Mel

(This is a ‘new and improved’ edit of a story I originally wrote and put up on Nifty almost 5 years ago.  Hope you enjoy! - Paul)

Mel

A warm night in early June 2012, and it was the evening before my graduation from North Tonawanda High School, just outside of Buffalo, New York.  My father announced at dinnertime that the family had a present for me.  I knew it wouldn't be a car.  I was hoping it would be the brand new MacBook Pro that I'd been asking them for.  I was almost 18 years old but they still did not trust me enough to have my own computer; I had to share the home network of family computers with my parents and three sisters and one brother.  The network of tightly controlled, scrupulously monitored computers. 

But in three months I'd be off to a new chapter of life, as a freshman at SUNY Stony Brook, far away across the state, halfway across Long Island.  Further even than New York City.  College!  I'd be making my own choices and living with a huge amount of more freedom.  Mom and Dad knew I'd need to have my own computer by the time college starts, and so I was begging them to please please please let me get one now, and let me get used to it.  I tried the argument that it's better to give me the computer now so that the new computer and new college life and new academics won’t be a huge adjustment all at once.  I kept asking, pleading, despite how much I could see the discomfort and doubt in their eyes.

My father is Vice President of the board of the huge evangelical mega-church near here.  There are 4,500 families in our church.  Ours is by far the biggest church for miles around.  It is an understatement to say that my whole family is Christian.  Off the charts, extremely Christian. Religion owns our lives, in my family.  If you grew up like this, then you know what I mean.

They even home-schooled us all for a few years at one point, even though the local public schools are rated very good for college prep.  For families like ours, it's all about staying true to Christ and not allowing the secular world, the world of sin, to seep in and mess with your faith, your values, your precious soul. Don't let Satan get his hooks, or the world get its hooks, into the pure and good Christian that you are.

That evening, this pure and good Christian named Rodney Jacob Page, named after his grandfather and great-grandfather, hollered and whooped with delight when he opened his graduation gift.  The MacBook Pro!  Mine!  With monthly WiFi plan included as another part of the gift!  I look back on that evening now, my family all gathered around beaming with joy and anxiety and pride, and I think: that was it, the first lifting of a gate. The beginning of everything.

I stayed up that night adoring the Macbook Pro, watching all kinds of silly video clips on YouTube and laughing in my bed until my younger brother (we shared a bedroom) said "Rodney, turn it off! It's midnight."  He promised not to tell my parents though.  We all (five siblings) lived in fear of them at all times.  Fear of my father mostly.  Me too, I feared him a lot. Even though I was age 17 and had grown almost as tall as he is.  Some Christians are attracted to the principle of love, the love of Christ.  But my father, he mostly skipped all that and went straight for the judgment and discipline parts of our religious faith.  He has a mean streak.  I still believe he is the main cause of my intense nightmares.  I have fewer of them now, at SUNY Stony Brook.  But still they come, every once in a while.

I can say it now: I'm gay. Attracted to my own sex. 100%.  College and being away from my family made that clear in a hurry.  But back then, just a half-step out of high school, and growing up so deep in the evangelical Christian community, I was mentally unprepared to deal with it.  My teenage brain couldn't quite connect the dots at first.  But now at last I had a computer of my own, and the Internet sure does reward the curious.  My parents wanted "family friendly" software on my Mac and I installed it obediently.  But I also figured out how to disable it and how to erase my search history, all that.  When I had a question on anything, Google rode to the rescue.

And when I became curious to see pics of naked guys, Google poured an unending flood of them down onto me.  It was a long dull summer at home with no car, and I became fixated on the Internet.  I discovered free pornography video sites, Tumblr gifs, and all of that. Fast learner.  But it was way too much, too fast.  My parents noticed that I seemed unusually distracted.

No wonder: I spent hours a day online when I was alone. I would ride my bike out to the next town with the MacBook in my backpack, and sit beneath a tree right behind a restaurant that offered free WiFi. And I’d watch all the gay sex my fingertips could find on that MacBook Pro, until the battery died and it was time to bike back home.  

I had trouble sleeping at night because this new and exciting parade of all-male sexual images would throw an hours-long party inside my brain, but it felt too sinful to masturbate with my kid brother right there in the other bed.  I was so insanely horny sometimes, I could go into the bathroom in the dark of night, stroke my penis and cum in one minute, sometimes even less.  I was a total virgin: I had a high school girlfriend from my church, total chastity, only kissing was allowed.  But the Internet was giving me a fast growing list of things I wanted so badly to do and try for real, in the flesh, with another guy.  I could hardly stand the wait, counting down the weeks until college.

