On his first day at state university, freshman Johnny Darling rues his decision to enroll. He’s 150 miles from his family and friends and terribly homesick. But when he’s assigned Ben Stonecipher as a roommate, Johnny’s life brightens. Ben’s a handsome guy from a wealthy family, but he’s emotionally troubled, and for good reason. He’s responsible for his twin brother’s recent death.
A liquor-fueled night in the dorm room leads to personal confessions and intimacy. In the days that follow, an intense affair blossoms between Johnny and Ben, one that must weather the threat of a love triangle neither boy is prepared to deal with.
My freshman year of college was about to start, and I felt certain I was screwed.
I lay alone in my fourth-floor dormitory room that resembled a prison cell: cinder-block walls painted taupe, asphalt tile floor, two twin beds, two Formica bureaus, two metal desks with chairs, and two closets. The showers and toilets were down the hall. Outside, a misty rain fell from a sky the color of dishwater. Weak light entered the room through a pair of casement windows framed by plastic drapes. The windows offered a view of a parking lot and a row of dumpsters.
I didn’t know a single soul on campus nor in the city of Gainesville where my school was located.
I could have felt sorry for myself, but what good would it do? I put myself in the situation—I made the choice to come there. Instead of staying at home and attending community college, I enrolled at the University of Florida, and now it was too late to change my mind. My mom had left me there two hours before—that was right after we unloaded my things from her car—and by now, she was probably halfway back to St. Petersburg Beach.
Great.
I’m Johnny Darling, and that’s not a nickname by the way. Darling is my legal name, and you can only imagine the shit I’ve taken ever since I reached seventh grade, and guys started getting cruel about qualities that made someone different in any way.
“Want to suck my dick, Darling? I’ll bet you’d love to.”
“Do you wear panties under your chinos, Darling?”
“Hey, Darling, will you be my homecoming date? I’ll buy you a corsage.”
And so on.
I was always slender, so it wasn’t like I could stop the taunts by slugging some guy who outweighed me by thirty pounds. I’d never even thrown a punch—I wouldn’t have known how to—so all the way through junior high and into early high school, I endured the crap.
I am also queer as a flamingo; I figured that out the first time I viewed a television show called Flipper when I was thirteen. The series starred a bottle-nosed dolphin and a sinewy blond boy named Luke Halpin who frequently appeared shirtless in the show. Mostly he wore only a skimpy pair of cutoff blue jeans. Luke had a washboard stomach, shoulders that bulged like softballs, and a chest that looked like it was carved from marble. The first time I saw him I grew so excited I thought I might bust through the zipper on my shorts. After that, I never missed an episode of Flipper during the three years it aired because—and I’ll freely admit this—I was insanely in love with Luke Halpin. He became my go-to fantasy whenever I lay in my bed at night and touched myself under the sheets.
Oh, Luke…
But I digress.
