Freshman Year - Part 3, The Gymnast

A usual day would be that I would come back from classes to my dorm room and find Hannah sitting on her bed, bored and Janice getting ready to go out on a date.

“So, Hannah, what’s the plan tonight?” I asked.

“I have to draw the numbers one through ten in different designs.”

Janice piped up, “I’m going out with the captain of the Lacrosse team! I met him at” pause… “You know the mud thing. But he’s really nice.”

“I was going to ask you next Janice. That’s really great news!”

She was so excited you could stick a pin in her and she would explode. Of course I was loaded with assignments; a book to read, calculus to do, chemistry problems to work out, French to study. I was jealous of my roomies’ easy assignments.

The days went on pretty much like this and we three went to dinner together, but never really clicked as friends. As weekends rolled by, Janice would invariably go out with the Lacrosse team captain and Hannah and I would come back to the room. Sometimes Janice and I would study Calculus together. One weekend in particular, I came back to the room and opened the door and it was pitch dark inside. Janice sprang up and whispered to me, “Sue, look, I need the room tonight. Uh, I’m here with my boyfriend and we’re uh, look, could you stay with the gals across the hall? One of them went to visit her parents so they have a bed. Okay?” Then she began closing the door.

So I backed away kind of embarrassed for her. I wasn’t really tired and I could hear a party going on the adjacent coed wing so I dropped my books in the room where I was going to be staying the night, where the girls waved hi and were listening to Tiny Dancer. Then I headed over there. Hannah was at the party too and apparently had friends who had offered to take her in. It was the typical college bash. A keg was open and a bunch of drunken kids were running up and down the hall making noise. How childish, I thought. One young man in particular was being an asshole and really needed sobering up. He was blond, fit and handsome. His jeans were torn very near his crotch. He was terrorizing a girl by holding her down and making her drink beer while she protested and the beer spilled all over her. I took some ice from the garbage can holding the keg and put it into the rip near his crotch. The look on his face was priceless. I had about two seconds to run for it; then he was after me. I took off and made it all the way down the hallway before he tackled me on the stairs. So he was on top of me holding me down, breathing hard and suddenly not so sure what he was going to do with me.

I said, “You probably shouldn’t wear pants like that to a party.” Then I smiled.

He smiled and said, “I guess not. Boy you really got me.” The he let me up. We sat there side-by-side and introduced ourselves. His name was Toby. “I hope I didn’t hurt you with that tackle.”

“Not a bit.”

“So tell me, how do you stay in such great shape? I didn’t think I would even be able to catch you.”

“Oh, track, swimming, gymnastics…”

“I do gymnastics too!”

We continued to flirt and chat. I got excited because he was really cute and this seemed promising. Eventually, one of his buddies came by and he had to go and so I left. But the next day, I asked around about him and it turned out that he had an out of town girlfriend that he saw on some weekends and that they were just about engaged. That crossed him off of my list as a potential boyfriend, because my ethics don’t allow for me to be the other woman. I will flirt and be friends, but that is about it. But, I did continue to hang out with him since I hoped that he had cute friends and he was really fun to be with. He really seemed to like being with me too.

One day when we were together, he asked me to go with him into his room and so I did. We sat on his bed. He had a photo of his girlfriend there and I asked him who she was and he said quite plainly that she was his girlfriend but he only saw her on weekends. Then he took my hand in his and said that he wanted me to feel something really strange. I nodded. He rubbed my hand, massaged it thoroughly, opened it and blew on it and then asked me how it felt while looking imploringly into my eyes. I told him it felt great. I just didn’t know what he expected. Did he mean for me to lean into a kiss? That was so not going to happen. Then he asked if I would like to go for a walk downtown with him. I said, “Sure.”

Downtown was not far from Campus, only a couple of blocks. It didn’t take too long to get there. He went into the pharmacy and walked to the back to talk to the pharmacist. I stood right next to him. The pharmacist said, “Yes sir, how may I help you?”

Toby said, “I would like a pack of condoms.”

I couldn’t help it I blushed purple. Keep in mind, this was 1974 and I was virgin. I swiveled and walked down the nearest aisle. In spite of this embarrassment, Toby and I remained great friends.