Tales of a Young Mutant 5
Tales of a Young Mutant
Chapter 5: Logan's Inquiry
Logan and I entered one of the school's elevators, and he pressed the button for the basement floor. A computerized voice asked for a password, and Logan pressed in a code on the keypad beneath the floor buttons.
"Confirmed." answers the computer and the elevator begins its descent. I am SO nervous. I can't believe this. I'm so excited, yet so scared. We arrive on the basement floor and my eyes widen. This is like nothing else I've seen in the entire mansion. This whole floor is made of steel or something. And all of the doors are automatic X-shaped double doors.
Logan leads me to one door in particular, which I figure must be the exercise room. The door opens and inside it's like going to the gym. There are a variety of exercise equipments, weights, treadmills, and such. Logan tells me what I'll be using, that we'll stretch, use some of the equipment, and then finish with a run around the track outside on the grounds of the school.
"First, though, we need to get a change of clothes." says Logan. "There's a locker room, which has gym clothes and jocks for the team. Men and Women separate, of course. Also, there are showers in the locker rooms, and we should catch one after our run."
"A...shower?" I ask.
"Yeah, a shower. What are you afraid of the water, kid?" jokes Logan.
"Um, no, never mind." I answer. I'm just afraid of you slicing me up if you catch me gawking at you in the shower.
We go into the guy's locker room, and Logan shows me the lockers. Scott he says has already picked out a locker for me, which is conveniently located next to his. There are gym clothes and a jockstrap already inside.
"Don't ask me why, but Scott said we should be put right next to each other." said Logan as he started to strip down and change into his gym clothes. Just changing right in front of me, like nothing unusual, and I have to concentrate on looking away from him and change my clothes so that I don't get hard watching him and so that he doesn't smell it and slice me up for gawking at him. He does, however, to my relief, turn his back to me as he changes. Now I can watch him and change at the same time. I can't help it. He first strips off his shirt, revealing his muscular, hairy arms and back. He strips next of his pants. He isn't wearing any underwear! There's no tan line, just a perfect firm, hairy bubble ass. He puts on his jockstrap, then puts on his gym shorts and shirt. When he looks back at me, I'm already fully redressed in my gym clothes, so he ushers me back into the exercise room.
There's a mat on the floor next to one of the walls. we stretch there, then we get started on the treadmills. We're running at a speed if 5 miles per hour for a half hour. Then we get started on the other equipment. He teaches me how to use the weights, and we do that for a while. Then he spots me while I bench press. Then we go for 30 minutes on the exercise bikes.
Finally our two hour workout is over. The last thing we do is take a few rounds around the one mile long track. The whole time we've exercised, Logan talked and directed me through the exercises, but now on the track, something seemed to be bothering him. Like he's distracted by something.
"Logan? What's wrong?" I ask, not wanting to pry into his head for the answer.
"He slows down, then stops, and I do the same. "Kid, can I ask you so meting?"
"Sure, ask away." I reply.
"Why?"
"Why what" I ask
"Why are you gay?" he asks.
"Huh?"
"I've known for a while now. The times you got hard around me and I smelled it. And how you've been excited, yet afraid to be near me. LIke you found me attractive, but was afraid of me cutting you up or something. Which I'd never do. And the way you look at some of us guys here. why are you gay? How did you just decide to be that way?"
"It wasn't exactly like it was a decision. Logan, gay people are born gay. I didn't choose to like guys instead of girls."
"But ...how?"
"I don't know. I guess...it's like...being a mutant. We are born with special powers and abilities. We don't choose to be mutants, but we were just born so, and we can't change it. It's the same with being gay. It's not like I never tried to be straight. Girls have never really appeared attractive to me, but men always have."
"So what about bisexual guys?"
"They don't choose to be that way either. It's not their fault they like both men and women. and it's not like it's something to be at fault for."
"But I thought gay guys just were guys who like to have sex with other guys or were all very girly."
"There are a lot of masculine gay guys out there. It's just like any other person. There are masculine gay guys, masculine straight guys, feminine gay guys and feminine straight guys. and the same for women. And there are a lot of gay people who actually look for love in a relationship. Besides, I'd hate to see the gay porn industry if all gay men were feminine." I cover my mouth as I realize what I said.
"There's a gay porn industry?" Logan asks, bewildered.
"Forget I even mentioned it." I reply. "Um, Logan, you don't hate me now or anything, doyou?"
"No, of course not. I understand now. About gay people and stuff. And I don't think any less of you."
"Thanks." I say. "Um, Logan?"
"Yeah kid?"
"Why'd you want to know? About gay people that is?"
"No reason, just curious. I've seen gay people and stuff before, but never anyone so young." he answered.
"You don't have to be old to know what you want." I reply. I worry that that sounded like a pick up line, but before I could expand on that, Jean yelled out looking for us.
"What is it, Red?" Logan yelled back.
"The professor wants Joshua to start training to control his powers in the Danger Room."
"Okay. I'll bring him in. What kind of uniform?"
"One of the black spandex ones. You just choose whatever." she answers. She turns to go back inside, then turns around and asks, "Joshua, did you pick out a code name yet?"
Uh-oh! I knew I had forgotten something. I try to think up a good code name, and then it hits me. All of my powers, save the healing factor, are psionic. So I choose the best name I can think of to fully capture that psionic power theme. Psi-Kid? No, how about Psi-Man? No. then I finally get the perfect name.
"Psyche." I answer.
"Okay, I'll tell Scott and the Professor." she says, then runs back inside.
Logan and I go back to the locker room, where he ushers me into the shower room. It has 6 shower heads, 3 on each of two opposite walls. I try all of the ones on the wall opposite of the wall Logan chose, but all of them were broken. So I tried the one farthest from Logan. It was busted, too. I had to take the only other working shower head, besides the one Logan was already using, which was right next to his. I tried to shower as fast as I can, to hurry up and get clean. I avert my gaze away from his rippling hairy muscles. I could swear someone was watching me, but every time I looked at Logan, he wasn't looking at me. I finish first, followed by Logan. We towel off, and I put on my underwear. Logan has a pair of his own, which he puts on.
"That's all the clothing you need kid. Now it's time to suit up." There's a hidden door in the room. It leads to another room full of nothing but X-men uniforms. Some are more colorful than others, some are rubber, some are leather, and of course we stop at the spandex ones. Logan hands me one of the black spandex ones. It is skin tight. I figure that this is to allow for free range of movement. It's basically plain black, with a blue X theme. The top half has a huge X on the chest, with an X within an X pattern on the shoulder and gloves, and blue X's on the knees and on the center of the belt line.
Logan selects one of the suits specialized for him. A seemingly standard suit, similar to mine, except that while mine is a one piece bodysuit, his has a body suit that covers only his torso and his legs only. Then there were boots, gloves, and a belt. His giant chest X is yellow, the part from the waist down resembles yellow pants with black briefs to cover them, and he also has a yellow and black mask. His gloves are black with yellow X designs.
Now that we have both suited up, Logan led me through another secret door, hidden behind one of the X uniforms. The door led to the basement level's hallways. We went through the halls, stopping at one of the doors in particular-- The Danger Room.
Why did Logan ask Joshua such a personal question? Is there more to Logan than it seems? Be on the lookout for the next chapter of Tales of a Young Mutant!