Love Hot

"Shit! They're coming! Quick, everybody hide!"

That was our cue to disappear in Gayle's house and pretend that we had not been running around preparing for her husband Mike's surprise birthday party later that night. We were not finished decorating and getting all the food ready, but we weren't supposed to be. My own husband, Drew, was taking Mike out to divert his attention for a while. A smaller group of their closest friends had gathered early to help Gayle get ready. We were the core group of friends who had all gone to college together. Now in our late 30s, it had been a while since we had partied like we did during our campus days. We hoped to recapture some of that magic that night.

Debbi and I ran for the coat closet following Akai. Those helping Gayle in the kitchen hid in the pantry, while the ones blowing up balloons on the upstairs landing took their decorations and went into one of the upstairs guest bedrooms. Mike and Drew would only be there long enough for Mike to change out of his racquet ball clothes and put on his Giant's jersey for the afternoon game Drew was taking him to. We wouldn't have to hide for long, but we needed to be absolutely still and not make a bit of noise.

The coat closet was a tight fit for the three of us, but as we heard Mike and Drew's laughter at the front door, we didn't have time for one of us to run someplace else. We had to get out of sight fast. Someone was going to have to squat on the floor under the coats and jackets. Akai looked like he didn't want to kneel but two stern looks from Debbi and I let him know that there was no use putting up a fuss. We were both wearing skirts and heels, and there was no way we were going to squat down in that closet. On his knees he went as Debbi and I squeezed in shoulder-to-shoulder in front of him. Gayle shut us in as she went to greet her husband and his best friend at the door. We were ensconced in total darkness.

I head Gayle greet Mike with a kiss as Drew began to describe their plans for the rest of the afternoon. He was doing it as much for the benefit of us in hiding as for Gayle, so that we would all know how much time we had to finish getting the house ready. It was all according to the plan Gayle had come up with. Mike's actual birthday wasn't until Tuesday and it was only Saturday. Anticipating that a large group of us would go out for dinner next weekend, we had Drew take Mike out for a day of one-on-one man time. He had no clue that his house was already full of people getting ready for a party that night.

That's when we heard Mike announce that he wanted to get in a quick shower before they left again. That sure threw a wrench in our plans. They were supposed to have both showered at the gym after their racquet ball game, but this meant that we had to stay hidden for a bit longer than we'd planned. As Mike ran to his shower, Gayle peaked in on us and asked if we were ok, then she shut us back in and offered Drew something to drink.

We felt Akai shifting his position behind us. "If we're going to be here for a while," he whispered, "I need to get more comfortable. I'm sitting on something that's sticking up into my butt!"

"Good!" I whispered back. "You deserve a good stick up the butt," I chuckled.

"Given our relative positions, I would hold my tongue if I were you, Nivia, less what I'm sitting on finds its way up your butt."

"Shhh!" Debbie scolded us. "Don't you two get started."

She was right, Akai and I had a history of ribbing each other and we could get out of hand quite easily. It had all started 18 years ago when the two of us worked in the same dorm cafeteria on campus. One night after our shift Akai had humiliated me so badly that deep down I had never really forgiven him for it, even though he apologized over and over for the next two years until we graduated. He swore that my humiliation wasn't his intent, but that was little consolation. We didn't speak of it any longer because I hated to be reminded of how humiliated he'd made me feel, but I never passed up an opportunity to give him shit. Truthfully, I was still hoping one day to embarrass him, if only half as bad as he had humiliated me.

Even though Debbie had admonished us to be quiet, I still couldn't resist having the last word. In this instance, instead of coming up with another retort I used my heel to find his thigh behind me and pushed it into his flesh just hard enough to get a hiss out of him. I smiled to myself in the dark, thinking I had gotten the better of him, until I felt him reach up and pinch my ass, just enough to sting. The bastard! Out of all the pats of my body, he knew I was most sensitive about my butt. In fact, it was the source of my humiliation all those years ago...

*****

"Akai, can we go home now?" my friend Samara asked after we had finished wiping down all the tables and cleaned out the salad bar. We had a test to study for and wanted to get an early start. It was already 8:30. Akai was the student manager, and it was his job to make sure after the dinner shift that the cafeteria was in spotless shape for the breakfast crew the next morning. The six of us who worked the dinner shift were all anxious to get out of there.

"Not yet. Someone needs to stay and help me mop the floors. Samara, I think it's your turn," Akai responded. "The rest of you can go."

