If I'd been a minute later, I would have missed it.
As it was, I came out of my college room on campus and saw that my neighbour Andrew's door was open. He was younger than me, a first year at college straight from school and only eighteen. He had been a confused, rather scruffy boy who had no idea how pretty he was.
Then, about four weeks ago, he told me he was gay. And when he told me that, he looked very different. Gone was the watchful, messed up boy whose mum bought his clothes despite having no taste in them. Instead, a sleek and muscular young man had appeared, dressed in a signature pair of micro denim shorts, a white T-shirt, and expensive trainers with a pink trim. And his hair...
I'd never seen anything like it. Dark, almost naturally black, it was gelled from the crown into the straightest fringe I'd ever seen about hallway down his forehead. The sides were gelled flat as well -- it all was, and it gleamed even in dim light. It was slick to his shapely skull, to the extent it looked wet, as if he'd just surfaced. Neat at the back and sides, it looked at once challenging and yet inevitable.
Since then, there had been a steady stream of male visitors to his room in our small ten-person dorm on campus. Often there were sex noises way into the night. I told myself I should say something to him but secretly I enjoyed listening, and often masturbated as I listened eagerly to the bed creak, or thud against the wall, or hear his little shrieks get muffled as his pretty face was pushed into the pillow.
So when, one sunny Saturday afternoon when the college was quiet, I came out of my room and saw his door was open I couldn't resist taking a look.
He sat on the bed, facing the wall this his door was in. His eyes were open, but he didn't appear to see. He was naked and sat on his hands as a kind of willing restraint. Sat right next to him was a much larger, older man who was dressed in jeans, work boots and a lumberjack shirt with a red chequered pattern. The man had tight hold of the back of Andrew's neck and was kissing the shiny wet-looking black hair. The man's other hand was between Andrew's legs, gripping so hard that the knuckles were white, and veins stood out on the muscular arm.
Andrw shook and twitched as his genitals were mashed in the other man's big hand. He didn't struggle at all, and I realised that he liked his cock being tortured. His large brown eyes were wide, his pouty mouth in a little circle, and every now and then an 'Oo -- oo' sound leaked out as if he was meant to keep silent but couldn't.
I stared, amazed that something like this could happen, and even more amazed that I had been privileged see it. I felt my eyes widen as I leaned in, forgetting everything that I had planned to do that afternoon. Although my focus was on the erotic scene in the room, I was also aware of the way my heart seemed to freeze, then pound until I could almost hear the rush of my blood.
Belatedly, I realised I shouldn't be watching, but neither of the participants in the sex act before me acted as if I should leave -- indeed, they were barely aware of me at all. In that slow thought process that accompanies erotic astonishment, I wondered why the door had been left open. Did they have me in mind as a watcher, or anyone who happened to be passing?
The man slipped his hand from Andrew's neck to the boy's shapely shoulder, gripped it, and leaned into his punishment with the other hand. Andrew kept writhing, his mouth open, his eyes wide. The man let go of Andrew's shoulder and started to stroke the shiny wet black hair, stroking it gently at first, then with more aggression. At one point he tried to bite it, bite the whole gleaming head like an apple. Andrew's eyes rolled up and I thought he was going to pass out with pleasure. Then the man went back to stroking and kissing the boy's wet hair, but redoubled his violence against the trapped cock, the crushed balls.
The man shifted and noticed me. For a moment I looked into his cold blue eyes. He wasn't nice-looking like Andrew. He was rough, unshaven, and looked a bit smelly. He hands, I noticed, were calloused, as if he worked on the roads. I thought of how those rough hands must feel on slick, shiny hair, on the softness of a young man's cock, and his balls.
The man's eyes widened, and he looked at the door in a faintly accusing way that told me it was meant to have stayed closed, that he had spent God knows how long torturing a young man's genitals without even realising that he could be seen by anyone passing. Andrew might have realised, and just left the door open. It was the kind of thing he'd started doing -- especially at night in case anyone passing wanted to get into his bed and fuck him.
I felt I should indicate that I was just passing, and would leave now -- but I couldn't move because I didn't want to. My skin tingled, and I felt short of breath. I don't think I'd ever seen anything so unbearable sexy, so unspeakably hot.
The man kept looking at me, his hand between Andrew's legs and his cheek pressed against Andrew's almost supernaturally sexy hair. Andrew had noticed me too, in his daze of sexual agony. Both of them watched me, calmly and without any aggression. I felt curiously safe, the way a girl does around gay men, but without any of the usual sense of exclusion.
The man indicated with his head that I should enter. I strode in with more confidence than I usually have and shut the door behind me. I didn't want anyone else joining in. This sexual encounter, whatever it was, was now mine is well. The man pointed with his chin at the wooden chair at Andrew's desk. I saw the pictures he had there, the postcard of young Orson Welles flourishing some playing cards, Mickey Rourke in 'Angel Heart', a colour photo of three boys silhouetted against a sunset over what Andrew had told me was Lake Balaton.
I pulled out the chair, turned it around so I faced them, and sat down. My back was straight, my shoulders relaxed. I felt very calm, yet also supercharged with excitement into a kind of euphoria. The curtains were open, another implicit invitation, although I don't think anyone could see in because the bed was lower than the window and the sun was shining on the glass. But I liked the openness of it, the way it all seemed so natural.
