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`Take a Chance on Me' focuses on relationships, with the sex a little more in the background. I think it's particularly suitable for an older gentleman who's feeling a bit nostalgic about his college years.
My other stories are many and varied (and typically far more explicit). You can find them all by searching `shahairyzad'.
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TAKE A CHANCE ON ME
My son tossed a fluffy kernel of popcorn in the air and caught it in his mouth.
"Woohoo!"
He pumped his fist and tried again, bouncing the kernel off his lower lip.
Undeterred, he tossed another and this time managed to snag it.
"Woohoo!!"
I ignored the failed attempts that spangled the sofa and the family room floor. Nicholas would be heading off for his freshman year in just over a week, and I'd miss him like hell. The house would be so quiet without him . . . tidier, but way too quiet.
My baby was going to college . . . unbelievable. And to Penn State!
The idea of my only child heading off to my alma mater was messing with me. Memories kept popping up, triggered by the strangest things.
Like, popcorn.
Rich Van Heusen.
Rich lying on the sofa in the living room of our senior-year apartment, tossing popcorn in the air, higher and higher. He was better at it than Nicholas . . . more kernels ended up in his mouth than on the ratty old sofa.
Wait! That's right . . . whenever he missed, he'd announce, "Best two out of three!" and try again.
God . . . Rich Van Heusen. I hadn't thought about him in . . .
Where were they all now?
My senior year roommates . . . five of us gay guys sharing a grungy firetrap in Straight College', PA. The place was a dump, with only three bedrooms. Mine was the single, hardly bigger than a closet . . . ironic, since I wasn't exactly *out* of the closet at that point. That was the fall I was eager to vote Bill Clinton into office, all the while doubting that the man from Hope' had a hope in hell.
The five of us . . .
There was Rich, of course. He was in finance, or business or something.
There was Chris Walker, who could have made the basketball team . . . and would happily have `made' every guy on it. Engineering of some sort Ð way out of my league!
Jamie . . . sweet, petite Jamie Horvath, who almost got fagbashed one night on College Avenue. You knew he was a theater major the moment he opened his mouth. That's if his flamboyant gestures hadn't already clued you in!
And Brian . . . what was his last name? Wow . . . how could I not remember his last name? Brian . . . O'Connell? . . . O'Donnell! That was it. Brian O'Donnell. He was the one none of us knew before we all moved in together . . . friend of a friend or something. Yeah . . . we never really did think about Brian . . . anyway, he was in . . . he changed majors I think . . . what the heck did he graduate in? Huh . . . I assume he graduated . . .
Anyway!
I made five. Will Beranek, majoring in math, focusing on statistics.
Five was an odd number . . . literally and figuratively . . . and we were an odd bunch . . . tight in some ways, mismatched in others. But even if we sometimes found ourselves at odds, we mostly shared the place happily enough.
What were the odds the five of us would end up thrown together like that?
Was it Fate? Or circumstance?
Or just the luck of the draw?
The popcorn bounced off Rich's upper lip and landed in his Solo cup.
Jamie went, "Ewwwwwww!" . . . laughing at the same time.
Brian barked, "HA!" and immediately challenged Rich, "I bet you can't do that again!"
Chris looked at the three of them like they were idiots and went back to his problem sets.
I rolled my eyes and tried to concentrate on my reading . . . a dense essay on probability that I was mostly failing to understand.
Rich peered down into his beer, fished out the popcorn and flicked it towards Jamie. Then he tossed a fresh kernel in the air, keeping his mouth closed this time.
A dozen tries later, Rich had bounced a kernel off his face:
onto the sofa: five times onto the floor: three times onto his shirt: twice into the gap between the back of the sofa and the wall: once.
One kernel missed his face altogether and bounced off his shoulder and onto the sofa. Not a single one of the twelve landed in his beer.
And yes, I tabulated the attempts instead of banging my head against my reading.
Brian hovered, hesitating after the tenth kernel, pouncing after the twelfth.
"FAIL! Pay up!"
"It wasn't a proper bet!" Rich smirked up at him.
But he pulled a five from his wallet and held it out. When Brian went to grab the bill, Rich yanked it back, then offered it again, yanked it again . . . until, on the sixth try, Brian managed to snatch it from him.
Brian crowed, "Thanks, man!" . . . without irony, as far as I could tell, which was pretty pathetic.
