Wolf Like Me v5 - 3. Social Functions of Non-reproductive Intercourse in Hominid Species

Part One--GSA, Yaoi, Chimps Fucking, and Other Things That Don’t Interest Straight Guys

After all that complaining I did about being mindlessly bored, by late summer, I suddenly found myself with a lot to keep me busy.

Football conditioning and practice took up the better part of my morning and afternoon. I was still kicking it with the GSA (which, by the way, was a really strange name since practically no straight people showed up). I went out with Preston every other week for Latin Night and got invited to more of the team’s get-togethers, owing in no small part to my and Garza’s performance. I should probably thank him for helping me fit in better.

At Romero’s recommendation, I started taking an anthropology course called Human Sexuality and Culture. He said it was like that class in the movie Kinsey. I said, “Cool,” then looked it up on Netflix the moment he was out of the room so I would know what the fuck he was talking about. There ended up being some BAM! GAY SEX! in the movie, so I figured that it was my kind of class.

Mind you, it was now a full week into the mini-mester and the class had yet to deliver on this promise. Hot as fuck TA with piercings, yes. Anal wreckage, no.

The doctoral student leading the course was knowledgeable and engaging, but my attention kept getting diverted back to his assisstant--tall as hell, slim runner’s build, strong nose, chocolate brown eyes, long shaggy hair dyed a brilliant blue, and enough metal in his face and ears to make magnets a dangerous prospect. Although, it didn’t help matters when they switched roles. Cockthirsty Cory was fucked either way.

I was currently a little peeved with Romero, and him trying to bum a ride off me wasn’t improving my feelings towards him.

"I'm not driving your ass out in the middle of nowhere because you have a pizza craving," I said.

"But it's Satchel's," he said. “Their pizza is the best ever, and they have a fuckton of beers on tap.”

“Neither of us is old enough to order beer.”

“Come on, Cory. I need some Satchel’s.”

"Get Al to do it."

He bounded out of bed to lean out our door and shouted over the sound of our roommate strumming his acoustic guitar, "Hey, Al! Make Cory take me to Satchel's!"

The music stopped. “What’s this about Satchel's?” he called out from his room.

As I followed Romero into the common room to set them both straight, the front door opened and Gio walked in. “I heard something about Satchel's,” he said.

“Romero said Cory’s driving,” Al said.

Gio looked at his cellphone. “It’s still early. If we leave now, we should be early enough to get a deep dish!”

Romero shot me a triumphant look.

Goddammit, Mackey, I will make you suffer.

We got all of two minutes off campus before Al was like, “Wait, do y’all have cash?”

Turns out, Satchel’s only took cash, and nobody trusted Romero to pay them back. Since nobody carries cash these days, this meant driving even more out of the way to hit up multiple ATMs because bank fees.

As he was the architect of my misery, I resolved to make Romero suffer the whole ride with my music.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I listen to a lot of stuff--pop, country, rap, Tejano, you name it. I even had a bunch of music I ripped off my brothers’ CDs back when people still bought CDs. However, I passed all of this up for a playlist of my most offensively raunchy music, things I would never play if my mom was around to hear.

On the way to Al’s bank I treated them to Colt 45 by Afroman. Bitches by Mindless Self Indulgence and Go Cart Racing (Accidentally Masturbating) by Garfunkle and Oates provided the soundtrack for the jaunt over to Gio and Romero’s bank. And whilst in the longass drive-thru ATM line, we listened to both of The Bloodhound Gang’s songs about oral sex--Kiss Me Where it Smells Funny and Yummy Down On This--and I threw in Sex Slave by deadmau5 for the comically autotuned orgasm screams.

I had enough relatively normal songs in between, including some Christian Contemporary (What? I liked the rhythms and if you weren’t paying attention too closely it sounded more like an erotic love song), that I could act like I was completely innocent. What, offensive? I have no idea what you’re talking about. See? There’s some Flyleaf (right after There’s No Cock Like Horse Cock).

Sadly, not only were they not offended, they were doubled over laughing and asking me to play another. I forwarded to Do You Take It? by The Wet Spots. They looked a little perplexed at first, but started rolling soon enough. To this day, I still don’t know if they ever realized the song was as much about getting pegged as it was about poking girls in the bum.

