This is a fifteen chapter novella, and each chapter is dependent on the one that comes before it. It is best read in order.
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I had taking fewer hours during spring term of my senior year with the idea that I would finish up with two easy classes in the summer session. I was set to start school in California the first week of September, and summer classes were over the second week in July, so the timing worked out well for me. The house I was living in was going to be closed for the summer, and my housemates, Bridgett and Kathy, were going home. I needed a new place for the summer term, and I answered an ad for a room on the kiosk in front of the student union.
The two guys who showed me the house, Tom and Charlie, also lived there during the regular school year. It was another coed house with six private rooms on two stories. The house was wooden and painted white with deep blue shutters and trim. They referred to it as the Blues House (without any explanation other than the color of the trim work) and told me that during the fall and winter terms, there were twelve people in the house, two to a room, usually six men and six women. It had separate girls’ and boys’ bathrooms, but only one shower room with a reversible sign on the door – “Girls” on one side and “Boys” on the other. That was still better than the first house I lived in, where even the bathroom operated that way. I love men, but I can’t stand sharing a bathroom with them. The kitchen area was pretty nice, and the room was dirt-cheap. I liked it.
Most of all, though, I liked Tom and Charlie. They were about as amiable and funny as any guys I had met in college, and I knew that I liked them after spending only twenty minutes with them. Tom was the cute one. He had curly, musty blond hair and the most infectious smile I had ever come across. He was tall, and very healthy without being too muscular. Charlie, on the other hand, was kind of a nerd. He had tortoise shell glasses and straight brown hair that he obviously combed a lot. He was even taller than Tom, but lanky and angular. He was pleasant looking, however, with dark, mischievous eyes. Tom was confident and talkative. Charlie was quiet and reserved, but he was definitely not nervous or intimidated. He was the kind of person that could intimidate you by being quiet and playing it close to the vest, like he knew something about your situation that you didn’t. They made for an interesting pair.
They were excited about the opportunity to rent a room to me because they had a student named Amy who also wanted to rent a room there, but said she wouldn’t unless they found another woman for a housemate. I told them that if Amy would rent a room, so would I, and they called me that afternoon to say we had a deal.
Amy took the room at the other end of the hall from me on the second floor. Amy was a gregarious sort, full of energy and laughter. She was also very touchy-feely. She hugged me the first time we met, and I could tell she liked to keep the guys on their toes, always quick to pat a head or put a hand on a shoulder. She was short and slim, and had straight auburn hair that she curled in just above her shoulders. Her eyes were brown and always moist and clear. She liked to wear too-tight blue jeans that showed off her greatest asset, a perfectly shaped, tight little ass. Her boobs were serviceable, but not large, and she looked good in the tight knit halter-tops and clingy blouses she liked to wear. From the first time I met her, I could tell she was very confident in her sexuality, and I liked that about her.
The men lived on the first floor. In addition to Charlie and Tom, there was Mike. He was a graduate-engineering student. He was shorter than the Charlie or Tom, and shorter than me for that matter, but he had a thick chest and back, a firm, narrow waist, and muscular thighs that lent him a sense of sturdiness. From the faint freckles on his face, you could tell his hair had been red when he was a child, but it was brown now. He was very pleasant to talk to, but he seemed somewhat nervous around Amy and me.
The first few weeks of the summer were interesting. Amy latched on to Charlie as if that had been her plan from day one. Charlie seemed extremely flattered and grateful, and played along. Mike pretty much kept to himself. He was the only one in the house that didn’t get high, but it didn’t seem to bother him when we smoked. He never left the room if someone lit up, and his polite attitude never changed, he simply didn’t partake. He was probably just a shy type by nature. Then there was Tom and me.
I felt like Tom and I really hit it off, but we were both very slow to do anything more than chat and laugh at each other’s stories. I assumed he wasn’t presently dating anyone because I hadn’t yet seen another woman around, but I wasn’t certain. Tom was relaxed, and yet very straightforward and opinionated. He could make you feel at ease even as he was making fun of you, and I admired that about him. But I always felt a sexual tension around him that I didn’t feel with the others. I guess I felt left out and disappointed after I had been in the house for two weeks he still hadn’t flirted with me. He became a regular subject in my masturbatory fantasies, and as the tension built, I thought I was going to have to be the one to breakdown and make the first move. Of course, I like to think our first sexual encounter was mutually instigated. In any event, it was nothing like I expected, and certainly nothing like anything I had ever fantasized about.
On my second Saturday night in the house, everyone but Tom and me had gone home for the weekend. The campus was dead, so we were both at the Blues House that night with nothing to do and nowhere to go. We were listening to music in the living room. The room had a bay window with a seat that opened up onto a small backyard with a wooden fence and tall, crowded maple trees that made it very green and very secluded. (When the sun was high, I could lay out in my skimpiest bikini, something I wouldn’t have done without that privacy.) To the left of the window was a homemade, pine bar that sat in a small alcove. There was a small refrigerator behind the bar, and two wooden stools in front of it. Then there was a short hallway that led to the foyer. Against the wall opposite to the window was an oversized couch that had a denim fabric slip cover, and next to that was a reupholstered, old-fashioned wingback chair. Between the couch and the chair was an antique, full-length mirror that could swivel on its base and be tilted up and down from the sides. On the wall to the right of the window was a floor to ceiling bookshelf crammed with stereo equipment, records, and outdated textbooks. The room had a vague but remarkably not unpleasant odor of marijuana and stale beer. It was a comfortable room to be in despite its humble accoutrements. The side windows on the bay were open, and between songs I could hear a patter of light rain. The air was wet and very warm. We were drinking beer and talking. I was very relaxed. He did most the talking, but he was not talking about himself. We talked about music and families and careers and school. I liked listening to his voice. It was very calming.
He was barefoot in blue jeans and a khaki colored t-shirt. He liked to sit in the window seat with his back against a side beam, both legs out straight in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and that’s how I remember him that night. I was wearing my white bikini top under a sheer, white cotton blouse, which was tucked in to a pair of yellow denim short shorts. I wore those shorts precisely because they brought attention to my hips and fanny, something I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing only a few years earlier. I was sitting on a barstool when the topic of discussion turned to working out. I mentioned how diligently I was trying to maintain a regular workout schedule.
“Speaking of which, would you like another beer?” I asked. I stood up to get myself one.
“Please.”
“I really shouldn’t,” I said, feeling suddenly flirtatious. I turned my back to him and surprised myself as I grabbed the cheeks of my ass with both hands and squeezed. “I am not doing myself any favors by growing this thing any larger.” Where the hell did that come from, I thought. I felt like I should have been embarrassed, but I wasn’t. I stepped behind the bar to fetch the beers.
“That’s why I am trying to stick to that schedule;” I continued, “ I need to trim down.”
As I walked over to the window to hand him a beer, he looked directly into my eyes and the smile on his face he broke into laughter.
