Things Fall Apart

Chapter 1

"What did you think?" Glenn asked as Sheryl and he walked out of the Psych building into the frigid winter air.

Sheryl pulled her inadequate hoodie tight around her and shivered as the cold air enveloped her. A winter coat capable of protecting her from a Michigan January had been beyond her financial reach. She never complained about it, but watching her struggle with the cold was painful.

"I have no idea. The questionaire seemed pretty general," she pulled up her hood against the biting chill, "I couldn't see that they were pointing toward anything. For a NASA study there were a lot of questions about personal finances, though."

Glenn shook his head mugging a sad face.

"Rats, I was hoping the study was about the effect of nudism on grade point average."

She gave him a sardonic smile.

"Why is everything about sex with you?"

"Because I'm a twenty-one year old male? Why is everything about money with you?"

Awkward silence ensued and filled in by the chatter of students around them hustling to their next class leaving vapor clouds hanging in the still frigid air. It was a day to get where you wanted to go and to not tarry. At the end of January, despite the days getting longer, winter had not gotten the memo that it should be warming up.

"Can we talk about anything else?" Sheryl finally replied.

She was never happy with silence.

"I sure hope that we get picked," Glenn changed the subject, "I need to cut costs. Free room, board and tuition would make my senior year comfortable."

"The tuition increase nearly killed me this year," she looked daunted for a moment, "could you spot me five bucks until payday?"

He nodded and pulled out his wallet.

"Running out of food? We can share, I've got plenty."

"I'm fine for the week," she gave him a sheepish grin, "a girl needs a few extra things once a month."

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you," his face warmed from his blush.

"You're living with a woman, Glenn," she patted his frigid cheek to reassure him, "these things happen."

They stopped in front of the Chemistry building.

"Have fun in your organic lab," Glenn said as she walked away.

Glenn watched heads turn as she sauntered by. There weren't many tall, blue-eyed women with thick glossy black hair on campus. She stopped pedestrian traffic without even trying.

They met their freshman year at a campus job fair, but working together at the library pulling and shelving books over the last three years had cemented their friendship. Their common ground was poverty. It had led them to share an antique two bedroom flat a long walk from campus. When his friends found out, they went nuts. He reassured them over and over that it was a platonic arrangement. He amazed those friends again when it was no longer platonic.

He continued on to his Multivariate Analysis class. He wanted to slap the sadistic professor who thought up a class about story problems for calculus. There was nothing like teasing out the illusive 'X' along with it's friends 'Y' and 'Z' in among pages and pages of equations. The equations looked so simple as did the inputs. The endless computations were not, and one little arithmetic error meant that none of your answers were right. It annoyed him that he had to do everything by hand when he knew computers handled these computations in real life.

"Glenn, are you in there?" Sheryl tapped on the door to his bedroom.

The end of April was time to line up lodging for next year if there was a next year with covid stalking the land. The psychology department had promised to send letters by the end of April, and they had developed a ritual where Sheryl got the mail each afternoon as she came in from her job and told him if the letters had come yet.

"I'm here, come on in."

He shook the cobwebs from his brain and sat up on the bed. He had been napping and having the falling dream again. That usually meant that he was worried about something, probably how he was going to pay room, board and tuition for his senior year.

Sheryl, free of clothing as usual and matching his outfit exactly, walked into his room. Their co-habitation rules were simple, he and Sheryl had slowly lost interest in clothing until they wandered about the apartment nude. Glenn didn't mind, it cut down on trips to the laundromat, and Sheryl looked like a work of art half of the time when she lounged on the couch. For a guy too poor to afford the occasional date that having a girlfriend required, Sheryl was a godsend. She needed reassurance that she was still attractive after being dumped before the lock down. He never let his thinking get much deeper than that because his conclusions ended in anguish. Instead he tried to take her nudity as a gift.

"It's from the Psych Department."

"Did you get one?"

She nodded.

"And?"

"Open yours first," she pointed at the letter in his hand.

