Chapter 6: Academic

Naples: Sunday Afternoon

We were all weary from our trip - me more than most, I'm sure - so we tossed our bags under the bus and headed inside. I took a seat by the window. Immediately, Diana, Richelle, and Marissa all tried to sit there, almost comically bumping into each other. They looked about to fight for the seat, then glanced at each other and laughed. "Fine," Marissa said. Then she turned to me, "Eric, which of us do you want sitting next to you?"

To be honest I was getting tired of all their attention. It was flattering, but a guy can only take so much. Anyway, I suspected I knew where this would go - whoever I picked would think they were my favorite, and lord it over the other girls. And I hate playing favorites. At the moment, Bobbie was walking by. So I spoke up, waving my hand to her. "Hey Bobbie! Want to sit by me?" The three girls looked confused, and maybe a little befuddled I hadn't chosen one of them. I figured if I'd hurt any of them, the damage wasn't permanent. It was just a bus ride.

Bobbie looked at the three girls, sized up the situation, and then shrugged. "Sure!" She stepped up and slipped into the seat. "You owe me," she leaned in and whispered.

"Thanks," I whispered back.

The other girls took the hint and decided to sit far away from me. Diana and Richelle sat in the back, and spent most of the trip whispering back and forth and glancing at me. I tried to ignore that. Marissa just took a seat at the front of the bus, where she'd sat on the way in.

Bobbie turned to me and said, "Soo, you and Richelle? Or you and Marissa? Or you and Diana? Which is it?" Then she shook her head. "Doesn't Dee have a boyfriend?"

I lay my head against the window with a thud. "Yeah. She does. And as for the rest - I don't know." I sighed. "It's complicated. You know."

She giggled, blushing, looking at my crotch. "Oh yeah. The magic penis."

Right. I still hadn't taken care of it. Probably another reason I was getting stared at on the boat. Call me stubborn, but I'm not going to masturbate in a bathroom, and the erections from the seizures were irritatingly persistent until they were 'taken care of.' Too bad I didn't have the seizure before the public sex with Richelle. Of course, they haven't ever had good timing. "Yeah, that."

"Jeez, you're so mopey. Give any other guy the power to mind control girls, he'd cream his pants." She giggled and blushed again. "But I mean, I guess you've already done that."

Okay, I laughed. "But there's the seizures too."

She frowned. "Oh yeah. Those."

"Besides, the mind control kind of sucks. I don't like forcing myself on anyone, you know?"

"Yeah, I know. But you're a good guy, Eric. I mean, that's why we girls like you so much. Besides," She shuddered a little. "being forced kinda sucks."

I gave her a look. She hadn't opened up like this to me before. She just nodded assent, and sniffled.

I had no idea what to say. " ... how? when?..."

She wiped her eyes. "It was a while ago. My 16th birthday party. I lost my virginity to him. They wanted to try him as an adult, but the bastard hung himself in his cell." Her fists clenched. "So, like, yeah. It's good that you're watching yourself. But what you're doing now is fine - you're no Christian."

"Was that... ?"

"His name, yeah." Her face twisted. "Christian fucking Swindler." Her head bobbed emphatically at each syllable of his name. "Like, sorry to dump this on you." Her expression softened. "It's just, Eric ... I mean, you're not that guy, and I don't think you'll ever be. So you can stop worrying about it."

I was touched. "Yeah, um ... thanks? But I think what keeps me from being that guy is my worry."

She furrowed her brow in thought, and sighed. "Maybe you're right. Like, just don't beat yourself up about it, okay? I mean, you carry this dark cloud around you. Even before the Magic Penis Incident," she said, giggling again, and you could hear the capital letters, "you were brooding."

"Yeah, maybe," I said. She was right, of course. But it's not that easy to just up and change your nature. I was just a pensive person. "The brooding artist with the magic penis."

She laughed. "Well, yeah, it sounds silly when you put it like that. Truth is stranger than fiction," she blushed, "and sillier too."

Diana and Richelle burst out into loud giggles behind us. We looked toward the back of the bus. I looked at Bobbie, and sighed. "I don't want to have to pick."

"Well," she said, "they kinda seem willing to share. There aren't any cat fights, and they know what's been going on. Right?"

I laughed. "Well, nothing's actually happened between Diana and me. The Marissa stuff is common knowledge, and the thing with Richelle is, um," now I was blushing, "public knowledge, I guess."

She shrugged. "Maybe you won't have to pick."

"Huh." I'd known polyamorous people, and figured I could maybe even be comfortable in such a relationship. But every girl I dated expected to be part of a duet and freaked out at the very idea (although when I left Arizona, my last ex had become part of an 'open trio'). Thanks to this aversion therapy, the idea never even occurred to me. "I guess so..." It'd be complicated. "I'd want to talk to everyone first."

"Yeah," she said. "Like, get all your ducks in a row. I mean, poly isn't exactly easy."

"Really? You?"

She giggled again. "Like, yeah. Why is it so unbelievable?"

"I don't know." I considered it for a second. "You have this whole 'girl next door' vibe, and the whole Midwestern drawl just adds to the impression of wholesomeness." I shook my head. "Really?!"

"Yeah!" She punched me in the shoulder. "I mean, they talked about sharing in kindergarten, and like, I never really understood why we couldn't do it with love or sexuality."

I nodded my assent. "Yeah. To me it's always looked like a maturity thing. People defending their right to be jealous."

She looked back at Diana and Richelle. "On the bright side, you do kinda have the pick of the litter. Might be fun to be part of that harem." She winked. "I could go for those."

