Book of the Month Club

We got along well. Leah had a few gal pals who dropped by often, and I enjoyed their company. A couple of her friends appeared to show interest in me, but nothing ever came of it. When I asked them out for a date, they always said no. Leah had no male friends as one would expect since she was getting over an abusive marriage. As we got more used to each other as flatmates, she would walk around in bra and panties on the really cold mornings when the renters downstairs turned up their thermostats sending tropical heat flooding up to the third floor. I spent the time in my boxers as we both coped with the heat.

I kept to my geeky, introverted ways having few acquaintances outside of work. And I treated Leah like a flatmate. I figured the last thing she needed was a man making demands of her while she got over her abusive ex. I treated her as I would a guy. I figured she would let me know if she wanted things to heat up between us.

I did tell her about Karen Willowby, and I was brutally honest about what broke us up. I also detailed the campaign of character assassination she launched as as retaliation.

"You didn't cheat on her?" Leah asked when I was finished.

I shook my head, "I've always followed my dad's advice to keep it simple. Stick to one woman only at a time, and make a clean break when you decide to move on to another."

"So you're seeing no one now, not even occasionally?"

"There's a couple of grad students that I can call when I need a plus one for a faculty function, but there is no romance between us. I don't even need them if you're willing to go with me to those lovely functions."

That made her smile.

"I would be happy to be your date, and you have to show me Karen Willowby soon so I can punch her out when I see her."

I had to chuckle at that.

"Don't women tear off each others' clothes and pull hair when they fight?"

"No really," Leah thought for a moment, "we're better at attacks through rumor and innuendo. By the way, did you hear that you broke up with Karen Willowby because she was having an affair with another woman?"

"Wow," I palmed my forehead, "it concerns me how easily you thought that up. I'm suddenly a little scared of you."

She patted my cheek.

"Make sure you say on my good side," she added as she made a fist, "I am skilled in the art of conversational jujitsu."

In December, we began hearing about covid on the news. Neither of us paid much attention as late winter slowly morphed into early spring. Covid which had stayed on the coasts now turned up all around us in Michigan and especially in the dorms on campus. On a cool Sunday morning in March, Leah and I were finishing up our ham and Swiss omelettes.

"Have you heard the news? The administration is talking about shutting down because of covid. We could be in quarantine for a couple of months."

"I get very little news down in the dungeon under the library," I thought about it a little more, "it'll make things rough if they stop paying us during that time," I said wallowing in the down side of the issue. I liked the downside. There were fewer chances to be surprised by bad news on the down side.

Leah peered at me over her tortoiseshell glasses.

"To me it's the perfect time for both of us to write the novels we've talked about. Think about it. With nothing else to do, we could write ten pages a day. At the end of a month, we'd have the better part of a first draft completed."

"You're right, of course," I replied with a frown, "but I don't want to turn it into drudgery. Ten pages a day over top of what we do every day for classes is going to eat up most of our time even if we don't leave the apartment except to work."

Leah, enthusiastic about life and everything in it, could hardly sit still. She boiled over with excitement about her new idea.

Leah perched on the couch with her head up like a like a beagle. A puppy-like cuteness radiated from her when she went bounding after an idea like it was a bunny. She leaned forward on the couch almost vibrating with excitement. She liked her idea.

"I'm not sure my boss would let me stay home," I shrugged, "I work in the basement with nobody around. They might require that I keep my regular schedule since I have zero chance of coming in contact with people."

Leah pushed ahead against my passive-aggressive opposition.

"If a lock down is ordered and you can't go to work, and we have to stay in the apartment, would you be willing to try writing a novel?"

I nodded. It was hard to say no to her when she got excited about a project. For one thing she made short shorts and an old cropped Black Eyed Peas tee look pretty good. She had the cutest stomach. It was round and smooth and very kissable, if I ever got the chance. I never did like the women with six pack abs.

"Sure, it'll give us something to do."

"I'm serious about this," a bit of a pout crossed her face, "there needs to be a penalty to keep us from slacking off," she bit her lip and looked adorable.

