VIDYA:
The bathroom water doesn't properly heat until 7:00, so my shower is lukewarm and brief. The bustle of the morning won't start until 7:30, so, in the privacy of the early morning, I find myself absent-mindedly tracing patterns on the grooves of my hips. I'm caught up in my writing of last night-which was a risky thing to be doing in public. As an excuse, I told myself I was too eager to revise my work rather than saving it for my own private space. Admittedly, it turned me on to be writing in public. To risk having something so intimate glimpsed by the outside world, to feel shame in knowing others knew my secret. It wasn't vanilla sex either-I wanted to write something "naughty." The more embarrassment I feel from the craft, the more turned on I feel. I've spent months working on perfecting my BDSM writing, but mine always sounds like a poor mimic.
I won't lie to myself about being even more urged to write around Alex. Would it turn him on to read erotica? To read mine? To know I was writing it? Lost in the stream of the water and thinking of last night, I find my fingers edging closer and closer to my sex. I'm about to slip my fingers between my legs when I hear the bathroom door open. Embarrassed despite not being seen, I shut the water off immediately.
Less than an hour later, after hastily donning a blue 50s styled swing dress and scarfing down breakfast in the Dining Hall, I'm early to class. I perch myself in my usual spot: the dead center of the middle rows. When the class commences, Alex has not walked through the door yet. Although he often comes to class looking like a downright disaster, he's never more than five minutes late. The clock ticks from 8:05 to 8:10 when the door finally creaks open, and Alex slips through. Keeping his head down to avoid any attention, he takes the stairs two at a time before turning into my row. He makes eye contact with me, his dark eyes underlined as usual with purple crescent moons, and he sits beside me. In all the time we've known one another and, admittedly, hardly spoken, this certainly hasn't ever happened.
"Hi," he whispers, leaning toward me.
My stubbornness has me tempted to scoot away from him, but I notice that I like the smell of his cologne when he's this close. When inhaling through my mouth, it coats my tongue lightly.
"You're late," I say, trying not to smirk. "What happened? Did you get lost between the dining hall and here?"
"If I did, would you keep the secret? In all honesty, we've been here over a year, and I still never know which way I'm going," he murmurs back, beginning to unpack his stuff.
I hold back a soft laugh, refraining from giving him the satisfaction of making me giggle. I find it enjoyable to watch him get annoyed about not making me laugh as easily as he does everyone else. For a boy with an ego as big as his, he can afford to have a few bites of humble pie. That being said, Alex isn't mean.
"Truthfully, I stayed up too late thinking about you."
The sentence is jarring, and I'm not sure what to say. It reminds me of something I'd scribble down in one of the stupid romance stories I wrote in Middle School or a lazy piece of erotica. Coming out of Alex's mouth, it sounds foreign, almost funny. I feel a blush creeping up my neck but, holding my breath, I recompose myself.
"Sure it wasn't just thinking?" I reply, feeling bold. Playing into the part of fiction.
