Speech and Debate Pt. 03

Despite the fact that my brain had had little time to float back down to the real world from the craziness of the past 14 hours with Daniel, the debilitating cold of Boston had an instant and sobering effect on me. In the South, the entire city shuts down when there is a projected 1/2 inch of snow in the forecast. The schools close and everyone makes a mad dash to the grocery stores for bread and milk, apparently conned into thinking that the apocalypse has arrived and carbohydrates and calcium would save them from the promised destruction. Hurricanes, we know how to deal with. Frozen water descending from the heavens was just unnatural and an affront to our very way of life.

Not the case in Boston. When I stepped out of the Boston International Airport into the February air, I suddenly wondered if our plane had be diverted to Alaska without my noticing. I'd spent a good portion of the flight locked in the bathroom with Daniel, so it was entirely possible. Brisk doesn't begin to describe it. The general sexiness of wearing Daniel's jock and our multiple previous excursions faded to nothingness when that first blast of frigid northern air hit my skin and shrunk my once impressive manhood to something resembling the size of a shriveled green bean. It hurt to breathe on the 25 foot journey from the sliding glass doors to the van waiting to drive us to the competition.

I was still in shock when Daniel slid in beside me on the long back seat, the warmth of his thigh pressed into mine but offering little in the way of actual relief. Even his supreme confidence was shaken to a stunned silence, both of our eyes wide with uncertainty and staring straight ahead at the businesslike northerners rushing to and fro outside our vehicular oasis. They seemed unfazed by the blistering cold, even going so far as to taunt us with smiles and loving gazes towards the overcast skies as they hailed cabs and fancy black town cars. It all served to cement in my mind the fact that Yankees were, indeed, insane. Perhaps the Civil War hand't been about slavery or states rights after all, but a simple attempt for a frozen people to migrate en masse to warmer climes.

Ms. Gonzales seemed to take it the hardest. She hailed from Puerto Rico, so this must have been absolute hell for her. She sat in the passenger seat and stared blankly straight ahead, as if she was rethinking her commitment to chaperoning this trip and seriously contemplating turning around and buying a one way ticket back to Charlotte, leaving a group of mostly under-age kids to fend for themselves in the Great White North.

Somehow, we made it to the sign in for Nationals, the driver twisting and turning through the rabbit warren of brownstone lined streets and traffic circles without the need for GPS or maps. I lost track of our direction in minutes, unable to tell if we were any closer or further away from the airport. He could have just driven us in a circle for all I knew.

It was almost 10:20 when we finally shuffled up to the check in table, manned by two University volunteers in smart sports coats and snappy ties. They were obviously students at the University hosting the competition and reveled in the fact that they were older and "wiser" than the young ruffians competing over the long weekend.

Their smug smiles greeted us. They showed Ms. Gonzales an infuriating mock deference, laced with patronizing glee, when she informed them of who our silent and frozen group was and was told we were too late to compete for points but could still be entered for feedback (a fact that Daniel registered with a shrug in my direction.) They hadn't been in college long enough for the teenage acne to clear from their foreheads, but they took delight in delivering the bad news to the kids shivering hopefully before them.

I was 18 now. Only for a few hours so far, but still. That made me a man. And as a man, I wanted nothing so much as to punch the two squarely in their self-satisfied jaws and show them what Southern justice could be. At least, I would have done so if my fingers hadn't been transformed into useless, numb sticks in my too-thin gloves and completely lost the ability to form into a fist or do anything much more than hang dead at my sides.

"The first round is already underway now," the guy on the left said matter-of-factly. "That should give you about 45 minutes to head to your hotel and check in before the next round starts. If you can get back by 11:30 we can enter your competitors into round two as feedback candidates?"

Ms. Gonzales said something under her breath in Spanish. Though she had given me a B+ on that paper, I understood her utterance to be a curse on the parents and eventual children of both of the young men behind the folding table.

Good on you, Ms. G!

I felt a twinge of guilt at having reveled in her sleepless night with the Dramatic Interpretation Chick. But only a twinge. I didn't get B+'s. Not ever.

"Pardon?" the second jack-ass asked after her muttering. "I didn't catch that? Something about shriveled eggs and soft sausages?"

Ms. Gonzales smiled sweetly at them.

