Chapter 3: Elm Hall

Ben awoke to his phone chiming with messages, he reached over to look while still in John’s embrace, they were from Josh and started: U guys will make an adorable couple 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨, 🥴.

Josh then sent him a picture he took from behind of Ben and John staring at the Mesa Arch together, arms still around each other.

Ben’s heart warmed, it was a beautiful picture and he wished yesterday had never ended. He found himself enthralled by the image and felt his knob through John’s shorts, knowing John had on that very pair in the picture under his pants. Ben started to jack off slowly, rubbing the soft fabric over his cockhead that John had worn all day. His sensitive tip thrust into the borrowed shorts he was freeballing in and Ben gripped around his cock through the fabric. He finally gasped and found himself blowing a fresh load into John’s sweaty shorts.

This woke John up, but at that instant, Josh sent him another message: It’s like 8:17, everyone is down here, where r u?

“Holy Shit, we’re late!” Ben clamored out of bed, some of his cum still dripping from the tip of his cock into the shorts.

“What time is it?” John was still groggy as he sat up.

“We have like 10 minutes to get down there!” Ben said as he hurriedly dashed to the bathroom.

Both of them quickly got ready and changed into their last set of clean clothes. John had brought his navy blue UA Shorts as well and Ben was glad he was going to get to see him in them all day over black UA boxer briefs with a red waistband, and a pair of black Nike Vapor socks. In their haste to pack up, they forgot they had traded shorts, this was fine with Ben as he didn’t know what to tell John about that wank alone he just had in John’s shorts.

As they raced downstairs their class had already started to make their way to the bus. Ben quickly grabbed an orange and some Corn Pops from the breakfast counter, which was thankfully packaged in a small box this time and John followed him outside. Alim was dragging away Roy’s bedding to return to the hotel as the pair reached the door of the coach.

Ben finally caught his breath and made his way onto the bus with John. Roy was sitting in the very front seat and gave both of them a death stare. John gave him a shrug and pushed Ben to sit together further down in the bus in front of Josh.

Today wasn’t as jam-packed as Saturday. They were going to take a quick tour of the nearby potash operations, this was an expected detour considering they went to the Colorado School of Mines, then make the 5-hour drive back to Golden with a stop for lunch in Grand Junction.

Ben and John held hands making sure to touch the soft material of John’s navy blue shorts as they hoped this weekend together would never come to an end.

“Well Eagle Scout Benjamin, are we gonna hear about those Boy Scout Stories when we get back?” John asked, squeezing Ben’s hand. Josh heard this and peeked his head between the seats with a mischievous smile.

Ben laughed. “I promise you’ll hear some when we get back, but I can’t promise you’ll find them as exciting as I found your basketball pranks.”

“I’m gonna hold you to it, you heard about all the highlights of my high school basketball career now you gotta open up about yours!” John said expectantly.

“Well maybe I have a quick funny one you can hear, I think this was the summer just after I crossed over from Cubs.” Ben scratched his head to try to remember where.

“Oh yeah, it was this great scout camp out in Idaho, even had this cool Mini Gift Shop/Trading Post”.

“About three days into our two-week summer camp there one of the guys in our troop had to go to the medic station because his wiener got a bad itchy rash, the nurse thought it was either from bad hygiene or something from swimming and gave him some ointment thing to put on it. Well, the next 2 days 3 more boys from our troop show up there with the same thing. Staff can’t figure out what’s going on, but it's suspicious, almost like an STD.”

“The whole troop gets the ‘talk’ about how we don’t want to get sent home for such shenanigans and the 4 kids deny they did anything with each other even with threats of calling home and forcing their parents to drive from Seattle to come to get them. They’re split into different tents, but as one of the Scoutmasters is moving the first kid’s stuff he comes across this nasty-looking scrap of rabbit fur with half the hairs fallen off in the middle, he at first doesn’t think anything of it, but then he looks at it again and makes the connection. They all had bought this rabbit fur at the Trading Post and were using it at night to get off. The camp unofficially renamed our site ‘Hare’ for the rest of our stay and had to remove the fur from the store. It was super embarrassing even though I was only 12 and had nothing to do with it.”

