MetaDeprivation - 13. MetaPrompts 586: Ever (MW1)

“Where are you planning to get the money for that vacation?” the mailbox message said. Colt closed his phone before it had finished, checked the time, 30 more minutes, before putting it away. It seemed his mother during one of her not so bright moments, had called him and left that message, instead of on his father’s phone. He didn’t even get excited about the notion of ‘vacation.’ They would never go for a vacation. And even if, he didn’t want to go on vacation. Not with people he didn’t love. So no vacation. Ever.

He only felt guilty for two seconds, he was supposed to love his parents, but he didn’t feel it. No surprise, the freak he was. No surprise, the loner he was.

“You will never belong,” the stranger said, reading his thoughts.

“Not here,” Colt answered defiantly. “Not in the middle of nowhere Texas.”

“Nope,” the stranger disagreed. “Nowhere. Ever.”

Colt sighed deeply, but he didn’t find the strength to contradict the stranger. He took a sip from his Diet Coke bottle; unfortunately, it had gotten lukewarm in the hot later summer sun despite him sitting in the shade. He always sat in the shade. The only reason to be in the sun would have been to play games in the school park. And even if one of the teams had invited him – as likely as a gold digger saying no to the proposal by a 95-year old billionaire, he would never have dared to take his T-shirt off. His ‘ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ’-T-shirt was so wide – despite being an ‘S,’ that everyone knew he was beaten by ten-year-olds when it came to chest size. But everyone conjecturing it through dark-green material was different than seeing it bare.

Watching those 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds with bodies of young gods jump into the air to catch footballs, batting balls across the park, and throwing frisbees over trees, made him sigh in envy and shame. “I guess you’re right,” he finally agreed to the stranger’s assessment. “I will never catch up with these guys.”

“Look, some of them already have more chest hair than Burt Reynolds.”

Colt snorted. He didn’t know what was funnier: that he, the 17-year-old student in 2007, knew that early 70ies photo, or the stranger. Not that it made a difference. “I know, got much too close to one with that for my taste.” He suppressed the memory of squeezing Adam’s lemon-sized balls through an Amazonas of dark curly hair.

The stranger giggled at Colt’s shudder. “And some of them jump … I mean, look at their thighs …”

“I know,” Colt barked, making the stranger stop. He didn’t need to have his inadequacies pointed out so clearly. All the time. He had eyes himself. He could see these boys were in a different league. That they knew they were in a different league. That they understood Colt would never be one of them … or have one of them. He bit his lip to control his emotions. Last thing he needed was to be called a crybaby, ‘fag’ was more than enough for his taste. “But college will be better,” he tried to force lifting the mood.

“You think so? – You really think these guys will stop growing?”

“No …”

“You really think you will get into a growth spurt as 19-year-old and suddenly look like a jock …”

“No, but …”

“You really hope they will see the light and enjoy the pleasures of getting pounded by a scrawny nerd instead of fucking cheerleaders raw?”

Colt’s shoulders fell; not that they could fall further. He rearranged his T-shirt, so his left shoulder wasn’t too prominent through the opening designed only for his neck. “I guess I’m kidding myself.”

The stranger just nodded with unmissable satisfaction. He was right. He was always right. Ever and always. “Your only choice is to be like Paulo over there.”

“Become flamboyantly queer with a rainbow flag on my Hello-Kitty-back pack?” Colt spat.

“At least he has a ‘boy-friend,’” the stranger pointed out correctly.

“He’s together with the …” He couldn’t finish the sentence. It wouldn’t be politically correct. No, he didn’t care about that, he just didn’t want to think those two had anything like physical contact. No, he didn’t even care about that. He was too scared he would have to become one of ‘those’ to ever have sex; even if only with one of ‘those.’ A chill hit him in the hot afternoon sun.

After an awkward silence, the stranger challenged: “Why are you still here?”

“Oh,” Colt stared at how the black liquid moved in the nearly empty bottle when he painted circles holding it by its neck.

“Peeping at the jocks?” the stranger suggested conspiratorially.

“No, I have an appointment at 16hundred.”

“’16hundered?’ What? Are you trying to be a soldier?” The stranger couldn’t help but burst into a short laughter, slapping his thighs in amusement.

Colt ignored it. Instead, he got up to throw the bottle into the garbage bin. When he returned to his backpack, the stranger still sat there next to it. It seemed he had to get used to him.

“Do you miss Trent?”

Colt shook his head. But both knew it was a lie. “It’s better I don’t see him on the bus anymore.”

“You know they say ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than never have loved.’” The stranger’s voice tried to be gentle and supportive. Odd.

“If you call admiring your man from a distance, while he touches his girlfriend in front of you, ‘love,’ then something is clearly wrong with you,” Colt bit back coldly.

The stranger smiled, nearly proudly. “You know I’m screwed up.”

Colt nodded in defeat.

“I wonder how much college pussy he’s fucking nowadays …,” the stranger egged him on.

The 17-year-old boy ignored it and opened his flip phone. Ten more minutes. Then he could get rid of him.

“I heard from Veronica he got into a really popular frat …”

“Are we surprised?” Colt asked.

“Tall, hunky, cute, smart, nice, in a frat … he can have one every day … two maybe,” the stranger didn’t want to stop riling up Colt.

“I know. Even his dick is cute.”

“What?” the stranger asked with naughty glee in his eyes.

“Saw it once. American Homecoming King Cut Perfection. Not that I want to get close to it … well.”

“Sure you would,” the stranger contradicted the high school student. “You’d do that for Trent.”

Colt didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. They both knew the answer. In his fantasies, he never dealt with a boy’s – a man’s – cock; but if that had gotten him Trent, he just might have experimented.

“Of course, by now, he might have had several episodes of crawlies,” the stranger pointed out, enjoying Colt’s repeated shudders. Even the shudder shaking him when Adam passed in the distance. Tall, dark, with sweaty hairy chest, carrying a football in his plate-sized right palm as if it was too small for a man of his size.

Colt forced himself not to look away first, not to remember that afternoon with him, not to curse at the unfair distribution of muscles on this planet. He just sat there like a statue, not betraying a hint of the turmoil in him. “College will be different,” he suddenly said to get himself out of his dejected mind state.

“Sure,” stranger teased, both knowing Colt was wrong.

At this moment, Mr. Ashva, the high school career advisor, approached them and asked: “Colt, want to join me in my office? I think I’ve found the perfect college program for you.”

“Sure.” He picked up his backpack and turned around, but the stranger was gone.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Huh?” Colt asked. “Nobody. I was talking to nobody.”

And while he followed the small Indian man, he realized he didn’t even lie.