Joe College

Joe College, Part 12

I mean, let's be honest.

It's not like Matt Canetti and I had an exclusive relationship.

After, all, when I saw him in August, one of the first things he told me was about his summer hook-up session with a Southern frat boy who worked for a Republican congressman. Like this was standard smalltalk or a basis for relating to each other.

And who knows what other things he'd been up to during the time we were together. He was a charismatic, very attractive dude who seemed to take at least a little bit of enjoyment in ushering guys through their first gay experiences. I mean, in a sense, if anybody was getting played, it possibly was me.

I was at a house party with some friends of mine from the school paper.

And you know, one of the hard things about writing this is deciding what to include and what to leave out. I just wrote a chapter where I deluged you with a ton of information about people who've barely had a presence in this story, and you're probably still not clear about who they are and how they fit in. That'll change with time. College has the constant flow of people coming in and out of your life. In any one week you might meet 10 new people, and out of those ten, one or two seem like they have the potential to become your new good friend. In life, as in this story, part of the challenge is figuring out who gets left out and who makes sense to include.

Anyway. I was at this house party with friends of mine from the school paper. It was late September, and shit, I'm about to digress some more. I don't know about you, but to me, in the fall I always feel the way the poets do when they talk about spring. Like, rebirth and new opportunities. Going back to college in the fall made you feel like those Dutch sailors that F. Scott mentioned in Gatsby, when they set eyes on the fresh green breast of a new world. By spring, we're tired and thinking about what's about to happen with our summers and our futures. In autumn, it's all opportunity. I still feel that way, even though at the time I'm writing this sentence, graduation is almost exactly five years behind me to the week. Stepping into the night air in the fall, there's the chance for revelation.

So like I was saying, I was at a house party with some friends of mine from the school paper. There were maybe a sixty or eighty people on the ground floor of this house on College Avenue. I'd just published an album review condemning Beck's "Sea Change" as reflective of an artistic career going down in flames. I liked the people I met at the school paper. They were smart and confident, relentlessly political, aggressive as hell. It was like all of the cocky, dorky kids in high school convened and decided to figure out how the world works. They hooked up together, lived together, signed up for the same poli sci and history classes together, and then went off to the same law schools together or got jobs at big metro dailies, back before people decided that blogs could replace actual journalism. I wasn't exactly in that world the way that they were, but I liked having a foot in. Like, they were all fired up about whether an American invasion of Iraq would be a crime against humanity and whether Republicans would re-take the Senate in the 2002 mid-terms and whether Philip Roth's new novels should be bought in hardcover or whether to wait until they came out in paperback. They could argue about anything. There's a part of who I am that loves those conversations, but if I included them here, we'd have a different story altogether.

Anyway, so like I was saying, I was at a house party with friends of mine from the school paper, and it started getting late. It was crowded and I was drunk. I was waiting in line to take a piss, when I smelled cologne and felt a finger tap my shoulder.

I turned around. It was Kevin Berger.

In case you don't remember, Kevin Berger was Canetti's gay friend. He was the guy who chatted me up in a coffee house one night (see: Chapter 9), who I first met at a house party in freshman year (see: Chapter 5), who seemed to make it clear that he took pleasure in knowing my secret and toying with me about it. He was a senior like Matt, a very attractive guy (I've always had a thing for certain kinds of Jewish guys) whose chest hair peeked out from a button-down and whose expressions reminded me of The Joker.

"Oh. Hey," I said in response to his poke.

"What's up, Joe," he said to me, deepening his voice to sound like mine, like he was trying to sound straight.

"Just waiting in line," I said.

"Yeah, bro, me too," he said, keeping his voice deep, imbuing it with a slightly fratty accent that in no way resembled my own. "So, kick-ass party, right, bro?"

I paused. I didn't look at him. He was mocking me. "It's okay," I said.

"Don't get stressed, man," he said, his voice reverting to the cadence I remembered. "I'm just fucking with you a little."

He was The Joker and I was Batman.

I visibly squirmed. Not only because I was uncomfortable with him, but because I really had to take a piss.

"Whatever floats your boat," I said.

"Awww, don't be like that," Kevin said. "You're always, like, so serious when I'm around."

Why so serious?

"If I am," I said, feeling drunk anger, "it's because you're a dick to me."

"Wait, how am I a dick?"

"'Hey bro, sup bro, gotta piss, bro?' I don't think I've ever said bro in my life. Not in a sincere way."

"Oh, lighten up. We're at a party. It's almost like you've got something to hide."

