About two weeks after the auction I was getting a beer with Janice and Nate in one of the lounges; Mike was reading an Alumni newsletter. I asked him about it since he had not yet graduated.

“Anthony hasn’t been around for very long,” Mike explained. “They have a fairly small alumni association and give seniors the newsletter to try and get us to join early.”

Mike tossed the newsletter over to me and left. The cover story was about the Alumni Cottages. The headline read “Only 18 more months to the Fourth Cottage!” We knew about the cottages. There were three of them on campus, small two-bedroom places where alumni could stay when visiting the campus. They were rarely used. The Alumni Association needed another $18,000 to fully fund the next cottage. Ho-hum, y’all.

Janice had asked me to recommend someone who knew camera work to improve the indexers’ understanding of the story the camera was telling. I introduced her to Nate, and Janice paid him out of her own budget. Pete had called the following week to tell me the latest indexes were the highest quality he had seen. Worth the money, evidently.

Nate began advising on every index. It raised our costs, but not as much as it raised the number of views hence the amount of revenue hence our profits. We switched to paying Nate out of the gross revenue. Which led to a quick phone call to Marcy. We now had an accountant. And our finances finally started to make sense.

Over the rest of the semester Nate updated the indexes on the rest of the recordings. Pete’s revenue took a 28% bump, and so did ours. This guy was pure gold. Well, brownish gold anyway.

Both Janice and Nate had long-distance relationships with which to contend. They got along well, and quickly became friends. Even quicker they became friends with benefits. There was no pretense of love, it was just recreational sex with a friend. Nate had introduced Marcy to Janice on Skype.

“Be careful with his prick and don’t break it,” Marcy said. Janice had laughed.

“So, Marcy, do you want to watch for yourself how careful we are with his prick?” Janice was always playful, of course.

“We?” asked Marcy.

“Sure, we. I make sure his prick gets a good workout most days. Charlene, Sylvia and Valerie pitch in, too.” Janice was always quite direct.

“And Seth,” said Marcy. “Nate and Seth called me about them showing each other how special they are. I think it’s sweet.”

“Only at Anthony could someone say it was sweet when her boyfriend gave his roommate a blow job.” Nobody laughed because Janice had spoken the truth.

“So, are you ready to watch?” Janice sometimes had a one-track mind. Usually I liked the track, but her persistence in pursuit of an immediate goal had caused us to break up. And that wasn’t all bad – Sylvia was far more than a consolation prize.

“Sure,” said Marcy.

Janice took charge. Jay held Janice’s laptop to maneuver the camera. The girls and Seth gathered near Nate. I supervised, which is to say sat on my ass and just watched.

Sylvia took off Nate’s briefs. He had just taken a shower and his poor shriveled man meat looked like a Vienna sausage. A bit of manipulation by Sylvia and Valerie fixed that.

Charlene kissed Nate and cupped his balls in her hand. Janice knelt in front of him and led his dick to her mouth, which slowly descended down his shaft. At last, something I could do! I went over and finished stripping Janice of her lingerie.

Janice worked on Nate’s rod for about two minutes, and then passed it to Charlene. It went from Charlene to Sylvia to Valerie to Seth. Seth didn’t want to share, so Janice squeezed him by the balls until he let go. Jay was having trouble keeping the action in the camera frame. Not my problem.

Janice took Nate’s cock in her mouth once more and settled down for a nice little suck. Sylvia and Valerie were licking his nipples, Charlene was fingering his asshole trying to reach his prostate, and Seth settled for sucking on his balls.

Strange as it may seem, I did not find the scene at all erotic. This was nothing more than good friends enjoying one another’s bodies and giving another friend – Marcy – a chance to participate remotely.

“Marcy, what do you want them to do?” Jay asked. As long as the group was on camera, Marcy may as well get whatever she wanted.

“I want everybody in the room to take turns making out with Nate,” she said. No problem. I took over the camera when it was Jay’s turn, and he resumed recording so I could move in and kiss Nate. Nate wasn’t that great a kisser, but then again neither were the Twins or Charlene.

