Roommates

Author's note: I took a short story writing class a while ago, and the mantra the teacher kept repeating was "Don't tell me, show me." That is, don't write down what a character is thinking or feeling ("he became angry..."), demonstrate it through what he or she does ("he spit on the ground through gritted sneer..."). As I think about the stories I've written so far, I realized I rely heavily on exposition.

So I gave myself a challenge to write a story with absolutely no explanatory text, no internal dialogue, no feelings, and I could only write about what can be audibly heard or visibly seen. No "she felt as if..." or "he thought that he..." or "she was a shy girl who..." or "she felt an orgasm..." or "he saw her and thought she was beautiful" or anything. The challenge is that all characterizations, all the backstory, all the thoughts and emotions can only be shown through dialogue or by visible actions.

It actually turned out to be harder than I thought it would be, and each time I edit this, I keep finding places where I inadvertently slipped in some internal thought or feeling, but you may find some that I missed. Anyway, here is the resulting story, I hope you enjoy it.

-BR

Roommates

Chapter 1: Don't Call Me Baby

It was an overcast day, unusually chilly for mid-April Sunday afternoon, with traces of the sun starting to peek through the dense clouds as Mark loaded the last of her boxes into her car.

When he turned towards Marcia, she extended to him a friendly handshake just as he leaned in to give her a hug, and they awkwardly embraced for a few brief seconds. "Please keep in touch," she said as they let go, in a voice that became quieter by the end of her sentence, "The other side of the city isn't that far away if you ever want to get together."

"Absolutely," he said with a flat smile. "Let's do that soon. Take care." A faint breeze blew between them for several seconds, and she gave him a quick nod.

She turned and waved to her now former-roommates. Dee and Jen smiled and waved back from the sidewalk beside the parking lot without much enthusiasm.

Once Marcia sped off down the street and disappeared around the corner, the three of them kept standing in the parking lot silently. Mark finally broke the silence, "So that's it, I guess," Mark sighed. "Ten months ago, we were flirting at the gym, and now.... I guess it's back to the Ashtray."

Dee snorted, "I love that name. Did you come up with that name or did Marcia?"

"Marcia," Mark smiled. "She said the apartment smelled like an ashtray, y'know how her asthma was. And my roommates loved it and still call the apartment that. So..." He looked up at them with a hesitant smile. "Anyway, thanks for letting me come over so much. Like constantly, all the time."

"Of course," Jen smiled, pushing her curly, dark blonde hair backwards off of her shoulder. Her baggy clothes that usually obscured her figure were rippling in the breeze just enough to show her svelte frame.

Dee snapped her attention to Mark. "Wait, hold up. You're still coming over for Friday Binge Night, right?" She wasn't wearing makeup and her silky hair was dancing in the light breeze, and Mark couldn't help but blush when he looked at her. "If you don't want to because you're too sad or too many memories, I understand," Dee said sympathetically pulling some auburn-brown strands out of her eyes.

"No, it's not that. It's just...." he stammered. "Now that she's gone, I didn't know if you all would still want me to.... just drop by."

Dee walked towards him with her arms out, and Mark quickly wiped his sweaty palms on his jacket just as Dee gave him a big hug. She was wearing a fleece jacket that did little to hide her large breasts pressing against his chest. "I'm sorry about Marcia. But we're still friends, right?" She looked at him expectantly and then grinned when he nodded in an exaggeratedly sheepish motion, "Great! And just to make sure," she smirked, "you're still bringing the Thai food, right?"

"Aaaah, I get it," throwing his head back a little, "Now I see the REAL reason you want me to come over!"

Dee laughed and took a step back, keeping her hands on his arms. "I'm glad you're still here."

A warm smile erupted on his face, "Me too."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mark and Jen were sitting in the living room when Dee came bursting through the door. "I am so sorry! Damn it!" she shrieked as she tried taking her shoes off. She was dressed professionally in a turtleneck shirt and corduroy dress, but her voluptuous figure was bouncing around as she barreled through the room. "We had a mandatory meeting! On Friday afternoon!! Friday!! Can you fucking believe that? My boss can be a giant-ass prick sometimes! And traffic was a goddamn nightmare! Fuck! Fuck! I'm sorry for being late! Fuck!"

Mark and Jen snickered at each other. Mark commented, "I love it when she gets anxious."

