Cumming of Age at Harvard

Cumming of Age at Harvard 9

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Looking back, I see I'd predicted a four-episode chronicle. Ha. As Adam remarked to his partner before getting down to business, "Stand back, Eve. I don't know how big this thing is gonna get." Nor, at the moment, do I. Hope you don't mind the occasional ramble. No major steamy stuff in this episode, alas, but your narrator is setting things up and he craves your patience.

Thanks again for the kind words. Special thanks to all the Cambridge types, past and present, who've been in touch. Comments to dorsalslit@hotmail.com.

CUMMING OF AGE AT HARVARD. PART NINE.

Noon. November 24, 1956. A Rude Awakening.

Righto, Steve-o. And a very pleasant good morning to you, too. Thanks for the wake-up call. Can't miss the fuckin' ballgame. The Game. And Yale is gonna pound our ass this year. Off to the stadium to freeze our balls off for two or three hours while the Yalies wave their pretty white hankies across the way. When all I wanted to do was stay someplace warm and do a slow motion recall of current events chez Sam and try to figure out what, if anything, that bizarre dream was all about. If I could remember any of it.

But no. The Marine was back in the bedroom, hauling me and my cummy sheets off the bed. "Get your fuckin' ass out of the fuckin' bed and into the fuckin' shower, fucker!"

You just had to love the guy when he was playing hard-ass Gyrene--nice change from the effete Cantabridgian poseurs who populated too many of my classes. "Come on, asshole! We've got a fuckin' date in half an hour. Beers for fuckin' breakfast! And--oh, shit. Your sheets. I've got your fuckin' cum all over me. Can't you even fuckin' manage a fuckin' sanitary jack-off?"

Steve was laughing his ass off while he wiped stale cum onto one of my clean tee-shirts. Yuk yuk yuk. All I could do was throw him a dirty look and head for the bathroom, swallow a couple Bayers, take a leak, brush the teeth, and jump into the shower. I had the start of a headache and a funny sweet taste in my mouth, so it felt great to let hot water stream down my back, chest (a shaggy dream-jungle no more), and dick. Glancing down, I gave good old John Thomas a tug. Welcome back, J.T. I didn't even miss my dream donkey-cock. Like hell.

Bam. A hard jet of water hit a tit. The left one. Ouch. Sensitive there. But, oh boy--it hurt so good and sent a message downstairs that something interesting might be about to happen. Down, boy. Later. Right now, we were running late and Steve was not a patient soul. I grabbed the soap, lathered up, rinsed, towelled off, and gave J.T. a rain check for after The Game. Steve was helping himself to a beer when I emerged and happily sucked it down while I threw on some battered chinos, a slightly moth-eaten Pendleton shirt, my fragrant heather-green Shetland crew-neck, the ancient saddle-oxfords, and--hey presto. Ready for brunch.

Steve, who loudly scorned anything preppie (though a disloyal St. Paul's boy himself), climbed into his khaki Eisenhower uniform jacket replete with corporal's stripes, I grabbed a duffle coat that I'd splurged on at J. Press, and off we went. Jorge had finked out--big lab project due before Thanksgiving--but we'd meet Ari at Cronin's. When we got there three minutes later, the place was the expected madhouse, mostly half-drunk alums telling lies to their wives and dates, but, thank God, Ari had managed to snag a booth and order some beers.

I may have mentioned that I had a crush on both these guys? Steve had played along with the swim club last year, where I'd enjoyed plenty of ogles at his compact, muscular bod and thick, dark, smallish masculine equipment. Provoking many a speculation about what it got to be when ready for action. He'd grown up in the Midwest, well-off family, best schools, smart as hell, with an elderly uncle who had to be one of the most distinguished profs on the faculty. And so rebel-with-a-cause Steve did just about everything he could to blast the Harvardman stereotype and his family's expectations of an honors A.B., Harvard Law, and a partnership in the firm back in Columbus. Including dropping out his first year and deeply pissing off the folks back home by heading down to Scollay Square and signing up for a three year hitch in the USMC.

Steve-o had been the fantasy-object of many a merry masturbation session, but as far as I could tell, the guy was hopelessly ungay. Oh, well. I could look and hope. For some reason he'd taken a liking to me, and maybe if he had enough beers . . . .

Ari was another thing altogether. He was the kid in Sam's French class that I'd been (though I sure didn't know it at the time) cruising. Tall, dark, and handsome says it all. Well, not quite--this was one totally remarkable guy. Even more innocent in the ways of the world than I was, if that's possible. Ari, short for Aristotle which he hated, could have modeled for one of those kouroi down at the Fine Arts Museum, but did he know how gorgeous he was? Nope. He just had his beautiful, brown, long-lashed, bedroom eyes set on getting an M.D. and heading back to Greece to do good works for hoi polloi someplace out in the sticks.