Chris looked up from his problem set, sounding bored and superior. "Are you going to spend that all on lottery tickets?"
"What if I am? It's my money now, and I can do what I want with it."
My ears perked up. "Brian! You are not going to waste that on lottery tickets! Do you know the odds with those things? You are literally . . . LITERALLY . . . more likely to be struck by lightning than win on a lottery ticket."
Jamie rolled his eyes and headed for the bathroom.
"That's not true!" Brian frowned. "My cousin has a friend whose co-worker won, like, $50,000 once!"
I wasn't working from actual data, but I doubled down anyway, on principle.
"Maybe for small-scale wins you have better odds than being fried by lightning, but lottery tickets are still, basically, like flushing your money down the toilet."
Off in the bathroom, Jamie flushed the toilet, right on cue, and started singing, "They call you Lady Luck! But there is room for doubt . . . "
I looked quizzically at Brian, distracted for the moment. "Isn't that one of Sky Masterson's songs? I thought Jamie got one of the gamblers."
"How should I know?" Brian shrugged. "Ask him! Just `cause we share a bedroom doesn't mean I keep track of all the stuff he does."
"Okay, whatever! The point is, you basically have no chance at all of winning a major payoff with a lottery ticket. SOMEONE might win, but it won't be YOU. State lotteries are like a regressive tax on poor people who are too ignorant to understand probability."
Brian's expression turned mulish . . . since, I realized a bit too late, I'd basically just called him an ignorant poor person. Which, in fact, he was . . . but it turns out, in case you didn't know, people don't particularly like hearing the truth about themselves.
Fortunately, before Brian could turn it into a fight, Jamie re-entered, belting the chorus.
"Luck, be a lady tonight! Luck, be a lady tonight! Luck, if you've ever . . . "
Jamie would sing forever if no one interrupted. So I interrupted.
"Did YOU get Sky Masterton?"
I guess I sounded more surprised than I meant to, because Jamie's response was kind of tart.
"I am the understudy for Sky, thank you very much, and I GOT Nicely Nicely Johnson, AND I am doing ALL the choreo!"
Rich grabbed his Game Boy and started thumbing the buttons. As he stared at the screen, he drawled, "Understudy! So, does that mean you're going to be waiting patiently for your `big break'? Or are you going to maybe assist the star to a little well-timed food poisoning? Or start lurking at the top of staircases, just in case an opportunity arises?"
"Ha ha. Jim Abboud is doing Sky and he'll be great. AND he's too nice a guy to push down a staircase."
Jamie made a show of considering his own statement.
"PROBABLY too nice a guy . . ."
Chris looked up from his problem sets, his brow scrunched. "Are you guys talking about `Guys and Dolls'? My parents rented that once. Wasn't that, like, Marlon Brando? Are YOU doing the Marlon Brando role?"
"I am the UNDERSTUDY for the `Marlon Brando' role."
Chris laughed. "Cause the idea of YOU doing Marlon Brando . . . HA! You'd be more like . . . `Hey Marlon, you wanna come do ME? DO me, Marlon . . . Do me LONG, HARD and DEEP!'"
Jamie looked at Chris like he was weighing an offer. "Long, hard and deep? . . . Hmmmm . . . Works for me!"
Brian jumped in before Chris could volley back. "I bet I could do Marlon Brando . . . I mean, play his role."
Brian did actually have a handsome face, but from the neck down . . . delusional. Too delusional to let it pass!
"Brian, we're talking Brando in `Streetcar', not Brando in those wine ads."
Jamie stared at me in horror. "That was ORSON WELLES. Honestly, Will! You COULD have said Brando in The Freshman' or Brando in Superman'."
I rolled my eyes again. "So take away my gay card. Anyway, I'd rather DO Tom Cruise in `Risky Business'."
Jamie promptly grabbed the cordless phone and launched into an interpretation of Tom Cruise lipsyncing with the candlestick, though I think he fudged most of the lyrics to `Old Time Rock and Roll'. Still . . . it was pretty impressive.
Rich looked up from his Game Boy, raising his voice to be heard over Jamie's vocal representation of a drum set. "Fuck yeah! Or `Top Gun' Tom Cruise!!"
"You think he's a top gun?" Chris scoffed. "The guy's got `bottom boy' written all over him."
Rich snorted. "Oh, like YOU'VE never bottomed?"
