How I Became Emperor Ch. 07: Tue-Fri

Apologies for the delay. Life intervened. I will try to catch-up a little bit these next couple of days.

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Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

I woke strangely early in the morning. Remembering that it was Tuesday- and technically my normal lecture schedule was happening, I tore myself out of bed as gently as possible so as to let Cindy continue to sleep. She looked peaceful, and happy. Overtaken by a warm feeling I pulled the cover higher to cover her breasts, copping only a momentary feel.

I met Alex coming out of the shower. He looked hungover, and almost walked into me. "Dude," he groaned, "your girlfriend is CRAZY. She bought a whole freaking bottle of tequila and had us doing shots until it was empty."

I grinned at my flat-mate, a guy I knew more as a social drinker and not as a heavy drinker. "Good night, was it?"

He managed to grin back. "One of the top three. Even Irina got a little wacky. It's a little hazy, but I think Cindy and Irina might have kissed at one point."

My grin grew wider alongside my eyes. That was an image I could enjoy. "That must have been hot. Turn you on, did it?" I asked Alex bluntly.

He grew red, and I noticed an involuntary twitch of his eye towards the shower. The freak must have jerked off in there. "Uh... Yeah. Really hot." He mumbled.

"Irina in your room?" I asked Alex.

"Yeah, why?" He replied a little suspicious. In answer I turned my friend by the shoulders to face down the hallway towards his bedroom. "Go ask her whether she liked it. Tell her you liked it too. Then tell her what you just did in the shower." I told him, then pushed him towards his door.

Five minutes later, when I came out of the shower myself (efficiently alone), I paused to listen at his door, and hear a rhythmic squeaking of springs come from the other side. My private smile must have split my face in half.

I let Cindy continue her blissful sleep. There would be enough of a hangover for her when she woke later. I did leave a note for her telling her two things. First, that I hoped she had slept well, and that if she woke up before midday she should text me so that we could meet for lunch. And secondly, that I knew about her kiss with Irina, and that if Alex and Irina didn't show their faces, it was probably because they were cooped up in their room being otherwise occupied. I suggested she not disturb them unnecessarily.

With that I left for my lecture.

I barely made it to the lecture hall on time, and a whisper went through the gaggle of girls that shared the class with me. At least one of them - given their study interests, probably all of them - had obviously been at my speech the previous day. From the smiles they were directing my way I guessed that I had impressed them. How I had managed that feat was still unclear to me.

Professor Lex put a stop to their whispering quickly with a sharp eye, and started the class. I took my customary seat, and had a very good two hours in the lecture. Me and the professor fought heatedly with words over the supposedly 'natural' devolution of power, and in the professor's eyes also of sovereignty, to an increasingly wider audience.

Don't get me wrong, the professor was by no means a Marxist, quite the contrary - she had little more than a passing interest in a historical evolution of class structures, but an abundant respect for the necessity of bureaucratic administration to allow for a sharing of power amongst those involved in the bureaucracy. By her argument, as empires and domains increased in size, population and function a society required ever-increasing spread of its powers to devolved persons or entities, such as counts, earls, marshalls, guilds, mayors, etc.

I, on the other hand, argued that this devolution was by no means natural. I did agree that a king with an increasingly large empire would self-evidently need to rely on others to enforce his will at a distance, and administer to all of the small necessities required for the functioning of an evolving society. But in my opinion, since the king had the capacity to choose with whom he shared that power, and since all of the power still derived from his supposed divine right to rule, there was nothing natural about the process. Furthermore, for the same reasons, any such power reverted back to the king at his choosing and at his will - assuming that the key figures supporting his rule, be it the army, the populace or the other administrators, backed the king up.

The other students all gave their two cents to the discussion - a surprising number actually choosing to fall somewhere in the middle, arguing that the devolution was necessary, but that only through successive generations would it become a permanent restriction on kingship, and that further devolution of power required the populace requesting that devolution to speak up.

Class ended without a conclusion to the discussion, and Prof. Lex let us go with the promise that our essays would be returned the next week. She also held me back as I was about to leave. "That was quite an impressive speech yesterday." She declared neutrally - perhaps because some of the other students - girls - were still packing away their books.

