"Ring17 Chapter 17 There was no reason to return to my room so I turned in my dorm keys Monday morning. From the looks of my classmates, the Monday exam was more brutal than I figured it would be. Five in-class essays for a final had more than one person close to tears. Stress strains the self-control of most Siblings, which made for an educational week and a half of exams. Melisa moved in Monday afternoon and the excitement began soon after. We tried to adjust to living with each other, settle the initial question of rank, and deal with exams at the same time. The mixture proved volatile. The exam stress made for the usual snipes that come out when annoyed people cannot attack the cause of their annoyance. I find sniping without a rifle a pointless exercise and left the room the first time Melisa and Michael went at it. Without thinking, I locked my doors making the situation significantly worse. Their spat went from stress release to a full-blown shouting match in seconds and even Doris Alex joined the fray. It continued to escalate until I came out of my room. They silenced immediately without looking remotely penitent. I stared at them until books were pulled out and everyone returned to quiet study. I made sure both doors were wide open when I went back to my room. Lesson learned; Brothers do not even hint at shutting out a Sibling. Locking the bedroom door is permission to let loose every instinct for irrational chaos. It seemed like they had an initial idea on the rank issue. They tested boundaries but for the most part settled into a preconceived order. Janet was the only one overtly unsatisfied with her placement. The other Siblings looked avidly amused by her frustration since she did not live in the house and was not involved with me. Bullets inured me to what most people call stress so it was difficult to understand the panic the Siblings were close to at times during the exam period. To be fair, they had tougher classes than I did, especially Doris Alex. I was the preferred tool for relieving stress. It did not require sex although that was certainly my preference. It was interesting that being in the same room with me relaxed Siblings when they started looking a little wild-eyed. We made it to the weekend with no one drawing blood and with things well on the way to feeling lived in. I walked into my bedroom Friday night after work to find Janet in my bed. She was wearing a pair of blue panties so small that I wondered why she bothered. She let me enjoy the sight of the panties being lost between her asscheeks before turning over. They barely reached a half-inch above her clit. "Nice shave," I said. She nodded. "You're wearing a lot of clothing," she said looking at my groin. I shrugged and stripped down to my briefs. I climbed on the bed and lay down beside her. She crawled on top of me and straddled my hips. She stared into my eyes for a long time. "When I get back..." she said and stopped. "Is that what you want?" I asked putting my hands on her hips. She leaned down and propped herself up with her right arm. With her left, she moved my hand from her hip to her ass. She changed the arm that was holding her up and moved my other hand to her ass also. She knew I liked my hands on her ass and putting them there was a nice way of telling me she liked it too. I took a tight grip on her ass. "Yes," she whispered with her lips against mine. "The day you get back?" I asked before kissing her. "The hour I get back!" she answered breaking the kiss. I dug my fingers into her ass and she moved her hips against me. "So when do you get back?" I whispered. "Not soon enough!" she gasped as I worked my fingers under the floss between her asscheeks. The panties survived the night but barely. Melisa and Janet kissing woke me up. I watched them for a couple of minutes. Their relationship was full of conflict and competition. I thought I might be at the heart of it but watching them wrestle for control of the kiss I figured out that I was fuel for a fire that burned high without me. I yawned, stretched and turned away from them to go back to sleep. From the looks of it, they were going to be at it for a long time. ----- Things were quiet around campus after exams. Seniors walked with proud parents during the day and stumbled around drunkenly at night. Most had confused looks on their faces as if someone let them in on the secret that for most of them college was nothing more than adult kindergarten. I tried to pick out the ones that had needed a place to fuck up their lives without fucking up the rest of their lives. Melisa and Doris Alex found the game amusing, although they wanted to pick out the ones that had wasted an opportunity to play in the collegiate sandbox. I thought that was too easy; they did not stumble at night and looked more panicked than the ones that did. The Siblings wasted the days after exams away with sunbathing in the backyard, sex and more sex. All of us were taking summer classes so we tried to enjoy having nothing to do for a week. I was sitting in the backyard trying not to think about anything when the Sibling buzz captured my curiosity. Michael, Doris Alex and Melisa sat in a tight circle reading from a pair of folders. They looked at me with mysterious smiles every now and then. I stared at Doris Alex for a minute until she passed the folders to me. "What are they?" I asked before opening them. "The Siblings