Author's notes: I've been trying to finish up some pending works. This is a prequel I have always wanted to tell.
Chronologically, this is the first Elaine story. If you have never read any others, great. It's a good place to start. If you have read the others, great. It's some nice background.
1-Meeting
Elaine Galway climbed down from her bunkbed, stepped on a used condom, slipped, and fell on her bottom on top of another used condom. Spooge was squeezed out of that soiled prophylactic and squirted on her pajama pants. In retrospection, this would be one of the most fortuitous events of her life. At the moment, she did not see it that way. At the moment, she had made the mistake of turning and finding herself face to hairy ass with whatever piece of shit her roommate had brought back from the Maswik bar the night before.
Trying not to vomit, Elaine grabbed her shower stuff and went down the hall to the dorm bathroom.
This was the limit. She could not take anymore. She enjoyed her job and certainly loved where she lived, but her slut trash of a roommate was making her life miserable. In the three weeks since Teresa had moved in, she had brought home at least four different guys. They all leered at Elaine, too, and that just creeped her out. And today was Wednesday! She'd picked up some rando at a bar on a Tuesday night. Elaine was twenty-eight years old, she should not be putting up with this kind of crap.
Elaine worked in human resources for the company that ran the hotels at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. She would be the first to admit that she was drifting in life at that point. Her degree and background were in graphic design, she could still do that freelance while working there. Or she could if she could get out of the dorm and into some place that at least had space for a desk.
The adventurous young woman had lived in New York after college, and her last job had been in Los Angeles doing some work for movie marketing. That had been fun, her curiosity was always looking for something new and different. She also wanted a break from city life and living at the Grand Canyon was about as different as she could get.
Elaine had grown up far away from northern Arizona. She was born in New York City, lived there for the first two years of her life, then moved to New England, where she lived through high school.
Her father had always been big on summer family roadtrips. They had loaded up the family minivan and explored the country. Despite, or maybe because of, growing up in New York City, her father had sought out the open spaces of the West. Elaine had wheedled him into to taking her to art galleries and museums, but his heart was in National Parks and Forests. She appreciated him for taking her to the places she wanted to go, and for introducing her to the natural world. The Grand Canyon had been a regular stop on these month-long odysseys.
Elaine would not say that she was happy with her current life. She was not unhappy, or at least not overly unhappy. Her parents had died when she was in college. It was a car wreck, out of the blue. Her brother made his last appearance in the US at the funeral, and she had really been on her own since then. She had an inheritance that provided her with security, so she was free to take some risks based on what she wanted to do rather than having to pay the bills.
Her first big city adventure had been in New York. Her family had roots there, so it was familiar. She rented her own tiny overpriced apartment and did graphic design work for a small ad agency. She had her first love affair with Darren. He wined her, dined her, and totally failed to do anything for her in bed. She had been bored when she lost her virginity to him and it never got any better. They lasted six months before she finally just stopped returning his calls. He did not seem to mind.
That set up the trend for her romantic life for the next few years until she just gave up on it. Elaine and her boyfriends wanted different things out of the relationships and the sex. She was horrible at telling them what she wanted, and when they inevitably did not deliver what they had no idea she wanted, she would withdraw and see if they came after her. None did, and she had not been heartbroken by any of them.
What did break her heart and make her pull back deeper inside herself was the failure to find that magical man who knew what she wanted (even when she did not) and what he wanted and made it happen. No more too nice guy or earnest but unskilled. She knew she was looking for a unicorn, but she still hoped that he was out there and would find her someday.
In the meantime, the already shy woman withdrew farther into herself and away from people. She was friendly enough, but did not seem to know how to instinctively act around other people. She had to work at it and worried that she would come across as phony as she felt. It was a lot of work to put on that kind of act and there was only so much socializing she could really do.
The background noise of sexual frustration and the feeling of incompleteness was soon a regular part of her life. Generally, she ignored it, or tried to. Elaine would be the first to admit that it made her a little grouchy and made her want to spend more time by herself, away from people who did not fill her needs.
