The Loft Game: Hula Girl

"I didn't get to see." It was a pretend pout; Anthony wasn't a whiner.

"Maybe there'll be other adventures." Her eyes met mine for a millisecond. She and I had a shared wavelength. We knew each other's thoughts better than anyone, better even than my sister whom I'd known all her life. It was eerie sometimes. Now, a message flew.

I will sometime. A promise is a promise. But you two just got together.

The two roomies wanted to know what the hell we were talking about. Julia explained with immense glee, and I glowered, mostly pretend-glowered. I was over it. It was just a wet T-shirt; I'd done worse in front of an audience.

I turned down the tentative invitation later that night from a housemate. I didn't blame the poor guy. They'd had a topless girl on their balcony the day before, one who got naked at the beach today, heard a story about another girl whipping off her shirt in a crowded bar, and I'm pretty sure they knew their roommate was getting laid down the hall when we finally called it a night.

I felt the desire myself. But the last few months were teaching me to cope, to let it build and make things better later. Neither of his roommates did anything for me, and I was quite content to lie there in the dark, watch the ceiling fan, and let my thoughts roam.

It was late in the afternoon of our next-to-last day. We'd gone to the beach early in the morning, had a burger, and now were back on the balcony for the afternoon sun. Jules had shrugged off her top, not even caring that the boys next door now definitely knew ... waved at their loud greetings, in fact.

The bag of chips disappeared. One blender piña colada slid down and then a second.

"Pizza?"

There was a place down at the corner and an order was called in. The sun started to sink into the waves and a chill ran through me. Julia felt it too, I could tell. "Do you have a couple sweatshirts we could borrow?" she asked Anthony. He came back with a dark blue one with a gold eagle for her and a pale gray one with our hometown team's name on it for me. His phone dinged.

"Pizza. I'll go get it," he said.

"No, I will," Julia replied. She stood and slid on flip flops, checked that she had her wallet. At the sliding door, she turned back to me.

"I dare you. Right here. Right now."

Without another word, she turned and left. I sat there, stunned for a second that stretched into an eternity as what she'd meant sank in.

My eyes rose to the sky, dark blue above, a merest line of fast-disappearing brightness on the horizon—the gloaming, I thought, remembering freshman Lit class and Joan Didion. I looked over next door at tiki torches lit as people laughed and partied.

Torches would blind night vision, right?

I glanced indoors. No sound of roommates yet. Finally, I looked at Anthony.

"What?" My balcony-mate was confused.

"Do you remember we played Inquisition at my party?"

"Vaguely. I was pretty hammered."

"My final dare was Seven Minutes in R-Rated Heaven with you. Do you remember that?"

"No. All Emily told me was that I'd missed you topless." His eyes told me he was thinking about the contest where he'd missed it again, but he didn't complain.

"You were too drunk to do anything." As soon as the words left my mouth, I could see they cut.

Saying that to a guy ... what the everlasting fuck, Charl!

"I said that wrong. You weren't too drunk to do anything. You were perfectly capable of, umm, being good to me when I asked." My eyes were well-enough adjusted to the disappearing light that I could see he understood what I meant by that. "And ..." I took a little mental gulp and said the words. "In return, I promised you a blowjob whenever you wanted it."

He froze for a second. "But Julia and I ... this week ... I mean ..." He stumbled to a halt, off-balance.

I gave him a ton of credit for that. His first thought wasn't, This girl just said ... It was, I'm with someone right now.

"We've talked about it, and you heard her just now. That's what she meant." I stood. "Nothing's changed with where she's sleeping. Or me; I'm still in the other room. But right here, right now ... think of it as foreplay."

I moved to stand in front of him. He didn't shake his head or say anything. I started to kneel, then thought about how freely he'd offered his time and place even though I knew school was tough. And being drunk the first time I was topless was maybe on him, but the second was us going out without him. Not once had he tried to goad me into entering another contest or giving him a private showing ... not even on the nude beach. He was a really nice guy.

I stood a foot in front of him and reached behind, up under the sweatshirt. I unhooked the bikini top and pulled it out from underneath. His eyes widened. Then, praying the tiki torches did blind night sight and that no one next door saw what I was doing, I slid the soft cotton off over my head. The chill of the evening made my nipples jump to attention, the distant flames turning my curves golden orange. I saw him swallow.

I watched the reality sink in. I watched him process what his friend, Charlene, was about to do, and that the friend who'd be in bed with him later, Julia, was okay ... no, had made happen, at least in part, by what she'd dared. I placed my hands on his knees and knelt.

He lifted his hips obligingly as I tugged at the waistband of his sweatpants. Even in the dim light, I could make out his growing excitement ... cool night air be damned.

