Submissive Desires

Five

The next day, Sy stayed in her room with a laptop, a small pile of digital media, and a larger mountain of books. It was a hard major and when she studied she really got down to it. For myself, I decided last night simply hadn't happened. Which meant there was no need to be embarrassed about any of it, but was a tiny bit annoying because one of my friends is a lesbian and it would have been fun to tell her I got felt up by the prettiest girl on campus and watch her at least pretend to get insanely jealous.

Sy emerged at noon and got to work setting out blocks of chocolate. I blinked.

"Um... the brownies were just a talking point, you know. I wasn't serious."

"You need these after yesterday. And I will need them Wednesday." She set the oven to 325, and got out two knives.

I helped her shave and mix. "So... poor family. But you buy really good chocolate," I said, after a highly critical taste test. "What's your secret?"

"Full scholarships, splitting rent, few dating costs and I mostly eat cheap," she said, squinting at the scale she was measuring confectioners' sugar on.

"Full scholarship?"

"Well, two scholarships, but between them they cover everything but rent and food, which is why I have the job at the library and do the tutoring thing." She sighed a little. "You're going to ask, so yes. Andrei and his friends arranged the scholarships. I could not possibly afford to be here otherwise. And no, there are no strings. He arranged them after we were already deep in a relationship, and they go for four years as long as I maintain an average." She chuckled a little. "For a Romanian he has his enlightened moments. He believes in my education."

"How does that work with your parents? A boy – yes, I know, man – paying your way?"

"Oh, that is not how wealth operates. He's not writing checks. There's an American foundation with business interests in Romania sponsoring one of them, and a French group interested in the plight of Romanian gypsies behind the other. In his world it is very much who you know and who knows you."

"Your life is such a fairy tale, except for the crawling for sex part. Which still bothers me. Boys are supposed to be the ones begging for what we have."

"But men never will."

"I fall into that word trap every time. I guess I can't think of them as men."

"Beat the cream a little and warm it, I'll start to melt the chocolate, with that half cup of unsalted butter. And that's just it... there are not many men on this campus. They are mostly boys. Pretenders playing a part. Though I say it as a Romanian woman who is used to men who are much less gentle and undemanding, my standards are different. I'm sure some of the... males, here, are very nice."

"Do you know Bill? The sprinter? He's gorgeous..."

Sy facepalmed. "You can certainly pick them. He's gay."

"What? How do you know?"

"Not to be conceited, but straight guys all pretty much respond to me in exactly one way. When a guy doesn't, he's either only into asians, or he's gay. Besides, have you ever seen him off the track? No straight guy spends that much time on his hair and nails."

"Another dream shattered."

"Come to Romania with me next summer. I'll find you someone."

"Language barrier."

"I'll teach you the words for Yes, Faster, Make me, Harder, and Oh Fuck Yes. You'll do fine," she said with a straight face.

"I don't know if I'll ever get over how wicked you are. Best kept secret ever."