Mark and Barry Ch. 02

Mark was pretty well smitten with her. She'd been doing the drinking for both of them. His head was clear, but swimming with excitement. Geena wasn't just a knockout, she was a riot, funny and fun to be with. And she liked him.

He didn't know if he was getting lucky tonight. He hoped so. But if not, he was glad just to have gotten to know this freshman girl, this bundle of happy energy who had bounced from friend to friend but kept coming back to stick with him most of the night.

"This is the best!" she shouted as she stepped her way to him. "I fuckin' love these parties, right?"

"It's great, yeah, to have a beer, and relax with some friends..."

"Fuck yeah!" She bumped him with her shoulder, a friendly gesture she'd done before. "I am so... hey, it's too loud here... you wanna go talk somewhere?"

"Sure!"

She scanned the dorm basement and strode to the stairwell, waving him to follow. It was still loud, but as the door closed, shockingly quiet. It felt intimate.

"I never got to just let go before, you know? Just... enjoy life and like have a good time."

She'd set her beer down on the stair next to them, the first time he'd seen her with both hands empty all night.

She looked him in the eye, serious.

"My parents are always so... strict, they're like always, grades are so important, academics, the most important thing, right? I mean I love my mom and dad, yeah?, but they just can't let it go sometimes. They would just freak, they would so freak if they could see me now."

Mark had suspected she might be rebelling a little. Some first-years do. The eyebrow ring was probably new. (It drew attention to her huge, mischievous brown eyes. Good call.) He wondered if her name were really Geena, or if she'd picked a nickname.

She probably had gotten a tattoo, somewhere under that dress that fit so snugly around her torso and pooled under her legs. She was saying something about her mother. He was admiring the way fabric wraps around a girl's body.

Mark was just starting to wonder where the tattoo was, when she grabbed his upper arm and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"I'm so glad I can finally just relax here with you."

Yes! "I like being around you, Geena."

She turned to look at him. "They wouldn't like you, not at all. They would freak, if they saw me with a white guy like this. Like, they wouldn't say anything, but later I would get to hear all about how there are so many Indian guys over here and what is wrong with me and all that stuff."

Mark laid his hand on hers. "There's nothing wrong with you. You know that, right?" He wondered what she had meant by "with" the white guy. Were they "with" each other already?

"My dad is so strict. He'd find something wrong with you, something stupid, you know? And make like that was his problem with you. But my mom wouldn't even try to hide it, she's told me before, I need to --"

She dropped her forehead to Mark's shoulder. "They know like what my path should be, like my life path, but -- I just don't know --"

She stopped for a moment and stared at the ground. She made a noise. It might have been a sob. Mark hesitated and put his hand under her chin, lifting it. Bleary eyes lifted open. The thought of kissing her vanished. She was more drunk than he had supposed. He realized with a shock that since she was so small, the same few cups of beer that gave him a buzz might really be too much for her. And hadn't she drank more than a few?

"Why don't we come back to my place and talk, so we don't have to sit here on the stairs," he said.

"Yeah..." she said, and with his help, stood and walked upstairs. She brought her beer.

-----

"Everyone wants to hear about the crashes!" laughed Xan, loudly. "Why is it all about the crashes? Oh, right! Cause crashes are cool!"

Marilyn gave her demure smile; Betty-Ann giggled.

Barry sat beside Betty-Ann now, touching: an electric line from hip to knee. Unfortunately, all he could see was the back of her head. He leaned forward to at least see Xan while he was talking.

"Sorry to disappoint you ladies, I know you want me to get blown up in a big ball of fire. But I've never been in a really bad crash. Why? Cause I'm a damn good driver, that's why!"

Huh: I have no idea if that's true, thought Barry.

"Sure, you tap walls, ya tap other cars, but that happens all the time. I only smacked into a wall real hard once. Didn't bend the frame but it sure knocked the wind out of me!"

"Did it hurt?" asked Marilyn, concerned.

