Qbmac

A Note to My Reader:

My name is not Orlando. Nor are all the events depicted in this and (I hope future) stories completely true events of my life. However, this can be thought of a place where the fantasies in my mind meet the reality of my life.

I am someone very much like Orlando attending Columbia, and some of the things that happen in my stories are true. Obviously, those events which are true have been thinly covered with different places an names to avoid undue voyeurism towards the other people involved. And no, I don't remember all the dialogue perfectly, I'm doing my best to paraphrase what was actually said.

This may sound an awful lot like the X-rated Wonderyears for those of you who have seen that show. But the fact is, I want to talk about what I was thinking, not just what was happening. I do understand, however, that this is an erotic story. I'll try to select moments of my life and thoughts that lends themselves to that theme.

Finally, I write for myself and also for you, my reader. I'd like to hear back from you, so if you have the chance, try to drop me an email about what you thought.

My email address is "quprime@usa.net"

. . .

QBMAC - Queer Black Male at Columbia

by S.J.Y.

Chapter Two

I guess that you might expect after that first night that my life was a whirlwind of sex. Well, I have to confess that it wasn't. In fact, it wasn't even much of a wind. More like a breeze, the kind that cools you down on really hot days at the beach. That pretty much sums up my sex life. Such as it was.

My roommate was named Jonathan; I had talked to him once over the summer prior to coming to college. Columbia had been obliging enough to send me a packet talking about where I'd be living and with whom, and it had listed his address as somewhere in China. Great, I had thought at the time, I have a Chinese national as a roommate. But I thought it was pretty cool; besides, college was all about expanding my horizons, and I desperately needed mine expanded.

There were three options for housing in freshman year: Carman, John Jay, or Wallach. Carman was set up with two doubles sharing a bathroom, and that had been my first choice. The concept of living in a suite with other people appealed to my desire to force myself to be social. I had no desire to repeat high school and slip into a corner where I could be easily missed and forgotten. No, I wanted to make at least some impression. But I knew myself all too well, and so I figured if I didn't have to be social, I wouldn't be. John Jay was definitely out, because it had tiny cramped singles on a corridor with one bathroom per floor. I didn't like the idea of trooping down to the bathroom half-naked every time I wanted to shower or brush my teeth, and I didn't like the isolation I figured the setup would engender. I guess if I was getting laid all the time the privacy would be welcome, but that was not the case with me. As for Wallach, it was a big suite (like thirteen people) with mixed freshman and upperclassmen, and I think I didn't want the extra stress of meeting people already at an advantage to me. I just wanted to be with other freshman, like myself, trying to make sense of New York, college, and everything else. So I asked for Carman, and got it. Mixed-sex floor, and smoking please. I was just trying to quit a moderate smoking habit at the end of high school, and I figured I didn't want to have to go cold turkey my first day of college. That certainly wouldn't help my adjustment which I figured would be hard enough. I figured right.

Jonathan came back around 5 AM that night, mercifully alone. When he unlocked our room with the strange wafer-keys Carman uses, I immediately popped up from the suitcase I had been half-sitting, half-dozing on and wandered up to introduce myself. He said he was Jonathan.

He was maybe five-seven, five-eight, very straight black hair, compact but he looked well-built. He was wearing a tight yellow shirt with Asian characters on it, and faded blue jeans. He seemed cool enough; he spoke English easily and seemed not to be horribly clueless as I feared some foreign student might be. Not that I was any master of pop culture, of course, but there was a difference between me and people right off the boat. God, that sounds horrible now, but it was what I was thinking then. I feel better saying it out loud now, however bad it might be. I always thought writing all this down would be a cathartic experience, and it is.

