Per Anum Ch. 08: Orientation

Sweat popped out all over my skin as soon as I stepped out of my car. Between the sun blazing down and the pavement radiating the heat back up, the parking lot was more like an oven. I grabbed my bags from the car and headed toward the dorm I had been assigned, thankful to reach the tree-shaded path between the building and the parking lot. The shade made it merely oppressively hot, rather than unbearably so, and carrying most of my worldly belongings did not improve the situation.

I was far from the only one struggling to deal with moving in during a record-breaking heatwave. Freshman orientation was scheduled for the entire week before classes officially began, and Mother Nature seemed determined to remind us all that the final week of August was assuredly still summertime. People carrying boxes, bags, and suitcases filled the sidewalks between the parking lot and the two dorms flanking it, all looking as sweaty and red-faced as I'm sure I was.

Speaking of sweaty...

I paused as I drew near the entrance to my new dorm. Standing sentinel at the doorway was a young man, a little older than me--probably an upperclassman--holding a clipboard and pointing people toward their destinations. Strikingly handsome, with the caramel skin and glossy black hair common to the Indian subcontinent, he wore only a loose pair of athletic shorts and flip-flops. He stood in a sunbeam, his chiseled upper body glistening with sweat. Droplets created gleaming constellations in the fan of dark hair across his chest.

I rolled my tongue back into my mouth and approached. Spotting me, he gave me a friendly wave and a smile, a flash of white in his tan face.

"Hi, are you looking for Carlisle Hall? That's this one here. Foster Hall is across the way, there." He had the barest hint of an accent, just enough to add a musical lilt to his words.

"Yes, I'm in Carlisle," I replied. "Second floor."

His grin broadened. "Oh nice! That's my floor! I'm Kabir, I'll be your RA." He offered his hand, and I had to put down a bag to shake it.

"I'm Greg," I said, and couldn't help but smile back. Realizing my eyes were wandering down his body again, I jerked them back up to his face. When he quirked an eyebrow, having obviously caught me mid-ogle, I got defensive. "I didn't realize it was a clothing-optional dorm."

His smile got a bit sheepish. "Yes, well, the building's air conditioning decided that move-in day, in the middle of a heatwave, was the ideal time to die on us. I think it's hotter inside than it is out here."

I winced. "That's...unfortunate. Any word on getting it fixed?"

He shrugged, a very distracting motion. "They're working on it now. Supposedly it'll be good to go by the end of the day. Until then, it was this--" he motioned to his shirtless torso, "--or heatstroke."

"Plus, it'll give all the teary-eyed moms something to think about other than their precious baby leaving home," I said, grinning.

He shuddered. "You think you're joking, but I've been dodging hungry cougars all day. As if the coeds weren't bad enough." As though to prove his words, a pair of college-age girls and a middle-aged woman passed us on the sidewalk, all three visibly ogling Kabir, who either didn't notice or was getting very good at pretending not to.

A guy who doesn't like coeds or cougars? That raised some intriguing possibilities...but I could try and suss out the sexual preferences of the hot RA later. I did still need to actually move in and everything.

"Speaking of," he said, visibly reorienting himself, "since you're on my floor, I should give you the speech." He started rattling off a list of dorm rules, campus policies and a bunch of other orientation-related minutiae in a rehearsed fashion that made it clear he'd given the same talk a hundred times today. As he spoke, he checked his clipboard, found my name, and retrieved a thick manila envelope with my name and room number on it from a box I hadn't noticed at his feet. "Your welcome packet has all the essentials: campus map, orientation event schedule, your class schedule, setup instructions for your student email, everything you'll need. Your room key is in there too."

He finally paused and took a breath, but continued before I could break in. "Speaking of your email, get that up and running today, because I'll be using it to send out dorm notices and announcements and stuff like that. Most urgently, every freshman resident gets a one-on-one meeting with their friendly neighborhood RA--" he smiled and pointed to himself, as though I might have forgotten-- "over the course of the week, just to make sure you're all settling in well and aren't having a nervous breakdown or anything. Those slots are randomly assigned, sorry, but I'll be sending out the schedule for it tonight, so be sure your email is ready."

"Will do," I said. I scooped up the bag I'd set down, and Kabir seemed to notice how much I was carrying for the first time.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Do you need help getting your stuff upstairs?"

"Nah, I'm fine," I said. "Point me to the stairs?"