"Round two will be just fine," she said in her most gentile southern lilt, peppered with Puerto Rican inflection.

The jack-asses nodded and noted it down on the papers before them and then called us each by name and handed us our schedules for the next two days, typed and filed neatly into blue folders.

The ride to the hotel was silent, each of us lost in our disappointment and beginning to practice our performances in our minds. We may not have had a chance to win anything, but we could and would do our best despite that fact.

The hotel was nicer than our accommodations the night before. Going to a swanky private school had its' advantages. Before we could begin to argue over room assignments, a very bedraggled Ms. Gonzales informed us that the rooms would remain the same as the night before. She brooked no discussion on the subject, except to book an extra room for herself. She had learned her lesson, apparently.

Daniel and I stumbled quietly to our room, key cards in hand, letting the warmth of the place finally thaw our limbs a bit. At least the beds were nicer, the bedspreads seemed to be woven of actual fibers found in nature, (shock of all shocks!) and the carpet was something resembling acceptable. Without a word, Daniel left his suitcase in the entry way and shuffled to the far bed, threw himself onto it and awkwardly grabbed the covers around him, forming himself into a cocoon of beige fabric.

"I've never been so cold in my entire life," he mumbled. I could hear his teeth chattering a bit as he said it.

"I hate Boston," I added, still standing frozen in the doorway.

"Get over here," he said miserably, using his head to indicate his general direction but not daring to remove the covers from around him. I put up no argument as I walked to the bed and sat blindly on the edge of it.

Daniel's arms, still wrapped in the comforter, engulfed me and pulled me backwards into his chest, my wet feet rising from the floor. I squeaked a bit, but I smiled at the contact. His embrace was warm and inviting.

"Daniel," I giggled. "Come on, we don't have time for this. We need to change and get back."

He nuzzled into me, playing the big spoon despite his smaller stature, his face pressed to the back of my neck, his breath sending shivers down my entire body, for once totally unrelated to the cold.

"I know, I know. Just one minute to warm up," he pleaded.

I nodded my acceptance and scooted closer to him, pressing my hips back into his, his arms squeezing me tighter to his broad chest. I could feel his crotch pressed into my ass and my body responded on its own accord, bucking into him. I was warming up rapidly and his growing erection pressing into my backside indicated that he was as well.

I don't know where I found the strength, but after a minute of deepened breathing and dry humping beneath our covers I said:

"Alright. Come on. We don't have time for this. Not now."

Daniel sighed mightily behind me but didn't protest when I disentangled myself from his grasp and stood. He threw back the covers and lay spread eagle in the open air, eyes on the ceiling.

"I guess you're right. But can't blame a guy for trying."

He rose from the bed and retrieved his suitcase, flinging it to the mattress like a shot putter. In a flash, he had it unzipped and picked out an outfit of grey dress pants, sky blue button-down and dapper tan waistcoat with a bronze silk tie to match. His winter coat and sweater soon made a pile on the floor beside him and I had to stop my own ensemble assemblage to stare at him.

Shirtless and in his tight blue jeans, he was perfection. His broad chest bulged and heaved, the movement of the individual muscles and ligaments hypnotizing me as he busied himself picking out a pair of shiny beige dress shoes and dark brown silk socks. He noticed my pause.

"Reconsidering, birthday boy?" he teased.

"What?" I asked, shaken from my trance. "Oh, yes. Yes, I am."

He chuckled at me and my gaze returned to my own outfit. I picked out my best black dress pants and black shirt. Instead of a traditional tie, I opted for a pocket square in blinding white cotton, with the top button of my shirt to be left open. I liked to buck the traditional trend.

Daniel's jeans hit the floor and once again he was naked before me. His uncut member was still as beautiful as it had been three hours ago when I drank him down like a man dying of thirst. His balls, remarkably, were still full to bursting and swung beneath him as he pulled on his grey pants.

"But we can't, remember?" he teased as he zipped them up and grabbed his button down. "Not now."

"I know, I know." My jeans joined his on the floor and I stood in his jock strap. I reached beneath the elastic with my leaden fingers and began to pull it down to replace it with more appropriate and fully covering undergarments.

"No," Daniel interjected, stopping me when the jock was just inches below my hips. "Keep it on."

"But," I protested.

"Keep it on." His gaze was hungry and his cock jumped in the front of his pants.

