"Hello?" I called out into the vast hallway before me. "Jasmine?" I carefully shouted as I walked tentatively, glancing to my left and right at the metal doors lining the corridor. The doors looked heavy as hell, with large rivets jutting from the smooth, dark silver surface.
What is this place doing beneath the UCLA campus?
I thought to myself. I had taken a small passage in the Biology lab to get here, hidden behind a large metal locker in a storage closet.
Who else knows that this place is here?
"Down here, David!" a sultry voice beckoned from the distance. "Don't keep me waiting!" My ears perked and I quickened my pace towards the source of the call. The voice belonged to my longtime crush Jasmine Sinclair, whom I have sat next to for every single one of my college courses. Don't get the wrong idea, we have absolutely nothing in common. I have switched my major a dozen times in the last three years just so I could be close to my beloved Jasmine and follow her flighty career desires. Some might call it stalking, but that's not it at all. I like her - a lot. But I don't follow her home, I don't call her incessantly, I don't have my dorm room covered in her photographs. I just wanted to be close to her and talk to her, hoping that I could know her better and she would eventually see me as a man; not just the lonely virgin the rest of the world sees. I knew she would see the real me eventually with the right amount of time.
Jasmine is the definition of my perfect woman; at least, she has been since the moment I laid eyes on her. At 5'7" and roughly 120lbs, she had dark brown hair, piercing blue eyes, and incredibly large DD breasts for her size. She was a cheerleader for the UCLA football team, so the rest of her was as toned as possible. She was a legacy at UCLA, both her father and mother having graduated decades previously, and she came from money - a lot of it. It also meant that she was one of the most popular and sought after women on the entire campus. So when she met me before our Women's Studies class - yes, I even followed her to the utterly useless lectures, too - decked out in her designer clothes that probably cost as much as my tuition, I was gobsmacked.
"David, can you meet me tonight?"
she had asked, her pouty lips dripping with sensuality at every syllable.
"There's something I want to show you. Something..."
she had moved close to my ear.
"That I have been waiting to show you for a long time."
I don't even remember what I said. It could have been an affirmative response, it could have been something suave and suggestive, or it could have been incoherent babbling while I tried to control a growing erection from the butterflies in my stomach. Probably the latter. Regardless, I had somehow managed to communicate my desire to meet with her. It was then that she told me about a secluded place she knew about, an abandoned lab beneath the school she had found that would be the perfect location for our long overdue rendezvous. In retrospect, there were red flags all over this plan, but my obsession and desire blinded me to them. People will do the craziest things for love.
Thus I did not find it odd at all as I ventured towards Jasmine's voice in the dimly lit hallway of what seemed to be an amalgamation of a cold war research facility and a Turkish prison. My gait became all but trotting as I followed the source of her melodious and sultry tone. I passed the large metal doors on either side without much thought as I spotted an open door nearly fifty yards down the hallway on my right. My body began sprinting on its own as if my life depended on it; which is utterly ironic in retrospect. Ten feet before the open door - or as I was beginning to think of it, my doorway to paradise - I stopped to catch my breath and compose myself. The last thing I wanted was for Jasmine to see me bolt inside, gasping and panting like a fat kid chasing an ice cream truck. In that case, I might as well saunter in with my pants around my ankles while making it rain with condoms. Taking a few deep breaths and adjusting my hair so it wasn't clinging to my forehead, I stepped casually into the entrance.
The room's lighting was the same as the corridor - dim and depressing - but I was not interested in being a gaffer here. I was here for one reason and she was standing right in front of me. Jasmine smiled sweetly at me as I entered, still wearing her smoking hot blouse, skirt and pumps from earlier in the day. My breath hitched in my throat as she took a small step towards me.
"Hey, I wasn't sure you would show," she said with her eyes twinkling and a seductive expression playing at the corners of her mouth.
"Of course I came!" I blurted out. I tried to check my enthusiasm as soon as the words left my mouth while relaxing my shoulders and attempting my best "it's cool" demeanor. I ran my hand through my hair, quietly chastising myself for messing it up. "This place is a bit of a maze. I wasn't sure I would find you."
She took another few steps towards me, now only a few feet away. I could smell her perfume emanating from her body and I quietly shivered. "Well, I'm glad you came. You don't know how long I've waited to get you alone."
My gut should have told me something was wrong in that instant, but I was far too smitten and excited to listen to anything but my libido. She could have been carrying a butcher knife, covered in blood, and I still would have heard her out. "If I'm being honest, Jasmine, I'm really surprised you wanted to meet with me. I know we've known each other for three years and we have all the same classes, but you generally don't talk to me much unless you need class notes or help with a paper."
A quizzical look danced across her face. "We've had all the same classes? Are you sure?"
I'm pretty fucking sure
, I thought to myself,
considering I've been following you around like a puppy all these years.
But I sure as hell didn't want to distress her now that she finally seemed to notice me. "Well, not all. It just seems like it because we've known each other so long," I said, adding a chuckle at the end to keep the mood light. "So, you said you wanted to show me something. Is it this old," I start, looking around the room, noticing the extremely small room is completely empty of everything except for vents the surrounded it. "Whatever this is," I finish.
"Oh, this is an old cryogenics lab from decades back," she informs me, her hand waving dismissively around her. "It's long since been abandoned. My dad told me about it from his time as a student here. Apparently it was decommissioned years ago, but it was just left to gather dust. I found out that they're finally sealing it off tomorrow as part of the East Campus restoration project." She gestures to the room. "We're the last ones to see it before it's lost to history."
"That
is
pretty cool," I said, slightly crestfallen.
Shit
, I thought,
I completely misread this invitation. But still, she wanted to experience this with me. That means she must view me as more than just a classmate
.
"But that's not the real reason I wanted you to meet me here," she playfully said, as a seductive expression took over her face. She closed the gap between us in a few steps and gently placed one of her perfectly manicured hands against my chest. "I wanted someplace where we could be alone. You know, I've sort of had a crush on you for a long time."
