Taste of Power by: Krazytop ---
Part XI
"Don't you know it is disrespectful to wear a hat in a room with an American flag?"
"It's not a hat; it's a beanie."
Mr. Andrews and I stare at one another for a few moments. The bell rings to start class, and people fall deathly silent, watching Mr. Andrews as he puffs up his chest.
"Take off whatever it is, lest I put it where the sun don't shine—in my drawer." Scattered, feeble laughter jumps around the room, and Mr. Andrews breaks his gaze with me. "What—I've been cracking jokes all year long, and all I hear are crickets. That's what you find funny? Hat please."
I pull the beanie off; static clings between the wool and my thin hairs.
With my new hair style and Zane's yin-yang earring now revealed to everyone, I get some eye-popping looks, and some smirks too. The class can't seem to make up its collective mind. Again, there is weak and dispersed laughter, but mostly, people simply look disapproving, or even lost.
Cynthia mutters something to Damerae, whose expression is notably blank.
Zane nods at me, his eyes glinting.
"Well," Mr. Andrews says, "Congratulations. I've never seen so many dress code violations at the same time. The hat, the earring, the necklace, the wife-beater—you know where those get their name, right? Next time you want to see your counselor, don't be ostentatious about it. Just head straight there."
He gestures to the door, and I know he means to dismiss me.
As I head out, Zane leans out of his seat to smack my ass, but by this point, Mr. Andrews has turned away.
I am sick of feeling like this.
I ditch the counselor and head to the bathroom, my feet clopping against the tile floor, the hallways empty and darkened now that class has started.
I try to remember.
Saturday and Sunday are a blur.
Abandoned. Naked. Hated.
Chris—who used to be so friendly to me.
After Calvin and I had grown out of one another, but before I got to know Hiro well, I was something of a loner. It wasn't as bad then as it had been recently, but I was still something of a wayward soul. Chris was usually good for a funny face and a fist bump and a nod.
He would grab my shoulder and smile and ask me how I was doing when he saw me. I knew he did that to most people he knew—but something in his eyes always felt so warm and real. We traded sandwiches before he started bringing lunch money. He'd given me a ride on a few occasions, and stopped at the Smoothie Shack on the way home. I remember feeling so embarrassed, my heart thumping, as I reminded myself over and over it wasn't a date.
Everything changed once he knew I liked him.
The last few weeks I would be lucky to feel the brush of his hand on me. I close my eyes, thinking of how his body would feel against mine. A tear escaped my interlocking eyelashes, running down my face, fleeing far, far away from my hazardous brain.
Zane is right. I deserve better. The bullshit pranks where I run half-clothed or naked through the forest—I was lucky to sneak inside through my window without my parents going nuts. Enough is enough. I get that he doesn't love me like I love him, but if he knows he never can, then he needs to come clean and cut me off. It sounds brutal, but if he could never love me, it's inevitable, and things will only get worse.
Why do I feel this way about him? WHY? Am I insane? Am I literally the stupidest person in the whole world?
And Zane. I'd hoped he would be better, if only because I wasn't crazy about him. But I told him—looked him in the eye and TOLD him—I needed affection. And he commanded me away still, without so much as a hug goodbye.
Why still follow his orders?
I take off my shirt and glare right at the mirror. Each day, my muscles look indiscernible from the day before. Yet I know they grow, because I remember when I had a coat of thin fat there. With that gone, and my definition peeking through, I'm starting to look like one of the guys, one of the guys I can never be...
I turn around and swivel my neck. My earring glitters in the light. I see the black lines of the tattoo on my back. A jagged heart with a circle inside it. Zane had written the letter Z in the circle when Chris stopped him.
I smirk.
I'm sick of them arguing. I never thought that resigning could be this drawn out and dramatic. I feel like all my life, people have been pushing me down. People, who exist in this perpetually frustrated state, though they may not know why or even acknowledge it, jostle with one another for status—like Chris does, barking at me to stay down, then acting like it's depressing and unseemly when I do.
When people think about me, they focus on how I can help them toward success. To them, I am somehow an afterthought in my own life. And now, finally, when I decide to just stay down, it just makes people madder because they still want to push me, but they can't figure out where.
So they hate me.
Maybe it was easier when I was alone and sad, and could just fantasize about finding a guy who loves me. Instead each day kills another shred of hope that anyone ever could.
I'm addicted to the game, though. It pains me to move—to push the checker or spin the wheel or draw the card. It's meaningless; it's inevitable. It crushes me to be withdrawn from those I love—but I have to make another move.
Damned if I do; damned if I don't.
Life fucking sucks.
Another tear sneaks out.
