Down the Basement II: Santa Saturday

After the Halloween costume party, I started seeing Kadin on a regular basis. And this left me speechless more than once. I couldn't understand why a popular guy like Kadin would want to be with me. Kadin was the star quarterback on the college football team, all the girls in school were after him, and all his fraternity brothers loved him. When he walked me back to my dorm the first night, we'd fooled around in the basement of his fraternity house. He kissed me good night in the dark hallway. Though he was the only guy at: the party who had figured out I wasn't a woman, he didn't seem to care. I just stood there gaping, with one hand pressed to my throat and the other dangling at my side.
When he left a few minutes later, I watched him lope down the sidewalk with his hands buried in his pockets and his shoulders hunched forward. He hadn't worn a jacket and the weather had turned cooler that night. As he rounded a corner at the end of the walkway and disappeared from sight, I stood there staring into the darkness for another fifteen minutes, wondering if this had all been a dream.
But it wasn't a dream. I'd given him my cell number, and he called me the next day and asked if we could get together that night. I agreed with reservations. Kadin had only seen me in drag, not as a man. I'd gone to the costume party at the frat house in drag for fun, never expecting to hook up with anyone. And I had no intention of doing drag again for a long, long time. When he picked me up that night, I worried Kadin would expect me to flit out of the dorm in high heels and a pink dress.
I wore an off-white sweater and faded jeans instead. When his huge black SUV pulled up to the curb, I was standing there waiting for him with my hands in my pockets. It occurred to me that he might not even recognize me as a man. But he reached over the front seat and popped the door open. When I sat down and buckled my seat belt, he smiled and said, "You look nice tonight. Nice sweater."
Well. Between Halloween and Thanksgiving, we started seeing each other at least three or four nights a week. He never asked me to dress up in drag for him, and he seemed perfectly content with me as a man. We drove to dark parking lots and jumped into the back of his SUV. Kadin explained he was bi-sexual and wanted to take it slowly at first. He even went into great detail about his frustrations and his anxieties about dating another guy in public. He looked me in the eye; he was honest. He said he wasn't ready to be open about it. And I decided not to push him into anything too soon. I enjoyed being with him. Spending time alone this way, even though it was on the down low, allowed us to be together without any other interruptions.