Chapter 1: Maggie's roommate was young and dumb and full of cum.
Chapter 3: The next three weeks passed in something like a slow time warp for Maggie.
Chapter 4: When Maggie opened the door to the apartment,
Maggie's roommate was young and dumb and full of cum.
That was what she called him to her friends.
"You wouldn't have believed who Young and Dumb and Full of Cum brought home last night; this girl–she must have been a townie, it's the only explanation–they come in at midnight, and she's shrieking like a banshee, and he's telling her to be quiet, while she's yelling things like, 'just feed it to me!'".
"When are you gonna hook up with Young and Dumb?" Adrienne would inquire, eyebrow raised in mock confrontation.
"I'm sure that if I died in the kitchen of an aneurism, Young and Dumb would be more than happy to desecrate my corpse on the linoleum", Maggie would joke back.
The girls laughed uproariously.
No one believed that Young and Dumb would want Maggie– Maggie was fat.
Not that Maggie didn't date frequently. Maggie worked in a department store and found that she often met her lovers there, over the counter at the customer service kiosk. Often the men who were interested in Maggie were twenty or thirty kilos lighter than she was: tall, mild mannered, intelligent, lithe young men who wanted their women confident and fleshy– chubby chasers, they were sometimes called.
Maggie sometimes envisioned her life as a carousel, where each Friday night was a matter of deciding which handsome horse to climb on to. The girls giggled when she told them this. They loved it. They loved Maggie. But Young and Dumb? He was a stud. He belonged on the beach, not in the pants of Maggie McClellan.
Maggie's lovers, upon first meeting with Young and Dumb, inevitably found great sport in making fun of him once sequestered in the privacy of Maggie's room. Jared was no different: Maggie remembered laughing uncontrollably into her pillow as Jared had forced air loudly through his nostrils and flapped his lips in imitation of a horse (actually in imitation of Young and Dumb), while reaching to unbutton her trousers.
Yes, Young & Dumb was an ice breaker– a handy conversation piece which also paid half of the rent.
"How's your roommate?" Maggie's male and female acquaintances alike would inquire of her– even those who had never met him. Young and Dumb and Full of Cum was legendary.
One night Maggie arrived home late from dinner with the girls to find all of the lights in the apartment off, but the television on, though muted. Maggie was reaching for the living room light-switch when she heard a voice in the darkness.
"There's a message for you".
Maggie jumped.
"Chris?"
"Yes. Did I scare you?"
"Yes", Maggie said, putting a hand over her heart. She moved to the low table by the window and switched on the lamp. The room filled with a soft light. Young and Dumb was lying in what is commonly called "foetal position" on the sofa, staring towards the light of the television across the room. Maggie looked at him for a moment, thought of asking him if he was alright, and then said, "who left a message?"
"Jacob", said Chris.
"Jared?" asked Maggie.
"Maybe", Chris answered.
"Gotcha", Maggie said.
Maggie padded into the kitchen and put away her white styrofoam container of left-overs from dinner. She was puzzled by her roommate's unusual behaviour, but pleased to hear that Jared had called again. She'd meant to return his last call, but had forgotten. Maggie poured herself a glass of water and leaned against the wall by the answering machine. She pressed "play", and sipped from her glass in a sort of gleeful anticipation that was brought on by the drinks she had consumed over dinner. The tape rewound and clicked, and Jared's voice came out from the speaker.
"Hey, this is a message for Maggie– Hey Maggie this is Jared, I got your landline number from your roommate so I could leave you a real message. I saw your old machine there when I was over and I just had to– I've got one just like it, I love that old fashioned stuff. Don't hate me! Anyway, Maggie, I've been thinking about you. Want to get together on Friday? Give me a call, talk to you later, bye."
Maggie stifled a giggle, biting her lip instead. Jared– what a nerd. What a handsome, nerdy nerd, she thought. Maggie already had plans on Friday, but wondered if she couldn't squeeze in another date, somehow. She had this in mind as she returned to the living room, only to find, to her (slightly inebriated) surprise, that Young and Dumb had not changed his position. Maggie felt a tug of maternal instinct.
"What's up?" she asked, lowering herself down onto the arm of the sofa and giving Young and Dumb a friendly, and quick, knuckle rub back and forth on his shoulder. "You okay?"
Young and Dumb was quiet for a moment, during which Maggie started to feel drowsy.
"Don't you get tired of this roller-coaster?" Young and Dumb said, his eyes locked on the dark blue of the jeans covering his knees.
"This what?", asked Maggie, wondering if her roommate was on acid, and, if he was, if a trip to the hospital would be avoidable.
"This–", Young and Dumb began, and Maggie saw his facial muscles clench and a tear run down his face.
"Chris..." she said, softly, wanting him to stop crying but not wanting to touch him again.
"Nobody means anything!" Young and Dumb said to his knees, "nobody cares about anything!"
Maggie was silent. She wondered if this would take long, and if she had any new email waiting for her in her room.
"Aren't you tired of it?" Young and Dumb asked again. Though his voice implored her and his face was now a mask of pain–eyes in tearful slits, nostrils flared, brow clenched, lips pouting–still he didn't look away from his jeans.
"Tired of people not caring?" Maggie asked, feeling anxious. It seemed that she would be required to engage in this conversation for an unpredictable amount of time.
"Tired of THIS!" Young and Dumb said.
"What?" Maggie asked, her eyes taking scope of the room, looking for an answer. When Maggie's gaze returned to Young and Dumb, he was staring at her.
"Maggie", he said.
"Yes?"
