Gender Neutral

- - -

After the kegger business we didn't even bother to try to avoid each other any more. We just ignored each other so completely that it didn't really matter if we were in the same room or not. It was like we were on separate planes of reality, like we could co-occupy the same space without even being aware of each other's existence. We came and went without acknowledging each other in the slightest. We got up and went to bed without even checking if the other was in the room. The light stayed on all night sometimes because neither of us bothered to turn it off.

Sometimes Ivy would drop by to chat, and you might have thought that it was a normal dorm room. But if you listened closely, you'd realize that all the conversation was between Ivy and me or between Ivy and Paula, never between the three of us. And once Ivy left, the planes would separate again and the room would revert to stone cold silence.

Of course even though we were acting like we were completely unaware of each other's presence, in reality we were acutely aware, and our avoidance of each other was carefully choreographed. This was most evident with respect to our getting dressed and undressed. Paula would do it up on her bunk, under the blanket if necessary. I would do it on the edge of my bunk, out of her line of site.

One morning my first class was cancelled, and, more out of spite, I guess, than for any other reason, I stayed in the room to do a little studying. Paula fidgeted and fidgeted up in her bunk until it was pretty clear I wasn't leaving. So she fiddled under her blanket and then climbed down in the same pants and tee shirt she'd worn the day before. She grabbed her shampoo and towel and left. I was monitoring all this via the mirror over the sink, which was right beside my desk.

She came back fifteen minutes later, wearing her towel and carrying her clothes. She put the clothes in her laundry bag and set the shampoo on the shelf. Then, without acknowledging me in the slightest, she took out a large beach towel and hung it between the wardrobe and the bed, making herself a little changing area cut off from my line of sight. All I could see in the mirror was her head and the top of her shoulders.

But it wasn't too hard to tell what she was doing. She unwrapped the towel she was wearing and finished drying herself off. Then she rubbed some lotion on her arms, her chest, and her legs. Then she put on her bra and blouse. Then, presumably, her panties and a clean pair of jeans. Finally she took down the beach towel, grabbed some things from her desk, and headed off to class.

- - -

I'd rarely had to sleep in the same room with anyone before. It was strange to lie in bed not knowing if Paula was awake or asleep, knowing that if she was awake she could hear any little rustling noise I was making, trying to decipher every little rustling noise she made to figure out what she was doing.

One night I was fast asleep when something woke me up. I lay there for a while, but everything seemed peaceful and quiet. Then the bed began to tremble, just ever so slightly. It was like we were being visited by a little earthquake, a little timid earthquake who wasn't quite sure whether to erupt or not. The trembling gradually grew a bit stronger and then quite a bit stronger. Finally, the springs of the upper bunk began to creak. As soon as that happened the trembling stopped immediately, as if the little earthquake was afraid of being detected.

For a few moments everything was quiet. But then the trembling started up again. Hesitantly at first, then stronger, then quite a bit stronger. Up above me, Paula shifted her position. The trembling changed its tempo. The earthquake was finding its stride. There was a little hitch in Paula's breathing. And then another. And then the trembling died away again, as if the little earthquake's itch had been adequately scratched.

- - -

It was Paula, actually, who finally broke the silence between us. She was sitting at her desk one day when I came in, staring at a textbook.

"So Ivy says you're a real whizz at math," she said. Just out of the blue. As if we were in the habit of talking to each other. As if the most natural thing in the world for roommates to do when when one of them walked into the room was to greet each other.

I didn't know where Ivy would have gotten the impression that I was a whizz at math, except that she knew I was studying engineering. "I wouldn't say I'm a whizz," I said.

"But at least you know how to do bonehead stuff like this."

So that was it. She needed help with her homework. Rather than try to figure it out herself she wanted me to help her. But I was a little intrigued to see what it was that had her stumped. I looked at her paper but couldn't make heads or tails of it. I glanced at her book. It was a chapter on symbolic logic. I found myself even more intrigued. That seemed like a pretty advanced topic for bonehead math. I'd never really had a class in symbolic logic myself.

"Mind if I take a look?" I asked, taking up the book.

