The College Obsession Complete Series (Includes BONUS Sequel Novella)

by Daryl Banner

  I stare at Riley, considering whether it’s the alcohol talking, or the alcohol helping facilitate the sudden release of this information.

  “Do you have any fears, Dmitri?”

  I lean forward, propping my elbows up on my knees. I notice my ass has started to fall asleep sitting here on the curb, but that’s not exactly one of my fears. To be honest, I’m not sure what to confess to her. There is a lot about me she already knows—and a thing or two that she doesn’t.

  Like secret number three.

  And four.

  “I have a fear of not amounting to much,” I admit.

  To that, she blows air out of her lips, then cackles. “Everyone has that fear!” she exclaims, her voice bouncing off all of the dark, silent houses down the street. “Give me something real. Visceral. Deep. Dark. Brooding. C’mon, ever since the day I met you, I knew you were a tortured soul. Show me some of that tortured side of you. It’s why I find you sexy. You’re such a deep, tortured mystery. I love that. I don’t ever want to lose that.” She giggles to herself, then wipes off imaginary sweat from her forehead. After a second, she brings part of her gown up to her face, as if to partly shield it, then whispers, “You’re like a … like a dark, dangerous stranger in the night. Should I be afraid?”

  I stare at Riley, unsure what to make of this. She’s drunk, I know that. But is she also trying to tell me something?

  “Should I be afraid?” she repeats.

  “No,” I tell her sincerely. “I’m not a scary guy.”

  “Why not?” she asks behind her makeshift veil, the fabric disturbed by the breath of her words.

  “I’m … just not a scary guy.”

  “You’re full of mystery, Dmitri Katz. You’re super scary. I think we should have fun tonight,” she decides suddenly, dropping her gown. “I should go into your apartment first, pretend to be asleep, and then you can come in and … and be the dangerous creature of the night!”

  “A creature of the night is literally what they call a vampire,” I point out.

  “Our Uber’s here!” she shouts, hopping to her feet.

  I didn’t even hear the car coming down the street. I’m off the curb in seconds, then I help a very stumble-happy Riley—or is it Beth?—into the car. Then in a matter of two thirds of an hour, we’re back at my apartment and that patient driver is long gone. Drunk Riley is horny Riley, and she about spilled every damn thing she wants me to do to her. And yes, she spilled it all shamelessly in front of the Uber driver, even going as far as to ask his opinion on what he thought of our various kinks. He just blushed and said it was none of his business. To that, Riley cackled so loud that my ears rang.

  They’re still ringing. “Pool!” she cries out, bypassing the door to my apartment entirely and rushing around the corner of the building to the shimmering blue water of the pool, which bursts into ripples and liquid diamonds when she cannonballs in her full Juliet costume.

  Who the hell is this girl?

  “Dmitri!!” she cries out, likely waking half of my neighbors and sending the rest of them to their windows to investigate the drunken girl in their courtyard pool. And thanks to her shouting my name, they know precisely who to blame. “Get your sexy Romeo butt in here!”

  I crouch down near the edge of the pool, made self-conscious by her shouting, and whisper, “Riley. We should get inside. It’s kinda late.”

  “Oh my God you are such a loser. Get your ass in the pool, D! Or else I’m going to pull down your pants and suck your cock in front of all of … all of your neighbors.”

  Unsuccessfully, I try to put a hand over her mouth when she shouts the words “suck your cock”, but she’s slippery and turns her head away.

  “Why are you acting like this??” I ask her, frowning.

  Her eyes turn severe, her jaw dropping. “Really? You’re seriously going to be an asshole right now and ruin my night?”

  “I’m not ruining anything. I just think—”

  “We’re free from our parents. We can do whatever we want. We don’t have Daddy telling us we can’t go out after ten. We don’t have Mommy reminding us to … to … do whatever she wants us to do. My head hurts. Ouch.” She winces and presses palms to her eyes, propping her elbows on the edge of the pool.

  I take the opportunity to reach under her arms and help her out of the water. Her gown, soaked so much that you can see her thong and lace bra underneath, slaps the pavement as we move away from the pool. She’s still muttering about hating me, and about her dad, and about something to do with frat boys, but I can’t make any sense of it.

