Not for nothing are “Ghost World” and “The Doom Generation” my favorite films. I was made for a stark black bob long before I ever got one, before I saw those movies and even before I discovered black hair dye. Without it I might have ended up looking something like Lotte Lenya in “From Russia With Love.” Goddess bless Manic Panic!!

It’s more than the hair, it’s the attitude. “Girl, you are the snarkiest bitch I know,” said my Best Fag Forever Matthew to me only the other week.

“I won’t be referred to as ‘girl’, not by a twee little sissy like you,” I replied campily. “I have enough with bourgeois clichés to deal with, I don’t need those of Queendom too.”

I was hip to the bourgeoisie thanks to my erstwhile boyfriend Ted, the philosophy major. ‘Philosopher,’ he would have it. That’s a crock. Not that I mind his warmed-over Hegelianism. He’s cute, Ted is. Actually smart too. Fuck, I’m such a softie. Why must I fall so easily?

Matthew is part of my ongoing therapy for the dark heart of sentimentality that lurks within. I wanted to cultivate fierceness. Be more Enid.

I didn’t grow up in some So Cal hellonearth, that’s part of the problem. I had a convivial suburban childhood, a responsible adolescence. I entered college studious, quiet, though I had at least acquired my Enid hair and goth-lite wardrobe. How embarrassing it would be to embark upon a freshman orientation-week life makeover! I wasn’t ready to fake out that bad. But by the onset of sophomore year it was high time to start taking things up a notch.

My liberal arts campus isn’t particularly arty, let alone experimental in any gender or queer direction. Still, it’s basically a tolerant place, and Matt stood out as one of our more experimental denizens.

Maybe it was being surrounded by so few openly gay people that made Matt a kind of Queer-of-all-trades. As far as his social persona went, he had a lot of the stereotypically effeminate Disco Fag traits; he understood girlie kitsch and all that, but he could take care of himself, and I always thought there was a lot of traditionally masculine energy radiating off him too. The proof, I suppose, is that so many girls didn’t just like him, they like-liked him. He could be some kind of Rupert Everett, the gay guy with the straight-appeal to be a Hollywood hunk or something.

I’d like to see him as James Bond someday. Damn.

But that wasn’t how he played it, at least around me. I was a mean little snarl of a black-bobbed Bitchie McBitch, or so I comforted myself, and I wanted Matthew to diversify my portfolio. I let him coax me into wearing vinyl leggings, take me clubbing. He really taught me how to dance, be social. He lightened my wardrobe, steered me towards neon-hued Chuck Taylors, fitted out my iPod with Eurodance songs. Around him I could be cheery, experimental. By the end of freshman year I was more sociable than I had dreamed of. I actually may have become something of a fun person, without losing my core edge of moroseness. Make that fake-moroseness. Well, I’ve gotta keep my edge, haven’t I?

“Girl,” I said to Matt over coffee and buttered rolls, “I am wilting away like some virginal Wharton heroine.”

“Sheila dear, why is it with the ‘girl’ this, ‘girl’ that to me but I can never call you ‘girl’?”

“Because you need to be told you’re a girl and I don’t. What I need affirmation on is being a slut and a whore.”

“So listen slut, isn’t Ted taking care of your business?”

“Oh, as far as the store front’s concerned better and better all the time.” I was getting well on with my Kegels, they made missionary sex exciting all over again. Ted’s not bad, mind you, but I felt like if one of us was going to start pulling more weight sexually, it was going to have to be me. Ted’s way too deep into his Feuerbach to take any hints about reading Tantric sex manuals. Fortunately for us both I’m still quite the studious girl.

“But I’d like to open up shop out back,” I continued wryly.

“Oh girl,” said Matthew, forgetting his manners, “you could be opening up a world of grief.”

“Oh god, you hypocrite!” I cried out. “Why the devil shouldn’t I expand my horizons?” I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You of all people ought to be ashamed, poo-pooing on anal like this!”

He gave me an appraising look. “Seriously, Sheila, no disrespect but I don’t know how straight girls can ever hope to love anal as long as they’re doing it with straight boys. I know Ted’s a nice guy and everything . . .”

“You don’t think he can be sensitive enough not to hurt me?”

“It’s more about knowledge, I guess. Experience. I mean--” he said, his eyebrows lifting up in that way they do when he’s feeling exuberant, I love the way it lifts his eyes so wide open-- “all of my queenie take-it-in-the-ass bona fides notwithstanding, it’s a crap shoot out there.” I matched his eyebrow-arching, with as much irony as mirth. “Pun acknowledged, but not intended--”

“Bullshit. Pun totally intended,” I shot back.

“But--”

“Butt--”

“Sheila, don’t be a dumbass. I’m saying--”

“Why not ‘don’t be an asshole’?”

“Oh ha-ha-ha,” he said, tiring of me.

“Why not, we have a theme going here!” I added poutily.

“Honey, I would want you to experience how great it can be--”

“Fucking in the ass?” I cued.

“Yes darling, how great getting fucked in the ass can be. But you need a knowledgeable partner for that. You need to be prepared, mentally, physically--”

“Oh Jesus, spare me Matthew. You just want to make sodomy another piece of arcana that gay boys can have a monopoly on. You taught me how to shop American Apparel,” I said appreciatively. “You could teach me how to do anal.”

He was quiet for a moment or two, then said, “Hey look, I mean, what do I look like here?” Meaning, who knows what?

“Are you seriously telling me,” I went on, “that here I am, your bestest Fag Hag and Straight Girl In Need of Guidance, and I’m inviting you to help makeover my life so that I can become a certifiable Anal Slut, and you are not willing to help me out? You should be jumping on this!-- I mean this opportunity,” I added, when his eyes met mine in a curious way.

“Stop it,” he replied. “My dear, we’re not talking about you becoming an Anal Slut, we’re talking about you trying something out with Ted that’s going to be, like, a one-time variation in your lovemaking, one-time because probably neither of you will want it a second time.”

I was bothered by his attitude. Anything else he’d be all gung-ho for debauchery. Well, I figured, if he wasn’t fag enough for me, I’d have to be fag enough for the both of us.

“Listen bitch,” I said, “you are going to help me with this. I am on an anal project and you will share your expertise with me. You will draw upon your wealth of anal adventures, your craving for hard cock in your backdoor, and you will transmit all that lore and all that passion straight into me. Right, right here,” I said, theatrically snaking my hand back onto my tailbone, my middle finger parking in the top of my ass cleavage, “right into my tight little backdoor rosebud.”

He was grinning enthusiastically now. Really, I know how to be insistent when I need to be.

“This is Ass Training Week for Sheila,” I said. “And you, dear Matthew, are now my Anal Trainer.”

***

Once I made myself clear how serious I was, Matt quickly reverted to form just like I had hoped. That afternoon he dragged me off to a sex shop.

I was grateful I hadn’t been wearing any kind of Nu-Rave ensemble that day, I didn’t want to come off to any needy patrons like an Amsterdam whore. My pleated plaid skirt was of fairly modest length; today the safety pins sufficed for edginess. Or that was the plan when I rolled out of bed anyway. I hadn’t expected to go trolling for kinky implements. Oh well: carpe diem!

“Bitch, it’s time to enter the world of butt plugs. Or rather,” he added, cocking an eyebrow, “it is time for the world of butt plugs to enter you.”

Shit God, I thought to myself, once I got a good encyclopedic view of all the ass toys on the market. I began to wonder what I was really getting myself into. Into me. How far could this go? Matt, bless his heart, had been half-right at first after all.

