.........*** Chapter 20 ***.........
Nicola moaned softly and braced herself against the bunk bed supports. Mark slowly pressed his penis into her from behind, letting Nicola lean back to help impale herself. For a moment they held still, Nicola trembling slightly. And then Mark started his familiar motion. In, out, in, out, his buttocks tensing while he stroked her back or her sensitive inner thighs.
Even in the dark, Esther could see them faintly. The odd little smiles and grimaces Nicola made every time Mark pushed all the way in with that meaty smacking noise. The way Mark's hands flexed, his muscles taut, yet holding Nicola gently. Esther's breath came faster, and she rubbed her back more quickly.
Her vision, her hearing, her smell — everything was sharper. Not the way it could become in those rare instances that seemed to be her version of an orgasm. But it was enough to see her roommates' lovemaking. And it was lovemaking, not just sex, whatever Nicola might think.
In their own ways they were both much more sensitive than Esther was. Surely they knew she was watching, and what she was doing under the blanket. But Nicola had kept her promise and never said a word.
When they were finally through, Mark stroked Nicola's chest one last time, then vaulted onto his bunk with his usual astonishing grace. Nicola sighed contentedly and reached for the usual towel. Esther got a strange thrill every time she came across that cloth when it was her turn to do laundry.
Nicola looked up, catching Esther's gaze, and Esther looked away quickly. But when she glanced back, Nicola smiled at her. Aware, but not taunting her. It was so much better than those first weeks, when she'd rubbed in Esther's face the fact she was having sex with Mark.
After a few minutes, Esther got up to use the outhouse. It was frigid outside, the mud frozen and treacherous, with patches of crusty snow here and there. After she'd used the toilet, she spent a while touching herself. The areas on her back and chest. The sensitive ring between her legs, surrounding the small hole that she didn't understand. She'd always been too nervous to manage one of those sensory orgasms in the cabin with Mark and Nicola. A few times in the bath, and one memorable occasion in the outhouse.
Not tonight, though. She was horny enough, but it wasn't going anywhere. Her butt was getting numb from the freezing toilet seat, as she still couldn't consciously summon her ability to keep warm. It was as though her body knew that she wasn't really in danger here, and her energy reserves shouldn't be wasted on something so trivial as pleasure. But her pleasure was the best key she'd found to unlock these abilities in the first place.
It was a bind, and she didn't know her way out of it. Probably it would just take time, as Abuela said. She was getting steadily more comfortable with this place.
She sighed and returned to the toasty cabin. And then she went to sleep and dreamed of Javier.
* * *
Javier stepped off the bus and pulled out the campus map with a sigh. For the thousandth time he wished he had a memory a fraction as good as Esther's.
The community college's engineering building was old and shabby. But when Javier found the computer lab, everything looked brand new. Samuel said some local rich guy had given a healthy donation for it.
He walked in nervously. But there was Samuel and a handful of his friends. The younger boy looked up and waved when he entered.
"Hey everyone, this is Javier," said Samuel. The other boys started to talk all at once and he missed most of their names. They seemed friendly enough, though.
Javier felt old amongst the eager group of tenth-graders, but even though it was a Saturday there were others in the lab. Students, most likely, with the usual wide range of ages this college attracted. One of them was even older than Mamá.
"Don't mind me," Javier said to the younger students. "I'm just going to be watching and listening for a while, I think."
"Eh, why not dive in, though?" said a voice from behind him. Javier turned to see a slightly plump girl with glasses, short blond hair, and a lot of piercings.
"Javier, this is my sister Kathleen," said Samuel. "Uh, Kat."
"Hi, Kat," said Javier. "Samuel has said a lot about you."
"Has he," Kat said with a stern look at Samuel. The younger boy looked nervous, but then she stuck her tongue out at Samuel. Javier immediately liked her.
"Let's get you set up with an account," said Kat, leading him up to the front. "You'll have full student privileges, which means you have your own storage space and full access to all the applications, as well as e-mail and the whole Internet. But it also means you can't fuck any of the computers up, which conveniently saves me work. Worst you can do is blow away all your own files."
Javier nodded, filling out the short form she handed him. In a few minutes she proclaimed him all set up.
"Change that password right away," she said. "There are instructions on the sheet. Oh, and Javier —"
She leaned close to his ear.
"If you didn't know, there are a lot of dirty pictures and stuff on the Internet," she whispered. "Try not to be obvious about downloading it or filling up your storage space. Because I'll be the one who notices, and that will just embarrass both of us. I mean, unless it's really artistic."
Javier coughed, and she smiled at him beatifically. Nervously he retreated to a spot near Samuel and started poking at the computer.
He had no idea what he was doing, of course. The other students were mostly playing games, though Samuel and one other kid seemed to be programming. He looked around the room and saw a few reference books on a shelf.
A half hour later he was carefully typing in some arcane commands. He smiled when a window popped open and a pair of eyes began following the cursor. It was a start. There was something tremendously satisfying about all of this: the quiet clacking of keys, the happy chatter of the other boys. The feeling of possibility.
At some point he looked up, and almost everyone else had left. He'd been here for hours, filling his head to overflowing with all the terse information in the book. Kat caught his eye and smiled, walking over to him.
"Getting near closing time," she said. "Looks like you enjoyed yourself. You know, I'm pretty sure they have some copies of this reference at the college library. Go ahead and borrow this one if you feel like reading it at home."
He nodded and smiled. "Maybe sometime," he said. "I don't think my brain can handle more for a while. But I'll be here next Saturday!"
On the bus ride home, he remembered Kat's warm smile. And the pretty little butterfly she had tattooed on one arm. He wondered if she had any more tattoos.
* * *
"A little farther," said Mark. "Then we'll have lunch."
Esther was breathing too hard to reply. Mark moved ahead, so fast that she almost lost him in the trees. But he never let himself past her sight. It was exhausting, a kind of torture she was putting herself through. But at least she wasn't around Nicola all day. Just when she'd thought they were getting along, the other woman had turned increasingly cold and irritable.
Anyway, there was a point to this exercise. She knew she was getting faster, though mostly that was from increased endurance. She noticed with excitement how large her appetite was getting on these days Mark let her come along.
Mark had been less enthusiastic. "I can't tell," he said. "If you're doing anything special to help your body's exertion, it's not very efficient. But you are getting in better shape, so that's good."
