choose-your-fate-1

Subject: Choose Your Fate, Chapter 1 (Gay Male, College) CHOOSE YOUR FATE By FloxPublishing Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved by the author. No unauthorized (re-) publication, in part or in full, is permitted in any form. Comments and suggestions are welcome via email. Chapter 1: The Wisp Some Celtic legends describe Fate as a hidden path the hero is destined to find in a dense and misty forest. Even though I grew up hearing such stories from my grandmother, they have always terrified me. Finding your path can be a daunting quest and sometimes you only find your way when your paths cross those of others. Sometimes, the most random circumstances lead you to the least expected turns in life. The question is, are you ready to follow the new paths that open up in front of you? My story began during my college years so few years ago, I am still working on my graduate degree and can still recall every detail that led me to… well, let me start at the beginning. My name is Finnian, fire red hair and pretty short. Even at 19 I looked pretty young, with most of my class mates looking down on my short stature by almost a foot. Even though my dad’s side of the family was clearly more rugged and scruffy being the offspring of Scottish Highlanders, I was a mirror image of my mum’s Irish family with smooth, rosy-pale skin, wild curly hair and freckles sprinkled all over my face, arms and shoulders. I’ve always been jealous of my older brother Nolan, who could sprout a beard at fourteen and flaunted his body hair every chance he got. When his new job required him to shave regularly, however, and he had to deal with constant razor burn, by the time I graduated high school, I had learned to appreciate my eternal peach fuzz which was easy to eliminate every second week or so. As I spent half of my childhood in Ireland, any attempt not to sound Gaelic resulted in a British-polite accent straight from the BBC, which attracted and alienated friends equally. Looking and sounding like an extra ripped from any generic Irish Holiday special, I was pretty easy to pick out from a crowd. The other thing that made me stick out was the fact that I was always cold. I was born with a severe case of hypothermia, which was the more surprising considering our family moved to one of the coldest regions of Canada and I decided to go to college in Alaska. Even though I’d gotten used to the occasional chill and shiver, I didn’t notice my low body temperature on the daily because it didn’t impact me beyond wearing an extra layer during the colder months and people commenting on my icy fingers when I shook someone’s hand. I really should have taken it more seriously because my brother, who was born with a similar condition, almost lost a finger staying out playing hockey too late. I ended up in Alaska going to school for a marine science degree. My brother emek escort was two years ahead of me and his school offered a helpful scholarship for me to join his school. One of our uncles owned a two bedroom apartment close to campus which Nolan shared with a roommate. I started in the winter trimester because my brother was going abroad for the term and I would take over his room until he came back. The apartment was big enough for three if we both decided to stay once he got back. At first, I was a wee bit concerned jumping into classes at an odd term but my degree accommodated students year round and my brother was in the same field–and luckily good enough at it to be able to help me get into classes with professors he had worked with. He’s always excelled at everything he put his mind to. My brother left for Japan in October the weekend I moved in, at the end of their fall break. Move-in was pretty uneventful; my parents are busy year-round, so Nolan helped me get settled into his room, or rather my new home. There was no orientation, so I dodged a bullet skipping awkward introductions and repetitive explanations. Nolan had introduced me to his professors and program coordinators as a “smart kid,” which made me uncomfortable but allowed me to jump right in and pick up where I had left off with my community college courses. He gave me a tour, all the standard routine, and I dropped him off at the airport after. It was late when I got back to the apartment and I was dead tired from driving on the roads which are prone to freezing over after sunset. I reviewed some of the science notes I had written down in my meetings, then thought about working on some art pieces I had in mind but ended up firing up the oven to prepare dinner. I settled watching cartoons on TV half asleep when I first heard from my brother’s roommate. Nolan shared the apartment with his best friend Chester. At 22, Chester was a year older than my brother and from what I’ve seen in photos Nolan was willing to share during breaks, he looked pretty tall, even taller than Nolan, who didn’t inherit many Irish petite short-people genes. I must have called dibs on those. Like my brother, Chester played hockey. He was supposed to help us move my stuff in but he got held up on his way back into town after a game due to a snow storm. Slowly dozing off, I felt my phone buzz and almost didn’t mind it, thinking it might be just another email notification or advertisement. I shook myself awake in case it might be Nolan letting me know he’d arrived safely until I realized it’d be too early and he’d probably still be somewhere over the ocean. I saw a message from Chester, “Still stuck on the road. Back tomorrow evening. See you then, bud.” Just as I finished reading, another message fluttered in. “Sorry I couldn’t be eryaman escort there your first day. Will initiate you tomorrow. Welcome to college!” The message put a smile on my