Glenn tore the envelope open and read: "You are invited to join the Psychology Department's study of Transactional Analysis in Isolation. It is a NASA study that will simulate the eight month long isolation that a crew will face on their journey to Mars. You will be sequestered in Harris Dormitory for the entire autumn and winter semesters. During that time, you will be required to spend 100% of your time in the dormitory on your floor. Once you are enrolled in the study all room, board and tuition will be paid by the study. A zoom meeting regarding the specifics will be held at 8pm on May 15."

Glenn looked up.

"What about you?

He kept his face neutral fearing that she might not have made the cut.

"I'm in!"

She grinned and hugged him. Her unrestrained breasts squashed against this chest. He grabbed her by the waist and hugged her back.

"I'm pretty hungry who's turn is it to cook?" Sheryl said as they stood back from each other.

She stared at him because she knew whose turn it was.

"It's my turn," Glenn replied, "but all we have in the apartment is some eggs and ramen noodles. How does egg drop noodle soup sound?"

"It sounds perfect," she bit her lower lip, "it's okay if you want to dress for dinner. Dropping hot soup into a naked lap can be painful."

She gave his semi erection a tap. It hung at 45 degrees below horizontal.

"You hug me, I get a boner," he gave her an exaggerated shrug, "I'm about to eat dinner with an enchanting nude lady, why would I want her or myself to put clothes on?" Glenn stood to go to the kitchen, "if you want to, it's okay though."

"No." she smirked, "I don't drop soup in my lap."

She looked down at his tumescent groin. This time it had risen 10 degrees above horizontal. Not fully hard, but getting there.

"I like the freedom of sharing an apartment in the nude. We should do this whether I have a boy friend or not. Baring my all to you is fun," she bent over to examine his cock.

He was tumescent no longer; he had swelled to a full erection. It now stood 45 degrees above horizontal ready for action.

"What's a good male friend for if it isn't to appreciate the body of his best female friend," she teased running her hand along his shaft.

"Sorry, not sorry, I have no control over it," he replied as he covered his erection with his hands.

"Oh, don't be like that," she reached out and pushed his hands away and gave his dick a tap making it bounce, "I've been around them on the farm all my life between the horses, the cows, the pigs, the dogs, the cats and two brothers. After you've seen a Belgian stallion primed for the mare, everything else looks minor by comparison."

"Thanks, I think, although I feel inadequate now. I should add that you are erection worthy."

She giggled.

"That has to be the strangest compliment that I've ever received, but I'll take it in the spirit it was offered."

Sexual tension filled the air throughout dinner. Sheryl went through very predictable stages following a break up. The first and the most difficult was 'leave me alone'. Beer, pizza and rom/coms got her through it. In the second stage, she gave up on men and dove into her studies. Everything was regulated, her goals in sight as she strove toward academic excellence. As a chemistry major she needed that rigorous approach. In the final stage, clothing usage got careless. Her bra was the first to go when she entered the apartment followed by her outer clothing a week or so later and finally the panties. They were at the start of the 'you're a man, I'm a woman, let's play' stage. This one would last until she found a new love, and the cycle would repeat except it couldn't with the lock down and Glenn reaped the benefits and the heartache. She had made it clear that she was looking for a man with money, and Glenn did not measure up.

After dinner Glenn tried to study sitting at the rickety kitchen table. He was supposed to be calculating the empty volume inside a single crystal of sodium chloride, and he was on the fourth page of calculations. The presence of Sheryl across the room drew his eyes again and again. Half of the time when he looked at her, she was eyeballing him. When their eyes met, she smiled before looking away.

Their flat was in an old poorly maintained Victorian house long ago stripped of its bric-a-brac and stained glass leaving behind a hulk smelling vaguely of dry rot, an aroma that candles and incense could never cover. The foot high oak moldings and massive doors clashed with the lime green velour couch that could best be described as 1990's thrift store. The lavishly carved banister rose to the second floor beside worn creaking stairs.

Sheryl, her pale skin flawless, looked like she had been posed by an artist as she sat with one leg tucked under her and the other resting on the rug while studying on the couch. As he watched, she lifted her other leg onto the couch, raised her arms above her head and yawned displaying her lovely breasts to their fullest extent.

