Those Varsity Days
Note: For those of you ‘babies’ out there, there is a reference to the older TV show ‘M.A.S.H’ in this story. I hope you all know the show. I never really liked it, but my brother did so I got stuck watching it.
An extra note from me: This story is based on an old friend of mine and
his experience when he played on the hockey team at university years
ago. He was my
‘Brian’. He was gorgeous,
totally cool, took my virginity at seventeen and turned out later to be
gay! I found out several years
later, through mutual friends that he realized while at university that he
was gay. By the time I found
out, he had moved to
I decided to call him because I wanted to tell him that I’d found out and ‘no big deal’. The news hadn’t changed the way I felt about him at all. I’d learned that he had had a hard time when he’d come out from certain old friends and from his family. His brother wouldn’t even talk to him. Not that he needed my ‘approval’ in any way. I just wanted him to know that it didn’t change anything. He was really happy that I’d called. So was I.
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Brian and Justin relaxed after dinner on the sofa and watched TV. Brian was lying with his back against the arm of the sofa, legs stretched out straight along the cushions. Justin lay on his side between his lover's legs, snuggled up to his chest. The older man had gained control of the converter and flipped channels at whim. Finally, something caught his eye and he stopped. It was a varsity soccer game. "Alright," Brian said.
Justin hadn't paid much attention to what had flown by as the channels rapidly changed. He was so content snuggled against his lover and just enjoyed the closeness. He heard Brian speak and directed his eyes back to the TV to see what his lover was watching. 'Oh, yeah, sports!' Justin thought sarcastically.
The older man was really engrossed in the game. He loved to watch soccer just as he used to love to play the sport. He knew Justin always asked him to share more of his history with him and decided to throw the boy a scrap.
"Did I ever tell you that I used to play varsity soccer at Penn.?" Brian asked Justin.
The blonde was startled that his lover had just offered up that bit of information without being prodded at all. He was impressed with the act as well as the fact that Brian had played soccer in university. Justin moved slightly so that he could look up at his lover's face. "No, you never told me that. I bet you were really good with those long legs and all."
"Yeah, I really was a great player. I had the top scoring record for two years straight. No pun intended." Brian looked at Justin with his last comment, eyebrow raised. "I really loved the game. I started playing when I was eight. It's the only thing my old man ever let me join. I think he thought it was good for him. Got me out of his sight even more." Brian got quiet after that admission.
Justin could see as the memories of Brian's horrible childhood played across his face and it saddened him. He wanted to bring his lover out of those bad memories and back to the good parts of his story.
"I remember hearing that sometimes they initiate the new players of varsity teams. Did anything like that ever happen to you?" Justin asked his lover and watched as his face lost its harshness and lightened up.
Brian laughed slightly at his memory. "Yeah, we had to go through all kinds of shit at the hands of the older players. They figured they had to go through it themselves and now it was our turn."
The younger man was really interested now. "What did they do to you?" Justin asked quietly.
Brian hesitated at the memories, his face looked a little embarrassed as he remembered what he had gone through. He remembered that at the time he had felt so degraded. He looked at Justin still pressed against his chest, but with his face pulled back to look up at Brian's. He knew he could trust him with his memories.
"The older guys, who had already been on the team from the previous years took us to a large room and told us to strip. They gave us each a hand mirror, shaving cream and a razor. We were told that we had to shave our own balls." Brian looked down at Justin's face, his mouth hung slightly agape.
Brian continued, with a raised eyebrow and devilish look on his face. "That wasn't the bad part." He laughed slightly and Justin laughed with him.
Brian's face lost its smile from the previous statement and hardened a little. "Then they gave us a tube of A-535. You know the stuff you put on sore muscles. It has that mentholated shit that burns into your skin." Justin started to not like where this was going and his body stiffened up next to his lover's.
"They instructed us to open the tube, which we did, and squeeze some out into our hand. Then they made us spread it all over our freshly-shaved balls." Brian's face winced at that part and he stared off into the loft, lost in the memory. "It burned like a motherfucker."
The younger man felt sympathy pains in his own balls at the memory Brian relived before him. He put a hand on his lover's arm and reassured him that he was there. The older man looked back at Justin and smiled slightly. He wanted to push those memories away and as he looked at his beautiful baby's face, it helped to do just that.
The younger man wanted to change his lover's focus so he asked, "were there any other memories you have of being on the team. Maybe a good one?"
