The Freshmen - 38. Chapter 38

October 2, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Brad

I walked into our bedroom and smiled at Jake, throwing out that facial expression to hide my moodiness. “Hey, I was thinking we could go up to the City today.”

“You want to do that and come back tomorrow for dinner?” he asked.

“I think we can skip the Escorial Sunday dinner this weekend,” I said. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask me why, but he would probably pin me down about it.

“Is there some reason you want to avoid dinner?” he asked me. He saw my frown, because my first gambit to avoid this conversation had failed. “If you do, I’m fine with that, but can you at least tell me why?”

I sighed. “I don’t want to be here when they get back from Boston.”

“Stef and JP?” he asked.

“Yes, since those are the only people who are coming back,” I said, giving him shit.

“Whatever,” he said in annoyance. “Why are you trying to dodge them?”

I sat down next to him on the bed. “I’m a little freaked out that Fab is the son of Marc Sievres. It’s bringing back a lot of memories, mostly unpleasant ones.”

“I’m sorry,” he said sympathetically.

“I talked to Wade a few minutes ago and he told me about Stef’s mini argument with Will,” I said.

“Mini argument?” he asked.

“It’s like a tropical storm instead of a typhoon,” I joked, making him laugh. I smiled at him, kissed him, then explained. “Will told Fabien about how Marc forced himself on me. We talked about that a lot after Will’s experience in Paris.”

“He was only fourteen, wasn’t he?” Jake asked.

I nodded. “A guy forced Will to fuck him, and the guy was on the verge of raping him before the gendarmes rescued us. It was really hard on him, so I shared how I’d been pretty fucked up after my experience with Marc.”

“Being raped is never easy to handle,” he said supportively.

“With Marc, it wasn’t exactly rape, but he was relentless. I kept asking him to stop, kept saying no, but it was like I didn’t have the power to make him. Finally my body overruled my mind. The whole time I felt so weak and powerless.”

“What you described is rape,” he said firmly. “Not to piss you off, but it seems like what bothered you the most is that he made you feel out of control.”

I snaughed, that quintessential gesture of Robbie’s. “He did. And the worse part of it was that the sex was really good. It was pretty amazing. So I went away from that experience feeling guilty for having enjoyed it and for having cheated on Robbie, and feeling dirty and gross from having done it in the first place.”

“The feelings you experienced aren’t unusual when that happens,” Jake said emphatically.

“Probably not,” I agreed, but it didn’t make it any easier.

“So what were Will and Stef fighting about?” Jake asked.

“They were arguing, not fighting,” I corrected. He looked at me, telling me with his eyes that I was being an idiot for being so precise about terminology. “Will insisted that what Marc did to me was assault, and Stef kept trying to justify it.”

“And you’re worried he’ll do the same thing to you?” Jake asked.

I nodded. “I’m a little too freaked out about it, and I might get really bitchy with him, enough to escalate it into a fight. I don’t want to do that.”

“I understand,” he said. “Let’s get ready to go.”

I stood up to get my shit together when I froze. He had mentioned my control issues, and I’d been meaning to do something with him but hadn’t had the chance yet. “I changed my mind. Let’s go to Malibu.”

“For a night?” he asked incredulously.

“We can fly down now and fly back up on Monday morning,” I suggested. “Or if you’d rather fly back to the City on Sunday night, we can do that.”

“Let’s come back on Sunday night,” he said, smiling at me. “That will make my commute better.”

“Awesome,” I said. I called the FBO and asked them to get my plane ready, then Jake and I threw together the few things that we’d need to take with us for the weekend. Traffic to Palo Alto airport was light this morning, so we got there right after the pilots had finished filing the flight plan. We were airborne within fifteen minutes of getting to the airport. That was incredibly lucky when dealing with both Bay Area and LA air traffic. “Maybe we can surf for a bit?” I asked.

“That was a pretty sneaky way to drag me down here and get me into the ocean,” Jake joked. “I’m fine with that.”

“You know, when you first started surfing, you were fun but you kind of held me back…” I started to say.

I saw him get furious, then he interrupted me. “I held you back?!”

“That’s not what I meant!” I objected hastily. That was one of the few things that I didn’t like about Jake. He’d interrupt me mid-sentence or mid-thought without hearing me out, and pick out a piece of what I’d said to get pissed about.

“Then what did you mean?” he asked.

“You didn’t have the skill to tag along with me when we got really big waves,” I answered.

“Where is this going?” he demanded, his patience almost maxed out.

