Decade Of Excellence: The "G" Word

“Hey I was just dressing up for the Rocky Horror Picture show, and I had to go all out, you wouldn’t understand it’s a theater thing.”

“I don’t care what kind of thing it was, you are wearing female lingerie, I would never be caught dead in something like that.”

Rush was cursed with a natural attractiveness, piercing blue eyes, a quirky personality, and a passive-aggressive attitude towards girls. Not only did the most beautiful ones want to hook up with him – so did the most beautiful guys as well. Since Rush had befriended the leader of GSA, an openly gay senior theater major, the rumor mill was spreading that Rush was gay. This was a rumor that the gay guys on campus did nothing to stem, because who wouldn’t want to be Rush’s first. The problem was that Rush wasn’t gay – just tolerant and open-minded – yet the witch hunt was on, and the mob can be cruel.

Sure enough the pictures spread, fanning the cries that Rush might be, dare we say it, the “G” word. It wasn’t just the gay men on campus who spread the rumor, but also the girls scorned by Rush’s charms. A pleasant bedside manner led many a girl to think that they were “the one,” when they were just “another one” – upon realizing this they formed an “I Hate Rush” support group and gleefully spread the rumors of Rush’s alleged closet-dom. Despite this, life was good for Rush and I. We became inseparable, entire dormitory floors of women threw us parties, senior girls invited us out drinking, and on one glorious night a female admirer declared to a room full of her friends that together Rush and I were like “a double walking orgasm.” Just when we thought we were on top of the world and had avoided all of the things that make freshmen boys look like, well, freshmen boys – we received an invitation that took the steam out of our sails. We were invited to a fetish party.

I don’t know what we did to garner such an invitation – but we immediately knew we had just been invited to join something secret and awesome. We also immediately knew we had no clue what exactly a “fetish” was and were pretty sure neither of us had one. I had personally gone from straight edged Catholic school-boy to S&M prospect in a few months, was still trying to get a handle on the basics of debauchery and knew I wasn’t ready for the PhD course. Not yet. So when brainstorming gave absolutely nothing, we turned to our militant butch friend, Ashley.

Ashley was curvy by anyone’s standards and enjoyed wearing corsets, leather boots, and pink hair just because the weather was nice and it was Tuesday. If anyone knew what to wear to a fetish party, it was she. After a good laugh, she agreed to dress us for the event, but on one condition: we would let her do our makeup. An hour or so later – my life had taken an unexpected turn. I was now wearing a black fishnet shirt, with a faux nipple chain that looked frighteningly real, silver nail paint, black lipstick, and silver eye-liner. Rush donned a pink mesh fishnet shirt, gold faux-nipple ring, a black thong, eyeliner, and spiked Mohawk hair. I had to admit – we looked completely gay and completely like we belonged at a fetish party. Ashley had done well.

As we stumbled down my all-boy substance free freshmen hall – there was silence. One friend from the ATL looked at me quizzically, shook his head, and walked back into his room. Another gave me the classic “you are setting black people back 100 years right now” look. We quickly left campus for the address – entering the house we immediately noticed a tall, beautiful, topless girl with a words written on her body. There were girls wrapped in bubblewrap, guys in leather, girls in ties, handcuffs, police officer hats, and a certain special someone with a fantastic ass wearing boyshorts and a cub scout shirt. These sexily and scandalously clad females would approach us, twerk our nipples, engage us in conversation and prance off. We felt like kings, or at least Caligula. As the bacchanal continued to get hotter, I decided the safest thing to do was to go back to campus and find my beautiful super conservative girl friend. However, I would have tested my faithfulness if I would have known what would happen to Rush in my absence.

“So Rush how was the rest of your night last night?”

“Well I got pretty drunk, ran into Sheyanne, who kinda pounced on me and took me back to her room.”

“WTF! Sheyanne! Say it ain’t so!?”

Sheyanne was a girl who neither Rush nor I approved of. She wasn’t really attractive, she wasn’t really nice, she wasn’t cool, she was kinda sloppy, and simply not up to our standards.

“Yeah man, but I started to sober up in the middle of us hooking up, realized it was Sheyanne, and just stopped and left.”

Sheyanne did, however, have a big mouth, a big network of friends, and a much higher opinion of herself than we had. So, unable to fathom why any man would rather escape her chambers than continue having sex with her, the only logical conclusion had to involve homosexuality. Rush had to be gay. Finally, the mob had “proof”.

I would spend the rest of the year constantly having to deny that my best friend was gay. The sad part is that all of the accusations made me second guess my friend. Finally, I told him that I didn’t care either way if he was gay or straight, but if he was gay he should let me know because I was growing tired of defending his sexuality. Rush was a bit hurt, and tearfully replied that no, for the last time, he was not gay.