Tethered (19 page)

“Yeah, but that was art! Nobody touched her, and they all painted her
. You can’t compare getting naked
sexually
for a bunch of people to doing it for artistic purposes,” Tom said.

“Maybe you should just calm down,” Kurt said with his hand out.

“Calm down?
Calm down
? Maybe you should shut your mouth and get the hell out of our lives!” Tom yelled.

“Excuse me?” Kurt asked as he puffed out his chest.

“Stop you two! Just stop!” I yelled as I put my hand on both of their chests to keep them from killing each other.

“Is everything okay out here?” Morgan asked as she s
tood in the edge of the hallway.

“Everything is fine
,
Morgan,” I said.

“I just can’t believe you lied to me, especially after everything we’ve been through
. You told me, you promised me, that you had no secrets and that we were honest with each other. Then I come here, after hearing about a sex tape and the whole cam stuff, and I see
him
here? What, are you getting back together with him?” Tom asked.

“We were never together, just like you and I were never dating,” I said.

“Oh, so now I mean nothing?” Tom asked.

“I didn’t say that! I’m just saying that you can’t expect me to devote my life to you when you never even asked me out,” I explained.

“If she wanted to be with you, then she would’ve gotten with you already,” Kurt said.

“Kurt, be quiet,” I said as I rubbed my forehead, a headache beginning to ensue.

“Who do you like, me or him?” Tom asked.

“I’d like to know that answer also,” Kurt said.

“I like both of you,” I replied.

“I didn’t ask that
. I’m not entering some three way relationship where we all live together and share one another,” Tom said.

“Yeah, I’m not into that either,” Kurt said.

I stood there, deep in thought, as I looked at each of them, their scared and nervous faces giving off the greatest sense of fear and unknown. They both wanted an answer…they both wanted to date me. Even after all of this, the craziness with Kurt, the sex tape, and the way he treated me…I still wanted to be with him and see where things would go. The problem, though, was that I felt the same way with Tom. He had been so great to me, and showed me how reliable and safe he was. He was the vanilla ice cream I had a taste for, but Kurt gave me the sprinkles and chocolate syrup that livened up my treat. They both brought things to the table, and I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too.

“So, what is it?” Tom asked.

I fiddled my fingers, looking for a way out, before I looked at each one deeply in the eyes, and made my decision about who I wanted…who I wanted to date and see where things went with.

“I want…”

“Yeah?” Kurt asked.

“Who?” Tom asked.

“I want to see where things go with both of you,” I replied.

Untethered, the sequel to Tethered, is coming early December, 2013.  Look at my social media links below to stay in the loop and to be notified when the book is for sale!

Excerpt from The Stipulation below!

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The Stipulation Excerpt

The Stipulation Volume One

Chapter One

The blistering cold wind hit me as I walked out of Gabel Hall and started my trek across campus. December in Illinois and the ground began to turn solid from frost and the breath coming from your mouth instantly turned into a fog before quickly dissipating. It didn’t help that I decided to wear a skirt today, thinking I would actually look cute for once. Now my decision started to haunt me, as the freezing cold wind battered my freshly shaven legs and made any tiny remnants of stubble that were there stand on end.

I weaved in and out of the slow-walking students and couples, not paying attention to the way they held onto each other for warmth, as if it even mattered when the temperature was this cold outside. I admit I was a little jealous, for I wanted to be holding onto somebody, but it just wasn’t in the cards. I only got into this university because I held a 3.9 GPA through high school, and my only way to pay the rest of the tuition that my grants didn’t cover was to work almost full-time while not in class. I barely had time for anything anymore, with my time filled up with either listening to an old professor drone on, or standing in front of a cash register acting polite to the bitchy men and women who came in and deliberately tried to cause me problems. I wanted to say the whole situation really bothered me, but I guess I signed up for it all. I’m the one who chose this school out of all of the others I could’ve gone to. My parents even tried to talk me out of it, saying it was too expensive and I wouldn’t get to socialize, but I didn’t listen. I told them I was eighteen, an adult, and I could conquer anything that came my way! Now while all of my friends went to parties and spent time together, I was either stuck with my face inside of a textbook or in front of a ringing cash register.

I never told my parents, for quite frankly, I didn’t want them to know they were right. They told me if I went to a smaller school they would’ve helped me pay some of the tuition and board, but I declined. They’re missionaries, and not exactly a glamorous or high-paying job. They’re paid by the church to go and help not only people in this country, but also outside the country, and they made just enough to pay the mortgage and put food in their stomachs. All I had told them, on the rare chance I got to talk to them, was that I was having a great time and partying it up. If it made them think I was right then that’s all that mattered.

Tuesday night and my six o’clock class was over—not to mention one of the only nights I didn’t have to work—so I decided to go back to my dorm and munch on some of the snacks my parents had sent me in a care package from Mexico. I was a little scared the products would make me sick, but my parents assured me they were in a great place and everything was safe. Normally I would just smile while emptying the box into the trash, but my meal plan money for the week was already gone—my roommate’s best friend’s boyfriend took my card and got food for not only him, but also his buddies—letting me starve for the week until the money refreshed.

