The house was quiet on Sunday. Upperclassmen had been coming in since late in the week, and the campus was filling up with students. Classes would get going the next day, so this weekend was the last chance for relaxation and unwinding before things got serious.

Alan and Summer were alone in the apartment. Jack and Vixen had decided to take the Cherokee out to a local nature preserve to find some birds, catching the beginning of the fall migration, and probably be by themselves for a while. Alan and Summer appreciated the time alone together too; there hadn’t been much of it in the week the four had lived in the apartment.

It goes without saying that Jack and Vixen were not much more than out the door carrying their birding gear, heading for the shuttle bus stop, when Alan and Summer were heading for bed. They enjoyed noisy, active sex as much as their friends, and it had been hard to keep it down in the closeness of the apartment. They were ready to get into it with an intensity they’d never had before – they’d already had as much sex in the last week as they’d had in the previous six months.

A fine hour had followed, and once they had taken an extended rest break they intended to go right back to it. Right now, they were cuddled together on the couch, soft drinks at hand. They had robes on in the unlikely event that someone would come to the door, but that didn’t keep Alan from toying with one of Summer’s sensitive breasts from time to time as he absently scrolled through a textbook on his tablet.

While Summer would have been just as happy to get back to what they had been doing, she realized that Alan needed more recovery time. Right at the moment she didn’t want to think about studying, though; there would be enough of that to come in the weeks that lay ahead. “You know,” she said to Alan, “I think this would be a good chance to call Ashley and see what’s happening up at Meriwether.”

“Yeah,” he replied. He hadn’t been paying all that much attention to the text since Summer’s breast was much more interesting. “As far as I know they had orientation up there this weekend, too. Mary Lou has probably figured out by now that Nancy isn’t there. It can’t hurt.”

“I’ll go grab my phone,” Summer smiled. “I’ll be right back, and you can pick up where you left off.”

“My pleasure,” he grinned. It was, too.

In a moment Summer was back next to Alan on the couch, his arm around her again, while she pushed a combination of autodial buttons on her cell phone. Summer was something of a gossip, and he knew it – it was part of who she was, after all. But she wasn’t as serious a gossip as some of the girls in their class at Spearfish Lake High School, some of whom absolutely lived to pass along every truth or rumor about their classmates they happened to come across.

Neither Alan nor Summer would have come right out and said that Ashley Keilhorn was the most serious gossip in the class, but neither would deny that she was one of the leaders. For all of that, she and her boyfriend Lyle Angarrack had become friends of a sort, and had been involved with some of the game sessions they’d had with Witches versus Christians back at home. The two had accompanied Alan and Summer out to the warm little pond in the woods on occasion too, although they weren’t quite good enough friends to go skinny dipping with them like Alan and Summer had often done with Jack and Vixen.

Sure enough, Ashley picked up the phone on the second ring. “Hey Ashley, it’s Summer. What’s happening up at Meriwether these days?”

“We kicked Adrian College’s ass last night,” Ashley reported. “I should say, Lyle literally kicked their ass. Three field goals and two extra points to win on an eight point margin. We got lucky, though, as we’ve got a quarterback who can’t hit the ground with his hat, but if they’ll give Lyle some opportunities we ought to be able to win a few more.”

“I don’t suppose you were holding, were you?” Summer snickered. In the turmoil at Spearfish Lake the year before, when the whole varsity football team had been canned, Lyle had essentially been drafted to help out the team. Although he was, by some margin, the largest player on the new varsity, he had exercise-induced asthma so bad that he’d shied away from sports in the past. But that didn’t keep him from being big and strong, and he proved to be an excellent kicker and occasional position player, good enough to be named league MVP and get a half-ride scholarship to Meriwether.

Since the varsity team at Spearfish Lake had been a little short-handed, Ashley had volunteered to hold the football for him during practice field goals and extra points. Somehow that had turned into her being the first girl ever to play football for the team. It wasn’t all bad; Ashley was a big girl, not much smaller than Lyle, and had been the third largest player on the team. In fact, at one point there had been a proposal made as to her playing on the front four, but it had never happened.

In her younger years Ashley had run to fat, but being on the football team and going with Lyle had inspired her to spend some time in the weight room, too. Well, a lot of time in the weight room. The result was that she actually gained a little weight, but it was all muscle weight, as she lost a lot of baby fat. When Alan and Summer had last been out at the pond with Ashley and Lyle, Ashley had worn an extremely tiny thong bikini that showed off very well just what a Valkyrie she had become. In short, she did not look like anyone to be pushing around, especially when her boyfriend was bigger and even more impressive.

