El Rancho del Corazón
Part IV: College Life
34 School Days
MORNING WAS AS NORMAL as mornings were ever going to be at the ranch. I stumbled downstairs to mix up bread and found Elaine already in the kitchen.
“What’s up, lover?” I asked after I’d given her a long good-morning kiss. “Why are you in the kitchen so early?”
“I wanted to make sure all my hearthmates got a good start on their first day of school,” she said. “We can do forms while the bread is in the oven and I’ve got a special scramble with lots of vegetables for breakfast.”
“Hmm. Forms are in an hour. The bread is rising. Whatever can we do in the meantime,” I asked. I slid a hand inside her pajama bottoms and squeezed her butt.
“You could take me to a shower and wash my hair so it’s nice and clean before I leave today. You know I’m headed up to Indy. Fortunately, I don’t have classes before noon. I don’t know what it will be like after we start a show in production, but I’ll be back for the weekend as often as possible,” she said and kissed me again. My hand moved to the front and I parted her moist lips with my finger. “You could make sure I’m nice and satisfied before I leave today, too.”
After forms and breakfast, we divided up into four different vehicles to make our way to campus. I was surprised to find Hannah in the front seat beside me.
“Are you going to school today, honey?” I teased.
“I have a meeting this morning with Lonnie,” she said. “And I have fliers to put up in the Union. We have two weeks, Brian. Lonnie says we’ll be able to start filming on Saturday after Labor Day. We might have to do some weekday shooting as well, but Saturday the eighth will be our kickoff.”
“Any idea how many people will be coming that morning?”
“That’s part of why I’m going in today. Lonnie wants to introduce me to his advanced camera class and I need to find you a girlfriend for the first show,” she laughed.
“Surely I have enough girlfriends to get by for the first show!”
“We need to get started on the right foot. You can’t depend on the women you sleep with to cook with you, too!”
We agreed to meet at the Union for lunch after my chemistry class. I had heavy days on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with four classes, including lectures in physics, chemistry, and biology. I also had my one and only language requirement, Advanced German. My AP German Language and Culture class gave me my other language credit. Unfortunately, that had been my junior year and getting back into the swing of speaking, reading, and writing German was going to be a major challenge. At least Sora promised to help me. Tuesday and Thursday, I had Physics and Chemistry Labs, and a late class in Literary Criticism. That was going to be interesting. I’d completed all my basic requirements by attending IUSB my junior and senior years, so I was thrown straight into intense classes from the moment I hit campus. Only being in class eighteen hours a week sounded like it would be simple. After my first two classes, I was already trying to figure out how I’d ever get the reading done.
I wandered into the Student Union at 12:30, a little dazed. I needed food. Just outside the cafeteria was one of the many bulletin boards where students could post anything from a bicycle for sale to the need for a roommate. There were even a few notes that said things like, ‘To the cute girl in Eng 201 wearing the Nirvana T-shirt. Meet the guy with glasses you spoke to at the Ratskeller at 6:00 tonight! Let’s talk.’ I noticed a flyer for ‘Young Cooking’ up, too. Hannah and Courtney had some kind of graphics program they put on my Mac and the flyer looked pretty cool. It had tear-off phone numbers at the bottom. A couple cute girls were futzing with tearing off the contact info. Both girls were wearing bright orange pants that looked like they were painted on. Nice butts!
“I could probably get you an interview for that,” I said. “I know the producer.” Both girls spun to look over the top of me. They lowered their eyes. They were both at least 5'9". Their noses wrinkled in unison.
“Yeah, right. Freshmen.”
“Really. She’s my girlfriend,” I said. Maybe they wouldn’t be good choices after all. I saw Hannah approaching.
“Nice pick-up line, but you’re out of your league, little boy. We’ll just take the info from the flyer.”
“Here, have a business card, instead,” Hannah said as she came up beside them. “Give me a call when you get settled in.” She shoved a couple very official Hearthstone Entertainment business cards at them. They took them automatically and Hannah turned to me. “Hi, honey,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “I’m starving. Let’s get some food.” We walked away from the girls and could hear them sputtering behind us.
“Wait! You mean…? Oh shit.” We didn’t turn around.
