A gay story: Once a Nerd Ch. 05 Editor’s Note: PHEW, buddy, I didn’t realize how long this one was. I was going to add more to it, but that felt like a good cliffhanger to leave off at. We’ve got two POV switches, so be aware. This is primarily in Sam’s perspective, but we do get a short segment from Dean before it switches back to Sam at the end. ALSO, TW: for some dubcon. Dean gets really mean in this one, and while Sammy does technically allow it, it can still be read as dubcon, so take that as you will.
Mrs. Hildabrant was not exaggerating.
I repeat: not exaggerating.
Thursday of that same week, a faculty meeting was called by the Vice Principal after the students’ release. Jamie Rosenthal was introduced to the staff as Mr. Candy’s replacement, starting Monday. She gave her introduction, and her voice has that throaty, raspy quality of a longtime cabaret performer.
“Thank you so much for welcoming me this late in the semester, especially considering I’m here under such unfortunate circumstances. I’m really looking forward to getting to know all of you, as well as the wonderful students in attendance here!”
Jesus Christ, is she on sabbatical from cat-walking in Milan for Louboutin’s summer line? Jamie Rosenthal looks straight from the pages of a catalog. While she’s dressed professionally enough [white button-up, blazer, slacks, kitten-heels], she’s got the sort of body that invites harassment from a skeevy, male superior. She’s well in line with the woman’s golden ratio: bust, weight, and waist to hip measurements that’ll bring a man to his knees. Long, honey hair styled in bouncy, loose curls, and the facial structure of a young Brooke Shields.
For those of us who haven’t yet met her, there’s at least five seconds of stunned silence after she introduces herself. Then, a round of awkward, hesitant applause. Mrs. Hildabrant, who sits in the row ahead of me, three seats to my left, turns back with a meaningful smile.
I know she’s a grandmother, but is she legally blind, too? This woman is so far out of my league, we’re not even in the same stratosphere. Not to mention my less-than-heterosexual inclinations. If anything, it would make much more sense for someone like Dean to pursue something with her, since he’s not above seducing his teachers.
Huh.
Well, that’s an unpleasant thought, but who’s to say it won’t come to fruition? The meeting wraps up after thirty minutes, and unsurprisingly, Ms. Rosenthal is swarmed with attention by most of the staff, men and women alike. Checking my watch, I decide to go the route of the Irish Goodbye. It’s already close to four, and I’m drained in every way a person can be: mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. Fuck, probably financially, too.
I return to my empty classroom to gather up my laptop, bag, and thermos, and depart for the faculty lot. Dean has practice today, and I absolutely refuse to look over towards the field as I make the short trip. I can hear them, however. Celner has a voice that booms and carries like thunder, and he drives the Vikings through drills and mock plays like every coming game is the Super Bowl. Going to State really renewed his vigor, not that it would’ve been possible without Dean’s innate talent.
“Mr. Powell!”
Oh?
I turn, and sure enough, Ms. Rosenthal is performing a little jog to catch up with me. Once she clears that distance, I’m vaguely chagrined to realize she’s taller than me in her heels. I’m not insecure about my height, and I’m used to looking up. But, for some reason, it’s irritating to have to do it with her.
“Hello.” I greet her with a small, confused smile. “Did you need something from me?”
She smiles back, abashed. “I’m sorry, this must seem sudden. I just wanted to introduce myself to you personally. I understand we’re the two youngest teachers here, so I was hoping we could be friends. I just relocated here, so I don’t know anyone yet.”
Well, this is…unexpected.
I was raised to have manners, however, so I gather my wits and offer her my hand. She quickly takes it with a radiant smile.
“It’s lovely to meet you. You can call me Sam, everyone else does.”
“Then, please, call me Jamie. I’m looking forward to finishing out this semester with you, Sam.”
As far as first impressions go, it certainly wasn’t bad. She seemed friendly, easy to get along with, and down to Earth despite her exceptionally good looks. She did a damn, damn good job of disarming me, because the shitstorm that she proceeded to stir up in the next two weeks came like a bolt out of the clear blue.
By Wednesday of the next week, it becomes more than obvious what kind of woman she is. Unlike myself, Ms. Rosenthal has a strong, strong sense of favoritism towards the male, student athletes. In her classes, in the halls, during lunch, during practices that she’s got no business sitting in on, she’s a blatant flirt. She’s not afraid to excuse their late work or exempt them from certain assignments. She throws her hair back and laughs like they’re a gaggle of comedians. It’s most certainly a two-way street, as they bathe her with just as much attention as she affords them. If they were literal dogs, their tails would be kicking up a tornado of dust.
