Come As You Are Ch. 07

"Want to go sit down? Get some water?"

"No," Michelle answered with another shake of her head. She saw the worry on his face and smiled. "Just keep an eye on me." She tried to lose herself again in the music, but there was a new distraction. Between her legs was slight pressure, one she immediately recognized as a sign.

She blamed the booze, the dancing, and the crush of humanity against her. Michelle even considered it her body's suggestion to relieve the last of the day's stress. But she couldn't help opening her eyes and stealing a glance at Gio and Irina. Her eyes went wide as she saw Irina with her hand inside Gio's zipper. With her body pressed against his, her other hand discreetly covered the opening while her fingers manipulated the firm flesh inside Gio's pants. Only the angle and close distance allowed Michelle to see what was happening. Gio's eyes dropped shut, a reaction that caused Irina to smile as she continued working him.

There wasn't any warning or build-up. One second Michelle was looking at her friends in surprise. The next, she was feeling that building pressure in her lower body. The warmth she had experienced earlier had returned. It gave her body a slight tremor as she watched Irina work without a care in the world, causing Gio to groan.

Michelle didn't know why her body was reacting as it was. Licking her lips, she could feel every drop of sweat against her skin as she watched. She continued dancing, which only served to urge her body a little more. Confused, but getting turned on...

"Oh my God," she heard Garrett proclaim so only she could hear. "Is she giving Gio a handjob?"

Michelle fought the urge to squeeze her legs together, knowing that trying to relieve the pressure would only make it worse. Gio was gritting his teeth as Irina's hand turned in his zipper, working on a different part of his anatomy now.

Turning towards Garrett, Michelle began to ask him a question. That was until she caught a good look at him. Garrett's faded blue shirt clung to his body. His brown hair was shot with sweat, and the act of running his hand through it, a nervous tic Michelle remembered from back in middle school, had inadvertently styled it, causing it to stand up somewhat straight. His skin had taken on a tan, both from three years of living in Florida and several days of skiing under clear blue skies. Standing with his hands on his hips showed off the definition of his lean, muscular forearms, and the upper arms weren't too bad either - the signs of someone who had embraced swimming over weightlifting as Gio had. The flashing lights accentuated his cheekbones and jawline, and on occasion they caught his emerald eyes, causing them to sparkle.

Garrett West, the quiet, scrawny, skinny scarecrow she had never cared for in high school, had become confident and strikingly handsome. And her alcohol infused-brain wasn't quite ready to process that information.

She shook her head, managing to find her words. "What do you think?" She nodded to Irina and Gio as they pushed against each other. One of Gio's hands squeezed Irina's firm breast, causing her to sigh deeply.

"I'm seeing my best friend get a handy in public," he answered. "Right now I'm thinking 'good for him.'"

She could feel her nipples pushing against the fabric of her bra. "Does...does that do anything to you?" She looked over at Garrett. "Or for you?"

Garrett didn't quite see Michelle's face as he shrugged, his focus on his friend a few feet away. "If this was on television or the Internet, maybe. But this is happening right in front of me... Are you... Is this doing something for you?"

Michelle opened her mouth to speak but stopped herself at the last second. They might have buried the hatchet, however, there was no way in hell she was going to tell him that watching her roommate and her friend from high school had caused her to go from zero-to-horny in the space of a few minutes. Garrett was still looking at her, curiosity etched on his face, but before she could come up with an excuse he looked up. "I guess they're done."

She turned to see Gio gently removing Irina's hand from his pants. While he was smiling, there was a pout on Irina's face. Gio gave a small shake of his head before mouthing the word "Later," which turned the pout into a frown. The frown went away however when Gio leaned down and kissed her, doing so while discreetly zipping himself back up.

The pair separated before coming over to Michelle and Garrett. "Hey," Gio said, "we're ready to go... "

"Looks like it," Garrett interrupted with a smirk on his face.

Gio was the type to blush. But Irina wasn't. She reached over and patted Gio firmly on his chest. "The music, and the dancing, and this guy's body... you guys want to go, or do you two want to stay?"

"I'm good to go," Michelle answered quickly. The heat and pressure were still throbbing inside of her. "Garrett?" He nodded in agreement.

"Mind grabbing my coat then?" Irina couldn't help but give Garrett and Michelle a smirk of her own. "I have to wash my hands first."

