The Stipulation (Volume Four)

by M. L. Young

  I set the phone back on my nightstand and lay there as I waited for a reply of any kind. All I wanted was for my screen to light up and the phone to buzz against this wooden nightstand. Even if the answer was a bad one, I just wanted a reply to know he still cared enough to talk to me.

  ***

  A few days had passed and I hadn’t heard from Roman in the slightest. Not even a wrong text message meant for another person, or even a blank one or simple no. My phone’s inbox was empty, aside from Trevor and Jillian, who had both wished me a Merry Christmas and told me they couldn’t wait to get back and see me. Jillian mentioned wanting to hear all about my trip and holiday season, as she thought I had spent it all with Roman. I told her I’d just wait until she got back to tell her, for I didn’t think my thumbs could endure typing out everything that happened over my phone.

  I received a text from Jerome that morning that said he knew about Robert and was surprisingly sorry for everything that had transpired. He said he should’ve never set me up with him and that he had dropped him as a client. That made me feel a little better, as now I at least knew that old man Robert wasn’t my last chance at being a sugar baby. Jerome said he set me up a date for tonight, New Year’s Eve, and that this man was considerably younger than Robert, and somewhere around Roman’s age. I agreed to the proposition, for I didn’t want to spend both Christmas and New Year’s alone, and Jerome said this man, Casey, would pick me up at eight. I was hoping this one would pan out.

  ***

  Casey picked me up exactly at eight, and his red SUV came with rims a plenty and a blasting subwoofer you could hear from down the street. I stood outside shivering, but he unlocked the doors as he stopped and I hopped in to be pleasantly surprised. He was cute, and not old or decrepit in any sense of the word. He had blond hair with his bangs up, a light tan, and nice arms that bulged in his button up white shirt. He flashed a white smile, his large silver watch twinkled in the light, and he was a man who could rival Roman in looks.

  “You must be Natalie,” he said with a smile as he held out his hand.

  “Yes, I am. It’s nice to meet you,” I said with a shy smile as I placed my hand in his to shake.

  “I’m Casey, and it’s all my pleasure,” he said before lifting my hand to his lips and kissing it softly.

  I smiled, my cheeks getting red, as he put my hand down and started to drive away from my dorm. It felt good to be treated like this again, and we had just met. He seemed nice, though, and like he wanted to show me a genuinely good time. There was a vibe to him that I liked. I started to get excited at the prospect of getting another dashingly handsome man as my sugar daddy. Not only that, but he really didn’t look that much older than me. I didn’t think that anybody would truly recognize that he hadn’t just graduated from college. As we arrived at the restaurant we would be dining at, he looked at me and flashed that pearly white smile, and I knew I might have a chance of moving on.

  ***

  The night, which I was admittedly nervous at the beginning, went off without a hitch. We ate a fabulous meal at Alchemy 66, talked quite extensively about our lives and dreams, and now were at a Latin dance club he said was amazing. Casey wasn’t self-made, instead inheriting a substantial fortune from his oil magnate father, but said he wasn’t all about money and was looking to get into the green movement to offset some things his father has done to the environment. He claimed he wanted a sugar baby because he wasn’t ready to settle down just yet, but I wasn’t sure I believed him. While he was charming and a great guy, he looked like a bit of a playboy and I knew he wasn’t shy when it came to getting to know women.

  We flew onto the dance floor and he immediately started to fling me around and spin me like a dreidel. My dress, which was a little looser and more flowing than the one I had worn with Robert, spun around like a pinwheel with each revolution and turn I took. He pulled me in close and our feet shuffled as I tried to keep up and figure out how to move as we went along. The dancing wasn’t exactly hard or complex, but it was fast moving, and I was nervous I would jam my heel down into his foot.

  “Are you ready to go cool down?” he asked after twenty minutes of dancing.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed happily as my heart couldn’t keep up with all of the beating.

  He grabbed my hand and led us out of the hazy dance floor and back into a corner, which was under a fan. The sweat glistened on his hard Spartan body as he had unbuttoned the top buttons on his shirt to let the cool air blow against him. He reminded me of Roman, and all I wanted to do was run my nervous hand against his chest and remember the closeness I had experienced in Aspen.

  Casey looked at me and noticed me undressing him with my eyes, which prompted him to give me a sly and sultry wink, as if inviting me to come over to him and have a taste.

  “Come on, I want to show you something,” he said with a smile as he held his hand out for me to grab.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as I took his hand and started walking.

  “Somewhere a little more private.”

  We went into an office at the end of the hallway, which housed the bathrooms and pay phones. The office looked as though it should be off limits to the general public, but millionaires and high rollers hold a different set of rules than us normal people.

  “Should we be back here?” I asked nervously, as I hoped we wouldn’t get in trouble.

  “My father is great friends with the owner. He lets me come back whenever I need a break and catch my breath,” he said before guiding my back against a short filing cabinet.

  He put his hands on my quivering hips and eased in close to me as I felt his warm and heavy breath beat against my throbbing neck. I put my hand against his chest, both to keep my distance and to take myself back to that moment in Aspen. His chest felt just like Roman’s, and I liked it.