“Naw, they chickened out,” Ashley replied. “I think the coach is a little afraid that Lyle and I might hurt someone, like that kid from Warsaw last year.”

Summer remembered the incident well – she’d been at the game, though only because her little sister Autumn was a cheerleader. A Warsaw player had taken affront to the idea that Spearfish Lake would allow a girl to be on their football team and had taken it on himself to teach her a lesson. Warsaw had drawn a penalty for roughing the kicker, but then Spearfish Lake – actually Lyle and Ashley – had also drawn a penalty for excessive roughness that had resulted in the Warsaw player being hauled off in an ambulance. “I didn’t mean to step on his arm,” Ashley had reported innocently if rather smugly afterwards. “How was I to know it was gonna break so easily?”

“That’s a shame,” Summer sighed. “They’re missing a good bet. So did you hear how Spearfish Lake did Friday night? Jack said Howie told him they beat Warsaw 28 to 12.”

“Yeah, I heard that,” Ashley replied. “It really seems strange to not be there.”

Summer had already decided she wasn’t going to come right out and ask about her main concern, which was news about Mary Lou. If they didn’t get around to the topic after a bit she might ask a leading question, but that could wait. “So how are you liking Meriwether?”

“Aw, it’s all right. It’ll do. It’s not like I’m new here. I’ve been around for three weeks now, while most of the other freshmen just started showing up the last couple of days.”

“So you could be with Lyle?”

“Well, yeah,” Ashley laughed. “I, uh, sorta sneaked in. Lyle is in a regular dorm, not a jock dorm, and he was the only one on his floor, so, uh, I sorta stayed with him until they opened the place up for the regular freshmen. I’ll tell you something, these beds are kind of narrow for two people our size. We both, uh, well, we both fell out of bed once or twice.”

That would be a sight to see, Summer thought. While she didn’t think of herself as a voyeur, Lyle and Ashley getting it on very actively in a small bed would stand a chance of actually wrecking the bed, frame and all, considering their size. In the back of her mind she wondered how the two managed, considering Lyle’s asthma. Did he dose up with inhalers before sex, or did she get on top and do the driving? Possibly both, and maybe even at the same time.

“You’re not staying with him now, are you?”

“No, I had to move when they opened the dorms to freshmen on Friday. I sure wish I could have stayed with Lyle.”

“I’ll bet. It’s sure nice that I can stay with Alan.”

“You lucky stiff. The roomie they gave me, well, I can see she’s going to be a whole lot of fun,” Ashley replied sarcastically.

“How’s that?”

“Oh, this girl, Marcy, is nice enough in her way, but holy shit, is she ever innocent and naïve! Sometimes I think my folks might have given me a little too much room to explore my sexuality, but I swear to God, she hasn’t been given any at all. I mean, I’m pretty sure she knows that a boy is supposed to stick his dick into a girl when they have sex, if you know what I mean. But I don’t think she’s figured out he’s supposed to move it in and out, and she especially hasn’t figured out that the girl is supposed to enjoy it too!”

“That’s sad,” Summer shook her head.

“Yeah, I haven’t told her yet about staying with Lyle the last few weeks. If she knew I think she’d shit a hole right through her granny panties.”

Maybe it was the fact that Ashley had been hanging around with football players a lot, but it seemed like she was a little more crude than she’d been in high school. Or, Summer thought, maybe being out of Spearfish Lake might just mean that her true colors were coming out. “Maybe you’ll have to teach her a little about how the world really works,” she replied.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any teaching her,” Ashley sighed. “Either she’s going to drive me nuts or I’ll drive her nuts. There isn’t going to be any middle ground.”

“Maybe not,” Summer suggested. “From what I hear from my older sister, sometimes when kids go away to college they throw off all the crap that their parents have crammed down their throats and go the other way. If she discovers she likes sex, you might have to put up one of those take-a-number machines.”

“That would be about as much of a pain in the ass is she is now. I guess there’s not really much we can do about it for now. Lyle and I are already talking about getting an off-campus apartment next year, but we can’t do it this year since we’re still freshmen. His roomie seems pretty cool, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I wind up spending a lot of time over there. I sure wish we had our own place like you guys do.”