I had trouble saying no to her. She was a toucher and a hugger and I have no resistance when she turned her full charm on me. Am I that shallow? I freely admit it.

"Like what? We can't assess fines, neither one of us has much money."

"I was thinking of something more personal," she paused unsure of herself, took a deep breath and plunged on, "I propose that anytime we don't produce a full ten pages in a day, we lose one article of clothing."

"For the next day?"

She shook her head.

"If we start on April you lose that article until the end of April. So if you lose your socks on the first day, they're gone for the rest of the month."

"All the time, or when you're writing?"

"24/7 until May first," she pronounced.

I took a quick count in my head.

"If I mess up five times, I'm naked for the rest of the month?"

She nodded.

"Yep, that should keep us slaving away at our laptops."

That would make it serious. Leah and I were friends, not lovers. As much as I liked the thought of her parading around the apartment bare, I had no desire to join her. I had a decent body, but I looked like I was molded from clay, not chiseled from granite. Carved from butter on a warm day might be an even better analogy.

I had placed her firmly in the friend category when she decided to move in with me. I liked her as a friend, and didn't want to screw up what we had. The problem with getting romantic with a flatmate during a shelter-in-place order was where would you go if the relationship soured? I was more than a little gun shy after what Karen had put me through. Lovers were easy to come by compared to good roommates or decent affordable apartments.

We both worked hard at being good roommates and talked about any transgressions right away. I had come home from parties drunk and obnoxious a couple of times. We smoothed over the rough spots as quickly and as thoroughly as two rational people could while one of the people was horribly hung over and willing to agree to anything as long as they could crawl back in bed.

Leah did get snippy with me when Lucy, the Vietnamese/American woman from downstairs came out of my bedroom early one Sunday morning. We had met at a party the night before, I could never understand why Leah was so angry. Lucy was a nice lady who wanted to be friendly with Leah. The only thing I could figure out was that Lucy lived a little too close to home.

At dinner on March twenty-third Leah grinned over the bowl of homemade macaroni and cheese that she had made from dinner.

"Did you hear? The governor is issuing a shelter in place order and shutting down universities beginning April 1. Only essential workers will go to work and that means you and I are off for the foreseeable future."

"I'm not sure that's good news," I winced, "what are we going to do for money and food while we're off?"

Leah shook her head.

"You really do work off by yourself, don't you? The university has decided to keep our salaries and stipends as they are through the end of the semester."

"Well, that's a relief," I shoved a delicious forkful of mac and cheese into my mouth and chewed with appreciation verging on adoration. I had never tasted better. She made it from scratch using real cheese. We had it a couple times a month and I never thought of it as a cheap or easy meal. I thought of it as golden cheesy goodness.

"So, are we on for writing our novels?" she blinked her pale blue eyes at me.

It took me a minute to remember what she was talking about. I had the perfect excuse, a forkful of cheesy heaven filled my mouth.

"Yeah, I guess so," I said taking a sip of ice tea to wash down the mac and cheese.

"Good, because I'm writing Erotica, and I'll need your help when I'm telling the story from the man's point of view," she raised an eyebrow as if to ask if that was okay with me.

I didn't care as long as she continued to make mac and cheese every once in a while, in fact, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of spending my day with a woman who did most of the work getting herself sexually aroused. I didn't tell her that, I'm not stupid.

"What sort of help are you going to need?" I asked after a chuckle and a leer, "I can be a full service guy. Say the word."

"You know, stuff like what it feels like to kiss a woman," she thought for a moment, "I've never understood men's fascination with women's breasts. You may need to help me on that."

"Okay, I can handle that," I punned looking at her chest.

She had her shoulders back and her breasts looked full and appealing beneath her T-shirt. We had gotten to be close enough friends that an occasional ogle at her chest wasn't going to piss her off.

"What is your book about?" she asked while shaking her head at my mild lechery.

"I've been researching for a historical novel about the start up of the logging industry in 1840's Michigan."

"Will there be a lusty lumberjack and a beautiful maiden who keeps her bodice unlaced so that men don't have to rip at her clothing?" she grinned at me.

"I haven't planned any sex scenes."

