Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 15:26:23 -0600
From: Tetrakun <tetrakun (at) gmail (dot) com>
Subject: Kyre's Long Day

			      KYRE'S LONG DAY

				    or

			      Bitch on Wheels

	       Author: Tetrakun (tetrakun at gmail dot com)

All characters within this fictional story are my own original creations,
and may not be used without my permission. Also, it'd be nice if you didn't
reproduce my story and claim it as your own.  Thanks!


				CHAPTER ONE


"Uuuuahhhhhh!"

I woke up that morning with a spirited yawn, before I was truly even aware
of being awake.  Squinting at the sunlight pouring in from the window, I
took in my surroundings, barely aware of where I was for a moment.  I was
looking up at a poster on the ceiling of an attractive young Japanese boy,
maybe 13 or 14, dressed in rather provocative clothing and look askance
over his shoulder at the photographer, flirtatious evil in his eyes.
Always a nice thing to look at when you wake up, I thought to myself, what
a nice idea it was to put that up.  Looking around now as my eyes adjusted,
I took in a small but pleasantly furnished room, oblong in shape, with a
desk and computer in one corner, a small couch to the side, and my own bed
under the window.  A somewhat unfamiliar room, but as it turns out, it
happened to be mine.

I swung my legs out over the side of the bed, and yawned again before
hopping to my feet.  Yep, this was my room at the moment, my new room
anyway.  I scratched my back lightly and walked over to my closet, opening
it and automatically grabbing some jean cut-offs that would be scandalously
short for most 14-year-old boys to wear, and a nice tight button-down
number to show of my boy-hips.  The way I figure it, if you've got a pretty
figure, even if you're a guy, you might as well show it off while you can.
I pulled my clothes on and bolted to the bathroom across the hall to finish
the morning ritual. You know, shower, moisturizer, blowdrying, that sort of
thing.  Inspecting myself in the full-length mirror, I was rather pleased.
My hair was a good length right now, strawberry-blonde and falling to the
nape of my neck, a little unruly but nice.  A nice face with sharp
cheekbones, little blunt nose, and blue-ish grey eyes.  Hmmmm.  Upon closer
inspection, I noticed an out of place eyebrow hair and plucked it with a
grimace.  Admittedly, I am a rather good-looking boy, and certainly not
afraid of indulging my vanity here.  I take pride in accentuating it as
much as possible, just as a matter of personal preference.  The world
doesn't have enough girly boys, and I figure, why not take advantage of
having barely started puberty at this age.

With a flip of my hair and a little grin at myself in the mirror, I was out
the door and on my bike, waving goodbye to my "parents", glancing back as
they shouted things about breakfast and whether I was done with all my
homework.  Oh well, I thought, a boy's gotta have his priorities.  I've had
new parents ever since mine died about two years ago.  Doesn't bother me
except for the fact that I had to move.  So I'm way the fuck down here in
suburban SoCal, as opposed to the lovely and culturally relevant New York
City.  Not that I'm complaining, as living down here has been a much
improved situation, in many ways.

Hastily peddling to school, I plucked my cell phone out of my pocket and
checked the time.  Quarter of.  Damn, I thought.  I'm gonna miss homeroom
if I'm not careful, and given that my homeroom teacher is already a creep
and thinks I'm a loser, I'd better be careful.  I raced into the bike port
and locked it up, running into the glass and metal building at top speed.
My school's one of those modern-art jobs, all cubes and right angles, as if
your average kid had the slightest appreciation for such things. I
continued a steady jog, even as I caught a glare from a passing teacher,
and approached my homeroom.  My cell phone said I was on time, but as I
stumbled in Mr. Nagram looked up at me coolly from behind his desk behind
his spectacles.

"Ahh, if it isn't Kyre, here at last.  You know, you were close this time,
but still, 32 seconds late."  He had on the smuggest smile, that
sonofabitch.

"I'm sorry sir," I said with admirable restraint.  "It won't happen again."
I could feel the gaze of the class watching me, silently snickering and
enjoying the hell out of this.

"I know it won't, Kyre, because this time you're getting 3 hours of
detention after school.  This is the fifth time you've been late this week,
do you know that?  We've got to do something about this unfortunate trend."

The real tough thing was that Nagram was cute; hot, even.  He was only 26,
easily my youngest teacher, and had a certain air about him.  He had dark
eyes, jet-black hair he kept clipped above his ears, a sharp nose, and a
surprisingly soft and sensuous mouth when he wasn't using it to publicly
humiliate me.  He had damned good taste in clothes too, nice shirts and his
pants fit.  The guy had to be gay, I knew it, and I was sure that part of
this whole game between us had something to do with the ENORMOUS crush he
had on me.  Because, honestly, even straight guys have been known to crush
on me.

"Right," I told him as I sashayed to the back of my room to my desk,
swinging my hips and sticking my butt out a bit as I did so.  "The trend,"
I turned back to look at him and sat down at my desk with a smirk of my
own, "Will be reversed.  I look forward to seeing you later today,
Mr. Nagram."  I let those last words pour out my mouth like honey, and
licked my lips as I smiled up at him.  To my delight he swallowed hard, and
then continued onward with role call and notes for the day.  I just sat
back in my desk, crossed my legs, and looked forward to how I could torture
*him* in detention later today for trying to torture *me*.

After homeroom was over, I had to go to math.  Math, yuck!  And I had a
double-period of it on Friday, two goddamn hours of math.  The worst thing
about math, for me, other than the numbers, is that there are absolutely NO
cute boys in my math class!  This is a private school and there's all of
100 kids in my grade, and lots of classes.  So like, my math class has 15
people in it and out of some horrific fluke of scheduling, my worst subject
happened to include 12 girls, and the other two boys?  Not.  Cute.  Now, I
don't mean to be shallow, but if I'm gonna be in school I wanna be looking
at cute boys, at least.  So for the purposes of this story, we'll forget
about math, as it's not really pertinent to much of anything.

Now luckily, something happened after math, and before my next period, that
IS pertinent to this story.  I caught sight of my gorgeous little
sixth-grade crush in the hallway, walking with a friend of his in a
baseball cap. His name's Trin, and he's just both ridiculously adorable and
sexy.  Words really can't do it justice, but I'll make an effort anyway:
UNBELIEVABLY GORGEOUS!  Can't get a good enough picture out of that?  Well,
he has that sort of soft, rounded boy-ish face that manages to be utterly
androgynous.  His little button of a nose was dotted with freckles from the
sun, and his hair matched, feathery and dark brown with yellow sun-streaks.
He had narrow shoulders, but slightly wide hips that framed a gorgeous
bubble-butt barely contained by his belted cutoff-khakis.  He had a bag
slung over his shoulder and an arm around the shoulder of his friend, as he
laughed gleefully in his ear about something or other.  When he caught
sight of me, he broke into a wide grin.

"KYRE! Omigod, it's great to see you!"  He was still right up close to his
little friend, they were so cute together.  "What are you doing after
school?!"  Aw, shit.

"I have detention..."  I rolled my eyes.  "Mr. Nagram believes that I don't
have sufficient respect for his proud institution of homeroom."

"Well, that blows!"  Trin shrugged.  "Me and Jaime were gonna go play catch
afterwards and ride bikes, hang out, you know... but I guess you can't
come.  Anyway, bye!"  The little tease just walked away after that.  I
should probably tell you that we already made out once under the bleachers
at the basketball game, but that was three days ago and it only served to
make me more desperate for his attention.  There're plenty of kids worth
lusting after here, but Trin's special, for sure.  Just then I noticed a
couple passing girls giggling insanely as they walked by, glancing down at
my crotch, where I had a very evident hard-on from chatting with Trin.

"Ah, fuck..." I muttered, trying to re-situate my garments while I faced my
locker and hoped nobody was watching.  Turns out it was all for naught,
though, as I heard a rather distinctive voice behind me begin to proclaim
loudly:

"Well well well, if it isn't little Kyre!  The only boy in school who
dresses so girly that when he gets wood *everyone* knows about it.  How
goes your penis on this fine day, Kyre?"  I turned around to see a tall,
well-dressed handsome boy standing in front of me, hands upon his hips, the
trace of a smile that still lingered on his lips.

"Ya know what, Jonny, you can straight to hell.  Straight to hell." I stuck
my hands in my pockets and pouted up at him.  "Trin was teasing me, it
really wasn't cool."

"Oh, well that's different," he said.  "Lord knows I wouldn't want to
discourage you from pursuing shallow sexual encounters with pre-pubescent
boys!"  Jonny was just jealous because he wanted me all to himself.  He's
my best friend, but we prefer to use the term 'fuckdoll' whilst being
intimate with one another.  We lost our virginity to one another about a
year ago, and never stopped hanging out since.

Sometimes we like to have sex, sometimes we like to wrestle and fight, and
sometimes we like to cuddle.  We don't attach any specific meaning beyond
physical affection to these activities; I believe this is a byproduct of
our generation's ability to detach emotionally from such matters.  Our
parents have hangups about their hangups when it comes to these things.

"Hey, he's the one teasing me, don't forget," I told him.  "And you
shouldn't be talking, honestly.  AND we're gonna be late for social
studies, so we gotta move our asses."  Jonny and I had social studies and
English together, thankfully.  My two best subjects.

"Hey, Kyre," He said to me softly as we walked.  "Meet me in the bathroom
after class, the usual one, and we'll start off the first ten minutes of
lunch the right way."  I smiled over at him.  I could always count on Jonny
to relieve a bit of tension in the middle of the day.  I know it sounds
gross, having sex in a bathroom, but a couple things.  We never go all the
way at school, for one, and the bathrooms are actually nice given how
expensive this damn place is, for another.  They're private and actually
have locking doors, in addition to being cleaned every day.  Perfect for
the occasional quickie!

