Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 11:02:48 -0800 (PST)
From: Tim Mead <timmead88@yahoo.com>
Subject: "Out of the Night," chapter 12

The following narrative involves sexually-explicit erotic events between
males.  If you are offended by such material, are too young, or live in an
area where that sort of thing isn't allowed, don't read it.

This is a work of fiction.  No similarity between the characters here and
any real person is intended or should be inferred.

In the world of this story, the characters don't always use condoms.  In
the real world, you should care enough about yourself and others to always
practice safe sex.

The author retains all rights.  No reproductions or links to other sites
are allowed without the author's consent.

Thanks, as always, to Tommy, Patrick, Ash, Evan, and Mickey.

This chapter is a sort of addendum to "Out of the Night."  Readers first
heard about Rick when Doug told Stan about him in chapter 5.

Timmead88@Yahoo.com
Chapter 12:  Rick's Story

Aristotle says to begin a narrative in medias res, in the middle of things.
That's not often done in stories posted here, and I'm not going to do it
either.  You may as well know a little about me from the outset.

My name, for example.  I'm Richard Modarelli, called Rick by my friends
and, occasionally, Rick the Prick by people I've managed to piss off.  I'm
from Chicago.  My dad has a condo in a high rise overlooking Lake Michigan
and a cabin in the woods of Greenbriar County, West Virginia.  My mother
died when I was six.  If you follow national politics, you have probably
heard of my dad, Peter Modarelli.  He's a senator from Illinois.  He
started as a lawyer, made lots of money, and then decided to make a run for
Congress.  His election surprised the "experts."  After all, what were the
chances of a guy with an Italian name in Irish Chicago?  Well, he fooled
them.  And he became a popular congressman.

I need to stress here that I loved my father.  After Mother died, he never
remarried.  He devoted himself to me and to his career.  There must have
been other women occasionally, but he never had a woman when he and I were
together.  He was terribly busy with his law practice when I was little,
but he spent as much time with me as he could on weekends.  He took off a
whole month to spend with me every summer, and he devoted himself to me
during those times.  He was loving, patient, indulgent, and supportive.  He
realized how difficult it was for me without a mother and with him so busy.
But I loved the time we could spend together and I adored him.  He was tall
(I got the short genes from my mother), very handsome, utterly charming.
Some of our best times were at the "cabin" in West Virginia.  It was pretty
luxurious for a cabin.  But we lolled around, cooked together, listened to
music.  We talked about everything.  He treated me and my ideas with
respect even when I was a mildly rebellious adolescent.

We had a live-in housekeeper/nanny for me in the Chicago condo, but when he
was elected to Congress as I was going to enter ninth grade, we decided
that I'd go to boarding school.  When I finished at Phillips (won't tell
you which one), I decided to go to a small, quiet middle-western college to
get away from all the East-Coast snobs.  I was the son of a well-known
politician, and that brought me a certain amount of cachet, but, although
we are reasonably well off, it wasn't old money.  And with a name like
Modarelli, you are an immigrant in the eyes of some of those insufferably
arrogant WASP preppie types, no matter how long your family may have been
in this country.

I wound up at Cranmer.  I'm not sure why, but it was a good fit.  I had
lots of friends.  It is a pretty campus.  As a Chicagoan, I don't mind
snow, nor did the long, cold, gray winters in northwestern Ohio bother me.
Oh, everybody bitched once in a while as we left the frat house for class
when there was snow and a ball-shrinking wind coming out of the northwest,
but I enjoyed sitting and reading in the big, nineteenth-century
fake-gothic library on those dreary days.  The place was warm, I loved the
smell of old books, and I could happily lose myself there for a whole
afternoon.

When I got to Cranmer, I was rushed by a fraternity that had a lot of
jocks.  Cranmer isn't a big sports school.  In fact, it's a small, liberal
arts college.  They had about 2500 students when I was there.  Most Cranmer
students go on to graduate or professional school somewhere.  But any
college has its jocks, and many of them were in the fraternity I pledged.
Why did they want me?  Perhaps because I am a fair soccer player, and, as
it turned out, I made the team.  I was never a star, though I did play
regularly.  Cranmer's team has traditionally been excellent, and the sport
is popular on that campus. I think the fraternity also wanted me, however,
because they thought I'd help raise their academic average, you know, have
a GPA that would help the fraternity look good.

Considering where this story is making its appearance, the reader is
unlikely to be surprised when I reveal that I'm gay.  I've known I was gay
since about the time I began to get pubic hair.  Phillips was fun for me.
Lots of the guys there were gay, and I had a series of discreet "affairs."
Or, since there wasn't anything like love involved, maybe I should just
admit that I had several fuckbuddies.

