Shannon smiled at Richard and winked. It was on, and Molly was shut out. I grabbed two wrists to put their hands together before I started unbuttoning Shannon’s blouse. The Peacock quickly took over and Molly stood. I believe she would have slapped me, but I stood too and didn’t get close enough.
There was a definite snarl as she looked at me, “I can get home by myself.”
The dorm room door was tested for durability when she slammed it on the way out.
****************
Peacock and I only stayed in the dorms that one year, but the apartment we shared for the last three years of college was well out of the price range for most students. That was because my roommate, Richard Charles Rodgers, had extremely wealthy and generous parents. Naturally, one of the benefits of that ritzy apartment was that we each had our own bedroom, and each of them was often filled with a pretty college girl who liked sex as much as we did.
Unexpectedly, the walls between our bedrooms were not soundproofed at all, and what I had seen in our freshman year, I heard in the last three. I considered those uninsulated walls to be a benefit rather than a defect. They were an aphrodisiac. Hearing his latest bird’s passionate warble was always a great kick-start to passion for the girl in my bed.
The strutting peacock never stopped flaunting his proud feather to the girls I brought home, and he was still fond of getting his beautiful bird to strut her plumage in front of me. While I didn’t see him in action any more, I still got to see his beautiful birds strut and hear them moan, whimper, squeal, and concede whatever he demanded.
In late September of our senior year, I met a beautiful freshman bird, Lacey Taggart, and we clicked right off. She was a 5’8″, 125 lb., 36-23-35, firm C-cup, blonde, green-eyed, shy, giving, friendly, and very passionate vision of perfection who had just turned 18. By Christmas, we were an item and inseparable.
I checked with Richard to make sure it was okay first, and when he agreed, we moved her stuff into our apartment during that first week of spring semester. Peacock was still his usual flirting and mating-dance strutting self and he still ‘requested’ his birds to strut in front of me, but now Lacey was my equally-appreciative voyeur. I don’t think she appreciated the birds like I did, but she sure liked to look at the tail feather that tickled the tail of so many birds.
The noises and struts were an aphrodisiac for Lacey as well, and her responsiveness escalated in proportion to what her senses were detecting. Her chirps and tweets of rapture started rivaling those she heard from Peacock’s bedmates, and I was pretty sure they were intentional and intended for my roommate, especially when he was making his bird in the other bedroom warble and trill at the same time.
In late March, I accepted an offer to attend graduate school in physics at CU. I had applied at six other prestigious programs but then sent out disregard notices to each of them. It wasn’t only because CU had a great program with a professor who professed to be anxious to work with me, it was also because Lacey was going to be there.
It had taken awhile for the new normal to settle in for Lacey, but as it did, her shyness receded and she became less concerned about her own exposure around the apartment. She started to respond to Richard’s accent by flirting back in her own attempt at Britspeak. It wasn’t long after she started trying to copy his accent that he started calling her Lassie instead of Lacey, and that activated my jealousy flag as much as her flirting. Despite my request to tone it down, neither of them did.
Her dress code kept easing and it started when she went from shower to bedroom with just a skimpy towel around her. That never stopped, but then she started going braless and then her short and lacey robe and panties became commonplace. They hugged and sat close to each other when all three of us were on the couch.
Those last couple of months together in the apartment really sent my jealousy flag fluttering, but there were also times when that flutter induced a reaction that I didn’t understand. That flutter sometimes caused a stiffness in my down-south control center that I was at a loss to explain.
And then, on April 26th, we discovered that she was pregnant. We thought we’d been careful, but condoms don’t always work. I wasn’t unhappy that she was pregnant and neither was she because we were both anxious to give parenting a shot.
Peacock and I arranged an elaborate proposal ritual and he loaned me enough for me to get a ring I would be proud to have her show off. She was both tearful and gleeful when she accepted, and we agreed the date should be soon.
In early May, Richard accepted a position with Bank of Scotland, but he would be working out of their New York Branch. That bit of news put an even more urgent need to move the wedding date closer, and we were married less than two weeks after the semester ended. Rings were exchanged on June 9, 1979, partly because everybody wanted her to be married when her baby bump became evident, but partly so Richard could be the best man before he had to start his job.
Our wedding was not the big church wedding Lacey’s mom had envisioned, but it was in Walsenburg, Lacey’s hometown, so family and a few close friends could attend in the small church they could find. There was a small reception at Lacey’s house, and three hours into it, I couldn’t find my bride. The bottle of tequila was empty, so I went looking.
I found her behind the garage and watched for quite a while. There were tongues active in their kiss and his hands were active on her breasts and ass while hers were between them, clearly squeezing Peacock’s feather. I don’t know why I watched for so long but when his hand moved from her breasts and lifted the hem of her dress high enough to get his hand on the junction beneath, I’d had enough.
Neither of them heard or saw me walk up before I tapped them both on the shoulder to stop the disrespect. I didn’t understand why I’d sprouted while watching them before I surprised them, but since I’d noticed the pronounced lump in the pants that Lacey was grabbing, it was easy to understand why his sprout was fully grown.
“Richard, I’m not sorry you’re flying out on Monday. Have a nice life far away from us. Lacey, it’s time for us to go.”
Their embarrassment was obvious and neither of them tried to defend what they’d been doing. I just grabbed Lacey’s hand and walked her down the street to the old hotel where we were booked. My conjugal duty was not as loving as it would have otherwise been.
**************
It was more than four years after our wedding before I saw or heard from Richard again, and that phone call came about six months ago. A lot had happened since that call, and it all led to tonight. Our two young boys were with my parents in Pueblo for the weekend, and we celebrated its start by meeting the Peacock for FAC at the ‘Pig and Whistle’.
Tequila had been the drink of choice for Peacock and me all through college and Lacey liked it too. All our snoots had been full of it when I left them there more than two hours ago. At that time, her words had a marked roundness to them. Her actions also mirrored that condition, and that inebriated state for both of them was part of our plan.