Turnabout 1

Five

By Chris G

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The big day had arrived. Otherwise known as The Return of Josh Barrett, Big Man on Campus. This event had me more than a little worked up. Somehow, I couldn’t reconcile the two opposites. I mean, why should flattening the BMOC in the hall in full view of his coterie of admirers, toadies, yes-persons and general hangers-on be such a big deal for someone like me who was so totally out of the social scene? And along with that, the image that had seared through my mind just before Will had crashed through my bedroom door: Josh’s steaming hot prong just about to push through my lips.

I’d called Will the night before to see if he could help me through this. Not that I said anything about the second of these two incomprehensible pieces of the puzzle, of course. I just put it to him that there would be some sort of scene, and that I’d be the focus of it.

“Davy, you’re obsessing!” came back Will’s calm, reassuring voice.

That word ‘obsessing’ had far too much to do with the second, unconfessed piece. Before I knew what I was saying, I snapped back, “Well, thanks! Easy to see it’s not you facing this!”

There was a pained silence on the other end of the line. So much for the new, improved David Preston. I could have almost cried in frustration.

“Will, babe, I’m sorry!” I whisper-screamed into the phone. “This has got to me big time and I really don’t know why!” I semi-lied.

“Davy, man, just try to relax. I mean, what do you think he’s going to do to you?”

“Well, come on, you know what a big wheel he is. Just getting himself knocked down like that in full view of everybody was bad enough, but to get a three-day on top of it has really gotta hurt! There’s gonna be some kind of payback for sure!”

“Look, I’ll be there with you all day long. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get you into any dark corners.”

That immediately brought up images that had nothing to do with punishment. I thanked Will and said goodnight. I didn’t tell him I loved him. I lay in bed for hours before sleep came, thoughts of vengeance and hot sex clashing and banging through my brain.

So there I stood the next morning in front of the school’s main doors, taking a deep breath before going in. And there was no sign of Will, which was unusual on most days and even more so now. I urged myself forward.

No hint of anything in the lobby. I moved towards the stairs to the upper floor, where my locker was located. No Josh. No Will. I still wasn’t breathing normally when I rounded the corner and saw him. Josh Barrett, surrounded by his gang, stood right in front of my locker. The girls formed sort of an outer perimeter, with the guys semi-circled around Josh, who was lounging back against the locker door.

“Well, well, well!” drawled Josh, “look who’s here!”

The best I could manage was “Josh, I… I… I…”

This stuttering opening was cut off by a short, sharp bark of laughter from His Nibs, echoed at greater length by the supporting crowd.

“Well, is that all you… you… you… have to say for yourself?” Josh mockingly inquired.

By now, I could feel myself turning into my usual embarrassed, bright-red lobster color, and my eyes sank to my shoes and stayed there. I drew a deep breath to steady myself, and, addressing my shoes, I said, “Josh, look… I’m sorry for knocking you down, and I’m even sorrier you got suspended.”

A hand shot out, grabbed my upper arm tightly, and yanked me forward. Another hand clamped itself under my cheek bones and forced my head up. I was eyeball to eyeball with Josh. “Oh, you’re sorry alright. You’re just about the sorriest specimen this school has to offer.” The tittering which had begun with Josh’s strong-arm tactics swelled in volume at these remarks. “You’re going to go on being just as sorry as you are now, and maybe we can find a way to make you even sorrier. We might have to work real hard at doing it, but we’ll try, won’t we guys?” A chorus of encouraging comments came immediately from everyone around us.

Josh shoved me away from him, hard. I staggered backwards into one of the guys. “Hey! Who you trying to knock down now, shithead?” He in turn propelled me forwards into one of the other guys. He offered a variation on the same comment, and before I knew it, they were having a game of dodge-ball with me as the ball. I was starting to get seriously roughed up from the action. Then…

“Hey! What do you guys think you’re doing?” It was Will. Oh great, I thought. Now he’s in for it too.

“Well if it isn’t Wee Willie Winkle!” Josh obviously remembered his nursery rhymes. “You got a problem?”

“Yeah, I got a problem, fuck face! And you’re it.” The gasp which rose from the hangers-on was almost gratifyingly cliché. I had been abandoned momentarily in a corner while everyone’s attention was focused on Will. My admiration of Will’s daring was mixing with an alarming, sinking feeling as I realized that there was no way he was going to get out of this. I opened my mouth to try to pull their attention away from him, but I couldn’t get anything to come out.