"Naw, I was just mad. Look, them cars are so danged safe. Look, OK, first of all, helmet. Right? Neck brace. And flame-retardant suit. Then I buckle myself into my five-point seatbelt. And my seat's..."

"What's a five-point seatbelt?" asked Betty-Ann.

Barry was getting more and more annoyed. Somewhere during one of Xan's stories, the lovely girl sitting between them had turned to face the other way.

Need to turn her back around, he thought. How can I turn her around, he wondered.

Can't just pick her up and rotate her, he said to himself idiotically. Have to turn her around with words. Think, dumbass!

"OK, look, so there's five points to it, right? That's why they call... OK, look. There's two straps over your shoulders. Not diagonal like an ordinary car, but straight up." Xan demonstrated by putting his open hands flat on Betty-Ann's shoulders, fingers pointing up past her ears.

"Ooh!" she said.

What the fuck, dude, thought Barry. I thought you brought me here to double-date. Now you're hitting on my girl. That is fucked up.

In a dim recess of his mind was the notion that he'd been hitting on his girl all evening.

"And there's two more straps that go on your waist. Like a lap belt, but low, like on your hips." Xan turned to Marilyn on his other side. He leaned in and grasped a hip in each hand. "And cinched real tight!" He gave her a push into her seat back, like a belt pulling taut.

Her eyes went wide, but she lifted her arms out of the way. She smiled at his impudence, then laughed at herself for liking it.

Barry, alone next to the girl of his fantasies, picked up his beer and took a big drink.

"And the fifth strap, you know where that goes!" Xan sat back and looked at the two girls. They looked at him blankly.

"Right here!" he yelled, and grabbed his crotch. "Oh!" said Marilyn, and reddened, and sipped her drink to cover it. Betty-Ann laughed.

Barry had never been a jock, though most of his friends had been. He'd tolerated this kind of company well enough over the years, but never liked the crudeness. Or the predictability. Xan had charisma, yes, but any idiot could see what he was doing.

Did the girls not see it? Or did they actually like it?

This was a bad scene, he thought. This is not the place for me, these are not the people. It's not going well because these are the kind of losers I tried to leave behind years ago.

I'm not a jock, but Xan's turned into an asshole, and these girls are just dumb to be falling for...

Touch jolted him as Betty-Ann turned and put her hand on his arm. They looked into each other's eyes for a moment.

She was saying something. Looking at her, for just a moment he saw what a lovely young woman she was. Inviting eyes, and the pretty silhouette of a girl just entering womanhood.

"Did you ever hear such stories?" she was asking him.

Dammit.

Holding her down, was what he was suddenly thinking. Pinning her wrists over her head and holding her down, naked, as he topped her. He'd watch her tits bounce with every banging slap, and hear her moaning his name, and feel her...

He snapped back to her hand resting lightly on his arm. Did he really just want to fuck this girl, who was pretty, but could have been anyone? He'd been telling himself all night that that was all he wanted. Was that true?

Whether or not he was looking for more, this was not his scene. This juvenile flirting was not for him, and his style was not for her, he knew.

But truth be told, Betty-Ann liked him. She was talking to Xan because he was the one talking, but she would have liked to get to know the moody, imposing man on her other side. She knew he was her age, but he seemed older, which she liked. And while his looks gave him a hint of danger, he was soft-spoken and intelligent, a potently paradoxical combination for a girl who lived her life on impulse.

She might have liked having her wrists pinned, if it had come to that.

But Barry had already decided the night was a bust, and he seemed determined to sabotage it himself. He'd pricked up his ears an hour earlier when he thought he'd heard a pun, mistakenly, and now it felt like it'd been a long slide back to the native dumbassery of this hick town -- his town. A booth on the far wall erupted in whoops. He couldn't wait to graduate and get the hell out of there.

He'd had a little too much to drink.

She gave his forearm an affectionate squeeze, and mused on what it would be like to be carried in his arms.

But Barry just smiled half-heartedly, and said something noncommittal, and the moment passed.

He seemed not really interested. He seemed... elsewhere.