"Aww man!" she whined. "That will take forever!"

"Well, you could just ask Nivia to scoot around on her butt with a couple of wet towels. She'd finish the whole floor in just five minutes."

Uncontrollable nervous laughter exploded out of everyone, except me. I couldn't believe my ears. We were used to joking around. Akai kept things light and playful on the job, and that was the best part of working there. It paid better than most all other campus jobs because most students didn't want to do food service work. We played around so much, with secret food fights, eating contests, and taking free food back to our dorms, that the three hour shifts seemed to fly by. But talking about my big butt was taking things too far. I was mortified, and Samara could see the look of horror on my face. In solidarity, she stopped her own laughter to chastise Akai.

"That was cruel, Akai!" she said. A few other students nodded in agreement, trying hard to stifle their laughter, and failing.

"Come on now, I wasn't trying to be mean. Having a big ass is a beautiful thing," he asserted. More chuckles from the crowd. I turned about four different shades of red.

"You're not helping," Samara said. "Just shut up before you make it any worse."

"Nivia," he turned to me, "I didn't mean for it to come out like that, but big bubble butts are really hot. I was giving you a compliment."

Try as I could to come up with a witty reply, I was too flustered. After stammering for a moment, I just ran out. I could hear Akai pleading his case to the rest of our co-workers as I ran from the industrial kitchen. I headed straight to my dorm room, hoping to just lose myself in my course work, but that humiliation stung for a long time. I was hopelessly distracted for the rest of that night. For the rest of my time in college, I couldn't stand anyone paying any attention to my behind. In fact, if I was honest about it, the reason I felt comfortable with and became so close with Drew was because he paid absolutely no attention to my rear. He was much more into my frontal assets, and that was just perfect for me.

In the cafeteria the next day, I couldn't even talk to Akai, though he tried to make light conversation with me numerous times. At the end of our shift, he didn't even bother looking in my direction when looking for someone to mop. I left without a word.

Later that night there was a knock on my door. It was Akai. "I came to make sure we're cool, Nivia" he said when I opened the door. "I talked to Samara and she told me that you are still pretty upset with me. So I figured I would come over and try to explain what I meant and say once more that I really wasn't trying to insult you."

"I think I've heard enough of your explanations," I growled at him.

"Just give me five minutes," he pleaded. I relented and let him come in. He went on and on but it was all in one ear and out the other as far as I was concerned. When someone touches a nerve of your deepest insecurities, it's hard to entertain any notion that your fears about your shortcomings are irrational. Perhaps what bothered me most was that he never actually said he was sorry, but just kept going on about how having a big butt was a good thing, not a bad one. Out of pride to not let on just how deeply I'd been cut, I said that all between us was well, but in my heart I was still smarting. But that was the start of our têt-a-têt and from then on, at every opportunity I gave him shit. It never got ugly or deeply personal, but all of our friends knew that if we were in a room together that we'd rib each other relentlessly to see who could get more people laughing at the other.

Though he never again teased me about my butt, every once-in-a-while I would turn around and find Akai's eyes glued to my rear end. Caught like a kid sneaking candy after being forbidden to do so, at those instances Akai would let his guard down and look at me with lust filled eyes and a sinister smile. "Nivia, you really should let me show you just how sexy that thing you're sitting on is," he'd say.

"Dream on," I'd tell him. I reckoned that he was one of those guys who liked to spank a girl or slap her on the ass during sex, and I had no interest in such a thing. It was unmistakable in my tone that I would never let him anywhere near my butt. Lord knows I could never bend over when he was anywhere around. If I did, it was like inviting his stares. To his credit, no matter how many times I'd rebuff what I interpreted as his pathetic attempts to make me feel better about my ass, he never stopped trying.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," he'd say, almost under his breath, shaking his head at me. The look in his eyes would convey that I just didn't know what I was missing. I had no desire to know any such thing. He stopped asking once I started seriously dating Drew in my junior year. Akai was a senior, and we both still worked in the cafeteria, but Drew was one of his friends and he didn't want to be disrespectful. But he never stopped looking. If I caught him staring at it, he'd just smile a wicked smile and turn away. That continued after college and through both of our marriages. He was so slick about it. Neither Drew nor Akai's wife Alicia ever seemed to catch him doing it but if we were alone, or if his line of sight was just right, I could bet money on where his eyes would be.