When Becky awoke the next morning-very late, she was informed by her cute little Snoopy clock-the bed next to her was empty once more. Only the presence of a gutted candle in Marjie's candle lantern proved to her that she had not dreamed the events of last night. She could recall plain as life itself the strange unearthly shadows thrown by the flickering taper upon the humping bodies so close to her and yet so obviously in a world of their own from which lonely Becky was definitely excluded.
It was Monday morning, and she had slept till ten! Her rest had not been peaceful, for her dreams were strange and troubling. Nothing in them was totally new to her, of course, but the context in which she had fantasized during her sleep had been one of dark implication. Instinctively as she lay on her bed struggling to keep her eyes open in the clear morning light, endeavoring to come to wakefulness, her hand slid across one young breast, lightly covered by the synthetic fabric of her sleepshirt. She recoiled at her touch, remembering with panic the rough grasping of Ted's hands upon her once virgin tits, and the shock snapped her fully awake.
This was registration day for the freshmen, and she was pretty sure it would be a long and complicated process. She would have to pay her fees, get enrolled in her classes, make final settlement on her dorm rent, buy textbooks, and she knew not what else. Bureaucracy reigned at the large campus and every activity carried its weight of paper work with it.
Yawning, Becky climbed out of bed. She opened a drawer in her dresser and fetched out a towel, washcloth and shower cap, so that she might take her morning bath. She didn't like the idea of communal bathrooms for each floor, having bitter memories of her high school gym class, when she was forced to bathe alongside the stacked, cute girls all the guys liked much better than her; but there was no way to help it, Becky decided. Her feet slipped into fuzzy indoor shoes and she paddled down the hail toward the bathroom. At least, she thought, she had overslept long enough so that everyone else was almost certainly finished by now. She wouldn't have to have anyone laughing at her body.
She entered the first floor's large lavatory. A row of sinks and mirrors adorned one wall, toilet stalls a second, and individual shower compartments a third. Each shower niche had its own faucet and controls and was equipped with a towel rack and a curtain that could be drawn shut by the more modest misses. Becky was thankful for that.
The Snoopy sleepshirt slid over her head and found a place on the rack by the shower opening. Becky hung up her towel, slipped the plastic cap over her head, adjusted the spray to her preferred temperature, and stepped into the shower. The water was deliciously warm and made her body tingle as she stood luxuriating in its flow for what seemed long moments. When her body was wet she began to apply the soap, stretching in simple delights as she rubbed the foam across herself. Her face upturned, she let the water run all over her front, and gradually, as the spray ran endlessly down her face, down her neck, across her tits, along her belly, and at last down her legs, Becky thought she heard giggling in the room.
Her face was red but no one could see it, for she reached behind herself and pulled the curtain closed without turning round. She hated being on public display.
The tingly flow had rinsed her front completely and so she turned, eyes still shut to keep out the soap now gone, to ablute her back as well. She writhed catlike in the gentle warmth and her eyes drifted sleepily open. When they were in focus once more, she blinked them hard, to clear herself of what she knew was a phantasm of her so-recently stimulated imagination. The vision persisted.
On the other side of the room, facing two of the long row of mirrors set above sink bowls, were two people. One was a girl, brushing her teeth. Long red hair trailed down her back, pausing just short of a highset, plump ass. Beside her stood a taller figure, wide of shoulders, narrow of hips. It was a boy, and he was shaving, lather dripping as he dabbed his cheeks with the white foam. And both of them were naked as Becky was.
But the strangest of all, they weren't really doing anything. They were just standing there side by side, carrying on their morning preparations, and the fact that they were both nude did not seem to matter to them.
Becky stood in the shower like a stunned cow, water coursing across her back, soap clutched in one motionless hand, her eyes fixed upon the backs of the newcomers. The girl finished first, spat out the remainder of her foamy toothpaste, and turned.
"Hi," she said, eyes sparkling in a cute winsome face. She was freckled everywhere, it seemed, except the points of her fits, which were whiter than the rest of her tanned body. And, Becky noted, the girl was red-haired by nature instead of some bottled rinse. Thick curls of carrot hair covered the plump swell of her mons.
The guy turned too. Becky stifled a gasp when she saw his cock. It was long even in repose, and hung obscenely across his sack of testicles. His face was still covered with shaving cream and he held a razor in his hand. "Hi," he chimed in.
