Chapter 1: Tutor

Andy Trainor concentrated on Barbara, but he noted Hailey’s and Nancy’s expressions, too. They seemed to be following the lesson. But they’d never seen it before; they were willing, based on earlier successes, to believe that he could teach them about it. It was Barbara’s second time through this material, and she was absolutely certain she couldn’t learn it. But Barbara was Marilyn’s roommate, and she’d learn it in the spring of 1976, or he’d die trying. He pointed to the set of right triangles that he’d drawn all coming together at the same point.

“All right. As the triangles get larger, the longest line, the hypotenuse, gets longer and the line away from the angle gets longer. Do you believe that they get longer in the same proportion?” That was two long mathematical terms he’d used, and Barbara thought these were only there to confuse her. But, dammit, there wasn’t another good word for proportion.

“Look, I’ll draw better triangles.” He used his ruler, and drew another set with the hypotenuses 3, 4, 5, and 6 cm. long. “Now, measure the lines.” She did. “Do you see that this one is twice as long as this one, and -- in the same way -- this one is twice as long as that one?”

“Sure Andy, but so what?” He still couldn’t believe that some people could see that A/B was equal to C/D without seeing that A/C was equal to B/D. But Barbara was such a person.

“Well, then, if this line is x, that line is 2x. And if this line is y, that line is 2y. So, the ratio of the length of that line to the other one is 2x/2y, which is x/y. Which is the same as the ratio of the first two lines.”

“Okay,” Barbara saw it. The other two had seen it so long before that they were starting to get impatient.

“The ratio between any vertical line from this line to the length we’ve gone up this line before dropping the vertical is the same. It depends on the angle I’ve labeled a, and only on that angle.”

“Okay.”

“Well, that is what we call the sine of that angle. It’s always the same, and it depends only on the angle.” He looked around to see that all three of these college girls had finally got what high school seniors got in one sentence of the first day’s lecture. They’d already had the lecture once, twice in the case of Barbara. That was unfair, though; by the time Barbara got that lecture the first time, she’d been convinced she wouldn’t understand it.

“Okay,” he went on. “Now, if the length of bc over the length of ab is the sine of angle a, then the length of ac over the length of ab is the sine of angle b.” They didn’t look convinced, so he drew two more triangles of the same shape but reflected so that the second one had b at the left-hand lower corner. Some days, he wished he had a blackboard, but they all sat on the same side of the table and looked at his sketches from the same direction.

“Remember that all three angles of any triangle always add to 180 degrees. And, since we’re only talking about right triangles now, one angle is 90 degrees, and the sum of the other two angles is 90 degrees.”

He got nods, if not the certainty he would have received from HS juniors who’d taken the right courses. Oh, well, if these girls had taken -- and passed -- the right courses, he wouldn’t be here. And, when he was done with them, Marilyn would be here, too.

“So, the size of this angle a determines the size of b. And the size of b is the only thing that determines the sine of b. So, the size of a determines the sine of b.” He got the same tentative agreement. He’d take that.

“We call the ratio of the length of ac to the length of ab the cosine of a. It depends only on the size of a. Any questions?” They didn’t have any, but he’d made that a ritual to end these tutoring sessions. Everyone stayed for anyone’s questions. The girls gathered their books and walked out. He got up but didn’t leave. Now was the time for Marilyn to come in -- sweet Marilyn with her firm rump and soft breasts.

Instead, though, another girl came in, followed by a guy.

“Excuse us,” the girl said. “We have a use for this room.” The guy looked sheepish, as though he wasn’t sure what was going on. Still, the girl seemed to belong to the sorority; she even looked vaguely familiar. Andy gathered up his book and papers and headed out. Marilyn was outside the room waiting for him.

“Look, did you drive?” she asked. He hadn’t, as the weather was clear.

“No. It was good weather.”

“Well, I’ll see you Sunday, then.” Something was up, but she didn’t sound like it was something he’d done.

“Aren’t you going to see me off?” If he wasn’t going to get to nuzzle her sweet breasts, he wanted to at least taste her sweet mouth. He got his wish, but the weather was cool enough that they were both wearing coats. There was nothing unsatisfactory about the kiss itself, but the comparison with the making-out time he’d expected led to a little dissatisfaction.

