Jack Edwards
jnuanced@gmail.com

The Activist , Pt 12

My Social Sciences professor secured a lecture hall for our Wednesday class and posted notices on all the department bulletin boards that ‘a gay student’ would be speaking about the gay experience at UT. I was relieved that he hadn’t put an ad in the school paper.

Actually, I was angry. I felt like he was making a big deal out of my talk, at my expense, because he was a militant at heart.

I was also scared shitless.

I was afraid of the consequences of being absolutely ‘out’. I was afraid that my ‘keeping a low profile’ was about to be blown. If my head coach got wind of it, it could cost me my scholarship. If I lost the scholarship, and Dad wanted me back in Oklahoma, I’d have few choices. My whole purpose in making the deal with my professor was to get his help staying.

But then, after all my worrying, the lecture hall was only about one-third full at the start of class. That was a pleasant surprise. My classmates were there, of course. Nate and Pauly had come for moral support and sat on either side of me in the front row. Travis and a few of my gay activist friends came. There were a few professors and grad students, and a few students I didn’t know.

I thought about it, and it made perfect sense that few guys would come. Besides it being finals week, even gay guys might not want to be seen at a talk about being gay, given by a gay student.

But then, while my professor was still making his introductory remarks, students poured into the hall from the rear doors, and the hall quickly filled to more like two-thirds. Two professors had brought their entire poly-sci classes. My stomach churned; I felt sick.

Nate was watching me. He laid his hand on my back and leaned close to my ear.

“I love you,” he whispered.

I tried to smile. Being loved by Nate was great, but I still felt like I was about to be fed to the lions. Pauly patted my knee and made it just that much harder to want to get up from between them.

My professor finished his introductory remarks. As I rose to speak, a few stragglers came into the rear of the hall. They looked like they hoped to be unnoticed, arriving after they thought the talk would have begun. Each of them looked around nervously, and then took a seat in the back row. I saw two steal glances at one another.

At first, I kept my eyes mainly on Nate, Pauly, Travis or the other gay guys, who, I knew, would be sympathetic. But I noticed a few other encouraging faces around the lecture hall, and I began to speak to them as well. There were also hostile faces. My eyes passed over them.

As my professor had suggested, I spoke about my own experiences; about always knowing I was gay, having to hide it all through high school, coming to UT, intending to be anonymously gay, but then meeting Nate, and spending so much time together that it sort of led to being outed.

“Gay guys weren’t all that different from straight guys,” I told the audience, “We have families like everyone else. We have dreams for our lives like everyone else. We like the same movies and music. We’re just as likely to like dogs or cats. We are as romantic.”

I shrugged. “My granddad always says my grandma is his best friend. Well, I’ve fallen in love with my best friend.” I looked around the lecture hall. “A lot of straight guys form deep friendships with each other, right? A lot of you straight guys have best friends who mean a lot to you. Is it that hard to understand our feelings? Is it that difficult to understand our attraction is to other guys? We aren’t so different. It’s just that when we fall in love with our best friends, our love just costs us more.”

I took a deep breath. “It hasn’t always cost us more. There have been societies where love between guys was accepted as normal.”

I talked about the Greeks and about Asian societies. I talked about famous gay people in history, and how important they were to their times. And then I summed up by talking about freedom, and how it wasn’t supposed to be only for straight people.

“Our generation is throwing off repressive traditions,” I told them. “We’re saying, ‘Hell no!’ to the prejudices and hates of the past. We’re making a new world. Gay guys want that free world, too. We want to be part of it.”

I stepped back from the lectern and nodded at the professor. There was a smattering of polite applause. Travis and my friends clapped loudly. A few of the stragglers in back, left.

“We have time for a few questions,” my professor said.

Instantly, a guy from one of the poly-sci classes raised his hand. He had long hair, and a beard. I expected a friendly question from him. What I got was, “You don’t honestly think that two men sodomizing one another is anything like the relationship between a man and a woman, do you?”

My professor stepped forward. “Let’s keep our questions and attitudes respectful,” he said with a warning frown. Then he nodded at me.

I frowned at the guy, too. “There are many ways that people make love; men and women, too. You ever ask a girl for a blow job?”

A few people murmured.

“What happens between lovers is private,” I said. “I’ve been talking about relationships.”

“I have a cousin who’s gay,” another guy said, looking thoughtful, but questioning. “He lives in New York, and according to him, it’s all about sex. He has sex with different guys all the time. Every day. He’s tried to talk me into it. He says the gay underworld there is as libertine as Rome was. He tells me that, like it’s something fantastic. He doesn’t talk at all like you do, about love and stuff. He talks about how much sex he gets.”

