"I'll call you later, okay?" she asked.
"Sure. Call anytime. But why are you already rooting for me? You don't know me that well."
"I'm not saying I think you're the one for her yet, but I know you're a nice guy. I remember the things Caleb said about you. You're different from the other guys. Heck, I can even tell just by the way you've acted around her in the past hour you're different. I care about her and I want her to be happy. My family and I talk about it all the time. She's rebellious and stubborn. When good things come into her life she pushes them away. It's horrible to watch." Joan looked off in the distance silently for a few seconds. I wondered if she remembered something specific. "Anyway, before I forget, you asked about the other guys at the table. Sorry, I go off topic a lot. I haven't noticed anything with her and Chris. He doesn’t hang around us all that much. Dan likes to flirt with her. But he's a jackass."
"I know, right?"
"Ugh." She shook her head. "Anyway, I’m almost positive she and Michael have always been platonic. They’re really close though. But I think he has a girlfriend. As far as Corbie, I don't know. Corbie was all up on her at her party last weekend. But she gets really happy and hugs everybody when she's drunk. He might have been drunk too. I don't think anything happened. They're pretty close friends, though."
Damn, I learned a lot already - and I was jealous. From what she just told me, Corbie sounded like a problem.
If, by some miracle, she becomes my girlfriend, I wonder if I could get her to stop hanging out with so many guys.
I wished I could stop thinking so far ahead. How in the world did I go from ‘happily single’ to 'semi-insanely jealous' in less than 24 hours?
"But seriously, Tyler, I don't think you have any competition here. I don't know what happened with you two last night. But I know she doesn't usually just hook up with people she just met. I don't know what she told you." She paused. "I don't want to get your hopes up, but I really think she might like you already."
I didn't know how to react. But I already knew I shouldn't get my hopes up. Susie made that point very clear.
"Why do you already think she likes me?" I asked.
"Little things. The way she sort of blew everybody off when she first got to the table just so she could sit there next to you and pretend nothing happened with you last night. She's sitting as close to you as possible without being obvious."
"Yeah, she was joking around with Michael then stopped when she saw me. I noticed that. But she didn't really start talking to me."
"No, she didn't have to. She got close to you instead. I see her sitting there, letting her arm linger against yours when she could easily move over to give you both room."
"I can't believe I'm analyzing her like this," I said, shaking my head. "This is so fucking pathetic. Girls have conversations like this, not guys." I thought back to some of the conversations I'd had with girls who were my friends in high school – and how annoying they were.
"It's okay, Ty. You're probably only doing it because you were nervous seeing her for the first time since last night."
No use pretending with Joan, I figured. "I haven't stopped thinking about her. I was afraid she'd blow me off today."
"No, she's definitely not blowing you off. I'm sure of that."
"What do you mean? Why do you have such a vested interest in her?” I said. The whole conversation seemed odd to me. Why did she notice so many little things about Susie?
Joan's eyes widened and she looked around the room. She looked back at me and winced. "Well, Ty... the men of this campus aren't the only ones who develop crushes on her..." Her voice trailed off.
Holy shit!! "So, are you saying that you like her or something?"
She closed her eyes and exhaled, slowly. "I shouldn't have told you that."
I was torn. The evil, horny side of me wanted to know more. The good side wanted to feel sympathy and pretend he'd never heard it. I think 'evil horny' is gonna win.
"So, would you care to elaborate there, Joan? You can't just tell me something like that and expect me not to ask questions."
She winced again. I felt bad about asking. "Look, Joan, I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay. It's just that I've made the mistake of telling people about it before." Joan's eyes pleaded with me for secrecy. She took a long, deep breath. "I love her as a friend. I do. As a sister, even. I can't believe I let it happen. A couple of years ago I went through - let's say - a curious phase. Isn't that what college is for?" She shrugged her shoulders.
"Uh-huh." Damn. Just when I thought the past 24 hours of my life couldn't get any hotter.
"I knew Susie had been with women before. And I knew she wouldn't judge me. I wasn't even worried it would make our friendship weird."
"Okay." Yes, please continue...
"So, it was spring break. Not last year but the year before. We stayed here in town and had our own spring break celebration with some of the other townies. It's her tradition. She likes to party but she doesn't like to travel for spring break. I think she's afraid she'll come back with a disease or something.” She stopped to take a deep breath. “So, one night we were out dancing and we were pretty drunk. Just to get some attention, we started grinding each other on the dance floor. We were trying to be all 'woo hoo, spring break!' I guess. But I…" she paused, "really enjoyed it. People around us started yelling for us to kiss, and we did."
I could picture it vividly. Joan was an excellent story teller.