“What I was trying to say was that you are really good at surfing now, and I really enjoy going out in the water with you,” I said, and exhaled, so glad I could finally finish my sentiment.

“How is it that you managed to give me a compliment and completely piss me off at the same time?” Jake demanded.

“Because you didn’t let me finish my sentence,” I said in annoyance. “You jumped all over me before I could finish my thought.”

“I did not do that!” he insisted. I hadn’t planned to get in a fight with him today, and that’s where this was headed. I willed myself to keep my temper in check.

“Well, you did,” I said in a snarky way, failing at reining in my smart-ass tongue.

We sat on the plane in silence for the remainder of the flight. We got into the car and I wondered if he’d be like Robbie, who would suddenly start talking when we changed modes of transportation or came up to another freeway. Sadly, those events didn’t seem to spark him at all. We drove up to my house, grabbed our small bags, and walked through the door and into the great room. It was truly spectacular, with floor-to-ceiling windows two stories tall that looked out over the beach. “Nice day,” he said. He was right. The waves were good and the weather was decent.

“Hit the waves?” I suggested, smiling to ask him to put our bitchiness aside.

“Let’s go,” he said, smiling back at me. We went upstairs to take off our clothes, but we were still too annoyed with each other to have sex. I decided that I should try to make this as fun as possible to ease the tension. I wrapped a towel around my waist and stampeded down the stairs in a contest to beat him to the ground floor. We were laughing by the time we got to the sand. We continued to race, trying to be the first to put on a wetsuit, the first to grab a board, and the first to make it to the water’s edge.

“I won,” I said as I stood in the wet sand, smirking at him.

“You got a head start,” he said. I raised an eyebrow to challenge him. “Fine, you won.”

“Looks like third point is kicking ass,” I said, gesturing out toward the surf. We started walking toward it, enjoying the solidity of the flat, wet sand.

“Convenient, since it’s closest to the house,” he said. I was in heaven. We surfed for six hours before we went in. It was exhilarating and exhausting.

“We need to get cleaned up and get food,” I said urgently. “I am starving.”

“Me too,” he said. We went inside and got ready, then I took him to an Italian restaurant near Santa Monica. They knew me there so we didn’t have to wait for a table.

We ended up seated near the windows overlooking the coast, eating pasta with a good bottle of pinot noir to wash it down. “That was an amazing day,” I said enthusiastically.

“It was,” he agreed. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” I asked, wondering what he thought he’d done wrong.

“For getting fired up without letting you finish what you had to say,” he said. “I thought about it when we were surfing and realized that you were right.”

“Thanks,” I said as I beamed at him. Neither one of us was perfect, but we worked so well together, and this was a key part of it: acknowledging when we were wrong. “And I’m sorry for taking my bad mood out on you.”

“You didn’t do that at all,” Jake insisted. “I was just surprised this thing with Marc had such a big impact on you.”

I nodded, but his admission and apology acted like some sort of lubricant on my tongue. “I was really mad that my body responded to him, and it overwhelmed my controls enough that I could let go and enjoy myself. It seemed to me that if I was going to be assaulted, the right thing to do was to make sure the whole experience was miserable.”

He chuckled at my idiocy. “That’s why I mentioned the control thing,” he said, then smiled when he saw me frown. “I think most people feel like you do, but having someone basically come in and force your body to respond when you don’t want it to is a big deal.”

“Especially for a control freak,” I grumbled, feeling like he was insulting me a bit.

“Especially,” he agreed. “That just made the whole thing worse and more painful.”

I smiled to thank him for validating my feelings. “The other thing that really bothered me was that I cheated on Robbie. That was the only time in our relationship when I fucked around with a guy while the two of us were supposed to be exclusive.”

“Why did that bother you so much?” he asked.

I was going to argue about his word choice, which indicated this was really a big deal when it wasn’t, until I remembered that it was. “Because when we went through problems, when he wanted to see other guys, I subconsciously felt like he was doing it because I had let him down.”

“You gave up the moral high ground?” he asked.

“That bugged me, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” I tried to explain. “It was more that since I had strayed with Marc, it kind of gave him license to do the same thing. When he did it, I think that memory made me subconsciously feel guilty for being pissed at him, which ironically enough made me angrier at him.”

“It gave him grounds to call you out for being a hypocrite,” he suggested.

“Yeah, only it was worse, because he didn’t do that,” I said. “After I admitted that I’d been with Marc, he got pissed off for about half an hour, then he forgave me. When that incident came up in the future, he would usually just smile and tell me that he wanted to go over to Paris and thank Marc for making sex so much better for us. He didn’t carry a grudge about it, not like I did over the men he fucked around with.”

