This is how it happened.
It was my last year of grad school and I was working my ass off. Sure, I was tense, but I had a great sense of purpose. My professors, on the whole, liked me, and as hard as their courses were I always did pretty well. Of course, blowing off steam was an integral part of that. Without that safety valve, I might have exploded – or imploded from the weight of all the things on my mind. But I was happy to discover that grad students, most of us, are on the same page where dating is concerned: Either you’re looking for a hookup or you’re looking to mate for life; someone to help reduce stress or someone who wants to make that their permanent side gig. It made things a lot simpler.
Pam had originally been the former, but whether through her machinations or the tricks of time she’d begun to slide into the latter. When I returned to school, I told her it was over. She wasn’t happy about it, but she knew how we’d begun, and we hadn’t been together long enough for it to sting so bad. At least that’s what I thought.
I was running across campus one day – not out of panic; I was doing cardio – when I nearly passed by the most impressive set of legs I’ve ever seen. I was just about to turn the corner of the chemistry lab when they caught the sun in my periphery. I glanced to the side and saw them, the way the light clung to their toned musculature, the way the tight buttocks rose up into a pair of even tighter shorts. The legs belonged to Stephanie, and she was bent at the waist and standing in the grass. She was also running, or about to run, and was stretching for all the world to see. I decided to investigate.
As I approached, she rose up and I caught a glimpse of her cleavage. Her breasts were small, not much more than a handful each, but they moved with a fluid softness – even despite the sports bra. Her nose was a little sharper than I like, but it fit her face well: Brown, contoured eyebrows, an oval face, and cold eyes: Blue and hazel when she was relaxed, kind of green when she was mad or excited. Her long brunette hair was up in a ponytail, but it shined under the afternoon sun, which was currently spearing the two of us from between the trees. She was tall. Those legs.
“Hey,” I said.
She gave me a look of passionate disdain. “What?”
“You run around here often?”
Her forehead crinkled as she tried to figure out if I was for real. She had the ‘bitch face’ down pat and it was going into tiger mode. If I was a smart man, I would have run rapidly in the other direction. But I was a horny man, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what those legs would look like in high heels. (I have since seen those legs in high heels, and let me tell you – this bullshit was totally worth it.)
“What do you want, John?”
I was taken aback. “You- Have we met before?”
Once again, the forehead crinkled, this time accompanied by her knuckles on her hips. “I’m Pam’s roommate.”
Ah. Right. I am not an observant man. In my defense, the few times we went back to Pam’s place Stephanie was either out or in her room (and we didn’t spend a lot of time socializing, if you take my meaning).
“Of course,” I said, trying to recover. “How you doing?”
“Are you seriously hitting on me right now?”
Her stomach was toned, there was a sheen of sweat on her forehead and, I’ll be totally honest, the more her sharp nose and sharp eyebrows turned down, the more turned on I got. Maybe it’s the masochist in me, or maybe I just have a thing for angry women with great legs. All I could think of now was her insulting me while we did it on top of Pam’s kitchen table. True, it’s an odd kink, but once you make peace with the fact that you’ve fucked your sister a few hundred times, you’ve made peace with most of your kinks.
So I said, “Yes, I’m definitely hitting on you. But I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
And here’s where Stephanie’s personality shines through, because at this point she could have easily walked off – or, more appropriately, run off. She didn’t. She planted her heels, swayed back on one hip, and frowned and smiled at the same time. “Stephanie,” she said, as if even she couldn’t believe we were still having a conversation.
“Right, Stephanie,” I said. “Stephanie, what’s your major?”
“International relations,” she said. “Marketing, really. You’re an engineer. Pam cried about you for a week.”
Ooh, tough to come back from that one. I tried to look sincere (but not so sincere that I wasted my shot, if I had one) when I said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t think Pam was that into me.”
“You mean you thought you guys were just fuck buddies.”
Yes. Probably shouldn’t say yes, though.
I shrugged and opened my hands in a gesture of conciliation. “She’s great. We went on a few great dates, but I just didn’t feel that connection.”
“Uh-huh,” said Stephanie, not buying that bullshit at all. “Sounded to me like you felt that connection pretty regularly.”
