Part XX
After pondering what made Terry tick, I scrambled to buy my books for the semester and landed in Intro to Psych with about a minute to spare. By then only desks in the front were left. Damn. To my surprise three dorm-floor
Freshmen were there: Robert (Terry's roommate and the black kid from the suburbs of Des Moines), Josh (the always-seems-to-need-a-shave swimmer), and Nick (the little blond soccer player from Kansas City with a hairdo like an '80s heartthrob).
Nick was the cutest of the three, and there was an open seat next to him, so I chose it just as the professor strode in followed by a young woman who looked strikingly familiar. She was of about average height, I'd say, maybe a little shorter. She had blondish hair but a little shorter than I liked, close-set eyes, maybe a tad overweight but in a way that gave her big breasts. Still, she wasn't as hot as Rebecca. Or Jessica, for that matter. Anyway, as the professor went over the preliminaries, I couldn't stop staring at her. Not because she was drop-dead gorgeous, but because I knew her from somewhere.
After class, she took the first step toward helping me find out.
"You were staring at me."
"No I wasn't."
"Yes you were. You recognize me from somewhere."
"Maybe. But I wasn't staring."
"Well, anyway. I'm Connie. I'm Professor Morgan's TA. Teaching assistant."
"All right. Nice to meet you."
"You really don't recognize me, do you."
"N-no. Should I?"
"Dorm floor, first year, in the hallway?"
"Y-you, must have me confused with somebody else."
"No, I distinctly remember you. I handed you the survey and you filled it out."
My stomach dropped.
"Survey?"
"For my class." Connie dropped her voice to a whisper. "The sexual orientation survey. Remember?"
Connie took my silence as a yes and continued.
"I was an undergraduate then, in Professor Morgan's Human Sexuality senior seminar. You remember filling it out?"
"No, I uh ... Oh yeah, that."
I was trying to play it cool, probably unsuccessfully. That was because the specifics were coming back to me. Connie had been making the rounds on my floor during my
Freshmen year, handing out a questionnaire that asked
Freshmen guys where they fell on the continuum of being gay or straight, 1 being straight and 7 being gay. I had never seen such a thing in my life. I vaguely remembered putting an x between numbers 3 and 4, but I couldn't be sure.
"The, um, survey. Sure."
"I thought you would." There was a pause, then Connie continued. "Remember, it's all confidential. I just-- I just wanted to say hi, in case you remembered me, in case you had, um, concerns that maybe the survey had gotten into the wrong hands. Because it didn't. It hasn't. And it never will."
Connie knew about me. There was no question. I was worried but also relieved that SOMEBODY knew. When Connie turned to leave, I intervened.
"So, Connie, as, ah, a TA, do we work together, and stuff?"
"I'll be helping you on your research project."
"Research project?"
"It's in the syllabus, along with a list of topics. Your first draft will be due the week after spring break. Never too early to get started, though. And once a topic is taken, it's taken, and no one else can do that topic. You should let me know when you decide." Connie took the syllabus from my hand and showed me page 4. "Here's the list." She pointed right to topic 12, "Sexual orientation in the human male."
"Let me know, Stu."
Stu. How did she know my name?
* * *
In a quiet corner of the dining hall, I pawed at my taco salad and thought about how if I could've taken the survey after having sex with Rebecca, I would've circled 1, or maybe 2. But if I had taken it after soaking up Terry in the shower, or after witnessing Jay's erotic sports physical firsthand, I'd be at least a 6. Maybe 7. Fuck.
Where was I now? WHAT was I now?
I turned my attention to the Intro to Psych syllabus. The paper had to be 25 pages. TWENTY-FIVE PAGES?! I read it three times to scan the topics looking for the easiest ones.
None seemed easy. Shit. Drop the class, that's what I'd do.
* * *
I got to Human Anatomy with plenty of time to spare, but even at 12:45 the room was jammed and strangely quiet. There was a single seat in the back row so I took it.
From what I had heard, Anatomy was hard but also my kind of class because there were no papers required. Plus, I had done well in science classes both in high school and my
Freshmen year so I was looking forward to something easy.
But I got worried as I looked around the room. Everybody was so serious. One student even carried a briefcase. I started to sweat once I had the syllabus and tried to make sense of a mishmash of terms I could barely pronounce -- embryological, arthrology, marcoscopic, mesenteries. But then something that raised my interst: "the male and female reproductive structures and their embryologic development."
Sounds hot, I thought. But what the fuck did embryologic mean?
