Jesse’s Girl
by Alex Exley
Copyright © 2011 Alex Exley and Humburger Publishing, Inc.
Smashwords edition.
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Names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
If you enjoy the quality of this story and are interested in erotic fiction with similar quality writing and storylines, check out Alex Exley’s collection of short stories, “Tales of Love & Lust.” Select erotic stories also sold individually.
Feel free to contact the author at thehumburger@yahoo.com with any comments or questions. And ratings and reviews are always appreciated.
Cover photo courtesy of Silvia at 0silvia0.deviantart.com
Jesse’s Girl
Jesse bit into a hamburger—usually a safe if uninspiring choice from the school cafeteria—and listened to Todd drone on about oxidation-reduction reactions. He partially listened, anyway, instead focusing his attention on a girl that sat five or six tables away, a cute girl with pale skin and short black hair, a girl he had seen many times but never spoken to.
Todd was helping Jesse cram for a chemistry test that afternoon. Todd wasn’t taking the class himself, but, being a chemical engineering major and having aced the class last year, he understood and could regurgitate the material with what Jesse imagined must be some type of genetically mutated memory. Jesse preferred English and philosophy classes, where one could excel by simply making things up.
Jesse fixated on the girl as she walked across the cafeteria, effectively turning Todd’s explanation into background noise. The girl was in Jesse’s chemistry class. He didn’t know her beyond having seen her in class, but he’d certainly taken notice of her. Their chemistry class was a large lecture hall—she always sat on the right side about halfway to the back—and Jesse would position himself several rows behind her and to the right so he could watch her while seemingly looking at the professor.
He’d had this type of distanced infatuation before. A girl would catch his eye, usually not the most obviously attractive girl, but someone who had a certain look, and she would dominate his thoughts, grow in his imagination, for anywhere from several weeks to several months.
There was the quasi-hippie girl who worked behind the counter at the library. Jesse had taken out book after book, only to return them the following day, until, one day, she was gone. And there was the girl in his French class with silky red-tinted hair who sometimes wore a black choker. He’d watched her from across the room the entire semester, never approaching her, though telling himself that he’d muster the courage when they got back from winter break. She wasn’t in his second semester French class, and his imaginative longings compelled him to loiter outside other French classes to try to catch a glimpse of her. But, like all the other girls he’d dreamt about, she was gone, only a diminishing memory remaining, soon to be replaced by another transitory infatuation.
Though there wasn’t one particular type of girl that attracted him, they did all have one thing in common: He didn’t have the nerve to approach any of them. What would he have to talk about? To Jesse, it was a linguistics problem; he simply couldn’t string the appropriate group of words together.
But there was something about the girl in his chemistry class that appealed to him even more than the others. Everyone sees people in their everyday lives that they’re attracted to, that they think about, if only briefly, in ways they can’t speak aloud. He’d had such fantasies about this girl, but there was more to it than that. At least that’s what he imagined. She’d spoken once in class and seemed nervous. Perhaps, like Jesse, she wasn’t a people person. He could see depth in her eyes. He could tell by the way she moved, the way she looked and reacted to people, that she wasn’t the typical sorority-type girl that predominated on his campus. Oh, they would connect in so many ways. If only he had some way to talk to her.
“The electrons lost by the metal are gained by the nonmetal, which is said to be reduced.” Todd spoke with a measured cadence in an attempt to help Jesse better retain the information. “As the nonmetal gains the electrons, it forms a negatively charged ion called an anion.”
Jesse had half jokingly said that Todd should take the test for him. “Are you crazy?” Todd had said, not seeing any humor in the comment, and shook his head in condemnation. When, for his own amusement, Jesse pressed on and said he’d pay him, Todd reconsidered. Todd said that if they were caught the punishment would be steep, so couldn’t do it for any less than three—no, make it two, since they were roommates—hundred dollars. Jesse considered the offer, but since he barely had enough money for weekend drinking and was currently looking for a part-time job, it was out of the question.
