Jill spoke up after a moment, looking genuinely curious, "Your Fixing methodology, sex. What does it involve and how far will you go?"
I stammered, still uncomfortable speaking about the topic. "W-well, I have a long way to go until I'm ready for whatever it involves and I'm not sure how far I'm willing to go."
I gave a barebones answer that was still the truth. Socializing was hard!
Jill did not let up. She said with an eyebrow raised, "Maria seemed angr-"
"Jill." Sagar interrupted her with uncharacteristic firmness, "There's no need for us to pry." He then continues in a softer tone, "They will share on their own if they are comfortable doing so."
Jill pouted with displeasure, but soon shrugged. Keith and Monica also deflated upon hearing Sagar's stance. They had a distinct sense that they missed out on some spicy drama, but Sagar's peaceful aura commanded enough respect that they also dropped any plans to bring up the topic.
I laughed awkwardly and thought, 'Thankfully, she stopped or my great mood might have been ruined. I was not gone for long enough to have such a serious conversation. Sagar must have realized that. What a pal.'
Conspicuously changing the topic, I asked my friends, "Do you all like your training schedules and your Mentors?"
Keith said, "Oh yeah, mate. We were just talking about this earlier, but you missed it. All of our Mentors are famous. What about yours?"
"Same." I replied, "Very famous. A lot of fun to be around too."
Maria returned with what looked like apple juice. I got out of my booth to let her return to her seat and plate. She had a blush on her face and didn't look at me, but I smiled brightly at her. She settled in and picked at her food.
While I was returning to my seat, Monica whispered something in Maria's ear. I couldn't make it out, but whatever it was made Maria nearly cough as she put her head down in embarrassment. I was burning with curiosity, but I held myself back from asking. It would have made her uncomfortable. The three on the other side of the table laughed along with Monica at Maria's flustered reactions. I only sat there and stared at her, which no doubt increased her embarrassment. Her reactions were simply too cute. I couldn't miss anything.
Monica said with a smug smile, "Ahh. Life is good. I can't wait to start working with people in need. We talked theory today, no practice. What about yous guys?"
Jill and Maria nodded in confirmation that they also only went through theory. Keith said, "Oh! My Mentor took me people-watching. I thought it was for a lesson, but it turned out he just wanted to have a laugh at them. No clue how that has to do with Fixing. Maybe we'll get to the moral of the story this afternoon."
Sagar chimed in, "I attended a yoga class with my Mentor. It was low intensity and focused on mindfulness."
I fell into thought at Sagar's statement. Not only yoga, but all physical health classes made sense for us if we are going to be in contact with potentially unstable Clogs. 'Will we all be taught self-defense skills to some degree? Maybe these geniuses know how to take care of themselves under duress, but I'm clueless!'
"I'd die from boredom if I had to do yoga for hours, mate." muttered Keith. A buzzing sound rang out. Keith fished out his vibrating phone, took a look at it, and picked up with a smiling, "Sup, babe?" He gave us a polite gesture to indicate 'one minute'.
Monica gave him a playful pout and stuck her tongue out at him while he stepped away. Seeing Keith looking at them from a distance, she blatantly fixed her bra, which included juggling her insanely jiggly cleavage at him. She poofed her hair and said wistfully to us at the table, "Can you believe Keith the only gorgeous black man I know who got no kids and ain't gay? And he's a player! How tragic."
I got the feeling that despite complaining about Keith's habits, she was a player too, but I was not about to bring that up. Nor was I about to bring up that he's half-gay, because I was clearly the last one to know about that. Keith and Monica's personalities seemed similar in a lot of ways and they made a great match in my opinion, except for their height. I thought back to Keith's tall and lanky 6'7" frame smooching her petite 5'2" figure yesterday. It was like Peter Pan lewding on Tinker Bell.
"Keith is a responsible young man." consoled Sagar, "He'll settle down eventually."
