A Soothing Touch

The house was packed with bodies and noise. Such were all of the parties that the fraternity had hosted. Voices shouted over the loud pounding beats as Dawn led Alice by the hand through the crowd. In certain spaces it was like being in a can of sardines and often no less salty. Then here and there there were gaps of somewhat fresher air. With one hand Alice held onto her friend and with the other she clutched her can of beer. It may have only been her second of the night but what was often said about Asians and their liquor surely held true for Alice. Her buzz was going strong already.

"This way," Dawn coaxed her. Alice may have had a bit of extra flesh in her thighs but Dawn was fully plump and busty. Her figure certainly didn't do anything to dampen her confidence though. Given a couple of drinks Dawn would flirt with the best of them. She had packed herself into a tight black tank printed with little skulls and it showed off her deep cleavage. Alice herself was much more conservatively attired in a loose white sleeveless top over a tighter lime tank hiding her modest chest. The green straps showed easily and as flesh toned undergarments were made for white skin, so did those of her bra. She also had a black hooded sweater which was perfectly comfy in the gentle breeze outside, but in the heat of the party she kept it tied about her waist, conveniently hiding the black skirted hips that she was self conscious of. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and the thin black rims of her glasses sat upon her flat Chinese nose and aiding the vision of two dark almonds glimpsed through slitted Asian eyelids. As the two girls exited another tight mass of bodies they came upon a very small floor space that had been cleared for dancing. The deejay in the corner took his microphone.

"All right everyone!" he got as much attention as he could amongst the chaos. "It's contest time! I've got a bottle of Cuervo for the sexiest dance couple! Come on up and show us your hottest moves!"

The beats resumed and a couple entered the floor with a drunken tango. The crowd cheered them on. Then two more couples entered the fray and began rubbing against each other. Dawn seemed to be eying the fringes for a possible partner. Alice could tell by the look in her eye that she wanted to get in on the action. Then she saw him.

It was Darren. It had been three weeks since he had dumped Alice and broken her heart. In fact the main reason that Dawn had dragged her out was to get her friend to quit moping. She stopped a moment and her chest fluttered at the sight of his soft features and lithe body in tight t-shirt and jeans, his thick coif of dirty blonde hair. There he was ... with Rachel Tate. They were entering the contest together. What little self-worth that Alice had been clinging to quickly dissipated away into the sweaty air. The skinny blonde cheerleader was nearly his height as they entwined themselves in their sexy steps. Alice wasn't certain which was worse, Rachel's grinding on his thigh or the mischievous sultry look they held as their gazes locked into each other's. When Darren leaned forward and held her in balance as she arched her back decadently until the ends of her hair dragged on the floor Alice got a perfect view of the nipples on her tiny tits budding through the thin fabric of her skimpy fuschia spaghetti strap dress and flowery bikini top beneath. Darren seemed to notice them too as he nuzzled his nose between them.

"Alice? Alice!" she heard Dawn call after her as she squeezed herself between the bodies and out of the room. Slipping down the hall without looking back, she kept her head down to hide the oncoming tears. At the end of the hall she found the staircase. The higher that she ascended, the more the music began to muffle and the more breathable the air became. Picking her way between a group toasting their sudsy cans of brew, a couple necking and three guys passing around a joint, she reached the top, confident that she had lost Dawn. Upstairs there was another hallway. First, she passed a room of haphazardly dressed people gathered around a table of cards. in the middle were discarded articles of clothing. Then there was a closed door behind which were the moans of several voices. There was definitely a party going on in every way imaginable and it was as if Alice were the only one in the entire house not having the time of her life. She needed a quiet place to herself. When she thought that one would not be found, a door opened and two couples came out with a fifth wheel in tow. One of the girls sniffled and the guy in tow kept touching his nose. They must have been doing coke. Glancing in, Alice saw that the room looked empty. There were twin beds, one with the bedsheets in a tangled mess, and an office chair between them facing a computer against the back wall. She took a seat, swiveled herself out of view. The remnants of her can of beer were becoming warm and distasteful. She placed it on the computer desk and began to sob.

After a minute she noticed whispering outside the window, a guy and a girl. It was actually a sliding door to a tiny balcony.