We hadn't prepared for class, but that didn't matter to Professor Adams who said we all had bodies and for the first day of lecture that's all we'd need. When Adams made a comment about us doing homework in the privacy of our own dorms, a smartass football player in front of me snickered that his roommate from last year already would've had lots of extra credit. The guys in the room erupted while the women in gross anatomy shook their heads in recognition of the gross male species. Surprisingly Adams did nothing to discourage the frank talk. "Exploration, all such exploration, is to be encouraged, ladies and gentlemen. It's your body -- learn to know it, love it, and enjoy it. It's yours."
I was mesmerized, and after class I went to the library and did something amazing. I cracked the books, immediately. The anatomy textbook was going to be a challenge, no doubt about it. The syllabus pointed me to 30 pages on "reproductive structures." I looked in the textbook and there were 60 pages in all, and for the first time in my life I was bummed that the prof had not assigned more. I scanned the paragraphs for words I understood. There weren't many, but the pictures I could understand.
There were depictions of males and females stripped to their muscles, babies in wombs, and, yes, diagrams of sexual organs. Some words were obvious: scrotum, testis, urinary bladder. A few others I could figure out: erectile tissue, ejaculatory duct, prostate. Others were entirely new: seminal vesicle, vas deferens, prepuce.
Because I felt my erectile tissue being triggered and my seminal vesicle being filled, I moved to a private study carrel to continue my examination of the photos and began looking up words in the glossary. After 10 minutes I was horny as hell, so I turned my attention to the Intro to Psych syllabus, which, with its research-paper requirement, was the functional equivalent of a cold shower.
At first, that is.
My hairbrained idea was that I'd just find a topic that the professor wasn't covering, read that section of the textbook, change some wording, and be done. Male sexuality seemed as good as any. It wasn't in the syllabus, and there were 10 pages dedicated to the topic in the textbook, an excerpt of which read as follows:
Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. . . . The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.
The language was reprinted from a book dating to 1948 and called
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. The author was Alfred Kinsey, who, according to a box on the page, taught zoology at Indiana University and whose research into human sexuality was as groundbreaking as it was controversial.
I had to find that book!
My hands were shaking as I typed the title into the library's electronic card catalog. Bingo! One copy in the collection, in the second-floor stacks (whatever those were), and ...
"CHECKED OUT BY FACULTY; LONG-TERM LOAN"
Fuck. I HAD TO HAVE THAT BOOK! I typed in the code for "other copies available" and learned that a university in Des Moines was the closest. Shit. A two-hour drive away.
My breaths were fast and shallow. That book -- Kinsey's book -- seemed to have the secret to who I was. Who Rudolf was. Maybe who Jay and Andy were.
Maybe, possibly, who Kirk was.
I had to go to Des Moines. Now! But I couldn't. I had a mandatory RA meeting at 7, and Intro to Theater and Music Appreciation the next day. Fuck. What worthless classes. I'd just skip them and head to Des Moines first thing tomorrow. That was my plan.
* * *
Throughout the mandatory RA meeting, I could not stop thinking about Kinsey the zoologist and his scale.
Not sheep and goats. Nature rarely deals in discrete categories. Hmmm ...
Where was I on the scale? Jay? Rudolf? Terry?
Kirk?
What about Kirk? Where was my best buddy from high school on the scale? The lanky boy I had first met in the junior high shower who liked to linger there so I could soak him in? The teen with whom I had felt sexual tension and attraction all during our adolescent years, but who now, as a 19-year-old farmboy stud, was dating Jessica, my former high school girlfriend for crying out loud?
I got back to my dorm room around 8:30, and lo and behold Kirk had left a message on my answering machine. I felt a flash of warmth as I called him back. I honestly was eager to get the lowdown on how things were going on the farm during the first harvest season without his dad -- a reality that had caused my buddy to take a year off from college after completing his
Freshmen year. But I also was eager to probe a little into where my blue-eyed blond buddy was on The Scale. And to be honest, I wanted to hear that maybe, just maybe, he had broken up with Jessica.
"Kirk! What's up?"
"Hey, Stu! Good to hear your voice. Sounds like we played a little telephone tag there."
"Yeah. So ... You're not hanging with Jessica?"
"No, she's got classes starting too, like you. Speaking of that, how's the RA business? Find any
Freshmen with pot yet?"
"No, the guys are great. Most of 'em, anyway. It'll be fine. They seem pretty straight-laced to be honest. And also to be honest, I'm sort of focused on my classes."
"Classes? On the FIRST DAY? You? REALLY?"
"Surprising, I know. I just think Human Anatomy is really interesting."
"Human Anatomy. Huh. Nothing like anatomy to get the juices flowing."
I almost made a crack about seminal vesicles, but I didn't. I probably should have.
"Right. And, ah, Intro to Psych I hope will be good."
"Psych? Wow. I had to write a big paper for my Psych class last year. You don't have to?"
