End of the Innocence Read online

  Kelly nodded as he watched the show. “Mi closet es su closet,” he said.

  Brad looked over at me and raised one eyebrow, which was his way of asking, “Want to join me?”

  I shook my head. My face had to be a portrait of complete panic. I felt Jennifer nudge me from behind, and when I looked at her, she nodded. I looked back to Brad, and he smiled, holding out his hand. “Hey, Kelly,” Jennifer said sliding to the floor. “Load up some COD so I can kick your ass.”

  Kelly looked at her incredulously, since everyone knew guys beat girls at Call of Duty.

  Brad and I went upstairs like we were sneaking away. “Ten bucks she pounds him,” Brad said once we were out of ear shot. “I went shooting with her once, and she is like the Black Widow with a gun.”

  He was rummaging through Kelly’s closet, looking for fresh clothes, while I stood there trying to calm myself. “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  He poked his head out for a moment. “Um… I don’t know. The day is still young. I was going to stick around and help Kelly clean up, but we can bail if you want.”

  I shook my head. “I mean right now.”

  He paused. “Um… look for clothes?”

  I sighed. “I mean in the shower?”

  “Oh,” he said, suddenly getting what I was hinting at. “Oh!” he added once he really got it. “We can just take a shower if you want. I just thought it would be fun.” He flashed me a smile that could melt ice at twenty yards, and I felt my stomach clench in distress while the rest of my body became aroused. “It’s going to be okay, Kyle,” he said, reassuring me. “It’s just a shower.”

  I didn’t say anything as he grabbed a handful of clothes for both of us and led me to Kelly’s parents’ room. Like the rest of the house, it was huge and way overdecorated. It struck me as the house of someone trying way too hard to prove they had money and ended up just showing how little taste they had. But what the house lacked in style, it made up for with size, and the master bath was no exception.

  There was a tub larger than Vermont on the right side of the room, while a shower that was bigger than my room at home stood on the left. In between them were two full-sized sinks, one for each of Kelly’s parents. It wasn’t as much a large bathroom as it was a small spa. “What the fuck?” I exclaimed out loud, not being able to handle such a waste of money. Brad set down the clothes and looked at me questioningly. “I’m sorry. I just think I’ve lived in smaller places than this bathroom.”

  Brad chuckled as he stripped off his shirt. I barely heard his words as I marveled at the flatness of his stomach. “Yeah, Kelly’s parents grew up poor, so when they made their money, they kinda took a trip on the white trash express.” He began to unbutton his slacks. “It takes some getting used to.”

  “Where should I change?” I asked, looking away from him in his boxers for some reason. I knew the question was stupid the moment it left my lips, but I was so flustered I couldn’t help it. I could hear him throw his pants on the ground and walk over to me.

  “Kyle, why are you so scared?” His voice was so low and so inviting that I felt myself relax some.

  “I just…,” I stammered. “I don’t have any of that,” I said, gesturing at his upper body. He looked down at himself, and it made me crazy. His pecs were so perfect that the charm on his chain rested perfectly between them. I had no idea how he got abs like that, but if I didn’t know him I would assume he spent all his spare time doing crunches. Everything about the way he looked made me feel even uglier than I usually did.

  He gave me a look so damn reassuring it made me want to spit for some reason. “You have no idea how insanely hot you are, do you?” he asked. That was probably the stupidest question I had ever heard. “I mean it,” he said, undoing the last buttons on my shirt. He slipped it over my shoulders and grasped the bottom of my T-shirt. I grabbed his hands as he tried to take it off. “Please,” he whispered. “Let me see you.”

  I closed my eyes and let go.

  He took my shirt off, and I half expected to hear laughing. His hands undid my belt, and my slacks fell to the ground. I stepped out of them, my hand resting on his forearm since I refused to open my eyes. His hands moved up from my waist, across my stomach and paused on my chest. “So hot,” he breathed into my ear as he traced circles around my nipples.

