Disclaimer:
The following piece of fiction contains explicit descriptions of sexual acts between consenting adult males aged over the age of 18. Please do not read further if the subject matter might offend you. If you are aged under 18 (or 21 if that is the law in your state or country) please leave this site without reading further.
Patronising things you should read:
Fictional characters cannot get hurt and do not feel pain. Real people can and do. Actions have consequences, and the author does not in any way condone suicide, self-harm, self-mutilation, or any form of self-abuse as a coping mechanism.
Note from Author:
This part of the story is told by Brad. To read the chapter's events from Anthony's perspective, go back to the main `Geeks Get Hot' folder.
Geeks Get Hot (part 1) -- Brad
I stood in the center of my bedroom and slowly turned around in a circle. My dad had just taken the last box of stuff out to the car, the pile of bags and boxes that had been in the middle of the floor now reduced to one small rucksack containing just my orientation information, campus maps and a few other small things and pieces of paperwork I might need.
My room looked strange, as though it only partly belonged to me. With my computer, TV and games console packed, my desk and TV stand stood empty, and there were gaps on my shelves from where I had taken my favorite games, books and DVDs.
I swallowed and paced up and down a bit. This was it. I was leaving to go to college and this time tomorrow would be waking up in a new room. A dorm room, that I'd be sharing. I'd never shared a room before.
Suddenly the enormity of what I was doing hit me, and I felt my heartbeat begin to race and my breathing begin to get shallow and quick. A feeling of nausea swept over me, my hands began to tremble, and sweat started to run from my armpits. I managed to make it to my bed before my legs gave way, and I collapsed onto my back on my mattress, hyperventilating, my forehead hot, the room spinning. I tried to remember what my doctor had told me, but it was too difficult. I couldn't control this.
I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't leave...Want to stay...Want to...I can't do this...I CAN'T!
The panic attack engulfed my body and I let it.
I don't know how long it lasted, but I finally remembered what my doctor and therapist had said, and focused on my breathing, finding a slower rhythm and sticking to it, taking deep breaths in, holding my breath while I counted to five, and then letting it slowly out through pursed lips. Gradually, the room stopped spinning and my vision came back. I was able to sit up without feeling I was about to vomit. I picked up my pillow and used it to wipe the sweat off my face. My heart rate was still a little fast, and my legs felt a bit wobbly, but the worst was over.
I took some deep breaths and went into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. I stared at my reflection and spoke to myself in my head, reminding myself what I'd promised myself, what I'd said to my therapist, what I'd said to my parents, what I'd written down in my notebook.
Come on Brad, you can do this!
There was a gentle knock on the door behind me. My dad's voice called through the closed door.
"Are you nearly ready? We ought to have left an hour ago!"
"Yes, I'm coming now," I said.
I gave myself one final stern look in the mirror. No more freaking out Brad. You can do this.
I walked back into my bedroom and collected my rucksack, then made my way to the car where my parents were waiting for me. We set off with my parents arguing amicably about routes and maps. I sat quietly in the back of the car, surrounded by my belongings, trying my best to swallow down the panic that threatened to rise again as we got ever closer to our destination.
We stopped off for a bite to eat, but I found I wasn't able to eat anything. My mom looked worried, but I managed to persuade her I was nervous, but like, normal nervous.
Finally, we turned off the interstate and were driving through the busy streets of the city, searching for the road that would lead us to the entrance to the college campus. After a few wrong turns, we finally found it and wound up driving up toward the campus, joining the end of a line of cars all heading the same way.
My dad stopped the car in the parking lot and I rummaged through my rucksack looking for the instructions I'd been sent about what to do on arrival. I had to collect my dorm allocation from the Student Administration Building, which, luckily, my dad had managed to park right in front of. I took my folder of paperwork out of my rucksack in case I needed anything, and got out of the car, leaving my parents sitting in the front seats to await my return.
