The Roommates Down the Hall

While I was puzzling how to avoid doing any more work than absolutely necessary on a paper for History, I suddenly threw down my pen in disgust. Why the fuck was I hiding out from Lisa and Lee? There was a video game tournament going on just one flight of stairs away from me in the common room, but here I was, in my room, alone, working on a paper for a gut course... and it was not even due for two more weeks. I sighed and picked up my pen. My resolve to stay away crumbled a little and I decided that, while I would stick with hiding out for the rest of the day, I'd go drop in on them Monday afternoon, acting like nothing happened. Hopefully they would act that way too.

After another half an hour, I had good news and bad news for myself. The good news was that I had figured out a subject that was actually interesting to me. The bad news was that that meant I was actually going to put in some work on this paper, and that meant ten perfectly good hours would eventually go down the crapper.

Suddenly, there was a knock on my door. That was unusual. A closed door meant that either you weren't in, or were working. (Or masturbating, but that part usually went unsaid.) If they encountered a closed door, people usually just moved on, or maybe sent you a text instead. I shrugged and called out, "It's unlocked."

The door opened and Lisa and Lee entered my room, closing the door behind them.

Just fucking fabulous. A man could not even hide around here.

I was still a little ticked at being told to fuck off, so I didn't stand, simply swiveling my desk chair around in the space where it sat between my two beds. "Hey guys. Sit down," I invited. Upon hearing how desultory my own tone was, I regretted my surliness instantly. I waved at my old roommate's bed, which I had done up like a couch for visitors. The girls usually never visited me--it always seemed like I was the one visiting them.

Instead of both sitting on the couch as I had indicated, only Lee sat down there, while Lisa instead went and sat on the edge of my barely made bed. That meant that I couldn't look at both of them at the same time, which bothered me. The same basic orientation, me in the middle with them to either side, held true all the time when I hung out on their beanbag chair in their room, but this was different, and since I was feeling a bit like a mama wolf who suddenly found two coyotes hanging around to either side of her den, I felt a little vulnerable. Although... it seemed almost like they separated because they had some problem with each other, rather than trying to outflank me. I dismissed the thought. The two of them having a spat would be unusual, and highly unlikely. I was being flanked.

To cover my discomfort, I leaned back in my chair and looked back and forth as they settled down. On top of everything else, did they really need to look so damned good today? "What's up guys?" I asked mildly, in what was probably a failed attempt to look casual.

"Sorry about the 'fuck off', yesterday," they both blurted out, almost in unison. They both chuckled with some confused, suddenly good humor, and looked sheepishly at each other.

Instinctively, I immediately replied, "Oh, don't worry about it." But given the way that they both looked so guilty, I thought I had the opportunity to let my honest feelings out a little past my instinctive politeness. "But the fact is, I was a little hurt," I went on, seizing the moment. "Do you want to tell me what the Hell was going on?" I looked back and forth between them, since I could not look at them both at the same time.

Neither replied. They both just sat there, looking uncomfortable. At first, I thought they looked contrite, but that wasn't really the right word. My head and eyes got tired of swiveling back and forth between them like I was at a tennis match, and I let my gaze stay on Lee. She was usually the more talkative. If I stared at her long enough, I could probably make her uncomfortable enough to start babbling.

Lee just back looked at me. I was sure now that the look on her face wasn't contrition like it should have been. It was hesitancy--like she wanted to speak, but also didn't want to.

In the end, it was Lisa who broke the silence. "The thing is," she began, and my eyes swiftly swung to meet hers. They had the same reluctance as Lee's, though with a growing resolve. "The thing is," she went on with nervous energy, "we have been wondering: Why haven't you ever asked either one of us out?"

I now felt like a mama wolf with five cubs who finds about 50 coyotes completely surrounding her den. This was not the question I had wanted or anticipated. "Ah-um-uh," I said, temporizing while sounding a bit less coherent than an orchestra warming up. My first instinct was to tell them that we were all such good friends, why make things weird? But I don't like to lie, and I especially did not want to lie to these two women. "Uh, why do you ask?" I asked meekly.

