I helped run a cannabis grow back in college. It was a small operation, nothing crazy - just a way for me, my boyfriend at the time, and a few friends to grow our own supply. Plus, making a little extra money didn't hurt one bit (who am I kidding, we made bank!) We gutted a warehouse, rebuilt it, set up the lights in the grow rooms, and began introducing seedlings to their new home. After the first harvest, it was time to expand, and recruit.
When my boyfriend said our new grower would be staying in the spare room at our apartment for a while, I thought nothing of it.
Dune was a vagrant, popping into our lives for a few months until he'd end up back in jail. He was tattooed all over, with messy, bleach blonde hair; a typical surfer dude. He spoke slowly, with barely-opened eyes, laughed often (in the classic stoner-kid pitch), and gave zero fucks.
Surprisingly enough, Dune was the perfect roommate. He gave my boyfriend and I plenty of space for date nights, offered to buy communal groceries, and made sure the house bong was always loaded. He constantly had a smile on his face, his signature triangular grin.
Our new roommate only had one bad habit, and it was beginning to... affect me. Every morning, on my way to the shower, I would catch a glimpse Dune's sleeping form through the open crack in his door, and he never, ever, covered himself. The first time I saw his round, white ass, I was so shocked that I slammed into the wall, then half-tripped into the bathroom, stubbing three toes and waking both of my housemates in the process.
It wasn't like I hadn't seen a few butt cheeks before, but there was something about his brash vulnerability that set a burning desire in my brain from the very first glimpse. Walking down the hallway to the shower soon became my favorite part of the day. It fed me more than a proper meal ever had. I started getting excited when the sun would set, knowing my next fix was only hours away.
After a week, I had my steps timed perfectly, the turn of my head gyroscopically calculated, and the swish of my movements softened by the recent addition of socks. It was just a quick, harmless glance... and in the beginning... that was enough. My emotions changed slowly. The mere thought that he might get up before me, denying my need to catch him unaware, would give me more anxiety than inspections from the cannabis board agents. I started using the stolen glances as a panacea through the day. Any time I felt pain, concern, or discontentment, all I had to do was remember Dune's perfect, white ass.
The lines between my desires and the fiendish reality of my actions blurred even further the first day I found him laying on his back. Tattoos that I had seen disappearing beneath the hem of his regular pair of board shorts continued onto his upper thighs, the only bare skinned spot being...
I couldn't stop myself from staring at his half-raised cock for a few perilous seconds. My mouth went dry, my palms began to sweat, and my eyes refused to blink. The gaze lasted only as long as my breath, an eventual lack of oxygen forcibly zipping my petrified body down the hallway and through the bathroom door.
I collapsed into the vanity, locked my elbows against the sink, and met my own eyes in the mirror. "What. The. Fuck." I mouthed the words without speaking, biting my lip instinctively as the image of his morning wood burned into my mind. The hunger I saw in myself was altogether foreign - even intimidating. Who was this person staring back at me?
I felt a rush of guilt for taking such a brazen and forbidden look at my roommate like that... but the excitement was undeniable. I never had any intention to fuck Dune, or reveal my crime to anyone, but, regardless of the escalation, I didn't take the next day off from my ritual, or the next, or the next.
For the following month, I treated his body like a magic eight ball: ass-up meant good day, dick-up meant great day.
Like all good things, my roommate-rubbernecking came to an end one morning.
I grabbed my towel and tiptoed down the hallway like usual, but as Dune's mattress came into view, I saw movement, and I froze. I'd been successfully peeping at his naked body, and I wasn't about to give up my guilty pleasure by being caught. However, the sounds I heard next were too distinct to back away from.
"Shit, yeah..." hisses Dune. The sound almost buckles my knees. I can't risk him seeing me... can I? I feel a cold sweat on my neck realizing what a compromising position I've found myself in. Can I even bring myself to turn away now? My feet said no, refusing to retreat back to my bedroom. "Ah, fuck." His voice crumpled into a whimper.
I slid the back of my head sideways across the wall, just barely able to see Dune's thigh. The muscles of his leg shook in a manner only fitting one activity. I felt my core clenching, reinforcing my next shift into a better view. The slight adjustment bring his hard, lube-coated cock into view just as he began to cum. His fist moved slowly, his hips lifting with each thrust. I watched, salivating, as his torso bent and writhed with his oncoming orgasm.
One of his hands shot down to the base of his shaft, pumping stream after stream of ejaculate against the flat of his other hand. Most of his cum dripped from his palm, collecting on his rising and falling abdomen. I was urgently turned on, but hearing myself think, *I need to fuck him,* sent me lunging backwards. I'd never, ever been one to consider cheating, and, until recently, I'd never even been one to ogle.