"Yeah, I do."
"And you haven't dropped the class yet?"
"You know me too well, Kirk."
"What are you going to write on? Maslow's pyramid of needs?"
"What's that?"
"You'll find out. Or Freud's oral and anal stages?"
My ears perked up. "What the hell is that?"
"You'll find out."
"No, tell me."
"What, you got an oral or anal fixation or something?"
Oral? Anal? Fuck! I tried to think fast. "What do you mean by that?"
"When you buy your books, look it up, Einstein."
"I already bought my books."
"You what?"
"I bought my books."
"Did you not learn anything from
Freshmen year? Nobody buys their books till they know they're staying in the class. You ARE turning into a nerd. I suppose the next thing you'll say is you headed right to the library after class.
"Well, even I have my limits, Kirk."
There was a pause. I think my best friend could tell I was lying.
As the discussion turned from my developing nerdiness to how things were going on Kirk's farm, I reached for the Psych book and found a chart with Freud's oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital stages in chapter 2. I scanned the chapter as Kirk was going on and on about farming stuff I could not pretend to understand, so I took the opportunity to do a quick learn on Freud's views on oral sex, masturbation, and gays. In a nutshell, Freud seemed to find all of it abhorrent.
"Stu, you there?"
"Oh, a, yeah, sorry. I'm here."
"What's going on?"
"I, ah, the dorm floor's fine. I have two more classes tomorrow--"
"No, Stu, what ... is ... going ... on. Something's up. I can tell."
"No, I, uh, I just pulled out the psych book, like you suggested ..."
"And ..."
"And, ah, here's the section on Freud, and those stages."
"Oh boy. OK, Einstein. And ..."
I took 10 seconds to read some more.
"Well, ahem, looks like sex is pretty important to Mr. Freud."
"You could say that."
"And, um, looks like he has a few things to say about various fixations."
"Fixations. Big word, professor."
"What do you think?"
"About what?"
"About Freud?"
"I don't know. It's been awhile."
"It was just last year."
"Yeah, well--"
"What about Kinsey? Did you study him?"
"No. Who the hell are you talking about?"
"Kinsey. Albert Kinsey, I think it is. He did research into male sexuality."
"How do you know all this?"
"It's in the book. You should read about it. He was a zoologist, so he must know a thing or two about farm animals."
"Stu, we just have crops. You know that. And I can't believe what I'm hearing. You're REALLY into this, aren't you."
"Yeah, well. Ahem. Anyway. He says it's impossible to divide the world -- the human world -- the male world -- into chickens and goats. That's what he said. I think that was his example."
"And you read this?"
"Yes."
"Today."
"Yes."
"I can't believe what I'm hearing."
"Why? You think he's wrong and Kinsey's right?"
"Huh?"
"Or that Kinsey is wrong and Freud's right, that gays are messed up?"
"I don't know what I think. What I do know is that your new-found fascination with being a bookworm is bizarre."
"You should try it."
"Oh now c'mon. I read, you know that. I read a lot more than you do, bub. When's the last time you finished a book?
Catcher in the Rye, junior year?"
"I never finished it. You told me how it ended, right before the quiz."
"So what's the last book you've read?"
"I don't know."
"The Hardy Boys?"
"Maybe."
"Mmmhf. You should be on the farm, and I should be in school."
"Probably."
"Hey, look, my bro needs something. Can I call you back? Tomorrow night, maybe? I do want to talk with you more, about Jessica and stuff."
"Sure, Kirk, but tomorrow, I, uh, might have to be busy."
"Busy? Well, OK, maybe later in the week."
"Sounds good bud."
"Good night."
"'Night."
* * *
I hung up the phone and dug my Human Anatomy notebook out of the closet as I stood in the closet's doorway. In it I had scrawled:
Homework -- in dorm room. Explore body. OK, good. Learn to know it, love it, enjoy it. Mine.
I looked to the right, and there I was, in the full-length mirror on the inside door of my closet. I reflected on what I should do now.
It was time for homework. So I got naked and stayed by the mirror.
I had a little flab around the waist, and I could stand to bulk up in the chest, but on balance, I was fine. My dick wasn't big, but it got the job done, and I loved it, and I liked the way my balls sagged at this time of the night, when the day's work was done.
I put three fingertips to my chin and compared my prickly chin stubble with the still boyish peach fuzz on my cheek, finally ridded of acne. Next I went to my neck, which had just a hint of stubble too but was mainly smooth. Then to my shoulers and collarbone and down to my chest, which only recently I had been able to flex. Then to my nipples. They got hard, but not like Jessica's, or Rebecca's, or Dr. Fitzgerald's, or probably Connie. I had a little hair around them, but it was light-colored for the most part. The dark strands probably numbered no more than a dozen.
