Gym Buddies III: Part Three
#3 of Gym Buddies III
DISCLAIMER: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SCENES OF ABUSE THAT SOME MAY FIND DISTURBING.
PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION.
Gym Buddies III: Part Three
"Al!" The smiling Alsatian wrapped his arms around me before I could respond. His hug was just as tight as the one at the wake, probably tighter now that he knew how pleased I was to see him. This hug was different, though - somehow, it felt right.
"Jason, it's been too long," I said, driving my nose into the fur on his neck. The embrace became less forceful, but more tender as Jason sighed. "What's wrong?" I felt him shake his head.
"Nothing," he smiled, bringing his head to look at me sweetly. "Not a thing." There was a slight breeze coming from behind him, which turned out to be his tail wagging happily. He was wearing the same suit as when I saw him before, but a quick sniff of the air told me he'd had a shower, shampooed and he was etched with a brilliant cologne.
"Come in, then," I said, freeing him from the hug. He walked in and examined the corridor carefully. If my instincts were right, he was keeping a watchful eye out for someone. "He's not here," I reminded him. "We burnt him." The German Shepherd looked over at me sheepishly and smiled.
"Funny that I'm so afraid of him when he," Jason paused for a moment to look into my eyes. The smile drained a little from his face. "Well, when he gave you the worst of it." I nodded as an uncomfortable silence wedged between us. The howling wind outside caused a hollow and ghostly whisper to run through the house.
"Drink?" I offered, trying to keep my mind off the silly notion of a haunted house. He nodded and went into the kitchen. We'd spent years apart, but Jason could probably still tell me the layout of the house. I followed him in and found him eyeing a bottle of red wine.
"Good year," he said with a smile and a slight lick of his lips. I fiddled around in one of the drawers to find a corkscrew, brought out two glasses and pierced the cork. After pulling it out, I poured a glass each for us and offered one to Jason. His black and brown fur wrapped around the stem as he touched it to mine. We sipped for a moment and the fruity substance tasted sweet in my maw. "So what've you been up to?"
I led him into the living room, sat down on the leather and invited him to do the same. Jason sat next to me, the fabric of his suit touching to mine causing a certain electricity between us. I told him about the events of the past month. Meeting a husky, spending a night with him, falling head-over-heels for him and being rejected. After that I went onto tell him about Luke, who he remembered from the wake. He was shocked that I blamed myself for his burn, husky voice and crushed paw.
"But you wouldn't have known that that would have happened - how could you?" I shook my head and put my lips to the glass. I'd already finished it, so put the glass on the coffee table. "And he doesn't forgive you?" he asked nervously.
"No," I answered, my voice staying low. If Jason heard it, I'd have been surprised.
"Then he's an idiot," he said, "you're not a bad person." A cheeky smile crossed his face as he remembered something. "Well, that's not what our teachers said." I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow as I wondered what he meant. He seemed a little saddened that I didn't remember. "Oh, come on, Mister 'yote!" That made me smile and blush - I hadn't been called Mister 'yote since I last saw Jason. "You seriously don't remember? We always picked on each other so that we'd end up in detention?"
It all came rushing back to me - the fights we'd always start in front of the teachers, the playful punches that looked harder than they were. There was the one occasion when Jason accidentally bust my lip in one of our displays, but it was nothing compared to what my dad did when he saw. It wasn't the fact that I had been fighting, rather that I'd let myself get hit.
"Yes," I said suddenly, "everyone thought we hated each other!" Jason smiled at this. I noticed one particular thought cross his mind when he looked into my eyes.
"Do you remember the last day we saw each other?" It didn't take his pushing the memory forward to bring it back so clearly.
*
"You better watch your back, you dumb coyote!" Even knowing Jason was putting on an act, the words stung.
"Yeah, Mutt?" I spat back at him, my teeth baring a little. The teachers were holding us back relatively well, though we wouldn't have done anything to each other if we were free. "And just what are you gonna do?"
