Off Campus

Seth’s Final Perspective

It was the end of May and Panther Stadium was loud, crowded, and hot as hell. I had sat in that stadium an uncountable number of times over the last four years cheering Zach on, and there I was doing it one last time. This time I was also cheering on Max, Elliot, Gina, Teddy (and yeah, myself) too. We were seated in alphabetical order so we were scattered throughout the venue, with the last name Westin I was near the back of the group and didn’t know anyone sitting by me. I had spotted Max, Zach, Gina, Teddy, and Elliot sitting among the rows of people in front of me. My eyes met Elliot’s and he waved his arms wildly like a little kid making me laugh out loud. I looked up in the stands to try to find my other friends and family, I knew they were all out there somewhere but I couldn’t see anyone. When I say all, I pretty much mean all! Brad, Scotty, all the rest of my siblings, Kev, Randy, all the kids, Mom and Pop Nicholls, Zach’s parents, his sister Riley, Max’s parents, Elliot’s parents, and of course Cam and Brody. Even Eric and his boyfriend Hunter were there. They all come to see us graduate.

Pomp and Circumstance was echoing throughout the big stadium as they read off our names and we walked onto the stage one by one to collect our hard earned diplomas. Zach was the first of our group to be called and walked onto the stage with his gold honors cord proudly displayed. Loud cheers boomed from above me to the right and looked up to see my family standing on their feet along with Zach’s whooping and hollering as they yelled their congratulations with fervor and pride. The little ones were front and center of the group holding handmade signs that said, “Congratulations Uncle Seth & Uncle Zach.” I was cheering right with them with a smile so wide it hurt. They did the same thing when each of my friends were called… my friends and family had all blended over our last four years together. Finally, it was my turn. When I was up on that stage with my gold honors cord proudly draped over me, and my tassel being moved by the Dean from one side to the other of my cap, the world seemed to stop. I heard the cheers of my friends and family but they quickly became white noise, I looked out but saw nothing but a big white blur… except for Zach. He just popped out from the crowd, like there was a be a beam of light emanating from him as he stood on his feet in the middle of the stadium floor yelling my name with his arms waving in the air as I shook the Dean’s hand. Four years of hard work and dedication had led me to this moment; it was both magical and a big blur all at the same time. Within seconds I was walking off the stage and back to my seat. It was over.

The last four years had been a hell of a ride and I was leaving college with so much more than just a diploma. I was leaving here with lifelong friendships, confidence in myself, great hopes and dreams for the future, and the love of my life. Zach and I had several options for grad school, some together, some apart. We both decided on the same school in St. Louis and were excited about the move. Scotty’s college roommate Chip and his husband Alec owned a small rental house in one of the old historic districts and we had already signed the lease and in two months we would be moving in and starting the next phase of our life together. We had finally set a wedding date for the following summer and were getting married at the Hall’s country club in northern Wisconsin. Zach’s mom volunteered to be our wedding planner and his parents offered to pay for everything. They were going all out for us. We just wanted a small affair but the Hall’s insisted on a huge celebration. We were extremely appreciative but we were determined to help a little financially (I had no idea how, but we’d cross that bridge when we came to it).

The graduation ceremony ended and we filed out of the stadium row by row. When I got out to the lobby, I found our friends and family all gathered waiting for us. Elliot’s mom squeezed my cheeks as I walked up to the group. She had become a frequent visitor to the duplex after Elliot moved in during our Junior year and basically appointed herself house mother, yeah she got on our nerves once in a while, but he intensions were good and let me tell you… the woman could cook! “We are so proud of all you boys.” She said as she hugged me, then moved her attention to Zach as he came up to the group, then Max, then of course Elliott… he got the biggest hug. Elliot moved in with Max and Cam, he and Cam had been dating for a couple of years now and were really good together. After Cam graduated, he landed a great job at the hospital across from the UWM campus. Elliot just landed a job with his dad’s accounting firm downtown and the two of them planned on staying in the duplex for a while and hoped to save enough to put a down payment on a place of their own in a few years.

