Kicked Out Ch 2
Hi, I'm Michael (michael.wapshot@gmail.com). You may remember me from previous chapters such as, uh, the first one. I really appreciated the outpouring of support for this story! You inspired me to get the second chapter up as soon as possible.
KICKED OUT
II. Flying Fortress
My toes weren't the only wet part of my dreams that night. When I woke up in the pale gray of the early morning, I discovered that I'd had one of those proper wet dreams sex ed scares you with. It was the first time I'd ever had one. Intriguing--but also inconvenient. I was very awake by this point and knew I would never get back to sleep, so I rose early, and went and washed my underwear before anyone else stirred, still in a dreamy haze.
Nat was putting his shoes on when I wandered in from breakfast.
"You were up early," he said.
"Have some," I said, smiling and producing an apple and a banana from my coat pockets.
"Hey, thanks." He glanced at me. "You O.K.?"
"I'm great," I said.
His eyebrows were unconvinced.
"What?" I said.
"No offense, Stockwell, but you look way too happy to be O.K."
"Jerk," I said, and went about gathering my things for first block chemistry.
"C'mon, you've gotta know you're...what would you call it..."
"Deadpan?" I suggested, probably still looking like a smiley face as I said it. Oh, the much-maligned smiley face symbol. I used to mock it, but I was pretty sure I'd seen a smiley face button or sticker or something up in Ender's room, and suddenly it had taken on a novel beauty to me--it was an icon of pure equanimity, et cetera. What can I say, if I thought Ender would like it I would have developed a new appreciation for Genghis Kahn, or earwigs, or Paul Anka. Even Dick Nixon the scummy warmonger wasn't looking so bad.
"Yeah," Nat said. "You're a pretty deadpan guy. You're still pissed about the bed thing, aren't you."
"Nope." I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder. "I'm over it, we're good. Am I not allowed to be happy? Maybe I got some good news."
"Like what, you found Jesus?" Nat said in the weary voice of someone who did not want to be awake at this hour.
I shrugged mysteriously and headed out.
"Hey," Nat was calling down the hall. "What's the big news, roomie?"
"It's not even eight, shut the hell up!" someone else yelled back.
I just floated along down the stairs, off in another world, and went to the library to read the morning papers.
My seat in chemistry was a couple tables ahead of Ender's, and I could feel his eyes burning on my back the whole time. I turned around a couple times, trying to prove to myself that he wasn't actually doing any such thing, but both times his eyes were waiting for me. He smiled broadly and twirled his pencil faster, looking every inch Napier's golden boy. All I could think about was that my toes had been in his mouth.
"This...does not look balanced."
"Huh?"
My deskmate Akerman tapped one of the equations we were supposed to be working on. I'd really done a hatchet job on it.
"Sorry, wasn't paying attention."
That was how it went all day.
In English, I stared at the back of Ender's head, which was one row over and three desks up.
In barbershop chorus, he was looking at me from the baritones, and I was trying not to look at him from the leads.
At lunch, I milled around wondering where the hell Lawrence could be (I could see Nat sitting with his friends, so it wasn't anything to do with him--perish the thought). Ender was lodged in a knot of cool guys. I wondered if I should go sit with the smart-guy/chess-club bloc, or with the guys from track who always sat with each other. I'd been switching off whenever Lawrence didn't come to lunch--which lately had been too often--but today neither appealed. I got along well enough with both groups, but they wore on me after a while. The smart-guy club was the tribe to which, on paper, I was most suited. But those guys tended to be too staid and self-serious for my tastes. As for the track team, I didn't have much in common with them, outside of our sport and a group slant toward introversion.
I was an outsider by nature. I enjoyed it, really--but the thing about it was that you required at least one other outcast on your side if you were to stay sane. I didn't just want Lawrence back, I needed him back. But nothing doing.
In the end I decided I wasn't that hungry anyway and wandered outdoors to sit under the great autumnal blaze of a red oak. It was brisk and rejuvenating, by which I mean it was chilly and gloomy and miserable. And I got mud on my pants.
In trig, I kept thinking about the pair of them. Ender, who took geometry and was--I was pretty sure--in woodworking right now. And Lawrence, who took calculus and was at present sitting in another section of Judd's English class.
In French, I thought about the guy in geometry, and the one who was now in his German class. And my stomach growled over and over again. Always in quiet moments, too, as if to publicly shame me for not feeding it at lunch.
In Latin I turned several times, trying to catch Lawrence's eye, but he was bent over his notebook for the duration and rushed off to his art history class right after. Ender was across the room and a little ahead of me. He turned and smiled once (I forgot my conjugations), but the second time he tried, Mr. Nichols barked, "Endicott, there is nothing behind you that requires your attention!"
In history, Ender passed a note from two seats over.
Right after swim practice 7:30. Forgot my book so you can't say I cheated:
There followed a list of the points I'd told him to memorize about the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
PS You don't like to look, you love to look
After school I pushed it until the last minute I could before heading to cross-country practice, looking for Lawrence around campus while I chewed on beef jerky from the student commissary--but I came up empty-handed.
