I'm sorry for the long delay in the story. I would suggest reading the other two stories first, to get caught up on the plot and characterizations. But to make a long story short, Buck is a very tall scientist/engineer who returns to his college town for vacation. Penny is a very petite redheaded artist who had a secret crush on Buck from back in his college days. The story continues the next day...
As always, comments are greatly appreciated.
* * *
"I need to pop down to my apartment and get some clean clothes, then let's go out and get breakfast," Penny said. She climbed off the bed still wrapped in the towel and headed toward the far end of the apartment, which if there were walls defining rooms would be the living room. I watched her little bare feet pad toward the living room. I really wanted to watch her cute bottom, but the thickness of the towel hid any allure. Especially since the towel was suited more to someone my size, and on her it went from armpit to knee and wrapped around her at least twice.
Either because of the strictures of the towel, or to prevent me from leering at her bottom as she bent over, Penny opted to kneel down to retrieve her clothes from the previous night. I hadn't even noticed where she left them, as I was asleep while she had gotten undressed.
She came back to the bed carrying her clothes and proceeded to lay them out on the bed next to me. I hadn't gotten to see her undress the night before, and was quite curious to see what she had been wearing under her blouse and skirt. The bra and panties were actually of the plain cotton variety, if very purple. They looked more like they were for comfort than for impressing a guy. I reached over to pick up her panties and felt a sharp slap on my outreached hand.
"No touching!" Penny said. There wasn't a lot of hostility in her voice, so it was hard to tell how serious she was being. She was staring at me, as if waiting for me to do something. "Well?" she finally asked.
"Well what?" I asked, genuinely confused.
"Aren't you going to turn around so I can get dressed?"
"But, I've already seen you naked."
"That's different. Now I'm getting dressed." She emphasized the last word as if it should be obvious what the difference was all about. She crossed her arms over her chest and I could almost hear her little foot tapping as she waited for me to avert my eyes.
Still confused about why it should make a difference, I stood up and walked to the closet, leaving my back to her. It took every fiber of my being not to turn around and catch a quick glimpse of her getting dressed. As I pulled some clothes out of the suitcase I still hadn't unpacked, I kept thinking about Penny standing behind me getting dressed. It didn't make sense, I had already seen her naked, and seen her showering, but the thought of her half-dressed made my towel start to rise.
I had just finished grabbing all of the clothes I would need for the day when I heard Penny say, "Alright, you can come out now."
I dropped my clothes on the bed and regarded Penny for a moment. She was again dressed in the golden blouse and green skirt. She was barefoot, her purse and shoes dangling from her left hand. Her other hand was behind her back. "I'm going to get some clean clothes now, when you're done dressing come down to my apartment, it's number 23."
She turned toward the entrance to my apartment, quickly moving her hand from behind her to in front of her. It was pretty obvious she didn't want me to see what was in her hand. I wasn't going to press her on it. As she worked the doorknob to my apartment, she shifted whatever it was to her left hand with the shoes and purse. I couldn't tell what it was but it sure looked purple. Thinking about it, whatever was in her hand was the same purple color as her underwear. That thought did nothing to quell the tenting of my towel.
Shaking my head to clear it of lustful thoughts, I quickly got dressed.
* * *
I knocked on the door to Penny's apartment. I thought I heard a "come in" over the noise of the hair dryer. I tried the door and since it was unlocked, I proceeded in. "Have a seat while I finish getting ready," I heard her call from the vicinity of what I guessed was the door to the bathroom.
Her apartment had the same basic floor plan as mine. Plenty of square footage but not much in the way of walls. Unlike my apartment, hers had definite areas of separation. The "bedroom" was divided off by three folding screens. Two towards the side walls and a third set behind the other two and in the center. The screens had gaps between the panels, so they didn't provide real privacy, but they did establish the space.