"What's that?" hushed the girl.

"I don't hear."

"Someone's crying." Then there was something inaudible before the girl added, "Well no, I'm just saying."

Alice sucked up her tears as best she could. Even in this quiet room there was no solitude. She'd just have to move on. If she could just compose herself enough, she could make her way back through the crowd quickly and go home. Alice sipped from her beer. She wanted to finish the rest of it before it got too gross. perhaps by the time that she did she'd be okay to leave.

Matthias stares down the frat house from the driver seat of his car outside. It's quite possible nothing has appealed to him less in his lifetime. Throbbing techno thuds against his ears, vibrates the knot-gnarled boards of the front steps under his feet. The ruddy light of sunset dies far to the west and now all that's left of a day he's already found tiresome is a faint spectrum of purples, swiftly fading down the street toward Oaksvale Campus, towards civilization, such as it is, and away from a steadily seedier row of frathouses, sororities, and tenements. It's the residence row, and now that the college is seeing harder days, it's not as nice a neighborhood as it presumably was. The light poles are covered with abandoned staples from flyers and advertisements, and the street is pockmarked with broken asphalt. To top it off, a faint stench like someone tried to grill some burgers and got distracted for an hour lingers in the air, overcooked and overcompensated.

He huffs a hard breath, pops the door, and makes sure to lock it on his way in. His shoulder bag dangles, shifting with the weight of its contents.

The door bounces off someone's back before it even opens halfway, some teenybopper - obviously too young to be here, cruising the jailbait aisles - flinching and nearly dropping her beer in response. She turns and opens her mouth, then looks up. She stands maybe five-seven, a tiny thing, and it's a climb to meet his eyes a full foot above. The effort cuts her response short, probably because her pupils are dilated on something a girl her age definitely doesn't need to be on.

"You don't have the indigenous look," Matthias notes, his low tenor sliding through the harsh beat with perfect diction. He's the perfect example, himself - narrow facial structure, hawk-proud cheekbones, a high and piercing stare. Not common features here in the States, but across the pond, back home, the people of Derbyshire would catch on. "Lost isn't quite accurate, either."

She smiles. "Welcome to the party!" She gushes, hands fluttering from nerves and probably working up the nerve to touch him. The girl's trying too hard. There's mascara beginning to smear in the corner of her eyes from sweat, and her little dress is baiting hard, stopping at midthigh. Her legs would probably look nice if he let himself think about it, or look.

Instead he pokes a finger hard into her nose. Teeny flinches, and he glides out of the doorway and swings her around him one-handed to plant her outside, then has to catch her arm when she begins to stumble. He releases her as swiftly as he can, and just lets the door swing shut in her face.

There's a chuckle as he turns around, and an athletic bro in a jersey nods to him with a grin. "Little sister?" he guesses, toasting him with a Copenhagen.

"Someone's," Matthias replies, dismissive, and shoulders past him too. The guy has to shuffle quick to escape the heavy tread of his work boots.

The kitchen and downstairs area is packed with partiers, and he didn't come for the nightlife. Instead he climbs the stairs, raw size and the flat glass of his expression driving people out of his way like a human snowplow. The thick jeans and plaid jacket probably do as much - he looks like someone's hick uncle, but he had to come here straight after work to have time to hit the pawn shop afterwards. It's not that he needs the money - it's the principle of the matter.

Scrubbing a hand through short black hair, he steps over a young couple's legs with a grimace, and makes an educated guess that Jonas's room is the one with the giant Starcraft poster on it. He tries the handle, exhales when it swings wide, and slides within only to blink at the other girl inside. Tearstains track down her face, but she's still fully-dressed, which takes his immediate concern off the table. It's a bad place in a bad neighborhood, but it hasn't hit bottom yet.

On the other hand, the full PC gaming rig tells him this is definitely Jonas's room. He debates explaining, and then decides she could use the distraction, and her screaming 'thief' would probably be troublesome.

"It's a lesson I'm learning too," Matthias says, apropos of nothing. "Never give someone anything you don't want them to walk off with."