If I'd been three beers deeper, I might have slugged him in the gut, even though I hadn't done anything like that since I was a high school junior and punched my brother Rob for being a jackass. Seething and badly in need of urination, I resolved to ignore him.

"Hey, so I'm about to split out of here," Kevin said. "I'm going to head to another party over on West Madison. You should come if you want."

I snorted and shook my head.

"No, seriously," Kevin said. "You should come with. Things are dying down here anyway. It's just, like, a small party. The guy having it is from the City, just like you. Maybe you know him. Jason Halford?"

"I don't know anybody named Jason," I said.

"You don't know anybody named Jason? Ever? It's a very common name. You should come, just so that you can brag that you've met someone named Jason."

"Look, man, I don't know what your deal is or why you've got it in for me-"

"Whoah," he said. However, I said that, it got his attention. "Maybe you've got the wrong idea. I'm just joking around here."

"You've got a pretty condescending idea of joking around."

"Oh, you might be right," Kevin said. "I think we got off on the wrong foot. I take the blame for that. It's just kind of cute."

"Cute?"

"Yeah. I mean that in a nice way. Not condescending. Nice."

"Cute is condescending."

There was a girl in line ahead of us. Girls take forever. She eavesdropped on us, I could tell. The guy ahead of her exited. She went in. I was next, praise balls.

"Calm down. Don't be fighty. I'm your friend," said The Joker.

"It doesn't seem that way, dude."

"Okay, look," he said, lowering his voice to a half whisper, looking me in the eyes even thought I didn't return his gaze, "there's this party on West Madison. It's guys like me. Just hanging out. Nothing extreme at all. We're all basically dorks. Who at this school isn't a dork? Nothing flamboyant. You'd be cool. If you showed up, people wouldn't even know. You pass easily. They'd think you were a guy who showed up at a party and wasn't really in that crowd."

"You make it sound awesome, going to a dork party where I'm a misfit," I said, "but I'm pretty sure I'll pass."

"Pretty sure isn't positive," he said.

I shook my head.

"Your album review yesterday was really well written, by the way," The Joker said. "I agree with you about Beck wholeheartedly."

I didn't say anything else to him while I waited for the bathroom girl to come out the door. I went in, and when I finished up and looked into the mirror, I thought to myself something like, "Shit, Joe, you're looking pretty good tonight." Really -- I was! Maybe it was the alcohol giving me beer goggles on myself. That's one thing about being gay: sometimes you wish there's a clone of you to hook up with. Narcissus? That guy was definitely gay, and he probably was giving himself a boner the whole time he stared into that stupid reflecting pool.

But seriously. Why the fuck not? Like Kevin said, if I showed up to this place and felt too obvious, I'd play fish out of water and bolt. At worst I'd feel awkward over the course of a beer. I simply didn't know other gay guys. Not that I was dying to, but I was curious at worst. And also: Kevin was hot. In different circumstances, if he'd cornered me in the right way, would I have turned him down? Probably not.

There must be some kind of way out of here, said the thief to the joker. I mean, shit: gay Batman.

Before you start to get the wrong idea, this doesn't end up with me hooking up with Kevin. It ends with me hooking up with a guy named Ben. But I'm getting ahead of myself

When I got out of the bathroom, a girl stepped in. Kevin stood to the side of the hall, out of line.

"Dude," I said. "You were next."

"I didn't have to go," he said. "I just saw you and thought I'd say hello."

"You're insane."

"Basically, you're saying that you're going to come with me to this party. You obviously just straightened your hair in the mirror."

I clenched my jaw. "Why don't we . . ."

"Yes?"

"You're a ridiculous person. Seriously," I said, my voice not entirely hostile. "Just, like, go out and wait on the sidewalk for a couple minutes, okay? I'm going to say good-bye to my friends."

"I knew it."

"Shut up and wait for me," I said. "I'm going to wrap up here, but I'll be out."

Kevin didn't undersell this party.

It was in one of those squat concrete boxes with the architectural sensibilities of the 70s or late 60s. Canetti had lived in a place like that the year before: two-bedroom units, furnished, with concrete balconies and used-up walls. In major cities, they'd be apartments in rough neighborhoods, but in college towns they sufficed fine.

About 30 people were there and 27 were dudes. It was the opposite of wild. If anything, it was overly restrained. The frigging White Album played on a stereo. They drank beer and drinks mixed with vodka and rum, just like everybody, and clustered around in conversations about politics and professors and grad school applications. There wasn't a drag queen or disco ball in site. Not even anything resembling open affection, aside from two of the better-looking guys there talking to each other with posture that looked too intimate to be straight.