Lisa seemed taken aback in turn by my question, and hesitated. Lee rushed in to support her. "Don't answer questions with questions. It's rude," she snapped at me, some of the peevishness that had led to the "fuck offs" the day before back in her voice. "Don't sit there looking so innocent. Are you telling us that you never thought to ask one of us out?"

"Um, the thought had crossed my mind," I grudgingly admitted, hating myself for going that far. I felt like the tide was washing the sand out from underneath my feet.

"Okay then," Lee said, almost triumphantly. "Then why didn't you?"

I opened my mouth, unsure what excuse was going to come out when Lisa rejoined the fray. "And if you had gone ahead, which one of us would you have asked?"

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

That was the nuclear question. My eyes darted back and forth between them and realized they were looking back and forth between me and each other like hawks. Hawks who were not going to settle for a non-answer. 'The thought had crossed my mind' had been enough for them to hang me with.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I took a deep breath. It was better to be slain as a lion than as a lamb.

"And that is why I haven't asked either of you out," I almost shouted. "Which the fuck one of you would I ask?" They shut up at that, which sucked, because it meant I had to go on. "You two are my favorite women on Earth. Sorry, Mom," I added, looking over my shoulder in an attempt to lighten this miserable confession. "And I like you independent of the fact that you two are also the hottest girls at this school, as far as I'm concerned," I added, thinking in my panic that depositing a little flattery in the account would do a guy good when it came time to pick through the rubble after this clusterfuck.

I sighed. "Asking either one of you out would mean having to pass up on one of the best women I have ever known. How the hell could I choose to pass on either one of you?" I said, rushing faster and more emphatically with each phrase. I took a cleansing breath, then pushed on. "I suppose I could have flipped a coin. Believe me, that 'crossed my mind', too. But it would be a skeezy way to resolve such an important issue. And it would not solve the other, far more complex reason that I haven't made a choice." I paused for a moment, then rushed on. "For every one good thing that could come from asking one of you out, there were ten things that could go wrong, and a few more that absolutely would go wrong!"

My gave swiveled back and forth some more, and they both looked taken aback at my sudden fervor, and confused at my last diatribe.

"Let's look at the math on this," I said, which drew groans from both of them, because they hate it when I go all 'look at the math'. I briefly experienced a relived feeling that they would still groan like normal at that phrase, as if, for a moment, nothing had changed and we were just wrangling about history trivia or something.

But we were not, and everything had.

I plunged on, like an idiot.

"There are four basic cases I have had to consider. Possibility One," I said ticking it off on the fingers of my left hand. "There is some minor chance that each of you would welcome me asking them out. What chance? I have no fucking idea. There is also a much greater chance," I went on, ticking off a second finger, "that neither of you is actually interested in going out with me. Finally, there is also an indeterminable chance that one of you does, and the other one does not. And vice versa, of course," I said, ticking off fingers three and four. I had stopped looking at either one of them and just stared at the floor as I ground on, baring my dilemma to them both--my dilemma that they had created. "That means that no matter which one of you I asked out, I had one chance at happiness, while the other three out of four possibilities would end in utter fucking disaster."

"What?" One of them asked quietly, I don't know which one.

"If neither of you were interested, but I did ask one of you, then both of you would be laughing at me," I ground out, holding up two fingers. Before they could deny it, I ground on, "Oh sure, we'd soon enough laugh and move on as friends again, but forever after, I'd be just a little pathetic in both your minds, and it would Poison. Everything."

"Next," I continued after the shortest of painful pauses, with now one finger raised, "If you both somehow actually wanted me to ask you out, and I went ahead and asked one of you, I would certainly be pissing off and hurting the other, which would suuuuuck."

"And what if one of you did like me, but I asked out the other one?" I asked, my eyes a little haunted as I spoke out loud all this horrible calculus that had occupied my mind for months. I waggled my ring finger. "I'd be making my friendship with the one of you I did ask out forever after awkward--see the first scenario. Worse, I would be being super hurtful to the one of you who had actually wanted to be asked instead. And worst of all, in this case and the one before, I would likely be putting a hole, possibly below the waterline, in you two's friendship with each other, which I am Not. Going. To. Do."

