Candi Cheats!
Columbia. 1973-1974
Nineteen Seventy-three
The late October climate was really acting up. One day could be downright hot, and the next morning could bring frost, though you'd be dressed and halfway to campus before you realized it was cold. So defective weather-sense was not to blame for the scanty clothes Candi wore that morning, huddled on the bench of the University mall in Danny's jacket and her old juniorhigh hotpants. She'd curled her smooth legs around each other for warmth.
Danny stood behind her, displaying the mixture of anxiety and vexation that he often showed during the early days of his marriage to the ginchy, spoiled eighteen-year-old. Having given up his jacket, Danny was chilling quickly, himself. But he stood there, solicitously rubbing Candi's thin neck and shoulders as she sat hunched on the bench. Her face had her characteristic little monkeysmile, and she chomped lightly on some chewing gum. Dark eyebrows frowned a little, but not enough to dull the animal brightness of her brown eyes. Candi's small face was framed by heavy dark hair.
Danny and Candi looked up as I wandered by, and they continued their conversation in a way that made it clear I could join in as I wished.
"If you're feeling that bad," said Danny, "you should go home."
Candi sniffled, "We moved out of town a week too early." Danny and Candi, with one old car between them, had just moved from the crowded "apartments" near campus to a trailer court some miles to the north of Columbia.
"You could go hang out at the old place until my class is over," Danny thought out loud. "Then I'll run you back home, and run back here for the afternoon class."
It was apparent that Candi didn't like that idea. Hanging out at the old place would mean sitting in a crowded communal kitchen for two hours or more, as the motley group of roomers scarfed old supermarket pastries and complained about imminent exams and preeminent hangovers.
"Where would I throw up?" asked Candi. The liklihood of such a crisis was doubtful. Candi's perpetual flu was more like a head cold. Though it seldom left her body for long, the illness rarely amounted to more than a stuffy nose. Occasionally, though, Candi grew slightly fevered, and more listless than usual. That seemed to be her condition this morning.
"I'm headed back to my place," I volunteered. "Candi could rest there until you pick her up." I lived in a basement apartment in a marginally nicer house near Danny's old place.
Candi looked up at Danny, dutifully.
"Well, sure," said Danny. "I'll be out there by noon."
*****
It was a short walk home through a familiar neighborhood. Once her "illness" had waived Candi's responsibility for attending classes, she grew perceptibly perky as she walked beside me. By the time she stepped off campus, her flatfooted stride had changed to bounce, and she'd straightened her shoulders beneath Danny's jacket. Now Candi was standing tall.
She was still almost a head shorter than I was. But Candi's body had a slank tone that gave itself a sleek impression of length, without sacrificing any curves. It was a tone, I'd just begun to realize, that was common to many kids Candi's age - now four years younger than me. She talked of the recent move (with thanks for the help I'd provided), and of college (she hated it, but it was the only means of getting some support from her parents), and of Danny (he was a love, whatever her parents thought).
The entranceway to my basement apartment was awkward: down a concrete casement, through a dirty outer door, and farther down a narrow, bulb-lighted passage to the inner door. Candi was ahead of me descending the concrete steps. Her enticingly slim legs flashed tripping down the stairs. Her long yet plush thighs stretched the cheesy green velveteen hotpants at the hem, where the decided roundness of Candi's tight buttocks began to smoothly rise. The pants hems were caught up, a little, into the high cleft between Candi's legs. The legs still held some of their summer tan, but were beginning to fade and assume the dark girl's shadowed winter ivory. A few tiny flecks of pigment in strategic places provided data for an essay on miniature beautymarks.
Once through the outer door, it was a strange walk to the illogically-placed lightswitch. Candi paused in minor confusion, and I gently crowded her down the narrow hall, reaching over her for the light. My hand and face brushed against her hair.
"Kind of close squeeze in here," Candi remarked ingenuously. Her hair smelled of autumn. She continued to walk carefully down the hallway. I was behind her, trying not to move any faster than she.
Inside the low-ceilinged apartment, the atmosphere lightened up. Candi headed to the far side of the sofa, slipping off Danny's jacket, then fishing a kleenex out of one of its pockets. Candi's shirt was a conventional white tee, of heavy fabric but much too light for the day. It hung loosely, outside her pants, falling straight down from her tuff round breasts to mid-groin. Her heavy hair poured artlessly over her shoulders. Slank arms had the tone and the complexion of her legs. Candi plopped into the corner of the sofa, Danny's jacket crumpled beside her.
"Anything to drink?" I asked from the refrigerator across the room.
"Do you have any orange juice?"
Once she was off her feet, Candi's sleepiness seemed to return. She blew her nose, and held the tissue to nose for a few seconds, as if to make sure all was finished before she stuffed the kleenex back into the jacket. She looked up almost in surprise to find me offering the glass of juice to her. She took the glass with a hum of thanks. Her hands were fine, the shadowpale fingers a little shiny. They seemed a little bit unclean.
"I'm still cold," Candi exclaimed. "Feel." With a free hand she grasped my wrist. I guess her hand was cold. She let me go and I stepped back to the kitchenette sector of the room.
Candi looked up at me as she brought the glass to her lips. Then she performed an odd little movement of her bottom; actually, it involved her entire lower body. It was hard to describe, or to give any real meaning to it. Just a strange little wiggle into the sofa. I don't think I was supposed to notice it.
I fished around among the books on the kitchenette's feeding surface, trying to remember what it was I had intended to do before I had run into Candi.
Candi stretched. Bluewhite flash of midriff, new angle of leg.
"I'm sleepy. This flu knocks me out."
"So stretch out." Finding the right book, I moved to a ratty armchair beneath a floorlamp, a few feet from Candi's corner. Between the armchair and the sofa was the open door to my seven-by-ten bedroom.
"I'm still cold," complained Candi to the warm room. She stretched out on the sofa, covering herself with Danny's jacket. About three minutes passed by.
"Do you have a pillow I could use?"
