Jeremy is begging me now. "C'mon dude, just suck my dick, okay? Please?"

It's a mighty rush, to hear a beautiful straight boy beg me like this. And a naked straight boy at that…bound and blindfolded, powerless to flee, subject to my whim. For damn sure I do wanna go down on him, so bad I can already taste him. But I want to make the moment last…I want to hear him beg me a little more first.

What a shame I can't reveal my identity. I'm no fool; Jeremy would probably get homicidal – or homo-cidal – if he knew it was me taking advantage of him at such a helpless moment – his roommate, of all people. I know I should probably feel ashamed, guilty about this fundamental violation…deep down inside, and I mean way deep, I'm sure my conscience is screaming. Funny, but I just can't hear it. Maybe the traffic on the interstate is too loud.

I really should have thought this out more, I tell myself for the tenth time, should have at least brought a camera along to get this unrepeatable, singular episode on tape or film. Who knew it would actually come to pass? And hey…maybe there's still time to go fetch one from my room. No. That's where all criminals fail, isn't it? Getting too greedy? When the gods finally smile on you, you take their little gifts, no questions asked, no quibbling allowed.

Then you run like hell.

As for Jeremy…well, he won't be running anywhere soon, that's for sure. The rope his future frat brothers used may not be the most expensive brand available, but it's more than sturdy enough to secure him in place against the tree here in the shadows. I know. I watched him struggle unsuccessfully against it for the better part of an hour before I crept up slowly out of the woods and made my presence known in a harsh whisper. He almost fainted from sheer terror, as I'd hoped he would. And you know what? It was delicious.

Allow me to welcome you to Fraternity Rush Week, here at good old College Park, where all the greeks are putting their pledges through their paces – a variety of endurance tests, tortures and trials by fire. Some of the rituals are fairly lighthearted, or at least straightforward, in their execution. I've heard about scavenger hunts, drills, and stomps. On the way over here I saw what looked like a boot camp in progress out on the quad, with a line of freshmen doing calisthenics until they were red in the face. There's one strangely quiet dorm where it's rumored all the pledges have been up for a solid week, no sleep allowed. (Once in awhile you catch a pale face looking out on the quad from the shadowy interior. I'm sorry but that's just creepy.) And I'm pretty sure I witnessed at least one panty raid in progress. How retro can you get? What a pity the pledges involved in that particular exercise didn't realize until the last moment that they were raiding a largely lesbian sorority house, from which they were probably lucky to escape with their lives.

Jeremy is rushing one of the more devilish and flamboyant frats, known campus-wide as the Delts. They're infamous for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which are their initiation rites, which almost always involve some kind of public nudity, humiliation, or grave embarrassment, preferably all three. Just last year, I'm told, the Delts dispatched their pledges one by one into the computer lab, au natural, of course, where they had to sign on and send an email to 10 people each before making their exits. An ingenious combination of the primal meeting the technological, but it had certain drawbacks. More than one naked and trembling pledge encountered an alarmed student checking his or her own mail; one of the girls fled, screaming at the top of her sophomore lungs, to get campus security. There were arrests, a scandal, an editorial in the campus paper, and admonitions that such lewd behavior not be repeated. Of course that only added fuel to the fire. The range of the current initiations is broader and bawdier than ever, and the Administration be damned.

It would figure that the Delts would seek out Jeremy, my roomie of the last three months. He fits their muscle boy, party-hearty profile to a T. After his official invitation to join last week, he confided to me how this year's class of inductees is the smallest in memory. Puffed up and high-and-mighty about his imminent upward mobility, he couldn't resist trying to rub it in. "They're being real exclusive now, and they don't take just…anybody." He was clearly if clumsily aiming that last in my direction. He seemed pleased about how upset it made me, and laughed as I abruptly left our room to go get some air.

Oh, Jeremy. You are so beautiful, with your hunky athletic body, your raven black hair and flashing green eyes…but you are truly as dumb as two sticks tied together. Sure I was upset, but not because your little Neanderthal frat won't have the likes of poor, poor pitiful me. You can have your greek brothers, for all I care, I don't give a shit about stuff like that. I am pissed off, genius, because I've fallen helplessly, obsessively in love with you. I don't want to see you leave our shared dorm room. You fucking idiot.

