Days Before You Came

Legal stuff: You ain't old enough, don't read it. You ain't mature enough, still don't read it. You lookin' for a quick wank, look elsewhere. There WILL be sex in this story, and it WILL be graphic, but it'll come with time, so bear with me.

Given to Nifty for archive; if anyone else wants to post this somewhere, ask first thanks. Email is mymouthtrain@gmail.com.

Days Before You Came | 01

"Since you're new here," a girl with badly-dyed black hair and mischievously glittering hazel eyes said as she looked appraisingly at me, "you probably don't know the rules of West Carter High. Does he?"

Her eyes flicked to the only other lunchroom table occupant, a guy who I only knew as Reds, and that was allegedly because he was addicted to Marlboro Reds (in a box). He was short for a guy; actually, I wasn't even really sure of his age since he just seemed to be overall younger than anyone else in his junior class, at least as far as I had seen. Even some of the girls outweighed him. He had shaggy, neck-sweeping copper-colored hair and freckles across his nose and mostly everywhere else I could see, and dark blue eyes that seemed to take up his entire face, which was currently tilted at me as if I was some interesting experiment. Which, I suppose, I was.

Reds shook his head, his feathery hair following after as if it was on a one-second delay. I swear, I could watch his hair float about him all day and never get tired. I'd never seen such fluffiness before in my life, not even on a girl. "Not really," he mumbled back at Opal, whose name I had been trying to figure out whether or not was fake all lunch period. When Reds had introduced us, I had said, "Ouch, sucky parents, too?" to which all I had received in response was a glare. I had just shrugged, bit my lip, and sat down when Reds told me to.

"So, you haven't told him anything at all?" Opal asked Reds like it was a mortal sin that he hadn't. Not that I knew any different; I was new at this school. Opal just rolled her eyes, the effect of which looked entirely more dramatic with her smudged eyeliner (rimming her inner eyelids, not the outer. Ugh, this girl needed a makeover, bad.), and punched poor Reds on the arm with enough force to send him sprawling halfway out of his chair, only catching himself with a grip on the edge of the table. "You idiot, can't you do anything right?"

Okay, I think it was time to intervene. Snapping my gaze from where Reds sat hunched over, I finally said something worthwhile, and it made me feel like Brian Molko. "He only met me last period, you know," I said with just a tinge of bite to my voice. I liked Opal, I really did-- in a 'please don't hurt me' kind of way-- but watching people being bullied, even if only in jest, is a pet peeve of mine. A pet peeve that got me expelled from my last school for fighting, and slammed into the world's stupidest anger management course on Earth. Oops, my bad.

Opal's gaze flew to me, and she stilled, looking like a gazelle on a National Geographic program being stalked by the majestic African lion. I guess I was the lion. Hey, I was once told I had lion's eyes; the analogy fit.

Her eyes widened as she took me in, then narrowed with a newfound respect. She then did something really stupid, but I understood why: she punched Reds in the arm once more, only this time harder. She was testing me, I knew it.

She was sitting across from me at the large round table, Reds on her left, which made it scarily easy to kick out at her left leg, causing her to wince. "Kindly stop fucking with him, alright?" I said lowly, between gritted teeth; otherwise, I didn't move and knew I appeared, for all intents and purposes, quite normal to outside eyes. Only Opal's grunt of pain was any indication that anything had transpired.

Reds turned to look at me, and when my eyes met his, I expected to see gratitude. What I got instead was outrage. "Don't defend me, alright? I can take care of myself, thanks." His voice shook, as if it was taking a lot for him to remain civilized, and his words were clipped and succinct. A victim who tried to hide what he was, I thought as I looked him over, wonderful. This one would get me into a lot of trouble this year, I just knew.

I shrugged at him, said, "As you wish," and then Opal had my attention again. "So what sort of rules are you talking about?" I asked her, watching the way her body language toward me completely shifted to that of one with respect. Maybe she thought I'd start helping her defend Reds now, I don't know. I probably would, though.

"Well," a pause and again that eyeroll, "every school has cliques, right?" I guess she really wanted a response, so I nodded my head. "So that's not new, but West Carter has an unusually large concentration of what I like to call Froufs," at this point I could just see the word coming out capitalized from her mouth, "which I guess would normally be labeled as preps elsewhere. Here, everyone but themselves call them the Froufs; I don't know what they call themselves," she added hastily, noticing my questioning look, "but all everyone knows is that they rule this place, and no one else steps in on their territory."

