The arrangement

[Beach Boy]

I started writing this story as just a short story then I decided to try it on this forum. I'm just seeking one other player -- for "Maria". It's an attempt at more of a "romance" rather than a wild sexual escapade. So in other words I want to try something that moves slowly sexually. Perhaps we can both write from the first person.



THE ARRANGEMENT

"What the fucks wrong with you!" My roommate Brian yelled at me. "Fucking dick sucking homo.. why are you sleeping during the middle of the fuckin' day?"

"Go away.." I rolled over so that I faced away from Brian.

"Get a fuckin' life! How'd I end up with a fuckin' loser like you?!" Brian yelled back at me, then slammed the door as he stormed out of the dorm room.

Once again Brian had been up late playing his stereo loudly as he 'studied' and talked loudly with his Frat brothers. I'd had to get up early since I had a seven-thirty class but Brian, who'd scheduled all of his classes for later in the day, had slept in blissfully. I'd been a bit uneasy about having Brian as a roommate from the first day when Brian had brought Misty and Lisa over. Brian had asked me if I was a 'faggot' but I didn't realize it had meant that he was going to bring a girl over for me. Looking at Lisa, I'd wondered how I was going to go through with it. I hadn't told Brian that I was a virgin and I didn't really want to have to learn with Lisa in front of Brian and Misty. I'd wondered if I could somehow fool Lisa into thinking that this wasn't my first time. However when I'd taken Lisa with me to go and try to buy some beer she'd taken one look at my car, said "Fuck this!" and turned and left. Honestly it had been a tremendous relief to me but Brian and Misty hadn't even let me back in the room and I'd had to spend the night in my car.

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"So what you're saying is that you can't get along with your roommate?" The collegiate looking councelor with the grey beard asked me.

"Well no, not really.... It's just that he doesn't show much respect for me."

The councelor eyed me sternly. "We haven't had any other complaints from other people in your dorm. I'd think that if he were really that loud than some of your neighbors would be complaining."

"Yeah, but I'm the one living in the same room with him."

The councelor studied me carefully "Are you jealous of him? Is that it?"

"No.."

"You are, aren't you? He's from a very good family, his uncles a State Senator, and he's here on a full ride scholership."

"I'm not.. haven't you been listening to me!" I shot back in frustration.

"You have no place talking to me like that!" The councelor glared at me. "Are you trying to get yourself kicked out?"

"Noo.." I stammered. "I guess I'm just tired because I can't get any sleep with his loud music... And he kicks me out and makes me sleep in the lobby when Misty, or Nicole, or Lisa comes over for the night." I blurted out.

"Look I don't want to know the details of Brians personal life!" The councelor yelled at me. He seemed to be losing his cool, "That's his own private business. You've got some nerve sneaking those detail in." He studied me intently. "Don't you have a girlfriend?"

"Well um.. no.."

"Why not?"

"I don't know.."

"Are you a virgin? Is that why you have a problem with your roommates sexuality?"

"Um no...." I managed shakily. "I mean... okay.. Okay I am! But I just haven't found the right girl yet.."

"Are you gay?"

"No I don't think so.. I mean no definitely not!"

"Hey, it's nothing to be ashamed of! It's okay, really it is."

"Yeah whatever.." I mumbled "Isn't there somebody else I could share a room with? And if he's a homosexual it's fine with me!"

"I'm sure it is..." The councelor nodded eying me with a look of quiet condescension. "But we don't have anybody else for you to room with. And there's a waiting list of people who want to get into the dormitories. Also we don't allow freshmen to live off campus."

"So I'm stuck."

"I'm afraid so. You're just going to have to learn how to get along with people."

The councelor got me up and walked me out of the office.

A woman in a dress suit was standing out in the lobby and she ushered my councelor over to her.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with her." I heard her say in a hushed voice.

"A real mess?" He asked

"Yeah.. she's a total slob...hates men.. no boyfriend.. bitches constantly with her roommate.."

I looked over at a brunette with long straight hair sitting on the couch staring at the floor with a determined angry look on her face.

"How about him?"

"I can't stand his type.. You know a fundamentalist ultraconservative sort.. And he's a faggot believe it or not. Never been laid in his life, and probably never will.. He's jealous as hell of anybody who's got a life."

The woman flashed me a look of disgust then waved my councelor to follow her into her office. I could hear them talking but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

I sat down ackwardly on the couch. "Got roommate troubles?" I asked her ackwardly.

"Obviously." she replied without looking my way. She turned her back to me and I decided it was best not to attempt any more conversation.

The councelors reappeared and the woman spoke loudly breaking the tension in the room. "Okay you two.. Here's what we've decided."

"Two?" the girl asked.

"Yes both of you! Neither of you can get along with your roommates."