We were all silent for a minute before I felt compelled to fill the quiet with more words. I had some other complaints, now that I was rolling. "For a long time, I kept trying to talk myself into taking the leap regardless, taking that awful chance. But lately, I've just been numbly letting things roll on as they have been, and for two reasons," I went on significantly. "First, neither of you has given me the first damned signal that I had an opening to step up and ask. And believe me, I. Have. Been. Looking," I said, openly glaring at them both. "And second..."

"Second," I went on after a breath, "we go back to the start. If I have to choose, how the fuck do I do that? You are both equally amazing friends, in exactly the same way. And you are both equally smoking hot, in totally different ways." I had blown way past the point where I might have been able to salvage at least our current relationship, and I had already realized that. Whatever form of friendship, if any, I had with them going forward, it would be utterly changed. But until that moment, I had not realized how fucking angry I was at this situation, and at them, however unfairly. And I was still rolling. "So, if one of you actually does want to go out with me, since this is the fucking twenty-first century, why don't you ask me instead, and let me out of this horrible box?"

With that, I clamped my mouth shut and glared at both of them, dying a little inside. No, I was dying a lot.

The two of them just stared at each other, sheepishly at least. Then they looked down. Lisa heaved a deep breath and said softly, "We're sorry George."

Lee added, "Yeah. We didn't meant to... We didn't want..." She trailed off.

Lisa said to Lee softly, "I think it's our turn to fuck off." Lee agreed just as softly. They both rose and turned toward the door.

"You never need to fuck off from this room, ever," I called just as softly after both of them. "Please," I added as my door clicked shut.

I sat alone, in the dying light of late afternoon.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

For a few moments, I hoped that the catharsis would have revealed to me my True Inner Preference™, but no such luck. I remained quite stuck on both of the twin horns of my dilemma. I genuinely could not decide who I wanted more, because I kind of wanted them equally. And I desperately did not want to risk hurting either one of them.

Pretty sure that train has pulled out of the station, partner.

Worse, even though I had never given up looking for signs of interest, I had mostly given up hoping to actually see any from either of them. Now, I began to suspect that they had come into my room to bully me into finally asking out whichever one of them wanted me to, and instead, I had carpet bombed both of them, along with whatever glimmer of an opening had been about to be presented.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

This paper was not going to write itself, but I found, sitting there, that I wasn't going to write it either. Not that day. So I just sat there, not turning on a light, even as the sun set.

Another soft knock came at my door. Christ, what now? I hesitated to answer. My mind leapt in hope that one of the girls had returned to take me up on my offer, ask me out, and solve all my problems. But I knew I wasn't that lucky a guy. Besides, it was probably Carl, wanting to either brag about how awesome his new girl's tits were, or to moan about how she had already dumped him.

"Come," I barked. The off chance that Carl would come in all bummed out gave me hope for the justice of the universe.

Instead, it was both Lisa and Lee again.

Lee slid hesitantly back into my room first, followed by Lisa, who closed the door softly. This time, they both sat together on my 'couch'. They took a deep breath and looked at each other.

"George," began Lisa, "we want to apologize again for setting off that whole painful experience for you today."

"And the pain that lead up to it," added Lee. "But please understand, we haven't been happy either. It is why we came barging in here earlier."

"Huh?"

"Look, here is the thing..." Lee went on, then stalled.

"...the option from your big fucking 'look at the math' analysis that is actually going on here is the one where each of us kind of wants you to ask us out," Lisa finished for her. They both looked at me.

A part of my heart, I think it was the left ventricle, was singing an aria at that revelation. Both of them were attracted to me! The other three quarters of my heart loudly objected that this solved nothing as they sank through the floor. I realized that in fact, we were now in one of the options that meant certain disaster if I chose either one of them. Worse, I now knew that it also meant certain disaster if I had chosen neither of them, which is what I had done and what had resulted. I just looked back at Lisa, then Lee, miserably.