"How about you, Sagar?" Monica asked with mock sadness, "Will you console my lonely heart?"
Sagar laughed, and Jill gave Monica a stinkeye, to which Monica returned a cheeky wink. Maria had sufficiently recovered from the embarrassment of earlier. She came in this time to defuse the situation. She asked Jill, "How was the parfait?"
Jill replied, "It was alright. Too much sugar. Your taco salad looks great." Maria said, "Yeah, the ground beef is a little too oily, but otherwise, it's great."
The girls continued with small talk at the table for some time. I didn't contribute much. Small talk makes me impatient and tired. I could have pushed myself to join in and try to improve my social skills, but I was quite drained after going through so much earlier. Sagar didn't seem like the type for small talk either. Soon, Keith came back and our plates were nearly cleared. Over a lull in the conversation, Jill asked hesitantly, "Do you guys.. want to hang out after work at my place?"
This surprised me since it didn't seem like Jill enjoyed our company that much. She rarely smiled. I supposed that it could be a form of resting bitch face and generally stoic mannerisms. Another possibility was that she wanted an excuse to bring Sagar to her place. Monica, Keith, and Maria immediately accepted, while Sagar and I were slow on the uptake. Maria must have remembered that I was her ride, so she looked at me apologetically.
In any case, I didn't want to miss any possible time with Maria so I also said, "Sure." I smiled at Maria and said to Jill, "Text me the address, please." She passed her phone around so we could add ourselves as contacts.
The phone came around to Sagar and he eventually also capitulated. He said, "Fine, but I should call my parents. I cannot do this often." Aha! So he does have a weakness! I found myself internally gloating at how life is difficult even for that perfect specimen of a man, until I realized how petty that was of me.
Shaking my head, I shifted my position and my hand inadvertently landed on top of Maria's hand. We both squirmed, but neither of us recoiled. My lovestruck smile came back and I squeezed lightly. Her hand felt soft and fragile in mine. She looked down and glanced over at me. Did she think I was trying to get her attention or talk to her about something? I wasn't.. I was just happily enjoying the moment.
Seeing my idiotic smile, she must have figured that out too, because she let out an adorable huff of exasperation. My smile grew even wider and my attention on everyone else was entirely lost. Maria nudged me lightly with an elbow and said to the others, "Tom and I will get going. See you in the lobby at 4."
I nearly jumped at how much her statement made it sound like we were already a couple. We masked up, picked up our plates, and headed to the exit. I hadn't let go of her hand and I was also temporarily ignoring however much embarrassment Maria was feeling. I could tell she was feeling it too, because her head was down and her face was red. After we deposited our used plates at the turn table, she said quietly, "Tom.. let's find somewhere to talk."
A scary premonition crept through me, but I didn't let it run rampant like last time. It was simply an instinctual fight or flight response that had no real basis in modern emotional interactions. That was my justification for bottling it up and ignoring it. I calmly said, "Sure, Maria."
It hadn't been a full hour yet, so we still had maybe 10 minutes of free time before we had to return. We went to an atrium nearby the cafeteria and she stopped us at a brightly lit window. There were people passing by, but no one near us.
I kept my breathing even as I waited for her to begin. She squeezed my hand and started with a gentle tone, "Even though I support leftist policies, my family has always been very much socially conservative. I am the same. I have always worked hard and pursued my ambitions instead of boys. Yesterday, we met and I felt like doing something selfish. I pounced on you. You were my first kiss."
My belly filled with butterflies and my consciousness flew above the clouds in euphoria! I felt so lucky that even though we were very different people, we were both going through a shared experience of firsts! She lowered her head for a moment and then looked up at me with a complicated expression. That's when I realized she brought all this up because she was going somewhere with it. "So.. your methodology is sex, huh?" she asks with a pained smile.
I felt the inner dread return slowly.