My heart was beating quickly again, as I walked toward the door of the administration building. But then I stopped and stood still, looking around myself. Everywhere I looked were people my own age, a lot of them looking nervous or unsure of themselves, some carrying boxes or cases of stuff, others saying goodbye to their parents with tears rolling down their faces, and suddenly I didn't feel so bad anymore. It really was like my therapist had said it would be in our last meeting -- everybody was starting afresh, nobody knew anybody else, nobody was judging anybody, people were arriving for their first time studying in college, their first time living away from home, and everybody was feeling scared and nervous about being accepted, even if they didn't show it.
Cheered, I headed into the administration building and gave my name to the gray-haired woman wearing glasses and a floral blouse sitting behind the reception desk.
"Brad Griffiths? Can you spell that?"
"Um, yes, G R I F F I T H..."
"Oh yes, there you are. Griffiths." She put a check next to my name on the list in front of her and stared sternly up at me. "I need to see your offer letter. Do you have it with you?"
"Oh. Oh yes," I said, opening my folder to search through it for the correct piece of paper. In my haste, I lost my grip on the folder, and all my papers spilled out onto the floor at the side of me. I heard some loud snickers coming from some of the students waiting in the reception area to collect their own dorm keys. I felt my cheeks turning scarlet, and stood frozen to the spot, waiting for the "what a dork!" comments. There was movement beside me, and then my pile of papers was placed into my hand. I was so surprised I almost dropped them again, and looked at the person who had bent to pick them up for me. It was a girl with short hair dyed bright red, dressed all in black and with several rings through each of her ears. By the time it had registered to me that I had been helped by somebody, rather than teased mercilessly like usual, she had gone, not giving me the chance to thank her.
The woman behind the reception desk was giving me a withering glance, obviously coming to the conclusion I was a total loser, and I swallowed as I handed the letter over to her. She looked it over before returning it to me with a key and a campus map.
"Here's your key. Your room is in Jefferson Dorms, room 318 which is on the third floor. Showers on that floor are cleaned on Mondays and Thursdays. You will need to leave twenty dollars as a deposit for your key..."
She spoke wearily, obviously having said the same speech several hundred times that day already.
I fumbled with my wallet getting out the banknotes to give her as she continued speaking.
"...And your roommate is Anthony Smith."
So that's who I'll be sharing with. Anthony Smith. Anthony Smith. I must remember that. It would be so embarrassing if I can't remember his name when I meet him for the first time. Anthony Smith.
"Has he arrived yet?" I asked her. She glared at me, as if annoyed with me for actually having dared asked a question.
She made a big show of flicking through the papers on her clipboard, before looking back up at me.
"I'm sorry," she said, not sounding in the least bit sorry. "I don't seem to be able to find his name on my list."
Stupid bitch.
I turned away from the desk, picking up my key and my folder of paperwork, and made my way outside and back to where my parents were waiting. The trunk of the car was open, and the boxes were all ready to be unloaded.
"I'm on the third floor of Jefferson Dorms," I said. "Room 318." There was some excitement in my voice. I couldn't help it. I actually was feeling a little excited, despite all my fears. As we walked over to Jefferson Dorms each carrying a box of my things, I kept imagining what my roommate might be like. I hoped he would be somebody I could get along with and not too different to myself.
We took the elevator to the third floor and found room 318. I opened the door to reveal my new home for the next year. It was a pretty basic room, but everything was there that the average student might need. There was a big window on the opposite wall as you stood in the doorway, then each side of the room had a bed, a desk, a small chest of drawers and a bedside table against the wall. Immediately to the right on the same wall as the door, was a wardrobe which was a generous size for two people. The room was completely empty, so obviously my roommate (Anthony?) hadn't arrived yet.
My dad had walked into the room in front of me and put his box of books, computer games and DVDs down on the desk on the right hand side of the room, so I decided to claim that side as mine. I stayed in the room and started unpacking my things and arranging them how I wanted on my side of the room while my dad made several trips down to the car to bring everything up. My mom stayed with me, trying to help, but she kept putting things in places I didn't want them, and I was scared shitless she would start exploring the contents of the bag I'd packed my lube and porn in, so in the end I asked her to go fetch us all a coffee from the cafeteria.
