Teddy Wayne - Loner

You had publicly acknowledged me and the fact that we had hung out together. I would have altered the privacy settings to allow it onto my wall, except that any gains from my being with you were negated by Sara’s position in the middle, with my arm around my “gf.”

“G’night,” you said, disappearing into the darkness of the hall.

“What was that about?” I asked after the door clicked shut, hoping to inoculate myself against the same question from Sara. “Why did she keep asking where I was working last night?”

“She was trying to make me question your credibility,” Sara said.

I cracked my knuckles. “I was at the library all night,” I told her.

“I know. Where else would you be?” As Sara giggled at the absurdity of an alternative scenario — the implausibility of disciplined, workhorse David doing anything other than studying alone in a library — part of me wanted to enlighten her as to exactly where I’d been and what I’d done.

“I get the impression she had a difficult childhood,” she reflected. “Maybe it’s hard for her to be around a happy couple, so she responds by trying to sow dissension between us.”

“That’s a smart insight,” I said, and returned to working on my essay.

“Do you think she’s pretty?” she asked.

“Do I think she’s pretty?”

“Yeah.”

I lifted one cheek in deliberation. “She’s not really my type, but I guess she is, conventionally speaking.”

“What’s your type?” Sara asked brightly, joining me on the bed.

“You know,” I said, leaning toward her. “Brown hair, about five foot three.”

We kissed and I put the laptop away. Soon we were under the sheets, going through our paces more athletically than we normally did, from the vodka or the minor frisson you had sparked or the aphrodisiacal qualities of the blackout and lambent room. The dynamic hadn’t radically changed with you —for the better, that is — but all variables were primed for the breakthrough needed to lose my virginity. I tugged at Sara’s underpants.

“Not yet,” she said, escorting my fingers away. “When I’m ready I’ll let you know.”

Grabbing the lotion, I thought of Liam Barrows coming downstairs to let you into Adams House but faltering on a step in the dark and battering his beautiful specimen of a body. I did my business, irritated with Sara’s prudishness and her inviolable cotton undergarments. Not long after I came, the power turned back on, returning the room to brightness. Sara blinked in the harsh light before fixing her adoring gaze on me, as though I were the only person who mattered. The opposite of staffage.

The next day, as I was entering Annenberg for lunch with Sara, I saw you clearing your tray. Last night’s encounter had left me unsettled, especially coming on the heels of the previous evening, which had ended so nicely; my sense of well-being was entirely dependent upon our most recent interaction.

“Shit,” I said. “I just remembered I’m supposed to meet my Ethical Reasoning TF to discuss my paper.”

“When?” Sara asked.

“Now!” I adjusted to a look of playful concern. “I hate to leave you on your own. Can you handle the Marauders without me?”

“I’ll do my best.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled slightly. It wasn’t in Sara’s nature to put people down, but it was clear she wasn’t as infatuated with them as they were with one another. Maybe she, too, would someday muster the escape velocity to liberate herself from their gravitational clutch.

“So we missed a golden opportunity last night,” I said as I pulled abreast of you in the Yard.

You startled at the sound of my voice. “We missed a what?” you asked, stepping up your pace a little.

“A golden opportunity.” I looked around; no one was near us. “To murder Sara.”

Your expression was equal parts confusion and horror.

“You brought it up the other night,” I continued. “I assumed that was your plan. To get her drunk during the blackout, then murder her. You and me, together.”

I waited a moment.

“I’m kidding!” I said. “Now you’re the gullible one.”

“That’s funny,” you said.

I bit my lip to control my glee. I needed to start acting like this more often around you — bolder, insouciant.

Walking in our direction was Scott Tupper with a friend.

“What’s up, Veronica?” he said with a chin-up nod.

“Hey, guys,” you said.

I turned my head after he passed and saw that Scott was likewise looking over his shoulder. For a second I thought he was scrutinizing me, his competition, or perhaps he had finally recognized David from elementary school. But he was simply checking out your ass. My fury was mitigated by the oddly consoling thought that you’d never choose yappy little Scott over strong, silent Liam.

“Seriously, though, you doing okay?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seemed a little off last night.”

You didn’t respond.

“And the night before you sounded kind of upset,” I added. “At the final club. And after.”

We were almost at Matthews. Sara would be at lunch for a while. Maybe we could continue the conversation in your room.

“It wasn’t a big deal.” You pulled a pair of earbuds out of your bag, inserted them, and plugged the cord into your phone. “I just drank too much that night.”

“I know what that’s like,” I said.

“I have a meeting,” you said, veering away from our dorm.

There was no Excuse me, I’ve got to run, no Nice talking to you, no See you later. I was a plaything you picked up when you wanted to be worshipped and callously discarded when you grew bored.

Back in my room, I got your belt out of the dresser and climbed into bed with my laptop to look at porn. My usual videos weren’t doing it for me, though. I perused the panel of thumbnails on the side, clicking on one labeled “SPH,” which I discovered stood for “small penis humiliation.” An Amazonian blonde addressed the camera, laughing at the viewer’s tiny dick and how it could never satisfy her, it was like a baby’s, she would make me watch a real man fuck her.

It worked. I got hard, mummified myself within the belt, and indulged in a commingling of sensuous pleasure and fiery anger that, upon completion, promptly curdled into clinical disgust and smoldering shame.

These are the kinds of things to which you reduced me.

“Halloween is just an excuse for girls to dress like sluts,” Sara told me. “And, yes, I’m aware that by using that word I’m complicit in their objectification.”

After finding out that her new friend, Layla, was going to an upperclassman party up in the Quad, however, she decided to lift her boycott. She drew a map of Virginia on a shirt and bought a cheap wolf mask. The Matthews Marauders were also attending; at Steven’s behest — and because it required no work — I went as him and he as me.

“But our clothes aren’t distinctive,” I’d initially protested. “And they’re not even that different. No one will figure out we’re going as each other.”

“That’s exactly the point!” He cackled like a criminal mastermind. “It shows how similar we all are underneath everything. We’re just collections of matter that are constantly being recycled.”

Despite her contempt for the holiday, Sara, ever the diligent student, became invested in her costume, sketching out neighboring states and drawing them to scale on the Virginia map after dinner. I sat on her bed wearing Steven’s jeans and T-shirt ( LET’S GET PHYSICS- AL).