The characters in this story speak French most of the time although I have written their dialogue in English with only a very occasional French phrase for some degree of authenticity. I haven't studied French in forty years and apologize if I've gotten tense, gender, grammar or syntax wrong.
Steve had just completed his freshman year of college. He was a virgin. He'd felt a breast or two through clothing and gotten a couple of fingers just inside a girl's shorts but not far enough to feel anything. He'd had one briefly rub his cock through his jeans and spent most of one night in bed with a girl while they were both fully clothed. He was a damn good kisser; he'd had some practice in that area of male-female interaction.
In the countless hours he spent at the massive university library, he had read everything he could get his hands on about sex from the absurdly clinical to the delightfully esoteric. He was positive that he knew more about sex than any other man on the planet---who hadn't ever gotten any.
He was staying over for the summer term; students at all-girl schools around the state often came to the big university to take a course or two during the summer which was the only time they were allowed to enroll. Maybe this would finally be his time.
There were mixers occasionally scheduled on campus during the regular term with some of the girls' colleges around the state, so he'd had a few---very few---opportunities to meet and at least make out with a few girls during the school year. Without a car and an apartment, there just weren't many opportunities to 'close the deal'.
Steve had had the fortune or misfortune of starting his first year of college at the tender age of seventeen. His mother had lied way back when she enrolled him in kindergarten; in those days the school hadn't bothered to check a birth certificate. He was ready to start school and while slightly smaller than average, seemed to have no problems either relating to his classmates or doing schoolwork. Years later when someone figured it out, it was too late to do anything about it. Physically he caught up by the end of the ninth grade and was actually taller than average in high school, albeit only slightly so. He had participated in sports in high school, although he was certainly not a star athlete. Academically he had excelled.
When college rolled around he had his choice of any school he wanted to attend---if he could afford it. Good old mom lied again. She had a distant cousin in a state which had arguably the best state university in the nation. Even to this day graduates from said university enjoy virtual Ivy League status. With a little help from her equally dishonest cousin, he received in-state status. Tuition and fees for a state resident were a fraction of the out of state costs thanks to legislative fiat. The university was very affordable if you lived in the state but very difficult to get into due to its obscenely high entrance requirements promulgated by its nationally recognized academic reputation.
Steve had received a full scholarship which included both housing and meals. Good old mom had again cheated on the financial assistance paperwork with a little help from her brother, a CPA, who had a different last name. In addition to the state funded scholarship, Steve received a number of other stipends thanks to his excellent high school record, high SAT scores and official status as 'impoverished.'
He was in fact impoverished; had things not come together, there wouldn't have been a chance in hell of him attending a decent college---if any. Mom had no intention of spending any of her hard earned or more likely, purloined money on her only son's education. In his first year at the university she had sent him a five-dollar bill at Christmas and that was pretty much it.
She did what she had to do; he was out of the house. It was up to him now. A college education was a special gift. If he chose not to make the best of it, he could always join the military. She'd done her part; she'd fulfilled her legal responsibility. Dad had flown the coop years earlier. Steve barely even remembered what he looked like.
Before enrolling in the fall term he would sign an affidavit which indicated that he had no parental support---his mother had already signed her part and mailed it back to him---and had lived continuously within the state for at a certain number of months. He would register for the draft in the state, acquire a driver's license in the state, register his vehicle in the state and would truly become an in-state resident for purposes of tuition and fees. He'd already tried to do it at summer term registration but they wouldn't accept it until he was eighteen---in spite of the fact that he was totally on his own financially.
He was the last kid to get a driver's license in his high school class which certainly put him behind the power curve in back seat opportunities. He was still a few days away from being able to buy a watered down, 3.2 beer at a local watering hole named after the university mascot. He didn't look seventeen, act seventeen or talk seventeen. In an era when checking ID was not what it is today, he was usually successful in getting a fresh beer if he surreptitiously picked up a near-empty off a table, waved it in front of the busy bartender and said, 'how about another Bud?'
Steve felt neither love nor loathing for his parents; other kids he had grown up with had fared far worse. They'd never beaten or abused him. They fed him and put a roof over his head. Since he had done very well in school, they never bugged him. They simply ignored him. His father had disappeared before he started junior high. His mother always seemed impatient for him to grow up and move out.
