Divergent Limit

This is chapter 3 of my novel Divergent Limit. As of me writing this, chapter 2 has not yet been published on Literotica. I'm publishing chapter 3 in the hope that this will get chapter 2 out of its two week hiatus in pending limbo. So I hope that as you read this, chapter 2 is already published, but if not, please be aware that I know that there's a chapter missing in the series and that I hope it gets published soon. Chapter 3 can for the most part be read and understood independent of chapter 2 as it serves as the character introduction for the third major character in the story. However, ideally, you would of course start with chapter 0, the prologue, and read all the chapters in order. And now I hope you have as much fun reading this chapter as I had writing it. :)

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November 2nd, Sunday

Apparently, this boy's way to cope with his nervousness was to keep yapping. Even after mustering the courage to take Eleanor's hand with his sweaty palm, he kept talking undeterred.

"So, why didn't you move into the dorms? Wouldn't that have been cheaper?"

Another question. It didn't matter, they'd be at her place soon.

"No big reason. Eugene and I thought it would be fun to move in together after high school. In the dorms, I'd have to share a room with another girl."

Eleanor saw him nod, then scratch his head. He still couldn't look at her while he talked to her. Maybe her casually mentioning she lived with another guy made him question where the evening was headed.

"Do you like...?"

"We made it. That's my place. Thank you for walking me home."

She interrupted his attempt to bring up the next banal ice-breaker topic. They had already gone through her favorite color, animal, song, TV show, and food. He turned around, looked over her shoulder at the door behind her, and then at her. He seemed a bit disappointed.

"You... you're welcome. Not that you'd need anyone walking you home."

She hadn't asked him to accompany her because she was concerned for her safety. He was right about that.

"Yeah, well, I wanted you to come with me."

His eyes went wide and immediately sought the ground again. He put his hands in his pockets, trying his best to contain his nervous energy somehow.

"Heh, thanks. Honestly, I was surprised you even knew who I was."

She didn't. She had picked up his name about an hour ago when she had heard one of his friends address him as Michael at the dorm party.

"Uhh, why?"

She really had no idea why that would surprise him.

"Oh, I just thought, with everybody knowing who you are, all the guys hitting on you would just turn into a blur at some point."

Guys hit on her less than Michael thought. It wasn't like she got no attention, but plenty of men preferred women unable to physically overpower them.

"What makes you think everybody knows who I am?"

She was genuinely curious. He gave her a questioning look as if he wasn't sure whether she was just playing coy.

"Are you kidding? You're tall, you're a math major, you're a kickboxer... of course you stand out among a crowd of nerdy dudes. And..."

He hesitated, needing a moment to actually get the words out.

"And on top of all that, you're... beautiful."

The last word came out noticeably softer than the rest. He was clumsy, but he tried his best. She didn't mind some nerves showing.

"Thanks. I guess I don't notice these things so much myself."

A moment of silence between them. Would he finally show a hint of initiative? He was so cautious, she felt like she almost had to drag him to her place.

"Well, I had... fun. I would really like to see you again."

She stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

"We don't need to say goodbye yet. You want to come inside? You walked me all the way here from your dorm. Least I can do is offer you something to drink. You look... thirsty."

He gulped. At least the implication wasn't completely lost on him.

"Uhh, sure, yeah. I could drink something."

She turned around, let go of his hand as she fished for her keys in her purse, and gently commanded him to follow her with a little wave as she walked toward the door.

"Come on, my apartment is on the third floor."

The sound of the apartment door slamming shut behind her was still echoing in the hallway when she pushed Michael against the wall and stole the first kiss of the night from him. He was clearly surprised, overwhelmed by the sudden escalation, but his hands tentatively came to rest on her hips as her tongue darted into his mouth.

"Wait..."

He stammered between two kisses. She held his face in her hands, looked him in the eye, her breath hot on his face.

"What?"

She whispered. He looked confused as if he was only now coming up with a reason for his interruption.

"Um..."

He gently pushed her half a step away. She let him.

"Let me... uhh... let me take off my glasses first."