"Thanks." I muttered. "Was written by a friend of mine."

That earned me a sharp glance from the Professor. "Don't ever admit to having ghostwriters." She admonished me in hushed tones. She eyed the girls as they slipped past me out the door, then focused back on me once the room was empty. "Everybody with a brain can figure out that you didn't write the speech yourself. I've read enough of your essays to know that wasn't the way you'd express yourself. You have a tendency to... rant."

"Sorry Prof." I answered reflexively.

Professor Lex took a very quick and sudden step up close to me - so close a knife would have difficulty passing between us. I was painfully aware of her cleavage hanging between us but her green eyes fixed mine, and I saw a fearsome fire roaring behind them and didn't dare look down. "Apologizing is for the weak. You will have to rid yourself of that too. From now on - don't apologize. To anyone."

I didn't know what to say or do. The professor had never come this close to me, or spoken to me this fiercely. She kept me pinned with her eyes for an eternity more, then stepped back to her desk and notes. Her voice became light again as she turned away shuffling the papers into her briefcase, "You're going to have to pick a day."

"Pick a day?" I repeated, dazed.

"Saturdays or Sundays."

"Huh?"

"I'm only getting you for one day on weekends. I'm going to want to know which one it is." Professor Lex tossed the words over her shoulder as she left the room.

I had a text message from Cindy that I checked once I left the room. It read: "Fuck! Sorry - I didn't mean to kiss your friend. A&I still in their room. Meet for Lunch in the quad?"

I texted back an affirmative, and walked out into the fresh air. As I made my way to the quad, I noticed that the student body was much more aware of me than usual. My poster was set up everywhere so I guess I should have seen that part coming. Interestingly, some other posters were also slowly being set up. I stopped off at a notice board to take a closer look at one and saw that Roger seemed to have thought the posters a good idea and was setting up his own. They were also advertising a "question and answer" session for Thursday night.

"Dude." Matt startled me, sidling up out of nowhere. "Looks like the competition got some teeth."

"Yeah, looks like." I agreed vaguely.

"The boss know about this yet?" Matt asked.

"Who?"

"Abby. You know. Bossy? A little intimidating? Person running the whole show?" Matt rolled his eyes at me. "Honestly dude - I'm beginning to doubt whether you've got the smarts for this job."

I smiled. Matt's teasing put-downs were familiar ground to me. "You sure you're an English student? Your vocabulary is awful!" I retorted.

"Dude. I can create images of such elocution that thine ears would perforate and spout up the greatest founts of viscous semiotic fluid visaged since..." Matt trailed off.

"Just stringing big words together to sound impressive without knowing where you were headed?" I asked.

"Yup." Came Matt's laconic reply. "Speaking of stringing words. You're late for your date."

"Uh - how do you know I got a lunch date?"

Matt raised his phone to show me a calendar. Inspecting it I saw it had all of my upcoming schedule on it, my lectures, my public appearances, the interviews I was going to give, and the date I currently had planned with Cindy. "How'd you get this?" I asked curious.

"Dude, Abby had Cindy create it this morning. Pretty nifty actually." Matt shrugged. "Run along. I'll call the boss-lady, and tell her about the competition's dental report." I looked quizzically at him. He sighed exasperatedly. "'Looks like the competition got some teeth'" He repeated, "Dude, really, you've got to start to listen to what people are saying. Else this whole president malarky is going to be a temp-gig."

"I'll see what I can do." I promised, then headed on to meet Cindy, upping my pace.

Turns out that 'lunch' was also going to be one of my public appearances. Cindy had a team-meeting with her varsity volleyball team members at the same time. An informal thing at the cafe on campus. Infact, a couple of the other girls had their boyfriends hanging around as well. When I arrived, Cindy bounded up and gave me a hefty kiss. "Sorry again about Irina." Were the first things out of her mouth once we let up.

"Don't worry about it." I laughed putting an arm around her shoulders. "I think Alex liked it a lot too - and they seemed to be getting a lot of stamina out of the image of you and Irina."

