Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 17:17:29 +0200
From: Lange <lange.ruegen@t-online.de>
Subject: betrayed love - chapter eleven

umm, don't read this if:

~you are younger than 18
~you are homophobic or you just generally don't like this sort of stories
~this is forbidden where you live
= that means, read if you're sure you can risk it.

thanks to Bill Watts for editing this ... I think the story would look not too
good if he didn't do it ... not that I'm convinced of my writing ability. :)
I mights add: a really huge 'thank you' to Bill as he really is a great guy AND
he suggests the chapter headings, as i never have any idea whatsoever about that.

this story is copyright my n-c-g [that's me,
btw :-)]. All rights reserved. ... uhh, doesn't that sound dumb? :)

other stories by me on nifty:

"us" posted on April 1st (highschool) - finished
"a little lamb" last posted on June 13th (adult/youth) - on-going

feedback appreciated. i'm doing this probably more for myslef than for anybody
else, but it's nice to know that people maybe do like what i'm writing...

-------
!!!!NOTE!!!!
it's been ages...actually, i'm wondering whether there are still people
who do want to read this...ah well...i noticed that i really shouldn't
promise things...ummm...i know that this chapter is really really late,
and i certainly won't make any promises anymore. But, the next chapter
will be here in one month...i'm pretty sure about that...about this
chapter...it's pretty...unspectacular, i think, but it lies out a few
more things...have fun while reading...
--------
~~~~~~~~
~~~
~
chapter eleven - coming to terms

Jason kept sitting on the floor of his room for another few minutes,
before he was able to pull himself together again or even think of
going downstairs. His mom would get a shock if she saw him in
tears again. What would Mark do now? He'd seemed so certain
about going and telling the police, so damn sure. Just in case he
would tell, what would happen? Yes, of course the three would go
to jail, but would they really? Maybe the judge would be under-
stand and think, 'Well, it was the first time they did something like
that, so maybe I'll let them off with a warning.' If so, he would be
in deep shit then. Definitely. Somehow he didn't believe Eric
would do anything again and Tommy...well he wasn't sure about
him, but there was Steven. He couldn't really do anything to influ-
ence the situation anymore, so worrying would do no good. He'd
stick to his version that he couldn't remember anything clearly and
Mark would or would not tell his part of the story.  After that, it
would all be left up to fate. He had no chance to make it all go
away, at least not at this point. He could have chosen to not even
tell Tommy in the first place, but he'd had that discussion with
himself already.  No need to go through that again, because the
outcome would be the same: it had been the only thing he could
have done.

Jason shook his head, as if to push the 'bad' thoughts back and not
think of it anymore. He knew he should go down and talk to his
parents, but honestly....and possibly selfishly...he didn't want to
talk to them. Not now. Not today, although that was more or less
inevitable. He would have to talk to them sooner or later, but he
definitely felt more comfortable alone with himself and his
thoughts. Maybe it was unfair to think that way, but his parents
were not much help anyway. Alright, they wanted to be and he
could have gotten worse, parents-wise that is, but eventually his
parents had reacted pretty understandingly. Better than he had ex-
pected, but that was probably a normal thought. Nobody really ex-
pects his parents to react in a cool way. Well, sure, there are ex-
ceptions to the rule, but well, he obviously wasn't expecting to be
so lucky.

His decision made, Jason stepped to the door and tried to call out to
his parents. He would have, if his voice hadn't been a bit too
hoarse from the crying. Slowly he regained his composure and his
voice again.

"Mom, Dad?" he called down, somewhat weakly.

"Yes?" his mother responded.

"I'm...I'm staying upstairs, okay? I need to...I need to think
about...well, everything and about Peter and hmm, yeah, it would
be great if you didn't come up here."

"Sure, no problem." Jason had already turned away from the door,
but his mom was not quite finished with what she had to say to
him. "Jason, if there's any problem, you know we'll be here for
you."

