Seventy Thirty - College Days Ch. 02

Three weeks later it turned cold. My God, so cold, as if someone had turned off a switch. Sydney was never like that, never so cold, never so sudden. All us first years were totally unprepared, with a run on the op shops to buy second hand jumpers, scarves, coats to keep us warm. We'd huddle by the radiators in our rooms - the heating was done by a big boiler that sent hot water in pipes all around the hall. The furnace must have been huge, with 250 rooms and the public spaces to fill.

Alex, being in his second year knew, and came prepared. The first day it turned really cold, he appeared at breakfast in the most gorgeous white woolly jumper, his fair cheeks flushed, his blond hair long down his back.

"Where on earth did you get that jumper?" I asked, nuzzling my hands onto his chest, into the wool, amazed at how thick it was. How a young man could wear white, I didn't know, but Alex could, like a snow bear. Or a snow leopard, because I knew he loved cats.

"Mum. Every year she'd knit us kids a jumper, and we'd get it at Christmas. Of course, in summer, we wouldn't need it, but come winter, there it was, all ready."

"It's beautiful," I said, sad that my mum didn't knit.

"The amazing thing was, she'd predict our height for the next year, coz they'd always fit, even when we were teenagers. I got this one for Christmas, before my parents went overseas. Good planning, huh?"

"Good planning! I reckon," said Arabella, who was sitting with us that breakfast. "Can I wear it?"

I looked at her, gob-smacked she'd even thought it, let alone said it.

"Are you kidding?" Alex replied, "how would I stay warm?"

Me, I thought instantly, I'll keep you warm, just like your tee-shirts kept me warm, those days in your room.

"Well, me, obviously," Arabella said, with her hand on his arm, kneading that sleeve like a cat does, with her claws.

"Bella, you're full of shit. You're not that kind of girl."

I looked at them both, caught outside the conversation. Did Alex know something I didn't? But the moment passed, and they were talking about something else.

Later, I asked her, as we sat in her room that evening after dinner, "Arabella, what did Alex mean, 'you're not that kind of girl'? This morning, when you said -"

"Me, obviously..."

"Yeah. Who wouldn't want to keep him warm?" I'd been thinking about this all day, and was a little worried it would sound rehearsed. But I didn't expect her reaction.

"Leah, it's not what you think. I..." Suddenly, Arabella seemed very serious. She took a deep breath. I was holding my own breath, and could feel my heart beating fast. It struck me then, in a quick rush, the same intuition as the day with Alex walking up the avenue, that Arabella was lonely. Even alone. With a clunk, like a key in an old lock, things fell into place.

Before we'd started to hang out, her two spoons of sugar to match mine, I remembered that Arabella often sat by herself for meals, came down to breakfast late, to catch the tail end of the sitting. The private school jerks had given her the name Red Arabella, on account of her hair, I'd thought; but later I realised, her politics too. She talked her beliefs a lot at first, loud and abrasive, in the private boys' faces. Almost visceral, red faced and angry. She'd fling that great mane of hair about her, and walk away with her head held high, muttering, "Morons," under her breath.

Then she stayed away from them completely, and it was then, too, as I cast my mind back, that I remembered seeing her occasionally with Alex, sitting across tables down at the university's central courtyard, talking. Something else hit me, the way Alex looked nowhere else but me, when we talked. Did he give Arabella that same deep attention too, was it just what he did? Why would he limit his undivided attention to me?

"Bella, are you okay?" Instinctively, I used Alex's name for her, I didn't know why. "Bella?"

"He talks to me, Leah. That's all it is. He's told me about his older sister, and that helped."

He'd told me about Caroline too, how she'd...

"Arabella, are you gay?" I blurted it out without thinking, the mention of Caroline being the final clunk of that lock. "God, I... fuck, that was rude, I -"

"Leah, it's okay. But yes, I think I might be. Not that I've ever..."

"Done anything? God. Neither have I." I blurted that out too, quicker than my brain was thinking.

"That's because you're not gay, Leah. I don't think you know this, but when you're next to Alex, your Alex beacon is pretty bloody bright." She looked at me, seeing something flicker across my face.

I blushed to the roots of my hair. "Fuck, am I that stupid, that obvious?"

Arabella looked at me with the loveliest, softest smile. "Oh Leah!" she said, "yes, you are." She touched my knee. "But weren't you looking after me, here?"

"I think I'd better make coffee," I said, "because it's going to be a long night."