No photo has ever really done him justice, ever captured the arrogant majesty of his expression or the magnetic, unfocused energy of his eyes. (It's not for lack of trying. He must have a dozen photo albums, and he is in each and every picture.) Words certainly can't capture his essence, but I'll give it a try: He's a tall boy, better than six-two, and strongly built in that fine, all-American way – a long, narrow waist and washboard stomach, wide shoulders, well-rounded pecs. I'm a little amazed at the way his biceps pop out of his upper arms like baseballs grafted beneath his skin, the way his triceps wind around his upper arms like a boa constrictor. (Truth be told he looks a lot like the guys you see in those Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs – the ones who look so good it almost hurts to turn the pages, just to find another beautiful boy you'll never see in real life.)

Jeremy never gets fully naked in front of me, though I've seen him in a towel coming back from the shower and found myself trying to remember how to breathe. (It annoys me the way he always turns away just before he puts his shorts on, cheating me out of a glimpse of that little promised land under his boxers. At least I get to see his butt on occasion. It's an awesome butt.) And while he's caught me staring at him from time to time, I'm pretty sure he's never clocked me for a fag. (What Jeremy lacks in perception he makes up with an apparent, utter obliviousness to the obvious…his brain does not half match his body.) Instead of catching on to my near-uncontrollable lust–any other fool would have to have seen it, despite all my efforts to keep it under wraps…Jeremy instead seems firmly convinced that his slight and bookish roomie is merely envious of his looks, that I wish I could live the life of one oh-so-popular, and always-in-demand. (He may not be too far off. I have watched him command a room with his presence alone, an absence of anything worthwhile to say apparently no detriment in these superficial times. Ah, the sheer tyranny of beauty.)

Since that moment when some random computer entry threw us together in the dorm, he's strutted and preened about, teasing my groin for all it's worth. And yet you have never heard so many facile observations about life, so little knowledge of the world at large, so much fixation on the physical over the intellectual. He's always telling me I should pull my nose out of my books and get my ass in the gym, and he laughs when I tell him there are more important things than working out six days a week.

Please don't ask me why I've come to lust after him so. I'm the last one to make any logical sense of it. I wouldn't have thought it possible that I could obsess so over someone like Jeremy, a thoughtless jock who picks on the defenseless with such impunity and abandon, a bully and a bore with whom I have absolutely nothing in common. I despise myself a little for the sheer shallowness of the attraction; I thought I was better than that. My room mate has become my addiction…I can hardly count the times I've fantasized about him in my wildest jackoff sessions, while he slept and snored just a few feet away. Those errant impulses are now graven into my sex-starved brain and it occurs to me this must be what heroin is like to a junkie.

And I have been dying for a fix. How convenient–how downright considerate–for Jeremy's frat brothers to provide me with the opportunity and the means.

I first got wind of the Delts' initiation rituals by happy accident. I was studying over coffee in the Student Union snack bar when the elder Delts came in, grabbed a table by the door, and started laying their elaborate plans. (By all rights they should have recognized me from their occasional visits to the dorm, but someone such as me is largely invisible to the Big Men on Campus, mere scenery to their play. So much the better, as it turns out.)

"We've got something special planned for each of 'em," the first Delt gloated. He was apparently Minister of Torture. "Jack gets Pizza Detail…he has to deliver a dozen pies over at Denton Hall."

"One pizza, hold the clothes," offered the second Delt, which elicited a giggle from his colleague and pricked up my ears. "Of course," answered Torture. "And they're all girls' rooms, so it should be a scream." He glanced at a sheet of paper. They'd actually written this all down. "Brandon will be the Running Man. We figure twelve laps around the stadium. Shouldn't be anybody there at that time of night."

"Except us," reminded the other one.

"Right," said Torture, turning his gloating up a notch. (They're really enjoying this, I thought. Do they even realize the homoerotic subtext here? Could they even spell homoerotic if they had to?) "We'll have Jeff do The Streak, from here to the Chapel."

"That's more than half a mile," his companion said. I came to dub him Minister of Caution. "Remember what happened last year."

"No problem," said Torture. "Security is going have its hands full with a little distraction we're planning over at the Ag. Center."

"That's what the smoke bombs are for!" declared Caution.

"Exactly. We're setting them off around midnight. That's when the fun starts."

That seemed to mollify Caution. Neither noticed I'd started taking my own set of notes. It was shaping up to be quite an evening. Might as well have a program. "What about Jeremy?" Caution asked, and I nearly snapped my pencil in two.