After all, he'd been born there. His dad had run a big-time trading business in Athens before the war, figured that Greece would not be a charming place to be with Nazis running around the Balkans, pulled some strings while he could, and managed to get himself, plus wife, plus infant, plus most of the family money over to the States in 1939. Just about in time. He'd set himself up in business with a cousin in Boston and was doing very well indeed. Big house in Brookline, big black Cadillac, big white Continental, and a big, shy boy at Harvard who was oblivious to his good looks and great brains and, I rather imagined, delectable cock. And equally oblivious to the fact that every 'Cliffie in French class and at least one of the men (me), and probably Mr. Stone himself wouldn't mind crawling into bed with the Aristotle.

But back to the real, real world of Cronin's, where somebody had wasted a nickel to hear the Crewcuts'oldie, "Shaboom," we'd polished off several double cheeseburgers, Thelma brought another round of longnecks despite my obviously phony ID, the smoke and noise had reached a critical level, and Steve had a great idea.

"Let's get the fuck outta here." And leaving Thelma a nice tip for encouraging illegal bar sales, that's exactly what we did, with me trying to hunch on Ari as much as I could when we slid out of the booth and into the bright afternoon. Fresh air at last. All we had to do was join the throngs pouring down Boylston, get across the Charles and into the stadium, find our (crummy) seats, and wait twenty minutes for the kickoff. Boy, was it cold. And it just got colder as the beers wore off and my bottom turned to ice. Yale lost the toss, we received, and I started to wonder how long I could handle all this rah-rah stuff when I was freezing to death and needing to find someplace warm and quiet where I could try to hash out the events of the past eighteen hours.

I managed to get through the first half, by which time we were well behind. Lacking one of the pocket flasks being freely emptied on either side, Ari was as frigid as I was, so we bid Steve a fuckin' farewell and hauled our frozen asses up, up, and away. The wind picked up as we were crossing Anderson Bridge, so we ran back to Kirkland to get the circulation going. And I made a sort of decision on the spot. Why not if I sort of pretended that Ari and I had a date and see where that got us? Ari could sure get my sparks flying, without even trying. Might there be something mutual there? I mightn't have thought so before the events of last night, but since then everything, and I mean everything, carried an erotic charge. Nothing venture . . . .

I got Ari to build a fire while I put on a sexy record (Satie, Trois Gymnopedies: my standard make-out LP), then brewed a pot of Darjeeling to warm us up and give me an excuse to ogle my "date's" ass while he did his fire-building trick (he was an Eagle Scout, naturally). I couldn't believe it--when the fire had caught, Ari just casually came over and sat next to me on the couch. Close. Was the Greek reading my mind?

"Great fire. You're a pyromaniac or something?" Dumb remark, but somebody had to say something.

"Yeah. Just call me Prometheus. Everybody else does." And the guy actually winked

"Sure thing, Pro. Next time I need a warm place, I'll know who to call." Was this getting too close for comfort? "If you need to wash up, you know where it is."

Ari headed for the john and didn't quite close the door, so I couldn't help but hear the thunder of his piss stream and couldn't help but wish it was my right hand that was shaking the good-to-the-last-drops from it. He rinsed off and came back to the couch, maybe an inch closer than he'd been.

We'd never been alone together like this in a private place. What a sight. Raven hair, light stubble, bee-stung lips, long eyelashes, slim face with solid cheekbones. To match that slim body and its hidden treasures. What was with me? Since last night, everything was sex, sex, sex, like somebody'd pulled a switch and let all that testosterone pulse through my body electric. Ari wasn't saying much, but I thought I could detect a bulge in his well-worn, well-filled chinos just a hand's reach away, and I knew I saw a flutter of his violet eyelids. Calm down. Slow down. Was Ari going to turn out to be a player after all?

Tea was steeped, so I poured out a couple of cups with not-so-steady hand. Stop staring. Make small talk. Converse. About the more-than-likely homo overtones in the Gide book we were reading in Stone's class? That maybe Pirithous and Theseus were more than just good buddies? Come on, Ari. Tell me about it. You're a Greek. What's your take on the guys? On Greek love? On those infamous cock-to-cock vases locked away at the Fogg that Stone had hinted about in class?

Oh, Ari played along with the chatter and where it might be leading. I think. And I was doing my best with the eye-meets and whatever. Wasn't I just practicing a couple of the would-be seduction techniques I'd learned last night over at the prof's? What if I ever-so-casually mentioned that Stone and I had drenched each other with thick, sticky ropes of hot man-juice not so very long ago? Ha. That would send Ari flying out of the room, and it was a topic that even little me was having trouble processing.