“I didn’t know you carried this with you, all this shit about Marc,” Jake said, clearly worried about my psyche. “Maybe the next time you talk to your psychologist, you should bring it up.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted. I didn’t tell him this, but it bothered me to run and talk to my shrink about every little thing that upset me. I was quite able to deal with most things on my own.

“Your call,” he said dismissively, then looked out the window and away from me.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

We sat there, enjoying our dinner, when he smiled at me in that loving way that made all of my problems vanish. “You’re one of those guys who is just made to be with only one other guy. I can see it and feel it when you talk about this.”

“I am,” I admitted, smiling back at him.

“Robbie wasn’t,” he said. I was going to argue about that, but he was right, so I just nodded. “It seems to me that’s why this whole thing with Marc really bothered you, but didn’t seem to upset him all that much.”

I nodded. “Maybe,” I said, all but agreeing with him.

“This is just one of the reasons why I love you so much,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, confused about what trait he was referring to.

“I’m like you. I’m either involved in a bunch of meaningless sexual hookups, or I’m with one guy,” he said. I looked at him and smiled. “Do you ever worry about me cheating on you?”

I got a little paranoid, wondering if he was going to drop some awful bombshell on me, then put that aside. If I were with Robbie, that would have been a fear. With Jake, it was such a remote possibility that it was almost unthinkable. “No,” I said sincerely and firmly. “Do you worry that I’ll cheat on you?”

“No,” he said, just as definitively. I smiled back at him. We finished dinner, I paid the bill, and we went back to my house.

“I want to try something,” I said, raising my eyebrow in a seductive way as I went to unlock the door to the sex room.

“This sounds interesting,” he said. He was so fun, and always willing to do what I wanted in bed.

The door opened and the first thing we saw was a picture of Robbie and me. “Does that bother you? I can change it if you want.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said, then got cocky. “If Robbie magically reappeared, I’m pretty sure you’d still choose to stay with me.” Those words were so meaningful, first of all because he was right, and secondly because he felt so secure with ‘us’ that he could say that so confidently.

“You’re right,” I said. “Now strip.” He laughed as we pulled off our clothes. I led him past the video room, past the sling, to the ‘dungeon’ area. I sat on the bed and attached the shackles to my ankles, then lay down and secured a handcuff on my left wrist. “Do this one for me,” I said, gesturing at my right hand.

“You sure?” he asked. I nodded and he did it. When I’d done this with Robbie, it had freaked me out, but with Jake I was remarkably calm. “Now what?”

“Anything,” I said. “Anything you want.” I remembered that, when I’d done this with Robbie, by this time I’d been freaking out and he’d released me. I didn’t feel that way with Jake.

“Alright,” he said. He lay on top of me and our mouths connected while I felt his body moving against mine, and he did that until he’d gotten me completely fired up. He got up and vanished, then came back with lube. He slathered my cock, then his ass, and squatted over me, slowly absorbing me inside of him. I marveled at how much fun I was having, and how differently I’d reacted with Robbie. On and on he went, making sure to keep me on edge long enough that he could bring himself to orgasm first. I stared at his semi-hard dick and watched the cum erupt from it like it was a volcano spewing out lava. I groaned as I felt my own orgasm rising and blew my load right up his ass. When we were done, he got up, grabbed a towel and wiped me off, then snuggled up to me.

“Want me to let you loose?” he asked.

I was actually content, but I was frustrated because I couldn’t hold him and run my hand up and down his back. “Yeah, I think it’s time.” He didn’t tease me; he just got up, grabbed the keys, and released my legs and then my right wrist. He paused to massage and rub it where the cuff had been, then did the same thing for the left one. We got up, grabbing the nasty towel, and walked out of the sex room and hopped into the bed in our own bedroom, in exactly the same position we’d been on the dungeon bed, with me on my back and him sprawled partly on top of me.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” he asked.

“You didn’t have fun?” I teased.

“I always have fun with you, but that felt a lot more significant,” he said.

“That was my way of showing you how totally in love with you I am, and that I trust you completely,” I said calmly, as if I were uttering a normal bland statement.

“Really?” he asked, and looked up at me with a big smile. He reoriented himself so he was on his side, and I did the same thing so we were facing each other.

“I’ve only been able to do that once before,” I said.

“With Robbie,” he said. I nodded.

“I did it with him after we’d repaired our relationship. That was when he’d blown up my world because he wanted to fuck Carson,” I said bitterly. “This time was so different.”

“Better or worse?” he asked nervously, just like I would have.