So, it comes as no surprise when she brings up Dean during our lunch period, which she’s insisted on taking with me. I normally enjoy the peace and relative solitude of the teacher’s lounge, but Jamie convinced me to join her in the cafeteria. This makes one of many mistakes over the next few days, because this is Dean’s lunch period, and Dean is much more observant than I give him credit for.
“You have Dean Saunders in your next period, right, Sam?”
It’s a chore not to scowl, because his name from her mouth has me feeling unreasonably belligerent.
“Sure do.”
“Gosh, he’s such an impressive young man, isn’t he? Believe it or not, I’m a huge football fanatic, so I dropped by their practice earlier this week. Coach Celner says Dean is the one who took them to State last year. He really is a force on the field.”
I’ll be honest. Jamie makes me feel a wee bit better about myself. Yes, yes, I let Dean have his way, but at least I can say I wasn’t offering my pussy on a platter to him and his buddies on the team beforehand. That’s got to count for something, right?
“Yeah, he’s a really talented kid.”
Emphasis on kid. Get a grip, Jamie.
“He’s so bright, too. I’ve offered after school tutoring to some of the boys with lacking grades, but Dean’s actually doing pretty well in my class. What about your’s?”
Okay, so there’s a lot to unpack here. Tutoring, after school? No teacher in this facility has ever made such a commitment, with a few exceptions, and she’s already offering her ‘after school services’ to every meathead with a ‘C -‘? Also, Dean? Bright? Well, he’s not stupid, but he certainly won’t be winning any academic awards come graduation. He’s only doing well in my class right now under threat of a sex ban.
“Mm, yeah, he tends to get everything turned in on time.”
Jamie looks at me strangely, then smiles. “I heard the two of you were quite close.”
I pause, taking a moment to carefully control my expression.
“Not especially.” I laugh. “He was sucking up to me for a while so I’d cut him some slack on his grade. Thankfully, he got it up on his own, so he’s not been such a pain in my ass lately.”
It sounds completely legitimate even to my own ears, but Jamie makes this little sound like I’m full of shit. She cuts her eyes across the cafeteria, and I follow her gaze without thinking. Dean is sitting with some of his friends from the team, those who have the same lunch period as him. They’re behaving as you’d expect a rowdy group of testosterone-riddled, teenage athletes to act: roughhousing, laughing loud enough to cut through the din of student chatter, flicking food from their trays. Dean, however, sticks out in the worst way imaginable, because he’s looking over without an ounce of subtlety.
“You have quite an effect on these boys.” I laugh, and I mentally pat my own back. It comes out smoothly, because for all I know, it’s not even me he’s looking at. He could very well be ogling Ms. Rosenthal, because his peers definitely aren’t shy about doing so. Dean’s eighteen, for Chrit’s sake. He’s got the sexual appetite of a diagnosed nymphomaniac, and Jamie’s more than worthy of his attention.
With her ego inflated, she takes my comment at face value. She throws her head back and laughs, and it’s a rich, gritty warble that draws some eyes. “You think so?”
Honestly, I sort of do. My watch glints at me mockingly.
The week carries on much like that. Jamie goes out of her way to badger me into socializing, and when I catch sight of her otherwise, it’s difficult not to cringe. Passing through the halls, she’ll be chatting with some of the boys from the team like she’s a fellow student: hand on the shoulder, complimenting their physiques, flaunting her knowledge of the professional league [players, coaches, statistics, renowned plays, you get it]. Before long, her efforts are refocused almost exclusively on Dean. When I see them talking, he seems…into it.
Why wouldn’t he be into it? She’s stunning, smart, well-versed in his sport, and…a woman. She’s also three years younger than me, if that counts for anything. It probably does. He laughs at whatever witty line she drops, he smiles with all his teeth, and he doesn’t shy away from her wandering hands. He doesn’t appear the least bit bothered by Jamie’s excessive, overt attention, and that’s…
It makes me feel like shit. Is this my rock bottom? Feeling…hurt, jealous, that the teenager who bullied me into being ‘fuck buddies’ is flirting with another, hotter teacher? It’s because I allowed myself to feel special to someone like Dean. God, I really am fucked, even worse than I thought.
I do my best to put the blinders on. I wouldn’t say I’m ignoring Dean, but I try not to look in his direction too much during class or in the halls. The intensity of his looks haven’t wavered, his eyes still track me in that vaguely hungry way of his, but he hasn’t loitered in my class [like I asked him not to]. He goes on to his pre-calc course with Ms. Rosenthal as soon as the bell rings, and I try not to take that so personally. It’s his schedule, and I’m sure he’s all too thrilled to be in attendance now.
There isn’t a game until next Friday, but the Vikings still have practice. It only occurs to me close to the end of the day that I’ve not left any notes on the corner of my desk this week, signaling for Dean to come over. He hasn’t asked about it either. I stare at the corner of my desk for a moment as I realize this, and I have to take a minute to regulate my breathing. Because goddamnit, it’s trying to hitch, and my eyes are starting to burn like there’s something to cry about.