"So... why...I mean, some hint might..." I stammered abortively, wondering miserably how I could have missed this. How could I have missed these two amazing girls being interested in me when I never did much else but look for signs of that whenever they were around?

"So, why didn't either of us ask you out? Or why, at least, didn't we send some pretty clear signals?" Lisa helped me out, finishing my thought instead of Lee's this time around. I just stared at her.

"Remember back at the start of fall semester, when we first met?" asked Lee. "You were going out with what's her name, Bernadette?" Going out with Bernadette had been a mistake. The sex had been, well, the sex had been non-existent, but I had been happy to be patient there. I had finally manipulated her into breaking up with me because she was annoying, and clingy, and she chewed with her mouth just open enough to annoy the hell out of me.

"Well," Lee continued, "even though you were 'off-limits' when we first met, we found ourselves talking about you more and more. Then, when we heard that you two broke it off..."

"Lee immediately turned to me to ask how long I thought she should wait before she tried to get you to go out with her," interjected Lisa.

Lee interrupted right back. "And Lisa told me that sometime in the distant future would suit her just fine, since she intended to go out with you instead!"

"And," Lisa went on, "just like you said, it put an immediate strain on things in our room. So we made a pact not to compete over encouraging you. We decided we would just be chill, and friendly, and just... there. There when you got over Bernie."

"And so we fell into the opposite rut from yours," said Lee. Had they somehow rehearsed this back and forth? "But then there was the concert," she went on. "And you hung with us the whole time, and we both kind of just sat there that one part, with our heads on your shoulders. And it was so nice."

"You put your head on his shoulder first, Lee," jabbed Lisa quickly, with just a trace of heat in her voice. No, they had not rehearsed this. That made it even more impressive how awfully good at finishing each other's sentences they were. I'd seen them do it on a few occasions before, but never this well, or this much.

"Yes, I did. And I said I was sorry. But you did it right after me," replied Lee defensively. "And then," she went on, turning back to me, "We had a little fight about that after the concert. Then we got our shit under control, and things sort of went back to normal. But yesterday morning, we started grousing again, though this time we were in agreement that the problem was that you, fucking George, just kept stringing us both along."

Lisa jumped in again. "Then, not an hour later, you were sitting there, holding court on our beanbag like always, and that fucking picture came through. We both got a little snotty about it, but your response was... not helpful."

"Not helpful at all," agreed Lee.

"So we were bitches, and threw you out."

"But we felt bad about it," Lee put in.

"Yes, we did. And we talked about that last night. Then this morning, we convinced ourselves that you had to like one or the other of us, or you would not hang around so much. So we had the brilliant idea that we should just interrogate you until we found out who," continued Lisa. She hesitated.

I looked at them humorlessly but agreeably. "But instead of solving your problem, I took off and nuked you from orbit over my problem," I replied. "Sorry about that. Please know I'm sorry."

They both nodded. Lee took up the thread. "So we retreated and talked some more. The biggest thing we agreed on was that your analysis was right. Even if you had been willing to choose one of us, it was going to blow everything up between us, and also between the loser and you."

I opened my mouth to object to the word 'loser'.

Lisa spoke before I could. "So we talked and talked, and realized the solution."

I looked at her. If they saw a solution to all this, now that it was in the open, they were way more perceptive than I was. Lee looked at her, clearly leaving Lisa with the floor this time.

"The only way we all end up happy, and not one gets hurt..." said Lisa hesitantly, trembling a little. "The only way out is if maybe... you don't have to choose?"

At first, I thought they meant to just keep on keeping on. But after the emotional turmoil of the last few days, there was no way they could believe, any more than I could, that just going back to ourstatus quo ante was going to solve anything. I started to envision trying to date both of them, trading dates and trying to keep things equal between these two girls who had revealed a competitive streak (over me!) that I should have recognized was there. I thought about that for less than second and was exhausted. I did not see how they had found a solution...