* * * * *

Alice grabbed a bag of Trader Joe’s Veggie Fries from the cabinet and tossed them to Bette who didn’t come close to catching it.  She returned to the living room with a dark, pink concoction in the glass pitcher and two clean glasses.  “Movin’ on to Cosmos, babe.”  She placed the tray on the coffee table, then slid to the floor. 

“I think I’m a tiny bit drunk, Al.”

“Lucky you’re not leaving the house, then.  Okay, on with the story.  I know you eat *****, so get to it.  I mean the story, not the eating.  This belongs to Dana,” she said patting her lap.

“Been there,” Bette answered.

Alice rolled her eyes.  “Gail?  Oral *****?  Jumping teams? 

Bette drifted into the past, remembering the poster of Prince on her dorm door and the photo taped to the inside door of her closet of the androgynous pop group ‘Ah-ha,’ with their hairless faces and long, flowing manes.  She recalled how her twenty-one year old self felt back then.

* * * * *

Throughout November, Ash had tried to get Bette to join him for a session of lovemaking, but Bette begged off each time.  Once she had too much studying to do, another time she was re-writing her Statement of Purpose for school, and twice she claimed to have a splitting headache.  Over their long weekend together in Philadelphia and New York they had not been intimate.  Suddenly, Bette had decided she wasn’t comfortable doing it in her father or his parents’ homes.  Back at school, when he finally was successful at getting her in bed, she had scooted away from his hand that rested on her thigh and when he had pushed her down between his legs, she only gave him a brief, obligatory handjob that she didn’t even see through to completion.  He ended up beating off by himself that night when she got up and went home to study.  Her excuses were piling up and they were the same–studying, the stress of senior year, no time.  The truth was she preferred to spend those short minutes with Gail having espressos and pastries.  They were getting to know each other and slowly, Gail had become Bette’s closest friend.