by L. C. Davis
Kingdom of Night:
Pendulum
1
Eastern Washington University was turning out to be everything I'd hoped: dull, rainy and far away. It still wasn't geographically far enough from Austin for my liking, but since Bangkok University wasn't taking international psych majors this place would have to do. At least my new school was as far from good old Austin University as it could get in terms of atmosphere. I was more than relieved to trade in the blistering Texan sun for some West Coast humidity, even if my hair didn't agree. A quick glance at the tinted glass window of the classroom door revealed quite a few stray hairs that were defying my flat iron's best efforts.
I made a half-hearted attempt to smooth my hair down as I took a seat in the outer aisle. Maybe I should just cut it. After all, Jeff was the one who insisted I'd look like Carrot Top if I allowed it to be anything but long and smooth. He was also the one who insisted that I stay out of the sun as much as possible so my tawny skin wouldn't “darken” any more. Now that I was free from his exacting ideals of what his exotic trophy should look like, there was no point in having hangups about changing my appearance.
I could already tell I wasn't going to fit in with my classmates anyway. As what had been a mostly empty classroom began to fill up, I started to notice a pattern. Most of them were pale hipster types with thick glasses, thicker beards and the newest oldest-looking outfits. I had thought my jeans and hoodie would be a neutral choice for the first day of class, but I was wrong. As a femme twenty-something of Roma blood, I was an anomaly in Texas. Looked like I was destined to be one here as well.
A slender man who looked like a carbon copy of students—save for maybe a ten-year age difference—strode into the room and took his station behind the short metal desk up front. He was cool and sharp looking with a stunningly well-tailored white button down, hipster glasses and a faux-military haircut that was shaved close on the sides but left long and slicked back on top. He looked more like he was prepared to model men's watches than to teach Interpersonal Psychology II.
“Alright guys,” he said after pulling a huge stack of papers from his brown messenger bag. “Most of you know me from the intro class last year, but I see a few new faces,” he said, locking eyes with me for an instant before he began to pass out a stapled stack of papers to each student. “My name is Professor Winters when class is in session and Prentice when it's not.”
He paused at my desk when he made his way down the aisle to me and held onto the syllabus when I tried to take it. “You must be the new transfer student. Remus Black, right?”
“Yes,” I replied carefully as my heart did a little leap. Transfer students weren't an uncommon occurrence at such a big university. Why should he know my name already? Was it even possible for Jeff's influences to stretch so far?
No, I was just being paranoid. It was simple curiosity and nothing more.
“Welcome, then,” he said, releasing the syllabus. I sank back into my chair and let out the breath I'd been holding ever since he stopped at my desk.
“Got a case of wool vest syndrome?” asked the guy beside me. I turned to face the stout, boyish stranger I'd barely taken notice of before. He was every bit as much the hipster as the others, glasses and all, but he wore an adorably impish smile in contrast to their somber masks.
“Excuse me?” I asked, confused. “I'm sorry, what's that?”
He laughed and twirled a chewed up pencil between his fingers. “When you're afraid of doctors it's called white coat syndrome. When you're afraid of college professors it's called wool vest syndrome.”
I laughed a little. “That's funny, but I'm not afraid of professors. I just had a bit too much coffee this morning.”
“Well, you should be afraid of that one,” he said with a knowing smirk. “Don't let the Dead Poet Society act fool you. Winters is a major hardass,” he whispered.
I decided not to correct him on his bad example and smiled. “Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I'm Remus.”
“Yeah, I heard. I'm Arthur. Remus is kind of a weird name. Where ya from?”
“Austin,” I replied, deciding to add “Texas” for clarification. “It's from Roman mythology. He was one of the twin boys who were raised by wolves. I think my mother must have been a mythology geek.”
“You think?” He arched an eyebrow. “It's your name, shouldn't you know?”
When I hesitated, he puffed out his cheeks and violently mussed up his own honey-colored locks. “Sorry, I'm kind of a busybody. Ignore me. Anyway, so what made you transfer from Austin?”