“It’s the same here,” another guy said. “I saw two guys going at in the bathroom at the old McDermott building. They were in a stall, but you could tell what they were doin’.”

Several people started to speak at once. My professor stood up, holding his hands up for people to quiet down.

“Don’t go characterizing all gay men by the behavior of a few,” he said. “A few gay men may be like that, but there are been plenty of straight guys who are strange.”

“Sometimes,” I admitted, “sex is easier for a gay guy to find.” I shrugged. “Guys are guys, whether they’re gay or not. Guys like sex.”

“Other than you and your boyfriend,” he asked, “ are there many other gay couples around at UT? Actual, couples?”

“I know of other couples,” I said, “and I haven’t been out all that long.”

“Are they long term relationships?” someone asked. “Or just boyfriends like you two?”

I felt my face grow hot. “How do you know that Nate and I aren’t a ‘long-term relationship?” I turned to Nate and extended my hand.

Nate stood up and came to me, taking my hand, standing beside me.

“I have loved Nate since our first days together,” I said. “At night, we fall asleep in each other’s arms, and every morning, I wake up, and I look at him, and I think how incredible my life is because of him. I spend all the time I can with him. He is my best friend.” I squeezed Nate’s hand and looked out at the audience. “Look, I can’t speak for all gay guys. I wasn’t asked to. But I can speak for me. I know a lot of you want me to feel subhuman, dirty, and unclean because I love Nate, but I don’t feel that way, and I won’t feel that way. Since meeting Nate, I feel like I’m who I was meant to be all my life. You can try to make it hard for me. But I’m happy. I’m just really happy! And… proud.”

Travis and the gay guys applauded loudly. The guy with long hair and a beard thrust up his hand.

My professor stepped forward, ignoring him. “I know of at least one other, long-term, gay couple,” my professor said. “To be fair, in our society, gay couples remain secret. They have to. So you don’t see them.” He looked around the room. “People have always used straw dogs to justify their hates and prejudices. For the Nazis, it was the Jewish conspiracy. For whites who want to hate blacks, it’s street gangs and Black Panthers. For you who want to hate gay guys, it’s elderly pedophiles hanging out in bathrooms.”

He raised his voice and pointed at Nate and me, holding hands. “But this is what it boils down to, two young men who love each other. Think about it.”

He waved his hand at the crowd. “You’re dismissed.”

Suddenly, Nate and I were surrounded by several people, some of whom wanted to argue. But my professor stepped in, and shooed people on to their next classes.

I felt unhappy, tired, and disappointed. I knew it was unrealistic to expect an entirely favorable audience, but it hurt to hear and see people who didn’t approve of me and Nate. I did feel good about one thing. I felt good that I declared how I felt for Nate.

“You did well,” my professor said, patting my back.

“I don’t feel like I did,” I said, glancing at Nate.

Travis came up, grinning. “You were great, Loren! Now you’re an activist!”

I shook my head. “I’m no activist,” I said. “All I ever wanted to be an activist for,” I said, “was Nate and me.” Pauly was standing beside me, so I threw an arm over his shoulder and hugged him to my side. “And Pauly.”

When I turned in my final on Friday, Social Sciences professor stepped out the of the classroom door with me to say good-bye.

"Do you think your father will let you come back after Christmas?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I'm eighteen. I'm coming back," I said. "And I'm not going home until after Christmas. I filled in at JC Penney last week, and they want me to work through the weekend after Christmas. I won't go home until that Sunday."

"Really?" my professor asked, surprised. "I would have thought your parents would insist you come home right away... your first semester and all."

“My parents tried,” I admitted. "But I'd rather be here. I'll spend Christmas with Nate."

"Just the two of you?"

"Yeah," I replied, nodding. "He’s sort of estranged from his family. I'm thinking of renting a hotel room, and making a special day of it. The only problem is that Nate loves to cook. He wants to fix us a Christmas dinner, and we can’t do that in a hotel room, so we may just stay home."

My professor looked thoughtful for a moment, then brightened. "I know where you should go. My in-laws have a place on Johnson Lake. Nobody will be there over the holidays. I can make sure of that. It's not much; mainly a trailer home. But it does have a kitchen, and it even has a fireplace. The family goes up there in droves during the summer."

"How much would they want to rent it?" I asked.

