The Humper Game Pt. 05 Ch. 02

Author's note:

This is, in all its seven parts and their many chapters, one very, very long story. If long stories bother you, I suggest you read something else.

No part of this story is written so as to stand on its own. I strongly suggest that you start with the beginning of Part 1 and read sequentially—giving up at any point you choose, of course.

All sexual activity portrayed anywhere in this story involves only people at least eighteen years old.

This entire story is posted only on literotica.com. Any other public posting without my permission in writing is a violation of my copyright.

We got up Saturday morning to the alarm, shaved, got dressed, and went off to run. Kelly was there but not yet running. She was talking with Elise. We paired off, Ellen and Elise moving onto the track first, Kelly and I in their wake. Kelly and I talked about issues raised by our discussion the previous evening, mostly.

At one point, without thinking, I took hold of her arm and gave it a friendly squeeze in response to something she had said. When I realized this, I let go and apologized, adding, "I'm sorry, it's too bad that I feel I can't even do that without saying more than I meant by it. My fault for not paying attention to what I did."

"Phil, don't feel bad. I wish you would feel free to make gestures like that. I know you're not flirting or anything. If I promise that I'll tell you if a gesture, um, makes me, um, feel like there must be more than friendship behind it, or feel like I need more than you'd want to give, more than just friendship, will you please stop being so over-careful? I admit that if Ellen weren't right up there ahead of us, I'd want to be more careful myself."

"Are you sure you're willing to promise that? The problem is that saying something will be a lot harder in precisely the cases when you need to say something. But if you're willing, I'd be grateful—even though I'll still have trouble not being jumpy about it myself."

"I promise! I want to be able to be open with you, to be—I don't know how to put it. Freely friendly and affectionate without any romantic strings attached? You're right, though, sometimes I'll wish there were some, and those are the times I'll need to speak up, and there will be hard judgment calls. I promise to do my best to sort those out honestly, though."

This time she gave my arm a squeeze for a brief moment. "I—. Um. I'm hoping to go dancing with you tonight, with all three of you, and I'll say up front that I'm kind of looking forward to dancing as your partner. And I may kind of imagine that that means more than it does. If I do, I'll remind myself that that's a fantasy, and that I'm happy you and Ellen are committed to each other. And I'll try not to burden you with any daydreams I have. And thank you, you and Ellen both, for being my friends."

When Ellen and Elise slowed down, we did too. As we walked home after Kelly turned off, I told Ellen a little about what Kelly and I had said, and a lot about the last part of it. She said, "Phil, you're right, I trust you more than I do Kelly, but I do trust her too. Yes, what you said last night is true enough. I'm sure there are situations where some temptation might get the better of you. I know you well enough to know you'd try to get out of the situation first, but I can imagine some where that would be impossible. Remember that one time with Jenny! And if you weren't—um, letting me have my way anyway, this week would have me in the same state by now. It still almost does, a lot of the time."

After that, I guess it shouldn't be a big surprise that I let her do what she asked in the shower. The big pleasure was all mine, but I had to trust what she said, that she got something out of it, too. Well, Sam had once said something of the kind, too.

We went downstairs and both looked carefully through Ellen's apartment to see whether she'd missed anything. And I found two things she had missed—but not things of hers. Remembering what Sam and I had found in my apartment, I really picked up the mattress. No money, but a porn magazine had been stuck under there. The date on it was about six months earlier. I took it down to put in the recycling bin when we left.

But on a whim I pulled the drawers out of the dresser, and taped to the back of one of them was an envelope with thirty dollars in it. I wondered how many tenants ago that went back to. I told Ellen about the money that I'd found under my mattress.

"You know, maybe the lesson from this is that it's not a good idea to hide money away. Or anything else, maybe. Too easy to forget."

Everything else seemed normal and clean. We went back upstairs and got breakfast. As we sat together, I was suddenly struck by the wonder of sitting there next to this beautiful woman every morning. I tried to tell her how I was feeling, and she gave me her five hundred megawatt smile and hugged me. "Phil, domesticity is wonderful, as long as it's with you. It suits us both."

