see you later."
I stood up. "Thanks," I said "for telling me all that."
"And thank you," Duncan said. We shook hands, I think for the first time.
I sat for quite a while there on the edge of the bed, digesting what I'd just heard. No big deal, I told myself. My roommate's gay. I'd sort of figured that anyhow. Sunday night He and Tommy hadn't exactly been back-slapping. My little sister had even asked me once "What if you get in the dorm and you get a roommate who's really a faggot?"
"I'd tell him to behave himself" I'd said, "otherwise I wouldn't let him stay in my room."
After a while I realized it was sort of a big thing, but I'd get through this, right? At the end of the summer I'll know more about gay people than most of my friends do, so if an argument arises over homosexuality, I'll have the inside story and will clinch the discussion. I'd thought a lot about going into politics at some point and social issues were a big deal.
I went to the phone, dialed my friend Jim's number. The phone rang nine times. Nobody answered. I dialed Jim's sister Val's number. Twelve rings. No pick up. I dialed my friend Sue's.
"Hello." It was Sue's voice.
"Oh, hi," I said. "How are things?"
"Things," she said "I wouldn't know. I'm okay though, I guess. How's with you."
"Kind of a strange summer," I said "at least, starting strange."
"Really? Hard classes?"
"No," I lowered my voice, terrified suddenly of being overheard standing out here in the cluster right by the door. "My roommate is gay."
"You mean he sings a lot and has a cheerful disposition?"
"You know what I mean."
Sue laughed. "Yes, sure, well is he okay otherwise?"
"Oh he's alright I suppose," I said "but it's a situation I've really never been in before."
"Does he," Sue pitched her voice low, "bring feathers into the room?"
"Not that I've noticed," I said.
"Well," Sue decided "No feathers. Probably not too big a problem, right?"
The door opened. "Hi Dave." I heard Duncan's cheerful, somewhat musical voice.
"Hi Duncan," I said.
"Is that," Sue asked, "the gay roommate?"
"Yeah" I affirmed. Then, "I just wanted to see how you were doing. I should get some studying done I guess."
"Guess you'd better," Sue intoned. "Good-bye."
I managed to sit still through perhaps 45 minutes of my taped psychology text, listening to my player through the earphones as my roommate came and went, sporadically doing his own studies. As bedtime approached I got out my journal and my braille writer, leafing through the last few pages. I'd not been keeping it up much lately with the between quarters break.
I settled down to expounding a means of making quick approximations of square roots using mental short division and a geometric model. Basically if you want the square root of 27 say, you start with a number whose root you know such as 25 and divide the difference between 27 and 25 by twice the square root of the known number. approximate square root therefore is 5.2; while the actual is 5.196152.
"What are you writing if you don't mind me asking?" Duncan inquired.
"Just updating my journal," I said.
"I really admire people who keep journals," Duncan said. "I've always wanted to keep one."
"Why don't you then?" I asked absently, a bit nettled by the interruption to my flow of concentration.
"I just don't have the discipline I'm afraid," Duncan said.
More admiration poured over my evening push-ups. This time I'd left my shirt and pants on.
"Keeping fit," Duncan remarked.
I didn't comment. I slid into bed, turning my face to the wall but sleep took a long time in claiming me. I was soon aroused from sleep by the most amazing dream!
I was in the shower. and was wearing panties. How silly, I thought, forgetting to undress properly before showering.
"I hope I'm not bothering you," Duncan's voice from outside the shower stall, not a dorm shower, more like the glass enclosed one at home.
"You aren't bothering me," I said, my voice sounding unfamiliar, in my own ears, higher-pitched.
Suddenly the shower forgotten I was out of the stall, not even bothering to turn off the spray. I was on my knees on the little mat Mother always kept in front of the toilet. Duncan sat there on the closed lid in front of me. I was unzipping him frantically with fingers that didn't work the way they should. Eventually I worked him loose and my mouth gaped to receive him.
I woke shaking and jetted almost immediately into an hastily-constructed fold of the top sheet. It took even longer to get back to sleep.
The next day I largely spent daydreaming through classes, reviving and reliving the strange night dream.
I'd wondered before, fairly often actually, how it would be with another guy. Who hasn't? I guess if I thought about it all that seriously though which I hadn't; I'd have imagined myself in the role of the male partner just like I would if I were thinking about being with a girl. This of course assumes the old male-female dichotomy and even at twenty I knew better but I still believed that a lot of gay people more or less parodied straight relationships and sex roles. When in bed, which part would Duncan generally play? I ask myself. If he was being very submissive and very feminine what would that mean? Would he enhance that illusion somehow?
That afternoon when I was in our room by myself I crept over to Duncan's dresser, built in under the bed and probed carefully through his top drawer. Undershirts and jockey-shorts, folded perhaps more neatly than mine but otherwise exactly what I wore. Maybe he usually played the boy?
Now I imagined Duncan with no clothes on or perhaps just a pair of these shorts. So I'd be the girl. That came unbidden and with jarring suddenness into my mind and I was now imagining what that girl would do, could do, should do.
I didn't get hard right away but butterflies swarmed in my stomach while the skin of my breasts tingled and my buttocks pulled together as something throbbed seemingly inside of me. I gasped. I actually did. I felt my knees go jello-y where I was standing.
"I'm a girl?" I said aloud, just trying it out to see how it felt. That did make me hard. I thought about doing something with that but didn't want to get walked in on--just now. I read a few minutes in a novel I'd received in the mail between quarters from the library for the blind but I couldn't concentrate. Deciding I needed some air, I went out on our shared balcony, standing over by the rail.
We were on the west side of the building and heat was radiating off the brick and concrete. I leaned against the rail, looking downward, though I couldn't see anything.
"Hello there," said a voice at my elbow.
"Hi,"
