Chapter 2: Julia

I was, it should be said, not much of a vegetarian cuisine guy. Hell, I wasn't really much of a cuisine guy at all. My dorm meals had all emerged from plastic cartons, cardboard boxes, and tin cans, all with instructions on the side. That is, when I wasn't scarfing down a burger or pizza at the first fast food place I came across. But I had a feeling that my first dinner for the house shouldn't come out of the microwave.

So I found myself standing over the stove, staring at a pot of rice. I had done up a quick garden salad and had got some chicken (free range, natch) which I would grill, but not until a bit more time had passed. Which didn't seem to be happening.

Dawn bounded into the kitchen. "How's it going, chef?"

"All right." I checked my watch. "I have to keep an eye on this rice ... make sure it doesn't burn. The last time I tried to cook rice I ended up setting off the whole building's fire alarms and ruined my roommate's pot."

"Yeesh, nothing worse than wasted bud."

"I was talking about the pot that I was cooking with, Dawn."

She giggled. "You know, just my usual stoner humour. But seriously, they say a watched pot never boils. Why don't we go do something else?" She tugged at the low neckline of her tank top suggestively. She was already showing off her mountainous cleavage, and any more tugging might expose those glorious mounds to open air.

"I swear Dawn," I said. "You're going to wear me out." She had warmed my bed for the first few nights, even invited me up to her own bedroom on Sunday. I had begun to grow quite fond of her curvy, earthy body and her enthusiastic thrusts. Although she had left me alone last night, perhaps going back to her regular lover. I tried to suppress the feeling of envy, but it didn't go down easy.

Another laugh. "I meant go watch some TV or something. Geez, your mind goes straight to the gutter, doesn't it?"

"What can I say? You've warped me."

She leaned in and kissed me on the lips -- but it was only a brief kiss, nothing like the long wet eternity of sucking that we had done before. "Flattery will get you everywhere. But back to work. I want to eat your food first."

With that Dawn walked out of the room, her bubbly ass bouncing up and down on ​its own rhythm. I was hard again. I really needed to get control over that thing.

I lifted the lid and peeked into the rice pot. Nothing but a tower of bubbles, stacked on top of one another, but quickly vanishing when exposed to outside air. I didn't know whether that was good or bad, so I quickly put the lid back in place.

I heard a few footsteps heading downstairs, and the familiar loud voice of Julia. "I'm just saying, I don't care if the guy is secretly a raging queen. If he says he's straight, that's a no, and it's not your job to go around converting people."

Another voice -- Simon's. "See, you're not really understanding the issue about men and homosexuality..."

"Oh, don't mansplain things to me. I'm bi, and I don't go around trying to seduce straight girls."

"It's not the same thing."

The two turned a corner into the kitchen, and stopped abruptly. Their lips were sealed. I realized they must have been talking about me, particularly my late-night encounter with Simon on the first night, which hadn't been repeated since. "Speak of the devil, eh?" I said, trying to turn it into a joke.

Simon ignored the comment. "Hey Mike. Whatcha making?"

"Nothing much, really. Rice, chicken, salad. The big challenge is making enough for seven."

Julia walked over and popped a leaf of the salad into her mouth. "Too dry."

"Well, we have like seven salad dressings here for a reason," I said. "At least I hope we do."

She shrugged. "It still tastes like something from a chain restaurant. I mean, no offence."

"How could I possibly be offended by that?"

Julia's constant barbs still got to me, but she had a point. When the meal finally got to the table the rice was soggy (my terror of burning made me take it off the stove too early), the salad was plain, and the chicken undercooked. Nobody else seemed to mind, but Julia was snarking her way through the meal like she was Anthony Bourdain.

"Don't mind her," said Padma as she got up to collect the plates. She leaned in ​to whisper to me. "Julia's like a kid. When she makes fun of you like that, you know she's got a crush."

Somehow, I wasn't so sure.

When you had been in the house for a while, the outside world started to seem like a strange and sort of frightening place. It was bright and sunny, and everyone walked around with their clothes on. The loud advertisements and petty conversations seemed almost aggressively hostile. But still, one couldn't hole oneself out in a Victorian basement forever. These people were not so progressive that they didn't charge rent.

And so it was out into the real world, to search for a job.

At a posh Annex clothes store: "We're looking for someone who really fits our image." I was a six-pack and a steely gaze short of that.

