© 2019 Victor Cabana
It was just a lark.
- - - - -
On the first day of the last month of my college career I was cruising to graduation. With honors. My life was set. I had a great job lined up, and after Debbie, my high school sweetheart, and I reconnected this summer we'd get engaged. Two and a half kids, big house, happily ever after. All laid out. But being on autopilot engendered a sense of ennui. I was bored. I was lonely. And I was horny. Spring Break and my trysts with Deb seemed an eon ago, and I'm a healthy 22 year-old.
And she was pretty cute. Actually really cute. While I may be no Adonis, I'm fit and trim, lift weights seriously, and run a couple miles every morning. Debbie jokes that she could clean clothes on my abs. My lark was to pursue this pretty woman, for company, for fun, also to see how far I could get.
Ideally I'd reach home plate. Deb and I weren't exclusive - being at different colleges made it too hard - and anything, companionship, just the game of it, would be enjoyable and assuage my languor. She would be a real challenge, too, as I knew she was part of the group of serious campus feminists, for whom the mere presence of a male at their table in the cafeteria was unwelcome.
I learned that the hard way. That day at lunch when I first noticed her, when the lark first chirped, I ended up right behind her in the vegetarian line. We chatted. She seemed nice, smart, clever, easy to talk to, and not at all standoffish. "Maybe not only into women?" the lark whispered in my ear. As our conversation, about her thesis using operant conditioning on denizens of the rat lab, wasn't over and was interesting, I naturally followed her to the table as we continued to talk and sat down next to her.
Big mistake, evidently.
All conversation abruptly ended among the other women. There were no men. The chill was palpable, the eye daggers immediate, and, getting the message I was just about to stand and leave when the first woman, petite, shapely, and gorgeous even with no makeup, slammed her fork onto her tray, stood, turned on heel, and marched away. She was followed immediately by another, short, black crewcut hair, six-three easy and built like a linebacker. Then two more harrumphed off. The rest, including her, moved as a unit to a table across the room to join beauty and the beast. My lark looked so sad, lying dying on the ground. I quickly finished as much of my greasy eggplant parmesan as I could stomach, returned the tray, and made for the door.
"I'm sorry. That was very rude."
My hand froze on the knob. It was her. I shrugged, offered a wan smile, and mumbled, "No big deal," as I continued out, headed for my study carrel in the library. Summa cum laude was possible if I aced every remaining exam. Maybe. Damned freshman English Lit class. That C was killing my average.
"They shouldn't have done that. No, I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have left you there alone. I'm sorry."
Nora introduced herself and fell in beside me. As she was also a senior at our small college in the Catskills, it was surprising that I hadn't noticed her before. Of course, feminist psych majors and computer science geeks don't run in the same circles, not that I even had a circle. We seemed to talk easily and I eventually broached the ponderous pachyderm plodding behind us.
"Why did your friends leave when I sat down? Did I do something offensive?"
"Well, no, you didn't do anything..."
When her voice trailed away and nothing followed I pressed ahead, "I must have done something. They seemed upset. Really upset, and I'm sorry for whatever it is I did. Can't you tell me what it was?"
"It's not fair, really, and again I'm sorry, especially for my leaving. But you see, we're all in this very intense Women's Studies class, and the book we're reading now is very heavy, really serious."
"Oh. Mary Daly?"
Nora was all circles. Her wide round chestnut eyes, looped mouth, and verbal, "OH!" all matched her round face, halo of frizzy red hair, full cheeks, spherical dimples, big red freckles, and upturned button nose. Very appealing. "So you know about Gyn/Ecology? Have you read it?" Her tone was more than slightly incredulous.
"Well, much of it. I skimmed some parts. It's very tough going, from the foot binding in ancient China to the horrid conditions in 19th century Viennese hospitals where some women even killed themselves rather than be subject to dying after childbirth from infections caused by the doctors' neglect of even the most basic principles of sanitation. I kept hoping things would get better and they just never did. My sister and I talked about it a lot. It certainly made me a feminist, and I definitely think a guy can be one.
"I get it why your friends left. Given that so much injustice has been perpetrated on women throughout history, I can see how some might feel all men are responsible. And despicable. My sister certainly made me aware of how much I've benefitted in my life simply because I'm male. Please let your friends know that I didn't intend any offense. I just wanted to keep talking to you."
