he attraction was obvious. Hell of a personality. Great body. Stunning
dark blonde hair. Incredible blue eyes. He had the hots for Robina and no
mistake, he thought. It was the third week of the semester, and he had seen
no apparent partner, either sex. Maybe he was in with a chance.
Robina was great company, got on well with everybody, but not aligned with
any of the informal, mobile aggregations that form within the student body.
She seemed sociable, approachable and fun, in tune with the sunny,
blue-skied start to the university year, but with some indefinable
aloofness.
He rehearsed dropping a casual "What d'you reckon about.....?" into one of
the male bonding gossip sessions at the Uni bar of an afternoon. Perhaps he
could get some insights.Somehow, he felt, for this particular girl, it
wouldn't glean him anything useful. Anyway, he was a relative newcomer and
he didn't like to stand out. Usually, he was the quiet observer, warming
his hands at the fire and seldom adding fuel.
Ever since he had moved into the local circle of Uni hopefuls, the
discussion always found its way of its own volition to the subject of
'girls'. He estimated that with the one exception, they had analysed the
figure, face and assorted abilities of every female person of anyone's
acquaintance at least twice over in the last three weeks. The exception was
Robina. Sue, say, or Emma might stop to say "Hi." as the guys stood
talking. Conversation would turn to who might be 'on' with whom, character
assassinations of tutors, or who understood lectures or had got seriously
into assignments yet. Thoughts, advice and information would be exchanged
with impeccable mutual respect and interest. And yet, as Sue or Emma or
whoever walked on, they would cross some invisible boundary, and then the
remarks would come. "Great arse!" Or tits. Or legs. The bachelor herd in
full flight. It seemed that Robina never crossed the boundary, no matter
how far away she went.
As a group, the guys seemed unable to switch off this girl-as-object thing.
Martin noticed that city-bred guys were little different in this respect
from his own former country town compatriots. He did see a difference away
from the 'guys together' effect of the group. As individuals, one on one,
people were people and gender distinctions seemed to disappear. Martin was
young enough still to see everything in binary - black, white; yes, no;
good, bad. No place for greys or maybes. It did not occur to him that the
dichotomy of mob and individual behaviour among his peers suggested that
attitudes were not so simply differentiated. He was only nineteen, and
perhaps because of his small country town upbringing, pre-disposed to be
generous in the assessment he made of the level of enlightenment of his new
urban acquaintances.
Martin had left home when he had finished school, to move to the city and
University. He now lived in a group house with other students, not far off
campus. It was here that he lay, sprawled out on the floor, thinking about
Robina Astor. He was obsessed and he knew it, but strangely, she did not
feature at all in his nightly masturbatory fantasies. She was the solo
star, however, of his day dreams. Yet when he thought about approaching
her, making conversation, asking her out.... he froze at the thought.
There came another day. The guys were sitting on the steps leading down to
the shopping precinct, near the Staff Club entrance. They were drinking
Cokes and killing unproductive time between lectures. It was a bright,
cloudless day. Robina and two other girls came down the steps on their way
to somewhere. Robina's gleaming brunette hair and petite curved figure made
Martin weak at the knees. They stopped, the level of noise rose, the talk
was of inconsequentials. Two of the girls and two of Martin's house mates
took off to play video games, or go to the library, depending on whom one
believed. Robina didn't go. She stayed with the group, keeping them amused
and interested, comfortable with the attention. All at once, she had them
all checking their watches.
"Hey, guys. Time to go. Chem's on in a minute. See you there," she said,
acknowledging with her eyes those who were going to the same class. A
chorus of "Yair, right" and "See ya" followed. Martin watched her recede
towards the lecture rooms, and suddenly found his voice. "Fantastic body!"
he burst out.
It was as if every other person in the group had to re-focus on a distant
memory. For a moment he saw a blank wall in the eyes before eyebrows drew
together, and a general mutter of "What?" "Who?" "Oh, Robina." "Yair, guess
so." There was a short, blank silence. It felt to him like gears were
changing, then the conversation went back to its usual desultory form and
those with lectures got themselves organised and slouched off.
Martin sat for a while longer, disturbed by what had happened, and
wondering what he had done wrong. Robina was such a sexy-looking woman as
well as being likeable person. He understood the conceptual differences
between 'beautiful', 'attractive' and 'sexy'. without being able to define
them. He could think of beautiful women who did not turn him on. He could
think of people who were not beautiful, but did. He even knew people who
were definitely sexy but could be called neither beautiful nor attractive.