This was the licentiousness that I'd been dreading for so long.

Were there any dudes that I was attracted to? Yes. Like, five. Give or take two or three.

"Not so bad, right?" Kevin said.

"It's fine," I said.

"Do you want me to introduce you to anybody?" Kevin said.

"No," I snarled.

"You're crazy."

"All you ever do is bother me. Every time I meet you."

"Somebody is off his meds," said The Joker.

"There are no meds."

I took a bottle of Amstel light. A TV showed a re-run of Pop-Up Video with the sound off. I sat on a couch and pretended to stare intensely at the screen.

This guy, who I later found out was Ben, after I sat there awhile, he said to me, "Are you a Belinda Carlisle fan?"

"No," I scoffed. "It's just what's on television."

"What kind of music do you like?"

"Dylan. The Pixies. Minutemen. Neil Young. The Stones through Sticky Fingers. The Kinks -- We Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Old Public Enemy. Nirvana. Sonic Youth. Early Springsteen. I like a lot of Metallica. White Stripes -- the only truly great band that's around right now. De Stijl? It's great. The Beatles are cool," I said, gesturing toward the CD player, "but they should never be played at a party. Neither should most of the bands that I mentioned, except some of the poppier stuff by the Stones and the Pixies and Springsteen. And Cinnamon Girl. Playing the White Album, it's like they're not even trying."

"I was expecting you to say DMB or P. Diddy," he said.

"Meh," I said. "That's not my thing."

"How did you end up here?"

"I'm not Sartre or Camus. How do any of us end up here?"

But shit, that guy was cute. That was my whole motivation for going. I wanted to find a guy and then hook up with him. I wanted to try somebody other than Matt. He even laughed at my answer to his question; his laughter was uncertain.

Of course, I was uncomfortable and defensive; of course my initial comments were me being brash and trying to show off.

"No, really," I said, settling my tone and demeanor, "I was at a party and ran into somebody I know. He said we should come here. I don't know anybody."

He stuck out his hand. "I'm Ben," he said.

"I'm Joe," I said, shaking it.

He correctly understood this as an invitation. He sat next to me.

"Who brought you?"

"This guy Kevin."

"Kevin Berger? From what little you've said about yourself, that seems like an odd combination."

"I don't really know him," I said. "I was introduced to him once. Now he stalks me in coffee houses and at parties."

"Interesting. I've never had a stalker. Is it flattering?"

"Maybe if I had a different stalker it would be." I looked wearily in Kevin's direction. He was in an animated conversation with a couple of other guys. They weren't bad-looking. I bet they had a threesome later.

Ben laughed. He knew Kevin better than I did, I guess. It was like I'd made an inside joke without realizing it.

This guy Ben, he didn't look like Matt Canetti or Andy Trafford. For one thing, he was shorter, maybe about 5'8. His features were more rugged. Andy and Canetti both have refined features; they were kind of pretty, even if Canetti's attractiveness was somewhat unconventional. This guy was attractive for sure, but not in a delicate way. Ben had a more prominent nose and cheek bones. His jaw and browline were more pronounced. He was in khaki shorts -- his legs were feathered in black hair. His calf muscles bulged like they were inflated. He wore a gray fleece pullover. His forearms were hairy and muscled, too; they slacked and tightened when he gestured with his hands.

He had a soft voice and there was something tentative about it. He didn't sweep you overboard. Speaking to me, he sounded almost nervous. I remembered what camp counselors said about snakes -- they're more scared of you than you are of them. Realizing that he was nervous talking to me, it was different and flattering, and even kind of hot.

"So," I said, "what kind of music do you listen to?"

"Some of the same stuff," he said. "I like Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Maybe more into acoustic guitar kind of stuff -- like old Simon and Garfunkel and Nick Drake, and Wilco. Elliot Smith is a genius. I hear what you said about The White Stripes, but that's how I feel about Wilco and Elliot Smith."

What I wanted to say was something like, "Ugh," but his answers weren't completely despicable. But, you know, this guy wasn't Canetti or Trafford, and probably didn't view aggressive banter with me as fun gamesmanship. "Good stuff," I said. "Not exactly my taste, but they're all pretty good."

"We're not going to trade CDs, huh?"

"I've got them all anyway. At least you didn't mention The Grateful Dead or Phish."

"I censored myself," he said. "Figured that wouldn't go over well."

"Ugh," I said.