This was starting to sound like a bad teen movie. "Let me guess, and the 'Froufs' consist of mostly jocks and cheerleaders, right?" I asked with a sneer.

Reds laughed, and tried to hide it behind a hand, failingly. Opal just grinned like she'd finally gotten something on me. "Hardly," she said, smug as you please. "Athletics aren't really emphasized here at West Carter. The Froufs are the kids in the top ten percentile of the student body. They have GPA's that should be illegal they're so high."

"I once heard Sandy Candovall had a four-point-three freshman year," Reds butted in.

Opal shot Reds a short look. "No one can corroborate that," she hissed under her breath.

"So the popular kids are the nerds here?" I asked before the two could get into another argument. One was enough for me, really.

Opal scoffed, then looked at me appraisingly. "So pretty for one so dumb."

I bristled at that. "Exactly how do you expect me to know anything at all when you keep drawing it out like some PBS program on fruit flies or something?"

Opal just rolled her eyes and slumped down in her seat, hands up as if she were exasperated with me. Touche, bitch. Surprisingly, it was Reds who answered. "Think about it; when are nerds ever championed? No, here they're just as outcast as they are everywhere else. I should know," he mumbled.

I watched him pick up his white, plastic fork and stab at a surprisingly recognizable chunk of vegetable lasagna. The food here didn't look poisonous for once. "So, wait, if the nerds, the truly smart kids, aren't in the top ten percent, then how...?"

Reds looked up from his contemplation of his lunch. "No one knows," he said softly.

"No one?" I echoed, eyebrows raised dubiously.

Opal sat back up, her intense eyes trained on me. "Look, I'm not saying that the Froufs are stupid, because, well, they can't be and get away with half the shit they pull. But they obviously aren't as deserving of their marks as the people who really study are," a quick glance in Reds' direction reaffirmed his school status. "There hasn't been a non-Frouf valedictorian in ten years."

"Okay, so far I know Froufs are preps, who aren't preps, who get amazingly good grades, who don't deserve them." I blinked and shook my head; I was starting to confuse myself. Opal nodded enthusiastically and Reds just had the grace to look embarrassed. At himself or his school, I couldn't know. "There has to be some other sort of common thread between them, though," I mused out loud, twirling a pen I hadn't realized I'd drawn out of my pants pocket. "The emphasis on this school is academics, right?" Opal and Reds confirmed my suspicions. "So maybe all the Froufs are rich kids who can buy their way into a good GPA?"

"Normally, I would completely agree with you," Opal responded, nodding like I had just done something smart. Maybe I had. "And for years, it has been that way. Any kid with a little money or social standing automatically became a Frouf."

"Then what changed?" Told you I was quick.

Opal nodded at something behind me. "Him. He did."

I turned in my seat, looking over my shoulder. At first I couldn't see what Opal was talking about; it looked like any other high school cafeteria. Directly in front of me were a clump of girls who looked too glossed and too airbrushed for anyone's good, all holding trays with varied high-sugar, low-fat foods stacked sparingly on them. God, could they get any more cliche? They walked in a line, side by side, as if they just assumed they'd not have to move out of the way for anyone, which was probably right. One lone guy walked next to them, and at first he didn't seem part of the group. Then Head Bitch (she had to be, no one had hair that shiny if they weren't in the topmost ranks of school society) leaned over her other flunkies and touched his arm; shy, coy, vomit-inducing. The smile she gave him was just as gross. The cool look he gave in return did nothing to thwart her advances. Opal's finger suddenly entered my peripheral, seemingly stabbing the guy's eyes out.

"That," she said with a mouthful of acid, "is Torin St. James, current GPA leader and crush du jour for Hennely Connors, the brunette disgustingly showing off her bra strap to him."

I didn't get it. This guy wasn't worth a second look, so why was he the hot commodity? He was average at best; average curly brown hair, averagely built body, department store clothes, cute enough face but nothing that would make him stand out. "Why him?" As I spoke, the inevitable happened. You know how a person always knows when you're looking at them? Yeah. Our eyes met across the crowded room. Woah. Eye-sex; like cheer-sex except neither of us were in slutty cheerleader outfits (hmmm, idea...). Yes, I've seen Bring It On. Against my will, of course, but I have seen it. By the time this Torin guy looked away, I had fairly forgotten what it was we were talking about.

