Here's the next installment of the latest story. It's very much fictional, and involves (or will) sexual activities between minors, so if that's not legal where you live or not your cup of tes, please don't read it. I'll again plug my other Nifty story, "Seal Rocks," which is also here in the HS Section (the last chapter was posted April 12; that'll help you locate it). I appreciate any and all critiques or comments, so feel free to let me know what you think. This is taking some time to set up, but I think the resulting tension will make the story work better in the long run than stories where someone meets somebody and is naked in like 5 minutes. Neither realistic or satisfying, on a deeper level anyway. Read and enjoy!
When the World Changed, Part 4
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Brady spent the remainder of the afternoon in his room with David, listening to more music he'd never heard or imagined before, and meeting so many boys he soon lost all hope of remembering their names. One he did make special note of was Doug's roommate, Duncan Hennessey, when he went upstairs to visit Doug's room. Dunc (as he liked to be called) was a gangly kid a little shorter than Brady with a piled-high shock of disheveled blonde hair, impossibly huge hands at the ends of long thin arms, and a jaw several sizes too large for the rest of his face. It made his smiles look loopy and dumb, but was very endearing in its own way. He and Doug seemed to be hitting it off well, though, especially since Dunc had brought a huge poster of Raquel Welch from the movie "1 Million Years B.C." The two of them spent an inordinate amount of time commenting to each other on her various physical attributes, with Brady gamely chiming in so as not appear uninterested. "You realize," Dunc said at one point when the conversation dragged a bit, "that the movie truly sucks. Right? But, I mean, shit, lookit that! Worth every dime, man!" They cracked up over that for several minutes, before Brady had to slip away to get dressed for dinner. The whole time he kept trying not to stare at Doug. He wasn't very successful.
His first formal meal went better than he had expected. Mr. Taber was nowhere in sight. The Master at his table turned out to be a genial old guy who taught math, and who loved to tell old Cavalier football stories. He became noddingly familiar with the boys at his table (which was less than half full because the Old Boys who would sit with them had for the most part not arrived yet). After dinner, he and David crowded along with the rest of the boys on the hall into the living room of the Hall Master's apartment at the south end of the hall. It was claustrophobic, cluttered, and smelled vaguely odd. Mr. Billips was very young - the frizzy balding guy who'd directed him to his room that morning - and he seemed intent to speak in his the loudest possible voice, perhaps to generate an air of authority his appearance definitely lacked. His lecture about rules and other procedures lasted about fifteen glazingly dull minutes, after which he introduced the Hall Prefects, Ryan Cureton and Bart Luce, both juniors, who lived at the north end of the hall. Their job was, in essence, den mothers and resident snitches, enforcing lights out, study hall hours, attendance and other rules in the hall as Billips' assistants and in his absence. They seemed to know David, but not to be especially friendly with him.
Back in their room, Brady asked David about the Prefects. "They're OK, as far as that goes," David said with a shrug. "It's like an honor to be picked as a Prefect your junior year - responsibility and all that crap. So they're pretty puffed up and all about it now. Those two tend to get pushed around by some of the seniors and all, though. Dougie McShane scares the shit out of Cureton, I know that."
"How?"
"Cureton got in his way between classes or something one day last year, and Dougie like put him up against the wall and threatened to rip his balls off or something. Don't know why - Dougie just does that to people, he likes to scare guys sometimes. Guess Cureton started crying, and he like runs away whenever Dougie's around ever since."
"This guy sounds like a real piece of work."
David snorted. "Complete asshole," he muttered. "Thinks he's like king of the fucking world, and he barely passes any of his classes. Only reason he's still here is daddy's money."
Brady hesitated a bit. "Sounds like, um, you might have had a run-in with him?"
David glanced at him a second, then shrugged again. "He likes to pick on little kids. Eighth graders are always a great target, and his brother was there to point him to the guys he wanted him to fuck with. He'll probably go after this year's eighth graders again, so I'm just gonna ignore him." There was clearly more, but Brady didn't want to press the question.
At about 10, Bart Luce dispersed the small group of guys who'd gathered in the room across from Brady's. "Lights out in half an hour, guys. Get cleaned up now, I don't wanna sting anybody first night." Brady hustled through his nightly toilet duties in a very noisy and crowded bathroom that smelled faintly of sweat and farts, brushing vigorously while wondering how he'd ever get to sleep. Despite the long day, he was still jangly and nervous. He stripped to his underwear and slid into bed while David was out in the bathroom, looking around at his new home. Maybe it wasn't so bad, he thought. Doug's face came to mind, and he found himself considering it idly for several minutes with a soft smile.