Dee bolted across the room yelling "Let me get comfortable. Don't start without me!" The last part of her sentence was muffled as she ran into her room, not bothering to close the door behind her.

"Is she anxious? Gee, what gave it away?" Jen replied as Dee continued shouting several "fucks" in her room.

"So anyway," Mark continued, "you were saying about Rob?"

"I just don't get it!" Jen resumed in an exasperated voice. "We've been dating four years! We're not in college anymore, we both have good jobs, so why doesn't he want to get married?"

"Maybe he wants to wait until he has a job that doesn't send him out to other offices around the country every other week?"

Jen sighed, "Maybe. I'm just tired of waiting."

Mark took a drink from his water bottle, then replied "You could always ask him to marry you!"

"That's not how it works!" Jen thought for a few seconds. "I mean, I know some women do it now. But I could never do anything like that. I can't even talk to strangers at a party, can you imagine me proposing? I'd be a nervous wreck!"

"It's not easy for guys either," Mark pointed out. "At least I assume so. I've never actually done it."

"I'm glad you're going to keep coming here," Jen cocked her head with a friendly smile. "You're one of the few people I feel comfortable talking to."

He sighed, "I'm glad I came too. I really needed this. To know that everything is going to go back to normal."

Jen looked past him and exclaimed, "Oh my god! Are you serious?" Mark turned to where Jen was looking and saw Dee emerge from her room. She was wearing nothing but a lace-mesh red thong and an extremely low-cut white T-shirt that stopped above her navel that was stretched to its limit so thin over her constantly jiggling breasts that it was easy to see she was no longer wearing a bra.

"What? I've been trapped in that suffocating outfit all day and I just wanted to.... y'know, hang loose tonight. Among friends." Dee turned to Mark and tugged on her shirt. "We're all adults, right? Does this bother you?" she said as she began turning around, showing that her thong strap disappeared between her buttocks and did not hide one millimeter of her round ass.

"No, I don't mind." Mark said, somewhat loudly before adding in a softer tone, "You look great. I mean... it's fine."

"See?" Her mocking tone made Jen roll her eyes. Dee smiled and sat down on the other side of the couch from Mark.

"Of COURSE he doesn't mind!" Jen sputtered. "He's a guy!"

"He wants me to be relaxed and comfortable," she said with a grin. "I'm glad you like it." She looked at his lap out of the corner of her eye and sniggered a little. "I guess you reeeally like it, huh?"

Mark looked down and saw he had a stiff boner trying to push up and release itself from his sweatpants. "Oh my god! I am... so..."

"It's ok," Dee giggled. "Guys get erections. That's what guys are supposed to do. It's a good thing." She smiled warmly at Mark and then put her gaze back down to his crotch. "And from what I can tell, it's a very large thing." With that, both Dee and Jen burst out laughing.

Mark put his hands over his crotch. "All right! All right! Hardy har har!" he said with an impish scorn, like a school principal trying to settle down an auditorium of rowdy teenagers. Dee and Jen continued giggling as Mark gave everyone their usual Thai orders.

Mark and Dee looked at each other good-naturedly as Dee tried to stifle her giggling. When she finally composed herself, she declared, "I'm sorry, you're right. This wasn't a good idea. I'll go change." She stood up and took a step towards her room. "I don't want to make this awkward..."

"Come back, it's fine," he said soothingly. "There's nothing I can't see in a catalog. And you deserve to be comfortable."

She smiled appreciatively at him as she sat back down. "Ok then. Thank you."

With a good-natured sigh, Jen picked up the remote and started streaming their latest binge show. They were in the middle of a season of Breaking Bad, and Mark was curious to see what Walt was going to handle the drug cartels he was involved with. Mark's eyes, however, kept drifting away from the TV and over to Dee's body.

After three episodes, and just as many bottles of wine, Dee proclaimed, "I finally remember where I've seen that actress from! She's on

Life in Pieces!

"

"Who? Marie?" Jen asked. "No, you're thinking of someone else."

"That's her. What do you want to bet?" Dee eyed her defiantly. "I haven't Googled her yet, I promise."

Jen flashed a look over at Mark, who shrugged, "Nuh uh, noooo! I know better than to get between you two during one of your bets. Besides, I honestly have no idea."

