Clarissa's Revenge

This is a sequel to A Hippie Girl's Agenda, which was an old story rewritten so that it is no longer a role-play; rather it now an "actual" event happening between two people who have just met. Thus, Clarissa is presented as a real, not an imaginary, person.

The first story is set in June 1975. This sequel takes place two months later at the start of a new semester. The setting is The City College of New York as it was at that time. I decided to put this in Non-erotic because sexual matters are discussed but not depicted.

*****

That September I noticed Clarissa sitting in a student center lounge, smooching with some guy. I noted that he was considerably taller and more "buff" than I was.

She saw me looking at her. In fact, I wanted to be noticed by her. When she turned my way, she mouthed the words fuck you. Then she stuck her tongue out at me.

I immediately left to check the bins of our rival newspaper, The Campus. The first issue of the term had been out for about two days. Sure enough, I saw Clarissa Wexler in the staff box, listing her as a staff writer, not a mere contributor.

Inside I found a news article by her, one of those incredibly boring stories that The Campus specialized in. Only materials related to the school itself, no matter how indirectly, were accepted. That contrasted with the free-form weirdness that sometimes prevailed at my paper, The Salient.

Joining that other paper was one move that I had speculated that she might do. She's pretty clever after all.

****

Three days later I met Clarissa in person. I was walking past Wagner Hall when she came up from the opposite direction. It was too late for me to change my path. She was nicely dressed in a white blouse, tight dark trousers, and low-heeled but formal black shoes. Instead of the hippie-like cloth band, she had a plastic one across the top of her head.

As we closed the distance between us, she said, "Hey, D'Amato, come over here, I want to talk to you."

"What, are you stalking me?"

"You can only wish."

"So is that your boyfriend I saw you with in the lounge the other day?"

"That was him, and I'm sure he fucks me better than you ever could." Yes, she certainly is brazen. "Stand over there by the wall." She meant the brick side of the Wagner portico. As she leaned on it, I stood in front of her.

"I've seen you walking around with your sweetie too, I assume. She's got glasses and dark hair like I do."

"Yes, and she's also on the paper with me." I definitely shouldn't have said that.

"I thought so. What's her name?"

"I'm not going to tell you that."

"There are only five females on The Salient now. I'll figure it out. From the way she looks, you've done pretty well for yourself."

"Why, thank you." I tried to sound sarcastic, but I probably failed.

"So do you have to pay her something to put out for you? Even if it's only a lot of dinners and drinks?"

You really are nasty, aren't you? But I kept my temper. Before I could think of a response, she said, "I read that article of yours about the bus ride to California. Did you cheat on your girl out there too since she wasn't around?"

For some reason, I answered honestly. "Even if I had wanted to pick up a girl out there, I had no chance with the guys I was with."

Clary was genuinely amused by that, and she laughed. "That is so rich! And two of them are on the paper with you. I must meet these schlubs."

I changed the topic to her work. "I see that you write for The Campus now."

"They offer better opportunities than your rag does; I figured that out. By the way, you lied to me last June."

"I did no such thing. You were the one who blew me for a position, if you remember."

"I'll never make that mistake again. So, I think you got all worried that I'd blab to your main squeeze, didn't you?"

Instead of denying it, I stupidly asked, "How could you know that?"

"It wasn't that hard to figure out." She lowered her voice. "Because, I know that you're such a cowardly little prick. You pretentious nice guys are always bastards underneath."

I don't think I had ever been so intensely disliked by anyone. "And you, Clarissa, are quite a piece of work yourself."

"It takes one to know one. Anyway, despite having access to a chick, you still must have masturbated over the summer thinking of me."

"I'm not going to answer that." It certainly was true, however.

"I'm sure you did. I bet you imagined spanking my sassy ass too." That was true as well but I wasn't going to admit that either. "Have you ever spanked a girl in your life?"

Foolishly, I wanted to impress her. "Yes, I have."

"With that girl of yours?"

"No, someone else."

"Thus you thought that one was a bad girl too."

"Oh, a lot badder than you, by a long ways." Somehow I felt a need to brag further. "That same one also spanked me, paddled me in fact. The first time she did that she caught me by surprise." I was talking about my ex, Nora, of course.

