I
Mordecai was in love. It was the first time for him and he fell hard, with a thud. Her name was Melanie and a cuter young woman you never saw. Mordecai and I were roommates, it was early Spring of our senior in college. I was going to be sticking around for another couple of years to get my M.A. in English Literature but Mordecai had a job lined up in his Uncle’s business starting a month after he graduated.
It was the second year that Mordecai and I were roommates. I’d never known him to show an interest in a woman before and had half suspected that he was gay. All his time was taken up either studying or watching sports on TV. Besides attending classes the only time you could get my roomie out of the apartment was for an occasional game of hoops and maybe a beer or two afterward. Mordy (as some called him, not me, though) eschewed the party scene that was so integral to college life for many of us. He was a focused, serious young man and frankly I admired him for it. You could tell that he would be successful. Then he met Melanie.
She was a literally about a hair over 5 feet tall a full foot and two inches shorter than Mordecai. She wore her dark her short perfectly framing her pixyish face. Melanie had not an ounce of extra fat and always wore tight short skirts to accentuate her figure and lovely tanned legs. What stood out most though was her deep brown eyes with which she’d look deeply into the eyes of whoever she spoke to. Mordecai said that the first time he talked to Melanie he felt he might melt on the spot. “What a delicious death it would be,” he said wistfully.
They met in a marketing class. Melanie was also a business student with high aspirations who evidently took her studies as seriously as did Mordecai. My friend was so taken by her after they first exchanged pleasantries in class one day that he boldly asked her out for coffee. She accepted and Mordecai had his first “date” since high school.
The two got along famously having so much in common both in relation to their career goals and general views on life. Unlike Mordecai, however, Melanie had long experience on the dating scene and had regarded most of the men she’d gone out with as phonies and the rest just interested in getting laid. Melanie soon confessed to Mordecai that she was sure he was “different” than all the other guys. Mordecai told me he damn near fainted when she said that.
Every day my roomie would come rhapsodizing about what Melanie had said or what she’d been wearing or how she had smiled at him. Finally one day he came home and collapsed on the sofa seemingly in delirium. Melanie had kissed him. On the lips. For several seconds. At that point I wondered how the poor guy would handle it if they ever made love. I was to find out.
It was early — too early — on a Saturday morning — I’d been out quite late the night before enjoying a typical Friday night of revelry and had only risen to answer mother nature’s call. When I emerged from the bathroom there stood Mordecai only just returning home from his date with Melanie. He looked like a man who had just come home from a war. Weary, shell shocked, speechless.
“Have a good night, Mordecai?” I asked him cheerily, despite the thickness of my head. Perhaps I was still tipsy.
“You could say that.” He actually sounded glum.
“You don’t sound like somebody who just got laid.”
“But I did,” he finally looked up. “And it was fantastic.”
“You don’t seem so thrilled about it.”
“Yeah…well, there’s, uh…um….”
“What is it, Mordecai? Tell me.” I had no frickin’ idea why a guy who’d just lost his virginity to a woman he had a mad crush on would be so downcast.
“Afterward. I…kind of blew it.”
“Blew it how?"
“I immediately told Melanie I loved her and wanted to marry her.”
I was not shocked. Disappointed, sorry for him, but not surprised. All I could manage to say was, “gee, maybe it’s not that bad, what did she say?”
Mordecai looked down again.
II
Melanie had a huge crush. I’d seen her go through a lot of guys before — we’ve been friends since high school — but none of them ever seemed to mean that much to her until she met this guy with a really weird name, Mordecai.
Being super cute and outgoing, Melanie had always attracted good looking guys, some of them downright hunks. But she said this new guy, Mordecai (still can’t believe that name) was tall and kind of dorky looking but he was just so sweet and smart and she said they had the same worldview and same ambitions. Melanie had decided pretty early on in college that she wanted to be a success in business, a big success, like being a CEO or founding her own company. Me, I just wanted to be an art teacher and hopefully meet some really nice guy and live a simple happy life. But Melanie and I were buds.
This was our junior year in college. It was weird because just before she met Mordecai, Melanie and I had been sitting around one Thursday night drinking wine coolers when she flat out asked me, “do you think I’m a slut?”
“What? No, no way,” I said and totally meant it. Sure Melanie had slept with several guys, two in high school and maybe five or six in college, but it was always with guys she’d known for awhile. I always thought she was pretty healthy about sex and think I’m pretty much the same way. Anyway we kept talking and Melanie said she’d really like to have a long term relationship like the one I’d had with Brad for a couple of years — we’d broken up a year ago and it had been rough for awhile.
So it was a like a week later that she told me about meeting this guy in her marketing class who she could tell was super shy but had asked her out for coffee after class. According to Melanie they’d had a really nice chat and she was going to see him again even though he was, as I said before, kind of dorky.
After every time she saw Mordecai, Melanie would tell me how refreshingly different he was from other guys she’d dated. He was honest, kind and really listened to her. He was the ultimate nice guy. When I asked if she thought they might get serious, Melanie said, “we’ll see.”
Then one Friday night they went to this fancy place for dinner. Before the date I half jokingly asked if anyone was going to get lucky that evening. I remembered she smiled shyly and didn’t say a thing.
So the next morning I wake up and see Melanie stark naked sitting on the sofa. She was just looking at the floor like she was trying to figure something out. It was like 6:00 am and I was only up because I’d had to pee.
“What’s up Mel?” I asked.
It took a second for Melanie to look up and when she did all she said was, “oh hey, Toni, good morning.”
“Um, I can’t help but notice it’s six in the morning and you’re sitting in the living room in nothing but your birthday suit, so….”
“Oh, yeah. Mordecai just left about ten minutes ago.”
“Oh?” I said it like I was intrigued and as if nothing seemed a bit off.
“Yeah we had sex.”
“How was it? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“The sex? Oh it was great.”
“And yet there you sit looking, I don’t know, kind of sad.”
She blew out a big sigh then looked up at me and said, “right after we finished he said….”
“What? What did he say?
Melanie blew out another big sigh. “Mordecai said he loved me and wanted to marry me.”
“Oh god, Melanie.” For a few seconds after that I didn’t know what to say to her. Then I asked: “so then what did you say?”
Melanie looked to her right for a second and then looked down again. Then she just sighed.
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