He crashed almost immediately; I took an hour or so unloading all my crap into the drawers, closet, and desk. There was a lot of storage space there; they must have known that first-years would probably bring a lot of their shit with them. Comforting, probably. I put my pot that I had smuggled through the airport in my desk drawer, not really knowing where else to put it. The letter we had gotten about drug abuse had sounded very firm, but I was dubious. It wasn't like they were going to sweep the place with dogs, were they? I seriously contemplated rolling a joint, or breaking out my pipe, but Jonathan was already sleeping and I didn't think I wanted to make the first impression of an incorrigible pot addict. Even if that was what I was. (No, I wasn't, but I didn smoke up pretty often that summer. But I've never had a real psychological dependency on it. Christ, but I hate the idea of addiction.)

I spent very little time that first night sleeping. You've probably had those nights too-- those ones which seem interminable, waiting for the inevitable the next morning, knowing you desperately want to go to sleep and just meet it, and yet so internally horrified by it that you can't relax enough to just slip away. Plus my body was probably as hopped up on endorphins and shit (there's my AP Bio education for you) as it had ever been, which really didn't help. So while Jonathan slept, I lay awake and worried about the next day. I'll spare you the details.

The next day dawned beautifully, and I was woken (I had finally drifted off, I guess) my Jonathan's alarm clock. It was pretty effective. He showered and then I did, and by the time we were both done the bathroom was a veritable flood of water. He just walked out of the shower nad back into our room clad only in a towel (and honestly, I wished that towel would just slip off). I had been right the night before about him being built; if anything I had underestimated him. He was small, but he was jacked as hell. Chiseled is I think the best word for him. In terms of muscle mass ratio to body weight, he must have been a beast. I wasn't surprised to find out later that he had done gymnastics. He was flexible as hell (OK, that sounds pretty suggestive, but I didn't mean it that way). Anyway, he'd come back into our room, snag a pair of shorts and then change into them into the bathroom. Then half the time he'd do his strange exercise routin on the floor by the door. It was like nothing I'd ever seen, just what looked like a bunch of stretches, but whatever he was doing, it sure was working. I put on new boxers and undershirt in the bathroom, and I met one of my two suitemates walking out.

His name was Todd and he was pretty damn short, though I thought he was kinda cute. He was white, and he was vaguely Jewish, which I knew was a pretty predominant thing at Columbia--nominal Jews. They identify themselves as Jews and do very little about it. He was clad in those little flip-flop rubber shoes, and I guess his mother had probably bought them for him. But they slapped a little, and so my first thought of him was ridiculousness. They say first impressions matter a lot, and for once I agree with Them. I exchanged a couple perfunctory words with him and then he disappeared into the shower. Knock yourself out, Todd.

I dressed quickly back in my room, and checked out my schedule. Jonathan was still doing his exercises, and I studiously avoided looking at him. There was no way I was even going to try anything with my roommate. Never ever, I told myself firmly. I wasn't so fond of his face anyway, even though his body was stunning. But the fallout from a bad thing with my roommate could be...well...devastating. My schedule indicated orientation sessions all day and registration ongoign once we had some sort of vague idea what the hell was going on. I figured I wouldn't know until later, but I needed to get out of here and meet the great wide world. Or something like that.

I was supposed to mill about on the South Lawn at some sort of pavilion, and indeed as I emerged from the front doors of Carman I could see a big tent set up on the grassy lawn just northeast of me. That, therefore, was the South Lawn. Note for future reference. I headed over, and soon lost myself in the rushing mires of people drifting from station to station, hearing of the introductory offerings in Bio, Engineering, Psych, English, and every other department glorified beyond any reasonable ideal. I don't think anyone there really entertained the illusion that the Gateway Lab (an introductory engineering class) was anything short of an ordeal. But it was all about mass-delusion and PR. And so we milled and listened to the honey-lies, and started mentally constructing our schedule.

