Tami Beethoven

Professor Congi, always well-meaning if a bit dense, once asked her, on a hot sunny day outside the Student Union, "There are probably some advantages to being naked." Tami, basking in the sun, said, "Too many to list. Es gemutlich." Which he then explained, trying to translate as Tami looked on in amusement, meant "Naked is warm and fuzzy." They laughed at that. Another awkward Congi comment that they performed a judo move on to make it turn out well.

Tonight Rod's mind had been filled with these thoughts as he watched Tami zip through her assignment. There was nobody faster on a computer; her high school had been little more than a vo-tech school, with everyone taking typing and data entry. As with any fast typist, using a mouse slowed her down, but she inventively solved that problem by placing the mouse on the floor. Blazing away at the keyboard while working the click buttons with her toes, she flew through anything she was doing.

By and by Rod had gotten tired with his work and at a certain point he had lain back in his pajamas and closed his eyes, the blueprint falling to the floor. A few minutes later he felt gentle hands pulling down his bottoms, the warm engulfing mouth, and he smiled...

Now, with Tami on top of him, he watched as she crested and jerked through a series of spasms. What's that now -- number ten? Rod chided himself. Tami hated being kept score of. She came down slightly from the last orgasm, but only slightly. He knew what she wanted to feel and kept his hips thrust up. He held her hands down on the bed. In this way she could rub her clit against his pubic bone and stay on the brink. She liked doing this usually around the middle of their lovemaking. Eyes half-closed, breathing in short gasps, he could swear he felt her heartbeat on his dick as she lay suspended on the brink of orgasm, now and then giving into it, then coming down a bit, only to go up again when she chose. All during which he felt the end of his dick flicking back and forth against her cervix.

She could stay suspended like this for half an hour or more. It was difficult sometimes for him to hold his ejaculation, the pulsing of her inner muscles felt so good massaging his dick, the cervix relentlessly flicking his sensitive penis head, but being so tired tonight, he did not feel himself approaching the danger zone. Not that it was always "danger" -- "Rod, you can go again!" Tami often said after he came, milking his softening dick with the supple internal muscles of her pussy, or her mouth, until he had another erection. Tonight, though, he felt like after one load he would be soon fast asleep.

His mind wandered to his work difficulties as he looked up at her surfing along the edge from crest to crest. He liked working with building materials but as a newly minted engineer he was learning that dealing with people was just as important...

She knew his mind was elsewhere. She gave a little glance down and said, "it's -- uhh -- going to be all right -- lover -- ohhh... Fill me up, Baby."

She shifted her feet and pivoted on his dick so that she was facing away from him. He moved up and started on her doggy style. He could penetrate very deeply in this position, and had to be careful not to go sideways and poke an ovary, something which he'd heard was as painful as getting a poke in the balls. Now he began to get a rhythm and emit the low groans that always turned her on. With a short, sharp breath, she launched into what she often saved as her last orgasm, the longest and most powerful one. "Ohh! Ohh! Ohh!" He counted six spasms and then he let himself go, filling her up with his semen that seemed like the last of his energy and power draining from him, leaving him spent.

They lay there, waiting for sleep. As always she lay on top of the covers while he went underneath. For a long time now, being under a blanket had been too suffocating for her.

But he was actually too tired to get to sleep. Wordlessly they both got up, he getting into his pajamas again, and padded to the kitchen for some decaf tea.

As she often did, she sat cross-legged on top of the kitchen table. She had become quite the table sitter over the past couple of years. He sipped, and played idly with the pubic hair in front of him. Finally she spoke.

"You're worried about work, aren't you? What's going on, Baby?" She stroked his smooth shaved scalp.

He looked up and put it the best way he could manage. "My boss is hard to get along with. Very, well, bossy."

"Why is he like that?"

"Well Babe, he's what you might call an 'alpha male'. Head of the herd."

"Alpha male?"

"Right."

She sipped. "Or as we women call it, an insecure jerk."

Rod laughed and kept laughing. He had never heard that female viewpoint and it was refreshing and liberating. "Yes. That's exactly what he must be."

"Rough to deal with that kind of person, I bet."

Rod recognized this as a counseling move Tami probably picked up from Marisol, who had been with the campus crisis intervention service. Still, it was effective in getting him to open up. "Yes. Sometimes I think he already knows he will answer 'no' before I even talk to him."

