It all started with Selene.
It was a Thursday afternoon as Arthur was finishing up his work. The campus office building was clearing out slowly but surely as the administration wing workers started heading home. They tended to leave in shifts and waves anywhere from three-thirty to four.
The clock read five when he finally stood up from his desk, straightened his tie, and threw on his jacket. He locked the door to the office behind him and started walking toward the building exit. He only made it a few paces when his phone buzzed. It wasn't unusual. The office had little to no signal, so he usually got a wave of messages from the various text-chains he was in as soon as he left it. He checked the messages, and there was one that stood out.
Selene: U eating in the cafeteria tonight?
Arthur: I was thinking about grabbing a bite, yeah.
Selene: Want to have dinner with me instead?
Arthur: Your place?
Selene: Ur place. I'll bring pizza?
Arthur: Sure. I'll be home in a few. Just leaving the office now.
Selene was a friend he'd met his Sophomore year, which was her Freshman year. He was a senior now, but they'd been friends since they'd met. They were in the theater club together, though she was an education major, and he was a business major, so they had no classes together once Arthur finished his gen eds.
It wasn't unusual for them to see each other in the cafe or the cafeteria and grab a meal together. Nor was it unusual for them to hang out with friends or have a movie night since they lived in the same apartment complex. Many of the students who lived off-campus lived there. It was close and much nicer than the apartments the school offered.
Sometimes though, impromptu requests like this one were because she wanted something. Last time she'd needed his help with a class project. The time before that, she'd wanted his help shaking off some creepy stalker guy. This time, what she wanted was anyone's guess.
Arthur walked pretty quickly to his car, and then it was just a short drive to his reserved parking space in the apartment complex. Selene was already waiting for him when he arrived, a pizza in her hands. She had her purse instead of her backpack with her, so it wasn't homework help she needed then.
Selene had a wide smile. She was a small woman in stature and build, at five feet and three inches tall with the lithe build of a ballerina. Her hips curved from a narrow waist, her butt was round but small, and her breasts were a solid B if he had to guess. She wasn't his type, physically. His last girlfriend had been almost her opposite, right down to short black hair instead of Selene's long blonde hair. Selene often braided it and was quite proud of it because it was her natural color. She dressed in long skirts, chains, and simple tops, often with scarves or sweaters thrown over them.
She had a rather retro hippy style to her clothing that always stood out in the crowd, though the loose and baggy clothing never showed off the figure she had, which was how Arthur assumed she wanted it. She'd dressed a little more typically her freshman year, and she'd loathed the attention from the jerks on campus. Not that she was hot in the bombshell fashion, but she was fit and cute and had an innocent way about her that you couldn't help but love. It made Arthur feel protective of her, truth be told.
Arthur returned her smile with one of his own as he unlocked his front door and let her in behind him. She immediately took the pizza across the living room to the dining room table and set it down.
"Still hot?" He asked.
"Piping. I picked it up from Gianni's on my way over." Selene said as she wrinkled her nose a little and rubbed her hands together.
"Good, help yourself. I'm gonna go get changed real quick." Arthur's stomach yearned for the pizza as soon as he'd smelled it in the hall, but the urge to get out of his tie and shoes was even greater.
"You don't mind if I start? I'm kind of hungry." Selene was hungry too, it seemed.
"Go ahead." Arthur encouraged her as he headed out the other end of the apartment's living room and into one of the two-bedroom doors against the wall. It was only a few minutes before he emerged wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, far more comfortable than his formal clothing. In that time, Selene had secured plates, set two slices of pizza on one for him, one slice of pizza on the other for her, opened a beer for him, and poured herself a glass of water.
"Thanks." Arthur nodded to the plates. "You want to eat in the kitchen or living room?" Eating in the kitchen meant sitting and talking. Eating in the living room meant watching a movie or something, and just relaxing in general.
"Kitchen," Selene said decisively. "I wanted to talk to you about something anyway, and I'm worried that if I wait too long, I'll lose my nerve."
"What's up?" Arthur asked. "What rates the in-person visit rather than just asking me over text?" He was a little curious. It must have been something big, but for the life of him, he couldn't imagine what. Did someone drop out of the fall musical, and she wanted him to cover?
"Okay. So, I don't know how to broach this subject, really, but um... I've been talking with Lori." Selene slowed the last half of her sentence down so that it was practically a confession when she uttered the name of Arthur's ex.
He sat down and took a bite of his pizza. People did this from time to time, as though he were going to be upset at the very mention of her name, but the split had been... even. Amicable, almost.
Lori transferred to a different school and was going in a different direction. She wanted a clean break, and yes, they'd been close, and it hurt for a while, any loss will, but he'd recently started going on dates again. Well, one so far, but he was starting to get back out there, was the point. It had been almost a year.
"Oh?" Arthur asked. "Well, I know you two were friends. I'm not that surprised."
"Yeah." Selene nodded. "So, we've been talking, and well, naturally, you come up from time to time."
"...okay." Arthur was still very unsure as to where this conversation was headed, but at the moment, he felt it best to listen and take to eating his pizza slices.
"Mostly just keeping in touch, sometimes we talk girl-talk. You know." Selene continued.
Arthur nodded. He seemed to sense that Selene needed some encouragement to get to the point that she was trying to get to.
"And you know how girls are; we talk about things," Selene said. "Like guys, for instance."
