Engineer In Training

When I graduated from Kaskaskia College with an Associate in Engineering Degree, my future seemed pretty well defined. In the fall I would go off to SIU in Carbondale and study civil engineering. Two years later, I'd graduate with a BSCE and join the Illinois Department of Transportation as a Junior Civil Engineer and about the same time, Sydney, my sweetheart and classmate, and I would get married and I'd finally get access to what I'd been jacking off to for almost two years.

The only reason Sydney and I didn't start dating until towards the beginning of the second semester at Kaskaskia was the same as the one that kept me from having any dates in high school - I had been just too shy to ask a girl out. Or more accurately, I was scared of being turned down. And I had a number of good reasons to be scared of getting turned down. I wasn't an athlete, not even close, in fact I was one of those unfortunates who get picked last when sides are chosen. I couldn't sing and hadn't bothered to learn to play an instrument. My dancing skills were on par with my athletic prowess. And while my family didn't have a bad reputation, there wasn't much to boast about either. Dad was a labourer with the county road department and Mom worked part time at the local IGA. The one thing I had going for me was what girls just didn't give a shit about -- I was pretty good in school, A's in math and science, A's and B's in everything else.

During my first semester at Kaskaskia, I stayed dateless. Not that I didn't want to date, in fact I was getting desperate. Eighteen and never dated, never kissed, leave alone get a feel! And how I wanted to. There was this one real cute girl in English class -- dark auburn hair, light freckles, blouse with real nice bulges, etc. Her name was Sydney and right away, I started using her as an image to jack off to.

Facing reality, I never dreamed that there'd ever be anything physical with Sydney until the second semester at Kaskaskia when I was enrolled in physical education. (The college required at least one semester of PE for the associate degree.) The directors of men's and women's PE decided teaching dancing would improve attitudes so they combined the men's and women's classes so both sexes could learn to dance.

I was scared shitless until I found out that pairing up would be organised and no girl would get a chance to turn me down. Well, who did I get paired up with? Pretty Sydney with the dark auburn hair and bulging blouse.

I knew we'd have to change partners after each dance so I didn't have to worry about being a lousy dancer and was able to halfway relax. When the first dance was over I backed away and just stood there feeling stupid and awkward. But Sydney had a whole lot of social smarts and somehow manipulated it so that we were partners in a second number. During that second dance, I heard her say something that I couldn't believe I was hearing and that gave me a boner that I hoped only God knew about. "I bet you thought you'd get away with keeping on ignoring me."

After that I started noticing that Sydney, usually with a couple other girls, regularly 'just happened' to be around a lot. I mentioned it to my friend, Earl, who gave me a pretty direct answer. "Ralph, you fucking idiot, Sydney's got the hots for you. When you gonna take action?"

"Yeah, and what do I say? Let's go screw sometime next weekend."

Earl was something of a joker. "For Christ's sake Ralph, don't get so direct. Just tell her you want to marry her."

I didn't always get his humour. "Wouldn't that mean the same thing? Anyway, she belongs to a church that I don't belong to and they don't turn and neither will I."

"Ralph, you dumb fuck, just ask her to the movies. And don't try to fuck her on the first date. Fact is, don't even try to cop a feel of those nice titties the first time out. When you take her home, go for a kiss on the cheek. If she turns to offer her lips, that means that somewhere down the road, maybe by the end of summer, you're gonna get a feel of those luscious tits."

Well, I did take her to the movies and one thing led to another and we were going steady before our sophomore year began. Unfortunately Earl's prediction of me getting a feel of those luscious tits by the end summer was wrong -- real bad wrong. I didn't get a feel of Sydney's mammaries by the end of that summer and not by the end of the next semester either.

Sydney graduated with an associate in business and got a job with an insurance company in Centralia and went back to live with her parents in Sandoval, which was around 8 miles from Fairacker.

I was off to SIU where the courses were quite a bit more challenging and time consuming and I couldn't afford to go home to Fairacker every weekend, even though the drive was just a shade over one hour.

