absurd thought crossed her mind. What if she just went with it? What if she just fingered herself to orgasm right then and there, using the sounds and feel of the sex next door to help bring her over the edge? She did find them strangely arousing. And at least her cramps would go away then. No, it was too absurd.

But once the thought crossed her mind, she couldn't get rid of it. It would be no different than taking some medicine, really. Wouldn't it? And maybe her headache would go away too. She closed her eyes and reached her hand down between her legs, her crotch soaking now, beginning to enjoy the feel of the rocking mattress as she fingered herself lightly, starting to get into it. She tried to picture Brian on the quad that day when they'd felt the first electric jolts of attraction, when they'd become mates for life.

"Chad, fuck me, like that, like that."

Their grunts and moans were just too distracting. "Ridiculous," she said to herself.

"Ugh, Chad, so big, fuck me," she called out mockingly, but not loud enough that anyone might hear. She stood up and walked over to her computer, crazed with frustration. If she wasn't going to sleep at least she could get some work done.

As she began sorting through old emails about the trip, and started to calm down a little, she thought how happy she was for Brian with all his professional success of late. He'd worked hard for a long time and he deserved it. But she was also kind of angry with him deep down. Maybe it was just the PMS talking, but she couldn't help feeling annoyed at him for not coming on the research trip with her. True it had been sweet of him to fly with her here and spent a long weekend with her on the beach and in the hotel bed. They'd made love six or seven times and it had been some of their best sex in years. And, yes, there were some vague plans for him to drop by the field station for a couple of days two weeks from now. He'd be doing a lecture in Rome and could swing through on his way to Tokyo maybe.

"If we're lucky you'll be ovulating!" he'd half teased. But she didn't expect he'd really be able to visit in the end.

Yeah, it was the pregnancy issue that had gotten her so worked up about everything. For years he'd been so eager to knock her up and start a family, and now that she had finally agreed, and gone off her birth control pills so they could start trying, he was off on a global lecture tour to soak up the acclaim of his fellow tenured scientists (most of them male, she couldn't help noting). Come to think of it, going off the pill was probably why her cramps were so bad now.

It was also probably why their sex over the weekend had been so especially enjoyable. The hormone shift had apparently made the pleasure circuits in her brain go haywire. She'd loved every minute of it. And the thought of actually conceiving a baby gave their sex an extra illicit thrill. She still felt strange letting him cum inside her knowing they weren't using any kind of protection at all. It went against all the safe habits she'd instilled in herself as an ambitious career-minded young woman who most definitely did not want to be sidetracked by a baby, at least not until recently.

She really had loved it. A couple of times, when she felt Brian's sperm shoot out hard against her cervix, she'd cum almost instantly. Long, mind-blowing orgasms as she dug her heels into his butt and clawed his back like some wild cat in heat. But Brian had loved it even more! He'd cum gallons inside her over the last 48 hours, just the thought of putting a baby in her belly making his testicles go into overdrive. She was pretty sure they weren't her fertile days, though.

She hated all that stuff about charting your temperature on an ovulation calendar and inspecting your cervical mucus every morning to see if it was clear and stretchy, like an egg white. It felt so clinical, almost demeaning. Like her body was nothing more than a simple baby-making machine. The scientist in her knew that this was true in many respects. Her body had evolved to be able to procreate successfully. But she didn't like thinking of sex with her husband in those crude terms. So she didn't keep track her temperature. She was pretty sure she wouldn't have ovulated so close to her period though. Maybe she should look it up online?

"Ugh, ugh, ugh, Chad, big."

Well, Brian not being around for the trip was probably for the best anyway. She had grown to want a baby very badly over the last year or so, it was true, partly because it would make Brian so ridiculously happy, and partly because he'd been so relentlessly talking up the idea. But the timing was also extremely complicated with her tenure deadlines approaching. What if she actually did get pregnant now?

"Oh yeah, Elise, just like that, yeah."

"Oh god, Chad, oh fuck, yes."

The headboard stopped pounding and Kate heard the sound of muffled laughter and soft voices through the wall. The festivities seemed to be over for now.

Holy shit, thought Kate, suddenly realizing. That must be Elise Rice getting pounded in there. Was this "Chad" guy her steady boyfriend? He must be. Elise didn't seem at all like the type to hook up with a guy the first night she met him, let alone go all the way with him. Let alone twice. Kate shook her head and laughed. What did she know about it? She'd been with just Brian since she was a teenager.

Chad . . . she really couldn't put a face to the name. Almost without realizing it she typed the name into the search box on her email account. Chad Berwick. Yes, that was him. She had an email from him asking her to excuse some absences from her class last semester due to travel for the soccer team. Another message confirmed that he'd be one of the undergraduate assistants on the Uganda trip.

Chad Berwick . . . she was starting to remember him now. Before she knew it she had typed his name into google, and a split second letter she was clicking on the image results. Some action shots from the big UNC match against Duke last fall. He'd scored an important goal apparently and one quite nice photo showed him celebrating next to the corner flag, his arms spread wide with a huge boyish smile on his face and a look of sheer joy in his deep blue eyes. He was definitely cute.

