Chapter 1: Ensnared and Ashamed

I had looked forward to going to uni for a long time, and I was there at last! Not only that, but I wouldn't be there alone. My friend Ron and I decided to study together, so we got two rooms on a shared university flat. Most first years prefer to go for halls, but Ron and I never had any trouble making friends, and living in a flat gives you more independence and privacy.

It was a flat with 5 rooms, and we soon got to know our other 3 flatmates. There was Alan, a northern guy, tall and thin. He looked like a fit guy, and had a bike which he parked by the flat. Chris was not quite as fit, more of a nerd by looks, and kept looking awkwardly at us. We met him while he was moving quite a bit of equipment into his room: a desktop computer, speakers, and some stuff we didn't quite recognise. Victor was a Malaysian guy, a foreign student, and he seemed like a quiet guy, although maybe he'd unwind with time. We all were a bit disappointed that our flat turned out, by chance, to be an all-male flat, but there were girls living in flats nearby, so it could have been worse.

After I got to unpack most of my stuff, I went to Ron's room. He had been lucky! The room was far bigger than mine, and for some reason they had set a double bed. Probably they were counting on renting that room to two people, as the uni did have some rooms for couples, but my fortunate friend got it instead. It was also right next to a toilet with a shower, in a sort of little aside. The rest of our rooms were aligned on another corridor, so he'd get some privacy too. Ron still had a few things packed, but he was lying on his bed watching TV.

"What's up?"

"Oh, man, I'm knackered. Good thing it's intro week", he said.

"Yah. I managed to unpack it all but I don't feel like doing anything much."

"Wanna watch TV for a while then?"

"Yeah, let's order some pizza too. Maybe we can go out later. Shouldn't miss intro week parties."

There was a chair by Ron's desk, but it wasn't pointing towards the TV. It was set so that he could watch it from bed, as he was doing now, so I just sat at his feet. We knew each other from childhood and we had slept at each other's places many times, so I didn't think more of it. He lightly tapped my leg with his socked foot.

"Hey, man, how about a foot massage?"

"How about you fuck yourself?", I replied laughing.

"Yeah well, no harm in trying, right?", he chuckled.

A part of me thought about it for a fraction of a second, but it was far too repressed for me to dare, and anyway, most of me was rather disgusted by the idea. Ron changed the topic though, we got ourselves some pizza and watched TV for a while.

Later we asked our other flatmates if they wanted to go out, and we had a good time and a few drinks. when we got back it was quite late, and we were all a bit tired, so we just went to bed. As I woke up, though, I found two dirty socks on my pillow. I had no idea what they were doing there or where they came from, I had a bit of a hang-over and couldn't be bothered to think it through so I just drop them somewhere on the floor. As I moved them, I saw there was a little printed paper note.

"Wash these socks by hand on your room's sink by the day after tomorrow."

That was all it said. I was half angry, half amused: why would I do such a thing? I thought of going to check my flatmates and ask them if they were theirs, but then I thought about it twice and wondered what they would think if I went to their rooms asking if they had left a couple of socks for washing on my pillow. They could even get ideas that way! I thought it must be one of our flatmates who had a pranking disposition, and hopefully I'd soon find out who it was just by observation.

As time passed, I couldn't get those socks out of my head. I went to the intro events at the department, went to lunch out with Ron (we just got our loans so we had money), and so on. Whatever I did though, I kept wondering about them. They were normal thick socks, and they looked somewhat stiff, as though they had been well used. Part of me was tempted to do as the note said, to go along with the prank. but why should I? What a demeaning thing to do to handwashed someone's sweaty, dirty socks, and not just that, but in my sink, where I washed my face every day!

I spent the whole day pondering whether to do it or not, going from one extreme to the other. Whenever I was trying to concentrate on something the socks would come back to my mind all of a sudden. At times I would be telling myself how I should just go along with the joke, just to see what it was about, and at times I was asking myself what the fuck was wrong with me, and how I could even think of doing such a thing. At some point it must have showed, because Ron realized something was up with me.

"Hey, Dave, what's in your mind?"

"Oh, never mind, nothing really, just the changes I guess."

"Come on, Dave, don't bullshit me. You've been up in space for the whole day. We didn't even drink that much last night!"

"Yeah well, I'm just a bit distracted, that's all."

We were at the flat's common room, where we had a cooker, fridge, and some not too comfortable sofas. I thought Ron was going to keep drilling me about it, and really, I just didn't know how to get out of it. He'd always had a knack for knowing what was up with me and the best bullshit detector I'd ever seen. So when alan came in, I knew I had been saved by the bell. He'd clearly been biking some, and who could blame him? It's not like we get many sunny days in England, so may as well get the most out of it, and this was the best weather we'd be getting before next spring.

"Hey, Alan, how was the biking?", asked Ron.

"Not bad, you should try it. Would do you both some good to do some exercise, right?"

"Not me, I get tired fast. The only exercise I like involves girls", I said.

"Well, you got to train up your stamina, you know. Get some self discipline and all that, and girls like bikers."

It was then that I decided to look at his socks. I thought I'd check all my flatmate's out, and see if any of them was wearing socks of a similar design to the ones I had found. Not that they were very special, but I was kind of desperate for clues. He wasn't wearing the same type, though. Still, that didn't mean much: someone willing to prank me enough to get to unlock my room probably would go to the bother of using a different type of socks for his prank.