Summer College Surprises

(Note to Readers: This is an entry in the Summer Lovin’ Contest, so please read and vote and comment and do whatever you do in a contest. All sex acts, within the story events and referred to outside the story events, involve characters who are at least 18 years old. All of the sex is straight and vanilla, two people at a time. The story is set in the U.S.A. in the summer of 2021. The two main characters are NOT conventionally attractive, and they have mental health issues. Don’t say you weren’t warned.)

***

Ziri pushed back the screen door and clomped onto the front porch. She asked, “What’s a nudist’s biggest problem?”

Eldon could tell that she already had an answer, so he said, “People pointing and laughing.”

Tess, rocking slowly on the porch swing, said, “Butt crack sunburn.”

Arch didn’t look up from his phone. “Society’s laws.” As always from him, relevant but not funny.

Ziri declared, “Finding a place to sit!” She let fall to the porch a small but bulky thing with straps. Triumphantly she added, “Problem solved!”

Eldon leaned to peer at whatever it was. “Are those my seat cushions?”

“Uh huh,” said Ziri, nodding.

Arch looked over. “Those are backpack straps.”

“Yeah,” said Ziri, looking at him. “They were yours.” She turned quickly to Tess. “And your white bath towel is in here. So you all contributed, which is why we’ll share equally the fortune this will earn. But I get full credit for being the inventor.”

The loud objections of her housemates delayed Ziri’s explanation of how the swiped stuff solved a problem for people unknown to them.

The noise brought out Mrs. Driscoll from the kitchen. She wiped her hands on her apron and said, “What’s all the fuss about?” in a voice that wasn’t loud but always got immediate attention.

“Ziri–just plain stole stuff from us!” Tess spluttered. The presence of the house’s co-owner made Tess take this further. “You should kick her out. Hell, we should call the cops!” Eldon and Arch shouted agreement.

“Let’s calm down,” said Mrs. Driscoll, holding out a placating hand. The others obeyed instantly, not sure why they did, but she had that effect on them. “Ziri, did you steal from them?”

“I took their things without asking,” Ziri replied. “But as I just told–”

“Then make it up to them. That way we don’t have to bring in the police.” The look on her face showed that Mrs. Driscoll definitely didn’t want the police on her property. She and her husband complied with the town’s arcane law that allowed them to run a boarding house near the college campus, but she still wanted no trouble.

Ziri spoke with urgent speed. “I needed the stuff now, I had to see if this worked! And I was fair, so all three would–”

“Make it up to them,” said Mrs. Driscoll. Same volume, more intense gaze.

Ziri exhaled, and looked at Tess. “I’ll buy you three white towels.” To Arch: “You can pick out a new backpack, yours had holes in it, the straps practically came off–”

“Find one on your phone,” Mrs. Driscoll told Arch. “Send the link to Ziri, she’ll pay for it.” She looked at Eldon. “What’d she take from you?”

“Two seat cushions from the Tri-City Tornado,” said Eldon, getting more upset. “A giveaway from two years ago. The team went out of business, because of COVID-19! The cushions are collectable! She can’t replace–”

Mrs. Driscoll held out her own phone, already on a sports memorabilia site. “Show me how much they’re worth.”

Eldon ran out of steam. “I use them, uh, when I go to games on campus.” Tess’s laugh deflated him further. “Sentimental value?”

“Ziri, you owe him ten dollars. I’m not kicking you out, but you better learn some impulse control.” Mrs. Driscoll looked at whatever it was that Ziri had dropped on the porch. “So what is this thing that caused so much trouble?”

“The Neat Seat!” said Ziri, picking it up with a proud smile. “That’s the best name I’ve thought up so far. I haven’t done the trademark search yet, but I know it’s better than The Carcass Parker–”

“And it’s for what?”

“Well, imagine you’re a nudist, but you–”

“I will not imagine that,” said the landlady.

Eldon, fundamentally a horny guy, couldn’t help looking at Mrs. Driscoll and imagining that for her. She was tall, and lean and fit for a mother of four. She and Mr. Driscoll were always formal and polite around their boarders. But, thirty years married, and four kids, and him even taller, also lean and fit…

“But you want to be a good person,” Ziri pressed on, putting her arms through the straps with the rest of the bulk on her upper back.

“A good person?” said Eldon. “Like, someone who respects other people’s property?”

Ziri ignored that. “And keep your butt away from furniture. When you’re hiking, you don’t want to rest on top of twigs and rocks and bugs.” She fastened the crosspiece between the straps, just below her collarbone, and started gesturing freely, to show that The Neat Seat didn’t confine her.

“It’s a fucking infomercial,” Tess muttered.

Ziri grinned, and played that up in her voice tone. “But now you can be naked, and still have what you need to sit down, without distress to yourself or anyone else.” She elevated her spine to show that the front of her torso would be away from all of the straps, and able to commune with nature, were it not for her Aeropostale t-shirt.

“The rough nylon of the straps is lined with felt, providing soft contact to bare skin.” Ziri twisted the straps to show this. “There’s also felt between the plastic of the seat exterior and the wearer’s back, to limit sweat and stickiness.”

“Where’d you get the felt?” asked Arch darkly.

“I have lots of sewing stuff,” Ziri said, taking no offense, as she undid the cross strap and shucked off the burden. “Like these zippers.” She was already unzipping it while setting down the construct that was based on two square, foam-filled seat cushions. The zippers, with their tops together, connected the cushion stack on three sides. The other side was secured, more or less, with duct tape.

Ziri crouched to open The Neat Seat, revealing the white towel sewn onto the cushions. “Simply unzip The Neat Seat,” said Ziri, returning to her pitch, “set it flat on the ground, or a chair, get the straps out of the way, and sit on the comfort of plush cotton backed with foam rubber.” She did just that, cross-legged, contacting the towel with her cargo shorts and a small amount of leg skin.

“Couldn’t you just carry a towel around?” asked Tess. Seeing Ziri about to shoot that down, Tess quickly added, “Or tie a towel around your waist, to keep your hands free?”

“This is better for afterwards!” Ziri stood, and picked up the seat. “When you get up, simply zip the seat closed, and anything that might have migrated from your nether region is tucked away from contact with you, or anyone, or anything else.” With a dramatic flourish, Ziri closed the zippers, put her arms through the straps, and strode down the porch steps. Then, with an about face, she ascended the steps while saying, “And when you get home, simply remove the cotton seat liner and put it in your next hygienic laundry load.”

“And if you call in the next ten minutes,” said Eldon, trying for the same voice, “We’ll send you a second Nudist Asswipe at no additional charge!”

Ziri shot him A Look, but still smiled.

Deciding that the incident was over, Mrs. Driscoll looked at all four and said, “Our house rules still call for proper attire, so nobody will be using this here. And if anyone goes out streaking, don’t call us to bail you out.” She returned to the house. Eldon thought he saw a smile curl her lip.

***

Ziri Klefstadt, majoring in Business & Economics, had been especially amped by her spring-trimester class in Entrepreneurship. She followed what she’d learned about starting a business, by hatching an idea for the business to pursue. She pursued the idea from scribbles to designs (some of them dead ends), and finally to her mockup Neat Seat.

That night, long after the front porch kerfuffle, she gave the mockup a more direct test in her bedroom.

She doffed her cargos and underwear, set the Neat Seat on the hardwood floor, opened it, and sat on it, with her knees up and feet flat on the floor.

It felt okay. Her butt was, like much of her body, soft. The towel was comfortable for direct contact. The foam cushioned her weight. The firmness of the floor was blunted.

She crossed her legs, to check on the effects of different postures.

That changed her points of contact with the seat.

The fluffy towel tickled her labia.

Damn, she thought, losing her focus on the project. The excitement of inventing became physical. Do I have to jill off?

The bathroom was far down the hall. Recalling Mrs. Driscoll’s warning, Ziri knew she’d have to dress to leave the room. More lost focus, more wasted time.

This is a part of the research, she told herself. Nudists must get aroused all the time, despite what they claim. Once you close the zippers, what happened on The Neat Seat, stays in The Neat Seat.

She started rubbing her clitoris. She was only dimly aware of this as a sex act. Her virginity didn’t matter to her. She didn’t fantasize when she masturbated, she sought only to get it over with and return to what she had been thinking.

A couple minutes later she pulled up one of the straps and bit down on it, muffling her voice as it keened. Her trunk ground onto the towel as her vulva slickened her fingers. Chemicals transmitted within her brain felt good, as they usually did, but when the orgasm was over, she was relieved.

She examined the surface under her. Some secretions had spread a couple inches across the towel.

Not a problem, she thought.

Then, she was unable not to think, But what about men?

