On Greek Row with Tatiana on your arm

It’s perhaps a quarter to ten at night and Greek Row is already swarming with people. The majority of them look to be college students, “Poly State” shirts abound in the crowds as they flow like streams up and down the sidewalks.

The houses on Greek Row were stately things with clapboard siding and big windows in their own time, but have found themselves repurposed in their old age. Big greek letters hang out in front of the second story of most of them, some with lights, others as merely banners strung between upper story windows advertising themselves. You hear pumping bass competing between several houses, multicolored lights flashing in the windows catching shadows of people moving around inside. Dancing and moving.

It has all the air of a festival, constant lights, constant sound, and constant movement. There are beer cans and red solo cups abandoned in the hundreds along the sidewalks. The smell of cigarette smoke and fireworks wafts through the air. Cars and ubers inch through the traffic of partygoers jaywalking this way and that. A grody motorcycle dude on a loudly grumbling Harley zigzags through it all with a girl that looks like she could be his granddaughter riding behind him. There are hundreds of young people out tonight. Everywhere you look something is happening it seems.

“Oh my God,” you grunt, your third eye overwhelmed. Colors and smells and information hits your mind like a firehose pointed into a bucket. Whites, pinks, grays, and reds, and other colors bombard your mind. Smells invade your head directly. Smells of turpentine and rubbing ****, fresh fruit and flowers; amid the more normal smells of a college party like the skunk stench of weed, fresh sweat, and youthful desperation. You pass by a group of college girls walking across a house lawn, cups in hand, and you struggle to put any of the colors and smells to any of the girls amid the dull roar of background lights and colors coming from every direction. Even if one of them was ovulating, there’s too much too fast to pick them out. It feels terrible, like your brain is cooking from the overwhelming power of hundreds of different high intensity lights shining into your third eye all at once.

“Hey,” you hear Tatiana say, tugging on your shirt as you start to wander and stumble again, “you feeling ok?”

“He’s probably just a little overwhelmed,” Louise chuckles, “you doing good John?”

You grunt a reply. You’re growing more frustrated with your powers, seemingly short circuiting your mind with so much knowledge at once. But on the other hand, there’s something deeply exhilarating about it.

A brunette and a ginger wearing glasses walk towards you on the sidewalk wearing tennis shoes, form fitting dresses, cardigans tied around their waists. Even through the dense maze of foreign information blasting into your cranium, at this range, you can zero onto them. The brunette is gray. Medical. Protected. Contraceptive. The ginger with glasses is bright fluorescent pink. Flowery. Sweet. Ovulating.

“Hi,” you say, ripping away from Tatiana’s grasp to step in front of the girls with a swiftness that surprises you, Tatiana, and the girls all at once.

“Uh,” the brunette hazards, hand to her chest in surprise.

“Hi there?” the ginger asks, eyes rising to meet yours. Her face is cute, a smattering of freckles across her face, kinda buck teeth, big blue eyes magnified through her glasses as she looks up at you, cute in a geeky way. You swear her pink aura gets just a little bit pinker, her flowery smell just a little sweeter.

“Uh,” you reply, putting on the most charming smile that you can while searching for words amid the static in your brain. You feel your cock begin to throb and heat up in your pants, “how are you two doing tonight?”

“Well,” the ginger hazards, wringing her hands, “we,” she giggles, eyes down at your feet, “um” she licks her lips, “I-”

“We’re not-” the brunette starts, chuckling.

“John!” Tatiana chuckles, “are you sure you’re ok?” she asks, throwing an arm around your shoulder, skin to shirt, “sorry to bother you babes, but he’s a little drunk, just had a little too much to drink you see?”

“Oh,” the ginger says, face starting to turn red, “it’s fine, I just-”

“I don’t mean any trouble,” you say with a pained smile, fighting to close your third eye amid the sensory overstimulation still going on, “I just wanted to say that you, in that dress,” you feel your eyes wandering down her form to between her hips, right where the extrasensory light and smell are coming from, “you’re really attractive, like super hot.”

“Oh, thanks,” the ginger says, her eyes softening and licking her lips, “you too, I like your, I mean-” she trails off in a nervous giggle, hands wringing.

You feel a hand grab yours and start to pull you away. One hundred and seven seasons old. Twenty six years old. Sexually active. Anxiety. Desperation. Jealousy.

Jealousy? That’s a new one you think as you whip your head around. “Oh?” you ask, eyes wide and meeting Tatiana’s gaze.

