Chapter 13: Getting into the Routine

Tuesday, I have the same class schedule times as yesterday, just different courses. In college, you attend a specific course only 2 or 3 days of the week, not Monday through Friday, like in high school.

Alex’s first class of the day starts at 9:00 am, like mine, but he would rather sleep till the last possible minute before he has to leave. I wake up at 6:00 am and make coffee. I’m finding that getting up early is getting easier for me, I would like it to become my routine. Next, it’s down to the Fitness Room for a work-out with Rachel and Chad and then a shower.

My morning course is Economics 101 with Professor Havelina. The class made a juvenile snicker about of her name considering she is a rather large woman. A javelina, (pronounced, “hav-eh-leena”) is a wild, pig-like animal. Although they are technically not in the pig-family, they have a similar wild-boar look to them. The animal is common to the Southwestern United States, Mexico and Central America. Professor Havelina did not find any humor in the childish giggling, I’m sure this is not new to her.

I, once again, have 2-hours between classes to eat lunch. I went back to the cool cafeteria in the Halsig Center and utilized the large Study Area. Setting aside this time to get started on my homework seems like it will be a good mid-day plan that works for me.

At 1:00 pm, I have Philosophy 101 with a Professor named Mr. Janks and his Student Aide teacher, Miss Dovey (like “lovey-dovey” okay, enough with the funny names). This is a very large class, there must be 200, or more, students in here. We meet in a large auditorium-style classroom in the Brockwell Building.

I’m sure you are wondering about some of my classes such as Economics and Creative Writing; how do they apply to my Psychology Major? Everyone must take certain base-courses the University deems requirements for whatever your major is. Starting in my second year, I will have more courses and electives directed specifically to Psychology.

I returned to the dorm at 3:30 and let myself into our room. Alex has Zach over and they are deep into a game of Magic. “Oh, hey there, Kyle,” they say, as I enter.

“Hey, guys. How’s it going?”

“Great! Zach and I were just playing a little Magic.”

“I see that. Don’t mind me, I’m just going to climb up on my bunk and get some reading done for my Economics Class.”

“Do you want us to take our game out to the lounge?”

“No, no, you guys are fine.”

The game isn’t loud or anything, I don’t care if they want to play in here. Okay, let’s see, we have, The Theory of Balanced Economics to dig into, sounds like a real page-turner I have here ... yeah, right.

I hear Zach talking to Alex, “So, yeah, like I was saying, you should totally ask her.”

“Man, I don’t know. I get so nervous, nervous even thinking of asking a someone out.” Alex tells him.

“Everyone does. But look at it this way, how often do we see girls who are into Magic? I don’t know about where you’re from, but there’s, like, zero girls who were into it at my high school.”

“Yeah ... that’s how it was for me too.”

“So, go for it.”

“What about you? Why don’t you ask her out?” Alex asks him.

“I told you, I have a girlfriend back home, or I would in a New York Minute.”

What are they talking about? Does Alex already have a girl he’s set his eye on? I lean over the rail of my loft, “What are you guys talking about?”

Zach looks up, “There’s this girl, Gail, she’s in our Magic Club. Alex here, is planning on asking her out.”

Alex looks up, “Remember, Kyle, I told you about her the other night?” I nod, I vaguely remember now. Then to Zach, he says, “And, I did not say I was going to ask her out.”

“Why not? She’s all you’ve been talking about since the meeting on Saturday.”

“No, I haven’t ... Well, maybe a little...”

“How about I put in a good word for you?” Zach offers.

Alex let’s out a loud sigh, “Look, I’ll think about it, okay? Can we get back to the game now?”

I return to the e-textbook on my laptop. Personally, I think it would be good for Alex to ask this girl out if he can work up his confidence, but that’s something he needs to figure out on his own.

I spend the rest of the afternoon and into the evening getting my homework done, I have two, 8-page assignments due tomorrow. By the time I finish, my brain is beyond exhausted. I tell Alex I’m going to sleep. He wants to stay-up and play on the X-Box for a little while; he’s says he’ll keep the volume down.

As I’m about to fall off to sleep, Alex asks me, “What do you think I should do, Kyle?”

“Do about what?” I mumble.

“Gail. Should I ask her out?” he says, focused on his game, leaning into a tricky move with controller.

“Sure, why not? Can’t hurt to ask.”

“Like, what should I ask her to go do with me?”

“Well, you know she likes Magic. Ask her if she’s ever been to that Game and Card Store.”

“Yeah ... That’s a pretty good idea. Thanks.”

“No problem. I gotta get some sleep now, Alex.”

“Okay, ‘night, Kyle.”

As I drift off, I hear him quietly rehearsing to himself, “Hey, did you know there’s a really awesome card shop in town?”, “Say, Gail, have you been to that cool card shop on Main Street?”, “I’m going to this game and card shop, do you maybe wanna go with...”

Good luck with that, Alex, I’m out...

During my morning work-out with Rachel and Chad, I keep the volume of my music down on my earbuds so I can listen in on them talking without being obvious. I’m picking up that, maybe, they are not exactly boyfriend/girlfriend, just good friends. It’s the topics they talk about and ask each other, not exactly the sort of things a couple in a relationship normally would discuss. The clincher was when Rachel was asking him about how it went some girl named Suzy that Chad seems to like.