"I know, Mom, I know." Well okay, he didn't want to say she was
getting on his nerves, but he really wanted to be alone for a bit, just
to think about things. He stood in the doorway first looking over
the room and trying to decide what to do. He first went over to the
bed, but he only stayed there for a few seconds. From there, he
went over to the window and stared at the house next to theirs. His
face was emotionless, there was no movement, no smile, no tears,
simply nothing. His eyes did not betray his feelings in any way, he
just looked...empty, like he didn't feel anything, although it did
look pretty different from his own perspective. His whole being
was reeling with thoughts and emotions, only he didn't let any of
them come to the surface. If his parents had been able to see him
that moment, they would have probably thought everything was all
right. Well, they wouldn't have thought that if they looked at him
closely, because his condition definitely would have been apparent
to anyone with a keen sense of observation.

Jason, still hiding his feelings, sat down at the PC and waited pa-
tiently for it to load. This time there were no tears when he was
confronted with all those pictures of Tommy, or Tom as he pre-
ferred to be called, filled the background. He fell even more silent
(if that was even possible) and only stared at the images before
him, realizing that things had changed, but still not wanting to be-
lieve it. He clicked a few times and already had the mouse on the
delete button, but did he really want to delete all this? That was
stupid. It had been, and was still a part of him. Would all of this
just disappear by deleting some pictures? He believed [delete it]
exactly that and clicked 'ok' when the computer asked if he really
wanted to put it into the 'garbage' file. As soon as the command
was out, Jason leaned back in the chair, waiting for everything to
change, but nothing happened. Not one tiny thing had actually
changed, except for the photo-background not being there any-
more.

He stood up from the computer and went over to his wardrobe and
began sorting through his clothes. He arranged them somehow and
put them in neat piles on the floor, only to re-arrange everything a
minute later, before he did it again and again. Then, with a sudden
angry movement he destroyed all his piles.

Jason stood up from his spot on the floor and then sat down in front
of the computer again, before going into the 'garbage' file and put-
ting the background back on his monitor. Satisfied, he stared at all
the Tom and the few Tom-and-Jason memories stored there. Eve-
rything was back to normal now, wasn't it?  It was sort of weird,
but he felt slightly better now, compared to before. Of course, that
did not take the thoughts of Peter from his mind. Maybe he was
being a little prejudiced, but he somehow knew Peter's death had
not been an accident. It must have been one of the three guys who
had killed him, though there was a slight possibility it might have
been someone else, but that did not seem logical...he had no idea
why not, but he really hoped it had not been Eric...or Tommy. Why
had he placed Eric before Tommy? That was a change of pace
now. Whatever, Steven seemed like the only one who actually
could have been cruel enough to do something like that, but well, it
was still the police's task to find the one who did it, although he
highly doubted that they would. Jason was pretty sure that they'd
let the case close as an accident, because they hadn't found any
evidence to the contrary. It did not seem fair.

For a while Peter had meant the world to him, simply everything.
He'd shown him that it was okay to be gay, that it has nothing to
do with lisps, effeminate gestures, or make-up. For a while Peter
had been the only real rock to hold onto and the only person he
could talk to. Yeah, he'd told the others he's only met Peter once...
Well, that was not completely true. It had been only time that the
two of them had met in the gay youth center, but they'd met again
at Peter's house, and Jason had told Peter everything about Tommy
and the associated problems. He'd gone there so often after school,
always giving his family the excuse of having to stay longer at
school or that he was staying with Tommy. Yes, 'he' had known it
was a lie, and he didn't want to lie to his family, but the talks with
Peter had become too important to just stop them. It had been his
refuge somehow. Well, his visits and their meetings had gotten less
frequent about maybe three months ago, simply because he'd felt
strong enough to get through things alone. Maybe it would have
been better if he'd talked to Peter before telling Tommy however,
although they'd talked about his coming out before.  The only
thing Peter had told him was that it was his decision to make, and
only his. His words were that he could give advice and tell him
how he thought he could do it, so it would be easier for Jason to get
through it, but the actual act had to be done by Jason himself.  It
would have to be his decision to do it and it would have to be Ja-
son's mouth speaking those words. In other words, Jason didn't
really think Peter had been that much help, but he'd been some-
body who listened.  Although they hadn't met all that much in the
past few months, he'd grown fond of him and saw him as his
friend. Because of all that, he would surely go to Peter's funeral
tomorrow. He owed him at least that much, after all Peter had done
for him.