“That was so mean,” I laughed. “And so appropriate.”
“Can’t give the bitches around here any slack,” Hannah said. She made the little reflexive shrug and glance around that she did whenever she swore. “Lonnie said that,” she whispered. We had a great but short lunch because I had to get to German class. “I have to get back to the office. I’ll pick you all up at about 4:30.” I kissed her and headed to my next torturous class.
Of course, it was just my luck that the two girls I’d met at the bulletin board were also in my biology class at three-thirty. They were standing in the hall outside the classroom when I approached. Shit! When did girls start wearing just tights to school? I mean, they were just stretchy and their buns sort of wiggled in a way that would even challenge Courtney—who, in my opinion, had the sexiest buns on the planet. And when they turned, you could see the exact outline of their pussies. Holy fucking hell!
“You! What are you staring at?” the darker brunette demanded. It took me a second to realize she was talking to me. I finally dragged my eyes up from her proudly outlined pussy to her face. “You, again?”
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I was just… I mean your pants. They are kind of hard to take the eyes off.” The girls actually laughed.
“Got you on that one, Dawn,” the lighter brown-haired coed said.
“Yeah. I’ll give you a pass on that. They are pretty bright,” Dawn said to me. She actually smiled.
“Bright?” I said. “Oh. The color. I was actually admiring the shape.” I slipped past them and found a seat. They followed right behind me and sat down on either side of me.
“What would your girlfriend say about you staring at the butts of two other girls?” Dawn asked.
“Um… She kind of expects that. First day on campus, you know. We’re not used to it,” I laughed.
“Is she really the producer of that TV show? She looked like she was about fifteen,” the other asked. “Oh, that’s Dawn and I’m Cathy.”
“I’m Brian. Nice to meet you both,” I said. “She’s eighteen and really is the producer. Damned good at it, too. Professor Phillips in the Media Lab has already asked her to be a guest speaker in one of his classes.”
“So, this is a university production?”
“No. It’s independent, but the University station will get first rights for airing it. It’s syndicated. Professor Phillips is supplying equipment, cameramen, and editors.”
“It’s like, legitimate, though, isn’t it? Like not porn?” Cathy asked.
“Definitely not porn. It’s a cooking show.”
“I want to do it,” Dawn said. “Will you tell her?”
“I’ll let her know you’ll call,” I said. That was all the conversation we had time for. This professor launched into his first lecture as if we’d already read the book. There were close to 150 in the lecture hall. It was one of those ‘breadth of study’ classes that fulfilled a non-lab science requirement. Most of the students were glazed over by the time we left the room. I quickly said goodbye to my classmates and ran to catch Hannah, where she was picking up everyone who had late classes.
All four casas gathered in the big room for dinner Friday night to celebrate surviving our first week of college. We were all a little glazed over. We’d had a pretty intense summer with the building project, but that was mostly physical labor and we could see what we accomplished each day. We’d been through our first week of classes and all any of us could see was how much reading we still had to do.
And I had to finish my recipe research for our first show.
The meal Friday night was a carry-in. We pretty much all cooked something or another. Part of what Rose’s parents had brought was a complete set of dishes for 24 people. They weren’t fancy china or stoneware but they were a step above melamine. They were plain durable dishes. We just set all the food out on the long kitchen breakfast bar and ate buffet style.
“You know, anything we put on the table here is better than the cafeteria in the Union. How did you guys stand it the past three years?” Doug asked Lamar.
“Well, we don’t eat in the Union. There’s a special cafeteria for athletes. They actually have a dietician there that sort of prescribes what we’re supposed to eat. You know, some of the football guys consume close to 5,000 calories a day. I guess most of the athletes eat more than the average meal ticket buys you in the cafeteria,” Lamar answered.
“Are you off-diet tonight?” I asked, looking at the pile of pasta he had on his plate.
“Got to fuel this body!” he laughed.
“Brian, there’s another idea for you for our show. Fueling the athlete’s body,” Hannah said.
“And fighting the freshman fifteen,” Jennifer added. “I just felt like I got my body back after the enforced inactivity last year by working my buns off this summer. Three meals over there and I already feel like I’ve gained weight.”
