Mutual Benefits – Chapters 1-5

Chapter One

I would have traded anything in the world for another life, one where I wasn’t known by everyone as nothing but a nerd.

People kept telling me there were going to be all these benefits later on in life – “think of how easily you’ll get a job,” “you’ll get to be the boss of all those people that bullied you,” “you’ll be set for life.” What the hell kind of life was I set for? They say that high school shapes you and these four years make you who you become later in life. I was on a perfect course to become a walking stereotype – the quintessential Asian nerd who had more conversations with teachers than his own damn classmates.

‘Quintessential.’ I smirked to myself with my eyes glued to my math paper. There was a joke in there somewhere if I could think of it. Quinn Shen. Quinn-Shen-sential? Nah, that was just stupid. Then again, even my name was stupid. Quinn Shen. The bog-standard American first name, Chinese last. Short-cut dark hair, dark eyes, well-dressed (a clear sign of strict parents), and a grade of 99 in my Data Management class.

Whatever. It was Data Management. It sounded all fancy, but once you figured out what to do with a number that had an exclamation mark after it, you were guaranteed at least an 85 in that class, especially in Hazelwood High, a school not afraid to pump up its grades to look good to universities.

I sighed, looking over my answers one last time before standing up and handing my paper in to Mrs. Li. Unlike me, she wasn’t Chinese at all, hell, she looked whiter than most of the kids at Hazelwood. She just married a Chinese guy and thought it cute to talk about how ‘alike’ we were on the first day because we shared a last name.

Mrs. Li smiled at me and thanked me as I handed in the paper. As I walked back to my desk, all eyes in the room were on me. As usual, I was the first one to hand in my test. I almost wanted to tell these people, “Hey, I waited this time.” I could feel my heart rate slightly quicken from even the daring thought of wanting to say that. Instead, I quickly found my seat again and ran my hands over the back of my head.

A sound took me out of my own head. The door opened, and in walked a very frazzled Taylor Wise. Taylor flipping Wise. See, if I was the male equivalent of her or something, I’d be set.

Taylor didn’t need to be a nerd to succeed. She had the greatest gift God could have given anyone in high school – looks. And I mean looks. She was unquestionably not just the hottest girl in our grade, but the whole school. She wasn’t a cheerleader – she was the type of girl that looked so good, she didn’t even need to be a cheerleader. It was hard to describe her sheer appeal because it didn’t really begin in one place – she not only had amazing brown eyes, but the eyelashes to go with it. It was both so consistent that it seemed unlikely that the lashes were fake, and yet simultaneously so gorgeous, it was hard to believe it was actually real. And her-

I turned my head away. Jesus. What the hell was I on about? I was staring at her for longer than five seconds, which already felt creepy, but more importantly, there was absolutely no chance in hell she even knew my name. Even though some part of me knew the whole “out of your league” thing was childish, it felt wrong to even notice the hottest girl in school when I was… who I was. A nerd.

Taylor scrambled to her desk, her 5’3 frame quickly molding into her chair.

“Hello, Taylor,” Mrs. Li said with a little bit of that condescending teacher patience to her voice. “You should have come on time, you know. I already sent down the attendance.”

Taylor gave a little puppydog smile with her trademark innocent chipmunk face. At least the teacher was talking to her so I had an excuse to look at her. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Li,” she offered. “I got caught up in something, it won’t happen again.”

Mrs. Li placed a test on top of her desk and scanned the other desks until she arrived at mine. “Quinn,” she piped up, heading back to her desk. “Could you please go to the attendance office and let them know Taylor Wise showed up?”

“Yeah,” I replied with less confidence in my voice than I wanted. I guess I should have felt grateful that my voice didn’t crack. Wordlessly, I slunk out the door and made my way to the office, wishing I was anyone but me.

***

“‘Anyone but you?’ Sounds a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” Kevin asked me. Kevin was, possibly, the only other Asian in the whole school, and by all accounts, my closest friend. Of course, he was also considerably more popular than me, and of course, my biological twin. It was a blessing and a curse knowing that it wasn’t pure genetics that left me to my fate as a nerd – clearly I screwed up somewhere along the path in life where Kevin hadn’t.

I shrugged. “I just think that.” I sucked at speaking in lengthy sentences. I never really said much to anyone, even those I trusted.

Kevin shook his head. “So what, you’re asking for advice? It’s senior year, don’t you think you’re a bit late?”

“It’s not advice, it’s lamenting,” I clarified.

He chuckled. “You’re cheerful today.” He lay sprawled out on his bed as I sat at my desk, petting Nuo, the family cat. “Look, bro, when I get down, I look for opportunities. Even stuff where I’m maybe a bit uncomfortable, maybe it’s not my usual-”

“I already said I’m not looking for advice,” I interrupted.

He sat up and rubbed one of his eyes. “Right. Well, tell you what. If you’re telling me ‘it sucks I became a loser,’ and you’re not looking for any thoughts other than your own on the matter, why don’t I just agree? Yeah, Quinn, it sure sucks you became a loser. If only you could do something about it. If only someone was willing to suggest stuff for you.”

“You know how to operate your life. I’m not you,” I offered with a shrug.

“I get that. I know ‘try being more outgoing’ to a… well, to you is like telling a person with depression ‘just stop being sad.’ But, good news, feeling like life is boring is not a friggin’ mental disorder.” He got up off the bed and left the room, presumably to get a snack or something.

I huffed and looked down at Nuo, who just looked back up at me, content and purring. Maybe it was time for a change, but what the heck was I going to do about that? If I had the power to actively change my life and go from a nerd to a jock who had control of my life, I would have done that in my freshman year. Besides, was a ‘jock’ really what I aspired to be? I enjoyed my own feelings of deduction. I didn’t actually want to be someone else, I just wanted to be… recognized. Respected. Something like that.

It would have been nice to walk down the halls with my shoulders out as opposed to in. It would have been nice to have anyone say “Hey, Quinn!” when they saw me walking. Kevin occasionally did that, but we were family. If we weren’t family, would he have cared? Probably not. Hell, if he were more popular, he might have felt I could be a danger to his reputation and not said hi to me at all. I guess there were worse fates than mine. I could have been gay. Being gay wasn’t bad, but being gay in high school was, even if it was at Hazelwood, if you wanted to remain out of sight of any of the school bullies.

Well, ‘bullies.’ The biggest thing you had to worry about at Hazelwood was the fact that everyone looked out for their own interests and no one else’s. Friend circles could eat each other in seconds, or so I was told. After the Double Down incident, the entirety of the Student Council inner circle collapsed and they had to remake their circle from the ground up. Even my own circle, ‘the gifted students,’ had a fight in sophomore year and now half of the group didn’t speak to each other.

Maybe I could wait until college and reinvent myself or something… I sighed and picked up my PS4 controller, booting up Bloodborne and shooing Nuo off my lap. Who knew what could happen? Maybe an opportunity would just come my way. And if nothing else, I’d at least owe it to Kevin to consider it.

***

Data Management was easy, but it could get kind of annoying. We had some variety of quiz or test (I never knew what the difference between quizzes and tests were) every two weeks. I would always get to class ten minutes early regardless so even if I forgot, there was plenty of time to open my textbook and go over, let’s face it, what I already knew. I wasn’t a supercomputer of a human, so it was nice to get the refresher, but I was never worried.

One thing about patterns – once they’re established, you never really notice they’re there until they’re pointed out to you. If you had pointed out to me that Taylor wasn’t there once the quiz started, I would have wanted to tell you, “Well, duh, she’s never on time for class,” but it still came as a shock when the door burst open and she entered.

Upon seeing her enter, Mrs. Li got up from her desk and placed a quiz down on her desk. Taylor looked at the quiz in slight confusion, then slight panic. “The quiz was today?” she whispered to Mrs. Li as the others worked.

Mrs. Li patiently nodded.

Taylor responded by playing with her hands nervously. “I’ve been really busy lately and I was wondering if maybe I could, like, take the quiz another time.” She was really good at selling her look, whatever the look was. The innocent girl look, complete with doe eyes and the pleading yet not pathetic look.

“I’m sorry, but you need to talk to me about those things in advance,” Mrs. Li pointed out. “Now, if you could take your seat please…”

“But Mrs. Li,” Taylor pleaded, “I’m already behind in this class and, I’m not gonna lie, I have no clue what unit we’re even on. With my job I’ve been so busy and-”

“We can talk about this later. For now, please take the quiz,” Mrs. Li insisted.

I guess Taylor noticed she really had no leverage in that moment, because that’s when the tears started. I didn’t know if they were real or if she had trained herself to cry on command, but I was willing to bet money that it was the latter. At first I was kind of surprised, more so when I looked around and realized no one else was looking at this conversation like I was. Was this a normal occurrence for them..? Did Taylor do this in all of her classes, was this her way of getting what she wanted?

Whatever it was, it sure as hell worked. Mrs. Li sighed and conceded. “C’mon, let’s go into the hallways and talk it over,” she insisted, and the two promptly left.

So, the classroom had two doors – the front and back doors, both on the left side of the room, both leaving into the ‘second story’ hallway. The pair left out of the front door, but had walked to the section in the hallway in front of the back door, and it was ajar, enough at least for me to see the full effect of their conversation. I hated to admit it, but I felt sorry for Taylor. Either she was good at acting beyond whatever Salvador could teach, or she was genuinely going through some struggles right now.

I tried to focus mainly on my test, but I could see her tearfully explain how burnt out she was with her job as well as all of her classes, and the fact that the course material was clearly not sinking in. As a less popular nerd, I feel like I was conditioned by my nerdier friend group to kinda hate the preppier more popular kids, but I did feel for her situation. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was the hottest girls in school and I was just another guy that fell for her charms and wanted to see her do well as long as she’d notice me, who knows.

I finished my test by the time the two had returned, clearly with an understanding, given Taylor sat down at a desk with no quiz on it, and Li just walked back to her desk sighing and shaking her head. No sniffles came from Taylor after that – clearly she either was faking it, or the two had reached some kind of deal that made her immediately happier.

Not that it was any of my business. I got up from my desk and handed my quiz to Li, giving her a polite half-smile before making my way back to my desk. She stared at my quiz after I placed it on her desk, and when I had sat back down, she was now staring at me.

Finally, after a few more seconds of staring, she cleared her throat. “Quinn, could you come to my desk please?” she whispered to me. Everyone else, save for Taylor, was still taking their tests. Diligently, I walked up and walked over to her desk.

She paused, formulating her words for a few moments. “Quinn, would it be okay with you if I asked you to tutor one of the students in this class?” she asked. Immediately, I shot a look at Taylor, who met my eyes with hers. For the first time, I looked at someone and didn’t look away when they were looking back. Her eyes were a deep, enticing shade of brown, her face cute and innocent, even though it was clear that with her just figuring out now what Mrs. Li was planning, she wasn’t sure she was on board with this.

Mrs. Li continued. “Of course, this depends on your schedule after school,” she thought to herself. “You see, Taylor… Taylor Wise, I’m sure you’ve met… she feels as though she may benefit from exterior resources to my class and, well, since you have such a strong grasp on the material…”

I broke my gaze away from Taylor and looked back at Mrs. Li. “My schedule is open,” I told her.

Li took that as my consent and motioned for Taylor to come to the desk. Hesitantly, Taylor walked over to the desk and joined us. “Taylor, this is Quinn Shen. He’s agreed to help tutor you for this class and according to him, he’s got an open schedule.”

Taylor was hot, but I had to be honest, the idea of me spending God knows how long to re-enact Million Dollar Baby but with the exciting theme of boxing replaced with math wasn’t exactly exciting for me. I didn’t recall saying I’d do it, Mrs. Li just assumed. Of course, I had my own awkwardness to thank for me not piping up to correct the record.

Taylor didn’t exactly jump for joy either. “I, uh, I guess that could work,” she stumbled over her words. “Quinn, right? Hi.”

I nodded at her, not saying a single word. God, this was awkward.

After no one said anything for a stupidly long time, Mrs. Li gave one of those polite teacher smiles. “So! Maybe you two could figure out where it works best in both of your schedules to meet up and go over the course material.” She turned to me. “Thank you for this, Quinn. This can count towards your community hours, by the way.”

I guess that was nice. Every student needed to put in about forty or so hours of community service to graduate at Hazelwood. Some kind of hippie ‘help the community’ initiative. Either that, or it was the case for all high schools in Massachusetts, or at least the area. I had no clue.

“Okay, thank you,” I replied, thankful to not have stuttered, before making my way back to my seat. I sat there, going over my notes and trying to not think about the fact that somehow, I was asked to spend one-on-one time with the hottest girl at school. Me. The loseriest of losers.

I guess that was what made it okay. After all, the most surefire form of birth control was abstinence, or so the gym teacher drilled into us. In the same way, the best person to spend one-on-one time with the popular girl and not have her be in danger is the one kid who couldn’t talk to girls if he tried.

Eventually, the quiz had finished its runtime, and Mrs. Li gave the class a small lesson, and assigned us a few textbook questions. I had mine finished before the bell rang. When it rang, everyone started filing out, myself included.

“Hey! Uh… Quinn!”

I froze. Someone called my name. Someone was asking for me. As stupid as it was, I didn’t know how to react. Awkwardly, I spun around on my heels to face Taylor, who was at her desk.

“So, uh… what day works best for you?” she asked. She had some kind of day planner open.

My mouth went dry. I nervously coughed. I tried opening my mouth to speak once or twice, but nothing came out.

My fellow nerds had prepared me for this. This was the moment where the popular bitchy girl would lower an eyebrow, and call me a creep, or a loser for not being able to talk to her. I’m sure I was not being subtle – it was very clear I was nervous being around her because she was very pretty. Her beauty, after all, was downright intimidating – and I bet she could be intimidating herself when she wanted to be.

I was shocked when a smile began to appear on her face. Not even a smile of amusement, either… one of understanding. “Hey, it’s alright,” she coaxed. A genuine, dazzling smile danced across her face. It didn’t even feel forced, it felt… understanding. “If you want, you can, like, point to the day that works best instead, you don’t have to speak.”

“I… s-should speak,” I managed to get out.

“Fair enough,” she replied. “So, what day works best?”

“The, uh… I…” I ended up just shaking my head, and pointing to Thursday on her planner.

“Um, okay, sounds good,” she replied. “Do you have, like, a cell phone? We could just text the details if you want.”

I nodded and reached for my phone.

***

It might seem pathetic to someone who talked to a girl growing up, but I never said a word to her the rest of that entire conversation. Kevin had talked to girls before, though he never dated, probably due to our parents. If I fit the stereotype well, my parents fit the stereotype like gloves.

After Kevin and I were born (and of course Kevin was born slightly before me), they stopped talking in Mandarin to set some kind of American example for us. I could speak the language well enough, even though there wasn’t anyone to speak it with aside from Kevin.

Then again, that was the case in English too.

“You’re shitting me,” Kevin said in disbelief as we walked home. “Taylor?! Like, Wise. Taylor Wise.”

“It’s no big deal,” I mumbled. “I’m tutoring her. It’s just like a… it’s just that.”

“Holy shit, do you know how many guys in class would kill to get to be alone in a room with her?” Kevin asked, practically to the sky.

“I think that probably has something to do with why I’m tutoring her and they’re not,” I pointed out. “Why, did you want to date her?”

Kevin chuckled nervously. “You know me, I don’t date.”

“Why not, anyway?” I asked. “You’re popular. If I were you, I’d want to, even if it’s just to… know what it feels like.”

“Wow, Quinn. Sad,” Kevin laughed.

“Stop,” I replied uncomfortably. “You’re luckier than me.”

“I stick my neck out more than you. You should try it sometime. I’m amazed you said enough words to her to actually get her number,” Kevin fired back.

I could only sigh angrily and eye the ground. Kevin picked up on it immediately. “You couldn’t say anything and she just gave you her number so you could make plans over text, huh?”

“Yes,” I feebly replied.

Kevin mimed shooting a basketball. “Sunk the three,” he celebrated. “Hey, that’s still a step up for you. You have Taylor’s number. Do I have Taylor’s number, bro? No, huh? Whatcha think of that?”

“It’s not like I can ask her out based on that,” I replied.

“Yeah, she’d probably turn you down real easy.”

“Do you want me to share her number with you? Wanna show me up?” I asked with a heat of annoyance to my voice.

Kevin laughed. “We already follow each other on Instagram. Plus, I don’t date. Plus plus, if I did, I wouldn’t try starting with Taylor. At that point, you have nowhere to go but downhill.”

“Getting to talk to people would be uphill for me,” I admitted as we neared our apartment building.

Kevin chuckled. “Well, if you end up dating Taylor, presuming she doesn’t already think you’re the world’s biggest fuckin’ creep, people are absolutely gonna talk to you. Mostly to ask how the hell you pulled it off, but, you know.”

We walked in silence the rest of the way to our place, his words lingering on me. As soon as I was in my own room, I shut the door and pulled out my phone, thinking about impressions. I found her text – hey this is taylor 🙂 – that she sent me while we were still in the classroom together. I began to reply.

Hey Taylor. This is Quinn. I wanted to

Wait. Why the fuck was I telling her it was Quinn when she could easily deduce that?

Hey Taylor. I just wanted to let you know that I am sorry for the situation earlier. I didn’t mean to not speak in front of you, and I will put my best effort into not letting it happen again. I do not have much experience speaking in front of girls, or people, or

Nope. Too real. Tone it down.

Hey Taylor. Sorry for being silent earlier. I don’t have too much experience talking to people. I’ll try to get better. This is weird for both of us, right? I didn’t want it to come across like I don’t care. We’re going to make sure you pass data management, I promise.

I stared at the message for a minute solid before shrugging. Absolute worst-case scenario, she’d think I’m weird, call it off, and I’d be back to where I was. I hit send, then walked to the kitchen, where Kevin and Mother were busy making dinner.

“Quinn! How was school?” my Mother asked, expecting a report.

“I’m doing well,” I answered. “I’m tutoring another student in math class. Data management. I guess that’s neat.”

“Tutoring? Are you getting pay?” Mother asked me.

“No, I don’t think so. It’s just an incentive thing.”

“You’re not getting pay?”

Here we go. “No, Mother, I’m not getting paid for it.”

She turned around. “If you’re not getting pay, that is you saying your skills are not worth money, not worth value. How many time have I asked you, are you going to get a job? I don’t ask you because I want an empty house, you know. I ask because this is the best you can be.”

“I know, Mother. I’m sorry. I don’t think I can ask for pay for tutoring, though. It… was kind of put upon me. I didn’t get a chance to say n-”

“If you want to say no, you say no,” Mother practically barked at me. Kevin was trying to hide his grin. “Then you use that time and print out a resume and you get a job. A job that gives pay.” She turned back to her cooking. “Go clean the table.”

I quickly went to clear the table, even though it was probably a good hour before dinner. Mother switched to Mandarin, still addressing me. “Do you want to earn yourself a good life? Do you want a good job, a good family, a good life?”

I sighed. “Yes, mother, I do.”

“Don’t sigh at me. I ask because you are making the wrong choices. You need to make the right choices.”

Everyone has this weird stereotype about Asian parents that they expect their kids to be doctors or lawyers and get perfect As. That wasn’t really true, just almost true. My parents were actually really supportive of me getting the job I wanted and they knew that if I ever got poor grades, that was more reflective of my dumb ‘whitey’ teachers (their words, not mine) than of my own skill. But at the same time, after they set the standard for me, I could never go home empty-handed, or else… well, what just happened would happen.

After supper, I went back to my room and drew for a while. After an hour or so I felt my phone vibrate – it completely startled me. I pulled out my phone to see a message from Taylor – ok 🙂

I smiled to myself at the irony.

***

“You don’t have to speak,” Taylor told me with a smile when we met after school Thursday. It was the first thing she told me. Honestly, it kind of stung. I didn’t want me to be this hard to talk to either.

Instead of protesting though, I shrugged and nodded. Taylor continued. “I was thinking that maybe we could go to the local library. The one at school closes around four. Is that okay?”

Again, I shrugged.

Taylor beamed. “Great, let’s go! I’ll drive.” With that, she started walking down the hallway, the perfect preppy schoolgirl. Even her walk oozed that teenage sexiness that made every guy either turn his head or have to think very hard about not turning his head. I slunk behind her, trying not to seem like I was going with her – either to help her reputation, or to avoid the trope of some jock going, “Hey, is he following you? Is he harassing you?” and beating me up or something.

The only person that stopped to talk to her was one of her friends. I didn’t recognize her, but of course, Taylor did. They chatted for a few minutes, then Taylor offered her a ride home, which I figured was on the way to the library. Hey, I wasn’t even in a position to talk – what was I going to do, complain?

It was still relatively early in the semester so we were met with brisk, cool air when we went outside. Taylor and her friend – I think her name was Morgan – chatted about something or other as we approached her car.

Of course it was a convertible. Of course it was red. Of course there was an empty Starbucks cup where I was going to sit – it was already clear I was going in the back seat.

“Why’s he coming along?” Morgan asked, insultingly only noticing me when I was waiting outside the car.

“Oh, he’s my new tutor. He’s Quinn Shen, Kevin’s brother.”

“Oh, hi, Quinn! Nice to meet you.”

I smiled and nodded. That was good enough for Morgan. Soon everyone was seated, and off we went. Surprisingly, Morgan’s place was actually fairly past the library, so we ran a good chunk of time behind schedule. By the time we even got to the library, it was around the time the school library would be closing.

The timing issue didn’t seem to bother Taylor. Once we got to the library, she wordlessly hopped out and I meekly followed, and she found us a table at which to study.

“Okay, so, data management,” she began. “How long do you think it’ll take to catch me up?”

I had rehearsed for this. I looked down at the table and formed a pyramid with my hands at my forehead so I wouldn’t see a hint of Taylor. For good measure, I covered my eyes. “Th-that all depends on how much you’d say you know right now.”

“Oh hey, he talks,” she quipped.

“My brother bet me ten bucks I couldn’t talk to you,” I quipped back. Kevin and I made no such bet.

“Really? Why?” she asked, oblivious.

“Never mind. So, how much do you know?”

“Um…” I heard the sounds of her book opening. “I… fuck… I don’t know. This whole thing just kinda, like, confuses me.”

I removed the pyramid and looking up, my eyes scanning her book. Introduction. Oh boy.

***

“And that’s all a factorial is. Just take the number and multiply it from all numbers that came before it. So, five factorial is five times four times three times two times one. But, see, any number times one is just… that exact number. So, really, it’s five times four times three times two. Five times four is twenty, times three is sixty, times two, one-twenty.”

Taylor nodded along, her brow furrowed.

“Your turn. What’s four factorial?”

She thought for a second. Okay, so it’s just the same thing, right?”

“The same formula.”

“So, it would be… four times three times two times one.”

“Good! Now try to solve it.”

“Four times three… that’s… twelve, right? Okay, so, like, twelve times two. …Twenty-four. Times one is… is still twenty-four, right?”

“So what’s four factorial?”

“Twenty-four?”

“You got it!” I replied, looking up at Taylor with a smile. As soon as she met my smile with her own, my eyes immediately darted away.

A beat of silence passed. “…No offense, but am I doing something wrong?” she asked. “Like, I get you don’t talk to people much, but I feel like I’m doing something wrong, like I’m hurting you.”

I didn’t like to admit it, but looking Taylor in the eye made me hard. I was eighteen, but still a teeanger; a teenager that didn’t have any kind of experience to boot. I shifted uncomfortably before doing the hand-pyramid-looking-down thing again. “No, you’re okay. This is just a lot to adjust to. I’m sorry if this is – I – I’m sorry if this is weird.”

“I mean, it’s a change of pace so that’s neat,” she managed. I could still feel her eyelashed brown eyes on me, her confused chipmunk smile probably still on her face. “But that’s probably enough for today. Do you wanna maybe, like, do this weekly, or…?”

“That’s up to you,” I immediately and flatly replied. “I’m your tutor. We can do this as often or… not often as you wish.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to cut into any plans you have, or like if you wanted to hang out with someone or something.” I remained silent, and she caught my drift. “Oh, come on. I know you said you don’t talk to people much, but there’s no way you don’t hang out with friends occasionally or at least do something.”

“I don’t. Apart from school, my schedule is fully open.”

“Really? You don’t do even, like, a chess club or a book club or kung fu or something?”

After the smile I gave her earlier, that was my second instance of emotion I showed with her. My gaze slowly shot up to her, eyebrows raised yet eyelids lowered, a sarcastic smile on my face. “Kung fu? Really?”

“Ah, shit,” she cursed, dragging a hand down her face, looking guilty. “Sorry, first thing I said. I mean, first thing I could think of. I mean…”

“I get it, I get it,” I soothed her.

“I didn’t mean to get all… I mean, I didn’t…” She put her head in her hands and put both elbows on the table. “…yeah,” she finished.

“I have never taken a martial art class in my life. Nor piano, nor book club or chess club. Oh, and my parents aren’t expecting me to become a doctor.” I added the last part with a chuckle.

She joined in, albeit guiltily. “Yeah, sorry,” she repeated. “So wait, what do you, like… do after school?”

“Go home, do chores, then whatever. Sometimes I draw, I play video games… whatever every other high school student does after school, minus the hanging out part, apparently.”

“I bet minus the homework thing too, unless that’s another stereotype,” she replied humorously, pushing the envelope.

I was still looking at the table, but I let a smile slip. “Some stereotypes have truth to them,” I admitted.

“For someone who couldn’t, like, talk an hour ago, you’re adopting well,” Taylor observed warmly.