Al was the first one to talk.

“Fuck, Tex.” I’d learned that if Preston hadn’t given them a more recent name to call me, they reverted that stupid fucking nickname. However, it was still better than them calling me “Bearbait” (even though they’d yet to figure out what it really meant). “Where did you find all this shit?”

“Around,” I said. “I got a lot from my brothers. They thought it was funny when I freaked out Mom by repeating what I’d heard.”

“Didn’t you get in trouble?” Romero asked.

“Naw, they did,” I replied. “Connor Frederick Card Junior! Why is your baby brother fucking singing about putting goddamn chocolate sweaty balls in his goddamn mouth?”

Gio snorted.

“For some reason,” Al said, “I expected a playlist of nothing but musicals and Cher.”

“Because?” I did actually have some non-Avenue Q musicals and old Sonny and Cher era songs.

“Because you’re gay,” said Gio, as if the answer was that obvious.

“Dude, he swings both ways,” Al corrected.

“Yeah, motherfucker fucks more girls than Gio--”

“Gio doesn’t fuck any girls,” Al said.

“I do fuck girls!”

“No, you creepstalk my bassist,” Al said.

“--And then he turns around and fucks a bunch of dudes. The man gets laid more than all of us combined!”

The way Romero talked, it was like he was proud that while the guy sharing his dorm room did suck cock, he was still a lady killer. Although he was seriously overstating my pimp game, I was getting the verbal equivalent of a slow clap. And the way they all talked, it was more genuine than malicious.

“How’d you guys...?”

“Figure it out?” Al said.

“Most gay men can’t clock me.” Total lady killer, totally dead to men.

“GSA pamphlet on your desk,” Gio answered.

“Yeah, no straight guy goes to GSA,” added Romero.

“It was on your Facebook profile, dude,” Al said.

“Oh, yeah.” I’d left it up to see if anyone back home would pick up on it. Not even the people who knew I also liked guys had noticed the edit.

“Then there was the time you left your tablet out,” Romero said. “You were reading some comic. Caw-ee something or other.”

“Kawaii Akuma? It’s something some girls back home got me into.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. It was pretty funny actually.”

“Fu-Fuuta, it’s bad to force people!” Al mimicked.

“Wait, you read it?”

My brain has turned inside out.

“I just pretended that Akiyoshi and Hisashi were chicks,” Gio said.

And my brain has just imploded.

“The middle brother is a fucking trip.” I was sure the three of them wouldn’t be as amused by the Tiger and Bunny doujinshi that I’d been reading lately. There was no way you could pretend Tiger was female (Bunny x Tiger is my OTP!).

“So, I go for guys and y’all are okay with this?” I asked to be sure.

“Remember that optional questionnaire you did with the housing application?” Al said and I nodded. “You probably checked the little box that said ‘Bisexual,’ correct?”

“Yeah…”

Al turned down the music. “Housing figured out years ago that they get fewer requests to change room assignments if they screened applicants first.”

“There’s a little box next to the one for ‘Straight’ that says ‘Not a Raging Homophobe.’ We checked both,” said Gio.

“The lady at the housing office said something about that,” I replied. “But you never really know sometimes. I mean, there’s the whole ‘I’m okay with fags as long as the don’t hit on me’ thing that I hear from straight guys. And knowing that a guy you know isn’t straight is different from knowing that a guy you live with isn’t straight.”

“Fair enough,” Romero said.

By this point, we had arrived at our destination, which looked like it had been a scrap yard or auto mechanic’s garage in a past life. The building had been renovated, keeping the bones of the building but adding eclectic touches like artwork on the wall and ceiling, and stained-glass in the building’s industrial window panes. A brightly-painted classic Volkswagen van sat next to a few wrought iron dining sets in front of the restaurant. I peeked inside and found that it had been gutted and furnished with a dining booth and appropriate lighting. A group of early twenty-somethings were seated there, chatting over brews and pizza.

The place was packed, but they just happened to have a table they were cleaning off.