“You could do one about cooking for a crowd, too,” Rose suggested. “The demo meals you did for Miss Polly were all designed to serve four to six people. Here at the casa, we regularly have anywhere from ten to twenty.” Hannah and Samantha both had pads of paper they were scribbling notes down on. I was already feeling overwhelmed again.
“Since we all have homework, why don’t we light a fire in the fireplace tonight and sit in here to study after we get dishes done?” Sora asked.
“I got dishes,” Liz said. “I don’t have homework unless someone wants a haircut tonight.”
“I’ll help,” Doreen and Sugar said at the same time. Hannah finished a hurried conversation with Samantha.
“I’m with you,” she said. “I want to make sure we stay organized in the refrigerator and freezer. Bren, I’m assuming you want to take leftovers with you, too, right?”
“Yes. Who made the cobbler? I want the recipe for that one.”
Studying in front of the fire in the big room was cool. Some people were sitting at the table writing. Some of us were just lounging wherever we could find a pillow or a chair by the fire while we read. Courtney was in the newly dubbed ‘computer room’ where she’d set up two computers. Hannah had my Mac in the office. It was almost like our study groups back in my old room in Mishawaka. This time, however, few of us had the same classes. We all had different study interests and were at different levels.
Sora helped me get refreshed on my German. I was doing fine with reading, but writing and speaking were different issues. I knew the words but kept getting the syntax messed up.
By ten, we were all looking forward to closing the books and heading to bed. We all gave out hugs and kisses and dragged our sorry asses off to sleep.
Saturday morning after forms, I snagged Sarah’s arm and led her back to bed.
“Brian? What’s up?” she asked.
“Sarah, I want to make love to you.”
“In the middle of the day?” she squeaked.
“It’s barely after breakfast. That scarcely qualifies as the middle of the day.”
“I know, but…”
“Sarah, if you just want to cuddle up and talk to me, that’s fine. But I really want to spend some time before you take off tomorrow. How long is it going to be before you get back down here? Thanksgiving?” I asked.
“Yes. It’s just so far.”
“Honey, I don’t want you going back to Oberlin without knowing how much I’m going to miss you. How much I love you.” She sighed and folded into my arms. We sank down onto a mattress but didn’t start making out or getting undressed. I just wanted to hold her.
“Jessica said you held her all night and didn’t even make a pass at her,” Sarah whispered.
“That was only the first night. She was a little more demanding the second night.” Sarah’s laughter shook against my chest.
“And you still refused to make love to her. Are you an idiot?”
“I am. But you know what? Jessica still has to get her head together. Not that we don’t all have to do that. But she really doesn’t know what it all means. There’s one thing that scares me more than anything else about Jessica, and to a lesser degree about you and Nikki and Cassie.”
“What’s that, Brian?”
“I love making love to you. I love holding you and kissing you. I love just sitting by the fire holding your hand like we did after I closed my books last night. I just don’t ever want to get to the point where kissing or hugging or making love is something that means the same as goodbye. If the only time I ever make love to Jessica is just before she leaves for somewhere, then I’d start thinking of making love as saying goodbye,” I said. “Does that make sense? It feels weird. I told her that every woman I’d ever made love to was still my lover. We all know we might not always be lovers, but I never even consider making love once and saying goodbye.”
“But you want to make love to me before I leave for Oberlin,” she said. “Aren’t we saying goodbye?”
“We are for a little while, but remember, I made love with you Sunday night with a little help from your sister,” I laughed. “And I’m already looking forward to making love with you the minute you get back for the holiday.”
“Well, I could find a boyfriend at school,” she giggled.
“And don’t ever think I won’t be happy for you if you do,” I said, kissing her lightly. “I want you to be happy. Not everyone is cut out for the lifestyle we have. You are my compañera, not my cónyuge. And even with my cónyuge, there might come a time where we say goodbye. But what there will never be is a goodbye fuck. That much I can promise you. Every time we make love, we will be looking forward to the next time.” Sarah kissed me deeply. She ran her hands over my face and pushed them up under my T-shirt.
“Make love to me, Brian. Give me a reminder of what I’m looking forward to when I get back.”
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