First Day of Class

[The first story of this series is here, but I decided to give this story its own name. The other non-consent role-play mentioned (November of 1974) is the one in the story here.

Wagner Hall was a real building at City College in that time period.]

*****

At the age of twenty sharing a college class with a girlfriend was a very big deal for my young self. At the beginning of my junior year in September 1975 it seemed like everything was going my way. My virginal freshman year seemed like the distant past and maybe I was getting a bit complacent but I didn't worry about future consequences.

My fellow junior Michelle Hanley was an English major and I was taking history, but we decided to both enroll in an elective called French History, 1789 - 1940. On the first day of class I got there before she did and I took a seat in the back. The building, Wagner Hall, was the headquarters for several liberal arts programs and I had taken more than half of my courses there.

This classroom was on the second floor in the back, and I let mind wander as I looked northeast out the windows. On this sunny afternoon I gazed beyond Harlem to the Bronx beyond. Somewhere up there, about six miles away where the details faded into a haze, was the neighborhood where I lived with my family.

About five minutes later Michelle entered through the door in the front to my left. The previous semester she had started to dress differently - dress better I would say - when going through her days on campus. She had started to get away from the post-hippie look which was still common at universities. I looked her over, from her white blouse to her plaid blue skirt and then to her blue and white knee socks and low-heeled shoes. I knew she had bought various items this year for what she called her Joanie Co-ed, class of '66 look. I thought it suited her well and I suspected - hoped actually - that she had dressed up today because she was going to meet me.

She scanned the room briefly and her look passed over me. She came back and sat down two seats away from me on my right. Immediately she started rummaging through her book bag. I was puzzled for a moment and then I guessed she was running an impromptu role playing game on me. We had done games before going back to the previous November but we had always planned the meetings and she had always given me a preview of the "script" she was going to follow.

As she sat there pulling some papers out of a folder I made a tentative move into the game, "Hi, excuse me, do you know anything about this professor?"

She glanced at me, "Actually, no I don't." She went back to whatever had engaged her interest.

I said, "Yeah, well I'm a history major and this is an elective, so . . ." I pondered what how to finish that and I couldn't think of anything. "Anyway, my name is Paul."

"Pleased to meet you." She barely looked at me. I waited for her to offer her name in return but that didn't happen. What is so interesting in these papers she's got?

I had played versions of this before with a couple of other girls but never with Michelle. The basic concept was: we'll be ourselves but we'll pretend we just met. Except, the two players never seemed to be exactly themselves, but alternate versions on whatever alternative timeline was being followed.

At this point I was stymied about to do next. I had never been very good at cold approaches. Nearly eleven months earlier she had been the one to approach me in the cafeteria in the student center across the way. We had hit it off and we went to dinner downtown that same day.

In this new situation I figured it would be best to pull back and let the class proceed. Surely after that I could come up with some student chitchat. We would at least have the previous fifty minutes of French history in common.

Just before five PM the professor arrived and Michelle and I and about twelve other students went through a routine first day of the course. Occasionally I looked over at her profile, noting her straight brown hair, steel-rimmed glasses and neat outfit. She was not flashy, but that was fine with me. I wondered what I would think if this had really been the first I had seen of her. Oh, I would have definitely noticed her, I'm sure of that.

At the end I stayed in my seat and so did she. Again she looked through some papers, including one for this class. I was used to her setting the agenda for these games and I didn't know what role I should play, either myself or someone very different.

"Hi, sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"That's because I didn't say it."

That was pretty rude. I remembered our real first meeting, how confident yet friendly and flirty she had been. She had been wearing a short tan skirt and sandals that day. We had agreed to meet later at a restaurant I liked. As she was walking away from the table she suddenly turned back and said, "You obviously like what you are seeing, am I correct?" I realized then that I was sitting there with an erection.

I certainly didn't have one now in this classroom. I was also becoming surer that Michelle probably wasn't playing herself at this point. She got up and headed for the door, and I followed her; I didn't bother to collect my books.

"How about we get some coffee in the lounge?" That was also in Finley Hall across the way.

She replied, "No, I don't think so."

"Some other time this week then."

She just shook her head, "Nope." She was looking straight at me for the first time, and I could see she thought I was an annoying pest now. Pretty impressive acting, Michelle.

This was where the real me would have shrugged it off and given up. But Michelle had obviously cooked up this scenario with the expectation that I would come up with some creative playacting.

"Okay, why not? Do you have a boyfriend then?"

She stiffened, "That's none of your damn business."

