Academic Pursuits

by Harper, Lou

  “It would be weird.”

  “We’ve seen each other naked before.”

  “At age five in the kiddy pool is different.”

  “I see you in your underwear every day, there’s no chance of sexual attraction between us, and it’s not like I haven’t been drawing and painting naked guys for years. And you’re not exactly the shy type.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I guess, but it sounds pretty boring, honestly.”

  “You can listen to your audio books while I work.”

  “Fine. When do we start?” I said resigned.

  “Hhmm, I’d rather do it at home, and the living room has good light in the morning. How about on Saturday?”

  “If we must.”

  Chapter Three

  The rest of the week whipped by like an errant Frisbee. I had enough homework, exams, and reading assignments not to have time for much else. Respite in the shape of Saturday came none too soon. I woke up that morning—way too early—at the sound of furniture being moved around. I found Jo rearranging the living room.

  “What on earth are you doing? It’s not even nine yet,” I grumbled.

  “Oh, you’re up! Come, have some breakfast.”

  Jo ushered me to the kitchen where I found fresh coffee and pastries. She must’ve gone out to the Louisville Bakery to get them.

  I peered at Jo suspiciously. “Do I have an incurable disease? You’re never this nice to me.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m nice to you all the time. Go eat. Then we can start painting.”

  “Ah, that’s it! I totally forgot.”

  “I thought you did. I, on the other hand, have been planning for this all week. I have a very good idea what I want. I’ll go finish setting up.”

  I like to take my time with breakfast, but Jo’s impatient fussing about made it clear it was all she could do not to yell at me to hurry up. So I shoved the last piece of bear claw in my mouth, washed it down with coffee and stood.

  “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Good. Use the bathroom. I don’t want you to have to jump up in fifteen minutes.”

  “Should I take a shower?”

  “No. Being sleep-fuzzy and the tussled hair is a good look for this. If I were a guy, I’d be all over you,” she joked.

  By the time we convened in the living room, she had her easel set up and the couch angled to face the window. A heavy, deep burgundy fabric draped over it.

  “Very sumptuous,” I said, lying down.

  “That’s the whole point. Your skin will contrast nicely against it. I got the idea from a Titian picture. Now, I want you to take this pose,” she said, handing me a photocopy of some old painting.

  I guessed I was lucky she didn’t want me in leather and chains, like in that movie. I didn’t say anything about that, though…didn’t want to give her ideas. The picture she handed me was of a female nude: a curvy brunette reposed on a bed, with her head turned away, resting on her arm. The pose suggested she was sleeping, yet her curvaceous hips and breasts coyly offered themselves to the viewer.

  I did my best to arrange myself into a matching pose. After some barking of orders and poking of limbs, Jo was satisfied, too. She helped adjust my earbuds and hit the play button on the iPod.

  It was a comfortable pose, the room was cozy, even without the sun warming my skin, and the narrator’s voice droned on in my head. The ennui of Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard lulled me into a tranquil state; I even dozed off for an hour or so. The pressure on my bladder woke me up.

  “ I gotta pee,” I said.

  “I shouldn’t have given you coffee.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. We need to stop anyway. I promised Dayna I’d help her in the darkroom.”

  Dayna was a photo grad student Jo had gotten friendly with the previous semester. Professor Grayson, the head of the photo department, was a stubborn traditionalist who made sure the school maintained a fully equipped black-and-white photo lab in the face of the digital revolution. Dayna was one of the grad students and it was her job to run the lab. The previous semester, when Jo took Film Photography 101, she wouldn’t stop jabbering about the sensuousness of the film grain. I had teased her for spending hours in the dark over something so obsolete, but had to agree after seeing Dayna’s photos. She made hauntingly beautiful images of mundane objects.

  “Tell her to join the twenty first century and go digital,” I said mockingly, on my way to the bathroom.

  “Bite your tongue!” Jo shouted after me.

  By the time I re-emerged, freshly showered and dressed in sweats, Jo was gone. She’d cleared up the traces of our morning session, for the most part. I was pushing the couch back into its usual spot when the doorbell rang. I wondered who the hell it could be. Did Jo forget her keys?