It was true that he couldn't quite picture someone who was positively
unattractive as being sexy, but he thought, with a typical burst of male
hormonal insensitivity that it would rather depend on his level of
desperation and inebriation at the time.
Robina met all the criteria as far as he was concerned, yet the guys were
so off-hand. It made no sense. Minutes earlier they had been deeply
interested in Josie Rankine's reasonably attractive and obviously fit
person, waving as she saw them from a nearby walkway. Interested indeed to
the point of wondering about her stamina and style at the non-Olympic sport
of horizontal gymnastics. Josie, a friendly and good-natured soul, would
not have enjoyed the conversation despite her own hearty sexuality, had she
been unfortunate enough to have heard it. Later that day, of course, she
would be comfortable and relaxed in the company of a bunch of fellow
students that would include several of the unthinking invaders of her
personal privacy (Years later, she would settle down to a happy, loving
relationship with one of them, eventually marry, have children, and pursue
a successful career as a sports physiologist while her husband did likewise
as a well-respected clinical psychologist. Neither of them would retain any
memory of their dissonant attitudes on this particular day).
It was strange, but Martin was a relative newcomer, and a lot of the people
he found himself with had known each other from primary school. Pretty much
like home, when he thought about it. For all he knew, there was some
history here, something. "Shit!" he thought, suddenly aware of the time.
"I'm late." The lattice structures of crystalline solids overtook other
thoughts as he hurried to his tutorial. "Now that tutor's a decent looking
woman......" said his hormones, interfering with the purity of the stylised
crystal of calcium chloride his cortex was involved with.
That night, he lay in bed thinking but not very cogently, in post-wank
lassitude. Robina entered his thoughts again. She was a puzzle. It wasn't
just this strange reaction from other guys. It was more than that.
Something else nagged at him. He suddenly realised that he could not
remember what she looked like! "I don't get it", he complained to himself,
"I thought I had her imprinted on my brain. I can't even think what colour
her hair is! I don't believe this." Martin got out of bed, grabbed a towel,
had a shower.
"What the fuck are you doing?" grumbled Donny from the next room, woken by
the water hammer as Martin tuned on the water. "I don't really know," said
Martin, but only to himself.
Martin bore his mates' good-natured comments about his nocturnal
activities, and their artificial surprise that he was out of bed at eight
when his first lecture was at ten. Wanked so hard you don't know what day
it is, was the general consensus.
What Martin wanted was to get in before nine to see Robina. He had to know
what she looked like. He rushed into campus, quartering the ground,
searching for a sight of her. There she was! Glorious dark hair. Deep, deep
brown velvet eyes. Superb figure. Legs that went on forever.
"Hi Martin", she said in her slow, sexy voice. "What're you doing here so
early?"
Galvanised for once into revelation, he burst out, "I wanted to see what
you look like."
He was too overwhelmed to notice the tiny hesitation before a light laugh
and response: "And what do I look like?"
Still completely off-balance, churning emotion removing inhibition for
once, Martin told her.
"Robina, you are the most beautiful person I have ever met in my life. I
can't stop thinking about you. You're wonderful. You look....." Sadly,
Robina shook her head in negation, cutting him off.
"Is that all you guys ever think about?" she asked.
Martin stopped. It was the first personal remark he had ever heard her
make. He stood silently, looking at Robina. Her blue, sad eyes looked back.
"Can we talk?" he said, "I mean really talk. Just you and me. No funny
stuff. No smart-arse remarks. Just talk."
He had the impression of an internal struggle, and momentarily it seemed
that in the midst of the sunlight, she was in shadow, but the impression
passed. He thought how much he liked her freckles and her red-gold hair. He
hadn't realised it before, but she was his own height, and without high
heels.
"OK."
Martin released his breath, suddenly, vastly happy.
"OK," he said.
"Half past ten, the river bank. The green seat next to the metasequoia
tree, before the footbridge."
"OK," said Martin again, stood for a moment, then ran off along the walk
like a schoolboy.
Martin skipped his lecture and was waiting at the designated spot
three-quarters of an hour early. As ten-thirty approached, he became more
and more anxious, terrified that she would change her mind. Then he saw
her.
The world stopped for a microsecond, his pulse rate soared and he was so
short of breath he could not speak. She smiled at him hesitantly, the scar
of her hare lip more obvious than usual with her black hair pulled back
from her homely face in a pony tail. Her hazel eyes, huge through the thick
glasses, looked troubled, he thought, and wondered why. She was the most
beautiful person he had ever seen.
