Okay, this is not a story with a whole lot of sex. Some will come in here and there, but it is not the central theme. It's a story about love between men and self-acceptance, kinda like all of my stories are.
If you're under 18 or 21 or whatever, be aware that in some odd corner of the universe, you could possbly be breaking the law.
If you like anything of mine, please e-mail me at virtualinsanity78@yahoo.com and I will be very grateful to you and a lot more likely to write faster updates. If you don't like what I right, keep it to yourself. :-)
Part One
Mrs. Deneghy wouldn't leave me alone. I almost wanted to grab the lady and slam my fist down her throat. I didn't deal all that well with letting people get close to me and no way was I trying to be a teacher's pet.
Still, every time I turned my head, she was there.
She wanted me to take some job over the summer, hauling stuff and doing handiwork around this antique shop she knew of. I figured that she wanted me to do it because of the fact that I was six foot three and built like a truck. If I had to find a guy to haul stuff around, it would be me.
It all started when she caught me in the freshmen gym with this fag named Skit Tyler. I had this problem with Skit and it was getting out of hand. I had to do something about it. I had been at West Central High School for three years with hardly any problems. I was at the end of my junior year and about to be a senior. I had paid some high prices and took some hard punches to get to where I was.
I had talked to the football coach after the end of the season earlier that year and he was looking to select me as captain of the team for the next school year. I was excited as hell about that. Being captain of the team would make everything awesome for me during senior year. I mean, all the guys were going to look up to me. I wouldn't have to work to be popular at all. I was going to have it made and that was what I was looking forward to. But this Skit guy was trying to mess all of that up.
He came in as a freshman that year. One day in the cafeteria, he just started staring at me. I thought I was just imagining it because I had noticed him a couple of times before. I had seen him walking around school with this blonde girl that was a cheerleader for the freshman football team. I didn't know if he was her boyfriend or not, but he was always with her. I had also seen him go into the locker room a few times because the freshmen gym class was right after the junior's class. I can't tell you why I noticed the guy. There was just something about him that made me uncomfortable. Then, he started gawking at me in the halls and in the cafeteria and some of the guys were starting to notice.
You can't just go around the school letting fags stare at you without some of the guys starting to give you heat or even starting to question you about it. So, I figured that before senior year started I had to do something about this guy.
I waited outside of his gym class near the last month of the school year and when he came out of the locker room, I grabbed him by the arm and shoved him into the freshmen gym and up against a wall.
He looked like he was going to shit bricks or something. I could look like a bad ass when I wanted to.
"Why the fuck are you staring at me all the time?" I asked him, real mad. I wanted him to know I was serious. He stared at me up close. He had these blue eyes. I never saw anything like them before. I mean, I saw him, but I never got close enough to see what color his eyes were or anything like that. I had to blink a couple of times to keep the mad dog look on my face.
"W-what?" he started stammering and his teeth were chattering together in his mouth. He was so scared.
"Did I fucking stutter?" I asked him and pushed him against the wall a little harder for good measure. He shook his head and looked like he was about to start crying at any moment.
"I'm s-sorry," he mumbled quietly, shaking. "I tried to stop. I-it didn't work. I'm trying." He got this look on his face, real soft and intense like I was a Picasso original or something . His blue eyes swept over my face. There was this gentle look to it, I almost felt like a hand was moving over my face every place his eyes touched. I started shaking.
"Trying isn't going to cut it," I yelled, disconcerted, slamming him against the wall and making him bang his head hard. He winced and closed his eyes. I felt relieved. As long as he kept his eyes closed, I was in control of the situation.
"People are starting to notice," I told him, quietly, watching the pain etch across his face. "The guys are starting to ask me why."
Tears leaked out of the sides of his eyes and after a moment he opened them and looked at me again. I almost stopped breathing. The anguish was almost like a physical blow; my hands loosened their hold a little bit.
"You're beautiful," he said softly. "If I can't touch, can't I at least look and dream?" I felt all of the anger and feeling catch somewhere in my chest. The guy was nuts. He was telling the captain of the football team, the most popular guy in school that he was a fucking fag. But I could almost feel his hope, this physical yearning. He was hoping that I'd respond to what he said; that I'd tell him I wanted him, too. Like I said, he was nuts.