John burst out laughing “Oh my God Ben, too funny” he was laughing to the point he had tears in his eyes.

As Ben had finished his story the bus pulled into their last stop in Utah, the potash ponds.

Everyone got off the bus and admired the scenic contrast of the blue and green hues of the ponds against the sandstone cliffs.

Ben made a comment a little too loudly to John. “Wow, the greens are almost like your eyes”. It was clear at least half the class had heard him and an awkward silence ensued.

Ms. Grant started to go into detail about how the potash is mined here. They pump water to 3,900 feet below and it forces everything up into these evaporation ponds that take months to evaporate away all the water leaving the potash, and the process creates these beautiful colors.

While it was an impressive sight to see, it was evident that no one in the class had their sights set on being a potash miner, so with minimal questions, everyone got back on the bus for the 5-hour ride back to campus.

The ride home was uneventful, Ben talked John more about growing up in north of Seattle and his interest in photography with his Saturday trips to downtown Seattle to take pictures and almost getting mugged for his camera a block away from Pike Place Market. John told Ben about his summers working as golf caddy for the rich people that flocked to his resort town.

When the bus stopped for lunch at McDonald’s, Ben felt like Josh was becoming a bit of a third wheel when he wanted to sit with him and John, but he didn’t complain, for all everyone else knew they were still just lab partners and no one was dealing with attachment issues.

At almost 5:00 PM on the dot, the bus pulled into the same parking lot they departed on Friday afternoon. Some parents were waiting to pick up some of the students in the class who lived at home, and Ben thought about texting Allan to say that they were back, but he knew the only person who would really care was already sitting next to him.

John gave Ben’s hand a familiar squeeze “Will you come up with me to my dorm for a second?” Ben knew he promised to do something with Allan when he got back, but he couldn’t just say no to John if he was ready for round two already.

“Okay,” Ben said quietly, as they got off the bus.

John’s dorm wasn’t too far from Ben’s with only the Student Center and Rec in between them. Their school had only 7,000 students so it didn’t take that long to walk from one end of the campus to the other. Ben hoped the walk between them would become all too familiar for them both soon.

As they got to the stairs John stopped. “Oh, I never told you about my roommate Connor.”

“Oh, what did you need to tell me about him?” Ben asked

“Well you know he was an Eagle Scout too! But he’s a little..”. John gave him a limp wrist gesture and Ben knew exactly what he meant, but wondered why he needed to tell him now.

When they got to the door John gave it a quick knock and opened it. Connor was fully clothed in his bed leaning back on his iPad with a girl next to him, Doja Cat blaring on a Bluetooth speaker on his desk under them.

“Oh hey look who’s back, and who’s the hottie!” Connor exclaimed and started to climb down from his bed.

Ben thought he was kinda hot, with long straight blonde hair, baby-faced with a big and tall frame, but it was obvious it wasn’t developing muscle like John.

“This is Benjamin from Geology,” John introduced his roommate to Ben. “Connie, can you and Emma give us the room for 5 minutes? I just wanted to talk to Ben alone for a few and give him something”. Emma had started to crawl down from the bunk as well.

“Well, that’s certainly cryptic,” Connor commented. “But sure, Emma was needing help picking her outfits for the week anyway.”

“It’s not what you think, and can you take this with you?” John picked up the still-blaring speaker and pushed them both out the door.

“Connie?” Ben asked.

“He likes it when I call him that, it’s uhh a long story, and well don’t worry, nothing ever happened between us.” John said.

“So the Hamilton and Harry Styles posters aren’t yours?” Ben laughed.

“Oh no, only this is mine,” John pointed to the Chicago Bears flag on the side of the room that was his.

“Oh that blows, I love Hamilton!” Ben exclaimed.

Quickly trying to change the subject away from Connor, John took Ben into his arms and gave him a long kiss on the lips. “I think you love this more though.” John teased.

