I'm waiting, in the illuminated hallway. Today's a really nice day, the sun is up and shining through the empty corridor's windows, and no clouds are to be seen.
I'm waiting in front of a huge metal door, with an inscription on it, indicating the 'Psychology Auditorium'.
It's 11:45, and Kyle will most probably come out in 5 minutes or so. I asked him not to stay and talk, in order to avoid the extremely weird situation I found myself in the last time I waited for him. In order to avoid her, more precisely. I have to see her tomorrow morning, and I think I already saw her enough this past week.
This time, Troy isn't with me. I made it quite clear that if nothing happened between us Wednesday night while I was drunk, nothing will happen now that I'm sober.
His hurt face made me feel slightly bad, but I was grateful when he finally let me go, saying that the 'person that would win me over' would be 'one hell of a luck guy' before correcting himself and adding 'or a lucky girl' and winking.
I must admit, that surprised me a lot. Why was everyone more open-minded about my own sexuality than I was? Was I being blind about something?
So I'm standing there, and soon enough hear shuffling behind the door.
A lot of students start to fill out, Kyle not being one of them.
When he finally decides to show up, he is in deep conversation with, of course, his lecturer.
He seems to be arguing about something, but I choose to keep my distance. However, I can't help but eavesdropping.
"This needs to not happen again. Please?"
"Yes, Professor. I'll, erm, I'll make sure of it. I'm sorry."
The two of then stop a few meters in front of me, seeming to notice my presence only now.
Kyle is a tall guy. Like really tall. And even though Miss Alexander wears high heels, she seems to be quite tall herself. Not as tall as Troy. But tall anyways.
I only seem to notice now, because instead of suit pants, she is wearing a very suited and fairly tight black dress, and her long legs are showing.
I catch myself before I stare too much, and look at Kyle's face instead.
He seems... embarrassed. His cheeks are red and he is standing a bit slouched, his back curved.
"Hey, Kyle." I turn to the therapist-professor-car wrecker, and put on a smiley mask to hide my embarrassment. I don't even remember what I did the last time I saw her. She still doesn't seem annoyed, or any kind of emotion for that matter. She is smiling slightly, politely, holding her laptop bag in front of her with both hands, and looking curiously at me. Very gently, like I'm some lost puppy.
She looks, very, very good.
Oh my god. What if I threw up on her that night?
"Hello, Miss."
"Hi, Kennedy. I hope you feel better?"
Her voice is as gentle as her blue eyes, and shows no sign of amusement. Until she talks. Until she says my name in that particular manner, like she knows something about me, something really flustering nobody does.
Ugh, so much for avoiding embarrassment.
"Ifeelfinethankyoufortheothernight" I blurt out, and realizing I did so in the most unattractive manner, I give an obvious glance to Kyle, then quickly turn around to walk away.
I already made my way to the ome of the University's cafeterias when I'm joined by Kyle.
We order, for me a whole plate of fries, my weakness, and Kyle some spaghetti with bolognese.
We talk a bit about nothing interesting in particular, but I'm soon filled with an urge to know everything he talked about with my therapist.
"So, why did she say that?" I suddenly ask.
"Why did she say what?" He says, swallowing a fork full of spaghetti. Gross.
"What she said."
He seems to think a bit, then talks:
"Dude, chill, she just told me not to skip class again."
"What? But we're in Uni, professors don't care about that shit."
Kyle seems taken aback, his eyes flickering from side to side, avoiding mine.
"You're lying aren't you?", I ask casually, while looking around in the cafeteria. It is getting crowded, and Kyle and I are having trouble hearing each other. I spot some girl I seat next to in my Anatomy lecture, and she waves at me.
I wave back.
"Why, then?"
He blushes, but changes the subject.
"You know, you should be a therapist. You're good at reading people."
"Am not. You're just being too obvious."
"You know how she told me to 'not let it happen again'? I know you heard, you were, once again, undressing her with your eyes."
I roll my eyes, ready to protest when Kyle interrupts me.
"Well, anyways, she wasn't talking about me being absent or whatever. Or about you being drunk and miserable. She was talking about me leaving you when you were drunk and miserable. Jonah's party. You know."
To be honest, I didn't expect that. She was being very.. protective.
So she isn't mad I woke her up in the middle of the night, with some sort of weird mix of a booty call and taxi reservation. She is mad at my friend for leaving me alone. And I know her for a week.
I finish my fries silently, deep in my thoughts.
***
Unlike what we planned the day before, I choose to go out to the gay bar this evening. Kyle, of course, agrees with a lot of unnecessary squeals. He agrees because he's glad to go, but also because he's glad to help me out. Going out helps me forgetting about the woman, her protectiveness, her caring ways, her hotness and the embarrassment I always feel around her.
I want to be in control of my body, this evening. Unlike whenever I'm around her.
And unlike what I thought, I don't bump into my therapist the whole evening. And going home, I realize I'm stupid, because there's like a 10% chance she is gay, or just part of the LGBTQ+ community in general.
Going home, I think about this amazing evening. This evening that felt like a parachute jump in my life.
I was nervous, and I still am.
Looking at her, I remember how scared I was to just enter the place.
The place was not very loud, or obvious. Kyle knew it, as he comes here often, so when we opened a fairly narrow and squeaking wooden door in an empty street, I remember wondering where the hell he was taking me.
We had gone down a couple of stairs, a dark corridor smelling like humidity, and behind a heavy velvet curtain, there it was.
It was a completely different world. The atmosphere was smoky, even though smoking was not allowed. It was crowded. I saw a dark skinned girl with a beautiful afro, singing with a guitar on some sort of improvised stage, made of an old-looking wooden platform. Her voice was smooth and husky at the same time, completing perfectly the ambience of the room.