I stood half-naked before the mirror one afternoon and assessed what I saw through the lens of the gay porn Internet. Six feet tall, wavy dark blond hair and blue eyes, handsome face, good skin, fit body, and I thought, I'm as hot as those guys. I run track and lift weights, I'm in good shape, my penis is bigger than a lot of these guys, my face is better looking than most of--  

Then another thought cut in: Stop, Rodney. Stop. What is happening to you?  Suddenly obsessing about my looks and about sex, day and night, all the time.  Alongside all of this, I found myself half doubting the entirety of the Christian faith that surrounded me and defined me -- and half fearing that my father was right, and the preachers were right, the Church was right, and I was now a fallen sinner. Going to Hell.

I was in a lot of confusion.  No one to talk to about it.

I turned 18 years old in July.  I turned again to the Internet for community and help alongside all the porn.  One day I found a discussion forum for gay ex-evangelicals.  I read a lot, and began to post some comments as well, sharing my own story.  I made some online friends, and shared very deep personal stuff for the first time in my life.  I even got up the nerve to send one guy on that forum a set of pictures from a track team practice back in April.  In the photos I was stretching and running in a royal blue tank and black shorts, and he wrote back "Wow!!! Rodney, you are so beautiful." I was excited to think it was true that I looked that good.  I begged him to keep the photos private, reminding him that I still lived at home with hyper-religious parents. He promised he would.

Back in late May I had filled out and returned a roommate-compatibility questionnaire for college, and it didn't ask anything about sexual orientation.  After mailing it, I worried a lot about what if my roommate finds out I am into guys, and he’s homophobic and reacts badly.  I kept laying awake at night, anxiously imagining the worst scenarios. 

Finally one morning I searched online for a gay student group at my college. I found some resources about a "Safe Space" program and people who were committed to making the campus more OK for students who were non-straight (L, G, B, T, etc).  On impulse I emailed them to ask, "I sent in my roommate questionnaire for freshman year a few weeks ago, and wonder if I could talk with someone. Is there a way to be matched with a gay roommate, or at least a roommate who is not anti-gay?  I am very anxious about this.  Can I talk with someone in your group?" 

The next day a nice graduate student named Laurel called me on my cell and we had a good conversation.  She said that with my permission the Safe Space group cold share my background and request with the Campus Housing department, in case Housing knew of any other incoming freshmen looking for a similar match. No guarantees, Laurel said – she thought Housing had already assigned us our roommates by now – but she'd try.  I thanked her and later sent her a confirming email with the request.

I heard nothing more about it for weeks.  Then in the second week of August I got the letter.  My mother handed it to me, already opened, and said "Rodney, we'll discuss this later."  My roommate would be: Michael Schwartz from Brooklyn. 

I looked for him on Facebook but there were far too many Michael Schwartzes in the greater New York/Brooklyn metropolitan area.  I eagerly called Michael's phone number given in the letter, just to say hi or leave a message, but it was disconnected.  When my parents called me down to the living room to discuss it that night, they were very uncomfortable.

My mother started.  "It is a Jewish name. Schwartz. And from the CITY. With a disconnected phone number?  Rodney, I don't like this. I don’t like it one bit.  Did you request a Christian?"

"Mom, they don't ask that." 

"Well, this is unacceptable. There has to be a way.  We'll talk with the housing people when we get you settled in."

I told her it doesn't work that way.

My father took over: "Who you associate with, Rodney, can have a major impact on your life. Now maybe this Schwartz is a decent young man - or maybe not - but does he know Christ?  Does he?  No, he is a Jew, he does not. Rodney: the Jews are condemned to hell.  The same fate that will meet anyone who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.  Do you understand? Eternal HELL! You need to have another Christian as your roommate. I repeat: a good young man who is a Christian. End of discussion." 

He grew even angrier at my dismissive facial expression, which was actually a struggle to conceal how strongly I hated his bigotry.  He continued, "This is serious, Rodney. I mean it. We'll talk with that housing office. They will listen to us - and you listen to me, Rodney: you remember who's paying the tuition here. You remember that."  He stared at me threateningly.  Classic Dad, in that moment. Always a sword being held over our heads.

Two weeks of August went by and summer moved toward its end.  No word from Michael Schwartz, and I thought about it often.  My mind served up various imagined stereotypes of a Jewish boy from New York City.  One moment I imagine Michael as tan and dark haired and good looking and very social with a million friends, the next I imagined him as an awkward and studious pale geek with glasses.  I wondered if he will wear a little cloth cap on his head and pray Hebrew prayers in our room. I didn't know any Jews that well, at least not as friends. I tried to discard the prejudiced things I'd heard at church and at home, and I tried to think open-minded about whoever Michael Schwartz is.  But mostly my focus was on getting ready for college, and of course more privately surfing porn and consuming tidal waves of it.