Being in the fraternity at Cranmer did two things for me.  It was a kind of
camouflage since most of my brothers were jocks and therefore considered
super straight.  Besides, the eye candy was the best on campus.  Who
wouldn't take a deal like that?  I should also say that the greek
organizations didn't have a lock on social life on campus.  There were lots
more independents than at some colleges.  And, again, the typical Cranmer
student just wasn't as snobbish as my prep school friends had been.

It's always seemed to me terribly narcissistic that so many Nifty stories
begin with the narrator describing himself.  Who cares what I look like?
Certainly I'm not remarkable.  I'm short, only 5'6", with black curly hair
and practically black eyes.  You would expect a guy named Modarelli to be a
redhead maybe?  I'm kind of stocky, but what with soccer and working out,
none of it is fat.  What is fat is my six-inch cock.  Some of my liaisons
have had a little problem with that, but I'm very patient and gentle.  I've
found it helps to start with a long, slow rim job.

Now that you know the personal data, I may as well make it clear that this
story is not primarily about sex.  It's about guilt.  My guilt.  I know
what I did was wrong.  I have bad dreams about what I did to Doug.  At
times I have an overpowering urge to find out where he is and go tell him
how sorry I am, perhaps explain to him.  But I don't know what's become of
him, and, if I were able to find him, I doubt that he'd agree to see me.
Why would he?  I may have ruined his life.  I know I ended his career.  I
don't think I'm a monster.  Weak?  Maybe.  Stupid?  Perhaps.  (No, my IQ is
high enough, but we've all done really dumb things at one time or another,
haven't we?)  However.  I'm getting ahead of my story, as they say.


Like so many others, when I arrived on campus for freshman orientation, I
checked "Undecided" on all those forms that ask about your major.  I had no
very clear notion of what I wanted to do with my life.  Dad, always a
benevolent father, was a little disappointed that I had chosen to go to
Cranmer College in Ohio, but he agreed to it, saying that I might perhaps
"find myself" there, and that I could always transfer to a "better school"
when I discovered my true calling.

I took to Cranmer like the proverbial duck to water.  Not all of my
fraternity brothers were stupid, and I had both male and female friends
with whom to have a coffee or a beer and talk about those problems that all
college students think they've discovered and are sure, given time, they
can solve.  I remember Cranmer as a place where we talked endlessly,
seriously, but with growing affection for one another, a place of
late-night bull sessions, exhilaration over things of the mind and spirit.
There was good sex, too, but I'll get back to that.

Somewhere early in the second semester of freshman year, I realized that
I'd like nothing better than to spend my life in academia.  I wanted to be
a college professor, and by that time I knew pretty well which discipline,
too.  I had had enough AP work before I got there that I was excused from
Cranmer's freshman comp and intro to lit courses.  So I was taking a
two-semester survey of American literature my first year and loving it.  I
declared an English major before the year was out.

The rest of that year and the next two passed quickly.  Our soccer team did
brilliantly, and we carried a nineteen-game winning streak into the fall of
our senior year.  I had lots of friends.  I loved most of my classes.  I
was something of the "fair-haired boy" around the English Department.  My
professors kept asking me where I was going to graduate school and telling
me they'd be happy to write letters supporting my applications.

But that fall of 96 is when it all started.  The shit, I mean.  As a
senior, I had been able to snag a single room in the fraternity house.  It
must have been during the first week of the semester.  Sitting there
reading about 11:00 one evening, I heard a knock.  When I opened the door,
three of my fraternity brothers were standing there.  I invited them in.

They were an interesting assortment.  There was Marcus Seacliffe, the
president of the fraternity.  Marcus was the stereotypical jock in some
ways.  He was blond and brawny, as befitted the running-back captain of the
football team.  He had a crew cut and blue eyes, and he was pushy and
insensitive.  I don't know how he got to be president of the fraternity.
It certainly wasn't with my vote.  With him was his sidekick and roommate,
Larry "Fumblefingers" Malone, who came by his nickname honestly.  He was a
bit of a fumblebrain, too, in my book. About the same size as Seacliffe, he
had short, black hair, blue eyes, and, by that time, a lot of black stubble
on his face, far beyond "five o'clock shadow."  With them was someone I
knew very well.  Ned Branscomb, 5'11," with brown hair and hazel eyes, one
of my soccer teammates, and gorgeous, stood there looking distinctly
uncomfortable.  He was holding a large manila envelope.  As I said, I knew
Ned very well, and I could sense he really didn't want to be there just
then.