I want to be a man. I keep working and getting stronger, but everyone thinks I am this little bitch. I don't want to be weak.
What is wrong with me?
Maybe it's time for some sad stop block.
I need to look at the world sideways—and find a way to laugh.
I splash some water on my face, trying to gather my mind—that's when I see his eyes in the mirror.
Green. Narrowed. Icy.
Zane.
"How are you?" he asks.
"Peachy," I mutter.
"Was it fun, sticking it to Mr. Andrews?"
"Not as fun as I'd hoped."
He walks up behind me, draping an arm around me and blowing into my ear. "Then how about we have some fun of our own?"
I shrug him off. "I TOLD you, Zane. That I need affection. I crave it. And still, you sent me away alone, right after you fucked me."
"That's not what happened, coin. I was trying to hold you after I fucked you—and Chris pushed me away. Then HE ordered you home. Chris is trying to drive a wedge between us. But the thing is, I'm pretty sure you like the wedge that's already there."
He grabs my hand and pulls it to his crotch, and I feel his hard-on under his jeans.
"Zane..."
"Get in the stall," he growls, pushing me sideways.
I stumble toward the toilet, and Zane pulls the blue half-door shut behind us, latching the metal lock.
"We're at school!" I say, my tone cutting.
"Do you think I care, faggot?"
He clenches my head with both hands.
"Do you have to call me a faggot?" I say, looking into his eyes.
"Chris called you a bitch. He wrote in on a piece of paper for the whole team to see. Is that better?"
"I don't know," I say, hoping Zane won't notice the tear fleeing my eyelashes. "Maybe."
He lets go of me, staring me down.
"For a word to be offensive, you have to fear its power."
I shake my head. "The word has power--whether you fear it or not. It has centuries of power—centuries of people slaughtered--burned alive--because they are what they are."
"So what then? You come up with a euphemism for it, such as homosexual—then after a while, that will become offensive, because it is clinical. Another word perhaps? One that means happy and jovial—such as gay? Not long till that becomes an insult as well. You can follow the political correctness of words like fashion, and you can impress people with your attentiveness to trends, but sooner or later you have to find something more important to you, or it will hollow out your soul. Most people that keep track of that bullshit are condescending, pretentious sheep. You are what you are, Travis. If it offends you to hear it, maybe that just means you still hate yourself. Maybe it means you are still afraid of what you really are."
I feel the sting at the edge of my eyes, and Zane coddles my earring.
Then, he plays with my hair. "The truth is--you are my faggot, Travis. You aren't just a homo; you aren't just gay—you crave sexual enslavement and social destitution, and most of all, you crave it from me. You like being on the weak edge of a chain of command. You like being shackled by power. YOU ARE MY FAGGOT. Whether it sounds nice or not."
He tightens his grip on my head and slams it against the stall wall, disorienting me.
"Chris wants to take you away from me. But we aren't going to let that happen, are we?"
I shake my head, my nose scrunching up against the stall wall.
His wet lips graze my ear. "Faggot pussy position."
I can't get on the ground, with him holding my face against the wall, so I unbutton my jeans and roll down the jockstrap, shoving my ass out slightly.
He dips his hand in the toilet and I look on, dazed.
He coats my hole with toilet water; he jacks some onto his cock.
Then, with no further fanfare—he shoves his cock into my ass.
I wrench and gasp. He holds me tight.
His cock goes in roughly. I can feel the friction.
He nibbles on my ear. "I'll push you further day by day until you can take it dry. You should have seen how some of the prison boys liked it. God."
"Zane—" I whimper. "You never...gave me my bag of stuff back." He had my wallet still too, but I didn't want to push it.
"You'll get it back at wrestling today, bitch."
The two previous times, Zane really drew out the endeavor, slow-rolling his own pleasure. But this time, perhaps out of fear of getting caught, he wasn't patient or teasing or varied in his movements. He was out for one thing.
I could feel it in the FUCK, FUCK, FUCK of his abs against my bare ass, as his cock plunged deep inside, making me feel things in soft places. I could feel it in his teeth sinking deep into my neck, harder than usual, with a visceral glee.
"Say it, pussy," he says. "Look into my eyes and say it."
"I'm your faggot," I say, craning my neck.
"Aint that the truth," he snarls. He slaps my ass so hard that it stings. "You'll take my abuse however I want to give it to you. Isn't that right? You are my PUNK—my CUNT-FACE?" He punctuates each of his words with a deep, flaring thrust. His breathing grows louder and louder as he chews on my ear, snarling as he holds me tightly, stamping out any lingering restraint. "Take it. TAKE IT. TAKE IT FAGGOT!!!"
Zane's word from before reverberate in my mind.
