Unlovely (16 page)

Claudia got it. Her partner was Lee, a
very fat, middle-aged man. He had tried to commit suicide, but failed. His son
found him after he'd vomited up all the pills. He was a nice guy, surprisingly
jovial for someone who'd just attempted something so awful. Claudia and Lee
were sheep.

"Okay? Everybody got it? Good! When
you hear the whistle, just start walking and making your noise. Ready?"

A shrill twee was followed by an
enormous cacophony of barnyard and jungle noises.

Claudia moved cautiously forward in the
dark, hands in front of her, feeling the air for obstruction, bleating her
heart out. She would periodically pause to listen, but she couldn't hear
anything from Lee. All she could hear was barking and howling from the dogs and
the coyotes. Rich really shouldn't have allowed two sets of canines. Completely
unfair.

Finally she heard a faint, "baa-
aa
" and stumbled in its direction. She collided with
something soft that reeked of perspiration. It went "
ooph
!"
and then moved out of her way. The sound of the ersatz sheep grew louder and
louder. She bleated frantically back until the sound was directly in front of
her, but several yards away. The bleating back and forth continued with a new
urgency and became triumphant as forward progress quickened.

"Claudia?" Lee whispered
furtively, not wanting to break a rule.

"Baa," she answered. They
grabbed at one another's hands started laughing. It was ridiculous, but it was
fun. It felt good to have fun now and then.

The whistle blew again after the animal
noises had all converged and the residents removed their blindfolds.

"So what have you learned from this
exercise?" Rich asked.

"Not much," someone said. It
sounded like Maggie.

Rich chuckled. "Well, I hope that's
not true. First of all, it seemed like you had fun. Did you have fun?"

Nods.

"There's a physiological reason for
that: movement is pleasure. It releases endorphins. Remember that: when you
feel glum, get up and move."

Claudia tucked that bit of knowledge
away. That actually might be good to know. Movement is pleasure.

Claudia went back to her room and called Melanie's
apartment. There was no answer. It was a disappointment – she really needed to
talk about this with Melanie. She debated trying her old number but decided
against it. It was hard to have a good conversation with Melanie's mother
lurking about. Claudia went to bed, thinking how hard it would be to fall
asleep, but the exhaustion of recent events took its toll and she dozed off
within minutes.

The next day, even though she was
understandably preoccupied, Claudia performed well on a Western
Civ
test, translated four pages of German, and successfully
sorted a test tube full of fruit flies by sex in her biology lab, having
checked each one individually for vestigial wings. She went to dinner and
returned to the dorm.

Claudia considered dropping by Janet's
room for some last minute advice, but decided against it. If everything went
south in the end, Claudia would prefer that as few people as possible knew
about her adventure.

She began cleaning her room to prepare
for Mark's arrival. She had no first-hand knowledge of sex or of how to create
an atmosphere conducive to it, of course, but she had read a lot, had learned
an enormous amount from Melanie, and had seen her share of late night
television. She had some idea of what women did in anticipation of a lover.
Claudia did very little of it.

She decided she would at least change
her sheets in the interest of hospitality, although it irked her that she was
just going to have to rip them off at the end of the evening to launder them.
She had no candles to light, no special underwear or nightgown to put on. It
all seemed superfluous anyway, since the seduction part of the escapade was
completed. They were going to have sex. No need to gild the lily.

Claudia took a quick shower, again for
the sake of hospitality, and did an assessment of her body. It would have to
do; there was nothing she could change at this point. She tried to be positive
about it: she wasn't lush, like Marilyn Monroe, obviously, but maybe she was a
gamin, like Audrey Hepburn. She was a good sight better than a lot of the girls
in her
dorm, that
was for sure. Besides, she was very
intelligent, and that had an allure of its own.

"I am graceful and elegant,"
she told herself.

Claudia debated whether she needed to
shave her legs above the knees; she decided she wouldn't, but then did it
anyway. It was a special occasion. She conditioned her hair for the same
reason.

Back in her room, another debate: bra or
no bra? If Mark planned to feel her chest before she was naked, he might think
she was chestier than she actually was because of the fiberfill. That didn't
seem like fair play and she didn't want to misrepresent herself. What a horror
if the bra came off and she saw disappointment on his face! She decided to
compromise and wear an unlined sports bra with matching panties. After that,
she slipped on her comfortable jeans and a flannel shirt. If all went according
to plan they would be coming off soon, anyway, so no need to dress up.

Next on the check list: the condom.
Claudia kept careful track of her menstrual cycles and she understood the way
her body worked. Unlike many thin girls who had to contend with irregular
cycles, Claudia's periods came like clockwork every twenty-nine days. She was
currently on day twenty-two, which meant, in all probability, that she had
ovulated about a week ago and couldn't get pregnant, even without birth control.
Nonetheless, Claudia wanted Mark to use a condom this evening. She didn't know
him. It seemed foolish to take any chances.

Having resolved that a condom was
necessary, and understanding the male psyche enough to assume Mark might
conveniently "forget" one, Claudia had gone to the condom dispenser
in the woman's restroom at
Sheetz
to purchase two
Trojans. One, she opened as soon as she got back to her room so she could get a
look at the thing. It was very displeasing aesthetically, but she didn't really
know of any other options. The other condom sat on her nightstand, a tiny
comrade in this endeavor, ready to be put into service.

At 9:15 she was done with her
preparations. She sat on her freshly-made bed and stared at the closed door,
waiting.

By 10:00 Mark hadn't called from the
common area. Claudia had actually thought he might, in his eagerness, be a
little early, but he wasn't even on time. She felt a twinge of nervous anxiety.