"Not coffee," she said, "I'm too bloody jittery as it is."

We each got through three cups of Milo that night. There were a lot of tears from both of us, because we each had so much to tell, and when we couldn't keep our eyes open for tiredness, Arabella said, "You're staying here tonight, Leah, because neither of us should be alone. It wouldn't be right."

There was no sex, no embarrassment, nothing happened. We slept with our arms around each other, face to face, front to back, back to back. We both crept down to the loo, at about two in the morning, holding hands like kids in a playground. No one saw us. "Silent like cats," Arabella said, back in her room, as she wrapped her longer body behind mine, her warmth against my back, her hands holding mine.

We didn't do anything that night, but we often slept together for the pure comfort of human kindness, like the sisters we each never had. Sex might have hovered like a bee, but it didn't land on the flowers. And together, later, we put our minds to our virginities, for despite her sexual bravado, Arabella's was intact, too.

"Your problem is Alex," Arabella said. "He's oblivious to your beacon, he's still shattered from Clio." We'd pieced together what might have happened between Alex and Clio the year before, from the little bits he'd shared with each of us. "But you're small and dark like she is, so maybe..."

Arabella drifted into her own problem. "And I'm not ready to out myself. I'm just not. Besides which, Madelyn is with that prick Bernhard, so she's..."

"Unavailable. Fuck," I said. We both sat there, contemplating our dilemma. "But it's not like it's the end of the world, or even important, is it?" I think we both realised this was an indulgence, and it wouldn't matter at all in five years time. "Madelyn?" I caught up.

"God yes. She's a proper fucking bitch, but there's something so exotic about her. Perhaps it's her sylph thin body, I don't know, those barely there tits and those fuck long legs. The way she looks like she wants to eat you. Fuck, she could eat me alive!"

I looked at her, incredulous. "Jeez, Arabella, you really are fucked up. Madelyn?!"

"I know," she replied, "it's a bit pathetic, really, isn't it?" She shook her head in dismissal. "But Leah," Arabella had a sudden thought, "are you on the pill?"

"No, but I should get it, if I want to..." I knew a ton of other girls had been to the doctor, got themselves sorted. Sorted for sex. I giggled. Arabella laughed when I told her. "Atta girl!" she said.

"I'll go with you to the clinic on Monday," she added. "If we both go, and anybody sees us, they'll assume it's me, and you're tagging along to hold my hand. It's two weeks to end of term, then two week hols. Beginning of second term, you'll be protected. When's your period?"

"God, Arabella. I can't quite get my head around that." The thought of it scared me, but at the same time, it would be an adult decision. The first one I'd ever make, really.

"And then," Arabella said, "I'll get my hands on his jumper. That will get the gossip running."

So that's what we did.

* * * *,

At the beginning of second term, Arabella started wearing Alex's jumper. It was easy, she went to him one night and simply asked if she could borrow it.

"It'll look so much better on me than it does on you, with my blazing hair. And think of the gossip! It'll do people's heads in, they'll think we're together, when we're not."

"A diversion, Bella, pointing the signs the other way?"

"I guess. But red hair trumps blond, any day."

"What it means, Bella, is that I'm your fag hag. Jeez, gay women, I don't know."

"Would you do it for your sister?"

"Well, I did ride her bike once."

I noticed, when Arabella told me about their conversation, that Alex didn't seem to mind her borrowing his jumper, didn't say no. His reputation obviously wouldn't suffer, but it felt a little strange, somehow, sort of competing with a girl who didn't even want sex with a guy. But I couldn't do this by myself. Whatever "this" actually was, because it was only an idea. A silly one, at that.

But Arabella, when she wore that jumper the first time, and walked into the dining hall! I swear there was a momentary hush. And when she went and sat by herself, not with Alex, boy oh boy, did I see puzzled faces. Later though, she went up to him, hung off his shoulder and got a big hug. I heard a few snickers and some whispers, and there it was, our plan in place.

Alex, of course, only knew the half of it.

Arabella did look stunning in that jumper, I'll give her that. It was fairly big on Alex, even though he's tall, so on her it came midway down her thighs, tied in tight on her waist with a wide velvet belt she found at Vinnies. With her wild mane of hair out loose and tumbling down to her waist, she looked like some amazing hippy snow bear girl. She pulled eyes after her, like smoke follows flame, that's for sure.