"Jeremy is the easiest one of all. He drew Perils of Pauline."

That made Caution laugh. "I love it! Where we gonna put him?"

"Out on the edge of campus next to the sound barrier. We'll rope him up there first, then pick him up on the way back. No patrols out there until around 4am, and by then we'll be long gone. We'll leave him there for a couple hours…supposed to be warm Friday, so the dumbass won't freeze or anything. But he should be scared shitless."

"Anyone gonna keep him company?" asked Caution. "Nah," answered Torture. "We're gonna be too busy keeping track of everyone else. We'll put him back in the woods a ways…nobody's gonna see him from the street. Just make sure we get his picture for the Book." Torture took another look at his paper. "We got something great for Johnny, too, check this out…"

I'd pretty much stopped listening by then. I had to…I was feeling a little light-headed, since all the blood had run into my crotch. The mental image was just too powerful. Jeremy tied up naked in the woods, unable to get away from anyone who might want to…

I never knew you could feel really feel your heartbeat in your hard on, until that moment.

Do I need to tell you what a long week that was, waiting for Friday to roll around? I wasn't sure yet what I was going to do with my eavesdropped intelligence. I wasn't even sure yet I'd have the nerve to stake out the woods. It was only Jeremy's overweening arrogance that pushed me over the edge at last.

Thursday night I came back to the dorm from the library – I'd been reading up on the history of the Delt fraternity, it was, ah, enlightening, to say the least – to find Jeremy gathering his stuff together. He hadn't even had his initiation yet and he was already getting ready for the move to the Delt House. It wasn't often I struck up a conversation with him, but I was terribly curious to see if he knew what was waiting for him.

"So…the big night is coming up?" I began tentatively, afraid to betray any knowledge beyond that which was already a subject of whispers on campus. "Sure is," he replied, placing his carefully folded boxers into a milk crate. Say what you want about him, Jeremy was always remarkably fastidious about his clothes and personal appearance. He would have made a spectacular homosexual.

There was yet some tiny vestige of decency left inside me. Compassion is always more nobly conferred upon the totally undeserving. "Are you sure you're…ready?"

Jeremy's cruel and beautiful head snapped up. The bastard had no idea what the Delts had planned for him. "Of course I'm ready, Dingus." (I hated it when he called me that.) "I can handle anything they throw at me. So what if I'm running around showing my ass? Chicks love my ass…I think you like it, too. Maybe I'll send you a picture. You can put it up on the wall after I'm gone."

My blood froze a little. I couldn't tell if he was making some sort of statement here to let me know he'd finally figured everything out, or simply reaffirming his long-held belief that anyone small and slight was de facto gay.

I didn't answer. Jeremy went back to his packing, but not before uttering one final, almost inaudible sentence. "I can't wait to get out of this room."

Okay, Jeremy, I thought. We'll do it your way.

The Delts were right about one thing; Friday dawned clear, sunny, and unseasonably warm for early November. All day long the campus was alive with students cutting class, preferring to study the finer points of frisbee and rollerblading over lectures and libraries. Even the professors seemed distracted by the bright sunshine and Indian summer breezes streaming in through the windows…I can't say I could concentrate much on class myself. I was thinking hard about the night ahead, laying my plans and checking them twice. And thrice.

With all due respect to Einstein, it takes nothing so elaborate as a speeding spaceship to slow time down to a glacial crawl. An appointment with destiny or debauchery will do quite nicely. I swear I could literally hear every tick of the clock as two became four, and four became five, and the sun dipped below the horizon. I couldn't eat, I couldn't read, I couldn't watch television for more than a few seconds at a time. I was like an anxious child on Christmas Eve, convinced something hideously unpredictable would happen to take my present away from me at the last second, some campus cataclysm that would change everybody's mind or knock the Delts off their schedule and give Jeremy time to reconsider. Maybe he'd even chicken out, despite all his bluster and boasting.

But at last it was nine o'clock, my own personal deadline to start my preparations. There'd been no sign of Jeremy, as I expected there wouldn't be. Tradition dictated he spend the early evening boozing it up with the Delts before the Witching Hour. I made a flurry of calls, evenly spaced, to a number of casual acquaintances, asking about plans for the evening. I had an alibi to create, just on the off chance I became a suspect later. (Suspect…there's a chilling and exciting word. Would I ever have the guts to go through with this?) I made sure everyone knew, without making too big a deal about it, that I was going to a midnight double-feature at a nearby mall – both films were ones I'd already seen, in case anybody asked later. My friends all told me they were staying in, despite the warm night outside, to play video games or chat on their computers.

