LCU, landslide, part 3.5

November 2083 - LCU, fall semester (part 3.5 of 4) - Vicky Garth and Summer Phoenix are 19, April Hutchins and Beau Jackson are 20. (Corbin Gray is 33.) * soundtrack for all parts, "Landslide," by Fleetwood Mac *

Vicky actually waited until three months after the legal drinking age to have her very first drink. April made it for her, a sex on the beach. She didn't taste the vodka so much going down, but it she sure did feel it in her head about ten minutes later. It wasn't that she was afraid, or opposed, or even prudish. It was mostly that she just hadn't even realized she was old enough finally. 

She's spent much of her young life in her head, and these past few years, her head has been a very angry and solitary place. It only dawns on her now that she had made a real and actual friends back home. It dawns on her now because she misses them. Blair and George had become something of foster brothers, since they all bunked with the same family the last four years. She remembers the way she and Blair would sneak out in the nights, to sit underneath the buzzing streetlights and talk, which was the only way they could escape the sounds of George and Blossom loving it up upstairs. It wasn't exactly unpleasant - they had a lot to talk about. 

It was a strange adolescence, but Vicky's four years with George and Blossom and Blair were largely happier than the combined lifetime of being shuffled around between boarding schools and extended family and occasional frigid phone calls from her birth parents. All this time, she's been so bitter that she hadn't stopped to realize she'd made some actual friends, and something of a strange little family.

The way she's been jaded, it would be easy for her to convince herself that this quick alliance with April was just some kind of setup, like those movies where she'd be befriended as a dare, while all along they're just laughing behind her back. She's only known April for three months, but she hasn't been tricked into doing any science projects, and she doesn't have any friends April might want to date, and she can't begin to imagine how else she's being used, if that's the case. Vicky is damn tired of being so skeptical all the time. The anger is exhausting. 

 So when April calls one afternoon, saying she and Beau are headed to the gym and invites her to come along for some boy-watching, Vicky tosses aside her skepticism and agrees that it would be a lot of fun. Then when she says Summer is meeting them in a little bit to workout, she begins to wonder if this is really a very good idea, hanging out with the friends of a girl she hates. She isn't sure if Summer and April are even friends with each other lately. 

Vicky asks her, "Do you even like to work out?" 

"No," she says. "I kind of hate it. I just like to see everybody all hot and sweaty."

 

Beau takes a shot at the hoop. The ball doesn't even make contact with the rim, or the backboard for that matter. It flies right past. 

"I thought we were here for boy-watching," Vicky says. "It's just Beau and he's kind of bad at it." 

"I know," April says. "That's what makes it so adorable." 

"Hmmm," Vicky says. April takes a moment of appreciation.

 

They go upstairs to the fitness room once Summer arrives. Vicky sits on one side of April, Summer sits on the other. Summer doesn't talk when she's working out, she's all focus. Vicky can hold her own on the bike, but they've barely done six minutes when April, huffing and puffing, climbs off of hers having barely broken a sweat. 

"Check that out," she says. 

Vicky climbs down too.

 

"Professor Gray is teaching today," April says. "He's the new health and fitness instructor this semester. Isn't he divine?" 

"Now this is some boy-watching," Vicky says. 

"Man-watching, honey," April says. "This is man watching." 

He pushes forward the chest press with controlled precision, his face tense but serene. 

"I've never seen anything like him," Vicky says. 

"That's because all you've seen are the boys of Lakeside Heights High School. We should go talk to him." 

"Can we do that?" 

"He has to talk to us," April says. "He's like, our teacher. This is what we're paying tuition for!"

 

Vicky says, "Isn't he's kind of old?" 

"Old!?" April shrieks. "What's too old? I've had them older than that! He's a baby!" 

Summer comes off of her bike then. "He's not as hot as Tyler," she says. 

"No, maybe not," April says. "Tyler is pretty hot."

 

Summer's face morphs into disgust. "You didn't!" 

"What?" 

"Oh God," Summer says. "I'm gonna throw up." 

"What?" 

"You and Tyler?" 

"No," April says. "Man, I wish." 

Vicky isn't really listening to them. Summer and April carry on behind her like background noise. She can't take her eyes off of him, Professor Gray, as he instructs another student on the weight machine. She's never seen anything like him. She's like a newborn woman, just opening her eyes for the first time, and she finally sees the world, full of beautiful, plentiful men!

 

When Vicky turns back to them again, Summer has stormed off to the punching bag and winds up for a swing. 

"What, you're mad? It was just a kiss." April folds her arms over her chest in a huff. "That's why I didn't screw him, geeze!" 

Summer takes a hard, perfect swing, just about eye-level. 

"Come on," April says to Vicky.

 

Never in her life would Vicky have had the courage to approach a man like him, and say anything at all, but somehow next to April she can. Partially because if she doesn't, April will anyway, so it's simply inevitable. 