"Now apparently Richard here is a homosexual" The woman began speaking again. "And there's nothing wrong with that! However since that is the case I think it would be safe to put the two of you together as roommate"

"A homo?!" Maria asked in disgust

"You're going to put me with a girl?" I exclaimed in disbelief.

"No a woman!" The woman responded angrily "I hate it when men call women girls! A girl is a young non-menstrating female!!"

"Sorry.."

"No you're not!" My councelor glared at me, "Do you think that you can be quiet until we finish? Can we expect that much of you?"

I nodded.

"Good. Now we don't have a dorm room to put you two in but I'm sure you both know about Blacker building on the east end of campus."

"Yeah, the building they're going to tear down."

"Didn't I just ask you to keep your mouth shut?"

"Yes sir."

"Okay then.. They're not scheduled to tear it down until next summer. It was built in the sixties and it has a small janitors apartment on the south corner."

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The apartment wasn't bad. It had its own small bathroom, a small kitchen, a livingroom, and a medium sized bedroom. Off of the livingroom was a small walled in patio covered with chairs and tables stacked haphazardly. There appeared to be an old wooden hottub in one corner but it was buried under junk.

"So your names Maria?" I asked trying to make conversation.

"That's my name.." Maria answered with an irritated tone but didn't look my way. She almost looked like she was on the verge of bursting into tears. "Look I'll sleep on the couch tonight if that's what your wondering."

"But there's another twin mattress underneath the queen in the bedroom."

"Yes there is." Maria spoke without looking at me.

I took the hint and headed into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. Here I was thousands of miles from home and this wasn't the way that I'd expected college life to be.

"Yeah" I heard Maria talking on the phone. "Now they've got me living way out on the god damn other side of the campus with this creepy homosexual guy. Yeah... yeah.. I guess.. At least I won't have to worry about him groping me like Jessie's pervy male friend."

Oh well.. I figured that sharing an apartment with Maria couldn't be any worse than sharing a dormroom with Brian, and secretly the fact that I was sharing an apartment with a girl gave me a huge thrill -- only dampened a bit by Marias sour attitude towards me.

Maria left to go to class and I ordered myself a pizza. We were a bit of a ways from the dininghall. I was definitely going to have to get a bike. I decided to blow off my Literature class and I took a long wonderful uninterrupted nap. It was great to finally get some rest. I got up and wandered into the livingroom and found Maria reading a book on the couch.

"Maria there's pizza in the fridge if you'd like some." I offered.

Maria rolled her eyes "Do you know how fattening that is?"

"Well you're a little on the skinny side, it wouldn't hurt if you ate a little more." I shot back without thinking, then immediately regretted it.

Maria's face showed real hurt but she didn't respond. Instead she turned away from me and went back to reading her book.

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I got up early, so that I could make my classes, and I tried not to wake Maria, who was sleeping on the couch. I was a little suprised when I opened the refrigerator door and noticed several pieces of pizza missing and a note "Thanks for the pizza!"

I didn't tell any of my friends in class about my new living arrangement. It was a little weird and I sort of wanted to keep it a secret.

The week went fairly smoothly and Maria and I had minimal contact. But one day I heard Maria in the bathroom slam the toilet seat down. "God damnit!, god damnit!, god damnit!" I heard Maria break down and begin crying in the bathroom. It shook me up a bit and I was careful to keep the toilet seat down after that. Since we were right on the edge of the arboreteum I started going for walks in the evening and even found a park bench next to the small arboreteum lake that soon became my favorite place to study. Maria continued to sleep on the couch and even though she started out neat soon the livingroom was just as messy as my room.

Maria confronted me on Saturday afternoon. "Okay I've had it. I'm not sleeping on that freakin' couch one more god damn night!".

"Well, then let's get the other mattress and frame out from under my bed and I'll make some room."

I could tell from Maria's expression that she wasn't too impressed by the way I kept the room so I knuckled down and cleaned it. I even got the old vacuum cleaner out of the closet and vacuumed the carpet.

To say that the first night sharing a room with Maria was tense would be an understatement. I tried to relax but I just couldn't and when I rolled over so that I was facing Maria I could have sworn that she was watching me -- and it definitely wasn't comfortable! In the morning I changed in the bathroom and was out of there before Maria got up.

After a week of sharing the bedroom I was finally sleeping close to normal and Maria was looking better too. She'd apparently given up on her diet, and she looked a hundred percent better with a rosy color in her cheeks. "Do you think I'm getting too fat?" Maria asked me suddenly one day. It must have really been bothering her for her to ask me. And actually I sort of wondered why she wanted my opinion. "No, you look really really good." I reassured her. Maria seemed to sense that I was being honest; her face lit up and she smiled brightly "Thank you."

