Pavlovian Reaction 1

This story is a product of a frenzied 5-day writing spree. When I first looked at the 40000-something word monster I'd created, I decided to leave it be for a while, and completely forgot about it. Many moons later, I found it by accident while looking for some documents and thought "It'd be a massive waste if I wrote all this for nothing."

So I came to the site, saw that there actually are people who are so awesome, that they're willing to edit your regurgitation of words out of the kindness of their hearts. On that note -- a special thanks to

LaRascasse

for removing several unnecessary limbs from the monster and prettying it up for the public; and to

MattKester

for essentially teaching me how to use quotation marks with 400+ corrections of misused punctuation throughout the story. This story wouldn't have been submitted without them, so feel free to blame them for everything.

EDIT: The story has a slow build-up. If you want to jump straight to the sex and skip the build-up, go to the last few pages. There's bound to be some sex there.

***

First, I suppose it's best that readers get acquainted with the narrator of this story. At the time when this all started she was, that is -- I was, nineteen. I was interested in nearly everything; at least a little bit, and everyone. I listened to everything people had to say, and tried to absorb as much of their experience, knowledge as I could force myself to. I wasn't naturally this way, or at least not completely. I realized that my field of interest and expertise was going to become very narrow now that I was in college, and that I should keep an open mind and listen to people. This interest in people and what they had to say made me popular among my colleagues, although not in a prom queen kind of way. So, during my first year at college I slowly gathered a diverse group of friends.

I made friends with the "already know everything I need to; going to college just so I can have a degree that proves that" type, and the perpetually homesick students who were from out of town, the wannabe musicians, the driven students who made all of us lazy ones feel always slightly uncomfortable about the fact that we hadn't started studying yet, etc.

The group I hung out with the most consisted of three meek and friendly blondes (and a very slim, short, pale, dark-haired girl who always hung out with them) who did well enough in class, but were rarely asked when something needed to be explained. All three (four, counting the dark-haired one) of them were friendly in their own way, and were the kind of people you'd approach when looking for someone to talk to in a group. They were also, in varying degrees, easy-going. They all liked to drink on occasion, and never frowned upon anyone being drunk, but all but one of them disliked drugs, including weed, in any shape or form. They were always referred to as "The Blondes", despite the fact that one of the members of "The Blondes" had decidedly black hair.

Another dark-haired girl worth mentioning, though not one of The Blondes, was Priscilla (Pris for short), who I had hooked up with on a few occasions. Usually, we were both drunk or high, so I couldn't really tell whether she would be as eager to kiss me when we were sober. We were both very good students, who studied little but achieved much. Our achievements were different in nature however -- I got by with luck and good on-the-spot thinking, and she was capable of cramming a lot of information into her head in a short period of time. It didn't hurt her case that she was very smart, either.

She was very laid-back, slim, and barely taller than me, but enough to tease me about it whenever she could. For some reason she was instantly very popular wherever she went, and everyone wanted to know her opinion on things. She was also into the same drugs that The Blondes were so much against. However, they liked Pris and kept hoping that she would eventually realize that "drugs were stupid". I knew that she hated heroin more than anything and would never try it herself, despite the open-mindedness she took pride in. I also knew it was somehow related to her first girlfriend, one that she wasn't very fond of even at the time, but I know it shook her up when she found out she was using.

There were a few others in the "usual" group that I hung out with, but they didn't really have as much influence on my daily life as The Blondes and Pris.

As I mentioned, I was relatively good in college. Just as a side note, I studied programming and mathematics, so it was, to a degree, possible to not study too much and still pass with good grades. There wasn't a class I couldn't pass with relative ease, and I could ace whatever I wanted when I decided to actually put some effort into my studies. I took some pride in my academic success, but not enough to work harder for it. I was comparatively tall at 5'8''. My shoulders were a bit broader than the average woman's, and I had a strong back, which was a legacy from the time I spent playing water polo. I had very long, very thick, wavy brown hair that attracted a lot of attention from people who actually paid attention to that kind of stuff. I wasn't particularly good looking, but I wasn't particularly ugly, either. I looked, in my words, "good enough". Good enough meaning that I had a chance with anyone I wanted, but was not guaranteed to succeed solely because of my looks.

