Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 16:17:46 +0000 From: M Williams Subject: Living with a Past - Chapter 3 - DISCLAIMER - The following story, novel, or chapter contains homosexual themes and is not intended for anyone under the legal viewing age - If depictions of homosexual activities disturb you - Do Not Continue To Read This Story - Feedback appreciated Copyright - 2005 - Max Williams (Kollegekid54321@hotmail.com) ****************************************************** Chapter 3 "Jase! What happened man?!" Sean started talking the second that he saw Jason enter the locker room. "I heard you blacked out this yesterday and had a seizure or - I dunno, or something. What was it buddy?" Jason's habitual smile flickered a bit. The rest the of the day before had gone as badly as a Thursday could; first he had gone home early, then his mother had come home early from work because of the message the nurse had let for her, and she'd let him have it for skipping school for such a ridiculous thing. Pam Colby held no room for weaklings, and she wasn't used to seeing her tall, muscular son lying in bed at 2 pm, drifting in and out of sleep. His father had come home and been mildly supportive, not saying much at all, and then patted Jason quietly on the shoulder, went down the stairs and after a few minutes Jason heard some muffled shouts, a bang of a door slamming, and the car backing out of the driveway. Before long, Pam was on top of him again, slamming him for his still dirty room, his unfinished homework, for embarrassing her at her work, and all the while reminding him how stupid it was to miss school over a little headache like that. Jason had just closed his eyes, and, feeling a little woozy, fell asleep, worried and sick, at 8 o'clock. He woke up at 5 am, still feeling pretty groggy and achey, but an hour jogging before the sun came up cured him of his lethargy, and he returned to school to all kinds of questions. He'd been hoping that his best friend would let him off the hook and let him not explain it for the 1000th time, but no such luck. Sean was standing there in his Nike shorts, holding his shirt in his hand, clearly paused in expectancy of Jason's answer. Sean's tall, elegantly lean build was accentuated by the lines of lean but tough swimmer's muscle. His hairless abs and chest were almost as brown as Jason's, except for a trail from his navel downward that was as blonde as Sean's head full of medium length, straight hair. Jason realized he was looking around to avoid answering the question, so he shook himself, brushed by Sean, and went to his locker. "It was . . . it wasn't much of anything, I mean - I dunno . . . it sucked", he lamely said, trying unsuccessfully to keep his pleasant smile. He put his bag in his locker and started unbuttoning the two buttons of his polo shirt. "I just fell asleep in class and kinda rolled forward. I mean . . . people need to stop treating me like I'm retarded and shit." Jason pulled off his shirt, and wadded it up in his locker. He ripped off his t-shirt as well stood there for a moment, enjoying the cool air in the locker room on his well-proportioned body. "Yeah, I heard. But what happened? Like, are you okay? Sometimes people have seizures and shit, and you don't fuckin' know until you go to the doctor, I mean, are you all right man? You might have something wrong - like permanently and you should find out -" "Sean -" "I mean, especially if you want to keep playing soccer and all - we don't want you like falling down in the field or nothing -" "Sean!" "Look dude, I want to help you, I just don't know why you're not letting me. I mean, c'mon, I know it's a faggy class and everything and I think that maybe something got to ya -" "SEAN!!" Jason was breathing fairly heavily and his hands trembled as he tried to unfasten his belt. "Dude, thanks for helping, but I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT." Sean looked crushed for a second, then defiant. "Fine man, whatever. I just wish you'd talk about this kinda shit sometimes." Jason started pulling his belt off through the loops, and looked up at his friend. Sean was finally stretching his shirt over his head, but still giving Jason that defiant, know-it-all look that irked Jason so much. "What shit? What do you mean?" "You know. I mean - well . . . c'mon man, you know." Jason gave Sean a confused, annoyed look that clearly didn't know. "All right look - you come into school all the time with this big smile, and you're all happy and shit . . . and . . . I dunno - you're not." Jason crossed his arms over his hard chest and felt his soft arm hair tickle the rougher stuff on his torso. He looked hard at Sean. "What?" "Dude - I know you have shit going on. I don't know why I can't ever come over to your house, or why you always stay at mine, or at school till 8 every night, but I can guess. There's something going on man - you're so