College in the 90s: Spring Break

April 22, 1999

Dear Pen Pal,

I know it's been months since I last wrote. I'm so sorry! It's completely unfair since you wrote me back within a week with all that advice on how to talk to Matt. I tried boosting his ego, I tried promising that it would never happen again, and I even tried offering to let him do anything he wanted to me sexually... Nothing worked. We had one long all-night phone call in January where we talked about what we meant to each other, but after that we broke up for good and he asked me never to call him again. He even blocked me on Instant Messenger!

I meant to write you back, but I was just so sad. Not like crying sad--I must have gotten all of that out during the phone call. It's more like I can't seem to get out of my own head. I didn't want to complain or bring you down too, so that's why it took me so long to write back.

I've been struggling to even make it to class in the snow, and taking notes has been even harder. All day I just long to be back in my dorm. All I wanted was just to stand naked in the shower and lean to the side to keep my head on the cool shower tile and think. Sarah and Mia would find me like this more times than I can count. They knew I was depressed, so they would insist on cheering me up with Golden Girls and dragging me to parties on the weekends. They said I should just make out with random guys to get past Matt, but it never worked. I had never really been rejected by guys in my league before, but I guess everyone could smell my desperation and I couldn't even find anyone to kiss.

Meanwhile my body still was on hormonal overdrive. I was waking up wet every morning from sex dreams during the night, and my fingers weren't going to cut it. I would say that I mustered the courage to buy my own vibrator, but it was more out of desperation and general dishevelment that I felt like no one in the porn shop would care what I bought. I found a nice fat purple one this time (I had long abandoned my green vibe to Stephanie) and made sure to lock it up in a box next to my pillow this time.

Stephanie was up early most mornings for workouts with the softball team, so I had plenty of time to try it out, but I couldn't seem to cum no matter what I fantasized about. I was stuck and I had no idea how to dig myself out.

But then Sarah got fed up with me and said I was falling in love with my sadness as a replacement for some stupid boy. She challenged me to a swim-off and said I was only allowed to keep moping if I could swim more laps than her. She won, of course. But we started swimming together with Mia every day, and that really seemed to help a lot. Well that and stalking Matt in my freetime.

I started following him on some message boards he was on, and chatted up some of his Oberlin friends on Instant Messenger. I'm sad to say that I even figured out his email password and started reading everything he was writing. Of course none of it was about me, and that fact just sent me spiralling. But one afternoon in the shower I had a realization: relationships are defined at the start and it's impossible to really change them. In that moment, I just accepted that because we had defined our relationship as a summer fling, Matt and I were not meant to last. It seems stupid and simple, but after two months of sadness that was all it took to scatter the dark clouds hanging over my head.

Again, I'm sorry I didn't write for so long--I hope you see now it wasn't personal. In a feeble attempt to make up for it, I pressed the bottom of this letter against my vag just now. I get so wet all the time and I need someone to share it with! And I kind of like the lip shapes it made. It's like I kissed it with clear lipstick on!

And oh my god, so much has been happening over the past month! I hope you don't mind if I bore you with all the details?

So a couple of days after my big break through, I strained a back muscle swimming freestyle to try and catch up with Sarah. It wasn't a big deal, but it was definitely more than a hot shower could resolve. The next day I was standing outside complaining about it after a class when this guy volunteered to massage it out for me. He wasn't super cute or anything, but it was the nicest thing any guy had offered to do for me in a while, and it noticeably caused me to smile. I was conscious of it because I hadn't used those muscles in a while I guess.

His name was Jason and he gave me his number and said to call him after 5 p.m. when I was done with classes for the day. We ended up meeting in one of the activity rooms in his dorm next to the dorm radio station in the basement. I guess his dorm offered athletic department massages after some athletic events, and he had access to the room and massage table because he worked as a tennis team trainer.

I asked him to face the door as I took off my shirt and bra and then I climbed on the table facedown. I didn't really know what to expect because I've never had a professional or athletic massage, but I was so desperate for touch that I had no reservations about letting a stranger rub me. Jason is pretty average in terms of his height and build, so I was surprised at how quickly his strong hands were able to tease out my back kink. He then went on to massage my back for another half hour, and by the end I was so turned on that I was hoping he'd flip me over and just start fingering me.

