Once Upon A Time at College

by Galen Hardesty

Chapter Three

~*~

They ate in silence for several minutes, except for the sounds of contented munching. Then Daria pushed back her chair. "I'm going to get some more salad."

Jane raised an eyebrow. "Surely that's not all? Why come to an all-you-can-eat pizza joint if you're not gonna have seconds on pizza?"

Daria smiled slightly. "Oh, I think I can manage another slice or two, and maybe a slice of that apple cinnamon pizza for dessert. You can get refills on your drink, too."

Jane grinned and pushed back her chair. "Okay, this is definitely my favorite cheap pizza place."

As Daria sat down with her salad Jane returned with another plate of pizza. "So, how are you getting along in the dorm? That roommate of yours seems kind of annoying."

Daria made a face. "Somewhat, but she's a lot better than my first two. One thought her mission in life was to play DJ to the entire dorm, and the other one was constantly talking about boys and trying to give me makeovers."

"Ooh. How bad did you hurt them?"

Daria smiled. "No permanent physical injuries, but one thinks the room is haunted by the ghost of a serial killer, and the other one thinks I'm a powerful practitioner of the Dark Arts."

"Hee hee. Which of course you are. So they've all lived in constant fear of you since then?"

"You give them too much credit. A bunch of them decided to prank me. Being unimaginative, they tried the old trash-can-full-of-water-leaned-against-my-door trick. Guess they thought it was foolproof, since the room doors only open inward. They never figured I might be prepared for it. Never even noticed that I'd installed one of those fisheye door scopes."

"So what did you do, phone for someone to come move the trash can?"

"That would be a wimpy thing to do. Like I said, I was prepared. While I was installing the door scope, I drilled another little hole in the door down below the knob. I stuck a steel rod through that hole and pushed the trash can back upright with it. Then, having seen who did it and what room they were hiding in, Charlene and I just took the trash can and leaned it against that door. You should've heard the shrieks when they opened it to peek."

"So now you're the Dark Queen of the dorm?"

"Well, not really. They tried for revenge a couple of times, but I spotted their attempts and avoided them."

"How did you do that"

"Research. Type "college dorm pranks" into a search engine. You'll be amazed at what you get. Turns out pranksters put up bulletin boards so they can boast about their exploits."

Jane shook her head in amazement. "Trust you to be the one who finds something like that. But doesn't it take some of the fun out of the thing to copy someone else's prank?"

"Oh, I agree. I just read those boards to give me an idea what to look out for. I much prefer to think up my own pranks."

"Oh, goodie! Tell me!"

"Well, for one I collected a bunch of spider egg cases and hid them in one room. A few days later, thousands of tiny spiders start appearing, crawling all over, making their webs everywhere. I think they're still hatching out."

Grinning, Jane started on another slice of chicken, broccoli, three cheese pizza. "Sounds like you're having a helluva good time. I'm a little jealous."

Daria sighed. "It's somewhat amusing, but I wasn't expecting to have to share a dorm room. A ten by twelve foot room per person doesn't seem to me like it's too much to ask. I often wonder how many students have flunked out of college or not gotten good enough grades to get the job they wanted because they couldn't study in their dorms. You'd think it would be a great situation to meet people and make friends, but in practice, it seems to force us into an adversarial relationship." She pushed her chair back, picked up her empty glass, and stood up. "Be back in a minute."

~*~

Several minutes later, the two friends were finishing up their seconds on pizza and preparing to start in on dessert. Jane wiped her hands carefully and reached in a pocket of her jacket. "Oh, before I forget, here's your color sketch and your reference photo. I just love this sketch. It's so lively and painterly. I bet you could sell it as a miniature."

Likewise wiping her hands, Daria accepted the print and the small watercolor sketch with a small rueful smile. "Thanks. You know, it's funny, but those little color sketches often turn out to be better than the finished paintings I do from them. I do the sketches with the idea that they're not the finished product, so I don't take much time with them and paint them kind of loose and slapdash. I tend to take too much time on the big paintings and put too many details in. Sometimes they come out the way I want them to, but sometimes they turn out dull and overworked. Guess it's a good thing I'm not hoping to be a professional artist."

"Even so, you have a real talent there, and you should develop it."

"I'd like to, but what with classes and trying to write and hunting for scholarship money, that may be the last watercolor I do for quite a while. And of course I'm only doing that one because that's the pose you wanted. Do you think your painting is going to work out the way you envisioned it?"

"I really do, Daria. I'm really excited about this one. It's going to be the best one I've done of you. I think it may fetch more than the others."

"That would be great. I'd like to see you in a better place than that attic. You've been there long enough now to list 'starved in a garret' on your résumé. I still can't picture you living with three guys you hardly know in one room with no privacy."