I somehow struggled through the class, with Jonny giving me the occasional
look.  He's a damn good looking kid, and to be honest, we go well together,
at least visually.  I've got the femmy build and the long hair, he's got
the dark and dreamy appeal.  The girls really go after him, they all think
he's "cool" and stuff.  He's even an athlete, star lacrosse player, AND he
plays the guitar.  I know, right?  I'm lucky that his interests lie
elsewhere, 'cause he'd be hard to get.  Anyway, we did our usual
super-secret routine with the bathroom, with him going in 90 seconds before
me.  Those 90 seconds are always the hardest to wait.  I walked casuall
down the hall and went into the bathroom normally, the door having just
been unlocked, and quickly closed and re- locked it behind me.  I could
barely turn around before Jonny was enveloping me, pushing me up against
the wall, covering my face with kisses.

"Whoa whoa!"  I managed, "Someone's feeling antsy," I said, before he shut
me up with an open-mouthed kiss that took some time.

"Sorry, but I bet it's been a rougher morning for me than for you," he said
after breaking away for a moment.  He wrapped his arms around my hips and
pulled me in, and I did the same to him; we could both feel our growing
erections pressing against one another.

"Well, you probably need it more than me, so I'll be noble..."

"Damn right you will," Jonny said with a wink.

"Hey, hey I'm doing you a favor, here and I expect *recompense*, ya hear?"
I grinned at him, giving his butt a squeeze.

"Fine, fine, just quit the talk and put that mouth of yours to some actual
use."

"Oh, you think you're so witty, don't you?"  I pushed him back, to the
sink- counter, and he hopped up on it.  I bent over him and glanced up,
batting my eyebrows flirtatiously as I undid his fly, taking out his cock
which was quite erect at this moment.  It's a nice cock, circumcized, about
5 inches with a small shock of dark curly hair over it.  Slightly bigger
than my own, which was, unfortunately, feeling somewhat sad and neglected
at the moment.  I started slowly, licking up and down the sensitive
underside, sucking the very tip in between my lips to give it a little
kiss, causing Jonny to shudder and drops of pre-cum to bead on the tip,
drops that I promptly licked up.

I started to jerk him off then, grinning up at him dumbly, doing my best
porn star impression.  "Mmmm, I wanna deep-throat your cock SO BAD, Jonny,
it's so HAAAAAARRRDDD!"  I promptly did so, getting his whole dick into my
mouth and to the back of my throat the first time, a practice that I have
perfected as of late.  I drew back and started to seriously go down on him,
bobbing up and down on him for a while, doing my best to tease and work him
to a climax with my tongue.  Jonny's breathing was getting more and more
labored now, and he looked down at me now and started to say something
before I caused him to stop and gasp by using my tongue in a rather
original manner.  I stop sucking him off for a moment then, and went back
to absent-mindedly working him up and down with my left hand, as I looked
up questioningly at what he had to say now.

"Ohhhh, Kyre, I think I'm going to cum soon, I'm..."  Apparently the steady
masturbation was working a little too well, and this was an issue because
at school it is important to leave no evidence, which means all that cum's
gonna end up in my mouth.  Really, there are other ways of disposing of
evidence, but this one's my favorite.  So Jonny's back started to arch, and
I tried to get my mouth onto his squirting penis in time, but I was a bit
too late.  The first shot hit the collar of my shirt, and the second landed
squarely on my nose and cheek before I could stop the flow.  The last of
the cum went harmlessly into my throat and was promptly swallowed, but the
damage was done.

"You bastard!"  I said.  "You came on me!"  Jonny was laughing, too, and to
be honest it was a bit funny.  Just not to me, right now.  "This shit's
obvious, someone could figure it out!  Jonny was zipping his pants up now,
and I was wiping the cum off my face with toilet paper, and trying to get
the stain out my shirt.

"Well, it's a risk you take," he said, like an asshole.  And I still needed
some release of my own!  None of this was the slightest bit fair.  He was
washing his own face off, fixing his hair in the mirror, checking his own
pants for cum stains, of which there were none.  "Alright Kyre, gotta go
off to lunch, thanks a million man, really.  I will get you back for this."

"Ah, get the hell out of my sight," I said, still focused on cleaning my
shirt.  "I even have fucking detention today, you know that?"

Jonny snickered.  "Yeah, with the cute teacher."

"Surely you mean the asshole teacher?"  I said with a grimace.  I had done
all I could, and it was now just a dark spot, maybe a tiny bit noticeable.

"Yeah, whatever.  See you later, Kyre!"  He walked out the door first,
meaning I had another 90 seconds to wait.  Sigh.  I briefly considered just
masturbating myself in the bathroom, but it was no use.  It'd have been
suspicious to be occupied so long, and besides, I wasn't in the mood for
lonely satisfaction.  Instead, I used the 90 seconds for a brief spell of
transcendental meditation, getting up and walking out the door with what
amounted to a fairly phony smile on my face.  I rather hoped the second
half of the day would prove to be better than the first.


				CHAPTER TWO

Lunch wasn't anything interesting, really.  I was feeling kind of pissed at
Jonny, and so wound up sitting off by myself in the courtyard, eating
alone, and wearing a pair of mirrored shades on my face as well as what I
hoped was a seriously mean scowl.  Honestly, what kind of friend ejaculates
on your face, makes fun of you, and doesn't reciprocate?  I was shaking my
head and mulling over the many such injustices I'd experienced in my
admittedly short life, when I heard a lisping, nerdy voice behind me.  Ah,
I thought, Bryan.

"Hey Kyre, what're you doing?  Jutht thitting by yourthelf?"  A rather
short boy with very light, mussy blond hair sat down next to me.  He wore a
pair of slightly oversized spectacles that made his blue eyes seem a bit
larger than they actually were, as well some absurd clothes I honestly
hoped his mother made him wear every day.  Bryan's a grade below me, and
actually a very cool kid, individualistic, doesn't give a fuck what other
people think.  He's also really cute, or would be if you got those glasses
off his face, combed his damn hair, and dressed him in something other than
what must be 1950s Catholic schoolboy clothing.

"Yeth Bryan, I'm thitting," I told him, with a sarcastic grin.  I'm usually
not mean to him like that, but what can I say, it had been a shitty day.

"Thtop it," he said, "My thpeech therapitht told me it'd be gone thoon."
His lower lip was quivering a bit.  Goddamit, I thought, the kid's so damn
sensitive.

"Hey, sorry, didn't mean to upset you, Bryan."  I tried to give him a
smile, and realizing that this wasn't working, more or less threw myself
into the boy's arms for a hug.  I'm a *little* bigger than him so it was a
little overwhelming, and it turned into more of a tackle on the grass, but
I think he appreciated it.  Sitting up, he adjusted his glasses which had
been knocked askew.

"You're in a weird mood, Kyre," he told me pointedly, with an air of quiet
expertise.

"Well, aren't you the smart one," I told him, still lying back on the
grass, staring up at the sky and the trees.

"I wath jutht gonna tell you that we were all gonna thtart a new AD&D
campaign today, if you wanted to come..." Goddamn.  More invitations to
hang out with boys I had a crush on. Not that I had a crush on Bryan, I
mean, I wouldn't object to spending time with him, or having fun with him,
but it's hard to think of him that way.  He's almost asexual.  He could be
gay, he could be straight, he could just wind up being nothing.  But it's
another boy in his little 7th-grade geek-group.  Kid looks EXACTLY like the
Harry Potter from those flicks, c. the second movie, maybe.  Truly a sight
to see, seducing him had been on my list of priorities for a while.
Whether that kid likes boys or not doesn't matter, I'll just tell him I'm
really a girl or something, 7th grade geeks will believe more or less
anything.

"I have detention, Bryan."  I said mechanically, still on my back.  I
lifted one hand up and made a shooing motion with it.  "Leave me in peace."

"You're thooooo weird, Kyre," Bryan walked off.  I often wondered about
that boy, and why he hung out with me.  Probably because he was just in
love with me; that had to be it.  Again, I realize I come off as awfully
full of myself on occasion, but I assure you it's warranted.  I mean, I
spend three times as much time and effort on my appearance as most of the
girls at my school.  Half of 'em were fat, too, ugh.  You'd think they'd
all take more pride in being the more naturally gifted of the sexes in
terms of ease of beauty, but some of them clearly missed the boat
completely when it came to that.  Of course, there were some terribly
good-looking girls whom I actually quite envied at times, and took quiet
fashion and appearance tips from.  One in particular, Rachel, was very
cool, and sort of my faghag, a term I admit that I detest.  I consider
Jonny my number 1 faghag, anyway. Considered.  Asshole.


Lunch was over, and I had three more hours of classes to go before I had my
detention.  Ugh.  French, English, Science.  School can be so oppressively
boring and never-ending when you have nothing to really look forward to
afterwards.  Three hours becomes six hours, which feels like it could be
nine hours which may as well be nine YEARS for as long as it's gonna take.
Sigh.

"Bonjour, Kyre!  Pourquoi êtes-vous en retard?"  Ugh, I hate my French
teacher.  She wears too much makeup, dyes her hair, and probably lies
maliciously about her age.  God save us all from French teachers who are
sixty but claim to be 45.

"Je suis desolee Madame, je n'ai pas su le temps."  She ignored me after
that, went on teaching the damn lesson while I scribbled drawings of
penises on my notebook paper.  I'd gotten the idea from watching Superbad,
and honestly, there was something fun and satisfying about drawing an
uncircumcized dick with a cape, flying through a city-scape.  Superbad, now
there was a gay movie, if you ask me.  The whole thing was ultimately about
the two guys being in love with each other!  I thought the ending was
touching.  Not that they're terribly cute, although I admit to crushing
slightly on Michael Cera, but it's nice to see latent homosexuality get its
due in terms of the teen comedy.

Anyway, after French was spent fantasizing about SuperPenis, I trudged down
the hall to Nagram's English, on time for once.  Just to make it clear
about Nagram, I almost positive the dude is a perv of the highest order.
I'm not even kidding, not only does he take *sadistic* glee in punishing me
at every possible turn, but the dude *ogles* me.  I guess, maybe, to some
small degree I put him in difficult circumstances at times, but honestly, I
can't be blamed for that.  He's the responsible adult.

So, naturally, I sat in the front row and sat with my legs splayed open,
slouched down in my desk till I was sitting on my lower back, and had my
butt essentially exposed.  One of the nice things about wearing skintight
cutoffs, other than showing off your amazingly perfect thighs, is the
ability to show off more of your amazingly perfect ass than you might
otherwise normally would be able to.  In this case, it worked perfectly, as
I saw Nagram's eyes drift downwards before he was about to start the class,
and a flush of red began to creep up the side of his face slowly as he
looked up at my face, finding me looking right at him with a shit-eating
grin plastered on my face.

