I was aware that this could go wrong in more ways than one.
Universities had always been known for outlandish hazing incidents that caused students to die horrible deaths. But despite Homer's ominous warning to be careful and the possibility that I could end up being trampled and found lying ass-naked in a cow field somewhere with my skull caved in, I ascend to the next floor with the other poets.
"There isn't much light on this floor. Most of the wiring shorted out years ago due to rats and age," Virgil says and turns on a flashlight, the white beam of light cutting across the dusty hallway. "We use candles and flashlights to get around now. Oh, that's kind of poetic, isn't it? I should use that in my thesis at some point."
"He'd find poetry in a pile of dog shit," Ovid leans over and whispers to me, his hand cupped around his mouth to keep Virgil from hearing.
The concept is so absurd and unexpected that I immediately burst out laughing, one sharp laugh exploding down the hall and echoing back at us twice as loud.
John and Virgil both immediately focus their flashlights and attention on Ovid and me, who stand there as innocent as two schoolboys with a cigarette in the bathroom. Ovid, on the other hand, is smoking a real cigarette and casually rests one hand on his elbow as he raises it to his lips, indifferent.
"Why don't you two look around for a minute?" John asks us, his face obscured by shadows cast from the peeling anatomy posters and floral wallpaper. "They used to teach here and left the original desks and equipment behind before moving to that contemporary nightmare called the Florence Keller Building on the other side of campus. I breathe a sigh of relief every time I wake up and find this place still standing in the morning."
"John has an obsession with architecture," Virgil explains with a small, pleased little smirk, "I'm almost positive that if you could marry a building, he would be lined right up at the courthouse waiting to get married."
"Oh, shucks. And here I thought we were getting hitched!" John quips sarcastically.
"Come on," Ovid says, and he pulls me away from the two men down the dark hallway, the little orange tip of his cigarette glowing against the stained walls.
We walk together side by side, only pausing when Ovid shoves open the occasional heavy wooden door to reveal classrooms flash-frozen in time. Long square desks with black tops were still lined up with beakers, some of them broken or toppled over. Microscopes looked like alien devices waiting to be used but slowly rusting over time.
"Couldn't you have chosen a better place to have your meetings?" I ask Ovid when we step into a classroom with a lesson plan still written on the oversized chalkboard on the wall. "The dust is horrible here. How do you even breathe without launching into a coughing fit?"
"The other floor's much better," Ovid replies, and props himself up on a desk, his legs swinging back and forth. "Virgil wanted a spot where we didn't have to answer to anyone. We can play music here as loud as we want. Sometimes we even sleep upstairs when we're too drunk to walk back to the dorms. Sure, she's a little dusty around the edges, but she's a real lady, isn't she?"
I eye him skeptically when he snaps open a magazine with a buff, hairy-looking man on the front dressed in a cowboy outfit. He had his hands in his pockets and his zipper halfway down to reveal a pair of red underwear underneath.
"Homer told me that I'm supposed to participate in some kind of initiation," I tell Ovid, ignoring the fact that he might have been looking at gay porn while we were holding a conversation.
"Hmm..." Ovid flips to the next page without looking up. "Nobody's forcing you to be here, Dante. If you want to join the initiation and become a Poet, then that's fine. If not, you can keep studying and graduate like a good little boy. You're the type to marry a nice woman and have a son who looks just like you if coerced in the right direction."
His words are almost like a slap to the face. It was as if he knew exactly where to push my buttons to get a rise out of me.
"You don't know a thing about me!" I reply, anger rising to my face like hot air, "What's wrong with marrying someone and living an honorable life anyway?"
Ovid calmly lowers his magazine and puts out his cigarette on the desk. "L'appel du vide." He says simply, and then turns to me, resting his hands on his knees, "We have sex here, Dante."
A shiver explodes down my neck.
"Mind you, it's all consensual," he explains. "John has even skipped out because he and Beatrice have decided to begin dating. They're madly in love, you know."
"I thought this was a poetry club," I point out, a bit horrified. "Is that all you do here?"
Ovid laughs and tips his head back. "Of course not!" He throws his hands into the air and then lays back on the table like a dying maiden. "We come up with exquisite poetry and recite the words of the masters before us! We fall in lust with life, my dear friend!"
"And the initiation?" I press, "Will that involve some kind of twisted, drunken bacchanal in the woods with you all?"
Frankly, I didn't know if I was ready for that level of commitment. My list of lovers was embarrassingly short, and my bedroom shenanigans had less flavor than a tube of mint toothpaste served in a Michellen-Star restaurant. If Ovid, Virgil, and the Poets expected something exciting, I was almost certain they'd quickly abandon their endeavor when they encountered me for the first time.
"Heavens, no!" Ovid sits up straight and says, "You'll be strung up by your wrists, stripped down to your underwear, and blindfolded. Then, if you're willing, you'll spend the rest of the night in this frigid building all alone, dangling there waiting for one of us to release you in the morning. Lovely imagery, isn't it? So what do you say? Will you go through with it?"
I think about turning my heel and walking right out, past John and Virgil in the hallway.
I could pick up my studies and graduate in a few years, just as my father intended when he signed my soul away to this institution without a second thought. The others might think of me less when we walked past each other in the hallway without a word spoken, but my future would be set.
However, there would always be a part of me that would look across at Monmouth Hall and wonder what the taste of such self-indulgent encounters with rich superiority would feel like. If only for an instant, I could lounge like a plump Persian cat who'd gotten his fill of creme.
Ovid extends a hand for me to take. "Will you sign the blood contract, Mr. Santiago?"
I slowly reach out and take his hand.
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