Krithika felt completely humiliated when she walked onto her college campus for the first time. It seemed like every girl there but her was wearing short skirts, short dresses, little shorts, low cut tops, and she was the only one dressed like an idiot and sweating nonstop in her frumpy top and too-baggy jeans. It had been a battle just to bring the jeans – her dad had forcibly packed for her after he looked through her luggage and found it packed with clothes he didn't even approve of her buying in the first place back in India, so her suitcases had been filled with embarrassing long dresses and Indian stuff. It wasn't as if anything she was packing was so revealing, her dad just barely tolerated western clothes at all, let alone remotely modern ones. When she had stupidly worn a pair of leggings in front of him at home he had her take them off then cut them up and threw them away.
So she was arriving at college looking exactly like the dowdy, stereotypical Indian student she had tried so hard not to be! She had only made it through the last few years by daydreaming about how different her life would be once she got to study overseas, and she thought she had done her research. It seemed like a myth, how revealingly Western girls dressed in movies and TV, the way no one in India really dressed like Bollywood, but she seemed the only girl there not exposing more skin than she was covering up.
There was some orientation event going on, but it was probably skippable and she was definitely feeling too humiliated to go. She would go home to her flat and try to work out a budget so that she could get some new clothes – her dad was (deliberately, she suspected) only sending her enough for food and necessities to make sure she wasn't having any fun or anything. He only let her study overseas so he could brag about it to his friends; when she was in India he sent her to conservative all-girls schools and allowed her to have no contact with boys, and he was trying to keep that up as best as he could while she was here by making her live off campus with a bunch of other Indian students instead of staying in a dorm. She didn't think this would be so bad, since of course they'd all be as excited to get out and experience life as her, right? But, horrifyingly, they all seemed to want even less contact with non-Indians than they were having, and barely left the house except to study.
Krithika tried to walk through campus, or at least find a little loop somewhere so she could turn around and walk back out without just changing direction and looking like a fool, but she quickly lost her way. She found herself in a courtyard that only had one other exit, a building that she strode up to very decisively, trying to seem like she knew what she was doing, but when she tried the door it was locked. There was a laugh from behind her. She turned to see a white boy – tall, sorta cute, maybe a few years older than she was – grinning at her, not mean-spiritedly, but she still blushed.
"Lost?" He asked, putting his book to the side.
"Maybe," she replied, trying and failing to sound confident. "I'm looking for the way out."
"It's the way you came." He grinned again. "If you're new, you should go to this orientation thing they're having. I can show you where it is, if you want."
"Do I have to go?"
"I mean, I'm not making you." He kept smiling and making her blush! It was humiliating, she could tell he was thinking she was just a silly foreign girl who didn't know anything.
"I just mean, I came for it, but I would rather go home."
"Why's that?"
"It- It's embarrassing!" Oh god, what an idiot she was making herself out to be.
"Aww, don't be embarrassed. Come on, sit over here." He shifted over on the bench and Krithika hesitantly approached him and sat down. "If you told me it's embarrassing, that means you want to talk about it. I'm James, by the way."
She started to tell him, at first in only the vaguest details and trying to seem very casual and cool about it, but as she went on she found herself spilling out everything to him. He kept nodding, and looking at her with his cute blue eyes, and she felt so comfortable talking to him it wasn't until she was finished she got embarrassed over how emotional she'd been.
"Well, I think you might be in luck. I live off-campus, a girl who used to live with us just moved out and left a bunch of her clothes, and she was tiny like you."
Krithika blushed – she had felt short even in India at barely five foot tall, and here she really did feel tiny. It was a little hard to get clothes to fit right though, since she was very skinny except for her hips and embarrassingly large butt, which was way too prominent in tight clothes.
"So what size are you?" James asked.
"American size? Size six..." Krithika paused. "Well, my parents would make me buy size six. But I've tried size four and it fits better, maybe. Sometimes size two, but maybe that's a little..." She blushed, embarrassed to be spilling out such stuff to a total stranger."
"A little showoffy?" He grinned and she blushed even harder.
"I suppose... But I don't know what's good here, what's normal."
"Well, I think a lot of them are size two, size four, so you should come by and try them out.
"I don't know... Are you sure it's fine to take them? And I just met you!"
"Positive. And that's just how college is, you meet people."
