1 comments/ 6308 views/ 10 favorites Compatible By: writersketch27 When she sniffed the sweet scent in the elevator this morning, Darcy realized one thing; for some reason her suppressants were making her body all wonky because she never felt this way in her entire cycled life. Apparently an alpha - no, not just an alpha, but seeing as how she started what appears to be a spontaneous heat, The Alpha. Hers, biologically speaking, must have taken the same elevator as hers right before she did and now she was becoming sleek with pheromones and vaginal fluids, making her body on high alert and heady with expectations. "Just my luck," she said in the empty air, "At this rate, I'm going to attract all the weirdos in the tower, urgh." She was on her way to the labs. Just fresh off her shower. Darcy was sharing an apartment with Jane (and Thor, let's face it) at Stark Tower (well Avengers tower) and, between her finishing her degree in Political Science and working as a scientist herder, she was overbooked and overtired. Not really looking to mate. Seems fate had other ideas that morning though. The Heat was something she never experienced. Her parents got her on hormones suppressants when she was a teenager, fearing for her sanity. She had friends who ruined their health and future with Heat. Other friends scared her with tales of absolute loss of control, while her BFF Alice told her it was the best moment in your life. That just confused and intrigued her even more about this whole business of mating. The Big "H" was both revered and taboo for a lot of people. Finding your True Mate was very rare and spontaneous heat or rut were the only sign it was happening to someone. Alphas and Omegas only goes in those one to twice a year at the most, when it happened, you knew. So, having found yours in the middle of Stark Tower, said tower full of superheroes and badass agents? Frightening and exciting for Darcy Lewis, lowly intern. "Welcome back." When Hill spoke, Natasha and Clint nodded to her. They had been away for a while now and just wanted to relax and do nothing except for watching trash TV and sleep for a week. "Thank you. How was Tony?" asked the red head. Her friend grimaced. "A childish genius pain in the ass billionaire." Clint snorted, already making his way towards the fridge of the communal kitchen. "The usual then." He said, one beer in his right hand, the left reaching Maria's chin and kissing her lovingly. The two betas were mated and so, always happy to reunite. The thing is, Natasha isn't as young as she appears and she thought she would have found her omega by now, at least an omega whose scent would tell her that this was it, but no. Even when she was an assassin, she didn't find the need to mate and bind herself to another. She had lovers, omegas, alphas (too dangerous when you were one yourself) and betas (they made great fuck buddies FYI). But, that didn't really matter anyway. The Red Room changed her, made impossible for her to reproduce. She wasn't any use to any omega without the ability to offer pups. The Mating ritual would be a waste of time and maybe, she thought, that's why she never found her mate. Of course, the experience of the knotting always seemed something wonderful to live, but what could she do? She suddenly felt something...like a punch to her stomach. "Do you...do you smell that?" She doesn't have words for how she feels right now; she's swimming instead of walking, everything is slow and sharp at the same time. She starts sweating abundantly and her breathing becomes faster. When a concerned Clint comes to touch her forehead, she starts growling. "Wow, someone's in Rut!" He then shared a worried look with Maria. "That's ridiculous! My rut doesn't come until three months from now and I'm taking suppressants!" A wave of pure want comes and she has to grasp the edge of the kitchen counter. She nearly destroys it with her Alpha strength, a clear telling of her altered state and Maria starts scolding her. "Hey now! Careful! I was the one in charge of the kitchen renovation!" Clint comes to touch his mate gently on one of her shoulder, his chin grazing her neck. "Babe, I think Nat has a spontaneous rut." Hearing this, the red head spy whimpers. The other woman approaches her distressed friend and calmly tells her "I think you smelled your intended Omega. That much is clear. The bonding Ritual started and you can't ignored it or you'll end up, well, crazy." She grimaced at the thought of Natasha as a crazy rabid Alpha and how the new kitchen counters would look like if it went that way. "Nooo, I don't have an Omega." The steely tone in which Natasha answered made Clint visibly gulp. Even though Natasha stiffens when Maria touches her lap by accident. "Stop being stubborn; you are already expending, you are ready to mate. Accept it and go find that Omega, jeez!" Then she smiles fondly at her friend, "I'm happy for you." Black Widow just groan and hit her head against the already damaged counter. "Here? Right now?" The Rut was making her feverish; the two betas, feeling her anxiety, decide to soothe her. "We will prepare your apartment, stock food and everything you'll both need for the week. Okay?" Informs Clint, not daring to touch her now that the fever started. Natasha nods, licks her sweaty lips and tries to stand a little bit straighter on her legs. "Just follow the scent and try to be not too scary." She had to laugh at that. "No promises." She answers. Jane Foster is bonded to Thor, so she knows how Darcy is feeling. That's why she frantically fans her friend and intern with her notes and hands her three cups of water in a row. "Do you feel your Alpha near?" The petite scientist asks. "I think so, yeah. Getting closer...oh gawd!" Darcy's sex is flooded by another discharge of sleekness. She is so damp, her pants are ruined. She can feel her clitoris gorged with blood, so puffy the contact with her clothes could easily make her come. She wants to hide in a corner. It is a weird sensation, to be victim of such base instinct, she thinks. One thing for sure, she is mindless with Heat and desire for her Alpha's knot. Her whole life is about to change and she thought she could fight it more than this. When someone noisily stumbles in the room, Jane stops fanning Darcy. The intern turns in her chair and sees only the color red and a really big...bulge...wait, also mouthwatering breasts heaving painfully against a skin tight cat suit. 'Am I dreaming right now?' thinks Darcy. She can't talk so she mutters something akin to a strangled sob of yearning. The redheaded woman tilts her head to reveal intense green eyes and they're trained on her. Darcy instinctively show her a pale, vulnerable neck in sign of submission. They recognize each other without a single word. The Alpha is in the same state because once they finish assessing one another, Darcy realizes that this is the legendary Natasha Romanov standing in front of her. "Mine." Finally says the agent with determination. She growls while prowling towards the younger woman. Darcy can't complain a second later when she sighs with relief, feeling her future's mate lips upon hers. The kiss is an answer to all of her past lovers and why the chemistry was lacking whenever bodily fluids were supposed to be exchanged. Never a kiss felt this good for Darcy and, judging by the moans her alpha emits, the same was to be said for her too. She distantly hears Jane talking to Jarvis about safely directing them to Romanoff's apartment but she's not sure. She wantonly rub her core against the alpha's lady cock, big and hard, ready to breed her and gosh, she wasn't supposed to find this hot but her brain is not letting her think rationally. She is just reproduction instinct and shameless grinding. She never thought seriously about being mated or having pups. Natasha bites her plump lips and she opens her eyes when the kiss ends. "We should...we should go to my place now or I'll have you in this lab." The redhead is grinding her teeth, her pupils blowned so wide Darcy knows she is telling the cold hard truth. The alpha's nostrils flares "I need to be inside you, you smell so good, fuck." Darcy nods and let herself be guided by the Avenger. She doesn't register anything except for the feel of the strong hand in hers. She vaguely hears Jane wishing her a 'Good Mating!' like an over joyous care bear before they enter the elevator, but she couldn't be sure with Natasha pressing her front to the walls and almost violently hammering her covered cock between her legs like the most frustrating simulacra of hot sex she ever witnessed. "I can't wait to bury myself deep inside of you, you smell like sin and sugar." Wow, okay, Darcy just discovered she loved her alpha's brand of dirty talk because she just had a mini orgasm. "I'm dripping for you, honey, dripping for your cock to pound me hard. You want that? You want my pussy?" So yeah, give her a break, it's her fist mindless-with-lust dirty talk ever. Finding your one true mate apparently turned you into a bad erotica novel, sue her. She didn't get a verbal answer, just an animalistic growl that resonated to her toes. Natasha took her by her arms (she was too weak to stand by herself especially after what transpired between them) and led her to the door of what appeared to be their future mating nest for the foreseeable future. Natasha had tunnel vision when her mate was concerned; the need to feel her sex fluttering around her cock was overwhelming and the only thing vital at this moment. She heard a rip and realized she had teared her mate's clothes like it was made of paper. The other woman is apparently happy of the fact. "Name?" She asked, not even capable of asking properly, her brain a total mush. "Darcy... oh god yes right there, Lewis. I know who you are." Good, she thought as she started stretching Darcy's hot pussy open with two