Sloane had made her announcement as casual as you please-I'm getting married-and then slumped on top of me and passed out.
With her lying limply in my lap, I'd sat there shell-shocked as the wheels turned in my mind. At last I'd managed to stir myself and make her vertical.
I fetched some water, then returned and tapped her back, saying her name until she opened groggy eyes and drank. Then, while she drifted back into snoozeville, I carried her around to the nook that served as her bedroom.
Carrying Sloane was a revelation, let me tell you. She might look like a featherweight, but she's actually significantly heavier than Aura. A good portion of all that skin and bones has to be muscle. Guess zumba isn't for sissies after all.
I laid her on the bed and seriously considered stripping off her clothes. She'd be more comfortable, and … all right, bald truth here, it was to satisfy my curiosity about what she was hiding under that shirt.
When I was a kid of thirteen, I'd thought of Charis as an alluring siren. Later on, I'd blamed my naive youth for that opinion. Now I wondered. She joked about being built like a twelve-year-old boy. I suddenly wanted to see for myself if that was really the case.
With the way I'd set her on her side, the hem of the black shirt had risen high enough to prove that yes, she wore panties. Simple red cotton ones, faithfully following the soft curve of her bottom well above where it rounded from her leg.
Why hadn't I noticed how cuppable that little ass was? Her thigh had a nice shape, too. Female, most definitely.
My hand tingled. Every instinct I had said, stroke that haunch. Ease up that hem. Let's see what we're dealing with here.
My cock told me Brilliant idea. Now's your chance. You've wondered about Sloane for years. This is gonna be GOOD.
My drunken brain said, If she finds out you groped her when she was unconscious, she'll bean you.
Dad's lectures slapped me with Do Not Take Advantage of Drunk Women.
I placed my hand on the shirt to restore her modesty, operating, swear to God, with the best of intentions.
Then my palm encountered satin.
Hell.
Who knew Charis Sloane had skin that warm and smooth? Sweet lord.
Somehow instead of drawing down, the tee shirt was sliding up, exposing one poky hip bone, and my palm was sweeping down the length of her thigh to the hollow behind her knee. I played my finger along that hollow, undecided if I was willing to go farther along the trail of wickedness.
But it seemed I already had.
Without my saying anything, she murmured sleepily and raised her knee. Effectively splitting her legs.
At which time I got my punishment for being such a non-platonic perv.
Just a woman's crotch, covered by a strip of cloth. No biggie, right? But hell and damnation, this was Sloane.
I stared at that little patch and it was all I could do not to crook my finger and nudge aside the barrier of fabric. Then naturally I'd have to part her, finger her. I mean, how can you not go ahead and make a woman wet, when she's lying all splayed for you?
The thing is, I knew I could. It isn't exactly something you could put in your portfolio, but magic fingers are a thing. Expert digits. Gets babes off in record time. Three to six orgasms per fuck, average. Frequent screamers. References available.
It's such an important part of who I am that I'm fully expecting a midlife crisis if I ever get crippling arthritis like Grandpa has and can't finger a babe. Otherwise, my plan is to give out Os till I'm gravebound.
Putting a finger in Sloane's pussy, though. Quite a thought.
How I'd love to show her I wasn't a kid anymore.
But you didn't fondle drunk, unconscious women. You probably got sent straight to hell just for leering at them.
Guilty.
And somehow unrepentant.
I had this sense that after knowing her ten years, Charis.
Was.
Mine.
Dangerous thinking.
Nix that.
As it happened, I already had some of my questions answered just looking at her.
No to being bare.
Yes to trimmed.
But: curly or wispy? And color: how pink?
Oh, shit, now my mind was really going places. Like, where was her breakdown point? Could Sloane give one of her well-constructed scholarly arguments with a couple of fingers up inside her and a thumb buffing her clit? I'd damn well like to see her try.
The strain in my cock was unbelievable at that point. I was panting. Sweat was rolling down my temple. You'd think I'd just been offered a blow job by Venus herself.
Yeah, okay, so maybe I was attracted to my best friend. Maybe I wanted to hear her breath catch as she exploded under my touch the way I was sure she would if I could just get the chance with her. And maybe I was royally fucked.
I had no Aura to go to anymore.
There was no stopping my cock from knowing its target. No more lying to myself.
And it was too late to do anything about it.
Somehow, with superhuman strength I withdrew my palm and sprawled out next to her on the bed. I forced my breathing to even out and calmed my heartbeat while I watched her sleep.
With the "M" word echoing through me with a terrible, grim finality.
Married. She was getting married.
Her left hand was curled up in front of her. I flipped it over to check it out. No ring.
What the ever loving fuck? I hadn't even known she was dating.
Who was he? Did I know him? When did she meet him? Where did they hang out together?
What bastard had taken her from right under my nose, just when I'd clued in to my idiocy?
A wave of tiredness hit me. Getting the answers had to wait. But I couldn't leave her like this. I stuck around, making sure she woke every time I shook her, not allowing myself to touch her skin directly beyond little pokes to make sure she was warm.
And maybe she was correct that I was still adjusting to the breakup, because I kept thinking, It's over, it's over, it's over.
Sloane was wrong about the grief, though. There was only relief and exasperation. Why did we wait so long to break up?
The unresolved questions kept at me until I finally collapsed on the sofa, fizzled.
I TEXTED CHARIS ASKING HER about the engagement and got no reply. That in itself was odd, but her not answering her phone was odder. Was she avoiding me?
After my two exams-which I aced, by the way, proving some of my brain cells at least remained functional-I might have gone home, driven to my parents' house, checked on Joel, gone to the Village and found a rebound woman …
Of course, I did none of the above. Instead I went back to Sloane's place. And when she didn't answer my knock, I let myself in with my key.
Alone in her empty apartment, I tried to get answers.
I prowled through every room, looking for any signs of male occupancy. Nothing, nada. No shaving stuff in the bathroom. No food she didn't like in her fridge. No discarded condoms.
Did I search her sleeping area? Of course not, I draw the line somewhere. Peering around the wall and examining every visible surface from afar doesn't count.
Then I sprawled out on her couch and rang my sister, Mel.
At Thanksgiving dinner, Charis and my oldest sister had been as tight as ever, even though Mel now lives in Lewiston with her family and works a non-academic life as an accountant.
"It was so great to see everybody," Charis had said on our way back. "Karl and Winnow are such a riot. And Mel … why don't I see her more often? She's not that out of the way."
I pointed out the obvious-that Char does this to herself. She basically secludes herself in her ivory tower. It amazes me how completely out of touch she is with normal life.
Most of us go to college, get what we need from it, and move on, feel me? Charis lives the dream. She'd never even step off campus if she had her choice.
During holidays, her parents travel, so she spends them with us. We're the only non-academics she hangs with.
This year, I'd noticed she talked more with my sibs than with me, soaking up details about their lives like she'd been starving for gossip as much as turkey.
"What's up, shrimp?" Mel greeted me on the phone.
My sister has a strong sense of irony. I've topped her by a foot for at least ten years.
"How's it going, Mel?" I knew what would happen now. It's always a good idea to let her get her complaints out of the way first.
"Back to work since the baby...it's not even April … new tax laws … never said I shouldn't … potato peel … garbage disposal … threw up yet another formula … third conference … "
It took her a while to wind down. For most of it I calculated node voltages in my head.
" … and what about with you?" she finished.
"Ah," I said. "So Aura and I broke up." I figured I might as well tell all and avoid a chewing out later.
Bonus: with Mel's yapper, it's as good as telling the rest of the family. Hopefully they'd all know by the time they brushed their teeth for the night, and she'd be the one to suffer their questions instead of me.