fuckin' secretive about everything that I don't know what to tell you. And then Meghan comes bitching to me that she can't ever come over either - she's never been to your house in three years?! - and I don't know what to say. And then some shit like this happens, and you won't even try to lie about it. What the fuck is up?! I think you've got something going on. I think you're sick, or you're a spy, or you're getting beat every night or something. I don't know, and you're making it really fuckin' hard to care, Jase." Sean's defiant look had softened some, but there was still resentment there from having been rebuffed so many times by the browned athletic young man standing in front of him. Jason's crossed arms faltered, but he struggled to keep them in their rigid position. Sean had touched on something that had bothered Jason his whole life - the fact that he couldn't take anyone home. While his parents were openly supportive of his having friends, he knew enough to keep anyone he wanted to keep as a friend from such an unhealthy influence. If his parents saw nothing wrong with shooting Jason down, there was no way they'd be courteous in a long-term way to someone of an equally subservient age that wasn't even related to them. Jason had often longed to bring Meghan home, but always used the complaint of the long drive to Capetown as his excuse. He had always done the same with Sean and Trevor, given that most of the population of Cape City High was, in fact, from Cape City. And even though he longed to tell Sean what kind of hell it was like to subject someone to his home, Jason just looked at the floor until his tears were successfully blinked back, and then breathed deeply and looked Sean straight in the face with his characteristic smile. "Because I live too far away dude, you fuckin' know that. Look, I'm not unhappy, I'm fine. Just because other people have fuckin' drama going on doesn't mean that I'm gonna go around bitching at everyone because something in my life sucks. I got tired the other day and fell asleep in class, and fuckin' fell over. It's funny, dude. I mean c'mon, shit like that happens all the time, oh but if it happens to me, then it fuckin' means something. Look man, I love you like a brother, but fuck the hell off. Seriously, go - Ill be out in a minute and Ill kick your ass, and then you'll see how much of a fuckin' sick, abused spy I am." He laughed and playfully punched Sean on the shoulder, and went back to unzipping his pants. He pulled them off, revealing his long muscular legs and ridiculously bright yellow boxers, and started pulling his running shorts out of the locker. Sean, not sated, but aware the conversation was over, relaxed and smiled a little. "Kay, I guess . . . hey, nice shorts, fag!" he said as he quickly pulled Jason's boxers down, then laughed like a madman and ran out of the locker room. Jason was startled and quickly pulled them back up, then shouted after his friend. "FAGGOT!" he said, laughing and pulling on his running shorts and tight sleeveless shirt over his taut young torso as he ran out of the locker room for a long relaxing game of soccer with his best friends. In another part of the state, a pair of eyes were blinking open for the fifth time in two days. They had opened earlier, and been able to stand it for a few minutes before closing again. Over the next few hours, they had opened three more times and each time had been able to look around for increasing amounts of time. Now they were open, and the skin around them began to twitch. The pupils themselves were tiny black pinpricks, lost in a sea of steel blue that seemed as big as quarters. The formerly white eyeball itself was the dull yellow of rotted cream, crisscrossed with lines of bloodshot red. Heavy dark lashes kept the scant sunlight from hitting the eyes directly, and crackled, heavily jaundiced skin seemed to emanate dust whenever the cracked skin blinked. But despite the relative movement that the eyes were having, they still had a dumb, empty, dead look to anyone that might have seen them then. They were seeing, but for all the creature that controlled the eyes knew, they weren't. So the body was waking up, but the mind still slept. But that was soon to change, and had the mind known, it was about to wake up to an adventure that it had never prepared for. Jason spent Friday night in his room. His parents were downstairs, his mother was cleaning up the dishes from dinner and his father was preparing to go out bowling with his friends from the factory, and Jason himself was sitting at his desk. In front of him was the crumpled drawing that he had been working on in Braun's class the day before, and as he looked at it and tried to figure out who he had been in the middle of drawing, his mind couldn't help but drift from the soccer defense to the class itself . . . Jason remembered Fredo, and parts of their conversation . . . something