I think that I'd heard about enough by about 1 or 1:30, at least as much sa I could take that day. I had a fair idea of what classes I wanted to take; now it was merely a matter of poring over the pencil book and choosing figuring out how to fit everything I wanted into a workable schedule. I also wanted to think about getting a job somewhere, because as much as my family was well-enough, we weren't at all loaded, and tuition here just about cleaned out the indulgence my parents had for me. If I wanted spending money, it was coming out of my own pocket. And I did want spending money. So I had a lot to work around, and registration was soon. The schedule had said registration would begin today, but it turned out that it was just the registration fair that was that day, and real registration wasn't until the end of the week. By phone. Just to give us some time to mull over our choices, I guess.

By the time I got back up to the floor, it must have been around 2 and I was getting hungry as hell, and thinking I ought to invest in a wristwatch. Once I got some money. There were many people milling around, trundling up and down the hallways with bags and yellow-bound schedules in hand, but of course I didn't know them. We were all new to each other, and I assumed we would all meet in our own good time. I thought for a moment of stopping in 1010 to see Tommy, but chickened out as I passed his door. Who knew how he was feeling today? He probably wasn't even there. Besides, as lucid as he had seemed, he had been drunk last night, and maybe in the morning things would seem different? I didn't know. I had always played things safe, and I never wanted to. But here, as usual, I did.

I sat down in my room (Jonathan was lying around on his bed) and dragged out my pencil book, looking for the classes I wanted and trying to figure out how I could fit them in. It was harder than I thought, because the names in the pencil book were pretty unintelligible. Instead, I had to find the call number in the pencil book, then look up the call number in the blue book which gave larger descriptions of the classes, but not accurate times. Even then, there were often multiple sections of classes, and there were a lot more than five classes I wanted to take eventually, and I didn't know what to take now... it was not an easy call. I was glad that they had given me until Friday to figure it all out.

Jonathan had left a little while ago for someplace, and I was deep in thought, trying to figure out how to take both the required Literature Humanities course and my desired Anthropology course at 2:25 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, an apparent impossibility. I thought maybe I could take another section of the Anthropology course, but then that conflicted with my Spanish class, which of course I needed for my language requirement... It seemed like a never-ending struggle, and that I was getting nowhere.

I was pretty oblivious to the world when there was a knock on my door, pretty perfunctory because my door was standing wide open. That was my concession to socialization, leaving my door open. It had been a hard little struggle, because the door seemed to want to stay closed, and in the end I had propped it open with the trashcan and put my lamp in it to keep it from sliding away. Not a very elegant solution, but it worked.

Anyway, I looked up and I was thrilled (more than thrilled, more electrified) to see Tommy standing very slightly abashedly at my door. He definitely had that distant look of one who ought not to be somewhere but is anyway, and he was looking directly at me.

"Hey there, Orlando," he said, and I was pleased that he at least remembered my name. I didn't think he would have forgotten, but I'd only said it the one time, and, well, he'd been drunk, and the way things had gotten, who knew?

"Hey, Tommy," I replied, pushing back my pile of papers and books, trying to look nonchalant. "What's up?" I was hoping more than a little was up.

"Nothing much. The registration fair was boring as hell," he said, echoign my thoughts exactly. "I got less than nothing from it."

"Just a waste of time," I agreed. "But I have a feeling Columbia likes to waste our time. It's like a hobby of theirs." I drew a grin for that, as I had hoped. If there was one thing I could do socially, it was make silly little quips on the spot. It's a good skill.

"Well you know we talked about lifting," he paused, and then said, "Last night, I mean." I guess he was remembering what else happened last night. I sure was.

"Yeah, we did. What time is it?" I asked, really not knowing. I couldn't see Jonathan's alarm clock from my desk.

"Almost 5," he said, glancing at his wristwatch, a Seiko unless I was very much mistaken. (I wasn't. I have an uncanny ability to identify watches.) I yelped inwardly. I hadn't thought it had gotten so late, but of course these things happened when you got caught up in planning a schedule.

"Shit," was what I said out loud. It basically summed up my thoughts, sans details. "It's really later than I wanted to go."