"I'd prefer it if girls dreamt about me," I told him, cutting his fantasies out flat. He blinked a couple of times and kind of drooped.
"As a matter of fact," I told him, garnering every ounce of self-preservation that was in me and staring him straight in his blue eyes, pulling him closer, "if I catch you staring at me one more fucking time, I'll beat the shit out of you." I slammed him back hard against the wall again, knocking the wind out of him and then let him go. He hung there for a minute, blinking and gasping for a breath. Then, the little guy picked himself up and walked out of the gym, leaving me behind. He took a hit better than some of the best ball players.
I was standing there, running my hands through my hair, trying to stop shaking. I was reliving the soft looks, the piercing blue eyes. I was telling myself I was a fucking fool if I let that little queer get to me. He had no reason to hope that I would like him and what the hell did it matter that he liked me? My heart was racing in my chest because of my exhilaration at shoving the guy around, not because I had held him close to me or heard him say that he wanted me.
There was this sick feeling in my stomach like I was going to puke all over the place if I didn't pull myself together, but I had never even thought that he would admit that he wanted me out loud. I had been sure that he would deny it. Wasn't that what fags did? They didn't stand up with wounded dignity the way this guy did. They cowered and did anything they could to avoid getting the crap beat out of them.
You're beautiful.
Then, Mrs. Deneghy came up behind me and turned me around. She had this soft look on her face like I was an egg that she might break if she touched me funny or something.
"Eric, is everything okay?" she asked me quietly and I nodded. "You know that you can talk to me if anything is bothering you, don't you?"
Who did the woman think she was? Just because I had aced her Creative Writing class didn't mean that she was my buddy or anything. I straightened up, shrugged and left the gym. Ever since that day, though, she'd been on my back about one thing or another.
First, she needed my help after school on Mondays to do sets for the drama club's spring play. I did that for her since I didn't have anything else going on Mondays. The football season was over so I didn't have practice. I always ran a couple of miles to keep my stamina up, but I had never even thought about joining any other sports teams. Nothing could compare to the intensity of playing football.
The drama club had already finished their week of performances and as far as I was concerned I had done more than enough for Deneghy, but there she was, standing next to my locker after the final bell. I trudged up to her and reached for my lock.
"Hey," I said and she put on this bright smile.
"Eric," she gushed, she had this thing about being peppy or something. "I talked to you in class the other day about working at Anderson Antiques, don't you remember?"
I nodded. She wasn't going to let me get a word in anyway.
"Well, I spoke with the owners about what a bright and gifted young man you are and they told me that they really will need someone to help them out on weekday mornings and afternoons, about four or five hours out of the day," she sped on. "The job wouldn't be too strenuous, they do have a furniture company who handles most of the heavy things like dressers and bed frames, but they need someone young and strong for help with storage and little things around the shop. They're willing to pay fifty dollars a day."
That got my attention. Fifty bucks a day? Did she have any idea what I could do with fifty bucks a day over the summer?
"How many days a week?" I asked quickly, doing the math.
"Around four days a week, maybe five or six during the heavier weeks," she said. "They get lots of people in during the city festival and Heritage week. They are right downtown in the thick of it all. So, what do you think?"
"Beats flipping burgers," I said agreeably and her smile widened.
"I knew that you'd be perfect for the job," she reached into her attache and fumbled around. "You have to see a man named Morgan Anderson. He's the owner and about fifty-six or so with a real distinguished look, graying on the temples and all that. He'll be expecting you on Monday before noon. Here's the address and phone numbers. My e-mail address is there as well. Let me know how it goes, won't you?" She practically shoved the paper into my hands and flounced off, humming or mumbling. She was an awkward woman, but I kind of liked her in an odd way.
"Hey, shit face, you coming or what?" a familiar voice yelled and I shoved my backpack in my locker and slammed it shut. It was the last week of school, there was no use in lugging my books home for no reason. I hurried after my best friend Mike Thompson. A bunch of us guys were going to hit the football field in the back of the school and toss around a ball.