Becky replied in a choked gulp that passed for a greeting. She knew the sexes were mixed in this dorm, but she hadn't expected them to be this mixed! Hadn't the floor proctor told her that boys lived on one floor, girls another? Was she not secure even in the shower room?
The red-haired girl strode briskly across the tiled floor and stopped in front of Becky's drawn curtain. Suddenly the blonde girl was aware that her fits were visible to the other young lady, in spite of the protective barrier. It had been designed to conceal girls slightly shorter than five-seven Becky. Hurriedly she lay an arm across her shy breasts.
"I'm Patty Sundin," the redhead smiled. "That's Robby over there. Are you a freshman too?"
"Yes," Becky whispered, close to frightened tears. "My name is B-B-B-Becky."
Robby had finished his shave, wiped his face clean of lather, and was even now stealing lightly across the floor, towel in hand. He flipped it on Patty's chunky round ass and she shrieked in pretended outrage. Turning, she pursued the boy round and round the tile-covered bathroom floor, her towel streaking out again and again to flick his ass. And then he turned, intending to regain the upper hand, but found to his surprise that yet another stinging sortie from Patty's towel awaited him. The flipping end of the terrycloth touched his cock, and Becky was aghast to see it begin to rise slowly. As she watched horror-struck, the penis that had seemed frightfully long even in relaxation grew stiff and its head thrust forward, ever lifting itself.
The outer door opened and Becky was relieved to see that the newest corner was none other than Darlene, the floor proctor. She remembered with affection the prim, almost prudish cast of Darlene's face, the old-maid severity of the round, plastic framed glasses the girl had worn yesterday when Becky was checking in, and she was certain that Darlene would take matters in hand and force this male intruder to leave.
Darlene smiled at Robby and Patty, walked past them, and stopped at the shower stall next to the one in which Becky stood. Her fingers undid the sash round the waist of her robe, threw it open, and the girl suddenly appeared in nudity as well. She fastened her discarded robe to the towel rack, placed her glasses in a pocket of the garment, and leisurely adjusted the spray of her own shower faucet.
The floor proctor was nicely constructed, and once she'd removed her glasses, Becky saw, all traces of dourness vanished from her face. Slightly near-sighted eyes squinted a little but the smile she gave Becky as she, too, began to soak was warm and friendly.
"I see the coeducation has begun already," she smiled, her thumb indicating the forms of Patty and Robby, who had just piled themselves into one of the shower stalls. Made for one occupant, it was obviously comfortably cramped with two, and the insistent giggling of the two freshmen did not abate.
"Is that allowed?" Becky whispered. "I mean, I thought-"
"It's like this," Darlene explained. "In the coed dorms here at State, kids are segregated by floors. At least in living quarters. The only real rule is that guys aren't supposed to stay all night in a girl's room. And that rule isn't enforced too often. Unless there's a rape or something."
Becky's eyes opened wider. "But don't they at least have a rule to keep guys out of the girls' bathrooms?"
Darlene shook her bead. "The Board of Regents in this state are a prudish bunch of old codgers. None of them even seems to have thought of that possibility when governing rules for coed dorms were drawn up. There's no law against it." She caught the look of discomfort Becky was trying bravely to conceal. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Are you nervous or something? Surely you've seen guys naked before. Anyway, by mid-semester you'll be used to it. I was a little shy myself the first year I lived here, but it passes. Tell you, though, I'm surprised it's begun so early this year. I think those two met each other yesterday. My room is next to the girl's, and I could hardly sleep last night for the giggling." Her head bent closer to Becky's. "It's my guess they were both virgins until last night and they had so much fun they can't bear to be apart."
Becky was aware now that she was cleansed, but the water continued to spray her and she knew she could not bear to step out of the shower and dry herself before dressing. She reached across the drawn curtain for her towel and pulled it inside and began to wipe her wet body. It was cramped but she finished to her satisfaction, and then she reached for her nightshirt. With her eyes carefully averted from Patty and Robby (who were by this time washing one another with lots of soap and even louder laughter), she got into her costume and stepped out. Behind her Darlene was bathing languidly, her shower curtain not even drawn, and she dared not look toward Patty and the boy. All she wanted to do was get back to her room, get dressed, and hurry to registration. Her heart sank with horror as she realized that this was only the beginning of her college life! What might not take place before her unwilling eyes in days to come?