"Sit up straight," he ordered firmly, playin' his little charade.  "Now."

"Yes, sir."  I straightened up as told, but kept right on smiling.  It's a
little trick I learned, if you don't allow people in authority to make you
feel bad, you can actually make THEM feel bad sometimes.  Cool, huh?  I've
experimented with that a bunch on a number of parents, and trust me, it
drives them all utterly insane.

Nagram went right on teaching the lesson as if nothing had happened, and I
studiously took notes, like a good li'l boy.  We were reading The Lord of
the Flies at the moment, and I for one enjoyed it quite a bit.  Bunch of
boys stuck on a deserted island, nothing to do?  Sure, sign me up.  The
novel itself even had some fairly sexually charged scenes, the writer
clearly being aware that a hundred adolescent boys, stranded by themselves,
might have some issues to work through.  I did a good job, I thought, of
holding my tongue and not charging the literary analysis with endless
homoerotic content today.  Besides, Nagram didn't need anymore teasing.  I
already had a little plan going in my head for a way to make detention more
interesting.  Maybe get out early.  Maybe never get detention again from
the guy, AND maybe get straight A's for the rest of the year.  I think
that's the way it's supposed to go, anyway, based on the movies I've seen.
I don't really have anything else to go by, being that I'm a bit of a
newbie at seducing perverted teachers; still, it's not exactly rocket
science, is it?  I think there's a quote from a Kevin Smith flick about
pleasing men: insert somewhere, preferably moist, thrust, repeat.  I expect
some variation on that will get the job done, and a little sonofabitch like
that can't be all THAT well-endowed, or he probably wouldn't spend time
hitting on and consequently being humiliated by slutty young lads like
myself.

Before I knew it, English was over.  Figures that the only class I like
always seems to take no time at all.  Maybe there's something to that?
Anyway, Nagram reminded me to be back at 3:15, and I had to nod happily
like a fuckin' schmuck and continue on my way.  I'll be damned if I'll
surrender the slightest psychological edge to that guy; it just wouldn't be
conducive to my goals at the moment.

I saw Trin again after English.  I swear, when he walks by, dreamy pop
music plays, the entire room goes dark, and spotlights come down on just
us, illuminating our faces, framing them in a halo's glow; everything turns
into slow-motion, and it's like I'm looking at a soft-focus close-up of his
angelic countenance, for a moment.

*SNAP*

Then I'm back to reality, standing in front of my goddamn locker, and
taking out my Biology book.  Trin's heading to his last class, and he'll go
hang out with his little buddy, and they'll grow even closer.  I hate the
jealous part of me; I only feel jealous when I encounter a boy I feel
strongly about, and it usually goes away.  Normally, I'm shallow enough
that I could care less about most people I see.  It's a character flaw, you
see, but it's also a survival mechanism.  Keep everything shallow and
meaningless and you can't get hurt.  Let people grow close and they break
your heart.  Or maybe they just use you for a quick BJ in the bathroom, and
leave you hangin'.  I really had to do something about that, fucker's gotta
pay.

But first, I had to go to Biology.  Ugh, I *hate* biology.


			       CHAPTER THREE

Well, I'm back from Bio, and d'you know what?  It wasn't a waste of time,
it was like, the best class I've had all day, seriously.  I wish all
classes could have been as awesome as that one today.  We've been preparing
oral reports for a while now to give today on various functioning systems
in the human body, and each report takes ten minutes.  So you see, in an
hour-long class only about half the class could go, and I wasn't on the
list.  I'd totally forgotten that I didn't have to give the report!  We
were all supposed to take notes, but luckily, I sat in the back and slept
literally for the entire period.  Put my head down, fell asleep, woke up
and class was over in no time!  I think I pulled it off covertly, I mean,
nobody talked to me about it so I guess it's cool.  Sort of hard to tell
how much attention you're being paid while asleep.  I know all that crap
about the human body anyway, it's not like I needed to listen to other
bored kids drone on monotonously.  The way I see it, I used the time far
more productively than everyone else.

Feeling nice and refreshed for my detention, I went back to my locker to
pack things up for the day. I highly recommend acquiring a cute backpack,
for whatever reason, it helps make school go by easier.  I love my pack, I
special ordered it from Japan, and it's got all sorts of crazy engrish
phrases and graffiti art.  Black with lots of pink and purple on it, very
punk rock if I may so.

I closed up my locker and leaned back on it, taking multiple plans of
attack into consideration for the detention.  I twisted a lock of hair back
and forth around my finger, cogitating rather deeply.  It was important not
to fuck this up.  Did I want to be straightforward?  Or maybe I should
screw around with the jerk a little bit.  I couldn't help but think that my
judgment was being affected by feeling particularly horny today.  Ah well.
I watched the exodus of happy, smiling kids running for the doors, anxious
to get outside and have fun, and I decided that it was imperative I make
sure I never get detention from this guy again.  Jaw set, I marched back to
the English room.

"Hello there, Mr. Nagram.  Or should I call you John, I think I'll do
that," I blared, basically as loudly as I could.  I strode purposefully
into the room, dropped my pack next to a desk, and flopped down into it
heavily.

"You can't call me John, I'm your teacher and that wouldn't be appropriate.
Take out your notebook, you'll be writing an essay for me today."  He
frowned at me, and probably also at my general inclination to make as much
noise as possible in order to announce my presence when entering a room.

"Please sir, you know that I'm no good at wanking essays," I said in my
most sweet and solicitous of voices, smiling at him.

"Writing, you mean?  And you're a perfectly good writer, you just never
apply yourself."  He was already starting to lose his cool again,
excellent.

"That's what I said, writing.  What did you think I said, Sir?  Anyway, I
guess I have no choice but to do whatever you want me to."  I took out my
paper, with a fake and heavy sigh.  "What does the cock say right now?  How
much time I do I have?"

"Er, you have three hours... Write a, uh, about something... About the
importance of punctuality and re-responsibility."  Nagram was looking
really hilarious now.  Sweat had started to bead on his forehead, and he
swallowed hard.  I think I actually convinced him that he was hearing
things.

Like a good little boy I took out my pencil and began to write diligently.
"Oh, gosh darn!"  I said aloud.  "My pencil needs sharpening.  Sir, may I
go sharpen it?"

"Er, yes of course."  Nagram was grading papers or something like that now,
giving off an air of being very busy.  I got up and started to walk slowly
across the room, catching out of the corner of my eye that I was, in fact,
being watched.  I let the pencil slip out of my hand and clatter to the
floor.  I arched my back in an exaggerated motion, and stuck my butt way up
in the air and in the direction of the teacher as I bent down to pick the
pencil up, taking my exceedingly sweet time as I did so.

To be honest, I don't really know *quite* how exposed my butt is in these
shorts since I only just made them from a pair of girls' jeans last week,
but I think he must have gotten a pretty good view.  I continued across the
room, using the hip-wiggling walk I'd picked up from women on TV shows, and
got to the pencil sharpener.  One of those old-fashioned hand-crank jobs.
I stuck the tip in the hole, and pumped up and down on the handle, slowly,
even breathing a little heavily as I did so.  It's remarkable how one can
charge the most mundane acts with sexual tension, if one so desires.

I could see that Nagram hadn't made any progress with his essays in the
last minute, and was watching me open-mouthed.  He actually looked kinda
silly, sitting there.  Poor guy seemed so helpless!  A twinge of regret
concerning what I was doing started to cross my mind, but I dismissed it
quickly and accurately as abject foolishness.  I strutted back to my desk
and reseated myself, razor-sharp graphite in hand, and began to write.
Contrary to what I said before, I am fairly decent at writing essays if I
care the slightest bit about the content in them.  Luckily, I didn't intend
on turning this essay on, so it didn't really matter that I was detailing
lists of the cutest boys I know and the cutest celebrity boys in sequential
order of sexiness.  What was important was that for the sake of
appearances, I was being a good little boy, and it was giving the perv more
time to get all hot and bothered.  He was still checking me out, like
always in class, guy's eyes are just drawn to me like a magnet when I'm in
the room.  I decided after about twenty minutes that screw it, this charade
was getting absurd.  I looked up and caught one of his little stolen
glances.

"Why do you keep looking at me, sir?"  I spoke in my huskiest voice.  "Is
there something you want to... tell me?"  I batted my eyelashes curiously,
and privately wondered if this was enough of an open invitation.

Turns out it was.

"YES!  For the love of all that is holy, Kyre, there's something I need to
tell you. To be quite frank though, I can't tell you what it is without
getting thrown into prison, or at the very least, hell."  The dude was
looking around the room like the FBI was after him, and he actually got up
and raced around the entire place, drawing all the blinds closed on the
windows, and the window on the door.  Then he locked the door.

"Isn't that like a really suspicious thing to do?"  I asked, because it's
just difficult for me not to be a smartass.

"Yeah, well, that's a risk we're taking at this point."  Nagram mopped his
brow with the back of his hand, sitting back down in his chair behind the
desk.  He really was a good-looking guy, I had to say.

He reminded me of that guy on Buffy, the smoldering angsty one who got his
own show?  Yeah, you know who I mean, like him if he were a skinny English
teacher.  He wasn't saying anything, so I supposed he must have been
waiting for me to spell things out.

"Soooo," I began, "You needed to tell me that you find incredibly enticing?
Unfairly sexy?  Cherubic perfection made manifest in the flesh?  You want
to cover me with kisses and snuggle up together, hold me tight and never
let go?  Or maybe you just wanna stick that nice `ol cock of yours in my
tight little butthole, hmmmm?"  I said this all as if it were the most
perfectly normal thing in the world to me, which it sort of was in that I'd
joked about that sort of thing with boyfriends before.  Nagram, however,
was rather distraught following my speech, and was left with his jaw on the
floor, which I must admit was my intention all along.

"W-w-w-well something like that!"  He spat and sputtered the words out.  "I
w-w-was sort of hop-p-ping we could maybe get to know each other first?"
He managed an honest smile, admirable.

