My Roomie Jerry
Note: All characters in this story are 21 years of age or older. Trigger warning: if the use of the word "fag" offends you, please do not read this. It's used because it's the word which best describes the narrator's self-image and establishes the relationship between the characters.
When I was nearing the end of my undergraduate years in college, I decided to find an apartment in town and move off-campus. I was sick of being ridiculously cramped, I was sick of the noise that kept me from sleeping all night, and I was sick of guys running up and down the shared hallway acting like idiots 24-hours a day. So I started looking around. I was really lucky. Within a few days, I found a place I could afford. It wasn't huge, and it wasn't fancy, but it was a whole lot better than the dorm I was living in. I had a small kitchen, one bathroom (with pretty modern fixtures), one big living room, and one bedroom with a nice large closet. I signed the lease, and moved in as fast as I could get my stuff packed up. And that didn't take long. It was a furnished apartment, and I didn't have much stuff of my own to worry about. A quick car-load or two and I was moved.
It was great for a month or so -- until I started to realize that my money was running shorter than I'd planned on. I hadn't factored in things like electric bills, water bills, and increased gas milage. And I wanted more money for food and entertainment than I realized was possible. So, I "bit the bullet" and decided to look for a roommate. I asked around to see if anybody I knew wanted to share a place with me, I put some flyers up in the dorms, I even posted an ad in the student paper. And that was what did the trick. One evening, I got a call from a guy named Jerry who lived in an upperclassmen dorm across campus. He was a senior, and -- like me -- sick of dormitory life. We met up the next day for lunch, and we clicked right away. He was about 6'2" tall and a Forward on our basketball team. Dark hair cut short, and dark brown eyes fringed by huge lashes and oversized eyebrows. A big nose and huge feet. He had the ideal body for a b-baller: slender, but with sinewy muscles that had the potential to keep growing as he worked out and played more. Wide shoulders and a great wingspan, perfect for the game he loved. And thanks to the fact that he was wearing his jersey when we met, I could see that his body was covered with a generous amount of hair that made him look as masculine as fuck.
In other words, he didn't look like me at all. I was only 5'8" tall, with the skinny frame of the traditional nerd. My strawberry-blonde hair always needed a haircut, and it tended to flop down over my forehead and do it's best to hide my bright blue eyes. I spent too much time studying to spend much time in the gym, so my body was thin and not built up at all. The glasses I wore didn't help much either. Still, I was generally considered to be a good-looking guy. I can't claim that every head would turn in my direction when I'd walk into a room, but at least a few here and there would swivel to follow me as I'd move.
Anyway, the day we met Jerry and I sat over lunch for about an hour, comparing lives and learning about each other. He came from a small town one state over, and had been recruited to our school with the promise of a basketball scholarship. But it turned out that he wasn't developing as well as the scouts had hoped, and he'd realized out that basketball was going to get him through college, but wasn't going to turn into a career later on. He was a biology major and figured he'd be able to navigate his way into a job with some lab or research company when the time came. Until then, he was spending almost enough time on his classes and lots of time with his girlfriend Shelly. They'd been together for about a year now, and he hoped that she was going to prove to be "the one." He showed me her picture. All I saw was an average-looking girl who didn't look all that sharp. But there's no accounting for taste, right? Meanwhile, I was studying social work. I had an aunt who did that, and I knew that the hours were going to be awful, the stress high, and the pay miserable. But I still wanted to do it. Or at least, I wanted to try. My own experience had taught me that sometimes the only barrier between a lousy home and bad trouble can be the wisdom, energy, and concern provided by a case worker. Some good things had been "paid forward" to me, and I wanted to do the same for others. And if I couldn't handle the stress, I figured I'd know that early enough on to side-shift into some other line of work if I had to. But I didn't think I'd have to. I was pretty sure I was strong enough to face the challenges, and I knew that I wanted to fall asleep at night reflecting on the lives I had influenced rather than on the dollars accumulating in some back account somewhere.
