A Story Tapped Into An iPhone (aka 12:30 And I Can't Sleep)

Roger was my first love. I hadn't expected it: he just popped up out of the blue, this hunky figure from some Midwestern town, chosen by unknown forces to be my college roommate. Some men are gay because they love masculinity -- that's me -- and Roger was the butchest thing in San Francisco. I was entranced by his long hair and beard, his well-worn plaid shirts, and the beat-up old VW he somehow always brought back to working order.

Being heterosexual, Roger was fascinated by me for other reasons. He saw how popular I was. He saw how -- though at fifteen I was five years younger than him -- I spent every other night going to the hottest clubs in the city with a gorgeous, adventurous female, and on the other nights I'd disappear into the dark, returning as the sun came up with a smile on my face. VWs are good cars but not quite that interesting.

I admit that I suggested we have sex. But everybody was experimental back then, so it didn't seem out of line. When he finally got into bed with me, though, I didn't realize how dangerous it would be. How I'd fall for him, and how he'd decide he was straight. How he'd fall for women, and bring them to our room, and sleep with them instead of me. How upset I would get, and how the dorm administrators would ignore my pleas to GET ME OUT.

But one night it happened. I'd pictured something on the scale of From Here To Eternity, with both of us swept away in purple passion. We'd dissolve into one flesh united by heat and sweat and spit and hours later, exhausted, we'd peel ourselves apart knowing we were eternally bonded by Love.

Instead, Roger was skeptical from the beginning. He embodied the words "cold fish." He lay there waiting to see what I'd do, while I, being younger, naturally assumed he would take charge.

We fumbled around and rubbed our bodies together. At some point I think he laughed. We ejaculated and he sneered:

That's it? he said. Gay sex is just jacking off?

I couldn't predict what was coming in the next few months, but I could see the disconnect. I could see a sexual tourist racing back to the safe cave of his heterosexuality, and I could see that love would not be simple for me.

How the hell do I know? I snapped. I've just slept with two more guys than you.