  Casey leaned in and pressed his lips against mine, as my heart couldn’t take being ignored any longer. I kissed back, my tongue flittering against his as I would come up for air once every ten seconds. He kissed me the way Roman kissed me, and ran his hands down my tight sweaty body just as Roman had.

  Out of nowhere, Casey lifted me up and placed me on the small filing cabinet as he pushed himself in between my legs and just inches away from my opening pussy.

  I leaned in and began to kiss his neck as he tilted his head back in pleasure.

  “Oh man,” he whispered.

  Those two words made me stop, as my lips traveled away from his neck and I lifted my head to meet his eyes.

  “What did you say?” I asked in confusion.

  “I said oh man,” he replied in confusion, as if he couldn’t understand what I was doing.

  I was sure he said Roman, and I was positive my brain heard and comprehended that name. I couldn’t keep him out of my head, and after hearing that name and looking straight into Casey’s eyes, I realized they weren’t Roman’s. Casey might have a strong body like Roman, soft lips like Roman, and a throbbing cock like Roman, but he wasn’t Roman. None of these guys I was being set up with were Roman, and I wasn’t positive if I could be with any guy who wasn’t Roman.

  “I have to go,” I said hastily as I pushed Casey, who was more than baffled, out of the way, grabbed my things from the attendant, and made my way for the door.

  “Three…Two…One…Happy New Year!” the club patrons yelled as they celebrated heavily.

  I pushed out of the door, tears running down my reddened cheeks, and made my way back home to sulk in my own misery. Maybe I wasn’t as over Roman as I originally thought.

  Chapter Five

  Three weeks had passed and spring semester had started back up again. Jillian was back in the dorm, and I had the displeasure of telling her everything that had happened, from my amazing trip, to losing Roman, and to the two guys I was so lucky to be able to go on dates with. She was especially disgusted with Robert, and said she would’ve gone crazy on his ass if she had been there. She was shocked I didn’t do more, saying I should’v
e slapped him and cussed him out, but I wasn’t thinking of that at the time of being groped.

  I went on with my classes as usual, with my schedule being much freer and open compared to last semester. Since I wasn’t working at the store, I made sure my schedule wasn’t all crammed together and stuffy. I wanted to be free, and casually go to class without feeling like I was in high school taking classes back-to-back every single day of the week. My first class of the semester was with a man that scarily enough looked just like Robert. My heart dropped and I almost threw up as he walked into the room, but he introduced himself as Mr. Morrow, and my nerves soon dissipated as I realized it wasn’t Robert at all, just his doppelganger.

  I sat through my class doodling random little pictures all over the page to make it look as though I was taking notes. The classroom was rather large, and there was no way a feeble old professor could see me drawing pictures of mountains and pine trees. Thoughts of Aspen were still somehow fresh in my mind, and they were the last remnants of memories I had with Roman. The trip was the turning point in our relationship, or lack thereof, and I wanted to remember it happily in its infinite glory.

  ***

  I had to go to the bursar’s office after class to check on my tuition. Roman said he would still pay everything, and with only five days until the deadline for non -loan payments, I had to make sure he actually did. The last thing I needed was to go on as usual and get a letter saying I’d been dropped from my classes and dorm for failure to pay my charges. Being kicked out of this university wasn’t in the cards for me.

  I walked inside the bursar’s office, which was situated just inside the student center in the center of campus. There were a few other students there, as this office also handled student financial aid, who looked clearly in distress as they were almost crying on the phone with their parents, who I could also hear through the speakers pressed against their ears.

  “Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.

  “Hi, I’m here to check to see my balance. I think it should’ve been paid, but I just wanted to verify and double check,” I said politely. There was no mistaking the worker was fed up with work this time of season.

  “Name?” she asked.

  “Natalie Freidman,” I said as I accompanied my answer with my student ID.

  She putzed around on her computer for a minute before printing off something and sliding over to get it hot off the presses.

  “Here you go. If you have any problems please feel free to come back and we will take care of them for you,” she said as she handed the folded piece of paper to me.

  I smiled politely and walked out of the office and into the hallway where I hastily opened the piece of paper, almost ripping it in half from anxiousness. I went down the line charges and saw the balance at the bottom, which read zero. I looked up and saw a payment for thousands of dollars had been posted, and none other than Roman J. Parker had paid the balance. I leaned against the cold brick wall in astonishment as I realized Roman had kept his word. I guess he did actually care.

  ***

  Later that night I sat in my dorm room in complete boredom before the lovely Tara and Jillian barged through the door laughing and talking about Trevor. I felt a little bad, but they said he had a raging erection as he talked to them, and the thought of that actually made me laugh.

  “Natalie! What are you doing tonight?” Tara asked.

  “Oh, probably just a little studying,” I said, as I truly had to study some of the new coursework I was taking.

  “Come to a party with us!” Jillian said.

  “Oh I don’t know,” I said hesitantly.

  “You’re coming, end of story. You’re not going to sit in here all alone for the entire night. You need to get happy again and get over this guy before it ruins you. What do you have to wear?” Tara asked before ripping through my closet.