David reappeared, looked nervously at Brady, and stepped behind the door to the room's small closet. "Would you mind?" he asked. Brady, after a moment of incomprehension, dutifully turned toward the wall. He heard David slip into bed. "OK," David said quietly.
"So, good night," Brady said, suddenly feeling shy. He clicked off the light. Several seconds of thick silence passed between them.
"Right. Hey, listen, we need to talk about something."
Brady was mystified. "OK, what?"
"We need to be cool with each other about jerking off."
"Wh - what?" He was glad it was dark, he could feel how red his cheeks were.
"Look, we're gonna jerk off. You know it, and I know it, and we're lyin' here like fifteen feet apart and all. No way we're gonna hide it from each other. So we need to just sort of clear the air and all about it, OK?"
Brady blinked several times. "OK. Um, how exactly do we do that?"
"Well, a few ways. We can just do it and say what the fuck. I'm kind of shy about that, though. My roommate last year, Edward, he'd just do it anytime he felt like it. Sometimes he'd spend half of study hall every night sittin' at his desk an' playing with his dick. It sort of freaked me out."
"I thought you liked him. You said you were gonna room with him again and all."
"Not him, with another guy. Edward's like in France this year or something."
"Oh."
"So, my point is, I'd kind of like it if you didn't just whack off in front of me, OK?"
"Sure, OK. I, uh, I wasn't, you know, thinking of doing anything like that anyway." It was embarrassing to feel how hard the conversation had already made him. "I guess I'm kind of shy, too."
David snorted a laugh. "You lose a lot of the shy crap pretty fast in a place like this, believe me. Anyway, if you wanna do it, be my guest, but not like really openly, OK? I don't really jerk off much - I gotta say I'm not really there yet, you know what I mean? But if I do, I'll like wait till you're gone or I'll hit the head or something."
"Sure, OK. And, um, if you, like, need any private time, or something . . . you know, just like speak up."
"Cool, thanks." David audibly settled into his pillow, and Brady stared into blackness for a while. He was achingly hard now. He turned toward the wall and listened for David's breathing to slow, sliding his hand down to grab himself in the meantime. After about ten minutes he decided it was safe, and started stroking himself with agonizing slowness, conscious of every breath and movement. He was worried about David, but found himself thinking about Doug. I bet he's a really good athlete, he thought. It's going to be fun playing football with him. He's a really nice guy . . . He was moving faster without realizing it, and starting to breathe raggedly. He abruptly realized two things: he was going to come, and he had no means of confining or cleaning up the mess. He gritted his teeth and cupped his hand over the head of his erection as the waves overcame him. He seemed to spasm for hours. Finally, his body relented, and he slumped downwards, his right palm awash with sticky fluid, and felt a sweet lassitude roll over his entire being. He sighed deeply.
"Christ," David muttered. "You're loud."
The next morning brought more meetings and instructions on things he didn't quite grasp fully. He had a job working in the school bookroom when not in class as part of his scholarship package. He was supposed to rake a certain area in front of Linsley every morning after breakfast as part of work program. He had a mountain of books to carry from the gym, where the main basketball court had been temporarily carpeted over and turned into a book dispensary for the school year (a glance at the books' prices made him secretly offer a prayer of thanks that his scholarship covered their cost). He would drop off laundry every Tuesday, and pick it up on Friday before noon, in a stuffy basement room beneath the dining hall. He waited the table at lunch, poorly, unsure from moment to moment what to do or where to go, and certain that he'd not get any food to the table and everyone would get pissed off at him. Old Boys were thronging the campus, with more waves of cars disgorging suitcases and furniture. Someone in a senior dorm across the main campus from Linsley put a speaker in his window and blared Jefferson Airplane for a good twenty minutes before a Master made him turn it down. He was waiting for football practice that afternoon. There, he felt sure, he'd be at home. And Doug would be there too - at practice, just a few lockers down, maybe even in the shower. The idea excited Brady in a vague tingly way.