“Practice helps,” I admitted. “If I’m going to spend an hour with anyone I’m going to say at least some words by the end of it. This is tutoring for you, not speech therapy for me.”

Taylor thought to herself. “…Wouldn’t speech therapy mean you are going to be better at talking by the end of it?”

“…Huh. Okay, you got me.” I hadn’t noticed it yet, but I was looking at her now, albeit not in the eye. “Either way, you’re easier to talk to than I thought.”

“‘Than you thought?’ What’s that mean?” Taylor challenged me.

My gaze fell back to the table again. “No, c’mon,” Taylor coaxed. “What, am I, like, scary or something?”

I didn’t say anything for a while and could feel my mouth drying up again. After a bit, Taylor cleared my throat. “I won’t be offended. I just want to hear the truth.”

I gave a long sigh. “It’s just… it’s like we live in different worlds. I feel like the way you think and see the world is almost… alien to me. I’ve also been taught for years now that’s we’re in different leagues, and different worlds, and that if I so much as talk to – not just you, anyone popular – it would only be embarrassing or dangerous.”

Taylor laughed. “What, you think I’m gonna get a jock to beat you up or something?” she asked incredulously.

As much effort as it took, I met her eyes with mine and gave her a serious expression in answer. “Wait, like, really? That wasn’t a joke?” she asked in disbelief.

“I told you. Different worlds. And some of my beliefs are found on my own experiences.”

“Jesus fuck. Okay, look, I’m not going to get some jock to beat you up. I’m not this stuck-up little princess, and if you talked to me in class or something I wasn’t just going to see you as, like, some peasant or something. I don’t get why I have to-”

“It’s not you specifically,” I interrupted. “It’s just, that’s the world of where I belong and what I feel like others see me as.”

“So, like, because I’m popular, you’re in a different… section of people?”

“If you like.” I shrugged.

“Alright, well, if we’re being honest, I always thought the nerds saw themselves as superior to me, and were, like, laughing at how they could easily get A’s and I actually had to try. And, hey, a lot of that comes from my own experience too.”

I didn’t consider that, but I wasn’t actually surprised. A good number of the nerds I had hung out with definitely did have that smug reactionary ‘what do the jocks even know’ kind of attitude to them. It was definitely made in retaliation to a lot of bullying, but it still was a prejudice we carried too.

“Sounds like we both need to show each other that we’re not our stereotypes,” I thought out loud.

“Yeah, sounds like we do,” Taylor replied. My perception of social cues still needed, work, because I only clued into something at this point.

“Did I offend you?”

“Kinda,” she answered honestly. “It’s okay, but like… I don’t want to do this every week if you’re just assuming I’m waiting for the, like, perfect moment to hit you or something. It’s not fair.”

“I don’t think you’re going to hit me. I’m just so used to jocks – well, all popular people – being bullies and not liking people like… people like me even associating with them. And I’m sure you know you’re popular.”

“Um… I know people know me, but…”

“Don’t be modest,” I chuckled. “Tell you what, I give you my word that anything you say about your popularity, I’m not going to use it against you and I’m not going to use it to argue you’re inferior or whatever the other nerds did. I just want to hear it from your mouth.”

“Weird way of saying that,” she muttered. “Okay, yes, I’m popular. But that doesn’t mean anything. Anyone can become popular, especially in, like, high school.”

“I think it’s too late for me,” I pointed out.

“You probably also thought it was too late for you to talk to girls, and you’ve been looking into my eyes while we’ve talked for the past, like, minute.”

I tore my eyes away again and she chuckled. “Hey, I don’t mind it. As long as you don’t stare or whatever, you can look at my eyes when you talk all you want, okay?”

Teen brain, activate. When she said that, there was this invisible intimacy to her words and I could feel myself reacting again, which of course, included my erection. I ended up not responding beyond a nervous chuckle.

“So, should we get out of here?” Taylor asked after a bit.

“Um, uh, gimme a bit,” I stammered, grabbing the textbook and pretending to look over it, attempting to wish my erection away. “There’s just one thing I gotta check, and then we can go.”

“Okay,” she replied. I looked over the book for a few more seconds before she spoke up again. “Did you think I was going to be embarrassed to be seen with you?”

I looked up and didn’t answer. She took my silence as one. “Because I’m not,” she continued. “And even if you don’t believe that for my sake, you should believe it for yours.”

***

I never watched porn before senior year. I knew what naked people looked like, so seeing it for the first time wasn’t this huge shock to my system, but I thought there was this disgrace to watching it. Something inside of me had told me, “Do you want to be the type of person that watches porn?”

But something about what Taylor said to me yesterday really resonated in me. That thing about the nerds thinking they’re superior to jocks and popular kids. I always thought of it as a one-way system, but in my mind, where I’d never have to say out loud that I was wrong, I knew that in some way, she was telling the truth. There were a lot of things about me that I either did or didn’t do out of ceremony, out of this belief that if I did or didn’t do those things, that’s what kept me feeling like, at least in some way, I was better than a jock.

My door was locked, my lights off, headphones in, and several tabs open. At first I thought I could ease my way into it with some kind of online erotica instead of pictures and movies, but that went nowhere – the first story I found took over seven thousand words to even get to a vaguely sexual place, and that wasn’t promising. After a bit, I had found a website hosting videos for free, and clicked on one of them.

One of the first videos I found was of a petit, cute yet busty white girl with an innocent face slowly stripping before the camera. It wasn’t exact, but it was enough to make me think of Taylor. Swallowing my nervousness, I lowered my pants as I watched this cute girl stripping, smiling at the camera.

I had experimented with masturbation before, but nothing really serious with an end goal in mind. Here, it was intentful. As I started moving my hand up and down, I found myself throwing my head back, my eyes closed and my mouth open, really only listening to the video, and picturing Taylor.

Taylor was in front of me, stripping like this girl, her cute chipmunk smile getting bigger as she was preparing to take her bra off. “Hey, I don’t mind,” her voice echoed. “As long as you’re not a creep about it, you can, like, stare at my tits all you want,” she purred.

With that, her bra came off, teasingly slowly. Her tits were a good size, but on her small frame, they looked pretty darn big. Her small nipples crowned each tit perfectly, and as she rubbed her hands up and down those tits, her nipples began responding in kind, growing hard and sensitive.

“I really like rubbing them, is that okay? Can you keep a secret like that, Quinn?” Taylor moaned. “I bet you haven’t seen tits like mine before, do you like them? I really like showing them off to a guy like you.”

She began pinching a nipple with one hand, sliding her other hand down to her panties and rubbing herself over her clothing. “Mmm, you’ve only just barely gotten used to talking to a girl, so I bet you’ve never seen a girl do this before. It’s, like, really hot that I’m corrupting you like this.”

“Are you ready to see my cute little pussy now, Quinn? I really want to show it to you so badly,” she moaned as she took both thumbs and hooked them into her panties, sliding them slowly down as she moved her hips hypnotically. I could start to see her pubic hair emerge above her sinking panty line, and then, slowly, her little slit came into view. “It’s small and tight,” Taylor commented, biting her lip. “And I think I want something inside it right now. Can you think of anything, Quinn?”

Now fully naked, Taylor kept grabbing at her boobs and swaying her hips, occasionally looking a little lower than my eyes and eyeing my cock. “Is that for me, Quinn? Are you doing that for me? It seems like someone likes what he sees.” She slowly started turning around. “But I’m being unfair. You haven’t even seen my ass yet, and I want you to see it, Quinn.” She arched her back as she turned fully around. Her perfect ass was on full display, angled so well that I could see her pussy without her even needing to bend over. “I know you like this ass, Quinn, and I know you want it. Jack off to me. Stroke yourself to this ass. I want you to shoot your load all over it.”

She was looking back over her shoulder at me in a sultry way, and bit her lip sexily as she saw me pick up speed. “Ooh, it seems like someone really likes what he sees. What do you want to touch first, Quinn? My beautiful tits or my round, ready ass? Or maybe you’d like to get to feel your first pussy? So many choices.”

“All of you,” I whisper-growled out loud. “I want all of you.”

Taylor smiled satisfactorily. “That’s what I thought,” she told me. She turned back around, sliding a hand down between her legs again – this time, there were no panties in the way. Giving me a cute puppy-dog expression, she was playing with her pussy right there in front of me, watching what I was doing and breathing heavier and heavier. Over time those breaths turned into whimpers, then small moans, qand pretty soon she was just as invested in me as I was in her.

“Oh Quinn, I want that inside me, so bad,” she whimpered, eyeing my shaft as she slipped a finger inside herself. “Don’t tease me. I want you to take me and let me experience that soon. Don’t make me wait, don’t make me beg for it. Just stick it inside of me. Make me feel what I’ve been missing all this time.” She started quaking on the spot, moving around as she played with herself, her knees buckling. “Oh Quinn…”

Her eyes closed slowly as her breathing quickened. One of her hands rose up to her chest to frantically grab at one of her tits. She fondled her breast as she shuddered and shook, a clear orgasm taking hold over her. “Oh my god…” she moaned out loud, her climax taking over her like a tidal wave. She remained in her bliss for a while, then slowly opened her eyes… and promptly vanished.

My eyes shot open. The video was long over, a blank screen cutting into the darkness. I looked down at myself and cursed myself for not removing my shirt before I started this. Gross. Oh well, I thought to myself. It was, at least… fun? I liked it. I felt a bit guilty and like a creep afterwards, but it was still fun. And hey, apparently almost every boy in high school had been doing this for years, so even if it was depraved, I had years of depravity to catch up on.

***

It turned out the fact that I was unable to talk to Taylor much beforehand was really handy, seeing as the next time I saw her, I found myself unable to speak to her for different reasons. That said, it was clear that something I said during our first study session had affected her too, because on Monday, when data management class started, Taylor got there right before the bell, and one of the first things she did was chipperly say, “Hey, Quinn,” before sitting down.

Maybe I’d heard too many stereotypes or watched too many shitty high school movies, because I expected the class to be abuzz. “Why would she say hello to Quinn of all people, what’s going on between them?” But, it turned out, the class really didn’t give a shit. Hell, the most they were probably thinking was, “Huh, that’s what his name is.” Maybe Taylor was smarter than I thought and was trying to demonstrate exactly how wrong I was about the school’s class divide.

After the lesson was over and the class was given its homework, we still had about half an hour to the class. Mrs. Li called both of us over and asked for an update given the new week, and luckily for me, Taylor did most of the talking. It was framed around what she knew more than what I taught her, which I was cool with – this was for her, after all – and at the end of it Mrs. Li nodded.

“Thank you both for working so hard on this. However, you are still behind, Taylor. Quinn, you two are still two units behind and if she doesn’t know how to calculate a permutation, she’s in danger of falling severely behind.”

Wow, Mrs. Li. Fascinating. After all, it was my sole responsibility to take care of both Taylor and myself, and even if she was improving, if she wasn’t improving fast enough, it was my fault, huh? Neat. “Okay, Mrs. Li. The next time we study, I’ll be sure to get… I’ll be sure to, uh… she’ll know how to do it.”

With that, we were dismissed back to our seats, where I finished up the last of the assigned questions. Halfway through, my phone buzzed in my pocket, making me jump again.

I pulled out my phone to see a text from Taylor. It read, how behind am I? :/

I looked up and saw her still on her phone. I thought to myself and typed out my answer. As Mrs. Li said, you’re two units behind, so we still have a lot of work to do. But I think you can do it.

thx Quinn 🙂 popped up on my phone, and I couldn’t help but smile. Something about it was cute and comforting. I could tell that there was clearly nothing happening between us, and that clearly nothing would, but it had only been one study session and already it felt like I had a bit of a new outlook – not just on the popular kids, on a lot of things. I was excited to see what else was down the road for me, even if my hormones were making things a bit more complicated. Maybe senior year was going to be different after all.

Chapter Two

Taylor sighed in resignation. “Can we go back to factorials?” she asked, her voice strained.

She wasn’t understanding permutations at all. We were hitting a bit of a roadblock – while we hit it off well in our first week, all things considered, there was a factor in our arrangement we hadn’t considered: I may have known the math, but I did not have the communication skills to teach them.

“Well, we have n and we have r, so we just need to take n factorial and divide it by n times r factorial,” I explained, the solution clear to me.

Taylor stared at me. I didn’t look her in the eye but I could feel it. I coughed nervously. “What’s n in this circumstance?” I asked her.

Just staring. “What’s n in a permutation?” I asked, trying to broaden the definition.

Still nothing. “The total. n is the set or population. So in this circumstance n is four, right?”

Taylor nodded. I knew she didn’t get it.

“And it’s asking about the top three in the race, so r, the subset or sample from the set is…” I waited for her. Nope. “…r is what number, Taylor?”

Just silence. “I am spoonfeeding you the answer here,” I boldly complained.

“Don’t be rude, I don’t get it! You’re the tutor, isn’t that your job?” she finally snapped at me.

“There are two numbers I pointed out. One of them is n and one of them is r. I said that n is four, and the only other number is three and the only other variable is r. r is the only other number. So if n is four… r issss…”

“Three?”

“We have liftoff!” I almost shouted. “So, we then plug it into this formula. Good news, now it’s just factorials. So now we do four factorial divided by four minus three factorial, which is one factorial, which is one, so the a-”

“When the fuck am I going to use this stuff after I graduate?!” Taylor complained to herself.

“Why’d you take this class, anyway?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I heard it was, like, the easiest math class, and I heard it really helps for a lot of different jobs.”

It was my turn to shrug. “Okay.”

“I think we can call it here today. I appreciate it, Quinn, I really do, but…” she trailed off. I simply stared at her in response. She looked at me for a few seconds before continuing. “I dunno. Like, it seems like I’m not understanding it, and you’re just getting mad at me.”

“I’m not getting mad, I just don’t know any other way to explain it,” I tried to explain myself.

“That sounds condescending,” Taylor complained.

“Now it sounds like you’re getting mad at me,” I pointed out.

“I’m not – forget it. Let’s just… try again next week, okay?”

“Okay,” I conceded. We gathered our stuff and left the library, getting into her red convertible. Before long, we were on the road.

“So what do you want to do for your job, anyway?” Taylor attempted to make small talk while she drove.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay… do you have an idea? Like, are you going to college or something?”

“I sent out applications to MIT, Peterson and Boston University.”

“Oh, what for?”

“Computer Science.”

“Oh, wow! So you do have an idea what you want to do. I hear that there’s a lot of, like, money involved in that.”

“I guess.”

Those were the last words we exchanged before we arrived at my place. Taylor thanked me for my time and quickly headed off.

***

Hey Quin. this is morgan, taylor’s friend. could we meet for a sec afterschool today? I just need to talk real quick

I stared at my phone in confusion. How in the hell did Morgan even get my number…? What was this about?

Kevin lazily craned his head so he could look at my phone, still eating his roujiamo. I caught him staring and just asked, “What does this mean?”

“I’m no expert, but I think she wants to talk to you after school.”

“Yeah, but what about?”

Kevin shrugged. “Either you’re doing something really right or something really wrong,” he said with his mouth full. “But hey, Morgan, huh? Nice.”

“What?”

Kevin rolled his eyes and made a motion with his chest. “Morgan, dude,” he replied, as if he had made his point fully.

I rolled my eyes in turn. “Okay.”

“I’m serious, she’s known around the school for it,” he insisted. “Hold on.” He waved across the cafeteria to some girl. “Hey, Robyn!”

Robyn was a girl Kevin knew. They’d been hanging out a bit, though Kevin insisted they weren’t a thing. She had kind of a reputation around school for being a bit of a stuck-up brat, but she seemed to have good chemistry with Kevin. With a confused expression, she approached us.

“So,” Kevin began, “got a weird question for you. What’s like the one thing you’d say about Morgan that stands out?”

“Morgan Jones, from chem?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, her. And like, not just to you. What’s she, uh… known around the school for?”

“Why?” Robyn was as uncomfortable as I was.

“I’m trying to prove a point to Quinn here.”

Robyn turned her face to me and smiled politely to say hi. I didn’t really say anything, but that was the norm for me. “Um…” she began. “Well, she’s a nice person-”

“Nah nah nah, that’s just filler stuff. What do, like, people around the locker rooms say about her?”

Robyn sighed in disappointment. “Yeah, okay, her breasts are large. Was that what you called me over to say?”

Kevin smiled triumphantly towards me. I could feel myself blushing.

“Why do you want to know?” Robyn asked.

“Hmm? Oh, Quinn’s got some kind of meeting with her,” Kevin replied disinterestedly.

Robyn’s gaze fixated on me for… whatever reason. “What are you meeting with her about?”

“I don’t know. She was the one that asked me to meet with her,” I replied, eyeing the table and not Robyn.

I could still see shock paint her face. Was it really so unbelievable that popular girls were talking to me?! This was getting ridiculous.

I don’t know, in hindsight, why that was the tipping point for me. Maybe it was because Robyn was so very shocked at me getting to talk to Morgan. Maybe it was the realization that this would be the rest of my life if I didn’t do something, and here was an opportunity. Before I knew it, I found myself standing up and leaving.

My feet brought me to one of the two Popular Tables in the cafeteria. One was reserved for the jock-types, but the other was reserved for the other popular people. The two groups kind of mingled with each other, but their lunch seat situation was very precise. When I got there, everyone there figured I was just walking past or something, so I cleared my throat to get Morgan’s attention.

“Hey, Morgan,” I found myself attempting to say casually.

The table quieted down and most of the people there stopped to look at me. The last person to notice me was Morgan, and she was taken aback. “Uh, yes?”

“You asked to speak to me,” I replied, daring to look her in the eye.

“I asked if we could talk after school about someone, yeah,” she replied. My guess was that she was trying to clarify to the others about her reasoning, as if to save face for daring to talk to a nerd.

“I’m busy after school,” I lied coolly. “Chess club or kung fu or something like that. You don’t seem busy now.”

Morgan’s look of bewilderment lasted only a second. “Okay,” she eventually admitted uneasily, then stood up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she clarified to a friend before walking off.

Wordlessly, she walked and I followed until we were out the doors of the back entrance to the school, near the parking lot. “So what’s this about?” I asked as her walking slowed.

“So, I was just wondering if everything was all good between you and Taylor.”

“How do you mean?”

“She was just telling me about the lessons and she mentioned how you wouldn’t speak to her much unless it was involving math.”

I digested what she said. “…I’m her math tutor. I’m going to talk to her about math.”

“Right but when she tried to make small talk with you, you barely spoke to her, and you wouldn’t look her in the eyes.”

“That sounds like me,” I admitted, “but that’s just how I… communicate with people.”

“You seem to be okay speaking in full sentences and looking me in the eye,” Morgan protested.

I knew in my mind why that was, but I also knew Morgan wouldn’t buy ‘I’m feeling more confident right now.’ I only shrugged.

“Look, Quinn, it doesn’t feel good when someone treats you like you’re nobody, even if you’re not there to be her friend.”

I had to laugh. “Since when did popular kids like you care about treating people like they’re nobody? Do you really think you need to tell the nerd that being ignored sucks?”

“When did I ever personally ignore you or shun you or something?” Morgan challenged me, her green eyes staring holes into mine. “When did Taylor ever do that? It just seems like you have a chip on your shoulder.”

“When we first met you didn’t even acknowledge my existence until we were at Taylor’s car.” I could feel my face getting hot.

“…So you’re not talking to Taylor because I took a bit too long to say hi?” Morgan concluded.

I shut my eyes and shook my head. “No, like… I’m just saying, it’s something I’m used to.”

“Clearly not.”

“I just mean, I’m used to people ignoring me and I learned to ignore them.”

“But that’s not fair to Taylor. She hasn’t been mean to you.”

I shot Morgan a tired look. “Does she want to be my friend? Be honest.”

“She wants to at least be friendly with you. What would it cost you to be friendly back?” she asked me. “You seem to only talk a lot when you’re defending yourself.”

I sighed and looked down in thought.

***

“and they knew that if I ever got poor grades, that was more reflective of my dumb ‘whitey’ teachers… their words, not mine, than of my own skill. But at the same time, after they set the standard for me, I could never go home empty-handed, or else…” I trailed off.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Taylor nodded along. It had been maybe thirty minutes since we arrived, and the textbook hadn’t been opened once. “My parents are… kind of strict? Like, they let me live my life, but they keep nudging me along to do certain things. Get a job, attent this family gathering, do this thing…”

“What do you want to do after high school, anyway?” I asked, folding my arms.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest. Probably something where I, like, use my voice. I can’t picture myself doing a desk job.”

“What, you mean like singing?”

She laughed. “Oh, God no. I meant something like a salesperson or something. I can talk my way out of, or into, a lot of things. I guess that’s like, my most marketable skill? If I can even call it that.” She looked to me for approval.

I shrugged. “I’m just your math guy, I’m not a dictionary too,” I pointed out. She chuckled. “I think I get what you mean.”

“I appreciate that you’re talking to me more,” she said, shifting the topic suddenly. “Not gonna lie, I thought you were pissed off at me that I didn’t get it or something last week.”

“No, I’m not. Communication isn’t exactly my most marketable skill,” I finished with a slight nervous chuckle.

“Yeah… what changed?”

“Huh?”

“It’s not just that you’re talking more. You, like, also sit up straight and aren’t avoiding eye contact anymore,” she observed.

“I… honestly don’t know.” I started slowly, looking at the ground in thought. “I think I just had… an epiphany.”

“What’s that?”

“Like, a breakthrough, a sort of ‘eureka!’ moment. I just…” I just got really insulted when Robyn was in disbelief that Morgan and I were meeting up, and then Morgan was a jerk about – okay, fine, Morgan raised a reasonable point. But for some reason, saying any of that seemed like a bad idea. I shrugged.

“Did meeting up with Morgan help?” Taylor asked, as if we were sharing a joke.

I smiled uneasily. “Ah, so she told you about that?”

She winked at me. “She had to get your number somehow!”

“And you just gave it to her?”

She paused. “Well… yeah, is that okay?”

I opened my mouth to protest, but quickly shut it thinking of what we discussed and what would have happened otherwise. “I just… feel bad… for the fact that… my wording… or I guess my lack thereof… made you feel like I didn’t like you,” I slowly said, making sure my word choice was deliberate.

“Like me?” Taylor asked.

Well, that was a bit of a misfire. “Um, you know, I didn’t want you to think I dislike you.”

Taylor smiled and shook her head. “You’re weird,” she said in a kind tone.

“Anyway, why’d she ask for my number anyway?”

Taylor gave me a sheepish look. “Well, I kinda told her that… I thought you disliked me, yeah,” she admitted.

“I think we both still need to adjust to each other’s worlds a bit,” I thought aloud. “And I guess me talking more like this is my way to try to meet you halfway.”

She smiled at me. “I appreciate that, Quinn,” she told me. “And how can I meet you halfway?”

“I don’t know, I don’t really have a guide or anything. I guess, uh, be honest but be yourself?” I suggested half-heartedly.

She smiled again. “Okay. I’ll try that. Should we start?”

She was initiating. This was a good sign. “Sure.”

***

It was entirely possible that I was more comfortable talking and stuff because I was masturbating more. As weird as it was, I realized that that moment I snapped internally was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, and that the moment had been building in me for a bit. Was it because I was getting more practice talking to Taylor? Was it because I was jacking off thinking of her? I didn’t know.

I was glad that jacking off to thoughts of Taylor didn’t make me creepier around her, at least not in any way I could see. I was still hard a lot of the time I was looking at her, but at least I was able to contain it and not freak out about it now.

But when I got home…

“Oh Quinn,” the imaginary Taylor would moan. “Fuck studying. You wanna know what’s been on my mind all day? When you’re going to finally take me right here on this table.” As she said this, she would pinch one of her small brown nipples, emitting a slight gasp in pleasure as she made her sensitive nipple hard.

She would be bold, she’d make the first move. I’d lay there, dumbfounded, as she would strut over to me and fish my cock out of my pants, sinking to her knees and giving the shaft a generous lick.

“Oh Quinn, you naughty boy, how long have you been trying to keep this away from me?” she would purr. I could only groan in response.

A giggle. “You’re always so tongue-tied, Quinn,” she’d laugh. “Something on your mind?” With that, she’d pop my cock into her mouth and start sucking, moaning on my dick as she took the whole thing like a pro.

Taylor was right about one thing – she could use her mouth in practically any situation. She knew exactly how to use her tongue to make a guy see stars and moan up to the heavens. Every muscle in her mouth would contract in just the right ways and her eagerness – her slutty, slutty eagerness – was the cherry on top. She wanted this. She wanted me. Quinn Shen, the nerdy nobody, was her little pet, her little project.

But now the pet was owning her. Before I knew it, in my fantasy, I was pinning her by her wrists to the wall as I roughly shoved myself inside her.

“Oh fuck, Quinn!” she’d practically cry. “Fuck, it just feels so good. I’m yours, take me, please take me!”

And I would gladly oblige. Just as she was helping me with how to talk to people, she was helping me with how to fuck, offering up her body – the body every straight guy at school fawned over – to the nerd. It was our little secret. Our… dirty little secret.

While fucking her, I’d receive a text.

Hey Quin. i don’t know if this is a good idea. This is really disrespectful to her, don’t you think?

I stopped masturbating and my eyes shot open.

That was… really weird. I immediately grabbed my phone. No new messages. Was Morgan just inside my head now? Or was this just me trying to tell myself to stop fantasizing about someone I was tutoring? I knew it was wrong for teachers to fuck their students – obviously – but was it just as irresponsible to fantasize about it if it was peer tutoring?

Without thinking about it too much, I picked up my phone again and began to text Morgan.

