Boy Plus Boy Equals Love

There is something so oddly empowering about the way I spend my days. My name is Abel Whitaker. I'm a young black man living in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. Let me tell you about my life. I was born in 1986, to Boston police officer George Whitaker and car saleswoman Jennifer Kingman Whitaker. They raised me to have ambition and a positive attitude. I'm a man who works hard every day. I'm a factory worker at Manning Steel Incorporated, a company located in Newton. I drive there in my old Pickup Truck five days a week. Recently, I've been promoted to Shift Supervisor. Along with the promotion comes a slight increase in salary. I'm making thirty eight dollars per hour now.

It's not much, especially considering the fact that my Boston-area apartment costs four hundred and seventy bucks a month. I attend school part-time, studying business administration, and that takes a lot of my time and energy as well. Fortunately, I've got an academic scholarship. Otherwise I never would have been able to attend a school like Newton State College. It's a private school for rich brats located in the town of Newton. It's not the first private school I attended. I was a student at Boston College High School a couple years back. I got into BC High through an academic scholarship. It's a really expensive school which my parents never would have been able to afford.

I wish I could live in the Newton State College dormitories. They're really nice, much better than my place, unfortunately. However, it costs a pretty little penny to go here. Student tuition goes for twenty five thousand dollars a year at this school and for those living on campus, there's an extra five grand involved. See what I mean? It's a school for rich brats. I maintain my grades and therefore keep my scholarship. I'm very close to graduating. In a few months, I'm getting my Bachelors of Science Degree in Criminal Justice. After that, I'm going straight to the Massachusetts State Police Academy. I want to become a State Trooper. It's what I've always wanted to do. That's my dream. Some people dream of playing professional sports or winning the lottery, I want to be a state cop. End of story.

Life on campus wasn't so bad. Newton State College had a nine-thousand-person student body. Demographically, the student body was fifty percent male and fifty percent female. Also, it was forty nine percent Caucasian, twelve percent African-American, twenty percent Latino and eighteen percent Asian. Apparently, that's what they called being committed to diversity. I don't pay attention to collegiate politics. I just want to get my degree and get out. A lot of people get distracted by the stuff which doesn't really matter. I'm not like that. I've always been driven, focused and determined. It's always benefitted me in my life.

During my freshman year, I had plenty of time on my hands. I took four classes during my first semester and since they were relatively easy, I thought I'd try something else. Back at BC High, I played Varsity Soccer. Newton State College had a pretty good sports program. The Athletics Department sponsored Men's Varsity Baseball, Basketball, Rugby, Bowling, Cross Country, Soccer, Volleyball, Swimming, Lacrosse, Rifle, Golf, Tennis, Wrestling, Gymnastics, Football and Ice Hockey along with Women's Varsity Softball, Basketball, Cross Country, Soccer, Volleyball, Swimming, Rugby, Lacrosse, Golf, Wrestling, Bowling, Rifle, Equestrian, Gymnastics, Field Hockey and Ice Hockey. The school's sports teams, known as the Golden Sparrows and the Lady Sparrows, competed in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division Three.

I thought about playing Soccer again, but decided to try a different sport. This year, for the first time ever, Newton State College was sponsoring a Men's Volleyball team. They were making history. I joined the Men's Varsity Volleyball team. We had a good team, and played some excellent games against schools like Bridgewater State College and Lasell College. I loved the game. I liked my teammates. We had a great season. I met a tall, good-looking Irishwoman named Sinead O'Malley. She was so fine. A tall, sexy redhead with an athletic body and curves in all the right places. She was also Athletic Director Sam OMalley's daughter and a recent graduate of Newton State College Law School. She was a very intelligent, fun-loving and passionate young woman. We had a lot of fun together. All was good for a few months, then we broke up. It was an amicable split. She found a job working as a clerk for a Superior Court Judge in Rhode Island. Neither of us believed in long-distance relationships. I still missed her, though.

To get over her, I focused on playing Volleyball. I gave it my all, as did my teammates. Yeah, we made it to the NCAA Division Three Men's Volleyball Finals. We suffered a crushing defeat at the Finals, but we didn't let that discourage us. There was always next year. I had a great time, but my grades suffered. My GPA slipped from 3.98 to 3.1. Now, I wasn't in danger of failing, but I was worried. Under the terms of the academic scholarship which I received upon graduating from BC High, I could attend Newton for free as long as my GPA never slipped below 3.0. If it ever did, I'd lose my scholarsip. So, yeah, you could say that I was worried.

After the Volleyball season ended, I focused on my academia like never before. I also went to the tutors in the campus tutoring center. I was leaving nothing to chance. It's at the tutoring center that I met a really interesting person. His name was Cain Whitman. A tall, good-looking young African-American student. He was quite possibly both the best-looking and the brightest male student on campus. Cain Whitman was a graduate student at Newton State College who volunteered his services at the tutoring center. When we first met, all I ever did was look into his eyes and I knew that my life would never be the same. Cain shook my hand and smiled. Then, he led me to a table, and asked me how he might be of service to me. I smiled at him, and took my Advanced Calculus book out of my backpack.

I sat across from Cain, and we talked. He was both intelligent and articulate, and also, quite well poised. I had never met anyone like him. I was twenty two years old, and one of the best students in my program, though I'd slacked off lately. But I knew I wasn't a bloody Genius. Cain was all that and then some. He wasn't the bragging type, but from talking to him, I could tell that he was quite intelligent. That's before I found out he was the first African-American male to be Valedictorian of a graduating class in Newton State College history. Oh, and he had also published an anthology of urban fiction which had topped the New York Times Bestseller's List for an entire week. The brother was good-looking, bright, and interesting. He was perfect. Is it any wonder that I fell in love with him?

With Cain tutoring me, my grades picked up. By the end of the second semester, my GPA had gone from 3.1 to 3.89. I wasn't back at my peak, but I was no longer in danger of losing my hard-won academic scholarship. After I got my report card, Cain and I went out to celebrate. We had been hanging out and seeing each other out of school more and more. He was a fun-loving man and great company. He knew so much about art and literature. Also, he was somewhat of a celebrity. Whenever we went out, men and women would approach him. They would tell him that his novel, about the struggles of a black college athlete who becomes an icon for justice after helping his police officer cousin rid their old neighborhood of its gang problem, changed their lives. I was hanging out with a star. It felt good!

It was during one of those outings that I decided to tell Cain how I felt. My feelings for this man had been growing stronger these past few months. We had grown closer. Not just as friends or as teacher and pupil. I sensed the potential for more. I've always considered myself to be bisexual. I just never had a relationship with a man before. I've exclusively dated women. Black women. White women. Asian women. Hispanic women. Middle-Eastern women. I've had a couple of discrete sexual encounters with a few men over the years. Usually at church parties or other social events. Nobody knows that I'm bisexual. I keep it to myself because my family and my community don't exactly approve of such liaisons. However, I couldn't keep it to myself anymore. I was in love with Cain. He once told me that he was gay, but that his feelings for me were only those of a friend. I was hoping they had evolved into something more.

I sat across from him in a nice, quiet little restaurant in the Back Bay, near Commonwealth Avenue, the city of Boston's priciest neighborhood. That's when I took a deep breath, gathered my courage, and told him. I told him that I liked him, and wanted a relationship with him. Cain's handsome face brightened, and he sighed. I could tell that he was stunned. But he was smiling. I took that as a good sign, and leaned over to kiss him. He kissed me back, and told me that he felt the same way. That night, I kissed another man for the first time. I liked it. And that's when my world changed and our relationship began. The rest, as they say, was history.