“So, how ‘out’ are you?” Gio asked once we were seated and had given our drink orders. “Like, should we be careful about saying stuff?”

“I’m not, like, announcing it to the world, but I’m not really hiding it in Virginia,” I said.

“What about in Texas?” Al asked.

“Nobody except my closeted ex-boyfriend and one or two very close friends,” I said. “All the other guys I fooled around with probably thought I was just experimenting, or that it was ‘bros helpin’ out bros’.”

“Family?” Gio asked.

“Nope.”

“Not even your brothers?” Al asked. “You have all those pictures of them, so I figured you’re close.”

“We are close,” I said, “but they don’t know. Which sucks because they think the only reason I came out here was to get away from the ‘Card Football Dynasty’ bullshit that kinda built up around us, and that it’s all their fault because ‘you can’t be yourself here’.”

The server brought our drinks over and took our order. Two deep-dish pies, each half with our respective toppings because none of us could agree on which were the best. Al would eat pretty much anything, but Gio was picky as hell. I was a traditionalist, but Romero, of course, would be the type of person who ordered pineapple on pizza.

Romero took a sip of his coke. “What’s this ‘Dynasty bullshit’?”

I sighed. “They sometimes make a big deal about my brothers in Texas. All three of them were playing for the two major college teams, and were really good at it, too.”

“No shit,” Romero said.

“Then they saw me,” I grumbled, “and I got dragged into it.”

“So, you’re famous in Texas?” Gio said.

“Not really. Just a bunch of people speculating on recruiter gossip.” I shrugged. “It’s bound to happen when you have a whole family of boys going into one sport.”

“What about your dad? Has to be something in the genes.”

“There has to be,” I said. “But, here’s the annoying thing, there’s been whole online discussions about how my dad never made it past high school varsity, and was barely third-string material, while my mom’s brother Johnny was a big deal on the Naval Academy team. So, basically, my brothers and I just look like Cards, but are built and play like Fredericks.”

“Low blow for your old man,” Romero said.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, then laughed. “The only reason I know about most of that is because Dad spent a whole night a couple years ago yelling at Mom about slander and illegitimate children.”

“Damn,” Gio said.

I grunted.

“No wonder you got the fuck out of there,” Al said.

“It had its moments, but it wasn’t all that bad.”

The arrival of our pizzas interrupted the slightly morose mood around the table (or, at least, three quarters of it).

“Now,” Romero said while dishing up a slice of his pizza abomination. “Explain the beaver thing.”

~*~*~*~

The first thing I noticed when I got up to the study room was Card’s blue low-top Chucks. He was not the only guy on the team that wore the brand, but somehow I knew the ones sitting on the floor were his. I’d seen him wearing at least five different versions, but I could instantly recognize the ones that belonged to him.

They were usually the ones that did not have feet in them.

What is with this kid and not being able to keep his shoes on?

He sat Indian-style in one of the arm chairs (I know it’s not politically correct, but fuck you if you think I’m going to call it what they made me call it in kindergarten). His textbook and notebook were balanced on either knee as he carefully jotted down notes and highlighted in both books. He got this look on his face, like he suddenly had an idea, put the highlighter between his teeth and started looking up something on his phone.

I noticed then why his face looked different today. Since when has he worn glasses? The narrow black frames looked good on his face, adding a touch of seriousness I wasn’t used to seeing in him.

It seemed that he found what he was looking for, made note of it, and went back to his textbook. The highlighter was still in his mouth. He didn’t even look up when I flopped down in the armchair next to his.

“What are you so engrossed in?”

“Social functions of non-reproductive intercourse in hominid species.” He at least spat out the highlighter before attempting that mouthful.

“Seriously?”

“Most of it tends to be about bonobos and chimpanzees,” he said absently. “And humans of course. But, I’ve been finding some interesting stuff on other primates.”

“You’re shitting me.” He handed me his notebook, which was full of idle drawings with research notes scattered throughout.

Yeah, it was all about chimps fucking.

“Fuck, you’re one of those brainy types? My roommate would fucking love you, Card.”

He looked up from his notes and grinned.

“Dude, call me Cory,” he said. “Efrain, right?”