"Hi," Vicky says. 

April springs to her side, wrapping an arm around Vicky's back, grinning like the goofball she is. "Hi there," she says to him. 

"Are you girls okay?" he asks. "Can I help you with something?" 

"Oh, yes," April says. "I think we could use some help with our form." 

They erupt into wild laughter. He doesn't seem amused, but Vicky is honestly having too much fun to care.

   

For a moment she's having fun. Because then he asks her to take the first turn at the bench. She strains against the weight, and she hopes her deodorant is still working. April stands beside her, drooling. 

"You might want to watch her," he says. "So you know how it goes?" 

Vicky wishes April had gone first, because she has no muscles and knows she just looks ridiculous. Not that it would matter. Not that he would even notice them one way or another, ridiculous or not, deodorant still working or not. But just the way he placed his hand on her back to straighten her posture. Professors shouldn't be allowed to be this hot. How is she supposed to learn anything when her teacher is so hot?

   

When it's finally April's turn, instead of going for the weight machine, she comes around the side of it toward him. Vicky looks on with horror. She's really going to do it, isn't she? She usually does. There's something about her, the perkiness, the smile, the bubbly laugh, that usually wins them over. Vicky is learning a lot about flirting with men in these past few months, not by practice, but by simple observation. She's learning what to do, and what not to do, when it works, and just as often in April's case, when it doesn't. 

"Corbin," April says. "Can I call you Corbin?" 

"You can call me Professor Gray," he says. 

"Right," she says. "Do you give private sessions?" 

"No," he says. 

"Okay, well maybe not for me," April says. "But what about my friend here?"

 

"I'm here to show you how to use the weight machine," he says, thrusting out his finger, like he was warding off a rabid animal. "I'm sure you mean well," he says. "But I'm not here to solicit... private sessions." 

Vicky is mortified. If she had it her way, she'd run off and hide for a few years over something like this.

   

"Heh," April chuckles as he walks off. "Sounds like he hasn't had enough private sessions lately." 

Vicky expected her to be mortified, but she isn't. She just shrugs it off like it was nothing. Like it was an accident. Like she simply dropped something insignificant on the floor, and picked it back up again. Vicky hardly knows April yet, but there's just something that she's drawn to, even enough to put up with Summer from time to time. There's something about her that's inspiring. Every time she gets knocked down, she stands right back up. She always manages to bounce.

   

Bounce back. It's a lesson Vicky could stand to learn. Bounce back, for crying out loud, it's been three years! Dallas hasn't spoken to her, a full conversation, since the day he was breaking up with her. She doesn't know what he would have said, that he was sorry, that he actually did care for a minute? And now he's halfway across the globe, and engaged, apparently. It's not fair, maybe. Life doesn't give you the answers you need sometimes. You want one simple thing, an apology, a reason why, but it's impossible, because he's not going to give it. You have to give yourself closure, you take the answers where you find them, and you let yourself bounce.

   

There's no one here with her in the shower, but in her head, Professor Gray is here. In her mind she would toss off her insecurities the way April does, and she would kiss him. He would be so strong and experienced, built like a man and not like the boys she's known. There would be breathing and shower mist, slippery skin and warmth. It wouldn't matter that she was fumbling because he'd show her everything she needed to know. She's lived a lot of her young life in her head, thinking about all the ways things should have turned out. She's had lots of these fantasies, both the ordinary and the extraordinary, all of the multitudes of ways she probably won't lose her virginity.

   

So in the shower mist, alone with her thoughts, letting her fingers wander over her skin, she fills her mind with his body as she reaches down between her own thighs. Naked and wet, skin flushed and eager, today she'll imagine her first time was with Professor Gray. Tomorrow it could be anybody, anywhere. Some day, it will even happen for real. The only thing she knows for certain is that when it does happen, it won't be with Dallas Deppiesse. She washes her hands of that one. Finally, as new and exciting and endless thoughts fill her mind, she lets Dallas out.

 

*******

(footnotes: part 1, part 2, part 3 // do you guys remember Blair and George and Blossom? // about how things don't last // Vicky's beef) 

  notes: I added Vicky's info to the database. I'm not really committing to playable/non-playable very strictly anymore. She's interesting to write about, and adds lovely dimension to my story, lol! So I'll write about her, until I've finished whatever story she wants to tell. 

So, Vicky Garth is a scorpio, likes to read and wants to be a doctor when she grows up. She doesn't like to talk about her family history, but only that her parents "sent her away" to attend school in Lakeside Heights. She's always liked the smart, kind, charming type of guys, and she can finally say, with honesty, that Dallas Deppiesse is not the only one. I'm hesitant to let her even think about Corbin too much since she gets attached so easily, and he's just not available to her in that way. I don't think anybody wants to see her hung up for another four years on yet another hopelessly unavailable man, lol! 

So yes, I used him. Corbin got used! He's having a sucky couple of weeks, lol!