Foolish Fire

by Willard, Guy

  Wag, wag, wag….

  I lay in bed at night going crazy from the memory of such sights, and from the aching desire to feel his hard-muscled arms around me, his chest against mine.

  And I turned onto my side and hugged my pillow to my chest, feeling as if some unholy enchantment had cast its spell over me, and (like Sleeping Beauty deep in her death-like sleep of oblivion) only the kiss from the lips of a handsome prince could awaken me…. And the pillow became Jack, upon whom I proved my love…and it offered me a temporary salvation, a moment of freedom from the pain of thinking, from the pain of being a boy.

  *

  School was becoming a miserable place for me; I could no longer concentrate in class.

  In social studies, Jack always sat in the farthest row over, by the windows. Today he had the wide-awake look of a farm boy—the ideal farm boy of my fantasies. The light from the window illuminated the spray of light brown freckles dotting his nose and cheeks, and the pale peach fuzz shading his high cheekbones, fading into his sideburns. He was wearing a loose, bulky pullover.

  His face, which seemed so dreamy at times like this, was lost in reverie. His head was cocked slightly to one side, his mouth pensive and half-open as if in expectation of a kiss. But in his eyes was a certain laughing mockery, the insolent look of a little boy who has pulled a prank that you don’t know about yet. At times, without warning, this look would turn sullen, as if you’d just insulted him and he was looking you up and down, trying to decide whether or not to challenge you to a fight.

  Mrs. Gomby, the social studies teacher, was speaking, but Jack wasn’t taking any notes—he never did. He just leaned back in his seat and listened, his pen poised over his blank notebook, his left hand crooked around in an awkward left-hander’s curl.

  With his legs crossed, he lounged in his chair with an effortless and unstudied grace as if his presence were a casual but priceless gift bestowed on all his worshipping courtiers.

  To my left was a girl named Katrina. As usual, she was sitting in the pose of an attentive note-taker, but her eyes were fixed upon Jack in unabashed worship, gazing at him with a hunger she did nothing to conceal. But Jack paid no attention to her, re-crossing his legs and giving his attention to Mrs. Gomby. I could well understand Katrina’s dreamy longing, yet the moment I let such a desire be known, I would be beaten up.

  I shifted about uncomfortably in my chair and tried to return my attention to the teacher, but my mind kept wandering toward Jack. I felt a shivering flutter at the base of my throat as I gazed at him. This boy could move hearts with a tremor of his lips. Underneath his bulky pullover was a body that would make a saint sin.

  I swallowed and, against the drone of Mrs. Gomby’s talk, tried to mentally strip Jack of his clothing, bit by bit. Surely even the purest, straightest boy must occasionally feel his control slipping when confronted by someone like Jack. I couldn’t imagine anyone, boy or girl, looking at him and not desiring him in a sexual way. Such a boy was made to be loved—all the ancient statues and paintings glorified just such beauty.

  It was all I could do to keep my feelings secret, and at times the effort was excruciating.

  On the surface, I continued to be a model student. But beneath that facade was a monster which no one else knew about, which peeked out at the world through the eyes of a normal-looking boy. No one knew this other Guy Willard, the one who still had certain yearnings he hadn’t quite outgrown.

  The daydreams were the worst; they kept haunting me…in class…on the bus…at home…in bed. I was made wretched by them, they disgusted me, but I couldn’t stop them. They came into my head of their own accord and all I could do was fall under their evil spell.

  Jack began biting his nails lightly, and I turned to watch Mrs. Gomby writing on the blackboard. I continued to gaze at the teacher, seemingly listening to her, but actually my mind was far, far away….

  I am thinking of how Jack looks in the PE showers, under the spray, his body gleaming with water, turning around and around. His hair is wet and plastered down, and water is dripping into his eyes so he can’t see that I’m gazing at him. Suddenly he stops and shakes his hair free. He stares at me. I hadn’t realized how engrossed I’d become watching him.

  “What are you doing, Willard?”

  I stammer out something.