The way he said it--ef-RYE-een. It was the first time anyone had gotten my name right on the first try. The guys had known me for a year now, and none of them could say it. He even rolled the r.

“I should thank you,” he said earnestly.

“For what?”

“Inviting me to go clubbing with y’all. You didn’t have to, but you really helped me fit in.”

God, that. I only invited him because our crew needed another driver that we knew wouldn’t drink. Then, I started acting like an asshole, and now there was video of me dancing for my teammates to razz me about.

“You were getting along with Teague, so you’d have joined our group eventually,” I said. “Basically how I ended up hanging out with them.”

“So, he collects freshmen?” he asked.

I chuckled. “I wouldn’t be surprised.” I jutted my chin at the books in his lap. “So, the fucking chimps--that something you’re pursuing here?”

“Nah, I got bored and took a random class.”

“Sounds a little involved for a random class.”

“I’m learning some cool shit, though,” he said.

“Because watching monkeys fuck is cool.”

Cory barked a short laugh. “Fuck off.”

I smirked. “I’m jus’ sayin’.”

“It’s not like I’m going to major in this,” he said. “Besides, it’s apes.”

“My bad,” I said, holding up my hands. “So, if not apes porking apes, what are you majoring in?”

He dragged a hand over his face. “The football staff have been all over our asses about that, but I sure as hell don’t want to do any of the bullshit majors they suggested.”

“I know what you mean.”

“My brothers all went for that--Sports Medicine, Sports Nutrition, Sports Journalism,” he said. “If I did that, I’d be stuck in sports forever.”

“Could be worse, my brother got a marketing degree,” I said. “And guess where that left him.”

“Marketing?”

“Ha! He’s stuck in an office job that has absolutely nothing to do with marketing,” I said. “He bitches about it all the damn time, but is too attached to making money to quit.”

Cory shrugged. “Sounds more interesting than arguing with a bunch of entitled brats on athletic scholarships about what they’re allowed to eat for the rest of your life.”

“Fair enough.”

“What about you?” he said. “Have you decided on a major?”

“Aerospace engineering.”

“And you said I was the brainy type.”

“Eh, just following in my old man’s footsteps,” I said. “I want to design airplanes and shuttles and all that crap. I thought the Navy would be the best bet, but Dad threatened to disown me if I enlisted.”

“Still pretty damn cool,” Cory said. “Most guys our age don’t have their heads on that straight, so I’m still impressed.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond, but he looked at his watch and I was spared.

“Shit.” He shoved his feet back into his shoes and stuck his books back into his pack. “I have to get to my class.”

“The ape fucking class?”

“You got it in one,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was this late.”

“Primate mating habits are pretty distracting.”

“They are, aren’t they? See you tomorrow, Efrain.”

“Yeah, see you, Cory.”

He grinned when I said his name before heading off to his class. Guys his size weren’t supposed to be cute, but the glasses and his smile were a dangerous combination. And there was something about a man saying my name correctly that got me thinking about what it would sound like mid-orgasm.

Head thrown back, hands fisted in the sheets, back arched, thighs gripping my waist...

It took me a while to realize that I was slowly losing my head over a straight guy.

~*~*~*~

Part Two - Along Comes Indie

I studied my two best friends, Mike Tran and Laurel Sage, from where they had me crammed in the backseat. The fact that they had my six-foot-six self shoved in the back of a two-door car (when they definitely had a vehicle big enough that I didn’t have to sit with my knees tucked under my chin) with both doors locked was sketchy enough without taking into account the scant details about our destination.

A little voice in my head kept repeating, No, Indie, you are not being paranoid.

“So, why is it that I haven’t heard of this documentary?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s a student project,” Mike answered from the driver’s seat. Since he was shortest, it was slightly (and I mean very slightly) roomier behind him, and thus I was limited to using the rearview mirror to tell if he was lying.

“Yeah,” Laurel said. “College of journalism.”

I was able to see her face, tall-ass Polish Hoyden-Goddess, but my observations were inconclusive. Maybe she’s finally managed to make a poker face. Only took her a fucking decade.

“You dragged my ass out here to ‘screen’ a Goddamn class project?”