My professor laughed and clapped my back. "Nothing, Loren. I'll tell them that a young couple in love, who cannot return home for Christmas, want to use it. They'll be more than happy."

Pauly came by Lambda House that afternoon, to say good-bye for the holidays before he left for home. We exchanged Christmas presents. Nate and I gave Pauly a big jar of Aramis bubble bath. Aramis actually made bubble bath back then, in a large, clay jar, marketed as a Christmas gift idea. We figured Pauly and Brian would enjoy it. He left, and Nate and I left for work.

By Saturday morning all the students living at Lambda House had headed home for Christmas. The old house was quiet as Nate and I showered and got ready. I missed my family. I was sorry not to be heading home yet. I almost regretted the decision to stay, as much as I loved Nate. It was, after all, my first semester away from home.

Work at Penney’s was so busy that I soon forgot my homesickness in a flurry of activity.

Sunday morning, while still naked in bed with Nathan, I called home. I warned my family that I wouldn’t be around a phone on Christmas day because, “A friend offered to let Nate and I camp out at a cabin on Johnson lake for the day.”

“Is Nathan going to fix a Christmas dinner?” Mom asked.

“Oh, yeah. He’s all excited about it,” I told her, glancing back over my shoulder at Nate, who looked like he’d fallen back asleep on his stomach. Mom still seemed to like Nate. I decided that Dad had still not told her about us.

“How did your finals go?” Dad asked.

“Alright, I think,” I told them. “I may have one C, in Western Civ.”

“You’ve never had a C in your life,” Mom protested.

“I’ve had a lot going on this semester, Mom,” I said. “I’ll do better next semester.”

I waited for Dad to bring up OU or comment on my semester, but he didn’t. And we moved on to other things.

Nate stirred behind me, and spooned up sleepily behind my back. He had morning wood, and he pressed it against my butt. He kissed behind my ear and reached over to play with my cock. I gave him a gentle elbow, but it didn’t stop him. It was difficult to concentrate on the phone call, especially when I got hard and he began to stroke me.

When I hung up the phone, I rolled back and on top of Nate, pinning his arms.

“Just wait until you’re trying to make a phone call sometime,” I told him with feigned anger. “See what I do then.”

“Ooh!” Nate said, simpering. “Let me think who I can call.”

I growled and covered his mouth with mine. We rolled. We wrestled. We tickled and laughed, going back and forth. “I love you!” I told him, digging my fingers into his ribs.

“I love you!” he told me, doing the same. I grabbed his face in my hands and kissed him hard. He grabbed my butt with both hands and squeezed. We rolled.

I got him onto his stomach, lying on top of him, pinning him with my weight – he wasn’t struggling very hard. I grabbed the lube off the nightstand, and, holding him down with a forearm across the back, I lubed his butt, and then my cock. I aimed the end of my cock into his buttcrack, and felt my crown slide between his smooth buttocks. His tightness passed over my crown, and I eased all the way in until my loins were flat on his firm bottom. I lay on him and squeezed his legs between mine.

He raised his butt up against me, and I ground my hips, wrapping my arms under his chest.

“I like wrestling you,” I whispered. I hugged his chest and squeezed his legs between mine, and I stretched him. He strained against me, and we rocked back and forth. I grabbed his hands, my fingers between his, and I stretched them up on the bed. We “wrestled” with me inside him; our bodies writhing and straining against one another.

He was lean and hard and strong, but so was I. I sucked inside his neck. He reached behind his head and grabbed my hair. He strained back against me and I drove downward with my hips.

He rolled us to sides and then our backs, Nate’s back on my chest and belly. I popped out. We paused long enough for me to get back in.

His body undulated on mine while I held him by the hips and humped up under him. We hit rhythm, and I ran my palms over his flexing torso.

“Fuck, this is hot!” I whispered behind his ear. “Does it feel good for you?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, twisting his head back. We kissed.

I grabbed his dick with both hands. He backed his butt against my up thrusts. More than normal, I felt his insides sliding over my crown and on my shaft. His tightness ground at the base of my cock.

We didn’t stop there. Nate sat up. I sat up with him. He rocked in my lap.

I rolled him to our sides for a while.

I got up on my hands over him for a few strokes.

We tangled our legs; we twisted. I popped out, we rolled, wrestling, laughing, horny as hell for each other.

We ended up on our knees, sitting back on our haunches, like nested frogs, Nate in back. Nate came, then jacked me to a climax while he was still hard inside me. Most of my cum went off the end of the bed and onto the wooden floor.

“Well,” I said, catching my breath. “I like this position.”