Jane toyed with her straw. "It doesn't seem so strange to me, probably because I grew up in a bigger family than you did. Any privacy I had as a kid was temporary and dependent on other peoples' cooperation." She sighed and stared into her soda. "I picked that garret so I'd have a place where I could paint you. I didn't know it would get so chilly in the winter, or that the door was messed up. If I could finish that painting and sell it, I could afford a better place."

Daria looked at her friend and fought off a small twinge of guilt. "Can you finish it without me modeling again?"

Jane continued to stare into her cola as she stirred it idly with her straw. "I could finish the background. I guess I could put in your paper, paintbox, and water jar if you'll let me borrow them, and I could finish the underpainting for your figure. But I can't actually finish the painting without you."

"Can't you get another model?"

"If I could, it wouldn't help me to finish this painting."

Daria scowled. "Well, dammit, I'm not going back to that garret except maybe to help you move out of it." She nibbled some salad. "My room at home has two east-facing windows. That's as good as north-facing in the afternoon. You can finish it there, can't you?"

Jane thoughtfully chewed a bite of sausage, mushroom, and black olive pizza. "Yes, given a sunny day, but Spring break is two months away, and I don't think we get any long weekends before then, do we?"

Daria thought a minute. "No, I don't think so. And I don't like the idea of you in that garret with three guys. Hormones and pheromones are dangerous things. I know. You're all too young and horny for that to be a safe arrangement."

"You're worrying for nothing, Daria. If one of them were to try something, the other two would stop him."

"I take it you've never heard the term "gang bang."

"Oh, come on, Daria, these are decent guys. They wouldn't do anything like that."

"What about in the morning when you're all getting dressed? I bet all four of you don't always wait your turns to dress in that bathroom, especially when you all need it for other things too. How often do they see something you don't intend for them to? Things like that can really jack up a guy's hormone levels."

"Daria, they're not going to accidentally see anything I don't want them to. They've already seen all there is to see."

"You mean you…" Daria hesitated. "What do you mean?"

"We're art students, Daria. We model for each other."

Daria stared at Jane in silence for a couple of seconds, then clapped a hand to her forehead and rested her elbow on the table. "So you model nude for three young men in that little garret, and then they take turns doing the same?" She looked up at Jane again.

"You make it sound like an orgy. We're artists. This is part of what artists do. You know that. You've done it yourself. The figure is a time-honored subject for artists."

"I know, Jane. But it's where you're doing it. Don't you know that the male sex pheromone is an aerosol?"

Jane stared blankly at Daria for three seconds and then made a whizzing sound as she passed a hand rapidly over the top of her head.

Daria sighed. "When those guys see you, and especially when they see you naked, they start producing the pheromone. When you inhale it, it arouses you sexually and makes you willing and submissive. It works on a chemical, glandular level over which you have no conscious control whatever. That garret is a small, confined space, and you're not going to have a window open this time of year. Before long, that pheromone builds up to nearly irresistible levels in the air. I think that's what happened to me when I was dumb enough to get into that Pinto with Tom."

Jane continued to stare, but Daria could see the dawn of realization in her expression. "Oh. O-o-o-o-oh! So that's why I get so horny when I'm posing! I thought it was just a natural reaction."

"It is. There's just more to it than meets the eye. By the way, when a guy smells another guy's pheromones, it makes him more aggressive."

"Hmm," Jane muttered, lost in thought. Daria took the opportunity to catch up on eating.

"I see why you're worried," Jane said after a while, "but nothing's happened so far. This arrangement's been going on for a long time, and nothing's happened, as far as I know."

"Do you think those guys would have told you if it had, particularly if they need a female model?" Daria asked.

"Hmm. Maybe not. But I'm kind of stuck there for the time being. If I could find a better place and I could afford it, I'd move out. I'll be able to afford it when I sell that painting, provided I can finish it…" Jane didn't meet Daria's eyes as she said this. Even though the facts were as she stated them, she didn't like the feeling that she was pressuring Daria to do something she didn't want to do.

Daria sighed, stared at her plate, and shook her head minutely. After a moment, she said, "Look, if you can schedule a time when we can have the place to ourselves for at least two hours, and come up with some foolproof way to keep that door securely closed, I can come up with a portable electric heater. Is there an outlet within ten feet of where I was?"

"I think the closest one's about twelve feet away."

"That'll do. Can you finish that painting in two more hours?"

"I think so. I know I can finish in three, and I can get the loft for that long. Can you model for three hours?"

"With breaks. My legs might go to sleep, but I'll do it."

Jane smiled a big smile. "Thanks, amiga. Let me buy you another dessert."

~*~

It was dark as Daria and Jane emerged from Mama Mimi's Pizza and turned left, toward the bus stop. As they walked along the sidewalk among other Raft students and residents, Jane turned to look at Daria, smiled, and shook her head.

