by Amy Field
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 down 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 laid 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.
Linda broke free from her new admirer’s embrace and almost toppled ahead. Cal moved slightly away from Janie.
“Cal Bailey,” Linda tooted, “my ex-boyfriend. This is James.”
She made a wavering move with her arm towards the mixer.
“It is John, actually,” the mixer intervened.
“Shut up, James,” Linda retorted. She swept her hands along her side. “If you want this, you will just shut your mouth.”
And that is what John did.
Call and Janie just stood there in silence.
“Cal Bailey,” Linda repeated, “my ex-boyfriend. What does that make you?” she turned her complete attention to Janie. “A sloppy second?”
She started to laugh hysterically. John, the mixer, was flabbergasted first. Linda glanced at him angrily. He did not need any further instruction, he broke into laughter as if he had just heard the best pun ever.
Cal still did not say a word.
“I think we better go,” Janie whispered.
Cal turned around and walked away just like that. Janie felt suddenly very low. He did not defend her, he did not even say goodbye. She had nothing left except Linda’s malicious laughter ringing in her ears like an alarm clock signaling that a wonderful night had just ended and she better woke up immediately.
“You do not have to do this,” Janie said calmly to Linda. She turned around and walked away towards the dorm.
“I hope you have plans for where you are going to spend the night,” Linda shouted after her. “Unless, of course, you want to witness what James is made of.”
Janie turned back and Linda threw herself into John’s arms. She started to kiss him all over savagely.
“I’m sleeping in the common room,” Janie shouted back.
She turned back towards the dorm and headed straight to the entrance. She felt so angry, she could not have stood spending the rest of the night in the same room with Linda, anyway. Even if James did not come. Or John. Or whatever.
Chapter 9
Day came after day and Janie tried her best to get rid of Cal’s memory. She did not go to the dining hall anymore – not even late in the evening. She packed her stuff and was ready to move out of the dorm. When she told her mother, she did not understand. Was it not what she wanted, moving to the campus at the first place? Did anybody hurt her? Her Mum’s useless questioning only made Janie even more furious. At the end, her mother assured her that she would be happy having her back at home, again. And just like that, it was settled.
The only issue was that Janie and Cal were still lab partners. And there she could not avoid meeting him. Luckily, there was a test writing scheduled on the next lab, so, at least she did not have to talk to him.
Moriarty handed out the test sheets.
“You have exactly 45 minutes to complete the tests,” he said. “Good luck to all of you.”
Cal sat next to Janie and tried his best to gain her attention. After the test started, he had to give up on his hopeless efforts.
Janie did not think that it was going to be so bad. She could not focus, could not even read the questions. The words did not make sense, the letters looked like they belonged to the Chinese alphabet. For twenty minutes she sat over the test, not managing to answer a single question. All she felt was a deep longing and a terrible pain – and the cause of her feelings was sitting right next to her in arm’s reach. She could not handle it any longer.
Furiously, she jumped onto her feet and smashed the sheet down onto Moriarty’s table.
“Already done?” he asked, “I like the spirit.”
Janie did not answer her professor. She stormed out of the classroom. Crying was upon her again. Although, she did not care much about what most of the students thought, she was not going to break down into tears in front of Cal again.
She run down the corridor towards the exit. Once she found herself outside of the chemistry department’s building, she collapsed onto the grass and started to cry. Luckily, there were not too many students around – and even those who were did not pay attention.
“What’s the matter?” she heard Cal, and for a second she thought it was only her imagination.
Then her eyes popped open, her vision cleared up, and she saw that Cal was indeed standing in front of her. He kneeled down and attempted to wipe Janie’s tears away with a tissue. Janie did not let him do it – she took the tissue and wiped her cheeks dry herself.
“Okay,” Cal shrugged his shoulders, “could you tell me what is going on?”
“I failed the test,” Janie hummed.
“Yeah,” Cal replied calmly, “I saw that. But what is wrong?”
“What do you think, what is wrong?” Janie replied angril
y.
Cal looked at her with inspecting eyes.
“I honestly do not know,” he muttered.
Janie sprang up onto her feet.
“Then I do not think that I can explain it to you,” she cried and turned away from Cal. Before she could leave him, he took a step forward and grabbed her arm from behind.
“Listen,” Cal said, “please, do not leave just like that.”
“Why not?” Janie turned back. “What does it matter, anyway?”
Cal pulled her closer to himself.
“It matters,” he whispered.
“It sure does not seem like that,” Janie replied.
Cal sighed.
“Do you have any plans for the afternoon?” he asked.
Janie broke free from Cal’s grip.
“Do not dare having pity on me,” she snarled at Cal.
Cal shook his head.
“Please,” he said, “do not do this. Why can you not trust me?”
Janie shrugged her shoulders.
“You gave me no reason to trust you.”
Cal embraced her onto his chest. He whispered into her ear.
“Give me a chance to give you a reason,” he said softly. “Want to go out with me tonight?”
“Maybe,” Janie muttered. Actually, there was nothing else she wanted more but she did not want to let Cal get away with it so easily.
“I will pick you up around seven,” he said.
“Okay,” Janie nodded. They broke away from each other. For a second Janie expected a kiss. But just then Cal’s buddies flooded out of the chemistry department and hollered towards their duo.
Cal stiffened.
“Listen,” he said, “I have to go. But I will pick you up at your dorm at seven.”
He did not wait for answer, just turned around and left towards his buddies, running. Janie was tempted to cancel their whole arrangement for the evening, but frankly, she simply did not have enough time.
Chapter 10