The Janus Coins: John's Story

Act 1 – Chapter 1

by Corrupting Power ( http://www.patreon.com/CorruptingPower )

There may be more depressing ways to spend your birthday than in a Village Inn in Iowa City, but what those ways might be, I'm not sure. At least I had one of my sisters with me, so maybe that took a little of the stink off it.

“I still don't understand why you're not allowed to leave campus for the weekend, John,” Abby said to me. “Explain it to me again?” She was twenty years my elder, so while we were brother and sister, she didn't really know me all that well. She was the oldest of the nine of us, while I was the youngest. That meant when she was at the point in her life that I am now, I'd only just been born. And the difference between going to college in the 1970s and the 1990s had to be eons apart.

“I'm a Residence Hall Assistant, Abby,” I told her, for what I'm sure was the third time since we'd sat down for a very late night dinner inside the Village Inn that was usually packed with college students any time day or night but was, of course, nearly completely empty tonight. “That means if there are any residents staying in the hall for the Thanksgiving weekend, I can't leave, because I have to be around in case anything goes wrong or they have an emergency.”

“They're not going to have an emergency, John,” she said, rolling her eyes. “This is your second year doing that job and did anything happen last year during Thanksgiving?”

“No, nor did anything happen during Christmas or New Year's or even spring break, but I did have to talk a student out of committing suicide in September, so it's not like I'm never doing anything in my job,” I told her, sipping from my orange Crush. “Besides, Mom and Dad's house is so damn full for Thanksgiving anyway, I'm sure nobody even notices I'm gone.”

My birthday is on November 25th, and that means every seven years, my birthday falls on Thanksgiving, and the other six years of the cycle, people were always too busy with Thanksgiving to give a fuck about my birthday. Shit, that year in particular was my 21st birthday even, and the bars had basically been empty. Sure, I'd still gotten free drinks from the couple of bars my sister and I wandered into, but my friends had all gone home to their families, and so it didn't really feel like much of a celebration without people around to celebrate with me.

I was a little surprised my family had sent Abby this year. For the last three years, they'd dispatched someone from the family to come and spend the day with me, to tell me to cheer up, to tell me how much the family misses me and they wish I could come home for the holidays, but that they understood why I couldn't and they still loved me anyway.

But to drive from Iowa City to Hanston, Kansas was 9 hours under the best conditions, which it never was.

Abby's husband, Marcus, had already gone to bed back at the Motel 6 and would be getting up at the buttcrack of dawn, if not earlier, to drive the two of them to the farm in time to make Thanksgiving dinner. Last year they'd given the job to my brother Josh, who was driving down from Chicago anyway, and just stopped along the way. The first year the gig had fallen to my sister Danielle, who'd driven over from her home in Omaha, since she and her husband were spending Thanksgiving there.

“Nate tells me you're still not dating anybody,” Abby said, sipping from her coffee. “Michelle was almost three years ago, John. It's time to get back on the horse and get back out there.”

“Yeah, well, when your high school sweetheart tells you she wants to try long distance and then starts banging some other dude within a week of starting school at Hamline, you tend to hold onto that wound for a bit,” I grumbled. “I mean, that and the fact that I had to find out because Hutch saw her making out with some dude at a Prince concert he just happened to run into her at, rather than her telling me herself. I mean, c'mon.”

“You can be bitter as much as you want, John, but you're in college! You're supposed to be young and stupid and making mistakes that you're going to look back on fondly for the rest of your life! I practically had to force that Pabst into your hand tonight,” she said, shaking her head. “You should be kneedeep in mindless sex and drugs!”

Abby had lived a pretty good life. She'd gone to veterinary school after college, and offered on-site services for over a hundred farms in Kansas, while her husband, Marcus, owned and managed a couple of restaurants in Topeka, where they lived. Every year, they took two weeks off and traveled to another country they'd never been to. Last year, it had been Haiti, and Abby had spent at least a few phone calls relaying how much they'd loved Port-au-Prince and how I really should go down there and see it.

“Mom says you're not even going anywhere for spring break! Kids going and getting fucked up and getting laid with people whose names they don't even know is a spring break tradition going back at least twenty years, John, and you're not even doing that! You could be getting some of those Girls Gone Wild girls! Tell me you're still at least considering spring breaking.”

I knew she was mostly teasing me, but there was also an undercurrent of genuine concern in her voice, as if she was worried that I was missing out on the best years of my life by being too responsible too early in life, but I'd always been like that.

“Probably not,” I said with a shrug, “but that doesn't mean I can't drink Long Island Iced Teas in the bars here, so I'm sure I'm going to have some fun of my own.”

“Sounds more like a pity party than a real party,” she sighed. “Anyway, this should at least make it more fun.” She slid a small package wrapped in paper decorated with Garbage Pail Kids on it across the laminated tablecloth to me. “Happy birthday, baby brother.”

“You love giving me the worst fucking wrapping paper every year, don't you?”

“Oh hush,” she said. “My kids love this paper.”

“Your kids are five and eight, Abby,” I laughed. “Am I going to regret opening this?”

“I mean, it's probably just a thing that you're going to tell stories about for years, how your crazy big sister actually thought magic might be real, but it looks cool, if nothing else. Go on, open it!”

I tore the paper off and beneath it was an old lacquered wooden box with metal hinges on it. If anything, it looked sort of like a wedding ring box, but the box had artwork on it that had to be either stained or burned on, dark black lines beneath the shiny varnish.

“Is it cursed pirate treasure?” I asked, shooting her a suspicious glance.

“You know I wouldn't give you anything cursed. You're still family, even if you are a pain in the ass for making me have to drive out here so someone's around for your birthday.”

“Anything else I can get you two?” the waitress asked us, the tone in her voice implying that she would love for us to leave. It wasn't like anyone else was in the place, but I guess if there weren't any customers in the place at all, they could read books or watch television without seeming lazy.

“Just the check please,” Abby said.

The waitress ripped off the top sheet of her notepad and set it down on the table, and before she could walk away, my sister had already placed her credit card on top of it, so the waitress went to go run the card.

I opened the box and inside there was a small bundle, cloth wrapped around some tiny object.

“The instructions are on the cloth,” she said, “if they even work. They probably don't, but like I said, what's the harm in trying?”

I unwrapped the cloth and rolled it out, seeing it was indeed a list of instructions, and it was wrapped around what looked like a single golden coin that had to be hundreds of years old, maybe even more. On one side, there was a man's face in profile but mirrored so it was there twice, one face facing to the left and the other facing right, and on the other side, there was an engraving of a door. Around the door were the words “OMNI CORDE OSTIUM.” I recognized Latin when I saw it, but what it meant, who the hell knew.

The instructions on the cloth read as follows:

The Janus Coins

Find a beautiful woman.

Show her the coin and say “A new beginning...”

Repeat steps 1-2 exactly once.

When they say, “A door opens...” your time begins.

After seven days from the door opening, choose the better of the two.

Hand her the coin and say “Your door remains open.”

You have eight seasons to decide to keep her or release her.

If you keep her, ask her to give you the coin and say to her “All other doors have closed.”

If you decide to release her, ask her to give you the coin and say to her “Your door has closed.”

If you choose step 8, you must sell the coin and these instructions within 1 year.

If you choose step 9, go back to step 1 until you get it right.

Praise Janus.

“You've got to be kidding me with this,” I said to Abby, rolling my eyes a little. “You bought me a magic coin? I'm pretty sure you got scammed. How much did you pay for this?”

