“It’s not funny.”
My expression soured. “I’m trying to make jokes after hearing you basically manipulate your friends and their feelings just to feel in control.”
“Shut up. That’s, like, blowing it way out of precaution.”
“Proportion.”
“Sure, whatever. Weren’t you the one that said you wanted to be friends with me, and you were worried that without studying, we wouldn’t have a friendship?” she asked exasperatedly.
“So what, you didn’t want me making friends because it might mean I’d have someone else in the world other than you?”
“Quinn, whenever any guy has anyone in the world other than me, they choose her. Every fucking time.” The welling up in her eyes produced a single tear that streamed down her face. “Can you really hate me for trying to fight when he’s… when it’s just one friend?”
I sighed in sympathy. “Taylor, I don’t hate you” I began softly.
“If she asks you on a date and I want to study, you’d pick her every time,” she pouted.
“If you asked me out before her, I probably would have said yes,” I replied back in earnest. “And you have someone like that now anyways.”
“I just wanted you to not… get bored of me, I guess,” she continued. “And now it’s like, I already know we won’t get to… you know…”
I stared at her, not finding words.
She continued. “…and I want to. Everyone else gets to, even while they’re dating me. But now, I feel like… there’s already this, like, wall between us. Either tell me there isn’t a wall and we can still do what we’ve been doing, or there is a wall and I can’t be blamed for what I did.”
I chuckled. “Taylor, you really want to avoid responsibility, don’t you? ‘Either let me have what I want or tell me I was justified when I was being selfish.’ I don’t have to pick either of those two things.”
“Oh fuck you, Mister High and Mighty,” Taylor snapped. “Of course you ‘see the light’ or some shit now that you have a date. A date you wouldn’t have if you hadn’t, like, met me.”
I chuckled again. “Is that it? Do you want me to thank you? Well, sure.” I stood up and made an exaggerated gesture of gratitude towards her. “Thank you. Thank you, Taylor. I appreciate everything you did for me, and without you, I wouldn’t have gotten this chance with Morgan. I’m sorry that it means you no longer have a monopoly on my social life. If you want that in a man, may I suggest you either find a man who’s currently serving a prison sentence in solitary confinement or grow the fuck up.”
As much of a zinger as that last line was, I knew it was crossing the line before it even made its way out of my mouth, and in case I didn’t, the slap in the face Taylor gave me made me well aware of that.
Pain shot from my cheek across my face like electricity. She gave a hell of a slap. It ended up being so powerful that I started to lose my balance, and fell over onto my back. I wanted to tell her sorry, but some kind of shock reaction from the slap made me unable to speak, unable to do anything other than fall onto my butt and grab my cheek, looking at her.
She clearly wasn’t satisfied with just the slap though. Clearly going for the maximum effect, she crawled over to me and sat herself down on my abdomen, forcing me to do nothing but look her in the face from under her.
“I’m, like, in a really bad mood, so just listen,” she ordered. “I’m not asking you to only pay attention to me. I’m not asking you to only talk to me, and I’m not asking you to only fuck me. I just want to feel, for once, like I’m not this replaceable little doll who just exists for other guys to look at, have, like, fun with, and then they throw me away or something. I’m allowed to say I deserve more than that. I thought something complicated was going to happen with Morgan. To be honest, I thought you two were gonna fight, after the first few, like, conversations you had. So yeah, I stepped in. That’s not a crime. It’s perfectly reasonable. And I don’t care what happened, or what happens, between you two. What matters is the, like, principle. I asked you not to talk to her, and you said you wouldn’t and did. I asked her to do the same too. Even my own friends. Can’t even be honest with me. Fuck.”
The fact that she was cute when she pouted unfortunately did not stop during her little rant. I listened as best as I could, but the fact that I was getting treated to a face full of cuteness plus knowing that she was on top of me, pinning me down… one could guess how my body was reacting. After a bit, I started blushing and shifting around.
She was in mid-sentence when I started shifting, and slowly stopped talking. “What are you- wait…” She looked behind her, to my crotch, revealing to her eyes the tent forming in my pants. “Are you serious?! Have you paid attention to anything I’ve been saying??”
I raise my hands up in front of my face. “I-I can’t help it! It’s my body’s natural reaction! You thought Morgan and I were going to fight, you tried to stop it, you’re not asking me to only like you, and you didn’t like that I didn’t tell you and you’re worried about getting used and thrown away. I listened, alright?”
Taylor said nothing, still at her awkward angle from when she saw my erection and yet with her gaze pointed right at my face. “Hmm,” she finally said, her stare returning to my crotch. She adjusted her body so she was fully back on me again, moving my body slowly backwards, sliding down my torso. Her face darkened again.
It was weird. She still looked angry, but like… determined. Like she was making a choice. Eventually, her body slid over my crotch. I winced as she slid the crotch of her own pants off of me… and then back on. It took a few of these to realize she was grinding her crotch against mine.
“Tay-”
“No. Not another word. Unless the word is ‘stop,’ I don’t want to hear it, Quinn,” she ordered. “Tell me to stop, and I will. Forever, if you want. But you have to say that.” She looked me dead in the eye and continued to grind on me, her look still determined and slightly angry.
I stared at her for a while, a look of steel likely on my own face, as I tried to figure her out. What was her game here? Did she even have a game? Was this her way of trying to tell me that we both have feelings and what was happening was inevitable? ‘I won’t tell if you don’t?’ Whatever it was, I only stared back at her. A part of me wanted to open my mouth and tell her to stop, or just tell her anything, but for the life of me, I couldn’t. And I couldn’t ignore it — my heart rate was rising. My breathing quickening. My fucking hormones be damned… I couldn’t just ignore the hottest girl in the school grinding on top of me, looking at me like she wanted to mount me right then and there. We could get along great or fight, but one thing was abundantly clear — we wanted each other, badly.
Slowly, trying my hardest not to make it timid, I started grinding back against her. As soon as she felt it, the smallest semblance of a smile formed on her face, and she nodded. She leaned forward, setting her hands down on the floor on either side of my head, and put her whole body into it, grinding her entire body up against mine.