0's and 1's: CBDT - 4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

(Hunter Douglas)

Ugh, my head is killing me. Note to self, if my brain cells are still there to process this; don’t chase vodka with bourbon. Well, I accomplished my task of getting drunk really quickly to make up for the 40 minutes of absence. I wonder if I am in my bed or in the police drunk tank. It feels too soft to be my bed, and I doubt a police officer would throw a blanket over me. I can feel the outlines of my hoodie and jeans, so I didn’t hook up with a stranger at least. Maybe if I look around the room?

As I focus, I can see it all, but it makes no particular sense. The room I was in had posters of One Direction, a band I was not a particularly fond of, and a Dell Alien-ware laptop with multi-monitor connection, which would point to some intensive gaming. While I do like to play online games, I don’t like using generic hardware. If I can build my own from parts at Microcenter, why do I need to pay an extra five hundred dollars? Another interesting feature was a nice looking glass frame with an assortment of yellow and red cards. As I processed the information, a name came into memory and I realized who my Good Samaritan was.

My crackling voice called out, “Kevin, what happened at the party?”

A head popped up from the floor, and even with the dim surroundings, I could make out my friend’s bespectacled Potter-esque features. Kevin could easily be a Daniel Radcliffe stunt double at 16. He had the same boyish features, jet black hair, and a penchant for sleeping with his glasses on. To be honest, he has contacts and uses them when he plays soccer, but he likes to keep this illusion of a preppy geek. I think it’s sort of cute, but I have a soft spot for wizards. Of course, unlike the fairy tale wizard, he cusses like a sailor and has gotten a yellow card every game we’ve played in. He has a career high of 12 red cards.

I had known Kevin Driscoll since he was 8 years old. He was one year older than me, but we had shared a few of the gifted kid classes together in elementary school. Before I met Ryan, we were always pairing up for projects, because we had similar taste as preteens. Then, as hormones kicked in, we started diverging on tastes, but we were still good friends. Ryan and I came out to him first among our friends, which he returned a minute later with him telling us he was probably gay, too.

Kevin groggily answered, “You’re awake, cool! Thought you might have stayed zonked out for the rest of the night. You were really shit ass drunk. The neighbors were yelling at everyone they’d call the police. I saw you passed out on the couch, so I pulled you out with me.”

I thought back to the events of the night. I probably had gone overboard on the alcohol, but I had wanted to use that as my alibi with a police report. I saw my book bag sitting nearby. I had brought it to the party with my iPad air, which I had already cleaned out before the party in case anyone searched it. Only one thing was missing, which I hoped Kevin in his haste left behind as evidence of my probable attendance.

I gingerly spoke in a half whisper, “Thanks dude, I owe you one. Hey, did you pack my bike in your car when we left the party?”

I heard a deep regretful expletive, “Fuck!”, and then Kevin began to plead, “Oh shit man, I am so sorry. It didn’t even occur to me. I know you don’t drive yet, but shit, do you think the cops will trace the bike to you?”

If not based on the bike registration number that was an RFID tag under the seat, then my student ID in the front pouch will get their attention. Actually, this might be a blessing in disguise. Kevin saved me from being grounded for a week at least and the cops will send my parents a letter about finding my bike at the scene. I get my cake and I can eat it, too.

Poor kind hearted Kevin must be feeling extra-guilty. I guess I’ll have to play this off. “Oh jeez I’ll just have to say I left the bike at Jeremy’s place earlier, if the other guys don’t rat me out for being at the party.”

I wonder what he is thinking.

(Kevin Driscoll)

Damn it all to hell, I blew it. Here I was thinking, I could be the knight in shining armor and rescue my oldest friend from getting busted. Now, I realize I forgot to grab his fucking bike. Duh, he had to get to the party somehow.

To top it all off, I have such a huge boner right now for him; I know it’s pretty lame. I’ve got this fantasy of playing the nice heroic guy that helps a friend out at his lowest point, and then I get rewarded by a night of loose gay sex. I know that type of stuff doesn’t happen in real life, but I keep reading it in gay stories. They’re so hot for jacking off!

I’ve had my eyes set on Hunter since I was old enough to cum. My first wet dream involved him and me naked in my bed together just holding hands; pretty stupid for a wet dream, but I was 13 and had no experience yet with gay sex. Like, that kept happening for a year until he and Ryan told me they were gay and were boyfriends. My first gay crush became my first gay let down. To top it all off, he was actually available! Fuck my rotten luck! Like I should have known I was gay for him. It was so obvious that I liked Hunter, but fuck, I just couldn’t put two and two together. It’s like an insane Boolean arithmetic problem.

Still, despite the way I felt for him, he loved Ryan and Ryan loved him. They were meant for each other. I’m smart for a 16 year old, but Hunter and Ryan were on a whole different level of intelligence. While they were working on finishing up high school requirements, I was still finishing up junior year, which at 16 is impressive, but pales in comparison to a 15 year old taking AP Calculus, History, and Literature without breaking a sweat. Shit, I’ve been struggling to keep up on AP Lit; seriously, how relevant is Steinbeck or Faulkner to everyday life? Hunter can quote them and use their words in similes and soliloquies that make him sound like a 50 year old college professor. That’s what made him special and so attractive, plus being lean, tall, and sexy with a 6 inch soft cock doesn’t hurt.

When Ryan committed suicide, part of me wanted to run over to Hunter and confess my love. Then another part of me was pissed off I’d do that, because I’d be betraying Ryan’s memory. I hate having a dick and a conscience. I just hope my unrequited love doesn’t show through the little throwaway blanket I have draped over my briefs.

Alright, I can act really chill with a hard on around the boy I like, sleeping in my bed no less.

