for purposes unrelated and unprovoked I think its time I tell the story that I often forget about, until I remember the college I went to was, well, liberal in almost all its ways.
the last time I told this tale was at my best friends, sisters wedding back in fall of 2025, about 10 years after the incident come to think of it. The wedding party and friends were in Bar Harbor Maine, at a local dive the night before the wedding, putting back a few more drinks than we probably should have, when Katherine (best buds sister and bride to be) said I had this story I had to tell her friends. I am not sure what got her on topic as I was off to the side with a couple other kiddos chatting, but it seemed curious to me as the majority of her friends were, at this time, married; or that and trying for their second or third kid; or who had successful careers in top positions at their companies; and or who drink nice beers in quarter zips; plainly people who by all accounts are not the main target of this story. But bride gets what bride wants, so I took a long pull from my whisky ginger and dove head first.
It all happened, really, because of the college I went to. Don’t get me wrong, if this ever gets out just know the deep love and appreciation I have for Knox College; but liberal arts college in 2015, was well a liberal arts college. From what I know now as of writing this, it still very much is open to the creativity of its students. In fact it did not even offer a business degree major at the time as that felt “too ridged and structured”. It wasn’t just a creative college though. Its mathematics and science departments were amazing; I have many friends that went through the accelerated programs there and have become medical doctors or have received their Doctorates in their respective fields. Really a beautiful place to receive an education. But with that side of the college you also had the other end of the spectrum in terms of graduates. The creatives and some very fantastic artists and creatives. Not bashing anyone here and their decisions by the way. Just trying to set the scene that if you had a kid on campus who brought his sleeping bag to the library to study for the 3 physics classes and 3 accompanying labs he was enrolled in, you had another individual who was covered in body paint riding a unicycle and singing that years hit musical on their way to class.
I took a slight break from Knox College in my tenure there as I headed back home to Colorado to help with my family as my mother was working through breast cancer at that time. Before taking my leave from Knox I found that my previous life’s work in construction led to me having a very stable and solid career in the Knox College theatre departments scene shop. I needed very little training and so by the winter term of my first year at Knox, I was found money to the department. A set it and forget it individual for the theatre department. And it was a job that I loved. I would be across campus in the science and mathematics building during the day partaking in my education, and in the afternoons, head to the theatre department to help make what little money I could survive off of with out having to dip into my summer savings. I had solidified myself into the theatre department as a helpful individual and at the same time made a few theatre and creative friends that I deeply loved, enjoyed, and wouldn’t trade the world for. So when I left for home I let my boss know that if I got the chance to come back I would hope I could continue my work with them. And he promised me a spot no matter what. It is a good feeling to be wanted and accepted, especially in a time when it feels like the whole world is out to get you and your family.
Come a year later, my mother in remission, it was time for me to head back to Illinois for school. I emailed my old boss and he stated there was a large build that winter trimester (Repertory theatre term, where they put on two massive plays rather than one) and he wanted me to help lead one of them as long as I was back in time. Bags packed, schedule planned out with the help of some amazing teachers and professors who helped me get my ducks in a row when finding out I was coming back, I was in my car driving back. I even had a friend let me know there was an open room for sublet in a house with her and another individual. the joy I felt was immense. And man it felt good stepping back on campus. That night my friends brought me to a party and while I was only gone a year, it felt like I was new to campus again. I ran across a girl at the party I had a small crush on my first two years at Knox and with the feeling of being the ‘new kid’, walked up and started to talk with her. And it was going very well. We must have spent two or three hours just talking and drinking and heading outside to smoke, something second year me would have never thought was a chance. Sure I left out some of the heavier stuff when she asked what I had been up to the whole year while I was away, but as 3am rolled around, she asked if I wanted to go back to her place as her roommate had not come back to campus yet, and saying we would have the whole place to ourselves. Plenty of time to, as she said to me, “have some fun all over the house”. In that moment sitting outside on the porch in midwest cold, beer held by the lip of the can, looking at someone I had dreamt of this moment happening, I froze. What I remember was stating that I was actually really tired from the days travel (16 hour drive) and needed to go home and unpack, as that was the most important thing I ever needed to do.