I felt a twinge of insulted feelings. My damn business? What an insolent bitch. Something made me go to the door, close it and then lock it. It wouldn't keep her in but it would delay anybody coming from the hallway. I guessed that there was no six o'clock class because there would have been early arrivals by this time.

Michelle, or whoever I was with, hadn't moved. She said, "What do you think you're doing?"

"I just want to talk to you, you know that."

"No I don't know that. And about what, exactly?"

This seemed like a good point to escalate. I needed a moment to channel the aggressive jerk I was going to reveal. If Michelle wanted to call this off, she could at any time but I knew from previous experiences that she wouldn't. For a moment I looked through the window at a tall apartment building a few blocks away. Where is that, about 130th and Eighth Avenue?

"About what? I don't know, maybe I'd like to know what color panties you're wearing, or if you're wearing any at all."

I thought that was pretty good acting on my part. Michelle tried to walk past me and she whacked me with her book bag as she passed. She said one word, "Asshole." I grabbed her arm to pull her back. In reality I did not have the strength to detain her, but she played along as if she was struggling to get out of my grip. "Hey, let go of me." I did let go, but first I got in front of her, blocking the path to the door.

"What the hell is wrong with you," she said.

"Nothing baby, I just to talk, I already told you that."

I stepped forward to close that space between us and she backed off. She said, "I've got some place to go now."

"You're got some place to go, that's more important for you? What's the matter, you don't like me?" I was thinking of scenes in a couple of movies to inspire me. I was imagining Tony Musante; he had done a great job of playing a psychopath who had taken his normal-guy mask off. That scene was set on the Lexington Avenue subway just a couple of miles from where we were now.

She turned to dash to the back. I could see she would try to flank me and get around to the door. I moved to block her and banged my hip on a desk as I did. Great, I'm a clumsy villain too.

I was able to trap her - or rather she let me trap her - in the far rear corner. I put my hands on her shoulders and pressed against her. "You're really pretty; how about you give me a smooch and we'll call it even?"

She was doing a good job of looking furious. "Get the fuck away from me, you little creep." Then she brought her hand up and hit me across the face with her fingers. It wasn't much; I had played tennis with Michelle a couple of times - or rather tried to play, because the results were laughably bad on my part. I knew she was capable of a backhand punch that might have broken my nose. Nevertheless her slap had brought a sting to my cheeks.

"So you want to play it that way? All right, that's the way we'll do it."

I pushed her down by her shoulders and then got her flat on the floor. She protested along the way but didn't do much to resist me. Her pushes against my chest were just for show. She did say, "Get off me, cocksucker." That was a new curse.

"I don't suck cocks but I bet you've had more than a few.'

Then I thought, how would this go in reality? I was stumped; how do men without a weapon manage to hold her down, cover her mouth and then do everything else necessary for the act? I was remembering the scene in Blackboard Jungle where a student attempts to force himself on a teacher in the library. It turned out that he couldn't do it all, and her screams brought fellow teacher Glenn Ford in for the rescue.

So there would have to be some willing suspension of disbelief here. I just did my bits as needed, the first being to pull her skirt up.

"Nice panties, I'll say." They were white with blue polka-dots. "You probably think you're a goody-good girl just because you wear any."

Michelle tried to switch from anger to fear and dismay. "Come on please, don't do it."

"Please, don't do what? You mean this maybe." I yanked her underpants down and off and then thrust my hands between her legs.

"You're pretty damp down there. You like it, don't you?"

"No, of course not, I hate it."

"You can't fool me, I know you're type, sluts who pretend to be prissy little girls. Really nice bush by the way."

I was starting to hate myself for saying those things. Michelle and I had had a rough patch during the previous summer, but we had gotten through it and now she was one of my favorite people in the world. I decided that speed, haste even, was the way to finish this. Intuitively I knew it was the best option if realism was the goal.

I reached to undo my pants, and I did indeed have an erection. I rationalized that by thinking that I only stiffened because it was Michelle under me; I wouldn't get aroused by an unwilling stranger. You're not that kind of guy, right?

She tried to bargain her way out. "Look, I'll go with you for coffee. Right now. Just let me up."

"You had your chance and it's too late. Besides, how dumb do you think I am?" I went on, "As for right now? Right now I'm going to fuck you as hard as I can."

There still was still an out for her. Last year we had done a "non-consent" game that, unlike this one, had some planning put into it. Her character had surprised me by punching me in the balls at the last moment. It was more of a hard tap than a punch but it had instantly and decisively ended any chance of penetration. I didn't think she'd do that again simply because it wouldn't be interesting to repeat the same plot formula.