At about 2:30, he ran up the stairs to the third floor of Linsley and down the hall to Doug's room. Dunc was flopped on his bed reading a Life magazine that had an odd picture of some woman with auburn hair. She was very pretty. "Her name's Veruschka," he said eagerly, holding the magazine up. "Isn't she amazing looking? All pouty and crap . . . You should see the stuff inside, I just wish more of it was in color." Brady sat down next to him as Dunc flipped through the pages, pointing out each picture and her best qualities in each. Dunc, it turned out, was a major tit man. "They're like spillin' out there, look. I mean, how cool is that, right? And she's in that movie 'Blow Up,' where she and some other girls actually get naked and stuff!"
"Dunc's gonna want to be alone now with Veruschka, I think." Doug was leaning against the door, smiling, wiping his hand with a small towel, his dress shirt open at the collar. His teeth were very white as he smiled, and his hair seemed to shine even in the half light of the dormitory. Brady shot to his feet at the sight, as if afraid that he'd been caught somehow cheating by sitting on Dunc's bed and looking at pictures of a half naked German fashion model. Doug laughed. "I was about to round you up. Time to go?" Brady nodded, and without a word to Dunc (who, to be fair, had no interest in their departure), they set off for the gym.
The locker room was loud, crowded, and close. The freshman practice was set to start before the varsity and JV, allowing for staggered use of the facility, but a number of older boys were there, in various stages of dress and undress, some getting taped up, some just chatting. Brady kept his eyes focused resolutely in front of him. He wanted to take a look at Doug as he changed, but didn't want to get caught at it. He stripped,. Pulled on a jock and gym shorts, and began working the heavy uniform pants up his legs.
"How does this crap work again?" Doug was holding his hip pads by the strap as if they were an unclean object. He was wearing his gym shorts low on his hips. Brady stood and held his arms put a bit, showing him how he had strapped them on his own body.
"Then the pants go over them. Like this." Brady pulled up his pants and cinched them tight. Doug was shirtless, his chest smooth and tanned. Brady swallowed and looked down for his shoes. "Make sense?"
"Yeah, I guess/" He heard, rather than watched, as Doug labored to strap the padding into place. "Now for the shoulder pads," he grunted.
Brady glanced up. "Y - you're not gonna put on a shirt?"
"Doug shrugged and grinned. "Gonna be hot out there, I think. Maybe better not to."
"Yeah, but the pads might like slide around on you without a shirt under 'em."
"You think?"
Brady couldn't look away now if he tried. "Dunno. I, I just always wore a shirt under 'em. I sort of assumed that's what you did with 'em."
Doug frowned a moment, running his hand idly across his chest. Brady swallowed hard. "OK, you win," he said, grinning again. "But if I get sunstroke or throw up, I'm blaming you."
Brady laughed - the laughter was a relief, a chance to look away again. "Deal." He hoisted his shoulder pads over his head, snapped the straps in place, and began the inevitable wrestle with the practice jersey. These things are really heavy, he thought as his head popped through the collar. We're gonna sweat like pigs in this stuff.
And sweat they did. No sooner had he and Doug jogged out to the far field that was the freshman practice area then Mr. Glendon started them running wind sprints. "I want to see who's in shape here," he said, his voice now demanding and harsh. Many weren't in shape at all. Of the thirty-odd boys who stepped onto the field, fully half were soon dry heaving on the sideline. Brady was pouring sweat, but kept in or close to the lead on every sprint - his summer's work on all those farms was standing him in good stead. He was relieved to see that Doug was also hanging in, though between sprints he crouched over, hand on knees, gasping. Brady at one point stepped over and rubbed his back briefly. "Thanks," Doug wheezed, looking up. "I thought I was in better shape. Christ, you're like barely hurting."
Brady laughed - or tried to, anyway. "I feel like I wanna die, actually." It felt good to have his hand there, on Doug's back.
"Hey faggots, line up," huffed a sharp voice. Ian McShane, his face violently red and streaked with sweat inside his helmet, was walking over for the next sprint. Brady felt a stab of rage. What an asshole. He'd noticed McShane barely jogging the sprints, staying in them but hardly exerting any effort.
Doug straightened up. "Fuck you, too," he muttered under his breath. He glanced at Brady, grinned, and they stepped back to the line for the next round together.