After a couple of weeks wearing it, it became known as Arabella's white knitted dress; Red and White, the wits called her. Alex wore a thick sloppy-joe instead, and sometimes a pin-stripe suit jacket that he picked up for five bucks, from the same Vinnies. They probably went there together, on a Bella day.

I still had my Leah Tuesdays and Thursdays, walking up the avenue with Alex, and one or two Leah afternoons in his room, before the sun swung into early winter and it got too cold for my bare naked skin. My own room, facing south, was cold, unless I left the radiator on low all day.

Masturbation happened under covers again, like it did when I was younger. But I felt older now, even if my fantasies were still imprecise, still unformed. I'd seen a few European movies at the Film Group, with full nudity, both men and women, so I knew what a soft cock looked like, and different women's bodies. And of course I knew what Arabella looked like nude, because we still slept together, soft kisses occasionally, but nothing sexual.

It occurred to me that we were probably odd, sleeping without sex together, but we both wanted it. Perhaps I was Arabella's little hot water bottle, I don't know. She was so warm, stopped me shivering on those really cold nights. You get really close in a single bed with a body wrapped behind you. Arabella nearly always spooned me, perhaps because I was the smallest one. I did like her breasts against my back.

Then it came to be my turn to wear the jumper. At first, I only wore it in the evenings, with Arabella and sometimes with Alex, so he knew me in it. Then I got braver, wearing it around campus some days. I didn't wear it to the dining room though, I couldn't manage that.

One night, I wore nothing under it, and went up to Alex's room.

I had port wine on my breath, from bravery chasers Arabella insisted I swallow.

"For courage, dear vestal virgin," she said.

"Arabella, does he know how I feel about him? He must do, surely?"

"I might have said something, once or twice. In passing. You know what he's like, never gives a trick away, but forgets nothing, either."

"Have you mentioned I'm a virgin? You know, in passing."

"God, Leah, of course not. That's your job to tell him, not mine."

"How on earth do I do that?" I had no idea how anyone broached that special subject. There weren't course notes for that one.

"Oh sweetie, I think you'll know when to tell him. When the circumstances are right, you'll know, for sure."

How come Arabella knew all this? "How do you know all this?"

"Older brother, bloody lady killer, he was. Plus, plenty of boys I put off at school. Got myself a bit of a reputation, I did. Prick-teaser Wilson. Fucking clowns, the lot of them. Just because I refused to give them hand jobs in the back seat of cars." Arabella shook her head. "But somehow, I don't think Alex is like that."

"I know he's not," I said. "The fact that he still walks up the avenue with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it's so lovely. I can tell him anything, he's such a good listener. He must know I like him."

Arabella looked at me with one of her serious looks. "Oh, he knows, Leah, he knows. Go on, you goose, get up there!"

"God, I'm scared. It's like coming here to uni all by myself. Only with a man."

"Leah," Arabella said, "if you go through with this, you've done more than I've ever done."

I looked back at her, and were those tears in her eyes? I'd thought Arabella was so fierce, but all of sudden I was seeing a different girl. Was she scared and nervous, like me? First sex was hard, but coming out as well? Even harder.

"Arabella, can I -"

"Have a third bravery chaser?"

I wasn't going to ask that, but she'd steered everything away from her, towards me.

"Leah," she said, "it's your turn in the sun, not mine."

How on earth did she know that? I'd never told her of my sunny days in Alex's room, not what I did there, anyway.

But I knocked back that drink, and as I walked out of her room, I saw that Arabella poured herself another one, too. I didn't think much about that, until later.

My excuse, or reason, or subterfuge with Alex, was to go listen to music with him, in his room. "I'll play you Weird Scenes," he'd offered, as we walked on up the avenue earlier that day. "Introduce you to The Doors."

So I walked down the hall to his room, naked under his jumper which I wore as a dress, with a wide velvet belt and little slippers on my feet, and a touch of perfume I'd saved up for, and oh God, I hoped he liked it, oh God I hope he liked me, and I had no idea what I was doing. But I did it.

I knocked softly on his door.

"Yeah, come in."

I carefully closed the door behind me, and I'd ask him to lock it later.

"Hey, hi Leah. You look so warm in that jumper. It contrasts your dark eyes, dark hair. Sexy."

Maybe he didn't say that. Perhaps I hoped he'd say something like that. I took a deep breath, my nerves were killing me.

"Alex, thanks for the invite this arvo. Listening to some music, that'll be cool." Leah, you sound like an idiot. Drop your bag on the chair, that way you can't sit there, you'll have to sit on the bed next to Alex.