We cleaned up, and did a little general cleaning and tidying as well, and then turned to studying. I polished up my paper for Professor Goldberg. I almost printed it, before I remembered that she hadn't actually assigned it. We took a break for lunch, and cleaned up after that. Later, pretty much right on time, Pete and Tammy came.

The three of us sat at the table and worked, while Ellen retreated to one of the living room chairs. We spent a little time on our Monday class, the same class we'd had on Friday. We thought we were pretty well prepared for that one.

Then we turned to our Tuesday class, Professor Bailey's. Here I got a little surprise. Both of them were really prepared, and Tammy was about as enthusiastic as Pete as we went through things talking about the issues. Once we got started, they both had lots of questions to raise and work through, and they had gotten a good start on following up on some of them. Some of their issues were ones I had passed by without noticing, and I told them so. Of course, I had a bunch they hadn't thought about, too.

We were enjoying the discussion so much that I totally lost track of time. Ellen came over to us and said, "I hate to break this up, but we've got to get ready and eat." I looked, and it was headed toward six o'clock.

Pete looked at the time and stood up. "You're right. We need to get going, or we'll never make it back here in time."

Ellen said, "Well, what are you doing about dinner?"

"We hadn't really decided, but at this point it will have to be fast food, I guess." There were certainly a lot of such places around, by no means only the standard varieties.

"We're just reheating leftovers. We've got kind of a lot of different things too small for a meal by themselves, unless we have that chili. But Phil and I were planning to use up a couple of things, and if we add another couple there should be plenty for the four of us. If you'd be willing to stay."

Pete said, without even looking at Tammy to check, "That sounds wonderful!" It was clear enough that she was more than willing, too. So we all gathered our stuff and put it away—or at least aside. Ellen co-opted Tammy to help her get the leftovers out and heating and to help set the table, while I drafted Pete to help cut up vegetables for a salad. We were all ready to sit down and eat before 6:30.

We had a couple of stuffed green bell peppers, and Ellen and I split one while Pete and Tammy shared the other. They had eaten bites of several other things, saying that everything was really good, when Tammy took her first bite of the stuffed pepper. As soon as she had finished the bite, she said, "Everything is really good, but this is outstanding. Ellen, where did you learn to cook like this?"

Ellen laughed. "I'm honored that you think I did it. But everything here was fixed by Phil, sometimes with me helping. Except the rolls were bought, but he's made rolls like them once or twice."

That needed a disclaimer. "With the bread machine to mix the dough, that's dead easy. Shape and bake."

That was another item from the resale shop. It had been an experiment, and I'd been a little dubious. Grandmom had made bread entirely by hand, when she made it. I looked at reviews and bought one that sounded good—and for mixing dough it was wonderful. If I let it bake, too, it was great for some types of bread, but sometimes overdone for others.

Tammy was kind of staring at me. "OK, so Phil, where did you learn to cook like this?"

"A lot of the time, my parents were away, so my grandparents raised me about as much as my parents. And I think they made me more what I am than my parents did. My grandmother had me help her in the kitchen a lot. But for four years, we told you a little about high school, we were in a dorm with meals provided. I've done more cooking since I got here, a couple of months, than I ever had by myself before."

Ellen said, "He amazes me, and I've been learning a lot just watching and helping. He uses recipes, from a cookbook or from on line, but he almost always adds stuff, and it's always really good. And sometimes—well, the first time he fixed dinner for us for example—he doesn't bother with a recipe, and it's often even better."

"Pete, you try that pepper. If you don't want your share, I sure do! Ellen, thank you for inviting us, and Phil for making everything! Everything is really good, it's just that the pepper is way better than really good!"

Pete said, "Even the salad is better than I can make. Or Tammy. I hope I can remember some of the things we put in."

"There, Grandmom gets some of the credit, but the cafeteria at school had a fairly extensive salad bar, and I experimented. Experiments that don't work often aren't much fun to eat, but if you pay attention you learn. Just like in chem lab." I paused. "I learned the hard way that I really hate olives and pickled eggs, at that salad bar."