There were only a few equations, a lot of text and figures. From what I could tell, it was basically the same type of logic you used to design computer circuits, just with a clumsier notation and a lot of 'philosophical' terminology. Paula's assignment seemed to involve manipulating some simple expressions. I showed her what they wanted and explained what the expressions meant in plain English.

She got it pretty quickly. She did the last several problems herself and got them almost all right. She seemed surprised that it wasn't as hard as she'd thought. "So why don't they teach it that way in class?" she asked.

I just shrugged. Who could ever hope to fathom the inscrutable wisdom of the professors.

"Well," she mumbled, closing up her book. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," I said. "What are roommates for?"

It would have been out of character for us to joke around, so she didn't smile. But she almost did.

- - -

That was the start of the next phase of our cohabitation. We still ignored each other for the most part, but now it was more of an in-joke rather than a real chip on the shoulder. We actually began to communicate a little. Housekeeping stuff at first, like "All right if I turn off the light?" and "Mind if I open the window?". Then more general stuff like hall gossip and upcoming events. Conversations with Ivy became more trilateral. We even ate dinner together once in a while, if we were both headed in that direction and neither of us had anyone else in particular to sit with.

I kept helping her with her math. It was a pretty interesting course, actually. Smatterings of this and that: probability, the binary system, a bird's eye view of trigonometry, the area under a curve. I actually learned a few things myself that I didn't realize I didn't know.

We still managed to do our dressing and undressing out of the other's line of site. I adopted her system of hanging a towel if I came back from my shower when she was in the room. None of my towels were as wide as her beach towel, though, so I had to be careful not to crouch down too low. Even so, it was a bit unreal to be standing there completely naked while she was sitting on her chair, just a couple feet away, with nothing but my threadbare towel in between us. When she was up on her bunk she had an even more commanding angle. I never was sure how much she could see from up there.

One day all her other towels must have been in the laundry because she came back from the shower wrapped in her beach towel. She fastened one end to the wardrobe and then unwound herself until she was able to hook the other end to the bed. Kind of a college-dorm dance of the seven veils. I was watching in the mirror over the sink of course. She pretended to ignore me as she applied her lotion and got dressed there behind the towel.

- - -

One evening I was studying at my desk and Paula was rocked back in her chair, staring off into space. The room was as quiet as the library on a Friday night.

Suddenly there was a strange squeaking sound.

I looked at her, and she looked at me. It was an unusual sound, not too loud, kind of comical actually. It seemed like it had come from somewhere in the room. Both of us kept still to see if we could hear it again.

Squeak. Paula had adjusted her position slightly, and that had been what had caused the noise. We looked down at the floor. Her rubber ducky had gotten trapped between the desk and the wardrobe. When she leaned further back the desk wobbled enough to press on it and cause it to squeak.

Squeak. Paula looked at me with an amused expression. It was kind of funny, that silly, unexpected noise interrupting our somber silence.

"Can you keep it down over there," I said in a mock angry tone. "Can't you see that people are trying to study over here."

Squeak, squeak, squeak. She was grinning now, in a mischievous sort of way.

"Young people these days," I grumbled.

Squeak, squeak, squeak.

I stood up and put my fists on my hips. "How's a guy supposed to get a college education in the midst of all this racket?"

She looked up at me with a look of blameless innocence, as if she couldn't understand why I would think she had anything to do with it. Squeak, squeak, squeak.

"OK! That's it!" I reached over to grab the ducky. But she righted her chair and snatched it up herself. She cradled it against her cheek as if it were a poor threatened little puppy.

I glowered down at her. "Can't you keep that beast under control?"

She wasn't going to take that! "Beast!?" She stood up and put her fists on her own hips. But I towered over her by half a head. So she stood up on her chair. Now she was a head taller than me. "Beast!?"

I couldn't let her get away with that! I stood up on my own chair, reclaimed the higher ground. "A person can barely hear himself think around here," I barked, gesticulating widely.

She stepped from her chair up onto her desk, trumping me once again. She began to gesticulate even more wildly. "Maybe if you'd just shut up for once! Yack, yack yack! That's all you ever do. How's a girl supposed to get a college education around here with you yack-yack-yacking all the time?"

