Interview with the Professor

I looked up at my naked friend. Our breaths formed clouds in the cold, still air. My hands were cold in their gloves. I clapped them together. "I feel like we've been plunged into the Arctic," I observed.

Tami looked around. "It's minus seven Celsius. Twenty degrees Fahrenheit."

"How do you know?"

"My nips tell me." She turned her torso slightly in my direction. "They also tell me you're happy to see me and are loaded with questions."

"Right as always."

Tami gracefully hopped down onto a virgin drift, the snow up to her knees. Then she sighed. "That's a lot of effort for a third trimester girl. I get tired these days. Let's sit and chat." There was a metal bench nearby, between two big rocks, all of it covered with six inches of white fluff. I stood in front of it, then bent over and cleared a space for the two of us with my gloved hand. Tami was standing behind me.

"So how's the Plush?"

I turned around and covered my butt with my gloved hands. A ridiculous gesture, with my butt covered by the coat, and my snow pants . . . and my thermal undies made of Tami's new invention, Plush. "How did you know?"

"I can tell," she said, folding her arms under her swollen breasts, idly twirling one big toe in the snow. "Your butt had that shape to it."

"Well," I said, rubbing my butt, "it's the warmest undies I've ever worn, and cushy too. I feel like I'm sitting on a pillow."

"So the bench shouldn't be too bad," Tami said. She had read my thoughts, as usual. I sat down on the end of bench, reflexively expecting a cold butt, but smiling as my buns felt warm and cushioned. "Ahhhh," I couldn't help saying.

We two girls looked at each other and giggled.

Tami sat down next to me. I tried not to think how the subfreezing metal must feel on her bare butt cheeks. We stretched our legs out, her snowy bare toes next to my feet in her patented booties that Professor Warmspring had given me on that warm May afternoon.

"So, now you're the Dean," I said.

Tami shook her head as if shaking away a bad memory. "That word . . . I just can't think of it applying to me. Tami the Dean." She shook her head again.

"Why is that? Why do you have an aversion to the word 'Dean'."

She exhaled, her breath making a cloud. "Long story. In fact way TOO long. A long, long, long, l - o - n - g story. Too long."

She lapsed into silence as I pondered this very strange answer.

"Mr. Warmspring told me the job is a hot potato."

"Yes. As you can see, Sorry again about that fight. I want to move the Institute in a new direction. The problem is Winnie's as pigheaded as I am. Ow!!"

Tami jumped up off the bench and looked down at it, rubbing her reddened butt, her milk-filled breasts swaying to and fro.

"What's wrong?"

"Damn . . . I thought it was cold enough. I'm allergic to smooth surfaces now." With her red bare fingers she dusted the snow off the rock next to me. It turned out to be a geode. I'd learned about them from an old boyfriend. Often found in caves, it's usually spherical or egg-shaped, with spines of crystals sticking out all over. Not an inviting seat!

But Tami sat her bare butt on it anyway. She winced and I winced with her as she slowly settled in. "I -- have to put rough grit sandpaper everywhere I sit now, my chair in the office, and at home. I can't walk on floors unless they have a carpet with a pinpricky surface that Homer devised. It's a pain in the butt -- literally." Warm and cushioned in my Plush undies, snow pants and coat, I thought of the freezing needle-sharp jags digging into her flesh.

It hadn't snowed for a while and now the sun broke through the clouds. In the snowy landscape it suddenly became almost too bright to see.

She took a few breaths and said, "That's better. I tell you, I'm not used to getting tired. Pregnancy takes a lot out of you."

I smiled. "I'll remember that." I then decided to ask what was on my mind. "Are you sure it will be -- O.K.?" "Yes, I had it thoroughly looked at. I'll be in a refrigerated plastic tent. My lower lips will be in the warmth but it should be O.K. The baby will come out in the ambient air."

I suppose that would work. The baby wouldn't inherit Tami's allergy, which of course was psychological. But how would it be -- to be raised by a mother who would be essentially in a bubble? Probably all right. Tami and Rod would make good parents. They're sensible and have good hearts.

"Oh the hell with this," Tami said, getting up laboriously. For a moment her butt was in my face and I saw the indentations caused by the geode. Also her anus, the sight of brown skin flecked with melting snowflakes. Then she turned around and plopped onto the snow-covered ground, arranging her legs to sit Indian style. "Ahhh . . . that's better.

"So what brings you here?" she said, idly tossing snow with her fingers.

"I just wanted to see how you were."

"Good. Don't worry. I'm good." She looked up, her green eyes shining in the sun, her hairless eyebrow ridges crinkling as she smiled.

"You suffer so much." Immediately I felt sorry for blurting that out.

Tami wiggled her toes in the snow, then leaned back on her hands to make it more comfortable for her belly. Sitting Indian style was not a comfortable option at this point in her pregnancy.

