"Well, how was it?"

With that question, Jake's foundation crumpled like a napkin. Ian sat across from him at the gray cafeteria table and smiled, waiting for an answer.

"It was fun," Jake said coolly. There was no sense in denying what had happened--Ian already knew, obviously. And only Matt could have told him.

The night had started simply enough, an invitation to a party from his new friend, Matt. Jake was a first year, so receiving an invitation to a party-and from a senior, no less-was something about which Jake had been excited, even proud.

Jake didn't drink in high school, so he didn't quite understand how alcohol worked: Were six shots a lot? He stayed by Matt's side for most of the night, too intimidated to mingle with strangers and too self-aware to dance.

He retreated to a low Ikea futon in the back of the dark living room and watched the writhing bodies, felt the thick pungent air. The music and the alcohol pulsed together through his body. He felt disconnected as he watched the girls in black booty pants rubbing their asses against the guys and the group of jocks on the back porch tipping back their red plastic cups.

Squeezing onto the couch next to him, Matt broke Jake's trance. Matt's leg rubbed against Jake's leg, and his arm flopped around Jake's shoulder. And Jake leaned into him, because he was tired, because he was drunk and because it felt good to feel close to someone in this foreign place.

Sitting in the cafeteria, memories of the rest of night came in blips and flashes: his head on Matt's shoulder; a hug and lips pressed against his forehead; streetlights pulsing on a walk back to Matt's place; the sound of the door closing; the unfamiliar feeling of standing in an unfamiliar room in the dark; fumbling with belts; tumbling onto a small dormitory bed. And waking to a new sensation: a headache and an arm pressed tightly to his chest. And he remembered the kiss, how rough it felt. A little stubble can change a lot.

And now Ian knew, and if he knew, others knew, and if others knew, everyone would soon find out: his roommate, the kid from his high school who lived down the hall, his Great Aunt Phyllis. (That's just how these things work.)

So for the first time in his life, he let down his guard, and he told the truth: "It was fun."

To Ian it felt normal enough. Two friends eating Saturday brunch talking about last night's adventures.

But to Jake it was rapturous: as the words left his mouth, he felt the mortar oozing out from between the bricks he had placed inside so meticulously and methodically. The wall came down.

Before this point, he had left nothing unscripted: He was just a nice boy with good hygiene who didn't want to make out with his girlfriend of a year because he "respected her too much."

But it wasn't the truth, and now he knew it. He had felt that in his racing pulse the night before.

Splinters of uncertainty now pierced his skin and relieved him of the burden of not feeling at all.

From "We are not Charlotte Simmons: Three true stories about sex at Georgetown" by Rob Anderson in The Georgetown Voice, (latest edition).