Interference
On the Monday after term ended, the campus library was much less busy than usual. Hardly surprising, when so many of the students had gone away for the break, but Belinda found the quietness almost oppressive.
That might not have been the only reason she was having so much trouble getting started on her essay, but it had to be a contributory factor. Which was ironic, since the main reason she’d chosen to delay the trip home for a few days was because she’d get no peace and quiet once she was back with her family.
After she’d deleted around a dozen unsatisfactory opening sentences, Belinda decided to go looking for one of the few other students in the library, and try sitting near them. That should take the edge off the sense of isolation, which might help her focus better.
It didn’t take her long to find someone else, and she felt a hint of excitement upon catching sight of the unruly mane of blond curls she knew so well from assorted lectures and tutorials.
“Michael?”
He turned towards her, and a rare smile lit up his face. “Oh, hi, Belinda.”
“You never said you were sticking around for some of the break.”
He shrugged. “My parents don’t get back from Hong Kong until next weekend. I didn’t mention it when everyone was talking about the holidays ’cause I didn’t want to spoil the mood. Since I was going to be spending a week in an empty house either way, I figured I might as well stay here. Better access to university facilities, and the odd friend is still around, too.”
His expression changed to the more familiar awkward one. “That’s ‘odd’ as in ‘occasional’, not ‘weird’. I didn’t mean to suggest that there’s anything unusual about you.”
A nervous grin flickered across his features, and then his eyes widened in alarm. “Not that I’m calling you ordinary. I mean…”
Belinda suppressed a laugh. There was something endearing about seeing him get flustered like this. “No offence taken. Look, would you mind if I sat at the same table as you? I just feel a bit uncomfortable if it seems like there’s no-one else around.”
“You’re welcome. I know what you mean. I got edgy the first night I was the only one left in the house.” He looked concerned. “I hope it’s not been too bad for you in your digs.”
She shook her head. “No problem there: one of my housemates is still around. Nathan’s in the middle of some important experiment for his course, and needs to stay on until that’s finished.”
“That’s all right, then.” Michael glanced down at his notes. “If it’s not being rude, I should get back to work.”
Belinda sat down and opened up her laptop. “Me too.”
By the time the bell rang to let the library users know that closing time was imminent, Michael had got a fair bit of work done. Not as much as he’d expected, as Belinda’s presence had taken away some of his focus, but the distraction she’d provided was far from unwelcome.
She closed the laptop, and treated him to one of the smiles that made him feel queasy in a good way. “Thanks for the company: it did help. I’m almost half way by now. How’re you getting on?”
“Making slow progress.” Did he dare suggest that they share a desk again the following day? Now that he knew she was still around, he’d most likely end up wasting some time daydreaming about her even if she wasn’t in sight.
Before he could summon up the nerve to say anything, she leapt in with a question of her own. “Have you got anything lined up for this evening?”
He had made plans, but they revolved around household chores and watching TV, and he was pretty sure that wasn’t the sort of thing she was asking about, so he answered, “Not really.”
“Would you like to come round my place, then? Nathan won’t be back from the labs for a few hours yet, and, well, why both be alone when we can keep each other company? I can heat up a couple of frozen pizzas, bung a film on…”
He warned himself not to read too much into the invitation. She was being friendly, that was all. Probably. And he was okay with that. Happiness was elusive enough anyway: why wreck it by resenting good things for not being better things?
“I’d like that. Thank you.” He tidied away his work and accompanied Belinda out of the library.
Belinda returned from her room with the DVD she’d chosen: a psychological thriller with some low-key romance, and several tense sequences that could provide a pretext for cuddling up to Michael and maybe help him to get the hint.
As she slid the disc into the slot, she caught sight of an unfamiliar device plugged into the back of the screen. For a moment she wondered what it could be, but then she remembered that Nathan had said something about an adaptor he’d designed that would enable him to play his imported DVDs ‘without having to faff around with the settings for ages just to get a decent image.’
She made a couple of cautious checks to reassure herself that it wasn’t likely to overheat or blow a fuse, and then left it as it was. Nathan could get very touchy about people ‘meddling’ with his gadgets, and he’d reassured her that this one wouldn’t interfere with her watching TV or ‘regular’ discs. If he was right, she and Michael could watch the film and not worry about Nathan’s gizmo, and if it did distort the picture or the sound, she’d have a valid reason for unplugging it.
The screen flickered briefly as the player began to read the disc, but then the standard copyright warnings appeared on it, and Belinda lowered the lights and joined Michael on the sofa.
For a little over half an hour, they just watched the film. The plot began to draw Michael in, and he started to wonder what the twist would be. The premise pretty much required there to be one, but there were still lots of ways it could go.
Then, out of nowhere, Michael found himself thinking about slipping a hand into Belinda’s top and giving one of her breasts a good squeeze. The thought shocked him: his mother had brought him up to treat women with respect, and while he had previously entertained the occasional fantasy about getting closer to Belinda, they’d never been that explicit before. Up until now he’d never dared to dwell on anything beyond kissing.
Into his head popped the idea of his lips against a nipple, parting to suck on it and allow the tip of his tongue to rub against it. He felt the beginnings of an erection.
What was wrong with him? He had to get out of here before he did anything he’d regret. Doing his best to conceal the growing bulge in his trousers, he stood up.
Belinda transferred her attention from the screen to him, and he realised that he would have to give a reason for his hurried departure. Not the real one, of course: he could never admit to such lewd imaginings.
Feigning illness was the first excuse that came to mind. “I’m feeling…”
“Horny?” she interrupted
He was so taken aback by the question that he blurted out, “Yes,” before he could even begin to think of denying it.