Krithika smiled. She felt lucky to have met this guy, even if the clothes thing didn't work out – she was like a proper Western college girl! "Thank you so much! I feel so silly, I've been worrying since I got here I'll be like, the lame Indian girl, you know, and no one will want to hang out with me."
"I'm sure you don't have anything to worry about. I mean, some Indian girls are like that, you know, frumpy clothing and body hair. But I can tell you're not like that."
She laughed, making a mental note to shave all over as soon as possible. They chatted a little more; she got his address and they swapped phone numbers, though she wasn't 100% sure this was fine and not abnormally flirty or anything.
On the way home she bought a razor. She spent the rest of the afternoon in her room, staring unfocusedly at textbooks and thinking about James and tomorrow and whether she was overthinking about James and tomorrow. After her shower she shaved in all the usual places and then, just to be completely safe, decided to shave just the top of her pubic hair, in case she was given some super low-waist pants or something. But it looked weird, and she'd put too much shaving gel on anyway, so she ended up shaving it all off. She sorta liked how it felt though, and that night she slept without any panties because it felt so nice, the bare skin against the nice clean sheet.
––––
The next morning she walked to James' house. She was a little embarrassed at having to wear Indian clothes there, but it was better than seeming dirty showing up in the same thing, and it wasn't like she was wearing a full sari or anything. Still, when he opened the door and looked her up and down, she blushed hard.
"That's a cute outfit," he said. "What do you call that?"
"Salwar Kameez..." Krithika replied sheepishly.
"
Salwar Kameez...
It's nice. Very colourful." He turned and walked inside a few paces. Krithika stood at the door awkwardly. He turned back to her with a slightly condescending expression. "You're allowed to come in."
She stepped in after him and he closed the door behind her. He led her into the main room of the flat, with a kitchen on one side and a few chairs and couches on the other, and walked her to a dining table on which several items of clothing were laid out. Krithika blushed; there was a tiny pair of shorts, a tiny skirt, and a couple of very small-looking tops.
"I don't know if I can wear these!" she protested.
"You might as well try them out, right?"
"I really don't know... I've never worn anything like these!" She held up the shorts and made a face. James laughed.
"They're pretty normal stuff here. You just try them on, show me what they look like, I'll let you know if it's too much or anything, alright?" He gave her that condescending look again.
After a bit more blushing, Krithika picked up the clothes and went to the bathroom to try them on. She felt naughty just stripping off in this strange boy's bathroom even though she had the door locked. First she tried the shorts, which she immediately decided were much much much too tight – not only could you see her whole butt, you could see a slight outline in the front...
She tossed them aside and tried the skirt, which was a lot shorter than any she'd tried on before but at least didn't define anything too much. She tried on both shirts; one covered her whole tummy but showed way too much of her boobs, and the other one showed off her whole tummy but at least she didn't feel like she was going to pop out of it. Looking at herself in the mirror, she felt both horrified and a little excited – she looked like such a slut! It was crazy, she never thought she would dress like this, in a way that seemed revealing even by the standards of the girls at university. She would show them to James and if he didn't react too crazily or anything, she'd take them, probably never to wear them, but still, it couldn't hurt just to have them around.
When she stepped back out another boy was at the table talking with James, and they both turned to her. This new guy was leering at her, as overtly as guys did on the street back in India. Krithika's face burned and she felt she'd die of shame.
"Krithika," James said, "This here's Matt. I live with him, and a couple other guys."
"Hi Krithika," Matt said. He seemed sort of... well, filthy. He was even taller than James, but he was a lot fatter – probably stronger, too, but overweight in that not-caring-at-all way – and he hadn't shaved in a week or two, and he wore sweat-smelling shorts and singlet, both baggy, and he just generally seemed sort of gross, in that way those guys who are macho but not sexy-macho are.
"What do you think, Matt?" James grinned at him, but it was so different from how he smiled at her, not sweet at all.
"I think she's looking pretty fuckable, for a brown chick." Krithika scowled at him.
"You decided to take 'em, Krithka?" James asked.
"I don't know. I mean, no, I don't think so."
"Aww, cmon." James flipped back to sweet again. "I'm sorry Matt's a dick, I mean, he's a pig, he's scum, don't listen to him. He just means you look nice." He pulled out a chair for her, and hesitantly she walked over and sat down.
"I'll take them, I suppose, if no one else is taking them..." Krithika said, shifting in her seat. "I feel so guilty just taking them though, you're sure it's fine? There isn't anything I can do for you?"