“How would our little ass-tourist feel if her voyages were to wash this up into her shores?” he asked, wielding a monstrous rubber dildo in the shape of a forearm with its hand closed in a fist.

The look of affrighted astonishment I wore must have been something, for he suddenly looked all paternal and said reassuringly, “Oh sweetheart, most people would never insert this thing beyond the wrist.”

That hardly changed matters. I figured from below the wrist to the elbow was for show anyway. Hopefully.

I had diverted myself to admire a row of glittery smooth dildos each about the length of a ballpoint pen and the width of two fingers when Matthew came up behind me and cleared his throat.

“We’ll use these,” he said decisively, holding up a set of butt plugs encased in clear plastic. ‘Anal Training Kit’ read the label.

“Uhmmm,” I began, as though trying to make a decision. But Matthew clarified that there was no decision to be made. “These will be perfect for you.”

“That big one looks a little--uh, big . . . .”

“Who wants to be an Anal Slut?” he demanded.

“Uhm, I do,” I said. Why the hell was I suddenly feeling so meek? The look of those black rubber toys and the look on Matthew’s chiseled brow made me feel so-- I dunno, overpowered?

“And who needs to be an ass slut?” he added.

“Erm, that's me.”

“You’re sure now?” he asked rhetorically. “We’re talking ‘need’ here. Stupid little girls,” he slowly added, “can get away with confusing ‘I need’ with ‘I wanna.’ But big girl ass sluts need to be clear about ‘want’ and ‘need.’”

Shit, I thought, what the hell smut book has he been reading? Goddamn, this was getting to me between my thighs in the old storefront. Was Matthew talking his sexy-talk to me?

I screwed up my courage and said as firmly as I could, “I need to be a hot horny big girl ass slut. I need to open up my ass, yes sir!”

He grinned. “Right then. Come on.”

When he grabbed up the biggest squirt-dispenser bottle of lube I’d ever seen I got even wetter with my own natural lubricant. Christ, that thing was almost as big as the fist dildo. Was I really going to need all that?

As if reading my mind, Matthew said, “It never hurts to have too much.” A moment later he added, “And with too much, it never hurts!”

***

I kinda thought our little excursion was over when he paid the bill but he tagged back to my dorm with me and followed me into my room. Thoughtfully he had stashed the goodies into the canvas shopping bag he uses in the local organic grocery store.

I have a single with a neat little wash basin. After I used it Matt to my surprise starting giving it a scrub-out with some Bon Ami.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making sure your sink is clean so I can give your toys a nice soaking,” he explained. “Good vigorous soaping up, then let them soak a bit in hot water, then rinse them off.”

“Goodness, you’re kinda anal about anal, ain’tcha?” I said, ridiculously.

He turned to me with an oddly warm but serious look. “Oh, yes. And I take your anus very seriously too, remember.”

I plopped down on my bed, feeling a bit weak-kneed. Matthew and I had always been plenty frank with each other, or so I thought. But maybe I hadn’t thought through how open I could stand to be with someone. I mean, Ted and I never spoke like this. I’d never quite had such sustained intimate talk with anyone about anything so-- well, intimate. I mean, touching so intimately upon me.

“Now then,” Matthew began, “we need a schedule. We start with the little plug of course. Your ass training should begin tonight.”

“Oh, but today’s been so busy--” I began.

“Busy with what?” he asked. “Shopping for butt toys? Aren’t you eager to get started on your training?”

“Well, I--”

He laughed merrily. “No ‘buts’ young lady! Now then, I suggest after dinner you take a good dump, and then you’re going to lube up the smallest plug and wear it for one hour.”

“One hour?” I said. That seemed like a long time. Especially for an anal virgin.

“I could pretend to take your qualms seriously, and say ‘15 minutes’ or some bullshit like that. But really, this thing is the width of a finger. A lady’s finger, at most.”

“Well,” I replied, feeling not at all intrepid about the prospect, “that’s easy for you to say, but I’ve never had a lady’s finger in my bottom before. Nor you for that matter, I imagine.”

He made a little ‘hmm’ noise meaning, who knows what? Then he went on, “All the same, it’s not going to hurt you at all. You’ll grow used to it very quickly. Really, if you were my slave or something I wouldn’t mickey-mouse around with this smallest plug at all.”

“Really?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Well what would you do?” I said, somewhat short of breath for some reason.

He looked thoughtful. “Well, really I’d-- seriously?” I nodded. He grinned. “I guess I’d just lube up a couple of fingers, work one in and out for a bit, then insert another, and I’d-- then I’d lube up this middle plug and fit it in.”

“Shit! You think some beginner can get that thing in? On their first go?”

“Oh really now sweetie,” he said, reverting a bit to his Queer Eye mode. “That’s not such a major-sized toy. It’s average.”

“Average?” I exclaimed. “I figured that’s where we’d top this project out at.”

“What do you mean?” he challenged me, looking put out. “You think the biggest plug in the set is for show or something?”

I swallowed hard and said, doubtfully, “Uhm, yeah.”

But he just burst out laughing. “Actually, no. As your Ass Coach I can assure you that in a week’s time you WILL be wearing the largest plug-- and with pleasure too.”

I trotted out a couple of feeble, theatrical laughs. He gave me a steely-eyed look. “What’s so funny?” he demanded quietly, not at all Queer Eye-like.

I blushed furiously, already feeling like an moron trying to squirm out of this with sophomoric humor. “Erm, ‘assure’ has the word, uh, ‘ass’ in it.” Idiot.

He nodded his head slowly from side to side. “We have our work cut out. Get up.”

“What, why--?”

“Get up Sheila.” I stood up. “Sheila, are you for real about this? You invited me to be your Ass Trainer and now--”

“Now?”

He studied me with a hard look. “We have to do something, to be real here.”

“What?” I squealed, not understanding.

“Hold out your hand. Your hand, Sheila dear, give me your--!”

I held out my left hand for him. I looked up at him, in the eyes, meekly. I’d be serious, I’d do as he said, I told myself. I willed my eyes to tell him the same, silently.

He held my look for a few seconds, then he reached for the bottle of lube. He took my offered hand by the wrist, lifted it up and squirted lube onto my fingers. “Work it around your first two fingers,” he said.

I did, my breathing hard and anxious. I willed my breathing to come quieter.

“You need to not be afraid about this, and you have to take your training-- your ass training, seriously. If this isn’t a joke for us--for you-- we have to be without shyness here,” he explained. “I want you to pull down your panties around your knees and rub that lube onto your anus.”

My mouth dropped open, ready to signal defiance, but I willed it closed. He was making sense. He was my best friend. This was my project, his project too. I had wanted him to be excited about it, to take it seriously. Now I needed to get real. I so wanted him to be pleased with me.

So I nodded my head ‘yes.’ I reached with my free hand and tugged my boy shorts down, crooking the wet fingers on my left hand so I could tug on that side too. Then I reached behind me, under my skirt, and rubbed the lube onto my butt hole. It felt crinkly at first, a dry little furrow. There were soft hairs there I had never acknowledged before. My face grimaced in thoughtless shame, but Matt smiled at me, warmly, without embarrassment. He was like a doctor or something. I rubbed around my rosebud, feeling it become slippy and suddenly not at all crinkly-like.

“Feels nice,” Matthew said, not as a question. “You haven’t really touched it before, have you?”

I only nodded my head, smiled, sniffed back a bit of snot in my nose, felt the hot on my cheeks. I kept rubbing my crack. It felt very natural to be doing this, somehow. Natural to be watched too.

