Chapter 39: Blackwood University or Damon’s View of the Forbidden

Blackwood University sat inside New York City itself, tucked into one of Manhattan’s quieter and more secluded reaches about forty-five minutes from Billionaires’ Row, and that little fact had probably done more for Damon’s final decision than half the academic brochure.

He could have gone farther. Much farther, actually and applied almost anywhere without worrying too much about where he ended up.

But why the hell would he voluntarily exile himself hours away, sleep in some miserable little dorm, eat dining-hall depression, and spend his nights surrounded by eighteen-year-olds arguing about laundry when he had an entire mansion full of mature women waiting back home?:

Camilla’s wet cunt on a bathroom stool... Aunt Lilim bent over a dinner table with a thong disappearing between those heavy cheeks. Eisheth’s hand on his thigh; a house that smelled like perfume and bad decisions.

Yeah. No shit!

He was not doing the noble-student-in-a-bunk-bed arc.

That was for people with worse options.

College was important, he understood that well; education, future, independence, all that responsible-adult shit people loved saying while staring wisely over coffee.

But even more now that he’d got the system there were also priorities, and Damon was honest enough to admit that his currently included Camilla, an aunt mission still waiting in the background, a Service Path website that needed building, and several beautiful women under the same roof who were far more educational than anything college (far or not) could put on a timetable.

Not to mention the mature women in New York waiting for his so-proclaimed liberation.

’Call it independent study. Look at me. Scholar.’

His brain immediately tried dragging Camilla back into the picture, specifically that extra second she had kissed his cheek, and then the rest of it followed whether he invited it or not because his brain had the loyalty of a stray dog.

Damon almost smiled to himself and then told the thought to sit back the fuck down and they listened.

’Later. If I start thinking about that woman now I Vespera will see my erect dick looking like I lost a fight with my own pants. Let’s keep the brother boundary intact now, shall we?’

Vespera drove through Blackwood’s main entrance and followed the internal road around toward the rear parking lot, taking them past the massive central building.

Pale stone wings stretched out on both sides of a tall glass center tower, several enclosed bridges connecting the buildings high above the courtyard, while Blackwood’s crest sat near the top with enough seriousness to make the whole place look like it had its own private army somewhere underground.

Students crossed the broad paths below with backpacks, suitcases, iced coffee, nervous parents, chauffeurs, and enough designer clothes to make Damon wonder if orientation had secretly become Fashion Week for people who still needed permission to change majors.

Some of the older girls were dressed like they had a class and a date in the same hour, tight tops, short skirts, summer legs everywhere, and his eyes did what eighteen-year-old eyes did. Catalogued. Moved on. Came back anyway. He was trying to be a man of focus. The campus was not helping.

Some freshmen were already taking pictures in front of the central fountain, while a few older students moved through them with that smug campus confidence people developed after memorizing three shortcuts and one good coffee shop.

Vespera took the G-Wagon around the main building and into the lot behind it, found a space, then killed the engine. Before getting out she shifted in the leather seat and pulled her skirt back into place where the ride had pushed it higher than she liked.

The hem had climbed her thighs in the car, leaving the innermost stretch of soft skin bare on the baby-blue leather, and now she smoothed it down over those long legs with both hands like that would undo the last forty-five minutes.

The dark skirt still sat snug across her ass when she stood, hugging the supple round developing shape of it, and the top she had on did the same quiet crime to her chest, round tits sitting high enough that the movement of getting out of the car made them shift under the cloth.

She looked over at Damon with that familiar older-sister expression that usually meant she already knew whether he was about to be useful or annoying.

"Can you help me with the bags?" she asked, reaching behind her seat for her handbag.

Damon pushed his door open and climbed out with a quiet groan. "Sure. Although I reserve the right to complain since you packed your entire room in there."

"You’ll survive," Vespera said without even looking worried, walking around toward the back as Damon opened.

Damon stared down at it, then at her. "By the way what the hell is in this?"

Vespera tucked her keys into her bag and gave him a perfectly straight face. "Shoes."

He looked at the bag again as if it had personally offended him. "Of course it is."

They unloaded the rest from the back seat and trunk, Damon taking most of the heavy bags while Vespera carried the lighter ones.

From there they headed south away from the main building toward the residential section, where more ten-story buildings rose in neat clusters around landscaped courtyards and smaller private roads.

Vespera walked ahead of him in that short dark skirt, blonde hair bouncing against her back, hips moving with that finished-unfinished sway she was growing into every year, ass collecting itself under the skirt with each step up the path.

He looked at the buildings. He looked at the bags. He looked at a tree.

Blackwood dorms looked perfect, they preferred calling them residences but sure whatever, Damon suspected that was what happened when a university realized wealthy parents were more willing to pay absurd money if you renamed basic things with expensive nouns.

The buildings were co-ed, but housing was split into apartment-style units instead of the usual endless hallway full of doors, shared bathrooms, and eighteen-year-olds discovering personal hygiene through trial and tragedy.

Blackwood was elite in every obvious sense, after all: old families sent their children here, corporate dynasties sent heirs here and politicians sent sons and daughters here, then acted shocked whenever anyone suggested donations and admissions had ever met in the same room.

The school took other students scholarship students too, naturally;; merit, social mobility, diversity, reputation, and publicity all looked fantastic on a website, but Damon doubted the children paying full tuition were ever expected to share a shower with twelve strangers.

They reached Vespera’s residence building and found a printed notice beside the elevators.

OUT OF SERVICE.

Damon stopped... his eyes moved from the notice to the floor number on Vespera’s housing information, then slowly back to her.

Seventh floor.

Vespera stared at the elevator doors for a second, released a long breath through her nose, and adjusted the strap of the bag on her shoulder. "Well."

Damon looked at the bags hanging from his hands. ’Sixty thousand dollars a year and the elevator has chosen spiritual retirement. Beautiful. Peak education.’

She started toward the stairwell anyway, and Damon followed with two bags in his hands and another over one shoulder. By the third floor he finally understood why rich people became so offended by inconvenience. Once someone spent enough years paying specifically so problems happened to other people, seven flights of stairs probably felt less like exercise and more like personal betrayal.

He could already imagine the emails arriving before lunch.

{Dear Blackwood Administration, my daughter was forced to use her legs. Please explain.}

Damon almost laughed to himself as they turned up another flight. He could not fully blame them either. These families paid disgusting amounts of money to send their kids here, so finding the elevator dead on move-in day was definitely going to produce enough parental rage to power half Manhattan.

Still, what exactly was the university supposed to do? The dean was not about to walk downstairs, snap his fingers, chant Harvardus Repario, and repair an elevator through prestige.

Ahead of him Vespera kept climbing but each start she took her skirt lifted a little on the steps, the backs of her thighs flashing pale and tight every time she took a stair, her ass was right there in front of him whether he wanted the view or not with her blonde hair, her grey eyes glancing back and her tits moving with the effort.

Vespera glanced back over her shoulder around the fifth floor, blonde hair bouncing lightly behind her as she checked whether Damon had collapsed somewhere below. "You alive?"

"Unfortunately," Damon muttered, shifting the bag on his shoulder. "Although your luggage is making a convincing argument for assisted death."

"You’re eighteen," she reminded him, one eyebrow lifting.

"And carrying your entire migration."

Vespera glanced at the bags and laughed softly. "It’s just three bags."

"I that why you’re the one carrying them? He asked with sarcasm "Also one of them has its own gravitational field."

"That’s still the shoes."

Damon looked down at it with renewed betrayal. "And you thought letting me know that again was gonna help?"