Running got me into a clearer headspace, and I went straight to the library afterward for a history marathon. By dinner I was feeling very good about my prospects for the coming test. Lawrence avoided my eye from his assigned dinner table, and fled the dining hall as soon as his group was dismissed.
At 7:29 I was standing outside Ender's door. I looked at my watch, then knocked.
"You don't have to knock, you know," Ender told me, and pointed me to his desk chair this time. I noted that we were all alone this evening--and suddenly I wished Downing were there, if only to break the ice. But no. It was just me. And Ender.
Ender's hair was wet from swim practice, and a warm droplet that was probably half water, half sweat flicked onto my collarbone when he lunged across me to grab his history book. He sat right by me on the foot of his bed, just close enough to make me very self-conscious, but far enough away that we weren't really within casual touching distance. He planted his feet flat on the floor. Cracked open his book.
"So?" he said, glancing up.
"What?" I said.
"Pre-Civil War history. We gonna do this?"
"Sure, sure," I stammered, and felt a pang of disquiet, even fear. I didn't know what I'd expected, but it wasn't this clipped affect or newfound academic diligence. I took out my memorization lists and we worked straight through an hour, to my surprise. I'd never thought--not to be an asshole, I just really hadn't--that Ender could focus on anything for that long. If anything it was me who was falling down on the job. I could hardly stand it; Ender had never before acted so indifferent toward me. Toward anyone. He was the kind of guy who could be relied upon to at least act friendly, to smile a little. Even if he didn't like you he'd still meet your eye, clap your shoulder, be cool.
So I was now operating under the assumption that he hated me, and had only brought me back here to make me suffer. Oh God, that whole time the night before--he'd only been teasing me--he was never into it--for fuck's sake, he was laughing practically the whole time--laughing at what an enormous, perverted homo I was for him--how pathetically I worshipped him--oh God oh God oh God. What if he told everyone. What if he'd already told people. What would he tell them? That I was a fag? The worst part (well, no, not the worst part, but...) was that I'd be suffering the mockery of the entire student body for something that wasn't even true. Or was it. Surely not. I'd been attracted to girls since I was attracted to anything. Tits, hips, and soft lips. Surely getting hot for one single guy, practically out of the blue, didn't negate that. Right?
Oh God, he hated me. I watched him frowning as he turned a page. He hated me for getting him a little worked up last night. He hated me for not knowing when to stop a joke. For actually obeying when he suggested I rub him with my foot. I mean, who does that? Who falls for something like that?
I was such an idiot.
At last we broke for a drink. Ender didn't want anything. He sat there staring at the ceiling while I drank a Fresca. He didn't offer me anything stronger.
Then suddenly, he spoke: "What do you think, Spaulding, you think I'm going to do it?" And he looked at me and smiled, seeming to take pleasure in my confusion. "You think I'm going to pass this test?"
"Uh," I said. I was tempted to say yes just to end the session and get the hell out of Ender's room sooner. But I told him the truth instead. "Keep reviewing throughout the day tomorrow, actually do the outlines for the practice prompts I gave you, and yes, Ender, I'd lay solid money that you get sixty percent. At least. You're good at history, you know--you just have to focus."
And he was good at it. It had surprised me. Although I supposed he had said that history was the only class he was passing.
"So can I pull off the throttle some?" Ender said. "'Cause I am really reaching the end of my rope. I mean, with The American-frigging-Pageant."
"Uh," I said again, sounding like a moron.
He produced a joint from somewhere on his person and told me to get the Zippo from his desk drawer.
"Light me," he said. He wouldn't take my wrist, and my hand was shaking, but we got there. He wasn't making eye contact with me, and sat on the edge of the bed, blowing smoke.
"Want some?" he said at last, and didn't wait for an answer. "Close your book and put your stuff away first."
Jump, said Ender Endicott.
"O.K., now sit on the floor."
I obeyed, but with my face a little screwed up, trying to brace myself, because I was approaching eighty-five percent certainty that he might kick me in the head or something.
But instead Ender said, "Man, quit it with that mugging." And I looked up at him and saw him smile for what seemed like the first time in years. Wide and slow, like the crest of the sun broadening as it starts to rise over the savannah. Relief dawned on me as I sat at his feet.
"You've been acting weird all night, you know that?" he added--and I just about plotzed.
"Me! Hell no, you're the one who's been acting weird!"
"I was just trying to be more serious about studying," Ender said. "I thought it would impress you."
"Really?" One of my major organs melted. "I thought you were mad at me."
"No." He slipped into that low devil's voice with a smile to match. "I mean, I can get mad at you if you want, but I wouldn't've thought that was your thing."
He cackled. My heart skidded on the organmelt and went spinning. Holy shit. Was Ender talking dirty to me? And what was that instant switching thing he could do, suddenly changing personas? It was as if he were two, three different people at once. And I liked all of them.
"I want your joint," I heard myself say.
