University's changed a bit since the last time I went there.
I stood at the top of the hill and looked down at my old residences. Bean nudged me.
"Memories, eh?"
"Well, hazy, alcohol-fuzzed memories, anyway," I said. Between sex and alcohol, it had taken me a couple of extra years to finish my degree, but here I was, twenty years on, back for a reunion. And a walk down memory lane.
"I'm going to catch the others," he said. I nodded.
"I'm going to stick my head in at the res and see what's changed." I said.
Bean headed towards the campus. I took the stairs down to my old room.
The residences were laid out in a series of units. Eight rooms to a unit, four per end. The end room at each end was bigger, went to the senior student in each res, and was a sought after piece of real estate. And it had been mine for two of the three years I'd been on residence.
I knocked on the glass door, which was open to let in the afternoon summer breeze. A couple of kids looked up at me.
Kids, god damn. I am old. These were twenty-year-olds -- probably the older ones in the res. A blonde guy wearing shorts and nothing else. And a young woman in a summer dress lying on the couch and watching ... was that Sesame Street?
"Hi," I said. "Sorry to bug you. I used to live here. Just wanted to check the place out."
"Man, the place must have been brand new when you were here," the girl said, and I laughed. She was instantly mortified, realising what she'd said, but I waved it off.
"Hell yes," I said. "Second year they were open. But," I continued, peering in through the screen, it doesn't seem to have changed that much.
"Shit, sorry," said the man, jumping to his feet. "Come in, have a look around. I'm Greg. This is Karina."
"Jay," I said. I slid the door open and stepped inside. It wasn't much cooler inside, but the students didn't seem to mind. I peered at the television. It was indeed Sesame Street. I raised an eyebrow to Karina.
"I'm studying primary teaching," she said, smiling. "This sort of thing comes with the territory."
"Yeah," said Greg with a sigh. "And I lost the coin toss when we were choosing programs. Which one was your room?"
I pointed through one of the open doors. "Room 8." He whistled.
"BMOC, then." I grinned. They were still using Big Man On Campus.
"Just stayed long enough to outstay the previous resident." I looked around. There were Dali prints on the wall, and dishes in the sink. Papers covered the table. The carpet sure looked the same as it had when I had been there, although it must have been replaced at some point over the last twenty years. "It's all very familiar." I pointed at the room. "Who's got my room now?
Karina held up a hand. Her movements were slow and her expression peaceful. I suspected weed use was at least as prevalent now as it had been twenty years ago.
"I'm in 8 now. It's the legendary room."
"How so?" I asked. Greg laughed.
"Apparently, everyone who has been in there has had superb luck with pulling. Weird shit happens in that room."
I looked at Karina. She sat up, her long, brown legs shiny with perspiration in the heat. She winked.
"I speak from experience."
"Well," I said. "I can't deny having my own luck in that room. I hadn't heard the stories about it when I moved in though."
"Ah, probably after your time. There was this total hero - something Cashman -- had so much sex in the room that it was permanently blessed from then on."
They both noticed my shocked expression. Karina's eyes widened.
"Wait," she said. "Was that you? The guy who had all the threesomes?"
"Holy shit," I said. "I mean, I wasn't advertising it."
"Thin walls, man," Greg said. "There's no secrets in this place."
Karina was staring at me in awe. She bowed down before me in what was meant to be mock reverence, but held some actual respect. Her summer dress was missing buttons.
"Thank you for my sex life!" she said. I grinned.
"Well, you're welcome. Hey, can I take a quick look at the room?" I asked her. She frowned, probably trying to remember what state her room was in right now. Finally she nodded.
"Sure, come have a look." She stood up and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the short corridor.
"So, everybody knows about my sex life?" I asked her as we took the few short steps to her room.
"You are a fucking legend around here," she said, squeezing my hand as she opened the door. The heavy smell of incense wafted out of the room and I was instantly transported back to my early twenties and two years of sexual awakening. She pulled me through the door. "Instead of ghost stories on our first week, they talked about this Cashman guy and Magic Sex Room 8. Did you really fuck a lecturer in here?"
"Oh," I said. "Heh. Um, yeah." And would probably be fucking her again tonight, fingers crossed.
"And the sex party?"
"Guilty," I said. "I'm really glad I came here before the Internet and mobile phones really took off." I looked around at the room. "I like what you've done with the place."