X X X X X

"Good night," Irina said as soon as the foursome stepped into the foyer of the lodge. "We'll try not to be too loud!" She was pulling Gio by the hand as she made her statement. The future lovers didn't even bother to take their coats off while they rushed towards the steps leading to the master bedroom.

Garrett gave a loud laugh as he took off his parka. "I don't think I've ever seen Gio dragged along like that." After hanging up his coat in the closet Garrett reached towards Michelle, who shrugged off her black overcoat and handed it to him. "Hey," he called out, "I'm gonna put some Gatorade by the door in case you need it!"

"Thanks, man!" Gio's voice echoed from the far side of the lodge as he and Irina were already halfway up the stairs.

"How are you holding up?" Garrett asked Michelle as she stepped inside. "You looked a little unsteady walking up the hill."

"Just tipsy," she answered. Michelle still felt the effects of five gin and tonics, but that was all. Her state of arousal had gone down from the ten-minute walk up the hill in below-freezing temperatures. The night air nipping at her body had been enough to calm her.

Garrett headed towards the kitchen while Michelle climbed the steps. "I'm going to take a shower," she called down to him. "I shouldn't be too long if you want to take one."

"Nah. I shower in the mornings. Helps me wake up. Just let me hit the head first?" Garrett came out of the kitchen with a blue bottle of Gatorade. He followed Michelle up the steps before placing the bottle on the floor just outside the bedroom door. Both of them could hear giggling coming from the other side.

Michelle stopped outside her bedroom door. As Garrett passed she said, "Knock on the bathroom door when you're done, OK?"

"I shouldn't be long. Good night Michelle."

X X X X X

Michelle paused as she toweled off her hair. Turning her head slightly to one side, she stood motionless for a moment before shrugging and going back to drying her hair. After a few seconds, she froze again. This time she definitely heard something - a cry of pleasure.

It would have been a loud scream if it wasn't for the walls between Michelle's room and the master bedroom. Even though the cry was muffled Michelle instantly recognized that it had come from Irina. Standing next to her bed in just a pair of black panties, Michelle heard Irina make several exclamations to her deity of choice followed by proclamations of Gio's sexual prowess. In between her statements Michelle could make out the squeaking of bedsprings. The noise came at a rapid pace, which would go a long way towards explaining Irina's heightened volume.

Michelle sighed before she finished drying her hair. She had expected to possibly hear a few snippets of Gio and Irina's nocturnal activities. Instead, there was a real chance she was going to hear their entire evening blow-by-blow. The concept didn't appeal to her in the slightest. Michelle was worn out from the day's activities and she wanted nothing more than to crawl under the covers and go to sleep.

She pulled on her faded gray nightshirt and turned out the lights. The bed was soft and well broken in, with clean sheets and fresh pillowcases. Underneath a blanket and a heavy quilt, Michelle turned onto her side and curled up. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing in an attempt to lull herself to sleep. As she tried, however, each breath was greeted with an uninvited guest in the form of a yell, cry, grunt, or squeak of the mattress in the master bedroom.

After a few minutes, Michelle sat up in frustration. If their efforts on the dance floor were any indication, Gio and Irina were going the distance. She needed to drown out the noise somehow or else she'd end up tossing and turning all night.

Michelle grabbed her iPhone from the nightstand. Music might be enough to drown them out. She reached down off the bed and fished through her bag for her headphones, only to not find them. Frowning, she checked again, eventually pulling the bag onto the bed with her for a thorough search, only to confirm that her headphones were indeed missing. After a few seconds of thought, Michelle closed her eyes and sighed. She had left them in Irina's car, which was currently sitting in her driveway back in Salt Lake City.

The noises were still emanating from the master bedroom as Michelle went over her options. She could grab a pillow and blanket and head down to the living room, but the wide open nature of the lodge wouldn't ensure total silence. Her eyes drifted towards the bathroom door. Garrett's room was on the other end of the jack-and-jill suite. Maybe he had a pair of headphones she could borrow. If worse came to worse she could maybe just throw a blanket and pillow down on the floor or possibly convince him to give her the bed and sleep on the floor. Garrett seemed gentleman enough for that.

