Confessions of a Cat-holic (168)

David Wang looked like the bad ass version of Steven Leung. Steven Leung went to SPCC the same year as me but he left for Middlesex Academy by the time I got in so we didn't overlap when we were in Hong Kong. Last time I checked up on Steven was almost ten years ago, not so sure if he could be one of Columbia's forty year old virgins but I was pretty sure Steven was one of the oldest virgin in my circle, second only to Rex. I told you virginity was not a modern myth at Columbia, and that applied to the males too. But for now I would keep him as a secret. Columbia had a way of identifying and attracting conservative virgins from different high schools, I figured.

David Wang's facial features looked a lot like Steven but Steven was much more meek looking. Steven graduated from Columbia with me the same year, and in the same major too. We were even next to each other in the portrait session in our yearbook. I liked Steven because he was not very outspoken. He was one of the most negative persons I knew, always complaining about the school and New York City. He was philosophical, always pondering the meaning of life in the world's most glamorous city. He said he didn't like Columbia at all, so his parents bought him a condo nearby so he commuted to school in his senior year. He was also perpetually depressed. He confessed to everyone that he had to take St John Warts as a remedy from going to Columbia. Ian and Steven even converted to Buddhism after college, following a common guru from Bhutan. We lived in the same dorm in Broadway hall for two consecutive years, even though he mostly travelled to school from his condo in our senior year.

Steven was also quite well off, I heard he lived somewhere on MacDonnell Road. He was the least aggressive man I had ever known, unlike the adventurous Ed who wandered around New York City like a beast. But I just wouldn't show it on my face. Nobody knew I liked Steven. That could be one of my best kept secrets.

If Steven was a 0 in the bad ass looking scale, then David Wang would be the 10 on the other end of the spectrum. David had that bad ass vibe and sex appeal that Steven was lacking. If Steven was the intellectual type, then David would be the hot and sexy version at the other far end. David had that military haircut, only for about an inch long. He never wore any glasses and was seen in his workout outfit on campus all the time. I sometimes doubted if he ever took his class seriously at all, he looked like a full time gym hero to me.

When Eddie and I were going out, he took me to meet his friend David Wang once. I felt tongue tied that night. I couldn't even properly talk like myself in front of his hot friends. So I just pretended that I was busy checking my phone and looked elsewhere at the time.

Eddie sometimes liked to have pillow talk with me when we were living together in his suite in my junior year. He asked me why I didn't call him up to have a tour together when I visited Seoul the summer before college. I said I didn't know him back then, but he refused to say anything in response. He told me that he liked Beijing a lot and that Jianwai Soho was his favorite architectural building in the city. He even spent his freshman summer learning Chinese there. I heard he went to Barcelona with Jeff Wang and Jason for his freshman spring break trip too. I felt that Eddie, unlike Jonathan Lung, had a genuine interest to get to know the places I came from. I told him Jianwai Soho was also my favorite part of Beijing city. I liked its modernist looks, and the location. I always learned something new from chatting with Eddie and he never failed to impress me with his favorite things that coincidentally overlapped with mine.

He said that Amanda liked to scratch David's back like a cat when they were in bed. So I pinched Eddie in his arm, I wanted to slap his ass, scratch his back and pinch his abs like Amanda for once in my life too. After all, he knew what turned me off the most. I felt that I was finally hugging a man for real; Eddie's back and torso was full of strength and muscle, while Ed was a skeleton in the closet to me. Not sure if that was why Ed turned into a "skulls and bones" fanatic at Yale.