[ 7 ]
Two trying weeks later, I would discover that Andrew and I had made a C- on our paper. More accurately, I had made a C- on our paper, as I was its only author. It was the first C- I’d ever made in my entire life. High school showered me in A’s and B’s. Every other class, I saw A’s and B’s, and when I saw that C- on the paper, I felt a stab of joy.
Yes, a stab of joy. That C- was my freedom. That C- was my permission to let the fuck go, to relax, to slay the demon of perfection that had so haunted my adolescence. “C fucking minus,” I said, reading the grade aloud. Some guy next to me gave me a sympathetic frown, leaned in and said, “Sorry, dude. Better luck next time.” His face turned queer when the smile of pride washed over my face, beaming positively at the C- and the world that’d been opened before me and everything that stupid, shitty grade meant.
But with the ending of the psychology project, Andrew and I no longer had a reason to meet. Not that the paper was ever fully our focus. But I could not let us drift apart, not after what had been so suddenly and hotly birthed between our warring, playful minds.
“Hey, Andy,” I called out, chasing after him through the doors when class had ended.
Without turning around, I heard him grunt, “Don’t call me that.”
I had caught up to him, walking beside him on the road between the psych hall and the architecture building. “Where you off to?”
“Algebra.”
“Want to grab lunch after?”
“No.”
I was reaching here. Totally fucking desperate. That psych paper couldn’t be the only thing that brought us together. There had to be something more. “So what’re you doing after Algebra, then?”
“Going home.”
“Do you live on campus?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
“Maybe.”
“Why don’t you want to grab some lunch before you leave, then?”
“I’ll get it on my own.”
I stood in front of him, exasperated. I couldn’t let this dream slip away from me so easily. “What the fuck, Andrew?”
He walked around me, not daunted in the least by my sad attempt at trying to stop him. He just kept going, sauntering down the path without paying me a cent of mind. He was near the door to the algebra building. I had to act fast.
“How about a deal then?” I shouted at his back as he reached the door. “If your Algebra class is totally lame as fuck, then I win, and you gotta come to my dorm afterwards for lunch.”
To that, he turned his head, gave me a big grin, then flicked me off as he disappeared into the math building. I took that to mean the deal was accepted.
An hour later, he knocked on my dorm room door. “Lame as fuck,” he agreed when I answered.
And so it began. For weeks, we expertly snuck around my roommate’s schedule—which blissfully consisted of a lot of trips back home, weekends spent with the girlfriend or the parents, and days where he just wanted to stay out all night in town—and Andrew and I played and played and played. Whenever he arrived at my door, I knew it was time for our next dorm game.
One time, he had me tied up with an elastic band he used to work out and do stretches, then proceeded to ask me questions about himself, like his birthday, or his favorite TV show, or even the color of the socks he was wearing. “What color underwear do I got on?” he asked once, and the agony of knowing that the answer was hidden right in front of me beneath the sexy fold of denim at his crotch was unbearable. “You’re hard,” he observed. Tied up, there was little I could do to hide it. Every right answer earned me a piece of his clothing coming off. Every wrong answer earned me a piece of his clothing going back on. If I could get him naked in ten questions or less, I’d get his cock in my mouth. “This is killing me,” I complained, so horny and frustrated, but he only licked his lips, half-dressed, and asked the next question.
I didn’t get to suck his cock. Somehow I knew he’d planned it from the start, as it was upon the eleventh question that I finally earned his naked body, but no cock play.
A normal person would’ve given up on him by now. I’d decided that I was, without a doubt, far from normal.
Later in the year, he thought it’d be an amazing idea to belittle me with his strength by engaging in some more … physical games. One such game involved us holding a weight in either hand, requiring us to keep them elevated at shoulder height. To win, I, with my puny muscles, had to hold up a weight longer than him, the demigod. I knew he was at an unfair advantage and I didn’t care. Something about the experience of suffering near him, sweating, struggling, feeling my muscles cramping and aching while he stood there, perfectly at ease, cocky, a triumphant smirk on his face the whole time, made me so hard that I could’ve cum right there.
After we’d play and have ourselves declared a winner and a loser, he would seem to grow restless, unsure of what to do, then eventually decide to go. I’d always have to make sure we had our next game planned, just so I’d be assured that I would see Andrew again. Whenever he left, my heart felt heavy and the world grew small and cold. Lying there on the bed, I’d hardly acknowledge my roommate when he’d return at two in the morning and rush to the shower. Good for him, I remember thinking. At least my roommate’s getting some action. I’ve been mindfucked all semester by Andrew and yet haven’t fucked or been fucked at all.
What a cruel concept, to have so much sexless sex with someone. We were so strangely intimate, and yet hadn’t been intimate at all.
That needed to change. And soon.
Even this late in the game, I still couldn’t say with confidence whether Andrew was gay or straight or experimental or something else entirely. He seemed to have little interest in sex. I couldn’t even say whether he found me attractive. I was, by no means, a super sexy guy. Andrew was a super sexy guy. The only thing that seemed to keep his interest at all were these weird, sexually-frustrated, mind-fucky sort of power games. Sure, I found them erotic. I usually had a stiffy from start to end, but there was something emotionally missing for me. Was it missing for him, too?
For one, he never kissed. I’ve wanted to put my lips to his so badly that I’ve dreamt it several nights in a row. Also, he never allowed us to do anything incredibly intimate unless it was within the context of a game. With my somewhat limited psych knowledge, I considered whether this was a form of denial or not. It almost reminded me of the type of guy that would only do gay things if he was super, super drunk or stoned. It’s like he could just blame the drug—or the game—for making him do shit with a guy. It somehow made it … acceptable.
There had to be something else in him. There had to be something more in him than just these fucking games. Where was his soul? Where was his passion and his gallantry and his humor?
I needed to figure it out. I refused to believe it didn’t exist. It’s time to manifest my own power. It’s time to bring the player to a different table.
It was time to play my game.