Cindy introduced me to all of her volleyball buddies and their boyfriends. I was the instant focus of attention - any talk about sports out the window. I was getting pummeled with questions from everyone on every sort of topic from how I had decided to run, to what I thought my chances were, to what I thought about a higher hem on tennis skirts (why I was being asked that by volleyball players I am still trying to figure out about seventy years later...). I tried to answer as honestly as I could, and munch on a croissant between answering the questions. The group grew beyond just the volleyball people, and seemed to gather in others from other tables in the cafe. Soon a small crowd had gathered. Cindy just stood beside me, answered any questions directed at her and smiled prettily otherwise. She also saved me - after an hour and a half - leading me by the hand out through the throng, and away into the warrens of the university hallways.

"That went surprisingly well." Cindy told me as we scurried away to the relative safety of the outdoors where at least movement would keep a throng from building around me. "I thought I'd need to get them to talk to you a bit more. They tend to only like jocks."

We fetched up against a tight passage between two brick-and-mortar buildings shaded on both ends by tall poplar trees. We kissed there, making out like two high-school kids that needed to savor every moment before curfew.

When we broke it was for Cindy to declare "I've got volleyball training in a couple minutes. Wanna come watch?"

"Love to." I said, but followed it up with, "But I should call home-base. See if they need their candidate for anything."

"Do it while we walk."

So I dialled up Abby, and took Cindy's hand with my free hand as we walked towards the gym.

The phone call with Abby went on for a long while. I was glad my phone contract allowed me unlimited calling-time (another blast from the past for all you pre-Internet Freedom Statutes of 2044 kids, anyone who can't remember: pick up a history book on the 'Communication Age'). We reached the gym well before even half of my call was done, and so I kissed Cindy before she went to change. I hung around in the gym hall still on the phone, watching the other girls arrive, walk into the changing room, return in their outfits, do their stretches and organize into their formations. Most of them noticed me, and I noticed them noticing me. It gave me a strong ego boost to see all of these pretty girls smile at me.

The conversation with Abby started with a sit-rep on the 'opposition', brought on by the posters he had managed to put up. There wasn't much on that front though. Abby apparently had little spies all over campus reporting to her the rumors they were hearing and none of it was particularly worrying. With regards to Robert, beyond him having set up the Q'n'A session on the Thursday, and apparent hints that he wanted to hold a speech of his own, he wasn't making any dangerous moves.

Abby conferenced in Matt and Alex, who had sat down together to organize my Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media pages. Between Alex's technical wizardry and Matt's supposed English skills they were apparently quickly growing a following. I briefly switched my phone over to hands-free so that I could check a couple of the websites my two friends were setting up on my behalf. Somehow, in only one morning, they had already managed to find one hundred and fifty followers on the Facebook and Twitter accounts, and I was already seeing a fan-site being set up of people who managed to catch photos of me with their phones as I walked around campus. The most recent one of me was on the phone in the gym - but though I looked around, I couldn't find anyone else with a phone in their hands.

Matt and Alex asked mostly stylistic questions - asking for my input on various topics. Though I had broadly outlined my beliefs and in very rough strokes had given a topical direction to my campaign, I had yet to really be challenged on any specifics. I told the guys to consult Keisha and Erica concerning anything photographic and/or stylistic. Abby concurred. In terms of more common messaging things I told Matt to take a lead, he knew what I would say - but to formulate it more... accessibly and less ranty than I would. If he came across a question truly new, he should ask me or Abby. We did do a quite lengthy start-up session over the phone though, so that Matt would have a base-line from which to work. Abby also said it was a way to more informally help me prepare for questions I might soon face from the student reporters and/or the student population.

Eventually Alex and Matt were satisfied with the responses I had provided, and were actively interacting on my behalf and in my name with my fan-base. I watched the dialogues go on in real-time with a strange sense of loss-of-identity, mixed with pride in how well Alex and Matt were able to masquerade as me. I figured that meant that they were just really good friends who had paid attention over the years, rather than me being shallow.

