The next morning found Victoria once again out walking, by herself this time. Although the day was just as beautiful as the one before, the young coed walked with her head down, her beautiful blonde hair falling forward so that it half-hid her troubled face. Clearly Victoria was worried. Perhaps in another ten years she might look back on her present problems as almost humorously trivial, but now they loomed before her like a granite mountain.
Of course, the main problem was sex, or the fear-filled anticipation of it. What should she do? What could she do? Like so many other young virgins, Victoria had heard from the time she was a little girl that someday some man was going to do something to her. Something so awe-inspiring and important that at first it could only be hinted at. Over the years a kind of instinctual dread mixed with breathless anticipation had built up in the growing girl's mind, so that now, even though her peer group and various sex-education courses had informed her beyond a doubt of what was going to happen, there was still an inbred aura of mystery and fear about the prospect of her first sexual encounter with a male.
What Victoria had ended up with was a classic case of expectations exceeding the offered realities. The panting fumblings of her teenage male classmates had been miles and miles from the expected earth-shattering revelations on the road past virginity. Although Victoria had many times before become sexually aroused as some young student ran his trembling hands over her ripely budding body, the mere sight of the starving-animal look on his face had been enough to make the sickened girl pull disgustedly away. Eventually she had gained a reputation for frigidity.
In itself the problem would have been bad enough, but living with Penny had made it almost unbearable. Time after time Victoria had had sex waved in her face as her roommate brought home droves of young men. On several occasions Victoria had to leave the room she shared with her dark-haired classmate, knowing it was that or sit by a knuckle-chewing frustration while Penny proceeded to make love to her young man of the moment, not even seeming to care that there was someone else watching.
Victoria's answer to this unwanted vicarious sexual stimulation had been to take refuge more and more often in lonely and secret masturbation, and this was beginning to bother her now. The young blonde was not a particularly guilt-ridden person, and for her, masturbation had begun as a fairly innocent exploration of her developing young body but then slowly developed into a needed and pleasureful release of the tensions that normally accumulate in healthy girls. Even so, she could not help but pick up some of the feelings of guilt that society hung on her forbidden act, and so Victoria had compromised in the past by very seldom relieving her frustration with her own fingers, only in times of the greatest sexual stress, or once in a while as a kind of reward for virtuous activity.
And that was the core of her worry today. Living with Penny made it almost impossible to think of anything but sex and Victoria had been resorting more and more frequently to her emotional pressure-release until her genitals were practically aching from the constant invasion of her thrusting fingers. Right or wrong, something told the confused young girl that this was an undesirable situation and she just didn't know what to do about it. On the one hand she could allow things to continue as they were, but her continual nervousness was already beginning to affect her schoolwork. Or she could take the plunge and let some eager young man seduce her. Even as this thought entered Victoria's young mind it was accompanied by a bolt of unreasoning fear, and she doubted that she would be able to go through with it. How did Penny and other girls like her do it? The young blonde wondered, and asked herself for the thousandth time if maybe there was something wrong with her that kept her from reacting naturally with boys.
With a bitter little chuckle, Victoria let herself think what a ridiculous turnabout had occurred in just one generation. When her mother had been her age it was assumed that all girls but a lost few were virgins when they married. But how different now! It was practically a badge of shame to still be a virgin at eighteen, almost like admitting to some kind of mental or physical defect. And the worst part was that something deep inside Victoria wanted so badly to be made love to, but couldn't find the right conditions to just let it happen. If society was going to change in this direction, the unhappy young girl thought bitterly, it had better develop some institutions to help out people like her who were only willing to take half-way steps. Perhaps there could be a ritual deflowering of young maidens followed by a State School of Fornication Arts. Anything would be better than being made to feel guilty about being a virgin and then punished by the scornful talk of the bragging young bucks who seduced you. The whole system now was so… haphazard, the grim-faced young girl thought to herself. Someday, for better or worse, it would happen to her and she hoped it would leave her with better feelings than some of the disillusioned girls she met. That was one of the truly outstanding things about Penny, Victoria mused. She was so absolutely, unreservedly, unguiltily involved in sex, with the same lack of self-consciousness of a puppy chasing a ball.