At 10:15 he was still a no show. Claudia
panicked. Was she being stood up? She had never before been in a position where
she could be stood up. It was humiliating. She had laid it all out there, and
now he wouldn't even show? It was beyond humiliating. It was ghastly.

At 10:30, the phone rang. Claudia picked
it up with the mixed emotions of relief, annoyance and apprehension. Mark was
in the common room, could she come out to get him?

Against her better judgment, she said
yes and hung up the phone.

She stood and gave herself one last look
in the mirror.

"I'm not even going to let him know
I noticed the time. He can't read my mind. He doesn't know how he made me feel.
He will not control this situation. I'm the one in charge here."

Salving her bruised ego with these
thoughts, she headed down the hall and through the double doors to retrieve her
guest. It really wasn't going well at all. She was going to have sex with a
person she only barely knew, and what she did know of him so far, she didn't
much like. Not ideal.

Mark was standing in the empty common
room, looking expectantly toward the door, a brown paper bag in his hand.
Claudia had to admit he looked pretty good. He was wearing a royal blue
cardigan over a button down shirt and what appeared to be nicely laundered
jeans. He smiled when he saw her face appear, and that made him much more
handsome. He had a broad face; in repose all of his features seemed to be
gathered in the middle of it, leaving great fields of face completely
unoccupied. When he smiled it all seemed better distributed.

Wishing to convey nonchalance, Claudia
smiled back. "So you want to come to my room?"

Mark appeared to consider for a moment.
"Yes, I believe I do."

"Well, come on then."

A cloud of alcohol wafted toward Claudia
as he passed into her hall. That was not part of the deal. How could she have
been so foolish as to forget to demand sobriety?

"You're drunk, aren't you?"

"What? No! I'm not drunk. I've had
a drink, yes, but I'm not drunk." He halted to set down the bag, extend his
arms, close his eyes, and touch alternate fingers to his nose to prove it.
"I brought a drink for you, too, by the way."

"I don't want a drink."

"I think you do," Mark said,
bending to retrieve his parcel. "You seem a little high-strung."

Claudia let him precede her into the
room, shut the door behind herself and locked it. Leaning back against the door
jamb, she crossed her arms and regarded him belligerently.

"High-strung? What's that supposed
to mean?"

"Nothing. You just seem tense to
me. No offense. I mean, I'm tense. And alcohol helps. Plus it's your first
time. It would be natural to be a little nervous. Think of it as
medicinal."

Claudia considered what he said. He
seemed sincere, and he had a point. This man was going to see her naked in
about fifteen minutes, and she was as nervous as she'd ever been. Could he be
right about the booze? Maybe she should have a little drop of something to calm
her nerves.

Horrible thought: could everything just
close up – down there – if she were nervous? It could, couldn't it? Didn't
Elizabeth I have some problem similar to that? Claudia remembered reading an
article in a woman's magazine
that conjectured something along those
lines, something about why Elizabeth was the Virgin Queen. Was that it? Was
that why she never produced an heir – she just closed up? No, no – that wasn't
it, it was something about the Queen's hymen calcifying. It was something like
that, wasn't it? Claudia castigated herself for not having paid more attention.
Who would have thought a Tudor queen's gynecological dilemmas were relevant to
life in the modern era?

But that wasn't the issue at hand. The
question of the moment was: what if nervousness made it impossible to even have
sex? That was the issue, not Elizabeth I. Okay.

"Okay. Yes. I'll have a drink. What
is it?"

"I didn't know what you normally
drink, so I brought peppermint Schnapps and paper cups. Most people like it.
Plus it's seasonal, right? Christmas coming and all that."

Mark poured her a cup of Schnapps and
another for himself. The sound of the liquid glugging into her cup sounded
vaguely obscene. He handed it to Claudia, who drank down half of it quickly.

"So, this will help?" she
rasped after the burn had dissipated, disappointed not to feel any effect on
her nerves immediately.

Mark nodded. "It should."

They talked about Mark's plans for
travel while letting the Schnapps do its work. Not accustomed to alcohol,
Claudia began to feel pleasantly warm within twenty minutes.

"I have a condom," Claudia
said, as Mark moved to sit next to her on the bed.

"Good. So do
I
."
He put his hand on her lower back. Claudia's defenses immediately went up and
she instinctively twitched off to the side.

"Why are you here?" Claudia
asked in a sudden surge of paranoia.

"I'm here because you invited
me," Mark said, moving his hand to rest on hers and resisting her attempt
to pull it away.

"You're here to get laid."

"Well, yes. But then, so are
you."

"But I know why I want to be here
and do . . . this. Why do you?"

Mark leaned over and kissed Claudia's
cheek. The alcohol was doing its job. She felt much more relaxed. His breath on
her cheek was nice. He kissed her neck. It tickled. She had to stop herself
from flinching. She didn't want to discourage him and look like a child.

"It's not every day a guy gets to
be with a virgin, Claudia. That's a very special thing."

Yes, that's true, Claudia thought. I am
special. I'm different from other girls who just give it away. Is he going to
kiss me on the mouth? I wish he would. Then I'll finally have a real kiss.

"It's like you're a gift to me,
Claudia. I can't believe how lucky I am. How lucky I was to be there last
night."

Mark's hand released hers and moved onto
her lap. What was he going to do? What should she do? Should she kiss him back?
Panic. Her body stiffened.

"Here, Claudia. Let me get you a
little more Schnapps. Let's just sit cuddled up for a while and we can
talk."

"I don't want to talk,"
Claudia slurred, her head swimming. "I will take more Schnapps,
though." Her voice sounded funny to her, disembodied. She took her cup and
drained it.