Hello, Morgan. I talked to Taylor and I think we’re more on the same page now. I’m sorry I kept arguing back to you when we had our little meeting.

It was awkward as fuck, but hey, so was I. Send. A few minutes later, her response appeared.

Ok, thanks quin

Quinn. It wasn’t that hard. Speaking of, I pulled my pants back up, moment thoroughly ruined, and began to worry if I was some horny creep. I get the text was just in my imagination, but still, I couldn’t just bring sex into the situation appropot of nothing.

***

“I have just been going crazy lately. Three months! I have gone three months without getting fucked. I need to find some dick soon or I’m gonna fucking explode!”

I couldn’t stop my jaw from hanging as Taylor complained to Morgan on the drive to her place. Morgan shot a quick glance to my expression, and turned back to Taylor. “Um, yeah,” she mumbled.

“What? Weren’t you complaining about this yesterday too?” Taylor asked, her voice bubbly like I’d never heard. “Oh wait, did you fix it? Ugh, you didn’t just go back to Arin, did you? I told you he sucks. Great dick, but he is not worth it.”

Morgan shot another look back to me. My expression hadn’t changed. “Um, Taylor, we’re not the only ones in the car,” Morgan uncomfortably replied.

“Oh, what? It’s not like Quinn’s never heard of sex before. Hey, Quinn, you’re okay if we talk about whatever, right?” she asked me.

My mouth felt like cotton. “I, uh… I mean, talk about w-whatever you want.”

“See? Quinn’s cool if I act like myself here.”

Was that why she was saying this? Was this to set the tone for how she acted or something? If nothing else, it suddenly became a bit clearer why she was so very popular. Morgan insisted that the conversation be postponed and they complained about some teacher until Morgan was dropped off. The rest of the ride to the library was relatively silent.

Was this a sign? Should I move in? It was clear by the way she was talking that A, Taylor got to pick whatever dick – uh, guy – she wanted. B, she was not saying it to hint anything at me. If anything, she did the trademark “he doesn’t exist” shtick on me being in the car, only she somehow still managed to acknowledge me too. Impressive.

As we got to our regular table and sat down, my mind was ablaze with ideas. Should I ask her about it? Should I play it cool, or maybe be bold enough to ask if she needed help? Should I pretend I actually knew a lot about sex and subvert her expectations, or should I admit I was a virgin but was interested as fuck?

“Okay, so, permutations,” Taylor began.

“Huh? Oh, right.” I snapped to attention. “Yeah, permutations.”

Taylor stared at me for a few seconds. “You okay?” Her chipmunk face was twisted into a smile of concern.

“Uh, long day,” I lamely replied. “Lots on my mind.”

“Ugh, you’re telling me,” Taylor complained. “I’ve got so many things stressing me out I feel like I’m gonna explode.”

“Yeah, I gathered that from you talking to Morgan in the car earlier,” I admitted.

“Right, yeah. It’s not that Mrs. Jackson is a bitch, she just doesn’t get me,” Taylor began to complain.

Yeah, Taylor. I was talking about the teacher thing. We really did live in different worlds. Taylor’s world had her having sex… apparently, usually more frequently than once every three months. Hey, she was beating me by a lot. And it was so casual to her, such an everyday thing, that she didn’t even care about bringing it up in front of me, and thinking so little of it that when I reminded her after, she thought I was talking about something else.

I wanted, really badly, to be the cool guy and bring up sex bluntly to her. “Hey, Taylor? It sure sounds like you’re in a bind. Well hey, tell you what. How about after this lesson, you teach me how to have sex? You get some dick, I get to fuck someone before I leave high school. Win-win. Whaddya say?”

I wanted to say that instead of dumbly sitting here like a bag of bricks listening to her complain about her English teacher. Then again, ‘in a bind?’ Maybe it was all the better that I wasn’t opening my mouth.

“But hey, that’s English,” she finished. “Anyway, what’s on for today?”

“Right.” I sat up straight and looked over the textbook. “So, uh, you’re getting permutations, so let’s move on to combinations. It’s kind of like permutations, but not ordered. So, kind of like, if I wanted to choose two colors from a set of six colors, how many different combinations of two colors could I pick? Make sense?”

Taylor nodded. “You’re getting better at this.”

“What, the math? I’d hope so, it’s what I’m here to teach.”

Taylor smirked and shook her head. “At the talking part of teaching. I’m getting this stuff quicker.”

I shrugged. “Well hey, I bet that’s because you’re getting more of this stuff too. We’re both getting better.”

Her smile got bigger. “I guess so,” she replied cheerfully. I was rock hard. This wasn’t ideal.

***

“Son of a bitch!” Kevin complained as Father Gascoigne killed his character for the fourth time in a row. “This sucks.”

“You’re still playing it like Dark Souls,” I pointed out.

Kevin glared at me. “It’s a Souls game, you fuckin’ poop.”

“It’s different though. It’s faster. You have to change your gameplay style to keep up with it,” I argued.

Kevin sighed and shook his head. “This sucks,” he repeated, eyes glued to the screen.

I shrugged. “If the game is faster, you have to be faster too.”

“Quinn!” Mother called from the kitchen. “In the kitchen, right now.”

Kevin and I shot each other a look as I got up from the couch and headed towards the kitchen. Mother was there, preparing supper.

“I’m here, Mother,” I called to her as I approached.

She turned around to face me and motioned to the trash can. “I tell you to take out the garbage this morning. The garbage is still here. Can you tell me why the garbage is still here?”

“I’m sorry, Mother. I forgot,” I mumbled as I extended my arm towards the garbage.

“I do not ask for much,” Mother continued, swatting my arm away so that I would look at her when she was talking to me. “I give you too much free time. You do not have a job, you do not have clubs or social activity. You do not have a girlfriend, you just have video games.”

“I was doing homework, Mother. Kevin was playing video ga-”

“Fei hua!” Mother cut in angrily. “I am giving you too much free time and you are wasting it. Tonight after homework you will create a résumé and tomorrow you will apply for three jobs. Do you understand?”

Mandarin. She was serious. “Yes, Mother. I understand.” I took the garbage bag and left the apartment, taking it to the chute. Sighing to myself, I threw the garbage down, listening to the bang-rattle-clang of the garbage making its way down.

After the sound died down, I heard voices down the hallway. Out of curiosity, I turned to see a couple talking, a man and a woman. The woman was noticeably way more attractive than the man. I wasn’t the best judge on the planet, but the guy frankly looked… well, ugly. The woman, on the other hand, looked noticeably beautiful, both in terms of her looks and how she dressed. And judging from the body language, his looks didn’t bother her one bit.

In fact, he was kind of leaning in to invade her personal space. “So what do you think, maybe sometime next week?” he asked her suavely, then leaned in a little more. “Of course, if you decide you’re not done seeing me now…” he trailed off suggestively.

The woman laughed encouragingly. “You are such a boy,” she teased. “What are you offering?”

She was clearly into him. He had nothing going for him in the looks department, but he just… pressed on. I wish I had that level of confidence. Hell, the advancement I made just recently was already a leap, but if I had this guy’s moxie, even with my looks I would have made out alright. He leaned in to respond before noticing me, leaning back and changing his posture. “…Can I help you?”

Too embarrassed to even talk, I just turned and walked away before the woman even had a chance to get a look at me. Red-faced, I walked back to the apartment and reflected.

As weird as it sounded, it was one of those things I knew but never felt before. “You don’t need good looks to get the girl.” Or guy, or whoever. I mean, what was the guy doing if not just talking to her? Sure, maybe he had money or something, but it’s not like I knew. Besides, I just saw an ugly guy getting a hot girl – I was not about to try to explain it away using some reason I didn’t know.

I got back to my room just in time to see Kevin die again. He slammed his controller in his lap in annoyance and turned to face me. “Was Mother pissed?” he asked.

I shrugged and nodded. “She wants me to get a job. She’s probably gonna ask you too soon, fair warning.”

“I got extracurrs, I ain’t worried.”

“Do you think I’m ugly?”

Kevin paused. “That was… blatant. No, I think you look okay, why do you ask?”

“I dunno, just was thinking about it. It’s cool if I am, I just wanna know.”

“Quinn, you look fine. You just need to… get out there a little more, that’s all. Talk to people. You’re tutoring Taylor, maybe use that as an in.”

“Yeah. ‘Here’s how a combination is calculated. Hey Taylor, can I come to the next party you go to?’”

“You joke, but that could work.” He put down the controller. “You do realize the implication of asking your twin if you’re ugly, right?”

“You’re more popular than me, and it’s pretty clear you look slightly better than me.”

Kevin grinned in a challenging fashion. “Oh, so I’m slightly better than allegedly ugly, huh?” He laughed at me. “Dude, just relax. If I look good, and I can get girls, then those are the control variables. What’s the independent variable here?”

I sighed. “How much I put myself out socially?”

“Bingo! Hypothesis: can Quinn get pussy? Method: get a dumb hot girl in your class and become her tutor. Conclusion: not for the first month he can’t.”

“Taylor isn’t fucking dumb.”

I had no idea where that came from. I didn’t often swear at my brother like that. Hell, he was the only one I ever really talked to. I wasn’t even sure if I believed she wasn’t dumb myself, but for some reason, when Kevin said it, the words spilled out of me in a white-hot rage.

Kevin looked at me incredulously. “Woah,” he mumbled in disappointment to me before going back to his game. He didn’t look me in the eye for the rest of the night.

***

Taylor was enough of a social butterfly that she could fit into any social group she wanted to talk to, but usually, she had her own little circle of friends. It wasn’t like the movies, where they always walked in the halls together or couldn’t be part of other circles or they were the most popular group (as if groups even worked that black-and-white), so it was hard to discern what her circle was from the outside, but after tagging along with her for a bit, it became decently clear.

Taylor, of course, was the ringleader, but some kind of accidental ringleader. She wasn’t one of those stuck-up ‘I rule the school’ types, she just happened to get the most attention. A cynic might have said she wasn’t smart enough to capitalize on her fame – honestly, the more time I spent with her the more it became clear that power and influence wasn’t really what she wanted.

Crystal was that type though. It was kind of obvious from the outside that Crystal only really hung out with that gang because of how much influence it had. Crystal was a brunette with a thin, wiry body and the weirdest combination of a ‘resting bitch face’ and complete innocence to her look. She had an attitude that most dismissed as bratty, but with my guess, that was her constantly trying to push the envelope and see if she could upset the power imbalance and finally claim the status of ringleader for herself. Only problem was, she was extremely clumsy at it and anytime she got close, something she said or some rumor or some, ahem, thing she did after school would blow up in her face.

It was pretty clear why Taylor was closer to Morgan than anyone else. As if my meeting with her didn’t already clue me in, Morgan was very protective of her friends and noticeably distrustful of others. I thought that would explain why she talked to me the way she did, but from the way she talked to outsiders from her group, she actually talked to me with less disdain than anyone else. I wasn’t sure if her having a noticeably huge chest and the fact she hated outsiders, especially guys, was related, but I was reasonably sure that was the case.

Lexi was Crystal’s best friend and seemed to not quite have her social status figured out but she seemed to be down for the ride. The shortest in the group by a decent amount, she practically had to jump to be noticed by them. I would say ‘she made up for it with her bubbly and sarcastic personality,’ but honestly, if that personality wasn’t being ignored by the group, then it seemed to work against Lexi. My inner cynic would have told me her personality was too strong for her to be popular, and maybe the girls had yet to realize it.

The final person in the group was Milo. When he arrived at the school his name wasn’t Milo and to be honest I was surprised as hell, knowing what I knew about the popular kids, that the trans friend wasn’t immediately ostracized from the group. I guess their years of friendship won out. He was probably another good reason why Morgan was so very with-us-or-against-us. Me, I didn’t really have an opinion about him. When he transitioned he was the top name on everyone’s lips for like a week, until some lovestruck wannabe gangster kid broke a window to impress his ex or something and got arrested. Conveniently, everyone forgot about Milo, and despite the group he was in, that seemed to suit him just fine.

When GameStop took me in as their latest employee, the first shift they gave me was on Thursday. I was too shy to ask for a reschedule of my first shift and admitted to Taylor that I couldn’t make it. Taylor was surprisingly pragmatic and immediately suggested I meet her at her lunch table instead, which is what we did. Morgan, Crystal, Lexi and Milo did the usual popular friend group thing where they smiled politely at me but didn’t say a single word, and Taylor and I got right to work.

We got nothing done. The cafeteria was noisy, the attempt to eat and learn at the same time was a disaster, and while Taylor had a pragmatic attitude, if any of her friends was around at any time (which, during a group lunch, go figure, they were) she would get distracted immediately. She could basically only give me ten seconds at a time, then talk to a friend because she heard something that set her off, then turn back to me with a telltale, “Okay, sorry, what?” Then I’d have to re-explain. Rinse and repeat.

After the first one went nowhere, given a test was coming up soon, we agreed to meet at lunch the following day. The group of friends, notably Crystal, were getting a bit annoyed that I was becoming such a regular at their table, but when Taylor gave them the sad eyes routine, they waved it off.

Taylor was even less focused this time than before. I tried really hard not to eavesdrop, but it became abundantly clear why she wasn’t paying attention – the group was having a bit of a crisis.

“What am I supposed to do?!” Crystal asked in desperation. “I can’t walk down the hallways anymore. Fuck. Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed.”

“So what?” Milo asked. “Boys get excited about nudes all the time. People are gonna call you slut for a few days, but fuck them. They don’t know you. Okay? They don’t know you.”

“So you break up with Mitchell and he instantly sends your nudes around?” Morgan asked incredulously.

“Fucking pig,” Crystal agreed.

“Oh my god!” Taylor was into this conversation now. “Do you know how far they got? How many boys?”

“I think it’s safe to say the gifted kids aren’t seeing my titties anytime soon,” Crystal joked, then immediately cringed and looked at me. “Uh, no offense.”

I shot a stealthy look at Morgan, but pretended like I was barely noticing the conversation. I shrugged meekly.

“Anyway, like, a lot. I have boys that don’t even know me catcalling me and shit.”

“Well, it’s annoying, but it’s not like it’s the end of the world, right?” Lexi jumped in.

“No, guys, you don’t understand!” She leaned in, as did the rest of the group. I think they were trying to make sure even I didn’t hear what she whispered next, but I did. “They’re the ones I sent him when I was fifteen.”

“Three years ago?!” Lexi asked, surprised. “If I wanted to show you off revenge-porn style, like, your pictures have only gotten better since. The fuck is he getting by-”

“Not funny.” Morgan interrupted. She turned to Crystal. “Do any of your teachers know?”

“Oh my God, I’m gonna be fucking expelled,” Crystal realized with horror painting her face.

“I thought Mitchell was better than that,” Lexi carried on. “I could see like Jake doing that, but not Mitchell.”

“Oh my god, fucking Jake,” Taylor interjected. “Like, he’s such an asshole, but…”

“I totally would,” Lexi agreed, reading her mind.

“Would? I did!” Taylor giggled.

“What?!” Lexi blurted out. “Betrayal! When? How was he?!”

“Hello? Guys? I thought you were my friends!! Who cares about fucking Jake at a time like this?!” Crystal angrily spat out.

“He kissed me, but he said he was ‘holding out for someone he loves.’ I thought he was a softie,” Lexi complained.

“Yeah, he didn’t say that to me, you clearly did something wrong,” Taylor told her.

“Hey!” Morgan sharply interrupted.

“Oh what?” Lexi asked, annoyed. “If you didn’t want to get busted like this, why’d you even send him nudes? You knew the risks!”

“That’s not fair.”

My voice. That was my voice. All five of the friends turned to me as I felt my face redden. A took a deep breath and repeated, “That’s not fair.”

“Not fair?” Lexi challenged me.

“Crystal was, uh, sending her – someone she loved, nudes. Consenting…ly. She was giving him permission to, you know, see her body. So when, uh, Mitchell sent her nudes to other people, as an act of revenge, knowing she’s underage in them, he’s the one that broke that trust and got other people to see them, not her.”

Lexi was unmoved. “Um, sending nudes of yourself when you’re underage is a crime, boy. If she didn’t send them in the first place she’d be fine.”

My tone was weak but I held fast. “Have you ever sent nudes before?”

Lexi gave a single laugh condescendingly. “I’m sorry, have you?”

“No, you got me. I’m a virgin. Nice job. Never kissed a girl, never had sex, never got sent a nude, never sent a nude myself. but if I did, I’d be feeling really hurt if someone betrayed me by sending them to other people as soon as I wasn’t in a relationship with them. And I’d be feeling even more hurt if I confided this in my own friends and the first thing they did was blame me. Even if Crystal might have broken the law, distributing this pornography is also illegal, right? Is Mitchell still in this school right now? So they both have broken the law. One sounds like an asshole and one is your friend. Why are you making her feel bad for breaking the law because she trusted someone, when someone else broke the law specifically to hurt your friend?”

No one said anything for a bit. “He – yeah!” Crystal finally shouted, gesturing towards me and staring daggers at Lexi.

“I don’t think talking to Mitchell would solve anything,” Morgan grimly added, eyeing the floor.

Milo turned to me. “That was really sweet, Quinn,” he told me, a soft smile on his face. “It’s nice to see men standing up for her.”

“We need more male voices like yours,” Morgan agreed, and raked her face with her fingers. “God, I wish men weren’t such assholes.”

Taylor was smiling at me. She waited until the others had moved on and turned to me. “That was a cool thing you did,” she said.

“I don’t think Lexi is going to like me much now,” I mumbled.

Taylor rolled her eyes and laughed. “You clearly don’t know Lexi. By tomorrow she’ll have completely forgotten everything you just said.”

“Which means she’s just going to keep believing Crystal was at fault for trusting her boyfriend,” I mused.

Taylor gave me a look, a look I couldn’t quite identify. It didn’t look happy, nor sad, nor neutral. Just… something. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “Do you think we have enough time to study?”

I glanced up at the cafeteria clock. “Honestly, no,” I admitted. “Plus, it sounds like your friend is hurting.”

Taylor gave me a sad chuckle. She didn’t speak for the longest time. “Quinn…” she started.

“Yeah?”

She gave a great big pause. “You’re, uh… you’re cool. I’m sorry about that thing Crystal said today.”

I shrugged. “It’s not like she was wrong. But for the record, I wouldn’t want to see that nude of her anyway. I mean…” My face scrunched up. “I don’t mean that as if she doesn’t look nice, I just mean… I’d only want to see her body… on her terms… if we were like that.”

“Yeah,” Taylor quietly agreed.

“I should go. I hope you all resolve this soon,” I told her as I stood up and put my book back in my bag. She smiled politely then turned back to her friend group. They were still in a huddle as I walked out of the cafeteria.

I can probably just finish my lunch in the study hall or something, I reasoned to myself as I kept walking. On the way, I saw some guys outside the gym. They were huddled around one guy, showing off something on his phone. They were hooting and hollering and offering him fist bumps as they gawked over whatever the phone was showing.

Somehow I didn’t need to think hard to know what was on those phones. She was worried she might get expelled. He was getting fist bumps.

***

GameStop was alright. It was a job. Stand and work the cash register. Answer questions. Make sure people don’t steal stuff. Know where the game CDs are. The hours simultaneously lasted forever and went by way too quickly. Thoughtfully, they decided to put my first shift alongside the one guy in the universe who was shier and talked less than I did. Either that or I really was getting better at this whole socialization thing.

I came home to an awaiting smiling Mother and a small basket of sweet nian gao. “Well done on completing your first shift, my son.” Mother said to me. “I am very proud.” She picked up the basket and offered it to me.

“Hey, wow! Thank you,” I said bashfully. I loved red bean snacks, not to mention I started associating them with accomplishments (or the New Year).

“How was it?” she asked.

I shrugged. “It’s a job,” I laughed. “I don’t think I’ll be working much at GameStop after I graduate. Where’s Kevin?”

“He is out, also giving résumés to stores,” Mother explained, getting a broom and absentmindedly sweeping the floor.

I smirked to myself. So, the extracurriculars didn’t save him after all. Mother and I made small talk about the future for a bit longer before I dismissed myself to my room. Normally I would have booted up my PS4, but after working all day, at a games store no less, I just flopped down on my bed and lay there. No sleep, no games, just a dead tired Quinn.

After a few minutes, my phone started to buzz. I lazily lifted my head to look at my phone and saw Taylor’s name on my phone. She was calling me. Weird.

I hit the “talk” button and put my phone to my ear. I didn’t say anything. After a few seconds of silence, a hesitant, “…Quinn?” met my ears.

Oh, right. “Hello, Taylor. How can I help you?”

“Hey. So, I’m like, freaking out. The test is tomorrow, right?”

“I believe so. For Data Management, right?”

“Yeah. But, like, I still don’t know how to do combinations, and Mrs. Li wouldn’t give me an extension! What do I do?”

I sighed exasperatedly. I would have helped her out today, but I had the shift. “Um, we could try tomorrow at lunch…”

“We both know that’s not gonna work,” she complained.

“Well, I don’t know any other options,” I replied plainly. “I have a full class schedule tomorrow. My only free time is lunch.”

She was silent for a few seconds. “Could you… could I pick you up and we study at my place? Just until I get it, then you can go home.”

I glanced at my alarm clock. “Taylor, it’s like, eight o’clock at night.”

“I know, I know, but like – look, I’ll pay you, okay? I can drive, and I’ll pay. I just really need to pass this test. Please, Quinn? Please?”

I put the phone down to my chest and sighed to the ceiling. “Give me a sec,” I said back into the phone, then set it to mute and walked back to the kitchen.

“Mother, is it okay if I go out for a few hours?” I asked, bracing myself?

“A few hours? It is PM eight o’clock! Where would you go at PM eight o’clock?”

“Taylor Wise needs me to help with her math.”

“A girl?! Quinn!” Mother laughed. “First a job, now a girl! Wā!”

“It’s not a girlfriend, Mother. She’s the classmate I’m tutoring. We have a test tomorrow and she feels underprepared. She’ll drive me.”

Mother looked unconvinced. Now was the time to hit her with the big one. “She’s offering to pay me.”

Mother gave me a look. “Be home and in bed by eleven, do you understand?” she finally told me.

I agreed and went back to my room, hitting unmute. “Hey, Taylor, you still there?”

After a second or two, her voice greeted me. “Yes. Can you do it?”

I wasn’t thrilled about it, especially considering I was getting money now anyway, but frankly, at this point a part of me felt sorry for her. I just couldn’t articulate how. Maybe this was how she won over Mrs. Li and it was just a slower burn on me.

***

When we got to Taylor’s place, we almost immediately went to her basement. She lived in, go figure, some sort of ridiculously posh and nice suburban house. The first floor had a foyer, a staircase that went up, and a door that went down, as well as arches into the kitchen and living room. The living room had several couches and a big television. The kitchen was done up with black countertops and white floors. Her mom was in that kitchen, waving politely to us as we descended the stairs.

Her basement was also kind of typical for a suburban house – white shag carpeting, plain white walls, some furniture but mostly just unorganized stuff like magazines on the floor.

“Okay,” Taylor said, sitting down on the floor. “So, we just need combinations, right?”

“The test covers factorials, permutations, and combinations. I’m gonna make sure you know the first two as well, since I don’t think Li is going to give us any formulas.” I opened the book, trying to find the section on combinations. “So what does a factorial look like and how do you calculate it?”

“That’s like… a number with an exclamation mark after it, and… you calculate it by multiplying it by every number below it.”

“Good, okay. What’s a permutation?”

“Um…” She struggled a bit more with this one. “Like… a combination but…” She sighed. “I um… I forget. Could we go over it quickly?”

There was a lot of work ahead of us.

***

“So the answer is…” I trailed off.

Taylor sat unmoved for a bit. She wrote a few things down, filling in n and r, and did a bit of math in her head. Finally, she sat up. “Fifteen?”

I grinned. “Yes! You got it!”

“Really? Oh my god!” She seemed to be as ecstatic as I was.

Just to make sure the work was done, I covered up the formula. “Now, just rewrite the formula for combinations and I think we’re done here.”

Taylor’s expression went from joyous to fearful. “…The formula?”

“Just do your best,” I coaxed her. Remember all the n’s and r’s? Just try to recreate it.”

It took her two tries. After the first one, I nudged her in the right direction, and after she rewrote it, I grinned and took my hand off of the formula. Taylor went right back to joyful, standing up and cheering.

“Oh my god! Oh my god! We did it! Can I, like, hug you?”

Um…” I stood up awkwardly. “I mean, sure, if you want.” Taylor held her arms out and approached me, giggling as she gave me a friendly hug. I pulled my pelvis back for shameful reasons.

“You saved me. Thank you sooo much!” She pulled back from the hug, still beaming at me. “You’re a really nice guy. I can’t believe you’ve never even kissed a girl. I hope that changes for you soon.”

I gave a sheepish laugh. “You remembered that, huh?”

She chuckled. “Yeah.”

“By the way, how is Crystal doing? Is she going to be okay? I can’t imagine what she must be feeling.”

“I think she’s going to be alright,” Taylor admitted. “One of our friends talked to the school counselor about it and she told us the school knows what we’re up to and that there’s a kind of don’t ask don’t tell policy. As long as it doesn’t become too much, like, public knowledge, the school won’t crack down on it, because apparently that’s really hard to do.”

“Yeah, I can believe that,” I replied. “That’s very progressive of them.”

Taylor didn’t react to me. “I’m just glad nothing bad is going to happen to her. Because I – I mean…”

I smiled in understanding. “Can I assume you’ve sent nudes too?”

Taylor glanced up the stairs to find the closed door to the basement. She turned back to me, bit her lip in shame and nodded.