You know what? I could use…some distance. This is a good thing, actually. Dean and I need distance, and the sooner the better. Graduation is a month and a half away. Whoever else he wants to fuck, it’s none of my business. Sickening and immoral as it is [not that I can judge, who am I kidding], perhaps playing around with Ms. Rosenthal will get him off my back for good. I’ll spend the weekend cleaning, getting my affairs in order for autumn’s move, and…
Well, I suppose there’s not much else for me to do. I could see if Jamie wants to hit the town, and that thought makes me laugh a little self-deprecatingly. I gather up my things into my tote, stand, and–
“Mr. Powell.”
Dean’s in my doorway, looking…pissed?
What the hell does he have to be pissed off about?
He peers back into the mostly empty hall, then steps bodily into the room. He closes the door behind him, locks the door, and flips my little curtain down to cover the window. Well, that’s not good. I frown at him. “I thought I told you–”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but when the fuck else am I supposed to talk to you, huh?”
I can’t argue that, I guess. Sighing, I ask: “What is it?”
He looks at me like I’ve said something unbelievable. He crosses the room, always so quick to breach my personal space. He has me boxed against my desk, and he taps an impatient finger on the corner of it. “You didn’t leave any notes. Can I come over tomorrow?”
My knee-jerk reaction is to say, ‘why don’t you ask Ms. Rosenthal?’
But I choke it back, because I’ve got more maturity than a fifteen-year-old. In the cage of my ribs, a war is waged. I’m…happy that he’s at least asking, that he remembered, that he’s still expressing some sort of interest in me. But, I also hate myself for feeling that way. I’m much more of an adult than he is, my happiness shouldn’t hinge on his interest. I shouldn’t be feeling any type of jealousy over him, but I am. Even as he’s asking me this, I can’t help but wonder who he’s got lined up behind me to fuck if I turn him down. I wonder if he’ll get sick of my refusal to put out, if I say ‘no’ one too many times, and begin a dogged pursuit of someone else–like Ms. Rosenthal.
Instead of any of these unhinged thoughts, I say: “I’m busy.”
“Busy with what?” He fires back immediately, looking down at me through his amber lashes. “You’re busy in the middle of the fuckin’ night?”
“I–”
“Busy with who?”
“Dean!” I snap. “Please, just…I’m busy, okay? It really is none of your business with what or with who, so just leave it at that. Don’t you have practice?”
“Don’t change the subject. Is something going on? Is everything okay–”
I guess I can spare him a scrap of peace of mind. Pulling his jaw between my hands, I lift onto my toes [damn this height] and press a soft, yielding kiss to his mouth. He sighs into it, before returning it tenfold. I didn’t intend to be hefted onto my desk and kissed like he’s going off to war, but all the blinds are drawn and the door’s locked, so I let him have it. I’m also not totally opposed to his tongue in my mouth, his hands dragging up my spine, or his clothed erection grinding roughly into mine, but that’s neither here nor there.
When we pull apart to breathe, Dean bumps our noses together. “Sammy, I really can’t come?”
Shit. Now I want him to. He really is a world-class manipulator, or I’m just that pathetically weak. He can always tell when I’m about to cave, too, because his eyes brighten and he gets the beginnings of a victorious, little grin. Someone needs to knock this kid down a peg, but it’s doubtful that’ll be me. Just as I’m about to huff out an agreement, my worst nightmare comes to fruition.
The door handle rattles, because someone tried coming in. Then, there’s a knock. “Mr. Powell, are you in there?”
It’s Vice Principal White.
Dean and I snap apart, and for a few terrible seconds, my brain goes blank with abject terror. How in God’s name can I explain this: being locked in my classroom, curtain drawn, after hours, with a student? Dean is looking at the door like he’s fully prepared to murder Mr. White in cold blood, his jaw jumping and hand clenching and unclenching into a fist. Thankfully, this grants me a moment’s clarity.
We have heteronormativity on our side, after all.
Clearing my throat of nerves, I call back: “Yes, just a moment!”
Looking at Dean, I point to his desk and hiss: “Sit the fuck down!”
He does immediately. I rip out a blank assignment from one of my drawers and fling it at him, as well as a pencil. “Start working on that, and for God’s sake, get rid of your boner.”
Mine wilted instantly at the sound of potential intrusion, but Dean’s a different breed. I straighten out my clothes, scrub my hands down my face, and steel my nerves as I approach the door. I unlock it and pull it completely open, and Mr. White gives me a curious look. Then, he spots Dean, who shoots him a little wave. Without my having to say anything, Mr. White reaches his own conclusion. “Oh! I apologize, I didn’t mean to intrude. Is Dean having to make up an assignment?”