Oh man, Game Over. If this was Independence Day her little aliens would be blowing the shit out of my air force right now. And yet, she hadn’t turned away. Her furrowed brows had relaxed and now she was wearing a look of amused disgust. I shrugged again and took a casual step forward. “I didn’t realize you were listening.”
“Whatever,” she said, and I thought she was about to make her exit, but instead she let out a little laugh. “I’ll admit it doesn’t take much to get Pam to cry, but whatever you think is happening here,” she gestured between the two of us, “it is most certainly not.”
“No, I didn’t think anything was happening here,” I said. “I was just saying hello.”
“Uh-huh,” she said again, her tongue working the inside of her cheek. She turned towards the chemistry lab (this is how bad I had it: even the way her ponytail whipped her neck turned me on) and then turned back to me. She narrowed her eyes. “Were you staring at my ass?”
“Hm?” I said, all innocence.
“You were running, and then you stopped. While I was stretching. Did you come over here because you saw my ass and… I’m sorry, what was your plan coming over here?”
Oh shit. I really liked this girl now. “Babble at you,” I said seriously. “Babble at you until I got your number.”
I watched her gnaw at the inside of her cheek, her mouth closed, while she weighed me with her eyes. She’d folded her arms against her chest now and I was fascinated just watching her mind work. Tried with all my might not to look down at the way those thighs slid down into those tight calves.
“You don’t care how Pam feels at all, do you?”
“Sure I do,” I said.
“What would I say to Pam, ‘Hey, your ex was checking out my ass so I think we’re going on a date tonight?’ That’s pretty shitty.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “I probably wouldn’t mention it. But you’d definitely get a good meal out of it. I mean, there’s no fooling you, so I’d probably overspend on the date like crazy to get in your good graces. And you know how it is at grad school – you take those fancy meals where you can get ’em.”
“Oh my God,” said Stephanie, her mouth wide, her eyes flashing. “You’re a creep.”
“Is that a no?”
She laughed all the way through her jog, and it seemed like she was still laughing when she rounded the chemistry building. I had half a mind to chase her, but I don’t think that would be the feminist thing to do. Instead, I brushed up on my international relations.
* * *
I ran a lot that semester. Sometimes I would pass her by the lake, throwing my arms wide in a ‘why not?’ gesture that she would shake her head at and then ignore. One of her professors was part of a poker club I belonged to, so from time to time I’d stop by the class to chat and, if she didn’t immediately disappear, strike up a conversation with her as she walked to her next class. It infuriated her to a degree, but there was also something in her – that deep, dark, demented part – that was drawn to my stupidity and my tenacity. I know this because she told me.
She told me one day while we were walking across campus. We’d just left the economics wing and I was trying to make conversation about a party I didn’t want to go to alone.
“I don’t even have to see you anymore,” she said. “I can just smell the desperation coming.”
I’d only been at this for a week or two. She wasn’t wrong, though.
Suddenly, she slapped her forehead. “Oh shit, I forgot to ask Tim if that paper is due this Friday or next.” She swung on her heel, and so did I.
“So about this party,” I said.
“Not a chance,” she said. “When do you and Tim play poker? He’s stupidly bad at answering emails.”
“Later tonight,” I said.
“Well if he’s not here…” She brushed open the door to the lecture hall – the empty lecture hall – and cursed. She swiveled on her heel again and then made for his office. I followed, feeling, as I always did, that I was straddling a fine line between being a pest (or at worst, a stalker) and being on the verge of a breakthrough. I was to find out that, either way, she’d give me an answer soon enough. She’d never once told me to get lost, which I found encouraging.
“This paper is kicking my ass,” she said, “and another week would be good. Plus there’s the fucking firm and their stupid party-” Stephanie worked, as near as I could tell, three different jobs, or two jobs and an internship, in addition to her course work and teacher assistant duties. She was Type A all the way.
“You need a date?”
“I have too much work,” she said. We entered the faculty offices and made a beeline for Tim’s door. “That’s all I do is work. I come home and Pam is sitting on the fucking couch whining about the last date that went awry. Like, I’m here to get a fucking job and as near as I can figure she’s here to find a husband or die. It’s gross.” She did that magical business thing where her face went from utter contempt to bright and bubbly as she saw a professor she was trying to secure another internship with. “Mr. Gaffley! So good to see you! Oh my gosh, how did your daughter’s recital go?”