Chapter 2: One Chance Only
After my amazing experience with my neighbor Janine, I went back to my house, took a long draught of water out of the bathroom tap, and checked myself in the mirror. Nothing out of the ordinary there, apart from an understandable reddening of the face after what had just happened. I stripped and couldn't find any rashes. I touched my neck, and the thin layer of residue left on my finger smelled strongly of lilac, although it was mixed this time with an earthier, gamier scent as well as the sweat of sex. As far as I could tell, this secretion was coming from one of the glands at the base of my skull. I could feel one of the glands had swollen a little on both sides of the neck.
Heck, I thought, if this was the worst of the side effects, bring it on! I showered and planned my next move.
* * *
Life went back to normal in the next few days, apart from another chance meeting with Janine after classes one day. She seemed perfectly normal in her behavior, and didn't flirt with me. From the way she looked at and acted with me, it didn't seem that she had forgotten our fling, but she was making it clear that she wasn't interested in me beyond that.
I was fine with that. I don't even remember thinking about how unsafe the sex had been, but I assumed she had control over that and left it at that. What can I say to defend myself... I was only 20 years old? Yes, that excuse may wear a little thin as I tell my story, but you know about that movie about men who are young and full of cum? The middle bit of that title is true too.
* * *
My next opportunity came at university, in between classes. Being a journalism student, I had a lot of female classmates, several of whom were obviously grooming themselves to glamorous television careers. And then you had the girls in the J-school who were the products of upper class educations and had the smarts and upbringing to succeed in the higher echelons of journalism, the major newspapers and prestigious professional publications. Me, I was probably destined to work at some minor online operation, slaving away over voluminous amounts of bad copy for little pay. Or at least, that was the attitude I sometimes got when I looked at some of these girls.
That's not to say I was one of those weirdoes who stares at girls and creeps them out. Don't let me give you the wrong impression. If I was thinking any of this stuff, I was careful to keep it all inside, and not verbalize any of it to anyone. I talked to a good many of these girls, and would consider myself on friendly terms with many of them. I was a normal guy.
Just a little bit of a loser, that's all.
So when I saw my classmate Mei in one of the student rooms on the fourth floor of the faculty building, lounging by herself reading a newspaper with a soft drink can in one hand, I saw my chance. Mei was of Chinese descent but a localized accent, with straight black bangs that hung down to her collarbone and a thin, short body. She liked wearing conservative clothing like the thick woolen sweater with jacket and business-style pants she had on today, reflecting her professional good girl image. As a result, she never showed off her body, so it was hard to tell how fit or otherwise she was -- apart from an obviously tight little ass. She was as capable a writer as anyone in my year, though her interpersonal skills weren't as polished as those who were angling for a job in front of a camera. I liked Mei, and teased her occasionally in relaxed social situations about this or that. She enjoyed a laugh but as with many of her female classmates, university was about one thing: getting herself ready for a job in journalism, no dalliances or complications.
As I sidled up next to her and asked her what she was reading, I was curious about how Mei would react to the white seed I surreptitiously dropped into her open soft drink can.
"Oh, just politics. Same old stuff, do they ever get tired of reporting what goes on in the capital city?" she said absently, taking a mouthful of fizzy drink. The can looked half empty, so it looked like I needed a bit of small talk.
"So I suppose you would do it differently if you were a journo at one of these rags, Mei?" I asked. "You'd mix it up a little, put the Mei stamp on it, make it your own Mei-spaper?"
She half turned her head and regarded me through hooded eyelids, knowing from the tone of my voice that I was teasing her again. "Yes, yes I would. And I'd do a better damn job than you, Mister Big Shot." Her grin belied any aggression in her attitude.
We chatted for a while about the newspaper she was holding, discussing the various political journalists and then talking about the layout of the page. I took the opportunity to lean over her shoulder and point at one part of the newspaper at one point, and immediately I could see her demeanor change as she caught a noseful of the lilac scent from my neck, which I could feel had started secreting tiny amounts of the strong-smelling resinous liquid. From the prim and proper Mei, she slowly relaxed her muscles and opened up her body language to do something I had never seen her do with anyone in my course. She started flirting with me. First it was just a hand on the shoulder for a fleeting second, and then as I kept teasing her she pushed me in the chest, the tips of her fingers lingering down to my abdomen as she pulled them away. Such invasions of personal space were not like Mei at all.
I was happy to see Mei react in this way, of course, but I was a little puzzled. Where were the stomach cramps and palpitations that Janine had? Mei seemed to be feeling no physical discomfort that I could see. As we kept chatting, however, Mei did start to get agitated, and fell quiet with an inscrutable look on her face.
"What's wrong Mei?" I asked, wondering how her reaction was going to manifest itself differently to that of Janine.
"Nothing's wrong, exactly," she said slowly, looking at me intently. She lifted one eyebrow, obviously thinking about something, then frowned. She looked at her hands, one of which was shaking slightly. I took her hand in mine, and closed the other one over it to stop it shaking.