“Not a lot, so if it's nothing more than just a cute story, no big loss, but if it's real, if it does what the guy who sold it to me says it does, then your women problems are over!” she said. For a woman just starting her 40s, she could be blissfully naive from time to time. “Look, humor your big sister. Give it a go, see if it works, and if it doesn't, we can have a good laugh about it.”

The waitress came back with the credit card slip for Abby to sign, and I'm sure my sister left a good tip, because Abby had done her time waitressing when she was younger. I wrapped the coin back in the cloth and put it back in the box before tucking the box into my pocket. In my left hand, I crumpled the wrapping paper into a ball, so I could toss it into the trash on the way out.

We both stood up and my sister gave me a big, matronly hug. Out in the parking lot, she headed towards Marcus's Ford F-150 pickup truck and I headed over to my crappy Geo Prizm. There was snow on the ground, and the wind was whipping through the air like a motherfucker. I was sad to see her go, but I'd see her again next summer when I made my annual trip down to see the family for Mom's birthday, which also doubled as the yearly family reunion.

I turned the key and my Prizm shuddered to life, as the CD player spun up and the Mighty Lemon Drops begun to sing “At Midnight” through my crappy little speakers. My beat up 1989 car had a couple hundred thousand miles on it, but refused to give up the ghost and began to rumble as the heater in my car started trying to bring the freezer temperature inside to something more hospitable.

It was only a five minute drive from the Village Inn to the dorm's parking lot. Normally I would've just walked or skateboarded over to the restaurant, but it was too fucking cold, and the sidewalks were too fucking icy for boarding safely. The snows in Iowa could start as early as October, and in 1998, they'd begun in early November, so by the time Thanksgiving weekend rolled around, we already had a foot and half of snow on the ground, so even the short jaunt across campus was something I would drive if I could. During the days when the sun was out, it wasn't too bad, but at night, shit, you were likely to get frostbite on that kind of walk unless you were bundled up completely from head to toe.

The parking lot outside of Hillcrest Hall was unusually empty, but not unexpectedly so. For Thanksgiving weekend, most of the people who lived in the dorms tended to drive home back to their parents, to whatever small town they came from, to spend the holiday with their family. Iowa City has a population of about 60k, half of which is college students, so when school's out, both the city and the campus feel almost unearthly still.

It was after midnight, which meant I would have to get whichever RA had been stuck with lobby duty to let me into the building. They'd check my student ID, make sure I lived in Hillcrest then let me go to my room. There would only be a student down here until 1 am and then after that, you had to get campus security to let you in, and nobody wanted that.

I knocked on the glass door, and sure enough, one of the RAs came to let me in. It looked like Stephanie was on duty tonight, and I was surprised. I didn't think she'd even stayed in the building for the holiday, but I guess I wasn't the only one who'd gotten suckered in to remaining in the building.

I hadn't been entirely truthful with Abby at dinner. Only a third of the RAs were required to stay in the hall during vacation times, and those names were generally chosen at random, unless people volunteered, which I had for Thanksgiving last year and again this year.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family, I really do. But eighteen hours of driving to see them for just a day or so wasn't the kind of thing I liked doing that often. Besides, the drive was through the ass end of nowhere. I don't know if you've ever driven through Iowa, Missouri and Kansas before, but it is dull as fuck, there are no real good radio stations and even if I bring like a dozen CDs with me, that means I'm listening to all of them like three times before I get back to Iowa City.

I might not volunteer this year for the Christmas/New Year's holiday break, but it was considered overtime pay, and that meant it was carving out a good chunk of my college loan debts, which was nice. I figured if I stayed in the dorm for the next two years and worked during all the holidays, I might just break even when I graduated, which seemed like a pretty damn good idea.

Stephanie was a good looking girl a few months shy of her own 21st birthday, with wavy hair the color of teak that hung down just a little past her shoulders. She was in her pajamas, big comfy flannel pants and a t-shirt at least five sizes too big for her. The lobby was the warmest place in the building, which was probably the only reason she didn't have a sweater on.

She'd always been polite to me, but never really shown much interest in me beyond being a friend, so I figured, sure, why the hell not. No time to start proving this thing was bullshit like the present. I'd seen her go through a couple of boyfriends last year, and she hadn't seemed to pick up anybody new this year, at least as far as I knew, although I felt fairly certain I would've heard. We RAs are a gossipy bunch. I set my student ID down on the table, as Stephanie began to fill out the log entry, marking my late entry into the building, mostly just as a precaution, I think.

Before she'd finished filling it out, I'd fished the coin out from its nesting place in the box, sliding it out of the cloth, feeling the cool metal against my fingertips. I rested it on the perch of my thumb and forefinger and then flipped it into the air like I'd seen gangsters in old black and white movies do. Giving it a flick with my thumb caused the coin to ping and she glanced up to see it spinning and flipping end over end in the bright fluorescent lights of the lobby.

“Cool coin,” she said. “Almost looks like gold.”

“A new beginning,” I said quietly, as I caught it in my hand again.

“What was that?” she said.

“Nothing, just something I'm supposed to say when I flip it, apparently.” I noticed that nothing about her had changed in any way shape or form, so at that point, I was pretty sure my sister had just gotten ripped off when she'd bought the coin. “Have a good night, Steph,” I said, heading for the stairs to jog up to my room on the fourth floor.

I headed into my room, crawled into bed and fell asleep.

The next morning was Thanksgiving day, and there wasn't a lot to do, really, so I spent the first few hours of the day watching Terminator 2 on VHS for like the fiftieth time while I ate a cup of ramen noodles for lunch. The cafeteria was closed for the holiday, so I'd probably be microwaving some pizza rolls for dinner, bought from the local 7-11. I was wearing a big Echo & The Bunnymen t-shirt and sweatpants, since I knew the building was practically empty.

I figured Thanksgiving afternoon would be an excellent time to get my laundry done, so I grabbed my clothes hamper and my roll of quarters and headed down to the laundry room, only to find I wasn't the only one with that idea.

Inside the laundry room was a thin waft of a blonde girl whose name I didn't know, because she wasn't from my floor. Her blonde hair was done up in a sloppy ponytail that looked it was mostly just to get it out of her face, no real effort to look pretty or stylish. She was wearing a large ratty t-shirt, and I was guessing she had on shorts beneath it, but it hung too long for me to tell. She was pretty enough, a sort of ballerina look to her.

“Hey, you mind if I share the laundry room with you?” I asked her. There were four washing machines and four dryers, so I knew there would be space, but some of the girls were a little skittish about sharing the room with boys, as if we'd be shocked to know they had boring underwear in addition to the stuff they liked to tease the boys with.

“Nope,” she said. “Hop on in. I'm using the left two, but the right two are open. I'm Amy.” She offered me her hand so I took it and shook it.

“Cool, I'm John, one of the RAs from four. Nice to meet you, Amy,” I said as I started to toss clothes into one of the washers. I was glad there were two open, because it meant I could get this done twice as quickly – one washer for my colors and one for my whites, both running at the same time, instead of having to do one load after another. “How come you didn't go home for Thanksgiving?”

“Oh,” she said, smiling at me a little shyly. “My family lives in upstate New York, so I didn't see the point of driving to Cedar Rapids then flying up to Albany just to have to get back on a plane in a day to make it back. It's my first Thanksgiving by myself, but I think that's exciting! College has been such an adventure so far.”

“Ah,” I said to her. “You're a freshman.”