At a data entry job, amidst the thunder of clattering keyboards: "Well, we are looking for someone with a bit more experience..." You can guess how that ended up.

At a sprawling electronics store: "Where do you see yourself in five years?", followed by a long, awkward silence.

I returned to the house exhausted and battered, and collapsed on the nearest couch. I felt like digging a hole, crawling into it, and never emerging.

Padma came over to lick my wounds. "You know, there's no reason to be upset," she said. "They were crappy jobs anyway. And look at it this way: you were lucky to get that many interviews, the way things are today. People want you."

"Nobody wants me," I said. "I'm a twenty-one-year-old with a BA in something useless and a few years of fast food experience."

Padma was silent for a little while. "Mike, what do you actually want to do? I mean, you can't plan on working customer service all your life."

I shrugged. "Why not? People do that."

"Not happy people." Padma sat down and let me rest my head in her lap. It sounds pathetic, but it was really comforting. "Just so you know, this isn't a come-on. I'm still allergic to dick."

I smiled. "Come on, baby. You give me a chance, I'll take you to the moon." ​She pinched me hard. "Ow!"

I was starting to understand why these people were always joking: because it was easier than answering those questions about the yawning future, about the life I still couldn't choose.

"You should talk to Julia about this shit," said Padma. "She might seem a bit frigid, but she actually thinks really deep about everything. Despite you and me, I think she's the philosopher queen of this house."

I wondered if Padma had temporarily lost her mind. "Julia? She just about bites my head off when I ask her to pass the salt. I'm not about to go to her with something like this."

"Just ask if you can borrow a book. She's got a lot of wisdom up in her library too. And don't be so harsh on her. She's good people. We all are, around here."

I wondered if Padma would ever stop telling me how great everyone around here was. I was hoping that soon she wouldn't have to tell me, that I would see what she saw in this bunch, but I wasn't holding my breath.

Still, I found myself outside the hallway to Julia's room, just about wearing a hole in the carpet with my pacing. I wasn't sure how to approach her. I'd always had a hard time starting conversations, feeling as though I was forcing myself upon people. And I was sure she didn't want to see me, let alone lend me her stuff.

The door popped open, and Julia stuck her head through. "Are you going to come inside, or just hang out stalking me all night?"

"I wasn't stalking you!" I said quickly. "I was just heading back from the bathroom..."

"For the past ten minutes." She sighed. "It's okay. Come in."

At first impression Julia's room seemed to match the sophisticated impression she let on. The mature dark red walls poked out from the few gaps between the bookcases that lined the room. The nightstand was also covered with books, most of them with bookmarks sticking out of the middle of them. Most of the large room was taken up by a queen-sized bed and a meticulously clean computer desk. A subdued modern painting hang behind the computer.

All in all, a natural abode for an angry intellectual. Well, except for all the ​porn.

It took a moment to notice, but when you did it was staggering. Half of the shelves were made up entirely of smut, ranging from DVDs to magazines to racy erotic novels. Seemingly every combination of genders and sexual acts was represented -- sitting side by side were An Angel's Love written in a flowery font and Assman in Ass to the Future Part 3. It was enough to steam the glasses of even the most debauched person.

"Did you want something?" Julia said.

"You've, uh, got a lot of porn."

"A very astute observation," she said dryly. "Do you have an issue with that?"

I felt suddenly as though I was on trial, which I was beginning to register in my mind as the talking-to-Julia emotion. "Er, well, no ... it's just unexpected. What with your, uh, political bent."

She shrugged. "Porn is the medium of our times. If we don't make our mark in it, we're abandoning it completely to the patriarchal assholes. And besides which, I like it -- watching it and making it."

"So they weren't joking about you and your porn friends."

Another shrug. I wasn't sure I had seen Julia seem so equivocal before. "I'm trying to break into the alt-porn world. I have a website, and I edit videos for other people ... I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable." The last bit in a sarcastic, not-really-sorry tone I usually heard out of my teenage sister.

That was it. I said, a bit louder than I meant to, "No, it doesn't make me uncomfortable. Why does everything have to be a goddamn confrontation with you? I'm not trying to attack you or anything, but you feel this need to add in these little biting comments whenever I ask a question or say anything or breathe wrong. I'm just trying to learn about you guys and how you live, and I don't appreciate the sarcasm."

A brief pause. I felt bad, worrying that I had hurt Julia. Then she fired back. "Well jeez, I'm sorry, White Guy Mike. I'm sorry we haven't lined up to take your hand and carefully explain everything about ourselves to you. Clearly, we forgot our place."