"Sure, sure! Your room is on this end of the building, so take the stairs just inside and you should be right there. I think your roommate is already moved in, but I'm not sure if he stuck around here or not. Just yell if you need me."

I thanked him and headed inside. Sure enough, the stairs were right there, and entering the airless stairwell was like walking into a kiln. Kabir had not been joking about the heat building up inside. I staggered out into the second-floor hallway, pathetically grateful that there were open windows providing a meager bit of airflow. As he'd said, locating my room number was easy, only two doors down from the stairs, so I pulled out my new key and opened the door.

And froze.

The dorm itself was nothing special, just a rectangle with two twin beds, two desks, two dressers, and a window on the far end. What captured my attention was the young man sprawled on one of the beds, clad only in snug boxer briefs. He held one of those mist-spraying handheld fans and was running it up and down his well-toned body. Broad-shouldered with a lean swimmer's build, sandy-haired and square-jawed, my new roommate was worth taking a moment to appreciate. He had earbuds in and his eyes shut, which explained his lack of reaction to my entrance.

That makes two glistening, hot, half-naked guys in the first ten minutes on campus, I thought. Maybe this heatwave isn't so bad after all. Unfortunately, from the number of posters around his bed featuring bikini-clad models bending over motorcycles and sports cars, this one was thoroughly straight. As my grandfather always says, we all must bear the burdens life places upon us. At least the eye candy was good.

Before my appreciation of his damply gleaming body could get too pervy, I decided to do the decent thing and alert him to my presence. Closing the door got no response, so I dropped my duffel on the floor with a deliberately heavy thump that made him jerk up in surprise.

"Shit!" he yelped, yanking out his earbuds. "Damn, you scared me."

"Sorry," I said. "I'm Greg, your new roommate."

"Oh, of course!" he enthused, hopping up and coming over to shake my hand. "I'm Mike. Glad to meet you." He caught my gaze sliding down his body--I really need to quit doing that--and seemed to recall his state of undress. "Sorry about this, it's so hot in here, and..."

"No, it's fine, don't worry about it," I said placatingly. Can't have him thinking he needs to wear clothes all the time. "Honestly, I might join you in the no-pants club, I'm sweating like a pig." I pulled my shirt away from my sweat-sticky skin, flapping it a bit to try and get some air through. "Kabir said they'll supposedly have the AC running again by the end of the day."

Mike perked up. "Oh, you met Kabir? He seems cool, right?"

I nodded. "Absolutely. You hear horror stories about asshole RAs, but he seems like a decent guy." Not bad to look at, either, I added mentally.

I got unpacked and settled in over the next hour or so. Mike mostly "supervised," but contributed by spraying me with his mist fan every now and then, which was actually quite refreshing. Once I got my laptop set up, I got my student email account up and running. Sure enough, I soon received a message from Kabir listing out the schedule for the required meetings.

Mike leaned over my shoulder to see. I tried not think about how little he was wearing while he was that close to me. "Let's see," he murmured, "where...oh, there I am, Tuesday afternoon. I don't think that conflicts with any of the stuff on the orientation schedule they gave us..." He wandered over to his own desk and found the relevant document. "Nope, I'm good. When's yours?"

I kept scrolling down the list. And kept scrolling, and scrolling...and finally found myself at the very bottom. "Saturday night. The last possible slot."

Mike winced in sympathy. "Damn, that's rough. That'll be a problem if you want to go to the party."

I didn't know which party he meant, but it was the last weekend before classes began, so I had to assume there would be parties. I shrugged. "Not a big deal. I'm not really much of a partier anyway."

Mike grinned from where he was once more sprawled indolently on his bed. "Maybe not yet. We'll see about that." I could only roll my eyes.

The week passed in a whirlwind of campus tours, club fairs, overpriced textbooks, and awkward, contrived icebreakers. The building's ventilation did eventually cough back to life that first evening, but it remained hot enough during the week that Mike generally went shirtless at least while hanging around the dorm room, and often while outside as well. Whatever his faults, modesty was not among them. Not that I was complaining.

Saturday evening, after Mike got "dressed up" for whatever party he was attending in a polo shirt, cargo shorts and flip-flops--I elected not to comment--and departed, I made a few preparations of my own, just in case, and then headed down to the far end of the hall, where Kabir's room was. I'm meticulous about punctuality, and I knocked on his door at precisely the appointed time.