  She’s in the apartment the next minute, dragging a trail of water on the tile floor. “Riley, your dress—” I try to say.

  “Ugh. Stupid. Dumb. Dress.” She has it over her head in the next instant, then gets caught in it. “Dress. Dmitri. Help. Out. Ugh.”

  I help Riley out of her clothes, slip into the bathroom to deposit the wet garment in the tub for now, then rush back into the living room to look after her. She’s sprawled across the couch in just her wet white lace bra and thong. She’s so gorgeous.

  And so wasted.

  “Oh, no,” she breathes, staring up at me with pretend terror in her eyes. “I … I must’ve forgotten to … to lock the windows. You came in. I’m totally vulnerable. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Riley?”

  “Oh, you know my name!” she moans, clutching at her breasts in a grotesquely sexual way and curling her legs up. “You must be the … the dark, dangerous guy who was stalking me at the office.”

  “Office?”

  “And now you’ve broken into my home to … to have your way with me!” She drops her jaw, her big, innocent eyes blinking.

  I don’t know my girlfriend right now. I have no idea where this role-play fantasy of hers is coming from that she obviously wants me to partake in, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood to assume the dangerous role she wants right now. “Riley, can we drop the act? I feel like we—”

  In one quick movement, she tucks her hands under her body to trap them. Then she pretends to squirm. “You’ve tied me all up!” she exclaims. “Please don’t fuck me, you dangerous man of the night! I’m all alone here and no one will be home for hours and hours and hours …”

  I come toward the couch intending to draw some sobriety out of her, but she takes it to be my first step into the role of scary intruder, gasping playfully and excitedly.

  “Oh, no!” she cries out, then proceeds to spread her legs.

  For being my supposed victim, she’s surely not making a good effort to protect herself.

  A chuckle wiggles its way up my chest at that realization. Or maybe I just can’t get into the character she wants me to play and the laugh is meant for her.

  Riley straightens up in an instant. “You going to fuck me or not?”

  She is so unlike herself tonight. I feel like I went to a Halloween party with Riley and came home with someone else. “I don’t know if I can do it … like this. It feels so … nonconsensual.”

  “Of course it’s consensual. I want you to have your way and make me your object and do nasty, horrible things to me and spank me and hold me down and—Stop looking at me like that!” she shrieks suddenly.

  I jerk back, wide-eyed. “Looking at you like what??”

  “Like that,” she says, scowling. “With that judgment on your face. I’m just trying to have fun with my boyfriend. I want you to … do things to me. Why can’t we just have fun and do something wild, D? Why’s it always gotta be so damned safe with you?”

  “I’ll fuck you,” I tell her. “I’ll do it hard. I’ll slam you into a bed and make you come nine times a night, Riley. I sorta do that already. But you’re asking me to play the part of some house burglar and, like, basically rape you. That’s fucked up to me, even if it’s pretend and you want it. You’re drunk, for one thing …”

  “I am not drunk. I am having fun and I’m high on life.”

  “And I’m not going to take advanta
ge of you when you’re drunk and might come to regret a lot of this in the morning,” I push on.

  “I want you to take advantage of me! Rob me! Be mean! Push me!”

  “Riley, I can’t do that to you when you’re all messed up on alcohol. You aren’t yourself. I have two sisters, Riley. I can’t just—”

  “What the hell do your stupid sisters have to do with this?? Forget it.” She grabs Brant’s afghan off the back of the couch and wraps herself up in it, then curls up and tucks away her head, hiding.

  “Riley.”

  She says nothing more.

  I sigh and sink into the couch. My ears drown in the ample, ringing, stinging silence. Not even the hum of an air conditioner or the stirring of wind outside touches me.

  Then I hear the soft whistle of air pushing lazily past her lips.

  Riley’s knocked out. I stare at her curled-up shape next to me and wonder if she’ll remember any of this in the morning. The more I reflect on her words, the angrier I get. How could she, out of nowhere, ask me to do the things she wanted me to do to her? Sure, if she was sober and we talked about some sexy, kinky fantasy of me breaking in and tying her up and having my way with her, I’d be game for jumping right into it. I’d even dress the part—ski mask and black gloves and all.

  But not when she’s totally wasted. Not when she might regret it.

