Mutual Benefits Ch. 02

I sighed exasperatedly. I would have helped her out today, but I had the shift. "Um, we could try tomorrow at lunch..."

"We both know that's not gonna work," she complained.

"Well, I don't know any other options," I replied plainly. "I have a full class schedule tomorrow. My only free time is lunch."

She was silent for a few seconds. "Could you... could I pick you up and we study at my place? Just until I get it, then you can go home."

I glanced at my alarm clock. "Taylor, it's like, eight o'clock at night."

"I know, I know, but like - look, I'll pay you, okay? I can drive, and I'll pay. I just really need to pass this test. Please, Quinn? Please?"

I put the phone down to my chest and sighed to the ceiling. "Give me a sec," I said back into the phone, then set it to mute and walked back to the kitchen.

"Mother, is it okay if I go out for a few hours?" I asked, bracing myself?

"A few hours? It is PM eight o'clock! Where would you go at PM eight o'clock?"

"Taylor Wise needs me to help with her math."

"A girl?! Quinn!" Mother laughed. "First a job, now a girl! Wā!"

"It's not a girlfriend, Mother. She's the classmate I'm tutoring. We have a test tomorrow and she feels underprepared. She'll drive me."

Mother looked unconvinced. Now was the time to hit her with the big one. "She's offering to pay me."

Mother gave me a look. "Be home and in bed by eleven, do you understand?" she finally told me.

I agreed and went back to my room, hitting unmute. "Hey, Taylor, you still there?"

After a second or two, her voice greeted me. "Yes. Can you do it?"

I wasn't thrilled about it, especially considering I was getting money now anyway, but frankly, at this point a part of me felt sorry for her. I just couldn't articulate how. Maybe this was how she won over Mrs. Li and it was just a slower burn on me.

***

When we got to Taylor's place, we almost immediately went to her basement. She lived in, go figure, some sort of ridiculously posh and nice suburban house. The first floor had a foyer, a staircase that went up, and a door that went down, as well as arches into the kitchen and living room. The living room had several couches and a big television. The kitchen was done up with black countertops and white floors. Her mom was in that kitchen, waving politely to us as we descended the stairs.

Her basement was also kind of typical for a suburban house - white shag carpeting, plain white walls, some furniture but mostly just unorganized stuff like magazines on the floor.

"Okay," Taylor said, sitting down on the floor. "So, we just need combinations, right?"

"The test covers factorials, permutations, and combinations. I'm gonna make sure you know the first two as well, since I don't think Li is going to give us any formulas." I opened the book, trying to find the section on combinations. "So what does a factorial look like and how do you calculate it?"

"That's like... a number with an exclamation mark after it, and... you calculate it by multiplying it by every number below it."

"Good, okay. What's a permutation?"

"Um..." She struggled a bit more with this one. "Like... a combination but..." She sighed. "I um... I forget. Could we go over it quickly?"

There was a lot of work ahead of us.

***

"So the answer is..." I trailed off.

Taylor sat unmoved for a bit. She wrote a few things down, filling in n and r, and did a bit of math in her head. Finally, she sat up. "Fifteen?"

I grinned. "Yes! You got it!"

"Really? Oh my god!" She seemed to be as ecstatic as I was.

Just to make sure the work was done, I covered up the formula. "Now, just rewrite the formula for combinations and I think we're done here."

Taylor's expression went from joyous to fearful. "...The formula?"

"Just do your best," I coaxed her. Remember all the n's and r's? Just try to recreate it."

It took her two tries. After the first one, I nudged her in the right direction, and after she rewrote it, I grinned and took my hand off of the formula. Taylor went right back to joyful, standing up and cheering.

"Oh my god! Oh my god! We did it! Can I, like, hug you?"

Um..." I stood up awkwardly. "I mean, sure, if you want." Taylor held her arms out and approached me, giggling as she gave me a friendly hug. I pulled my pelvis back for shameful reasons.

"You saved me. Thank you sooo much!" She pulled back from the hug, still beaming at me. "You're a really nice guy. I can't believe you've never even kissed a girl. I hope that changes for you soon."