Matty, baby Scotty (who wasn’t such a baby anymore, Maddox, and Brooklyn were running around the lobby and hadn’t even noticed us come in. My siblings basically dog-piled on top of me for a group hug while Zach’s family did the same to him. When they all got off me, I saw Eric and Hunter approaching us. Eric Had moved out of the duplex abruptly before the end of our sophomore year but he never left our lives. He left while we were all on Spring Break and moved back home after tanking a couple of midterms. He left letters for each of us because he just couldn’t bring himself to face us. He DID call Cam before he got home to say goodbye and tell him what was going on. The following weekend he came to the duplex to talk to us all in-person, and we gave him a proper send off. He was the first friend I made when I moved to Milwaukee and It was hard to see him go, especially under the circumstances, but I admit it turned out to be the best thing for him. A lot of his credits transferred and a year later he had his degree. Once he moved home his father pretty much turned the business end of the farm over to him and his brother to run and they excelled at it. His father wasn’t much of a businessman and went back to working on the farm doing what he loved. A few months after Eric moved home, he met Hunter. Hunter was a large animal veterinarian and he was fucking gorgeous! Cam nicknamed him Daddy Jack because he was about ten years older than us, looked like a lumberjack, and he was all daddy. He and Eric came to Milwaukee every couple of months to get their big city fix and would stay at the duplex (usually in our spare room). Hunter was so great for Eric, he knew how to motivate him and pushed him to be his best. He was exactly what Eric needed to turn his life around. The two of them hugged and congratulated me, then started mingling with the others.

Max’s parents stood stoically by him as he got a rare Brody hug. I hadn’t seen Brody since December when he came back to Wisconsin to spend Christmas with Max and his family. He had moved back to North Carolina after he graduated last year. He landed a decent job with a small advertising agency and was also doing a lot of freelance work. He and his family turned Grammaw’s old house into an amazing home for him and Max. Max had landed a job with a local grade school about a half hour from the house and was moving in with Brody in another two months. Even though we were all about to go our separate ways we were excited about our first reunion in North Carolina at their wedding in October.

Teddy and Gina both walked up and joined our group. They had broken up last year but remained great friends. Teddy finally moved out of the dorms and had taken over Brody’s studio when he moved back to North Carolina. It wasn’t the same without Brody and Eric in the house, but Elliot and Teddy kept it fun. Gina was the most emotional of our group, more so about us all going our separate ways than over the excitement of graduating. This was the end of an era for us all.

I was lost in the blur of loving friends and family when Dr. Aarons tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and was greeted with a bearhug and a quiet, sincere, “Seth, I am so damn proud of you” whispered in my ear. I had interned under him for five semesters and two summers. The school only gave me credit for the first semester, but he continued to mentor me and paid me as part of his staff. He had told me several times that he saw a natural ability in me to help others and gave me experience I would never have gotten anywhere else. He opened so many doors for me and even helped me get my term paper published in a national trade journal. Between that, my grades, and recommendation letters from both him and Professors Ayers, every grad school I applied to took me seriously. Although it would be several years before I was ready to practice and my aspirations would likely lead me elsewhere, Dr. Aarons made it clear that joining his practice would always be an option. It felt wonderful to be wanted.

Professor Ayers eventually made it through the crowd and joined our conversation. As I spoke with my two mentors and introduced the two men I admired most professionally to the people I admired most personally (my family), Zach and Tyler (Dr. Aarons’ son) found an empty water bottle to kick around the lobby. Zach had coached Tyler’s soccer team last season and I have to admit that he was never hotter to me than when he was on that field teaching and nurturing the next generation. I sat in the stands with Dr. Aarons, Bill, and Liddy for every damn game. Bill had also become a great mentor for Zach on a professional level. Between Bill, Zach’s dad and Pop Nicholl’s Zach had a panel of successful lawyers to bounce things off. They helped him with his grad school applications, weighed in on the occasional term paper, and guided him as he fleshed out his future. Both of us had incredible mentors in our lives and a utopian support system.

