Friends With Benefits

For whatever stupid reason, I was naïve enough to believe things would go back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened between Fletch and I, when school started back on Monday. Partially to distract myself from drunkenly losing my virginity and partially because I just wanted one afternoon where I didn’t over-analyze anything to the point of driving myself crazy, I let Fletch take the helm Sunday afternoon and just went along with whatever he wanted. We ended up pulling the spare blanket out of the trunk of his car and laying on in it the park, cuddling, pointing out images in the clouds, and occasionally kissing one another. Things that afternoon felt a lot more simple than they really were and, for once, I was happy to let go and ignore the consequences of my actions.

Things were completely different when Monday rolled around. Will, it turned out, had done a spectacular job cleaning up from the party and his parents had no idea a jumping rager had been taking place at their house a mere twelve hours before. However, in his rush to clean things up, Will forgot that his parents would be suspicious as to why all of the rum in their liquor cabinet was mysteriously gone, so Will ended up grounded anyway with his parents afraid he was turning into an alcoholic. As punishment for his “drinking binge,” Will’s parents took his car keys and forced him to ride the bus rather than along with any of his friends, hoping it would teach him a lesson. He called me briefly Sunday night to explain the predicament before his parents ordered him off the phone. I honestly hadn’t given a first thought, let alone a second thought, to how I was going to get to school that morning when I heard the distinct sound of Fletch’s crap-trap car pulling up while I was eating breakfast.

My mother let Fletch in and he chatted amiably with her, taking the last muffin she had made and then waited patiently for me to return from brushing my teeth. When I came back downstairs, I found Fletch had my notebooks tucked under his arm and easily handed me by backpack and lunch box before taking my free hand in his and escorting me out to the car. He even opened up the passenger door for me to get inside, something he had always said was cheesy and pointless in doing in a post-Women’s Lib world. Fletch not only let me pick all of the music on the way to school, but didn’t make fun of my choices once. Since morning radio was basically all talk and no music, he handed me his iPod plugged in through the cigarette lighter. While looking for some good Monday morning music, I stumbled across the fact that Fletch, a self-professed chick rock hater, had downloaded the entirety of the Gwen Stefani/No Doubt catalog.

When we arrived in the school parking lot, Fletch seemed a little upset that I hadn’t waited for him to open my door a second time, but made up for it by lazily draping his arm around my shoulders and leading me into the building. I noticed several odd and curious stares from everyone we passed by, and for a moment, I didn’t understand what was so weird. Then I looked over at Fletch’s Cheshire cat grin and realized everyone was staring at the arm he had around me. And then it hit me what was happening. After what had happened Saturday night, Fletch though he and I were now officially a couple. As in dating. As in boyfriend and girlfriend. Once the realization hit, I almost choked on air and the strangled, coughing noise caused Fletch to look at me in deep concern.

“You okay, babe?” Fletch asked me sweetly. I gulped, almost terrified as to what I should say or what was actually going on between Fletch and myself.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. Fletch smiled warmly at me and then bent his neck slightly and pressed his lips against mine. I was so involved in the feel of his slightly chapped lights against mine that I didn’t even realize Fletcher Murphy was kissing me in the middle of the hallway in front of everyone at school.

Even though he obviously didn’t want to, Fletch managed to separate himself from me so we could both go to our lockers and get ready for our classes. I scurried to my locker, hoping to maintain a low profile in light of the fact that Fletch and I had just kissed in front of the entire school when we had been beating each other up in the hallway only three days before. I grabbed my books and headed to homeroom where a rather pissed-off looking Sara was glaring at me, tapping her foot impatiently. I sighed as I sat down in my chair next to her, knowing what was coming next.

“You finally hooked up with Fletcher Murphy and you didn’t tell me?” Sara hissed furiously. “I’m supposed to be your best girl friend! You’re supposed to dish out stuff like this!”

“It was… It was sort of an accident,” I blushed.

“Spill,” Sara demanded.

“It’s embarrassing…” I shook my head. “I don’t want to…”

“Spill,” Sara repeated in a slightly more threatening tone.

“We got drunk at Will’s party and had sex in the treehouse. Twice,” I flinched. “And now Fletch thinks were practically married…”

“You… you had sex with Fletch?” Sara gaped.

“Yeah,” I nodded.