"So come up here and get it," he said, all smiles. I moved to get up but he put his foot on my shoulder and pushed me back down.
"Kiss it," he suggested with a salesperson's coax. Well, after last night it only seemed fair. I took his foot in both hands and kissed the bony ridge above his big toe.
"Lick it."
I hesitated, then tentatively licked that same spot.
"Oh c'mon, be a man, take some initiative," he said in mock irritation. Mostly mock. I tried to think fast, hoping to impress, and ended up sliding his big toe into my mouth.
"There you go," he said, and our eyes met, our smiles met. He rolled up his sweatpants to the knee and said, "Now lick up my calf bone."
He groaned when I started. I moved slowly up, reveling in the smooth surface under my tongue and trying to stay mute. Somehow I was fine with licking his leg, sort of fine with knowing I enjoyed licking his leg--but it was a bridge too far to make noise when I wasn't even the one getting the service. But for some reason I really did want to moan. Ender stopped me when I got to his knee. Dexterously put his foot on top of my head. Peered down at me. I could feel myself going red.
"Who am I?" he said.
"You're Ender," I said.
"No. Who am I?"
I sat there nervously for a second.
"You're...a winner."
"Stop thinking so much, Spaulding. Who am I?"
I blurted, "Ender, you're a stud."
He took his foot off me and dissolved into laughter, and I couldn't help but join in a little as he extended an arm to help me to my feet. Not that I knew what that was about, or whether the laughing meant he was pleased or that I was just laughable.
He stuck the joint back in his mouth and lit it again.
"Take it," he said. I reached, but he cheerfully swatted my hand away. "No hands."
I had no choice but to sit next to him and slowly, artfully lean in and pick it up from the side with my teeth, Ender's face so close to mine that it was warming my cheek. I leaned away again, examined the joint, then put the business end tentatively to my lips.
"Breathe out completely before you start. Also, pull in some air behind it."
That was the last thing I heard before everything turned acrid and retchy.
"Ha! Oh man, Stockwell, oh wow. Virgin lungs, never gets old." Ender was thumping me on the back and laughing. "It'll pass. Try not to hurl or anything."
I tried to focus on the warmth of his hand, which he'd left in the middle of my back.
"Wanna try again?" he said after a while, once my lungs had stopped trying to hack the life out of me. "Might not be as bad this time."
"O.K.," I said.
"All right, hang on, I wanna try something. Breathe out and stay still, O.K.? Then breathe in when I breathe out."
Before I could say anything he'd taken a huge toke and, grabbing the back of my head, he slammed his open mouth over mine. Lips on lips. His hands on my hair. My whole body went stiff. Every part. I realized I wasn't breathing, that I was supposed to be inhaling. I closed my eyes, trying to focus on the inhale--I ended up coughing into Ender's mouth several times, and he pulled his face away.
"Sorry," I wheezed.
"Nah, that never works," he said, and laughed. "It's just an excuse."
"For?"
"You know what for," he said, putting out the joint. He took my chin in his hand and traced my lips with his thumb, and my stomach flipped over. He pressed gently against my mouth, and I didn't have to be asked. I sucked his thumb inside. It was salty, and surprisingly soft--being in the water so much might do that, I supposed. He sighed and closed his eyes as I ran my tongue over his thumb. Put his other hand on the back of my neck. This was so surreal and I was so nervous and it was all such a turn-on that I was practically vibrating.
Someone was at the door, and I exhaled shakily as Ender slipped his thumb out of my mouth. Downing's knock was very disappointing, but also a bit of a relief. I'd felt almost as if I couldn't withstand another ounce of sensation in my body. Somehow it felt like even my bones were trembling. Hm. I had to wonder if I was buzzed after all. But, being a virgin to all of this, I had no way of knowing if it was the dope or Ender's touch that was making me feel that way.
(It was both, I can now safely say.)
"So, big test tomorrow," said Downing as he tromped inside. "No more evening study sessions, right?"
"Wrong," said Ender. "What do you think's next, Spaulding? Chemistry?"
"Sure," I said, hefting my bag over my shoulder, still very flushed from all that...stuff.
"Are you failing everything?" said Downing, but Ender ignored him and strolled into the hallway with me.
"Same time tomorrow?"
"Whenever you want."
Ender leaned close to me, closer, closer, until his mouth was pushed up against my ear.
"See ya," he said.
Once safely back in Wyeth Hall, I stopped off in my room for half a second to grab my shower things, and then went straight for the bathroom. Under the showerhead I tried to hold back, telling myself I'd regret deliberately getting off to Ender, but in ninety seconds I'd stroked myself to completion and then had to stand there scrubbing myself and trying to feel contrite and wholesome. I didn't though. I didn't feel guilty, let alone repentant--I felt happy.
I felt dirty, and it felt great.
The next day the history test was like a boulder in my mindflow, allowing few alternate streams of thought to pass. Even Ender stayed mostly off my brain.