Todd continued his tutorial, the information reverberating in Jesse’s head like sound waves echoing off distant canyon walls. “Do you get it?” Todd asked, snapping Jesse from his female-induced reverie.
Jesse took another bite of his burger, contorted his face to show his distaste for the dry and gristly meat, and set it down, resigning himself to a granola bar between classes. He didn’t really get it, but he’d had more chemistry than he could handle. “Yeah,” he said unconvincingly, “I think so.” Then, quickly changing the subject, “Do you know who that girl is, the one with the short black hair in the checkout line?”
Todd looked and then scoffed at the thought of her. He’d been dating Meredith for a year now and rarely wasted his time with illusions of other women. “Never seen her before,” he said. Then, not being a fan of the soft sciences, added derisively, “Probably a psyche major.”
“She’s in my chem class. I think she’s cute.”
Todd looked back at her and shrugged his shoulders, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “Have you talked to her?”
“Not yet, but—“
“Why don’t you go talk to her?” Todd packed his books into his backpack and downed a half-full styrofoam cup in three large gulps. “I’ll go tell her you want to talk to her. Wait here; I’ll send her over.”
“You better not,” Jesse said, his voice edged with nervous vehemence, as Todd stood, slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked in her direction. “I’m serious, you better fucking not.”
Todd emptied his tray into a trash can and tauntingly approached the girl. “Shit,” Jesse muttered, hastily grabbing his things, leaving his tray on the table and scurrying out the door. Chances are Todd wouldn’t have been that cruel, but the thought of it frightened Jesse enough that he wasn’t going to stick around to find out.
* * *
Jesse’s chemistry class was divided into sections that met in smaller classrooms once a week to discuss the week’s lectures. To limit the possibilities that a large lecture hall provides for cheating, they also took their tests in section. The black-haired girl wasn’t in his section, but if she was, he thought, it would have made it much easier to strike up a conversation. They also had lab once a week with the same people from section; there would have been countless ways to talk to her during lab. But as it was, Jesse would have to find some other pretext for approaching her.
Jesse had taken his exam and probably done poorly, though he always left a multiple choice test with some hope. Having guessed on many of the answers, and feeling he had a knack for knowing when a sequence of letters was obviously incorrect—A-A-A-B-A, for example, probably needed a C or D to mix things up—he imagined that he just may have guessed himself to a B-. After the test he relaxed on the lawn and read The Sun Also Rises for his Modern Lit class. As he read he wondered how some people did it, wondered what it took. Here was Jake Barnes, rendered impotent in WWI, or so the common interpretation of the book said, and he still had a cool swagger about him, a confidence that would allow him to talk to any girl in any damn class. Shit, Jesse thought as he closed his book. Why couldn’t he be more like Jake?
After reading he stopped by the cafeteria to grab an early supper—he played it safe this time and had a couple bowls of cereal—then went to the Campus Center to see if Mike and Farhad, two guys that lived on his dorm floor, were playing pool, which they said they might be. No luck, but there were some open tables so he decided to hit a few racks.
Jesse’s mind followed its typical course as he played a game of 8-ball against himself. He imagined the black-haired girl was in his chemistry lab, working next to him, their counters a cityscape of test tubes and beakers. They would consult with each other about their work—wait a minute, the solution in his beaker turned green when it was supposed to be clear—and she would laugh amicably at his absent-minded mistake. Then he imagined he was playing pool with her, playing in a way Jake Barnes might have played with Brett Ashley, not minding the game so much, but basking in her company, a world of meaning swirling behind unspoken thoughts.
Jesse was so lost in his daydream that he didn’t notice the two girls who had entered the pool room until they spilled a tray of balls onto the table next to him, the clunking of the balls on the slate table startling him. He looked at them as blood flushed his face, sweat filled his pores.
He determinedly resumed his game. What was the big deal, after all? Just two people playing pool. What did it matter that they were two attractive girls? He didn’t even have to acknowledge them. He wouldn’t feel the same pressure if it were two guys. But there was an undeniable pull within him. He glanced at them, once, then again. They laughed, didn’t pay him the slightest mind. Good, he thought. I’m just playing pool here. No reason to think about anything else. He lined up a straight shot into the side pocket, but before he got it off someone bumped into him.
