Mike & Karen Ch. 06

"Not as much as I would have liked," admitted Karen. "I desired no admiration from the student body at large, which is where I got it from. Michael, well, he was simply cheerful and helpful."

"Helpful?"

"I'll explain another time," Karen said, looking down at the elegant watch on her wrist. "I'd best be going, and your quarry should be along momentarily, if your projections are correct."

"And where are you off to?" Alexa queried as her sister stood up. "Sure you don't wanna stay? Maybe we could share."

"You're as bad as your brother-in-law," Karen sighed, making Alexa giggle again. "I'll pass, thank you. Enjoy yourself and I wish you success in your endeavour."

"Thanks, sissy," Alexa purred as Karen leaned down to share a quick but affectionate kiss. "Love you."

"Love you too, blondie. I'll see you at home, eventually."

Alexa watched as her sister swished off, a captivating figure on the busy street. She smiled as she saw people staring at Karen when she went by.

So regal. So patrician and elegant. Like nothing and no one she'd ever seen before.

She resumed sipping at her espresso and just crowd-watching for several minutes, when finally a hand touched her on the shoulder.

"Alexa?"

She looked up and smiled. "Oh, Heather! Hi, how are you?"

"I'm good, thanks," the brunette said, smiling warmly. "It's good to see you."

"Likewise," Alexa replied, gesturing to the seat her sister had recently vacated. "Care to join me?"

"Not imposing, am I?"

"Not at all, I'd welcome the company," said the blonde as her visitor sat down. "Just leaving class?"

"Actually, yeah," Heather answered, sitting. She was wearing jeans and a light sweater that accented her bust. "Done for the day now. What about you?"

"Had morning classes, so just spending my afternoon people-watching," Alexa said breezily. "I love watching people."

"I can see that," Heather mused, looking at her new friend. "Like you're imagining their lives and writing stories about them in your head. I can see you as a writer."

"Well, if you have time, may I buy you a caffeinated beverage or a nibble?" Alexa offered.

"Oh, well thank you, I appreciate it, you're very kind," Heather said, relaxing and crossing her legs and smiling prettily. Someone came over and took her order and she returned her attention to the stunning blonde sitting across from her.

"How're you adjusting to the campus and life in general?" she inquired. "You've been here for quite a few months now."

"So far, so good," Alexa replied easily, noticing that her bust kept drawing Heather's attention but choosing not to show that she'd noticed. "Classes are pretty much as I expected."

"And it's not weird having your older sister and your brother-in-law as two of the most senior and storied professors in the university?"

"To be honest, it's something of a help," Alexa replied. "I know it has been for Freja, too."

"Good to hear, but what about life outside the classroom?" Heather asked. "Found yourself a guy or a girl to keep you occupied?"

Alexa smiled: "No guys, rest assured. I'm decidedly a six on the Kinsey scale. What about you? I know you've been a casual partner with my nephew, but are you straight or bi?"

Heather considered: "I ... have always thought of myself as straight, to be honest. Sure, I've done the silly girl things, like practicing making out or fondling boobs in my teens, but I've always been motivated by sex with guys."

"Your tone indicates that you're not so sure," Alexa observed while a server brought Heather's cappuccino. "Been questioning of late?"

There was another pause before Heather answered: "That's a somewhat awkward question to answer, because ... it might involve you."

Alexa looked surprised. "Myself?"

Heather blushed a little: "Y-yes."

"Well, you don't need to worry about me deciding to mack on you, I'm safe to be around," Alexa assured her. "Courtesy is -"

"Oh, I didn't say I was uncomfortable with it," Heather said somewhat hastily. "It's just weird, because I'm not sexually attracted to women, and then there's you. And if I'm honest with myself, I am aroused by you."

Alexa studied her for a moment. "Are you looking for a lesbian experience, Heather?"

"It sounds selfish when you say it that way," Heather replied. "I'm not pining after you, and it's not like I masturbate feverishly to images of you every night, but ... if I were open to trying sex with a woman, I'd want her to turn me on or arouse me the way you so inexplicably do."

Alexa smiled. "You're certainly an attractive girl, I can see girls wanting to try you on for size."

"Thanks ..." Heather said quietly, blushing and twirling her finger though a lock of her hair. Alexa smiled gently and leaned forward a little.

"I'll tell you what," she said quietly, so that only Heather could hear her. "If you decide that you want to try something with a girl, let me know. No strings or expectations. Sound good?"

