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It was a noisy firetrap.

The corridors were dark and winding. The walls that divided rooms and apartments were at haphazard angles and made of cheap plywood. Sound traveled freely from room to room, and there were no smoke detectors.

In the late 1800's the house had dominated the street. It had four stories, ornate garrets and circular windows, built at a time when Southeast Pennsylvania was an economic powerhouse run by wealthy industrialists. By the time I enrolled in college, more than a hundred years later, the city was a dying steel town.

Tired factory outlets were stuffed into former textile mills. Grim, decrepit row houses with blistering paint filled block after block, and decent jobs were hard to come by. The living was cheap, which suited me well when I needed a new place to live my senior year, hoping to scrape by until graduation.

I moved into that noisy firetrap right after the Christmas break, taking one of 15 apartments that had been stuffed into that sad building. I didn't care how flimsy it all was, how the other tenants seemed to come and go every couple of weeks, or how I could hear footsteps from the apartment above. It was cheap, and I was focused on graduating from school.

I had long neglected taking a couple of basic course requirements - like science. To this day I can't recall what I was thinking when I signed up for a biology class. The class was full of pre-med students, mostly freshman, wanna-be marine biologists, science nerds...and me, a senior hoping to graduate.

I failed the first test. I reluctantly went to the student support center for help. They agreed to "give" me 40 hours of tutoring. I'd sign up, they'd assign some unlucky soul to my case, and the college would pay the tutor directly.

I met my tutor the following Monday as I waited at a table in the Student Center. I heard my name, looked up, and saw Helene, one of the two teaching assistants in our bio class - "T.A. Helene."

The first day of class we had all introduced ourselves. She said at the time that she wanted to be a marine biologist, and was finishing her Masters Degree. She had become a T.A. to supplement her scholarship - clearly she was crazy smart. I thought she was kind of pretty, but the other students made fun of her and called her "Helen" behind her back - as in "Helen Keller."

She had a hearing impediment, wore a pair of clunky hearing aids, and her speech patterns were awkward. She always spoke too loudly and her words were sometimes misshapen. I had spent years learning foreign languages and deciphering accents, so I didn't have much trouble understanding her.

She sat down and dove right in.

"Wha are you havin' trouble with?" she asked.

Everything. "For starters, all the Latin names, the hierarchy - what is it, family, class, phylum...I can't remember this stuff."

She laughed. "Wow. We have a lot of work to do, but that one's easy. Do you like spaetti?"

"Huh?" I thought maybe I had misheard her.

"Spaghetti, you know, spaghetti?" She articulated more clearly, and mimicked twirling a fork and stuffing spaghetti in her mouth.

This wasn't such a good idea after all, I thought. Maybe the other students were right about her. Fucking spaghetti? I'm trying to graduate and remember what frogs are called and we're carb loading?

"King Phillip Came Over For Good Spaghetti." She said it carefully and clearly.

I stared at her. She was not just nearly deaf, but nuts. I just nodded, wondering how I was going to ask for another tutor without offending her.

And then she started laughing at me. I felt my face get red. And then, as her laugher subsided, she said "It's easy: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. It's a mnemonic. And you should have seen the look on your face. King Philip Came Over for Good Spaghetti. Say it."

My face grew even redder, but I learned my lesson. She wasn't crazy. She was a good teacher. And she had a good sense of humor.

We sat there for two hours as she taught me some more tricks, "just the basics" she said, but each was a revelation.

As we were wrapping up I noticed a group of other students across the Student Center - cheerleaders I had seen at a football game. They were pointing to Helene, heads bent over as they shared a secret, smirks on their faces. "Hey" I said to her, gesturing with my head. "Do you know them?"

Helene looked over at their table. Her face darkened. "No, are you kidding? They think I can't hear, but I can tell wha' they are saying. I don' want to know them." She became agitated and started to gather her things.

I felt badly for her. And I needed her - I'd never pass bio and graduate without her. From what I understood, she needed the tutoring work. I remembered being teased in high school myself, being tall, skinny, wearing black plastic glasses, and could still feel the memory of that sting.

"Listen, don't take this the wrong way, but we could do this next time at my apartment off campus - nobody would bother us. It's a crummy little place, but it is just three blocks away..."

