"You know, there's nothing like lying in bed on a grey Saturday morning with a good book," Chloe was thinking to herself, when a jarring, digital "ding" broke her train of thought.
Ugh
. She reluctantly put down her copy of
The Sun Also Rises
and checked her phone. It was a text from Stephanie.
Her roommate had taken advantage of the long weekend in mid-February to go on a short skiing trip with a couple of her volleyball teammates, leaving Chloe to enjoy the place all by herself. But what the fuck did she want now?
"donovans car is in the shop. i told him he could borrow mine for the weekend. he says he can come pick up the keys around 3. can u let him in?"
Ha! Donovan -- Stephanie's freckled, red-haired, water polo "finger me" friend. Chloe wouldn't have trusted Donovan with her
toothbrush
, let alone her car, but hey, it was Stephanie's life, she could do whatever she wanted, right?
"Yeah, no prob," Chloe typed back. It was already 11:00am. All she needed to do was wait for a knock and let the guy in. Big whoop.
"Thx! the spare keys are next to my computer."
She'd seen Donovan swing by their place a couple more times since that first night Stephanie had brought him over back in November (when Stephanie was showing off her midriff with the black Queen t-shirt tied up in a knot), but not too often. He and Stephanie seemed to be hovering in that nebulous zone between "dating" and "friends." Whatever, it wasn't any of Chloe's business.
Donovan seemed like the kind of guy who was probably involved with about six different girls at once. Handsome, confident, athletic, not particularly "intellectual." Every time he came over, he gave Chloe about as much attention as he would've given a dish sponge.
Suddenly, a brazen thought popped into her brain.
Oh fuck, not
this
again.
But yeah, why not? Well, for starters, the guy was totally uninterested in her. On the
other
hand ... no, talk about a stupid idea. Better steer clear of Stephanie's red vinyl jeans entirely.
It had been almost two months since Chloe's little "adventure" with Marco at the Christmas party. Chloe hadn't even bothered to
touch
her roommate's PVC pants since then. Not that she
regretted
anything exactly, but she figured it was best to treat that whole evening as a crazy one-off, a mad lark, a brief lapse of judgement. It was all sort of one big ...
blur
. One minute she'd been sitting in her apartment binge-watching Netflix, the next minute she was sitting on a couch letting a cute guy unzip her vinyl jeans and fingerbang her for fifteen minutes straight.
It was almost as if it had actually happened to "someone else," not Chloe. The thing is ... she hadn't worn the pants and gone to the party
against her will
. Deep down, she'd wanted to do every single thing she'd done. It was like the pants had somehow brought all these latent desires out of her. Sort of like alcohol, without the pesky hangover.
So yeah. She remembered coming home from Alex's party, and the next thing she knew ... it was morning, and she was lying on her bed, dressed in her underwear, with the PVC jeans sitting on the floor, folded neatly underneath Stephanie's ringer tee. Whatever. She was just relieved they hadn't sucked her into any further mischief.
Sure, she'd seen Marco around campus a couple of times since then and said hi, but she tactfully tried to make it clear to him that nothing serious was about to develop between them. Maybe at
some point
, you know, she wouldn't rule it out, but ... Chloe didn't want to get in a relationship just yet.
But
mmm
, what a night. She no longer had to resort to stroking herself before bedtime while thinking about how
Stephanie
must have felt while wearing the PVC pants; now she thought about how
she
had felt wearing the PVC pants. Having the eyes of every boy in the room on
her
, giving them all these embarrassing erections, probably serving as the source of jerk-off material for months to come -- she couldn't exactly
complain
.
At any rate, that had been weeks ago. It was nice to be Cinderella at the ball for one night, but mercifully, she'd more or less gotten back to her old self. Yup. It seemed like she'd finally put the whole magical, mysterious claptrap behind her.
She'd only seen Stephanie herself wear the vinyl jeans once more since winter break, pairing them with a long-sleeve dark brown turtleneck top and a grey blazer. It was a nice look, particularly for winter, almost like something Stephanie could have worn to work -- if she worked for some exotic European fashion company. But seeing Stephanie in the red pants didn't freak Chloe out, or turn her on like crazy, or make her fall down a rabbit hole of obsession like before. Whatever twisted spirit that resided in Stephanie's red trousers had apparently gotten what it wanted out of her.
Or
had
it?
Now, after that text from Stephanie, the ideas started flying anew. The shiny jeans might look good with that light blue Rolling Stones t-shirt and jean jacket she'd just bought a couple of weeks ago. She'd let her hair grow a bit longer since Christmas; maybe she could pin it up a bit over her head? That could be cute. Oh God. What if Stephanie finally found out
this
time? Pfft. Chloe had worn them to a fucking
party
, and as far as she knew, Stephanie had been none-the-wiser.
But Chloe had more reading to do, and a paper to write, and ... not to mention, Donovan was a Grade-A moron. Hot, though. Ripped abs, square jaw, probably well-endowed, almost certainly knew how to please a woman. Kind of had an "aw shucks," boy-next-door quality to him, with his dopey smile, red hair, and freckles. Two hundred years ago, he could have been Huckleberry Finn. Chloe suddenly pictured Donovan strolling along the banks of the Mississippi river in overalls and bare feet, a piece of straw dangling from his lips, fishing rod in hand -- a shining icon of the American frontier essence.