"Is he like this with everyone?"

"In a way. But with me, the impression I get is, he thinks I'm unqualified."

"How can that be? You have a degree and one year of Corps of Engineers service."

Rod exhaled. "He thinks I got the job just because I'm African-American. I just know it."

"Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Did you get the job because you're black?"

One could never lie to Tami. Rod searched his mind.

"Yes, I think I did," he said finally. "They have an affirmative action obligation, and the other guys who applied, I saw them during the interviews, they seemed older and more experienced. And white. And they hire me, a black kid almost right out of school."

Tami scratched a nipple and stirred her tea.

"So what do I do now?" Rod said, looking up at her. Then he looked a little lower and couldn't help himself. He stetched up and kissed one sun-darkened nipple and then the other.

She cleared her throat and said, "What you do is be the best damn engineer that insecure alpha jerk ever had."

Rod nodded to himself. "Yes."

"It's a gift that history has given you. Think of your ancestors. 'I am the dream of the slave'..."

Rod smiled to this reference to the famous Maya Angelou poem. "Indeed."

Continuing the quotation, Tami said, "'I rise; I rise!'"

The smile on him was now ear-to-ear and he was almost in tears. "I rise!"

They looked at each other and sipped one last sip. A moment passed.

"Speaking of which," she said, lying back and wrapping her nimble feet behind his ears, "can you take me up again Baby?"

"Of course, Babe," he said, putting his tea down and gently moving in with his tongue...

Part 8

Up on the fourth, top floor of Thayer Hall, in the office of Department of Fashion Technology Chair Albert Girardo, that person sat with Professor Shel Wanamaker as they absently gazed out the big bay window that overlooked the bright snow-covered campus.

Then Girardo, an old guy in a turtleneck sweater, black pants and moccasins, looked down again to leaf through the portfolio, as if he were looking at photos of persons with two heads. "There's only one word for these: weird."

"Also inventive, ingenious, possibly groundbreaking if you ask me," Wanamaker said. "Come on, admit it. If you didn't know it was Tami Smithers --"

"I just can't get my mind past it. Clothes designed by someone who can never wear any. There's no denying there's some kind of genius here, but it's a genius from another dimension. How long has she been 'au natural'?"

"Three and a half years. Not one stitch, not so much as a pair of flip-flops on her feet either."

"Is this a pant or a very long boot?" Girardo said, turning the portfolio sideways and then upside down. "I hate to say it, but she's probably forgotten what clothes feel like. Maybe she doesn't really know what she's doing any more."

A moment went by. "We've got to send SOMEONE to the International. We haven't sent anyone in five years."

"That's because we haven't had anyone good enough in five years," Girardo countered. "And even that last time, it was a close call."

"You know the problem as well as I do. If we keep on not sending anyone, they'll drop us from their panel."

"Where is it this year?"

"Montreal."

"Oh Christ! I forgot. Right in our goddamn back yard."

"So this is something we might have to do."

"She's not a major," Girardo said lamely.

"And... We've sent submissions from students minoring in fashion before."

Girardo put the portfolio down. "What if she makes the cut? We can't send a goddamn naked girl to a goddamn fashion award show. And what if she wins!! What if she wins!! The most prestigious fashion industry fellowship in North America, and it goes to a naked woman! They'll get publicity like never before, but not the kind they want -- a naked woman who will be bopping around the campus of --"

"They would never give the fellowship to a naked woman."

"Then aren't we setting her up to fail? And besides, there's no way she's going to win. Even if she was clothed. They'll give it to one of those inbred French kids like they always do. The odds are a thousand to one."

"We could make that clear to her when we tell her. She could handle that. Fashion isn't the center of her life. Her being a minor is actually an advantage as to that." Wanamaker continued, "Time is short. You know how I feel. We should tell her we want to submit her as our candidate. The deadline is in three weeks, and we have to give her a chance to put together her submission portfolio before that. She won't win, but at least we'll stay on their panel."

"Here she comes," Girardo said, looking out the bay window.

"Where? Oh." On the main concourse, in the middle of dozens of students going here and there for the next class, the naked girl, easy to pick out of course, was happily chatting on her cell phone, bookbag flung over one shoulder, hanging down to where it bounced against her bare buns as she walked with the swiftness of someone who was used to a tight schedule.