She looked at me, then over at the cheerleaders, then back at me. She didn't say anything. I was afraid I'd overstepped, and rushed to backtrack. "Never mind, I just thought it would be easier to work without stupid and annoying distractions, you know?"

She tilted her head and gave me the slightest smile. "Yes, you are 'ight. What's the addwess? I'll see you there Friday at 5pm."

That Friday we sat cross-legged on the floor in my apartment, my cheap floor lamp between us, as we poured over my bio textbook and she tried to catch me up on the basics that I had failed to grasp. We sat so close I could smell her perfume, and her eyes seemed to sparkle in the glow of the lamp as the skies outside darkened.

Two weeks later I had a crush on her, and I think she knew it. I was distracted by the warmth of her thigh against mine as we sat next to each other on the floor, and by the touch of her hand when she handed me her tutoring time sheet to sign so she could get paid.

Even with that distraction I got a solid "A minus" on the next test. I couldn't wait to tell her, like a little kid bringing home a gold star or something.

That Friday she came up for our usual lesson. She threw her coat on the desk I had made out of stolen milkcrates, put her backpack down, and sat in her usual spot.

"So I've got some good news" I said.

She looked at me, waiting. "Well?"

I pulled my test out of my textbook. "I got an A-Minus. I can't thank you enough. I might actually graduate if you keep teaching me so well."

"That is so gweat!" She leaned over to give me a hug - a real hug. I felt her small breasts against my chest, could smell her shampoo, and felt her hands on my back as she pulled me close. "But you know wha'?"

"No...what?"

"I knew that. I'm one of the teaching assistants - remembah? I see all the grades."

"You didn't grade my test did you!?"

"Of COURSE NOT!" She yelled that out so loud I was startled. "You did it all on your own, and I think you deserve a reward." She opened her backpack and took out a bottle of cheap wine. "I think we can skip the tutoring tonight."

I don't remember if the wine tasted good or bad - I was mostly drinking beer in those days, and wouldn't have known the difference. We talked and drank as the sun went down. She told me about her plans to become a marine biologist. "When I am underwatah, it doesn't matter that I can't hear, and nobody makes fun of me. Most people are jerks anyway. I like animals better."

As we poured the last of the wine she leaned in to kiss me. She pushed me back onto the mattress on the floor where I slept, and took my hand and put it on her breast, over her shirt. She threw a leg over me, straddling me, and pulled her shirt off over her head. As she looked at me she reached back, unhooked her bra, slid down one strap, then another, and tossed it on the carpet. "It's cold out here" she said, something her tiny, hard nipples confirmed. "Let's get under the covers."

We fumbled with the rest of our clothing under the covers, pants and socks coming off in a rush. I kissed her, her lips, her face, her neck, and worked my way down her chest, thinking about her nipples. I was about to kiss her there when all of sudden she cried out "STOP!"

She reached down to my face and gently, carefully, took off my eyeglasses, folded them, and put them on the floor; then she reached up and took off her hearing aids, first one, then the other, and put them next to my glasses. "Now you can't see, and I can't hear" she said loudly. "We're free, the blind leading the deaf. Or the other way around?"

I would have laughed but she was cupping her small breast, offering it to me, and that was all I could think of. I licked her, tentatively. She put her free hand behind my head and pushed my face harder against her exquisitely soft breast. I was sucking her nipple when she made a sound so loud that it startled me, a cross between a shout and a groan.

Later, as I thought about it, I realized that her hearing defect was a factor, but in the moment I wasn't sure what was happening and thought that I had hurt her. I looked up - "Are you OK?"

"No, I am definitely NOT OK - you stopped! Suck my boob, c'mon, moooe!" She was nearly shouting, and with that she pushed my face back into place on her nipple. I licked, sucked, and flicked my tongue on her nub, feeling it grow harder and bigger, until she pulled up my face and nearly yelled "I wannn you."

She reached down, wrapped her hand around my throbbing cock, rubbed it up and down her slippery pussy lips, and said "Push it in!!! as she bucked her hips up off the mattress." So I did, slowly at first as she grimaced, and then faster, in and out of her velvety warmth, deeper and harder until I was pounding her into the mattress. No matter how hard I pumped into her she kept yelling "moooe, harder, give it to me..." and when she came with a shout, her cunt gripping my cock in tight spasms, I exploded deep between her legs, flooding her with my sticky essence.