  I laughed and pulled away a little, and when I opened my eyes I saw him standing in front of me. He was naked now, his boxer briefs discarded at some point, and I half gasped as I took him in fully. It was like looking at a statue the way all the lines of his muscles moved under his skin. He was hard, which surprised me more than anything else since I had never really looked at it in actual light.

  “Take them off,” he said, looking at my underwear. “Please,” he added smiling.

  I put my hands on either side of the elastic band, but they refused to move.

  “Does this look like I don’t like the way you look?” he asked, pointing at his hardness.

  With the same conviction someone takes jumping into a freezing pool, I pushed them off and kicked them away. We stood next to each other, fully naked for the first time. He moved to me and pulled me close, the warmth of his skin as erotic as the feel of him pressing against me. “I love everything about you,” he said as his hands moved down to cup my ass. “I just wished you could see yourself the way I do.”

  I began to tremble and thought I was cold for a moment, but I realized I had broken out in a cold sweat. He pulled me even closer and held me. “Take a deep breath,” he said, rubbing my back. “Just relax and breathe.”

  My hands clutched at each other around his back as I tried to calm myself down.

  “Come on,” he said pulling away slightly, “let’s get wet.” He opened the shower door and turned on one of the two shower heads. Once he got the temperature right he turned the other one on, and within a minute the room began to fill up with steam. He stood at the door smiling, his body looking even better wet. “Come on,” he said, holding out a hand. “Come take a shower with me.”

  I stepped into the shower, praying at some point I would get relaxed with this or that my heart would just burst and get my torture over with. Either one would be nice.

  I stood under one of the shower heads and discovered that the water was hot but not intolerable. I rested my chin against my chest and let the water roll down my back. The steady wash of warm water felt awesome; the shower in my apartment had nowhere near as much pressure. Brad’s hands began to move over my shoulders, and I could feel him put some kind of lotion or soap on me. His grip got firmer, and he began to message the tension out of my muscles.

  “Oh fuck,” I said, catching myself with my hands before I fell forward and slammed into the marble walls of the shower. It was like an electric current was moving from his fingertips through me. “Where did you learn that?”

  He chuckled as his hands moved toward my neck. “I’ve played sports since I was seven, dude. You know how many massages I’ve had? You pick up a trick or two along the way.” His thumbs moved into the area right where my skull connected with my spine, and I felt another spark move through me.

  “Oh my God,” I half moaned. One, I wasn’t the most comfortable person when it came to being touched. Yeah don’t look at me like that. I know you knew; I just need to say it out loud, okay? So the way his hands moved over my shoulders and neck was the best thing I had ever felt, period, and that was including him going down on me. I knew I was a wound-up guy and had always wondered if a massage would help, but since I was never going to let a guy touch me like Brad was, to avoid going all homo nuts on him, I had never tried one. Two, he knew what he was doing. He hadn’t learned a trick or two. This boy had a whole routine under his belt, and it was incredible. And though three shouldn’t have to be said, I will anyway. He was fucking the best-looking guy I had ever seen, and he was rubbing me naked in a shower.

  I guess what I am trying to say is, I got hard.

  Since I was leaning into the
shower wall with both my hands pressed to the tiles, I couldn’t do a thing about it. Part of me hoped Brad couldn’t tell; the other part wished he did.

  His hands moved from my neck down the middle of my back and began pressing and kneading outward from my spine. With each passing second, I became more and more relaxed as I also became more and more turned on. “See?” he asked softly. “Not so bad, is it?” I shook my head because I didn’t trust myself not to shout out very, very loudly to do me. “All work and no play makes Kyle a basket case,” he said, kissing my shoulders.

  “Better?” he asked when I was almost purring. “What is there to be nervous about?”

  As if to make his point, the bathroom door burst open and Jennifer called out, “Guys, get out here right now. We have a problem.”

