Summer of ‘91
After the hookup with Todd, Darin Burkett walked aimlessly around campus, stopping to watch the cute incoming students unload their belongings. Parents were lurking everywhere. Hopefully he’d avoid seeing Todd’s parents when they came back. He didn't want to have to smile and put on an act again. Once was enough.
Todd’s mother had an expensive hairstyle and walked around the room exclaiming, “Isn’t this nice?” though it was clear she didn’t think much of the place. Todd’s father looked annoyed the entire time; he didn’t say much as he helped bring the boxes into the room. He looked like an older version of Todd only with a bad mustache. Todd’s folks had barely been gone fifteen minutes- off to check into their motel-when the boys hooked up.
A motel. Was Todd going to be a momma’s boy who always needed her around? Darin’s mother and stepfather’s visit had lasted less than thirty minutes. They’d pulled up to the dorm and unloaded Darin’s few belongings. His mother complained about the slow elevators and slipped Darin a twenty as she was leaving. Truth be told, that was exactly how Darin had wanted the move to go. The money was an unexpected bonus. He wasn’t planning on moving back home next summer so he’d take what he could from his mother now. The sour look on her face as she dipped into her purse made it that much sweeter. She could afford to part with her money, but she acted as though it was a huge deal.
Darin’s mother had also been more honest than Todd’s about the campus. She took one look and then shook her head. “This place is a dump.” She was right. The more Darin saw of the State University campus, the more he realized how ugly the school was. Definitely not stately, with no ivy to be found. Unless it was poison. That’s what you get for going to a place you don’t check out beforehand. Some areas of the school resembled a low rent Harvard Yard. Other regions had ugly modern buildings thrown down with no continuity. The library was a twenty-story brick structure stuck in the middle of the campus, rumored to be sinking a quarter inch a year by the weight of the books. Another architectural atrocity was the campus center, which resembled a waffle standing on its side.
Thinking about waffles made Darin hungry. He had the money but didn’t know where he could get food that night as the cafeterias wouldn’t open until morning. Maybe he should have accepted the dinner invite, but no. Todd was cute, but that wasn't enough reason to go to dinner with a person he barely knew and his parents while having to answer questions about himself all evening.
Wanna hear a good one, folks? Your son blew me while you were out.
Darin knew that Todd had lied earlier: he could tell it hadn’t been the first time Todd had a cock in his mouth. Not that the prior experience had made him a master. There had been too many teeth to describe Todd as anything more than adequate.
But in fairness, Todd hadn’t been the only one distorting the truth. Darin’s ex William had been almost twenty years older than he: thirty-seven. They also hadn’t met at a youth group, but on the Back Bay MBTA platform where William had been cruising him one weeknight. They ended up fooling around in a nearby public bathroom stall. That wasn’t so sexy, but it had been fun. After that, Darin started hooking up with William a few times a week. Darin started making up more and more excuses as to why he was going out so often, and knew his mother believed none of them. What was she going to do, lock him up? Darin liked to imagine the look on his mother’s face if she found out he was seeing a guy only seven years younger than she.
Not that William was such a horror. He didn’t dress especially well and was ten pounds overweight but he had a decent job at a bank; the job allowed William to always pay for meals. The paunch was canceled out by the fact that William was skilled in bed, and had a large dick. For several weeks over the summer, things had proceeded well. The two of them spent time in the South End, and then in William’s small third floor apartment on Tremont Street which he shared with an MIT grad student who was never there.
The relationship ended one night at Club Café. Darin, drunk and staggering, had left William on the dance floor and gone to the bathroom. When he came back to the bar, William was making out with another young guy in a banquette while a dance remix of “Right Here, Right Now” was playing over the speakers. Darin ordered several more drinks, stuck William with the tab and never called him again.
His mother would smirk when she’d come upon Darin watching TV and ask why he’d stopped going out so much. He’d give her the finger behind her back.
Fuck William. That was over. William was still in Boston , still wearing his boring clothes and still pushing forty. Most people on campus were Darin’s age. If he could get laid regularly - he’d gotten off to a good beginning - it would be worth it to be away from a big city, away from his family, and the boring, cramped suburbs even if it meant attending school in this backwoods area.
Time to start anew.
Almost as soon as he completed his last thought, Darin was overcome with loneliness. He revised his opinion of William for the second time in as many minutes. Maybe it had been a mistake to let William go so easily. If the loneliness persisted, he’d give William a call one day and see if anything could be done to salvage the relationship. It would enable him to get off campus as often as possible.
Classes began in two days, and Darin had no idea how to kill the time until then. If Todd was willing, maybe they’d fool around again.
It was something to do.
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