The Big Dumb Jock Who Wasn't

The island itself was full of trees and brush, with a worn path through the middle. Its shores transitioned gradually into boggy areas. As I walked along the path, my heart beat faster and faster, and my breathing hitched. This was it, where it would happen, The Talk. I was glad we hadn't spent any of the precious time we had together having The Talk. What's life if you can't live it?

My heart stopped and I took a huge breath in. Mark stood there, looking out at the lake, at the edge of the shore just where it started to get muddy. He turned around.

"Oh, you're here."

"Yeah, you were first," I countered.

"Well I wanted to make sure there was no one else here, and didn't want anyone to see us both cross the bridge, so I came early, whatever, I duno."

"Where's uh, 'some friends?'"

"Dude, I don't know how safe this email thing is and didn't want anyone who saw it to think anything weird."

"Yeah. So, uh..." I looked at the ground.

"Yeah. Dude, I been thinking all week of what to say to you, where to even start. This is crazy and I can't believe it's even real. But we gotta deal with it."

"You make it sound like a problem."

"No, I don't mean it that way...but... have you been able to be yourself? Can you think of anything else?"

"No. Just you." I was breathing hard.

He walked closer, lowered his voice. "Yeah, well same with me. I sleep with my face to the wall because I can't look at you, because it sucks not to have my arm around you. Maybe you're braver than me because when I do look, I see you staring at me all night. I don't know how you can."

My eyes welled. A sob percolated out and I reached for him. He took my hand and put it at my side gently.

"Shhh. I know Tommy. I know. It's hard. But..." his chin wrinkled a bit. "...I duno. I picture myself with a wife and kids, and all that. And I dig chicks! But what we did was awesome."

I had to sit down. He followed suit, getting a bit closer, almost knee-to-knee. "You never told me exactly if you had feelings for guys before," I said. "I told you a bunch of stuff about me but you never told me about you."

He thought for a minute. "Yeah, I've had feelings here and there, mostly ignored them. Getting picked on in high school, and now being around the dorm guys - not really conducive to thinking about liking dudes. Though there's plenty to look at!"

My mind swam the butterfly, repeatedly plunging my face into wetness. "I want to be with you."

"I know dude, but..." he shrugged, "you gotta be realistic. Look, it would be hard to sneak around, and it would be risky, and if it got out, do you think everyone would be nice about it? Do you want to get "faggots" written on our message board?"

"No, but..."

"And...look. My parents had problems with their marriage, and they went through a lot of counseling. They probably told us a lot more about it than they should have. But they talked to me and my sister a ton about dating and relationships, and how they take work to do them right. Do you think sneaking around and hiding a relationship from everyone is a 'healthy dating environment?' - that was one of their big phrases, a healthy dating environment with two-way communication with openness and-"

"Communication and openness, you mean like we're doing now?" I challenged.

"Yeah but man... do you think it'll be good when it's squeezed to death by lying to everyone around us?"

We took a break, just sitting in silence for a few seconds. I stared at the ground. A fair-skinned crooked finger appeared under my chin, gentle pressure not to be resisted, moving my head up to look at him.

"Tommy, before last weekend, did you like me? I mean, were you even attracted to me? Did you want to spend more time with me than with your friends?"

"I thought you had beautiful feet once." I blushed.

"And what do you think now?"

"That you're the most beautiful boy I've ever seen in my life, and I love you."

"Tommy...." I wanted him to come hold me, but he didn't. "You thought I was a big dumb jock asshole. You were probably scared of me, just like I used to be of dudes like that when I was in high school. And I didn't give you many reasons to think otherwise. Buddy, I'm still that same guy you knew a week ago, who has a different sense of humor than you, and who likes way different shit. We messed around and that was effin awesome, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't mean we're like, compatible on other levels now. You wouldn't have wanted to come sit on this island with me if last weekend never happened."

He was right, and my mind was slowly wrapping around the astonishing wisdom coming from my big dumb jock roommate. But he was wrong about one thing.

"We didn't just "mess around" dude. There was chemistry there, and I know you felt it. How do you know we couldn't grow to love each other?"

He waited for a while before responding. "I don't know, Tommy. But I... I'm pretty sure it's not the right time to find out. I don't want to date even casually right now, not even girls. It's a lot of work, and school's hard, and I like just... hanging out and taking it easy. With the dudes."

"I'm a dude." I laughed, which caused a snot ball to come out of my nose. Mark pretended to be disgusted, and laughed too.

"Look, Tom, yer fuckin nineteen. You're also cute as shit." My eyes widened. This was the first time he verbally communicated being attracted to me. "And you're eventually going to have a hundred hookups and boyfriends and all that shit. When it's the right time and place. And in that hundred there's gonna be guys I could never be, way better than me, and one of those is probably gonna be The One for you. But you gotta meet them to know. And you haven't even met them yet. Being truly in love takes time."

"More advice from the parents?" I asked.

"Yuup. But doesn't it make sense?"

"Sure," I rolled my eyes, "so I just wait till I'm 80 and then I'm all, yeah you Mr. Number 76, you were the right one. If you're not dead yet, let's be together!"

We laughed at my hyperbole. Then Mark said the words I would never forget for the rest of my life.

"The truth is in the middle, Tom. It's always in the middle."

We stopped talking and listened to the wind in the trees, and the birds. The tiny lake waves made rustling noises against the muddy shore.

"So..." I was ready to bargain, "will you just kiss me once a week? Can we mess around the next time Rick's gone?"

He chuckled. "I think all that is gonna fuck with your head, more than make you feel better. I don't think I can promise you anything, because I actually do believe in promises, and I don't make them if I don't think I can keep them."

