(part 1 of 4)
I enjoyed the solace of the basement. It was quiet and separate, unusual for a busy college campus. Most nights when I came down here I would see one or two other students, usually someone who was cramming for an exam or rushing to finish a paper and needed to tune out the world. Rarely did I see the same person twice and everyone wound up leaving before I did. I assumed that most people who came down to the basement wound up being a little freaked out by it. I'll admit that aside from the outdated look and the worn furniture, the room also had a peculiar aura to it that was unsettling at times.
For starters, the place was kind of gross. The furniture was new several decades ago and almost every part of the carpet was either stained or torn. The chairs groaned and the tables creaked, the lighting was harsh and the internet non-existent. On a campus full of beautiful buildings emblazoned with the names of donors, this was a neglected relic of the past.
But more than anything, it was warm down in the basement. Boiler room warm, a particular type of dry heat that kept me oddly alert and focused, rather than the lethargy that usually accompanies heat. In the furthest corner of the basement, away from the lone set of steps, was a heavy metal door that I had never seen opened. A small sign on it read Boiler- Keep Out. On one occasion, curiosity got the best of me and I had gone over to the door and turned the knob, unsurprised to find it was locked. Even through the metal I could feel the heat beyond the door. There was something sensual about the room though, it touched on all my senses in a satisfying way that felt welcoming. Sometimes when I got back to my room I could smell it on me as I lay in the undersized dorm room bed and tried to sleep.
The first time I heard the rattle of the pipes I froze what I was doing from the jarring sounds. Old iron pipes ran along the low ceiling and disappeared into the walls as they spread throughout the building. Without warning they would awaken and shake, the hanger straps swaying slightly as the pipes rumbled. At its peak the trembling sound made it feel as if the building was going to collapse around me. Sometimes the old fluorescent lights would dim into darkness and it was easy to imagine that the long shadows were reaching to pull me inside of them. And there were strange noises that were always in earshot but never close enough that I could actually pinpoint where they were coming from.
But I got over all of it. In exchange for a quiet place to focus and get work done I would have tolerated a lot. The occasional building noises were a small price to pay. Plus, my roommate made it hard to get work done in my dorm and there weren't a ton of other places for me to go. The library was too busy with distractions and I was never much of a coffee shop guy. Open twenty four hours, I could stay in the student union all night if I needed to.
I was deep into my text on the Revolutionary war when I felt a slow wave of heat pass over my body. Small beads of sweat pooled on the back of my neck and I pulled at the collar of my shirt to get some cool air on my skin. It wasn't the first time that the old boiler kicked off heat like this, but it was stronger than what I was beginning to get accustomed to.
I looked up and saw that the sole other occupant of the basement, a cute girl in a white tee shirt with black hair tucked under a ballcap that I had never seen before, had also just raised her head and was wiping at the sweat on her arm. The girl's sweatshirt was balled up on the table next to her and she used a sleeve to pat at her skin to soak up the moisture. The sweat on her shirt was enough to create a semi transparent window that showed her dark nipples sticking against the cotton.
Awkwardly, I looked up from her chest and our eyes came together. We quickly looked back to our work.
The heat passed after a moment but I had a hard time focusing my attention on the book in front of me. I was certain that I had felt actual airflow on my skin, a slow moving wall of heat that pushed through the basement like a sauna. For all the faults of the basement, it wasn't drafty. I put down my highlighter and ran my hands along my thighs to wipe off the sweat when the sensation ran over me again, this time the air was so warm that I briefly felt lightheaded.
Even stranger, my cock had instantly grown stiff inside my jeans. I didn't need to touch myself to know that I was rock hard. More than just the physical reaction that my body was having, I also felt a deep pool of lust spring up inside of me. As if something was uncorked and filling me up from within with desire. I had to stop myself from grabbing at my cock.
Two tables away I could see that the woman was feeling something too. She leaned back in her seat and gripped the edge of the table, her skin was flushed red in her cheeks. It was now impossible to ignore the thick nubs of her nipples poking through the faded material of her shirt. Something in the air could certainly make her nipples hard, but it seemed weird that my cock was having the same reaction at the same moment. Whatever I was experiencing was happening to her as well.
This time when our eyes met neither of us looked away. I half recognized the look in her face; there was a wellspring of pleasure bubbling under the surface, but also fear in her eyes from the sudden, unexpected arousal. At the same time I felt as if I was being watched, like there was another person in the basement with us. The presence of someone else was undeniable. I can't explain it other than to say that I knew for certain that we weren't alone.
The feeling was...unusual more than uncomfortable. At least for me. My fellow student slammed shut her book and quickly tossed everything into the bag on the table. The young woman avoided eye contact as she stood up and turned. For a brief moment before she pulled her bag to her chest I could see her nipples again. Whatever was happening with her was more than a passing sensation, the feeling around us had sunk deep into her. Before I could consider it any longer she was gone, rushing out of the room and towards the steps that led upstairs.