I gave a sheepish laugh. "You remembered that, huh?"

She chuckled. "Yeah."

"By the way, how is Crystal doing? Is she going to be okay? I can't imagine what she must be feeling."

"I think she's going to be alright," Taylor admitted. "One of our friends talked to the school counselor about it and she told us the school knows what we're up to and that there's a kind of don't ask don't tell policy. As long as it doesn't become too much, like, public knowledge, the school won't crack down on it, because apparently that's really hard to do."

"Yeah, I can believe that," I replied. "That's very progressive of them."

Taylor didn't react to me. "I'm just glad nothing bad is going to happen to her. Because I - I mean..."

I smiled in understanding. "Can I assume you've sent nudes too?"

Taylor glanced up the stairs to find the closed door to the basement. She turned back to me, bit her lip in shame and nodded.

I put my hands in my pockets to adjust my pants, making sure anything there wasn't obvious. "Don't worry. I don't think any less of you for doing it, at all. Do what you like. I mean, no sex for three months, right?"

She chuckled softly. "So you remembered that too." She looked off in annoyance. "It's, like, closer to four now. I don't know how you manage to stay sane, you haven't done it at all."

"Let's just say I don't know what I'm missing, yet." Was that suave? It felt suave. For me, at least, it was suave.

"Anyway, what do I owe you? What do you think that lesson was worth?" she asked me, changing the topic, looking for her wallet in her purse.

For a guy scared of social interaction, I sure wasn't afraid of being bold when I wanted to. I just never had a reason to be bold, I guess. Had I explored friendships more, I would have found out earlier that I was the type to say exactly what was on his mind. And I wasn't ready to change the subject just yet.

"Can I be real with you?" I asked.

Taylor gave me a weird look. "Um, yeah. Of course."

I exhaled the last of my nerves away. "If you mean what you, uh, said, I have a solution that works out for both of us. I guess I do kind of want to know what I've been missing. If you'd feel comfortable taking pictures of yourself for me, you could, uh, save money. I don't really care about money anyways, but, uh... yeah."

Yup, I just said that. Taylor looked at me with the most shocked face I'd ever seen her have. For the first couple of seconds she didn't say anything.

Too many seconds. "Was that, uh, out of line? I didn't-"

"I mean, it was weird, but..." Taylor trailed off. She supplemented the awkward silence with a nervous laugh. "You are a guy, so... I guess I shouldn't be that shocked, huh?"

I parroted her awkward laugh. "Yeah."

"I think... I think we should keep it to money though, like, if that's okay with you."

I honestly took it surprisingly well. I think I was expecting her to say no. The rejection didn't hurt at all. I mean, the most popular girl in school was turning down the least popular guy. Practically every media piece about high school had prepared me for this.

"Taylor, if you didn't want to send it, I wouldn't want to see it," I pointed out.

She smiled. "Is it mean to tell you 'no' then say, 'I wish more boys were like you?'" she asked with a laugh.

"Hey, it's self-aware," I said with a shrug. "I dunno. Twenty is fine."

"Okay." She reached into her wallet and handed me a twenty-dollar bill. "Here you go. Sorry. Y'know."

"No, I'm sorry I made it awkward," I replied. "I should probably be better at picking up on these cues and now this kinda thing is in the open. I hope you don't think less of me or something."

"Oh no. Not at all, no," she instantly replied. "Yeah, not at all. It's just... y'know? My gut tells me no."

"Then let's listen to it," I replied with more confidence than I usually had replying to... well, anything. "Perhaps you should take me home now?"

"Yeah, good idea."

With that, we went back upstairs and promptly got into her car. We made polite small talk, though I think I was back to the short answers again on the way. It got to the point where I wanted to address it, even if I knew it might dig me a bigger hole.

"Uh, sorry if my answers are, uh, shorter again. I just feel embarrassed and-"

"I understand, and don't feel embarrassed," Taylor let me know. "Is this the place?"

"Uh, yeah," I replied feebly.

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow at class. We can figure out if we need to, like, continue the tutoring after, okay? I guess it depends on how I do on the test or something."