While she was gone I quickly stashed my lube and porn at the very back of the wardrobe, making sure they were out of sight, hidden beneath several pairs of old sweatpants. I didn't particularly want my roommate to find them, and I definitely didn't want my parents to!
By the time my dad had finished unloading the car and we had drunk the coffee my mom had fetched, it was quite late in the afternoon. My mom kept looking at her watch. I could tell she was wanting to leave. They had a long drive back ahead of them and wouldn't be home until after midnight. But neither of them suggested leaving. They just both kept looking at each other and then at their watches. I just carried on arranging my clothes in the wardrobe. Finally, my mom spoke.
"I would have thought your roommate would be here by now. I so wanted to meet him before we left."
Everything clicked into place then. That was why they were delaying their journey back. They wanted to see what my roommate was like, see who I was going to be living with for the next year. Maybe talk with him, find out if he was the sort of person they were happy for me to share with. Fuck! Maybe they wanted to talk with him to warn him about me. Ask him to be on his guard in case I...
But that was never going to happen again. I had promised myself that. I'd never let things get to me so bad again. They knew that, surely.
My mom made an impatient tutting sound with her tongue.
"It's no good, we shall have to leave. We're not going to get home until after one at this rate as it is. I'll just go to the bathroom." She left the room leaving just me and my dad. My dad cleared his throat awkwardly.
Oh no! A father-son speech. Usually my dad is on a par with the dad in `American Pie' with these.
"I just want you to know Brad that your mother and I are both very proud of you. We both think you're very brave moving here to study on your own after um...after..." he seemed to hesitate with his words before continuing. "...after um everything. Remember Abby has said she will help you if ever you need her to, just call her any time, day or night. And if after all this you decide this college isn't for you after all, then don't be afraid of calling us. We'll come fetch you, and nobody will think any less of you for not wanting to stay. We don't want you to start struggling with things and feeling like you can't cope again."
I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I realised the love my parents felt for me, even after everything I'd put them through these past couple years, and felt my dad's arms around me, hugging me tightly, protectively.
"Thanks dad" I sniffed as he released me from his embrace. I took my glasses off and wiped my eyes with the bottom of my shirt. He ruffled my hair affectionately. The door suddenly opened announcing my mom's return. She seemed a little distressed.
"Whatever's the matter honey?" My dad asked.
"I have just been in the bathroom and..." she shuddered dramatically, "...I think the last person to use the stall before me had been..." she lowered her voice to a theatrical whisper, "...masturbating!"
Whoa! I hadn't been expecting that! I don't think I'd ever heard my mom use that word before. It was a bit embarrassing if I'm honest.
"How did you work that one out?" My dad asked.
"How do you think I worked it out?" My mom snapped. "They hadn't flushed properly and they'd left..."
Oh. My. God! How embarrassing to hear your mother and father discussing things like this. I was starting to blush a little. But it got worse.
"Well what do you expect honey?! This is an all-male corridor. And it's hardly unusual for guys to um unload a little when they're left alone. I bet Brad will have his lube and `Playboy's out the second we're out of the door!"
Jeez! I think that was my dad's attempt to lighten the mood a little. Well that spectacularly failed. My cheeks were burning and I couldn't look up from the floor.
"Quiet dear, you're embarrassing your son," my mom said, noticing.
"Don't worry Brad, it's nothing to be ashamed of," my dad said.
"Can we just stop talking about this now please?!!" I pleaded.
"Sure we can dude. Your mother's just being old fashioned though. Seriously, you know we wouldn't mind you having the odd `Playboy' stashed in that wardrobe of yours. As I'm sure you have got."
So they thought I jerked off to `Playboy' did they? Well they couldn't be more wrong! I wasn't about to tell them that though. Maybe one day, but not now. Hell, they'd had enough to put with from me these last couple years, I wasn't about to spring that one on them just yet.
My mom gathered me in her arms and held me tight.
"Now honey you mustn't worry and you mustn't struggle on your own with things. You know you can call Abby if you need to, any time, day or night..."
"Yes, yes, dad already said all that mom."
"Sorry Brad, it's just I can't believe you're old enough to be in college! It doesn't seem that long ago that you were just a baby, and now suddenly my baby's all grown up!"
