Ostracism Pt. 04

Author's note: This story contains some anti-gay slurs. This is not meant to insult anyone, but they are necessary for the telling of this tale. I hope that the reader can see past any offense he might take, and understand why they are integral to the story.

*****

Mary Margaret had gotten a full tray for dinner. Chicken and dumplings were a special treat at the cafeteria, the perfect comfort food for this raw, cold day. Mashed potatoes, green beans and a piece of apple pie made up the rest of her plate, though she thought that pumpkin pie would have been more appropriate for the season.

She'd beaten Danny down to the cafeteria, something that was a bit unusual. Without him there, and his dour agnosticism, she made the Sign of the Cross, and said Grace, "Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen."

Still, she wondered if she was being a bit hypocritical, praying to the Lord when she had been considering sleeping with Brandon. He was just so good-looking, and charming, and polite. She knew that he wanted to sleep with her - what college guy doesn't have sex on his mind? - and that she'd pretty much teased him outrageously last Friday night, but they hadn't had sex yet, and he wasn't being stupid pushy.

And he'd called her his girlfriend! He'd been happy enough with how far they'd gotten, and how far they hadn't gotten, and wasn't doing what so many college guys would have done, dumped her when she hadn't 'put out' already.

Then there was Danny. What college guy doesn't have sex on his mind? Well, so far, Danny didn't seem to have, or at least didn't seem interested in her as a girlfriend. Mary Margaret was disappointed that Danny didn't seem interested, and if she'd been happy when Brandon had said that he wanted her to be his girlfriend, she was also feeling guilty because she wanted Danny to say something, do something.

Then Danny showed up at the table, smiling at her. That was nice, because he just didn't smile much, period. With the repercussions of that awful porno in his past, and how closed off and defensive he'd gotten, she was lucky to have gotten any smiles out of him, so maybe she was finally breaking through his hard shell.

Danny's tray was the opposite of hers: he hadn't loaded up at all, had really too little food on it. He'd finally started putting back on some of the weight he'd lost, but he was still too skinny.

They talked about nothing important, until finally Danny screwed up enough nerve to ask what was on his mind. "Listen, Mary Margaret, my roommate is going to be out all night? Want to do our study session in my room instead of the library? It'll save us the walk in that nasty wind out there."

For a second, she was stunned. Was this the move that he'd waited so long to make? Still, she'd tried the exact same thing a week ago, and dressed casually sexy for it, and it went exactly nowhere. "Sure," she managed to get out, having had a couple of seconds grace in which to swallow her food and think about what she'd been asked. "That'll be a nice change."

There was more talk about nothing, and finally they headed back upstairs. "I've got to take care of something, and then I'll be right down," she told him. "See ya!"

Well, she certainly seemed cheerful enough, Danny thought. He wasn't sure of what she had to 'take care of,' but no sense worrying about it. This would either go well, of just be studying.

What did Mary Margaret have to take care of? All day in her fuggs - fake Uggs - she was sure that her feet didn't smell good, and she wanted to take a quick shower. Was Danny actually making a move? There was no way to tell, no way to know until she got to his room, but she was going to be ready if he did. A quick shower, and yup, better shave her legs; she hadn't for a couple of days. No need for make-up, since it was obvious that she had showered, and who puts on make-up just before bed? She wanted to look fresh and clean, but not over-eager. She brushed her teeth and Scoped, got to be kissably ready.

Clothes? She thought about the white sweatpants she'd worn the other night, but those hadn't worked. Well, they weren't going to be outside, and the dorm was plenty warm, so she pulled out a pair of black yoga pants, and guys just love yoga pants. A black thong underneath those, and she was perfectly sexy.

Except for her weight.

What a downer. Mary Margaret wasn't fat, but being somewhere in the size 7 to 9 range, and as short as she was, she looked kind of stocky. Everything was in the right place, but she wasn't typical college girl skinny. But there was nothing she could do about that now.

She had a nice black bra, one that matched her thong, so that was an easy choice, and then a loose shirt over that, to sort of look sexy but still not be too blatant with her figure. She'd just wear her flip flops and, crap! her nail polish could use some attention. No time for that now, Danny would just have to like her as she was, or not. She grabbed her laptop, and the books she needed and headed downstairs; Danny's dorm room was directly under hers. It was only a minute later that she was knocking on his door.

