"Danny Fischer, ladies and gentlemen!" Owen's voice boomed through the hallway. The other residents poured into the dorm hallway for a clearly orchestrated round of applause. So much for my casual entrance. "The semester's first walk of shame. Congrats, buddy."
I felt my face go flush and ducked my head toward the ground to hide my embarrassment, a response to even the mildest humiliation that came as reflexively as breathing or blinking. Avoiding eye contact was my feeble go-to attempt to disappear in moments I couldn't bear to experience. And at least if I didn't have visual memory of my shame, that was one fewer ways to keep myself up at night rehashing the past.
I knew Owen wasn't trying to be cruel, but I grew sheepish at the influx of attention. Which was of course the very reason he arranged the display in the first place, he never could resist the opportunity to needle me, to make me uncomfortable. Whether it was some altruistic attempt to push me out of my comfort zone or if it simply amused him to see me blush, I could never tell. Both, probably.
"I'm proud of you, you horny bastard," Owen said, clasping my shoulder and leaning in close. "I want all the details."
"Fischer!" a voice shouted over the crowd, the authoritative interjection quieting the uproar. Arthur, our senior RA. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"
I felt the others cast me sideways looks as they scattered, their behavior not unlike a group of school kids watching a classmate being reprimanded by a teacher.
"Sorry for the mess," Arthur said, shuffling me into his room and offering up a chair after clearing his laundry from it. "I've been here for a couple years already, so they just let me live through the summer. Move-in kind of snuck up on me this year."
I had met Arthur at our floor meeting the evening before. His lack of patience in walking us through the rules and expectations was a welcome break from the faux-chipper excitement we'd been getting from the rest of the move-in staff all day. "I'm not your mom," he'd told us, every rowdy boy in the building gathered at in one room. "Don't be stupid, don't be shitty, and we won't have any problems."
An interesting character, at least, if not an inspiring speaker. An upperclassman with typically little patience for the excitement surrounding the college lifestyle, Arthur nonetheless genuinely seemed to care that we felt comfortable in what would become our new home. Encouraging us to come to him with questions or concerns was the only part of his introduction that wasn't a rote recitation from the sheet of paper in his hands.
"Day or night, my door is always open," he had said, carefully surveying our faces. I was surprised by the sudden intensity of his gaze, even in just that brief moment of eye contact. It wasn't quite intimidating, but it felt meaningful, sincere in a way that made me self-conscious, even among that crowd of people.
I felt it again now, as he sat across from me, legs splayed apart in a desk chair, the penetrating casualness of his demeanor putting me on edge. Physically, he was an imposing figure, but he carried it well enough that I hadn't really noticed until we were one-on-one. He was spilling out of the chair he was sitting in, like it was just barely big enough to hold his tall frame. But he was at comfortable with his size, confident in the way he carried himself.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay with all that out there," he said. As laid back as he was, he was paying attention. Noted.
"Oh, yeah. No. That was just Owen messing around. We're friends," I told him, doing my best to be cool. I wasn't upset and didn't want to give him reason to think I was. "He likes to give me a hard time."
"Okay," he said, measured. "As long as you're good."
"He's always doing stuff like that. I'm used to it."
Arthur put his hand on my shoulder. It felt huge, reassuring. But I saw a glint of something patronizing in his expression, too. Like he was weighing in his head whether to offer me some kind of advice.
He must have decided against it because all he said was, "Well, if you ever are having problems, I'm here. Like I said, door's always open."
I couldn't help but feel singled out as I left Arthur's room. The more I mulled it over, the more his apparent protectiveness began to feel almost invasive. I bristled.
"Dude, what happened," Owen said when I got back to our room. "Did I get you into trouble? Are you okay?"
I paused before answering, savoring this feeling of my infallible friend fearing he might've done something to upset me. The moments where I felt in control of our dynamic were few and far between.
"No, I don't think so," I said after a beat. "That was kinda weird, though."
"What do you mean?" Owen had hopped off his bed and was already packing his gym bag. As I expected, once he had assurance he hadn't upset anyone, his focus was already turning to something else.
I shrugged, knowing, at least, how to tell when a conversation was over. "It's nothing. He's just a weird dude."
A perfectly pitched laugh, signaling that he was paying attention without actually demonstrating it. "Yeah, I tried having a conversation with him last night. Weird dude," he said, the echo belying that that his brain was already across campus, running through the workout and onto whatever came after that.
Owen's attention was catlike. Precious, but on his own terms, always. He was a fast learner, and he'd learned early on that he liked the feeling of people wanting from him, a feeling that grew sweeter when underfed.
But I was the exception. The one he kept at his side. I'd get calls in the middle of the night, long conversations with no purpose or serious thought. Then we'd hang up, with the threat of morning hanging in the sky, and I'd be left wondering why. Who was I to him? Eventually, I'd shake it back, curling over for whatever minutes of rest I could muster, doing my best to be thankful that the night had existed in the first place.
I didn't expect it would be any different here, in this new place.
After he'd dashed out the door ("Don't think you got away without telling me about the guy, by the way. I still want to know everything."), I sat, alone for the first time in this hatbox of a room, four cramped walls that would be my home.