Mercifully, Mr. Glendon only ran them three more times after that, then sent everyone for water. When they returned he launched into a long speech about the need for conditioning and the need to give your best effort (this, it seemed to Brady, while looking coldly at McShane). He then began showing basic stance, blocking, and tackling techniques, using mostly boys who'd never played as demonstration partners. He soon had them practicing with each other, while the boys (like Brady) who'd played before watched. Brady enjoyed being able to stand with his helmet off for a bit. Doug had tried out a couple of things, then been allowed to watch - apparently he'd done well. He and Brady stood next to each other, occasionally glancing at each other and smiling slightly.
One of the kids who'd never played tried to come hard out of a three point stance, but slipped and stumbled badly. A snort of laughter came from behind the two boys. They turned to see McShane's face curled up in contempt. They glanced at each other again.
"All right," Mr., Glendon called. "Now I want the experienced boys over here." He laid two large tackling dummies down parallel to each other, about eight feet apart. "OK, let's have the running backs behind me here, and all the other defensive and offensive people form tow lines, either end of the tackling dummies." The boys shuffled into position. "This is called a West Point drill. We'll do this a lot, to teach the basic technique along the line. Some of you know how this works." Brady saw McShane nod, strapping up his helmet. "On the snap count., the running back will run through the hole here between the dummies. There'll be one offensive man lined up to block for him, and one defensive man trying to stop the play. Got it?" he looked at the lineup, "McShane, you're on defense first. Let's see, who's done this - Conover?"
"Sir?"
"You done this before?"
"Sort of, sir. I get the idea, anyway."
"Good, you're on offense blocking. Clayton, you're the running back. Let's go, on my count."
Brady felt nervous, and very much on display. He saw McShane smile nastily as he stepped into position. Glendon pulled Brady over, told him the snap count was three, and stepped back. Brady dropped down into his stance, flexing his right hand a bit as his forearm rested along his thigh.
"I'm gonna bust you up, kid," McShane whispered to him.
On three, Brady launched himself into McShane's chest. McShane, startled by the speed of Brady's explosion, was caught on his heels, and Brady drove him back fairly easily. As they separated, McShane threw a forearm upwards, barely missing Brady's chin. Mr. Glendon clapped and started telling the group what Brady had done right - leading with his nose into the number of his opponent, going low to high through his opponent's chest, and so on. Brady and McShane stared at each other challengingly.
"I want to go again," McShane yelled. Mr. Glendon glanced at Brady, who shrugged. They lined up again. This time McShane was quicker, his forearm clubbed under Brady's chin as he drove forward, and they smashed into each other with a resounding crack. Brady's jaw throbbed, he tasted a bit of blood despite his mouthguard. It made him angrier. He felt McShane grabbing his jersey, trying to tug him over. He eased his body back slightly to the left, then drove forward again as McShane fell into the area of lessened resistance. As Brady drove him to the side and the back again scampered by, McShane swore under his breath and clubbed Brady in the head with both his forearms. Brady's head rang, and his anger boiled over. He drove McShane into the ground and pounced on top of him, ready to start punching. Only Mr. Glendon's whistle halted the impending fight.
"Both of you stop now!" he barked. "Save it for the game, against other teams. You're teammates, so start acting like it."
Both stood up, glaring at each other. McShane glanced down for a long moment. Then he held his hand out to Brady. "I'm sorry, man. I just want to win. I expect to win. In everything. So, if you can play well, and we can play together, we'll win, and that's the idea. OK?"
Brady looked hard at McShane a second. He had said this in an artificially loud voice, and now had a look on his face that would have better suited a choirboy. Brady was suspicious. "Sure," he said finally, clasping McShane's hand and shaking it vigorously. "We're gonna kick some butts. Right, guys?" A chorus of whoops and cheers rose, as the two smiled at each other a moment before stepping to the backs of their respective lines.
Only Mr. Glendon saw the look McShane momentarily gave Brady as Brady turned away. He pursed his lips slightly. "All right, who's next here? Let's get some hitting going on!"
Practice lasted until after 5, by which time even Brady felt ill with exhaustion. He hadn't faced off against McShane again (Mr. Glendon appeared determined not to allow that to happen), and indeed had played alongside him on some drills, with the two meshing well. McShane was actually a fairly good player - quick, unafraid of hitting, and strong. If he seemed to take a little too much pleasure from inflicting punishment on his opponents, that was only a slight concern for Brady. At least it wasn't him. And McShane already knew that pecking order - Brady had beaten him twice. Throw a forearm at that, Brady thought, again suppressing his anger over the cheap shot.
