by Riley Meyer
Speaking of my parents, my Mum had Whatsapped me what she thought of as a “meme”, but what was actually an inspirational slogan of the kind you get on IKEA wall art.
It said, in zany pink spotted letters: Live, Laugh, Learn. Her message underneath read: “This made me think of you, don’t get too smart!! xxxx”.
I couldn’t help but follow its instructions and laugh.
Mum’d taken the fact I was coming to Oxford harder than my coming out a few years earlier and for weeks had sent me articles about the risks of infection in airplane cabins, corruption in Oxford colleges, and stabbings in London. But in spite of all her craziness, I missed her. Hers was a crazy I’d become fond of.
I sorted my timetable for the week. Apparently lectures were optional and not even relevant to the individual papers I had to take. It was just the staff talking about whatever they wanted to talk about. What was the point of that?
Tutorials, meanwhile, weren’t strictly scheduled but basically seemed to take place at any time that suited the tutor. I hadn’t been to university before but this wasn’t exactly what I expected. Well, whatever, they must know what they’re doing. It was Oxford after all.
Naturally, a few minutes later I found myself on Mark’s Facebook. It had taken some ingenuity to find. I’d had to go through the class list for the college to get his last name—Taylor—but now I was flicking through his photos.
There were a lot of him in his rugby uniform, covered in half-dried mud and with a mouth guard in, or passing the ball, his biceps rippling. My eyes kept returning to the trunks of his thighs, the dark hairs which got thicker as they reached towards his crotch: a destination that was foremost in my mind.
In one photo he was at the head of a scrum, arms over his teammates back as they slammed their muscled bodies into their opposition’s, like two brawny puzzle pieces locking together.
It took me back to my first wank, watching Aussie Rules football. I’d been home alone, watching all those beautiful blond men in their extremely short shorts and sleeveless shirts, and something had come over me, like some secret instinct that told me it’d feel real good if got my dick out of my pants and bashed it around for a while. Instinct or not, it was dead on, and I’d never looked back.
I considered sending Mark a message. But what would I say?
Hey, Mark, loved the taste of your cum and keen for a second helping?
I didn’t want to freak him out or be needy, even though I was feeling—in that moment—just a little bit needy. Just a little bit homesick. He wasn’t home, but he would definitely be a good distraction.
I looked through the rest of his photos, ones of him a few years younger in a ridiculous school uniform (it even had a hat) and riding a horse. Not like the Māori kids who rode horses without saddles through towns in the Waikato—more like Napoleon inspecting his men, checking on the plebs. I had a sense there were going to be a lot of horse people in Oxford. The least they could do was to be as hot as Mark.
Honestly he looked pretty fucking good riding a horse. And of course it made me think about how he’d look riding something else—cheeks red, lips open, sharp intakes of breath as I pushed into him.
I shook my head, smiling at the turn of my own mind. I knew all too well that getting one drunken blowjob from another guy didn’t mean you were down to be fucked, sober, up the arse.
I was lying in my bed at this point and the soft sheets, my semi-hard on and the darkening light of the evening was making me sleepy. I wondered whether Mark was going out tonight. Maybe Maura would get with him. I hoped not, but I’d deserve it for not telling her about what we got up to last night. I wanted to keep his confidences but I also wanted to talk to someone about it, to bring Maura in on my life and make her a real friend.
My mind drifted to James, sexy hard-to-read James, and then to Jack, trying to decide whether he was attractive or not. All these men to turn around in my head, a shelf of beautiful objects.
The truth was I could find almost anything with a dick hot. I had a problem. I’d even caught myself imagining the short stubby cock of the fat Texan wedged next to me on the flight over. By the looks of it, though, I wouldn’t have to make any compromises in Oxford. But that still didn’t mean I’d get what I wanted; it didn’t mean I could take Mark or James off the shelf. There was a real prospect I’d just have to appreciate them from a distance.