It was more than fair. And it was more honest than some of those yet-to-come guys would be with me.

"And it's gonna fuck with my head too," he continued. "It's just so much, and I wanna go back to how we treated each other before last weekend, to give me space to figure myself out a little more. So I'm asking this for me, and not because I don't have feelings for you. But please don't write me love notes, and don't send me flowers, and don't-"

"Don't call meee DAUGHter!" I slurred loudly, smiling.

He leapt forward, laughing, and tackled me to the ground, wuffling my hair, with his hand cradling the back of my head. He looked up, looked around and listened for a second, and then leaned down and kissed me like that last night we were together. Shockingly forceful at first, almost biting my lip, then softer, slowly releasing, moving away until our lips were no longer touching, but we could still breathe each others' breath. I opened my eyes and his were smiling at me, ice-blue, exactly like the sunny sky.

"Statistically I'm not "in love" with you, then," I said softly, touching his chest, "but I love you, Mark."

"Show me that by giving me the space I need," he said gently.

I nodded, and tried to get up. A hand on my shoulder, that pressure again, keeping me where I was. "I love you too, Tom."

- - - - - - -

It was Junior year, closing in on finals. I was gearing up for my last year, picking courses for next semester, trying not to think about thinking about applications to graduate school, and what I was going to do with my life.

I'd found a few others who were gay, and one friend introduced me to even more of us in the community at school. There weren't big clubs and sanctioned events back then, but we made it work, and I started to figure out who and where I was in the gay cosmos. I found friends to talk to about the feelings I had. I had some casual fun here and there with guys I had met, even a couple in my dorm - but really never anything that made me feel like the times I had been with Mark. Would anything though? I had my doubts.

Most undergrads lived in the dorms for all four years, but there were those who moved off-campus for a variety of reasons. It always seemed like a bad idea to me. I found out Mark and a few others I knew were going to rent a house for senior year, and I was sad to think that I wouldn't see some of them as often. It was also a reminder to me that all of this would come to an end eventually, and this imperfect community of guys I had truly grown to love would move on into the wider world.

Mark and I didn't ever hang out; after our Freshman year, we didn't live on the same floor and didn't have classes in common, and that made things easier. Days were impossible, weeks got better. Over the ensuing months, my breath caught less and my heart stopped jumping when I saw him. But I always knew where his room was, and that he had become a non-partying workaholic with two majors. He hadn't dated anyone, to anyone's knowledge. And he stayed ripped and gorgeous, the fucker.

- - - - - - -

One Saturday night I was studying in the library on my usual floor, bored, and wandering the stacks. I was starting to realize I was going to have to miss this place eventually, even the library where I had worked so hard, and sometimes dreaded going. As I looked down the rows of titles, a familiar book stood out and made me smile. I took it off the shelf and held it, and it brought back intense memories of many nights dreaming, wondering, hoping. I suddenly smiled bigger, went back to my carrel, packed up my studies, and rode the elevator down to the check-out desk. The night was clear and star-lit, with warm breezes that accompanied me back to the dorm, like encouraging hands on my shoulders that I imagined saying, "Go on, you can do it." I pulled my backpack tighter across my shoulder and quickened my pace.

Back at my room, I thumbed through the directory, found the four-digit extension I was looking for, and dialed. It picked up on the first ring.

"Yo."

"Hey. It's Tom."

"Hind-lick! What's up?"

"Uh, nothin. I just found something that I think belongs to you, was gonna bring it by. You busy?"

"Just another paper due frickin Monday."

"Ok. See ya in a sec." Click.

I went up a floor, down a section to the single room in a corner where he lived. Even though all of us typically just barged into each others' rooms, I knocked.

"Yeah."

Deep breath. I opened the door, walked in, and locked it behind me with the turn-bolt as it closed, in a smooth motion, so it wasn't obvious. He didn't look up, kept typing on his computer. I stood there, staring at him, reaching into my bag for the book. He stopped typing, looked up, eyes meeting mine. A slight smile broke the corners of my lips. His too.

I tossed the book onto the desk at him. "Attic Vases: A Study of Greek Imagery." He looked at it and laughed, shaking his head like he always did when I amused him. "Fuckin Hind-lick."

I looked down, then back up at him, scratching the back of my head. "I've had enough space, how 'bout you?"

He sat and stared at nothing for a minute. Then he opened his desk drawer and reached into the back, pulling out a piece of paper. It looked like a heart folded in half. He handed it to me, and I opened it. It was red on the inside, with a smiley face sticking out its tongue. I bit my lip, looked up at him, my vision becoming a little blurry and wet. Ice-blue eyes were smiling at me.

Mark looked back at his screen, moused the cursor up to click "Save." Then he turned off the computer, and the desk light - the same old sounds of my roommate going to bed. A strong hand took mine in the dark.

Oh yeahhh, can you see them?

Out on the porch

Yeah but they don't wave...

Dear Readers -

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this story.

Before I started writing, I found some stories on Literotica that made me feel such deep emotion, and real attraction to the characters, even identifying with situations they were in... and I truly admired the writers who could conjure those feelings (I've already contacted most of you personally!) What I really hoped for was to write my own stories to give that experience back to those who had inspired it in me, and to other non-writers, who might read mine. If just one person who reads my stories feels genuine emotion and is also inspired to write, then I will consider that a success.

Another reason to write - I never imagined that I would feel actual attraction or love for a character I was writing, or tremble in anticipation of what will happen next - but I did. And that was and still is surreal. Write and create your own characters and worlds. They will be glad you created them.