Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 20:23:36 -0400
From: Nicholas Glenn <cascade_nick@hotmail.com>
Subject: Beta Male Part 2

Hey everyone, I want to thank you for the positive comments I've received
on chapter 1. Once again, I just want to say that it will take (just a
little bit) of time to build relationships before heading into wild sexual
encounters. Some people I suppose enjoy empty characters and quickie
encounters, I personally enjoy reading about characters I can identify with
and watching them evolve into passion. Keep up the useful comments at
cascade_nick@hotmail.com if you like chapter 2. Chapter 3 is only a few
days away, I promise!


                             Chapter 2

	When I arrived at the hospital the staff was kind enough to avoid
going to any particular rush in trying to help me. After waiting nearly an
hour, they finally ran the tests. My parents showed up and were more
concerned than they should have been. I was told that indeed I did have a
mild concussion but that otherwise there were no signs of any permanent
damage.  However, there was a chance of some short-term memory loss and
perhaps some disorientation and nausea over the next few days, so I would
be best advised to go home and rest. When I protested about the time away
from school that he was prescribing, my mother gave me one of those classic
"you're lucky you didn't kill yourself" lines followed by some vague threat
about killing me for almost killing myself and a scowl that could stop a
charging rhino at a hundred paces. Oh what the hell, I thought, I had
earned a vacation anyway.

	My parents drove me home after that, and, with my father returning
to work my mother took the rest of the day off and switched into her
Florence Nightengale persona. Bugging me every fifteen minutes and
demanding to know how I was feeling, I soon wasn't feeling very well at
all. When Nick showed up a little after two (he must have headed right over
from school) I was relieved that I was being saved from my would-be savior.

	"Hey," he said heartily as he stepped through my door and into my
bedroom.

	"Hey, what's up?" was all I could think to say. For some reason, I
couldn't quite get my mind around why Nick was there at that point, so I
wasn't exactly sure in my response. I struggled to get up to greet him but
found myself dizzy and quickly thought better of it.

	"No, please don't get up, that's alright. I've had a concussion
before and I know you'll be disoriented for a bit. Anyway, I brought your
assignments from your teachers."

	Oh yeah, he had mentioned he was going to do that, hadn't he? That
was nice of him, I thought. But wait, he was doing me a favor because he
felt guilty, right? And why was that again...

	"Yeah, it's real funny actually. I visited the teachers you had on
your schedule. They all looked like I had just told them their own child
was trapped in a well, every one of them was so concerned about you. Now, I
have four of those five teachers and I'm sure they don't even know my name.
You always were a teacher's pet," he said with a playful smile across his
face.

	Of course what he was saying was true. Me and Nick had been in
school together since kindergarten, and I always had naturally fallen into
the role of teacher's pet. What suddenly occurred to me though was that I
had always thought of Nick as a jock. It was easy to do that, since he had
always been so naturally athletic. But it now came to me that he took many
of the same advanced classes that I did and must have done fairly well
himself. He did have many of the same teachers I did and must have
developed a good academic record along with his outstanding athletic
records. Besides football (where he helped power our team last year to
third in the State) he had also had some success in track (although I'm not
even going to pretend I know how success is measured in track). Why had I
only ever thought of Nick as an athlete first and a fellow student second,
as if one who devotes so much time to athletics must be wholly ignoring
their academic development.

	"There you go again!" Nick's voice suddenly brought me back from
where I had drifted off to for a while. I had been doing it again, staring
into his deep blue eyes. His face was so beautiful, of a fairly light
Mediterranean complexion, with dark brown hair in a crew cut well-trimmed
at the sides. But it was mostly the eyes. They blazed with such an
intensity that I naturally wanted to look away from them but found myself
unwilling - or perhaps unable - to do so. It was like staring into twin
suns. Why had I never taken notice of these eyes before? Probably because I
had only had a distant acquaintance with Nick. We ran with different
circles of friends, he the popular athlete (with his fellow athletes) and
me the ace student (with our own clique of elite students). Our paths
hadn't ever crossed quite so much as they had in this, our final year of
high school.

	"I'm sorry, I just lost myself again. I hadn't been feeling well
all day, and now with my head I think it's making matters worse." Was I
even believing myself at this point? I certainly was losing myself, that
much must have been true. Nick had helped himself to a seat at this point
(which somehow I hadn't noticed) and I saw that he was smiling. Not just a
smirk, or an ordinary smile you give someone as a matter of courtesy, mind
you. He was smiling at me broadly, with deep, gorgeous dimples on either
side of his perfectly shaped mouth. His smile was absolutely symmetrical,
and his teeth stunningly white. Staring at him like that, I noticed
feelings stirring inside me. Was I becoming jealous of Nick? Am I the type
of person that gets jealous? Why was he smiling at me like that? Why do
people talk to themselves all the time and then pretend that that's a sign
of lunacy, as if each and every one of us doesn't have something akin to a
committee meeting going on in their heads at each and every moment?

	"No, you don't have to stop staring if you don't want to. You look
cute when you're looking at me like that."

	I was sure my bruised brain was failing me at that point. There was
absolutely no way that Nick had just called me cute. He was the star
runningback for our football team, and besides, guys couldn't talk to each
other like that. That wouldn't be normal, wouldn't be proper. That was
definitely breaking the rules, wasn't it? Suddenly, a recent memory came
full-force back to my mind. Nick had been waiting right by my locker when I
ran into him, and there's no reason he should have been there. Or wasn't
there?