Will kept the initiative. “You know, those three days you were gone, it was a lot easier to get around the halls. We weren’t always slipping in all that drool your toadies leave from trying to lick your ass!”

My still-open mouth enlarged as my jaw dropped even lower. Josh’s face became a deeper shade of red. I had just enough brain power left to notice the toadies trying to figure out what ‘toadies’ meant.

Will plowed on. “Man, it was like the night of the living dead around here, though. These guys,” he gestured dismissively at the toadies, the one movement of his arm indicating how worthless they were in his estimation, “were wandering around here with their knuckles dragging on the ground and their mouths hanging open… just didn’t know what to do with themselves.”

It was a masterful performance. I’d rolled my eyes and made all sorts of sarcastic comments when Josh had gone in for that theater arts class at the beginning of the year. It had obviously paid off.

But what was also paying off, and not the way I would have wanted to see it, was his barrage of put-downs. The ‘toadies’ had finally figured out who he was talking about and were obviously just waiting for the signal from Josh to start something. Honestly, it was just like looking at a pack of hunting dogs.

Josh finally got himself together. “You piece of shit!” he snarled, and suddenly threw a fist into the pit of Will’s stomach. I heard the air come out of him, and the pack surged forward. I still cowered in the corner, my paralysis complete. I figured Will was done like dinner until one of the peripheral girls shrieked, “Teacher!” and the crowd evaporated.

I too had been galvanized by the warning, and dragged the still-gasping Will into the boys washroom which was just behind us. The door closed as the teacher passed by.

Will leaned against the wall, now just breathing deeply, and rubbing his injured abdomen. I leaned beside him, trying to get my head organized.

“I don’t think you should have done that,” I offered.

“No shit, Sherlock?” Will came back. He’d obviously been listening to me too much, and it was starting to rub off. “What was I supposed to do? Stand back and watch?”

“Well, jeez, Will, how were you going to do anything with all that crowd? Josh is out for his pound of flesh, and he’s going to get it.”

“He’s trying to get it, but are we going to just cut it out of you and hand it to him?” I noticed the ‘we’ and felt a warm glow through me. I laid a hand on his shoulder in recognition of his support. Will turned slightly toward me and copied my gesture, our bodies now linked by our hands on each other’s shoulders.

“We’re in this together, bud. And, although he doesn’t know it, Josh is the reason we are together. I feel I owe it to the piece of dogshit to show my appreciation.”

“Piece of dogshit,” I repeated. “You know, that theater arts class is paying off after all!” I told him, voicing my thought of just a few minutes ago.

“See, I told you!” he replied, grinning at me rather dopily. He held my gaze, his features softening into something altogether different than the boyish clownface he had just shown me. His hand slid along my shoulder and onto the back of my neck, pulling me forward. The next thing I knew, our lips were locked together.

The time and place vanished, and I was nowhere but in the strong grip of his two arms. Each of us moaned at the same time, and the kiss became fiercer, our tongues thrashing together with the passion that washed over us. It slowly ebbed, and reality came back. Will pulled slightly away, and then started landing little butterfly-kisses on my cheeks, my eyes, and finally the tip of my nose.

“We’re gonna be alright, guy. It’ll be tough for awhile, but this will be gone soon enough. You’ve got me with you all the way.”

I hugged him quickly, and we moved out of the washroom to start the day. As we parted company, I was asking myself two things: What had I done to deserve Will, and what was Josh going to do next?


It was a miserable week.

The actual physical harassment which had been our introduction to it had not reappeared, but in every other way Josh and the toadies (I loved Will’s word for them) made our lives as uncomfortable as they could. Will and I had few classes in common, so we could only compare notes about what happened during class time. Each of us was surrounded as we left one room to go to another. Although this was no big deal in itself, as our school provided little time between classes, the constant verbal buffeting was kind of like a Chinese water torture. At any one time it was nothing much, but the overall effect of the repetition each and every time we moved was building things up to the point where we were starting to get acutely paranoid.

Lunch time was no better; in fact, worse. They sat all around us, and it was like continuous shelling on a battlefield. Comments flew from all sides, just an ongoing stream of abuse expressed, I might add, in a very limited vocabulary. Nonetheless, it all added up to a situation where we were about ready to scream. Fortunately, there was a way out of that one: Will and I decided after the second day to bag it, and from then on had peaceful, intimate lunches hidden in the trees behind the school.

Friday.