“Oops, sorry ‘bout that,” one of the girls said casually. Almost simultaneously Jesse stammered, “Excuse me…ah, no, no problem.”
“Go ahead,” she said, standing back so he could take his shot.
He leaned over the table feeling like a stadium full of people were watching him. Why did I say “Excuse me,” he thought. That was stupid; she bumped into me. Oh, just take the shot. Make the shot. But did it really sound that stupid?
He cocked his arm and followed through, the tip of the pool stick grazing the side of the cue ball, the cue ball traveling about three feet and hitting no other balls.
He stood up and faced the girl. “One of those days.”
She pursed her lips and nodded her head. A sign of understanding? Is that what that gesture was? Or was she patronizing him? Jesse stood near the end of his pool table. One of those days. That was a hackneyed thing to say. How do you respond to a remark like that? Weary old men who’ve never had an original thought in their lives say things like that. Greeters at WalMart say that, probably get a laugh out of it. Young guys looking to pick up girls don’t say that. Or was he overanalyzing it?
Jesse felt an urge to get the hell out of there, but he forced himself to finish the balls on his table—as nonchalantly as possible—and then promptly collected them from the pockets, returned them to the disinterested student working the counter, and made his exit without looking back.
Friday-night energy was palpable as he walked down his dorm hallway. A pop dance tune blended like vinegar and water with an alternative/metal song coming from the other end of the hall. Jesse put his hand on the doorknob to his room, but a familiar sound stopped him; heaving grunts and moans came from inside the room. Todd was a big person, probably about 6’2”, barrel-chested with a gut to match, and Meredith, having billowy curves Jesse had occasionally gone to bed dreaming about, was no Kate Moss. An image of a stampeding herd of some large African mammal—usually wildebeest, but sometimes elephants—entered Jesse’s head whenever he heard them having sex.
“They’ve been at it almost an hour,” Mike said, leaning his head out of his door, which was adjacent to Jesse’s. “You can hear everything through these walls.” He knocked on the white-washed cinderblock. “I feel like I’m sitting on the bed with them!”
“An hour’s nothing,” Jesse said as he followed Mike into his room. “They’ve gone a whole weekend before. They only got up to eat and use the bathroom. I had to sleep in Farhad’s room.”
“You’re a better roommate than I am,” Mike said.
Jesse just shrugged and helped himself to a Busch Light from a cube refrigerator that doubled as an end table. He sat on the worn, imitation green leather couch that divided the room—on one side Mike and his roommate’s bunk beds lay flush against the wall; on the other side unmatching Salvation Army furniture created a small living room-like area.
“Speaking of Farhad, you guys didn’t play pool today?”
“Nah. Farhad smoked right after lunch. I think he passed out in his room hours ago.”
“Was he playing that Hendrix song again?” Jesse asked, referring to Farhad’s newly discovered habit of playing the first couple bars of music to Jimi Hendrix’s “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” over and over and over again when he got stoned.
“I don’t know,” Mike answered. “That weirds me out. I didn’t want to find out.”
“He does do some strange things.”
“He’s a strange doood.” Mike mimicked the way Farhad spoke the word “dude,” elongating the vowel sound, his lips forming a tight O. Then, “Let’s play a game of Madden, you can pick the teams.”
Jesse and Mike played a game of John Madden football on Mike’s Playstation, Jesse taking the ’89 49ers and losing badly to Mike’s ’04 Browns. As they played the evening progressed like a typical Friday night: various people meandered into the room, rumors of a party here or there circulated, a foundation of a couple beers was laid into the bloodstream.
The rumbling from next door eventually stopped and Todd poked his head into Mike’s room. “Where you been,” he said to Jesse. “I was looking for you.”
“I hate to think where you were looking,” Jesse answered.
“A guy from the athletic office called, said something about a job you applied for. He said he’d be working at the gym tomorrow afternoon if you want to stop by. Ask for Ray.”