I'd have a lot of moments like that throughout that year, alone with my thoughts, nowhere to hide. Truths exhumed by isolation, memories revived and re-inhabited as precious distraction. But there'd be moments where the room would be crammed with bodies, too. Other souls. Moments of love and kinship, passion and fury. New relationships forged, and old ones transmuted into strange and different versions of themselves, sometimes stronger, better, more meaningful, other times not. I felt the weight of all that was to come and tried not to panic.
It was late afternoon by the time I realized I'd dozed off. The fog in my head was cleaved by a blinding headache as I jerked awake. Staying up all night fucking has its tradeoffs. I desperately needed to get out of these clothes. I needed a shower even more.
A group of guys I didn't know clapped me on the back as I walked down the hall to the bathroom. One of them high-fived me. "Fischer!" he said. I'd never seen him before. I'd learned that being friends with Owen either made social interactions easier or much harder, but I still wasn't sure which.
In the shower, I let the water scald my back. The initial sting melted into relief as the ripeness of last night was flooded off my body.
I stood there for a moment, thinking about what Matt and I had done. It certainly wasn't my finest hour, but it definitely wasn't the worst encounter I'd ever had. That one, the darkest one, I carried with me everywhere I went. It haunted me with unnerving unpredictability, walking down the street, mid-conversation, highs brought down to gutting lows. It oozed up from the recesses of my past whenever it felt neglected. Fumbling hands. Grunts and pants. The wretched smell. Dread. The throb in my gullet as I waited, prayed. His smile afterward. Always a different piece, always bad.
No, when I thought about Matt, there was no regret. Shame, maybe. Embarrassment, definitely. But no regret.
The second time we'd fucked was the best. It was obvious before we'd even started that there'd be a third, so whatever pressure there'd been was alleviated. The only urgency was our own desire. It's a rare thing, to sync up with a stranger like that. To bare yourself, physically and spiritually, to them. Not without fear, but somehow without doubt.
"Hey," he'd said, interrupting a moment of easy quiet. "You're sexy. Do people ever tell you that?"
I stammered. He laughed. He climbed on top of me, and his mouth was on my lips, signaling that the question wasn't meant to be answered.
His tongue swirled around my mouth, darting back and forth as though daring me to chase it. Its warmth, the sweet aftertaste leftover from his candy and soda diet. Then it was gone, and a whimper escaped after it.
He traced kisses along my jaw, tender but growing in forcefulness. He chewed on my earlobe, dragged his tongue across my neck and bit my shoulder. I shuddered.
I tried to wrap my legs around him, to pull his body further into mine, but he pushed me down. He had an assuredness that hadn't been before but that would soon come to define the night in my mind. He moved with a confidence of someone who knows not only what he wants, but that what he wants and what I want are one and the same.
He pushed me down and his legs straddled my waist. His mouth returned to mine, ready swallow my gasp as the cold shock of lube enveloped my dick. He smeared it up and down my shaft, moving with a tantalizing calm.
I felt panic start to crest when he positioned me toward his hole (I didn't top often), but his eyes calmed me. He knew what he wanted, and he knew some part of me, at least, wanted it too.
I slipped inside him in slow motion. If there was any resistance, I didn't feel it, and if there was anything other than pleasure, his face didn't show it. His brow furrowed and his mouth gaped open in a silent moan. A weakness, a melting. His eyes never left mine. An eternity passed as he slid down to the root.
I was rock hard, knowing that I was cause behind his look of bliss. But there was no doubt between either of us that he was still the one in control. He started to rock up and down, and I felt his hole tighten and release around my cock as if keeping time to some music I couldn't hear. He let his head drop back and closed his eyes toward the ceiling as if praying toward some god I couldn't see.
I grabbed on to his ass, clinging on to him so he'd have to take me along on whatever journey he was embarking. I spread his cheeks and tried to match his rhythm.
"Yeah," he whispered. "Just like that, babe."
That word, a word for husbands and lovers, fell sideways on my ears, but I was already too fired up to care. "You like that?" I said, an edge there that surprised both of us.
"Oh yeah," he repeated, slowly, "Oh, Danny. That feels so good."
He was letting me set the pace now. I squeezed on his ass even harder, knowing it probably caused a twinge of pain, but I didn't care. In fact, I savored it. I was the source of his pleasure and his pain. I felt powerful, masculine, primal.
I planted my feet, giving leverage to my upward thrusts. My conscious mind was slipping away, ceding itself to something more instinctual, and my moans turned into grunts. His eyes snapped open when my hand slipped around to his erection. Feeling that he was as hard as I was only turned me on even more. My pace turned feverish, desperate.
"Oh fuck. Yes, yes, don't stop."
Whatever control either of us had ever had was gone. If someone was in control of our fucking, it was someone bigger than either of us. My body seemed to move itself, chasing something up inside of him as fast as it could, something I wanted in that instant more than anything.
"Oh god. Oh my god. I'm gonna--"
I felt it rise from inside me, exploding from my gut, out through my cock, taking every last bit of energy in my body with it. My vision went white, a deafening ring in my ears. I couldn't move. I never wanted to move.
I opened my eyes and looked down at the mess splattered on the tile, the shower curtain, my feet. I sighed.
Ignoring the throbbing ache in my overworked penis, I aimed the shower head and started to clean up my mess.