Everything around her looked flawless. She wasn't the rose among weeds, she was the rose that transformed the other weeds into a garden. He could only think of pulling her into an embrace and stroking that pale skin from her shoulders down her back to that amazing inverted heart shaped ass. She sat with her legs drawn up beside her, but tonight either he was different or she was. Her luscious blue-black hair cascaded in waves over her creamy white shoulders, her perfect breasts so available yet so far away made him stiffen again and again. Her stretch and slow amble into the kitchen for a glass of water verged on a seductive dance in his fevered imagination. On her return she leaned over him to see what he was studying and when her stiff nipple brushed his shoulder; he nearly orgasmed.

When he looked up, her lips seemed fuller and softer, more kissable. Had she brushed his shoulder with her nipple on purpose? Her hip rocking sashay back to the couch afterward spiked his erection again. He was thankful for the shadow under the table. Had he been sitting anywhere else, this arousal would have been on display. He tucked his hardening member between his legs where his erection would be less evident.

Studying was futile despite looming finals, and watching television with Sheryl would have been embarrassing without something covering his lap. Sooner or later she would spot his erection and that would lead to a conversation he did not want to have. Instead, he waited until he had shrunk to a semi erect state, shut down his laptop and stretched.

"I can't concentrate tonight, I'm turning in early."

Sheryl stood, and he fought a losing battle against the blood surging into his erection when she idly scratched the skin above her left breast. There was nothing erotic about that except that her nipple hardened as she did so.

"Are you going to take a shower, boy genius?"

He nodded very much aware of his erection rising, sending a bolt of panic through him.

"Yeah, I usually do, and why are you calling me boy genius?"

"Have you ever had a grade other than an A?"

"Yes, I got a B plus in Library Orientation my freshman year."

"Why do you drive yourself so hard all the time? Graduating summa cum laude means nothing when you get out into the world."

She had her head down and looked up at him with big eyes. It was a move calculated to drive him wild.

"I want to be the best at whatever I do," he said to put her off. Sheryl for her many talents was not the person he wanted to share much of himself with. She was too driven, to singly focused on one goal to understand much about other people. That single focus had pulled her out of abject poverty, and gotten her into a damn good university, but it had also limited her in other ways.

Why don't you wait to take your shower until after we have sex?" she said in a husky voice.

She stood back and waited for his decision with her hands on her hips looking sublimely sexy.

It had been a while.

She filled the silence by walking over to him within hugging distance.

"Look, you've had a stiffy on and off all evening, and I'm worried that I'll leave a wet spot on our couch if I sit there much longer. I could use a little loving," she lowered her head and looked up at him with big eyes, a look she knew that would turn him on.

Then she reached down and gave his ever ready erection a squeeze.

"I like the idea of not wearing clothes in the evening. It makes me feel all sexy and free, but we have to study for midterms, and neither of us can concentrate while we're this horny. So I have two questions for you. Do you have condoms?"

Glenn nodded.

"What sheets are on your bed?"

Glenn thought a moment.

"Star Wars."

She shook her head.

"I am not making love with you while looking at Chewbacca. We'll make love in my room."

A few minutes later, he lay beside her on the bed embracing her in a full body hug. He stoked her beginning at the bulge of her breast crushed against his chest. His hand slid over her warm flesh across her ribs into the valley of her waist and up onto the summit of her hip. He gave her ass a gentle squeeze before starting the process again. He couldn't get enough of the soft smoothness of her skin or the way his stroke left a trail of goose flesh.

"I like girls because they're so not men; they feel soft and squishy in all the right places."

"You silver tongued devil," Sheryl replied with a chuckle, "he's mine ladies, I saw him first."

"Hey, if you want a man who can talk pretty, you need to room with an English major."

"You're such a geek, it's a good thing that you know how to stroke my favorite places, otherwise I'd get rid of you," she whispered after they had broken from a long, slow kiss,

"English majors are more interested in their Balzac than they are in my erogenous zones. Now, lay on your back."

He complied, and watched her roll his condom down his shaft. Without saying another word, she straddled his hips, centered herself over his cock and slid down onto him. When her ass settled on his hips, her frown of concentration mutated into a smile.