Another wave of sleepiness hit me and this time I didn’t fight the urge. It was eight o’clock. Considering how little sleep I’d gotten the night before, I took it as a victory.
*
A horrific sound woke me up which it took me an age to recognise as my own ringtone. Who the fuck was ringing me? Someone in New Zealand? I blearily tried to find the switch for my lamp because it was now pitch dark. I couldn’t find it and the phone kept blaring so I reached for that instead. I didn’t recognise the phone number or the country code. What the hell was +353? Sudan or something?? I rejected the call and slumped back into bed.
Almost immediately it started ringing again. I let out a long groan and hunted for where I’d dropped the phone. Same number. I buried my head in the pillow for a second and then sat up and pressed the Accept button, expecting to have inherited millions of dollars from an African prince.
“Hello?”
“Rafe, my fine thing, where are yer? You’re missing it all.”
“Maura.”
“Yes, it’s she, your aunty Maura. And she’s telling you to get your beautiful arse down to the college bar before she does something she shouldn’t.”
“And how is my being there going to stop you doing something you shouldn’t?”
Maura paused and I could hear people cheering behind her, the sounds of glasses being drunkenly bashed down on tables.
“Well it’s not is it? But I’m already mouldy and its only ten o'clock and I need someone to ask me twice before I act the maggot, even if in the end I do it anyway.”
I scrunched my eyebrows. Was it just me or did Maura use more Irish slang the more drinks she’d thrown down the hatch?
“Come on, come have a drink with wee Maura. She misses you terribly. There’s too many swinging dicks in here.”
Tempting as the swinging dicks sound, I had my reservations.
“I’ve just woken up. I was asleep.”
“Well you’re awake now aren’t yah? Listen,” a rustling sound suggested she was cupping her hand over the receiver, “there’s so many hotties and only one aunty Maura—she hates to admit it but she hasn’t the stamina—come take some off my hands like a good sham.”
“What’s a sham?”
“You’re a sham, my darling. A mate, you sheep-fuckers might say.”
“I dunno, Maura, we’ve got class tomorrow.”
“Class?” she sounded as if she’d never heard anything so ridiculous. “Get over yourself Rafe. Anyway it’s first week. What are they going to do, make you sit an exam? Look I know you’re so old and wise with yer twenty-one years and all but drop about three of them, just for the night, and come and do a few shots. They’re 50p each!”
Then she hung up.
I looked at my blank phone and then around at my room.
“Urghhh,” I flung myself back against the mattress.
8
I showered, made a point of cranking my laptop music loud as it would go, and pulled a few outfits on, finally settling on a simple black t-shirt, my greenstone necklace over the top, some blue jeans that I knew sat perfectly on my arse, and a cap to top it off.
It was a bit of a bogan look, but I’d always thought bogans were hot; consider it the sexual legacy of spending a year in West Auckland.
I checked my face in the mirror, running a hand roughly through my shock of black hair which only made it messier than before. Oh well. In better news, I was already getting a tan on, a light glow on my nose and cheeks.
As I locked my room I hesitated and walked down the corridor, away from the stairs and lift. The motion sensitive ligh
ts flickered on as I walked, revealing my reflection in the window at the end of the corridor. A few moments later, I was in front of Mark’s door, trying to see through it with X-ray vision.
Should I knock? Try convince him to come out?
I waited there for a minute, still as anything, until the lights in the corridor switched off again. Little pools of light from the rooms revealed themselves from under the doors, like emergency lights in the aisles of a plane. But there was no light coming from Mark’s room. Either he wasn’t in or he was asleep.
With a bit more tension in my chest than I cared to admit, I walked away, aiming for the college bar.
*
The bar was underground. You went to the second quad, through a door the size of a Hobbit, down some old wooden stairs and made a left, suddenly you were hit by the wall of sound from the bar. Or the “buttery” as they said in Oxford.