She got up from the bed and walked through the shared bathroom. "Garrett," she called out as she rapped her first softly against the door leading to his room. "Are you awake?" Silence answered her. After a moment she knocked again with more force. "Garrett, it's Michelle. I need to talk to you for a minute."

Once again an answer wasn't forthcoming. Sighing, Michelle went to knock a third time when she heard a quiet grunt come from the other side of the door. Damn it. She must have woken him up. "Garrett," she called loudly. "Can I come in?" The answer was another unintelligible sound. Michelle paused for a moment before putting her hand on the doorknob. If she had just woken him up, maybe he was groggy and couldn't quite formulate words.

The lights were off in his room. The only illumination came from the moonlight spilling through the window on the balcony door. "Hey," she said, "sorry to wake you up. I need..."

It took a second for Michelle's mind to realize that she hadn't woken Garrett up. He was still awake, lying in bed with a pair of headphones attached to an iPod.

He was also naked. And masturbating.

Garrett's eyes were closed as he lay on his back. His teeth bit at his lower lip as several gasps and a deep sigh escaped his body. In the brief moment, before she slapped a hand over her eyes, Michelle had an eyeful of Garrett that was unintentionally burned into her brain. An image of a fit body and one hand gripping an erect penis. Before she could turn around and head back to her bedroom, however...

"What... HOLY SHIT!" She could hear the headphones being ripped off his ears and the sound of something being grabbed. "Michelle, what the fuck?!?"

Michelle could feel her cheeks burning. "Sorry, sorry!" She held one hand out in apology while keeping the other clasped firmly against her eyes. "I knocked and thought I heard you say come in!"

"I didn't! I had my headphones in... damn it, one second..." There was a mix of anger, humiliation, and embarrassment in Garrett's words as Michelle heard the rustling of bedsheets. "OK, it's safe to look."

She lowered her hand to see Garrett sitting on the edge of the bed. The bedside lamp was on, revealing a face that was beet red. Michelle wasn't able to tell if he was embarrassed or angry. A pillow was sitting in his lap to cover his erection. "I'm so sorry," she said earnestly. "I knocked on the door and heard something. I thought maybe I had woken you up and you were mumbling to come in." She ran a hand over her damp scalp. "God, I'm so fucking mortified."

A long sigh was Garrett's response. "It's fine. What's done is done. What's up?"

Michelle pointed through the open door towards her bedroom. "Gio and Irina are being loud. I wanted to see if you had an extra pair of headphones I could borrow to drown them out."

"I don't have a spare set," he answered. "But you can borrow these if you want." Garrett began to reach over towards his headphones. The thin earbuds were covered with black fabric and hung off the edge of the nightstand, dangling inches off the floor. As he went to grab them, however, he stopped. "You might want to grab these yourself. My hands are kinda dirty."

"Are you sure? I don't want to take your only pair."

"Go for it. I'll end up falling asleep anyway after..." He sighed once again and half-motioned towards the pillow.

Michelle's eyes couldn't help but be drawn to Garrett's lap. Aside from the pillowcase, he was completely naked in front of her. The mop of brown hair on his head was more tangled than usual. The upper half of his body was well-defined, with lean muscles underneath his tanned skin. And the lower half of his body told Michelle that Garrett wasn't one to neglect his legs. The only thing missing from Michelle's internal image of Garrett was his back and butt... and idly, she wondered what they looked like.

"Michelle?"

"Huh?"

"You zoned out for a second." Garrett's shoulders dropped as he chuckled. "I'm sorry. I honestly didn't hear you knock, and I definitely didn't mean for you to get a full-frontal glimpse. Do you still want the headphones?"

"You're not going to need them once you're done... taking care of yourself?"

It took a moment for Garrett to answer. "I'm good," he said, accompanied with a slow shake of his head. "I usually fall right asleep after..."

"Sex?" Michelle shifted her stance again, this time pushing away from the wall. She crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her pert breasts underneath.

"Taking care of myself."

"And you're going to go back to it when I leave?" At the confused look on Garrett's face, she quickly shook her head. "Sorry, sorry," Michelle responded. "I've never walked in on a guy touching himself before. I'm curious, that's all."

Garrett looked down at the pillow covering himself. "Well, it's not going down. If anything..." His voice trailed off, long enough for Michelle to notice. "Just grab the headphones, OK?"

