It’s been this way for weeks and at first, I put it down to the apprehension of leaving home for the first time, but now I’m not so sure. Something feels different, but I don’t know what it is. Some days I actually feel unwell; tired, queasy and dizzy.
Maybe it’s just the stress of being away from my parents and not presently having a friend to talk to?
I’m hoping it doesn’t last for much longer, as I can’t really focus on anything externally, which is the reason I didn’t try to join a sorority, even though it would have solved the friendship part of my conundrum.
I can’t seem to relate to anyone; they all seem so different from me. They’re all too happy…hyper...exuberant…on speed?
I just feel like such an outsider and I don’t know why. It also doesn’t help that I don’t have a roommate…I am officially alone.
I glance at the empty bed on the far side of the room. Apparently, my no-show roommate decided to take a gap year at the last minute. I guess the upside is I don’t have to make polite small talk with someone I potentially wouldn’t like…I don’t have the energy for that.
Louder, more distinct voices fill my room from the campus below; a gaggle of girls giggling flirtatiously while masculine sounding voices tease and encourage them. I figure this could be worth a look, so I focus my attention on the sidewalk below.
Six burly looking guys are clearly looking to score with the five very pretty, well-dressed cheerleader-type girls. I try not to laugh at the stereotype cliché and notice I’ve seen these guys around campus a few times, always with a throng of women in tow…total players.
Easily noticeable by their completely masculine physiques – tall, broad-shouldered types with the kind of thickly muscled forearms that you know are a prelude to the ripped bodies they hide under their trendy ‘I’m-trying-not-to-look-like-I’m-trying’ clothes.
They look utterly at odds compared with other college guys – even the really athletic ones, who by comparison look boyishly adolescent. Definitely not first years…probably seniors who get a thrill from fucking and dumping the young freshman girls.
But even that doesn’t seem right…they’re just too masculine in their looks and the way they carry themselves to be college guys.
I suppose there’s always the possibility they are mature students, but they don’t seem old either. There’s an air of maturity, but not. A wisdom that’s being deliberately dumbed down.
Either way, you can’t blame the girls fawning all over them; if I came face to face with them, they would fry my synapses with their devastatingly handsome, chiseled faces. Every single one of them.
That bothers me also; it’s not usual for a group of men with such similar physiques to all be so attractive. Normally in a group of people, there is more variety than that. Usually, you can pick one that you would throw out of bed…if you’d been drunk enough to get in it with them in the first place.
But not these guys. Sure, there were differences in height, hair, and eye color, etc. but they are too similar in some way I can’t put my finger on (apart from being players).
I look closer and can pick one guy who stands out more than the others, but maybe that’s just because he’s larger – taller, more muscled and obviously, quite the kisser as he unashamedly kisses one of the girls very publicly, very passionately and somewhat erotically as his tongue probes her mouth…
How can I see that from here?
I close the window and draw the blinds to drown out the sounds of her moaning, his friends cheering in that congratulatory way guys have, and to stop myself from being perverted and admiring his prowess.
In the loneliness of my room it feels like a taunt; “see what the rest of the world can do while you can’t even open your mouth enough to make a friend, let alone open it wide enough for me to devour it with my amazing tongue”.
I hate my internal monologue.
Not even a movie can hold my attention now. There is nothing for it but a really early night.
* * *
The weekend passes in a monotonous blur – I’m not sure how I fill it but eventually its Monday again and I make my way to an astronomy lecture. Dad is keen, to say the least, that I follow him into the family business, which means I have to major in business, but I’m permitted to minor in whatever subject fascinates me the most…I just have to figure out what that is.
Astronomy seems like a good starting point as I adore the telescope my parents bought me one Christmas and spend hours staring into the night sky, enjoying how inconsequential people problems seem compared to the grandeur of space.
Once I’d even been brave enough to say that to a particularly obnoxious business acquaintance of my father, in an attempt to stop him droning on and on about the latest difficulties in a hostile takeover bid of his. Dad had the good grace to find it amusing, the uptight prick in a suit? Not so much.
Walking through the bustling campus I notice I’m starting to recognize some familiar faces of others who live in the same dorm as me, a couple even smile politely at me. This puts me in a genuinely happy mood and I’m still smiling as I take a seat in the cavernous auditorium – somewhere safely in the middle with no one sat between me and the stairs and by extension, the exit.
I grab my pen, notebook, and laptop from my vintage blue, leather satchel; my parents are funding my education, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to squander their investment…I’m here to learn.
Settling into my seat, I exchange a few cursory nods and polite smiles with some classmates in my immediate vicinity – which boosts my confidence no end. Just as I begin zoning out the consistent hum of chatter, the doors open again and in walk the hot guys from Friday night. Only three of them this time, but the last one through the door is definitely the taller guy with the oral expertise.
He follows his friends up the stairs to find a seat and I allow myself to stare at their perfect features, especially as I wasn’t the only one admiring them…they turn heads, both male and female. I smirk to myself at how ridiculously we all react to them until the tall, dark and dangerous kissing god looks me straight in the eyes…
Holy shit.
Synapse frying is an understatement.
His seriously deep indigo blue eyes have me held in some frightening tractor-beam type trance; I can’t blink, let alone look away. His intense, overpowering eyes start to frown at my blatant and quite rude staring, but I can’t see clearly anymore. Everything around me starts to fade away and images that feel too much like memories shimmer and dance in front of my eyes. My heart races painfully as the lecture hall and noisy students fade away leaving me standing in the middle of an ornate ballroom. The vision of delicately carved, black and white marble columns surrounding a circular, cavernous ballroom with an equally exquisitely polished marble floor and the most enormous sparkling chandelier glittering in the soft light consumes my senses. Couples dance across my eyes in perfect time to a string quartet playing a song I don’t know and wearing clothes that haven’t looked in place for at least a century. I look down to see that I’m dressed beautifully in a similar fashion and wish there was a mirror I could see myself in.
The image blurs around the edges as my attention is drawn away from the room to the hand resting possessively on the small of my back. A delicious shiver runs through me as I turn to face the mystery person and find myself face to face with the dark and dangerous kissing god, dressed to devastating perfection in a black suit.