He sets the bag down on one bed and unzips it, removing a small mechanic's kit and a smaller bag with inserts for computer equipment. "Materielé you can repossess - that's the easiest part. Money's harder. Courts don't like to enforce personal debts, and people like it more. As you get more conceptual, you get less back."

The Englishman meets her eye for a split second. "By the time you get to people, yourself - no one cares. There's no warranty or guarantee. Trust doesn't come back when it's carried off."

He shrugs, uncomfortable, and kneels to her left as he turns the computer tower and begins unscrewing the nuts holding the back panel in place. "Presuming you're here on account of some knob downstairs, that is. If you've just an allergy to some naff, feel free to ignore me. I'm just addressing a debt."

"Never give someone anything you don't want them to walk off with."

At first she was startled by the voice itself, distinguished deep and English - as in not American. Then she was again a moment later when the words actually sank in. Just as her heart lost to Darren was a parallel all too uncanny, so his comment struck her as possible mind reading. Privacy was what she was after, yet all she got was eavesdropping and prying. Quickly she wiped a hand across her wet cheeks and dried it nervously on the sleeve of her sweater, but not swiftly enough as the titan stature accompanying the voice imposed itself upon the room and brushed directly behind her chair. Strategically she swiveled for optimum obscurity.

He unzipped a bag, but the stuff he said next was nonsense, or at least she found no clear connection to the introductory statement insofar as to how it pertained to her plight. Maybe he hadn't been talking about her at all. Alice endeavored to keep the back of the chair between them but his movements were difficult to track as he shuffled and she became caught in profile, very much a deer in headlights.

"By the time you get to people, yourself - no one cares. There's no warranty or guarantee. Trust doesn't come back when it's carried off." He was talking in riddles, but this pearl put her heartbreak back on the agenda. It was an effort for him to kneel his exceedingly tall frame in the shadowy dim at the foot of the desk and set himself to task. His philosophizing continued. "Presuming you're here on account of some knob downstairs, that is."

Struck with fright and shame, Alice's body convulsed in a heavy shaky sigh. When the urge to bolt was only suppressed by the sudden rubberyness of her legs, she swiveled away in a futile attempt to hide a wave of fresh sobs. She was losing all control of her emotions in front of a stranger, but the way that he talked it was almost as if he was in the know. The fact that she knew nothing of him only served to weaken her stance.

"I'm so embarrassed," Alice managed to sniffle between heaves.

Matthias offers a one-shouldered shrug, encompassing in its dismissal. "You really shouldn't be, because I have no clue if I'm right or not. But you're a well-dressed young woman at a frat party, in tears in a backroom. Your clothing's in good condition and your coordination is decent enough that you're not drunk. So you came here with some kind of emotional expectation, and didn't get it, and you hoofed it rather than make a spectacle."

There's a moment of silence as he sets aside the back panel of the modem, glances over the guts of the computer's circuitry, and nods. He flicks the switch of the nearby power strip, powering the whole system down, and then rotates the modem to face himself. It's a moment where she catches a glimpse of his face: serene and untroubled. Neither of the two things he's doing, computer deconstruction or giving life advice, are requiring his full attention or bothering him.

The Englishman pauses long enough to extract a packet of Kleenex from an interior coat pocket, and sets it on the desk in front of her, though his arm has to awkwardly bend to not brush by her in the process. "Wipe your face, luv, you've got a terrible complexion for crying. Now, what's the nature of your emergency?"

Meanwhile, with a quiet click, he disconnects the modem's GPU and carefully sets it aside.

She could hear him tinkering away as he dissertated. Just as Alice thought she'd finish of the last warm gulp of her beer he mentioned that she wasn't drunk, even though she surely felt fuzzy enough. Maybe he just couldn't tell by her sedately sitting in that chair in that shadowy room. She drank it down quickly and set the empty aside to pull her knees up to her chest. Everything fell quiet for a moment, the clicking and shuffling of his work weaving itself into the dull thrumming of the party below to form the silence. Then suddenly she was startled by a tissue on the end of his long reach before her.

"Wipe your face, luv. You've got a terrible complexion for crying. Now, what's the nature of your emergency?"