“Settle down, folks,” Professor Winters called from the front of the room, giving particularly pointed looks to Arthur and a few chatty girls on the other side of the room. “Just because this is the first day doesn't mean we don't have any material to cover. Starting with these big floppy things with strange hieroglyphs printed on them,” he said, dangling an extra syllabus. “Let's decipher, shall we?”
I turned to face the front of the class and tried in vain to pay attention to his explanation of the syllabus. Paranoia was already rearing its head even before my neighbor flicked a paper football onto my desk and made me jump. It unfolded to read:
Let me buy you a cup of apology coffee at the lounge? I'm dying to know why anyone would trade in cowboys and sun for Washington. 6 p.m.
Yes [ ] No [ ]
I glanced up to make sure the professor wasn't looking before I turned back to the note. Sixth-grade nostalgia washed over me as my pen hovered over the boxes. Arthur was obviously gay. Hopefully I wasn't getting myself into an awkward situation by checking yes. My loneliness tipped the scales and I took the risk, subtly passing the note back to him.
He read it and grinned. We both turned our attention back to the front of the room as the professor went over the grading scale, unit objectives and rules of conduct. Fortunately, I'd read my fair share of syllabi, so I knew what the gist would be. I could always go over it later.
The bell rang and I stood, all too eager to gather my things and relieved I'd chosen a seat so close to the exit. My new friend leaned in to say something to me when the professor called, “Mr. Black, may I see you for a moment?”
I froze. My paranoia and jittery hands hadn't led me astray after all. Arthur gave me a wide-eyed look of sympathy and hovered by the door as I walked to the front to meet my fate. Hopefully it was just a pop quiz on the syllabus I hadn't read.
“Yes, sir?”
“Please, call me Prentice,” he said leaning back on his desk. “No need to be nervous, I just wanted to clarify a few things about your transfer status.”
I made an attempt to swallow the lump in my throat, but it wouldn't budge. “Yes, I, uh, just transferred from Austin State University.”
“Yes, that's what my roster said,” he replied, patting a folder on his desk. “I'm just confused as to why you're taking a level II course.”
“I took the level I at my old school,” I insisted, feeling panic coil up in my stomach. “I made a 4.0.”
“Oh, I have no doubt. I did a little digging because I thought I recognized your name, and found this,” he said, taking out another thick, stapled document.
“Codependent Relationships Among Gender and Sexual Minorities.” One of my old papers.
“You also won the Risdall Award for the top undergraduate paper at the national conference. You gave the keynote student speech. I'm not wondering if you're qualified to be in this class, I'm just wondering why you aren't a teaching assistant by now. We both know you didn't write that in a second-year class.”
I looked at the floor, too flustered to meet his gaze. “Yeah, um, they had some trouble getting my transcripts to transfer over, so --”
“Transcripts?” he frowned. “Then how did your transfer go through at all?”
I took a step back and tried to steady myself on the desk behind me without him noticing. The floor was starting to feel like ice. “I applied for another transfer my sophomore year,” I explained. “But I ended up staying in Austin. My recent transcripts haven't transferred, so those are all the credits they could give me for now.”
He was still watching, too perceptive. Those glasses helped him see a little too much.
“Yes, but a student at your level retaking a course that's practically introductory is absurd,” he muttered. “What could possibly be the hold up?”
My face grew warm as I tried to decide whether I wanted to risk giving this stranger more information just so I wouldn't have to be ashamed. No, I decided. My freedom was so recent, it would be foolish to flaunt it.
“Financial,” I explained. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth, either. “The billing department is refusing to let my transcripts go because my scholarships were retroactively revoked.”
“Retroactively revoked?” he asked in disbelief. “I've never heard of something like that. This whole situation seems so bizarre. Why don't I speak with the dean and I'll see if I can --”
“No!” I winced at the own volume. “I'm sorry, it's just that I really want to move past it. What happened was my fault, but I've gotten a few scholarships here and I'm in work study, so I'd really just like to start fresh. If being in this class is a problem, I can take another elective.”