It'll be warm in a sec, Anthony.

I wrapped my hand around his length, heard the hiss of pleasure with satisfaction, and stroked him ... once, twice, a third time, then I leaned forward and wrapped my mouth around his cock.

I took my time. He hadn't been great at Christmas. He'd been too drunk. But he'd tried his best to please me and, in the end, succeeded at his task. Now I did my best as I let the rigid length slide between my lips. I let my breasts graze his thighs as I descended, knowing that the soft, yielding contact thrilled.

No jeers from next door. I guess they didn't notice.

Then I heard a sound from inside our place. No lights flew on. No male voices yelled, "Holy shit!" I knew it was Julia home with the pizza. I let him fall out of my mouth, keeping a firm grip with my hand, sneaking a fast glance to the side.

I couldn't see anything, only the reflection of stars and dancing flames on the glass of the doors. I didn't know ... there was no way to know. But she was in there, I believed it, in there carefully making no sound so as not to interrupt, but not moving away to the bedrooms either while I did this.

Can she see? There were no outside lights on this house. Only the light from next door, almost entirely blocked by the wall surrounding our balcony.

Indistinct forms? Movement in deep shadow? How much is visible? I felt the burn of embarrassment, the same I'd felt walking to the back room to do this same thing with Owen. I knew I'd never be able to ask her what she saw.

I forced my mind away from her, took him in my mouth again. Come on, Anthony, I encouraged mentally. I tightened my lips, made sure my tongue was stroking the underside right where guys are so sensitive. I ignored the phantom observer, whether she was there or not.

I felt the twitch against my tongue first, a sensation I was becoming familiar with given the changes that had come into my life. I let my fingers stroke the base and concentrated my tongue and lips on teasing the head. I listened to his breath becoming shorter.

Again, I pulled free just long enough to say, "In my mouth is okay." I knew, without really understanding why they felt that way, that those were magic words to a guy. They had the power to push things the last bit to the finish line.

They did. I heard the warning gasp and then felt the convulsive shudder. I held him inside me, letting him finish in the warm, wet confines of my mouth. I sat back, wiped my lips in case some escaped.

"Don't let this be weird, okay?"

"No."

"I'm gonna go clean up."

"Uhh, thanks."

I stood, took a deep breath, snagged my top, and slid open the balcony doors, afraid of what I might hear. There was only silence, but as I navigated around the living room furniture, I could see the still figure on the bar stool.

"You watched."

"It was too dark to see anything." That was a kindhearted lie. A glance showed it hadn't been so dark you couldn't see anything. Details were lost, forms were indistinct, but I could see a shadow of Anthony against the faintly lighter shadow of the railing, and the motion of a woman going down on a guy is pretty unmistakable. I felt my cheeks burn.

"Pizza?" I asked.

"Here."

My dark-adjusted eyes saw the rectangle shoved across the counter. I flipped it open and grabbed two slices. I fled to my room.

Nobody made it weird the next day. I knew they'd talked about it, knew that Anthony knew Julia had been there. From the way she dragged at breakfast, I knew they hadn't gotten a lot of sleep.

Glad I could oblige with a little porno to get your motors running, I thought sarcastically.

We went out and partied hard that night. I wondered how much schoolwork was suffering from our presence. As we chugged down glasses of water in the guys' kitchen and popped a couple preventative aspirin, I said to Julia, "Tan lines gone?"

She grinned. "Not totally, but progress. Nice dare."

"I've done two dares you made."

"Uh-huh." She waited, but I didn't go on. "Are you daring me to do something?"

"Nope. Just sayin'."

She grinned again and gave me a big hug. "I like the new wild side, Chips."

I grinned, said nothing, planned.

Friday came, our last day. We were on an early-Saturday flight. Julia and I spent it on the beach again.

"Are you going to miss Anthony?"

She shook her head. "No. It was just a fling. He feels the same way. We talked last night."

"But one last night tonight, right?" I said with a dirty leer.

"Why not?" she giggled.

We splurged for an expensive dinner, paying for Anthony's as a thank you. We went back, said our goodnights to the roommates when they came in, and talked until it was late.

"Early flight tomorrow," I said, as we finished a final piña colada. The other two nodded and we trudged upstairs.

I made sure I got into the bathroom first, peed, and brushed my teeth, then sat on my bed with the door just cracked. I waited. One flush and the sound of water running. A door opening and closing and a murmur. Another flush, water running, someone moving from bathroom to bedroom. The door across the hall closed. I rose and opened the door to the room I was staying in. I flipped off the hall lights, both so I could see the light under their door and because I wanted them that way.

