My fresh year in college had started so well. Adjusting to classes was easy, I'd made friends, and I'd even gotten some playing time on the soccer field, which was almost unheard of for a first-year student at a Division I school. And, maybe not most importantly but certainly part of well everything started, I'd gotten a gorgeous roommate.
I had gone to college with the intent of landing a girlfriend, and though I initially put my roommate off limits, Lauren O'Dell was extremely hot and I'm not made of stone. She had this long-limbed athletic body, long black hair, a beach goddess tan, and big blue eyes. It took me a semester and a half, but I'd finally gotten her into bed on the night before spring break.
The problem was, the night in question had included her equally gorgeous boyfriend Ash Campbell. We'd had a threesome, the hottest sex of my admittedly limited experience. Things had been going great. My roommate was learned she wasn't as straight as she thought. Everything was going perfectly. Then Ash, the idiot, had to pull out of her to finish inside me, and that's not something a woman is going to forgive. She'd dumped him, and things had gotten awkward between Lauren and me for the remainder of the year.
To make matters worse, I wanted both of them. Every time I thought of that night, I wanted to smack the side of his head. We could have been together, the three of us. A whole semester of nothing but that night. Maybe even the next year too. Then annoyance turned to fantasy and inevitably I was rubbing myself raw.
When I flew home for the summer, I looked at it as a reset. I could spend a couple months away from the drama, get my head on straight, maybe remind myself who I was. Then, with a clear head I could go back to school and actually find a woman. Or possibly Ash. Or both and I could teach him to be a little bit less of a dumbass.
This was why I needed a reset.
My mom picked me up at the airport and took me back to our little cottage-style house a block away from the Sound. She was full of questions, and I answered all the ones that didn't involve my love life. She didn't need to hear about her little girl having a mind-blowing three way.
My room was exactly as I left it. I couldn't help but think it was the room of a child, and whatever I was now, it was no longer that. My soccer trophies gathered dust on the shelves. My poster of Katy Perry, there only for an adolescent crush, and the framed classic poster of 1938's
The Adventures of Robin Hood
, the movie that made me want to make movies, had their places of honor against the floral wallpaper. The cat, a gray tub mom had named Romeo, roused himself from my pillow long enough for some ear scratches, wandering off when I put my suitcase on the bed next to him.
I opened my suitcase and pulled out my stuffed otter Egbert. Wherever I went, he went. I set him on my pillow, a place of honor he'd earned over our long friendship.
"Home again," I said to him.
As usual, he didn't have a response, but his plastic eyes contained multitudes.
I unpacked my suitcase, putting things in drawers that felt at once alien and familiar. My room had its own bathroom, and I went in there and started to run the bath. Seashells I'd collected as a kid, the few that survived housecleaning purges, sat in a jar by the sink. I looked at myself in the mirror.
Over the previous winter break, I'd dyed my hair midnight purple, but now I had about three inches of dark brown roots. What had been a kicky pixie cut was now a shaggy nothing. I ran my hands through it, resolving to get it cut and dyed as soon as I could. When I left for school, part of my reinvention had been that transformation, and I wanted it back.
I pulled off my top, then stepped out of my shorts and panties, standing before the mirror now completely nude. I was a couple inches taller than average, and I had the kind of athletic build that came with being a collegiate soccer player. My breasts were orange-sized and attractively round with small, brownish-pink nipples. I thought they were pretty, and since I liked women, I figured I had more of an objective take on it than most.
My skin was a pale gold that darkened to bronze in the summer sun. I turned in the mirror, muscles moving beneath the last vestiges of baby fat. I hadn't shaved my pussy in a week, and stubble was beginning to bloom on my modest lips. I ran a hand over them. While it felt a little silly to shave without anyone to appreciate it, I also felt grungy whenever I didn't. Even this errant touch was enough to pull gooseflesh over me like a cloak. I generally kept to a once-a-day masturbation schedule but I'd had to cut back in college a bit. I was looking forward to getting back to it.
I stepped into the warm water and lay down against the porcelain.
I was facing a conundrum. When I left for school, I had
left
, in my mind. Left my old life, my old ways of doing things. I was stepping into a new life. For some reason, I thought I'd never be home, which was pretty silly, considering that I wasn't planning to actually stay anywhere over the summer. But that's part of what being eighteen was about: being completely certain about completely incorrect things.
When I'd come home over winter break, I'd avoided just about everyone, only hanging out with my old best friend Nicole Lopez. While I didn't have anything against the old gang, there was one person I desperately needed to avoid.
Sarah Sutter.
My ex-girlfriend, who I had broken up with before going off to school. We'd been together our senior year of high school and the summer after. We weren't exactly out, but anyone who mattered to us knew except for her parents. In public, we were just pals. No kissing, no holding hands. All the really fun stuff had been in private. She lived in fear that her parents, or somebody from her church, would see. I wanted to be out with a girlfriend, and Sarah had two strikes. Sarah would never be out, and besides, she was going to a different college than me. I wanted to be free as a bird for all the women I assumed would be looking to figure themselves out.
Sarah Sutter was home for the summer. There was no way I wouldn't run into her. And maybe this sounds stuck up, but I'd be willing to bet Sarah would try to get me back. That would be falling back into the old me. But there was some comfort there. I knew the rules. I knew what was expected of me. I wouldn't have the highs, but the lows were known and tolerable. But the unknowable, what I faced when I went to school, was a siren song.
I turned the faucet off with my foot and stared up at the ceiling. The summer would be what I made of it.
Olympia, Washington is magical in the summer. Perfect weather, blue skies dotted with puffy clouds, a breeze off the Puget Sound. I spent high school working at the local multiplex, and I got a summer job there. Steve, the manager, knew I could do whatever was needed, from tearing tickets to being a projectionist, and he figured a buck over minimum wage would do it. Me, I just wanted to have a little money in my pocket.
The group at the multiplex was a mix of burnouts and students. Either this was a seasonal gig for afterschool money, or it was the regrettable consequence of bad choices. The burnouts at least were happy to see me. Shelly Zbornak, the main projectionist was still there. He was the only one who could beat me at movie trivia, and though he looked like a combination of Jabba the Hutt and an old ham sandwich, he was my favorite person to hang out with. Best part is I never caught him ogling me. I don't know what Shelly's deal was, gay, straight, or anything. Far as I knew, he was a moviesexual and I could respect that.
"Natalie Cho," Shelly said, leaning back in his chair with a grin. "Finally, somebody with some goddamn taste."
"It's not that bad here."
He shook his head. "The kids Steve hired this year don't know
Bloodrayne
from
Singin' in the Rain
. It's depressing is what it is."
"You got me till the end of August."
"I'll stock up on good conversation now. How's school treating you?" I must have made a face, because he chuckled. "That good, huh?"
"It's just complicated is all."
He nodded. Most of the hair on his head was gone, leaving a stringy ring of gray. "That's the nice part about movies, isn't it? Complicated as they are, they end."
I had to laugh. "I'll bring up your food in an hour. Same order?"
