by Amy Field
“That is what you needed a piece of paper for?” Janie snapped at him. Her anger was genuine. Cal was a source of distraction and he needed to be dealt with immediately.
“Hey,” Cal protested playfully, “you have not even checked it out yet.”
“Your little airplane?” Janie exclaimed.
She bent down and picked it up.
“What a wonderful little airplane,” she mused over it. Then her fist closed and the airplane was crushed into a little ball. She heaved it against Cal.
“Hey,” Cal laughed, “what is the matter?”
“Get out!” Janie ordered him. Her tone of voice was almost hysterical.
Cal got up onto his feet.
“Alright,” he said. “I do not know what the matter is with you all of a sudden.”
Janie did not answer. Cal left swiftly, without a word.
Janie got up and walked to Linda’s bed. She picked up the crumbled piece of paper and was about to chuck it in the bin. Then she recalled what Cal tried to defend himself with. She had not even checked it, yet. He might have been talking about something else than the plane itself.
Janie unfolded the paper ball with trembling fingers. She did not know what she expected, but the last thing she expected was what she saw once the scribbling on the paper was revealed.
Cal had done some work on the equation.
Furthermore, he actually managed to solve it.
He found the textbook solution.
Chapter 5
Cal’s unexpected performance left Janie in a state of pleasant shock. She could not sleep, not even after she called it a day and switched the lights off, slipping her warm, delicate body under the appealing bedsheets.
She lay there on her back, staring wonderingly at the bare ceiling. When Linda came back, she pretended that she was sleeping. Her roommate was so drunk, she just fell onto her bed and soon started to snore like some sailor after an extremely testing night-off onshore. Janie could not help herself, she had to associate the sound with something heavy and furry like a huge monkey or a small bear – at that precise moment there was nothing pretty about Linda. And as soon as she thought about Linda with a vengeful little smile on her face, she was reminded of her boyfriend.
Janie sighed and turned over.
She would have liked to comfort herself with a little white lie. She would have liked to believe that it was Linda’s uneven snoring that kept her eyes open and her mind wondering restlessly. But she could not deny the truth. Her thoughts revolved around Cal Bailey – their little moments, their arguing, and even, no matter how embarrassing the moment back then had been, the image of his naked body. Unfamiliar trembles bothered her body – but except their unfamiliarity they were actually pleasant.
She could not help herself, a little hearty giggle slipped out in between her half-open lips. Then she scolded herself silently for acting in such an immature way. She tried hard clearing her mind and closed her eyes in hope of a liberating slumber to come.
Her eyes popped wide open in what felt like the next moment. Morning arrived swiftly and she still had his head full of Cal Bailey.
Janie spotted Linda sleeping on her bed in the same position she dropped herself onto it right after she had arrived. At least she stopped the snoring.
Janie checked the time and realized how late she was. In a frantic couple of minutes, she fixed herself up for the day and left the room.
Chemistry lab.
For once she was the one slightly late and Cal waited for her behind their desk in the classroom.
“I see Mr. Bailey has a bad influence on you, Ms. Williams,” Professor Moriarty remarked without any real malice when she tumbled into the classroom.
“I’m sorry,” Janie muttered and took her seat beside Cal. The rest of the class received Moriarty’s joke with mild enthusiasm. No uncontrollable, loud laughter today. A sort of fear hung in the air and it made everybody cautious.
“Apology accepted,” Moriarty nodded. “So, let’s continue, right? I wonder how many of you managed to write their reports for today.”
No one was dying to answer the professor’s question. People blinked left and right, trying to identify anyone who did. They must have figured that if anyone presented his work to the professor, the rest of them would be just off the hook. Soon it became obvious to Janie that she was the only one who completed her report. This time she was not afraid to raise her hand – no one would accuse her being a bookworm if it was about saving their asses.
“Ms. Williams,” Moriarty smiled at her, “may I have a look at your work then, please?”
Janie fished her paper out of her bag and handed it over.
“We did it together with Cal,” she said. The next moment she realized what a terrible mistake she made. The silence in the classroom grew full of surprise and anticipation. As far as it was a joke, everybody could live with the idea that Cal Bailey and Janie Williams were working together as lab partners. But as soon as Janie gave credit to Cal for some actual work – that equaled to an insult contradicting everything the majority of other students firmly believed college was about. Star athletes dated cheerleaders, bookworms did science. Under no plausible circumstances would a Cal Bailey provide actual help to a Janie Williams.
Even Moriarty was taken aback for a second in the wake of Janie’s well-intentioned announcement. Then he buried his sight into the paper.
“So,” he muttered, “which part exactly is the contribution of Mr. Bailey?”
Janie did not dare glancing at Cal.
“He solved the molar equation,” she whispered and blushed as if she had just shared some terribly intimate secret with the whole class.
Moriarty blinked at Cal. He hid behind his usual radiating smile but his obvious frustration drew furious fissures all over his nonchalant mask. Moriarty looked back at the paper.
