Slouching Through the Seventies

This is the sequel to "Big Man on Campus," a tale of college life and gay relationships in the age of craziness. It was really fun in person.

*****

I have a little trouble sorting out college and the immediate time that came after it.

We were awfully high, after all.

It is hard to believe it now. I honestly don't recall much about the latter half of my Freshman year at IU, nor can I really unscramble Sophomore and Junior Years. It was not until the awful specter of graduation loomed that I started to clean up my act and focus on what I was going to do next.

Which is not to say that I don't have a fabulous warm texture for it all. The dope was plentiful and inexpensive, the sex was likewise, and the music was fantastic.

I was organized enough to go to class when necessary, and we always had the ultimate card to play with our professors if things got a little out of kilter. "What do you want to do to me? Hand me a rifle and send me to murder little kids in an unjust war?"

Not that I cared that much, one way or the other. It seemed like the war was going to peter out before my class graduated, and the Movement on campus was a fun way to run amok without many consequences.

I began to live something of a double life in my Freshman year. I found a string of lovers early on who met most of my needs.

Greg was the first. He was a very oral guy, and we had mutual suck-fests from the first night we got together. He was a stud, with a firm cut cock that was very much like my own. He was a sort of luke-warm political type, sorta committed to the Liberation, but mostly committed to a systematic undermining of the Illinois sodomy statutes.

We slept together, if that is what you call it, a couple times a week. With my sexual drive covered, I continued to live a pretty normal life in the Dorm and on campus. I pledged a fraternity because it felt like home and I liked being around a bunch of macho studs, fitting in with them, and keeping my life as a practicing homo- I mean a Gay- a separate issue.

Greg used to tease me, even as my Beatle-cut bangs grew out and my chestnut hair began to cascade over my collar.

I might have got a haircut later in the year; I think I did around finals times, and I got the bangs cut so that things evened out. I liked Greg's pony-tail and he told me that there were really only two ways to wear your hair: either short enough so that it didn't get in your eyes or long enough to pull back and secure with a rubber band.

I found it pretty erotic. He liked me to fuck him, though that was not my favorite thing. I preferred to be his bottom and all-round cocksucker, but fair is fair, after all. I was ramming him from behind one afternoon in the hour I had between Modern European History and Ecologic Studies when it came into my mind how sexy his long hair looked all gathered together and writhing over his back.

I gathered it in my hand and pulled back. Not hard, mind you, but enough to bring his head up like a mare being fucked by a stallion, his eyes wide in pleasure.

What struck me then was just how much I wanted him to do the same thing to me. God, I shuddered when I pumped his bowels full of hot man-cream. After I softened and slid out of him I turned him over and went down on his rigid shaft, slobbering up and down with desire for my rich slimy reward.

After that, I wore a pony-tail from the moment I was able to get it all pulled back in a rubber-band. And when he fucked me I insisted he slap my ass-check hard, and pull my head back like he was reining in an out-of-control mare.

We went to the big demonstration in Washington in his van, and the IU students got their asses kicked by the National Guard. The Guard shot the kids over at Kent State, and everyone had turned against the war. It was just a question of time. Things weren't quite the same after that. The air came out of a lot of people about the way the government responded to us, and despite my best efforts, I preferred blowing Greg in the van to getting my head split by a riot cops baton.

With the war winding down, Greg didn't see any impediment to graduating. He had heard how cool it was out on the West Coast, and he decided that the time was right.

The legislature changed the drinking age around that time from 21 to 18, and I was retroactively legal.

Oh, we could vote, too, and I seem to recall that was the point. But campus got so crazy that it was remarkable that any of us graduated. Bars proliferated. I would party at the Frat and then go downtown for as many pitchers of beer as the allowance could afford.

The frat had a bar where we were regulars, and suddenly the local gay bar was joined by two others that split the crowd into lesbian and Gay male, and mixed. The frat guys wouldn't go near any of them, or better said, the straight ones wouldn't, and when I tagged along with Greg to the bars I made some notes on who I might be able to look up later.

I got a job on the University landscaping crew for the summer so I could stay on campus. It didn't pay much, and the town pretty much emptied out. So I didn't have to worry about keeping my lives and friends separate.

It was a sorrowful parting with Greg and the emotion was all real. The last night we were together was quite extraordinary. He lubed me up and fucked me forward and back, but the last act of love we made was the same sixty-nine we had done the night we first hooked up. It was tender and sweep licking him and suckling on him as he did me. It was the best way to feel life was a circle, sucking and being sucked, his tongue lapping my balls, me capturing both his orbs in my mouth and gently sucking them both like a large mouth bass.

He drove me wild with his tongue and I gave him as good a load as he gave me. It was with a lot of sadness that I saw that luscious cock disappear into his briefs and watching him fire up the air-cooled engine on his Beetle bus and head west.

I assumed the lease on his little apartment and abandoned myself to mindless work and more partying through the summer. I had to find a new lover, and I gravitated to the usual suspects who were full time residents of the town.

Bob the Campus Radical was there, of course. He was sort of the anti-BMOC, or big man on campus. He tried to keep his Coordinating Committee on top of everything, and keep everyone's consciousness elevated. But what with the Paris Peace talks and the prospect that the war was going to die down, what they mostly did was sit around and get high.

