I was awakened when Jim came into our dorm room and said, "Hey, wake up, man, Dana's showering in our bathroom." I was still a bit groggy; Dana, the tall girl from across the hall? Holy shit, it was time to check
this
out. I grabbed my bath stuff and headed over, remembering now that she'd had to crash in Butch's bunk while Butch was sleeping over with Annette, his girlfriend, who was Dana's roommate. A few steps more, and I was into our suite's bathroom -- the dorms here have eight-man suites, with four shared dorm bedrooms and one shared bathroom -- and there she was, in the shower, with the shower curtain left (deliberately?) half open. She knew it, because she was talking to the guys standing outside. I had heard that she led some sort of naked party at the Phi Sigma house a few weeks ago, but I'm not a frat member, so I wasn't there. The guys had been teasing Dana last night before we hit the sack, with Jim saying to her, "We all know that you walk around your own suite naked, and we want you to feel right at home here, so you don't need to change a thing. And I saw you walk back to your room from the shower a few weeks ago, so I know that's true." I hadn't been too big a part of the teasing, but I was there.
When she was done with her shower, it was like a goddess stepping out, like Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, but without the long hair covering her lady parts. Dana was magnificently tall, 6'1 or 6'2, maybe even 6'3, I wasn't sure, with a gleaming alabaster body, obviously toned by a lot of exercise. She was a redhead, and obviously a real redhead, as a lush bush of fiery red below matched her thick hair above. A lone tattoo on her shoulder marred her appearance. I hadn't paid all that much attention to Dana before, because she is so obviously out of my league, but here she was, showing off for everybody. Dana didn't cover up after getting out of the shower, but went to one of the sinks and started brushing out and blow-drying her hair, like the seven guys crowding around her were nothing. Then Justin took his turn in the shower, reducing the crowd around Dana a bit. I started to brush my teeth at another sink, not only because I had morning mung mouth, but because I figured that the angle would improve my view of this gorgeous girl. Yeah, she was
way
out of my league. I finally focused in on that shoulder tattoo: it was a picture of a purple heart medal, which seemed strange on a girl.
When Justin, and then Jim, finished in the shower, I took my turn. I don't know why I did it, because I would never have imagined myself doing so, but I pulled off my boxers -- that's what I had worn to bed -- in front of everybody and walked into the shower stall. There's enough of an anteroom to the stall itself for people to hang up their clothes and towels without getting wet that I didn't have to do that, and never had before, but I did so today. Still, I couldn't tell if Dana had really noticed me with six other guys, half of them naked, and all of them taller than me, trying to chat her up. I did hear Mark say to her, "You know, you are killing us here."
"Hey, isn't this what you asked me to do? You guys said that you wanted me to walk around naked," she replied. I left the shower curtain open myself, but Dana finished her hair and walked out of the bathroom before I was done.
Darn!
By the time I was done, and had gotten back to my room and gotten dressed for the day, she was gone. It was Sunday, so I didn't have any classes, though I did have a lot of studying to do; exams were just a week away! I wish that I could say I was a brain, and could just breeze through my exams without a lot of work, but that isn't me. I wound up at my desk, looking through my notebooks, but I just couldn't concentrate. I had a package of Brown Sugar-Cinnamon Pop-Tarts om my desk, such being my great breakfast, but the words in my notebooks were just a blur. When Jim came back in, I had to ask him to tell me more about Dana.
"What's she really like? And what's with that Purple Heart tat on her shoulder?"
"What, you didn't know? She's a vet, man, and she got wounded in Afghanistan."
"I didn't think that girls were allowed in combat."
"Supposedly, they're not, at least women aren't assigned to combat positions, but things get pretty messed up over there, I gather, and she was in a firefight with the Taliban. I don't think it was a serious wound, a bullet in her shoulder or going through it or something like that, but still, she's tough. The chick is just plain awesome. Why? You interested?"
"Any guy who sees her would be interested; she could make a gay guy go straight! Is she seeing anyone?"
"She had been dating Larry, our frat president, but that didn't last long. I'm not sure why they broke up."
Then I asked the question I had to ask: "I don't know this Larry; is he as tall as she is?" I tell everyone who asks that I'm 5'7, but 5'6Β½ is more accurate.
"Well, he's taller than you are, about my height, but still a lot shorter than Dana. Hey, she doesn't have a boyfriend right now, and didn't seem to date a lot before she hooked up with Larry, so you might as well go for it. The worst thing that can happen is that she says no."
"No, the worst thing that can happen is that she laughs in my face and calls me a munchkin."
"She doesn't seem the type to do that. Oh, she might say no, 'cause she's an EE major and has a bunch of studying to do before finals, and she might not be interested in you, but she's not the type to deliberately humiliate you."
"Is she a brain?"
"She's smart, no doubt about that. She speaks a couple of Afghan languages, and Mark said something about her knowing Latin as well. She's smart enough that I would have expected her to have a bunch of scholarships, and maybe she had a couple, but she's here on either the GI Bill or an ROTC scholarship."
"OK, so she's not from some rich family then?"
"I don't think so, but I don't really know. Look, if you want to ask her out, then ask her out! Yeah, you're a lot shorter, but you're also the most muscular guy here, so that might impress her. You go to the gym a lot, and she obviously works out, so you've got that in common. I don't know if she goes to the gym, but she does run. C'mon, man, ask her out."
"I guess I could ask her out for lunch; that's not too serious, and might be less likely to get a rejection."