Geeks and Greeks…so predictable.

I dressed in dark colored clothes–nothing remarkable–grabbed my backpack, drove to the mall, parked my car, then walked the mile or so back to campus, staying off the road and out of sight as much as possible. (I fully realized how silly and unnecessary all my caution likely was, but why take chances? Besides, it made the evening all the more adventurous.) An access road returned me to school grounds, and I trailed along the edge of the woods until I found an entry point. I picked a spot that allowed me to see oncoming traffic without being seen myself.

Eleven forty five. I placed my backpack down beside me in a patch of weeds, pulled out a bath towel and sat down on it, inhaling the damp leaf smell that filled the woods on this warm night that was somehow out of time. About a hundred yards away the trees stopped hard by the edge of the noise barrier. The rising and falling roar of traffic out on the highway beyond was almost hypnotic, like waves crashing on a beach. I guess the tension and anticipation finally caught up with me, and I nodded off.

I woke up to the much closer sounds of approaching vehicles, the blare of car stereos, and many male voices. It was just after midnight.

You'd have thought Jeremy was being led to his execution. All the Delts piled out of their cars, clearly drunk or high, with Jeremy the last to exit. He seemed bewildered, not comprehending yet what initiation rite could involve so remote a location. I couldn't hear what they were telling him over the traffic noise, but his body, centered in a cone of headlights, fairly jolted at one point. Bingo, I thought…he knows now. I watched him look wildly around. He seemed to be saying this is just a joke, right, fellas? But the Delts' backs had grown straighter with resolve. They had their game faces on. They were actually going to do this.

Jeremy's shoulders sagged, resigned. One Delt – I recognized him as Torture, the brother from the snack bar … stepped in front, and made some sort of inaudible pronouncement. Then two other Delts approached Jeremy from behind. He didn't even struggle as they started stripping him…first his shirt came off, then they took off his shoes, propping him up one leg at a time. They took his socks, they took his belt…then Torture stepped up, and undid his jeans. He said something to Jeremy–one last chance, I suppose it was–and Jeremy just nodded. Then he lowered Jeremy's jeans and allowed him to step out of them.

I'm guessing I wasn't the only one with a stiffy as all this took place; from my well-concealed vantage point about twenty yards away they all seemed to be enjoying it just a little too much. Jeremy was left standing there in his boxers, his fair skin white as snow in the glare of the headlights. Torture nodded one more time, the equivalent I suppose of handing a prisoner the pistol to deliver his own coup de gras. Jeremy took his own shorts off, and stood there naked while the Delts looked on solemnly. I noted their adherence to ritual so far…that would be helpful. (I also noted that if I had even touched my cock at that moment I would have let loose a mighty wad. I remained perfectly, chastely still.)

Then another pair stepped forward; one tied a blindfold around his head (Yes! I cried silently. I was counting on that, too.) The other tied Jeremy's hands behind him. I wondered if they were going to offer him a cigarette. Torture stepped toward Jeremy, and turned him around for the assembly. (I swear he put his hand on Jeremy's awesome ass as he did so. Lucky bastard.) Then the whole troop marched off, out of the headlights' glare.

I waited, ducked down low. They came back about five minutes later, sans Jeremy, high-fiving each other and laughing quietly as they climbed back in their cars. They sped off. In the distance I could hear fire engines. Festivities were underway elsewhere.

I sat there unmoving for a full ten minutes, allowing my eyes to readjust to the dark. There were only the distant street lights and a low pale moon, still bright enough to see everything I wanted to see, and do everything I wanted to do. I hoped.

It didn't take long to find him. I had only to follow the sounds of his struggle. There he was, head back and cursing, trying to get his hands free, trying to wriggle out of the rope's embrace. It was useless. He was stuck until someone turned him loose.

Jeremy, displayed so in all his primal nakedness, was a breathtaking sight; in black and white the picture would've been fit for an art gallery. He was just fifteen feet away from me, but I wasn't ready to take him on yet, not just yet. I sat down in front of him, reached into my bag, and grabbed a bottle of brandy. I took a long swig, letting the liquor swirl into my head. What did I have here…an hour? An hour and a half?

