Chapter 20: Ripped
It poured that night. One of those midnight thunder and lightning storms that wakes you and has you running to the window when you realize the lack of delay between the sound and light. The boys were in the halls, buzzing with the electricity of the storm. One of them had the bright idea of running outside to enjoy the deluge. This is how nature keeps the stupid from reproducing I pointed out, but I was merely the voice of reason. Fun was to be had. They flooded out of the dormitory as the raindrops, big as grapes, pounded the earth. I stood under the small portico at the door and watched them.
Except for Eric who wore his pajamas, they were in their underwear. Quickly soaked, the briefs and boxers became transparent, shining with the treasures hidden beneath. Abercrombie and Fitch had nothing on these boys. Fresh, toned muscles dripped under the sheets of water. In the fury of the storm, they went wild. Wrestling matches broke out until Brad had the idea of pantsing Doug. The favor was quickly returned and soon Brad's pale white ass was brightening the dark night. Eric was brought into the fray then Dan, who with a brilliant feint, was able to avoid Doug's attempt to rip his boxers off, catching hold of Steve's instead and pushing them to his ankles.
As I watched from the shelter of the portico, Adam joined me. He had been in the bathroom when the stampede began. Now he surveyed the pandemonium before us - boys running around all reaching for each others' underwear as the heavens themselves opened upon them.
"They're nuts," I said.
"They sure are," he replied, placing his arm casually over my shoulder. It was a gesture I least expected. He was treating me like one of the guys. It was glorious. The storm raged, the boys were manic, and Adam, in his underwear, reeking of himself in the heavy, wet air, was taking a quiet moment with me.
"What gets you off, Adam?" I asked, possessed with a sudden urge to know him - to really know him -- to be his friend. "You're always talking about giving guys what they need. Who gives you what you need? What do you need?"
"That's some story," he said, winking at me.
"No, I'm serious," I said, taking his wrist in my hand and pulling on it slightly, increasing the weight of his arm on my neck. "If I wanted to do something for you, what would that be?"
"If I have to tell you, champ, then it's…"
"No," I said, cutting him off. "No jokes. No mystery. No twists. Just tell me. I want to know."
He looked deeply in my eyes and found only sincerity there.
"You're doing it, champ," he said. "You're getting there."
Another bolt of lightning stopped the action in the rain as the boys reacted to the sudden, blinding light as if frozen on film. The ear-splitting crash half a second later rose a primal, howling scream from Dan. Our moment was shattered. From under the portico, Adam joined him, letting out a hoot of such force and intensity that it rivaled the thunder itself. He ran out from the safety of the portico and was immediately among them, standing next to Dan, the two of them screaming at the top of their lungs. In no time, the ten boys were all howling like a pack of wolves.
Evan found a mud patch, and the boys took turns running at it as they did the vault, seeing how far they could ski the slime. Within minutes, the torrent had passed, and the boys, to a man, were sopping, filthy and drunk with the exertion of physical energy.
It made me strangely sad to watch them. Despite Doug's friendliness, despite Brad's easygoing inclusion, despite Matt's crush, despite Adam's newfound warmth toward me, I was not and could never be one of them. Why did that make me sad? What did this cohort share that I found so appealing?
Was discovering the answer to that question - the yearning for what they had, the thirst for understanding it - what had informed my many decisions to study male-male interactive patterns? Had Dan been right after all? Was I just another of those unbalanced bozos who went into psychology only to figure themselves out? I didn't like severe weather. It spooked me.
When I awoke, I was uncomfortably moist. The front had brought a mass of hot, humid air behind it. By the time I finished toweling off after my shower, I was wet again. It was going to be a difficult day.
In the gym, the boys all had their unis peeled down to their waists. By mid morning, the air was stifling - the fan Johnston had me put in the door notwithstanding. My duties were increased. I was to keep the boys in both water and ice. By ten, I had made three trips to the cafeteria to retrieve buckets of ice cubes that the boys were as apt to throw at each other or drop down each other's shorts as they were to suck on or rub on themselves.
On one trip back from getting water, I entered the gym to find a commotion near the parallel bars. Johnston was huddled closely with Dan, who seemed to be in some pain. I ran over to see what had happened as the coach turned him toward the locker room and began walking him out.
"What's happened?" I asked.
"I ripped," Dan said, cradling his right hand in his left. They walked past me, and were about to leave the gym when Adam ran over to the two of them. He spoke quietly with Johnston for a moment. Johnston turned, looked at me, turned back to Adam, nodded, then motioned me over.
"Take Dan to the trainer's room and help him out," he said.
"Okay. Sure."
Johnston returned to the gym while Dan disappeared through the door to the lockers. I followed him into the trainer's room. He hopped up on the table and presented his hand.