  I got up quickly to not only see what she could come up with, but also to make sure she didn’t find Roman’s molded dick, which I still had hidden in my closet. I had used it once over break, for my body craved that strong and hard cock like a drug addict craving heroin. Luckily for me it didn’t roll off the top shelf, and Tara tossed a skanky outfit on my bed.

  “Here, you’re wearing this. Go and get ready and put this on and we’ll go,” Tara said.

  “Fine,” I said, as I didn’t want to fight with her about it.

  I guess I was going to my first college party.

  ***

  Tara, Jillian, and I walked into a hazy frat basement to the cries of both the music and all of the severely drunk and messed up frat guys and the sorry girls, myself included, which were there for the party. I had never been to one of these before, instead only seeing them in movies, and they really held up exactly to how they were portrayed in those movies. There were guys in sunglasses, neon muscle shirts, and most of them in shorts as apparently it was a beach theme, although most of the girls weren’t dressed that way. Tara told me that most of the girls just kind of come and go to all of the parties, and only the fraternity brothers actually participate in the theme dress up, unless it’s Halloween, then all of the girls dress up. Everybody except for us was drenched in sweat, as if they all had been dancing the night away inside of the windowless and fan less basement. The sight of a frat guy on top of a cute girl was very common, and the very drunk girls were shoving their tongues down the throats of guys they likely never would any other time.

  “Hey girls,” Steve said as he approached and kissed Jillian.

  He had a red plastic cup in his hand, probably filled with cheap piss beer, and offered us all a glass as some of his frat brothers brought them over. I took one politely, but didn’t take a sip as the smell reeked out of the cup like my face was inside of a urinal.

  As the night progressed, I had a total of four guys try and dance with me, only to leave and call me a prude when I wouldn’t grind up against them and give them some kind of weird satisfaction. None of these guys liked being rejected, and I was beginning to think this party was a colossal waste of time. At least back in my dorm I could be doing something productive instead of watching Jillian shove her tongue down Steve’s throat and watch Tara grind up against some guys. She was better though, likely because of her sugar daddies, and didn’t even kiss any guy, even though you could tell they very badly wanted to press their lips against hers. I was proud of her for that, and for keeping herself for her sugar daddies.

  Another hour passed and I sat in the corner alone, as the party raged on. The humidity level felt through the roof as everybody moved and sweated, and breathing was beginning to turn into a chore as I was still holding that red plastic cup.

  “Are you having a good time?” Tara asked with a smile as she came up from my right side and took a drink of her beer.

  “Oh yeah, I am, but I think I’m going to go back home. I should do a little studying and I have an early class tomorrow,” I said, as if I needed to make an excuse as for why I was leaving.

  “Do you want me to go with you?” she asked as she began to dance around me.

  “No, that’s quite okay,” I said politely as I stood up.

  “Well, be safe and I’ll see you tomorrow or something,” she said before hugging me and yelling out some cheer, as she was quite intoxicated.

  I rolled my eyes and made my way through the dance floor, if you could even call it that, and walked up the stairs and immediately began to feel the cold air push against my face and cool me instantly. I could easily breathe again, and I wasn’t even outside yet.

  I walked past a few people, grabbed my coat, which was underneath a giant pile near the front door, left the frat house, and began my walk back to my dorm.

  I weaved in and out of the hordes of college students, with some drunk and some just acting wildly as they were having a great time out with their friends. I saw a cop car with the lights on across the street, arresting two younger looking girls who were clearly shitfaced. I could see them drunkenly pleading with the cops,
but they were taking them for their own good, and I was happy for that. I was just hoping Tara wouldn’t end up in that same cop car later on tonight.

  Chapter Six

  Jerome had tried to match me up with a slew of guys over the next couple days. He had set me up on two dates, both of which weren’t really that great. One was with an older man, but it wasn’t as bad as Robert because this guy was actually attractive and didn’t look as old as he was. The second guy was probably in his late twenties, but he was that nerdy type that likely couldn’t get a woman on his own. His only other resort was to get a sugar baby, and he was willing to pay to get someone to keep him company and be there for him. I felt bad ending the date, for I knew he was just looking for someone to be close to, but he reminded me of an older and richer Trevor, and that wasn’t a good thing. There was no amount of money Trevor could have to make me like him, and this was his rich twin.

  I went on to my classes as usual, and actually was able to have an easier week than what I was used to. It was Wednesday, and I only had two classes today, which were both in the early afternoon. Calculus and geography were the subjects, and both of my professors were kind of laid back. My geography teacher even wore a safari hat and had candy in a little fanny pack that he tossed out to whoever got the right answers to his questions. He was the epitome of what every student wanted their professor to be like. If only every single one in this country was like him, our country’s academic future would be set in stone.

  I snuck a quick lunch after my final class, and ate in a residence hall that was different from my own. Each one of the residence halls had one or two cafeterias inside, and our student card could be used at all of them to buy food, which was rather convenient. This one had a more market type feel, and I just grabbed a bottle of water and a premade turkey and cheese sandwich. It wasn’t that much in terms of satiation and nutrition, but it was better than those stale old chips my parents sent me.