fingers. They were naked and she had no idea how it happened but she laved with care Darcy's sweet pink nipples that were visibly aching to be sucked. She could smell how fertile her mate was, it was obscene how compatible they were. She usually never emitted a particular smell, the Red Room having done its dirty work on her so, she had to brutally stop sucking Darcy's tits when another smell was present. "Urgh, why did you stop?" Darcy's eyes were brimmed with unshed tears of frustration. "I have a smell." Darcy looked at her, dumbfounded. "Why, yes, of course, you smell of rut and delicious fertile cum...oh wow I am really turning into a nympho." Natasha doesn't know how but Darcy can be adorable and sexy at the same time, which is something she never witnessed on anyone. But the redhead still felt lost and elated all at once. "I smell fertile to you?" She asked her beautiful and frustrated fated mate with a frown. "You smell so fucking fertile I bet I'll have your pups at the first try, honey." She didn't seemed mocking, just full of tenderness, her right hand coming to caress Natasha's cheek. Her sincerity bringing a solemnity to the moment. It went right out of the window when Natasha started hammering Darcy's cunt with her fingers, the movements so violent and fast, the young intern grasped a handful of her mate's hair in amazement. Natasha was well endowed in both departments but Darcy's breasts were a work of art and they were teasingly bouncing in front of her face once again. She could imagine herself playing with them for the rest of their lives and she felt a sudden stab of happiness at the thought. Her mate's tight pussy was squeezing her fingers like a vice and she added a pressure to the engorged clit with her thumb, the young brunette spiraling out of control at last. Natasha's cock was leaking and twitching in impatience. Her lover took her shaft in her dainty hand and started jerking it, her pouty lips begging to be kissed. They nipped, sucked, and flicked each other lips before Darcy went on her knees to do the same to Natasha's swollen cock. Now, don't get her wrong, Natasha, for all of her firm ingrained upbringing forced upon her knew to be stoic in all circumstances, even with past lovers. She always had to win, all the time, not showing much except for friendly mischief whenever she decided to. Sex always felt like another way to get the upper hand and she never was the kind of alpha to show how much she was affected, in any way but this? "Heaven, ohmygodohmygod Darcy, baby, sogoodsogood, YES!" Stoicism flying out of the window so fast someone could have mistaken it for Quicksilver. The slurping sound echoed in her sitting room, Darcy giving her the best blow job of her life. The redhead bucked her hips, not having any control whatsoever on her body, the leaking mushroom of her penis was hitting the back of Darcy's throat rapidly and the voluptuous brunette was taking the punishing rhythm with gusto. "Don't wanna come in your mouth for our first time, my knot..." She removed her cock from her mate's mouth with a loud pop. She didn't have to finish her sentence though, even Darcy knew having your mouth knotted was something you shouldn't even wish on your worst enemy. The room was saturated by the desperate scents they both emitted, the air was ripped with all sorts of pheromones, and even in a state of utter sexual frenzy, the elegant Russian spy had the good sense to take both hands of her future mate in hers and to direct her gently towards the bedroom. She wanted to this right as the Alpha, wanted to cherish the beautiful gift fate had given her. Once they reached the bedroom, Darcy looked at her with a sweet smile. "Babe, are you purring?" Natasha was taken aback, but yes, she was. "I've never...but yes, I think I am." They were looking at each other and started chuckling before the curvy brunette pressed herself against her and kissed her. Both Natasha's hands traced idle circles along Darcy's stomach, moving closer and closer to her heavy tits. The intense moment was sending butterflies running through the Avenger and her cock was harder than it'd ever been. The urge to join was too much, so Natasha's tongue flicked out and she heard the delicious sound of a gasp from Darcy as it made contact with a delectable pink nipple. Darcy felt lightheaded. She couldn't believe Natasha Romanoff was her future Mate or that she was licking her hard tits in the middle of the Avenger's bedroom. She couldn't deny how hot the whole thing was. She felt like her whole body was about to explode from all the blood rushing to her pussy. The need to lay down became too much, so she reluctantly pulled away from the attention paid to her chest and was gratified to get a frustrate sigh from the breathtaking goddess. It was more than nice to know she was as affected as she was in the sunbathed bedroom. In the short separation time it took for Darcy to crawl on the queen-sized bed, she saw her lover cupping her own breasts and then pinched her nipples. The spy's bulging cock was leaking and twitching. Natasha wasn't done exploring Darcy's perfect body with her lips and tongue though. Oh no. She followed the lab assistant on the bed and kissed and sucked her left shoulder blade, then her shoulder and finally her neck where she stopped and sucked as Darcy tilted her head to one side to give Natasha better access with a little sigh. They were both moaning, the moment solemn when they recognized they instinct to dominate and to submit. Natasha decided that she will complete the mating and bite her intended only when she'll knot her, it was hard to not give in though. Darcy's hips were churning back and forth in the air and the Alpha could smell the slick wetness that was gathered between her legs. "Oh God Nat!" Darcy breathed. The other woman pressed her lips into her neck. "Oh Darcy you are so fucking hot, you make me so fucking hard." She was touching the brunette everywhere, massaging her generous breasts (and yes, she was a breast woman, something Darcy liked about her Mate apparently) and Darcy's hand went back to running up and down, exploring its length as she let out a moan. "I don't think I need to say it but your cock is huge," she gasped. "And your hand feel so good on it," the redhead turned Darcy's head and then locked them at the lips in a passionate embrace. She let out a quiet moan at their mouths opened to one another and their tongues danced back and forth. The kiss continued for what seemed an eternity as Darcy arched her back and pressed herself against Natasha, letting out a series of high pitched gasps. A dizzying euphoria ran through both of their heads and the usually stoic spy forced herself to breathe deeply and concentrate on anything but losing control. They looked into each other's eyes, both painfully aware of the crucial moment. Heat was radiating off of them in waves and it was accompanied by an impossible desire to sink, take and give. "Do you consent to become my one true mate, Omega?" the words rolled of Natasha's tongue with natural ease, "Yes, I do, Alpha. I am yours." Answered Darcy, a happy tear stuck on her lashes. "And I am yours as you are mine for the rest of our lives." She finished solemnly. She moved her hand out to grip Darcy's thigh and pressed her own tits against her, feeling a delicious squishy warmth capped by her hard nipples brushing against her own. The trained spy reached out and positioned her other thigh so the smiling omega was laying under her spread eagle with the swollen cock pointing directly at the impatient pussy. She moved up and rubbed the head of her thick lady cock up and down Darcy's dripping exposed slit. As the head of Natasha's cock grazed the edge of her pussy lips, Darcy's eyes closed in ecstasy and she sighed, arching her tits up to brush against Natasha's again. The cock's head continued its exploration of the slick outer folds of the warm cunt, poised on the edge of that tight slick paradise. "You feel so good, I have to have you, fuck oh fuck oh fuck." Those last words were accompanied by Darcy thrusting her hips up meet Natasha's cock so that part of its length was enveloped by her waiting pussy lips. She couldn't wait any longer and took the initiative, something her Alpha seemed to oddly love. This felt even more incredible that the wet warmth of Darcy's mouth to Natasha. And when the brunette looked up at her, with her chin against her chest, biting her lips and letting out more whimpering moan as she was being pounded by the punishing rhythm of the cock pressed into her depths. "Oh God just shut up and fuck me, Alpha!" That was all the encouragement Natasha needed. She shifted her weight to her arms and looked down to her omega spread before her as she continued to slowly thrust the length of her engorged cock into her hot core. Darcy wrapped her arms around her neck and stared into her Alpha's eyes as inch after inch of the shiny cock made contact with her pussy lips and disappeared inside her inviting depths. Her legs wrapped around the spy's ass pulling her deeper and deeper until finally she was buried to the hilt and they held like that staring at one another as though they were the only people left in the world. The ex-assassin pulled back then pressed in again, luxuriating in the feel of Darcy's lips wrapping around anew, the feeling so incredible to Natasha with each thrust she couldn't help but groan in lust. Darcy's own moans encouraged her lover to pull out and to press again, And again, again, until her cock was pistoning in and out of Darcy's pussy at a furious pace. "You are amazing, oh Darcy." She let out, eyes rolling in the back of her head. "Mm, your cock feels so good, that's right, keep going, fuck me Alpha." The curvy woman underneath her replied. Natasha was at the point of no return, so enveloped in the feeling of their bodies joined