Part One
I met Teddy Azinger - "Zinger" to almost everyone who knew him - the first day of my freshman year in high school. Zinger was the BMOC from get go. He looked older than the rest of us, and he had the bluest eyes any of us had ever seen. They were shockingly, almost frighteningly, blue. If I had not known differently, I'd have thought they were fake. They were that liquid. And, they danced when he smiled, which was almost all the time. Zinger had a big, broad smile, framed by full, red lips. And, it was simultaneously knowing and mysterious. Zinger may not have had a tiger by the tail, but he sure acted like he did.
For the next four years, he listened to music none of us had heard of, mixed drinks none of had tasted, and took drugs none of us could have gotten our hands on. And, he had whatever "it" is that makes people say "he has it." I do not know what that is, as I have never had "it." I have always been a little too furtive, a little too eager to please, a little too enthusiastic, a little too harried.
Zinger was none of those things. He was casual, always seemed comfortable, languid almost, and never hurried. He sat back and soaked it all in. He moved slowly and surely. He seemed like he knew stuff none of us knew, like he had experienced things none of us had, or ever would.
For most of high school, I hovered near Zinger's orbit. Both smart, we shared most classes. We studied together a little. We hung out together a little every now and then. We were friendly, but we were not really friends. I was the kind of person he nodded to in the hallway, not the kind of person he stopped to talk to.
Too many times, he caught me staring at him. Often, it was at his eyes. More often, it was at his body. Zinger was a committed runner and weight lifter, and his body thickened, thinned, and developed throughout high school. While I stayed small and shapeless, he filled out beautifully. By the time we were 18 year old seniors, he was 6 feet tall, weighed 180 pounds, and had virtually no body fat. He was both muscular and lean. He had masculine hands and feet that he kept up properly. The only thing that separated him from Adonis was the mat of hair that covered his chest and the path that flowed from it into his pants. I loved that mat and that path. I desperately wanted to follow it. I hoped with all I was that he did not sense my desperation.
Spring semester of our senior year, the Honors German students who could afford it traveled for three weeks to Germany. In our group, there were three boys and nine girls. Once we got to Frankfurt, we were joined by two groups from Minnesota, one from Blaine and one from Jackson. We shared the same bus and hotels for our three week trip.
The first night, we were in Rothenberg, a small village with a wall surrounding it. Zinger asked me to walk the wall with him. I went. It was snowing and beautiful, and it took us a long time to circumnavigate the village. Our walk was oddly intimate, as we both talked, but also felt no need to fill the stillness with talk. It made no sense to that Zinger had invited me, not his friend Steve or one of the girls who was pining for him. When the walk was over, Zinger shook my hand.
"I really enjoyed that," he said as he smiled into me.
"Me, too," I responded as I smiled back.
By design, Frau Lucinda put me, Zinger, and Steve in the same room that night. Surprisingly, the room had only a king bed, so we would be sleeping three across. Germany had no drinking age, so we were likely to be too drunk to care.
All of us went out. The German barkeepers responded to the American invasion with David Bowie's "This is not America." Zinger drank German beer all night. I did not like beer, much less warm, bitter beer. So, I drank vodka and orange juice. Steve did not drink at all.
By the time we returned to the room, Zinger and I were smashed. We both tugged off our shirts, pulled off our jeans, and collapsed onto the bed, wearing only our traditional white briefs. Steve climbed in to my right, leaving me in the middle.
Steve was objectively better looking than Zinger. He was a long-distance runner, and he had long, sinewy muscles that were covered in light blonde hair. He also had a chiseled jaw beneath dark brown eyes and wavy blonde hair. When he was out of school, he looked like a surfer. When he was in school, he looked like a scion.
But, Steve never moved me the way Zinger did. Steve just did not have "it." I would have blown him, but I was not hungry for him.
The hotel's steam heating system was banging away, and our room was hotter than Hades. Being drunk teenagers in Germany, we made lame gas chamber jokes and then laughed our asses off before passing out. When I woke up at 5 or so, I was covered in sweat. So, I kicked the covers off all of us. I immediately noticed that Zinger had his right hand tucked into his white briefs and was holding his dick. I watched him the rest of the night, as every once and again he gripped and then released his hard on. The next day, everyone assumed I was hung over, and I probably was. But, mostly, I was tired from watching Zinger squeeze and release his dick, when I should have gone back to sleep.