“No, Indie,” Laurel said, exasperation lacing her tone, which made me more suspicious. Exasperation was one of her tells, especially when one started testing the limits of her bullshit. “A senior seminar project. Meggie and Lacey heard about it from one of their sorority sisters.”

“It’ll be great. I promise,” Mike added.

“You said the same thing about being your TA,” I replied.

“How could a documentary on pornography censorship policies in China not be awesome?”

“There are undergrads involved,” I said. “Given what I’ve learned while doing your little ‘Kinsey’ class, undergrads are the antithesis of awesome.”

“Oh, Indie,” Laurel sighed.

“And why are we bringing boxed wine and PBR?” I asked. I hope they don’t expect me to drink that swill.

“It’s a house party,” Mike said.

“What?”

“What Mike means is that one of the journalism students, Kiley, is hosting it at her house,” Laurel said as we turned down a residential road.

“No, what Mike means is that it’s a fucking house party,” I said, pointing to the lines of cars leading up to a packed driveway. Some couple of indeterminate composition was leaning against one of the cars sloppily kissing and groping at each other, while a crowd of college kids with clove cigarettes and those ubiquitous red drinking cups loitered on the front porch. “Why the hell are we at a house party?”

“Uhm, well, we thought…” Mike stammered.

“We thought socializing with someone other than us might be good for you.”

“I do socialize!”

Laurel sighed. “Hanging out with your roommate doesn’t count, especially when you don’t actually hang out with him that much.”

“And neither does grouching at students during conference hours,” Mike said. “They all come to me now, which defeats the purpose of having a TA.”

“It’s been well over a year, hun,” Laurel said.

Ah, and now we get the truth.

Laurel and Mike had been on my ass for most of the time since Jameson had dumped me. It was getting fucking old.

“Maybe you just need to get your dick wet,” Mike said, which sounded seriously odd coming out of a comparatively shorter Vietnamese-American doctoral student.

Laurel nodded. “Sometimes the easiest way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”

“How do you know I haven’t--”

The look they both shot me effectively shut me up. I slouched back in my seat.

“Tell me again why I have to go to this party?”

“Because you’ll sit at home and be fucking lame if you don’t,” she said.

“And watching a bunch of underage kids get drunk and make out is supposed to be better.”

“Yes,” Mike said flatly. “Yes, it is.”

“There could be students here,” I protested.

“College parties tend to have those,” Laurel said.

“It’ll be fine,” Mike said.

I was almost twenty-three in a town where you were too old at twenty-one. And I had better things to worry about, including actual academic research on pornography and censorship. Yeah, it was shitty that Jameson left me for some girl he had knocked up, but it left me with more time to devote to my Master’s thesis.

Time that I really did not want to waste on pursuing random dick at some damn house party.

“Honey, petulance isn’t a good look for toddlers. It hardly looks any better on a grown ass man.”

I resisted telling her that I was not being petulant, mostly because I knew it would sound petulant.

“Just give it a little bit,” Laurel said. “It can’t hurt to try.”

“Don’t be so sure about that.”

“Please, Indie,” she said.

I grunted. “Fine.”

And only then were the doors unlocked and I was permitted to unfold myself out of the backseat. Mike and I, carrying the alcohol, trailed Laurel into the house. Someone directed us to the kitchen where we could drop off our shitty booze haul with the rest of the shitty booze.

Kegs of Bud? Check. Stoli? Check. Costco rum? Check. Everclear? Check.

Mike and Laurel nabbed cups of beer and wine, then traipsed off hand-in-hand, leaving me alone in the kitchen. Deciding I could at least make this ordeal more tolerable through alcohol, I found the least objectionable liquors and mixers and made myself a drink. Turning to face the living room, I leaned against the door frame while I tried to find the least populated spot to eventually occupy.

The party delivered on what I assumed it would--drunk college kids publicly dry-humping each other while trying not to vomit. Straight girls performing for male gaze by pretending to be bisexual was a common enough trope at hetero parties. It was interesting, in a strictly academic sense, that gay people pretended to be straight while under the influence.