that will start here next year," Michael answered. I thought about that for a minute. "There's not that many of you, isn't 6 a lot for one school?" Melisa shook her head vigorously. "Siblings are brought into the Society at a much younger age than the normal Brother is. Siblings usually attend schools that a Brother teaches in or one that has a Brother living close by," Michael explained. "Being able to attend college with a Brother nearly our own age is cherry," Doris Alex said with a wide smile. She was wearing a white two-piece bathing suit and had been flirting with me most of the day. "We can live with you. There are more Siblings around. It's a much more pleasant environment in general," Doris Alex concluded. She pushed her bottoms aside and rubbed her clit as if it itched. I doubted it did since she was staring at me the entire time she did it. I wondered if Siblings realized they were fulfilling their own expectations, and that a Brother had very little to do with it. I mean how much difference could my living in the house make. I opened the folders and read through them carefully. Doris Alex met my eyes with a raised eyebrow after I was done. I looked around the backyard and let myself think. The documents were thorough. The Siblings might have gotten their hands on them first, but the profiles were undoubtedly written for my eyes. I handed the folders back to the Siblings and tapped my lip with a finger. They waited expectantly. "I need a pool," I said to no one in particular. "It has to be completed before Malia arrives." Melisa smiled and nodded. Malia was from Hawaii and from what I read might actually have been born in the water for all the time she spent in it. A pool was not the ocean but it was the best I could do considering where we were. "It should be covered," Michael said excitedly. "That way she can swim here in the winter." I looked at him from the corner of my eye. For a non-Brother, Michael had a lot of sex with Siblings. I was fairly certain he was thinking about Malia, him and moonlit pool. "Get a high wooden fence around the property too," I said quietly. "A closed off pool will be tempting to college kids, but if no one knows it's here, I won't have to deal with someone being stupid." "Can we invite a couple of people over?" Melisa asked with a little girl smile. "If they can be discrete, I don't mind," I said. "But when Malia arrives, it's her decision." Everyone nodded. "What about Heather?" Melisa asked. "You're building a pool for Malia, don't you think Heather deserves something?" "And what about us?" Doris Alex asked sitting up green eyes shining. "You're getting cars," I said sitting back. "What?!?" Melisa said nearly bouncing out of her seat. I got used to having my own car quickly. Unfortunately, the Siblings stopped asking to borrow it and simply drove off with it whenever they wanted. The first time I walked outside to drive somewhere and had to walk was not amusing to me. I decided on that walk that the issue required a reasonable resolution. I doubted her own car would not stop Melisa from taking mine, sort of like she thought my shirts were just ones I was breaking in for her, but it would give me one to use when she did. I sat back and thought about the new Siblings. I liked Malia but Heather was the focus of my thoughts; brown hair, brown eyes, short and thick with curves. I got hard thinking about her. I did not notice that Melisa and Michael left until Doris Alex brought me out of my thoughts by stroking my erection through my shorts. I looked at her. "You're thinking about Heather," she said with a wide smile. I nodded. "Well, Melisa relieved your Janet horniness," she said grabbing the waistline of my shorts. "I guess I can do the same for Heather." I lifted my hips and Doris Alex pushed my shorts down. She shimmied out of her bottoms and sat on my lap. She kissed me while placing my tip between her pussylips. She drifted slowly downwards enjoying each inch of penetration. I grabbed her hips and pushed up hard taking every bit of depth I could from her body. She gasped in reaction to the motion and wrapped her arms around my neck tightly. She had been playing around the edge of her horniness so it was not long before her pussy opened for an instant and then tried to push me out. I lifted my hips and Doris Alex to take away any leverage her body had. She groaned excitedly and moved her pussy on me to drag out the last of her orgasm. "God, I needed that!" she exclaimed when she finished. I smiled at her. "Can we take this inside?" she asked. Spending the afternoon in bed seemed like a fantastic idea so I kicked my shorts off and picked Doris Alex up. She wrapped her legs around me. I fucked into her with each step towards my bed. She tried to stuff as much of my t-shirt into her mouth as she could to prevent the screams from escaping. I stood by the bed and decided that her reaction was too good not to continue enjoying it. Her eyes opened wide when I moved her up and down my cock with my hands. Doris Alex promised me many things if I would never stop. ----- "What?" Sometimes, Melisa surprised me at the wrong time. Personally, I think she took great joy in it. "Yeah, Susan and Jeremy are teaching a summer seminar together." "I'm in the class, Melisa," I said patiently. Dr. Susan Lawren personally handed me the announcement that Professor Ryan and her would be teaching a joint summer seminar. I