The Witch's Offering

Chapter 7

The sun's rays made Ren smile as he walked across the quad after his first class. Paved walkways crisscrossed the area in the middle of campus, radiating out from a central bronze sculpture of the college's founder. Benches, concrete picnic tables, and sculptures made by past students dotted the walkways every few meters. Trees planted halfway between the statue and the walking path offered shade to dozens of students as they studied, ate breakfast, chatted with friends, or snuggled with their partners. The outer walkway was particularly wide and had a two-person, one-way inside lane for joggers. Plenty of people complained about the joggers saying they were a hazard, but there weren't enough injuries caused by them for anyone to care.

Ren didn't mind the joggers. The women occasionally offered a little eye candy when walking in the track's direction. Today he felt acutely aware of the shape of the passing joggers' bottoms. More than once, Ren had to peel his eyes from a woman's firm rear to keep from tenting his pants as thoughts drifted into his head about what they might look like uncovered and bent over in front of him.

"Perv," sneered one of the three girls walking past him in the other direction as he struggled to avert his eyes from another bouncing rear in the jogging lane.

"Sorry," he mumbled, his face turning red as he stared at the concrete at his feet and walked a little quicker.

Furthering his embarrassment, the jogger he'd been ogling turned around with a scowl on her face. After a moment of looking him over, the frown turned into a smirk, and she wiggled her ass at him before resuming her morning exercise.

Ren looked back to see the middle of the three girls, a cute woman with Asian features and black hair, had fallen behind and stared at him in confusion. The others seemed to take notice, and Ren broke into a jog toward the library before they had the chance to make a scene. Xaal's blessing wouldn't do him a bit of good if he became known as a campus lecher.

---

"S'up, Ru?" asked Megan, "was he checking out our asses too?"

"Could you blame him?" said Aleesha, the black girl on the other side of Ruri. "I have one fine ass, bought and paid for with my gym membership. If the boys aren't looking, I'm not getting my money's worth."

Megan rolled her eyes. As Aleesha's gym partner, she knew quite well how much time the woman spent keeping her butt looking good.

"I'll catch up with you two in a bit," said Ruri, slowly starting after the man Megan called a perv.

"How much you wanna bet she's going to bust his balls for leering at those girls," Megan said with a grin as their Asian friend strode away after the creeper.

"No bet. Poor man. Tomorrow she'll tell us how he repented all his sins and begged her for forgiveness. Then he won't come within ten meters of the girl," said Aleesha, shaking her head. "Too bad, the boy was kinda cute too." She shifted the backpack on her shoulder. "Let's go. Unlike Ruri, we will actually get in trouble for showing up late to class."

---

Ren pulled a book on network management, maintenance, and troubleshooting out of his bag and slid it across the Library counter.

"A bit of light reading?" asked the girl sitting on the other side as she hefted the sizeable tome and scanned it in before placing it on a rolling cart to go back out on the shelves.

"More like I need an upgrade. The info in that is good but still sophomore-ish. My new job requires that I be far more knowledgeable about networking than I originally intended for my degree."

"New job? Does this mean I won't see your smiling face here anymore?"

"Continued education is a job requirement. I'll still be around."