by Jamie Knight
At least that was what I’d planned to say. I’d actually only gotten to the ‘I got hun,’ before the side of my head bounced off the freezer like a squash ball, sending me collapsing to the floor in front of the open fridge.
Most guys would have stayed down, maybe even played dead, assuming they actually still continued to be alive. But us Graves were made of stranger stuff.
Matt hadn’t even turned all the way away before I sprang to my feet and started bouncing in place like a boxer.
“No shit.”
“Only between your ears,” I said, with just enough mustard.
The hit was hard. I went down again, closing the fridge door on the way. As though the world were on instant reply, I got up again, refusing to stay down, Matt already on his way out of the kitchen.
“It’s clear I don’t want you here and yet you’re following me around, begging me for more of a fight. Are you fucking serious?”
“As cancer,” I said, my shirt already stained with my own blood.
I got a good punch in before he retaliated, which ended up not working out so well in his favor. With a sigh of mock regret, Matt threw the hardest haymaker I’d ever seen at me. The sound of crunching bone actually made a couple of the party-goers faint.
Matt screamed like a little girl, cradling his destroyed hand. His bloody knuckle print stood out against the white of the freezer door.
Keira ushered him into the bathroom to tend his wounds. It was possible I’d lost the only friend I’d had there, but knew I Matt would never mess with me again.
“What’s up?” I asked her now.
It was the first time we’d spoken since the fridge incident and I still wasn’t sure where I stood with her and was treading carefully.
“A few of us are going out for drinks and we’re wondering if you would like to come.”
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“Honestly?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure but I just thought I’d ask anyway.”
“Well, I appreciate your honesty. Thanks for thinking of me but I think it’s better if I stay here.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t help but note the resignation in her voice. It wasn’t the others who wondered if I wanted to come out with them. It was her, and not out of pity either. It was real. I’d seen enough of both to know the difference.
It was sweet of her to care, but I had no desire to go around any of them. I had wanted roommates around but with housemates like these, who needed enemies? Plus, there was news of a pandemic that was spreading and I didn’t want to be going out to bars right now.
The school had sent some emails saying they were looking into possible solutions to keep us socially distant. Part of me wondered if we’d be sent back home, where at least I would have Amelia and the rest of my family for company.
Getting back to my desk, I restarted Fingered, which was widely considered to be Kern’s best film. Or, at least the one that makes the most sense. Personally, I’d always preferred The Manhattan Love Suicides.
She was there. In my head. The girl from class. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake her from my thoughts. Her eyes, her scent, her curves.
She smelled like a sweet dessert and looked as though she would be soft and nice. Like marshmallows but also not. I couldn’t shake her look of wonder. Like a kid who’d just seen something amazing.
I never actually found out how old she was. She was probably eighteen like most of the other freshman, but I didn’t know that for sure. She could be a sixteen-year-old genius who’d gotten in on early application. Though it seemed unlikely.
My cock decided she was eighteen before I did, raising the pressure within my already tight pants. Beggars couldn’t be choosers when it came to fantasies.
Deciding to try and do it right, I paused the video I had up on my computer screen and made for the stereo. Putting on a bit of Ghost, I methodically started undressing until I was down to nothing. My cock already was rigid, standing out from me at a right angle, hovering as though by some unseen force.
There were some corners of creation in which the cock was referred to as a ‘horn.’ I could certainly see the basis for comparison. Laying out flat on the bed, I got a handful of lube and wrapped my hand lightly around my thick shaft.
Letting my mind go blank, only the music filling the void in my head, I began to stroke, working my hand from the base up over the head and then back again, taking the time to stroke the head in gentle circles before the return trip back down the shaft to the base. It wasn’t long before my big, swollen head was glistening.
I couldn’t see this, my eyes still very much closed, but I could feel it: the sudden rise in intensity on the head of my cock. The light touch of the air magnified a thousand times, sending a shudder right through me.
Suddenly Rachel was there, in my fantasies. Dressed in the gothic way she had been in class. My imagination only stretched so far. Besides which, I was hard-pressed to think of anything sexier to put her in.
In my thoughts, she had come into my room, quietly closing and locking the door behind her. Watching me for a moment, as I stroked my cock, she moved in. Kneeling beside the bed, she wrapped her small warm hand around my shaft.
Relinquishing my grip to her, I watched as she stroked. Her gentle movements were unsure but lovely just the same.
Taking her lightly by the wrist, I showed her how I liked to be stroked, and she continued in the same rhythm. Right up until I came, cum blasting up as far as my chest. Without a moment’s hesitation, she licked me clean, working her way from my chest all the way down to my still stiff cock, enveloped in her lovely hand.
Moving her hand down to my balls, she started running her tongue the length of my cock from base to head, like I’d been doing with my hand. I reached down and stroked her hair encouragingly. She took this as a directive and on the next trip up, dropped her hot, wet, little mouth over the head of my cock, nearly swallowing it.