Our friends and family started to leave the stadium and head over to the restaurant. We had reserved the backroom of a place just a few blocks from the stadium for all of us. It was kind of a hole and the food was basic bar food, but we had about 40 people in our entourage and not many places would accommodate us without charging us a damn fortune. We we were crammed into the dark room and the wait staff descended upon us like royalty. The place was loud with the chatter and laughter of the people who had been the biggest part of my life over the last four years, some much longer. The only one’s missing were our friends from our ‘village’ in Phoenix, but they had all called or texted, some even sent gifts. I probably should have felt bad that my parents weren’t there, but frankly I had run out of fucks to give about them years ago. I did my damnedest to forgive, forget, and build a relationship but it was not meant to be. I sure as hell didn’t have a storybook upbringing, but Brad, Scotty, and the ‘village’ created a world of support around me that just continued to grow as I grew up and even as I moved on. They taught me how to love and accept others. They taught me empathy, independence and loved me unconditionally. I was me because of them and at that moment, I didn’t want to be anyone else.

####

It was our last night in the duplex. The place was quiet and empty with most of our stuff safely locked-up in the back of a U-Haul parked on the street in front of the house. We had the alarm set for 6AM so we could get up, pack up the rest of our stuff, hook the Buick to the back of the truck and start our six hour trip to St Louis.

The bed frame had already been dismantled and loaded onto the truck but we left the mattress out so we had somewhere to sleep. We were naked under the covers in the darkness looking at the ceiling and Zach let out a stress induced sigh. “Damn, I hope we made the right decision.”

“Hey, dipshit” I replied. “Us together and moving forward is the right decision no matter what the school or the city. If it aint right, we’ll figure out a plan B.”

He turned and smiled at me, “together… I know.” We had had this conversation a million fucking times. “One fail. All fail, Westin” he whispered. That was his dad’s philosophy on public service; One fail. All Fail. We helped Nathan Hall with his reelection campaign and he kept telling us that if he failed at his job then he failed those who supported him, so failure wasn’t an option. As much as I like that philosophy, it put a shitload of pressure on Zach… and me too. We had a huge support network and the last thing we wanted to do was fail them.

“Failure isn’t the end, it’s just an opportunity to take a different path” I said trying to relieve the pressure as I rolled on top of my gorgeous fiancé, straddled his hips, and added “And when the fuck have you ever failed at anything?” Then I kissed him. First a peck, then with passion as I ground my flaccid manhood against his. I pulled away from our kiss and whispered, “you are the most determined…” I kissed him, then continued “most dedicated…” another kiss, “smartest…” another kiss, “hottest” another kiss, “mother fucker in the world!” Then I shoved my tongued down his throat and ground my hardening cock into his as my little peck turned into an out and out make out session. God, I loved the feel of his naked body against mine.

He pushed his hips up, grinding back into me. Within minutes we were both hard as hell and Zach rolled us over so he was on top, then flip around and took me into his mouth as he pushed his dick back so it hovered over my mouth. I opened and took him in while I squeezed his balls in my hand. He let out a moan that vibrated around my engorged member as he moved his mouth up and down my shaft. I looked up and took in the amazing sight of his fuzzy balls and ass mounds just above me and parted his cheeks with my hands. Just the feel of the soft, round flesh on my fingertips had me on the edge. Zach must’ve been there too because he pulled his cock out of my warm mouth and flipped around again, moving between my legs.

“This is the last time we’ll ever have sex here” Zach said with a joking smirk. But damn, he was right. Three years of our lives were spent here… Three of my best, and now it was coming to a close. If I wasn’t so turned on by the fact that I was with the sexiest man in the world, the mood would’ve been broken and we would’ve gone to sleep. But Zach had me horned up and raring to go.