He must have heard something. "Who's there?" he called. I said nothing, just took another long swig. He threw his head about anxiously, trying to get a handle on his surroundings, to find out if he had company. I just drank, and looked, and drank, and looked some more. I downed half the bottle before I put it back in my bag.

"I know someone's there," he called. Oh, shut up, I thought to myself. When I'm damn good and ready, not before.

Maybe fifteen more minutes passed, but I was hardly bored. I thought about just jacking off then and there, just release three months worth of sexual frustration and call it a night, leaving Jeremy to the Delts' tender mercies. But then I'd be a wuss, wouldn't I? The fire engine sounds had faded…somewhere Brandon and Jeff were running, and Jack was delivering his naked late-night snack.

Best get to it.

I walked toward him slowly. A branch crackled underfoot. His body jolted.

"Who's there?" he cried.

"Shhh!" I ordered him. "They'll think we're chickening out!" (I was using a harsh whisper I'd been working on for half the evening, taping and listening and taping again, then playing it alongside my own voice. I was sure he'd never recognize it…it wasn't like he listened to me much, ever…but my heart was pounding away all the same.

"Who the fuck are you? Who's gonna think I'm chickening out?" he demanded. But his voice was lower now. Good.

"The Delts, dude."

"They're still here?" he asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, they have a lookout over there by the edge of the woods. You didn't think they'd leave you bare-assed naked out here by yourself, did you?" I looked up to where the trees gave onto the grass beyond, half-believing my own fiction as it spun out of my mouth, almost expecting I'd see a dark form looming there.

But we were quite alone.

Jeremy seemed to calm down a little, but his body was still taut and edgy under the rope. Jesus, he was so hot like that. It was all I could do not to just have my way with him and be done with it. What was he going to do to stop me? But it would be much more fun to play with his head here first. His body wasn't going anywhere.

"You gonna tell me who you are? And what's this shit about chickening out?"

"Relax, dude. I'm just another pledge, okay?" I told him, trying to sound nervous. (It wasn't particularly difficult.) "And I'm here for my initiation."

Now he calmed a little more…but only a little. "I don't recognize your voice. Lemme see who you are…take this blindfold off."

"Can't do it, bro. They'll see me. And besides, it's better for both of us if you never know who I am."

"Why?" he asked me. "What do you have to do?"

I shook my head, getting into my role. "You mean they didn't tell you? No, I guess they wouldn't, would they?"

"Tell me what?"

"About the initiation…how it was gonna go."

"They told me I had to stay out here for a couple of hours, then they'd be back for me."

"That's only part of it," I told him. "You know how they have the guy delivering pizzas, and the other guys streaking around campus?"

"Yeah." He was much calmer now, in the presence of a brother who knew the whole deal.

"Well, they gave me something…different."

"Like what?"

I paused for awhile, trying to sound like a man with a job to do, but one he's not looking forward to doing much.

"I have to, uh…I have to do something to you."

He was scared again. "What? What are you going to do? Don't fuck with me, man…" He started struggling again. (This was sort of fun.)

"Calm down, asshole," I commanded. "I'm not going to hurt another pledge."

He stopped struggling. "Then what the fuck are you talking about?"

"Look, we both want to be Delts, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then I have to finish my intiation." I waited, then laid it on him. "I have to suck your dick, dude. And you have to let me do it. Otherwise they won't take either of us."

I was drawing here on some of the Delts' more infamous episodes. Apparently a few years back the Delt pledges could only be confirmed after they'd all snuck into an assistant dean's office and jerked off en masse all over his desk. Another story had it that one year's initiation rites included raiding a freshmen dorm, creeping into rooms where the occupants were asleep, and wacking off in whatever socks could be found lying about. (They called that one the Attack of the Phantom Sock Fuckers.) I was sure Jeremy had heard the stories; in fact I was counting on it. Nudity, orgasms, stealthy nighttime activities…they all went hand in hand with the Delt lore. I was just doing my part to build the legend.

Jeremy was still trying to digest what he'd just heard.

"You gotta be kidding me, dude."

"I wish I was, bro," I told him, adopting a weary tone. "It's my own goddamned fault for running my mouth. They wanted me to take some laps around the campus, butt-naked. I laughed and said that was a piece of cake…they got pissed, and told me nobody laughs at the Delts. Then they came back to me with a Truth or Dare. Fuck, I said. I'll take the dare. And this is it. Me and my big mouth."

