Sylvan Courtyard 6: Career Assist

For those of you who have observed that Chapters 3 and 5 seemed a bit truncated, please understand that they were originally sort of gun barrel sequences for Chapters 4 and this one. I felt that leaving them that way made for over-long entries...

And while I have not iterated it with this series, please remember that I do not presume to write deathless prose, not realistic fiction. I just aim to manage plausibly ridiculous.

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Sylvan Courtyard -- Six: Career Assistance

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Patty Bohannan and I were having lunch, doing our usual thing of having her proof my writing while I checked her math. She really was a natural beauty, I found myself musing almost regretfully. If it were not for mutually incompatible life plans... Right now, while I was still here and still didn't have my doctorate, I was decidedly not relationship material. Relationship material is what Patty wanted. And what she deserved.

An idea formed fully in my head in an instant. Maybe a terrible one, but I doubted it. I was pretty sure it was genius.

"Patty," I said suddenly before I could chicken out, "There is a pool party at my apartment complex on Saturday. Wanna come?"

She looked at me. "Another date, Ken?" she asked dubiously. "I thought we decided we weren't going to work. Hell, you were the one who said it first..."

"I am not asking you out, Patty," I said firmly. "I am offering the opportunity to come hang out Saturday by my apartment's pool. There will be beer and likely other beverages. As an added incentive, I have a lot of good-looking male neighbors who will be standing around shirtless." She smirked. "And to be honest, there is one such guy in particular that I think you might like to meet." I paused. "My landlord."

"You want to set me up with your super?"

"He is not what you are thinking," I said tartly. "He is my age, in great shape, and owns the place. He is also quite alone in life, since he spends almost all his time with his tenants, and he won't touch any of them. He deserves the chance to meet someone great like you." I did not add that Jesse was highly educated, a former doctoral student himself, wildly responsible, and had a ruggedly good-looking face. I didn't want Patty to think I was over-selling him.

Damn, Jesse really was a catch, wasn't he?

*

Saturday, I came out to meet Patty in the parking lot and let her in through the entrance. She climbed out of her Chevy and waved.

Patty had been pretty eager for an afternoon poolside, but less impressed at the idea of being set up with a stranger. Nevertheless, I got the idea that she had decided to come loaded for bear anyway. What gave me that idea? The bright yellow bikini she wore under a sheer purple coverup. She wasn't necessarily going to hunt the bear, but I was encouraged that she had come prepared for said hunt... should the bear appear tasty...

The vague outlines of the bikini once more made me regret that this woman had not been down for some casual sex...

I buzzed us into the courtyard, where the party had been working for almost half an hour already. As we entered, both Patty and I got a few looks. Dates are allowed at pool parties but are rarer than you would think. Me bringing one was unheard of. I got a few curious gazes from various women. Patty got more than a few curious gazes from some guys. As we moved into the courtyard, I introduced Patty as a friend to several people.

I will admit, the guys I introduced her to were all handsome, but with personalities I knew she would not like. I can be a plotter.

But I steered us inexorably toward the beer keg, where Jesse was as usual hovering vigilantly.

"Jesse," I waved. "You ordered up some more good weather again today. How do you always pull it off?"

"Hey, Ken. It is better to be lucky than good."

"Listen, I brought a friend today. This is Patty Bohannon. She's a colleague at the university. Patty, this is Jesse. He owns the place and tries to keep us from burning it to the ground."

Jesse may have been circumstantially womanless in recent years, but he remembered how to be charming. And he seemed to want to be charming when confronted with an attractive woman like Patty, even if he did clearly think she was my date. "It is a hard job, but my sister and I manage it somehow," he smiled, shaking her hand. "Ken always manages to help out. I even trust him to keep matches in his apartment, unlike some of these gremlins."

Patty had been giving me the side-eye once she had realized that I was making a beeline for the guy I had wanted her to meet, but I could tell that she was grudgingly pleased with the bear that she was presented with at the end of our journey. We chatted for a while, and I contrived to take a back seat in the conversation as it progressed. When it became clear that both Patty and the bear were happy with that dynamic, I managed to extricate myself from the conversation at a moment when it would have been awkward for Patty to follow me.