I met Mike when I first started at West Central High. He was from out of town, so he needed to make some friends fast and I guess I stood out to him. The thing I liked the most about Mike was that he wasn't like all the other guys. I didn't have to tell him how good a girl's tits looked or how much I wanted to bang a cute girl to be normal. A lot of the time, we just hung around watching movies or talking about what we were going to do with our lives and he never teased me about getting A's on my report card the way the other guys did.
Mike was kind of funny because he wanted to be a vet and a lot of the guys thought that was kind of faggish. So, he never talked about it a lot while we were at school, but whenever we hung out at his house, there would be veterinarian books everywhere and stuff on animal care. The guy had three dogs and two birds. I don't know how his mother put up with him.
Sometimes, I didn't feel like such a freak around him because he was different. I could never really figure out a lot of the crazy stuff that went on in my head but with Mike I felt almost normal. He could also play a hell of a game of football.
I caught up with him out in the parking lot and slapped him hard on the back. I stole the ball from him and ran out to throw him a pass as we headed up to the field where most of the guys were already mulling around.
"Guess what?" he called out with this huge grin on his face.
"What?" I asked, grinning back.
"I got a summer job," he said.
"Yeah, me too," I said, putting all my strength into throwing the ball to him. "Where's yours?" He caught it neatly and tossed it back.
"At the vet clinic downtown," he said with a broad smile. I caught the ball and held it, stopping in my tracks and grinning widely at him.
"You're lying," I said, but his happiness was too big for that. He bounced up and down exuberantly.
"Hell no," he said, coming to stand next to me. "I talked with the vet there and he's willing to take me on a trial basis, minimum wage and I would just be doing patient input and billing and maybe every once in a while I could administer a shot or something like that. But this guy is on the board at one of the local veterinary medicine schools and he would be an awesome contact, especially since I'm graduating next year and everything."
"That's cool as hell," I told him, happy for him. He just grinned.
"So, what kind of job you get?" he asked.
"Doing odd jobs at this antique shop downtown, fifty bucks a day," I told him. "Maybe our jobs will be by each other and we can go get lunch and crap like that." I felt real grownup telling him that. He just nodded like it was a given.
We ran up the hill to the football field and joined the other guys. When we were with them, there was a difference in the way we talked. It just didn't sit well to show a bunch of jocks that you were sensitive about anything but the game and Mike and I were planning to be at the top of the football program senior year.
So, I grabbed a sophomore who was going to be a pretty decent player on the team next year and put him in a headlock. The way he cringed and got red in the face let the other guys know that I was the man in charge there. They all laughed and joked around but I could see behind the laughter that a lot of them were afraid of me. You never could get too close to someone you were afraid of. That was the way that I liked it.
I almost turned around and went back home when I saw the place Mrs. Deneghy hooked me up with. It was a mansion. In my mind's eye, I had pictured a dinky, grandmother's basement kind of place with lots of old junk all over the place. This place wasn't even remotely like that.
They had some really good lawn service because it wasn't even summer yet and the grass was a vibrant green and neatly trimmed. The trees were evenly lined and there were no overhanging branches. I pulled into the parking lot on the side of the building and the iron gates that surrounded it read Anderson Antiques, LLC in a fancy script.
I was glad that my mother had gone off on a tangent that morning and forced me to wear khakis, a dress shirt and tie. I had picked out a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt, but she'd insisted that I change. She'd even gone through the trouble of re-ironing my shirt when I couldn't get all the wrinkles out myself.
I got out of the car, pocketed the keys and headed up to the front door, my palms starting to sweat a little. Deneghy hadn't said whether or not the job was guaranteed, but from the way she talked about it, it seemed like I was in but as I looked at the place, I had my doubts.
The sign on the front door read the store hours and even though I felt like knocking, I twisted the door handle and just walked in.
The inside of the place was even worse than the outside. The first thing I saw was a grand staircase, the kind you see in Cinderella stories. The floor was made out of marble or something in a dark, mahogany color and it fanned out across the room, up the stairs and around the corners in an elaborate way. I was still staring when a girl came out and looked at me.
She was tall and wore her red hair up in a tangled ponytail and she was covered in tiny bits of some kind of cream-colored fabric. She smiled at me.
"Hi," she said cheerfully. "Morgan and Paul went down to the farmer's market to pick up a few things. You must be Eric, right?"
I nodded and she held out her hand.