“Now I want everybody in the room to take turns giving Nate oral sex.” Marcy evidently had a fantasy in mind. Again, no problem. Neither Jay nor I had ever had oral sex with Nate, but that was hardly a barrier to entry into new experiences.

Janice, of course, went first. She bobbed her head up and down on his cock until he tensed. “Whoa, there,” said Seth. “I know what that means. Ejaculation approaching.”

Janice backed off and Valerie took her place. There is no form of consensual sex with a human that Valerie has not tried at least a thousand times; she was an expert at everything. She slowly edged Nate, careful not to let him get too close to cumming.

Next was Sylvia’s turn. She motioned me forward, and we shared Nate’s dick. Sylvia licked and sucked on his shaft while I licked and sucked on his balls. We then switched places. I’d never sucked a black cock before; it was no different from a white one.

Jay went in for a solo, Valerie already having had her turn. He treated Nate the way he treated me, gently but with gusto. Jay became animated and had to back off when Seth smacked him on the head.

Charlene and Seth went last. Evidently, they had had quite a bit of practice. Seth rimmed Nate’s asshole while Charlene licked his balls. Then Seth licked Nate’s shaft while Charlene gave him an overall tongue bath. Finally, Charlene and Seth set to work on his dick at the same time. They were awarded the grand prize, a gusher of an orgasm.

“OK, gang, I’m satisfied,” said Marcy somewhat breathlessly. Her hands had not been visible on camera, and I was pretty sure I knew what she had been doing.

We were basking in afterglow when Sylvia’s phone rang. It was Dr. Wagoner; Sylvia had asked for an appointment. I threw the newsletter in the trash when Sylvia left with Valerie.

They were gone almost two hours. Which we used for some more play time. Nate took advantage of the lull to show me and Jay how special we were to him. I loved the blow job because it was affection from someone special to me. Also, frankly, it was a blow job. I’ve never had one I didn’t enjoy.

Sylvia and Valerie returned. Sylvia told Janice that Dr. Wagoner needed to see her as soon as possible. Janice looked worried, and Nate offered to go with her.

Sylvia said, “Nate, let Janice do this alone. She’s not in trouble, and Dr. Wagoner has some good news for her.”

Nate seemed at least partially mollified. He gave Janice a quick kiss, helped her into her clothes, and she left the room.

I asked Sylvia what the good news was.

“None of your business,” Sylvia said. The tone said even more, so I dropped the subject.

Valerie volunteered that she had waited outside the office while Sylvia talked with Dr. Wagoner. Sylvia had told Valerie not to ask any questions, so no questions were asked.

The girls grabbed beers. We talked about our classes for about half an hour before Janice rushed in. She ran straight to Sylvia, kissed her on the cheek, and then collapsed in tears on the floor. What the fuck? First my summer roommate goes nuts and now his girlfriend is having a nervous breakdown in front of me. I jumped up and banged hard on the blue emergency button. The college had installed them in all of the lounges after Surya’s comment about “What could possibly go wrong?”

Sylvia tried to stop me but was too slow. An alarm went off. The lights in the room started flashing. Mike ran in trailed by a panting naked Regina wanting to know what the emergency was. He was followed almost immediately by a campus security officer in his sixties who, seeing no dead bodies, shouted “Who pushed the alarm?”

Jay pointed at me (thanks, buddy), and the officer pushed me down on the sofa. His face was red. “Lucy, you gotta lotta ‘splainin’ to do here!” I tried to get my breath (and figure out why the old geezer thought my name was Lucy) when I heard Sylvia speak.

“Officer, Miss Longley just got some of the best news of her life, was overcome with emotion, and started crying hysterically. Mark thought she was having a nervous breakdown and pushed the panic button. Dr. Wagoner can explain if necessary.”

The officer said “Necessary!” He then grabbed me by the arm and said, “Lucy, you’re coming with me.” Mike followed. I missed the story and had to be brought up to speed later.

Dr. Wagoner confirmed that she had shared highly emotional good news with Janice, who had run from the room screaming. The officer probably knew the rest. If the officer wanted details he needed a court order because it involved another patient’s confidentiality. She then smiled sweetly, looked at me and said, “Tighty whiteys in this day and age?” She looked at Mike and said, “Aren’t you cold? Most students don’t walk around with their balls hanging out this late in the year, you know.”

