Gamer Girl Gas - Chapter 3 (Commission)

The tournament ended with Joe beating Jacob. Overall, their growing rivalry was more or less equal at that point. Joe blushed when Amanda was the loudest person in the room rooting for him. She took notice that few people matched her energy so she toned it down and laughed awkwardly, resorting to clapping.

The Gaming Club dismissed for the week. The excitement wore down in Joe as he wound up his controller. Amanda said, “Aw, so we over already?”

“We only have the space until 11PM.”

“The night’s still young!”

Joe had no control over how hard his heart beat around her. Any other guy would be screaming at him to take the opportunity. Amanda was in the palm of his hand just chilling there waiting to hang out some more, sitting on one of the tables. But the whole weird situation with Luke made him hesitate. Wasn’t she going to hang out with him now? Go to some party? Get drunk?

Despite his worry, he held his breath and said, “What…do you wanna do?”

“Convenience store is still open right? Let’s get some snacks. Do you think they’ll let us play one of the consoles here?"

All the Wii setups belonged to somebody in the club. Joe was about to offer his room but wondered if Luke was around. He felt weird asking straight up if they were a thing, or what was going on between them. But Amanda answered all that for him by suggesting they take his Wii and play in the lounge. She felt like being around people.

At the convenience store, Amanda stocked up on an armful of bags of kettle corn, Goldfish, Twizzlers, and a couple Klondike bars. Joe stared at all the bags she held and said, “Maybe we should just order takeout again.”

“Oh, I already ate before the tournament. This is just a late-night snack.”

“JUST a late-night snack?”

“Don’t judge.”

“No, no. I’m just wondering where you put it all.”

When she turned around to pay at the cashier, he got his answer when he eyed her ass cheeks, still making a tight frame in her baggy jeans. He bought a Coke for her and a Sprite for himself.

Luke wasn’t in the room. Joe took his Wii and hooked it up to the TV in the lounge. The lounge had recently been renovated and looked like a fancy hotel lobby with two private conference rooms. Each of those two rooms had a giant plasma screen TV. They were typically filled with gamers or people watching movies, but they were lucky this time as one of them was completely empty, and it was the only conference room out of the two with a couch too.

As they began to play, after having laid out all the snacks in front of them, Joe started to wonder if this was what it felt like to hang out with a girl who was just a friend. That was a possible thing, right? People were friends all the time regardless of gender. It just felt weird to him. All those years in school thus far living in the framework of a strict gender norm. Guys hung out with guys and girls hung out with girls. If the two groups hung out together, there was some flirting going on, or it was because of a dance. But a lone guy hanging out with a lone girl? Wouldn’t anyone objectively look a them and suspect they were dating?

Amanda hung out with him without making or suggesting a move. She came off as hanging out just like any other guy, like Luke or Jacob. Joe zoned out a little trying to process his feelings. Did this suck? Maybe a little. Was he having fun? Of course he was. He shouldn’t pine away dwelling so much on his lascivious thoughts. He would regret it one day. He should appreciate the time he did spend with her.

His thought process was interrupted by an extremely loud gurgle. It took him a moment to realize it came from Amanda’s stomach. He gave her a look and said, “Still hungry?”

She winced, shifting her position. “No. I’m lactose intolerant.”

“And you ate two whole Klondike bars? You know ice cream is milk, right?”

“Of course I do! Jerk. Here’s the thing about lactose intolerant people – we still fucking love eating lactose.”

Another gurgle made her wince. She shut her eyes and groaned. “Aw, fuck. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Joe smirked. “I mean. Yeah. That’s totally on you.”

            The next gurgle sounded borderline violent, like there was an animal inside of her trying to claw its way out. She paused the game to clutch her stomach. Joe said, “Uhhh, are you gonna throw up or something? Do you need to go down to Health Services?”

            He started to get really worried when she didn’t respond. She continued to moan lying there on the ground on her side. He bent down to get a good look at her and make sure she wasn’t passing out. Could people pass out from lactose intolerance? He had no idea. He was studying biology for Christ’s sake. He should know these things.

            “H-hey, wait here, I’ll go get—”

PPPPPPPPPPPPPPRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!           