I’d had it. Which was probably why, in gym class, the breaking point came. Interestingly enough, all of my other classes featured none of Josh’s tribe. Gym class contained two of them, and the sad part of it was that they were the two most pathetic. Let’s put it this way: to say that they were “number than shit” would be unreasonably complimenting these guys on their intellectual ability.

The two bozos huddled through the first half of the class, which being Friday afternoon last class and therefore not high on Coach’s list of priorities was basically just a “do what you want as long as it’s physical” time. Obviously these two clowns figured it was up to them to carry on the Master’s great scheme of flattening me to absolutely nothing, but they were having a tough time coming up with a modus operandi without him to tell them what to do.

But eventually, and inevitably, it came to them. I was over in a corner doing about the only physical thing that I like to do, which was lifting weights. Not that I’m a body builder, thank you very much. I just like to do something to maintain and perhaps slightly develop my musculature (sounds impressive, doesn’t it?). Plus, it’s something that lets me do what I want when I want, and doesn’t require teamwork (yecchh!).

So there I was on a bench doing nothing more strenuous than leg curls, when the dynamic duo came slinking up and found a way to drop a weight on my foot.

I had two almost simultaneous reactions: a) scream; b) land a punch in the mid-section of the closer of the two at that precise moment.

Upshot: a stern lecture from Coach, with the entire class gathered in a circle, me and him in the center of it, on the art, science, and ethics of teamwork (double yechchh!), cooperation, and all-round good sportsmanship. I lost it. He, of course, had seen nothing of the incident, nor did he wish my report on it. The two bozos, gifted by nature with a look of complete, dumb-ass innocence, looked utterly guileless, whereas I was guilty of the twin crimes of lack of control and unsportsmanlike conduct. After his lecture, intended as a one-side-only magisterial lecture, I made so bold as to riposte with a statement from the minority viewpoint.

I won’t bore you with its contents. I wasn’t proud of it after the fact. But it led to my having myself a good old-fashioned after-school work-oriented detention. To be specific, cleaning the grouting of the shower stall tiles with a toothbrush. “Give you time to think about what’s right!” growled Coach smugly, congratulating himself on coming up with such a brilliant plan at such a late hour on a Friday afternoon.

What made it worse was that Will had to go off somewhere right after school with his parents, so that I was left all alone. Of course the upside was, being Friday, everyone else cleared out right after school. Even the two bozos weren’t interested in hanging around to watch me work off my penance in the smelly, ancient locker room.

That grouting had undoubtedly never received the going-over it got that afternoon. I took out all the pent-up feelings I’d been storing away over the week on my work, and I was still scrubbing away in a fury half an hour after starting. Suddenly, the bang of the outer door being thrown open (that closer had weakened considerably over the years of abuse from show-off jocks) echoed through the empty room.

“Oh shit!” I thought to myself. “I wonder which one of them it is.” I resolutely turned my back and kept on scrubbing. Maybe it was just a fanatic sportsman staying behind for some extra practice who would just grab his clothes and head home to shower. No such luck. After a few minutes, I heard steps approaching the shower room. They came to an abrupt stop.

“What the…” It was the voice of Josh Barrett.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” The ‘fuck’ was practically a spitball smacking me in the back of the head.

I saw red. I had had it. I was done being the miserable nobody Josh Barrett believed me to be. I was going to give it to him with both barrels, and fuck the consequences. Right here, right now. Just him and me.

I was on my knees at the moment, scrubbing away at the lower tiles in one corner. I had paused a moment when he flung his arrogant question at me, but I quickly resumed my work. I didn’t turn around, just raised my voice a little so he would be sure to hear me.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Barrett. Coach and I had a little discussion about the state of cleanliness of this facility, and we agreed that something should be done about it. Particularly foul in our estimation was this shower room. We didn’t want our school’s fine athletes, such as it might be yourself, contracting any illnesses as a result of the lack of good standards of hygiene. He was of the opinion that I was the best person to attend to the matter, and I agreed that it was of such urgency that I would begin immediately. Thus, here I am, and hard at work. Aren’t you proud of me?”

“You… dumb… fuck!” There was that spitball again.

“I’m glad you appreciate the importance of what I’m accomplishing here. You might be well advised to go get your shower at home, however, as I haven’t quite finished my efforts in bringing this facility up to an acceptable standard of cleanliness.”

I heard the sound of bare feet coming up behind me. I tensed, but I didn’t turn. I kept on scrubbing away with my toothbrush. Next thing I knew, cascades of cold water were pouring down on my head, thanks to Josh’s quick twist of the water knob right above me. I leaped to my feet, moving aside out of the spray and turning to face him.