I also started working out with weights more intensely, anxious that I didn’t measure up to all the porn images I was viewing.  I opened a Facebook profile. I was tempted to install Grindr (the sex hookup app) which I heard about online, but I was too afraid to click Yes on installing it since I was barely 18 and had no sexual experience and no car, plus my parents could grab and inspect the MacBook at any time.  But I was thinking a lot about sex. Sex sex sex.  And sometimes romance too.  All kinds of possibilities with other gay guys when I could finally get away from here, get to SUNY Stony Brook.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Then just a week before I went off to college, I received a Friend request on Facebook from an unusual name: Mel Schwartz-Battiste.  Michael Schwartz? My future roommate, finally? 

I clicked to accept the Friend request.  Yes indeed, he was from Brooklyn.  And this Mel person I saw as I clicked around in his photos, was a radically different person than any of the Michael Schwartzes I had imagined in my mind. 

First, Mel was TALL. I mean crazy tall, like, six and a half feet tall.  A giant. Taller than anyone else I know. 

And I thought he looked kind of mixed-race.  His features were angular and bold, his skin light brown, his eyes looking into the camera dark and full and direct like the eyes of a big cat. Eyes that can stare down anything, that fear nothing. 

It was clear from Mel’s profile that he played a lot of basketball.  “Size 15!” said the caption beneath a pair of enormous blinding-white new sneakers, in one of the photos.  His hair was thick tight swirling curls of dark brown-black.  He had an elaborate tattoo trailing down along one arm.  The arm and its non-tattooed mate were extremely long, light brown and very muscular.  Mel didn't smile in most of the photos, but then there it was in one shot: a huge mega-watt smile that lit up his whole face.  I couldn't decide if I thought Mel was “hot” or not – he was handsome but so different, very very striking looking in an unusual way.  I could not stop staring at his photos.  Mel Schwartz-Battiste was not like anyone I know in North Tonawanda.

We Facebook-chatted the next night.  Mel explained/apologized for the disconnected phone.  He typed with a lot of slang abbreviations, one-word statements, and profanity.  I'm polite, careful, I don't curse at all, and I worried that he thought I was a bad roommate match. I worried that he's straight and that Laurel couldn't help find a match for me. But he got right to it, in our chat:

Mel: i want to tell u somethin up front

Rodney: OK.

M: my friend antonio has a friend who matched us up

R: Can you explain more?

M: his friends partner is jamie

     jamie works in campus housing

     jamie is male

     know what im saying ?

R: Yes, I think so. :)

M: cool

Our chat warmed up fast after that.  It turned out Mel came out as gay/bi at age 14, to a totally accepting family and mostly accepting circle of friends.  His height and build and confident personality pretty much prevented bullying.  He was the star basketball player on his high school team and he was now on track to play for SUNY Stony Brook which is one of the best college teams in the USA.  (I had no idea.)  I told Mel about my Christian family and how badly I was counting down the days until college and freedom.

Mel said he thought I was black because every Rodney he knows in New York City is black.  He typed:

“but then i see ur profile / this golden blond type dude / lookin all peaches and cream"

I typed back "That’s so funny. Mel, your profile surprised me too." 

He told me more about his own background and name.  Background: he's racially "like obama" – except that unlike Barack Obama, Mel was adopted at birth, raised by a very liberal, secular-Jewish couple in Brooklyn.  Last year Mel found his biological mother, a white woman who gave birth to him when she was only age 17, and he’d just recently found his Haitian-American birth father who was also very young, age 18 or 19, when Mel/Michael was born.  Earlier this year, Mel added this man's name "Battiste" to his own surname as a way of getting in touch with that side of his identity. 

I asked why "Mel".  When Michael was age 13, there was a Michael Schwartz teaching at his middle school and Mel didn’t like that.  He wanted to have a unique name, not the same exact name as a teacher, so he cut some letters from Michael and cut it to M...el.  Mel.

Then it happened. He renamed me:

M: do u like ur name rodney?

R: I never thought about it.

M: cuz we can cut out some letters

R: I don’t understand?

M: cut the o, d, n... gone

    now u tell me whats left

R: Rey

M: rey

    means king in spanish

    it is a fucking great name!

    my roommate rey

    the king !!

R: I'll have to think about it.

M: take all the time u need rey

R: LOL Okay.

The chat went on for a while, then we sign off.  Mel typed "goodnite rey".

I replied "goodnite mel" in the same lower case style. 

I laid awake for an hour thinking about him.  I thought I liked this Mel a lot.  He intimidated me, but I liked him.  He seemed so bold and direct, with a sense of humor.  He seemed masculine, and yet he made it clear he’s gay.  I had never met a boy like that before in all my life.  And he seemed so big-city, so Brooklyn.  I made a mental note to email Laurel and thank her for the roommate match.  I went to bed that night all excited and stirred up. Mel. He’s my roommate and he’s six and a half feet tall and he just named me Rey. It means King.

We chatted a few more times before the big day.  I warned Mel about my narrow-minded parents and how just yesterday I’d told them that I am going to room with this Michael Schwartz no matter what, and how it was a big fight, but they caved in at the end.  I really wanted Mel to know that I am not like them, and that even if they might act rude to him, they will go away and I'll be the roommate, not them.  He said to relax, said I was overthinking the situation and “it's all good”. 