“No, I'm the one who's sorry,” he sighed. “I taught high school before this, so I guess I still haven't adjusted to the fact that my students are adults now and they ca solve their own problems. I hate the idea that such good work is going unrecognized, but I'll respect your wishes and I'm happy to have you in my class. I just hope that if you change your mind you'll come to me.”
I nodded emphatically. “I will. Thank you. I really appreciate your concern, but I'm sure I'll learn more the second time around anyway,” I said, taking my phone out of my pocket to check the time. “I'm sorry, I've got another class coming up.”
“Of course,” he said with an unconvinced smile. “I'll see you on Wednesday.”
“See you then,” I said, slinging my messenger bag over my shoulder. His was my last class and my only remaining obligation aside from seeing Arthur and meeting my roommate at some point. I felt a twinge of guilt for telling so many lies on the first day, but I reminded myself that it was for his good, too. The last thing I needed was for some innocent person to tug at the transcript thread and end up unraveling the mess that was my life in Austin.
2
I made it to the cafe fifteen minutes early in a nervous effort to find it for the first time so I wouldn't be late meeting Arthur. The campus post office was only a building away from the cafe, so I decided to check my mail box for the first time and make sure the combination I'd received in my welcome packet worked. Amid a sea of balloons, flowers and care packages being opened by homesick freshmen, my mailbox held only a coupon to some local pizza place and a letter from the campus housing office telling me that my would-be roommate had dropped out of school.
Looked like I had the place all to myself. I wasn't as excited about that prospect as I probably should have been.
I waited for a while before ordering a sugary coffee drink. The girl at the desk was the bubbly, giggly type and she seemed mystifying oblivious to my gayness. Maybe guys in Washington were more metro than I was used to. Good thing I had no intention of ever getting into a relationship again, because I could see how that would be confusing.
“So, are you waiting for someone?” she asked pointedly while we waited for my lite soy latte.
“Yeah, uh, he should be here soon.” I didn't mind the flirting, but I was far too inept to know how to respond to it.
A look of recognition lit up her face. “Ohh,” she said knowingly. “Well, he's a lucky boy,” she grinned, handing me a frothy drink.
I took it with a guilty smile. “Thanks. Have a good night,” I said, slinking off to my table. Hopefully nothing would happen that would alert Arthur to the fact that he was my reverse beard.
He was only a bit late when he showed up and I could see him mouthing apologies before I could hear them. He dashed over to me, out of breath and clutching a neon blue flier in his hand. “Sorry,” he wheezed, collapsing in his seat. “Major roommate drama. Total jock. Barbells everywhere. Not a good situation. Might have to enter the witness protection program.”
I couldn't help but laugh. “Why, what happened?”
“Well, he had this smelly torture rack thing in the middle of the room, so I moved it. Turns out it was a thousand-dollar ab cruncher, and I may have broken off one of the side pieces,” he explained. “I was just at the housing office pleading my case to switch rooms.”
“Yikes,” I winced. “So, what's the final verdict?”
“Apparently the housing office lady is also a fitness nut, so she's willing to transfer my roommate if he wants, but I can go screw myself,” he sighed, letting his head drop on the table.
I hesitated. “Well, my roommate dropped out of school. Looks like we're both having issues.”
“Huh?” He looked up like a hopeful puppy. “So you have a single room?”
“Looks like it,” I said carefully. I wasn't sure why I'd divulged that bit of information to him. I barely knew him yet, never mind whether or not he'd make a good roommate. Then again, my impulsive decisions to move in with strange men always had been my downfall. “If you want--”
“Yes!” he cried, launching out of his chair to grab my hand. “Oh Remus, you're amazing.”
I didn't have to look behind me to know that the girl at the desk was getting all the confirmation of my lie she needed. Oh, well.