The officer chewed me out for panicking and told me in no uncertain terms never to fly off the handle that way again.

Mike assured him that he would seriously chastise me and give me proper instructions. The old guy seemed satisfied with that and walked out.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mike told me. “If you thought someone was having a nervous breakdown, well, that’s what the buttons are for. Consider yourself chastised and instructed. If ever faced with the same circumstances in the future, do the same thing. Now let’s find out what the fuck happened.”

When we got back to the lounge everyone was talking at the same time. That went on for a few minutes until Charlene pulled a whistle out of her purse and blew it. She certainly had our attention.

“Sylvia really knows more than I do,” Janice said. “Let her tell the story.” Janice was still crying her eyes out but they were shining eyes and she was grinning from ear to ear.

“Seth, if I get some of the biology wrong don’t interrupt. Just keep your fucking mouth shut.” Sylvia was in charge.

The story started with her research for Abnormal Psych. She had found an obscure paper about spontaneous bizarre sexual behavior and dug deeper. Cluster of cases in Poland after Chernobyl. She found a later paper with other cases. Worldwide, about 20 cases of spontaneous bizarre sexual behavior, becoming obsessed with someone or some thing or some activity that had no connection with any previous behavior. Drew came to mind instantly.

More research. Paper was by a Polish radiologist, a German neurologist, a German psychiatrist and a neurosurgeon from Denmark. There was a cluster from Chernobyl, another one in Uruguay, but otherwise they were individual cases scattered across the globe.

Radiology yielded striking images. They all showed small tumors called (god knows what the name was, it ended in oma) located in a section of the brain called the (it sure sounded like “baboon shit” to me, but then physiology was hardly my strong suit). The authors thought that the Chernobyl cluster might be linked to radiation, but that was pure speculation.

“Idiopathic,” interjected Mike. I was really sore at him for calling Sylvia a pathetic idiot, but decided to let it go for now.

Anyway, the neurosurgeon excised the tumors and they added some chemotherapy and a cocktail of psychiatric drugs. Within a week of the surgery every patient reverted to whatever had been normal earlier, and the obsessions were gone.

More research. She looked up other papers by the same authors, and came across one from the German psychiatrist, Dietrich von Rumplestiltskin (or something else German-sounding). It was on an unrelated topic and had been presented at a conference in Chicago the previous summer. Other conference papers included one presented by Dr. Marjorie Wagoner. Sylvia took the collected research to Dr. Wagoner and explained about Drew.

That’s when the shit hit the fan. Dr. Wagoner digested the information and grilled Sylvia about the smallest detail. She then called Dietrich. He wasn’t real happy since by then it was past midnight in Berlin. He agreed to find as many of the original radiographic images as he could and would e-mail them to Marjorie the next day.

She called Carl, gave him a summary of the information, and asked him to contact Drew’s doctor in Arizona. They set up a conference call for the next day. Of course, noon in Berlin was six a.m. at Anthony and three in the morning in Arizona. Drew’s doctor started to protest and Dr. Wagoner told him to fucking live with it.

Everyone had the papers and about six sets of radiographic images. By noon Arizona time Drew was being given a “gobbledygook thingamajig” scan. His doctor e-mailed digital copies of the images to everyone involved (taking great pleasure that by then it was two a.m. in Berlin). They agreed on a tentative diagnosis and Drew was scheduled for a neuro exam before nightfall. A neurosurgeon was called in the next day. Three days later Drew was recovering from evidently successful surgery and was quickly returning to normal.

Anyway, the neurosurgeon and Drew’s doctor agreed that he could complete his recovery at another institution if necessary.

Janice spoke up. “Dr. Wagoner gave me the non-technical short version, then turned her computer around. There was Drew on Skype! He has a plane ticket for tomorrow. A medical team to follow him at the local hospital has been put together. He is coming back.”

“We have a lot to do,” I said.

“Keep your pants on,” Sylvia said. Then, after looking at me, she said, “Well, at least keep your jockeys on. I’ve already used your credit card to arrange the Cadillac. Carl, Janice and the hospitalist (I had to look that one up later; I thought it might be someone with a fetish for bed pans) will meet Drew at the airport and take him straight to the post-surgical ward.” Janice started crying again. Sylvia moved to comfort her, but Nate brushed her off.

