Despite the fact that my brain had had little time to float back down to the real world from the craziness of the past 14 hours with Daniel, the debilitating cold of Boston had an instant and sobering effect on me. In the South, the entire city shuts down when there is a projected 1/2 inch of snow in the forecast. The schools close and everyone makes a mad dash to the grocery stores for bread and milk, apparently conned into thinking that the apocalypse has arrived and carbohydrates and calcium would save them from the promised destruction. Hurricanes, we know how to deal with. Frozen water descending from the heavens was just unnatural and an affront to our very way of life.
Not the case in Boston. When I stepped out of the Boston International Airport into the February air, I suddenly wondered if our plane had be diverted to Alaska without my noticing. I'd spent a good portion of the flight locked in the bathroom with Daniel, so it was entirely possible. Brisk doesn't begin to describe it. The general sexiness of wearing Daniel's jock and our multiple previous excursions faded to nothingness when that first blast of frigid northern air hit my skin and shrunk my once impressive manhood to something resembling the size of a shriveled green bean. It hurt to breathe on the 25 foot journey from the sliding glass doors to the van waiting to drive us to the competition.
I was still in shock when Daniel slid in beside me on the long back seat, the warmth of his thigh pressed into mine but offering little in the way of actual relief. Even his supreme confidence was shaken to a stunned silence, both of our eyes wide with uncertainty and staring straight ahead at the businesslike northerners rushing to and fro outside our vehicular oasis. They seemed unfazed by the blistering cold, even going so far as to taunt us with smiles and loving gazes towards the overcast skies as they hailed cabs and fancy black town cars. It all served to cement in my mind the fact that Yankees were, indeed, insane. Perhaps the Civil War hand't been about slavery or states rights after all, but a simple attempt for a frozen people to migrate en masse to warmer climes.
Ms. Gonzales seemed to take it the hardest. She hailed from Puerto Rico, so this must have been absolute hell for her. She sat in the passenger seat and stared blankly straight ahead, as if she was rethinking her commitment to chaperoning this trip and seriously contemplating turning around and buying a one way ticket back to Charlotte, leaving a group of mostly under-age kids to fend for themselves in the Great White North.
Somehow, we made it to the sign in for Nationals, the driver twisting and turning through the rabbit warren of brownstone lined streets and traffic circles without the need for GPS or maps. I lost track of our direction in minutes, unable to tell if we were any closer or further away from the airport. He could have just driven us in a circle for all I knew.
It was almost 10:20 when we finally shuffled up to the check in table, manned by two University volunteers in smart sports coats and snappy ties. They were obviously students at the University hosting the competition and reveled in the fact that they were older and "wiser" than the young ruffians competing over the long weekend.
Their smug smiles greeted us. They showed Ms. Gonzales an infuriating mock deference, laced with patronizing glee, when she informed them of who our silent and frozen group was and was told we were too late to compete for points but could still be entered for feedback (a fact that Daniel registered with a shrug in my direction.) They hadn't been in college long enough for the teenage acne to clear from their foreheads, but they took delight in delivering the bad news to the kids shivering hopefully before them.
I was 18 now. Only for a few hours so far, but still. That made me a man. And as a man, I wanted nothing so much as to punch the two squarely in their self-satisfied jaws and show them what Southern justice could be. At least, I would have done so if my fingers hadn't been transformed into useless, numb sticks in my too-thin gloves and completely lost the ability to form into a fist or do anything much more than hang dead at my sides.
"The first round is already underway now," the guy on the left said matter-of-factly. "That should give you about 45 minutes to head to your hotel and check in before the next round starts. If you can get back by 11:30 we can enter your competitors into round two as feedback candidates?"
Ms. Gonzales said something under her breath in Spanish. Though she had given me a B+ on that paper, I understood her utterance to be a curse on the parents and eventual children of both of the young men behind the folding table.
Good on you, Ms. G!
I felt a twinge of guilt at having reveled in her sleepless night with the Dramatic Interpretation Chick. But only a twinge. I didn't get B+'s. Not ever.
"Pardon?" the second jack-ass asked after her muttering. "I didn't catch that? Something about shriveled eggs and soft sausages?"
Ms. Gonzales smiled sweetly at them.
"Round two will be just fine," she said in her most gentile southern lilt, peppered with Puerto Rican inflection.
The jack-asses nodded and noted it down on the papers before them and then called us each by name and handed us our schedules for the next two days, typed and filed neatly into blue folders.
The ride to the hotel was silent, each of us lost in our disappointment and beginning to practice our performances in our minds. We may not have had a chance to win anything, but we could and would do our best despite that fact.
The hotel was nicer than our accommodations the night before. Going to a swanky private school had its' advantages. Before we could begin to argue over room assignments, a very bedraggled Ms. Gonzales informed us that the rooms would remain the same as the night before. She brooked no discussion on the subject, except to book an extra room for herself. She had learned her lesson, apparently.
Daniel and I stumbled quietly to our room, key cards in hand, letting the warmth of the place finally thaw our limbs a bit. At least the beds were nicer, the bedspreads seemed to be woven of actual fibers found in nature, (shock of all shocks!) and the carpet was something resembling acceptable. Without a word, Daniel left his suitcase in the entry way and shuffled to the far bed, threw himself onto it and awkwardly grabbed the covers around him, forming himself into a cocoon of beige fabric.
"I've never been so cold in my entire life," he mumbled. I could hear his teeth chattering a bit as he said it.
"I hate Boston," I added, still standing frozen in the doorway.
"Get over here," he said miserably, using his head to indicate his general direction but not daring to remove the covers from around him. I put up no argument as I walked to the bed and sat blindly on the edge of it.
Daniel's arms, still wrapped in the comforter, engulfed me and pulled me backwards into his chest, my wet feet rising from the floor. I squeaked a bit, but I smiled at the contact. His embrace was warm and inviting.
"Daniel," I giggled. "Come on, we don't have time for this. We need to change and get back."
He nuzzled into me, playing the big spoon despite his smaller stature, his face pressed to the back of my neck, his breath sending shivers down my entire body, for once totally unrelated to the cold.
"I know, I know. Just one minute to warm up," he pleaded.
I nodded my acceptance and scooted closer to him, pressing my hips back into his, his arms squeezing me tighter to his broad chest. I could feel his crotch pressed into my ass and my body responded on its own accord, bucking into him. I was warming up rapidly and his growing erection pressing into my backside indicated that he was as well.
I don't know where I found the strength, but after a minute of deepened breathing and dry humping beneath our covers I said:
"Alright. Come on. We don't have time for this. Not now."
Daniel sighed mightily behind me but didn't protest when I disentangled myself from his grasp and stood. He threw back the covers and lay spread eagle in the open air, eyes on the ceiling.
"I guess you're right. But can't blame a guy for trying."
He rose from the bed and retrieved his suitcase, flinging it to the mattress like a shot putter. In a flash, he had it unzipped and picked out an outfit of grey dress pants, sky blue button-down and dapper tan waistcoat with a bronze silk tie to match. His winter coat and sweater soon made a pile on the floor beside him and I had to stop my own ensemble assemblage to stare at him.