Matthew continued to smile, beaming kindly. “Good,” he said, “now let’s give you some more lube.” I reached out my hand again, wondering if it would smell offensive or something; but I thought to myself, ‘get a grip, he knows all about this stuff, he likes it.’

He squirted more lube, generously. “Work that all around, make your finger slick. You know where it’s going.”

He put the bottle up and waited for me. Okay, I thought to myself, this is it. You’re gonna get used to this. I kept rubbing my thumb and first two fingers together. I hadn’t decided which would go in. I reached back again, this time holding the back of my skirt bunched up in my other hand. I wasn’t trying to flaunt my whole hinder but it didn’t seem like I should leave the skirt in my way either. Matthew could probably see some of the bottom curves from the side. What the heck, he doesn’t care right?

So I started rubbing again, just a bit more. My anus felt very relaxed, very smooth, inviting. Matthew looked on steadily, patient, his lips creased in a quiet smile. How charming he is, I thought to myself, as I eased my middle finger into my tail.

I went very slowly. From the kinds of things I read sometimes, I feared the slightest entry might make me scream with agony. But there was nothing like that. How silly! No, my virginal backdoor took my finger in to the first knuckle very patiently--welcoming it, in fact. It felt warm inside. Soft and hot, like my snatch. Tighter though. Nothing frightful or alien about it at all.

“Good?” he asked.

“It’s--nice,” I said.

“How far are you in?”

“Uhm, just at the first joint. Just the tip, you know?”

“That’s fine,” he said, very quietly. “Now go ahead and slide your finger in to the next joint.”

I did as he suggested. It went in so smooth. Like it was being sucked inside by this hot puckered mouth. A mouth I’d never opened before, till now. Damn. I felt like I was really accomplishing something. I started to giggle uncontrollably. It was so strange, like I felt so naughty but also like I was showing off an A+ report card or something. I’m afraid I was beaming rather goofily at Matthew, but he was such a sport. Our eyes were locked, basking together in this pleasurable moment that was really too odd for rational reflection.

“You okay?” he asked, and I made some emphatic “uhm hmm!” noise like I had my mouth full of a warm delicious brownie or something. “Slide it back out slowly, till just the very tip is inside, and slide it back in. Slowly now,” he intoned hypnotically as I did what he said, “and back in, back out, back in . . .”

Jesus, it felt so warm, so good. Unfamiliar tingles radiated out from my asshole through my body. There was nothing painful about it, only, a kind of convulsive edge to the sensation, not like I had to go to the toilet or something, just-- this edge to the feeling. Once you’ve been touched back there you’ll know.

My finger and my ass were feeling such good friends. It was like my finger wasn’t the one doing the work, oddly. That tight little hole was like a vacuum, just sucking my finger inside, not wanting to let go as the digit slid out, still clasping it in its lubed-up embrace. Would it act the same with a cock?, I wondered. Would it suck in my butt plug like this? I would soon find out, I remembered edgily. I could feel my slickness in front, heavy now. I really felt like cupping my other hand over my snatch, squeezing my thighs down over it. But I was being watched. Shit. I couldn’t make myself think about it, only-- he was there, watching me. Breathe quiet, I told myself. My asshole felt so nice and wet but my throat was so very dry.

I was shocked, suddenly, to realize my finger was going in all the way to the end. God, I’m really in deep! I told myself. I felt like I was running with the wolves now!

“Okay, that’s good, you’re doing real good,” he said, very very quietly. “You can stop now, if you--” he paused, and it took me a second to realize that he was wondering if I was going to go on, like some automaton, fucking my asshole with my finger while he stood there and watched all afternoon. Damn, I was still fucking myself in the ass with my finger. Mmm, one more time. I let my finger slide out. It felt so wrong to stop.

Matthew turned on the hot and cold taps and reached for me. To my amazement, he clasped my dirty hand, the one that had been fingering my bottom, and walked me over with it to the sink. He used his other hand to squirt some soap and worked a lather over top of mine. Our hands separated and we washed up, me breaking the eye contact for a few moments as I got myself clean, all ladylike, as he rubbed his hands together, rinsing off after I did. As he moved past me to take my place at the sink, I thought I noticed a bulge in his pants. Well, public displays have a weird effect on all, I figure. It’s meaningless, beyond our control.

I cleared my throat, which was getting kind of unworkable for the purposes of conversation, and fixed my panties and sat back down all demure-like while Matthew scrubbed up my new sex toys and poured them a bath. For a couple of minutes while he was intent at his task we neither spoke nor looked at each other. Eventually he was satisfied and, turning to me, said, “Just let ‘em float around in the hot water for ten minutes or so and you can rinse them off. Then set them out in a row so you can contemplate your destiny!”

I nodded my head silently, trying to take everything in.

“Now remember, don’t go transferring a finger that’s been in your bottom to your-- into your snatch or anything. Wash it first.”

“Oh, right--”

“Or just, you know, use a different finger.” He was trying to be serious, but then a little irrepressible grin broke free. A shy grin, as he lowered his eyes until he could suppress it. Oh, sweet sweet boy.

But then: “What did we say about after dinner?”

“Oh, ahm, take a dump and put the small butt plug in for-- one hour.”

“That’s right. You can handle this, you know,” he said, in a ‘don’t let the team down’ kind of voice.

“Yes, I’m not afraid now that I’ve--”

“After it’s been in for one hour, I think you should go ahead and masturbate with it in.”

I blushed furiously at the mention of the word ‘masturbate’, hardly able to think rationally of the fact that what I had just been doing in front of him was my very first act of anal masturbation.

“You’re telling me to play with myself?” I asked, as though I should be shocked by the suggestion.

Matthew looked at me as though I were a genial lunatic. “Don’t be coy Sheila. This is a training regimen after all, and I am the trainer. Don’t fiddle with the plug itself. I just want you to leave it in after your hour is over and play with yourself with your fingers, think whatever kind of sexy thoughts turn you on, and make yourself come. Just plain, hands-on masturbation, but with the butt plug inside your ass. Just keep it simple, like that.”

“Okay. Aye-aye, Ass Coach!”

“Later on, assignments will get more . . . complicated, naturally.”

“Oh of course,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. Shit, what ‘complicated’? But then I thought of my largest plug, and what that could be like inside my tight little hole. Damn, what have I gotten myself in for?

Matthew was looking at me as though, yet again, he could read my mind. “You’re on your way to becoming a true Ass Slut, Sheila.” He walked over to me, and, to my great surprise, bent himself to my head and planted a little kiss on my forehead. Still close, so that I could feel his breath on my face, he intoned the words again: “Ass slut.”

He straightened himself, looking like the canary that ate the cat and, still watching me, let himself out.

I lay back, hiked up my skirt and palmed my hand over my crotch where my boy shorts were sticky with all my accumulated secretions. I rolled onto my side, worked my panties down, and reached with my finger back into the furrow between my buttocks, just letting it rub the outside of my little rosebud, shyly, tentatively, while in front I crooked two fingers inside my cunt and started rubbing them purposively against my sweet spot.

My thumb had just begun to pad the slick side of my very popped-out clitty when I came, hard, just thinking about the slim straight plug that was to be inside my ass this evening.

Minutes later I lay down again, looking out at the top of my dresser where the formidable row of black probes now rested.

Hope of a peaceful nap was dashed as the enormity of my day’s proceedings began to crash away at my consciousness, like an ever-surging storm tide breaking against a cliff.

“Oh my god,” I whispered to myself guiltily, with my stomach in a heave, “I’m an ass trainee . . . .”