"And you liked it, I bet. You nice guys are always so twisted underneath, I've seen that too. Although, I wouldn't mind dominating you, just to see the look on your face."

"You always have to have to outdo yourself, I've noticed."

"Yep, that's me. I can also speculate that you fantasized about putting your cock up my ass and shooting your load into my butthole."

That was brutally explicit, but I wasn't surprised. Indeed, I had mentally used that scenario as well. It was time to move to yet another topic. "Hey, if we don't like each other, why are we even talking right now?"

"It can be enjoyable to banter with someone you don't like. You never know what will come out, like right now, for example." I could understand the argument she was making. "In addition, you had your dick in my mouth once, and that always makes an impression on a guy."

"It also makes an impression on the girl."

For a brief moment, I had caught her unprepared, but she quickly recovered. "I don't know yet if I'd stoop to actually taking revenge on you. However, Mr. D'Amato, I may toy with you periodically, just for the fun of it."

I tried to keep a tone of worry out of my voice, but I heard it anyway.

"What are you going to do?

"You'll know it when you see it. I guess I do hold grudges." She had somewhat contradicted what she had just said. "Like most guys, you completely underestimate how well women - like me - can read any social situation, including the one you're in right now"

"Then how come you believed me last June?" I had finally admitted, in effect, that I had been lying.

"You had a very smooth line of bullshit at the beginning. You had me going for a while."

"You were the one who instigated it. I only said what you wanted to hear."

"That's because you had an agenda too. Actually, we did have a deal worked out, but it wasn't good enough for you. Then you had to go and insult me. I'd call that projection, wouldn't you?"

With that, Clary turned around and shook her tight little ass at me.

"Whack this in your dreams." Then she walked away.

*****

A bit later that day I pondered that Clarissa hadn't seen the wild stuff we had printed in the winter and spring of 1974. She hadn't arrived at the college yet.

For a few issues, an aspiring artist and an aspiring writer had gotten control of their own part of the paper, the so-called Weird Section. The artist imagined himself to be the next R. Crumb, but he had less talent. Thus he would sometimes reprint Crumb's cartoons without getting any copyright permission.

The writer was a quiet guy, but he was simply weird like his section. Reading his stuff was often like watching someone drool on himself. Yet we got away with it; we were not suspended or defunded. Only the college's student body could authorize the latter through a vote.

However, within a few issues, there was an internal revolt. It wasn't moral outrage. It was much like Clarissa's ambitions; some staff didn't want to be associated with a publication that printed drawings of masturbating nuns, among other things.

I joined the rebel faction. My only motive was that we might get shut down and then I'd have nothing to do at the college besides attending classes. The other group, including the two pornographers, loathed me and the other plotters. We were called the young upstarts.

Both of those guys graduated that spring, and for the following year of 1974-75, the quality of the paper's contents was very uneven. I did get a lot of my own articles printed, however. That was the period when Clarissa first knew of us, but I didn't know why it took nearly ten months for her to decide to join.

I never mentioned the paper's history to her.

******

Within another three days, Clarissa pulled her first stunt. I'm pretty sure she must have known I was in The Salient office at that time.

She just walked through the open door, and she was nicely dressed again. Her faked demeanor was quite loud, almost giddy.

There were four other male staffers in the place, including the two schlubs mentioned earlier. The only female was my ex-girlfriend Nora, who was typing something at the far end of the room by the windows.

"Hi guys, I'm Clarissa Wexler and I just joined The Campus. I thought I'd come in and introduce myself to you all. By the way, I'm a sophomore now."

The four guys looked confused and offered desultory greetings. I had been caught walking towards that end of the room, and I just stopped there. Clarissa focused on me.

"Hey honey, what's your name?"

"It's Paul." Don't honey me, you nasty twat.

"Okay, so you were the one who wrote that Greyhound bus story."

"Yeah, that was me."

"I really enjoyed that one. It must have been quite a trip."

"You could say that." Okay, you've had your fun, now get the fuck out of here.

