TEARFUL AWAKENING by Joshua Black Steve is going to get on just fine. He made it through the worst and now we both face the future. I'll never forget that December day at the end of my first quarter at the Ohio State University. I'll never forget that look on his face. Steve taught me about many things, but there's one lesson that will always stick out in my memory. Even gods are mortal at heart. Steve lives on my floor of the dorm Lincoln Tower. He's also a freshman at OSU and I seem to recall him saying that he lives just outside Columbus. He lives in Suite 1920, a suite I've since dubbed the "Suite of the Gods." I live in 1940. In my suite live very bright, deep, and engaging individuals. In Steve's suite live very good looking men. Some eighteen year olds look as if they're just about to turn sixteen. Baby faces and smooth skin will follow them forever in life. But Steve isn't quite like that. He's one of those eighteen year olds who looks like he's been an adult for some time. He's well built and that adds to his allure. Steve's muscles and build are rough and rugged -- betraying his deep sensitivity. He's the kind of guy that's perpetually stubbled. And it's not a bad kind of stubble -- it's quite virile and more than mildly erotic. I'm assuming he's Jewish (that star of David pendant clued me in) though he doesn't have any stereotypical features. He dresses well, but neither extravagantly nor outlandishly. Steve is known for his big stuffed slippers in the shape of the Disney character Goofy. He sings and he knows how to cook. He wears an earring and is artistic. The first time I met Steve was about a month after school began. He needed some help with his e-mail account and heard of me. I remember him bending down and putting his disk in my drive. He had trouble at first getting the disk in at first. I leaned over and helped him, effortlessly sliding it in. I looked down his loose shirt and saw a well- built chest with perfectly proportioned dark black hair. He smelled sweet. I quickly loaded Eudora and downloaded his mail, all the while struggling to not notice that enticing bulge in his tight blue jeans. Within five minutes I had helped him and he went back to the 1920 suite. I felt as if I'd been visited by a momentary apparition, gracing my life for a second and then fleeing. I didn't see him for a month. The next time our paths crossed was at a Christmas concert at Mershon Auditorium on campus. Being gay, it's only natural that I'd like the fine arts and I bought tickets early for the event. Halfway through the second act I noticed a familiar face in the second row about two-thirds over to the right. It was Steve. Steve sang in a deep, masculine voice. His voice screamed out to me in its lust, in passion, in manliness. His dense body packed his tuxedo as he bellowed Latin hymns of rejoicing. I've never been so turned on by choral music. After that orgasmic concert experience I ran into him only a few times. I was shy and couldn't bear to be in the same room with him. He isn't loud, or outgoing. If anything he is quiet, laid-back and has a fresh sense of humor. His Disney slippers in some way transcended concepts of masculinity. I recall looking down at his feet, at those slippers. Poking out over Goofy's floppy ear was his strong ankle traced with evenly spaced hairs. Few ankles have turned me on so much. Oh the things I could do with that ankle! Just one ankle! By the time my obsession had reached its zenith I was certain the boy was straight. True, he is deep, creative, sensitive, and artistic, but he made it a concerted effort to display his heterosexuality. His comments, however, always seemed strained. He would talk lustily about Madonna, though he did it half-heartedly. I always suspected something deeper was going on in his complex mind. If I only knew. Enter into the picture Dale. Dale lives with Steve and they've become friends during the first college quarter of cohabitation. Dale doesn't look like Steve. Dale has a perfect baby face, climaxed by a pointed nose. He is lithe and smooth. Dale is Adonis and Steve Apollo. I was content merely to admire these Greeks from afar. I began to live for those momentary glances in the elevator or across the dining commons. It was therefore a surprise when Steve stumbled into my room one evening. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked tired. It took me a moment to recover from the shock of seeing him in my room. I knew that the gods assumed human form, but this being in front of me betrayed his divinity. "Are you alone, Joshua?" "Yeah, Steve, what's up?" He sat down next to my computer table, the same one where we I had helped him months before, and looked nervously around the room. "Close the door," he asked. I complied. Embarrassingly he asked me, "You're gay, right?" I looked around my room covered with rainbow flags, catchy gay pride slogans, and pink triangles. I wasn't too closeted. "Uh, yeah, I guess so. Why do you ask?" At that point his eyes welled with tears. Soon he was sobbing. I leaned over and held him and then I held him tight. He lay his head in my lap while I stroked his dark hair. Over the course of the next hour my God became a man before my eyes. This fragile mortal simply needed to talk. This is his story, not mine. "I don't know why I came here. I thought maybe you could help me. A lot of things