	"Nick, can I ask you something?"

	The sound of silence returned my question. Now it seems it was
Nick's turn to be staring at me, and even as he didn't answer my inquiry I
noticed his eyes transfixed on my own. Finally I noticed a slight nod
offered in my direction.

	"Why were you waiting for me by my locker?"

	The question seemed to have momentarily stung Nick, as if a wave of
uncertainty had momentarily crossed his face. I could see his pupils
quickly dilate as his smile morphed into a slight grimace, and he was
gently biting on the corner of his lower lip. If he wasn't such an enormous
physical presence you would think he looked like a little kid with his hand
caught in the cookie jar.

	"Oh, I... um... I had, uh, well..."

	The response wasn't exactly enlightening, and the repeated stammers
were not instilling confidence in the answer that he finally came up with.

	"Yeah, well, you know, I, um, I guess I wanted to check up and see
how you were. You know, you seemed a little lost in class and all." Even as
he said this, he was fidgeting noticeably and a sheepish smile had come to
form on his lips before he ever completed the sentence. Great student of
human nature that I am, I could sense some discomfort with the topic.

	What on earth was going on here, I thought to myself. Was Nick
trying to be friendly, or was he trying to be a little too friendly? Why
was I having such difficulty keeping my head screwed on straight, so to
speak? Were there some feelings involved here? On my part, there certainly
couldn't be. I barely knew Nick and in any event, I was pretty sure I
wasn't interested in playing for that particular team, if you catch my
drift. The whole concept was just repulsive, I think. But what was Nick up
to? And why was I feeling so strange?  And, and, why was Nick leaning
towards me? Why was I staring into his eyes again? Why were our lips
drawing close? Why was I melting before him?

	And then he kissed me. I must have kissed him too. At that point
all the questions tearing through my mind seemed not to need any answers.
What part of my brain or body was in control at this point, I couldn't
begin to tell you. And I found, to my shock, that I didn't care what was in
charge.  Soon, his tongue found mine and delivered a gentle massage that
sent tingles through my neck and down into the rest of my body. One of his
massive arms had reached behind my head and was stroking my hair, the other
supporting the rest of my body as I leaned up to him and him down to me and
we held each other in that kiss for what seemed forever. I wasn't thinking
at this point, I never wanted to think again. It seemed like such a waste
of time compared to this. I kicked myself for not letting this part of me
take charge more often. I felt like a small child, cradled in the hands of
this giant protector of mine that would protect me from harm, protect me
even from my own fears. I never wanted that moment to end.

	But I suppose it had to. The fever that had rushed over me in that
moment when our eyes met in that situation subsided violently and
instantly, and all at once the analytical part of my brain took over. What
was I doing?  I hardly knew Nick, and in any event this wasn't right, I
thought to myself.  I had never thought of myself as gay, and I wasn't, I
told myself. I was just messed up from the concussion, and Nick was taking
advantage of my confusion. That's it, I thought. Nick was being too
aggressive, and taking advantage. I quickly broke away from the embrace.

	"I'm sorry, I'm just, I don't, I mean I'm not ready for this now,
Nick," I finally managed to say. I had wanted to tell him I didn't have
feelings for him. I wanted to tell him I wasn't feeling well at the
moment. But neither of those things were true, I think, and try as I might
I couldn't manage to get myself to say the words. But perhaps I wasn't
ready. I really was confused, and that much I was able to express to him.

	"I understand, I think I know what you mean better than you do," he
said in a voice that was unexpectedly pleasant, even almost parental in
tone.

	Well if he understands me right now, I really wish he would go
ahead and explain things to me, I found myself thinking. My head was all in
a whirl, words and thoughts were not coming to me as they always had.
Usually, at each and every moment I'm able to analyze my situation from
several different perspectives and predict people's reactions and plan
counterreactions. I always had a plan for every situation; I always thought
out everything in advance so I would be prepared. But suddenly not only did
I most certainly not have a plan, I didn't even have a clue how to go about
thinking about what I should do. All I knew at that point was that I didn't
know how I felt, I didn't know what I should be thinking, and I didn't know
what Nick was thinking. Fortunately for me, he really must have understood
my internal tumult right then.

	"Well, I've got to get going anyway," he said in a perfectly normal
tone of voice. "You've got some work to do I guess."

	What was *that* supposed to mean? Could he tell what a mess I was?
Was he angry at me, was he disappointed in me. Was it possible...

	My thoughts were interrupted as Nick handed me the stack of
assignments that he had dutifully collected from my other teachers that
day. Oh, yeah, schoolwork. I had schoolwork to do. For maybe one of the
rare moments of my entire life, school was the furthest thing from my mind.
I found myself not giving a damn if I never went back to school, and then
quickly punished myself for thinking such a heretical thought. I loved
school, I told myself. But did I love anything else? Would I be able to
feel love? Did such an emotion actually exist? Had I ever understood how I
really felt about anything?

	Nick politely excused himself then, insisting I need not get up and
show him to the door. Just as well, since I probably wouldn't have managed
too well at that point. I really was dizzy now, least of all from my head
injury though. I found myself quickly welcoming the withdrawal from
consciousness that sleep presented. If I never had to think about anything
ever again I would be fine, I found myself considering as I drifted off to
the sweet bliss of temporary nothingness...