The ROTC Boys and Me: Part I
I began my sophomore year as the female equivalent of an incel. That is, I was still a virgin. My teammates, of course, were no help in this regard. If anything, they cramped my style. I recall a pre-race dinner in Boston, an evening I’d later dub “Turtlenecks in August.” That the girl with the most androgynous wardrobe and flattest chest, i.e. me, wore the most revealing attire should have tickled me. Instead, I found it infuriating. I knew then that I needed to extricate myself from these Nancy Reagan acolytes, or else I’d remain a virgin indefinitely.
And so rather than lunch with my teammates at the college cafeteria, I scouted out other options. In high school, I’d resigned myself to the same table of goths and high-functioning autistic kids for four years. My newfound ambition at age nineteen led me to a world even my active imagination could not have conjured — the Reserve Officer Training Corps.
The Reserve Officer Training Corps, or ROTC, was a social gold-mine for my interpersonally primitive sophomore self. The ROTC table, comprised predominately of staid 20-year-old men who compensated in work ethic what they lacked in personality, tantalized me. Amid the din of sexually explicit frat gossip and Free Palestine protests, the ROTC men dined with perfect posture in near silence. As someone who proudly, even ostentatiously, preferred silence, I found them alluring rather than daunting.
From the women’s cross country table, situated perfectly for the voyeurism of which only I took advantage, I surveyed the ROTC men with my female gaze for weeks. Thirty feet away, a sexually frustrated girl, unbeknownst to the ROTC men, eyed them intently (longingly). By October, I decided to make my move. After all, I reasoned, I’d faced rejection before. The specter of sullying my reputation would not infuse my behavior until several years later, in the workplace.
“May I sit here?”
The men looked up at me, their normally stoic faces, framed by high-and-tight haircuts, startled.
“We have nothing to do with the CIA.” A lanky guy wearing an off-brand collared shirt spoke first. I registered his aquiline nose before responding, “I’m not here about Syria. I genuinely just want to sit with you.”
You would think that over a year of colorless conversation with bible-thumping Schlaflyites degraded my social skills. On the contrary, my teammates unwittingly endowed me with a certain audacity.
“Don’t mind Brendan; he’s too serious, even for us,” chimed in a broad-shouldered, mixed-race cadet. “You can sit next to me.”
Relieved, and somewhat surprised, by the invitation, I placed my tray beside him. “I’m Rebecca.”
“Chris,” he replied, a grin revealing a row of perfect white teeth.
“Wow, you have excellent teeth.” Alright, Becca, I guess you’re feeling Aspie today.
“Thanks,” he chuckled. “I’m a pretty diligent flosser.” Chris’s teeth, I would learn, typified the rest of him. He was pristine, in a way that exceeded even the ROTC program’s expectations. While his fellow cadets donned their business casual half-heartedly, Chris carefully ironed his very expensive-looking wardrobe. I had a strong feeling, upon first meeting him, that he wore Calvin Klein briefs and shaved his pubic hair.
Most of the men returned to their silent eating after adjusting to the XX-chromosome presence at the table. Brendan, too, remained noteworthily quiet.
Chris, noticing me eye Brendan, asserted loudly, “don’t mind Brendan. He’s our token surly semite!”
Chris’s comment elicited a fleeting smile from Brendan. “I told you to cut that out.”
I could not believe my luck. But before allowing myself too much excitement, I needed to substantiate my suspicion. “Are you Jewish?”
“Are you?” Brendan retorted without missing a beat. That’s a “yes.”
“Of course. Did you not notice my luscious curls?” I gestured to my hair, which, after nineteen years, I had learned to tame.
Chris reached out and touched my hair chastely. “Very luscious!” He commented. This brief exchange substantiated my other suspicion: Chris was gay.
Such brazen sexual deviancy — at the ROTC table, of all places — lured me ever closer to their coterie. My youth left me with generally unpleasant memories, but most of my almost fond moments involved the queer theater kids. Unlike most of my sadistic peers, the baby gays accepted me as their own. They probably assumed I was one of them.
In Chris’s gayness, which only just peeked out, like a rogue side-boob in a cocktail dress, I saw safety. I saw a friend.
That was my first mistake.
I returned to the ROTC table the next day, and the following day. After a week, what my teammates initially deemed aberrant behavior clearly became a permanent decision.