"I have NEVER bottomed! When you've got what I got, there's no point in wasting it."
He stuck out his tongue at Rich and waggled it suggestively.
I knew exactly what Chris was talking about, since I'd slept with him twice in my freshman year. He didn't exactly take my virginity, but pretty close.
We met in the locker room at the rec center, where Chris basically picked me up after noticing me working out. For two days or so I thought there was a chance he might be my first boyfriend. Then he fucked me for the first time . . . and afterwards made it very clear that `boyfriend' was not in the cards. Three weeks later he fucked me for the second time, then dropped me straight into the friend zone.
Eventually, I figured out that Chris was the kind of guy who never fucked anyone a third time . . . not with so much fresh meat out there.
He was the first black guy I ever had sex with, and he had the biggest dick I'd ever seen at that point in my life . . . honestly, uncomfortably big for my limited level of experience. He said it was ten inches. I didn't measure it, but I think he was exaggerating only a little. I just knew my dick measured six and three quarter inches, from my pelvic bone to the tip, and his was at least two inches longer.
He fucked me without a condom, both times.
It was a great fuck, each time, but it left me uncomfortable afterwards . . . unhappy with myself . . . I mean, I knew unprotected sex was risky, even if we were in State College, not San Francisco or New York City. But he didn't even ask me if I wanted him to wear a condom, and I didn't know how to ask him to put one on without it being embarrassing.
While I'm on the subject, Jamie and I made out a couple times when we got a little drunk . . . lots of kissing, some groping, a little oral . . . but we're both basically bottoms, so we never took it further.
And Rich . . . that was complicated. He came on to me pretty strong when we first met, maybe two years ago. He was good looking and dressed well, and he basically oozed confidence . . . like, confidence bordering on arrogance. He always seemed to get his way, somehow . . . or a lot of the time, anyway.
I'm not sure I ever truly liked him, but I liked how he paid attention to me, and I liked the way his dick felt in my ass. AND he always wore a condom, without my having to ask. His dick was only about four inches, but he fucked hard and lasted a long time, and it was pretty hot to let him do what he wanted with me. Plus, he was generous about paying for dinners and getting us tickets to shows and that kind of stuff. So we kept having sex and going on dates without ever really . . . `dating'.
Rich LOVED going to Atlantic City for the weekend . . . he'd do it a couple times a semester. He took me along once, and I ended up spending hours watching him pump quarters into the slot machines and play blackjack and poker. Oh my GOD was I bored! He could talk for hours, too, about his strategies for poker and how he'd calculate the odds for blackjack . . . though the more classes in statistics I took, the more holes I saw in his strategies.
I watched him win at blackjack a couple times that weekend, and once I saw a slot machine pay out for him. The way he reacted to winning . . . like, MANICALLY excited . . . was so over the top that it felt kind of . . . creepy. He invited me to Atlantic City a couple other times after that, but once was way more than enough for me.
But I still let him fuck me whenever he wanted.
I never had sex with Brian. By the time I met him, I was kind of seeing someone . . . though we hadn't made any formal commitment or talked about being monogamous or anything, so I was theoretically still available. But Brian? Ick. It wasn't actually his dumpy body . . . though that didn't help . . . it's just he basically had a kind of negative, loser personality that really turned me off. On top of that, we'd hardly known him two months, and he already owed money to every single one of us.
Rich threw a kernel of popcorn at Chris, then suddenly swung his attention to me.
"So, Will, you bottoming for Ghetto Boy?"
Ghetto Boy? Seriously?!
I thought Chris might say something . . . back me up . . . but he just guffawed.
Seriously!?!!
"Don't call him Ghetto Boy! His name is MICHAEL, and he's smart enough to get accepted into Penn State, JUST like you . . . fair and square . . . IN SPITE OF where he grew up . . . WITH a full-tuition scholarship! And he got in for Electrical Engineering, which isn't easy! You should be cheering him on, not calling him names!"
Chris smirked. "He may be at Penn State, but he's still Ghet-to."
He enunciated "ghetto" like it was something you scrape off your shoe.
"You can take the boy out of the jungle . . ." Rich smirked back.
Brian went for snide. "Didn't you meet him `cause he needed tutoring? Doesn't sound that smart to me . . ."
"And how are YOUR grades, Brian? At least MICHAEL was smart enough to go for tutoring when he needed it! It's just his high school didn't have pre-calc, and he had trouble catching up on math classes. I mean, I tutor him in math, but he practically tutors ME in everything else!"