It looked like it was carved into the stone, its ancient bricks so scuffed from use that it resembled a cavern that someone’d had the bright idea to build a college around. But, because I’d read the college flyer like a good boy, I knew it dated back to the fourteenth century, when young priests in training would come to drown their theological sorrows, gamble and meeting with women—or men—of the night. I didn’t have any theological sorrows, but I was up for all the rest.
There were rowing oars stuck to the walls, portraits of former year groups, trophies, medals, along with some student-made posters about crushing the patriarchy / capitalism. The classic student combination, Oxford-style.
I heard a squeal from somewhere in the mass of young people and then Maura emerged, a pint in either hand, her hair blown, curled, tweaked and teased into epic proportions. She looked stunning and was wearing what could only be described as a slip of a dress, black satin and tight, but not at all long.
“Rafe, my darling, you came.”
“Love the earrings,” I said, indicating the large silver hoops that hung from her ears.
“What these? These aren’t earrings. They’re literal representations of my fanny, gaping in anticipation of tonight.”
I was flummoxed.
“Oh.”
“Oh, grow up and have a drink,” she said, thrusting one of the pints at me.
I dutifully took it and had a sip.
Maura smiled and reached a lacquered thumb up to my lip and flicked off the leftover foam from the beer.
“Kiss me,” she ordered.
I grinned.
“How many have you had?”
Her answer was to purse her lips and point them towards me.
Well, alright, I thought.
I took her pint out of her hands and put both of our drinks down at our end of the bar, nudging some shoulders out of the way in the process. Then I turned to Maura, who gave me an I-dare-you look.
In one swift motion I’d grabbed her by the thighs and lifted her up over my hips. She weighed almost nothing and her legs immediately wrapped tight around my back.
“Ooh,” she said.
I held an arse cheek in each of my hands and pulled her close. She grabbed my chin, pulling me in for a long, very wet kiss.
Everyone around us started to cheer. Some idiots were chanting the name of the college. Maura’s lips were soft and, boy, did she know how to kiss.
I couldn’t tell if it was the fact of being on display, of doing this in front of everyone else, or actually Maura herself, the fact that she was so clearly into it, her tits pushing into my with their hard points, her petite body making me feel big, powerful, sexy—but basically I got hard.
When she pulled back she sighed and looked at me, eyes dancing with laughter. I put her down. There was a huge crowd around us, almost exclusively male. Some guys were slapping me on the back. The one girl I could see was looking disapproving. Well, fuck her. Fuck them all, I thought, but blushed anyway.
“Where’s my drink?” I said.
Drinks were shoved in my direction. Clearly I was the man of the moment.
“Cheers,” I said, taking one.
Maura took another and looked around.
“Show’s over you fucking perverts. Private tickets will cost you. Follow me on OnlyFans.”
We walked towards the bar.
“You have an OnlyFans?” I whispered.
“No of course not, you absolute muppet, it’s only a bloody joke. Now get rid of your hard-on and come have a shot with aunty Maura.”
I shook my head, laughing, and followed her, my eyes scanning through the crowd until it landed, fleetingly, on Mark, his shirt a few buttons off a collar, his dark eyes piercing under his eyebrows, and all of his attention directed straight at me.
OK, so this night just got interesting.
*
I can’t remember whose idea it was to go punting. Maura wasn’t the source but it definitely only became the plan when she heard about it because then she proceeded to yell punt, punt, punt at the top of her lungs until I had to bundle her out of the bar, a hand over her mouth, just to keep her from getting us all kicked out of the college.
Punting was an Oxford tradition: think of the gondolas in Venice but without the pretty Italian name, and replace the elegant Italian gondoliers with drunk students—then you’re close.
I hoisted Maura through the Hobbit door and up the stairs, carrying her diminutive body like a firefighter emerging from a burning building. I could feel her licking the hand that I had over her mouth.
“Ew, stop that.”
She licked double as hard.