I also didn't much have space to ruminate over my friendship with Lawrence, which I increasingly feared for. Lawrence had to be getting up really early to avoid me at breakfast, and had been bolting from dinner (at which we had to sit at assigned tables) the second his table was excused. I could've gone and knocked up his door--and actually, I had, but had gotten no answer or else his shrugging roommate--but I'd all but given up seeking out Lawrence in his room this year, as whenever I had he'd get sort of standoffish. Apparently he got to be the one who decided when and where we hung out, and it was never in his room. Not in mine, either, really (I supposed that was a privilege reserved for, cue eyeroll, Nat); he'd developed a sudden interest in recreational activities and now was always trying to hold our conversations over games of bocce ball or tiddlywinks.
I didn't mind this exactly, and Lawrence was known to fixate on certain things for a while, like ham radio or knot tying. It was something I liked about him, his funny obsessive need to develop the perfect whittling technique or commit to memory a series of amusing calculations that could tell you what day of the week any historical date had been. It was endearing. However, I could safely say that of his interests, this enthusiasm for things like horseshoes and badminton and lawn bowling, especially when he didn't seem particularly good at any of these activities, was my least favorite of all time. Lawrence generally didn't go in for such things, and was unathletic except when it came to archery. Yes, like with a bow and arrow. He'd learned at camp the summer he was twelve, and had a ribbon for accuracy in target shooting. We both took shooting for our first term bonus elective at Napier, at his suggestion, so I'd seen him in action and knew that he was very good. I had gotten decent by the end, myself. (Neither of us were good at the rifles--I wore glasses and Lawrence didn't like loud noises--and also, this was in 1968, and by that autumn nobody could really stomach guns anymore.) So archery would have been an entertaining alternate activity. But alas--Napier had closed our archery range last year for everyone except students in shooting classes, following an incident involving a contraband real arrow and a William Tell reenactment that lost an eighth grader a good third of his outer ear.
But anyway, the point was that I didn't know why we now always had to have set activities at all. I missed simply flopping down and hanging out with the guy. Get a turntable and something to drink and you're set, no lawn games necessary. But now I'd endure a hundred dull bouts of bocce ball if it meant he'd stop dodging me like he had been since Sunday.
At lunch I sat with the chess clubbers, unable to face another day of solitude, especially not when the weather was being such a miserable cold bastard. Things were quiet. The American Pageant was everyone's side dish.
Ender moseyed over toward the end and said he wanted to meet in the library tonight, because Greg was "being a whiny son of a bitch" about the prospect of getting evicted from their room for the third night in a row.
"Come on, man, you've got to admit it's unfair to him," I said. "You wouldn't like it either."
Ender shrugged and said, "Sure, but Greg wouldn't do that."
"Yeah, but imagine he did."
"But he wouldn't." Ender smiled. "So what's the point in imagining. Everyone knows I'm really busy; they stay out of my way."
"Yeah, but--" Then I thought better of it before we went in circles and said, "So, that one tutorial room at 8:30?"
"Natch."
I tried not to look at him too many times as he sauntered away.
"You're tutoring Endicott?" said Bruce Cabot, a bossy boy with a hoggish nose and a hairline that I suspected just might already be in retreat.
"Uh huh."
"Wow. Sucks to be you," said Bruce.
"Because?"
"Because he's a total dunce," said Bruce. "Goo-ood luck."
"He's actually not," I said. "Believe me, Graham Dorsey was a dunce. Just irredeemable. Ender's not--and at least he's nice."
From farther down the table, Tim Powell snorted.
"What?" I said.
"You just tried to explain common decency to him and his circuits overloaded. It's like watching a Neanderthal. `Pre-moral man,' or something."
"He's a god in the pool, though," said Tilden McHenry.
"Magnificent," Tim agreed.
"Well, he got Ralph expelled, you know," said Bruce loudly.
"Brenner got expelled?" said someone else.
"That's not what happened," I said.
"Says who, him?" said Bruce.
"Then what did happen?" I said.
Bruce shrugged and said, "Brenner told me Ender got him expelled. And I'll take his word, not the word of some jock who ought to be called `End_titled_'."
"Well who cares," I said. "I'm only tutoring him."
It hurt to say. I did care about Ender's honor, however irrationally. Even if he didn't have honor worth defending, I felt the perverse need to do it anyway. But I did actually believe he was worth defending. And not, I insisted to myself, because I loved the way our mouths felt on each other. I just had this strong feeling that Ender was a good guy at the core. It wasn't his fault that he'd acquired some bad habits from being spoiled at home--one could presume, given that his family was quite wealthy--and having his ego built up by sports-hero worship.
I opened my textbook to keep studying and tried to bury my pique in its pages.
In seventh block, Dryden's classroom went silent with dread when the tests went out. The report from the earlier history blocks had been grim.