about Fredo making up, or - or something . . . Jason remembered Braun coming in . . . oh yeah, he remember arguing with Fredo, that was right . . . his mind unexpectedly jumped to arguing with a half-naked Sean in the locker room, and he replayed Sean's words in his head. You come into school all the time with this big smile, and you're all happy and shit . . . and . . . you're not . . . some shit like this happens, and you won't even try to lie about it . . . I think you've got something going on . . . I don't know, and you're making it really fuckin' hard to care, Jase . . . you're making it really hard to care . . . Jason shook his head. Whatever, he thought, so maybe I do have some shit going on - if anybody had my life, they would too. Fuckin' Sean, fuckin' Fredo . . . Jason went back to his drawing, and this time tried to cut people out and just focus on the music that he'd heard. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to piece together the various notes that he'd heard the day before. Why had it affected him like that? For that matter, how had it affected him? What had actually happened? He concentrated, squeezing his eyes and scrunching up his face, curling his hands into fists on his desk and straining to remember just one piece of that ridiculous song - it was was it . . . no . . . was it - was it no . . . not that either. Wait . . . Jason waited for a second and thought he could hear a note in his mind. He played it in his head again, and found that he remembered the next one after it. He redoubled his efforts, and straining even more than before, played those two notes again -and - and . . . almost . . . had . . . the . . . next . . . "JASON!" Jason's eyes snapped open and he flew almost straight up out of his chair. "What! What!" he yelled almost involuntarily, as he looked wildly around and found that his father was standing in the doorway in his winter parka, holding a Michelob in one hand and the cordless phone in the other. Phil Colby had the oddest expression on his face as he looked at his son. "Its for you, its that Meghan girl. What . . .? Nevermind . . ." Phil said disdainfully as he handed Jason the telephone, and left the room, aware the whole time that Jason's eyes were on him. He took a swig of his beer. Jason was glad his father had left. He felt extremely on edge about having been caught in the middle of that by his father. Wait, he thought, the middle of . . . what? What am I doing? He shook his head for the innumerable time that day. "Hello?" "Hi honey!" Meghan's ringing voice never failed to cheer him up. He got up from his desk and threw himself on his bed, his familiar pleasant old smile thankfully plastered across his face. "Hey babe. What's up?" "Well, mom and dad are going out to have dinner tonight. Melissa and I gave them a surprise party this afternoon, and they were so happy about it. I gave them that bottle of wine that your parents sent over, they loved it!" Jason's smile flickered - if his parents ever found that bottle missing, his nuts were theirs. Still - it was worth it; after three years of dating their daughter, Jason had a lot of gift giving to do to placate her otherwise curious parents that knew Jason like a son, but had never met his family. He came back midway through one of Meghan's sentences. "- so I think that the wine glasses would be good, because they clean easier, they could go through the dishwasher. Right? Honey, what do you think?" "Oh, sorry. I was . . . thinking about something. For soccer. On Monday. What?" "I said if you came over now we could have a nice evening to ourselves. If we used my bed my parents would never notice, and if we used the cheap wine glasses this time, we could clean them out before they even got home, right?" "Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah baby, that would be great. What about your sister?" "Melissa's already at her boyfriend's. She says Danny's really good, so we can plan on her being there for a while." "Oh, cool." "So . . . are you coming over . . . ?" "Oh, yeah, yeah! Ill be right over. Love you." She giggled in her funny way. "Aww, thanks hon. See you soon. Bye." Jason heard the click of her phone, and smiled to himself, genuinely this time. He jumped up off his bed and ran downstairs. His parents were sitting in the living room, his mother firmly panted on the couch with arms and legs crossed, sternly watching the television, and his father precariously on the arm of the big easy chair next to the couch. His hand had a fresh drink in it, and his open mouth and glazed eyes made Jason think that the beer must be the last of a pack. He still had on his jacket and Jason feared that he was still, even in this condition, on his way out. "Hey mom, dad?" he started carefully, from behind them. "Mmm?" said his mother, barely turning from the nightly news. "Can I borrow the car tonight? Some of the guys are getting together