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Roland wanders away from the bunk bed to the window, and picks up binoculars he keeps handy on the ledge to check out the nearby dorm, where he has on occasion caught women undressing. He lifts the glasses to his eyes and focuses on Jaystrum Hall, on a class in session. He finds an attractive girl in a yellow halter top. "Check out this babe," he says to Jim, his roommate.
Jim hops out of bed to join him.
In class, Valerie tells herself to lighten up. Just because some professor got over on some girl, doesn't mean everyone's staring at her--though she feels almost itchy, as if someone's eyes are on her. She glares at the professor, who looks awkward behind his desk and keeps avoiding her eyes.
Justine, sitting across from Valerie, has let her mind wander away from class. She's thinking about Blat and Cleary. While the professor drones on, her thoughts spin and wander. Cleary, a young woman, victim of Blat, the sexual aggressor. Blat in the hospital, attacked by Cleary. Blat in a coma. Blat and Cleary, Cleary and Blat. After a time, big abstract words float around musically in her head, their meanings dissolving into nothing more than sound: sex, violence, culture, power, violence, sex, culture, power . . .
It's a fine spring day. The campus is abuzz with truth and rumor. |
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