"Listen to me. Chris and Calvin aren't your friends. They never were. I don't want you to play along with their bullshit anymore. If they talk to you—tell them all the crap that a part of you always wished you had told them. You got that?"
I could give Calvin a piece of my mind, but something always daunted me about Chris.
As the day slogs on, and wrestling practice rolls around, I decide it's time to remedy that.
Especially when Zane gives me my bag from the hotel and nods in Chris's direction.
I walk slowly toward Chris's locker, hardening my resolve.
"Chris," I say softly.
He works the dial on his lock.
I push him against his locker. "Listen to me."
He turns toward me, his eyes like fire. "Are you serious? Are you for real?"
He swivels me around at lightning speed, and suddenly I'm the one up against the wall.
"You think you are so bad-ass now," he growls.
"I tried being nice, and you walked all over me. Now I'm trying something new. You think you are some kind of hotshot, calling me a bitch in front of a bunch of backwards boneheads, discarding me naked at your leisure. You might have a special place in my heart but that doesn't mean I can't cut my heart out if I need to. I can be fierce—like Zane."
"One Zane is quite enough," Chris says, relaxing his grip on me.
"Why though? Why treat me the way you do?"
Conflict etches across Chris's face.
"Usually everything is so clear to me—I jump from one conquest to another; it's all mapped out; it's all a great show. God knows the masses have their expectations. But sometimes with you, I'm like an actor on stage without a script. So I improvise."
"You won't always be handed a script, Chris. Would it be too much to ask you to admit that you care about me—even at all? In your own damn words?"
Chris pulls off my beanie.
He holds me for a second—but there is a hesitance to it, a kind of distance that I can't explain. "I know Zane's trying to craft you into his personal freak slave," he says, his mouth twisting as he looks at my earring, "but there is a reason you feel comfortable with me. There is something to be said for being normal, Travis. It shows you have social skills. Caring what people think can be good because people like it when what they think is valued. Maybe people even deserve it. Sure, norms can be arbitrary, but they make life easier for people—more efficient. I know it can be fun to shake things up a little. It even can be necessary, to keep the world turning, to centrifuge the champions from the posers—but if you push back too hard against society, you find yourself alone. You go crazy. And what will you accomplish then?"
I frown. "Do you think I am crazy?" I ask softly.
"A little bit," Chris says. He opens his locker and strips down.
I shake my head. "Sometimes I don't know what to do or say when I am with you. I feel like I am pinned in place—lifeless—trapped—like one of the butterflies in the bio lab...and I just want... to be appreciated the way I am."
He looks away.
It's too hard to watch him. I rip my gaze away and turn to leave.
When I'm lifting weights, Coach berates me about the earring, and I'm forbidden from wrestling, or even showering, until it's removed.
That's perfectly alright, however.
I can clean up at home.
The walk home is slow. I hear my footsteps echo into my head, followed by words.
I hear Zane's voice first. "There is a duality in life—conformity and subversion—and both are sexual, because they are in eternal competition. Competition and sex are just about the same thing: self-affirmation; the proliferation of success and culture and ideas. It is about domination...submission. If you look back, it is an act of pitiful defiance. When I command you to look back, it is an act of inversion. You don't know what it means... That you haven't been made worshipful enough. That you haven't been humiliated enough. That you haven't been pushed low enough. And that little touch of rebellion makes your desires real... They can't quite understand why they hate you; they want to believe they aren't bad people, but nothing relaxes them as much as cracking a joke at your expense; at keeping the status quo right where it is with them up high in society and a faggot like you at the bottom."
Chris's voice rings back. "You trying to steal my friends? You want a piece of my status...I would say—I am just nice enough so that people let me be mean to them... I fuck girls, not guys, and having you even thinking about me like that undermines who I am...I get that you think you are above the law, but I never understood that you thought you were above everyone—your fucking majesty—king of the white trash...Open-minded...the new word for hypocrite."
Two-faced. Two sides to the same coin.
In some ways, Chris and Zane are so different, but in others, they seem the same, just reflected—like sunlight on water or eyes in a mirror.
It's like when you wake up and you wonder how you could have believed a dream that was built on so many contradictions, yet made perfect sense for so long.
Maybe the next night, you forget what it ever meant to be awake.
The shower can only wash away so much.
RAPPITY RAP RAP.
I dry off and throw on clean clothes.
RAPPITY RAP RAP. RAPPITY RAP RAP.
I make my way to the door, sighing, and open it slowly.
"Calvin?"
"Let's go for a walk," Calvin says.
He isn't mad. Even after I ditched him on the bus and went off the deep end, he still isn't mad.
