Chloe and the Red Vinyl Jeans Ch. 01

And the thing was, the day after she'd put them on, Stephanie would switch right back into wearing some regular, generic, casual stuff, like a zip-up hoodie and sweatpants, or overalls. The ease with which she could slip from one mode to another amazed Chloe. And she was always doing something different with her hair. Chloe never really knew what her roommate's next look was going to be.

Enough. All right already. She needed some more men in her life.

*****

A couple of days later, on an unseasonably warm November afternoon, Stephanie came home with a red-headed jock whom Chloe had never met before -- good looking, to be sure, but not exactly Chloe's "type."

"Uh, this is Donovan," Stephanie said hastily as she headed toward the fridge.

"Hey," Donovan said in a perfect monotone, hardly even glancing at Stephanie's roommate. "I'm in the mood for a brewski. You got, like, an IPA or something?"

But Donovan wasn't all that Chloe noticed. Stephanie was debuting a new black Queen t-shirt, combined with a pair of light blue jean shorts. Given that the t-shirt was already relatively snug, Chloe couldn't fathom how Stephanie had managed to tie it up in a knot over her belly, ensuring that every inch of her shorts, as well as some of her nicely tanned midriff, was visible, but she had apparently found a way.

"A Queen t-shirt?" Chloe thought derisively. "Stephanie could probably only name two Queen songs -- if that." And yet ... she couldn't deny it, here was another quietly sexy outfit. The jean shorts? That was her look, not Stephanie's, damn it. The girl was just knocking it out of the park, and Chloe had no choice but to be left in the dust.

"We don't actually have much in the way of alcohol," Stephanie replied to Donovan. "Maybe we can get something later?"

"Uh ... it's cool. Didn't you want to, uh, show me some stuff in your room?"

About 30 minutes later, as Chloe made her way through her copy of Great Expectations, she began to detect the sounds of Donovan and her roommate enjoying a little, um, "intimacy." She wasn't sure exactly what was going on in there, but it sounded like Stephanie was experiencing a moment of "female pleasure," and ... Oh for fuck's sake. Chloe went into her room, threw her headphones on, and tried to block it out. About an hour later, she heard the door to Stephanie's room open again.

"Well that was nice," Stephanie said.

"Sure, except ... my hand's kinda sore."

"You wanna go find something to drink?"

"Yeah, I guess. Maybe next time we can ... trade places or something?" Chloe heard the front door of the apartment slam shut. Great, now she had to sit there and lurk in the background while Stephanie got fingered by random hot guys? Was it Mark Twain who once said, "There really is no such thing as a perfect roommate"?

Nevertheless, that evening, Chloe found herself in a curious mood again. Earlier, she had heard Stephanie blabbing on and on to somebody about her Instagram page and how she was getting a ton of "likes" for photos of her various outfits, so Chloe decided to take a glance. Maybe she had put a photo of herself in the red vinyl jeans up there? Chloe wasn't sure whether she was rooting for, or against, that possibility.

But sure enough, a couple of weekends prior, Stephanie had been to Seattle for a game with the volleyball team, and now Chloe could see, clear as day, a photo of Stephanie that must have been taken on her quick trip there. In the photo, she was standing in a club, leaning next to some boy that Chloe didn't know, with a red Solo cup in her hand, her blonde hair pinned up messily on top of her head, wearing that same Queen t-shirt Chloe had just seen her in, again tied up teasingly in a knot around her belly, but this time matched with the red vinyl jeans. A black belt ran through the belt loops like it had the first time Chloe had seen her wearing them.

"Ah, so the look even travels now," Chloe thought to herself snarkily. But hot damn. Maybe Stephanie didn't know more than two Queen songs, but she certainly knew that the t-shirt made her look like a hot '70s rocker chick and that it went great with the red pants. In other hands, the PVC trousers could have come off as slutty, or desperate, or trashy, but in Stephanie's hands, given the tops she'd been pairing them with, they somehow came off as tasteful, classy, fashionable, smart.

Part of it was simply the shock factor: the seemingly ordinary, volleyball-playing college student, the quintessential "good girl," slyly testing out her sex appeal. And she loved how Stephanie would pair the jeans, not with an equally outrageous vinyl tube top or a leather bustier top or something that suggested S&M, but with more typical, natural tops like t-shirts and blouses. She really enjoyed the incongruity. Like, if you'd just looked at Stephanie from the waist up, you wouldn't have even thought there was anything strange about her at all. And yet, when you looked at her pants ... It was all a bit subtle, sneaky.

Chloe suddenly realized that she had started rubbing herself through the front of her pajama bottoms. "What is wrong with me?" she thought as she stared at the Instagram photo of her roommate wearing those tight vinyl jeans and that knotted-up black t-shirt, and enjoyed another conflicted release of pleasure. Hoping she'd finally excised this weird obsession once and for all, she crawled into bed.