"So, gentlemen, what brings you here at this hour?"

It was, of course, President Marcus who did the talking.

"Brother Rick, the time has come for you to do something to help out our
brotherhood."

"What do you need for me to do?"

I'll spare you Marcus's inept language.  What they wanted me to do was
unthinkable, and I refused.

"You'd better reconsider that, Brother Rick.  We've known you are a fag for
a long time, and you owe your brothers for keeping your little secret."

"Okay, so you know I'm gay.  I've been very discreet, I think, in order not
to embarrass the fraternity.  So why have you waited until senior year,
Marcus, to bring this up?"

"Because now we have this problem, and you are just the brother to help us
with it."

"I can't believe you'd ask me to do that.  You know I am a loyal brother.
I'd do just about anything, so long as it wasn't unethical.  But what you
are asking me is really wrong, and I can't do it."

Fumblefingers stood there looking blank.  Why was he there?  For "moral
support"?  Hardly.  It was the intimidation factor, I surmised.  Marcus was
growing angrier by the moment at having his "request" denied.  And poor Ned
gripped that envelope looking as if he wished he were invisible.

"OK, Brother Ned," Marcus said with a faked sigh, "I guess you'll have to
show Brother Rick what's in the envelope."

Ned handed me the envelope, and I opened it.  Inside were a handful of very
clear pictures of Ned and me having sex.  I should say they were pictures
of me having sex with someone whose face never showed, but whom I knew to
be Ned.  He and I had had a hot time during the previous spring semester.
Ned was a sweet, tender, and very sexy man.  We were good friends, and I
had hoped we might resume our relationship that term.

In one of the photos I was giving Ned a rim job.  My face was quite
recognizable, but only his ass showed.  In another I was on my knees with
his cock in my mouth.  I was looking up at him.  In another Ned was on his
hands and knees with his head down.  I was behind him, in him, with my head
thrown back, obviously at the moment of climax.  In yet another I was lying
on my back getting fucked.  My cock was lying hard, red, and dripping
against my stomach.  Ned was holding my legs up by the ankles.  I was
grinning broadly at him.  His head wasn't in the picture.  The camera was
shooting me over his shoulder.  The location was clearly his room, and the
pictures were obviously taken by a camera connected to his pc one night the
previous spring.  They'd set all this up and just held onto the pictures
over the summer.

I looked fixedly at Ned.  He looked back at me with tears in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Rickie, they made me."

"It's OK, Ned.  Now that we see how Brother Marcus works, I can just
imagine what he did to coerce you into doing this.  Just tell me this
. . . "

"What, Rick?"

"Were you just screwing me because they made you?"

"No, man.  They found out about it somehow after we had been doing it for
weeks.  We had a good time, Rick, and I'm sorry as hell about all this."

"That's enough, Brother Ned," Marcus commanded.  "You two can go do your
sick stuff later.  Right now, we have to tell Brother Rick what he will do
for the fraternity unless he wants the media to get these pictures.  Just
think," he said, turning to me, "what fun The Star would have with these
pics of the son of Congressman Pete Modarelli!"

I thought about that.  I thought of the damage to Dad's career if those
pics were made public.  Not even a rag like The Star would show them as
they were, but they could have a field day describing them, and I didn't
doubt for a minute that they'd be all over the web in no time.  My dad knew
I was gay and was very understanding.  He'd done his best to be a good
father to me, and he'd have been wounded to think that I had allowed myself
to do something that would be such a blow to his reputation.  Having a gay
son was one thing, but having a gay slut for a son was something else
again.  It might not have done too much damage if word simply got out that
Congressman Modarelli had a son who was gay.  But the pictures would have
been extremely useful to any nasty-minded person who wanted to run against
him.  To make things worse, I knew, as Marcus apparently had found out
also, that Dad was planning a run for the Senate in the next elections.  It
was tough enough for a man with an Italian name to be elected in
Irish-dominated Chicago.  But Chicago is overwhelmingly Catholic, too; in
view of the church's position on homosexuality, those pictures would
probably have been the end of Dad's hopes for the Senate.

"Marcus, be reasonable.  You know I can't let you distribute these
pictures.  But you are asking me to trade my father for Dr. Curtis."

"Yeah, that's about it.  If you don't help us get Curtis, we'll put these
where they'll really embarrass your old man.  I guess that's what you get
for having a Congressman for a pops."

Under other circumstances, I'd have wanted to spend some time thinking
about what that last statement said about Marcus, but the exigency of the
moment took over.

