The door slammed and I heard Gemma yelling my name. I sighed and smiled, and considered whether to yell back or not. She would be here within moments anyway, banging my door. Which I hadn't locked. I sighed again.
"I'm in here!" I called back. I was right, it took her five seconds or so to make her way from the hallway to my room and fling the door open.
"There you are! You busy?" She walked right on into my room without waiting for an answer and bent down to look at the textbook in my hands. Studying - what's that?
IPO Strategies - Optimal Long-Term Value Creation
," she read, her voice slowing down towards the end. She stood up and stretched, miming a yawn. "How can you stay awake reading that stuff?" She made a face.
I laughed and swatted at her. "As if
Post-Initiation Celebrations in the Aztec Empire
is any better." I had teased her about that one.
She crossed and gave me a superior, chin-up look down her nose. "Hey, that's interesting. And useful. Although that entrepreneur stuff you're studying will come in handy." She sat down on my bed and looked at me. I recognized the look. She had something in mind. Something very exciting, I guessed - she was pretty much quivering with energy.
"What?" I said. If I didn't ask, she'd pester me until I did. She always did. That's how she was - self-centered, domineering and more than a little obnoxious. Her saving grace was her underlying fun, kind and considerate nature. She made me laugh and swear at her in about equal parts. In some ways, rooming with her was like rooming with your annoying little sister, even if she was just a couple of months younger than me.
Gemma didn't answer, but reached out and plucked the book from my hands. She tossed it on the floor and then looked at me again, her eyes wide and shining.
"Hey!" I said and moved to retrieve my book. She pushed me back. "I'm studying, Gemma," I said in a slow, exaggerated tone, as if she was an obnoxious child.
"You look tense," she said. "You're too stressed." She raised her chin slightly, challenging me to dispute this.
"I'm not," I said, but didn't move. I stared back at her, meeting her gaze squarely. "I am not stressed. You're projecting again, Gemma. You should spend more time on your actual studies."
"I've been in the library for three straight days!" She looked hurt. Mock-hurt. "And nights, until they kicked me out."
"They need to go home and sleep too. Go away, Gemma. I really do need to study."
"Yes, but you need a massage first. I can see it in your eyes. And your shoulders. Some real tension there."
I groaned and hid my face in my hands. I knew it. Gemma was a certified massage therapist, and I sometimes wondered why she bothered going to university at all. She never seemed happier than when I let her give me a massage.
"I've found a new technique," she said, watching me intently. Her eyes were still very wide and she looked flushed with excitement. My heart sank. I could throw her out. It wouldn't harm her, but she would sulk and pout for
days
, and would ratchet up her considerate side to make up for going too far. She would actively pamper me. While sulking. It always made me uncomfortable.
The frequent massages didn't, not any more. She was good at it, I had to admit, although I preferred the regular ones to the innovative stuff she kept coming up with. Apparently, there were a lot of more or less fragmented accounts of massage methods in those anthropological journals she kept getting diverted into.
"A new technique, this time?"
"The account is just a hundred and fifty years old, so fairly new, yes. From somewhere in Indonesia." Now she was bouncing up and down on the bed. She leaned forward and made her sweetest, cutest face. "It will be the best one yet. I'm sure of it. It's going to work perfectly! Can I try it on you? Please, Sally? Pretty
pleaaase
..." She was batting her eyelashes at me, and I had to laugh at her. She was cute and she knew it, and I'd never met anyone who used her looks so deliberately and effectively.
"I don't know," I said. She cocked her head and smiled even more broadly and sweetly. It was my own fault, I thought - I had let slip that I enjoyed looking at girls, and from that moment she'd used all the feminine tools in her arsenal when trying to convince me of something. "I really need to study," I continued. "And I don't know what you mean - the normal massage works pretty well, I think."
She waved this away airily. "This will work better. And you will study twice as effectively after a good, thorough, relaxing massage by your nice, friendly roommate Gemma.
Twice!
" She was so close I could feel the warm of her breath. If I'd wanted to, I could have kissed her.
I sighed deeply and glanced pointedly at my book. She kept staring at me, with those big brown eyes just inches from my face. "All right," I said. "If it's quick. You have - ten minutes."
She jumped off the bed and clapped her hands. "Wonderful! Thank you Sally! You won't regret it, I promise!"
"Okay, okay," I muttered, touched and slightly embarrassed by her gushing gratitude. "At the massage table, right?"
Gemma had moved in with me three months ago, and had dragged in a large, professional-looking massage table. I had protested, weakly, since it didn't fit in her bedroom and I didn't really want it in a corner of the living room. She had overruled me, for the first but not last time. She could be really domineering at times.