***
I was walking back to my room alone a few nights later, thinking about Maura. I was stunned to find her face at the forefront of my mind. I was baffled as to how my heart could possibly be hurting for her.
Quite surprisingly, I hoped that she was well.
As soon as my sympathy bubbled up, it quickly died off, as though someone had turned down the flame beneath the steaming pot of my thoughts. Now, her face merely simmered beneath the surface of the water; in a few short minutes, it had slowly faded away in the rising steam.
“You’re beautiful.” A voice said behind me.
I whipped around, startled by the presence of a man I knew only by face.
“You are frightening.” I replied sarcastically. With that verbal barb at him thrown, I turned around to keep walking.
“Are you up for sharing?”
“Excuse me?” I looked back at him again.
“Sharing.”
“You repeating the word does not disclose its definition. I am aware that somehow, the meaning has changed, given the vague contextual clues of our conversation.”
He laughed flippantly as he strode forward to walk by my side.
“You’re weird.”
“Why do you keep attributing random traits to me when you scarcely know who I am? In fact, why are you following me?”
“I just really want to know if you’re up for sharing.”
“What does that mean?” I threw my hands up in frustration.
“Everyone is doing it.”
“You have a difficult time answering simple questions. I am sure grade school was quite challenging for you.”
“Everyone says you’re a firecracker. I’ve never talked to you before…”
“And thank God or the Gods for that.”
“…but now I see it.”
“I am going into my room now.”
“Can I join you?”
“No.” I narrowed my eyes and shook my head as I whispered the simple word. I was befuddled as to what that strange man could possibly want. But slowly, it began to dawn on me: He was looking to, as the kids say, “hook up.”
“Oh, my,” I ran my fingers through my hair. “Not only am I completely uninterested in having intercourse with a man of your empty-headed nature, but I am also in a relationship.”
“Everyone who is sharing is with someone. That’s why they call it ‘sharing.’”
The context finally became clear to me. I grimaced in disgust.
“People in relationships are sharing their partners. Is that at what you are hinting right now? Clearly, if you would not say it outright, you must have been aware that I would not agree to engage in such lewd behavior.”
“No. I just wanted to see if you’re as sharp as they say.”
“Well, I can assure you that I am. Carry on now.”
I slid the old key into the lock on my door. When I opened it and strode inside, he followed me in.
“Your boyfriend’s not here. I’ll bet you anything he won’t mind. He gets what we’re doing here. He gets how we live.”
“That sentence made absolutely no sense, and if you do not take two steps back so that I can slam the door in your face, I will gladly kick you so hard in the testicles that even the most gifted doctor left on this planet will be unable to retrieve them from inside of your body!”
“Come on. It will be fun! You need to let loose, girl! Seriously, with what we’re doing here, how we’re living, you can’t think that no one is going to make passes at you. I also know that you won’t be able to resist for very long.” He grinned at me.
“I won’t be able to resist you, specifically, or the notion of free love?’
“Both.”
I sighed heavily and let my eyes change over.
“I hope you were not planning on producing children…”
“You’ve been with that old guy. You need to be with someone like me. Let me show you how it’s done! When it's over, you won't even want him anymore.”
So many things could have been said in response to that. So many pins could have pierced the thick skin of his ego. I could have told him that James, though he was older, knew things about women and sexual pleasure that would baffle him into a drooling fit of confusion and shame at his own lack of knowledge. I could have said that even if he and I were the only two people left out of our group, I still would not have sex with him. I could have said that James and I were strongly bonded and interested in no other people. In my case, I was especially not interested in horny little boys like him.
Words just would not satisfy my irritation, for once. So, I brought back my foot and kicked him with all the force I could summon right between his legs. The excruciating pain snatched the breath from his lungs. He fell to his knees with both hands clutching his wounded lower appendage. I should have felt slightly guilty for inflicting such agony. Instead I pushed him hard so that he fell backwards out of my room. I kicked both of his feet until his whole body was in the hallway. Then, I slammed the door shut and listened for a moment to him moaning in pain.
“Gross…” I whispered.
James came in a few minutes later, looking back over his shoulder in slightly amused confusion at the boy who was still lying on the floor.
“He made a pass at you?”
I nodded, my face displaying my disgust and annoyance.
“Kicked him in the balls?”
“Yes.”
James looked back at him as he writhed on the floor in pain still.
“Was he vulgar?”
“Very.”
“Good on ya.”
He closed the door.