Chapter 103: Experimentation

Thursday, February 27, 1986

After some consideration, Jas and I decided to surprise Amy by both going on tonight’s date. That was a calculated risk, since Amy didn’t always do well with surprises. Still, I thought it would work.

Amy seemed happy with it, it appeared. When she opened the door and saw us, she broke into a smile and said, “Jasmine! What an unexpected pleasure!”

Meg, who was home this time, looked startled. I figured Amy would pass it off as Jas just seeing the movie with us. But, for all I knew, Amy would just say flat-out that she was now dating both of us. Anything was possible with Amy.

She waved goodbye to Meg, kissed me (but not Jas), and then we took off for the stairs.

Once we were in the stairwell, she gave Jas a quick kiss, which Jas happily returned.

“Some of the girls on my dorm wing don’t do so well with girls kissing girls,” she said.

Jas giggled a bit.

“It happens. We’re fine!”

The three of us, with Amy in the middle, wound up holding hands for the walk to the MSC. People could read into that whatever they wanted. Girls hold hands for non-romantic reasons all the time, after all.

As usual, we ate at the MSC cafeteria. I didn’t talk as much as the two of them did, mostly because — long phone calls between Amy and Jas aside — they needed more time to get to know each other. Most of those calls had been either relationship questions or updates, not ‘How do I date a girl?’ and the like, and Jas had gotten to know ‘Amy, Steve’s date’ more than ‘Amy, cool person.’

Oh, I wasn’t completely out of the conversation, but this part of the date was much more about Jas and Amy than about me. It seemed clear that Amy really liked that, and also took it as we meant it — an invitation to get closer to both of us.

We again walked hand-in-hand-in-hand to ‘Robin Hood’. As Amy commented, it was a funny mix of wholesome (holding hands, going to a ‘kids’ movie’) and naughty (walking with your boyfriend and his fiancée while dating both of them). We could hardly disagree. Our entire lives were a funny mix of wholesome and naughty, pretty much!

For the movie itself, my first thought was that I had waited far too long to see it again. For whatever reason, we’d never shown this one to the kids, so my last time seeing it was probably actually in the past, making it decades ago for me. I could barely remember any of it. That was probably for the best. It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it right along with the others, holding hands with Amy (who was also still holding hands with Jas) the whole time.

After the movie finished, we briefly discussed what to do. Amy wound up inviting us back to her dorm room in a much more refined version of what she’d said long ago.

After she said, “Wanna come back to my room with me?” and gotten two enthusiastic responses, she said, “I did that right. Right?”

“Very right,” Jas said, grinning. “Steve told me about the first one.”

Amy said, “That was silly.”

“I still say it was endearing,” I said. “You were really trying. That’s the important part, not just some words coming out a little wrong.”

She smiled widely.

“I like being ‘endearing.’ Something I never knew before all of this! And ‘cute,’ and ... a lot of things. I told Steve this, Jasmine, but sometimes ... some girls say I shouldn’t like some things, but I do. But ... I wouldn’t want to be ‘cute’ or ‘endearing’ when working on my project.”

“That’s a lot of it, for me,” Jas said. “Like ... holding doors really is just politeness, and I would do that for a guy if I was there first. Helping someone into a car, holding their chair, or things like that are dating things. Or ... relationship things, I guess. It would be weird not on a date or with someone you weren’t close to. I don’t mind if classmates think I’m cute, but saying it risks getting creepy quickly.”

Amy nodded.

“I used to think I was bad at context, but I think many people are actually much worse at it.”

“You’re not bad at context at all,” I said.

She grinned and said, “That’s because you are patient and forgiving. I’m much better now!”

We chatted and teased all the way back to Amy’s dorm room. As expected, Meg was out. Amy had, no doubt, made some sort of arrangement with her. The purple ribbon went on the door, Amy flicked the lock, and we were alone.

This time, Amy just moved to Jas, meeting in a kiss. Arms wrapped around each other and they clearly had a great time.

Jas giggled when they broke the kiss and said, “You’re a quick learner.”

Amy said, “Oh, no. I think I will need much practice with that.”

Jas said, “I’ll be more than happy to help!”

They grinned at each other.

“Um ... we don’t want to...” Amy said. She turned to me, stepped in close, looped her arms around my neck, and lifted her face.

I kissed her deeply, holding her close. Jas closed in from behind and hugged both of us, drawing a deep moan from Amy.