He was smart and polite, too, now that she remembered him. He'd come up to talk to her about some questions after class a couple of times, and she'd been struck by his respectful attitude and the careful attention he was obviously paying to her lectures. She felt like a snob for even thinking it, but she'd been surprised to find such brains and good manners in a kid from the Carolina foothills. So different than Pasadena, where she'd grown up. His accent gave him away instantly. Still, even with that black mark against him, she imagined that a lot of the nerdy girls like Elise would find him irresistible. Young women, she meant to say. God, what was going on with her tonight?

Kate's hand was on her stomach now, playing with the dark hairs just above her panty line, as she idly scrolled through the search results. She really should go back to bed. She noticed the link for his Facebook profile. She clicked on it automatically. There weren't many photos, and most of them were fairly uninteresting. High school graduation and prom shots. He's definitely adorable, though, she had to admit. She should really go back to bed now that the noise had died down. Maybe she'd be able to relax enough to bring herself to orgasm and finally get some rest.

She looked down and suddenly noticed where her hand was. Her nipples were rock hard. "God, Kate, you are so crazy when you menstruate." She stayed rooted in her chair, looking at the picture of Chad in his cheap rented tuxedo, with his goofy, oddly charming grin. I wonder if he got laid at his prom? I bet he did.

What was that thing that her postdoc Karin had shown her how to do? That time when she was trying to make sure that they were no inappropriate pictures of her on Facebook—pictures that her friends had posted and tagged of her when she was younger that might undermine the professional image she worked so hard to maintain? Wasn't there some way you could search for tagged photos of a person that were accessible to everyone on Facebook? O yeah, now she remembered. It felt wrong, but what the hell. She was bored and angry and what else was she going to do at five o'clock in the morning, exhausted, alone in a hotel room? A couple of clicks and a whole new set of photos flashed up on the screen.

These were much more interesting. Chad doing sit-ups and bench presses in the UNC gym surrounded by other sweaty young athletes. Chad shirtless at the beach in Hilton Head last summer with a group of scantily clad friends, both guys and girls. A full length portrait of Chad wrapped in a towel at his high school swim meet two years ago. O my god! Another one of Chad at a swim meet holding a big trophy this time, in nothing but a speedo, facing the camera with his boyish grin.

"Is this even legal to be looking at," Kate laughed to herself? She'd never done anything like this before. He had just the kind of body she liked best, she caught herself thinking, blushing fiercely as soon as she realized. Long and lean like her husband's, but without the slight paunch of impending middle age. And it was hard to tell, but he looked like he was sporting a nice package too. Definitely in Brian's league.

She really loved her husband's big penis. Nine inches hard, and a nice width. It wasn't that bigger ones could do anything different physically, she reasoned, though there was all that nonsense she'd read about "cervical orgasms" and such, but still, even so, there was something powerful about the idea of a big one, as if it gave her a different level of mental satisfaction. Not that she'd ever tried more than a few of them. She pictured the whole length of Brian's cock plunging into her and out of her as she lay back on the old bed in Berkeley, looking down the length of her body at it with rapt fascination, as Brian's tight abs kept working and working.

Her fingers worked their way beneath her panties and down toward her crotch, almost with a mind of their own. Her pussy was on fire! She wasn't surprised at all to feel the wetness between her legs. She was drenched.

"You've got to be kidding me," she gasped out loud, realizing that Chad was still smiling at her from the screen, with his tight body in nothing but a speedo.

This was definitely her menstrual cycle messing with her. Getting her period always made her horny as hell, and it was worse without the pill. She remembered the title of that internet forum she'd read last month when Brian was out of town, after she'd masturbated three times in one night: "Why Do I Become a Walking Vagina when I Menstruate?"

Why indeed?

She realized she was still staring at Chad on her screen, appreciating the definition in his abs, the thin waist, the powerful hips.

Jesus Christ, Kate!, she thought to herself. Was she actually getting off now on some picture of a cute kid from her lecture? This was crazy? Right?

Even if there's no harm in it? (It's not like he would ever know).

Even if it would make her cramps feel better and help her sleep?

Even if he's got a chiseled body and a big bulge?

Her pointer finger began tracing small circles on her clitoris. Her stomach muscles relaxed. It felt nice.

"Uh uh. No. No way," she said aloud.

She stood up quickly and walked toward the sliding doors that led to her patio. As she walked past the closet, she caught a glimpse of herself, naked except for her tiny panties, in the full-length mirror. "Not bad," she thought, satisfied with her toned body and full, womanly figure. It was no wonder that the boys left those degrading comments about her on ratemyprofessors.com. She'd tried to have them removed but they were still up there for the world to see. Would they count against her somehow for tenure? Women were always being treated unfairly about such things, as if their sex appeal was some kind of crime.

Kate snapped up her t-shirt from the floor where she'd thrown it and put it on hurriedly as she strode out onto the patio. The sun was just coming up over the mild surf. The tide was all the way in. In two days she'd be in the rain forest.

To be continued . . .