Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 19:29:44 +0000 From: Keith Subject: Coming Out at Uni - Part Two Coming out at Uni - Part 2 Disclaimer: Each part of this story may contain vulgar language and descriptions of gay sexual activity. If such things are likely to upset now, or you are underage to read this material in your jurisdiction you should leave now. This is a work of fiction, and none of the characters are real people. * * * * * * * * * * * * I went down to the dining hall just before 8 o'clock the following morning for breakfast. I would have to get to the main campus a mile away by 10 o'clock for an orientation day with meetings for the whole Engineering faculty, and then for my specific department, Chemical Engineering. Deciding I needed plenty of energy, I gathered up toast, cereal as well as a plate of eggs, bacon and hash browns. As I left the serving area, I could see Jen sitting over to one side and went over to sit next to her. "I see someone's hungry, then," she said. "Yeah, well, you know, they do say it's the most important meal of the day, so rather than leave it to chance, I thought I'd have something of everything." We sat in silence for a couple of minutes, Jen eating her cereal, while I was demolishing my hot food. As I looked around I couldn't help but notice the variety of people staying in the hall - some were already dressed to set off straight from breakfast, with every fashion type known to man represented, while at the other extreme were guys rolling up in just their boxers, probably intending to go straight back to bed after eating. I was actually filling the middle ground, having thrown on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to come downstairs, but intending to go back and shower and change before heading out for the day. Jen finished her cereal, and headed over to the front of the hall to get rid of her bowl and get herself a coffee. She came back and sat down again, and then apologised, "I'm sorry, I should've got you a drink too." "Don't worry about it," I replied, "I'll grab a cup on our way out." "So what's the plan for today?" she asked, between blowing gently on her coffee to cool it down. "Well, I've got the Engineering Orientation Day today..." "Cool, so have I!" she interrupted. "You're an engineering student too?" I asked, with a note of surprise in my voice, as I spread some butter rather inexpertly on my toast. "Yeah, it's not just guys. We're not in the 19th Century now, you know. I'm doing Civil Engineering." "Hey, no problem here. That's so cool. I have to do a Civil Engineering module as part of my Chem Eng course." "Great," she said, "We can go down to the first part together then. If you ever stop eating, we can go get ready, and I'll meet you at the front entrance at 9:30?" "Yeah, that'll be fine. You can head off now, while I finish up here. See you in a bit." "Yeah, see you shortly," she said, and headed off towards the girls rooms. I picked up a coffee and an apple as I left the dining hall, and headed back up to my room. I quickly undressed and wrapped a towel round me to head to the showers. I quickly washed and dried myself, and as I was heading back to my room I saw Jake come out of his room in just his briefs, still looking half-asleep. "Hey Jake," I said, "If you want breakfast you're gonna have to get a move on; they stop serving in like 10 minutes." "I'm not gonna bother," he said, "I'm just gonna take a paracetamol and get back to bed. My fucking heads pounding after last night." "OK, see you later then," I replied, heading into my room. I quickly downed the coffee, which had cooled down during my shower, and cleaned my teeth at the small sink in the corner of my room. I then grabbed a pair of jeans and a clean white t-shirt and got dressed. I had a quick look in the mirror, deciding to go with a messy look to my brown hair, and thought I could probably make a bit more of an effort as I was going to be meeting a lot of my fellow-students for the first time, but time was pressing and I decided to stay as I was. I made my way down in the lift, and saw Jen waiting there as she had promised. We set off down the hill, and had gone a couple of hundred yards when she said, "So, have you thought any more about what happened last night?" "Yeah, I couldn't get to sleep for ages. You know, I came here thinking that it would be so easy to start over, and just come straight out of the closet, if you'll excuse the contradiction there, and just be out there and happy, but now I'm here it's not so easy after all. I actually wish in a way Jake wasn't here, and that's really horrible cos he's been like my best friend forever. I dunno, it's like he's a continuation of my past life, where I found it really difficult to be who I want to be, and I feel I can't change with him still around." "I know how you feel," she said, "Don't forget you're the only person that knows I'm gay too. We're gonna have to support each other through this." By now, we had reached the near side of the main campus, and were walking alongside the athletics track. "I guess we'll have to think about it some more," I said, "but I think it's gonna be a slow process for me." "I dunno," she replied, "I'm not about to climb the clock tower and shout it from the top, but I don't feel the need to deny it. If anyone asks me, I think I'd be able to admit it." "Good for you," I commented, "I still don't think I'm ready for that yet. Anyway we'd better hurry; we've got to be there in about three minutes flat." We made it into a large lecture theatre in the Mechanical Engineering building in the nick of time and managed to find a couple of seats together near the back. Jen nudged me, "Hey, that's that guy from last night down there, isn't it?" I looked where she was pointing, and she was right, Josh was there, below us near the front and away to our right. He looked just as hot in daytime as he had last night at the party, and had a confident air about him. I could see he was chatting to another guy next to him, a bit taller and stockier. A middle-aged guy appeared at the front of the room and gradually the noise died down for him to speak. It turned out to be the professor in charge of the whole engineering faculty, and he gave us a fairly nondescript welcome speech before handing over to the next speaker. This was a woman and she started running through the general admin requirements, and the expectations of how we would present our coursework, and also meet with our tutors regularly. This was already getting tedious, and I glanced down again towards Josh, and noticed that the guy next to him was now whispering something to the girl sat on his other side. I looked back at Josh, admiring his small frame. "You're doing it again," Jen whispered, elbowing me at the same time, "You couldn't be much more obvious if you started drooling." This is gonna be difficult, I