Sunday morning wasn’t the first time Jack woke up spooned up next to Vixen, although it wasn’t something that had happened very often. He realized that somehow over the night one of his hands had wound up cupping one of Vixen’s small breasts, and the feeling was wonderful. He could smell her hair right next to his face and enjoy the feeling of her body next to his.

One thing was clear to him: it wasn’t the last time this would happen, and he could well be doing it the rest of his life. As he lay there, her warm, nude body close to his, he was perfectly happy with the idea.

It was very late in the morning for them, but they had planned on sleeping in after the long day and going late the night before. Unlike most people their age, Jack and Vixen usually got up with the sun, if not before. They were used to getting up to check out the morning bird activity, or just to be fully awake when they went to school. They’d agreed they would continue the practice, even though Alan and Summer in the room right next to them were the kind of people who liked to sleep in and took a lot to get fully awake. They had agreed that the early morning hours would be great for studying in the crowded apartment; it wouldn’t bother their roomies much, and if they got up early they’d have quiet to hit the books.

Jack got up onto one elbow, leaned forward and began to touch Vixen’s earlobe with the tip of his tongue as he massaged the breast he’d been holding for, well, who knew how long? Not long enough. After a moment, he began to feel Vixen squirm around a little in reaction to the gentle stimulus. “Oh, God, Jack,” he heard her mumble.

“Good morning, Vixen,” he whispered – his mouth was right next to her ear, after all.

“Don’t stop,” she replied softly. “God, that feels good. You can wake me up like that any time you want to.”

“I’m going to have to stop sometime soon. I hate to say this, but I’m going to have to use the bathroom.”

“Yeah, I am too,” she replied, the spell broken. “I suppose we might as well get up and get moving, even though I don’t want to. Are Alan and Summer up yet?”

“I have no idea,” he told her quietly. “I haven’t heard anything, though.”

“Maybe they aren’t,” she replied. “Look, let’s both go potty and then we can pick up from here.”

“Sounds like a plan, even though I’d just like to keep doing what we’re doing.”

“Me too, but my bladder has other ideas.”

“Ladies first,” he said, rolling back and taking his hand off of her. “But don’t take too long.”

Vixen rolled back the covers on her side of the double bed and sat up. “God, I needed that,” she said as she stood up. She didn’t bother pulling on any clothes, even a robe – after all, there was a good chance that Alan and Summer wouldn’t be awake enough to see her anyway.

She opened the bedroom door and walked out into the living room. She was halfway across it when she heard Alan say, “Well, good morning, Vixen.”

A little shock ran through her. Even though she’d often been nude around her friends she had a large reservoir of modesty she hadn’t fully overcome. She pulled herself together in an instant and said, “Hey, I didn’t know the two of you were up.”

“Summer is still out of it,” Alan said as Vixen crossed the room. The bathroom was next to the kitchen, and now that she was on her feet she needed it more than she had realized. “But, hey,” he continued. “It’s not often I wake up before you and Jack.”

A minute or so later Vixen felt a lot better, but when she got back to the room she shared with Jack, the inspiration to have a nice, long session of morning loving had largely evaporated. As soon as she walked into the room, she could see it was true for Jack, too; his underwear had replaced his nudity, and he was pulling on a T-shirt. “Shit,” she said quietly, hoping Alan wouldn’t hear.

“Yeah, me too,” he replied. “I think we’re going to have to get used to that. We’ll have other times.”

“Yeah, but still,” she shook her head, making her long brown hair wave with the motion. “Guess we might as well get moving.”

Jack made a quick trip to the bathroom while Vixen resigned herself to having to get dressed. While she waited, she pulled on panties and shorts, and a print camisole top. She didn’t bother with a bra, since she rarely wore one, and then mostly when she was wearing a top where the darkness of her areolas would show through.

She was dressed except for sandals when Jack returned, but still felt a little frustrated at the loss of a nice session of morning delight. “We’re just going to have to get used to living with Alan and Summer around,” she said softly.

“Yeah, we are,” Jack agreed, pulling on a pair of shorts. “We’ll get used to it, but it’s going to take a while to learn how to live on top of each other.”

“Can’t have everything, but it’s a lot better than we had at home.”

“There is definitely that,” he said, looking around for shoes and socks. He found the shoes easily, but his socks were still in one of the bags he hadn’t unpacked yet. Rather than get into a digging session, he just put on the ones he’d worn the day before. They would work for now, even though they felt pretty grubby. He could change when he found his fresh ones.