*****

Around early December, Chloe came back to the apartment one afternoon after a long day of classes. The plan was to invite Amy and Briar over and host a small, low-key barbecue at their place. When she opened the door and saw Stephanie typing on her laptop, Chloe's face quickly turned crimson: Stephanie was wearing her vinyl jeans again, this time simply paired with a white volleyball jersey and some black sneakers, her straight blonde hair kneaded into two long braids. The bottom of the jersey wasn't tucked in, instead falling around her shiny waist.

"You wanna start setting up the grill?" she asked Chloe.

"Yeah, uhhh, I just need to take a shower."

Stephanie let out a groan as she typed. "I'm way behind in this class, but ... I'll figure something out."

The braids were kind of an awkward look, Chloe concluded as she stepped under the showerhead, Stephanie perhaps having traded beauty for convenience, and yet ... the contrast between the innocent, girlish braids and the devilish, provocative pants was very sexy and appealing somehow.

As she continued to hang out on the patio with her roommate, Amy, and Briar that afternoon, Chloe began to notice that, while cut like skinny jeans, the trousers were a bit slack around Stephanie's ankles, and that they didn't cling to her hips and thighs quite as much as they could have -- but that wasn't really a criticism. Even the glossy number "six" on the back of Stephanie's jersey seemed to go with the pants.

When the temperature cooled down, Stephanie went inside and came back out, now wearing a black knit sweater, presumably with her volleyball jersey still underneath. Perhaps she'd tucked the jersey into her pants, or perhaps it had essentially been gathered up by the sweater, but either way, now Chloe got a good, full view of the PVC jeans in all their glory. She couldn't help admiring Stephanie's candy apple red ass and her glistening thighs.

Shortly after 6:30pm, Stephanie began putting the condiments back in the fridge. "I promised to go to a club with some of the rowing guys," she explained to Chloe. "Do you mind cleaning up the rest of this stuff?"

"It's fine, I got it."

*****

As Chloe crept into bed that night, a number of competing thoughts wandered in and out of her brain. First of all, she had to call her mom. It had been almost a week. She had to write an essay on Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South that was due on Monday. She needed to get back to Alex De Soto about doing that volunteer thing with the school newspaper. She wasn't sure what she was going to do over the holidays; she needed to figure it out and message a couple of her friends from back home.

Man, where did Stephanie ever come up with those red vinyl jeans? And when she wore them, she didn't really call attention to them or make a big fuss. She was wearing her volleyball jersey with them, for God's sake, like they might as well have been grey sweatpants! But somehow, it was a great look -- sporty, playful, surprising. It seemed like every top she paired them with somehow worked -- even the plain black sweater.

Chloe suddenly had a thought. If Stephanie ever went home to her parents, or took a trip somewhere, perhaps Chloe could try on her vinyl jeans while she was away. And Stephanie wouldn't even know!

Wait, wait, stop, stop. Chloe had no business messing around with her housemate's clothes. Hell, those pants were probably expensive too. But instead of that harmless little thought disappearing from Chloe's brain, it only intensified. When she had been younger, Chloe used to try on some of her older sister's clothes for fun when nobody was home. Maybe this would be like that. If Stephanie ever found out for any reason -- not that she would have, of course -- would she freak out? She wasn't really the "freak out" type, not like Amy, for example.

No, the whole thing was ridiculous. She seriously needed to get a grip. At first, yeah, this little obsession had been kind of fun and off-the-wall, but now it almost felt like some outside force, beyond her control, was quietly influencing her behavior. You know, there was a counseling center on campus. Maybe Chloe needed to make an appointment? Oh God, how could she even explain this? "Excuse me, I need help, I'm obsessed with my roommate's red PVC trousers"? She could practically see the deranged laughter emanating from her counselor's befuddled face. Eventually, still unsure of herself, Chloe managed to nod off for the night.

*****

A week later, while sitting in the living room studying for her finals, Chloe heard Stephanie barge through the front door.

"Done!" she proclaimed to her roommate. "Sorry, didn't mean to rub it in." Stephanie was wearing the black knit sweater she'd worn at the barbecue earlier, but this time with some white cotton slacks.

Chloe laughed. "It's OK. I've got my last final on Thursday. I'm not too worried."

"All right, don't let me get in your way then. I'm gonna go to the mall with Briar. Oh, I should let you know: so I'm going home on Wednesday. I'll be gone for the break. What do you plan on doing?"

"Oh, I'm going home too, but probably not for another week. My sister might come to visit."

"That's cool. So yeah, text me if anything comes up, but you know, it'll probably be fine."

As Stephanie walked into her room and shut the door, one thought came to Chloe, and one thought alone:

This could be her chance.