I’d met this girl in one of my classes. Jenny’s her name. There had been instant electricity between us. She’s small, slender, and blond with a great ... uh ... behind. Sitting near her in class, it’d been natural to say hello and chat about school work. That she’s attractive and sexy added to the delight.

Jenny and I had taken to having lunch after class several days each week, initially talking about class work and comparing notes. Later we began to open up about ourselves. We’d developed the style of understatement ... innuendo ... and double entendre.

She was in her first year at the university and I was in my last. Actually, I’d been in and out several times, always doing fairly well, but needing to “augment” my income. I suppose that might be more clearly stated. I needed to work to pay for school. At first, I though it was a bit odd that we were in the same class. She’d received advanced standing she told me and we were both working hard at this upper division class that sounded easy: “Erotic Themes in Contemporary Theater.” At least, Jenny was working hard, she said.

One day at lunch, sitting back in her chair, she put the open book face down on the table with an exasperated gesture and said, “I had no idea this was going to be so much work. Cripes, what do I know about the origins of eroticism in literature?”

Picking up a piece of lettuce and a wedge of Mandarin orange with my fingers, I took a nibble and said, “Well, there are only so many themes in human erotic thought ... and they’ve been writing dirty stories forever. The origins lie in man’s horniness ... he just likes to read dirty books and watch dirty pictures, don’t you think?”

“Man?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Come ON, Jenny! You know. Man ... as in mankind. Don’t go sexist on me. You know I’ve strong feminist beliefs, but I’m not going to tip toe along some linguistic line of political correctness.”

Holding out her hands in mock surrender, Jenny laughed and replied, “Okay, okay, Billy ... just kidding. Besides, that’s not the point.” Picking up an orange slice herself, she rushed on, “The point is...”

“Jenny, love ... what is the point?”

“If you’d just let me ... the point is,” and she paused for dramatic emphasis, “the point is,” she said again, taking the world’s smallest nibble of orange, “you’re the one with the sexual experience. I’m just a student ... an enthusiastic amateur.”

For a girl who thought of herself as an amateur (amateur what?), Jenny sure knew how to dress like a knowledgeable, experienced woman. There was something about her quiet self assurance, the way she looked at me with a level glance and the unasked question in her eyes that lent an air of maturity to her. A little of that was belied by her very youthful appearance. I think she was 19 or so, but in some ways she looked much younger. Probably it was her slender body and small breasts. She didn’t have little-girl nipples, I can tell you that, for they seemed always to be visible, poking at her blouses and shirts. There were times I was sure she wasn’t wearing a bra. I suspect she never did. I paid attention to detail like that.

At that moment, looking at her across the table, I felt like the experienced lecher. The genuine student part of me was on the up- and-up, but my “other side” — my libidinous side — was thinking how nice it’d be to get this chick into my bed ... preferably on her hands and knees.

“Hell, Jenny ... the prof isn’t grading us on actual experience. That isn’t a requirement for the course. This is a theoretical paper at best. Supposed to be our own thinking not our personal experience. And if worse comes to worse, we’ll plagiarize the shit out of someone. Right now I can think of ... oh ... at least 4,578 better minds than mine!”

Could she see my eyes behind these sunglasses, I wondered. Could she see that I was watching her tits under her shirt?

Brushing invisible crumbs off the front of her shirt, she replied, “True, Billy ... but it is your mind that I admire.”

Shit! I thought. My mind! “And I thought it was my body.”

“Yeah, well that’s okay too, but it’s your mind that gonna get this paper done, not your ... um ... body.”

I smiled at her, secretly pleased, knowing that the paper was done already! It was nothing ... a piece of cake ... a walk in the park and I’d finished it (mostly to get it out of the way) the first week end it had been assigned. It’d be easy to share it with Jenny, for we’d been encouraged to work in pairs. There was still a little work to do on the bibliography ... there always is. They love it when you quote something out of last month’s Journal of Trivia and Obscurata.

“Thanks for the heady compliment, babes. That “mind” suggests that you do a computer search of the current literature, combining adolescent experiences, autoeroticism and computer sex. I can tell, Professor Williams loves to read smutty trash. You work on the bio ... I’ll work on the body of the paper. Deal?”

It might have seemed that I was rushing this partnership a little, but I was fairly certain that Jenny both liked me and respected my academic abilities. But more, I knew that she knew! It wasn’t academia foremost on my agenda.

Jenny leaned back, hooking her heel on the edge of her chair as she pushed her dress between her thighs, giving me a delightful flash of thigh. “Sure! But it sounds one-sided ... like you’re doing all the hard work.”

“Oh, there’s lots to do and we’ll have to work very closely on this, girl. I’ve got some ideas. Hell, I’ve always got some ideas when it comes to sex!”

“How closely? I mean, how closely’ we gonna work?”

“Can you come over to my flat tonight, Jen? I mean, to work on the paper?” I added with a Groucho Marx leer, waggling my eyebrows.

“Sure. What time?” she asked, glancing at her watch.

“Eight o’clock. But first, let’s get the rules straight. I’m the senior author ... the experienced one as you put it ... so we’re going to do this my way, okay? If you do what I tell you to do, we’ll have this out of the way in nothing flat ... and it’ll get an A, no sweat. Do we have a deal?”