I stood there, in front of him, trying to gauge his reaction. Then I looked down and my breath caught. I could just barely see his cock–it was the first time I'd seen it for more than a split second–and it seemed to be stirring a little. That surprised me, until I realized that a lot of guys in this situation might find it perversely arousing. (I was definitely aroused.)

"I'm not a faggot, you know," he said, sounding defensive, as if he knew I was watching his dick. He had to know he had a woody growing down there.

"Well, I'm not either," I lied. "Fuck, you don't want me to, that's cool. I'll just tell 'em you said no." I started to move away, knowing–hoping–he'd call me back.

Hold on," he said. I stopped and turned around.

"What?"

"Just come back over here, okay?" I obeyed, and reclaimed my spot in front of him.

"Yeah,?" I said, trying now to sound a little annoyed.

"Aren't you going to feel weird about this later?"

"I guess. But fuck, dude...I can't even see who you are, it's dark as shit out here. And you don't know me. I wanna be a Delt, don't you?"

"Fuck, yeah."

"It's not like you have to suck my dick, or anything."

He got real quiet at that. I was guessing it gave him some small measure of relief to contemplate being the blowee rather than the blower.

"But there is one thing," I said.

"What?" He was on edge again.

"We're not supposed to talk about it with the other Delts. Only the seniors know I have to do this, or that you're letting me do it. You can't tell anybody."

"You could always just say you did it," he said, a faint suspicion in his voice. "How would they know?"

"Well, I guess that's why they put the lookout here, dude. To see if either one of us chickens out."

"Fuck, he's not going to watch, is he?"

"Nah, man, he's just checking us out to see if we actually do it. If I actually do it."

He got quiet again. It was make or break time. In all honesty I was pretty much planning to go down on him whether he said yes or no, but his permission would make it doubly delicious.

"Maybe I shouldn't do it, dude." I said, giving him some line to play with. "Maybe they just wanna see if I'm a homo. Fuck."

We were both quiet for a few seconds, and I was wondering if I'd been too cute. Then Jeremy spoke. "They just want to see if we have guts, man," he said. "It's a loyalty test, to see how bad we want to pledge." Now he was persuading me. He really did want to be a Delt. Or maybe by now he just wanted to have his dick sucked.

"I guess," I said, grudgingly.

"You can always just get drunk later, and forget all about it tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess I could." I looked down at his body, relaxed now against the tree, thinking how I could drink an ocean of liquor, and never forget this as long as I lived.

"You sure you don't mind?" I asked him one last time. "They said you had to let me to do it."

"Just one brother helping another, dude," he said, and I felt a rush that started at my feet and shot out of my head. Victory.

"Hurry up, though, okay?"

I reach out finally and caress his skin, starting in the deep hairless valley of his wondrous chest and widening out to his small, hard nipples, then skipping lightly over the rope and continuing down his rippled stomach where his happy trail starts, following it to the edge of his surprisingly small thatch of pubic hair. "It's so damned dark out here," I lie, to cover the advance of my hands on his body. "I can barely see you."

He grunts, and moves a little as I touch him, and I can feel his muscles contracting under his skin…I'm fascinated that such a hard body can feel so soft, almost buttery under my probing fingers. I really do wish the light was a little better, so I could see everything more clearly. As it is now his sweating, shining body is dappled in shadow, and nearly fades to black just beneath his pubes…I sink slowly down to the level of his crotch, making sure first his legs are secured against the bark. (It wouldn't do to have him lose his nerve, bring up a knee suddenly and make contact with my face with a lucky shot, would it?)

He senses my proximity to his lower regions now; I think his body temperature just went up another degree or so. "Just do it? Please?" The plaintive tone is such a turn on. I almost come in my pants at the sound of it. I place a hand on each of his hips, and I can feel him shaking a little as I lean in to to take a good long look at his cock. It's bobbing in and out of shadow in the space between his legs, and as I expected, it is perfect. I just knew it would be.

Now that I'm kneeling in front of him, my hands on his hips, I can feel the hard veins in his abdomen under my fingers; Jeremy has hardly any body fat to speak of…probably one reason he gets so quickly and completely intoxicated. But he's not half as intoxicated as I am now, with a brain bathed in alcohol and testosterone, as I reach out and gently touch his dick. It's a good-sized one, proportionate to his height and body size, and it's half hard already. I wonder how big it gets when it's fully engaged. I stroke him gently, aiming to find out. He fairly throbs in my hands.