Hovering for a moment, she began to suck, gently swirling her tongue around the circumference of the head as she did. I moved my hand down to her breasts and squeezed gently, trying to show my appreciation for her efforts. Emboldened, she sucked harder, moving her sweet lips gradually down my throbbing shaft until she was half-swallowing my cock.
Taking a minute to get her bearings, my cock barely fitting in her mouth, she gripped the base again and started to suck, slow and light at first but then with more gusto. Her enthusiasm and confidence only continued to build until she was eating my cock feverishly, pausing on occasion to swirl her tongue around the head. All of it felt amazing.
With treatment like that, it wasn’t long before the pressure began to build. Rachel seemed to know I was going to cum before I did. Undeterred, she sucked even harder, drawing every last drop of cum out of my cock and into her eager mouth, swallowing it all down with gusto, sucking me clean.
Rachel kissed her way down the length of my cock, drawing one of my balls into her mouth, sucking gently, while stroking my shaft. She was a really fast learner. Switching over to the other ball, she sucked on it, picking up her stroking speed until I was ready to go again, Rachel getting her mouth there just in time to receive the massive load.
The third load coincided with my actual one. The Rachel in my head, sucking me to orgasm just as I stroked myself to the same in real life.
Chapter Five - Rachel
Punctuality. The core of Western European culture. Entire populations of intelligent human beings making themselves slaves to time.
I knew it was ridiculous on a practical level, though this still didn’t stop it from being ingrained in my DNA. Like how people know that a box of donuts is unhealthy but pick them up every time they go shopping. Some things just go beyond logic.
I sat on the ledge around the fountain, cold, rough, cement scraping the backs of my bare legs. Augustus and I were set to meet just after lunch. The massive face on the clock tower was
banging into position at ten after, but it wasn’t Augustus who approached me at that time.
“Morning, sunshine!”
“Hey, Jenna.”
“Why so gloomy, goosey?”
“I’m not.”
“Just focused?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s his name?”
I looked up so fast my neck almost popped. How did she know that? Was I really so obvious?
“Augustus,” I said.
“Well, there’s a name you don’t hear every day!”
“He’s named after a Roman emperor. At least, I think. It’s the name of an emperor, anyway.”
“Is he cute?”
I searched my mind for the right answer to that. Of course I found him attractive. But not just in a general way, but a unique, tragic way. He was definitely the most handsome man I had ever seen, but I didn’t want to sound like an idiot by confessing that I felt that way.
His face was cute, his body muscular and strong, all the hallmarks of male attractiveness I had been taught to admire. But there was something else, too. A sort of haunted factor that made him look vulnerable despite his confidence.
It made me want to take care of him, and not just because of his disability. Or at least I assumed it was a disability, although I wasn’t sure if it was a birth defect or something that had happened in an accident. I’d noticed it right away. The scarring on his right eye, turning it milky white.
I wondered if he could see out of it or if he was partially blind. A lot of people I knew would have worn an eye patch, but Augustus refused to hide. Being himself and accepting his limitations made me respect him even more.
It was crazy. I’d seen him exactly once in my entire life and I was already obsessing over him. Except I wasn’t actually so sure that this was the first time I’d met him. There was something about him that seemed really familiar, even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. A sort of subconscious recognition, kind of like déjà vu, only more sinister.
“Shall I take that as a no?” Jenna asked
I snapped back to reality, remembering that Jenna was there and had asked a question, setting off my reverie.
“No, I mean, yes, he’s really attractive, but I wouldn’t call him cute. He’s not a little pug dog.”
“That him?” Jenna asked.
I looked toward her gaze, seeing Augustus coming through the crowd in the quad and staring in our direction, which wasn’t hard to tell, since he stood at least half a head taller than everyone else.
“Uh-huh,” I intoned, losing my ability to construct full words.
“I can see what you mean,” Jenna said, nudging me gently.
“Do you have class soon or something?” I asked, gently as I could.
“Message received.”
Grabbing her backpack, Jenna headed off on her merry way, leaving the spot beside me vacant for Augustus, a fact he took full advantage of. I caught him staring at my chest as he sat down. Not that I minded at all. He was very subtle and almost respectful about the whole thing. But I wanted him to rip my shirt off and touch me.
His gaze felt less like ogling and more like appreciation of something beautiful. Like an eye-catching work of art. I could feel the blush run from my cheeks down to the tops of my breasts.
“Been waiting long?” he asked.
“No,” I lied, wanting to chuckle to myself about the fact that, unlike me, he didn’t feel obliged to honor society’s sense of time.
“Good. Let me get you my notes.”
He opened the top of his patchwork backpack, which looked like it had been sewn together out of scraps of leather like a quilt. The drawstring holding the top closed had a thin length of chain added with a tiny padlock.
Thwarting his security, he took out a sheaf of paper, held together with a staple in the top, left-hand corner. The paper was fresh, seeming to glow in the bright sun.
“I did it like bullet points, going scene by scene,” Augustus said, as I flipped through the pages.
“Thanks,” I said, unable to think of anything clever to say.
