Sylph in "All-Nighter"

Okay.  This one was just a very quick idea that came to me from…well…somewhere. 

Credit goes to The Mole for the bikini carwash idea, though, and I have to give a shout out to Dave C. Mathews for providing the inspiration for Bekka in the form of Dr. Sonya Gannon (nee Dr. Sonya Beta).

If you like either the bikini carwash idea or Bekka, credit goes to those two brilliant contributers.  Any faults, problems, idiot characters, etc. lie wholly and inexcusably with yours truly.

This one is very short, but I had fun writing it, and I hope you have fun reading it.  Without further ado:

Sylph in “All-Nighter”
stmercy2020

“Groan!”

<stre-e-e-etch!… shred!>

<pop! pop! pop!>

<crash!>

<tzing!… tinkle!>

<thip!… pff!>

<toink!… pok!>

“Ow!”

“Oops.  Sorry, Kalida!”

Kalida sat rubbing the small bruise on her forehead from where the bottom button of Sylph’s overburdened blouse had just bounced off of it.  That was hardly the worst of the damage, though.  Sylph, in stretching out her arms, had inadvertently flexed her huge deltoids and triceps, literally blasting the tight sleeves into a cloudy memory of light blue thread and silk fabric.  The buttons had popped off one after another, impacting individually with the overhead light (tinkle!- they’d need a new bulb and, quite probably, fixture to repair that,) Kalida’s favorite bolster pillow (there was now a hole going all the way through, cotton bunting having burst from the far side with tremendous force,) and Kalida’s forehead.  Fortunately for Kalida, the last button had been under the least strain and the resultant bruise was merely painful and not lethal.  Additionally, Sylph had, as she stretched, accidentally shoved Kalida’s entire bookshelf full of interpretations of various dancers and musical compositions.  The oaken structure, fully a hundred fifty pounds when empty, and closer to four hundred pounds when loaded down two layers deep over five shelves, had been catapulted across the suite into the far wall where it exploded into kindling and loose papers.

Kalida was annoyed, of course, but one look at Sylph’s distressed countenance softened her heart.  “I’m okay, Sylph, but… ow!  Damn, couldn’t you give a girl a warning before your chest goes ballistic?”

“I’m really sorry, Kalida.  I’m just so tired…”  It was just getting on past 3:00 am the night of Kalida’s and Sylph’s first all-nighter.  Kalida’s roommates, Jen and Bekka had already gone to their respective rooms, and Jodi was out somewhere with her boyfriend, but Kalida and Sylph had opted to stay up and work on their project for their Humanities in Western Culture class.  At the same time, they’d agreed to help each other with their homework for dance and Sylph’s Fundamentals of Drawing class.  They’d chosen to work in Kalida’s suite that night mainly because Kalida had a superior stereo, but Kalida was now wondering about the wisdom of that decision.

“What the heck happened here?!” Jen demanded from her doorway.  Jen was a tall, statuesque blond, a field hockey player and a political science major.  In the week that Kalida had known her, they’d initially been cool, and the temperature of their interactions had steadily decreased until, now, they were downright frigid.

“It’s nothing, Jen.  We just had a little, um, stretching accident,” Kalida said, trying to head off the argument that Jen so clearly wanted to start.

“Nothing?!  You blew up the ceiling light!  There’s a hole into your room!  I’m not paying for that, and I don’t think Bekka’s gonna want to put money down for your little accidents, either.”

Sylph sighed.  “It’s not Kalida’s fault, Jen.  I broke it, I’ll pay for it.”  As usual, Sylph’s placating tones and congenial nature were more than enough to take the wind out of Jen’s sails.

“Well.  All right, then,” she humphed, and returned to her room, shutting her door behind her.

“She’s right, you know,” Bekka said from the other side of the room.  Unlike Jen, Bekka was openly friendly with both Kalida and her gigantic friend.  “It’s not like I wouldn’t help out if I could, but I’m here on a scholarship and my parents are already paying all they can afford just to keep me here.”

Bekka was one of those rare girls who managed to combine bookish nerdiness with an ineffable sensuality that Kalida purely envied.  She was neither overweight nor particularly athletic, but simply secreted femininity from her every pore like a powerful pheromone.  And, Kalida noted enviously, she had huge boobs.  Bekka came into the room and sat down with them.

“Look,” Sylph said, “we’re all a little strapped for cash, but we can come up with something.  I’m going to go down to the Student Union tomorrow and see what they have available for student work.  Maybe I can find a job to help pay for some of this stuff.”

“You ought to charge for all that time you put in helping out down at the gym,” Kalida remarked.

Sylph blushed a little. “I wouldn’t feel right about that.  I help out there because I like doing it and I like the people I meet.  I wouldn’t want to have to start charging my friends money…”

Bekka sniffed a little at that.  “That’s a pretty naïve attitude, Sylph.  Sweet, but naïve.  You can’t just give away all your time like you do, or else people are going to start to think they’re entitled to your help, even when you have your own things to do.”

Sylph nodded slowly.  “Well, I’ll think about it.  But I’d rather find some other way…”

Kalida and Bekka looked at each other for a moment, then Bekka smiled mischievously.  “How about…?”

“Oh, yeah!” Kalida exclaimed, eyes aglow.

“What?!” Sylph asked, bewildered.

“BIKINI CARWASH!” Bekka and Kalida yelped together, then collapsed in hysterical giggles.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding,” Sylph began shaking her head, “I don’t even own a bikini!”  For some reason, this only made the two of them laugh harder.

Finally, gulping air in great, jagged swallows, Kalida managed, “But Sylph- you can sew!”

“Yeah!  Kalida and I’ll help you pick out materials-”

“Itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka-dot…” came a mocking, sing-song voice from the doorway.

“Jen!”  All three immediately stopped laughing and straightened up, trying (and failing miserably) to look serious.

“As it happens,” Jen went on, “I think a bikini carwash is a great idea.  But I don’t think the three of you could organize your way out of a paper bag, so I’ll help.”

All four looked at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“This,” Sylph remarked quietly to Kalida, “could be the start of a beautiful relationship…”