"It wasn't received?" Vannah's soft round face was suddenly rigid with hardlines of confusion. There was a cold rush of embarrassment cascading down her spine and the young girl squirmed in her grey Southern Commonwealth College sweatshirt, the purple insignia and writing flexing around her prodigious bust.
She looked around nervously, wishing to be further away from the line of college students waiting behind her with impatience slowly brimming in their eyes. She teetered in her white lo-top canvas sneakers. Closing the distance to keep a potentially embarrassing conversation more private, the young girl's chestnut colored cheeks reddened as she leaned slightly onto the counter in front of her.
She slid a hand back over her wavy black hair and focused on the frog-faced woman behind the counter. A pudgy face stared back at her through cat-eye framed glasses, lips pursed in mild annoyance as the old woman repeated herself to the nubile college girl. "We haven't received your payment for this year. No payment, No room, No classes." Her double-chin made more apparent by the way she retracted her neck as if slightly offended by the girls' need for clarification. Vanna realized the straight dark haired bob on her head was a wig, as it danced around awkwardly with the movements of her neck.
"Now, being that it's still early and classes haven't begun you can still get the payment in by the end of the month, but we can't assign you a room without it." Vannah felt something bordering on panic. The humiliation in the room felt like a balloon in her chest that might explode at any moment, but she breathed deep and dug for more information.
"How much is it?"
The administrator's thick fingers tipped with long purple nails pecked on the keyboard and the glare from the screen changed in her glasses as she announced "Seven thousand four hundred twenty..."
The young coed's brain shut off for a moment as she realized it might as well have been a billion dollars to her. Her bank account was finally back to a couple hundred dollars after a few days in the red. The irritation on the staffer's fat face seemed to wish audibly for the young student to disappear. To this woman, she was just another pretty face in a long line of rich girls in tight jeans that whined when they didn't immediately get their way. Vannah wasn't going to prove her right, besides, she wasn't even rich.
"I'll just call my mom, thank you." Her sneakers sounded like soft sobs on the marble floor as she walked away. Black hair swaying as she pathetically rolled her luggage away with the stares of fifteen or so other students offering half-mocking looks of pity.
Her cellphone was to her ear the moment she stepped out into the day-drenched square with it's well designed landscaping and smooth concrete pathways.The smell of fresh cut grass assaulted her nose as bright rays of a strong August sun warmed her face. The energy of the start of a new semester was charging the air as enthusiastic faces moved about with permanent smiles etched on their faces, but Vannah was clashing with the mood. The ringing vibrated against her ear as her heart was banging in her chest in anticipation of an answer, but none came. She repeated the process of hitting the red button and tapping on the phone icon next to
Mom
in her phone and each time frustration mounted.
The attempts never seemed to get an answer. She continued walking although she didn't know to where, but the rhythm of her legs beating against the stone seemed to make her less anxious. She was passing other students and every ten or so feet one would glance up at her chestnut skinned face briefly before becoming more distracted by the sway of her large chest in her tightly fitting shirt or the juicy cheeks that strained the capacity of the fabric on the back of her jeans. Vanna noticed the girls who were standing around having happy conversations and ducked her head hoping they didn't notice her, but they all seemed too preoccupied with the perfection that was their day to notice the distraught undergrad with the befuddled look. The twenty year old looked up toward an impossibly blue sky sparsely decorated with clouds and sighed a surrender just as her phone vibrated in her hand. She read the notification of the text message from Mom that simply read 'I'm sorry'.
Moments later, the young college girl was on the phone with her mother and was now feeling more confused and somehow less hopeful. "I'm not sure what happened. It's not my fault. You know how hard I work to keep things going, but he's not being fair and I've done what I can." Her mother sounded like she was singing more than talking, but the lyrics were a complete mystery to Vannah. "It will be fine, Nah-nah, I promise."
"Don't call me that." Vannah shot back. "Tell me what happened and why the money didn't make it to the school."
"It's him, he's being unreasonable and I am doing what I can, but it's going to take a while for everything to work out. But I promised it's fine, Nah-nah."
"Don't call me that." Vannah hadn't realized she was walking faster, " Just tell me what happened." Her hair was flowing behind her in the head wind she was generating.