"You're not going to get a novel published like that," she pouted, "besides, I want to help you with the sex scenes from the woman's point of view. We could trade."

"If I do have sex scenes," I smiled at her, "I'll contact you for hands-on advice."

That cheered her up, but she ignored the 'hands-on' pun or missed it entirely. Sometimes I'm not as funny as I think I am. The shelter in place order didn't make me happy, but I wasn't raging against it like some folks were. I understood why it was necessary, and I was happy that I did not have to run the gauntlet of coughing and sneezing people walking to and from the library, but I did like to stay busy and I wasn't sure that plugging away at a novel day after day was going to be the best way to keep me from my covid 19th nervous breakdown or covid craziness or whatever they were calling it.

I got as many books as possible reassembled and back into circulation at work over the next ten days, and we laid in what we could for the shelter at home order. Fortunately, Leah was a pack rat about things like toilet paper and paper towels so we were set for a while when those items disappeared from shelves in the stores.

Wednesday,April 1

We got up and ate breakfast together, something we never did during the week. I made coffee and scrambled eggs while Leah puttered in the bathroom.

"Eggs are ready," I yelled as I brought the steaming plates to the table.

Leah appeared in full makeup looking ready to take on the world.

"You going somewhere?" I asked sitting down and digging into my eggs.

"No, but I need to start this adventure looking my best," she smiled at me happy that I had noticed her extra effort at looking good.

She had dressed in short shorts and a tank top. Heat was never a problem in our apartment. I slept with a window cracked most nights of the winter. In order to forestall complaints about freezing from the thin blooded women downstairs, the landlord kept the furnace cranked up. The rising heat found its way to our apartment. Our solution was to wear summer clothes in the apartment all year long. It also explained my baggy cut-off sweat shorts and my faded slightly ragged t-shirt and it meant I got to admire her outstanding legs most of the time. They were slender but shapely, and incredibly smooth from thigh to ankle. I had this recurrent fantasy where I kissed slowly up the inside of her thighs looking for treasure.

"The next time that raggedy old shirt you're wearing ends up in the wash, I'm throwing it out," she took a bite of egg, "you've got perfectly nice stuff. Why don't you wear something from this decade, at least?"

"Pounding a word processor all day doesn't sound to me like a reason for dressing up. Besides this shirt has a special significance for me. I got to second base with Cathy Harper while wearing this shirt."

I buttered a piece of whole wheat toast that had popped up in the toaster.

She shook her head.

"That t-shirt is from high school? It gets turned into dust rags the next time I see it in the wash," she smirked at me, "do you know that Cathy Harper is married with three kids?"

"I really don't keep up with what my classmates from high school are doing. It wasn't an especially fun time for me. College is when I began to enjoy my academic and social life."

She thought for a moment.

"Anyway getting back to the subject that we were talking about, the big difference between you and me is I'm thinking of our novel project as a great adventure while you dwell on the drudgery of it," she slid a forkful of eggs into her mouth, "yum, how do you make these eggs so good?"

"I use water instead of milk to thin the eggs. Milk fat collapses the dispersion of egg solids throughout the mixture, and I only add cheese after the eggs have set in the pan so all that cheesy goodness doesn't dissolve into the eggs. Finally I add a pinch of weltschmerz to offset the sweetness of the caramelized onions."

She scratched her side and snorted.

"You sure talk purdy, mister."

We settled down to writing after we washed the breakfast dishes. I'm a careful writer who needs lots of room for notes and references as I plod along at a glacial pace. I follow an outline that I had laid out and cross referenced to my note cards on the historical aspects that I wanted in the piece. My writing is methodical and proceeds at a stately pace. At lunch I had four pages done. In the meantime, Leah sitting cross-legged on the couch with the computer in her lap had alternated between staring out the window at the street scene below and frantic typing. At lunch she had completed page seven.

She came over, looked at the page I was working on and then stood back and looked me up and down.

"What are you doing?" I asked vaguely perplexed as I stood and stretched.

"I was imagining what you would look like wandering around without socks for the rest of the month."