On the bed next to Alex? But I'd sat there before, leaning back against the wall, so tonight would be no different.

But it was, because somehow Alex put an arm around me, and my head was on his shoulder, and:

"I don't know what I'm doing," I said. I'd sort of rehearsed it, but it didn't sound as I wanted it to sound.

"Neither do I, not really. But I'd like to kiss you. If I may, that is. If you'll let me."

I must have nodded, because Alex lowered his head towards mine, and I turned my head up towards his, and somehow our lips managed to meet without our heads bumping together. I reached up further and put my hands behind his head and pulled him towards me, and our kiss went on longer and I forgot to breathe. I let Alex kiss me, and I liked it. And he does like me!

Arabella looked at me later, when I told her, shaking her head. "Leah, for a smart girl, you can be so dumb sometimes."

I wanted to kiss him back, so I did, and this time it was Alex who forgot to breathe. Or I stole his breath. Then his hands were in under the jumper and on my legs, and I undid the velvet belt with one hand, and his hands were on my bottom, then up my back, and I was kissing him hungrily now and his hands were so warm on my skin, ohh, my body felt so hot and I knew I was wet and everything was happening quickly. Too quickly.

Leah, slow down! I couldn't, but Alex did it for me. He got up, went to the shelves above his desk, and put a tape in. After a moment I heard rain. It was in the recording, not outside.

"Riders on the Storm," Alex said, "from their last album."

Candles weren't allowed in the hall, but Alex had a little lamp with a glass shade. He draped a thin gauzy cloth over it, and the room was suffused with a soft warm light. As he turned back towards me, I think I saw the shadow of a long ridge in his jeans. But then he was close to me, back on the bed, and I was on my back and we were kissing again, and his hand was in under the jumper on my breast and pressing against my nipple and I really ached. Ached all over and it was relentless.

"You're not wearing a bra," he whispered.

"I often don't," I replied. A bra gets in the way, but that would be fake bravado and I didn't say it.

"I'd noticed," he whispered again. "They're really lovely, your breasts, perfect size."

He'd noticed me going braless!

"You'd know perfect size," I said, pointing up to the painting on the wall by the door, looking over us. In the soft light, she looked even more mysterious. "Who is she?"

Alex looked back over his shoulder, his hand still on my breast. My body was still completely covered in the jumper, the thick wool that smelled of him, smelled of Arabella, smelled of me and my own perfume. The perfume that I'd saved up for, and beneath it all, very faint, my own sex scent, the smell of me that I knew so well. My senses were hyper, even the storm on the tape washed over me, loud in my ears; my heart beating faster. My senses were everywhere, streaming over me.

"That's Judith," Alex replied. "It's by Gustav Klimt, an Austrian artist from late last century. She's sexy as fuck, I reckon."

Fuck yes, I thought in my head, she is. "So sexual, like a witch," I said. "I think my breasts are the same shape as hers."

"I don't know, I've not seen yours yet."

"No, you haven't," but your hands have felt them, and what your fingers are doing to my left nipple is unbelievable. "So much better than my own fingers."

"What was that, did you say?"

"God, did I think out loud?"

"I reckon you might have. Something about fingers." He moved, shifting his weight over me, and that must be his hard cock against my leg. "Got any more thoughts like that?"

Hundreds of them, all about you. "About my fingers? I've eight of them, two thumbs."

I want to touch you all over, but I don't know where to start. So I touched his cheek, and it was so soft, so smooth to run my fingers over.

He laughed. "Eight fingers, that's gorgeous."

"Don't forget my two thumbs. They're gorgeous too. My thumbs." I was getting braver, talking about my thumbs.

He sucked one of my thumbs into his mouth, and all my sensibility and bravery went right out the window, and I had the brain of a goldfish.

"Mmmm, that is so sexy," I murmured. He put a finger to my lips, and I kissed it and sucked it into my mouth, sucking it, caressing it with my tongue. Is that what you do with a cock? "Put two fingers in," I said. My voice was tiny, but he heard me.

He placed two fingers together on my lips. They tickled, so I licked my lips, then the tips of his fingers, then nibbled them into my mouth. My tongue pressed between them, forcing them apart a little bit. He pushed them in a little further, a little pressure into me. I pushed back with my tongue, he pressed in against me, again. Was this what a cock would feel like, pressing into me lower down, pressing into pussy lips? I wanted to know. Soon, Leah, soon. Was I being too slow?