Christopher White is a caucasian, god-fearing, conservative man of sixty-five–it would never even cross his mind that two men [let alone an English teacher and the best highschool quarterback in Illinois] would be doing anything illicit behind a closed door in his school. “It’s no problem, I was just trying to avoid any interruptions from other students.”
Mr. White apologizes again, then says there will be another faculty meeting next week to discuss the end-of-year testing. He excuses himself after that, and I leave the door ajar this time. I drop into my squeaky, debilitated desk chair and bury my face in the clamshell of my hands. The silence is deafening, and Dean clears his throat awkwardly after another minute. When I finally look up, he’s giving me a sheepish, apologetic look. I scowl at him.
“That was quick thinking, Sammy.” He whispers.
“Fuck. Off.”
He slides out of the desk, retrieves his bag from the floor, and says under his breath: “I’ll be over at seven.”
True to his word, Dean waltzed through my front door at seven the following evening. True to my spineless nature, I allowed it. Dean is in…a mood, however. While he generally fucks me like he’s trying to break my spine, he’s violent tonight. He’s mean, and it’s almost frightening. I was wrapping up some grading that I’d procrastinated on in my usual position on the couch when he came clunking through the front door. He didn’t sing out his usual greeting, the one he’s adapted as of late [“honey, I’m home!”], simply shut and locked the door behind him.
At the sound of his approach, I look over the back of the couch. “Hey, I’m just–”
His handsome face is strangely, uncomfortably blank. He shrugs out of his jacket, throws it across the ottoman, and rounds the couch. Dean plucks the papers out of my hand without a word and sets the pile on the end-table. “What the hell are you–ah! Hah, shit! Dean, wait, nngh!”
It’s his mission to disrobe me as quickly as humanly possible. My glasses are set on the table, then my T-shirt is ripped over my head with enough force to stretch the fabric beyond wearability. His hands hook into the back of my knees, and he yanks me down the couch. My head drags against the cushions, musing my hair across my scalp and flopping it into my eyes. He tears my shorts over my ass, down my legs, and flings them into the ether over his shoulder. It’s discombobulating, to go from pouring over my student’s abysmal essays that were somehow typed up without the aid of spellcheck, to being stark naked and manhandled.
“Dean–!” I hiccup.
The first thing he says, and it brings me no comfort: “You can say it, if you want me to stop.”
He’s talking about the safeword. That’s the only thing that will make him stop. Otherwise, he’s going to do as he pleases. I blink up at him, breathing hard. He takes my continued silence for what it is: permission. For whatever fucked-up reason, I’m allowing even this much. Maybe, I’m just willing to endure anything, because I’ll take whatever I can get while he’s willing to give it. He lowers to his knees, throws my legs over his massive shoulders, and retrieves an unopened bottle of lube from his back pocket. It finally hits me that he’s still fully clothed, the only thing he’s taken off is his jacket.
It makes me feel more like a whore than any of the times he’s called me one, the disparity between our state of dress. I’d already stretched myself, as I do when I know he’s coming, but Dean takes it upon himself to practically fist me open. It hurts before it feels any kind of good, and I pin the inside of my elbow across my face, sobbing into it. If I hadn’t done any preparation on my own, Dean certainly would have torn something with how intensely he does it. Three minutes might have gone by, and he’s got half his hand [minus his thumb] shoved up my ass. His forearm is a brace across my stomach, pinning me to the couch. I’m sweating, crying, twitching by the time he finally, finally decides to stimulate my prostate.
“Don’t be a bitch, Sammy, this is what your ass was made for.” He chides, and it isn’t in the horny, playful tone he’d normally use. It’s cold, cruel. “It was made for me, to do whatever the fuck I want with it.”
Worst of all, I’m hard. I was hard when he started undressing me, and even through the pain, my erection hasn’t flagged. I bring my hands down to try and hide it, because it feels shameful, and he laughs at the effort. He knocks them away. “What, embarrassed? Don’t be, cockwhores like you get off on this sort of treatment, right?”
Once I’m stretched enough for his liking, he undoes his pants. He doesn’t even take them off, he simply slides them down just enough to pull his cock out. That’s my last glimpse of it for the foreseeable future, because he flips me onto my stomach. My knees thump against the floor, my upper body bent over the seat, and Dean fists a hand in my hair to keep my face smothered in the cushion. It’s terrifying, and my chest tightens with anxiety when I feel him lining up. Even though I’m halfway expecting it, it punches the breath from my lungs and the sense from my brain when he slams forward, sealing his groin against my ass in one thrust.
I dig my teeth into my lip so hard, I taste blood. I don’t want him to hear me scream, because I think he’d actually like it. No, I know he would.