I think my mom was starting to get tearful. She squeezed me tighter. This would be the worst moment in the world for my new roommate to walk in, so I expected it to happen. I even looked toward the door expectantly, but, luckily, the moment passed. My mom wiped her eyes on a Kleenex as I said goodbye to my dad, and then they were gone leaving me on my own.
I was free! Well, independent at least. With them gone, the room suddenly seemed very quiet and very empty. My future roommate's (Anthony's?) side of the room was still blank and deserted. I wondered what time he would arrive. I crossed to the window and looked out. There were hardly any people still outside carrying their belongings up to their new dorm rooms.
Hurry up Anthony! I want to meet you! I want to know what you're like and if we'll get on. I really really hope we do. I don't want to be stuck with someone I can't get along with. Or someone who doesn't like me...
I sat on my new bed, thinking. I had literally begged my parents to allow me to come here. After everything that had happened, they'd wanted me to stay at home, live at home and go to the college in the next city, a fifteen minute car ride away. I hadn't wanted to. I'd wanted to get away. Get away from our town and all the bad memories I had. A clean break. Plus the courses here at this college sounded so good, and perfect for me. My parents had taken a lot of persuading. I think they only agreed in the end because my cousin Abby lived in this city so they knew I'd have family nearby I could turn to if I needed to.
I liked Abby. She was ten years older than me and when I was a little kid I'd worshipped her. I didn't have any brothers or sisters, and nor did she, so we had that in common. She'd always played with me at family dinners and weddings and birthday parties. It must have been difficult for her, this seventeen, eighteen year old girl with a little seven year old annoying kid following her round all the time, but she'd never sent me away. She'd always made time to play whatever dumb game I'd wanted to play with her. And now I was grown up too, we had become even closer, emailing, texting, Skyping...
She had really helped me after...after what happened, just by treating me normally, how I wanted to be treated. And when I'd first mentioned to her about coming to college here, before even I'd broached the subject with my parents or mentioned it to my therapist, she'd been really encouraging about it, and offered to help me out any way she could. Yes, Abby rocked. She had already offered to let me move in with her and sleep on her couch if I didn't get on with my roommate, but made me promise to try and stick it out with them in the dorm for at least a month first.
That makes it sound as if I don't get along with people. That's not true. Truth is, people just don't seem to like me. I don't know what it is about me, but people just don't. I must just give off a vibe or something that says "I am a major loser". I had never had that many friends. In elementary school it hadn't seemed to matter really. I had had two really good buddies then, Andy and Zack, and hadn't needed any other friends. The three of us had hung out together all the time. We were always at each other's houses, camping out, sleeping over, playing games, -- we did everything together.
Then we'd started middle school and hit puberty, and at first everything stayed the same. Oh sure, we didn't play `Cowboys and Indians' in our back yards anymore, but we'd still hung out together a lot. And I was starting to feel by that stage that I was different to other guys. I couldn't put my finger on what it was exactly, I just knew I was different. Then one night the three of us had stumbled across a cable porn channel while we were at Zack's, and, after a bit of initial embarrassment, we had all jacked off together while watching it. And that's when things clicked into place and I realised how I was different. I'd enjoyed that experience for completely different reasons to the other two. And, it was silly of me, I know, but I felt an even deeper connection to the other two after that. I don't know if they sensed it or not at that stage.
About that same time, I was starting to pull ahead of a lot of my classmates in terms of academic ability. I was getting full marks in all my homework, acing all the class tests, and people were starting to notice. And little snide comments about how smart I was were starting to be made here and there. And then little snide comments about how my haircut wasn't cool. And then slightly bigger snide comments about how uncool my clothes were. I didn't mind too much though, because I was friends with Zack and Andy and knew they would always stick by me.
Then we started high school and things started turning sour. Zack's parents got a divorce and he and his mom and his sisters moved away to a different state. It all happened very suddenly over the Easter vacation. That meant it was just me and Andy. I latched on to the safety of Andy's friendship. When I was with him, I wasn't getting taunted by anyone else at school, so it began that I would try to be with him as much as I could, until people used to joke that I was his shadow. He used to get a bit pissed by this, but I was oblivious to exactly how pissed he got. And I was enjoying spending lots of time with him. Slowly things were beginning to get clearer in my mind and I sometimes found myself wishing he was more than just my buddy.