I must have been dreaming because he stopped at half an hour and I heard him ask, "How was it?" (I think he may have been talking the whole time but I was in a trance.)

"Amazing!" I murmured. "I feel like a new person."

"That's the best compliment I've ever gotten on my rubdowns. Most of the tennis players struggle with tight forearms and it's hard for me to get everything out," he said.

I faced away from him and pulled my shirt back on. "Hey, to repay you, why don't I take you to a party on Friday?"

"Yeah, that'd be cool," he said. "You have my number, just call me when you have the time and place."

Jason has dirty blonde hair and a skinny face with no stubble. Nothing about him really made me want to talk to him more, but I had to do something after a massage like that. Of course, when I told Sarah and Mia about him later that night, they wanted me to hook up with him. I told them they might change their minds when they saw him.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much going on the first week of March because everyone was studying for midterms. The best "party" I could find was a gathering of about 20 people who wanted to play drinking games in an acquaintance's double room on our floor on Friday night. It ended up being a pretty low-key affair as we watched other freshmen who couldn't handle their beer pass out from downing Keystone Light too quickly from their red Solo cups. But about 2 hours into the party, there was a break in the music, and then the host (a girl named Katie) turned off the music because there were strange sounds coming from the neighboring dorm room. It turns out that when the neighbor and the neighbor's boyfriend have sex, they make a lot of noise from all the spanking that's involved.

I guess Katie had gotten used to it, but the rest of us who weren't passed out found this completely hilarious and unexpected. Listening to them fucking and spanking each other sent us into hysterics, and I must have retweeked my back when I fell to the floor laughing. I was eventually able to let Jason know I'd need another massage session in between laughing fits, and we stumbled out of the room together and laughed all the way back to his room in Parks Tower.

I remember taking off my clothes and him rubbing my back for a couple minutes, but we must have passed out after that. I woke up naked lying half on top of him. It was definitely not a sexy feeling--more like disorienting and wondering what the fuck happened. One of my breasts was pressed against his chest and I remember it feeling weird because he had no chest hair.

"Woah," I said as I rolled off him to my left. "I guess we drank too much last night."

"Hmm?" he whispered as he struggled to open his eyes.

I wrapped a blanket around myself and stared at the ceiling, unsure of what to do next. I didn't have the energy to get up, but my back didn't hurt anymore so I didn't have much reason to be there.

"Last night sure was crazy," I said. "I still can't get over how into spanking those people were."

"Why?" said Jason who was now at least cognizant.

"I mean, my parents spanked me as a kid, but I've never thought of it as something sexual," I said.

"Hey, if that's what they're into, who cares?" Jason said. "Besides, butts have tons of nerves and are major erogenous zones. That's why when we have to massage someone's butt, we try to have the same gender do it."

"Really? I guess I never thought about it before," I said.

"Has no one ever given you a butt massage before?" He asked.

I didn't have time to answer.

"Here, climb on up and I'll show you," he said, patting his bare chest.

I looked at him with raised eyebrows for a while. We both knew that there was no way I could position myself on top of him naked without showing him everything. I was about two seconds away from telling this skinny team manager that it was time to go, but I closed my eyes to think and the vision of his triceps bulging out as he massaged my back appeared in my mind. I guess anyone has at least one redeeming quality!

"Ok, but don't touch my pussy. I don't know if I even like you," I said with a mischievous smile.

"Yes mam," he said as I climbed on top of him.

I buried my face in the blanket and tried not to think about the view I was giving Jason. But his hands moved quickly to cup the tops of my cheeks as he bent his arms so that his thumbs would press into the outer part of my butt.

"That should release your hips," he said as he moved his thumbs in hard penetrating circular motions.

After a couple of minutes of that, I felt all my muscles in my lower body relax. And while I had initially had my butt up in the air and my back arched, I felt myself fall and I put all my body weight on top of him.

