This is my first real story in years, although I've fancied myself a writer this entire time, and have taken classes and the like. I used to be pretty good, or at least my friends and teachers thought so. I'm technically published, but in a way irrelevant to the work at hand.
This is also my first time writing erotica, ever, although I've been reading since the first 'Whats New' back in 1997 or whenever it was. I did once submit a piece I'd worked on, but didn't write, in 2000 (the intro in that story will explain why it is attributed to me, and why I haven't cleaned it up since that time).
There are way too many inspirations to list for this story - ten years worth of tales, the quality only getting better every year, the best of them helping to nudge me towards this point. I don't mean to slight any author by not giving them credit, and would like to thank everyone who's written for this site.
Gentle reader, I hope you enjoy this humble tale. It's ambitious to start off with what's meant to be something of an epic, but this is the way the story came to me. This is turning out to be maybe the longest thing I've written. Let me know what I'm doing wrong - and if I'm doing anything right.
Oh, and I promise my intros will be shorter in the future. Well, I'll try anyway.
My life was almost half over before it really began. Even before then, I was marching down the road less traveled, but it wasn't until that summer that my future became clear. It's kind of a long story.
I could never sleep well the night before a long trip, and this was the longest trip I'd ever taken. Unfortunately, I'd booked too late to get any window seats - the only way I can sleep on an airplane - so by the time the third plane arrived in Naples from my start in Phoenix, I'd been up almost thirty hours, barring a few restless catnaps. And I was tired.
On the bright side, we arrived in Naples in the evening. By the time we got our rooms sorted out, the stars were visible in the sky, so I didn't need to force myself up any later. Most of the others wanted to hit the bars or explore, but I declined the invitation, and pretty much zoned out after a shower. The next thing I knew, I was waking up to the rising sun.
Domingo, my roommate, was still zonked out through some combination of a late night and jet lag, and the complimentary breakfast didn't start for an hour or two. So I sat and watched the sun rise - beautiful, by the way - then I stumbled to the bathroom and took a good long look at myself in the mirror.
I would be 30 in a few weeks, my first birthday out of the country, but I had a kind of baby face. Most of my fellow undergrads thought I was a new graduate student just starting his masters, not someone with a decade or so on them still working on his first degree. That didn't stop me from feeling old whenever I saw a twentyish girl walk by wearing something that left little to the imagination - a common event year-round in Arizona.
I'm not the ugly sort, and the years have been kind to me. I've got short brown hair that gets curly when it grows out, blue eyes with eyelashes that have made a few women jealous, and dimples I just can't get women to stop commenting on. But I'm not traditionally attractive; I'm sort of the male version of zaftig, apparently - not muscled or thin, but my extra pounds do wonders for my appearance. At least, that's what I'm told.
In other words, I've never had trouble attracting women - or at least, that's what they tell me after they've moved away, or found themselves in a deep and long-lasting relationship, or otherwise have made themselves feel "safe" and unavailable. I've just heard the story too often, from too many women, to think it's anything else. Of course, that hasn't left me any less alone.
See, attracting women is only half the battle. The other half is much harder - acting on that attraction. Even in this supposedly equal world, most women wait for the men to do the work, at least in this particular case, and I tend to overthink things until the opportunity passes me by. Additionally, while I do well enough in my studies to make my classmates jealous, I swear a woman could probably put her hand down my pants and I wouldn't get that she was flirting or wanting me to make a move.
Of course, I find myself incapable of making moves. I find it very difficult to even say 'hello' to people I know, nonetheless do anything more drastic. With most of my social contact these days being with the under-21 crowd in my classes, the age gap didn't help matters. It was hard even finding friends. Of course, once you get past the initial hello, I'm fine - but each new 'hello' was its own separate struggle. I was hoping the relative isolation of the study abroad group would encourage people to say 'hello' to me more often.
"Well, Eric," I said to the mirror. "You're in a new country, you've only got to finish these last few classes before you graduate. There are almost sixty college women, only ten boys, and only one man." I chuckled, pointing a thumb at myself. Then I remembered the professors who were coming along. "Well, unmarried man at least." I shrugged. "And in addition to the 60 women from the states, there's a whole nation of Italian women out there." I looked myself in the eyes. "It's time for a change."
I was probably kidding myself, but it was one of the reasons I decided to finish my studies of Italian in Italy before graduating with a double-degree in Architecture and Urban Design (my plan also included a minor in sculpture, but the art department was too demanding, so I just took what classes I could). Being on the Dean's list every semester, they were already nattering me about getting into a graduate program. Still, I wouldn't even be officially done unless I passed these final few classes, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do just yet.
I shook myself out of my funk and decided to help myself to a long steamy shower, since it didn't seem Domingo would need the hot water any time soon. After that, I brushed my teeth, shaved the stubble that showed up along the way, and pulled on a shirt and some shorts. I thought for a moment about waking Domingo to come with me, but I figured he'd been out late, and needed his sleep. Besides, we'd only met on the plane - I didn't really know him.
I was stalling, and I knew it. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes, opened the door, and headed out to face the world. What better way to start than with breakfast?