A spring breeze drifted through the college neighborhood as Michaela Birch moved with purpose down the leafy block. Through the twilight dimness Taylor Swift ballad echoed as she sauntered past the cozy homes in a bee line to her special "friend."
Thinking of Todd, every inch of his 6 foot three frame--sweet and sculpted and tight--made her shiver. What was not honed by countless hours in the gym had been reduced to essential perfection by the relentless drills of his football coaches.
Prepped in her favorite outfit, glossy pleather boots and makeup just so, Michaela felt drawn to Todd's new place. It was almost as if what she needed from him had a cord pulling her from her waist to his.
She loved college. She loved the classes, loved learning every day just how immense the world was and loved to discover more of the mad number of possibilities it held. And tonight, with nothing on her mind but open hours to play with her FWB, Michaela loved just how surprising, adult and wicked it could get.
She was studying art history with a minor in journalism. This week, she had black hair with streaks of burgundy red and navy blue, flaunting her alt-girl predilections. She felt cute with a little nose ring, an ironic school-girl skirt topped off with an Ani DiFranco t-shirt. She was the kind of girl it was easy to assume would hate football. The reality was she couldn't care less for it. She was the kind of girl more at home at an experimental theater performance, a collection of feminist photography, or some up-and-coming singer/songwriter still under Spotify's radar.
But every day at college stripped away more of the hipper-than-thou attitude she had nurtured with her friends in high school. So here she was, making her way to a house filled with three Bears.
Her Todd was Todd Hoffman, a safety on the Bellamy University Bears. He was a pale vision capped with eyes an indigo shade of blue and a perfectly fetching tangle of brown hair. He lived with two of his teammates and best friends: Jamal Slone, an impossibly cut African American a shade below average height and the team's top running back, and Patrick Flynn, a hulking blonde sporting a surfer's tan, a hulking linebacker who made a name for himself in the Big 10 clearing the field for Jamal's game winning touchdowns. Pat's biceps were as thick as Michaela's thighs.
She had met Todd in her first week at Bellamy. Despite her knee-jerk indifference to all things sports, she could not help but flush at the sight of his shredded body as he threw the football around outside their dorm. Images of Michelangelo's David, Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, or Crazy Stupid Love-era Ryan Gosling danced in her head as she gazed at him running across the grass. Watching him, wanting him, she tried to pull out every art history precedent for appreciating the form of a strong man.
But hidden in the midnight hour, while her roommate Brittney slept across the room, Michaela's fingers slipped under the waistband of her panties. She cupped, massaged and squeezed her mound with its delicious and growing hunger. She had to admit when she was watching Todd there was nothing academic about appreciating the aesthetic beauty of the human form.
Michaela wanted him to fuck her.
She wanted to feel the bounty of all his hard work, all his years of careful eating, the countless hours of physical striving that sculpted his muscle into oak hardness. She wanted all of it to rage across her soft curves as he devoured her, feasted on her, and filled her with all his greedy strength.
Even now, so long after she and Todd had begun their friends-with-benefits relationship, she still had a hard time thinking of herself with a tall, rock hard, muscle-bound football player. She had even tried to quit him several times, but none of the other guys on campus could compare. The men of Bellamy struck her more like strutting boys on their way to becoming insufferable bores.
After tonight, she would have to admit her idea of what went on with close-knit football players was very far off the mark. For as "shocking," as experimenting, as much of a rebel as she fancied herself to be, after tonight, Michaela would wonder if Todd and his roommates were the real rule breakers.
With relief, she saw the little apartment building tucked away under a cluster of old oaks. The walk over had been a torture of anticipation, so she couldn't pound loud enough on Todd's door.
"Oh, I'm sorry miss, the socialist blog collective moved out," Todd said, relaxing on his porch as Michaela stepped up his walk. "All we have in here now are the finest young men Coach Johnson has to lead."
"Very funny," Michaela said. She loved to have Todd tease her. As much as she liked to see herself as a tough, competent, 21st century woman, she loved the way he liked to circle her, poke her, play around with the stereotypes of the circles they ran in. She liked how he tried to let the air out of her without ever slipping into cruelty or meaning a word of it. Feeling their opposing qualities pull them together and swing them around, reveling in unconventional attraction, had the special sweetness of a forbidden thrill.