"Seems like she's in a good mood," Girardo said.

"She usually is. Everyone loves her too. And she's got a statue named after her."

"What?"

"Ever see that girl sticking her arms out like she's about to fly? Near the Union?"

"I hardly ever go there."

"It's called 'Tami Takes Flight'. Latimer did it."

"When was that?"

"The year you were on sabbatical."

"Oh... Well that's certainly interesting, though not relevant... Look at her," Girardo said as Tami broke into a little skip, going off the path to take a short cut toward them, kicking up snow with her toes. "She's traipsing through that snow like it's summer and it's sand on a beach."

"A nude beach, it would have to be."

"Right. My point is, how is a person like that supposed to know what anyone wants as far as clothes go? The International is not a bunch of dilettantes who design monstrosities for the Oscars red carpet. They affect real mass-production decisions, like what the chain stores will carry. The first thing a person wants clothes for is warmth. And there she is," he said, motioning toward the approaching Tami, "skipping barefoot and naked through the snow... What's her needs status? They take that into account these days, or least they're supposed to."

"She's married, to a recent engineering graduate, who's working for base pay on his first real job. She's from Providence -- that's another thing in her favor. Her family is working class, she has a younger brother in Iraq, no other source of income aside from her father's Navy pension and his hardware store, which according to our search is not doing too well."

"Think she knows that?"

"Probably not. I hear the father is proud of her but is a real stubborn, Irish beer drinking kind of guy."

"Not your typical designer background."

"I'll say. She also had a couple of close friends who died in 9/11."

"What, that plaque in the admin building? What's their names again --?"

"Mandy Rabinowitz and Jeffrey Dillon."

"Oh right. The kid who had the show on the 68th floor. Man. What a horrible loss."

They both sat in silence. Before they were ready for it, they heard the door to the stairwell close shut and the approaching slap of bare feet.

Though their door was open, they saw a bare arm reach around and knock. "Come on in, Tami," Wanamaker said.

She moved into the doorway slowly and politely. "Hi Professor, hi Mr. Girardo," she said with a little nod. "How did you know it was me?"

Wanamaker said with a smile, "We heard the stairwell door close. Everyone else takes the elevator... I told Mr. Girardo about your presentation on bra measurement. It was excellent as always."

A blushing "Thanks."

Putting on sociability, Girardo looked up and said, "That's a wonderful new hair color you've selected, Ms. Smithers."

To his surprise Tami looked down at her crotch and opened her legs slightly. "Thanks. It's called 'plum'."

Girardo gave a quick and pointed look to his colleague.

Sitting right next to where Tami was standing, Wanamaker tried very hard not to notice the dark red curls right near his face. Or the interesting fact that her pubic lips, jutting out slightly, were the same color as the surrounding curls. He cleared his throat, looked up at her face, and said, "We've been enjoying your... portfolio."

"Oh that," Tami said. Then perhaps thinking she shouldn't have been so dismissive, she said, "I hope it's O.K."

"It's more than O.K, Tami, it's very... inventive," Girardo said, paging through the computer graphics and freehand drawings, accompanied by more explanatory text than usual and, very unusual indeed, mathematical equations of some sort.

"Thanks."

"This uh, tank top or whatever it is," Girardo said, resisting the urge to turn the damn album upside down, "design 17A. How did you get the neckline so high with so little material?"

"Well it's in the equations there," Tami said. She dropped her backpack and turned toward it, apparently not aware that her butt was sticking in their direction. She fished a kind of ruler out. "Let me show you."

Girardo had some kind of vague memory from his 1950's high school days of this sticklike thing Tami now waved in front of him. "The neckline is a catenary, which you get by calculating the hyperbolic sine -- "

"The hyperbolic -- what? What is this thing?"

"It's a slide rule. I got it off the internet. These are really great, in fact they're beautiful. This one's a Hemmi. You see the SH scale here, you read it along with the C scale for radians -- "

As Tami went on and on in what seemed to Girardo like a foreign language, his mouth slowly opened in utter incomprehension. Halfway through he realized Tami's left breast was almost slapping him on the side of the face as she leaned alongside him so they could both see these sticks she was sliding back and forth. Wanamaker looked on in amusement.

