An ITCHy Story.
The year is 1976 and twenty-year old Laura Holt is a sophomore math major at Stanford University when she meets a mysterious man.
Standard Disclaimers apply: I hold no ownership or rights to the series or characters. I simply choose to borrow the characters I love to write.
** Please note: I will only be publishing one to two chapters a week of this work, as other stories are ongoing. **
Spring 1976
"C'mon, Laura, it's Thursday night," Betsy implored, flopping down on the bed across from Laura, then drawing her legs up to sit Indian style. The tall, slim… and stacked… brunette, pushed her lip out in a pout.
"Don't you think I'd rather go the party than to do this?" Laura challenged, pointing the pen she held in hand towards the papers lying on the bed in front of her. Garbed in a pair of running shorts and a Stanford t-shirt, hair pulled back into a ponytail, she lay on her stomach on the bed, surrounded by open books and photocopies printed off of the microfiche in the library. "This paper is due Monday morning and is twenty-five percent of my grade! If I blow it, I could lose my scholarship," she prevaricated. It was a small white lie, in her mind, as the paper wasn't due until the following Friday.
"It's one night," Betsy persisted. "You can work on the paper all weekend."
"Don't bother, Bets," Barbara's cool, refined voice advised as the athletically built blonde sauntered into the room, Joanna, as always, right on her heels. "You know it's not Laura's scene."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Laura asked, indignantly. Sitting up on the bed, her chin tipped upwards in affront.
"You know perfectly well what it means," Barbara challenged, taking seat on edge of Betsy's bed and crossing a pair of shapely legs. "You like to talk the talk about being an independent woman of the seventies unbound by the strictures of society, yet when it comes right down to it, you're as much of a prude as my mother."
"Barb!" Betsy gasped, aghast while Joanna's eyes flew open wide and her mouth rounded into an 'o', before an amused smirked settled on her lips.
"Barb's right, Bets," Joanna defended, flumping down onto the bed next to the other pair of girls.
"That's not true!" Laura protested. "I go to the frat parties, the sorority parties, dancing at the clubs. I protest, I march!"
"And you guard your grades as much as you do your virtue," Barbara countered.
"That's unfair!" Laura objected again. "I've had as many boys up to the room as any of you!"
"And never close the deal," Joanna pointed out, joining the fray, ever Barb's little follower. Pink infused Laura's cheeks, embarrassed at the frank reference to her sex life. She was tempted to tell the blonde to get a life and some thoughts of her own while she was at it, but her attention was diverted once again by Barb.
"Embracing the sexual revolution, my ass," Barbara mocked. Laura's eyes narrowed on her friend.
"I've done things. Lots of things," she defended herself again.
"Face it, Laura, you're a tease," Barb accused. "You bring boys back here, get them all hot and horny, but when all's said and done, if they get a hand job from you, they've scored big. You're getting a reputation and it's reflecting on all of us." Barb flicked her wrist absently. "Birds of a feather and all that." Her face turned deep red at the accusation, and she turned a pair of pleading eyes on her roommate.
"Bets—" Betsy gave her a sympathetic look but didn't spare the truth. Her roommate's honesty was one of her finest qualities in Laura's eyes: You never had to guess where you stood with her.
"It's true, Laura," Betsy told her, regretfully. "The boys at Omega Pi and Zeta have even tagged you with a nickname: 'Hold Out Holt.'" That information sent Laura's formidable temper soaring. Crossing her arms, her chin tipped up in defiance, her eyes blazing.
"Maybe that more of a reflection on them than me," she countered. "Is it too much to ask that a boy know breasts are for more than groping? That a really good kiss, one that make you curl your toes, that you could lose yourself in, is some of the best foreplay?"
"Here we go. She wants it to be special," Barb interjected, saying the last word with a sneer and a roll of her eyes.
"Not special," Laura argued, then searched for the correct word. "Good. I just want it to be good. I'm not interested in having my head banged into the headboard just so some guy can get off then add me as yet another notch on his bedpost. I…" she threw up her hands and dropped them in frustration "…want it all. Romance. Foreplay. Finesse. I want the guy to remember that my pleasure is just as important as his own. Is that too much to ask?"
"Sounds like nothing but more talk to me," Joanna commented, looking at Barb for approval.
"Let's face it, Laura," Barb taunted, "You're the only one of us who'll be wearing white on her wedding day, at least legitimately." Laura's eyes widened and her jaw fell open, offended.
"I will not!" she objected, vehemently.
"It is what it is," Barb noted. "You're a prude," she looked pointedly at the books on Laura's bed, "And a nerd. But we love you anyway." Standing, she waved a hand to Betsy and Joanna. "Come on, girls. The boys of Alpha Beta await the…" she gave a pointed looked to Laura, "…women of Four East."
Barbara departed the room, Joanna on the heels. At the doorway to their room, Betsy paused, then looked back at her roommate.
"I'm sorry, Laura," she apologized. Then she, too, was gone.
In the hallway outside of the suite, a bright smile lit Barb's face.
"Let's see if that lights a fire under her, girls."
"You didn't have to be so hard on her, Barb," Betsy criticized.
"You know Laura, Bets. The only way to get her out of her own way is by telling her she can't do something."