But in spite of me not getting home every weekend, Sydney and I kept going steady and just before Christmas of my second year at SIU, I finally got my long-yearned-for feel through her sweater and bra - for maybe 10 seconds before she pushed my hand away. Still it was progress and her kisses began to have that coppery musky taste. I thought maybe in a few weeks when I'd come home again, more would be in store for me. That wasn't to be either -- my hands roaming around her hips and starting to flare out, that was too much. "No Ralph, please. It's wrong. You need to wait."

All the waiting and all the wanking I was doing wasn't what finally brought on the split. At SIU the student chapter of the ASCE arranged presentations by prominent civil engineers and I never missed a one. A few weeks after my final semester started, a man from Jacobs Engineering in St. Louis made a presentation about a mega railway project in Botswana that his company had designed and supervised the construction of. For me, it was like somebody had opened a door and showed me what a drab life I'd been planning for myself.

That night back in my room I went to bed thinking about the life I'd been looking forward to: Engineer with the Illinois Department of Transportation, married to Sydney and shagging her twice a week, two kids, dinner at my in-laws every other Sunday after church, two weeks vacation for a trip to Kentucky Lake, maybe even Disney World. Contrasted with the adventure of building a railway in the middle of southern Africa, images of Sydney's luscious auburn pussy didn't get me hard enough to jack off, no matter how luscious I imagined it to be.

A few weeks afterward, I went home on a weekend and told Sydney it was over. The way she howled, you'd have thought her cat had died. After a good half hour of sobbing and moaning, she finally asked "is it that I don't let you?"

"Sydney, when you say 'I don't let you,' that says a lot about what's wrong. But you know what? Putting my dick in your plush auburn pussy isn't worth having to be a Lutheran and having to look forward to those Sunday dinners with your boring fucking parents."

That elicited a lot more howling and sobbing and finally a snuffling "take me home!"

I never jacked off to Sydney's plush auburn (that's how I had imagined it) pussy again.

That spring of my last year at SIU, I interviewed several big engineering companies, some contractors and some industrial companies as well. I got job offers from a few, but you only need one if it's a good one. Beachwood Engineering of Reston Virginia offered me a job in their mining division. The salary and benefits were fine, but what really attracted me was that after an initial 6-month training and orientation at the corporate headquarters in Reston, Virginia, I would be assigned to the Santiago, Chile office and thereby well away from the Midwest and virginity hoarders like Sydney and boring people like her parents.

Since my stay at Reston was of limited duration, I expected that they would put me up in a convenient motel. That turned out to not be the case. Instead I was assigned one of the one-bedroom apartments that the company had leased specifically to house temporaries like myself. (A lot cheaper than motels and they got out of paying for restaurant meals.) When the human resources lady gave me the keys to the apartment, I got a really pleasant surprise: She also handed over a set of keys to a 2 year-old Chevy Malibu. "A loaner so you can get around while you're here."

My furnished one-bedroom apartment was on the 2nd floor of a 3-story building that was part of a 100+ unit development and less than a half mile from the company headquarters. Access to the apartments was from an open stairwell with one apartment on either side of the stairwell. The apartment across the landing from me was a two bedroom unit that was occupied by two women.

My place had a balcony big enough for a couple chairs and a small table. The neighbourhood was nicely wooded and not too far from a golf course where I'd be able to jog without being on pavement. And there was one more aspect: The apartment complex looked like the kind of place where lots of youngish single women would be living. Surely, there'd be parties and there'd be at least one female who'd be impressed with my glamorous profession or if not, then with the bulge at my crotch. All in all, I was pretty upbeat about the place that was to be my home for the next half year.

I didn't meet either of my neighbours from across the landing until the weekend. I'd just gotten back from a Saturday morning run and was unlocking when a mid-thirties woman with short-cropped black hair came out onto the landing. I greeted her with a friendly 'good morning' and got a moderately friendly reply. "Just move in?"

"Yeah, hi. I'm Ralph Hakkard."

She stuck out her right hand. "I'm Rayley Wayman. Nice to meet you. You with Beachwood, huh?"

From her tone of voice, I sure didn't get the impression that anytime soon we'd be having a glass of wine together or anything else together either so I gave her the most neutral reply I could muster. "Yeah. Well, been jogging, gotta get under the shower." Not expecting a continued conversation, I turned and went into my apartment without waiting for a reply.