"Don't worry. I don't drop acid. I don't even like pot. Mostly just coffee, and beer once in awhile."

He went up to get us a couple more bottles. His calves flexed when he walked and I got a glance at his butt. It's tough to tell from baggy khaki shorts, but his ass looked round and big and muscular. Canetti's was just skinny. Andy had a hot one, but it was more defined -- it belonged to a swimmer and runner. It looked like Ben had a classic bubble butt.

Otherwise, I was careful not to look too closely around the room. I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Drunk, I decided that pulling the hood over my head was a good idea, in case there happened to be somebody who recognized me and might cause trouble later.

"Chilly?" Ben said when he came back with two bottles of Rolling Rock.

"A little."

"I liked it better when I could see your face," he said.

I turned to him. We made eye contact. "You can still see my face."

"But not your ears or your hair."

"What if I were bald and had no ears. Would you still want to talk to me?"

"Honestly? Probably not," he said, laughing. "Well, maybe I would, just to know how you lost your ears."

"Ants ate them," I said.

This made him laugh again. "Very weird. But creative."

"No," I said, "I'm just drunk and a little uncomfortable. I don't really, you know. I'm not really part of that" I made an open-ended gesture with my hand and paused "side of things."

"I can tell."

"How? It's that obvious?"

"You didn't exactly walk in wearing a Pride shirt and scream for Gloria Gaynor music."

"Ugh. Do people do that?"

"Never," he said. "I was trying to be funny. Plus, you're hunched over with your hoodie over your head. It's having the opposite effect of what you want."

"Oh, man," I said. "But let me tell you this. You seem extremely nice and easy to be around."

This comment immediately relaxed his face and his body posture. Like he no longer had to be nervous or think that I was making fun of him in my head, which I wasn't. It made me wish I'd said something normal earlier.

"Feel like taking off? Maybe hang out some more?"

My dick went half-stiff at that instant. "For sure," I said.

"Just, you know, walk around and maybe get a coffee?"

"It's too late for coffee," I said. "Maybe pizza and herbal tea?"

"Sounds pleasant."

"Let's pound down our beers and then we can go."

"Okay, but then I have to say good-bye to people. Stay on the couch and be normal."

I resumed my regard for the old Pop-Up Video broadcast, and left without acknowledging Kevin Berger.

It was about 2:30 in the morning. Not many people were out, not even on a Saturday. There were still some warm coals on the front porches -- a few people talking and smoking with their beers -- but peak party time had burned, and the upperclassmen were home from the bars. Late September, and the air was a little chilly, probably in the low 50s.

For some reason, Ben had a skateboard with him. For awhile he carried it under his arm, then he slowly wheeled on it, keeping pace alongside me.

"Why are you skateboarding?" I said.

"Because I have a skateboard," said Ben.

"Why do you have a skateboard?"

A couple seconds passed.

"Um. Because I like to skateboard?"

I nodded at my stupid questions.

"You're funny," said Ben.

"Thanks, man. You too."

"Where are we going?" he asked.

We were headed toward campus, about to hit a five-block stretch of bars, restaurants and stores that mainly catered to students.

"Not sure," I said. "Is anyplace open?"

"Black Cat's open until four. If you want coffee and/or herbal tea. Kitchen's still open at Charterhouse."

"I'm not really hungry and I don't want tea."

"Where do you live?" he said.

"I'm in a house over on Hamilton," I said. "Six housemates."

"Oh, that's not far," he said. "What year are you?"

"Sophomore. You?"

"Same," he said.

"I thought you were older," I said.

"Ha, sweet," he said. "You were in Duberstein's American history lecture last year."

"Yeah."

"You sat up front, in the first row. You usually had a coffee with you. Took a ton of notes."

"That was me," I said. "Good memory."

"I noticed you. When I got bored in class, sometimes I'd watch you."

"I sit in the front row so I don't doze off. But Duberstein's lectures were amazing. It made me want to be a history major, but I'll probably do English instead."

"Cool. I'm still not sure," Ben said. "By the way, I've got a single in Austen."

My dick started to spring in my jeans.

"Why a single?"

At our school, pretty much all seniors and juniors lived off-campus, but maybe half the sophomores still lived in dorms. The sophomore dorms had a reputation for being nicer, but I'd never been in one. It was pretty rare for someone to have a single.

"You know, being gay, it's kind of complicated. It's tough to find another guy like you to live with, and if you do, it wouldn't necessarily be comfortable. Straight guys aren't always cool with things in practice, even if they are in theory. And obviously they only let you have same-sex roommates. So I didn't have a bunch of options."