That was it! I'd had it! I stepped up onto my own desk to out-altitude her once again. "Oh yeah?" I waved my fist. "Oh yeah? I'll show you who's supposed to get a college education around here!"

She looked around the room, scouting the terrain. She jumped down from her desk and scurried up to her top bunk. She knelt up to claim the supreme, high, unassailable position, giving her noggin quite a bump against the ceiling in the process. "Ow!" she laughed. But then she put on her faux serious face once again. She put her fists on her hips and gloated down on me. "You and what other army?"

I stood up my absolute straightest and puffed up my chest. But she still had the advantage. She waved the rubber ducky at me in total self satisfaction. Squeak, squeak, squeak. I had to admit defeat. I let myself sag down. "It's just a good thing for you my other army isn't here right now."

"A good thing for you, you mean," she taunted, still waving the ducky. "Otherwise I'd whip the whole lot of you."

But my slumping had just been a ruse to get her to let her guard down. I leapt from the desk onto the bed frame and made a mad lurch for the ducky. She shrieked and pulled him back out of range. She took up her pillow and whacked me on the head and shoulders.

I tried to reach around her, ignoring the blows. She shrieked again and struggled further back toward the foot of the bed. I was halfway sprawled out on it, looking up at her. She had her pillow raised, ready to strike. Both of us were breathing hard and on the verge of laughter.

I could have hauled myself up the rest of the way. But I wasn't exactly sure what I should do when I got there. It was her bed after all. I wasn't sure I wanted to be wrestling around with her on it. Actually, that's exactly what I wanted, but I wasn't sure it would be appropriate. So I let my feet slip back down onto the frame. "Let that be a lesson to you, young lady."

She gave me one last swat.

- - -

One time they had chocolate-chunk-and-pecan cookies at the dining hall. I brought one back to save for later. I was working on a big problem set down in the study lounge, and all the time I was working I was dreaming of that cookie. But when I got back to the room it was gone. I asked Paula if she'd seen it.

"Hmm?" she asked. "Nope. Sorry. Didn't see it."

It was puzzling. We usually kept the door locked, and even if somebody from the Section had stopped in, it wasn't like they were going to steal a cookie right off my desk. It wasn't really that big a deal, just a cookie, but it kind of griped me. I asked her if she had any idea what might have happened to it.

"I didn't take your fucking cookie!" she snapped. Angrily. As if I'd accused her of taking it, even though I hadn't. All I'd asked her was if she had any idea what might have happened to it.

OK. So she'd stolen my cookie. And now she was lying about it. My misanthropic feminist roommate was a liar and a thief. Why was I not surprised? I realized that I was staring at her, open mouthed. She was staring back with all the defiance she could muster.

OK. My roommate had stolen my cookie. Would she steal other stuff as well? Stuff from my desk or wardrobe? I couldn't believe that she would. She was peevish at times, but never really malicious. She'd probably thought the cookie was up for grabs and was now just trying to save face. Why couldn't she just admit it, though?

A couple days later they had those same cookies again. I brought back two this time, one for me and one for her. To clear the air. To let her know there were no hard feelings.

But when she came in and saw the cookie on her desk she flew into a rage. She picked it up and threw it at me. "I didn't take your goddamn cookie!" she yelled. "I don't even like that kind." She stormed out and I didn't see her again for the rest of the evening.

- - -

The way that it worked in the dorm was that each section had a single shower room that was used by everybody, boys and girls alike. It had six alcoves, each with an outer curtain to close off a little changing area and an inner curtain for the shower itself. It was a bit disconcerting the first time I came out from my shower wrapped in nothing but a towel and saw another curtain open and a girl step out wrapped in nothing but a towel herself. But everybody was in the same boat, and we just dealt with it. Everybody pretty much tried to be respectful of each other's privacy.

For whatever reason, Saturday afternoon was always a popular time for showers. I was collecting my soap and towel when Paula came in and got hers too. We walked down together. When we got there, all the showers were in use except for one. I gestured for her to go ahead and take it. She gave me an exasperated look, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me into the changing alcove with her. She drew the curtain closed, placed her stuff on the bench, and started to undress.