Me, I was deep into my propulsive engine mindspace, my mind metal sharp. Nothing existed but the test. Although when I flipped immediately to the essay section, I couldn't help but smile to see the prompt I'd predicted on the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
I finished before the end of class, and although I had time to check my answers, I spared only a cursory glance over the first few pages. I hated checking answers. It made me question my instincts, not to mention made me want to collapse at the thought of going over the entire test again. It was done, it was dead, hallelujah. Ender looked up to smile at me as I went up to turn it in.
"Eyes on your paper," said Dryden wearily as he passed Ender's desk. "Spaulding, please don't dawdle up there."
I went back to my seat and thought about the sound Ender had made when I was licking his leg. God damn. With the anxiety boulder removed, my mind was free to flow where it would, and of course it flowed toward Ender. Along with what felt like half the blood in my body.
I put my head down on the desk and tried to cool my jets. But I got the sense that as long as Ender was my pilot, no jets were going to be cooled. No slowing, no stopping. No countermands. Picture a bomber plane blasting at full speed, shuddering unhaltable through the night until it reaches its target area and engulfs it in flames. The raid zone all aglow under the belly of my Flying Fortress, my metal frame of invincibility.
From above the scene looks beautiful, like a field of strange orange stars.
The library was very quiet ninety minutes before closing time, and even more so in the small tutorial rooms on the second floor. These were informally supposed to be for athletes only, and not the sort of athlete I was. The important sort of athlete. The ones who were going to get recruited, the ones who needed actual tutoring and not mere study space. I'd never had a reason to go in one before, but this was where Ender had wanted to meet.
"The one on the end," he'd said. "You'll know."
Had to be the one furthest from the flight of stairs.
I knocked.
"What did I tell you about knocking?" said Ender at a very library-inappropriate volume, although it was at least muffled through the door.
I stepped into a utilitarian space that was equipped with a pinewood table and matching bookcases (filled, it seemed, with more Cliff's Notes and test prep materials than actual books), as well as a couch that looked suspiciously as though it had been retired to this room only after it had gotten too worn out to occupy a dormitory lounge. The view outside was dark at present, but judging by where we were in the building, it likely offered an angle on the awful concrete slab of an auditorium they'd installed a few years back.
There was something satisfying about seeing Ender in these surroundings, though. This was a room of about the same vintage as my crappy dormitory, and I liked to see him sitting here as if he were any other hapless Napieran. Not out of some wish to have him put in his place; it was more like I was happy to verify that he occupied reality. That he wasn't just some fantasy hologram. I was also happy to see that he looked every bit as impressive even when outside his natural habitats of chlorine, athletic turf, and leather chairs.
"When you shut it, you have to push it hard til you hear a click," said Ender from his seat on the couch, chem binder optimistically open on his lap.
I turned and tried to push.
"It's not clicking."
"Yeah, that's 'cause there is no click," Ender said, and grinned. "I just wanted to check you out." Then he sounded almost pensive as he added, "You've got a really nice ass."
I stood there stunned. But my first thought was not, "Another guy just complimented my backside--what?!"
It was more like, "He really thinks I'm worth eyeballing? Me?"
Like I've said, I'd never conceived of my body as anything worth checking out. Although it was true that of all my body parts, my ass was the one I looked at least, so maybe I'd failed to ever appreciate it.
I was also stunned because I'd thought that Ender a., liked me as a person, and b., could see that I was hot for him, and that that was why any of this had started--because he was trawling for, you know...contact. The kind of contact that some guys start to seek when they're horny and stuck at a school populated exclusively by other guys. I hadn't even imagined that Ender might legitimately "like to look" at me. Or at any guy. But perhaps I'd been wrong.
"Switch off the overhead light, would you?" Ender said now.
I reached over to relieve the room of the fluorescent glare. Now the only light came from a metal desk lamp that looked solid enough to withstand a nuclear blast. This was decidedly more pleasant, if dim.
"Turn around again before you sit down," he said. So I did--casually, without even thinking about it. And then I took a seat next to him and began examining his problem sheet. I felt surprisingly unembarrassed, or weird. It felt good to be admired. Wanted?
Like I said, this whole time I'd assumed that Ender was engaging in the age-old practice of messing around with other guys out of desperation. Still not what you would call socially acceptable, but it was way more socially acceptable than overt faggotry. But this, this was odd. Unlikely as it seemed for someone as red-bloodedly masculine as Ender--I was getting the idea that he desired me. And not in a horny-and-up-for-anything way. In a deeply erotic way.
Ender, for me? Ender, for men?!
You'll have to believe me when I say sometimes I just know things. And not things like Ender being a good guy at heart or whatever--more specific things. I have this forceful axis of instinct that sometimes steers me straight in a certain direction, and I've learned to have faith in it. I actually relied on instinct a lot in school, for my brain did most of its work under the surface. It tripped me up in math a lot--just you try and show your work for steps that your mind zipped straight past in its journey to the answer. But it also applied to my personal life, and right then I knew with the intense clarity that meant my instincts were not fucking around that, absurd as it ought to have been, Ender Endicott was genuinely attracted to other men. Didn't sexually tolerate them--yearned for them. Although to what extent he consciously knew or accepted this, I couldn't say.
