Love Lessons

by Heidi Cullinan

  Kelly had no idea what the Philosophy Club was, but he knew about Walter’s advisor. “Williams. Yes, Walter talked about him last night, quite a bit before we went to sleep. I have him for Intro to Humanities.”

  “You’ll love him. He’s amazing, and not just in the classroom. His children are adorable—two boys and two girls, all of them under ten. His wife is a nurse at Danby Community Hospital. She works the night shift part-time so she can be at home with the kids.” Her face clouded. “Not everyone thinks Williams is awesome, though. He’s incredibly harsh when it comes to grades, really makes you work to get high marks.” She put down her fork and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “He’s our advisor for Philosophy Club too because we only have one actual philosophy prof, and he’s a dick. Williams is the best. He’s up for tenure this year, and if he doesn’t get it, I’m going to personally rip that fucking dean of faculty a new asshole.”

  Kelly pulled Rose back to the topic that truly interested him. “So you’re telling me Walter sleeps around?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, you could put it that way. Just the boys, much to my chagrin, because holy crap would I like to tap that ass. Not sure how he’s going to manage it doubling in a single unless you’re incredibly understanding or into voyeurism.” While Kelly got more embarrassed, she eyed him speculatively. “I still can’t believe he didn’t try to sleep with you.”

  “I wouldn’t have let him, and he knows that.” When Rose’s eyebrows lifted, Kelly fixed his gaze on his coffee and soy milk. “I told you I was just coming out.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t— Whoa. You mean…you haven’t been with anyone, either?”

  “Why does that shock everyone so much?”

  “Because you’re eighteen years old. Virgins are a rare breed anywhere, but at your age, you’re practically a unicorn.”

  “Well how was I supposed to go about it? I didn’t want to sleep with the girls, and it was a pretty damn small town. Fooling around with a guy would be front-page news in a hot minute.”

  “You landed in a damn good place to start your exploration.”

  “I’m not sleeping with Walter.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Hope is what I meant. A lot of gay boys to get your feet wet with.”

  “Oh.” Cheeks burning, Kelly picked up his coffee. “I knew that.”

  Kelly had breakfast with Rose a lot. Not always, but they made kind of an appointment to meet at least once a week. When he didn’t eat with Rose, he usually ate with Walter.

  While Kelly had to admit Walter was right about a lot of things about Hope—unfortunately including the less-than-allergen-friendly menus—in general Hope was still a pretty good fit. He liked his classes, which were all gen-ed plus a few business classes his dad had recommended. As advertised, however, Dr. Williams was great. Quirky, irreverent and absolutely unafraid to share his opinions. He was also, it turned out, Lutheran. Kelly thought he’d ask where he went to church sometime to make his mother happy.

  Unfortunately what Walter was most right about was Porter. The means Kelly’s fellow residents devised to torment him hurt as much as they made him a ball of tension. They stared at him in the restrooms, looking like they were ready to pound him into the wall, though they never did. If one of his fellow floor mates was in line for a shower behind Kelly, he waited so close to the curtain Kelly jumped and cried out when he pulled it aside. If they were loitering in the hall when Kelly passed, they blocked his path or sat on the floor and stuck their legs out so he had to weave through them to get to his room.

  Not if Walter was with him, though. Then they simply grumbled under their breaths and glared. Kelly wasn’t sure what magic Walter wielded, but he was glad for it.

  The Porter problem was kind of a focused example of an overall stumbling block Kelly hadn’t ever anticipated finding at Hope. While Kelly made a lot of friends, they were mostly acquaintances who collected his cell number and friended him on Facebook and Twitter. Occasionally he’d meet them at the campus deli or at Opie’s. They all felt slightly flat, though. The only people he really had any connection to at all were Rose and Walter.

  It was so not what he’d expected to happen at Hope. He’d anticipated a horde of friends, sort of like high school but bigger. He wasn’t sure why that wasn’t happening, nor did he know what to do about it. Forget dating. Sure, there were guys who were cute, and Kelly wanted to get to know them, maybe even ask them out, but he had no idea how.

  “Just go up and talk to them,” Rose advised when he confessed his problem one morning over oatmeal. “Strike up a conversation. Don’t wait for them to come to you.”