Michelle tilted her head to one side. "You were about to say something," she said in a quiet voice, taking a step towards him. "What were you going to say? And don't play it off. We're trying to be friends right?"

"It's because I want to be friends that I'm not saying anything. My brain's got this image of you walking in, seeing me jacking off, and then the whole thing turns into a porno scenario." Garrett tapped his temple. "It's not on purpose. I'm trying not to think about it, so of course, I'm thinking about it. I know it's not going to happen but, you know, brains are stupid."

Michelle readjusted her arms as she took another step closer. Her thumbs pressed against the fabric of her nightshirt, making unseen motions against her stiffening nipples as she stood there. "So when I leave, you're going to go back to what you were doing while thinking of me?"

"I'm sorry," Garrett said. "It's NOT on purpose and..."

She interrupted him. "It's cool. It's kind of flattering." One more step, and now Michelle loomed over Garrett as he sat on the bed. Standing close to him, Michelle could detect the various scents coming from him - sweat, a little bit of alcohol, and the underlying scent of the essence which had been rubbed over his hands.

The pressure was just a pinprick inside of her, but Michelle could feel it. She was standing in front of her high school classmate, someone she had never gotten along with until this week... the past few days to be specific... and someone she had never seen as a partner in any capacity, let alone a sexual one. Michelle knew she didn't want to sleep with him. She craved something else.

"I want to watch."

The words came from Michelle's mouth without the hesitancy or confusion of her previous words. She looked down at Garrett, who was looking back up at her, eyes wide and a puzzled expression on his face. "I want to watch you masturbate while you think about me," she clarified.

"I... whoa. Michelle, you're still drunk..."

"I'm not," she immediately responded. "If you're going to be in here touching yourself while thinking about me, then I want to see you do it." Michelle dipped her chin as she stared at the young man sitting in front of her. "Unless you think you can't perform."

"It's not that." Garrett sat up straight. Michelle could detect the hint of a challenge in his eyes as he took offense to her words. "This feels weird."

"You just said you had a porno scenario in your head. You don't want to live it out?" Michelle stepped back to close the bathroom door. "I've never seen a guy jack off," she told him as she turned back to face him. "This is just as good a time as any. If you're going to be thinking of me while you touch yourself, this is the price you pay. You think of me, I get to watch you. Fair play, right?"

"Are you sure about this?"

"I'm sure. Now drop the pillow and get to work," she commanded in a husky tone.

He slowly lifted the pillow from his lap, giving Michelle her first real look at Garrett's penis. It jutted out from a trimmed patch of brown hair between his muscular thighs, hard and rigid with a single drop of wetness resting at its tip.

"Mmmm," Michelle purred. "That's a really nice penis you have there Garrett." She licked her lips, holding a momentary debate inside herself that was won by the votes cast from her lower body. "OK. Show me."

Garrett did what Michelle told him to do. He wrapped his right hand around the top of the shaft, just beneath the tip. Letting out a small sigh, he ran his hand down his length, all the way to where the base met his body, before moving it back up to the top. He closed his eyes as he repeated the motion. This time his sigh was accompanied by a shiver in his upper body. Michelle watched, transfixed by the sight, while Garrett slowly pleasured himself.

Michelle's nipples were rock hard underneath her nightshirt. Her breathing became more pronounced while she slowly ran her thumbs along the edges of her breasts. A delicious ache was setting in between Michelle's legs as Garrett bit his lip. His eyes were still closed while he continued to move his hand on his erection, but all he did was repeat that motion over and over again. Aside from the sighs and slight quivers from his body, his efforts were almost mechanical. She hungered for more. She didn't want to just watch him masturbate. She wanted to see him get off. Licking her lips, Michelle quietly asked, "Does that feel good?"

"Yeah..."

"How?" A step forward accompanied her question.

Garrett's hand slowed down for a second as he answered. "It's... it's like relieving pressure...it kind of hurts being this hard. Touching it, it's... it just feels so much better..."

"How hard?" Michelle looked down at Garrett's penis. It barely moved in his hand as he stroked it. "How hard are you right now?"

"Fucking hard, believe me..."

"Is it because you're that turned on?"

"Mmm hmm," he said, biting his lip as he inhaled sharply.