October 6, 2007 (revised February 9, 2008)
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��Although the ayatollah has canceled a second natural gas pipeline to southern Soviet republics, Soviet aid still is expanding a huge steel mill in the Iranian city of Isfahan�and the Soviet Embassy in Tehran is free from occupiers and insult.��
My classmates apparently had problems, too. Peyton always sat near the front but had now chosen a desk in back; I wasn�t looking at him, but I could feel his smiling eyes drill into the back of my skull. He�d been desperately affable the few times I�d seen him since his return, as if he were pointing a bouquet of loaded daisies at the back of his skull.
Lissi, meanwhile, sat in her usual spot in the middle a few rows over from me and was a blank slate on the verge of imploding into dull, ugly chunks that would themselves implode, into dull, ugly dust. She showed no emotion at all, nor did she exude her usual vibe of smarmy snarkiness. I hadn�t seen her since our meeting on Thanksgiving. I, the stupid kid, had thought once or twice about calling her to, uh, just say hello?
��Yet the spectacle of an American embassy being attacked in Iran�and now in Pakistan�is believed to worry the Kremlin a good deal.��
For the first time, I felt uneasy sitting in that class.
��The ayatollah, after all, remains strongly anti-communist as well as anti-American. He rejects atheistic Marxism along with most other���
�Why the fuck did you come to class, Gerald?� Lissi inquired.
The fun had officially begun.
�Huh? Why the fuck did you come to class, Gerald?�
�Watch your language, Miss Kernahan,� Mr. Taft said.
�Sorry�why the fuck did you come to class, Mr. Blanchard?�
�To learn?� I replied.
�Or maybe to rub it in.�
�Rub what in? What are you talking about?�
�You don�t remember what you did to me in your room on Thanksgiving day?�
�Of course I do. I didn�t do a thing.�
�You sexually assaulted me, loverboy.�
�What?!�
�You sexually assaulted me, then had the nerve to attend class and make me feel, uh, shall we say, uncomfortable.�
�I did not sexually assault you, Lissi. I didn�t do anything to you. Is that why you feel so uncomfortable, that I didn�t find you worthy enough to have sex with?�
�You�re such a charmer.�
�Thanks. So what exactly did I do to you?�
�I�ll save it for when I go to the cops. Or maybe I�ve gone to them already.�
�And maybe your parents really did croak.�
�Assssshole!�
�Her parents died?� Peyton asked.
�Okay, okay!� Mr. Taft said. �We need to restore order immediately. Miss Kernahan, please try to calm yourself. Mr. Blanchard, I think you had better leave.�
�Me? Why should I leave? I didn�t do anything!� I said.
�I think he�s right, John,� Peyton said, addressing our instructor. �He�s my roommate, I�ve had lots of interpersonal contact with him, and he doesn�t seem to me like the type of guy who would assault anyone, sexually or otherwise.�
Wait�did Peyton call our instructor John?
�Well, Mr. Hunt, maybe you don�t know him as well as you think,� Mr. Taft said in an even tenser voice.
�Now you think I sexually assaulted her?� I asked.
�Well, I can�t say for sure, since I don�t know all the details,� he replied unconvincingly. �But I do know that the best way to calm things down right now would be for you to leave. It�s the chivalrous thing to do.�
�The chivalrous sexual-assaulter,� Lissi said.
�Poor choice of words, sorry.�
�Okay, fine, I�ll leave,� I said. �But one question, Mr. Taft�.Are you sleeping with Lissi?�
I should have kept quiet, but I was a dumb, injured animal, thrashing about.
�No, seriously, are you sleeping with her? Why else would you apologize for your choice of words? You never do that. And why else do you kiss her butt in class? And why else are you taking her side in this? And why else do you want me to leave? You wanna get rid of the competition, that�s why. Even competition that hasn�t touched her.� Not counting my unremarkable squeeze of her unremarkable boobs, of course. �You realize you can lose your job over this.�
He didn�t respond.
�And you realize you can get expelled over this,� I told Lissi.
�And you realize you�re going to prison,� she said.