"Okay, spell it all out.  Just what is it I'm expected to do?"

And he laid it all out for me.  I was horrified, but I couldn't see any way
to avoid doing as Marcus demanded.  I loved my father too much, I owed him
too much to let this sick shit ruin his career.  Besides, Dad was a damn
fine congressman.

When he was through, I asked, "But what's Dr. Curtis done to you?"

"Oh, the old fag hasn't just done it to me.  He is the toughest grader in
the English Department, and many of us have gotten lower grades than we
should have in his comp and intro to lit courses.  Besides, he's a queer.
He's never been outed, and we think people should know the son of a bitch
is a cocksucker."

"Do you KNOW he's a cocksucker, Marcus?  Do you even KNOW he's gay?"

He grinned.  "Well, Brother Rick, that's what you're going to find out for
us.  And you're going to report everything you and the prof do.  Got it?"

What could I say?  I agreed partly because I didn't see that I had any
choice and partly to stall for time.  I hoped I could figure out some way
to abort Marcus's plan before it was completed.

I felt sorry for Neddie.  I could see that Marcus had coerced him into
betraying me, and I understood why he might have complied.  In the days
that followed, probably because of embarrassment, Ned avoided me as much as
one fraternity brother could avoid another.  And, though I felt more
sympathetic than angry with Ned, I didn't particularly want to be with him
(He and I resumed our friendship by email when we were both in grad
school.)

The astute reader will have already inferred the outlines of Marcus's
scheme.  I was to do anything I could to have "an affair," as Marcus had
said, with Dr. Douglas Curtis, one of the most admired professors in the
English Department.  Then the details of that affair would be made known on
campus so as to discredit him.

I had seen Curtis around Weems Hall, the home of the English Department,
and I had seen him fairly regularly when he was serving the chalice at the
Eucharist at Trinity Episcopal Church.  (Yes, I'm from a Catholic family,
but Dad and I are only nominally Catholic.  Ned had invited me to go to
services with him at Trinity.  It seemed familiar and comfortable, so I
went back several times.)

I had never had a course with Curtis before, but I had been looking forward
to the Faulkner course in which I had enrolled that fall.  The first few
days had shown me that the professor was as excellent as everyone had said.
He was relaxed, easy going, approachable.  He obviously loved Faulkner's
work, and he managed to make that enthusiasm contagious.  He was especially
good with class discussions.  He encouraged the ten of us in the class to
think for ourselves and to exchange ideas.  I could see that Curtis was
often guiding the conversation, but he did it subtly, giving us
barely-noticeable nudges from time to time.

I began stopping by his desk each day after class.  There was always
something else I wanted to ask him.  He seemed happy to talk with me.  Some
professors gather up their notes or whatever and seem to be rushing home to
their wife and kiddies or their brandies, or whatever.  Not Dr. Curtis.  He
always had time for anyone with a question or problem.

I discovered that the prof kept office hours late in the afternoons.  When
soccer practice didn't interfere, I started dropping by his office.  There
often weren't any other faculty members in their offices at that time.  He
always seemed happy to see me, and I found that we could talk about things
that weren't involved in the course I was taking.  It took him a while to
make the connection between my name and my father's.  Then one day he asked
me if we were related.  He was delighted when I told him that Peter
Modarelli was indeed my father.  He asked me several questions about my
father's career, his stand on several specific issues.  This man certainly
wasn't living in an ivory tower.

A few days later, Doug asked if I liked classical music.  When I told him
it was a very important part of my life, though I had no particular musical
talent, he laughed.

"I was afraid you were going to say that you hated the classics and only
liked rock."

Through our rambling talks, I discovered that he liked to cook.  He was
surprised that I did, too.  I explained that I'd spent a lot of my time
alone in Chicago and that I preferred to cook for myself rather than eat
alone in restaurants all the time.  Besides, as I told him, Dad and I
enjoyed cooking together when we were at the cabin in West Virginia.

Another day he surprised me by saying that he was familiar with my
reputation in the English Department but that he had also seen me play
often.  I had no idea that he followed our team, and, as we talked, I
discovered that he was knowledgeable about soccer and seemed to enjoy it.

I was really coming to like the man.  I knew that my "assignment" was to
have sex with him, and at first I wasn't sure how I felt about that.  After
all, he was at least 50, and the thought of having sex with anyone that old
was distasteful to me.

I must say, however, he had a lean, lithe physique.  He looked
distinguished with just a little bit of gray at the temples.  His face was
no more wrinkled than that of some thirty-year olds, and he came to seem
less old to me.