together. She was hypnotized by her lover's tits as they bounced up and down with each thrust. Darcy moved her hips in time with hers, meeting every push with one of her own and exhaling loudly every time Natasha bottomed out inside her. Her trembling thighs opened so much on their own that the redhead went deeper the velvet snatch of the stuffed omega. Compatible The sheen of sweat covering both of their exerting bodies glinted in the morning sun and Natasha felt she was hitting a very sweet spot with her dick's head when she rolled her hips in small circles in Darcy and the desperate woman mewled. A fresh and abundant gush of juices leaked on the bed underneath their joining and Natasha went faster. Darcy was throwing her head back and forth, tossing her hair around on the bed, getting close to her own pinnacle and her Alpha wondered if she'd be able to hold out long enough to push her over the edge. The omega's moans started to come faster and faster as the rhythm of the coupling increased. Natasha sensed her lover's vagina's muscles were starting to milk her cock and when the climax hit Darcy, she bit the pulsing neck in one swift move. Darcy's scream was muffled by her own biting on Natasha's neck, sealing their mating and propelling her alpha's pleasure. The knotting started as the pussy squeezed and pushed farther the now cum covered cock inside, instinctively going for a successful breeding. Once they were satisfied by their bites and after licking the sacred wounds that sealed their fates together, they pulled away and stared in each other's eyes in amazement. Their smiles were dopey but still had to close their eyelids when they felt their continued orgasms going on, even when they stopped moving. They couldn't help their moans and grunts when cum came out between them. They kissed and kissed and when Natasha went to suck on Darcy's oversensitive nipples, another wave of climax hit the busty woman, her whole body convulsing. Her breathing was still labored, her heavy chest rising and falling with rapid gasping breaths as her tits continued to bounce under her lover's now renewed pounding. "Fuck, coming again." Said Natasha, "Do it! Shoot your load baby, never stop." She moaned. Natasha lost consciousness, the otherworldly sensation too much for her when Darcy pulled her into a vice grip with her legs and stared up at the dominant alpha as her dick shot load after load of her hot sticky semen deep inside her. Before succumbing to the overwhelming pleasure, she thrust a few more times got make sure that every last bit made its way inside her beautiful mate's tight, completely unprotected, eager and fertile accepting womb. Natasha's cock worked again even during her short absence and for two hours after. They came down from the intense high they created. The knot eventually deflated and liberated them from the forced but welcome outcome of their mating. She went to lie next to Darcy, who eagerly laid her head on her blushing breasts. "That was...wow." the omega said. "That it was." "So... what do we do now?" asked Darcy. "We live our mating ritual like we are supposed to, enjoying our nesting, then we will learn to know each other for a while - I intend to woo you by the way - if it works, and I'm pretty sure it will, I'm going to ask you to have the second part of the mating and ask you to marry me. If you are with pups and you wish to keep it, I will be the best damn Alpha you could ever ask for. I will love you, protect you and be a good mom." When she was finished, Natasha heard Darcy's quiet crying and looked at her tears stained face with worry. Darcy only waved her worry with a gesture. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to say yes to all of that and add 'great orgasms' to this plan." Natasha visibly relaxed. That's when she smelled her mate's spiking hormones coming back with a vengeance; her cock reacted automatically and raised high against her stomach. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like for you to ride my face, honey." She declared with a wicked grin. "Yes Alpha." Replied Darcy with a leer. FIN Compatible Bedfellows A guy and a girl share a studio apartment. I'd been apartment hunting in a half-hearted way for a couple of weeks without any luck. So now I had to go at it more seriously. I took the afternoon off and looked at five places. The last one was only a studio, but it was in a pretty good location, just three blocks from work. A girl had come to see it too, and the manager showed it to both of us at the same time. What can you say about a studio apartment? It had a bathroom, a kitchenette, a living/bedroom. Nothing special about it except its location. He wanted twelve hundred a month. That was considerably more than I wanted to pay. Same for the girl. We walked out together. She looked like she was going to cry. "I know how you feel," I said. "This was my fifth place today." She snuffled, trying to hold back her tears. "I've been looking for a month." She looked dejected, on the verge of utter defeat. All of a sudden I was just tired of things always going wrong. I wanted, just for once, for things to go right. "Can you go six?" I asked. She just looked at me. "We could go back up there and get this place right now." She still didn't say anything. "Here's the way I see it," I said, in a burst of manic frustration. "This place isn't perfect. We can go on with our searching. Maybe we'll find something better, maybe we won't. This place is pretty small for two people. It's not worth what he's asking. But it's got a roof. It's in a decent location. It's available. We'll probably end up having to get roommates anyway. Why not you and me? We can go back up there and get this place right now. Get all this searching and uncertainty over and done with." She just looked at me for the longest time. "It's a studio," she said, finally. I was already beginning to lose steam. "I know. It's suboptimal. It probably doesn't make any sense." "I don't even know you." "I know. Like I said. Suboptimal." "Are you serious though?" I didn't really know if I was serious or not. I was mostly just venting. Was it something to actually consider? "Let me see your hand," she said. She took my palm and studied it intently, like it was a bus schedule and she wanted to be sure she would get where she needed to go. It felt slightly weird that she was touching me. But, at the same time, I felt a zing dance up my spine. She let go of my hand and looked me in the eyes." Look," she said, "I'm kind of desperate. Are you serious or not?" "Come on. You don't want to do something dumb out of desperation." "Maybe I haven't got much choice." "It can't be that bad." "I've got to move out of the place I'm at." "Can't you stay with someone for a while while you keep on looking?" "That's what I'm doing now. I've way overstayed my welcome." "Like you said, we don't even know each other." "You need a place, I need a place. We're in the same boat." "People don't just meet on the street and move in together." "It was your idea. I bet it happens all the time." I couldn't believe that we were seriously talking about it. "What did you see when you looked at my palm?" My spine hadn't stopped tingling. "Nothing bad." "And that's good enough for you?" "Look. It's like you said. We can go back up there and get this place right now. I'm willing to trust you. What do you say?" So we went back up and told the manager. He asked if we were a couple. We told him we were. We gave him the first and last month's rent and signed the lease. He gave us the keys. --- It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I got things finished up at my old place. There hadn't been any way to get in touch with the girl. We hadn't exchanged phone numbers. I couldn't remember her name. Megan? Something like that. I wasn't even sure I'd recognize her if I passed her on the street. Brownish hair. Kind of plain. Christ, what had I been thinking? I'm a pushover for crying girls. I go all knight-in-shining-armor. Now we were going to be living together! In a one-room studio apartment! With my name on a six-month lease! What was all that crying about, anyway? Why was she so desperate to get out of her old place? And what about that palm reading business? Did I really want to be living with someone who had so easily thrown in her lot with a complete stranger? Did the fact that we told the manager that we were a couple somehow make us one in her mind? Would it have killed me to go out to dinner with her, or even just out for coffee, to get to know her just a tiny bit before signing my name on a six month lease? What in the world had I been thinking? I knocked on the door of the apartment. No answer. I let myself in. There were some jeans and blouses hanging in the closet, a couple of boxes on the shelf. A few jars and bottles on the bathroom counter. The living/bedroom was bare except for a thin yoga mat with a blanket and a pillow that lay in one corner like an unassuming beggar. You could still see the cleaning pattern on the carpet. She'd moved in, but with such a small footprint that you could barely tell. It took me a few trips to haul up my stuff. The last item was my futon---just the mattress, queen size, no frame. It folds up into three sections, and I'm just able to manhandle it up and down stairs by myself. I put it in the opposite corner of the room from her little mat. It gave at least the impression of there being some furniture in the place. I'd brought a few groceries. There was already some fruit and cheese in the fridge, a lonely box of tea in the cupboard, a couple pots and pans in the cabinet. I put my stuff along side. It was getting toward six. I sauteed some onions with turmeric and threw in some eggplant and tomatoes. I figured that would be OK whether she was vegetarian or not. I was just fluffing the rice when there was a click in the