The door buzzed and granted him entry. Dan found himself in a whirlwind of activity. The lounge was filled with girls, some on chairs, there was a ladder and streamers and posters and all sorts of things were being put up around the room. He realized they were decorating for Halloween. One of the smaller dorms on campus, this was an all girl's dorm and had a reputation for throwing some really good parties. It was almost impossible to crash one of them, the RAs manned the doors and didn't let anyone in without an invitation. Pretty much everyone agreed they had the best ones on the campus, but being on campus meant it was supposedly dry.
Margo, one of his lab partners spotted him, came over and pulled him into the corner. She was pretty with dark hair, bangs, brown eyes, good figure and knew how to do her make-up well. And she normally dressed like she was always going on a date, so it was a bit surprising to find her in sweats. Dan thought she was a bit on the skinny side, but very nice. Not quite his type, but that didn't mean she and Reagan, the other lab partner, weren't in his mental spank file, probably as much for being nice to him as their bodies.
"So, is it done?"
"Yeah, I got my part finished this morning. Here's a copy for you and for Reagan." It was the third lab assignment for the semester, only two more to go. And so far the work had been a pretty even split of effort, they hadn't been leaning on the nerd to do all the work. They had pretty much treated him as an equal and never talked down to him, which was a step above the majority of girls he had met on campus.
Reagan was a bit closer in shape to what he liked, reddish brown hair and a solid figure. He had heard them talking about all sorts of things during the lab and knew she played volleyball. He really didn't think he stood a chance with either of them in a romantic sense so was more than happy to be friend zoned. Dan had hoped he could leverage that at some point to meet more of their friends, they did live in an all girls dorm!
"Oh, you are a gem! We both owe you!"
"Hey, you guys covered the printing!" It had at least saved him from pulling the credits from his own account. Not a lot, but hey, a few bucks was a few bucks.
"Thanks again, we'll see you in lab on Tuesday!" She actually surprised him with a quick hug and darted off, only to return a couple moments later. "Hey, wait, here! We really appreciate it!" and she shoved a piece of paper in his hand before disappearing into the chaos. So, the Sophomore, well, technically he had enough hours with his IB and AP work that he was going to be a Junior at the end of this semester, found himself with an invitation to the hottest halloween party on campus. He understood that each resident got an invitation they could hand out, and that there were opportunities for them to earn additional ones for various activities. He wondered if Margo was interested in him. Based on some of the conversations she had with Reagan, he was pretty sure she had a boyfriend. Well, considering all the drama they talked about, they both seemed to be rotating through a line of suitors.
But that meant he had to come up with a costume. He didn't want to just head out to the Halloween store and get one of those lame nylon suits. He wanted something original and unique. He knew he could get any parts and pieces if needed, but he really wanted to stand out. It had taken a number of years to be comfortable with himself.
He was poking around the dorm kitchen, trying to see if there was something anyone had left that might inspire him. In one of the drawers he found a stack of tags, the hard paper ones with a metal wire to put in place. The staff used them to tag things that were out of order, like a dripping sink or a light switch that needed to be repaired. And that gave him the glimmer of an idea.
Over the next couple of days he put together a costume that included:
Bow tie - "Bow ties are cool" - Doctor Who
Fedora - Indiana Jones
Rayban Sunglasses - M or K - Men in Black
Messenger bag w/ towel - Ford Prefect - HHGTTG
Calabash Pipe - Sherlock Holmes
Hawaiian Shirt - Tom Sellack - Magnum PI
Black Mask - The Man in Black/Wesley - The Princess Bride / half a point for the Lone Ranger
Press Pass Daily Planet in hat band - Clark Kent - Superman
Chakram - Xena - Xena
Forearm Inset - Luke Skywalker - Star Wars
Reese's Pieces - ET
The messenger bag, with the towel sticking out, was filled with lollipops, candy packages and small sheets of paper with instructions. "Identify the movie or books and the specific character represented by the items I'm wearing or carrying. Turn in before the end of the party. Most correct answers gets a burger with me Sunday evening, my treat." There were 11 numbered lines and a place for name and cell phone number. He'd hand them out with a piece of candy. He was sure many would simply toss the paper, but it might break the ice with some of the folks.
He figured it would be worth it. It seemed like a pretty good plan to him! If it was a guy who won, he'd make a new friend, if it was a girl, it might lead to something more fun. And in the process he would collect a whole bunch of phone numbers! So a perfect score would be 11 titles and 11 characters. He knew a couple of them were a bit more obscure than others and he was sure some of the ideas were going to be out of the timeline for many of his fellow students, but that made things more of a challenge!
He carefully put one of the paper tags with a number on each of the 11 items he had laid out. And there were a couple of other bits and pieces that could have been connected with other things. He figured if someone wanted to get 'extra credit' it wouldn't hurt. He'd have something he could use as a tie breaker.
----
His costume was surprisingly popular. Handing out the candy was a good idea. And then seeing dozens of girls sucking on his lollipops, curling their tongues around them was having a surprising effect on him. And evidently not just for him, a couple of guys even mentioned to him that they appreciated it. Certainly one he wasn't expecting!
And a large number of folks would spend a few minutes talking with him and looking over his costume trying to figure out what everything represented. Most were really intrigued by the mechanical inset in his forearm. It was probably the most time intensive item he had on, he'd spent a lot of time creating it in high school and had been making improvements over time. A bit of body putty smoothed the skin around it and gave him some room for creating depth. A wave of a magnet would activate it and the little relays would click and the lights flashed. He'd gotten the timing down so that he could move his fingers in the right pattern to match the movements. It was a pretty good effect and a lot of folks were amazed by it.
At one point a voice came over his right shoulder, he couldn't turn around at that point as his arm was being held hostage while someone filmed it, but he heard, "Hey, can there be more than one answer for something?" He gave a thumbs up over his shoulder. "Should I put both?" He gave another thumbs up. By the time the crowd thinned a bit he couldn't tell who the voice had belonged to. He was pretty sure it was female, but it was deeper than one would expect.
Margo and Reagan cornered him about 11 o'clock. "Dan the Man! Well, you certainly made a splash tonight! Very clever outfit and you are the talk of the party. Look, we got you an invite for a specific reason, I guess I should say for a specific person. She is rather shy, and we were going to watch for an opportunity to introduce you to her. You have been a good lab partner and not creepy like so many of the guys we get paired up with. We were looking to help Naomi out and you came up as a nice guy that might be a good match. You seem to have a lot of the same interests. So we talked you up and she gave us the invitation to give you."