Jen looked at Dee like a professional poker player determining if they were being bluffed or not, and then finished the last sip of wine in her glass. "Loser has to clean up this trash and open another bottle of wine," gesturing toward the various emptied take out containers strewn across the coffee table.

"Deal! Look it up!" As Jen pulled out her phone and began pressing buttons, Dee smiled triumphantly as she took a long sip of wine until Jen began cursing under her breath. Jen stuck her tongue out at Dee, but then smiled graciously as she grabbed the plastic bag and filled it with their garbage before carrying it into the kitchen. As Jen could be heard opening another bottle of wine, Dee stretched and twisted on the couch. "Do you mind rubbing my back a little? I think I slept on it wrong last night."

"Sure, do you want to...." As soon as Mark had agreed, Dee stood up and went to his side of the couch, putting her bare ass right in front of his face. She sat down on the couch between his legs, and Mark had to spread his legs as far as he could and moved to the back of the couch in order to give her enough room to sit down. Even so, her curvy hips were firmly pressed against his thighs and crotch.

Jen came back into the room and topped off everyone's wine glass, giving Mark and Dee a stifled smile that was almost unnoticeable. The next show began again as Mark's hands began rubbing and kneading Dee's body over her shirt. "It feels better if you can do it against my skin," she whispered over her shoulder. He silently took a deep breath and then slid his hands under her shirt and began massaging her bare back. Dee moaned in approval a few times, but when Mark shushed her, she tapered her reaction to heavy breathing and sighing.

As he ran his fingers over her skin, he had to continually use his sweats to rub off the clammy sweat building in his palms. She pulled her hair over the front of her shoulder, but it kept falling behind her again and lightly brushed over his hands. He kept adjusting his pants, trying to keep the bulge in his pants from pressing against her, but it was difficult for him to find room. Halfway through the episode, he got a small reprieve when Dee stood up to open another bottle of wine for everyone. When she sat back down between his legs, she had her hands on his knees to keep herself steady and she pushed her hips backwards so her ass was shoved against the erection that was unquestionably throbbing against her. If she was aware of it, however, she showed no outward sign.

When the episode finished, Jen stood up with a deep sigh. "I'm sorry, but I'm exhausted, so I'm calling it a night." When Mark and Dee started to protest for her to stay, she replied. "No, I'm beat. Good night. You two have fun." As she walked past, she gave a knowing look to Dee and winked at her before gently shutting her bedroom door behind her.

"That feels really good," Dee said with a low, sultry voice as Mark continued rubbing her muscles. "I'm trying to remember the first backrub you ever gave me."

Without hesitation, Mark answered, "September 14." Dee slowly turned her head around with her jaw agape, to which Mark added. "Just after 4pm."

"How. The fuck." Dee sputtered articulating every word. "Do you. Remember. That?"

"It was Marcia's birthday, I was getting ready to take her out to dinner. She was running late, and you had just come in from your afternoon jog. You complained about a pain in your back, and Marcia told me to give you a back rub while she finished getting ready." Dee was still gazing at Mark with her mouth open. "I remember it because I was shocked that Marcia wanted me to rub you, since she told me how jealous she was of how gorgeously beautiful you are. But also..." Mark swallowed hard. "It was the first time I touched you." His eyes darted away, staring at nothing in the distance for a few seconds before returning to Dee's eyes. "That was pretty memorable." Mark paused for a brief second before asking, "What happened with that guy you were dating? David?"

"Darron," she corrected. "We broke up a couple of weeks ago."

"Ah," he nodded his head, "That's why I didn't notice. That was about the same time Marcia told us she was leaving."

"Yeah, I broke up with him a few days after that." She looked down at the floor and ran one of her big toes through the carpet.

The quiet lasted for about eight heartbeats before Mark responded, "I'm sorry. He seemed nice."

She shrugged her shoulders underneath his fingers pressing into the muscles around her bare shoulder blade. "He was. He just wasn't the one for me." They sat silently, except for the sound of each other breathing, for a couple of minutes. Dee turned her head and looked over her shoulder. "I'm sorry about you and Marcia."

"Thanks," he muttered. He paused for a few seconds and then added, "I'm actually not all that sad about it." He took a deep breath, as though he were going to say something else, but then softly exhaled.

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But..." Dee stared ahead of her and held her breath. "What happened with you and Marcia? I can guess, but... well, she never really talked to me that much."