at Sean's place and I want to . . . think I should go." "Mmm? Hmm? Why "should" you go? Why aren't you just going?" She turned a little to hear his response but was still obviously involved with the show. "Umm, well, Sean's been having a hard time lately, and . . . er, I think we're getting together to help him out with his . . . aunt. Dying." If there was anything that his mother might approve of, it was flocking to the scene of drama. But he had apparently caught her on a good night, as she dumbly nodded and waved her hand a little in a "do what you want kind of gesture". Jason evilly grinned to himself this was easy. "But take your father." Crap. "What?!" For the first time his mother fully turned and looked at him. "Your father", she started, "cant make it to the bowling alley on his own - you need to take him there. Its right by - whatshisname's. Sean's." Crap! Meghan and Sean lived half an hour from each other. "And pick him up again at 11:30 - you're not embarrassing me again, ass." The last comment was directed at Phil, who looked at her, swayed vaguely, tried to say something but just quit and looked back at the television. "Um . . . fine. Sure - I'll be back in a few minutes." It was better than nothing at all, Jason reasoned. Still, he didn't understand why everything he wanted to do came with such ridiculous stipulations. He ran into his room quickly and ripped off his shirt. The muscles in his back rippled in the dull evening light as he quickly sorted through the piles of clothes on the floor, found the tightfitting black shirt he wanted, and ran to the bathroom. He reminded himself of the time that he had been invited to Meghan's for her mother's birthday and wound up showing up two hours late because Pam refused to let him borrow the car until she knew what she was doing. Once she found out that she was staying home, he still couldn't use it because it was after 6 o'clock, which had been their rule at the time. But rules in the Colby household changed with the wind, although more specifically, they changed with what would or would not help out Pam the most at that particular time. Jason felt the temperature of the running water in the shower, and then looked at himself closely in the mirror. Not pleased, he quickly dodged into the bathroom cabinet and pulled out his mother's tweezers, and began systematically pulling out the errant eyebrow hairs. Once he finished, he looked at himself in the mirror. Not bad, he thought, not bad at all. Except for this - and he plucked one long hair on his chest. He smiled at himself, and his warm smile made him happy. He had a great smile and a tan, square face, with a firm jaw line and masculine chin. His straight brown hair was beginning to lighten from his time spent in the sun, and his mildly stubbled face helped to outline the broad, handsome shape of his face. Just for fun, he flexed his chest and arms and was thrilled to see the taut muscles tighten up with tension, and the eight rectangular sections of his stomach come out and define themselves. He had a little fat, but it was sexy, he decided, as was the light dusting of swirling straight brown hairs on his chest, and the line of similar hairs under his navel. It's no wonder Meghan wants to fuck this, he thought, smiling again. Wow, I'm pretty vain, he added, almost laughing at himself. For some reason, he began taking off his pants in the mirror as well, and was equally happy with the tan and enormously proportioned muscle that he saw there. My saving grace, he thought. It really is no wonder, hahaha . . . Ten minutes later he was downstairs, shirt clinging to his masculine chest holding his jacket and smiling at his father. "Lets go dad, I don't want to keep Sean waiting." His father looked at him numbly, back at the television, and then got up. Phil went briefly to Pam, who gave him one look and sneered, put her hand on his face and pushed him away, and then he vaguely got it, sauntered back to Jason and let his son lead him the rest of the way. Jason sighed at this: the average state of his household. They left. The car trip was uneventful. His father tried getting into the driver's seat, but Jason quickly reasoned with the mentally numb man and pushed his father to the passenger side of the car. Phil got scared and in his stupor started lashing out at what had apparently occurred to his brain was an attacker, and Jason wound up receiving a fairly nasty blow to the right side of his mouth before subduing the man and getting him into the car. As Jason walked back around to the driver's side, he felt his aching face and thought he detected a trace of blood. He sighed into the nighttime and looked regretfully back up at his house - his mother was in the window, and she was shaking her head. He raised his hand in a wave, but she turned her head and missed it - it looked like - on purpose. He groaned into the night this time, and got in the car.