"Scott! The damn toilet's plugged again." Valerie's shout carried from the third floor to the kitchen, where Sharon and I were having a first cup of coffee. I wandered out to the foot of the stairs.
"That's it, Valerie, I warned you the last time. Your indoor plumbing days are over."
Seconds later, the hard body landed on my back and a hand grabbed away the coffee.
"I am reporting you to the city this very morning. Tenants can't be treated like this!"
She perched on the counter, helping herself to coffee and staring at Sharon and me. "You promised," she said. Sharon repeated, "You promised."
I nudged myself between her legs and lay my head on her shoulder. "I was supposed to go to the lab this morning. You are interrupting the course of scientific history."
She ran her fingers through my long hair and kissed the top of my head. "I'm sure Professor Tilton-Jones would want your lodger to be able to take a dump in peace and quiet, confident that it is going to go where it is supposed to go." She giggled and pulled harder at my hair.
My fingers were inside the striped robe, rubbing her modest tits and tweaking the fine nipples on the end of them.
"I had to loosen my bra strap."
"I told you! Mom's technique works!"
Valerie Longchamp was the first lodger in my newly converted Victorian house in Berkeley. Over the summer, my emeritus professor grandparents had decided to move to Oregon to a retirement community in the Rogue River Valley, and give the house to me, their only grandchild. My grandmother, still full of energy at sixty-eight, said that I should take a lodger or two to help with the student housing shortage, and provide some company.
"Scott, you are married to that darn project. You will end up the state's leading expert on seismic structural failure and be the loneliest man in town. I want to hear you are chasing girls again, or something like that."
In the spirit of never leaving a chore untouched, my grandmother had cleared the house of everything except essential furniture, followed by cleaning and painting. Even the floors had been sanded and varnished. I was almost afraid to move in.
A week after carefully carrying things into one of the second floor bedrooms, the front door bell rang. "Hello, I am wondering if your room is still available?"
I asked her in and explained about it being my grandparents' home. "If you like, we could go upstairs and see the rooms."
I was basically clueless about house renting, and stumbled in my explanations. Finally, I said, "I have some notes from my grandmother. Perhaps it would be best if you looked at them."
When I returned, she was on the third floor, which had low ceilings and dormers and was cozy. She looked over my shoulder. "That is in French!"
"Yes, my grandmother was in the French department before she retired. She writes notes to me in French to remind me of my French heritage. She was born and raised in Paris."
"Your grandmother is Maggie Fourneau? She is famous."
"Yes, I am afraid so. When I was growing up and visited, the house was always full of young women with a cause."
Valerie was tallish and lean. Dark brown hair cut and bobbed just at her shoulders. High cheek bones and dark eyes with heavy brows. No chest to speak of.
It turned out I didn't need to translate. She turned and spoke to me in French, "These don't say how to divide the space up?"
I began to have a feeling about smart attractive women who speak French. "Hmm. If you are interested in renting here, perhaps you could help decide?"
I noticed she had been giving me sidewise glances. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
"It's complicated, but the answer is yes."
"Good, I was trying to decide what to do if you hit on me. I haven't been close to many men as large as you are."
I smiled at her. The truth is that I do intimidate women. My genes, plus football training, produced a six foot, two hundred pound defensive end that had played varsity football for Cal for three seasons.
Her eyes suddenly opened wider. "OMG, you are Jeff Anderson. I've watched you play."
"Is that good or bad? Are you leaving now?"
"No. Absolutely not! I am just floored about renting from you. So unexpected."
"I think we had better go down for a glass of wine. Just to calm your nerves."
I wasn't much of a conversationalist, and let Valerie babble at me. I helped her with her jacket and she sat back in grandma's expensive down sofa.
"Let me see if I have this straight. The house has just been refurbished. You have moved in and are going to rent part of it out. You are not sure how to do that, and I can help decide. Because it is a hundred years old, and your grandparents are both academics, there may be some issues with plumbing and so forth."
"What year are you, what's your major?"
"I'm starting junior year and I'm still undeclared." She grimaced, which implied not everyone was happy about that.
"Are you going to invite a lot of friends over and smoke pot in the attic?"
"How much are you going to charge me to live in this historic wreck?"
She walked over and sat in my lap in grandad's recliner. I leaned back and she fell into my arms, laughing. I stuck out my tongue and she kissed me.
"I should be ashamed. Making out with the landlord. I don't even know if he will take me in. By the way, I just got back from summer in New England with my folks and have nowhere to stay tonight. Do you offer your gorgeous floor to strays?"
"I suppose I'll need to take you to dinner too. There isn't any food in the house yet." The second kiss was better than the first. Much better.
"I thought there was a girlfriend."
"We'll talk about that at dinner. Do you have things for me to help with?"
"I rented a car so I could crash in it if I had to. My luggage is in the trunk."
I had a large, heavy suitcase in each hand and led the way to the sunny bedroom on the third floor. "This will keep you a safe distance from me and has great sun in the morning. We will have to explore for the bedding."
She stood in the middle of a completely bare room except for the unmade bed. The walls were freshly painted off white and the ceiling was low except in the dormer. Her clothes started coming off. "Do I get a shower? I've been on an airplane all day."
I started. The view of the trim body clad only in underwear had paralyzed me. "Yes, of course. I'll find a towel and some soap."
When I returned, she was naked, except for her briefs, standing in the bathroom across the hall. Her front was reflected in the vanity mirror. She stared at me with the dark eyes and asked, "You don't mind a little nudity? My family is very relaxed about skin."
I hesitated and stepped forward with the soap and towel, and a fresh bathmat. And made a hurried exit.
I was in the kitchen writing down a shopping list when she called me. There was a vision on the second floor landing, hair wrapped in a towel, no top and hips covered in skin tight boy shorts.