The next day when I walked across the street from my place to where my buddy Nils place was. here he informed me that I in fact was not even that smooth, and instead he watched as she placed her hand on my face and I shot up like I had been tased, did a strange walk spin thing, put the beer down, looked around like I lost something, picked the beer back up, then looked at her and just said “i have luggage and bags” and then proceeded to leave as fast as I could from the porch we were sitting on. Unsure if he was fucking with me or not, my buddy got up and handed me my large jacket Id brought with me to the party and clearly forgot on my hasty exit, all solidifying he may have been correct in his recollection of the night. He asked what was going on and I realized that when i had got home, while laying in a half made bed, staring at the ceiling, that for the past year-plus living in Colorado, I hadn’t slept with anyone. Let alone went on a date or even kissed another person. I thought maybe that I was crazy in the moment but the reality was there were other things in my life that were more important than a college kid trying to get laid. My days were either going to CU Denver most the entire day and then in the evenings going to Home Depot to work a graveyard stocking shift, only getting home around 3 am to them fall asleep as fast as I could. Or spending any free time i had helping take my mother to her appointments or tending to her when she was bed ridden and unable to help herself.
I know I am getting a little off point here, but the fact was, for the previous year, I realized I had unintentionally become celibate. And last night was the first time in more than 8 months I had the opportunity to break that streak. I say 8 months prior, because while in bed realizing my celibacy and thinking about if I did in fact have any opportunities, I remembered a time back in June, at a friends graduation party graduating from CU Denver, I was in a similar situation where a girl at a party asked if we should head back to my place after placing her hands on my thigh, for me to, again in my friends words, “dropped the ball so hard I heard it outside”.
When Nils, and his roommate (who had woken up halfway through this story) both realized I had gone over a year without having sex, both almost took it personally themselves. “Well buckle up and take these as we are changing that NOW” Nils said throwing me condoms he had grabbed. As a side note, I know that in the moment Nils and his roommate were talking about helping me find a girl to get laid, but Nils is now happily married to a man and I can’t help but laugh at the possible joke that was left on the floor had he found his happiness and joy slightly earlier in College.
But back to the story, Knox was and still is a small school. Tops 4000 people which for a College campus, does in fact get very small for rumors. So when Nils and Kati (another friend of ours) said they had apparently ‘sent out some feelers’, I was a little worried as to if that was the case or not, but decided to not let it bother me. A couple weeks went by and it seemed like nothing came from the two teasing me, but in my own head I was aware of my situation a little too much.
I was in the wood shop of the theatre department one day as Rep (Repertory) Term was in full swing. When this term happens, every 3 years, the theatre department requires students to specifically sign up for it as it is an all immersive experience for them. Any and all majors are welcome to apply, but it is primarily made of artistic majors and students. All classes they took were centered around theatre and the arts and in all honesty is one of the coolest experiences I think that could be for students. Students would even have to put a set number of hours worked in the scene shop by shadowing current workers. But this program also meant there were a lot of new students I was not familiar with in the theatre department. Double the plays meant double the students needs to run said plays. But there I was, back in the shop, a place I considered my little slice of paradise as at this point the main director of the theatre department let me have my freedom on jobs and tasks and rarely did I have to do the shitty grunt work like sort screws and bolts or clean the paint area. Having taken my Junior year away from Knox though meant that a few students I knew in my first two years at Knox, who helped me grow in the department and around campus, had sadly graduated when I came back. So while the shop was a happy place, it was also a bit bittersweet. However one friend of mine was still working in the shop and it was his Senior year. Later on I would move to Chicago after school and work with him at a theatre design company while living in the windy city.
He pulled me aside one day as we were getting ready for the new students coming in to shadow for their required hours, going over tools list, current build out, and tasks we were going to work students on, each for our own builds. Midway through of checking lumber quantities, he looked at me and said he heard I had been having an issue. I asked what he meant and he just stared a little at me. I stared at him long enough trying to gauge his feelings, and found out he apparently figured out. Making me think that he was possibly in cahoots with Nils and Kati or maybe he had heard because I was at his girlfriends house (the place the party took place), or maybe again it was small campus so maybe word had just gotten out. I told him i was gunna handle it but that it wasn’t a big deal, I think I used the phrase “it’ll happen when it happen”. He looked at me and said, “Well I heard Kitty has a thing for you, she has been asking a lot about you around Rep term and supposedly asked to shadow you today”. First her name is in fact not Kitty, I just think its a nice thing to keep omitted. Next, I love my friend, but knowing he was Head builder for Rep Term and responsible for signing people up for Shadow Shifts made me realize that he in fact set this up, not by accident. Cahoots I tell you.