"Aw, John, can I call you John now?"  I smiled right back to him honestly,
and came right up behind his desk, increasing the physical proximity to
almost zero.  He did smell nice, I had to say.

"S-sure, you can call me John."  Total demeanor change from the beginning
of detention.  The mission was already accomplished, all I had to do was
follow through, now.

 "John.  You've already known me for a month and a half.  You're my
*homeroom teacher*, remember?  What do you want to do?"  I murmured these
last words very softly, right into his ear.  I know this dude gets off on
the power trip, hearing a student he crushed on say that probably made him
half-cum in his pants.  I mean, the guy's face was bright red as it was.

"I don't know, what, what do you want to do?"  Aw, he was so helpless,
rendered all speechless like that!  I think he was still a bit overcome at
how quickly this had happened.  After all, I'd planned it, not him.

"Why don't we do *this*, okay?"  I took a big step across his legs, and sat
right down on his lap.  With a grin I scooted up as far as I could, so I
could feel an extraordinarily hard organ up against my ass, and mine
pressing into his stomach.

"This is fun, isn't it?"  I laughed as Nagram was reduced to guttural
groans as I started to move up and down on him, actually getting into it
myself more than I thought I would.  I wrapped my arms around the man's
neck, and my legs around his waist, and let him do the thrusting for a
little while.  He started groping my butt, too, squeezing it as we pressed
our erections together.  I really was feeling like I needed to get off,
which I didn't expect would happen, actually.  I just needed a little more
stimulation, the whole grinding thing wasn't quite getting the job done.

"Do you like my little cock, sir?"  I moaned, while he continued his
inelegant pressing and thrusting.

"Ohh yes," he blurted, "I like it a lot!"  People say the dumbest shit when
they're having sex, honestly, it's one of those absurd aspects of the human
condition.

"Well why don't you pay a little attention to it!"  Was what I started and
intended to say, but it was broken up by that bastard squeezing me tightly
with his arms, spasming slightly at his waist as his thankfully covered
dick pressed up against my thankfully covered asshole, and he shot his load
in his pants.  Then he dropped like a sack into his chair, and I was left,
once again, frustrated and extremely dissatisfied.  What in the hell was
WITH IT with people today?  No common courtesy?  They just shoot their load
and go on their way.  Nagram shot his load in about 2 and a half minutes,
too, the loser.  "Ohhh, that was amazing Kyre."  His eyes were practically
rolled back in his head.

"Yeah, it was amazing for me too.  Just terrific."  I was already standing
up and inspecting my pants, making sure they were clean, checking my shirt
too.  The shirt's a silk button-down job I imported from Europe, and I'll
be damned if the thing'll get stained, it cost me about $130 with shipping.
But you know, if you're a well-figured boy who wants to look good, you just
can't get good clothes that fit in this country.  Everyone's so fat!

Anyhow, Nagram was coming to the realization that he had some cleaning up
to do, unless he wanted to have some explaining to do to his colleagues.
He also noticed that I was leaving.

"Oh, you don't need to stay the rest of detention, by the way."  He said,
with a smug air of self-satisfied bullshit that, literally, made me want to
punch the guy in the mouth.

"Oh, you're gonna be doing a lot more for me than that, sir," I sneered
with my most evil smile.  "See ya at homeroom tomorrow morning!"  I turned
at that, unlocked the door, swung it open, and slammed it shut behind me.

Walking briskly down the corridor, seeing the bright sunlight streaming
through the glass doors at the end of the hall, I could almost smell the
freedom.  The dull ache of almost reaching orgasm and being denied once
again was fading, but the simple unfairness of the situation was continuing
to bug the hell out of me.  I mean, am I really that cheap, that much of a
whore that I can just be used and not treated with the slightest love and
respect?  Really, what is up with that?  What is it about me that causes
people to think I only care about *their* satisfaction?  I mean, I admit
that I am naturally submissive, but that does not make it fair that I get
left hanging twice today.

I pushed the doors open, and was outside, finally, and had about 3 hours of
daylight left still.  All things considered, I thought, it is pretty badass
to get out of detention by fucking your teacher.  A first even for me, but
oddly empowering.  I felt a strong desire to keep making this day special,
after all, it was bound to get better from here on out.


			       CHAPTER FOUR

I have to say, there really ain't nothin' quite like riding down on the
street on a perfect afternoon, hair streaming in the wind, taking shortcuts
through the alleys, hoppin' a curb or two.  It's just liberating,
particularly the ride home from school always is, you can't beat it.
Taking the trip to go somewhere cool kinda sucks, because you want to get
there and the expectation can be maddening, or at least it is for someone
as impatient as myself, I guess.  But leaving a place like school, and
having the maximum amount of time until you have to go back?  Just to get
going and put distance between you and that place is the best feeling ever.

Only thing was, I had no idea exactly where I was going yet.  I'd wanted to
go chill with Trin, ideally in an effort to cleanse my pallet from my
recent experience, which I must admit, left me with an uneasy feeling in
the pit of my stomach.  Now, don't get any ideas, I attach very little
importance to sex, I'm much more concerned with being sexy than actually
having sex, because it's a way better time, if you get my meaning.  I don't
mind being *sexy* to some old perv, but crossing the actual line with a guy
like that was... odd.  Not what I expected.  I certainly was glad of the
achievement, but to be honest, I felt awkward about walking into homeroom
the next day.  And don't get the wrong idea here!  I'm certainly not
scared.  It's like swimming in shark-infested waters; there's a capacity
for danger that, I must admit, gets me off.  Parts of the experience were
empowering, like I said.  I decided that the nauseating feeling had to do
with what Nagram took from our encounter.  What if the goddamn
kiddie-diddler did get the best out of the deal?

I was thinking these thoughts, when I realized that my bike had taken me to
Jonny's place.  One of the good things about having him as a friend was
that his parents are rich, and let's not lie to ourselves here.  Everyone
likes having rich friends.  I pedaled up his driveway, and saw that he was
shooting freethrows by himself in his own personal basketball court off to
the side of their mansion.  The funny thing about Jonny is that he really
doesn't have friends, as far as I know, I'm the only actual friend he's
got.  He puts most people off by being, in general, by being smarter and
more of a jerk than everyone else.  I've got raffish charm and a
devil-may-care attitude, which at least is charismatic and means lots of
people want to be my friend.  Jonny's just bitter and sarcastic.  But I
love him, and wouldn't have him be any other way.  Except right now I hate
him.  The lines often blur, it confuses me too.

I approached the court where he was playing, and I think he must have seen
me coming before, because he was studiously *not* turning around as I
called his name several times.  He couldn't have been at it that long, but
he was really going for it.  Shooting the ball, missing, gathering it up
again, running back to the hoop, and trying again.

"Hey, Jonny! Egotistical asshole ignoring his friend!  Fag with the
basketball!"  Something was seriously up with him today, he just went right
on ignoring me.  I stomped onto the court and stood directly in front of
him as he was about to shoot again, put my hands on my hips, and glared
hard.  "What is THE MATTER with you?" I demanded, legitimately curious.
His head was down, and I could see sweat beading on his pale forehead.

"Look, I don't really want to talk to you, I'm not sure if you can tell or
not.  I told you that today sucked."  He spoke in what he tried to make
come off as a dangerous monotone, but a tiny quiver on the word 'tell' gave
him away.

"So, you don't wanna talk to me?  Any particular reason?  It's just 'cuz
you're just having a really tough day, poor little baby?"  Usually talking
to Jonny like this yields positive results, he just zings you right back.
Not today.  He looked up with a scowl at me.

"You'd seriously better get the fuck out of my face, Kyre."  Now there was
a bit of a dangerous look to him.  Blue-gray eyes, typically warm when
turned towards me at least, were frozen and unmoving.  He was biting down
hard on his lower lip.

"Oh, stop with the death-eyes, Jonny, you're not foolin' me.  What's the
deal?  Why'd you ditch me in the bathroom earlier, and why in the hell are
you acting like you hate me right now?"  Now I was glaring at him.  I'm not
exactly easily flustered, but that's because I keep most people at arm's
length.

"I ditched you in that bathroom," he said through gritted teeth, "Because I
was attempting some vengeance on you for ignoring me the past week, hanging
out with that little sixth grader."

"Alright, fair enough.  I kind of picked up on that, actually."  This was
not strictly true, I'd been half-aware that he'd been annoyed all week, but
I didn't really pay much mind to it.  Jonny acts pissy half the time
anyway.

"Kind of?  Please.  You could care less how I feel, be honest."  Sigh.  Now
the kid was in full-on drama queen mode.  The last time he'd done this was
in seventh grade when he was coming to terms with being gay, acting as if
it was some life-altering and epic experience that only he had gone
through.  You wanna tell people like that to get over themselves, but it
never really works all that well.

"Hey.  Just because I care doesn't mean that I'm like, perfectly attuned to
your mood 100% of the time."  I was pacing around a little now on the
court, starting to sweat a little in the sun.

"Pfft.  The only person's mood you're ever attuned to is your own.  That's
all you care about.  Yourself."  He laughed bitterly.

These jealous trips Jonny gets on, I dunno, they make me nervous.  I
maintain that our relationship ought to be friendship-based, because being
*in love* is entirely different from just loving someone.  He's in love
with being in love, not with me, which is where this drama was coming from.
He just wanted an excuse to get upset with me.

"Okay Jonny, I think I get it."  It's hard not to get exasperated as all
hell in this kind of situation.  "This is my fault, because I like to screw
around with other boys and have fun, and I don't pay enough attention to my
devastatingly handsome boyfriend, right?"

"You know, Kyre."  The death stare returned.  He was getting better at it,
now.  "I wouldn't be anywhere near this upset if you'd just been screwing
around with other boys."

Oh, shit.

I wasn't quite sure what to say, because this was not a contingency I'd
planned on.  Maybe I was being naive, but I honestly never thought I'd get
*caught* by anyone, let alone Jonny.  And he was literally the only person
who would be, well, emotionally distraught by seeing me and the teacher.

"Okay.  So you saw that.  How much did you see?  Because there really wa-"
I was cut off mid-sentence.