“We’re losing them,” Tatania states, frowning, pointing ahead of you to the quickly retreating forms of Louise, Victoria, and Andrew merrily walking along ahead through the crowd, “let’s go.”

“Nice meeting you,” the brunette sighs, grabbing the ginger girl and yanking her down the sidewalk past you the other way.

“Wait,” you say, reaching out for the ginger girl’s free hand as you and her are pulled in opposite directions, and drunkenly missing by a country mile.

The last thing you see is those big blue eyes looking so sad and her mouthing “I’m sorry” to you. The girls are gone in an instant, both from your swimming regular sight, and from your overexposed third eye, in the throngs of moving people.

“What was that about?” Louise asks when you and Tatiana finally catch up with them standing in front of a house around a table full of orderly rows of red solo cups with a piece of paper with “FREE WATER” written in permanent marker taped to the front.

“Just having a good time,” you state, which immediately has Louise raising an eyebrow.

“John was hitting on some randos,” Tatiana chuckles, “that ginger was a cutie though.”

“I know right,” you reply with a big dumb smile. Your cock throbs in agreement.

“John!” Louise snaps, offended, and nearly spilling the little bit of water out of her cup.

“John,” Andrew laughs over the din of bass coming from the house, “have you ever been to a frat party before?”

“No,” you reply.

He motions you closer, and you automatically lean in to him.

“Don’t shoot your shot on the first one you see,” he says, “the night is still young, you know? Figure out what you want and go for it, but don’t forget to have a good time and if you need something just let me or-”

“What are you telling him?” Louise cuts in.

Andrew pushes his glasses up his nose, “just some unsolicited good advice,” he takes a sip of water, “you know, man to man.”

“Oh no,” Victoria replies, “there’s no such thing as good advice from you,” she waggles a finger at him. She turns to you and grabs Andrew’s necktie, “this one is not to be trusted in the slightest,” she adds with a drunken smile and taking a small sip from her cup.

“Bold words coming from you,” Tatiana snorts.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Victoria asks, hand to her chest as if offended.

Tatiana looks at you and then back at Victoria, “I mean you-”

“You know exactly what she means,” Louise chuckles, parking herself between the four of you, three cups in hand swiped from the table, “and you’re not saying it in front of him.”

“Who? Me?” you ask, amused.

“Yes you,” she scoffs and pushing a cup into your hand, “here, gotta make sure you all stay hydrated on a long night.”

“Uh, Louise that’s-”

“Wait, you don't want-”

The protests from Andrew and Victoria fall on deaf ears as Tatiana, Louise, and you knock back your mostly empty cup in a single go. The ‘water’ burns as it goes down your throat.

“Wow!” you cough.

“That’s strong,” Louise gasps.

“Is this?” Tatiana chuckles, dropping her empty cup in the full garbage can next to the table.

“Oh wow!” you cough again, the burning slowly subsiding as the hard liquor hits your stomach.

“Shall we?” Andrew chuckles, finishing off his own cup and motioning you all up the walkway towards the door.

“Hey Andrew, do they normally just,” you throw a thumb over your shoulder at the table, “do that?”

“On average?” Andrew says, “no, but this isn’t your average frat,” he adds with a smile.

“Oh?” you ask.

“This is his,” Tatiana says, pointing at Andrew, face red, “his old frat.”

“You were in a frat?” you ask Andrew, breathing hard from concentrating on keeping your third eye closed.

He shrugs his response with a grin as he knocks on the door to the house. Music pounds inside.

“You told them that we’re coming, right? Right?” Victoria asks, resting her head against Andrew’s shoulder.

Andrew nods.

The door swings open. “Andrew! Buddy!” the frat boy behind the door laughs, beer in hand, as he gives Andrew a hearty handshake that turns into a big bear hug, the greeting of old friends, “so kind of you to drop by!” Andrew turns, the frat boy looking Tatiana, Louise, and you over, “and you brought friends!” the frat boy adds, “come in! Come in!”

You’re guided into the foyer of the frat house, it’s shockingly hot, humid, and loud inside. A dozen people dancing away in the cleared space in the living room under a black light. Another group gathered up in the dining room around a table amid the telltale pop-pop of ping pong balls bouncing off hardwood. Little conversation circles gathered around chairs and couches. The wafting of the smells of booze, smoke, and fresh sweat intermingle in the thick air.

It is still a party though. You aren’t sure where the drink in your hand came from as you plop down on an unoccupied couch. You sigh and recline back. You feel your third eye open again even as you close your normal eyes, and the smaller crowd is blessingly gentle on your mind. You take a sip of cool beer and sigh again, finally able to think.

