“Who cares what dad thinks Michael, he’s not going to stay mad at you forever.”

“It’s too late to tell him now. I’ll go to law school. At least then I’ll be away from my meddling brother

for a while.”

“Just think about the journalism classes,” he sighed.

“The moment has passed,” I said again and I handed him back the papers.

“Fine if that’s what you want, then go,” he said and he started to walk away angrily. I grabbed his arm

and pulled him nearer to me. He looked startled but then he smiled and that smile was so sweet and warm

that it melted me from the inside. I hugged him hard, pressing his body against mine, and while I did, I

knew that I had to leave.

PART 2 NEW YORK

5. Alone in New York

Those last weeks at home were dreadful. Everybody seemed sad I was leaving but I could only feel

relieve that I would be gone by the end of August. There would be no more late night snuggling in front of

the TV or hugs that lasted too long between David and me. I would be safe and far away from him.

When I left home with two suitcases with my stuff everybody came to the porch to wave goodbye. I felt

awkward. I had insisted on going to the airport only with my dad, who was coming with me for a couple

of days, because I didn’t want my family to make a big scene and cry while I was boarding the plane.

While I was walking towards the taxi, David grabbed my arm and pulled me close to him. “Take care

Michael,” he said and pressed his face against my chest.

“I’ve got to go,” I said and tried to keep a straight face as I walked to the car. Everything would be

different from now on. I would not let David rule my thought and emotions like he had over the past

couple of months.

So I arrived in New York, ready to start my new life as a student. I was among the 380 guys and girls

who started in August as a first-year J.D. student at Columbia. All those fresh young faces flooded the

campus, me being one of them. Surprisingly, the first couple of months at university were really good. I

didn’t feel so stressed anymore now that I wasn’t around David and the lectures were not as boring as I

had suspected; After a taking an elective course in Perspectives on International Law I started to believe

that maybe I would like to become a lawyer after all.

Being alone in New York without my old friends, I needed to find new ways of keeping myself busy.

There was a small cinema that I stumbled into on a rainy afternoon and after I’d seen my first French

movie, Belle de jour, I was hooked. Everything sounded better in French, even cursing, and I knew I

wanted to learn the language for myself. I had enough time on my hands to take French language courses,

read French books and rent European art-house movies. I was fascinated by everything French, which is

why I ended up in France eventually.

When it came to studying law, I excelled without too much effort. Studying has always been easy for

me. Because I felt that I could do some extra activities next to my regular classes, I talked to some career

counselors at University and found out that Columbia has an alliance with the Université Panthéon-

Sorbonne in Paris. Basically it meant that I could do two years of law study at Columbia Law School

followed by two years at the University of Paris. I quickly became enthusiastic about this because by now

I loved everything French and this would give me the opportunity to actually see something of the world. I

suddenly wanted to go to Paris desperately and studied my French extra hard. I could see myself strolling

the streets near the Eiffel tower or drinking wine in a small café surrounded by hot-looking guys. So I

applied for the French Law program and in mid-March I was informed that I’d passed the initial screening

to join. Members of Columbia's Double Degree Committee and a representative of the Paris University

interviewed me in French afterwards. I passed the exam with flying colors. At the time I had no real idea

how much this would mean to me in two years.

When I told my dad that I’d passed the admission tests for the program he was impressed. My dad had

not been a brilliant student I guess, but he was very charismatic and persuasive. Sometimes when dad and

I were on the phone he would talk about his firm and how we could work together in the future. Still, I

didn’t have the heart to tell him that I rather wanted to work someplace else. I was starting to develop a

love for international law and I wondered how that would fit in when I worked for him. I never wanted to

go back to Fresno now that I was experiencing the New York kind of life.

I never asked dad about David and how he was doing. My dad would sometimes make a cruel remark

about him on the phone. When David became captain of the football team in his senior year, my dad

would say that the team hadn’t won as much as the year before when I was still captain. When David’s

grades were among the best in his year, my dad would still question if he would get into the same

university as me. Both things were bullshit; David was a better football player and studied harder than I’d

ever done. He was the kind of boy that most parents would kill for to have as a son. He was always kind

and well-behaved; he studied hard and hung out with his kid brothers. Still I knew it would never be

enough to please my dad, because David could never be me. David trying so hard made me sick

sometimes. How could he want my life so badly when I hated it sometimes? How could he want to be a

perfect son, brother, football player and lawyer?

Besides studying and learning French, I explored New York. I had been to ‘the Big Apple’ only once

when I was sixteen, on a trip with our entire family. Now the whole city lay wide open for me to

discover. And I didn’t just explore the city...

In high school I’d been stuck with only semi-attractive class-mates at best, here I saw good-looking

men everywhere...

The first guy I finally slept with looked a bit like David. He had dark hair and serious eyes and we met

at a place that served a cheap breakfast until 11 o’ clock where I went after a night of clubbing. It turned

out he’d just moved from Austin and hadn’t made a lot of friends yet. He was eager enough to take me to

his room. I don’t remember his name, just that he was a big guy with brown curly hair that needed a

haircut. He was kind of shy and although he was not a virgin, he wasn’t very experienced either. He gave

me a sloppy kiss and I wondered if this was what all the fuss was about. When his hands started kneading

my dick through my jeans, I got excited quickly enough though.

I wasn’t nervous, even though I was a virgin myself. I was still a bit intoxicated by the alcohol of the

night before and he wasn’t whom I really wanted so there was not much to fuck up. Although it was noon,

his room was dark and stuffy. When he was taking his shirt off, I dimmed the lights and glanced at him

through my eyelashes. He had a nice body and a large uncircumcised cock. I undressed too while he was

staring at me and grabbed a condom out of my back pocket and slid it over my dick. The room was almost

dark enough to make me pretend I was looking at David. The thought of David standing there in stead this

other guy got me horny enough to push him over and fuck him hard while he was bent over on the couch.

He kept pumping his own dick while I fucked him until all of a sudden his body went in to a spasm and he

came all over his couch. The feeling of his big heaving body convulsing underneath me was enough to