Chapter Text
Mark has been confused for a while now, confused by the attention being paid to him by the clear-skinned junior in his Art History class. He says “Hey,” on the way in to the lectures, and sometimes Mark will feel probing eyes on the side of his face, and turn around, to find himself being scrutinized. The guy -- floppy blond hair that looks effortless, an aquiline nose, so probably not Jewish -- is clearly old New England. He moves with the kind of casual offhandedness that Mark will never understand how to pull off. Summers on Martha’s Vineyard, navy blue blazers with shiny brass buttons. He comes up to Mark after a Tuesday night discussion section and suggests they get a beer. Mark nods, dumbfounded.
Maybe the guy wants help in an OS class or something. Guys with noses like that, jawlines like that never try to befriend Mark unless he can do them a solid, and he hates himself for giving in (inevitably doing someone’s problem set, just to feel peripherally important), but he does it anyways.
His name is Hunter and he takes Mark to the Thirsty Scholar. He knows the doorman (that guy Erica totally used to fuck), who lets them in, though he gives Mark a shady glare. The guy talks a lot, about lacrosse and his Expos class from freshman year, and he keeps buying pints and Jaeger shots. Mark gets progressively drunker, though his posture stays rigid and his jaw remains tense.
Hunter lets it slip that he’s a member of the Owl. Teddy Kennedy got punched by them, and what’s better than a few degrees of separation from a Kennedy, even if it was just Teddy? They made it in just after a generation, even if old Joe was no better than a gangster.
That gets Mark’s attention, for the the first time that night, since they started knocking back drinks a couple of hours ago. It’s basically like the first thing he’s really heard.
“So, um, do you like to party?” he asks Mark, looking up at him coyly. He's got really white teeth. He probably didn't even need braces as a teenager.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Mark shrugs. Final clubs, final clubs. He wants in. Is this like a proving ground? Maybe he’s being tested. Maybe he's gonna get punched. That would fucking show Eduardo. Diversity thing? Fuck that, he's better than that.
He sits up straighter, pulls his hand from his hoodie pocket and places it on the table, drumming his fingers. Hunter’s eyes flick over him, appraisingly. He covers Mark’s hand with his own -- whoa, what? Is this, like, a date?
He doesn’t say anything, since he’s never good at reading the signs. Other guys touch, slaps on the back and shit. Football players half spank each other. This dude, Hunter, he plays lacrosse. Maybe he’s just friendly or something.
Hunter drains the rest of his pint in two swallows, then leans in and says, quietly, “Do you want to come back to my room. I’m in Lowell.” Lowell is close, just up the street from the club, Mount Auburn Street facing Mount Holyoke Place, fuck, yes he wants to go back there. He’s pushing his chair back and standing up, hurriedly. “Now?” he stammers out. Hunter looks up at him and says quietly, “You should finish your beer first, man,” and Mark gulps it down, letting his throat open easily to shotgun the rest. Hunter quirks an eye up at him as he wipes the foam off his top lip with a stiff hand, shakes his head, and heads for the door. Mark follows him.
Hunter lives in a double, but there’s no sign of his roommate. He lets Mark in first, pausing to scribble an undecipherable note on the whiteboard hanging from the door. Then he roots around in the minifridge and thrusts another beer into Mark’s hands, a Beck’s this time, which he doesn’t drink too much of. He’s kind of hammered, hammered enough to be aware of the subtext -- and he never catches the damn subtext.
They sit side-by-side on Hunter’s twin bed. It has a plaid slipcover and has been tightly made, with hospital corners. Mark wonders if they have a family tartan or whatever. Hunter doesn't care which of the Twelve Tribes he's descended from (Simeon), Mark thinks, blinking rapidly, because his history is here, not in the old country. He tucks his lip under his teeth, trying to guess if Hunter is the kind of guy who pays a private cleaning service to take care if his dorm room; if he's never had a chore wheel or done his own laundry.
He keeps one hand in his pocket, curling it up into a ball when Hunter swiftly puts a hand on his knee. He still doesn’t know what this is, but it’s not actually cool to ask.
They ask you when they’re ready, it’s not like AEPi and rushing (punching is just a rush in reverse, is what a fucking punch is). Hunter doesn’t look at him, just rests his hand there, squeezing very slightly. It’s totally direct. Not awkward, bet this guy never fucking feels awkward. He belongs in every room he walks into.
Mark wants to pipe up, tell him, yo, man, I’ve got -- had, I had a girlfriend,
So when he feels a hand cupping his balls, like, pretty much right away,he flinches. Flinches and starts getting hard, which, holy what? Hunter chuckles, and it sounds sort of malevolent. Mark licks his lips and he, really does, want to say something. “I’m not...erm,” he spits out, “I’m not you know,” and Hunter nods, in profile. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, “I’m not either. But you’re here, and I’m here. We’re both kind of wasted, and I think it would be hot if you gave me a blowjob. Wanna?” he breathes out, squeezing Mark through his sweats.
Mark bristles, because it’s so goddamn direct, but, this guy’s all right and -- Ted Kennedy-lacrosse-Connecticut country club-maybe-getting punched-by-the-Owl-- that’s surely worth a bit of a compromise. They probably get up to all kinds of kinky shit, in the clubs. Might as well learn what's what. And he’s got to get their attention somehow, and if this is how then this is how.
“Uh,” he coughs out. “Uh, sure. If, that’s, you-- right. Okay,” he says, twisting around trying to figure out where to set down his bottle. Hunter plucks it from his fingers and sets it on the standard-issue oak-laminate bedside table. Mark fiddles with his fingers, watching Hunter unfasten his pants and pull his dick out.