Case in point, two women and two guys were huddled up in a corner of the living room, sloppily sticking their tongues in each other’s mouths. I didn’t recognize the first pair, a twinkish guy with short brown hair and a pretty Hispanic girl. I did know the second, a junior that everyone called lez-Delia with this kid Cory that I recognized from one of the classes Mike and I taught.

Barely legal and barely a freshman (and a “student” athlete to boot), but he came to class consistently, sat in the front row, and earnestly took notes. At least, I thought he was taking notes until I saw pages and pages of doodles with some words mixed in.

Yet, he still aced every test and his essays were interesting and thoughtful. Which was more than I could say for the rest of the students in that section, who were at least a year older than him.

The drunken farce continued for a bit before they separated.

“Completely unarousing.” This was from the twink.

Lez-Delia wiped her face. “Yeah, I felt nothing.”

“That’s weird,” said Cory. “I got nothing from that either.”

And the Spanish girl (who I later learned was named Marina) agreed that she was similarly unaffected.

And so they traded. Twink with lez-Delia and Cory with Marina. They made out as if they really were trying to accomplish something. Then, they separated and compared notes.

“Still nothing,” lez-Delia told them. “No offense, Preston.”

“None taken,” he answered. “It’s not that you ladies are bad or anything.”

“What about you guys?”

Marina’s cheeks were a little flushed and Cory flashed a grin. Lez-Delia grabbed the front of his pants and he jumped.

“BeavReaver has a chub!” She cackled, then patted him again. “Man, you’re packing.”

“Could you not do that?”

“Why? You let bi-Delia.”

The next round paired Preston with Cory and lez-Delia with Marina. Lez-Delia attacked her partner, body pressed against her, hands exploring her backside. The girl looked absolutely helpless in the onslaught. It was pretty obvious that Marina got more out of this than kissing either guy.

Cory and Preston seemed to have done this before. Cory held him by the back of the neck and nipped his lower lip. Both mouths parted, tongues extending to fold against each other, and their bodies flowed into each other. Preston didn’t lift his arms to touch Cory (by contrast, Marina and lez-Delia were all over each other by this point), and only Cory’s hand on his neck held them together. Yet, their bodies were so glued to each other that it didn’t matter.

Of all three of the experiments I’d observed, this one lasted the longest and all four seemed to forget where they were. Then someone in the living room yelled at them to get a room and they separated and started laughing. The outcome of that trial was pretty obvious. There were a few good-natured jokes, including some more about Cory’s hard-on, before the guys moved on to other diversions.

And as soon as they thought no one was paying attention, the girls slipped off by themselves.

I was so distracted by the women that I didn’t notice the person trying to get by me until a body brushed against mine. I looked down as Cory looked up, the both of us slightly pressed together by the door frame. He was big enough, and the frame narrow enough, that I could tell he was still partially erect.

“Hi, Indie.”

“Hello, Cory.”

“What brings you here?”

“Well-meaning friends. You?”

“Like-minded people and alcohol.” He looked at my hand. “Oh, what are you drinking?”

“Uh--”

“Lemme try.”

And he took my drink from me and gulped half of it down.

I was too dumbfounded to respond.

“Oh, that’s good.” He licked his lips. “What’s in it? Could you make me one?”

“You’re eighteen.”

“I’ll be nineteen in November.”

“As if that actually makes a difference,” I said. “You’re still underage.”

“So’s almost everyone else here,” he said with a shrug.

I gave up and walked off.

It’ll be fine, Mike had said.

My ass.

~*~*~*~

I ran into Cory a few more times throughout the house. When I was socializing, like Mike and Laurel wanted me to, he was getting another drink from the kitchen. When I went back for a refill, he was doing jello shots in the dining room. At some point, I’d gone looking for Mike and Laurel so I could go home, and saw him chatting with a group of students on the patio out back.

No matter where I was, or what I was doing, the kid was somewhere nearby. Not following me, per se, just there in my general vicinity.

I wasn’t sure who was stalking who.