I put my hands in my pockets to adjust my pants, making sure anything there wasn’t obvious. “Don’t worry. I don’t think any less of you for doing it, at all. Do what you like. I mean, no sex for three months, right?”

She chuckled softly. “So you remembered that too.” She looked off in annoyance. “It’s, like, closer to four now. I don’t know how you manage to stay sane, you haven’t done it at all.”

“Let’s just say I don’t know what I’m missing, yet.” Was that suave? It felt suave. For me, at least, it was suave.

“Anyway, what do I owe you? What do you think that lesson was worth?” she asked me, changing the topic, looking for her wallet in her purse.

For a guy scared of social interaction, I sure wasn’t afraid of being bold when I wanted to. I just never had a reason to be bold, I guess. Had I explored friendships more, I would have found out earlier that I was the type to say exactly what was on his mind. And I wasn’t ready to change the subject just yet.

“Can I be real with you?” I asked.

Taylor gave me a weird look. “Um, yeah. Of course.”

I exhaled the last of my nerves away. “If you mean what you, uh, said, I have a solution that works out for both of us. I guess I do kind of want to know what I’ve been missing. If you’d feel comfortable taking pictures of yourself for me, you could, uh, save money. I don’t really care about money anyways, but, uh… yeah.”

Yup, I just said that. Taylor looked at me with the most shocked face I’d ever seen her have. For the first couple of seconds she didn’t say anything.

Too many seconds. “Was that, uh, out of line? I didn’t-”

“I mean, it was weird, but…” Taylor trailed off. She supplemented the awkward silence with a nervous laugh. “You are a guy, so… I guess I shouldn’t be that shocked, huh?”

I parroted her awkward laugh. “Yeah.”

“I think… I think we should keep it to money though, like, if that’s okay with you.”

I honestly took it surprisingly well. I think I was expecting her to say no. The rejection didn’t hurt at all. I mean, the most popular girl in school was turning down the least popular guy. Practically every media piece about high school had prepared me for this.

“Taylor, if you didn’t want to send it, I wouldn’t want to see it,” I pointed out.

She smiled. “Is it mean to tell you ‘no’ then say, ‘I wish more boys were like you?’” she asked with a laugh.

“Hey, it’s self-aware,” I said with a shrug. “I dunno. Twenty is fine.”

“Okay.” She reached into her wallet and handed me a twenty-dollar bill. “Here you go. Sorry. Y’know.”

“No, I’m sorry I made it awkward,” I replied. “I should probably be better at picking up on these cues and now this kinda thing is in the open. I hope you don’t think less of me or something.”

“Oh no. Not at all, no,” she instantly replied. “Yeah, not at all. It’s just… y’know? My gut tells me no.”

“Then let’s listen to it,” I replied with more confidence than I usually had replying to… well, anything. “Perhaps you should take me home now?”

“Yeah, good idea.”

With that, we went back upstairs and promptly got into her car. We made polite small talk, though I think I was back to the short answers again on the way. It got to the point where I wanted to address it, even if I knew it might dig me a bigger hole.

“Uh, sorry if my answers are, uh, shorter again. I just feel embarrassed and-”

“I understand, and don’t feel embarrassed,” Taylor let me know. “Is this the place?”

“Uh, yeah,” I replied feebly.

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow at class. We can figure out if we need to, like, continue the tutoring after, okay? I guess it depends on how I do on the test or something.”

“Uh, yeah, sounds good. Have a good night!” After I closed the door, she drove off.

I was a few minutes late. You might guess Mother tore me a new one but to be honest she never really cared that much about punctuality. Father was surprised to see me come home after him “for the first time in his life,” but both of them were glad to hear that I finally got paid for my tutoring services. Mother thought I should have gotten more than twenty, and hey, I nearly got more. Much more.

After supper, Kevin and I hung out in our room, as usual. “Her place, huh? It’s getting serious.”

I laughed as I eyed the floor. “Jealous?” I mumbled, in a tone that wasn’t normally mine. Truth be told, I was embarrassed and horrified at myself for asking Taylor to do such a thing – well, only embarrassed and horrified because she said no, but still. Internally I felt hot with shame. Externally, though, I felt almost empowered. Was this what made guys dicks? Should I maybe have stopped being around the popular kids, lest I end up outside a school gym fist-bumping over getting to see some non-consensual nudes?

Kevin just laughed. “This is cool, dude. Welcome to planet us. It’s only uphill from here, although, if by some cosmic magic you sleep with Taylor, it’s only downhill after that.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just shrugged. Kevin certainly had his view of the world, and he was hoping that I was going to join him soon. Frankly I just kind of wanted my own world.

Right before curfew, I was in the washroom brushing my teeth, doing the usual stuff, getting ready for bed. On the counter, my phone vibrated. It was Taylor.

Hey, are you still up

Puzzling. Immediately, I put down the toothbrush and answered.

Yes, I am. What can I do for you?

I felt an intense nervousness. Was she going to rip me apart? Did she call the police? Well, I guess I did nothing illegal but… the creepy police? Was I too creepy?

The next message she sent me changed everything.

This never happened, and I’ll never forgive you if you blab

Taylor motherfucking Wise sent me her tits. It was a picture, of her (although she was smart enough to not include her eyes in the picture, just her mouth), topless. Her tits, which looked just as impressive on her frame with no shirt as they did covered, were on full display. And fuck yes, I was right. Small, brown, adorable nipples.

I was glad I put the toothbrush down. If I hadn’t, I’m sure I would have choked to death right then and there. She was wearing the same jeans she wore today, so I knew it was taken right then and there, and her sexy chipmunk face sported a cheeky little grin to complement the picture.

I had to sit down on the floor to compose myself. My cock was throbbing. I don’t think my mouth left the O position. If I was an anime character, it would have been Nosebleed City. Granted, thanks to porn a bit ago I knew what nipples looked like, but… these were Taylor Wise’s nipples. Plus, just minutes ago I was sure I’d never see them in my life, and I had tried. What a roller coaster tonight was.

After a few minutes of admiring, I realized I was neglecting her. “Less is more,” I found myself repeating out loud as I wrote a response text. “Less is more.”

I’m speechless. You’re so beautiful.

I never liked the idea of masturbating in the bathroom (hell, the concept of masturbating was still kind of foreign ground to me). Something about the idea of people being just outside, maybe wanting to use the bathroom, and getting caught. But Kevin was in my room, and the sexiest, most popular woman in school just sent me a picture of her tits, knowing full well that I wanted it, and knowing full well what I wanted to do with it. I lowered my pants, and grinned. It was no longer creepy to do this. She sent this to me. She knew what I was going to do with it.

And she was fine with that.

As I began to stroke, my phone buzzed again with another message from her. As one could imagine, I already had the phone in my hand, so the message came up on the overlay. It was simple, clear, and concise.

🙂

Less is more. I figured that was all she wanted to say on the subject, and she did not want me talking about it for half the night, so I assumed she’d send another message if she wanted to talk about it more, and left the conversation at that.

If one had told me even ten minutes beforehand, let alone when I started tutoring Taylor Wise, “Hey, she’s going to show you her tits,” I would have never believed them. Heck, depending on the timing I may have even been weirded out by such a notion. But now it was real, it was here and it was happening, and it was my reality. And the scariest and most exciting part was, this was clearly not the end of the story. In fact, I realized as my orgasm approached, nearer and nearer…

This may have just been the beginning.

Chapter Three

The test was pretty simple. Not only did I know the subject matter pretty well, I had hours of practice teaching someone else about it, so it wasn’t a shock to see the “100%” on my page. Mrs. Li gave me a congratulatory smile as she gave me the test, and it was clear from the quiet groans that my score wasn’t exactly common in the class.

That said, I was still nervous. As Li walked around the room handing out tests, I stared straight at Taylor as Li made her way over to her. I couldn’t see Li’s face as she dropped off the test, nor could I see any markings on the page. It wasn’t my neck on the line, but, even without what happened last night, I didn’t want to let Taylor down.

The lesson went ahead and class was over before I knew it. I was gathering my things and almost hoping Taylor wouldn’t approach me – I was very aware of my social awkwardness at this point, and was fully aware I was in completely uncharted territory.

“Hi, Quinn,” Taylor’s voice greeted me.

She was standing in front of me. My head bolted up to face her. “Hi. Hi, Taylor. Taylor, hi,” I blurted out quickly and nervously.

To my relief, she broke out in a pitying smile instead of anything else. “Do you, like, have a sec?”

“I mean, uh, yeah,” I mumbled as I instinctively sat back down. “How, uh… h-how did you do?”

She smiled and held up the test. “It wasn’t perfect, but I got a 72!”

I did my best to smile back. “That sounds good, congratulations!”

She gave me a sarcastic smile. “Yeah, okay. You probably got, like, a hundred.”

I chuckled nervously but said nothing.

“Anyway, I was, uh… wondering, would it be okay to like, keep going? I don’t want this momentum to stop, you know? Especially if things might get harder from here.”

They certainly were. “Um, yeah,” I mumbled.

“Do you have a shift next Thursday?”

I brought up my phone, fumbling with it a bit, and looked up my work schedule. “Th-thursday is fine for me!”

She smiled triumphantly. “Great, see you then!” And with that, she walked away, leaving me alone in the class with Mrs. Li.

Mrs. Li looked at me approvingly. “I’m so glad to see she wants to keep going with it. Good job, Quinn! I knew you’d be the perfect tutor for her.”

I didn’t know about ‘perfect,’ but it sure was interesting.

***

When Morgan first got in the car with us, I didn’t think much of it – Taylor would usually drive her home before going to the library to study with me – but this time was different. Taylor stopped as we got to the library, instead of going past it to Morgan’s house. With me being who I was, I didn’t say anything, although I thought perhaps she just forgot to go to Morgan’s house first, until Morgan hopped out of the car with her.

Morgan went into the library with us, and sat down with us, pulling out her phone and ignoring us. Taylor followed suit, practically acting like Morgan wasn’t there from that point onward, and encouraged me to get on with the lesson.

For the entire lesson, I was somewhat distracted. Why was Morgan there? It didn’t make any sense. She was never here before. She wasn’t taking the class. She wasn’t even paying attention, she was just on her phone the whole time. Did Taylor suddenly not trust me or something? She didn’t seem to give off that impression.

Taylor and I continued with the lesson. It went well, seeing as instead of cramming for a test, we were just recapping the lesson Mrs. Li just gave us, at our own pace. At some point Morgan stretched and got up.

“I’m gonna get McDonald’s,” Morgan lazily announced. She turned to us. “Want anything?”

She stared at me until I realized I was supposed to answer. “Oh. Uh, I don’t really, uh, have the money for that.”

She continued staring at me, and gave me a confused shrug. “So?”

Taylor rolled her eyes at me. “Get him a McChicken. I’ll get the usual nuggets.”

“Cool,” Morgan replied disinterestedly, and walked out of the library. My confused face turned to Taylor, who just had a slight smile on her face. “So, the lesson…?” she asked, nudging me.

I had no clue what was going on. I shook my head. “Um, yeah. So, uh, an event is written as A in probability. Its complement is written as A apostrophe. So, if an event has a one in four chance of happening, its complement has a three in-”

“I think she likes you.”

I raised my head from my book. “Huh?”

“Morgan. I think she appreciates you. She doesn’t do that to, like, a lot of people, you know,” Taylor continued, as if this was the conversation we were having all along.

“Oh,” was all I could think to say.

“She normally hates anybody new I hang out with, even if it’s for something like this.”

“Your group seems to deal with people that disrespect you a lot, so I guess the bar isn’t high there,” I commented.

“Huh?”

“Well, like that Mitchell guy you guys were talking about. And you seem to have a lot of in-fighting.”

“What’s that?” she asked, leaning into the conversation.

“As in, your group disagrees and bickers more than other groups I’ve seen,” I clarified.

“Do you think we don’t get along?” she challenged me.

“No, it’s just that it’s different from what I’m used to. Maybe she likes me because I’m new.” I gave Taylor a shy smile.

She returned it with a slight head shake. “I guess,” she added with a light chuckle. “I think you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“Credit for what? This is new to me.”

“Talking is new to you?” she challenged me again.

I chuckled in frustration. “Yes,” I agreed. “Talking to anyone that isn’t a family member isn’t something I do often.”

“Well, Morgan thinks you do a good job,” Taylor replied with a shrug.

“Does she do your thinking for you? What you think should be more important to you than what she thinks.”

Taylor laughed and shook her head. “Oh, Quinn. Quinn? I’m a fucking idiot.”

“Huh?” That wasn’t the response I was expecting.

“I’m not good at figuring out who to trust, Quinn. I’ve dated some absolute scumbags before.”

“Yeah, I could guess that,” I admitted. “No offense.”

“Even friends, it took me a long time to figure out, like, who I could even trust. Or who I could get along with,” she continued. “Morgan is like the ultimate… knower of these things. She just has a gift for it.”

“She seems like a very moral person,” I said diplomatically. Of course, were I talking to someone else I may have used a different word, like judgmental, but hey.

We continued with our lesson until Morgan got back with a greasy bag of fast food and a tray of drinks. She tossed the bag on the table. “Is Coke okay, Quinn?” she asked me, putting a drink down in front of Taylor.

“Uh, yeah, but…” I looked up at the library’s rules. “I hate to be a party pooper, but doesn’t the library have a rule against food?”

Both of the girls looked at me weirdly, as if no person would ever bring that up. Taylor’s look, though, soon turned into a cheeky grin. “I guess we’ll have to go somewhere else. How does my place sound?”

I got hard immediately. I hated my mind sometimes. “Uh, I guess if we have food, we don’t have much of a choice.”

Morgan gave me a tired smile. “Okay,” was all she said. She was a lot harder to read than Taylor. With that, we were soon in her car, on the way to Taylor’s place. As usual, I sat in the back, and the convertible was open this time, so I couldn’t even hear what Taylor and Morgan were talking about in the front seats, although I occasionally heard giggling.

When Taylor got home, she, Morgan and I all walked inside to find the same situation I saw the night prior – the same cleanliness to the house, her mom sitting in the exact same seat, probably doing the exact same thing for all I knew. We quickly filed into the basement.

Credit where it was due, Taylor was clearly a pragmatic person. Morgan went off to some other room in the basement, but Taylor pulled out her book and immediately resumed the lesson, albeit while eating a chicken nugget. I bashfully pulled out my food and began to eat too, making sure to never speak with my mouth full.

Eventually, Morgan returned, carrying a bottle of vodka. She gestured the bottle towards Taylor and smiled slightly.

Taylor grinned. “Morgannnn, I’m still doing my lesson,” she whined. “If I start now it’s gonna take forever. Just hold off for like, what, one hour?” She looked towards me.

I wasn’t even fazed. “Yeah, about an hour, tops.”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “I’m starting without you,” she replied in a sing-song voice that I hadn’t heard Morgan use before. She took a generous swig of her Coke and started to replace the empty space in her cup with vodka. Afterwards, she eyed me. “I assume you don’t…”

Drinking. Another thing I had never done, and it sounded like a terrible idea to start now of all times. “Yeah, better not,” I agreed. Morgan nodded and set the bottle aside, trying to swish the contents of her cup around without letting any spill. It was clear that, to Taylor, this was commonplace. I did my best to return to the lesson.

I was glad she had the foresight to wait on the drinking. After about twenty-five minutes, we had made more progress than we thought, so we elected to take a five-minute break. I had neglected my food so I turned back to it to eat. Taylor rolled over to Morgan and sat next to her, both of their backs on the wall, Taylor’s head cutely moving down to Morgan’s shoulder.

Morgan took full advantage of Taylor’s new availability. “Oh my god, Taylor, look at this.” She shoved her phone in Taylor’s face. I wouldn’t have called her drunk, but it was clear she was less stiff than usual.

“What?” Taylor grabbed the phone and looked intently at it. “What is it?”

“Just trust me, check it out,” Morgan replied emphatically.

A few seconds passed before Taylor’s free hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God, Morgan!”

“Right?!” Morgan enthusiastically replied. “Ugh! It’s seriously like every fucking time. Like, fuck, get a life!” She shook her head and took another drink. “He’s so fucking clueless. Like, he – oh my god, I have to tell you this – I…” She paused, looking over at me, seemingly remembering I was in the room.

It took a lot of energy to prevent me from rolling my eyes. I still sighed, practically reading her mind. “I’ve probably heard worse. Go ahead.”

“Thanks,” she replied, turning back to Taylor. “So, like, I let him finger me last week, and he had no fucking idea what he was doing. No fucking idea! You’d think he was trying to start a fucking fire between my legs. Just up and down, no rhythm, no fucking – just no fucking – ugh!”

“Oh my God, I know!” Taylor replied enthusiastically. “Don’t even get me started on boobs.”

“Yes!” Morgan agreed. “I didn’t even let Jerrad touch my boobs. He doesn’t fuckin’ deserve to! After what he did to my poor vagina I am not down to see him squeeze my boobs until it hurts and think I’m gonna cum from that.”

“Mine have been so sensitive lately,” Taylor commented, nudging one of hers.

That was my limit. I dunno how many guys had fantasies like this, but I felt too awkward to let this continue and coughed loudly.

Morgan lazily turned her head towards me. “Listen, Quinn. It may not have happened yet but you’re going to need to please some girl someday yourself too. You should be taking notes about what we’re saying!”

It may not have affected Morgan but the spell was definitely broken for Taylor. She turned a light pink and looked down at the floor. “Uh, Morgan, if we’re making him uncomfortable we should probably stop.”

“Well, he didn’t say he was uncomfortable. Are you uncomfortable, Quinn?” Morgan tested me.

“Well, I, uh…” I couldn’t say it.

“See? He’s probably just turned on or something. He’s probably not used to, you know, the way we talk.” Morgan turned to me and gave me a humorous ‘fuck yeah’ smile. “We own it!”

“Morgan, seriously…” Taylor protested.

“Seriously?” Morgan asked Taylor in turn. “Look, Quinn, whatever. You’re a virgin, we get it, but we should be allowed to talk about what we want, okay? Just because you’ve never seen a pair of boobs doesn’t mean we can’t talk about ours.”

Taylor was red by this point. “Morgan, I’m getting uncomfortable talking about this in front of Quinn. Can we stop?”

Morgan sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fiiiine. But as soon as the lesson ends and Quinn leaves we’re talking about this.”

I clicked my tongue. “Tell you what Taylor, it sounds like this is important to Morgan. Why don’t you just drive me home now?”

“No, no, it’s okay, we only have a bit to go,” Taylor protested.

“Well, I’d… still like to go home now please. If that’s okay.”

There was silence for a few seconds. “Yeah, it’s okay,” Taylor said quietly, standing up. “Let’s go. I’ll be back in a few minutes, Morgan.”

Morgan clearly didn’t know what to say, so she defaulted to staring at her phone and shirking any responsibility for the situation. Taylor and I got our things together and quickly left, getting in her car, putting up the top of the car, and driving off without so much as a word.

“Sorry,” Taylor eventually said after most of the drive was done. “Morgan’s a good person, but sometimes she gets passionate about what she, like, says and…”

“It’s fine. I just… too much, you know? Too much,” I reasoned.

“Of course,” she accepted graciously. “Thanks for not bringing up… the, uh…”

“There was nothing to bring up,” I interrupted her. “Whatever you’re thinking of never happened. I was just uncomfortable because, y’know, she started… being unfair.” I chose my words carefully again.

Taylor smiled. “Yeah,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. Eventually, we arrived at my place. “I, uh… yeah, sorry again.”

I felt another surge of adrenaline bolt through me for whatever reason. “If it’s hard to fit me into your regular lifestyle, that’s okay, I’ll accept that. I don’t want you to feel as though I have to work with your friends and if I don’t it’s your fault. I mean, this is just tutoring. Right?”

Taylor’s bashful smile faded. “Just tutoring?”

I sighed. “Okay, maybe this is the other side of the different worlds thing. I’m phrasing things wrong. I appreciate you and like you, I just assume that once this tutoring is over we’ll drift away from each other.”

Taylor was now definitely scowling. “That’s really unfair to think of people like that.”

I lowered my eyelids in a rare show of defiance. “Morgan used my lack of sexual experience to shame me for feeling uncomfortable.”

Taylor still looked mildly angry, but didn’t say a word. “Yeah, she did,” she finally mumbled. “But what does that have to do with drifting away?”

“I just assume that we’re in different worlds and you won’t need me around after I finish tutoring you.”

Taylor gave me a look of disbelief, then looked straight forward in discomfort. “I sent you that picture because I trusted you.”

I looked from side to side. “I guess this is on me for assuming, but was this meant to be anything more than casual?”

“Well, no, but I don’t just show anyone those kinds of things.”

“You even said you didn’t want to show me. What changed?”

“I felt-” She stopped herself.

I paused. “…Were you about to say, ‘sorry for me?’” I asked, my turn to have a heat to my tone.

She sighed. “I-”

“If it was just that, I would have rather you not sent me anything.”

“You literally asked me to! Do you think I would have sent you a nude without you asking me to first?!” she practically yelled.

I didn’t say anything for a while. After a bit, my house neared. Taylor continued. “And if you decide to send my nude around as revenge for this, I’m gonna make sure you’ll wish you were never born.”

I gave her a weird look. “Why would I do that? You sent it to me privately. For my eyes only. I don’t care if we just fought or whatever, I’m never not going to respect that.”

Taylor gave yet another tired sigh. She put the car into park and looked up at the ceiling. “Are we angry at each other or not?” she finally demanded.

I had to give a small laugh. “I’m definitely okay with not being angry if you are.” I cleared my throat. “Okay, so, let me try to untangle this. You sent me the nude because you felt bad that I’d never experienced anything like that.”

Taylor took a second to process what I said and eventually nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay. And given that it seems like a business transaction from the outside, I assumed we aren’t that special to each other and that I won’t exactly stay in your social circle after tutoring ends or whatever.”

“I just don’t get what that means,” she began. “What does ‘not special’ mean? It sounds, like, harsh.”

“Okay, then let me rephrase,” I replied. “I assume that… despite this new element… what we have… isn’t special to you, and I accept that. Because, like, it’s clear you can get sex easily, so that doesn’t play into it, and we only see each other because I can teach you math, and I’m okay with that too. I don’t think we’d have a lot to talk about if we ever hung out outside from math tutoring, right? Plus, not to pull the stereotype out, but you’re one of the most popular girls in school and I’m a gifted kid.”

“You just say that like it’s impossible for either of us to see the other as, like, an equal,” Taylor replied with slight disgust. “And that just makes me think you don’t see me as your equal.”

“I mean, I don’t. I see you as my superior,” I replied with a slight humorous smile. “You have friends, you can charm any teacher into an extension, you have way different hobbies and pastimes than me, and you, uh, haaaaave a reallyattractivebody.” I mumbled the last part. “We’re in entirely different worlds here.”

Taylor shrugged at me. “You have a twin. He’s popular.”

“Yeah, he says that too. But, like, he knows how to socialize and I don’t, and he has connections to popular kids and can go to parties, and he looks more attractive. It’s just not fair to compare us.”

“I actually find him less attractive than you,” Taylor bluntly said.

I stopped in my tracks. “…Really?” I finally asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, then smirked. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Um… huh. Thanks.”

Taylor shook her head and giggled again. “Believe in yourself more, Quinn. And yeah, it’s not like we’re going to hang out doing anything else together, but it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your company when we do hang out. It’s just that we’re going to hang out in, like, certain ways. It looks like you wouldn’t want to drink with Morgan and me and talk about sex anyway.”

Morgan and I. “Yeah, good point,” I admitted.

Taylor took her purse out from between the seats and found a twenty dollar bill for me. I waved it away. “Keep it,” I ordered. “It was a half lesson anyway.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

I gave a nervous chuckle-sigh. “The, um, payment you gave me last time could pay for the whole year if you wanted.” I admitted, blushing.

She shook her head and laughed again. “Okay,” she told me. “See you next week?”

“See you then,” I politely replied, exiting the car.

***

It was nice talking things out with Taylor, but she wasn’t the only one I needed to talk to. Over the weekend, I got a text from, who else, Morgan.

Hey Quin. sorry for the stuff I said yesterday, I was just blowing off some steam, its how I unwind when me and Taylor hang out

I stared at the text for a few seconds, my tongue running over my top row of teeth in thought. After a bit, I reasoned to myself that I was here for Taylor’s benefit, not Morgan’s.

It’s “Quinn.” Do you always unwind by pointing and laughing that I’m a virgin and that I get flustered around sexual topics, or is that only when I’m there? What was that you told me about acting like you’re better than others?

It felt a bit vindictive, but I hit send anyway. At the end of the day, I’d rather Morgan be not talking to me and think less of me than misspelling my name and assuming she could walk all over me anyway. I don’t know what kind of response I was expecting from here, but I never received one, and that suited me just fine.

GameStop was still alright, though it was annoying to balance my school life with my work life now, even before tutoring. I guess this was how most students felt. I couldn’t imagine doing extracurriculars on top of all this. I couldn’t imagine how Kevin was surviving.

“How do you manage to do school, work, and extracurriculars?” I asked him while he was gaming.

He shrugged. “You get into a rhythm, I guess,” he answered, eyes still on the television. “Honestly, fast food isn’t that terrible. You just have to switch your brain off and just do the thing in front of you. It’s like you’re a part of a machine. You watch, dude – all fast food is gonna be automated by, like, 2020. I assume GameStop is kinda the same.”