She stayed over that night for the first time, and after we had sex again in the morning I was in love. "I guess this means we are boyfriend and girlfriend" I said as we lay in the sheets.

"NOOO! First of all I'm your tutor AND the teaching assistant in your class. Second, I don't wan' a boyfriend. I've had a couple and they all drop me when somebody who hears better comes along. Let's just be 'friends', OK?"

My feelings were hurt, I have to admit. "Friends?" After she just rocked my world? But I didn't have a choice. She must have seen the look on my face.

"And besides, you are going to fail bio if we keep doing this instead of studying. I'll come over on Friday, but we HAVE to study for two hours. And then I can give you a different lesson on Saturdays - anatomy!" She laughed. "OK?"

I'd settle for that - which is exactly what we did the following week, except this time, instead of pulling my head up off of her breast, she pushed me down. "I want you to go down there" she said. "My roommate says that her boyfriend does that for her and it's so good he drives her crazy..."

I wasn't really sure what she was talking about, but the way she was pressing on my head I knew I needed to go lower. I kissed down her belly, and when I reached her waist she spread her legs and bent her knees to give me access to her gaping honey hole.

I looked up at her. "What do you want me to do?"

"Lick me" she shouted. Her hands were still on my head, pushing me down to her crotch. I put my face against her pussy, breathing in her scent, and licked her like an ice cream cone, a gentle, long lick. She moaned loudly. "Do it again!" I licked her again. "Again!" she said, bucking her hips up against my face. "Harder." She pressed my face down.

As I licked her over and over I tasted her wetness and felt it grow, first just slippery feeling, then a trickle, like a slowly dripping faucet, and then almost a small stream. She started moving her legs back and forth, as if she had a pair of cymbals inside her thighs that she needed to crash against my head, and her moans became steadier.

"Higher" she said, and she began to direct me up to her clit. It was truly the deaf leading the blind, for I could not see what I was doing. I moved up higher, and when I found her fleshy nub she shrieked. "Yes, right there, lick it, harder...don't stop, don't stop!" She had my face smashed down against her pussy, and the best I could do was flutter my tongue - which seemed to do the trick and she started cumming.

I felt her contractions as her pussy twitched against my face. She arched her back off the mattress to grind against my tongue, and she clamped her thighs against my ears to hold me right where she wanted me as she wailed with pleasure.

I don't know if she came once or twice or ten times - her spasms of pleasure seemed to last forever, but she eventually grew calmer and pulled me up. She looked at me and very plainly and loudly said "fuck me. I want your cock inside." Her pussy felt different this time, maybe because she was so excited: she was still tight, but was soaking wet and more ready, so I could plunge my cock right into her all the way, and she put her legs around my back and pulled me in until my balls were smashed against her ass.

I came in no time, shooting pulse after pulse of cum deep inside her, but she wasn't done. As I lay on top of her spent, my heart pounding, she said "eat me again." I knew she'd be a soaked, sloppy mess but didn't care.

Her pussy lips were swollen, large, meaty, bright pink, mashed, and glistening from a combination of her juices and my jizz, which was dripping slowly out of her gaping vagina. She put her hands on my head again and pushed my face hard into her crotch. I started blindly licking her, tongue fucking her, and anything else I could think of, still not sure what I was really doing, but her moans and words confirmed that she like it - "Eat me, god yes, do it, do it..." and I could hear her even though her thighs were covering my ears.

And as I blindly worked to please her, licking and tonguing her slippery pie, my tongue found her asshole. She shrieked and pulled my head back. "That was my ass! What are you doing?!"

I had no idea, really, what I was doing. None.

"Sorry, sorry" I mumbled, my voice muffled from between her legs. She guided my head back up to her pussy, towards her clit. I began to flutter my tongue on her tiny pink pearl and she started rhythmically grinding against my face. "YES, THAT'S THE SPOT, RIGHT THERE." She was moaning, bucking up against my face, and then - much to my surprise - she changed direction.

"Put your tongue in my ass again." I wasn't sure I had heard her right, and looked up over her mound.

"What did you say?"

"My asssssssssss" she almost hissed, and with that she pushed my head down, leaving no doubt what she wanted.