***

Eldon already had the books for the Psychology class he’d take over the summer, and he’d decided to get a head start on them that night. Like the rest of the student body, he had lost months of in-person college attendance to COVID-19 restrictions. He’d use the summer trimester to fill some of the gap.

In an hour, he’d gotten four pages into one book, then three into the other, then the same four in the first. Then he dulled into a deep dislike of both.

There was rapid knocking on his door.

Eldon was besieged equally by the thoughts, That has to be Ziri, and, Why?

When he opened the door she said, “Here’s your ten dollars,” and offered a sawbuck. “If you help me out with something, there’s ten more.”

“I’m studying.”

Her head moved enough to see his desk, with its closed books, laptop, and spiral notebook. “For real?”

He slumped. “What is it?”

“Come into my room.”

That put his brain on tilt. Even at his fundamentally horniest, Eldon wasn’t attracted to Ziri–before that moment. Now, her apparent interest in nudism and, for some reason, in him, made Eldon assess her. Same brownish-reddish hair in an unkempt shag, same freckles and thick glasses, same general fleshiness and wide hips, usual t-shirt and cargos. Yet this time they inspired Eldon to the crass thought, Yeah, I could do that. Beneath that was the thought, Oh please yes really yes! of a male without sex for more than a year.

As she closed her door behind them, he saw her ‘invention’ open on the floor. This restored his annoyance with her. “I don’t have any more seat cushions.”

“I know,” she said, tossing off her knowledge of all his worldly goods in this house.

He was both intrigued and worried as he looked at her. “So have you been…nude with it?”

“Bottom,” she said. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Whaat?”

“I need to know about more active use of The Neat Seat.”

“Active?” Now he was confused.

“I need you to masturbate on it.”

Never before in Eldon’s life had his emotions been so intense, while mixed. “That’s, it’s, how dare you?!”

She looked puzzled. “Is this a consent thing? Should I ask you?”

His gaze shifted quickly between Ziri and The Neat Seat, a few times. “This is personal, and, and, intrusive!” Now his look was baffled, and directly at her. “Is this the sort of thing you ask men all the time?”

She bristled. “No! Yuck! I only want to see if you’d shoot out past the seat.”

Part of his brain decided that this couldn’t get any weirder, and another part was aware of his erection. “And you think I do this in front of other people?”

“You’re a man,” she said. “You think about sex all the time, don’t you? And if you can’t screw, you masturbate, right?”

“Alone! It’s not something I’m proud of!”

Ziri thought for a moment. “I have to watch. It’s part of the product development process.”

“And you think I’ll embarrass myself for you, in exchange for ten bucks?”

“That’s all I can afford. Arch’s new backpack is like a Lamborghini.”

Eldon was ever more curious about Ziri, someone he’d rarely thought of and didn’t much like, especially after the porch incident. “You’ve got some weird ideas about people.”

“I don’t need ideas about people,” she said impatiently. “I like getting ideas about things.”

Recalling an earlier Psych course, Eldon asked, “Ziri, have you ever been…diagnosed?”

“Yeah, here and there on the autistic spectrum. None of your business, but pretty obvious, right?” She smiled a little. For some reason, that smile got to Eldon.

Yet he said, “Like my masturbating is none of yours.”

She looked down, frowning in thought. “That’s fair.” She looked at him again. “But I still want you to do it. It’s important to me.”

His glans had pushed past the vent in his boxers, hard enough for him to feel the rigidity of joined zipper teeth. He was going to have to do it, alone or with her watching. “Important enough,” he asked, “for you to encourage me?”

“Meaning what?” Her look was neutral.

“Meaning something that needs your clear consent, or I’ll go and do it in private. I’m going to get naked. Will you please get naked too, and let me look at you, without you covering anything up?”

Ziri mulled that over. She had never cared if other people saw her naked, but she was okay wearing clothes, if they were comfortable. In a way she admired nudists, because she couldn’t understand the big deal about hiding flesh. As for this situation, she didn’t think Eldon was dangerous. “Uh, yeah, okay,” she said. “But don’t touch me.”

“I won’t,” he said, starting to pant. “I’ll be touching myself. Which is what you asked me to do.”

“Yeah yeah consent,” she said quickly. She pointed at The Neat Seat. “Strip, sit. You’re a nudist hiker and you’re alone, so you decide to, you know, do that.”

He was nude and sitting when it occurred to him that he could have asked her to turn off the lights. Then he could ‘do that’ more or less in private, but with her able to assess the results later.

But at that moment Ziri pulled off her t-shirt.

Eldon froze, physically and mentally. Ziri reached behind her back, then let the plain white bra slide down her arms.

“Whoaaahh!” Eldon groaned. He leaned towards her. His right hand was stroking the shaft and his left was gripping the balls, and he didn’t know when he’d started that.

Ziri shucked off her cargos and undies in one push, then looked up to study her experimental subject. And her heart started thumping. What have I done? There’s a man here doing sex!

“Uh, uh,” she said, “Are you okay?”

His gaze at her seemed helpless. “You could, um, lick your breast?”

Her breath quickened, interfering with her voice. I made this man naked and he wants me to play with myself! “Will that get it over with? Uh, off?”

“Yeah yeah real soon!”

She hauled up her left breast and leaned to get the nipple in her mouth. She was way more excited than when she had fingered herself. She gazed at Eldon’s gawky, angular frame, ribs raying from the sternum, jutting jaw, big bony feet, and penis! A naked man, in her presence. Never before.

Her nudity, and his, became for her the big deal she had never understood, or expected. Three fingers pushed deep into her drenched vagina.

She saw white gunk spurting from his dork. His voice made a sound like the gargling of gravel. Hers made a sound like a vacuum cleaner with the hose detached.

Her brain made the chemicals again, only now they didn’t wash away and leave her clear-headed. She found herself on her hands and knees, breath still ragged. This gave her a closer look at Eldon’s crotch.

She straightened her glasses and surveyed the immediate vicinity. Milky drops were scattered on the floor, beyond the edges of The Neat Seat.

“So,” she wheezed, recoiling, “Gross, messy men should put a handkerchief inside The Neat Seat before going out for disgusting nature walks.”

“Huh?” came Eldon’s voice from somewhere flat on the floor.

At that moment, the closest Ziri got to a cogent thought was, I have to do real sex soon, and get it over with.

***

The Driscoll house was a quarter mile from the campus’s southern border, two blocks back from most of the fraternity and sorority houses. As the Driscolls’ children grew, finished their education, and moved out, their parents converted the second-floor bedrooms for student boarders. The kids’ stuff was moved to the large third floor dormer, where one kid lived part-time and another most-time.

This was the first year in which students had displaced all four kids. The boarders continued to live there after the mid-May end of the academic year, to take classes in the summer trimester.

The owners lived on the ground floor, with a large master bedroom and bath, and an office for each, in addition to the living and dining rooms and the kitchen.

There were strict house rules against tobacco and drugs. Boarders, if they were old enough, could keep beer and wine in the kitchen. Parties were not allowed on the property. Boarders could fraternize or receive guests if there was no excessive noise.

Eldon wondered if the noise he and Ziri made during their Neat Seat ‘testing’ was excessive. It must not have been, because there was no mention of it the next morning. Arch and Tess had gone out to a movie, so the rest of the second floor was empty at the time. The Driscolls usually watched television in the evening.

Ziri didn’t think about their noise, because her brain still churned about their action. She had learned something new about herself, and not in a good way. Sex sex nude sex penis sex orgasm sex nude man woman me wet me sex, went her mental background noise. I don’t hate my body, she told herself over that. Why can’t it let me keep ignoring it?

Breakfast began normally, and as usual, silently. The boarders had been made into morning people by abundant scrambled eggs, corned beef hash, vegan tofu, oatmeal, potato slivers, string beans, biscuits and honey, coffee, and fresh-squeezed juice. Mrs. Driscoll provided all that with little apparent effort.

So it was a shock, especially to Ziri and Eldon, when Mr. Driscoll rumbled, “Ziri, I understand you’ve invented something.”

“Yes,” said Ziri, jolting into interaction, finding her content. “What’s a nudist’s biggest problem?”

“I’d like to hear about it,” said the bald man at the head of the table. “Later. Would you please bring it to my office? Then you can tell me.”

Interspersed with nodding, Ziri said, “Yes. Thanks. I will. Okay.”

Eldon thought she looked rattled, and not just about Mr. Driscoll’s interest. Eldon himself was rattled. The images of Ziri sucking her nipple and fingering her crotch had kept him awake half the night.

Now Eldon saw Mrs. Driscoll directing a sterner-than-usual look at her husband, as she picked up two empty platters and headed for the kitchen.