I ran back to my bedroom, a figurative tail between my legs. I slipped back under the covers, unavoidably waking my boyfriend. Groggy, he asked, "No shower?"
"Maybe later," I whispered, not sure how long I would last until "later" came calling.
...
If I could reach back in time, I would warn my naive self about the kind of experience she was about to have, and try to prepare her for how it would shape the rest of her life.
Months had passed since my last disrespectful glance through my roommates door. I switched the schedule of my morning routine, opting for yoga in my bedroom instead of the living room, waiting until I heard music start playing in Dune's room before starting my day. The music always meant that he was decent - a relief, and a disappointment. I tried not to give away my suppressed feelings for him, staying my cheery, helpful self.
I might have successfully donned the mask of nonchalance, but the ache for him never dulled. I had seen too much, and I would still find myself peeking through the crack in his doorway, hoping to see anything that I shouldn't. My heart would crunch when all I saw were glimpses of him rolling a joint or taking a shirtless selfie.
Through avoidance and aggressive self-talk, I had just begun to distance myself from the pang I felt for Dune when he called me in to the grow house.
He needed help with tagging the cannabis plants for an upcoming inspection, and my boyfriend had an exam that day, leaving me the only available helper. I remember feeling nervous... thinking that I might slip up, or say something stupid, but I went anyways.
When I pulled in to the warehouse, I sent a text to Dune, asking him open the side door for me. His quick reply sent another jolt of anxiety through me, but I shook it off, along with the next jolt from his beaming face popping out from behind the heavy door.
Wearing some leggings and an old concert tee, I hopped out of my car, bringing just a water bottle and a pair of light blue protection sleeves. "Got the tags?" I asked him, reminding myself why I was there.
"Back room," he nodded. I fought a weakness in my knees as I blew past him. All I wanted was to press him against the doorframe and slide my hands beneath his shirt... touch him just for a second... but instead I ducked my eyes and shuffled by.
Dune went back into the curing room, undoubtedly preparing the next hybrid for packaging and sale. We typically grew whatever strain was most popular, but he couldn't help himself from cloning and splicing at least one plant from each grow, just to see what would happen. The "back room" was our biggest grow room: four rows strong, thirty feet from one end to the other, each raised bed overflowing with a sea of green. Rectangular grow lights overhead cast a vivid glow, and the smell of the plants was overwhelming. Chlorophyll mixed easily with the fruity sweetness of the sugar leaves and the nutty fibers of the substrate. I took a deep breath of the oxygen rich air, donned my protection sleeves, and got to work.
With my envelope of tags, I moved to the far corner, sitting on the shin-high ledge of the raised bed. I ticked off each plant on the list as I zipped the plastic tag onto the main stems, checking and re-checking that I was labeling them correctly.
"Can I get you to toke on this for me?" Dune's voice seeped through the room like a warm breath, but my body froze, every muscle going rigid. Numb. Only my ears moved, perking at the scrape of his sneakers across the concrete floor. I became immediately and overwhelmingly aware of his position in the room, as well as the sound of my blood thudding through my head.
I released the stem I was working with, letting the unfastened tag fall down on the shaggy coconut coir.
Untwisting myself, I saw Dune's hand first, outstretched, and pinching the filtered end of a burning joint. I reached for it on instinct, placing it between my digits. In the moment my fingers closed around the joint, the nautical star tattoos up his hand, wrist, and forearm served as irresistible stepping stones to his eyes. They were hazel and sparkling under the lights and he looked beyond excited to share his newest strain with me. A glossy gaze darted back and forth between the joint and my lips as I brought them together.
I'd been his "taste tester" from time to time when we first met, but I hadn't been able to trust myself around him since that last morning...
I took a shaky puff, then another, drawing in as much smoke as I needed to get the full flavor. My eyes closed, summoning every ounce of calmness in my body, and trying to come up with a few good buzzwords for him. "It's..." I started, holding the smoke. I let a little bit out, pursing my lips and blowing it out past the canopy. "It's... earthy, kind of gritty." I released the rest of my breath, watching the smoke from the cherried joint tendril against the backdrop of the plants. "Kind of reminds me of those shitty lemonades in a can that families leave on all the beaches in the summer."
"Mmm... that's great. You always have the right words, Ruby," his voice changed from the always-chillaxed overtone to something dripping with... emotion.
He'd also never called me by my name. Not once.
"Take another hit for me," he sighed.
I was compelled to obey. I closed my eyes and pulled in another lungful of his creation. I released my entire breath at once this time, blowing it out of my nose. The smoke tickled around my sinuses, fluttering open my stinging eyes.
I met a look from Dune I'd never seen before. More stoic than giddy, eyes no longer darting, he searched mine, speaking again.
