Lena:
Lena squirmed in her seat and tried to listen to the lecture. The ancient wooden desk-chair she sat in bit into her stomach as she tried to wiggle herself into a less painful position. Glancing around at the other students and their glazed eyes and lazy posture she was overwhelmed by frustration.
Why is my fucking ass so fucking huge? She thought to herself.
It was a horrible wooden chair with a little desk attachment on the front. Her huge backside was squeezed as far back in the seat as it could go, her chub spilling over the sides.
Ignoring her lower body trapped in the painful wooden vice became easier as her legs began to fall asleep. She tried to focus on the professor.
Lena was as good a student as she could be, it wasn't exactly easy being a big woman in the world of academia. All the desks, chairs, lab coats, even the latex gloves they wore in labs seemed to be tailored to smaller people. As a graduate student studying Biology, Lena was in her sixth year at this University but she never felt like she belonged there, she felt like another species next to the perfect blonde sorority girls and their tan frat boy counterparts.
All her life Lena had been the fat kid; she was bullied mercilessly growing up. Her big personality matched her big body and as a child and young adult she was quickly beaten down by society. She learned to hide herself... She avoided human contact as much as possible as a result. People had always only hurt her so she was careful to never let anyone close enough to do anymore damage.
Lena sipped her coffee and grimaced at the packed classroom.
Why are there so many people in this class? Its 7:30 on a Friday night, she wondered.
As a grad student Lena made herself attend every lecture and she was usually the only one who didn't skip the late classes on Fridays.
At least I was able to get a coffee before the cafe closed for the day, she thought. She looked lovingly at her big coffee cup, she was going to need the caffeine to get through this lecture.
When class ended all of the students began scurrying to pack their bags and flee from the lecture hall. Lena waited a few seconds so fewer people would be around to witness her extracting herself from her desk. The chair creaked as she slid out and stood up, her legs and ass tingling as they regained sensation.
As she made her way to the door, she noticed a student talking to the professor. She forced herself not to look at him so she wouldn't have to nod or smile or say hi, but she thought he must be new. Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye she noticed that he had the lumberjack look down, he wasn't conventionally attractive, he was too big and bearded for that, but she thought he was hot... and that scared her a little bit.
As she passed him, he walked away from the professor and fell in line behind her, joining the herd of students shuffling out the door. He was really close to her as they were jostled by the crowd and she could practically feel his body heat against her back. She pushed down the panic that was beginning to suffocate her as a result of all the people around her.
Her fear, however, was her undoing, as she pulled free of the crowd and stepped into the cool night air, she stumbled over a step that she had forgotten about in her panic. The coffee cup she was holding went flying and her notes fell out of her hand right into the coffee.
She let out a horrified little shriek and stared at her soggy notes, the ink bleeding into the coffee puddle.
"Yikes, that sucks," said a male voice behind her.
She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip, as the attractive guy from lecture stepped right up to her and looked her in the face.
She instantly noticed two things now that he was right in front of her. One, his eyes were warm and brown and made her feel like she was melting. Two, he was a big guy, ok, he was a big MAN, obviously not one of those skinny ken doll frat boys that universities seemed to mass produce. She was unsettled when she realized that, though she was afraid of him like she was with most people, she could feel an undercurrent of desire coursing through her body. She forced herself to clamp down on her emotions and try to school her face into the mask of aloof confidence that she reserved for social interaction.
"Are those all your notes from this semester?" he asked, looking at her with concern.
She put on her brave face and tried to act nonchalant.
"Yeah, they were," she hated the way her voice shook as she spoke.
He crouched down and picked up her travel mug, looking at the pattern of little animals on the cup.
"This is cute," he said, holding the mug up to her, "I don't think it's broken so that's something at least."
She took her mug from him, unsure why he was talking to her, she was suspicious as he lifted up her soggy notebook and got to his feet.
"These are ruined; I don't think you can salvage any of this," he said, trying to pull apart the pages.
She tried to think of something to say, but could only groan as she took the book from him and saw that all of her neat rows of notes were just brown and blue blobs now.
"What am I going to do?" she moaned.
He smiled at her and she instantly felt a spike of fear go through her heart, followed by that unnerving tingle of attraction.
Why is he talking to me? Good looking guys don't ever talk to me. Why the hell is he smiling? Why the hell do I want to smile back?
"Lucky for you, I think I can help," he said. He held out a hand, still dripping with coffee from when he picked up the book.
"Hi, I didn't introduce myself, I'm Jeff, I just transferred to this course. I'm working in Professor William's lab while I finish up my masters' research"
She stared at his hand for a few seconds before cautiously reaching out her own coffee covered hand to shake his.
"Lena," she replied, "What do you mean you can help me? If you just transferred, you don't have the notes."
"Lena is a pretty name," he responded still smiling at her. She looked down at her hand, still grasped in his and raised an eyebrow.
He blushed, ACTUALLY BLUSHED and dropped her hand.
"Yeah well, Williams just gave me his personal course notes so I could get caught up," he replied, looking at her expectantly.
She just stared at him, unsure why he was telling her that.
He cleared his throat awkwardly.
"You could copy them if you want," he said.
She blinked at him, surprised by the offer.
"That would be really nice of you, are you sure it would be ok?"
He gave her a funny look and said, "Of course, all of your notes are gone, why wouldn't it be ok?"
He was looking at her like she was crazy.
Because a guy with nice eyes and a sexy beard has never even looked at me before, let alone offered to help me with something, she thought.
"I just don't want to trouble you," she said weakly.