This is the story of how a young man went to a college reunion and came home with a paper bag full of women's underwear.
The College of the Sacred Heart in Providence, R.I., was founded in 1872 as an offshoot of Sacred Heart Convent. Its enrollment had, of course, been restricted to women for many years; but by the close of the twentieth century, with its numbers declining and its endowment shrinking, the Board of Trustees had felt it had no option but to allow men to join the student body. The decision had not been particularly popular among certain segments of the campusânotably the nuns who still made up most of the professors and staff, even though some of them appeared to look forward to disciplining unruly young men even more vigorously than they currently whacked the knuckles of the occasionally disobedient females with their wooden rulers.
The shift to co-education did, however, prove popular with the girls themselvesâat least, some of them.
It was only to be expected that a substantial proportion of these eighteen- to twenty-two-year-old lovelies, for all their lifelong indoctrination as good Catholic girls, yearned for the presenceâand the touchâof the male of the species at a time when certain urges had begun to manifest themselves in their growing bodies. And in spite of the fact that the college's rules were extremely stringent in regard to student conductâno entry by males into female dorms, and vice versa (there was only one dorm for the 200-odd men on campus); no public displays of affection, even something so innocuous as holding hands; and, of course, an absolute prohibition of the ultimate dereliction (
No sex before marriage!
), on pain of expulsionâintermingling of the two sexes was inevitable.
But because Sacred Heart had long had the reputation of being a women's college, it had persistent difficulty attracting men, especially given its absence of a sports program and other things that some men feel are essential to the college experience. By the early twenty-first century, the proportion of females to males on campus was about 9 to 1âvery advantageous to those lucky guys, but not so much fun for the girls who had to fight off their compatriots for the guys' attentions.
Jeff Wheeler had chosen Sacred Heart chiefly because he didn't care about sports and because he didn't want to stray too far from his home in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He never thought of himself as an Adonis; but when he showed up on campus, his large frame (he was five foot ten), broad shoulders, and certain other physical features caused more than one girl's head to turn in his direction. In fact, he took offense when he overheard one girl whispering to another that he had "a really cute butt!" Could the objectification of men be any more egregious?
Before too many weeks passed, Jeffâwho had turned eighteen the summer before he entered Sacred Heartâfound himself a magnet for a lot of the girls. They wanted his help on homework assignments, even if he knew nothing about the subject in question; they wanted to be his lab partner in chemistry class; and they extended all manner of invitations to the local coffee shop or pizzeria or even to the more formal restaurants in the neighborhood. To Jeff, all the girls were darlings; he was one of those guys who felt that the mere fact of being female made you unbearably adorable. He could have had any girl on campusâbut people scratched their heads when, a month after the fall semester started, he chose Cassie Mendenhall.
Cassie was from an extremely conservative Catholic family in Kingston, R.I., and she wasn't exactly the greatest beauty on campus. Rather short (five foot four), with untidy brown hair that always seemed mussed, she did sport fairly ample breasts and a round, firm bottom; but she was so shy that she almost jumped out of her skin when anybody spoke to her. But perhaps it was that very trait that attracted Jeff to her. It was she whom Jeff chose as his lab partner in the Introduction to Organic Chemistry classânot for her beauty or winning ways, but because she seemed to know a lot about the subject and he didn't.
But their work together in the class quickly resulted in a strong bond, and they found themselves becoming more and more comfortable with each other. But given the school's strict rules, they found it difficult to take their relationship to a higher levelâassuming that they even wanted to do that.
One crisp fall evening, as they were saying goodbye outside Cassie's dorm, Jeff took the initiative to give her a kiss on the mouth. You would have thought she was about to faint, judging by her wide-eyed, spooked expression. Both of them realized that they had already violated the "no public displays of affection" rule, and they both peered around to see if any college official was in sight. None was; so, with a naughty grin, Jeff kissed Cassie againâand slipped a hand down to her butt.
She let out a squeal and came close to slapping Jeff in the face. It was clear that no one had ever taken such liberties before. But the rapid rise and fall of her chest made it evident that she was as excited as she was offended. She turned around and rushed into her dorm, right past the RA (resident assistant)âa twenty-five-year-old graduate of the college who watched like a Gorgon to make sure that no loathsome males ever crossed the threshold.
When Cassie told her friends what had happened, they giggled in vicarious delight and said, "Girl, you gotta sneak him in somehow!"
"And how am I going to do that?" Cassie said.
"It's as easy as pie," said one girl, named Angie.
"Tell me."
"There's a back door to this building, you know."
"How is that going to help? Don't you know there's a camera right there, and the RA can see on her closed-circuit TV whoever comes and goes that way?"
"Well, there are ways around that. We gotta set up a system where someone distracts the RA's attention so that she's not looking at that TV while you let Jeff in."
The plan was surprisingly simple. The back door was at the end of a long corridor that intersected with the main corridor leading out the front door. With Cassie stationed at the inside of the back door, and another girl stationed at the intersection of the two corridors, and a third girl sauntering in the direction of the RA's office, a series of signals allowed the third girl to chat up the RA while the second girl signaled to Cassie to open the door. It really was "easy as pie."
Jeff dashed in and made his way to Cassie's room, which was right off the long corridor they found themselves in. Once they were alone in the room (Cassie had a roommate, but she discreetly withdrew to parts unknown), they just stood there irresolutely. The room was quite small, with a small bed against each wall, a desk and chair, and a smallish bookcase. Very spartan! The bed was barely big enough for one, let alone two. But that didn't stop them.
"Let's get more comfortable," Jeff said, and began to undress.
As Cassie watched with open mouth, Jeff removed his shoes, socks, shirt, and pants. He was about to remove his underwearâthe last piece of clothing he had onâbut Cassie's strangled cry, with hands covering her face, stopped him. Maybe this was a bit too much too fast for this inexperienced girl.
Jeff slipped into bed, extending his arms welcomingly. "Why don't you get more comfortable?" he said.
With a little whimper, Cassie started unbuttoning her blouseâbut then got so unnerved that she just jumped into bed fully clothed, hastily throwing the blanket over them to blot out the sight of Jeff's severely distorted underwear.