"Maybe you'll find out," he said. Mister Clay refused to sit for another hour with us in detention, so told us that our parents would be informed of what was going on unless we stopped acting up that second. We nodded and held off each other. Both of us knew that this shouldn't get back to my father. When each teacher let go of us, we stood and refused eye contact. "You won't have the teacher to protect you out of school," the Alsatian hissed, "that's when I'm gonna get you."
I made my way quickly out of the hall and took a left to my house. It was about two miles away, and my father refused to let me be driven home. Walking would build character for me. I knew that today it was going to be quicker, though. The time would fly by.
"Hey!" I snapped my head around to see him standing five foot away from me. The black fur that ran down his neck swayed in the wind as he clutched on to the white leather strap of his schoolbag. His eyes glinted as if he was going to pounce on me, and when he took a step forward, I wondered if he might. "I said there wouldn't be any teachers here," he chuckled.
"Jason, you scared me," I said, feeling my heart race suddenly. He put his arms around me and his head on my chest.
"Sorry, Mister 'yote, I didn't mean to," he apologised. He murred happily and the vibrations tickled my chest. Looking down at him, I realised he was listening to my heart beating. I chuckled and hugged him back.
"We shouldn't be like this," I thought aloud. The Alsatian looked up at me with the saddest pair of eyes I'd seen. "We don't want to lose our cred as the greatest enemies in the school, do we? Someone might see us and think that you're my boyfriend," I winked at him. We laughed, but Jason agreed it was a good idea to stop while we were outside.
Instead, we walked home with him a couple of steps behind me. If anyone asked, Jason was following me and planning to beat the shit out of me. Another fight would ensue and we'd keep up our act until they went away. Thankfully, no one came up to us and asked why we were so close to each other.
When I turned the corner onto the street I lived, I noticed that the car wasn't parked outside. "Come on, it's clear," I said. I didn't want my dad knowing that I was having a friend over, let alone a friend who was gay. He left the door open for me, so Jason and I ran upstairs to my bedroom. When we got upstairs, he threw down his bag, took off his jacket and hugged me.
"Did you mean that?"
"Mean what?" I asked, holding him in my arms. He looked into my eyes and blushed behind a smile.
"When you said that someone might think I was your... you know?"
"Boyfriend?" I confirmed. He chuckled and blushed even further. I couldn't see his skin darken through his black fur, but the way his eyes hit the floor gave it away. "You like it when I call you my boyfriend?"
"Stop it," he insisted. I smiled and gave into the request - while making him act like that was fun, I worried that I'd start to annoy him.
"Do you wanna watch some TV?" I offered. The set that my parents had given me was tiny - a black and white with a huge crack across the screen and a bust speaker. It still picked up channels well, though, and the sound quality from the one working speaker sufficed. We watched a few cartoons and ate some chocolate on the bed. I held Jason in my arms and my fingers twiddled around the fur on his half open shirt.
"Al," he started uncertainly. After a moment of silence, I figured he had decided against it.
"Were you gonna say something?" The canine considered it for a moment and mumbled something. "If there's something on your mind?" I offered. He sighed and grabbed tightly onto my arms.
"Well, I wanna ask you something, but I'm scared of what you'll say." This had really caught my interest now, so I shifted so that he had to move. He flipped his body around so that we were face to face.
"Please tell me," I begged, staring into his brow. Seeing him upset was quite distressing.
"Do you... do you ever think about kissing me?" I smiled and nodded at him.
"Yeah, sometimes," I said. Jason's muzzle inched closer and closer to mine until he suddenly broke away. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, it's just... God, your breath's so warm!" He chuckled at me and brought his nose back up to mine. Our lips were millimetres away from touching as I prepared to purse my lips.
"Al, your mother and I want to know why we-"
My father was cut short by the sight that greeted him. The German Shepherd laid on my bed - laid on me - our lips barely touching. "What the fuck are you doing?" he snarled nastily. I threw Jason off to the other side of the bed, trying to keep him away from my dad. The coyote looked over at him and pointed a nasty finger in his direction. "Jason Vann, right?" he asked me.
"No," I lied. He gave a wicked chuckle and looked around the room, his eyes stopping by his feet.
"Is this his bag?" he asked, holding up the black and white leather.
