Nickwen Street

"Some drama cats are havin' a party off campus," one of them said. "We're gonna go see how the other half parties. You in?"

"Oh, yeah!" Ronnie said. Turning back to Polly, he leaned in for a kiss, but she pulled back. "All right, be that way," he said. "You can get back to east campus on your own?"

"Yeah, after two years I think I know the way, Ronnie," Polly grumbled. "Enjoy the party."

There was no need to tell him she knew why the guys wanted to crash that particular party. Rumors were rife among their circles that the girls from that crowd were easy. Polly knew, Ronnie knew, and she had little doubt that she knew he knew. She didn't know if he'd ever partaken of those other girls' favors, and she really didn't want to know. That was one lesson her own parents had imparted loud and clear upon her.

On the lonely last block to campus, Polly contented herself with the thought that if Ronnie was seen messing around at the party, at least it might dampen the speculation that she'd been to bed with him. No one had ever been so thoughtless as to ask her, but plenty of her friends had confessed that they'd heard stories. They, of course, knew those stories were false. They knew Polly hadn't missed a bedcheck in two years. They knew Maggie, Polly's freshman year roommate and best friend, was among the crowd who knew their way around bedcheck and could have helped Polly out had she wanted to. But Maggie had always told anyone rude enough to ask the truth: Polly had never asked for her help.

Many was the time Polly had been tempted to ask. That much was true.

The desire had always been there. Years before college, a chance encounter with the transmission hump of her father's car had provided a wonderfully taboo revelation she had never forgotten. A memorable late afternoon behind the garden shed with her high school boyfriend had provided a sweet taste of life on the other side, and Polly had enjoyed the guilt immensely.

At least until the following Monday at school.

It was long ago and far away, but Polly had never forgotten the leering looks from the boys and girls alike. Or the whispers and snickers behind her back, or the ribald flirting from boys she didn't even know. Or the nagging terror that was her constant companion for the next two weeks until her period arrived, mercifully right on time. Once that much was out of the way, Polly had resolved to ignore the unwelcome attention until she could escape to college out of state, and then never, ever put herself in that situation again.

Since arriving at Claxton, her scandalous past blissfully unknown, Polly had worked very hard to present a bubbly and cheerful, yet pristine façade. And by most measures she had succeeded -- at least until recently. Now with so many people assuming she and Ronnie must have done it at least once and probably more, it seemed to make sense that she ought to go ahead and give in. After all, she did love Ronnie, didn't she?

Tonight, and not for the first time, Polly wasn't sure. But the thought of his hands all over her body and more was quite agreeable as she made her way home -- again, not for the first time.

Finding Maggie in the dorm lounge on her arrival did nothing to quell the growing flame of desire within. "I'm surprised you're not out at some party," Polly said.

"Wasn't feeling great earlier," Maggie said. "What about you? Where's Ronnie?"

"Out tomcatting with the boys." Polly flopped down in her favorite armchair.

"What's his cover story this time?"

"He didn't even bother with one, if you can believe that," Polly said.

"Oh, Polly, I'm sorry!"

"Are you really?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Sorry," Polly said. "It just felt like kind of an I-told-you-so for never putting out for him."

"I would never..."

"I know, I know! That's why I said I'm sorry! If you want to know the truth of it, Maggie, I was just thinking on the walk home, maybe I actually would like to."

"With Ronnie? Polly, you can do better."

Polly laughed -- a sad, frustrated laugh. "It is ever so bizarre being the envy of all the women on campus, and being unhappy about it all!"

"All the women on campus don't know him like you do," Maggie said. "Listen, if you want, I can help you with getting around bedcheck, and I can even tell you where to get some protection -- just promise not to tell anyone you heard it from me. But I think you ought to find another guy."

"I wonder how I can do that," Polly mused. "Everybody's got me on a pedestal here, and they think Ronnie and I are practically engaged."

"You are, dearie, or at least you act like it."

"I know!" Polly stood up and clenched her fists in frustration. "So how do I show anyone another side of me?"

"Halloween's next week," Maggie pointed out. "Perfect time for pretending you're someone else."

"I was thinking maybe I'd go as Rosie the Riveter," Polly said. "At least I could show off that I'm not some delicate flower."

