Danielle's and Cherys' committed relationship so it didn't seem appropriate to ask. Perhaps Danielle had found out.

But speaking of Danielle, her relationship with me actually backtracked a little bit. During those two weeks, while we were as friendly as ever, I sensed a little wall being raised between us.

Ellie and I still had sex while the opportunities were afforded us. She didn't even mind doing it in the common areas of our house, showing off her exhibitionist streak by having me fuck her over the dining room table or in the living room. And when Cherys or Danielle would stumble upon us, Ellie would just smile and go right on fucking me. We were both comfortable with it.

Cherys wanted to stay and watch. She seemed more curious than anything else about hetero sex. Later on, she confessed she'd been a Little fearful of being physically dominated by a man. She mentioned something about how every male wants to convert a lesbian, even if by force or some such psychobabble. But seeing Ellie and me made sex seem so much more a bond of trust, with Ellie willingly putting herself at my mercy for our mutual pleasure.

But Danielle would get awkward in these moments, hurrying herself away.

Even when she was together with Cherys, she would Leave her girlfriend behind and find somewhere else to be. I could only guess she felt some kind of shame seeing me, her little brother, in a sexual position. It was just... wrong... right?

But then the vacation passed, and the 19-year-olds went back to college. And I unfortunately had no further opportunities to see Cherys naked. wok

SECOND SEMESTER, SENIOR YEAR (January 1998)

The second semester of our Senior year started off the same as our first semester, with one important exception: our grades didn't really matter anymore.

College applications were done. As long as our second semester grades didn't totally tank, we were fine. In addition, there was also a strong sense of finality hanging over us. These were the last few months of high school. For some, these years were the best years of our lives.

And for many friends in our social circle, it would be the last time we ever really saw each other.

Some of us would be attending the big in-state University. Ellie and I both planned to join our siblings in there, assuming we got in, but others were moving away.

Monica was likely to go to some fancy private school. She had the grades and the ambition. We'd always known the relationship between her and me couldn't last forever. That knowledge had helped a Lot in making our breakup a smooth one. It was still hard to look at her without remembering her fantastic body, but I knew we would be able to part as friends when the time came.

As luck would have it, Nate was also applying to some schools in the same geographical areas. There were national schools that liked his arm and he had some serious recruiting for football. Still, his best offers were likely to come from our home state, so he'd probably stay nearby like the rest of us, but he had some dreams about remaining close to

Monica.

Then there were the good, but not-so-studious, friends who were either going to community colleges or just finding jobs. Maybe they'd end up staying in our hometown. ALL in all, the future separation loomed over us, and we seemed to be most interested in enjoying what time we had together.

And so, my second semester began by hanging out, blowing off homework, and generally concentrating entirely on friends and not at all on schoolwork. That sort of prioritizing wasn't a big deal to me, but it seemed to be something of a big deal to my Chemistry lab partner.

Elizabeth was your prototypical nerd-girl. Just a Junior, she'd nevertheless placed into the Senior Chemistry course and by Luck of the draw was stuck with me in lab.

At first, some of my guy friends ribbed me about having to spend so much time with the chubby, glasses-wearing overachiever with frizzy hair and bad acne. She wasn't like fugly or anything, but let me put it this way: we eighteen-year-old boys pretty much wanted to screw everything with a pair of tits. And yet none of us wanted to bang

Elizabeth.

Not helping in her social meandering was her uncanny ability to spout technobabble with ease, even if it was in the middle of an otherwise normal conversation. One moment I'd be distracted by a pretty blonde at the next lab station. The next Elizabeth would be saying, “If you want to saunter over and engage in meaningless banter with the express intention of determining a successful vector within her undergarments and thus achieve bodily fluid exchange, please get on with it so I can finish this assignment." Her verbiage was even more hilarious given the slight lisp from her braces that hampered easy comprehension of her speech.

So instead the boys made rude remarks to me about her, occasionally when Elizabeth was within hearing range. I kind of felt bad for her and did my best to deflect their comments. Unfortunately, to add insult to injury to her, for about two weeks I was almost useless as a partner in the Chem lab.

Elizabeth did almost all the work herself for those first two weeks.

And then the nobler part of me started to feel REALLY bad. It was one thing to slack off my academics when it only affected me. It was quite another to fall short with another human being.

So surprise, surprise, when Monday came I immediately started analyzing the lab instructions and began measuring out amounts of various chemicals.