Doug had proven to be a quick study, strong, and likewise fearless in all the hitting drills. He and Brady trudged off the field together, their helmets dangling from their hands, sweat dripping down from their lank soaked hair and off the ends of their noses.
"So what'd you think?" Brady asked.
Doug frowned slightly. "Dunno, how'd I look? I thought it was OK, I had fun, mostly."
"You looked great. I thought, anyway."
Doug smiled. "Thanks." It made Brady feel wonderful to see him smile like that. "God," Doug added, his head again dropping limply toward his chest as they walked, "the shower is gonna feel so good."
Brady was too tired to feel nervous or self conscious about the shower. He didn't even look with any interest at Doug as they stripped and padded down to the huge shower room. Most of the guys had preceded them there, and many were already coming out, their skin glowing and slightly pink from the heat of the water and damp air. Brady only had eyes for the nearest free nozzle, under which he stepped as fast as he could. He turned it to a barely tepid level in the hope of cooling off. The guys on either side of him objected mildly about his water being too cold, but he ignored them, standing directly under the spray, eyes closed, letting the cool water pour down over him.
He lost track of time a bit. When he finally opened his eyes, he found himself almost alone in the room. Doug was standing facing away from him on the other side, also with water cascading down his back. Though there were plenty of noises down the hall, they were alone. Brady looked at Doug as if for the first time. His hair was plastered down the back of his head and neck, sleek as an otter's and almost as dark. His shoulders were wide (for a high school freshman, anyway) but still graceful and slender, tanned, and shining with the water that flowed over them. A rivulet ran down the center of his back to his butt, which was impossibly round and high. His legs were long and subtly sinewed. Holy shit, Brady thought, unable to look away. What am I doing.
Doug turned to face him. Their eyes met, and Doug smiled again. "Damn, this feels good, doesn't it?"
Brady had to concentrate to regain the power of speech. :Uh - uh, yeah, really." His eyes ran over Doug's front. His pectoral muscles were faintly defined, his nipples small and very dark colored, his stomach flat and smooth. And, as Brady realized, his eyes widening, his cock was enormous. It hung thick and pendulous from the only sparse patch of hair on his torso, darkly purple. It was flaccid, obviously, but if that was flaccid, Brady couldn't imagine what it must look like erect. He glanced down at himself to compare, thankful that he hadn't gotten hard, and saw that he was puny next to Doug.
Doug's laugh made Brady blush. "It's OK, I get that a lot. I know, it's like a monster, isn't it?" He reached down and waggled it with his right hand a little. "Needs its own zip code or something, I think sometimes."
Brady quickly looked away. "I - I'm sorry, I, I didn't mean - I mean I just - "
"Forget it. Like I said, it happens a lot. I had guys asking to touch it back home in junior high, they couldn't believe it was real. How sick is that, right?"
Brady swallowed hard again. "Yeah. Really. Sick. And all."
Doug laughed again, still idly fondling himself. "It actually, y'know, doesn't get that much bigger. It just sort of is what it is, you know?"
Brady swallowed. "I think, if it got much bigger you'd like fall over or pass out from blood loss to your brain."
Doug laughed hard. "Brain? Fuck our brain, we think with this, don't you know that?" He grabbed himself and shook it toward Brady, who laughed and pretended to shy away. He had a sudden urge, though, to lunge for it; the strength it took to resist was daunting.
Doug turned about halfway back round under the shower head. "But the water feels so good on it after all that." He cupped his hands under his testicles (which were fairly tight to his body) and let the water pool up on them.
Brady swallowed again; he hoped Doug couldn't see how his Adam's apple kept bobbing around. "I know. Really good."
Doug turned off the water; Brady did the same. The sounds from the locker room were softer, many of the boys had left. "We better see how much time we have before dinner," Doug suggested. "I need to go back to my room to get dressed. We should bring the jacket and stuff for dinner to practice next time. Though I suppose most days practice'll be right after class, so we'll be dressed for dinner anyway. "
"Right," Brady said in a daze Doug's body, the closeness of his naked form, his cock, his ass, his beautiful chest and face, had him feeling woozy. Maybe I sweated too much and I'm like punchy or something, he thought. He swayed a bit, and Doug was immediately next to him, an arm under his shoulders.