"Uh, yeah, sounds good. Have a good night!" After I closed the door, she drove off.

I was a few minutes late. You might guess Mother tore me a new one but to be honest she never really cared that much about punctuality. Father was surprised to see me come home after him "for the first time in his life," but both of them were glad to hear that I finally got paid for my tutoring services. Mother thought I should have gotten more than twenty, and hey, I nearly got more. Much more.

After supper, Kevin and I hung out in our room, as usual. "Her place, huh? It's getting serious."

I laughed as I eyed the floor. "Jealous?" I mumbled, in a tone that wasn't normally mine. Truth be told, I was embarrassed and horrified at myself for asking Taylor to do such a thing - well, only embarrassed and horrified because she said no, but still. Internally I felt hot with shame. Externally, though, I felt almost empowered. Was this what made guys dicks? Should I maybe have stopped being around the popular kids, lest I end up outside a school gym fist-bumping over getting to see some non-consensual nudes?

Kevin just laughed. "This is cool, dude. Welcome to planet us. It's only uphill from here, although, if by some cosmic magic you sleep with Taylor, it's only downhill after that."

I didn't know what to say, so I just shrugged. Kevin certainly had his view of the world, and he was hoping that I was going to join him soon. Frankly I just kind of wanted my own world.

Right before curfew, I was in the washroom brushing my teeth, doing the usual stuff, getting ready for bed. On the counter, my phone vibrated. It was Taylor.

Hey, are you still up

Puzzling. Immediately, I put down the toothbrush and answered.

Yes, I am. What can I do for you?

I felt an intense nervousness. Was she going to rip me apart? Did she call the police? Well, I guess I did nothing illegal but... the creepy police? Was I too creepy?

The next message she sent me changed everything.

This never happened, and I'll never forgive you if you blab

Taylor motherfucking Wise sent me her tits. It was a picture, of her (although she was smart enough to not include her eyes in the picture, just her mouth), topless. Her tits, which looked just as impressive on her frame with no shirt as they did covered, were on full display. And fuck yes, I was right. Small, brown, adorable nipples.

I was glad I put the toothbrush down. If I hadn't, I'm sure I would have choked to death right then and there. She was wearing the same jeans she wore today, so I knew it was taken right then and there, and her sexy chipmunk face sported a cheeky little grin to complement the picture.

I had to sit down on the floor to compose myself. My cock was throbbing. I don't think my mouth left the O position. If I was an anime character, it would have been Nosebleed City. Granted, thanks to porn a bit ago I knew what nipples looked like, but... these were Taylor Wise's nipples. Plus, just minutes ago I was sure I'd never see them in my life, and I had tried. What a roller coaster tonight was.

After a few minutes of admiring, I realized I was neglecting her. "Less is more," I found myself repeating out loud as I wrote a response text. "Less is more."

I'm speechless. You're so beautiful.

I never liked the idea of masturbating in the bathroom (hell, the concept of masturbating was still kind of foreign ground to me). Something about the idea of people being just outside, maybe wanting to use the bathroom, and getting caught. But Kevin was in my room, and the sexiest, most popular woman in school just sent me a picture of her tits, knowing full well that I wanted it, and knowing full well what I wanted to do with it. I lowered my pants, and grinned. It was no longer creepy to do this. She sent this to me. She knew what I was going to do with it.

And she was fine with that.

As I began to stroke, my phone buzzed again with another message from her. As one could imagine, I already had the phone in my hand, so the message came up on the overlay. It was simple, clear, and concise.

<3

Less is more. I figured that was all she wanted to say on the subject, and she did not want me talking about it for half the night, so I assumed she'd send another message if she wanted to talk about it more, and left the conversation at that.

If one had told me even ten minutes beforehand, let alone when I started tutoring Taylor Wise, "Hey, she's going to show you her tits," I would have never believed them. Heck, depending on the timing I may have even been weirded out by such a notion. But now it was real, it was here and it was happening, and it was my reality. And the scariest and most exciting part was, this was clearly not the end of the story. In fact, I realized as my orgasm approached, nearer and nearer...

This may have just been the beginning.