“It’s nice, even if we have Vixen and Jack sharing the apartment with us. But coming here wouldn’t have worked for you since they don’t have football here.”

“Yeah, that would suck, at least for Lyle and me. Maybe it’ll be all right for you, but we couldn’t hack it there.”

“It’s not for everybody, that’s for sure. I’m more than a little curious about how hard the classes are going to be. Everybody says they’re pretty tough.”

“From what I hear the freshmen classes here are pretty easy, so long as you show up for class and make an effort,” Ashley replied. “But I’ll tell you that at least some of the kids I see here have come to party and screw around. The last thing they’re interested in is studying.”

“We sure don’t see much of that here. This place just doesn’t seem to draw the party crowd.”

“Oh, hell, it was a dinger of a party here in the dorm last night. It was noisy as hell and some of those kids went on until after the sun was up. I’ll bet there are some damn big heads this morning.”

“So were you involved in the partying very much?”

“Well, a little, just to get out of the room and not have to put up with Marcy for a while. That’s why I’m sitting here in the snack bar sucking on a cup of coffee while Lyle is at a team meeting. You wouldn’t believe it, but I think the jocks here might be the more responsible ones, at least compared to some of the assholes last night.”

Summer shook her head. Meriwether sure seemed like a different place than Southern, all right! “I think I’m now even gladder I came here. Of course, living off campus we’re not around party central anyway.” It was time to start nudging Ashley toward the subject she wanted to talk about, and the best way to do it seemed to be to ask a question she already knew the answer to: “So have you seen any other Spearfish Lake kids there besides you and Lyle?”

“Yeah, I was surprised to run across Shelly Battle yesterday. The last I heard she was going to go to Northern, but she said she wanted to leave her options open so she could go a little farther away from home. She still isn’t getting along with her dad very well, and she seems to think that the farther away from him she is, the better.”

That was interesting! Summer wasn’t exactly a fan of Shelly’s either – she was arrogant and seemed to think she was better than anyone else – but the interesting part was that she was there at all. “I’ve seen some of that, too,” Summer agreed. “It is a nice to be away from the Spearfish Lake bullshit.”

“Yeah, and she created a lot of it, too. But I don’t think she’s going to be the hot-shit ruler of the pack here that she was at Spearfish Lake. Maybe she thinks she’s gonna be, but this isn’t Spearfish Lake, thank God!”

Interesting indeed, especially since it meant that Shelly would be going to Meriwether and not Southern, not that she would have been able to hack the classes at Southern in the first place. That meant there was another ongoing pain in the ass who wouldn’t be much trouble to Summer ever again. But that didn’t answer the question this call was about. “How about Mary Lou?” she asked, deciding to get down to the nitty-gritty. “The last I heard she was going to be going there.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s here, the skank. She’s making even more of a pain in the ass of herself than she did at home, so I try to stay away from her. After all, she wouldn’t have anything to do with me when she was the old varsity team’s main bicycle. You know, everybody riding her.”

“She didn’t do that for last year’s team,” Summer grinned.

“No, I guess those old jocks were such great lovers that they turned her into a lesbian. If you thought she was a little butch last spring, she’s really turned into a dyke now. I mean, she’s real out about it. I can’t see why a guy would want anything to do with her, and I can’t see why most girls who swing that way would either.”

“Really butch, huh?” That was kind of amusing, Summer thought. After all, most people who knew Ashley would have thought that she was a little on the dyke side herself, if for no more reason than her size, her build, and her attitude. But even knowing Ashley a little was to understand that she really was pretty feminine in her own way. Big and rough and physical, yes, but she definitely swung toward guys, though it seemed likely that a girl who liked macho females would be giving her the eye until they learned better, possibly with a black eye as part of the lesson.

“Oh, yeah. She dyed her hair all Goth black and real spiky, wears a lot of leather and chains, if you know what I mean. She really turned into a Diesel Dyke. She’s all hot and bothered since she expected Nancy Halifax to be here with her, but there hasn’t been any sign of her. I mean, Mary Lou has been looking all over the place for Nancy, checking in every hour on the hour at student registration, but no Nancy. She’s about half out of her mind, what little mind she has, anyway.”