"Fine," I say, looking into his deep, twinkling blue eyes.
Calvin leads me into the forest, and we walk along for a few minutes in silence, our shadows growing longer and greyer as the sun falls.
"There's been something I have been meaning to tell you, Travis," he says.
"Go for it."
Crickets and frogs sing as dusk lingers.
Calvin sighs. "The reason I stopped hanging out with you—is because my parents told me to."
"How could they have known I was gay back then? I didn't even know," I whisper.
Calvin shakes his head. "They didn't. It's because they found a stash of letters I had written—and never sent. Letters to you, Travis."
I stop for a moment. "Letters about what?"
Calvin smirks. "You know—children's games—fantasies—those sort of things."
I shake my head at him. "I'm not quite sure what you are getting at."
Calvin clicks his tongue, bobbing his head towards the turn he is about to make. He diverges from the path and I follow him.
"Chris's backyard?" I ask.
"Yeah," Calvin says. "Chris and Zane sent me to get you. They didn't tell you what's going on?"
I shake my head.
"Well, that makes two of us," he says.
He opens the doors to the cellar and I follow him inside.
There they are—shirts off—ripped as ever—playing a game of Big Bang Brothers.
Chris and Zane.
"Hey, the star of the party is here," Zane says.
I overcome the urge to swallow.
"What's going on?" I ask, looking him in the eye.
He pauses the game, lets the silence eat away at everyone for a moment, and then stands up. "We are going to have a tournament—that is, if you agree to the terms."
"I am no good at that game."
Zane smirks. "No--not a video game tournament. We figured, now that you are a part of our weight class, you should be practicing wrestling against the rest of us. Coach stopped the ladder drill where we wrestle teammates ever since you moved into Damerae's spot. We think Coach is afraid that you can't wrestle a guy you have the hots for. But if you want to get good, you have to practice with the best."
"What would I be agreeing to?" I ask.
"Two rounds. People draw straws for the first round," Zane says. "First-round winners face-off at midnight."
The cellar is comatose with quiet. A chill runs down my spine.
Zane holds out a cup and I pull out a straw.
Red.
Zane and Chris pick black straws. Then Calvin picks the last straw—also red.
Zane frowns. "Look like we get the championship round a little early. But anyway—I'll explain how it works. Since Chris and I picked black, we wrestle. The loser has to be the other one's slave till midnight—no homo. Since Calvin and you picked red, you also have to wrestle, and the loser also has to be the other one's slave till midnight."
Calvin frowns. "You didn't say `no homo' that time."
Zane grins. "Right, well, since Travis is a homo, that part doesn't apply. If you beat him, you get to do whatever you want with him till midnight. ANYTHING you want."
Calvin looks at me. "I don't think Travis is going to put out just because he loses a wrestling match."
Zane pauses, letting the silence gnaw away at me. Then laughs heartily, his eyes gleaming as he steals a glance at Chris. "I can demonstrate, right?"
"I was thinking of ordering pizzas anyway," Chris says, grimacing. He bumps shoulders with me as he passes me for the stairs.
"Pizza?" Zane asks incredulously. "You know I can't eat pizza during the season."
"I'm sure I can find some cucumbers or something for you," Chris says flatly.
I hear the stairs creak as he walks out of sight. My heart is thumping fast. Chris doesn't seem to want to watch whatever Zane is going to have me do.
"Come over here, Travis," Zane says, his voice sweet like honey.
I walk toward him one step at a time. Calvin stares, wide-eyed. Zane glares at me, his intense green eyes slicing with light as I approach. I stand, face-to-face with him, as he grips my beanie.
"Don't break eye contact with me," he growls.
"Yessir."
"Faggot pussy position."
My heart races. In front of Calvin?
Zane's eyes are intense and unwavering.
"Yessir," I say, sinking down to my knees.
Zane grips my beanie, and it slides off, exposing my earring and haircut to Calvin. I would guess that Calvin heard about them at school, but now he can see them with his own eyes.
My friend, who had been goading me to be something greater, would now know what I had become.
"Did I mention," Zane says, "That the second-round winner gets the faggot through Winter Break?"
I sink down to my stomach, arching my butt, pulling my jeans and jockstrap down low enough to expose the fleshy hills of my ass. The entire time, I look right into Zane's piercing eyes, as his face breaks into a wide, crooked leer.
"Calvin—it is about time that you know. Your best friend is my PUNK..." He used the sole of his foot to play with my face. "PUSSY..." He licks his lips and his eyes glint. "BITCH."
--- Feedback keeps me in the mood to write and brainstorm and is always appreciated. :) email: krazytop@gmail.com tumblr: krazytop.tumblr.com