The film had ended. His classmates were filing out the door. Grigoriy slouched along the familiar path to the international dormitory, still fuming about the queer propaganda on campus. On his way he passed room 613 of the student union. He paused speculatively.
Wasn’t that the room it said on the flyer? Where the faggot dating event was supposed to be held tomorrow? A sneaky thought crossed his mind and he tested the knob. The door creaked open without protest. With a brief look around him, Grigoriy slipped into the room. He unzipped and pissed all over a big table in the front of the room, then scrawled “Cocksuckers Burn in Hell” across the whiteboard in big, red Russian letters.
With that, he exited and resumed his walk to the dorm. On his way in, two Brazilian girls caught his eye and giggled. They invited him back to their room for some vodka and music. He was all too happy to join them.
…
Sam and Elliot walked into room 613, their arms full of rainbow flags and icebreaker note cards. They set their burdens down on a nearby table and began to organize the desks in long rows facing one another.
They worked with fluid precision, a synergy which they had developed after years of dating. Sam, the GSA president, was a tall Hispanic boy. He had a short crew cut and shaggy stubble, though the untidiness of his face contrasted with his outfit, a midnight blue ensemble with a white anchor pattern which fit perfectly on his thin frame. Elliot on the other hand, was a shorter, stockier Italian with a clean-shaven, olive-skinned face, round almond colored eyes, and a perfectly gelled coif of hair. He wore a plain white V-neck - through which his ample chest hair sprayed - and denim jeans.
“What’s that?” said Sam, pointing at the board.
“Probably something left over from the International Club,” replied Elliot. “I’ll get rid of it.” He grabbed an eraser and wiped the words off the board. As he did so, a sudden chill ran down his spine.
“Is it getting cold in here?” he said.
“You know what,” said Sam, “I felt that too. I’ll call Maintenance and see if they can send a guy up here to fix the heat.” He stepped out of the room and Elliot picked up a rainbow flag. Meaning to attach it to the top of the board, he went to look for the stepladder, but before he could find it, he noticed something. The board was a little lower than before. He could reach the top with ease. Maybe they changed the décor over the break. He stuck the flag in its holder, not noticing that, as it fluttered, the colors changed to three thick stripes of white, blue, and red.
He walked over to the table to get some more flags but felt a sudden twinge of disgust upon seeing the rainbow colors. Superstitiously, he didn’t want to go anywhere near them. He felt that being in their presence might infect him somehow, but he wasn’t sure why. He shook his head to clear it, then steadied himself against the board with a pale, trembling hand. The stark white of his hand startled him and he watched in horror as the olive tone of his skin began to leach away, the pale tone spreading down his arm and across his body. As the wave of whiteness spread, Elliot’s thick, dark body hair began to recede, leaving him bare and pasty.
He tugged at his collar to see if his change had spread to his torso, but it was no longer there. His V-neck had plunged down below his nipples as the fabric shimmered and became a brilliant aquamarine. The shirt compressed, forcing his stocky body into a slim but toned frame. His nipples turned hard as cast iron as they jutted from his chest, which rose to form thin, pale, but clearly defined pecs.
His eyes squinted as they faded from black to a dazzling grey, and his jaw clenched as it grew straight and square. His eyebrows thinned out, becoming stern dark lines, and his gelled hair shrank back into a thick black cut that stayed up on its own, his broad forehead framed by a blocky, square hairline. His jaw itched as dark stubble grew in around his thin mouth.
The changes complete, the cocky Russian Evgeniy sat calmly at the table wearing a wicked grin as Sam walked back in.
“It took forever to get ahold of them, but they just sent a guy, so- hey, who are you?”
Before Sam could react, Evgeniy grabbed his wrist. The effect was instantaneous. Even faster than his former boyfriend, Sam’s sun-kissed Hispanic skin was replaced by a wave of snow white pallor emanating from the wrist where Evgeniy still held a tight grip. As the paleness spread across his torso, Sam’s shoulders broadened, and his toned chest grew a manly layer of fat, rendering him stocky and strong. The color reaches his neck, which ballooned out into a thick trunk, his voice deepening with a hoarse grunt.
The color spread upward, changing his entire face as it went. His chin was the first to go, growing pointed as his jaw creaked and widened, giving him an open honest face. His lips puffed up into a full, pouty mouth, and his nose cracked as it became a thin, hard line. His eyes lightened to a beautiful husky blue and his shaped eyebrows boiled away, replaced by thick brown caterpillar-like strips of hair.
The wave passed his ears, which stuck out, and reached the top of his shorn skull. The second the color connected, thick brown wavy hair sprouted from his follicles, giving him a tousled, boyish look.
His form-fitting clothes, which had been straining against his sudden broadness, released their grip, becoming a thick wool sweater and pants. Sergei the Russian boy next door was complete.
“Evgeniy, let go of me,” he mumbled in Russian, “We’ve got work to do.”