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I sat there speechless for a moment and asked, "So, do you love her?"

Paul chuckled. "Oh, hell, no! At least not that way. She knows what she was doing, and so do I. I suppose I'll always be grateful to you and her both for helping me figure things out, but she's not girlfriend material. In fact, now that she doesn't think I'm gay, she'll probably lose interest." Now I was the one laughing. "What is it?" he asked.

"I was just thinking, after the way I reacted when I saw the porn catalog, isn't it funny that I'm gay—and you're not?"

He laughed along with me. "And if you're still not sure, I could always tell Jeanie you're gay too!"

If he did tell her, she didn't follow through. I graduated that spring, and my only regret was that all this didn't happen sooner. As sure as Paul said he was when he came inside Jeanie, I was just as sure the first time he came inside me. If I'd known I was gay all along, I might have joined the gay student group, whatever they called themselves. I might have met the right guy, or at least had a couple good hook-ups. When I came back that fall for homecoming, I didn't see Paul's name or Jeanie's on the mailbox. I found out from the landlord that Paul had transferred to another school, and Jeanie had gotten pregnant and dropped out. He didn't seem to know any more than that, but I wondered if they were connected. Maybe one day I'll Google her name and see if she's got a half-Asian kid with a December birthday.