Between a few minor scholarships and the money my mom and I had saved there was just enough to get me through the first year of university. If I wanted to get any farther than that I needed a job right away.
A week before semester started, I headed into the City with Jake. I had already decided that living in campus was my best bet, but it was It was too early to move into my dormitory so I stayed with Jake for a few days. He had a small one bedroom apartment close to the community college where he was studying to be an auto mechanic. He was on a co-op program so he was earning some money. Times would be lean until he graduated but he was on a good trajectory.
The brief back story on Jake is as follows. He is three years older than me. He was in love when he graduated high school. That ended in minor heartache when they each went off to different universities. He did two years at UCLA and decided it wasn't for him. During that time he had a torrid affair with one of his professors who was a wild, married, lustful woman who (along with her equally if not more permissive husband) showed him the ropes of sexual exploration. After he left UCLA he moved back to our town with plans to go to college to become an auto mechanic. When I met him shortly after I had graduated high school and lost my virginity the university life was firmly in his rear view mirror. He became my lover.
During that week before my classes started Jake helped me find a job. We figured out all the possible restaurants and bars that were within an easy walk or transit ride from my dorm and started to scope them out. By my estimation what I wanted was some place that was open a lot (so my hours could be flexible) with a good tipping clientele. There happened to be a classic style German beer hall close. The waitresses wore the dirndl - the traditional dress with the lowcut front that showed off lots of cleavage. I could see that the patrons were mostly families and middle-aged men. It was ideally suited to my unique talents and proportions. This would be a great place to earn tips. It was the first place Jake drove me.
"Are you coming in?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Cynthia, you will be a shoe in for this job if they have an opening. But it will be better if they don't perceive that you have a guy hanging around. Trust me, if they see you as young and eligible they will like you even more."
I smiled and winked at him then leaned over to give him a kiss. I knew he was right. I had worn a lowrise pair of skin-tight jeans with stiletto booties and one of those triangle shaped halter tops that struggled to contain my side boob. I even had my thong sticking up out of my jeans a bit - tacky I know but it was in at the time. At this point I no longer doubted my appeal and enjoyed being overtly sexual.
I introduced myself to a middle-aged woman at the entrance and asked if they had any positions. She eyed me warily and called a guy named Gerhard. He took me into his office and five minutes later I had the job. He never asked about my age or even inquired if I was legally old enough to handle liquor. Just like at the bar back home, he took one look at me and he didn't want to know more than that. For the record I was 18, so old enough to fuck on camera and go to war but not old enough to drink legally.
As it turned out the rather severe woman I met at the entrance was Gerhard's wife. I'd say her feelings towards me were mixed. She knew I would fill out that dirndl just right and that was good for business, but I was likely a bit too trampy for her taste. Also I filled out the dirndl rather more elegantly than she could ever hope to (even though she didn't wear it).
I started work the next day. I made a point of choosing a dirndl that was tight enough and short enough to show an ample amount of thigh and lots of cleavage. I wore white stay-up stockings just above the knee and a faux traditional shoe that had a 3 ½" heel. Call me vain if you like but I knew what I have. By showing lots of my creamy white skin I maximized my tips. And I know how to maximize the customer experience. Always be solicitous, friendly and engaging. I am particularly good with the men - give them a peak, linger a little longer or touch them on the shoulder while being careful not to turn off their wives. Gerhard's wife had a severe eye on me because she saw the way he looked at me. But to all the other women - waitresses and customers - I was just a pretty young thing with too much to be contained in that skimpy outfit.
Plus being as stacked as I am I think I get a bit of a free pass. Anybody can see that it would be impossible to wear that outfit and not be spilling out of it so even the women don't blame me for that. They can't really tell whether I am revelling in their husbands' lustful looks or merely tolerating it with good humour. So as long as I am nice to them, they give me the benefit of the doubt. Plus, much as women might deny it there is a certain amount of dominance that my big tits seem to convey to me.
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The on campus experience was a mixed bag for me at first.
I really enjoyed the academic environment. I'd always been a good student and I loved the diversity and flexibility of study options. Most of the classes and professors were great and where things didn't suit me, I could make reasonable changes. Class sizes were large, but I was used to figuring stuff out on my own and I liked being able to lose myself in the crowd. It felt like I was free of the clique like gossip and judgment of high school.