"That doesn't have anything to do with--"

"I swear to Christ, what does Padma see in you? I mean, I know Dawn fucks anything that moves, but I expect Padma to at least have a little more sense."

​

"Jesus Christ!" Her face was red from yelling, and mine probably was too. "What did I ever do to piss you off? Do you just not like the way I look?"

"Basically, because to me you just look like another privileged slacker who's here to collect his free pussy. At least the last guy had a job."

Both of us had moved forward until we were right in each others faces, less than a foot between us. I theoretically towered over the petite Julia, but I was the one who seemed vaguely intimidated. We just stared at each other, trying to catch our breaths, and then we were kissing.

To be more precise, she kissed me, grabbing my head and pulling it down to meet her hot lips. Our bodies fell into familiar animal patterns and we stumbled over to the bed, our lips still locked. Her hands were rapidly unbuttoning my shirt.

"Wait," I said, breaking away from her. "I thought this only happened in movies."

"What, sex?" said Julia.

"No, the whole arguing-to-sex thing ... I mean, who does that?"

Julia tossed off her shirt. She wasn't wearing a bra underneath it. Her torso was thin and lean, and her breasts small and pert, riding proudly up on her chest. I found myself holding my breath. "I do. Just because I'm mad at you doesn't mean we can't do it. Hell, it usually makes it better."

I was still hesitant. Some how I felt like I was giving into her. She threw herself onto the bed and opened her jean-clad hips wide, making the invitation as clear as she could. "Now Mike, you can fuck me, or you can go back to your room and jack off like a pussy. What's it going to be?"

That was it. I was discarding my clothes as fast as I could, and so was she. There was more skin than I could take in, all of it pale white save for the tattoos that littered her lithe youthful body. Her pussy was shaved clean -- a shame, as I had been wondering what her real hair colour was. As soon as I tugged my underwear down around my ankles my cock sprang up, hard as a steel bar.

Julia lay on the edge of the bed, still spread eagle, her cunt practically beckoning me inside. It was not a moment for foreplay. I approached her, my cock red and eager.

"Condom," she said. I gave her a wait, seriously? look. Julia pointed insistently at her bedside table. "Like I said, you should have got those tests."

​

Grumbling, I searched through the assortment of smut, sex toys and rare non-pornographic items that littered the nightstand until I found a big box of condoms, one of which I quickly applied to my erection. She didn't move, just kept her damp and eager pussy staring toward me. Still standing up, I sheathed myself in her with one sharp motion. She let out a long gasp.

"You think you can take this?" I said.

"Try not to cum too fast, loverboy," said Julia. Her taunt was probably more truthful. Her pussy was squeezing down on me in all kinds of wonderful ways, tight as a vice around my cock. Despite the abruptness of it all, she was warm and wet. As I stared down at her defiant expression, I knew that this girl could take -- and wanted -- the fiercest fucking I could give her.

So I gave it to her. I started thrusting hard and fast, and got harder and faster quickly. Every time I thrust in her pussy would grab at me with its warm hunger, not wanting to let go. I grabbed Julia's legs and pulled them back as I thrust forward, managing to impale her on the full length of my cock. Every time I felt my cockhead hit the end of her slippery cunt she would grunt out a small, aggressive "God!" or "shit!" or "fuck!"

Julia leaned back on the bed while thrusting her hips in the air, her body seeming to be just an extension of the motion of my cock. I saw the ripples through her skin as I thrust in and out, and she thrust back. At this angle the penetration was a bit shallower, so I picked up the pace, finally earning a squeal of pleasure out of her.

"You like that, eh?" I said, trying to keep a shit-eating grin off my face as I thrust into her quivering cunt.

She just muttered a vague noise of contentment began pulling herself horizontally along the bed. Confused, I moved with her, staying inside her as she dragged her way to her nightstand. She reached over and grabbed some kind of vibrator -- a white one plugged into the wall. With a flick of a switch it began to hum.

"What, am I not enough for you?" I said, half serious.

Julia pressed the bulbous shuddering head to her clit. "Just fuck me, asshole."

What else could I do. I grabbed her hips roughly and began slamming into her, trying to wring every ounce of pleasure out of her dynamite little body. I was insulted by the vibrator, but I had to admit that the tremors going through her pussy felt good even to me, and she was howling and moaning from the direct sensation.