I was pretty pleased with myself, honestly. And if they wanted to get together, they could damn well do it themselves from here on out.

"I think my brother is stealing your date," a voice said from behind me.

I turned to look at Josie, who had been who knows where, taking care of who knows what, when I had arrived.

I sighed inwardly. As was her usual practice, she was not in a bathing suit, despite it being a pool party. But the black shorts and close-fitting Avengers teeshirt she wore looked awfully good on her anyway.

I had come to realize that my gaydar had definitely been wrong about Josie. She was no lesbian. The flannel shirts and ubiquitous workbelt had thrown me off to start. And the lady electrician she had been bummed was not a babe the first day I met her? She had been bummed for Jesse, not herself.

But look, I was just not going to hit on Josie. I wouldn't do that to Jesse, I wouldn't do that with my landlady, and anyway... just... no. But nothing was going to stop me from looking. It's what I do.

"She is not my date," I said firmly, not for the first time that afternoon. "She is a friend at work. She lives in a rental house in town with four roommates and no pool, and I thought she could use a dip on a nice day like this."

"Uh-huh," she replied skeptically. "Still, I should probably thank you. My brother looks damn near smitten."

"Really?" I asked, openly enthusiastic and glad for some confirmation from a knowledgeable source.

"Really," Josie said firmly, a little enthusiastic herself. She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "Jesse just let Randall Weems, of all people, operate the keg on his own, while he was standing right there! All so her could keep his attention on your girl."

"Not my girl," I said again, automatically. "But yeah, he usually won't even let me pour for myself."

Disappointingly, Patty left before sundown. She had 'unbreakable commitments', she said.

Damn. But I could still have hope, I decided.

It was two days before I ran into Jesse again, and he pulled me aside. "Hey," he said with an elaborate casualness that was unconvincing. I perked up. "It was nice to meet your friend, um, Patty the other day. Do you think you'll ask her to come again?"

It would be fairly easy to ask Patty again, of course. But Jesse needed to work for this a little himself. So did Patty for that matter...

"Honestly, I hadn't thought about it, Jesse," I replied dismissively. Then I stopped. "That said, I do think she enjoyed herself. She only left because of that thing she had. I don't always see her at work," I lied easily, "but why don't you just call her yourself? I think she felt a little awkward not being a tenant at your party. If you are the one asking her, then she won't feel that way."

I turned to walk away, as if this had just been a passing conversation. I felt some gently evil satisfaction when Jesse found himself forced to hustle after me, while pretending he wasn't, to get me to give him her number.

The next pool party wasn't scheduled until late July, but lo and behold, the next damn day, there were signs up on the bulletin board about a bonus, impromptu pool party the immediately upcoming Saturday. I laughed like a Bond villain when I saw that.

But not as hard as I laughed on Friday, when the big splashy signs about this short-notice event were suddenly replaced with just 'Pool Party' written in on the calendar, giving no indication this was a special event. Jesse didn't want any clues around that he was having this whole event just as an excuse to invite Patty back.

Patty obviously showed up. I kept an eye on the two for a while, as she helped him guard the keg, but while they were clearly both happy to spend all their time together, they were trying to keep things casual.

As I was walking around the pool to say hi to Rhonda, Jane, and Becky, I almost tripped on a small stack of empty plastic cups lying on their side by the water.

My God.

There was litter on the ground, in easy view of Jesse, and he had not rushed to pick it up!

My parents watched a ton of old TV reruns when I was growing up, so I felt like Hannibal Smith from the A-Team, lighting up a cigar and saying, 'I love it when a plan comes together!'

As I approached, the women, possibly intentionally, centered their conversation on shit I did not care about, inducing me to ghost them, whereupon I ended up playing hacky sack with Frank, Manny, and Juan for a long while. All of us were pretty good and it got a bit cut-throat.

Suddenly, Josie was dragging me out of the game.

"Hey! What the fuck, Jo?" I asked at my unceremonious, involuntary surrender. "I was doing pretty damned well..."

"Shut up. Look," Josie said, jerking her chin over her shoulder without looking herself, or speaking loudly enough for anyone else to hear.