Now, the only problem left was to convince his parents that he was
able to go, and that it would not do him any harm. They'd probably
ask his psychotherapist for advice, which brought him back to that
again. Great, just great. Facing that kind of interrogation this after-
noon would be just cool, so cool. He already saw himself sitting
there with two police officers in front of him  asking him questions
he couldn't or didn't want to answer. He didn't want to bare his
soul, or to say it in other words, he saw no need and had no desire
to tell them he was gay, but he was aware that there would be no
way around it. They would want to know the reason for what had
happened, if they didn't already know or suspect why this had
taken place. Perhaps the whole town knew he was gay and that was
the reason this had happened to him. Jason suddenly realized what
this meant, somebody would always know about him...and it's
been said that you meet everyone twice in your life...well, hope-
fully not.

While those thoughts were running through his mind, he started
playing some game on the computer, but could not concentrate on
it at all. His actions were somehow automatic and not really effec-
tive. He only tried to pass the time until lunch, and from then on it
would be only another two hours until the police would be there.
Somehow it also seemed a relief that 'finally the police would be
there'. He wouldn't be able to take that pressure for all that much
longer, if this wasn't over soon. It didn't even seem like such a big
thing to him anymore. Well, secretly it was, but he did not even
want to admit that to himself, so he didn't become too scared. He
really tried to calm himself, instead of working himself up even
more. Of course, it did not help. Something like that never did.
Having exhausted himself by worrying about the situation, he fell
asleep with the computer still beeping next to him. The thing that
awakened him again was his mom's voice calling him to come
down for lunch. He didn't react to her first call, or the second one
either, as he was sleeping very soundly, but then it registered in his
brain and his head shot up kind of forcefully.  The first thing he
saw after that was the clock, and then he heard his mother calling
him for lunch.  He shook the sleep from his eyes and then he more
or less bounded happily down the stairs. Well, not quite, but he
was relieved that the waiting for this meeting would be over soon.
He was barely down the stairs when his mom saw his expression,
but she interpreted it slightly different than what it was really
meant to be.

"Jason, are you sure that you're up to that talk?"

"Mom, let's just get it over with. You know that I'm not all that
keen on talking, but I'm aware that it has to be done. All I want is
to get it over with and then forget about everything else afterwards.
Can you understand that?"

"I guess so, but...to be honest, I have no idea how I'd feel in your
situation."

"Mom, I guess nobody really has an idea about that."

"But I'm your mother!"

"Mom!" Jason went over to his mother, embraced her and then he
suddenly felt guilty again for putting her through that. It even
caused him to break away from her, regretting it immediately, but
he couldn't find the strength to do anything about it.  Instead, he
sat down at the table.

He tried to ignore the awkward tension that engulfed him, but felt
weird nonetheless. They finished their lunch in silence, with nei-
ther Jason nor his mother eating all that much. Both of them just
sat at the table, staring at their plates or occasionally glancing up at
the clock, but they never once looked into the other's face or said
anything. When the doorbell rang, the two nearly jumped out of
their skins, with Jason's mother immediately jumping up to go and
open the door.  While she did that, Jason crumpled even more into
his seat, trying to block out everything that might distract him from
being completely calm. As soon as he heard the heavy footsteps
behind him, coming even closer, he tensed up.

"Good morning, Jason. How are you doing? My name is Dr.
McDeere.  We met yesterday, although I doubt that you remember
me.   This gentleman with me is Mr. Kirkpatrick, and he's a psy-
chologist."

Jason had turned around when the doctor first spoke, and now he
looked at the two men standing there. Both were tall and somewhat
bulky, with each man maybe in his 50's, and they appeared to be
good friends, at least in Jason's opinion. They seemed nice enough,
and that only made it even more difficult for Jason to keep from
telling them the whole or complete truth. He looked at the two men
suspiciously, trying to make it look as if he didn't trust them at all.
He figured that would be the best way to start with them.