“So much better,” I said, then leaned in to kiss him. He smiled at me, but he wanted more, so I explained myself. “You know that I have major control issues.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said, teasing me in a playful way.

“Giving up control like that is the hardest thing for me to do. When I did it with Robbie, I could never fully calm myself. I was probably in handcuffs for all of two minutes before he let me go,” I explained.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have done that.”

“No,” I said, and kissed him lovingly. “Didn’t you feel how relaxed I was? If I’d been with anyone else I would have been too uptight to even blow my load.”

A tear seeped out of his eye and pooled up next to his nose. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” I said. “This was my way of showing both of us how true that is.”

He blinked at me, slightly confused. “This was some experiment to see if you loved me?” He said that in an irritated tone.

“No, this was my experiment to find out if you are my soulmate. I found out you are.” We made love again and I was happy, incredibly happy, and I put all thoughts of Marc Sievres out of my mind.

October 3, 2004

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA

Will

My hands flew deftly across the keyboard as I sat upright in my bed typing up the first draft of an essay that was due in English this coming week. I was determined to make sure I was caught up on assignments for this coming weekend so I could focus on my time with Travis. That had worked so well this past weekend that I’d adopted that as my model. I grimaced when I thought about upcoming group projects, where people would probably procrastinate and want to get everything together at the last moment. If there was a project that was due on a Monday, that would completely fuck up my rhythm. I finally finished the thing, then paused to relax for a bit before I started proofing it. I found that I did a much better job if I could clear my mind before diving back in.

The door opened and I looked up to see Thor walk in. “Hey, you’re back!” I said enthusiastically. I jumped up and gave him a big hug, one he returned fully.

“Just made it here from Logan,” he said somberly. I backed away and looked at him, and it was obvious that he’d been in a fight. His lip was swollen, and his face had red spots that would probably bloom into bruises in the next two days.

“What happened to you?” I asked, my voice full of concern. He shook his head sadly, so I led him over to my bed where we sat down.

“I got into a fight,” he said.

“Dude, I already figured that out,” I said playfully. “I go to Harvard, not Yale.” He chuckled for a bit, then got somber again. He reached over and enveloped me in a hug, and I grabbed that opportunity to lie back in the bed and pull him with me so he was partly on top of me. He lay there, his head on my chest while I gently stroked his hair, for quite a while, with neither one of us saying anything.

“Schaef and I were at a bar and this one dude named Keith was being a total douche,” he said. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, and when he looked at me in annoyance I just laughed louder. “What?” he demanded, annoyed with me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but every dude named Keith I’ve run into is a complete asshole.” He chuckled with me.

“He started really hitting on Schaef hard, and I kept trying to keep myself in between them, but this guy was slick. He’d just manage to end up on Schaef’s other side,” he said. “Finally I went to get us beers and when I was walking back the dude had his hand on Schaef’s ass. I gave Schaef his beer, then dumped mine all over Keith.”

“Dude!” I said, laughing again. “Then what happened?”

“Keith came after me,” he said. “He’s a big guy, but I could have taken him if he didn’t have a couple of friends backing him up.”

“What did Schaef do?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Thor said. “He kept yelling at us to stop, but other than that, he didn’t do shit.”

“What did Schaef do when Keith was groping him,” I asked.

“Just pretended like it wasn’t happening,” he said.

“He didn’t move away from the dude?” I asked. He shook his head. “Did you put your arm around him?”

“I tried, but he didn’t want me to,” Thor said. “What do you think this means?”

I shook my head sadly. “It means you’re being played,” I said. “I’m going on very little evidence here, but it sounds to me like Keith has been fucking Schaef.”

“What the fuck?” he asked, all pissed off. “You’re just trying to break us up so you can get into my pants.”

I was annoyed with him, but more than that his comment was so ludicrous it was hysterical. I started laughing again, while he lifted himself up so he was sitting on the bed, and I did the same. “I am not trying to get into your pants,” I said firmly. “You make me really nervous, so I’m keeping some distance when it comes to that shit.”

“Great,” he groused. “You tell me that my boyfriend just dumped me, then you reject me.”

“You were the one who said I was chasing after you,” I said. I was amazed that I was able to remain calm during this conversation. He went to talk but I stopped him. “Look, you need to think about this. Go back and imagine that the two of them are together, and Schaef is uncomfortable that you’re even there.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I’ll bet what you imagined is a lot like what you just experienced,” I explained.

He stared at me like he was going to lash out at me, then his anger faded. “I’ll do that,” he said. He got up, patted my back, grabbed his backpack and walked out of the room.