He ran his fingers through his sandy, blonde hair, foregoing a comb because a too-groomed look seemed gay. For the same reason, he resisted the urge to tuck in his t-shirt. Sure, tucking it in would highlight his broad shoulders and narrow hips. It would also mark him as suspect. Preppy boys might be accepted in large, urban settings. In Oklahoma they were viewed as gays who hadn’t come out yet, kind of like how Elton John fooled no one when he claimed to be bisexual.
Matt closed his eyes, took deep, calming breaths to center himself. Baby steps. It had taken him five years to recover his path, five years of aching to experience another guy’s body, imagining the taste and feel of it in frantic, furtive, masturbatory fantasies. He would not wait five more years before taking the next step.
With that thought in mind, he made his way to the mixer.
Nelson Commons was the site of the picnic. Faculty members flipped burgers and hot dogs on portable grills. Christian pop music of the Jesus-is-my-boyfriend variety blared from a crackling speaker. “Simon Sparrow,” the school mascot, swayed—not danced, because that was sinful—to the music. Simon’s costume included black, faux fur leggings; a white-trimmed, brown faux-fur parka, which allowed the wearer to flap his “wings;” and an oversized head with a black, pelican-shaped beak. As sparrows go, Simon was the only known furred specimen.
Matt wondered if that stupid sparrow was going to be strutting on the sidelines during his soccer games. Probably so. He had made the team. The MCU Sparrows.
Matt skirted the edges of the picnic, and entered Bass University Center, ground zero for the mixer.
He paused in the open foyer, assessing the situation in the great hall. It had obviously been decorated by some middle-aged college administrator to recreate the high school prom she hadn’t been allowed to attend. The ceiling sported a layer of silver and purple helium-filled balloons which, in the soft light and the undulating current of the air conditioners, looked not so much festive as like a giant seeping bruise. There was even a ‘70’s style disco ball that must have been purloined from a long-shuttered skating rink.
Clusters of students hugged the walls, their faces frozen in strained smiles while their eyes nervously scanned the room.
Folding tables occupied the hall’s center. One table was devoted to the obligatory punch bowl, plastic cups, and trays of cookies. The other tables, each manned by beaming upperclassmen brandishing clipboards with sign-up sheets, were reserved for various campus clubs and ministries.
Things would have been so different if Matt had been allowed to enroll at OU, just 40 minutes away—in the young and vibrant city of Norman. That campus boasted 32,000 students and its own Gay StudentAlliance.
Alternatively, MCU, with its 2,000 students, had its home base in the sleepy, Eisenhower-era, white bread city of Bliss. And, while MCU offered its students an array of clubs and organizations, a GSA was certainly not one of them.
Matt wanted to bolt for his car, drive to Norman, and meet fellow gays. Maybe they could give him tips on this whole coming out business.
Tonight, though, required his attention here. He knew he couldn’t stand in the foyer any longer without looking socially awkward. Nor did he want to get trapped in the shadowed clusters along the hall’s perimeter. He surveilled the tables, not so much reading their posterboard signage as scanning for the hottest upperclassman. If he had to be here (MCU in general, this mixer in particular), the least he could do to kill time was to make small talk with a hottie.
Bingo! A square-jawed guy with a mop of dark brown hair and a wrestler’s compact body smiled at Matt and, with a slight upnod, signaled for him to come to his table.
Matt headed mop-top’s way, intending to bypass the punch and cookies.
A pillowy matron, probably the same lady who had planned this event, blocked his way. She smiled and offered him a cup of Nyquil-colored liquid. “Here sweetheart, welcome to MCU! Have some punch.”
Matt returned the smile but held up a hand to decline the drink. “Sadly no. No drinks for me,” he said conspiratorially. “I’m the designated driver.”
It took a moment for the joke to register, but when it did the lady gigglesnorted. “Oh honey! You are a pistol, that’s for sure!”
Matt smiled awkwardly. He wanted to be chatting with mop-top, not this woman old enough to be his mother. But he didn’t want to be rude either. Something about this woman telegraphed deep loneliness. He didn’t know if it was the lack of a wedding ring, a sad undertone in her overloud voice, or something about her posture. But she was lonely.
The proffered punch took on a different meaning. He took the cup and thanked her. “This is a great party! Someone went to a lot of work!”
The woman smiled so wide her eyes crinkled. “That was me! I blew up all them balloons single-handedly.” With her now empty hands, she mimed inflating a balloon. “That was the easy part. Gluing them to the ceiling while straddling a ladder was the hard part.” She laughed loudly at her own joke. Her fleshy breasts quivered in their industrial strength brassiere.
Matt laughed and took a tiny sip of the punch. It was sticky sweet, like melted cotton candy. He fought the urge to grimace.
He stole a glance at mop-top, straining to see the guy’s ass. Sadly, there were too many people milling around, blocking his view.
Mop-top’s ass (or the inability to ogle it) reminded Matt of his other missionthis evening. He’d wanted to test a hypothesis. A 1992 Newsweek article had reported about a possible gay gene.
Scientific studies showed that roughly 2% of males were gay. That news had given Matt hope—even after his dreams of going to OU were dashed. Because if it were true, that meant that even at MCU there had to be other gays!
Matt was good at Math. He planned to major in Finance. His hypothesis was this: there should be 20 gay men among MCU’s students. (Student body: 2,000. Half of those male = 1,000. Two percent of 1,000 = 20.) He just had to find the other 19. Tonight’s smaller sample of 500-ish should mean there were four other gays in this room besides himself. One had to have hope, right? Maybe mop-top was one of those other gays. Matt could take him back to his no-roommate room, wrestle his clothes off, and fuck him—facedown the first time. This was what consumed Matt’s thoughts: how tight was a manhole compared to his fist?
“I’m Debbie, by the way,” the pillowy woman said, yanking Matt out of his fantasy and back to the present. “I work in the Registrar’s office. Been there fourteen years.”
Matt introduced himself. He was trying to think of a way to politely extricate himself from this conversation when a new voice sang out. “HI DEBBIE!”
Debbie brightened. She stood taller and straighter. “William Tyler Jennings! What are you doing here? You’re not a freshman!”
“I’m working the Drama Club table,” said William Tyler Jennings.