It’s not like he’s never seen another guy’s stiffy before, hell, they’ve got an open-plan room and Chris is always whacking off to wallpapers of Xeni Jardin during Shark Week commercials -- but he’s never sucked Chris off, either. Why would he? There’s no social status to be gained by blowing anyone from Dworkin.
Mark rubs his hands on his sweats, feeling the scratchy pilled fabric underneath. He’s super unsure of what to do, in this situation, so he’s kind of relieved when Hunter starts talking as he fists his dick. Mark keeps ducking glances at it --- bigger? smaller? circumcised? -- as Hunter talks, one hand casually pulling on his cock, the other still swigging from his beer bottle. He tips back the last foamy swallow, the backsplashy bits, and asks to the space between his legs, “You ever blown anyone before?”
“Um,” Mark says, “No, not -- not really.”
Hunter laughs again, letting go of his hard-on to tap Mark on the shoulder. “Go on,” he says, eyes glazing past Mark’s face and resting on his crotch, the bulge that keeps swelling between his legs. Is he supposed to take his pants off? What is the proper etiquette for this turn of events? He can’t exactly ask for advice in the Crimson or query Miss Manners.
“Right, sure,” he says, slipping down off the bed and sitting back on his heels. It smells sweatier from down here. “Am I--”
“I’ll talk you through it, if you want,” Hunter tells him, which is a sweet relief. He can take direction -- rub a hand there, put your lips there, move your hips like that. Direction he can do. It’s the other stuff that makes no sense, the blurbs of text in magazines like Details that say “touch her lower back,” and “kiss along her neck” and “the armpit can be a tremendous erogenous zone for many women.” It all feels pretty much the same to him.
Hunter reaches out and traces a finger down Mark’s jawline and then thumbs his mouth open, running the pad of his finger along the inside of his lower lip. His fingers taste like salted peanuts. Mark swipes his tongue out again when Hunter moves his hand away, the other man groaning when he does that.
“Jesus. You have the hottest fucking mouth, Zuckerberg,” he says, slipping his left hand into Mark’s curls, guiding the head of his cock towards his open mouth with his right. “It’s been a lot more fun to look at than those dull-ass slides of the Italian Renaissance or what have you, that’s for fucking sure. Hold still, okay?” he asks, although it’s not got enough of a pause for a real query:
## (r1)
def query_yes_no_quit(question, default="yes"):
"""Ask a yes/no/quit question via raw_input() and return their answer.
"question" is a string that is presented to the user.
"default" is the presumed answer if the user just hits .
It must be "yes" (the default), "no", "quit" or None (meaning
an answer is required of the user).
The "answer" return value is one of "yes", "no" or "quit".
"""
valid = {"yes":"yes", "y":"yes", "ye":"yes",
"no":"no", "n":"no",
"quit":"quit", "qui":"quit", "qu":"quit", "q":"quit"}
if default == None:
prompt = " [y/n/q] "
elif default == "yes":
prompt = " [Y/n/q] "
elif default == "no":
prompt = " [y/N/q] "
elif default == "quit":
prompt = " [y/n/Q] "
else:
raise ValueError("invalid default answer: '%s'" % default)
while 1:
sys.stdout.write(question + prompt)
choice = raw_input().lower()
if default is not None and choice == '':
return default
elif choice in valid.keys():
return valid[choice]
else:
sys.stdout.write("Please respond with 'yes', 'no' or 'quit'.\n")
##end of code
QUESTION [Y/n/q]
...validate...
Y
Hunter rubs his gleaming cockhead across Mark’s parted lips and sighs from above him on the bed. Mark’s just sitting there, a little intoxicated from alcohol, a little more intoxicated from having a strange dick pushing up against his lips by a guy he only started talking to three hours ago. There’s slippery stuff on his lips, and he licks them again. He could use some Chapstick, he likes the taste of Chapstick.
Mark closes his eyes. Hunter keeps the lights on.
“Open,” Hunter says, and Mark listens. He feels the head slip across his tongue and it’s foreign, but kind of familiar. It's hot and feels alive, for one thing. But then again, he’s always got something in there -- a needle-tipped dart, the rounded glass of a beer bottle. This isn’t so terribly different, he thinks, opening his mouth a little wider.
Hunter groans and says, “Oh, fuck, man.” He starts to move back and forth, just a few slick inches, leaking a bitter trail across his tongue. Mark keeps his jaw slack, lets the hand in his hair do the work for him. This is actually pretty easy. He’s just a receptacle, not having to really make any effort. As far as sex goes, he could live with this.
“Just stay like that,” Hunter rasps out, “and watch the fuck out with your teeth.”
Mark instinctively curls his lips over his teeth to make a smooth surface and the fingers in his hair pull tighter. “You fucker,” he breathes out, “sure you haven’t done this before?”
That’s not a question he’s meant to answer, but Mark still feels weirdly proud of the noises Hunter is making, the huffs of breath as his cock flexes in his mouth. It’s totally different from the miserable times he went down on Erica, who kept moving his head -- “to the right, down, down, there, there, stay there”-- and relished telling him everything he was doing wrong. In excruciating detail. This is wonderfully uncomplicated, just something to latch on to and suckle with his eyes closed.
Hunter is basically fucking his mouth, Mark realizes, working his hips back and forth on the edge of the mattress. He has to stop a few times to catch his breath, wet his lips again. Every time he does that Hunter looks down at him, down at his tongue and whistles under his breath, "Jesus."
The pace speeds up. Mark has his eyes closed tightly. His jaw is starting to feel strained at the hinge below his ear, and he rubs it with two fingers. Hunter hasn’t said anything about jacking off, so he’s still got his sweats on. His cock is hard, and he’d like to come, at some point. The urgency isn’t his own, though, it’s coming from the man looming over him, watching him.