Mary Margaret knocking on Danny's door did not go unnoticed; a couple of guys, including one she knew to be a real asshole - he was the one who first yelled that she'd better make sure Danny got an AIDS test before he fucked her - and there were some snide comments made, though not loud enough that she couldn't pretend not to have heard them.

Danny certainly liked what he saw when he opened the door. The oversized flannel shirt was an interesting top over the black yoga pants, a modest top to be sure, but the bare calves and feet were certainly nice in this cold early December. He had to hesitate a second, just to make sure that he didn't stammer when he said, "Hi," and invited her in.

With exams coming up, they had to buckle down and get to work. With completely different majors, they didn't have any of the same, or even similar classes, but that didn't matter: they got work done, and it somehow didn't seem quite as much of a chore with each other around.

Then she wound up sitting the same way she had when they had studied in her dorm room, cross-legged on his bed. That tensed the muscles in her calves, and really showed off how nice her legs were. Oh, they weren't long and lean, the way every college guy dreams about, but shapely and smooth, with what looked like really soft skin. Danny thought that she'd caught him looking for a second, but Mary Margaret didn't say anything. He did think that he caught her smiling at that.

Well, damn it, it was time. If he was going to say anything, it had to be now, but he'd be damned if he knew what to say that would be right. He thought about how he'd just went "Kiss me" to the two women he approached last Saturday, and how well being bold had worked out. Faint heart ne'er won fair maiden and all of that. But somehow he just couldn't use the same approach with Mary Margaret. It was too sudden, too abrupt.

Then he knew what he had to do. He'd never get the words right, so it would have to be action. With all of the hullabaloo over Harvey Weinstein and sexual harassment, he had to convey his meaning without crossing the boundary into bad behavior. Minutes passed, and then the opportunity presented itself, as Mary Margaret brought up her left hand to brush her hair away from her face. He gently took her hand, which caught her eye, and then he kissed it.

oo0oo

"So then what happened?" That was Sarah, Mary Margaret's roommate giving her the inquisition after MM had gotten back to their room.

"Well, he took my hand and kissed it, then looked me in the eye, looking, I guess, looking hopefully at me. I was so surprised that I know I had a vacant look on my face for a second, before I reached over and kissed him.

"Anyway, that started a lot of kissing, but not hard stuff, you know? I was trying to keep things soft and gentle, to let him know I liked him, but not get pushed into sex. I guess he understood, because he wasn't trying to push me or anything."

"Well, did he say anything?"

"Yeah, he did. He confessed that he'd wanted to get closer to me for a while now, but he was afraid of somehow 'contaminating' me with his bad reputation. I told him to let me worry about my reputation, and he seemed happy at that.

"Of course, he finally got around to asking me about my date last weekend. I know that he wanted to ask me if I'd had sex with Brandon, but he never put that into words, and I was pretty careful not to tell him one way or the other. At any rate, he sure didn't volunteer anything about his night out on Saturday, so he didn't have much right to pry into my dates."

"Well, what are you going to do between two guys?"

"Oh, heck, I don't know. Brandon's the better 'catch,' you know, way better catch. He's really good looking, goal oriented, pretty much has an Army career already lined up, and he's strong and athletic. Really, he's kind of out of my league. Danny, well, he's dark and moody, but still pretty smart. He's nowhere as good-looking as Brandon, but, truth is, I think I like him more. But 'like' isn't love, not yet anyway."

"Well, you know what you have to do, don't you? You've got to sleep with both of them, and find out which one's better in bed."

"Sarah! You know I'm not like that!"

"Yeah, I know, but maybe you'd better think about being like that. Two different guys, and you can't choose between them? This might give you what you need to push the decision one way or the other."

"Look, I just can't do that. I told you what I felt like when I saw that big box of rubbers on Brandon's nightstand. He's probably had a hundred girls, and I don't want to be just another notch on his bedpost."

"Did he say that he'd had a hundred other girls?"

"Well, no, I sure didn't ask. But he'd too good looking not to have had girls throwing themselves at him."