I was content to let the subject drop and so was Nora. She left me at the library door - she had a meeting and I concentrated on the persistent programming problem that was stalling my thesis. Pursuing her had been a lark, but that bird was dead. I forgot it. And her.
Until she sat beside me at dinner. Close. Hmm. The lark perked up its head.
She walked with me when we were done and was easy company. I'd planned to go to Campus Movie Night, and it was forty-five minutes until the showing - not really enough time for serious studying or reading - so I was content to wander. Nora also was going to the movie and we found ourselves walking along one of the trails into the forested park adjoining the campus. We sat on a bench and enjoyed the mountain vistas as we chatted until it was time for the movie. Where she sat next to me again. I was glad.
Personna is a heavy flick about an actress who inexplicably stops speaking in the middle of a performance. For some deep, dark psychological reason she just won't say a word from then on. Hey, it's Bergman. At least Death didn't stroll by with a chessboard. At her shrink's suggestion the actress spends the summer recuperating in an isolated house by the shore. The nurse - Bibi Andersson was very hot - assigned to her fills up the emptiness by talking. In one scene she recounts a very erotic episode, basically an orgy with another woman and two eighteen-year-old boys on the beach. It was good that the theater was dark, as by the end of the scene my shorts were tenting pretty obviously. I put my hands in my lap to cover up but thought I might have seen Nora peek.
After the movie we gravitated together, meandering, and Nora started talking about the movie. After we'd agreed that Ingmar Bergman had at least one screw loose, she turned to face me and asked, "Do you think things like that ever really happen?"
"Things like what?"
"Like in that one scene where the nurse describes sun bathing, nude, and then having sex with the teenage boy who just happens by."
"Um, I don't know. Maybe in Sweden. Nothing like that ever happened to me."
"Me neither. I wonder if it might, though."
"I suppose it could be possible." When Nora glanced to her left, away from me, I quickly adjusted my shorts so it stood upright instead of poking out in front of me.
"It was pretty interesting how the nurse said she came almost immediately once the boy's penis was inside her. I wonder if that could happen."
It throbbed at "she came," "penis," and "inside her." I was proud of how even my voice sounded when I quipped, "I think you'd probably know more about that than me."
"It was a pretty erotic scene, that's for sure. Don't you think so?"
"Uh, yeah, I guess so."
"You guess so? Didn't you find it sexy? At all?" More throbs.
"Well, sure, it was pretty hot."
"And did you get aroused at all?"
Wow. Nora was straightforward. I felt pretty certain she'd peeked. "Well, yes, I guess I did."
"You guess? Don't you know? Couldn't you tell?" A definite tease in her voice.
"Okay, sure, it was a sexy scene and it turned me on. And what about you? Did you get aroused?" I enjoyed the scraping sound of the legs on the floor as I turned the tables. Wrong.
"Well, Chad, a lady would never admit to anything like that, and I doubt a true gentleman would ask." Nora's eyes flitted down, traversing my crotch, then back up to mine. She smiled, innocently, took my hand and led us down the path.
We found ourselves on the same bench in the park. I'd planned on studying, but really didn't need to, and the night was lovely with spring in the air, pregnant with the promise of new life and possibility. She slid closer to me and changed the subject.
"Have you heard about Professor Newsome?"
Though I'm pretty oblivious about social matters, I had heard something - a salacious rumor - but didn't have any details. When I professed ignorance, Nora filled me in.
"She was caught with a student, a senior, flagrante delicto, as they say, in her office. It's quite the scandal."
"Wow. In her office. That's pretty brazen."
"That's not the half of it. He was tied up."
"Really!" My interest peaked.
"Yes, nude, tied spread eagled on the desk. And there's more..."
"More? What?" Throb.
"She was wearing something, other than her bra and panties, that is."
Nora saying, "bra" and "panties" caused more twitches. I mumbled a witty bon mot in reply, I'm sure.
"Yes. Do you know what a strap-on is?"
I did, but was cautious, "Ah, yeah, maybe. I think so."
"What is it, then?"
Whoa, so direct. "Well, it's a, a, a thing..."
"Chad, you're a senior honors student. You have a fine vocabulary. What kind of thing do you mean?" Nora's voice was amused, teasing, playful.
Despite so much of my blood supply now trapped south of the border, my brain clanked out, "OK, it's a dildo, mounted on a strap that a person can tie to his or her abdomen."
"Very good, Chad. But whatever would one use it for?" So coquettish.
"For intercourse, of course," I quipped. Nice rhyme, I thought.