My breasts were larger than average, borderline Ds, and still nicely shaped, with especially nice nipples, and so they were in the center of attention whenever I was naked. Speaking of being naked -- those "especially nice" nipples of mine were very hard to control; whenever I took my bra off they would instantly stand to attention, like tiny Mel Gibsons screaming FREEDOOOOM whenever they weren't smothered. Which is one of the main reasons why I always wore one, except when sleeping; the other reason being that I wasn't particularly fond of feeling like my breasts were being yanked out of my chest every time I jumped.

I wasn't butch in the classical sense, I simply wasn't feminine, and my openness led to me being described as "boyish" sometimes. Nonetheless, I wore women's clothes and for all intents and purposes, I was and looked like a woman. Also, people often found me affable, easy-going and full of self-confidence (which was true, but only to a certain extent). Quite a lot of them were puzzled by how relaxed I was in stressful situations. The truth was that I just didn't care most of the time about what was happening, so I couldn't be stressed out about it.

***

"... also thank *GOD* that freshmen got the early morning schedule. I was already dreading waking up at 6.40 to get ready for classes. I don't understand why anyone thinks we can actually pay attention to anything at eight in the morning," one of The Blondes rambled on as we were walking from our bus stop to class. We sometimes traveled together since she was the only person from my part of town, and we had grown close thanks to this. "... Do you remember how dreadful it was to listen to three hours of discrete mathematics

IN THE MORNING

? How can anyone expect me to follow how the whole science of mathematics rose from an idea of an empty set when I am barely aware of who I am?"

I was tired and grumpy. I liked waking up before nine at the latest, but slept in that morning and my body was unused to the idea. We arrived at the college building early, and she decided to keep me company outside as I smoked. Oh, did I mention that none of The Blondes smoked? Well, except the black-haired member, she went through a pack a day. However, it always seemed like she was the... black sheep of the group (*ba dum tss*).

We stayed outside and talked about what each of us had done the last fortnight of vacation. Well, it would have been vacation if we both hadn't left two exams for the last exam period and practically ruined the whole of September for ourselves. We talked about our woes nonetheless and agreed to "study on time" this semester.

We were soon joined by the rest of The Blondes and some other colleagues and decided to go in to at least find decent seats because the classroom was sure to be crowded the first week. Later, of course, people would stop going to class because they were not mandatory; our college didn't insist on students attending any of their classes, and no one paid close attention to who was there or who wasn't. Naturally, most students decided that attending those classes was an unnecessary waste of time. Which wasn't exactly true, but that still didn't make us decide to go. I went to classes that I liked, or ones that I had difficulty understanding on my own. Whatever fell out of those two categories was completely ignored until exam time.

The classroom was, sure enough, full to the brim. And this was Calculus 2, for God's sake, so it was obvious that this was not going to be the case in the following weeks. In fact, there were a lot more students there than were even on the list of students for the second year. So I could only assume that the extra numbers came from those who have failed this class already, and while formally third or fourth year, still dragged Calculus 1/2/3 along with them. I looked around the room to see who I knew these. Realizing that most of the people I hung out with were there already, I sat next to one of them and exchanged "Hi"s and "How have you been?"s.

The lecture was three hours long, but it wasn't as bad as I had expected. The professor seemed to be well aware that we forgot everything we knew from Calculus 1 (even though I passed that exam 4 days before the second year started) and practically baby-sat us the entire time, pausing on every potentially confusing part and explaining it to us. During the lecture, I was partially aware of the soreness in my calves, which was a consequence of my newfound will to walk more daily. I downloaded a pedometer app and, being competitive in nature, kept walking more every day than I normally would, just to get the "over 10k steps every day this month" achievement.