We started our sophomore year of high school. Andy had started hanging round with some new people that summer, and we were in hardly any classes together. I was desperately trying to spend as much time with him as possible, to keep things how they'd always been. More and more often he would be hanging with his new friends and when he was around them he was...not unfriendly toward me, but he seemed cold somehow, like he was putting up with me because he felt he had to, not because he liked me.
Looking back, he must have felt more than a little suffocated by my presence, but at the time, I was stupidly oblivious to how he was feeling. My teenage hormones were all over the place, and I just knew I enjoyed being with him and that the bad shit I had to put up with stopped when he was around. I began to feel closer and closer to him, even though in reality we were drifting apart. He'd started hanging with his new friends more and more and leaving me on my own to endure the bullying more and more, so it made the times he did hang out with me all the more special.
Then, one day, I had had my locker broken into and my books scattered across the football pitch. I was walking around sobbing a little at the unfairness of it all, when suddenly Andy was there with me and helping me gather my books off of the ground. And when we'd picked them all up, he'd handed me the pile he'd been holding, and we'd been standing so close, outside on the football pitch with nobody else around, and I don't know what came over me, I just took the books off him and leaned in toward him with my mouth open. I felt his warm breath mixing with my own as I drew close. Then our lips lightly brushed together, and then he'd realised what I was foolishly doing, and he'd pushed me away from him with all his strength.
I'd fallen to the ground, dropping my books, and sat there, tears rolling silently down my face as he'd paced up and down and called me a queer and a disgusting fag and told me he wished he'd never met me, and if that was why I hung around him all the time I'd better stop. And then he'd looked me right in the eye and told me if I ever tried to hang out with him and his new friends again, he'd tell the whole school I was a queer and then my life wouldn't be worth living. He'd spat on me and turned away, and I'd continued sitting there, with my books scattered round me, wondering how someone I'd called one of my best friends for practically my whole life could turn on me like that.
From then on, my life at high school got worse and worse. I spent every hour of every school day enduring more shit than I care to remember. Name calling, pushing, shoving, being tripped up, having first "geek" and then "dork" and then "major nerd" spray painted on my locker, being given wedgies, having food flicked at me, chewing gum dropped in my hair, dogshit wiped on my jacket, the list was endless. The changing rooms were the worst though. There is no more helpless feeling than cowering completely naked in the corner of the changing rooms in front of a group of twenty or more guys who all got their kicks from seeing you suffer.
And Andy used to sometimes join in. That used to hurt the most.
My sophomore year finally finished and I began my junior year. There'd been a new kid start and I'd wondered for a moment if he would buck the trend and actually be nice to me unlike the rest of the school, but no, he joined in like all the others. He hadn't even known me a week before he'd decided I was a worthless loser.
As the days passed, I'd found myself getting more and more tired of it all, and more and more unhappy. I was starting to have panic attacks in the mornings before going to school, and on Sunday evenings I used to cry myself to sleep and wish, pray even, that I wouldn't wake up and have to go through another week of the torture. Finally, on October 29, after a Monday when I'd literally had no let up from the tormenting from the second I arrived for school till the second I was left naked shivering and quivering on the changing room floor with my clothes drenched with ice cold water from the showers hanging from the ceiling, one shoe in the toilet, the other thrown out of the changing room window after a full fifteen minutes or more of being pushed around and taunted about how skinny and ugly I was, I'd decided enough was enough, and, after arriving home, dishevelled and bruised, with my clothes ruined and one shoe still missing, I'd taken as many packets of Paracetamol from the bathroom cabinet as I could find, and swallowed as many pills as I could, forcing them down my throat with large swallows of water.
My mom had come home from work an hour earlier than usual and found me on my bed, a puddle of vomit on the floor beside me.