In another of my courses, "The Age of Samuel Johnson," I was discovering
that I was fascinated by the second half of the eighteenth century.  I
admired Johnson, who turned off many of my classmates.  Thomas Jefferson
and the American philosophes of his era also intrigued me.  Doug, as I was
beginning to think of him, was surprisingly knowledgeable about that
period, and we had several long conversations about late eighteenth-century
thought.  He suggested that I should inform myself about the art and
architecture of the period, too, which I did, much to my delight.  And then
one day he asked me to think about the music of Mozart and Haydn as it
related to the thought and the visual art of the time.  All of that so
stimulated me that I persuaded Dr. Burns, my eighteenth century professor,
to let me do my term paper in his course on the music of the age of
Johnson.  Well, it didn't take much persuading, for he was delighted.  When
I told him it was Curtis who had first given me the idea, he smiled and
said, "I might have known."


During those weeks of the autumn I had frequent attacks of guilt and
depression.  I was coming to love Doug Curtis.  He was almost exactly the
same age as my father, however, and I was betraying him to save my father.
I had many terrible nights because I realized that what I was helping
Marcus do was so cruel.  Marcus, characteristically, dropped by my room
often for progress reports.

"Come on, Modarelli, when are you going to get him in the sack?  Sounds to
me like you guys have had enough foreplay.  And, listen, here's something I
want you to do.  From the moment there's anything physical, anything at
all, between you two, you will come back here and write it down.  I want a
complete log of all your sex.  Got that?"

"Look, Marcus, I don't know whether it will ever get that far.  I mean, why
should he be interested in sex with one of his students?  Especially me?
What if all this accomplishes nothing?"  (I was secretly hoping that Doug
would manage to distance himself from me, worrying all the while about what
Marcus would do if he did.)

Let me go back to something I said earlier.  I realized I was beginning to
have feelings about Doug that I'd never had for anybody else.  I looked
forward to being with him.  I loved our talks, loved his smile, loved his
kindness to me.  He seemed lonely, and I wondered if I was filling some
need he had.  I desperately hoped so on the one hand, and on the other was
terrified that he was coming to feel for me as I did for him.

Yet, I longed to touch him, to stroke him, to make him feel good.  I began
to fantasize about what he would look like naked, about the size and shape
of his cock, his nipples.  I masturbated wondering what his butt looked
like.  And, as I wiped up my semen, I was ashamed that I had these feelings
for a man in his fifties, a man who was being kind to me, a man whom I was
supposed to disgrace.

One day, after some particularly insistent prodding by Marcus, I got
tickets for the Detroit Symphony concert that Saturday night.  Radu Lupu
was doing the Beethoven 4th concerto, and I knew Doug liked both the piece
and the artist.  I asked him to go with me.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to take one of your friends?  Don't you
have a girl friend, or a fraternity brother or someone whom you would
rather be with?"

"No, Dr. Curtis, no girlfriend.  No one, actually, that I'd rather be
with."  That was the truth, too.

He thought about it a moment, smiled at me very sweetly, and said in that
case, he'd love to come.

He offered to drive, but I told him this was my party and that I'd pick him
up.

We ate at a restaurant near the big civic center where the Detroit Symphony
plays, but I confess I don't remember much about it.  I was too nervous
about what I was planning later.

The program was excellent.  It began with the overture to Bernstein's
"Candide."  Then there was Mozart's "Prague" Symphony.  After the
intermission, Lupu did the Beethoven.  His reading of the concerto was what
I'd call very "romantic."  Doug and I both loved it.  As we walked to my
car, Doug put his arm around my shoulders for just a moment, smiled down at
me, and said, "Thank you, Rick."  I think I knew from that moment the
evening would be a success.

On the drive back to Cranmer, we talked about other favorite performers and
about various symphony orchestras we'd heard.  He wasn't all that much
ahead of me in that department, for Dad and I had heard most of the world's
big-name orchestras when they came to Chicago.

When we pulled up in front of his house, I said, "Dr. Curtis, this has been
such a special evening, I hate to have it end.  I know it's late, but it is
Saturday.  Could I come in for a few minutes?"

It was then, I think, that he asked me to call him Doug when we weren't in
class or around others in the English Department.  He hesitated at my
question, however.

"I'm in your debt for this lovely evening, Rick.  Of course you could come
in for a few minutes.  Perhaps you'd like a glass of port?  Or some
sherry?"

"Yes, Doug, I'd really like that," I said.

By that time we both needed to relieve ourselves, so he showed me where the
downstairs lavatory was, and he went upstairs to use the bathroom.

