Page 240 of His Hungry Wolf

He released the safety pin and stared at the note. “Willow Pond @ 2pm. What does that mean?”

What did that mean? I knew Willow Pond. It was my favorite spot on campus. It was where I went when I needed a moment to think. But, what about “@ 2 pm”?

I was rolling over to ask Cory if he had read it correctly when an image suddenly flashed into my mind. It was of a boy of indistinguishable size and shape and he was leaning in to me.

“Oh god! I kissed a boy!” I said shooting upright.

Apparently, it was a little too quickly because with it came everything I consumed the night before. If our dorm room wasn’t so close to the bathroom, I would never have made it. But when I returned from the porcelain god I felt like a tiger on the hunt. That lasted about 30 seconds before I was reminded that the sun was the devil and I had to crawl back under my sheets.

I wasn’t exactly one of those popular gays who had a different guy in their bed every weekend. I would love to explain it by saying I was saving myself for marriage, but that wasn’t it. Guys just weren’t into me.

In high school, I could blame it on being the only out guy there. But, why was it the same in college? East Tennessee University even had an LGBTQIA+ club. I was a member of it for my first two years here. Since during that time no one had asked me out, I decided to take a break from it this year.

What’s a boy got to do to get some lip-on-lip action? Apparently, it’s to get black out drunk where I can’t remember what it felt like or who it was with. Great!

“Are you, okay?” My roommate asked looking at me concerned.

He was going to make some lush a great husband one day.

“I think I kissed a boy.”

“I heard. Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“How could you not know?”

“Because unlike you, some of us make poor decisions and do things with complete strangers they don’t remember,” I explained.

“I make bad decisions sometimes.”

“Sure you do, Mister I’ve-practically-been-married-since-I-was-seventeen. You probably don’t even know what a bad decision is.”

“I’m not perfect.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Whatever. So, do you think the guy you kissed is the same guy who wrote this?”

I sat up. “I do now.”

“So, this is like an invitation?”

“To meet at 2 pm at my favorite spot?”

“Yeah,” Cory said with building excitement. “That’s kind of romantic.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Do you remember anything about the guy?” He said with way more interest than any straight guy should have.

I searched my memory. “All I can remember is someone leaning in to me. That’s it.”

“What about the angle? Leaning forward? Bending down?”

“He was bending down. And, he was big. I remember that.”

“Big like actually big. Or just bigger than you.”