Hunter bucks his hips and Mark presses harder into the sore place on his jaw. That twinge of pain sends a jolt of pleasure down his spine, which is sort of cool. It’s different. Hunter makes a fist in Mark’s hair, the smell of sweat rising from his crotch. “I’m gonna come soon,” he grunts out, “I’m gonna come in your mouth.” It’s not a question. He doesn’t expect an answer. Ten more harsh thrusts and he grimaces, feeling the bump against his uvula. He gags a little when his mouth goes hot with splashes. It tastes like shellfish, salty and forbidden. He’s not sure what to do with it, just holds it on his tongue and winces as Hunter pulls out. The instinct is to swallow or recoil.
Mark flounders up for the empty beer bottle and spits into it as best he can, wiping his mouth and chin with the back of his hand. He’s still sprawled on the floor, and watches Hunter put his softening cock back in his pants. Button-fly jeans, way too much work. He reaches over for Mark’s undrunk beer and pounds half of it, then hands the bottle to Mark, who swills it in his mouth and swallows. It tastes flat, bitter. There must be traces of semen on his tongue, probably, so it’s almost like he’s swallowed.
“Uh,” he says.
“Yeah,” says Hunter. “Listen, thanks. Probably my roommate will be back soon. So you should probably, like, head out. But I'll see you in class.”
“Okay,” he nods, finishing the beer and pushing himself to his feet. He still has an erection tenting the front of his sweats. It stays there as he stamps down the stairs and out the door and rushes back to Kirkland. He goes straight into the shower and jerks off under the spray. He pushes on his sore jawbone while he masturbates, and comes in two minutes flat.
*
He doesn’t get enough sleep for the rest of that week. Blocks of coding time, solid stretches of white on black and fingers flying over keys, he ekes those out. But he’s tired and they feel slower because he keeps being aware of a fizzy feeling in his groin, like an overagitated can of Mountain Dew. He still keeps going, typing and writing and powering through, but every quarter of an hour he winces, loses his breath, loses his place. He can’t just channel the code through the tips of his fingers because he keeps feeling it all over again. And Mark doesn’t do feelings,so this is novel, strange.
Mark’s never been so aware of his body when he writes, and that in and of itself is kind of sweet. He can’t really type one-handed, but when he feels himself flagging, the sandy tiredness collapsing his shoulders, he sticks his hand back down and squeezes. Like a little reward.
It makes pissing harder, having a pervasive hard-on, but holding out the promise of an orgasm is actually a pretty great incentive. I’ll touch it every fifty lines, he thinks, and at the end of five hundred I’ll jerk off.
*
He does just that, even when Dustin and Chris come and go, despite them being in the next room shouting over Counter Strike. He gets so much done over the next three days that he misses most of his classes, the days and nights bleeding into a haze of Red Bull and water-packed tuna eaten straight from the can.
He thinks of kneeling on the bare linoleum between parted legs. Of Hunter's drunkenly glazed indifference. Kneeling felt nice, it felt right. The contact breaking the blood vessels under his bony knees. That felt really good, the cold press of the linoleum through his pants. The burn in his jaw. How he liked that sliver of bright pain, and he could have knelt there for hours, taking instructions.
Another gut punch, a shiver along his tailbone. Mark sits up, grinding his index and forefingers into the soft indented space right under his kneecaps. There’s an anxious twinge, an ache. A tiny jolt of pain, kind of electric. It makes his dick twitch.
Mark bites on his lower lip and then does something weird. He sticks two fingers into his mouth and starts licking on them, sucking on them. They don’t feel the same as Hunter’s dick did, they’re more narrow and rough, with nails.
He swirls his tongue around, remembering Erica doing a similar trick the second-to-last-time she blew him. Lying on the bed in her dorm room, a curtain of dark hair blocking his view, until she held it back with her hands so he could watch. Watching was surreal. His dick being swallowed by her mouth. Doing filthy things with her pretty face, her sweet mouth. He got off, but he still wasn't sure if he liked it. It felt dirty.
Mark suddenly wonders what he looked like when he was giving head. It's not like he wants pictures, but he hopes he did okay. He got Hunter off, which has to count for something. He drags his teeth along his fingers, wondering if doing it like that would hurt. Maybe he'll ask, if there's a next time.
Mark tries to add a third finger into his mouth, instantly losing the tight suction he’s built up. He imagines that his fingers are Hunter’s dick, sliding forcefully in and out of his mouth. Mark groans, trying to stuff them in all the way, up to the knuckles.
That makes his mouth go floppy, so he drops back down to two. He licks them, he hollows his cheeks. He's trying to learn by doing. Mark has never been one to scrutinize a girl when she’s going down on him -- that seems invasive, as if having a dick in your mouth wasn’t invasive enough. But in his spare moments he’s been Googling "how to give great head," and watching some snippets of amateur porn. It's not worth paying for, and it's not shit he wants cluttering his hard drive anyways.
Mark drops one hand down and palms his cock through his sweats, the same navy sweats he had on two nights ago. He doubles forward over the keyboard, fingers still thrusting in and out of his mouth. He can feel the same ache building at the base of his jaw, and that feels so good. It’s like a punch in the gut.
He remembers the slick sensation of Hunter’s cock on his tongue, heavy and humid, and reaches down the front of his own pants to tug forcefully a few times, pumping into his fist. He comes in his hand, trying not to bite down on his fingers in the process.
*
Wardo drops by on Friday evening. Mark crashed at three in the afternoon but he’s still totally wiped. Eduardo wants to go out for fish tacos. An excuse to tell Mark all about the Phoenix and the popularity contest that he’s acing so effortlessly. He offers to buy (like it would be any other way).