"Well," Heather breathed, her blush of embarrassment replaced by a flush of arousal, "I'm not doing anything this afternoon and evening ..."

***

1986. St. George Campus, Whitney Hall:

The bedroom was dark, illuminated only by a little rock salt lamp in the corner, giving off a warming glow. She sat quietly in her bed beneath a coverlet, staring dully at the far wall, on which hung a lithograph of a naked woman that Lisa had bought one day. She winced as the doorknob turned and clicked open and her roommate poked her head in.

"Sorry," the redhead whispered, looking apologetic. "I just wanted to let you know you have a visitor."

"You're joking, right?" Karen sighed quietly, squeezing her eyes shut as she wrestled with her annoyance. She couldn't get too annoyed, because being annoyed hurt. Sound hurt. Light hurt. Her heartbeat hurt her head. Life hurt. "Who could possibly be suicidal enough to want to see me at a moment like this?"

"Well ..." Lisa said uncertainly, pursing her lips and then stepping aside. Into the dark room stepped an enormous shadow. Karen's expression remained deadpan as the behemoth approached.

"Heard what you did. Impressive," DeBourne said in his bass-baritone voice, but softly enough to not set her synapses on agonizing fire. In fact, she found it rather soothing, although she sure as hell was not about to admit it.

"Your bucolic accolades are appreciated, but is there any particular reason they couldn't have waited?" she almost growled. Her heart was pounding in her chest now and making her head hurt. Normally, she didn't mind the throbbing his presence brought, but today it was torture.

"Oh, I didn't come here to torture you with banal praise," he replied, shrugging as he sat at the foot of the bed. Lisa had moved off to the other side of the room and was sitting quietly on her bed, just observing. Karen had looked after her so often when she was sick or in distress, that she was thrilled to be playing nursemaid in turn. "I was wondering if you were sick of suffering yet is all."

Karen scowled at him: "And what is that supposed to mean?"

He smiled. "You and I are alike enough to know when dramatic effect assists in dealing with the mortals."

"You think I'm allowing myself to be wracked by my body's rebellion against alcohol poisoning so that I can shut myself away and let them all talk and speculate down below?"

"Well, as long as you don't magically reappear after three days," Mike quipped.

"You're such a heretic ..." Karen muttered, closing her eyes. "Why are you here? What is this mystical offering of yours that will kill my woes?"

Mike pulled up the backpack he'd brought in off the floor. He unzipped one of the compartments quietly, so as not to cause Karen undue pain, and pulled out a mason jar filled with a somewhat murky liquid. She frowned as she looked at him while he presented the glass container to her.

"I'm ... going to need some elucidation here," she stated, examining the jar. "Is this some sort of Kapuskasing moonshine, meant to cure my hangover by getting me drunk again?" It had the vaguely greenish tint of polluted river water, seeming somehow more viscous, and tiny objects and bits of detritus or sediment looked to be suspended in it. All in all, it screamed 'Do not drink me!'

"Hardly," he chuckled. "Although Kapuskasing moonshine is nothing to sniff at. No: this is pickle brine, courtesy of my favourite Russian deli down in the St. Lawrence Market."

She looked up at him skeptically: "Pickle brine."

"Yup. Ultimate hungover cure," he confirmed, nodding. "Learned that from getting drunk with Russians back home."

"Nothing like homegrown wisdom to solve the world's problems," she muttered. "So, I'm just supposed to drink it?"

He nodded. "Just open the jar and knock it back."

She glanced up at him suspiciously. "What does it taste like?"

Mike shrugged. "To be honest, it tastes like crying, it tastes like broken promises, it tastes like the Terminator waded into the Care Bears movie and opened fire ..."

"Then why would I do that to myself?" she almost demanded.

"Because it may taste like dragon barf, but I can guarantee you that it's still preferable to what you're going through now," he reasoned. "Drink it, and I guarantee that within a minute, your headache will be gone and you'll be seeing in Technicolor again."

Facing another skeptical look from Karen, Mike held up a second jar. "If you want, I'll drink a whole jar myself. Parity between us is one of the great laws of the universe, after all ..."

"That supposed to make me feel better?" she asked.

"Not so much, no," he replied with a shrug. "But knowing I'm suffering just as much as you are for that minute might cheer you up."

"Harrrrrr ..." she grumbled, unscrewing the lid.