I got stopped at the Glade Street stoplight, which was the biggest and most annoying of all of the intersections on campus. The traffic lights for cars and pedestrians changed almost in the blink of an eye and if you were in the middle of the street then you had better run like your life depended on it. Normally, when the weather was nice, it wouldn’t be a problem, but now it posed a serious threat. The air and ground were chilling, and we even had a few flurries over the past week. Earlier today, outside the student union, I saw a university worker slip and fall, and I didn’t want to follow by planting myself in the middle of the road—
in a skirt
. I didn’t want anybody, especially these horny and hormone-raged college guys to see up my skirt and get any wet dreams about me later tonight. I was a virgin and wanted it to stay that way both for me and in the minds of every guy on campus. Letting them think I was easy or that I frequently gave free looks wasn’t what I was all about.

I stood there at the light, shivering like I had since leaving the warmth of the building, and waited patiently with five other students for the light to change. It was just my luck that the one time out of my year and a half at this school, the light decided to take its time and not change at the drop of a hat like it had every other time I had stood there. Maybe it wasn’t actually taking that long, but when twenty-degree air is pulsating against your bare and clean legs, time seems to stand still and go at a blisteringly slow pace. Four of the other people waiting with me were of course couples, and in true college fashion, they were sucking each other’s faces like some kind of giant leech. I got a little disgusted, but realized they were just being normal and that I was the freak who still hadn’t even gone all the way with a guy. I’m twenty years old and the most I’ve ever done was let a guy touch my bare breast as he came prematurely from the sheer excitement of seeing and touching a boob.

Just as I was about to give up hope, the light changed. The hulking and unforgiving red hand turned into the white glow of a walking man, and we all went for it. I watched the opposite traffic light, and as we were halfway across, their light turned yellow. The waiting cars started to inch forward as if antsy to just floor it and race through the middle of the biggest intersection on campus. I walked as fast as I could, but their light turned green before I had made it all of the way across. I shuffled my feet faster, hoping I would make it and not slip on some rogue slick of ice. My foot touched the opposite sidewalk seconds before the car raced past us all, the current of wind trailing behind it and striking me like the mighty winds of Mt. Everest. The resulting wind blew underneath my skirt and pushed it up, exposing my pink lace panties to anybody around me, which were unfortunately mostly guys. I could practically see the bulges in their pants press outward as now the only thoughts they would have of me is the girl with the goose bump covered ass.

***

My dorm was one of the biggest on campus—a cluster of several towers each around fourteen stories high. A huge common area with dining and other offices in the middle connected the four wings together so students and faculty could travel freely between them without being subjected to the elements. I was in B Wing, with many of the other upperclassmen. Well, I was only a sophomore, but I guess after getting good grades and passing my first year here I got to call myself that, even though many seniors and even juniors would scoff at that title I had given myself.

I went to the Snack Shack, a small alcove filled with snacks, and used part of the last five dollars on my student ID card, which was also used as the dining card, to get myself a bag of potato chips. Water was free—well, tap water—so I filled a small paper cup and walked out shamefully toward my wing, where at least I could be alone in the solace of my likely empty room as my roommate was probably at some frat party like she normally was. Her boyfriend belonged to a fraternity and always brought her along to the parties, which she once said she was sick of, but she never put up much of a fight. I think she just liked getting out of the dorm, and that was her one true way out of our cold and dimly lit room. She routinely invited me along, but between studying and work, I never had the time to just unwind. Even when I did have free time, like now, I enjoyed just sitting in my chair and relaxing before having to pick up a book and trying to study.

The dorms had elevators, and each floor was only accessible with a key. Each student received an elevator key for their floor, administration claimed this method was to prevent a would-be attacker from gaining control of a floor, if that was even plausible. I think they were just too scared of students sneaking off and humping each other around every corner, especially at night, so they tried to restrict access onto dorm floors.

I inserted my key and turned it, the little button for my floor lit up, and the elevator started to ascend until it abruptly stopped. The elevator always did this when I got to my floor, and it scared me every single time. If I weren’t on the eleventh floor I would just take the stairs to spare my poor beating heart, but for now I would just have to deal with it.

I walked off the elevator and immediately wanted to jump back outside into the cold when I saw one of the worst sights in the world.

“Hey, Natalie!” Trevor said as he waved vigorously.

Trevor was this guy, boy really, who was seven rooms down from me. He was a nice guy, always there if you needed help or something done, but he was weird, and that was being nice. He always wore old striped polos, tucked into his pants, and sometimes even pants that were up too high, separating his balls and giving him the male version of a camel toe. It was distracting and not exactly something that made girls all giddy and wanting more.

“Hey, Trevor,” I said with a half-assed smile as I went to walk past him and to my room.

I acted as though I was really busy and tired, hoping he would let me go and not try to talk to me or help me into my room.

Luckily for me, Clarissa, my RA, saw us and called Trevor, telling him she needed help inside the floor’s community room. I mouthed
thank you
and sped down to my room, hoping I could get inside before he realized she really didn’t need any help whatsoever.

I opened the door, revealing the sweet silence and solace of my dorm room, with Jillian not anywhere in sight. I turned on the light and slipped off my ballet flats. I tossed my backpack onto my bed, plopped myself into my chair, and was finally able to breathe—as I heard the squeaking bed of the guy from the floor above me, indicating that he was yet again boning some poor girl that he likely seduced at some party. This was college life, and the situation I put myself in when I decided to live in this cold and unforgiving dorm.