lock. She came in. She had her hair tied back. I probably wouldn't have recognized her. She was startled to see me. She'd gotten used to being there alone. "Hi," I said. "Hi," she said. She'd probably forgotten what I looked like too. "I would have called to let you know I was coming, but I didn't have your number." "It's all right. Um, just a minute. I've really got to . . ." The bathroom was right next to the front door. The walls weren't very thick. She came out. Neither of us knew what to say. "I made some rice and vegetables." "I already ate. But thanks." "So, how's it going?" "So far so good." "You're all moved in?" She looked around. You couldn't see much that belonged to either one of us. Except for the futon and the mat, the living/bedroom was still completely empty. "Pretty much," she said. --- So there we were. Roommates. The two of us now living together in this one little room. It was a pretty awkward evening. I had to stand at the counter to eat my rice. She (I still couldn't remember her name) sat down on her mat to read. I sat on the futon and fiddled with my computer for a bit, but my clicking made too much racket. I went out, walked the three blocks to work, scouted out a couple fast food places, strolled a bit in the other direction. Finally I came back to the apartment. She was still on her mat, still reading. She looked up when I came in. "Checking out the neighborhood," I said. "There's a Safeway not too far." "Yeah, I found it." She yawned. "I'm probably going to go to bed pretty soon." "I should too. I usually get up at seven." "OK, I can get up then too." "I'll try not to make any noise." "It's all right. I don't mind getting up then." I unfolded the futon and spread a sheet over it. It didn't seem right that I got to sleep on the futon and she had to sleep on her little mat. "I, um, noticed that your mat is pretty thin," I said. "What I do sometimes when I have people over is sleep cross-ways like this." I rolled out my sleeping bag perpendicular to the way you usually sleep. The foot of the bag went off the edge, but I put a pillow on the floor underneath to support it. The bag only took up one section of the futon, leaving the other two sections free. "There's plenty of room for another person this way," I said. "If your pad is too thin, I mean." "I'll be all right," she said. She'd gotten up and was getting some things from the closet. "Do you mind if I . . . get ready first?" "Sure. Go ahead." She went into the bathroom. I heard the water running. After a few minutes she came out in a kimono-type robe. She knelt down on her mat, kind of geisha-like, and just knelt there, waiting, I guess, for me to leave the room. So I went to take my turn in the bathroom. It looked like that's where we'd be getting dressed and undressed. I used the toilet, brushed my teeth. I usually slept in my briefs, but I didn't have a bathrobe, so I just kept my pants and tee shirt on. When I came out, she was laying on her mat under the blankets, her robe neatly folded on the floor beside her. "OK to turn off the lights?" I asked. "Mm-hmm," she replied. I turned them off, took off my pants and tee shirt, and got under my sleeping bag. "Um," I said, across the room, "this is terrible, but I don't remember your name." "Magda," she said. "Right. Magda. Well. OK then. Good night." "Night," she said. What in the hell had I been thinking? --- That first week was like walking on pins and needles. We were courteous and polite, like strangers at a mixer. After work on Thursday we went to IKEA and we each bought a stool for the counter and an easy chair. The chairs were pretty basic, but at least they were better than sitting on the floor. By the weekend we were starting to get used to being in the same room together. She'd go about her business, I'd go about mine. The apartment was small, but it was bigger than a college dorm room and not that much worse than other places I'd lived. We both tended vegetarian, although neither of us was really strict. She had a part time job during the day. She didn't have a car, but she had a clunker bike and a bus pass. She didn't go out much, spent most of her evenings home reading. She was a pretty decent roommate, though, all things considered. She was considerate, responsible, quiet. Not too hard to be around. It was the first time I'd ever lived with a girl, but we went way out of our way to fend off any possibility of friction in that regard. If either of us needed privacy, we'd go into the bathroom. Otherwise we co-existed. To the casual observer we must have seemed like a couple of fairly bland, uninteresting asexuals. That's not to say that that's the way I felt on the inside. My first impression of her had been that she was plain and a bit mousy, with her not-quite-shoulder-length brown hair and her quiet, round face. But as we got to know each other, I began to see that what I'd taken for plainness was really a subtle prettiness, and what I'd taken for blandness was really a gentle composure. I kept sleeping sideways so it would be clear that the offer to share the futon was still in effect. One evening she asked if I was sure it would be all right. I guess she'd had enough of the mat. "I should get a futon of my own," she said. "But it would make the room so crowded." So while I arranged my sleeping bag, she moved her bedding over to the third section of the futon. Our two sections were far enough apart that we weren't really that much closer than we had been before. The first couple nights we faced away from each other, but after that we got used to just ignoring each other and facing whichever way we wanted. I wondered what she slept in. She was always very modest in her robe, and she always made a point to get under the blankets while I was in the bathroom, so I never got to see what she had on underneath. One morning, I woke up before the alarm went off. Her blanket was a bit askew, and I caught a glimpse of her naked back almost down to her waist. Did she sleep in the nude? I couldn't imagine that she would sleep in the nude in the same bed with somebody of the opposite sex. Probably she wore panties but went topless, like me in my briefs. It wasn't really any of my business, but it was pretty titillating to think of her lying right there beside me with hardly anything on. --- One evening Magda had hay fever and was wheezing like a water buffalo. "I'm going to the store," I said. "Is there anything you need?" I didn't really need anything myself, but I thought she might need some tissue or something. "I'm OK," she sniffed. "Seriously, I'm just going to run over and come right back. So if there's anything I can get you . . . " She hesitated, then blushed. "I'm out of tampons," she sniffed. Jeez! I hadn't seen that coming. She must have read the look on my face. "It's OK," she sniffed, "I'll go later." "No, no, it's all right. I don't mind." Jeez! Would they even let me buy them? I could sort of picture what aisle they were on. But, Jeez! "Um, what kind . . ." "Here," she sniffed. She went into the bathroom and came back with an empty box. Jeez! I took the box, steeling myself against cooties. I tried to memorize it so I wouldn't have to actually take it with me. "Anything else?" She shook her head. "Thanks," she sniffed. Jeez! Well, I'd made the offer. It probably wasn't the first time a guy had had to buy tampons. Had had to search for the right ones on the shelf. Had had to wheel them around in his cart. Had had to stand there while the cashier rang them up. I'd just pretend I was somebody else. --- One evening, Magda was really nervous about something. Finally she brought it up. A friend of hers had broken up with her boyfriend. They'd been living together, but their relationship had been on the ropes. There'd been some kind of flareup, he'd hit her, she'd stormed out. She had someplace to stay for tonight, but needed someplace to stay tomorrow. "I really, really wouldn't ask if it wasn't kind of an emergency, but do you think we could we put her up here? Just for a couple of nights? I know it will be crowded, but I promise she won't be any trouble. I know it's asking a lot, but, please, do you think it would be all right?" At first I was a bit ticked off. Our place was already pretty crowded. It would be a major inconvenience. Why couldn't she go somewhere else? But the way that Magda was asking was so sincere that I could tell it was really important to her. If it had been a friend of mine, I probably would have expected her to understand. It probably wouldn't really be that much of an inconvenience. I thought of the untold number of random people who had spent an untold number of nights at other places I'd lived. So I grumblingly told her OK. The next evening the two of them were there when I got home from work. Alona was tall and dark, relatively pretty, especially from certain angles. She did her best to be an affable house guest, but she didn't always manage to disguise her disdain for the male gender. It was hard to tell whether this was just related to recent events or whether it was more deep seated. We didn't mention her situation, but it was pretty clear she thought I was judging every little thing she said and did. Magda and I hadn't had a chance to discuss the sleeping arrangements. I had no idea what she'd told Alona about the two of us, but I guess it kind of hurt my pride to think about having to sleep crossways with Magda in front of her. So when it was getting toward bed time, I got Magda's mat and put it in its old corner and spread my sleeping bag out on top of it. "I was thinking maybe we could all three fit crossways on the futon," Magda said. "This will be more comfortable," I replied, in my father-knows-best voice. Magda gave me a look that only a roommate could give. It was a little complicated orchestrating the bathroom. Magda came out in a pair of pajamas that I didn't