Sunday, he had her tantalizing hip pressed against his for the service and a sweet kiss goodbye at her porch. Enjoyable as these were, he missed the time he’d lost Thursday. On the other hand, Tuesday, after the movie, they’d be all alone in the back seat.

Before they got to the movie, Marilyn dropped her bombshell.

“Look, everybody is grateful for the work you’ve been doing on College Math,” she said. “It’s just that one of the girls raised the issue that the room is for studying and not for canoodling. So, we’re going to have to find another place. For now, can you drive your car Thursday afternoon? We could go out in it then.”

“Everybody would know.” He was thinking. Thursday afternoon wasn’t the best time for making out in the back seat of a car. Marilyn needed privacy. They didn’t even go as far -- hadn’t even gone as far -- in the room in the sorority house. And, there, they put a chair to block the door.

“Andy, everybody already knows. That’s the problem. If any other woman had the chance to be private with her boyfriend in the house, she’d do the same thing. Maybe not quite the same -- you lift me up, after all, and I enjoy that -- but they’d be making out. And that room can accommodate our making out, but it can’t accommodate fifty couples’ making out.”

Well, the news could be worse. Marilyn didn’t want to stop it; someone else -- probably that witch who’d come in the previous Thursday -- had been jealous. And she’d been jealous of what they had. Marilyn wanted it, or wanted some kind of making out, which was the positive side of this news -- that and that she liked being picked up.

“Okay.” He didn’t see where he had a choice. And, after all, her present suggestion was that they make out elsewhere.

He started thinking about that during the movie, but present pleasures drove future schemes out of his mind when they parked. When he thought about it that night, he figured that he was committed to drive to the tutoring session on Thursday.

When he did, he met three girls who were furious, and not with him.

“Whatever that Penelope wants from now on,” Hailey said, “I’m against. Anything.”

“Well,” Barbara said, “she’s a senior. I doubt that she’ll want anything you’ll vote on. If she gets pinned, I suspect that she’ll get fewer hugs at candlelight than she might expect, but that’s all. After all, she wasn’t even considered for any offices this fall, and she’s a senior.” Then they looked at him.

“I thought all this was secret,” he said. The three were sharing more details than Marilyn had felt comfortable doing.

“Look,” Nancy said, “What happens at chapter meeting can’t be shared with anyone else. But, if Penelope is a bitch in chapter meeting, I don’t feel restricted from saying that she’s a bitch.”

“Well, that’s fine, and I’m not about to spill any of your secrets, if any of that is secret. But let’s get down to College Algebra.” And they did.

The place he took Marilyn after the tutoring session was sheltered by trees and at the side of a quiet road. Even so, Marilyn acted nervous, and he couldn’t blame her. They might be in shade, but there was bright sunlit space visible out of each window. Even if they had been in true darkness, they wouldn’t have felt hidden. Anyway, caressing her breasts and stroking her jeans-clad leg didn’t feel as arousing as nuzzling her breasts with his mouth and kneading her butt.

“Not quite the same, is it?” she said before he drove her home.

“Not really.”

“Maybe, we should find another time as well as another place.” Her suggestion started him really thinking. After leaving her with a kiss at the sorority’s front porch, he cursed himself. He needed to think outside the box. He’d been stuck on what they had done and what kids did -- really, what he knew kids did, and he probably didn’t know what the possibilities were. He sure wasn’t plugged in to the grapevine. Well, abandoning all that about what kids did, what did he want?

That night, he thought it all out. He loved to have her writhe in his arms. She was the sexiest woman in the world, and at her sexiest then. On the other hand, he could feel it but not really see it. What did her face look like then? Her body?

He would love to actually make love to her, but that was for the future. He could imagine it alone at night, he wouldn’t experience it. Well, he wouldn’t experience it any time soon. Marilyn was his girl; they were a couple. All he had to do was to move them forward one step at a time. Sooner or later, that would be the only step they hadn’t taken.

Anyway, obtainable, as opposed to fantasy. He wanted to see her in her total beauty. He wanted to see her writhe like that. That might well be two steps, although he’d held her half-dressed and writhing a fair number of times.