Maybe I was planting some sensual seeds in Ari's lovely head. Maybe not. Hoped so. Meanwhile the fire and the tea after an icy afternoon induced a warm glow, and we both shut up, listening to the fire and to Satie for what seemed like a long, long time, content and half-asleep in the dimming light. We were sitting close on the couch, slouched back against the cushions. He had to be aware of my body and the fact that my hand was mighty near his. I definitely had a bulge to match what looked like his own, and now if I could just accidentally slip against his shoulder . . . .

.

When--hello--the master of bad timing reentered the scene. Steve had stayed till the bitter end of The Game. Bitter, indeed. Forty-two to fourteen, their big win. Nothing can shatter a potentially romantic interlude better than a foul-mouthed ex-Marine finding language suitable to describe our sorry-assed team. Ari jumped up, embarrassed by any interpretation that might be put on our cosy situation, remembering suddenly that he was due at a party back at Dunster as he headed out the door, and--I think--adjusting his package as he went. I jumped up in a crouch to avoid displaying my own chunky crotch. And Steve grabbed the cigarette lighter he'd left on the coffee table, made a quick exit with the announcement that he had a hot date with the townie he'd been screwing, wink wink, and there I was. Alone. Dammit.

With plenty to occupy my thoughts. Were Ari and I getting somewhere? Did he know how I was feeling about stuff? What was I going to tell Sam on Wednesday? Was I up for another session of whatever mysterious business he had in mind for next Sunday? I needed some time to think, but first things first. A very long pee. J.T. was begging for a Swedish massage, but in vain. The stomach was calling even louder, and I wasn't eager to appear, dateless and forlorn, in the Dining Hall on the night of The Game. Besides, there'd be those ghastly slabs of cheap ice cream with the big red strawberry-flavored H in the middle. So Elsie's it was, the deli and sandwich shop on Mount Auburn, famous for its Teutonic excess.

I raked the fire apart and headed out. As early as it was, only seven or so, Elsie's didn't vibrate with starving undergrads as it would in a few hours, so in no time I had my Fresser's Dream--the largest roast beef sandwich in Christendom, heavy on the horseradish--plus a container of black coffee, plenty of sugar, and headed back to Kirkland for supper. Not to the suite. Chances were pretty good that Jorge might be home. I wanted to be alone, thanks. And Kirkland's library was just the place.

A word of explanation about housing at Harvard: in the thirties a multi-million dollar gift from Yalie Edward Harkness financed the building of seven residential colleges, modeled on the hoary institutions of Oxbridge. (He gave a bundle toYale at about the same time for the same purpose.) Harvard calls its residential colleges "Houses," and they house the upper three classes. Each has a grand Dining Hall, meeting rooms, a Junior Common Room where undergrads hang out in slightly grungy splendor among the leather sofas and Persian rugs and walnut paneling, a Senior Common Room for tutors and select others, and a library.

Kirkland House's library is unique: a small two-story eighteenth-century frame ex-farmhouse integrated into the red-brick Georgian fabric of the rest of the House. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases line the walls of eight or nine little low-ceilinged rooms with red leather armchairs and dim floor-lamps scattered about. The floors creak and groan and tilt, the place generally smells like a rancid nut, and I'd rarely seen another soul anywhere in the building. Just the place for some silent erotic communion with myself.

In past visits I'd amused myself in the basement with naughty bits from the Psychopathia Sexualis, but not tonight. I inserted myself into an armchair upstairs, ingested my supper, and began to digest the events of the past twenty-four hours. Yes or no to Sam's proposition? Uh-uh. Block it. I wasn't ready to ponder that guilty secret just yet. I had till Wednesday, after all. So, avoid for now. But the dream? I'd purposely kept it out of mind all day, and didn't even know what might be left of it. I almost never remember dreams. Why shouldn't this be an exception?

But it sure was. Total recall. Every detail, every image, every scale on the dream-serpent was still inside, safe and waiting. And oddly familiar. Like I already knew about all that weird stuff. And then it dawned on me. I did know all about most if it. The thing that mattered, I guess, was how everything seemed to fit together--a bunch of the books and movies and experiences I'd had over the past few months. They'd just been reworked and repackaged into one easy-to-take dream vision, courtesy (I was having to surmise) of Sam's little brown pill.

In a tutorial last year I'd read a lot of Dante and Malory and Spenser. I checked back on the dream imagery, and there it was: the dark wood, the Chapel, the inscriptions, even some of the alchemical business. Plus the really lurid stuff I'd devoured as a kid, like Sax Rohmer. Another check: all that exotic ceremonialism. I'd seen my first Zauberflöte not too long ago, and the old subconscious even worked some of that into the dream--Egypt and priests and a serpent-schlong. (Sam's magic tongue crept into that combination, for sure.) Plus those drawings in his john must have provoked a couple Cocteau movies I'd seen at the Brattle: Orphée and La Belle et le Bête.