"That makes sense," I said.

"But, like," Ben said, "I don't want to just go there, and, like, do stuff."

"We can just hang out and talk," I said.

He smirked. He knew I didn't mean that.

We were almost in the main quad at campus, headed in the direction of Austen Hall. Drunks stumbled down the sidewalks. The main library was lit by floodlights. It was the centerpiece of campus -- a huge marble structure with a Romanesque revival facade. Line drawings of it showed up on a lot of official university stationary. We sat on one of the stone benches facing it while drunks ambled past. Some frat guys bellowed at each other as they walked by.

"You've done stuff with guys before, right?" he said to me.

"Yeah. Just two guys. But, like, plenty with the two of them."

"Cool, cool. Just wanted to make sure you weren't going to freak out."

"I never freak out," I said. "What about you?"

"More than two guys," he said. "I've done pretty much everything. All safe, of course."

"Well," I said, "I haven't done pretty much everything. But I've done enough."

We sat for a couple more minutes, staring at the library's Roman columns. A middle-aged hippie zipped past on his bicycle. I felt a little tense. It occurred to me that I'd face my first rejection.

"Oh, all right," he said. "Let's go hang out."

We had another five minutes on foot before we got to his dorm. I walked fast, mostly because I had to take a leak again. After Ben swiped his card at the front door of the dorm, I made a straight line to the men's room next to the mail desk; when I came out, he rocked his heels on his skateboard. There wasn't anybody else around, but I heard girls' voices from down the hall.

"Let's go," he said, kicking his board and gliding down the hall toward the elevator.

Being in a dorm for the first time in sophomore year, I had this burst of nostalgia. It was the smell of clean laundry, library and cafeteria intermingling. It was basically every institutional smell from first grade onward combined into one. The dry-erase boards on the doors and the fluorescent lights overhead: it was the first moment I realized that my time in college was finite and fleeting, and that I'd already had an experience in my life that could never be repeated. I'd never get to live in another dorm.

Ben's room was small, of course -- a fraction the size of my own room. Just a bed -- not even on a loft -- and a dresser and a desk.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"D.C.," he said.

"Nice. I'm from New York."

"The City or a suburb?"

"I mean, Westchester," I said. "I didn't ask you, because I know you're not really from D.C. proper."

"Nope!" he said. "I am. Right on Connecticut Ave. Rare, I know. Tom Daschle just moved into my parents' building."

Ben turned on his TV, like it was instinct. I stayed standing and looked through his DVD collection. "I want to watch The Warriors," I said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Let's watch it. You've seen it, right?"

If you're uninitiated, The Warriors is a classic 1979 film about the Warriors, a multi-ethnic Coney Island street gang wrongly accused of assassinating Cyrus, a gangleader who has convened rival gangs from all over the City in an effort to unite them and overthrow law and good government. It's mainly a chase movie, as our heroes are pursued through the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn by eccentric rival gangs -- the Baseball Furies who dressed like Yankees in clown makeup, a gang of murderous lesbians in Union Square, and so forth -- to prevent the Warriors from reaching their home turf in Coney Island. It's probably one of my five favorites.

"It's so awesome that you have this movie," I said. "I thought it was a New York thing. I talked about it with my housemates one time and they all thought I was a dumbass."

"Sure," Ben said. "We can put it on. Who doesn't love The Warriors?"

Before Ben sat next to me on his bed, he took off his fleece pullover, giving me a brief glimpse of his slightly hairy stomach when his button-down underneath tugged up. His biceps and chest look pretty bulky, too, just like I figured they would.

"What sports did you play in high school?"

"Soccer," he said. "Wrestling. Tennis."

"Did you ever get a boner when you were wrestling?"

"Never," he said. "But I'm not gonna lie. Every so often it could be a little hot. There were a few times when I jerked it later."

He sat down next to me on his bed. I was slumped against the wall with my legs stretched over the width of the mattress. We stared at The Warriors without talking. I already had a full boner in my jeans, but at this angle, he probably couldn't tell unless he was looking closely, which he probably was.

"So," I said, a little before Cyrus asked the crowd of theatrical gangs if they could dig it, "you used to check me out in history lecture?"

We made eye contact. "I guess you could say that," he said. "I for sure noticed you. Thought you were pretty cute. You looked intense with the notes. And straight."

"If I'd seen you," I said, "I would've been checking you out. So it's cool."

Can you dig it?