“Oh, thank fuck for that,” she replied. “If you’d left it much longer, I’d have had to start tearing your clothes off.”
She seized his belt and drew him towards herself, and he stopped resisting his building desire.
Nathan had a spring in his step as he headed for his digs. His work in the lab had gone okay, but the important thing today was the first field test of his new invention.
His original discovery of what he called the Golden Wavelength had been an accident. A bit like Fleming with penicillin, though as far as he was concerned, antibiotics were nothing compared to the ability to induce overwhelming sexual arousal in people.
Once he’d created a device that could add the Golden Wavelength to the output of an ordinary TV or computer screen, he’d tried it out on Shania, the only female lab assistant. That had confirmed that the wavelength worked on women as well as men, which was what mattered, but she was in her thirties or maybe even forties, and on the chubby side, so making her crave sex with him had been no more than a data-gathering exercise. Sometimes it was necessary to make sacrifices for the sake of the pursuit of knowledge, and Nathan had to concede that screwing Shania wasn’t quite on the same level as contracting a terminal illness like some historic scientists had.
Belinda, his first test subject outside the lab, was another matter altogether. Tall, slender, with tits that looked like they’d be a perfect fit for his hands—she was a woman he could enjoy fucking. And as he’d hooked up the wavelength emitter to the household TV set this morning, and she appeared incapable of eating a meal without watching something, she should be absolutely gagging for it by now.
The house was an old one, with walls and doors that didn’t let much sound through, so Nathan didn’t hear the cries of ecstasy until he was already through the porch and in the hall. He grinned as he headed for the living room door, imagining Belinda masturbating herself senseless, desperate for him to give her a proper seeing-to.
He pushed the door open, about to offer his services, but the words died on his lips at the sight that he beheld, dimly illuminated by the light from the TV screen. Belinda was naked, stretched out on the sofa, her legs dangling over one of its arms while a similarly unclad friend knelt at the end, eating her out and reaching up to fondle her gorgeous boobs.
For a moment the stranger’s mass of golden curly hair made Nathan think that Belinda’s friend must be a woman, and thoughts of a threesome entered his head, but another look made it clear that this was a man. Nathan grimaced, and tried to think of a way of salvaging the situation.
Belinda’s back arched in an orgasm, and the interfering git raised his face from between her legs, reacting in surprise as he caught sight of Nathan in the doorway. Nathan stepped forward and beckoned to him.
The stranger stood up and advanced on Nathan. Though nakedness was often associated with vulnerability, being the only fully-clothed man in the room wasn’t doing much for Nathan’s confidence. There was something intimidating about the other guy’s erection, the way it bobbed and swayed with every step he took, glistening in the low illumination. Its wetness suggested that he’d already fucked Belinda, the lucky bastard.
“Mike?” called Belinda. “Where are you? I want you.”
“Back in a minute, honey-bee.”
Nathan suppressed the anger that surged through him. Maybe, since this Mike had already had his fun, he’d be willing to listen to reason.
“Look, er, Mike… You’ve kind of blundered into something here. It was supposed to be just me and Belinda here tonight, along with the gadget I rigged up to get her hot.”
Mike’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. “You… set some device up to turn her on?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Only, since you came in with her, it worked its magic on the both of you.”
Mike shook his head slowly, as if trying to clear the fog of lust.
“I don’t begrudge you the action you’ve already got,” lied Nathan, “but, you see, I’ve put a lot of time and effort into this, so I should get the benefits too. You understand what I’m saying?”
Mike took a deep breath. “Oh, I understand.”
“Cool. So you’re okay with moving on and letting me get what I deserve?”
“Yeah, you should definitely get what you deserve.”
Mike’s knee smashed into Nathan’s groin with devastating impact. As Nathan fell to the floor, writhing, Mike crossed back to the sofa, put one arm around Belinda’s back and the other under her knees, and lifted her up. “Which way to your room?”
As it turned out, Michael lacked the strength to carry Belinda all the way to her room. In fact, he only made it as far as the foot of the stairs before sinking to his knees, hurriedly lowering her to the floor so as not to drop her, then keeling over backwards.
He lay there, panting from the exertion. When he’d caught his breath enough to be able to speak again, he gasped, “Belinda… there’s something… I need… to tell…”
The sensation of her tongue running up the length of his shaft caused his voice to leap up an octave as he reached the word, “you!”
“Mmm-hmm?” She planted a kiss on the tip of his cock, and for a moment he found himself deprived of the power of speech.
He’d have given up if what he needed to explain to her hadn’t been so important. As it was, she got in several more concentration-fragmenting licks before he finally managed to croak, “What we’re feeling… it’s not real!”
“You think this is unreal?” Her mouth engulfed the first couple of inches of his erection, and pleasure blotted out all thought from his mind.
Like Mike, Nathan lay flat on his back, overwhelmed by the sensations emanating from his balls, though what he was experiencing was nowhere near as enjoyable. Just as the agony was starting to subside into an almost-bearable throbbing, he felt a fresh wave of pain joining it as his bruised penis started to become engorged.
Somewhere in the depths of his mind, he grasped what was happening. The TV set was still on and, thanks to his emitter, still beaming out the Golden Wavelength, and his body was responding to it in spite of the damage done by Mike.
Nathan whimpered, and flailed around with his hands, desperately trying to find the remote control. After what seemed like an eternity he managed to get hold of it, and his finger stabbed at button after button until, at last, the TV set shut down.
Then, from down the hallway, he heard the sounds of Belinda and Mike enthusiastically fucking, and a whole new world of hurt opened up to him.