in my life are kind of fuzzy these days. I don't know where else to turn. You see, it all has to do with Dale. Since the first day of school Dale has been my buddy. We talk about chicks, football, and everything. Well, then something happened. I don't know how, I don't know why. But it happened. "It started a few weeks ago. It was a Thursday, I remember. I remember it was a Thursday because that's the day I have my Calculus class at 7:30. I have to get up super early, throw myself in the shower, get dressed and race across the Oval to my class. That Thursday was the day of our midterm. I'd been up till three studying integrals and cosines and derivatives and all that shit. This was a big test and I needed the grade. The next morning I woke up and flipped out when I saw the clock on my bedstand. It said 7:20. I overslept. "I went into hyperdrive at that point. I figured that if I ran like hell I could shower, get dressed, and get to class with maybe thirty seconds to spare for a croissant breakfast. I ripped off the t-shirt I was wearing, dropped my boxers and ran to the door. Hell, I looked down and realized I forgot my towel. That could have been embarrassing! I leapt back in the room and held a town around me just enough to cover for modesty. "In the bathroom I ripped off the towel, threw it on the rack and ran into the shower. That's when it happened. Without thinking I pushed aside the shower curtain and took a step in. Then I froze in my tracks. Dale was there. He got to the shower first and I inadvertently walked in on him. There he was, buck naked, soaping his body and there I was, buck naked, standing almost in the shower with him. "I don't think I've ever been so embarrassed in my life. I mean me and Dale have seen each other naked before, but that wasn't quite it that morning. As I stood there for that split second, I looked into Dale's eyes. He looked into mine. At the same time we stole just a second to look at the body of the other. "I remember the feeling I had. Yeah, I'd seen his bare ass many times, but for some reason this was different. For some reason I looked down at his cock. It was wet, water from the shower cascading to the floor. His soft hair matted around it, it just looked different. I looked as his chest and his legs. I remember thinking about how little hair he had in those places. He only had a layer of wetted fuzz on his thigh above the knee, and a small trail of blond of hair on his chest. "I knew he was doing the same to me. His eyes were fixed on my arms, my nipples, my chest, my genitals. He stared at my dick and I saw some weird look in his eyes. Out of knee-jerk embarrassment I moved my hands to cover myself. As I did, I noticed something. Standing there in front of Dale, I had a giant erection just starting to come on. I was breathing hard and remember being horribly frightened. I don't know why. After just a few seconds of this I started to mumble about how sorry I was to have barged in. I started backing out of the shower, still apologizing. Dale said nothing. I closed the shower curtain and walked over to the other stall. I was still hard and damn embarrassed. I was wondering if he saw me get so excited. "The worst part was that I didn't really ng. I've fallen in love with the man who was owered and just barely made it to my Calculus midterm. I got that test back last Tuesday. I got a 65 -- I guess my mind wasn't on unit circles and natural logs that day. "For the next week Dale and I avoided each other. We went home for Thanksgiving break and I thought this whole thing might just be put behind us. It could have been, except I wouldn't let it die. I kept replaying those frozen seconds. There seemed something vaguely familiar to them. I remembered my friend Jeff in junior high and what I used to think n the showers with him after basketball practice. I though about high school and how I never really felt comfortable with all those girls I dated. It freaked me out. Big time. "I wished I knew what Dale was thinking. I couldn't get that look on his face out of my mind. Worst of all, I couldn't get that image of his perfect body out of my mind. Just as I thought I couldn't stand it anymore, Dale made the next move. This just happened last week. That's why I'm flipping out like I am now, Joshua." I sat there soaking up every word of Steve's story. I wish I could describe better the tone in his voice as he told me these things. He spoke of it like one would speak of a grave sin committed in the past. It was anguish and I admit to once knowing that same anguish well. He told parts of this story through tears and I was patient. I fought hard to not become turned on myself. The image of the two most beautiful young men in my building, naked, was an awful lot for me to handle. I did it well, though. That day I found one part of Steve that turned me on so much more than his firm chest or that bulge in his jeans. I listened deeply, waiting to here what happened so recently to shake him up so much. Steve continued. "Yesterday morning I was running behind again. My alarm clock totally died and I had fifteen minutes to get to Chem. I ran to the shower , though this time made the wise choice to check before I barged in. I heard the other shower running and saw Dale's towel on the hook. I rushed and got out before he was out. When I turned off the water I heard him