He proceeds to fuck the absolute shit out of me. There’s no slow start, there’s no warning, nothing of the sort. His free hand anchors at my hip, and he doesn’t release that grip from the back of my head. Dean fixes me in place and fucks me just like I’m the hole he’s always accused me of being [in the heat of the moment, but still]. He’s smashing against my prostate with a battering-ram’s force, and my cock is chafing against the lip of the couch. It isn’t possible to stifle my sounds, because they’re being literally shoved from my throat.
“Hah, yeah, that’s it, baby! That’s what I wanna hear, scream for me. I’m the only one who’s gonna make you feel this good, I’m the only fuckin’ one, Sammy.”
My stomach is frothing, broiling with heat. It’s barely been ten minutes, and I’m going to cum all over my couch from this brand of Dean’s cruelty. Something must be wrong with me, too, because my orgasm is devastating. I bite a hole through the cushion, drooling into the fabric, and drive my hips back to meet it like my heart isn’t breaking at the same time. Despite what has to be the vacuum-like suction of a black hole, Dean neither cums, nor stops fucking me.
Even as I’m shaking apart with it, he continues smashing into me with both power and precision, and it makes for the longest, most torturous orgasm I’ve ever suffered. I try to pull away, but there’s nowhere to go. I try to brace my hand against his stomach, but he pins it to the small of my back. My vision is spotting, my nerves are completely fried. Seconds, minutes, days, I couldn’t tell you the difference. It feels like my body is trapped in a perpetual state of pleasure overload, and if it continues, I’ll either black out or die. Broken sobs rip from my chest, and I can’t even catch a breath to beg him to stop. Finally, I manage it, but I know a simple ‘stop’ won’t put an end to anything.
“H-Hawthorne!” I choke out.
He stops immediately, but clicks his tongue like he’s disappointed. I’m twitching, shivering, violently. It takes me a full minute to catch my breath, find a thought in the blank spanse of my mind. He might’ve stopped moving, but he’s still buried to the hilt. He hasn’t let go of my arm, nor the clamp he’s kept on the back of my neck. I turn my head so my cheek is flattened to the cushion and glare at him through my hair.
“Y-You…fucking asshole…”
He shrugs, unrepentant. “You’re upset because, what, it felt too good? We’re not done unless you specify it, so say it now or shut the fuck up.”
Jesus Christ, my dick actually twitched.
Have I been a masochist, all this time?
“That’s what I fuckin’ thought.”
Three hours. That’s my best estimation of how long it went on. He fucked me everywhere except the bed, and it started to feel deliberate, as if there’s a point he’s trying to make. The couch, the ottoman, the floor, against the wall, etcetera. Eventually, Dean did shed his clothes, but he utilized every bit of his insane rebound time. There were only a few minutes between each round, and while he started to get a little more kind, I was feeling less and less human with every one of our orgasms. He would bust a thick, fat load in my guts, and then be sliding right back in less than five minutes later. It was sloppy, wet, and borderline inhuman in its savagery.
While he technically kept to the ‘no visible marks’ guideline, he went out of his way to mark me up everywhere else. He bit rings around my nipples, sucked bruises into my collar bones, stomach, thighs, and ass. I’ll find his fingerprints in purple on my hips, shoulders, legs, and forearms in the morning. While I lost my voice somewhere in the fray, he never stopped reminding me: this is what my body’s good for, he’s the only one who can make me feel this way, I’ll never be satisfied with anyone but him for the rest of my life. It was like a form of brainwashing, as he fed me those mantras on the cusp and descent of my orgasms. They soaked into the folds of my mind, already marinating in chemical pleasure.
At one point, he blatantly attacked my manhood: “Your dick is an unnecessary accessory, you know that, right? You couldn’t stick it in something even if you wanted to, you need a cock in your ass to cum like this.” He laughed.
He hadn’t touched my cock once, the entire time, so those words struck a painful chord. I’d cum so many times, and they were all purely from being fucked. At the time, I had no idea what was bringing this behavior out of him, why he was being so inordinately mean. The reason for it wouldn’t be hashed out until the following week, so in the moment I was resigned to confusion, heartache, and an eventual post-coital coma. I must’ve passed out or fallen asleep, as I have no idea what time it ended or when he left. He cleaned me up, righted the living room, and scrubbed out the stains.
He replaced my clothes on my body and laid me in bed, and I think he might have laid behind me for some time. I think he regretted it, or…maybe I dreamed that he did.
His whispered apology pressed behind my ear: “‘m sorry, Sammy…”
Whether or not the apology was a dream, the rest of it absolutely was not. I took all day Sunday to recover, even contemplated calling out on Monday. My poor ass, that bastard completely brutalized it. It hurts to walk, stand, and sit. My voice is a crackly, pitchy mess. I spent the day in the bath, sipping hot tea, and napping like it’ll restore my mental and physical health to rights. Dean has a foul mouth, but he’s never fucked me like that before. He was…making some sort of point, but it’s beyond me as of now. What could he possibly have going on, to be so bent out of shape?