"Jason, we've talked to your mom and come to the conclusion that
you should talk to Mr. Kirkpatrick here, as we still have half an
hour left before the officers arrive. Do you agree?"

Now Jason really did not want that and thought about simply say-
ing 'no'. He didn't want to talk to the police. He didn't want to talk
to that psycho-guy. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He only
wanted to forget about all the things that had happened in the past.
On the other hand, if he really wanted to get it all cleared up and
put it behind him, then the only possibility was to tell somebody
what had taken place, at least the part about what had happened
with Tommy. The incident at the hospital, however, was totally
different and not open for discussion. He definitely would never
tell another person about that, especially not someone whom he
didn't absolutely know and trust, and he definitely didn't know this
Kirkpatrick-guy. Considering the situation and what the alterna-
tives were, he'd probably end up doing it later on, anyway. So why
not get it over with now? It couldn't possibly be any worse now
than it would be later, so he agreed by nodding his acceptance of
the suggestion.

"Great. Mrs. Matthews, where could we talk without anyone dis-
turbing us?"

"Um Jason, how about your room?"

"Sure." It certainly didn't matter where he talked, so he led the
psychologist upstairs, while the doctor stayed with his mom. He
could hear them talking about him as soon as they thought he
wouldn't be able to hear them anymore. He didn't care though. He
didn't care at all whether they talked about him or not. Probably
everyone did, why shouldn't they? It was not like his situation was
a secret or anything.

Opening the door, he quickly looked over his room and realized
that his clothes were still strewn all over the floor and his bed had
still not been made. Fortunately, at least the screensaver on the
computer was on. Even though he knew how it probably looked to
the visitor, he didn't bother to give too much thought or apologize
for the mess to the man behind him. Other than those few things,
his room seemed okay to him. He invited the psychologist in, of-
fering the only chair in the room to him, while he sat down on the
bed. At first neither of them talked, and Jason studied the carpet
while Mr. Kirkpatrick studied Jason. It was the older man who
eventually started the conversation.

"Jason, do you want to talk about it?"

 A smile crossed Jason's face as he though about how scripted that
sounded, like in a second-rate film or a cheap novel.

"I don't know. Yeah, I guess so, sir."

"Sir? Don't call me that. My name is Ray."

A smile crossed Jason's face again.

"What's so funny?" Ray asked, smiling also.

"I don't know, it's kind of weird...at least it seems weird to me.
Besides, I never thought I'd ever talk to a psychologist named Ray.
In fact, I have never though I'd talk to any psychologist."

"Is that a problem for you?"

"I don't know."  He hesitated a moment before he continued.  "No,
I guess not."

"Will you feel okay talking about things with me?"

"Things?"

"The attack and all the problems connected with that, like your
being gay."

"The fact that I'm gay is not problem for me."

"Has it ever been a problem for you?"

"No! Well, maybe in the beginning...I mean, I think there are only
a few gay people who have always been comfortable with being
like that. Sure it felt weird or wrong at first, but I've gotten used to
it. Well, I did not really have another choice other than getting used
to it, did I?" Jason couldn't understand why he'd opened up like
that to Ray. He'd wanted to keep quiet about all of this, but obvi-
ously it didn't work out like he wanted. The guy seemed nice
enough and he seemed like he really wanted to help and all that,
and Jason had the feeling that he wasn't just doing this just for the
money. Jason was absolutely comfortable talking to this guy, and
he wasn't treating Jason like some gay boy, as he was afraid eve-
ryone would now that they knew about him. Sure, his parents also
talked to him, and so did his sister.  Even Mark talked to him too,
but, no matter whom he was chatting with, there was always that
underlying tension and insecurity that Jason felt. He was pretty
sure that the others weren't even aware of what they were doing or
that it was a completely unconscious reaction, but it was there
anyway. And now there was this man in front of him, whom he
didn't know at all, but still he seemed to push all the right buttons,
and he listened and understood. Maybe that wasn't completely real
and some of it was put on, but if he didn't care, he was really good
at making him think he did. He even liked the man.