"Yeah, I know," he said. "I meant to go earlier also, but I was running around trying to find the track team meet. We were supposed to have some sort of conference today somewhere, but the couple guys I talked to were in the dark also. No one seemed to know much."

"Whatever," I said. "Seems like things are pretty disorganized. If no one else got there, I doubt anything will come of it."

"Yeah," he said again. And then he seemed at a loss for words. "So did you want to go this late, or just push it off to tomorrow?" I didn't really know. I didn't care that much about going to the gym at that moment, but we'd kinda decided to do this already, and I didn't want to put him off. I stalled.

"Do you know how late the gym is open?" Ask for information. That was always a good tactic. Stall, stall.

"I dunno...eleven, maybe? I remember hearing someone say that, I think." Ah yes, the good old hearsay. Always a good source for information. But I didn't really care about facts.

"Cool. Well, I think I'm going to stay in for a little while longer, anyway--still trying to figure out my schedule. Maybe I'll try to head over later tonight. You want to sit down or something?" the only other chair in the room was at Jonathan's desk, and it was rather awkwardly placed, so I gestured at Jonathan's bed, which was just near my desk. He sat.

"You know anything about how to get anything to eat here," I asked, making conversation. Not my best skill.

"Dining halls are open now. Have you gotten your Columbia ID yet? You can use it there for meal points." I had indeed gotten it; they had been disbursing them at the fair today, and I'd stumbled across the right booth, I guess. "The nearest one is over in Jay," he finished, "though there's also one at Barnard." Barnard was the all-girls school affiliated with Columbia across the street. Whoo-hoo, I thought, all girls. Whoo-hoo.

"Maybe I'll see about that later also," I offered. "Figure out how to make the most of the dining plan they made me buy." Tow thousand odd bucks for dining plans, mandatory ones. Columbia really wrings the money out of you.

"Yeah," he said, and there was a silence. I glanced at my papers, and he perused the room carefully, as it trying to profile me from it. It was bare as hell, and had cinderblock walls like the rest of the Carman rooms. Lap of luxury and all.

"You have fun last night?" he asked suddenly. He had asked something similar last night after it was all over, but what the fuck, nothing like reliving fun moments in life.

"Yeah, sure, of course. I had a shitload of fun," I said almost reflexively, eyeing the door nervously. Anyone could just walk by and hear us. He stood up.

"You ever wanna try anything like that again?" he asked quickly. He paused, and glanced at the door also. I lookthingsed at him.

"Yeah, man. Yeah." I was saying 'yeah' a lot, but I didn't care. So was he, anyway. It was a good word. He walked over to the door, and put his hand on it. Slowly, he pushed it shut. I heard the latch click hoe with an ominously loud sound, and then we were alone.

"How about now," he asked, and I think I went just about instantly hard. It was damn quick, anyway. I was wearing a pair of really tight jeans, mainly because they had been the first things I found in my still-unpacked suitcase. OK, not so really tight, I can't pull that off, ut pretty tight. If I hadn't had my lap under my desk still, my erection would have been as visible as a green light. I was just wearing by undershirt; I had taken off the sweater I had put on when I went out because the dorms were characteristically overheated. I had read that Carman had lots of heating but no AC, and right now I could believe it. It was a hot day anyway, late summer in New York. If you live on the east coast, you know the sort of day.

He was wearing some kind of board shorts, Quiksilver I think. But they looked kind heavy and shiny and iridescent in an odd blue color; that's partially why I remember them. Then again, I seem to remember what anyone who I fooled around with was wearing. I don't know why, but clothes seem to make a big deal to me. He just had on one of those v-neck t-shirts that was such a yuppie thing around then, a dark blue one. J Crew was doing a brisk business in them, I understand. But I'm not good enough to brand-label a shirt just from seeing it. And I wasn't exactly studying it minutely at that moment anyway.

