This story is based upon an actual incident in my post-graduate education at a major southern university. There were two young women who did share a dorm space but maybe not as I describe it in this story. We all had entered the same teacher-training program. To my certain knowledge neither of them completed the program, but I did. Thus all persons in this story are in their early 20's. And finally, as it used to be said on the TV show Dragnet, the names have been changed to protect the innocent (me and the women).
*****
Mark and Alice and Paula
This story takes place in June 1966. I had just graduated from a major state university in the Midwest. I had wanted to be a teacher but had only taken History of Education and Educational Psychology at my alma mater. So I needed a graduate school education program to qualify. I found the program I needed at a major university in a large southern capital city.
The day after the program began I was approached by a classmate, a woman named Alice Stevens, who asked me to help her and her dorm suite-mate with a light bulb cover that they couldn't open themselves. Alice's suite-mate, Paula Peterson, was also a classmate. I agreed to come to their dorm suite later that afternoon to try to help them.
Now, if you know me, you know that I am not a top physical specimen. In fact I was, and am, physically inept (can you say "klutz?"). What I am, as my mother taught me to be, is a gentleman. So even though I suspected I would not be able to help Alice and Paula, I showed up and gave it my best effort, which was, of course, totally ineffective. I apologized to them and suggested they try one of the other young men in their dorm.
As I turned to leave and walk across the campus to my own dorm, Alice stopped me, pulled my head down (I was about five inches taller than she was) and kissed me. At that point Paula left Alice's room and I asked Alice to sit down and talk with me. I made it clear to her that I was engaged, and would be getting married at the end of August. Alice said that it was only a thank you kiss.
"Alice, I don't wish to offend you. But to me the kiss was unnecessary because I did nothing that could justify it. Please let me leave," I said.
"But Mark," Alice replied, "you came over when you did not have to. I'm just thanking you for trying. I respect you for wanting to be loyal to your fiancee, because no guy has ever treated me that way."
"Oh give me a break, Alice. You are very beautiful, and I have heard that you are an amazing artist. With all that going for you, and as sweet as you are, guys should be falling all over themselves to make you happy. If I wasn't engaged I'd be trying my best to convince you that I'm your man," I said, trying to change the mood.
"Mark, you have just made my day, my week and possibly my year," Alice said. And once again she put her arms around me and kissed me, forcing her tongue into my mouth.
Now my little head started to do the thinking for my big head, and I started kissing Alice back. I shoved the guilty feelings into the back of my mind and gave myself over to the woman in my arms. I would live with guilt for the rest of my life, but this woman knew how to pull me in, and she did.
We had wrapped our arms around each other and held on until we came up for air. I looked at Alice, moved my face up and proceeded to kiss her from her forehead, down her nose to its tip. Then I kissed her eyelids, her cheeks and her chin. Then I blew in her right ear, sucked on her earlobe, and licked and nibbled down the side of her neck until I reached her collarbone. Then I repeated my efforts on her left ear and the left side of her neck.