Jason Slade

The phone buzzed again.  I looked down through the blur.  “Parker.  This is Randy.  I was mean to you because you make me feel things I didn’t want to feel.  I’m gay, and I’m in love with you.”

I just stared at the message. Jason had grabbed my heart, and now he’d ripped a hole in it. What the hell was I going to do? If I’d never seen Jason, I’d probably be more than willing to have fun with Randy, but he didn’t seem to be the kind of man I’d fall in love with. What was I saying? I couldn’t be in love with Jason. I barely knew him, but I wanted him. And, Jason had just told me to leave him alone, and only thirty minutes before, we were physically as close as two men can get.
I began to cry again. I dropped the phone on the floor and crawled under the covers of my bed. I pulled my knees up to my chest.

I heard my father’s voice. “Suck it up, Parker. Be a man. Nothing’s broken. You’re not bleeding; it’ll just leave a big bruise. You’ll get over it.” But that board coming loose and knocking me to the ground had hurt like hell, and now I was hurting worse.

Tomorrow, I’d research how to join a monastery. I knew there was a Lutheran one in Michigan; maybe there was a closer one. Michigan was murderously cold. I felt the tears start up again, and I sucked my lower lip into my mouth and applied pressure to it. My life was over and it sucked.

I must have cried myself to sleep. I woke up with the sheets all knotted together. The Chinese food was still on my desk next to a bottle of silicone lubricant and a package of condoms. With tears forming in my eyes again, I decided to put them in a drawer in case Jason came back, but I knew that he wasn’t coming back; I knew it.

I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I was nothing but a scrawny, unattractive man. If I were lonely and horny and walked into a bar, I’d be the last guy I’d think about picking up. Tears spilled from my eyes again. “You’re a fucking loser,” I told the man in the mirror. I turned the shower on and stepped in.

The water was still cold. It reminded me of showers at home. I stood there shivering as I waited for the water to get hot. Then I went into automatic pilot. I showered, shaved, dressed, went down for breakfast, and came back to my room. I threw away the trash and then checked to make sure my assignments were done. I picked up the phone and saw another message from Randy.
“Do you still want to play a game at two?”

I replied, “Yes.” I changed into my shorts and t-shirt and headed to the courts with my racket and shuttles. I arrived early; it wasn’t quite eleven. I just sat on a bench. Others were playing, but they were just a blur. I remained there, with my eyes staring straight ahead until Randy touched my shoulder.

“Are you OK?” he asked. “I shouted your name a few times, but you’re acting like a zombie.”
“I’m fine. My mind was just elsewhere.”

“Parker, I’m sorry about the text. I was at that party and drinking. I am attracted to you, I mean, you’re a great badminton player. But I didn’t mean to tell you I was in love with you. I mean, we barely know each other off the court, and I… Well, it was the alcohol.”

“Forget about it, Randy. Let’s just play.” Of course, he would say he loved me and then take it back. If he thought he was going to distract me with his texts, he would soon realize that his plans would come to nothing. He played with everything he had, but I was aggressive, mean, and downright nasty. I hit him with the shuttlecock four times.

When I beat him with the last shot, he came up to me and said, “Good game,” for the first time. He added, “When you play like that, it turns me on. Maybe we can go back to my room.”
“I’m not going back to your room with you.” I shook my head.

Randy looked down at the ground and lowered his voice. “I was just hoping for a blowjob, Parker.”

“I’m not sucking your dick,” I told him flatly.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I want to suck yours. You don’t have to suck mine. I just want to worship your penis.”

I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Let’s go into the service tunnel under the locker room. You won’t have to do anything.” He walked toward the locker room, and I walked behind him without thinking about the ramifications of what I was doing. We went down some stairs and into a hallway.

Randy pushed me back into a doorway and got on his knees. ‘This is just a random blowjob,’ I told myself. ‘It means nothing.’ Randy pulled the elastic of my shorts down and stared at my exposed genitals. “Wow, I knew you’d have a big dick.

I glanced down at my flaccid member. I knew my dick wasn’t big. I was average. Randy grabbed the base of my dick with his right hand and sucked the soft flesh into his mouth. His mouth was warm and wet, and my cock responded. As I got hard, he began to slide up and down the shaft with his lips tightly grabbing my shaft. He didn’t have the finesse that Jason did, but it felt good. Maybe any blowjob would have felt good. Randy continued to move his mouth back and forth. I would feel the urge to come building a little and then diminishing. I took a deep breath, and Jason’s face came into my mind. I immediately dumped my load into Randy’s mouth. He coughed and gagged.