I did know he was no greenhorn, though. I mean, I could have told you that just from the sheer confidence with which he'd told me to rub him, lick his leg, suck his thumb. Sure, he was the kind of guy who was used to telling people what to do, but no one riding their first rodeo leaps straight into the stuff he'd leaped straight into with me. Not even if a girl had done it to him first. I couldn't really imagine a high school girl agreeing to suck on a guy's filthy toes, anyway.
No, Ender had been with guys before--my instinct was sure of it. (Ralph Brenner? Well, if I were--uh, well, if I were whomever they'd just replaced J. Edgar with, that'd be my first line of inquiry.) I didn't really know what to make of this information, but there it was, and I was inclined to believe it.
"How can this be wrong?" I heard Ender say, and all my attention flicked back to chemistry. I glanced at the equation, which was very basic; our chem class was a mix of regular students and those doing the work that would allow us to take the AP test if we so desired.
"Well," I said. "First off, you can't just change the subscript."
"Huh?" he said.
"The little numbers at the bottom right."
"Oh. But it balanced the equation."
"Yeah, it's balanced now, but you changed the substance from water to hydrogen peroxide," I said. "You see? That's why you can't change subscripts."
"Wait, is subscript the same as substance?"
"Uhh, no," I said, now fearing Ender's problems with chemistry ran much deeper than I'd anticipated. "Ender, you do follow the idea of atoms combining to make molecules and compounds?"
"Pretty much," he said, shrugging.
"What does `pretty much' mean?"
"God," he said, "chemistry is so boring."
"We just started," I said. Pleaded. "Do you get what a chemical reaction is?"
He reached over and started playing with my hair where it was the longest, around the ears.
I prayed, fruitlessly, that my face would not get hot, and said, "Do you understand that when you balance equations, it's to find the chemical ratios of the reactants and products in a reaction? Does that mean anything to you?"
"What's your glasses prescription?" Ender said.
"High," I said, and because I'd been through this a million times before I added, "Not right now, Ender, I can't see without them."
"Just for a second," he said, and pulled them off my face before I could stop him.
"Oh my God, Stockwell, you're blind," he said, as people always did. "Trippy!"
"Yeah, yeah," I said, squinting at him. "Now if I could get those back."
He pushed them to sit on top of his head and said, "I dunno about that."
"Ender, do you want to redo this problem set by tomorrow, or not?"
He reached into my lap to snap shut the chemistry book, dumped both book and problem sheet onto the ground, and then flung his binder halfway across the room.
I was gonna take that as a no.
"I still want my glasses back," I said.
"You can see at close range, right?" he said.
"Yeah, but I still want--"
"So come closer," Ender said, putting his hand on the back of my neck and quickly dragging me right up to him. I could barely breathe for my nerves. He squinted at me as if weighing something--and it wasn't chemical equations.
"Do you really want them back?"
"Yes." I truly did. If you have very poor eyesight, you understand just how naked and vulnerable you feel without your lenses.
"Get on the floor," he told me.
I slid off the couch and sat on the floor--very gingerly, as my depth perception was terrible without my glasses. Once down there, I went ahead and started rubbing one of Ender's socked feet.
"No," he said. "Higher."
Ankle.
"Higher."
Calf.
"Higher."
Knees.
"Spaulding, get wise," he said with a smirk in his voice. Damn, he was so magnetic. He was mesmerizing.
I put my hands high up on his inner thighs.
"That's more like it," Ender said. And I started to rub my hands up and down, on instinct. "Oh, yeah," he said as soon as I did. "That's right."
I went on massaging his inner thighs for a bit, and then Ender put his hand over one of mine, and I stopped.
"Touch it," he breathed.
I'd been moving as if in a trance, but now jolted a little with anxiety. I knew what he meant by "it." And I found myself obeying: I brushed my hand over his crotch, then back across the other way. And I had glancingly felt Ender Endicott's dick in the process, albeit through two layers of clothing.
Holy crap.
I took a breath and thought, O.K., I can do this. Not that I really knew what "this" was. I was taking it one step at a time--and now I was determined to take the next step before Ender had to tell me to. So I rested my whole hand over his package. Massaged it a little, then harder, rubbing over an ever-sharper outline...I could not believe this was happening, any of it...could this really be happening?...oh God, I had my hand right over Ender Endicott's hardening cock. Hot Christ.
I squeezed his concealed organ.
"Hell yes," Ender said, sucking his teeth, and it was like he'd said the magic words. My inhibitions collapsed.
I snapped into action, scrabbling at his belt buckle, breathing hard, fingers fumbling. I was spellbound, and I didn't, couldn't, stop to think; it was just happening. Ender put his hands on my shoulders, caressing the spot where they met my neck. I quickly reached down to adjust myself, and sort of undid my fly, but then forgot about my own body, too entranced by what was in front of me. I was pulling him out now, holding him in my stupidly sweaty nervous right hand. The shaft was so hot--was mine really that hot? Had I just never noticed before?