Now alone, my hand reached toward my cock. I told myself that I needed to adjust my raging dick because I knew I probably looked obscene with such an obvious hard on, but I also knew that I wanted to touch myself. If even for a moment, I had to allow it.
The moment that I made contact, flesh to rigid flesh, the overhead pipes in the room rattled. The sound was loud and deep, shaking me as much as the room itself. The sound reverberated and I could feel the echoes inside of me. I froze, suddenly feeling like the focal point of attention for something or someone. My fingers were wrapped around my shaft and I squeezed, a single drop of cum trickling from my engorged tip.
In immediate response I heard a low inhale of steam from the boiler room behind me. Like a deep breath being pulled in, the sound of the hissing boiler upped the tension in the room. The sensuality of the dim basement was working on overdrive. I could feel everything around me in a heightened way. It seemed as if all the time that I had been down here I was forging a connection with the space and it had moved to another level.
I moved my clenched fist slightly, daring to stroke my cock in the basement of the student union. I expected to see someone come down the steps and interrupt the moment I was having. Instead it was the room that responded, a louder rumble from the pipes that encouraged me to keep going. The lights dimmed slightly and I welcomed the darkness, feeling embraced by the cover the low light was offering.
As I slowly continued to touch myself and sink deeper into the pleasure that was building inside of me, the room continued to play along with a cacophony of rattles, sighs, and rumbles. I felt myself reaching the point of no return. The skin of my hand was coated in a thin glaze of precum as I spread the goo around with each slow, deliberate stroke.
Suddenly I heard voices from the stairwell and the room itself went silent. Three students, two guys and a girl, came into the room and walked over to one of the tables. When they saw me they lowered their voices but kept on talking. Something about a physics test and a group project. I could barely focus on what they were saying, it felt as if I had just been dropped into a new environment. All the connections that were there a minute ago had evaporated the moment that they came into the room. The room was brighter than it was just a heartbeat ago. The air around me was no longer charged, the boiler was silent behind the metal door.
Beneath the table I pulled my hand out of my pants slowly, not wanting to draw any attention to myself but also trying to savor the last moment that I had.
I turned back to my textbook but the words weren't registering at all. I didn't see myself getting back to studying anytime soon, there were too many competing thoughts running through my mind and they were all more exciting than the Revolutionary War. I pulled back my chair and banged into the table and my pen bounced onto the carpet. It rolled out of arm's reach and I went under the table to pick it up. I looked up when I did so and something caught my eyes on the underside of the table.
Carved into the old wood was the word Isca. The letters had a faint luminescence to them, backlit and blood red among the dull brown of the table. All around the letters were other carvings and stains on the wood from decades of use, but the illumination made this single word stand out. Isca. There was a sharpness to the writing that the graffiti around it lacked. I grabbed my pen and wrote the word in the margin of my notebook. The word meant nothing to me. But I had a feeling that it could.
The intrusion had jolted my cock back to a relaxed state and I packed up my bag and headed for the steps and left the basement. The union was loud, colorful, and busy as students went about their evening oblivious to the experience that I just had.
And what was it that just happened to me? I was prone to getting lost in my own head, I knew that. It was so easy for me, natural really, to latch onto a thought and follow wherever the daydream or fantasy led me. This certainly wouldn't be the first time that a runaway thought ended with my hands in my pants and a hard cock begging for release. But something about this felt different. It seemed unlikely that I had imagined all of it. If nothing else, the other girl in the basement at the same time also had a reaction. The room was reaching out, I couldn't help but feel that the space was trying to connect with me on some level. It was strange but also exciting in a way that had more depth than a daydream. And the word beneath the table was practically glowing, too much for it to be my imagination. I tried to write it off as the contrast between the harsh lighting and the darkness under the table, but I kept coming back to it as being something more.
I wanted to know. If there was anything to find out I planned on uncovering it.
I rushed back to my dorm room and went inside, relieved to find that it was empty. I pulled out my computer and immediately did a search for Isca. Unsurprisingly it returned nothing, at least nothing that seemed even remotely relevant. Nothing on the page caught my eye. I fought down the urge to go down the rabbit hole of random results and instead tried to think about what else I could do.
There was always the university library. It was possible that whatever Isca was, it could have a connection to the school and just wasn't something that made itself into the greater world of the internet. Last semester I had taken a required course for freshmen that was an introduction to the resources that the university offered to all students; health care options, athletics, clubs, greek life, transportation. Tons of stuff. Among them was the library, which included a special closed collection related to the school and student life. I remember the librarian explaining to us that the online cataloging system that they used was still in beta and therefore not widely available to the public, there were a lot of collections that were only searchable by someone on campus. It was at least worth a shot.
