I don't really know what to make of it, to be honest. Sarah and I got in the pattern of going for early-morning runs together, which I thought was just a part of our friendship, but lately I've started to think she's flirting with me. Maybe you can help me figure this out? I'll tell you what's happened as best I can.
Introductions are probably in order. I'm Jake, a student at a fairly progressive college in the midwest. My friend Sarah is also here, and we both just finished our junior years. We both live on campus in the same dorm building.
I'll start with the beginning of recent events so that you've got the whole picture. This spring, as winter slowly receded, I complained to Sarah that I felt like a shut-in and needed some exercise pretty desperately. She said she'd been feeling the same way and suggested we start running.
I'm naturally slim and try to stay moderately active, so running was not entirely out of the picture for me, but I was not in running shape. When I told Sarah that, she laughed and said she was in the same boat and said that we'd start slow.
So the next morning, we went for our first run together. We were both pretty winded after running a half mile and ended up walking the rest of our planned two-mile loop. When we got back to the dorm, we agreed that running sucked and also that we'd do it again in two days.
We've been running three times a week ever since, and we've actually gotten good. Well, good for us.
So that started in the spring semester - some time in March. Our semester ended in the beginning of May, but both of us are staying here for summer session courses.
Like I said, it's a pretty progressive college. The dorm floors are co-ed and the bathrooms are also all co-ed. There's one big bathroom on each floor with a bunch of toilet stalls, two rows of sinks, and a row of shower stalls.
When the summer session started, the college moved students around to use fewer floors of the dorm (it saves energy!), and Sarah and I requested and got neighboring rooms, whereas before we'd been on different floors.
This, in turn, changed our running habits a bit.
Three weeks ago, on Tuesday, we moved into our new dorm rooms. We went for a run on Wednesday. We'd usually meet at 7:30am in front of the building, but decided to meet at our doors at 7:30 instead.
I was up and dressed for our run on Wednesday morning at 7:30, wearing my running shoes, my mid-thigh running shorts, and a t-shirt. Sarah wasn't in the hall when I opened my door, so I just went next door and knocked.
Sarah opened her door.
"I'll be ready in just a sec," she said, "but come in."
I looked around. She'd already made the place home - there were no moving boxes anywhere and already a pile of clothes on the floor. Just like her last room.
And then I looked at her. Sarah usually ran in shorts and a t-shirt, just like me. But she'd not gotten her t-shirt on yet and was walking around in shorts and a red sports bra. I don't think I'd ever seen her bare midriff before, and I stared a little bit. She looked good. She was slim and lithe and her c-cup breasts were highlighted wonderfully by her sports bra. Her nipples were a little hard, I noticed.
"Are you running like that today?" I asked.
She swatted me with a t-shirt. "You wish," she said, pulling it over her head.
We ran four miles that morning, and then walked one. And when we got back to the dorm, we took the elevator to the same floor for the first time.
"I'm gonna hit the showers," Sarah said, sticking her head into her room and grabbing a towel and bag of toiletries. "You coming?"
"I need to find my stuff," I said, "so I'll get there in a minute."
When I made it to the bathroom, I heard a shower running and saw Sarah's towel over the door. I chose a stall two down from hers.
Let me tell you what these shower stalls look like, because they're a little weird. The top of the walls dividing showers from each other and the bathroom is maybe five feet high, which means that it comes to the height of my mouth. So I can see the a lot of the room when I'm in the shower. And it means that when I walked into the bathroom that morning, I saw the wet top of Sarah's head (since she's maybe 5'-3"). The other thing about these walls is that they start about two feet off the ground, which is to say about knee-height. Being a co-ed bathroom means that the showers each need to have a place to change. So each stall has a shower with a curtain and a little antechamber with a bench and some hooks.
So when I walked into the shower part of the bathroom and saw Sarah's towel over the door and the top of her head under the shower spray, I also saw her workout clothes on the floor and could have, if I were a perv, put my head at knee-level and seen her shins in the shower.
In any case, I got into a shower two down from Sarah's and washed up. I'd brought a pair of jeans to change into, so when I emerged after my shower, I was shirtless in jeans with my towel over a shoulder. That's how I usually did the walk back to my room. Decent enough, but I didn't have to bring all my clothes with me to the shower.
Sarah got out of the shower about the same time as I did, only she didn't bring clothes to change into - she was wearing only a towel wrapped around her chest.
She smiled at me and said she had to run to work and that she'd see me later and then she dashed out the door.
We hung out that night and watched a movie, and made plans for our Friday morning run. I didn't see Sarah on Thursday at all.
Friday, we repeated the same morning pattern. I was up a bit before her, and knocked on her door. She opened the door in her sports bra and shorts again and this time when I suggested that she just run like that, she agreed. As we ran, I had a hard time keeping my eyes away from her chest, admiring the way her breasts bounced with each step.
