"In first year, I lived in International House. It was a very different college, housing a lot more international students; every six months people returned home, new people came, and the process of getting-to-know-you started all over again. Girls and guys lived on all levels and everyone used the same bathrooms. There was no segregation. Everything had cubicles and locks on the doors.
"I lived on the ground floor of the west wing, halfway along the corridor. My level, like most other levels, only had single rooms and one slightly bigger room for the tutor. Unlike other levels, however, it also had a very large room that was twice the size of all the others. That's where Stew and Suzie lived.
"They had fallen in love in the Orientation week of their first semester, and had been together for four years when I met them. Suzie was a quiet brunette, small and petite like a ballerina. Stew was tall and thick with a head like a wedge. He was doing Civil Engineering/Applied Maths; she, Health Science and Nutrition. Boy-girl room-sharing was not encouraged but they got away with it; the Head turned a blind eye.
"College is a funny place. You can get so shut up in the four walls of your shoebox that you forget to go out and do things ... meet people. Those days were hard. I was constantly adjusting to everything: work, Uni, studying, new people I never thought I'd get to know. So many names: Chris, Fiona, Louise, Kaylene; Rajinie, Yoko, Sanh Kin, Sujatha. Jag was overseas, backpacking through Canada and occasionally sending postcards. I felt completely disconnected - from him, from everything. A dead phone line. A wrong number.
"I met Stew on ytalk. He started chatting to me and I didn't know who he was; back then I just said yes to anyone who wanted to ytalk and sometimes it was easier than meeting people in real life. That first typed conversation was weird. I thought he was funny. That night he stopped by my room to talk to me in person, then sent me an e-mail later to tell me I was very different online than in the flesh. But from then on we were friends - sort of. I never quite understood what kind of friendship we had. It wasn't like I saw or spoke to him much. We'd say hi whenever we'd meet and occasionally tease each other - his yawning, my late nights; his clumsiness, my typing speed.
"Because I was so fast on the keyboard, sometimes Stew would come begging a favour on behalf of an overstressed Suzie. She'd dictate her essays; I'd transcribe. I never got along very well with her; she was nice but kind of distant. I thought they were sweet together, though. They weren't the perfect couple but they came close. They were popular; they went out for romantic dinners in fancy restaurants and they were so cute in the way they treated each other, it often made me wish Jag wasn't on the other side of the world.
"But, after four years, I guess even the most perfect couple still have problems. Stew liked girls - pretty girls. He confided to me that, were it not the social norm and the respectable practice of a man in a corporate profession, he would never commit himself to monogamous marriage. His idea of arcadia - typical of his gender - was to live in a commune where partner-sharing was acceptable and encouraged. This made me feel sorry for Suzie but she probably knew all about his wild oat desires and, in her own way, dealt with it.
"I should have noticed, then, what a flirt Stew was. He liked girls and they liked him. He was entertaining and funny; he could play the buffoon and the clown. But he could also be charming and attentive, listening to your every word as if you were the only person that mattered. He said, 'Each person has so much to share ... Even those we don't like, we can learn from. To understand people is like trying to drink a river ... you know it's impossible, but it's sure as hell worth a go, and you're not going to lose anything by doing it.' It was flattering - silly but flattering - to know that someone so popular and charismatic thought you were worth the effort to get to know.
"One night in September, the college hosted one of its formal academic dinners. Lecturers were invited to eat with students and become acquainted outside the learning environment. Tables from the dining room were moved to the games room and draped with bright blue tablecloths and yellow serviettes. Ex-residents were hired to serve as waiters and bar attendants. Cheap wine was ordered - usually the sole reason why most residents turned up to these functions at all - and the guests got dressed in their best.
"Stew, as well as being fond of girls, was fond of alcohol. By the time he sat down to eat, he had already consumed a large amount of beer and wine. He wasn't completely inebriated but was well on his way, and continued to down glass after glass as the evening wore on. He sat down opposite me and talked like he always did, but his smile was suggestive and he removed his shoes under the table to start a playful game of footsies with me, his sock-covered toes sometimes rubbing up against my ankles and my calves. All around us, students and academics were talking animatedly, not noticing what was going on. The buffet main course consisted of a roast, vegetables and gravy. It was followed by speeches and a string quartet performing Mozart. Dessert's finale saw most of the guests slinking away and the whole affair was concluded by ten o'clock.
"Some of us continued to hang around, playing musical instruments and talking. Some pretended to waltz while the violinists of the string quartet played a lovely duet. Around us people packed things away, picked up used serviettes, disposed of empty wine bottles, stripped the tables and moved them back to the dining room. Around midnight Suzie came by to coax Stew to bed. He wouldn't budge, insisting he was fine and that there were people he wanted to talk to. One of the tutors, with a knack for figuring out chords, played songs on the piano we gathered round to sing to, but, upon discovering that the hour was way past the normal noise curfew, she ejected us from the games room and stayed behind to lock up.
"I returned to my room and checked my voicemail, leaving the door open because I intended to go out again. Stew wandered in and sat down at the end of my bed. His eyes were so red; his breath, pungent and heavy.
"I want you," he said - mumbled, perhaps. And somehow - I just can't remember how - somehow we ended up lying together on my bed in one another's arms, and he kissed my neck and ran his hand down my leg and pressed his body so close to mine, I could feel his bones.
"I couldn't push him away. Maybe I didn't want to - no, I did; I thought of Jag across the wide blue ocean but his features were blurring in my memory. Part of me thought, 'To hell with it - I'll lie with the Beast and lose my maidenhead' - but another part of me was numb ... shell-like. I could only turn aside when his wine-soaked breath came too near my lips - could only push his roving hands away when they ventured too far - could only imagine that I was a mollusc and he touched my outer skin, never the flesh inside.
"We lay like that for hours. I'm not sure if we slept. At dawn I was overcome with a certain urgency - maybe it was shame. I kept thinking, he must not be seen in my room, he must not be seen in my room. I said, 'Stew, you'd better go now.' I pushed him and sat up. He was amiable and sleepy; he said goodnight, kissed me and ambled off to Suzie's room. I undressed, got into bed but lay awake for a long time, hugging knees to chest, vacant."
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