"Maggie, don't you just want to find someone to love?", Young and Dumb asked, his eyes piercing into her in a way that reminded Maggie of an expression an old dog of hers had adopted whenever it felt that it had been slighted. Young and Dumb had the appearance of an angry child– but with the features of an angel, or a chiselled soap opera protagonist. Maggie's confusion intensified.
"Yes...", Maggie said, more because she felt she needed an immediate answer, rather than because she agreed.
And then her roommate's arms were around her and her body was in motion, and there were hands under the fabric of her shirt and moving up her back, and Young and Dumb's mouth was on hers. Young and Dumb kissed as strongly as his bone structure might have suggested, and as his fingers came up and laced themselves into the curls of her hair, Maggie thought a thought that deserved hours, possibly years of analytical dissection:
Yes, finally.
The next three weeks passed in something like a slow time warp for Maggie. After waking up that first morning in her roommate's bed, and the next morning as well, and a few mornings each week after that, she felt a sort of glow creep into her life; a bright, luminescent, orange glow.
Grocery shopping together, now, they joked: "Oh here, Maggie, here's your spinach", Young and Dumb would say, grinning like a little boy with a secret to tell– and Maggie would find it astounding that in all the time they'd lived together, they had never discussed her constantly replenished supply of spinach, or Young and Dumb's habit of eating seemingly nothing but ham sandwiches and bananas for weeks, or Maggie's love of expensive, decadent hair conditioning products. They'd been aware of each other's idiosyncrasies, but never until now had they found them exciting.
Maggie had been unusually busy at work, covering the shifts of another girl who wasn't feeling well, and as she hurried home one evening, Maggie was thinking about how nice it would be to spend the rest of the night curled up in the warmth of Young and Dumb's embrace. It was then that she received a phone call from Adrienne.
"How are things with Chris?" Adrienne asked her, after the usual salutations.
"Oh fine, but I haven't been around very much this week, you know, so tonight I picked us up a movie. It will be nice, we love staying in." Maggie smiled, making her way through the crowds towards the stairs of the subway.
"You two are really just too much".
"I know! I've got to run though, I'm just heading underground", Maggie said, and Adrienne wished her well and scolded her for her recent absence among her friends, and Maggie promised that she would stop devoting all of her free time to "the stud".
When Maggie opened the door to the apartment, the woman seated on the sofa was the first thing that she saw. Maggie's hand was frozen on the keys in the dead-bolt while her eyes were locked on the curve of the woman's neck where it met the deep red of her top. The strangest thing to Maggie was that, as the woman turned her head towards the sounds of Maggie's entrance, the woman met this shocked doorway tableau with a warm smile.
"Hi", the woman on the couch said. It was a relaxed, friendly greeting; a curious greeting.
Maggie finished turning the key in the lock and pulled it back out, and then moved around the door and pushed it closed behind her. She set the little plastic bag from the movie rental shop down on the table by the door, and leaned down to unfasten her boots. Try as she might, Maggie couldn't take her eyes off of the woman on the sofa.
"Hi", Maggie replied. She heard the distress in her voice, and then finally managed to break her gaze away and look down at her bootstrap. The woman said nothing else.
Maggie removed her jacket and hung it over the hook closest to the door, as her usual hook had been taken by a jacket obviously belonging to the woman on the sofa. It's his sister, it's Chris's sister, Maggie thought. She went into the living room. The woman was still looking at her, so Maggie did what came naturally. She smiled at the woman with her mouth closed, a symbol of feigned cheer, false camaraderie. The woman's right arm was draped over the back of the sofa and she looked utterly at ease.
"I'm Janet", the woman said, extending her hand. Her smile was genuine. She was smiling the "nice to meet you, fat girl" smile that seemed to affect the women Maggie met on a rising scale according to their own prettiness. The woman on the sofa was gorgeous.
"Maggie", Maggie said, reaching over the arm of the sofa and shaking the woman's hand. For some reason, Maggie shook it warmly, as though she felt that she and the woman had a future together– as sisters, perhaps. It was that fat girl smile– it got Maggie every time.
Maggie then moved into the kitchen where she found Young and Dumb, mixing martinis. She stared at Young and Dumb and waited for him to explain the woman in the living room. Young and Dumb was silent, and refused to meet Maggie's eyes.
Maggie turned and walked back into the living room, feeling the anger stiffening her muscles from her face down to her calves until, after a few steps, Maggie, was forced to stop walking. Maggie felt that she was suddenly unable to cross the living room and continue on towards her own bedroom. A wave of panic surged through her– she would never move again; she would be trapped in the living room forever. Paramedics would have to be called.
"Maggie. Are you the one who decorates?" the woman asked.
Maggie blinked.
"Yes." she said.
"Oh, I just love it", the woman on the sofa moaned, "It's like... modern retro. I always wish I had time to do my place like this."
Maggie could see that the woman had no idea that there was anything the matter with Maggie. To this woman, Maggie was about as threatening as a baby hamster. Maggie was Young and Dumb's poor, fat house-cat.
"Baby, we'll do our place like this" Young and Dumb said from the doorway behind Maggie. Maggie didn't turn around, and had a clear view of the woman–of Janet–beaming at the both of them. Maggie found momentum again, and, with another forced, tight, unappraised smile at the woman on the sofa, Maggie made her way quickly down the hall and into her bedroom; shoulders hunched, imagining Young and Dumb watching her go, but not allowing herself to look back to see that he wasn't.
Maggie's first instinct was to collapse back-first onto her bed and cry, but instead she dug her cellphone from her purse. She found Jared's number.
The line at the other end rang several times, and then Jared's voice picked up, backed by a low, static hum.
"Hey, this is Jared– you know me, I'm old fashioned; none of that new age crap for me. Leave a message and your number after the beep, and I'll call you back when I get in."