He barely registers the walk to Church Street, just finds himself staring out a fogged-up window with a salt-rimmed margarita thrust into his hands. They eat and Wardo is mind-bogglingly cheerful. Mark watches him chew and scarf salsa. He babbles about his Ec session. They stop off on the way back to Kirkland, hitting up the CVS for two six-packs of Corona and peanut M&M’s.
Mark stares hard at every generic blond guy that walks past them on the way back. He wants Wardo to go to his own room so he can masturbate again. Wardo stays until long past midnight.
*
He sees Hunter at the morning lecture the following Monday, where Professor Hauser is talking his way through a really amateurish Power Point, droning on and on through hundred of slides covered in, like, 8 point Times New Roman. Mark is bored as shit, yawning constantly from his aisle seat in the lecture hall.
Every once in a while a picture will pop up -- a sprawling fat naked woman or a chiseled athlete draped in folds of fabric -- and he flicks his eyes up at those. Mentally he compares them to the naked bodies he's seen, mostly just his own. He resembles them, at least more than action stars or something. Weren't the ancient Greeks and Romans total perverts? Amongst all the feasts and weddings and creepy portraits of the baby Jesus in his textbooks, there are other pictures. Suggestive pictures. Mark makes a mental note to look into this later on.
He stands up, kind of casually when the talk’s over, thinking maybe he and Hunter can, get coffee or whatever it is that one does after a sex encounter with a classmate. Sex friends? No, fuck buddies, isn't that what people say? Hunter is talking with a pretty brunette girl wearing a headband. He glances at Mark, eyes simply skimming past his shoulder as he walks up the steps and out the door.
*
He eats dinner with Chris and Dustin in the d-hall, stealing a large paper cup of Frosted Flakes mixed with Lucky Charms to eat later while he works. He puts on his headphones, sets two cans of Red Bull at his elbow. The code comes fast and furious that night, his fingers barely touch the keys. The guys fall asleep in a drunken tangle on the sofa. It’s getting light outside by the time he notices it’s morning, and he only does so because he has to go to the bathroom to take a shit.
*
Hunter isn’t in the discussion section on Tuesday evening. Maybe he has a lacrosse game or something. But no, he checked the Crimson sports schedule online, and lacrosse is definitely a springtime game. There are fall leagues, though. He also looked at the team roster, the history, and the pictures, just to be thorough.
So he probably isn’t practicing. That doesn’t stop Mark from making the long trek across the Charles, down by the boat houses and the field houses, the stadium and the pool. It smells chlorinated down there, and Mark’s legs are cold. He needs to do laundry, his sweats are nasty.
He stands outside the Murr Center, kicking his toes against the rusty brick. Varsity athletes leave in clumps of twos and threes, carrying mysterious bundles of equipment, strangely shaped bags and instruments. Their breath is steamy in the chilly air, and they’re always laughing when they walk out the door. They clap one another on the back and say things like "party" and "d-bag" and "the Cape."
Mark stays there a long time, one hand hanging out in his pocket, watching guys in grey sweatpants come and go. Some of them give him weird looks, but mostly they just ignore him.
*
Mark writes more code the next night, a long damn night which bleeds into Thursday. He wakes up, startled, with his head slipping off his keyboard, lolling off the desk. He twists up his mouth angrily at the time on the bottom right-hand side of the screen -- 7:19. He has a ten o’clock class, nothing interesting. Writing or something boring. Next semester he’s not registering for anything before noon.
He rubs a hand across his gritty eyes and squints more closely at the monitor. Mark practically jumps back out of his chair when he realizes that he fell asleep at his desk with Google images [safe search OFF] up on the screen. He hastily X’s out of the window, Jesus, windows and erases the browser history, clears the cache. He stands up and rubs his forearm across the screen, trying to wipe away the dust and fingerprints with his fleece.
Dustin has made it to his bed, Mark notices, while Chris is still conked out on the couch. He flops into his own bed and pulls the covers over his head. He needs to pee, really badly, but he doesn’t think he can until his hard-on goes away.
*
The weekend passes in the usual blur. He tries to catch up on some homework, since he’s falling behind in every single one of his classes, especially Art History, which he just does not give two shits about. He’s supposed to write a paper about Titian. Oh, the joys of a liberal arts education, though, with its balanced fucking courseload. He should be glad to be at Harvard, the social epicenter of the universe, be glad he’s not dorking it out across town at MIT, across the country at Caltech.
Sunday evening he goes to the Fine Arts Library with just his textbooks, a totally necessary break from coding at all hours. It’s a halfhearted attempt to get in the mood for school, which is failing to hold his interest in the slightest. He can always find six, eight, ten hours to write code; writing bullshit essays is something else entirely. Mark reads the same paragraph five times over and decides what he needs, really, is a drink. He sends Wardo a text, because it’s dull to go out on your own.
Two minutes later he gets a reply--
I’m in a study session for Macros. Your room later?
Mark texts back, as he’s grabbing his backpack up from the floor.
Okay. Bring booze.
*
However, when he gets back to Kirkland, there’s a note on the whiteboard in handwriting he doesn’t recognize. It’s not a threat or an insult, but an invitation:
Stopped by. Lowell party tonight. Starts at eight. H
Mark’s stomach lurches when he figures out what the message means. He looks at the time on his phone -- 9:28 and leaves without even setting foot in his room.
*
It’s not really much of a party, Mark finds, when he gets there. Sunday night isn't when you pull out the big guns. He’s panting slightly from trotting back to the center of campus. His mind turns over and over on the way there, a confused tangle of internet pictures and remembered sensations.