The social side was a bit more of a struggle. I expected a new experience of open-minded young people but felt like I mostly encountered sheltered privileged kids who had been coddled all of their lives then suddenly set free on campus. That experience was concentrated by the fact that I lived in on campus residence.
I made friends and I got hit on by lots of guys. Most turned out to be meatheads and momma's boys for the first little while. I guess I had skipped over this in high school because I developed late and didn't hit my sexual stride until after graduation. For a while it seemed like my tits and whether I was willing to fuck were more important than anything else about me. Guys wanted to bang me, talk about banging me or act out some ridiculous romantic fantasy with me.
It all helped me see a new perspective on how guys view women. I'm not sure if it much matters whether a guy sees me as the object of his sexual urges or his romantic desires or his prince charming delusions if he fails to see me as a person. I'd spent many years being treated as if having a vagina implied certain things about my propensity for purity and virtuous monogamous marriage. Being treated as if my vagina meant something more sexual was just a different version of what a male dominated society told me were my options.
I didn't want to choose from that menu. The literal reality of it came to me one day when I was chatting with another girl in the dorm during a social gathering. She was talking about a few different guys that she had been with or who had hit on her and lamenting the quality of options. I was feeling the same way. As she talked, it hit me that she (and I) had been choosing from the guys who approached us.
I started to ask myself why do we limit ourselves to choosing from the men that approach us? We tell ourselves things about a man needing to prove himself or demonstrate his confidence but never stop to think what we are missing. The girl I was talking to was criticizing a guy she thought was attractive for not approaching her but she wasn't doing anything about it. She seemed to me likely the same person who would declare women's equality at the next campus rally but demure when approaching her crush or slag "all men" when some jerk treated her poorly but not take the initiative with the guys who didn't. And I was no different.
I'd been with a couple guys since arriving at university and I too was down on the whole group based upon the behaviour of the loudest and most boorish among them. It is easy to think that they represent everybody or some kind of norm, but they don't. It is a secular version of what I found with my religious friends - a closed-mindedness that feeds on itself and takes legitimacy from attracting adherents and discouraging dissent. As soon as I saw this, I realized that there were a lot of people who wanted something different, but it was incumbent upon me as much as anybody to connect with them.
The name of that girl with whom I had those conversations is Gail. She was a striking Japanese-American woman with delicate but curvy features. For some she was a walking anime fantasy.
She and I were both dealing with some of the same dynamics. Not to sound vain but for most guys we were either unattainable or if attained we must be possessed at all costs. Between us we realized the folly of limiting ourselves to the men who hit on us. This was true for any woman but especially so for us. The guys who hit on us were overwhelmingly "players" who had no regard for women and simply played the odds hoping to get lucky or extremely confident guys. The former are douche-bags. The latter are frequently self-involved but occasionally worth the effort. That is ok. But why restrict yourself to those guys?
Gail and I reviewed the guys on our floor. Three out of four of the most attractive and appealing didn't fit the above profile. And they were dealing with the same peer pressure and expectations that we were. Those guys were the ones we would be most attracted to but least likely to get with if we just sit back and wait.
I told her about my previous summer of sexual exploration one night when she and I were drunk and high. We both conceded that it was a lot more difficult for guys to approach us than it was for us to approach them. Honestly, no man in his right mind would reject Gail unless it was out of loyalty to his significant other or a vow of celibacy. Meanwhile she couldn't possibly be interested in all of the guys who approach her.
Brad is the low-key kind of shy guy she was crushing on. He isn't unconfident, but the whole frat house environment was not for him. He isn't too precious to have a drink or a toke. He played touch football with the guys (and looked rather good shirtless). But he moves away when the dumb stuff starts and isn't inclined to line up to throw cheap pick-up lines at Gail or I.
Brad wasn't abiding by women's views of what a man is supposed to do to get our attention. He was being himself the same way I wanted to be myself. How could I preach about respecting who I want to be as a woman yet expect everyone else to conform to what I expect them to be? Criticizing the menu while working within its constraints is stupid. From that put inward I understood that if I don't seek my own choices I can't actually call myself equal.
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For whatever reason Gail and I decided we wanted to share Brad as a 'friend with benefits'.