Oddly, the one thing going through my head then (besides the sort of Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes mantra that had been playing ever since he asked about last night) was that I didn't want to go down on him again just yet. At the time I didn't really know quite why, and I suppose I still don't for sure. But I said,

"I'm hard as hell, and I need to get off, man." Man. I liked calling him 'man' whenever I was horny. How about that. I still do that, in fact.

"That's cool," he said, and glanced to the door. "Your roommate gonna be gone for a while?" I had no idea, but I was really too far in again to throw a wrench into the works now.

"Sure, he's at dinner I think." I thought. Had he said something about that? He had been in the room when I first came in, and he must have said something to me when he left. I couldn't remember at all. Whatever.

"Excellent," was all he said, and in a second he had shucked his shirt. I think he liked showing off his chest as much as me. He dropped it on the floor someplace, but I was already staring at his chest. I'd really never had a chance to unabashedly stare at a guy's chest before Tommy, and it was strangely fulfilling. I could look at a porn mag or picture or TV until my balls turned blue, but they didn't compare one iota to the real thing.

I didn't get up, but I scooted my chair back from the desk, so My erection wasn't hidden any more. He could tell I was hard now, I think he'd have to be blind not to. I think he was considering dropping the shorts for a second there, but my scooting out interrupted him. It didn't really matter. All things in their due time, was what I thought afterwards, but at the time I was just operating mostly on instinct. Well, socially honed instinct, anyway. I scooted out because I wanted him to see me that way.

It all worked out right anyway. He walked back over to me from the door, and I quickly unbuttoned by jeans and pushed them down around my ankles. My Nikes were still on, and I didn't want to fuck with getting my pants over them or getting them off, so I just left my pants down there. With any luck, I wouldn't have to stagger around the room life an idiot.

That left my boxers with a pretty damn impressive tent in them, and we could both see it. They were just boring old gray Joe Boxers, and I didn't see much point in leaving them sitting their, ludicrously hindering my cock from breaking loose. I slipped them down too, and my cock was fully visible.

I guess I'm not incredibly well-endowed. You read stories and hear of guys with ten- inch dicks, and you end up feeling a little inferior. You can't exact go around measuring your peer's cocks and see if they're about the same length or not. I'd always been pretty happy with myself. In fact, I've always been very happy with myself, and so I was in fact ecstatic to finally get to show off my equipment to someone.

He was impressed, I think. I'd seen it a million times before, mostly around the time I was helping myself out, so I wasn't exactly gasping. But then, neither was he. I probably just the imagined the whole thing as a token to my ego, anyway. What am I, maybe eight inches. I've measured of course, hasn't everyone? At some point, I mean, wondering how long they really are, wanting to know exactly how much. It's our damn curiosity that makes us take out the rulers, and our pride that makes us scrabble over the eighths of an inch. that would be profound maybe if not for the context. But it's a poor philosopher that points out his own clever phrases.

He didn't seem hesitant at all; I guess from what he had said (what little he had said) last night, he had done this before me. In fact, I got the distinct impression he had done this a lot before me, and although we haven't ever really swapped lists of past sexual partners (mine would start with his name, of course), my discussions with him have tended to imply that. He never cam out and said I'm A Playa, but I figure he was.

He straddled my legs, getting with a little difficulty between me and the desk. I sort of wriggled by chair out a little more, trying not to bump him too much, and already thinking it had probably been a poor decision to leave my pants and shorts bunched up at my feet, because they were barely moveable. I could still push back with them, though. With a little bit of fucking about, he managed to get one knee down on either side of my legs, and in a second longer, his head was down in my lap, and I gasped.