Ellen pointed out, "We're about out of time. Let's get things cleaned up. I really don't want to be late if Elise and Kelly do show up. And a refresher would be no bad thing in any case."

She got the leftovers put away while I did the dishes. Pete came and gave me a hand, too. When the leftovers were all away, Ellen went off and changed into a skirt, and brought different shoes with her. She also brought some of my shoes. "Wouldn't these work better than what you're wearing?" I didn't bother saying anything, just gave her a peck on the lips and took them. When we were both shod, we headed for the door, whereupon we were delayed a bit when Tammy suddenly noticed something.

"Another picture!" she said, going over and looking at it closely for a minute. "The same artist, and it's beautiful! Yes, I know, we need to go. Tell us about it as we walk."

We all went out. We stopped at Pete's and Tammy's on the way, to drop their stuff off. We walked fairly briskly, in spite of talking, and actually arrived five minutes before the announced teaching time. I had outlined the basic situation, and my recommendation to Sam. Both Tammy and Pete said that they would want to look at it more closely when they had a chance.

Pete paid for all of us. The woman who came over to collect the money, from doing something else, welcomed us. "I haven't seen you two here before. I'm Mary."

I looked at Ellen, and she just smiled back at me, so I said, "Phil and Ellen. And you haven't seen us here before because we haven't been here before. We did some contradancing in high school, so we're not total beginners, but we really haven't done a lot."

Ellen put in, "Pete and Tammy invited us and brought us." Mary had, obviously, seen that Pete paid for us. "We also have a couple of friends who said they might come, and they really are total beginners. And if you normally have too many women, which I gather is common, I apologize, but both are women."

Mary laughed. "We probably will, that's normal, but beginners are very welcome in any case."

Right then Elise and Kelly came in together. They came up, and I told Mary, "These are the two friends Ellen told you about. Elise and Kelly. And this is Mary." They paid her, and she welcomed them warmly. "Ed, the caller for tonight, is right there. He's the one to talk to for the beginner time." She went back to whatever she had been doing.

Elise and Kelly hugged Ellen and me. "I was on my way here, and Elise spotted me and called, so I waited and we came together," Kelly said.

We all went over and introduced ourselves to Ed, Ellen explaining our not-quite-beginner standing—Ellen's and mine I mean. Ed knew Pete and Tammy. He took Kelly as his partner for walking through, and had me take Elise. He explained the longways set, even though there were just two couples at that point, and walked us through going forward and back, taking hands and circling left and right, and do-si-do. Right-hand and left-hand stars. Ladies' chain and courtesy turn.

More beginners arrived soon, and Ed went back to the beginning. One was an unaccompanied man, and Ed paired him with Ellen. Another he paired with Tammy. He called over other experienced dancers to help with beginners who had arrived as couples, plus two more unaccompanied women. He went through all the things he had already covered and went on, ending with instructions on swinging. He described and demonstrated elbow swings and two-hand swings, and then strategies for the feet while swinging in ballroom position. He told them that most people would be swinging in ballroom position.

Gypsy, with or without swing. Balance and swing. Turn into a line. Down the hall, turn alone, back up the hall. Back down, turn as couples, back up. Promenade. More beginners showed up, but they just had to join in and watch and play catchup. A very respectable number of beginners came to this dance. Somewhere in all this, Ed found a partner for Kelly, the better to let him to step back where he could watch everyone.

It was time for the first dance. He told all the beginners that they would do well to dance the first couple of dances, at least, with experienced partners, and called everyone to find partners and line up for the first dance. Some additional sets formed, and the first one split into two. Join hands four, couple one change places for an improper set.

Ed walked everyone through the first dance. The only thing the beginners hadn't already done was right at the end, when each couple passed through their neighbors with a right shoulder to meet a new couple. For the beginners, he emphasized that when we reached the end of the line we would be out for a time through the dance, during which we should switch places, and that those who had been couple one would come back in as couple two, and vice versa.

We walked it one more time. Ed sent us back to where we had started and called, "And now, with the music." The band began playing, and we danced.

