How was he supposed to concentrate? How was anybody supposed to concentrate for that matter? At the front of the lecture hall, Professor Clark carried on in his monotone, pacing from one side of the room to the other, lulling the class further and further into a quiet stupor.
The absentminded doodles Jason had been making in his notebook for the better part of an hour had started to take on a distinct form: a sketch of Claire. She was sitting in the fourth row and was maybe the last student still paying close attention. But it wasn't her work ethic that had his rapt attention -- it was her natural beauty and her carefully curated style that stood out against the sea of sweatpants and collegiate sweatshirts.
His pencil started to drift, finishing its work on her ponytail, now outlining the soft features of her face and then moving down, arriving at her blouse. Vaguely, he poked at the buttons with his pencil, imagining them coming loose one-by-one. Shaking his head, he brought himself back to reality.
"...And that will be essential to final," the professor finished. Jason whipped his head back and forth to see the class nodding their understanding. "Shit," he muttered under his breath, looking to the fourth row to see Claire making a note of the professor's last remarks in her agenda.
He leaned back in his chair, and an idea occurred to him -- a good one. One that would mean the last hour of his life wouldn't have to have been a complete waste. A few minutes later, outside the lecture hall, Jason parked in the corner and waited, but he didn't have to wait for long. About a foot shorter than the rest of the class, Claire was nevertheless easy to spot because the bustling crowd left space all around her, as though they understood she was somehow different -- more akin to a professor than a fellow student.
"Claire!" he shouted. He saw her standing up on her tippytoes to search over the heads in the crowd, and his heart leapt when her eyes met his and she smiled. She changed course.
"Hey! Been a minute," she said.
"Yeah well, I've been waiting to bump into you, but I got tired of waiting."
Claire laughed. The sight of it gave him the hit of confidence he needed for what came next.
"Listen," he said, "I don't know about you, but I'd say I only caught about five percent of what happened in there."
"I'd say I'm closer to two," Claire said. It was clearly bullshit, but he appreciated her saying so all the same.
"Well, how about this?" he said. Claire hugged the books she was carrying to her chest and leaned forward. "How about you come over to my place later and we study? Between my five percent and your two, we'd be about seven percent covered for the final."
Claire smiled, her gaze wandering through the surrounding crowd. "I don't know," she said. "I should stay in and do some reading." Beneath the doubt, he sensed that she had no desire to spend Friday night alone in her room studying. She just needed a little encouraging, and he was only too happy to oblige.
"You can always read at mine. I have a light, a chair. Everything you might need."
She smiled again, considering. "Fine," she said after an agonizing pause.
"Fine?"
"Fine," she said, laughing
"Then it's a date."
~
That evening, standing in front of the full-length mirror in her room, Claire let her hair down for the third time. Her short, unfussy haircut fell to her shoulders and she sighed. Up or down, no matter what she did, she looked more prepared for a board meeting than a date. And was it really even a date? She considered as she put her hair back up in a ponytail and turned her attention to her clothes. Yes, Jason had used the word "date," but it was a common turn of phrase -- it meant nothing.
She was still wearing the clothes she'd worn to class: a white blouse tucked into brown slacks. There might not be much she could do about her hair, but there was still time to fix her outfit. She needed something different. Something that suggested she was more than a bookworm. Something that was, in no way, recognizable as being "Claire."
She didn't want to examine this need feel like someone else too closely. Obviously, it was more than her attraction to Jason. It probably had something to do with there being only a few short weeks until graduation. And what did she have to show for her time here? Sure, she'd have the degree -- a piece of paper to show perspective employers -- but did she have any real experience? Any adventures should could look back on when she bored, stuck in an office counting down the minutes until five?
No. Not yet, anyway.
She crossed the room and opened her bureau. Searching through the neat stacks of clothing, her frustration grew. There was nothing... No short skirt, not a single stitch of clothing that would feel more at home in a nightclub than a library. Closing the second drawer, she opened the top.
Again, nothing. Not a thong, not a single piece of lace. Even her bras were dull -- all supportive practical, and padded. Her eyes settled on a stack of white undershirts. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she considered a possibility. She returned to the mirror, slowly unbuttoning her blouse, pulling it off the show the beige version of the bras she'd just been rummaging through in her bureau.
Reaching back, she undid the clasp and let the bra fall to the floor. Her breasts weren't large, but they were always her favorite part of her body. She pulled on the undershirt, and sure enough, you could make out the faint outline of her nipples. Growing hard, they poked out against the sheer fabric.
But did she dare?
"I'm going out!" Claire shouted as she passed her roommate and the group of friends that sat around their kitchen table, enjoying a bottle of wine.
Her roommate turned, surprised. "Where are you headed?"
If Claire didn't happen to love her roommate, she might've been offended by the shock in her voice. As it stood, there was no getting around the fact that Alison's surprise was genuine, and that her going out on a Friday night was strange, bordering on bizarre.
"I've got a date," Claire said. She watched her roommate's eyes drift down to settle on her chest.
"Enjoy," Alison said, a shit-eating grin plastered on her face.
Claire rolled her eyes. "Goodnight, be good." With that, she walked out the front door, realizing as the door closed that it was unusually cool. She got an immediate chill, and looking down, realized the cold air would do nothing to ease the self-consciousness she was already starting to feel toward her choice in attire.
Jason's house was no more than a ten-minute walk. Deciding to get it over with as quick as possible, she set off at a pace somewhere between a fast walk and a light jog, arriving six minutes later more than a little out of breath. Steadying herself for a moment, Claire knocked.
Nothing.
Leaning in, she could make out the clear sound of a sports broadcast and chatter. Then, all at once, like the sound car backfiring, the loud sound of cheers, making her take a small step backward. Annoyed, Claire stepped forward and hammered on the front door with her fist.