Kabir opened the door a moment later with a broad smile. "Greg, good to see you! And right on time, too. I like a man who can keep on schedule." Kabir was, alas, dressed this time, though the black tank top he wore did show off the lean musculature of his upper body well. "Come in and have a seat. There are a few things we need to go over but it should be relatively painless."

Kabir's room was unfairly both single-occupant and larger than the normal two-person dorms. Its position on the very end of the hallway allowed a wider footprint and three whole windows. There were the standard bed, desk, and dresser that seemed universal here, but the extra space meant he had room for a small loveseat and even a coffee table, which held a chessboard all set up. Quite a nice one, too, with real wood and metal fittings instead of cheap plastic and cardboard.

That comment about keeping on schedule was vindicated by the whiteboard that all but covered one wall, arranged as a weekly planner with notes about meetings and events all over it.

"Sheesh," I said, looking it over. "They really keep the RAs hopping around here."

Kabir chuckled. "True, but a lot of that is just these meetings for this week. Not that my schedule will be any lighter next week. Clubs, classes...I'm kind of an overdoer."

I snorted as I sat on the loveseat. "You're not kidding. When do you plan to have fun? I'm told there's supposed to be fun in college. Mike is adamant about it."

To my surprise, Kabir sat beside me, instead of at the desk on the other side of the coffee table as I'd expected. His smile was bright against his skin. "And how are things going with you and Mike? Roommate relations are one of the things I'm supposed to ask about in this little meeting."

Abruptly aware of how close we were sitting--do not think about the word 'relations' right now, Greg, no matter how good he smells--I had to clear my throat before I could answer with appropriate casualness. "We get along really well, so far. He keeps talking about all the 'chicks he's gonna bang' now that he's in college, but he seems like a mostly decent guy despite that."

Kabir's smile became rather more of a smirk than I'd thought him capable of. "So, a virgin then?"

I laughed. "Oh, for sure. Not that he'd admit it, of course."

Kabir nodded. "You might want to have a talk with him about that, before too much longer."

I blinked. "His...virginity?"

"Heh, no, I meant about all the chick-banging he plans to do. You should establish a room policy regarding sex, bringing people back to your room, all that. Odds are he'll manage it if he tries--I've seen him getting out of the shower--so you two should set some groundrules early. Good communication now will make things less awkward in the future."

That was actually a good suggestion, and a very RA thing to say...but I was too distracted by the idea of Kabir and Mike in the shower to give it much thought. Now there was a mental image.

Kabir kept the conversation going, obviously running down a mental checklist of "Things to Ask the Freshmen About," but he managed to make it seem like he actually cared about what major I was thinking of pursuing, whether I was able to find everything I needed on campus, all that sort of thing. Maybe he actually did care; he struck me as the sort of person who would.

"Well," he said, having clearly exhausted his prepared topics. "You seem like you're well prepared and know what you're doing. Any questions for me? Anything I can help with?"

"Just one," I said, and pointed at the chessboard on the table. "Is that just for show?"

He brightened immediately, which I hadn't thought was possible given how cheery he was at baseline. "Oh, not at all! I'm an avid chess player. Best game in the world!" He glanced at the dense schedule covering the wall. "I don't have a lot of time to play these days, though. Do you play chess?"

"A bit," I said, "I don't think I'd describe myself as 'avid,' or anything, but I've been known to play a game now and then." I took a closer look at the giant planner. "I don't have anywhere to be tonight, and your schedule seems to end with this meeting. If you want...?"

His grin was blinding. "Absolutely! That's a fantastic idea!" He pulled the coffee table closer to the loveseat, and placed the board so it would be in easy reach of us both. "As the host, I'll play black. You have the first move."

Wow, that escalated quickly. I'd never actually seen someone go from zero to avid that fast before. But, never let it be said that I'm one to back down from a challenge. I moved a pawn. "So what are we playing for?"

He moved his matching pawn, mirroring me. "What do you mean?"

I moved another pawn, a bit down the line and away from the first pair. "Can't have a proper game without stakes. What do I get if I win?"

He laughed and mirrored me again, matching my second pawn. "Cocky, are we? Who says you're going to win?"

I shrugged. "There's a nonzero probability. But that still begs the question: what do you get if you win, then?" I moved a bishop, taking one of the pawns he'd matched against mine. "First blood," I added with a smile.