  Not when she might not know what she’s asking.

  Just when I pull out my phone to shoot Brant a frustrated text to ask for his advice, there’s noise at the front door. I turn around to find Eric shoving his way inside, and from the look on his face, he’s not very happy either. He slams the door shut so hard, the walls shake, and when he finds me on the couch, he stands there and blurts out, “The hell you doing here??”

  “I live here,” I inform him dryly. “Why’re you here?”

  His Halloween makeup has drawn wiggly black tears to his chin. “I thought you, Riley, Brant, and Nell were at that straight people party.”

  “We were. We left. Riley and I, anyway. Brant and Nell are staying at his folks’ place.”

  “Great.” Eric drops heavily onto the couch next to me. His costume is a long-sleeved, blood-stained blue flannel shirt with torn-open cereal boxes strapped all over him. No idea.

  “So … you wanna tell me what’s going on?” I ask again.

  “Kirk thinks I’m …” Eric squeezes his eyes shut, then starts to hack up a hairball, not unlike the way a cat does.

  It takes me several more seconds to realize he’s crying.

  Crying. Eric. He never cries. He’s a tall stone pillar of anti-emotion. This would be the second time tonight I’ve seen a totally new side of someone I thought I knew.

  Reluctantly, I put a hand on Eric’s back and start to rub. Then my fingers catch on a Cheerios box, so I stop and retract my hand. “Kirk thinks you’re …?”

  “Too much of an artist to b-be with him,” he gets out between a sob and another weird, gagging sound. “I told him I don’t … I don’t even act anymore. I’m just a playwright and m-m-maybe a director if a contact at that community theater Victoria worked for last year pans out, but Kirk just d-d-didn’t care.” Eric sniffles loudly, then picks at the dinted corner of a tiny box of Froot Loops near his crotch. “He doesn’t see it lasting with us. I should have stayed with Bailey.”

  Except you never really dated Bailey. “You think?” I ask him gently.

  “I’m not overdramatic. Kirk is so stupid. I was crazy about him. He and I were totally compatible. I was even willing to do the leather thing if that made him happy because he was into it, but noooo. Let’s just dump me on Halloween. What a great idea.”

  “You poor thing,” comes Riley’s voice suddenly.

  We both turn to her, noticing that she’s come to life beneath the blue-and-orange afghan, her face poking out from under it. Yeah, she’s all sweet now—after her frustrated psychosexual explosion earlier. Now in the presence of a gay guy—her favorite kind of guy, apparently—she’s all soft and caring and full of love.

  Eric looks over at her dolefully. “Hi, Riley.”

  “Kirk doesn’t deserve you,” she moans from her side of the couch. “You’re so much better than him. In fact, you know what? I don’t even like violins.”

  Eric snorts. “Riley, that’s a flat-out lie. No one in the world exists who doesn’t love the sweet caress of a … a violinist and his … his …” Eric bites his lip and brings a hand to his mouth, trying and failing to stave off another wave of tears.

  Riley sits up suddenly and reaches over me to console Eric with her hands, then encounters the same problem I did, her hand unable to negotiate around a box of cereal on his back. “Sweetheart, what the hell are you wearing?” she asks gently.

  Eric rolls his eyes and lifts a bloody knife in his other hand I didn’t see him holding. “I’m a cereal killer, obviously. Listen, I have to get Kirk back—and fast,” he goes on, dropping the knife. “He’s scared of what we have. That’s all. It’s so intense, Riley. It’s so intense. His music …”

  “I know all about intense,” she assures him.

  Soon, Eric suffers another spasm of uncharacteristic blubbering. He sniffles so loudly, it sounds like a car horn. After a few moments of Riley patting his shoulder on one of the only spots not occupied by cereal boxes, she twists her head and shoots me a look, like she expects me to chip in and console him too.

  I sigh and lean toward him. “Look, Riley and I haven’t had the best night either—”

  “D!” hisses Riley, scowling.

  “So why don’t all three of us just kick back, have some beers, and tell the world to fuck off?” I suggest. “I even have a shit load of candy I bought for us to hand out before I knew about the party.”

  “I’m on a diet,” moans Eric, pouting his lips.