Elise had paid attention, and the simple mechanics of dancing weren't a problem for her. What's hard about contras, for the raw beginner, is that it's all new, and you're having to remember not only a sequence of figures that compose the dance, but what each of those figures involves. You're a little behind and a little confused for several times through the dance. This dance was designed to be easy and straightforward, and everyone tried to help warn her and point her in the right direction at each point, and she got it together pretty fast. I was pretty sure she got some enjoyment from doing this with me, specifically, and, well, Elise was beautiful and I really did like her too, so I enjoyed it as well and I thought she could tell.

In the course of the dance, not surprisingly, we were dancing with Tammy and her partner as our neighbors. Kelly and Ellen and their partners weren't in our set. As I circled with Tammy holding my hand, and gave her a courtesy turn, and had other direct contact with her—and also the once we had a gypsy—I was again seeing something about her I couldn't quite pin down. Also watching her with her partner. But then, of course, we moved down the set and she moved up.

The end of the dance came, with the final progression replaced by "everybody swing your partners." Elise and I swung a couple more times around after the music stopped and people were starting to applaud—we weren't the only ones, of course. We finished and joined in on the applause.

"Thank you for dancing with me. I really enjoyed it," I told her.

"Phil, thank you for helping me. It was wonderful! We're partners just for the one dance?"

"That's right. Try for experienced partners, and you can ask someone to dance. At least, I've never danced here, but I think most places it's not strictly men asking women. And you normally accept anyone who asks you, but I think it wouldn't be out of place to ask whether he knows what he's doing because you're new to it."

By the time I finished saying that, I'd seen two different women invite men to dance, and we hurried apart to find new partners. I was very sure Elise would manage well—she was beautiful enough to attract attention. I had been planning to ask Kelly next, but she was taken before I got over to her. But another woman, not so young, almost immediately asked me whether I was looking for a partner, so I was set up. And Kelly was in our longways set, so I asked her for the next when we eventually met in the course of the dance.

My partner, Joanne—I didn't know till later how it was spelled—looked to me to be about as old as Mrs. Lanigan, so I guessed middle-aged. She was pretty enough, another tall, lean woman of the sort I find attractive, with not quite enough bust for my taste, and friendly and very nice. Nowhere near as pretty as Mrs. Lanigan, but pretty enough. We had time to talk quietly at various times during the walk-through. The dance was again nicely put together so that the figures really flowed together naturally. Ed had us go back to where we started, and signaled the musicians.

Joanne was a much better dancer than I was. Yes, the dance was still a beginner-friendly one, and I was up to it, but it helped me to be following a partner who was more on track than I was. She wordlessly encouraged me to spin her at the end of the promenade, for example—that and some other things I vaguely knew but wasn't used to doing.

At the end, as we joined in the applause, I said, "Thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed it, and if we make it back in the future I'd love to dance with you again."

"I enjoyed it too. You've got the basics down, and if you keep coming you'll learn more fast. And yes for some future occasion, if I can get to you before everyone else does."

During the walk through, and while we were out on the end, she'd told me that she was a manager at a women's clothing shop, divorced ten years now, and would love to be married again if the right man turned up and asked her. She plainly wasn't considering me as a candidate. I'd pointed out Ellen, and also Kelly and Elise as friends of ours who'd come because we were but who were total beginners. She knew I was a junior in history but new to this university. I didn't tell her how young I was, letting her assume I was a couple of years older if she chose.

She headed off looking for another partner, and I headed off for Kelly. I saw her telling three different guys that someone else had already asked her, before I got to her.

Ed took the time to teach two figures that hadn't been in the beginner instruction, California Twirl and Box the Gnat. I'd done the former—not really often enough—but not the latter, so I was glad of the extra walk-through on those figures. Kelly wasn't quite as quick to learn as Elise, I thought, but even in the walk-through and especially in the dance I found her more fun, full of bouncy energy. Mindful of what she'd said, I held her close when we swung, going around fast enough to get in an extra couple of spins and still be ready for the next figure.