  Was that was he was doing? Kelly frowned, replaying his last few social outings in his head. He’d talked to people, yes, but had he initiated any conversation? He wasn’t sure.

  “Look, you’ve asked girls out, right? As cover in high school? It’s the same thing, just backward, and this time you mean it.”

  “I didn’t ask girls out,” Kelly told her. “They asked me.”

  Rose lifted one eyebrow. “Okay, well, buck up, soldier. It’s your turn.”

  “How do I do it?”

  “Walk up to a guy. Say hello. If the conversation goes well, ask if you could get together sometime. Get his number. Set up a meeting. Ta-da, instant date.”

  It certainly sounded easy enough. Now all Kelly had to do was work up the nerve to try it. It was Wednesday, so Walter would take him to Moe’s. He could practice there.

  Except as they walked across campus toward the bar that night, Kelly began to panic at the idea of what he was about to do.

  Walter noticed. “You okay?” He looked concerned, which only made Kelly feel more ridiculous.

  “I’m fine.” He fished for a distraction topic. “So you know Rose, right?”

  “Manchester? Oh yeah. She’s cool. Keeps to herself, and sometimes she seems sad or unusually tense, but nothing too weird. Though that could be her chosen field. She’s going to be a journalist, God help her. She’s never going to get a job.”

  They started walking again. “What’s your major? I guess I never actually asked.”

  “General communications. That’s all you can really do in undergrad. I’m figuring I’ll go into PR or something, probably with a little graduate school to polish things up. No idea where yet, though.” He nudged Kelly with his elbow. “Is this a fishing expedition for Mr. Right? That why you so nervous?”

  Was he that transparent? Kelly dug his hands deeper into his pockets. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Walter grinned. “I’ll keep an eye out for a nice trout.”

  They settled into a corner near the bar. Walter leaned against the wall, motioning for Kelly to take the chair beside him. When Kelly sat down, Walter’s hand rested on his shoulder. “I’m getting a beer. Want one, Red?”

  “Just a soda,” Kelly said.

  He patted Kelly’s shoulder and leaned behind him to speak to the bartender. Kelly saw Rose across the room and waved to her. As he put his hand back down, he caught a girl standing beside him staring at his ring.

  “You’re wearing your class ring?” she asked in the same tones she might say you went out naked?

  Kelly tucked the stone into his palm, but Walter captured his hand, drawing it to his lips to kiss the metal. “Yes, he wears it all the time. Pretty soon he’s going to give it to me so everyone will know we’re going steady.”

  Though Kelly wanted to pull his hand away, the skin where Walter’s lips had touched still burned, and he found he didn’t have the strength. Walter apparently loved making Kelly blush, like right now as he put his arm around Kelly, his hand massaging idly at Kelly’s waist. The touch thrilled Kelly and made him half-hard, and Kelly’s panic over his reaction only seemed to charge Walter all the more.

  When Walter’s fingers tried to tease Kelly’s nipple through his T-shirt, Kelly freaked out and batted him away. “Stop,” he hissed.

  Walter didn’t, trapping him against the table and continuing his octo
pus-inspired assault. “You don’t want me to stop. You’re sporting so much fucking wood you’re going to have leaves in your ears.”

  It was true. Kelly pushed against Walter’s chest, but not very hard. “Come on. You know I don’t do this. Flirting, I mean.”

  “I do know. Which is why it’s so fun to show you how wrong you are about it.” Even as he said this, however, his assault simmered to something much more manageable and far more dangerous. He rested his chin on Kelly’s shoulder. “Help me find some talent, baby. Daddy needs to get laid.”

  Kelly scanned the dance floor because it gave him an excuse to let Walter’s hands skim his groin. He had no idea what he was looking at, just that Walter’s hands were the real talent. They were almost criminal, in fact.

  Walter’s thumbs hooked idly into Kelly’s belt loop. “Slim pickings tonight. It would be easier if this were a gay bar, but that’s all the way on the other side of town, and only locals go there. Millennials, we hate labels. The gay and bi-curious boys hang out here, so this is where I fish.” He stilled, leaning in close to Kelly’s ear. “Ten o’clock. Tight jeans and faded tee.”