“Nnnnot really,” I admitted. “It’s more dealing with people than anything. They have questions, they want to know ‘what games are on the PS4’ and expect you to list five games, they ask, like, ‘what’s the game that has a sword in it’ and look at you funny when you say you need more information…”

Kevin paused the game and turned to grin at me. “You would think the worst part of the job is talking to people,” he joked.

“I’m just saying, it’s annoying. I mean, like, I guess it’s better for me, but, I dunno, I just want them to… know their own stuff, y’know?”

Kevin unpaused and resumed playing. “Well, it’s definitely affecting you; you kinda talk different now.”

“How so?”

“Maybe last month, you talked like a politician fresh out of a scandal that just inhaled a Speak & Spell. Like, very careful wording. Now you’re a little more free with it and you say ‘like’ and ‘y’know’ a lot.”

“Is that bad?” I felt myself getting worried. How long has this been going on?

“Nah dude, it’s fine. It’s even great. It’s a common part of learning to speak like a human being.” Kevin shut up from that point forward since he was fighting a boss. I knew not to talk to him when he was fighting a boss – last time I did, he lost, blamed me, and got decently upset.

Was I talking differently? Was it a good thing? I didn’t know, but I guess I trusted Kevin’s judgment. There were worse fates than talking like everyone else, I suppose.

***

Morgan didn’t accompany us when we went to the library after that, even just to get driven home. Part of me felt bad – she did buy me food, and in general she had at least a sense of justice, which I respected. I didn’t feel bad for standing up for myself though. I submitted too much around the house. To Kevin, to Mother, to Father, to anyone with a loud enough voice. I doubt I would have been able to stand up to Morgan like how I did if it wasn’t over a phone.

Another thing changed. We ended up going to the library less and less, and her house more and more. I guess the library was just an idea she had. To Taylor’s credit, somehow she was able to pick up on concepts faster at her own house. That said, every single time I went to her house, it was the same level of clean, the basement was the same level of messy, and her mom was even in the exact same position. I don’t know why that sameness bothered me so much, but it just baffled me.

“Alright, you’re all caught up,” I announced as I closed the textbook. “We could work ahead a little more, but something tells me…”

“Yeah, pass,” Taylor laughed. I gave her a smile in response. “Thanks, Quinn. You have no idea how much of a load off my shoulders this is.” She took out her phone and began fiddling with it.

“It’s actually really, uh, cool to see your growth in all this. It’s really clear you actually want to learn and stuff. I’m, uh, proud of you,” I borderline stuttered.

Taylor flicked her eyes from her phone back to me and smiled distractedly. “Ha, thanks,” she replied. “I’m sorry if I was, like, out of it for some of the lesson.”

I stared confusedly at her. “You weren’t, it’s fine. I didn’t notice anything at least.”

“That’s a relief,” she mumbled to herself.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, just… y’know, more boy trouble,” she sighed.

“Anything you want to talk about? Like, only if you want of course.”

She sighed and put down her phone. “It’s just, like, boys being boys again really. I don’t wanna get too into it, but like, Cliffnotes version…”

I smiled. Of course she knew Cliffnotes.

“…I was super close to getting with a new guy. We, like, hit it off really well, had a lot to talk about, and holy shit, he looked good. Like, I’m serious. Like, the genetics in his whole fucking family is like… out there, you know? Anyway, so like, we start talking and I think, ‘oh my God, I got a chance with this guy,’ and then he just has to go and ruin it.”

“Ruin it? How so?” I asked, listening intently.

She sighed. “I probably shouldn’t tell you that,” she mumbled. “Red flags. The kinda shit you were talking about at the lunch table that one time. Just men. Just, fuckin’… men.”

I nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry, Taylor. It must be frustrating to have things go so well for you in a certain way and then lose it.”

She chuckled bitterly. “Yeah, thanks for spelling it out,” she replied.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, don’t be. That is totally how it is. That’s how it is a lot. I appreciate you understanding it, at least. I bet a lot of gifted kids look at me and go, ‘oh, she can’t complain, she’s popular.’ But it kinda sucks to be popular and still feel like you’re going nowhere, because, like… what am I doing wrong?”

I sat in thought for a second. “I think the question there is flawed.”

“Huh?”

“Well, if you and this guy are hitting it off, and he gives you a bunch of red flags, and you step away for that reason, what actions did you even have control over besides choosing to protect yourself and walk away? The independent variable here was the level of respect he gave you. If the dependent variable’s result was you walking away, that can’t be blamed on you. You and him interacting as you normally do are just, like, a control variable.”

Taylor gave me a sarcastic look. “Relatable,” she quipped. “I think I understood like half of that.” She shook her head. “But anyway, I still feel like I could have acted better or something. I dunno. It keeps happening to me, so in your words, aren’t I the, uh… the, um, the control tester?”

“Common denominator?”

She shrugged. “Probably.”

“I think that’s just confirmation bias. Honestly, I think a lot of high school guys are just douchebags.”

She bit her lip. “Yeah, I sure have seen a fucking lot of that.” She nodded to herself for a bit. “Thanks for not being one of them. You could have easily sent my nudes around for clout or some shit.”

“The school year – no, my entire high school career is almost finished. Even if I wanted to, what would it get me? A few high fives? You sent that to me knowing what it meant to me, so I dunno, the absolute least I can do is respect the source. Besides, that should be the standard, not a kindness I extend to you. If you give me what I want and ask me to show you common respect, and I don’t respect it, I didn’t deserve it in the first place. It’s not a kindness to respect you, it’s what you deserve. I don’t care how popular you are.”

Taylor smiled toothily with her tongue sticking slightly out between her teeth. It was cute. “Fuck, I wish you were popular, Quinn,” she admitted. “I’d like the popular guys to want to listen to, like, people like you.”

“Maybe it’s not coincidence that I’m unpopular and have these opinions. Maybe popularity corrupts a lot of people,” I replied slowly.

“Do you think it got to me yet?” she joked.

I chuckled. “I think it gets to all of us in some ways or another. Unpopularity too. There are a few things I wish could have happened, even just for curiosity’s sake.”

“Like what?”

“Like just knowing how to talk to people or something. Or having firsthand knowledge of relationships so I don’t look like a dork when I get my first girlfriend at age twenty-eight. I bet there were a few times you wished you could be unpopular, just to see what it’s like.”

“Honestly, it’s like, never crossed my mind.”

I shrugged. “Fair enough. But it’s like this weird segregation. Us even talking like this is a fluke. And you like to date and stuff – have you ever dated anybody unpopular?”

Taylor lowered an eyebrow at me and smiled sarcastically. I rubbed the back of my neck in embarrassment. “I’m not insinuating anything, I swear,” I nervously laughed. “Just asking for curiosity’s sake.”

Taylor rolled her eyes, still smiling slightly. “Alright, no. No, okay? It’s not like I avoid it, but it just… never happens.”

“I guess it’s just the way high school is,” I mused. “And again, not trying to insinuate anything. I want to be able to talk about this as your, um… is it cool to say, ‘friend?’”

“Quinn, you’re such a dork,” Taylor grinned. “Of course you can say it.”

“Okay. Yeah, as your friend. I’m not trying to win you over or convince you to date me or anything. Sometimes I even feel bad about the picture thing.”

“Why? I, like, sent it to you of my own free will.”

“Yeah, you did, but… I dunno. I feel like I’m still seeing you sexually or sexualizing you, and the more I learn about your dating history, the more I want to be able to be there as a friend that you trust to not be after you sexually in the long run or anything.”

“I’ve got Morgan for that,” Taylor replied. “And the others. You asked, I gave it to you. Honestly? It was kind of exciting.”

I felt my throat get drier and my pants get tighter. “Y-yeah?”

“Yeah,” Taylor repeated, her voice noticeably getting quieter. “It was just nice to be like, ‘hey, you respect women, you should get at least the same that other guys are getting.’”

“I, uh… yeah.” I replied flusteredly.

Taylor grinned at me. “See, you’re getting flustered now, but, like, you were the one that point-blank asked to see a picture of me.”

“I have no idea where that came from, to be honest,” I told her breathlessly with a laugh. “I don’t think I’d be able to do that again.”

“Oh yeah? Would you want to ask again?” she asked, a hint of something in her voice.

“I mean maybe someone down the line, but-”

“I meant me, dummy. Like, asking me something else.”

A beat of silence passed between us. “L-like, what do you mean, ‘something else?’” I asked nervously.

Taylor sighed softly, shaking her head and biting her lip. “Like… for example… after the whole Ben thing – his name was Ben – I dunno, I’m feeling kind of pent up. Like I want to do something about it. Kinda like, similar to the picture thing, but if you were to ask to, you know, do something with me, you’d get the experience and confidence or whatever, and maybe I might get to feel better about guys. Plus, it… you know… would feel good for me.” She was now blushing too. It was very clear that, number one, she was not used to initiating, and number two, something about my boldness last time inspired her. Probably because I just said I was not going to be that bold a second time.

“Are you asking me to h-have sex with you or something?” I asked nervously.

Taylor chuckled in my misunderstanding. “Not that far. I’m just saying, maybe if you got a thrill from it, I wouldn’t mind teaching you about, like, foreplay or something… if you wanted.”

“So, like the picture, but interactive.”

Taylor gave me a ‘you weirdo’ smile. “Sure, Quinn. Just like that.”

“Well I dunno!” I defended myself. “Is this the best place to do it?”

“Have you ever seen my mom come down here?” Taylor asked. “We could, uh, do it here. If you’re sure you’re comfortable with it.”

“I’m comfortable with it. Are you comfortable with it?”

“I offered, didn’t I?”

We sat there staring at each other for a little bit, with no one moving, me with a raging hard-on that Taylor couldn’t have not known about.. Finally, I huffed and looked at the floor in embarrassment. “So, uh, how does this begin? With you taking your shirt off, or…”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” Taylor admitted softly, an uneasy look on her face.

“If you’re having second tho-”

“Shhh,” Taylor soothed me. “I’m just not used to it being so… matter-of-fact. I’m, uh, also used to a guy doing this for me, I guess.” She began taking off her shirt – some high-fashion shirt that didn’t cover her shoulders but covered a bit of her arms – and I couldn’t help but stare.

She breathed in and out a few times, staring up at the ceiling, before turning pinker and starting to take off her bra. Right before she did, she caught me staring and smiled shyly. “Nothing you haven’t seen before, right?” she reminded me.

“I mean, I’m just… really excited.” I started off saying that shyly and ended in a nervous laugh. “Is that okay? Am I allowed to say that?”

Taylor gave me another one of her ’you weirdo’ smiles. “Yes, you’re allowed to say that,” she soothed me, before taking off her bra, looking at me nervously the whole time.

“Holy fucking shit,” I found myself mumbling aloud. I had no clue what cup size they were (cup sizes were just confusing to me) but I did know that her tits looking big for her frame was not just a phenomenon when she wore clothes. Her breasts looked just as huge in person, bereft of clothing. Despite her nervousness, her small adorable brown nipples stood, erect and hardening, adjusting to the fresh air.

Taylor gave a single nervous snicker. “As good in person?” she asked.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. My cock throbbed in my pants. “Yeah,” I mumbled.

She shook her head. “Men,” she remarked humorously. “Okay, so like, the basics are simple. Most girls like having their boobs touched. Most guys go too hard though. You want it to be gentle. Remember it’s a human being you’re touching. A good rule of thumb is ‘caress, don’t squeeze.’”

My eyes flew to hers and my mouth dropped. “You want me to… touch them?” I managed to get out.

“Quinn,” she replied, almost disappointed with me. “If I just wanted you to look, I could have just sent you another picture.” She sat up straight. “Come here.”

I didn’t move for the first few seconds. Slowly, nervously, inch by inch, I shuffled over to her until I was right in front of her, looking everywhere but in her eyes. Mostly, my eyes fell to her chest. Her amazing chest.

“You didn’t teach me math by solving the equations for me,” she pointed out, surprisingly wittily. “Go ahead.”

My hands were shaking but I stabilized my left one long enough to reach forward and grab one. The feeling was amazing. Soft, light yet firm, full yet malleable. Playful. I made extra sure not to dig my fingers into them, and I found myself almost swirling my hand around it, letting my fingertips dance across its surface. My cock was twitching at this point. Taylor watched my hand, a mixture of smiling playfully at my naivety, and occasionally shuddering slightly.

“What do you think?” she asked after a bit.

“I think you’re really beautiful,” I told her. “I can see why every guy wants you. I bet guys only want you more after getting to play with these.”

“Well, like, I mean… you’ve only played with the one,” she offered quietly.

I took the hint, shakily moving my other hand up and mirroring my left hand’s actions. Eventually, I stopped treading and tracing my fingers around the flesh and cupped both breasts in my hands, making sure not to squeeze as much as… what the heck even was caressing? I hoped I was doing it right.

“Like this?” I asked.

“Yeah, you’re doing well,” she breathed. “It feels, um, good. Kind of, like, shift the power from your palms to your fingertips, like you’re kneading bread or something.”

My face slightly scrunched in confusion at her words. I took my left hand off of her breast and tried to mimic her advice in the air, watching my left hand. She rolled her eyes and shooed my right hand away. “Watch. Like this,” she told me, grabbing her breasts in her hands.

It frankly looked like she was squeezing them, but in a certain way. I nodded and she removed her hands, only to be replaced by mine a second later. I mimicked her actions and listened for her reactions, and they came in the form of her arching her back and breathing a little heavier.

“How about the nipples?” I asked.

She had her eyes closed, but opened them lazily and grinned slyly. “You like ‘em?” she asked. “Don’t twist them like in porn. They’re, like, super sensitive. Just, like, play with them. Lightly roll them between your fingertips. Maybe apply a bit more pressure every so often, but listen for my reactions. Moans mean it’s good, me going all ‘ahh’ is bad. Every girl is different. I’m kinda more sensitive than other girls, so maybe go easy. Easier than you think you should.”

“Most guys go harder than you’d prefer, I’m guessing?” I asked.

Her grin got a little bigger. “Maybe,” she teased.

I slowly moved my hands inward, still trying to caress her breasts, and moved my thumb and forefinger of both hands towards her nipples. I positioned both nipples between them and, as gently as I could, took both nipples in my hands and began to move my thumbs and forefingers in circular patterns.

“Ooh,” I heard Taylor say in the slightest of voices, albeit an impressed one. A look of pride was on her face. “That was actually really good, Quinn. Nice job.”

I smiled at the compliment and kept up my efforts as Taylor arched her back and my throbbing got more intense. I think my breathing quickened more rapidly than hers. As I rubbed her nipples, she bit her lip, closed her eyes and slowly ground her hips against the air, clearly enjoying herself as much as I was.

“This is, uh, really good, Taylor. This is… this is really nice,” I clumsily stated. I could feel all of my nerves jumping and I felt like my vision was almost going dark, like I was beginning to get tunnel vision. I kept on caressing her breasts and playing with her nipples until the sensations became too much. It was like a spring was being wound down. I was going to shoot a load in my pants if I kept this up for too long.

I took my hands off of Taylor’s breasts, breathing heavily. “Hey, so, uh… I’m having such good – such a good time, but I think I just need to stop for now, for a moment…” I panted, practically out of breath, feeling like all of the blood in my entire body was going straight to my dick.

Taylor slowly opened her eyes and looked down in between my legs, as if for the first time. There was no way she couldn’t see what was going on, and there was even less of a way she couldn’t have guessed. “Oh, are you about to cum in your pants or something?” she asked.

I didn’t know if she was going to make fun of me or something. She asked so flatly, so matter-of-fact. It made me hesitate for a second, but I had no reason not to trust her. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I-I’m sorry if that’s weird or anything.”

She smiled a little cockily, as if she was proud of herself. “Huh. That’s, uh, kinda hot that I made that happen,” she admitted.

I cocked my head and chuckled in acknowledgement of what she said but said nothing myself. My eyes were closed and I was breathing heavily, just trying to regain control of myself. I didn’t hear her lean her head next to mine, but I did hear what she whispered into my ear.

“Honestly, my pussy’s kinda quivering right now too, Quinn.”

A breath left my body on its own. My eyes shot open but I still saw nothing. I felt my spirit leaving my body as I exploded. If I were naked, I would have known it was the largest load I had ever shot in my life – and the feeling went on for way longer too. Breath after breath left me, as if I was laughing in slow motion or something. I went from leaning back on my arms to my arms giving out and just lying on the floor, catching my breath.

Finally, once the feeling was starting to subside, my eyes fluttered open and I just saw Taylor sitting on her knees, a half-smile on her face, watching me. “Oh, uh, sorry,” I mumbled.

“Don’t be,” she replied quietly. “That was, y’know, interesting.”

“Interesting?” I replied with a shy chuckle.

“Yeah. I dunno, I never really had an experience like this before,” she admitted. Sensing we were probably done for the night, she put her shirt back on but not her bra. Her still-hard nipples poked their way through, clearly visible. It was hot.

“Don’t stare, horndog,” she laughed.

“Sorry, sorry. I don’t suppose there’s a washroom down here?” I asked.

She shook her head at me and pointed off to some hallway I hadn’t seen past the stairs. Not bothering to even look at her as I did so, I borderline waddled to the washroom to clean myself up.

I felt kind of embarrassed. I just creamed myself in front of the hottest girl in school. Granted, her tits were out at the time, and this was an odd scenario for sure, but it was still a thing I did. I had to breath in and out a few times and clear my thoughts before sheepishly coming out of the washroom to face her.

“So, uh… should I ask to go home now?” I asked, not looking her in the eye.

“Do you feel embarrassed?”

“Yes,” I flatly admitted.

“Don’t, it was interesting. I don’t, like, think any less of you.” Her words clearly didn’t move me, so she cleared her throat and continued. “It’s happened before. This was like, the same thing that happened the first time Fabien touched me.”

That got my attention. Fabien was a member of the Student Council. One of the uber-popular guys. One of those very European-looking guys, the kind that got a lot of girls at American high schools like ours. “Really?”

She nodded. “He was, like, really sensitive. I don’t mind. I actually think it’s kinda, like, flattering. It’s not like we were going to go all the way or anything, so it’s, y’know, no loss to me.” She ended her statement with a laugh. I joined in.

The possibility of us going all the way was so alien to me until she said that. Even with me asking her before if she wanted to have sex with me – that was more out of disbelief than anything else. I guess it was more impossible a few weeks ago, but still, even the situation we were already in, it was like a dream. A trance. Like if I breathe the wrong way I might wake up or something.

“So, uh, do I need to change my behavior or something? Is there something that changes now?”

Taylor shrugged. “Nope. Just the same as, like, when you received the picture. This never happened, don’t blab, y’know, the usual.” She stood up and pointed a finger at me. “Especially Kevin. I know you guys have, like, a brotherly bond and everything, but he is such a blabbermouth. You can’t let him know about any of this. Including the picture.” She paused for maybe a second before adding, “Did you already tell him about the picture?”

“No, no. Oh, God no. He would never believe me anyways,” I replied. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell him. I meant more like… do we pretend we’re just friends and this never happened, or do we acknowledge it happened in the past, or like, do you want me to do this anytime you need… you know, relief?”

Taylor, as always, smiled and shook her head. “It depends. If I get some dick, I think I’ll be set. But if you don’t mind teaching me data management, I think I can enjoy teaching you how to please me. Does that sound good?”

“Any opportunity to do that again sounds amazing,” I admitted.

“There’s the bluntness again,” she teased.

“You bring it out of me,” I teased back.

She laughed quietly but said nothing. Before long we were in her car on the way back to my place. We’d stayed out longer this time, and the sun was beginning to set when I got to my apartment.

“I hope I didn’t keep you too long,” Taylor said to me.

“I don’t mind. As long as I don’t have work, however long it takes to do the lesson,” I replied.

“I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Thanks for the lesson,” she said sweetly.

“Th-thanks for yours,” I replied bashfully. Taylor rolled her eyes and drove off, leaving me with a spring in my step.

When Mother heard me enter, she turned to face me, hands on her hips. “Quinn! You’re home later than normal.”

“The lesson ran a little late, Mother. But for my time, I got paid a bit more than normal.”

A smile brewed on Mother’s face. “Ahh, Quinn! You are learning. Your skills and time are worth money! You are worth it.”

“You know, Mother, I think I’m starting to believe that I am,” I admitted, mostly to myself, as I walked towards my room.

I knocked on the door out of courtesy. “Come on in,” Kevin’s voice greeted me. I opened the door and flopped down on the bed.

Kevin turned back from playing Infamous Second Son and laughed. “She really took it out of you, huh?”

“I’m just tired all the time. School, job, tutoring. I dunno how you do it,” I mumbled into the bed.

“If I was tutoring Taylor Wise I’d be just as tuckered out as you, just for different reasons,” he replied, with probably a more suave delivery in his head than his voice. “Zing!”

“Yeah, bro, nice,” I told him, rolling my eyes.

“Nah, I’m just kidding. Honestly even with my experience I’d probably just shoot a load in my pants from just being around her that often.”

I sat up. “Yeah, that was me. I shot a load in my pants then had to use her bathroom to clean up, then I just awkwardly left.”

Kevin laughed at my ‘joke.’ “Man, I can’t wait until you get a real girlfriend. I’ll have so many things to tell her.”

I snickered in self-deprecation. “If you think I’m getting a girlfriend before we split up and go to different universities, you’ve been spending too many hours playing games; you’re living in a fantasy world.”

“Aiya! Bèn dàn! What are you, Mother? I didn’t expect you of all people to criticize me of all people for enjoying my own down time. I’m working hard here. Sorry for assuming you’re getting better at being around people. If you get a girlfriend before the end of the year you owe me twenty dollars.”

“And if I don’t…?” I challenged him.

Even though he was facing the TV, he still grinned. I could feel it. “Then you only owe me ten dollars.”

I threw a pillow at his head. It was nice to go from ‘why can’t I talk to anyone’ to joking about getting a girlfriend. Things were actually going really nice for me. Nicer than I ever thought they’d be going in my entire high school career, that was for sure. If me from the beginning of grade twelve could see me now… I would have loved to have seen the look on my face.

And sure, things were moving at a bit of a quick pace, but that’s what growing up was all about, the new stuff. The unexpected. And hey, it wasn’t like anything was happening that I wasn’t prepared for. Sure, there were curveballs, but it was clear I could take whatever this weird situation was throwing at me.

Chapter Four

“What do you want from Taylor?”

It wasn’t a question I was expecting. I stared at Crystal for a second before sighing. “Look, Morgan already gave me the whole spiel, so I’d appreciate it if we could-”

“Oh, I know,” Crystal replied firmly, folding her arms in front of her chest. “She told me when she did. But now if I ever bring you up even in passing, she just looks at the floor and says nothing.”

That was a lot to process. “How many times is your friend group bringing me up…?” I began.

Crystal rolled her eyes. “Well, considering Taylor is starting to see you more than she sees us…”

I shrugged. “I’m at her disposal here. She tells me, ‘we’re gonna go study,’ and we go study.”

“Meanwhile you get nothing from the deal.” Crystal was looking less convinced by the second.

“She’s paying me, isn’t she? Or did she not mention that?”

“You have a job, don’t you? Even with minimum, your job would pay you better for your time than she would.”

“Then take it up with Mrs. Li! She’s the one that asked me to tutor her in the first place,” I replied, defensively yet lamely.

“I just don’t see why you’d keep doing this unless you were trying to get something from her,” Crystal replied, looking down to face Lexi.

Lexi was sitting on the pavement, eating her sandwich. She looked up at Crystal as if she only now noticed she was here. “Don’t look at me, I don’t have an opinion,” she replied with a mouth full of sandwich.

I decided to cut in. “Is this really about Taylor, or do you all just not trust me? It’s getting really old feeling like I have to prove myself to each and every one of you.”

Crystal mock-laughed at me. “Do you think I believe Morgan trusts you now? For all I know you beat her up.”

This was ridiculous. “How?!”

“I dunno, karate or something.”

My turn to roll my eyes. “For the hundredth time, I don’t know any martial arts!”

Crystal looked at me, weirded out. “What does art have to do with this?”

“Martial art is stuff like karate and kung fu. That’s the name,” Lexi lazily told her with her mouth full.

“Crystal, look at me. Do I look like I could beat Morgan up? What would I even gain from that?” I interrupted.

“Look, just saying, Morgan has literally never shut up about a person the way she’s shut up about you. She always has an opinion.”

“We’re not saying you did anything,” Lexi clarified. “Or at least I’m not. I think she’s just weirded out by you or something.”

I looked up to the heavens and sighed. “Tell you what, if I tell you the truth, will you get off my back?”

Crystal looked at me as if I was stupid. “Wasn’t that the point from the beginning, dumbass? You’re acting like you just had a big brain moment here.”

Completely charming, the whole group. I sighed again. “So…” I began. “Morgan came along with Taylor to her house during one of our studying sessions. I hope to God you already know this about her, but… she drinks…” I pushed for their reactions.

Crystal was looking at me with half-closed eyes. “Dude, we’ve been doing it since grade nine. How sheltered are you?”

“Okay, so… she was drinking, and she decided to talk in… really graphic detail about… sex, a sexual episode she had with… some guy.”

“Which guy?” Lexi gasped.

“You’re surprised she had sex but not that she drinks?” I asked, surprised.

Lexi waved my point away. “Of course I know she fucks. But she never tells me who. Spill the beans!”

“Yeah, I’m not doing that. Anyway… I wasn’t comfortable so I let her know, and she called me a virgin,” I continued.

Crystal gave me a look. “Which… you are,” she clarified.

“I am aware of that,” I replied annoyedly.

“That’ doesn’t sound s-”

“Then…” I interrupted emphatically. “Taylor was realizing Morgan was making me uncomfortable, and tr-”

“No, hold on, wait, I still don’t get why you were uncomfortable,” Crystal interrupted.