She looked up at me for a long moment. Then she said, "So what am I supposed to do? People think that I am so brave. They don't tell me, but they think it. I can feel it in my nipples. The truth is, I AM brave. I AM strong. Don't you think I'd love to feel warmth, even put on one of those booties, even just for a second?" She pointed with her snow-crusted big toe to my warmly clad foot. "But I can't." She thought for a moment, looking down. "One time, I complained to Rod, acted like a victim, went on and on about how unlucky I was. I was a little drunk. Then when I woke up I just hated myself. I was ashamed. It's not who I am. Being . . . like this . . . it's my life. It's the only way I know how to be."

"I feel so bad."

She sighed as if in exasperation. "NOT news." She looked at my sullen face. And then, grabbed a breast and squirted a thin stream of milk right up into my face!

"Akkk!" I said, laughing.

With her other hand she shot a stream from the other breast, hitting my nose. She got up on her knees and gunned me with alternating nipples, squirt after squirt. I got up and started to run away as she pursued me and kept shooting at me, her belly wobbling, her toes kicking up bits of snow behind her. I pictured the odd sight we must present if anyone was watching. We circled around the tree until she ran out of ammunition.

I sat back down on the bench as she laughed and dropped to her knees in front of me. I wiped the milk off my face with my gloves. There wasn't that much of it, of course. But some went into my mouth and I couldn't help but taste.

"You're pretty yummy," I said.

She laughed, her belly jiggling. "Oooh! She kicked!" she said, laughing again as she held herself. Then she rubbed her reddened hands over her belly. "She'll be a soccer player, this one!"

I laughed too, and contemplated the happy naked pregnant woman kneeling in the snow. This was a special time. It took me only a moment to figure out why. This was the first time I'd seen Tami at ease -- when she was not quaking in orgasm, or shivering with cold.

Tami looked both ways. "Another thing about being pregnant is I always have to pee. Excuse me." I expected her to leave for somewhere but to my amazement she spread her knees, pulled her lower lips apart, and squirted into the snow in front of me. Of course she was totally without shame, having been naked for so many years. I felt my face turn red, as if I were the naked one peeing in the open, and she were the clothed one.

Then she waddled to one side and, with her dexterous toes, covered up the yellow hole with fresh snow. She looked up at me as if realizing that I was embarrassed. Then she smiled and pulled apart her lower lips again. Her clit stood out, wet and warm, in the cold air. I could swear I could see it emitting a little puff of condensation. "Hi hi," she said in a baby voice, making her clit jump twice. I'm pretty sure I can't do that, though I haven't tried. Tami was so comfortable with her body. That, at least, was one benefit that enforced nudity had bestowed on her.

Though it was well below freezing, and Tami had been out here for a good while, she was still not shivering. "Nice day it turned out," I said, looking up at the growing opening of clear blue sky.

"I love this day," Tami said, propping herself up to stand. "I don't feel cold at all. My pregnant metabolism. I owe it all to her," She patted her belly and spoke to it. "Thanks, baby."

"Do you have a name for her?"

"Dareen."

"Unusual name."

"It's Arab. Palestinian. Another long story."

"You should balance it out with a Jewish middle name." What can I say? I'm Jewish.

"I will. Judith. Dareen Judith. How's that?"

"Smithers or Sykes?"

"That would be a coin-toss."

Tami turned and surveyed the immediate area, hands on hips. "I'll teach her gymnastics. That's what my college scholarship was on, you know. Let's see if I still can . . ." She shook the snow off her toes, raised her arms over her head, turned her feet just so, then tried a cartwheel. She didn't make it -- her big belly caused her to fall backward, her toes pitching snow in my direction, and ended on her back.

She laughed, looking up at the sky, totally at home with herself and with the universe. And now someone from inside one of the buildings clapped and cheered. She was being watched after all. Dean Smithers got up, breasts and tummy bouncing, slapped the snow out from her butt crack, and playfully stuck her tongue out in that direction.

"Let's make a snow woman!"

"What?"

"Come on," Tami said. She lurched and dropped to her knees and formed a little snowball. She got up and rolled it with her foot, her toes grabbing it and pushing it here and there, the ball growing as it collected bits of snow.

By the time it had gotten to the size of a soccer ball I had jumped up to help. It didn't seem warm enough but the snow was in fact easily packable. I felt like we were kids and I was helping my big sister in our back yard. That was the sense I got from Tami. A down-to-earth, good-natured big sister.

We trudged around and rolled up two or three big snow boulders and then got on the task of stacking them. I was so happy. We were as industrious and enthusiastic and giddy as high school girls, laughing as we debated how big to make our snow-woman's breasts. I opted for smaller ones, but Tami wanted knockers. We compromised, giving her about C-cups.

It was strange, I know, putting that snow-head on, my ski cap and ear muffs next to her bald scalp, my gloves helping her bare hands, her big nipples brushing against the snow, my Plush-ed butt next to her bare cheeks, my warm booties stomping the snow next to her bare feet. But I almost had tears in my eyes, thinking of her sufferings and yet seeing how much she enjoyed the day, and my company. and what we were doing, and the new life inside her. I absolutely had to stay in touch!

The End