Kyle led me by my hand to the counter, where he ordered two piña coladas, a virgin for me-which I had realized was alcohol-free only when I had wet my lips in the cocktail.
He didn't want to repeat Wednesday night. I didn't get mad. I remember not getting mad, but not why. Maybe the thought of her.
At one point, I had seen him eye fucking a cute guy, but didn't leave my side. Instead, he had talked to me, talked and explained some things about bisexuality, pansexuality, and a lot of other words I hadn't known existed- such as demisexuality, or even asexuality.
Now that I am thinking about it, I find myself stupid for not knowing such things. But, for someone who thought she was straight, it's fairly understandable to have never searched about different sexualities.
That's right, I thought I was straight.
Because now, looking at the attractive red head on my passenger seat, I have no doubt, that even if I'm not gay, I'm not straight either.
I had noticed her staring at me while Kyle was eye fucking another-yes, another- cute guy.
The girl with the afro was still singing, setting a romantic mood, or maybe it was just the dim lights in the bar, but I had suddenly felt strangely attracted to the girl. She was very pretty. Not dangerously beautiful, like my therapist, but pretty, and charming. She had curly red hair falling down on her shoulders. She had green eyes emphasized by perfectly drawn eye liner. Her cheeks were covered with freckles, and I had been staring back at her for a long time before she decided to get up and sit next to me. And before she talked, I had smelled her perfume.
This is how it went:
"Hey," she murmured, while stirring her drink, looking at me through her eyelashes.
If she was trying to seduce me in less than 5 seconds and a single word, she was doing a great job.
"Hi," I answered, and I remember slapping myself internally for not acting cooler. If it was even a thing.
She chuckled, as if reading my thoughts, and I blushed. I had felt movement behind me, but I was deeply staring at the girl's green eyes, and pink smirking lips.
"So, are you there with someone?"
I smiled, happy that she was still conversing with me. Not happy that my answer was ambiguous.
"Oh, y'know, just with my friend over there," I gestured towards Kyle, who chose his moment to snake an arm around my shoulders.
"Oh, I see," she muttered, her smile fading a bit. Just a bit. But enough for me to notice, and slightly panic.
I hurriedly corrected myself, taking Kyle's arm off my shoulders.
"My gay friend, to be exact."
"Oh, I see..," she repeated, this time fluttering her eyelashes, in an extremely sexy way.
I heard Kyle mutter something in my ear, something in the lines of 'you go girl', and then speak louder for both of us to hear.
"I'll stay at the counter if you need anything."
I got up, understanding what he was telling me -probably to go and find some booth in the back of the bar- and we did, got our own little booth by ourselves, our bare knees sometimes touching each other, followed by a shy smile from me and a grin from the red head.
I decided to face my fears, and asked: "So, may I ask who is it I have the pleasure to talk to?"
She fluttered her lashes, once more, and I remember deciding that it must've been her signature move.
"Let's make this more fun. You guess ny name, I guess yours. Whoever guesses right-" she approaches her face from mine, and whispered on my lips,"-will be rewarded."
I enjoyed the game, and with no alcohol in my veins, I had found myself extremely brave.
"You're cute. And smaller than me. So you must have a quite.. girly name?" We laugh, realizing it's completely dumb, but hey, it's just a game.
"So?" she said, living the word hanging in the air. Her voice is quite sexy too. I remember that, even though right now, she is completely silent in my car. Her voice was sexy in the bar. Not mysteriously sexy like Miss Alexander though.. But why was I thinking of her again.. I decided to focus on the beautiful girl.
"Grace."
"Eva. You got wrong. But I'll still reward you for trying, don't worry," she hummed, winking.
"And you have a unisex name. I find unisex names beautiful, and you're beautiful. You must be Cameron. Or Kennedy. But I'd bet on Cameron."
I blushed, but I was impressed. I told her my name was Kennedy, and she seemed quite satisfied of herself, but strangely not surprised.
"Wait. Tell me, um, what do you like to do?"
She smiled, "What I like to do, or what I'd like to do?"
I shrugged. "I don't know; you decide. No. What you'd like to do then."
"Right now?"
I nod.
"Hmm," she scratched her chin, visibly mustering some deep and long explanation of what she wanted in life.
But it was short, and simple, and set my whole body on fire.
"You."
And that was it. Not very difficult to seduce me, is it?
At that moment, I made the mistake -or honestly, the perfect decision- of looking down at her lips, then at both her eyes, my haze flickering between the two.
She had cupped my face between her soft hands, and had kissed me. It wasn't all romantic, or maybe it was. It wasn't what I expected anyways. When her lips had crashed on mine, I had instantly and instinctively opened my lips, and the kiss what heated right away. She had bit my lower lip, her hands tangling themselves in my curls, which were loose this night.
It was heated, but didn't last long. In the heat of the moment, or maybe because my liquid courage was, in fact, a virgin piña colada, I offered that we'd continue 'discussing' and 'getting to know each other' at my place.
And I'm driving, and she's silently looking at me, probably not knowing I can see her. Or knowing, and doing it on purpose, maybe to see if I would avert my eyes from the road, for less than a second.
But I'm fighting, and I succeed not looking at her.
Then she increases the difficulty.
Her hand rests on my knee. I breathe deeply, still not looking. Is she teasing me? On purpose? I guess so.
My interrogations are answered when her hand moves higher on my thigh, sending wonderful shivers through my body. The contact of her hand on my bare thigh makes my skin tingle.
"You never did this, right?"
This time, I look at her.
She's looking out the window, a quite dreamy expression on her face. Dreamy and innocent, as if her hand isn't caressing the skin just next to my panties.
"Did what?"
She glances at me, a satisfied grin on her face replacing her dreamy and poetic expression.
"You'll see. Later. Now, drive."