Arthur felt he knew what was coming and swallowed the bite of pizza in his mouth so he could respond. "I'm really okay if she's dating again. You don't have to like... warn me or anything."
"Oh no, it's not that. She's actually-" Selene started to wave his comment away with her hand and stopped herself for a moment. "She's still single. Not looking for a romantic attachment last I knew, she wants to focus on her school and then grad school after that."
"Yeah... that was my understanding." Arthur took a sip of his beer.
"Sorry. I got sidetracked. I guess there's not an easy way to say this... She told me about you guys. About what you used to do." Selene said uneasily. Her eyes were on the table rather than looking at him, and her hands were folded on her lap.
"You mean..." Arthur paused for a moment, and then his mind caught up to his ears. "Ah."
"Yeah." Selene looked up at him.
"Look, Selene, it was between two consenting adults, I know you're from a more conservative background, but it's not like we were doing anything wrong." Arthur felt it best to go on the defensive, though it wasn't like Selene was accusing him of anything.
"No! I know." Selene lurched forward as though trying to stop him physically rather than verbally. "She told me about that, and about how much she enjoyed it, and all that. I don't think you did anything wrong, and I don't think you're like, gross or anything. You don't have to worry about that."
"Oh." Arthur was confused. If that wasn't where the conversation was going, where was it going?
Selene was quiet; she wasn't eating or drinking. She was just sitting there.
Arthur ate his pizza. He wasn't sure if she was waiting for him to say something or searching for what she wanted to say next.
"So..." Arthur prompted.
"I've always been interested in it," Selene confessed. "Well, not always, obviously, but when I was younger I found a magazine in my friend's house and well... it started the fascination, I guess. And ever since then, it's been a part of my fantasies, and a regular part of the porn I watch."
Arthur nearly choked on his pizza. "You watch porn?" He coughed.
"Rarely, but... yes. It's not like I'm doing it every day or anything, well, not usually, but y'know." Selene answered as she looked down again, as though she were ashamed.
"Hey, it's okay. I'm not judging you or anything. I'm just surprised. You always seem so..."
"Naive?" Selene supplied.
"Innocent." Arthur countered. "I'm even more surprised we're talking about it."
"Well..." Selene paused again.
"Well?" Arthur asked.
"You can say no if you want to, though I hope you don't, but... I was wondering if you'd be willing to try it. With, well, with me." Selene didn't raise her eyes from the table. Her hands fidgeted with her skirt, gripping the material between her fingers.
"Try it?" Arthur repeated the phrase and then thought for a second. It took him a second, but eventually, it clicked into place. Now he knew what she was asking for. "You want to try bondage, and you want to try it with me?"
"Well... yes," Selene answered. She still wasn't looking up. "But not just that. I... want to try everything."
"Everything?" Arthur asked.
"All the B-D-S-M stuff," Selene answered. "Like friends with benefits, but..."
"But a little more twisted." Arthur almost laughed, not sure if she was screwing with him or if she was completely serious. She seemed nervous enough. "Is this a joke? Did Lori put you up to this?"
"No." Selene shook her head. "I've always wanted to try it in real life. But I've never had anyone to do it with, and I don't want to do it alone, and I thought since we were friends and have some chemistry and we're both single that maybe you'd be interested and we could give it a try, and if it doesn't work out then no one gets hurt."
He was impressed she said all of that in one breath. He looked at her for a moment, and though she still didn't try to meet his gaze, he decided that she was serious. He took another sip of his beer, swallowed, and took a deep breath.
"Let's take this back a step just for a second. You're suggesting that we become friends with benefits." Arthur stated.
"Well, yeah." Selene nodded. "We're young, fit; you're attractive. You're experienced with what I want. We like the same movies. We're friends, but I dunno. I thought maybe you'd like a little more."
"So why not just ask me out on a date?" Arthur asked. "We're both single, after all."
"I thought maybe you'd want to avoid all of that. The way things ended between you and Lori, I wasn't sure you'd want the responsibilities that came with a whole relationship, and it's not like I want to move in together or anything. I'm not even sure I want a boyfriend after my breakup with Dave - I just want... I want sex."
"And the bondage?" Arthur asked.
"As I said, you have the experience, and I want to try it." Selene answered.
"Bondage with benefits." Arthur sighed. "So we'll be what, Master and slave, Dom and sub?" Arthur asked.
"We'll be Arthur and Selene, friends, like we are now, most of the time. When play starts, we'll be whoever we need to be." Selene sounded like she'd thought about this before. Long before now.
Now it was Arthur's turn to be quiet for a long time. He looked over to her. She hadn't eaten any of her pizza since they started talking, though a few bites had been taken out of it before he'd made his way back in. He still had a piece and a half on his plate. He was distracting himself with the little details, like the fact that her skirt was still gripped tightly in her lap.
"Okay." Arthur said finally.
"Okay?" Selene looked up.
"Yeah. Let's give it a shot. If we don't like it, we stop. If it doesn't mess things up or something, we keep going. And the benefits... well, maybe I haven't thought everything through with my brain just yet, but... it's not like I can point to an obvious reason to say no."
"Do you want to start now, or?" Selene asked, finally releasing the skirt she'd been gripping.
"I want to talk first," Arthur answered. "We might not play tonight."
"Oh." Selene wilted.
"But soon, for sure. I'm... I'm looking forward to it." Arthur admitted.