His voice was surprisingly gentle for such an intimidating titan stature. The refined accent certainly helped. He wasn't about to leave her alone. Still, the mere slice of his divided attention softened his front greatly, and his sympathy seemed genuine, even sagely. Alice tugged the tissue from his fingers and wiped herself.

"It's nothing," she eventually managed. "Nothing important." Unimportant was certainly how she felt inside. At that moment the details of her heartbreak seemed pathetic, certainly too petty to share and try to justify her tears. People got dumped every day. The world kept turning, but Alice's was turning so painfully slowly.

Matthias places the chip into a little holder in his bag, securing it for safe transport - the GPU is worth over six hundred dollars easy, and while Jonas owes him eight-forty, it's not really worth his time to argue and quibble. This secures the majority of the debt, and additionally does it in a way that pisses the wanker off. He takes a post-it note, scribbles on it, and leaves it on the monitor's screen.

debt's paid. - Matthias

Gloating is overrated.

With that done, he turns his attention to the other event of the night, this young woman, though he doesn't turn his head or watch her. She really doesn't have the complexion for crying - her skin tone washes out under it and leaves dark splotches under her eyes, probably helped by the thickness of her eyelashes. At least she doesn't have on a lot of makeup for the tears to ruin or else it'd look a real disaster. But then, he's not doing this because she's cute or lacking thereof. Helping someone in need is a basic function of being a decent human being, and fuck those that disagreed. You can't help everyone, but her, he can. It costs him nothing but words, and that is a specialty.

"Diminishing your own pain is very English, and I applaud that, but the English all have the presence of mind to only do it once we're solidly drunk and back home safe with other chaps to be solidly drunk amongst," Matthias replies, dry. "You're alone here a long way from home, so perhaps honesty is your best policy here, because whatever's bothering you quite clearly sucks rocks."

He glances at the bag - at the computer - then shrugs and reclines against the side of the desk beside her, still seated on the floor, his head coming about even with her ribcage as he stares at the opposite wall of the bedroom, at a poster about something something, orc with nose rings. "How about instead of being incomparably soggy and self-sacrificing and all that usual heroic swill we talk about something else. Please not sports, my head would explode."

He makes a sucking sound against his cheek, an indisputably indignified interruption. "It's college. What're you studying now that your childhood dreams have irrevocably shattered and you have now adjusted to the cold and indifferent realism that the world wants more finance and business majors and everyone else is too slow for the gravy train?"

He's aware, Matthias is, that his sense of humor is - distinct.

It was even more difficult for Alice to see in the dark once she removed her glasses to wipe her eyes, but he was there sitting on the floor now, relaxed with task seemingly completed, leaning back against the desk. She found it odd to look down upon such a large man.

"It's college. What're you studying now that your childhood dreams have irrevocably shattered and you have now adjusted to the cold and indifferent realism that the world wants more finance and business majors and everyone else is too slow for the gravy train?"

"Accounting," she sniffed with a shrug. "I'm good at math, so ..." Alice found a dry corner of the tissue to wipe the mist from her lenses, putting her feet on the floor to form a lap for her to do so as she talked. "My parents are a bit disappointed. I was supposed to be a doctor, but I'm not sure I could handle that." She crumpled up the tissue and placed it gingerly on the corner of the desk, retracting her hand with guilt at leaving a mess. "Paging Dr Yu," she chuckled quietly with sarcasm as she put her glasses back on and retracted her knees once more. There was soft muttering from the balcony. Suddenly remembering that the unknown couple was still out there, Alice cowered in the chair and silenced herself, then a moment later sensed more guilt for being bad company. "Sorry for being boring," she whispered. She felt exposed and yearned for some form of protection.

"Ah, a doctor," Matthias drones, and if there ever was such a thing as a verbal eyeroll, it comes out here. "Inventive, refreshing. My kid's going to be a doctor someday - because what's better than forcing my child to take care of other people all their life, so they can take care of me when I'm old and infirm?" He flicks a hand dismissively at the thought. "Nevermind compassion fatigue, or how stressful a field healthcare is, or how wonderful a twelve-year student loan payback plan feels looming over your head. Give me that good plan I'll still be able to point at twenty years down the road and be disappointed about."