*******

After my post-dinner dumpage was done I took stock of the clock and the training exercise in front of me.

The smallest plug was a slender-looking pole of black rubber about four inches in length. Compared to its comrades it was petite, I reassured myself-- small comfort that was, since if Matt was to be believed, those would also be going inside my tight lil’ bottom before long.

A sigh shook its way out of me as I changed into something more comfortable. Since I was going to be doing something dirty, maybe getting dirty in the process, I fished out some lycra leggings from my laundry hamper and put on one of my insouciant baby-tees (Bam-Bam and Pebbles: “We Be Clubbin’”) sans bra so I could have access to everything when the time came for cumming.

With the leggings down at my thighs I squirted some lube and began to rub my hind hole like before. Mmm, I could get used to this. The anus makes for a funny little button. Hidden back there. So sensitive to the touch. I let it suck in my finger-tip. It was like I could hear my asshole cooing or something. In a way I felt naughtier than I had when Matthew was watching me do this earlier. After all, I was here on my own, I didn’t have the excuse now before God and Country that my gay sidekick made me do it. I was a free citizen, just a farm-fresh, freshly pooed American gal hanging out in her dorm room, and why was I standing there probing my rectum with a lubricated digit, eh?

As it happens, in prep for sliding a sex toy inside of it, natch.

So there I was, lubing up an anal toy for the first time. Mind you, I have a bullet vibe for my clitty and a silicone Rabbit-type vibrator that could pass for a Canadian Olympic totem in case of a parental dorm-raid. So it’s not like I’ve never gotten off with a sex toy before. Still, this was virgin territory.

For a few moments, as I caressed the soft rubber probe in my wet fingers, getting it impossibly slick before blast-off, I almost wished I had Matthew here to order me around. The reassuring insistence in his voice had really taken me places, in more than one sense. He had put me in my anal zone, that’s for sure.
 
Maybe it was something more like SubSpace.

I finally reached back with that thing in my hand and used the other to yank my right ass cheek off to the side a bit. Novice that I am, I might have been trying to poke my perineum (ha ha, ‘taint’, ‘taint it?!) before I managed to square up the pointy tip with my butt hole. I was hardly willing to put the slightest pressure behind it, and my asshole didn’t feel yieldy. Shit. I passed the probe to my other hand, reached back again with my slick finger. Ahhh. Rub rub rub. There now, I mentally told my asshole. I let it suck my fingertip in again. I got more vigorous, started fucking back and forth inside the tightness. The tight mouth fit like a hot little glove, but it was open now, curious, inviting. I smiled to myself, feeling all bleary again like I had before with Matthew. Like a drug almost.

I tried again with the plug and it immediately found its target. My anus sucked the tip in. I let it sit there a few moments, let it slide out till I could feel the very tip just asking for entrance, and then I put some weight behind it. I didn’t bottom it out (!) but it was in a ways. I slid it out some, and back in. So smoothly it went. Like there was no resistance at all.

I got kinda bow-legged standing there with a slightly naff scent coming up from my unlaundered leggings (or was that a fresh odor from my snatch?), working that toy in and out back there. Before I knew it I had pushed it in one time and it was in to the hilt! My hungry little anus was kissing the little tapered ending and the rectangular base of rubber was now housed back there in the cleft between my buttcheeks.

I was so pleased with myself I raised my arms up above my head and started to do a little impromptu victory-boogie, but before I had jacked my pelvis to the Lady Gaga hymn inside my head for a few measures I started to feel this sliiiiiding coming from down below. Shit! I reached back and firmly pressed my plug back inside me. This filled me with more than one sense of relief! Oh, fuck yeah!

I pulled up my leggings and got even more serious about my celebration. I put on Gaga for real and let my body squirm. Probably you’ve realized by now that my affectations to Goth-lite-lite are about as bogus as they come. Talk about ‘perky Goth’? Christ, I’m worse than the heroine of “Vampire Kisses” or something. Hahaha, I love that title. I made little sucky kiss-kiss noises, all the while very aware of the kiss-kiss action the hole in the center of my pert swinging ass was doing. That slender plug wouldn’t quite stay buried to the hilt. It didn’t feel like it was gonna pop all the way out and stick there like a crap I’d taken inside my leggings but, all the same, I sure wouldn’t want to venture outside trying to hold it in. It was like the bottom inch kept wanting to slide out for air, so I’d have to reach back and pat the base back in place. Which was fun, actually. It was making me feel like a messy anal slut. My secret friend and I were making hot conversation with each other.

I was starting to think about making up some kind of ass-appropriate play list for this and future butt-plug fueled bedroom dance sessions when Ted called. Looking for a booty call? Well, that’s not really how he rolls. If it’s weekend love it’s usually scheduled in advance, and if it’s a weekday it’s probably some civil chit-chat on Hobbesian assumptions in the “Discourse on the Origins of Inequality” or something. ‘Assumptions’: pun acknowledged, but not intended! --

”Yes, why don’t you come over?’ I told him. I was only twenty minutes into my mandated training session. It could be fun, keeping a straight face while I’ve got this thing fixed inside of me.

Ten minutes later he shows, wearing a not-too-baggy grey henley and some neatly-whiskered jeans. I’m guilty of dragging him a bit toward the metro-side of the equation, I know. He’s so cute though. I keep him on a fairly short leash when I want.

I was sitting demurely when he arrived-- I had no intention of cutting Ted in on my training activities. Maybe when it’s all done he can enjoy some of the fruits of my endeavor? Not that he’s given to outrageous moral panics, but you never know-- these philosophy majors can rationalize some pretty extreme positions that have nothing to do with real life.

“Oh my god, so I was checking out the shelves of new paperback acquisitions in the library, and you wouldn’t believe-- we’ve got new Oxford editions of Duns Scotus, Erigena, an anthology of Warsaw Circle essays in modal logic pre-1937, there’s some Midwestern University Press edition of Karl Marx’s student essays going back to when he was eleven, not one but TWO new monographs on--”

“Hm-hmm,” I said brightly. “You’ve had a busy day!” I exclaimed, like a proud momma admiring her son’s drawing-- as if he actually had something to show for his day. Or as if I didn’t have something to show for mine! --”Why didn’t you bring them all in with you?” I asked, actually just mildly curious to see these riches he was bedazzled with.

“Oh, there’s the whole two weeks waiting-period before you can check them out. I’ll just have to sit in the library and read them there.”

“Oh you poor dear!”

“Yeah, I won’t keep you long really, I’m going to head back and stay out there till they close at midnight. God, I don’t even know where to begin. Those Marx essays, you won’t believe the precocious insights he had into the color blue--”

I let him ramble. I know he might sound a bit ridiculous but really I like him for his ability to be excited over abstract things. There need to be more people like that, I reckon. Anyway, while he went on about how the Western value-structure seeks to alienate us from the primary colors I wasn’t feeling the least bit alienated from my hot backdoor.

I sat there on my bed while he stood and rambled, and I gave my tush little rocks back and forth and felt the probe in my bottom like a warm rod reaching sweetly into some invisible core inside of me and radiating, radiating this liquid warmth outward till I felt it burning inside every pore. There had been a bit of drizzle outside and Ted had little droplets on his glasses and his hair was kinda mussed and, standing there, I just started to feel about him like he was this cool damp furry critter that I needed to rub up against to work off some of this heat pooling on my skin. Thoughtlessly I reached out for him and crooked my fingers in his belt loops.

“Come here,” I said, not tugging, just holding him like that.