“Lenny! You’re supposed to go out on dates and make his jeans unbelievably uncomfortable to wear for months before you do something like that!” Sara berated me.

“Okay, okay. I know I did everything backwards,” I sighed. “I let him make out with me, let him have sex with me, and now I have to worry about whether or not he actually wants to date me…”

“After that little display in the parking lot and the one in the hall, I definitely think Fletch wants to date you,” Sara interjected.

“You saw that?” I said embarrassedly.

“Everyone in the whole school saw that,” Sara snorted. I suddenly felt sick.

“Everyone… that means Will saw it too…” I gaped.

“This is hardly the time to be thinking about Will,” Sara pointed out. “You had sex with Fletcher Murphy. Twice.”

“And in my childhood sanctuary too,” I shivered. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back into that place without thinking about… Oh, God, Sara. What did I do? I had drunken sex with a guy who Dutch-ovened me in his parents’ tent over the summer! I had sex with the guy who was kicked off stage during the middle school talent show for playing his armpits!”

“That was pretty funny,” Sara snickered.

“I think you’ve forgotten the gravity of the situation,” I glared at her.

“Well, to be perfectly honest, there are worse things that could have happened, and worse guys than Fletch they could have happened with,” Sara shrugged. “I mean, at least he still can stand of the sight of you, right? And he’s trying to make things work. He could be completely ignoring you or be giving all the guys in school the play-by-play…”

“I guess I can’t take it back now,” I admitted to myself. “What should I do?”

“Roll with it?” Sara shrugged. “Let him take you out. I mean, if he’s going to put you through that, you should at least get a steak dinner and a movie out of it or something…”

“Is that how it works with Eric? He takes you out for a nice meal so you’ll put out?” I snorted.

“He thinks that’s how it works,” Sara smirked. “It’s a double win for me. Good food and my guy making me really happy, if you know what I mean…”

“I didn’t need to know that,” I grumbled.

“So, how was it?” Sara asked.

“How was what?” I frowned.

“Sex with Fletcher Murphy,” Sara shrugged. I blushed and then shrugged myself.

“Honestly, I don’t remember much of it,” I admitted. “He was… sweet about the whole thing, though. Very caring. It hurt a little more than I thought it would at first, but it got better the second time…”

“It’ll get better the more you do it,” Sara nodded.

“You actually think I’m going to let this happen again?” I gaped.

“Well, once you figure out how it works, sometimes you just can’t wait for a repeat performance,” Sara shrugged. “I mean, it was all I wanted to do for the first couple of months after Eric and I did it for the first time. You’ve heard them say that sex is like pizza, you know? Even when it’s bad it’s still pretty good…”

“I cannot believe we are having this conversation,” I shook my head. “Especially in the context of Fletch and I…”

“What? Were you saving yourself for marriage or something?” Sara asked incredulously.

“No,” I frowned. “More for when I was in a long-term serious relationship with a guy,” I shrugged.

“Will?” Sara asked with a knowing frown.

“Or some hot indie rocker guy in college,” I said. “Or Gaspard Ulliel. You know, hot, French, talented…”

“Ten years older than you?” Sara smirked.

“Yeah,” I laughed.

For the rest of the period, Sara tried to give me her tips and tricks on how to make my next time with Fletch “all that more pleasurable,” and I did my best to ignore her, insisted sex with Fletch and I was never going to happen again. I tried to tell Sara it had been a one-time thing, but she was quick to remind me it had been a two-time thing technically. When the bell rang and class was over, I was a little nervous about heading back into the bustling hallways to hear the whispers or feel the glances of everyone who by know probably had heard about Fletch’s rather intimate behavior toward me earlier in the morning. I tried to keep my head down and not attract any more attention than necessary as I headed out of the room.

What I wasn’t waiting for was Fletch, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, casually leaning up against the lockers across the hall from my classroom and waiting for me. He grinned up at me when I looked up slightly so as to not trip over my feet and crossed the hall confidently. I had anticipated things might be awkward during the second period math class Fletch and I shared, but I hadn’t thought Fletch would be waiting for me when first period got out. I bit the inside of my mouth, wondering if Fletch was going to insist on escorting me to all my classes from now on. Even though I was a little envious of the way Eric catered to Sara’s every need throughout the school day, I had never pictured Fletch as my own personal boyfriend/slave.