He stood there smirking, completely naked, arrogantly resting his weight on one foot, hands on his hips. I momentarily forgot my anger and just stared, water running off me. It was just like the picture I’d been creating during my jerk-off session that day that Will burst in on me. Long, strong legs were topped by a perfect V torso. The pecs domed out, accented by two large, pink nipples whose chocolate-colored aureoles were at least twice the ordinary size. His waist was unbelievably small and tight. And below that waist…

His cock hung, uncut, full and fleshy, veering slightly to his left, over two large balls. There was no hair on them, and just a neat triangular patch of blond hair above the generous equipment. A faint trail led up to his navel, but apart from that, the only other hair on his body was a light dusting from his knees to his ankles. I drank him in.

His next words brought me back to reality, sharply. “So it’s like that, is it?” he almost purred.

“Like what?” I snapped.

“Like what you see?” he riposted.

“I usually don’t go for shit,” I sneered, and turned to go back to my work, ignoring him and the fact that I was dripping water. I heard the steps come up behind me again.

I leaped away to the other side and whirled to face him again. He held his hands out from his sides in a gesture of innocence, which was marred only by the evil smirk on his face. “Hey, I only figured that since you were down there…”

He let the sentence trail, leaving me to figure out the implication. I decided that no protests of innocence from that charge were called for. I didn’t know where the bravado was coming from, but one part of me was ice-cold while another part was still in awe over the picture in front of me. However, I was determined to slap back anything he threw at me without hesitation.

“Like I said, I don’t go for shit.” This time I didn’t turn away, but remained staring him in the eyes. I forced myself not to look at any other part of him.

He too held my gaze, and took very slow steps to narrow the remaining distance between us.

“You know you want it,” he almost whispered. The mocking smile still played across his lips.

“I don’t think I’m the one who wants it, Josh,” I said, matching his whispered tones but lacing them with all the sarcasm I could muster. Then—and I don’t know to this day where my next move came from—I reached out with my forefinger and drew it down his jaw line from ear to chin.

He jumped back as though he’d been burned. The red flushed from his chest up to his hairline. His breathing quickened. I threw aside any remaining hesitation and moved forward. He backed up further, startled. I followed. I had him on the ropes.

The wall stopped him. He stood, back against the chilly tiles, seemingly frozen into place. The smile was gone, his eyes widened and fixed on mine. I felt… I’m still not sure what it was I was feeling, but it was like I was convinced at that moment that I was invincible, that I could do anything I wanted, anything at all, and I wouldn’t have to pay for it.

I planted my palms flat against the wall either side of his head, almost touching his hair. I was glad to see, now that I was this close to him, that I was actually an inch or so taller. It added to my feeling of superiority. I moved my head towards him and stopped mere inches away from his face. He seemed to want to push the back of his head through the wall in order to keep away, but seemed incapable of any other movement. My eyes bored into his.

“Now you listen to me, king shit. You think you’re the main man in this school. Well, that’s just ducky for you. And for all I know, you could be right. Seems like you’ve got enough people telling you so. But this is me talking to you. Me: David Preston. And what I say is, I don’t care. You can be king shit all you want to be. Just don’t count me as one of your subjects. Fine, I ran into you by accident and you went down. I told you I was sorry for that, and I meant it. You ended up looking foolish in front of your so-called friends, and I’m sorry for that too. I know just what that feels like. It’s bad enough for us ordinary mortals; it must be ten times as bad when you’re king shit. Then you went and got suspended, and you want to blame someone for it. I’m the obvious one. Well I don’t give a flying fuck if you want to feel better at my expense. We both know how you got that three-day: by shooting your mouth off. There’s only one of us to blame for that, and it’s not me.

“Now you’re taking every chance you can to get back at me. Some kind of pathetic, petty king shit you are! You want to be mad at me, be mad at me! You want to pretend I don’t exist, fine! I won’t lose anything by it. But this whole hate campaign thing just shows how small you are. And now you want to make out like I’m some kind of faggot or something? Well, I wonder why?”

And where this next thing came from is still a mystery to me. Like I said, I was almost touching him I was so close. I was drilling those words into him, my eyes like two diamond-tipped bits boring into his. They never even blinked through the whole speech. But when I said, “Well, I wonder why?” I took one hand away from the wall, and never losing contact with his eyes, I drew the forefinger down the center of his chest, followed the lower curve of one pec, and came up onto the nipple and circled it without stopping.