Honestly, Michael was smarter than me, and I knew it. I had a knack for math, but most of my other classes were a struggle. Meeting him had been a Godsend . . . he basically saved my ass academically.
I'd met him in November of our sophomore year, when I was volunteering to be a math tutor, and before long we were studying together outside of the tutoring center, with me explaining math to him as coherently as I could, and him helping me with . . . well, basically everything else. Michael was incredibly patient, figuring out multiple ways to talk me through something till I finally got it. And when he didn't understand something himself, he'd go off and poke away at it, as long as it took, till he figured it out.
We spent a ton of time studying together . . . which turned into a ton of time just hanging out.
I've always been kind of awkward, socially . . . not knowing what to say, or saying the wrong thing, like, way too often. I mean, it's not like I'm a loner or a total loser. People like me well enough. I work out, keep in shape. I have a nice face, and I'm naturally blond, which . . . in case you grew up under a rock . . . a lot of people really go for. But I have trouble making friends . . . close friends. I didn't ever really have a friend who wanted to hang out with me . . . with just me, specifically . . . until I met Michael.
And he did! Want to hang out with me, I mean. It meant an awful lot to me.
Michael was quiet, but there was a kind of intensity under the surface that was exciting . . . and sometimes a little intimidating. He wasn't handsome, exactly, and his body was more stocky than sexy, but the more we hung out, the more I found myself thinking about him when we weren't together . . . and fantasizing about him when I was all alone with my five fingers.
I didn't come out to him for months, not till after my last final at the very end of sophomore year . . . chickenshit move, but I was terrified he'd stop hanging out with me if he knew I was gay.
I shouldn't have worried. He just shrugged and said, "Yeah, we cool."
At the start of our junior year, on our very first day back, he came out to me. I don't know if he needed the summer to figure it out, or if being gay was just not something you admitted to easily in his part of Philly.
But we spent even more time, junior year, hanging out together. And eventually, without ever really talking about it, we kind of started . . . seeing each other? . . . dating? . . . maybe? Even then, I wasn't sure if we were dating or just . . . hanging out practically all the time and messing around every time we had the chance.
Actually, the messing around started at the very beginning of junior year, about two minutes after he told me that he was gay too.
I'd been with only half a dozen guys at that point . . . Rich more often than all the rest of them put together . . . but I was basically obsessed with sex. Or maybe with the idea of sex.
I thought about sex all the time . . . especially kinky sex. I fantasized about sex with strangers, sex with multiple guys at one time, anonymous sex, tied-up-and-blindfolded sex. The thought of it turned me on . . . but it scared me too. I didn't want to end up with AIDS. I didn't want to get beat up . . . or murdered! I wasn't completely sure I even wanted the reality of that kind of sex . . . but I couldn't stop imagining it.
In reality, I was still pretty inexperienced. Turned out Michael had done a lot more than me . . . starting back in eighth grade! . . . he'd just never admitted that it meant anything more than a couple guys getting their rocks off together.
Neither of us really knew what we were doing . . . but God we had fun figuring it out together!
So yeah . . . I bottomed for him, every chance I got. His dick was huge, even longer than Chris's and way fatter . . . but I didn't realize at first how freakishly big it was. I just knew it left my ass sore every time I took him. I mean, it looked like some of the bigger dicks in the magazines that I sometimes splurged on, so I figured that he was on the larger end of normal, and my six and three quarters was on the smaller end of normal. I didn't know where to look up stats on dick size, so it took me a while to figure out how far off the mean he was. I just knew from the very first time he fucked me that I loved how it felt when his dick stretched me open and filled me up. I didn't care if a fuck from Michael left me sore for three whole days . . . it was totally worth it! And as I took him more and more, the soreness happened less and less.
But `dating' . . . that scared me in a different way. I wasn't totally sure I wanted to date . . . and I had trouble imagining myself in a committed relationship . . . one guy, for ever and ever? Anyway, I was still young, and if I was going to play the field, shouldn't I be doing it now?
And was I, maybe, a little scared to date a guy from `the hood'? What kind of stuff had he seen . . . drug deals? . . . rapes? . . . murders? What was he capable of? What would he do if he got really upset or lost control?