In walked the group of students shadowing that day and I saw Kitty. And I remembered Kitty. Not much other than she was a first year student my sophomore year, art student with a focus on ceramics and sculpture, and I guess decided to give theatre a crack this trimester. Don’t think I remembered all this about her, I learned it during our day of working together, along with that she took a gap year between High School and College to visit some famous museums around the world and work in a ceramics studio somewhere in Central America (I do not remember nation exactly). But she was enjoying theatre and its community and excited about the term. I do actively remember being fairly quite that day though. Trying my best to focus on the job at hand and my friends words stuck in my head when she would lean in to help screw something I was holding in place, or even getting close to me while looking over the plans. And I know it sounds shallow but Kitty was hot. I was unsure what it was that she saw in me, honestly, I have always felt like a goofy looking kid, but here I was with the knowledge that a hot girl was into me, and I was back on the porch again just a few weeks prior thinking “oh fuck, what do I do?!”
That day come to an end thankfully, and before everyone left, my friend came up to me with a side eye and said “so Kitty apparently needs to come in the next three days to make up for some lost hours and meet this weeks quota, so I think I’ll stick her with you as you two got a lot done”. That bastard. He didn’t know the reason was because I was actively trying to get work done and not think more about anything else.
For the next three days, Kitty and I worked together, and got to know more about each other. I realized the following day I had opened up a little more and the second day working together I thought, there is a chance my friend was just fucking with me as she was not flirty or really even acting in a way i thought someone would be if there was even a hint of a crush. The third and final day of her shadowing me felt like working with someone who was just a friend.
Closing up the day and putting away tools in the tool cage (a lockable area for the expensive power tools and such), much of the rep term students had left and only a handful of the shops paid workers were around on stage sweeping, cleaning up loose cut offs, or putting away the drawings for the plays. Kitty walked into the cage with me wrapping up some extension cords and when I saw her she asked “so do you think you want to ask me out on a date or do I need to work more hours before you feel comfortable around me?”
Kitty was confident.
You could tell she liked what she liked and wanted what she wanted. I mumbled some words I think but ultimately my brain thought to the fun I’d had with her the past few days and said “ya lets do dinner? I think I have enough for the cute restaurant whose name eludes me but was across from the Cornucopia (a small deli, snack place in Galesburg). Saturday?”
She handed me her number on a torn page, smiled, and walked away shouting “see you Saturday Nic”.
I spent that Friday talking with my friends and we all agreed that ‘dinner is just dinner’ and that there was no need to think that sex would even be on the table. A date is just a date. So I should just enjoy it, seeing as once again, this was my first one in over a year.
Saturday rolled around and I texted Kitty when I woke up. Spent the day out and about with friends trying to distract myself and in the evening quickly got ready at my house, didn’t even bother to clean my room, and headed to pick her up; the two of us heading off to dinner.
And it was a lovely dinner. I think some people forget what a first date was like pre dating apps, or maybe they have never genuinely experienced a first date without knowing too much prior information about the person or even spending weeks talking to each other before actually meeting up in person. Dating with no apps was simply amazing. But the uneasiness was not really there and it once again felt like two people getting to know each other in a private space. It was genuinely wonderful. We skipped over what are now the ‘standard first date questions’ (favorite color, barn animal, dogs or cats) and jumped into deep conversations about what we thought happened after death; her time living abroad and her making ceramics south of the boarder for a small town with a heavy clay deposit that threw, in her opinion, some of the most beautiful ceramics; our home lives growing up and what we imagined life would be like after college; and when we grew old what our dream selves would look back upon and think we did right or wrong. Time passed very quickly with us not knowing because at a point, the waiter stood close to the table, other tables had emptied around us, plates with the scraps of food on them, a near empty second bottle of wine, and asked if we wanted anything more as he poured the last remnants of the bottle into her glass. We said we were good on food and wine as he held up the dessert menu inquiring about sweets. Almost immediately she told the waiter we were fine and as the waiter turned to walk away, she grabbed her glass of wine, brought it to her mouth, and said looking me directly in my eyes stated “we’ll have dessert back at your place”.