Two nights later, we were in a room with three twin beds. Only there were four of us: Me, Steve, Zinger, and Katie, a blonde from Jackson. Katie was in bed with Zinger. And, from the sound of it, she was having a good time. Zinger had the decency to wait until he thought Steve and I were asleep, but I had only pretended to be. Not long after he whispered my name without answer, I heard Zinger whisper "slip your panties off." Then, I heard some shifting around before Katie gasped, which I took to mean Zinger's hard dick had entered her. The room was too dark for me to see exactly what was going on, but it was light enough that I figured out that Katie had her legs almost straight up in the air as Zinger fucked her. As he did, her breathing quickened, and she started to make small, ragged noises. I gripped my own dick, imagining I was the one he was fucking. Listening to the slap of his dick slamming into her wet pussy, I was not going to last long. When Katie muttered "oh . . . oh . . . oh," I shot. When she whimpered "yes yes," I shot again. When Zinger grunted, I could almost feel his orgasm building in my own balls, and I shot a third time. Zinger collapsed onto Katie, exhaling loudly as he did. Before too long, she climbed out of the bed, and went to the bathroom to clean herself up. After she had, Zinger rolled onto his side and stared in my direction. For some reason, I thought he was staring right at me, and that he knew I had jacked off to the sound of him fucking Katie. But, I hoped not.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We toured during the day, drank ourselves silly at night, and passed out drunk here and there, only to repeat the same general pattern the next day. It was that way in Salzberg. It was that way in Heidelberg. It was that way in Munich.
It was that way until the last night, in Frankfurt. That night, we stayed sober, as we had a very early flight home the next morning, and none of us were seasoned flyers. Hungover for an 8 hour flight seemed like a bad plan.
As we checked into our hotel room, we were beat from a trip of drunken debauchery. Our room had one full bed and one twin bed. Steve immediately claimed the twin, leaving Zinger and me to share the full. When we climbed into bed in only our underwear, Zinger did what he normally did, sliding his hand into his briefs and gripping his dick. I had to ask.
"What's the deal with that?"
"I like to hold my dick as I go to sleep."
"Every night?"
"Every night."
After Steve flipped the light out, Zinger leaned his face close to my ear. "You can hold it tonight if you want."
I had no idea how to respond. I was gay, but I thought I was the only person in the world who knew that. I longed to touch a dick other than my own, but I feared the blowback if anyone ever found out I had. I was not the most popular kid in school, but I also was not an outcast. If people found out I was gay, then I would be. Gay was not okay at my high school, which was the kind of place that rewarded conformity and disdained difference of any kind. With all that swirling through my head in the split second I had to respond, I ignored Zinger and pretended to be asleep. When I woke up, it was light, and Zinger's hand was still in his underwear and holding his dick. I wondered if I had missed my chance.
Part Two
We caught our flight, and hopscotched our way back to our Missouri town. Neither Zinger nor I mentioned our last night in Frankfurt, at least not until we were in Minnesota together later that summer.
During the remainder of our senior year, Zinger and Katie kept in touch via long distance and letters (this was before cell phones, email, text messages, and snapchats). Mid-summer, Zinger suggested a trip to Minnesota to "catch up" with (i.e. fuck) our friends.
Steve could not get off work, and we did not invite any of the girls to go. So, after work the Thursday before the 4th of July, he and I took my mother's featureless (no radio, no A/C) red Escort and started the 10 hour drive north to Jackson, MN. I had not seen Zinger since graduation, almost two months before. Freed from our high school's grooming strictures, he had let his sandy blond hair grow long, and he had it pushed back behind his ears. His face was stubbly with whiskers. And, his eyes were the clear blue that comes with carelessness and rest. Years later, I realized he looked exactly like Curt Cobain would. He was hot. Sexy. Intoxicatingly so.
A few hours into the trip, I noticed that Zinger's grey gym shorts were tenting. He noticed me noticing.