�Yeah, with that ton-and-a-half of evidence you have on me.� I stood up from my desk. I grabbed my coat from the back of my desk seat. I put on my coat. �Well, at least when I go to the college board or wherever, and I have you two kicked out, you�ll have plenty of time to stay at home and throw darts at Jane Fonda�s picture.� I walked out of the room.
Later�much later, maybe at 1:30 in the morning�Peyton returned to our dorm room. I was lying on my unmade bed in my normal clothes, shoes included, reading the voluminous indicia to my world geography textbook. (�Copyright � 1973 Finch-Fossey, Inc. All rights reserved. No text or images from this publication may be reproduced,� et cetera, et cetera.) We didn�t say anything for a few moments.
�So�what happened after I left class?� I asked.
�Taft dismissed us a few minutes later.�
�Huh. Guess I was a hard act to follow.�
�Yeah. But Lissi stayed after class, on her own, to talk with him.�
�Uh-oh.�
�I could have eavesdropped outside the door, but I so angry at the way they�d treated you that I wanted nothing more to do with them.�
I flipped through my world geography textbook for a few moments.
�Well, anyway, thanks for sticking up for me in there,� I said.
�You�re quite welcome�.I don�t think I�m going back to his class.�
�Well, I wouldn�t go back even if he did the minuet in a chicken suit.�
�I would, heh heh.�
I flipped through my world geography textbook for a few more moments.
�Are you really going to have Taft and Lissi kicked out?� Peyton asked.
�Only if they try anything,� I said as sternly as possible. �If he tries to fail me.�
�Well�you might be doing Taft a favor if you reported him.�
�A favor?�
�By helping him maintain his image as a playboy�.He is, or was, sleeping with a student, but it wasn�t Lissi.�
�Really? Who was it then?�
�You�re looking at him.�
Uh.
�I�m serious.� He sat down on the edge of his bed.
�All right,� I tried saying with a laugh.
�I�m serious.�
I closed my textbook. He was serious.
�I�ve been sleeping with him for over a month now. He ran into me in the hall as I was leaving my psych class one afternoon. This was before Lissi had started doing her comedy routines in his class. Anyway, he ran into me in the hall and immediately started going on about how, quote, �Freud�s perverted, godless dogma,� unquote, has ruined Western civilization in the Twentieth Century. So I said �Well, I believe Freud helped improve Western civilization by trying to eradicate its mental and emotional hang-ups.� Then I started to leave in a hurry, but Taft said, he said �Wait, I have this mind-opening book about Freud you should read, in my office. I was going there anyway to do some paperwork. Why don�t you come along?��
�And you couldn�t resist.�
�He did say it was a mind-opening book. So we went to his office, in the Faculty Annex. You ever been to his office?�
�No.�
�Well, he has a minuscule office crammed floor-to-ceiling with books, but it took him only a minute to find the volume in question: Call Him Dr. Sigmund Fraud, by someone called Dr. Sane. Probably a pseudonym.�
�Ha ha!� Peyton had said Dr. Sane�s name with exaggerated gravitas.
�So I leafed through the book. The chapters had titles like �The Slut Factor� and �Justifying Parenticide.� I never got around to reading any passages, nor did Taft get around to doing his paperwork. Instead, we got to talking for over an hour about our lives. Well, he did most of the talking. Didja know he�s divorced?�
�Really? That moral guy? I didn�t even know he�d been married.�
�Yeah. In 1948 he married this woman named Hannah who taught philosophy here. He said they had the perfect marriage until ten years ago. That�s when she left him for a female ceramicist and moved with her to Olympia, Washington. He hasn�t seen the two of them since.�
�Huh.�
�He didn�t say much else about his marriage. He did say he still loved her, but he said it a little mechanically, you know?...Anyway, we continued talking, and after a while, I started getting the feeling that Shaft was gay himself. He started giving off subconscious cues or something.�
�Like vibes?�
�Exactly. Then he started rubbing my leg, and the next think I knew, I was screwing him up the butt, over his desk.�
�The next thing you knew?! What, you just tripped and your dick just accidentally went up his butt?�
�I didn�t plan to screw him, Gerald. I never even had any interest in him until that moment�.His butt was surprisingly in shape, in case you want to know.�
�Which I did, ha ha. So are you gay?�
Peyton paused. �Yes. Yes, I would say so. I�ve had gay feelings my whole life. I thought they were just a phase, a part of my psychosexual development before I embraced the straight mindset. So much for that mindset�.Taft was the first guy I�d ever screwed. I never thought I�d screw someone old enough to collect Social Security.�
�You mean Socialist Security.�
Mr. Taft liked referring to Social Security as Socialist Security.