He nervously fumbled the glasses off his face, then immediately seemed at a loss again, trying to solve the next problem as he found nowhere to put them down while still standing in the hallway.

"Can we..."

He began, but didn't finish.

"Want to take this to my room? You can put your glasses down there."

He nodded eagerly, then pointed at her.

"G... Good thinking!"

She pointed at the door to her bedroom and let Michael go first. She followed him with her eyes. Short red hair, a couple of inches shorter than herself, wearing black cargo pants, a black t-shirt, and a leather jacket he couldn't quite fill out. She was unable to figure out whether he looked cute or just helpless as he waddled to her room holding his glasses in one hand while the other one nervously scratched his head. Harmless was the word she ultimately settled on.

As she followed Michael, she briefly noticed light coming from below the door to Eugene's room. So he was home and still awake, as expected.

She closed the door behind her and kept observing Michael with amusement. He moved cautiously, with the discomfort of a cat exploring a new apartment. He eyed her punching bag as if it could attack him, slowly put the glasses on the nightstand next to her bed, and took off his leather jacket, which he draped over her desk chair with such care that she began to wonder whether it was a family heirloom.

"Sit down."

She said as she slipped out of her own jacket and kicked her shoes off her feet. Michael obeyed and sat down on the edge of her bed. She didn't wait a second before she climbed on top of him.

"You're... moving fast."

He mumbled. She took her top off, revealing the green bra underneath. She put her hand on his chest. For a second, she could feel his heart pounding. Then she gave him a forceful push that made him fall back onto the mattress. She leaned over him until her nose was barely an inch away from his.

"You don't like it fast?"

His erection throbbed against her stomach.

"Uhh... I... I just meant... I don't have a condom."

She put a finger on his mouth.

"Sshhh... I got one... more than one."

She whispered the last part into his ear, letting the implication take root in his mind. He put his hands on her back.

"Just... just wanted to make sure you really want this."

She sighed as she began to lose her patience. Holding his face between her hands, she stared into his eyes.

"How clearly do you need me to say it?"

She paused briefly, then intentionally overenunciated every single word that followed.

"I -- Want -- To -- Fuck -- You -- Michael."

He had trouble holding her gaze, blinking so rapidly at her that it made her wonder whether he could actually see anything.

"Cool..."

She gave him a kiss to shut him up, then took her bra off and began to work on Michael's pants. She could feel his eyes on her body. He was taking her in, and not just her breasts, but her trained physique, the toned abdomen, the defined biceps and triceps that were now visible. She had an idea about what was going through his mind as she pulled his pants off his legs, leaving him in his boxer shorts and shirt. 'What did my body look like compared to hers?' was likely what he was thinking. It wasn't the first time a man had become self-conscious in bed with her as he realized that, unlike with other girls, there was a larger overlap in the beauty standards they were measured by.

She stepped out of her jeans and panties in one go and quickly grabbed a condom out of her purse. Michael had taken his shorts off in the meantime. At least that he could do on his own. She opened the condom, then knelt beside him. Now she only needed to put it on him.

"Do you need... some help with...?"

She didn't let him finish. She put a finger on his mouth, but didn't look at him. Her eyes were fixed on his cock. He was most definitely hard, throbbing eagerly, and dripping precum onto his stomach. She knew how this worked. She had done this before. But it was the first time... since Robertson.

No, not since Robertson. Ever since she had knocked Robertson out five days ago and later confided in Eugene, she had sworn to herself she wouldn't run away from the word anymore. Tomorrow, she and Eugene would go public with what happened, tell the world that Robertson had... raped her. But before she could take that step, she needed to do this.

She put the condom over his cock. His dick felt warm, hot even, as it twitched in her hand. Michael looked nervous. Was this fair to him? He didn't know what this night was really about. It didn't matter. He'd remember this as a fun one night stand, nothing for him to complain about.

She mounted him, hovered over his erect cock. She aligned the tip with the entrance to her vagina. Her breathing was heavy. All she needed to do now was lower herself onto him.

"Are you okay?"