And oh shit, was Ender's dick big, and getting even bigger as I stroked him. Longer than me by at least an inch, probably more. And thick, so thick. I mean, Jesus Christ, he was altogether massive.
I licked my palm and was now slowly jacking off this huge cock in some kind of trance. I was completely walled off to anything and everything that was not Ender's dick. I couldn't even access my own thoughts. This was all just happening, and it kept happening. My God, my goodness. Oh my God.
I watched in fascination as I squeezed out a glistening bead of precum from the big blunt mushroom head. But that one drop was all that came up. As someone who started producing floods of precum pretty much as soon as I got in the mood, I suspected that my expectations were skewed. Still, it was dry country. Too dry, I decided, for my purposes.
I spat directly on the head and admired the sight of my saliva drooling down the shaft for a second before I kept jacking him, a little faster now. Then a lot faster. For a while there was hardly a sound except the wet skin-on-skin noises and heavy breathing, mine almost as much as his.
Then one of Ender's hands slipped behind my head. Drew me in toward him, pressing gently but insistently.
I froze, suddenly freaked.
Look, licking nonerogenous zones, sharing dope smoke, feeling around another guy's body: fine. Still within, I'd hazard to say, reasonable bounds of heterosexuality, if you accounted for the fact that we were sexually curious teenagers trapped in an isolated boys' school. Jacking off another guy...yeah, that was taboo, and obviously homoerotic, but even that was not necessarily a capital crime in the grand scheme of things. But this?
Do this, and you were a cocksucker. Even if you never did it again, even if it was "only for a second." Even if it was only for a laugh. You'd still willingly put a dick in your mouth.
I wanted to do it. I knew I did. But--
"Kiss it," Ender whispered.
O.K., I could do that. There was still room to back out if it was only a kiss.
But as soon as I put my lips against the glans I knew that it was a lost cause.
God, the head of his dick was so hot, so smooth, so furious red for me and because of me...blind as I was, I didn't even try to look up at Ender's face, but somehow I could feel him smile, like he knew I was a goner.
I put my mouth around the tip.
He moaned, running both hands through my hair. I swirled my tongue around the glans, then tried to take more in, but didn't get very far at all before I started gagging. His cock was really thick, and I'd always had a sensitive gag reflex, and also I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I was going to pull back, but Ender grabbed my head and held me where I was, so I just kept fighting the gag. Eventually the urge passed. I tried to move along like that a little, in fits and starts, but quickly hit a point where I was scared I might vomit if I pushed it. So I wrapped both hands around the shaft for safety and then started to bob uncertainly.
As I became more confident that I wasn't going to choke or hurl, I relaxed and allowed myself to appreciate how much I was enjoying this. Enjoying this? I know, right? It seemed crazy that I was enjoying it, but I actually was. Ender's hands were all over my hair, my neck, the sides of my face, and he was moaning uncontrollably, and I felt like the center of his universe right now. There was no better feeling. I wished desperately I could take more of his cock, because suddenly it seemed like I had never wanted anything more than I wanted to feel him at the back of my throat, to bury my nose in his pubic hair...the musky smell coming off him was making me absolutely crazy and I groaned around his shaft, flooded with sex hormones. I removed one hand to reach down and jam my hand into my underwear to rub my own aching, very wet hard-on.
I had never been so turned on in my life, and I barely had to touch myself before I was coming in my boxers.
In the aftermath of my sudden orgasm, I tried to regain my composure and my rhythm--but I absentmindedly let my left hand also drift off Ender's cock for a moment, and he took this opportunity to grab my head, hold it still, and start gently fucking my mouth.
My groan was louder than any sound I'd ever made in a library, and he panted, "Yes, take it, take it," which turned me on so hard. But as he rose up from the couch some, he started to fuck my mouth too deep, and when he staggered to a half-standing position I pressed my hands against his thighs in futile protest--he was going too hard and too fast and I was gagging horribly, tears streaming down my face.
It was soon over, though, as he heaved a final thrust. And started coming in my mouth.
Shocked, I tried to pull back--I was completely unprepared for this idea. But he forcibly held my head in place as he shot four more times, then gently pumped my mouth for a few more strokes. I accidentally swallowed some of his cum, even though I'd been trying not to. There was just too much of it, too little space in my mouth.
As Ender panted overhead, my own glasses fell onto my head and then somewhere behind me; he'd bent way forward and they'd slipped off his crown.
Finally he let go of me and stumbled backwards onto the couch. I patted around for my glasses, jammed them onto my face askew, and then dug through my bag for my handkerchief. By the time I found it, I'd had cum in my mouth so long I almost didn't care anymore, but I still spat it out with relief. It wasn't really that I was put off by the sensation of it--and even the taste was not the most outrageously offensive thing in the world (although it seriously could have used improvement). It was more that I'd had no warning and no say in it.
As we both zipped our messy selves up and preened, Ender said, "Hey man, sorry I didn't ask if that was O.K. at the end there, just...shit, your mouth felt too good. You ever done this before?"