"Am I crushing you?" I asked. I mean, he couldn't have been taller than 5'6", so it was a real concern.

"Nope," Jason replied. "But I am going to stop using deep tissue massage and switch to a light touch so that you can feel all your nerves."

And just like magic, all I could feel were his finger tips gliding across my butt, making sweeping circles as they barely caressed my skin. I re-entered my trance, and started having hallucinatory visions of a soft rug my grandma had when I was a kid. Who knows all of the crazy thoughts that were popping into my mind. But I will say this for Jason, he never indicated that the butt massage would come to an end and his stamina seemed infinite.

I was focused entirely on his fingertips, and they felt so good that I didn't flinch as his fingertips began gliding up and down my crack. In fact, I think I arched my back to meet them. But then I felt a finger on my b-hole! The audacity! I quickly began shaking my butt back and forth to get the finger out of there, and when that didn't work I looked back at him and said, "Wha. Wha. What are you doing?"

"Shh," he said. "It only works if you give in to it. Focus on how soft I make you feel."

Somehow, his whispering voice and his right tricep made me collapse my head back into the blankets. And I realized he was right! My hole started to feel like it was the softest thing in the entire world. I don't fully understand how it happened, but I ended up laying there for what felt like an hour as he rubbed his thumb gently up and down my crack. I started to feel my hole pulse each time his thumb crossed it. And then...I drifted off.

I woke to my face in a pool of drool on his pillow. I'd never felt more relaxed in my whole life.

"Thanks for letting me give you a butt massage," Jason said. "I'd always thought I could make someone fall asleep to it, but that's not exactly something I would do for someone on the team."

"Did we have sex?" I asked.

"No," he said. "Who do you think I am?"

"I don't know. I don't even know you. And now you're dressed and I'm laying naked in your bed," I said indignantly.

"Listen, what I just gave you is a gift. It was done out of kindness. If you feel like I hurt you or tried to take advantage of you, I'd like you to leave," he said.

I knew he was right. I reached down to stroke my muff and I realized how wet I was, and my clit ached because it hadn't been touched in so long, and definitely not by Jason.

"Thanks for that," I mumbled. "Sorry I just feel disoriented. It felt like an out of body experience."

I managed a smile as I pulled my wrinkled clothes back on. I gave him a parting smile over my shoulder as I left.

That Saturday was a blur. Mia and Sarah pressed me for details, but I didn't know what to tell them. I mean, was I supposed to tell them the truth? Who would believe that a dork gave me a butt massage so good that I hallucinated and passed out. And what about the people we had made fun of for spanking each other? This whole butt massage thing has opened a whole new sexual world to me, and you, pen pal, are probably the only person I can talk to about it because I don't have to look you in the eyes. A couple hours ago I had associated butts with poop, and now I was starting to feel like I had another sex organ. I gave my butt a squeeze, but felt nothing sexual. I even stroked my butt hole a couple times, but it did nothing for me. How the fuck did Jason make it feel so soft?

I laid in bed awake the next couple of nights just trying to process what had happened. I tried searching the internet for "butt massage," but I couldn't find anything useful. All I know is that it made me wet as fuck just thinking about it. I tried using my vibrator to, uh, massage the tension away, but I still couldn't cum. I wanted to scream, but I didn't even have the words.

I avoided eye contact with Jason in my Italian class and made it a point to walk to my next class right away. I didn't want to date him. And there was no way someone like him should have been touching my most sensitive spot. It all felt off, and my frustration turned to anger or orneriness or whatever after about a week.

Mia said she felt the same way; I mean about being frustrated. So we grabbed Sarah and instead of swimming that afternoon, we ran around campus until the sun was about to go down. It was the perfect day for it because there was a light spring breeze and it was over 70 degrees for the first time that year. The leaves were just about to pop in the trees, and all the sweat from the long run made me feel invigorated for the first time since the fall. Spring was in the air and we could smell it.

Sarah suggested we run through the fountain before heading back to the dorm, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. But as we got there and started getting sprayed, Mia let out a loud "Ughhh."

