Chapter One

 

Graduating from high school was a scary time in my life. I imagine it was for most people. Everything I'd ever known was over. And now I was allegedly on the cusp of being recognized as an actual adult. But what did that even mean? As far as I could tell it meant boring jobs you didn't like, bills you couldn't afford, trying to find a place to live. And then that whole panoply of things in the misty far distance like marriage and children.

And like a lot of young people my age I responded with "Fuck that! Let me stay in school!"

So I decided to go to college. I felt no particular calling, and had no real interest in any known occupation or profession. I just knew I didn't want to go out there in the scary wide world and be on my own. Nope. Nope. Nothing I'd heard about it sounded very good.

So, I chose to take a general liberal arts program because it was respectable, suggested it would prepare me for a wide range of possible opportunities, and would give me time to consider what I actually wanted to do with my life. It would also, hopefully, make me more sophisticated than I then believed I was.

It seems a general characteristic of girls my age that we're never entirely confident in ourselves. There are always things we feel desperately self-conscious about. If it's not looks - and there I was mostly blessed - then it's abilities, money, sophistication, or whatever. Certainly, the very second last thing any girl wants to be seen as at that age is unsophisticated. The last being ugly.

And I WAS unsophisticated and knew it.

What I wasn't really that aware of was that compared to almost every other person my age I was pretty much normal. Perhaps that was because, like me, everyone I knew put on a show of not being unsophisticated, pretending to a worldliness and jaded cynicism none had lived long enough to honestly own.

I followed the fashion trends, of course, but didn't own any as mine. I'd flirted with different elements during high school, but never found anything that called to me. I hadn't changed my hair much in years and was too risk-averse to really experiment with what seemed to be already working pretty well.

That is, I got compliments on my hair. From guys and girls. Guys could be very tiring, though, especially the non-white ones. And I don't mean that in a racist way. The cliché, if you will, about blondes was bad enough among normal, white Americans. It was amped up among Latinos, and even worse among blacks.

Then we get to the immigrants from places like India or the Middle East or even Asia and it becomes something almost unrecognizable. Their fascination often seems to have a more hostile and condescending tinge to it, as well. The idea I get is that in their home cultures western women are famously slutty but the sluttiest of the slutty are blondes.

And while all of them seem perfectly happy to take advantage of our alleged sluttiness they then seem highly indignant when we prove to be choosier than they had been led to believe from watching internet porn. Like, how dare a complete and utter whore like me refuse to sleep with them!? That's like some kind of personal insult!

Naturally, this is compounded by alcohol on the part of all guys. That includes the religious ones whose religion says they shouldn't be consuming alcohol.

Spare me!

I like my hair. I think it really sits well on my head and frames my slender face well. It's fairly easily managed, is properly soft and reasonably thick, and I don't have to really do much of anything with it. The only 'style' I've come to embrace is basically letting it hang free to spill over my shoulders, and having thick, heavy bangs that spill down across my forehead and almost reach my eyes.

My friend Hannah called it a lion's mane, and I love that description! It sounds fierce and independent, which I most definitely am - not. I'm very much a go-along-to-get-along kind of girl. I don't like confrontation AT ALL. I don't like arguments or angry people. I don't cope with it well! I'm only five-two and have never weighed much more than a hundred and twelve pounds. So, I'm definitely not good at physical stuff!

I figured college would be a good place to expand my horizons, grow up a little more, get more sophisticated, and learn to deal with people better. As in, like, in person, as opposed to over social media. Social media is bad enough but at least you can pretend not to see nasty remarks, and just leave without anyone knowing you were there.

Social media is often about how attractive, how sexy, how hot you are. Girls tried, often with the help of filters, to make themselves seem as sexy as possible - without seeming to be trying too hard. I had always been uncomfortable with that. Partly because I was kind of shy and self-conscious.

Although, if I had tried, I could have gotten lots of likes, believe me. Once, my friend Diedre took a picture of me in the shower at school. There are stalls and curtains across them, and she kind of waited until I was rinsing off my hair and then eased the curtain aside and took a full-body nude, then posted it on the internet. Then she sent me an email with a link to it.

OMG! Naturally, I was horrified, at first! But she'd selected the picture well. It was taken from kind of beside and behind me. My hands were up and back in my hair and face, with my back arched and my head tilted back. My face and hair were mostly covered in shampoo so you couldn't even tell I was blonde. You could see I was slender and had a nice ass, as well as a lot of side boob. But my nipple was mostly hidden under soap.

