Pale Fire

I check my watch—it is 10:08pm. Where is she? I am sitting alone in the large auditorium which, at a more sober hour, is used for economics lectures. We had planned to meet here at 10:00pm to watch a movie on the large projector, and I arrived fifteen minutes ago, wanting to be here first to ease my nerves. Whether or not I should even be nervous has yet to be established—although we’ve been flirting at sweaty parties for weeks over bottles of cheap beer, I’m still not sure what she wants out of our new friendship.

I met Savannah in my Russian Literature seminar last semester. Watching her unpack Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Gogol with clarity and eloquence first drew me to her. She spoke freely in class discussions when other students were silent, staring out from behind feathery bangs through round glasses with conviction. I would try to engage with her, but her insight into texts that were dense were unmatched. I wasn’t on her level—no one in the seminar was. 

I admired her from afar until one night this Spring, when I bumped into her in the basement of a brownstone near campus. The house where environmentalists and tattoo artists lived was throwing a party, and we were both in attendance. She was tall and elegant in a long brown skirt, and her lacy cream tank top draped off of her shoulders, the thin straps teasing her collarbones. I felt drawn to them—I wanted to trace them with my fingers. I watched her from afar. She was conversing with a tattoo artist who lived in the house, nodding along attentively and grinning as he showed her the latest project on his forearm. She must have felt my gaze, because she turned my way. When we made eye contact, time stopped.

She made her way over to me a few minutes later, but we shared nothing more than pleasantries and small talk that night. Since then, our meetings have become frequent and our conversations familiar. It isn’t anything serious, though. I run into her in the library, see her at the dining hall, and we grab quick coffees when we both have time after class. 

Tonight is the first time we are meeting after dark. It is Friday, and it will be evident to her that I am tired from the school week. The circles under my eyes have darkened from hours of dry academic readings, and I am not dressed to impress in my mustard hoodie and baggy jeans. But I know she will understand—she works even harder than I do, and sleeps even less.

This lateness is not typical of Savannah. So when she bursts through the lecture hall door, laptop and loose papers held tightly against her chest, honey-colored bangs stuck to her forehead, I am surprised. 

“Hey! Sorry I’m so late.” she says.

“It’s fine, don’t worry.” I reassure her and smile. I stay seated in the middle of the auditorium and speak across 10 rows of chairs as she drops her bag at the podium by the projector. “How was rehearsal?” Savannah is in a play that will go up at the end of the Spring semester.

“Oh, it was just incredible. We are almost done blocking the last scene, I can’t wait for you to come see it.” She makes her way up the aisle and I scoot over so she can have the seat next to me. As she sits down, she says, “So, on the way over, I was thinking maybe we could watch the new movie about Princess Diana with Kristen Stewart—Spencer, I think it’s called?” Our legs bump into each other as she gets comfortable. Do friends sit like this, touching knees?

“Yes, I saw a trailer for that one.” I reply coolly. “It looks good. Intense.”

“Okay,” she smiles, “I’ll go set it up.” We break contact, and I feel the loss where our knees no longer meet. As she bounces down the aisle to the projector, she looks over her shoulder and asks, “How was your day Elena?” 

“It was fine.” I caIl back. I am nervous, intimidated not only by her intellect but also by the fact that we are meeting after the sun has set. I offer, “I can’t for the life of me remember why I registered for Introduction to Psychology this semester.” 

“Professor Stokes is that bad of a lecturer?” she asks.

“Every minute I sit in her class is a minute I deeply wish that I was doing something—anything else.” Savannah lets out a laugh, but I don’t just say this to be provocative. As a senior in college, most of my classes are small seminars. I forgot how much I despise the impersonal, pedantic format of large lecture classes where a professor talks at you for 90 minutes twice a week.

The projector screen wakes up and I observe as Savannah navigates around her laptop and pulls up the movie. When the opening credits roll, she turns off the lights and heads back to her seat. I sigh with relief as our knees return to their previous position, unaware that I had been holding in a breath. 