She nodded. “Yeah, history major. I'm planning on being an archaeologist.”

“Like Indiana Jones?” I said.

“Well, yes but no,” she giggled. “It's not really treasure hunting. It's more like spending a lot of time digging, trying to find relics of a lost time.”

“That kind of thing interest you?”

“Oh yeah! My parents sent me to Greece for my graduation present, and I spent a couple of days just exploring Delphi, seeing where the oracle was, and the ruins that are nearby. I could've been there for months if I didn't have to come back.”

“Take a look at this and tell me what you think,” I said, pulling the coin my sister had given me last night from my pocket, holding it out to her.

She took it from me in slender fingers and held it up to the light. “Oh WOW! Where'd you get this from? I'm pretty sure that's orichalum.”

Out of pure curiosity, I said “A new beginning” quietly beneath my breath, and nothing happened. So I answered her question. “My sister gave it to me. She seemed to think it was some sort of ancient Roman coin.”

“It's entirely possible that it's the real deal,” she said, nodding. “Roman coins were usually made of a combination of copper and zinc, and that's Latin on it, although I couldn't tell you what it says beyond the obvious one.”

“You know 'omni' means 'all' too, huh?” I chuckled.

“Sure,” she said, tossing the coin back to me, “but that's all I recognize. You could look on Yahoo! maybe, see if it knows anything about it.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Anyway, there's only a few of us in the building, so I'm going to head back to my room to watch TV for a bit while I'm waiting for the laundry to finish, so maybe I'll see you later John?”

“Yep, I'll probably be back down here around the same time as you.”

“Hey, what room are you in, in case I need to come and get you?”

“406. It's the one with the whiteboard on the door and The Jesus and Mary Chain poster.”

“What's that?”

“They're a band from Scotland. Big noisy rock'n'roll with loads of distortion.”

“Oh. Cool. Well, see ya!” she said, waving at me as she headed to the elevator.

I'd brought the book I was reading, Fred Saberhagen's “The Dracula Tape,” down, but I realized that Amy was right – there was no reason to worry about leaving my laundry down here while I went back to my room and watched TV. I just glanced at my Casio watch and set a timer for 20 minutes, so that I wouldn't forget about it, and would come back to move it into the dryer.

When I came back down later, it seemed like Amy had already moved both her clothes from the washer to the dryer, but mine as well. In fact, there was a post-it note on the washer that said “Put your clothes in the dryer for you. You owe me $1.50! :) Amy” Her laundry basket was sitting beneath her two dryers, so I took two dollar bills from my velcro wallet and put them inside it before heading back to my room, $0.75 for each dryer she'd paid for me, and a $0.50 convenience fee.

Sure enough, when I came back later, timed to arrive just when my dryers were done, Amy had already come and gone, collecting her clothes and the two dollars I'd left her. I decided not to fold my clothes in the laundry room, so just tossed them into the basket and hauled it back up the stairs to my room, closing the door behind me as I turned on the 27” TV I had, lucking out and finding that TBS was showing James Bond movies, and I'd managed to land right at the beginning of Octopussy, one of the better Roger Moore ones. I'd always thought people underestimated how good Moore had been in the role, but I did have to admit, the new guy, Brosnan, was pretty good so far. Way better than that lug Dalton had been. There was going to be another Brosnan one next year, but Denise Richards was going to be the Bond girl, and that was... well, it was a choice, I'd give it that. I remember doubting it would be a good one, and looking back now, boy was I right.

By the time Steven Berkoff was deploying his ridiculous Russian accent, I was mostly done with folding my clothes, which meant I could just relax on the couch and enjoy watching the movie. Or, that had been the plan, any way.

When Bond was pulling his fun little switch at the auction, there was a knock on my door. I headed over to open it, finding Amy standing there in the same outfit I'd see her in earlier, although her ponytail had been cleaned up, like she wanted it to look presentable. “Well?” she said. “Invite me in?”

It was bold, confident, certainly more direct than she'd been down in the laundry room. “How could I refuse?” I said, stepping aside. “C'mon in.” After she stepped into my room, I closed the door behind her. “I wasn't expecting you to actually come to my room when I gave you my room number. I figured you were asking to just be polite.”

Amy moved to sit down on the couch and I started walking towards it to join her, when there was another knock on the door.

“What the hell is going on?” I said, as I moved back to the door, opening it to see Stephanie standing there, her hands on her hips, dressed in a tank top and Daisy Duke shorts that did nothing to hide her ample figure, one I'd never had an opportunity to notice quite so clearly before now. Normally she preferred to keep her clothes baggy. “So what is–”

“This is my competition?” Stephanie said, strolling into my room. “Some flat chested freshman who probably doesn't know her way around a cock if it slapped her in the face?”

I closed the door behind her, leaning by back against it, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Amy grinned, rolling her eyes back as she stood up to meet Stephanie on her way in. “Typical,” she said. “Overconfident and sloppy. Probably relied on those big tits of hers to get whatever she wants out of life. Hasn't a clue how to get a boy off beyond just shoving them into his face and hoping it works to keep him distracted.”

“People have been underestimating me all my life, so you're nothing new,” Stephanie said, holding a hand out to her. “I'm Steph.”

“Amy.” The two girls shook hands. “Good luck to you anyway, Steph, and no hard feelings either way.”

“Sure sure, no reason we can't be sporting about it.”

“Anyway, a door opens.”

“A door opens,” Steph repeated back at her.

“Uh, excuse me–”

“John, sit down, will you?” Amy said. “The more questions you have, the longer it's going to take for me to beat this bitch.”

“I've got the whole seven days with him, just like you do, Amy,” Stephanie said, pushing me to sit down on my couch, forcing me to look up at the two of them standing in front of me. “Two minutes each, first round?”

“Sounds fair. Age before beauty.”

“Bitch, I have both,” she said with a competitive laugh. “But sure, let me show you just how it's done.”

Holy shit, I remember thinking, the coin Abby gave me was real, just as Steph moved to sit down in my lap, sliding her hand back into my hair to pull me into a wild kiss, as her other hand dragged her fingertips across my chest. There was no delicacy, just a vicious wild hunger as her tongue stabbed into my mouth to slap and wriggle against mine.

It had been over two years since I'd made out with anyone, and I certainly couldn't remember ever doing it with someone watching on intently. Exactly two minutes after she'd crawled into my lap, the sound of someone's digital watch beeping went off, and she pulled away from me, a smile on her face and reluctance at pulling away behind her eyes.

“Okay, little girl, you're up,” she said, looking over at Amy as she slid off my lap and stood, walking towards her.

“Hell, you barely even made him want you,” Amy said, as she crawled up onto the couch, straddling me, one knee on either side of me, as she leaned in and pressed her lips tenderly to mine. If Stephanie had been lust, Amy was affection by contrast, with youthful exuberance. Her hands were all along the back of my head, on my cheeks, across the back of my neck, and her hips rocked against mine in a way that was subtle and effective.

Both girls were excellent kissers.

Again, after two minutes, there was another beeping, and Amy slowly pulled back, pausing to kiss my nose for a moment first. “See? Younger can definitely be better.” She reached down and patted my crotch as she slipped away, standing up again. “So anyway, who was better?”

In my head, I had planned to say that it wasn't fair to judge one over the other, but those aren't the words that came leaping from my lips. Instead, to my own surprise, I said, “Well, you were both great kissers, but Amy made the kiss more about connecting with me, like she wanted me to feel how much she wanted me, and so I'd say Amy won.”