  All the tension Brad had massaged out of me was back tenfold as I almost jumped out of my skin. The only thing that made it funny was the girl-like shriek Brad let out at the same time. “What the fuck, Jen?” he growled, knowing she couldn’t see us through the steam.

  “Not kidding, get out here.” And she closed the door.

  “If her dad wasn’t a cop, and she couldn’t, like, you know, kick my ass, I would kill her,” he said, turning the water off.

  I still felt like I was on the edge of a heart attack as we got out of the shower.

  I threw on a sweatshirt that could have fit three of me while Brad just put on a pair of sweats and nothing else as he ran out. I followed him after slipping on my underwear and slacks.

  I found Brad standing at Kelly’s doorway, where the sound of Kelly’s voice screaming “Fuck fuck fuck!” came echoing out of the room. I peeked in and could see he was sitting at his desk in front of his computer, pounding on his keyboard. Jennifer stood a few feet behind him, obviously too nervous to get any closer. I didn’t understand what the problem was until I heard what was coming from the speakers.

  “I don’t want to be gay!”

  I pushed past Brad as Kelly’s words from last night came echoing from the computer. I saw the screen and felt my blood turn to ice water. It was Kelly and me talking last night. Someone had been standing with the door cracked holding a cell phone, recording us. It had been edited and was looping almost everything Kelly had said over and over again. Someone had posted it on his Facebook wall with the title “Who’s the fag now?”

  There were over one hundred comments and twice as many Likes on it.

  “Oh God.” Kelly began to cry when he saw it had been shared over forty times up and down his wall.

  Someone had just publicly outed Kelly to the entire school.

  Part Three

  Somebody I Used to Know

  BRAD

  YOU know that whole thing people have about the zombie apocalypse? They are so sure the dead are going to rise again and get a taste for takeout that they have these plans. I know it isn’t real, but it is like the worst thing in the world they could envision. Out of all the ways the world could end, the very worst to them is ending up a happy meal for a pack of dead guys. I’ve seen a few movies and watched that one show a couple of times, but it really didn’t strike me as scary as everyone else thought it was.

  That was because in my mind, the worst way for the world to end was what just happened to Kelly.

  I just stood there stunned as he tried to erase the video from his wall, knowing it had been seen by half the school already. His phone was on the desk next to him, vibrating like it was on speed with each new text that came in. I couldn’t blame him for not checking them; after all, what was he going to say? No, that is not me crying about being gay on that clip. It is obviously a CGI Kelly. Can’t you see how it looks like Jar Jar?

  As we watched, more and more responses came streaming in from Facebook. It was obvious that most of Foster High was waking up and checking their e-mails. Within five minutes, the video popped up three more times on his wall; there was no putting that genie back in its bottle now.

  “Who sent it?” Jennifer asked between Kelly’s vocal explosions.

  “I don’t know!” he raged. “I deleted the original post; these are repostings.”

  “It’s a YouTube clip,” Kyle said, pointing at the video. “Click that corner.” Kelly didn’t quite get what Kyle was saying, so Kyle clicked it himself. Another browser opened to YouTube. The video was titled “Kelly Aimes: who is the fag now?”

  It had over a thousand views already.

  “People are commenting here too!” Kelly exclaimed, pointing at the page.

  “Turn it off,” Kyle said quickly, reaching for the power switch.

  “What are they saying?” Kelly asked, pushing his hand way.

  “Don’t read it,” Kyle insisted, reaching with his other hand to shut the computer off.

  “Knock it off, geek,” Kelly snapped, pushing him away. Kyle pinwheeled back, hitting the floor with a thud.

  “What’s it say?” I asked, curiosity winning out over caution.

  The second I read the words, I wished I could take it back.

  “Fucking kill yourself, fag.”

  “All fags should die.”

  “God will laugh when you die.”

  “I always knew Kelly was a fucking fairy.”

  I reached over and turned the computer off myself; this time Kelly didn’t stop me.

  “I’m dead,” he said in a voice that sounded like it was made with his last breath.