He pushed my legs back and went to work on my tight hole, the warmth of his tongue going in and out of me as I lie there holding my legs to my chest was driving me insane. After four years together, Zach knew every pore of my body and every button to push. Each time we made love was a new, amazing adventure. After he spent what seemed like an eternity exploring me with his tongue, he lined himself up and slowly pushed the head of his blood-filled member past my sphincter. He entered me and just held himself there as I basked in the pleasure. Then he pushed in another inch or so and stopped again. Then another inch, prolonging our love making to give me maximum pleasure. He slowly moved forward until he bottomed out, then he gave another thrust to ensure I felt his presence. He rotated his hips letting me feel his girth as he bent down to kiss me. As we kissed, he moved in and out of me still gyrating his hips as he did, it was slow, passionate, and amazing. I could NOT love this guy more.

His slow, gentle strokes became faster and eventually harder as we went from making love to fucking with abandon. Oh my god it was so hot, so hard, so passionate. I Couldn’t get enough of him. I felt his hard presence in my passage as he found the perfect angle and pummeled my prostate over and over again. I tightened my hole around his heft and gripped him giving him maximum pleasure. We moaned, groaned, and whimpered as we got lost in each other. For the first time in a long time, I shot my load without even touching myself. I was so caught up in the moment that it snuck up on me and I just shot spurt after spurt between our hot sweaty bodies.

My hole clenched Zach hard as I shot and put him over the edge, he yelled “HOLY FUCK! HOLY MOTHER FUCK” as he shot his load powerfully into me, filling my chasm with his hot seed. His voice bellowed through the empty room shaking windows of the old duplex. He continued to pound me until every drop of him was spent, and his hard manhood started to soften.

He collapsed on top of me and we heard pounding on the floor below us and the muffled voices of Cam, Max, and Elliot yelling “hey keep it down up there or we’re calling the landlord.”

We both started laughing and Zach yelled back “This is the last time you’ll hear us. I promise.” He pulled out and rolled off me and we just laid there for a few minutes. “We had a great life here, didn’t we?” Zach asked.

“We did. And there’s more greatness waiting for us in St. Louis, and wherever else we land after that” we kissed tenderly then got up and showered.

We were standing under the rain showerhead and Zach was rinsing me down with the handheld massager and said “This baby’s coming with us. I’m putting the old showerhead back before Jeff comes in the morning to do the final walkthrough.” I laughed, but wholeheartedly agreed, who would’ve thought a showerhead could be so much fun. After we dried each other off we went back to our mattress on the floor for our last night’s sleep in the duplex.

The next morning, I woke up in Zach’s arms to the sound of the annoying alarm. We both got up and got to work. We just had a few odds, ends and personal belongings to pack up. The only big thing left was the mattress and we had saved a spot for it in the back of the truck. We dragged it out to the truck and found Max loading up the last of his belongings. Brody had taken all his big stuff back with him when he came down for our graduation. Max had just bought his first car, a brand new Red Hot Camaro convertible. It was totally not him, but he loved it. Dylan had convinced him that if he was going to survive in the rural south, he needed a muscle car. His parents had given him the down payment for graduation and with his new job waiting for him in North Carolina, and his living expenses being next to nil since he was living with Brody in Grammaw’s old place the payments were more than doable.

“Good morning loud boys, you’re both glowing” Max said with a knowing smirk. “You guys want to hit Ma Fischer’s one last time before we all hit the road?”

“Yup” Zach said. “We gotta meet Jeff back here at 10:00 for the final walkthrough, then we’re hitting the road.”

“I’m heading out about the same time” Max said.

“We need to load up The Green Dragon before we go to breakfast” I said. “Then we’ve got a couple of hours to kill.” The Green Dragon had become the nickname of my old Buick. She was older than dirt but still showroom new. I had almost doubled the mileage on her over the past two and a half years and still loved her as much as Max loved his new Camaro. We were driving the six hours to ST. Louis in the U-Haul with the Buick hooked to the back with a tow dolly and the GTI following behind. We planned on rotating drivers between the U-Haul and the GTI.

