SEA CHANGE

He looked up at me and frowned. “Well? You can warm up, too. Do what they’re doing,” he said, nodding toward the others.

They were stretching, so I stretched. And though the suit was more modest than the other one Daniel had me buy, it was still rather… formfitting. The girl divers smiled at me. The guy with black hair seemed to be concentrating on his stretching, but he did look my way at least once.

That first day, I waded, back and forth across the shallow end, which was fine with me because then I was free to watch the divers. I’d never really been around divers before; at least not competitive divers. I decided that I liked their bodies far better than swimmers. They were tight, with good definition, more like gymnasts. I enjoyed watching as they progressed to harder and harder dives.

Coach sent me to the showers at the same time he sent the divers, but I moved slower with my cane. One of the divers was already leaving the showers by the time I came in, but the guy with the black hair was there. I stepped to the shower next to him, pulled off my suit and rinsed it under the shower.

The black-haired guy had an elegant body, long and lean like Colin, but with broader shoulders and a flatter chest. Thin black leg hair climbed up to mid thigh, but above that, his only body hair was a wide patch of pubic hair and a few black hairs in the middle of his chest.

We checked each other out, like even straight guys do. He looked nicely hung. “I enjoyed watching you guys dive,” I told him.

“Thanks,” he said. “What’d you do to your leg?”

“Knee surgery,” I said.

He nodded, knowingly, and then extended a soapy hand. “Ken Kawamoto,” he said. “I’m a freshman like you.”

“Sean Sullivan,” I said, taking his hand. “How’d you know I was a freshman?”

“I saw you at orientation.”

“Oh,” I said. “I was sorta out of it that day.”

“Weren’t we all,” he said. “My eyes glazed over by the second hour.”

He stayed in the shower with me, talking about classes and the school. We dried off together and headed for our lockers, but only after I learned that we had a Tuesday, Thursday physics class and Thursday lab together

. . . . .

I had missed the Trinity game that first weekend, because I was in Austin. They lost. And even though the next week was an off-week for the team, the coach worked them hard on Monday. Eric dragged himself into the room after supper.

I watched from where I sat at the desk, studying in my underwear, as he collapsed onto his bed.

“Rough practice?” I asked.

His answer was a deep groan.

“How did algebra go?” I asked.

He waved a tired hand at me. “Great. I even helped one of the other guys in class with what you told me. Thanks for the help.” He covered his eyes with his forearm. “But now I’ve got to study Early Civ for tomorrow and I don’t think I can make it. I’m beat.”

“I can get some ice water,” I said.

“I’m not thirsty any more,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to give it to you to drink,” I said, cocking an eyebrow.

He groaned again. “What? As in throw it at me?” He peeked at me from under his forearm. “My roommate’s a masochist.”

“Just trying to be helpful,” I said.

“OK,” he said, sitting up. “What’d be helpful would be if you gave me another rubdown? I’m really sore.”

Remembering high school football practices, I believed him. I put down my English Comp book and stood up, stretching. “You aren’t going to make a habit of this, right?” I asked.

“I’m in pain, Sean… please?”

I sighed. “Roll over.”

Eric sat up, pulled off his shirt and rolled onto his stomach. “Oh, man, I really appreciate this.”

I thought about putting on my shorts, just in case I sprouted wood, but I felt pretty safe. Eric really wasn’t my type. The door was already closed, so I climbed onto his butt without bothering to put on pants. Straddling him, and using lotion I kept around (for other reasons), I began to work on his shoulders.

Eric sighed and relaxed, but even relaxed, his muscles were hard as a rock. “I can’t help but feel sorry for whatever guys you made sore today, Eric.”

His eyes were closed and he didn’t answer. “Don’t fall asleep,” I warned him. “You said you needed to study.”

He groaned. “Yeah, well. I don’t know why,” he said. “I thought I was going to get some help. You know. I figured that because of my scholarship, the coaches would grease my way through classes, but they aren’t gonna do shit. And there’s no fucking way I can pass my classes it if they don’t help.”

“Well,” I said, digging the heels of my hands into the thick muscles between his shoulder blades, “Trinity has a rep for being a hard school. I would almost expect that. Why’d you choose Trinity anyway?”

He shrugged under my hands. “That’s just it; it’s got a good rep. I figured a degree here would be worth something, especially if I don’t make the pros. And besides, Trinity was the only school to offer a full scholarship. Linebackers don’t usually get those.”