  I opened the door and found Butch Hollins standing there. That was a surprise.

  “Hey,” he said nervously.

  “Hi, what’s up?” I asked in a genial sort of way.

  He shifted his weight from one foot to another—it looked weird from a big guy. “I have a problem with Professor Brown’s homework assignment. I thought… Can I come in?”

  “Yeah, of course.” I waved him in. “Would you like something to drink?” I asked, just to be sociable.

  “No. Yes! Water, please.”

  He didn’t look like he was there to deck me for any perceived affront to his manliness, I noted with relief, but the awkwardness in the air was inch-thick. I pointed him toward the sofa and headed for the kitchen for a glass of water.

  “Nice place,” he said, as I put the glass in front of him. He held it in his hand, but didn’t drink.

  It really wasn’t; the apartment had the mishmash second-hand ambiance of any other student pad. Jo was even less domestic than I, and I was pretty sure neither of us had vacuumed in a month, and you could forget about dusting.

  “Anything wrong, Hollins?”

  For a reason I couldn’t fathom he seemed cross. “You know, you really don’t have to call me by my last name, especially after…”

  “After I had your dick down my throat?” I thought it best to name the pink elephant in the room. Whatever was bothering him, it had something to do with that blowjob.

  I swear he blushed. It was adorable and made my cock stir in an inappropriate manner.

  I went on. “Sorry, I can’t call you Butch. It makes me think of bull dykes.”

  “You can call me William. Or Bill, if you want.”

  “Okay…Bill. Why are you really here?”

  He gulped and looked very determined all of a sudden. “I want to have sex with you.” He came out with it in one big rush.

  I simply stared at him for a long second before finding my voice. “You already did, kind of, you know?”

  His jaw set in a stubborn line. “I want to do it for real. The whole thing.”

  “You can’t even say it!”

  “I want to have penetrative sex with you,” he said determinedly, but he blushed even deeper as he did.

  He was so fucking cute. A big pink teddy bear. I was totally getting a boner, but this whole scene was all so wrong. Did he have some hidden psychological issues I’d managed to unhinge with my friendly blowjob?

  “I don’t think you really mean that,” I said in my most soothing tone.

  “Yes, I do! I even…uhm…cleaned up…err…hygiene, you know?” I didn’t think he could get any redder, but he did. “I Googled it,” he added.

  Oh-kay. It was time to change tactics. “Well then, how could I refuse? The bedroom is that way.” I pointed to my room. I figured if reasoning didn’t work, he’d chicken out before we did the deed.

  Hollins marched straight down the hallway to the bedroom like a Spartan heading for his last battle. Come to think of it, my analogy sucked: those Spartans were pretty damn gay, and I still had serious doubts about Hollins. I trailed behind him less militantly.

  He stood by the bed, as if waiting for orders.

  So I gave th
em to him. “Well, strip.”

  He did. Hollins was a truly fine specimen: big and brawny, but in a smooth, curvy fashion. Blond hair covered his chest, thinning out going south. In the nest of thick blond curls of pubes, his cock was limp as a wet sock. I knew already how it reacted to oral stimulation, but it would’ve been cheating now. Instead, I undressed and let him get a good look at me. His eyes kept flickering to my erect cock. He looked nervous as hell, but still didn’t bolt. Time to turn the screws.

  “On the bed. Face down,” I instructed him.

  He complied. Instinctively, he crossed his legs at first, but then deliberately uncrossed them. His buttocks beamed at me like two big, happy marshmallows, generously sprinkled with golden fuzz. I nudged his legs farther apart and kneeled between them.

  “I bet you played football in high school,” I said, patting his delicious rump.

  “Quarterback,” he agreed.

