6. Roman
ROMAN
I have lost my appetite. The girl has taken it away from me, and I can’t eat now. Jaw clenched and head pounding, I throw my plate of food, plate included, into the trash can.
I need to leave right now. Her weird colored eyes are following my every movement, and it’s making my skin prickle.
There’s something so otherworldly about her, and it creeps me out. She also has other effects on me, and I find them, in particular, hard to stomach. My aching cock is disgusting to me right now.
I don’t do well with being turned on. Sex isn’t the easiest thing for me to navigate.
For the longest time, I’ve felt little desire.
I used to, of course, but it never ended well for me.
Any kind of sexual activity brought about feelings of shame, nightmares, and, at times, flashbacks.
It became easier to avoid it altogether.
My energies are focused elsewhere these days, but now, this slip of a girl has awakened something in me, and I don’t like it.
I storm to my room. I take the back way, along the lengthy, dark corridor lined with portraits of college elders.
There are rumors of ghosts in these hallways, and I, for one, believe them.
You can sense the dark energy in some parts of this place.
I don’t dislike it. The darkness doesn’t bother me; in fact, I welcome it. It soothes my soul.
In many ways, the stories and legends of this college help to take my mind off my own past. Anything I can do to forget those awful days in my family home helps.
Reading ghost stories as a child was one of the ways I escaped the horror of my reality.
You might think a child living through what I had would have wanted everything fictional to be rainbows and puppies.
It wasn’t the case. I liked to read about other people living in darkness. It made me feel less alone.
Ghosts always fascinated me. The idea of humans having a spirit that could go on, even when our physical bodies had long decayed, had appealed to me even as a young child.
It’s what got me into the idea of talking to my ancestors, and from there into the research of my family background, and the history of where I came from.
Learning our family had Viking blood flowing through our veins had given me a strength and pride that had been absent in my life as a boy and a young man. Instead of being a victim, I began to realize I could become something much more potent if I channeled the energy of my past.
Once I had learned how powerful the ancestors could be, I started to appeal to them in my daily life.
In my bedroom at home, I made an ancestors’ table.
It contained photographs and portraits of family members long gone.
I would place small offerings upon this table, things like candles, dried flowers, and sometimes small animal bones I would find in the woods.
I would talk to my people, sitting there, in front of the table with my eyes closed, my mind spanning back hundreds of years.
I would beg them to help me, and eventually, I believe they did.
The person who created so much torment in my life, my despised uncle, suffered a dreadful accident.
Although it, sadly, didn’t kill him, it made him weaker.
As I grew into a young man, he became a shell of himself, mentally and emotionally.
It meant he was no longer a direct threat to me, or to any other young boys.
Not that this enabled me to easily move past what he did to me for all those years.
My anger at him has never truly abated. However, it is eclipsed by the anger I feel toward my immediate family.
I tried to talk to my mom about the situation once, and she had become panicked and almost fearful.
Instead of listening to me, her child, and helping me, she had tried to tell me to keep quiet.
To this day, I can’t understand how she did such a thing.
One day, far into the future, I would like a child of my own. If I’m ever lucky enough to become a father, protecting my offspring will be the most important thing in my life.
I finally reach my room and unlock the door.
Walking inside, I head to the window and look out over the grounds to the trees beyond.
I wonder if I should go for a walk, since being among nature always soothes me.
Today, though, there is something stopping me from getting out there with the trees.
There’s a rage within me, burning with a fire that scares me.
It’s so visceral it threatens to overwhelm me.
How that girl can cause me to feel this way is a mystery. Rationally, I recognize my emotions are way out of whack on this.
There’s also something else going on with the way she affects me, and I hate to even think about what it means.
When I’d approached Ophelia, it had purely been to threaten her and make her stay away, and I’d expected, truthfully, to feel shitty about it. Instead, I’d experienced a heady power rush when I warned her off.
I’d felt immense satisfaction at the way her big, beautiful eyes had stared up at me, so full of fear.
Her eyes are amazing, and I wonder what the story is behind their two different shades.
Had she been born that way, or are they two different colors because of an incident?
They hold a whole universe of emotions and stories in their liquid depths, and having them trained on me while I told her to stay the fuck away had been something else.
My dick is hard. It was when I was telling her to fucking leave us alone and still is now. Is it the confrontation that’s turned me on… or is it simply her? I hate that she has this effect on me.
I pace the floor of my bedroom, my hands knotted in my hair, willing my erection to go down. But the more I try to put the girl out of my mind, the more I seem to focus on her, and the more my body wants her.
It’s like an itch I can’t scratch, or a thirst I can’t sate.
I clench my teeth and ball my fists, and I want to lift my face to the sky and roar my frustration. I can’t even remember the last time another person made me feel this way. What is it about her?