took it for what it was, a directive that I should make it a part of my summer plans. I needed something to do anyway so I registered. Melisa gave me a hard look because of my tone; being a Sibling did not mean she was not a woman. I gave her a small nod in apology. "I'm in the class, too," Rachel piped in. Rachel had called to say that she needed to move in early because of a change in her summer plans. No one bothered to tell me until it was time to carry her stuff into the house. Two surprises in one day, I was shocked Melisa was not purring. The part that caused my initial question was Melisa referring to the class as if Rachel was in it. Rachel's admission proved my assumption correct. "How?" I said looking at them. "What do you mean how?" Rachel said putting the box full of her stuff down. "Yeah, what do you mean how?" Melisa put her box down too. I knew better so I kept walking. I carried the box into the house, up the steps, and into the huge double on the second floor. It was not a retreat, I was moving to higher ground. Doris Alex was in the room moving boxes around. She looked up at me as I put the box on the bed. "You might want to take a break," I told her with a smile. Melisa and Rachel stormed into the room, and threw their boxes on the floor before turning to confront me. Doris Alex looked at them, then at me. I shrugged while she laughed knowingly. I stared at her for a moment; her laugh had an edge that had nothing to do with my situation as it stood. Catching the look I gave her, she walked out of the room. "What the fuck do you mean how?" Melisa came close to raising her voice in an all-out shout. We had a discussion about my hearing and her shouting previously. I told her I would never respond to shouting, yelling or any other raised voice actions. She took that to mean she was free to yell, shout and scream to her heart's content. She only lowered her voice when she was ready to deal with whatever caused her desire to get loud. Sibling logic was definitely an adjustment. I turned to the girls again. Rachel was looking at Melisa strangely. It did not prevent her from turning laser-pure blue eyes on me. I sat on Rachel's bed and leaned back. Melisa took a step closer, after a moment of thought Rachel took that step also. I kept staring at them. From up close, the differences between them were striking. Melisa's doll-like features almost painfully thin at first glance, and Rachel's California features. Both athletic but Rachel had more natural size in height and mass. Rachel shifted her weight uncomfortably as I continued to study them. She had known that I wanted her since we met our freshman year. I never bothered to hide it; always willing to drop anything except major schoolwork if she needed something. She must have wondered why I never made a move. Everyone that knew me knew I wanted her. I kept my distance from the subject of being with her though. Sometimes, I wondered myself why I did not push the issue. Maybe the best explanation was that she never gave any indication that she saw her and I as a possible us. She never acknowledged that I wanted her until publicly Melisa had me. Melisa cleared her throat and looked down at me. There was something in her eyes that I saw every time we spoke to or were with Rachel. Samantha and I had a few conversations since my exams ended and she told me not to try figure out the actions of Siblings, not even one I was close to. I would just give myself a headache. "Siblings and Brothers don't have the same needs. You can't understand why they need what they do, so you'll never understand their motivations. Without the motivations, their actions will never make any sense to you." I knew Melisa was up to something but I could not fit Rachel's involvement into the puzzle. From my perspective, Rachel was competition for everything that Melisa wanted. Had someone other than Rachel impeded my path to her... Melisa kicked my foot. Rachel gasped and giggled. "Well?" Melisa asked annoyed. "Let's see, Melisa." I said counting things off on my fingers. "One, it's a level 400 seminar reserved for majors only. Two, Rachel is not a major, which means she requires special permission. Three, the only way to get permission is to be given it by professors whom she doesn't know, has never taken a class with and are inundated with requests right now. Four, this class was announced during the exam period so how did she find out." Melisa's blush was telling. "Rachel, why the hell do you even want to take this class?" I asked, realizing my mistake of including Rachel in the conversation instead of cornering Melisa alone. The class was on political writings: speeches, political editorials, pamphlets, judiciary decisions, etc. Part of the required work was the students going through the same goal-specific creative process. "It fills my interdisciplinary and writing requirements," she said sitting down next to me. "Shit!" "I told you I took a hit. I talked to the Dean and she said that it would save me from having to take three or four extra classes." "What?" "I was busy taking languages and those don't count for the writing requirements. Everything I took was in one discipline so I was screwed because I thought I would have time my senior year for 'bullshit' classes. YOU told me that taking classes that fulfilled multiple requirements was what I should." I remembered the conversation. I remembered