"Oh, I don't know, I saw you two having sex in his chair, in the damn
classroom!  I was gonna try and bust you out when you went to the bathroom,
you know?"  He was starting to get overwrought now, saying all this.  Tears
were even forming in his eyes.  It was sort of hard, at this point, for me
to say anything else, but I tried anyway.

"We had our clothes on, you know, we weren't like really having sex..."

It probably wasn't a good idea for me to attempt to justify my actions at
that time, but I have trouble not saying really stupid things, on occasion.
Turns out this was one of the stupidest things I'd ever said, as before I
could try to continue, Jonny had actually decked me in the side of the
face.

"SON OF A BITCH!  What's your PROBLEM?!"  I was actually pissed at this
point.  I had my hand up to my throbbing left cheek, my face was flushed,
hair was in disarray.  A lot of shit's gone down between the two of us in
the last year, but nothing like that.

"Leave, Kyre.  Just leave right now, turn around, get on your damn bike,
and leave."  Jonny's back was turned to me, and I certainly hoped he felt
worse about what had just happened than I did.  I finally did what he told
me to, something I ought to have done sooner.  I got on my damn bike and
left.

Now, I really feel that it's important to communicate the feeling I had
when I was leaving Jonny's that particular afternoon.  I gotta go a bit
deep into the past to get there, though.  I was 11 years old when my
parents died.  My mom, she was actually great, just really soft-hearted and
didn't have a single mean bone in her body.  If anyone didn't deserve to
die it was her, the woman was practically a saint.  I worshiped her.  My
dad, on the other hand, was not a very nice guy.  I mean, he never actively
abused me or anything like that.  Well, he hit me once, but it was pretty
much by accident and I couldn't really understand what was happening.  My
dad just didn't like me, I guess.  He wasn't really around.  I don't know
if he didn't like me, or if he was just indifferent to me.  He was a lonely
guy, though, didn't like to spend much time with anyone.  He probably
married my mom because she was an inexhaustible fount of affection.  He was
like the bottomless pit where affection went to die, they really were
perfect for each other.

Anyway, I was home with the babysitter when I got the news that they were
in a car crash.  I was supposed to be asleep, but I wasn't.  I always tried
to wait up till midnight when they'd come home, two hours past my bedtime.
I'd wait for my mom to come tuck me in.  I remember the phone ringing that
night, and knowing that something was wrong, because the phone never rang
that late.  I rolled out of bed and cracked the door, so I could hear down
the hall what was being said.  There was the scared sound in the
babysitter's voice, the way it shook.  She was saying something about me,
about how she couldn't be the one to tell me, she couldn't possibly do
that.  I think I understood at that point that my parents were never going
to come back home, somehow, but of course I didn't exactly process it.  I
shut the door as softly as possible, and just went back to bed.

I lay awake in bed that entire night, alone.  Nobody came to talk to me,
because I was assumed to be asleep until morning when the news would
presumably be broken.  That was the longest night of my life, by far.  It
never ended.  I think that night is still going on in some weird way,
actually, everything that's happened since could easily be some sort of
fever dream.  I had somehow become unstuck from existence as I lay in bed.
When you're 11, your parents loom very large in your miniature universe.  I
lay there and tried to imagine how life could possibly go on after this.
It's unbearably cliche, I know, but that was basically all I could think
about.  How would I eat?  Who would take me to school?  Who would read to
me?  Who could I talk to?  Who could I trust?  It just made no sense.  Try
as I might, I couldn't wrap my head around it.  When morning came around,
some part of me was fundamentally changed.  Pieces of my insides had been
swapped out with somebody else's.  I don't want to say that I 'lost my
innocence', or anything as horrifyingly trite as that.  But I think one kid
walked into his room that night to go to bed, and another kid stepped out
the door the next day.

Biking away from Jonny's after our fight was the closest I've come to that
night, since it happened.  It wasn't nearly as bad as losing my parents or
anything, but it was the same general feeling.  The sense that people were
transitory, inconsistent, not to be counted upon.  Even our closest and
most important people.


			       CHAPTER FIVE

My legs burned like fire as I furiously pumped them up and down on the
bike, nearly blind to everything around me.  Tires screamed in rage and a
car horn blared out, snapping me into my surroundings and the fact that I'd
very nearly killed myself.  Not a good idea to fly through even quiet
side-streets without looking, apparently.

"What the HELL are you doing, trying to get yourself killed?!"  The red-
faced man behind the wheel was shouting at me.  All I did was wave
indistinctly, and then keep on going as fast as before.  God knows what he
thought about me or what he was shouting as I fled, thankfully I couldn't
hear.  I didn't really need more people pissed off at me.

I looked ahead and saw a little park: a little league baseball diamond,
playground, soccer field, some trees and picnic tables.  I rode up to a
tree where I was in the shade, and could sit down somewhat innocuously and
just watch people.  Try not to think about myself for a while.  A game was
going on in the baseball field, short little kids in uniforms standin'
around, trying to act macho.  The pitcher's taller than the rest of them,
with longish hair, clearly in charge of the situation as far as he's
concerned.  He winds up and fires the ball in as the kid at the plate
flails, pushing a little squibber between the pitcher and the first
baseman, all the kids scrambling around as fast as they can.  Younger kids
were on the playground, swinging, sliding, falling off the monkey-bars.

There's an untouchable innocence about children at play, something that is
pure.  Finicky parents look on as their offspring interact with others,
take risks, fall down and get back up only to do it all over again.
Occasionally they'll skin a knee, but nothing too bad.  I'll be honest,
though, I felt unspeakably jealous of them.  I don't know if it was because
they were so damn safe, no matter what happened to them, or if it was just
some unrequited longing that I'd repressed.  It came from a darker place
than my general feeling of cynical detachment.  At least cynicism felt
nice, this wasn't anything like that, this was just bad.  I fell onto my
back under the tree, and looked up at the leaves dancing slowly in the
breeze, a mottled green as the sunlight streamed through them.

"...Hey, Kyre?"  Hmmmm.  An interested voice coming from behind me.  It
figures, I can't even be *miserable* in peace today.  I rolled over onto my
elbows and looked up, and to my surprise found myself gazing into the
cherubin face of young Trin!  I hadn't actually expected to run into him
again, but he would at least be nice to look at right now, if nothing else.
Truly beautiful boys are hard to come by, and this kid really ought to have
been a movie star or something.  Even with the feathery brown hair, epicene
facial definition, and enviable boy-hips, it was his stunning hazel eyes
that stood out the most; framed with long lashes and fine eyebrows, they
portended a depth and understanding that simply did not exist in
12-year-old boys.

"Ah, how's it goin' Trin?"  I futiley attempted to act casual.  Stupid
idea, really.

"Why are you crying?"  He asked simply. Son of a bitch.

"I'm not crying."  Boys don't cry.  "Well, whatever."  He was towering over
me, looking down.  I felt a little silly, my hair in disarray and falling
in my face, looking up at him.  I hadn't been crying [i]that much[/i] or
anything, but even when it happens a little my eyes get red and bloodshot,
and it looks really obvious.

"It's just the time of year, allergies."  I sniffled a little bit.  Why why
why why why do I have to act so tough all the time?  It's so stupid,
bothering to act tough; it's no use in these situations.  If we lived in a
world where we actually said and did what we meant all the time, I would
probably be sobbing undignifiedly and collapsing into his arms.  Instead, I
asked him what he was doing here.  Ugh.

"Ah, Jaime totally ditched me!  Sarah wanted to hang out with him and they
want to the *mall* together."  He plopped down onto the ground beside me.
"She's like the cutest and most popular girl in the grade though, I can't
really blame him."

"Oh yes, the lure of really cute girls cannot be denied."  I couldn't help
but keep the sarcasm out of my voice.  It's a bad thing about being
miserable, you make other people that way too.  Trin's pretty immune to it,
I don't think he's capable of having a bad day.

"I dunno, it just kinda sucks."  He was absent-mindedly yanking up blades
of grass.

"What, you didn't wanna go with them?"  Might as well get to the bottom of
this, it would at least take my mind off losing my own best friend.

"I really hate going shopping."  Trin crinkled up his nose and squinted
upwards.  "And besides, she likes him, you know?"  This was getting a
little interesting, anyways.  Trin hadn't talked to me about girls before,
but I'd done plenty of homework on the gossip surrounding the boy.  I
certainly wasn't the only one who had a thing for him, obviously.  I sat up
quickly now and crossed my legs, smiling at the younger boy who seemed a
little surprised.

"I did not know, but it's always good to hear about these things.  You do
know that Anabel, Claire, Heather, and Jenna all *like* you, right?
Claire's always hangin' out with Sarah, she must've wanted you to go
along!"  This really was getting interesting.

"Jenna?  She's in *your* grade though!"

"Well, so what?  She's pretty good-looking, I mean, other than being 3
inches taller than you."  He giggled.  "But seriously, you're... All the
girls, all of 'em in your grade at least must want to hang out with you."

"Yeah, but I just wanna have fun, those girls are so weird.  What's so
wrong about wanting to just play baseball with your friend, ride bikes, I
dunno... " He giggled again, a little nervously this time.  "I thought you
were a girl the first two weeks I saw you, y'know."  Oh *really*?

"Believe it or not, that's not the first time I've heard that one."  Trin
was fidgeting with his hair, and unless I was mistaken, blushing slightly!

"Why do you do that?  I mean like, why do you dress all girly?  Isn't that
like a girl's shirt?  And those shorts!  You always wear that sorta stuff."
He was staring at my lower half now, which really is the whole idea.

"I like to dress like this, it's who I am," I told him. "What, d'you want
to know where I shop or something?"  Now he blushed hard.

"N-no!  I just wanted to know if you were really gay.  I mean, I'd heard
that."  He looked at the ground now and began rapidly shredding more grass.
It would be dangerous to get too excited about this, as I'd experienced it
before.  Other boys love to express a certain degree of superficial
interest in me for this sort of thing, and it doesn't always feel great.
It's like, look at the queerboy in his natural habitat!  See how he cavorts
about in sexy clothing, and appears confused concerning what gender he is!
Sigh.

"Do you know what gay means, Trin?"