I'm not even going to try to explain the real gestalt of the blowjob. If you've ever had one, then you know what I was feeling at the time, and if you haven't, then I can't ever hope to do it the remotest justice. I had always thought to that day that it couldn't be that much different from jerking yourself off; after all, the purpose was sort of the same. This was really a pretty dumb thought. The mouth is a very different organ from the hand, and I wasn't flexible enough to practice on myself with my mouth. So the mouth is really a very different experience to begin with. But then comes what I've since thought of as sort of the Tickle Difference. The fact is, you can't tickle yourself. You know exactly what's coming, because you're doing it. A good tickle involves a lot of surprise and spontaneity. The same thing applies to blowjobs. You just don't get that good thing from your own hand, because everything is expected. OK, well that's the Orlando Philosophy of Blowjobs. Back to our regularly scheduled program.

I knew almost immediately that he was much much better than I was. not that I thought it would be any differently, but there was no way I could have been this good. It felt indescribably good, not sloppy or slimy or anything even vaguely bad, but just warm and wet and good. I cannot overemphasize the good part. It was that sort of overpowering good that makes you just want to sit back and gasp uncontrollably, which is just about what I did.

"Oh my God," I said immediately, only "God" came out more like "Gawwwwwwwwwd." And it didn't really end, it just fort of trailed off. There was just the snicker-snack of him on my cock, and my rapid breathing. It seemed like I was working really hard, because I was taking in huge breaths, swelling my chest up under my shirt and letting in out in ragged little "gawwwd" gasps that were almost in time to his bobbing.

"Tommy," I finally said after a while, and it was a miracle that I hadn't cum yet. Only maybe it wasn't so long...what did I say last time; time was kinda fluid. Same thing applies. And of course "Tommy" came out more as "Tawwwmy." I had to take a breath in the middle of it also, so it was more like "Taww-huuuh-wwme."

I put my hand on his head, and held it there, feeling his sily-fine hair that I love so much and the movement of his head on my cock. My other hand was on his shoulder, feeling the strength in his deltoids and trapezius. He definitely worked these; unless he was like a farm hand for three years before coming here. And somehow I didn't think that was the case. Everyone has someplace the concentrate on; usually an exercise routine that they find agrees with them for whatever reason. For whatever reason, I seem like working my chest and abs, especially my abs--I guess he was a shoulder guy, because he was just screaming there. Well, not screaming, but I should by all rights have notices his delts last night. I just loved feeling them, and I squeezed them hard, feeling his body underneath my hand.

One of his hands was on my naked thigh, holding it relatively still and at the same time stroking it. His other hand had worked its way under my shirt and was rubbing my pec hard, hard enough that I could feel the skin being pulled one way and then the other underneath his hand. ut it felt good--so good--everything did, and I let my head loll.

There was only bare white ceiling over me now, nothing to distract me. I had never felt anything like it, never even imagined anything like it. It was in its own way like that first soaringly amazing drug high you ever take, so flashy and different it scares you, and you wonder if it will always be such sheer euphoria. That's the only thing I can really compare it to, and it's not such a good comparison. I could just lay there and hear the snicker-snack of his mouth on my cock, hear it even as I felt him snicker-snacking away at me, oing something so extraordinary with his tongue I still wish I could do it, and feeling like I was going to blow right then. But I didn't, not quite yet.

I was felt it coming, felt that delicious moment when the semen must be rushing towards the end, when you know you can't stop it now, and can feel only that pure pleasure that cumming brings. That moment when you stiffen and the whole world seems to slow down to a near stop, a freeze frame. I grabbed his hair that I had been brushing in a fierce grip as I arched my back slightly, locking my legs straight out and so thrusting my cock deep into his face. My hand on his head and shoulder kept him from jerking his head back too far; I didn't really plan to do that but the suddenly force of the moment ran through my whole body and they were as unyielding and stiff as everything else. My cock dug deep into his throat and I felt his tongue recoil slightly, but of course at that moment it didn't matter what he did; I was in my own world. he squeeze my pex hard, so hard that it stung bad, but the pain as lost then and I squeeze my eyes shut and the whole white ceiling dropped to black and then

There was the torrent, the flood. It was greater than even the mess in my shorts the night before, which I thought must heave been the greatest cum of my life. I don't kow at all how long I went on for. I could feel the pleasure, could distantly feel his painfuly strong grip on my chest, could feel the space around my cock fill with the cum and I supposed he must be swallowing it because my cock didn't leave the wonderful wet warmth of his mouth. But for that dilated moment, that was my world, and it was so much more so that the contraction that comes momentarily with masturbation. This was like life itself was on pause.

