Spot Check!

After an early lunch (you’re hungry, and getting breakfast after 11 feels wrong), you settle down in your room to crank out some work. It goes well at first, and you’re humming along, reading Plato’s Republic and all the bullshit that it entails, when a knock sounds at your door.

“Come in!” you shout, since you keep the door unlocked, but it’s already being pushed open before you’ve spoken.

Tatiana’s standing at the entrance to your room. Despite having imbibed a copious amount of **** yesterday night, you see none of its residual effects on her—her make-up is done up immaculately, the eyeshadow brilliant as always, and the long dark dress she’s wearing is certainly more put together than the casual t-shirt and shorts that you’ve thrown on.

“Hands up!” she barks, and on instinct, yours fly up.

You slowly stand up, hands still in the air, until you notice that she’s laughing at you.

“What?” you ask, moderately peeved at being the butt of some joke you don’t understand.

“Nothing, it’s just, you freshmen always get so scared when room check rolls around,” she says. She waves her hand dismissively. “You can put your hands down now, it’ll be tiring keeping them up for the next few minutes.”

“What’s a room check? I never signed up for this,” you say, folding your arm across your chest.

“You should have paid better attention to the rules then,” Tatiana shrugs.

“Hang on, I know my rights, you need a warrant to come in here!”

Your protest falls on deaf ears as Tatiana opens up the top drawer of your large dresser. She’s not the government. She doesn’t need a warrant, and she certainly doesn’t give a damn about the Fourth Amendment.

“You know what I’m looking for?” she says, deftly searching the cracks between the neatly folded piles of shirts.

“****?” you ask, and you panic for a moment until you remember that you don’t actually have any in your room. At least, not at the moment.

“Among other things,” she says, moving down to a lower drawer. On her knees now, riffing through your boxers, the sudden image of you behind her, thrusting, pops up unbidden in your head. What would it be like, to fuck this Russian beauty? “You know what else is contraband?” she says, casually looking at you back over her shoulder. “Condoms.”

“No way,” you say, and now you start to feel a little scared, because you do keep condoms… and if she takes them away, what are you supposed to do now if you want to complete the Freshman 15? Get a vasectomy?

“Yeah, conservative Christian administration and all, they’re pretty anti-birth control,” she shrugs.

“Shit, what’s the penalty?”

“Does it matter if you’re not guilty?” she asks, glancing back at you again. She holds the look with a sudden intensity. You squirm under her gaze, and you’re reminded of why she is such an effective RA.

“I… uh… I might be keeping condoms,” you admit. “I didn’t know…”

“Well, you’d better hand them over for us to use,” Tatiana says, getting up and patting you on the shoulder.

“For… us… to… use…” you repeat slowly, bewildered. Is your little flight of fancy about to become reality?

Tatiana bursts out laughing.

“Just messing with you, Knight,” she says, holding back another chuckle. “There’s no rule against condoms. Just use them responsibly.” She winks at you.

What are… what are you supposed to make of that?

“Anyways, your room looks good! I’ll be back at some point in the future with another check, so don’t go about doing naughty things,” she flippantly says, walking out of the room with a quick twirl.

You sit down on your bed, confused. Tatiana didn’t even search your room comprehensively, not that you’re complaining. But then, why haven’t you heard about these spot checks from anybody else? Shouldn’t Emma, the girl that keeps loads of **** in her room, be done for by now?

This bugs you, so you pull out you phone to look up Stonewall’s housing manual and policy. Sure enough, there’s a clause about **** (and you see that it counts as only a minor infraction), but as you read though the entire thing, you realise that there’s no mention of a room check.

You quickly text Griffin, asking: Hey, have you ever had a room check from one of the RAs?

No, what’s that? Should I be scared? he replies in a second.

So, neither him nor Rachel have ever had one. This is very suspicious….

Tatiana +5