            The fart that exploded of her rear end didn’t sound real. It couldn’t have. No human could ever fart that deep and that loud, like the biggest whoopie cushion being pressed down on. He started to gag wondering if she had shat herself, because it most definitely sounded messy and sputtery.

            The moment the gas escaped her, the room reeked of a dank, heavy odor. Joe clasped a hand over his face and backed away, where the air was still fresh. He felt so embarrassed for her and didn’t know what to say. The scent was so repulsive he felt a little vomit crawl up his throat.

            “Oh my Goooood,” Amanda said. She began laughing when she saw Joe’s face. She laughed so hard that her face turned red. “I’m so sorry! That…that smells SO bad…oh man…ohhh man.”

            The smell spread throughout the conference room. Joe kept moving away from it, until he resorted to stepping out into the lounge and leaving the door open to waft the air. Amanda cackled even louder.

            Jesus Christ. This girl is literally a biological weapon.

            It took a good three minutes for the smell to finally go away, which felt like an eternity. Joe shook his head as he sat back down.

            “Alllright, where were we?”

            “You were kicking my ass, as usual.”

            “If I hear your stomach grumble again, I’m going to back away.”

            “I don’t blame ya.”

            She was so comfortable about letting out the most atrocious fart Joe had ever heard and smelled that he began to realize that this was indeed a friendship and nothing more. No girl would normally do something like that in front of a prospective crush or flirtation.

            Around 1 AM, a couple of her friends stopped by from a party. They were dressed like she had been the first night Joe saw her – tight colorful dresses that showed off their cleavage and high heels they had trouble walking in. Most of them were a little drunk, and the conference room quickly filled up with their clamor.

            “Ammaaaannndaaaa!” said a brunette. “What are you doing here?”

            “Playing video games,” she replied, calmly.

            “Whaaat? Why? Where you were tonight?”

            “A Smash tournament.”

            “Whaaat? Why?”

Joe swore that girl’s voice was the most annoying voice he had ever heard.

            Amanda deftly defended herself for not going out to party that night. She had absolutely no hesitation in shrugging off her friends in favor of doing whatever she wanted to do. He wondered if they would get upset, but they were probably too drunk to really process anything, and might not even remember this conversation the next morning.

            Around 1:30 AM was when Amanda called it a night. The lounge had thinned out and quieted down. As Joe wound up his controllers and console, he noticed she was acting nervous. She had her hands in her pockets and tapped her foot on the floor. She finally said, in a shaky voice, “Hey, so I was wondering if maybe we could set up some kind of regularly schedule where we play.”

            Joe froze. “You really do want to get good at this, dontcha?”

            “Well, yeah. Duh.”

            “Right. Yeah. Just…surprised.”

            “Why, because I’m a girl?’ she said mockingly.

            Joe went red. “N-no! Not like that. I’m just—I mean.”

            “I’m fucking with you. It’s alright. I get it. But I suddenly understand that feeling when people get into something, especially a video game. Like when you finally know how everything comes together and you really want to get good at it. Like any sport, really.”

            “Yeah. I know what you mean. Uhhh. I have to look at my classes again. I’m like…blanking out right now. Tired.”

            “It’s cool. Here, let me give you my number.”

            That stereotypical dumb bro voice inside of Joe’s head murmured in awe, Girl number….

            Unlike your typical teenage romance movie, she didn’t write it on his hand. It was much less sexy. There was awkward fumbling as he offered to enter his number into her phone, but she got awkward about it and wanted to enter hers into his phone. Then he wanted to send a text to her so that she could get his number but the service wasn’t working. Then they realized – duh – she could just enter his number directly as a new contact. Amanda had turned into an awkward, mumbling mess like he did. Sharing numbers felt…intimate.

            “Okay,” she said, finally closing her phone. “Cool, cool. Yeah. Just let me know.”

            “Right. I’ll let you know.”

            She slowly walked out of the conference room, backing up accidentally into the door. “Yeah, just text me. Whenever. I mean, you don’t have to right away. Just like. Tomorrow. Or something.”

            “Yeah, tomorrow is good.”

            “Alright. See ya!”

            “See you.”

            She hustled outside across the dimly lit pathway across campus.

            He smirked to himself. He kept a dumb smile all the way back to his dorm. He couldn’t deny how giddy she made him. Just the mere thought of her excited him and made him daydream. Now that he had her number, he wanted to text her right away, but he knew that would be weird. He couldn’t come off as weird. He had to keep his distance.