Nice and easy, “Dude, it’s like 2 in the morning, you should stay over tonight. My folks won’t mind, you staying. Hell, it wouldn’t be the first boy I had sleep over.”

Aw crap, I just implied I’m a slut, but hopefully he isn’t awake enough to realize that.

“Thanks. Do you want to switch places? This is your bed after all and I kind of like sleeping on something a little harder.”

Fuck you man, I’m dying here and you want to come down to sleep on something a little harder, I got to jack off real quickly, “Sure, you can take my spot, while I run for a leak.”

By the way I ran to the bathroom, I’d probably be a shoe in for the track team. Once the door was closed and locked, I pulled down my briefs to reveal 7 inches of hard uncircumcised teenage meat just eager for a nice workout. Damn, if only I didn’t feel so guilty; I’d ask Hunter to jack off with me. Yeah, that’s how it’d go, I would grab my cock like this and he would grab his cock, then we’d pull our foreskins up and down for a while. When our eyes cross over each other’s cocks, I’d move my hands over to his cock and he’d probably return the favor. As our rhythm synchronized, we’d start breathing heavier and heavier. I would look into his eye and he’d look into mine. We’d slide our bodies closer together and bring our faces just an inch away from being one. At that moment, I’d open my mouth and….fuck!

(***)

Needless to say, I made a mess of my briefs and A-shirt, along with a portion of the marble flooring. Good thing about being a gay teenage boy, I always keep a spare pair of underwear in my bathrooms at all times and some minty fresh all-surface cleaner. After the cleanup and a quick cold shower, I went back to bed. In the morning, Hunter was gone and there was no sign of him anywhere in the house.

Nothing special happened at school for the next few days, except Hunter looked like he was busy working on something. I figured he was just trying to get his mind off Ryan, but I’ve never seen him so tired and so determined. He barely spoke a word in class without being prompted by the teachers; even in Lit, his usual oratory nuances seemed stifled and contrite in comparison. He also asked the coach to give him a month off the soccer team to deal with “things”. A certain fear arose in my mind a few times as a pattern of distance and reproach seemed to grow with his actions, so I went over to his house to see if he wanted to talk. His parents said he was busy working in his “Lab”, or more specifically, a loft styled high rise apartment he rented through his tech company that served as his “Menlo Park”. It’s pretty awesome in a sort of near future sleek minimalist way, but shit, it’s just a stark place to be spending so much time. I’d rather be in school, but I guess he’s been hanging around too many Google and Apple developers for way too long. Of course, when I’d go there each time, he just said “we’ll talk later” and cut me off. I went every day just hoping I’d see him outside of class; privately, hoping to hear his voice to make sure he was still around.

It took about three weeks, but he did finally get out of his bat cave. When I reached his lab, I was confronted by a huge crowd of reporters, each loudly proclaiming something weird, “He’s going to change the world with this thing”, “Apple’s shares are tanking; Cook is now offering a billion to buy the technology and patents from sources inside the company”, and “how the hell did he keep this secret from the other players for so long?”. What I learned was Hunter had unveiled a radically new method of creating solid state electronics, specifically a new kind of low cost tablet computers that can be made using 3D printers; basically sending the entire tech industry into a frenzy.

Fucking asshole scared me half to death with his emo crap; he could have just told me he was building a super-secret tablet computer. I get the theory behind his new tablet, but it seems so out of left field for him. Sure, it will make him a billionaire overnight, but there was something off with this new project. When he and Ryan worked on new tech, I got a chance to help do some background coding and programming with them. Hunter didn’t really give a crap about making money as much as he cared about making it work for everyone. He and Ryan made good money of course, but it was the act of creation that inspired them, not the profit. Ryan’s death must have changed him even more than I thought.

While Hunter was stealing the thunder, Mayor Chance announced the creation of an Anti-Bullying campaign to help inform and stop the bullying of gay teens. I went onto the website and it looked very cool; sleek, like something Hunter might have made. After the press coverage died down, I finally got to speak to my old friend.

“Hey man, what the fuck was all that? Why have you gone Hollywood?”

“Hey Kevin, it was just a regular press conference, you know the drill. I was playing to my audience.”

This was so unlike him, I didn’t know what to say, so I just ignored it “Uh….okay, like I just wanted to tell you the Mayor had made a new Campaign to fight gay bullying and stuff. I thought like you might want to join in.”

Hunter smiled profusely giving me some hope the boy I knew was still there, but he quickly dashed it, “That’s cool, but I am going to be busy working on deals to get this thing launched with either Google, Apple, or Microsoft. The Chinese and Japanese are also interested, so I might get a bidding war starting soon. Don’t worry, I’ll be back at Soccer practice, but I don’t think I can commit to anything else.”

This was unbelievable; he was choosing to make money over stopping other gay kids from committing suicide like Ryan. This wasn’t the guy I knew for 8 years. We said our goodbyes soon afterwards and I just stared at his backside as he walked off, watching him go into the setting sun and into darkness.

When I got home, I went onto the mayor’s site again and signed up to be a volunteer. I noticed there was a website for “special advocacy” assignments and decided to give it a try. Throughout the entire process of registration, I just thought about Hunter’s change. I thought about Ryan, too, and how much of a positive influence he was on Hunter. The questions for the registration seemed weird after a while, like “Name the basic principles of network architecture?”, “How far will you go to bring a bully to justice?”, and “What is your most feared way to die?” After the questions, I got weird scenarios with open ended answers; jeez, I didn’t know what I was signing up for. When I finished the registration process, nothing happened, except a small window said if I am selected, I would be notified in a few days. I felt completely drained between that damn registration process and Hunter’s sudden change of personality. Unlike most nights, I didn’t need to jack off to go to sleep.