He checked in with her. She didn't know. Then she pushed down, let his cock slide into her pussy. He gasped. She was surprised at how easy it was. She had imagined her body to resist and protest. Instead, it felt like she remembered it, a comfortable stretch, a sense of fullness, the heat of the connection between them, no pain. She looked at his face. His eyes were wide with disbelief.

"Ready?"

"Uh huh..."

Then she began to ride him, slowly at first, but she quickly picked up the pace. Michael moaned. He wasn't the quiet type. The more she moved, the slicker her pussy got. She stopped merely accepting the sensation of his hard cock sliding in and out and began to enjoy the friction. She put a hand on his cheek and lowered her body until her boobs rubbed against his chest with every eager thrust of her hips. With her face now close to his, she breathed a soft whisper into the small gap between their lips.

"You can touch me. I'm not made of sugar."

Michael complied, put his arms around her, held her tight as she kept slamming her hips into his ever faster. She was getting into a nice rhythm when suddenly she felt his fingers dig into her back.

"Ah... AHH!"

And she realized... Michael was coming.

She stopped moving and sat upright again. She looked at him, waiting for his orgasm to run its course while she felt him pulse inside her. There was no denying that this was kind of anticlimactic, at least for her, but technically, she got what she wanted out of the encounter. She didn't feel the need to say anything and gave Michael the time he needed to calm down.

"Uhh... sorry... I..."

His red face gave away his embarrassment. She got off him, gave him some space, grabbed her panties and her top, and put them back on.

"Don't worry. Told you I got more than one condom."

There was no point in prolonging the moment. However this night was going to continue, he needed some time to recover.

"Now I'm actually thirsty. I'm gonna get me some water. Want me to get some for you too?"

Michael just nodded as he covered himself with a blanket.

She made her way out of her room. There was light coming from the kitchen. She was greeted by the hum of the microwave and the familiar smell of chicken teriyaki instant ramen. She slowly opened the kitchen door.

"Hey..."

She greeted Eugene who was sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling through his phone.

"Hey."

He greeted her back without looking up.

"You still up?"

Her question was redundant. Now he briefly glanced at her, a smirk on his face.

"Yeah, my roommate's boytoy wasn't exactly quiet."

She sat down in the other chair at the table.

"We weren't that loud."

Eugene put the phone away.

"I know. Honest answer? I simply couldn't sleep given our plans for tomorrow."

She looked at him. Ever since he had forgiven her for what she had done, he had supported her every step of the way. He had helped her think things through, had gone to the emergency room with her once she decided to get a rape kit done after all, and had let her sleep in his bed next to him the first two nights she didn't want to be alone. She didn't know how to properly express her gratitude.

"Still no reply from Claire?"

She asked him for probably the twentieth time this week. He shook his head, the disappointment in his eyes impossible to overlook.

"No, it's been eight days now. Honestly, I'm starting to give up hope."

She sighed. Of course, she had no idea why Claire was ghosting him, but after everything Eugene had told her about that Saturday at the Infinite Pint, she doubted it was due to a lack of interest.

"Eugene, come on. She didn't teach any of her classes all week. This clearly got nothing to do with you. From what you told me, the woman basically wrote a love letter to your hair. Girls usually don't do that when they got zero interest in a guy."

He twirled one of his curls around his finger, a habit he seemed to have picked up recently.

"I guess all I can do is wait."

He sighed before he continued.

"Anyway, you barging into the kitchen in nothing but panties and a shirt in the middle of the night, is that something I need to brace myself for from now on?"

Her eyes wandered down her body.

"Uhh, does that bother you?"

She hadn't given it much thought. She had run around in her underwear in front of Eugene several times in the past, usually when she was trying on outfits and asking him for his opinion. Neither of them had any issue coming out of the shower in nothing but a towel. But that was before she had tried to urge him to sleep with her after the first assault. He had forgiven her after she apologized for crossing his boundaries, for triggering his trauma. But even with his forgiveness, it wasn't like it had never happened. Maybe running around the apartment like this was more charged now.

"Nah, it's cool. I was wondering, though. You think this is a smart idea?"

She was tapping her foot now.

"What exactly?"

He hesitated briefly.

"Uhh... whatever it is you're doing tonight."