She didn’t like being even partly undressed in the sunlight. Well, that was a privacy issue. If you were in a car, you could see forever, and you felt that you could be seen forever. And, really, the side of the road meant that you’d just traveled that road -- anyone else could.

He should find some place beside the roadside. Well, they were in the middle of the Illinois farm belt. There had to be some fields which were far from the road. Well, all fields had parts far from the road. Most of them were naked as newborns and flat as a tablecloth. But he’d found trees along the side of a road; he could find a field sheltered by trees.

It took him a little while. Some well-sheltered spots were filled with rows of corn stumps. That wasn’t what he’d want to lie on, let alone delicate Marilyn. Finally, he found his spot. It was reachable by a maze of farm roads, and he took a while finding it again when he tried to retrace his route. He found a better approach, though, and actually drove off the road and parked where he wanted to leave the car. Even standing up, you could only see in one direction, and that was another empty field. Sitting down, a line of brush hid even that. There were two paths in wide enough for a pickup -- or, he supposed, a tractor. But those paths led straight to the far corner of the field. They didn’t give a line of sight to the spot he chose. The line of brush, when he investigated it, bordered a stream. One of the paths crossed the stream, which was looking deep enough to make that a questionable undertaking. Then he remembered the tractors he’d seen, with their engines more than a yard above the ground. Well, that wasn’t his business.

Tuesday, he had done everything to make this plan happen except work up his nerve to ask her. Marilyn’s exquisite sexiness that night increased both his desire to have it happen and his anxiety that something might go wrong.

He held Marilyn as she writhed in his arms. His eyes stared across the front seat to the dark beyond the windshield, but he didn’t see it. He was concentrating on the feel of the woman in his arms and in his lap. She was so sexy, so responsive. As she relaxed, he kissed her hair. His hand was still on her thigh as he enjoyed the warmth, the softness, the smoothness. And he’d enjoyed a thousand times more the slick moisture where his finger had penetrated inside her panties.

After Marilyn’s breath evened, he started stroking that extra smoothness again. Soon, she stiffened in his arms. As she began to writhe again, he voiced how much he prized her responsiveness.

“Oh, Marilyn.” He dared not express the particulars, the moist warmth he enjoyed touching and lusted to inhabit, the sensations of her response to him. Well, two times was her limit. As she relaxed again, he withdrew his hand to hug her with both arms. He could hold her warm relaxed body for a long time, even if he could hold her writhing body only briefly. He wanted Marilyn, all of Marilyn, and -- since he could only have the parts of her that her classes, family, and sorority didn’t claim -- he would take the parts he could get and be grateful.

“Want to go back?” he asked after she straightened on his lap. She got off to hook her bra again and button her blouse. On the way to the front seat, she pushed the blouse into the waistband of her skirt. Well, unless she would accept his new plan, this would the last time he’d see her for any length of time until Sunday morning. And if he didn’t suggest it, she wouldn’t have a chance to accept it.

“Nicer weather these days.” Which sure wasn’t the invitation he needed to deliver. “Would you like to go on a picnic for Saturday lunch?” There, he’d said it.

“You and me? Should I pack something?” She’d taken ‘picnic’ more literally than he’d intended.

“Definitely you and me. I’m not that ambitious. I was planning to stop at Burger King on the way. I’ll bring a blanket for a tablecloth -- ground cloth? -- but we can just decide to eat in the car if the weather is too bad.” Of course, if they ate in the car, he couldn’t see Marilyn lying down in her beauty, but she should hear that his time with her didn’t depend on the weather -- the weather being awfully chancy.

“Sounds like an idea.” Which was her acceptance, if not an enthusiastic one.

“11:00 Saturday?”

“Sure.”

When she was on the porch of her sorority house, she turned for his kiss. He stood on a lower step, which reduced body contact, but kept their mouths on the same level. Her kiss was sweet, welcoming his tongue with her own.

Back in his dorm room, he lay stripped on top of the bed replaying the evening. Soon, he clutched himself and imagined Saturday. He’d seen almost all of her body. She’d worn a bikini once last summer, and he’d seen everything above her waist in the dimness of his car. Over the last few months, his memories and imaginings had displaced the magazines he’d previously used to fuel his masturbation.