"What? Studying on a beautiful Sunday morning?"
Caught by surprise, Matt slipped the letter into the center drawer of his dorm desk and looked up at the door to see that his sometimes roommate, Perry Fitzhugh, was standing in the open doorway, dressed to the nines in his polo outfit. Matt hadn't even known what a polo outfit wasâhigh leather boots rising to something similar to what he'd read were jodhpurs, a tight cotton T-shirt, and a little rounded helmetâuntil two weeks previously. Fitzhugh was "mad" for the sport, apparently.
"Just getting ready to go out," Matt mumbled. He felt embarrassed that his first instinct was to hide the letter from Dashad from his well-heeled roommate. It was almost like he was ashamed of knowing anyone black from a rural scrape-by small farm. But he knew he shouldn't have any shame. It was only by the grace of Dashad that Matt had been able to return to the University of Virginia for his second year. God knows where Dashad had gotten the money for thatâhe had refused to tell Matt where it had come from.
"I would hope that you'd put something on before you did," Perry responded airily. "But maybe not; you look divine as you are."
Matt was just in briefs, having only come in from the shower room of Fitzhugh, their first-year student dorm in the Alderman Road complex next to the huge football stadium. The whole area, right into the dorm suite's communal living room, was strewn with debris from the university's unexpected football game win over Georgia Tech the previous afternoon.
Matt's roommate was so rarely in residence in their room that Matt only remembered his last name because it was the same as that of the dormâFitzhugh. And that hadn't been a coincidence. Matt's first inkling of Perry Fitzhugh's family position and historic ties to the University was when the suite counselor pointed out to Matt, as if Matt should genuflect or something, that Perry was from "that" family. His kind were still known as FFV in the stateâFirst Families of Virginia. The ancestor the dorm was named after was William Henry Fitzhugh, an original signer of the Virginia constitution in the late eighteenth century. The family had beenâand still wasâfrom northern Virginia. Their plantation had once been a large portion of Fairfax County, one of the mega-wealthy suburban bedroom counties of Washington, D.C., the nation's capital. Their current estate was in the equally rich Loudon hunt country county to the west of the capital.
It was a first-year dorm, which Matt, now in his second year at the architectural school, had been assigned to as a financial hardship case. Perry had been nominally assigned to the room because all first-year students were required to live in a dorm on the University grounds. That didn't prevent Perry from alsoâand mostlyâliving in a duplex apartment on Lewis Mountain Road, just a few blocks off the grounds. First-year students also weren't permitted to have cars, but that didn't stop Perry from having a Mustang convertible in the driveway of his duplex. Nominally, he'd gotten a waiver because he was on the polo team, the training facility and grounds for which were five miles to the southeast of the University and didn't have regular University bus service. But he was only being given the waiver to drive the car on that route only. Of course it was a rule that he ignored.
Perry was giving the nearly naked Matt an apprising look, as if it was the first time he'd really noticed him and was impressed by what he saw. Matt couldn't help but note the look. He already knew of Perry's interest in men because he had almost walked in on Perry fucking one of their suite mates, a fairly undersized, soft, but cute type named Sean Campbell, who was a theater student, on Perry's "only occasionally" dorm bed. Sean had been on his belly, stretched out on the bed, and Perry had been covering him from above and embracing the smaller man closely, with only his hips moving in a steady, rhythmic rise and fall.
Matt didn't think they'd heard him open the door to the room, and, seeing them, he'd turned and left the dorm and gone back to Alderman Library to study. This wasn't something Matt wanted to get into at the University. That was a part of his life on the farm that he appreciated and felt he needed, but Dashad was more than enough for him. He needed to apply his undivided attention on his studies.
And it wasn't because Perry wasn't good looking. Perry was extremely good looking in a dark, sultry way. He was tall and strongly built, while being muscular in the chest, arms, and thighs and trim at the waist. His hair was curly and covered his chest and down his sternum to his pubes on a deeply tanned bodyâtanned everywhere but the triangle of Speedo-shaped hips, buttocks, and groin area, the tan elsewhere serving to focus attention to his well-endowed equipment. Ever since Matt had seen Perry naked in the shower room, he hadn't been able to see him fully dressed without the image of Perry in the altogether floating before his eyes.