She pulled off her shirt. She unhitched her bra. Not as if we were on separate planes of existence, but more as if this was just what gender-neutral roommates had to put up with.

I couldn't believe what she was doing. But that didn't stop me from looking. I'd only seen her boobs that one time before. They looked fuller than I remembered, very convincingly feminine. She took off her pants. She put her thumbs in the hem of her panties. She gave me a look that said, 'Are you going to take your shower or what?' She turned her back, slipped off her panties, and stepped inside the inner curtain, split-ass naked from head to toe.

I was flabbergasted, to say the least. My roommate had just taken all her clothes off right in front of me. She was now standing on the other side of the curtain, adjusting the faucets, as split-ass naked as the day she was born.

OK. So what should I have done? Waited for her to finish? Waited for one of the other showers to open up? Just gone back to the room?

I undressed myself and stepped in to join her.

She had the water running and was soaping up her shoulders and arms. Not paying any attention to me, which was a thing she was pretty good at. She worked her soapy hands over her boobs. They were unpretentious but perfect, glossy in the sudsy water, her nipples noticeably plump.

The stall was barely big enough for the two of us. She moved aside a little to give me some room. We had to keep adjusting our positions to share the spray. Her shoulder would brush against my arm, my thigh would brush against her butt. Unintentionally, but unavoidably.

She was soaping between her legs now, running her soapy hand up into the creases of her thighs, up and down the lightly haired slit of her vagina. It had never really occurred to me before that girls have to wash their vaginas.

Whether I wanted it or not, my dick was sticking straight out, and even though I tried to keep it pointed in a gender-neutral direction, she couldn't help but bump into it from time to time. She didn't seem to pay it much attention, though. Just another part of a guy's anatomy. If you're going to shower with a guy, you're going to bump into his elbow and his thigh and his dick. It's just going to happen.

She bent to get her shampoo. She lathered up, eyes closed, letting the water stream down her torso, letting the suds stream down between her legs.

"All done?" I asked at last. I turned off the water. She rubbed her eyes and pulled back the inner curtain. We toweled off. I wrapped my towel pretty loosely to try to hide my erection.

Back in the room it didn't really make any sense to hang the privacy towel. We just finished drying off in front of each other. She put on her lotion, rubbing it on her chest and boobs, down over her thighs and butt, all the way down her legs, pretty much the way I'd surmised. I pretended not to be staring. She pretended not to notice. Finally we got dressed, still pretending to be each minding our own business. It was all I could do to zip up my zipper.

Neither of us said a word. What was there to say? We were just a couple of roommates getting ready for Saturday night. Nothing remarkable about that in the slightest.

- - -

The shower incident had a pretty big effect on our dress code etiquette around the room. We both stopped trying to be so secretive about changing clothes. It was a great boon for Paula, who no longer had to do it in the cramped confines of her bunk. We got pretty accustomed to going around in front of each other in our underwear, living up, I guess, to Ivy's ideal of gender tolerance.

I still used the privacy towel after my shower because I got aroused if I didn't. (Actually I got aroused I did, but at least I wasn't broadcasting it.) Paula used it sometimes, and sometimes not, depending on her mood. I got aroused either way. She seemed to have a bit of an exhibitionist streak, actually. Her attitude seemed to be that it was her goddamn room and she'd go around any way she goddamn pleased, no matter who was watching.

One day she and Ivy were going out to see a show.

"Come on, Hector," said Ivy. "Why don't you come too?"

"Problem set," I answered from my desk. "Really I can't this time. But you guys have fun."

Paula had taken a skirt and blouse out of her wardrobe and laid them on my bunk. Ivy walked over to see what I was doing. Paula unbuttoned the blouse she was wearing and took it off. Then she unfastened her pants and slipped them off too. She bent over and rooted around in her drawer. Then she took off her bra and her panties. Ivy was watching her now with an astonished look in her eye. Paula bent back into the drawer, presenting us with the naked cleft of her ass. Ivy glanced at me to gauge my reaction. I shrugged, as if to say that this is just what a guy has to put up with in a gender-neutral room.