Monday came all too soon. I felt decent enough to hack it out, so I pulled into the faculty lot with a burgeoning sense of dread. If Dean adheres to my guidelines, he won’t approach me. I put them in place for a reason, so as not to put my job at risk, but the idea of being on the same grounds as Dean all day and having him ignore me [after the way he breezed in and out of my home like a category five on Saturday night] makes me…furious. It makes me angry, anxious, and deeply, deeply hurt. I can’t keep going like this. No matter how good the sex is, none of it is remotely healthy. It was wrong from the start, but now it’s ripping a gaping hole through me, my sense of peace and self-respect.
Walking through the halls as smoothly as I can manage, I paste on something like a ‘customer service’ smile. I greet my students and fellow teachers politely, before essentially hiding out in my room. I bypass the teacher’s lounge altogether. I’m not sure what I’m expecting, hoping for, or hoping to avoid, but Dean appearing in my empty class less than five minutes after I’ve sat down brings me both relief and trepidation. He looks…bad, like he’d slept a total of four hours through the weekend.
Huh, so maybe he did feel bad about it.
“Good morning, what can I do for you?” I say in my dryest, most impersonal tone.
Dean tenses at the flat sound. He comes to rest awkwardly in front of my desk, hands stowed in his pockets, and does a quick scan of my person. His eyes pause on my wrist, where I’d opted for my old watch instead of the one he’d gotten me. It was the only way I could think to spite him, childish as it may be.
His face tightens, and he cuts his gaze away without mentioning it. “I…” He starts, and the sound of his voice nearly trips me up. Hearing it now, in my classroom, as my student, is…surreal. The last time I’d heard it, he was saying the cruelest things he could think of while fucking me to tears. I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat, struggling to stuff down the anxiety lifting like steam in my chest.
“…are you…okay?” He finally gets out.
I smile placidly. “I’m doing well, thanks for asking. How was your weekend?”
Okay, it’s a cheap shot, I know that.
Dean is glaring at me now, as if he’s upset with my bullshitting him. What the hell is he expecting from me? Does he want me to erupt into telenovela tears and have a lover’s quarrel with him at 6:30am, in the middle of my classroom?
“Look, I’m…I won’t have many chances to do this, so I just wanted to apo–”
“Knock, knock! Oh, hey, Dean!”
Jamie is in my doorway now, great. So, so great.
Dean smiles at her, straightening up from where he’d been starting to lean over my desk. “Hey, Ms. Rosenthal.”
Wow, look at the kid go. It’s like a flip has switched in him, and he’s all easy-going charm. Jamie glances between us.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything, I can come back later.”
The way she says it raises my hackles, like she’s implying something.
“No, no, Dean was just asking about an assignment he had to make up last Friday.” The lie slides smoothly between my teeth, and Dean stiffens, as he knows he’s being blatantly dismissed. He cuts a sharp look at me from his periphery, before turning to leave.
“Thanks, Mr. Powell! See you later.” He calls over his shoulder, as smooth in his charade as I am, and slips out into the hall.
Jamie takes his place, coming up to perch on my desk. Do attractive people just think they have an inherent right to other’s personal space? “He looked upset.” She chuckles. “Did he do poorly on it or something?”
“Hm? Yeah, he probably could’ve done better.”
“Ah, that’s a bummer. You should cut him some slack, Sam, we’re doomed if he plays like shit this weekend.”
I immediately change the subject, because what the entire fuck is she on about?
“What’s up? Did you need help with anything?”
“Oh! No, no, I actually wanted to see if you’d be interested in grabbing a drink with me after work tonight.”
…huh? I must look as mystified as I feel, because she belts that deep, rich laugh that seems to fill up a room. “Just as friends! You’re the only one I’ve got, Sam, come on!”
I find that very, very hard to believe. But, even if it’s Jamie Rosenthal, maybe it would do me some good to interact with someone besides Dean. I take a minute more to mull it over, before finally agreeing. She beams at me and sticks out her fist, which I think means I’m supposed to bump it with mine. “Okay, I’ll give you the details during lunch!”
Little did I know then, but Jamie Rosenthal is the biggest snake in the grass there ever was.
—
What the fuck?
What the fuck.
What. The. Fuck.
I mean that in, like, a hundred different ways.
What the fuck am I doing? Why am I being so childish, throwing a tantrum like the toddler Sam compared me to?