Well, that pretty much answered that. If Mary Lou hadn’t figured out that Nancy wasn’t going to be at Meriwether by now, it ought to happen soon. Whether she’d figured out that Nancy had gone to Southern was another story. “If she’s that bad, maybe it’s just as well if Nancy isn’t going there anyway,” Summer replied, choosing her words carefully. After all, she didn’t want to hint that Nancy was upstairs right now – Ashley was such a blabbermouth that the news could easily get to Mary Lou. Now was a real good time to change the subject. “We haven’t made any contact with gamers down here yet, although there’s supposed to be a group meeting sometime this week,” she said. “Maybe we’ll have to get you and Lyle down here for a session.”

“It ain’t gonna be until after football season is over with, and that’s that,” Ashley replied. “There’s just too much going on with that, and we’re gonna have classes and shit, too. Besides, freshmen aren’t supposed to have wheels here. I guess there are a few who do, but they can’t park on campus. I know Southern isn’t real far away, but it’s a hell of a long walk.”

“Well, maybe when it gets to be November Alan or I could come up and pick you up for a game session,” Summer said, relieved that she’d gotten away from the subject of Mary Lou.

“That would be neat. I know Lyle and I aren’t exactly the greatest role-playing gamers in the world, novices really, but we had fun with it, and it would be good to see you again. I think by November both of us will be ready to be away from this place when it doesn’t involve football.”

“We’ll have to keep in touch,” Summer said, amazed to realize that there wasn’t much left to talk about. Lyle and Ashley hadn’t been close friends – nothing like Jack and Vixen – but they’d been friendly, and fellow outcasts at Spearfish Lake High School, at least until last year when all of a sudden Lyle unexpectedly became the hero athlete, and Ashley right there with him. “I think by November it’s going to be good to see some old friends, too.”

They chatted for a few more minutes, mostly about other friends from high school, who was doing what, where they were going to college, and that sort of thing. Not unexpectedly, Ashley knew more than Summer did, but then she always had been one of the more serious gossips where Summer had more or less been on the edge of that group. But even Ashley’s lines of communication were thinning – her other contacts weren’t seeing that much of each other, either. It could only get worse as time went on.

Finally they ended the call. “Sounds like Ashley,” Alan grinned. “She talks so loud I heard most of that.”

“Yep, that’s Ashley all over. I guess for the moment Mary Lou hasn’t figured out that Nancy is actually here, but I can’t believe it’s going to take her much longer.”

“I can’t believe it either. After all, last spring Nancy never made it a secret that she was planning on coming here. As soon as Mary Lou wakes up and smells the coffee, this is the first place she’s going to think about looking.”

“There’s no telling how long that’s going to take, either,” Summer agreed. “On the other hand, it sounds like Mary Lou might not have a car there, so it might be hard for her to get down here, and when she does she still won’t have any idea where to look. I mean, Nancy isn’t living on campus, and she said the only address the school has for her is a post office box.”

“She still wouldn’t have to be the world’s greatest detective to figure it out, given a little time,” Alan pointed out.

“That’s true, but if she has to borrow a car or have someone drive her down here, if she can even do that, she won’t have much time to look. With any kind of luck, maybe she’ll realize that her lesbian dream lover doesn’t want anything to do with her.”

“Fat chance of that. She’s obsessed with Nancy, or she would have gotten the message a long time ago.”

“You might be right,” Summer sighed. “Well, maybe she’ll get lucky and find a new lover at Meriwether.”

“I have to wonder about that,” Alan shook his head. “I mean, I suppose it’s possible, but at the same time it is a Methodist College and I understand they’re pretty straight for a college in this day and age. I wonder how her flaming lesbian act is going to go over with the administration.”

“Good question, and I don’t know how to find out about it, other than calling Ashley every now and then to see what the latest gossip is.”

“There are worse things to do,” he smiled, paying a little more attention to Summer’s bare breast now. “I mean, check in every week or two, and catch up on the latest news while you’re at it. While I’m glad I’m not going to Spearfish Lake High School any more, I have to say I’m curious about how some of those people who thought they had the world by the ass are going to turn out.”

“I am, too,” she smiled, twisting her body to let Alan get a little better touch on her nipple. It really felt good. “That’s why I want to keep in touch, at least a little bit. I suppose I ought to see Nancy and bring her up to date on Mary Lou.”

“Not just now,” he grinned. “Maybe in a little while, because there’s something we need to do first.”

“You mean, something in the bedroom? Definitely heterosexual in nature?”

“Well, yes. But we could do it on the couch, or the living room floor, or maybe someplace else we wouldn’t be able to use when Jack and Vixen are here.”

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