"Hey, Noah. It's Brett."
I met my college roommate on the first day there. Instant crush.
"Brett? From college?" Could it really be him?
"Yeah, Rocky. It's me." He started to call me Rocky after the news broke that Rock Hudson was gay. I called him 'lover' and he seemed to like it.
"Damn, Brett, you just gave me an instant memory rush! How are you, man?" We had lost touch years ago, right after he got married.
"Okay. No......can we talk, Rocky?" Brett was never the sensitive 'can we talk' kind of guy. I mean, we did have some good guy talk back then, but it was always about his girlfriends. Stuff that I just went along with for his company.
"Sure. What's up?" He can still get me rock hard just from hearing his voice.
"Not this way. In person." He sounds kind of down. Brett was never down, not even if/when one of his girls sent him packing.
"Okay. You still at the house?" He and his wife bought a house in the 'good' section of town. Brett was always into himself, career, money...the stuff I shied away from.
"I am. When can you be here?" That's the Brett I knew. Sure of himself. Sounding confident. God, how I remember that smile...
Part 2 -
I never came out to Brett. Not to anyone, for that matter, in those early days. But he knew. He figured it out. We never really spoke about it directly, but the joking and bro-teasing was obvious. I always kept it in my pants. Not Brett. He would prance around the dorm room naked after his shower, sit on the bed next to me, and spill the details of his latest conquest. He always got me to the point of no return rather quickly. Once, he even 'demonstrated' a move he had made, pinning me down to the mattress and pretending to go in for a kiss. He broke it off at the last second and strolled away laughing, to his side of the room. I went into the bathroom and wiped the cream out of my briefs.
"Holy crap, Rocky. You look the same! Ten years out and you look like we just left college!" He has me in a gentle bear hug. I still love Brett.
"Thanks, lover. Where's Debbie? You ever have kids?" I visited them both back then, before Debbie figured me out. She got Brett to drop me when she realized I had the hots for him. Like the song says: "You can't hide those lyin' eyes..." no matter what we did together, I only had eyes for Brett.
"That's why you're here....Noah." Face to face like this, I can clearly see the pain in his eyes. No bro-busting ass slaps. No 'Rocky' innuendo. Vulnerable. He seems vulnerable. My heart is breaking.
"What's up, B? Sit and tell me." As I plop down into what was a favorite sofa chair of mine, Brett pulls up a kitchen stool and inches it real close.
"She left me." Cue the jaw drop and wide-eyed stare.
"No way. You two were..." He cuts me off.
"We were not as much as you think, Noah. Debbie was kind of a nympho, you know.
And when I started to have some...problems, she decided to take her sex life out of the marriage. She gave me permission to do the same. So I did." Now this is the kind of talk we never had in college. My mouth is dry.
"Drinks?" He bolts up like he is relieved.
"Sorry. Sure. Beers?" I signal with a thumbs up.
After chugging half the bottle, I take a deep breath, and I'm ready for this. "One of your old college hookups?" Brett had a list as long as my arm.
"Not exactly." He is clamming up. I can see his reluctance to keep talking. This is where I shine. Helping him open up to me was always easy to do. I reach out and place a hand on his knee. Tears start to fill his eyes.
"Come on, Brett. It's me." He leans in and we hug. He sobs. I rub his back and shoulders. We are about the same height. My body is lithe and toned enough for me. Brett's body is way more muscular and about thirty pounds heavier. Yet now I feel that he is caving into me like he wants me to support him. This isn't the Brett I knew. You never know.
"A guy. It was a guy!" He just blurted out what I never expected in a million years from him. Holy fuck. My Brett was with a guy?! I take him by the shoulders and pull us gently apart so I can tell him this to his face.
"It's okay. It's okay, Brett. Sit and tell me everything."
Part 3 -
"My 'problem' started funny enough. Having trouble getting it up was not a big deal at first. We laughed it off. But I later realized that all that sex with no...no love...it must have bothered me more than I knew." I give him a nod of understanding. "When it got worse, that's when she offered up the open marriage thing."
"Was it private?"
"Hell no. She gleefully shared every detail about her lovers."
"Must have hurt."