Calculus class, that's how innocent it started. And things remained innocent from there. Her body grew out of her loose, droopy, nerd clothes, but I didn't notice. I hadn't much evolved my vision of her over the years as she went on to grow her accounting firm, got married, and I lost touch with her for a few years at a time.
Covid brought us back to daily contact. We weren't working up a romance, really, just riding out the year together. A thousand miles apart, but we were at the touch of our cell phones. We became friends again - from old high school friends to current friends. I had met her husband at their wedding and liked him.
We didn't even flirt with romance as we became reacquainted, remotely, during Covid. Maybe it felt nice that there was enough between us without breaking any rules. It felt good that we were strong and mature enough to appreciate our friendship. We fought on, pretending, perhaps, that it was no more than the blessing of a healthy, daily friendship that was lighting our way through the pandemic.
One time we broke rank, or she did (sort of), but I think she was just trying to be funny & shocking. I texted her to touch base, as had become routine, and asked her your most standard and innocuous question, "What are you doing?'"
As if to tell you she had just emptied the dishwasher and paid some bills, she replied, "Well, I just finished masturbating if you must know. Damn it," she texted, "I couldn't think of any bullshit answer to that question, so there you have it."
It was funny. I assumed she did that sometimes because everyone does, but otherwise, the topic of masturbation, or anything else sexual, had never come up. I like how she didn't try to cover it up and didn't disguise it as a joke. She just owned it and moved on. I could have seen that as sexy, had I been thinking in that direction. I think about it now.
I made sure to rub it in for a few weeks by politely making sure she wasn't "masturbating" before disturbing her with any morning chitchat. She laughed it off, except for one time responding that she wasn't masturbating but was considered it. The flavor of our communication, soon enough, returned to our normal, vanilla friendliness.
She invited me to stay with her and her husband on my way to visit my sister. She and her husband live right on the way, and I couldn't think of a reason not to – other than feeling awkward about how much I had been messaging her. She works from home, and her husband works at the office. We had a lot of time.
On my first evening with Emily and her husband, they went upstairs to bed after we all had dinner and some good conversation. I stayed up watching television. An hour or so later, Emily returned. It wasn't all that outrageous of an outfit, but I'll never forget what Emily was wearing - I could see from the living room as she walked down the stairs.
Emily was wearing a white nighty with some cream-colored, satin pajama pants. I figured she threw the pants on before coming downstairs - as they didn't go with her nighty. A modest-sounding outfit perhaps, but, her nighty wasn't modest. Emily wasn't wearing a bra. I could faintly see her nipples. She brought out a box of yearbooks and memorabilia from high school. While she leaned over in front of me, rummaging through the box, the low collar of her nightshirt drooped down, giving me a clear view of her breasts, It was difficult to ignore. I tried not to look, but not before I saw Emily's small-to-medium, shapely breasts and pronounced nipples.
I felt foolish for how much it caught my attention and how I couldn't get her breasts off my mind. I had never been attracted to Emily in that way, and suddenly, I was captured.
How could she not know that her shirt was partially see-through? Did she know?
I accepted Emily's invitation to stay an extra day before we went to bed. I slept well and didn't wake up until after 9 am. Emily's husband had already left for work by the time I got up and made my way to the kitchen, Emily was cooking up a storm for brunch. She had invited her friend Alice over to join us for what looked to be somewhat of a breakfast extravaganza.
Emily's friend arrived. She was sexy in an "unfiltered, getting a divorce and hungry for affection, fitness buff meets grunge, soccer mom looking way-too-sexy for brunch at your friend's house" kind of way.
"You didn't tell me he was hot," was the first thing Alice said as Emily introduced us.
Alice is outspoken but has the charm and communication skills to smooth over most of the overly candid, if not inappropriate, things she says.
"I'm just saying because Emily has referred to you as her "smart friend." Anyway, lovely to meet you."
"I'm not sure I'm that worthy of either of those labels, but thanks, nice of you to say," I said.
"And modest, too," Alice replied, "Can we move him to Santa Fe, Emily?"
"I wish," Emily said, "would be so fun."
"Okay, you two are being way too nice," I complained. "You're not about to sit me down for an Amway sales pitch, are you? Does A friend needs a kidney or something?"
They tried to turn the Amway comment around and asked me in shock how I knew what the brunch was about. At least it got us off the topic of me.
Later I got a chance to tell Alice she was hot too. At first, I wasn't sure about Alice, so gratuitous with the compliments and so informal, but it became clear that she wasn't disingenuous. I think she gets off on saying whatever people are too afraid to say, or, fail to see.
The most important thing you should know about Alice is the game she invented or appropriated. We played "Have You Ever During Breakfast." No, the game is called "Have You Ever During Breakfast." It's just like that drinking game you might have played in college where you say something you've done, and everyone who's also done it has to take a drink. Only things you've done during breakfast count in this game. And we also played it during breakfast. That's the part that Alice says she invented. According to Alice, "Have You Ever During Breakfast" was a game people played just whenever people played games; then Alice found that it was much cooler to play the game during breakfast - there's no other way to play, as far as she's concerned. So we played "Have You Ever During Breakfast," during breakfast as it should be played.
I think we all were a bit surprised at how many things people, or the three of us, have done during breakfast.
Alice asked her husband for the divorce during breakfast. Emily had her first and only semi-lesbian experience during breakfast when a lesbian friend of a friend got a bit handsy during a wedding shower breakfast. I was in my philosophy professor while she spoke on the phone with her husband, who cheated on her with a grad student, DURING BREAKFAST.
Then we started thinking of unlikely stuff to do - just so we could say we did it during breakfast.
I recited some Walt Whitman during breakfast. Our breakfast was running out, so Emily kept serving up more food and more rounds of drinks to keep our silly game going. We got drunk during breakfast, and Alice cried after confiding that her husband was having an affair, and that's why she asked for a divorce. So we had a group hug during breakfast.
We were drunk by the end and chatted around the table for an hour or so before Emily's friend Alice left. Emily told Alice that she'd always had a crush on me but that I never gave her the time of day - that she was a sort of a geek in high school. I played clueless even though I was well aware of the crush.
It came up that Emily's husband was her first. Alice and I couldn't believe that Emily had only been with one person - we both felt like sluts.
"I did give one guy a hand job my first week of college before I met Larry," Emily said proudly.
"So you've only touched one penis in your life? Alice asked in curious disbelief.
"Well, two, including Larry," Emily laughed, playing up her purity for our amusement.
"Duncan was quite the lady's man in high school," Emily said.
"Shut up," I said. "I was not."
"I've heard stories," Emily laughed.
"No, you haven't," I said. "Like what?"
"I don't know," Emily said, "Just stuff."
"You must tell me of these stories later," Alice said, fake whispering to Emily behind her hand.
"I got ya," Emily said to Alice. "You have no idea."
"She's full of shit," I said. "She hasn't heard anything."
"You don't think?" Emily asked. "Okay then."
I took some time to shower and regroup after Alice left, and Emily did her own thing upstairs. An hour or so later, she came downstairs and sat down next to me on the couch - I was watching that show about people from other countries who have 60 or 90 days to marry, or else they must go back home. Where has this show been? It's the most fascinating damn show I'd ever seen. Watching other people act so crazy made me feel less so.