Ben responded by slipping his hand inside John’s navy blue shorts and cupped his package in his hands through his compression boxer briefs. John instantly sprung to life and moaned but he stopped Ben from going further.

“Not tonight,” John said disappointedly. “I just thought you might want to peek into my closet since you were so into my basketball stuff and stories. Watching you go nuts all over my gear turns me on too and maybe we can get together again in private sometime this week.”

Again Ben couldn’t say no even if he wanted to do more, the thought of Connor coming back and catching them did cross his mind and excite him, but less so the prospect of Emma as well.

John started with the top drawer of his short dresser. Inside were a whole bunch of Under Armour compression shorts in colors like black, blue, red, orange and white. On the other side of the drawer were his basketball shorts, his favorites royal blue and navy were of course not in there, the former still in Ben’s bag and the latter already on John, but the yellow and black pair was folded neatly in the corner. John took them out and placed them on the top of the dresser. There were other shorts in the drawer like some Black Nike Elites and other Microfiber Under Armour ones, but it was undeniable which shorts both John and Ben preferred.

The next drawer was a bunch of T-Shirts, mostly Under Armour Heat Gear and Nike Dri Fit. John picked out a white and crimson Under Armour Shirt that had his high school basketball team’s logo on it and put it on top of the black shorts. The final drawer was his socks, some more Nike Elites, plain white or black Nike crew socks, and a pile of boring old cotton boxers.

“I know you still have my other shorts, but for now I want you to borrow these too.” John took the basketball shirt and shorts and handed them to Ben. “Maybe we can meet tomorrow morning in the gym, bright and early when they open at 6 AM, and you can be my ‘spotter’. Just make sure you wear that stuff.”

Ben liked everything about what John just said except the 6 AM part, but he nodded in agreement. The earliest he got up all semester was 8 AM but he’d roll out of bed at any time just to see John. He bent down to put the new shorts and shirt in his bag and John kissed him on the forehead.

“You better go,” John sighed. “You have lots to remember me by until morning”.

John opened the door for him and gave Ben a pat on the ass as he left.

Ben took in the events of the weekend as he was now alone, not only had he gotten all he ever wanted with John, he got a tour of his closet and left with some prizes as well.

As he went down the outside stairs Josh was sitting on the picnic tables, he had apparently followed them to Elm Hall from the bus and was waiting for him to come back out.

“What’s the deal?” Ben whined as Josh got up to talk to him. “I thought you were a big boy!”

“I’m sorry I….I….” Josh stammered.

“Just say it, or I’ll be living with your guilt trip all week until we see each other in lab.” Ben took a deep breath.

“What? Guilt trip? No…. I respect your and John’s boundaries and am genuinely happy you found each other. If I was starting to feel like a 3rd wheel at the end there that wasn’t my intention I just didn’t know what to say until now.” Josh grinned nervously and played with the buckle on his backpack strap.

“About what then?” Ben looked confused.

“Standing up for me!” Josh took a step closer. “You both did to Roy, in the morning you stopped all the old Mormon jokes, I’ve heard them all before, but that’s not even me anymore, I told my parents I stopped going to church when I was 16, right about the time I came out as bisexual in high school.”

“Then that same night, Alim knocked on the door and asked if someone could sleep in the other bed. When Roy came in and saw who else was in the room he went ballistic, he probably would have beat me senseless if Alim wasn’t still standing there to drag him out. Out in the hall when everyone was looking, John let Roy know no one was on his side, not even him. I just didn’t know how to thank you both and let you know how much it meant to me.” Josh sobbed slightly.

Ben put his arms around Josh and gave him a hug. “That’s just how I was raised, to stand up for people who can’t do it themselves… now you couldn't have just told me that over text?”.

“No, I look up to and admire you both too much, I had to tell you in person, I hope you can express that to John too. One day I hope to be as lucky as you and find a guy who looks at me like that for more than one night. Now you probably want to get back to your room and decompress cause you probably have a lot on your mind.” Josh stepped back and they gave each other a fist bump and said their goodbyes.