Maria's head dropped and she said softly, "Tom.. what now? I can't lie to my family about what you do. They won't accept you. They'll give me constant grief about it. I'm also having a hard time accepting it! I like you a lot! It's not fair! You may be infatuated with me now, but will you feel the same in 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?"
Her voice had picked up in volume, "Especially with all the sex you'll be having! I'm old fashioned, Tom. My methodology will never involve sex."
She looked up at me and said intensely, "When I give myself to a man, it will be for life!"
I was shocked at how serious this had become. We hadn't even started dating, but she was already planning marriage years down the line. In other words, she only had a single reservation about starting a relationship with me! I was shaking in both hope and fear as I decided to make everything clear to her. I said with a serious face and resolute tone, "Maria.. I understand your hesitancy. I can give up ANYTHING for you, EXCEPT for this job. My mom placed me here and I absolutely cannot let down her expectations."
Maria turned her head away from me to look out the window. I got the feeling that was not the answer she wanted. She then said in a drawn-out and deliberate manner, "Any..thing..?"
Getting that out of my system had somehow relieved me of all my jitters. I was presented with a calm serenity. I followed her gaze out the window and explained, "Yes, because I love you." I had nothing else in my life that I truly cared about except my mom and Maria, so I didn't exactly have much to lose.
After a half minute of tense silence, she spoke "Alright." almost indiscernably. I looked down at her with happy surprise and she smiled back at me. I hugged her with glee! That was a big scare. Actually, wasn't she a little too weak to the 'I love you' line? I filed that away for future emergencies, not that I'd use it often, otherwise it might lose its weight.
I was going to pull my head out of the hug to check how much time we had left, but when my head left her shoulder, she pulled my mask off and locked her lips with mine. My thoughts of time flew out the window.
I felt her arms wrap around my neck, and to a lesser extent, her breasts press against my chest through her clothes. We experimented with our tongues this time, prodding each other lightly, but not going too far. I recalled how monstrously long her tongue was from this morning and shuddered imagining how lovely it would feel wrapped around my tongue, or elsewhere. This moment was not about me, though.
I wanted this moment to be about her, so I listened to her body like Ryan had taught me. What I heard made me shiver with anticipation. She wanted me. She was breathing rapidly, standing on her tiptoes, and her hands were stroking my neck and hair. I pressed her against the window pane. My aggression only made our kisses become more desperate.
"Shouldn't you be getting to work, youngsters?"
I was only semi-erect, but I was still going to charge the lady who interrupted us with the high crime of cockblocking. Maria pushed off of me with her face colored entirely red.
"Yes, of course. Sorry ma'am." I replied, turning around to get a good look at the perpetrator. She was a senior citizen who looked vaguely familiar. She said, "Good, good. 'Work hard, play hard' is the motto these days, I hear." Then, she walked on her way.
I turned back to Maria with the intention to complain about the interruption, but Maria somehow looked genuinely distraught, with tears building in her eyes. "What's going on, Maria?" I asked with worry. She slapped my shoulder lightly. Then she slapped my other shoulder a little harder. I was confused. She kept going. "Hey.. Maria? Hey?!"
"Look what you did! You ruined me! That was Sonia Sotomayor, my idol!" she said with a mix of distress and shame. Woah! I knew she looked familiar. I couldn't help but laugh at how I had jokingly intended to charge a Justice on the Supreme Court with a crime. "Hahahaha!"
"Give me back my missed opportunity for a good first impression!" she whined as she playfully hit me again.
I surrendered, "Okay, okay! It was all my fault. Next time you see her, you can explain that I ruined it for you. Happy?"
She laughed at our silliness and wiped away the tears that were threatening to fall. "Humph.. I should deprive you of kisses for the rest of today."
"Ah! No way!" I cried out.
Maria giggled and said, "Just kidding." She checked the time and she winced. She said, "On a serious note, I just want to say before we go back, please give me more time to think about whether or not we can be lovers. In the meantime, we can still be dating. Okay?"
(A/N: "Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public." - Cornel West)