Aunt Oblivia

I come from a big family, my mom had two brothers and three sisters, and most of them have kids so I have 14 cousins at last count plus my sister Christie. The only sibling of my mom's who didn't have kids is Aunt Olivia. When I graduated high school, I didn't want to go down the college path. I'd gotten okay grades to please mom, but school wasn't really my thing. We lived out in the sticks on a farm so I had to come to the city to begin an electrician apprenticeship. At age 18 it was a promising career path but it would be a few years before I could make enough money to live on my own. Rents in the city are so expensive these days.

I figured I'd be flopping with a bunch of dudes, you know, getting roommates, roughing it. It probably wouldn't be that bad, but with grabbag roommates you never really know. Mom talked to Aunt Olivia, who has a condo in the city, and said I could go live with her. I was surprised since Olivia was pretty aloof and sometimes forgot to even give me token gifts for my birthday and Christmas, or I'd get a birthday card three months late and she'd be several years off on my age. Once she even spelled my name wrong (Marc instead of Mark) and she still thought I was into Pokemon at age 18, since that's what I'd liked when I was 7. Everyone said that's just how Olivia was and that it didn't mean she didn't care for me, but it didn't really feel like she'd be thrilled about having me come share her living space with her.

Nevertheless, bunking with 4 or 5 dudes didn't seem particularly enticing either so I figured I'd give Aunt Olivia a chance. When I got to the city I took the bus to her place. If nothing else I could just crash there while I saw if the apprenticeship was right for me and then looked for more suitable housing at my leisure. Aunt Olivia worked as a university librarian, a very suitable profession for her temperament if you ask me. She lived right by the campus, close enough to walk to work (she was such a bad driver that the family breathed a sigh of relief when she hung up the car keys and switched to walking).

I got to her place, which was a 12-story condo building right at the edge of campus, in a part of town that was clearly still mostly student housing and shops geared at students. Her building was relatively new and nice, it was clad in orange brick and glass, and each unit had its own balcony. I liked the vibe of the place right away, it seemed classy like Aunt Olivia.

I road the elevator up with some hot co-eds but they looked at me like I was some kind of redneck. Which I suppose I am. I'm 6'2" and was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. I've got a beard I'm trying to grow in but otherwise I'm pretty clean cut, my hair is a light brown and I have green eyes. I'm pretty muscular compared to some of the dweebs I saw on campus. But obviously I'm not a frat guy, so the college chicks turned their nose up at me. Oh well. The building was all-condo so if they lived here it meant their parents bought them a condo for college and they were rich bitches.

I went up to Aunt Olivia's door and it was locked. I had texted her at the front door and she let me into the lobby remotely, so I texted her again and no reply. Finally I knocked on the door physically, like in days of yore, and eventually she opened it in confusion.

"Mark, what are you doing here?" Aunt Olivia asked. Really? She was wearing blue leggings and a tight long-sleeve purple top. She was skinny in an athletic way, like one of those many yoga chicks you see around campus, and wore the librarian's pre-requisite thick glasses with some goofy space-age grey metal frames. Her black hair was in a bun and she wore no make-up, but was attractive for 35.

"Um," I said, the joke was that Aunt Olivia was really out of it. She wasn't dumb, or on , she was just more concerned with her books and crossword puzzles and logic games. We cousins called her Aunt Oblivia. "We've been texting. I was going to stay here while I get on my feet in the city? If that's a problem I totally understand, I can get an AirBnB."

"Oh no, that won't be necessary," she said, "I had forgotten about that. Come on in, Mark."

And that's how I started living with Aunt Oblivia.

This story is based on a great roleplay I did once on another site, but with less fleshing out of the character's personalities and back stories. Not surprisingly since it was just a roleplay. I always wanted to write it out so here it is. While this story plays around with the feeling of at times, hopefully it's clear that it's fantasy play by both characters. This story is a bit sillier than my previous ones, if you couldn't tell.

And yes, I am deliberately writing it such that you might wonder if the narrator is actually the oblivious one. Hopefully that part is as fun to read as it is to write.