Free Falling
By Emery C. Walters
Published by Queerteen Press
Visit queerteen-press.com for more information.
Copyright 2015 Emery C. Walters
ISBN 9781611528268
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America. Queerteen Press is an imprint of JMS Books LLC.
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Free Falling
By Emery C. Walters
Chapter 1: My First Time
Chapter 2: Little Blue Pills
Chapter 3: Ten Percent
Chapter 4: That Goth Girl
Chapter 5: Showtime
Chapter 6: It’s a New Year
Chapter 1: My First Time
This is a hard paper for me to write, Mr. Marshall. But here goes; oh sorry about the, But. Now, as per your request. My name is Evan Darling Stop Laughing. You know it’s true. My stupid mother married my stupid father who has the stupidest last name in the world. The only other horrible last name in this town is Enos. You know what they call Michael, don’t you? Mike Enos the P…I get goo-goo eyes and people making kissy faces at me. Then they tell me what darling blue eyes I have and what a darling sweet smile and oooh, how the girls must love me to pieces. More on that later.
Anyhow he moved on and I never see him, but my stepfather who has raised me much longer than I would like, is named Miller which as you probably know is the name of a beer, which, he claims, was named in his honor.
If you don’t remember, you asked us to write about My Weekend, My First Time, How I Spent my Summer Vacation, or the ever popular, What Were the Major Turning Points in the Boer War? You said you wanted honesty and depth. Ha-ha, I said depth.
How I Spent My Weekend (close enough)
You may have noticed I was out of school this past week. Pretty quiet in class, huh? No tacks on your seat, no spit-wads, (I learned about them from my dad), no whispering/yelling/flirting or anything. Did you miss me? Well, I’m back. Sorry.
Now I’ll tell you where I was. I was in the hospital. Yes, I have a note from my doctor. The principal has it. He’s checking with my mother and my doctor to make sure it’s legit. It’s not as if it’s signed, Evan’s Dockter, or anything. It’s legit. I was only there for three days but they wouldn’t let me leave the house until today. Anyhow, it could have been worse. I could have been in the nut house—or homeless, or dead. Anyhow, this is why my paper is late.
It was like this. You know that new kid, Jamison? The one with the curly blond hair and the sea-green eyes? Yeah, that one you had sit next to me and asked me to “help out.” Oh boy, did I help him out. As soon as he sat down next to me, he looked up at me with those eyes, and I melted into a puddle of goo or something. Right then I would have helped him out of the room and into the boys’ room if he’d asked. Or even if you’d only turned your head. We wouldn’t have been very long. But no. At that very moment you had to open your mouth and say, and I quote, “Now remember. These papers are important. They need to be over a thousand words and I want detail and I mean detail. And an introduction, and background. I want to be able to see what you’re writing about, to be there at the scene of the action.”
Please remember those were your orders as you read my paper, okay? Maybe next time you should be more careful about what you ask for. (Or maybe not, hey, what do I really know about your personal life? Is there a Mrs. Marshall? Or is there perhaps a partner, or even a husband? What do I know?)
Okay then. There’s the introduction of which you speak. Now for the background. Up to this time, two weeks ago when all this happened, I thought I was a pretty normal kid, you know. Honest, studious, a little nuts, apparently very annoying, kind of talkative, good-looking, talented, smart, but straight and all that. Not to mention handsome, clear-eyed, and destined for a great future. A boy who was too busy with his education to mess around with girls. I did figure I was a late bloomer and would be interested in girls soon enough. I’d just wait until I could actually get a girlfriend and take her clothes off or something and see if that—ew, never mind. (How’s that for description? Your word once again. I tried. Not the girlfriend thing, the description.)
Well, when Jamison sat his gorgeous ass down next to me, I could no longer deny this nagging suspicion that boobies, bare-naked or not, did not and never would do it for me. You know why? Because Jamison’s eyes and his ass did it for me, if you know what I mean, and what I mean is he sat down, his bluejeaned ass touched my own with a spark like lightning, and then he looked at me, and my heart melted completely. I was in love with that ass already, jeans and all, and then those eyes sucked me in as well. Oh, and he has a dimple too. Is it okay that I said sucked? I know you said you didn’t want anything blatantly sexual.
Side note: Background? I know you’re old and everything and have probably forgotten what love is like and think I’m nuts. Well, maybe I was at first. I hesitate to use the word horny, as it’s vulgar and you wanted us to be sure and go beyond the vernacular. Mom’s preacher friend says that lust is bad; so I won’t use that either. But remember that Romeo and Juliet play by Shakespeare that we had to read? Yeah? Take this: Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; yeah, it was like that. That’s exactly how I felt. Sort of like that cigar stink I noticed around you when I saw you at the park over Labor Day.
You may not know that I’m a year younger than all the other students in my class, because I skipped second grade. This in the long run has not been helpful because it always made me be the smallest, weakest, and generally all around most immature kid in class. See, I have a reason after all. Who knew? It also dropped my grade level from A-pluses to A-minuses. But what this has to do with this essay is this; Jamison is eighteen. I’m seventeen. That means if you believe this paper is true, he could go to jail. So I’ll put this disclaimer in right now; this is fiction. Fiction.