“What-- what is it, Sheels?”

I took a firmer grasp on his hips and motioned him forward. “I just think you need a little reward, big strong boy like you thinking all these deep penetrating thoughts,” I cooed, getting him close where I wanted him while I put my hands up under his shirt and rubbed on his belly. I was looking up, beaming at him. “You’ve got such a long night ahead of you too, I want to send you back to the library refreshed.”

I smirked lasciviously and unbuttoned his pants. I gave him what I hoped was a sexily demure sort of butterfly-lashes look while my hand was stroking him through his--oh Jesus-- tighty-whities. Must work on that. “You don’t mind, do you?” I asked hopefully.

He looked unsure but I just went on with my cooing banter. “I know a real scholar like you would never submit to a blowjob in the stacks like those dirty loser would-be thinkers, those fucking poli-sci majors or whatever they are, do with their little library cock-trawling whores but, there’s no reason why a man of Genuine Intellect shouldn’t get a little BJ action in between all his bouts of philosophical heavy lifting-- is there?”

When you’ve got a doorstop in the backdoor, these kinds of things come to you.

Ted couldn’t seem to formulate an objection, so I pulled his dick out from its tighty tent and started to stroke it while I went on. “I’m going to be thinking real hard about all the amazing ideas you’ve shared with me when you’re gone, but that’s nothing compared to the worlds of discovery you’ll be unlocking for yourself back in the library. And I know you’re gonna need all your energies to wrestle with all those Great Thoughts, and the last thing an intellectual hero like you can afford is to have his nasty little cock trying to intrude upon all his Heavy Thinking. So-- I think it’s probably my duty to all the Graces and Muses and all those other hussies to take care of your animal urges before you get back to the Temple of Knowledge so you can do your thing in peace. Yes?”

Poor boy, his mouth was fixed in a silent O, so I matched it with one of my own by fitting the head of his cock inside my mouth. I wasn’t quite done teasing him so I just let it get wet and warmed up, stroking the peehole very softly with my tongue while I fit my lips tightly around the base of his cockhead, my fingers stretching back the foreskin tautly. I let it pop out of my mouth and eyed the smooth hard form of his cock admiringly. My fingers were rubbing it in smooth rhythmic strokes, from beneath the head to its base. With his undies still on it was like this smooth disembodied appendage. It made me think of shaving his crotch sometime.

“Do you think you can stay standing for this?” I asked. I really did like this little game of meek service to my scholar-boy. And I didn’t want to get up off of my tush either.

“Yeah, I’ll try,” he said, thoughtlessly. Good enough for me. I smiled, then gently worked his stiff member out of its cotton confines and got his undies out of the way. With all that around his knees he wasn’t going anywhere. He pulled his shirt off without prompting, so there was nothing in my way and I could savor the full form of the boy. I let my hands roam. He has a nice body, he’s no aspiring Greek athlete but he’s nice to the touch.

I caressed the underside of his cock with just the backs of my fingers, the offending knuckles that open up my asshole now lingering along his sensitive shaft. I started giving the underside of his glans smooth little licks with my tongue, flicking up towards his urethra, getting a taste of salty precum. My fingers possessively stroked the top side of his dick. When I let the whole glans pop back in my mouth I started rocking my chest back and forth, my hands taking hold of his hips, pushing him forward, rocking his pelvis in little bumps, back and forth. My tongue snaked out to lick the underside of his shaft, then I’d close my lips around his girth and take it in, deep.

I started clenching his butt cheek in one hand while the other rubbed the base of his cock stem. I could tell he was in his zone so I just let myself slide into a good rhythm. I was in heaven. It was like I had two warm popsicles in me at both ends, filling me with slick heat. I had the urge to touch my clit but I told myself it could wait, I wanted to fulfill the letter of my ass training instructions and anyway, this was about Ted’s pleasure. Which made me feel slutty and dirty, made for service. Servicing his very hot and hard cock deep inside my mouth, admiring his taut ass with the stroke of my hand.

Without really thinking about it my hand snaked its way inside the hairy cleft of his bottom and a finger started to rub there. First above where his asshole would be. Then reaching down past it to his perineum. Ted didn’t show any signs of protest. He’s read his Greek philosophers, hasn’t he? I was a bold girl tonight, I didn’t care. I let my finger find that hot dry little button, his rosebud. It wasn’t all nice and slippy like mine, oh no. I’d never really bothered to look at it, certainly never touched it before. I would’ve loved, at that moment, to have some lube on my finger, and . . . But I just rubbed away, rubbed slowly and gently over that tight little button while my mouth sweetly suckled his smooth hard shaft, the sound of his groans very distant, far far away until suddenly his spunk started shooting inside my throat and I milked him proudly, my ass grinding away into the mattress, my rectum clenching madly around the plug inside while my mouth softened around Ted’s cock, swallowing the remains of his spunk and getting him clean.

There weren’t many words after that. Ted lodged no complaints about my stroking the outside of his asshole, which made me very happy. He could tell how happy I was. I tried not to shoo him off too hard, but of course I really did want him to get back to his books now so I could deal with my program.

It was past the hour when I finally got down to getting myself off. I winded up with three fingers lodged tightly in my cunt, not thrusting, just opening me up there while I diddled my skittle frantically, my ass by now feeling like a boiling cauldron. Almost the second after I stood up and had my leggings back in place, the butt plug really did plop out, tenting in the back of them. I fished it out and looked at it, glistening black and radiating heat. I was exhausted just looking at it. I washed it down, running it under cold water trying to cool it off. The sight of its larger siblings was a sweet torture when I sat it inside my drawer. Afterwards I had to dab myself down, backside and forward, with separate wads of kleenex. What a messy girl I was!

I drifted off to sleep early that night, my hips sometimes rocking the mattress in a mindless rhythm of their own, still wakeful with the phantom sense of the intruder out back.

*******

After my butt plug-enhanced blow job experience with Ted (and the sopping-wet mop-up masturbation that followed) I slept the sleep of the (virtuously) wicked, my tummy full of boyfriend sperm and my ass still tingly from all the breaking-in it was getting.

Now, in all seriousness I’m a pretty heavy sleeper, even without any sex-shenanigans to dump the proverbial fairy-dust over my brow. I remember vividly how I felt when I read “The Secret History” at that scene where (this isn’t really a spoiler, unless you just don’t want to know ANY DETAIL before you read it for yourself, but still, “spoiler alert” if you’re so inclined) those guys were telling Richard about killing the farmer in the woods and about how they had to spend all night and the next morning trying to figure themselves out and clean up the evidence and they finally crash and sleep for like twelve hours straight? And I remember thinking to myself:

‘Gosh, I wish I was like a normal person who needs the stress of committing a pagan ritual murder and spending all night and morning trying to cover up the evidence to make them sleep for twelve hours straight. Geez, this story is so engrossing, my nerves are all frazzled’ and then--poof, I lay down my head and slept for twelve hours straight.

Okay, the book says they slept for fourteen hours, but still-- you get my point? I’m a lazy head, deal with it.

Which is why it was intensely upsetting when Matthew came banging on my door at 6:00am.

“Rise and shine, anal cadet,” he saluted me. This might have been fine over croissants and deep roast in the student union, three hours hence, but I wasn’t exactly amused. Actually too blurry-eyed to even register amusement, if that had been an option.

I made way for him to walk in, but my body, still on REM-control, prepared to hit the mattress again, but he had other ideas.

“Wake your ass up girl. Hey!--” he cried emphatically, taking my arm. “You’ve gotta break in your regimen. Wipe the sleepers out of your eyes.” He thrust me towards the sink and started turning on the taps.