She continued. "So, we went back to her house. I sobered up a little but I was still drunk enough to ask her if I could kiss her again. For weeks, or maybe even years, I thought about asking her if I could,” she paused, clearing her throat, “experiment with her.”
I don't know what kind of expression I had on my face, but it made Joan stop.
"I'm sorry, Tyler. I probably shouldn't tell you all this here in public." She laughed. "I'm really bad for using way too many details when I'm telling a story. I could've just said we got drunk and hooked up."
"It's okay. Too late to stop now, Joan." I smiled.
"Well, long story short, I had my first experience with a woman that night."
"No, don't worry about it being a long story. What happened when you told her you wanted to kiss her again?" I asked.
She looked around, then leaned toward me, lowering her voice. "She said, and I quote, 'is that all you want?' I mean, I knew she’d be open but I didn't expect that reaction. We started making out immediately. I don't wanna go into graphic detail. I'll just say I had my first lesbian experience that night, and several more that week. It was crazy." Joan closed her eyes and smiled very slightly like fond memories were replaying in her mind.
I think I would've remembered them fondly, too. I think I will also fondly remember the telling of this story many more times over the course of my lifetime, perhaps in the privacy of my own room.
"So....wow," I said as I looked around the room to make sure we were still out of sight of the group.
"There's more. We started having sex once in a while after that. It usually happened if we'd been drinking. I think it was just fun to her. But she was my friend and I really cared about her. For a while, I actually wanted a relationship with her. I thought about telling my family, even though I knew they’d be shocked and devastated. She's like a daughter to them. I don't know what got into me."
Joan said it with such sadness, I felt bad for getting turned on by her story. Sure, I would still probably keep it in the back of my mind for occasional use. But I still felt bad for her.
"I wanted more of Susie's time and attention. She didn't like that. We finally discussed it. I think maybe I was just tired of being hurt by so many men. I was trying to be something I wasn't. And she knew it. So, we stopped having sex…mostly." She smiled. "It happened three times after she told me where she stood. The last time was about a year ago. I'm over it now but I still have really strong feelings for her. And yes, they might border on romantic feelings. But
I don't think that's unusual. You can have crushes on friends of the same sex and still be straight. At least according to my counselor."
Susie's own best friend had to go to counseling because of her. Damn.
Joan continued. "Well, anyway, back to the subject....when I was with Caleb, I asked him about you. He told me you didn't bring girls home like he and the other roommates did." She frowned when she said Caleb’s name. Shit, she’s been hurt by a lot of people. "He told me he thought maybe you were waiting for the right girl or something. Is that true?"
"Wow. I'm surprised Caleb knew that." I didn’t remember ever discussing it with him, and I was shocked anybody had enough interest to talk about such things behind my back.
"Well, do you think Susie's the right girl?"
"I don't know. Yesterday was a big surprise. I just know I wanna spend more time with her.” I hesitated. “I'd like to be her boyfriend." I was afraid to even say those words. Afraid to jinx it, like verbalizing it would change the world around me for the worse, somehow.
"Well, Tyler, if I can help you, I will. I can't watch her go through life like she does. I love her enough to want to see her with a great guy." She smiled at me then looked at her watch. "Shit! How long have we been talking? She's gonna freak out." She picked up her tray and started to walk back to our table. I followed. "Do you have any questions I can answer in the next fifteen seconds?"
"Yeah, she said this guy Troy has been after her for a while."
She made a low, groaning sound. "Yeah. It's sad. I was secretly rooting for him at first but he got weird. I think it's finally tapered off."
"So, he slept with her and started stalking her?"
"Yeah, that kinda sums it up. She's really good at what she does. She should give lessons."
I looked down at the floor, unsure of what to say, especially since the person I was speaking with had first-hand experience.
"Okay," I said. I had more questions but we needed to get back to the table. "I’ll call you."
"Anytime,” she said.
I had an idea. "Hey, when we get back, tell her we were talking about you and Caleb."
"Hmm.” She paused. “You know, that’ll probably work."
"What happened between you guys anyway? You seemed like you were having a good time." Actually, it just sounded like they were having a good time. I lived on the other side of Caleb's wall. The sound of good times came through the wall until the early morning hours more than a few times when Joan was around.
"I don't know. He lost interest I think. He just stopped calling,” she said.
"Do you want me to talk to him?"
"No. It's okay."
I had no idea why he stopped calling her. Joan was exactly his type. Hell, she was mostly my type until the previous day when my type did a 180. She was thin with long, strawberry blond hair. I usually liked darker hair. But I thought Joan was hot when she came to our house with Caleb.
I laughed inside. My life had really changed since 3:30 pm the previous day when that beautiful blond sex goddess walked into the coffee shop, fighting with her backpack.