"I'm not going to be able to concentrate if I have this on all day."

"So? It's not like we're getting points."

One day, he would need to write a book on sexual logic. He was unparalleled, yet again. My resolve against him melted and I pulled on my black pants over his white jock.

I had to admit that the feel of the silky fabric on my bare ass cheeks was intoxicating. I had to concentrate on the task at hand to keep from getting fully aroused. Daniel and I dressed in the sexually tense silence until we both looked our best and brightest, for all that it would matter.

"Are you ready to head back out into that disaster?" he asked, a hint of trepidation at the prospect seeping in his tone.

"I am if you are."

I headed for the door and had my hand on the handle when his grip on my shoulder stopped me and spun me around, my vision blurring. My back thumped loudly against the wood of the door as he pushed hard into me, his free hand grabbing my cock in a vice grip through my pants, driving all thought and breath from my body. His lips pressed into mine with a vengeance and his tongue probed my mouth. For a few delirious moments I melted into his attack, letting his passion and power control me, body and soul.

"Good luck, nerd," He whispered into my ear, giving my cock a final squeeze before he opened the door and waited for me to follow him into the hall.

The second round of the competition passed me by in a blur. I'm not exactly sure what I said to rebut any of the points my drastically underprepared midwestern opponent half-heartedly lobbed in my direction, but it must have been adequate. I won the round.

Or at least, I would have won the round if I had been getting points. Since I wasn't, my opponent took the points and progressed to the next level. I could see the defeat in his face, though he still took the meager points he'd won and sheepishly left the room without congratulations or the common decency to shake my hand despite his loss.

Normally, I would have been irked at the fact that the better orator hadn't truly won, as sportsmanship would dictate, but my mind was elsewhere. Daniel still occupied my every thought, the finer points of Constitutional law and practice coming to mind simply by wrote muscle memory and intellectual reflex. I guess I should have been thankful that my opponents possessed blindingly inferior debate skills and I didn't really need to exert myself too much to come out victorious, for all.

The third round found me pitted against a sophomore girl from West Virginia, and the topic handed down was the embarrassingly easy, "should the first amendment apply to hate speech?" I could argue this in my sleep. As a gay guy in the South, I could fashion not only the logical and legal arguments, but appeal to the pathos of the matter with personal accounts of how hate speech had touched my own life, but how the right of the person saying it was something I would defend to the death. No one can beat a self-sacrificing suffering hero, well armed with anecdotes as well as facts and figures.

Just as I was finishing my opening statements and preparing to take short hand notes on my opponent's surely-weak points, my eyes scanned the nearly empty auditorium. Though the lights effectively barred me from seeing faces clearly, I instantly knew the silhouette that blocked the double doors at the back. Daniel stood in the rear of the theater, his dapper form clean and crisp against the afternoon sunlight streaming in behind him.

What the hell was he doing here?!

I felt my self control seeping from my bones and my knees wobbled beneath me. My fingers gripped my podium, silently giving thanks that a few hours inside had returned some strength to their former frigid uselessness. It was all I could do to stand there. Miss West Virginia droned on to my right and I heard approximately 5% of the words that escaped her mouth. My eyes stayed locked on Daniel as he made his way to an empty seat two rows behind the three judges who seemed as uninterested in her argument as I had recently found myself. In the light blinding gloom, I tried to look away from his face but I could feel his eyes on me, feel him smirking at my obvious discomfort and shakiness.

He was doing this on purpose. He KNEW the effect he had on me and he had decided to tease me. It spoke to my hormone level and general weakness for a well-muscled hyper-sexual jock that all it took was his mere presence in my line of sight to turn me into useless goo.

"Affirmative?" a voice called from the darkness.

I stared at Daniel, still stunned.

"Affirmative?" the voice repeated.

"Huh?" I asked, realizing that the voice was speaking to me.

"Your rebuttal?"

"Oh...um, sorry. I...um...yeah...Affirmative, that's me. Right? So...um."

Oh, for fuck's sake. My mind was a blank.