even know she owned. Alona came out in a long tee shirt that I didn't dare check too closely. Magda arranged her sheet and blanket for the two of them to sleep beside each other the normal way. I hadn't even thought of that. I did my usual slip-out-of-my-jeans routine once the lights were out. The mat wasn't very comfortable at all. The next night was a little more relaxed. Magda made macaroni and cheese. We had a nice discussion about a couple of recent movies. Alona came to the realization that I was a real person and not just a stereotype. She suddenly became interested in Magda's and my relationship. Only one futon, and it queen size. She fished, but we were elusive. She flirted, subtly, but I let her know, subtly, that her flirtations, while appreciated, were misdirected. This intrigued her no end, and she was still trying to puzzle it all out when we all went to bed. The next night she wasn't there. "A friend of a friend of a friend," said Magda. "A house with five other people, but at least she's got a room of her own." "Doing better than we are." "Listen, thanks for letting her stay. Really. I owe you big time." "Don't mention it. Seriously. Any friend of yours . . ." --- The nights were getting warmer, to the point that it was starting to get uncomfortable sleeping under my sleeping bag. One morning I mentioned that I was going to switch back to sleeping the normal way, with just a sheet and a blanket. When I came home that evening, I was surprised to find the futon folded out and made up like a real bed. There were new sheets, put on the right way, a blanket, and our two pillows side by side. The futon had been rotated out from the wall so that we would still be facing the same direction as before, but now we'd be sleeping the normal way, her on one side, me on the other. I was kind of irked that she would do this without asking. Kind of surprised too, because it seemed so brazen. At the same time, the new arrangement did look pleasantly homey. And the sight of our two pillows laying there side by side brought back the tingles to my spine. Magda was quite pleased with herself. "I stopped at Target," she said. "The sheets weren't really that expensive. Maybe you can buy a set too, for when we need to change them." I couldn't figure out why she was so pleased and why she thought I would go along with it. "Um, this morning when I said I was going to change to a sheet and a blanket I just meant instead of my sleeping bag. I didn't mean we should stop sleeping sideways." Her face reddened. She shut up like a clam. "I guess there was a misunderstanding," I said. "I'll put things back," she said. "What did you think I meant?" "I thought you meant like this." "I mean, we'd basically be sleeping together." She reddened further. "That's what I thought too. But when Alona was here, it seemed a lot wider than I thought. So I thought maybe that's why you thought it would be OK." "I mean, do you really think we'd be able to sleep this way without . . . bothering each other?" She went over and lay down on her side, putting her head on the pillow and crossing her hands over her stomach. There did seem to be a fair amount of space. I lay down on my side, then turned to face her. She was definitely within arm's reach, but if I kept my arms to myself we were reasonably separated. "What do you think?" I asked. She blushed. "I just misunderstood. I'll put things back the way they were." "It does make it look more like a real room." She didn't say anything, leaving it up to me to make the final decision. There was that tingle again. "I'd just want to be sure that . . . we each had enough privacy," I said. She still didn't say anything. "Well, it is already set up this way," I said. "I guess we can try it tonight to see how it goes." When I came out of the bathroom she was lying with her back to me, as close to the edge as she could get. I got in in the mirror position on my side. You could have driven a city bus between us, but we made it through the night without incident. By the next evening this new arrangement no longer seemed like all that big a deal. Compatible Bedfellows --- Neither of us was much into cooking, but sometimes she'd make enough for two or sometimes I would. She got me to go in with her on a juicer. They'd had one at her old place, and now that the farmers markets were starting back up she was really missing it. She'd tote home big bags of fresh fruits and vegetables, and it got to be a ritual that every morning she'd juice us up two tall, glowing, luscious glasses of whatever she had handy. She was always doing little things around the apartment. She hung a big, burgundy tapestry thing on the wall behind the bed, which I kind of liked. She got a wicker basket to pile her books in. She got a colorful rug for the bathroom. She changed the shower curtain to one that was less plasticky. Her lack of a car never seemed to inconvenience her, although she was glad for us to go together to do the grocery shopping, and I started going along with her to the farmers market as well. Sometimes if there wasn't anything in the fridge we'd go out to the taqueria or maybe the sushi place. A couple of times we went to the movies, although we didn't always watch the same show. Some evenings instead of reading she'd sit beside me on the futon and we'd watch a video on my laptop. Roommate stuff. --- One night I awoke to the sound of someone shrieking. It was Magda! She was out of bed, out in the room somewhere. I got up, wary for an intruder, looking around in the dark, trying to figure out what was going on. I switched on the light. She was standing on the counter, stooped against the ceiling. "What is it?" I asked, my heart pounding like crazy. "A mouse," she squeaked. I looked around, blinking against the light. There was a motion along the wall. Sure enough, there it was, a tiny little creature, as frightened by the encounter as Magda had been. I picked up my pants and used them to shoo him along away from the bed. I thought I could shoo him out into the hallway, but he ran under the door of the utility closet. I laid the pants down to block half the crack and quickly moved a box from the clothes closet to block the rest. "Maybe there's another one," she wailed. She was still on the counter, on her tip toes practically, trying to get as far off the floor as she could get. I could see long swaths of smooth pink skin. She had one hand over her chest and one hand over her crotch. I was suddenly very aware that I was walking around in front of her wearing nothing but my underpants. I looked under the pillows and in the bedding. I shook my undershirt, her robe. I looked along the base of the counter around into the kitchen. She pivoted to follow what I was doing. "No others," I said, coming back into the living/bedroom. "He must have come in through the utility closet. There's probably a hole in the wall. We'll tell the landlord in the morning." I could see clearly now that Magda was completely naked, standing on the counter without a single stitch on, crouched against the ceiling, with one hand over her boobs and one hand over her crotch. Venus on a formica half shell. I tried to hand her her robe. "Ewww," she said, pulling back. "Did the mouse go on it?" "He might have." "Well, come down anyway. He's back in his hole now. He can't get out." She couldn't figure out how to get down without moving at least one of her hands. I held out my hand to help her. She finally took it with the one that had been covering her crotch. She crouched and hopped down to the floor, flashing a trim patch of pubic hair and a smoothly shaven vagina. "We've got to change the sheets," she said. "You really think so?" "I'm not going to sleep in them." I took off the blanket and stripped off the sheets. She helped me put the new ones on, no longer even trying to keep anything hidden. It was kind of a lost cause, anyway. She played it as if it wasn't really anybody's business what she wore in her own bedroom. I tried not to stare. Her pussy was smooth and feminine, her breasts trim and sporty, each one punctuated with a perky, erect nipple. Her bottom was round and perfect. Of course I was pretty exposed myself, puttering around in my underpants, my bulge on full display. All the excitement had kept me from getting a hard on so far, but I could feel one coming on. I tossed the blanket across the bed. She got in on her side, still as naked as the day she was born. I turned off the light and got in on my side, my boner now pretty hard to miss. We lay there beside each other. Ostensibly, things were back to normal. We'd repelled the enemy, repaired the damage, beefed up our defenses. But if we'd gotten rid of the mouse from the room, there remained the elephant. I now knew what Magda wore to bed. Nothing! And she was wearing it right now, right there beside me, right under the same blanket, just an arm's length away. I could hardly pretend I hadn't noticed. It seemed almost insensitive not to bring it up. "You don't wear much to bed." "Is that a problem?" "Not a problem, just an observation." "I knew you'd make a big deal about it." "I'm not making a big deal." "It's the way I sleep, OK?" "So you move into a studio apartment with a guy, move into the same bed with him, all the time knowing that you'll be sleeping in the nude?" "Look. I don't expect any privacy in the kitchen, or in the 'living room.' But when I'm in bed, under the covers, on my own side, I kind of wish I could just sleep the way I want." "Nobody's saying you can't sleep the way you want." "What are you saying, then?" It was a good question. I wasn't exactly sure what I was trying to say. It had something to do with my hard on, and something to do with the way she had the blanket pulled up under her chin, and something to do with the fact that we were only an arm's length apart. But how to put that into words? "It's