Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 07:59:54 -0800 From: Cole Parker Subject: 8th Grade, Chapter 2 The following is a work of fiction. If you don't know the meaning of that, then you shouldn't be reading this, as the story is more complex than that statement and you won't understand it. This story will contain some sex between consenting partners. Both partners will be boys. If that isn't your cup of tea, or if this is illegal where you are or you are underage, I respectfully suggest you find your beverage of choice elsewhere. If you shouldn't be reading this, please don't. I don't want either of us to get in trouble, particularly me. This story will not contain a lot of sex-- in fact, just the exact amount appropriate for this story. Imagine that! If you want a lot of sex, you probably should read a different story. There are a lot on this website. Remarks can be addressed to: Cole Parker 8th Grade Chapter 2 I was pushed up against the lockers, hard, soon after I left class. Brad was scowling down at me with nothing I wanted to know anything about shooting out of his eyes. "Fuckhead. What do you think you're doing?" he yelled at me. "I'm in big trouble. My parents are already all over me for my grades, and now detention on top of it. I was supposed to get a better grade on the next quiz, and I get a D, and I'll probably sit out my next game if I miss two practices, and I'll make my mom have to wait till detention is over to pick me up, and I'll be late for the dentist appointment, and, it's all because you're such a fucking asshole. I'm going to kill you." This last pleasantry was mentioned as he was drawing back his fist to begin his announced program of mayhem. As he was a couple inches taller than I and perhaps 30 pounds heavier, as he was an athlete and, to put it succinctly, I wasn't, and as he was mad as hell and I was scared shitless, the result of his fist flying unimpeded at my face wasn't going to be something I'd remember fondly when I was recalling my days at Carver Middle School. If I lived to remember them. Perhaps it was my quivering demeanor, perhaps it was the look of abject terror on my face, perhaps it was that my only sign of defense was to tightly close my eyes, I don't know, but in the end he didn't throw the punch. He stopped, took his left hand off my neck where it had been keeping me propped in an upright position, and I promptly slumped to the floor. He looked down at me disgustedly, said, "Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it," turned and steamed away. The farther he walked, the lower his shoulders drooped in dejection. I should have stayed there, but I felt awful for him, this golden boy for whom everything should go perfectly, and despite my fear that he might change his mind about the murder, I got up as quickly as my still trembling legs would permit and ran stumblingly after him. "Brad,' I called as I got nearer to him, and he stopped. I ran up to him and faced him, screwing up my courage. "Brad, I'm sorry. I really am, I'm really sorry. I didn't know you'd get detention. I never would have said anything if I'd known that. Actually, I said it so that. . . ." It suddenly occurred to me, much too late, that if I said I was feeling sorry for his humiliation he might be madder than he already was. You're not supposed to have protective emotions like that for other boys, and you're absolutely not supposed to talk about them if you do. The pause lengthened. "You said it why?" Brad eventually asked. "I was mad and wanted to make her mad. I didn't think anyone else would get involved. Graedon and I have been fighting all year since I pointed out she did a problem wrong on the board. She's been trying to embarrass me ever since. She's an evil witch and if you get on her bad side, you never get off it. I just snapped today. She made me angry and I snapped. I can't believe I got you in trouble too, and I'm really, really sorry." "Fuckin' lot of good that does me. Detention and a D. Oh yeah, it'll be fun times at my house tonight." "Brad, I can help you with the math. If you let me, we can get your grade up in math." "Yeah, that's just what I need. You and your F are going to help. Right." He looked disgusted. "I don't actually get F's in there. Even with her grading me as hard as she can and marking me off if my handwriting isn't neat enough or if I leave three spaces between problems instead of two, shit like that, I'm still getting an A-. I just wasn't thinking about math on this quiz and made a silly mistake. I do know this crap, and I can help." Brad didn't say anything for a minute. He was staring at me. Then, when he spoke, he said, "Aw shit, what harm can it do? You can start in detention tonight. But I'm hopeless. You'll see." ---{}--- So that's how I got to work with Brad Decker. Not that I'd planned it or anything like that. I was much too shy to do something like that. Brad was the school hero. As 8th graders, we were in the top class in school, and Brad was the top athlete. He starred in all the sports we had, playing the glamour positions, and to top that off, he was blond, well-built, very good looking and didn't have the stuck-up personality most guys it his position did. Girls were all over him and he dated a lot of them, dated as much as a 13-year-old can, but seemed to steer clear of a steady relationship with any one. He ran with the popular crowd and was pretty much the top dog of that group. Did I say he was good looking? I, on very much the other hand, was a nobody. Or less. I was very ordinary looking, with a mop of unruly curly muddy brown hair that did what it wanted to do, much more into books than sports due to an innate clumsiness I think I inherited from my father, and shy to the point I didn't have many friends and no really close ones. If I hung with any group at school, it was the "loser" crowd, and I wasn't really even part of that group. To top off this resume of attributes, I was starting to consider, in an intellectual sort of way, the possibility that I might be gay. As I had had no experiences with either sex, it wasn't a certainty, but I sure thought a lot more about boys than girls. I sure noticed them more. They interested me more. Especially good looking ones. Which meant, especially Brad. But he was so far beyond what I could aspire to, he really didn't belong in my world and only occasionally entered my fantasies. The class system was alive and well in our middle school. Brad was firmly established on the top tier. I was somewhere beneath the lowest. People in my position consider the possibility of associating with someone in Brad's position about the same as winning the lottery, only less. At thirteen, according to the books I'd read, I was pretty normal, which means my hormones were bouncing through my veins like popcorn in a theater corn popper and I didn't have much outlet for the things they were encouraging me to do except the traditional one, home alone, in my room, door tightly shut. At school I had become very efficient at covering myself up with notebooks, untucked shirts, carelessly hung jackets and the like as any old fleeting thought or incidental contact could arouse me in about three seconds flat. It occurred to me that if I was going to be spending a couple hours this afternoon and tomorrow with Brad Decker, BRAD DECKER! for God's sake, I was potentially in for a world of hurt. I'd be sitting next to him, leaning over a textbook with him, feeling his breath on my neck, probably rubbing shoulders with him, oops- something just came up. What if it did that this afternoon? I'd had a crush on him for three years in a forbidden-fruit sort of way, just dreaming, not even hoping. Like I did on several very attractive boys. What would happen if I were forced to be close to him? What was I going to do? What if what comes natural came natural and Brad noticed? I'm going to be a dead man.