We started chatting about sex.  He was stunned that I was still a virgin. "holy shit" he typed.  He continued in freestyle lines of text.  "i can understand an ugly virgin / but rey / u are hot / u can get laid anytime u want / virgin?? / that is so fucked up"

Mel asked why I had almost no photos on my Facebook, and I said it was it's because I’d just joined a month earlier.  I offered to email him the track practice photos I'd sent to that other guy a month ago.  I sent them, and within minutes he typed back: DAMN :)

It was the first time I'd seen Mel use capital letters… or a smiley face.

He sent me back a high-resolution photo of himself shirtless in a city park, posing with a basketball.  His body was long, strong, tight and smooth, golden brown.  Low-angled sunlight, like at sunset, played off his lean muscular shoulders and chest.  His curly black hair was shorter here, and his deep brown eyes gazed directly into the camera and there was a hint of a smile on his lips.  I thought, Wow, if I was an artist I would love to draw Mel or paint him or make a sculpture. Something about him just holds your full attention and you want to notice it, not forget it. 

I replied "Nice :)" back to Mel.  I immediately started thinking sex, imagining Mel being attracted to me, and the possibility of sex happening between us as roommates. Then I thought of his size 15 feet and imagined that his dick must be enormous, and I felt sure he would be a “top” (a term I had learned only two months ago, when I dove into online porn), and I got scared. I imagined there was just no way I could have sex with a guy that huge, I haven't even had any sex at all, not even with a normal sized guy.  Then I caught myself and tried to stop these thoughts, as we continued to chat, screen to screen. I told myself, Mel and I have not even met yet. So why go crazy in my head spinning all kinds of stories about things?  Besides, there are going to be other gay students, Mel is just the first one I've met, and he is my roommate.  As Mel and I kept chatting on Facebook, I silently resolved to get a grip and just stop with the runaway imagination. 

Rodney: I'll be arriving Wednesday. See you in a few days!

Mel: k, goodnite rey

R: goodnite mel.

I had a really bad nightmare the next night.  Obvious symbolism about religion, parents, sexuality, danger.  My little brother had to wake me out of it, and I was drenched in sweat, gasping for breath.  I could not tell him anything about what the nightmare contained. I felt a little better the next morning but still shaky.  I took the anxiety and threw it into weight training in our basement home gym, pulling and pushing and benching and squatting and pressing all that I could.  I ended up laying down on the basement floor, lifting my head to gulp down some bottled water and then just laying there on the cool painted cement, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about college, about sex, about truth, about religion, about everything.  Out of nowhere I said his name out loud. "Mel."  I didn't know why. Maybe I was wishing I had even one close friend who really knows me, and I didn't really have anyone like that.  I was way deep closeted to my friends from high school and church, and I had barely seen them since graduation.  I was so lonely.  I hoisted my body up off the cool cement floor and headed back upstairs intending to do some more packing, but it was hard to focus.

Two days later.  The six hour drive from North Tonawanda to Stony Brook was horrible. My parents were all wound up that the day was finally here, that I was leaving home, and they were not handling it well.

They expressed this by talking about Christ and temptation a lot.  My mother wished aloud that I'd gone to a Christian college.  My father started in again about "Michael Schwartz" – and I told him again, "His name's Mel and I think he's a good person. We keep arguing about this, but Dad, please, the college assigned us, and I would like to keep it."  I flinched a little, because I had never spoken back so boldly to my father before, and his temper could be violent and rageful.  But this time, he just grumbled and then simmered down and changed the subject.

We arrived on campus, moved through the check-in and orientation process, and came at last to the door of my dorm room.  Opening it, I saw immediately that Mel's stuff was there - he'd claimed half the room, more or less, and left me the other half.  My parents were full of questions about the dorm, about the rules… and about Mel.

"Where is he?"  "Are those really his shoes? They're gigantic."  Mel had a whole shelf of sports and gym/training drinks - protein this, electrolyte that, mass-builder this, fuel-surge that.  My parents didn't like it. "Basketball player. Hmmm. Are these products even legal?"  I was grateful Mel wasn't there. My parents were unsatisfied - they took me out for a farewell dinner near campus and then wanted to come back "to see this Mel, if he decides to grace us with an appearance."  They stayed with me in my room for another long tiresome hour, and we set some things up, started making the bed, setting up the desk. Finally at 10pm my mother announced she was tired and that they should go to the hotel and get ready for the early drive back tomorrow morning.  So this was it.  Hug from Mom, overly firm handshake from Dad, and then they left.  I fell across my half-unmade bed in total relief.  My parents make me feel such a mix of 80% dislike and 20% gratitude.  I was so desperate to finally get away from them, and now they were the ones making it possible, financially.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A half-hour later a key turns in the door lock, and in comes Mel, his body filling the entire doorframe.  "Hey hey Mister Rey!" 