And with that she pulled her sports bra over her head and threw it into some bushes.

To say that was out of character would be an understatement. I mean, Mia showered in a bathing suit! I had walked around my room in just a tshirt so many times that I'm sure every girl on our floor had seen my muff at least once, but Mia never left her room without flannel pants at a minimum. And now here she was with her tits out in the middle of campus! I mean, it was dark and no one was outside during midterms week. But all Sarah and I could do was stare.

"I hope you guys don't mind," Mia said with a grin. "That stupid bra had been cutting into me for the past half hour. And I'm sick of doing what everyone expects of me! I don't know why I even need to wear that stupid thing."

Brushing the fountain spray from her face Sarah said, "Uh, no one is making you wear anything. But how are you going to run without one? Your breasts are huge!"

And they were. And Mia made no effort to hide them. In fact she stood up straighter to puff them out. She cupped each of them, moved her hands up and down a couple times while saying, "Pew! Pew!" And then she ran back to the dorm. We found her in a shower stall wearing her usual bathing suit.

"Sorry if I scandalized you. I just felt like doing something naughty!" Mia said.

Sarah said, "Uh, ok..."

And with that we each took our normal shower and went back to our own rooms. But Sarah called me on the phone a minute later.

"What the fuck was that all about?" Sarah demanded as if I had any answers. "I mean, did she use the word 'naughty'? What happened to Mia the engineer? She's acting like a child!"

"She's definitely too big to be a child," I said with a laugh.

"I know, right? Who knew she was hiding boobs like that! But don't you think it's a little perverted the way she was acting?" Sarah asked.

"Maybe she's acting out, but can you blame her?" I said. "I mean I still feel guilty and self-conscious from being raised Catholic. Who knows what it was like growing up in Pakistan?"

"Ughh." Sarah moaned. "We have to help her get past this. It's spring and I want to have fun! I don't want to get arrested as some kind of accessory to this."

So we hung up after making plans to talk to Mia tomorrow after dinner. I was nervous about confronting a friend, but mainly I was curious about how she was raised. It had taken me all of high school to even acknowledge I had my own sexuality, and it wasn't until one night with Matt that I had even felt comfortable in my own skin. It was a night last summer, and I was feeling sad after a conversation with my parents where they said I was living in sin. I went to Matt's apartment and we talked for a while. Then he took off all my clothes and had me stand in front of his bathroom mirror. He stood behind me, naked too, and had me look at myself while he gently ran his hands and hard penis all over my body while simultaneously complimenting everything about me. That went on for what felt like the whole night, but by the end I think I had started to see myself the way he looked at me. It's probably the most transformative thing that ever happened to me. But I had no idea how I could do something equally powerful for my friend.

The next day we all ended up hanging out in my room after dinner to listen to a Destiny's Child CD that Stephanie just bought. I didn't want a confrontation so I tried to start out with a question.

"Hey Mia, you never told us what it was like growing up in Pakistan. Is it a lot different than here?" I asked.

"Oh yeah," she said with a smile. "The main difference is that I was always surrounded by family there. And I always had responsibilities in the house so I rarely left our property. It was usually hot during the day, so we'd stay inside and read. But at night, my Nanni would put me in a pretty dress and we'd go out into our garden and dance to the radio."

"What was the biggest difference you encountered when you came to America?" Stephanie asked?

"That's easy! Here we had no family so it was always just me and my mom, and we spent most of our time outside of the house. Whether it was driving to school or shopping in huge supermarkets or walking in parks during the day," Mia said. "That may not seem like a big deal, but I started to go through puberty right after we moved and my mother became super-defensive."

"Super-defensive, like how?" I asked.

"In Pakistan I never had to cover up, but here my mother always made me wear a headscarf. I can still sometimes hear her in my head! She was always yelling, 'Yameena! Don't forget to cover up, jani.' I think she was afraid I would distract boys from their studying or something. And then when my boobs started growing she'd drape a shawl around my neck. It sucked. I felt like an 80-year-old gypsy during the years when I just wanted a boy to smile at me."