Afterwards, as we sat there sipping a second round of coffee and tea, she said, "Thank you for breakfast."
"Oh, you're welcome. I always buy breakfast for the women I sleep with. It's the least I can do." Marilyn turned bright red, but stopped smiling. I reached out and touched her hand. "That was a joke, honey."
She nodded without looking at me. Finally she said, "And does that happen often?"
It was my turn to look startled. "What the sleeping part or the breakfast part?" Marilyn didn't answer that, but just looked out the window. I took my time before answering, but I reached over and took her hand. She looked at me nervously. "I think I know what you're asking. It's okay to ask me."
"Well..."
I gave her a soft smile. "First off, I have never had a girl fall asleep in my arms and wake up that way in the morning. That's a first for me, too. I kind of liked it, though. I think we need to try that again." Her eyes widened at that. I just patted her hand. "Marilyn, you are safe with me. I would never hurt you. No matter what happens, I will never hurt you. If the question is whether I still have my innocence left, well, the answer is not for a long, long time. If the question is if yours is safe with me, the answer is yes. You can trust me. I will never hurt you."
She seemed to relax at that. "I'm not that kind of girl."
"Never thought you were."
"But you're that kind of guy!", she said with a certain degree of amusement.
"Never said I wasn't."
"I'm not sure if I trust you."
"Well, the only way to find out is to go out with me.", I replied. "What time should I pick you up?"
That shocked her. "What? Tonight!?"
"Why not?"
"I can't go back there after sleeping there last night!"
I laughed at that. "You'd be surprised what goes on there, but who says we'd be going to Kegs. I want to take you out. How about going to dinner tonight?"
"Where?"
I shrugged. "Who knows? There must be a couple of dozen places over on Wolf Road alone. You want to go anyplace special?", I asked.
"No."
"So, I'll pick you up tonight at seven. How dressy do you want to be?"
"You're crazy! I never said I was going to dinner with you.", she protested.
"You never said you weren't. I'll tell you what. I'll dress casual, maybe a sports coat but no tie. You dress to match, and we'll see what there is to see. I'll pick you up at seven."
Marilyn made a few more pro forma protests, but she was smiling as she did so. I think she liked the idea of talking to me someplace where we didn't have brothers drinking and dueling over her. I had no idea where we would eat, but Wolf Road was a major thoroughfare. It paralleled I-87, the Adirondack Northway, from Exit 2 to Exit 4. At the southern end, Exit 2, was the Colonie Center mall. The northern end, Exit 4, was the turnoff to the Albany airport. In between was about a four mile stretch of strip malls, hotels, and every kind of restaurant you could ask for. A steak house was probably about right, and I knew I could find one there, even if I didn't have a name.
I paid the bill and had Marilyn back at the dorm within minutes. I was getting ready to walk her to her door, but she just leaned over and gave me a quick kiss, and then hopped out and ran up to the door to the dorm. I smiled and drove back to RPI.
I unlocked the door to 206 and was greeted by my new roommate, Frank Michaels. "Where have you been all night? Have you been naughty?"
Frank had shown up on my doorstep the Monday after Thanksgiving. I knew my good luck wouldn't last. RPI intentionally overbooked students, knowing that some wouldn't last more than a few weeks or months, and the excess they put up in temporary dorms. In this case they walled off portions of the freshmen lounges in the four freshman dorms and installed bunk beds and student desks. It was like being at summer camp. On my first go around, I had been in the temporary rooms and Frank had been in the dorm room, and his roommate had left.
Now, it was the reverse. They must have assigned rooms according to when people were accepted, and this time I was early acceptance. That first Monday morning I got back from my run to find Frank and the Resident Adviser, a totally forgettable sophomore who got free room and board for living in the freshman dorms and putting up with us, carrying Frank's crap in. I had already met Frank downstairs before this, so I helped them in and then went down the stairs with Mike to help him finish.
Frank was a short and beefy guy from Ohio who had played football in high school. Now he was on the RPI team and was being rushed by Teke. He was quite disconcerted with going from a team that was 10-0 in high school to one that was 0-10. At RPI, most athletes actually had to go to class and take their tests, with very little sympathy from the teachers. Of course, rules don't apply to everybody; the only sport Rensselaer gave scholarships for was ice hockey, where we were NCAA Division I finalists most years. On a side note, way back when, Frank, who wore contacts, taught me how to take care of my glasses when I started wearing them.
Now I just looked at him through bloodshot eyes and said, "It's a long, long story." He laughed and left. I collapsed on the bed and fell asleep still dressed.
I woke up mid-afternoon, considerably refreshed, even if I still looked like shit. Well, that was easy enough to handle. I stripped down and grabbed my robe and took a long hot shower, and then went back to the room and put some clothes on. Then I sorted my laundry and grabbed it and my Advanced Algorithms textbook and went down to the basement. I wasn't the only one doing laundry and studying. I always smiled when I saw the laundry machines. We had already lost the Centrex phones when students learned how to hack the system. Now they had turned their inventive energies to the coin operated laundries.
Last year the washers and dryers had taken quarters, but somebody had managed to make slugs in one of the machine shops in the engineering labs, and gotten around that. Not to worry - the ever clever minds at Whirlpool had devised a new system. You would buy coupons down at the Student Union. The machines were altered so that only coupons could be used. These were very special coupons, too. They were actually rigid plastic, with a printed circuit inside them. Once they went in the washer or dryer, the machine would run a current through them, both activating the machine and simultaneously burning out the printed circuit.
Inventive RPI engineering students cloned the chips inside of four months. Next year the college surrendered and made the machines free, but raised the room rates enough to cover. Everybody seemed to think this was quite reasonable, and we turned our evil genius loose on other topics.
I read several chapters more in my book, effectively finishing it, while my laundry ran. I would reread it later this week while working the various assignments, but I wasn't too worried about it. Once my laundry was washed and dried, I took it back to the room and sorted it out. The guys across the hall had an iron and ironing board, so I bribed them with beer and did my shirts and slacks. Then I shoveled the garbage from my room so that it looked almost livable. Frank was a superior roommate to Buddy in innumerable ways, but was still a slob.