"Maybe so, but maybe he had a long-term girlfriend, and they just broke up. You just don't know.

"And what about Danny? How do you know that he hasn't slept with a couple dozen girls himself?"

"I guess I don't know, but I don't get that impression. I don't think he's a virgin or anything . . . ."

"You know he's no virgin. Trouble is, you also know he got screwed by four guys, not girls."

"He said he'd been desperate, that he was hoping to get a part in a regular porno, not gay porn."

"Yeah, well how many guys do you think would try to get into porn who hadn't screwed around a lot?"

"Like I know a lot about porn! Hell, I don't know what a guy might do."

"Well," continued Sarah, "I've heard it said that a woman decides within the first thirty seconds of meeting a guy whether she wants to sleep with him. That the case with you?"

"Oh, heck, if that's the test, Brandon's the one! I'm still not sure about Danny, but I don't think that's a realistic way of looking at things."

"You going to make up your mind before Christmas break?"

"You know, I don't have the first clue about that. Thing is, I ought to start my period in just a couple days, and that pretty much excludes sex."

"It doesn't have to, you know."

"Well, maybe not, technically, but I can't imagine that's how I'd want things to go the first time with a guy. Yuck!"

Sarah and Mary Margaret turned out the lights around 10:30; both had 8:00 AM classes in the morning, and Blanding was a pretty long walk to the various classroom buildings. It didn't take Sarah long to fall asleep, at least not judging by her breathing. Truth is, Sarah snored a bit.

But Mary Margaret couldn't fall asleep. She picked up her Kindle, and opened a biography of King Henry VII, something that was in her father's reading list - the whole family had the same Kindle account, so when one bought a book, it was in the cloud for everybody - and a book she knew was just plain boring. That ought to help her fall asleep.

Except that it didn't. She tossed and turned, though she wanted to stay facing Sarah, so that the light from her Kindle wouldn't be as bright on her roommate's side and maybe awaken her. The book was boring, and she wound up reading the same page, without understanding a bit of it, over and over, because she couldn't get her mind off of Danny, and what Sarah had said.

Should she sleep with Danny? With Brandon, she knew that she wanted to! He was just downright hot, and it had taken all of her willpower, even aided by the thought that he'd probably screwed a hundred other girls, to resist being seduced Saturday night. But Danny? She'd spent these weeks wanting him to make a move, wondering why he hadn't up until this evening, frustrated that he seemed to have so solidly friend-zoned her, and it was easy for her to have kept things on the tame side. She thought that yeah, she'd like to have gotten closer to him, and she'd had the opportunity, but she kept it cool.

It was like a cookout, she thought. With Brandon, things were a brightly blazing bonfire, brilliant and quickly hot. But bonfires burned out quickly, too. With Danny, maybe it was more like a charcoal grill, slow to start, but eventually just as hot, and the coals could burn for hours.

oo0oo

Mary Margaret stood outside the door. It was a few minutes after midnight, when the different floor doors should have been locked, in some sort of stupid way to keep the different sex floors apart, but it hadn't taken long for enterprising students to fill the door latches with something that allowed the doors to close all the way, but not have the spring bolt engage. She's slipped into her dorm bathroom, brushed her teeth and Scoped again, before sneaking down a floor, to Danny's room.

She hadn't changed: she was still wearing just the long blue sleepshirt she wore to bed. It was oversized, and not transparent at all, but she had nothing on under it. The nightshirt came down to her knees, but was slit up both sides almost to her hips. All that she had with her were her room keys and her cell. Just a quick knock, and there Danny would be, smiling at her, inviting her into his warm, dark room. He had let her know earlier that his roommate would be out all night.

Her right hand was on the door, the knuckles of her proximal phalanges, the proximal interphalangeal joints as she remembered from an anatomy class last spring, poised to knock, as she was trying to gather her nerves to do it.

The hallway was empty at this hour, though the fluorescent lights were just as bright as at any other time. If she knocked, it was a commitment: she'd be sleeping with Danny. If she turned and walked quietly back to her room, she wouldn't.

