Chapter 4: The Tour

Phillip wearily followed Emma Frost out of the brightly lit elevator inside Xavier's School for Gifted Children on to the 2nd floor of the large mansion that posed as a school.

"Really, you are in excellent health as well as physically fit. The tests showed that your lung capacity is well above average, but your breathing is not. It looks like that you hold your breath too much.

You need to breathe more evenly when you are exercising."

But Phillip barely heard his new Assistant Headmistress, due to the extensive and unorthodox physical exam he completed, all he wanted was to lie down and go to sleep.

Following the Assistant Headmistress from the main hallway and into the western wing of the school, Phillip was again impressed with the décor of the whole school. Lots of dark wood work on the wall, large open hallways with numerous potted plants propagated throughout and any where there was a large enough open space you would find large, sturdy leather couch or chairs with end tables and the prerequisite reading lamp.

"You will receive a complete tour in the morning Phillip but for now this is the West Wing, which is divided by two hallways with the main uni-bathroom occupying the space between the two hallways. My room is right here on the first left as you enter the West Wing and your room is straight ahead, facing the main hall, along the 2nd hallway. The room just pass my suite off to the left is the West Wing Common Room. Now let's go introduce you to your new roommate."

Phillip noticed some of the students sticking their head out of the Common Room, including Rusty, the red headed boy, whom he waved to as he followed Ms. Frost who was knocking on the door she had pointed out as being his new room. The person that opened the door surprised Phillip because not only was it not a male student, it was the shy blonde he had met when he first arrived at the school and who he realized, constantly hid her eyes with her bangs hanging down in front.

"Sally, I want to thank you for being willing to share a room with Phillip. Please do your best to make him feel welcomed." Sally nodded her head but kept her eyes glued to the floor, "Now tomorrow, after breakfast, you are excused from your normal morning duties to give Phillip the complete tour of the school and it's grounds, and then after lunch," turning to face him, "Phillip, you will see the Professor and I about nailing down your curriculum and what goals we will expect of you and then you should be able to join the rest of the Year Three students, of which Sally is one." After Phillip nodded his discernment to Ms. Frost, she took her leave.

"There you go. Both of you have a nice night and be sure to get some sleep," saying with a wink as she closed the door.

'What was that wink for? Is Sally supposed to do something with me like she did downstairs?' A confused Phillip asked himself. Turning around, the first thing he noticed was that the dorm room was not like any dorm he had heard of. First of all the size of the room was large, easily 10 meters by 10 meters. The walls had a lighter wood paneling and there was 2 large picture frame windows along the west wall that were 2 ½ meters wide, going up to the 4 meter high ceiling.

Sally had quietly moved to her side of the room, along the east wall, sitting on her canopy bed, which had a night stand on both side and a large armoire and a long dresser was along the north wall, with her final piece being a matching desk sitting caddy-corner to the long dresser along the west wall, all in a light crème stain that matched the wall woodwork. Along the south wall was Phillip's bed room set, a platform bed, supported underneath by two dressers at each end and a desk fitted comfortably under. There was an armoire for him along the west wall between the two windows, flanked by shelf units. Phillip was fairly sure the armoire was for him since it matched his platform bed's darker wood stain. In front of his desk he saw his luggage.

Turning to face his new roommate, who had yet to say anything or even look him in the eye, Phillip decided it was time to be tactful.

"Uhmm, Sally, is it? You don't look too keen on my being here. Would you rather I asked for different arrangements? I mean, hell, there is plenty of couches in this place that are plenty big enough for me to crash on if there is no other rooms available."

Sally finally looked up at Phillip, showing him that she had crystal green eyes, giving him a quarter of a smile, "Thank you for the offer, but when the other bed set was removed this afternoon, Ms. Frost called me into her office to explain why she was assigning you my room. And it is ok, I understand her reasoning, I am just not real comfortable with it, but those are my issues. You seeing me undressed in here would be no different than seeing me in the uni-sex bathrooms and honestly, I think it will be ok to have a roommate."

Trying to lighten the mood Phillip responded jovially, "Wow! When I asked that question, I was sort of expecting a 'Yes' or 'No' type answer, not the Gettysburg Address!"

Shocked by his response, Sally started to speak and then couldn't help smiling, "real funny there bucko".

Getting the response he was looking for, Phillip walked across the room, which caused Sally to stand with a guarded expression on her face, and held out his hand, saying genuinely, "Hi, I am Phillip and it looks like we will be roomies and that is just fine for me."

Looking Phillip in the eyes, "You know, I have been dreading your coming up here all afternoon and evening, thank you for not making my fears come true. As to shaking your hand, well, I have this power I can't shut off and it generates a field around my body that will kind of prevent us from succeeding in clasping our hands." With a shrug, "Thanks for the offer though".

At first gawking at his mistake, Phillip eventually lowered his hand with an embarrassed look on his face, and then changed it to a more inquisitive look, "Uhmm, if you don't mind me asking?"