He put his arm around my shoulder and went in for a kiss. His chin and upper lip were stubbly -- I'd never gotten the sensation like that before, and it was hot. He was a tentative kisser, unlike Canetti. We just pressed our lips together, and he slid the tip of his tongue against mine just briefly, like he wanted to see how I'd respond. I slipped my elbow under his armpit and squeezed his upper body, feeling the muscles of his back and his chest as it pressed against me. I slid my tongue into his mouth and under his tongue. He made a sound like a soft moan and hugged me around the shoulders. When our mouths shifted mid-kiss, his upper lip and chin scraped against mine, like sandpaper against the grain. I hadn't shaved since the morning, but mine didn't grow in as thick as Ben's. The scratching sensation was almost audible.

We didn't kiss for long. Maybe twenty seconds. I wanted to keep going but didn't want to press him. He sidle against me with his arm around my shoulder and hooked a leg over mine. I capped my palm over his bare knee, then lightly clamped my fingers over his thigh muscle. It was round, dense and tight, just like it looked. His leg muscles were pretty huge. I shook it a little. He was hard in his khaki shorts, but I didn't make a move toward it. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I held his head against my shoulder and traced my finger against the edge of his ear and then against his jawline.

He wasn't that comfortable kissing, and I think it's because he wasn't a very good kisser. He kept his mouth too rigid. Once he knew I was cool with making out, he just kind of pressed his tongue into my mouth, kind of jutting it in like it was an act of rigid penetration. Still -- his breath didn't have the mix of cigarette ash and mint that I'd gotten to know from Canetti. It was neutral and clear, if just slightly beery. I tried to lead him by example. I tugged his lower lip into my mouth, feeling the stubble light against my tongue and my inner lip. I bit down on it gently. I kept my tongue muscle slack and soft, so that when it touched his or touched his inner lips, it was more gentle. Ben didn't take my lead, though. His mouth movements felt military.

I'd moved a hand up into his shirt, first feeling out his stomach and its light cover of hair, then the trail that run up the middle of his sternum to his upper chest. His upper chest was pretty hair, but it wasn't, like, dense or rough, not how I would've thought. It was pretty soft. It felt good. His skin was hot. I put my fingers up to one of his hard nipples. His pecs muscles were big and tight. Even in senior year of high school, when I'd been in my peak condition, my muscles hadn't been nearly as big as his. Rubbing slightly around the edge of his nipple and kissing his neck, he gasped slightly and thrust his hips up against the air.

I was still in my jeans; I was still wearing shoes. I kicked them off. Hesitantly, Ben pressed against the hardon in my jeans.

"I want to see it," he said.

Getting on my knees, I took off my belt and undid the top button. I pulled down my zipper. Ever the diplomat, Ben looked at my eyes for approval before he did anything more. I nodded to him. He tugged down the elastic of my boxers and the top of my jeans until my dick was free and my pants and boxers were halfway down my thighs. Ben cupped my balls in his hand, and then kind of petted the length of my dick with his index finger. "That's pretty nice," he said.

Maybe 10 seconds later, I was totally naked. I mean, I was hot in my hoodie, anyway. I took it off in one move. And it was kind of uncomfortable having my jeans halfway down, so I stood up and pulled them off. Ben eyed me the whole time. He was still dressed, in a button-down short-sleeve and his khaki shorts. I knew his clothes wouldn't be there for long, but there was a part of me that liked being the naked guy. I mean, it was kind of hot, being in this guy's dorm room, not wearing anything, and having him check me out all over. Before I went back to his bed, I so that he could get a long, good look at me.

"You've got a nice body, man," he said.

"I've gotta start working out again," I said.

"Looks pretty good," he said.

Sitting on his bed, I unbuttoned his shirt from the neck down, kissing his chest while I did it. He had a hand on my dick, but he gripped it too tight and stroked the length more vigorously than I do. There was pinching and friction. Not that I minded. He slipped out of his shirt. His body was pretty great. He was built like a guy who'd wrestled -- almost barrel chested, but you could still see his ribs. The hair pattern of his torso was almost hour-glass shaped, to the extent that it feathered out over his pecs and over his navel, with just a trail connect them. That was such a turn-on that it almost shocked me. He lifted his hips as a undid his shorts, and tugged them down with his boxers.

