Chapter 3: Taught a Lesson

I woke up feeling an odd sensation, and it took me a while to work out that it was Clara's warm body snuggled against me. I could get used to that, I thought. For a few minutes, I was contented enough lying in bed, feeling her slow breathing, and dwelling on the previous night. Eventually, after my stomach started rumbling, I decided it was time to get up. It was still morning, but it looked sunny. I tried to disentangle my body from hers without waking her, but it was a futile effort. As soon as I started moving about she woke up, looked around, and her smile reassured me she had no regrets.

We went through our morning routines, although she was a bit hindered by the fact this wasn't her room and she didn't have her own things. On the other hand, she wasn't particularly fussy about her appearance, so she didn't need to carry a beauty support kit wherever she went. We were ready, and just about to go and have breakfast.

"Hmm, there's a note here for you", she said after she opened the door. "Weird, it's not hand-written."

I knew perfectly well whom the note was from, or, rather, what it was about, and I felt cold all over. Hopefully I could still fix the damage.

"I'd be grateful if you didn't read it", I stammered, less calm than I wish I had been.

"Well, too late." As she looked at me, she realised my discomfort. "It's not that big a deal, I don't know why you're so upset." She showed me the note.

"It seems you have been unavailable for our appointment. We'll meet soon to talk about the missed deadline."

I breathed with relief. At least my secret prankster, whoever it was, had decided not to make it all public, which could have been rather embarrassing right there and then. I took the note from Clara's hand, folded and pocketed it, hoping it would yield some clues under further examination, and went with her to the common room to have some breakfast. My previous reaction seemed to stop her from asking what that whole thing was about, and I didn't mind it that way, though something told me I wouldn't be able to keep her curiosity bottled in forever if this became a regular occurrance. I wasn't all that disappointed to find the common room empty. Inevitably my flatmates would end up asking some questions about me and Clara, and to be honest I had no idea how to answer them, since we hadn't spoken about what last night was going to lead to, if anything.

Her being a rather keen biker, I wasn't as surprised to see her eating a solid breakfast as I might have been given her size and weight. I, however, managed with some tea and juice, and we sat together, looking quietly at each other, awkwardness coming over us all of a sudden. I could hardly believe how fast we had gone, how good it had been, at least for me but hopefully for the both of us, and how little I actually knew about clara and the other way round. We had hardly exchanged a few words as we had shared the sofa the previous night, and we had just become lovers ... or something.

"Let's go to your room", she said. She looked at the few dishes we have used, shrugged, and simply said, "we'll deal with those later."

As we entered my room, she sat on the unmade bed, and I followed her lead. I felt like touching her, perhaps placing my arm on her shoulders, but I knew we had to talk, and that would just make it more awkward. She told me how she had just joined Alan to meet a few new people and have someone to bike with, but that she had no romantic or sexual interest in him, which I had pretty much deduced. We tried to put words to what had happened last night, but we were both too shy, too inexperienced, to just say outloud that we had fallen hard for each other. She told me a bit about her, a short and doubtless redacted summary of her life.

She had always been a good student and a bit obsessed about her fitness, and she hadn't fit too well in her late years of school. Her cleverness and hard work seemed to intimidate some of the boys, and girls couldn't see much good in her either, as she had little interest in the typical feminine activities, and was much more likely to enjoy hiking in the woods than going shopping. Since she had always liked writing, but she didn't know what to do about it, she had decided to study journalism, where hopefully her talents could be put to use. She didn't exactly say it explicitly, but she hinted she had had some previous boyfriends, but they hadn't lasted long.

As to me, I told her a few things about my life: how I'd been a decent student, but a bit too lazy to get excellent grades; how I'd never been very interested in practicing sports; how I had managed to be with girls before, although not too often; and how friendship was so important to me, which is why Ron and I had decided to study together.

"Well, what happened last night, as I said, it's not how I am, usually", she said.

"Yes ... I was surprised, and I can tell you it's not how I am usually either."

"I think I'd like to see more of you. If you'd like that."

"Of course! I know we've practically just met, but I really like you, and I'm hoping ... well, that we can meet again soon."

"Well, I guess I'll be going then. I do have a few things to do, and need to get back to my place."

"Where do you live? Also we should exchange phone numbers, you know, if we're going to meet again."

"I need some time to think about this all ... I know where you live, so I'll visit you some time."

"Well, won't you even tell me your number?" I managed not to sound half as disappointed as I was.

"Give me yours, and I promise I'll call you soon. In one week."

"Don't you think that's a bit unfair?"

She sighed, and as she stood I thought she was just going to leave. Instead, she knelt before me, took my hands in hers, and looked at my eyes. I saw her inner turmoil in them: fear, some shame, but also warmth and even some lust. Her armour, which made her seem indestructible, was completely absent, and I found myself looking at the eyes and face of a vulnerable girl.

"This is hard for me", she said. "I'm not used to showing myself like this. I really like you, we've had a lot of fun yesterday, and there's nothing I'd like more than ripping your clothes off and fucking you again right now. You have to understand though, we've just met, we know hardly anything about each other, and we're both a bit overwhelmed, so I'm going to ask you to let me keep this illusion of safety, ok? I promise I'll contact you soon, so just trust me."

I nodded, gave her my number, and she left. In spite of all she had said, I had a sensation of emptiness inside me, and I looked forward to the time she'd choose to call me. Hopefully it wouldn't be too long.