Kristen Stewart is brilliant as Princess Diana, but I can’t focus on her performance when Savannah is sitting next to me. All I can feel is her knee touching mine, shaking a little when she laughs. A dull, electric current runs between us at the point of contact. During a particularly eerie scene where Diana hallucinates tearing a pearl necklace off at Christmas Eve dinner, I take a risk and lean into her shoulder. We stay that way for the rest of the movie.

~~~

When the credits roll, I don’t want to get up. I can feel her shift a bit—she is turning to look at me. Our eyes meet in the dark room, but her eyelids are like shades that have been lowered to keep out sunlight. The current is still running up through our shoulders and down through our knees. 

“That was haunting,” she says, breaking the silence with a small smile.

“I was on the edge of my seat.” I reply, returning the expression. 

And then there is nothing more to say about the movie, because neither of us were really watching it anyway. We sit there for a few moments, staring each other down with knowing smirks. Who will do it? 

She lets out a small giggle, then leans forward ever so slightly. This is it. If I didn’t know before, I know now. With a renewed sense of purpose, I lower my eyelids and lean forward. 

The kiss is slow at first, unsure. Our lips graze each other slightly as if navigating uncharted territory. We stay that way for a few moments, cautious, until Savannah decides that enough is enough and takes my bottom lip between her teeth decisively. From there, we are engulfed into a deep embrace, tongues exploring. 

Then, it happens all at once. All the stolen glances, the pure attraction we had been holding in during the weeks prior comes gushing out with a fervor I didn’t expect. She takes my lips as if they are her own. Suddenly, the arm rest between us is a wall we can no longer tolerate. Savannah grabs my waist and lifts me up to straddle her lap. Within seconds our embrace has become deeper, more intimate, as we increase the surface area where we are connected.

My hands wander, unsure of where they want to roam first. I lift the side of her T-Shirt, and feel her warm soft skin under my fingers. I go higher still, reaching the bottom of the band of her bra, and stay there, content. Savannah has been exploring beneath my sweatshirt as well. When she finds one of my nipples behind the cup of my bra, she pinches—hard. 

“Ow,” I let out a soft moan, but then smile into her lips to tell her yes, more. Expertly parsing the message, she keeps pinching and massaging my nipples. Unable to contain myself, I start to grind against her pelvis. 

It is not lost on me that it is past midnight and Savannah and I are making out in a vacant lecture hall, lit only by the glow of projected film credits. But as I move to unclasp her bra, I am still shocked when we are interrupted by the sound of an opening door. An older man begins to enter, a mop in hand and a cleaning cart behind him, before he spots us ten rows back. Of course, the janitor. Not intending to come back later, he stands impatiently by the door, waiting as we rush to the front of the room and pack our things. Savannah’s hair is a mess from my fingers, and my bra is not on right, but we focus on putting laptops in cases and laptop cases into tote bags. We rush past the janitor in a flush of giggles and knowing smiles. When we make it out the double doors of the lecture hall, she grabs my hand and we run for the building exit. By the time we make it outside we are both bursting with laughter, and it takes a moment for us to recollect ourselves on the steps outside of the building.

When the laughter subsides we are reminded that it is past midnight, campus is vacant, and we are both still incredibly aroused. It is quickly established that we can’t go to her room—her roommate John is in there, fast asleep by now. And we can’t go back to mine—my suitemate has an exam tomorrow and explicitly requested no guests tonight. Hands still clasped, we start walking towards the only building on campus that is open right now: the 24-hour library. Yes, this could be the answer. The stacks are closed but I know an entrance that doesn’t lock, and in the back of the fourth floor no one would hear us.

The cold March wind is blowing through our hair and we are giggling like little girls. The dull current that was running through us earlier has turned into a shocking charge. We walk so fast we might as well be running across campus. My vision blurs as we tap our IDs, climb the stairs to the fourth floor, and enter through the one unlocked entrance to the library stacks. As I predicted, no one is around at 12:30am—the stacks closed half an hour ago. We pass rows and rows of bookshelves, and the light begins to wane as we get closer to the back wall. When I find a satisfactorily dark and distant aisle, I dart in and drag Savannah with me. 

Wasting no time, I push her against the bookshelf, and press her mouth against mine. I tear off her T-Shirt and bra in one fell swoop. The view is dream-like: her small breasts and narrow torso against a backdrop of books. I want to frame it—it’s art I’m looking at. I unbutton and unzip her jeans, slide my hand into her underwear, and press my hand firmly against her vulva, massaging her clitoris in a controlled, rhythmic motion. She lets out a few moans, disarmed by the intense shocks of pleasure, but she is not ready to give in just yet. She pushes me back against the opposite bookshelf, quickly removes my sweater, and unclasps my bra.

She takes a breast in her mouth and sucks, biting down a little. At the same time, she unbuttons my jeans, pulls them down, and slides her hand into my panties. I’m soaking wet, so it’s easy for her to become acquainted with my vulva. After dragging her middle finger up and down from my clitoris to my cunt, she sinks one finger deep inside me, withdraws, and then inserts two. Using her thumb, she starts to make small circles around my clitoris. I let out a primal moan, and with her other hand, she covers my mouth.

Savannah has one hand on my mouth stifling my moans, my nipple tight between her teeth, and another hand sinking in and out of my pussy. I am quickly losing the ability to hold myself up straight, but she keeps me pressed against the books, working my cunt.

“You’re a triple threat.” I joke through her fingers, my eyes tightly shut. 

She smiles up at me, my nipple still between her teeth, gives it one final bite, and then releases it to kiss her way up to my neck. With her left hand, she stops covering my mouth and grips the back of my neck—hard. “Come for me, Elena,” she whispers against my jaw. 

Savannah is exerting herself now, her forehead glimmering. She increases the pace that she moves in and out of my pussy and circles my clit faster, reversing the direction of her circling. We are on the home stretch. 

“Come for me. Now.” She orders, louder this time. I feel a tingling sensation overtaking me slowly, starting in my clitoris, and shooting down to my legs and up into my stomach. My thighs shake, and my eyes squeeze tight. I desperately grip her shoulders, as my muscles give out and I feel release from my fingers to my toes. I shudder with relief and release a small laugh. 

“Oh my god.” I let out. Savannah smiles, then begins putting her bra back on. I can’t move. Stunned, I slide to the floor, watching her pull her shirt over herself. When she is fully dressed, she sits beside me on the floor and grabs a book from behind her hip.

“What are we reading today, professor?” I ask, eyes still glazed over, body still stunned.

“Nabokov’s Pale Fire,” she responds, glancing at the title before cracking it open. Flipping through pages until she seems to find the beginning, Savannah begins: “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain / By the false azur in the windowpane.” 

We sit like that, side by side on the floor against the bookshelf, her reading to me, me slowly getting dressed, until I am fully dressed and we realize we are sixty lines into a poem which, in fact, was not the beginning of the novel at all.

Photo by Luriko Yamaguchi