The next ten minutes where probably the most embarrassing of my young life to that point. Thankfully, I don't remember much of the drivel that spewed from my mouth. Only the vague sense of superiority and imminent victory that grew in Miss West Virginia as each point I attempted to make fell flat and she evicerated me like I was a small kitten to her rabid wolf. It was a bloodbath. At some point I gave up and just kept my answers to grunts and the occasional, "no comment, I concede the point." (What the hell was that?) Thankfully, after I conceded my defeat, the end came quickly with Miss West Virginia winning the round with ease.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and headed into the auditorium with my notecards in hand, holding my tattered pride and what was left of my personal dignity together with everything I had.

"Wow. That was...," Daniel said as he approached.

"Shut it," I snapped.

Daniel smiled at me and any real anger I had towards him evaporated like water on a hot skillet.

"That was a disaster. Are you sure you should even be at Nationals?"

He taunted me with that crooked smile, standing there in his perfect suit, looking like a super hero figurine.

"That was all your fault, you know?"

"Oh?" Daniel mocked. "And how do you figure that?"

"You distracted me!" I shouted in a harsh whisper.

"I didn't do anything but come to lend you some friendly support, nerd."

"Bullshit! How would you like it if I came and watched your Original Oratory round? Hmm?"

The idea of returning his sneaky little trick back to him began to take shape in my mind. I made a note to check his schedule.

"Feel free. Cause, see, I'm prepared for my rounds. Unlike some of us..." He winked at me.

I threw up my hands and collected my bag and coat from the back of the chair I had thrown them on before the round began and punched him in the arm. I could have been a gnat on an elephant for all the apparent effect it had on him. He just laughed at me, amused.

"You're an asshole." I said with every scrap of sass I could muster, which was admittedly very little.

"You're cute when you're pissed."

My already fractured brain broke into a million pieces. Why was he toying with me? What the hell was his game here?

Even the most logical of minds, the most intelligent of men, when faced with the unknowable and unforeseen that the universe throws into your path, must abandon their control and concede mastery of themselves to their baser human instincts. Daniel's voice complimenting me reduced me to a ball of contradicting emotions, my logical mind pushed to a mere nagging muffled voice in the back of my head.

"Thanks," I whispered and turn to look at him. Our eyes met for a bit. His expression was unreadable. Pleasant and open, but a mystery to me. What lay behind those soft brown pools? What thoughts raced in his mind? How was he so sure and calm when I was like a rowboat tossed about in a monsoon with no land in sight?

Damn it, why was he so beautiful?

"When's your next round?" he asked, as if nothing had happened.

"4:30," I said. "It's my last one for the day, though at this point I'm wondering what the point would be to even show up after that debauchery you just witnessed."

Daniel chuckled again.

"Good luck, nerd. You'll do fine. I have a few errands to run, but I'll see you back in the room at 6:00?"

He gathered his belongings and looked towards the end of the row, which I was blocking.

"Yeah, I'll see you at 6:00."

I turned my body sideways to give him room to scoot by me. He took the opportunity to brush the back of his hand against my crotch, making me gasp and jump.

Without looking back, so sure of his effect on me, he called to the open room: "Happy Birthday, nerd. See you at 6:00," and exited the auditorium.

The final round for the day ended in my pointless victory and the points that should have been mine going instead to an overly animated guy from Georgia. I forgot all of my breeding and rushed from the theater without shaking his hand, (though it would have been difficult to do so, given his fists pumping in the air over his hollow win). I threw on my coat and didn't even notice the crippling cold as I walked quickly back towards the hotel.

I busied myself for a while by pacing the empty room, back and forth, turning on the TV to a mundane talking-heads media broadcast as I attempted to make sense of what had become of my life.

I was nervous. Not the kind of nerves one gets before a big test or while waiting for a college acceptance letter. But the kind that shook the pillars on which I had built my life. This was different. I was so sure of myself only a few hours ago. I was smart and well-mannered and I had found a rhythm that suited me well enough. My budding sexuality was something with which I didn't wrestle, but also paid little attention. The few boys I had dated since realizing I was gay had been like minor distractions, things that I needed to do to move on to the next step. The majority of them (meaning two of the three) had been relationships of convenience and proximity. When you are the only other gay person in a small group for one extracurricular or another, it seemed only logical that you should "date," irrespective of actual attraction or romantic feeling. I had blindly wandered into those "relationships" with no real commitment or sense of emotion until the unequal nature of them had become so apparent that neither of us saw any reason to continue. I had made out with and had sex with them as if it was something written on my to-do list.