I said. "But it's just the first week of the quarter."
"Yes, the first week," Mom said. "After we moved you in last weekend, he went back to the trailer."
"Oh."
About thirty minutes of small-talk later, Mom dumped the Right-Guard cap she'd appropriated as an ashtray into my waste basket. Gathering up purse, cigarettes and garment bag she told me not to bother walking her out. Of course I did, though.
For a while I'd been grounded in the world of the normal. The world of Moms and folded laundry from home.
On returning to my room however It didn't take long to slip fully back into the world of the present and the outre. That girl of whom I've spoken and had tried emulating earlier, came out to present herself over my half-hearted protests. Pay attention to me! she said.
How would it feel to be treated like a girl? I wondered, perhaps not entirely knowing beforehand what such treatment might entail.
At other times in my life I'd have set such thoughts aside with but a cursory glance or perhaps a scowl of disgust, but this evening I must try at least to get my toes wet if only for a brief time.
Now I must remark on the evening in question. As I've said it had been an hot afternoon and the sultry evening hung somewhat oppressively over us. It was permeated by the scent of garden flowers coming through the windows from the campus, and that of decades-old polishing wax redolent from within the building. I was what my mother would call sticky hot. I longed to plunge myself into a stream or ambient pool. There were swimming pools available of course but the trek necessary to get to the Inter-mural Athletics building overrode the anticipation of being in that humid, chlorinated water. I opted instead for a tepid shower, emerging from the bathroom clad only in a towel and made as if to get dressed. In mid-reach to my top drawer I hesitated.
I had Ellen's gift in my desk. I'd examined them cursorily but had done no more because frankly I was somewhat afraid that she'd want them back or ask me what I'd done with them so they'd remained folded in the neat square at the front, left corner of my second desk drawer down where I kept my cassette tapes.
I pulled out the drawer.
Spreading the panties out I found they were rather worn but definitely serviceable. They were the sort of nylon material my sisters generally wore. The waistband was a thin elastic filament running through a seam at the top. They were a bikini style with a figure, perhaps a bird or flower? embroidered on the left front. I wished I'd asked Ellen what color they were. Well as she had said herself, I was still "exploring."
I dropped the towel and stepped into the panties. They were snug, and felt warm against my skin. Everything felt warm against my skin tonight. I pulled on some cutoffs and one of my button-up shirts. Feeling mysterious and quite naughty, I turned some music on low and laid back on my bed with my arms under my head, sort of wishing that I'd been walked in on while dressing, but no such luck. I'd worn panties many times before but this time it was different. For one thing they weren't something borrowed from one of my sisters or Mom. They were mine!
The phone rang in the hall. Nobody else seemed intent on getting it so I caught the receiver on the fourth ring. "Hi," I said, Cluster by the North elevator, Third floor. Dave speaking."
"Dave?"
"Yeah. Hi. What can I do you out of."
"This is Gary- Gary Campbell?"
Gary and I had been down at State School together back when I was in sixth and seventh grades. Now he was the other CBE (Conspicuous Blind Engineer) at the university.
"Congratulations," I said.
"Yeah," Gary responded. "How's it going?"
"Okay. I'm on my way to bed pretty soon. though. Anything special?"
"Yeah," Gary said. "There's a guy named Lee whose also in Double- E. He's a grad student. We're thinking about starting a group to look at technical issues for blind students. We wondered if you'd like to join us."
I thought about it. I normally didn't spend a lot of time with blind groups but there certainly was a lot of stuff needing solutions, for those of us both blind and technical. "I guess so," I
said. "Where and when?"
"We're getting together for lunch at the Hub tomorrow," Gary said. "Would noon work for you?"
"How bout twelve fifteen," I said "I have to come down from upper campus and got class till twelve.
"Okay. See ya' then."
"Yeah, later."
Duncan had disappeared shortly after announcing my mother and didn't get back in till about ten. I seldom went to bed before midnight myself--just didn't always admit it. I busied myself with class notes, waiting for undressing sounds to issue from his side of the room, then the groan of Duncan's mattress before I began taking my clothes off. I'd thought of undressing slowly, playing the temptress, but I didn't know how long it would be before he would switch off the light. I hung my pants over my desk chair, added my shirt, skinned my undershirt over my head and stood there in just my bikinis.
There was no comment from Duncan and as there was relatively little involved in getting ready for bed I found myself climbing inexorably in, much sooner than I'd planned. there seeming to be nothing else to delay me I pulled up the sheet, not a little let down. I considered for a couple of minutes, keeping quiet, listening for any sound Duncan might make then "Duncan, are there some papers on the corner of my desk over toward you?"
"Yes," he said. "There are some braille papers I guess they must be, right at the corner."
"Thanks," I said. "I need them for class tomorrow so I'd better put them in my pack." (His lamp must still be on or at least sufficient moonlight light from the window.) I slithered out of bed, walked to the aforementioned corner of my desk which took me much closer to Duncan's side of the room and his bed. Holding the papers, I turned in the direction which would present me full frontal toward him.
"Oh yes," Duncan said, laying a little extra stress on the yes syllable but not much. I stood there a moment longer. Nothing more was said so "Goodnight." I offered.
"Sweet dreams."
I got back into bed.
More dreams.
***
"Today," Dr. Mitchell began, "We'll talk about group identity and how group cohesion arises from the extent to which the individual values membership in a given group, organization, society." Mitchell went on to describe fraternity initiations, sports tryouts, military boot camp.
A unit of marine recruits" he said, "not only find training physically difficult but their sergeant subjects them to a systematic harassment deliberately calculated to cause each member of the unit to intensely hate said sergeant and in sharing this hatred the group of recruits is welded into a solid unit that little if anything can sever, or so the theory goes. Hardship is piled upon hardship and the trained Marine private emerges with an intense loyalty not only to his comrades, his platoon mates; but to the Corps generally."
Someone slid into the vacant seat next to me. "I'm John," the someone said. "Have I missed much?"
Obviously me telling