I was welcome enough, a familiar youthful face. Since they knew that Greg had been fucking me almost exclusively for a year, they figured the Pigs could not find a confirmed undercover cocksucker to infiltrate their group.

I think they were right on that. This was years before anyone was really out and in the establishment. Gay cops at the time seemed like a complete impossibility.

I hooked up with Bob because he was bored and horny, which I think is why we all do.

I'll confess I had a hankering for him, and had been impressed the first time he talked to me at the mixer the year before, and then watching him from a distance at the speeches and demonstrations through the year. I knew that the cops were watching him, and that gave things the sense of danger that was a real turn-on. Bob was a real Revolutionary, though for exactly what I wasn't sure.

He had a sense of humor, and after a political strategy session which turned into a mini-hash bash, he waggled his finger at me, summoning me to his inner sanctum.

He had a room in a commune decorated with a big white cat. The commune styled itself the IU chapter of the White Panther Party run by John Sinclair. John was a dude who was going to overthrow the government of the United States and wound up getting put in prison for ten years for selling two joints to an undercover cop. His conviction was overturned thanks mainly in part to John Lennon and seven others who organized a movement to set him free. Lennon even wrote a song about it "It ain't fair, John Sinclair..."

I should have thought about what happens when you decide to overthrow the government, but what the hell. I was rising twenty and bulletproof.

Besides, Bob was hypnotic handsome. He had dirty blonde hair that he had trimmed up so he looked semi-respectable, like Tom Hayden of the Chicago Seven. He had full, florid Dutch features and passionate full lips. He was always well shaven and it must have been the speed that kept him trim, since

But he got plenty of that. I found out quickly that he liked being in control of things, right down to the smallest detail, and as far as the sex went, that was fine with me.

Oh, I'll confess it was irritating at times, not the least of it being the fact that we shared the same name. He was the famous one, though, so he got to be the default value. When there was confusion I became Little Rob. I suspect there were other nick-names, too, but if there were I didn't hear them. On the whole, it was great to be along for the ride.

And ride me he did. The first time he took me was just exactly like that. He waved me into his bedroom and closed the door and told me to strip. I looked at him, a little stoned, and asked him what he wanted.

He sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed. "I don't have a lot of spare time, Rob. I didn't want to screw around with you and Greg, but he is gone. I need someone to keep me serviced so I can continue to give my time to the Movement. I have decided you are going to be my lover, and if you are satisfactory, I may keep you with me as we move onto bigger things in the Fall."

I looked at him for a moment, thinking about the implications. Then, with the same level of careful attention most of us applied to momentous decisions at the time, I peeled off my shirt, unbuckled my jeans, kicked off my moccasins and stripped off my bellbottoms. Wearing underwear was considered bourgeoisie at the time, and so there I was, buck-naked. I walked over to where he was seated and got on my knees between his legs and unzipped his jeans and began to get into my new role in the Movement.

When I fished his stiffening cock out of his jeans I examined it closely. It was a nice piece of meat, not overlarge, but full and pleasing in aspect. He was cut and about six inches long and pleasantly fat, with a satisfying girth and a nice ballsack nestled in fair pubic hair.

He stroked my hair as I took him in my mouth. I really liked that part, and the fact that he would lecture me while I blew him, outlining the key political issues and the corresponding direct action that the Coordinating Committee was going to take. When he came, he came rapidly and with vigor.

I managed to keep it all in my mouth and swallowed hungrily. I loved to suck his cock when I was high, and the rich reward and the acrid taste followed by a Marlboro and a cold beer were heaven.

It was definitely an unequal relationship, but I really didn't mind. I did a lot of hanging around waiting for him, and the other political players seemed to treat me as a sort of groupie, someone to be accommodated but not deferred to.

He wanted me to sleep with him regularly, and I became a fixture in his bed at the White Panther House.

There were all sorts of people there from the Movement. There were angry black people who were in an uneasy alliance with the white students, but were not at all comfortable with faggots, a word I normally heard only behind my back. But not far behind my back.

There were a lot of women, also angry, a lot of them Lesbians, but straight ones, too. Some of them cute and since they all had Movement relationships, they viewed me as no threat and let me into the club as a sort of sister. And there were the rampantly heterosexual revolutionaries, and they were getting as much pussy as they could handle.

When I would be at a meeting with Bob, I could see some of them look me up and down, faded bell-bottom low-ride jeans, package nestled in a worn place that highlighted it, Mr. Natural tank-top and heavy-lidded blue-eyed gaze, my pony-tail luxurious down my back.

I could tell that some of them would have fucked me just for the experience, and others, whether faggotry offended them or not, couldn't say so because it wasn't politically correct.

So I suppose I shared a lot with most political spouses. He would be tired when we finally got to bed, he wasn't very interested in my problems, and I had to be attentive to his.

Sometimes all he wanted was a blow-job before sleep, and other times he wanted a straightforward fuck. I would be laying there, wondering what would come my way. If me stopped at the rickety bureau in the corner and I heard the muted farting of the push-dispenser of the moisturizer, I knew I would be rolled one way or another.

