Monday, November 16, 2015

A Chance Glance and a Chance Conversation in a Student Bar, part 1

Time to kick off a new mini-serial (if only to prove I'm still writing!).  Back in October when I was writing new stories for Literotica's Halloween competition I mentioned I had a 3rd story in progress I thought I might work better as a mini-serial.  Well here's the first part:


A Chance Glance and a Chance Conversation in a Student Bar, part 1

Some had all the luck, Devin Lucassen thought as he spied the couple in the university bar.

It was the girl that caught his attention.  Or rather, if he was totally honest with himself, it was her boobs that caught his attention.  They were very large and emphasised by a plain white sweater that was about a size too small.  The fabric was stretched taut by her firm curves.  Her silky platinum-blonde hair was cut to her shoulder and had plenty of body.  She wasn’t a blonde bimbo.  Devin could tell that from her eyes.  They were dark and smouldered with intelligence.  It shouldn’t be a surprise really.  She wouldn’t be here, at university, if she was an airhead thicko.

His gaze kept involuntarily dropping to her chest.  It was hard.  Her bust was extremely eye-catching and he was a male near the end of his teens with all the hormones that went with it.  He still felt guilty about it.  He hoped she hadn’t noticed.  It wouldn’t make a good first impression.

Not that it mattered.  She wasn’t alone.  Girls like her never were.  What surprised Devin was how ordinary her boyfriend looked.

And he was her boyfriend.  Devin had seen them kissing openly in the bar on more than one occasion during the evening.

The boyfriend was very unexceptional.  He was about an inch shorter than her and slight of frame.  Spectacles covered a pair of close-set eyes.  He had the pale look of someone who spent too much time indoors playing videogames.

Not that Devin could talk.  He was your typical metalhead with greasy long hair.  His was a student demographic not exactly renowned for its pulling power with the ladies.

Fair play to the bloke, Devin thought.  He must have something else going for him.  Gives the rest of us hope.

Not that Devin had much hope at the moment.  He supped a pint of Guinness alone amongst a throng of chattering students.  They all seemed to know each other.  Devin didn’t know how this was.  This was Fresher’s Week.  Supposedly they were all first year students away from home for the first time.  So why did Devin feel like he’d shown up a week late?

He knew why.  He sucked at social interaction.  Always had.  He was clueless when it came to starting a conversation.  He needed an excuse—something to talk about.  That’s why he’d shown up in his leather jacket and Slipknot T-shirt.  Sure, it might drive some away like a fetid cloud of BO, but if they were that bothered about his music tastes, Devin wasn’t interested in getting to know them better.

It seemed fine in theory.  Now Devin was starting to think all his clever ‘strategy’ had achieved was to set him up as the Johnny No-mates of the hall.  Metal couldn’t be that uncool.  Surely there had to be some other metalheads around.  Or even a hot goth chick.  Hell, at this point Devin would settle for someone into Black Veil Brides or Bring Me The Horizon.

Nope, the bar was wall-to-wall trendies and hipsters.  Devin hoped it got better once he started going to lectures and meeting people on his course, otherwise his university experience was going to be very long and very lonely.

Speaking of hipsters, there was one over in the corner that appeared to be wearing a Slayer T-shirt.

He didn’t look like a typical Slayer fan.  Or that hipsterish, to be fair.  The student was skinny and had blond hair stuck in anime-style spikes.  The white earphones of an iPod were in his ears and he stood with the detachment of someone that didn’t give a shit about anything.  Or was projecting an attitude of not giving a shit about anything as a defensive shield.  Not that Devin could talk, given he was currently dressed in a biker jacket and a T-shirt with a burning clown skull on the front.  The blond dude wasn’t drinking, or rather, wasn’t drinking drinking.  He had a bottle of water in his hand and was supping from it with a straw.

 “Top band that,” Devin said as he walked past the blond kid on the way to the bar for another pint.

The blond kid took his earphones out.  “Sorry?” he asked.

“Just remarking on the T-shirt,” Devin said.  “Not many—” he looked around the bar.  “Okay, absolutely nobody wearing metal T-shirts here tonight.  I was starting to think I might be the only metal fan in the whole hall.”