It was a good, sexy picture. It showed my body off well without being obscene or graphic. And she did it to show me that I should have more confidence in my body. She had posted it to one of those amateur sites where people (mostly men) made comments and rated bodies, and mine got lots of very flattering, eager comments and a very high rating.

If she hadn't sent it to me, like, if I had just been on a porn site (which I almost never am!) and saw it I wouldn't have even known it was me. No one knew it was me except her. I was still highly pissed at her, believe me! I wouldn't talk to her for days!

I never shampooed at school again. I showered quickly, one eye on the curtain, and then quickly wrapped a towel around myself. I was maybe just a bit less self-conscious about showing off my body after that. A bit. But I still was reticent to wear anything really revealing.

And so, I knew college was going to be a bit of a challenge since I was required to live in a dorm room my freshman year. I had to share a room with another girl. The beds were side by side. There was one small bathroom that had a shower, not a tub. There was a narrow sink and mirror and a toilet.

You were obviously not expected to do much in there. In fact, the freshman orientation notes suggested that makeup, hair styling, etc. should be done in your room, not the bathroom, so advised having a makeup mirror. Though using a noisy hair dryer in the bathroom with the door closed was permissible if the noise would annoy your roommate.

NOT annoying your roommate was the most important advice as far as the orientation booklet went. Learn to compromise. Learn to cooperate. Make friends!

Easier said than done! Because you don't get to choose your roommate! And the first time I laid eyes on mine I suspected the whole thing was going to be hopeless! And it only got worse when she opened her mouth.

"Well, someone was having some fun when they put us together, don't you think?" were her words. "We certainly won't be sharing wardrobes!"

My family name is Eriksson. I'm of Nordic heritage. So in addition to the natural blonde hair, my skin is quite pale. Her last name was Njolo, and she was from African stock. And I don't mean those light-skinned black actresses you see a lot of. She was proudly of Zulu heritage, and very, very black. She was also quite tall, a good nine inches taller than me!

To make matters infinitely worse, she was British. And not lower-class British, either. She had that 'posh' accent of the upper classes, the kind that almost every American is intimidated by because it makes them seem so very sophisticated and cultured.

Have I mentioned I was born and raised in Idaho, the whitest state in the union? My experience with black people was minimal. My experience with British people was non-existent. And to make matters even worse, she seemed to have a lot of money. Like, a lot! My parents are certainly not poor but they didn't have a 'country place' that looked like it had about ten bedrooms!

Anyway, despite all this she seemed quite friendly and didn't act at all condescending. But the stuff she put in her half of the room was all very stylish and expensive. She also had brought so many clothes she asked if she could use part of my closet (there are two in the room) so I said okay, though I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea.

Go along to get along.

As you can imagine, I felt rather uhm... inferior, like some poor, ignorant yokel stuck in with a princess. Amara, for that was her first name, was casual, relaxed, confident, and seemed completely unflappable in that stereotypically British upper-class style.

I thought she'd obviously not want to have anything to do with me, but quite to the contrary, she invited me out to go explore the campus some and I eagerly agreed. We might have made an odd pair walking around, though, with the top of my head coming up to her shoulder and her so dark compared to me, but if so she certainly didn't seem to care.

I envied her that. The not caring what people might think or if people were staring. I envied her confidence, too, not to mention the elegant way she walked and talked. She made a lot of casual, cutting remarks on people we passed, though, which were sometimes outrageous and sometimes hilarious.

We finally met up with someone she knew, though. Grace was African American, but not as dark as Amara, and had a normal American accent. Amara gave her that brushing cheeks, fake kissy greeting and then introduced me.

"This is Tory, my roommate."

"Seriously?" Grace asked.

"Yes, we're like night and day!" Amara said, putting her arm across my shoulder and beaming at her.

"A short day," Grace said with a bit of a smirk.

We joined her for lunch in one of the cafeterias, where Grace smirked again when she heard where I was from. Amara had no idea where it was, though.

"I just got here, really. It's all a big mystery," she said breezily. "All those places. Too many!"

"You'll have to memorize them if you're going to stay," Grace said.

"Are you going to stay?" I asked, surprised.