Her nerve failed for a moment, and she turned away, heading back down the hall. Then, after a few steps, she realized: with Danny's roommate gone tonight, but probably not again for the rest of the semester, this was almost surely the only chance they'd have. It was now, or never. She stopped for a moment, drew up her nerve, strode back to Danny's door and knocked, before she could back down again.

oo0oo

Danny woke up, aware of the warm, sleeping woman cuddled up against him. In the twin beds that the dorm provided, well, he was glad that he was skinny, 'cause there sure wasn't a lot of room for two people!

Her knock had been soft, so soft that he wasn't sure anyone had knocked that first time, half asleep as he had been. It was only with the second knock that he had managed to get out, "Just a second," and move to open the door. Mary Margaret had been standing there, in a knee-length blue nightshirt, her keys in her hand, her feet bare, a shy smile on her face, her eyes slightly moist looking, like she was on the verge of tears.

She had stepped in slowly, reached up to kiss him, and then slipped into his bed while he was still standing there, stunned. He reached for the switch, but Mary Margaret half-whispered, "Leave the light off." She was still in her nightshirt, with the covers pulled over her, and Danny had wondered if he should strip or stay in the t-shirt and boxers he had been wearing. He figured that he could at least pull off the shirt, and then, as he was doing that, he felt her hand, on the leg hem of his boxers, giving them just enough of a tug downward that he knew she wanted him to take them off.

There had been little light in the room. On the fifth floor, there was no need for curtains, and the narrow-slat Venetian blinds had been up, allowing the lights from the plaza between the dorm complex to cast a dull, yellow illumination into the room. Danny and his roommate each had digital alarm clocks, with night-dimmed green LED light displays. While the color of those lights could be seen, the room itself was so dim that no color was visible in Mary Margaret's face; she was like a black-and-white picture, barely more than a shadow. She'd taken off her glasses and put them on the nightstand, and he wished that he could have seen more, but there was just enough light to see smile on her lips, the smile in her eyes.

They had laid there, facing each other, exchanging the soft kisses Mary Margaret seemed to prefer. Danny wasn't sure just what was happening. The tug telling him to lose the boxers sure seemed to be a message that she wanted to make love, but her shy smile and barely there touch made him wonder if she just wanted to cuddle. He didn't have any condoms, and wondered if she was on the pill.

Finally, Danny raised himself on one elbow, to change their position, which encouraged her to roll a bit more toward being on her back. His left leg slid up and over hers, his calf between hers, his kisses just slightly more aggressive than they had been. He could feel the softness of her smooth skin against his leg, especially as she bent her right leg and put her knee up. Her left arm was under him now, where he had raised up, her right hand gently caressing his face, when she whispered the words he longed to hear, "Make love to me, Danny."

It had been glorious! As he raised himself up further, Mary Margaret slid more to the center of the bed, and raised up her other knee, inviting him inside of her. As uncertain as he was about just how she would like things, he was still as ready to go as he could ever be. In his far-too-few times with other girls, he had always gone down on them first, to make certain that they were really ready, and to try to bring them to climax before ever entering them, but that wasn't what Mary Margaret wanted. He entered her slowly, but deeply, moving all the way inside her with one long, slow stroke.

Danny was absolutely in heaven! In his past experiences, he had moved quickly from slow strokes to hard, rapid pounding, which was what he thought sex should be, but even though he was on top, it was Mary Margaret controlling things, letting him know through her touch how she wanted to be touched. Her hands were on his back, but lightly, cueing his movements with the flexion of her fingertips. Her smile, barely visible in the dim room, was telling him that he was doing things right, that she was feeling ecstasy in their coming together.

Everything Danny thought he knew about sex was wrong. By now, he'd have tried to change positions, doggy being his favorite, hard, rampant fucking what he wanted, but that wasn't what was happening tonight. Other than Mary Margaret putting her feet between his knees, sort of tightening their connection but not the lags-wrapped-around-and-holding-on-for-dear-life desperation position, they never switched up, still moving slowly, her hips gently pushing up and he would thrust down. She pulled her right hand off of his back, to place behind his neck, gently urging him down to kiss her. When they came together, both would press firmly against each other; when they drew apart, it was almost achingly slowly.