After smirking slightly and looking downward and then back at Phillip, "Sure, go ahead."

"Well, uhmm, how do you, uhmm, you know, get dressed?" Phillip stammered with his face going red again.

"Heh, that is a good one. Only, I don't know, it is like my power knows when I want something like food or drink or clothes, it doesn't impede me, but I can't touch anyone, no matter how much I try, nor can I be hurt physically. Also the field that I generate is frictionless, so I don't touch the floor either and that allows me to slide along the floor real fast, which is why they call me 'Skids'."

Nodding but still not understanding all the way, "So how do you stop if you don't touch the ground and you are frictionless? Turning your foot sideways like a skier wouldn't work because it still wasn't touching the ground and would still be frictionless."

"Yeah, I am not really sure about that one. The Professor seems to think I subconsciously turn off the frictionless field when I want to stop. But I am not so sure. And you, what is your mutant ability?"

Shrugging, "You know, I am not sure really, right now it isn't much at all, it is sort of similar to yours though. All I can do right now is hold my two hands together and a field, for lack of a better word, keeps the hand from touching. The field though, feels the same as if each hand was a magnet of opposite polarity, no matter how I strain, when I concentrate on the field, I can't get my hands to touch."

"Wow, that IS very similar to mine, but I have learned to concentrate to allow my hands to touch. Do you have a field around your body too, or does the Professor think your hands will be used to project that magnetic field?"

Shaking his head and looking down, "Honestly, I don't know. What I do know is that anytime I generate that field, I get a killer headache. A headache so bad, it leaves me quivering in a fetal position."

"Yeah, I remember getting the headaches too, the Professor said that was my brain recognizing the switch to turn my mutant ability on as well as the power itself coming online, or some mumbo-jumbo like that."

"Man, tell me about it, now I am not a masochist, so I started to read up on yoga and other relaxation type exercises, they don't help squat with the headaches once I get one, but they help a lot so I don't get get... <yawn> ... sorry, them. Well, I don't know about you, but I am ready for some sleep." Turning and going back to his area to pull out his carry-on bag that contained all of his toiletries, "The restroom is in the middle right? Any door?"

"The Uni-sex restroom is in the middle, yeah, toilets at each end, then sinks and showers in the middle. It is still kind of early, most of us stay up a couple of more hours still and generally hang out in the common room, but that can get kind of wild and rowdy."

Stifling another yawn, "Thanks but I am done for the night. Gonna brush the teeth and try out that bed. I have never had a platform bed, or slept so high off the ground."

"Yeah, it is funny how we girls get a complete bedroom set; six pieces total and the guys get one large utilitarian piece and an additional armoire. Still, I don't think I have heard any of the guys complain that they were slighted. Well, that is not true, Doug did, but then that is Doug."

With a, "gotcha", Phillip opened the door, saw the main hallway in front of him, the common room on the far right hand side, obviously occupied, because he could he some cheering going on inside and turned to his left to go down that hallway to the unisex bathrooms. Inside he saw no one else, so he brushed his teeth and emptied his bladder before returning to his room. When he got there, Sally was gone, probably to the common room he thought, and he quickly stripped out of his clothes, pulling a pair of thin plaid, blue and grey, pajama bottoms from his main bag. He had six more of the same bottoms, each with emblem of the Xavier School for Gifted Children on the left thigh. He also received two hooded zipper sweatshirts, but curiously to him, no t-shirts.

Sally had left on her desk lamp, which was the only light shining after he turned off the overhead light and running lights. Climbing up the small ladder on side of the dresser closest to the door, Phillip settled in to his new bed. The down comforter blanket with the schools emblem on it would not be needed, so he pushed it towards the wall side of the bed, the sheets and pillow felt new, but did not smell new, indeed, their smell was odorless and yet very fresh smelling and soft. Phillip was sure that he had never sleep in such a comfortable bed before and was eager to try the bed out, but his thought of what expired with Emma Frost earlier rang out in his head.

She quickly learned his greatest secret and fear and tried to pass it off as normal. Normal maybe Phillip thought but he still wasn't so sure.

A noise jerked Phillip's eyes awake. Someone was in the room. 'Sally', it finally dawned on him. Phillip didn't even realize he had fallen asleep so quickly, turning his head away from the wall, Phillip was able to distinguish Sally from the light given off by the lamp on her desk. She was apparently mumbling to herself as she threw off her shoes. At first Phillip thought he was spying on his roommate and that he should turn back over to and go back to sleep, but he also knew that as a roommate, she was going to have to accept his presence, but the main reason Phillip couldn't stop watching Sally was because Phillip was curious.

Phillip's mother died before he got to know her and Phillip had no other siblings. Phillip's father did not deem to remarry and never brought any of his female companions home to meet Phillip. Phillip knew about them because of when they would call for his father and they would be cordial to Phillip but that was it. For the most part Phillip didn't mind, he had female teachers that he was able to bond with in his short time with them before his father moved on to the next location and he had a very good relationship with his father, at least intellectually. Phillip made his father proud with his academic achievements and was a voracious reader. Phillip's fondest memories with his father was them playing chess and talking about any subject that Phillip dared to bring up.

