My name is James MacAndrew, know familiarly as Mack. I'm about 6 feet or a little less, depending on who's measuring. I'm about 180 pounds and of regular, reasonably good looks. My wife is Sandra MacAndrew, addressed by most as Sandy. She's about 5' 2" or 5' 3" and I'll estimate somewhere between 110 and 115 pounds. She is quite pretty with very nice features, not beautiful but very nice. She has a very good but not spectacular body. Her breasts are, her bra says, 34B. Not large but very firm and with very little need for that bra. When dressed professionally, she usually wears one, but not in the evening. In the same manner, she wears pantyhose when working, garter belt and hose when dressed up. Actually, she is quite modest in her behavior and it would be a rare person who had any idea as to what she did or did not wear beneath her clothes.
Still, Sandy's biggest virtue is not her body or her face, nice as they are, but her personality. She often is described as "bubbly" and has a real talent for making friends. It's been said that when she visits a doctor's office, she comes out knowing not only the receptionist's name, but also her family, her background, her children, etc. And, she remembers it. That's a quality I admire because I'm the opposite.
She and I met in high school, went to college together, graduated, married and went to grad school together. The only time that we were separated was her junior year when she spent a full year in Spain. We both received our M.A.'s but there our academic lives separated. I went on to get my PhD while she taught school to support us. I joined a large northeastern university and began my professional career while she enrolled in the grad school to start her own PhD program and to work as a teaching assistant. We both had always loved school and education so our path, while unusual, suited us perfectly. All of this takes time, of course, so we were each about 30 when the circumstances in this story occurred, making her somewhat older than her grad student classmates.
We had moved to the small town where the university was located - actually a separate suburb of a fair-sized city. With a substantial mortgage we had been able buy a nicely remodeled four bedroom, two-story house with a walk-out basement. It was considerably larger than we needed, but the price was right and we anticipated adding to the family. In addition to the regular living space, the house also included a "mother-in-law suite" which we had intended to rent out to a student, but we, so far at least, had passed on that because of the lack of privacy. The only change that we had made in the house was to turn one bedroom into a combination office-study-library which was necessary for people in our fields. That bedroom was over the two-car garage and had several large windows overlooking a long driveway and front door and giving a very pleasant view of an expansive, treed front lawn. That vantage point turned out to be quite significant in a totally unexpected way. Our own bedroom was in the back of the house, well away from our "working" area. The backyard opened onto an alley which were common in earlier times for a rear entrance and contained a small building which originally was a carriage house. As I said, it was far more than we needed, but it was very nice.
Sandy's field of interest and her major was Spanish and Spanish literature. She had a real aptitude for languages and dove into the coursework with enthusiasm. Classes and seminars were small, the material interesting and the professors well versed in their specialties. Her first year in the PhD program went very well and with excellent grades which she honestly deserved. Now in her second year, she continued that success. You always worry about someone you know socially being in your class for if they don't do well it can be embarrassing. This was particularly true in this case because Sandy was a student and, at the same time, a faculty wife, and it would have been embarrassing for her professors, socially as well as academically, if she has been a poor student! We did socialize with other faculty and made real friends, but Sandy's main pleasure came from her relationships with her fellow grad students.
Language majors, at all levels, see each other regularly in and out of classes and usually band together against a parochial world (U.S., at least) which doesn't feel the need to learn foreign languages; they are too hard, they are not practical in getting a job, everyone should learn English, etc. Actually, those attitudes are changing now, but, when the acts this story is about were going on, those feelings predominated. In any case, there was a closeness that developed, particularly among the teaching assistants (or TA's), leading to get-togethers one or twice a month, usually a Saturday night, when they sat around "talking shop," discussing professors and courses, papers, articles and their own classes and students and all the other minutia that graduate students and teaching assistants revel in. Frequently, one of the fellows played classical guitar and entertained with Spanish music while everyone lay back and let the ambiance overcome them. They were pleasant evenings of bonding, sharing their learning and experiences and unwinding.
Sandy, of course, loved these parties and I attended several of them with her but didn't find them to be entertaining. In addition, I really didn't fit in - I wasn't involved in language studies, I certainly wasn't interested in the gossip about their professors and students and, in any case, I was a professor myself! It was a very nice, very compatible group, but I just didn't fit in with a group of graduate students. I liked them as individuals but I wasn't a part of the group. Consequently, we quickly developed a system in which I drove Sandy to the place where the party was being held (usually a house which one of the women assistants rented) and someone would bring her home. There always one or more drivers who served as transportation for those who didn't have cars or who didn't like night driving, so that worked out well.
The parties frequently ran into the small hours of the morning, but I didn't need to wait up or worry because she would be delivered right to our door. If I was working late in the study (which I often was while grading term papers, exams, etc.), I could see the car pull in and greet her at the door. The truth is, I enjoyed watching for the car to pull in and see Sandy get out, wave to her friend or friends and hurry in to tell me how her evening had gone. Actually, for each of us one of the best parts of any activity, or any day, for that matter, was to get home and tell the other about it. That type of sharing was something that we both enjoyed and valued because, even after years together, we each was really interested in what the other was doing.
In any case, even if I had gone to bed I couldn't really get to sleep soundly until she came in, somewhat like a parent waiting for the sound of their teenager getting home. So the pattern developed: she would be taken to the party, have an enjoyable evening, be delivered to our door and come into the bedroom, her bubbling personality lighting up the room as she saw me. I would receive a précis, long or short, and, as she finally ran down, we would go to sleep. That was the pattern that developed during her first year and through the first semester of the second. Then, suddenly in one night, everything changed.
Classes were over and papers had been completed and turned in so the grad students were free except for graduate assistants like Sandy who still had the boring task of proctoring the final group exam for Introductory Spanish on Monday morning. Naturally, they had an "end of semester" party to celebrate and unwind. Sandy was really looking forward to an evening with her friends with no pressure, no deadlines, to concern them.
I reclined on the bed, watching her dress, a very pleasant occupation, before I had to return to my own boring duty, reading term papers and exams. She walked around the room wearing only her hose and garter belt - pantyhose were practical for daily wear, but garter belt and hose were for dressing up. She added a brief pair of sheer pink panties that really hid very little. Then, she picked up one of her favorite skirts and donned it. It was a long wrap skirt in the dark blue and green Black Watch plaid over which she slipped on a dark blue silky blouse that buttoned up the front. It was a very attractive ensemble and I said, in complete honesty, "Lovely!"
She leaned over and kissed me, saying, "Thank, you." Then, looking at herself in the mirror, she asked, "Do you think that I need a bra with this? I love the feel of the material against me and the color is dark. I think that it is ok. What do you think?