And then with a few recalcitrant spurts and I fell back down, and spent I flopped, dropped back down from the insanely rigid arch of my back. He sat down hard on my legs, painfully, but I don't think he cared at that point. He was I think spent too, though not as much as I. The kind of thing he did couldn't have been easy. Though since I've come to see it as a good blowjob, not a transcendent one. Just like your first drug experience blows your mind away, your first blowjob seems like the very world has come to a crashing stop.

My cock was still hard, but it was slowly shrinking. It was shiny-slick, and still so warm I thought for a moment his mouth was still around it. My eyes were half closed still, but I could see him leaning heavily against the drawer of my desk, watching me. I breathed heavily for a while, waiting for my raging hard-on to come back down and my insane energy to flee. It didn't take long once he had finished me.

"That was amazing," I finally said. Really stupid, I know, but it's what I could think of at the time. You try being profound in the post-blowjob lull.

"Thanks," he said shortly. there was a little cum on the corner of his mouth, and it was shining there. I thought it was kind of funny, but didn't laugh.

"Shit," I said. "Shit. A-fucking-mazing." Sigh.

"It was your first time ," he said, breaking a little smile himself. "First time's always the best." And it is, in a way.

"You're beautiful, man," I said, and I meant it. Hell, he was beautiful for a guy. But I would never have said it if I hadn't been feeling the endorphins running around my system and just gotten a blowjob from him.

"And you're hotter than hell, guapo," he said, smiling more. It was as though he'd seen this all a million times before, and I think that was the second time I thought, He must be really experienced. I love the word guapo, one of those odd bits of Spanish slang that entered my vocabulary from living in LA.

"Was I any good last night," I wanted to know, since he seemed to be dispensing compliments rather readily. I was wondering after the spectacular effort he had just put in.

"You were good, very good," he said, "Especially for your first time," he finished. I had hoped for something like that. He was probably playing me up a little, but whatever. The ego can always take a few extra strokes.

I wondered suddenly why he was investing so much time in me. Surely he knew someone gay here already, someone more inexperienced. I tended to do that a lot, suddenly become convinced of my own inadequacy and wonders why others put up with me. If I was a Psych major, I'd know why I did that. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just run- of-the-mill inferiority complex, or whatever the hell that is. Pop culture psychology, that's me.

I became convinced it was just because I was black, and that bothered me. In fact, the more I thought about it sitting there, the more it bothered me. He's fucking around with me, the incompetent beginner, just because there's a shortage of gay black males. Or some shit like that. I don't know why i did that shit to myself; I still do that to myself a lot. I didn't even know where he was from, I suddenly thought; we're just pieces of meat to each other. The thought dejected me, and I finally decided I wanted to know more about him. It was ridiculous just sitting there, him half naked and my pants down with my dick hanging out, but that's me.

"So, Tommy, where you from?" I asked suddenly, and I think he was genuinely surprised by the question.

"D.C.," he said, finally. "Actually, a little suburb outside of DC, but you've probably never heard of it." I didn't care about his suburb. "How bout you?"

"Sunny LA," I said. "Great weather, bad city." He nodded. I doubt he cared much either, and the fact that neither of us did bothered me more.

"What do you think your major is going to be," I asked, the second of the Basic Two questions. This was pretty pitiful.

"Maybe civil engineering," he said. "Or mechanical." So he was SEAS. At Columbia there was the liberal arts school, Columbia College (CC), and there was the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). So he was SEAS. I guess I kinda cared about that. It was cool.