I started splashing my face, not exactly sure where the fire was supposed to be. When I patted myself dry and turned to face him, I saw that Matt had brought some supplies. He’d thrown a canvas bag on the bed and started rummaging through it.

“Make yourself at home,” I said blankly as Matt, dressed in a casual-sharp kind of way in a trim gray shirt and cargo pants busied himself.

He produced a thermos of probable Scandinavian origin and filled a cup with juice and thrust it at me.

“I’ve been giving more thought to your training regimen, and I certainly think we need to treat your work towards becoming an ‘Ass Slut’-- your words, I remind you-- like the serious kind of life transformation it is. So we’re going out for some exercise this AM. Drink up and get changed.”

I quaffed the juice, which I saw came from a sleek thermos of probable Scandinavian origin, and then watched him hand me a piece of camouflage clothing.

“What, you want me to change now, here?” I asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I do. Check that: I’m telling you to. What are you, modest now? Put this on,” he demanded.

I peeled off my tee, under which my B-cup twins were swinging modestly, and took what he was handing me. A tie-neck halter top with embossed rhinestones.

“Get cracking,” he urged, so I slithered into the tight thing as adroitly as I could. It took some effort, but the thing was stretchy, and once I got my arms through I could yank it down inch by inch till it was over my chest. It helped to think maybe Matt was enjoying the show. I gal-handled my boobs into place and tugged it around snugly. The twins themselves felt well-covered but there wasn’t much left for the rest of me. Hmm. I’m not really used to halters-- they’re kinda for ‘Trixies’ in my view, if you know what I mean-- but there’s something, well, damn but don’t they feel a bit bondage-y on you somehow?

All that tension, the weight, and it’s all depending on those strings. Mmm. Might have to get used to them.

I was trying to be a good trooper, peeling off my leggings so I could be ready for whatever else he had for me. So to speak. My ass-play of the day before helped vanquish any delusions of propriety on my part, but then I remembered that I hadn’t ever really flashed my (judiciously trimmed) bush in front of Matt’s eyes.

But it was the sight of what he handed me that brought a flush to my cheeks. “What the fuck,” I cried, “you’re not serious? Where the fuck am I--?”

“Put it on slut,” he replied coolly. “I know what’s best.”

A pair of pink-camo hot shorts. With a microscopic inseam that I could tell, just looking at it, was gonna ride in my crotch like the nose of a shark fishing for a meal. Not even a goddamn button on these things, or anything you could properly call a “fly.” Just a bare gold zipper.

“Are we grabbing biscuits in a bathhouse located in a demilitarized zone?” I protested. “Kylie Minogue wouldn’t wear this getup if she were reborn as a man.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. And you’re wearing it now, bitch.”

“Don’t I get some kind of underwear with this?”

His arrogant smirk had a kind of damnable charm. “That’d be redundant, I should think.”

I thought I’d just put it on, to momentarily appease him. Shit, I could hardly get the damn thing up. I was working at the front and the back, alternately. It was impossible not to feel its bite between my legs. On my butt cheeks it was like a warm second skin I was trying to slough on instead of off. I ended up tossing myself on my bed, bare legs dangling, sucking in my breath to get the zipper up. It came, finally, all the way, though I had to pause a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t catching tufts of my bush in its jaws. I stood back up, hoping the thing wouldn’t burst itself loose. It didn’t, but it was hard to be sure what it might do in future. It felt simultaneously as though there was nothing to hold it up and yet as if there was no way to get it back off.

Matt was studying me appreciatively, chin in one hand with the bent elbow in his other, a pose I always thought supremely engaging on him. Ted’s equivalent expressions of ‘standing in Deep Thought’ look kinda affected, but with Matt’s physique it seems more serious.

“Here, better let me fix that,“ he said, turning me and taking hold of the strings I had tied at the nape of my neck and undoing them. I gasped involuntarily but he wasn‘t going to slacken them; instead he was working them into some kind of tight knot before leaving a bow grazing the top of my back. “We want this to be tied securely-- as securely as we can anyway,“ he added, chuckling. “Now, turn round,” he said, and I did, slowly, a couple of times before breaking into a more ironic sort of pirouette.

“Nice,” he said finally. “Take a look at yourself.”

I turned to my mirror, and I started to take it all in. The halter strings were like extra-chunky shoelaces tugging up the top of the halter into a smooth curve, like a flattened-out U, keeping my breasts well covered but allowing a peek of cleavage at the bottom of the curve. Thankfully my pits were in a fresh-shaven state. Not that I shave them to appease the public. The public isn’t supposed to be seeing them, in my book.

Much worse was the realization, after I ducked my head to look at my halter-upheld chest to confirm the reverse image before me, that my top was emblazoned with the bedazzled expression, “LOVE IS WAR” across my boobage. Beneath that spread the bare plains of my midriff, from about two inches below my teats on down, with my bellybutton uncharacteristically uncovered to the world. Thence to my low-rise short shorts, in all their hideous glory. I took a sideways glance and confirmed with my fingers that the bottom half-inch or so of my butt cheeks was indeed on display. Oh . . . My . . . God.

Kylie would TOTALLY wear this.

But I ain’t Kylie Fucking Minogue.

“I look like a fucking clown,” I cried.

He only smiled consolingly. “You look like a fucking whore, you know. We should dress you like this more often. We will, in fact.”

I feebly tried to shrug off this comment. “’Love is War’? What am I, Casanova? What kind of idiot’s notion of irony is this supposed to be?”

“It’s not ironic; it‘s the truth. Truth in advertising, when you wear it. Surely love is war, don’t you think?” Matthew commented wryly. “And in this get-up you’re equipped to make both. Now then, are we ready?”

“Ready?” I asked uncomprehendingly.

“Your morning workout.”

“Oh--oh ho ho, no!” I squealed. “I’m not going to-- this has nothing to do with--”

“I’m the coach goddamnit, and I say you’re getting a workout. You are wearing that out, it’s your workout gear now. We’re gonna get those ass muscles moving. Put on some trainers and let’s go.”

I started to try and formulate multiple protests-- that I’m not an exercise girl, I’m not a hot pants girl, I’m certainly not a camouflage-wearing hooch girl, but they quickly evaporated in the heat of his glare. I had said I needed training, didn’t I? And did I really want to forgo this project now that I had gotten embarked, and especially after it had brought me into so much closer, more intimate an understanding with Matthew? Anyway, I thought, this is probably a whim of his. What the hell, what can it hurt?

So there I was, Little Miss Alterna-freak, up at the butt crack of dawn, heading out into the hall looking like I was coming in from a rave at the Abercrombie store or something.

What a nightmare, I thought to myself. At least I had Matthew at my side, even if that was an equivocal sort of consolation, considering he was also the source of all my present discomfort. I could halfway consider his presence as some sort of cover for my present state of semi-naked trendy slutty weirdness. I could hide in the aura of his fabulosity.

Or so I was telling myself, until a door ahead of us opened and some crew cut Econ major bro stuck his head out to collect his WSJ baggie. When he caught sight of me he looked as though he were taking note of an offending doggie-do pile he might have to step to avoid later while hauling furniture.

I wish I could say I formulated a cheery reply but, no. I really was frozen with shame. It’s one thing to be looked on like you’re a standard Liberal Arts fart or something. I get that every day, I was proud of that, it was who I am. But going out looking like a stripper in the Reserves? I didn’t know the guy personally, but I’d seen him plenty of times and vice versa. He clearly was forming a new idea of me. One not flattering.