Once I’d resigned myself to the fact that Mike and Laurel had dumped me here and bolted, I figured I might as well stick around and caught myself watching him dance in the living room. No drunken dancefloor dry-hump, actual dancing. There were steps. It was hard to not watch. Even when I’d briefly stepped away, and came back to him swaying and grinding to a dance track, he was hard to not watch.

I wondered if he could still move that smoothly on the field with all that gear and padding.

I’d had a couple drinks more than I intended by this point and had to take a piss. On my way back up the hall, I noticed one of the bedrooms. The door was ajar and no one seemed to be in it. It was the first room (aside from the bathroom) that wasn’t filled with people, so I snuck in and pulled the door almost closed.

The room was large enough to fit a queen-sized bed, desk with chair, and the rest of the typical bedroom furniture. There was even a row of bookshelves and a small loveseat. In the middle of one shelf sat a book called You’re So Sexy When You Aren’t Spreading STDs that looked mildly interesting. I picked it up and flopped on the loveseat to read.

A few minutes later, the door creaked open and a head popped in.

“So, that’s where you went.” Cory walked in and shut the door behind him. I wasn’t sure, but I heard a small click as if he’d locked the door. He walked over and sat on the other side of the loveseat. “God, it’s fucking loud out there. My ears are ringing so hard. Great idea to hide in here.”

Cory kicked off his Chucks and sat with his back against the armrest, one knee drawn up to his chest, his other foot resting on the floor.

Then, for the second time tonight, he plucked something from my hands.

“I was reading that.”

“How is it?” he said, ignoring (or else oblivious to) my tone. “Seemed pretty balanced and non-heteronormative, at least from the reviews I’ve read.”

It was startling at first, hearing this muscled-up kid, with his stretched beyond capacity t-shirts and cargo-covered bubble butt, suddenly spout informed and articulate assertions, but I’d had several weeks to get used to it. His words were a little slurred, but the fact that he could get them out at all was a feat. I made a non-committal grunt and tried to finish my drink before he took it from me again.

We sat in silence for a bit before he started talking again.

“So, there’s a huge party going on, and you’re in here hiding.”

“Yep.”

“You look like you’d rather be at home.”

“Yep.”

“So, why are you here?”

“My so-called friends tricked me.”

“Oh, really? There has to be a story behind this.” He grinned and slouched down a little, his legs getting almost close enough to touch mine.

“Not really. They think I’m in a dry spell and need to get laid, so they dragged me here.”

“What makes them think you need help with that? Can’t have been that long.”

I thought for a moment, counting the months in my head. For some reason, I found myself being honest.

“My ex and I stopped sleeping together about three months before he moved out, and that was last spring,” I said. “So, that would make it almost a year and a half.”

“Fuck.” His face got a little serious and he sat up. “Still hung up on him?”

“No, I just got really busy.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Or kept yourself busy.”

“You’re perceptive, I’ll give you that.”

“But, damn, that throws a wrench into my plan.” The look he was making, you’d thought I’d just told him he couldn’t have dessert.

“Your plan?”

“Yeah, I was going to seduce you.”

I ended up spitting out the sip I’d just taken. “Seduce me?”

“Of course. I spend enough time in class thinking about it, might as well act on it.” The grin crept back onto his face and I had a hard time not smiling back incredulously. If Jameson hadn’t been my high school sweetheart, if I hadn’t wasted all of high school and undergrad on that burnout, Cory would be the type of guy I’d chase after. Always had a weak spot for nerd jocks, which was everything Jameson wasn’t.

“So, that’s what you waste your time on? And here I thought all you did was make crude illustrations of apes fucking.” I knew it was the alcohol talking, but the thought of this kid sitting in the front row of the hall, listening to my lectures while thinking about getting in my pants, made the blood rush south, leaving my brain bereft of the resources necessary for sane thought.

“I don’t waste anything,” he purred, leaning forward. “Someone as hot as you spending a year and a half on the shelf--now, that is a waste.”

“Hot?” What the hell? When did I turn into a goddamn parrot?

“As. Fuck.”

I rested my head on the back of the couch and closed my eyes. “I should not be doing this.”

“But, you really really want to,” he responded, while drawing his fingers down the growing bulge in my shorts, and I bit back a moan.

I lifted my head and looked at Cory, who gave his best butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth look.