Ziri was relieved by Mr. Driscoll’s invitation. It gave her something to plan, which got her at least partway above her hormonal storm. In her room, she carefully pulled basted stitches to separate the towel from the seat cushions. Then she took the towel to the basement, with a pile of her clothes. There she started a load in the washing machine. Then she took a bucket and mop to her room, and cleaned the floor, which needed it even before the previous night. When she returned the mop and bucket to the basement, she moved the laundry load to the dryer.

Again in her room, she inspected The Neat Seat for damage. She was not surprised to see a few pinholes, and two small rips, in the cushion plastic where it had rested, and scraped, on the hardwood floor. There was a wrinkle in the felt, but no holes. It’s only a mockup, she reminded herself, applying glue in a few places. A real prototype would be made of better stuff.

When she brought up the load up from the dryer, she found that the towel was again fluffy, and didn’t smell like what had been on it. Satisfied, she sewed it back on the cushions, covering the logos of the Tri-City Tornado. She zipped the seat shut, donned it, and ventured to Mr. Driscoll’s office in something like a proud march.

She demonstrated it as she had on the porch. She didn’t think about why he was interested. This was just another demo, this time with an audience that wasn’t angry or derisive. Mr. Driscoll sat calmly behind a large desk, and watched.

When she finished, he asked, “Ziri, have you thought about what you want to do with this?”

“It’ll be my project in Product Marketing, this summer,” she said, smug about being so far ahead in a class that hadn’t started yet.

“What about for the real world?”

“Well, sure. After the course.” She expected that much of her classwork would involve exploring the nudist goods market.

“Would you consider pitching this on Piranha Pool?”

Ziri was about to say something in the same conversational vein, but this caught her off guard. “Uhh…the TV show?”

He nodded. “I think this is something that the venture capital ‘piranhas’ would consider. Even if they don’t invest, it would be excellent exposure.”

The thought of facing the high-rolling celebrity financiers excited Ziri even more than the prospect of real sex.

Yet facing them as her dumpy, partly-autistic self, set off alarm bells in her already-crowded brain.

“I don’t know,” she said in a way she almost never was: Hesitant.

“Well, I’d like you to think about it,” said Mr. Driscoll with a smile. “Good luck.”

“Uh, thanks.”

He looked at her for a few seconds, apparently expecting something. Then he said. “I have some work to do now.”

“Oh. Okay.” After a balky exchange of nods, a wave, his “See you soon,” and her “At dinner, right,” she exited.

She had hoped this pitch would settle her down with an accomplished task, but Mr. Driscoll’s suggestion created yet another task. Ziri didn’t get closure, which she wanted desperately, even on minor matters, because of the way she was. I need to close something else, she thought as she put The Neat Seat on her desk.

The ‘something else’ that nagged at her made her hesitant again. A few seconds of standing still, and doing nothing, annoyed her into action.

As she walked to the drugstore, she resolved to reach a decision by the time she got back to the house.

***

It was late afternoon. By staying holed up in his room, Eldon had made some headway. The first two chapters of one book now made sense to him, and that continued for him early in Chapter Three.

There was a rapid knock.

The image of Ziri’s lips enclosing her nipple took over his entire brain.

He opened the door, mainly angry, though finding no way to blame her. “What is it now?”

Ziri asked, “Is there any reason why you wouldn’t do sex with me?”

“Whh–whaaaat?”

“Am I ugly? Do I smell bad? I think you liked seeing me naked.”

Eldon leaned past her to see if anyone was in the hall, or if other doors were open. He muttered, “How can you talk like that out in public?”

“Let me in and it’ll be private.”

Exasperated, he stepped back and waved her in.

“Just tell me,” she said as she sat on his bed.

“Wait, are you…asking me to have sex with you?”

“I would, unless you refuse.”

To his horror, he found himself enjoying the sight of her, in a t-shirt and cargoes, on his bed!

Some of the content of his new Psych book had stayed with him. He shelved his relief over this achievement by his brain, and said slowly, “Ziri, you ought to know that…someone, wanting to do that with you, would have to be really sure that you consent.” He took a breath. “And that you’re competent to give informed consent.”

She folded her arms, but didn’t seem upset. “I’m of legal age. I’m trusted to live on my own, and look after myself. I’ve never been in a relationship, by my own choice. And, I guess, the choice of other people. Do you think I’m not competent?”

To Eldon, she seemed to take this as a debate topic.

He was erecting. Quickly he sat at his desk, where she could see him only from the chest up.

“Why do you want to do this?” he asked, curious and excited and unable to believe this was real.

Her reserve crumbled. She looked desperately at this jittery, dark-haired young man. “My mind is a mess! I never knew this could happen. Last night, seeing you, doing that, and me, naked, and doing that–” She took a deep breath. It didn’t calm her. “I hope that if I do this, then I can be the person I was before, again. Or at least not be so obsessed by this.”

“So, you think, it would only be once?” He wondered which answer from her he’d want.

“Can you please answer my first question?” she said. “Do you not want to do sex with me?”

“Um…” He demanded to himself, Must! Choose! Words! Carefully! “There is nothing about you that makes me unable, or unwilling, to have sex with you.”

She nodded. “So. Because you’re a man, will you please do that now?” From a cargo pocket she pulled a box of condoms.

He almost jizzed. “What about s-specific acts? Wh, what won’t you let me do?”

She thought for a second, then giggled. “We, uh, you can touch me with your hands–” Then, she imagined that happening. She flopped on her back, almost swooning. In a rush she said, “Put on a condom and enter my vagina! Then maybe other stuff, but that first!”

She had her t-shirt and bra off by the time he got to the bed. His hands tried to grope her breasts and yank down his jeans at the same time. Lower-half garments got hung up with shoes.

Eldon McMurray, experiencer of partner sex four times, had never been smooth in this process. He might have been at his most awkward now. By the time he had yanked away his still-laced shoes, and shoved off his inside-outed jeans and shorts, he remembered about the condoms. And couldn’t find the box.

“Where are they?” he hissed, looking around as he knee-stood, prick waving like a baton.

Eldon and Ziri dropped to the floor on either side of the bed. The box was in her reach. She grabbed it, and as she returned to the bed she tore it open. As he pressed next to her he stuck his fingers in the box, pulled out a snake of six skins, and tore away foil. He had the sheath rolled on by the time she was flat on her back with legs spread.

He shoved his trunk towards hers. With his cock unguided, it didn’t enter, sliding up her labia and past her clit hood. “Uh, lift up, uh, yourself,” he babbled, shifting his knees to keep balance while putting a hand around his shlong.

“What?” she said, hiking up her torso.

“No, there, move up, uh, your butt.”

Now she took the lead in awkwardness, shifting her spine and then her legs, finally getting her quim at an angle for better access.

“Okay now hold still,” said Eldon, dreading a moving target. Ziri complied, and he pushed his glans past her vulva.

In the heat of her loins and the pressure of the latex, he was sure that he’d blast at once. That had happened in all of his other trysts, with women who later denied him second chances. But the delay in entering Ziri had taken him back from the brink. Pleasure surged through him as his shaft advanced into her quim, but didn’t overwhelm him. He got to a rhythmic drive after the first four pushes, and was able to set his legs more steadily between hers.

Ziri’s hands clawed at the bedspread. She felt like she was moving, somehow, but her shoulder blades held still, pressing down. There was no pain, only a strange, warm pressure in her belly. Not fingers! she thought. Not a carrot! She recalled her favorite example of that vegetable. Ultimately she had chosen not to eat it.

It registered on Eldon that Ziri’s eyes and mouth were wide open, and her breasts were, yes, heaving, with little jiggles at each apex and nadir as they heaved. As fleshy as much of her body was, Eldon saw that her face showed no excess. Is this working for her? he thought, putz feeling even thicker. Will she cum? Don’t ruin this Eldon!

He asked, “Are you okay?”

“I…I…yeah?” came from her.

“Should I stop?”

“NOOO!” She grabbed his butt so hard his chin smacked into hers.

“Th-then, I’ll keep going. But I might, y’know, cum.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, staring at him.

After several gasps, still staring, she said, “Yeah, that’s good. That’s going to be something. That’s–”

Mouth gaping even more, she reached behind her head, grabbed a pillow, and mashed it onto her face. She felt her trunk squeezing on what wasn’t a carrot, sending throughout her a hot thrill on each rapid heartbeat. Brain chemicals dizzied her, far beyond what she’d felt from them before. She chomped on the pillow as she howled into it.

Eldon was launched into long, almost painful spurts by her jerks and spasms, He was vaguely aware, as ecstasy zoomed through him, of drooling on the pillow that muffled her voice.

He pulled back to exit her, his knees trembling. He leaned to lie beside her, clumsily in the narrow space on the twin bed. “That was great,” he said, to himself as much as to her. Then he looked her way, lifted the pillow, and said, “Thanks.” Then he giggled. “For asking.”

