Chapter 2: Monopoly

September 1967

You would think, Sylvia Jennings pondered just before getting up, that living with a man wouldn’t be that new an experience. She’d had roommates before. She’d slept with men -- slept with George Foster in particular -- before. But a live-in lover was different from a roommate. And sleeping with George hadn’t really involved sleeping; their relationship in bed had been quite active.

Now, though, everything was different. None of her roommates had slept in the same bed. None would have had an erection pressed against her back if they had. Nor would their chins have been so bristly. George’s beard had been delightful before he’d shaved for his passport photo. His smooth-shaved cheeks felt lovely against her face (and her breasts) these days. The intermediate stage was unfortunate.

She eased out of bed and shut off the alarm a moment before it rang. She seldom needed it, but teachers didn’t come to school late – that, they left to their students. George came into the bathroom while she was in the shower. Couldn’t really avoid it. “About to flush,” he said.

“Wait!” she said. She finished her rinsing and turned off the water. “Okay.” She heard the toilet flush.

He ogled her in the mirror when she stepped out. You’d think he’d get enough of seeing her naked. And, being engaged in shaving, he squinted to see her. He could be much more subtle when he was wearing his glasses. She posed for him, then went back to drying herself.

“I’ll never convince you,” he said. “You look sexier doing that than trying to flaunt it. Ever seen Degas’s paintings? Dancers getting dressed?” She wasn’t sure that Degas had intended his paintings to be sexy.

He put his glasses on before pulling on his underpants and jeans. He’d shower after she was gone. The apartment belonged to her school mornings; his classes were later. She knew he was watching her dress, but they’d reached a compromise in their week in the apartment. On school mornings, he wouldn’t touch her before the goodbye kiss at the door; he could look but not touch.

He had, however, put the coffee on before coming into the bathroom. She had two cups with her cereal. She kept her glasses in her hand for his kiss good bye. He put his down. Still, the kiss was brief and closed-mouth.

The evening kiss was much more satisfactory. She took her glasses off when he came in, and he hugged her during the kiss. His tongue explored her mouth as his hands explored her ass. “I’m in the middle of dinner,” she finally warned him.

“Mmm, smells good too. And I used to like your hot-plate spaghetti. Look, you are keeping track of the grocery expenses, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“The check ought to come Monday. But that’s ‘ought to’.” He worried so much. She knew he was good for the money. She worried more about his response when he found out that she could cook only about a dozen menus. Well, he’d been appreciative of every dish so far. She’d try him on the spinach souffle tomorrow. She suspected they would eat out more after his check came.

He was appreciative of the meatloaf. Unfortunately, his appreciation extended to taking thirds. Men ate so much! And it wasn’t just George. He was good, though, about doing half the work on washing the dishes. “Want to explore?” he asked when that job was done. They might as well; they still didn’t know their new neighborhood, and Boston wouldn’t stay warm for long.

She changed into jeans and tennies. When they kissed before leaving, his hands roamed over her. Her nipples were hardening against his palms when she broke the kiss. “I thought you meant ‘explore the city’,” she said. He laughed, but held the door open for her.

They’d developed a pattern for their explorations. They would walk down their street, left tonight, until they came to a corner they hadn’t explored before, then they would turn down it. After about a mile, they walked one block over, and came back. In Toledo, in New York even, this would have taken them all over their neighborhood fairly quickly. Boston hadn’t been laid down in squares. They were probably missing all sorts of hidden nooks. The hidden nooks they found, though, were a delight. They’d already gotten lost twice. Still, if you had to get lost, walking hand in hand with George in the gentle dusk was the way to do it.

“This place smells almost as good as your cooking,” George said about one restaurant. “Want to eat here some night after my check comes?”

She was willing to eat there the next night -- her treat. But George, who seemed perfectly willing to let her cook dinners every night until his dissertation was accepted, wouldn’t hear of her picking up a restaurant check.

“Sounds great. Smells great, I mean.”

They edged around a shouted argument. “What language was that?” she asked when they were safely by.

“Not Spanish. I’ve heard enough arguments in Spanish. Not far off, though. Italian, maybe, or Portuguese. I don’t think this is the time to ask.”

“No.”

They found their street again, and George tickled her palm while they were walking towards their building. “Exhibitionist,” she said when they were safely back in their own apartment. “Whew!” she dropped onto the bed.

“It wasn’t exhibitionism. Nobody could see.”

“If you’d waited ‘til we were inside, you could’ve had any intimacy you wanted.”

“I’ll take that as an invitation.” It hadn’t been, really. He hadn’t waited to get to the apartment, so he shouldn’t get the kiss he came over for. On the other hand, she wanted the kiss. It was a good one, too, starting slow and lasting long. His tongue licked hers until he straightened.

“People could have seen that.” She pointed to the prominence of his zipper.

“Look,” he responded. “Tomorrow is a day of rest, right.”

“Well, I’ve got things to do. Shopping for one.”

“A morning of rest, then. I’ll have to get to Harvard, too. But, if we can take the morning for us, I’d like to save up for it.”

‘Save up?’ Was he suggesting abstinence? George? Well, she could go along with that. “Sure.” If he had abstinence in mind, though, his preparation was weird. When he resumed the kiss, he cuddled her breast. Soon he had to move away and get back to his field notes. There seemed to be an intermediate step between the actual scribbling every night in the village and the dissertation. His typing was a counterpoint to her own work.

This apartment would look crowded to her mom, not that she was about to see it when it was quite clearly occupied by two. Not that her parents would visit from Toledo anyway. Sylvia’s parents had met George; they knew she was seeing him again, after the break for his anthropological expedition. They didn’t know she was living with him, not that it was any of their business. She was fairly sure that they didn’t know, though they’d probably guess if he answered the phone -- which he would do, did frequently. And George’s stuff didn’t really take up that much room. He kept his field notes, originals and typed copies, in four separate stacks. He’d bought -- with money borrowed from her -- another pair of jeans, two shirts, and five sets of underwear.

Anyway, the apartment would look crowded to her mom. One real room, a bath, a kitchen -- that was crowded, and two closets. It looked incredibly spacious to Sylvia. After years in dorms and half a year in a single room where you couldn’t walk when the bed was down, one large room was luxury. And, odd as it was sometimes to share a bathroom with a man, he was only one person. And watching him shave was fascinating.

He was so matter-of-fact about undressing, too, when the time came to close the notebook and move the most recently typed pages to the piles of originals and carbons. He stripped first, then asked, “Need the light?”

“No,” she said. He turned on the bedside lamp, walked across the room to turn off the switch for the overhead by the door, and then walked back to the bed and got in. He did sleep under the sheet, unnecessary as yet in the warmth. He could have done all that -- well, almost all of that -- before undressing.

She thought regretfully of her nightgown while she undressed and made her other preparations in the bathroom. George objected, though; and he was so cooperative in other ways. When she got in the bed, he switched off the lamp. They kept the shades drawn although the apartment across the way had an air conditioner filling the window directly opposite. Even through the shades, the light from the streetlights illuminated their ceiling. Every time a car passed, that light brightened. You needed a lamp to read, but you could see the other person in the bed perfectly well.

When they kissed, he held her breast. His tongue entered her mouth, and his fingers brushed her nipples. She enjoyed the contact, but she thought he had wanted to abstain.

“I thought you wanted to save up,” she said as his mouth trailed down towards her breast. She clutched his head to her when he reached the nipple, though. And she spread her legs when he reached between them.