As nice as Perry looked, though, he didn't hold a candle to the creamy chocolate and oversized musculature and equipment of Dashad. He wasn't monster muscled and black.
"Where were you going when you went out?" Perry asked, still leaning up against the door, not either coming in or going out.
"Uhh. Just to the Corner for a few things and then maybe to Alderman."
"Studying on a Sunday?âthe day after we triumphed over Georgia Tech? That won't do. That won't do at all, my man. There's a polo game on out at the Queen Mountain winery. I'll bet you've never been there. I just came here because I think I left my riding crop here. I'll ferret that out and then we're going back to my place to pick up the Mustang and you're coming out to see the polo match. I've told you you're going to learn to ride while we're roomies. Today you can see what a man can do on a polo pony."
It wasn't a question. It was a command. That was another area where Matt felt far more comfortable with his rural black farmerâeven though he half realized that he'd hidden the letter so that Perry couldn't see the atrocious spelling and handwriting of someone corresponding with Mattâthan he did with this arrogant FFV.
Perry was rummaging around in their closet when Matt heard another voice at the door. "I'm ready, Perry. You in here?" Matt turned and saw that Sean Campbell was standing in the door opening out to the suite living room. When Sean saw Matt he shrank back a bit.
"Aha. Here it is," a muffled voice tossed out from the inside of the closet. Then Matt flinched when he felt a pair of jeans and a T-shirt land on his shoulder. They were his.
"Shrug those on, Delicious," Perry said as he emerged from the closet, "and let's hit the road. No need to bring money. I'll take care of you."
There was a small entourage of Perry's friends and hangers on sitting on blankets at the edge of the polo field at the winery in the shadow of the Blue Ridge mountains twenty miles to the west of the University grounds. Sean was there, of course, but so were a couple of other spoiled, rich types of first-year students, both male and female. There also was a smattering of older male students. All were brothers in the fraternity that the Fitzhughs who went to the University always were members of. All of those previous family members had been male, the University having gone coed only in Perry's grandfather's time there. Perry couldn't pledge this early in his first year, but there was no question that he was going to be a Delta Upsilonâand the brothers of the fraternity were keeping close tabs on him to ensure that he and his family money were theirs.
There were several of the older fraternity members there. DU was a jock fraternity, so there were a couple of supersized, broad-shouldered white football players, who Matt had first seen sharing Sean together in possessive herding and who Matt thought had turned Sean over to Perry sometime in the previous week. They seemed to be on the make now and were nosing around Matt before the polo match started. Matt's attention, however, was focused on two other football players, LeRoy and Jocko, both black, both massive and muscular, and both a bit beaten up from the previous day's football game. Other than the rich-kid hangers on, there just was one tall, skinny white guy, Craig, who was on the basketball team.
Even though they were at a winery, most of them were drinking beer. They still had to buy it from the winery, though, because outside alcohol wasn't permitted. LeRoy and Jocko were hitting the bourbon that they had sneaked in, though. People here deferred to them so much that they probably hadn't had to sneak it inâthey made little effort to hide it. There just was no one who was going to question them having it. As they all settled on the blankets in anticipation of the start of the polo match, Matt gravitated toward the side where the two black football players were sprawled out. Sean also had been pulled in that direction by one of them.
Craig and a couple of the rich-kid types were flirting with the few young women in the group during the polo match, but LeRoy was pawing Sean Campbell, and Jocko was exclusively nursing the bourbon bottle.
Matt had both given and received looks of interest with the two black football players when he settled by them, but he was fascinated with the match, and, after it started, couldn't take his eyes off the sleek horses and the masterly way they were being ridden in what was an intrateam match of the University polo club. Perry was particularly comfortable in the saddle.