  He notices my erection. “You got a boner on. You little faggot.”

  He turns off the showers and grabs me from behind, locking my shoulders and head in a wrestling hold. Then he yanks me out of the shower room and drags me over to the bench. He calls out: “Hey, Doug, look what I found.”

  Doug comes running in. When he sees the state I’m in, he laughs.

  “Caught him with a rod, huh?”

  Together they force me down onto the bench until I’m lying supine atop it. Doug sits on my knees so I can’t move.

  “Cut it out, you guys,” I say weakly.

  Jack plunks himself down on my chest, his knees digging into my shoulders, his calves pinching my arms against my sides. I am helpless.

  “What are you guys gonna do to me?” I ask.

  “You know we gotta punish you, Guy.”

  “Listen, it isn’t what you think….”

  “What else can it be?” Jack looks over his shoulder. “Go ahead, Doug, why doncha give him a hand?”

  “Sure.”

  I feel a hand touch my penis.

  “Hey!”

  I squirm but it is useless. Nothing I do will dislodge my tormentors. The hand begins stroking me roughly.

  “Cut it out! Please!”

  “But don’t you like it? Isn’t it what you wanted to do as you looked at me in the showers back there?”

  “No! Don’t.”

  “Don’t you like it? Huh?”

  I will myself to keep from getting excited, but there is no stopping it. The feel-good increases…steadily. It feels so good, better than anything I’ve ever done to myself…the weight of his butt on my chest, the look on his face, cruel and gloating…just like the Roman soldier in the movie….

  My humiliation cannot be stopped…and he can see the pleasure on my face….

  But there’s nothing I can do to stop it…it feels too good…it’s unstoppable…I don’t want it to stop…I’m past the point of no return….

  And Jack is looking right into my eyes at the terrible moment of truth, smiling his wicked, wicked smile.

  The excitement had made my stomach churn sickeningly…the combination of queasiness and arousal was just too much. There was a buzzing sound in my ears which increased in volume as Mrs. Gomby’s voice faded, sounding far away and hollow. The classroom around me turned gray, muffled-looking.

  And then, without warning, I threw up.

  It happened so suddenly that Mrs. Gomby couldn’t disguise the shocked, worried look which transformed her face into that of a matronly grandmother. The kids sitting near me edged away, their desks scraping sharply against the floor. The expressions on their faces plainly showed their disgust. On the desk before me was a steaming mess comprised of bits of carrots, corn, strands of spaghetti thrown up from my insides, the visible manifestation of my inner sickness. I sat with my head down, all wan and wasted, bent over from the secret burden I still carried inside me.

  Luckily the bell rang just then. I listened with my eyes closed to the sound of everyone putting away their notebooks and scraping back their chairs. My stomach felt quaky. Mrs. Gomby was standing by my desk asking me if I was all right. I nodded weakly.

  As she instructed one of the girls to go for the school nurse, I noticed Jack, with an uncomfortable glance at me, stroll out of the classroom with Katrina right beside him, already talking about something else.

  *

  A few days later I was headed for PE class. With my gym bag slung over my shoulder, I banged into the dressing room to change. I kept my head down, concentrating on changing as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. I ignored the usual rowdy horseplay all around me.

&nb
sp; The dank locker room was redolent with the smell of mold and boys’ sweat, a combined aroma which was so evocative for me, the very essence of carefree, virile masculinity.

  I pulled my T-shirt on and slammed my locker door shut.

  As I headed out, I passed right by Jack. He didn’t notice me; he was busy talking with Doug as he changed into his gym clothes. Completely nude, he’d just turned to pick out something from his gym bag when he stubbed his toe.

  Fearing he’d split a nail, he bent over to examine it closely. That was when I found my gaze riveted to the sight of his buttock cheeks spread flat, revealing the faint, brownish line marking the cleft…and exposing to the view of the whole world the creasy pink pucker of every boy’s most secret spot.

  A tiny, beautiful rose.

  Quickly I turned away and ran outside.

