Page 54 of White Room Virgin

“Come on, it’s Friday!” Simon said, as if he had read my mind, and so I joined the guys.

First, we went out for pizza, then to Langstrasse. The positive effect of the alcohol came at just the right time. It carried me through the evening and into the night like a wave of lightness, and I enjoyed the time with my fellow students.

Unlike Martin and Lucien, who dragged me from one bar to the next, we only changed venues once that evening becauseThomas was dissatisfied with the selection of women. Although he was a typical nerd, he had no problems chatting with girls.

By midnight, we found ourselves in a lively rock bar with an excellent atmosphere. It was the very same bar where I had been with Lucien that Sunday, where he had later showcased his poems in my presence. At that time, only a handful of people had been present, but now every stool at the bar was occupied—the place was bustling. Fortunately, as we walked in, a bar table next to the window happened to be vacant. While Simon went to the bar to get some beer, I took off my jacket and sat down on a stool. Thomas wasted no time and chatted up the first woman standing next to him. When Simon returned with beer, she was already rolling her eyes and left Thomas standing there.

After the incident with Daniela, I had grown more cautious. With my low alcohol tolerance, I was wary of subjecting myself to the embarrassment of failure once more. Consequently, I kept to the sidelines, observing from a safe distance as Oliver and Thomas took the lead. I talked to Simon about the latest movies. When we were on our second beer, Thomas came back to our table and sighed in frustration. “I really wonder what women desire. It feels like it's impossible to please them.”

Simon offered him an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “You’ll get there. Just keep going.”

“Well, there’s obviously hope,” Thomas muttered and pointed across the room. “See that guy over there? The one with the brunette? He made out with a blonde in the toilet an hour ago.”

I followed Thomas’s gaze to the other side of the bar. In a dimly lit corner, a woman with long, dark curls was wrapped around a man, pressing herself against him and engaging in passionate, deep kisses that threatened to devour him. When she turned her head to the other side and I saw the guy’s face, my breath caught in my throat.

Lu?

He put both hands on her head and kissed her just as passionately, obviously unable to get enough of her.

God doesn’t make a difference either, I thought again. The blood rushed to my legs and my heart began to race. I gripped the table, overwhelmed by a sudden wave of dizziness. I couldn’t fathom why the shock hit me so intensely.

“Ha!” Simon laughed. “Jonah, isn’t that your crazy roommate?”

I glanced at Lucien with a petrified expression and nodded, fearing that words would betray the depth of my distress at the sight.

Simon grinned. “Looks like he’s having fun, huh?”

“What does he have that we don’t?” Thomas inquired, shaking his head in dismay.

“He’s an artist,” Simon explained. “We nerds can’t compete with that.”

“Great … and I thought scientists were finally cool.”

“You’ve probably watched too many TV shows.”

I smiled casually, pretending to follow the conversation, but in truth, I couldn’t take my eyes off Lu. As the woman disengaged from him, she leaned in and whispered something into his ear, prompting him to lower his head and nod slightly. The shimmer of desire was evident in his eyes; he regarded her like a predator. I recognized that look, and unexpectedly, it pierced me in the chest. The woman helped him into his coat and buttoned it up. As she prepared to leave, Lucien tilted his head back, gazing at the ceiling, and took a deep breath. Finally, the woman linked arms with him and guided him out of the bar.

It was only then that I realized how drunk he was. He could barely walk straight, which is why he finally put his arm around her shoulder to support himself. An expression crossed his face that felt entirely foreign to me. Anxiously, I trailed them towardthe exit. When I eventually navigated through the crowd onto the street, they were climbing into a cab.

No, that wasn’t fun, I thought, although I couldn’t even have said what else it should have been. Stunned, I rejoined the boys, downed my beer, and ordered another. None of this held any interest for me anymore—let Lucien do as he pleased with whomever he pleased. Even though we shared the same apartment, we lived in completely different worlds.

It didn’t take long for my thoughts to drift in another direction.What exactly is my role to him? Have I misread him? Am I just a toy for him? What’s the point of our night together and all the emotional chaos? Does it mean nothing to him at all? Am I just—a lump formed in my throat—a means to an end?

25

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Lucien

I had always believed I couldn’t reach a lower point, but now, trapped in this descending spiral of self-loathing, I no longer cared about my fate. If I could, I would have put a bullet in my skull. The thing with Jonah had completely pulled the rug out from under me and I had fallen into a deep hole … falling deeper and deeper. My body was numb. I longed to feel something again, and yet, at the same time, everything felt unbearable. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world to relieve the tension in every fiber of my body.

Clarissa meant well when she took me to her house. I knew Steven was having a party there, but I just didn’t feel like showing up. Now I was here after all.

The house felt familiar to me, as if I had lived there for years, and somehow it was, because I had spent half my childhood there. But when Clarissa and I entered the party, even the familiar rooms couldn’t make me feel at ease. Without removing my coat, I grabbed a bottle of vodka and wandered among the revelers like a ghost, ignoring everyone chatting me up. Steven’s friends were also my friends … or something like that. Right now, though, I didn’t give a damn. I started cursing at Clarissa. I just wanted to blow my brains out and then fuck her. I wasn’t certain about the sequence of events, but what was clear was my annoyance at her vanishing into the crowd to dance with her friends amidst the loud music.

Finally, I went to the basement where her room was. The hallway led directly into the garden, where a few people were smoking and consuming who knows what else. As scatterbrained as I was, I tripped over the runner and would have fallen cold to the ground if someone hadn’t caught me. Hisupper arms must have been twice the size of mine—maybe a bodybuilder or a bouncer. I knew these guys from the gym. Full of discipline. Judging by the beer in his hand, today must be his cheat day.

I moved away from him and tried to regain my composure, putting on all my charm. But I was way too dizzy, and the conversation he engaged me in was, to say the least, beyond my limits. However, I did notice that he kept touching me. The guy smiled and seemed quite nice. I found out his name was Ben and that he worked security—what a surprise. He seemed to like me, which eventually made me overlook the fact that Clarissa was probably no longer an option for that evening. When Ben tried to figure out what kind of person I was by making suggestive comments, I took a long drink from the bottle and gave him a seductive smile. “You can do whatever you want with me. I don’t care about anything.” I tried hard not to sound too drunk, because I was serious, although I still didn’t know whether I wanted to feel something or nothing at all.

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