  “Who cares? It’s Halloween,” I persist. “Just let loose a bit.”

  “Oh yeah,” spits out Riley. “You know all about letting loose. Don’t look at me that way. You’re a hypocrite, telling him to let loose when you won’t even—”

  “Eric doesn’t need to hear about our nonexistent problem,” I cut her off tersely. “You’re just mad that your boyfriend’s a decent guy. I’m so sorry about that.”

  Eric lets out all his breath. “Is every couple fucked up tonight? What are Brant and Nell doing? Kicking each other’s balls, too?”

  “No, no. I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow. Not now,” Riley hisses.

  “No, you won’t,” I say, “because I’m tired of Eric hearing about all our problems. And Eric, you need to stop encouraging it! You were my damn friend first.”

  “ALRIGHT,” exclaims Riley suddenly, making Eric jump. “Want to have it out in the open? Alright, let’s have it out. Want to know what’s going on between us, Eric? Dmitri won’t get kinky with me.”

  Eric’s eyes flash. “Whaaaat?”

  “That is not true!” I shout.

  “I even did the whole burglar break-in thing like you suggested and Dmitri wouldn’t go for it,” Riley explains. “Something about his sisters.”

  I stare at him, dumbfounded. “That shit was your idea??”

  Eric shifts uncomfortably. “Well, not that burglar thing specifically, but—”

  “Stay the hell out of my and Riley’s sex life!” My face goes red. How much has Riley been telling Eric? And what kind of fucked up advice has Eric been supplying behind my back?

  “Hey, hey, hey.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not judging. Ugh,” he adds with a roll of his eyes, “I have no room to judge. My sex life is just … a mystery, now. I have no idea where it’s gone.”

  “You’ll find it,” Riley assures him. “Maybe with Kirky-Kirky. Maybe with someone else.”

  “That’s a cute bra,” Eric volunteers randomly. “Ooh, I love the lace.”

  “Compliments from my boyfriend’s gay roommate.” Riley eyes me. “Maybe I’ll have sex with him tonight.”

  I roll my eyes. It’s one thing
for her to be pushy and manipulative when it’s just us, but doing it in front of my roommate—and Eric, at that—just brings my blood to a disquieting simmer.

  “You know,” Eric says softly, “there’s so much more to Dmitri than I think you give him credit for.”

  Riley—still halfway in my lap from soothing Eric and blinking with her glassy, drunken eyes—waits for Eric to elaborate.

  He doesn’t. He just looks at me and smirks, as if waiting for me to say something.

  I freeze, shooting him a wide-eyed, hardened look of don’t-you-dare. Secret number four is floating unseen in the air between us, which has all but thinned with pressing, palpable tension.

  “Is there, um … something I’m not getting …?” asks Riley, looking between us.

  “Dmitri here is kinkier than he lets on,” Eric says helpfully.

  “It’s not a kink,” I hiss at him.

  Riley perks up. “Kinkier?”

  “He’s done stuff,” Eric goes on, taunting. “With people. And maybe if he grows a pair, he can tell you himself about his … experiences.”

  I scowl. “Stop it, Eric.”

  Riley turns to me expectantly, the look in her eyes revealing a hunger—still very much there—for hot, surprising acts of recklessness to happen between us tonight.

  “Done stuff?” she asks, then bites her lip.

  I let go some of the tension inside me. In an instant, my whole tune changes. Oddly, I find Eric’s presence here while I tell her this to be comforting, like Riley’s adoration for him actually helps me.

  “Yeah,” I finally let out.

  The faintest hint of a smile twists Riley’s lips. “Yeah?” She gives me a playful nod of encouragement, bringing her hands to my thighs and assuming all fours. Despite her fear of them, she certainly looks like a playful cat waiting for me to drop a nice, tasty little treat onto my lap for her. She’s practically begging for it. “How about you tell me some of this … stuff … you’ve done?”

  Eric gently moves his hand, which still rests on my shoulder. The movement of his fingers sends chills of excitement down my body. With Riley wearing just her white, sexy lace bra and thong—the afghan forgotten and fallen to the floor—I’m finding my heart racing. I feel all the attention in the room on me, and suddenly I’m the vulnerable one that the robbers are about to have their way with.