"You sure you want to go that far?" Maggie asked. "What's the appeal of a factory worker?"

"What's the appeal of any kind of work?" Polly asked. "It's a chance to make your own way in the world! Haven't you ever wanted that?"

"Sure," Maggie said. "But, I mean, it's the way of the world, isn't it?"

"Doesn't have to be that way, any more than I have to be a virgin on my wedding night."

"Wow! This is a new look for you, Polly! Maybe you don't need a costume."

"We can talk about that next week," Polly said. "I'm off to bed." She hugged her friend good night, feeling a bit better now.

Polly's room was a great deal less opulent than Nick imagined. But it did have its share of feminine accoutrements, including a lacy white bedspread and a canopy she'd received for her tenth birthday (and somehow let her parents talk her into bringing to Claxton). The red cloth cast a pleasant pink tinge from the overhead light when she lay on the bed, as she did now. Her angst forgotten for the moment, she flopped down into the welcome embrace of her throw pillows and gazed up at the canopy for a few minutes.

The curtains were still open, but she welcomed the glimpse at the black night against her intimate, cheerful surroundings. The lack of privacy leant one last bulwark against the urge she'd been fighting losing battles with for years. So dirty, so wrong, and she'd always been so sure no other girl ever gave in to such temptations. But sooner or later she always had, and tonight she scarcely even saw any point in trying to fight it, not after all the thoughts of giving in to Ronnie and living up to her reputation -- what was the harm when she was going to marry him anyway?

And yet, as she lay there gazing at the pink glow above, Polly realized she wasn't thinking of Ronnie at all. It was a young man kissing her neck and squeezing her around the waist like Ronnie did, rubbing her breasts like she very occasionally let Ronnie do, working up an irresistible hunger between her thighs like Ronnie sometimes left her with; but it wasn't Ronnie.

Just who was it? Polly didn't know, she didn't recognize his handsome face or his well-built body, but she knew it wasn't Ronnie. She didn't care just who it was, his imaginary touch was as irresistible as it was unidentifiable. Polly looked up at the window with a thought for getting up to draw the curtains -- only then did she realize she was already rubbing her legs together. She stopped just long enough to take in the warm wetness between them, a condition that had once terrified and humiliated her, but now she found herself welcoming it as she swung out and set her feet on the floor.

The idea of leaving the curtains open crossed her mind; no one was likely to see anything in her third-floor room from outside. But Polly wasn't feeling nearly that adventurous -- not yet, anyway. Once she was safely cut off from the outside world, she quickly pulled her dress off and draped it over her desk chair. Instinctively she reached back to unhook her bra, a ritual she always looked forward to at the end of the day, but decided she rather liked the anticipation of her imaginary man removing it for her -- and not just yet.

She did pull her panties down, and welcomed her own fingers as they ran an exploratory first round through the naughtily damp hair that she had always loved in spite of her better angels. Closing her eyes with a deeply satisfied moan, she reached further in and drew tight circles around what she now knew was her clitoris -- a word she was quite sure she wasn't supposed to know, but that battle was lost. Once again she wondered, just why wouldn't anyone want her to know she had a part of her body dedicated only to pleasure?

Polly was quite sure she did not want to know the answer to that question. But it didn't stop her from wondering.

Her concerns about all that were fleeting now, as she gave in to the naughty joy that she had long ago given up on trying to deny herself, and the consequence be damned. Butterflies flocked everywhere in her body as she imagined her touch was that of the mystery man she couldn't quite see. She couldn't see him, but she could feel him. Hard and long and warm in her hands as she welcomed his own hands on her body, and then in her body. Giggling a little at his ticklish kisses on her nipples, she was once again aware that in reality they were still bound in her bra, which now felt quite tight and confining on her otherwise bare body.

Polly all but broke the clasp in two in her hurry to undo it, and tossed the bra on top of her other clothes, and flopped back on her bed with her legs spread wide. With her right hand still busy on the outside, she reached one finger on her left hand tentatively inside. When the world didn't come to an end with the sensation of her own body's warm, wet embrace, she pushed it further in and rubbed slowly back and forth. Closing her eyes, she imagined taking her mystery lover inside her, and his breath on her cheek and neck and breasts, somehow all at once. It was delicious.