�Yeah,� Peyton said. �Though, come to think of it, he doesn�t look that bad for an old guy. He�s surprisingly in shape.�
�And let�s not forget his hairy ears, or his luscious liver spots.�
Peyton laughed. I haven�t seen him since college, so I don�t know what he looks like today, but I do know�surprise, surprise�I�ve started developing hairy ears and liver spots myself, not that you have to look flawless to do work for the government, though I am pretty proud of my six-pack abs.
And speaking of six-pack abs, an image of Kyle suddenly appeared in my mind. An image of him shirtless as usual, strutting around the dorm. �Just wondering, Peyt�why didn�t you screw your pal Kyle Vanderblock? He seems plenty gay to me.�
�Well, he isn�t. I wouldn�t kick him out of bed, but he�s not plenty gay, he�s plenty straight. I heard he�s even knocked up at least two women on campus so far this semester. I don�t know their names, but when they, the women, told him they wanted to terminate their pregnancies, he paid for the abortions. I heard he has a fund set aside specifically for abortions, and for hush money and stuff like that.�
�Wow. It must be nice to be rich.�
�Yeah. Anyway, I screwed Taft, and I knew I was gay because the experience felt right. It really turned me on. It really turned him on, too; he moaned a lot, but with his hand in his mouth, so he wouldn�t make too much noise and attract attention, I guess.�
�You gotta be kidding�.Does he think he�s Scarlett O�Hara? Did he, like, swoon too?�
�No, but he should�ve. I�ve never seen anyone swoon�.Anyway, after we had sex, he said he wasn�t, quote, �a goddamned pervert,� unquote. He said he was just confused. And that�s when I started feeling sorry for him. Poor guy�s probably been in the closet all his life, at least since he started teaching here in �46. He�d lose his job if he were honest about his sexual orientation. I�d get expelled if I were honest about mine. This school sucks.�
�I agree with you on that.�
�Thanks....Anyway, Taft told me he had work to do, so I go the hint and left. Since then we�ve met maybe once or twice a week, at his house, in secrecy.�
�So when he said he liked your performance, he wasn�t referring to your academic performance.�
�Ha ha.�
�Did you spend Thanksgiving break at his house?�
�Yeah. He�d asked me to the day before. This whole affair hadn�t been working out for me; I hate sneaking around. But I spent four days with him anyway�a pretty bad idea. We didn�t even have sex, just watched TV when we weren�t sniping at each other. Plus I had the feeling he�d started screwing Lissi. He once told me that every few years, he succumbed to weakness and slept with a female student, sorry to say, but at least it proved he wasn�t a goddamned pervert. He told me that all the male teachers here sleep with their female students and brag about it, and that the university doesn�t care. Just fringe benefits�.I finally asked him, over the break, if he was screwing her. He said he had never screwed her, and I didn�t bother pretending to believe him�.The last day at his house, I told him our little fling had officially ended. He didn�t react.�
�You think he�ll fail you?�
�Let him try.� Peyton yawned a Grand-Canyonesque yawn. �Sorry. I gotta get some sleep. But before I do�do you have any problem with my being gay?�
�No, no, of course not, Peyton.�
�I thought so.�
�You�re a good friend, gay or straight.�
A few minutes later, we both went to bed, in our separate beds. I didn�t fall asleep until around 6:30 AM, half an hour before my usual rising time. I did start sleeping with my back to the wall, as in my ass to the wall.
TO BE CONTINUED
Fiction, Home, and nothing about my renowned idiopathic sensitivity.
� 2007 David V. Matthews