Chapter Eleven

Tessa I couldn’t believe it was Monday already. I got up out of bed and put on a robe to walk into the kitchen to prepare some breakfast. I decided on toaster waffles and microwaveable link sausage and got the maple syrup from the fridge. Once my plate was ready, I looked down at my phone to see my message box was heaving with messages again.

I swiped through each one while I ate, telling each guy good morning. I had three new ones to talk with. The twins, Jess and Ted, and a new guy named Rich. The twins were baseball players and played for CU’s team.

“And how is Mr. Monday today?” Kim asked as she came into the kitchen.

I’d told my roommates and the guys over the weekend how I’d decided to name each man after a day of the week, and Archie was Mr. Monday. Otherwise, I wouldn’t give them the attention that they needed, if I had them all talking to me, every single day of the week. This way I could give them my full attention on a specific day. This really could work!

“He’s awake and has Mr. Happy well in hand.” I laughed at my own joke.

She just looked at me blankly. “I haven’t had coffee yet. There will be no jokes until I’ve had coffee, woman.” She growled a little as she picked up a cup and filled it from the pot I’d made for all of us.

“You’re so cute in the morning,” I replied with a little snark, but only a little. I was only trying to rile her a little.

“Thanks. Did you microwave sausage again? That’s going to kill you, you know. Microwaves aren’t good for your health.”

“Neither are sausages, but you aren’t protesting me eating those,” I answered then popped the last bite into my mouth.

“Stop!” She sat down at the table and turned her face away until I’d swallowed.

“You need to go back to bed,” I said, got up and washed my plate and cup.

“I need to get to class. I hate these early classes,” she said and pushed hair out of her face. Sunlight gleamed off the thin gold bracelet on her arm.

I need to get one of those, I decided. It’s so attractive on a woman.

“At least they don’t happen often for you. I have them every day.”

“I know. I’d die.” She smiled, at last.

“Good morning,” Cheryl called out as she came in, dressed already and ready for the day. “Coffee, good!”

We shared expenses at the house, it made it cheaper on all of us and prevented waste. We’d all go shopping on Sunday afternoons and plan meals that we might share if we were all going to be home together. In cases where a shared meal was spontaneous, we’d go to the store that evening, as we did last night.

“I have to get ready, ladies. See you later at the Old Barrel, as usual,” I called out as I left to grab some clothes and walked into the bathroom to shower before I left for the day.

By the time I left Cheryl was gone and Kim was in her room.

I headed out to my first class and thought about how I’d see Archie soon. We hadn’t agreed to meet up for a date yet, but we exchanged glances in class and smiled at each other knowingly. We both knew what we wanted, and I planned to ask him to meet me soon enough.

I got a text just as I walked into class. Archie wasn’t coming to class that morning. He had an appointment to keep with the doctor and I’d miss seeing him.

“Oh, that’s too bad, I wanted to tell you something important.” I typed out on my phone and hit send.

“I see. What’s that?” He sent a winking emoji along with the text and I smiled.

“Well, I was hoping we could meet up tonight. I’d like to see you. In person.”

“Damn, I’d love to, but I have practice then a test to study for. Sorry, princess.”

He’d taken to calling me that about two days after I’d first texted him back. It had taken me that long to completely unthaw and start responding as uninhibitedly as he did. He’d drawn me out in ways that I’d never thought possible, and I’d really come to enjoy his texts.

I enjoyed them all but there was something about the way Archie worded his texts that made me weak, that made me want to give him everything — body and mind. There would be no holding back with him, he said how he felt all the time.

“No worries. Maybe tomorrow,” I responded quickly as we all took our seats and settled in. I turned the sound down and waited for his response.

“But tomorrow’s Pete’s day. I couldn’t intrude.”

I frowned at my phone. He was right. Pete, who was almost as skilled at sexting as Archie was.

“You’re always so thoughtful.” I typed with a sarcastic emoji added just to be humorous.

“I know, I try.” He sent a heart and a kiss emoji, and I smiled before I put the phone away.

So, I’d have tonight free, but tomorrow, I’d have Pete to look forward to. He was sensitive and he made sure that he always asked how my day was going, and actually listened to what I wrote. I tended to respond to that in a way that was different to how I responded to Archie. Ron was the sensible one, sometimes, almost too sensible and I’d tried to goad him into doing, or saying something wild, just to break that calm control he always had. Which was an entirely different response altogether to his two brothers.