Wow. Here he is. Mel.

He flashes that rare big grin.  I jump up from my bed and it's a funny introduction; we've been chatting online and actually getting quite close on that level, but this is the first real-world moment.  Here in our own dorm room that we share, starting tonight.  Mel is so tall, it surprises me in person.  I knew it, but it's different close up.  I am six feet, but I felt very short standing before Mel, my neck craning back and my eyes looking up at him as we talked; I was not used to this angle. 

He sits down on the edge of his bed and I finish making mine.  I tell him my parents had wanted to meet him.  "Nah, from what you told me about them, I decided to stay away, make it easier. No drama. I waited."   

“Thanks – I mean, that was actually very thoughtful.” 

He shrugs. “No problem.”

We talk and talk for an hour.  Mel puts on some music I never heard before. I start babbling about how glad I am to be here, and how I’m so eager to settle in and get oriented, get to know Stony Brook.  Mel laughs and says "Rey you're like a puppy – so fuckin cute."  He says he's looking forward to it too, talks about getting his first taste of basketball training at the gym tomorrow.

"That gym and that basketball court are gonna own me for the next few years." He pauses.  "Rey… I'm good. I might be NBA pro after this, if I can shine here." 

I think of how maybe the world really is changing, maybe Mel could become a gay pro athlete for real.  We eventually get ready for a night's sleep. I try not to stare but I'm sneaking a peek at Mel as he pulls off his shirt and throws a thin white tank top over his long bare torso, so large and lean and strong.  Mel slides out of his jeans and underwear, into a different pair of boxer shorts.  He's super quick about it, I barely see a hint of his private parts.

Funny, I realize, Mel is a mix of boldness and modesty.  I change into my patterned cotton pajamas from home but pajamas suddenly seem embarrassingly uncool in front of Mel from Brooklyn.  I take off the pajama top and change to a T-shirt.  My back is to Mel but I can sense he's watching me, he's sprawled across his bed.  At six foot six he hangs off the edges.  I ask him, "How are you going to sleep in that bed?"  He chuckles and says "I know right?  These beds are twin-extra-long and still too fuckin short.  Welcome to my world." 

We chat for a while and turn out the lights.  Silence, settling in for a night of sleep.  Then in the darkness he says "Goodnight Rey." 

I say it back.  "Goodnight Mel."

In the morning I awaken early.  I’m immediately thrilled to be here in this new place.  This is real! I think to myself.  In the angles of sunlight peeking into the room, I'm searching for my little bag of bathroom stuff, and as I search, I watch Mel sleeping.  A bedsheet covers nearly all of him, sprawled and sleeping at a twisted angle, and he's so long he pokes out from the edges of the bed in three directions.  Way up on the pillow, a mound of black curly hair. Then down alongside the bed a long tan muscular arm trails all the way down to the floor.  At the foot of the bed, a giant-sized bare foot sticks out, its large toes almost catching a shaft of sunlight.  I stare in fascination at Mel's big round toes, just staring for a full minute. I realize there's a goofy smile on my face.

The next two days pass by fast, full of orientation and tasks and activity. Mel and I cross paths but we are not in the room much at the same time; he's connecting with a few of the basketball players and I'm trying to make some new friends as well, trying to start figuring out where and how I fit into things socially.  That, and getting ready for classes.

That evening I finally speak with my parents by phone.  It's a tense conversation -- they start grilling me about whether or not I’m making immediate connections with the Christian student groups on campus.  They want answers, plans.  They want promises from me to commit to doing what they want me to do, which is, do everything possible to remain a faithful Christian while at SUNY Stony Brook.  I am filled with the craziest urge to shout I'M GAY, MOM! Into the phone, really loud, and the urge almost makes me laugh.  But the thought of them yanking me out of college by way of refusing to pay tuition, keeps me from crossing the line.  I lie to them and I promise to find a Christian worship service on Sunday.

Later Mel comes back to the room, and it's good to have his company.  I tell him about my parents and I start to stammer a bit, guess I'm more worked up about them than I'd realized. He says "Rey, you're gonna be okay. That was high school, it’s the past, now is now."  He is oversimplifying it but I appreciate his words.  I stretch across the top of my bed and look over at Mel.  He's looking at me, intent and kind.  He says again "You gonna be okay. Let's get some rest."

Running for my life.  Barely got away from the killer but he's still after me.  Running so fast in the dark.  I run down a street, into a doorway. Run sprinting up a staircase that becomes a wider staircase, darker, leading up but nowhere.  The killer, the demon, is hunting me and getting closer, now he's right behind me on the staircase in the dark, both of us racing up, our footsteps banging on the steel stairs, and then WHAM! There are another two of him in front of me.  I freeze on the staircase and cry out in terror. They move in, silent, ready to finish me off.  One takes out a long gleaming knife.  I scream and scream so loud.  Time slows down and a faint circle begins to form around the outside of this whole scene, and the circle becomes thicker and bigger.  It's like long arms reaching out and around, causing the scene to shrink and fade, and the circle is bigger now and in a male voice it says "Hey.. hey" and

*snap*, I wake. Total disorientation, darkness. Here I am laying face up in a bed (where?), in the dark, gasping for breath, confused and in shock.