I can't allow it to be written in some database that I was unable to do that, now can I?

It was good for me, and walking home from class took me about an hour and a half, which was usually enough to get over that mark, and way more pleasant than going via a crowded bus for 45 minutes through town. Besides, even the center of town wasn't overly crowded, especially when you were on foot. You couldn't walk more than half an hour in any direction before ending up in a park. The Calculus 2 lecture was all we had for the first day of the second year, so most people formed little groups and went to various pubs near the building to catch up with friends.

As the crowd was walking out of the classroom, I looked around for Pris. There were way too many students there so I decided to just wait around outside in case she showed up. The Blondes came out shortly after me in a tight, giggling group, and asked if I wanted to go and get coffee to-go with them and find a spot to sit in in the park. I told them I might join them later, and they settled for that. I waited for about 10 minutes, until everyone who'd been at the lecture went somewhere, and there was still no sign of Pris. She was the one I usually hung out with directly before or after class, and I was in the mood for a beer and some deep conversation about which parts of life are worth optimizing, but she didn't show up. I decided to get a beer and join The Blondes in the park to pass time, and then walk home.

The timetable for the whole week was almost identical each day. The classes started at about 1-2pm and ended in a range of 6-9pm. Which was great if you weren't an early bird I suppose, but I always considered afternoon classes to seemingly take all of my day. At least with morning classes you get up early, finish with them, and have the rest of the day at your disposal. But afternoon classes did leave room for a lot of weekday drinking and staying up late, so they weren't a total miss.

I decided that I would go to all classes, no matter how boring or useless, during the first week. I did go to most, and realized that this semester was going to be particularly dull and exhausting. None of my classes seemed to interest me, and half of them were fairly difficult as well. Priscilla's continued absence from class only added to my overall lack of enthusiasm, and even though we kept a strictly offline friendship (I didn't even have her on any social media, we only texted when we had to agree where and when to meet), I decided to break that and see what was going on, after the third day of her absence. She replied shortly "we'll talk in person today" the day after I sent her a slightly concerned message.

I arrived early again, and decided to buy coffee and smoke and wait for Pris outside, thinking that she might show up. Sure enough she did, before I finished the first cigarette.

"Hey, hey!" -- she said, in a mocking cheerleader voice and gave me two air kisses. She backed off, smiled at my confusion and hugged me, carefully avoiding my coffee and cigarette.

"Hey yourself. It's kind of lonely to drink coffee all by myself, you know."

"Sure, if you'd stop smoking with every cup maybe you wouldn't have to do it outside and

maybe

you wouldn't have to be alone." She smiled again. She always had clean teeth, always smelled good, in a freshly showered kind of way, and her clothes were always clean, even though she dressed plainly. I discovered some years ago that I find good hygiene very attractive, so much so that it was the first thing that came to mind whenever someone asked me what my type was. So she didn't have to do much to win me over. She looked good, as I said previously -- slim, a hint of abs, a small but nicely shaped ass, again small but nicely shaped breasts, and smooth, pale skin. She didn't work out much, if at all, but enjoyed walking a lot, and led a lifestyle that didn't keep her awake at "eating hours". Despite all this I found her attractive mainly because of the aforementioned hygiene and her intellect, the way she looked was a nice, but unnecessary, bonus.

"Sure, I'll stop doing that as soon as you do. I don't think you're capable of separating caffeine and nicotine." I said. Which was true, she couldn't stop smoking only because she associated drinking coffee with it, and she drank

a lot

of coffee.

She made a mockingly dismissive gesture, and proceeded to take a sip of my coffee, and promptly lit a cigarette in that spirit.

"So, decided classes were too boring to even give them a chance?" I asked, while wondering why the "no sugar" option on the coffee machine still made coffee that had small crystals of the thing waiting at the bottom to dissolve.