Marilyn said she wanted to powder her nose, and Betty-Ann went with her. Xan scooted closer to Barry and spoke in a low tone.

"How about that? Oh geez. Told you these girls were fuckin' hot."

"Yeah..."

"I'm ready to get busy, how about you? Wanna blow outta here? I'm takin' Marilyn, you know that right?"

"You think Betty-Ann even likes me? I'm beginning to think this isn't working out. She seemed pretty wrapped up in your car stories."

"My stories? Uh..." Xan seemed at a loss. "Hey, you do your thing, I'll do mine. You don't think she's hot for you, well I fuckin' know that Marilyn's hot for me and I am ready to tap that. You solve your own problems, OK? OK."

Barry sat there and just looked at him. Their friendship had aged decades that night. Old times seemed miles away.

He could ask Betty-Ann to come back to his place. Simple enough: just ask her.

Xan got up as the girls came back. "My turn!" he announced in the loud voice that seemed twice as phony after their tense talk, and headed for the men's room. He swatted Marilyn on her ass as their paths crossed, and got a playful "heyyy" back, and everyone knew what that meant.

Sitting back on the couch, the girls were strangely subdued. What he wanted to ask Betty-Ann was pretty personal, and she was sitting too close to Marilyn. He couldn't catch her eye. They were talking to each other. She was barely looking at him.

It all started to feel a little hazy. He laid a hand on her shoulder. And said "hey." She looked at him, and he tried to ask if he could ask her something.

A flash of anger at the whole situation. He tamped it down. "So... what do you think?" was the question he got out.

"About what?" she asked, innocently.

Was she playing dumb? Had she been leading him on this whole time?

What had the two of them discussed in the ladies' room?

He knitted his knobby brows and lifted his hand off her shoulder. He didn't have an answer, and Marilyn was already saying something else to her when she turned her head away.

"OK, my turn now," he said, standing, trying to be jovial, when Xan came back and dropped himself right between the two girls. "You betcha!" said his former friend, as the beautiful blonde in the tight black dress whispered something in his ear.

He was gone long enough to pee and wash his hands. He came back to the three of them walking out the door.

Xan hung back long enough to inform Barry that all three of them were headed back to his place, and he's real sorry but sometimes that's the way it goes buddy. Barry must have taken a step toward his date as she disappeared through the door, because Xan stepped into his path, giddy and aggressive..

"You're not gonna fuck this up for me, right? Two girls at once, shit. You get me? Both at once. They've never done this before, you get me? Fuckin' models. You're not gonna ruin this, right?"

He stared at the door after they'd gone. Ditched. Well, that was the perfect capstone to a perfect evening.

And his date was about to fuck his windbag friend. And/or her friend. That was just a great picture there.

The waitress elbowed him, tray in hand. "Hey. Your friend got his part of the tab. You owe me..." She trailed off as she fished in her apron for the bill.

Barry shook his head and paid her. Hard to play this one off. "Looks like I'm a girl short tonight," he joked. "Now you tell me, what kind of girl would do that to a guy like me?"

"I don't know," she said, counted the cash quickly, and walked off.

Barry walked out the door.

-----

Geena, warm and giggly, hung on Mark's arm as he unlocked his dorm room door.

Mark had a TV, but suggested they watch a movie on his laptop. She picked the DVD. A comedy.

Propped up against pillows, he half-reclined. She plopped into his lap and fit snugly into one arm.

She sipped beer and they chit-chatted as the movie played. He couldn't believe how well the evening was going.

He focused on the conversation, and the movie, to distract himself as much as possible from the soft, feminine little creature. It wasn't easy. She kept nestling into him.

And she'd worn a subtle, yet very distracting scent. It mixed with the faint aroma of her musky sweat. It was enchantment plus erotic. She smelled incredible.

He'd never known girls had so many bits that were so fleshy and padded. Every which way she moved left a different part of her resting on a different part of him: her calf, the back of her shoulder, the junction at the side of her hip and thigh, the inside of her arm.