I have no idea why I said that, but it also really had the stink of truth about it.

Steph rolled her eyes, but didn't look angry. If anything, she looked annoyed with herself. “It's early days, frosh, so don't get cocky. We've got a lot more events in the tournament before he has to make a final call,” she said, turning down the volume on the TV.

“What do you want to do for the next round, Steph?” Amy asked, toying with her hair a little bit. “Continue the slow roll or jump to the good stuff?”

“Fuck it, I'm horny,” Steph said. “Let's kick it up a few notches. Hey, turn on his space heater, would you?”

Normally the college kept the dorm rooms pretty warm, but for the holiday weekend, since very few people were here, they kept the heat turned down low. We'd been encouraged to either wear a lot of warm clothes or have a little portable heater, which I'd bought last year and hadn't regretted since.

“Yeah,” Amy said, turning the heater on full blast, “if we keep it good and warm, we can get comfortable.” As soon as the tiny box began to billow heat into my room, she pulled her shirt up and over her head, tossing it onto my floor, exposing her small and perky tits, capped with tiny pink nipples. She was wearing a pair of gym shorts, and her fingers were already hooking in those.

“See?” Steph said, as she peeled her own shirt off, revealing a pair of more plush and teardrop shaped breasts, easily a couple of cup sizes larger than Amy. “Told you she only had a couple of mosquito bites.”

“I swear,” I said, shaking my head, “you girls and your worries about if your tits are big enough is bad enough to rival dudes wondering if their dicks are big enough. Size doesn't matter.”

“You know who usually says that?” Steph told me, as she unbuttoned her Daisy Dukes. “Dudes with little dicks.”

“Spoken like a girl with a complete lack of imagination,” Amy said, as she pushed her shorts down to her ankles, stepping out of them, leaving her completely nude. Her pussy was covered in a neatly trimmed triangle of blonde hair. She reached down and tugged my shirt off for me, as Steph was sliding the jean shorts and blue cotton panties she had on underneath. Steph had a darker thatch of curls above her snatch than Amy, and more tightly trimmed in. She also had a little bangle hanging from a piercing in her navel. “Stand up a second, would you?” Amy said to me.

I still wasn't at all sure what was happening, but I had two beautiful naked girls in my room who were trying to get my clothes off, so I didn't think it really mattered at that point, and decided to go with the flow. I stood up and Amy dropped down to her knees and yanked my sweatpants and tighty whities down to my ankles, my cock springing free.

“Doesn't look so little to me,” Amy said, looking up at Steph.

“I've seen bigger,” Steph said, dropping down onto her knees as well, Amy to my left, Steph to my right, neither of them directly facing my cock.

“That look in your eyes says you're lying,” Amy teased.

“I've seen porn before,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I confiscated a stag tape from one of the girls last year, and the guy in that was way fucking bigger.”

“Sure, but this is the biggest you've ever seen in person, isn't it?”

“Whatever,” Steph said, although I could see her cockiness waver just a tiny bit, which made my cock throb in pride. “Two minutes again?”

“Two minutes is all I need,” Amy said, leaning in to wrap her lips around the head of my cock, suckling on it tenderly, nursing on the tip for a long moment, her tongue dragging around the surface of it before she pushed her head slowly down onto my dick, forcing it as deep as she could into her throat. She pulled back suddenly and then thrust forward again, practically fucking her face onto my cock, bobbing her lips up and down my shaft frantically. She had a hurried pace, her hands clinging onto my hips, trying to swallow my cock over and over again. I was damn near ready to pop when I heard that telltale beep and she pulled her lips off with a sigh. “Nearly had him.”

Steph shook her head, with a wicked grin. “Here's where experience trumps youth, little girl,” she said as she leaned in and wrapped her lips around my balls, her tongue rolling them back and forth, washing every inch of them before she let them pop from her mouth one at a time, dragging the tip of her tongue up along the underside of my cock, which made me shiver hard. Her mouth finally reached the tip of my cock, and she pushed her mouth down over the circumcised head, only pushing about half way down before drawing back, making sure I was looking directly into her brown eyes that peered up at me, as she dragged her fingernails down along my bare ass, her tongue doing circles clockwise then rotating to go the other direction.

I've got endurance, but I'm only human.

Just as I was thinking I had it under control, she slid one fingertip just a little into my asshole and my body was so overwhelmed by the alien sensation of her massaging my prostate that I just lost my shit, and my balls drew up as I started to spew hot cum into her mouth, her eyes never once looking away from my face, her head nodded a little encouragingly. After my orgasm was spent, she pulled back, keeping her lips closed for a moment before she opened them to show Amy, then swallowed my load of spunk, a cocky grin on her face.

“I don't think I need to ask but I'm gonna anyway,” Steph said. “Who was the better cocksucker, John?”

“Yeah, Steph definitely sucks cock better,” I heard myself say, even though it wasn't what I wanted to say. Nobody likes to hear one person is better or worse than another, but it was almost like when I was asked the question about who was better at something, I felt compelled to give a genuine answer, one that was judgmental without being harsh.

“Let's give him a couple of minutes to recover, and then we can move it up again,” Amy said, not looking at all bothered with the result or what I'd said. “Cuddle with him on the couch, maybe?”

“Sure,” Steph said, as they moved me to sit down in the middle of the couch, each of them climbing up on one side of me, cuddling up against me, as Amy grabbed the heavy afghan blanket that was draped over the back of the couch and pulled it over all three of us. My left arm was wrapped around Amy's shoulders while my right was around Steph's.

“You know, if you two wanna make out...” I said, trying to lighten the mood a bit. Apparently it was the completely wrong thing to do as both girls stuck their tongues out at me.

“No lezzies here, John,” Steph said, scoldingly.

“Me neither,” Amy said. “I'm gonna need the pointy bit, whenever it's ready for another round.”

“She's not the only one.”

There aren't a lot of things I miss about being 21, but the almost negligent refractory period certainly is one of them. I felt my cock starting to stiffen again only minutes later.

“So what are you two doing here in my room?” I finally had the clear enough head to ask.

“We're auditioning to be your girlfriend, John,” Amy said. “I thought that was obvious.”

“Not like it should be a competition,” Steph said, taking my right hand, pulling it down so that it cupped one of her tits, feeling how hard and stiff her thick nipple was. “But I guess she's kinda cute in an innocent sort of way.”

“And while she's a little slutty if you ask me, I guess some guys like that sort of thing,” Amy said, trying to be backhanded in her compliment.

“All guys like a little slutty,” Steph said, smirking. “They just don't all admit they like a little slutty. Just be sure not to go too slutty, although sometimes that's not even that bad.”

“What's too slutty?” Amy asked.

“Did you see the sorority girls in their excuses for Halloween costumes?”

“Ohmigodyes,” Amy said, reaching over to grab one of Steph's hands, squeezing it beneath the blanket. At that moment, it was almost like I'd been totally forgotten and they were just two girls having a perfectly normal conversation. “They had to be so fucking cold in those things!”

“Totally,” Steph said. “Like, did they think they weren't gonna be freezing their asses off without wearing pants?”

“So how do you want to split the rest of time with him?” Amy said, guiding both her and Steph's hand to my cock, the two stroking it together, between their interlaced fingers.

“Well, we're both gonna fuck him tonight,” Steph said. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Amy agreed.

“And I figure we can all sleep in the same bed tonight.”

“Crowded, but sure.”

“Do I get a say in this?” I asked.