We loaded up the Buick while Max woke up Cam, Elliot, and Teddy. We decided to walk to Ma Fischer’s and take in the sites of our old neighborhood one last time. It was kind of a quiet, somber walk as three out of six of us realized that it would be the last time we would make the familiar trek. Thank god the mood changed when we sat down with a greasy breakfast in front of us. As we laughed and talked Teddy said “Shit, we shoulda’ called Gina to join us, I haven’t seen her since graduation.”

Max looked up at him, realizing he hadn’t heard the news and cautiously said “um, she’s in North Carolina interviewing for a job with my school.” Gina had secured a job with Milwaukee Public Schools after graduation but was let go before she even started due to budget cuts. Max’s school was experiencing a shortage of teachers and still had a few more openings to fill before the year started, so Max hooked Gina up with an interview.

Teddy’s face dropped. He and Gina had called it quits a while ago but were still great friends and I know he had hoped they’d eventually get back together. He did his best to put on a happy face, but it was clear he was disappointed. “Oh, good for her. I hope it works out; she deserves a break.” That conversation brought the mood down for a few minutes, but soon we were back to laughing, joking, and making plans to meet in North Carolina for Max and Brody’s “hitchin’ party” as Brody called it.

After breakfast we walked back to the duplex to meet Jeff, As we walked through the old place with him pointing out the minor flaws so he could get it ready for the next tenants, I started to get teary eyed. This place had been my home for three of the best years of my life. We walked through the kitchen and I saw visions of Zach cooking me dinner when I got home from the first day at my internship. In the dining room I could see and hear all our friends gathered around the table for one of our Friendsgiving celebrations. In the living room I saw Matty and Baby Scotty lying on the floor playing cars with Zach, then I saw Zach and I sitting in front of the fireplace just happy to be together. A lot of guys live in chaotic squaller during their college years, I lived in a wonderful home with my best friends and the love of my life. I was gonna miss it.

Jeff finished the inspection and Zelled the security deposit to our account. We handed him the keys and walked out to the front yard. Max was there and ready to go, he had Brody and Gina on facetime. Brody was showing her around (she told us she got the job, but not to tell Teddy yet. She wanted to do it herself in private). Elliot, Cam, and Teddy came out of the house as Jeff drove away. The six of us (with Gina and Brody joining us on facetime) stood there and looked at the old house that had been my home for three wonderful years. Max hung up the phone, Teddy and Elliot said their goodbyes and went back into the duplex, and Max, Cam, Zach, and I stood there facing each other.

“It’s not gonna be the same without you guys” Cam said and we all nodded. “I would’ve never made it without you guys” he said as he pulled us into a group hug. I could feel his tears on my neck. Cam was a mess when he arrived in Milwaukee, and now he was a strong, independent man with a partner who was the perfect fit. I felt better about leaving him behind knowing that.

“College was nothing like I thought it would be” Max said, “It was awesome thanks to all of you.” When I met Max, he was just this quiet little redhead who went to the same church. I never dreamed that day when he followed me back to the dorms that he would be such an amazing part of my life.

Zach smiled and said, “I loved it here.” That’s all he could muster.

I felt I had to say something. But with my throat closing and eyes filled with tears all I could rustle up was “We’ll all be friends forever, and I can’t wait to see all the great things we do.”

After a final group hug, Zach got behind the wheel of the U-Haul to take the first shift, I got behind the wheel of the GTI ready follow him, and Max put the top down on his Red Hot Camaro and revved the engine to let us know he was ready to roll. Max followed us through Chicago, then we pulled off at a truck stop and said goodbye before we went our separate ways.

As excited as we all were for our new lives to begin, we couldn’t help but mourn the loss of an era that had brought us all together and changed us forever… and absolutely for the better.

The end of this part of the story…

Author’s Note: Thank you all for watching Seth grow from scared little church boy pulled from his home, into a strong, loving adult following his dreams. I hope you’ll watch for my next series “Simply Red.’ Where we’ll follow our favorite ginger Max as he moves South to be with our favorite redneck Brody. Be patient as it may take some time before I post the first chapter. I seriously can’t thank you all enough for the ratings, the comments and especially the emails. I love that you all have emersed yourself in my world and made yourselves part of the village!