Dressed and about as ready to meet the day as they could manage, they walked out into the living room, where Alan sat, intently studying an electronic tablet. “Morning, Alan,” he said.

“I made some coffee, if you’re interested.”

“Yeah, I could hack a cup of coffee,” Jack replied.

“I’ll get it,” Vixen offered, while Jack looked around the living room. It was still full of things that had been dumped there during the unloading the night before. “Wow,” he told Alan. “This place is pretty crowded.”

“We knew there wasn’t a lot of room,” Alan pointed out. “And it’ll be better when we get everything out of that jumble and put away.”

“We brought too much stuff,” Vixen sighed as she poured coffee in the kitchen. “I was afraid of that, but it was so easy just to pack something because we might need it.”

“We did enough of that,” Alan agreed. “I haven’t talked it over with Summer yet, but I think we could pack some stuff into the trunk of her car. That would give us a little more room in here.”

“We could probably put some in the Cherokee too,” Jack agreed. “It’d have to be stuff we wouldn’t mind losing if it walked away, though.”

“We could do that,” Summer’s voice entered the conversation. Jack looked up to see her coming out of her room dressed in only a black bra – which, unlike Vixen, she needed – and matching bikini panties. “Cody said we’re not able to park on the street regularly, and both he and Susan need their vehicles for work.”

“Then that’s something we have to do, and probably tomorrow, seeing as today’s Sunday,” Jack agreed. “We have to get parking passes for the big lot. At least there’s the shuttle bus that runs back and forth.”

“Yeah, we really aren’t going to need the cars much,” Summer agreed as she disappeared into the bathroom. “I think we could have gotten by with one, but we had them so we brought them.”

“When you get right down to it, the only thing we need a car for is a grocery run every few days,” Vixen pointed out as she brought a cup of coffee to Jack. “And we really need to do one today or tomorrow at the latest.”

“That’s something else,” Alan agreed. “And we probably ought to ask Nancy if she wants to ride along. If she does, that argues for taking the Cherokee.”

Jack sipped at his coffee as he glanced at the clock – it was midmorning, hours after he normally got up. “I don’t know if Nancy will be up yet,” he said. “I do know she was pretty short on sleep. We can get some stuff put away before we do a grocery run.”

“We need to get most of this stuff cleared away today,” Alan agreed, “and among other things we need to learn our way around this town a little, find out where things are, that sort of thing. Let’s concentrate on getting stuff caught up around the college tomorrow. Some stores won’t be open today, anyway.”

“I’m glad we got here a few days early to deal with it,” Summer said as she came out of the bathroom, still clad only in bra and panties. “We’ve got a lot to get ready before orientation starts, and one thing we have to learn is how to live on top of each other.”

“Yeah, we’re just going to have to get used to it,” Vixen sighed. “This is sure going to be different than it was at home, isn’t it?”

*   *   *

About noon the same day, Stacy Foster carried both a couple of bags and a backpack as she staggered up the narrow and creaky steps of Echo Hall, one of the three dormitories remaining on the Southern Michigan University campus left over from Hawthorne College. Both her mother and father followed her, each of them loaded down with baggage.

Moving-in days at Southern stretched over nearly a week, by school policy, to give students a little time to get used to both the school and the town. This Sunday was the second of them, and they would continue for the rest of the week.

“Wow, this place is a dump,” she said to her parents as she glanced down the narrow hall. It revealed fading and peeling paint in a color she thought of as puke green. “I told you we ought to have looked for an apartment off campus.”

“This is a little worse than I thought it would be,” her father said firmly. “But I still think it’s better for you to live on campus, at least your first year.”

“Your father is right, dear,” her mother added. “Living in an apartment would be too much for you to take on all at once. Perhaps next year.”

Stacy shook her head but knew enough to say nothing. They had been around this argument all too many times, well before the campus visit to Southern that made up her mind that this was the place for her to go to college. Stacy had had her doubts about coming here, but the biggest selling point for Southern was that this was the farthest away from home that her parents would allow her to go to college. It was something she would not dare mention out loud to anyone for fear of it getting back to her parents, who might well change their minds.