“Not bad,” he declared suspiciously, “but you cannot expect me to believe that this is Mr. Bailey’s work. Giving credit to your lab partner is admirable but not when it is obvious that it is undeserved.”
The world swung back to its normal state and the class hailed Moriarty’s answer with loud cheering. Janie felt like jumping up and leaving immediately but such a behavior would have only added to her humiliation.
Moriarty handed her paper back.
“Nevertheless, well done,” he congratulated Janie. “And the rest of you better stop the laughing. I reckon no one else could write the report.”
The classroom went silent immediately.
“Which is rather bad since the experiment we are going to conduct today is based on this report. And your classwork today is going to be graded,” Moriarty added indifferently. Then he announced the actual experiment and wished good luck to everyone. The class went silent, the only thing that could be heard was the clicking of tubes and the low murmur of clueless students.
Janie felt like apologizing to Cal but he avoided a straight eye contact. They were preparing their experiment in silence.
Then the unexpected happened. Cal mixed some acid with the wrong base and he had to drop the tube as soon as a white gas started to liberate. The class panicked, everybody hurried away from Janie’s and Cal’s desk.
Moriarty jumped onto his feet and started to open the windows.
“Get out,” he shouted towards the students. They did not have to be warned a second time. Cal himself was among the firsts to leave. Janie caught a glimpse of a flabbergasted Moriarty before exiting.
On the corridor she was looking instinctively for Cal. She found him surrounded by a bunch of his football buddies. She did not know where the necessary courage came from but she approached their guffawing group.
“Why did you do that?” Janie screamed at Cal’s face.
“I wish I knew what I was doing,” Cal played the innocent. His buddies rewarded Cal’s retort with some more laughter.
For a moment, Janie felt like slapping him across his face.
Instead a tear rolled dow
n her cheek. All her courage, all her strength evaporated – she did not even care about how the others would roast her after catching her crying in public.
“Why do you have to do this?” she muttered so quietly that only Cal could hear her.
Cal’s face stiffened, he sounded serious and painful in a way Janie had never heard him speaking before.
“This is just who I am,” Cal whispered to her and turned around.
Janie wiped her tears off of her cheeks but could not help herself staring at Cal’s back. He was walking away on the corridor with his buddies surrounding him like an indestructible wall that separated the two of them forever and irreversibly.
Chapter 6
After the incident in the lab, Janie did her best to minimize her contact with the other students at the college. She went to such extremities as eating in the dining hall only late in the evening when she could be sure that none of the popular students were going to be around.
On one such evening, when the dining hall was even more deserted than usually, she felt a hand caressing her shoulder. It almost made her jump – the tender touch of another human being was so unexpected, and so unexpectedly welcome. She turned her head and almost fainted. Cal stood behind her back and asked her if she would mind if he sat down.
“Sure,” Janie mumbled.
“You like meatloaf?” Cal pointed at her tray on the top of the table.
Janie smiled a cautious, sour smile.
“At this hour you cannot be picky,” she mumbled, “you feel lucky if there is anything decent left.”
Cal tried to look straight into her eyes but Janie was not going to let such a mistake happen, again.
“Why are you coming to eat so late then?” Cal quizzed her. “I have tried meeting you for days but have not seen you anywhere.”
“You know where I live,” Janie replied without too much enthusiasm.
“I cannot go there anymore,” Cal replied, “we broke up with Linda.”
The news surprised Janie but she was not sure whether she actually cared or not.
“You want my help to get her back?” she managed to utter the words finally. They chimed with sadness and reluctance.
“No,” Cal allowed himself a surprised little laugh, “by no means. I’m glad that I got rid of her.”
Janie blinked up and could hardly believe that, by the look of Cal’s genuinely happy face, he was telling the truth.
“So, what do you want?” she asked with a firm voice.
Cal turned his head away.
“Actually, I wanted to apologize,” he said. His words were tainted by a sort of incredibility. Not that they did not sound honest or anything like that – they sounded as if Cal had said such a thing for the first time in his whole life.
“What for?” Janie replied. “You do not have to apologize for who you are.”
Cal shrugged his shoulders.
“Sometimes you make me think again about who I am,” he said slowly.
Janie could not believe her ears.
“You know,” Cal continued staring back straight into Janie’s eyes, “my dad is the coach of the football team.”
Janie wanted to say something like that she had no idea. But Cal continued before she could cut in.
“I mean, I’m dating girls like Linda because my father would kill me if I dated anyone serious. He expects my life to be all about football. He expects me to be the best player, to date the most popular cheerleader. And it is not just my father. This is what everybody expects. And sometimes I’m fed up with living my life according to other people’s expectations.”
Janie gulped.
“You know your father sounds a lot like my mother. She expects me to get the best grades all the time. She keeps telling me that if I do not get the best grades I will not get any good scholarships. And without a good scholarship, I will lose my chance to study because she will not be able to afford paying for my schools.”
Then silence fell upon them. That moment Janie realized consciously how they were still looking into each other’s eyes. That calm blueness was filled with emotions: longing, passion, a crying out of someone’s understanding of what was hiding in their depths.