  The boys were lining up in exercise formation, with Coach Kapp explaining the exercises we were going to do today. I found myself unaccountably tensed up. When all the boys had arrived, we began.

  Fifty jumping jacks. Fifty knee bends. Thirty sit-ups. Twenty push-ups.

  It felt good to move my body; it was like fighting an invisible foe, and the harder I worked out, the more I believed I was defeating him. My muscles were warming up. I could feel the blood coursing through my veins. Sweat dampened my T-shirt.

  The push-ups were last. I was pumping away at them so hard that my muscles were aching. Everyone was done, but I pushed myself on—twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five….

  Suddenly I sensed Coach Kapp standing by me.

  “Guy, don’t push yourself too hard. You only have to do twenty.” He sounded worried.

  After exercises we played a game of touch football. This was the most carefree, fun part of PE. Slamming against each other, swearing, it was a boy’s world, millions of miles away from the other classes in school. It was ruled by brute muscular strength, and I felt at one with the others, laughing, kidding, pushing, shoving, forgetting.

  After the workout of the game, we walked wearily back to the gym, a slow, sweat-drenched drag to the showers, where the refreshing stinging spray of warm water awaited us, the wet sound of slapped skin, the engorged biceps, triceps, pectorals….

  I pulled my damp T-shirt off and wiped my face with it, breathing in the aroma of my underarm sweat, a sexual scent which secretly thrilled me, for it always evoked this locker room and the undressed boys. I brought my head down like a lonely swan and sniffed….

  And finally, the shower. This was the most difficult part. The PE shower room was still a torture chamber for me; the proximity of so much bare flesh from which I had to somehow avert my eyes…. Ever since Jack had told me about Mark Warren getting a hard-on in the showers, I had a recurring nightmare of the same thing happening to me.

  Mark himself no longer had this problem. I’d heard that he didn’t take PE anymore, though it was normally a requirement for graduation. His mother had had him excused for supposed “health” reasons; he even had a note from his doctor.

  Unfortunately, I had to be here in the midst of five or six naked boys. I tried desperately to keep my mind on something else as I turned around under the spray of the shower nozzle. My eyes were focused on the ceiling, the walls, anywhere but upon flesh.

  By the time I’d finished, I was among the last to leave. I dressed myself rapidly in the emptying dressing room where the pungent smell of the deodorant used by boys already gone still hovered in the air. A lime-green piece of cloth jammed in the bottom of a locker caught my eye as I was about to dash out. Where had I seen that strange color before? Of course. It was Jack’s T-shirt.

  I halted.

  There was no one in the dressing room now but a couple of boys here early for the next class. They’d never know. I went back to the locker and retrieved the T-shirt as if it were my own. Stuffing it into my gym bag, slinging the bag over my shoulder, I hurried on to my next class. Outside, Jack was nowhere in sight.

  That night in my bedroom I clasped the captured T-shirt to my face. I held it to my nose and breathed in the bouquet of male sweat caught in its folds. It was lovely. I slipped off my own shirt and slipped the green one on. This shirt which normally clung to Jack like a second skin now fit me in a loose embrace. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, feeling an almost dizzying lightheadedness. I thought of how Jack had looked in PE this afternoon—his skin brick red except for the strip of white about his hips, the tiny, curly hairs creeping up the crevice of his butt, peeking shyly from between firm cheeks…the phantom cling of his just-removed jock strap leaving its reddish after-marks, one cutting across his waist and two diagonal ones slashing down his buttocks…the smooth hardness of his ass cheeks like ripening apples or peaches…and when he bent over, a tiny pink rosebud coming into view….

  “Damn you, Jack.”

  I pictured him stepping into the shower room, his dark nest of curly pubic hair bedizened with jewel-like droplets of water. And the clean pinkness of his dick which I was so scared to look at, so baby soft and flopping…so casually impertinent….

  Wag, wag, wag….

  I wondered what he was doing now at this very moment—was he going to bed? Or was he already asleep? If so, what was he dreaming about?