We managed to get out of the building without meeting any more human beings. Once out in the early morning air I felt a bit energized. If only those birds should shut up singing. Well, there WAS something nice about the feel of the air on all that bare skin. Yet discomfiting too. I mean, I never go around with bare shoulders for chrissakes, what am I, a starlet? To say nothing about the rest of it.

But at least it’s pretty dark? I didn’t feel, for the moment, like I was in so much danger of embarrassment.

“Let’s go,” he said, “start jogging girl.”

He set the pace and I followed. It didn’t seem like he was trying to channel one of those TV fitness personalities too badly. He just started jogging at a moderate pace. Now, I’m not much for exercise but I certainly don’t take a car when I don’t need to-- and a campus is by definition, people, a place where you can get everywhere on your own two legs. So I wasn’t feeling too much like a fish out of water-- at least where breathing is concerned.

But this was not an ordinary sort of workout. My skimpy bottoms, which seemed to have their quotient of ‘stretch’ material, were easier to move in than I would have thought. But their clinginess made walking, let alone jogging, a very tactile experience. Never mind the goddamn inseam which was cupping my vadge in a way which felt threateningly close to plain splitting it in two. I had to hope that working up a sweat might make it a little less frictiony down there. Stupid assumption. And though I had sometimes gone braless on a social occasion, it wasn’t when I was going to be moving about arduously. The snug, gravity-defying fit of the halter top made my nipples feel scratchy and puffy. I hoped the knot would be secure.

Unfortunately, I had not been quite aware that the campus is such a lively environment at that ungodly hour. Jogging through the shroudy byways, under a black canopy of trees, I didn’t feel like I could be too distinguishable from the other health-conscious nuts we began to cross. The first fitness buff we met, a lone female jogger in a sports bra and cycling shorts, wasn’t much behind me in the exposed skin category, though of course she was some leggy amazon with a rhythmically swinging ponytail, someone who actually belonged out here, as opposed to me, short alternagirl with her attitudinous bob. Oh well, I’m with a handsome hunk at least, I reminded myself.

But the dark was starting to thin into a silvery blue-gray, and one could see people alone or in pairs off in the distance along parallel sidewalks, getting their workout on. It wasn’t long before there came a steady hoof beat of feet hitting pavement behind us. The steps were gaining on us at first, but then they noticeably slowed down to a trot more manageable for keeping behind us.

I was beginning to burn in the face, and not from the mild exercise.
 
Embarrassing clothes have a natural way of making you paranoid. Especially when my coach seemed to deliberately slow down his own pace. Still those footsteps behind me trotted along lazily. I was about to try and turn my head but I realized what an admission of shame that would be. Suddenly the onlooker behind me decided to speed up again, and I felt the man rush on past me as he cocked his head to get a good look at me. He even had to slow again, now to try and read my motto, apparently, and get a good view of the twins bobbing along in their camouflage prison.

For the second time, the gift of the smirk totally failed me. I actually met his appraising gaze with a worthless, hangdog look of exasperation. I was powerless. In a tingly sort of way, funny enough.

We turned a corner and were coming out from under the canopy of trees. The sky was still a deep, misty blue but the trees were starting to look green instead of black. Soon we crossed the path of a jogger, a coed in sweatpants and some kind of windbreaker who began to slow down and look as she closed in on us, staring intently it seemed at my chest. When she had drawn close enough she suddenly looked confused, and then she actually stammered out:

“Oh, sorry, I thought maybe you were running for cancer or something?”

It was only once she had gotten clear of us that I heard the handsome male form in front of me contentedly chuckle to himself. Not funny.

We were coming up on some park benches ahead in a shady nook, and I was starting to get a bit winded, but I was determined to make it past this space, which was clearly a bit of a watering hole this morning, but Matthew came to a quick halt. “Let’s catch our breath, shall we?” he asked quietly.

“Mmm, let’s get past the crowd first?” I mumbled anxiously.

“Come on, these are our people, fitness lovers all. Whatever do you have to hide?” he said, O so snidely.

I tried crossing my bare arms across my chest, for what good that might do. Looking down self-consciously, there was no way for my scrawny forearms to conceal all the eye-catching rhinestones. Though that was the least of my worries, really, with all my stupid body on display front and back. I felt eyes prying at me; I could look and see, without really looking, how people were giving me their second-take glances, trying not to stare, or trying just to hide their stares. Mostly I just tried looking at my feet, actually staring at the bold zipper that held up my super tight bottoms, at the unfamiliar skyscraper of bare belly I was putting on display, like I was some shopping mall teenybopper slut. Feeling the breeze on my exposed back and thighs, even there on the exposed sliver of what was undeniably ass, and down there between my thighs where my crotch itched, far too close to the borders of the outside world.

I should’ve realized I was really kinda standing in the way, teetering awkwardly from one foot to the other, because another female jogger came upon me, actually almost ran into me. “Oh,” she said, giving me the once-over. “Wow, nice outfit,” she added, in a way that hovered between neutral and sarcastic. “Are you doing, like, the Paratrooper Boot Camp workout? I hear that’s really amazing,” she said, and then started to take off again. Then she added, smiling broadly, “Not many people take it that literally, though?”

“Yeah,” I muttered neutrally, and she was off. I self-consciously released my arms, thinking maybe I wouldn’t have such a bad time of it if I tried not to be self-conscious. Love is War, right? And War is Hell.

Like a yapping materialization of my anxieties, a boisterous Chow dog on potty break came upon me, throwing my weight onto my right foot as it started to vigorously hump my left one.

“Ah, good boy--down, yes, please just, yes, okay boy, down, that’s--”

“Shock!” cried a woman’s voice, and up came Dr. Lawson, my professor from Women’s Studies 204: “Gender Issues in Second Wave Feminism” last semester, which, if you don’t understand why her presence suddenly trebled my horror and indignation, well-- oh fuck just never mind.

“Shock you BAD BAD boy! Stop that this instant!” she cried, genuinely indignant. Then she recognized me. “Oh well goodness hellooo Sheila,” she said, in very drawn-out, rather smarmy accents, as she gave me what looked to be a very thorough cataloging. “Well, I didn’t know you were so . . . So into fitness, well.” Her mouth was frozen in a smiling rictus. This ageing woman was standing too close. That dog was left to carry on. I tried to distract Shock with my hand, patting his head or at least letting him sniff my wrist, which had the effect of keeping my head bowed as this noxious academic fuckhead was hovering over me.

“It’s very interesting Sheila, I wouldn’t have thought you were so, so ‘into your body‘ if that‘s the phrase?” She shook her head, as though about to cast her eyes to Goddess in Heaven, but then went on, “It’s these 3rd Wave people, hmm? Such a-- a strong influence they have on today’s young women, don’t you agree?” she asked rhetorically.

“Hmm, wow,” I muttered, still trying to distract the dog, but then Matthew intervened carefully from the other side, wielding of all things a doggie biscuit-- where did that come from?-- but seeming to take care not to distract my former teacher from anything she might have to say.

“You know, I am just horrified to read that Germaine Greer actually had an affair in the Seventies with Federico Fellini,” she said, drawing out the syllables of Fellini’s name as though sampling an expensive wine through little snorting intakes of breath. “She seems to have regarded herself as, some kind of MUSE,” she added, emphasizing the word “muse” by a low hiss like it were some form of hate speech requiring, in politer company, asterisks in place of its vowels.

