Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

It had been a slow roll. Over the Fall semester, my visits to his office became more and more frequent, far more frequent than required for the seminar he taught. I found myself drawn to him, my smile wide as I walked toward him, his smile wide as he greeted me, the intimacy we shared as we talked slowly filling the empty spaces in his office.

Once there, I found myself not wanting to leave. And, I found his "I need to get home to Claire and the girls" coming later and later until they stopped coming altogether.

When my visits started, he was always behind his desk. As they continued, he moved to the front of his desk, his backside against the edge, his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms crossed over his chest.

I didn't know if he noticed, but I stole glances at his crotch as I wondered about his penis, whether it was cut or uncut, whether it was long and thin like him or short and fat like mine, whether it was as big as his hands suggested it might be. The glances revealed nothing, no bulge visible.

"You know what they say about men with large hands?" I teased.

"Yes," he deadpanned, "large gloves."

"You should play the piano."

"I do. I was an only child. It's what's done."

"Do you play well?"

"I do everything I do well."

I used his hands as a feint. I pretended I wanted to look at them more closely. I held them in mine, little bolts of electricity shooting from them into mine.

I looked at them intently. I noticed the hair on the backs of them, none between the nail and the first knuckle, none again between the first knuckle and the second, a hint of hair between the second and the third knuckle, the back dusted by a light brown whorl.

I looked at the nails. They were deep and long, half moons brightening the otherwise dark pink beds.

I didn't want just to look at them. I wanted to hold them. So, I turned them this way and that until my fingers were locked in his, left and right. I was giddy, his hands in mine.

He didn't try to free himself. So, I moved our hands, lowering them, until they were by our hips, our fingers still intertwined. We were holding hands.

We just stood there, his hands in mine, mine in his. I began to wonder.

"What does your family call you?" I asked, my hands still in his.

"Really?" he asked.

"Really," I answered. "Not your extended family, your dad and your mom. What do they call you when no one else is around?"

"What makes you think they call me anything other than Jackson?"

"It's what parents do."

"It's too embarrassing," he deflected.

"It's not," I insisted.

"If I tell you, I'll have to kill you," he joked.

"You're already killing me" flashed through my mind, a thought that I captured before it escaped my lips.

"Tell me," I said, squeezing his hands, my voice intimate and low.

"Bucky…. When we're alone, my parents call me Bucky. Sometimes, it's Buck. Usually, it's Bucky."

As he said it, he was abashed.

I didn't ask. I knew it derived from his teeth.

"I love those teeth," I said, showing him that I knew why he was abashed. "When you smile, they light the way."

He smiled. Big. His teeth lit the way. It was all I could do not to kiss him.

"What about you?" he asked, his hands still intermingled with mine. "What does your family call you?"

"Rip," I answered. "My father used to refer to virtually any action in the living room other than sitting still and shutting up as 'ripping' around the room. 'If you're going to rip,' he'd say, ' leave the room'. I was very active, so, l don't know, I became Rip. I was always ripping."

On following visits, he was in the chair next to me, sometimes his hand in mine. It wasn't automatic, and it was my doing. We'd talk, I'd reach for his hand, usually sitting limply on the arm of his chair. He'd let me take it, I'd mingle my fingers with his, and we'd talk, his hand in mine, my hand in his, my mind wandering and wondering.

"That seems like plenty," he had said the first time I had pressed the issue and prolonged the intermingling.

"Indian men hold hands all the time," I demurred.

"We're not in India," he answered.

He continued to say "that seems like plenty," each time I pressed the issue. He just waited longer each time. And, each time he waited, my mind wandered and wondered.

I started paying attention in a way that I didn't typically pay attention.

I watched him in the halls. I noticed nothing. His eyes didn't follow anyone.

I watched him when I was in his office. Unlike me, he never glanced down. And, I gave him every opportunity to steal a glance, raising my arms to reveal my path to paradise, "forgetting" to zip my jeans after I stopped in the bathroom on my way to his office, standing myself against the armchair so that my bulge was "in the window," as I liked to say.

"Jesus fucking Christ," I thought to myself as I jerked off, thinking about what it would be like to be jerking off Jackson Masters. "I'm hot for teacher."

I was. I looked forward to my visits to him the way a child looks forward to ice cream. Or Christmas.

When I sexed it out, and I sexed it out a lot, I imagined whomever was over or under me that particular night was actually Jackson. We were not just two guys getting off but instead two guys getting each other off, the way guys are supposed to get each other off, with passion and purpose, not just lust and luridness.

"Oh my God," my friend Kelly said when I admitted to her what I had finally admitted to myself. "Maybe he's like Aaron Schock, you know, all right wing pious on the outside and all closeted queer on the inside."

"I don't think so," I said. I wanted him to be, but I didn't think he was, regardless of my wondering.

"So, what is it, then, that has you hot for him?"

"All of him. He's objectively attractive, but he's also one of those guys who gets more and more attractive the more you know him. He's a six that becomes a seven that becomes an eight that becomes a nine that becomes a ten…. And, he's so fucking kind. I swear, I've never heard him utter an unkind word. It's startling. And, he's so fucking thoughtful. Not in the 'I thought of you and got you this' way. But, in the 'I've thought about that and here's what I think" way…. And, when you're with him, I mean really with him, there is nothing else and no one else, you are the only thing…. It's overwhelming, in the most profound sense of that word, when he's focused on you."