  “Damn you, Jack, you’re making me do this….”

  I closed my eyes and let my mind go pleasantly blank.

  “Jack….”

  Wag, wag, wag….

  I opened my eyes to view the sudden white leap, and the archipelago of white islands now dotted out over a lime-green sea….

  “Oh, Jack….”

  A wave of wretched shame…torturing guilt….

  Why? Why had I done it again? Why? Would I ever be free?

  *

  It began so innocently. Sitting in the back of the room in science class while the teacher lectured, I and a girl—Judy, or was it Sonia?—were kissing passionately. As we lipped and tongued each other, the giggles and whispers of the girls sitting around us began to grow louder and louder. Finally it was loud enough to draw the teacher’s attention, and Mr. McGuiness, who had been completely unaware of what was going on all this time, rapped his pointer against the blackboard to bring the class to order.

  It was then that I pulled away from the kiss and realized with shocked horror that the person I was kissing was not Judy or Sonia, but a boy.

  Jack.

  And I jerked awake in the middle of the night, trembling, in a cold sweat, gasping.

  I lay in bed for a long, long time trying to fall asleep again.

  Gradually, I realized I was in another place, a tropical land far away. Was this another dream? I only knew that I’d been picking my way carefully through the midst of some fabulous Grecian ruins, searching for something. The twilight sky was tinged orange and violet. All of a sudden I became aware of a faint movement in the corner of my eye. I turned and saw my quarry slipping away down a flight of wide, shallow steps.

  I gave chase, pounding after the other—something or someone—whose face I couldn’t get close enough to recognize. All I knew was that I had to catch it. Down torturous twists and turns…past tottering pillars and narrowing walls…into a labyrinthine maze of neatly-trimmed hedges…false passageways and secret doors…down tunnels lit by the smoky glare of torches.

  We ended up in a vast, empty stadium whose hugeness seemed to swallow me up. As I raced across its smooth marble floor, the echoes of my footsteps sounded faint and far off. But I somehow knew I was near the end of my chase. My quarry was heading toward a semi-circular amphitheater at the far end. And it was here that I finally cornered it.

  Upon the wide, stage-like setting, I waited with trepidation and unmitigated horror for it to turn around and expose its face—a face which some dread premonition in the instant before it turned around told me would be that of a slimy, repulsive monster.

  And it was.

  And now it was my turn to escape the horror, down twisting alleyways which led through unknown catacombs, my breath coming sho
rter and shorter until I bolted awake with an agonized groan which still sounded in my blood-thrumming ears even after my eyes were wide open, staring up at my bedroom ceiling.

  I sat up and turned the bedside lamp on, then got out of bed and went over to my desk, pulled out the chair and sat down. A glance at the clock told me it was two-thirty in the morning. No one else would be awake at this hour. Slowly I lowered my head onto my hands, resting my throbbing temple on the desk-top.

  I thought again of what I’d read in What Every Boy Should Know: “…it is quite common for a boy to develop romantic attachments to another of the same sex….” And: “In most cases, this condition weakens and disappears as one gets older….”

  It was all temporary. Of course it was.

  But how many other boys were going through this phase? Surely I couldn’t be the only one. Lately, there was so much talk about homosexuality in school that it seemed to be the only thing people talked about anymore. In fact, most of the boys seemed fascinated with the topic. Words like “queer,” “faggot,” and “fairy” had entered all their vocabularies. Other words like “cocksucker” and “butt-fucker” were so common that they were no longer applied to just queers. Homosexuality was a popular theme for jokes and insults. Some boys (no doubt, so assured of their own heterosexuality that they had nothing to fear) made jokes like: “You better not bend over in the showers if you know what’s good for you,” rubbing the front of their shorts suggestively. I laughed along with them, secretly wondering how they could be so unconcerned.

  Most boys, however, made no secret of the disgust they felt toward fags. I suspected it stemmed from their uncertainty about themselves. Maybe they, too, were “going through a period of physical changes and curiosity.”