"You know how she was," Mark exhaled. For a second he felt a hard lump of muscle near her shoulder blade and focused on working that knot out. "At first, Marcia was a lot of fun. But after a few months, she started criticizing everything about me. How I chewed my food. How I drove. She even told me I didn't empty the dishwasher correctly."

Dee looked over her shoulder puzzled, "Seriously?"

"Don't ask me, I still don't know the 'right' way to do it," Mark kneaded her naked skin for several long seconds. "Thing is, I didn't handle it well, either. I can get pretty snarky and defensive." Mark kept rubbing the small knot in her back, finding it harder to locate. "I'm sorry for all the times I bickered with her in front of you and Jen."

"Personally, I thought you showed great restraint. She wasn't very nice to you." Dee paused then suddenly blurted out, "Towards the end, she wasn't nice to any of us." She looked at him over her shoulder. "I hope I'm not offending you. I know you loved her."

"No, not really," he sighed. "At least, not at the end. Maybe never." He paused for a moment and then snickered. "I actually wanted to break up with her five months ago."

"Really? Why didn't you?"

"Because leaving her meant... well, leaving you. And Jen. I really liked it when we all hung out together. And I didn't want that to end."

Dee gave a sigh as his hands softly rubbed her neck, finding the ends of her tendons and releasing their tightness, and her face became lost in thought. "Do you remember the first day we met?"

"Oooooooh yeah." Mark was working the tops and sides of her shoulders as his thumbs bore into the muscles next to her spine. "I'd been dating Marcia for... what, three weeks? It was the second time I came over, you weren't there the first time. It was a Sunday night, I remember that because I didn't want to be presumptuous that I'd spend the night, but I also didn't want to be without a change of clothes to go to work if I did. Anyway, you were getting ready to go out when I showed up. You looked... breathtaking. I mean that literally. You walked out of your room and I stopped breathing."

Dee blushed as she remarked, "I remember walking out and seeing you for the first time, standing in the kitchen in a short-sleeve shirt. And for a moment, I was so jealous of Marcia for... I don't know, I guess, finding you first." She stared at the floor. "And then you were coming over all the time. You actually treated me like a normal person. And you were so funny and smart. And charming, my god, you were so..." Mark's fingers were losing some of their pressure, and Dee turned her head. "Am I embarrassing you?"

"A little," he snickered as he resumed the massage. "But in a good way."

Dee looked over her shoulder again, "Do you really think I'm.... what did you say, 'gorgeously beautiful'?"

Mark snorted, "Are you kidding? There isn't a man with a pulse who doesn't think you're easily one of the most beautiful women anyone has ever seen."

Silence hung over them for another minute as his fingers continued moving around her naked skin. She picked up her wine glass and tilted it high, swallowing the last third of her wine before continuing, "Can I be honest with you?"

"Of course," Mark replied as he continued kneading the skin on her back. He shifted his hips to reposition himself away from her round ass pressing hard against the pulsating bulge in his crotch, but there wasn't any room for him to move.

"I know you just broke up with Marcia, so this may be a really bad time to say this, but I think you're a really nice guy." She quickly turned her head towards him, "I don't mean that how it sounds." She turned away again, "Fuck! I mean, you're not a nice guy as in you're a 'nice guy BUT' kind of way. I mean you're genuinely a nice guy. You've been nice to me, even when you didn't have to, and... Oh shit, I'm sorry for babbling like a fucking idiot. I'm just really.... Fuck. Look, I think... I like you." She swiftly turned towards him again, "I mean I do. Like you. A lot. I've been around a lot of assholes. But you are one of the few guys that ever treated me like a real person. You're fucking hilarious and handsome." She drifted back to looking straight ahead. "I don't want to embarrass you, but you are. And I hope I'm not crazy, but I think we have a really good connection. I think you..." She craned her neck a little more so she could meet his eyes. "I hope you like me. At some level. And I understand if this is shitty timing." She tore her gaze away from him. "I'm not trying to be so fucking pushy, which I know I can be, I just.... I can't pretend.... I wanted to be honest with you about how I felt. I kept telling myself to keep my fucking mouth shut and give you some space, and I know I shouldn't've dressed like this, but I can't help myself. I'm sorry I just dumped all this on you. It's not fair to you. You don't have to say anything right now, ok? In fact, please don't. You don't need to. Just... maybe some day you and I could... Ok, I need to stop now. Just think about it and...."