“I didn’t do it for all the movies. Just Scorpio and the next couple by Richard Kern. I have a pretty full plate and can only do two or three at a time for Experimental Film. My prof. for practical cinematography is a bit of a loon. Guy is obsessed with Kubrick, like, to a stalkerish degree.”
I wanted to say something clever or cool or sexy.
Oh Lord, please let me come off as sexy.
Not as the nervous, awkward kid that I was.
I was getting so sick of that part of myself and really hoped college might help. It was as if I thought that as soon as I set my foot on campus, I would magically change, like stepping through the portal into a fairyland. Of course things weren’t really that easy, though.
“You have a busy day today?” he asked, raising a handsome eyebrow at me.
“Just a few more classes. I have one in about ten minutes, actually.”
“Yeah, me too. I guess we should get going,” he said, standing up. “But we should meet up again sometime, and not just for boring note-taking purposes.”
I fought the urge to grab his hand. To pull him back down beside me, not wanting him to go yet. The little girl inside me was rearing her ugly head. I couldn’t act like a kid, I was supposed to be an adult, darn it. At least in the eyes of the law and society.
I still wasn’t old enough to drink legally but that didn’t matter as much as some people liked to make out, particularly considering that I wouldn’t even if it was allowed. I’d heard too many stories, most of them about family members on my dad’s side. Mom used to say that recovering from alcoholism was how he’d ‘caught religion.’ Like it was a cold.
So, instead of following my instincts, I purposefully gave him a casual smile and said, “Yeah, that’d be great. And thanks for the notes. I really appreciate them.”
“No problem,” he said with a charming wink.
I watched Augustus go, the gentle swing of his shoulders caused by his heavy-booted stride, even and long. It might have been something he had practiced. I imagined that a gait like that was something that would have to be learned over time, like a beauty show contestant learning to wave or to walk in cumbersome costumes.
I couldn’t shake the feeling. There was something about Augustus that stuck with me long after he was gone. It was more than the almost spectral familiarity which couldn’t possibly be real. If it was, I would remember where I’d seen him before. Unless it was in a past life, which I didn’t really believe in.
Though I did believe in God’s plan. That there was someone for everyone. This was where the idea of ‘soulmates’ originated. It was just possible that Augustus was mine.
The very idea made my heart gush and made my peach feel warm and damp. We would still need to be married before he could take my virginity, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t have fun in the meantime.
I decided that if I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, I might as well get to know a bit more about him. He wasn’t around to ask, so I decided to do what everyone did when they needed to know something. I would Google him.
Back in my room, trying to find Augustus online, it wasn’t long before I realized I would need more information. Augustus was an odd enough name in and of itself, but I wasn’t going to be getting anywhere fast without a last name. I looked at the notes he had given me, but they only had the class information in them. Nothing about him. How enigmatic!
I felt my excitement rise as I continued the case. I knew Facebook was getting to be a dusty relic, but it was still worth a try. Not in the least because they showed locations along with the names and photos, helping to narrow things down.
There were only ten guys named Augustus in the state who had Facebook accounts. I started scrolling through the profiles, most of the guys in the photos looking like they were my dad’s age or even older. Finally, between six and nine, I saw him. His face was recognizable a
s it was unreadable. Augustus Graves.
The name hit like a brick right between my eyes, a deluge of memories nearly blowing me off my chair. Getting up onto shaky legs, I stumbled my way toward the bathroom, hoping I would make it in time.
After putting in a good bit of devotion at the porcelain shrine, I reached up with a shaky hand and flushed. The bathroom tiles were cold under my knees. My soft, empty retching turned quickly to sobs.
Deep and loud, they burst out of me like the puke had. The scars started to ache: the cross on my forearm and the smaller ones on my ass. Both punishments for ‘consorting with the enemy.’
All I’d really done was stumbled across some Black Metal on YouTube. Though Dad acted like I’d already turned to the dark side, and he needed to remind me of who I was. Or, at least, who he expected me to be.
What would he do if he found out I was even talking to the son of Judas Graves? Let alone all the truly filthy thoughts swirling around in my head. It would hurt just as much as being stabbed, but I had to stay away from him. To treat him like the enemy that my dad always insisted he was.
In the distance, I heard my phone dinging. It was the campus alert system sending me a new message. Hauling myself to a standing position, I lolloped back into the bedroom and checked the message.
COVID-19 UPDATE!
Until further notice, new dorm regulations will be in place. Students currently in cluster housing are to be dispersed into dorm housing with a maximum of two students allowed in any given unit at any time. Actions are being taken so that coursework can be done online.
Well, this sucked. I had barely started school and now everything was changing, right before my eyes.
My good luck of not having to have a roommate had only lasted for three weeks.
Who knew what kind of weirdo might be moving in?
And I was also worried that classes would be canceled completely and that I’d be sent back home to have to live with my overly harsh father, just as I thought I had managed to escape.
It was enough to take my mind off the fact that I had to stay far away from the one guy I had been attracted to for the first time in my life.