I pulled her thighs apart. "Come on, get your legs up and out." She complied enough for me to enter her. The sensation of going in wasn't unpleasant but neither did I feel the usual sense of excitement.

During our lovemaking we always babbled a stream of nonsensical endearments to each other. However, during this act, whatever one might call it, we were both silent. Her eyes were tightly closed and her mouth was slightly open; her arms were by her sides. I wished she would put her arms under my shirt, scratch my back, fondle my ass - all that she would do with me was missing in this.

The point now was to finish as quickly as possible. It wasn't just the fear of being caught, although I was aware that the next class would be no earlier than seven PM. It was also that this felt impersonal, purely mechanical. It wasn't fucking, screwing, balling - the word copulation would fit. Maybe three minutes of this went by and she said nothing. I just thrust rapidly until I the pressure built up in my body and I came in her. As I did I grunted and moaned and then simply stopped.

Michelle immediately pushed me off her. For this she used enough force to roll me over. She jumped up, grabbed her bag and headed for the door. Then she abruptly turned around to retrieve her underpants from the floor. I didn't know if she really had forgotten them or if this was part of the game. As she stuffed them into her bag she glared at me and said something like, "You, you . . ."

I tried to be nonchalant and threatening at the same time, "Don't tell anybody about this. I'll say you're some kind of nymphomaniac and you grabbed me after class." I wondered if my improvisation was plausible, if guys like this were both that arrogant and that stupid.

She didn't reply; she turned and went for the door again. I called out, "Hey babe, see you next week, okay?" That stopped her. She faced me and spit out, "No you won't. I'm dropping this fucking class. Right after I have my boyfriend stomp your pathetic ass into the ground." Then she opened the door and left. I expected her to close it, slam it actually, but she just left it open.

Her imaginary threat managed to make me uneasy, more even than the thought of being arrested. Had there really been such a guy it would have been easy enough for him to find me. I'd probably have to drop the semester and stay off campus for a while. Then I had a feeling of disassociation. I could see myself on the linoleum floor in that big, bright room; my dick was hanging out, the overhead fluorescents were lighting everything. It was like being in some bizarre diorama, one that I had imagined and then made tangible.

This feeling made me twitchy so I jumped up, pulled up my pants and grabbed my books from a desktop. Yet I wasn't quite ready to leave. Instead I went to the window. Wagner was on top of Hamilton Heights, and I could see a vast cityscape lit by the sun from the other side of the building. I could picture the commuters going home in the subways hidden beneath the avenues.

I knew Michelle wouldn't just disappear, pretending to go home or the security office or wherever. She never left a game open-ended, an indefinite event with no conclusion. There had to be closure, a return to real life.

I went down to the first floor and came out on the portico. Michelle was at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the bricks. At that moment I could picture her as a college girl from ten years earlier. Did you get a copy of Rubber Soul yet?

When she looked up at me she gave me an odd smile, a smirk really. It was like she was merely remembering some very explicit joke I had told her.

I went down and stood in front of her. She said, "You look kind of agitated."

"That's because I am agitated. Did you guess beforehand what I was going to do?"

"No, but I figured you would come up with something, and you sure did an impressive job of it."

"Impressive at what? At playing an asshole, and then a criminal?"

She held her arms up, "Come on, give me a big smooch." We hugged and she kissed me warmly. When I backed away she continued the contact by holding my hands in hers.

I was still bugged by this afternoon's events. I said, "Remember that conversation we had about method acting?"

"I know, was that something real deep in you or did you just make it up? Who knows, it doesn't really matter."

Then she said, "Anyway, you didn't finish me off, not even close, you know what I mean?" I certainly did know. "So if you have nothing pressing going on, come home with me right now." That would be her apartment in Queens which had also become my second home. "I'll even sweeten the deal for you; here, take a look."

She held her bag open and I looked inside. Her underpants were still in there, up against one of the books required for the course, Marc Bloch's Strange Defeat. The placement could have been a coincidence but maybe it was really one of her little pranks.

"I could put these back on," she said. "Or, if you prefer, I could leave them in here. That way on the subway ride you'll know I'm not wearing any."

I laughed at that and started to relax. "You don't even have to ask; you know what I want."

*******

[The Tony Musante movie mentioned in this story is The Incident (1967), a disturbing tale of urban fear and paranoia with a compact plot and setting.]