When we were both back in his living room, he asked whether I'd prefer
sherry or port or maybe just a Coke.

I chose the port, which was more than decent.  He set a bowl of salted
pecan halves in front of me.  As we nibbled the nuts, sipped our wine, and
chatted about particular things we'd enjoyed that evening, I looked around
the room.  I don't know what I expected.  Dark bookshelves and a dark,
beamed ceiling?  It wasn't that way at all.  The only thing traditional
about the room was the oriental rug, obviously very old, but in excellent
condition given its age.  The upholstered furniture was contemporary
leather of the same color as the dark red in the rug.  The white walls had
a variety of original contemporary art works.

I asked him about them.

"Well, Rick, I can't afford `great' art, obviously, but I'd rather have
good originals than prints of the greats.  Everything you see here is by a
Cranmer undergraduate.  I go to the student shows, and when I see something
I particularly like, I try to buy it.  That helps the artist and allows me
to hang things by talented people whom I can say I have at least talked
with.  Some of them I've gotten to know a little better because they've
taken classes with me."

We talked until the port was gone. Then, I knew, I had to force the issue.
I had been sitting on one end of a sofa.  Doug was in a chair across from
it.  I went around the coffee table and straddled his knees.  He has long
thighs, and I was able just to sit down on them.  I leaned forward and put
my lips against his.  He started to say something, a protest most likely,
so I simply inserted the tip of my tongue between his lips.  He tensed up
for a moment, so I put my hands gently on either side of his head and
continued pushing with my tongue.

As he relaxed and responded to the kiss, I knew I was "in," in more ways
than one.

I make it sound as if he was easy.  He wasn't.

When the kiss was over, he smiled at me and said, "Thanks, Rick.  That was
lovely.  Now you must go home before this gets out of hand."

"But, Doug, I don't want to go home.  Please, may I stay here with you?"

I got up and sat on the sofa again, facing him, the coffee table between us
so he'd know I wasn't going to sexually assault him.

Very gently, he said, "No, that wouldn't be a good idea.  The college has
rules about `fraternization' between faculty and students.  I'm old enough
to be your father.  And, even if you've figured out that I'm gay, I'm not
in the habit of deflowering virgins.  Now, thank you for the . . . "

I laughed at his last remark, and he looked puzzled.

"What did I say?"

"Doug, you dear man, I'm far from a virgin.  I've been fucking and getting
fucked by guys since I was thirteen.  I've had lots of experience, and if
you'll let me stay, I think I can promise you a great ride."

He chuckled.  "Well, I admit that I'm floored.  I had no idea you were gay.
So much for gaydar.  Tell me then, am I being seduced?"

"I certainly hope so."

"Would you be offended if I ask why?"

Here was the difficult part.  I was about to say what I truly felt, but yet
I knew I was being an absolute bastard to say it.

"Doug, I've never met anybody I felt about the way I feel about you.  As I
said, I've been having sex with men for ten years, and some of it has been
with guys I really liked.  Please don't take this the wrong way, but I
think I love you.  I want to be with you.  I think about you when I'm not
with you to the point where it is distracting when I'm trying to study.
And I beat off every night thinking of you."

"But . . . "

"Please, just let me finish.  I know I'm not much to look at, but I promise
if you let me I can make you feel good.  I've had lots of experience.  I
know what I'm doing.  And I want to make you happy.  Give me a chance?"

He seemed to be having some sort of inner struggle.  At first I thought
that it was pity that had won out over his scruples.

He looked at me very seriously.  "Rick, are you SURE you want this?"

I was sure and I wasn't.  I wanted him.  I desperately wanted him.  But I
didn't want the consequences that would happen to him as a result of what
we were about to do.

An image of my father flashed across my mind.  "Yes, Doug," I said, "I'm
sure."

He smiled at me and stood up.  Reaching for my hand, he said, "Okay, kiddo,
I have misgivings about this, but you have convinced me you know what you
want."  He took my hand and led me upstairs to his bedroom.  As we climbed
the stairs, he said, "By the way, you said you weren't much to look at?"

"Truly."

"Not so.  I think you're beautiful."

What a coming together that was!  We exhausted our repertoires and
ourselves.  There isn't much two gay men can do that we didn't do.  I was
surprised by Doug's stamina.  He kept up with me all the way!  He was able
to take my fat cock with no trouble, and I teased him about being a slut.
He did things to me with his long dick that no one had ever done to me
before.  I knew when we were finished that I had been, as the British say,
well and truly fucked.  I think it was perhaps 4:00 AM when we collapsed
into a cummy, sweaty heap and slept.