I looked obediently. The Justice League shirt she was wearing this week was a lot tighter than the Avengers one from the prior weekend. Those sorts of things make me generally obedient to attractive females.

"I don't see anything," I said, confused. Well, I saw that Justice League logo...

"Duh. It is who you don't see," she prompted.

Huh?

Wait. Jessie was AWOL from the keg. AWOL much earlier than he usually gave up on it.

In fact, he was absent from the courtyard entirely.

And so was Patty!

I smiled a little grin. "Well, well, well. I wonder where they are..."

"Shhh. I know where. Follow me," Josie said and headed at a bland pace toward the hallway to the laundry center. I dutifully sauntered after. We passed the actual entrance to the washers and dryers and fetched up at the state-mandated but world's most pointless fire exit.

All of us had gone through it at some point. There was no need for security or an alarm, as it led only to a small copse of trees, hemmed in by the back wall of the complex on one side, and the surprisingly high, rocky cliff face against which our home was nestled. If the complex was on fire, the last place you wanted to flee was back into this tiny dead-end.

Jesse, of course, always kept the door in perfect condition anyway. Josie opened it silently.

With a finger to her lips, she peeked around the edge, and I followed suit.

The only mammals you ever saw in the copse were squirrels, because nothing else could get back there.

Except today. We spied Jesse and Patty talking in low tones and smiles, and definitely not seeing us. Josie's trembling hand grabbed mine as Jesse somehow found the gumption to lean just that little bit more forward. Patty had her back to a big pine, and while she leaned back as Jesse leaned in, it was an obvious invitation to follow, not an attempt at escape.

When her head rested fully against the bark of the tree, Jesse kept going and interrupted whatever she was saying with a kiss!

But then he backed away. Not much, but uncertainly.

After a moment, Patty lifted her own hand to lightly grab the back of his head and pull him back for a much longer, much firmer, second kiss.

I shook my hand in Josie's grip and she squeezed back harder.

Yes! Result!

Of course, Josie and I should have given them their privacy. But Josie clearly wanted to see how things progressed, and I... am me.

The way things progressed was... rapidly.

Firm kisses became passionate. Bodies in close proximity became bodies pressed tightly together. Hips were ground against one another.

I shifted my position while keeping an eye on the festivities. Now I was standing more or less next to Josie, rather than leaning over her, which I judged a wiser choice. Had my landlady moved her ass back for any reason, she would have been pressing against my growing erection.

No.

This was not going to turn into a Rhonda or Jane sort of situation, no matter how much my body might be thrusting the possibility into my mind. Not with Josie.

Jesse did me a solid, and took my mind off of its momentary focus on Josie by suddenly kissing his way down Patty's jaw to her neck. She threw her head back, exposing her throat more to him and Jesse took advantage, lavishing attention on the long pale expanse.

I was totally excited. This level of makeout session was more than I could have hoped for so soon after they met.

Then Patty put her hand on the back of Jesse's head and pushed him down until his face was buried in the valley between her very nice, bikini-clad tits. Josie hissed at that.

When Patty reached behind her and loosened her bikini top, tugging it aside so that Jesse could begin to feast first on one exposed nipple, then the other, I hissed. Those were some very nice aureoles, oblong and dark, with very prominent nipples just aching for Jesse to clamp down on.

Damn...

Jesse seemed happy to dine there indefinitely, but then Patty pulled her hand from the small of his back, and slid it between them. She hesitated for long enough for Jesse to slow his own oral fixation. Slow, but not stop. Then Patty got determined again and slid her hand fully down inside Jesse's swim trunks.

Yeah, I was hard as a rock now. A blowjob, a handjob at the very least, was imminent. This was going to be great!

Just then, Josie pulled back, pushing me with her. And she let the door close silently behind us.

"Nope," she said.

"Aww! It was just getting good," I joked. Sort of.

"Perv!" she said, elbowing me as we started to walk away. "Those shorts were about to be pulled down, and I do not need the trauma of seeing my brother's erection."

"If it helps, I don't think it is going to be visibly out in the open air for long..." I drawled.

"Total perv!" Josie snorted. "But yeah... I hope it won't be visible for long either. I just don't want to see it!"