I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my forehead for a bit. “Okay, Crystal, just live in my world for a second, okay? I’ve barely had friends growing up, let alone romantic or sexual partners. So this is like an alien world to me, and I get easily overwhelmed. Imagine suddenly finding yourself in a new world, surrounded by people that speak a different language than you. To a smaller exte-”

“What language?”

“I don’t care, Crystal, it’s a comparison,” I replied back annoyedly.

“Well if I wanna imagine it, I gotta know the l-”

“Fine, Mandarin.”

“The hell is Mandarin?!” she asked ludicrously, looking around.

“It’s another word for Chinese,” Lexi clarified.

“Oh. Well then, you could come with me, you would be able to speak Mandarin, right?”

“Yes, I do, biǎo zi,” I replied, losing my patience.

Crystal looked at me, impressed. “Woah, it sounds like you have a totally different voice when you say that!”

“Do me next!” Lexi interjected.

“So if you suddenly found yourself surrounded by Chinese people, without me to guide you, you’d get pretty overwhelmed. Not just by the language, but the new customs, the different way people act, how things you think are important are so casual, how casual things to you are so important…”

“So… you’re overwhelmed around us Americans?” Crystal asked.

“Wha- no! The language thing is just a metaph-ugggh.” I raked my eyes across my face. “I’m saying that you guys have been in sexual situations a lot. I have not,”

“Because you’re a virgin,” Crystal added.

“Yes, because I’m that,” I agreed. “So sex has a certain… taboo nature to it. It’s heavy stuff. It’s controversial. It makes me bashful when people bring it up because I don’t know what I’m doing in sex and the mere thought of it makes me nervous. Tell me that I’m getting through to you, Crystal, because if you say no, I’m grabbing the closest lethal object and I’m killing myself.”

Lexi looked around. “What would be the closest…?” she trailed off.

“So Morgan talked about sex in front of you. Big deal. It just means she trusts you. She even drank in front of you.”

I shrugged. “That’s just where my comfort level is at. And I let her know that. And I guess she took it really personally. But there, that’s the truth, ask her if you don’t believe me.”

“Ask her? Who, Lexi?” Crystal asked.

“How would I know?” Lexi mumbled.

“No, ask Morgan,” I clarified.

“How can I ask her if every time I bring you up, she just looks at the floor?!” she demanded.

“Then I guess you’re going to have to trust me,” I replied.

“I think you just need to get over your sexphobia, dude,” Crystal replied.

“Thank you for your opinion,” I told her, turning to leave. This group was one massive headache. Were groups like this why school had so much drama? I was so glad I was a shy nerd and never involved with drama.

***

“Hey, I heard that you’ve been making Taylor Wise upset,” came a booming voice from behind me as I gathered some stuff at my locker. Too scared to get annoyed, I turned around to see Bryce Foxen, the school’s biggest jock. ‘Built like a fridge’ wouldn’t do him justice, and despite still being in high school, he was probably 6’2 or higher, so of course, he towered over practically anyone, including me.

“No, I haven’t,” I replied feebly, half in fear, half in anguish. I was so upset by this whole situation I could cry.

“That’s not what I’ve been hearing, little man,” he warned me, leaning down to get close to my face. “We don’t want any problems between us, so why are Taylor’s friends coming to me telling me you’re making her upset?”

There was a crowd gathering around us. Eyes on me. Yeah, that’s what I needed right now. In the moment, I realized trying to intricately explain myself to a jock was going to confuse him, and confusion would lead to anger. Anger leads to the Dark Side, or something like that.

I took a breath. “Taylor’s friends are trying to start some shit because they don’t like that Taylor is choosing to hang around me more than them. Did you speak to Taylor or just her friends?”

A bunch of reactions splashed across Bryce’s face. He was clearly not expecting this. “I spoke to Crystal,” he told me. “You tryna tell me there’s some shit going on? Because I’ll put a fuckin’ dent in your head if you’re lying.” He gave me a serious look, not even a threatening one, as if we were rival capos discussing a turf deal or something.

I had to play the game though. “Hell yeah I’m saying that! Talk to Taylor. It’s not my word against Crystal’s, it’s ‘whatever Taylor says goes.’ Taylor and I are friends. Study buddies. Her friends are jealous.” I got close to Bryce’s ear. “You know how girls are.”

Bryce actually cracked a smile at that. “You’re a funny guy, you know that?”

I shrugged. “I got nothing else going for me, I may as well be.” I looked around. The tension was dissipating, so the crowd was thinning. Thank God.

He still grabbed my shirt. “You’re not off my shit list,” he warned. “I’m gonna talk to Taylor right fuckin’ now and if she says anything – and I mean anything – about you, you’re gonna wish you never met her.”

“I help her do math homework,” I replied exasperatedly. I wanted to argue further, but I didn’t have the strength for it. Bryce seemed to be satisfied with me, and let my shirt go. He stomped his way down the hallway (although his body was so wide and built that stomping was likely the only way he could move) and that was the last I saw of him.

As soon as he left, I reverted back to my shy never-look-people-in-the-eyes self, and stayed that way until after school, when I was going back to my locker to drop some stuff off.

“Quinn!”

That was a familiar voice. Taylor. I turned around to see her approaching me, an apologetic look on her face.

“Quinn, I am so sorry for how Bryce talked to you today. Whatever he did, I’m so sorry. He sees me as his, like, younger sister and stuff, so he gets really protective over me.”

“Uh, yeah. I can tell,” I mumbled as I turned back to my locker.

“I just wanted to let you know I explained everything and he’s totally cool with you now,” she reported to me.

I turned back from my locker. “So did I, but he still grabbed my shirt and yanked me up.” I grabbed my own shirt to demonstrate.

Taylor made a pained face. “Quinn, I’m so sorry. Some people just-”

“It’s not even Bryce I’m annoyed at,” I pointed out.

Taylor stopped mid-sentence and gave me a weird look. “Did any of the other guys grab you too?”

“No,” I clarified. “Bryce only approached me after Crystal dragged me outside and made me explain to her why Morgan was being silent about me. And she didn’t seem happy with my answer.”

Taylor looked away guiltily but didn’t say anything.

“And you and I know why Morgan probably isn’t my biggest fan right now,” I continued.

Taylor turned back and gave me a pitying smile. “Quinn, she feels bad. She doesn’t hate you.”

“Well that’s not what Crystal took from it, and it was either her or Lexi that blabbed to Bryce,” I explained. “Why did they even do that? How many times am I being brought up in your friend group that Crystal even notices?”

Taylor eyed the ground for a second and seemed to mull something over in her head. “Have you got work tonight?” she finally asked.

“Um, no…”

“Cool, pack your stuff up and we can go somewhere and talk about it,” Taylor smiled sweetly. “I don’t think here is, like, the best place.”

I almost didn’t want to, but on the one hand, I wanted this shit over and done with, and on another hand, to be frank… the most popular girl in school was asking me to hang out with her. Not even to go study, but to hang out. She even had an expectant smile on her cute little chipmunk face. There was no way in hell I was going to pass this up.

“Sure, alright,” I replied awkwardly, turning around to gather my stuff. Taylor just waited patiently until I was finished, then gave me a smile with raised eyebrows as we walked off towards her car.

On the way there, we passed several people, including Bryce. Given what Taylor said, I expected him to say something, or even give a kind of guilty smile and a wave. But all the while we walked down the hallway together, all he did was just stare me down. He didn’t even have a menacing face, just a… blank one.

Taylor and I got in the car and silently drove off. We were on the road for about a minute before she piped up.

“Bryce is a really sweet guy,” she began.

“Yeah, I can tell,” I bitterly replied.

“He just thought you were a creep or making me uncomfortable or something,” she defended him.

“And I wasn’t, so where does that leave me?” I asked exasperatedly. “The guy approached me at my own locker today, and he grabbed my shirt!”

Taylor laughed sympathetically. “Yeah, you told me,” she gingerly replied.

“I just don’t get why your friend group can’t see why we can’t just be study buddies, nothing more. They think there’s something else going on, and then they start all this drama…”

“Well, I mean… Quinn… first of all, there is something else going on…” she pointed out.

I stared at her for a few seconds. “Well, yeah, but they don’t know that! They just think that because Morgan’s upset or whatever-”

“Actually, yeah, second of all, you upset Morgan,” Taylor interrupted, this time with some heat.

I gave her a weird look. “You were on my side when she got all… drunk and weird,” I defended myself. “I let her know my boundaries and she-”

“Yeah, sure, but I saw the text you sent her – that was just uncalled for,” Taylor replied.

I sighed. “Look, she approached me first and scolded me about not seeing things from other peoples’ perspectives, back before anything ever happened. She was being a hypocrite and I think I was justified in calling her out.”

Taylor shrugged. “Just saying. This whole thing happened because you sent her that text.”

“So what, I’m not allowed to stand up for myself, or show emotions, or be human?”

“No, you are! Like, you absolutely are!”

“Then…” I pressed.

With her free hand, she gestured outwards. “This is what happens when you do.”

I looked puzzled but said nothing. So… this was just high school drama? What I did was starting high school drama? It was this level of petty? And more importantly, I caused it?

Before I knew it, Taylor had stopped. I looked up to see some kind of posh brick building. Starbucks. I looked at Taylor and grinned. “If you’re allowed to think I take kung fu, am I allowed to tease you about this stereotype?”

Sadly, Taylor didn’t see the humor. She just rolled her eyes and huffed, “I said that once. Don’t hold it over me forever.” She promptly got out of the car, and I followed.

Starbucks had an interesting atmosphere to it. I could see why some students liked going here and studying after school. It felt cozy, and clean. Though it was also unexpectedly expensive, so I was glad I never got used to this as the after-school experience. After we received our drinks, we found a table and sat down. For the first few seconds, we sipped our drinks in silence.

Taylor was the first to speak, finishing a sip and clearing her throat before looking intently at me. “When you get involved in a friend group, popular or not, stuff is going to shift,” she began. “Like, the way we talk to each other is going to change.”

“The dynamic will change?” I offered.

“Sure. And I may not care about it, but yeah, I’m popular. It’s not going to be like the movies, but if I am talking to someone that doesn’t talk to a lot of people… people are going to gossip, or, like, do stupid shit sometimes.” She shrugged. “It’s just what happens. And don’t make the mistake of thinking it only happens to you.”

I was taken aback. “That was really articulate, Taylor,” I replied, a little impressed at the last part.

She bitterly raised her eyebrows once in acknowledgement. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to say this.”

I looked from side to side, and leaned in. “So… you’ve had unpopular study buddies you’ve done sexual stuff with before?”

Taylor laughed and slowly shook her head at me. “Oh my God, Quinn. No.” She laughed. “No, I haven’t. This is new to me too. But I’m just saying, this is what happens when you talk to more people. Sometimes stuff like this happens. It’s just the way it is.”

“I mean, in theory I get it,” I replied between sips. “We’re high schoolers. We’re clumsy and don’t know how to be perfect, so when we miscommunicate, it blows up.”

“Right.”

“It just seems so excessive. I’ve met with your friends in private three times now to talk about how I’m associating with you. And a dude came by my locker to threaten me. I mean, thank goodness it hasn’t gotten out we’ve done anything together, or I’d have to give daily updates to your friends about how I say hello to you or something.”

Taylor laughed. “Honestly, if they knew it might be easier for you,” she admitted. “Then they’d at least know your intentions are somewhat sexual. There’s a weird comfort in knowing a man is a horndog, rather than wondering if he is or isn’t or something.”

I blinked twice. “Wait, are you suggest-”

“No, no no nope, I am not,” she clarified immediately. “That will come with more gossip. You’ll be wishing you only had to go through this. Just thinking out loud.” She paused for a second. “Seriously, don’t tell anyone, especially my friends, about us.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I took a sip. “We already covered this stuff. I just want the ‘checking in’ to end, you know?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know if it will. My friends can be… kind of jealous.”

I cocked my head. “What, like they want to sleep with you?”

“Ew, no!” She made a repulsed face. “I just mean, we have a thing. We don’t like people from outside our thing coming into our thing.”

“And the less popular the person, the more they hate people coming into your thing,” I added bitterly.

“They just don’t know you. It’s not about popularity. It’s about what they know about you. And if you’re not popular and they never heard about you, you’re as good as, like, a stranger.”

I stared at her for a second or two. “I guess that makes sense,” I admitted. “But now they know me. I stood up for Crystal’s side during that whole… the first time we had lunch together.”

“Sure, but do they remember that? They probably just remembered that you argued and talked a lot. We don’t like people that talk a lot. They’re, like, know-it-alls.”

“Do you want someone who isn’t a know-it-all teaching you math?” I asked her.

“Being a know-it-all and being smart and humble is different. You were a huge know-it-all during our first few lessons, and I barely learned a thing,” Taylor challenged me.

I made a sour face. “Jeez. I got better.”

Taylor nodded. “But you get what I mean.”

I admitted defeat. “Yes, I get what you mean.”

“And they haven’t gotten to see that part of you. So all they know is, you talked too much at the lunch table, Morgan doesn’t like bringing you up, and you and I are spending a lot of time together,” Taylor concluded.

I sat in silence for a bit. “I don’t like this being all my fault, all I’m trying to do is help you,” I finally said.

“I know, but this is what they see. It’s why they asked Bryce to-”

“Yeah, what’s with that?” I interrupted. “They think I talk too much so they send Bryce to imply that I’m making you uncomfortable? And then he grabs my-”

“Shirt, I know.” She shrugged. “They must have felt like they weren’t getting through to you, so they thought of something else to do.” She took a large gulp from her drink. “It’s problem solving. Not unlike what you’re teaching me.”

I stared at her for a bit. “You’ve got some good one-liners,” I softly admitted. “I feel like you’re toying with me sometimes. Like you’re going to reveal one day that you were this genius that hid it the whole time.”

Taylor chuckled in derision. “If only,” she mumbled. “Nah, I’m still an idiot.”

“Your grades are impr-”

“Not like that. Just… boys. People. I can tell other people what to do, but like, when it comes to me, everything just blows up in my face.”

“We seem to be doing alright.”

“We came here today to discuss all the drama that’s been surrounding us,” Taylor rebutted. “It’s like that story you hear about in grade two or whatever. The guy that… where everything he touched turned to gold.”

“King Midas?”

“Oh, who cares? You know what I’m talking about. Every time I make a friend or talk to someone or… y’know, fuck someone, it turns into this whole thing. Real talk? I thought the nicest part about you teaching me math was that this could be the one time I wouldn’t have to worry about drama. And not only am I worrying about it, I have to be the one to solve it.”

“Hey, hey. I’m not asking you to solve it,” I replied sympathetically. “It’s just hard for me too. This is my first time dealing with anything like this.”

We didn’t say anything for a bit. Eventually, I piped up again. “Do you regret the stuff that we did?”

I wanted her to immediately reply no. Instead, she sipped her drink slowly. “I’m not sure,” she finally admitted.

“Do… do you want us to stop?” I pressed on.

She stared at me for a bit. “Same answer,” she finally replied. “Nothing against you.”

I chuckled in defeat. “I know that I can’t give you what other guys can. I’m not going to take offense there. You know what you’re doing and I don’t.”

Taylor smiled and looked down at the floor. “I, uh, actually kinda like that part,” she admitted quietly, then bit her lip.

“Huh?”

“I dunno. Most guys really like to play up the alpha guy thing, especially around me. They really try to be the guy they think I’ll fall for or something. But you’re kind of like a… puppy. In a good way. I can tell you’re actually being you, and it’s kind of cool to be the one with the experience around a guy. I get to tell you what I like, and I know you’ll listen instead of going all, ‘I already know what you like.’ Plus, you… you know stuff. You probably know what a clitoris is.”

I gave her another weird face. “Well, I mean, yeah, of course.”

“Congratulations, you’re already doing better than sixty percent of guys,” she joked with an annoyed tone. I joined her in chuckling. “I just wanted this to not be more drama and headaches. And I don’t know if it’s because I sent you that n-” She stopped abruptly and looked around. “…because I did that thing, or if it’s because this just always happens.”

I nodded along for a bit. “In the future, I’ll try to solve my problems with your friends myself and try not to get you involved,” I quietly told her.

She shook her head. “No, no, it’s fine. This is my friend group. We’ve been together through everything. I don’t mind doing this for them. I just hate that I’m always doing it, you know? And believe me, this is small. When the school was obsessed with Milo for like a week, that was hell. Every time one of us sleeps with a new guy or has our pictures leaked, that’s hell.”

“…Every time?” I had to ask.

She gave me a sad smile of acknowledgement but said nothing more. We sipped our drinks for a bit longer.

“Well, hey, uh…” I began clumsily. “Do you wanna… I dunno, get out of here and keep chatting? Like, to your place or…”

Taylor shook her head and smiled at me in her trademark, ‘Oh, Quinn’ way.

“No, not like that. I just meant, you keep looking around like you don’t want to talk in public, and I just wanted to show you that I do care about your company and all that too. I didn’t mean anything sexual. I mean you said you don’t know if you want to continue. So, you know, we wouldn’t do anything unless you wanted it. I just wanted to respect your comfort and show I care, and… I’m sorry.”

“Quinn, shut up,” Taylor said playfully. “I don’t know what you’d want to do, but sure, we can at least go to the car or something.”

“I guess just talking is fine. I mean, I’m just enjoying talking with you, and you seem to look around when you get close to saying anything personal. I guess I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

Taylor gave me another smirk and slunk out of her chair, chipperly sauntering to the door. Meekly, I followed, and before long we were sitting in her car.

“If we’re going to get out of there, we may as well go to my place,” she said coolly. “It’s closer to your place anyway.”

“Hey, uh, if that’s what you want, sure,” I replied. For the rest of the ride, we talked about insignificant things – school, teachers, things decidedly unrelated to her friends – on the one hand, it was small talk, so it didn’t carry much weight, but on the other, it was nice to talk about stuff that wasn’t stressing me, and it was clear that it was stressing Taylor a lot more. Plus, whether I offended Morgan or not, I did tell her I’d make an effort to entertain Taylor’s conversations more.

“…And to be honest, I didn’t hate Mr. Graves,” she continued as we parked at her place. “Like, yeah, he could be a bit much at times, but, he was only brutal…”

“…If he thought you didn’t care,” I finished her.

“Exactly! And Mrs. Li is pretty nice. Like, I don’t think she’s the best teacher, but…”

“Did you have a tutor when you were in Graves’ class?” I asked.

“No, but like, it was also simpler math.” She turned the car off and got out of the car. I followed suit. “I dunno if I’d get it more if Graves was teaching data management.”

I nodded as we walked through her front door. “Yeah. I think I agree, Graves is more strict but I find I retain a lot more of what he teaches.”

We walked down to the basement and Taylor sat in a beanbag chair and exhaled loudly and slowly, keeping her eyes closed. I awkwardly stood there until she opened her eyes and laughed pityingly. “You can sit down if you want.”

“I guess I can,” I mumbled nervously as I sat in another chair.

“Is everything, like, alright?” she asked.

This basement had kind of a stigma for me at this point. It’s where I saw my first boob, it’s where Morgan sat drunk talking about what a virgin I was, not knowing what Taylor and I were doing, and it’s where I hung out with a friend, after school, for basically the first time in my high school history. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, clearing my throat, realizing that my dumb brain was putting sex to the forefront, making me hard. I tried crossing my legs and playing it off like I was making myself comfortable. “Did you want to maybe look over data management stuff? Y’know, while we’re here.”

Taylor grimaced lightly. “Um, we could have done that, but I kinda left my data management book at school.”

“Oh, right,” I replied. “Yeah, I left mine there too. Wow, you legitimately wanted to hang out with me.”

Taylor chuckled. “Quinn, that’s what we said, wasn’t it? Even after all this time it’s hard to believe?”

“I mean, when we started we said it was going to be just study buddies, but then w- yeah.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So you’re thinking about that, huh?”

“No, no, Taylor, this is just friend stuff. Purely friend stuff. I’m not thinking about any of that.”

“Uncross your legs, Quinn.”

“…Okay, I didn’t want to be thinking about any of that, it just happened to pop up in my mind,” I admitted, defeated.

She smiled triumphantly. “Knew it. See? Like, everyone thinks about it, especially after it starts. Now think about if you were drunk, or tipsy, like Morgan was. You can’t blame her for that.”

“Yeah, but she’s had sex before. Like, full sexual intercourse. Presumably with several guys. I’ve only ever done some stuff, and it was with you, and it was for the purposes of education. It’s still kind of new and thrilling to me.”

Taylor’s smile got bigger by the second. “Thrilling, huh?”

“I mean…”

“No no, go on, this is kind of fascinating,” she admitted. “It’s like I get to rediscover my own, like, beginning of it all.”

“I just-”

“No, wait.” She smiled mischievously. “You can only go on if you uncross your legs.” Her smile turned a little devious.

I chuckled in discomfort. “…And if I don’t want to do that?”

“Then you don’t have to talk about it! But then I also forbid you from talking at all.”

“Forbid me fro-”

“Nah-ah-ah!” she interrupted, holding up a finger with an entirely serious expression. We stared at each other for a few seconds, while her devious smile returned slowly.

I said nothing. We stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, before I realized I was looking someone in the eye for that long. I turned away, blushing. The silence was getting louder. I turned back to Taylor and opened my eyes to say something, and she held up the finger again and resumed her serious expression. After a bit, a smile of defeat slowly crept across my face and, slowly at first, I uncrossed my legs.

Taylor’s finger lowered back to her side and her smile got bigger. Her eyes flashed down to my crotch, then back to my face. “You were saying?”

“This can not be the traditional way every guy my age has explored sex,” I quipped as I adjusted myself on the beanbag chair.

“Sex in high school. What even is tradition?” Taylor quipped back. “So, new and thrilling.”

I stared at her for a bit. She was really enjoying my hesitancy here. It’s like she was teasing me… or torturing me. A part of me was excited, but another part of me was getting uncomfortable, and maybe that was her plan. Normally I would have been too nervous to continue in the way that I ended up doing, but at this point I realized that if I didn’t shock her in some way, she would continue to have the upper hand.

“Yeah, new and thrilling,” I replied, out of breath from the nervousness of knowing what I was about to say, feeling adrenaline surge through me. “I mean, I knew I had urges and stuff before, but I’ve been looking at your picture like every night. I think about what you taught me and how I could use those lessons to really please you. Or someone like you, you know…” My cock pulsed achingly in my pants. My pants visibly moved ever so slightly every time it did. “…the stuff we already talked about.”

“Damn, Quinn,” Taylor replied. “You sure feel strongly about it. I, like, wasn’t expecting that.”

“I did say I was speechless when I first saw your picture. I guess I, uh, just found the words for it,” I shrugged, no longer looking her in the eye, trying to play it cool.

“Guess you did,” she nodded.

“Have you found a nice guy to please you yet?” I asked.

“Worried you’re going to lose to the competition?” she teased me.

“Competition? It’s not like we’re guaranteed to go all the way if you don’t find a guy,” I commented. “Plus I still have my picture. Though if you ended up in a relationship and asked me to delete it, I would. In front of you, so you know I deleted it, if you want.”

Taylor gave me one of her cutest smirks. It lit up the features on her cute face. “Oh, Quinn. Always such a gentleman,” she remarked.

“It’s not being a gentleman, it’s the respect people owe each other. If a guy doesn’t give you at least that, don’t sleep with him,” I reminded her.

She looked to the ground and bit her lip. “Yeah, but if I did that, knowing the guys at our school, maybe I’d have so few options that I’d, like, have to sleep with you.”

I exhaled sharply and suddenly. “You’re just trying to get me to, uh, shoot in my pants again,” I laughed with a small, windy voice.

She joined in on the laughing. “It’s definitely interesting to watch,” she remarked in just as low a voice. “Did you, maybe, want to keep those lessons going? We don’t need a textbook for that.”

“Is that what you want?” I asked.

“Hey, I’m just the teacher here,” Taylor remarked innocently, flipping her hair behind her.

“And what would you want to teach me?” I inquired. “Unless we’d just be going over old lessons.”

“Well, I assume you would want to skip over the lesson on eating a girl out,” she laughed, as if it was ridiculous to assume a guy would even want to do that.

“Are you kidding?” I found the words leaving my mouth before they even registered to me.

Taylor paused, almost mid-word, and looked at me. The faintest beginnings of a smile reached her lips. “You’d, uh, want to learn how to eat a girl out?” she asked, in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Uh, yeah, I would,” I replied nervously, my own voice barely audible.

Her smile expanded, just a little, and I swear I saw the beginnings of her licking her lips. “Well then…” she replied, clearly as nervous as I was at that point. “M-maybe we could start with reviewing old material, and if you seem to know it all, we could move on to new stuff.”

I genuinely wanted to just hang out with her. I promised myself I wouldn’t try to shift the conversation to sexual when we hung out. I wanted to prove to her, and to myself, I could hang out with her without it turning sexual. All I had to do was tell her that.

“Sounds good to me.”

Taylor was wearing one of those shirts that revealed either one shoulder or the other. It actually looked insanely attractive on her, but I for one wasn’t complaining when she took it off. This time she removed her undershirt and bra like it was nothing, and soon her beautiful small brown nipples stared me in the face again. To cut the tension she cupped her boobs in both hands and did a motion like she was weighing them while teasing ask, “Did you miss them?”

“I assume I’m allowed to say ‘yes’ here,” I breathed.

“Quinn, for once, don’t focus on what you think others want to say. Say, like, the first thing that comes to your mind.”

“I really want to suck on them this time too,” I admitted breathily.