“Why did you leave?” she slurred. Her glasses were fogged.

“I had to get out. I came.”

“I did too. You felt so good in there.” She pulled away her glasses and looked at the ceiling. “Oh no, am I gonna want men all the time now?”

He had only an instant of pride for his first-ever sexual success. Now worry surged through him. “You said it’d be only once.” Then he remembered that she’d never answered that.

She looked his way, also worried. “Maybe.”

He couldn’t tell if this responded to what he’d said, or what she’d said just before. Only now did he see that her eyes were green.

“But, now, are you done?” he asked. “With me?”

“I…” She let the pillow slide to the floor, and ran her hands over her body. “Not…” she said. “This feels…”

“What?” He got a flash of fear. Despite all the consent talk, did she feel violated?

She extended an arm over his body. “Can we, uh, hug?”

He was also afraid of that, but didn’t know why. “Uh…I guess?” He lifted the arm that wasn’t pinned down by his torso.

The hug started as awkwardly as the coupling, but less frantically. She shifted to lie on her side, and he got his body all the way onto the bed. They eventually coordinated their bottom arms. When their hands pressed the other person’s back, the meeting of their chests made both lovers gasp.

Ziri winced as she asked, “Do we have to kiss?”

“Umm, no.” Then, suddenly, he wanted to.

After a second she nodded. His bottom arm made his hug more complete, and she exhaled calmly. “Okay.” She smiled. “This feels good.”

“It does,” he said. Then he wished he hadn’t.

She set her top leg across his, and he started their next round of awkwardness. “Uh, I have to get rid of, uh…”

“Yeah,” she said, jerking away her top leg and arm.

Each of them dressed for a solo trip to the bathroom. When finished, Ziri returned to Eldon’s room.

“Thanks I think that helped,” she said quickly, nodding. “I’m still okay that we did that. So, my consent was informed.”

“Good,” he said, also nodding.

Their silence was, of course, awkward.

“I should go,” she said at last. But she wanted more naked hugging.

“It’s almost dinnertime,” he said, feeling drowsy.

“Yeah!” she said, with a relieved smile. “I’ll, uh, see you downstairs.”

“Yeah.”

A minute later, in separate rooms, each thought something like:

Now what?

***

Tess Bartkowski was surprised at dinner. Ziri Klefstadt took a chair next to her. Arch sat on Tess’s other side, as she expected, but Tess had hoped to chat also with Dennis Driscoll, who had finished with his road repair gig and would reside for a while in the dormer. Ziri’s attention interfered with that.

Ziri asked Tess, “Are the towels okay?”

Tess looked at her. “Uh, yeah. Thanks. Except, I shouldn’t thank you, because–”

“I apologize, I shouldn’t have done it, I’ll never do it again.”

To Tess, that sounded rehearsed.

“So, they’re okay towels?”

Tess thought they might have been smaller and cheaper than the one Ziri took, but she wanted this to be over with. “They’re fine.”

Food platters were moving between them, family-style, counter-clockwise. Ziri was scooping macaroni salad onto her plate when she asked, “How much do you know about brain chemistry?”

Tess was taken aback, and took the platter before saying, “I haven’t had it in course work yet.” She hadn’t known Ziri was aware that Tess majored in Chemistry.

“So you can’t say which stimuli are likely to release dopamine or oxytocin?”

Tess lost her grip on the platter, which didn’t break, but spilled a little on the tablecloth. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to say that,” Tess said quickly. “There could be lots of, um, stimuli.”

Tess gathered bits of macaroni and celery in her napkin, while Mrs. Driscoll said, “I’ll get to that later.” Tess had a vague recollection of hearing squeaks an hour earlier. She wondered, Bed springs?

Tess passed the platter to Arch, cocking an eyebrow at him. He returned one of his standard blank looks.

Leaning to see past Ziri, Tess said to Dennis, “How long will you be with us?”

“Couple days,” said Dennis with a toothy smile. His civil engineering degree dovetailed with supervisory work on the roads. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep the headphones on. Gotta let you study.”

“The bass boost vibrates the ceiling,” said Arch.

Tess smiled. She was okay having sex with Arch, although what she liked most was playing with his naked body, which was fit for the cover of a romance novel. He even had the face for it, darkly brooding, but Tess had learned that this arose from him being self-centered and humorless.

“Sorry, my man,” Dennis said to Arch, still smiling. “Don’t want to deprive the lacrosse star of his beauty sleep.”

Eldon laughed at that, which covered Tess’s chuckle. Her glance at Arch confirmed that he took offense, but wouldn’t do anything about it. Arch fancied himself a writer, and nominally majored in Literature, but he hung on at school on a lacrosse scholarship. Tess mainly let him put on his airs, but she was getting tired of Arch taking Tess’s willingness as the proper entitlement for a serious ar-teeste.

Eldon, meanwhile, savored Arch’s comeuppance. But did his envy of Arch still amount to anything? With Tess and Ziri sitting together, Eldon was perplexed by how his horniness had been refocused. Tess was still the willowy blonde for whom he had yearned hopelessly. Yet thick, bespectacled Ziri, who occupied the other half of Eldon’s gazing two-shot, seemed now to have a greater effect on his heartbeat.

“Son,” said Mr. Driscoll, “have you seen the chores listed for you on the bulletin board?”

“Sure have, Pop,” said Dennis, unfazed. “I’ll get started as soon as I show my respect for Mom’s cooking.”

“Go on with you,” said Mrs. Driscoll, unable to hide a smile.

This distracted Eldon. He wondered why Mr. and Mrs. Driscoll put in the effort to feed and house so many people, when they could live off his materials patents and her design consulting. COVID-19 had forced them to stop taking in boarders. With lockdown over, why had they brought them in again? Did they need the money to help their moved-out kids?

Tess tossed her head with a smile, the straight flaxen hair fluttering behind her shoulders. “I think it’s great,” she said to Dennis, “that you know what your responsibilities are, and show appreciation for what other people do for you.”

Ziri asked Tess, “So, now you’re using Dennis against Arch, right?”

Eldon gagged on a mouthful of sweet potato.

Ziri looked at Eldon. “What? I need to learn about these things.”

Quickly Mrs. Driscoll said, “Why don’t I get out the ice cream maker?”

“Yeah!” Dennis cheered, applauding.

To Eldon’s immeasurable relief, there was nothing more said on Ziri’s sudden interest in womanly wiles.

***

There was music, heavy on the violins. She walked at a leisurely pace, through a verdant meadow, enjoying the breeze that feathered her hair and subtly caressed her body. She was nude, free of restraints, save for The Neat Seat strapped on her back.

Puffs of fog in the distance dispersed, revealing to her a man, also nude, striding towards her. His body was lean, tautly muscled. His erect member pointed at her. The only things about him that seemed familiar were his expression, anxious and desperate, and The Neat Seat on his back.

They embraced in a cascade of passion. Quickly and deftly, they shed their Neat Seats and opened them. They undulated their bodies together on the comforting softness. Then their faces drew back in alarm.

“You don’t have condoms?” he shrilled.

“No!”

Ziri’s panicked stare carried over to the sight of her darkened bedroom. Relief began with the confirmation that she was alone. A lift of her phone informed even her glassless eyes that it was 3:51 a.m.

Her hope of returning to sleep was dashed by a thought:

The Neat Seat isn’t enough!

Light, glasses, note pad, pencil. Lists, scribbled drawings.

Digging through stuff piled in a corner assured her that she still had the rest of Arch’s old backpack.

Dawn was spreading when Ziri left her room.

Mrs. Driscoll was making breakfast when Ziri hurried into the kitchen and asked, “Can I use your sewing machine?”

The landlady gave her a stern look while tending to a skillet of corned beef hash. “Have you been pilfering again?”

“No, everything is what I already have, um, I already made it up to Arch, I’ll only–”

“All right, yes, but later. I’ll need to watch you learn the machine’s programming. Then, you may use it, if you also sew my mending backlog.”

Ziri nodded. “It’s a deal.”

Mrs. Driscoll gave her a little smile. “Are you too eager to wait?”

By then Ziri became aware of what she’d been inhaling. “Um, no. After breakfast. Definitely.”

***

Archer Rosecrans was in the fourth mile of his run when his phone chimed for a text. He continued the run without checking the phone. The first three critiques of his novelette by the online writers’ group had confirmed to him that these people were envious poseurs who deserved none of his attention. He had no doubt that this latest diatribe would reveal someone else to cross off his list of Those Worthy Of Respect. Best to wait until his body’s demand for exertion had been fulfilled.