While he swallowed some of it, much of it ran down his chin and onto his shirt and the floor.
He stood up. “Thanks, man. That was everything I’d hoped for and more.”

“I enjoyed it, Randy. I should have warned you.”

“It’s OK, Parker. It’s fun being surprised.”

“I should go. We don’t want people to see us leave together. They might talk.”

“Maybe I’ll see you at dinner.” Randy sounded hopeful.

“Maybe,” I replied. I hurried up the stairs and back to the dorm room. I checked my phone. No additional messages from anyone. I got into the shower and washed my dick and balls several times before getting out. I laid naked on my bed and put a DVD into my computer. I thought I’d grabbed the original King Kong, but it was the one from the 70s. The only part of it that I enjoyed was when Kong squashed Charles Grodin. His character was so evil that I saw no redeeming value in him at all. I probably should have chosen a comedy, but I watched the entire movie while lying naked on the top of my bed. I don’t believe I even moved.

When the credits came on, I got dressed and headed to the dining hall. I got my food and sat at a corner table waiting to see if anyone I knew came in.

But I didn’t see him. I knew what I had to do.

I went back to my room and researched monasteries, but I realized that I’d be using that as an escape. God would want me to run to something that gave my life purpose not to run away from something that was filling it with emptiness.

‘Now that’s an oxymoron,’ I thought. ‘To fill something with nothing. When would I know that it was filled?’ I thought for a few moments. ‘I wouldn’t.’

What I could do is fill my life with nice tight man-holes. When I exceeded the pleasure that I’d experienced the night before, then I would know I’d found the right man. There had to be guys who were bigger losers than I was, men who were even less attractive; they would be searching too.

I had my goal; now, I needed a plan. I’d think about that the next day after I had a good night’s rest. I clicked off the light in my room and snuggled under my covers. The next time a man was in this bed with me, he was going to spend the entire night.


I stayed on top of my studies over the next few days and even tried to get a little ahead so I could have the weekend free. I discovered that there were two gay organizations on campus, one was exclusively for gays, the other for LGBTs. I also considered dating apps. I wondered whether the men I was considering would post their faces online. It was worth exploring, I decided.

The Alliance of Gay Men, which seemed like an interesting title. Their campus website hinted that they were not a hookup club, but while that may not have been their primary mission, any time gay men got together, the single ones would be analyzing the others for potential mischief. The group's next meeting wasn’t for two weeks, so I marked the calendar.

The dating apps were interesting. I didn’t have money to spend on joining any, so the free ones would have to do at the moment. The adam4adam and sniffies.com seemed to be promising, but after further investigation, most of the guys were older guys looking for a hook-up. The same thing seemed to be going on with the other website. I decided to wait until the Alliance meeting.
In the meantime, I concentrated on my classes and my sport. Coach Evans set up some games with the people who excelled in his badminton class. He reminded me that I wasn’t out to ace them. “See how long you can keep up the place to build your stamina.”

After one evening of playing just one match, I decided to go to the exercise room for some leg work. The room was full when I got there, but I got a machine not too far from the entrance to the male locker room. I was nearing the end of my routine and noticed that the room only had about half the people in it as when I’d started.

I noticed the man who had given Jason the blowjob that first time I saw him. I was furtively watching him when I saw him walk over to an elliptical. Jason was on the machine. My heart started to race. I knew I needed to get out of there. Then I saw the man smirk at Jason and show him a foil condom wrapper.

Jason slowed his movements and then demounted. He followed the man into the locker room. I felt anger burning in my gut. I sat up; I decided to shadow them.

I wondered whether they would go to the same employee area that they went to the first time. I saw Jason’s shirt disappear around a corner; they were going for the same place.

There weren’t many men in the locker room, but there were enough that the noise level prevented their hearing me approach the doorway to the room where Jason stood facing the cocksucker.

I moved closer. I couldn’t hear what the man said, but he wiggled the prophylactic package in front of Jason.

Jason’s voice was clear. “I’m sorry, man. I can’t. I’ve got some things I’m dealing with, and I just can’t fuck around at the moment.”

I was stunned. I turned and walked away; I hurried out into the exercise room. I wasn’t sure which way to go; my brain had gone foggy. I turned back around as Jason stepped out of the hallway.
He looked at me; our eyes locked together. I fought the tears that were trying to form. He stepped closer. “I’m sorry, Parker.”