Uncovering Quinn

"He didn't do anything for you?"

"Oh, he wanted to but... I need to know a boy better than that before I let him fool around down there."

"Are you going to see him again?"

"I doubt it. After the way Bryan treated you, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be with any of his friends. Jerome was nice enough though. We'll see."

There was a long pause before Quinn asked her next question.

"Do you like it?... Having a guy's dick in your mouth like that, I mean."

"I don't like it the way girls in porn like it. I don't mind it though."

"Where do they, like... finish?"

"Oh, I always make them cum in my mouth."

"Eww! Really? Gross." It was kind of funny how skeeved she was, considering she was more experienced than me.

"I don't like it, but if you swallow it, there's nothing to clean up. It's just easier... Hand jobs are messy. I got cum in my hair once. Never. Again."

"I know, right! It takes forever to get it out of your hair. I'm like, 'You're cumming in a condom or not at all.' Just throw it away," she laughed. And then she was quiet for a moment.

"...What does it taste like?" Quinn asked with more than a little trepidation.

"Um... I dunno... It's a little salty, I guess? It's really more of a texture than a flavor... kinda like warm yogurt, maybe? No, that's not right... Have you ever eaten a raw egg white?"

"Eewwwww!"

We stayed up late talking about blow jobs and sex. Over the next few weeks we settled into a pattern. Quinn was the first up in the morning and the first to bed at night. Sometimes she'd let me brush out her hair if I needed a break from reading or finishing a lab report. She showered before bed and I showered in the morning while she did her makeup. I tried to be discrete, but occasionally I'd catch her looking away quickly as I was changing clothes.

Quinn got a small part in a ballet production and spent a lot of time at rehearsal. I ended up joining a couple of study groups and spent most evenings with them.

Despite having our own things going on, Quinn and I still spent a lot of time together. We usually got dinner together. She'd come with me to the gym, even though she didn't need to. I taught her to play 'Halo'. She taught me to dance. Both efforts were futilely hilarious. On weekends we'd ride out to the shopping center together.

Quinn usually went out on either Friday or Saturday night. She'd always invite me, but freshman year is when they try to weed out engineering majors who can't cut it. I needed the study time. Quinn usually didn't come home until the next morning. I didn't pry.

There was a boy in one study group, John, who lived two floors down from us. We fooled around some and came to an arrangement. Some nights when Quinn was out, John and I would study together, then play video games and spend the night together. He was still in my bed when Quinn came home one Sunday morning. That night, as I was starting to drift off, Quinn called down from the top bunk.

"Leslie? Are you awake?"

"Uh-huh."

"Can I ask you about John?"

"Sure. What about him?"

"Well... what's the deal? Are you two serious?"

"I don't think so... We fool around, but we're not in love or anything."

Quinn was quiet for a moment before continuing.

"You use the phrase 'fool around' a lot," she observed.

"Yeah, I guess." I had a feeling where this was going.

"Are you a virgin, Leslie?"

There it was.

"...Yeah," I admitted. "Clinically, anyway."

"You're waiting for your older guy, aren't you?"

"...Yeah."

"Good. I hope you get him. I hope it's special... I wish I had waited for someone special." There was an odd melancholy in her voice. Something I hadn't heard before.

"Quinn?" I asked, "When did you lose your virginity?"

"...I was 15. At summer ballet camp."

"With Dylan?"

"No," she laughed, "Dylan was not a dancer."

"...What was it like? The first time, I mean? Did it hurt?"

She didn't answer for a long minute.

"It's not a very nice story, Leslie... I'd rather not talk about it."

"I'm... I'm sorry."

"It's ok. I... made peace with it."

I laid awake for a long time after that, wishing like hell that I could take back the question. Neither of us said anything else that night.

The weeks rolled by and Quinn's wardrobe shifted from cotton and silk to wool and leather. On a rainy Friday evening, we went down to the dining hall together. On our way in, we were confronted by Marie and Angela, two girls on our hall, both in sweatshirts and yoga pants, their hair up in scrunchies.

"Hey Quinn," Marie challenged, stepping into our path. "I've heard about you trolling for dick down at the frat houses every weekend!"