Daria turned and looked at Jane. "What?"

"I'm just really surprised that you changed your mind. I figured I'd have to sign over my firstborn offspring to get you to finish modeling for that painting after what happened."

Daria smiled slightly. "Yeah, I'm a little surprised myself. But I want you out of that garret at least as much as you want out, and I want me out of that dorm pretty bad, too. We were planning to share an apartment here before we left Lawndale. I still want that."

"Great. So do I. I'll do as much on the painting as I can beforehand, and we both start looking for apartments between Raft and BFAC." Jane continued to study Daria's face in the shifting illumination of the night street.

Feeling Jane's eyes on her, Daria turned again and returned the stare. "Now what?"

"Not to be nosy, but I get the feeling you have another reason."

Daria walked along in silence for a while, her look pensive. At length she said, "I do, sort of. After this, I'll be able to stop feeling guilty about… the Tom thing."

Jane was thunderstruck. "Daria! I am so over that! I'm not holding it against you, not one tiny little bit. I forgave you long ago, really!"

Daria looked over at Jane and smiled sadly. "I know. It's just that… now I can forgive myself. I've forgiven myself before, but… myself didn't buy it. But now I can tell myself I've suffered enough, I've paid my debt. I can quit kicking myself now."

Jane stared openmouthed at her friend until she bumped into another pedestrian and had to return her attention to walking. "Geez, you really are a twisted little cruller."

Eyes on the sidewalk, Daria continued on in silence for several steps before she said, "Yeah. I am.

Jane reached around behind Daria and gave her a side shoulder hug. "And I am so incredibly lucky to have you as a friend."

Daria cringed. "Hey! No ambiguously lesbian PDAs!"

Grinning, Jane dropped her hand from Daria's shoulder. They continued on for a few steps, then Jane impulsively gave her shoulder another quick squeeze. This time Daria didn't cringe.

A movement in the shadows ahead caught Jane's eye. "Uh-oh. Bogey at eleven o'clock."

Daria looked. Ahead to their left, a rumpled, bewhiskered, dirty old man emerged from an alley mouth. His effluvium accosted them before his voice could.

'Scuse me, pretty ladies, couldja spare a little money to get Pete some food? He's awful hungry."

Daria found her voice. "Pete?"

The man held up a squirming opossum. "Pete's muh pet possum. Lost' im 'way back when I uz a little feller. I jest found 'im agin in the alley there. Poor thing uz so hungry he uz eatin' out of a trash can. Ef you purty ladies c'd spare a buck er two, I'll get 'im a can o' good cat food. Pete alluz did love cat food. 'Fact, thass how I caught 'im in the beginnin'. He uz eatin' outta the cat's dish."

"Uh, mister…" Jane began.

"All muh frien's calls me Roger," said the ancient panhandler.

'Roger. You know that can't be the same possum you had when you were a kid. Possums don't live that long."

Daria wanted to jerk Jane aside somewhere and explain to her the futility of trying to reason with senile winos, but settled for rolling her eyes. Jane would learn. Daria's hand slipped inside her jacket.

The old bum gaped at her, near-toothless gums glistening by streetlight. He looked at the possum, then back at Jane. "Wal, o'course he's the same one! Ya think I wouldn't reckonize muh best frien' Pete? Think I'm crazy? Oww!"

The possum, fed up with being waved around by the old bum, had sunk his many pointy teeth into Roger's grimy hand. Startled, Roger released his grip, whereupon "Pete" released his and dropped to the sidewalk. He immediately ran straight away from the addled panhandler at top speed, which for "Pete" was a brisk trot. He trotted between two parked cars and straight into the path of a minivan.

Daria winced. Jane covered her eyes. The old codger gaped unbelieving , then cried out, "Pete! No!" He staggered toward the gory thing in the street, then sank to his knees between the two parked cars. Daria grabbed Jane's arm and dragged her away from the sad scene, with old Roger's cries of "Pete, boy! Speak to me!" ringing in their ears.

[The above senseless tragedy was brought to you at the insistence of Roger E. Moore.]

~*~

Daria and Jane reached the bus stop without further incident and assumed their 'waiting for the bus' stances. After a minute, Jane said "That was so sad!"

"He was a possum. It was his destiny," Daria replied.

Jane regarded her friend with a wry expression. "Not the possum. The old man. I feel like we should have tried to help him."

Daria returned Jane's wry look with interest. "He needs hosing down, decontamination, detox, a psychiatric exam, a whole lot of counseling, medical care, probably several prescription medications, rehab, food, clothing, and shelter for starters, not to mention a lot of dental work. How much of that can you help him with?"

Jane looked at Daria and smiled a small crooked smile. "So, you're saying 'you can't help everybody.'"

"Pretty much. I know that guy is beyond my ability."

They stood in silence for a couple of minutes. Jane said, "You don't have to wait with me. I'll be all right."

