Lauryn was never comfortable when Sean was around. In fact, the twenty year-old would have much preferred to never see him at all, but he was part of the bigger circle of her college friends, and there was no way around it. It just made every gathering more complicated.
Part of the problem lay with Lauryn herself. She was a flirt. She meant nothing by it; it was just the way she interacted with men. She was a very good flirt, and knew that she had gotten a lot of false hopes up, but she simply didn't know another way to be. At five-four with a lean but curvy figure, the honey blonde received plenty of attention. She just flirted her way through that attention, keeping it light and fun.
Lauryn also had a boyfriend of three years, Barry. Barry was exquisitely handsome -- tall, dark, and very masculine. He was not particularly warm, but Lauryn managed to love him, just the same. They were a cute couple, and they had some good times together. He also didn't seem to mind her innocent flirting, which made the relationship a lot smoother than many of hers.
Sean also made himself unfomfortable to be around. He was as much of a flirt as she was -- and as good of flirt, as well. A little skinny, he had blonde hair and was cute enough that he was worth looking at, but nothing like Barry. Even so, when he and Lauryn had flirted on and off, it had always felt terrifying differently. She could not put her finger on why, but it always made her uncomfortable. Probably, it was because she always suspected that he had a crush on her that went beyond a normal appreciation of her as a cute girl.
He was the one man she no longer flirted with. She couldn't. It didn't keep things light and fun. It made things tense and weird, as if there was a subtext she did not understand.
Subtext has a way of becoming apparent -- and unavoidable.
It was close to midnight one late spring day, a big party at the house she and some friends rented near the campus. Lauryn and a few girls were talking around a coffee table in the expansive living room. There were lots of others around, but that didn't seem to matter. They talked openly and freely. Until Sean walked into the room. Then Lauryn started to get uneasy.
"So," said one of the girls, a strawberry blonde named Kim, who was feeling her cranberry and Grey Goose, "is it true that Barry's cock is like this big."
She held her hands in an approximation. Lauryn glanced at Sean, hoped he wasn't paying attention to their conversation, and then adjusted Kim's hand positions. Further apart.
The girls laughed hysterically with envy.
Another of the girls, a brunette named Rachel, who may or may not have lit up earlier in the evening, said, "That must be the best sex ever."
"Like fucking a bull god," Kim added with a giggle.
Lauryn checked Sean. He seemed to be ignoring them. "It's okay," she answered.
"Just okay?" Rachel was surprised.
"It's good, I mean," Lauryn tried to correct herself. "Really."
Kim cackled. "I think I would ride that fucker until I couldn't walk!"
Lauryn forced a smile. Truth was, while she loved Barry and had no intention of leaving him or even of complaining about him, they just weren't that sparky. She had been enamored of the idea of Barry, and he had turned out to be very kind, and had not lost a single ounce of his hotness, but she just wasn't infatuated with him. They had good times, but she wasn't googoo over him, big cock or no.
"Are you guys having problems?" Rachel asked seriously.
"No," Lauryn scoffed. "Not even close!" She glanced at Sean. He was still ignoring them. "It's just... I don't know, never mind."
"We mind!" Kim insisted. "Tell us!"
"It's just that being gorgeous doesn't mean Barry's not a shitty boyfriend,"interjected the fourth girl finally interjected, an auburn-haired bombshell named Betty. She was the only one in the room who objectively would have been in Barry's class, but she had never liked him, and he didn't trust girls that were hotter than him, so it had never happened for them.
Lauryn winced on Barry's behalf, but did not exactly object. "He's fine."
Betty looked at her appraisingly. "I'll bet he just lays in bed and makes you do all the work."
"No!" Lauryn objected. He wasn't that bad. He was fine. She had said that. He was fine. They were fine. Their sex was fine. Fine! Frustrated, she stood up. She glanced at Sean. Thankfully he seemed to have missed everything. "I'm done with this conversation," she declared. "I'm going for a swim."
With that, Lauryn went upstairs to change. Before she pulled on her suit, she looked at herself in the mirror. She was pretty happy with her body. She might have made her breasts either bigger so they'd be really impressive, or smaller so they'd be perkier. She probably would have liked fuller lips, and she would have definitely preferred less elven ears. But, basically, she thought she was a pretty enough girl. She had sweet eyes, she thought, and a cute butt.
Sighing, she remembered how she used to stand in front of this mirror to masturbate. She used to imagine the hands that she was watching move over her body were Barry's.
God, she had always wanted him. And when she got him, she had been really into him. He was sweet enough, and he never neglected or abused her. But he had never seemed quite as excited to have landed her as she felt to have landed him. And soon that had taken its toll and her own excitement had gone down.
She ran her hands across her breasts and tried to imagine that they were Barry's like she had done before, but she just couldn't conjure the image up. He was a nice guy and a devout boyfriend, but, as Lauryn's mother had insisted for so many years, love was about loyalty and dedication, not about romance and excitement. It was not unpleasant, just a different sort of pleasant. Lauryn smiled -- weakly, but still smiled. It was real love, not Hollywood love.