  Kelly scanned the crowd, uncertain what exactly he was supposed to be doing, and then he saw the guy in question. Okay, he was definitely hot. Nice butt, and his shoulders…mmm.

  Walter frowned. “Ah, but wait. I remember this one. Sophomore, not that he ever goes to class from what I understand. Fairly good in bed, but dim. Also he didn’t want to wear a condom, which ended things fast. I might do a BJ bare, but nobody’s going in my ass without a raincoat on.”

  “Why wouldn’t he want to wear a condom?” The implications of what Walter had said hit Kelly, and he turned to his roommate with wide eyes.

  Walter looked amused. “Yes, I pitch and catch. So do most guys I know, though there are still nelly bottoms and big alpha tops out there, I’m sure. However, since we’re doing sex ed, watch for the new trend of guys wanting to ditch protection. Somehow the word has gotten out that HIV is cured. So not true. Also, gonorrhea and genital herpes? Not sexy.”

  “My mother handed me about sixty pamphlets. Trust me, there will be condoms.”

  “Your mother gave you pamphlets? No wonder you’re shy about sex.”

  Kelly tried to punch him in the arm, but Walter turned octopus again, and Kelly started whimpering instead. On another attempt to get away, though, he caught sight of a beautifully stacked guy with a blond buzz near the bar. “Talent,” he said, then felt his breath hitch as the blond met his gaze and winked. “Oh shit.”

  “Nice,” Walter purred. “Hook and line. You going in, Red?”

  The blond touched his junk, and while Kelly got turned on, he also turned tail. He sank against Walter.

  Walter laughed. “I suppose he is something of a black run. If you’re passing, do you mind?”

  Oh. Walter was going to fuck the blond. Feeling a bit bereft, Kelly shook his head, and Walter let him go.

  “Thank you, roomie.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “Don’t wait up.”

  Kelly watched Walter walk away. It took Walter about a minute to get the blond guy out on the dance floor, but after the blond smiled at him, it was clear sex was a given between them.

  Kelly tried not to be jealous and crossed the room to give a more formal hello to Rose as a distraction.

  Walter hadn’t thought it possible he’d enjoy living doubled in a single—in Porterhouse—but that’s exactly what he was doing. He genuinely liked Kelly and enjoyed spending time with him. He didn’t even mind, much, that having a shy virgin as a roommate was seriously cramping his love life. Less fucking, more jerking off to Internet porn while Kelly was in class, and he was solid.

  The Disney thing, though, threw him completely for a loop.

  He’d stumbled across his roommate’s guilty pleasure by accident one day when Kelly called him from the computer lab desperate because he’d forgotten to put an assignment on his flash drive and needed Walter to mail it to him before his class started. This meant digging around on Kelly’s computer, which was how he accidentally ended up snooping. The desktop wallpaper was no shock: Kelly loved the artist Sia, and his desktop was a montage of her album covers and publicity photos. But Kelly was a PC where Walter was a Mac, and as he fumbled, trying to use a shortcut that wouldn’t work on Kelly’s recycled Dell, he accidentally triggered the screensaver.

  Which was a picture of Aladdin and Jasmine.

  Walter blinked at the screen. “What the fuck?” When it shifted to a screen shot from Tangled, he burst out laughing.

  On the other end of the line, Kelly turned wary. “Why are you laughing?”

  The scene shifted again, this time to Belle and the Beast, and Walter collapsed back onto the green rocker, barely able to hold up the phone through his mirth. When he managed to put it on his ear, Kelly was chattering like a squirrel, demanding to know what was going on and threatening to come back to the room if Walter didn’t explain.

  It had been on the tip of Walter’s tongue to tease Kelly, but at the last second some deep instinct warned him this would not be a good plan. “Nothing.” He got rid of the screensaver and went back to uploading the file. “You said it was right there on the desktop?”

  “You were laughing at something. What were you laughing at?”

  The terror in Kelly’s voice tore away the last of Walter’s amusement. “Hon, it’s fine. Stop freaking out. You’re going to be late for class. You want me to email it, right? To your usual?”

