Grace

---

I’m staring at my class schedule, and have been for the last ten minutes, but my brain just simply isn’t functioning. There’s no other way to explain it. It’s like I’ve been hit over the head by something big and heavy. Something like Tommy’s…

Stop that! I scold myself.

Shannon said he’s bad news, and right now she’s the closest thing I have to a friend at this school, so I should probably listen to her. After all, she knows about him and I don’t.

And I mean – it does seem to make sense. What kind of guy comes out of the shower naked, isn’t even embarrassed when a girl sees him, and then invites her into the shower with him? One that’s trouble.

What would a guy like that want with me anyway? The farthest I’ve gone with a guy was some “heavy petting” as my mom would say. I’ve never even had my hand on a guy’s cock, let alone any other part of my body. I felt my ex-boyfriend’s through his pants once, but I just wasn’t able to go any further.

And here’s Tommy asking me to get in the shower with him, and there’s no way he wanted to get anything but dirty in a place designed to get clean.

“Stop it,” Shannon groans from her bed where she’s getting her notebooks ready. I look up from my computer.

“Stop what?” I ask.

“Stop thinking about him!”

“What are you, a mind reader?!” I groan. She caught me.

“You’ve been staring at your computer like a zombie for like fifteen minutes now,” she reminds me. “It’s pretty obvious.”

I can’t bear it anymore. I’ve got to talk about it. I slump back in my chair and rest my head against the cool cinderblock walls.

“You should have seen him,” I tell her, my mind drifting back to the image of his flawless body, dripping wet as he stepped out of the shower. Those biceps…those pecs…that impossibly large…

“Oh, I have no doubt he’s gorgeous,” Shannon replies. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s trouble.”

“You keep saying that,” I say, sitting up. “How do you know for sure?”

Shannon looks at me the way my mom used to look at me when I asked her why I couldn’t have another bowl of sugar cereal, or have ice cream for dinner. And just like I would do to my mother, I put on my best pouty face.

“I have a friend who’s a sophomore,” Shannon tells me. “She’s friends with a girl who hooked up with Tommy.”

“Wow, that’s like…ten degrees of Kevin Bacon—”

“And she said that her friend told her, that Tommy fucked the ever living shit out of her – like the best sex of her life, and then never talked to her again.”

“Okay,” I reply instantly, wanting to protest this horrendous slander. “But like – is this girl a horrible bitch? Did she just throw herself at him?”

“I don’t know,” Shannon admits. “But I’m sure she did. I mean, that’s what most girls do.”

“Well, I wouldn’t do that,” I tell her, feeling proud of myself.

“Yeah? You’d be able to hold out in front of that?”

I zone out a moment as I think back to Tommy’s grin as he stood there naked in front of me – completely unashamed. He was proud, even! And why wouldn’t he be? He’s got the dick of a pornstar and the body of a fitness model.

“Yes,” I tell her firmly. “Yes, I would.”

“Oh, so confident,” Shannon laughs.

“Well…” I begin. Should I tell her? Everyone at home knows I haven’t slept with anyone, but do I really want that going around UCONN? I bite my lip and look at her nervously. I just met her, but we are going to be roommates for the rest of the year, unless of course one of us gets thrown out for wild drunken streaking through the quad, and that’s definitely not going to be me.

“What?” Shannon asks, dripping with curiosity.

“Well…” I mutter, looking at the floor and rubbing my thumb slowly.

“What!?” She repeats. “Tell me right now!”

“I’m a virgin!” I blurt out. There. It’s out in the open. Shannon doesn’t say anything, and finally I’m forced to look up at her.

“Uh huh,” Shannon says. Does she not believe me? “You were worried about telling me that?”

I sigh, feeling a sense of relief wash through me like how you feel when you climb into a hot bath after a long day. “I don’t know. At my high school it was so not cool to graduate without having sex.”

“Grace,” Shannon says, again sounding like my mom. “Don’t worry about it. But if that’s the case, you really can’t sleep with Tommy. Do you really want to lose your virginity to a guy that’s going to pump and dump you like some dumb sorority slizbag?”

“Slizbag?”

“Slut bag,” Shannon waves her hand in the air. “Come on, get with the lingo.” She smiles. I laugh. This college thing really has me feeling out of my element. I actually can’t wait for classes to start so I can get into my routine.

“Hmmm,” I think, pondering a basically impossible decision.

“You know what?” Shannon exclaims, like she’s just discovered the secret of the universe. “You should tell him you’re a virgin!”

“What?” I reply, sounding horrified. “Why!?”

“Because that would get him to back off! Guys like him aren’t interested in that. They want girls that ‘know what they’re doing’ as they’d say.”

My heart sinks. I definitely do not know what I’m doing. But maybe – maybe he’d want to show me? The thought turns me on. Tommy Mason teaching me the ways around a man’s body. Showing me all the ways to please him, and all the ways to please me…he could show me exactly what he likes and I could give it to him. Day after day after day…

But not if he’s going to “pump and dump” me like Shannon says. Maybe she’s right. Would he even want to put in the effort of sleeping with me if I’m just going to lay there and have no clue what to do? Just the thought of actually having to perform for him twists my stomach into knots.

What would I do? Do I talk? Moan? Stay silent? Do I move? What if he wants me to get on top? Or he wants to do me…doggy style?

The thought turns me on but also scares the shit out of me. I can’t imagine how many girls he’s had, and he probably has high expectations of what he likes, and there’s no way I’ll measure up to that. The term “dead fish” comes to mind. That’s what the boys in my school used to call girls that weren’t any good in bed.

And Shannon’s right. I want my first time to be with someone I care about – someone who loves me. Right? I don’t want to just chuck my V-card for some asshole at a party who forgets my name by the end of the month.

But is it really something that precious? Maybe I should just have sex with someone and get it out of the way so I can get on with my college experience.

No – that’s not what I want.

So I guess Shannon is right. Tommy Mason is not a possibility.