I’d lifted my sunglasses and she looked me in the eye as she replied, “Anything you say.”

Anything I wondered?

The clock chimed eight and there was a knock on the door a moment later. That girl was prompt! She looked radiant. Her long blond hair was hanging straight down over her shoulders, California style. She was wearing a short skirt and a tank top that left no doubt. No bra.

Sweeping her into my small flat, I offered, “Want the tour?”

It took no more than a glance to see there wasn’t far to go. “You bet I do. You can tell a lot about people by looking at the place they call home ... and I can see you’ve got taste,” she added, bending to put her books and papers on the low coffee table.

Her short skirt rode up the back of her thighs, giving me an enticing view of her slender, tanned legs. What were her panties like, I wondered? Did she even have panties?

She’d said the right thing ... about “taste.” I didn’t have a great deal of art, but I prided myself on the things I had. Even though it was just a two-room flat, it was moderately large. The plants and rugs and art gave it a rich appearance and texture that was mine and, I thought, reflective of my personality.

I spent about ten minutes telling her the story of the acquisition of a large marble statue ... a women curled up in an egg-shaped supplication, and then said, “But we’ve got work to do ... I’ll pick up on the tour another time, okay?”

“You’re the boss,” she replied, in a quiet tone, almost a little-girl voice, seeming to look somewhere on the floor between us. I’d never heard that voice before.

Gesturing toward the overstuffed chairs in the study area, I said, “Lets work here. The light is good and it’s quiet.”

I was beginning to feel like some oilcan Harry ... a fast-talking, unctuous dude tryin’ to sell something to a slow-thinkin’ chick ... but I knew Jenny was not slow thinking. We hadn’t said it yet, but the undercurrent was strong and unmistakable. There was more going on here than just a research paper.

We’d been silently flirting for weeks. I told her with my eyes what I thought about her body. And she told me with her body what she thought about my eyes. We were going to get it on. We both knew it. But it added surprise and mystery to tease about the process. Just how was thing going to happen?

The hypnotic sound of Enigma wafted in, just loud enough to be heard if one paused to listen, otherwise, it was a soft, haunting melody dimly heard. Sitting across from each other, I simply stared at her for a long minute, admiring her legs and the curve of her hip.

Then, “You masturbate, Jenny?”

Her eyes widened for only a moment and then with a tiny smile, she said, “Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Let me ask the questions. You’ll have your chance. You a virgin?”

“Not for some time. Again, why?”

“I’ll tell you later.” Then, with a pointed glance at her breasts, I asked, “Wearing a bra tonight?”

“No.”

“Panties?”

Barely heard, “Yes.” There was a touch of color in her cheeks. She shifted a little, but didn’t break eye contact.

“Jenny, this is a test. It’s important that you trust me, that you do what I request, no questions. You don’t have to do anything, of course, but if we’re going to have a close working relationship, working on this paper, it’s important that we break down unnecessary barriers. Understand?”

After a slight hesitation, she replied, “I ... I guess so.”

“Okay, Jen. Give me your panties.”

“What?”

“Give me your panties. Can you understand the words?”

“Yes, but...”

“Jenny, we’re not voting on this. There’s no debate. I asked for your panties. Just skin out of them right now and hand them to me.”

We’d talked once on the role of romance in eroticism as opposed to blatant sex, I, arguing for the merit of flat-out-no-coy-games sex as having greater erotic impact. Jenny had taken the Harlequin road to romance ... move in slowly ... kiss a lot, hug ... don’t talk about it ... just let it happen. “That’s wimpy,” I voted.

We’d been here before ... intellectually. Was it to be the dance? Or were we going to push the envelope? What would she do now? It wasn’t an exercise of the intellect. She knew that.

Standing suddenly, she slid her hands up along her thighs, hooking her thumbs into the elastic of the white, brief panties she was wearing. I could only see the sides of her thighs and hips and the white of the panties’ waistband where she’d hooked them. The crotch remained hidden.

Between cuts of the CD, for a moment it was completely quiet. I could hear my heart beat and the drum of a motorcycle exhaust in the distance. If she was pausing for dramatic effect, it was working! The erotic effect of her pose, momentarily paused on the brink of surrender, made my mouth dry and my chest tight.

She began to slowly push her panties down and I took a big breath, not realizing until that moment that I’d been apneic. Bending, she pushed them down below her knees and then, one hand on the chair for balance, she lifted one foot, then the other, out of her panties.

Holding them between one thumb and her forefinger, she leaned toward me, handing them over and sat again.

Maintaining eye contact, I brought the panties to my face, smelling them. As if analyzing a gourmet dish, I intoned, “Soap ... and perfume ... and ... yes ... pussy.”

She smiled and asked, “You like girls’ panties, Billy?”

“Um ... yeah ... but mostly I like these panties ... right now.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m pleased that you like them.”

“I suspect there aren’t a half-dozen men in the world to whom you’d step out of your underwear and hand them over ... I love the erotic intimacy of such surrender.”

“Less!”

“Less?”

“Yes, less than a half dozen. In fact, I can’t think of anyone else.”

I smiled at her compliment and then examined her panties for the first time. Turning the crotch inside out, I noted the wetness, but nothing else. “No pubic hairs,” I complained.