"Is it really that horrible?" Lisa asked curiously, approaching the bed.

"Get a glass and you can try a small amount," Mike offered.

Lisa went back to her side of the room and returned with a small rinsing cup. Mike unscrewed his jar and poured a small amount into her proffered vessel. He then looked back at Karen, his eyebrow raised. She sighed as heavily as she dared and then nodded. The three students held up their drinks.

"On three," Mike said. "Drink it all in one breath. Trying to tackle it in sips will kill you."

The girls nodded.

"One ... two ... three!"

Mike and Karen brought the jars to their lips but paused, while Lisa faithfully slurped in the contents of her cup. Her eyes widened, and her cheeks puffed out while she looked at her companions in horror. They both stared at her intently, not having drunk theirs yet.

Lisa spasmed and tried not to gag, looking like a bullfrog, and about the same colour. She clapped her hand over her mouth while she dropped the cup and dashed out the door, rushing to the communal bathrooms.

"Feel better?" Mike chuckled.

"Well, maybe a little, although we were cruel," she admitted, smirking. "I'm going to really have to make it up to her later, once I can feel my body again. Do I really need to do this?"

"Only if you want to leave this torture behind."

"Well, that I do," she sighed. "My life is in your hands, DeBourne. Bottoms up ..."

She pressed the jar to her lips and squeezed her eyes shut as she began knocking back the brine. A sense-shattering symphony of sour and sharp bitterness exploded across her tongue and snaked through her sinuses. Ignoring the urge to gag and vomit, she gulped it back, reminding herself that salvation from this hangover hell lay at the bottom of the jar.

She gasped as she dropped the jar, her eyes bulging while the brine lashed its way down her gullet and churned in her stomach, fighting an ugly war with the toxins that were poisoning her. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth, her hands balled up in fists as she fought down a wave of gaseous nausea. Serpents seemed to crawl through her veins as she squirmed in place, praying for death.

Karen flopped back onto her propped pillows, breathing heavily. The nausea passed, and her mind was so clear that she was almost dizzy. The aches in her body were gone. She felt almost ... euphoric in a weird way, even if the inside of her mouth tasted like a sour garbage dump.

Slowly she sat back up and blinked, staring at Mike, who regarded her casually. He was still sitting at the foot of her bed, an empty jar in his massive hand.

Karen made a wry face. "Why aren't you thrashing around in outrage after drinking that?"

He shrugged: "I've drunk it often enough that it doesn't affect me so severely. You handled it like a champ, though. Most grown men act more like Red did than you."

She exhaled heavily and relaxed, absolutely amazed at how much better she felt - the nausea was fleeing from her body, and the hammer-and-tongs headache was already gone, replaced by an almost alarming clarity. She couldn't believe how much better she had become so quickly. And it had been barely more than a minute.

"Yeah, them electrolytes are somethin', aren't they?" Mike chuckled, knowing from experience exactly what was happening. "The brine burns the toxins out of you really quickly and gets your blood pumping again. Opens up the constricted veins causing the headaches as well."

"Thank you, Doctor Podunk," she said dryly. "And thank you for bringing that vile concoction. I owe you one."

"Forget it," he said, waving it off. "I owed you for the assist with the Calabi-Yau equation that one night where my brain had turned to fudge."

"I know nothing about your Calabi-Yau Manifolds," she replied, shrugging. "But math is math, and you'd been working at that equation constantly for over a day, so your serotonin levels were low and your cognitive faculties impaired. My perspective was fresh, that's all."

"Well, yeah," Mike admitted, looking away from her. "But I still appreciate the assist."

"Why are you looking away, DeBourne?" she asked, confused by his sudden behaviour.

"Just, uh ... cover up," Mike replied, still looking at the far wall.

She frowned and looked down at herself, noticing that her coverlet had indeed fallen away, leaving her magnificent breasts exposed.

"Damn," she thought. "Must have fallen down when I shrugged. I haven't been able to feel my body for hours, so I didn't notice."

"What's the big deal?" she asked, tugging the coverlet back up to conceal her bust. "You've already sketched me naked, right?"

"Well, yes, in a classroom environment," he replied, turning to look at her again, the gesture making her both happy and secretly thrilled. "Here in your private room is somewhat different."

"I appreciate your honesty, but I somehow doubt you're like this around all women," Karen mentioned.