The Englishman glances over with one baleful eye, pointing a thick finger at Alice. "I'm going to address this because you probably haven't heard it from a blunt enough source yet: boring is a shit insult people throw at you when they can't live vicariously through you. If you go home at the end of your day and you're satisfied with what you've got, you're not boring, you're actualized. When you grow enough that these things change, you'll change with them - but until then you've got no need to propel yourself into nonsense for the entertainment of the fickle. Yes? Good."

Matthias leans back against the desk, letting his neck loll against a partly-opened drawer that happens to make a pretty decent neckrest, come to that. "I'm acting out some," he says, with too much honesty. "But I still think these things, even if I typically have the tact to hold my flaps shut and not talk about them. You just seem a person in much need of honesty, and this is a thing I can provide, if not with adequate dignity."

"I don't feel actualized," she said, uncertain if she had ever heard the word before but still fairly sure that she had gotten the gist of it. He was being nice. For all of his regently accented talk she was figuring his angle for genuine. She couldn't have been that boring if she was holding his interest in this dim hidden recess amidst the abounding distractions of debauch. "I feel empty."

The muttering on the balcony continued - incoherent mumblings and muted laughter. The female mentioned something about wanting a refill. Alice turned her head to the parted drapes, opaque to blot out the morning sun if closed, to see if the couple was about to take their leave. No one yet emerged. Extending her toe to the desk she gently swiveled herself counter-clockwise (or anti-clockwise for the English gent beside her) then with her other heel on the edge of the bed she reorientated herself. With the two feet she continued to very casually turn herself to the left and to the right as she searched for something else to say.

"What about you?" she broke the silence. "What's your major?" she asked, relieved for a chance to change the subject.

"Well, you're not satisfied either, or you wouldn't be hiding in an upstairs bedroom bemoaning something," Matthias points out, not unkindly. "I mean, presumed relationship woes aside, you hardly seem pleased with the day's events so far."

He glances at the balcony and its giggling occupants, sighs, and props himself up from his seat beside the computer desk, standing with a stretch and roll of his shoulders. Stood up he towers over the slighter girl - he stands about 193 centimeters (that's six foot four, translated for yon yanks) and the jacket adds the illusion of breadth to his shoulders, though up close his slimness is evident. There's a heady contrast between the rough cut of his clothes and the sharp stare of his eyes, though, for the moment, he doesn't notice as he takes up his kit and bag once more, securing it in his off hand.

"Either way, sitting up here is like to get awkward swiftly," the Englishman says, and offers the girl a hand up from her chair. "I'll talk if we walk as well. There's a back porch that we can move to with a likely dearth of slobbering teenager. That sounds an improvement, yes? Also, I'd fain get some fresh air, rather than recycled beer breath."

The Englishman avoided her question as if it hadn't even been asked. When he rose to his feet, Alice was not shocked by his grand stature as she had already witnessed it when he had entered, but even still she was left in an air of awe. She thought that he was about to take his leave of her, all out of wisdom to impart, until he reached out his hand.

"There's a back porch that we can move to with a likely dearth of slobbering teenager. That sounds an improvement, yes?"

Alice was unsure if she should accept his offer. She extended her own hand timidly, then retracted, then thinking that he would be the best form of protection for making an exit (not that anyone was about to attack her, but she felt vulnerable nonetheless), she she reached again to take his grasp.

"All right," she said and stood on legs shaky from tears and alcohol. She took refuge in his shadow, as she awaited his escort.

The bigger man nods, and then opens the door to the dorm room and leads his erstwhile companion out of the dank room, heading for the stairs. The crowd's dissipated a little at this point, or they've started adjourning to rooms for privacy; from where he walks, Matthias can hear at least a half-dozen different sets of people having sex, and it's beyond him to guess what gender or number is involved in each. The scent of sweat and musk is crushingly strong and his nose scrunches against the unpleasant stench. The music's stopped, at least. He nudges a dazed fratboy out of the way on the staircase proper with the toe of his boot (he barely stirs), and proceeds downwards.