During his walkoff, however, he found that the text was from his landlord:

<<House meeting tonight 8 pm>>

Another waste of my time! he raged silently. Classes had begun. Tess’s lab course had kept her on campus most of the previous night. Upon her return, he had graciously accepted her preference for sleep alone over passion together, but he expected that they would redress that situation tonight. This evening, however, could be rent asunder by some humdrum concern over excessive use of hot water.

He trudged back towards the Driscoll residence, resuming his musing towards a poem in praise of Tess. She had accused him of taking her for granted, and he decided to prove otherwise by giving her a portion of his creativity. Surely this would mean more to her than him listening to her endless litany of petty complaints.

Arch always labored to find the right words for Tess’s slender, limber body, after having used ‘slender’ and ‘limber’ in the first stanza. Words that looked and sounded excellent, like ‘orotund’ and ‘grandiloquent,’ he found not to have the meanings he hoped they would. He shook his head, bearing the burden of aesthetic struggle, knowing that the bourgeois world would never understand his torment.

***

“Now, I don’t approve of how Ziri started this venture of hers,” said Mr. Driscoll to the house’s other residents, “but since that’s water under the bridge, there’ll be no discussion of that tonight. We’ll make a video of Ziri’s presentation, and submit it to Piranha Pool.” He smiled at Ziri, who seemed to have trouble holding still in one of the living room’s overstuffed easy chairs. “She told me today that The Neat Seat has a new feature. She’s now confident that she can, as they say on the show, wade into the pool.”

“Piranha Pool?” asked Arch.

“Tell you later,” said Tess.

Eldon was now guarded about anything Ziri might do or say. Yet, when Mr. Driscoll sat behind the tripod and started the video camera, Ziri stopped fidgeting. After a slow breath, she stood and moved to the center of the room.

“Hello everyone,” she said at the camera, with a fixed smile and the intonation of memorized lines. “I’m Ziri Klefstadt, and I’m looking for investors in–” She pulled straps off her shoulders and held her work in front of her. “–The Neat Seat!”

Eldon had to admit that he wasn’t dismissive this time. But he thought this might be because he and Ziri had become intimate.

After much of her old pitch, Ziri got to what was new. “This pack adds bulk, and a little weight,” she admitted, “but it’s not a burden to an adult healthy enough to be active while nude outdoors.” She showed the squarish pack that was now stitched to the outside of The Neat Seat. “The user will decide how much weight to add as the contents of the pack.”

Smirking, Tess whispered to Arch. “That’s another piece of your old backpack. You should ask for another share of the profits.”

As usual, Arch showed no amusement. “I’d rather forget all about that.”

Mrs. Driscoll faced them with a finger-before-lips hush gesture.

Ziri opened The Neat Seat and spread it on the floor. The sewn-on pack extended from the end of the seat. The up-facing side of the pack had a zipper.

Ziri sat on the towel-covered cushions, and unzipped the pack. “In here a person could carry keys, phone, wallet, water bottle, and so forth. In the real product, there’d be internal pockets or mesh bags to organize everything, but a few items a nudist needs will make the point now.” One by one, she pulled out what she had placed there.

“Sunscreen,” she said, showing a plastic tube. “Insect repellent,” she said, showing a spray bottle.

Then she brought out an open cardboard box. “Condoms.”

Tess hooted in hilarity. Arch frowned. Eldon turned beet red.

Dennis, again in residence, looked at his father, who looked down and shook his head. Expecting a retake, Dennis felt free to declare, “Great idea! Spice up those stodgy nudist camps!”

Mrs. Driscoll stormed out of the room.

Ziri, confused, shoved the condoms back into the pack.

Eldon hurried to Ziri’s side as she stood. “Talk?” he asked her.

She met his eyes and nodded, lips clamped.

He guided her to the empty dining room. Anyone in the living room could watch and overhear, but nobody tried.

“Do you remember,” asked Eldon, “how you used to think about sex?”

“That it was weird and stupid,” she replied, “and, except to propagate the species, why would anyone ever do that?”

Eldon nodded. “Now, here’s a neurotypical thing,” he said, alerting her to think about people who weren’t like her. “Lots of people think that about sex. That might include the Piranhas, and the show’s audience. But almost everyone who thinks it’s weird and stupid, or has problems because of sex, still wants to do it.”

“Really?” she said, leaning to him incredulously. She relaxed from a hunched posture she hadn’t noticed.

“Really,” he said, smiling. What he was getting from his Psych studies seemed to click.

“So they’re all weird and stupid,” said Ziri. She looked at him closely. “But, you and me, aren’t we smart and happy?” She and Eldon had coupled a few more times, and even when she didn’t orgasm, she liked it, especially the naked hugging. Eldon was less anxious around her. And, to her great relief, she found that she could still focus on classwork when she tried to.

“We are,” he said, not adding so far. “And so are lots of other people. But just about everybody keeps sex private.” He then improvised, hoping it would make sense. “The smart and happy people keep quiet about it, so they won’t make the, um, weird and stupid people feel bad.”

As she mulled that, Eldon glanced over his shoulder at the living room. He saw Mr. Driscoll and his son peering at the vidcam’s settings. They looked ready for another take.

“So, no condoms?” Ziri asked.

“Or anything else about sex,” he elaborated. Then, quickly, “Or drugs.” As far as he knew, Ziri didn’t even drink.

Then Eldon leaned close to her. “But just between us, I think you’re exactly right. People, in private, will put things in The Neat Seat that can help them have sex.”

Ziri took an intuitive leap. “And they’ll figure that out themselves,” she said, “when they see that there’s a place to hide stuff.”

Eldon was surprised to see a sly look on Ziri’s face. Some of her expressions were almost neurotypical. They contrasted strongly with her resting face, which was blank and affectless.

Ziri moved past Eldon and said, “Mr. Driscoll, can we do that again? I’m sorry about the condoms.”

In the retake, the condom box was replaced with a protein bar, to uphold the rule of three.

Ziri had seemed fine through that, and nobody tried to undermine her. Still, Eldon felt the need to check on her later. He knocked on her bedroom door, not rapidly.

“Hi,” she greeted him, smiling.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking at her closely.

“Why? Oh, you mean because of that?” She shrugged. “Sure. You were right. And I’m right too. Now we can do some more research.”

“Uh…on what?”

She ducked into her room and returned with the condom box in one hand and her phone in the other. “I’ve web-searched what happens in sex. Had to skip over a lot of clutter.” She showed him the phone screen, where she had written notes under this title:

SEX THINGS THAT PEOPLE DO FOR SOME REASON

“Most of them look weird and stupid,” she said, “but some might be okay.” Then she held up the box. She needed three starts to get the wording that had her so amused. “The condoms don’t get to be on TV!” She spluttered, and almost doubled over. “So, uh, so, what else are they good for?”

From down the hall they heard Tess’s laughing voice: “You go, Girl!”

Eldon thought he might have heard a male voice groan. He shook his head, beyond embarrassment. He indicated the hallway. “We could find out right here.”

“No way,” said Ziri. She scrolled the phone with her thumb. “Sex on a hard floor, definitely no.” Despite both hands being full, she hooked his arm and got him into her room.

Fearing that she wanted a Kama Sutra marathon, Eldon said, “Ziri, you know, I haven’t done this very much, and I probably can’t, um–”

“Yeah I know,” she said, stripping. “You’re jerky and twitchy, but you listen, and you cooperate.” Thus she summarized their liaisons to date.

She hugged her nude body to his clothed one. “And we’re smart and happy!”

Eldon worried, because he had a homework assignment due the next morning.

But he had a hardon. And her happiness made him happy.

They didn’t do much. Her dislike of kissing carried over to any oral sex, but she liked being fingered, and fingering him. That became their baseline foreplay. She also showed something she’d learned from her research, that she could delay his burst with a firm finger-and-thumb grip below his glans and on his frenulum. He had never heard of that.

She accepted his desire to kiss her breasts, and to avoid annoying her he did it lightly, and briefly.

“Are you sensory-defensive?” he asked as they lay side by side, still foreplaying.

“On some things,” she said. “High-pitched sound. Suddenly feeling cold, like from winter wind. Some tastes, and other things with the mouth. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’ve got your list on all kinds of sex, but I have to make one on Ziri Klefstadt. Any touch or skin issues?”

“No sloppy tongue stuff. Other touching, I don’t mind.” With a grin she moved his hand from her vulva to her bosom. That gave him a rush. The breast filled his splay-fingered hand. He wondered, B-cup, maybe C? He ordered himself not to sneak a look at the bra tag, certain that doing this would reveal him as a creep. They’re her breasts, they feel great, and she lets me touch them.

When they were really excited, he condomed and she tried a new position, riding him in cowgirl.

“Females are superior,” he murmured, gazing at her, marveling at how his standard of beauty was centering on her. He was tense, however, trying to work against his nature by keeping his body still.