The way she’d dropped her chin and told me she was sorry, without even really knowing what she’d done, had awoken something inside me. In that moment, I’d pictured her on her knees, her hands tied behind her back, her chin lowered in that same way.
So beautiful and submissive.
Was that what I wanted? For her to submit to me?
That she’d then come back at me with fire and a sharp tongue had made me want to break her even more.
I’m not even supposed to feel this way. How many times have I pressed upon the other Preachers about how sex is giving our power away to another person? It makes us weaker.
Yet here I am after a simple interaction with a girl, and I’m not strong enough to resist.
Full of disgust and shame, I unzip and take out my hard cock.
My breath catches in my lungs at the first exquisite touch to the flesh.
Gods, it has been so long. I am on edge, primed, and I grit my teeth as I close my eyes and work my fist up and down my length.
My hips move as if I’m actually fucking a woman … fucking her , instead of my fist.
What would she feel like around me? Tight? Small? Would she be all hot and wet? I groan and slam my free hand against the wall to one side, holding myself up.
An image of Ophelia’s wide, dual-colored eyes, staring at me, as her perfect mouth opens in an O of wonder as I fuck her takes over my mind.
It’s not pornographic. I’m not even thinking about her body, just how her face would look as I slam into her.
My balls tighten and my spine tingles. I grunt as hot cum shoots up my cock.
It splatters the floor like rainfall, and I open my eyes to see myself painting the wood with my essence.
The moment the last jerks of ecstasy fade, mortification rushes in to take its place.
I shouldn’t have done this. I’m breaking my own rules. I’m a fucking hypocrite.
How do I dispel this negative influence? How do I cleanse myself and the others of her presence?
Am I even acting in the Preachers’ best interests by wanting her to stay away, or am I being selfish? I need to get my mind straight.
I stretch and shake out my hands before zipping myself away and walking to the corner of the room and flipping up the floorboard where I keep the box hidden. It’s easy to spot where I need to pry the wood open because it’s slightly raised.
When I first moved into this dorm, I took the rug up, and it’s now rolled away in the back of the closet.
I like the floorboards. The way they feel under my feet in the morning grounds me.
Having bare skin on wood is an entirely different feeling than having bare skin on man-made fibers.
Every day, when I first awaken, I stand in the middle of the room, looking out over the forest beyond as I practice some basic yoga movements.
So many people spend their time concentrating on cardio, or purely on strength training, and they pay no heed to the importance of skills like balance and mindfulness.
My yoga practice encompasses both. It helps me stay present, grounded in the moment, and gives me a calm, focused attention for the day ahead.
It also helps with maintaining flexibility, balance, and strength.
Yoga lengthens and defines my muscles in ways that lifting weights at the gym won’t.
Today, however, after seeing Ophelia in the cafeteria, my yoga hasn’t done me any good at all.
Squatting, I wiggle my finger under the floorboard and lift it, revealing the small space underneath. Within the small hole is the box, wrapped in a white handkerchief. I take it out and carefully unwrap the cloth. The small, dark wooden box sits on my lap.
I stare at it for a long beat then slide the lid off.
Inside is a lock of hair.
Blonde and silken, it shines in the light streaming into my room.
I run it through my fingers. Touching it gives me a sense of power and connection to something much greater than I.
My grandmother gave me this lock of hair when she was old and frail.
She told me it had been handed down through generations.
Allegedly, it comes from one of our Norwegian ancestors who was a renowned warrior.
I’m not sure I believe that this hair can be as ancient as she claims and still in such good condition.
But she believed it, and she kept it and saw fit to pass it to me.
Therefore, I’ve also kept it as safe and secure as I can.
Sometimes, when I ask the gods for direction, I hold this hair and ask my ancestors, too. Right now, it’s what I need. Guidance.
I sit cross-legged on the floor, the hair resting softly against my open palm, and I ask for forgiveness for my transgression, and help.
How do I resist this temptation that has landed in our midst?
How do I keep the three of us, the Preachers, together and strong?
Because I’m nothing if not honest with myself, I also ask if my aversion to Ophelia’s entrance into our lives is selfish.
Am I worrying about my soul brothers interacting with her because I truly see a danger?
Is there a part of me, a deep-down hidden part of me, that maybe wants the girl for myself?
I ask for the guidance of the gods, the wisdom of nature, the knowledge of my lineage. Then I sit with my eyes closed and let the answers slowly come to me.
By the end of my session, I’m still frustrated because the gods didn’t give me clear answers.
They told me instead that I need to take away my doubt and my pain.
I must rid myself of the sins that I want to commit.
Soon, I will need to go into the woods and find somewhere I can carry out what must be done.
I will force this sin from my weak flesh and hungry heart, and create a space for the truth to flourish.
I need to purge myself of these feelings, and I know just how to do it.