Oh, wait, this is my new college dormitory bed. And a person is crouched down in darkness near me, it's Mel, and his hand is gently nudging me by the shoulder.  "Hey. Hey, Rey. Wake up.  It's a'right. You're ok."

I just lay there panting and confused -- and then totally embarrassed. It's dark but I feel my face flushing.  "I'm sorry -- I'm sorry" I keep mumbling.  Mel keeps his hand on my shoulder.  His hand feels warm and large and kind.  "Rey, just steady. You're ok. Just breathe for a minute." He chuckles. "Shit, now, that was a nightmare."

I'm still out of breath.  "Was I screaming?"

"No - you sorta made sounds - it was like you had tape over your mouth. And kickin' around in the bed.  Like you were wrestling with somebody."  He pauses.  "Don't worry, it wasn't loud enough to wake the hall." 

But I did wake Mel up. I feel guilty and stupid and embarrassed.

His hand stays firm and warm, spread across my shoulder and along my upper chest as it rises and falls fast, my breath catching itself in the darkness.  I pray for Mel to keep his hand there on me, it feels like something I need badly. I realize I'm all sweaty.  At the same time, he takes his hand away and says "hang on a sec."  He's back beside me an instant later with a bath towel.  I take it, wipe sweat from my face and neck.  "Thanks."  He stays crouched beside me but doesn't put his hand back.  We are silent for a few long seconds.  I take some longer, calmer breaths.  I have an intense urge for Mel to get in bed beside me, here in the dark.  He is kneeling right there next next to me, inches away from me. And a huge crazy longing surges up inside me: I want you, Mel. I want you holding me, wrapped around me, your long strong arms.  Please.

He says "Can I get'cha anything?"  I'm full of too many intensities at once, I start to tremble a little.  I hesitate and try to make a joke: "Maybe a teddy bear."  He chuckles: "Damn, don't have that."  Then his hand is back on my shoulder.  Silence.  Warm strong hand staying on me. More silence.

"Rey. Want me to hold you?"

I want to shout "Yes!" but at the same time I'm scared to say it.  I start "- Well --" and I stop.  Mel's hand on me moves, caressing my shoulder which is covered in a half-sweaty T shirt.  I take another breath and try to stop trembling.  He says, "A'right: tell me no if you rather not -- otherwise I'm gonna climb in. I think you need it."  He can feel me trembling.  I nod my head, then realize in the dark he can't see the nod.  I say quietly "Yeah."

Mel leans in and lifts the top-sheet off of me, laying there anxious and trembling in my thin T shirt and pajama pants.  Mel is in his tank top and boxer shorts. He scoops an arm beneath my leg and another arm beneath my torso, lifting me and rolling me onto my side, and I feel his body move into position behind mine.  I nudge over to make room and he nudges inward to me and wraps an arm around me. The arm is so long it goes fully around me, and his hand snuggles way down along my side.  The feeling of him all along me and around me in the darkness, together.  So alive and awesome and good.  I have never been held like this before in all my life. 

I snuggle into Mel even closer.  What's going on in me is still intense but now it's changing shape - the crazy nightmare fear is gone, instead, a confusing mix of bliss, desire, anxiety and peace. My breathing begins to move with his, and my body gradually lets go, stops trembling. I feel my cock grow and rise as I lay in his embrace.  Feel his broad chest and torso rising and falling, his long strong bare arms holding me. A hint of rough stubble of his face tickling the side of my neck. His warm soft breath moving along my earlobe.

Mel slowly pulls his arm off from around me. He tugs on my T-shirt and murmurs "Let's get you out of this. It's kinda wet."  I sit up and pull off the sweaty cotton T-shirt, and we both grope around looking for the towel. Mel finds it and we sit up together in the bed, his hand moving the towel all over the bare skin of my upper body, cleaning and drying me off.  He lifts each arm and dries beneath it, then he spreads out the towel and runs it one more time all over me from the waist up.  He tousles my hair with it and then tosses it to the floor.

Mel's arms make a movement behind me and I hear a small "whoosh" sound.  In an instant I realize he's just pulled off his tank top.  He leans into me again in the darkness and his naked chest presses gently along my back as he wraps his arms around me.  The warm animal skin on skin sensations from his body on mine feel so good.  He holds me a little closer, takes a slow deep breath.  Letting out a low soft "mmmm" as he exhales slowly.  I reach with my own hands and feel his strong naked shoulders on mine, his arms across my chest, his hands around my sides.  My hands move down to find his and rest on them.  I lean back into him more.  He pulls me even tighter, closer, nuzzles his face along my neck. The touch of our two bodies connecting, breathing together, it's a simple natural thing but so incredible the way it is making me feel.