Three days after he sat next to me, Friday night, we were at his house. Nobody else was home. He was showing me his bedroom. He wanted me to see his posters…they’re like antiques that his father kept from back in the day. They glow under black light and so, he turned off the lights and turned on the black light and they glew, or glowed, whatever. And then he took my face in his hands, and I learned how to French kiss. A short time later, I learned what one way to have gay sex is. I didn’t learn how to put a condom on because I didn’t need one, but he did, so he did. As they say on the internet; OMFG. I didn’t know if I was more scared or delighted. Either way, I was so in love with him, so high on Shakespeare’s fumes if you will, that I would have been willing to walk barefoot through a fresh lava field if he’d wanted to, or like Pele, to prove my love for him by making love right there on the edge of Haleakala’s most active vent.
Like you said, details. One of the posters was of this dude Elvis Presley and another was of magic mushrooms, whatever they are (hey, you’re old like that, maybe you know), and th
ere were others that were only big swirls of color. I think one was of a stoned Mickey Mouse. There was a lot of orange and some green and flowers. What was that all about? But I digress.
The next day my gut started to hurt. I didn’t worry about it much; I was too happy and we had a date for Sunday afternoon. I ended up not going and stood him up. I didn’t mean to, but by Sunday morning I was in agony—and flat out terrified that something inside me had been torn or broken. There was no way I was going to tell my parents how something like that might have happened. I spent all day and night Saturday searching the internet and frankly, scaring the crap out of myself, finding things out that I never knew could go wrong…again…OMFG. I was sure I had an aneurysm or colitis or cancer. Maybe a blocked bowel or trichinosis. What if the condom had come…never mind. By daylight I was flat out terrified and was pretty sure that I was going to die, but at least I had come up with a plan. A plan that did not include either my parents or my pediatrician, who is a woman. Actually, our family doctor is Mrs. Mayfair, the principal’s wife. No effing way. Oh, sorry. You know what effing stands for, right? Maybe it was after your time or something. You can ask me later if you want to.
After my parents left for church, I went into Mom’s closet where she hides her mad money and took it all. I think it was around seventy-five dollars. She keeps it in an old high heeled shoe in the very bottom row of her shoe boxes. I already knew about it because six months ago when I tried it on, no wait, it must have been for Halloween, yeah that’s it, and if you want your darn details than yes, yes I could walk in them. All right? Happy now?
Anyhow I pulled out the money and got my jacket and then I walked, well, limped, into town to the local urgent care, the one next to the drugstore. I’d never been there before so I didn’t know anyone, and they didn’t know me. I told the receptionist I was eighteen and was going to pay in cash. She raised one eyebrow and gave me a dozen forms to fill out. I fictionalized all of them, including my name. I think I wrote down I was Mickey Presley or something.
Ten hours or maybe minutes later, I was ushered into the doctor’s office, given one of those stupid skimpy paper gowns, and told to undress. Mortified, terrified, and biting my lip so as not to cry from the pain, I did as I was told and lay down on the couch or whatever that table-thing is. I noticed stirrups at the end and tried putting my feet up in them, which gave me the giggles and made me think of Jamison. You asked for details. Sorry yet?
Then I thought; oh my God, what if this doctor is a woman? I’d lied so much on the forms that when the nurse asked me what the problem was I didn’t know what to say, so I blushed. I wish I could say I did it on purpose, but oh hell no. My blood pressure was apparently so high it took her mind off my reticence and confusion.
The doctor finally came in. He was just what I’d hoped for: a man, and someone I didn’t know. In fact, I didn’t even find out his name until much later. It didn’t take long for him to know me though. He’d read through the notes the nurse had made (oh, I’d already forgotten that part, and had no idea what I’d put down or even what I’d said my name was. Elvis the Pelvis?) Well, he was sure going over that area pretty darn close.
I could hardly speak to answer him. I used to stutter as a kid and lisp somewhat and both Stutter and Lisp came back to visit me in full force. He stared at me with one eye half closed and I tried my best to look calm and suave and mature but I could feel my lip trembling and suddenly I wished my mom was there.
Then he said, “Show me where it hurts,” and I reached down and he lifted the gown and I poked myself and cried out.
“Ah,” he said. He moved closer and put his hands in another spot. “How about here?” He repeated this several times. I could swear he was just having fun as part of his lip was twitching. It made his mustache wiggle and I wonder if that would tickle anyone he, ah, might, um, never mind.
Let’s use the word arrgh instead of me trying to describe the different ways I learned I could express torture, okay? I mean, here I am, a mature adult (sort of) taking care of myself like a mature adult, and mature adults don’t scream, right? Or cry. So I said, “Arrgh,” every time like a mature adult pirate. (It sounds so much more macho than eeek or yahh.)
He moved his hands yet again, “Is it worse here?”
“Arrgh.”