What the fuck does Jamie Rosenthal think she’s doing? I’m not blind, and she’s been up Sam’s ass since she stepped foot on school grounds. The Friday before last, I spotted him talking to a smokin’ blonde in the faculty lot, before she’d been introduced as our replacement teacher on Monday. I couldn’t make out the finer details, being all the way on the field, and my distraction earned me a pass to the solar plexus.
Is she interested in him? Is he interested in her?
No, no way. Sammy has to be strictly gay, right? The way he takes cock, it’s like…
Then again, we’ve never discussed it. My history speaks for itself, and Sam’s well aware of my fluidity in the bedroom. But I know next to nothing about his dating history or sexual preferences, other than that he’s dated at least one man who was fairly hung. He could’ve dated plenty of women, too.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
There’s no way, right?
But, she’s another teacher. She’s his age. She’s hot as fuck. They have so much more in common than he and I do. Now, he’s going out for drinks with her? Of course I eavesdropped, you should know me by now, come on.
So, please believe me when I say this: I’m not proud of what I did on Saturday. Sammy might not have safeworded me but the one time, but that doesn’t make it okay. I fucking know that, okay? I acted out in a bad way, instead of using my big boy words. I’m still too much of a pussy to tell him what I want, how I feel. I’m terrified of his rejection, and I know as long as I’m a student in this school, he’ll turn me down flat. I’m trying my best to wait.
Last week was hell, though. I’m not allowed to approach him, I can’t text him, but she’s hanging off of him like an ugly, fake fur all during lunch and in between classes? He didn’t slip me any notes either. There were no green lights. By Friday, I was seeing red. My feet grew minds of their own, and I broke one of our rules: I approached him after school. It nearly got us caught, but guess what?
I got the green, sort of. He didn’t argue it when I said I’d be over at seven, so I took that as a win and ran with it. However, all of Friday night and Saturday day, a storm of ugly feelings was growing and thundering through me, clouding my judgment. I tried working it off in the gym, I tried burning it out on a ten mile run, I tried showering in next-to-boiling water, but that ugliness remained. Sammy’s lost his goddamn mind if he thinks someone like Jamie can satisfy him.
He’s a born-to-bred cockslut, through and through, he just needs a little reminder. That was my original thought, and it sort of spiraled out of control. Walking through his front door, it’s like I’d left my sanity and sense of restraint on his stoop. Seeing him sitting there on the couch, as pretty as always and nonethewiser to everything I’d been feeling for the entirety of the week, tipped me over the edge. I wanted to ruin him, make him cry, make him scream, make him cum on my cock over and over again. I wanted to remind him of his place, who he’d best be served by–me, obviously. I told myself it was okay because he was letting me do it, he didn’t stop me with the safeword except for when I was plowing him through his first orgasm.
‘Heat of the moment’ is hardly an excuse, however. I said some really, really fucked-up shit to him, and I railed him relentlessly without any kindness. It must have felt like whiplash, considering the last time we had sex was such a slow, gentle affair full of…well, love. I won’t call it love-making though, I’m not fifty. I know I probably did a number on him, and he had to be hurting the next day. I shouldn’t fuck him like that unless he explicitly agrees to it, and I can be there the next day to help him out.
Needless to say, I was a wreck afterwards. I couldn’t call him, text him, or drop by to check on him. I had to sit, alone, with what I’d done, and pray to God that he doesn’t evict me from his life forever. I’ll do whatever I’ve got to do, say whatever I’ve got to say, as long as I can earn his forgiveness. So, of course, I beeline for his room first thing Monday morning.
It didn’t go at all like I wanted it to. He was cold, impersonal, and unfriendly. He isn’t wearing my watch, either. Is it heartbreak, or did someone come up behind me and plunge a knife through my back? It felt par for par. I try to choke out the beginnings of a half-assed apology, because it’s the best I can accomplish right now, but I can’t even do that much. Because of Ms. Rosenthal, bane of my entire existence.
I decided to get some outside perspective, and there’s only one person I can go to.
“Yo, Jacob, wanna come over later?”
“Yeah, man, I’ll change and be over by four.”
So, here we are now. I’m slouched in my bean bag, Jacob swishing back and forth in my desk chair [unbothered]. Between us, there’s a box of half-eaten pizza riddled with grease spots and a three-pack that was once a six-pack. On my old, tiny TV, Jacob is whipping the daylights out of me in Tekken 7. The repeated defeats don’t ignite my temper like they normally would, and the fact that I’m on such a horrific losing streak in the first place is a tip off. Jacob gives me a sidelong look.
“Spit it out, dude. I know you didn’t invite me over just to binge carbs and get your ass beat in Tekken.”