Another problem with a committed relationship . . . I wasn't exactly out to my folks. I couldn't picture myself showing up at home with a boyfriend. And I kept putting off the whole `Dad, Mom, I'm gay!' thing, even though I was pretty sure they'd be okay with it.
Pretty sure . . .
Of course, when they helped me move in to the new apartment at the start of this semester, and they met Jamie . . . well, maybe they figured out more than we talked about.
Anyway, in spite of all my doubts and all my waffling, I did invite Michael to come home with me for spring break, junior year.
It was pretty much a disaster.
My parents had no idea why I was bringing a person like that' into our home, and they didn't really hide their reaction. They were polite, but it was that formal kind of politeness that made it really obvious they didn't think he belonged there. I was mortified . . . but when I looked at Michael through their eyes . . . kind of rough around the edges, hard to read, not well-spoken' in the way they'd drilled into my sisters and me . . . I felt myself giving my own doubts more weight than I wanted to.
And it didn't help that he came from Philly . . . in the EASTERN half of Pennsylvania . . . which raises all kinds of suspicions for people from the western half. My mom actually pulled me aside and asked me if I was sure it was safe to have him sleep in the same room with me!
It wasn't a TOTAL disaster. During the day, when Mom and Dad were at work, Michael and I fucked noisily all over the house. I showed him around Pittsburgh, which was fun. And at night, we fucked quietly in my childhood bedroom, with my parents on the other side of the wall, which was hot in its own way.
By the end of the week, my parents had thawed just enough that I could imagine maybe, just possibly, bringing Michael home with me again. Maybe. And that's if HE was even willing to come home with me again, after the way they'd treated him!
The thing was, I wanted Michael to come home with me again. Maybe I even wanted him to be a permanent part of my life, to be a boyfriend . . . maybe even a . . . partner? A husband? Though not, of course, in any legal sense . . . that was impossible, I knew.
But I also wanted to play around . . . have adventures . . . get to experience life!
And did I really want to spend the rest of my life fending off little snubs and snipes, fighting back embarrassment about a partner who'd never quite fit in . . . constantly feeling like I had to defend him?
I basically had no idea what I should do, or even what I actually wanted!
I'd gotten used to Rich and Brian sneering at Michael every chance they got. Chris would swing hot or cold, depending on his mood. Jamie usually stayed out of it, or quietly sympathized when the guys hassled me about Michael.
But today, Jamie chimed in on their side. And he sounded so earnest and concerned, it was harder to dismiss.
"He's got a single mom, right? And didn't you say she does crack? You can learn a lot about what people will be like by looking at their parents. I'd be really careful, Will."
"Thank you, JAMIE! Michael is not his mom. He's a great guy; he's not on crack, and I'm not going to debate him any more with you losers!"
But I felt that niggling fear behind my sternum. Was Jamie actually wrong? How well did I truly know Michael? Did I really want to risk committing to a future with him? What if he got hooked on drugs? What if everything fell apart? What if he got violent?
Where could I find stats on domestic violence in inner city Philly . . .
As usual, Rich was in the mood to stir the pot. "Yeah . . . I bet he's a crackhead too, just like dear old mumsy."
That was too much!
"I've seen YOU do cocaine!"
. . . yet another thing about the weekend in Atlantic City that had turned me off!
Rich just laughed, but Chris stared at me with a look of disgust he usually reserved for Brian.
"That's totally different, dumbshit!"
"I bet he's using," Rich needled me, "but he's hiding it from you, `cause you're such a tightass."
"I am NOT a tightass!"
At this, all four of them burst out laughing . . . and if I hadn't been so pissed off, I probably would have joined them. I have a lot going for me, but there are times when I am definitely a tightass.
But I was pissed off!
"Chris, why aren't you defending him? Not every black man from the `hood is on crack! That's an incredibly offensive stereotype!"
His response was a smug sneer.
"My daddy went to Morehouse and my mama went to Spelman. I don't know anything about the `hood. And there are no crackheads in my family!"
"That you know of . . ." Rich slid in, sweetly.
Chris glared at him, but Rich just smiled back, even more sweetly . . . before swinging suddenly back to me.
"So, Will, ARE you bottoming for Ghetto Boy? I hope you're using condoms!"
"I always use condoms, every time," Brian proclaimed.
"Yeah? It helps when a ten pack is a lifetime supply," Chris shot back.
"I get plenty of sex!"
"Uh huh. Not by MY standards, honey chile!"