Soon Ziri said, “I don’t like this very much. Could you get on top?”

They reconfigured, not too awkwardly by their standards.

Once she was in missionary, her heart quickened. Slowly swiveling her trunk around his thrusts got her hotter and wetter.

Eldon was holding up his torso, hands to the headboard. “Come down,” she said, getting her hands around his sides.

He let her pull him to her. She hugged him tightly, more than she had before. “Hold me, please,” she said, breath quickening. “All around.”

Eldon did that, getting his arms between her back and the bed, while trying to keep banging her.

“This!” Ziri yelped. “Yes! And I know why!”

It was after they had their fairly awkward, but smart and happy, orgasms, that she explained. “I’ve read about other people on the spectrum. I’m like some of them. Sometimes, I enjoy being…enclosed. It doesn’t just make me feel safe. It’s pleasure. Like a naked hug, but even better. So this is how I should do sex.”

She relaxed her grip. “Just thought of something. You came over to my place. Did you want to do this?”

He did, but was honest when he said, “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

“Which you never did when I was a nuisance!” She giggled. “Well, I’m really okay!”

“Good. Um…but I have a paper to work on,” he said. Despite wanting to keep being her enclosure, he lifted from her. Lassitude crept through him, to his annoyance. Was he really the kind of male who’d fall asleep after sex?

“Me too,” she said. “I could make us some coffee.”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, again surprised by her. “That’d be nice.”

They got dressed, and made their separate bathroom trips. Ziri went down to the kitchen while Eldon went to his room and started work. So far, his basic anxiety fought off drowsiness.

What he didn’t expect was that Ziri would join him. She brought in both coffees, and in later trips her books and laptop, and the chair from her room.

Nor did he expect that she’d strip, and get him to do so. And spread the Neat Seat on the armless chairs. “Different research,” she said, with no affect, so he had no clue if that was serious, naughty, or a joke.

Least of all did he expect that he’d actually do a decent job on the homework, and that feeling her flesh on his would be enjoyable but not distracting.

It seemed perfectly normal when she dressed, gathered everything up, and returned to her room.

His attempt to sleep was impeded by more than caffeine. He now feared what his life might be like without Ziri.

***

Eldon had never been diagnosed. He was a scrawny kid, and his parents believed that this was what made him so jumpy. They expected that he’d grow out of it, and meanwhile he should just calm down. Their main effort was to limit his sugar intake.

He didn’t grow out of it. Sugar didn’t seem to matter. School counselors urged his parents to see if he had ADHD. His parents didn’t think he was that afflicted. His grades were good, so they thought his attention wasn’t deficient. They heard and read about diagnosed kids who seemed to become drug-dependent, or lost their identities when medicated. Like so many people, his otherwise caring parents thought mental conditions must be either/or. They didn’t grasp that the severity of syndromes could be spread along a spectrum.

Eldon researched on his own, in a scattershot way. He tried to get ritalin without a prescription. He badgered kids with prescriptions to slip him some. They refused, and Eldon soon gave up, fearing that they’d rat him out.

He was drawn academically to Psychology, in the hope of learning a way to heal himself.

Now, whoever and whatever he was, he hoped to be a person Ziri wanted to be around, and felt safe with. He wasn’t sure he could stay that way if he resorted to medication.

But he wanted to reach the elusive state of quiet body. This could not only benefit his interactions with Ziri, but maybe help him get through job interviews once he graduated.

Thus, both online and through campus activities, he sought an approach that changed a single letter from his previous panacea. Instead of medication, meditation.

***

A week later, Ziri was invited to appear on Piranha Pool.

Ziri texted Eldon. They were both on campus at the time. They agreed to meet in the student union’s cafeteria.

“Congratulations!” said Eldon, with an excited smile. He had come around to Mr. Driscoll’s belief that, even if the Piranhas said no, the exposure could make The Neat Seat into a going concern. And Ziri was…well, she was Ziri. Social media ridicule, following fame, might roll off of her.

“Thanks,” said Ziri briskly. “But what I need to know now is what to call you. Do you find ‘boyfriend’ demeaning?”

“Uh, what?”

“We could say we’re lovers. Is that too much?”

Eldon leaned in, hoping to limit the range of Ziri’s projection. “Why is that important?”

“I already told you,” she said impatiently. “The show will provide air fare and hotel for me and a guest. I have to tell them what my guest is.”

“I’m your guest?” he burst, louder than anything she’d said. “What about, um, your mother?” Or anyone who can take responsibility for you! he wailed silently.

“I’m a grownup,” she said. She looked away and said, more quietly, “I don’t want my parents in this.”

Beneath his anxiety, he realized that her look and tone were new to him. He wondered, Something about her parents? But then the anxiety got him back on topic.

“Mrs. Driscoll?”

Now she was more Ziri-like. “She hates this whole thing. Says her husband is setting me up to look like a fool.”

Hard to argue, Eldon managed not to say aloud.

“Anyway, what are you? Boyfriend, lover, paramour, main squeeze, hot peen machine?”

It finally got through to fretful, awkward Eldon that he was happy, and delighted to be Ziri’s guest choice. Even as he spluttered at her last suggestion.

He tried to take his own initiative. “Ziri Klefstadt, will you be my girlfriend? May I be your boyfriend?”

“Okay, boyfriend,” she said neutrally, looking at her phone and poking a stylus at it.

Most of the wind left his sails, but as he already knew, Ziri was Ziri.

***

All four boarders had no classes on Thursday morning.

They scouted a trail in a forest preserve.

“We’ve been the only people here for six minutes,” Ziri stated. They stood at the crest of a hill, hemmed in by trees in full leaf. A cool breeze made the summer heat tolerable.

“Let’s do it,” said Tess, grinning. She tickled Arch’s gut, feeling his abs through the t-shirt.

“All I need to know,” said Ziri, “is if it’s comfortable to sit on.”

“We’ll investigate that,” said Tess, stifling a giggle.

“You’re the ones who haven’t ever used it.” Ziri said, thinking that Tess wasn’t paying enough attention.

“Uh huh,” said Tess, leaning against Arch.

Eldon thought Ziri looked annoyed.

“We’ll warn you if we see anyone,” Eldon told Tess.

“Good,” said Tess, now a little flushed. The sun, the breeze, the male body next to her, all made her skin tingle. “My phone’s on.”

Ziri nodded to Eldon. Each trekked down the hill on either side. There were no paths into the trail along this stretch.

Arch looked one way, Tess the other.

“Gone,” said Arch, when Ziri was hidden by foliage.

“Here too,” said Tess, looking after Eldon. She unzipped her shorts and pushed them down her legs along with her thong.

She saw Arch gazing at her shade-dappled mons veneris. This made her even friskier, but she told him, “Open the damn thing and set it down!”

Arch jolted, then shed The Neat Seat and unzipped it.

Now a month old, The Neat Seat was the worse for wear. The cushion plastic and felt had been patched with duct tape, including where the straps had been stapled. The foam had lost some of its bounce. Despite laundering, the towel was scratchy here and there. Tess didn’t know what it had been through, but had some guilty, squirmy fun imagining what Ziri, and also Eldon, might have done.

The ground below the seat had a few pebbles and a tree root, along with packed dry earth. Tess sat, and twitched her butt. “Not bad,” she said. “Could be better.”

She stood and said, “Your turn.”

Arch unzipped his cargos and, with only butt exposed, started to crouch.

“All the way off,” said Tess. “Get your jewels involved.”

He gave her an peevish look, but complied. Tess, pleased to see that he was commando, took his cargoes. She clamped her lips tightly in grin prevention.

Arch sat and moved as Tess had. “Better than nothing,” he said. “Probably should be softer.”

Tess crouched in front of him and stroked his dick. “This shouldn’t!”

“Uhhh…uhhhh?”

“Ziri was right the first time!” said Tess. “So was Dennis! This is what nudists will use it for!” With her non-stroking hand she unzipped the pack, and fished around to find the lube and condom she’d snuck inside.

Arch was appalled, but did nothing to stop her latexing of his prong. “We can’t–this isn’t–”

“Whaaat?” said Tess, giddy mentally and physically. “Oh, my goodness! Repressive, bourgeois denial of passion, from my literateur?” She set her sandaled feet past his legs and lowered her damp vulva onto him in a tantric posture. His prick was a steady spindle. As she got halfway down, she held out her phone and selfied them, getting faces and their points of contact.

Tess had been stoked about this since breakfast. Now, banging outdoors for the first time in her life, she came almost at once, nearly swooning. She thought she might cum again, loving the sun, the breeze, but she could feel Arch flexing hard on her ring muscles. It’s okay, she thought, more fun ahead!