"To answer your question," he says, the thud of bootheel on wooden step percussive and distinct, "I am studying ornithology, on exchange from Birmingham University to visit the raptor preserves here. I expect to be moderately poor, consistently frustrated, and unwilling to give it up for anything else."

Matthias rolls back one sleeve, and when they reach the next landing he shows her his right wrist and forearm - thick, circled and scarred by triangular lines grooved into the flesh. "Falconry, as it turns out, is not a hobby for those weak of constitution," he says with some dryness, then turns to take the final stair down. He glances about and indicates the back door with an inclination of his head, then leads the way there, his broad bulk and permanently ill-satisfied expression clearing a path once more. The dance party, or whatever it was, seems to have broken up; the pumping techno music has ceased for something more liquid and smooth. He doesn't recognize his debtor anywhere, and thus dismisses the grand lot of them from his mind.

Hand in hand they left the room and ventured down the hall. Things had quieted and the crowd had thinned out lending an oddly subdued energy in the air. Things were still going on around them however, evidenced by the dull heavy moan that seeped through the first closed door as they passed. The next door could neither quite conceal the grunts sighs and laughter of several voices obviously engaged in certain carnal pursuits. The thought of it made Alice tense and cringe, not so much from the acts themselves but from the conflict that arose within her. It was something that they ought not to have been doing yet were and were enjoying themselves. On the other hand Alice was not doing them and thus should have felt virtuous yet such purity was affording her no joy at all. When she had had sex before she had found it quite enjoyable yet afterwards could never seem to shake the dirtiness that came with it. Lingering guilt had always been attached. She had certainly enjoyed being with Darren (and a couple of others before him) and the intimacy that they had shared, and she had believed that Darren had enjoyed her as well, but apparently not enough. Alice wasn't wanted anymore. She wasn't wantable. Behind those closed doors those people were all wantable and decadently so. Alice had to admit to herself that she was envious of all of them. She shrunk inside as she suppressed her carnal desires with a skill finely honed over time (as much as it was being put to the test), and her new friend turned to lead her down the stairs.

"I am studying ornithology, on exchange from Birmingham University to visit the raptor preserves here."

Putting that together with his accent Alice quickly surmised that he did not mean Alabama. That was when he showed her his scars. If he hadn't already softened her with his intellect and exotic tongue she would have been quite shocked, but as such her fright was muted. Alice then realized just how much of a stranger he was to her. She didn't even know his name and she was leaving with him, although only the building and not the premises outright. She wouldn't be going too far. Regardless, Alice resolved to take a moment to text Dawn with an update as soon as they found the back porch.

They were downstairs now on the main floor and moving through the kitchen. The laminate flooring was tacky with spilled beer and who knew what else. The place was a warzone. As they entered they were greeted with a soft passionate sigh. On the mid-floor island countertop to their right, a girl sat perched upon the edge in a space hastily cleared out between the toppled empties just wide enough to accommodate her hips. Her back was to them and her blonde hair hung straight down. Around and below it her pale skin exposed the lower spine and outer ribcage of her scrawny physique. Her thin fuschia dress was bunched up under her arms which she had sweetly wrapped around her lover's shoulders and her thighs were pinned up and apart by his. He let out a subtle grunt of his own as he stood before her, his pelvis casually undulating between her legs.

"Mmmm baby," she said in her syrupy indulgence as she regripped him and pulled him closer, cheek to cheek. His thick wave of dirty blonde hair was unmistakable. It was Darren. Darren was screwing Rachel right before her eyes, gripping her sweetly. It was an embrace that Alice knew all to well, a caring handling that she had so dearly missed. She and the tall foreigner had not been so quiet that their presence was not detectable, but although she was certain that they had to know that someone else was in the room they seemed too preoccupied with one another to care. Indeed it was highly unlikely that they had been the first passers-by to witness their copulation. Darren was not doing this to her on purpose although he may as well have been. The effect was the same.

Alice squeezed her protector's hand in reflex from the shock, then deliberately loosened her grip in embarrassment as she fought back the overwhelming emotions within her. Head down, she quickened her footsteps, urging a hasty exit and hoping that the Englishman would take the hint. The back door could not have been near enough.