I shook my head.
"Damn. You were good."
I kind of sensed he was lying, but hell if these words didn't make me feel great anyway.
As for the apology, well, God, I forgave him before he said a word, because looking over to see Ender Endicott watching me in his afterglow sprawl, smiling--I adored him.
He reached for his coat and extracted something from the pocket, then took a glinting swig.
"Come over here," he said. I glided trancelike up to him, and stood close, but Ender caught one of my belt loops with his thumb and yanked me yet closer. My breath caught in my throat. God, did my jaw ache, I suddenly noticed.
"Want some?" he said, sloshing the flask at me.
Sure.
"Hahhh!"--it was strong brandy, that burned as it went down.
Ender smiled, then put a hand on my flat lower belly. Rubbed it slowly, and pulled my shirt up a little to feel the warm skin and trail of hair ("Mmm," slipped from my mouth). His eyes were gleaming up at me. I had never been so attracted to anyone in my life. I mean, it wasn't even close.
But I tried not to think about that, and about what it might mean.
"Thanks," Ender said. I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded and took another swig. He gave my stomach a final pat and then stood up.
"Better get going before they start giving half hour warnings," he said. "So when's good for you?"
"For me, uh--sorry, what?"
"Next tutoring session," he said, taking his flask and knocking back another shot. "Wednesdays're bad for me, better make it Thursday if that works for you."
"I, uh, yes, that's fine," I said. I was struggling to switch into the mindset of tutoring, school, schedules; it was like beaming back down from another planet. "But wait--Ender, we ought to figure out how you're going to get any learning in. I mean, if things, uh. Well. We didn't get anything done tonight, and I think we should make sure we do. Get things done."
"Oh, something got done," Ender said, and laughed. I joined him, uneasily. I'd been nervous to say anything at all, lest I be presumptuous in assuming anything like this might ever happen again.
"O.K., how 'bout we swear to God next time we only do Chemistry?" he said. "Pinky swear?"
We linked pinkies.
"But you gotta be ready to be the enforcer, Spaulding," he added. "Book chemistry makes me wanna fall asleep."
He smiled and said, "Or no, scratch that, guess it makes me randy."
"Deal," I said, and smiled back as I helped him gather the chemistry stuff that he'd flung onto the floor.
As we were heading out the door, he reached down, grabbed my hand over the back the way paper covers rock, and squeezed. Then he strode on ahead. His touch had lasted only for a second, but a sunburst of joy rose through my chest, and I practically floated back to my dormitory. Like a total girl. But, I reflected, being John-Wayne-manly was clearly not high on my priority list right now, considering I'd also just sucked cock. So: whatever.
And fuck John Wayne's white supremacist ass, anyhow.
I washed my face in the bathroom before daring to slip into my room for my shower things, and it was good I did. My suspicion that my face was a wreck proved correct. Not only was there dried cum on my chin and around the corner of my mouth, but my skin was sticky and weird-looking from all the drool and tears. My eyes were still a little puffy, but I didn't know what I could do about that. Maybe Nat wouldn't notice.
But "Whoa, what've you been doing, crying?" was the first thing out of my roommate's mouth. He was normally so fucking unobservant! Of course he'd pick tonight to become Sherlock Holmes.
I fake-coughed and said, "No, I was coughing."
"Getting sick?"
I fake-coughed again. "Uh, nah, it was just dust."
"Dust?" Nat said.
"Jeez, what's it to you?" I said.
"All right, all right," he said. Then smirked. "Feeling good, are you?"
"Huh?" I said, a little spooked.
"Spaulding, are you stoned or what?"
"Oh, I--yeah. I am. How did you know?"
Nat snickered.
"Mister Serious, all spacey with red eyes? Pfft, yeah, I bet you were coughing. Come on, man. So how is it?"
"How's what?"
"...Maybe that answers my question," he said.
"Oh, right, shit. Yeah. It's good. Uh, you ever done it?"
Nat nodded and said, "Coupla times. It was pretty fun I guess. The first time I don't think I felt anything though. But the second time I got all warm and tingly, and relaxed like I was falling asleep but didn't actually need to fall asleep. And of course I was laughing at the dumbest things. I don't think my cousin had the best dope or anything, though. It was pretty skunky."
"Uh huh," I said, barely listening as I dug for fresh underwear.
"My cousin said it got him all horned up. I didn't really feel that, though."
"Yeah, me neither," I said, only vaguely aware of what I was saying. In part because I was remembering the evening's events and getting, in fact, all horned up at thought of them.
"All right, all right, I'll leave you alone," said Nat, laughing. "Talk to you tomorrow, guy. When you get your brain back."
If my brain ever did come back. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was all body: sweating, panting, coming, moaning, body.
Je pense J'ai de la semence, donc je suis.
I went to go have a shower, and I came again under the hot water, dreaming of the hands that had been on my head and neck and shoulders drifting down to touch me, touch me--they were touchtouchtouchingme.