If you are looking for a quick fuck story, this isn't it. It's a love story with explicit sensuality. It takes a while to develop, but if you stick with it, you will find rewards. And don't get all weird about the word "crippled." It is passΓ©, but that is the word India uses to describe her condition.
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My name's Tom. I'm a pretty typical college student in some ways, very different in others. I'm 21, a student at a major university in the south. I like to drink beer on the weekends and party. I tried the fraternity thing, but it didn't feel right, but dorm life kind of sucked, too. Finally, I got in this special housing for serious students. Now it's cool.
Let me explain. I'm a dual major in French and International Realtions. I want to join the diplomatic corps when I graduate. Ultimately, I'd love to work in a consulate or the embassy in France. I've been there four times now, and it feels like home. I'm not willing to give up my American citizenship, so I want to be a diplomat in France so I can live there.
So I work really hard during the week, and party hard during the weekend.
But things have changed this year. I spent the summer working at a real job in France with an exchange program through the university. I am pretty fluent now. So, I decided to take my studies really seriously this year. I applied for admittance to live in the serious studies apartments.
Basically, it's a suite of four bedrooms with a common living room and a shared kitchen. They call that a pod. Each building has six pods on three floors, girls on one side and boys on the other. You have to have a 3.75 GPA or better to live there. You sign a contract that you will not play music loud at any time. You agree not to have more than three guests at any given time and only during the specified social times. Overnight guest policy was to be determined among the pod-mates.
I moved in late, just a day before classes started, because I had stayed in France extra time. I was on the second floor. I packed my stuff in quick and figured out my schedule and where I would be going.
The next morning, on my way out the door, I passed this handicapped girl. She had crutches and walked with an odd step. She was dressed in black, but had neon plaid tights on under her shorts. She wore a purple beanie over her jet black hair. She was small framed and short, maybe 5'. Her makeup was dark. She was bitching out loud to herself as I walked by.
"Why the fuck would they put a gimp on the second floor of a building with no elevator? Haven't they heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act? What the fuck?" Then she saw me. "Sorry, didn't know I had an audience."
"No problem. And it is stupid. You gonna complain to the Dean?"
"No. Fuck 'em I'll deal with it."
"Okay, see ya'" and I headed for Comparative Political Systems, 9 am-Noon, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
When I got to French Literature of the Nineteenth Century after lunch, a little late because I had to wait in line at the Quizno's stand in the student center, I sat down at a conference table in the only chair available...next to the crippled girl from my pod. The professor was passing out first-day forms and the syllabus.
"Hey, you're the in-a-hurry-dude from my pod," she said to me.
"Oh, right," I said, "You're the..." and I couldn't figure out the right words to say.
"The gimp-girl on the stairs," she offered. "Yeah that's me. Don't sweat it, I know what I am," she said sort of proudly and pointed to her sticks. "I make everyone uncomfortable. It's okay."
Before I could respond with a suave answer I did not possess, the professor began to speak, saving me. Once he got past the introductory stuff and we began to get into the meat of our subject, it got interesting. We were asked to read aloud. The girl from my pod had a great french accent even though she was a little hesitant.
Tuesday-Thursday classes are long and tiring. You don't do more than two a day, because you are wiped out after the second one. I knew I was going to like Professeur PappaillΓ© because he truly loved the likes of Hugo, Dumas, Chateaubriand, de Lamartine and Gautier. I also knew this was going to be a lot of hard work.
When we were dismissed, I asked the girl from my pod where she was headed.
"I think I'm just going back to the pod for Ramen noodles and broccoli," she answered. "I'm vegan."
"I don't have any food at the pod yet. I think they just opened an Indian food place in the student center. Want to eat there with me? I'm sure you can get vegan."
"No, that's okay. It takes me forever to get anywhere. You'll die of starvation before we get there. I'll just see you around. Bye" And she clipped-clopped off toward the pod in a very stiff-legged gait.
Wow. I was a loser. I got shut down by a crippled girl. Fuck.
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Okay, don't get me wrong. I'm not some wierdo who goes for cripples. She just seemed like an interesting person, and I didn't want to eat alone. I ate alone and still felt kind of weird.
Over the next few weeks, we obviously saw one another in class and talked some. I'd see her in the hall at the pod, since her pod was across the hall from mine. Her name was India ("My parents are un-repentant hippies," she said). And she wore wildly fantastic eye make-up. I mean mascara to make her already long lashes ridiculously long; shimmering, glowing purple, gold, magenta eye shadow; drawn-on lines to elongate her eyes. I didn't get this until I had talked with her a few times. She didn't have a lazy eye, but one was a little slow in following the other. I think she did the makeup to make that less noticeable. But her eyes were huge, and light brown. They weren't like the velvet paintings, but almost. And I don't remember encountering eyes so light brown they bordered on amber.
I started thinking about her a lot. We talked before and after class. I finally got her to stop for a coffee one day. I discovered she had learned her French accent in Brittany, having done a seven-week immersion program in Brest, France the summer before her senior year.
"I was going to go into cosmetology. I didn't think I had the brains for college.Then we got a new French teacher my junior year, Monsieur Hachet. He got me to believe in myself. He got the funding for me to do the program in France. But I had to promise to do rigorous courses my senior year and forgo the vocational training. And I had to take French 4. So, I did, and here I am."
I told her about my time and work in France. She seemed interested. We chatted a little in French. It was cool. But again, she cut it short and clip-clopped away.