“Sure,” Steph said, “and you get to say 'yes' and 'thank you.'”

“Alright,” I chuckled.

“Then you take him all day tomorrow, and I'll take him all day Saturday. Then we can meet up again on Sunday, all three of us, see where we stand, and decide what we're doing for the rest of the week, up until next Thursday, when he has to make his decision,” Amy said.

“Feels like he's ready to fuck us,” Steph said, grinning at her competition as the two of them continued to slowly stroke my dick. “Who goes first?”

“Rock, paper, scissors?”

Both girls lifted their hand off my shaft and brought them above the blanket as they went “1-2-3!” and Amy threw rock while Steph had thrown scissors. The two of them giggled at each other, then both of them shrugged. “Guess I'm first,” Amy said.

“Dunno if that's better or worse,” Steph said.

“Right?” Amy turned to move on the couch, sliding until her back was against the armrest of the couch, her legs spread wide. “Why don't you come over here and throw me a bone, John?” She licked her lips, as she reached up and pulled her golden blonde hair out of the ponytail, letting it hang loosely around her face, giving her a more disheveled look.

“With Steph right here?”

“Oh, just pretend I'm not even here,” Steph said, taking my hand from her tit and sliding my arm off her shoulders, forcing me to turn towards Amy. “Go get'er stud. Don't forget to show her a good time and make sure she gets hers.”

I brought my legs up onto the couch, sliding my knees underneath me before moving up onto them, feeling her sliding her legs around my waist. “One thing I bet you,” Amy said, as she reached down and made sure my cock was pointing towards her pussy. “I bet you I'm way tighter than she is.”

“Only one way to find out,” Steph said, pushing on my back, which made the tip of my cock sink into Amy's pussy just a little bit.

“Hey!” Amy said, annoyance on her face as she looked around me at her. “You'll have your turn! This is mine!”

“Sure sure sure,” Steph said, turning up the volume on the TV again.

Amy smiled up at me, one hand reaching up to stroke my face. “Go on. I wanna feel you inside of me. Come on in.”

My hips leaned down and forward, as my cock slowly pushed inside of her snatch, and she was indeed insanely tight, so much so that I was afraid I was hurting her even sliding in, but the look on her face was one of complete ecstasy, and once I was most of the way inside of her, she wrapped her arms around me and kissed me hard, mostly to try and cover up the heavy moan of orgasm that was pouring into my mouth. “Holy fuck, oh my god that's a big beautiful fucking dick you have...” she whispered against my lips. “C'mon now, I wanna feel it pounding me, taking me, stretching my tiny little teenage fuckhole open. God damn, do it.”

I drew my hips back a little bit, feeling her legs around my waist not letting me pull back far, before I pushed down again, starting a slow and steady rhythm, thrusting my cock into her mercilessly small pussy, even though she was soaking wet.

I'd never had sex on this couch before, and certainly not with a third person sitting on it, but there was something wild and filthy about the entire experience that meant I wasn't going to last long, so my pace quickened much faster than I'd intended, and I started jackrabbiting my hips back and forth, thumping her on my cock, even as we kept kissing on and off. Finally, I felt her heels dig into the small of my back just above my ass as she started to tremble again, and the spasms of her already snug snatch suckled a hot load of my cum from my balls into her pussy, as her tongue batted at mine, her voice a high pitched squeal, squeaking against me.

A minute or so later, we were a sweaty mess, my body atop of hers, her cunt so vicelike and tight that it had almost immediately forced my softening cock out of her, even as she laughed a little, reaching a hand up to wipe sweat from her face. “Well, I hope you liked that,” she said to me, “because that was the best fuck I've ever had.”

“That was amazing,” I told her, kissing her again.

A minute or so later, I was moving to sit back up again, and Steph snuggled back against me, tapping my chest with her hand. “Oh look, here's the part where they do that shit with the sawblade yo-yo! I fucking love this part.”

Amy finally shifted and moved to push her body against mine again, kissing my cheek. “Make sure you let Steph know when you're ready for her,” she said. “It's not fair to keep her waiting.”

“I want to be sure he's got the stamina for me,” Steph said, patting my thigh. “So a couple more minutes then I think he'll be ready to go again.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Did you have fun with her?”

“I think you could hear that I did.”

“And did you make sure she came?”

Amy laughed, her voice a little hoarse. “Oh, I definitely did. Twice.”

“Good boy,” Steph said. “Glad to hear you aren't one of those boys who just gets theirs and doesn't give a shit about a girl. You never struck me as greedy, but it's good to have it confirmed.”

Amy gave my cock a playful swipe with her fingertips, batting at it like a kitten playing with a toy. “I think he's probably ready for you, Steph.”

“Great,” she said, sliding out from under the blanket. “And it's warm enough now that we can do it how I like it. Stand up.”

I slid out from under the blanket and moved off the couch as she moved to the side of it. She bent forward, resting her elbows on the arm of the couch, then jerked her head behind her, motioning for me to stand behind her.

“See, like this, you can grip on my hips with your hands and give me a proper fucking, the kind that'll make sure I'm just as sore as new girl here,” she purred. “I'm just the perfect height, so you can line up, slot in and just plow me. Grab my hips, my arms, even my hair if you want. Just ram into me and make sure I fucking feel it, 'kay?”

“Yes ma'am,” I said, moving to stand behind her. She was right – she was the perfect height bent like this that I could just line the head of my cock up and push forward into her pussy, which was wet and gleaming. I wondered if she'd been fingering herself a bit when Amy and I had been going at it, but I couldn't be sure.

Once I was standing in the right place, I reached down to make sure my cock was aligned correctly, then pushed forward, feeling her twat squish as I slid inside of her, a deep moan roaring from her throat. “Ffffffffffuck, okay, okay, that is fucking bigger than I thought it was,” she groaned, “but fuck if it doesn't feel so fucking good, god fucking damn it jesus fucking christ you bastard, that's some great fucking dick...”

I was a little worried from her sudden reaction that it was too much for her, and tried to pull back, but she started whimpering. “Nooooo... more... fuck me more... fuck me harder...” she pleaded, reaching behind her to try and grab my hip. “I need it, baby... dick me down... pump that pussy... make it your pussy... plow the fuck outta me...”

Something about the tone she was using on me overrode my normal sense of concern, so I thrust forward with enough force to make the couch skid just a tiny amount, and I was rewarded with a sultry, whorish moan of enthusiasm. “Fuck yeah, you monster,” she growled at me. “Harder! Faster! Fuck my brains out!”

If my time with Amy had been soft and affectionate, this romp with Steph was the complete opposite, wild and carnal, her hips thrusting back against me, trying to shove her toned ass up into my hips, like she was doing everything she could to get my cock back inside of her pussy at any moment I was even a little outside of her cunt.

Her hands placed down suddenly on the arm of the couch, and I understood why, as the angle made her tits jiggle and slap, the sound of our flesh clapping together again and again matching the television for volume, and eventually even Amy had to look over at watch, a sly smile on her face.

Then Amy shot me a wink.

That did it, and I grabbed onto Steph's hips with both of my hands and shoved her all the way down onto my dick until she was screwed around the base of it, and I could feel the tip of my cock pressed against her back wall.

As she started to crater into her orgasm, the frantic butterfly spasms around my cock ripped that orgasm from me as Steph howled “Do it, you bastard! Cum in my pussy! Flood my fucking cunny!” And somewhere in my body, my balls were filing official protests, but they still did their best anyway, as I fired a few hot bolts of spunk up inside of Steph, while her orgasm ripped through her body intensely enough that I was afraid she was going to rip the arm off my couch.