But no, she walked along the other side of the table and approached Nora. My ex was also tall and had glasses, but she had been styling her dark-blonde hair in a brush cut for nearly a year by then.

She looked extremely skeptical as Clary approached her. The latter said,

"Hi sweetie, may I ask what your name is?"

"It's Nora if you must know."

"I see that you're writing something there."

"That's pretty obvious, isn't it?"

Nora didn't take shit from anyone, and I knew she probably hated being called sweetie. Clary must have wisely picked up on the fact that she shouldn't push that meeting any further. Instead, she stepped over to one of the windows and said, "I just love the view from the third floor of this building. You can see all the way to Mount Sinai Hospital."

Then she turned around, presumably to find something else of interest in the office. It was a rather barren room, and the only thing worth concentrating on was me.

Fortunately, she was almost done for that day, and she headed back towards the door. Then she stopped opposite me and said, "Paul, it was a pleasure meeting you."

"Same here, I suppose."

"In fact, it was a pleasure meeting all of you. But I've got to get back; an article to write, you know. Always busy, busy."

When she was just at the door, Clary turned around and winked at me. Then she was gone.

A moment later Nora got up. She crooked a finger and said, "Come with me. I want to talk to you about this."

Around the bend in the hallway, we stood there and she said, "You obviously know that Clarissa snip from somewhere."

"How did you figure that out?"

"First, her whole act was completely bogus. Second, when she first spoke to you, you looked like you wanted to fall through the floor."

"I've never had a good poker face."

"Yes, I could always read you like an open book. Finally, I saw her wink at you."

"I'm not sure I want to talk about this."

"Oh, come on, we broke up eleven months ago. You have nothing to lose." I thought, actually, we didn't break up, you dumped me. "And I'm sure it's a good juicy story."

"At least Clary didn't think you were Michelle."

"So it's Clary now. How cozy. Thus, she knows about Michelle?"

"That's right, she saw us together earlier this semester. However, she doesn't know her name."

"That's good; keep it that way. But you must have told her that she's on the paper with you. Now Clarissa really knows where to look for her." She shook her head. "You know that expression, 'God protects children and fools?' Now let's get a coffee or soda."

*****

By that September, Nora was something more than an acquaintance but less than a friend. She was just an ex, but that could be liberating because I no longer had to worry about what she thought of me. Nora was not mean-spirited, but she could be difficult as times. I had taken that as a challenge. Hey, I must be pretty cool if I can handle a woman like her. Of course, I didn't expect her to leave me so abruptly.

In the snack bar, we sat facing each other. "Now, confession is good for the soul."

"Forgive me Nora, for I have sinned."

"I bet you have."

I described the story of how Clary had been in the office the previous June and what had happened.

"She was promising to dole out a sexual favor for every article of hers I supposedly would get published."

"I wonder who her patsy at The Campus is now? So, was the blowjob any good?"

"It was okay. I did get a bit on her blouse, which bugged her."

"You never could aim well." The first time Nora had blown me, I had pulled out as we had already agreed to, but I got a considerable amount of cum in her hair. "And that no panties bit was intriguing too."

"I wish you had done that more often."

"Too late now. Anyway, she's quite a whore, isn't she?"

"That's exactly what I called her, a whore."

"You just can't keep your mouth shut or your dick in your pants. I'm sure that didn't go over well with her."

"She got very upset, that's true. But a few days ago she sort of promised not to retaliate against me. I mean, that she wouldn't tell Michelle I guess. She does know that one of the five female names is her."

"And you believed her? Listen, my friend, you've got a problem here."

"So what should I do about it?"

"I'm not sure right now. The worst that could happen is that you would lose a girlfriend. You've been through that before." Yeah, once, and it was with you.

"I don't want that to happen. I love Michelle."

Nora sang, " 'Where is the love? You said, was mine, all mine 'til the end of time. What is just a lie?' You'll just have to go back to the time-honored tradition that men - and women too! - have always depended on. You've got two hands."

"Clary did say that she was just going to toy with me like she did today."

"Then be glad that Michelle wasn't there. She would have picked up instantly on what was going on. Just don't let this Clary blackmail you."

"I don't have any money."

