Student Read Online Free Page B

had enough people for a shared house, perhaps...’
    ‘I’ll sort it,’ she says.
    Like me, Vic gets on fine with people in hall and has friends on her course but nobody she’s anxious to form a second, replacement family with. And that’s how most of the house hunters seem to see their future.
    ‘Time’s running out,’ Vic says a day later. ‘A lot of the best houses are already gone. We should start checking out notice-boards.’
    ‘OK,’ I say, comforted at having a partner in this quest, although neither of has much idea what we’re searching for.
    Nobody’s sweating end of year exams, except me. They’re pass/fail and the marks don’t count towards your final degree result. I’ve always been anal about passing exams but, this year, I have a bigger priority: I want to get a boyfriend before Helen and Mark show up in the autumn. I’ve been for drinks with a couple of guys on my course. Nothing came of them. The nearest I’ve come to having sex lately was when a lad from the floor above me almost knocked me over when he was coming back from the pub the other night. He apologised and asked me if I’d like to sleep with him. I said ask me again when I’m sober. He hasn’t.
    But I’m not that desperate. At a hall party last weekend, I went back to what I thought was a girl’s room to smoke some weed, but the girl (name forgotten) disappeared into the adjoining room and I found myself with a long-haired biker type, who gave me a slim line of coke, then got his prick out and asked me to lick it. I was out of there faster than you can say eeugh. I had other offers that night but the coke made me edgy and I think I must have slagged off the guys who tried to chat me up. I had to drink loads before I came down enough to sleep. Vic says I was advocating compulsory castration for even the mildest forms of sexual harassment.
    ‘I don’t think speed agrees with you,’ Vic told me.
    ‘He said it was coke.’
    ‘I know that greaser. He’s too hard up to fork out for coke. It would have been sulphate.’
    ‘Perhaps I’d better avoid both in future.’
    ‘I would if I were you. You turned pretty scary.’
    May’s nearly over. The exams are a week away and neither of us have a place to live next year. Vic knows this guy called Paul. They met at Gaysoc. He seems all right and is in the same position as us, but three’s an even more awkward number. There are small houses we could rent a fair way out, in places like Long Eaton, but the ones near University Park all have five or six bedrooms. Vic and I go to an agency, who offer us bedsits: city centre, purpose-built, pile-’em-high, student cages. Paul contacts an old school Asian landlord who has houses in Lenton. There’s one, he’s told, where only a couple of people are staying on next year. We say we’ll see it that evening.
    The Derby Road runs from the university to the edge of the city, a long, steep hill. Albert Grove is near the top, in Lenton Sands. We get there early and walk past the house, which is halfway down on the left, to the pub, the Old Peacock, at the bottom of the street. There are a few shops, including a supermarket and a chippy.
    ‘This could suit,’ Paul says. We agree to check out the pub after we’ve seen the house.
    The guy who lets us in has a beard and a slight stoop, probably due to his height. He’s at least a foot taller than me. ‘Mr Soar told me to expect you,’ he says. ‘Shall I make us a brew while we wait for him?’
    He’s a second year called Finn. I want to quiz him about why he hasn’t got three mates of his own to invite into the house. While I’m trying to think of a tactful way to do this, Vic wades in.
    ‘You say three people are leaving. Why haven’t you got some mates lined up to move in?’
    ‘Tess is a fourth year medic, like me. Our friends have already got houses.’
    My mother would be impressed if she knew I was living with doctors,