face. From what Nolan told me, Chester seemed nice enough to live with. I always valued my brother as an excellent judge of character and he’d reassured me Chester was to be trusted. I took his word for it and responded with a smiley face and wished him safe travels before retreating to my room. Nights were pretty long already and it was definitely getting a bit chilly. I couldn’t get the heater to work and after turning the knobs for a while without feeling results, I started to look for another switch in the apartment. Maybe Nolan had forgotten to turn on the central heat. I looked around the room, trying to locate a master switch. My room was connected to what I assumed would be Chester’s room through a closed door. I stepped closer and with my hand on the doorknob, I hesitated. I didn’t want to invade Chester’s privacy even if he wasn’t here. After searching the entire apartment, I still couldn’t get the heat to work, which led me back to the connecting door shivering lightly. I hesitated but turned the knob slowly. To my surprise the door wasn’t locked. I opened the door just a crack; the room was dark, curtains drawn, but warmer than mine. I opened the door further and was met with a musky aroma. I furrowed my eyebrows at the smell, not able to place it, somewhere between gym locker and cologne. I stepped back again not wanting another nose full of the scent, almost aborting the mission when I felt the cold breeze again forcing me to turn around. I stepped into the room, hit again immediately by the odor. I put my hand in front of my nose like a mask like it would make a difference, my sheltered self not used to a lot of indoor smells beside fabric softener and lavender moth sacks. I looked around the dark room, letting my eyes adjust without bothering to turn on the light. Chester’s room was somewhat messy but not chaotic. Some piles of books and hockey trophies on the walls proved some organization behind his system. I spotted a small pile of dirty laundry in the corner thinking it couldn’t be the sole source of the smell. This reminded me once more of the odor, suppressed curiosity returns trying to identify the smell. It was strangely musky, definitely manly and potent but with a personal note of aftershave or cologne. Lost in thought I gave into the fragrance, looking around the room, some photos on the walls of Chester and my brother, some girls, a lot of girls actually, and the hockey team. My eyes wandered over to his bed, it looked cozy and soft, his blankets warm. I touched the corner of the comforter. This suddenly brought my attention back to myself. A shiver ran down my back. But esat escort I wasn’t cold, not anymore. Somehow I’d wandered into the center of the room, where the scent was much stronger, but I didn’t smell it anymore. Somehow, I’d given in, drifted into a trance wandering into someone else’s private lair without even noticing. I shook my head, acknowledging I must be very tired and finally spotted more button controls next to the heater in Chester’s room. I figured it out easily and the central furnace rattled to life. I stayed for a moment in the warm room, looking over some hockey photos. I recognized a headshot of Chester in full goalie gear, the picture signed by the full team with words scribbled in messy handwriting, “never again, left field forever.” I couldn’t see much of Chester’s face under the helmet except a stubbly chin and deep brown eyes. Very dark, strong and mysterious. I stared for a moment longer until the smell crept back into my consciousness, standing closer to the laundry pile almost making me nauseous. I stepped back into my room, which was finally getting warmer and closed the door behind me. I checked the heater, which had finally decided to warm up. I quickly undressed down to my boxers and looked around the room for the T-shirt I’d laid out for the night earlier. I stopped in front of the full-length mirror, looking at my body. I wasn’t well defined nor skinny, a healthy average. My eyes traced the veins shimmering beneath my skin, bouncing around soft fluffs of body hair glistening faintly in the glow of the overhead lamp. I wasn’t hairless, but far from hairy. My skin produced light hairs as much as soft skin can carry–which was barely visible fuzz, but feeling it with my hands gave me confidence. I checked my pits and vowed to take a shower in the morning. A day’s worth of carrying boxes, a light, necessarily familiar scent but nothing compared to the other room. I looked towards the door like it was calling me for some strange reason but another shiver down my spine reminded me it was time to head to sleep and I grabbed my shirt, lights off, and slipped under the covers. Reassured by the surring sounds of the heat, my sleepy mind once again came back to the intense smell in Chester’s room. Somehow it never entirely left my room and part of me was convinced I could still sense it. I wondered what kind of body would be capable of producing such an aroma. Maybe my sense of smell was just very developed, I thought, like the perfume experts working for those traditional eau de toilette businesses in France we went to last summer. I snickered, thinking about how strange it was that animals communicate with others through pheromones and scents and wondered what this scent was communicating. To the world. To others, to me… I refused to acknowledge how much I allowed it to take a hold of me. So masculine, so powerful, not unclean yet so repulsive, refusing to leave, lingering on my mind. So I gave into it once more, letting it drag me into the unconscious of sleep, not knowing it was a sign, not unlike a will-o’-the-wisp floating in my path, warning me that if I let it lure me down this road, I was about to change my Fate.