The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital, with my distraught parents in tears beside me, having had my stomach pumped. They'd both cried and shouted at me, and I'd cried too, but not because they were crying, or because they were shouting at me for having been so stupid, but because I was still alive.
Before I was discharged, I'd had to attend a meeting with a psychologist and a counsellor and agree to continue having counselling. Somehow, they'd gotten hold of a copy of the note I'd left on my desk for my parents and we'd talked a lot about my feelings and what I'd been going through at school.
I'd changed high school after that. I'd arrived on my first day full of optimism and feeling certain that at least here nobody would think I was a loser and a freak. By the end of my first week, it was almost as if I were back at my old high school. For some reason, everybody at my new school had taken one look at me and made their minds up that I was just this skinny worthless individual that wasn't worth being friends with, and I felt crushed.
Once again, I found myself subjected to daily bullying and name calling, taunts and jeers, but this time I felt stronger, even though I was still having occasional panic attacks when I thought too hard about it all. I knew however much they teased me and however bad I felt, I would never feel as bad as I had on October 29. I had my therapist to talk to, and a doctor too if I wanted, and I knew my parents were there for me. My therapist encouraged me to write down in a notebook how I was feeling whenever I felt things getting on top of me, to get things out of my system, stop me bottling my emotions up, and I found this helped me greatly to keep things in perspective.
During the summer vacation that year, I plucked up the courage to go to a tattoo parlor and had the date October 29 2007 (well, 10-29-07) tattooed on my right foot as a permanent reminder of the day things got too much for me. Some people might think it a weird thing to have done, and it's the one thing I never told my therapist I did, but I found it comforting to have it there to remind me that however bad things get, I had already survived worse in my life.
This summer, I'd finally graduated high school at last, and, as my mind moved on from coping with my daily torture, I found feelings that had remained hidden, dormant and suppressed for so long coming to the forefront of my mind again. The incident with Andy had put me off, maybe even emotionally scarred me, but I was finding it harder and harder to ignore the fact that when I looked at a pretty girl, I didn't get the same feeling as I did when I looked at a hot guy.
I'd finally confessed to my therapist and if she had been taken aback by my confession, she didn't show it. She said I shouldn't fight or question the feelings, but just let my body and my mind tell me what felt right for me. She spoke a lot of sense, my therapist. I would miss my regular meetings with her while I was here at college, but I had her number and could call her any time I needed to.
Right then, sitting alone on my dorm room bed, hundreds of miles away from home, I felt a sudden urge to hear her calming, reassuring tones. But it was late, she wouldn't still be at work. Besides, I could cope with this. Couldn't I?
I crossed to the window again and looked out. It was getting dark now and the parking lot was empty of parents' cars. From a room somewhere along the corridor, I heard the steady beat of music starting up. Anthony sure was late arriving.
I sat back down on my bed. From along the corridor came sounds of doors opening and closing, footsteps, doors being knocked on, voices and laughter as people introduced themselves. Nobody came and knocked on my door. I'm not sure I'd have had the courage to open it even if they had, I was too nervous of them taking one look at me, at my ugly face and my puny body and deciding I wasn't worth bothering with. All I wanted was for Anthony to arrive, to meet my new roommate, to know who I was going to be sharing with.
I listened to the sounds of parties starting up and people along the corridor getting to know each other as I sat on my bed waiting. The room got darker and darker but I didn't move to switch the light on. I checked the time on my cell. It was past midnight. My parents would be back home by now. Anthony should have definitely arrived by now.
What if he'd already arrived?! What if he'd seen me arriving and decided he didn't want to room with me?! What if he'd found out that I was a worthless geek and made up his mind not to room with me?! That must be what had happened. He must have known somebody from one of my high schools who'd told him. He hadn't even met me and he'd decided I was an insignificant nobody. Just like everybody else did.
But why though?! What was wrong with me?! Was I really that different to everybody else?
I was suddenly aware that my face was wet. I took my glasses off and put them on the bedside table beside me, and got out of my clothes.
Raucous laughter came from a nearby room as I curled up into a ball under my bedcovers, weeping quietly at the rejection from my roommate, who had obviously decided against sharing a room with me, without even giving me a chance to show him who I really was.