I set her down on the flagstones of the quad and rubbed my salvia-covered hand over my jeans.
“You taste like cologne,” she made a face, “trying to get lucky?”
“Always.”
“Oh, my chiseler, we have so much in common.”
A group was forming on the quad. Tom and Jason, Maura’s two rowers, appeared. One of them—Jason—proceeded to give Maura a “joke” neck massage while Tom looked on enviously. Maura rolled her eyes at me, communicating something along the lines of These guys are feking desperate, aren’t they? But I could tell she didn’t actually mind the attention one bit.
I tried to get excited about the prospect of hooking up with the leftover of Maura’s Dumb and Dumber, but I wasn’t into it and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be either.
Someone in the crowd yelled Punt! and Maura yelled back in answer, before grabbing my hand and starting to drag me towards the college entrance, out into the city.
I looked around, trying to locate Mark’s head among the crowd. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but people were still up from the stairs of the bar. He had been at the back. What if he wanted to follow, but he didn’t know where we’d gone?
“Come on, you great big lug,” Maura pulled at my arm so hard it felt like it might pop out of its socket.
“OK, OK,” I said, reluctantly turning my head away from the quad and from the prospect of seeing Mark again that night.
I got my phone clumsily out of my pocket with my free hand, opened Mark’s Facebook and even though I hadn’t added him as a friend, sent him a message, saying: Going punting if u keen.
As soon as I pressed the send button I regretted it. Desperate as fuck. But three shots in a row tended to have that effect on your decision making. And I knew that if I was really honest myself, I was willing to risk losing a bit of face to get a bit of time plastered to Mark’s face, if you know what I mean. If that made me desperate, so be it. You’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelette.
Maura immediately got lost but Tom took the lead, taking us down High Street and towards Magdalen Bridge, which crossed over the Cherwell, one of the many smaller rivers and estuaries that fed the Thames on its way through Oxford and on towards London. There was a large group of other students from the college behind us, but we broke into a run, wanting to get the best punt before everyone else got in the way.
“My fecking heels keep coming off, wait!”
Maura had her leg pulled
back and was fiddling with her straps.
“Hop on,” said Jason, kneeling in front of her so she could hop on.
‘Such service.”
Jason reminded me of a small bull, stocky and short, a meaty neck, one of those little guys that feel the need to get really buff to compensate.
But in any case it came in handy then because he lifted Maura onto his back like she was a tote bag and broke into a run down the street. Maura screamed with pleasure and laced her arms around his neck like reins.
We went down a gloomy passage beside the bridge which led to the river and to a fleet of punts, floating like corks in the half-light of the moon. They were long and low, split into two compartments, one at the front and one at the back, which each sat two or three people.
Maura dismounted her steed and sent the guys flying around to find the equipment.
“It’s locked!” Jason reported, holding up the padlock on the door of the punting hut.
“Fuck! All we need is the quant,” said Tom, trying to win points for his vocabulary.
For a second everything threatened to fall apart but then I leant down, following a hunch, and spotted a pole tucked up against the side of the building that someone had forgotten to stow away.
“Is this what you mean?” I asked, pulling it up where everyone could see it.
It was and with the quant sorted everything fell into place.
Maura pointed to the boat she wanted; one painted white and blue, like a sailor.
"That one’s fecking cute."
I dragged the pole, which was way longer than I expected, along with me and passed it to Jason who was standing at the end of the punt and who looked like he knew what he was doing.
Tom, having undone all the knots holding the punt to the pier, gestured to Maura.
“Come on in. Take my hand.”
Maura laughed, slipped off her heels again and unceremoniously threw them into the boat. Then, in her bare feet, she tiptoed over the planks and cautiously onto the end of the boat. Jason crouched down to steady his end of the boat and then she was in. Tom grabbed her by the hand and almost lifted her into the front compartment of the punt, eliciting another squeal. She sat down and Tom sat opposite, leaving the two of them brushing knees.