“You aren’t dumb, Eric,” I told him. “You just gotta study.”

“Easy for you to say,” he mumbled. “You’re a brain.”

“Like I said, you aren’t dumb, Eric.”

“Well,” he acknowledged. “There are plenty of dumber guys around alright, but I’ve always had a hell of a time studying. I don’t remember much of what I read.”

I kneaded the long muscles of his back with my knuckles. “I guess I always have had an easy time remembering what I’ve read. But it isn’t just reading, Dude. Like, do you take notes in class? Do you talk about what you’re studying with anyone else? Do you think about what you’re studying outside of class? Do you use tricks like mnemonic devices to remember things?”

He frowned. “I think about football or Tracy when I’m not in class.”

“Get Tracy to help you study,” I suggested.

“Yeah, right. She’s almost as bad as I am.”

“You’re an awfully big guy to be such a crybaby,” I said and felt like I was bearding the lion. But he didn’t get angry. He just sighed again.

“Come on,” I encouraged. “Open your book or I’ll quit giving you this back rub.”

With a final groan, he reached for the dresser next to the bed and pulled his book off the top. I kept working while he opened it, and I watched him open the book to the fourth chapter. From the angle of his head, it looked to me like he was skipping the introduction on the left page and starting with the chapter proper.

“Don’t you read the chapter introduction?” I asked.

“What, this?” he asked, pointing to the left page.

I scooted forward off his butt to get at his shoulders better, and to better see the book. “Yeah, that page.”

“Why? They just cover it again in the chapter.”

“Whoa! Stop!” I said, biffing his head. “I bet you skipped the introduction to the book too, didn’t you?”

“What introduction?”

“I bet,” I said, “that you were assigned the introduction to read right off.”

Eric shrugged. “Maybe.”

“OK, turn back to the intro to the book.”

He grumbled, but did it. And then, sitting astride his back and rubbing his shoulders, I scanned the introduction with him, and pointed out how the authors gave their strategy for the book and what overall themes they would stress. “You see how they point out that mankind always advanced the most when there was an absence of conflict? That’s going to be a theme of the book, and for your professor too, I’ll bet. Just start echoing that back whenever you can and he’ll think you’ve got it. Now go to the first chapter intro.”

I lead him through the chapter overviews for the first three chapters, and then the fourth, showing him how the book tried to weave it’s themes through a review of early history. Then I started him reading the fourth chapter and climbed off his back.

“I’m going to call home,” I said. “I met a guy today that sorta reminded me of my brother… made me homesick. I’m gonna call him.”

Colin was excited; he’d been chosen to start for the varsity in the first district game. When we finished, and I hung up the phone, Eric looked up from the book. “So your brother plays football?”

“Yep,” I said. “He’s a junior this year and they’re starting him at quarterback.”

Eric sat up. “That’s cool. So how come you never played?”

“Who said I never played? I was a defensive back. I just didn’t play the last year because I had other things going on. But I did run. That’s why the coaches here are working with me. I used to run cross-country and did pretty good; I finished second at state.”

Eric nodded, impressed. “So when are you going to be able to run again?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” I said, leaning back in my chair at the desk. “I’m not even sure I can run.” I looked off out the window to where I could see the lights of the city. “I dream about it, though, all the time. I dream I’m running, usually at the beach,” then I smiled. “Usually naked.” I didn’t say, however, that it was usually with Daniel or Jorge, or sometimes with Aaron, but almost always with someone.

Eric laughed. “Did you used to run naked at the beach?”

I glanced at him. “Yeah, a few times. Swam naked too.”

He nodded and sat forward. “We used to run naked on the golf course back home, at night, you know… feeling the wind and all.”

I didn’t know what size his friends were, but could imagine a herd of giants running naked in the dark; had to be scary.

“Finish studying,” I told him. “So you can get some sleep.”

“Yes, Mommy,” he grumbled, laying back on his bed and lifting the book. “But it seems to me that these guys are wrong. I think people advance because of conflict… like wars… I mean, guys think up new weapons and new strategies.”

“And the conflict doesn’t have to be with other men,” I pointed out. “It can be a struggle with nature, or other pressures; men thinking up ways to survive.”

“Yeah!” Eric said, enthusiastically. “These guys have it backwards.”