Ben's cock was pretty thick. It wasn't massively long -- about six inches -- but that fucker had girth to it. It was fat and circumcised. The head of it didn't mushroom out as dramatically as mine, but when your shaft is so thick, maybe biology doesn't work that way. He had low-hanging balls and a thick, black, uncropped bush. His legs were spread out a little and I felt out the hair of his inner thighs near his balls, almost as thick as his pubes He watched me study his body and he beamed. When I wasn't making him nervous, he had a cute fucking smile -- the face of a nineteen-year-old on the body of a grown man, and he owned it.

I always love how it feels when the skin of my chest rubs against another guy's for the first time. His skin was hot and dry. The hair on chest and stomach made my skin tingle. Our dicks pressed up against each other. His kiss was still ungamely, but something about that seemed adorable -- like, human -- and not remotely annoying. He rubbed his hand through my hair and held my dick against his. Mine oozed precum.

If I'd wanted, I probably could've shot a load right then, but there's no fun in that. I got on my back and let him work his way over me. His butt arched in the air. It was hairy, too, and, like I'd expected, totally hot -- like two separate and distinct half-moons of muscle. I rubbed a hand over his left asscheek and sort of grabbed it. Between his body and his hair and his warmth, all of the contact felt like hard muscle and soft friction. When he licked and sucked on my nipple, the stubble of his face scraped around it; when he slid downward, his chesthair rubbed against my stomach; when he took my dick into his mouth, I felt his stubble at my balls; when he sucked on one of my balls, I felt his stubble on my inner thigh.

"Fuck, you feel awesome," I said.

"Having fun?"

"Yeah. Are you?"

"Absolutely."

I kind of wanted to play with his body all over. I asked him to stand up. He complied. I had about six inches on him, but still -- naked and lit by a reading lamp, he looked like any gay dude's lockerroom fantasy: taut shoulder muscles, visible triceps, armpit hair tufting out a little, his fat dick sporting out from that black bush, kind of a bashful grin on him. I felt a little like I was giving him a physical as I stood before him, first gripping at his shoulders and then his upper arms. He held onto my hips at half an arm's length, like we'd been frozen in a junior-high slow dance. I ran my hands down the width of his body.

When I got on my knees and went down on him, it wasn't just because I wanted his dick in my mouth, but because I wanted to feel out his ass and his legs. I hugged him around the lower back, with my forearms wrapped around the side of his ass and my hands meeting just above the hair of his asscrack. I don't want to exaggerate how fat is dick was, because it's not like it was hard to take it in, but keeping it there and comfortably cushioned put more strain on my jaw muscles than Canetti's dick did. I mean, Ben's cock was maybe half an inch shorter than mine and what I was used to on other guys, but when you're blowing it, the width is what gets you.

His thigh muscles and his ass, it felt like I was touching a statue. You know I think Canetti's hot, but he was so frigging skinny. Ben's upper legs felt like they came from a quarry. Brushing my hands up and down against his butt, I swear that he flexed the glute muscles for my benefit. When a finger found its way to the upper part of his ass, he didn't flinch. It was hairy but I was finding it hot -- like he was a real man. Slowly, I moved a finger down until it touched his asshole, the palm of my hand pressing against his glute.

"Just so you know," he said, unprompted, "I don't put out on the first date. I've got condoms and lube, but I kind of like to know the guy before we get to that."

I took his dick out of my mouth. It was rock hard and wet. I rubbed it at my outer cheek with my face at his stomach when I said, "That's cool. I'm not looking for that. I've never done that with a guy anyway."

"No way."

"No," I said. "I'm pretty curious, but it's not really what I'm looking for."

"Funny," he said. "You seem pretty confident. More than I expected. Probably more than me."

"Just because I'm confident," I said, "that doesn't mean I know what I'm doing."

"Let's get back on the bed," he said.

We weren't going to end up fucking, but we got in a position where I was kind of spooning him from behind. He reached down to my dick and positioned me to where it was pressed up against the crack of his ass, then guided the end of my dick and a finger until they were up against his asshole. "Does that freak you out?" he said.

"It's pretty hot," I said.

"Well, that's what it's like, only moreso."

"What does it feel like to have it done to you?"

"Well," he said, "the first time it hurt like hell and I thought I was crazy. It's like that for girls though, too. Once your body gets used to it it feels awesome. The most intense orgasms I've ever had are when I was the fuckee -- not, I guess, the fucker."

I kissed him on the shoulder. "Hot," I said.

"Not to pry -- how did you get this experienced without ever actually doing it?"

"The first guy, it was just in high school and we didn't really know what we were doing. And plus, I acted in ways that made things with us get weird. Here, there's a guy that I've spent a lot of time with, but he doesn't like to do that. I think he's got -- I don't know -- they're kind of control issues, and he thinks it's gross."