            His mood shifted when he opened his door and Luke was there hanging out with a couple guys. They spoke in low voices, as if their conversation had been serious. They all looked at him and the silence became deafening. Joe was about to speak when Luke said, “Where were you?”

            Joe didn’t know what to say. Luke’s glare was obvious. The two other jocks, a black guy and another white dude, also stared at him. Joe recognized them as Tyrell and Kyle, respectively; members of the swim team. Like Luke, they both were insanely attractive, tall, and lean.

While Tyrell was usually joking about everything, he was dead serious as he asked Joe, “Getting into trouble?”

Kyle added, with a dry tone, “Yeah. We know all about it.”

            Joe’s heart nearly went into shock. The silence strained as all three pairs of eyes glared at him.

            This was it.

            Of course, Luke would have found out eventually…

            Joe held his breath, and slowly began to speak when Luke threw a pillow at him and started laughing. Tyrell and Kyle also bawled with laughter.

            “We’re fucking with you!” Luke said. “Man! You looked SO serious.”

            Joe could have shat his pants. “O-oh. Heh.”

            “You’re never out this late, so I was just messing with you. Did you actually go out?”

            “Uhhh.”

            Tryell slapped his shoulder and started busting his balls. “Yeah, he did! Look at that face! Dude finally partied!”

            Kyle hooted and hollered, giving Joe a fist bump.

            Joe supposed he could let them believe that. So, he nodded and lied about going to a party. Which. Wasn’t. Technically a lie. The Gaming Club was a party. Right?

            Luke and his swim team buddies had been talking about drama with girls from the rugby team, and this one chick who was apparently getting into modeling and too bougie for their liking. Joe had tuned out, still calming himself down from actually thinking Luke was mad about him hanging out with his apparent girlfriend. He sat down at his desk and tried to focus on something else when Luke’s friends brought up Amanda.

            Luke hesitated before saying, “She’s really cool. I like her. I just wish…”

            “Just wish what?” Tyrell said, eyebrows raised.

            Luke scoffed, as if unsure if he should find it funny. “She’s…so fucking gross. Oh man.”

            Kyle sighed. “Oh man. I didn’t want to say anything before but yeah.”

            Joe started paying attention. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

            Luke had a disgusted look on his face. “She farted once while we were fucking. Killed the mood for me.”

            Joe’s heart leaped a little at the thought of Luke having sex with Amanda. It seemed obvious and yet was something Joe never wanted to think about and kept denying. Now here he was, listening to her sex life.

            Tyrell shrugged. “I mean. What you gonna do, man? Everyone does it.”

            “Yeah. I know. It’s just…then she does it in public and it gets awkward. Like would she do that in front of my parents? That’d be weird.”

            “Nah. I don’t think she’d do that.”

            “I just think she need to…tone it down a bit. You know?”

            “I hear ya,” Kyle said. “There’s a time and place for everything. You talk to her about it?”

            “Not really. Trying to figure out what to say and when.”

            Luke glanced at Joe, as if realizing that Joe was suddenly invested in the conversation. Joe pretended not to care and returned to his laptop.

            They moved onto something else, and eventually Luke’s friends left for the night and around 2:30 AM the two of them called it a night. Luke passed out easily. Joe meanwhile stayed awake for a good thirty more minutes staring up at the ceiling. He had tried not to act weird around Luke having known this new information about Amanda, and having also lied about where he was this whole night. Then again, he wondered if Amanda had mentioned to him at all about the Smash tournament. Why weren’t they partying together? The most confusing things about college that Joe had trouble grasping were all these different relationships. He had by then witnessed flirtations that went nowhere and one-night stands and friends with benefits. And everything else in between. Joe couldn’t fathom how a one-night stand would work. At what point do two people decide “Yeah, let’s fuck”? Things never looked as simple as “Yes, they are going out.” Maybe Luke and Amanda were still in an early dating phase, seeing each other but not having committed to anything yet.

           Amanda was so carefree and chill that it was difficult to tell what she was really feeling. Joe tried to suppress this feeling of intimacy about her. Because that was a dangerous feeling - mistaking friendliness for something more.