Rory cleared the last stoplight and accelerated onto the open highway. It was after midnight now, and traffic was sparse. It would still be almost 2 AM by the time he got home, and he would need the windows down and the radio turned up to stay alert later, but for now he was wide awake with sheer adrenaline.
His date with the young woman from his Psychology class, Kelly, had been terrific. It was their second date; he had asked her out during finals week and their first date had been the night before he went home for the summer. She was staying on campus during summer term. He knew after the first date he wanted to see her again; and he figured that his willingness to drive four hours, round trip, for a second evening together would assure her of his interest, if not scare her away.
He hadn't scared her away.
They had gone out for pizza, walked through a city park where a jazz band was playing in a gazebo, and then returned to her place, and sat outside on the back stoop drinking Lambrusco out of plastic cups, and talking, and eventually kissing.
And eventually there was more kissing than talking.
She had turned out to be as easy-to-be-with as she was pretty. And she was very pretty; certainly, the prettiest girl he had ever worked up the nerve to ask out. But they had plenty of common interests, since they had met in a class for her major, his minor. She seemed a bit demure, with a slight tendency to wait for him to take the lead; but not prim or prudish. She laughed at his jokes and didn't flinch at profanity. It was like she knew what he was looking for in a girl.
Rory didn't want to rush things, but he could definitely see Kelly as a steady girlfriend. He was in no hurry to make a lifetime commitment, but he liked having a girl in his life. Among other things, he had never had sex outside the context of a monogamous relationship. He knew there were girls who would put out without any sort of "commitment;" hell, his roommate had brought home five or six of them. But Rory was just old-fashioned enough that he had still only had sex with girls that he was seeing exclusively, and he still liked it that way.
The previous girl he had dated, just a couple of times, had told him that she thought he was "the kind of guy who needed to be in a relationship." He felt a little judged by that statement. He wished he had been quick enough to cavalierly tell her no, he just wanted companionship and sex. But to him, and to all the "nice girls" he had ever dated, he assumed, "a relationship" was a prerequisite for the latter.
Well, at any rate, he thought, as he headed up the interstate on-ramp, this Kelly seemed really promising. He was willing to take things slow; it was his
modus operandi
, and he felt like it fit his "brand." He had already arranged to come back to see her again next weekend, and he could hardly wait.
****
Kelly climbed the stairs to her little attic apartment, kicked off her sneakers, turned out the lights in the kitchen and the shared bathroom, and entered her bedroom in the rear dormer, closing the door behind her.
She walked over to the dresser and looked into the mirror, removing her earrings.
"I thought he would never leave," said the voice behind her.
She turned to face the man reclining on her bed. He was up on one elbow, naked except for his boxers, all barrel chest and thick thighs, a bemused leering grin on his broad, flat face.
"You're the one who wanted to wait up here the whole time," she replied, her voice betraying hints of testiness and resignation.
He shrugged. "And you went along with it."
"It was a second date," she stated, unbuttoning her blouse. "I wasn't going to bring him up here anyway."
"Uh huh. You didn't wait until the third date to get down and dirty with me."
"Malcolm," she sighed, "We haven't had a
first
date."
"True enough," Malcolm acknowledged, looking rather pleased with the reminder that she had been opening her legs for him without even making him pop for dinner.
"So why were you so keen to spend the evening up here waiting for him to leave, like some kind of pervert?"
"Because, I like cock-blocking other guys," he admitted. "And, I wanted to be here when you came back, because I knew you'd be hot to trot."
She shook her head and surrendered a trace of a smile, as she draped her shirt over the back of a chair and released the front clasp on her lacy white bra. It fell open, revealing the tell-tale hard pink nipples atop her small white breasts.
"And you are, aren't you?" he continued. "Didn't it make you wet, sitting down there on your back steps drinking wine and making small talk with your beau, knowing I was up here waiting for you?"
"Off and on," she admitted, unfastening the button on her jeans and beginning to shimmy them over her well-rounded hips. "Sometimes I forgot all about you."
"Right," he said, smugly. "Whatever. You're wet now."
She was stepping out of her jeans, and the evidence that Malcolm was correct was visible in the crotch of her pink panties. She loosely folded her jeans and laid them down on the chair. Yeah, she admitted to herself, it was naughty and titillating, the idea that her big brother's cocky best friend wanted a booty call after her date with a new guy. If he had called her and asked if he could come over, or asked -- even
told
-- her to come to his place, she may well have said yes.