"Bray, you OK?"
"Huh?" Brady blinked, startled and frightened a little at feeling Doug pressed up against his side. It felt amazing, electric. "B - Bray?'
"Um, yeah, sorry. It's like short for Brady. I, uh, I just sort of thought of it - just now. Nobody ever called you that before?" He smiled shyly.
"No." Brady was sure he'd faint now.
"Is it OK?"
Brady grinned stupidly. Don't kiss him, idiot. "Sure. It's cool. I, I like it. Bray."
Doug smiled. "Excellent, far out. You OK now?"
"Yeah, fine." Brady didn't want Doug to step away, but knew they had to disengage. Had he gotten hard? He wasn't sure. "Um, can you see what time it is?"
Doug threw a towel over his shoulder and strode out to the hall. "Twenty-five of," he called. "We better move it." He started vigorously rubbing the towel over himself.
"Right, thanks. Cool." Brady did the same, trying not to watch Doug too closely. His tiredness had vanished; he felt incredibly alive.
They made dinner with seconds to spare. Luckily, the first week had New Boys doing only one meal each as waiter, to teach them how to perform the task, so Brady wasn't on the hook. He found himself famished, and nearly knocked over several glasses grabbing for a roll as soon as grace was finished. Mr. Sauerman, the Table Master, gave him a quiet but stern lecture about the manners of gentlemen.
By the time Brady made it back to his room, he felt exhausted. David wasn't there, which pleased him- he wasn't in a mood to listen to more unfamiliar music, even if much of it sounded really cool. He flopped onto his bed in his jacket and tie, shoes still on, and slept. He awoke to the sound of quiet conversation. He blinked one eye open to see David sitting across the room at his desk, talking with a smile to a short roundish kid with wiry black hair. It was almost dark, and David's desk light was the only illumination aside from the hall light spilling through the open room door. He listened for a few seconds, but was too groggy to make out much of the conversation. With a loud yawn and stretch, he sat up.
"Hey," David said with a bemused look. "Have fun being the all-American jock today?"
Brady tried to shake his head free of the cobwebs. "It was OK. Hot, long. What'd you do?"
"Played rec tennis, which means we hit a few balls and sat under a tree. Yeah, I heard you had quite a practice today."
"Whaddya mean? "
"You and McShane mixed it up a bit?" David clearly wanted to hear all about it. "Oh this is a friend of mine, Jerry Goldman. He was with me here last year. He's on the first floor."
Brady nodded, still barely functional. "Hey, Jerry."
"Hey yourself." He smiled politely at Brady. He had an accent, but Brady couldn't quite place it in his loggy state.
"So I hear you kicked his ass in some drill and he tried to pick a fight with you?"
Brady shrugged. "Wasn't anything. We're teammates. We're cool with each other now, shook hands and all that." Brady took off his jacket and tried to smooth away some of the wrinkles. Don't sleep in your dress clothes, asshole, he thought.
David and Jerry glanced at each other. "OK, man, you need to know, it's never cool with McShane. Or with his brother. He's a total asshole, and he holds grudges. Shit, he makes up grudges just so he can be pissed about stuff. And then superior when he fucks with you."
Brady blinked, trying to process this information. "OK," he finally said. "It'll be OK, I can take care of myself."
David looked at Jerry again, raising his arms in a gesture of futility. "Hey Sleeping Beauty!" Doug leaned against the doorframe, wearing a t shirt and jeans. Brady smiled, feeling suddenly very awake. "About time you woke up, I thought you'd like taken dope or something!"
Brady laughed. "Yeah, that's me, the hippie pothead."
Jerry laughed, but waggled his finger. "Man, don't even joke about that stuff in front of a Master. They get like crazy about dope." New York accent, that's it, Brady thought.