They cracked up in a similar stupid grin simultaneously.
“So,” both of them started to speak precisely at the same moment.
“Go ahead,” Cal nodded towards Janie.
“You go ahead,” Janie replied playfully.
“So,” Cal muttered, “I thought we could go back to the lab and complete the experiment.”
“What?” Janie exclaimed, “right now?”
“Yeah,” Cal said. “As a science major with a scholarship, you must have access to the lab.”
“Yes,” Janie admitted, “but…”
“So we do it,” Cal cut in, “and then we can show how we do it to Moriarty next time.”
Janie blushed, although she could not explain herself exactly why.
“Okay,” she mumbled.
Cal jumped onto his feet. He exploded with uncompromised happiness.
“Just finish your meal,” he said enthusiastically, “and meet me at the lab in, let’s say, half an hour.”
Janie nodded.
“So it is a date,” Cal laughed. “I mean,” he added swiftly, “a date with science.”
Janie blushed again and hushed him away with a stroke of her arm. She had never expected Cal to be able to act so sweetly.
“Okay,” Cal nodded and left the dinner hall with dancing steps. Janie was forced to giggle.
She just sat there at her table, sailing through a peaceful sea of merry notions, fiddling with her meal for another twenty minutes. Needless to say, she was unable to swallow as much as another bite of that meatloaf.
Chapter 7
The experiment was a complete success. Janie was washing the tools and Cal was placing them back onto the racks.
“It was not that hard, I guess,” Cal remarked.
“Life is easy as soon as you stop playing the retard,” Janie replied immediately. She handed over the last tube and Cal put it away. Then he turned back to Janie and tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear.
Janie froze. Silence enveloped their duo, they just stood there motionless. But still it felt as if they had travelled far and fast, leaving the boundaries of their everyday life behind them. Cal smiled at her encouragingly. Janie felt a wave of heat rushing all over her innocent body – like a wild animal, it was looking for a way to escape from a blood and flesh cage the bars of which were constructed of modesty and lack of experience. Cal bent slightly ahead and Janie closed her eyes. The only way to cool herself off seemed to let Cal’s lips melt with her owns. But on the contrary, after their first kiss Janie felt only even more aroused.
Cal folded his hands around her waist and lifted her body into the air. He placed her carefully onto the desk behind her. In the meantime she kept kissing his mouth – her hands fondled his skin on the back of his neck and his hair on the top of his head.
Cal’s palms slid up on her bare thighs under her skirt. His fingers grabbed her panties and started to pull them down her legs.
“Wait,” Janie said half moaning, half begging.
Cal slowed down.
“What’s wrong?” he asked with the sweetest tone Janie had ever heard in her whole life.
“I’m just…” she mumbled. She could not quite force herself to finish the sentence.
Cal caressed her face. A tear rolled down on Janie’s cheek. It was a different kind of tear than last time – a pure drop of liquefied happiness.
“You have never…” Cal muttered.
Janie shook her head left and right.
Cal released her panties and took a step backwards.
Janie blinked up, her eyes full of disappointment and sorrow. Cal reached out and stroked her hair. Then he breathed a kiss onto her nose.
“I will be careful,” he promised.
He took a lab coat from the nearby hanger and lai
d it on the ground. Janie hopped off of the desk and sat down onto the coat. Cal followed her example and they started to kiss again – this time wildly.
Cal took her skirt off and then slipped her legs out of panties. Then he got rid of his own pants and underpants.
It was not the first time Janie saw Cal that way – but he looked different now. It was huge and exciting, but also a little threatening as Cal gently pushed her down onto the floor and found a position on the top of her belly.
He kissed her again.
“I will not hurt you,” he whispered into her ear.
Janie closed her eyes but she felt exactly what was going on. Cal moved carefully upwards and hit her sensitive spot. She pierced her teeth into his shoulder.
“Do it,” she muttered as audibly as it was possible under the circumstances. Cal understood it anyway and he started to push inside.
It was a burning sensation first; not as much a painful scorch as a peaceful melt. Then an explosion of physical joy painted everything red. Janie strengthened the wrap of her arms around Cal’s pulsating body. He kept up the tempo of the strokes, and Janie’s enjoyment only intensified until she could not bear it any longer. Her whole body trembled, her mouth gave off a pleasant shriek. Seconds later Cal pulled out and Janie felt that something warm and sticky erupted all over her underbelly.
Cal kept her in his arms until their breathing slowed down and their heart throbs synchronized according to a calm, satisfied rhythm.
“You are amazing,” Cal whispered and rolled over.
Time lost its meaning as they found each other’s palms and just laid peacefully side by side on the top of the coat protecting them from the cold of the lab floor.
Chapter 8
Janie was still dizzy when Cal kissed her goodbye in front of her dorm. Make things worse, a familiar voice intruded into their intimacy.
“Look at them lovebirds,” Linda tooted. She seemed to come straight out of the darkness that engulfed the space separating the actual buildings of the campus. She was drunk, again. Her waddling steps was supported by a mixer in catering uniform with whom she must have winded up on the sorority party.