It was a university residence -- a small room but bigger than the others surrounding it. Enough space for a bed and a desk, a built in wardrobe and a door to outside that had seen lots of use over the years. The walls were covered with posters -- Pink and Margot Robbie, Joe Manganiello and Death from Sandman. Clothes were piled on the end of the bed and books and fantasy figurines filled the bookshelves over the desk. I turned back to say something else and saw that more of her buttons had mysteriously come unbuttoned in the few moments I had been distracted by her room. She pulled my hand to her waist as she saw me notice.
"I mean, this room has been seriously good for my sex life," she said, grinning. "And if your years of fucking empowered it with special magic, then the least I can do is thank you properly."
I briefly thought about my afternoon schedule, and decided it could get fucked.
"It would be rude to say no," I said, and pulled her forward to kiss her full, parted lips.
***
The first time I had sex in Room 8 it was actually due to a curse.
Katie knocked on my door. She was barefoot, wearing only a long t-shirt. Sleep-tousled hair covered her wide, green eyes.
"Nightmare?" I asked.
"Dead Rabbit," she confirmed.
I smiled and stepped back to let her in.
My friendship group had decided, a few months earlier, to help another friend break a curse his ex had placed upon him. None of us really believed in curses, but he did, and so, apparently, did his ex. He woke up screaming every night, dreaming of being tied to the bed while faceless people crowded around him, reaching for him.
I looked up some cleansing rituals and, once we were prepared, the five of us headed up One Tree Hill to perform the cleansing. He had some stuff belonging to his ex, including a stuffed rabbit she'd thrown at his head during the breakup. We had lighter fluid, some chalk, and masks (for the look of the thing).
I mean, this is a completely different story, but in the end, we performed the ritual. The stuff burned, all except for the rabbit's eyes, which stared up at us, through the flame.
And then Cam had kicked the circle before the fire went out, and since then we'd joked that the spirit of Dead Rabbit had escaped and would haunt us forever.
The friend with the ex was no longer plagued with nightmares. But occasionally, Katie would see those burning eyes in her dreams, and come to my room so that she wasn't alone. I dragged out the mattress and some blankets and then crawled back into bed.
"Jay?" Katie asked, as I was drifting off again. I mumbled something. "I can't sleep. Can I join you?" I was instantly awake. I lifted my sheet as confirmation and she crawled up to snuggle next to me. I spooned her and she shifted against me, trying to get comfortable on the single bed. My hand was on her belly and the curve of her buttocks was pressing against my crotch, causing me to think impure thoughts.
"How is it," she started, tugging my hand upwards to her breast, "that you haven't tried to fuck me yet?"
And I mean, hell, I'd always been interested, but we'd been a close knit group of friends and I honestly thought I'd been friend-zoned from the start, so hadn't made a move.
Apparently not.
"Can I make up for lost time?" I asked her, tweaking her nipple through the t-shirt.
"You fucking better," she said, and rolled towards me to slide her hand inside my boxers. I yanked on her t-shirt and she wriggled and shifted until I could tug it up her back and over her head. The light from outside was enough for me to glory in the perfection of her breasts. She had light chocolate skin which contrasted nicely with my own pale irish whiteness. Her nipples were dark and inverted, popping out and firming under my touch. She wore nothing under the t-shirt and a dark thatch of hair broke the smoothness as I ran an admiring hand down her belly. She pulled me free of my boxers.
"Play later," she demanded. "Fuck me first."
Ah, I remember my twenties.
She pulled me into her. I gasped and she squealed as I slid in until our bodies touched. I held that pose, feeling her twitch around me, wondering at her warmth and her beautiful face, staring back at me with desire. She growled and wrapped her legs around me. I started to move inside her. She groaned at first and then started to howl as I picked up the pace. I was desperately aware of my neighbours on either side but had no intentions of trying to get her to be quiet. Her hands reached around and her nails dug into my back. I gasped at the pain, but it just accentuated the pleasure I was feeling at being inside her.
"Fuck, ah, ow!" I said. She dug in harder. I thrust harder.
"Come on," she gasped, lifting her ass off the mattress. I moaned and she reached out and took my bottom lip between her teeth, pulling me gently down to kiss me hard. Her tongue ran over my lips and teeth. And then she bit me.
I came so hard I almost passed out. She was already climaxing when she took my lip between her teeth. I collapsed against her and lay panting on top of her, before rolling sideways and touching her cheek with my hand.
"Am I bleeding?" She peered at me in the dark.