Perhaps too delicious, for Polly felt herself plunging off into the abyss of joy before she could make any sense of what was to happen next. As she heaved a sigh of contentment and opened her eyes, she waited for the usual sense of shame to wash over her...and was pleasantly surprised when it didn't. Feeling lucky, she also pondered the fact that it wasn't Ronnie she'd imagined inside her, and discovered that didn't bother her in the least.

Just what was Ronnie up to right now? That did bother her. How could he ditch her there on the corner to go to a party where everyone knew he was hoping to meet a girl faster than her? That was too easy: he either didn't think she would know that, or he expected her not to care.

But she did care. And in that moment she was quite sure she didn't even want to marry Ronnie, never mind needing to.

Nick and his friends still didn't notice the man in the trench coat when they got to the house with the party lights flashing on the porch. To Mary's annoyance, they did notice the fast girls of campus in their stylish outfits despite the autumn chill. Even so, she couldn't help but feel pity for Nick when the guys finally talked him into approaching the leggy young woman in the tight bluejeans whom they had all been admiring while she danced by the piano. "That's Ellen," Mary said. "I had a class with her freshman year. My advice is, stay away. She's a real snob."

"Go on, Nick," George said, giving him a mild shove. "You really ought to get Polly out of your system and the worst she can say is no."

"And I've heard most of the women in this clique hardly ever say that," added Miles.

"You guys don't know Ellen," Mary warned again.

The young man at the piano was playing the sort of ferocious boogie-woogie Nick could only dream of playing, and Ellen was enjoying every note, her long hair flailing every which way as she wriggled gracefully around the piano. A few others were dancing, but most of the revellers were giving Ellen a wide berth.

Nick remembered to put on his most flirtatious grin and sway playfully as he stepped up to Ellen. A deep breath and he plunged again. "Hey there, want to dance?"

Ellen stopped dancing and looked him up and down. "With you? You're kidding, right?" She looked around at her admirers to see if it was a joke and they were in on it.

If they weren't, no one could have told as much. "Nick, you're out of your league!" said a guy he didn't even know.

"In your dreams, kiddo!" added a girl on the guy's arm. "Think you got the wrong party!"

"Yeah, get lost," came a voice from behind that Nick had never heard directed at him before, but that he recognized immediately. He whipped around to see Ronnie glaring at him. "Let a real man have this dance."

Ellen squealed, "Yes please!" and grabbed Ronnie's hand, and Nick found himself unceremoniously pulled and prodded back to the corner he'd staked out with the others.

The guys looked sheepishly at the floor and everywhere but at their friend. Mary opened her arms. "Nick, I'm so sorry..."

"Leave me alone." Spurning her hug, he stormed out the front door.

"Wow, man," Miles said. "That was cold."

"Yeah, I didn't expect her to say yes to a drip like Nick, but I didn't think it'd be that bad!" Stan said.

"You should have," Mary said. "I told you!"

"Oh, we just figured you were jealous!" Miles said. "We all see the way you look at Nick!"

"What?!"

"He's right," George said. "If you want a fling with him, just tell him. He knows what you are and he doesn't care."

"You guys are disgusting!" Mary turned on her heel and followed Nick's lead.

Out on the front porch, she stopped to button her coat up and collect her thoughts, and to consider what the guys had said. The truth was, if Nick did want a fling with her, she'd have been fine with it. He was kind of cute in his own nerdy way and she had no doubt he'd be delightfully gentle in the sack. But what had she ever done to make them think she had the hots for him? Or did they just think she felt that way about all the boys?

Only then did she realize Nick hadn't run off home like she'd assumed he had. He was under the old oak tree in the front yard, talking to an older man she didn't recognize. It looked like an intense discussion, but when the man turned and walked off, Nick looked different somehow -- more confident than she'd ever seen him, a gleam in his eye when he turned to see her on the porch, he even seemed a little bit taller.

"Nick?" she said. "I came out to tell you I'm really sorry about what the guys did..."

"They won't do that again," Nick said, with a smile that reflected not a trace of the humiliation he'd just been through. "Come on, I've got something to show you!" He took Mary's hand, and she surprised even herself by letting him lead her back inside.

They got back to the living room just in time to see Ronnie leading Ellen willingly down the darkened hallway.

"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Stan snapped. "He's got the flower of the whole campus, and he's just got to have her too? What about Polly?"