He didn't hate the university---no! That's not right! He despised the university, but he loved getting an education and learning new things. The university was all male. Freshman couldn't have a car until second semester and then only if they had a 3.0 average. He had come in at 2.94. Not that it would have mattered, since he couldn't afford a car at the time and freshman parking was miles from his classes. Most of the other guys attending had money which bought clothes, toys and cars. The fraternity scene was dominant and he didn't find it attractive, nor could he have afforded it. He wasn't much of a party animal. Freshman had to live in the dorms and the freshman dorms were barely of barracks quality.
Second semester of his freshman year he got a perfect 4.0 average. It meant that in his sophomore year he would be able to have a car. He ended up getting a small, used motorcycle because it was cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate; it turned out to be more fun than he had expected it to be. Between the end of the regular term and the beginning of the summer term, he found an apartment off campus.
Since the university essentially gouged the students who lived in the dorms, it was a better deal for him in view of his housing stipend. It had a kitchen and he loved to cook. It was far more than a single room with an obnoxious roommate and a communal bathroom at the end of the hall. He'd learned how to cook at an early age. Before leaving home, he couldn't remember the last time his mother had done so. He knew he could cook better food for less money than the meal ticket he had been required to use throughout his freshman year had provided.
He had also acquired a much better part time retail job which paid a better salary---his hourly wage had increased by 250%. The job included commissions and bonuses. The two owners were nice people who cared about their employees. Their store was located halfway between his garage apartment and the campus.
The majority of the guys attending summer school were doing so because they had flunked one or more classes during the regular term. Steve had calculated that if he took a full twelve hour load in summer school for three years, he'd be able to graduate nine months early, skipping his senior year. The faster he got away from the university, the sooner he could get a job and start his life.
He had decided to knock out as many required courses as possible in summer term. The university required all students to pass four semesters of a foreign language. Steve had completed the first two during the regular term and intended to finish the last two in summer school. He would also take two semesters of English Lit which would complete his requirement in that subject area. He'd reviewed the course requirements and realized that he had read---and studied---every single work to be covered in the two semesters of the Lit courses.
His foreign language of choice was French. He had first been formally exposed to it in elementary school, fortunate to have attended a school as a youngster that had a very progressive concept of teaching foreign languages to very young children. His paternal grandmother spoke fluent, unaccented French, and had enjoyed tutoring him when she had come to visit back before his dysfunctional family had evaporated. There had been a French Canadian neighbor who had enjoyed finding anyone who spoke his native language, even if it was a kid.
His grandmother on his father's side had tried to keep in touch with him even after his father departed and in spite of the fact that she despised his mother. She had offered to pay for him to go to France and live for the summer with his aunt and uncle just prior to his senior year in high school. As much as the two women despised each other, there was no way his mother was going to turn down a chance to get rid of him for three months that wouldn't cost her a cent.
That summer was without question the most wonderful three months of his life. His aunt and uncle were kind, friendly and loving. They treated him like the son they had never been able to have. They were cultured, outgoing, charming and moderately prosperous people. His aunt had received some training as a chef and was thrilled to discover his culinary interests. They spoke French and only French.
Steve had had no problem with the first two semesters of French and didn't expect any during the summer term. He had taken four years of the language in high school and with all of the other exposure, spoke the language perfectly, read it with ease and was a reasonably proficient, if not perfect, writer.
The summer term included a language lab in addition to the normal class. The lab met twice a week for a total of four hours in an old, dilapidated wooden building just off the edge of the campus. For the four hours a week of additional work, the course would earn him one additional semester hour of credit.
There were unlikely to be any girls in the lab; they only came to the big campus to take specialized courses that weren't available at their own schools, not undergraduate requirements. The people who taught these labs were not professors but often simply contracted instructors. As he took a seat near the front, he attempted to check out the one handling this particular language lab.
A female instructor was unusual; he had never even seen a female professor at the university. He judged her to be in her early thirties; if she was younger, then life had been less than kind to her. Her hair was coarsely cut and straight. It was frizzy. Her face was a bit gaunt and had no makeup; her features were classically French.