Their light went out. I gave it ten seconds, enough for whoever flipped the switch to make it back to the bed. Then I stole across the hall. I turned the knob and opened the door. I ignored the exclamations, the questions. In the dim light of an electric clock, I could barely make out Julia's startled face, sheet pulled up. I met her eyes.

I pushed the door and let go until it bumped back against the wall.

"I dare you, Julia Condurso, to leave the door like that."

I returned to my room without another word. I left my door standing wide open. I heard the whispers ... started, stopped, started again. Nothing I could decipher, but I knew what was being said, the disbelieving questions. Then nothing for the longest time.

They tried to be quiet. Oh they tried very hard. But my entire being was one giant, straining, listening ear, and the house was quiet. Sounds of traffic and distant revels faded into the background as everything narrowed to focus on a hallway away. Just a wisp of sound at first, then growing to a mere whisper. Murmurs and then more than murmurs.

I had only what nature gave me because no way had I brought something in a carryon that some TSA person might find. Even the idea of a ghostly, but distinctive, shape on an X-ray scanner ... wasn't gonna happen.

But fingers and mind, the biggest and best of the sex organs, they were enough. And the sounds, they were the seed that germinated in that fertile soil. I buried my face in a pillow to stifle my own breathing and any other noise I might make. I knew what Julia looked like naked. I could piece together an Anthony because I'd seen every part at one time or another, and recently even seen it the way it surely was now. And I could put those images, her and him, together into a whole.

I knew she liked doggie and so I pictured them that way: her hands braced forward for balance, her knees wide with him between them. His hands holding her hips ... or maybe they reached around and cupped breasts.

Yes, I like that better.

His hands kneading the fleshy globes as he drove his hips forward, impaling her. Her rocking in time, head down, ass up as she got wetter and closer. I timed my mental screenplay to the rhythm I could hear.

I was prone on my stomach, one hand clutching the pillow, the other hand reaching underneath into my sodden slit, flicking in time to the metronome of a creaking bed. As the pace grew more passionate, I let fingers plunge deeper into my sodden interior, their bent forms dragging delicious friction over my clit. The soft groan from the other room—his or hers, I wasn't quite sure—triggered mine. I bit the pillow and thrashed on the sheets.

Then I forced my breathing to slow. I extended my perception again, became all ears, my world the next room, and waited for it to start anew.

The call came about three in the afternoon two weeks later. I was sitting on my bed, tapping the hula girl I'd bought at the airport to make her dance.

"Most people come back with a shot glass they ripped off," my roomie had told me when she saw it.

"I'm trying to decide if I should go to Michael's and get some paint to make her historically accurate." When I explained, we'd both cracked up in laughter.

"Hey, Charl, it's Ethan." I couldn't stop the reaction. "Guess what? I got into Carnegie-Mellon."

"Congratulations!" I meant it. I mean, total nerd school but I liked nerdy. Nerdy could be hot.

"Umm." Suddenly, his voice was less ebullient. "I was wondering, umm ..."

I waited a beat. "Yeah?"

"I'm gonna drive out and visit campus in a few weeks and probably stop in to see Ems on the way back. Umm, would you like to, umm, see me?"

I punched the button to change the call to FaceTime. I waited until the long face with the unruly hair and tortoiseshell glasses filled the screen. I suppressed my Yum! at the dark five o'clock shadow and the smile that crinkled his eyes and gave a quirk to his lips.

"Hi," I said.

"Umm, hey."

His diffidence slid in and hooked a part of me. The little burst of heat in my gut reignited and brought back the worldly girl who'd been his first. Inane questions about how he was doing fell by the wayside.

"See you as in, like, get coffee? Or see you as in, like, you spend the night?"

"Well, umm ..." Once again, I saw resolve overwhelm bashfulness. "I mean, I could pretend it was the first thing if the truth pisses you off."

I burst into laughter, loving the sense of humor that persisted even when he was nervous, and his quirk broke into a full smile. We enjoyed the moment.

"You know it stresses your sister, right?"

"I guess."

"Yeah. I took the heat the first time. Now you need to man up and tell her you're staying in my room while you're here."

I saw the almost imperceptible shiver as he heard me make the offer and, I was sure, pictured what would happen.

"It's a date then, Ethan. Text me when you know specifics. Bye." With a warm smile, I hung up before he tried to figure out what to say next so it didn't sound totally like a booty call.

Leave 'em wanting just a little more.

I replayed all the thoughts I'd had that first time, the little fantasies that had rolled around my brain as I seduced him onto the couch.

Maybe he'll be okay with one or two of 'em.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Credit for the lyrics is "Can't Feel My Face" by The Weeknd.

Thanks to MsCherylTerra for the idea that a hula girl is an excellent icon of spring break, and to her and PeytonMirabelle for suggestions on how to make the story better.

—C