16. Aurora
AURORA
Dorm A was much smaller than The Great Dorm with only twenty-two beds—eleven on each long wall. The room was shaped like a long rectangle with the necessary room on one end and the entrance on the other.
To my horror, the necessary room here was different and offered much less privacy than the Great Dorm.
There were only two private stalls for one thing and their wooden doors didn’t come all the way down to the floor.
This didn’t seem nearly enough stalls to me, but—as if to compensate—there was also a row of five stone urinals on the other wall.
How am I going to manage this? I wondered bleakly, looking at the two stalls, one of which was already occupied by one of our dorm-mates who was passing gas loudly while the other boys laughed about it.
I couldn’t understand why this was so amusing, but every time another “trumpet blast” of flatulence echoed in the stone room, a shout went up and they all roared with laughter.
What was so amusing about the whole smelly process?
And how difficult was it going to be for me to secure one of the two stalls to get dressed in every morning?
Answer—very difficult, I was sure.
And to make things worse, I saw Chud Larson walk into the dorm just as I was coming out of the necessary room.
He didn’t see me, and I tried to make myself small as I inched nearer to my cot. I had chosen the one closest to the necessary room, hoping I could beat the boys into a stall in the morning and get dressed before anyone else was up.
Of course, I had my Dragon Glass pendant, and it did seem to be doing its job of making me look more like a male, but there had to be limits—didn’t there? How much could it possibly hide?
I didn’t want to find out…but I was about to.
At the tolling of the Great Bell—which I had learned was the name of the bell that let us know when to go to meals and classes—our Dorm Monitor, Professor Hanmish, called loudly,
“All right, everyone strip. It’s bathing time!”
Professor Hanmish—a big, beefy man—taught Dragon Anatomy to all the students and he was also single.
This mattered because, as Jorn-o explained, the single professors had to all take turns as Dorm Monitors for the First-years.
Hanmish had his own private room at the head of the dorm, right by the entrance to keep anyone from sneaking out after Last Bell.
He would be with us all year and it was his job to keep the new cadets under his care in line.
“Bathing time, I said!” he shouted now as the boys around me whooped and hollered. “Come on—everybody strip and grab your towels!”
I started to sidle away to the necessary room, but Hanmish caught me and pointed a sausage-sized finger in my direction.
“Now, now—nobody gets out of bathing time,” he growled, giving me a warning frown. “Boys get dirty—I won’t stay in a dorm stinking of ball sweat! Get undressed and grab your towel now, Cadet!”
“I just…have to use the necessary room first and then I will,” I hedged.
“All right, but don’t be long.” He frowned and folded his thick arms over his chest.
“I…I’ll just be a minute,” I squeaked. Then I grabbed my towels and rushed into the necessary room as quickly as I could before Professor Hanmish could object.
Once inside the wooden stall—which was not the one that had been in use earlier, thank the God and Goddess—I just stood there for a minute, trying to still my pounding heart.
What am I going to do? I wondered frantically as I stared out the crack in the corner of the stall at all the naked bodies. I couldn’t show myself naked in front of my new classmates. Not even the Dragon Glass Pendant was strong enough to hide my true identity under those circumstances—was it?
Maybe I could just hide in here and wait until all the rest of the students had gone to the Cook-pot, I reasoned. Maybe Professor Hanmish would forget about me and then I could climb into my cot like before and pretend to be asleep when everyone came back in. Maybe—
There was a sudden pounding on the wooden door of the stall that made it rattle on its hinges and a loud voice shouted,
“Cadet Lysandra, get out here and get to the baths now! I tell you, I won’t have any dirty boys in my dorm!”
“Just a minute, Sir!” I managed to get out somehow. “I’m just getting undressed now!”
Hastily—because I had no choice—I began to strip off my uniform.
I had to stand on tip-toes to hang it neatly over the stall door, in order not to rumple it.
I was taking my time, hoping that Hanmish might leave the necessary room, but I could see his enormous black boots when I peeked under the stall door. He was still there—waiting for me.
In no time I was down to my bandages and underthings, which I took off and folded carefully to hide inside my uniform jacket. Then I was naked, with nothing between me and the end of my whole life but two towels and the Dragon Glass pendant.
“Get out here, Cadet Lysandra!” Professor Hanmish bawled, and his heavy fist thundered against the wooden door of the wooden stall, making me jump.
I was really going to have to do this, I realized. I was going to have to go out in front of a male teacher wearing nothing but two towels to cover my female attributes.
I wrapped my first towel around my waist and fastened it securely. Then I hung the other towel around my shoulders, so it covered my small breasts. The rough, scratchy fabric irritated my sensitive nipples, but there was nothing I could do about that.
Taking the Dragon Glass pendant between my thumb and finger, I rubbed the smooth, gold-flecked dragon’s head and thought as hard as I could.
“I’m all male—there’s nothing feminine about me at all. I look like a boy and everyone who looks at me will only see a boy!”
Then, taking a deep breath, I gathered my clothes and boots and pushed my way out of the stall.
“About time!” Professor Hanmish growled, frowning down at me. “What took you so long?”
Besides being a big man, he also had a full, bushy reddish-brown beard which made him look quite fierce—especially if you were naked and alone with him, as I was.
“Sorry, Professor,” I said humbly, since he seemed to expect an explanation. “My stomach was upset.”
“Well, I trust it’s better now, lad. You need to hurry up if you’re going to get into the Cook-pot before the Second-years come.”
“Yes, Sir,” I said quickly and hurried to place my uniform neatly on the end of my bed.
Then I left the dorm, as naked as the day I had been born feeling more horribly vulnerable than I ever had in my life.