We made it back to the dorm and started talking as we caught our breaths. She was telling me about her work this summer as we got to our rooms.
"Ready for a shower?" she asked, interrupting her story about how another intern at her office was making her life difficult.
I poked my head into my room to grab my toiletries and a towel and a pair of jeans.
"Leave the jeans," Sarah instructed, "it's a bit of a thrill to walk down this hallway in just a towel. Try it with me."
I left the jeans in my room and followed her to the bathrooms while Sarah continued her story.
I picked a shower in the middle of the row, and after I chose mine, Sarah chose the one next to it, all the while telling her story.
She was explaining how the other intern had screwed up a copying job and needed her help as she undressed on the other side of the thin wall from me.
I watched, a bit awestruck, as her shorts landed on the floor next to my feet.
And then her arms extended above the short barrier bringing her bra off over her head. And then her bra was also just inches from my feet.
I started to undress, too, feeling my cock stiffen at the proximity of Sarah's almost naked body. Just as Sarah had deposited her clothes on the side of the shower stall closest to mine, I threw my shirt, then my shorts, and finally my boxers on the floor next to her pile.
Then Sarah's panties joined her pile and we were both naked, separated by the little wall.
We made eye contact across the wall. My height and how close we were to each other meant I could see down to her chin. She smiled.
"And that," she said, continuing her story, "is when I realized that maybe he had a crush on me!"
"So," I asked, turning the water in my shower on, "what are you going to do about it? Are you interested?"
She stepped into the shower and started her water, too. "Well he is kinda cute," she said, hesitating, "but not as cute as you are."
She smiled at me again and then turned away to find her shampoo.
As we soaped up, she asked me about my love life.
I told her about the dates I'd been on with a classmate in May and how we'd not really had much chemistry.
"That's a shame," Sarah said, finishing up in the shower, "you should have some chemistry in your life."
As we toweled off and emerged from our shower stalls in only our towels, we talked about plans for the next week. We were both headed out of town, but we agreed to run together the Monday we returned. We parted ways at the doors to our rooms.
That weekend was Memorial Day and the college gave us the whole week off, so Sarah and I both went home for a visit.
I came back after the vacation on Sunday evening - that's the beginning of last week - and went to bed after a long day of traveling, having set my alarm for Monday morning.
By 7:30am, I was ready for our run and in the hallway. I knocked on Sarah's door as was becoming a pattern. She opened the door.
"Sorry," she said through the toothbrush in her mouth and pointed me to sit on her bed.
Sarah wasn't dressed yet. She was wearing a thong, which I admired as she bent over to spit out the toothpaste, and a tank top. She pulled on her shorts as I watched and then faced me with her hands on the hem of her tank top.
She looked me in the eye and started to inch her top up her belly. "Would you mind closing your eyes?"
I obliged and was quickly hit in the head with her top.
"Ready?" she asked a minute later, and I opened my eyes to her in a sports bra, her nipples obviously hard.
I stood up and we went for our run.
When we got back, we picked up soap and towels and headed to the showers. Sarah again chose a shower next to mine, and again dropped her clothes next to my feet. And I, again, was getting turned on knowing how close I was to a naked girl.
"No jeans this time," Sarah noted. "How was it going down the hall in only a towel?"
"It was OK, I guess." I didn't know what to say about the experience. "You say it gives you a thrill?"
"Can I tell you a secret, Jake?"
I nodded.
"It turns me on a little."
"What about it?" I asked.
"I get a thrill, I guess, of exposing some skin in public. Not knowing who will see, but knowing that anyone could. And walking down the hall in just a towel, I'm so close to naked in front of everyone on our floor. Just a little slip of the fabric is all it would take, Jake."
I looked across the wall at her.
Sarah blushed. "Just telling you about it is turning me on a little."
We were both done washing ourselves, but neither of us made a move to get out of the shower.
"Want to walk to our rooms the long way around the floor?" I asked.
Sarah's face lit up and she made a guilty smile.
We toweled off and walked - slowly - the long way back to our rooms.
We next ran on Wednesday. I knocked on Sarah's door at 7:30, wondering what I'd see. Wondering whether she was showing off for me the way she'd talked about showing off in general.
I wasn't disappointed. She answered her door in a black nightie that showed off her breasts and came to mid-thigh.
"Running late?" I asked.
"Sorry!" she called, fishing a pair of panties from her dresser and pulling them on under her nightie. She'd answered the door wearing only her gown, I realized. Did she always sleep in that sexy outfit?
Sarah turned her back to me and without any ado, lifted her nightie up and off, showing me her bare back and panty-clad ass. She pulled a sports bra from her dresser and before I knew it, she was covered up and wriggling into her shorts.
"Ready?" she asked, opening the door.
After our run, we hit the showers together as was becoming our usual.
As we stepped into the showers, both of us naked, but separated as usual by that little divider, I got the courage together to ask Sarah a question. "You said on Monday that showing off turns you on," I started.