A gay story: Brief Encounters Ch. 11
*****The following story is fiction and includes characters over the age of 18*****
Brief Encounters Anthology, Chapter 11: On A Stormy Night
Heavy rain pelted the house’s windows, lightning flashes illuminated the dark rooms, and rumbles of thunder shook the house. A heavy storm was passing over this Saturday evening. The plan this evening was for my two friends, Rudy and Neil, and me to come hang out and watch some movies, taking a mental break from the constant studying we have done recently for our college exams.
Before the storm started, I had gone shopping earlier in the day. I picked up snacks, chips, salsa, cookies, and a few packs of beer. It was our junior year in college, and the semester was coming to a close soon. The exams were strenuous, but we studied hard. We had been friends for over a year and met in the campus library last year.
I remembered the day like it was yesterday.
The three of us were studying for the same exam and decided to help each other. We had met at the campus library, but since we kept digressing and talking about ourselves. We grew too loud and had to leave. We ended up going to Chili’s to eat. That’s where we got to know each other. Every weekend until the exam, we would meet up and study. We all had passed the exam.
The following semester, we quickly found each other and began to hang out more frequently. We didn’t hang out during summer because Neil had returned to Nebraska to be with his family, and Rudy had gone down south to Orange County, where he is from. We had gotten so close that I decided to reveal my sexuality to them. Neither of them cared about my sexuality, even Rudy, who was from a Catholic background.
When the doorbell rang, I was standing in front of the mirror. I was dressed in jeans and a white shirt that had the cover of Whitney Houston’s “I’m Your Baby Tonight” on it. A roar of thunder rattled the house as I rushed to the door. Some of the lights in the house flickered.
“Hey guys, come on it!” I urged them.
Rudy and Neil came in with their jackets soaking wet. “Hey, Tim. Fucking shit, it’s really coming down out there,” Neil said.
The two boys removed their jackets, and I hung them in the kitchen. “Yeah, the storm blew out the power of my apartment, so I didn’t get to finish laundry,” Rudy said.
“That explains why you’re in your checkered pajamas and that old beat-up UCLA shirt,” I said; Rudy had told me he had that shirt since high school. He got it during the college fair. It was beat up with holes around it. But I couldn’t fault him; he was doing laundry.
Neil wore a blue sweatshirt with the school’s name and mascot and black jeans.
Rudy was the tallest of the group, standing at 6’2, while also being the oldest at 22. He had short black hair, emerald-colored eyes, and light skin. Rudy was on the soccer team at school, so he had an athletic build. Rock-hard six-pack abs that the ladies loved to see. Sometimes, during games, he would remove his shirt, and you would hear a wave of excitement from the ladies in the crowd. Even my mother was caught doing it. Rudy’s major was in medicine, to become a doctor one day.
Neil was the opposite of Rudy. He was tall and slim and wasn’t involved in sports. He would bring his guitar to school and play music in the lunchroom. He had long black hair that ended below his shoulder blades and tan skin. The closest thing Neil got to cardio was rocking out on stage with his band, “Exodus Stage Left.”
I was in between the two when it came to body build. I was shorter than both, 5’8 I was lean, but I also played basketball for the school. So I had the muscles to go with it, just not Rudy’s six-pack abs. An Anthlete’s body is what most would call it. My hair was black, my eyes were brown, and my skin was tanner than Neil’s. I didn’t get the girls excited about my abs, but I did get the gay men excited about my voluptuous ass. I worked hard every day at the gym to keep my bubble butt.
Rudy walked into the bathroom while Neil and I stumbled into the kitchen. I began telling him what I had bought as he perused the refrigerator. “Did you get any of those Hot Cheetos I like?”
I opened the cabinet and tossed him the family-sized bag.
“Yes!” Before tearing into the bag, Neil said, “You are truly the best.”
Neil sat at the table, eating his bag of chips, “So, how’s your sister?”
My sister, Teresa, had been involved in a car accident a few weeks ago. She suffered a fractured foot and broken leg, “She’s fine. When she calls, she complains about her boyfriend not hearing her when she called for him.”
“That sucks,” Neil said.
Rudy walked into the kitchen, “Alright, losers.” When he said that, a flash of lightning happened, causing us to go silent. Mentally, I counted. I only made it to two when thunder rocked the house. The lights flickered. “It’s been doing that all evening,” I said.
“Right, as I was about to say. Which movie do you guys want to watch first?” he opened his backpack and took a few Blu-rays.
“Why don’t we watch ‘Under the Floorboard 7,'” I suggested.
“What? Those movies have sucked since the 3rd movie,” Neil said.
“Yeah, but this one has a different director. Plus, the studios backed off after the awful 6th installment,” I retorted.
“Tim has a point; this one has the same director that did ‘The Farmer’s Daughter.”
“The porno?” Neil said.
Rudy smacked him on the shoulder, “No, you, nimrod. The horror film.”
Neil grinned, “I know, I’m just messing with you. I’m down to watch it, but if it starts to suck, I’m using my veto.”
“Fine,” Rudy and I said in unison.
Once we gathered our snacks, we went to the living room. Neil sat on the recliner while Rudy and I sat on the couch. Rudy had extended the couch on his side with his legs up and shoes off. I turned on the sound system and set it at a high volume. It wasn’t enough to cut out the thunderstorm, but it was enough to cut out the rain. I put the Blu-ray in, and the movie began.
The flashes of lightning added to the spookiness of the film-watching. A bowl of popcorn was between Rudy and me. Each of us grabbed popcorn while occasionally touching each other’s hands. Each time it happened, we’d laugh it off.
A roar of thunder shook the house. It sounded like it was right above the house. Even the car alarms in the neighborhood went off, including Rudy’s truck. We paused the movie when we heard the sounds of wood cracking. The three of us rushed to the front window.
The tree in front of my house tipped over and hit the powerline, causing the power to go out. “Shit,” I said.
Each of us turned on the light from our phones.
“Yeah, shit!” Neil said.
“Now what?” Rudy said.
My phone pinged.
It was a notification that we were under a severe thunderstorm watch for the next few hours and that everyone should stay inside. I told the guys.
“Anywhere else we could go?” Neil said.
“Did you not hear what Tim said? We should stay inside. I’m not driving through that,” Rudy said.
“Rudy is right,” I said, “I have some candles. Perhaps we can just do something else while the storm subsides.”