“Ooh,” Taylor cooed. “Bad boy. Remember, they’re sensitive.”

“Wait, seriously?! I can?” I asked, for some reason not able to believe it.

“Hurry up, before I change my mind,” she practically sang.

I don’t think if my brain even processed the few seconds it took for me to approach her and kneel down in front of her. The few seconds afterwards, though, were like time was slowing down. I could practically feel my heartbeat, synched up with the jumping and twitching my dick was doing in my pants, as my lips hit her nipples for the first time ever.

I was expecting the taste to be kind of plain, just like a ‘skin’ flavor, but nipples (or at least her nipples) actually had a distinct flavor to them. It was kind of like sweat, but sweeter. More addictive. I loved how soft yet firm her nipples felt in my mouth, and I loved feeling the nuds move around as my lips, then my tongue, began to play with them. I knew I wanted to give a hard suck immediately, but I heeded Taylor’s advice and held back on sucking on them for the time being, until I knew what she liked.

Luckily it seemed I was flying on blind luck – within seconds Taylor was cooing and bringing her hands to the back of my head. “Oh, wow, Quinn, you’re a really fast learner,” she breathed, her breaths turning into slight moans.

I honestly could have done just this for hours. This was like heaven. I knew guys liked sucking on boobs, but I would never have guessed why until I had one in my mouth. Before it was just curiosity, but now that I had a taste, I was hungry for more.

I started experimenting with adding my tongue, listening for Taylor’s response as I learned by trial and error (though thankfully not much error) what she liked and how, as well as when, to use different things my mouth could do on her. Before long, she was guiding me to her other breast, and I found myself getting light-headed with horniness while using every technique I just learned.

I was making Taylor Wise wet. One of the most popular girls at my school, certainly the hottest. The girl every straight guy in my school wanted to fuck, and here I was, on my knees, her moaning for me as I sucked on her gorgeous little nipples.

It seemed she couldn’t handle her hormones any better than I could, because after a little while, she practically forced my mouth off of her nipples and made me face her. “I’m, uh, really horny, and I just… look, I just want your tongue inside of me, Quinn.”

“Okay,” I breathlessly replied, almost in fear.

She barely waited for my response. Within seconds, I had backed off and she had stood up to remove her pants. This was so surreal to me, so exciting. I had seen her boobs before in her picture so I was prepared for that, but I had never seen her pussy before, and she was asking me to eat it.

Taylor removed her pants and underwear in one fell swoop, immediately showing me her beautiful vagina. I found myself gasping in the sheer beauty of it all. I practically felt the brightness of my vision jump for a second.

Taylor just had this kind of quality to her where everything just worked perfectly. Her tits just looked like… Taylor’s. Like, yeah, of course the popular beautiful girl had really good-looking breasts. Her pussy was no exception. There was a little amount of hair around it, showing that she did regularly shave, just not recently, and her lips were just perfect – big and beautiful and practically inviting. She could have asked me to fuck her right there and despite myself, I would have.

She saw me staring and laughed nervously. “Sorry that it’s not shaven,” she mumbled. “I, uh, didn’t think this would be happening today.”

“Nothing to apologize for. I really like this. You don’t have to shave if you don’t want to,” I found myself mumbling, not taking my eyes off of the treasure put before me.

Taylor seemed to take that as a good sign and smiled at me as she kicked off her pants. With both legs freed, she sat back down in the beanbag chair and scooted her hips forward.

I never took my eyes off of her. “So, is there a-”

“Just figure it out,” she practically whined. “I’m so horny, Quinn. Please.”

Who was I to turn down a challenge like that? Wordlessly I leaned in, gingerly stuck my tongue out, and tried to figure out what the heck I was doing.

Instantly her hands flung to the back of my head and pushed me in. Initially I pushed back, not wanting to suffocate, until I found a good angle to keep breathing and keep pleasing her.

It wasn’t a huge shock to find out that vagina didn’t taste like peaches and cream. I definitely preferred the taste of her nipples, but her folds didn’t taste bad, just different. At first my tongue practically vibrated around, hitting anything that made any kind of reaction from Taylor, but after a few explorations made and a couple breathy one-liners of instruction from Taylor, I was all set. I got right to work, using my tongue, exploring her slit and occasionally yet lightly teasing her clit with my tongue, as per Taylor’s instructions.

It was weird that there was this stereotype of guys not being able to find the clitoris. It was clear as day, even with my eyes closed and my tongue being the only means of exploration, that the clit was around the top of the slit. Once I had hit a sort of bump at the top and Taylor practically spasmed for a nanosecond, I knew I found it. Afterwards, it became really clear to me that this little sensitive bump at the top was the clitoris.

And wow, did Taylor ever have a sensitive one. I had to be careful not to overstimulate her, and this was my first time, having very little clue what I was doing. Imagine doing this to Taylor every day and finding out what really made her squirm.

Imagine doing this to Taylor every day.

I really wanted to live that reality. Even though I was the one servicing her, it felt so undeniably sexy to do this to Taylor, to orally please her, and have her moaning out her appreciation and complete, utter horniness for me. I began trying more and more daring things with my tongue, and I could tell by the way her thighs gripped me and her hands went back and forth from playing with my hair to straight-up grabbing it that she was having a really great time releasing her pent-up energy.

“Holy fuck, Quinn, holy -haaaa, haa, om my fuck, I’m so glad we’re doing this…” She was practically babbling as she ground her pelvis against my face. My face was angling and moving all around as my desperation to please her drove me deeper and deeper. Licking her folds, teasing her clit, diving my tongue in and out of her – anything to make her squeal and moan some more.

I almost didn’t recognize what was coming when her grinding and moans became more urgent. I almost panicked, overthinking what I needed to do, realizing she was going to cum soon. Was I supposed to go faster or deeper? Was I supposed to stop?

Thankfully, she apparently read my mind. “I’m about to cum, Quinn. Keep doing exactly, haa, what you’re doing. And do not stop. I’ll, haaa, haaaaaa, tap both your shoulders when I… aaaaaaugh, aah…”

I’m glad she was able to clearly direct me in this state. I was glad to not let up, continuing to lick her and please her, her thighs practically trapping my head, her hands grabbing bunches of my hair, her breaths getting higher, her need to cum growing deeper.

I didn’t even know when her orgasm began. All I knew was there was this moment she practically froze in place, with me still doing what I was doing (after all, she told me not to stop). I could feel her body getting tenser and tenser while she was frozen, until it all evaporated at once in one content, satisfied sigh. I sensed that I didn’t need to lick her with such urgency, so I relaxed my tongue muscles until I felt her thighs relax and her reach slightly down to tap my shoulders.

“I guess your head would have made more sense…” she panted, practically dreamily.

“You were busy, I’m not going to blame you for being hasty,” I joked. “So, uh, did I do an okay job, or…”

I shifted up to see Taylor with these half-closed, unfocused, almost drunk eyes. “Quinn, if you were my boyfriend I’d fucking kiss you right now,” she replied slowly and quietly. “That was amazing. One of my best. Thank you so much.” She shifted herself forward and gave me a hug, which I awkwardly returned. “You’re definitely a fast learner.”

“I, uh, have a great teacher,” I awkwardly laughed as the hug broke off. “I’m just glad you enjoyed yourself, and I’ll, uh… try to use it… what I learned, well.”

She smirked at me. “Are you shy now?” she asked teasingly.

“More of that overwhelming stuff I talked about,” I honestly answered. “But I’m getting better at it. Maybe I’ll be able to actually withstand your friends talking about sex in front of me now.”

Taylor laughed, putting her tongue between her teeth again. She looked so cute when she did that. Before long, a silence passed between us, and Taylor’s eyes wandered down to my still-hard cock. Honestly, it twitching probably made the most noise in the whole room.

“So, uh… I feel like you earned this, but… did you maybe want me to do something for you?” she bashfully piped up.

I followed her look down to my crotch. “Would it do anything for you? Would you-”

“Quinn… she sang.

“No, this time I mean it. I think… unless you really want to… as weird as this sounds… I think I’d want to wait.”

She looked at me, shocked. “Really? After all, this, you don’t want me to… y’know…”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to,” I promised. “A part of me really wants it, and I really want it from you especially.” She smiled mischievously at that last part. “But I think I’m just a little overwhelmed. Maybe another time, if you’d want to do it at that point I mean.”

She shook her head at me. “You’re so strange, Quinn,” she remarked. “Okay. Well then, thanks. I definitely got out a lot of what I’ve been feeling recently.”

“Yeah, I, uh, felt it on my tongue,” I replied bashfully. She grinned at me as she picked up her pants and put them on, then sat back down on the beanbag chair.

The next few minutes were a little awkward at first, but after discussing sex for a bit longer, I managed to push the topic back to school and teachers and stuff. Those two topics seemed to be the only things we had in common for now, so I couldn’t exactly push for much else. Before long, it was starting to get dark outside, as the basement window was showing.

Taylor paused from our discussion about Mrs. Jackson and casually looked out the window. “I guess I should drive you back, huh?” she asked.

“Probably for the best, yeah,” I admitted. “I’m glad I got to hang out with you. And not just for the sex stuff. It’s, uh, cool to just be around another person and talk about whatever.”

“I know it blows your mind, Quinn, but I’ve been doing this for years, with whoever,” Taylor laughed. “It’s a thing you can ask any of your friends to do.”

“Well, yeah, but you’re fucking beautiful,” I found myself speaking before thinking. I instantly blushed, opened my mouth and clamped my teeth back together, and looked away.

Taylor, luckily, just laughed. “I hope I’m more than just that. Do you only talk to me because you think I’m beautiful?”

“No,” I admitted. “I’m sorry for phrasing it like that. I like that you don’t just go, ‘ohh, this teacher is strict, he sucks,’ and I like how pragmatic you are and how you look at your own future. It’s cool. You’re cool.”

“I’m cool, huh? I’m honored,” she quipped. “Well Quinn, you’re pretty cool too.” She and I both stood up and made off for the car. We barely said another word to each other as we drove back, opting instead to enjoy the sunset to the left of us.

Before long, we were back at my place. “Well, here we are,” Taylor announced. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess?”

“Yeah, see you then. Thanks for doing all this,” I replied.

“It wasn’t a favor, Quinn, it was hanging out,” she pointed out.

“Then thank me too,” I laughed.

She smiled. “Take care.” Those were the last words she exchanged before she drove off. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as I walked back to my place, even as people passed me in the apartment hallways on my way.

When I got inside, Mother was in the kitchen, with her back turned to me. “Quinn?” she asked.

“Yes, Mother. Sorry I’m back late. I was seeing a friend.”

“Hmm,” she simply replied, still not turning around. “You missed supper. Don’t forget to sweep.”

I knew that tone. Knowing not to say anything else, I walked down the hallway into my room, where Kevin was there, doing some kind of homework at the desk.

“Mother is pissed,” he almost sang as I closed the door.

“Yup, got that, thanks,” I replied annoyedly, putting my stuff down.

“You could have at least called her. I even sent you a text. I tried bailing you out, but I can’t do shit if even I don’t know where you are,” Kevin continued. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check – yup, three missed calls from Mother, one smug text from Kevin.

“So, where were you actually? ‘Seeing a friend.’” He laughed.

“Taylor and I-” I stopped. Something about what Taylor said stuck with me. If Kevin was a blabbermouth, maybe it really was for the best he didn’t know. Not just about our sexual stuff, but about us even getting closer together. He already teased me enough as it was.

I cleared my throat nervously. “She has… a test coming up. Well, we both do. In the same class, duh. But I – I mean, she, felt nervous about it, so we did another emergency studying session.”

Kevin shrugged nonchalantly. “Makes sense. You know Mother though.”

I did. Even telling her “I got paid” or something wouldn’t save me from this – nothing excused me not telling her where I was, even if it was something she would normally be proud of.

My phone, still in my hand, vibrated once as Kevin turned back around. A message, from Taylor. Making sure Kevin was fully turned around in case, I opened it to see she sent me another picture, with a caption.

Just thought u might want the full set ; )

I did my best to make my gasp as silent as possible. A zoomed-in picture of just Taylor’s pussy, spread by her two fingers. Her little clit, puffy and engorged, clearly aroused, was standing at full attention for me. I can only imagine how much my cock was aching for release as I felt it get fully hard again, although this time I knew I’d be cranking one out and practically painting the washroom wall as I stare at Taylor’s pussy later that evening.

A smile crept across my face. Her friends could question me. Bryce could grab me. Mother could get angry at me. At the end of the day, this was all worth it.

Chapter Five

Mother could hold a grudge.

“What are you gonna tell Taylor?” Kevin asked as we walked together towards the front doors of the school. “You’re gonna need to think of a good way to put it. Saying, ‘hey Taylor, sorry, can’t study with you this week, my mommy grounded me’ isn’t gonna do wonders for your sex life with her.”

I shook my head. “Can you stop saying that please?” I asked him with an annoyed voice. “Especially in public. It’s really weird how you keep talking about that, especially when I’m not interested in her like that.”

“I’m trying to make jokes. Lighten up, dude.”

“How would you like it if I made jokes about you and, I dunno, Daniel?”

Kevin gave me a weird look. “Um, I’d say I’m not gay,” he said with a weirded out voice.

“Right, yeah. So it feels weird and alien, right?”

“Are you gay?” he interrupted.

“No, but-”

“Then it’s not the same thing.”

“But I’m trying to s-”

“No, I get it. It’s an analogy, super clever. I just don’t think it applies here. You get stupidly tongue-tied around her.”

“You’ve seen me interacting with her like twice at this point. I’m more comfortable around her when we’re just alone studying,” I pointed out.

“Whatever you say, dude,” he huffed.

“Why is this such a big deal to you?” I asked as we entered the school.

“I just feel like you’re either lying to me or yourself. I know you better than you know you, you know. I just wanna know why you feel the need to lie to me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, Kevin. Whatever you say.”

We continued walking for a few more seconds before I decided to press the issue. “Doesn’t that mean she’s lying to you too? How often are you talking to her, anyway? You gotta know all eyes in the school are on her. Constantly.”

Kevin stopped walking as I babbled on. In a second, I noticed he stopped and turned back to see him intently looking somewhere else. I followed his gaze and noticed his friend Robyn, staring. Not at him… but at me.

I looked from side to side in awkward silence. People walked by us as she stood there, staring at me with some kind of distrusting expression. Eventually, she turned and practically ran away.

I turned to Kevin. “What the hell was that?”

Kevin turned to me and sported a massive shit-eating grin. “Oh Quinn, you wonderful bastard you…”

“What?! What did I do?” I sputtered.

Of course he never answered me. It was clear that our conversation rattled her somehow though. Was she maybe a friend of Taylor’s? Did she know something? Was the word getting out?

If so, it was getting out through Taylor herself. And worse yet, Kevin seemed to know something.

But that didn’t make sense. Taylor clearly didn’t want any of this getting out. Did someone else know…?

***

“Look, if this is about Bryce, I had nothing to do with it,” Morgan defended herself.

“No, I know, that was all Crystal. But I think some… rumors are spreading about Taylor and myself. Some, uh, untrue rumors.”

Morgan furrowed her brow. “Like what?”

“I don’t really want to go into that. Just… do you know something? Not that there’s anything to know, but, you know, did…” I trailed off.

Morgan was getting more confused by the second. “Huh?”

“Is… did Taylor talk to you about me or something? I know you look at the floor and don’t say anything when I’m brought up.”

Morgan’s expression returned from confusion to whatever her furrowed brow was trying to express, and she just stared off behind me. Was she… blushing? “No. Taylor didn’t say anything to me.”

“Do I need to know anything?”

“I’m not talking about you when my friends bring you up, so clearly I’m not bringing you up to strangers. If there are rumors going around, that sounds like a you problem.” She opened her locker hastily, despite clearly having all of her class supplies already. “Can you leave me be please?”

“Uh… yeah. Sorry,” I mumbled lamely, backing up instantly. I felt my cheeks burning as I walked away.

***

“What?” Taylor asked me, in a voice clearly louder than what the study period allowed. Most of the students, and Mrs. Li, looked up at us, but didn’t say a thing.

I shrugged bashfully. “I can’t do it. I have to go home immediately after school every day this week. It’s a… parents thing. I don’t have any control over it.”

“Well, can you make it end quicker or something?” Taylor asked.

“…That would mean I do have some control over it.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Quinn, finals are coming up soon. I don’t want to lose what I’ve, y’know, what I’ve got going. I don’t want to fail.”

I stayed silent for a bit before Taylor’s face darkened. “And you don’t want me to fail.”

I looked up at her with a weird expression. What did that mean? “Are you…?” I managed.

She sighed and her face returned to normal. “No, I’m just… frustrated. With, like…” She looked around instead of continuing, clearly not wanting to continue the conversation.

I decided to take initiative. Raising my hand, I addressed Mrs. Li. “Could I have maybe two minutes in the hallway with Taylor? We just need to go over binomial distributions quickly, and I don’t want to disturb the class.”

Mrs. Li smiled slightly in acknowledgement, mouthing ‘go ahead’ and pointing to the door. I smiled back awkwardly, before turning to Taylor and motioning towards the door.

Once we were outside, I promptly shut the door and Taylor and I immediately started talking over each other. After a few seconds, Taylor held up a hand, attempting to shut me up, and pressed forward.

“Look Quinn, I’m just saying, this is like an ongoing contract thing. You agreed to help me out here, and like, you clearly want to, and I definitely don’t get this new unit, so… figure something out!”

It was my turn to speak. “I’m not a miracle worker, Taylor. You haven’t met my mother. Me coming home late is the reason I’m grounded…” I turned pink. “I mean, for lack of a better term… in the first place.” I felt like a child. I turned pinker still as I continued. “She probably won’t make an exception for the thing that got me grounded in the first place. Are you comfortable coming to my place?”

She bit her bottom lip in thought. “I mean, like, it’s not the most ideal situation, but it’ll have to do…” She whipped out her phone as I was about to continue. Did she really have to be glued to her phone every second?

“Okay, because second of all, I wanted to address you about a…” My phone vibrated. Confused, I looked at my phone and back to Taylor. Her face remained plain and emotionless, almost challenging, as I took my phone out of my pocket and read the message.

Plus, i wont be able to properly pay you if your at your place with kevin, so this is in your best interest too…

I looked up from my phone and couldn’t help but give Taylor a sarcastic smile. “That’s not exactly at the forefront of my mind, you know. Your education is still my top priority.”

Taylor smiled at me, shaking her head in the way she always did. “So are we good?”

“There is one more thing,” I confessed, looking around to make sure the hallway was empty around us before continuing. “I think the word about us is getting out,” I admitted in a low whisper.

Taylor looked at me with concern. “Did you…?”

I shook my head. “And Kevin doesn’t know. He teases me about it, but that’s because I’m still his virgin brother. He only finds this funny.”

“Another reason not to study at your house,” Taylor observed.

“Tell me about it. Anyway, I think it’s just because the school has seen us together a lot. And we need to make sure it stops. I’ve asked Morgan about it, but she says she didn’t say anything. Maybe it’s Crystal, but…”

“Wait. Why do you care?”

“Because the last time something like this happened, I was almost pulled into the air by my shirt.”

“Right, okay.” Taylor seemed deep in thought. I couldn’t tell exactly what she was thinking, but it seemed like something clicked in her head. “Okay, I’ll try to make this go away, but only if we can study after school. ASAP. So, like, tomorrow.”

She was bold. Bold and presumptuous. Mother would kill her. “I’ll make it happen one way or another.”

“And in the meantime we should probably not spend so much time around each other. No more lunches, and after this, no more private conversations. I’ll text you when you can approach my car. Okay?”

It was weird how I went from wanting the popular girls to acknowledge my existence more, to being thankful when they proposed the opposite. “Okay.”

“And one more thing.” She chewed on her lip again. “Don’t talk to Morgan anymore. Like, at all. At least until I have some stuff, like, figured out. I think it was her.”

“Did you tell her…?”

“No. But I think… it’s complicated. Look, Morgan is Morgan. You don’t even like her anyways, right?” Taylor asked.

“Um, well, I think she’s perfectly fine as a person, I wouldn’t-”

“Quinn.” Taylor’s face regained that same darkness. “Trust me on this. Okay?”

“…Okay.” Taylor could be scary when she wanted to be. I guess Morgan really was upset with how she treated me. I guess that explained the blushing, and the looking at the floor. It kind of just made me feel bad. If Taylor hadn’t been so adamant about me not talking to her, I would have wanted to talk to Morgan and make amends or something. She did seem kind of cool, most of the time. Just overprotective.

But, Taylor knew better. She clearly had a plan. Maybe Morgan was this weird mastermind or something. Before I knew it, Taylor had walked back into the classroom, with me snapping to attention and following. Nobody looked up at me, and nobody cared. You’d think if rumors started, they’d originate at, or at least end up at, the classroom we shared, but the students here really didn’t seem to give a crap. I couldn’t help but wonder where it originated.

***

One thing was certain, I would have liked more allies. So far I had Taylor, who wouldn’t explain the plan apart from “don’t talk to this popular girl,” and needless to say, I had years of experience avoiding just that, so we were fine there. I suppose I had Kevin, but he clearly would have turned on me for a joke. Plus, he also seemed to know stuff I didn’t. So, I decided to make my own plans.

“Bryce!” I called out to the group of guys, all in a group outside the gym. Bryce turned to face me, and seemed to genuinely forget who I was for a few seconds before his eyes lit up in realization.

“What?” he asked finally.

“Do you remember me?” I asked. I had no idea why I asked that. Internally I cringed.

He sighed. “Look dude, I probably shouldn’t’a’ grabbed you, that was my bad, so can we just be cool about it?” He asked in a rehearsed voice, before beginning to turn back to his friends.

“No no, that’s not why I’m here. You’ve got English next, right? With the Hamlet test?”

He gave me a weird look. “Yeah… why?”

One thing the Gifted crowd loved to do was lording over the jocks, especially knowing which jocks were particularly bad with which subjects. I could recite it in my sleep – Calvin was decent at English but bad at math. Connor had a good work ethic but was deceptively dumb. And Bryce? Bryce sucked at English.

“Would you like a boost? I had the test first period.” I held up a piece of paper in my hands.

Bryce stared at me, puzzled. “What’s on that?”

“The answers.”

Bryce’s eyes moved from side to side, in shock. “What?”

“Do you want it? If not, no problem.”

A crooked grin appeared on his face. “Are you for real? Sure, I’ll fuckin’ take ‘em.” I held out the sheet and he snatched it up, looking over the sheet. It seemed the answers translated to him well. “Holy shit!”

I stayed silent until he looked over the paper fully and clapped his eyes back on me. His grin temporarily vanished. “Wait, why me?”

I shrugged. “We got off on the wrong foot. Just wanted to do something nice.”

“Dude, right on!” His grin returned. “You saved my fuckin’ life, buddy.” He turned back to his group. “Yo, get a load of this…”

I smiled as I walked away. That paper couldn’t be traced back to me. My name wasn’t on it, and I was known as a goody nobody in this school. Even if Bryce ratted me out for whatever reason, I could just deny it. And now, without a doubt, Bryce had quickly gone from not trusting me to, knowing how much his English grade meant to his scholarship, owing me his first-born.

***

Mother was, as expected, the more difficult one to appease.

“This is a punishment for her only. I do not-”

“Speak English,” she barked.

“This only punishes her. I don’t hang out with friends. Mother, I don’t even have any. But if I can’t tutor her, she might fail the class.”

“If I just took away your video games, you would accept it and not complain. But now, I tell you no going out, and you complain. So clearly, this punishment is the one that truly impacts you.”

“I…” I sighed. “This isn’t about me. I just don’t want to let her down.”

“Let her down? She is failing. Her education let her down. She let herself down!” She laughed derisively. “Her success is not your responsibility, Quinn.”

“But I… care about her success. Just because it’s not my responsibility doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.” I shuffled my feet as I stood.

Mother turned to me. “You have feelings for this girl?”

I don’t know what made me pause. I didn’t think I did. Did I? I wasn’t sure. “Um, maybe I do,” I replied lamely.

Mother took this as bashfulness and shook her head, forming a smile. “You fell for a whitey!” she joked.

“Mother, the entire school is white people. The entire town is white people.”

“Isn’t your class president a black man?” she asked.

“Black woman, and student council president, but okay, bad example. My point is-”

“Bah!” Mother flicked her wrist as if to backhand my very sentence away. “Your point is you fell in love. You’ll do whatever she wants. You need to assert yourself, Quinn!”

I didn’t recall asking Mother for romance advice. “I tried that and it led to me staying later than usual. But it won’t happen again!”

“Of course it won’t happen again. Because you’re not going out at all!” Mother laughed.

“Mother, I would-”

“Zhùkǒu,” she replied, again with the backhand slap to the air. I stared at her for a few more seconds before she slowly started to smile again. “If you promise to be a good man for her, I will give you this one. But! If you are late home one more time, this happens again and it is for eight weeks! Nǐ tīngdǒng ma?”

“Mother, she and I are not dating,” I protested. “It’s just…” It’s just something I said without thinking about it.

“Ah, now!” Mother wagged a finger in my face with a cheeky expression. “I just gave you freedom to see her, you are no longer grounded. Do not argue with me now!”

I smiled a muted smile. “I appreciate it, Mother.”

“Yes you do. Now go set the table,” Mother ordered. I was halfway done setting the table when Kevin burst through the door.

I looked up at him, then back to Mother. “Looks like I’m not the only one running home late,” I joked.

Kevin pointed a finger up at me and gave me an expression I never saw him give me before. It was like a, ‘you dare to say that to me?’ expression. “I just saved your ass,” he told me.

