* * * Chapter 1 * * *
I'm not sure what exactly made me tell Lisa about my secret and take her up on that stupid dare. It may have been the booze -- I've tried to tell myself that numerous times -- but if I'm rational, a few glasses of wine shouldn't have made me so careless. It may have been all that talk about sex that got me really hot -- but then, it was just talk. I shouldn't have been so easily manipulated. Yes, Lisa was cunning, but I had known her long enough that I should have been forewarned. Perhaps it was just plain idiocy on my part, and thinking back, I can't help but feel that is my only excuse.
But first things first.
Nothing would have happened that day if I hadn't stumbled across that site on the Internet over the holidays. Up until then, I had been a completely normal girl, at least mostly, living for the next party and dreaming of good looking pop stars. At the end of my first year I had heard rumors from classmates about all kinds of hot stories on the Internet, and in a moment of boredom I decided to do some research. I googled my way through funny, boring, strange, erotic and disgusting things for hours, until my eyes got stuck on that one story. A story about a woman who was blackmailed by a co-worker to expose her nude body in public. It was crazy, it shocked me, but somehow I was also mesmerized by it. I couldn't stop reading, and when I had reached the end where the heroine was forced to expose her body to her best friends and ask them to spank her, my fingers had found their way into my panties and I experienced one of the best, no, the single best orgasm ever. I found more stories like that, stories about control and forced exhibitionism, and each night I would lock my door and sit naked in front of my computer, reading and fingering myself to another kinky climax.
My real descent started at the beginning of my second year in college. I had turned 18 over the summer holidays, which meant that I could get a small flat at the dorm all to myself. My grades were better than I had expected, the weather was beautiful when I exited the cab in front of the campus of St. Helen's Girls' College, and life was simply good. With breezy steps I pulled my luggage along toward the office of the dorm mother to get my new room number and keys, greeting friends that were also moving back in and waving to those who were already settled and seizing the opportunity to enjoy one of the last real summer days outside on the well-kept campus lawns.
Just before the automated glass doors of the dorm building slid open I could glimpse my reflection, and I couldn't help but smile. The last year, and especially the four weeks vacation in the Caribbean, had really done wonders for me. I was no longer the slightly pudgy teenager with pimples who had arrived here last year, fresh from high school, feeling lost and clueless. Now I could see a good-looking young woman with long hair that shone golden in the sun, clad in a white mini dress that accentuated her hips and slender legs, radiating confidence. A small gust of wind touched me just as I was about to enter the building. It was pleasant and caressed my legs... and not just them. I had to stifle a giggle, feeling so naughty walking around in public without a bra and feeling the soft fabric rub against my nipples, a habit that I had picked up on my vacation. A wave of warmth spread between my thighs and I could feel my cheeks heat up.
There was a small queue in front of the office, and I sat down on my suitcase to wait my turn. The pale girl in front of me with the black hair in a page cut, Amber, attended classes with me, and before long we were animatedly exchanging stories of our summer experiences. She was a nice - if a little shy - girl, and we had gotten friends while studying together for some of the end-of-year exams.
"So you're going to get your own flat or keep on sharing?" She asked, and I rolled my eyes.
"As if that is in question. I'm so going to enjoy being rid of Miss Bitchy."
Miss Bitchy was my pet name for Lisa, with whom I had to share rooms with all of last year. She had really been a pain in my ass, acting as if she owned the place and trying to get me to all the dirty work for her. It had taken her not a day to assemble a club of admirers around her, with her perfect hair, her snub nose and her well-developed chest. I always felt I had to compete with her, but in looks I just couldn't match her. My nose was too big, my hair not as shiny, and where her eyes were a light green contrasting with her strawberry hair, mine were a dull brown. Her family was old money, and she probably had maids at home to do all the cleaning, but that was no excuse to throw her dirty underwear on my bed or leave crumbs all over the place. There had hardly been a day without arguments about that, hairs all over the bathroom, the bathtub developing a crust of dried bubble bath or her using my makeup and leaving it open to dry out. Even thinking of her got me agitated, so I took a deep breath to calm myself.
"And you, Amber?"
Her smile was not as wide as mine, and she shrugged. "I'd love to have my own room, who wouldn't. I've got to find a better side job first."
I had completely forgotten about her having to pay her tuition all by herself and bit my lower lip. "Sorry."
"It's okay," she waved it off and smiled, "it's not a big deal. I'm sure I'll find something in the next few weeks, then I'll be able to move into my own space."
Before long, Amber was called into the office. Not a minute later she came back out, showed me her room number on the key tag and was off to settle into her room.
