Chapter 18

Tracie was a nervous wreck. She was sitting in the parlor of the sorority house, having chewed her fingernails to ruins, when the man she had seen only once before walked in.

Her mind split, at that point. Half of it confirmed that the man Paula had raved about was indeed a hunk, as she remembered. That half sent signals to her belly that said “Oh yes!“

Upbringing is a difficult thing to overcome, sometimes though, and it was that half of her that cringed at the thought of this large, muscular man hulking over her naked body while her cherished virginity was ripped from her loins.

It took her only one point five seconds to chicken out.

“I’m looking for Paula French,” said the man in a deep voice that made Tracie almost vibrate.

“Sh-sh-she’s not here,” Tracie said weakly.

He looked at her interestedly. “Don’t I know you?” he asked.

Tracie had heard that line from a dozen young men, who had tried to start conversations with her. She’d always wanted to laugh when they tried it. She didn’t feel like laughing now, though. She felt like taking her shirt off. She chickened out again.

“I ... I picked Paula up at your house,” she said weakly.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. His interest seemed to wane. “Where is she?”

Tracie was a little bit stung. Why wasn’t he putting the make on her?!

“Her parents came and picked her up,” she said.

“Really!” He sounded genuinely surprised.

“Yes,” she said, her voice firming. If he wasn’t going to notice her as a woman ... well... he was the loser here! “They came to get her and take her home for Spring Break.”

Bobby’s response to that was somewhat surprising, to both of them. Without Paula, he didn’t know where he was supposed to go. That was a good thing, in the sense that he had gotten less and less comfortable with this whole cherry picking thing with every mile closer to Manhattan he drove. It just felt wrong. And if he couldn’t fulfill his promise because Paula wasn’t there, then it really wasn’t his fault. So he smiled.

“That’s too bad,” he said.

Tracie saw the smile, and misinterpreted it. From her viewpoint, Bobby was smiling because with Paula gone, that left him free to pursue her. Paula hadn’t actually told her any details about how all this was supposed to go. She just said that Bobby had agreed to be there to take care of “all of us.” She knew that Paula had planned on sneaking him into the sorority house, which wouldn’t be that hard since almost everyone was gone for Spring Break anyway. Tracie just assumed that, when it was her turn, Paula would bring him to her room. Now he was here ... and he was ready! She was not.

“I’m supposed to take you over to Melanie’s house,” she blurted. She expected him to suggest they go to her room any second.

“Melanie?” He looked confused, but it passed quickly. “Oh ... is that where I’m supposed to ... be?”

“Yes!” she said, too loudly. She had to do something to undo her pledge to participate. “I changed my mind,” she gasped.

“You changed your mind?” He was clearly confused.

“About doing this,” she said weakly.

“About doing what?” he asked.

She stared at him. He seemed not to know what she was talking about. “You know,” she said. “About why you’re here.”

His face went smooth.

“Oh,” he said. He seemed uncomfortable for some reason. “You were ... um ... one of them?”

In a flash of understanding Tracie realized that he didn’t have much information about this either. He hadn’t even known she was one of the women he was there to see! She felt better instantly.

“Yes, but I decided not to,” she said.

“Oh, okay,” he said. “That’s fine.”

She felt a twinge of disappointment that he was willing to give up so easily on her. It just confirmed in her own mind that this was all a stupid idea.

“Paula asked me to show you where the others live,” she said. “You ready?”

“I guess so.”

She had expected him to say “You bet I am!“ or, perhaps, “Bring them on, Baby, I’m hot to trot!” That he seemed just as ambivalent about all this as she did made him seem less threatening than he’d been a few minutes before.

It only took them seven minutes to drive to Melanie’s house. There were three stoplights on the way, and they got all three on red. He was affable, and not at all upset that she’d cancelled on him, but in a way that didn’t seem to reject her. He didn’t just sit quietly and wait for her to tell him where to turn. He commented on how nice the campus looked, and he asked her about school. He said it was his first time in Manhattan, and said he had a sister in school there, and was going to visit her later. He just seemed like a regular guy.

But, as they parked, she realized that she either had to walk home or go in with him, in which case she’d be more or less trapped there. To her immense surprise, when he found out she was going to walk, he said he’d take her back to the sorority house.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said.

“You shouldn’t be penalized just because you changed your mind,” he said.

What Tracie found exceedingly odd was that, in the six minutes it took him to stop in front of the sorority house, and let her out, she almost changed her mind again.

“Thanks,” he said. His smile made her stomach feel funny.

“No problem,” she said. “You’re sure you can find it again?”

“No problem,” he said, aping her previous response. He grinned.

It wasn’t until he was gone that she gave serious thought to walking over to Melanie’s after all. He was handsome. She wondered what it would be like, looking up into those blue eyes ... from underneath him ... while she was being made a woman.