"Of course I know what it means!  I'm not stupid, it means faggot.  It
means you like other guys."  There was a concise and astute definition, if
I'd ever heard one.  It's a good thing Trin was so unearthly beautiful,
because he was really lacking in some social niceties.

"Yeah, that's what it means.  I am gay, but I don't dress like this because
I'm gay, really, I just like dressing like this.  It's who I am," I
repeated.  Might as well try and teach him something, if nothing else comes
of this.  At the least it was distracting me from my real problems.

"Oh, okay," he said, staring me in the eye now.  "I like the way you look,
Kyre. I think it's cool!"  There was something astonishingly wonderful
about his bluntness.  The kid was incapable of manipulation it seemed, he
was so forthright.  I felt a little dirty, trying to pull the strings and
not being completely honest with him.

"Thanks, that really means a lot."  I said this slowly and looked into his
eyes.  "Look, Trin, I haven't been honest with you.  I like you, I've liked
you ever since I saw you.  You're beautiful, I couldn't take my eyes off
you.  I don't even know why I'm telling you this, you're obviously... I
mean, I'm sorry, this isn't fair to you at all."  I frowned.

It felt amazing to get this off my chest.  All this shit with Nagram and
Jonny that was going on, all my personal issues, all of it seemed to fade
from my mind while I confessed this.  All that mattered was this moment of
avowal.  But as I'd said, it wasn't fair to Trin.  I was doing this for me,
not for him, and I couldn't shake that edge of pain that clung to my
confession.  Trin to his credit looked nonplussed, and gazed right back at
me with those deep and soulful eyes, a light emerald in the sun's
reflection.

"Oh.  I sort of knew that already, I kinda liked you when I thought you
were a girl.  But I actually like you a little more as a boy I think,
because we can also hang out and do fun stuff together!"  Oh god.  I had no
idea whether he knew what he was saying or not, or if he really even
understood completely about this whole sex thing.

"So what, you wanna be my boyfriend, is that it?  Or just my friend?  Why
exactly are you telling me this?"  I demanded peevishly.  I should have
just been happy about what he said, goddamnit.

"I don't know!  How should I know?"  He was getting flustered, and angry
about this.  I had touched a nerve.  "Why were you crying when I showed
up?"

"...Look, just come over here, okay?"

"What, sit next to you?"

"Yes, you pretty little idiot, come over here and sit next to me."

"....Okay."

The boy sat down beside me, and we looked at one another.  The silence
between us sprung up with the physical proximity, and I could think of
nothing else to say. I couldn't really think of anything else to [i]do[/i],
really.  Trin was better at this than I was, somehow, and enveloped me in a
hug.  Surprised, I responded in kind.  We broke off after a short while,
looking at one another briefly, and embraced once more at the same time,
collapsing to the ground.  We rolled around and struggled playfully a
little, Trin giggling, and found a comfy spot in the grass.  I had my arms
wrapped around him now, hugging him closely to my body. There's nothing
like the warmth of another human being.  His hair felt as soft on my face
as it had always looked, and smelled of lavender.  Sex is overrated when
there's cuddling, I always think, that was my favorite thing to do with
Jonny.  It felt different with Trin; there was something pliant and openly
honest about him.  It felt like there were no strings attached.  I sighed
softly, and felt my body truly relax for maybe the first time all day.
Trin wiggled a little bit, and spoke up.

"Hey Kyre, why are you still crying?"

I sniffled.

"I'm not."


				CHAPTER SIX

I was in a half-remembered haze of conversation, as questions I couldn't
completely focus on floated in and out of my periphery.  When you've been
fantasizing about something for a while, the experience of achieving it is
often very different from the expectation.  It seemed at the time that my
feelings for this boy had less to do with sex, and more to do with a desire
to protect him at all costs.  I'm not a protective type normally, but Trin
had such a perfect and Zen frame of mind; it would be a crime to lose it.
I always had so many conflicting ideas, theories, and opinions spinning
around that talking to someone who viewed the world simply was endlessly
refreshing.

I was primarily aware of the feel of Trin against myself, as we lay there,
on my back now with the boy across me, his head tucked under my chin, eyes
squeezed shut.  It really was remarkably effortless for him, not so much
for me.  I'd never been in this exact position before, usually I'd be where
Trin was right now, typically in the more submissive role.  But it was
appropriate, I thought; maybe I'd always sought out this particular boy not
just because he was uniquely beautiful, but out of some desperately
vicarious desire to revisit my own issues.  What if this was how Jonny felt
every time I'd lay on him like that, his arm around my shoulder?

Ideas like this swirled 'round and 'round, and I couldn't focus on Trin's
occasionally boring and innocent comments about his life.  I could keep up
with some nods and mmm-hmms, and this seemed to make him happy enough.  The
boy could probably tell I was pre-occupied to an extent, but he didn't seem
to mind.  It was enough for him that we had this moment together, and to be
honest, it was enough for me as well right now.  The skin on his arm was so
soft, an almost invisible layer of pale hair rippling in the breeze, long
and dark eyelashes fluttered as I ran my fingers back and forth across his
forearm.  I was unconsciously mimicking the same things that Jonny and I
did, predictable enough as he's the usual person I'd done this before with.
Sigh.

It was becoming increasingly clear to me that I couldn't really pursue this
relationship unless I'd somehow made things right in my life.  I'm loath to
think that I've fucked up or made some mistake, but it was kind of foolish
at this point to pretend otherwise.  What a bitch, too, because the last
thing I needed today was even [i]more[/i] work.  The sun was almost gone,
and I could see the pale shape of the moon on the midnight-blue sky
already.  Must be like 6 or so, not a lot of time.  A plan was already
beginning to form in my mind.  It was kind of a weird and fucked up plan,
and about a *hundred* things could probably go wrong, but damn.  It was a
plan!

"Hey Trin?"  I ruffled my fingers in his hair, and those startling green
eyes opened up and regarded me pleasantly.

"Mmmm?"  The smaller boy squirmed sleepily in my arms.  "It's getting a
little chilly out here," he remarked.

"We probably should be going home soon, yeah..." I trailed off gloomily as
I sat up now, breaking the warmth between us.  So lame that we couldn't
just go home together right now, I wasn't exactly looking forward to being
alone.  Trin showed that he was either very keyed into my emotional state
or that I was absurdly easy to read by pulling me back to the ground and
restoring our previous position, clearly in protest.  Leaving this boy
today was going to be hell, was my only thought.  Our faces were touching
now, nuzzling together, the heat of the boy's flushed cheek, his breath
tickling my ear.  I can't really say who *initiated* the kiss, nor can I
say how long it lasted exactly, but it was nice.  Trin wasn't
exactly... well-versed in the art, shall we say, but that made it all the
more adorable from my own perspective.

We broke off, and he started giggling.  The giggling turned to full-fledged
laughter, and before I knew it, he was out of my arms and practically
rolling on the ground in infectious hysterics.

"What," I said, laughing a little as well, "Is so damn funny?"  The
situation didn't exactly strike me as the most hilarious thing in the
world.  It took another minute or so before he calmed down.

"Ohhh my..."  A few more peels of laughter.  He dried his eyes.  "I dunno
why I'm laughing!  That was my first kiss, and it was just so.... funny!"
This kid was such a trip, honestly.

"Did you enjoy yourself?"  I was grinning now in spite of myself, reclining
back on my elbows as I watched Trin try to mentally process all of this.

"I dunno!  It was weird, next time I'll know what to expect."  He had
gotten up now, and was checking the time on his cellphone.  "Oh man!  My
mom's gonna kill me, I'm already late for dinner."  He hustled over to his
bike and was on it before I could blink.

"Hey, wait!  I gotta go take care of some things but I wanna come by and
see you later.  Where do you live?"

"Oh, I'm just in the big house at 16th and Lincoln.  Gimme a call and I can
sneak you in, maybe, I've snuck out before."  He was beginning to pedal
away now, and shouted out his numbers as I scrambled to put 'em into my
phone.  Damn kids, always leaving in a hurry.

I got onto my own bike then, rather quickly.  I had a bunch of shit to get
done tonight now, and not a lot of time.  I went full-speed the 12 blocks
or so back to my house, traveling a good bit more safely this time than
before.  Of course it was darker and colder out now, but nevertheless I had
arrived back home in no more than 5 minutes.

I ditched the bike in the garage, and bolted noisily into the house.  The
folks were there, eating dinner, and got up to interrogate me as to why I
was home late.  I tossed out some bullshit about homework and videogames at
Jonny's as I fixed up a plate of the roast chicken and potatoes they'd
cooked, and proceeded to eat at top-speed in the kitchen.  I finished and
ran up the stairs into my room.  I quickly pulled off my shirt and shimmied
out of my shorts, a skill I'd long since mastered, and went digging through
my dresser.  Didn't take long to find what I was looking for: a pair of
black jeans, black and green striped longsleeve shirt, and my best black
hoodie.  My ninja uniform, in other words!  I pulled them all on
post-haste, and inspected myself in the mirror.  Hmmm.  I grabbed a little
elastic hair tie off my desk and pulled my lovely locks back in a ponytail.
One more thing was missing, but I located a pair of sneakers in the closet.
There we go.  Then it was off to the bathroom to brush my teeth and splash
some water on my face, and I was ready to head back out.

But first, I had to find the phone book!  I hardly use the damn thing at
all, but it was integral to my plan.  I finally procured one in some random
kitchen drawer, and began scanning through the white pages.
N.... N-A.... N-A-G.....  There we go, Nagram.  Luckily, there was just one
solitary J Nagram in the tri-city area.  Had to be the right one too, his
address was only 5 blocks from the school.  Excellent.  I copied it down on
a scrap of paper, and went back into the dining room to find the folks just
finishing up.

"Hey mom, dad?  I'm going out to see a movie with some friends, we're
having a sleepover at Jonny's."  This was fairly typical, he had the
biggest house and it was a Friday.  Pretty easy lie.

"Alright, Kyre," my 'mom' replied.  "Make sure you bring your pack, and
give us a call tomorrow morning, okay?"  She gave me a hug.  My foster mom
was actually very cool, her husband not so much.  He gave a grunt of
assent, and went into the kitchen.  I don't think he appreciated having a
kid like me even as a foster son, but whatever.  Screw him.