  Even after they’d hung up, Kelly remained obsessed, texting Walter three times during his class, demanding to know what was so funny. Eventually Walter sent one of David Kawena’s sexualized Disney hero paintings as a reply—Aladdin, because that was the most recognizable one, but man did he hover over Prince Phillip.

  OMG my screensaver was all he got back from Kelly, and then radio silence until, exactly seven minutes after his class let out, Kelly came back to the room, breathless and sick with embarrassment.

  Walter tried to calm him down. “Hey—sweetheart, seriously. It’s fine. The pics threw me for a loop is all. No sweat.”

  “I forgot I’d never changed that. Lisa did that before I left as a joke.”

  Walter simply raised an eyebrow and waited.

  Kelly folded like a house of cards. “Okay, so I have a thing for Disney movies. I always have.” He held out his arms like a sacrifice. “Go ahead. Make fun.”

  Walter shrugged. “Whatever. It’s a little weird, but it suits you in its own way. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. It was just the last thing I thought I’d see.”

  Kelly leaned against the side of his loft, crossing his arms over his chest. “They make me happy. I don’t think that’s bad.”

  “Didn’t say it was. Hell, I loved Pete’s Dragon when I was younger. Always got misty when I heard Helen Reddy sing ‘Candle on the Water’.”

  Kelly’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. What, you think I came out of the womb this cynical?” He put his hands behind his head. “I even took piano lessons just so I could learn to play the song. It’s the only thing I still know by heart.”

  Clearly he’d chosen the right balm, because Kelly smiled and eased into the green rocker. “That’s cool. I never learned to play at all, so you’re one up on me.” He had his phone in hand, scrolling through until he’d pulled up the image Walter had texted him. “Where in the hell did you get this, by the way? There’s no way this pic is Disney issue.”

  “You never saw that before? Are you kidding? There’s a whole fucking series.” He reached for his laptop and tapped out a search as he spoke. “I found them a few years back, but the artist has made more since I last looked.” After loading Kawena’s Facebook album, he passed the computer over to Kelly.

  Kelly’s eyes went wide, then darkened with a quiet lust that Walter found more erotic than the photos. “Oh my God. Holy shit. Flynn Rider. And—Jesus! Tarzan. And the Beast!” He covered his mouth with his hand, b
ut his eyes told Walter these images were burned on his roommate’s brain. “If I’d have found these at twelve, I’d have needed more therapy than I already had. Either that or maybe I wouldn’t have needed any at all, because this is pretty much how I saw them myself. Except somehow this is even better.”

  Walter studied Kelly a minute, trying to decide if he were truly that casual about having been to therapy or if Kawena’s images were simply that distracting. This was confirmed when, a few minutes later, Kelly looked up with an expression that made it clear his brain had finally caught up with his mouth.

  Oh, Red. So fucking adorable. Walter played it cool, propping his feet up on the desk chair. “You were watching Disney while I was drooling over Tom of Finland. Why am I not surprised?” When Kelly gave him a blank look, Walter laughed and shook his head. “Seriously, baby, did you grow up in a cave? Google it.”

  He smiled, slow and devious, as Kelly opened a search engine. Kelly went still in the same way he had when he’d seen the Disney heroes redone, except the expression on his face now was dirtier.

  Good. Walter liked to think Kelly was untutored, not a prude.

  “If it helps,” Walter said, “I did have to confess to peeking at Tom in therapy. Not because I thought it was wrong to be gay, but more that I needed help parsing out what ‘real’ gay was and what was fantasy. This is what happens when you grow up with a handful of half-assed role models and a whole lot of American Family Association on the airwaves.”

  He wasn’t sure how subtle that had been, but he’d wanted Kelly to get he wasn’t the only queer boy who’d needed a leg up to get through adolescence.

  “Did you really cry to ‘Candle on the Water’ when you were younger?” Kelly asked eventually. “Or did you invent that to make me feel better?”

  “Like a baby, all by myself in my room with a blanket around my head so I could hide quick if anyone came in the room.” The confession made him feel too exposed, so he cleared his throat and made an impatient come here motion to Kelly. “Get over here and bring my MacBook. We’ll alternate between Tom and Disney and finish off with a nice masturbation session.”