  He had a football player’s behind, nicely padded with a solid layer of meat. Not that his bum was fat, not at all. It was just right. I won’t say it was the nicest ass I’d ever laid eyes upon, but in a way it was. For me, they all were because their beauty wasn’t in the precise curve of the gluteus maximus or the solidity of the flesh. No, it was in the fear-tinged excitement I knew raced up Hollins’s spine as my fingers slipped between his cheeks, heading stalwartly to his forbidden zone—the one he only touched with a washcloth. It was in the way he twitched as I parted those marshmallows to expose his virgin pucker. Hollins was tense as a kite string, and I intended to do something about that. I felt he’d thrown down the gauntlet by marching in demanding sex, and I decided to meet his challenge.

  If Hollins thought I’d just rush his ass like some medieval battering ram, he was majorly mistaken. I hadn’t even touched it yet, but his hole clenched from the hot puff of air I breathed on it. When I swiped my tongue over the furrowed little pucker, he flinched like it burned. It was the point where he was supposed to kick me off, call me a perv, and possibly punch my lights out. He didn’t do any of it. He stayed there, lying on his stomach and taking it like a man.

  “Fuck, that’s…gross.” He groaned, but I felt his muscles beginning to relax.

  “Yeah, dirty, isn’t it?” I murmured seductively, while continuing to worship his bum. “Filthy…disgusting…sinful.”

  The way he started canting his hips—minutely first, then with more abandon—I knew his mind and body were in conflict. I did my best to tip the balance in favor of the latter. Hollins made a surprised sound as I penetrated him with my tongue. I was pretty sure he wasn’t expecting it. I ate his ass like it was my last meal, and he got more and more into the spirit of things. His panting and little whimpers got to me as much as the quivering flesh under my tongue did. I was harder than a policeman’s truncheon, but didn’t dare to touch myself. I wanted this to last. He didn’t even notice when I slipped a finger inside him, and by the time he did, I was knuckle deep. The discovery of his prostate hit him like a bombshell.

  “Ooooh!” he sang out.

  I rubbed the little gland with a fingertip. “Yeah, that’s the sweet spot. Do you like it?”

  “Nnng…good. Ohh!”

  That was my Hollins: always succinct in the throes of passion. I took my sweet time opening him up like he was a fragile flower. I toyed with him, too; I nibbled and massaged, teased and tortured. I spread his muscular thighs and rubbed my cock in his crack, but didn’t enter him. I had the condom and lube ready, but I wanted him to ask for it. Oh, who am I kidding? I wanted him to beg for it. And I didn’t have to wait long.

  “Jamie, Jamie!” he whimpered.

  “What, Hol…Bill?”

  “Please just do it, you asshole.”

  “Do what?”

  “Mmpf!” He groaned as I tugged his heavy balls.

  “You want me to stick my cock into your beautiful big ass?”

  “Yes,” came the muffled groan, as he buried his face into the pillow.

  “You want me to fuck you till you scream?”

  “Yes, dammit!” He groaned louder.

  I was sheeted and slicked in seconds. As I tucked a pillow under Hollins’s belly, I gave his cock a friendly tug. It was not only hard, but weeping like an angel. He was ready for me, and I slipped into him as a hand slips into a warm and friendly glove. I fucked him slow, while whispering filthy things into his ear about how hot and sweet his ass was and how it felt around my cock, till he begged me to fuck him harder. So I pulled him up on his knees and pounded him like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t let him touch his cock till I could feel the heat gathering at the base of my spine. I took him in hand then, and a few strokes later, he came, howling and clamping down on my cock. That was it for me: my orgasm surged forth in a great big wave. For a few seconds, I was in love.

  He collapsed onto the mattress, and I on top of him. Eventually, I rolled off. He was hot as a furnace. Hollins turned over and spent some time blinking at the ceiling.

  “That was good,” he said at last.

  “Well, that’s the general idea. Otherwise, it would be just a lot of fuss for nothing,” I said, propping my head up on an elbow.

  He turned his head and blinked at me for a change. “No, I mean really good. I didn’t think it would be. I guess I’m gay then.”

  A light flickered on in the post-orgasmic darkness of my brain. I sat bolt upright. “Oh, whoa, whoa, hold on for a second! You came to me expecting to have bad sex, so you could reaffirm your heterosexuality?”