I bade them farewell and ran through the side-door into the garage, hopped
back onto my bike and was off once more.  I checked the time; only 25
minutes for the detour back at the house!  Not bad.  Time was very
important now, as I had to get to Nagram's and case the joint, scope it
out.  Hopefully the guy went out on Friday nights like a normal person, or
has a girlfriend or something, so I'd have a chance to get inside and have
a nice and long look around.  Now I know, breaking into a house, a little
sketchy, right?  But nobody really uses security systems around these
parts, certainly not some guy on teachers' wages.  Not to mention, even if
I were to get caught by him in the worst-case scenario, I'd have a pretty
firm upper hand.  No way he'd call the cops on sweet little me.  Not that
it'd come to that, I didn't suppose it would be tough to procure something
incriminating in the dude's house.  I just didn't want it to be *too*
goddamn creepy.

Don't get the wrong idea here, I'm not setting out to ruin this guy's life
or anything.  I saw that flick Hard Candy, and while it was at times
hilarious and empowering to myself as a portrait of a sexually conscious
younger person taking control of a situation, I'm not really cut out for
torture and mock-castrations.  Or for forcing people into suicide.  I just
wanted to fix my own life, and the best way to prove to Jonny that I did
give a damn about him, and could acknowledge and fix my mistakes, was to
get Nagram out of the picture.  The most effective (and fun!) method seemed
to be blackmail.  Just force the guy to resign the next day, which should
definitely prove something to Jonny.  Knowing that he was a pedo and had to
have some naughty shit in his apartment made it all the more easy.

I'd gone over all this several times in my head by the time I arrived at
his place, tiptoeing in the shadows on the sidewalk as I approached.  The
house was a little one-story bungalow he must've been renting, painted some
sickly yellow color.  A light was on in the window to the side, but a
venetian blind was pulled down.  I dropped the bike under a shrubbery in
the neighboring yard, and crept ever so softly around the back.  There was
another light on in a back window, except these blinds weren't shut
properly.  The window was even open, and I could hear typing.  There was
Nagram, in what appeared to be a second bedroom he was using for a study.
I could see his face illuminated by the blue glow of a computer, and he
seemed to be very focused on something.  It was a bit of a shame, I thought
once more as I looked at him; the guy was pretty cute.

The next hour or so was extremely boring.  I found a little spot where I
felt nice and invisible, and observed.  He got up a couple times, returning
once with what must've been an alcoholic drink of some sort, and proceeded
to drink it in front of the computer.  I was starting to get worried; what
if this guy really didn't go out?  He could be a drunk!  I was saved then,
when I heard the sure sounds of a vehicle pulling up to the house.  I heard
a car door slamming, followed by a front door slamming, and then saw a
woman of slight build with mousy black hair enter Nagram's study.  He got
up, and they embraced.  It figures that his girlfriend looks basically like
a little boy, I thought.  To my relief she wasn't getting her coat off or
anything, and they seemed to be getting ready to go.  Awesome.  They exited
the room, and I waited another five minutes not quite knowing what was
going.  Then the front door closed again, and the car doors, and a car sped
off.

I got up, rubbed my palms together in anticipation, and grinned.  He hadn't
even shut his window!  This was gonna be so easy.


			       CHAPTER SEVEN

Turns out breaking into houses isn't exactly the easiest thing in the
world.  Ok, I don't have the most experience at this particular art, but I
thought it might be sorta fun, and simple at any rate.  It took like five
minutes of work to get the screen loose though, and it was super-sketchy.
Every car going by on the road could have been a cop or something.  By the
time I'd actually gained clear entry into the house, my heart was pumping
pretty damn fast!  I actually hate that feeling, it's just so unpleasant.
It doesn't remind me of anything good.  I have a kind of fucked up flight
or fight response I think, and it activates at the wrong times.  I'll be
in, like, a totally normal situation and all of a sudden I'll get the
sensation that something is [i]seriously[/i] wrong.  I should probably go
to the doctor for it but it's never been too much of an issue.

To be completely honest, the real issue is that I don't trust shrinks.  I
got sent to a few of them after my parents died, and it was such a
pointless exercise.  They don't just condescend to you because you're a
kid, they have this indefatigable air of superiority regardless of what
fucked up shit you say to mess with them.  Not that it ever helps that
much.  Oh, they'll say, you enjoy screaming in loud voices to your
imaginary friends?  And you have a love of falconry?  I see.  The joke of
it all is that I knew they were just noting histrionic or attention-seeking
behavior and thinking they were coming across some novel and clever
realization.  Bastards.

So once I'd mantled up the sill and slithered in on my belly, landing on
the floor of the room, I had to take a few deep breaths and get my
heartbeat under control.  The first thing I noticed about the place was a
weird, sterile smell.  Like the dentist's office or something.  It was dark
and shadowy, so I couldn't see much, but it seemed pretty basic.  A mostly
empty, carpeted room with a desk and a chair, and a closed laptop situated
upon it, along with several stacks of CD-Rs and some speakers.  Hopefully I
could find what I needed on the computer, back it up, and leave him a
little note informing him of his situation.  I was beginning to feel a
little bad, and worried; what if there wasn't anything after all?

I sat down at the computer, still pretty sketched out and tuned in to
basically every sound going on, and began to look.  Hmmmm.  Basic files,
music, documents for school.... I wasn't finding anything after 5 minutes
of browsing around his internet history.  All I found out was that the
guy's a Geronimo Jackson fan, follows competitive karate, drinks scotch,
and apparently does not look at any porn at all.  That part was a bit
suspicious.  I started rooting through the CD-Rs, putting them in one at a
time and finding nothing but music or worksheet templates, shit like that.
I checked the time and realized I'd been in there for 15 minutes already,
which was seeming like a very long time.  Something *had* to be here
though!  I had just opened the door of his study and was about to search
the rest of the house, when I heard the horrifying sound of a car pulling
up, and a door closing.

Now I had some adrenaline coursing through me.  I don't really remember how
I got there, but I ended up running into the closet like an idiot, and the
next thing I recall is hearing someone coming.  But just one person.  Oh
shit, I thought, I'd left the computer open!

"Oh no, you don't have to come in!  I can't believe I left my purse here
though, what was I thinking...."  It was a woman's voice.  My chest was
going to explode, but it could be worse.  She might not notice.  I could
hear her paces, she wore heels, and they were normal and steady for a few
seconds until they came to an abrupt halt.  "Is anybody there?!  Who's
there?!  Come out!"  Fuuuuuuck.

I had to do a bit of quick thinking, and it didn't take long to reach the
conclusion that I was probably better off just showing myself.  I don't
really cut the figure of an imposing or threatening prowler, and she'd
probably find me anyway.  "Don't worry!  Here I am, I'm sorry!"  I spoke
slowly and opened the door as carefully as possible, walking out with my
arms up like they did in the movies.  "I'm not a burglar, but be quiet!  I
don't want Mr. Nagram to come in here!"  This was going to be awkward.

"Are you a student of his?  What in God's name are you doing here, don't
you know you'll wind up in juvenile hall like a delinquent!"  Christ, now I
was getting reprimanded.  She was getting pissed and not being quiet in the
slightest.  "I can't imagine why anyone would want to break into John's
house, he's a such a good man.  You stay right here, young lady!"

"I'm *not* a young lady, lady!  Don't go anywhere yet, and SSSSHHH!  I'm
here because your good boyfriend took advantage of me in detention today
and I wanna get some dirt on him!"  That made her stop in her tracks, and
give me a look halfway between quizzical disbelief and furious revelation.

"He did... What?  John would never do something like that."

"Oh, c'mon lady," I growled.  "Hasn't he been acting a little strange today
or anything?"

"Now that you mention it..."  She trailed off and had that look like she
actually knew what I was talking about for a second.  She wrung her hands
together nervously, and looked at the floor.  "You're not lying, are you?"

"No ma'am, I most certainly am not."  We shared a very direct, eye-to-eye
gaze for a few moments, before Nagram entered his house, clearly tired of
waiting.

"Hey Liz, what's taking you so long?  I thought you just forgot your
purse?"  He walked into the study, and took in the whole of the scene.  Me
standing there, hair pulled back and decked out in black, his window open
with the screen on the floor, and his girlfriend staring speechless at me.
He seemed to be at a loss for words, but apparently Liz wasn't.

"YOU... TOTAL... FUCKING.... ASSHOLE!"  She was screaming and red- faced,
having made a clear jump from denial into anger, as far as the stages of
acceptance were concerned.  "DID YOU REALLY MOLEST THIS KID IN DETENTION?!
DID YOU?!"  She started attacking him then, trying to punch or slap at
anything she could get at, and he had his arms thrown around his head in
defense.

"No, Liz!  I didn't, honest! Nothing happened at all!"  He barely managed
to talk through the onslaught.  I was beginning to find this all kind of
funny, myself.

"Oh don't give me THAT!  This makes perfect sense, this makes total sense,
THIS is why you can never perform, isn't it?  THIS is why you're so fucking
distant!"  She aimed one more slap at him, and laughed derisively.  "I
can't believe I didn't listen to my girlfriends when they told me you were
a closet- case.  Hah!  I can't wait to tell them about this."

"Liz... Baby... He's lying, he's just a crazy kid!  C'mon, you know I'd
never do something like that!  Don't tell anyone about this, please!"
Nagram was groveling on the floor now, looking mostly at her but he
couldn't help stealing scared glances over at me, watching with my arms
crossed and a shit-eating grin stamped across my face.

"HE'S LYING?!"  She snorted.  "How would he know that you keep those...
What are they, art books?  I can't believe that's what I thought they were
too."  Nagram apparently didn't have any answers to this particular
indictment; you can get away with those books usually, Michael Jackson had
some of 'em and he got off scot-free.  Only problem is when it's combined
with the kid standing in the room offering corroborating evidence. "Hey,
kid, what's your name?"  She was looking over at me now, so was Nagram.

"Oh, my name's Kyre."  I grinned.  "Don't go tellin' people I had something
to do with this though, it'd be a little embarrassing."