The day passed very slowly. I had little to do for university, as we were just in the introduction week, and I didn't need to choose any electives this year. So I just listened to some music, read a sci-fi book I had recently bought, and thought about Clara. I had been very surprised by her reaction: she had seemed so strong and self-contained, but right before she left she had let me glimpse something different, just as true, about herself. I still felt disappointed not to have her contact details, but I did trust her to contact me soon. After all, if we weren't going to trust each other, we weren't going to get very far, I thought.

At least, although I wasn't exactly in high spirits, this whole thing had distracted me from the events from the previous morning, as well as the notes I had been receiving, and which were getting progressively more pointed and threatening.

Being bored and not knowing what to do, I decided to check out Ron's room. I knocked, and he let me in.

"Hi. What were you up to?"

"Not much, really. Just fiddling around with the computer. How about you? Anything more interesting?"

"Not really. How is it going with Lisa, by the way?"

"Oh, not bad ... but do sit down." He lied on his bed, and I sat on his chair, after pointing it in the right direction. "Lisa seems to like me well enough. I think we may be going for dinner tomorrow. You do have an eye, even if your reach exceeds your grasp sometimes", he said smiling.

"Nice. I guess it paid off to go to that party after all."

"For me it did, sure."

"Well, aren't you going to ask me about Clara?" Ron could be a bit self-centred at times.

"Nah, I guessed you'd be itching to talk about it, so why bother?" He chuckled and repositioned himself in bed, ready to here my story.

I told him a bit about what had gone on with Clara, although I didn't want to get into too much detail. After all, some of it was rather private, and some things are just not talked about. He congratulated me and asked me when I would meet her again, so I explained we'd meet some time next week. He asked me whether she lived nearby, to which I had to reply I didn't know.

"Man, you didn't even ask? You need some training. You got her number at least, though, right?"

I blushed, which was already a reply of sorts, but I preferred him to believe I had been somewhat inept than to have to go over the real reason for it all. Somehow, I didn't think Ron would be sympathetic, and I didn't need being made fun of at that time.

He told me he'd set up his computer to connect to the net now, with some help from Chris, and that it was working well and fast, so I thought I could make use of that slow day to try to get that going. So after a while, I decided to check if our local IT guy was around, so he could set up the network for me. I knocked on his door, and he told me to wait a bit. After half a minute or so he let me in.

His room looked perhaps slightly bigger than mine, although it didn't come equipped with a bed like Ron's, and it looked neat to a fault: no clothes visible anywhere, bookshelves filled with thick tomes, and the huge desk we had all been given laid out with efficiency and order well in mind. I didn't bother checking, but I was certain the books were in order, possibly alphabetical, or some other way which made more sense to the pattern in which he used them. I could see Chris was the kind of guy who is lazy enough to know that doing something well today meant not doing it ever again. I could admire that kind of ruthless drive to rationalise every single speck of effort, but I could never do it myself. Sticking to a simple routine was hard enough for me.

"Hmm, Ron told me you've set him up for network access. I was wondering if you could do that for me too."

"Desktop or laptop?"

"Laptop."

"Very well, bring it here and I'll set it for the wireless network. I'm fairly security-minded, so you can't just connect. Otherwise we'd have all those lovely neighbours leeching our traffic."

I brought the machine, and he started it up. I was about to sit on his bed, but I noticed it was made with the kind of mechanical precision which characterised the rest of his room, and thought he probably wouldn't appreciate me messing it up. However, there wasn't anywhere else to sit.

"What's your password?" He said.

"Um, shall I type it in?"

"If you want, but this is going to take a while and I may need it again. It'd be easier if you just told it to me, just in case. Otherwise you'll have to wait here until I'm done."

That last point made my mind. I wasn't going to wait for half an hour while he fiddled with the machine, much less on my feet, and he hadn't seen forthcoming in inviting me to sit anywhere.

"Tl132k," I said.

He read it back in a monotonous and deliberate way, pronouncing each character carefully: "Upper case T. Lower case l. One. Three. Two. Lower case k. Comma symbol. Correct?"

"Aye aye, sir!" I joked.

"Very well. I'll have it ready in half an hour, unless there's any problem. Come by then, and you can take it back. Oh, one thing: don't take it personally, but collecting the money from all you guys can be quite a chore, so I'd like it if you found your way to paying me in advance."

"Sure, no problem. I'll pay you as soon as I come back for the machine, if that's cool with you."

"That will be fine."

With not much else to say, I left to my room, and read a bit. Anything was better than thinking about Clara's absence, except thinking about those damn notes, and what I had done. I was almost on the edge of telling Ron about this all, but I couldn't bear his most likely response. He'd find it terribly funny, in that "awww, you're so cute and ineffective" way of his, and I'd just die of embarrassment. At last, I collected my machine, paid Chris for the network access, and checked my mail for the first time in a few days. Not that there was anything particularly interesting, mostly spam, but at least I could do it from home now.

The day passed by, slow and boring, and at last I decided to go to sleep. I had no clue about what awaited me.

I was deeply asleep when I felt a sudden shift in my position. As I gasped in confusion, I felt something being pushed hard into my mouth, making it impossible for me to scream. I couldn't see either, and I felt something had been place in front of my eyes. As sense came to me and I fully woke up, I realised I had been gagged and blindfolded, and I was scared shitless. If this was part of the prank, it was going way too far. It was time for me to forget about my embarrassment and just let my flatmates know there was a lunatic amongst us.