Rachel lugged the last of her bags to her room on the fifth floor of one of the dormitories at the Gorham campus of the University of Southern Maine. The bedroom was fairly large, larger than Randy's dorm at Miskatonic. It had to be, to accommodate the two beds on opposing walls in the room.
The thought of having to share a room for the next nine months, with a total stranger, annoyed her.
"It'll be just my luck to wind up with some ditzy, skinny, blonde bitch, born with a silver spoon in her mouth and oozing that nauseating 'party girl' attitude that's all the rage," she had muttered to her mother, when she got the letter stating that her application for a single room had been turned down.
She was ready to give up any hope of being able to study in peace anywhere other than the library. Rachel had resolved to completely absorb herself in her school work, when she couldn't visit Randy.
The thought of her lover made brought a heavy sigh from her lips. She had only been away from him for two days, and she missed him already. Actually, it had only taken her two hours to miss him. She couldn't wait until she could run her fingers through his long, black hair. She longed to gaze into his dark, almond-shaped eyes, kiss his lips, see him smile the way he always did when they were together. And she ached to make love to him. She wiped the tears away as she began unpacking.
"If I can just throw myself into my studies," she told herself, "I'll be too busy to miss him."
She knew that she'd have a hard time convincing herself of that, but she felt that she had to try. She could either sit there on the bed in a funk, missing Randy, or start unpacking in a funk, still missing Randy. At least the latter option would put the time to some productive use. She was going to miss Randy, no matter what she was doing. Sighing, she grabbed the first of her bags and hauled it up onto the bed she had decided to claim for her own, and began unpacking, her mind a whirl of thoughts.
* * * * * * *
"Hello?" a soft voice at the door into the hallway startled her out of her lonely thoughts, and her body jerked, spinning around abruptly.
Sorry to scare you like that,
m'amie
," the voice said with a heavy New Orleans accent. "This is room five-nineteen, no?"
"Yes," Rachel sighed again -- this time in relief.
"Then I'm in the right place," the girl smiled, entering the room and extending her free hand. "I'm La'Tonya Morse, and you must be my new roommate."
"I sure hope so," Rachel said, betraying her relief. "I'm Rachel Tarunen, pleased to make your acquaintance!" Rachel shook La'Tonya's hand vigorously.
"Likewise,
m'amie
! Likewise! I was hopin' I wouldn't have to share a room with some skinny white bitch with her head up her bony ass!"
Contrary to her earlier dread, Rachel's apparent roommate was a large girl -- bigger, even, than she was. Her skin was the color of melted chocolate, and her round, smiling face was framed by long, curly hair. Most striking, though, were her large, round green eyes.
"Me too!" Rachel said with a laugh. "So what's your major?"
"Archaeology, actually; minorin' in mythology," La'Tonya said. "And you?"
"Education; I'm studying to be a teacher."
"Good for you, girl!" La'Tonya said. "When I arrived, you were lookin' like you were missin' someone. Got a lucky man waitin' for you, at home?"
Rachel nodded and handed La'Tonya a picture of Randy and herself together.
"Mmmmm, mmmm!" La'Tonya said. "Now there's a good lookin' man. You two look so cute, together."
She looked up from the photograph, saw Rachel's downcast face, and gave her a warm hug.
"I'm sorry,
m'amie
. I didn't mean to make it harder for you. How far away is he?"
"Just down in Arkham," Rachel shrugged her shoulders listlessly.
"Don' mean much, hon," La'Tonya shook her head. "Me? I'm from N'awlins."
"About two, two and a half hours," Rachel explained with a brief, apologetic smile.
"You 'fraid he's gon' fin' himself somebody new, while you're away?"
"A little, I guess," Rachel sighed. "He promised he'd wait, but..."
"He your first,
cher
?" La'Tonya asked her softly.
Rachel nodded, wordlessly, and La'Tonya smiled, turning the photograph back toward Rachel.
"He'll wait,
m'amie
. You can see how much he loves you, in this picture." Her eyes bored into Rachel's as she added, "You two will be together again; I just know it deep in my heart."
"I hope so, La'Tonya . . . I hope so."
"It ain't gon' be easy,
cher;
I ain't gon' kid you. But any man who's lookin' like that in your company is probably gon' love you, even when he's lyin' in the grave."