As we emerged back in the courtyard, the oblivious party still going on, Josie shoved me with her shoulder lightly. "You, Ken Hawthorne, are a god among men. Jesse needs a woman. I need Jesse to have a woman. And you let her get away, then thrust her into Jesse's arms!"

"I did not let her get away. I brought her here for him. I am sure that, as she did with me, she has also told Jesse that she is uninterested in any relationship that doesn't at least potentially have a future. That was not gonna happen with me."

"So you did try to nail her!"

"You saw her! Of course, I took a run at that. But I am explicitly uninterested in any kind of permanence at this point in my life," I said, not explaining myself.

"Well, I am glad those two romantics back there are going to 'take a run at it'," Josie declared. "If only to get my big brother to relax a little bit. He's been driving me crazy."

"I'm a romantic," I defended myself.

"Sure, Mister 'I Took a Run at That'," she teased.

"Well, now we just have to get you taken care of," I teased back. And then I regretted saying it. It sounded like a come-on, even to me, and I was the one who had said it.

But Josie just laughed easily, if after an uncomfortable beat or two. "Yeah? Well, don't you dare try to spring some dude on me like you sprung Patty on him. I'm going to need pictures and references in advance."

*

Early the following week, I found an email from Professor Thames (I'd gone back to thinking about her that way. It was safer).

Mr. Hawthorne,

I have quite accidentally stumbled upon an opportunity in the state of Colorado that might well be a wonderful situation for you, should you be willing to entertain a placement in the center of the country.

If you are interested, the timing may be tricky and there will be a lot you would need to accomplish, simply to pursue this opportunity. We should talk.

I am not holding office hours over the summer. This is a perquisite of having a tenured position. Should you have the opportunity, I highly recommend picking one up. But your picking one up is the point of this discussion, no?

Should you have the opportunity, would you perhaps like to drop by my cottage after lunch around 1:30 on Wednesday? I could offer you some tea. I have questions I do not wish to suffer through asking your boss, regarding your actual readiness. Please be prepared to give me an honest self-assessment. We shall also discuss how you could pursue the placement, should you be interested.

Yours and so on,

Amanda

Shit was getting real. And way faster than I was prepared for.

I mean, in some ways, I was prepared, and far sooner than candidates usually were in our discipline. My research was complete, and my results solidly supported my thesis. My dissertation was grammatically still a mess, and its formatting worse, but it was written. The supporting exhibits were what were consuming most of my time. At least the time that I was not devoting to aiding my mentor with his work. Technically, I supposed, I really was nearly ready to defend my dissertation.

But as my advisor had been telling me for years, just having a good dissertation did not mean you were necessarily ready for your PhD. Your defense of the research itself should actually be easy, if your work was any good. The real defense was of yourself, and your readiness to pursue your work independently. This was a readiness that the man had not yet told me he was confident I had. He hadn't told me that I didn't have it yet either, but...

I did not want to jump the gun, but if this was a truly good opportunity, such opportunities are necessarily time-limited, even if it turned out that they wanted me...

I shot off a swift reply that I would be happy to meet at her convenience.

Yes, it did occur to me that this woman, on whom I had pretty much explicitly hit the last time we had spoken, was inviting me to her home. But she was being pretty careful to keep any crazy speculation out of my mind. Tea? In the middle of the afternoon? On a Wednesday?

I still took an early lunch so I could shower right before going over. It was more or less a muscle memory reflex.

I was on edge, but not because of my earlier ambitions. Much bigger ambitions were at play now, and I swallowed as I wandered up the sidewalk to her front door, the phrase Tenure Track dancing in my head. But I gathered myself and my body was calm and under control as I walked up to her cottage. This was high stakes, but I settled my interview face in place firmly. She answered the door less than a minute after my ring and invited me in. I stumbled over the threshold and cursed at my clumsiness.

"Sorry, Prof... Man... Aman... Doctor," I sputtered.

"Ken!" she laughed. "You are wise to be working on your collegial nomenclature. Amanda will do. Friendly, but professional. Also, I imagine it was the asshole who told you to call me Mandy. One of his jerkwad but funny little jokes. No one but he has ever called me Mandy... and then only in bed."

Oh shit.

I quite literally love my mentor, but he does think he has a sense of humor.