He started breathing heavier, and squirmed against the wall. I smiled mockingly at him and slowly lowered my head to telegraph to him that I was going to deliberately look at his cock. And when I did, I got the biggest shock of my life so far: it was twitching and swelling.

I looked back up, my finger still twirling on his nipple, and smiled more broadly still. Then I echoed his own words from our first encounter that week. “Well, well, well!” I drawled. “Look who’s hard!” And I reached down and grabbed the swelling cock, squeezing and pulling firmly.

Josh gasped and went white. I could actually see the beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. I think back to this scene often, and I still can’t figure out where I was getting this totally insane behavior from. There I stood, jerking Josh Barrett’s cock slowly in my fist, feeling it lengthen and harden, reveling in the silky slide of the foreskin, which was something I’d never before experienced.

I was dressed only in my gym clothes, tee shirt, shorts, and a jock which were now soaking wet from Josh’s impromptu drenching of a few moments earlier. My own cock was stiff, and although held by the jock, the drenched shorts would be showing the outline of it if Josh looked down. He wasn’t looking anywhere but into my eyes. His own were panic-stricken, and the sweat was now about to run down his face. He swallowed massively and choked out a few words.

“David, I… I… I…”

“Yes, Josh, you… you… you… what?” I mockingly responded. Boy, payback is wonderful! I never stopped my slow, steady jerking of his cock.

“David… please!” he whispered, bent his head forward, shook it, and then with a huge lunge tore himself away, making it only as far as the opposite wall. He leaned against it, both arms stretched out in front of him, head hanging down. The picture from the rear was just as exciting as the front view, but I was more concerned at that moment by his other actions. He was breathing with great, gasping breaths which quickly turned into sobs.

My feelings of dominance and superiority quickly left me. This guy was hurting big time, and it was more than I wanted. I moved over to him, not close, and not touching.

“Josh? Are you OK, man? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

The sobbing got deeper and gaspier. The next thing I knew, he was spewing his guts all over the floor. There didn’t seem to be any end to it; the great, retching heaves went on and on. I was starting to panic. I figured the next thing was that he was going to choke on it and then I’d have a corpse on my hands.

But finally he shuddered to a stop and stood still, in the same position, still lightly gasping for breath. Somebody had to do something, and I was the only somebody there. I took charge again. I grabbed him gently but firmly by the shoulders, and swung him to face me. His face was now pasty, slightly green, and his head hung. He had some of the vomit trailing down his chest, and some on his legs.

“Josh, man, just lean up against the wall here. I’m going to run some nice warm water and get you cleaned up. Then you’ll feel better.”

I got the water at the right temperature and drew him under it. I was getting another good soaking, but what the hell? I was wet through already. I found a bar of soap and lathered my hands, then moved them over his chest, washing away the stink of the vomit. I knelt and quickly did the same with his legs, avoiding his now-subsided cock.

“There, I think we’ve got you back to rights,” I said quietly. “Now, you got a towel somewhere?” I was trying to sound as normal and matter-of-fact as I could.

He nodded and choked out, “In my bag… on the bench.”

I quickly went out and got it. I then wiped him down, chest, back, legs. I didn’t touch his head or his middle, just pressed the towel into his hands and he almost automatically took over and did the rest. As he did, I got my towel and dried off, climbing into my clothes quickly. Josh was moving so slowly that I was completely dressed when he came out of the shower room and went over to his bag.

He stood as though lost in thought, and then slowly started getting into his clothes. When he was sitting and putting on his shoes, I came over to him. “Josh,” I said firmly, but in what I hoped was an ordinary, unchallenging tone, “what happened in there is not who I am and I hope it’s not who you are. I pushed you way beyond what was reasonable and I’m not proud of it. The only excuse I can offer is that you’ve put me through one hell of a week and it’s built up to where I just totally lost it. I’m not going to say a word about this to anyone. No one will ever know anything about this from me. You’ll probably never want to speak to me again and I know you’re not in the greatest shape right now, but if you ever do…”

I hauled a notebook out of my bag, tore off a scrap of paper from one of the pages, and wrote my phone number on it. I handed it to him. He took it gently from my fingers, stared at it for what seemed like a really long time, and finally folded it and put it in his shirt pocket.

He stood slowly, picked up his bag, and moved toward the door. He opened it only far enough to get through, and it swung gently closed behind him.

I stood in the locker room, bemused. What had I done to him? What had I done to me?

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