Since she had been walking with her gaze absentmindedly fixed on the ground in front of her, Victoria hadn't realized she was approaching Ben Wright and his dog Prince, who were standing together on the top of a small hill. The young blonde would have been amazed if she could have known the thoughts that were steaming and bubbling in her older male friend's mind. Ben had spotted the aimlessly strolling Victoria several minutes ago, and as she approached, the big hulking wreck of a man had kept up a running conversation with the politely listening dog, speaking in an overdone lecture-hall voice.
"Christ, Prince, God must be punishing me for some terrible sin I can't even remember. Something dark and horrible my mind has blotted from memory. Something worse than murder, or incest, or not paying my taxes. Why else would he have put me here in this beautiful place, surrounded by lovely little pussies that I'm forbidden to touch, tortured by constant unobtainable temptation?"
Prince looked up intently at his beloved master, not understanding his words, of course, but sensing he was being included in the man's deepest musings.
"Take that little doll that's coming up the path," Ben continued in a doleful tone. "Little Victoria, with those big blue eyes and that blonde hair and those fantastic tits. How is a man to keep his sanity while he's talking to her? I ask you, Prince," Ben said in mock gravity, continuing in the pompous tone of his old poetry-reading days, "what keeps me from ripping the clothes right off her and taking the precious jewel of her virginity for my own? And she must be a virgin. Any girl that nervous has to be a virgin, the signs of it stick out all over her. In my day, Prince, in my best days, I wouldn't have wasted a moment in liberating her libido." With a heavy hand, he reached down to pat the head of his faithful animal companion and the big dog responded by licking his master's palm.
Prince too had seen Victoria coming and his tail began to wag, because he liked the young girl and often curled up next to her on those occasions when she sat talking to his master, seated cross-legged on the grass with the ease only a young girl can master. Little did the faithful animal know what agonies those talks caused Ben, particularly when Victoria was wearing a pair of brief shorts that would pull tight over her flat-stretched pubic mound and suck up between her legs as she sat. One time Ben had even been able to see a silky wisp of soft blonde pubic hair peeking around the edge of her maddeningly narrow crotch band.
Ben's reputation had not been unknown to the authorities of the college when they were considering him for the post of watchman. When the decision had finally been made to hire him, one of the foremost conditions had been to extract a solemn promise from Ben not to become involved in any questionable behavior with the young coeds on campus. At the time, this had seemed like a joke to Ben. He couldn't imagine any young girl becoming interested in a broken-down old man like himself, but then the friendship had started with Victoria and the sight and smell of her and the soft gentle sound of her voice had brought back sweet memories of the past when he had spent night after glorious night with a seemingly endless stream of just such lovely young creatures.
Well, that stream had dried up, Ben thought to himself, first to a trickle and then fading away completely to a dry channel lined with the bleached rocks of hopeless memories. Once in a while Ben took some of his meager salary and went into town to rent a prostitute for the night, but with the little money he had, he didn't get much back in return. Besides, his mind had stayed stuck on the young ones ever since the days of his greatest glory when they had all been his for the asking. If it hadn't been for the company of his dog, Ben thought he would probably have cracked up long ago. His dog and the whiskey, his faithful life-long companions.
Whiskey had been his downfall and now it was a part of his salvation, the big man thought to himself. He had long ago brought his drinking under control so that he now only drank on his own time. And never enough to turn him into the shambling, swearing, sloppy mess he had once been, but only an amount sufficient to deaden his mind and his senses to the point where he didn't care what happened. He had scheduled for tonight another of his regular binges and it looked like he might need it because he was always depressed after he talked to Victoria, his unobtainable dream. And sure enough, here she came in his direction.
Victoria had finally looked up from her reverie and spotted her two male friends, the one human, the other canine, and headed instinctively toward them. It always made her feel good to talk to Mr. Wright, even if he often did seem a little strange. Sometimes Victoria wondered why the man seldom looked straight at her while they were talking but always seemed to be staring at his fingernails, or the sky, or his dog.
"Hi, Mr. Wright," Victoria said in that clear soft voice that sent chills up and down Ben's spine whenever he heard it. "Hi, Prince," and the young girl gave a delighted little laugh as the big dog ran eagerly to her and jumped up with his feet on her shoulders to lick her face.