“My job,” said Nate. He was beaming. Nate looked like he had performed the surgery himself.

Mike spoke up. “Where do they stay once Drew is out of the hospital?” he asked. Drew wasn’t a student anymore, so he couldn’t live in the dorms. Janice was still a sophomore and couldn’t live off campus.

I had this one solved. “Mike, join the alumni association. Reserve one of the cottages. Tell the Association you want to use it for the entire remainder of the year. In exchange, you will bring them a check for $18,000 this afternoon. Sylvia, where’s my checkbook?”

And so it came to pass. Drew returned to Anthony. Janice took Drew’s credit card (he was well off too, just not as well off as I was) and fixed up the cottage for the two of them. When he was cleared to leave the hospital he moved into the cottage with Janice.

I talked to Drew about more work from Pete that I hadn’t had any time to pursue. He said he’d take care of it. I asked why Pete was our only customer. Well, he had no idea why Pete was our only customer. Drew said he would talk to Pete about the new porn business, and then get started on adding more customers. Whom we would add, I did not know. Then again, I crunch numbers and write simple computer programs. He’s the business guy.

Some bureaucratic asshole at the Alumni Association bitched that Drew wasn’t a member of the Association. The Dean was ready for that. He had my check in his hand and asked the asshole if he wanted to quibble or if he wanted the fucking money. He wanted the fucking money. I love our Dean!

A couple months later, the Christmas issue of the alumni newsletter had a front-page picture of the asshole (his face, not his asshole actually) and a story about how the asshole had produced a miracle through his own brilliant and unceasing efforts and bullshit and more bullshit and yadayadayad, and they were breaking ground immediately on the new cottage. The story made no mention of Mike, or me or anybody but the asshole. I made an appointment with the Dean.

I showed him the newsletter and got directly to the point. “Dean Rodriguez, how does this asshole get away with this kind of shit?”

The Dean lit a cigarette and sat back. Smoking was prohibited in the buildings. He was the Dean. Guess who won.

“Mark, what is different between today and three months ago?”

I told him that, first, it wasn’t raining today, the only such day in three months. He laughed. Then he asked me questions. Eventually I recognized the Socratic Method at work.

To summarize: In the past three months Drew had gone into remission and might be cured. A sexual predator had been removed from Anthony and was in jail. The predator’s victim had found an entirely new “Anthony life,” was doing well in school and had a part time job in his academic specialty. Mike and Sylvia had both gained experience in their future careers with Carl’s help. A couple of students had avoided prostitution charges.

Drew had real world work in his business major (the Dean sure gets around). By now well over four hundred Anthony students were providing services in their majors to Anthony City businesses. Janice had gone from confused and bitter to ecstatically happy (this guy gets around a lot). The Alumni Association had a new cottage underway. The list went on and on, and included Seth’s bonding with Nate (how the fuck does the Dean know about this?), my evolution into a full sexual partner with Jay (this was getting spooky now) and about fifty other things.

“How many of these changes, all positive, have resulted at least in part from your efforts?” the Dean asked me. I started to demure, but he was having none of it.

“Mark, every one of these positive changes can be traced in part or in whole to you.” The Dean had finally shocked me; I had never thought about it.

“You have received no credit for these changes, Mark.” Well, that part was true, but I didn’t want credit.

“If you learn nothing else at Anthony, you have now learned one of life’s most important lessons. There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

I mumbled for a while, then, in my always adroit way, asked the Dean a question. “Dean, the old security guard called me Lucy and said I had a lot of “splainin” to do. You’re old too, can you tell me what it means?”

After the Dean stopped laughing he said, “Go ask Desi Arnaz.” I thought this might be a friend of his. I mean, the guy’s last name was Rodriguez, so surely he knew a lot of people with Spanish-sounding names. Desi was probably one of them.

Sure enough, I found Desi Arnaz on Wikipedia. Shit, he died in 1986. Just how fucking old was the Dean? I resigned myself to never figuring out who Lucy was.