"Yeah, probably. But we don't really know this area yet. If old Roger hangs out here, who else might? Female college students are the highest-risk group in the country for rape, you know."

"Well, maybe keg queens. But it's not the sort of thing that's likely to happen to us."

Daria looked down at the sidewalk. "One in four female college students gets raped or sexually assaulted. One in four, Jane. Of course, that statistic doesn't apply to you. You sleep in the same small room with three male college students, for whom you frequently get naked. Your odds are much closer to one in one."

"Aw, come on, Daria. I know these guys. They wouldn't do that to me. And if they did, I'd turn 'em in, so they'd be fools to try."

Daria shook her head. "Jane, eighty-five percent of college rape victims know their attackers, and only one percent of those are willing to report them. Those guys would say how sorry they were, and you're so beautiful they just couldn't control themselves, and they don't know what came over them, and it would just kill their poor mothers, and please don't ruin their lives by turning them in. And in the end you'd let them get away with it, and you'd carry the psychic scar for the rest of your life."

Jane was silent for a moment. "I can almost see how it might happen that way, now that you describe it. Damn, Daria, how do you know stuff like that?"

"The statistics? I've read it several places, and seen it on TV, and it stuck in my head. You've probably seen it too, at some time. I just have a good memory."

Jane looked uneasily up and down the street. It was well lit, but still there were dark alleyways and bushes where a lurker could lurk. "Geez, now I feel bad that you're going to have to walk back to your dorm alone."

"I'll be fine. It's only a couple of blocks, and this isn't a bad part of town."

"But that rapist could jump on you as easily as me."

Daria smiled grimly. "I pity the fool."

Jane gave her friend a sardonic look. "Get a load of the iron cupcake, there. You packin' a roscoe, toots?" she said in her 'Dolores' voice.

Daria rocked back and forth a couple of times, looking slightly smug. "I can sling some lead if I need to."

This took Jane by surprise. She had trouble picturing Daria as foolhardy enough to be carrying a concealed handgun in an anti-gun city like Boston. Daria only took carefully calculated risks.

"Daria! You gotta be pulling my leg."

For answer, Daria's hand reached swiftly inside her jacket, then as swiftly pulled back out, and shot out toward a power pole nearby. Her arm was too short by a foot or more to reach the pole, yet it rang with a loud 'tonk!' as something struck it a hard blow. Daria stepped to the pole and ran her fingers over an indentation that had just appeared in the wood, then looked at Jane.

Jane too felt the small but impressively deep dent. She looked at Daria, puzzled. In the poor light of the street, she had seen no rod or pipe in Daria's hand that could account for it, nor had Daria thrown something like a rock.

"How did you do that?"

Daria held out her closed hand, palm down, toward Jane. "With this."

Jane held out her hand and Daria dropped something into it, something hard and cold and very heavy for its size. When Daria moved her hand away, Jane saw a dark gray teardrop shaped object, hexagonal in cross section. "What is it?"

"A four ounce casting weight." Daria laid a stick pen in Jane's hand beside the weight, and Jane saw that they were connected by a string about one and a half or two feet long. "The whole thing is sort of a pocket morningstar, or maybe a stealth numbchuck."

"So this is what you meant by slinging lead."

"Yeah. I clip the pen in a pocket where I can reach it quickly, and if I need to, I can whip it out and whack someone with it. It's legal, and it'll probably surprise an attacker. It's very hard to see in motion, even in daylight, so it may take him a while to figure out what he's being hit with."

Holding the pen in her hand, Jane swung the weight around a little. Daria took a step back. "Pretty neat. Looks like it could be very effective. But that string looks awfully thin. Don't you need something a little heftier?"

"That stuff is stronger than it looks. It's high-tech eighty pound test fishing line. They gave me a little of it at the sporting goods store where I bought the weights."

Jane saw the bus approaching the stop. She handed back the "pocket morningstar". "I like it. It's not too heavy or bulky to carry around, not hard to use, and won't get you arrested. I hope you never have to use it, though."

Daria put it back in her pocket. "Me too. I've got more line, and there were five sinkers in the package. I'll make you one."

"Thanks." Jane boarded the bus. "Call you tomorrow."

"Okay. Good night. Thanks for the pizza." Daria waved as Jane boarded the bus, then turned her steps toward the Raft campus.

Disclaimer

"Daria" and all related characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International, inc. The author does not claim copyright to these characters or to anything else in the "Daria" milieu; he does, however, claim copyright to all those parts of this work of fiction which are original to him and not to MTV or to other fanfic authors. This fanfic may be freely copied and distributed provided its contents remain unchanged, provided the author's name and email address are included, and provided that the distributor does not use it for monetary profit. (as if.)

Galen Hardesty [gehardesty@yahoo.com]