thought to myself. If I keep staring at hot guys like this I'll be out of the closet before next weekend. Just then, the woman's voice cut through my daydreaming, and people started standing up. "We're having a break," Jen informed me. "We've got to be back in 15 minutes for the final part of the introduction, and then we head to our individual departments to carry on there." "Cheers," I said, "Back in a mo." I left to head to the toilets, where I guessed Josh was also heading when I last saw him. He was nowhere to be seen, but as I left the toilets to head back, I saw him standing alone by a vending machine, unscrewing the lid from a bottle of water. Swallowing nervously, I went over to him. "Hi, uh, Josh isn't it. Sorry about last night." "No problem. Look Harry, I heard what you said, and I understand, really I do. What do you say we start over and meet up later?" I could barely speak, I was just delighted he'd actually remembered my name and hadn't given up on me already. "Yeah," I replied eventually, "that'd be great. What course are you doing?" "Electrical Engineering," he said, "You're doing Chem Eng I assume?" "Yeah." "OK, shall we meet up at the end of the afternoon and have a drink or something?" "Yeah, that'd be great". We exchanged mobile numbers as we headed back to the lecture theatre and we agreed to text each other when our afternoon sessions were finished. "So?" prompted Jen when I edged along the row into the seat next to her. "I spoke to him and we're having a drink later," I informed her. "Just take it steady," she advised, before quiet fell again as the woman resumed her instructions from the front. When she finished, I told Jen I'd see her later that evening and tell her how things went, and we headed off to our respective departments. Free of distractions I found the tour of the Chem Eng department interesting, and the rest of the day passed quickly. We were given our lecture timetable, with a lot of lectures planned four days each week, along with one day of practical lab work each week also. We were also given the book list for the year, and finished the afternoon by meeting our personal tutors. Mine turned out to be a relatively young guy, Dr Smith, who appeared to be in his early 30s. I was sharing him with four other students and he told us we would be having tutorial sessions with him every couple of weeks or so, and gave us his contact details in case we had any problem or questions between sessions. I had felt my phone vibrate while we were with Dr Smith, and after leaving his study, checked it to find that Josh had texted me to meet up in one of the bars in the Student Union building in the middle of the campus. I nervously made my way there, noting a student bookshop on the way where I thought I could probably get most of the books I needed. Reaching the Union building, I made my way up to the first floor bar that Josh had said he would be in, and spotted him straight away sitting alone at a small table near a window. I could see he already had a drink, and there was no-one at the bar, so I gave him a quick wave of greeting and went over and bought a lager for myself. "Hi Harry," he said as I sat down. "I'm glad you've come over." "Why's that?" I asked. "Cos I like the look of you to be honest. You're cute, and you have this innocent, naive way that I love." I could feel myself going red. "J-Josh," I spluttered, leaning towards him and lowering my voice, "like I said last night, I'm not out, and I don't think I'm ready to be out. You're one of only two people in the world that knows, my parents don't know, hell, even my best friend doesn't know." "Hey, no problem," Josh answered, as I took a big gulp of my lager. "It's different for everyone. I would like to get to know you though, like I say, there's just something about you." "Well, what do you wanna do?" "For now, let's just talk and drink. We're both gonna be here for three years; we don't have to get married this evening." "M-married?" "Jeez, relax, I'm joking. I'm just saying we can take things slow. Find out about each other, and see where we go from there. We can't even get married legally you know. Tell me about yourself." "Well, I'm from a town about 50 miles from here, only child, mum and dad are both Christians, which is the main reason I've never done anything about being gay. I thought coming here I could be myself, but it's not as easy as that." "You don't think they'd accept you being gay? Are they anti-gay?" "They've never really said anything about gay people. I suppose it's never really come up, we've never really known anyone who's gay, but, like I said, they both go to church every Sunday, so I can't see them being thrilled about it. What about you?" "Well, I am thrilled about it, but I don't think that's what you meant," he replied, making me laugh. "I'm from the south-east, youngest of three brothers, I've known I was gay since I was 13. I told my family when I was 15, and it wasn't a big deal to them to be honest. They were, like, 'Yeah, and?'". "You're so lucky, had they already guessed or something?" "I don't think so, but they're really laid back. As long as my education doesn't suffer, and I don't get into trouble, they're real easy-going. My mum did give me the safe-sex spiel though, that was embarrassing." "That would be the least of my worries about coming out to be honest." "Yeah, well, like I said, you don't have to rush anything if you don't want to." "I really want to move forward and be myself, but I'm afraid as well." "Hey, one thing at a time. Baby steps. Not much point in coming out unless you've got a boyfriend. Have you ever had a boyfriend?" "No," I said. "I've fancied guys before, but I've never done anything except in my dreams." I decided this wasn't the time to tell Josh about my crush of several years on Jake. "I've had a few," he revealed, "but all fairly casual. I've never had a boyfriend where I've thought they might be the one." "What're you saying? I'm the one?" "God, no," he laughed, "we've only just met. Like I say, I like you, I really like you, but we need to get to know each other properly and take it from there. Where are you living?" I told him as he finished his drink, and he said, "Cool, that's just up the hill from me. Come on let's get going otherwise we'll miss dinner." * * * * * * * * * * * * I've just been overwhelmed by how many people responded after my first ever chapter with encouragement and praise. Again, please email comments to me at fcbfankeith@virginmedia.com . This is my first attempt at writing a story; let me know if you like it so far and if you want me to continue. Also, don't forget that the many wonderful stories on the site are brought to you courtesy of Nifty, and a donation to express your gratitude wouldn't go amiss and would help continue the service. You can donate at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html .