Kitty was resolute.
After a very quick moment of self reflection in the dimly lit restaurant, I realized I was game. there is nothing like a little (or a lot) of liquid courage, but more importantly I felt like I had an actual connection with this person and my plan was if anyone might understand why halfway through I need to stop or bail before anything got intense, it might be this girl.
We headed back to my place, me letting my roommates know I was coming back with a girl and would keep it down, i received a text from both stating they were out of town anyway almost immediately. Talk about Kismet. The gods of sexual beings were in my favor this night. Finally, a celibacy streak broken and with a girl who by all means was someone I was getting along with.
Before even entering the house she and I were kissing each other, pushing through the front door to the house and running into the entry hall standing wooden coat hanger. Stumbling as we took our winter boots off and added them to the pile at the front, tripping over the shoulder of the couch that was just too big for a college rental homes living room, brain flooding with endorphins. Just passion building as we slowly made our way upstairs to my room, my brain realizing I was in fact about this. At my room she pushed me on the bed in the dark, crawled on top of me, and we continued to kiss. The nervousness I had downstairs was fading and was being replaced with a sense of pride that I, of all nerds and awkward people, was getting a shot with a hot artsy girl.
Kitty sat up for a moment, legs straddling my sides, slowly grinding on top of me when she said she was going to run to the restroom to “freshen up real quick”. I was still just shell shocked and thinking, I went into this just with the mindset of enjoying dinner, and now we are here and she’s saying these things to me and doing these things to me, how lucky am I. I nodded my head as she got up and grabbed her very small purse by my desk that was next to my bed, and headed down the hall to the restroom.
In the dark of my room here I was thinking, “oh god, what do I do now?”. It had been long enough that I simply had forgotten what I should do in this moment. I was currently just on my back, starring at my ceiling, thinking, “do I light some candles? would music be too weird or too much? Is that basic now? What about my clothes? Should I take my shirt off or left her take it off?”
I sat up and turned my desk lamp on to add some light, realizing immediately the size of my room. It was the smallest in the house, about 8 feet by 12 feet. My “standard” sized bed was pushed up against the back wall and west wall, and within arms reach was my desk, also against the back wall but also backed up against the east wall of the room. A small closet at the end of the room on and only a few feet of open space I mostly used to get ready for the day. Looking at the small spots open in my room, it was a mess.
The open space near the front of my bed was covered in clothes and a pair of dirty shoes, desk scattered with school work and other stuff, and bed sheets all over the place. My mind started to run. I got up and threw the dirty clothes I had on the floor into my closet, again realizing earlier my intentions were not to come back with someone this evening. I turned to see my desk now lit up, lab work papers and my tiny $150 dollar Google Laptop strewn across the small desk’s top. I quickly stacked the papers in order and placed the laptop off near the back. Standing back and looking at my work i then thought does the desk look too clean? Too organized? Is a clean room unsexy? Does organization kill the mood?
My mind was running through so many options I felt like it was in fact my first time again. Like if she was to come in, should I lean into corny? Set up lit candles, Berry White playing, maybe somehow obtain and spread rose petals on the floor and bed while holding a bottle of massage oil in my hand? Is that funny? Is that possible? Why am I waisting time here. Should I just go back and lay on the bed in the same spot and continue to look at the ceiling? Or is that too weird? I felt green.
Not sick green. Inexperienced green.
I decided after a while that I would move my desks lamp closer to the edge of the desk so it could be turned off easily in case she didn’t want the light on. I then, sitting on the edge of the bed, remembered the un-sexiness that comes with trying to take your socks off in the moment, and took them off, stood back up and tossed them into the closet adding to the growing pile of dirty laundry. Then, seeing my reflection in the window I thought, maybe shirt off? Is that hot? Or should I keep it on and let her take it off? Fuck, what do I do. Deciding as fast as I could, I took it off, throwing it on the floor so as to maybe help keep it looking like I didn’t just ‘panic clean’, maybe helping to preserve some hint of “passion” we were creating from the moment we hit my front porch. Looking at my desk though, it bothered me how clean I made it, so I messed up a pile of papers I had stacked. I then hopped back on my bed but sitting up this time against the back wall, looking towards the door opening. As fast as I sat back down I sat right back up. “Oh shit I need a condom!”