"Only last blood matters," he shot back. He copied me again, using his own bishop to take out my pawn just as I'd done. What was he doing? What kind of weird mirror strategy was this? "And I don't know, what do you usually play for? Do you have something in mind?"

Oh, I knew what I wanted to make him do to me. Lots of ideas, in fact...too bad I could never actually suggest them. "Loser blows the winner?" Shit, did I say that out loud? From the strangled noise Kabir made, it seemed I had.

I opened my mouth to apologize, to claim I was joking, to say something, anything, but he beat me to it. "Your chess club must be very different from mine," he said, grinning again. He gave me a slow once-over, his eyes raking up and down my whole body, then nodded. "And...deal."

I stared. Wait, what? "As in, deal deal? Seriously?" My voice came out somewhat higher than usual.

His grin only widened. "It's your move." His smile had somehow transformed from friendly to something almost...hungry.

I stiffened my spine--okay, maybe there was some stiffness developing elsewhere too--and returned my focus to the game. If we were doing this, then I would at least do it well. I wasn't some chess expert, but I could hold my own.

I got slaughtered.

It wasn't even a contest. Once Kabir decided to take the game seriously, it became swiftly obvious that we weren't anywhere close to the same level as players. It took about five moves for me to realize I was hopelessly screwed--in more ways than one, thanks to my mouth making decisions without my brain.

"Mate in three," Kabir said. Now there was an apropos choice of words.

I nodded, the truth apparent. While I hate to lose in general, in this case, I wasn't that upset. I pushed the little table back away from the couch, making room, and slid to my knees on the floor in front of Kabir. His victorious expression grew conflicted as he realized what I was doing, his previous eagerness abruptly transforming into discomfort as the reality of the game's end set in.

"You don't actually have to...I mean, it was just a silly bet, we can forget the whole thing if you want. Don't feel like you have to do anything."

"If I didn't want to do it," I said, sliding my hands up his thighs toward his waistband, "I wouldn't have suggested it."

He caught my hands before I could pull his shorts down. "I'm your RA, I wouldn't want to take advantage. Seriously, we don't have to do this just over a dumb bet."

I looked up at him, curled my fingers through his waistband, just brushing his hot skin with my fingertips, and met his eyes.

Then licked my lips.

"On the other hand," he said, voice going a bit hoarse, "Fuck it." Lifting his hips off the loveseat, he helped me peel off his shorts and underwear. He was barefoot, so they came off easily, and I tossed them aside without really looking. My attention was entirely focused on what I'd revealed.

Kabir's cock was half-hard, visibly growing as I watched. His balls, clean shaven of the dark hair that curled in a neatly-trimmed patch above, hung low in the heat. I wrapped one hand around his twitching, thickening shaft and gave it a slow, squeezing stroke from root to head. Kabir made an "mmff" noise in his throat but didn't speak...until I leaned in to slide my tongue across his balls. Not that I understood what he groaned out--I think it was in Hindi--but the sentiment was clear enough.

Still slowly stroking his cock, which was getting harder by the second and rapidly approaching full mast, I gave his balls another slow lick and took them entirely into my mouth, sucking gently and toying with them using my tongue. Kabir quivered with every flick of my tongue against the sensitive underside of his scrotum, his hands reflexively clutching at the couch.

When I judged him fully hard, his cock grown thick and rigid as steel in my hand, I gave his balls a break and ran my tongue up the length of his shaft. Peeling back the foreskin, I wrapped my lips around the head and worked my tongue against that little spot just beneath it. Kabir gasped, his head lolling back, and he moved his hands to my head, tangling his fingers in my hair. Not pushing, but rather guiding, his hands rode my head down as I swallowed as much of his length as I could. His thickness made a real deepthroat functionally impossible at that angle, at least without a lot more practice--I've never been much good at it--but the groan that was wrung out of Kabir's chest made the effort worthwhile.

Retracting slowly, I swallowed him down again, and again, moving faster and faster. I was only taking about half his length at a time, but Kabir didn't seem to mind; I could hear his ragged panting growing rougher as I bobbed faster and faster. One of his hands stayed on my head, but he moved the other to the armrest of the loveseat, fingers spastically clamping on the fabric. I kept my own hands on him, one wrapped around the base of his shaft and the other toying with his balls.