"We'll see. Papa has taken a job here and bought a house. We've still got the one in London and the one in the country. He wants to move here permanently. He says the UK is going down the drain, you know, becoming communists or something."

She waved her hand and rolled her eyes.

"Move to Idaho. He'll be right at home," I said dryly.

Grace snorted in agreement.

"What about you, my sweet?" she asked. "Going back to Idaho when finished or going to move out into the wider world?"

"I have no idea. I don't know what I want to do. I have no plans. I have no ambitions."

"Welcome to the fucking club," Grace said.

"It's a grand club! We should have a Latin motto, something painfully pretentious," Amara suggested.

"And are there standards for joining?" I asked.

"None whatsoever!" Amara replied.

"But definitely an initiation ceremony," Grace added.

"Oh, if you want." Amara shrugged.

"Something with lots of blindfolds and scary music, and robes and nudity."

"Who gets to wear the robes and who gets to be nude?" Amara asked with a broad smile.

"Obviously the one being initiated is the nude one, at the mercy of the big sisters who initiate her."

She cast an eye on me in a way which made me swallow uncertainly even as Amara laughed.

"You're delightfully perverted, Grace," she said.

"Oh, pot calling the kettle black," Grace replied.

"Where did you two meet?" I asked.

"In the lobby of our condominium," Amara said. "I took pity on her and attempted to correct her diction and posture."

"I was drunk," Grace said.

"Ladies do not become drunk, dear, merely tipsy. Or perhaps slightly inebriated."

"Who the fuck said I was a lady?"

"Well, not I! But it is ones ambition where I come from."

"Up the revolution!" Grace said.

"Bloody colonial," Amara sniffed.

"And you both chose the same college?" I asked.

"It's nearby, it's Ivy league enough to satisfy my pretentious family, and it has lots of programs for wastrels like us," Amara said. "I could even go home on the weekends if I chose."

She eyed me. "Not you, I gather."

"Idaho is kind of a far distance."

"I haven't yet quite come to terms with how bloody big this country is," she said. "My father has insisted on doing the whole Yankee thing though, and even rented out a country home here."

"A what?" Grace asked.

"I believe you yanks call it a cottage. Though where I come from a cottage is rather a small place with few amenities. This place is quite large, and from the pictures, amply comfortable even for someone of my exalted taste."

"Is it on a lake or something?" Grace asked sourly.

"Yes, or at least, it seems to have views looking out on some large body of water."

"Do you even know how to swim?"

"Of course, I know how to swim, dear! Who doesn't know how to swim?"

"Me. And everyone I know."

"Whyever not? Don't you like going to the south of France and Portugal on the holidays?"

"Uhm, no."

"Well, it's what one does if one lives in London. Or Greece. Greece is popular too. Fun people, the Greeks. Very conservative and yet seem to enjoy nude and topless sunbathing a lot."

"Got a tan, did you?" Grace asked sarcastically.

Amara made a meow sound and pretended to claw at her.

"Perhaps it's because I didn't have much interest in laying around in the sun but wanted to do fun things in the water that I learned to swim."

She turned to me.

"What about you, duckling? Do you swim?"

"There's a lot of lakes and rivers in Idaho, but you don't get many really warm days," I said. "I can dog paddle."

Grace snickered.

"What? That's better than you," Amara said.

"I was just thinking she could be your little poodle girl, following you around. So, dog paddling is just about right."

I got the idea she wasn't being particularly friendly but didn't want to start anything.

"Your hair is more poodlish than hers. No, she's a sweet little border collie," Amara said.

"Still a bitch." Grace shrugged.

"But you're the one being bitchy. Did Derek not show up again?"

Grace glared at her.

"Thought so. Told you he was only looking for a rest stop."

She turned to me. "Boys love rest stops. They can stop over briefly to, ahm, refresh themselves, and then be back on their way without any issues."

"She means fucking," Grace said sourly.

"Well, I implied it, but I was not so crude as to be blunt," Amara said airily. "I say if you're going to provide rest stops, at least charge the buggers.

I felt my eyes widen at that.

"I don't need money," Grace said flatly.

"It's an exchange, dear, one thing for another. They give you money, you give them pleasure. It's not like they're usually much on giving pleasure back, after all."

"Some of them are," she said with a shrug.

"I have had a number of cocks inside me," Amara said, "And the only ones that have given me orgasm are the ones I bought on the internet."