Sam pays Jen a visit

The chime of Jennifer’s phone went off again. She blinked her eyes and stared across her bed, wanting more sleep. The college student sighed and picked up her phone. It was Sam again. She wanted to know what tests Jen was studying for. Jen felt irked. What did it matter what tests she was studying for? She needed to study and couldn’t wrestle with the others and have fun.

Jen grumbled and sat up, staring down at her phone. She was too groggy to send a snippy remark back so jotted down her courses to her training partner. She had no idea what Sam wanted to do with that information or if she could even decipher the course codes, but she didn’t really care, she just wanted five more minutes to nap.

Five minutes later, Jen’s chime went off again.

“Ugh….” Jen groaned. She half wished Sam would just call so she could hear the annoyance in Jen’s voice. The next message was Sam wanting to come over later to visit. Jen reminded her that she needed to study. Sam promised that she had the solution to both their problems. Jen wondered what Sam was talking about. She knew the mystery would nag at her, so relented and told Sam to come over in the evening.

Jen was right; Sam’s solution was nagging her all day. She could barely concentrate in class and was having a hard time focusing on her books. Sam was coming over soon and she wanted to cram as much as she could before her friend arrived. Nothing was sinking in her head though, she just kept wondering what Sam had to help.

Finally, the buzzer rang and Jen saw Sam at the front entrance. She buzzed her in and waited for her to come to the door. Sam came marching in with her knapsack slung over her shoulder and a bright smile on her face.

“I got it!” she said, cryptically.

“Got what?” Jen asked, still in the dark.

“I got the answer! All the answers!”

“What are you talking about?”

Sam opened her bag and pulled out folders on the kitchen table.

“Answers! To your exams! I picked them up off a guy selling old exams,” she explained.

“Old exams?!” Jen blurted out in shock.

“Yeah, don’t worry, the guy told me that the professors recycle like 70% of these questions. All you gotta do is ace these tests and you’ll be golden for your midterms!”

“Sam! I can’t do that, that’s cheating!” Jen panicked.

“What do you mean?”

“These are the answers to the exams! I can’t see these! I’ll get in trouble!” she backed away like the papers were radioactive.

“They’re exam questions, not THE exam questions,” Sam reasoned. “It’d be like you doing a mock exam with questions that may or may not be on the actual exam.”

“If my professors found out…” Jen worried.

“Then it’s on your professors for not changing the questions,” Sam pointed out.

“But they’re specific to the curriculum. You have to know certain things to pass and that’s what they’re testing for,” Jen explained.

“Then you should be knowing these things to begin with!” Sam continued to reason. “So, if these ‘mock exams’ help you learn these important facts, you should be doing them!”

Jennifer wavered, looking at the papers and biting her lower lip. Sam’s logic wasn’t off base. She really was supposed to learn the stuff that would be on the exam.

“How about this; I give you an exam based on questions from different exams and we’ll test how much you know. You don’t have to look at any of the papers and I’ll mark it so you don’t have to look at any of the answers!” Sam suggested. “If you can ace it, then you have nothing to worry about for your midterms and we can do the tag match!”

“How do I know you won’t just say I aced it to get me to join your tag team?” Jen asked, warily.

“Babe! It’s me! Would I do that?”

“You just bought past exam answers to help cheat for my midterms…”

“Yeah! And that money would go to waste if I didn’t use them!”

Jen frowned. Once again, Sam’s logic seemed to hold up. “Well, alright… but if I fail the actual midterm because of this, you’re going to have to explain it to my parents!”

Jen ended up taking three consecutive midterms with Sam lining up one after the other and then grading the results. Jen watched nervously as Sam graded the final paper. She didn’t know anything about the subject matter or the questions but Jen’s answers were clear and concise and were more understandable than what was written on the answer sheets. She looked back at Jen and said, “Why the hell were you so worried about these tests?! You aced them all!”

Jennifer let out a sigh of relief, then smiled. “Really? Did I get any wrong?”

“Well, maybe some small thing here and there, but nothing major from what I could tell,” Sam replied.

“OH? Let me see…”

“No no… you can’t be getting a perfect score, that’ll look suspicious,” Sam warned.

“Oh. I hadn’t thought about that…” Jen said, starting to wonder how many of these hustles her friend has done before.

“OK, you’ll pass your midterms with flying colors,” Sam started. “Now let’s focus on more important matters!”

“The tag match?” Jen answered with a smirk. Samantha was like a dog with a bone. She would not let it go!

“Yeah! We need a time and place. I had my match with Elsa in the change room, but that might be too small for a tag match, not to mention, we need a way to track scores…”

“The shed might be too small too…” Jen considered. “But I DO know a place on campus that just might work…” She thought about the school’s wrestling room. Monica had access, but what could she do to convince the physical therapist to let them use it? “Wait…”

“Huh?”

Jen realized she wasn’t sharing her thoughts. “I just thought of something. I know someone who might be able to ref our match. I mean if she’s willing. I don’t know if she’s still into this or not. And if I get her onboard, we almost certainly have a place to do it too!”

“Oh cool! I don’t mind a ref, I’ve never really had one for my matches.”

“Me either! Should I ask her?”

“Of course!”

“Should we ask the others first? But then, what if she says no?” Jen wondered aloud.

“Just ask this person and we’ll go from there!” Sam told her.

Jen nodded. She had physio with Monica the next day. She would ask her then.

“OK! Now that that’s settled…”

Sam stood up and grabbed her bag. Instead of gathering all the papers to put back in, she pulled more stuff out. Jen watched on in confusion as packaged cosplay outfits were lined up on the table.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Well, I didn’t want to distract you from your tests by telling you then, but I decided that I should reward you in the case you scored high!” Sam explained. “So…I picked up a few outfits from the comic shop after work. Since you did so well, you get to choose which one I wear!”

The petite noirette gave her friend an impish grin. Jen felt her heart skip a beat as she picked up one of the options. A sailor suit that was more like a skimpy harness with a skirt. She picked up another outfit. It was a catsuit with a bikini cut for the legs and a zipper going up the back. It also came with a cat-eared mask. She grinned naughtily. Her hard work and studying had never felt more rewarding.