Hmmm ... perhaps Rachel is not seeing anyone? I’ll admit, I wouldn’t mind if she would like to hang out with me sometime. For now, I’ll just play it cool and see what develops.

I turn in my assignments for both my Gen-Psych and Creative Writing classes. In turn, I was given an equal amount of new homework.

Before returning to the dorm, I take a ride out to Wal-Mart to pick up some black pants and black tennis shoes that I’ll need for work.

I’ll wear these new pants and shoes to my classes tomorrow, so I can go straight from there to the Milverton Marketplace. I definitely do not want to be late for my first day. I have the feeling that if I was, Mr. Curtis would replace me in a heartbeat and jobs for college students are hard to come by in this town.

More commotion in the hall on the 4th Floor at Room 408. As I approach, I see Adam with Mr. Metallica and his roommate, they are pissed about something.

“Look what some assholes did!”

Their door is open and it looks like several huge garbage bags worth of shredded paper was dumped all over their room; millions of tiny strips, about three feet deep. Adam has a good laugh and starts to walk away, “Well, guys, I guess you have a mess to clean.”

“What? That’s it? You’re not going to do anything?” they whine.

“Do you know who did it?” Adam asks.

“No, but you could find out?”

“Not likely, I don’t know any more than you two do. Look, no real harm is done here, it’s just a prank. Someone probably got tired of your loud music, that’s all.”

I can’t stifle it any longer and laugh out loud, it looks like a huge paper-shredder barfed all over their room. They notice me laughing, I back up and put my hands up like, hey, don’t look at me, I had nothing to do with it, and continue on to my room.

“Here we go again,” I mutter to myself as I enter the room and find Alex’s dirty clothes strewn all over the place again. Of course, this picture wouldn’t be complete without the filthy underwear, stained yellow in the front and brown in the back. I think I would have rather walked into the room filled with shredded paper at this point. I kick the offending underpants under his bed, they now join the pair I kicked under there last week.

I also notice there is getting to be quite a collection of his half-eaten bags of chips and candy wrappers everywhere. Maybe Renee is right, I need to have a little talk with Alex about a little courteous housekeeping when sharing a room. He should know better, he said he shares a room with three brothers back home, unless they all are like him and not bothered by it.

When Alex returned in the evening, he scooped up his clothes and threw them on his growing pile of dirty laundry in the corner. “Sorry about that, Kyle, I woke up late and almost missed my morning class.”

“Maybe you should get up when I get up? I make coffee first thing.”

“Yeah, wake me up when you get up, okay, dude?”

In the middle of the night, I hear Alex jerking-off in his bed again. I think he’s done this every night since we’ve been here. Don’t get me wrong, I get it, lord knows, I’ve jerked my own plenty of times in my life, but I haven’t tickled my tube once since I left home. It just would be too awkward for me to do that when I think he’s sleeping. Look at how many times he’s thought I was sleeping and wasn’t. I’ll just wait for a day when I know he’s going to be out for a while.

When I wake up, the first thing I notice is that it looks quite a bit lighter in the room than the last few mornings. I check the time on my phone, it’s 8:20 am. Oh shit! I forgot to set my alarm last night. If I hurry, I might have just enough time for a quick shower and make it to my 9:00 am Economics Class on time.

I hop down and shake Alex awake, “Alex, Alex, get up! I overslept! It’s 20 after eight!”

“Huhh?” he rolls over and mumbles, “Oh, it’s fine, I don’t normally get up till 8:30.”

He sits up and gets a smirk on his face, he’s looking at something. I look down and see that I’m sporting some impressive, morning-wood, it’s making my sleep pants poke straight out. I quickly turn away, embarrassed...

He laughs, “It’s okay, Dude, happens to me all the time.” He flicks his thumb towards my bed, “Hop back up there and take care of it. It’s no big deal, I take care of myself whenever the need arises.” Yeah ... I know that all too well...

“Uhh ... I’ll be okay ... but, thanks ... I’m gonna take a shower.” I say, grabbing my shower tote and a towel.

“Kyle, if you ever need to spank the ‘ol monkey, you go right ahead and feel free, it won’t offend me in the least. You don’t grow up sharing a room with three bothers and not run across that from time to time, trust me.”

I know he means well and I appreciate that, but talk about coming from different worlds. It’s no wonder he’s so open about taking care of himself whenever the urge hits. Call me old fashioned, but pleasuring myself is something definitely I prefer to do in private. I’m not really sure what to say here, but I go with, “Thanks, Alex, ... for, you know ... being cool about it.”

He gives me a thumbs-up. This is a tad on the awkward side, but honestly, he was cool about it. He could have easily embarrassed me further by making some stupid comment along the lines of. Whoa, Dude! You happy to see me, or is that a pickle in your pants?”

Can’t dwell on it now, I have things to get done.

Shower done - Check!

New pants and shoes on for work this afternoon - Check!

Backpack loaded-up with laptop, homework and books - Check!

Open invitation to masturbate whenever I need to - Check!

Okay then, let’s get this day going.

My Philosophy 101 Class ends at 3:00 and I ride to Milverton Marketplace. I see a guy in his mid-thirties gathering shopping carts in the parking lot. I walk over, “Hi, I’m supposed start work here today. I’m looking for Mr. Emerson?”