"Your standards?" Rich laughed. "All I know about your standards, stud, is that after you're done with your slut du jour, there's still the same number of condoms in the nightstand as when you started."
Chris stayed smug. "I'll be fine. I am a TO-TAL top, no exceptions! It's the buttboys who have to worry!"
Rich raised his eyebrows. "Thank you, Magic Johnson, for that scientific insight!"
He turned his raised eyebrows pointedly towards Jamie, who was loud and proud about taking it up the ass.
"I use condoms!" Jamie retorted with a defensive air, "I mean, unless I KNOW the guy is clean."
What the fuck! I couldn't let THAT go without comment.
"And how the fuck do you KNOW a guy is `clean', Jamie? The virus doesn't even show up on tests for three to six months. Unless you're both being monogamous, you have no way of knowing. It's a huge gamble!"
Rich's pointed look swiveled to me. "And how do you KNOW a guy's being monogamous? He's a guy . . . give him a chance to fuck, and he'll take it."
Shit.
I couldn't argue with his logic . . . but it was so cynical, I refused to agree.
"Not everyone's like that! Some couples are monogamous. And at some point, if you want a relationship to work, you've got to trust the guy."
Rich's pointed look took on a sharper edge. "You willing to bet your life on that?"
Jamie's eyebrows drew together in theatrical dismay. "Will . . . are you having unprotected sex with MICHAEL?"
I was. I knew I shouldn't, but I was. I just didn't want to have to defend myself in a setting like this.
"None of your fucking business!"
Silence.
Rich and Chris exchanged knowing looks. Brian looked smug.
Jamie stared at me, opened his mouth, closed it again . . . and pointedly changed the subject.
"Anyone mind if I put on some music? I just got Erasure's new EP, `Abba-esque'. They're doing old Abba songs, but Erasure style. It's the bomb!"
Nobody said anything, which Jamie took as permission. He cranked the music just loud enough to kill the conversation and keep it dead.
I tried going back to my reading, but with my brain swirling and Andy Bell channeling a quartet of Swedes in bellbottoms, math didn't stand a chance.
Actually, the music was pretty enjoyable. It had that . . . electro-something . . . overlay on top of the perky pop of the original, and it was just . . . fun. My oldest sister had loved Abba, so I'd heard these songs as a kid, even though we never . . . you know . . . LISTENED to it together.
Jamie started dancing along, creating his own disco choreography. No idea if he was making it up on the spot or had worked it out ahead of time, but it looked great.
Brian joined in, looking . . . not great . . . but you could see he was having fun and not feeling too self-conscious about his dancing. I should try not to be so hard on him . . .
Rich tossed his Game Boy on the sofa and joined in, pointedly outshining Brian but not even trying to compete with Jamie.
Halfway through the second track, Chris threw his pencil across the room and jumped to his feet, breaking out some moves of his own . . . LOTS of pelvic thrusting. Honestly, it was pretty hot.
Then the third track came on.
"If you change your mind/ I'm the first in line / Honey I'm still free / Take a chance on me!"
Fuck it.
I jumped to my feet and joined in, the five of us dancing . . . brilliantly, frenetically, aggressively, sensuously, awkwardly . . . to a gay man remaking pop royalty in his own image.
"Gonna do my very best / and it ain't no lie / if you put me to the test / if you let me try!"
Was it because my baby . . . my only child . . . was going off to college? Or was a kernel of popcorn my version of Proust's madeleine? God, that would be pathetic . . .
Whatever the trigger, I spent the next couple hours poking around the internet.
Chris I already knew about, of course. He was the first person I knew who died of AIDS . . . only two years after graduation . . . fall of '95, I think. It was just before the cocktail came into regular use . . . call it a cruel joke on the part of the universe, or just rotten timing. He went fast.
Jamie got it too . . . we all figured he got it from Chris, but you didn't . . . you know . . . ask something like that. Or maybe he didn't know who he got it from?
(I didn't seroconvert until 2010, and I have no idea who I got it from . . . I'd been pushing my luck for years with a lot of almost safe encounters, and eventually I rolled the dice one time too many and came up snake eyes. But by 2010 they'd figured out how to treat HIV, and my doctor got me safely undetectable in just a couple months, before I even had symptoms. Thank God, I didn't happen to pass it on to anyone else while I was still contagious!)
