The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Olivia’s House

Chapter 11 — A New Friend, and Waiting

The Merriman-Fawkes Building was one of the university’s grandest structures, with marble slabs laying out a red-and-black chessboard on the floor, and pillars along the front supporting three spiral staircases to give access to higher levels. It was almost as grand as our house, I thought with a giggle. There was a packed mass of students outside, with a handful of university security staff letting them in a few at a time. Inside, the foyer was still busy, but you could at least join the right queue for your faculty without having to fight past a whole crowd.

I didn’t mind crowds too much, and Alex was tough enough to clear a path through even the most aggressive clusters of humanity. Jules, though, had spent more than a year without any human contact, so I found myself keeping an eye on them to make sure they weren’t being crowded too much by the other freshmen.

“This is so disorganised,” Jules was saying, “Why can’t they do this all on the computer when we enroll?” Alex just shrugged and muttered something about the general organisational skills of any kind of committee. I looked at the wad of forms in my hands—6 pages—and thought back to the complexity of the online enrollment system. In a way I was kind of glad we had to do it in two steps, because filling in so many details at once would have been totally overwhelming.

I skimmed the forms, trying to pick out clues about why we were here. With all the disorganisation of being in a new house, I’d managed not to look at the college welcome pack yet, or the timetable for these first two weeks, so I wasn’t entirely sure what the main event for today actually was. Alex and Jules both seemed to have managed though, and I didn’t let myself feel too bad about it. I’d have to ask Master to give my brain a tune-up later, reinstate the organisational skills that had got me through my high school exams.

It didn’t take long to get my head around the system. We’d signed up for a faculty and a major when we enrolled, but now we were here we had to choose which classes (or “academic modules” and “auxiliary credit modules”, as the form put it) we would be taking. There were all kinds of restrictions, like needing at least 15 academic modules for the first year, making sure the class times for each don’t conflict, and some of the modules that were taught later in the year being dependent on an earlier one. First, it looked like we had to queue to speak to our individual advisors, who would make sure we understood which classes were required for our chosen major.

There were maybe a dozen rooms off the foyer at this level, and sheets of paper with the faculty names scrawled on in thick black marker had been pinned up over the doors. I looked around, peering over the heads of a knot of chatting students, then shuffled to the back of the line marked “Languages”. I could see that inside the room, people were splitting off into different queues. Probably for different languages; I wondered if I’d be the only person who thought American English was a field worthy of study, and yet again started to worry about what had been a flippant choice back in the days I’d been hoping to study further away and picked Harman as a last resort.

Jules seemed just as nervous in another line, the sign above this door saying “Arts B”. There was a scrawled legend below that giving a list of subjects, but there was no way anybody could read it from this distance. Jules, of course, was organised enough to have read every letter the college sent, and so knew exactly where to find Theatre Arts department. Presumably the other freshmen hadn’t paid so much attention, which would explain the numbers charging back and forth across the hall, desperately trying to find someone in either line who knew whether their chosen course was in Arts A or Arts B. Jules was tapping their feet nervously, and looking with frustration at the students changing lines. They might be sure which room held their chosen course, but the theatre was a very intimidating choice for someone who’d been a literal hermit for 5 years. That was why they’d chosen it in the first place, but I was sure they’d already be having second thoughts. I made a mental note to have something really awesome to do tonight, to help them unwind. Movie night, maybe? Assuming that Jim and Alex weren’t a dozen steps ahead of me, as usual.

Alex was right beside Jules, muttering something comforting. She was in the next line, for the room signed as “English Lang/Lit”, and the queue there was close enough that she could chat to Jules without losing her place. It had been a surprise for me a couple of months ago when Alex said she wanted to do literature. It had been one of my worst subjects in school, and while she’d shown as much talent as she had for anything else, I’d been sure she’d go for something with computers or engineering. She’d just smiled when I said that, explaining that she loved playing with new technology so much, she didn’t want to start thinking of it as work.

“Heyyyy, pretty lady!” a voice behind me brought me out of my speculative mood, way too loud for someone right in front of him, “¿Qué idioma que estudies, nena? 像妳這樣的辣妹在讀什麼語言? Jaké jazyky se vám líbí v ústech?” He would probably have continued showing off with whatever all that meant, but he chose to clap his hand on my shoulder as a gesture of camaraderie, or to let me know I was the one he’d singled out to hit on.

I screamed. I didn’t mean to, and I probably would have been able to keep quiet if I was expecting it. Half the room looked at me, and I felt the blush start. I’d had to take painkillers before going out, and I was covering more of my body than usual in an effort to hide the bandages, but I hadn’t realised it would hurt so much when someone touched.

“Sorry. Sorry, just… don’t touch me like that,” I gasped, hoping the pain in that shriek hadn’t been obvious enough to attract the attention of any first aiders or worse, security. The last thing I needed was trying to explain the weals and wounds across my shoulders to anyone in a professional capacity. And then, because he was kind of cute in spite of an ego so big it overflowed every time he opened his mouth, I added “At least, not for a while.”