She was soaking wet, all over. I slid down and licked her asshole, and she pressed down. "FUCK MY ASS" she cried out. I was thinking she meant with my tongue, so I did - I put my tongue in her asshole - and was right. "GOD, FUCK MY ASS, YES, OH GOD, I'M GOING TO CUM..."

I poked my tongue into her tight rosebud as best as I could, over and over, in and out. She was pushing my head down so hard I could barely breathe, and then I felt it - her orgasm ripping through her belly. Her puckered asshole clamped open and shut, and she was crying out so loudly I could hear her even though her thighs were covering my ears, "FUCK IT WITH YOUR TONGUE, DEEPER, IN MY ASS!!!" and I could feel my cock growing again as she writhed and cried out.

It was like that for the next couple of weeks. We'd study on Friday and keep it all business. On Saturday we became "friends" and she'd tell me loudly what she wanted, how to please her, and she'd yell, moan, howl, and cum on my face and cock until we were both exhausted and would fall asleep tangled together.

In the meantime the small apartment seemed a bit cozier, more like home. She wasn't sentimental - noting had actually changed - but I forgot how crappy it was.

About three weeks later on a Saturday afternoon I clumped up the steps to my second floor apartment, turned the corner to go down the hall, and saw a middle-aged woman fumbling with keys at the door of the apartment next to mine.

The hall was a dead end and dim and I didn't want to startle her, so I said hello. "Hi, I'm in the apartment next door. These locks can be tricky, huh?"

She looked up. "Oh hi. You must be Bob. I'm Cathy. Is Helene coming over tonight?"

That threw me for a loop. Only my last name was on the battered mailbox in the foyer. "Yeah, I'm Bob, how did you know? And Helene - have you guys met?"

"I feel like we have. Honey, these walls are paper thin, if you haven't noticed. I can hear the two of you having a good time every weekend, just about every word you say to each other. Mostly Helene though."

Talk about embarrassing. "I am SO sorry. I'll talk to her. We'll keep it down. It is just that she has a hearing defect - she can't hear very well, and sometimes gets loud."

"Sometimes? OK, 'sometimes' if you say so. Don't be sorry, you two remind me of when I was young, when my husband and I first got married. We're finally getting divorced - long overdue if you ask me. These apartments aren't the Ritz, but at least they were available on short notice. The only real problem with living next to you is that it is like Cupid's Gym over there and you two drive me crazy sometimes. I'm going through batteries like they are free. Which they aren't, you know?"

At that point she managed to get the key in the lock and opened the door to her apartment. "Anyway, have a good weekend, and don't worry about it" she said with a little wave and a smile as she disappeared into her apartment.

As her remark about batteries sunk in I went from being embarrassed to being intrigued. I was pretty sure that she just told me that she was playing with a vibrator as she was listening to Helene and I having sex, and my growing embarrassment was soon matched by a raging erection in my shorts.

I wondered if I should mention any of this to Helene, but it seemed hard to explain - and besides, if the walls were as thin as Cathy said, she'd hear us talking about her. I decided not to say anything.

Helene arrived that night as she always did on Saturdays, around 8pm. I opened the door and she fell into my arms. We worked our way through the kitchenette into the other room, undressing each other as we went, tossing our clothes on the floor and then - always the last step - we carefully took off my eyeglasses, her hearing aids, and tumbled onto the mattress.

I kissed down her neck, nibbling and licking as I went, and she started to moan as she ran her hands through my hair as she gently nudged me down to her chest, the same path I'd follow every Saturday.

And she'd direct, not that she needed to. "SUCK THEM, I WAN' YOU TO SUCK THEM, SUCK MY NIPPLES..." I loved the feeling of her tight, hard pink buds in my mouth, and teased her for a second or two: I licked her once, twice, and then latched on with my lips and started sucking her breast as she desired, and she'd call out for more: "YES, SUCK MY BOOB, I LOVE THAT, HARDER, MO..."

And then I heard it: the sound of a vibrator's hum, just the other side of the cheap plywood wall that divided our apartments, a sound that rose and fell. As I was sucking on Helene's breast I had an image of Cathy with some kind of toy, rubbing it on her own nipples as she heard Helene, or maybe rubbing it between her legs, and my erection, which had been growing, suddenly became achingly, throbbingly hard and full.