"Oh, now that feels good. I'm as aroused as you are since I spent my whole evening thinking about you filling me," she gave him a squeeze with the muscles in her hips pushing him closer to the edge.

When she leaned forward and placed her hands on his chest. Her breasts came forward so near and so soft. He stroked them pulling on her nipples. A little shiver ran through her body. She liked that. He did it again but this time he twisted them a bit. She liked that even better. She stopped rolling her hips when he tweaked her breasts.

"You're going to make me orgasm right now if you keep that up," she sighed, her voice thick with passion.

She rolled her hips forward and back sending waves of pleasure through him beginning at his groin and radiating throughout his body. An orgasm built within him starting as a tickle deep in his groin. He pulled on her nipples a little harder this time. She purred. He did it one final time, pulling her nipples a little harder yet with a little more of a twist.

She threw her head back and moaned.

"Aah, that feels so good."

Then she clamped down on him with her hip muscles as she drove her fingernails into his chest. She bucked on top of him and he held her by the shoulders to keep her from rolling off. His orgasm surged and he pumped and pumped into her spasming pussy. His cumming prolonged her orgasm and she ground her hips into his groin.

When she was done, she rolled off him keeping in touch with him hip to hip.

"Wow, that was intense," she said between gasps, "You have the magical touch that gets my motor running."

Glenn reached over and patted her taut stomach.

"It was intense, but we may have to do it again before I can render an opinion. I was too involved at the time to give you a dispassionate reaction."

She rolled over and kissed him on the cheek.

"You better never be dispassionate when we have sex. I won't have you judge me like it's a gymnastic competition."

"I promise to be more like the American judge than the Russian judge. I do rate your lovemaking as outstanding, but your dismount got a little sloppy."

She began kissing down his chest.

"The minute you give me anything less than a 10 I'm kicking you out of my bed."

She continued kissing down his body until she reached his navel which she tongued while her hand drifted lower until she cupped his balls. She began stroking his cock not letting go as she repositioned her head on his shoulder letting her long glossy locks cascade over him. That fragrant hair tickling his skin added so much to these intimate moments.

"Let's make love again, slow and easy this time now that we've gotten the horniness out of our systems."

When he tried to sit up so that he could pull his condom off, she pushed him back down.

"Let me take care of that."

She rolled his condom off, produced a tissue from somewhere and cleaned him up. She then took him in her mouth and moistened his entire cock before placing a brand new condom in her mouth and unrolled the condom over his cock using her teeth as she engulfed him. He had no idea where she had got the condom from, but she must like bright colors because this condom was day-glow pink.

She looked up and grinned at him.

"Do you like it?"

"I like your technique, but hot pink isn't masculine at all, in fact, I get a little soft looking at it."

A slightly sinister grin crossed her face as she crawled up his body dragging her moist pussy against his thigh. She kissed him.

"Then I guess we'll have to hide it where you can't see it."

She kissed him again. Her pillowy lips against his sent a message to his cock alerting it to stand by. Her tongue stroking his added urgency to the message. He ran his hand down her back stopping to squeeze her ass. She responded with a satisfied moan into his mouth.

"I like that, but squeeze a little harder."

He did and she writhed atop him then she rolled off and lay beside him with her legs spread.

"Eat me out," she said, "I love oral."

Glenn crawled between her knees, threw her legs over his shoulders then settled in above her slit. He kissed her a couple times on her smooth mons inhaling her soft delicate aroma. Then he dropped his face lower allowing his tongue to penetrate her outer lips and she moaned her approval. Starting at the bottom, he licked his way to the top taking his time repeating anything that made her moan or raise her hips. She enjoyed his tongue parting her inner lips especially when he ran the tip of his tongue along the very edge of the inner lips. His tongue prodded her ever closer to her orgasm where her hands grabbed hair on both sides of his head guiding him up to her clit. He took his time approaching it drawing ever tighter circles with his tongue across the tender flesh around it. When he deemed her ready by following her subtle signs like, 'tongue my clit,' he used his tongue to trace out across her clit, "A square + B square =".