When she was done, Girardo said, "I'm afraid it's been a while since --" Actually, he had never, ever been able to --

Tami stood up and started over. "The slide rule is based on logarithms rather than linear relations." Her fingers danced along the scales as she explained. "See how the distance from 1 to 2 is the same as from 2 to 4? It's because that distance is a factor of 2. From 4 to 8 is also the same. Now let me set it to show 6 divided by 3 is 2. See? Without moving the scales you see at the same time that 12 divided by 3 is 4, 38.4 divided by 3 is, 12.8, and so on. The whole operation of division unfolds before you in one panoramic sweep!"

Tami was trying to light a bulb over Girardo's head with this picturesque phrase but there wasn't even a bulb there to turn on. "Oh," he said weakly.

By way of nudging Girardo in the right direction, Wanamaker said, "Tami, I wonder if you have any ambitions for your designing talent."

Tami thought for a second, then said, "I've designed dresses and clothes for my friends. It seems whenever there's a wedding or a formal dance I get called. It's just my minor, though. My major is math, and my project is math with biochemistry. My friend Gretchen and I are working on a biodegradable, toxin-proof fabric that holds heat in the cold and breathes in the heat."

"That would be quite an accomplishment."

"I heard about that project from Professor Ling," Wanamaker said. "That's Gretchen Spaulding, right?"

"Yes, Gretchen and me. What we want is to develop something that can be used by our troops in Iraq. My brother tells me it gets both very hot and very cold there, at least where he is. Gretchen's fiance is there too."

"I hear they need equipment there," Wanamaker said. Then, perhaps tactlessly, "I hope they're safe."

"Joe is in a part of the country where not much happens, and Roger, that's Gretchen's fiance, he's training helicopter pilots."

"I see," Girardo said. "Well, good for you. And good for Gretchen too."

"Thanks."

There was an uneasy silence, at least uneasy for the two professors.

"Well, Ms. Smithers," Girardo said, "we just wanted to say that we're very impressed with your work, not only on your biochem project, but also in our classes. I hope you stay interested in this field of endeavor. See you around."

"Thanks again." She picked up her backpack and started to leave. From out in the hall she said, "What happened to that cartoon thing?"

"The what?"

"You know, that old magazine thing?"

She was referring to an old National Lampoon item entitled, "What high fashion would look like if designers were heterosexual." It had a picture of a so-called designer in a sweatshirt and jeans, pointing to his new "design", an invisible dress on a naked woman. "And if she gets cold, she can always wear a car," he was saying. Girardo, who was gay, had put the item up some years ago as a joke on himself. But he took it down recently out of sensitivity to Tami's plight.

"Um, it was time to change the board a bit," Girardo said.

"Oh. Too bad, it was pretty funny. Well, bye."

They heard the bare footsteps receding and then the stairwell door close. Soft descending footfalls faded into silence.

Wanamaker said, "I knew you'd chicken out. You won't get many more chances."

Girardo sighed and said, "Shel, you know I'm always swayed by you. I have to admit, strange as it is, this girl's work is exceptional. She probably really does deserve to be our candidate. But a naked fashion designer... This is the weirdest situation I've ever been in."

"I think you're being hyperbolic."

"Oh shut up."

Tami Beethoven by Donny Laja

Part 9

The second, mezzanine level of the college library was quiet on this dark afternoon. The sound of the heavy rain outside was all that could be heard, a rain that was quickly turning the snow into slush. A slush that this time, according to the forecast, would not freeze overnight. It was taking a while, but the deep freeze this north country was famous for had broken and it was warming up, if ever so slowly.

Tami Smithers was parked at her usual table in her usual position. One leg curled up, the other heel up on the table, her foot facing in, markers of various colors slotted between her toes. With her left hand she was grading papers from the remedial math class she tutored, selecting the appropriate marker according to her own system. Red = incorrect, Black = correct but incomplete work, Blue = correct, Green = helpful comments.

Next to these papers were a couple of textbooks. Her backpack was on the chair next to her. She worked quietly in the quiet library.

Another creature lurked nearby.

At first it was just a shadow in the stacks behind her. Watching, waiting...

It was Rosaria, tall and athletic with cropped hair, travel pouch around her waist. In wool jacket, leotard top, tights and long wool socks over her duck boots, looking like the Latina lesbian she was. She silently circled in front of the table and, when Tami looked up, she leaned across the table and kissed the big toe.