After lunch she was back to work with her fingers flying as I plodded along describing a water powered saw mill with reciprocating saw blades. When I looked up, I found her standing next to me.

"I need your help," she said laying a hand on my shoulder, "are you at a place you can stop?"

I pushed back from the table. "What do you need?"

"My male character is kissing a woman for the first time and I want to describe the sensation.

"Well, it's exciting. The man never knows until he tries if she'll turn away or accept his kiss. Then I'm aware of her smell, and the softness of her lips when we do join. Thin lipped women are disappointing to kiss," I looked up at Leah's full lips, "that isn't a problem for you."

"You like my lips? Why haven't you told me?" she beamed a smile, "I might have used them on you," she wiggled her eyebrows at me.

I'll admit it, I panicked. She had invited me to kiss her, and I had no idea what to do. To use a baseball analogy, she had grooved a pitch right down the middle of home plate for me to hit, and I had whiffed it.

"Men are, uh, anxious about the length and the wetness of the kiss, and afterwards a man has to note how she responded to his kiss," I continued my soulless pedantic little lecture instead of acting on the come-on she had given me by pulling her into my arms, "and was she excited about the kiss or surprised or grossed out."

My lecture ran aground on the shoals of incompetence in the face of wanton desire. There were no survivors.

"That's all good data, but not what I want from you. I want the reader to feel the kiss," she explained to me carefully as if I was the village idiot, "you know what, come over here and kiss me, big guy."

I did as ordered slipping into her arms. I'm not a first class idiot, second class maybe, but definitely not first class.

"Now kiss me like you mean it."

"Right here?"

"Lay one on me and don't worry about being too aggressive. My character is a take charge kind of guy."

I pulled her into my arms and kissed her as her body molded against mine in that delicious way where a man and a woman are in contact from thighs to lips. The apricot scent of her shampoo tickled my mind. I ran my hands down her back from her shoulders coming close to but not quite cupping her ass. I opened my mouth a little by way of invitation to include a little tongue and she accepted pushing her eager tongue into my mouth. Her electric kiss charged me and I wanted to bask in its glow forever. I was where I belonged in the center of her universe, a place I never wanted to leave. Without thinking, my hand slid under her top in back and stroked her lovely skin. I got no objection from Leah, and was tempted to see how much further I could go. My fingertips slid beneath the waistband of her shorts.

My good sense kicked in. We needed to stay friends during this shelter in place order. I didn't want her to think of me as someone she had to avoid. The apartment was only so big. If I was too aggressive, she might flashback to the trauma with her ex. I might even end up living with a woman more bent on revenge than Karen Willowby.

I waited for her to pull away, but she didn't and after a while, I couldn't think of a reason why I wanted to either, but breathing trumps passion and she and I were both breathing heavier as we parted.

She stroked my cheek as I held her loosely in my arms.

"Wow. Now tell me what you felt?" she gave me a peck on the lips for encouragement.

"A pulse pounding surge of energy shot into me when our lips touched that caromed through my body and lit up every nerve like lights and bells on a pinball machine. Those same nerves reported for the best duty ever. The moment our lips touched, the world drifted away and I was glad to be done with it. I craved you. Your aroma shot straight to my brain, nothing else mattered but us and the sensual world of ecstasy we could share. I wanted all of you and was willing to surrender all of me in exchange. I wanted to sweep you into my arms and carry you off to my bedroom where I could explore every inch of your exquisite body. I wanted to make mad passionate love to you in the twilight as the stars blinked on overhead, and roar my delight to our new found world."

"Did you get an erection?"

I nodded.

"I turned my hip so that it wouldn't be poking into you."

"Actually, I wouldn't have minded. It's nice knowing that I turn you on," she smiled up at me, "anything else?"

I thought for a moment. "I like your height. Usually I bend over double when I try to kiss a short woman. It was nice to kiss you and not worry about back cramps."

That made her smile.

"I have the advantage in some situations? Most of the time, I feel like Godzilla scattering short men and women in front before me as I stomp their tiny villages into rubble."

She waved her hands out in front of her with fingers spread and the palms pointed down pantomiming a giant radioactive dinosaur.