Getting up as quick as I could, but quietly as I could, the bathroom not being far from my room, and the houses old wood floors squeaking with any and all steps, I searched through my desk and found the couple condoms Nils threw at me a couple weeks back. But I thought I shouldn’t just have them out in the open, right? That could be maybe a little too assuming no? So I hid them behind the lamp so come time I could sneakily grab one without ruining the moment, and once again, got back on my bed. It was also at this point, once the adrenaline of pre-bedroom makeout session and her leaving for the bathroom had died, shirt off, I noticed my room was freezing. I hadn’t been home most the day and the radiator was off.
So once again, I locked eyes to the hallway to make sure I didn’t hear anyone coming just yet, rolled off the bed (the floors immediately squealing again the second I stood up) and turned the knob to the radiator on full blast. Once again, I had to keep the mood alive and I couldn’t help but think my bedroom being maybe only a dozen or so degrees warmer than the winter night air of western Illinois was not going to cut it. Radiator hissing and heat pumping almost immediately, back on my bed for the fourth or fifth time at this point, I brought one leg up so it was bent and the other out straight, I tried my best to look as hot as possible for when she would walk back in.
And then the fear came. Dawning on me like a the clouds covering a bright sunny day. During my shenanigans of clothes, and condoms, and radiator, and cleaning the room a little, and all that, my brain asked a simple question that proceeded to flood my blood with anxiousness yet again. All that had taken some time. A long time in fact. And there I sat, thinking to myself, “holy shit, did she leave?!”
I looked over where her small purse was and was now gone, I saw her take it even in the dark. I saw her walk to the bathroom thought right? I couldn’t remember if I actually did or did not. But it looked like there was a light on at the end of the hall to where the bathroom was. But that could have just been one of my roommates rooms who had left a light on in their bedrooms. And her shoes were down stairs as we both fumbled trying to get them off while trying to continue to make out.
“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck” I was mumbling to myself as I started to get out of my bed to check downstairs to see if in fact she had left. How could I be so dumb.
Mind on me being an idiot and maybe pushing too hard too fast, thinking maybe it was something I said or maybe even my room, at the edge of my bed, Kitty came back to the door way.
Kitty was bold.
There, standing in the entry of the door, only a few steps away was Kitty.
But dressed in a head to toe Cat Outfit.
Black, thigh high socks were attached to her black garter belt; a long black tail hung out the back dangling to the floor; a very small, black see through thong broke just below her belly button and was picked up by her black topless corset, which sat over a long sleeved, see through nylon top; at the ends of the sleeves where her hands, accessorized with small black ‘cat gloves’ (I could only image and hope the fur on the back of the gloves was fake); then up to her neck, a thick black choker with accompanying silver bell; finally moving up to her face and head, with drawn on black nose and whiskers, and a pair of black cat ears at the very top of her head like a crown a top of king.
Sitting near the edge of my bed, my hands still behind me, Kitty dropped to the floor and started to crawl to me on all fours (solidifying the fact to me that the tail was not attached to any garment or article of clothing, but rather an insert) her eyes locked on my face, with what I can only imagine was a look of pure shock.
“tell me I am a bad kitty” she said as she slowly crawled on all fours my way.
I was speechless.
“Tell me!” she demanded now having gotten to where I was sitting, resting on her back legs, bringing a hand to her face and licking the back of the glove, then proceeding to wipe her face with it the way cats do when cleaning themselves.
“I am an dirty, dirty, kitty. Tell me I’m bad!” whispering the first part and almost growling the second.
I don’t remember actually if I said anything as I looked at the polished silver bell around her neck reflecting the soft yellow light from my desk lamp.
Kitty was fierce.
It was the cold I think that snapped me back into reality. I was standing outside Nils house late at night in only my jeans, shirtless and shoe less, knocking on his door probably too hard for the time of night.
