The following Friday night, Kelsie briskly made her way, alone, back to Howard Hall from the Perion University Library.
Ostensibly, she had been working on a paper for her Introduction to Psychology course that was due the following week. In truth, though, Kelsie had just found a quiet cubby in the massive library and simply hid out.
On Fridays, Howard could become a rowdy place. Every hallway flooded with people; even if Kelsie remained within her room, there was no real way to keep the whole scene from occasionally spilling through the door--particularly with how social Alexia was. Kelsie preferred to decamp to the library and ride the whole thing out...often until as late as midnight.
Now, in her blue-and-gold-checkered Perion pajama pants, her treasured gold hoodie, and her canvas gym shoes, Kelsie hustled through chilly conditions that she was a touch under-dressed for. As she approached Howard, she dared to dream--as she always did at this exact moment of this weekly trip--that she would somehow bump into Chris Weathers.
Kelsie knew that this was a foolhardy notion. Chris didn't leave his room unless he was headed to practice, class, a workout, or a game. He was practically as much of a shut-in as Kelsie was: Rumor had it that even Cooper Deering, despite all of her very-public visits, had not been able to lure Chris out to a single social engagement.
This knowledge, sadly, only made Kelsie desire Chris even more. Despite everything that she had endured, she had never been able to shake the feeling--beyond her almost overwhelming physical attraction to Chris--that she fit with this boy. That somehow, she would climb out from under the mountain of obstacles in her way and still find a way to connect with Perion's most handsome, famous undergrad.
But of course, this was delusional. Chris was no longer a part of her life. She did not magically encounter him tonight at the Howard Hall doorway. He did not materialize next to her at the wall-map in the lobby as he had on her first day at Perion. She did not glance upward as she ascended the stairs to find Chris waiting for her at the second floor entrance.
No, this was just like any other Friday night. There was only the relative quiet of the 4th floor.
Kelsie glumly trudged down the hall and into her room.
By the time that Kelsie had set her laptop down on her bed, however, her standard Friday night doldrums had been utterly forgotten.
"Alexia," Kelsie laughed with a cocked eyebrow, "What are you WEARING?"
Alexia was very much NOT in pajamas. Judging from her distracted, busy expression, and from her attire, Alexia was, in fact, rushing to get ready to head to class.
A class at the sluttiest school that had ever existed.
Alexia, Kelsie realized, had completely done her make-up. The bright pink shadow above her eyes, the Barbie-esque lipstick that she had applied...These were touches, Kelsie determined with a giggle, that no boy in the history of the Earth would ever notice...given Alexia's outfit.
Alexia had covered her resplendent upper body with a tight, white dress-shirt that was unbuttoned nearly halfway down the front...enough to make the pink bra that was straining against the shirt quite visible. Below this lusty top, Alexia was wearing a plaid pink-and-white skirt...although calling it a "skirt" was probably a bit of an overstatement. Even a girl with a body like Kelsie's would have had difficulty containing her butt beneath this slip of a covering: Alexia's ass practically poured out from underneath it. If Kelsie's voluptuous bestie did anything other than stand straight up, the pink satin panties that were caressing her incredible backside became quickly visible. As if this wasn't all enough already, Alexia had finished the whole outfit off with white, knee-high stockings.
This wasn't a man-eating uniform. This was a man-incinerating uniform.
Alexia hadn't replied to Kelsie's initial query. She was busy hustling over to the tall standing floor-mirror the girls shared in the corner of the room. Her sumptuous backside presented in its full sexy-schoolgirl glory, Alexia began dragging the mirror across the room.
Kelsie tried again.
"Alexia...are you...going to a PARTY, or something?"
Alexia positioned the mirror at the foot of her bed, with the reflective end facing the bed.
"Kelsie," she finally offered, ignoring Kelsie's questions, "You're going to have to help me."
Kelsie could not possibly have been more confused by this entire display.
"Help you? Alexia, what is this? What are you doing? What would you need my hel--"
Alexia cut her off.
"He's a really sweet boy. But he's still a boy, and he won't be able to stop himself."
Kelsie's mouth was agape with total bewilderment.
"ALEXIA. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING AB--"
There was a knock on the door of their dorm room.
Alexia took a deep, resolute breath, and walked over to the door...and Kelsie suddenly spied, across her roommate's face, that peculiar blend of emotions that Kelsie had first encountered on the bleachers earlier this week. Lust...Determination...Romance?
There were those flushed cheeks again.
WAIT...WAS THIS--
Alexia swung the door a quarter of the way open...
...just enough to reveal an open-mouthed, stunned, Jason Lim.
Without a word, Alexia reached out her hand, grabbed the front of Jason's quarter-zip, and gently tugged the gobsmacked boy into the dorm room.
Kelsie had no idea under what pretense this sweet technophile had been lured here tonight. Whatever it had been, Jason now seemed to be cycling furiously through his expansive mind for some explanation for what he had just walked in on: Kelsie sitting on her bed in her pajama pants as if this was a standard Friday evening; Alexia communicating, in every possible way, that this was no normal night.
Like Kelsie, Jason was trying to put together why Alexia was dressed like this. Unlike Kelsie...This boy was exuding an erotic desire that Kelsie could practically taste in the air. Lust was practically sweating out of Jason's pores. In the brief moment of silence that followed, the only sound in the room was Jason's deep, labored breathing.
And then Alexia slowly pulled herself close to Jason, right up to his chest, looked up into his eyes, and removed every obstacle of doubt that this nice boy had logically tried to place in his own way.
"Jason," Alexia intoned, her voice just above a whisper, "This is all for you."
Kelsie stood up: There was no sense in standing in the way of these two oncoming trains!
"Okayyyyy I will see you two later..."
"You can't leave, Kelsie," Alexia entreated, her eyes never leaving the sand-swept Korean visage above her. "I told you, I need your help."
Kelsie stopped and silently held up her hands to say why the hell would I STAY, Alexia?
Alexia's only response was to snap her finger, then point back at Kelsie's bed.
"Jason, you don't think about Kelsie right now," Alexia gently commanded. "There's no one here but me, OK?"
Right now, there was no one else in Howard Hall for Jason Lim.
There was no one else at Perion University.
There was no one else on Earth.
Alexia slid her hands down to Jason's waist, to his quarter zip and the t-shirt beneath it. As she pulled them up over Jason's head and discarded them on the floor, Kelsie could see this boy trying to maintain the smallest grip on reality: It was if his brain wanted to at least note the utter bizarreness of suddenly standing here, bare-chested, in the middle of this room, before his conscience blew its final fuse and he departed for Dreamland.
Alexia crouched down, pulled off Jason's sneaker and socks, then slowly stood back up, staring into Jason's eyes as she rose. She unzipped the fly of his jeans, and they collapsed to the ground. Save for Jason's tight black athletic briefs, the boy was now in his full glory.
Jason's nearly-naked body juggled the same contradictions that his face did. He looked awkwardly skinny...yet the longer Kelsie looked, the more she detected a supple display of lean muscle. The boy's entire aura right now was Nerd's Fantasy Comes True...yet his body was a beguiling voyage to Asia, to the islands, to a faraway place where this humble programmer could somehow show a basic American girl the pleasures that she didn't know existed...
Alexia drew her body tight to Jason's. She began to softly kiss his neck, her lipstick leaving its pink mark at every stop.
"Jason..." Alexia whispered between kisses, "We all really appreciate you...You have been such a good friend to the team...you have been such a good brother to Erika..."
Alexia moved higher, to Jason's left ear. She delicately took the lobe in her mouth, caressing it with her tongue before sliding her lips around the entire outer rim of the ear.