And might still be.  Devin had heard some hipsters liked to wear metal T-shirts despite not listening to the music.  It was an ironic statement or some shit like that.  Devin had some sympathy for hipsters.  As a metalhead he knew what it was like to have the mainstream media shit all over his sub-culture, and the hipsters were a common target nowadays.  His sympathy dried up for the ones that engaged in this kind of douchebaggery—especially when they did it as a way of identifying targets to sneer at and take the piss out of.

Not this one.

The blond kid looked down at his T-shirt.  “My favourite band,” he said as if it was a guilty pleasure.  “I love their music.  What about you.”

“They’re legends,” Devin said.  “One of the original thrash titans.”

“Which album’s your favourite,” the blond kid asked.

“I don’t have them all,” Devin said.  “Reign in Blood I guess.  But that’s the one everyone says.  ‘Raining Blood’ is such a monster of a closer.”

The blond kid nodded in agreement.  “A lovely track.”  His eyes took on a far-off look, as if he was looking back over happy memories.  “I’ve always had a soft spot for God Hates Us All.  You heard that one?”

Devin shook his head.  “I’m still getting into the classic old-school era thrash... Sepultura and the like.”

He made a mental note to check out the album the other student had mentioned.

“So many good bands and albums back then,” the blond kid said.  “I don’t see so many good albums around nowadays.”

Odd, Devin thought.  The other student looked way too young for the ‘good ole days’ routine, especially for albums that were recorded before either of them were born.

“Nah.  There’s still plenty of ace stuff,” Devin said.  “The music press doesn’t report on it because they’re up their own bums.  You can still find it if you look for it.  Here, listen to this.”

Devin dug his music player out of his pocket.  They switched the headphones over and Devin selected a track.  The blond kid listened to it and nodded approvingly.

“Dark with an undercurrent of violence,” he said.  “Like a buzz saw cutting through a sternum.  I like it.  Who is it?”

“Whitechapel,” Devin said.  “I know deathcore gets a bad rap, but they’re damn good.”

The blond kid shrugged.  “It was the same for nu-metal.”

He took his earphones out.

“Thanks for that.  I’ll check them out.”

The blond guy offered his own iPod.  Devin saw it was one of the old models, made before Apple started combining everything into one device.

“Give this a listen,” he said.  “Five Pointe O.  Heard of them.”

“No,” Devin answered.

He listened to the track.  It sounded like a Molotov cocktail going off in his skull.  Sweet.

“They only put out the one album,” the blond guy said.  “A shame.”

Devin passed him back his iPod.  “I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is to find someone here into decent music.  I thought I was going to spend my first year in halls hearing nothing but Adele and Mumford and Sons.”  Devin offered his hand.  “I’m Devin.”

“Carny.”  The blond guy with better taste in music than his appearance suggested introduced himself.


to be continued (weekly on Mondays)...

9 comments:

  1. Uh Carny... so its set in the SS Universe. PLEASE let the blonde one be Nurse Honey :D

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  2. Had a feeling it was going to be Carny. Same Universe as SS? Plot relevant to SS? I love reading short stories about what side characters (in my favorite series) are up too when they aren't directly interacting with a main character.

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  3. Devin should run, or Carny will allow him to be the last that he kills. LOL Good start, M.E. Hydra. Look forward to the rest of it.

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  4. Please let the blonde be Nurse Honey ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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  5. The fact that Devin seems relatively nice so far and seems to be trying not to be an ass, in what seems to be a SS side story, suggests to me that he might a survive. Maybe.

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  6. Oh shit Carny and what seems to be nurse honey. Devin better pray he lives through whatever they are about to do.

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  7. CivilDeviation18/11/2015, 17:23

    Hehe, I was gonna say please let it NOT be nurse honey, she squicks me out with her faces of souls protruding from her body. Who knows maybe Carny will do him a favor and rip him up before NH gets to him.

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  8. I am definitely watching this one. And if the blond chick is really Nurse Honey, I am positively hooked. :)

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  9. Glad to see Carny making another appearance.

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