Puberty was a hard time for Phillip, not because his father didn't talk to him about it, because he did, rather the lack of a mother figure left Phillip wasting when it came time to understanding the opposite sex. Phillip's father simply told him the factual side of females as he saw them, leaving Phillip with some answers he was pretty sure were only half answers. Phillip didn't trust getting those answers from the friends he had made along the way, even the female ones, so if Phillip had a question, he would read and research it and even with those answers, he would still feel like he was missing out on something.

So Phillip watched. Watched as Sally discarded the oversized jersey that she had been wearing and noticed that she had another shirt on underneath it, a tighter tank shirt that showed she also had on what looked to Phillip, a large bra. Like many male teenagers, Phillip was attracted to the upper portion of the female anatomy. He understood their uses and understood that they got bigger when they were called into doing their primary function and that they were mostly bags of fat, but like so many other boys throughout history, Phillip was enamored with female breasts, enough to where he could and would admit to being a "breast man". Phillip had noticed all of the females at Xavier's School for Gifted Children and noticing that of the twenty females present, seven of them were very much endowed with bountiful boobies and the rest of them, mainly the female students had average sized ones for their age. Phillip also noticed that there was not one over weight girl on the campus and that most of them preferred to wear tight clothing to show off their tight young bodies.

Except for Sally. Sally wore baggy pants and an oversized jersey even though it was obvious if one looked close enough, and Phillip did, that she had a slender body as well. Sally's bra to Phillip looked oversized, like the jersey she just took off, which made no sense to Phillip. Sally then bent over as she dropped off her oversized pants and Phillip wasn't surprised to see that she had on a pair of 'granny panties', which covered her rear end completely and rather unflatteringly. Phillip again thought about rolling over to give Sally some privacy, because he didn't want her to think of him as a pervert, but his curiosity still would not give in to his fear.

Phillip was glad when Sally next took over her tank top, not because he wanted to see her naked, but because he wanted to see why she wore such an oversized bra that took up half of her chest. From his vantage point, the bra looked more like armor then something to support mammary glands with. Sally didn't stop with her tank top and reached around her back to disengage the bra hooks and as soon as the bra was released she quickly threw it to the floor. Phillip barely made out a moan that to him sounded like, "fuck, that feels better" as Sally started vigorously massaging her breasts. 'Curious', Phillip thought, 'why does she have to massage them so aggressively?'

After fifteen or twenty seconds, Sally stopped manipulating her breasts and bent over to pick up her discarded clothes, when she turned to pick up her bra, Phillip got a better view of her chest and figured out what was bothering him about how she dressed. 'Her breasts, they are bigger than I thought. Much bigger' and then Sally stood up facing Phillip, 'MUCH, MUCH bigger! How? Why? A minimizer? That's it, she minimizes her breasts, those puppies are the same size of Ms. Frost's, but why does she goes to such an extreme to hide them?' Sally quickly tossed her dirty clothes in the hamper squeezed in the corner between her desk and her long dresser and then pulled a long shirt from the right side middle drawer of the dresser. By the time she reached her bed, she had slid on her night shirt, which Phillip noticed was plain grey in color, no cute animals or flowers for Sally and jumped in bed. She turned on her alarm clock and then settled down to go to sleep, leaving the lamp on her desk on. 'Well that was interesting', Phillip thought as he rolled back over and played the brief image he saw over and over again before he too fell asleep, thinking he could hear a noise very faintly, a noise that made him think someone screaming elsewhere in the mansion.

Phillip woke, not to Sally's alarm clock but to a deep noise reverberating through out his room. Sitting up, Phillip noticed that Sally was gone, if her alarm went off, Phillip did not hear it. Sally entered the room, fully dressed, again in baggy clothes, looked up at Phillip, "That's the school alarm clock; it is seven am, time to get up."

"Yeah, I am up, what is that noise? I have never heard an alarm like that."

"Yeah, that is Mr. Veneer's pride and joy. There are five grandfather clocks throughout the school and he has got them set up to where they go off at the same time as the school bell system. During the day time every hour on the hour so the teachers know when to stop class and change and everything. At night time, though, you can hardly hear them; even when you are standing right next to them."

Jumping down from his platform bed, "You are up early."

"Yeah, I am one of the first up normally."

"Don't like the uni-sex bathrooms?"

"No. Not at all."

After finishing stretching, Phillip grabbed his toiletry bag again, "I saw towels in the bathroom next to the showers, right?"

"Yeah, towels are there, and you put the used ones in the large hamper-basket."

"Ok, so what exactly is our plan of attack this morning?"

"Well, after you do your three S's, we go down for breakfast. Then we come back and while you put your stuff away, I answer whatever questions you have. From there I take you on a tour of this place and trust me, the place is huge."