kind of late," she said. "Can we talk about it tomorrow?" She was right. It was late. We turned our backs and just let the elephant lie there between us. I don't know how long it took for her to get back to sleep, but it took me quite a while. --- "It's your apartment," I told her the next evening. "You can sleep however you want." "I just have to do it in front of you. Is that it?" "Well. it's my apartment too. What do you want me to do? Wear a blindfold? Put up a partition?" Neither of us said anything for a while. I still wasn't exactly sure what my point was. "Look," she said at last. "We both knew there would be privacy issues. Or at least we should have known. Roommates are sometimes going to see each other naked. I'm sorry if you got all scandalized. I'll go back to sleeping on my mat." "I didn't get all scandalized," I said. "It's just that a guy has certain responses, and he can't just turn them off." "Well, I'm sorry about that too. But what do you want me to do?" "Why do you sleep that way, anyway?" "It's healthier. Your body can breath. It's less constricting. It just feels more natural." How could I argue with that? She had the right to sleep the way she wanted, didn't she? This current difficulty wasn't her fault. She'd never been the least bit provocative. On the contrary she'd always been perfectly modest. It was only because of the damn mouse. "Look," I said. "It's your apartment. You can sleep however you want. I'm sorry I made such a big deal. Can we just try to go back to the way things were before the mouse?" We tried, but we couldn't, of course. I couldn't, anyway. Now that I knew she was lying there naked, I could hardly go back to not knowing. I couldn't figure out why it made such a difference. Girls were naked under their clothes all the time, and you never thought about that. But if one was ever naked under a sheet you couldn't think of anything else. --- The weather kept getting warmer. Like a lot of the other older buildings in town, ours didn't have air conditioning. There were usually only a few days a year when you really needed it, and people were just used to putting up without it. One night the apartment was stifling. We had the window open but there wasn't even a hint of a breeze. Magda came out in her kimono. "Look," she said, in a frazzled tone, "it's too hot to sleep under the sheets tonight. I'm going to sleep on top. I'm just letting you know. You go ahead and do whatever you need to do, but I'm sleeping on top of the sheets tonight." When I came out of the bathroom she was lying on the futon, naked and fully exposed. She'd turned the light off, but there was enough illumination coming through the window to see everything there was to see. She was lying on her back, her arms to her sides, her legs slightly spread to minimize skin-to-skin contact. She had her eyes closed, pretending, I suppose, that that made her invisible. Her breasts were somewhat flattened against her chest, but her nipples were just as perky and beguiling as I remembered. The lips of her vagina were plump and smooth, with just a hint of the inner ones peeking out. She just lay there, not even trying to hide anything. It was too hot. I took off my pants and tee shirt and lay down beside her. I didn't permit myself another look. I felt pretty exposed myself and started to get hard. I kept thinking back to what she'd said, that I should do whatever I needed to do. What had she meant by that? My forbearance was sorely tested. The two of us lay there, side by side, motionless in the heat. I was pretty sure she was still awake. It didn't seem fair that she could be naked and I couldn't. I wondered if it would actually be cooler if I took off my underpants. Half a degree, maybe, but my state of arousal would be all the more blatantly obvious. The two of us naked in the same bed! I got more and more fidgety, which didn't help a bit, either with the heat or with the arousal. Finally I just got up, went into the bathroom, jacked off, and ran cold water over my wrists. When I came back I could tell that her eyes weren't completely closed. I lay back down. I tried to concentrate on anything other than her naked body there beside me. I tried to imagine myself in a sauna and to pay attention to the heat soaking into every square inch of my skin. Eventually I must have fallen asleep. Sometime during the night I woke up to find that it had cooled off a bit and someone had pulled the sheet up over us. --- When Magda and I had first gotten the apartment, we'd believed ourselves to be reasonably agreeable and reasonably competent. We knew that sharing a place took a certain amount of give and take, a certain amount of cooperation and compromise. We both knew people who had lived together in non-romantic, mixed-gender situations. We took it for granted that we could too. But, in fact, all those mixed-gender situations had involved two-bedroom apartments, not studios. All those mixed-gender couples were apartment mates, not roommates and certainly not bedmates. When they came out of the shower, they didn't have to wait for someone to leave the room before they could get into bed. When they shut down their laptops, they didn't have to turn off the light before they could take off their pants. When confronted by the occasional wayward rodent, they'd had time to put on something decent before help arrived. If by some odd chance they happened to catch the occasional glimpse of naked flesh, they were able to laugh it off and go back to their own separate rooms. They didn't have to lie there beside each other, under the same blanket, less than an arm's length apart, night after night. In short, our problems went beyond matters of simple housekeeping. They involved sex. Yeah, it seems pretty obvious. Yeah, we should have known. Yeah, it was our own damn fault. But here we were. And something had to be done. Option one. We could pack it all in and admit defeat. Admit that our adventure had been misguided and unrealistic. That we were just a couple of naive kids who had been asking for trouble. Not really a very practical option, though. Our lease still had four months to go and both our names were on it. Option two. We could try to soldier on the way things were. Maybe Magda could pick up a book on ascetic celibacy. That we could meditate on. As we lay there beside each other. Night after sweaty night. Option three. We could put up a partition. Divide the studio into a de facto duplex. Two pigeon holes about the same size as those personal sleeping pods at the Tokyo airport. A blanket, probably, would do the trick. Block our lines of sight. Though probably not her soft nocturnal purr. Or . . . option four. We could just give in to those primal urges. We were grownups. We'd been around the block. We were lying there right next to each other. We could turn our cohabitation into a shacking up. Our monasticism into pleasure-domery. Our lose-lose into win-win . . . In theory, at least. No gentleman could ever propose an option like that. --- The next evening was somewhat cooler. I tried to work out how the blanket would go. It made me sad. Even if we hadn't been thinking straight when we first moved in, everything we'd done had been with the best of intentions. Even if our adventure had been doomed from the start, it had had its moments. And now it was over. Magda was quiet too. Was she embarrassed that I'd seen her naked again? Was she creeped out by what I'd done in the bathroom? Or was my glumness just contagious? Finally I mustered up my nerve. "Can I ask you something?" She looked up from her book. "Do girls ever get horny? Doesn't it ever make you horny, the two of us sleeping together in the same bed?" The directness of my question took her somewhat aback. "Because it makes me horny as hell. And that's making things tense around here. And I think we've got to do something about it." She was giving me her full attention now. "What do you mean?" "If we rig up a blanket from here over to there it might give us each a little more privacy." She looked, glumly. "Suboptimal, I know, but . . .." "It would turn the place into a refugee camp," she said, frankly. "Look, I know it's kind of tight quarters. I wish we had more space. But does it really bother you that much? OK, you had to see me naked. But we're roommates. It kind of goes with the territory. Is it really that big a deal?" "You don't mind guys seeing you naked?" "If we're living together it's just going to happen." "But we're not really 'living together.' I mean . . . you know what I mean." She looked at me with a sincere and somewhat tremulous openness, her book long forgotten. "Well maybe we should be then." Should be 'living together?' Is that what she was saying? She went on. "I know it wasn't part of the original arrangement, but if it's getting us so bent out of shape . . ." I wasn't quite sure what to say. "It would be better than hanging a blanket, anyway." She got up from her chair. "At least as far as I'm concerned." She stretched. "I'm going to get ready for bed." What was she saying? Was she proposing the fourth option? Giving in to our primal urges? Did she feel them too? She took a bit longer getting ready than usual. She ran the shower. She came out in her kimono, her hair still a bit damp. She knelt down on her side of the futon. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. She made things seem so simple. She could assess a situation and just know what needed to be done. She didn't weigh endless possibilities, she didn't cross tabulate likely outcomes. She just knew. But there was a logistical problem. "It's just that . . . I hadn't really . . . that is . . . I don't have any protection." "I'm on the pill." My ears grew even redder. "Oh." "You didn't think I'd move into a studio apartment with a guy and not be on the pill?" My ears were burning. I went to get ready myself. I hopped into the shower, my cock as hard as a pistol. I took a swipe at my five o'clock shadow. "Shouldn't we think this through?" asked the fellow in the mirror. I didn't pay him much attention. I was in kind of a hurry. I came out in my towel, not that it managed to hide anything. Magda had left on a softer light from the kitchen. She was lying under the sheet, her kimono neatly folded on the floor beside her. She looked up at me shyly. My towel came unhitched. My hard on stretched halfway across the room, as rigid as a neoprene barbell. She didn't look away. I knelt down. I gently pulled back her sheet. There she was, her soft curves, her rosy pinkness, her budding nipples, downy tuft, bashful inner lips. Just like last night. Except that her eyes were open. And she wasn't the only one naked. "Have you ever done this before?" I asked. "Had sex?" "With someone you weren't really going with." "Not really." "Me either." I touched her shoulder, ran my hand down the length of her arm. She caressed my knee, my lower thigh. I stretched out alongside her, she turned to face me. Her contours were smooth and voluptuous, her hands agile and confident. We edged into a fuller embrace. I tumbled us over onto her back. My barbell found its opening. I came on the third thrust. Magda had a washcloth. She cleaned us both up. "I'm sorry," I said. "It's all right." "But you didn't . . ." "Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't." "But . . ." "Shhh." She turned out the lights. I put on my underpants. We settled into our usual spots, a city bus lane apart. --- It took me six blocks to get to work the next morning instead of the usual three. Six blocks to get home that night. The guy from the mirror just didn't let up. I was nothing but a selfish prick. Harping on my horniness until I got what I wanted. And what had I given her? Twenty seconds? Barely. I was a premature ejaculator! A roommate fucker! An apartment wrecker! An incompetent lover! By the time I got home, I was all set to apologize, to beg her forgiveness, to let her know that I'd be moving out. But I was too ashamed to bring it up. We ate. She read her book. I did my laundry. It was getting toward bedtime. I was all tied up in knots. And once again, she deftly put things right with one friendly, unaffected glance. "Want to try it again?" she asked. This time we just undressed in front of each other in the living/bedroom. She looked so sexy in her underwear, then taking off her bra, then slipping off her panties. We hugged. She stood on the futon to better match my height. I bent and kissed her nipple, brushing it with my lips, running my tongue back and forth as it swelled and stiffened. Then she bent and sucked mine, drawing out an unexpected sweetness that made my cock twitch in her hand. We got down on the futon. She maneuvered herself on top this time. She rubbed my cock up and down her slit like a tube of chapstick, then squatted herself down onto it. There she was, right there astride me, her most private parts on full display: her jaunty breasts, her trim waist, her hungry cunt, now split and stretched tight by my swollen cock. She shook her hair and returned my gaze, both of us incestuously aware of whose roommate's hungry cunt it was and whose roommate's swollen cock, and how exquisitely the one split and filled the other. There she was, right there in my hands, the pliant fullness of her hips, the encirclable slenderness of her waist, the frank corrugation of her ribcage, the proud juttings of her chest. I reached around and felt the dark side of her back, following the muted infrastructure of her spine down into the alluring crevasse of her bottom. I caressed her outer thighs, gliding my hands seamlessly over their full round flare. I caressed her pale inner thighs, right up into the creases, right across her smoothly shaven groin, right around the juicy rim of her pussy, tracing the taut split pink juncture of our coupling. Compatible Bedfellows She began an earnest lope, flexing herself up and down along my rigid pole. I let my hands ride up and down on her hips. I cupped them to gently accept and release the jiggle of her breasts. I stroked her neck and shoulders, her sides, her thighs, her backside. I began to flex my own hips in a reciprocating motion. Maybe she didn't always, but this time she did, quietly but contentedly, right there astride me, right there in my hands, her haunches taut, her breasts erect, her nipples bursting, her expression looking inward much further than I could see. My pretty roommate. She flexed and flexed and held and strained to squeeze out, to savor, every last sweet drop, and then she let herself sprawl down over me like a cozy, discarded comforter. I held her, softly, still pegged, one downy handful of unguarded buttocks, one satin palm's breadth of bare naked back. "Did you come?" she purred, contentedly. "Not yet." Without uncoupling, we worked ourselves over onto her back. I held part of my weight on my elbows, but only part of it. I looked into her eyes as if to make sure she knew who was doing the fucking now. She looked back, meekly, but unflinchingly. I pivoted on my knees, rocking every stroke along her full torso. She opened her legs even wider. And her eyes. And she came again, quietly, contentedly, even before I did. --- It was a typical Magda solution. If there are two people sleeping in the same bed, it's just so much more practical, more neighborly, more natural for them to sleep together. It didn't mean we were lovers. We weren't really even boyfriend and girlfriend. She went about her business, I went about mine. We were just roommates. We shared chores, the occasional meal, the occasional fuck. More than occasional, actually. Pretty much every night. Some mornings and afternoons. Human beings are meant to cuddle, to feel the gentle warmth of each other's skin, to conform their concavities and convexities, to search for the fulfillment of their mutual yearning. If roommates can help each other with shopping and laundry, why not with that? Suppose your roommate has been reading late. She turns out the light, takes off her robe, folds it neatly, and gets into bed beside you. Suppose it's a lazy Saturday morning. Your roommate is still asleep, her warm bottom nestled cozily up against you. Suppose you're lying in bed, lightly brushing your roommate's back with your fingernails, paying special attention to each of her reflex zones, each of her chakra points. She turns to smile her appreciation. The two of you realize that you're not as tired as you thought. It's not rocket science. --- One night I had to work late and didn't get home until way after dark. Magda was curled up in her chair, engrossed in her book. I collapsed into my chair, too brain dead for anything else. She started to absent-mindedly unbutton her blouse. She did it with one hand, still completely submerged in her book. She leaned forward in the chair, wriggled out of one sleeve, passed the book between hands, and wriggled out of the other. She reached behind herself, unhooked her bra, and shrugged it off as well, passing the book between hands again, not missing a single word. My brain files were still spinning down, logging transactions only fuzzily. Then she started fiddling with the button of her jeans. She slid them down on one side, then on the other, transferring her weight from haunch to haunch, never taking her eyes off the book. When she'd gotten them down to her knees she kicked them off the rest of the way. After another page or so she reached down and worked her panties off too. Or so my circuits told me. She stood up from her chair. She wandered vaguely in my direction, holding the book in front of her, like a naked sleep walker, a naked sleep-reading sleep walker. She sat down on my lap, as if I were part of the furniture. She leaned back against my shoulder, swiveling her legs up over the arm of the chair, still lost in her book, settling her bottom comfortably down into the crack between my legs. Her perky breasts were right in front of my face. Her legs were open just enough to reveal the intricate folds at the top of her slit where the inner and outer lips all came together. She idly picked up my hand from the arm of the chair and started to lightly stroke herself with it, brushing my fingertips up the underside of her breast, across the nipple, then down the top side. She must have come to an exciting part of the story. Her nipples got stiffer and stiffer. She wet my index finger against the tip of her tongue and used it to turn the page. She took my hand down between her legs. She began to stroke herself there, weaving my fingers lightly up and down her silky slit, then massaging her mound, then back down the slit and back up again against her firm little nubby, swirling it with more and more pressure each time. Her pelvic muscles began to clench, her thighs to clasp. She shrugged her shoulder, cuddling my upper arm closer against her breast. She pushed her groin against my hand, my hand against her groin. She closed her eyes, the book now down against her chest. She clasped and clenched and shuddered and gasped and held everything, everything, just there, just there, just there, just there. And then she shuddered once again. And then, slowly, she exhaled; unclasped; unclenched; unshrugged. "Good book?" I asked, softly. Slowly, languorously, she arched her back and rolled her head. "You're here," she said, dreamily. "Want to fool around?" It was a request I never thought I'd ever turn down. But my tired circuits were perfectly immobilized by her warmth, her familiar heft, her irrefutable girliness. "Mind if I take a rain check?" She regarded me with a concerned look. But not too concerned. She brought my fingers up to her lips, kissed them, and pressed them against mine. They smelled of her cum. She tucked them back down between her legs and went