I can still remember waking up Sunday morning.  The room glowed with the
reflection of the sun shining on maple trees in the yard outside.  It was
10:00.  I was alone in the bed.  And I smelled sausage cooking.  Pulling on
my boxers, I went downstairs.  Doug, looking wonderful in jeans and a green
Cranmer sweat top, gave me a long kiss.  Then he suggested I go back up and
take a shower while he finished fixing pancakes and sausage.

He had laid out clean towels for me, and I enjoyed a long, hot shower.

When I got back downstairs, now clean and dressed, though uncomfortable in
yesterday's socks and underwear, he handed me a big glass of orange juice.
I didn't put back on the tie I had worn to the concert, nor had I yet
donned my suit jacket.  I had brought a light topcoat, but it was still out
in the car.

Breakfast was a delight.  We were both still glowing from the previous
night, though I was also a little tender in the nether regions.  He grinned
when he saw me sit down carefully and said, "Yeah, me too!"

As I was leaving, I said, "Doug, I hope this wasn't a one-time thing.  It's
been so beautiful."

He grinned.  "We'll have to be very discreet, Rick, but I'd be lying if I
didn't admit that last night was special.  Sure, let's plan a rematch.
And, by the way, you kept your promise."

"What's that?"

"You told me you'd make me feel good.  You did that in spades, young `un."

He gave me a hug and a kiss, and I went back to my room at the fraternity
house.


Marcus was waiting for me with a disgusting grin on his face. "Well, well,
well.  It looks like Brother Rickie pulled it off.  You were out all night,
and your car was parked in front of Curtis's house.  So, did you do the
nasty?"

"What we did wasn't nasty, Marcus.  And Doug's a wonderful person.  You are
such a bastard to do this to him."

"Watch it, brother!  You are breaking all sorts of house rules talking to
me that way.  So, before I have to call a disciplinary session, you get
started on your notes on what happened last night.  Do it now while all the
juicy details are fresh in your mind and his jizz is still in your ass.  I
don't suppose fresh would be the word for that, would it?"  He looked at me
with contempt.

"We used condoms," I protested to his back as he left my room.

I should have thought my notes about that one night would have given Marcus
all he needed, but he wanted more.

Again, my dilemma was that I, too, wanted more.  I couldn't get enough of
Doug, but I always had this sick feeling knowing that my notes were
providing Marcus the material he would use to ruin Doug's reputation on
campus.

My guilt was coming to overpower my desire to be with Doug.  I went to
Marcus one day and pleaded with him to let me stop.

"Oh, you can stop anytime you want, Brother Rick," he said with a smirk.  I
wanted to smash his smug face, but he outweighed me by a hundred pounds,
and, as he immediately pointed out, he still had those pictures of me.

So, under orders I could think of no way to refuse, I continued to be with
Doug just about every weekend.

Our soccer team had an undefeated season, pushing the winning streak beyond
any the school had ever had in any sport.  Sometimes when the football team
had an away game, we'd have a match on Saturday afternoon.  I'd arrive at
Doug's afterward, physically tired but emotionally pumped over our victory.

I never drove to his house after that night we first made love.  He
insisted that we be cautious, and I wasn't allowed to tell him that didn't
matter.

I wrote "made love" just now.  That's what it had become for me and, I
think, for Doug.  After that first session of pyrotechnic sex, our times
together became gentler, more loving.

After the second semester began in January, soccer was over, and I was able
to be with Doug every weekend.  Sometimes we even went to Detroit for the
weekend.  We usually went to a concert or a play, but sometimes we just
spent the evening in bed, and those were immensely satisfying.  Or, I
should say, they were satisfying when I was able to stifle the voice inside
that kept reminding me how perfidious I was being with this man I had come
to care so much about.


Finally, about a month before the end of the second semester, Marcus did
the deed.  I don't know what ever happened to the notes he made me give him
about my times with Doug.  But the content of those notes was whispered all
over campus almost overnight.  Rumors began to spread about Doug.  I have
to say that Marcus kept me out of it. My friends told me the rumors about
Doug, but no one seemed to know who his student lover was.

Not only were all sorts of stories circulating, but some of Marcus's
coterie at the fraternity who were in Doug's classes began to make sly
remarks to him about being fond of fudge, and other sophomoric things like
that.

I didn't know what to do with myself when Marcus carried out his campaign,
and I was unable to face Doug.  Fortunately I didn't have any classes with
him, so I was able to avoid him.

He called me at the fraternity house, but I had caller ID, and I just never
picked up when he called.  Most of my non-greek friends were sympathetic to
what had happened to Doug and were furious at whoever had started the
rumors.  It got so I couldn't stand to be with them because their quite
justifiable anger only made me feel worse.