I think he had a preference for the missionary position, or maybe it would just be his level of fatigue. If he was particularly spunky, he would flip me over and take me vigorously from behind, driving my face into the pillow. I loved that position, since it got his cock deepest into me. He was not a premature ejaculator, but he also did not last a long time, and my pleasure clearly wasn't the point. But his cock was fat enough and long enough to hit my magic spot. Sometimes I would cum spontaneously and get to sleep in the residue as his semen leaked from my sore but contented asshole.

If he had a hard day, or a bad one, he would run two fingers of moisturizing cream up the crack of my ass, pull my legs up to his shoulders and enter me roughly and expeditiously from on top, looking down on me as he thrust into me roughly, my hair spread all around me on the pillow like a twinky princess.

I liked either one just fine, and learned that I sometimes was going to have to take care of my own hard-ons for satisfaction.

So like I said, it was very much like what other political wives have had to do down through the ages of meetings and glad-handing by their politician husbands. I honestly didn't mind. It was interesting.

We were nearing the end of the summer. I quit the job on the grounds crew, since Bob said he needed me to be more flexible in my schedule. There was a big meeting in Chicago in the middle of August to kick off a new round of protests and public actions. My folks had been bugging me to come home and visit. I told him I was going to go home for a few days and meet him at the crash-pad the Coordinating Committee had rented in the big city.

He sniffed a little, but had enough kindness in him to say that he could spare me for a couple days. I went down on him in thanks, and he came an astonishing amount, and it tasted slimy and sweet and I stayed down on him until I had lapped him all clean again.

The trip home was another one of those coincidences that life pivots on.

I was getting the fish-eye at the family reunion barbecue even though my hair was neatly pulled back and I was wearing a collared shirt. I got the lecture about responsibility and inquiries about what I was going to do after Senior Year, which was going to start in just a few weeks.

I gruffly said I was going to use my degree in Journalism to start a career with one of the local papers and work my way up and be an international correspondent. It sounded like a plan that I had thought about, though the dimensions had largely floated through my brain that moment. It sounded vaguely glamorous, if unprofitable, and my folks let it drop. I hung out with my girl cousins who were visiting for the reunion, and we got along famously.

I was a little concerned that I was losing the ability to change from one role to another. I honestly identified with some aspects of my cousin's lives. I was a little unsettled about changing more than I had intended, getting those mannerisms that were just fine in bed, or in a group of other Gay people, so I watched myself and stayed out of the family limelight. The visit appeared to be coming to an end without disaster.

At least for the family.

The morning before I was supposed to join Bob in Chicago, I was reading the local fish-wrapper and nursing a headache from too much alcohol and too few drugs the night before. I saw below the fold that the Chicago police had busted a crew of Revolutionaries who were Going To Overthrow the Government and presented a Clear and Present Danger to Public Order.

The article implied it was going to be as big a deal as the Chicago Seven, but this time the Yippy Bastards had dope and weapons.

A shotgun, cocaine and marijuana were found, the article went on to say, and there was evidence of homosexual activities. Bob's picture, him looking defiant and cute like he did when he fucked me energetically, was alongside the article. Additional suspects were being sought by the authorities, the story concluded.

My heart raced. Aside from the drugs and sodomy part, I had no interest in the Revolution. I rose from the table and went up to my room and flushed my little stash of pot. Then I looked in the mirror and decided that I was not going anywhere near Chicago.

That afternoon, I drove over to the mall where I had worked with Alexander before the long strange trip of college had begun. I wondered how he was doing, and if his exploration of Black Power had landed him in jail, too.

I went into one of the new uni-sex boutiques and got my long hair cut off and bought a set of chinos from a young sales guy in the store where I used to work.

I thought he was sort of cute, and wondered what he thought when I asked him to measure my inseam "just to make sure" of the proper length.

I went up to the cabin my family owned for the last week before school started and laid low. When I went back to campus, everyone commented on how young Republican I looked. I arranged to move back into the Frat House and stayed the hell away from anything to do with the Coalition and the White Panther House, which appeared to be vacant.

I was jumpy as a cat, though no one came after me, which I suppose meant that the cops had their tip from an informant in another organization. And I was just a political wife, anyway. Not worth the trouble.

But with my hair gone and the possibility that the cops could stage a follow-up bust, I was on the straight-and-narrow, at least for the time being. I even started going out with women once in a while, though it never led to anything serious.

I watched the papers. Bob got ten years, just like John Sinclair. They convicted him of trafficking in cocaine and possession of marijuana. I knew the pot was possible, though he was normally more clever than carry his own. He normally had me to do that. I suspect the cops planted it on him, along with the shotgun they found.

They did not give him bail, either, since he was considered a risk of flight.

All things considered, I considered myself the luckiest faggot on campus. But I sure missed Bob's fat cock and the taste of him in the night.

I didn't know what to do about that.

I found out later that Alexander had some problems too, down in Washington. But apparently he worked them out just fine, and was getting entrenched in the local DC activist machine.

It was going to take a while, for me though. I thought maybe it might be time to get out of town for a while and cool off.

Copyright 2016