“How?!” I asked.

“No saying ‘ass’ in the kitchen,” Mother barked, not looking at him. Kevin looked back at her, then me, then motioned with his head towards our room and walked off. I quickly finished setting the table, then followed him.

As soon as I was in, Kevin shut the door, and shoved his finger in my face. “Are you trying to get expelled?” he asked with a seriousness I didn’t know he had in him.

I couldn’t speak for a few seconds. “…What?”

“I asked if you were trying to get expelled. Are you trying to impress somebody here? What’s the story, bro?”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about you, sneaking answers to, like, the entire third period English class. That sort of shit can get you expelled, dude!”

What the hell? “…How did you-”

“I got eyes all over the school, Quinn!” He cracked a quick, breathy half-smile. It was the first positive emotion I’d seen out of him since he arrived home. “You gotta know this by now.”

“I… showed one student the-”

“But why, man? That’s so not you! This shit sounds nothing like you! Do you realize that you could face serious consequences for this?”

I could feel my brow furrow. “I don’t need the speech from you.”

“Dude, I just saved your ass! And by the way, a fucking ‘thank you’ would be nice.”

“‘Saved me?’ How did you save me?”

“Lemme just say, they won’t be questioning you about it,” he answered.

“What, so you heard about me doing this through the grapevine, sweet-talked the teachers into letting go me accidentally starting a mass cheating, and you think I’m going to believe you?”

He shrugged. “Something like that. So, what the fuck’s up?”

I huffed. “I wanted to be on Bryce’s good side-”

“For what? What the fuck do you have to do with Bryce?”

“Shut up for a second, will you?!” I exploded. “I wanted a freaking ally on my side because it seems like half the school thinks Taylor and I are sleeping together. And who knows, maybe that entire thing is your fault!”

Kevin looked at me like I was insane. “What?”

“Taylor’s friends didn’t like that Taylor was hanging out with me so much, so I think they assumed I had ulterior motives or something. So they stuck Bryce on me, and he grabbed my shirt and stuff. And I’m getting the impression that half the school is talking about us at this point, so I wanted Bryce to see me as a good guy, and not a-”

“Dude,” Kevin interrupted again. “Doing favors and being the geeky little servant for the jocks is not going to make you one of theirs. It’s just going to make them feel like they can use you for more shit.”

“I don’t need them to see me as one of their own, I just want them to remember me as the guy that did them a favor instead of not knowing who I am. They don’t know me yet. It’s not about popularity. It’s about what they know about me. And if I’m not popular and they never heard about me, I’m as good as a stranger. If I’m gonna survive whatever fallout happens from the latest drama about Taylor and I, which you may have caused, I want the most physical guys in the school, the ones most likely to bully me if things go south, to at least know me, and know me for something I did for them, instead of knowing nothing but ‘destroy the shady outsider.’” I was breathing heavily with anger by the end of my monologue.

Kevin was breathing heavily too, his expression still angry yet his mouth firmly closed. “Hmm,” he finally acknowledged. “I see.” He stayed silent a bit longer. “For the record, I’m kidding when I talk about Taylor and you. And I only talk to you about it.”

“Yeah, well, I need you to stop, okay?” I asked him, my tone weakening.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll stop. But for real, never do this again. Can we both make a promise here?”

“What did you do exactly?” I asked him, now curious. Kevin may have been one of the pseudo-popular types, but here it sounded like he was some sort of self-installed eye in the sky at Hazelwood.

“Look, I was in the right place at the right time, doing something unrelated. You’re just lucky I happened to… do what I did.”

“This sounds shady, Kevin,” I replied honestly.

“Yeah, maybe it does,” he admitted. “But look, I feel like it’ll dig you a deeper hole if I involve yourself in what I got going on. You got your shit, I got mine. I happened to cross paths with your shit once, but from this point on, no joking about Taylor, but in return, I can’t talk to you about my shit either.”

I shook my head. “This is weird, Kevin.”

“Sure as fuck is,” he agreed, then went to open the door. He paused. “Do you really think I started any rumors about you and Taylor?”

I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know,” I replied. “Taylor thinks Morgan started it, because she’s intimidated by me or something.”

Kevin laughed. “You, intimidating?”

“You didn’t talk and let me speak there when I got angry,” I pointed out.

Kevin looked off towards the wall and made a thinking face. “You know what, good point. But I really don’t think it was me.”

Who was to say? I wasn’t. I just knew a few things for sure. One, I nearly got in trouble and Kevin definitely found out, then may have used some voodoo magic to save me. Two, I needed to be way more careful with my plans in the future. This could have ended really poorly for me.

***

I never was the type of guy to lock eyes with a girl in the hallway and then immediately look down at the floor. Though, to be fair, that was mostly because my gaze was usually locked on the floor away from any eyes to begin with. I guess hanging out with Taylor really was changing me for the better, because I only noticed I wasn’t looking at the floor anymore when Morgan and I locked eyes on the way to class and I immediately looked away at the wall.

I remembered Taylor’s instructions. Don’t talk to Morgan, at all. It seemed only natural that if we locked eyes, I should look away. To not encourage her or something. And hey, if Taylor had a plan, from what I could understand, it was working. I didn’t get any strange looks from people anymore, and I felt people’s eyes were off of me and my name was kept out of their mouths, which suited me just fine.

Though, it was annoying. I was, as far as these people knew, just in closer proximity to Taylor for a few weeks. The truly astute would see I was helping her study. Was that really worthy of drama? Didn’t these people have, I don’t know, lives? I didn’t even have a life and I still cared less than these people.

I got to my locker and started putting my stuff away when I felt my phone buzz again. Not having any friends really helped narrow things down – getting a text right before class either meant Kevin forgot a book again and needed to borrow one of mine, or…

hey, so what did your mom say?

Taylor. I felt myself blush a little, still feeling so very childish that I was so beholden to my mother. Thinking for a second, I began to tap on my phone’s keyboard.

She understands. I’m able to help you study. I just need to make sure I don’t stay out too late again.

I sent the message, read it to myself (a habit of mine), and finished collecting my school supplies. By the time I was finished, Taylor had responded.

cool! Are you working today? I think we should study again ?

Taylor sure was eager to ace her classes. Well, at least it was better than being tasked to tutor someone who hated studying. I replied, telling her I was free but outlining when I’d have to go home, and she promptly agreed.

I felt more nervous than usual in my English class, remembering what Kevin told me. If Mr. Jefferson knew, he was clearly not going to bring it up. He didn’t look at me any more than he usually did – which was to say, he didn’t look at me at all, and like always, like with all of my other classes, I seemed to blend in with the scenery. And, hey, that suited me just fine, especially today of all days.

Taylor seemed to really be taking what I told her seriously, since she didn’t look at me once in our entire data management class. We weren’t exactly best friends or anything, but ever since we started studying together, she at least gave me a polite smile when she came in, unless she came in halfway through a lesson. Today, she just took her seat and seemed to be glued to her phone, as were most of the students that weren’t chatting each other up. The lesson went as it always did, with me being reminded of how similar and yet how different my life had become since Mrs. Li asked me to tutor Taylor.

After school, Taylor instructed me via text to wait for her signal to start walking towards her car. So, instead of doing anything productive, I just stood at my locker like a big dumb pillar, staring a hole into the locker door in front of me.

“Long day?” the voice of Kevin took me out of my thoughts.

I nearly jumped. “Um, yeah,” I mumbled. “Kinda. I was scared during English.”

Kevin leaned suavely on the locker next to mine. “Hey, like I said, it’s over and done for you. You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, thank you,” I admitted. I still had no clue what he actually did, or who knew what, but knowing Kevin, he liked having that kind of power skewed in his favor. “Anyway, no need to wait up for me, I’ll be busy tutoring… the person I’m tutoring.”

“…The person you’re tutoring?” Kevin repeated with a slight chuckle.

I looked around me to see if anyone was paying attention. “Yeah, you know… Taylor,” I replied in almost a whisper.

“No, I know who it is, but… don’t you think you’re acting a little… paranoid?”

I was mostly just following orders, but hey, if it would make him stop talking about it. So instead, I shrugged. “I guess.”

“No worries, I got plans anyways,” he replied. “Just wanted to give you this back.” He reached around to his open backpack and fished out a textbook.

“Oh, thanks,” I mumbled, opening my locker again and sticking it inside.

“Cool, thanks. See ya!” He waved to me and off he went, doing whatever shady stuff he was doing. He wasn’t even walking towards the exit of the school. Part of me was tempted to follow him just to see what the heck he could possibly be doing where he accidentally found out some clearly sensitive info, but Taylor was likely going to ask me to come to her car soon.

Deciding to save time, I decided to walk towards the parking lot and then walk specifically to her car when she asked me to. It was nice going outside anyway – with the school year’s end in sight, there was warmth and the rustling of leaves on the trees and a nice smell to the outside air. I may have been a nerd that spent most of his time indoors, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate the outside when it was available to me.

Once outside, Taylor’s car was immediately noticeable, even at the end of the parking lot. I don’t know if it was the color or just her popular aura, but there it was, sticking out like a rich, vibrantly painted thumb. I could see Taylor there, as well as three of her other friends. It looked like Crystal, Morgan, and… Milo. Poor Lexi.

I dawdled around as the crowd outside thinned and cars and buses drove away, until eventually, the group of four dissipated and the other three walked away. A solid minute later, Taylor texted me, telling me it was okay to come to her car now and apologizing for the wait. When I got there, she gave me a slightly disturbed look.

“That was fast,” she commented. “Did you run or something?”

“No, I just was over there,” I replied, gesturing to the place in the parking lot where I was standing.

“Oh,” Taylor replied, clearly not satisfied with my answer.

I was accustomed to not getting social cues, so I guess that wasn’t good of me to do that or something. I cleared my throat. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no, nothing. It’s fine. Come on, let’s go! We probably have a lot to get through.” Her chipper demeanor returned in no time. She sure seemed stressed about the upcoming finals, but I guess outside of my perspective, that made sense. We made a quick stop at Starbuck’s, because of course, but we arrived at her house in no time, chatting about finals and things along the way. Before long, we were in her basement again, which was starting to feel like a familiar place.

“I wish I got Jefferson. I’ve heard, y’know, good things about him. Jackson is not making English any easier for me,” Taylor finished her thought.

“I’ve had both, and honestly, you’re not missing much,” I replied. “Their teaching style is basically the same. If anything, I’d say Jackson cares more about students.”

“Still,” Taylor pouted, “English sucks.” Her little chipmunk face was just as cute when she pouted as when she smiled. I had no clue how she did that. “I don’t suppose you had the extra time to help me with English too? To be honest, I don’t need any, like, tutoring, but just if you had any notes you could share…”

“How’d you hear about that?!” I immediately blurted out.

Taylor gave me a weird look. “What? Um, I just figured you were as good at English as you were at data.” She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her forehead. “Ugh, is this another stereotype thing? You’re kind of sensitive sometimes.”

Oh. Whoops. “Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking about something else. I could-”

“What else?” Taylor interrupted.

“It doesn’t matter. It was just something unrelated.”

“No, come on, Quinn. If we’re going to do what we’re doing, it means you have to be completely honest with me, okay? No secrets.”

I blinked. “Wait, what do you mean, no secrets? You told me yesterday not to talk to Morgan anymore, and when I asked why, you told me to just trust you on it.”

“Yeah, but that’s different. I think I know what’s going on-”

“Yeah, and you haven’t told me. Isn’t that keeping a secret?”

Taylor smiled in frustration. “No, it’s just not wanting it to blow up in my face if I’m wrong, Quinn.”

“Yeah, I certainly have been understanding what that feels like for the past… week,” I mumbled back, mostly to myself.

Taylor just smiled back in response, sitting on her beanbag chair. I sat down next to it, sighing, both wanting to press on in the conversation and glad it was over.

After a bit, Taylor smiled at me. “So, uh, should we get our books?”

“Yeah, probably,” I admitted, reaching over and grabbing both of our bags. I handed hers to her and retrieved my book from my bag. By the time I was done, Taylor had her legs strewn across my lap. Gulping, I looked towards her. She had her book open and on her lap, and had turned slightly towards me so she could have her legs straight forward, going across my lap. I couldn’t help but give her a look.

“What?” she asked innocently, but gave me a wink. “Are you okay? We’re going over unit 5.2 today, right?”

“Um…” I cleared my throat in nervousness. “Yeah.”

“Hey, if you really want me to, you can ask me to stop,” Taylor continued in a singsong voice. “But, like, I’m just getting comfy and ready to study.”

I looked at her and cracked a smile. “No secrets, Taylor.”

She looked at me and her eyes slowly narrowed, a smile forming on her lips. “Let’s just get through the studying for now, okay?” she asked, with a hint in her voice that something else really was up.

Needless to say, it was not easy to concentrate on the lesson, but I did the best I could with what I had. Inevitably her legs kept shifting and moving, and needless to say, I was rock hard. It was smack down the middle – I was halfway to heaven, finding myself panting orally from the anticipation and pleasure I was feeling from having the hottest girl in school’s legs draped over me, but the other half of me felt in physical pain from my erection, let alone the discomfort from this situation being so alien to me.

After nearly an hour, the lesson finally clicked with Taylor. I was staring at her way too much to be productive, but to her credit, her gaze was nearly constantly on her book. It was weird. She was clearly being open about her flirtation with me a bit more, bit if that were fully true, I would have thought she’d be less focused on studying. Why were both showing an increase…?

“Zero point three four, with its complement being zero point five six,” Taylor murmured.

“That’s it! You got it. I think we’re done the lesson for today.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, her textbook flew by my head. I whipped my head around to watch it hit the wall, then looked back at Taylor in confusion.

“Thank fuck,” she practically moaned. “God, I hate data management.” She stretched her whole body, causing her legs to intentionally – or otherwise – graze my erection.

Instinctively, my body jolted and without even thinking about it, I blurted out, “Aiya!”

Taylor grinned. “Okay, now you’re just playing it up.”

“So, why the legs on my lap thing? And no secrets,” I added playfully. Taylor giggled quietly.

“Alright, here it is. My last dick appointment fell through and I’m h-… I’m guessing you’d get it if I said I’m ovulating?”

My eyes shifted from side to side. “Uh… your hormone levels are up?” Taylor stared at me expectantly. “Like, you’re pent up?” More staring. “Your sex drive has increased?”

“Oh my God Quinn, say that I’m horny.”

“You say it if you are.”

“I’m horny as fuck, Quinn.”

“Okay!” I replied defensively. “Good. I guess we… we’re all being honest here.”

“Look, I tried to be good and focus on the lesson, but in exchange for that… Could we please… y’know…”

My erection was practically jumping in my pants. The hottest girl in school was begging for me, Quinn Shen, to relieve her. Me. Help her. With sex stuff. “You’re getting, uh… more bold with these, huh?” I laughed nervously.

“Is it making you uncomfortable?” she asked, her voice full of sudden concern.

“No! No, I’m okay. I appreciate you asking. This is all just… new to me. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you… liked doing this with me.”

Taylor rolled her eyes and a certain grin appeared on her face. A ‘you big dumb idiot’ grin. “Quinn…” she began, yet again in a singsong voice. “It’s pretty clear I enjoy this. I’ve even told you I kind of like teaching you all about this. How much clearer do I have to make it…?”

“I just… it still feels fake. Like at some point you’re going to reveal that it was all an elaborate joke or something,” I admitted honestly, blushing a little.

I was expecting her to reassure me again, but instead she just smiled. “So then… what would it take to show you I really mean it?”

“Oh, I didn’t me-”

“Because it sure seems like all of the attention has been on me,” she purred, leaning in. She bit her lip and looked down at my crotch, slowly moving her legs up and off of me. One leg slid off, but with her other foot, she started slowly kneading my crotch. My body practically jolted with every light touch she made.

“Taylor…” I moaned.

“Sssh,” she commanded. “Either tell me to stop or enjoy yourself. All the attention has been on me, and I want to repay you a little. You’ve been soooo patient with me Quinn, and you’ve put up with so much for me…” She hung on each word for a little longer than she needed to. It was so easy to rile me up, and I felt like putty in her hands. Although, in Taylor’s hands, I doubt anything could have turned to putty.

Her second foot joined in and I gave Taylor an almost panicked expression, trapped in my nervousness. I really didn’t know what to do, but Taylor clearly wasn’t interested in what I planned to do. An almost mischievous little smirk was painted across her face, betraying both how horny she was, and how much she clearly enjoyed being the one in charge.

Eventually she let up, removing her feet from my crotch, though clearly only because she had plans to escalate matters. She slid off of the beanbag chair and practically crawled over to me, running her hands slowly up my pants and eventually landing on my fly.

“Taylor, are you s-”

“Don’t talk,” she ordered quietly yet sharply, with enough to force me to shut up on the spot. She returned to her normal half-smirk immediately afterwards. “Good boy. I want this, and so do you. No more nervous backtalk. This is happening.”

I was nervous for a billion reasons, and so many of them were coming to light. When it came to size, realistically speaking, I was probably below average. I didn’t see why dick size even mattered in the grand scheme, but I had this silly paranoia about Taylor seeing how big I was – or, I guess, lack thereof – and laughing, telling me we should stop.

That didn’t happen. Taylor, ever the pro, had my fly undone and my cock fished out in seconds, and once it was out, her eyes did that slight widen that people do when they’re excited. “You’re so hard, Quinn… Hard and throbbing. Did I cause this?” She giggled at her own stupid question. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a guy this excited… I guess you want this almost as badly as I do.”

She winked at me, then turned her attention back to my cock, passing it from hand to hand, eyeing it and stroking it slowly. “I really like the way it looks when I stroke it,” she said aloud to herself, then turned back to me. “All the guys I’ve been with have been cut.”

“Ah, yeah,” I managed to choke out nervously. I had to admit, out of all the things I learned about white people, circumcision was definitely one of the weirdest, but like hell was I thinking about that now. I was so pent up I practically had tunnel vision. I had to concentrate every once of my being into not shooting a load on the spot.

The sexy knowing glances I got from Taylor were certainly not helping any. I’d call them ‘enchanting,’ but they were definitely more bewitching than anything. That said, I only had a full view of her face for so long – before I knew it, before I could even second-guess what was even going on, she opened her mouth and extended her tongue across my shaft.

I moaned and threw my head back, looking up at the ceiling, closing my eyes. The fucking hottest girl in the school had crawled over to me, complimented my cock, and was now licking it from… yup, from base to tip. This was just downright insane. And I wanted to make the moment last as long as I possibly could, but god damn, was she making that difficult for me.

The downside to not seeing Taylor anymore meant every motion her mouth made had doubled the intended effect on me. I knew exactly what her mouth was doing at any given moment. It was clear that she was definitely a pro, and likely had a lot of experience. I felt like she was both using every trick in the book on me and not even needing to dedicate conscious thought to what she was doing – she was just that experienced and good. Every movement of her lips made my hips jolt and shift, and she knew exactly how to use her lips and tongue – and even her teeth – to make me shudder and squirm.

Just as I felt like I could look back at her face again, that was the moment she decided to take me into her willing, waiting mouth. I couldn’t help myself from uttering, “Oh, fuck, Taylor!” as I felt her mouth enclose over my dick, feeling a woman’s mouth on my dick for the first time. I could definitely see why guys wouldn’t shut up about it, especially if they ran in the same circles as Taylor.

I was amazed I lasted as long as I did, but with Taylor now fully sucking me off, I lasted maybe seconds in her mouth. I learned firsthand that, especially during your first blowjob, warning a girl before you start firing was a challenge, but I also dumbly assumed Taylor wasn’t prepared for that outcome. Plus, the pants and moans that came with my orgasm were at least something of a warning. I felt like I was going to black out as I shot rope after rope of cum into Taylor’s mouth – definitely more than I expected I was going to make. I felt five, then six, then maybe even seven shots fire off, and Taylor moaned in turn as she felt them firing into her mouth.

As soon as I was spent, I threw my head back again and collapsed on the floor. I hard Taylor gooily mumble, “Holy shit,” then adjust herself or something. I wasn’t sure, my eyes were closed, but when I opened them, she was rubbing the carpet with a tissue. I guess some of my cum had leaked out of her mouth after I exploded.

“That… was… amazing,” I panted. “Oh my God Taylor, you’re so amazing at that.”

Taylor kept up her mischievous smirk, granted with a messier mouth, and winked at me. After she finished cleaning up, she eyed me up and down, and giggled. “So how was your first blowjob?”

“I can’t… I just… wow. Just wow.” I laughed as my strength returned to me, allowing me to get my elbows on the ground and prop myself up. “Was that anything like what you felt last time? Because wow.”

“I mean, I know my way around sucking a dick by this point,” Taylor replied, jokingly trying to make it nonchalant. “But hey, if you wanted to, like, keep up your skills, I wouldn’t mind a little repayment…” She flipped her hair in a diva-ish manner.

I didn’t need to say anything. My face must have given away how eager I was. Taylor and I were like a yin and yang situation – I was pulling my pants up, she was pulling hers down. After getting them off, she sat back down on the floor, before squealing, “Ooh!” and getting back up.

Still fiddling with my clothes, I shot her a confused expression. She moved to the back of the room, removed her panties to reveal a recently shaven pussy, and then sat down there, with her legs spread open. She smiled confidently yet almost evilly and pointed to her pussy. “Crawl.”

I chuckled in disbelief. “Sorry?” I asked instantly.

“You heard me. You want this pussy? Crawl.” She was dead serious, despite her huge smile.

I could feel my face burning with shame. This was a lot to take in, but she just gave me by first ever blowjob, and no doubt set the bar high as hell for future blowjobs, so I wasn’t exactly in a position to argue. “L-like this?” I asked, getting on my arms and knees.

Taylor nodded, and motioned again towards her pussy, wordlessly telling me to hurry up. Unsure whether I should have looked in her eyes or at the floor, I started my journey, crawling across her annoyingly long floor to reach my prize, the hottest girl in school, clothed from the waist up, naked from the waist down, completely owning me for the moment.

As soon as I arrived, she murmured, “Good boy. Now, no hands. Mouth only.” She ground her hips once against the floor, directly my attention to her beautiful pussy. Her lips were swollen with arousal, and I didn’t just see her wetness – I could smell it.

Obeying her, I knelt down further and moved my face between her legs, extending my tongue out to taste her and dance amongst her folds for the first time. Taylor sighed immediately, grabbing the back of my head roughly and grinding her pussy into my face immediately. I couldn’t tell if she widened her legs or tightened their grip around my head, but I could sure feel something – and it wasn’t just her dominating presence.

Taylor cooed and moaned and let me know just how much she appreciated my efforts as I tried using everything I learned from the last time and applying it – for now, she was my tutor, and I wasn’t just trying to learn and grow, I was trying to please her directly. She wasn’t teaching me, she was the goal. Her pleasure was the goal.

Her hands played with my short hair and shoved my face deeper into her, emitting low guttural moans that I would have thought couldn’t have come from Taylor’s mouth. It was clear that her hormones could build up – she was pent up like a wild animal, and now she was taking out all of that pent-up frustration on me. And to be honest, it was new and weird, but I was also perfectly alright with it. I could get used to this. If nothing else, I didn’t have to think too hard about making all of the decisions, and if nothing else, for a pairing such as us, that was efficient.

“Fuck, yesssss, Quinn, yesss, don’t stop,” she moaned as I pressed on. Her hands kept my head locked in place, and her hips told me that her own orgasm was fast approaching. I visualized the layout of her vulva in my mind and worked as hard as I could with my tongue to please all areas I could remember – the labia, the clit, and her innermost part. Just as she had done with me, I wanted to do everything I could with my mouth to please her. My tongue went up and down, side to side, in and out with a plan, a strategy, to please her as best as I could.

I found a good rhythm with my tongue on a particular part of her vagina, and her thighs clamped down suddenly on my head. “Oogh, fuck yes Quinn, keep doing exactly what… you’re doing… right there… don’t stop… but don’t slow down… or go any faster… okay?”

I didn’t reply with words, but kept up what I was doing, licking away, tasting her and enjoying her. “Good… boy…” she panted and moaned, starting to shift and almost vibrate in place.

I swear I could feel her orgasm ripple through her. It started in her vagina and worked its way throughout her body. It definitely lasted longer than any orgasm I’d ever had – practically a minute if I had to guess. Even if her body was no indicator, I was worried her moans were going to make her mother come downstairs.

Eventually, her thighs relaxed their grip they had on my face and I remembered how to breathe again. Collapsing to the floor, I began panting myself, though the pants quickly turned to small laughs.

“This is so crazy,” I laughed, both to myself and to her.

I could hear Taylor smile. “Yeah, but I think this is, like, a good kind of crazy,” she breathed.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be so… to take control like that,” I admitted, shifting over so I could look at her.

She was putting her panties back on, and turned to me to shrug. “Tada!” she quipped. “I dunno. I’m, like, trying out new things. I’m having fun if you are.”

I lay on the floor for a little bit longer and continued my breathy laugh. “I definitely am.”

Taylor and I were quickly becoming a lot less shy with each other, her especially. We may have had more reason to hide what was going on – and even what wasn’t – from prying eyes, but it was clear more and more to hide was being uncovered. I don’t know why today was the first time a thought started to linger in my mind – just how far exactly was this going to go? And when will it end? – but I guessed she and I would find that answer one way or another soon, and it was going to be crazy seeing what kind of journey would lead to our answer.

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Author’s Note: Thank you for taking the time to read this story. I hope you’re enjoying the characters and their adventures, and I’ll be sure to upload more soon.

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