  “No you’re not,” Kyle said, getting up off the floor. “This will pass.”

  All three of us looked at him like he was nuts.

  “It’s just Facebook,” Kyle said, obviously not aware of what he was saying. “You have a couple of weeks before school starts. By the time it starts up again, people will find something new to talk about.”

  “And if they don’t?” Kelly demanded more than asked.

  “Then we deal with it,” he answered, his tone of voice laced with steel. “This is not the end of the world,” Kyle assured us. I didn’t say anything, but I couldn’t help feeling he was dead wrong. This was how the world ended, at least for guys like Kelly and me.

  “Can you guys take off?” Kelly asked after a few minutes of silence.

  “Do you want us to help clean…?” Jennifer started to ask.

  “Just go,” he barked.

  She looked at me, and I just shrugged. “Let’s give him some space,” I said and to Kelly, I added, “If you need us, just call, man.”

  Kelly didn’t even look up. The only sound in his room was his phone vibrating again and again.

  I followed Kyle out as Jennifer closed the door behind her.

  “We’re just going to leave him alone?” Kyle asked, his voice straining with disbelief.

  “He doesn’t want us here,” Jennifer answered.

  “And we are just going to do it?” Kyle asked, getting more upset.

  I saw he was upset, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. “We can’t just stay here forever. He wants to be alone, he gets to be alone.”

  “He’s in pain,” Kyle said, pointing at the closed door.

  “And he will be in pain until he lets someone help him,” Jennifer said softly. She looked at me. “Let me grab my stuff, and we can take off.”

  I nodded, and she went downstairs. As soon as she was gone, I said to Kyle in a lower tone of voice, “I know you want to do something, but he doesn’t want our help. You can’t force it on him.” I saw he wanted to argue, but he knew I was right. “I love you for wanting to jump in and do the right thing, but some people need time to adjust.”

  Kyle looked back at the closed door and shook his head. “This isn’t something you just adjust to.”

  He let out a sigh and his shoulders slumped. “I’ll go grab my clothes.” He walked away with an aura of defeat around him. I felt like I had just kicked a puppy, but I knew if it was me in there, I would want to be able to cry in private. We gathered all our stuff, and I called up the stairs. “Hey dude, we’re taking off! Call if you need somethin
g!” Silence was the only response. I saw the worried look in Kyle’s eyes. “He’ll be fine. I’ll call him later tonight on his parents’ line.” He accepted that answer, but I could see he didn’t like it at all.

  I closed the front door, ignoring the feeling of dread that passed through my mind momentarily.

  Once we were on the road to Jennifer’s house, Kyle started talking. “You guys know he is nowhere near okay, right?” I waited for Jennifer to answer, which was the wrong thing to do because I saw her look at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Kyle…,” I began to explain.

  “No. Don’t give me ‘Kyle, everyone deals with it differently’ or ‘Kyle, you have to give people space’. That guy is in nine kinds of pain, and we are leaving him alone.”

  “So what would you have us do?” Jennifer asked from the backseat.

  His answer was immediate. “I would sit on him until he realized the sky isn’t falling down on his head.”

  “But it is,” I said, correcting him gently. He looked over at me like I had called him a bad word. “What?” I asked in response. “The worst thing that could possibly happen to him just happened. In his world the sky is blood red, and it is falling right down on his head.”

  I saw him visibly swallow his anger to speak normally. “One, being found out you are gay is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. He could have fallen in a hole and had to gnaw his arm off. He might have been force-fed spaghetti until his stomach was about to burst. He might have even been hit by a bus in the middle of an intersection. Only in this backward fucking town would someone think being gay is the worst of all possibilities. And two, let’s pretend you’re right and that somehow being gay is the worst thing in the world. Isn’t that more reason to not leave him alone?”

  We’d never really fought before, which meant I had never been on the receiving end of his temper. Staring down the business end of it now, I could see why people did not like arguing with him. “You can’t save everyone,” I said as we pulled up in front of Jennifer’s house.