At the end of it, I had to place my hand on the couch to keep myself upright, as I used my other arm to wipe sweat from my forehead. I slipped my cock out of Steph's pussy, and she whimpered a little, making tiny thrusts backwards, like she was trying to get me back inside of her.

“Okay, so all three of us need to take showers,” I said, “before any one of us is getting in my bed tonight, so we'd better start sneaking over there one at a time. They're basically nobody else on the floor, but you never know if one of the other RAs is doing rounds.”

“Other than you and me,” Steph panted, “there's only Marcie, and she's passed out already. But I agree, we need to fucking shower. First, however, you have to tell us which was better.”

I knew it was a trap. I knew I shouldn't answer. I knew whatever I said, I was going to piss someone off. But, somehow, I also knew I had to answer.

“While Amy was tighter and felt better, Steph was more into it, and talked more, which I like a lot, so Steph wins that round.”

Amy didn't even look upset, as she simply nodded. “Yeah, okay, that's fair, I guess,” she said, sliding out from under the covers, grabbing one of my big towels, wrapping it around her. “I'll be back in a few minutes. I'm not gonna wash my hair, because I'm sure you don't have a hair dryer in here.”

“I don't,” I said to her.

“'Kay. Back in a few.” She opened the door and peeked out, then slipped out, closing the door behind her quietly.

I didn't really know what to say to Steph, as we both moved to sit down on the couch again, and she immediately leaned into me again, so I let her speak first. After a minute or so, when a commerical came on, she said to me, “So Amy seems cute, I guess. That what you want out of a girlfriend?”

“I don't really know what I want out of a girlfriend, Steph,” I said to her. “I wish I did.”

“Yeah, me neither,” she sighed, snuggling in a bit. “Know what I want from a boy, that is. I mean, I'm glad you picked me. At least I think I am. It feels right. I don't really remember being attracted to you before today, but I don't remember not being attracted to you either, so maybe I was and I didn't know it?”

“What if I told you I had a magic coin that made you like me?”

“What a stupid idea,” Steph said, “magic's not real.”

“And yet, here you are, auditioning to be my girlfriend. You ever heard of anything like that before, from any of your friends?”

“All the time, John,” she said, kissing my cheek. “So I'm just gonna go with it. And by this time next week, you'll either want to keep me around, or you'll want to keep Amy, and that'll be that. No hard feelings, nobody angry at one another, just a nice simple tidy solution, and plenty of fun sex until then. There are worse ways to spend a week.”

“I guess so.”

The second Amy came back into the room, Steph hopped up from the couch and grabbed another of my towels, heading down to the bathroom. True to her word, Amy hadn't washed her hair, but she certainly looked and smelled more clean. “God, you left my pussy sore, you magnificent bastard,” she teased me. “But in a good way.”

She moved to sit down on the couch again, but kept her distance from me, grinning at me as I tried to lean in. “Nuh uh. Cuddles after you've showered, mister, not before. You're still all sweaty and stinky and funky.”

I laughed a little bit. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “So you're okay with all this, Amy? It doesn't seem weird to you?”

“College is all about weird things, John,” she said, sticking her tongue out at me. “But I wanted to fuck you and you wanted to fuck me, so we did. What's so weird about that?”

“Did you want to fuck me before you saw me flash that coin at you or after?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Does it matter?”

“It might,” I said. “I might have accidentally made you fall for me or something.”

“Nobody makes me do anything I don't want to do, John,” she said, shaking her head. “So whatever it is you think you did to me, you didn't do it, okay? I'm here, competing to be your girlfriend, because that's what I want. Got it?”

“Yes ma'am,” I said. Looking back, knowing what I know now, I still don't know if any of them ever understood or were bothered by what had happened to them, but it's worth me stressing to you that everyone I ever used this coin on, I basically stayed friends with afterwards, with only the two very notable exceptions.

A couple of minutes later, Steph came back into the room, and she hadn't washed her hair either, but also seemed much better off all clean. She glanced at Amy as she closed the door behind her, giggling. “Were your legs shaking when you walked down the hallway?”

“Oh totally!” Amy said, nodding frantically. “I must've looked like a newborn colt, struggling to walk for the first time, all bow legged and unstable.”

Steph smirked, pulling me to my feet. “That is some good cock you've got there, mister. Now take it and wash it off, and you have no excuse not to wash your hair.”

“Yeah, okay.”

I grabbed the last of my big towels, wrapped it around my waist and walked to the common bathroom. As expected, nobody was on the floor, so I didn't rush, and enjoyed a nice warm shower. Even if the heat wasn't on for much of the floor, with nobody to compete with for hot water, I actually had to turn it down a notch.

Five minutes or so later, I came back and found the girls had adjusted the TV so they could watch it from the bed, having turned the stand to angle it, and now both were in bed waiting for me, space in the middle between them.

“C'mon, 'You Only Live Twice' is about to start,” Amy said to me as I closed the door behind me then threw my towel into the hamper with the other two. I knew I was going to have to do a load of laundry for just towels sometime that week.

The girls had also folded the afghan into a big pillow and slid it beneath my other pillows so we could basically fall asleep with our heads elevated, and before they'd even gotten to the weirdness of Sean Connery fighting the Rock's grandfather, all three of us drifted off to sleep, both of the girls with their arms wrapped around me, and me, in the middle, confused as hell, but also happier than I'd been in years.

( to post 12/11 )

Act 1, Chapter 2

You'd think that getting a magic coin able to change the minds of women would be the most memorable thing that happened to me in 1998, but you'd be wrong, because a few days after I got that coin, the Midwest was slaughtered by one of the biggest blizzards to hit the region in fifty years, and Iowa City got absolutely demolished by it. Nothing was really damaged but basically everyone was trapped in place for about a week, as everyone struggled to compensate. The whole campus was snowed in, and students were told classes wouldn't start back up for a week, and that they shouldn't struggle too hard to get back to campus if they had gone home for Thanksgiving.

The campus administrator reached out to all of us RAs and instructed us on how to reactivate the heat for our buildings, specifically so we didn't freeze to death. As other students came back onto campus, we were supposed to do everything we could to make them feel at home, but we were told that it wouldn't be all at once, and that we should expect a slow stagger. Many of the faculty were still around, so they would be opening up the mess hall at half-capacity starting Monday, because some students had already made it back as early as Thanksgiving night, and the blizzard had hit midday Saturday, so lots of people were midtravel back, stranded at motels and inns across the Midwest, unable to move anywhere.

All of this meant my trysts with Steph and Amy, well, I'm sorry to say I just don't remember them all that well, truth be told. I do remember that it felt a little like being a child in a shared custody divorce, with them being amicable to each other, but never pleased to see the other one. Steph liked to make sniping comments about Amy, and Amy seemed content just to enjoy spending time with me, although she would also occasionally let a catty comment slide.

But our time together was generally short, reserved to just the last couple of hours in any given evening, and the girls were hellbent on proving themselves sexually to me. Steph would ask about what I'd been up to with Amy, but she pretended like it didn't bother her any. Amy would mostly ask about how I was managing my own stress levels for the day, considering how maddening the campus was, running short handed in a borderline disaster.