Everywhere she went that mad, hectic day, Becky found herself standing in endless lines. At registration she stood waiting for an hour and a half, only to find that when she had reached the table where she could pick up her class cards it was lunch time and everyone had taken a break. And when finally she had secured her classes and paid all her fees, it was time to buy her books, and this meant another long line and another long wait. She didn't lurch back into her room at the dorm until nearly six, and by that time she was totally exhausted.
Marjie sat on the bed in a modified lotus posture, totally bare, and Becky was aghast to see that the spread of the girl's legs revealed explicitly the hairy slit of her cunt. She dropped her books onto her own bed, trying not to look at Marjie too carefully.
The girl did have a pretty body, Becky decided. It was the kind she had always wanted, with plumpness of breasts, hips, and thighs. The kind the boys back in Fayetteville also wanted. Marjie's short curling hair framed a cute dimpled face, with lips full and slightly puffy, but on the whole giving a look of roguish charm. Becky couldn't understand how this sweet-looking girl, one who would have been the darling of Fayetteville, had actually done the things the troubled blonde had witnessed last night.
Back home nice girls didn't fuck boys. Not unless they were engaged and the wedding date had been set, of course. In those circumstances it was considered permissible though not entirely laudable, and certainly not mandatory. Otherwise, a girl was nothing but a whore. There were a few of those around, to be sure. It was common knowledge that Karen Dillon would fuck any boy who gave her a nice time, but none of the other girls-except her own kind-would have anything to do with her. And while the boys might take advantage of her accommodating nature, they certainly didn't socialize with her in public. That was the worst thing about the awful experience she'd had with Ted. It proved that deep down inside him, the boy thought no more of her than he did of Karen. And now Marjie's actions last night had caused Becky to look back at the morality with which she'd grown up. Was it wrong to fuck a boy if you were a nice girl and didn't even intend to marry him at a pre-determined date?
Marjie looked up. "Hi, Beck," she said. "Haven't seen you, really, since you and your folks split yesterday. You were asleep when 1 got in last night, and when I left this morning too. How's it been going?"
I wasn't asleep last night-not at all! Becky's mind screamed. I saw what you did. Her voice strove to subdue its quaver. "Oh, okay, I guess," she said.
Marjorie smiled once more, then lay down on her back. Her legs were still spread and bent, and Becky could see every feature of her roomie's considerable gash. She wished the dark girl would cover herself. She couldn't keep from her inner eyes the vision of Marjie sucking that guy's thing last night, licking and slurping on it as if it were a big lollipop.
"I've just been trying to get used to the campus and all," Becky added, trying to sound gay and cheery.
"Lot of things round here to get used to," Marjie observed. "Look, Beck," she added, "since we don't have any classes till tomorrow, how'd you like to come to a big party tonight? I met some guys yesterday-they're upperclassmen, and they're kind of hip, see-and they're having a little back-to-school bash at their place tonight. Plenty of weed, plenty of booze, plenty of guys. Wanna come?"
"Oh, no," Becky replied. "I'd better not. I don't like to be around when people are drinking."
"Then smoke some weed and let the drunks go to hell," Marjie grinned. "There'll be something for every taste."
"Weed?" Becky asked.
"You know. Dope. Grass. Pot."
"Marijuana?"
"Yeah. Haven't you ever blown a joint before?" Marjie asked, sitting up, suddenly giggling at her inadvertent double entendre.
"No, of course not," Becky informed her, disapproval coloring her voice. "My health teacher said that marijuana is the most dangerous drug known to man. She told us how unscrupulous pushers will give you a free marijuana cigarette just to get you hooked, which happens to you as soon as you've smoked it. Then when you go back wanting more, they want twelve dollars-sometimes even more!-for every additional one. And your habit just gets worse and worse, and before you know it, you're injecting heroin into your body because it's the only thing that will keep you satisfied. It's just terrible and I wouldn't have anything to do with it!"
Manic was laughing now, and Becky felt vague anger stirring inside her.
"You're a little out of date," Marjie grinned. "That's an old wives' tale, Beck. Look at me. Do I seem to be a demented hophead junkie dope fiend? Do you see any needle tracks on my arms?"
"No," Becky said.
"Well, I blow grass whenever I get the chance. And so do most of my friends back home. Honestly-it doesn't hurt you. Not a bit. Medical science can't find any evidence that it does, and neither can the government, though that's top secret. I think it's on one of Nixon's secret tapes, maybe. The only thing grass does to you is make you less willing to put up with the shit society gives you on a dirty plate every day and expects you to eat. Do you call that being hurt?"