Then he stared at me some more. At first I thought maybe he was meditating or feeling the damaged area send out waves of tattered energy or something woo-woo like that, but then I thought, maybe he knows I’m lying. Maybe he knows what I did. OMFG. What would happen if he found out I was only seventeen and should have had my parents with me? What would happen if he knew what had happened already? I bet my blood pressure soared into the thousands or whatever. But all he did was smile almost mystically (Hey, I know woo-woo when I see it, okay? This was woo-woo.) He said cheerfully, “Is there anything else you can tell me about this?”
I broke down. I started babbling fearfully. “It could be plague. My dog has fleas. Yeah, I bet it’s plague. Or a worm, or one of those fish that swim up your ureth…thing, or pica, I used to eat glue, and uh…” I wound down. He was staring at me. He looked amused. He looked like he was trying desperately to not look amused.
He’d seen right through me. He—knew. It was too much for me. I started babbling out the truth like a coward who had just had a fingernail pulled out. You know I’m not much of one for talking…oh wait, I can’t write that flat out a lie with a straight face. Stop laughing. You’re an adult; a real adult. Anyhow later I realized he’d only meant how long have you had it, when did it start, etc.
So there I was blubbering and hyperventilating and spilling my guts (so to speak). He took hold of my wrist—I guess to take my pulse but it felt so good, so comforting, that I could no longer hold anything back. Ashamed and terrified, I slammed my eyes shut tight and stammered out, “FridaynightIhadbuttsex.”
There. It was out. I realized I’d not been breathing so I started that again with a gasp that blew my eyes open. Oh thank you baby Jesus, he wasn’t looking at me. He did glance at me but he didn’t look horrified or anything. He wasn’t dialing the police. He wasn’t running away.
I hadn’t meant to say that. I, uh, had wanted him to think I’d had sex with a girl…But how would that explain my gut pain? I mean…Well, shit. I glanced up at him again…and he was smiling a real, polite smile. That bastard. Not only was he was smiling; he was damn close to smirking.
“You bottomed?” he asked.
“I—huh?” I had at that time no clue what that meant.
He rolled his eyes. “Ahem.” I could imagine him rolling his eyes and thinking, what an idiot. He went on, “Well, medically speaking, your partner, being the top, inserts his…”
“No. No. I get it. Yes.” Oh boy, did I get it. That’s exactly what I got. I was nodding maniacally. There was a sudden spate of whimpering noises that I realized were coming from me. When I realized this, I bit my lip and stammered out, “Fuhhhh,” and then nodded. Again.
I didn’t think it could, but it got worse. “Let me take a quick look,” he said. Which immediately brought back last week’s history lesson on the horrors the Germans perpetrated during World War II. Did not want to remember those at that moment. Gahhh. Or even worse, that alien abduction story we had to read in literature. You know, the one with the anal probes.
I died. No, I merely wished I would. I didn’t. A few minutes later, after something that wasn’t horrible but didn’t feel as good as, well, you know, he said, “Well, I have good news and bad news.”
I got out, “Buh?”
He had to swallow a laugh. I swear that’s what he was choking on. “The good news is it has nothing to do with you having sex. By the way, did you use protection?”
What the heck did he mean, protection? A security guard? A lock on the door?
“A condom,” he added, and this time he did roll his eyes.
I nodded dumbly; stress the dumb part. I knew this was not the time to say, “They don’t
work. My friend was wearing one once and got hit by a bus.” Or however that old joke went.
He nodded too, but wisely. Then he went on, “The bad news—or maybe it’s the good news—is that it’s your appendix. That’s all, just your appendix. However, you need surgery as soon as possible. Now if I assume correctly that you are not really eighteen, let’s call your parents, and have them get you to the hospital, or meet us there. And no, we won’t have to disclose what you were up to, er, I mean, what you were concerned about.” Did he wink at me? Yes, he did, he winked at me, and it made me feel good. See, my biggest fear was my parents finding out what I’d done and not that I could die or anything. Big deal. But of course, as soon as he said they didn’t have to know about that, suddenly I was terrified that I might, actually, die.
So that’s why I wasn’t here. I had surgery. And when I went for my follow-up appointment, the doctor gave me a box of condoms, and told me that when I went to buy them myself, to try the drugstore next door, because that’s where his son Jamison buys them, and they give him a discount.
I nodded like a dashboard hula girl, and never asked the question that suddenly bloomed in my mind. Uh, Jamison what? it would have been. But I could not speak a word. Coincidence? Well, who knows. Maybe I’ll ask him sometime. Like tonight, after school. He has a new poster he wants me to see.
Chapter 2: Little Blue Pills
I felt very good sitting there in the classroom, next to Jamison, his fingers playing around in my crotch, and waited for Mr. Marshall to smile or laugh out loud while reading my paper. Then I had the horrible thought that he might read it out loud. Or that he might make me stand up and read it out loud. My pants were barely holding their own against Jamison’s fingers. Oh, why hadn’t I died in surgery? But then Jamison sighed and withdrew his hand. He wrote later on his paper and I read it. Love blossomed in my heart.
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