The RAs had even been co-opted to help with snow removal, and with good reason. Some of the doors to some of the buildings across campus had been completely buried beneath snow drifts, and the longer we left them covered, the more risk the locks in the doors ran of freezing and breaking. Most of the external doors on campus opened outward, but a handful of them opened in, and one of the buildings had been opened to exposure for several hours, as a wall of snow had knocked the door in, letting the cold air flood the halls.

They were paying us both overtime and hazard pay, but it also meant that for ten hours a day for most of the week, I was engaged in physical labor, and when I wasn't doing heavy lifting, I was doing health and wellness checks for the students who'd made it back onto campus, many of whom were visibly shaken and nervous over the state of the town.

Shit, the pizza delivery guys were charging extra, or “combat pay,” as they were calling it, just to bring pizzas to dorms on campus, and you know shit's gone sideways when pizza delivery drivers are afraid to go out.

All of this is to say that the seven days went by insanely fast, and while I'm sure there was a lot more going on than I was able to pay attention to, whatever was happening in the background, I wasn't picking up as much of it as I should have been, so you shouldn't make the same mistake, okay?

By the end of it, as hurried and haggard as I was, I knew the Steph and I were the worse fit. Her plan was to get into television journalism, but she didn't have any real interest in doing any of the reporting herself – she just wanted to read the news to people, and to be paid extremely well for it. She also didn't really have any interest in getting out of the Midwest, whereas I was thinking about moving to London as soon as I finished college. Also, Steph seemed to think the best way to get me to do things was to order me to do them, and then get angry at me when I didn't immediately follow that order. She didn't seem to want a boyfriend so much as a manservant.

Steph also had an incredibly bleak outlook on life. I would say pessimist, but I think that's not dark enough. It wasn't just that she expected the worst to happen. She expected something even worse than she was capable of imagining to happen. As the week went on, I became less convinced she even wanted to win, just because of how little effort she was putting into the whole thing. Oh she made it clear she demanded my attention when she was around, but she didn't really seem to know what to do with it when she had it. She didn't like talking all that much, so mostly what we did was fuck and watch television, not that I was complaining all that much.

The other problem, however, was that I also knew Amy and I weren't a very good fit either, at least not in the long term. She was 18 and I was 21, and that meant in less than a couple of years, I would be leaving campus to make my way in the world, but she would still be right here. Her dream of being an archaeologist would take her to loads of exotic locations, but I wanted to be a filmmaker, and that was going to limit me to just a handful of places, or necessitate us being apart for long periods of time.

Amy was a stark contrast to Steph, with a positive sense of exuberance about everything all the time, and frankly, that was exhausting, having to deal with someone who was incredibly positive about everything. I mean, the girl saw every challenge as an opportunity, and when I was dealing with the frustration and exhaustion of having to spend full days shoveling snow out from around campus, she tried to cheer me up by pointing out how it was going to be difficult for the administration to overlook all the hard work the RAs were doing, and that there would be some kind of compensation for our dedication, beyond the excess cash. (I knew there wouldn't be, and there wasn't, but at the time, she refused to believe that the college would do us dirty like that. Like I said, she was a freshman. They're all full of an almost insufferable amount of optimism.)

I remember thinking about all of this on the Wednesday night before I had to decide which to keep in my life, and neither girl had come by for the night, to let me have some time to consider and fairly weigh my decision, although I remember also thinking that I shouldn't have to think about it too hard, since the decision was going to be compelled from me one way or another.

See, each time either of the girls had asked me “who is better” regarding anything, I'd found myself completely unable to lie to them. They never seemed to get angry at me over what I said, so I felt myself getting less protective and careful with what I said. When honest opinions aren't responded to with sharp and biting comebacks, it becomes much easier to have a conversation about, well, just about anything.

I had to watch myself around other people, because I was spending most of my free time with these two women and around them, I could say just about anything, but that wasn't true of the other RAs and the other students. In fact, one of the people on my floor had tried to give me guff about having a girl in my room, when the policy was that we were supposed to limit the number of times we had visitors staying in our dorm room. I nearly told him that I wasn't just having one girl in my room, but two. That seemed an unwise thing to say, so I'm lucky I gave half a second's pause before I answered. I pointed out to that student that I'd been lenient on him before, and if he wanted me to change that, all he needed to do was keep needling me.

He stopped after that.

When a week came around, the following Thursday, classes weren't back in session yet, but we had about 75% of the school's population back on campus, so it wasn't uncommon for me to get knocks on my door regularly again – students with questions, concerns or, most commonly, asking for condoms. Lots of kids need condoms in college, and with the AIDS crisis still in full swing at that point, they were at least being smart enough to come and ask for them. So when there was that knock on my door, I hadn't expected the two of them to be standing there, but there they were.

“Hey John, it's about time we had a talk, isn't it?” Steph said, Amy standing right next to her.

The two girls had come by in casual clothing, each wearing jeans and t-shirts, comfortable and baggy, although Steph had on a lot more makeup, as if maybe she was making one final effort to show off that she thought she was prettier than Amy was.

I invited them both in, and as soon as they were inside, I closed the door behind them. The two of them headed over to the couch, Steph sitting on one end, Amy sitting on the opposite, both looking at me, a little impatiently but not saying anything.

Of course, once they'd shown up together, I knew exactly why they were there.

During the week, I'd kept the coin in my pocket constantly, rubbing it between my thumb and forefinger over and over again, hoping I could discern what the motive behind making such a thing would be, but no answers were coming.

“We're not going to be mad, no matter what you choose to do, John,” Amy said to me. “I promise you, whatever you're thinking, it's going to be okay. You just have to choose.”

“She's right,” Steph sighed. “So can we just get this over with?”

“You don't sound so confident any more, Steph,” Amy teased.

“Y'know, I think it's just pretty clear that me and John, we have great physical chemistry, so the sex is rad, but at the end of the day, me and he don't gel,” Steph said. “But hopefully you won't mind if I swing by for a drunken fuck now and again if you two split up.”

“If he chooses me and we split up, then I don't think I'm likely to really care who's he boning, do you? So c'mon John, let's have your choice.”

I remember sighing, because even at that moment, I knew it wasn't going to work long term between me and Amy, but I also knew that wasn't the question at hand. The question was which of the two women was the better fit.

That question I had an answer to.

I stepped in front of Amy as she held her hand out to me. “Your door remains open,” I said to her, handing her the coin. I felt strange as it left my hand, as if the coin itself knew this wasn't going to be a long journey, and it was eager to return to my pocket.

“See?” Amy said, tucking the coin into her pocket, glancing over at Steph. “Told you the better woman would win. No hard feelings?” She offered her hand out to Steph, and the other girl took it from her and shook it.

“Nah,” she said, shaking her head. “Like I said, I figured out early on it was just for the sex. But you have fun with him, okay? He doesn't seem like a half bad guy, all said and done.”

Steph stood up, kissed me on the cheek and then headed for the door. She and I are still friends, but we never hooked up again, despite her coming around the dorms drunk a couple of times when I was between relationships.

Amy stayed the night, and our relationship continued for about a month and change, but just as we were getting close to Christmas, I knew it wasn't going to work. She kept talking about wanting to either take me home to her folks for Christmas or going with me back to my folks, and yet, I was planning on staying in the dorms this year, and she told me couldn't think of anything more tragic, even when I explained to her that I was doing it so I was going to graduate debt free.

See, when you come from a large family, college becomes in some ways a luxury unless you can either pay your own way or earn a scholarship. Most of my older siblings, they made easy to live with decisions. Some of them stayed local, planning to work on the farm with my folks. Some of them earned scholarships, paying their own way through with their grades. One of them, my older brother Nate, joined the Army to cover his education.

