And so I rolled, more dramatically than I normally would, grumbling and fumbling like an old man looking for the glasses atop his head, coughing for extra measure to indicate full alertness. When I finally landed on my other side, facing Troy’s direction, I noticed he’d stopped yet again. Frozen, I imagined, like a deer in the glow of his laptop.

For five whole minutes, there was nothing but the sound of the whirring computer fan and the occasional click of his touchpad. Glorious silence. I started to focus on falling asleep, wondering how I’d recount this story at breakfast tomorrow.

But sure enough, the subtle moans rang out again, and the “squish, squish, squish” continued, now more strenuously than before, like he was rushing to get it over with, angry at having been interrupted.

Finally, I rolled onto my back and stretched out my arms above me, letting out an obnoxious yawn, like I was stirring myself from a particularly good dream but wasn’t quite awake. This had to end, but I still refused to acknowledge that I was fully awake, intent as I was on avoiding the awkwardness as much as possible. And so I leaned forward, pretending to be half-asleep, and reached into the mini-fridge for a bottle of water, which I opened and chugged unpleasantly. If convincing him I was awake wasn’t enough, I figured, maybe my slobbering would kill his libido entirely.

Meanwhile, Troy had shifted his pillows to obstruct his exposed lap, and the squishing had abated. I maintained the pretense of being half-asleep, fully vertical in bed with the bottle of water still dripping on my lap, but my eyes still closed. I made an exaggerated effort to reach for my cell phone and lay back down, facing the wall, with my phone illuminated against my face. There would be no mistaking now that I was awake.

Defeated, I heard Troy shift on his sheets, pulling his boxers back up, and then the sound of him stumbling toward the door and down to the bathroom, presumably to complete whatever business he had to attend to.

Vindicated, I turned off my phone. And in beautiful silence, I was able to finally fall asleep.

In the days that followed, Troy gave off very little indication that he knew what had happened, or at least managed to convince himself he’d been stealthier than he had been. Though, of course, I wouldn’t expect him to walk in and say, “Hey, that was crazy last night, wasn’t it?!” But it would’ve been nice to detect at least a hint of shame in place of his typical bravado.

I didn’t hesitate repeating the story to my friends the next morning: the Almighty Ladies’ Man, Troy, staggering home on a Friday night, drunk and dejected, vigorously massaging his neglected manhood. I happily admitted to being the unwitting dope in this story, if only to expose Troy and his shameless semi-public masturbating.

•  •  •