“Well, not knowing your professor, I wouldn’t say it that way in class, but I would ask questions like that. Show the professor you’re thinking.”

Eric smiled. I guess he was visualizing himself asking questions in class.

That night, after I turned off the light and we were lying in our beds, I heard Eric clear his throat. “Sean?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for helping me with Early Civ.”

“Sure.”

“Maybe tomorrow night, I’ll let you play that stupid classical music shit.”

“Well it beats the hell out of that my-dog-died country and western cry-in-your-beer shit of yours. Especially to study to.”

He was quiet a moment. “I’m not going to beat the shit out of you,” he said with mock decisiveness.

“Thanks.”

“Because of the back rubs and because you help me study.”

“Yeah, as if you could beat the shit out of me. A guy your size has to be so fucking slow that even on my cane, I could walk away.”

“Uh, huh. Sure,” he said. “You still have to sleep sometime.”

“Um, hmm,” I answered. “So do you.”

He was quiet another moment, then… “Good night, Sean. Go to sleep, now.”

I chuckled. And then I thought again of Colin. I missed him. I missed my roommate.

. . . . .

I sat by Ken in the class we shared the next day and managed to get him as a lab partner. We studied together after class and then walked to the pool together.

Coach started me on lap swimming, as well as water walking. It was harder to watch the divers, but I managed, and afterward, in the showers, told Ken how great I thought his diving was.

He tried to play it down and told me about all the things wrong with his dives. But then I told him specific things I liked, and could tell he was pleased that I’d paid such close attention.

It might have been my imagination, but my leg felt more limber as I returned to my dorm for supper.

That night, Linda called just after I made Eric buckle down with his Life Sciences book.

“I’ve got a new cassette you just have to hear,” she said. “Next time you go to Austin, stop by and bring a book. We can study together while you listen to it.”

“What kind of cassette?” I asked. “Not opera, right? I mean, a man has his limits. I’ve got a roommate into country and western and my limits are pretty low right now.”

Eric shot me the finger from his bed.

I shot one back.

“Well, not really opera,” she said. “But great arias; just the good stuff.”

I sighed, loud enough for her to hear. “It’d sure be hard to study with all that screaming and yelling.”

“Well,” she said. “We don’t have to study.”

Ignoring the more obvious connotations of that statement, I asked her about her classes.

. . . . .

I was sitting at my desk, in my underwear, minding my own business on Thursday night when it happened.

Eric had taken to studying in his underwear as well, which gave me a certain amount of mentor’s satisfaction. Ferg, a friend of Eric’s from down the hall was sitting on my bed studying in shorts and singlet. If he hadn’t been such a chunky lineman, I would have encouraged him to strip as well.

Instead, I was minding my own business, and studying quite happily to a Mozart symphony when Eric cranked up Tammy Wynette on his cassette player.

They’d had a light workout that day, and coach was actually giving them Friday off, leaving Eric with way too much energy and no reason to get to bed early.

Well, I couldn’t hear my Mozart, so I turned it up.

Ferg put his book down and crossed his arms to watch, smiling.

Eric cranked his up, and it sounded like Tammy howled.

What could I do? A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. I cranked mine up all the way.

Ferg, smiling, covered his ears as Eric spun his volume all the way.

The walls vibrated and my ears hurt. But I glared at Eric who glared back.

“Why don’t you get earphones?” I yelled.

“Why don’t you?” he yelled back.

“Because my music is soothing.”

“Yeah… if your NINETY YEARS OLD!” he yelled.

I shot him the finger and lifted my book to study, prepared to wait him out, proud that stubbornness ran in my family.

It didn’t run in his. Eric got up, strode to my desk, turned off my cassette, and returned to his bed.

So, grabbing my cane, which was handy, I sorta strode to his dresser, and holding him at bay on his bed by pointing my cane at him, I unplugged his cassette and carried it back to my desk, where I set it down. I turned back toward him, intending a satisfied smile, only to find him right there, in front of me.

He buried his shoulder in my gut and lifted me over it; butt high, like a light sack of potatoes.

I yelled and slapped his butt hard. It had absolutely no effect.

“What are you going to do with him?” Ferg asked, standing up from my bed.

I grabbed the back of Eric’s waistband and jerked up on it, giving him the best wedgie I could without tearing his briefs. “He’s going to put me the fuck down,” I said, and then gasped as Eric tossed me higher on his shoulder.