I was next, but when I entered the office and looked at the face of Meryl, the dorm mother, I knew something was off.
"Oh, hi, Chrissie, you look good, did you have a good summer?" she stammered a bit, and the smile did not really reach her eyes.
"Hi, Meryl," I greeted her in return and decided to get to the point, "I did, thank you. Is something wrong?"
"Well, not wrong," she told me with hesitant look, "but we are having some problems with the plumbing on the third floor, so we are quite short of single rooms. We have tried to shift around as much as possible and are even mixing up years across the different floors, but we are still a few rooms short. So the dean decided to hand out the remaining rooms for the second years by alphabet..."
She trailed off, and I gulped. A familiar wave of anger rose inside me as I completed her sentence in a low voice. "...so because my last name starts with a 'Z', I get the short straw, like I always do."
Meryl must have seen the desperation on my face and tried to cheer me up. "Come on Chrissie, it's just a few weeks until the plumbing is fixed! And you'll get back most of the rent for that time."
I tried to be understanding and nodded. "At least tell me that I won't have to put up with Lisa anymore, I'll happily share rooms with anybody else."
Her finger slid down the list of rooms while I prayed that they hadn't put me into the same room as Miss Bitchy, but when the finger came to rest on the line, I could read in her green eyes that that was exactly what the plan said. Though, when her eyes kept on the line for a bit longer and her mouth formed a small "oh", I gripped the corner of the desk.
"What else?" I asked in a resigned voice.
Her apologetic eyes met mine. "It's the last room on the fourth floor."
I gulped again. And again. It was common knowledge that the last room on each floor was usually not occupied because it was the smallest of all. Somehow my good mood had completely evaporated in a few seconds, but I tried to hold myself together. "Is there no chance you could put me somewhere else? Have me swap roommates with someone?"
She gestured a bit helplessly with her empty hands. "I would if I could, but we've got specific orders from the board not to let anyone change rooms in the first three months."
Meryl slid the keys and the liability form across the desk, and I signed it with a resigned sigh.
* * *
While I made my way up to the fourth and topmost floor in the crowded elevator my stomach tightened. I was again stuck with the bitch for however long it would take them to fix the plumbing, and in a room roughly half as large as the one before. I stomped down the corridor towards my - our - room and my mood got worse the closer I got.
I put the key into the lock, but to my surprise, the door sprang open after only a quarter turn, accompanied by a shriek. I stopped in the doorway and took a deep breath. There, just ahead of me on the bed, was Lisa, a startled expression on her face, hastily closing the lid of a netbook computer with one hand while she pulled her favorite clothing, a white Japanese kimono, tightly around herself with the other.
Did I just catch her playing with herself? My thoughts raced, she was definitely blushing, and suddenly an image of her appeared in my mind, her kimono open and a hand buried between her legs, her eyes half closed and a moan forming on her lips. Would her triangle have the same strawberry curls as her head? I shook my head to dispel the image and tried to ignore the tingling between my thighs. Oh god, I thought to myself, what was happening with me? I wasn't a lesbian, and this was Lisa, my sworn arch-enemy.
"...Going to stand there all day? Either come in or walk out, but at least close the door. Didn't your parents teach you to knock?"
The venom in her voice showed me that she hadn't changed over the holidays, and with a dejected sigh I pulled my suitcase inside and closed the door.
Only then did I let my eyes roam around the room. It was rectangular, with the door on the smaller side. The opposite wall was taken up by a huge, room-high window through which I could see the park. Lisa's bed was to my right, and against the wall between the bed and the window stood a white dresser with a television on top and a writing desk. Left of me was a four-door wardrobe, a refrigerator, the door to the bathroom and a deep red couch with a square white table in front of it.
"Where's...?" I wondered aloud, looking for a second bed and feeling panic rising up my chest. They wouldn't expect us to share a bed, would they?
Lisa sniggered. The distress on my face probably gave away my thoughts. "Don't you want to share my cozy little bed with me?" She asked with a pout and fluttered her eyelashes at me. Her hand went over her heart. "I'm so hurt!"
I couldn't help it though, as she said that, the image from earlier came back to me, and I imagined my body snuggled up to hers, nude, her hand resting between my thighs.
I expected her to start laughing, her snobbish, arrogant laughter that I was used to accompany her jokes. Instead, she regarded me with a curious, thoughtful look.
"What?" I asked, sharper than I had intended.
"Oh come on, Chrissie, wind down! I was just making a joke. It's a fold-out couch, the bedding is in the compartment inside."
I couldn't believe that she would let a good chance to make fun of me go like this. That just wasn't her style. But then, perhaps she was finally growing up. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and started to stow away my things.
* * *