Doug stepped in the room, dropped onto Brady's bed casually, and the four of them started idly talking, David tried to pump Doug about the incident with McShane, but even Doug's enthusiastic account (he had been rooting for Brady, after all) couldn't seem to quench David's thirst for information on anything resembling a humiliating defeat for Ian McShane. Soon other guys from the hall joined them, and by about 8:30 they had a major bullshitting session going, with a couple of Playboys being passed around amid general laughter. It was the best time Brady had had since coming to Wilson, and Doug was there next to him, reclining sideways on the bed, backs against the wall, their shoulders slightly touching. They talked to each other, to the other kids, they sometimes listened for long periods, especially when David and Jerry started in on stories from last year. One particular incident, in which a senior snuck a girl into his room only to be surprised by a Master in the middle of fucking her, had the room in an uproar. "And so Kent walks in, and Tony like jumps up off this girl, and he's been fuckin' her so he's all boned up and shit, and he stands there staring at Kent with his eyes really wide open and all, and he like comes all over the place! Just standing there!" The ensuing clamor lasted several minutes, before David finally finished the story. "I dunno if they kicked him out because he had the girl in his room and was fucking her, or because he jizzed all over Kent! I think Kent was more pissed at that than about the girl!!" They rolled about, laughing and making every rude comment they could think of (and there were a whole lot), trying to outdo each other for sheer grossness.
Doug had grabbed Brady's bicep during this, laughing helplessly. Brady was laughing, too, but at the same time acutely conscious of Doug's hand on him. It felt good. He looked at Doug and smiled warmly, and Doug's return grin was like the daybreak. Then Doug leaned forward. "Lemme see the May issue," he called, grabbing a Playboy and opening the centerfold. "Brady, look at her. Is she like sexy or what?? All in pink like that, you can almost see her pubes, too." He regarded the picture fondly for a second. "Great rack, man." He looked up at Brady, grinning lewdly. "Doncha think?"
Brady looked at Miss May. Anne Randall. She stood on a deck of some sort, leaning against the rail, a kite held over her shoulder. (Why the hell is she holding a kite, Brady thought). Her pink blouse was open, revealing a pair of large soft looking breasts, and her pink slacks were provocatively unzipped most of the way down her belly. Her nipples were large but indistinct. "It's OK," Brady said finally. He realized he needed to say something else. "Um, except, well, she's got too many clothes on, right?"
Doug howled and punched his arm. "So true!! She oughta be lying in bed without anything on. She oughta be lying in MY bed without anything on!!" He grinned at the idea as the other guys catcalled and laughed.
Brady laughed too, crushed as he felt right at that moment.
Johnny Ruiz - the kid McShane had pushed Brady into at the dining hall the previous day - held up the new September issue. "Like this one, guys, check this babe out!!" They crowded around him, and most agreed that Miss September was far sexier than any of the others. Brady had lost his appetite for the subject. David, who'd never joined in the discussion to begin with, eyed him quietly from across the room.
"What's happening, guys?" Ian McShane, still in his dress shirt, with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, was leaning casually in the doorway. The conversation and laughter faltered. Johnny Ruiz frowned slightly and pretended to concentrate on looking at Miss September. "Hey, Conover, this your room?" Brady nodded, sitting slightly forward on the bed. He was conscious of people watching him out of the corners of their eyes. "Cool, so who's your roommate?" McShane asked, his eyes scanning the group. "Not pencil dick here, is it?"
He was, of course, looking directly at David. Brady was taken aback and at a momentary loss for words, but David responded smoothly. "Hi to you, too, there Ian," he said in the fakest friendly tone he'd ever heard any kid use. "Nice to see you back. How was the rest of last year?"
McShane flushed a bit. "Wh - wha. . ."
"Never mind," David breezily continued. "Hey, will you do me a favor?"
McShane was even more taken aback now. "Um, what?"
"Eat some shit for me?" The room was pindrop silent for a long second, then everyone burst into riotous laughter. McShane stood very still, no longer in a casual pose, before joining (forcedly, it appeared to Brady) in the laughter.
He stepped into the room, toward David, and Brady rose as well, Silence fell again. McShane, conscious of Brady's move, paused and glanced around. He smiled, again forcedly. "So do I get to see the Playboys, or what?" Duncan Hennessey handed him the September issue. McShane opened the centerfold and appraised the picture for a couple of seconds. "Not bad," he finally opined. "I've seen better, of course. Hell, I've fucked better."
"Come on, Ian, you're a fucking high school freshman, you haven't fucked anything but your hand," Johnny Ruiz snapped in a frustrated tone of voice.
"Or your pet goat," one of the guys from the room across the hall, Nate Dexter, interjected. Nate was small and skinny, with slicked down brown hair and large eyes.