This wasn’t going to be easy, I knew that already, but I was hoping that spacing them out, taking each man at a different pace, would give me a good idea of what exactly was involved. All of the men were different, as different as each day of the week and that made for a nice contrast. It also made me curious about what they were like under the sheets, would the arrogance of Archie come out or would the sensitivity of Pete have me screaming out for more?

I never thought that this would be my secret fantasy, but right there in class I was thinking about each one of them between my legs and class was the last thing on my mind.

When I got out of class I saw I’d missed a call from Mom and walked over to a bench to call her before I headed to my next class.

“Hey, baby, how are you?” Mom asked when she answered the phone.

“I’m good, Mom, busy with a project, but good. How are you?”

“I’m fine, honey. I just wanted to say hello. It’s as if you’ve become a stranger lately.”

“Really?”

I felt guilty about lying, I knew that lately my first point of call, wasn’t my mom. I went on about hearing from dad, but she had tried to call me, more than once lately and I wasn’t ignoring her but didn’t feel the desperate need to call her back.

Not like when Dad called and I realized as we spoke, that just wasn’t right.

“I’m really good, Mom. I’m so glad to hear your voice. I’m sorry, I take you for granted, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you, it’s just that I get busy. And college. And all that, but I do love you,” I gushed and didn’t care who heard me.

“Hey, it’s ok. If you’re having fun at college then I’m happy for you. I didn’t want to rain down on you. I just want to make sure that you’re ok. You can call me or even text me back once in a while.”

“I will. Scout’s honor.”

She laughed, mainly because I’d never been in the Scouts but I did have honor.

She said, “Bye, Tessa.”

I felt so much lighter as I stood up to walk to class having spoken to Mom. I needed to give her the love and attention that she deserved, and I vowed to do it, starting from today.

My texts to the guys over the last week had distracted me so much that my brain was occupied with something else apart from worrying about the paper, and that had been nice.

I had a reason to smile today, I reminded myself as I sat down and took out my notebook. I had a load of guys after me, and I’d turned in my first real article about what life in polyamorous relationships was like. Hectic, fun, confusing sometimes, but with so many directions to turn to, so many kinds of men to talk with, I was finding out a lot about men in general.

I found it interesting that they all knew other men existed, but there hadn’t been a single sign of jealousy so far. They were all playing nice and tended to stick to their allotted days for communicating with me. I’d get more than one guy texting me some days, but the three brothers especially, respected the other guys had a day of their own.

Even the new guys, Ted, Jess, and Rich, all had behaved well. I was impressed by them all, for different reasons, but the respect they showed me was at the top of the list. Of course, it might seem rude that they texted me at all, but I couldn’t blame them for that. They were bold, sure, but they’d all approached me respectfully, and hadn’t pushed for sex.

They all sent me sexy texts, sure, but there’d been no kind of “when are we going to fuck” questions. They were all letting me lead, otherwise, I’d have kicked them to the curb anyway. I wasn’t putting up with bullshit from anyone, I didn’t care how popular or rich they were.

I settled into class, started to take notes, and ignored my phone for a while.

By the time lunch rolled around I had a text from Jenny, our student newspaper adviser and I was nervous about her telling me to stop, because this was going too far. I wondered if she did take control and dictate what was written, would I be able to stop talking to the guys? I hadn’t done the part that I was really curious about, having all of them touching me and doing things to my body that I was fantasizing about, more and more every day.

“We can’t keep up. The papers are flying off the shelves. Well done, Tessa. You might have single-handedly saved the paper.”

I knew from the half dozen grinning emojis that she was excited. I might have done one of those silly in the air foot clicks and made a sound of joy, but I’m too mature for that. Okay, I’m not, I totally did it.

Then, I realized that for a split second, I was worried about her pulling the plug on the articles, because it would mean that I shouldn’t go down the road that I was heading with the boys. Somehow, this started to become more about me, and the article was secondary, for once since I’d been in CU and I hadn’t just been thinking about the paper. For once, I was the priority, second were the guys and third was the paper if I was told to stop writing the articles. I was ready to see this out to the end; nothing could stop me now. I was in too deep. I should have been nervous or even scared if anything it made me happy. Maybe Grandma was right, there was a thin line between sex and fun. I hadn’t had any yet, but I knew from talking to the guys, that I wouldn’t be disappointed by any of them.