"I'm sure Polly appreciates you defending her honor, Nick," George quipped. "But I'd bet my last dollar she knows all about it.

"Guys!" Miles caught their attention and pointed at Nick and Mary, standing hand in hand in the doorway.

"Well, that didn't take long," Stan said.

"We ought to apologize," George said.

But they didn't get the chance. With Mary still at his side, Nick strode up to the piano and said something to the player that the guys couldn't hear. Whatever it was, it convinced the pianist to get up and give Nick a turn at the keys.

"He's just got to embarrass himself some more?" Miles said.

Miles was immediately proven wrong. As soon as Nick was seated at the piano, he launched into the most ferocious and perfectly executed boogie-woogie anyone in the room had ever heard. Scarcely two measures had gone by before the onlookers forgot what they had just seen Ellen do to the newcomer and gave into the irresistible rhythm. Soon the entire room was on their feet and dancing up a storm.

As his magic fingers pounded out the music, Nick hadn't forgotten Ellen. He also hadn't forgotten seeing her steal away with Ronnie. But he didn't care, for already he could see he wasn't going to be rejected like that again. Already he could imagine just what he was in for when he stepped away from the piano, but right then he didn't give any thought to anything but the song. The man in the trench coat had told him he could see to it that he'd be able to play like no one else, and of course Nick hadn't believed him...until he had. He still didn't know just what had happened, but he'd felt something change, almost like a switch being flipped. Somehow he'd known before sitting down at the piano that he had it, and sure enough, he did.

In the glare of the party lights, Nick's gaze was focused on the keys and on his amazing fingers dancing across them. So he never looked behind him to see he wasn't casting a shadow on the floor.

As much as east campus felt like a convent sometimes with the watchful housemothers and the strict rules about male visitors, it did have its benefits. The biggest of these, Polly found in that long week before the campus Halloween party, was that Ronnie was easy to dodge. It was only fair that she give him back his pin, of course. This she did in the dorm lounge on Tuesday afternoon, while preparations for the jack-o-lantern carving party scheduled for that evening went on around them. The freshmen girls who'd been charged with decorating knew who Ronnie was, just like everyone else, and they knew he belonged to Polly, just like everyone else. So they all kept a safe distance, pinning up the cotton spiderwebs and witches' hats all over the room, while Polly sat primly facing Ronnie on the couch.

But they couldn't help but hear Ronnie's response to Polly's unwelcome news. "What?!" he snapped, loudly enough to be heard outside if the windows hadn't all been closed against the October chill. "Come on, babe! You don't mean that!"

"I do mean it." Polly's eyes were dry, but she could feel them threatening to well up as she opened her fist and lay his fraternity pin on the table between them. "I'm sorry, Ronnie, but I'm not ready to get married and I'm not sure if I'll ever want to."

"So we don't have to get married right away!" Ronnie pleaded. "This isn't that silly law school stuff, is it? Look, if you've just got to try that...fine, I'll allow it!"

"That's just it, Ronnie. I don't want your permission. I want you to recognize it's my life and my decision, and anyone can see you won't do that. Besides, do you think I don't know what you got up to at that party the other night? What was her name...Ellen?"

To both of their surprise, it was Ronnie who shed the first tears. They were tears of rage. "Who told you about her? Tell me who it was, and I'm gonna kill him!" When Polly didn't answer, he looked around the room to see if he recognized any of the girls from the party. "Was it someone here? I don't hit girls, but I know some girls who will!"

"That will do, Ronald!" snapped Mrs. Peabody, the housemother, who had been keeping a respectful distance up to that moment. Now she charged forward and pointed at the door. "Out! I won't have threats of violence against anyone in this house!"

Ronnie did stand up, but he kept his pleading gaze fixated on Polly. "Please, Polly," he said. "All we've been through, come on!" He dropped the pin on the table as Mrs. Peabody grabbed at his shoulder.

"You should take this," Polly said, holding it up without looking at him.

"I don't want it!" he said as Mrs. Peabody prodded him toward the door. "Keep it! You'll be glad you did when I take you back, babe!"

Polly didn't cry. But she also didn't move or touch the pin again for several minutes, while the younger girls went about their business, exchanging disbelieving glances at what they had just witnessed.