She rolled her eyes.

"It's just a one night stand, nothing special."

The look on his face said it all. He knew that she knew that this wasn't true. He took a deep breath.

"Well... the second assault was just five days ago. Three days ago you asked me to sleep next to you. Looking at it from the outside, diving back into casual sex like this feels..."

She could tell he was very carefully searching for the next word in the sentence.

"...rushed, a little dangerous even."

She let her face rest on her fist, then lowered her eyes.

"I get what you're saying. But it's not about that."

Eugene just waited for her to go on.

"Look, come tomorrow, everybody here will recognize me and I'll be one of two things for every guy I meet. Either I'm the raped girl, someone you have to tiptoe around. Must be careful not to hurt the poor thing. Or..."

She looked at the ceiling now, a hint of anger sneaking into her voice.

"I'll be the bitch who made up an assault charge to get the most popular professor at the whole university fired. Either way, if I want to hook up with a guy on my own terms to see whether I can still do that, I need to do it today. It's not a matter of when, Eugene, but of if."

Eugene nodded.

"Fair enough..."

Then the 'Ding!' of the microwave ruptured the solemn atmosphere the exact moment the clock struck midnight. Eleanor looked at Eugene with confusion on her face as he got up to get his noodles.

"Did you time this?"

She got up herself, finally grabbing the two glasses she had come for in the first place. Eugene had a satisfied smirk on his lips.

"Eleanor, please. As if I would time the microwave to finish cooking my ramen exactly at midnight."

She chuckled. Eugene's quirks made living with him fun. She grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and poured some into the glasses.

"So, any plans to see the guy again after tonight?"

He asked. She glanced at Eugene from the corner of her eye.

"As I said, just a one night stand."

"Does he know that?"

She slammed the glass back down, spilling water over her hand, then immediately turned to Eugene.

"Really? Come on, since when are men known to object to casual sex? We talked for the first time two hours ago. You can't tell me he wasn't aware the night wouldn't end with a marriage proposal."

He threw his hands up.

"Alright, you do you. Just saying that there are guys out there who think weeks if not months about asking a girl out. If sex is immediately on the table on a first date, it can be hard to say no to that for a guy because it might feel like you're throwing away your one chance if you do."

Sometimes she hated it when he made sense.

"He'll be fine... Enjoy your midnight ramen."

She took the two glasses and went back to Michael.

When she reentered her room, he was in the middle of putting his leather jacket back on. Otherwise, he was already fully dressed again.

"Hey, sorry, it took me a moment. Ran into my roommate in the kitchen."

He turned to her.

"That's okay. It is pretty late anyway and I should be going."

She put his glass down on her desk.

"You don't have to leave. You can stay the night."

He took a deep breath.

"Yeah, um... not a good idea. Can I be honest with you?"

She was a little baffled at his reaction.

"Sure, always."

He paused for a moment, his tongue pressed against his cheek.

"Please don't tell anybody, but this was my first time. I'm not saying I had like some crazy romantic ideas or whatever about what it would be like. Just didn't picture this being just... an empty one night stand. That's all."

Not knowing what to say, she took a sip of her water.

"Um, Michael, I'm sorry... I didn't know."

Suddenly, his reluctant behavior made sense to her. He wanted to slow this down, not to check in with her, but for himself. But he couldn't admit that he needed this to be slower for his own sake, so he had been giving her chances to take her foot off the gas hoping she'd do it for him. Eleanor felt bad for him. He wanted intimacy, but instead... he got fucked.

"It's cool. No big deal. You're..."

He looked at her, trying hard not to cry.

"You're great and beautiful. I just thought this would be something else when we left the party together, that's all. I gotta go now."

He walked past her.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay a bit and talk about it?"

He barely looked back as he answered.

"No, uhh, I think the moment for that has passed. Bye, Eleanor."

She sat down on her bed, hiding her face in her hands. As he left, she could hear Michael run into Eugene in the hallway.

"Ramen?"

Eugene offered with his mouth full.

"I'm good..."

An unenthusiastic reply, the sound of the apartment door closing, and -- finally -- silence.