“Okay, what?”

“Well, I’ve only been with three guys and Ash for the longest.  The first guy and I were both virgins.  It lasted about five minutes the first time and about six minutes the second time.  Not very good, but the point was just to get it over with so we could both say we’d done it.  I was seventeen.  Then, my freshman year, I met this really cute guy who was a grad student and evidently, he hit on every piece of fresh girl meat entering the history of art program.  He was okay in bed, just really full of himself and that didn’t last too long, either.  Finally, I met Ashton and we worked up to it.  We were good friends only for the longest.  He’s brilliant.  I mean…”  She shrugged.  “I’ve never met a man so creatively intellectual.  He doesn’t see things as everyone else.  He’s incredibly intelligent.  I don’t have to dumb down for him.  I can pretty much be myself because he can keep up.”

Gail giggled at Bette’s high opinion of herself. 

“What I’m trying to say is that a lot of us just regurgitate what we hear in class.  Ash loves art.  He likes talking about color and texture, and his thoughts and ideas are his own.  He’s not afraid of expressing that.   We have great discussions.”

“So how did you get from these important, mind-bending discussions to being lovers?”

“It just happened.  Foreplay, ya know?”

“What’s foreplay?”

“You don’t know what foreplay is?”

“Yes, of course, I do.  What do you mean by foreplay?”

Bette’s olive skin warmed and she knew that a pink hue had blossomed across her face.  She didn’t want to talk about Ash.  She especially didn’t want to discuss her ***** life, but if she wanted to get answers to her questions, she’d just have to get through it.

Gail whispered, “If you really can’t talk about…”

Returning her whisper, Bette said, “No, that’s okay.  It’s okay.  We – we just did stuff.  We touched each other.”

Gail smiled.  She suddenly had a vision of the lovely Bette Porter naked on a dorm room bed.  She pictured fingers between Bette’s tanned legs, opening her up, but they weren’t the fingers of a man.  “Go on.  How?”