I
Tamsin looked at the list and shrugged. She'd knew there'd be rules, Jill had insisted on them as part of subletting the extra room.
1. Clean your own dishes.
2. No eating each other's food in the fridge, unless you ask.
3. No leaving dirty laundry in the bathroom.
4. Keep the laundry room clean.
5. Sign up for the chore list every Monday,
6. Etc., etc., etc.
7. Other rules as seen fit.
No big deal, nothing major.
Signing up for the chores seemed a little odd, but for the money she saved by renting a room from Jill she could put up with a lot. They had their own laundry room! She'd crawl across broken glass not to have to share another common laundry area or spend part of an afternoon at a washeteria.
The last rule sounded a little strange.
Other rules as seen fit.
"What does that mean?" Tamsin asked, turning to Jill, who stood behind her, watching her go over the list.
"Oh, you know. Stuff we might need to come up with as we go."
Tasmin frowned.
She didn't much care for rules. Oh she knew her new roommate meant well, but it's just that, to be honest, Tamsin thought most of the items should have gone without saying. Or writing.
I guess she's had some really bad roommates. Good thing I came along.
Tamsin breathed in the scent of Jill's perfume. A peachy odor that hung in the air long after Jill left the room.
"I figure we each get to make one rule per week, if we feel we need to. I mean, if one of us does something the other doesn't like. Then we can make a rule against it. If it's something we've been doing for a while, we can't make up a new rule, but if it's something we've only done once, and the other one of us doesn't like it, then we can make a rule about it. That makes sense, doesn't it?"
Jill asked that question while she lit a long incense stick resting on a long brass holder with a wide brass bottom to catch the ashes.
Tamsin would have made a rule right then and there about burning incense, but Jill had been doing that since she moved in.
Too late, she thought to herself wryly.
For a second she eyed the petite brunette with her frizzy bob haircut neatly outlining her round, apple-cheeked face adorned with a button nose and button mouth with suspicion, wondering what Jill imagined Tamsin would do that needed a rule against it.
But she nodded her head and said yes.
"It does. It does make sense."
Jill's cute button mouth spread in a remarkably wide smile.
"Good. I'm glad that's settled."
Tamsin watched the cute little button in baby blue smocked pants and pale green cut-off t-shirt exposing her slender midriff scamper to her room, leaving Tamsin to stand next to the kitchen bar, breathing in the incense smoke and wondering if she had made the right decision to sublet a room from the strange girl.
It had actually taken a bit of needling on her part, a bit of coaxing, bit of pleading, really.
Turns out Jill had been looking for a lesbian roommate.
"Oh no," she'd replied to Tamsin's question. "I'm not gay. It's just that. It's just that I don't want another female roommate to try to steal my boyfriend. It happens, you know. You know how some girls are. And my boyfriend would go crazy with jealousy if I lived with another man."
Jill paused, then answered Tamsin's unasked question.
"And I can't live my boyfriend. He drives me crazy."
Jill smiled at Tamsin's nod of understanding.
"So I was hoping for a lesbian roommate."
Tamsin promised not to steal Jill's boyfriend. Jokingly at first, but with increasing seriousness as it became clear Jill hadn't been joking or flippant.
"Promise?" she asked, doubtfully.
"I promise."
"Good," said Jill. Then hugged Tamsin quickly. "Roommate."
She glanced at the lanky blonde Tamsin again.
"You're sure you're not a lesbian?"
Tamsin laughed uncomfortably.
"I'm sure."
Jill shrugged.
"Okay, then."
II
Two weeks later, Tamsin had already fallen into a routine, and so had Jill. Tamsin learned to put up with the ever-present fragrance of incense filling the apartment, making the whole apartment smell like a headshop. After a couple of days she didn't not so much as not notice it as actually start to like it. It made the apartment feel in an almost palpable way relaxing. Welcoming. A feeling Tamsin found agreeable.
Tamsin also learned to put up with Jill's boyfriend spending the night, every night, with her, learned to adapt to the barely muffled sounds of lovemaking, of sex, of raw fucking. And here, too, she didn't just learn to put up with it. After a while, after a few days, she found herself looking forward to Joe coming over to go into her roommate's bedroom. Looked forward to listening to the not so furtive noises coming through the thin walls while her hand reached down to caress her, well, needs.
Joe was a bit of a flirt, lingering to chat with Tamsin in the living room whenever he came over, which was almost every night. Jill had to pull him away a couple of times.
Tamsin couldn't help but flirt back.
Nothing serious but seeing the look in Jill's eyes reminded her to cut it out.
To scale it back just a little.
So she'd listen to them fuck, fall asleep, and promise herself she'd bring someone home ASAP.
And after two weeks of that, Tamsin suddenly realized that she hadn't gone out in a while, hadn't seen her friends in several days, and definitely hadn't gone home with a man. Or brought one home.
She was getting horny.
Getting needy.
And listening to her roommate do all the fucking in that apartment didn't squelch her rising heat.
That night she went, dressed to impress. Dressed to score. Or to get scored upon. How you put it didn't much matter. That part really didn't much make a difference to her.
She just needed it.
She'd been so fucking turned on lately.
All that sex in Jill's bedroom, she supposed.
So off went the sweatpants and baggy t-shirt and on went the little black dress and red G-string panties. She swung her gold knock-off Vuitton over her shoulder, remembered to bring her fake ID, and came back a few hours later, a little intoxicated, a little loud, a little smelling of nicotine, perfume, and vodka, with a nice, strapping, young stud of a man named, well, goddamn, she didn't know his name.
Mike? Mitch? Mickey?
She supposed it didn't matter.
It was loud, fun, wet, and over.
Mike or Mickey or Mitch quickly got dressed, slurred something at Tamsin, who waved her hand in an understanding gesture of it-doesn't-matter-I-had-a-great-time, and left.
Leaving Tamsin to pass out to the sounds of Jill and Joe fucking in the bedroom across the wall.
Two can play that game, she snickered before falling fast asleep.
III
She woke up the next morning, slightly hungover, to a new rule written below the last rule in large blue letters on the list stuck to the refrigerator by two pink magnets shaped like the full lips of a woman's mouth puckered in a kiss.
No having boys sleep over.
Jill sauntered into the kitchen, dressed in tight pink boy shorts and a matching cut-off pajama top.
She saw Tamsin staring confused at the new rule, and she smiled.