"I'd rather not," Becky insisted. "Besides, I've been off my normal schedule for a couple of days, and I want to go to bed early tonight so I can be all rested up for classes tomorrow."
"I'd have thought last night's snooze would be enough for you," Marjie said. "I know that when I came in you were out like a burnt-out light bulb."
If only you knew how round asleep I was, Becky thought wickedly, you'd be blushing red right now, Marjie. If only you knew.
Evening shadows were falling on the campus. Marjie leaned, rubenesquely naked, across her bed to look at Becky's Snoopy clock. "I'd better get dressed," she said, hauling herself off the bed. Shuffling through her dresser drawers she began to lay out things in front of her vanity mirror. "You ought to come along," she added. "It's going to be a ball. And I do mean a ball!" She was combing her hair to give herself that fashionable uncombed look. Satisfied at last, she stepped back and peered at her reflection through eyes well trained at discovering imperfections in her appearance.
A chorus of whistles suddenly burst upon the air, and Manic turned to stare out the window at her left hand side. Outside on the sidewalk facing the girls' room stood three or four guys getting an eyeful of her uncovered frame.
"Fuck off, you assholes!" she shouted, sticking her head and well-breasted chest out the window to sneer at them before pulling back in and sliding the curtain shut. "Damn peeping Toms," she muttered.
Certain now that she was as finely coiffed as any other college girl in all the world, Becky's roommate reached to her assortment of beauty aids and laid hand upon a bottle of scent. Becky could tell it was expensive perfume as soon as Manic had unstopped the container and a telltale whiff of the fragrance drifted across the room. Manic placed her finger over the opening and turned the bottle upside down, dabbing some of the sweet-smelling liquid on the dark brown tips of her breasts and in the deep vale of cleavage between her full mounds.
She moistened her finger in perfume once more and applied it to her dark pubic fleece, sliding her finger up and down the slice of her crotch with zest. "Gotta be kissing sweet where it really counts," she said with a sly snicker.
Nude and jiggling delightfully, Manic strode across the room and flung open her wardrobe door. She muttered to herself for a moment or two, then withdrew a knit dress, pale blue in color, and held it against her body.
"How does that look, Beck?" she asked, posing behind the dress.
"My God," Becky blurted. "You can see right through it?"
"Of course you can," Marjie assured her, "That's what it's made for." She turned to the mirror and satisfied her own eyes. "Outrageous. Martin," she mumbled to herself, throwing the dress upon the bed. Becky couldn't take her eyes off the daring gaps in the material. She looked up to see Marjie fishing through the drawer of undies, finally fishing out a pair of filmy bikini panties. Becky could see Marjie's hand plain as day through the little garment. Obviously if her roommate wore these transparent undergarments beneath her see-through dress, why, every female mystery she possessed would be on public display. The idea shocked her, but it stimulated her just a little bit, too. She thought of unsettling dreams of her own-dreams in which she had walked nude down the streets-the streets of Fayetteville-and for a moment she imagined that she was Marjie, going to the party with her body bare to every eye.
Marjie donned the tiny bikinis and pulled the dress down over her head. It fell with a swish and she wiggled her full hips to let it slide into place. Becky's eyes were wide as she found herself staring right at her friend's nipples. This was so much more shocking than seeing Marjie frankly nude. Somehow that seemed almost natural. But now-to see Marjie in what might by some stretch of definitions be termed a dress-a dress that gapped and gaped and let the brown points of her nipples show through the separation of the knit strands which made the costume. Becky's toes quivered slightly inside her shoes as she stared, and she tried to make her staring as inconspicuous as possible. She could not bear to look down Marjie's body, to see what she knew was there-the panties clearly visible beneath the dress, and Marjie's beaver clearly visible through the panties. Her eyes drifted in spite of her determination, and she was stunned to realize that she could through that wispy band of silk count the hairs that veiled her friend's mons venenis.
Marjie turned round like a high-paid model showing off the latest Dior creation. She was pleased with herself.
"Gods, Beck," she said at last, "I wish to hell you'd change your mind and come along. You'd have a ball."
"No," Becky replied determinedly. "I don't like to go to parties. Really, I don't. I always end up sitting by myself in a corner somewhere, and-I'd just rather not," she added quickly, afraid she was lapsing into self-pity.