"No, just you," he answered, standing and towering over her. He fished around inside his backpack and dropped a sheaf of papers at the foot of the bed. "I'd best get going, but there are some assignments from Professor Kintzel. Hope you don't mind, I solved the schlock math for you, so that you can just concentrate on the good stuff. Paying attention is gonna be difficult for another few hours, trust me. Best to just rest."

She nodded: "Thank you."

"See you around, princess," Mike said, nodding and turning to leave. She was pleased to note that her head didn't screech when the door clicked shut. She sank back down onto her bed, sighing and looking at the ceiling. Thank God he'd brought that pickle brine with him.

She made a grim face as she reached down beneath the coverlet and felt around.

She prayed that being wet was just a side effect of that godawful hangover remedy.

***

The present:

Alex ran alongside his father through the campus, both wearing tank-tops and shorts. No end of appreciative stares lingered on the blond giants as they thundered by. Karen often quipped that it was morale-boosting for the vast majority of the female students, and many male ones as well.

"So where's your wife?" Mike asked as they completed their third circuit of the campus. Their skin glistened with sweat, muscles contorting beneath the taut flesh. Alex was built like a gymnast, whereas his titan father looked like a '70's bodybuilder, proportional but massive all over. At 203 cm and 145 kg (6-foot-8 and 320 pounds), he towered over everyone on campus. It was a running joke around campus that he was a quantum physics nerd trapped in a Space Marine's body.

"Well, to be honest, probably elbow-deep in Heather by now," Alex replied, keeping his eyes on the path ahead of them.

Mike considered what his son was saying, putting the pieces together rapidly. "That's actually a good plan," he mused, ignoring the wide-eyed stares of a group of female students as they ran by. "Alli must have volunteered that strategy."

"Yeah," his son agreed. "Even if it had occurred to me, I never would have suggested it. And to be honest, it never even remotely occurred to me."

"Yes, but you're not a Blackwell woman," Mike chuckled. "Sex can be a weapon and a means of persuasion. Jeanie wasn't kidding about the whole Bene Gesserit thing."

"Believe me, I know it," Alex said readily. "It rarely requires more than puppy-dog eyes from her, but if Alexa wants me to do something I'm unlikely to otherwise do, she just rubs her boobs on my arm. If she resorts to that, I'm usually willing to burn down an orphanage for her."

"Well, thankfully your mother and aunt tend to use their superpowers for good rather than evil," Mike laughed. "I'm sure Alli knows exactly what she's doing in this case. And I'm willing to bet that it'll be easiest on Heather this way, too."

"I think that was part of her motivation in suggesting it," Alex said as they rounded a corner onto a tree-lined boulevard. "I don't think Heather is psycho or vindictive, but if she wanted to make life difficult for us, she certainly could. I'm not sure I could explain it to her where she wouldn't take it the wrong way."

"That's fair," concurred his father. "Knowing Alli, she has this all well thought out and will see to it that everyone is fine by the end of it. Hell, you'll probably be able to be friends with Heather."

"Once she's done porking my wife ..." Alex grunted.

***

Heather collapsed back on the bed, her eyes and chest heaving. Her skin glistened with sweat as the unreal waves of pleasure continued to swell through her. Scintillating colours behind her eyes and the tingling in her limbs marked a euphoria she wished would never go away. She was still staring, unseeing, at the ceiling when Alexa lay down beside her, propped up on her elbow and smiling wickedly.

"Still with me?" she asked with a teasing smile.

"Holy shit ..." Heather breathed, still trembling from the tumultuous orgasm she'd endured. "Don't take this the wrong way, but only your nephew has made me cum like that before, and he had to bruise my brainstem to do it ..."

"And we haven't moved much past the basics," Alexa giggled. "Wait 'til I girl-fuck you, then you'll see God."

"I'm an atheist, but I totally believe you," Heather panted, not trying too hard to control herself. "I refuse to believe all lesbian sex is that good, or there'd be no straight women."

"I'm particularly gifted, perhaps," Alexa purred, putting a hand on Heather's breast and caressing it gently, brushing the nipple to give her lover exquisite shivers. Her hand then trailed slowly down her warm body, arriving at her gooey pussy. Alexa stroked a finger through the lips before bringing it up and smiling as she pushed it into her mouth, sucking the tangy cum off of it. She repeated the gesture, but this time offering the finger to Heather, who closed her eyes and hummed in delight as she tasted herself. "I'm not attempting to convert you, by the way."