Anyway, Jamie got just as sick as Chris . . . but he didn't die. He managed to hold on . . . at death's door, from what I heard . . . until early '96, when he went on the cocktail . . . and since he happened not to die in '95, he's still alive today. Pure dumb luck!
He's artistic director at a playhouse in California now . . . he even has a Wikipedia entry, for God sakes! His husband's an actor. I think I've seen him in a couple movies . . . small roles, but still. I found a pic of the two of them online, smiling and cuddling at some kind of fundraising event . . . they looked happy. Go Jamie!
Rich wasn't in the alumni directory. In fact, he didn't seem to be much of anywhere. I didn't find an obit, so I'm guessing he's still alive . . . somewhere? The most recent thing I could find is that he filed for bankruptcy in 2009. Otherwise . . . it's like he vanished.
Brian was in the alumni directory at least, with an address in Scranton and a phone number. I actually called him up. He seemed glad to hear from me . . . but he basically spent the whole call complaining about all the bad breaks he's had in life and how broke he is. I felt sorry for him . . . but I don't see myself calling him again.
While I was playing Nancy Drew, Nicholas went off to see some friends, leaving me alone in the house.
When I reached emotional saturation, I closed my laptop, made myself an old-fashioned, put `Abba-esque' on repeat in the CD player, and hunkered down in my favorite armchair.
I was on my third old fashioned and my fifth playthrough, when I heard a gravelly baritone join in behind me.
"If you change your mind, I'm the first in line. Honey, I'm still free Ð take a chance on me!"
Michael!
"Heeey Willieboo," he rumbled as he leaned down to kiss me, giving my biceps a squeeze.
I peeled myself out of the armchair and stood up as steadily as I could, so he could wrap me in a proper hug. He held me close against his warm bulk, as if the nine hours since I last saw him had been nine years.
After a long, lingering kiss, he pulled back and gave me a quizzical look. "I ain't heard that shit in years. Nicky going away . . . that sending my baby down a spiral?"
"Yeah, something like that, sweetie. It's got me thinking about my roommates from senior year. Did you ever wonder what happened to them?"
"Nope. They hated me, and I hated them back."
I ignored this, true as it was . . . or true enough . . . and filled him in anyway.
He was impressed about Jamie.
"No shit? Good for him! I always did like little Jamie . . . even fucked him once. That boy could squeal!"
I did not know that!
He responded to my expression, "I wore a condom, babe."
"Was this before or after . . .?"
"Before or after what? He got HIV? Fuck do I know."
"No! Before or after we started seeing each other . . . uh . . . seriously."
Michael looked at me with elaborate patience. "Honey, I was serious about you from the first moment I laid eyes on you. And once YOU got serious about ME, I stopped fucking around."
"Right. I know that . . . sorry, sweetie."
"We good, babe. Now, what about the prick?"
"The prick? Oh! Rich. Yeah . . ."
I squirmed a little . . . not sure why.
"I can't tell where he is or what he's up to. He's not in the alumni directory. But I hunted around online . . . uh . . . he declared bankruptcy during the Great Recession. That's literally the last thing I found."
"Uh huh."
"He wasn't a total prick!"
"Uh huh."
"Okay . . . near total."
"Yeah. Wasn't there another guy? What was his name?"
"Brian O'Donnell."
"For real? That don't sound right."
"Yeah . . . it took me a moment to come up with it. He's on disability, living in Scranton, poor thing . . . alone, as far as I can tell. I called him up. It was pretty awkward. He basically spent the call complaining how shitty his life is, and to be honest, it sounded pretty shitty."
"Luck of the Irish?"
"Uh . . . sure. Something like that. But it all made me realize how fortunate I've been. I mean, marriage is a crap shoot at best, but . . . I am so lucky I chose you . . . and so INCREDIBLY lucky you said yes! I really, truly hit the jackpot."
And I gave him a long kiss and an even longer hug.
Michael whispered in my ear, "Honey, we both lucky. But like I always say . . . luck is what you make it."
He squeezed me and went on, "'Bout that . . . Miguel and Khalid was asking if we free tomorrow afternoon. They got some buddies in town from London, and they hoping you up for a gangbang . . . they talking `bout putting your ass in the sling and dropping two, three loads each."
"Fantastic! Sure!! You'd be part of it too, right?"
"Wouldn't miss it, Willieboo."
And he kissed me again before we headed to the kitchen to make dinner.