I sat up, about to say something, paused to think it over, opened my mouth again to speak, then stopped myself.

Finally, I said, “Fuck it,” and jumped the kid. My tongue invaded his mouth, practiced enough in kissing that the rhythms came naturally to me, even without any action in the last year and a half. Though the bar in my tongue and the two hoops on either side of my bottom lip were for show, I knew they added an extra sensation to my kiss. Cory moaned into my mouth and I responded in kind.

Cory stroked his hands up my arms and down my body, then slipped them under the hem of my shirt to trace the contours of my stomach and ribs--not that I had much compared to him. I broke the lip-lock long enough to whip off my t-shirt, and he pulled off his.

“You have piercings here too,” he murmured, fingers tickling over my nipple ring and dermals, then down to the post in my navel.

I half knelt on the couch and pushed Cory back against the armrest, my mouth hungrily taking his again.

Seemingly unable to wait, he started unbuttoning my fly and reaching in after my cock. His fingers wrapped around my shaft and my breath hitched. God, it’s been forever since someone has touched me. Emboldened, he stroked my full length and I gave in to the urge to thrust my hips into his hand.

“It feels longer than it did when I was rubbing you through your shorts,” he said. “Like, substantially longer.”

I could only chuckle as he carefully pulled me out.

“Fuck,” he grunted and licked his lips. I’d seen enough porn to know that I was much longer than average and quite thick. He stroked me a couple times before turning his wide-eyed gaze back up.

“You could wreck someone with this.” He giggled nervously.

“Not someone.” I bent my head and nibbled a line across his jaw to his earlobe, his head falling to the side to give me all the access I could ever want. “You.”

He shivered and purred, “Yes. Please.”

I rolled one of his nipples between my finger and thumb before sending my hand lower to rub his dick through his cargo shorts. I could already feel precum soaking through around his head. I felt along his length. Nothing average here, and with a decent girth. Definitely something nice to ride.

Bet he’d have the lower-body strength to hit it hard, too.

Goosebumps raced along my skin. “Seems like you could do some damage yourself,” I said, but he was too busy panting to reply. I sucked on his neck, gradually making my way down. My tongue lapped at his nipple, hardening the small bud. I held it between my teeth, tugging slightly, then flicked it rapidly with my tongue. He arched his back, eagerly pressing his nip into my mouth. I repeated this on his other nipple, even though he was already grunting and whimpering.

“I’m ‘bout ready to beg you to wreck my ass now,” he said, and I gave a short laugh. You wouldn’t have to beg very hard.

But, then I just had to say something fucking stupid.

“I wonder if my roommate realizes,” I said, my tongue working down his stomach, my hand tugging open his shorts, “that he isn’t the only gay guy on the team.”

My mouth worked over the lower part of his belly and I grabbed the waistband of his trunks between my teeth.

“But, I’m not gay.”

“What’s that?” I asked around a mouthful of his underwear, teeth drawing the band down, exposing his dick.

“I’m bi, not gay.”

I froze.

The band slipped out of my mouth and snapped against his exposed head. He moaned and his back arched--hinting that the sharp sting had somehow registered as both pain and pleasure--but I was too shocked to notice.

Thoughts of Jameson and our history battered the inside of my head.

Fuck, I’ve fucking fucked up.

Cory--half-undressed, flushed, beautiful--writhed under me.

I shouldn’t be here.

I shouldn’t be doing this.

And with him of all people.

Fuck.

I sat back up, shoved my hand through my hair.

“Listen, I’m sorry.”

I made up some lame excuse for why I couldn’t continue. Hurt and confusion crossed Cory’s face. I felt like I’d kicked a puppy, but I still grabbed my clothes and bolted. I walked out of the house, the August heat pressing my anxiety tighter.

If I called Laurel or Mike to come get me, I knew I’d have to explain what had happened, and the thought of it scared the shit out of me. I waited until I got a few blocks away to call an Uber, beating myself up until I made it to the safety of my own front door.

I fucking flipped. I lost my shit because the guy said he’s bisexual.

How the fuck am I supposed to fucking explain that?

~*~*~*~