I started off my junior year with a pretty new boyfriend.
I had known Kyle since freshman year. He and I and several other people from our old dorm had been friends all through school. We had always had a certain feeling that we might be good together, but we never quite found that perfect moment to try it out.
We were finally both single at the same time that summer. We happened to live in the same state, but his family's place was about an hour and a half from my dad's, so we could only see each other here and there. There was a movie here, a trip to the beach there, an invitation to a family barbecue where I actually met his grandparents. We really didn't have any time to get very physical, but pretty soon the new semester started, and we got to make up for lost time.
Kyle's a really sweet guy, and he's awfully cute. He was really tender when we finally got some alone time in my dorm room. There was a lot of buildup, after all. I liked the way he felt inside me, and we seemed like a nice match. If I had ANY complaint... and bear in mind, I really did like him... he was maybe just a little bit TOO gentle. It was very slow and sweet. I imagined that, as we got more comfortable, we'd start to test each other's boundaries.
Meanwhile, classes were starting again. Junior year is a big one, and I have a LOT of classes. I actually LOVE school, so I was really excited to begin.
Then I got to my first class, and I saw Mark.
I need to make sure I say this... I DON'T get crazy, heart-stopping lust-crushes on people. I see handsome guys and hot girls, and I think, oh, that's nice, look how hot they are, and then I go on with my day. I don't get stopped in my tracks and forget to breathe and have my knees start shaking because I'm so turned on.
Not until that morning, anyway.
Mark is a pretty tall guy, about six foot four, which makes him a full foot taller than me. He's athletic, with a sort of broad arc to him that tapers from his pleasantly broad shoulders down to narrow hips... and somehow the way he stood talking to some other students made the thrust of his hipbones really evident. Everything about his body was making me shiver... but then he smiled at something someone said, and I had to sit down.
It was a small class, and we sat close enough that I was soon pulled into his little chatting circle. He was INCREDIBLY funny, but in a totally inclusive way; he bolstered OTHER people's jokes, brought people in to laugh with him. That smile of his was just nonstop, and every time he smiled at you, it was YOURS...
I usually go to breakfast after my first class, but I had to run back to my dorm to change. I was drenched. I had no idea what was going on, this was completely uncharted territory for me. I don't think I can remember ever being so struck just from meeting someone. We had gotten along really well, and had exchanged numbers, and I definitely knew I would be hanging out with him. What I didn't know was how I was going to contain myself around him.
That's right, I wasn't going for it. Why wasn't I going for it? Because I had a boyfriend. Remember him? Kyle? Yea... I had kind of forgotten too. I WASN'T going to do anything, because I'm not a person that does that. Kyle and I were good, we had waited a long time to be together, and I wasn't going to blow it just because some absolutely amazing looking, charming, hilarious, really really sexy guy...
I'm sorry... lost my train of thought...
Anyway. Kyle and I kept finding time to be together. It was fun, and he continued to be a sweetie. He didn't like Indian food, which is one of my absolute favorites, and he thought the Muppets were kind of lame, which sort of shocked me, because I absolutely adore them, and it just seemed so weird that I didn't already know that about him. Our sex life got interesting. We had anal sex for the first time. The VERY first time for him. He handled it about as well as you could expect; he was really careful with me, fearful of really lacing into me... to be honest, he really hadn't grown out of that early, tender lovemaking. I told myself the more intense stuff would come.
Meanwhile, I spent a few Friday evenings going out to the bar with Mark. We would set up at the bar, and make each other laugh all night. I was getting better at not completely losing my shit at the sight of him. We could spend the whole evening enjoying each other's company, and I was more or less fine. Still, he would help me up into the barstool, or touch my hand while we talked, or stretch himself out over the bar to steal me a cherry from the bar fruit. I was lucky I was sitting down. I'm pretty sure I managed to just have a good time and not stare at him like a lovesick puppy...
Not that it was a date, or anything. I had a boyfriend.
Speaking of whom, my roommate mentioned to me that Kyle had been texting her a lot. We had all hung out together a few times, watching movies and the like, and she has a tendency to lean on people when she sits on our sofa. She's fallen asleep with her head on my lap a dozen times. Apparently, he had it in his head that her leaning on him had meant something, even though I had been right there. It was a simple misunderstanding. So why didn't he say anything to ME about it? I asked him, and he said it was nothing. But he was STILL texting her. Even after I TOLD him she had shown me his texts.
Mark just laughed it off when I told him about it. It was like the world didn't touch him. It wasn't that he was arrogant, or aloof, but rather that he was just so unflappably positive, he rose above it all. He saw the good in EVERYTHING, even Kyle's sneakiness. Maybe he was planning something for me. Maybe he's dealing with something he didn't want me to have to worry about. He wasn't dismissing my problem; he listened with his entire body. I could tell him anything. It was getting easier and easier to be around him and not have my body completely betray me. It was only when he was showing me how to play pool, and I felt the length of his body slide up behind me, that I actually mini-fainted against the table with arousal.
I confronted Kyle about his texting my roommate. He just didn't seem to understand what my problem was. He wasn't doing anything, he insisted, he was just talking. It just didn't seem to matter that I was uncomfortable with it, or that my roommate didn't like it. We both realized that we just weren't getting along. We had been much better friends, and if we kept going like this, we stood to lose that. I didn't say anything about the fact that he still hadn't figured out that I wasn't a porcelain doll in bed. That he was actually allowed to... you know. I didn't say anything about that. We just decided together that the best thing was for us to call it quits.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Great! Now you're single, and you can go after Mark, the one you SHOULD have gone after in the first place! The thought crossed my mind, too, but that weekend, I went to watch Mark's band play (of course he's in a band. Of course). He was SO gorgeous up there, and he looked down and smiled at me...
I'd be lying if I said I didn't melt, but something was different. I knew him now. He was becoming a dear friend. Even though I had never admitted to myself that I was cheating on Kyle when I went out with Mark, there was always that naughty feeling that I wasn't supposed to be doing this. With Kyle gone, that feeling was gone too.
Plus, suddenly, I was confronted with the idea of Mark as a boyfriend, not just an object of my weirdly out-of-my-control lust. It was an entirely different way of looking at him, and I just don't know if seeing him this whole new way was happening. Certainly not while he was onstage.
So. A close, platonic, spasm-inducingly hot friend he remained.
Halloween approached, and I had my costume ready to go. I had a friend make me a blue Star Trek uniform, from the original series. She kept insisting that I pick between characters, but I really don't know the show that well, I just thought the one she made for herself was really sexy. I asked her to make it blue to match these great knee-high boots I had and could never wear with anything. I looked really good in it, if I do say so myself, without the normal Halloween sluts-on-parade vibe. It hugged my middle, the skirt was short and swooshy, and it showed a small amount of cleavage over the low-cut black collar, but it was all very tasteful. Well, relatively tasteful. Stop judging me.
I knew which party I wanted to go to, and I had my weekend set, but I didn't have a date. I don't know where the notion came from that I NEEDED a date, but come it did. Maybe I was looking at myself in that costume feeling sorry for myself that I didn't have anyone to be sexy FOR. Maybe all those months of kind of meh sex followed by a rather disturbingly long dry spell just sort of got to me.
The one person on campus I thought of was Mark. I might have rewritten him as a platonic friend, but still, he had that effect on me. I called him, and he was eager to be my date. It had all the trappings of a fun time, just two pals hanging out and having fun...