Elaine was a beautiful woman, she suspected that, but her inability to find that perfect situation made her doubt it at times. She was a little under 5'2" with dark blonde hair that fell to her shoulders. Big blue eyes drew in the gaze on her pretty, round face. She thought her calves were a little skinny, but was okay with her smooth thighs. She wished she had a little more in the breast department, but at least hers were firm and perky. Very sensitive, too. If only someone wanted to take advantage of that fact. All of her boyfriends told her she had a nice butt (two of them invariably added "for a skinny girl" to the complement), so she was at least comfortable with that.
Men flirted with her. She was a beautiful woman in a place filled with fit young men. She was a little oblivious, which was probably all for the best. But she had still not seen anyone who fit her narrow window of expectations.
With the thought of men banished from her mind, Elaine concentrated on making herself happy and finding adventure where she could. The big city life had been wonderful, but she wanted beauty and physical challenges. The Grand Canyon offered both in abundance.
Elaine had been there for six months now and, aside from living with Teresa, had enjoyed it immensely. She loved hiking the trails, exploring this amazing piece of geography. She did some freelance graphic design work on the side, to stay in practice and in touch with people. Her surroundings gave her ample inspiration. Mostly, she hiked and explored and looked at this as a sort of working vacation.
It would be a much more pleasant vacation if she could so something about her living arrangements. Housing was determined by the company, and Elaine was on a waiting list for an efficiency or apartment or anything other than sharing a dorm room with Teresa. The adventurous young woman was not about to let that trash drive her away from here. There was her parents' money, so she could leave, but preferred to pay her own way and this was a way to live cheap and do some great hiking.
In the shower, she scrubbed her feet and butt and threw both her socks and pajamas away. She liked those pajamas, too. It wasn't that she had anything against sex. She had had sex before, not good sex, but she had had sex; and she looked forward to maybe having sex again someday. Teresa was just icky and the men she brought home did nothing but disgust Elaine.
She quickly dressed in the bathroom, put on a little makeup and headed out into a beautiful morning to go to work.
Was she too uptight about sex? She took a deep breath and went on her way. She wanted sex, she laughed and caught herself using the word sex over and over, as it to make it more abstract. What she wanted was a good, hard fucking. She wanted a big, strong man to desire her and use her body for his pleasure. Romance? Maybe. As long as it came with great sex.
The pisser was, she knew, rationally, that she would be a whole lot happier if she could just lower her expectations and take the best option out there. But, she had tried that, several times, and chose a life alone and sexless, fuckingless, over settling.
Elaine pushed those thoughts aside. She had enough to deal with with Teresa, she did not need to dredge up her romantic and sexual frustrations, too. She walked down across the railroad tracks and past the mule barn to get to the nondescript brown building that was her work life these past few months. She was the benefits clerk and handled getting all the employees set up with their insurance. It was an easy job even though she dreaded the public speaking that came with her presentation at new hire orientation. They had a high turnover up here, so those were frequent.
The shy beauty opened the door, walked past her office and straight into Tom's. Tom was the housing manager, an older guy with thinning white hair and laughing blue eyes. Since Elaine's father had died while she was in college, Tom had easily slipped into a father figure roll. She closed the door and sat down across from him.
"I can't take it anymore, Tom," Elaine said with as much calm as she could muster. "I need to get out."
"Teresa?" Tom asked. He could see in her big, blue eyes that she was at her limit.
"And her skank men," Elaine said then thought for a second. "Can men be skank?"
"If not, I know what you mean anyway," Tom said. "Tell me about it."
Elaine sat down and proceeded to vent about what an unpleasant experience living with Teresa was. From the many men, to her general uncleanliness and indifference to locking the door and on and on. Tom listened patiently, letting her get it all out.
"I may have something for you," Tom said when she finished. "There is a front desk shift leader who just got a one bedroom and needs a roommate. If you're interested, and I assume you are, I'll give her a call."