Quinn looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"You stay the fuck away from Beta Kappa Alpha, slut. You go anywhere near my boyfriend's house and I swear to God, I will kick your skinny ass," Marie threatened, jabbing a finger at Quinn. Quinn may have been taller, but in a grey wool skirt, bulky cream shawl-collar sweater and knee-high boots, she looked far too sophisticated to be threatening.

"And your little lessie roommate's too," Marie added, glaring at me.

To be fair, I was wearing cargo pants, a flannel over a T-shirt, Crocs 'n socks, and a knit beanie. It wasn't the first time I'd been accused of dressing like a lesbian. I could have let it go, but nobody talks to my roommate like that. I was about to unload on Marie when Quinn surprised me.

"You're too late, Marie," Quinn responded with a sweet smile. "I fucked my way through Beta house two weeks ago. Those guys have dicks like lumber. But I'm afraid your little Trent just didn't measure up to his big brothers... You can have him back."

Marie turned bright red. She'd prepared her threat, but hadn't expected a response.

"Wait, Marie is fucking Trent from BKA?" I jumped in. "Hell, if you can get off on his sweaty little macaroni dick, he is all yours, Marie. Nobody else wants him."

Marie's jaw dropped and she stared daggers at me.

"He's an eager little thing though, isn't he 'Lessie'?" Quinn piled on. "Like a little Chihuahua humping a throw pillow."

"C'mon 'Slut', let's go order a pizza. It smells like bitch in here," I sneered and we turned and walked out leaving Marie and Angela in mortified silence and everyone around them snickering.

When Quinn and I were safely back in the elevator, we laughed so hard we could barely stand.

"Ok 'Slut'," I finally gasped. "I learned to trash talk playing 'Call of Duty' online. Where the hell did you learn to throw down like that?"

"Girls at dance camp can be vicious, 'Lessie'," she smirked. "They'd make your video game buddies cry."

"I believe it! You owned her! That was awesome!"

"Thank you." she shrugged.

"How did you know about Trent?"

"Girls at dance camp also gossip. You learn to pick up on things."

From that point on, 'Slut' and 'Lessie' became our nicknames for each other. Not in public, just... between us.

While it was fun putting Marie in her place, the whole thing must have been harder on Quinn than she let on. She didn't go out that weekend. She said it was because of the rain. I still had my Friday night study group though, and Quinn was in bed when I got home just after midnight.

The confrontation brought up some lingering questions I had about Quinn's weekends. As I crawled into bed, I worked up the courage to finally ask them.

"Hey, Quinn?" I called softly to the top bunk. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah."

"Can I ask you something personal?"

"Sure."

"...Why do you sleep with so many different boys?"

There was a long pause before she answered.

"...Because I'm a slut, I guess."

"No. That's just a label, not a reason."

Quinn didn't respond right away.

"...I guess it's because ballet is competitive and stressful, and I need the release without the pressures of a relationship."

"Oh... Why frat boys? I mean, after what Bryan did..."

"It's just... easier. I don't want to get dinner or watch a movie. I just want a guy to take me to bed... And there's a kind of peer pressure in the fraternities... Frat boys don't say no."

There was a cold, detached kind of logic to what she was saying. From a strictly pragmatic point of view, it made sense. But I couldn't help wondering if there was more to it. I don't spend as much time studying for my Psych 101 elective as I do for my engineering classes, but I had learned about rationalization. I was pretty sure that what Quinn told me, was only the story she told herself. I wasn't going to call her out on it though.

October turned to November and—other than Marie avoiding eye contact with either of us—life in the dorms continued as normal. Some kind of upper-respiratory infection broke out on campus, and the dining hall did a brisk business on chicken soup and orange juice. Quinn and I managed to avoid getting sick, but it hit the cast of her ballet production, and she got promoted to a bigger role. It also hit my Friday night study group hard, including John.

With more than half the group sick in bed, we decided to wrap up early. Quinn had gone down to the frats that evening, so I figured I'd be on my own the rest of the night. I stopped to check on John on my way home—his roommate said he was sleeping so I didn't wake him. I got back to my dorm room around ten thirty.

I opened the door and was surprised to see Quinn there. She was surprised to see me, too. So surprised she couldn't decide whether to dry her eyes, close her laptop, cover herself, or hide her vibrator first. She tried to do them all at the same time but awkwardly failed to do any of them adequately. And then her eyes met mine.