I thought about Joan's story of her own experience with Susie. Yeah, it was a turn-on. Most guys would probably try to get them to have a three-way. I felt proud of myself for not wanting that. I found Joan very attractive. But I didn't want her. I only wanted Susie.
Great, more proof I'm already in over my head.
Should it bother me that Susie was so sexual? Maybe. But that's what I wanted. A girl who was as horny as I was, who would give me whatever I needed, physically. A girl who was confident enough to keep the lights on, and aggressive enough to put her huge tits around my dick without me asking for it.
As we approached the table, Susie was talking with Michael and Corbie. She looked up for a second and saw me and Joan walking back to the table. A smirk quickly replaced her smile. She went back to her conversation with the guys until we sat down.
"Thought you guys got lost," she said. I didn’t know her very well, but I swore I detected sarcasm.
"Yeah," said Joan, "you know Tyler and Caleb are roommates, right?"
"Oh really? Caleb?" she asked. Her face scrunched up.
"Yes, him." Joan said, in a way that told me Susie must have spent hours hearing about what a jerk he was.
"Huh." She looked at me, her eyes squinting, questioning why I hadn't told her.
"I didn't wanna bring it up. Caleb never told me anything. I just knew she hadn't been around in a while." I looked at Joan. Damn, I felt bad for her. And I wondered if she was really over Susie.
"Hmm." Susie obviously harbored some negative feelings toward my roommate on behalf of her friend.
"So, anyway," Joan said, "we were just talking about it."
Susie nodded.
We hung out at the table for a while longer. Eventually Chris had to leave, then Lisa.
"So, are we moving this to your house, Susie Q?" Dan asked.
"If you guys want to, sure. I have to be somewhere at 6:00, so we can study until about 5:30. Oh, and remember we need to start studying for that marketing test this Friday,” she said.
Unanimous groaning ensued in response to the marketing test.
"Well, I'm heading home. You guys come over if you want." Susie stood up and grabbed her backpack from the table.
I stood up. "You need a ride?"
She gave me a smile. "It's only a few blocks…" her voice trailed off. She licked her lips, then leaned closer to me, lowering her voice. "Sure, I could use a ride.”
So we walked to the parking deck with Dan, Corbie, Michael, and Joan. Corbie had to go to work. The rest of them got in their separate vehicles to drive to Susie's house.
Finally, she was alone with me in my car.
"So, how did you like the group?" she asked. "They're a lot of fun. We'd probably get a lot more done if we didn't get along so well."
"Yeah, it was great. But you can't really study with them, can you? How can you focus?"
"It depends. We usually start out studying together somewhere and then break off one by one as we realize we aren't getting much accomplished,” she said.
"I think it'll be fine working with them for this project though."
"Oh yeah, definitely. I'm still pissed about the short notice...."
"Me too."
I really wanted to change the subject. I wanted to kiss her or something - anything. But I knew we didn't have much time, and I couldn't tell what she wanted. She was too calm, as if the previous night had never happened.
"So, what's going on with Dan? Seems like he really likes you."
"Yeah, I kinda got that impression. Especially when he tried to crawl into my bed with me after the party. He told me he was drunk and didn't know what he was doing. He's always inviting himself over. As long as it's not just me and him, it's okay. Dan's kind of a jackass sometimes."
I laughed out loud.
She shook her head and continued on about Dan. "He's okay though. He’s a good guy." She must have a high tolerance for people. "I feel bad talking about him behind his back. He’s been a pretty good friend to me."
We stopped in front of her house. Damn, I wanted to kiss her, touch her. Replay the events of last night if she'd let me. I was disappointed other people were coming over.
She opened the car door and started up the sidewalk to her house. She turned around and smiled at me, leaning down to look through the window. "Come on!"
I sat in the car for a few seconds because I enjoyed watching her walk away. I loved how her jacket bounced against her hips. Her soft, full hips…
I opened the door and bolted for the house with my backpack in hand.
As I walked inside my eyes immediately went to the couch. I wanted to bronze that sacred piece of furniture.
She walked to the thermostat on the wall to the left of the couch to adjust the temperature. I stood directly behind her.
She turned around from the thermostat and looked up at me, chuckling slightly. "H
i there,” she said. I wondered if she was surprised I was standing so close.
"I'm sorry, but I have to do this." I put my arms around her and leaned down to kiss her.
At first she seemed unresponsive. I was sure I caught her off guard. But after a few seconds her fingers dug into the back of my shirt like she wanted to rip it off. I heard her moan, softly.
Behind us, a throat cleared.
Joan.
"Hey you guys!" she exclaimed slowly in an overly cheerful, pedantic way. "We're here!"
Safe With Me, Special Edition Page 5