Just then, the bus pulled up to the housing complex. Marissa called out from the front of the bus, "We're home, everyone!" Everyone started milling about like ants, excited about getting back to their rooms. I was antsy to get home, too. I let out a long sigh of relief. Outside, everyone was gathering around the bus to welcome us back. Since I was tired and not really feeling the crowd, I waited until the bus was almost empty before I decided to head out.

So of course, when descending the steps of the bus, I had another seizure. In full view of pretty much everyone, I started shaking, then I crashed down the steps, smashing face-first against the ground, doubling up almost instantly. I'd barely healed from the beating I'd gotten and now my body was broken again. At least I'd found a way of getting rid of the erection without masturbation - try snapping it in half. I wasn't all that inclined to give that another go.

I was embarrassed. Having one of the seizures in full public view was horrible; I was used to being in control of my body. Not to mention the fact that I'd literally fallen on my face in front of my peers. At least that time, nobody in the crowd zoned out. So the only one I hurt that time was myself.

Naples: Sunday Evening

"Fuck." I flopped on my bed and groaned in pain. "Damn it."

"Are you sure you want to do this? Are you up for this?" Valerie sounded concerned.

"Of course," I said, rolling over to look at her. "I can do it, Val. I told you I would, and I want it too." I sighed. "I shouldn't have gone to Africa."

"Oh, pooh," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "You'd been looking forward to that trip for months, and besides, you hadn't even met me yet." She winked and stuck her tongue out.

I grunted and pulled myself up. I was exhausted. We'd been going at it for hours, ever since I'd gotten off the bus. We had a test on Monday, so we'd figured we needed another study session. "Do you mind if we take a quick break?"

"Yeah, sure. I can only take so much studying at once." She stretched, yawning. I admired her curves. "I've been crouching over textbooks for too long. My back hurts."

"You want a backrub?" I was good with my hands. I'd given her, and a lot of friends, backrubs over the years.

"Oh God, yes," she said. "You give the best backrubs. But you don't have to do that. I mean, you're hurt."

I shook my head. "No, no, it's okay. We're taking a break anyway, right?" I gestured to the bed. "Go ahead, lie down."

She sprawled out on the bed. I climbed on top of her and started kneading her spine. "Mmmm, Eric. You've got the touch."

I chuckled. "You say that every time, Val."

"Well, it's true. Mmmmm." After a little more moaning and happy noises, she said, "You know, I had a dream about you over the weekend."

"Oh, um, really?" I blushed. "I ... I actually had a dream about you, too."

She giggled. "Yeah, right."

"So, what was it about?"

She rolled herself over until she was on her back. She looked up at me, her eyes twinkling, an impish smile on her face. "Well, I don't know if I should even tell you, now. Did you really have a dream about me?"

I blushed again. "Well, yeah."

She cocked her head. "What kind of dream?"

"Um, well, it was in Africa. I'd bought some jewelry, an amulet or something. Then I ran into you on the street in the marketplace." I wasn't really going to tell her what happened in the dream after that.

"That's it?" She sounded disappointed. "Not much of a dream." She stuck her lower lip out in a pout.

"Well, what was your dream about?"

She giggled, squirming under me. "It was kind of like this. You giving me one of your wonderful massages and then it turned into something more." I started stirring. "But, I mean, ew. It was so weird. You're like my brother!" She shook her head, blonde locks tossed everywhere.

Well, that killed the mood. "Yeah, your brother," I said. I wanted to get out of there before she noticed my erection, so I blurted, "I gotta use the bathroom," and shot away like a bat out of hell.

That one time, I wished for a seizure. I wanted her to want me like Marissa and Richelle and Diana all wanted me. But one didn't come, so I waited in the bathroom for my erection to go away, and then we went back to studying.

Naples: Sunday Night

I woke up, screaming. This was one of the most painful seizures. Domingo (my assigned roommate in Italy) hopped up from the other bed, and called Dr. San Angelo (the professor that arranged the trip, and was administering it). Soon enough, he'd shown up at our room, and I was led to an ambulance. "You don't have to do this, Alex," I said to him. "I'm okay."

"No, you are not. You can barely walk, you are in pain." He spoke in a heavy accent. "You fall down the stairs of the bus earlier, I let you talk me out of calling the doctors then. But now we go to the hospital."

I sighed. He made a lot of sense. I just didn't want this to be the end - and the seizures felt like a death sentence. They felt like they would be the end of my time in Italy. I was happy there. A more timely seizure hit me in the emergency room while a doctor was examining me. Thankfully, Dr. Angelo and the doctor didn't notice the nurses zone out in the back of the room, but after that the nurses paid more attention to me. A quick prescription written, followed by a sad shake of the head and the blurting of more Italian than my rudimentary understanding was able to comprehend, and we were out the door.

"Alex, what did he say?"

"It might be anything. Epilepsy. An infection. Lesions on the brain. He does not have the resources to figure it out, and the international student health insurance will not even cover that kind of diagnosis." He sighed, shaking the prescription paper in his hand. "We fill this, and you take it. If it does not work, we will have to send you home. Come, there is a pharmacy across the street."

We took a cab back home. Dr. San Angelo made me take the pills as soon as we left the pharmacy. I had yet another seizure in the back of the taxicab, but he agreed to wait until the next day before he sent me home. I didn't sleep very well after that, what with the sword hanging over my head and all. But at least I didn't start shaking again.

Naples: Monday Morning

Like always, Edward, Marissa, Valerie and I had breakfast before heading off to class. Classes other than Italian 201 started later, so everyone else just kept sleeping. Usually that wasn't an issue, but I was so tired. I told them what had happened the previous night, how Dr. San Angelo was on the edge of sending me home. Meanwhile, Valerie and I tried to cajole Marissa and Edward into giving us an "in" on the test, but they were evasive, just saying it covered what we went over in class the last few days.