“Oh, hell,” Nate murmured. “I liked all of them.”

“What better time?” Nate asked, after lunch, as we sat beside each other at the kitchen table, working on our grocery shopping list for our Christmas. “You won’t run into anyone you know,” he said. “They’ve all gone home for the holidays. And… I bought some foundation that’s your color.”

Nate batted his eyes at me. “It’s time for Loretta’s coming out party.”

“At a grocery store?”

Nate grinned. “Why not?”

I sighed. “You really want me to do this?”

He leaned close, wrapping his arm around my head. He put his lips at my ear. “Please, baby? Natasha and Loretta?”

“Can I wear sunglasses?”

“No.”

“If I don’t like it, you won’t make me do it again?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

Nate kissed my cheek. “Wait right here. I’ll be right back with everything.”

My hair was fairly long back then, and thick. With a little trimming and a blow dryer, Nate gave it a distinctly feminine styling. He did a careful job on my makeup. He kept it conservative, and yet, when I looked in the mirror, I was shocked to see a pretty girl.

Though my legs were pretty hairless, except down on my calves, Nate shaved them anyway. Nate dressed me in bikini briefs which were barely a band around my hips. They made me conscious of my hips. He’d bought some pantyhose to fit me – there are some tall women out there – and he helped me put them on carefully. He put a bra on me, and stuffed foam cups into it. He put me in a short wool skirt, which for back then, wasn’t all that short, but sure felt like it. He topped the whole thing with a sweater with a high turtleneck.

“Adam’s apples,” Nate explained. “Girls don’t have them. For that matter, let me do the talking, baby. We’ll have to work on your feminine voice.”

The effect on me, of the makeup and the clothes, surprised me. I had anticipated being a tall, plodding, self-conscious, clumsy-looking girl, but as I moved around the room, I found myself adding little flourishes to my movements and gestures, swaying my hips, keeping my chest out.

I went to the bathroom and tested myself in front of the mirror. I tried the demure look. I tried the hot chick come on. I wiggled my butt at my reflection. Nate watched from the doorway. I blew him a kiss.

He pushed off from the doorframe, and came up behind me, hugging my waist. “You’re hot,” he said, grinning. “I’ve outdone myself.”

Not all supermarkets were open on Sundays back then, and the parking lot at our store was crowded. No sooner had we gotten out of the car than a carry out boy stared at us. Nate flirted. A guy in his forties, with his wife, looked us over; then another carry out boy. I tried flirting that time; the guy was cute.

“Damn, Nate,” I said. “Every guy is looking at us.”

“That’s what makes it so much fun,” he said, in his feminine voice, and grinned.

If any of the guys at that store took us for anything other than a couple of tall knock-outs, they didn’t let on. I was still getting over a guy trying to pick me up in aisle one, when we turned down aisle three, and I saw my Social Studies professor and his wife. His wife, an attractive woman in her late twenties, watched Nate and me, critically, the way a woman watches other women. My professor smiled at me.

They were going to pass us, but Nate said, “Hello professor,” and stopped. I elbowed Nate.

My professor turned to us. “Yes?” He asked, obviously not recognizing us… at first. It took him a moment, and then his eyes went wide. “Loren?” He glanced at Nate. “Nathan?”

The jaw of the professor’s wife, dropped.

“Loretta and Natasha,” Nathan corrected.

My professor’s eyes traveled down my body. “I’ll be damned! You never mentioned you were into… this sort of thing.” He grinned. “Dynamite legs, by the way.”

“Actually,” I said in my regular voice, dropping out of character, “it’s the first time I’ve ever done this.”

Nate elbowed me to get back into character. The aisle had other people shopping in it.

The professor’s wife’s eyes went even wider at hearing my regular voice.

“Nate likes to… clown around,” I said, trying my best to return to a higher, more feminine voice. “He talked me into it.”

My professor pointed a finger down and spun it. “Turn around.”

We turned around.

My professor glanced at his wife. “They’re good,” he said.

“They’re very good,” she said, and glanced at my hair. “You have lovely hair… Nathan?”

“Loren.”

Other people in the aisle were watching. My professor leaned close to us.

“You might be careful. I’m not sure dressing like that is even legal,” he said, then he grinned. “But damn, you two make pretty girls.”

“Loretta has already been asked for a date,” Nate said.

“Just don’t be foolish enough to accept one,” the professor’s wife warned.

Nate and I chose the last register because the guy was cute and the line was short. Two sackers came up at once, and then a third joined them; all cute teenagers, and all of them grinning and talking to us. I let Natasha handle most of the talking.