And she loved to hurl it right back.
"No, I'm looking for the place with the two albino gorillas who are living with the fastest running back in the Midwest," Michaela said. Taking the steps to the porch and letting herself in, she nodded to Jamal who was splayed on the trashed couch inside the living room. He lifted his chin in a familiar gesture.
"Hi Jamal," she said.
"Sup Micha," Jamal said. Michaela smiled and looked back at Todd.
"I've found the running back," she said, squeezing Jamal's bicep. She loved watching the spark dance in Todd's eye whenever she pretended to come on to one of his roommates. Jabbing a finger at Todd, she added "And I've already found one of the gorillas. Where's Patrick?"
Before Todd could answer, Patrick kicked open the screen door and emerged from the darkness outside with a cooler filled with ice and four kinds of beer.
"Hi Michaela," Pat said.
"Hey Pat. Party tonight?"
"I wish," Pat said, thumping the cooler to the kitchen floor.
Todd put a hand up and stage-whispered, "He and Terry broke up."
"She dumped him," Jamal said.
"Oh, shit Pat. That sucks," Michaela said. "What happened?"
"Fuck if I know," Pat said, slumping beside Jamal. Even in her rush of sympathy, Michaela couldn't help but notice the cornucopia of male flesh sitting side by side on the battered couch. "After Econ I texted asking what she was doing tonight and she said she didn't want to see me anymore. Bam, like that."
"Did she say why?" Michaela asked. Though he seemed friendly and open, she and Pat had exchanged few words. Now, here she was, hurt and angry for him.
Pat shook his head.
"She was fucking her tutor!" Jamal said, elbowing Pat. His huge form slumped further, Pat didn't respond.
"She's been hanging around with her European history tutor a lot." Todd said. "Or, well, a tutor of European history. Turns out she wasn't even taking that class this semester. And looks like she blocked him on Snap and Insta. She even unfriended him on Facebook. The hits, they keep coming."
Michaela leaned against the kitchen counter, the last light of sunset lending a moody glow to the room, turning over the news in her mind. She looked at Pat, sullen and quiet. For a moment she saw the boy inside the man, and her heart warmed for him.
"That is fucking awful," she said. "You should do something fun."
The three guys, beers in their hands, looked up to her. Jamal looked puzzled, waving his beer at the video game on the big screen.
"We are," he said.
"We're cheering him up," Todd said. "That's... That's why I invited you over."
Michaela cast an arched eye at Todd. "Oh, really?"
"See, Jamal, Pat and I like to share. We share a Playstation. We share a TV and I thought ..." Todd began. He smiled the smile of a man trying to keep a straight face. He cracked and burst out laughing.
"Ah, damn. I can't do it. I wanted to take some horrible stance like I was going to hand you off to Jam and Pat, but I can't. Even I have some morals."
"You are so fucking twisted," Michaela said with a rueful smile. She took a beer, twisted the top then flicked the cap at Todd.
"Besides, what makes you think you all could handle me?" Michaela said.
That got their attention. Jamal's eyes widened, and Pat's dour cast perked up. Todd was wordless.
"Ah," Michaela said, affecting a mocking, dismissive tone. "Too bad. Looks like you guys shrink from an opportunity when push comes to shove."
She was better at keeping a straight face than Todd, but finally broke out laughing. Todd and Pat joined in, but Jamal only smiled.
Clicking his lips, Michaela heard him mutter, "You never know, boo."
Michaela let it go and the evening resumed its course. But as the boys drank, as the sounds of the college neighborhood moving into a Friday evening fluttered around them, the fantasy of the three men before her flickered like a movie seen through fog. Wanting something you cannot have is a great way to be unhappy, Michaela thought. She put the fantasy, with its electric charge of excitement, out of her mind.
Jamal took to his phone, texting up a spell to entice some friendly women over. But as handsome and nice as he was, he was usually more than a little cocky, and with women his more than a little was a lot. After a few hours no one showed up. By the time they floated the idea of going to a bar downtown, they were all a bit toasted and Pat wasn't feeling it anyway.
So they drank and joked and talked and stayed as the night outside went from cobalt to purple to black.