"I'm Misti," she said brightly. "I re-upholster a lot of the furniture around here and stuff like that. I go to college at the art school, you know, Kendall, on the other side of Division street?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding.
"You can come back to my workroom until they get back," she said and I followed her through a maze of halls to a large back room with a sky light overhead. There were rolls of fabric and furniture in various states of completion all over the place.
"Sometimes, I take paint off of pieces and touch up the staining on others," she said, gesturing around a little wildly. "It's crazy back here, but this is where I get things done. Paul told me that you're in high school?" She looked at me doubtfully and I just smiled and nodded. I didn't really know who to be in front of her yet. I didn't want to come off as a dumb jock and I was pretty closed about everything else.
"You look like a sophomore in college at least," she put her hands on her hips and scrutinized my bulk thoughtfully. "God, teenagers are getting bigger and bigger every year."
"You don't look like much more than a teen yourself?" I said and she blushed this blotchy shade of red that actually made her look pretty nice.
"I'm thirty," she said, smiling. "But thanks for the compliment." She dumped some fabric off of a chair and patted it with one slim hand.
"Sit down," she said and she went back to work on a cream-colored sofa. I sat down and watched as she measured and cut in silence.
"How long have you been working here?" I ventured.
"Seven years off and on," she said over her shoulder. "Morgan and Paul are good to me." She pinned a piece of the fabric on the arm of the sofa and stared at it for a long while, then she removed it, marked it with chalk and started cutting again.
"You'll love it here," she said, between a pin that she'd stuck between her lips. "They're a lot of fun and Paul is the best cook I've ever met. They're always coming up with something new. Right now, they are writing a memoir and they're all wrapped up in that. Never a dull moment."
I nodded and looked around me at all of the things she was working on. I wondered how she knew where to start, the place was a disaster.
A few moments later, a tall guy with graying dark hair burst into the room. His eyes went directly to Misti so he didn't notice me. This must have been the distinguished fifty-six year old Deneghy told me about. He looked closer to forty and I could tell that he worked out. Distinguished wasn't exactly the word I would have used for him, though. He was good-looking in a completely classical way with a strong chin and broad, noble nose and he had intense gray eyes that were like steel at the moment.
"Misti have you been listening out for the front door?" he questioned abruptly and she looked up at him, never missing a beat with her scissors.
"Yes, Morgan, he's right here," she said and gestured over at me.
I was treated to the full force of Morgan Anderson's intense attention. I blinked at him a couple of times.
"Hi," I said awkwardly. He seemed to be assessing me.
"Hello," he said and tried to smile. He seemed to be made of stone.
Behind him, a man carrying a basket full of fruit and vegetables came in. He was tall and thin and wore a pair of khakis and a polo shirt. He was completely bald, but he had eyes that twinkled when he smiled at me.
"He's here," the man exclaimed and stared at me. "Vicki told us all about you, Eric. We're real glad to have you on board. I'm Paul."
"Hi, Paul," I said and smiled.
Paul looked at Morgan who was standing there in the same position he'd been in since he'd said hi to me several moments before. Paul nudged him.
"Did you introduce yourself, Morgan," Paul asked and Morgan gave a gruff reply under his breath. Paul breezed ahead brightly. "This is Morgan. We are co-owners of Anderson Antiques."
The stony Morgan leaned over and took the basket from Paul and when he did this, he leaned in and kissed Paul on the lips. It wasn't a remotely friendly kind, but the kind people in love share, no tongues, but a long, solid peck...and Paul was kissing him back, I could tell. My stomach dropped to my ankles.
They looked into each other's eyes and shared a look, an intimate glance. I stared in shock and when Morgan's eyes swept back in my direction, they were hard. I could immediately tell that he was trying to prove a point to me.
As a matter of fact, it seemed like everybody was trying to prove a point to me. She must have seen everything that had gone on between that kid Skit and me...and now, she was trying to prove a point by having me work with gay people over the summer. How the fuck was I gonna get out of it?
************************************************************************** To be continued.......................virtualinsanity78@yahoo.com
I am Virtual Insanity and my other Nifty stories are: Wade and Christian - high school 2004 The Prick - high school 2004 Mannie the Marine - military 2004