every conversation I had with Rachel. I cursed that Rachel was the only person I met in college who took my advice seriously. "Rachel, it's not an easy class. Jesus, it's a double summer session course and the writing is going to be tough for people in the majors." "I talked to both of the professors. When they heard that I lived with you and Melisa, they said if you two helped me I would be okay. Dr. Lawren said her portion of the grade was based on group projects and a group paper so she would put the three of us in the same group. Dr. Ryan said it would be good for Melisa and you to have an academically unbiased viewpoint, whatever that means." I sighed and threw my upper body back on the bed in frustration. Maybe Samantha was right, I could see the pattern but I did not understand why Melisa was weaving it. Professor Ryan was a fellow conspirator but he probably thought that an 'academically unbiased viewpoint' was a great idea. Dr. Lawren was a mystery. I could not think of a single reason she would let Rachel into the class. I talked to seven other students participating in the seminar. Not counting Rachel, Melisa and I were the only juniors and some of the others were graduate students taking the class because of the professors. I got up from the bed and went downstairs to move the rest of Rachel's things to her new bedroom. ----- I walked into the classroom behind the girls. Rachel spent a nervous weekend. We bought the books and they sent her into a panic until Melisa calmed her down. "It's only one book per week," Melisa kept repeating while stroking Rachel's forehead. I stood around agreeing with whatever Melisa said. I still thought Rachel was biting off more than she could chew. Later that night, I talked to her making sure she understood I would be helping her as much as possible. Professor Ryan was staring out the window. Dr. Lawren sat at the table looking through some of the books. She was younger than most professors. I heard she skipped a number of grades early in her education. She finished college and a couple of Master's degrees in five years. She looked no older than 25 and was being considered for tenure. The only problem was the associate professors that had been with the university longer were flipping out. Her books were well received by the academic community so her detractors were fighting a losing battle. The other people in the class were looking around nervously. I was sure some were there for the class work but most looked at Dr. Lawren and Professor Ryan with wanton lust for a good recommendation letter. I relaxed, noting that a few of the more obnoxious examples of wanna-be academics had not made the cut. Melisa walked to the back of the class. Rachel and I followed in her wake. I saw a few people looking at Rachel; the men with some appreciation, but for the most part everyone wondered what she was doing there. I had resigned myself to the whole thing. A couple of the females said hello to Melisa as she passed by. She had always been aloof but not unfriendly so most of our peers were comfortable talking to her. She sat down and Rachel sat to her left. I shrugged and sat to Melisa's right. Professor Ryan turned from the window as soon as we took our seats and picked up some folders from the desk. Dr. Lawren stood up, put her hands on the desk and asked us to form a circle. Professor Ryan waited as we loudly rearranged the chairs. Once we were done, he handed some of the folders to Dr. Lawren and passed them out to one half of the circle. Dr. Lawren started handing them out from the opposite end. A quick count showed that she would be handing out my folder. I turned to face her and waited patiently. As she handed me the folder, she hesitated before letting go. I looked up frowning slightly. She smiled; I had taken her for other classes so I relaxed and smiled back. She pushed against my grip. The quick motion surprised me and I looked at the folder. She was holding it strangely; in her right hand with her thumb underneath and four fingers on top. Two fingers were spread away from her ring finger and her pinky was spread away also. The grip worked to frame what I was meant to notice; a thick ring with a stone like a flattened pearl set in it. On the left side a man stood etched so purely into the metal that even with wrists chained there was arrogance in his stance and the angle of his head. On the right side, a woman with her wrists chained wore the same arrogance. The etchings were different than the ones on Melisa's, but this ring had the same significance. Dr. Lawren was a Sibling. She let go of the folder, turned and walked to sit behind the desk. I could hear Professor Ryan speaking to the class but I continued to look at Dr. Lawren. She stared back. There was challenge in the tilt of her head as we shared eye contact. She was goading me into a contest I did not know the rules to. I did know that a new spider had stepped onto the web. I smiled at her and deliberately turned away to look at Melisa. She was staring at me, measuring and waiting. I nodded with the same deliberateness I used to turn from Dr. Lawren in acknowledgement of the situation she had orchestrated. For a second, I understood. Janet failed to impart the lesson Melisa wanted me to learn. Dr. Lawren and Melisa looked at each other with matching smiles. My First had found it necessary to bait the hook with a better targeted lure.