Afterwards, I thought over the exchange with Rayley. No doubt she'd picked up my broad Midwestern accent, maybe already with my 'good morning.' It was something I'd already observed from the few Easterners at SIU: They definitely thought Midwesterners weren't worth socializing with. And that was in spite of those Easterners at SIU being at SIU because they didn't get admitted to any of the high class schools back East.

That afternoon I made use of the Chevy Malibu that the company had provided me with and went for a sightseeing drive. Ever since 5th grade history, Harpers Ferry and John Brown's raid had fascinated me so that's where I went. Sunday, I spent studying technical materials they'd given me at the company

From the beginning, based on the looks of the place, I'd expected to make contacts straight away and maybe even start bedding one of the young single women in the apartment complex. Somehow that just didn't happen. My smiling 'hellos' were typically answered by a neutral 'hello' and sometimes they'd even look away. I started getting frustrated. It occurred to me that it might be my cheap poor-student clothes so I splurged some of the advance the company paid out to me and bought some slacks and shirts that I couldn't afford. That didn't seem to help and I just got more frustrated -- so much so that I started thinking about Sydney's plush auburn pussy again. "Shit, if I hadn't made myself out to be such a big man of the world, I'd be ploughing deep in that by now."

And there was something else that frustrated me. The week after I'd met Rayley, the neighbour woman, I met her younger roommate, Candice. The two could not have been more the opposites in appearance. Rayley, in spite of her plain bob hair style, plain clothes, non prominent chest and almost non-existent makeup, was not completely unattractive. Candice, on the other hand, with long and thick caramel coloured hair, prominent chest, fashionable clothing and tasteful makeup, stole my heart immediately. My jackoff visions became Candice that very evening.

Trouble was, Candy wasn't any more receptive to my advances than any of the other women I'd run into around the neighbourhood. I got so frustrated, I began to make approaches to some old women employees in the office. None of this worked out either. They probably saw me for what I was: A horny young engineer who was desperate enough to make approaches to overweight women 20 years his senior.

The first several weeks I lived at Pinewood, I seldom saw Ray and Candy during the week. Come Saturday, there might be the rushed encounter with a polite but non-committal 'good morning' or 'hi, nice day huh.' Then one Thursday afternoon, I came home from work and a few minutes later, the doorbell rang. It was Candy. "Hey Ralph, Ray and I are gonna make Mexican tomorrow after work. How 'bout joining us?"

I was so surprised, I just mumbled something or other.

She looked surprised at my surprise but quickly recovered. "You know, tortillas, salsa, cheese, beans." Then, being a sharp cookie, she realized that what she had said and how she had said it sounded like a slight at my being a Midwesterner. "I mean, you do like Mexican, don't you?"

"Yeah, of course. Who doesn't? You know Candy, the 80's ended in Southern Illinois a couple decades ago too."

She caught on to my reciprocated slight and got sort of apologetic. "Look, all social geography aside, Ray and I would really like it if you could join us. Oh there'll be some other friends too and it'd be a real nice party if you'd come too. Say around six-thirty. That okay for you?"

The 'other friends' turned out to include some couples and various guys and girls, mostly in the 20's to 30's age group and a wide range of professions and interests. One of the guys had once bicycled from Venezuela to Chile and when I told him I would be going to Chile, he gave me a half-hour long travel monologue. Another was a newly graduated lawyer who had managed to get a job clerking for John Roberts. For the first time in months, I felt socially alive again.

When the party started cooling down and guests started leaving, I took the hint and said my good nights and thanks to Ray and Candy. Instead of a 'nice to have you' and 'good night,' Candy moved in close and in almost a whisper, asked if I could hang around and help clean up. It had been a pretty orderly affair so I knew the clean up wouldn't be a big deal and that got me wondering if the night might end with me enjoying Candy's caramel covered folds.

Indeed we were finished pretty quickly and then when they invited me to stay for a cup of tea, I was sure I wouldn't be wanking that night.