"Somebody's excited," I can't resist saying. Jeremy can't move much, but he thrusts his crotch out toward me. "C'mon dude, just suck my dick, okay? Please?"

"Okay, if you really want me to." I take him full in my mouth. It's an amazing thing, the taste and smell of a guy's dick, such a sweet and salty mustiness. I bury his cock all the way to his pubes, feeling their crackling roughness on my nose and face. I leave him in there, swirling him around inside my mouth with my tongue…with my hand I reach up and feel his balls…there's not a hair to be felt, just two big nuts tight inside a soft fleshy case. He gets fully, finally hard almost immediately, filling my mouth up.

I draw him out, and it's an impressive sight. Jeremy packs a thick and healthy seven, maybe seven and a half. I keep my hand wet, pushing in and pulling out, enfolding him, enveloping him, swirling and tasting and reveling in this endless moment. Before too long his hips are moving up and down along with me; despite the circumstances that gets him there, when a guy finally has a warm mouth going down on his joint he just does what comes naturally.

He sits back and enjoys the ride.

Jeremy is definitely enjoying this. I look up at his face. His expression has gone blank…his lips are parted and he's breathing hard through his mouth. I taste pre-cum, and I know it won't be much longer.

"Hey, dude," he says. "I'm gonna cum soon. Do you mind?"

"Nah," I tell him. "You might as well get off." I work him for a few more moments…I hear him panting hard from above. "Close," he informs me, unnecessarily. (My sexual experiences up to this point have been few and far between, largely limited to adolescent experimentation, but I can tell when a guy is getting ready to blow.)

I realize, almost too late, that I am about to cum myself, and I unzip quickly to yank on my own slick dick…as it happens we climax at precisely the same moment; just as Jeremy suddenly hitches and groans, shooting a hot and thick stream into my mouth, I feel the bottom drop out of my own crotch, and the world is spinning around me…I feel my body shudder with the most intense pleasure I have ever felt, as if my dick is singing the sweetest song ever. It's like we have the same orgasm, as if in some way I am sucking my own dick through him.

We subside together, too. I let him go and toss my head back, to swallow every drop of him. It's like nothing I've ever tasted before…it's strangely thrilling to think that I will actually have part of him inside me now. I look down and see that I've splattered the tree, the ground, and Jeremy's left foot. He doesn't appear to notice. I stand up, wobbly as all hell, and stand facing him. Part of me wants to plant a kiss dead on his lips. I resist the urge.

I'm done here.

I'm turning away when I hear him speak in a near whisper. "Hey, dude," he calls, and I stop. "Don't ever tell anybody, now."

I just grunt and pick up my bag. Time to get the hell out of Dodge. "But, dude," Jeremy calls one last time. "That felt really great."

I'm in bed, wide awake, when I hear Jeremy turn his key in the lock a couple of sleepless hours later. I pretend to be snoozing as he stumbles in. For a few anxious seconds I think he's hurtling across the room to kill me. As it turns out he's simply fallen over one of his milk crates. He's on the floor groaning and squirming; the room is suddenly filled with the smell of sweat and sour liquor. Jeremy is clearly even more shitfaced than before.

"You okay?" I venture.

"Help me up, Chris? Please?"

I crawl out of bed and help him to his feet; it's a little strange to be touching that tall and strong body again so soon. It's also strange that he's called me by my given name for the first time in weeks.

He doubles over, grabbing his stomach. "Gonna be sick…" he starts, and promptly vomits on his bed. I catch him before he falls over again.

"Shit," I hear him say.

"Don't worry about it, I'll get it," I tell him, and help him over to my bed, laying him down so that his head is hanging over the side next to the trash can. Then I gather up his bedding into a ball, and stuff it into one of the big hefty bags he was using for his move.

"My head is spinning, dude," he says weakly. Mine too, I say silently. After what happened a few hours ago it's natural I should feel closer to him, and I'm quite unexpectedly overcome with complex emotions…compassion, for one, and something a little like regret. But only a little. I remind myself that Jeremy is still Jeremy after all. I sit down in the chair by the desk, and pull it over next to the bed.

"What happened?" I ask, figuring it's a proper question. Jeremy just laughs, and his words are slurry, but understandable all the same.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I don't believe it."