No way in hell was I staying on the farm, no way in hell was I joining the military and no way in hell were my grades good enough to get a scholarship. So that only left working my ass off left and right in a desperate attempt to get it done. The overtime pay from the blizzard had cut into my debt considerably, and the university didn't think anyone was going to do the Christmas coverage this year so they were upping the amount of money they were offering for anyone willing to stay, so I'd taken them up on it.

Amy told me again and again that I was working too hard, that I needed to make sure I wasn't going to go crazy with overwork. I told her that if I didn't, I was going to graduate with so much debt that I wouldn't be able to chase my dreams for years.

The argument went around and around for a few days, and she simply would not let up on the matter until finally I just broke. “Your door has closed,” I said, and held out my hand, on a cold December Tuesday morning.

“Yeah, that seems fair,” Amy said, handing me back the coin. She headed out of my room and out of my life. Now she and I did hook up a few other times later in between relationships, but really, I was just keeping the seat warm for some other dude. Like I said earlier, she and I are still friends, although we don't talk as much as we'd like. She married a nice guy who was part of her dig team, a guy named Joe. They send Christmas cards every year.

Neither Amy nor Step ever mentioned the coin, or their weird little competition, to me or anyone else, as far as I know.

Weird, right?

After all was said and done, I decided to sit on the coin for a bit. The idea of using it again made me nervous, and I had done so with so little regard the first time that I resolved not to do the same thing the second time around.

For the second time, I decided to do a bit of planning, give it a little forethought.

If you thought you could get any two women you wanted, how big would you aim? Remember, just because they're going to be okay with it doesn't mean everyone else in their life is going to be. I made a decision, one I advise you to follow, not to go after anyone who already had a partner. No girls with boyfriends, no girls with girlfriends, nobody that would report a change in personality.

But see, here's the thing I've still never really gotten over.

I used this coin seven times over ten years before I finally found my proper match. I'm on speaking terms with basically everybody, and nobody's ever said that the coin changed them. Oh sure, I got the occasional joke about how I was punching above my weight class now and then, but the friends of all the girls I dated via this coin right here? None of them said their friend seemed any different while I was dating them. A couple of them remarked that I wasn't their friend's usual type – that was a bit more obvious for one pair than the rest, but still – and none of them worried about their friend while they were dating me.

But now that I knew that the coin actually worked, that I wasn't just clowning around with some joke gift my sister got me, I wanted to actually plan out who I was going to try and sway. You're about the same age I was when I first got the coin, and you're already thinking to yourself who you want to try it on, but I implore you, if I sell you the coin, you have to give it some thought first, and you can't just go using it on the first pretty girl that crosses your path.

Pretty girls make graves. I'll get to that part of the story eventually.

Oh, I also told my sister that the gift she gave me actually worked, and at first she thought I was crazy, but I let her talk to Amy, because we were still together when I told my sister, and Amy confirmed that the whole thing was real.

That scared the shit out of my sister.

For nearly two hours, my sister and I had talked on the phone about what sort of moral and ethical obligations I had considering I could now make anyone date me. But for as much moral posturing as Abby tried to lay on me, there was also a sense of excitement in her voice, and she made me promise that I would keep her appraised of nearly every step I took along the way.

In addition to that, I made her tell me all about the guy she'd bought it from. He'd been an American tourist in Haiti the same time as them, and she'd kept the present stowed away for a while, although under repeated questioning she admitted that she'd actually forgotten she'd got it while they were there, and that it had been intended to be my Christmas present last year.

The tourist had been distinct, but not at all the kind of person I expected Abby to be talking to. He was in his fifties, hefty bordering on obese, with a giant mess of a scraggly beard and tattoos covering most of his body. She said the fact that he had Elvis tattooed on his neck creeped her out at first, but that the man, who'd called himself Ricky, had turned out to just be one of the nicest and warmest people they'd ever talked to.

On a night out of drinking, Ricky, Abby and Abby's husband Marcus had all got to talking about their families and Abby had mentioned how I was basically the only person in our family not to have a significant other, and how worried about me she was, which was why Ricky had sold her the coin for the low price of one dollar U.S. In fact, Abby told me that Ricky seemed relieved to find someone who was in need of the coin, because he'd been holding onto it for over ten months since it had worked for him, and he needed to pass it on.

I asked if she knew Ricky's last name, but she didn't. I asked her if she remembered where he lived, and she said she thought it was Texas, but also confessed it might have been Arizona. Or New Mexico. Or Nevada. Something in the Southwest, at least, she seemed relatively sure of.

Keep in mind, this is all basically ten years ago, so I considered finding the guy a lost cause.

Abby told me, over the course of our conversation, that I should do what she would always do when starting a new project, and draw up a list, sort out the pros and cons of anything. I told her I didn't see not using the coin as a viable option, so I just needed to make sure I was giving myself chances with the best possible odds, something that she agreed seemed smart. She told me to make a list about what I wanted in a girlfriend, and to not act on it until I'd had the list and settled on it for a few weeks. If I found myself wanting to add something else to the list, then I wasn't ready yet.

Normally, I wouldn't have taken Abby's advice on this kind of thing, on dating or relationships in general, considering she and Marcus had been together since they were freshmen in college, but one thing Abby has always been exceptional at is planning things out, and if she thought I needed to make a list, then I needed to make a list.

Since I had Christmas break basically to myself, I spent that time working on a plan, and considering who I knew in either classes or activities I was involved in that might be a good fit for me, although this turned out to be a lot harder than I'd given it credit for.

See, now if you wanted to find out about someone here on this campus, you could just use Facebook or Google them, but back in 1998, you had to actually do the research yourself. I wasn't part of a lot of school activities, so that meant I had to resort to either people I had met on campus or people I had shared classes with, and that put a pretty major cramp in my style.

Even back then, I knew I wanted to be a director, and that meant I spent a lot of time in either a dark room developing film or out in the world, practicing on mastering my cinematography, because the one thing all my professors could agree on was that I had an excellent eye for composing shots. I think many of them figured I would end up mostly just being a director of photography instead of the actual film director I ended up becoming, but that just goes to show you never to underestimate people, because they'll surprise you.

That's why I'm telling you this whole story, so I can gauge your reactions to all of it and decide if I can trust you with the coin. See, unlike Ricky, I'm only four months out from being done with it, so that means I have plenty of time to make sure I put it into a good and smart pair of hands.

You're right, I am getting off topic. The list.

So over the course of Christmas break, I drafted up a long list about all the things I considered important and all the things I considered deal breakers. At first, I thought maybe I was crazy and that my list was too specific, or too comprehensive, so I considered trimming it down, but instead of cutting anything, I just decided to prioritize it instead, so that I knew what were the most important things and what were the nice to haves.

I also resolved to know the girls at least a little bit better than I had Steph and Amy before I tried using the coin on them. Now I knew that if I wanted meaningless, cheap and easy sex, all I had to do was flip a coin a few times, so that made me somewhat less likely to seek it and more likely to aim higher.

December turned into January, and I started watching the girls in my classes more, talking to them more, and I think just knowing the coin was there gave me a confidence that overcame some of my natural shyness, because I almost stumbled into a couple of dates without even trying.

But, as it turns out, I found the second pair of people to try the coin on within minutes of each other, just a few months later, on Saint Patrick's Day.

Created with Writer2ePub

by Luca Calcinai