  He had the decency to blush. I got the whole-body effect this time. “Well…I didn’t think of it that way, but basically, yes.”

  This got my goat. “First of all, nobody has bad sex with me.”

  “Obviously.” The bastard actually rolled his eyes.

  “Secondly, you don’t get a gay card so easy. This is college; everyone experiments.”

  He frowned at me and was about to say something, but at that moment, the door banged open and Jo burst into the room.

  “Hey, Jamie— Oh, hi, Hollins.”

  “Bill,” I corrected her.

  “What?”

  “He prefers being called Bill.”

  “Oh, okay. Hi, Bill,” she said smiling sweetly at Hollins—I mean Bill—who looked like he wanted the bed to swallow him whole. I was getting used to the new rosy tinge of his skin. It suited him.

  “Jo honey, could you give us some privacy?”

  “Yes, right! Sorry.”

  Jo trotted out, although she forgot to shut the door behind her. Hollins shot out of the bed and started pulling his clothes on.

  I tried to ease his discomfort. “You shouldn’t worry about Jo. It’s not the first time she’s found me with a guy, and she won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

  “No, that’s fine. I have…stuff. I should go. See you at school, okay?”

  “Okay, Bill. Don’t be a stranger.”

  Chapter Four

  The food court was already buzzing with students when I got there. Jo was waiting by a table in the corner. We usually met there for lunch on Tuesdays, both having nearby classes before and after. I grabbed some food and settled next to Jo. We often used these lunches to compare notes on classes and professors. We were both in junior year, despite the age difference—something that pleased her greatly. Her major was painting, mine English.

  Truth was, Jo and I both enjoyed school. At the beginning of each of our two semesters together so far, we got the course list as soon as it was available and circled all the interesting classes and began to divide them up between us. It took us two days to come up with our final schedules. Later we discussed classes and professors. What we never did was take the same class in the same semester. It would’ve been overkill.

  We were just comparing notes on a couple of classes when Bryan Grant and his roommate Marcus Something-or-other ambled up to our table. I’d had a class with Bryan in the fall semester and we got friendly. As matter of fact, Bryan was a long-term project of mine, although he didn
’t know that. Jo knew Marcus from her previous photography class. After the obligatory greetings and stuff were out of the way, Marcus fixed his gaze on Jo.

  “A few of us are going out to the O’Riley’s on Friday. Freefall will be playing. Thought you might like ’em.” Marcus flashed a quick glance at me to indicate I was included in the invite, but a blind man could see he couldn’t care less if I accepted the invitation or not.

  Jo gave him a sweet smile that I knew was a capital NO. “Oh…I’ll think about it.”

  I kept my eye on Bryan. He was the deadly serious sort—good thing considering he was pre-med. How he’d ended up roommates with Marcus, the party animal, was beyond me. As flashy as Marcus was with his carefully maintained three-day stubble and persistently “hip” T-shirts, Bryan was plain, subdued, and studious. I found the whole package very sexy. Of course, I found many things sexy.

  “You going?” I asked Bryan very casually, referring to the Friday night plans.

  “Yeah, that’s the plan,” he replied with equal casualness.

  “Cool. See you there.”

  Bryan and Marcus shuffled off, and I returned to my food. Or would have if I hadn’t had the odd sensation of being a butterfly pinned to a cork board under Jo’s sharp gaze. All the women in our family have it: her mom, my mom, even Grandma Adler. It’s like the beam of a laser boring straight through your skull. I had twenty-two years of practice of dealing with it, but it still made my brain itch.

  I gave Jo my most innocent look. She dismissed it with a flicker of her eyes.

  “I can’t believe you!” she erupted.

  “What?”

  “Hollins’s ass-print is still warm in your bed and you’re already chasing after another straight guy!”

  Oh, hell, and I’d thought I was subtle. It’s not like I didn’t confide in Jo about most things, but Bryan was a tricky one. I kept him to myself. Too late, though: the cat was out of the bag.

  “You’re wrong on two counts. One: I’m not chasing after Bryan. Two: he’s not straight,” I explained.

  “What the hell do you mean, not straight?”