A couple of dozen kids in jeans and sweaters are standing around the common room, getting progressively drunker. There’s Seagram’s gin and cartons of pulp-free orange juice on the table. Mark thinks he can smell pot, and his cheeks feel hot. Mark looks around uncomfortably, feeling suddenly acutely stupid with his backpack. No one else has a backpack, probably because they all live here. He should have left it in his room, and, damn, taken a shower or something. It’s as he’s ducking his nose toward his armpit, sniffing cautiously to see if he stinks, that Hunter comes out of nowhere, startling him with a sudden slap on the back. They’re about the same height, but he reels forward from the surprise. It’s weird to be touched so casually by anyone.
“Ah! Oh, hey, hey, Hunter,” he sort of stammers, righting himself. Be cool, man.
“Hey dude. Good to see you,” Hunter says, flashing his white teeth at Mark. “Anyone get you a drink yet?” he asks, swilling from his own plastic cup and smacking his lips.
“Uh, no,” he answers. He doesn’t recognize anyone at the party. The girl he saw Hunter talking to a few days earlier is there, standing next to a bowl of pretzels with a bitchy look on her face, which relaxes when Hunter says something to make her laugh. He fixes a drink and she touches him lightly on the chin before he walks away, smiling. Mark watches this and tries to understand the precise nature of their relationship.
“Do you want to stash your backpack upstairs?” Hunter says when he’s back in earshot, handing Mark a cup. Mark looks around, twists his neck to see where other people have left their things. There are a few purses and coats lying around on sofas.
"Okay," he says, thinking that maybe they'll talk about stuff. Erica always wanted to talk about stuff, when they were hooking up, so this is probably like that. He probably won't mention the things he was researching on the internet.
Mark takes a sip of his drink, which tastes like room-temperature orange juice. He looks around the room, trying to think of something to say, as Hunter places a hand on his elbow and digs in, firm, with two fingers. Mark thinks he understands what's going on.
Hunter holds his elbow until they reach the staircase, where he drops it and says, "You first." Mark takes the steps two at a time, feeling his phone vibrate in his pocket when they're on the landing.
The room looks messier this time, like maybe the cleaning lady doesn’t come on the weekends. There are empty beer cans lying around and the bed hasn’t been made. Mark edges his way in the door behind Hunter and sort of just stands there, holding his backpack by one strap.
“Should I --?" he starts, chewing on his lip. Hunter gives him a strange look and says, “Just wherever is fine. Sorry the place is a mess.”
Mark lets the bag slip through his fingers. He takes another drink of his gin and juice while staring down to the right. Hunter kind of coughs and sits down on his desk, scooting a stack of papers out of the way first. He taps out with his toe, indicating the chair opposite. Mark gives a curt nod before walking over and sitting down.
“So--” says Hunter, kind of casually rubbing his foot along Mark’s shin, like that’s no big deal, and just something people do every day.
“Yeah,” he blurts out. “You weren’t in class last week,” and even as the words come out, he thinks they sound totally uncool, girly. Like he’s a stalker or something.
Hunter laughs with those white teeth flashing over the edge of his cup. He laughs and says, “Yeah, no. I figured I was failing anyways, cause I didn’t do the essay or the presentation. So I switched my grade to an audit.” He’s still using the tip of his shoe to touch Mark’s shin, and he wants to ask what they’re doing, if they’re hooking up, or not hooking up.
“Oh,” he answers back, wrinkling up his lips and nodding. “That makes sense.”
“I miss anything?”
“No. I mean, a really shitty Power Point. Some naked pictures.”
Hunter cocks an eyebrow at the floor, takes another drink.
“You have fun the other night?” he says, changing direction.
“What night?” A pause before Mark catches on. “Oh, when I was here?”
“Mhmm.” Hunter’s finishing his drink, his adam’s apple bobbing as he tips his head back. Mark mimics him and does the same thing, gulping the rest of his cocktail. An ice cube lands on his lip and he winces. When he looks around for a place to set the cup, Hunter is staring at him with that same intent expression, and then he’s standing up, hovering over Mark. He takes the cup away and puts it on the desk, and then he’s placing a hand on top of his head and carding it through his hair. Mark sort of looks up at him, and tilts his head to the side inquisitively. Hunter strokes down the side of his cheek with the back of his fingers. It feels tickly, and he closes his eyes in a rush.
Hunter starts touching his mouth again, which feels super good. With his eyes closed it’s just the warm feathery whorls of his fingertips, the ragged edges of his nails drawing up sparks. Mark lets his head sink forward as Hunter works his index finger into Mark’s mouth, running it along his top teeth and then giving it to Mark to suck. It feels pretty sexy, actually, probably because Hunter makes a groaning noise and then pulls on his bottom lip, tweaking it between his fingers.
Mark’s own legs part a fraction and he sighs around Hunter’s fingers, remembering the images from all the grainy porn and ancient vases. They should probably be talking about what went down last week, but talking seems suddenly very boring because Hunter is coming to stand opposite Mark, bending down to lift his hands and place them on his belt. He backs away, takes his own hands away. Mark implicitly understands that this is his chance to refuse, to say no without being a fucking cocktease. Hunter goes back to restlessly carding his hands through Mark’s hair, and the movement shifts his crotch forward up against Mark’s face.
They sort of sit like this for a second, Mark inhaling open-mouthed the smell of fabric softener from Hunter’s crotch. He nuzzles his face up against it, like an animal staking out its territory, and then scrapes his teeth across the outline of Hunter’s erection, by now clearly tenting the front of his thin khakis. “Fucking hell,” says Hunter from somewhere above him, and Mark feels both powerful and powerless. Unsure of how he’s supposed to be reacting in this situation, the right way to act. Hunter breathes out as Mark presses open-mouthed kisses to the line of his trapped cock, and he decides that he can figure out later, how he was meant to react.