Behind the door he yelled as he came down the apartments stairs “Whats up were watching bobs burgers?” and after opening the door and seeing me “…what happened…”
Inside I sat on his couch as he handed me a warm beer I did not ask for, an episode of bobs burgers on mute behind him, telling the two of them what just happened. Nils and his roommate laughed hysterically a little too long. I cant blame them. I went into this night with hopes as high as possible, and nothing, nothing could have prepared me for after dinner. I liken it to someone who maybe has just recently gotten back into skiing saying “hey, I would like a couple warm up runs, get my legs back under me, maybe hit some greens?” for that person to then find themselves in some double black diamond back bowl, looking over the edge of a couloir to the unknown. “Good luck kid, try not to break anything” I just was thinking over and over again.
After the laughing I think Nils roommate looked at me and then said “so you just left her there?!”
Nils and the roommate barely had their coats on as they were halfway across the road to my place, me not far behind asking them to not go in and let me handle it, I couldn’t handle the embarrassment of not only freezing but then immediately going to tell others about it. upon arriving to my house, entering the door I noticed her boots were gone, giving me hope she was in fact not still upstairs in my bed room. And upon entering my room my hopes were answered. Only the light from the lamp and the heat from the radiator were in full force, a tuft of black fur from her gloves moved slowly across the hardwood floor.
The two ridiculed me for my actions almost immediately. But can you blame me for freezing? I thought I was just going to have a lovely, all be it vanilla, run of the mill shag with a girl I was bonding with. I thought, man what a lovely way to get out of this self introduced celibate lifestyle I have somehow found myself in. And more importantly how could I have known?!
A few days later a friend asked me how I didn’t pick up on any of it. There had to have been some hints through out the night. And that was true for the most part. She did talk about her openness to sexuality and being sex positive in general, but at a liberal arts college, that tends to come pretty standard. It did get me thinking though about how all she had was her tiny black bag with her that night. Made me think thats where she must have kept the gloves, ears, and tail. But then I thought back to her boots, long and black leather ones with a slight heel. Her long jeans, also black. And even her some how extra thick turtle neck sweater she had on the entire meal, even though the restaurant was hot. It made me think she must have just wore that outfit out the house and added the finishing touches in the restroom.
My roommate sent me a text with accompanying photo of a used black makeup marker Monday morning while I was in lab. She asked if I knew what it was and I said I had no idea and to maybe just toss it.
I chatted with my scene shop friend that next week before work and he asked how dinner went and I said it went very well and I had a lovely time. Said Kitty was cool but we just didn’t connect that well. I wondered if he was testing me to see if I would tell him as gossip get around a theatre department about 10 times the speed of any other social structure, but it seemed like he genuinely did not know. Which made me think she did not tell anyone herself or found the few people she could trust with my rudeness and her side of the story. But I was genuinely surprised that word hadn’t gotten out about me bailing on a more than half naked women on her knees in my bedroom. I learned that day maybe some things can and do in fact stay private at a small school.
I saw Kitty again that following Tuesday. First, was when she was walking to the theatre department with her friend and I rode by on my bike. We smiled and nodded to each other. And then again while I was delivering some materials to the sewing department. Same smile and nod. Hard to work in the building her entire schooling was being held that term and not see one another. We interacted a lot the rest of that term.
And I think about her side of the story often. About how she maybe felt like she could put herself out there and finally did just to get stood up in probably the worst way possible. Not even a cordial “look I am sorry but this is just too much” but instead a man standing up, not even bothering to put on a shirt or even shoes, dead of mid-west winter, and just leaving her alone in his bedroom all alone. But then I think back to the outfit, to the prep that must have gone into it. The careful planning. And think I was probably not her first try at this.
Kitty was confident. Kitty was Resolute. Kitty was Bold. Kitty was Fierce,
And I am sure, Kitty is still being bad.
*Having told a much, much more abridged version of this during that night out in Bar Harbor, at the end, the best man asked me if Kitty and I ever actually got to talking again. And I told him we did. This wasn’t the death of a friendship, more just a moment and a night. But it was only about a week or so after the event, both of us keeping to our selves as much as we could, when Kitty and another theatre student were cleaning up used paintbrushes and organizing the paint section in the shop. she had old paint and dust all over her shirt and clothes. I looked at her in passing and said “you’re pretty dirty huh?”. We both laughed, I think a little too hard, because when walking away I heard her say to the other kid “it’s an inside joke”.
Casual Entropy 