When you're socialising in a living room with two women, the seating arrangements should be a tip off to which one you're going to be shagging. When I ended up in an armchair and Ray and Candy together on the couch, it was all I could do to hide my disappointment.

It was Ray who spoke first. "We haven't been entirely open with you Ralph and I know there might be some misunderstandings." I might be a somewhat dull socially disadvantaged Midwesterner but it was in that moment that I fully realised that the night had wanking and not shagging in store for me.

I didn't answer, just raised my eyebrows a little. Ray went on. "You see Ralph, Candy is my wife. I guess we should have made that known a lot sooner - like when we met outside in the stairwell that first time. It's just that not all heteros can handle it. Anyway, just because we're lesbian, it doesn't mean we can't have straight friends. You must have seen that from the other guests tonight."

"Look, I got nothing against gays and lesbians. Those two guys, Merrick and Ben, who came together. I noticed the touches, the looks. Didn't make any difference to me. I got on fine with them. Real nice guys and real interesting to talk to."

From then on, we got on fine and became more or less normal neighbours, exchanging favours, having a drink together on Friday evenings, stuff that normal neighbours do. Occasionally, Ray and I even went jogging together. We gradually found out more and more about one another. I'd always been curious about when lesbians or gays realise that they are lesbian or gay. Ray said she thought she'd known for as long as she'd known about sex and had never had a relationship with a man. Candy, on the other hand, had lost her virginity to a high school boyfriend and had been intimate with several guys during her first couple years in college. However, it was sometime during her junior year at Duke that she'd first had female-female sex. She'd never gone back.

But I had to pay for all that information. Ray and Candy squeezed about everything out of me -- probably even more than I learned about them. It started with where I was from, where and what I'd studied, family, romance, college loans, you name it. It completely blew them away when I told them that I'd dated Sydney almost 2 years and never even got my hands on her bare tits. When I told them the lie about how I'd had a couple hook-ups during my last semester at SIU, I saw by their looks that they didn't believe me, but mysteriously, almost sounded relieved.

One Friday evening sometime towards the middle of August, I got to know them a whole lot better. I'd gotten home from work and was trying to decide how best to cope with the hot and muggy weather when the doorbell rang. It was Candy. "Ralph, Ray and I were just getting ready to have some coolers and snacks. Then we got to thinking you might like to join us."

Of course I didn't turn them down and pretty shortly, the three of us were sitting on their balcony and sipping wine coolers and munching tortilla chips with salsa dip. Of course I didn't notice at the time, just later it dawned on me that our little get-together wasn't all that spontaneous. In other words, they'd planned everything.

At first the conversation was about how work was going, when the heat and humidity would finally end, what I thought of some woman the president had nominated for a cabinet post, etc., etc. Then there was a turn in the conversation. It was Ray who started it. "Ralph, you know Candy and I just can't get over how you went with this Sydney for so long and nothing. You must have gotten really frustrated."

"After we dated a month or so, I started pushing for a feel of her breasts. Didn't get such a good reception. Nothing but 'no, you need to wait.' After more time, I realised the 'wait' meant until we'd be safely married."

It was Candy who pushed the question. "Musta been really frustrating. You make out and get aroused. Then no relief till you get home."

My face felt hot and I'm sure it turned red. It was Ray who grabbed the opportunity. "The mechanics of the male reproduction system are that extended arousals get really uncomfortable. There's even a word for the condition: 'Blue balls.' Guys living in the country can stop somewhere on the way home and masturbate. In the city, a guy just has to wait till he gets home. You're from the country, Ralph. So I guess you could just stop somewhere on the way home."

My face felt even hotter but their expectant looks gave me the confidence to answer. "Most of the time, I'd wait until I got home in bed."

Candy asked if my mom ever complained about yellow spots on the bed sheets.

"I always had some toilet paper with me in the bedroom. Or I'd get up and go wank off in the bathroom."

And so it went. They even got me to tell about the few hook-ups that I never had when I was at SIU. Even as I was lying, I had the gut feeling that they knew I was lying, but that they were too polite to call me out on it. Or rather, as I was soon to find out, calling me out and embarrassing me would not have been in their best interests.