In the midst of all this I had somehow managed to keep my grades up and to
apply to several graduate schools.  I was elated when I was accepted at
Brown.  The English Department had a sherry party to recognize the senior
majors who had been accepted to grad school.  I made some excuse for not
going.  Doug wasn't there either.

A few days later I heard he was leaving the university at the end of the
term, though no one seemed too sure where he was going.  I assumed he had
found a position somewhere else.

I understood why he wanted to leave.  That's the kind of guy he was.  He
knew what he was good at.  He had a healthy self respect, but he was also
shy sometimes and very vulnerable.  I'll feel remorse all my life for what
I did to him.  I wish I could have explained what forced me to betray him.
Even more, I wish I could tell him that I did, that I DO love him.  But I
love Dad, too.

I don't know where Doug is.  I called Goldy, the English Department
secretary, one day while I was at Brown to ask if she had an address for
him.  She told me that he hadn't gone to another position, that he had
retired, and that she had been asked not to give out his address.

Doug retired?  He was too young to retire!  He had too much to offer, too
much knowledge to share, too much help to give.  And I denied his students
all that, denied him the joy of being able to do that.  Again, I was
sickened by what I had done.  In retrospect, I tell myself that I should
have gone to my father and told him about Marcus's story.  He might have
said "publish and be damned."  Having a gay son probably wouldn't have hurt
his career all that much if he were still in private practice.  But he was
a popular public figure, and he was, as Marcus had noted, considering
running for the Senate at that time.

For years I have been tormented by a question.  Did I give in to Marcus
because I couldn't face the thought of those pictures of me turning up on
the web?  Was Doug's career sacrificed to my pride?

Incidentally, most people know that my dad, the junior senator from
Illinois, is getting ready to run for his second term.

Not that anyone should care, but I now have my Ph.D. from Brown.  I did my
dissertation on some of the members of Dr. Johnson's circle.  I took a year
off after getting the degree.  I traveled some alone, spent time with Dad
when he was available, and wrote two articles, which have now been
published in respectable journals.  And I'm being interviewed for a
position at several places.  Brown PhD's in English are sought after, even
in today's job market.

I have an interview coming up at a large state university in Northeast
Ohio.  Normally I wouldn't be interested in a big state school, but this
place is getting a reputation for its undergraduate and graduate English
programs.  They seem to be recruiting some hot young scholars.  They
already had Gwen Fairchild, who's a nationally-recognized Chaucer scholar.
I've also been hearing things about this young guy who specializes in the
Lost Generation, Timothy Mead.  Apparently he's considered quite a hotshot.
He recently had a book on dos Passos published by Stanford, and the critics
were unusually generous with their praise.  So, that sounds like a place
where I'd enjoy teaching.  And at least I'm used to those dreary northern
Ohio winters.

Perhaps, using him as my model, someday I'll be able to come close to being
the kind of teacher Doug was.  I hope so.  But I don't think I'll ever be
able to get rid of the remorse I feel over what I did to him.  It's been
five years since I graduated from Cranmer, since Doug left Cranmer.  I
think about him.  I feel more rather than less guilty as time passes.  I
miss Doug.  I've had "lovers" since then, but no one I loved.

As I said earlier, Ned and I kept in touch.  He got his MBA at Harvard and
then got a CPA.  He moved back home to Indianapolis, where he soon had a
lucrative practice.  He's the one who kept me up to date on what was
happening with Marcus.  Marcus lived in a small town in rural Indiana.  Not
good enough for the NFL and not smart enough for grad school, he had gone
into his father's insurance business on graduation.  One day about a year
ago, Ned sent me a picture of Marcus and his wife that had been in the
local paper.  He'd been elected president of the Chamber of Commerce.  She
was a tall, thin, horsy-looking woman with buck teeth and terrible hair.
Marcus was wearing a suit that looked as if it came off the rack at Sears,
his hairline was receding, and he had an obvious paunch.

Just a few months ago, Ned sent me another newspaper clipping.  No picture
this time.  Just an article saying that the former president of the C of C
had been caught diddling with his clients' money and had been sent to
prison.

So, Marcus got what he deserved.  But when is it going to be my turn?  I
keep thinking of what I did to Doug.


[This is the end of "Out of the Night."  Will there be a part 2?  Perhaps.
Meanwhile, Stan and Doug, will show up from time to time in "Dr. Tim and
the Boys" in the College section, and Rick will become a regular character
in that series.  --TM]