There was a sitting area, with a couple of what I thought of as relatively small chairs, and a rather normal sized divan. There was also a breakfast nook area next to the small kitchenette. I looked around a bit more, but couldn't find anything that looked like an art studio. There was a tilt-top desk that had some half-finished artwork on it, but no art supplies. How curious.
I was pondering the seating options when I decided I would rather not. The chairs were too small for someone of my size to feel anything other than ridiculous, and I didn't want Penny to come out seeing me lounging on the divan. Because in my experience you can't actually sit on a divan without lounging. So I continued looking around, walking over toward the screens.
The first one looked oriental, as if someone had taken it right out of Chinatown. The first panel was a Chinese dragon, complete with curling moustache and steaming nostrils. The second panel was composed of a bunch of fans and stylized flowers. The last panel had a guy in those oversized pants, doing some sort of dance and holding a mask to his face.
The one on the far side looked more European. I'm not an expert on art, but they really should have used perspective. The flute player at the front of the crowd looked as big as the frowning old maids at the back of the crowd. The middle panel wasn't any better with some sort of throne room scene, the king actually appeared bigger than the courtiers even though he was in the back of the room. The third panel was kind of cute though, with a maid playing with a unicorn in some sort of corral.
Both the Oriental and European screens looked like they had been purchased at a store. The one in the center seemed anything but mass-produced. I stepped closer to have a better look. Unlike the other two, this screen was all one scene and it was composed of five somewhat thinner panels. I appreciated that since it allowed the screen to stand symmetrically, with the center panel square to the viewer.
The scene depicted on the screen was a small pond in the center of a forest. Behind the pond, and off to one side was a little cottage with a bright flower garden in front of it. The cottage and garden had a feeling of fantasy to them, not quite a gingerbread house, but closer to that than what a real peasant cottage would have looked. The forest was likewise somewhat fantastic, but still very real. The colors were more vivid, and the textures more smooth that real trees would be. But the trees looked like trees, and the leaves on the trees actually looked like maple leaves and oak leaves and elm leaves.
Among the trees there were various woodland animals that were somewhere between Disney and fully real. There were the usual squirrels and deer that you would expect in a woodland scene, and a few birds. The one that stood out the most, was an owl that perched on a branch looking over the cottage.
"It isn't finished," Penny said from right beside me. I hadn't heard her approach and nearly jumped out of my skin. She gave me a hug around the waist and continued, "I'm still working on it, when I feel inspired. I have more animals to add... But it's hard. It's like each of the animals is a real person, and when I paint them I feel their whole personality. So the trees and the cottage and the flowers went quickly, but each animal took a long time. The squirrel over there is just like my friend Margot. She's moves around in short little bursts of energy, and has these amazing eyes. And promise not to tell her, but I made her a squirrel because she is always self-conscious about her big tail."
Penny told me the story of a few more animals, but skipped the owl, even though it was quite prominent in the scene. I had a feeling it represented her father, so I decided to let her tell me about it when she was ready. I got the feeling there were other things she was holding back, but she was so cute telling the stories that I hardly noticed. Her whole body got into the stories causing the pale yellow skirt she had changed into, to swirl around her. She accentuated each animal story with little pantomimes and silly faces.
She started running down, and seemed to be snapping out of her trance-like storytelling. She looked up at my widely grinning face and suddenly flushed, before looking at the floor. She said, "You probably think it is pretty silly, getting so wound up about little animal drawings."
"Penny, I wouldn't expect anything else from you. I haven't even known your for a day, well, not really known you, and I already think you are the most remarkable girl I've ever met. Getting excited about the little things is part of your charm." Feeling a bit mischievous I added, "Besides, guys love girls who get excited."
Apparently she was up for some mischief herself when she rejoined, "Especially when they get excited about the 'little things', eh Buck?"
It was my turned to flush and get tongue-tied. Penny wrapped her arms around my chest and said, "Don't worry, it's plenty big." She giggled before adding, "At least for a girl my size."