Mark pulls off, noting the wet spots left by his mouth along Hunter’s crotch. His tongue darts out in concentration as he unbuckles Hunter’s belt, then slowly undoes his pants and pulls down the zipper. Mark sneaks a glance upward. Hunter is staring right at him with an audacity that makes his cheeks burn hot. He’s the girl in this situation. Maybe so. Bet he can still do better than Erica.
His phone buzzes again in his pocket, keeps buzzing as Hunter reaches into the slit of his boxers and pulls his dick out. He’s touching it like before, casually, but right in Mark’s face this time, up in his field of vision. It’s pink, not nearly the size of some of the porn cocks, and that’s a good thing. Mark is okay with blowing Hunter for whatever reason, but he’s absolutely not ready for some of that stuff. What do they call it, deep-throating?
“You could probably use some more practice, really,” Hunter says, as if on cue. Mark gapes up at him for a second, but only a second. Hunter tightens his fingers in Mark’s hair and says, “I mean, that was really great. But I’m sure you can do better. You like a challenge, right?”
Mark doesn’t answer him, because Hunter is trying to sound authoritative but he just comes across like an asshole. I’ll show you, he thinks, reaching forward and grabbing Hunter’s hips. The other man stumbles and then rights himself, muttering “shit” under his breath. Because Mark is nothing if not thorough, and so he has taught himself a few things, facts and advice gleaned from the internet, experimenting on his own hand.
Mark places his thumbs under the base of Hunter’s cock, resting his own elbows on the arms of the desk chair. He leans forward and swipes his tongue across the head. Very sensitive, said Wikipedia, which turns out to be true. Hunter straight up whines, so Mark does it again, and then positions himself underneath, wriggling his tongue under the ridge. Fellation said the entry, active excitement with the tongue and mouth.
Mark does just that, trying out everything he watched and learned. He makes a mental list, noting which kinds of kisses make Hunter’s hips press forward, seeking more. The whimper he hears when he pops the head between his lips, the veritable grunt when he sucks gently on the tip.
Mark files all this information away in a mental file directory, a set of sequences and functional requirements of what works and what doesn’t. Mark is pretty fucking pleased with himself, because nearly everything he tries works out. He’s more active this time around, as opposed to the last time. Irrumation, to force someone to perform fellatio. This one is more interesting, maybe, but the other time was somehow more fun.
“Fuck, man, did you get a boyfriend or something? Jesus fucking Christ,” Hunter grunts, tossing his head back and gripping Mark’s shoulder. “Oh, shit,” he says, as Mark holds the base of his cock and starts to bear down on it, making his mouth wet and tight like he did around his fingers. Hunter is trying to thrust, but Mark holds him back with one hand, because he doesn’t want to switch from one activity to another. That leads to mixed results.
"You wanna get off this time,” Hunter says, looking down at him, “be my guest.” Mark doesn’t hesitate, just shoves a hand down the front of his jeans. Once again, he’s not wearing any underwear. No underwear, and he’s fucking hard right away. He tugs on the head of his cock and then goes back to nuzzling the head of Hunter’s.
It’s leaking precome, which he lets coat his lips before licking them off. It feels absolutely filthy, it must look downright indecent. He sort of doesn’t care.
“Fu--uck,” Hunter says, his cock sliding smooth and swollen over Mark’s tongue. He's much more on edge this time. Maybe he didn't expect Mark to catch on so quickly. “You like that?” he asks, which is sort of hilarious, because they say that kind of crap all the time in porn, but it also makes Mark’s own cock twitch as he pulls himself off. “Yeah,” he breathes out, hot around the head, half-grinning as he talks.
“I’m gonna come soon, man,” he mumbles as Mark slides his mouth easily up and down his length. “Yeah,” he repeats, before forging down and swirling his tongue around.
Hunter keens and he starts to shake, and Mark waits for the first jet of come to hit the roof of his mouth before he lets himself tip over as well. This time he’s prepared for it. This time he swallows.
He has six new texts when he checks his phone. Every single one of them is from Eduardo.
*
He walks back to Kirkland slowly, cold come drying in his pants. He’ll have to wash them, he thinks, but he can hold off. It’ll be the winter break soon. He can do it when he’s back home for ten days, or, better still, leave his overstuffed duffel bags in the laundry room until his mom throws up her hands in frustration and does it all for him. She'll bitch about it, but she'll still do it, in the end.
Wardo is there when he gets back, sitting cross-legged, nose buried in a stack of flashcards, a mostly empty bottle of white liquor sitting next to him on the hallway table. Hunter’s note has been written over in a scrawl Where the hell are you? I brought cachaça.
The note is from Eduardo, but Eduardo is still here.
“You’re still here,” he says, flatly.
“Huh?” Wardo says, looking up blearily from the pile of pre-printed flashcards (covered in Ec equations, bought at the Co-op, easier than making your own). His eyes look tired and he runs a hand through his weird hair.
“You’re still here.” He repeats himself, thinking maybe Wardo didn’t hear the first time. Mark unlocks the door and Eduardo follows him into the suite, picking up the bottle of alcohol along the way.
"I was studying for the final."
"It's not until after break," Mark says, as they walk to his part of the room and flop down on the bed.
Wardo starts talking about something, his father or a trip back to São Paulo where he won't have time to do any school stuff, too much family and tons of cousins, an event, like a wedding or a bris in Miami. His crotch itches. He decides that he doesn’t like jerking off into his pants, thinks that he won’t do that next time. If there’s a next time.
Before he walked back Hunter had gotten his cell number and said, "Yeah, I’ll text you, next time we’re going to the gym. You can shoot hoops, right?”and Mark had just shrugged like, yeah, because he can play a little ball, but he can’t dunk for shit.