He rested his arms around her, careful not to lay a hand on any body part that would spoil her mood. It was fine. Her waist, warm under the dress and moving with her breathing, was a wonderful thing to just hold.

She didn't seem to have any problem touching his body part, though. A couple of times she'd squirmed her butt or back squarely onto the erection that he'd given up trying to will away. She had to have noticed. She ended up reclining with her butt cheek planted on it.

She hadn't slapped him, so he figured that must be OK.

In fact she might have been feeling some of the same attraction he was, because her chatter slowed and soon it was just the two of them watching the movie.

Mark really wanted to kiss her, but the way she laid, they'd have to be contortionists. He started working out in his head how he was going to make his move -- touch her cheek? lift her with both hands while he extricated himself? -- and somewhere along the way, working up his nerve turned into just watching the movie with her.

After not much of the movie had played, Geena sighed, sat up, gave a tiny burp, and announced she was going to pee. Mark's dorm room had an attached half-bath. He took the opportunity to walk around, letting the blood flow back into his limbs, and letting his hard-on relax a little.

She came out, looking subdued, rubbing a shoulder.

"Your shoulder hurt?"

"Yeah, they both have a knot or something. They're sore."

"Then it's your lucky night. I took a massage class last semester. I'll have it feeling better in no time!"

"Oh, that sounds good. I really need to relax." She put a hand on the couch and eased herself into a seated position.

"I have some massage oil. Give me just a minute."

In his bedroom, Mark stared at his small collection of oils, trying to decide whether a floral scent would suit her, or a zesty lemon, or good old fashioned vanilla. Would it be too creepy to bring them all out and let her choose? Eventually he grabbed the squeeze-bottle of unscented and walked back into his TV room.

She was asleep on the couch.

Or passed-out, maybe. She'd never really stopped sipping beer.

Even as it dawned on him that he wasn't going to get lucky tonight, Mark took a moment to admire her. Eyes close, an arm folded under her head gave her an innocent, child-like aura.

Sure, it was beer-induced, but she did look angelic.

Well, apart from that boob. Evidently her arm was folded under her in a funny position.

...nice cleavage, he thought. Especially on a small girl. He took a moment to admire the delicate drape of light and shadow across her chest.

Someday, he thought. Hopefully someday soon.

He crouched next to her and shook a shoulder gently. "Hey," he said.

On the second "hey," she roused. No longer bubbly, she could barely talk. She was suddenly very tired. She managed to sit upright with his help, then just said "oh man" and rested her head in her hands.

"Can I get you anything?" he offered. "A glass of water?"

"Ohh, man..." she said. "Ohhh..."

"I don't suppose you still want that massage."

Head down, she sighed.

Mark got her a glass of water, and sat down next to her. He told her a little about his life. He told her what he thought about parents who would put so many expectations on their daughter. He told her how pretty she was.

She didn't really seem to be listening, and didn't take the water.

"Oh, man" was all she said, a couple more times. She tried to stand, and Mark caught her arm.

She fell back half-onto him, a sprawl of unguided limbs that was not sexy, just pathetic. She apologized and stood back up with his help.

"I'll take you home," he said, and got her room number out of her. He walked her there with firm grips on her arms. At the door she swallowed hard and, as her roommates opened it, she turned to Mark.

"Thank you," she said, "I had a lovely evening." That seemed to be a drunken dignity, not ironic.

She fumbled for his hand and shook it awkwardly. Her roommates, suspicious of the man who had evidently gotten her drunk, pulled her inside and with a glare at him shut the door.

Back downstairs, the party had evaporated. It was a mostly-empty room. A knot of boys was clumped in a corner, talking over each other loudly. In the far corner, a pair of lovebirds tenderly made out.

"Well, time to hang it up," Mark was saying to himself, just as Barry walked in.

"Thought you were on a date," he said, and Barry's face set like stone. "Didn't go well, huh?"

"No, it really didn't go too fucking well."

The boys summed up their evenings for each other, and when the pause arrived, they both knew it was time for Barry to either go home, or get himself invited up to Mark's room. Their gazes met.