The Front Runner

faculty advisor came to me and shook his head about Billy's portfolio. "It hasn't gone anywhere since that spate of studying when he had the cast on his leg," he said. "I know Billy's serious about track, but if he wants to graduate ..."
    "Yeah, sure," I said, sounding like the detached concerned athletic director. "I'll talk to him about it."
    On April 15, in the early evening, I was working in my office in the silent athletic building when I heard Billy call me sharply from the dressing room down the hall.
    "Harlan!" There was a note of urgency in his voice.
    I ran down the hall and into the dressing room. He was standing bent over strangely by one of the benches. He was nude except for his jock strap, and his damp running clothes were thrown over the bench. His face was white and his teeth gritted, and he was kneading his thigh desperately. He had a mammoth cramp in his leg.
    I knew at a glance that he had been out for one of his clandestine workouts. With Billy, muscle tremors and cramps were always the result of magnesium loss and overwork.
    "Harlan," he panted, "help me."
    It had always been my policy to stay away from the locker rooms and leave any rubdowns to my assistant. But there was nobody else around, and a cramp like that can do real damage if it's not handled right.
    So I knelt on the concrete floor in front of him, and massaged the leg desperately. He bent over me, his hands clenched in the back of my shirt. Finally the cramp started to ease. I made him lie down on the bench and kept working at the leg, from the calf to the hip.
    We were alone. The building was silent. It was the first time I had seen him so close to naked, and I
    found myself wishing that he had gotten the jock strap off before the cramp hit.
    His body lay on the bench as if offered to me. His right leg" was in my hands, and the other had fallen aside, the bare foot braced on the floor. His crotch was exposed: the powerful hamstrings, the small buttocks with curls of dark wet hair between them. More curls framed the manhood tight and hidden in its supporter. The broad dingy elastic band across his lean abdomen contrasted curiously with his pale skin. He was not flaunting himself, as Denny Falks had done, and that made the sight of him all the more moving.
    He lay breathing deeply, one arm over his face, fighting to concentrate, to use his yoga to relax the muscle. Since he wasn't looking at me, I dared to let my eyes run over his body. He was beautiful by no standards save those of distance running. His muscles were good, but too starved-looking. The legs were too long and thin, too veined, the muscles too cruelly defined, for most tastes. His curving thigh was scarcely thicker than his calf.
    Finally his leg lay limp and supple in my hands. I could still feel a feeble muscle tremor in the thigh as I held it.
    "How does it feel?" I said, still daring to hold his thigh a moment.
    "Okay," he said in a low shaky voice, still not taking his arm away from his eyes. "It hurts a little. There's a tremor there."
    Then I saw that the front of his jock strap was swelling a little. Now that our worry was over, it had occurred to him as well that we were in a sexual situation. Possibly he liked me. Possibly he was just hard up for sex. But in any case he wanted me to touch him. All I had to do was bend over him and put my face against his hot flank, and gently pull the damp jock strap down around his thighs.
    Instead, I panicked, and with the panic came my anger.
    I let go of his thigh. "Serves you right," I said.
    My voice cracked in the silence of the locker room. His body jerked as if I had lashed it with a whip.
    "How far did you run?" I demanded.
    He still had his arm over his face, and his pale skin had turned a mottled pink-blue covered with goose-bumps. ""Fifteen miles," he said.
    "What pace?" I said.
    "Five fifteen," he said.
    "A week before the Drake," I said. "You're an irresponsible brat. Who the hell do you think you are, taking my time with your tantrums? If you can't settle down and do this right, then I invite you to find another coach."
    He sat up, turning away from me. His back was straight, but I sensed how humiliated he was. The front of his jock strap went back to normal. I ached with regret at having hurt him, but I also felt safer now.
    "And now you're chilled too," I said. "Get your ass under the hot water."
    Silently he got up and fumbled in his open locker for his towel. I looked mournfully at his body, feeling as if I