“It's not a big deal,” I assured him.
“Yes it is! You sure you want to give up a glorious single room just to be nice?”
I laughed. “Honestly, I'm not that into the idea of being by myself. I was kind of looking forward to actually living the college experience.”
“Didn't you transfer, though?”
“Yeah, but I lived off campus,” I explained guardedly. “With my ex.”
“That explains it. Man, must have ended bad if you went all this way just to get away from him.”
“You have no idea,” I muttered.
He seemed to be pondering something for a moment before his grin returned. “Well, screw him. Now that we're roommates, we'll be an unstoppable team of man magnets.”
“Man magnets?” I asked, relieved that he wasn't interested in anything more than a wingman. “Don't magnets either get stuck together or repel?”
“See, that's why we're gonna be a great team,” he explained. “You can be the brains, I'll be the brawn.”
“Brawn?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
He patted his slightly pudgy stomach. “Hey, there's a lot of it under here. Underneath this flab beats the heart of a warrior.”
I couldn't help but laugh. It was the first time I could remember laughing, before or after Jeff. I decided then and there that my decision to take Arthur in was the right one. A little laughter in my life wouldn't be the worst thing, even if he did end up having a few annoying habits.
“Oh yeah,” he said, suddenly shifting gears. He flattened the crumpled flier out on the table and leaned over it. “I saw this on the way over, some guy was passing them out at the LGBT center. Serious hottie, and I mean eight-pack hotter-than-John Rals hot.
“Hotter than him?” I asked with feigned doubt. Movie stars were never really my type. “I don't know.”
“Seriously,” he said earnestly. “Check it out.” He stabbed the paper with his finger right over the line that read “$10,000 Cash Prize.”
The figure certainly drew my attention. I read further and my interest dimmed.
“The Lodge Presents the Annual Alpha's Pet Contest
O
nly Hot Male Subs Ages 18-30 Need Apply
FRIDAY NIGHT ONLY
11 p.m. - - ???
Winner receives access to the Alpha's Dungeon, a photoshoot for Perfect Pets Magazine and the coveted diamond collar!”
“What is this?” I asked warily. “It sounds like a cheesy reality show.”
“It's this contest the Alphas throw every year,” he explained. “The flier is cheesy, but the club is totally legit.”
“Who are the Alphas?” I asked, rereading the flier for a trace of an explanation.
“Oh, right. Texas,” he said as if that explained something. “The Lodge is this super-exclusive BDSM club and it's run by this super secretive society of doms that call themselves the Wolf Pack. The dance floor and a couple of play rooms are open to the public every weekend, but the dungeon is membership only.”
“I see,” I lied. My confusion must have been evident because Arthur grinned.
“You can't be such an innocent farm boy that you've never even heard of a dungeon?”
“No,” I said, tucking my hair behind my ear. It was an embarrassing tick I'd never been able to tick. “I know what BDSM is, it's just that most of the gay clubs in Austin are a bit more mainstream.”
“Well, that sucks. And here I thought it was supposed to be the gay oasis down there. Well whatever, you'll figure it out quick. This place is like the campus obsession. Even women are always trying to crash.”
“BDSM isn't really my thing,” I admitted, taking a sip from my latte.
“Let me guess, too many shades of bullshit turned you off?” he teased.
I laughed. “No, nothing like that. My ex was just domineering enough for a lifetime, that's all.”
“Ohh,” he murmured, leaning back in his chair. “I get ya. Dom doesn't stand for domineering asshole, though. Some guys just don't know the difference.”
“No,” I agreed. “They don't. It sounds like fun though. I hope you win the prize.”
“Me?” he asked, pointing to his chest with wide eyes. “Oh no, I'm not entering.” He patted his stomach. “This doesn't oil up well. Besides, they're looking for a straight-up sub and I'm a switch. I'm sure as hell gonna enjoy the free drinks and eye candy, though.”