Mel pulls back the bedsheet and guides me, in the darkness, back down to the "spoons" position we were in before.  He nestles in beside me again and wraps his body around mine.  I am loving this sensation of being completely, totally held.  And then I feel it. I'm wearing the pajama bottoms and Mel has been keeping his hips a few inches away from my butt. But now he moves in closer a little and I feel his dick nudging me. We rest, naked from the waists up, breathing slow together. And now I more definitely feel his cock, nudging between my thighs, thick, alive, rising, and it's big. I'm so turned on and stunned that I hold my breath without realizing it.  He holds me tighter and slowly moves his cock another inch into the pajamas, into the cleft between my legs. I exhale deeply and can't help it, I let out a low laugh. "You feel so good!" I say.  

Mel slides a hand up to my face, strokes the contours of my lips.  "ssssh" he says into my ear.  Then he plants a light tickling kiss along my jawline.  Then another, more solid kiss, and another stronger kiss, again and again along my neck and throat, and his cock is still getting even bigger, fully lodged now between my upper thighs, pushing up against the seam of my pajamas, and his hips are now snug against my butt. All of him is touching me now, mouth to arms to chest to torso to hips and cock and legs.  I am enveloped and owned by Mel.  And getting so insanely turned on that I can hardly believe it.  A summer of watching porn on a computer screen did not prepare me for the surges of ecstasy that I am feeling now.  My dick feels unusually huge and rock hard and it's straining out against the pajamas. I reach down with one hand and find it dripping a lot of fluid.

Mel stays wrapped around me and slowly moving his huge dick along the underside of my ass. He runs a hand along my bare chest and down along my belly, then slides it down into the pajamas.  He touches my cock, feels the length of it, feels the precum and before I know it, his fingers have scooped up what they can and they're in his mouth.  He licks them slowly as that big warm dick of his keeps sliding between my thighs.  "Rey... damn, you taste so fuckin' nice."  He keeps licking his fingers trying to get a last taste.  I wonder if he likes my penis; it is “cut”, or circumcised. Almost telepathically he murmurs into my ear, "Your dick is fiiine Rey. You been packin’ a surprise in there. It's almost as big as mine."  His cock feels so big as it presses up along the entire underside of my butt, it's hard to believe mine could be near that size.  He slides his hand back down into my pajamas, wraps it around my cock and gently squeezes it in a slow nice rhythm. 

My cock is throbbing and I'm feeling high as our bodies move together, breathing and touching all over.  After a minute of gently milking my hard dick, he scoops fingers around the head of my cock again, and brings another dripping liquid taste of me up to his waiting tongue. Again he licks and licks every drop from his fingers.  "mmmmmm yeah... so fuckin' sweet" he says again into my ear.  And with one quick motion, Mel's big warm hands move me upward and he slides over and down beneath me, now he's stretched out face up on my bed, and I'm resting on top of him.  Face to face in the darkness.

I lean in and kiss Mel's lips.  They move with mine, the kissing feels beautiful. One of Mel's hands is holding the back of my head, stroking my hair as we kiss and kiss.  He slides his tongue into my mouth and I'm stunned, his warm wet tongue is very long, it can move way deep in my mouth.  The feeling is new and very weird for me, his tongue exploring, probing, so alive. I back away in surprise and he pauses in silence, his fingers moving slow through my hair. He says "Oh wow Rey. Oh man. I keep forgetting, this is your first time."

I say quietly "Yeah."  This is a huge thing for me, every moment of it, every sensation of it. And I can't believe it's with my roommate, and that he's a six-foot-six basketball player named Mel.  I run a hand down his shoulder and arm in the darkness. I chuckle out loud and say "You're going to spoil me: any other guy I'm with, I'm gonna think he's so small."  His hand guides my face back in for another kiss. "That's right" he says, smiling that big wide grin as he kisses me.

Then he says, "Rey. The lamp on my desk. Go turn it on. I wanna see your face."  But I feel so safe here in the dark with him.  "You sure?"  "Yeah."  I climb off of him and go to the desk, finding the lamp in the dark.  I flip the switch, and a bright light bursts from the lamp.  I say "I guess there's no way to turn it down?"

He says "Put it on the floor, bend it down."  I do what I think he means, putting it down on the floor by the far side of his desk, tilting the lamp stem far downward, and the light is dimmed, reduced.  I turn back toward him. Mel says "Yeah. That's it. Fuck, Rey, you look so beautiful right now."  I'm standing in the low half-light and I get the urge to stand naked before him.  I slide down the pajamas and step out of them.  I stand.  My dick does seem bigger than ever, as I look down at it.  Mel's voice gets lower, rougher. "Oh my god Rey."  He looks at me for a long moment. "Now get back over here."  I move toward him and look at his face. Brown eyes so direct and steady.  The long and handsome angles of his face in the half-light.  The way the light plays off his long lean muscular frame and almost makes his body seem to shine.