“So, you learn anything interesting history today?” Fletch asked me with a huge grin, slinging his arm over my shoulder and pulling me close.

“Not really,” I shrugged. “Ms. Rafferty got a call from her divorce attorney this morning. Her husband wants to keep the house because his new fiancée likes it and, after she threw a fit, she put on a video, took some pills, and then delved into one of those books with Fabio on the cover for the rest of the period.”

“Man, why didn’t I take AP U.S. History?” Fletch grimaced. “I opted for just honors and now I get ex-Desert Storm vet Mr. Jameson who insists we call him colonel, makes us do a minimum of an hour of homework a night, and is too busy talking with the ROTC guys about the specials on the Nazis on the History Channel over the weekend to answer my questions about the chapter we’re on. It doesn’t help that he tests us over military tactics of battles, either.”

“That’s what you get for being a slacker,” I shrugged.

“Yeah,” Fletch laughed. “I guess Will’s still grounded. I haven’t seen him around school this morning. I know his parents took his keys. Do you think he’s late because he walked to school rather than ride the lame bus here?”

“Maybe, though I’d think he’d find someone to pick him up,” I replied quietly.

“Probably,” Fletch conceded.

I kept my head down as Fletch led the both of us to class, continuing to mutter on about how much he hated his history class. I bit my lip, afraid of what people were saying and thinking about it. I did my best to calm myself down, figuring no one had any clue Fletch and I had done the nasty. They all probably thought we had just hooked up at the party and were now going out or something. I was a little afraid of what Will might say or do when he found out since I doubted he would be keen on the idea of his two best friends hooking up. It would have been akin to Sara hooking up with Will or something for me.

I had Fletch in all of my classes for the rest of the day and he fully took advantage of that time to show off as much PDA as he possibly could. During math, he intentionally would rub his legs against mine or place his hand on my thigh under the table. In science and civics, he spent so much time sending me flirting glances that I didn’t have any time to think about the fact that Will wasn’t in class that day. At lunch, Fletch even managed to disgust Chuck Fink while he twirled my hair around his fingers and attempted to hand feed me bits of his brownie. While we waited for our pottery to be fired in the kiln during art class, Fletch stood behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist, whispering in my area all of the romantic things we could do over the weekend. He couldn’t do much in English since we were having a very heated class discussion about The Scarlett Letter, but when study hall came around, Fletch went back to his borderline obsessive lovey-dovey ways.

“You can still help me with my math today, right?” I asked him quietly as I propped open the book. It was hard enough that Ms. Batte was too involved in her slowly unraveling personal life to teach us but now I had to contend with Fletch playing with my air and staring at me longingly while I attempted to learn.

“Sure thing, babe,” Fletch grinned at me, still twirling my brown locks across his fingers. I rolled my eyes.

“You know, I’m not going to pass Algebra II if you keep that up,” I pointed out.

“Sorry,” Fletch said with a smirk that indicated how not sorry he was. He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek before pulling out his own math notebook.

“You know, if you keep doing stuff like that, we’re going to get kicked out of study hall and given detention,” I pointed out.

“I’m sure we could find something to do if the old witch kicked us out of here,” Fletch purred.

“If I don’t do get a start on my math homework now, that’s all I’m going to be doing,” I grumbled. Fletch sighed and then reluctantly started in helping me out with math. Even though Fletch tried his best to distract me the entire time, we still managed to finish up my math homework with a few minutes to spare before school let out for the day. I sit back in my chair, debating on whether or not to get a jump on the rest of my English reading assignment or indulge Fletch in more of his flirty, hair-twirling nonsense.

“I was thinking we could hang out at your place this afternoon since I have to drop Will’s work off and all for him,” Fletch mentioned.

“He talked to you?” I said, doing my best to sound nonchalant.

“Texted me this morning,” Fletch nodded. “Apparently, the chick he hooked up with over the weekend gave him mono, so he’s out sick. This is gotta be like the fifth time this has happened to him, you know?”

“Mmhmm,” I said, doing my best to pretend that I didn’t care.

“After that,” Fletch grinned up at me “you’re all mine, though.” I sucked in a deep breath as the bell rang and Fletch pulled me up out of my seat with him.

It was in that moment I knew Fletcher Murphy was going to be the death of me.