A gymnast's hand is a remarkable thing. To begin with, they're unusually large - flattened and widened, I suppose, by all those years of supporting so much weight. They are, as well, callused beyond belief. Where one would expect a pad just below the junction between the third knuckle and the palm, for example, the gymnast instead has a mountain of hard, weathered skin, creating topographical contours so pronounced they rival the Himalayas themselves. The combination of the constant rubbing against the apparati, the leather grips they used and the rosin that constantly coated their hands in an effort to keep them dry worked to deaden, dehydrate and finally crack the skin of their hands. Each gymnast had his own routine for trying to deal with this problem: some swore that washing dishes without gloves helped. Others filed the calluses down regularly with a stone. But every gymnast eventually had to deal with a callus that ripped off by itself.
Such was the hand which Dan presented to me. The callus over the first knuckle of his thumb had torn off along three of its edges, and was hanging awkwardly by the fourth. Underneath showed a layer of angry purple.
"Excuse me," I said, "but ewww."
He laughed. "It happens all the time. It's the humidity this time. The rosin is caking."
"Does it hurt?"
"Of course," he said, though not showing any signs of pain.
"What do I do?"
"Get a scissors from the drawer over there and cut it off."
I found them and took his hand in mine. I hesitated.
"I say again, ewww. Are you sure you want me to do this?"
"Yes. I'd do it, but I'm a righty. It's okay."
"Really?!" I said, "and here your major minipulator is out of action! What will you do?" Perhaps it was the heat, perhaps the proximity to his most hot, semi-naked form. Perhaps my curiosity was just getting the best of me. Whatever it was, I couldn't help but steer the conversation toward his sexuality.
He laughed. "That's not my 'major manipulator'."
"Oh? You do it with your left hand?"
"You know what the most erotic organ is, Mark?"
"Yes, yes," I said, "the brain. Blah, blah, blah. I've given too many blow jobs to really believe that."
"Then you're missing a lot," he said, looking into my eyes with his magic blue circles. "Now let's get to the matter at hand."
"As it were," I added, speaking directly to his eyes.
"…as it were," his eyes said back. He turned to look at his hand, which was a good thing, as if he hadn't, I would have been content to be wrapped in the blue forever. I joined him in examining it.
As gently as I could, I lifted the flap of dead skin enough to be able to position one blade of the scissors underneath it. Dan didn't even wince as I manipulated the callus in a way that I knew must have been excruciatingly painful. Instead, he just watched with morbid curiosity. Were our positions reversed, the only reason I would not be insisting on a screen to block the sight of the procedure from me would have been the copious number of Percocets I would have already consumed. Positioning the tool as closely as I could to where the lump of dead skin clung to his living flesh, I began to cut. The sharpness of the scissors surprised me and I was able to complete the separation in one fluid motion. The chunk of skin fell to the floor.
"Oh," Dan said, "don't lose that."
"You want the used parts? What - don't you trust my work?"
"It's a thing we have," he said smiling. "We compare them."
I retrieved the callus from the floor and handed it to him. He inspected it, turning it over and measuring it with his eyes.
"Boys the world around compare dick size. You compare your calluses? You guys are truly bizarre," I said.
He laughed again. "I only like sports where the possibility of competition exists."
"Oh!" I said, fanning my face and falling into my best camp voice, "goodness gracious, my good sir! Do be careful. You tread dangerous grounds!"
"Have ah offended your delicate e-ahs, Miss Mark?" he asked, laying on his southern accent as thickly as he could.
"Not at all, sir! Just that you shouldn't wake the kitten unless you're prepared to feed it!"
We laughed together, a delightful, shared moment.
"What's next? A bandage?"
"Nope. Have to let it breathe. There should be some vitamin E in one of the drawers. Get it for me."
I found the dispenser, opened it and handed it to him. He doused the circle of raw purple skin with the vitamin E.
"Doesn't that hurt?" I asked.
"Like a son-of-a-bitch," he replied, but again evenly, without a trace of indication that what he was saying was true.
"What now?"
"That's it. Just have to let it heal."
"So it's back to the work-out?"
"Nope," he said, cocking his head to one side in an effort to stretch his neck. "I'm out for the day at least."
"Pull a muscle?"
"Yeah. When my hand ripped I fell off the horse."
"Let me see if I can do anything about that. Here," I said, motioning what I wanted, "turn sideways."
He swung his legs around to the side of the table. I walked to the other side and stood behind him. It only took a few moments to find the offending muscle - his right levator scapula.
"How's this?" I asked, digging into the muscle, working to lengthen and stretch it.
"You got it," he said. "That's the one. Good job."
I went to the cabinets and took out some oil, lathering my hands and one of my elbows.