Arch, of course, let it all happen. He got his hands inside her crop-top to hold her sides and thumb her nipples. Yes, certainly, Tess should desire sex with him, here, now, but he hadn’t initiated! As his orgasm bloomed, it felt wrong to him. What word should he use for it? Tainted? Or was that because his perineum was pressed into the stiff towel?

Tess stood as his spasms subsided. “How’s your ass?” she asked.

“Rough,” he wheezed. “This thing definitely needs more padding.”

“Experiment over, result confirmed unanimously,” she said, donning her thong.

Arch still sat. He held out his hand.

“Oh, you want these?” Tess said, holding up his shorts in one hand as she pulled hers up with the other. She danced back a step, and waved his garment over her head. “If I lose my grip, they could fall into the ravine. Who knows where they could land?”

He stood. “All right Tess, now please–”

“Just think of the artistic statement you could make,” she said, dodging him. “And lose the shirt too, give the public your whole beautiful body.” She thought, Damn, yes! Both of us naked! Walking around out in the open, stopping now and then to bang!

He glared. “What do you want?”

“Not a fucking poem!” She threw his shorts at his face. “Treat me like I’m a human being, whose mind you respect, and whose company you value! I don’t know if you can even do that. Time to find out.” She smiled wickedly. “Or I’ll start visiting Dennis.”

Once they were ready, Tess texted Ziri and Eldon: <<All done here>> She decided they didn’t have to know every meaning of that.

***

The discussion about softening the seat resumed after they all returned to the Driscolls’. Ziri knocked rapidly on Tess’s bedroom door. When Tess opened up, Ziri held out The Neat Seat, unzipped, with detritus inside that included a soiled condom. Ziri said, “EEEUUUWWW!!”

Tess smiled and said, “Further research. You’re welcome. What happened on The Neat Seat sticks to a towel you absconded.”

Discussion progressed to the effect on a sitting person who also bore the weight of another, and swiveled while doing so. Tess and Ziri barged into Arch’s room and demanded to see indentations and scrapes on buttocks which, even Ziri had to concede, were well-constructed, as buttocks go. Arch smiled through this, which struck Tess as miraculous.

***

The university’s Maker Lab was open in the summer the way most of the school was, to catch up from time lost to COVID-19. Mr. Driscoll put up the money for the production of the half-dozen prototype Neat Seats that would go to Piranha Pool. He donated his knowledge of the best materials to be used.

He also wanted to play with the lab’s 3D printers. So did Ziri, sometimes for components of The Neat Seats (clips, fasteners, etc.), sometimes not. So did Tess. So did Mrs. Driscoll, a fiber artist and origamist, in addition to everything else.

With thicker, stronger foam, and sturdy but flexible sheathing, the prototypes were far superior to the original, which was now relegated to the floor clutter in a corner of Ziri’s room. Due diligence, however, spurred another test.

This time, Tess and Arch guarded the forest preserve trail, on another beautiful summer Thursday morning.

Eldon settled on the fresh terry cloth of the new prototype, in lotus position. He rolled a condom down his dork, and began a breathing exercise. Ziri looked at her phone list uneasily. “Sex outdoors,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be for me. It’s for The Neat Seat.”

She denuded her lower half and leaned to put cargos and underwear in the prototype’s snazzy, light-green vinyl pack. As she did, she frowned at Eldon. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” said Eldon, certain that he had a glassy look. Should have prepared her for this, he thought, now it’s a different kind of awkward. Weeks of learning had him at the point where he thought he could now try for quiet body during sex. “Just go ahead, I’m fine.”

Ziri set herself the way Tess had described, but still had some balance issues, and had to grab his shoulders. Yet when she lowered her cleft onto and past Eldon’s glans, he was calm and sturdy.

The sun on his bare crotch was warm. Her crotch on his was much warmer.

He held her sides. Ziri, never one for exercise, came to enjoy the slight squats.

Ziri wasn’t enclosed, but she felt pleasure beyond the sex. Eldon did something, she realized. For me? I don’t mind him all anxious. But this is better. She got a feeling, for him, that made her tremble. Can’t this just be smart and happy?

After a few seconds of pride at being her stud, Eldon drank in the sight of his lover. Her hair was outlined by sunlight to a rich crimson, her lips were parted, her eyes were wide behind the glasses (and oh, so green, with her pupils shrunk by the sun). She’s pretty, he thought in wonder. Or am I the only one who sees her that way, and for an obvious reason?

His erection swelled and her ring muscles squeezed and their brains sent chemicals to receptors.

Her arms encircled his neck, and she damped her desire for enclosure by accepting his need to breathe.

His drowsiness was deeper than ever, because of his meditated calm. He freed a hand and squeezed fingernails into his palm to stay awake.

In the shade of the lower trail, Tess listened hard for anything louder than crows and bluejays.

Soon, Tess heard a loud and cheerful “All clear!” From two voices?

Tess grinned when she reached the peak. Eldon was already grinning, and flushed. He held up the closed Neat Seat. “Best! Invention! Everrr!”

Ziri was tending to her phone, and may not have known she said this out loud. “Sex outdoors: So far so good.”

Arch joined them, looking bored. “Can we go now?”

Ziri later confirmed that Eldon’s butt cheeks were undamaged. Despite the rough terrain, and the hiding of evidence, the prototype required only moderate cleaning, inside and out, to be good as new.

***

“Hi Ziri,” said a tall woman who offered a hand for a single clasp and release. “I’m Karina, I’ll be producing your segment. So good to have you here. Are you nervous?”

“A little,” Ziri said, trying to play that down.

“First thing, we need you to stand at that mark. The lights there are what would be on you when you face the Piranhas. Trevor here will work out what make-up you need.”

Ziri knit her brow. “I don’t wear make-up.”

“It’s just so you’ll like you under the lights. Trevor, can you do that?”

The slender man leaned down to be eye-to-eye with Ziri. “I’m afraid the base will mute the freckles. Are they part of your look, Ms. Klefstadt?”

Ziri giggled, and wished she hadn’t. “They’re what my skin does. I never asked for them.” She suppressed the next giggle, from recalling how Eldon kissed the ones on her breasts. She was getting to like that kissing, he kept it dry.

Trevor walked her to one side, where the light was even and indirect. He snapped three quick phone pics of her face, at different angles, then slide-showed them to her. “Is this how you’d like to look on television?”

Ziri shrugged. “I suppose.” Then a thought arose. “But then, people will recognize me as the dumpy girl on Piranha Pool who made something for naked butts.”

Trevor and Karina shared a glance. Karina asked, “Would you rather not be recognized?”

Ziri forced herself into old memories. Being teased. Laughed at. Ridiculed. For the way she looked, for what she said, for how she acted. At the time, those incidents had merely confused her. Only later did they hurt, a little.

She had seen other picked-on kids cry or run away, and had wondered what bothered them so much. As she grew, Ziri was content that she seemed to have a thick skin, thanks in part to being on the spectrum. By not crumbling to bullies, she may have won something.

Did she still have a thick skin? She’d had only one bad situation in her life, and it still existed, but she was almost used to it now. She didn’t think that could be a problem on this TV show.

But so much had changed for her. She was still trying to understand what she felt for Eldon. Maybe it’s because I’ve never had anyone, she thought. Is that true for him? Does he wish he had someone else?

Ziri wondered about venturing further into the neurotypical world. Would insults finally hurt her the way schoolyard teasing never did?

She looked at Trevor, feeling herself wanting something from him. “Can you make me pretty?”

Trevor seemed taken aback. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Ziri took that as a yes. “It is.”

“Well then, Sister, brace yourself!” Trevor grinned. He turned to Karina. “Tell the control room to get her in a lot of head shots.” To Ziri again: “Those green eyes just stole my heart! I’ll get them to do that to the whole country!”

***

Ziri’s show prep continued while Trevor worked on her. “You should know,” said Karina, “that the Piranhas are already looking over the items for this show in their dressing rooms. They have access to your video, and your data on cost and materials. This isn’t obvious to people watching the show, but it’s how the Piranhas can make what seem like snap decisions about investing.”

“So, when I talk to them, they’ll already have their minds made up?” Ziri was a little disappointed, and a little relieved.

Karina nodded. “Usually. But your presentation might sway someone who’s on the fence.”

***

Eldon had nothing to do. His lanyard badge allowed him to hang around in various parts of the studio. He wasn’t interested in how a television show is produced. Television seemed to him like a relic from a bygone era, seeking relevance through internet streaming.

He thought he should have stayed in the hotel room and studied.

He’d offered to hang with Ziri as the show’s staffers converged on her. He asked her three times, to get through what looked to him as the most locked focus he’d ever seen from her. She looked confused that he’d asked, saying only that she was the one who was supposed to do this. His further attempt to check in seemed to annoy her, so he let her follow whatever she had in mind.