Ben made the quick walk back to his room, all he wanted to do now was go over his chem lab with Allan as he promised, get something quick to eat, and call it an early night so he could be ready for John in the morning. He gave Allan a quick knock like John did and unlocked the door to his room.

Allan was sitting at his desk just as Ben had left him, though this time he had his AirPods on, watching anime on his phone and was working on a paper on his laptop. Ben could have probably brought John over and given him a tour like he just got, and Allan probably wouldn’t have even noticed. He put his hand on Allan’s shoulder and Allan jumped in shock.

“Oh, you’re back! I thought you said you would be back earlier, did you enjoy Utah?” Allan closed his laptop and took out one of the AirPods. Ben looked at his phone, it was 5:57 PM.

“Yeah, I’m sorry I had to pick up something right after,'' Ben said apologetically as he sat back down at his desk and pulled out his chemistry books. “Utah was great, I think I want to go back soon and explore even more”. They went over their last chemistry lab and by 7:00 Ben was burned out with schoolwork.

“Say you have your SASE meeting tomorrow afternoon?” Ben asked.

“Yeah why, do you want to drop by?” Allan looked genuinely puzzled at the question.

“Oh, you’ll probably be going over to that Pho place with everyone for bubble tea after right? Can you grab me a box of Pepto-Bismol chewables from King Soopers?” Ben pulled out a $10 bill from his wallet. “Keep the change.” He added.

Allan took the money and was somewhat satisfied with the explanation for the line of questions but was still mildly concerned. “Are you feeling ok?” he asked.

“Couldn’t be better, I just felt like I needed something last week after Taco Tuesday.” Ben smiled as it seemed like his plan to invite John over as soon as tomorrow was working. Allan likely wouldn’t be back until 8 or even later.

“Did you eat already? My sister is taking me out to Olive Garden for a late dinner tonight, that’s why I was hoping you’d be back earlier if you wanted to join us” Allan asked.

“No, think I’ll just stay here.” Ben replied. Allan was lucky his family was just 30 minutes away in Superior, CO and Ben asked him before why he didn’t go home for the weekends. Allan had told him his parents were the stereotypical, controlling, “study harder!” type and he enjoyed the freedom of campus life compared to his house. As long as he kept his grades up his parents didn't complain about him not coming home every weekend.

Ben left Allan to wait for his sister and went to see if he could get something to eat before the dining hall closed. The two pieces of pizza he had didn’t sit well with him and he thought he could have used that Pepto-Bismol already. When he got back the room was empty and dark and all Ben wanted to do was get in bed for a 5:45 AM alarm. He hadn’t emptied his bag from the trip yet and John’s black shorts and shirt were crammed inside on top.

He thought to himself he might as well put them on right now and save even more time in the morning. Ben stripped to his boxer briefs and went through his own drawers, he picked out a pair of white Nike Pro Combat compression shorts and changed into them, pulled the shorts up over them and slipped on John's shirt. As he looked in the mirror behind the door he liked what he saw, and imagined he was on the high school basketball team with John back in Wisconsin. The shirt was slightly smaller than the ones John wore now and it fit Ben perfectly. Ben put on a pair of his own black Nike Elite socks to complete his outfit.

Feeling a bit excited, Ben thought he would head down the hall to the bathroom in John’s outfit to brush his teeth and wash up for bed, his wasn’t a Co-ed dorm like John’s so it would be just guys who would likely see him in the high school basketball shirt.

To his disappointment no one else was out on the floor, so he quickly brushed his teeth and washed his face, as he was turning to leave who else but Roy walked in and went to one of the stalls. He was likely sobered up by now but Ben didn’t want to hang around and find out what would happen if Roy recognized him in another pair of John’s shorts. Ben made a mad dash to the door and his room, his heart pounding faster than ever.

Reaching the safety of his room an exhausted Ben climbed into his bed and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He didn’t even move when Allan came back 2 hours later and flipped on the lights. Allan was surprised Ben had fallen asleep already as he usually didn't get to bed till midnight, but he figured it was a long trip and he really was tired as he was still in his socks. He pulled Ben’s blankets over his body for him and got ready for bed himself.