It was Reds who brought me back up to speed. "Everyone's in love with him because he's pegged to be our next class valedictorian, and he's never been a Frouf before," he said softly, like I'd hurt him if he talked any louder. "He resists them at every turn. To them, he's an enigma, and the Froufs, all of them, want a piece of him."

I frowned. "The obsession with academics in this school is both disgusting and admirable all at once."

Opal just shrugged, and ate a stab of her Caesar salad. "That's West Carter for you." Reds just looked down and pretended to be interested in his food.

This place was already more revolting than I had ever imagined; however, looking back over my shoulder at one Torin St. James, I decided that maybe there were some parts of it that were bearable. But only just.

I came home to silence. I knew no one would be home when I saw the driveway empty, but that didn't mean I had to like it. Unlocking and opening the side door that lead into the kitchen, I let it bang shut as I took absolutely no notice of my surroundings and threw my bag in the corner, next to the dining table. I had homework, but I knew I could use the first day as an excuse to do it later.

A noise made me jump when I passed through the living room, and I glared at the mock-replica half-grandfather clock like I could shoot it and it would shut up. It was very possible that it would, but then I'd have to listen to my mother go on and on as if she actually liked the thing, when we all knew she hated it and merely tolerated its existence because it was given to us by a relative (which one, I'm unsure on) whom still comes to visit.

Implying my mother is a hypocrite was one of my more honest hobbies. It paled in contrast to my more salacious ones.

I walked into my room and thought about redesigning it for the third time since yesterday. Suddenly, the bed in the dead center seemed so egotistic of me, and the rumpled red sheets resembled spilled blood from a gaping, square wound. Since I had never seen a square wound before, I decided then and there that I would never have solid red bed sheets again so I wouldn't think such absurd thoughts. Rummaging through my trunk of bedclothes, I pulled out a thick, ratty black cashmere blanket and threw it lengthwise across all that gashing-wound red. Suddenly, it wasn't a bleeding square orifice, but rather a rugged beginning to a gothic chessboard. Better than thinking of blood and geometry, I surmised, and left it as it was.

I could still hear that godawful ticking from the horrid mistake of a clock downstairs, so I flicked my stereo on and set the CDs in it to spin on random. I Know, from Placebo's first album, began playing. It fit the mood of the room, and so I left it and began my task.

The jacket came off first, the sound of the zipper going all the way down erotic to my ears. I tossed it away and it became lost in all the black on my bed. My shoes were toed off easily enough, and kicked to the corner of my room by my stereo, making it skip for a second. Giving my speakers a contemptuous glare, as if it was all their fault Brian Molko's voice wavered, I didn't so much pull my shirt over my head as tear it off my body. I closed my eyes as the song got louder, from acoustic to electric, and I couldn't help falling after my shirt onto my bed. The shirt, so blue, probably looked out of place in my abstract image of red, black, and the white of my skin, so I dared not open my eyes to add brown into the already confused mixture. Paintings were only good when they centralized on three colors at a time, and their cousins. Blue was a cousin to no one, and brown could claim no relation. Bastard colors, both of them. No child support for them.

My pants annoyed me, but they kept with the theme in their blackness. They were black men's dress pants, pinstriped, bought for three dollars in a Goodwill and loved entirely ever since. I'd never had a pair of pants that fit me quite like these; they felt like sex made out of fifty-percent cotton. The music flipped over to another Placebo one, Brick Shithouse, and suddenly the need to make love to the moment grew too overwhelming. I was bared in no time, my hand fumbling between my thighs as I groaned into the black coverlet and ground my hips into the bed. I wasn't trying to be quiet, either, since I knew I was home alone. My blue shirt, bastard lover that it was, caught my semen from splattering everywhere and ruining my mind's painting. One day, when I wasn't so lazy, I would paint that scene.

Spent, I rolled onto my back as I tried to catch my breath, and a giggle from the doorway of my room had my neck nearly snapping as I looked toward the sound. Opal and Reds lounged in the threshold, one with a hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his obvious amusement, as the other looked a little flushed in the face and couldn't meet my gaze.

"Who knew that Noah Garrow, new heartthrob of West Carter High, was into humping his bed while daydreaming of Brian Molko?"

• • --|to be continued|-- - -