I had walked in on Quinn sitting at her desk watching porn on her laptop. There were two girls on the screen. The smaller brunette was fucking the busty blonde girl with a strap-on. Quinn was wearing nothing but the T-shirt she slept in, pulled up around her waist. She was masturbating and she was crying. Clearly, something was wrong.

For a brief moment, I thought about backing out into the hall and closing the door. But it was too late. There was no way we could ever pretend this hadn't happened. So I stepped inside and closed the door quickly but gently behind me and set down my bag.

"So, you're home early tonight." I started.

"Yeah..." she sniffed, pulling her T-shirt down to cover herself. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok." I turned my desk chair around to face her and sat down as she wiped her eyes smearing her already ruined eye-liner. "What's wrong, Quinn?"

"It's just... everything!" she sobbed. "I'm kind of a mess."

"Quinn, are you... are you gay?" I asked, indicating the girls writhing on the computer screen. I had suspected for a while, but never thought it appropriate to ask.

"No!" she exclaimed, closing the laptop, muting the video.

"Maybe..." she conceded.

"I don't know..." she admitted, looking deflated.

"I just... I just like boobs... I like the way they look and the way they move. I like to see people touching them... I... I like boobs... because..."

She took a deep breath. Whatever she was going to say next was obviously hard for her.

"Because I don't have any!" she finally confessed, breaking down and sobbing again.

It was then I realized that in almost three months living together, I had never seen Quinn with her top off. It was suddenly clear to me. All of her clothes, every piece of jewelry—everything Quinn ever wore was carefully chosen to draw eyes away from her chest to other attributes.

"Of course you do, Quinn. They might be small, but-"

"No, Leslie, I don't!" she interrupted. "God, I would love to have small, perky tits. That would be so awesome. But I don't..."

I was sure she was exaggerating. She had to be. I don't know what incredulous expression I had on my face as she tried to convince me, but it pissed her off because she stood up, pulled her T-shirt off over her head, and screamed "I don't have any fucking tits, Leslie!"

She was right. As she stood there naked in front of me, trembling with anger or shame, I could see that there was no swell or curve at all. Her puckered nipples were the only indication of mammary glands. There was no breast tissue behind them. Her chest was just... flat.

I tried not to stare. I tried to look at her eyes, but she was too embarrassed to make eye contact. She started to cry again, and collapsed onto the carpet. Her hair clip, loosened when she pulled off the shirt, gave way and her hair fell loose and Quinn lay crying on the floor, a naked tangle of arms and legs and hair.

I didn't know what to say, so I slipped off my chair and sat on the floor with her. I rubbed her back while she cried.

"I'm sorry," she said again after a while. "Every girl I ever knew growing up got boobs... and I never did... And they all teased me about it. Even the girls who got picked on for having small tits... would turn around and make fun of me twice as bad.

"Especially the dancers. Every week, you could see them in their leotards getting bigger and bigger and... and I never did... and they all knew it...

"I hated those girls... They made me start to hate dancing... That hurt the most... Having to endure the humiliation just to do something I loved... I wanted to run away... I just wanted boobs so bad growing up, Leslie..."

"Girls suck," I agreed. "All the girls in my high school were bitches, too."

"It's not just girls, Leslie," Quinn brushed her hair away and looked up at me, her face streaked with tears. "Guys don't want to be with a girl who... who's built like a twelve-year-old... like... this." She indicated her own naked body which, lack of breasts aside, was otherwise pretty spectacular.

I know there are plenty of boys out there who prefer small tits, but I don't know if there's a line between "small" and "none", so I kept my mouth shut.

"That's why I sleep with so many different guys... because after they see me... none of them ever wants to be with me again." A fresh tear rolled down her cheek.

"I try to... I keep my top on for as long as I can... but they always want me to take it off... and after I do... They don't want to look at me anymore, Leslie. And afterwards... I tell them I had fun... even when it sucks... I say 'We should do this again sometime' and they say 'Yeah,' but I can tell they don't mean it... and then I never hear from them." Her tears were flowing freely again.

Frat boys never really needed a reason to pump-n-dump a girl. It's kind of their thing. I'm sure plenty of busty girls have been ghosted after giving it up to frat boys. But I didn't think I could convince Quinn of that. She seemed pretty firm in her belief that her chest was to blame.