"Okay, you're aware that you'll have to tell the police officers a lot
of this, even though some of it maybe painful and seem unimpor-
tant to you?"

"Yes, I know."

"Are you up to that?  If you aren't, we can still tell them to come
back some other time, so we can talk a bit more."

"It's okay, I guess. I mean, I can always say I want to stop, right?"

"Sure."

"I want to do it, and I think it's best if I do it now."

"Okay, let's get downstairs before somebody worries about us."

"Okay." Jason could even hear his mother and the doctor still
talking, once Jason and Ray reached the door of his room. Obvi-
ously the other pair hadn't moved since the two of them had gone
upstairs.  Suddenly his mother and the doctor looked up expec-
tantly, as if they were waiting for them, when suddenly the doctor
called out to them.

"Jason, could you stay upstairs? I need to come up to check your
physical condition, and we might as well do that now."

"Umm yeah, sure."

Ray gave him a nod and smiled, basically telling him that it's not
all that bad. Jason obediently went back into his room and won-
dered for a short moment where the doctor would want to examine
him, but more importantly, how he'd do it.

He heard the footsteps coming up the stairs and he knew the doctor
was on his way. Just as before, when he was in the kitchen, he
stood with his back to the door, only feeling and hearing the doctor
enter the room.  A moment later, the doctor stood behind Jason and
laid his hand on his shoulder, guiding him with a gentle, but firm,
movement toward the bed.  Just thinking about that...fatherly ges-
ture, Jason's mind snapped back into recall mode, and within sec-
onds he was on his knees in front of the doctor, having accepted his
position, or so he thought. The doctor was first shocked at this re-
sponse and, even after a few seconds, he still did not understand
the meaning behind it, and he almost forced Jason to stand up
again.  A look of confusion now registered on Jason's face. He
couldn't have misinterpreted the situation so badly, could he? That
firm movement had been so clear, so... now he felt rejected in a
way. This was something he couldn't quite understand.

"Jason, would you please lay down on the bed, so I can see
whether you're okay?" The doctor was not as calm as he'd have
liked Jason to believe, he was literally shaking inside, completely
unsettled by Jason's reaction. He finally realized what Jason had
been doing.  He had no idea what had made Jason do something
like that, but now he had a clear picture of why Jason had been as-
saulted.

Jason was confused as well, although the reason for that was
slightly different. He thought for sure that he'd done exactly what
the doctor had wanted him to do, but obviously he had misread the
situation.

He lay down on the bed, but not before he pulled a blanket over the
sheet, in an attempt to cover the cum stains on them.  To Jason it
seemed like everyone must be able to see them clearly, even
though they were hardly noticeable.  In reality, the doctor hadn't
even noticed anything, and neither had the psychologist.

"Would you please remove your T-shirt?" Sensing the possibility
that his statement might be misinterpreted, especially after what
had just happened, the doctor was quick to add, "I need to see
whether the bruises healed nicely."

"Umm, sure." Jason slowly pulled the shirt over his head, all the
while eyeing the doctor suspiciously, almost waiting for the doctor
to give him his next command, telling him to get on his knees or
ordering him to take it like the fag he was. He was thinking about
the humiliation and the doctor in the hospital, but, to his surprise,
nothing happened when he slipped off the shirt.  Instead, the doctor
carefully began feeling around the bruises, careful not to touch the
wrong place and hurt Jason even more by doing so.  It was obvious
that the doctor had planned to check him more thoroughly, but that
he had changed his plan after what happened earlier.

"You can slip your shirt on again. We're finished here. I'm going
back downstairs now. It would be best if you did too, at least until
the police arrive here."

Confused, Jason watched the doctor leave the room. True, the very
first time he'd seen the doctor he hadn't even thought about what
had happened at the hospital with the other doctor, but then... It had
seemed so well planned and so real, as if it couldn't have happened
any other way.

He slowly slipped on his shirt again, still shaking his head, and he
followed the doctor out of the door and down the stairs.