“I’m putting him outside,” Eric said. “Any guy with no appreciation for Tammy Wynette is not worthy of this room.

Ferg slapped my ass. “You ought to belt-line him,” Ferg suggested. “Run him down the hall first and let everybody take a shot.”

“Like hell you will,” I growled and popped Eric’s waistband. Not much action there.

“Yeah,” Eric said. “Let’s do it. Then I’ll put him outside and since it’s after hours, the door will lock, and I’ll have a peaceful night.”

“You’ll never have another peaceful night again,” I warned while Ferg ran up and down the hall announcing a belt-line. “You are going to be soooo sorry about this,” I warned.

“No,” Eric said, slapping my ass. “I think I’m going to be soooo happy about this.”

“You’ll get one for every one I get,” I warned.

“As if you had any muscles,” he said. “I’m sooo scared!”

I slapped his butt hard, and my hand stung.

Though my head was down and the world was upside down, from all the cheering I could tell that all the doors to the hall had opened, and jocks had lined up on both sides. I peeked around Eric. “Holy shit!” I said. “Some of them really have belts!”

“Yep,” Eric said, and then began walking, way too slowly, down the hall.

At first, I tried to match whacks on my butt with whacks on Eric’s butt. But the ones I was getting smarted like hell whereas my slaps to his butt seemed to have no effect at all. I pushed up on his back, tensing my butt against the whacks. And that’s when some of the more enthusiastic jocks began taking shots at Eric’s butt.

He picked up speed. Ferg, following us with a huge grin, picked up speed as well. By the time we reached the end of the hall, Eric was taking as many whacks as I was.

He opened the door to the outside and I grabbed the waistband of his underwear tightly; there was no way I was going to let him lock me outside. I would give him the granddaddy of all wedgies first.

He stepped out through the door to put me down, and two things happened, almost simultaneously. Ferg gave him a shove from behind and closed the door on both of us, and my wedgie attempt failed because the waistband of Eric’s briefs tore and I wound up with a huge patch of cotton from his backside in my hands.

We stood there, under a light on the outside stairs, appraising the situation. And then Eric grabbed the side of my briefs and gave a huge tug that almost pulled me off my feet, and tore out the side of my briefs.

“Oh, shit!” I gasped, jerking up and clutching my knee.

“Oh Sean, man, I’m sorry,” Eric cried, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Are you OK?”

The pain from my knee passed quickly, but my butt still stung. I straightened back up and frowned at him. “See what country and western does to a person? It’s evil, Eric,” I said, boring into his eyes with mine. “Give it up before it’s too late!”

He grinned. “Fuck you!” And then he looked around. It was late. The campus was quiet. We could ring the bell at the front entrance and get in that way, but the RA would give us hell.

He started down the stairs and I had to smile at his fully exposed butt crack. “You are not leaving me here,” I called and started to limp after him.

He came back to me and pulled my arm over his shoulder. He was tall enough, I felt like he was pulling my arm off. “What about the alarm?” I asked. “I thought the door had an alarm that would go off.”

“Are you kidding?” Eric said. “That got disabled like the first night.”

We came to the ground floor and approached the corner of the building. There, in the dark, a breeze came past and blew through the tatters of my underwear, soothing my burning butt.

“What do you want to do?” Eric asked.

I looked up at the night sky, and toward the lights of the city. “I wish I could run,” I said wistfully.

He looked down at me a moment, and then said, “Climb on.”

“What?”

“Climb on my back,” he said. “We’ll run.”

I half-laughed; he had to be joking.

He shrugged. “I feel like running, too. Let’s streak the campus.” He pulled the remains of his underwear off. “Come on. It’ll be cool.”

I looked around. I sure didn’t see anyone. So I took my briefs off too. “Sorta like a Lady Godiva kind of streak, huh? Except that I’m no lady.”

“And I’m no horse,” Eric said, turning his back to me.

“Yeah, well, we can talk about that later,” I said, grabbing his shoulders and hopping up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and tried not to think about my cock and balls dangling on his butt.

He grabbed under my legs, careful of my knee, took a few steps adjusting, and then began to trot.

Initially, I had taken it as a joke, but with the wind in my hair and over my body, and using my leg muscles to stay properly mounted; it almost felt good.

Eric trotted across the parking lot and then around the baseball field. “How’s your leg?” he asked.

“Not bad. You don’t have to keep running if you’re tired,” I said.