So, we moved in together. It was pretty easy except for one thing: like I said, my apartment had only one bedroom. And that bedroom had only one double bed. I sure wasn't about to give it up, so Jerry had a simple choice: he could camp out on the short and lumpy couch in the living room, he could lay out a sleeping bag on the floor somewhere, or he could share the bed with me. He didn't hesitate. Travelling on overnight basketball trips all through high school and college had meant that he'd shared lots of hotel and motel beds with lots of different teammates. So it was no big deal when he walked over to the apartment with me after lunch, took a quick look round, and saw there was only one bed. He just said, "Yeah, looks okay. I like being off-campus and closer to downtown. And the walk's not bad. When can I move in?"
The move took place the next weekend. He packed up during the week, and arrived Friday night with his things stuffed into a mismatched assortment of suitcases, canvas carriers, and grocery-store plastic bags. As he unpacked and stowed his stuff away, I made us some sandwiches, flipped on the TV, opened a couple of cans of beer, and settled down in the living room.
Over the next few weeks, beers, TV, and watching lots of basketball games became a regular pastime. At least, on the nights that Jerry didn't think we needed to hook up with Shelly. Or maybe I should say, on the nights when he didn't hook both of us up with Shelly and her friend.
Double-dating? Well, sorta. You see, we had one other thing in common: we both attended this large box church on the edge of campus, and we both took it seriously. Jerry especially. Well, seriously enough anyway that we both attended most weeks (though we had never met there before we became roomies), and seriously enough that he was dating a "good girl" from the church who he "respected." She liked the idea of "reducing temptation" by "not being alone with him." So, when she went out with Jerry, she'd drag a friend of hers along whenever she could. That meant that Jerry would try to drag somebody along with him to keep the friend busy while he focused on Shelly. And now that we were roomies, well... I became the easiest person to drag along.
When a "date" would end, we'd drive them back to campus, then head to our apartment to drink some more and rehash the night. More often than not, Jerry would fall asleep on the couch and I'd have to wake him up to half-carry him into the bedroom (in other words, let him lean on me as he stumbled half-asleep from one room to the other). He'd shuck off his clothes, drop them on the floor, stretch out on his side of the bed, and be asleep again within a minute or so. Sometimes under the covers -- sometimes on top of them.
Which gave me the perfect chance to stare at him. At his long, well-muscled jock body. The body with the hairy chest that had a treasure-trail running down to his stomach and into his sweat-stained jock. The body that I lusted after.
You see, I'm a fag. I know that's not a "nice word," and I know it doesn't describe most gay men, but it's what I identify as. I'm a cum-sucking cock-loving fag. Always have been. But I learned early on that it was best to keep that little secret to myself. You might say that I spent my life up till then in the closet. I would say that I spent it as an undercover spy pretending to bat for one team while I hung out with testosterone junkies whose pastimes I got to be part of and whose bodies I got to ogle. And when it came to Jerry, ogle I did. When he'd fall onto our bed, I'd leave the living room light on so that it would pour some light through our bedroom door and onto his sleeping frame. I'd stare at him as he lay there, memorizing every curve of his body, every motion of his chest and gut as the breath would move in and out of him. The heft of his thighs. The exact shape of his belly-button (an innie, by the way!). The way he'd cover his eyes with his forearm as he slept. The way his cock would swell inside his jock as he'd ride the pleasure of his dreams. I knew it all. And I must admit that some nights I reached out and touched him here and there. Lightly. The curve of his shoulder. The forest of hair on his legs. The warmth of his stomach as I'd wrap one arm lightly around him and imagine that -- at least for that moment -- we were not just roomies, not just friends, but lovers.
But I was careful in my nighttime explorations, and he was a sound sleeper. So all was well. Within a couple of months, we'd fallen into a predictable pattern. Our lives were filled with classes, basketball practice (for Jerry) or hours in the library (for me), TV-and-beer, or nights with "the girls."