back to her reading. --- "Cioppino!" I announced, toting in a big bag of groceries. "Cioppino?" she inquired, looking up from her book. "Cioppino," I confirmed, a Dungeness crab in one hand, a green pepper in the other. "Cioppino," she mused, coming over to get a better look. "Cioppino," I explained, dicing the red onion and tossing it into the sizzling oil. "Cioppino," she recited, chopping tomatoes and zucchinis. "Cioppino," I griped, cleaning out the crab guts, cracking the shells. "Cioppino," she crooned, stirring in the mushrooms, the scallops, the shrimp. "Cioppino," I beamed, the pot asimmer, the steamy kitchen redolent of the sea. "Cioppino," she smacked, prong deep in claw, plate awash in angel hair, napkins piling up. "Cioppino," I whispered, later, in bed, licking the last stains from her lips. --- Magda was sitting on the futon, leaning back against her pillow, reading her book. She was wearing a colorfully embroidered peasant blouse and nothing else. She had her knees up and her legs spread a bit apart. I had my face down between them, taking a leisurely self-guided tour. I got it that her outer lips were like the sides of a pudgy pot pie that had split open, revealing all the exotic fruits de mer within. I could recognize the little oyster at the top where her clitoris was supposed to be. But I could never really figure out the inner lips. What were they lips of? What were they supposed to be enclosing? They led down to her vagina, but why were they centered so high above it? "To attract guys' attention, I guess," she offered. I parted them with my fingers. I loved the way that they were so thin and frilly, more like jellyfish frills than real lips. Everything down there was so pink and moist, as much inside as outside. I looked and looked and finally found what must have been her pee hole. I'd never really seen a girl's pee hole before. I put my face closer and tried to touch it with the tip of my tongue. I couldn't tell if there was a taste of pee or not. "Is that your pee hole?" I asked. "Yup," she replied. "It's so far back. How do you keep from getting everything wet when you pee?" "Everything does get wet. Girls have to wipe themselves after they pee." "I didn't know that." I licked around to see if maybe she'd missed a spot last time. I ran my finger down her frills to her vagina itself. Looking into it really was looking up inside her, although the relaxed pink walls didn't let you see very far. It was super arousing, but at the same time kind of clinical, like looking down someone's throat. I noticed one other thing. "Your vagina is so close to your asshole." "Is it?" I had my thumb in the vestibule of her vagina and I put my index finger up into the pucker of her asshole. "They're like this far apart." "Well, they always tell us to be careful when we wipe our butts." "You girls and your wiping." "Boys never wipe anything, I suppose." I took off my pants and knelt back between her knees. I brought the tip of my hard-on gently up against the opening of her vagina, like I was going to give her an injection. I loved the way my big, fleshy cock head pushed its way into her compliant entrance way. I had my hands on her knees, and I rocked my hips back and forth, gently bringing my tip up against her, giving her little cock-kisses with my own pee hole. She put down her book. "You know something?" I said. "If you think about it, just about everything we do in our whole lives we do with our hands. We use our hands to plant our crops, to harvest them, cook them, eat them. Sew our clothes, build our houses, drive our cars. Just about everything important survival-wise we do with our hands. "Except for one thing. If I want to plant a seed in you, I have a whole special little gizmo just for that. A little nozzle that sticks out just the right amount. And you've got a special little orifice just to receive it." I put my hands up in the air and jockeyed my cock head right up to her opening. "Look, ma, no hands!" "You sound just like a guy," she replied. "Planting the seed, that's the hard part I suppose? What about taking care of it after it's planted. You forgot to mention that my 'orifice' is connected to a whole little nursery. I think that plays some kind of role in the overall operation." "Yeah, yeah, you're right of course. But it's weird, isn't it? We go through so much of our lives typing away on our keyboards, fingering our violins, grasping our wine glasses, thinking how sophisticated we are. But when it comes to propagation, we've got to put down our keyboards and take off all our fancy clothes and just do it the way the cave men did. The way that dogs and cats and horses and cows do it. They don't even have hands to begin with." "So what are you getting at? You want to propagate?" I snorted a little laugh. "Yeah, right. The sound of little feet running around our little apartment? Parent buddies? What would your magazines say about that?" "My biological clock is ticking, you know." "I know. I can hear it." "You're a goof." "Takes one to know one." She stuck her tongue out at me. I stuck mine out at her. She pulled her peasant blouse off over her head and shook her hair. Her nipples were hard as cowrie shells. "There," she said. "I've taken off my fancy clothes. Can you go over that part about the cave man one more time?" I gave her a few more little cock-kisses. "Now pay attention," I said. --- Sunday morning. Magda still asleep, half tangled in the sheet, her pretty bottom peaking out. Yesterday we'd taken a bike ride out past the University and up into the hills. It was a long, sweaty climb, and we stopped, panting, under the shade of an oak tree. She'd packed avocado sandwiches and nectarines. Once in a while a car would roar past, but in between times it was so still and peaceful that you could hear the stalks of grass creaking in the breeze, the buzz of insects, the occasional pant or whir of another cyclist. I must have dozed off. When I woke up I saw Magda sitting there beside me, her arms around her knees, a stalk of grass in her mouth, looking out over the valley, and I felt for a moment as if the lumpy earth, the playful air, the cozy sunshine, the busy insects, the two of us, the whole vast humming immensity of the world were all spun from the same purest sparkling golden happiness. We flew back downhill, standing on the pedals, gliding like hawks, mile after mile, chilled by the wind, faster than we should have. I looked around and saw her, way back, walking her bike. She'd popped a tire. We sat by the side of the road and patched it up. The pump was for the other type of valve, but we figured it out. We coasted down the rest of the way at a less breakneck speed. Then long blocks of city streets to home. We teased each other about who would get to shower first, then went in together, soaping each other's tired biceps and hamstrings. We lounged nude on the futon, not even bothering to fuck. Our plan was just to open up a can of tuna, but my stomach came to its senses. I hauled her up, dressed her in a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, and dragged her over to the burrito place. We ate on a bench in the park, watching the kids on their skateboards. It was a long, warm, summer evening with music playing on every corner. Later, back at the apartment, we had hardly any clothes to take off. This time we did fuck, wordlessly, sunnily, soaringly, glidingly, scrub-a-dubbingly, sparklingly, goldenly. And now it was Sunday morning, and we had a whole long summer's day of weekend still to go. --- We had a steamy carton of chow mein from the hand-pulled noodle place. We spread a towel over the futon and sat down to eat it picnic style. "Our lease is going to be up in a couple of months," I pointed out. "We'll have to figure out what we're going to do. "I mean, we could keep this place, or we could look for someplace else. This place is all right, but maybe we could do better. We should probably start keeping our eyes open. "Assuming we want to stay together. It's not that this hasn't been a terrific summer, maybe the best summer ever, but sometimes I think, well, maybe this has just been a vacation, not real life. We go to our little jobs, we come back and lock the bolt, and nothing else matters. Our careers. Our biological clocks. It's like the apartment of the lotus eaters. It's wonderful, but where is it getting us? Maybe it's time to get on with things. Maybe, for our own good, it's time for us to go our separate ways." She was letting me have my say. I was falling behind in the chow mein department. I wolfed a couple big mouthfuls and then I went on. "But, then I think, maybe things here aren't so bad after all. Not this place, but the two of us, you and me. Maybe we are getting on with things. Maybe we're laying a foundation for all the rest, the careers, the pitter-pat. Maybe this is what life is all about. This. What we've got right now. "Because, when you stop and think about it, how do we ever make the important decisions in our lives? We say, 'this is my favorite song,' but how does it get to be our favorite song? We didn't write it, it didn't just pop into our heads. Maybe we heard it on the radio. Or maybe someone else liked it, or maybe people were talking about it. The important thing isn't how we heard it the first time, but how we heard it the rest of the times. How it moved us, how it grew on us, how it wove itself into the texture of our lives. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, maybe someday people will ask us how we met, and we'll say, 'Oh, we both answered the same ad for this apartment on Fulton Street.'" Magda had been picking around in the carton with her chopsticks. She'd come up with a plump orange prawn, all beaded with sauce. She held it up for me to see. She poked it into my mouth. "We've still got a couple of months," she said. "We'll figure it out."