Mmmm, my abs. They were tighter than in high school, and even a little defined. I loved the way the muscles moved in an out with each of my deep breaths. I was getting more hair, a trail from just above my navel to my groin -- signs, I knew, of more to come, of true manhood.
I tugged at my pubic hair. Why did God make it curly? Should I trim some back, like Terry, to make myself look bigger?
I touched the base of my flaccid dick as Dr. Fitzgerald had done the previous day. The thought of her doing that to me, to Jay, to Kirk, put my "erectile tissue" into action. In the privacy of my dorm-room mirror I watched my slender erection rise all by itself, with my hand close but not touching. Mmmmm. For just a few seconds my penis was parallel to the floor, but then, as it had to do, it angled toward my tummy, took its position pointing just a little to the left, and twitched with each beat of my heart.
It wanted to be touched, but I would not touch it. Of course this was because I knew it would feel even better once I did touch it! I turned 90 degrees and enjoyed myself from the side before finally facing the mirror head-on and, finally, very lightly, teasingly, doing what needed to be done to an erection.
But this session of masturbation was to be different. To the best of my ability I was going to focus not on the messages the nerves in my dick and balls would sent to my brain, but instead on what my hand was sensing. I wanted to feel my aroused genitalia as it would feel to somebody else. I wanted to compare myself to Andy, or Rudolf. How might I compare to Jay? Or Kirk?
Mmmmm.
I started at the tip and moved the remnants of my foreskin slowly up and down, doing my best to focus on what my hand felt and not my dick. What must've been my seminal vesicle kicked into preparatory action. Mmmmmm. I examined the shaft, slowly, lightly. My penis was screaming to be held hard, but I wasn't going there. This was about my hand, about what an erection felt like in that hand, what another hand might feel on my boner.
With my left hand I did the same with my sagging testicles. The left was larger; why? Mmmmmm, it felt so good. It was hard, but also soft, and in that way like an erect penis. And so smooth. Not a bump on 'em. So verrrrry smooth. Mmmmm. Dr. Fitzgerald had done this on me. Mmmmmm. And on Jay. Mmmmmmm. I had done it on Andy. Mmmmm.
I marveled at the narrow rainbow of an erection -- white, pink, red, even purple. One big vein on top. How the tube had another tube on the underside, but only when I was hard.
Really hard. Like now.
I moved my left hand to the mysterious place under my scrotum, the place where when I pushed I could feel the juices really stir. Why?
Juices. Mmmmm. Wet, sticky, soon to come!
I moved closer to the mirror and let my dick bounce against it, which left a little smear on the reflective glass. I leaned back just a little and held my erection in a way so I could see as much of it as possible as the inevitable moment neared.
Of course, since the dick was mine, I knew where to look at just the right moment. The first shot, as expected, was much longer than it was wide and landed pretty much on top of the reflection of my pecs. The next several were more watery but very intense, ample and strong. They started running down the mirror pretty much as soon as they splashed against it. As my orgasm neared the end, I pressed my penis into its reflection and enjoyed two post-orgasmic organs for the price of one. As I ground my groin into my reflection, it felt so right. So slippery! So dirty! So delicious! So fun!
I stayed that way for maybe 10 seconds before peeling my steaming crotch off of the glass. And then, I just stood there and looked at my post-orgasmic self and the dripping mess my 100 pecent male body had made. The mess was marvelous. Magical, really. It made babies, but also love, and also brought such relief. What was it, anyway? Water, of course, and little sperms. But what else? Why creamy, but then watery? Women had nothing like it, that was for sure. It was male. 100 percent male. It was me. 100 percent me.
I crouched down just a little and dragged my nostrils through what was left of the first cumshot. It smelled nuttier and more natural than when I had sniffed my cum in Kleenex or on a sweatsock while growing up. I moved up a little and looked myself in the eyes as I readied the tip of my tongue. I had tasted myself before, licked it a little, but that was it. But this time, as part of my homework, I sucked up some of my semen between my lips and worked it onto the middle of my tongue where the taste buds were more ample. It felt like snot, but tasted different because it was sort of sweet. Sort of. I let my ejaculate float to the roof of my mouth and took a risk. I gagged a little after the first swallow, but then tried again and learned it wasn't so bad. Besides, it was mine. It was me. 100 percent me.
And soon, it was pretty much all gone.
I knelt in front of the mirror and struggled to see my eyes through the smear. As I tried to analyze the taste, I yearned for my reflection to be clear. But as the drying saliva mixed with what was left of my semen, it was blurry. And I only seemed to be getting blurrier.