“I like running,” he said. “At least running naked. As long as you’re OK.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, gripping his shoulders and tightening my legs around his waist. “It’s almost better than running myself since you’re doing all the work.”

He trotted down almost to Mulberry, and then along, parallel to the road, and then back up toward the track and football field. Despite the sensuality of being naked in the night breeze and having my legs around a naked guy, I didn’t get hard. It wasn’t erotic.

My thighs were just beginning to get sore when Eric ran onto the turf at the end of the field and stopped, setting me down. “I need to rest a second,” he said.

I stretched. “Yeah, well just don’t leave me out here.”

A wicked grin spread on his face.

“Don’t even think about it,” I warned. “Or you’ll never sleep safely again.”

He laughed and sat down on the fine grass. I sat down beside him, and when he lay back, hands behind his head, I joined him, looking up into the stars.

“That was sorta fun,” he said.

“Yeah, it was. Even though my butt still burns from your fuckin’ belt-line.”

“Mine, too,” he said. They got me too.

“Yeah, well you deserved it.”

“We need revenge,” he said.

“Yep.”

His breathing slowed as he caught his breath. The breeze was almost cool, coming up from the southeast, from the Gulf of Mexico. A jet flew low overhead, on a final approach to the airport.

“Sean,” he asked. “Are you gay?”

Suddenly, the evening wasn’t so peaceful anymore. I weighed my options. No matter how I answered his question, life might not be easy afterward. Trying to hide being gay would be a pain. But being out could be painful in other ways. I wondered how he had guessed. I didn’t consider myself at all effeminate. And I had tried to never be caught staring at guy’s butts.

“Are you pissed that I asked?” he said. “Because if you aren’t gay, I’m really sorry I asked that.”

“I’m gay,” I said. “How’d you know?”

“Well, let’s see. You’ve been to Austin twice already to see Daniel. And you’re going again this weekend. And he calls almost every other night or you call him. And you try to hide it, but I hear how you talk to him; you sound like me talking to Tracy.”

“So, does everybody know?” I asked.

“Shit no,” he said. “If everyone knew you were gay, they might think I was.”

“Are you going to move out?” I asked. “Or do you want me to?”

“No,” he said, immediately. “I mean, like I thought about it, you know… “ he glanced at me. “You would’ve if you were me.” Then he looked back up to the sky. “But you don’t act gay. You’re a nice guy, Sean. And I appreciate that you’ve helped me study. I really appreciate that. And I appreciate the backrubs.” He paused, and then glanced at me again. “You’re not doing the backrubs because I turn you on or anything, are you?”

“Asshole,” I said. “I’ve given you backrubs because I felt sorry for you and hoped they’d help.”

A puff of breeze blew over us, carrying the scents of trees up from the Olmos Basin.

“Do you mind being my roommate?” Eric asked quietly.

“I like being your roommate,” I told him sincerely. “I like it so much, I may just crawl in to bed with you some night and give you a big kiss.”

“Shit!” he said, and flopped the back of his fist over onto my stomach.

“Oh, geez,” I said, tightening my gut.

He left the back of his hand there, resting on my gut. It wasn’t a sexual contact, but a friend thing.

He sighed. “Just don’t go acting all queer in front of other guys, OK?”

“I don’t know. You keep playing Tammy Wynette and I might just feel like dancing out into the hall, floating like a butterfly.”

He rapped the back of his hand on my belly and I flinched. “There are things that can happen in your sleep, too, prick,” he said.

Another plane flew overhead and I was surprised that there were flights so late at night.

“Sean?”

“Yeah?”

“If you ever want to… you know… if you ever want to suck my cock, it’s OK.”

“I don’t do anything I don’t expect to get returned,” I said. “I do you only if you do me.”

“Oh.”

I glanced down our bodies, trying to see if he looked like he was getting an erection. He wasn’t my type; nevertheless, it was a great night with a nice breeze over our naked bodies, but from what I could see, he hadn’t sprouted wood.

“Any idea how to get back in?” he asked.

“Not a clue.”

We walked back, me on his back. And we expected that we’d have to knock on a window. But looking up the stairs, we could tell that someone had wedged open the door on our floor. We learned later that we’d taken so long to come back that Ferg figured Eric would be pissed as hell.

Having Hercules for a roommate had advantages.

As usual, emails are appreciated at btomandback@hotmail.com