Several of the other register lanes didn’t have sackers. A manager came up and shooed all of our sackers off, and took over himself. He smiled, too, and asked questions. And he was attractive in an older sort of way.

“So,” he asked as he followed us out to the Mustang, with our groceries, “did you boys find everything?”

I glanced at Nate, fighting a sudden feeling of panic.

“Don’t worry,” the manager said. “You two would fool just about anybody. I just happen to have a practiced eye. I used to have a boyfriend who liked to dress up in drag.”

“You’re gay?” I asked relieved.

“Bi,” he said, as I opened the trunk. “And if ever the two of your want a threesome with a man who knows how to treat ladies, just let me know. I’m Benny.”

“You said I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew,” I reminded Nate, as we pulled out of the parking lot. “If I’d run into one of the coaches, my ass would have been fried.”

Nate leaned across the console and laid a hand on the inside of my thigh. “Pretty Loretta,” he said, slipping his hand under my skirt, “your coach would have fallen for you.”

“Yeah, right,” I murmured. “I just hope you know how much I love you. You know that’s the only reason I did this.”

Nate grinned. “How would you like a twosome with someone who knows how to treat a lady?”

We undressed after putting away the groceries. Or rather, Nate undressed us. He had fun taking my clothes off. He particularly enjoyed rolling down my pantyhose. We left my briefs on, and I lay down on the bed to watch Nate undress. Then he came to lie down beside me.

And I discovered something. I discovered my own kink. It didn’t excite me to dress in drag, though I enjoyed doing it for Nate, and Nate excited me more as a boy, than when he was in drag. But that afternoon I discovered that I liked us in makeup… naked, boys, in briefs, with pretty eyes and lips and hair. It was strange, and I wouldn’t want it as a steady diet, but as I pulled Nate’s belly to mine and gazed into his eyes, the strangeness excited me.

Monday morning, before going in for work, Nate took me to north-central Austin, and the home of his family. I carried the box for him; the box of Christmas presents he had for his family.
,
Nate’s thirteen-year old brother, Stan, answered the door. His coloring was much like Nate’s, with dark hair and eyes and pale skin. He was already almost as tall as Nate, and nice looking. Stan smiled when he saw his older brother.

“Hi Nathan,” he said, holding open the door for us.

Once inside, Nate reached into the box and pulled out a gift-wrapped package. “This is for you, Stanley. Merry Christmas.”

Stan grinned happily. “Can I open it?”

“Sure,” Nate replied. Then he watched with obvious affection while his brother opened the gift box to find a colorful silk shirt, like we wore back then.

“Thanks, Nathan,” his brother said, and then he hugged Nate. “I miss you,” he said. “I miss you all the time.”

Nate hugged him back, rocking his little brother gently in his arms. “I miss you, too,” he said, and I saw that Nate’s eyes were damp.

The brothers parted, and Stan’s eyes fell on me.

“This is my friend,” Nate said. “This is Loren.”

Stan nodded. I offered a hand for him to shake. He shook it, without hesitation, like a thirteen-year-old, without prejudices.

“Anyone else here?” Nate asked.

“Just Mom,” he said. “She’s out in the kitchen.”

We found her there. She and Nate hugged, and she seemed really happy to see him. Nate introduced me, and she greeted me… civilly. Nate’s dad was the prick, and the reason Nate had to stay away, but it was clear that Nate’s mom wasn’t entirely pleased to meet one of Nate’s gay friends.

“We don’t have long before we have to head for work,” Nate told her. “But I brought Christmas presents for everybody.”

His mom shook her head. “You have time to at least have a glass of orange juice or a cup of coffee,” she said. “You haven’t even called lately. Tell me how you are doing.”

Nate told her about me. When he told her about how I took care of him the night he was sick, his mom smiled gratefully. She asked questions about me and my family, and what they thought about me being “like Nate”. I told her. And by the time we left, she actually seemed to like me some

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Well, I didn't expect as much email after the last chapter because of the vomitting scene, but even my junk mail quit coming. You guys even sent me less of those silly forwards you alway send. So okay, no more vomitting... honest.

I know this is another transitioning chapter, and I don't expect much email this time either, but I extended the story with your encouragement, so I sure hope you guys stick with me till the end.

As I've said before, reader emails are the only pay we Nifty writers ask for or receive, and I do like to hear if a chapter was enjoyed or not. :) My email address is jnuanced@gmail.com.