Paula had planned on having Bobby from when he arrived, on the sixteenth, until the morning of St. Patrick’s Day, on the seventeenth. She had some misty plans to turn him over to Tracie Thursday morning, and then take him to Melanie’s when Tracie was taken care of. Melanie, Tiffany and Suzie would have him the rest of the day, and all that night, and everybody would be happy on Friday morning when he left. Paula had told Melanie about this time schedule, but hadn’t said anything to Tracie, because Tracie lived just down the hall from her. She’d been about to go find Tracie when her parents showed up unexpectedly.

So his arrival at the house lived in by Melanie, Tiffany and Suzie was a day in advance of when it had been planned, and the girls were not ready for him.

For one thing, Melanie was still in her robe, and Tiffany was wearing a pair of sweat shorts and a sleeveless sweat shirt with holes in it. Neither had on makeup, and neither had done anything with their hair, other than pull it up into a makeshift pony tail. It was a lazy day. Suzie was gone, out jogging, something she did every day, and which neither other girl had any inclination to join her in, when there was a knock at the door.

Tiffany was closer, so she went to see who was there.

“Hi, I’m Bobby,” said the man at the door.

Tiffany, who was five-five, looked up. She thought “lumberjack” for some reason.

“Who is it?” came Melanie’s faint call from farther into the house.

“I don’t know!” yelled Tiffany, over her shoulder.

“I’m Bobby,” repeated the man. “Paula couldn’t bring me. She had to go home.”

It clicked in Tiffany’s mind then. Paula had never actually told them the man’s name who was to come and harvest all those cherries. She took a step back. He was huge!

A frazzled looking Melanie came into the room. She was wearing pink bunny slippers, with big, floppy ears on the toes, above buck-toothed faces.

“What?” she asked, looking past Tiffany at the dark bulk of a man, surrounded by what light was getting past him through the door.

“It’s him!” gasped Tiffany.

“Who?” asked Melanie.

“Him!“ squealed Tiffany.

Bobby looked at the two women. “Paula couldn’t bring me,” he said again. He didn’t know what else to say.

“Oh!” It was Melanie’s turn to gasp. She thought of how she was dressed. “Shit!”

“Is this a bad time?” asked Bobby. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected. He’d thought about what this might be like dozens of times, but none of those scenarios had been remotely like this.

“It’s not Thursday!” said Melanie.

“No,” said Bobby. “It’s Wednesday.”

“But Paula said Thursday!” said Melanie.

“Oh,” said Bobby, who was not privy to Paula’s original plan. “You want me to come back tomorrow?”

This wasn’t going at all like Melanie had dreamed it would go. She’d planned what to wear, and how to have her hair, and what makeup to use. She’d even gotten new perfume, just for this occasion. She stared at the bulk filling the doorway, and her knees got a little shaky. She knew instinctively that, if she sent him away, she would chicken out the next day. She was tired of chickening out. None of her plans worked out, but that was just too bad.

“No,” she said. “We just weren’t expecting you. Come in,” she added.

He moved into the room and Tiffany stared at him, leaving the door open.

“Tiffany!” said Melanie, trying to take charge.

“Huh?” asked Tiffany, looking over.

“Door?”

“Oh.” Tiffany closed the door.

Bobby examined the two women. They reminded him of his sisters, when they were younger. He smiled, because that made him feel a little bit less uncomfortable.

“Sorry about the mix-up,” he said. “Paula went home to see her parents.”

“You’re kidding!” said Melanie, who sounded shocked. How could Paula just desert them like this?!”

“I gather it was a surprise for her too,” said Bobby.

Melanie tried to deal with the situation, and fell back on routine, for lack of anything better. “I’m Melanie,” she said. “This is Tiffany.”

“Pleased to meet you both,” said Bobby, almost formally. He winced in his mind, but it didn’t show on his face. He felt like he wasn’t handling this well at all. “I’m glad we can move things up.” That was even worse, and he wished they had told him to come back tomorrow.

Melanie’s reaction to his two comments was as mixed as the comments themselves. His formal greeting seemed odd, under the circumstances. His apparent eagerness to serve in his role as stud was much more in line with what she’d expected. That he was eager to be the stud, despite their ratty appearance, made her knees act up again.

“We should go get dressed,” she yipped.

Again, Bobby saw the behavior of young, inexperienced women. Their innocence appealed to him, even if this crazy plan did not. They were worried about their appearance, not knowing that, if a man found them attractive, it didn’t matter if they were fixed up or not. He’d seen his sisters with sleep wrinkles on their faces, and hair a mess, and had been impatient to mount them anyway. It wasn’t how they looked that turned him on ... it was who they were. He tried to transfer that feeling to these two young women.