One of the campus security people was coming over, a big guy whose name badge proclaimed him to be Eddie. He heard my fragile attempt at an explanation, glanced back at where Alex was still standing in an outfit that would have convinced me she was into all kinds of sadomasochistic games if I didn’t know better, and shrugged.

“Keep it down, right?” he half-jokingly admonished me, and turned back to reassure the on-duty first aid guy that his services wouldn’t be needed. I let out a sigh of relief and gave Jules a thumbs-up to show I was alright. I had no idea if they knew why I was so sore, but I didn’t want them to worry unnecessarily.

Jules came out of the Arts room before I’d even had chance to move forward in the line. The potential artists were moving somewhat faster than any other queue, and I guessed that at least one tutor had got processing those forms down to a fine art. I waved as they came out, and Jules sidled over.

“Are you okay? I notice everybody keeps looking at you.” I glanced around and even without Jules’s amazing power of observation I caught a few furtive glances.

“Yeah,” I wasn’t really sure how to explain. They might be able to guess, if they’d seen me around on Controlspace over the last few years they would have seen me chatting on the delicate subject of how to approach sexual sadism with someone who wasn’t actually into that kind of thing. It was so easy to talk, when you thought there was nobody on there you’d actually meet in the real world. It wasn’t like they weren’t real people, I could count a lot of the people there as friends, but if anyone disapproved it couldn’t hurt me. Eventually, I settled for something I could say in public: “I hurt my shoulder yesterday, someone touched me and I kind of screamed. I’m okay, honest.”

“This guy?” Jules jerked their thumb at the guy in the crazy Hawaiian shirt and straggly goatee.

“Yeah,” then I realised I hadn’t said a thing since the incident, and hadn’t even tried to explain, “Sorry, I didn’t get your name, hope I’m not being rude by…”

“I know,” he grinned, “I was worried you had some kind of traumatic history and didn’t like to be touched, or I’d creeped you out and didn’t know why, or something. But I heard what you said to your cute friend,” and he actually paused talking to give Jules a very, very obvious wink, “So I’ll say I’m sorry. I know how much it hurts if you tear a muscle or something, so I’ll be more careful in future. Can I buy you two lovely ladies a drink to apologise?”

Jules raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. On the other side of the hall, I saw some guy nearly walk into Alex as she took half a step forward and froze on the spot. I guess neither of us knew how Jules would take to gender assumptions from a stranger.

The guy wasn’t actually that bad looking. He wasn’t the musclebound type, and the thighs protruding from his shorts probably weren’t as thick as Alex’s, but he wasn’t out of shape either. He had broad shoulders, but his arms and his waist seemed pretty tight around the oversized bone structure. His attitude was the most unappealing thing about him, almost like he treated every girl as a sex object. But then, I’d been just as bad (if not quite so obvious about it) until a year or two ago, when Jim started working on me. Maybe this dude could turn out to be a good friend, if someone just pointed out to him that he wasn’t as cool as he thought.

“What do you think?” I asked Jules. As much as I liked the idea of having a whole new bunch of friends on this side of town, I was a little nervous to start hanging out with someone who could have caused offense.

“If he’s paying, I guess. I’ve had enough of being locked away, you know?”

“That’s sorted then. See you at…” I paused, “Are there any decent clubs around here?”

An unconcerned shrug. I guess Jules was the person least likely to know about night life in a college town, even if they had lived in the area longer than any of us. The guy was better informed, though. I guess that was a good thing, otherwise it would have been the most awkward attempt to arrange a date in the history of awkward teenagers. “There’s a place called the Fucker, I hear its pretty cool. Name’s Mark, by the way.”

“Fucker?” I couldn’t believe anyone would name a bar that, even if it was most students’ aim in going out at night. For one thing, the city had to approve their license, and no doubt they’d get sued for the signs causing someone moral outrage.

“Focantè,” Jules corrected, “Bar de Focantè. It was on the map in the prospectus. They say it’s a great place to meet new people and enjoy the brighter side of student life. I don’t know that many students, but if they’re anything like redditors I’m not surprised people started calling it that. Do you think the owners did it on purpose?”

Mark shrugged, a gesture which involved tilting his head at quite an angle to one side. I think I was starting to like the guy, in spite of him greeting me with extraordinary levels of pain. Or maybe because of it, I can’t really say for sure. Certain parts of my mind, or maybe my crotch, react oddly to pain, and I’ve never quite got the hang of working out when it’s a good idea to follow those instincts or not. But he seemed nice enough, so I mumbled something in agreement.

Alex came out of her first visit to the tutors at about the same time I got to take a step forward for the first time. Just what had kept our tutors so long? Jules joined the queue behind me, and we managed to strike up a little conversation with Mark on the way towards our respective language courses.