"I didn't do anything, but don't worry I have the lawyers and everything's going to work out. It will just take a few weeks," her pitch went high, "Ok, Nah-nah?"
"Don't call me that!"
Vannah came to a military halt as she boomed into the phone and heads of the surrounding students snapped in her direction. She tried not to meet their gaze as the other students returned to what they were doing and Vannah fought back tears.
"Just...just tell me what happened." Despite her best efforts, her voice wavered.
There was a long pause on the phone and some shuffling. Vannah made out a door shutting and she recognized the immediate change in tone in her mother's voice. She spoke as if she was worried someone might hear her. Then, Vannah heard the rush of air from her deep sigh, "There was a little misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding? Between you and the school?" Vannah's voice quivered again and she bit her lip and willed her emotions back in check.
"Between me and your stepfather." Her mother clarified. When the pause lasted too long, Vannah urged her to continue.
"What kind of misunderstanding?" She looked around to make sure she was no longer the center of attention as she slinked off to an area between the large collegiate buildings with the fewest number of people in earshot.
"I was working out like I always do at home with Alonzo." Vannah resisted the urge to picture man, but the image of the tall barrel-chested bodybuilder was burned into her brain. His imposing, bald head and dark, sharply angled eyebrows seemed to enhance his intensity. She remembered a feeling of smallness he gave her the few times she was unlucky enough to be in the shadow of his muscle-bound, veiny form. She shuddered.
Her stepfather had felt immediately uncomfortable around him. The man seemed to wear nothing, but spandex or anything that would draw eyes to the perfectly square bulges of flesh riddled across his body. Vannah swallowed hard at the memory of the one between his legs shaped like a fist. She had only heard his deep booming baritone say a handful of words, but she had definitely noticed him staring at her like most men did when they thought no one was looking.
"He was taking me through this whole pilates routine that was very hard and I was sweating so much," Her mother continued and without trying the girl could see her mother in her favorite black designer activewear set with sheer material intricately placed over the cleavage and leg areas so there was always an obscene amount of flesh showing.
Her dark brown eyes, ever-flirting, with Alonzo as he had to lean in to guide her into the perfect bent over position or laying her on her back to stretch out her hamstring by leaning in with her calf artfully on his shoulder, while his bulge rubbed at the back of her thigh. Meanwhile her mother, feigning pain, would hold on to the hard square muscles of his arms or shoulders and coo as if mid-coitus.
"And I felt a pain in my upper back rolling around to my chest and, you know Alonzo's a board certified therapist, and he just wanted to check to make sure I didn't really hurt myself," Vannah's mouth was agape as she pictured Alonzo's large hands grabbing at the soft flesh of her mother's back in a soft sensual massage.
"But he needed to see the alignment of my spine and if it had shifted," Vannah pictured her mother letting down the shoulder straps of her top and her heavy breasts bouncing free as she feigned modesty by futilely trying to cover the massive globes with her arms and Alonzo continuing to massage dutifully.
"So I had to let my top down and when your stepfather came in he assumed the worst." Unbidden and unable to stop herself, Vannah's mind conjured the image of her mother seated on a workout bench with her unconcealed breasts bouncing freely, leggings discarded. One leg on the floor heel raised and the other held at the ankle above her head in a feat of impressive flexibility, while Alonzo knelt between them. The bodybuilder's shirt discarded somewhere with her mother's leggings, as her free hand clutched a rock hard pec muscle. His overly muscular ass rippling with the effort of shuttling his gargantuan staff in and out of her wet gash as his big hands steadied her hips for each assault.
When her mind continued to envision her own mother's screams of pleasure, Vanna shook her head to get rid of the picture.
"Can you be any more of a cliche? You fucked your trainer!"
"That is not what happened. You weren't there! You don't know!" Her mother's voice sounded breathy as she tried to yell and whisper at the same time.
"Great. So now what am I supposed to do? I don't have anywhere to stay."
Her mother breathed in sharply through her teeth. "You mean they won't let you stay there until it gets worked out?"
"No!" Vanna exclaimed her emotions again, making her voice fluctuate.