He had nearly walked into a tall guy with brown hair as he was leaving Hunter’s room in a rush. They exchanged hasty sorrys and Hunter had shouted from behind him, in the room still, "Char-lie! You just get back? How was Providence?"
Charlie’s eyes had darted over Mark’s face, the slight tilt of his head -- the other man's mind sequencing possibilities, trying to place him.
“Uh, hey...” he had said. "Sorry, do I know you?”
“That’s Mark,” Hunter had said, coming up behind him and clasping his friend’s hand in a gesture of easy affection. “He’s in my Art History class. He was just leaving,” he said, putting his hand lightly on Mark’s shoulder. Mark winced and had to look down at the ground.
“Oh, hey. Nice to meet you. I’m Charlie, Hunter’s roommate.” Charlie had said, offering up a stupid crooked smile and giving Mark his hand to shake. And then over Mark’s shoulder, to Hunter, not to him, “Dude, Lauren wants you to come back downstairs. She said something about needing a study aid.” Hunter drops his hand from Mark’s shoulder and says, “Right on, dude. Let me just grab my room key.” He turns to get his key from the desk. Mark sneaks another peek at Charlie, who is excessively tall, gangly like a giraffe. He wonders if he plays lacrosse as well.
“Do you play lacrosse as well?” he asks.
Charlie gives him a funny look and says, “No, basketball. Not like, first-string or anything, just intramural. I’m too freakishly tall for lacrosse. And I don’t really have time for varsity stuff any more,” he says, in a rush.
Hunter comes back over and laughs, nudging Mark out the door with his hip.”Yeah, dude, ask him why he doesn’t have time for the team. Oh, here, don’t forget your backpack,” he says, holding it up by one strap like it’s infected. Mark takes the bag and slings it over his shoulder.
Maybe he got a girlfriend, Mark thinks. If he could get a girlfriend he wouldn’t play stupid sports anymore either. But no, Charlie is probably popular. He has a nice smile. He, no doubt, already has a girlfriend.
“Uh, why don’t you have time for the --” he stammers out, but Charlie interrupts him--
“--man, fuck you, you don’t need to give me grief for--”
“--aw, is the little faggot embarrassed about joining drama club?”--Hunter cackles.
“You’re an asshole, Andrews,” Charlie says, glaring down. He is really tall. Winklevii tall. Hunter is laughing. He has a mean laugh. His teeth flash so white, like a shark.
“And you’re a fucking queer, which is way worse,” Hunter spits out.
They all walk down the stairs. Mark does not understand what just happened. Nor does he understand when the two guys exchange a glance and then Hunter gets his cell number, the offer to shoot hoops. Then they walk back over to the pretty brunette and her friends. The three of them laugh as Mark walks out the door.
*
"Mark...Mark?" Wardo is saying, waving a flashcard in front of his face.
He looks up, startled.
Mark reads the side of the card that Eduardo is holding up before his eyes. It says:
The Slutsky Equation for Duality: The breakdown of a price change on quantity demanded (Marshallian demand) into its two basic components--a substitution effect (the movement along Hicksian demand ) and an income effect (the shift in the Marshallian demand due to the resulting change in purchasing power).
"What?" he says, jerking back to the present. "What?"
"Read out the answers to me, and I'll give you the equations," Eduardo says, getting up from the bed. "That way I can fix us a drink while I study. Do you have any sugar packets? I can make us a Caipirinha if you do."
Mark flips the notecard over in his hand, looks at the symbols printed there.
dxj/dpi=(dhj/dpi)-(dxj/dy)xi
"Caipirinhas," he says, under his breath, "are for faggots."
Wardo doesn't hear him.
*
Mark gets so much thefacebook shit done, that week, the last full week before break. He’s on some kind of dopamine high, and he hardly needs to sleep at fucking all. It’s bullshit to pretend about classes, at this point. He can try to study over break, so if he bothers even going he takes his laptop with him, keeps his head ducked down from the back rows. Writing all the time, he’s just up.
This week when he feels himself flagging -- 2 p.m., 5 a.m -- when it’s not too late or too early, he sends texts, gets texts in return.
You around?
Yeah
He traipses back to Lowell and he works on his technique. They don’t even pretend like they’re studying, despite what Hunter said the one time Charlie walked in on them, jumping back in surprise. “Dude, why don’t you knock?”and Charlie was looking at both of them, as Mark tried to surreptitiously wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. He was getting the hang of deep-throating. It wasn’t that hard, since Hunter really didn’t have a very big dick. ”Sorry,” said Charlie, ”I can come back, until you’re done, uh, studying.”
There were no books or papers on the table. Mark didn’t even have his backpack with him. They were very clearly not studying. So he does that, over there. When the hour’s weird or he’s been too long without a shower he goes and jerks off in the bathroom instead. In his mind he’s always between Hunter’s casually parted legs. In his mind he’s always on his knees.
He whacks off and wonders if Charlie has a bigger penis than Hunter. He’s a lot taller and he has big feet, so he probably does. Mark flicks his thumbnail against the head of his cock, as he comes, relishing the sting.
*
It’s fucking amazing. He feels fucking amazing. He’s never tired. Code and sex, sex and code. He forgets to eat. There are spots behind his eyes. His fingers always tingle.
*
Wardo stops by and makes concerned faces at him. He brings him sandwiches he doesn't eat, soup he doesn't touch. Candy he says, bring me candy. Wardo tsks at him, like a parent. He brings him Red Vines, though, if he stares at him long enough. If he says "please." Wardo is a sucker for nice manners.