"Quinn, I'm... so sorry... I had no idea." I didn't know what else to say. Quinn is so beautiful in so many other ways. I can't imagine a boy not wanting to be with her. I was sure she was... I dunno, 'projecting' her own insecurities or something. Half a semester of Psych 101 did not prepare me for this. It hadn't even helped me work out my own fucked up issues about Uncle Mike.

"Maybe... Maybe if they got to know you first. Maybe if you didn't just hop right into bed with them..." I offered.

Quinn looked up at me and there was honest fear in her eyes. "No Leslie, that's so much worse!" She hung her head and sniffled. "When you really like them... when you think they really like you... but they dump you because...

"That's what happened with Dylan, Leslie... When we broke up... he said... he said he wanted to date a girl with tits for change..." she sobbed.

Oh Dylan, what did you do? It was probably a joke. You thought you could lighten the mood with humor, didn't you? Boys are idiots. You left her desperate to find someone to accept her the way she is but too afraid to get close again, so she ended up with jerks who just wanted to use her and throw her away. Do you even know how badly you broke her, Dylan?

She started crying again, and I let her cry. I brushed her hair away from her face, gathered it up into a ponytail and bound it back with her hair clip. Eventually, she sniffed back her tears and looked back up at me.

"Trust me, it's easier to find out before you have any feelings... It was worse than all the teasing from girls... It was even worse..." she choked back a sob and hung her head again.

"It was even worse... than tonight when he... he just left, Leslie!... He took off my bra... and he looked at me... and he made up some excuse about... about cheating on a girlfriend... and he just got up... and he left me there in his bed!"

And now I was crying too, and she was sobbing again, and all I could think to do was wrap my arms around her shoulders and cry with her. She really was a mess.

"Oh God, Leslie..." she wept, "Am I... am I really that... that repulsive?"

"No, Quinn... No... You're so beautiful... he was a jerk and he didn't deserve you... None of them deserve you... You are amazing, and graceful, and your perfect skin, and your hair... Quinn, I would kill to have a body like yours."

"Thank you," she sniffled. "...I'd kill to have breasts like yours." She sort of tried to laugh through the tears, but couldn't really manage it. "It's all I've ever wanted since I was twelve years old."

"Have you thought about... implants?"

"Eww. No. Fake tits are gross... They just... move all wrong... and feel wrong... probably... How would I know?" she sobbed again. "God, Leslie... I'm sorry... You must think I'm so fucking pathetic... I want them so bad... and I... I don't even know what they feel like!" She broke down weeping again.

I didn't know what to do. Quinn obviously had serious issues with her body—probably from those fucking jealous sows in her dance classes. It seemed like a lot of years of bottled trauma were all coming out at once. I was amazed she'd been strong enough to hold it together for as long as she did. Quinn was the nicest, sweetest girl I had ever met. She didn't deserve this. I wanted to do something—anything—to help her, but what could I do?

I couldn't give her boobs. I couldn't erase all the years of torment. I couldn't make the frat boys respect her. Maybe... Maybe I could do one little thing though.

As Quinn wept, I took off my hoodie and pulled my T-shirt off. I unhooked my bra and shrugged out of it. Taking Quinn's hand in mine, I laid her palm gently on my bare breast. She looked up at me with an unspoken question in her tear-filled eyes. I just nodded.

I watched her as she stroked my breast with her fingers, tracing the curve and the shape, above and below. There was a look of wonder in her dark eyes, like a child discovering a strange insect. She tested its weight, lifting me gently. As she moved her other hand towards my chest, she looked up to me for approval and I nodded again, giving her a small smile.

With my breast cupped in one palm, her fingers played across my skin feeling where it was soft and where it was firm. She circled my areola, gently with one finger, and watched in awe as my nipple slowly tightened and emerged. She smiled.

With another look as her hand moved towards my other breast, she silently asked permission and I gave it, pulling my shoulders back and pushing my chest towards her eager hands. She felt them both, one in each hand. Her fingers studied my skin and how it connected and folded and made my breasts a part of me. She massaged me in her hands, testing the density of the fat and the muscle under my skin.

There are several boys who can claim mine as the first tits they ever touched. While Quinn's hands were boy-like in their exploration and wonder, there was a gentleness, almost a reverence for my flesh in her hands. She caressed and moved and squeezed me, and I closed my eyes and enjoyed the sensation.