Yearning for the Alpha

Toby

Toby rushed through the hallways, lost as usual, as he searched for his first gender studies tutorial for his new degree. He’d just moved out of home into the dorms and had no clue how to follow a map or guide. He shuffled down musty university corridors until he found a room with students milling around outside. It had the correct room number, so he stopped and caught his breath. He looked down to see an attractive blonde guy with his hair in a man-bun, sitting on the floor, back against the wall and legs stretched out. He had a beautiful koi fish tattoo on his forearm and looked used to taking up most of the space in the room; he was definitely an alpha. Toby turned away so that his blush of attraction wouldn’t be noticed. This guy was his type – tanned with solid muscle, a sculpted physique, and a thoughtful expression on his face. At first glance, he seemed like a charming, relaxed, confident alpha.

Their tutor arrived and bustled everyone into the classroom to begin their activities; after that, all thought of the handsome alpha was forgotten.

“All right, today we’re going to split the alphas, betas, and omegas up, and we’ll look at the same issues about gender complaints in the media and see how each side reacts to the comments,” the tutor said.

That sounded easy enough. Toby moved to where the alphas were gathering around a table with a sheet of stereotypes printed on it. One of the more forward students read aloud the first statement.

“Omegas can choose to date omegas, and no one should harass them about it. Discuss.”

Some of the alphas began talking among themselves.

“What if I was fated to that omega? What a waste.”

“They just haven’t met the right alpha.”

“Sex without a knot is not sex.”

The tall alpha whom Toby had admired interrupted them.

“An omega should have the right to choose whomever they want, just as any alpha may do the same. We can’t use our dominance to force omegas to date us.”

“What if all the omegas left us then, huh? Would you date an alpha? Pfft!” one of the students said.

The group burst into laughter.

“If only alphas were left in the world, maybe I would,” the tall alpha said. “I’m a progressive alpha. I think there’s more to gender ’n love than that. Not everything is about sex.”

After a lot of guffaws, during which Toby smiled and the tall alpha winked at him as he chuckled, the tutor asked everyone to return to their desks.

“How did that conversation go? I hope we came up with some interesting ideas?” she said.

The class discussed same-sex gender dating, and there was a heated debate about alphas and omegas choosing their own sex. The tutor pointed out that it was legal but that it had proponents and opponents. The betas tried to make peace and were the least opposed to it. They were also open to betas dating alphas and omegas, which most people were okay with, although some alphas and omegas seemed uncomfortable about that kind of mixing. When the tutorial ended and they walked out of the classroom, the tall alpha looked over at Toby.

“I think you were the only one who agreed with me today,” he said.

“I’d like to think I’m progressive, too,” Toby said. “See ya next tutorial.”

The alpha waved as he headed off in the opposite direction. Toby returned to his dorm room – a single room with a bed and a desk – and dropped his bag. He had been studying late, so he lay down for a short nap. A few hours later, he woke up just in time for dinner. First, he checked the lounge fridge on his floor to see if he had anything easy to prepare, but there was nothing, so he walked down to the communal kitchens, a massive floor filled with smaller kitchen cubicles designed for six students each. He unlocked his shared fridge and removed some chicken and vegetables. His friend Jeremy was frying a steak at one of the stoves.

“Whatcha makin’ for dinner, Toby?” he asked.

“Chicken stir fry,” Toby replied as he unlocked his cupboard and brought out a cutting board and a knife. “Followed by a protein shake.”

“Good for your workouts.”

“Yeah, gotta get bigger!” Toby said.

“You’ve got some muscle on you already,” Jeremy said as he flipped his steak.

They made idle chatter as they cooked and then carried their food to the communal tables at the end of the room. Toby looked up at the hallway beside the Chinese food stall for students who couldn’t cook and saw the hot alpha from his tutorial walking past the dining hall with a pile of books. So, he lived here too! Toby tried not to look at him for too long lest he blow his cover by admiring him.

Toby was an omega on scent blockers who wore a synthetic alpha fragrance to disguise any hint of his true gender configuration. Hiding it was pretty tricky, and he always had to shower at odd times, NEVER at the gym, and he couldn’t go swimming at the pool or the beach. In addition, he often had to reapply his blockers on hot, sweaty days, but these rituals were small prices to pay for the ability to pass as an alpha, the most desirable gender in their society.

He said goodbye to Jeremy, did his dishes then returned to his tiny dorm room to do some study. He had taken a few years off between high school and university to travel, so he had to try extra hard to get into the study groove after a bit of a break. As he wrote his tutorial reflection for the discussion earlier that day, he thought about the tall alpha again. He had a broad, defined body that oozed strength, which made Toby dizzy. He sighed that he would never look as good as that with his omega genes and sniffed his pits to ensure his alpha cologne hadn’t faded. Finally, after an hour of study, he closed his laptop and checked whether the bathroom at the end of his floor was free. There was no one in either of the showers or the bath, so he grabbed his things and snuck into a stall.

He showered quickly before toweling himself dry in the cubicle and applying blockers to his scent glands. He spritzed himself with alpha cologne, then slipped into a pair of pajamas.

Back in his room, he lay in bed watching movies on his laptop and frowned at the representations of omegas in them. He was watching a regency drama series because he was fond of romance, but he had trouble identifying with the weaker omega characters. Sighing, he turned off the movie and looked up books on his phone. He had a reading app with all sorts of fiction, so he chose some alpha/omega erotica. All the talk of knotting in these short stories seemed so sexy, but Toby had no firsthand experience with sex due to his hidden true gender. After his first heat, he begged his parents to take him to a doctor to hide it.

“Toby, it’s fine to be an omega,” his mother had said.

“Mom, I want to do more than get married and raise kids. I want to be an academic or an author or something. Do you see omegas in those jobs?”

His father had patted him on the shoulder. “You have big dreams, Toby. I admire that. C’mon, we’re going to the doctor.”

His mother had complained that Toby would never find a Mate this way, but Toby was fine with that. He was sixteen and had never had a boyfriend or a girlfriend; he didn’t feel he was missing out on much. So with that decided, they went to see a specialist doctor and get him fixed up to live a secret life as an alpha. Toby had to work out a lot to build up a more muscular body and was happy to do so – he even got used to doing the fitness regimes and began to feel irritable if he couldn’t exercise.

By the time he got to college, he was a reasonably built ‘alpha’ of 5’11” height, and no one so far had guessed his true nature. He was on birth control, meaning he could skip most of his heats. When he did have heats, he could easily dismiss them as rut weeks, and no one knew any different. He still liked reading about heats and knotting. He mused as he flipped through the synopses of alpha/omega erotica fiction on his phone. He finally settled on a story and read a steamy account of an omega in heat on an island of only alphas, who knotted him silly, before turning off his phone and drifting off to sleep.

The rest of the week went by in a blur as he attended his introductory lectures and tutorials for his other classes. Before he knew it, a whole week had passed, and it was time for his intro to gender studies tutorial again.