As close as they’d become, Eldon was still trying to understand Ziri, and worried when he couldn’t. A few days ago, they were alone together, sitting on the front porch swing at the Driscolls’. He thought they should learn more about each other. Knowing that she wouldn’t start a conversation like this, he volunteered info on his family, to which she didn’t respond.

Then he asked about her family.

Her expression went from relaxed to blank and affectless. She stood, said “I have to study,” and went briskly into the house, without a look back.

Now Eldon wandered around the studio. Show staffers flitted here and there, but none was assigned to him.

He was alone in a corridor when a door opened. He was able to read the name on the door’s plaque: Gerald Stansbury. Eldon knew, from Ziri’s research on the show, that this was the name of a Piranha.

When the door closed, Eldon saw the back of a tall man in a red jogging suit. He headed away down the corridor, then knocked on another door.

He was carrying a Neat Seat.

The door opened. It was too far away for Eldon to read the name, but he heard a woman’s voice. There was laughter, and Eldon made out her voice saying “lame excuse,” before Stansbury entered the room and the door closed.

Eldon crept down the hall, insisting to himself that he had perfectly good reasons for gathering information about this.

He stopped at the door with a plaque reading Justine Merrill.

Her image was clear in Eldon’s mind. Wavy brown hair, sleek legs always on display, Cupid’s-bow lips and violet eyes in an age-defying face.

She had once modeled in a magazine’s swimsuit issue–which Eldon, as a Gen-Z, had seen online rather than on paper.

Eldon’s ear at the door made out a few chuckles, objects moving on other objects, unclear murmurs. He wondered about listening with a water glass, not knowing if that would even work, deciding there was no time to search for one.

Speech was soon replaced by breath sounds, and slight rhythmic impacts.

Eldon’s hand slid lightly across his crotch.

The breathing and impacts picked up volume and speed. Eldon realized what he was doing, took his hand away, and desperately tried to find tranquility through meditation.

Eventually, baritone and soprano voices expressed themselves without words.

Eldon almost fell out of his crouch. He leaned back and breathed at the ceiling, so he wouldn’t be heard on the other side of the door.

When he regained some composure, and posture stability, he heard the high voice say something that seemed to include “best desk fuck ever,” and the low voice say “more desirable market than nudists.”

Eldon straightened up, smiling.

Turning to leave the corridor, he saw a woman at a different door, staring at him. She pushed a cart that seemed to include a hair dryer, among other things.

He gasped, and flinched back a few feet.

She opened the door, and pushed the cart inside, still looking at him. Finally she closed the door.

Eldon’s temples throbbed as he retreated along the corridor, wheezing. He tried to celebrate the knowledge that at least two Piranhas would bid for The Neat Seat. Should I tell Ziri? Would it ease her mind during the show, or would she let slip what she knew in advance?

First, Eldon had to find a bathroom stall, to deal with a different excitement. He wondered if Justine Merrill’s nude flesh had been on the prototype he had tested on the trail with Ziri.

***

Staging of the show began before Eldon could touch base with Ziri. He worried about her, despite what he knew. In rehearsals at the Driscoll house, the day before the trip, Ziri was steady during her pitch (which was mechanical, and there seemed no way around that), but faltered sometimes during Q&A. Tess had worked up some questions specifically to throw her off, like “What made you think so much about people being nude?” In the post-mortem the boarders and Driscolls helped her devise answers, and Eldon suggested ways for her to keep her composure.

Now Eldon stood far to the side, behind show staffers and video and sound equipment, as the recording of Ziri’s segment began. He saw her behind the roll-up door to the ‘pool,’ checking something on her phone. She nodded, then smiled, then nodded again. She straightened up and pocketed the phone while a staffer gave her a finger-countdown. Then the door lifted, and Ziri strode past it in her extra-erect pitching posture.

In the brighter light, Eldon saw her styled hair, her thickened eyelashes, and the gloss on her smiling lips. His jaw dropped.

Her pitch seemed smoother now, and energetic, a big improvement over her robot recitation. She smiled nearly all the time, favoring each Piranha with pleasant looks.

She met questions about nudism, and her own interests, with mild amusement. She said nothing that would prolong snickering. Eldon dared to observe, Maybe she’s got this.

Stansbury, now in a navy blue suit, asked, “Have you thought about how The Neat Seat might be used in other walks of life?”

“I’m sure there could be other uses,” Ziri replied smoothly, “And I look forward to hearing any you might suggest, Gerald. But I know that a clear benefit of The Neat Seat is what it can provide for people pursuing healthful outdoor activities, and showing respect for others in social events.”

Damn! thought Eldon, She got back on message! He looked at the five Piranhas. The three upon whom he hadn’t eavesdropped looked totally charmed.

There were bids from all five. In the end, Stansbury and Merrill won, bidding jointly for twice as much as Ziri had requested, while leaving Ziri as the sole inventor and patent applicant, and ensuring that all sourcing, manufacture, and distribution would be done by American companies. Stansbury gave no details on camera about ‘other walks of life.’

There was a standard after-moment, with the Piranhas standing and chatting with Ziri long enough for end credits to be added later. Then there was a loud declaration, maybe from a control room, of “That’s a wrap.” Almost at once, the Piranhas swam away, quickly tended by show staffers and personal assistants. A tall woman walked up to Ziri and gave her a hug/handshake, and guided her to the side where Eldon waited.

He walked towards her, with no idea of what her mood would be.

She saw him, piped “Eldon!” and ran up to him, beaming.

He was thrilled by her hug, but puzzled when she said, “I did it! I was somebody else!”

***

She motormouthed through the limo ride, the elevator ascent, and the entry to the hotel room. The gist was that after the makeup artist had made her look like someone else, she looked up role playing in her list of Sex Things. She interacted with the Piranhas like someone trying to seduce them. What came across was an affect that was friendly, a little flirty, but not overtly sexual.

Ziri looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. “Eeeuw! Do you like this?”

He stepped to her side so she could see him too. Some makeup had rubbed off on his face and shirt, even though they hadn’t kissed. “It looked better before, trust me,” he said.

She looked at the free stuff on the vanity. “Cleansing cream,” she read, and picked it up.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said, moving to depart.

“Wait, wait,” she said, getting out her phone. She scrolled, then said, “Sex in a shower.” She looked at him neutrally. “We can’t do that at Driscolls.'”

“You don’t think that’s yucky?”

“I like feeling the water in a shower. I like feeling you.”

She really, really liked the two together.

They couldn’t make penetration work there, but she orgasmed with his fingers in her vagina as they hugged. When he fucked between her squeezed thighs, he was loud and jerky when he came, in a way that she liked, busting through his meditation. I can still do that to him! she thought.

He kissed her breasts, but she was okay with it because of the warm water and his massage-like washing of her whole body. She approved that he stayed away from her face as she scrubbed off the makeup.

Later, dry and in bed, and after a satisfying, enclosing fuck, she said, “This is different.”

She said it in her affectless way. It was up to Eldon to interpret. He felt her body to be relaxed, so the ‘different’ probably wasn’t bad.

“How do you mean?”

“Lying here, with you…it’s ordinary now.”

He was relaxed, too, and he stayed that way physically, even as he started worrying. The quiet body from meditation hadn’t carried over to quiet mind.

He didn’t want to lead her to say something just to reassure him. If I’m the most insecure person here, he thought, I shouldn’t load my neediness on her.

He said, “Is that bad?”

“No,” she said, looking nowhere in particular. “It’s okay. Like when I’m sitting and reading, not trying to do something. Or eating, if it doesn’t bother my mouth. It’s…nice.”

His arm was around her back, on her far shoulder. He gave it a little squeeze. She still didn’t look at him, or give him a physical return, but she smiled a little.

He made himself settle for that. It was probably the most he could hope for, from her, and it probably meant that she was happy with him.

There was now enough silence that he could tell her what he learned in the corridor of dressing rooms.

She jerked uprght. Her face scrunched hard. “EEEEUWWW! Is that what they want it for? So people can, can–” She grabbed her phone from a nightstand. “Sex in a workplace?” she scrolled, and got to notes she had written under this heading. She held the phone to his face. “It’s not just weird and stupid! It’s how people cheat! And stop loving! The deal’s off!”

“WHAAAAT?”

“They used my invention to do sex on a desk!”

Weakly he tried, “And it’s okay on a trail?” Then, in shock, he saw that this could be traced back to him. He was haunted by the scowl of the woman in the corridor. The awareness that he hadn’t actually done anything illegal didn’t overcome his expected universal judgment that he was a creep.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she wailed.

“I never got a chance!”

She started punching numbers on the phone.