Abby and I continued to discuss for a while on the broader strokes. I was beginning to get worried that any promises I made I would have to follow up on. I told Abby in no uncertain terms - and despite her heavy protests - that I would make absolutely no promises to anyone from now on - unless someone like her wrote it down in a file that I was supposed to be presented with every morning while I was president. If I was going to do the job, I was going to do it right. If I couldn't promise something, then I would only say that I would do my best and my utmost to see it done - but not promise an outcome.

Abby was reminding me of the evening meeting that I was to attend with Cindy as the girls seemed to be wrapping up their practice, so I informed her we would be along as soon as we left the gym, and hung up.

The girls all filed into the changing rooms except Cindy who came to give me a sweaty kiss before she headed off to shower. "Don't end up in one of those Locker Room Shower Orgies I keep hearing about on the internet - and therefore cannot be a lie - unless you invite me!" I told her under my breath before letting her go.

I was standing before the gym's mirror, a floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall affair designed to allow dancing troupes and cheerleaders to inspect themselves as they practiced, trying to figure out something that Abby had said at the end of the phone call about my posture needing 'fixing' while I waited. Cindy was one of the last to come out of the changing room. As the others went their separate ways, by twos and threes, most of them came over to stand near me, lean over to check themselves in the mirror and inadvertently - so I thought - give me a very good look up their cleavages. Some even re-arranged the hold their clothing had on their breasts as if to draw attention to the area. A couple of them caught me looking, and giggled to themselves, before hurrying away tittering with each other. Those that did not stop to preen seemed incapable of stemming giggling fits as they passed me.

Finally Cindy came out and joined me. I challenged her that she had put her team up to teasing me. "What?" She feigned, "I can't have fun with you AND make you President?"

Arriving back to my hijacked home for the nightly meeting, I noticed an addition had been made to our cabal. Erica sat, nervously, to one side - a pen scribbling furiously while Abby walked a circle into our carpet talking animatedly about getting me to improve my posture and questioning the fashion-guru on whether any accessories she could supply would be of assistance in getting that done. Thank god the idea of a steel rod inserted into the back of my shirts was deemed a too obvious bulge to allow.

With mine and Cindy's arrival we got down to business. I was handed over to Keisha and Erica, who lectured me briefly on exercises I should work on to improve my posture overall. It had a lot to do with sitting straight, keeping still so as not to appear nervous, and always extending my neck as far as it would go. Erica took back half of the shirts she had given me so that she could stiffen the fabric the next day. Apparently the other half of my shirts would follow a day later.

Keisha also declared that it was time I learned how to apply make-up. Using a set she had bought for me, we spent a good hour practicing putting the make-up on before a mirror. I wouldn't have minded so much if Alex and Matt hadn't spent half the time laughing at me. It was ok though - Keisha took me to the bathroom after I had applied the make-up the last time so that I could see the effects in a larger mirror. I had to admit that it hid some of my skin blemishes and could brighten my eyes, without it being obvious that I was wearing make-up. Of course, Keisha and I also shared a kiss "just to make sure the make-up won't smudge if rubbed." Keisha's idea of course.

By the time we returned, Erica seemed to have been fully read into the program, and the others had further organized my campaign. We were going to send in some moles into Robert's Q'n'A session to pose some questions we figured he didn't want asked - no one who could overtly be connected to my campaign of course - and it was going to be trumpeted that I would be holding a rival event at the same time as Robert was having his shindig. After hemming and hawing, it was decided it would be a charity event, for a charity of my choice (I chose a Sexual Disease Prevention Center which did not go down well with Abby for being 'too politically contentious' but I held firm). Matt was drafted to write the speech for that, of course, and Erica and Cindy were designated to organize other prominent student figures to attend. Alex and Irina were put in charge of marketing the event, and of course Abby would keep an eye on everything.

Separately, Abby wanted to start to see some discreet polling data. It wasn't something that we'd be easily able to get - but she was confident she could maybe get one of the newspapers to do the work for us if she just planted the idea in the correct heads. She promised she'd look into it first thing in the morning.