I climb back into his embrace and we kiss again in the low light.  I am kind of awestruck by the added element of seeing Mel, seeing this amazing one-of-a-kind guy I'm being sexual with.  I could just explore him all night long.  I notice thick curls of his dark hair above my face, and I run my hand through them as his tongue gently reclaims territory all over the insides of my mouth.  This time, I like it a lot more. His two hands are on my naked butt, and the hands feel so warm and strong, kneading and massaging the soft round flesh.  His hands stay right there working on my ass as he tongue-kisses me.  Feels so fucking wonderful, I think. And I realize I just said the word fucking, in my mind.  Wow. Mel is changing me.

We kiss and kiss. My cock is dripping precum onto his long tight smooth abs.  He reaches down toward his own cock inside the boxer shorts, says "let's do it" and lifts me up so he can slide the shorts down and off. An instant later we are both naked and making out.  He pulls his dick outward and positions it in the cleft of my ass.  I laugh and say "Uh oh". Mel laughs too, says "Nah. Not gonna try and do everything in one night. We got all year in here."  Those words send a thrill shooting through me, so strong he feels it.  I lift his face and kiss him passionately, for the first time it's me taking the lead.  He looks up into my face and whispers, "King. Rey."  I kiss him deep and strong again.  His thick dick slides up and down in between the cheeks of my butt. I reach out and touch it, discover it is uncut.  There's like extra movement in his cock from the foreskin, the extra flesh of it.  His uncircumcised penis is new and fascinating to me and I want to keep stroking it with my hand. He strokes my dick in reciprocity and within seconds I moan and say, "I'm about to cum just from this."

At that, Mel lifts me again and flips us over, me on my back, him so long and tall on top of me. I lift my head to keep kissing him and he sits up halfway, crouching down over me, he moves his kisses down to chest, belly, and in an instant his mouth is sucking my cock.  I was already delirious with lust, now I am really losing control.  He is amazing, what he can do to me.  Sucking my whole dick up and down - then swirling his tongue all over the head, just the head - then opening his mouth wide and somehow taking my whole dick all the way down into his throat.  Amazing.  I start breathing hard.  I close my eyes and feel a rush all over and I see vivid red and orange and white swirls all over the insides of my closed eyelids. I wonder if this is what being on drugs is like. Then it happens so fast, I let out an involuntary "uunhh!!!!" and my dick explodes, shooting jet after jet of fresh cum right into his mouth.  Vistas of red and orange and bright white swirls keep exploding before my closed eyes.  I open them to look down at Mel's thick mass of curly hair and feel his warm mouth still enveloping my dick.  The sensitivity is crazy, absolutely crazy, I can't take it.  I move a hand to guide his face off from my cock and he goes "mm-mm" and keeps his mouth right where it is. It's almost torture! But it is the most awesome feeling, at the same time. I'm panting like a dog, and feeling superhuman and almost like outside my own body.  Finally he slides his lips off my cock and pulls me down into a warm naked embrace.  I feel and hear his throat make one last swallowing gulp.  My cum, on his tongue, down his throat, now inside his belly.  I think: wow, I'm in Mel.  What's left of my mind, is reeling.  Our bodies rise and fall in breath, and he caresses me.  We lay like this in the low light, naked, me completely spent, for a long time.  Finally Mel says "I gotta do something" and he lifts me gently, frees himself, climbs up out of my bed and walks naked over to his side of the room.  He throws on sweat pants and the tank T, comes back to me and takes his bath towel from the floor. Leans in and kisses my shoulder.  "Back in 15."  With a click of the door, he's gone.

Mel comes back into the room some time later and says "Rey, guess what time it is."  I say I have no idea.  "3:20 a-m, man!  Fuck. We gotta sleep.”

I'm still sprawled naked across my bed. He comes and leans over and he smells fresh and clean. His lean broad shoulders tower over me and the curls of his hair are soft and slightly damp.  He says "I took a shower and I took care of business" and flashes that big grin. I imagine him cumming in the shower, his long tall body shining with soap suds all over.  It's quite a powerful image. I lift upward to kiss him.  "And next time Rey -- you can take care of my business."  He gives me an exaggerated smooch across the lips.  He holds me for one last minute... and then springs his long limbs off from my bed in a swift athletic motion.  "Sleep."

I throw on some clothes and snuggle into my bed.  The light clicks off and Mel slides beneath his sheet.  “goodnite rey.”  “goodnite mel.”  My head is still spinning in leftover bliss. I feel like the luckiest person on the whole campus, in all of New York, in the whole world.  Hey world. I was Rodney.  Now I'm Rey.  I feel like a King.  Like a fucking King.