Then you feel someone sitting down next to you. You turn your third eye to see with eyes shut. White. You smell contraceptives and cedarwood.

“So,” you sigh.

“Cheers,” Tatiana says. With your third eye you can just make out the cup in her hand proffered up towards you, her pale legs crossing and recrossing as she makes herself comfortable. You open your normal eyes just a sliver and tap your cup to hers.

“Cheers,” you repeat, closing your eyes again and drinking.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, reclining back next to you.

“Much better,” you breathe in with a smile. You did not expect that the crowds on Greek Row would be such a devastating siege on your psyche, but now you know.

“You sure?” she asks.

“Oh yeah,” you reply, stretching your arms up and out over the couch, using that third eye sight to keep your beer from spilling. As your arms come down over the couch, you feel Tatiana scoot closer to you, under your wing. There’s a long moment where you two rest, touching, amid the sounds and smells of the party.

Tatiana breaks the silence first. “Do you usually hit on girls that you just met?” she asks, taking another sip of her beer.

“Well,” you chortle, “usually no but, I mean,” you shrug your shoulders searching for a deflection shot, “you said it yourself, that ginger cutie was super hot.”

“Yeah, single guys are just built different I guess,” she muses while taking a sip, “and you are single, right?”

“Yeah,” you reply, shifting your torso so that she can lean against you even more closely, “why?”

“Because when I asked Louise, she started laughing,” she says, “like really hard laughing, so hard she was crying, so I am guessing that you’ve been single since forever.”

“Yep,” you click your lips, “sounds like her,” and take a long sip followed by silence.

“And is that a matter of your choice or?” she drifts off.

You suck in a big breath and blow it back out. “I was off the dating market for a long while, just not interested and didn’t have the time,” you say and take another sip, “but I suppose that’s kinda changed recently, like very recently, and now I’m looking for- for-” you drift off, brow furrowed with eyes closed, not really sure how to describe ‘what’ you are looking for in a way that would not sound nuts coming out of your own mouth. You need breeding partners. Preferably attractive. Ideally willing. Probably several.

“I get that,” she replies, nodding along and gently rubbing your shoulder, “it’s complicated, right?”

“Sure is,” you exhale again, “like,” you chuckle, “I know what I need to do, but you can’t always just blurt that out to people-”

“I know that feeling,” she laughs dryly, “everybody wants something different.”

“Exactly,” you nod, “and that’s always gonna be a tough sell.”

“Sure, sure,” she replies, “and hypothetically would it be more a serious thing or casual thing?”

You blow out another breath, “I mean,” you chuckle, “I’d consider it a pretty serious commitment, but to each their own, right?”

“Oh absolutely,” she laughs, “everybody’s boundaries are different.”

Your eyes open just a slit again, “and what about you?”

“Oh I’m strictly waiting until marriage,” she states.

“Wait, really?” you reply, eyes opening further.

“Nah, I’m kidding,” she says, playfully smacking your chest. But her hand lingers just a moment too long for the act to be seamless.

“Well,” you say, “go on then, what are you looking for then?”

“I mean,” she chuckles, “come here,” she says with a come hither finger and leans in, her hot breath against your ear, “so like, I’m not looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend or anything like that right now but I am looking for something like a collaborator.”

“A collaborator?” you ask, eyebrow cocked, uncertain.

“Nothing too strange,” she giggles in your ear, “like a business partner, somebody to help me with my art, a muse if you will, you know?”

You look at her for a moment, eyebrow still cocked.

“So are you interested?” she finally asks.

You give a noncommittal shrug.

“So are you interested?” she repeats, a little too excited. Just the slightest hint of desperation.

“Perhaps,” you say with another noncommittal shrug.

“God please,” she sighs in your ear, “just give a girl a yes or no.”

“Sure,” you say, “I’m interested.”

“Great,” she replies as a whisper in your ear, “but we should talk about it some where more-”

“More private?” you finish.

“Exactly,” she says, “I think that Louise is watching us.”

“Oh?” you say, opening your eyes fully and searching.

You find Louise standing in a group of partygoers conversing with a beer can in her hand, facing you and Tatiana on the couch. You watch her for a long moment. The black dress she is wearing is clearly a little tight around her curves. Her chest too big and making the dress fold around her midsection where it is tighest. But sure enough you catch her eyes wandering up to watch you and Tatiana on the couch.

“Come on,” Tatiana hisses, untangling herself from under your arm, standing up, and finishing her drink in one very smooth motion. She makes another ‘come hither’ motion.

You stir, peeling yourself out of the couch to follow her.