McShane eyed Dexter as laughter again swept the room. "OK, so who, exactly, the fuck are you, anyway, kid? You want funny, go look at your face. You could put a tennis ball in each cheek and go to a costume party as a scrotum. Maybe your dad is cheap, Ruiz," he continued, turning his attention back to Johnny, "but mine paid top dollar to set me up this summer for a weekend with a couple of coeds who're hustling to pay their tuition. Let's just say," he added with a sly smile, "that they earned their money."
A number of the guys in the room now wanted full and explicit details on this exploit. They crowded around McShane, and followed him when instead of elaborating he shrugged and left the room. David's fists were clenched; Nate was red faced. Brady looked at the people remaining (himself, Doug, David, Dunc, Jerry, Nate and his roommate Mark, a couple of other kids whose names Brady hadn't mastered). He stepped over and closed the door. "That was fun," he said quietly, hoping to defuse things a bit. "Looks like we cleared a few people out, anyway." He sat back down on his bed.
"Looks like we just found out who's in whose camp," Nate said. Brady glanced at him, and at Doug, who shrugged and smiled slightly back.
"I wanna hear more about how you kicked his ass, Brady," David said - very quietly, but very intensely. "Did he give you the bruise?"
"What bruise?"
Doug leaned over and traced an area along the underside of Brady's jaw. It hurt where his finger touched. "You got a pretty good one coming up along here."
Brady felt it himself, conscious of it for the first time. His hand brushed Doug's as he did so, and their eyes met momentarily. "Ow," he said. "Yeah, he threw a forearm at me, that's what got me pissed off." He slid his tongue around inside his mouth a bit. "I think it bled someplace a little, too. For a second, anyway. I remember tasting it. Blood, I mean."
David frowned. "You OK?"
"Yeah, sure, it's no biggie." He grinned. "You think I'm gonna give him the satisfaction of acting like it's something major?"
David laughed. "So much for being a loyal teammate and all that bullshit."
Brady laughed. "I'm loyal, I'm just not stupid."
David nodded. "I hope not."
Brady shrugged. "So what's he doing here anyway? I saw him in line yesterday and he was claiming he could room with his brother or near his brother or something, over in Hornberger."
Jerry Goldman glanced at them all. "You guys haven't heard?" They all looked puzzled. "They put McShane on the first floor, in 102, in a single. And he's got his own phone line."
The boys stared at him, astonished. David was red faced and seething. Doug was first to break the silence. "How the fuck does a kid get a room to himself, and a phone line - as a freshman?? What, does he have a butler or something too?"
Jerry grimaced. "Don't put it past him, man. Money talks, right? Somebody was sayin' he's got one of those new portable TVs that you can carry around like a transistor radio, too. I really can't believe they'd let him do that, but who knows?"
Brady shook his head. "Well, he'll be popular."
"Guys like McShane are always popular," David snapped. "You saw how many guys followed him outta here like fucking sheep."
Brady needed no masturbatory aid to fall quickly asleep that night. He dreamed of walking across the football field with Doug, into the forest behind the lake in Cullingstown and to the clearing. They faced each other there and dropped to the ground talking, arms casually around each other, suddenly very naked though Brady couldn't quite figure out where the uniforms had gone. They're bulky and all, they couldn't just disappear, he thought. Their faces were close, their eyes sparkling at each other. Doug's cock was growing huge between them, and Brady looked down, hungry to touch it. Doug smiled his daybreak smile, and Brady reached for it, but Kenny Heuer wouldn't let him. "Don't be a pussy, have a cig, man. We'll jerk off like we used to, right?" Doug stood and moved back as Kenny stepped toward him. "You don't belong with those faggots, anyway, you're a farm kid. Get the fuck out now and c'mon home, OK?" Doug looked at him despairingly, and the agony of that look sent him shooting awake, sitting upright in the dark and panting. The image of the two boys seemed to linger in the thick darkness for a few seconds as he tried to clear his head.
He heard David roll over grumpily. "What th' hell was that?"
"It - I - it, um, I just had like a dream. S - sorry."
He heard David punch up his pillow. "You're not like retarded or anything, are you? You're not gonna go on top of Geiger with a rifle like that guy in Texas?"
"N - no," Brady protested. "Come on, I just had a dream, that's all."
"Hmpf." David was burrowing under his covers. "Too bad, you could take out McShane with your first shot. They'd like knight you or something."
He didn't seem, entirely, to be joking.