A short story of a sugar relationship and where it can lead.
It's a stand-alone tale but follows from and builds on earlier chapters.
Please enjoy!
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Wednesday
I'd met my roommate in the library for a tea. If there's one things girls can talk about almost endlessly, it's new relationships.
I could see Marcy eying the diamond as we talked. She was impressed with it, perhaps a touch jealous, even though I'd told her it wasn't really an engagement ring. It was, I don't know quite what to call it — a
commitment
ring, maybe?
"So your, um, 'arrangement' stays the same?" she asked.
"Yes." I dimpled a little at the thought. I was surprised at how happy I was with it — me, with all my principles.
"And you enjoy it? I mean, really? The no-clothes thing? Being a sugar-baby?" Her eyebrows were up, questioning. I could see she was still struggling with that. A fully-dressed older man expected a pretty young woman to be constantly nude for his visual pleasure would be well over the line for most women on campus.
I had struggled with it too and I had to think about how to best answer.
"Like I said, at first, no. I was totally pissed off at first. I was angry at Tony for not playing the usual boy-girl social-interaction games. I was angry at myself for having got caught doing something really juvenile and, yeah, I was furious at myself for agreeing to spend the whole weekend with him, knowing in advance that that meant my being naked the whole time.
"I mean, I didn't have to agree to his 'invitation', but he'd just politely snickered at my ain't-I-cute routine and pushed a big stack of black chips into the middle of the table. I could've stomped away, but Tony made me feel, in a really weird way, that he was treating me like a fellow adult, as opposed to a smug, entitled adolescent who's just noticed she has tits.
"And, yeah, it was totally embarrassing having to leave my clothes in the closet once we got to his place. But, you know, I never felt threatened, Marcy. Not once. I always had an option, a way out. I could do what he expected or — totally my choice — he'd put me into a cab and send me home with no hard feelings. A boy our age would have been pushing really hard for me to go along, but Tony? It was like he didn't even care."
She nodded a little, took a sip of her tea.
"I guess it became much easier to accept when I realized that he wasn't really perving out over me, Marcy. Yeah, I was starkers and, yeah, he spent a lot of time looking at my boobs and bum, but he wasn't greasy about it like the boys on campus would have been. He was
appreciating
my body for the same reason he enjoyed my music — because he found me beautiful. It was totally different. I felt like a work of art in a museum or something.
"And there's a difference between embarrassed and humiliated. I was really, really embarrassed at first, but he never humiliated me, never asked me to do something I'd feel ashamed of later.
"And when he did finally make his move, it was just amazing. I thought I'd die, Marcy. He's good, really good."
"Really good at what?" a voice said from behind me.
I jumped.
"I thought I saw a familiar face," Tony smiled. "How's my favourite lab partner?"
Typically, he was the best-dressed person in sight — nothing fancy, just a mostly-unbuttoned dark blue shirt with its sleeves rolled up, dark slacks and sockless black loafers. His white hair and beard were perfectly groomed. He looked like he was on his was to a GQ photoshoot.
"Tony," I said, "this is my roommate, Marcy. Marcy, meet Tony."
Tony sat down without being invited. I'm embarrassed to admit how pleased I was that he sat next to me and not her.
Don't be bitchy, Stephanie.
"Ah, the renowned Marcia!" he smiled. "We meet at last."
He didn't offer to shake hands.
"Stephanie tells me that you're an accomplished artist," he said.
"Well, hardly 'accomplished'," she replied. "I'm still learning." She batted her eyes and I laughed inwardly. I'd just finished telling her that he didn't play the usual boy-girl flirting games and she'd followed her hormones; I could see how this one would play out.
I hoped.
"Stephanie says you're experimenting with watercolours. They're supposed to be very difficult to learn."
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. Normally he was, if not exactly remote, then at least reserved. This was the most pleasant I'd ever seen him be to, well, to anybody but myself — and that was only after he'd shredded me for the same sort of cutsie routine. Was he being nice because Marcy was my friend?
"They can be," she said. "I need to practise more. Stephanie tells me you have great views from your porch. And great sunsets." Her smile was dazzling, perfect white teeth.
Was she angling for an invitation?
She batted her eyes again, licked her lips.
I waited for his response. His grey eyes suddenly looked positively flinty; he'd seen through her games, the same way he'd seen through mine. It was truth or consequences time; I waited to see how he would react.
"How to put it, Marcy?" he said. His voice had that still calmness I had come to recognize as controlled irritation.
He put his hands on the table, giving me an option of holding his or not, depending on how I saw my reputation.
I reached out, took a hand, squeezed firmly. He looked down at that, then at me, smiled warmly and squeezed back gently.
A little of the irritation faded from his face.
"Marcy, it's going to depend totally on what my girlfriend here says." My heart skipped a beat. It was the first time he'd used that word, the first time he'd publicly acknowledged our relationship. I'd always despised reading about women with 'fluttering hearts'. I understood it now. Mine was.
"Stephanie visits my farm under some special... conditions." His eyes shifted to mine, "Which remain in place, incidentally."
Marcy's eyes opened very wide. She knew what those conditions were -- and now she knew that Tony knew that she knew. If you follow all that.
"So, it's her call, Marcy."
He looked at his watch, rose to his feet, adding, "Under the same conditions, of course."
Marcy blushed and her jaw dropped a little. I loved Marcy, but a triumphant Inner Stephanie did a private happy dance.
Thank you, Tony!
"Forgive me, but I do have a class. It's been a pleasure to meet you, Marcy." With that, he kissed my hand and was gone. I could feel the tingle all the way down to my toes. I saw a couple of people around us smiling at his old-fashioned courtliness.
"Wow," Marcy said quietly. "I see what you mean."
She shivered a little. "He's pretty spectacular."
Silent for a minute, she finished her tea, looked at the cup in her hands, turning it as if it might hold the answer to an age-old mystery.
"So?" she asked, "It's up to you?" She wasn't giving up easily, but at least she wasn't batting her eyes at me. "Including the clothes?"
"I need to think on that, Marcy."
By itself, I was OK with the concept of my BFF coming to paint on Tony's deck.
And I trusted Tony and I liked him. Oh, crap, no — thinking on it, I realized that, despite our differences and despite the short amount of time we'd been together and despite our financial arrangement, I pretty much loved the man. Therein lay the complication.
Tony had just explicitly said his no-clothes-at-the-farm rule was still in effect, but how that applied to the tiny cutie sitting in front of me, I wasn't quite sure. I didn't want to be the only naked woman there, but if she had to go bare too, that led to 'Tony plus bare Marcy' and I wasn't sure how that equation would play out.
I knew I wasn't ready to share Tony.
All that took me maybe two heartbeats to work through. It left my mind no clearer.
"But here's something for you to think on, Marcy. Being with Tony isn't like going on a normal date with a guy — you know, he's thinking about how to make his move before you even get to the theatre and you're always wondering when it's coming and what to do when it does. There's none of that with Tony.