I groan, because he’s right, I just didn’t want to reduce a lifelong friendship down to venting about my affairs. It would be such a dick move to invite him over, bitch about my issues, then send him on his merry way. “Well, since you brought it up…”
I lay it all on the table, everything except my unbecoming treatment of Sammy on Saturday night. Jacob listens patiently as I express my frustrations with our new teacher and her wily ways, her flagrant attention towards Sam. Before long, he’s giving me a look like I’m the stupidest son of a bitch alive. I pause, blinking back at him.
“Okay, so…” He starts slowly. “…you’re upset because…you think Ms. Rosenthal is into Mr. Powell?”
“…yeah?”
“Dude.” He deadpans. “Ms. Rosenthal is into every young, slightly attractive guy in school. She’s been hanging all over you, too!” He swipes a hand at me.
“…she has?”
“Yes, dude! She’s been flirting with you like crazy. Christ, how far is your head stuck up Sam’s ass? She’s just a slut, man. I mean, she’s fine as fuck, don’t get me wrong. I’d hit, but there’d be a line. She’d probably let the entire team run a train on her.”
I sit with this newfound perspective for a moment. I review my memories of the past week and a half, and Ms. Rosenthal definitely is…on the touchy-feely side. She laughs a lot at things that aren’t remotely funny. She punches her chest out, flips her hair, flashes smiles like she’s in a Colgate commercial. She definitely has a preference for the student athletes. My God, she is a slut.
“But, but, she asked him out! For drinks!”
“Isn’t Mr. Powell, like, gay?”
“I don’t know! I thought so, but what if he likes chicks, too?”
“Well, did you ask him about it? What’d he say?”
“I–” The words stick in my throat like a glob of honey. Sam gives me a strange look.
“What? You were at his house on Saturday, right?”
“I…was.” Jacob can read me like a book, and my expression must be saying everything I can’t bring myself to get out. The guilt, shame, and discomfort.
“Dude, what’d you do?” He straightens in his seat. I drop my face in my hands, scrubbing up and down viciously.
“I just…I was pissed, dude! I’d been thinking about it all week, and when I saw him I–I don’t know, I just lost it!”
“You didn’t…did you beat him up or something?!”
“No, no!” I refute immediately. “We just…had sex, for like, three hours straight.”
“Had sex.” Jacob repeats flatly. “I can read between the lines, dude, I’m not retarded–unlike you. I know what you’re like like when you lose your temper, and if you fucked him like that? For three hours? You messed up, big time. It’s a miracle he made it in on Monday. Shit, it’s a miracle he isn’t paralyzed.”
Hearing Jacob regurgitate all my doubt, fears, and regret back at me feels like an animal catcher’s Ketch-All pole tightening around my throat. I appreciate it regardless, because Jacob will always, always be honest with me, especially when I’ve royally fucked something up. He gives it to me straight.
“I know, I know, you’re…totally right. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? It’s not easy to have a conversation with him, I have to wait for him to let me come over. I can’t…be seen cornering him at school, you know? It’s too risky, we almost got caught by White last Friday.”
“V.P. White?”
“Yeah.”
“What the fuck, Dean?”
“Come on, dude, off topic!”
—
Drinks with Jamie Rosenthal.
It’s…bizarre. I look around the dive discreetly, searching for the pig-faced doctors, because this has to be some sort of Twilight Zone. We’ve come to a place called Rodney’s, which has seen three renovations since its construction. It’s a seventy-five year old structure, and the first renovation occurred when Illinois adopted building codes. Now, it’s as upscale as it gets around here. Jamie and I still make an unusual pair, and we stick out in the worst way upon entering.
She isn’t one to mind the attention, however, and she snags a little corner booth for us to slide into. “What are you having? On me!”
“Uh, surprise me?”
She returns with two tall beers [brands are beyond me] and two Jaegerbombs. God help me, not Jagerbombs. I’m too polite to decline any of it, unfortunately, and it’s bottom’s up. I have a high tolerance, so that first round doesn’t incapacitate me like I think she’s hoping it will. I’m sure she associates my bodily proportions with my tolerance, as most people do. Small guy, drunk in ten minutes or less.
The night carries on, and I’m pleasantly surprised to find that I’m…enjoying her company. Her vaguely pedophilic, pick-me attitude aside, she’s a genuinely interesting person to talk to. She’s witty, her stories are colorful, and she asks just as much about my life as she volunteers of her own. Her parents are well-off software engineers, she’s an only child, she grew up in Ann Arbor, and she’s filling Mr. Candy’s shoes because their families have close, personal ties.
My guard is well and truly down after an hour and a half, and I’m much less sober than I was when I walked in. Jamie has worked her way around the booth until our thighs are pressed together. I didn’t think anything of it, until she walked her two fingers up my chest. “Hey, Sammy, can I ask you something?”
“Mm, what’s up?”
She leans into me, close enough that I can feel her lips, sticky with gloss, dragging against my ear.
“Are you sleeping with Dean Saunders?”