"Sure thing, Kyre.  That's a lovely name.  I'll be calling the school
tomorrow morning, and I'll be sure to leave your name out of it." She aimed
a kick at the man on the floor, who gave a moan and a whimper.  "Do you
need a ride home, or anything?"

"It was all him, Liz, all him!"  Nagram broke in now, gasping for breath as
the wind had been knocked out of him before.  "He was teasing me, bending
over... It was all his fault!"  This was really just too funny.

"That's what they all say!  You're pathetic, I never want to see you
again."  Liz shook her head, and began to walk out the door.  "And you
know, Kyre.  In the future it's a lot smarter to just talk to a responsible
adult in confidence, rather than breaking into a strange man's house.
You're very lucky you're going home tonight safe, young *man*."  She
actually gave me a smile.  "Now come on, you're not going back out that
window like some hoodlum."  I was quite happy to follow her out the front
door, although I had kinda wanted to go back out the window.  It would have
been cooler.  I shot Nagram a look as I left, trying to communicate the
mixture of guilt and satisfaction I felt.  Sorry man, them's the breaks.

I followed Liz outside and to her car.  "Thanks for believing me, really, I
was worried nobody would take my story seriously.  That's why I wanted
evidence," I tried to explain.  I did feel a little sheepish about the
whole breaking and entering aspect of the night.

"You're actually very convincing, Kyre, you don't give yourself enough
credit.  You're sure you have a way home?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine, I've got a bike.  It's not *that* late, or anything."

"Okay."  She took out a piece of paper and wrote something down.  "Here's
my phone number.  Make sure you call me.  You like to seem very self-
sufficient, but you've clearly gone through some kind of traumatic
experience, maybe even beyond what that jerk did.  I don't want to tell you
that you need help, but..."

"But I need help."  I finished her sentence.  "I know.  I'll call you, Liz,
and thanks."  Then she was off in her car, zooming away.  She did have a
point, I probably did need help.  One thing I'd learned today was that I
need to reassess my priorities to some extent.  Maybe living an utterly
contradictory existence was simply part of being a teenager, trying to
address one issue while another one pops up, but it was getting tough.
It's the fucking hormones, I think, or that's what people tell me.  It's
hard to believe them, because I can't exactly feel the hormones doing
anything, I just am who I am.  Another thing I'd learned, something that
was very clear and obvious in my mind, was that I needed my friends.  I
needed Jonny, because there isn't anyone else I can just talk to about
whatever's on my mind, all the time.  He was like my only real family,
except I'd created a relationship with him on my own terms.  I needed Trin
because he represented all that could be possible, the limitless fathoms of
human mystery and depth.  I'd never completely understand him, or his
motivations, but he had a joie de vivre that made me a better person when I
was around him.  I even needed Bryan, and his lisping nerdiness, because
everyone needed to geek out now and then.  I needed more friends, I
realized, maybe I even needed Liz, an adult to talk to with whom I could
relate on a meaningful level, and on my own terms.

I couldn't wait to get out of that neighborhood, to be honest.  I picked my
bike up from under the shrubbery and was off again, getting my cell out in
one hand while I steered with the other, calling Jonny up.  I was
disappointed to find that it went straight to voicemail, indicating that
his phone was turned off and he was probably caught up in his own miseries.
All I wanted to do was curl up in his lap and tell him that it'd all be
okay, and that I'd made everything alright again.  I wanted to feel
protective of him this time, I wanted him to know that I cared about what
he felt so much that I'd even go to extreme lengths to make things better.
It was great to be able to recognize and understand these feelings clearly,
I thought to myself, such a relief.

It was around 10PM by the time I arrived at Jonny's.  Not that dark though,
it was a very clear night and almost a full moon.  Maybe one or two nights
off.  The massive house was pretty dark as I went up the driveway, only a
few of the second-story lights were on.  I tried his phone again, but no
dice.  There had to be some reasonable way to figure this out without,
well, breaking into his house.  I'd had enough of that tonight. I looked up
at his window and the light was definitely on.

There were some stones in the garden to the side, so I gathered a handful
of those up, and walked to the part of the house where his room was.  I
made a light toss, but it didn't get up high enough.  Pathetic.  I didn't
wanna break the window or anything, though.  I tried again, and succeeded
in tapping the window properly this time.  Then again, and another success!
This was easy once you knew how hard to throw.  I tossed a couple more up
at the glass, eliciting satisfying taps.  Just like in the movies!

The window was pushed open then.  "Who in the HELL is throwing stones at my
window?"  A voice hissed.  "Is that you, Kyre?"  Heh.

"Of course it's me!  Now get your ass down here and let me in, I told my
parents I was spending the night at your place."  I could hear his long,
drawn- out sigh all the way down here.

"I thought I told you to leave."

"You won't believe the shit that's happened since I left here, Jonny,
c'mon.  I got a lot to talk to you about.  Nagram ain't gonna be back at
work at tomorrow, I can tell you that much."  I was doing my best to be coy
yet conciliatory, and this seemed to catch his interest.

"Okay, okay, meet me out front..."  That really turned out a lot easier
than I expected, I thought to myself.  I considered what Liz had said
before; perhaps I really didn't give myself enough credit sometimes.

A few minutes later he and I were up in his room together.  I wish I had a
room as nice, it was just full of stuff.  Thick, nice carpets on the floor,
overstuffed chairs, a cluttered desk with an enormous monitor, a flatscreen
on one wall with games and such.  It wasn't a big room by any means, but it
was extraordinarily cozy.  We were seated somewhat at odds with one
another, though, myself cross-legged on the floor and him sitting upright
on his bed, looking at me with earnest appraisal.  He was wearing his
version of pajamas, a gray and white striped tank with these weird
lightweight pants that I wish I had a pair of.  He was as handsome as ever
though, even more so with his dark hair mussed-up and that angsty, pained
look in his eye.

I began to tell him the story.  What was going through my mind in detention
with Nagram, why I'd done what I'd done.  How I'd felt after our encounter
in the bathroom, how I'd felt after we'd fought on the basketball court.  I
told him about Trin, and I was honest with him about that, about how he
meant something undefinable to me.  I actually told him how I'd felt about
my parents' death, which was something he had the tact to never ask about,
and something I generally do not discuss.

I tried to rationalize how this made me feel, and recounted the events that
had just happened at our teacher's house.  This had him appropriately
shocked, shaking his head, and calling me a fucking idiot.  I wouldn't
expect anything less of him, though, and ultimately he was touched.  He
listened, too, and that was really important to me, that someone just
listen.  I must've talked for like an hour before I was done.

"So," I finished, "I came over here.  Because I told the folks this is
where I'd be, and I guess... I wanted to be with you anyway, after all
this.  I hope you're not mad at me anymore."  I was a little hoarse after
all this, going on and on about it all.  I could feel that my cheeks were
flushed, and even feeling kinda dizzy.  I wanted to ask him why he'd been
in such a bad mood today, other than from what I'd done, but Jonny didn't
bother much with words after that, thankfully, because I honestly didn't
know how much more *talking* I could handle.  He just came over and helped
me up off the floor, wrapped me in his arms, squeezed me tight, and rocked
me back and forth a little, whispering tender and comforting words in my
ear that I couldn't really hear.  We collapsed onto his bed in this
position, lips locked together now.  He was always a very good kisser, we'd
taught each other how to kiss originally, so it worked well.  He knew that
I liked lots of lingering little kisses, and clinging to his lower lip.
They were comfort kisses, really, nothing intensely passionate and
romantic.  I was too tired for any of that at this point, in fact, I was
feeling more and more tired by the second.  I did have a hard-on though,
and I was reminded that I never really did end up getting off today.

Jonny noticed this too, of course, and this time he was a perfect
gentleman.  I didn't even need to ask.  We squirmed around and juggled our
positions such that he was spooning me, and before I could really do
anything he was unbuttoning my fly and attempting to pull my jeans down,
which proved difficult given how tight they are.  I wiggled my butt and
helped him out, eventually freeing myself more or less effectively, and
allowing Jonny to take the matter in hand.

"Mmmmm," I was reduced to inarticulate moans as the boy slowly began to
work me up and down.  I could feel his own erection pressing into my ass,
and felt a twinge of satisfaction; I would surely be asleep before I could
do anything for him.  He was aware of this, however, and it was clear that
this was some token of reconciliation on his part, and that's how I took.
It was hard not to feel grateful, being right next to the one person in the
world who could provide some degree of unconditional love, as fucked up as
it might be at times, and have him attending to your needs, both emotional
and physical.  There was Trin, too, I thought.  He could be capable of the
same thing on a more basic level, and that was part of what made him
special.  But the fact that what Jonny and I had now was wrought in part
from pain was a different, kind of bittersweet special.

I thought about these things, but mostly I was in the moment as he sped up,
his soft hands working more quickly but just as gently, tickling the right
spots and changing the tempo, covering my neck in kisses.  I couldn't
really say how long it took, time always seems to compress and expand in
some cosmically significant way during such events, but on one particularly
firm squeeze I could feel the warmth building up in me and expanding as it
shot out.  I get fleeting images in my mind that I can't really control at
the time of orgasm, and I never really know what they mean.  This time,
there were three things that I saw.  First, a giant eagle, flying above me,
talons outstretched in some predatory fashion.  Then, very clearly, my real
father, fishing in the ocean, standing alone in big yellow waders.
Finally, there was something intangible that I couldn't identify, a sort of
fuzz like a bad TV station but colored pink, with odd shadows moving back
and forth across it.

I think I came all over poor Jonny's bedspread, but I wasn't exactly aware
of it.  After that I was fading fast, comfortably wrapped in warm, safe
arms.  I'd probably have to get up and take these damn pants off, clean up
at some point, I thought, but not yet.  I could fall asleep for now, just
like this, everything forgiven for the time being.  There'd be the next
day, and I'd have to deal with everything all over again.  All the bullshit
and nonsense.  I'd have to call Liz, and she would want to talk to me about
why I do the things I do.  Problems don't go away, and people rarely
change, and maybe I'd get in more fights with my friends.  But later,
later.  There's no use dwelling in the future, because you can't enjoy the
present.  One day can feel like an eternity, when you live that way.

				    Fin