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It was a friday night and I'd been studying late at the library working on a paper I needed to hand in the following Monday. I was heading back across campus in the dark when I heards something that rattled me to the bone. It was a girl struggling with a guy over near the corner of a building behind some shrubs.

"You fuckin' cunt!" He yelled at her loudly and hit her across the face hard knocking her down.

I dropped my books on the ground. I was shaking hard but the adrenaline seemed to propel me forward.

"Leave me alone." she sobbed.

I rushed at him swinging a punch at him with all of my might. A jolt of pain flashed through my fist as I made contact with his chin. I hit him so hard that he was actually knocked all of the way into the wall. As he collapsed onto the pavement I began stomping on his face hard. Regaining control of myself I stopped. I wasn't sure how badly he was hurt but I didn't really want to kill him. I'd definitely hurt him badly though.

"Are you okay Maria?" I asked shakily as I helped her back to her feet.

Maria nodded but tears streaked down her face.

"Let's get out of here." I tried to sound calm. I wrapped a shaky arm around Maria, who was shaking as badly as me, pulled her into me and we headed back across campus to our apartment.

"Thank you." Maria told me with gratitude as we fell asleep in our seperate beds.

In the morning I woke and found that Maria had gotten up ahead of me. The lights in the kitchen were on.

"I made you breakfast." Maria greeted me as I entered

It was bacon, eggs, and toast. Simple but somehow the food seemed extra good to me.

When I got back around noon I found Maria was busy at work cleaning the livingroom.

"Did you see the newspaper?" Maria asked. In the bottom right corner of the front page was a story about a student who'd been "attacked". He was wearing a neck brace and both eyes were swollen shut. "You didn't kill him." Maria grinned.

According to the paper he'd been jumped and attacked by an unknown attacker when heading to the library. And there'd been "no witnesses". The newspaper reported that the campus police would be patrolling the campus more heavily to prevent any future attacks.

"How'd we end up with such crumby roommates?" Maria asked me as we were lying in our seperate beds.

"I don't know. My roommate was a rich fraternity guy. A real jerk."

"Really," Maria laughed. "My roommate was a "Little Sister" to a fraternity. You met one of her guy friends."

"Yeah he was a real winner."

"A real winner." Maria agreed. "I like you, you're nice. You're not like them. I don't care what the councelors said. They were a couple of freaks."

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Maria continued to clean up the apartment and I helped her move the stacked chairs and tables from the patio into an open classroom that she found in the building and it was starting to look like a real patio. Our apartment was starting to seem pretty darn nice. Also Maria had become much more talkative and I found that I really enjoyed her company. Plus she was styling her hair a little differently, dressing nicer, and she was looking good!. It made me more conscious of my appearance too and I had started going to the gym and working out a couple days a week.

I was doing the dinner dishes when Maria approached me.

"The hot tubs pretty cool." Maria grinned. "And it still works!"

"We'll have to try it out!"

"How about tonight?" Maria suggested.

"Sure!" I grinned suddenly feeling a little eager to show off my toned body.

"You take a lot of walks in the arboreteum." Maria mentioned nervously.

"Yeah, it's nice."

"Could I come with you sometime."

"Sure....The sun will still be up for a couple more hours.."

Maria started the hottub warming up and we headed for the arboreteum. The trees were starting to change color and together with the cool Fall air the atmosphere felt calm and peaceful somehow.

"So have you decided on a major yet?" Maria asked me.

"No, I think that I might want to major in architecture but I don't know if I can get into the department."

"You should go for it." Maria encouraged me.

"I will." I nodded "Have you picked out a major yet."

"Well I came here thinking that I was going to go into education. You know -- teach. But now I'm having second thoughts."

We sat down on a bench on the edge of the lake.

"I think that teaching would be a lot of work." Maria said studying the ducks paddling around.

"Yeah, but it could be gratifying work, right?"

"I suppose, but I'm not sure if I'm really cut out to be a teacher." Maria sighed.

"Well we still have a little bit of time to pick out majors."

"Isn't it funny how we ended up living out here in our own private apartment with the arboreteum almost as our own private garden." Maria asked as we began heading back towards our apartment.

"I suppose." I agreed. "But doesn't it seems almost a little spooky living in the end of a big deserted building."

"Not with you sharing the apartment with me." Maria leaned over against me playfully.

"Thanks." I laughed involuntarily.

Maria changed in the bedroom and I changed in the bathroom. Her swimsuit was a conservative one piece suit, but she did look good in it.

"Wow, this is really toasty warm." Maria commented climbing into the hottub.

"Yeah, it's warm enough all right."

"Look at the stars." Maria pointed. "I've heard the various names but I can't remember what anything is called."

"Me either." I agreed.