“I can live with it,” she sighed as she trudged down the hall looking for what would become her room. She knew from going over the school’s website that Echo Hall was about eighty years old, and on the master plan for demolition and replacement in the next few years. Apartment or dorm room, at least it would be away from home and the constant, niggling oversight she got from her parents, especially her mother. “I wonder if this Laura is here yet,” she added, trying to change the subject to get away from another ongoing argument.

Even though it had the prospect of a huge degree of freedom compared to home, Stacy knew that college was going to be something different for her. She had been looking forward to it a lot, but there were a lot of unknowns, including what her new roommate would be like.

Back in the spring Stacy had been informed that her roommate would be a girl by the name of Delores Mergenthaler. Though they had never met, the two had exchanged phone calls and e-mails over the course of the summer, working out who was to bring what to share living in the rather small dorm room. But a month before the e-mails and calls had stopped; after a week Stacy had been told by Delores’s mother than Delores had been in a bad car crash and wouldn’t be starting college this fall anywhere.

A few days later Stacy got a letter from the college stating that she had been reassigned to a different room and roommate, a girl by the name of Laura Delacroix; the letter gave Laura’s name and other contact information. Stacy hadn’t been able to get in contact with her at all – phone messages went to voicemail, and e-mails got an “on vacation” auto-reply. It would not have surprised Stacy in the slightest if Laura didn’t show up either.

This was something to be a little worried about. Stacy had read all the literature about how tough Southern was going to be, especially adapting to the place. She knew that having a cooperative and supportive roommate would play a big part in how well the transition would go. The wrong roomie could make or break her first year, which was a big part of the reason Stacy had wanted an apartment by herself. Now, all she could do was hope that this Laura would be someone she could get along with.

On the other hand, there was a good chance that Laura as a roommate would be better than living at home, where Stacy’s folks watched her every move, second-guessed every decision, and forced every one of their opinions on her. Stacy knew she would be free of that, even with a lousy roommate. Getting out of the house and out from under her parent’s thumb gave her a chance to develop new interests, and maybe create a new approach to life. This could be her best opportunity to become her own person!

Halfway down the narrow hall they came to a door with her new room number on it. Like the building, the door was an older wooden door of a design that dated from the building’s construction, and Stacy didn’t think it was very solid. But, she reflected, perhaps it hadn’t mattered in eighty years, so it might not this year either. Big deal; it was the doorway to her future, after all.

The door was locked, so Stacy set down her bags and pulled out the key she’d gotten at the student housing office desk. It was only the work of a moment to unlock the door and open it, to discover no one was there.

Stacy carried her bags inside and set them down. A look around revealed no sign that Laura or anyone else had been there. There were dressers, a couple of closets, and beds with bare mattresses. On top of each bed was a neatly folded pile of bedding, and that was about it. “Well,” she sighed. “This looks like it will be home for a while.”

“We saw better rooms at other colleges,” her mother commented with a condescending tone in her voice. “The rooms at Meriwether College were a lot nicer than this.”

“You’re probably right,” Stacy said, glancing around. There was light coming in from the window, but the walls were painted the same puke green color as the hall. The floors, though, were hardwood, and they creaked a little when she took a step. “But this will do.”

“You could still withdraw from here and go to the community college near home,” her mother suggested. “That way you could live at home.”

It was absolutely the last thing Stacy wanted. Her mother had been pushing the community college at her for years, ever since middle school; Stacy had dug in her heels on it, every step of the way. “I can’t do that,” she told her mother. “Among other things, I’d lose the nice scholarship I got to go here.”

“Yes, but that’s about what you’d save by going to the community college,” her mother pointed out for approximately the six thousand two hundred and seventeenth time.

“True,” Stacy replied, trying to not rekindle that ongoing fight, even though her mother was waving the match around the gasoline. “But I wouldn’t get anything like the quality of education there that I can get here.”

“We’ve been over that ground before,” her father pointed out. “In fact, we’ve been over it a few too many times. Stacy, I think you deserve the right to make the choice. Granted, this dorm room is not very impressive, but we knew it wouldn’t be as nice as your room at home before you made the choice to come here.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she replied. Although he’d been nearly as oppressive as her mother, he’d at least come out on her side once in a while. This was one of those times. “I agree, the room could be better, but I can make it work out.”

“So long as you’re happy with your decision,” he said. “Now, do you want to start putting your things away, or should we haul the rest of your stuff up from the car?”

“I’ll be glad to start putting your things away, dear,” her mother said.