She kept looking me over, examining my bare thighs, taking in, it seemed, the slutty delight of my hot pants, the shiny zipper that covered my crotch, my naked belly like a gently rippling field, the curve of my waist, the camouflaged but hardly concealed ripeness of my melons and their stupid little moniker, my lanky bare arms and exposed clavicles sheened with sweat like they were all so many runic inscriptions on a bare outcropping of rock that somehow added up to a secret at once dreadful and wondrous.

Something like: Sheila what a little traitor you are to Woman. Sheila what a dumb little slut you are. Sheila how I would like to hump your leg. Sheila what changed you? Sheila you’ve obviously degenerated into a stupid little whore like the others but I’m smarter than you and I know what to do about you.

I looked over her shoulder at Matthew, tending to that suddenly very companionable dog. I saw, too, other people, students who are thankfully not the prisoners of prunish, desiccated Stalinist ideologue academics before seven in the morning, looking on, making their own little surmises about this encounter.

She looked me in the eyes now with a gloating sort of stare that disgusted me, it was at once contemptuous and possessive. “’Love is War’,” she said, “that’s a fine motto for heteronormativity and women have always been drafted into men’s wars to possess their identity, their creativity, their sexuality. But of course there are ways, there are ways,” she repeated, her eyes staring down again at my zipper, “for Womyn to transcend the male’s competitive fixation on the vertical plane and experience a-- a horizontal kind of reality, where women can create and coexist on a horizontal plane of community and shared--”

“Oh isn’t that the truth,” interjected Matthew cheerily, “I keep telling Sheila not to let herself be taken in by the heteronormative constructs, like fashion and make-up and-- but you see,” he added in a confiding sort of stage whisper, “she is a bit of a prey to contemporary mores.”

“Oh well now, I’m sure Sheila’s not taken in by all that!” she protested, meaning she agreed completely.

I glowered furiously at Matthew, but all I could say was, factually enough, “I’m not wearing make-up.”

“She’s literal-minded, that one,“ Matthew added in a very queenie tone of voice. His eyes rolled dramatically. My coach and my prof shared a parental exchange of looks. Fucking jerks.

I tried to cough meaningfully but this only gained me another once-over from Dr. Lawson while Matt tried to return Shock’s leash into her distracted grasp.

“I’ll see you around, I’m sure. Do enroll for my seminar next term, ‘Mary Wollstonecraft: Traitor to the Sex’. You will find it very enlightening, very.” She was off, but reluctantly, since she was getting some glances now at the rear view. This forced me to turn in her departing direction, waving idiotic farewell.

I felt a sweaty mess. Woebegone in my whorewear, I actually buried my head against Matt’s shoulder, getting a reassuring noseful of his manly musk as I implored, “Can we get going, please” when I heard the telltale metallic gasp of someone’s cellphone snapping a picture.

I turned and saw a couple, guy and girl; which one had snapped the picture I don’t know since they were in the midst of passing it. “Sorry,” the dude muttered. A moment later the girl added goofily, “You guys are so cute!”

Yay, cute booty girl collapsing against gay trainer’s chest in the morning dew. Put it on facespace, why don’tcha? Immortalize those spindly legs stretching up into those painted-on hot pants, that screaming pink camo-clad bottom with a generous dollop of its under slope completely bare to the naked eye. I could feel a sheen of sweat there, born as much of frustration and embarrassment as from jogging, cooling in the awakening light.

“Please,” I whimpered again. “Come on, my ass is sweaty, what more do you want?”

Matthew softly cooed, “You don’t want to miss the Dean of Studies in case he’s out for a morning stroll, do you?”

“Yes, I want to miss him,” I replied seriously.

“Is your ass really sweaty?” he asked.

“Well, yeah, I mean we jogged a good bit already--”

“Let me see,” he said, and then to my utter surprise he enveloped me in his arms and clasped both my bottom cheeks in his strong, immaculate hands. I stiffened against him as his pinkies grazed across the exposed flesh where my ass creased into my thighs. I rested one hand on his pec and the other on his shoulder. I lifted my head up at him and met his eyes, beaming down at me like some Greek god in close-up. I heard a cellphone click. And then another. He still held me, hands gently cupped to my ass. And then he let me go.

My lips parted and trembled. I felt suddenly very heavy down in the seat of my short shorts where the seat of my bottoms was plastered onto my pussy. My body and mind reeled together, a hot vortex in which shame was still a major ingredient but not the biggest one. I think my eyes started to sparkle. I looked about me for the first time that morning, in what was recognizably the light of a new day, and for the first time noticed an elderly lady sitting on a bench some dozen feet away. She was looking at me and our eyes met, her shoulders making that kind of little shrug back and forth that old ladies seem to do for their exercise. For the first time that day I saw someone who was not looking at me with judgment or embarrassment (or aiming a goddamn camera phone). She seemed to think I was a young, pretty girl in love, and I gave her back a lovely look that said, “I am.”

I straightened then and turned, one hip cocked, and looked about me appraisingly as the grass started to light up in the sunshine. People moved on, looking. I thought to myself, ‘That’s right, bitches. Love is War. Read my titties and weep. Be sure to read my ass on the way out.’ I stretched my arms over my head like a goof, my back arched, stomach taut and on display. Matthew looked at me grinning as if to say, ‘Are you done yet?’ Emboldened by my sudden infusion of happiness, I performed, for just a few seconds, a little shimmy.

“Aren’t you ready for some breakfast?” I implored.

“Sure. We’ll go back, get you changed.”

“I’ll shower first.”

“No shower,” he said. “Why, you feeling dirty or something?”

“Yeah, kinda,” I replied.

“Good.” He lowered his voice and leaned back over me. “Ass sluts do get sweaty and dirty. You should get used to it. Skip the shower. Trainer’s orders. We’ll walk back, you can change your bottoms and we’ll get breakfast.”

“I’ve gotta get out of this top too!”

He grinned ominously. “That knot took some doing. I don’t know if you can even get out of it by yourself. I think you need to keep it on for today.”

“But--but--” I stammered, uneasiness and embarrassment creeping back over me like a silent tide.

“On and on about the ‘butt’,” he laughed. “Just relax, you’ll get used to it. Just because this is ass training doesn’t mean your teats have to get left out.” He gave me an affectionate look that warmed me inside like scotch. “If your modesty absolutely persists, I can always tie a scarf around your abdomen, like Cary Grant does to Ingrid Bergman in ‘Notorious’. Poor dear.”

His words swirled inside the foamy cup of my mind, but all I could say was, “Who the hell is Ingrid Bergman?”

Matthew’s face shook with surprise, and something really serious seemed to cloud his eyes. “Are you serious? My god, I have got my work cut out for me, haven’t I?”

I smiled impishly, as if to confess, “Of course you have, you silly boy.” This was different than the kind of impish pleasure I took in Ted, I knew, but I was in too flustered a state on account of everything to take stock of that. I cast a sideways look and saw my old lady looking on at me, as if approving and understanding, even though I was ignorant of the greatest star of her time and was dressed like a slutty mannequin.

But Matthew was leading me away now, his arm slung possessively along my bare back, hand at my waist. “We’ll keep to the shadows, let your mind return to some semblance of ease. You need to collect your faculties, though. You’re going to breakfast plugged.”

My stomach took the elevator to hell. “Oh shit, Matt, you know I can’t--”

“’Can’t’ isn’t in your vocabulary any more, dear,” he said, tightening his grip on my bare flank. “Everything will be fine. It’ll be the most relaxed and pleasurable breakfast you’ve had all day,” he said dreamily, meaning: Who knows what?