"Jeezus!" Marjie exploded. "What kind of parties do you go to, where you wind up all by yourself? Undertakers' conventions?"
"Just parties," Becky mumbled, drawing her legs together and pulling them up onto the bed beneath her hips. Marjie sat down facing her.
"What's wrong, kid?" she asked consolingly. "You got the curse?"
Becky shook her head.
"You're missing a lot of fun," the other girl assured her.
"Look," Becky said suddenly. "I really appreciate your being so nice to me, but I know that I'm not very nice-looking, and I'd just-"
"Horseshit!" Marjie yelled, in a voice so loud it must have rattled every loose object in Bentley Hall. "Who says you're not nice-looking?"
"Everybody," Becky replied softly. "I'm too tall, too skinny-"
Marjie's eyes darted to the ceiling. She clenched her fist. "God," she said, "if you're listening right now, I want you to strike some dump called Fayetteville. Strike it with lightning or the Black Plague or whatever you might have handy. Right now." She stood up, hand extended toward Becky. "Come here," she said authoritatively, and the blonde girl went with her. They stood in front of the mirror.
"Okay," Marjie said, standing behind Becky. "What do you see?"
"Just me," Becky replied. "And you, behind me, of course."
Marjie's hands snaked to Becky's front and the girl saw her blouse buttons being undone. She raised her hands to prevent this intrusion, but Marjie's fingers were too quick for her. Before Becky could make any effective resistance, Marjie had unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off her shoulders. Next Marjie unfastened the waistband of Becky's bellbottoms and they fell to the floor. Becky felt embarrassed, standing before the mirror in her underwear, but she felt even more abashed when Marjie unhooked her bra. Resigning herself to the shame that would follow when Marjie had seen her totally nude, she let the breast-covering be removed and after that her white panties.
"Now look at yourself," Marjie commanded, "and this time I'll tell you what you see. A lovely blonde girl, without an ounce of flab in her body." Fingers lay softly for a moment on Becky's rib cage, admiring the tautness of skin. Marjie's eyes were pensive for a passing second, and then she reached for a comb on the vanity before them. Her fingers flew as she swept the comb through Becky's hair, re-arranging the blonde tresses subtly yet effectively. Recognition began to dawn in Becky's eyes as she watched her hair being styled anew.
When Marjie was finished, when her face gleamed back at her, framed between a subtly different swirl of hair, it seemed to Becky that she was looking at another girl altogether. The new hair style seemed to add splendor, grace,
"You look nice," Marjie corrected. "But that's only a placebo-you know, a sugar pill that you take thinking it's medicine. You were gorgeous before I touched your hair, and I don't believe you didn't know it. My Gods, Becky, you look like a fashion model-a high-class model, the kind who show up in Mademoiselle. You've got a body like a ballerina. I mean, if I were gay, I could really go for you."
She stepped back, smiling as Becky's eyes began to understand the meaning of what they saw in the polished mirror. "You really didn't know it-did you? You never looked at yourself till just now." Her head shook in wonderment. "What the hell kind of line did those guys back in Fayetteville give you, anyway?"
Becky was still marveling in her moment of discovery. Her voice seemed strangely distant in her ears as she spoke. "Just what I told you," she said.
"Christ!" Marjie blurted. "What kind of girls do they go for, anyway?"
"Girls with well-developed bodies-short, cute girls-"
"Girls like me," Marjie said resignedly. "Big tits, big asses, big slices. I guess they've all been fucking those cows in the field so long, they think women should look like that, too. God, Beck, I'd give anything to look like you. To be tall and slim-not thin, damn it, just slim!-with tits that were just made to be cupped in a guy's hands, an ass that doesn't slide all over the place when a guy puts his fingers on it. Jeez." She walked away, head still slinking.
"Sure you won't come to the party?" she asked. Then, "What am I saying that for? If you go, who will bother with a chunky broad like Marjie Martin?"
It was obvious that Becky wasn't listening. Narcissicism had hit her like a stone to the side of the head and she was lost in the world of her own self-awakening. Marjie smiled, mentally reminding herself that when she had been a Girl Scout some years ago, she had forgotten to do a good deed one day. This had surely made up for that lapse.
"See you later, Beck," she said, her fingers touching the doorknob. "And there'll be other parties, and by God, you're gonna go the next time I ask you." Or I'll make you think you're ugly again, she snickered to herself, and with a flounce of her short see-through skirt she was gone.