"Lie down on your stomach," I instructed. He complied, leaving his broad, buff, unblemished back laid out before me. His muscles had muscles. But it was not grotesque, like some over-zealous body builders. He was classically proportioned. Were he Greek and an ancient, he would have been celebrated both in song and marble. As it was, he was mine to adore.
I leaned in with my elbow and made strong contact with the tight muscle. "This might hurt a bit," I said, curious to see if I could make him wince. I couldn't. Dan responded to the pressure on points I knew to be sensitive with, at most, a concentrated relaxation and a deeper breathing regime.
"Does that hurt?" I asked, looking for - what? Some kind of victory?
"Yes," he said.
A slight bit self-satisfied, I stopped and asked, "should I ease up?"
"No," he said. "The way you're doing it is fine." So much for my victory.
I returned to my ministrations, determined to loosen the muscle. His skin slid smoothly beneath my left elbow and right hand as I alternated strokes. One would think that the fatter someone is, the looser his skin. Instead, the reverse is true. It is those men who are most fit - who have the lowest percentage of body fat - whose skin slides effortlessly around over their muscles. Dan's skin, pale but turned light gold from the sun, traveled wherever I wanted it to go. Its elasticity was remarkable.
I massaged him in silence for a while, until I was confident that the muscle was beginning to relax. Rather than stopping, I broadened the field of my work, including his shoulders, shoulder blades and neck as subjects of my attention. Truly, it was no imposition. Merely feeling the weight and density of the muscles under my touch had gotten me semi-hard.
"Dan, can I ask a question?" I said to the back of his head.
"Of course." Hmmm. That was Adam's generic response to my questions.
"Could you describe me?"
"Of course."
"No," I said, beginning to work his left deltoid in opposing motions with the knuckles of my two fists, "I mean, would you describe me? Now. Would you give me a description of myself?"
"And you call us bizarre…"
I laughed. "It's an exercise my advisor taught me. Kind of a reality check. Do you mind?"
"No," he said, "sure." He was silent for a moment, then said, "you used to be nervous around us, but you're getting more comfortable. You hide behind big words and ideas you didn't invent as a defense when you're feeling insecure. You think you're comfortable with your sexuality, but you're not.
You are very unhumble and you're a snob."
My hands had frozen, and I stood there, looking down at his gorgeous torso unable to speak for a moment, so complete was the sting of his words. Finally, having no idea what else to do, I laughed.
"Jesus Christ, Dan," I said, "don't beat around the bush or anything."
He shrugged the shoulders I still was holding. "You asked."
I took a step back from him. "I kind of thought we were friends, Dan," I said. The hurt was beginning to become apparent in my voice.
He propped himself up on his elbows, and looked me in the eyes. I was, as I had been before, immediately entranced by the Olympian rings of blue. "We are friends, Mark. I like you a lot. Listen," he continued, "if I didn't, I would have lied. You understand me?"
I found myself nodding. "But how can you like what you just described? I mean, the guy you described is a total shit."
"You're a challenge," he said, and grinned.
"Pardon?"
He rolled over, and lay back down on the table. "Do my front," he said. Without thinking, merely because he had told me to, I took the step back to the end of the table. My waist was now above his head. He lay before me, eyes closed in repose. I reapplied more oil to my hands, and started to massage the front faces of his trapezius muscles. I worked without speaking and, more importantly, without thinking. My hands did what they knew how to do, my mind entirely blank.
"Unhumble?" I asked at last, not knowing where else to hook onto what he had said.
"Humility is accurate self-appraisal. Understanding yourself to be neither better nor worse than you actually are. You fail at both, my friend."
"I do?"
"Yes. Think about it tonight, when you're alone. You'll see what I mean."
I massaged more in silence. I had gotten to his pectorals, which I circled with broad, sweeping strokes, ringing his small, brown nipples. On one of the down-strokes, when, to reach his ribcage, I had to bend at the waist and bring my face closer to his body, he took hold of my wrists and held me immobile. I looked down into his face, which though close, was upside down from my perspective. His eyes were open and waiting to make contact with mine. When that contact occurred, he let go of my wrists. He didn't need to hold them anymore. His eyes alone held me as motionless as his hands had.
"Your feelings hurt?" he asked. I nodded.
"Your feelings hurt because you like me?" I nodded again, this time more cautiously.
"You know what I said was true, don't you?" A third nod, this one was slow, almost painful.
"You trust me?" A fourth, much more readily offered.
"I like you too. You understand?" I just stared at him, wanting more than anything to kiss him, but knowing, somehow, it was not appropriate to do so.
"You hard?" he asked.
"Pardon?"
He reached over his head, and groped at my shorts. Lo and behold, I was, indeed, hard. He tested the strength of my erection, then let go.
"Good," he said and, sitting up, hopped off the table.