Didn't all of this sound pretty hi-falutin'? Yup, but there it was, all sitting inside, just waiting for the right cue. And there were some real-time, real-life episodes, as well. For example: that improbable frieze of triply pierced phalloi high on the walls of the Chapel's upper chamber. Hadn't I seen it before? Oh, yes. Only last year. In the Yucatan. On a little holiday adventure. The stale K-House library-stink vanished when I explored that pungent memory. Stay with me, cher lecteur.

For years, our family's had a blessed custom of splitting up right after Christmas. My nutty, neurasthenic mother would haul me and my sister out to San Francisco for a couple of weeks to visit her widowed sister who lived grandly in a penthouse apartment high up in Pacific Heights on her late husband's wise, wise investments. We'd eat well, get to the opera and symphony a few times, see some shows, and I'd hang out with my cousin, Frank, two years older and at Stanford. Mom and Aunt Agnes passed the daytime hours spending money at Gumps or I. Magnin when they weren't preening and flirting with the clientele over martinis at the Top of the Mark.

Meanwhile my dad, a serious and smart amateur archeologist, took off for his holiday at one or another archeological site or dig--the harder to get to, the better. One year it might be Machu Picchu, another year Tarquinia. He'd done sites in Turkey and Greece and Latin America. Last December he decided to head back to Mexico to look at some new excavations at Palenque and Uxmal. And for the first time, he invited me. Did I want to come along? I'd have to miss out on tipsy Aunt Agnes and city lights and seeing Handsome Cousin Frank again. Dad and I weren't all that close, so I knew his invitation was generous, one that would be churlish to refuse. So I said yes, of course, thanks, can't wait. And I meant it. Besides, I'd been a little curious to see what Dad actually did on his solitary getaways.

The agenda? On the 26th we flew from Ciudad Juarez to Mexico City, spent the night at the del Prado where Dad hooked up with an archeologist buddy from Berkeley who'd be going with us, and after a boozy dinner and a brief shut-eye and a visit to his tailor, we got off on a bumpy small-time flight to Oaxaca. Then, after two nights there with the Christmas fiestas going like crazy--fireworks and processions and lots of beer and fried grasshoppers, we flew down to Las Casas in a four-seater Cessna--Dad and our pilot, Enrique, up front and me tucked away in back with the archeologist.

Dad had known Klaus for years and years. They'd been doing the holiday adventure thing together for a good while, partly because Klaus von Egk had impeccable credentials and terrific connections in the field and partly, I later began to suspect, for some other reasons. If I were that old fascist, H. Rider Haggard, I'd be calling Klaus a Nordic god. But he wasn't a god. He was a Man. Maybe forty-five, just my dad's age, he exuded testosterone--big chest, big thighs, big, noble head sculpted with bold features, piercing blue eyes in a tanned brown face, sun-bleached golden hair and, with me anyway, the kindest manner imaginable. Was I impressed? Was I not?

Crammed as we were in the back of that tiny plane, we had to get acquainted. Dad had said that I'd like Klaus, that he was a sweetheart in addition to being one of the ranking archeologists in the field. Wrong. I didn't just like the guy. I was bowled over by his tales of digs and finds and the down-to-earth way he told them. Not to mention by his big, musky presence.

Once we got to San Cristobal de las Casas we'd be spending the night with Franz Blom, the fellow who'd made amazing discoveries at Palenque. He'd founded Na Balom, a kind of inn and study center for anthropologists and archeologists doing work on the Maya and their lost culture. But even more to the point, I'd be spending another week or so with the magnificent Klaus. And with my dad who didn't seem the same stern, taciturn Prussian I'd known all my life. He and Klaus really hit it off, kidding and grab-assing around, knocking back tequila shots in Oaxaca while I stuck with the cervezas. And now and then, they'd glance at me getting slightly slop-eyed over the Leon Negros, laugh and say stuff in German that went way over my head. I'd never seen my dad this happy before--glowing like he was twenty years younger, with the world just waiting for him. An errant thought struck. Maybe he'd just been waiting for Klaus?

Enrique treated us to a bumpy landing that practically tossed me into Klaus's lap. I grabbed him for balance and felt hot and red, but he just smiled a killer smile, squeezing the back of my neck when I crawled out of the cabin. Franz had sent a car with Bor, his massive Lacandon head-man/steward, and in ten minutes we'd reached Na Balom, the House of the Tiger, where Bor installed us in the last room left in the place: three single beds, three straight chairs, a corner fireplace for heat, a wash-basin and jug, and the basic bathroom down the passage. He apologized in his terrible Spanish. Na Balom was hosting a little symposium. Two unexpected guest had showed up. He hoped we wouldn't mind bunking together.

Me mind? Getting a look at Klaus stripped down? We had a quick eye-meet. That settled the matter. It didn't look like Dad or Klaus would mind sharing, either.