Brian raised his eyebrow seductively at his lover, "I did get to fuck all the hot guys that came to watch me play." To Brian, anything to do with sex was always a good thing. Brian remembered another thing about being on the team, started to open his mouth to tell Justin about it, and then hesitated. It wasn't really a good memory. Most of Brian's memories of his life before Justin weren't good.
Justin saw when his lover hesitated and the far off look in his eyes as he remembered something else. "Brian, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just remembered something else we had to endure when we joined the team." Brian stopped, not sure if he wanted to go down that particular memory. He knew that he had shared more of himself with Justin than anyone else ever. He shook his head slightly and wondered why all these things were coming back to him. He really had tried to forget about them and how stupid they had made him feel at the time. "I really don't want to talk about it. It was stupid and childish."
"You can tell me. I won't tell anyone else. You know that." Justin assured him.
Brian smiled slightly at his baby, because it really was a dumb thing. But when you're a kid you do dumb things. That's part of growing up. Christ, he was still doing dumb things all the time. Was he ever going to grow up? Justin looked back up at him, mirroring his lover's smile. "Tell me. Tell me." Justin tickled Brian with his fingers. Brian grabbed his side and tried to stop his lover. The older man laughed deep in his chest as the blonde tickled him mercilessly. Brian was so ticklish and his lover knew this. The sure way his boy had of getting anything he wanted was to tickle him until he begged for mercy. He laughed so hard, and started to roll from side to side on the couch. He tried to get Justin off of him, but with no luck.
"Tell me, now," Justin taunted.
The older man thought he would pee in his pants if Justin didn't stop. "Okay, alright, I'll tell you," Brian got out around his laughter and tried to catch his breath. Then his face sobered and he spoke in a serious voice. "But this information NEVER leaves this loft. You tell no one. Is that clear?"
Justin was very pleased with himself for getting Brian to loosen up and laugh and that he had coaxed the information out of his lover. Then he heard Brian's tone as it changed to one of seriousness. He knew that it must have been something that Brian had kept to himself and now he was going to trust Justin with it. The blonde shook his head 'yes' in response to his lover's question. He waited for Brian's breathing to return to normal and watched his face as he spoke again.
"As well as the stuff they made us do physically, they also did other things. One of the worst for me was the assignment of a call name. Like a nick name. They chose it and you had no say in it at all." Brian laughed at the memory. "I hated mine right from the start. Most of them were lame."
"What was it?"
Brian hesitated for a moment, still not sure about sharing this information with the boy. He looked at his lover's face and said it. "Radar."
Justin was silent and looked puzzled at the answer. "You mean like in the old TV show 'M.A.S.H.'?" Justin asked confused at why his lover would be given that name. Brian nodded at the boy. The blonde was still confused. Justin knew the show and had watched it occasionally. It played in re-runs on the oldies channel. "Brian, why would they give you a name after a character that was short, balding, chubby, wore glasses and was so nerdy and unattractive?"
"Because," Brian explained, "I was such an excellent player and never let the ball through. I never let anything get through my 'radar'. Hence, the name 'Radar'." Only, he had left out the worst part. What he hadn't told Justin was that when his teammates found out he was gay, they started to call him 'Gaydar' behind his back. He had known about it, but never said anything in his defense. He had been afraid that it would have started a fight. He couldn't take the chance of being kicked off the team. He would have lost his scholarship.
Justin could tell that Brian was a little bothered by his memory and decided to lighten up the mood for his lover. "Well, it could have been worse," he told the older man with a smile upon his face. "They could have called you 'Hot-Lips' because of one of the other things you're excellent at." Justin laughed out loud at his reference to one of the other characters on 'M.A.S.H.'- this one a woman!
Brian growled at Justin and pulled one of the throw pillows from the couch over his head. Here he was, soul bared and Justin laughed at him. "Go ahead, laugh at my bad memories. I never should have told you," Brian whined from under the pillow. He wasn't really mad. The memories hadn't seemed so bad now that he had shared them. They were just things that stupid kids did to each other in university.
The younger man knew that his lover was just being a drama queen and wasn't really upset. Justin remembered, with a devious smile, that Brian had told him that the name wasn't to leave the loft. The younger man knew that he wouldn't break his word and tell anyone about it, but inside the loft it was fair game.
"Oh, Radar!" Justin called to his lover. Brian groaned from underneath the pillow.
"How about coming up to the bedroom with me and seeing if I can get something in under your radar?" Justin asked suggestively.
Brian threw the pillow off of his face forcefully with a loud growl. He grabbed his lover swiftly, draped him over his shoulder and carried him up to their bedroom. Justin laughed all the way.