"Yes." A moment of silence stood between us.
"Yes what?" he asked, his fist clenching hard around the strap.
"Sir," I corrected myself, "yes sir." The coyote unzipped the bag and pulled out several items. He threw each one randomly around the room, not caring where it landed or who it hit. A few pens hit me in the face and I had to shield my eyes from them. If he saw any writing on anything, he read it out loud to us both.
"English, Mrs. Mills, Property of Jason Vann. Math, Mister Hargreaves, Property of Jason Vann. "Geography," he threw a textbook into the TV, "History," another textbook into the door, which slid down behind the bed, "French!" A French-English dictionary was flung out of the window, causing glass to shatter with an almighty crash. The German Shepherd and I shuddered. "Property of Jason Vann! So, Al, either this mutt steals from Jason Vann, or he is Jason Vann. That would mean that you lied to me, though, and - as stupid as you are - you're not that stupid. So I'll ask you again," he leaned in close to my muzzle, the way I was so used to by now, "is that Jason Vann?"
My eyes filled with tears as I looked over at him. "Jason, I'm so sorry," I whimpered. The coyote picked me up by the scruff of the neck and dug his claws into the skin. I screamed when I knew this would be the worst beating I'd get. Seeing Jason in the corner stunned as he watched the violence made it even worse. My dad pinned me against the wall as his paw clenched and drove into my stomach.
"Are you a fucking faggot?" I shook my head and spluttered horribly before another paw was delivered into me. "Don't lie to me! Are you a fucking faggot?" My head now jerked with tears of fear. If I thought he was going to kill me when I first mention Jason, I was sure he would now. He struck another hard blow into my chest and I stopped moving.
The crack that I heard under his knuckles and the sharp pain made me realise what had happened. Something between a breath of pain and the word "ow" escaped my lips. "My rib," I wheezed out as he dropped me onto the mattress, "my rib..." He lifted my face and delivered a final punch to my eye. I tried to scream, but the pressure on my lung kept me from doing so. Instead, I was left clutching my face and breathing jaggedly.
"As for you," my dad looked at Jason, "you filthy faggot! Your parents need to teach you about right and wrong. If you were my son, I'd do this to you," he pointed at me, "and worse. Now you have five seconds to get out of my sight before I treat you like my own! One!" Jason didn't even get to two before he rushed to collect his things - the book by the TV, his jacket and bag. He left the random pens strewn around the floor.
"Jason," I cried, reaching my paw softly out to him. My father grabbed it and tugged, making my cracked rib scream in pain. He let go and I fell into the mattress with a bounce. I looked around to see if the German Shepherd was still there, but Jason was gone. That was the last time I saw him.
"You stay up here tonight," he sneered at me, "queers don't eat in this house. And if you think you can get away with that shit without my knowing, there'll be Hell to pay. You'd better watch your back, you dumb coyote." One final blow into my chest, a sneer and a chuckle came from him. He walked out and left me on my own, struggling to breathe through the immense pain. I got up and readjusted my position on the bed so that I was as comfortable as I could get. I laid there and wept quietly. If he heard me crying... but right now, I didn't care.
I looked around and saw something sticking out from the back of my bed. I used my good arm to examine the object - a history textbook. I opened the cover and burst into tears when I saw what had been written inside.
*
"Al, I'm so sorry for leaving you," Jason whimpered, "I was so scared he was gonna hurt me."
"It's okay," I comforted him, "if you were still there, he'd have killed you." The Alsatian nodded.
"I didn't want to bring that up, though." I glanced at him with wonder in my eyes. "I was actually thinking, the first time we kissed? We never did it." I looked into his eyes, flashed them down to his maw and brought them back to his gaze. My paw stole the empty glass from him and placed it on the table next to mine. I stroked my paw across his shoulder, ran the other around his waist and inched my face closer to his. "Your breath's still so warm," he smiled, which made me chuckle a little. When Jason's cold nose touched to mine, I pursed my lips and pressed forward with my eyes closed. It was one of the most anticipated moments of my childhood, and finally I did it.
Finally, I kissed my first boyfriend for the first time.