"Try me," I tell him. (Anyone would be curious, wouldn't they?) "How'd the initiation go?" I'm dying to know what happened when the Delts came back to retrieve him. Did they see any evidence of his adventure? I can't imagine Jeremy would share the details, since it was supposed to be a secret. And it wasn't exactly your typical conversation starter at the Delt House. "Hey, guess what? Some guy sucked me off tonight…"

"Looks like they're gonna take me, if I want to go," he says, rolling over slightly away from the edge of the bed. I guess the vomiting is over, for now anyway.

"Don't you wanna go, Jeremy?"

"I guess," he says. "Always wanted to be a Delt." Then he pauses, thinking hard, apparently. (I know it's got to be difficult for him.) "They really ask a lot out of their pledges." That actually hurts a little to hear. Is it possible I'm even more in love with him now? Jesus, what the fuck did I do?

We sit there for awhile. I feel like I'm perched on an eggshell, wanting to talk but afraid to say anything that would tip him off. Finally he speaks. "Chris, I gotta ask you something. Don't get mad."

"Okay. What?"

"I know I treat you like crap…just jealous of your brains and shit." He looks over at me, and I can just see his barely focused eyes in the dim light. "Have you ever sucked someone's dick before?"

If he'd slapped me I couldn't have been more surprised. "Why would you ask me that?" I sputter.

"Have you?"

I really want to lie–I'd just spent half the night pretending to be someone else–but something here keeps me honest. I have no idea why I tell him the truth; it seems to risk so much.

"Yeah, I have."

He nods…then he smiles. Wide. "I thought so. Okay, so you're a homo, that's cool."

This is getting beyond surreal. I can handle the lust. It's been satisfied, at least for now. But don't you dare make me like you , Jeremy. How would I live with myself, after what I've done to you?

He speaks again. "So what makes you a homo?"

"You mean like genetics?"

"No, I mean like if you do homo stuff, does it make you a homo?"

"I don't know. Not necessarily."

"I don't know either," he says. "I'm sort of confused right now."

"Yeah, that's it. So drunk I won't remember anything tomorrow."

That snaps my head up…is he sending me a signal? I have to ask, I just have to. "Jeremy, what the hell happened tonight?"

"Lotsa weird stuff. I don't even know if it was real." He gets quiet and closes his eyes. After a few minutes I'm pretty sure he's fallen asleep. Is this relief I feel, or disappointment? I get up and push the chair back over by the desk. Jeremy's bed is soaked; it'll likely smell to high heaven tomorrow. He can have mine…I guess I'm sleeping on the floor tonight. Sort of the least I can do for him, now that I think about it.

"Where you going?" he says suddenly, startling me.

"Gonna grab some blankets, make a bed," I tell him. "Just stay there, I'll be fine."

"No, come here," he says, and reaches out and pulls me down in the bed with him. His grip on my arm is surprisingly strong, but not mean. Just insistent. "This is your bed, roomie."

At his touch my dick is hard as a rock again, and trying to do my thinking for me as I find myself lying there beside him. He shifts over to make some room. This really can't be happening, I reason. Jeremy hates fags, doesn't he? It's more improbable than anything I can imagine that my nefarious activities have effected some massive change in his psyche…or even awakened something that was dormant under all that macho-shithead bravado. More likely the sun won't come up tomorrow. But it will. Won't it?

"Dude, you are really toasted right now," I tell him. "When you sober up tomorrow you'll probably want to kick my ass if you find me sleeping with you. You'll want to kick my ass anyway, now that you know."

"I always knew, Chris," he says softly in my ear. "Now I don't care."

"Why not, Jeremy? What did the Delts do to you tonight?"

"I'll tell you some other time…when I decide to remember."

He half rolls over, and wraps his arm around me. There is no way this is the same fag-bashing guy I've lived with for the last few months. He was always sexy as hell, now he's oh-so-fucking sweet. I want to cry, and I'm afraid to move. I might wake up.

It's Jeremy that stirs a few moments later. I can feel his hand traveling down my body to my waist. He sticks his hand inside the flap of my boxers until he's touching my dick.

"Somebody's excited," he says.

"Yeah, he is," I say, heart hammering. Was that another signal? Does he know? How could he?

"Want me to make you an honorary Delt?" he asks me quietly, gripping me fully but gently in his strong, soft hand.

"Uh, sure," I say, mouth dry. "What do I have to do?"

"Just lay here," he says, sitting up. "I'll show you something I've learned. But you have to keep it a secret."