He didn't say anything. He pushed my dick down until it was between his legs, so that the tip of it touched the back of his balls. He pushed his ass against me, and thrust back, like we were simulating fucking. I started to get into it. His room was warm and we were sweating. I pressed my face against the back of his shoulder blades. While he jerked himself off I put my hand at his balls. I pushed my dick hard against him, like I was fucking him deep. The muscles of his ass pressed hard against my hips and stomach. I wished that we could do it for real; I pictured my dick sliding in and out of his ass.

Just thinking about it, I said, "Dude, I'm gonna cum."

"Fuck. I wanna see you cum, Joe."

I rolled over on my back and jerked it a few times. The first line sprang out forcefully, as usual. My dick was at an angle. It shot halfway up my chest and onto the hair of Ben's stomach. "Whoah," Ben said. My second and third lines of cum hit around my solar plexus, and lines four through six landed around my navel.

Ben got on his knees and leveraged his upper body with one arm while he used the other hand to jerk his dick. One of his hairy legs was between my thighs. Balanced over me, he stared down at my face and bit his lower lip. "Ohhhh, fuckyeah," he moaned as his jizz first spurted out. His didn't jet out like mine -- more like a dribble. It dropped down onto my stomach, first in drops and then in a steadier volume. "Ohhhh fuck," he said, as another round spurted out and landed on me, his eyes locked on mine. When he was done he loomed over me on his knees and pushed his hair back against his scalp. I held onto his ass. He smiled wide.

"Well," he said, "I sure didn't expect this to happen when I left my room tonight." He bounced out of bed and pulled a clean towel out of his closet. He tossed it to me. I leaned up and wiped our jizz off my chest and stomach. I brushed at my nose with the back of my hand. My hand smelled like Ben.

He bent down to pick up his boxers.

"You should keep your clothes off," I said. "I like looking at you."

He laughed a little and stood there with his boxers in his hand. "You want me to model for you or something?"

"Nah," I said. "I just want to take a mental snapshot."

He flexed an arm in a way that I think was meant to be sarcastic, but it looked pretty amazing. His dick was pink and still close to hard. He put his arm down and swiveled his hips side to side so that it slapped against his hips, his balls swinging alongside with it.

Ben reached out a hand to pull me out of bed. "Thanks for coming over, man," he said, bending down to gather my clothes from off his floor.

"Oh," I said. "Cool."

I guess I'd just assumed that I was going to crash his room for the night. I don't know why that was. I was just 15 minutes from my house, and true, waking up in a stranger's dorm room might have been weird in the morning.

Maybe I'd developed this thing about sleeping over without realizing it. Andy and I slept over with each other a lot, and that was mainly a function of logistics. With Canetti, I guess it was just assumed. I think Matt liked that, too. In a lot of ways, the physical affection was more intimate for Matt than the sex.

I hadn't considered that a sleepover wasn't a universal practice, but of course it wasn't.

So I got dressed while commenting a little more about the excellence of The Warriors. He complied with my previous request and remained undressed, but his dick was now dying down a little. I was still pretty hard. Before I left, he gave me a dry smooch on his lips, and I used it as an occasion to feel out his ass again.

"Thanks for coming by," he said.

"Thanks for, like, picking me up at that weird party."

"We should do this again sometime," he said.

"For sure," I said.

It wouldn't have been that hard to track each other down. One of us could have asked Kevin Berger for a last name. I probably could have gone into the online director and figured it out -- how many guys at the school were named Ben and from Connecticut Avenue in D.C.? -- but I didn't do that, either. Something about it seemed intrusive or awkward. My night with Ben would turn out to be a one-off.

Campus was almost totally empty on my walk home. It was past 4 a.m. There were occasionally people straggling back from house parties and even a guy walking down the steps at the library -- the library! at 4 a.m. on a Saturday! -- but that was it. Periodically I sniffed at the sex smell on my hand.

No one was awake at home, either, but the front door was unlocked and the living room lights were on. I was still horny; I could've gone at it with Ben at least one more time. In my room, I took my clothes off and jerked off thinking about what I'd just been through. I sniffed at my hand while I did this -- that scent a little like body odor but with a slightly sweeter touch, like body odor with a trace of a hoppy beer, and with a bleachy element of either my semen or Ben's. By the time I came on myself and settled down enough for sleep, some gray light was coming through my rooftop skylight.

Ben from D.C.: he was my first of many hook-ups.