"I'm thinking of bio," I said. "You know, maybe go into biogenetic shit someday. Or maybe become a doctor if I can work up the will for another eight years of school." I'd basically decided I couldn't deal with the extra schooling for the M.D., but I still liked saying it.

"You got a last name," he asked suddenly after the pause that followed. "It's always weird knowing people without last names; it feels a little, well, whatever." Amazingly articulate, this Tommy. I was just noticing that. God, that sounds condescending, but hell. It's what I was thinking at the time.

"Orlando Woods," I said.

"Tommy Wong," he said, figuring I'd probably ask the same thing of him. "Nice to meet you, of course." I thought that was absolutely ludicrous, given the circumstances, and finally snickered a little. After all, we were sitting there in a pretty fucking compromising situation, and saying it was nice to meet each other. Ridiculous.

"Our names must be right next to each other in the facebook," I said, suddenly, thinking it was a cool coincidence that our last names were so damn close to each other. Probably only a few people away at most. I wasn't exactly getting up to look at the moment, though.

I grabbed a tissue from a little plastic package on my desk, and began to wipe myself off. I kinda wanted to put my pants back on, because it was feeling really weird to sit here talking to him as naked, and the rough fabric of the chair was really rubbing at my bare ass and I wanted to get that covered up. But I didn't want to make a mess of myself, so I did a careful job of swabbing myself off.

"Yeah," he agreed while I went about my work. He was staring at it while I talked. I don't think I'd ever appreciated how much people said the word 'yeah' until I started having sex. it seemed to come up a lot then. He looked at his watch.

"Wow, it's almost five thirty," he said. That surprised me.

"It can't have been half an hour since you got here," I said. No way I'd held out that long, no fucking way.

"OK, well, it's more like 5:17, but who's really counting?" That sounded reasonable. Funny man, that Tommy. But I loved that face. I was feeling more and more cheap, fucking around with this guy I knew nothing about, really just cause he was there and phine. That's what I get for having an overactive conscience. It seemed like the more I found out about him, the more it seemed unlikely we were going to go hang out someplace. But my hormones were really a lot stronger than my guilty conscience.

"I guess I ought to head over for dinner pretty soon," I said, throing the used tissue into the garbage and missing. It was like three feet away, and I felt a little dumb. Tommy got off my legs, finally, as if sensing I was ready to get myself back together. I yanked my Joe Boxers and jeans back up hastily zipped up and buttoned the jeans.

"Yeah," he said. "I was thinking the same thing." Really awakward. It was killing me.

"You wanna head over there in a little while together? I have a few more things to look at here," I gestured at the desk, which was still littered with the schedule papers that I had been poring over when Tommy came by. I didn't care about them that much, but I though 5:17 was a little early for dinner.

"Cool," he said. The other great word in awkward conversations.

"I'll come by your room in a little while?" It was more of a statement.

"Sure, man." Man. "the food here really sucks, though, so don't get your hopes up."

"I won't," I assured him with a broad smile. He was hunting around for his shirt, and I picked it up from the floor behind me and tossed it to him. I liked that v-neck a lot. Strange thought, it just occurred to me. Oh well.

And then he just slipped it over his head and walked out, opening the door as he left and rapping twice on it as he departed. I guess that was supposed to be a cool little sign- off or something. Whatever. I didn't care at the time. I was already both looking forward to seeing him for dinner and dreading it. We had nothing really to talk about, because we didn't know each other. But at the same time, I felt pretty sure shit would go down when I was around him. We both seemed to be horny bastards, for each our own reasons, and I preferred not to think about his reasons for choosing me, though my perverse mind kept bringing me back to it.

But then I turned back to my papers, hoping to drive him from my mind. Literature Humanities came back to mind, and the room was quiet and I returned to enigma of being in two classes at the same time. And it was about that sudden: scheduling, getting a blowjob, and back to scheduling. it felt strange, but I liked it. I felt bad, sort of. Cool. Very cool, I thought. And went on scheduling.

--S.J.Y., March 2000