Rachel found that she liked La'Tonya immediately. She was disarmed by this woman's easy demeanor and quick wit, not to mention her bright smile. She also had to admit that her new roommate was gorgeous. La'Tonya was dressed simply, but in a way that served to accentuate her ample curves rather than hide them. She admired the way La'Tonya seemed to carry herself with pride and grace. It was obvious the woman didn't give a damn what people thought of her. Rachel envied that, in her new friend, and wished that she could be that way.
As La'Tonya lugged her bags into the room, Rachel couldn't help but notice how she seemed to slink when she walked, how her pants hugged the curves on her wide hips. She found herself becoming a little turned on, much to her confusion. How could she be so aching for Randy, and yet find the tingles of arousal beginning within her as she watched her new roommate move?
Likewise, La'Tonya was admiring Rachel.
"Easy 'nuff to see what her
beau
sees, in her," she thought, watching Rachel out of the corner of her eye as she hoisted a bag onto the low dresser. "Them eyes, so deep and expressive...a man could get lost in them, easy. A woman, too, for that matter. And I wouldn't mind being able to make my hair look like hers, all soft and wavy and sexy, once in awhile!"
She averted her gaze, pretending to be giving the room a good looking-over, when Rachel cast a brief glance at her. Then, looking back at her new roommate, she saw the woman give her a slow, soft smile. She had the cutest little dimples, in her chubby cheeks, when her face lit up like that. '
Yep
,' La'Tonya thought to herself, '
this girl's a doll; too bad she's attached.'
La'Tonya had always been attracted to women as well as men. In fact, when she had lost her virginity, it had been to her best girlfriend -- long before she ever had sex with a man. It wasn't something that she made an issue of. She didn't wear her sexuality as a badge of pride, or use it to attract men, nor did she make any effort to hide it. It was simply a part of who, and what, she was. She refused to allow either her sexual preferences -- or her race -- to define who she was, as a person, and she detested anyone else's attempts to do so on her behalf.
"Hey -- I'm biracial and bisexual; so what?" was her standard response whenever someone tried to put her in a specific mold.
La'Tonya found herself attracted to Rachel almost from the moment she laid eyes on the woman, but it didn't appear there was much of a chance for anything happening between them -- not with Rachel having that gorgeous man in her life. She wasn't a home-wrecker. Likewise, she didn't want Rachel's boyfriend pressuring either one of them into a threesome.
"Not that I'd
mind
a threesome with the two of them," she allowed herself the mental chuckle, along with a fleeting image of the three of them going at it. Threesomes could be truly marvelous experiences, but only if they began naturally, spontaneously -- never forced. When you forced a three-way coupling, someone was bound to get hurt. She already thought enough of her new roommate -- and, by extension, her
beau
-- that she didn't want that happening. No, she'd settle for having someone like Rachel as a roommate and potential friend. It would make her stay in Maine so much more pleasant.
Of course, if some twist of fate led to Rachel and her man splitting -- or even if Rachel showed a bit of interest in some girl-girl magic to ease the lonely nights between his visits, she wouldn't object. La'Tonya highly doubted that would happen, though; a picture speaks a thousand words, after all, and it was plain to see, in that photograph. 'The sight' ran in the women in her family, and she'd seen beyond what most folks would see, in that picture. If there was such a thing as destiny, Rachel and her
beau
were
meant
to be together.
"I take it your folks have met your guy?" she asked, as she unzipped the bag and began to shove clothing into various dresser-drawers.
"You could say that," Rachel sighed plaintively, grabbing the last of her bags and performing much the same task.
"Sounds like there's a 'but—' lyin' in wait, there,
cher
."
"You could say that, too!" Rachel grimaced. "They were polite enough, while he was there. The moment he left, though, they started telling me how much they didn't approve of him."
"What?!" La'Tonya asked, incredulously. "Was it his hair, or the tats, or both?"
"That was Mom's problem. She thinks that just because he has long hair, and plays guitar in a band, he's bad news. She didn't get that he's devoted to his family, his studies, and me. The tats? Well, that was just too much, for her. She's got this notion that anyone with tattoos is a bad person. Of course, the couple that my dad got, when he was in the military, are some sort of exception to that rule. I guess it's a good thing she hasn't seen me naked, in the last few months. I wonder what she'd say, about mine!"
La'Tonya did her best to keep her expression sympathetic, not wanting the delicious little thrill she felt, at learning that her sexy roommate had one or more pieces of skin art, to intrude on the talk.
"And what about your pa?" she asked.
Rachel looked at La'Tonya frankly and said, "It's because he isn't white, at least not completely."