"Down, Prince!" Ben ordered. "You're going to get mud all over Victoria's sweater." But what really bothered the middle-aged man was the way Prince and the girl were romping together, Victoria's playful motions causing her full, taut breasts to jump and sway excitingly inside her thin white sweater.
Oh Christ, Ben thought to himself, she's not wearing a bra! The playful scratching of Prince's paws across the nubile young girl's lush breasts had caused her nipples to harden slightly and the sharp little tips stood out clearly through the flimsy synthetic material. For a moment Ben even thought he could see the darker shading of the areolas through the soft white wool. If there was one thing that had turned Ben against Women's Liberation, it was the no-bra movement. God, it was just too cruel a torture to let all that hang loose in front of a horny old man like himself.
Finally Victoria collapsed in a laughing heap on the grass and Prince sank down next to her, his long pink tongue lolling loosely from between his powerful jaws.
"Well, watcha been up to lately?" Ben asked to make conversation.
"Oh, nothing much," his young friend answered vaguely. A slight cloud seemed to come over her beautiful face and then she asked abruptly. "Mr. Wright, do you ever get lonely here?"
The question floored Ben for a moment and he almost began to laugh. Lonely? God, if she only knew.
"Oh, maybe a little," he lied. "But then, I've always got Prince, and he's the best company in the world. Next to you, of course," he gallantly added.
"You don't have to say that, Mr. Wright," the young blonde answered with a pleased smile. "I think I'd be about the happiest person in the world if I had Prince."
The big dog looked quizzically at both of his human companions as he heard them say his name. He was very content at the moment, being in the company of the two persons he loved most.
"Well, I don't know about that," Ben replied, scratching his head as if he were doubtful about the dog. "He can be a lot of trouble. Eats a lot of food, more than I do, and he stays out to all hours chasing after lady dogs. Sometimes I think he's a bad influence on my morals."
"Sounds like me and my roommate," Victoria said grimly.
"You mean you're a bad influence on her morals?" Ben asked, feigning shock.
"Oh, no," the young girl said in alarm and then saw that Ben was kidding her. She and her old friend often played little word games with each other and Victoria found as usual that it was making her feel better.
"Never mind," she amended. "I'm just an old wallflower making jealous sounds."
"The only things you should be jealous of are the sun and the moon," Ben said with continued gallantry, but he began to get an inkling of what it must be that was bothering the girl. She certainly had seemed preoccupied and depressed when he'd first seen her walking. Ben had met her roommate Penny before, and his long years of experience helped him to recognize the sheer sensual drive in the dark-haired young beauty. Even though Ben preferred the gentle young blonde sitting before him, he had to admit that her roommate was the sexiest girl on campus. From what he had seen on some of his night rounds, the old watchman suspected that the sultry young temptress knew what every little part of her body was for. Once she had looked him full in the eye, one of the most challenging, sexual looks that Ben had ever experienced and he had thought his cock was going to explode right through his trousers. What a temptation it had been to proposition the girl, but the stern warning he had received from the Trustees when he took this job made him cautious. As a young instructor he'd long ago learned about the unbalanced young girls that led a man on and then cried rape when you took them up on their invitation. Ben doubted that Penny was one of these warped oddballs, but he just didn't want to take the chance. Ben wondered what it must be like for a seemingly innocent girl like Victoria to live with Penny. Maybe it was time to change the subject – for both of them.
"Say, Miss Victoria, I wonder if you could do me a favor? I have to go into town tonight on some… business and I wonder if you could kind of look after Prince for me? You're the only person I'd think of asking."
"Why, I'd really like that, Mr. Wright," the delighted coed said, a smile of real pleasure coming over her face.
"Great. That takes a load off my mind. What time do you usually get back from the dining hall?"
"Oh, about nine."
"Could I bring him over to your place around nine-thirty then?"
"Sure," Victoria said excitedly, "just come around to the back and knock on the sliding glass doors." After a few more bits of conversations the now happily smiling girl skipped off across the grass, a happy anticipation coursing through her as if an old friend were coming to visit. Ben stood watching as she disappeared in the distance, muttering all the while half under his breath.
"Christ, Prince, look at that tight little ass move. There ought to be a law. There really ought to be a law." And with a sigh the big man turned away, heading for his lonely room, Prince following faithfully at his heels.