*
On Thursday evening he gets a text about basketball. He doesn’t bother to change, although he does remember to snag a pair of actual sneakers from beside the door. Hunter’s wearing a hoodie that says Navy on it when he meets him outside the gym. They swipe their cards, check out a ball and find a spare hoop. Mark has to concentrate intensely on the game, which isn’t really a game, it’s too casual for that, but he makes several baskets, including one from the half-court line. Hunter claps him on the back when he does that, shakes him a little bit.
“Nice one, Zuckerberg,” he says, loudly. “Especially good since you’re so effin' short.”
Mark doesn’t say anything in response to that.
They bump into Charlie in the foyer as they're returning sweat-soaked face towels and getting their IDs back from the cage where they checked the ball out. They always seem to be bumping into Charlie. He smiles big at both of them and says, "Hey, what's up?"
"Just shooting hoops," Hunter says, casually. Charlie isn't in gym clothes, he's dressed nicely in a blue button-down. Where's he going, dressed like that, at ten o'clock on a Thursday?
"You going to the --" darting a sidelong look at Mark, "the thing?" he says, trying to be casual. Don't tell the geek, don't tell the Jew.
"Totally," says Hunter, spinning the basketball lazily on the countertop. The black girl who's working there brings them back their IDs and takes the ball from him. Club stuff, club stuff.
"I gotta change first. See you later," Hunter says, as Charlie walks out and waves goodbye.
He leaves them alone to walk across the Charles River bridge in silence. It’s cold out, but neither of them is wearing a coat. He can feel the sweat in his hair starting to ice up, but he’s still hot underneath his sweats. They don’t talk. Mark’s bones ache, and for the first time in a week he feels wiped. He’s been on a tear, he realizes, and now he’s played physical sports and he’s going to go down, hard, as soon as he gets back to the room. He feels like his knees might buckle at any moment, like he could collapse right there, a hundred meters from Weld boathouse.
Adrenaline, he thinks, adrenaline and dopamine.
“You gonna go back to your, em, room first?” he blurts out, foolishly, to Hunter’s back. He’s walking more quickly than Mark, shoulders straight. He turns around with a confused face and says, “Yeah, I am, but I have somewhere to be.” He drops his eyes and says, “Sorry.” He actually does sound sorry.
They walk over to the opposite bank. There’s water lapping against the boat docks. There’s probably no one down there, Mark thinks, and then he thinks, adrenaline and dopamine and then he says, “It’s dark over there,” nodding in the direction of Weld, where the water is lapping.
Hunter spins around and gives him an incredulous look that quickly blossoms into a leer when Mark licks his lips. He has deduced, over the past sixteen days, that Hunter responds to that movement. He does it again, more slowly, pressing his tongue against his top teeth and inhaling sharply. Something changes in Hunter’s eyes when Mark does that.
“Is it,” he says, the firm set of his jaw visible under the blue lights, installed for safety, a necessary precaution against townies and serial killers. It ruins the ambiance of the old campus.
“Totally,” Mark answers, walking with him purposefully down towards the shoreline. The ground is crunchy frozen under their feet. He’s glad he wore sneakers. They sneak around to the side of the boathouse building, where they’re concealed from view, in the dark. Mark’s single mindedness surprises even himself, when he pushes Hunter up against the wall and shoves his hand down the front of his pants. He leans in and rests his head by Hunter’s neck for a second, inhaling the aroma of cooling sweat mixed with deodorant through his nose.
Ribbons of steamy breath play against Hunter’s neck and he’s surprisingly pliant under Mark’s mouth. They don’t kiss one another, but the rancid smell of perspiration stirs up a dizzy feeling in his stomach. He doesn’t tease for even a second, starts sucking Hunter hard right the fuck away. The pressure behind his eyes, the dull burn in his jaw, the incidental rightness of kneeling alongside the boat dock. It all feels incredible. He lets his mouth go slack and relaxes his throat. Hunter is being, weirdly, polite, and quiet. His hands are pressed against the painted brick and he’s holding his hips still.
Mark doesn’t like this one bit. He needs more to keep him going through the night, and so lifts his hands to Hunter’s and guides them to his head. Hunter’s fingers tighten and his hips stutter for one second. Mark tips his head back, lets his eyes slide closed. He doesn’t even know if Hunter can see him, but it only takes a second before he’s cupping the back of Mark’s head and fucking his mouth. Hard. Mark has to try to keep up, and when Hunter comes he sees sparks of his own -- even better than an orgasm.
He presses the heel of his hand against his crotch but he doesn’t touch himself. He wants to keep the build for later, the chemical chain reaction adrenaline seratonin dopamine going as long as he can. Ride that wave -- more lines of code, more infrastructure-- until night shines gray through the windows and all the Mountain Dew is gone.
*
They part ways in front of Kirkland. Hunter waves him goodbye, says he’ll maybe get in touch after the holidays. Mark bites his lip, hoping there’s an invitation looming in his future. That would still be awesome. He would let it slip to Eduardo over breakfast, not just a diversity thing, and he would relish it, the look of jealousy on his best friend’s face.
Eduardo is in the room drinking beer with Chris and Dustin when he gets back, his hard-on subsiding into softness. He can’t wait to write, all fucking night long, so he’s kind of disappointed to see them all there, yelling at the Discovery Channel from the couch. He trips back to his desk without saying hello. Eduardo comes and hovers over him, peering at his rumpled appearance, looking over his shoulder at the desktop screen.
Not like you know what it even means.
“Where were you?” he asks. He’s such a nag.
“Who are you, my mother?” he snarks back. There’s a beat. He realizes that was a mean thing to say.
“At the gym,” he says, trying to make amends.
“Did you fall down or something?” Eduardo asks, his eyes skimming over Mark.
“Huh?” he says, tearing his eyes away from the screen to follow Wardo’s gaze. His knees are covered with the indentations of dry leaves and dirt. He feels himself blush.