turn of his shower head. I dried off and wrapped the towel around my waist. I headed back to the room to get dressed and walked barefoot through the suite, closing the door on my way in. I had taken two steps when I heard the door open behind me. It was Dale. "He, like me, had a towel wrapped around his waist for modesty's sake. I felt my stomach drop. I mumbled something, but I don't remember what. I hoped that maybe he needed something, maybe he ran out of shampoo or wanted to grab my Calc notes before I ran off to class. "He walked over closer, still not saying anything. Our eyes were locked. As I stood next to my bed he reached around my side and did one quick flick of his wrist on the knot of my towel. My towel dropped to the floor. This time I didn't move to hide the fact I was turned on. But in a way it was something different than being just stimulated. I was thrilled with a new sensation. I was scared as hell, but enjoying the ride. "I stood there in front of him just like that. He shut my room door behind him. He then reached down and dropped his own towel to the floor. We stood there just like that for what seemed forever. Two men in front of each other -- naked, erections painfully obvious. If I were thinking then I would have felt vulnerable. I didn't, though. I felt like something important was going to happen. "He took the first step towards me. No words were spoken. Our hard cocks touched each other lightly. Dale lunged over and grabbed me. He started kissing passionately and I couldn't help but reciprocate. We ended up on the bed rolling around. Our hair was still wet from the shower; we reveled in the purity of our clean skin. Lips locked, I squeezed his pects and he rubbed his fingers through the hair on my chest. I reached around and grabbed his ass and kneaded the powerful muscles. "Our hard dicks were rubbing against each other, yelling for attention. He was the first one to grab me there. Dale grabbed the shaft and held tightly. He moved his hand back and forth and tugged. My God, did it feel good. As he gripped and jerked the shaft, he rubbed his thumb over the sensitive tip. His other hand was still busy learning my body. "I took the plunge myself and grabbed his. The whole body was smooth and perfect. His private parts were no different. I squeezed his scrotum and twirled my fingers in his soft and still damp pubic hairs. We stopped our kissing routine to rearrange our figures. Both of us instinctively dove down on the other. There, lying on the bed, I discovered the infamous sixty-nine of porn lore and folk stories. I couldn't understand why I felt so compelled to totally devour his dick. I couldn't get enough of it and nearly gagged myself initially. He did the same to me and I felt my penis, still cold from the shower, warming up quickly among his teeth. "I sucked him ravenously, hard, and violently. No thoughts went through my head. I worshipped before me the god Priapos. Nothing else in the universe existed except Dale's member and my corporal self. Oh, Joshua, it went so far beyond just being sexual or erotic. God, you must think I'm totally psycho." I looked at Steve and quickly nodded no. Somehow I knew what he meant and I knew what he was saying. I begged him to continue. "I rubbed my hands up and down his thighs, to his knees, and then back to his torso. I fondled his balls and he did the same to me. We were not quiet at all -- I distinctly remember a shocked moan coming from my lungs. With more fury I played with, sucked, licked, rubbed, and grasped his penis. He did the same to me. He did exactly the same. We came at almost the same moment. I remember feeling his muscles beneath me tighten up and hearing his breathing become labored. He shot just a second before me. I remember seeing his cum and being not disgusted, but, rather, in awe. I swallowed some and let some drip down the side. I was swallowing more than semen. I was swallowing Dale. "I practically blacked out during my own orgasm. When it finally subsided I collapsed on his thigh, the salty taste of life still on my lips. We rearranged our tired selves and linked tongues. I held him very, very tight and he did the same. I thought we might injure each other embracing so tightly. I felt every point of my flesh touching his. He smelled clean and pure and perfect. "Soon our dicks both went flaccid. He quickly grabbed his towel and wiped up the mess we'd made. He wrapped the towel around himself and headed to his room. As he walked out I ran after him, naked, and called out to him. He looked back at me with another look that I shall never forget. He almost cried at that moment. The tears welled in his eyes, but they didn't come. "Well, this morning I found out that Dale had left our suite. His father was very ill and he wanted to go to school closer to home. Dale never had told me this. I never had a chance to say good-bye, Joshua. I don't believe I'll ever see him again. Today has been hell. I never thought I'd come to this point. My God, I'm gay! I've known it forever, but I never wanted to say it. Joshua, I loved Dale. My God, I loved him. Why didn't I tell him that? Why did this happen? Why does it hurt so much?" At this point Steve began to sob again. I put his head in my lap, stroked his dark hair and told him that everything would be all right. Copyright 1994 by Joshua Black All rights reserved