"Of course not, you've already figured out what the danger is. No one else on the staff besides Michelle cares about the stupid stuff you've done. But, if it's inevitable, then take our lumps like a big boy."

"Nora, thanks for your advice."

"You're welcome. I always like helping ex-boyfriends get out of the jams they put themselves into. By the way, what did you tell her about me, if anything?"

"Ah, not much. Well, I didn't mention your name, of course."

"Not much, huh? Look, you've suffered enough for your bad judgment. Let's see what she does next."

****

What happened next wasn't pretty. I was getting the creepy feeling that Clary was roaming around the South Campus looking for me and, if she was lucky, Michelle would be with me.

My girlfriend and I were having coffee in the Finley snack bar when I heard, "Paul, darling, how are you doing?"

Oh shit. Without being invited, Clary sat down to my left. Michelle looked a bit baffled.

I hoped Clary would explain herself so I wouldn't have to do it for her. Fortunately, perhaps, she did just that. "I'm Clarissa Wexler and I just joined The Campus." She was directly addressing my Michelle. "Perhaps you've seen my byline?"

"Ah, I don't think so." Many of us on The Salient didn't read all of their articles too closely.

"Well, I've seen a lot of Paul's stuff since I was a freshman last year. I'm one of his fans, you might say."

Michelle asked the obvious question, "It seems like you've met him before. I mean, you recognized him just now."

I thought I should intervene with a limited hang-out. I said, "Yeah, she came into our office last week and introduced herself."

Clary said, "It was quite brief, I can assure you. I also met that Nora girl. You know her, I'm sure."

Nora, as my ex, knew about Michelle and me; however, Michelle didn't know my past connection to Nora. Clary seemed devious enough to speculate about it all, however. I had mentioned having an ex on the paper.

Clary didn't waste any time in continuing, "So, honey, what is your name?"

The terse response was, "It's Michelle."

"Okay, I've seen you in the staff box. Michelle Hanley. So, are you two an item?" She pointed to me.

"An item?"

Clary winked at her, "You know what I mean."

For a moment, I remembered that old Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life." A mean little kid had the supernatural power to make people he disliked simply disappear. I'm going to send you to The Cornfield, was the way he would put it. That's exactly what I wanted to do to Clarissa.

Michelle was generally low-key and not a suspicious person, but she was also perceptive and I knew she was trying to assess the situation.

I jumped in again. "Sure, we've been dating for a while."

"Just dating?" Then Clary dropped her bomb. "Actually, to tell you the truth, I met Paul last June. I came into The Salient office to join the staff, and we had quite a long conversation about my prospects."

"So, why didn't you join?"

"Paul and I couldn't come to terms about my status there."

"What terms? Just about anybody who wants to write can get their stuff in."

"That's what I found out later. I must say, Paul could have been a bit more forthcoming about the true nature of things on your paper."

I was going beyond disliking Clary to truly hating her. At that point, I didn't know how to respond.

Clary timed her next statement well. "Anyway, sorry, I've got to get going. Michelle, it was good to meet you. Paul has certainly found a lovely person to be with."

Without waiting for a reply, Clary got up and walked away. I fantasized about paddling her swaying little ass. First, it would be over the cloth of her trousers and then on her bare behind.

I had to say something to Michelle. It likely would be something dumb, and it indeed was. "She's quite a character, isn't she?"

She wasn't happy with me, I could tell that. "Was there anyone else there besides you two that day?"

"Oh yeah, Jeff was there." He was one of my Greyhound bus schlub companions. Michelle had never previously, as far as I knew, gone behind my back to confirm anything I had told her. That time, however, I was sure she'd find a reason to talk to Jeff about it.

She looked at her watch. "I almost forgot, I've got to get over to Cohen Library right now.

That was surely a pretext to get away from me and cool off for a while. Or maybe she'd just stoke her suspicions. Anyway, she immediately got up and grabbed her bag.

Lamely, I said, "I guess I'll catch up with you later," although I doubted she would remain on the campus.

I watched her behind too as she left. However, in her case, I wanted to get down on my knees and kiss her sweet ass. Forgive me, Michelle, for I knew not what I was doing.