“No, Mom, don’t,” Stacy protested. “If you put my stuff away there’ll be things I won’t find until I pack up to move out of here. Let me do it. I probably ought to hold off on some of it until Laura gets here, anyway.”

“Well, I feel like I ought to be some use,” her mother sniffed.

“Let’s get everything else up here,” Stacy said. “Then we’ll see.”

“I don’t want to make any more trips up and down those stairs than I have to,” her mother protested.

“Why don’t you get started by making one of the beds?” Stacy suggested. “Maybe even both of them?” That would be better than having her mother paw through her things. It wouldn’t matter for most of it, but there were a few things Stacy would rather her mother not find. Those included her favorite vibrator, the closest thing to a boyfriend she’d had, ever since – well, she was glad that was in the past, too. Fortunately, her plastic boyfriend was well-hidden in a bag that hadn’t come up the stairs yet.

“All right, I can do that. The two of you can bring up the rest of your things.”

It didn’t take Stacy and her father many more trips to get everything up to the room. Of course, her mother had totally ignored what Stacy had asked about putting her things away, and was busy going through one of the bags that contained hanging clothes, putting things in one of the room’s closets. That was irritating, to say the least – but maybe there wouldn’t be too much more of it. “All right, Mom,” Stacy told her. “I can take it from there.”

“But it’s not a big deal. I just want to help out.”

“Mom, you’ve been a big help,” Stacy said. “Look, let’s lock up here and just leave things lay. We can go get something to eat, and then it’s a long drive, and you two need to be heading back.”

“I wouldn’t feel right leaving you with such a mess strewn around. What would Laura think when she shows up?”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take, Mom,” Stacy replied, trying to not sound as exasperated as she felt. “It’s not like I have that much stuff, and I’ll feel better knowing where I put everything.” It really wasn’t all that much; Stacy knew kids from her high school who were planning on renting vans, even trucks, to move everything. That was one point her father had made that she had agreed with – the less stuff she moved in, the less she would have to move out in a few months.

“Stacy is right, dear,” her father interceded once again. “Besides, we do need to get on the road. It’s going to be after dark before we get home as it is, and we both have to work tomorrow.”

“Well, all right,” her mother huffed. “I don’t feel right leaving you in such a mess, but you have to live with it if Laura shows up. I hope she doesn’t think you’re an impossible slob.”

“When she shows up, she’ll have things to put away, too,” Stacy shook her head. “She’ll understand.”

It still took quite a bit of urging to get her mother out of the dorm room. Stacy knew that her mother was trying to put her mark on it, to try and define in some small way how her daughter would live at Southern. Perhaps it was understandable, but that didn’t keep her from resenting it.

They got back in the car – now a lot emptier – and drove off campus a ways to a fairly nice-looking restaurant her father had spotted on the way into town. The place proved to be acceptable, and the food really wasn’t bad, but Stacy was anxious to have this all over with so she could get on with her life.

In spite of the need to get on the road, her mother lingered over dessert and coffee. Stacy really wanted to get back to the campus – not so much to get her things put away, but to begin her new life. Finally, her mother couldn’t delay any longer; they settled the bill and went outside.

“Stacy, are you sure you wouldn’t like me to come back to your room and help you put your things away?” her mother asked as they got into the car.

“No, Mom,” she replied. “I can handle it. You’ve got a long drive home. In fact, I might as well leave you here and walk back to campus. I need some exercise after all the sitting in the car and the restaurant, anyway.”

“We could drive you back,” her mother said. “It’s not far.”

“That’s why I can walk. I have to get used to doing it anyway.”

Saying goodbye took some time, with a couple of hugs. It really was a little scary for Stacy; while she wanted to be away from her parents – especially her mother – and start to make her own path in life, there were a lot of new and incomprehensible things to learn in the next few days, too.

But, finally, her parents were in the car and backing out of the parking space while Stacy stood there and watched, if nothing more than to make sure they left. In a couple minutes, they were lost in the traffic, and gone.

Stacy let out a big sigh and started walking briskly toward campus, a load off her mind. This was going to change a lot of things in her life, and it was clear that things were going to be different than they’d been before. Now was the time to start taking advantage of them, too. Yes, she needed to get back to the dorm room and get her things put away. And, if Laura hadn’t showed up yet, maybe she’d have some time to make sure her vibrator still worked. It wasn’t the same as having a boyfriend, but it would do until she could find the real thing.

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