Left, right, I swivelled. Bored, because there was little else to look at, I checked my calendar. 'Four more weekends,' I thought. 'Well, three and the weekend the date is supposed to happen.'
It was the Wednesday of the first week of the fourth month of my first semester in Welldark. More importantly, I had been subjected to Taurus' pressure three times total now. The second had been a relative disaster. That is to say that I treated it more relaxed than I should have and lasted only twenty seconds, a little over half the thirty-five I managed to keep standing in the first try. The third, I redeemed myself for that embarrassing showing, lasting a total of forty-one seconds.
Purely mathematically, I had improved 6 seconds in two weeks and needed to improve another 19 in the next three-and-a-half weeks. In other words, I needed to double my current improvement speed. The fact that I was approaching this like a formula was likely linked to my current environment.
The Engineering Class was, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the few fields of study where men remained the majority. Something about putting together constructs of various sizes, utilizing every last tool between blunt and razor-sharp, manual and mechanical, must have tickled a very old part of the male brain.
That being said, the women present were as capable as their peers. Sometimes more, sometimes less, on a purely individual basis. They were also worshipped to high heaven. In this classroom of forty, there were thirty-one men and nine women. Of these thirty-one males, about twenty were people I would describe as 'engineers by character'.
What this meant was that they loved nothing more than talking about machines, consistently read about machines, and typically had a personal project that they were working on before, during, and after class. Fundamentally, I found these people interesting, praise-worthy even. The world could always use more people capable of advanced problem solving.
Their problem was that their social game was clearly lacking in experience.
These twenty had descended on the nine women in a manner that I could only liken to a swarm of very hungry locusts descending on a wheat field that was armed with pesticide spray bottles. Although nonsensical (how would wheat even wield a spray bottle?), that was the exact mental image their behaviour invoked.
All twenty of them, during the first class, had come in with the same three assumptions. One, Welldark was a school where people gathered harems. Two, the women in this class were similarly interested in machines as they were. Three, there was no better time to talk to them than before and after class.
Those were, all three, logical standpoints that I would have taken myself under other circumstances. The problem was that they had all forgotten about this little thing called nuance. Their assumptions were, broadly, correct. It all became more complicated because there was a swarm of twenty people that all came to the same conclusion simultaneously.
Of the nine women, eight had submitted to interest overload and completely shut down any attempts made by people in and around this classroom, because they were evidently tired of being distracted from their tinkering. The ninth had turned out to be a slut of epic proportions and was riding all twenty guys like they were her personal bicycle collection. She would either eventually settle with one of them or be rejected by all, because of that behaviour. There was also the forbidden option, the one where she settled with the one that let her ride the nineteen others without complaint. In summary, it was a total shitshow.
Personally, I was a bit miffed. I had a thing for engineering girls, but I also had the tact to wait. While I was an openly lustful guy and did not care to hide my flirtatious attitude, I also hated to engage in 'swarm tactics'. My plan had been to... well, I had no plan. I had been distracted with Esther and by the time that got sorted out, the aforementioned blockade was already in place. Considering that I hadn't yet bothered anyone, my chances of whittling down their defences were relatively good, but none of them struck me as quite interesting enough to invest that particular effort.
To put it succinctly, twenty thirsty guys had ruined the chances of getting with a hot mechanics girl for the ten of us that were sane. This was another lesson for me that, even when the sex-ratio was 1 to 10, women sometimes had to endure waves of unwanted attention. My takeaways from this: to continue to be upfront with my desires and to never, ever move with the crowd.
Idling away the time, I turned left and right in my swivel chair, trying not to dwell on these unpleasant topics too much. Most of my work station was empty. Where others lined up their tools, I kept them tucked away under the bench. The only reason why I would take out any non-power tool was to remind myself of its shape. Replicating them with my Artefact was easier.
Eventually, the teacher of this class, Tom Jenkins, entered. He was an androgynous man who, if he had dressed the part, almost certainly could have tricked most men into mistaking him for the opposite sex. The chin-length, orderly hair and sleek glasses only furthered that impression. The black suit he wore was gender neutral. His voice, while not exceedingly masculine, did tilt towards typical male deepness.
"Good morning class," he greeted us, once he was behind his desk. "Before we start class, I have to introduce someone to all of you. Voxxy, if you would enter." Everyone, including me, perked up and looked towards the door.
In walked an incredibly short and stacked woman. Standing at little over a metre tall, she almost had me salivate. Breasts that bounced with every step drew my eyes first. They were almost as large as Esther's and, on her much smaller frame, seemed gigantic. Wide hips and a pillow ass balanced things out, giving her that stacked hourglass figure that stretched both the red top and the black skirt of her uniform. Her stockings were similarly straining, encapsulating meaty thighs that rippled almost as much as her chest did. The green skin gave away her species.
Voxxy was a female goblin. She had large, long ears that were shaped like a mixture between a spoon and a pointy leaf. The inside was a pinkish red, a colour that gradually became more pronounced, overcoming the green towards the earholes. Otherwise, her head was the typical humanoid shape. Like most shorter species, her face was rounder, leaning more towards adorable than sexy.
That was just her facial structure though. The way she presented herself screamed 'mature'. Between the way her bust stretched her red shirt, the black-framed glasses, her fat ass, and the high ponytail she bound her scarlet hair into, she was abundantly erotic. As a matter of fact, she flaunted her appearance almost too much for me. Almost being the operative word. I noted the red colour of her lips. Whether that was lipstick or the actual colour was a question that intrigued me. The green tint to it implied the latter.
"Hello," she greeted all of us. Her tone was a bit squeaky, another manifestation of her kind, but overall feminine and attractive. Oddly, I found that she had the 'sexy teacher' vibe, despite being one of my fellow students. "I'm Voxxy Rundscrew. Glad to finally get to study here."
"Due to personal reasons, Voxxy could not enter this semester immediately. Typically, we would hold her back until next semester, but she insisted. Be - nice - to - her," he spoke those last four words very slowly, while looking around the room. Jenkins was, subtly, telling everyone to give her some space before they descended on her.
I could already tell that this was falling on deaf ears.