"No no, it's not that. I had a

very

fun time two days ago. I could tell you all about it but... " she looked at the entrance to the building and smiled a "too bad you need to go to class" smile. Which made me repeat the same dismissive gesture she used earlier and say, "Where are we going?"

Beer. Of course.

After we gulped down a pint just to get things moving, while talking about the timetable (popular topic), and who the new professors were this year, she smiled as widely as possible. She laid back against her chair, crossed her arms, and overall assumed the posture of someone about to tell you how interesting their life is compared to yours. She did things like this in a joking manner, I never considered her to be seriously mocking, and it was funny when she did that sort of thing.

"I got arrested."

She seemed to enjoy saying that as much as if she were saying, "I just fucked Angelina Jolie" (who was her favorite woman on Earth). I blinked once, not in disbelief or surprise, but merely processing and wondering whether it was a joke.

Concluding that she looked too proud for it to be a joke, I asked,

"Why?"

She was still smiling, but it was apparent that she was slightly disappointed that I didn't choke on my beer at the announcement. "It was stupid. I got pulled over while coming back from the market, and this wider-than-taller cop asked me to step out and told me that he would search my car. I thought about protesting, but honestly I didn't know whether they were allowed to search my car or not, so I gave up on that idea. I was kind of relieved because I had nothing on me, I had literally dropped off 10 grams of weed at Adam's on my way back home, and I was feeling a tiny bit self-satisfied that my car was as clean as it ever was. The dude said something like 'Miss, I can smell weed in your car', and I was seriously tempted to just say 'Whoever smelt it dealt it'." This time I did choke a little on my beer. "Anyway, they found exactly,

exactly

, 0.2 grams of weed on my car floor. Can you believe it? I laughed and told them it must have flown in through the window or something. You know they never make an issue if you have less than one joint worth on you, they're too lazy to bug you about it and besides, high students are the most docile students."

She kept talking and drinking interchangeably while I sat there, drinking in silence. I was quickly downing the second pint, so I decided to slow down by ordering some peanuts. I also don't know why her talking was getting me aroused, but I liked her posture as she spoke, and she smelled as "hygienically good" as ever.

"Anyway, they said that I had to go with them down to the station. While my body was all too eager to start panicking I calmed down a bit thinking that it was really

only

0.2 grams. I had literally nothing on me, which is almost never the case. Anyway, I went down there, we had a nice chat about how I don't use anything, don't sell anything, etcetera. They decided I should spend the night since I was already there, while they

slooowly

checked my car again. And even though they found nothing new and incriminating they went ahead and opened my file. They didn't write anything in it though, but I have

a file

now. Every time I get pulled over or something from here on out I am going to be suspicious just because I have a file. Gah." She rolled her eyes.

"But I am still fucking glad this went the way that it did. Jesus, I usually have at least two different types of drugs on me." She laughed at this last part, because it was true. She didn't like keeping her stuff at home, and preferred to carry it with her. This always seemed irresponsible to me, because my hiding places at home seemed to be much more secure than having anything on me. So I only carried weed when I knew I would be needing it, the rest of the time my stash was stored in my computer case, which no one was allowed to touch.

"But that's not the best part!" continued Pris as if getting arrested could easily be mistaken for

the best part

. "Tina started a hashtag #PrisIsClean and spent her time talking women into writing that on their tits and then taking pictures of it."

She laughed at this and started rummaging for her phone, found it, leaned closer to me and scrolled through at least half a dozen cleavages that had that hashtag written on them. I rolled my eyes and snorted loud enough for her to get the message, but I was becoming increasingly aware of her nearness, and my cheeks were starting to get hot. After all, we do hook up only when we're not sober, and it seemed as if we were planning on not being sober that afternoon. She sat back in her chair and smiled wide again.

"I was hoping that I'd see that great pair of yours among these pictures but oh well... So, how does it feel to hang out with a criminal?" She was still enjoying the whole getting arrested bit way too much, and her ears seemed to be getting redder.