The Cockney Canuck - 31. Chapter 31 Guilt

It was the third week of April, and the weather had become settled and warm. It was difficult to imagine that barely six weeks ago snow had still covered almost everything in sight. A country that had been covered in a blanket of white since the day that I had arrived was now mostly green. I had never given much thought as to what was under all that snow. It was just snow, and having arrived there in mid-winter, it was all that I had known. Canada, I had concluded, had only two seasons winter and summer, spring and autumn just didn’t exist.

It had been a difficult week for me. Alex hadn't bothered to explain to me about the after effects of the drugs that he had given to me, and I didn’t know enough to ask. Once I had clawed back the sleep that I had lost at his house on Friday night, the remainder of the weekend was spent mostly in my room. I was feeling guilty, depressed and paranoid. I tried to avoid eye contact with anyone, scared that they may see something that would alert them of my misdemeanours. I knew that if Don found out that I had taken drugs, then I would be in big trouble. It was one of his pet hates and he had made it clear on the day that I arrived that this was something that he wouldn’t tolerate. Not being able to eat for the rest of the weekend, didn’t do me any favours either. It was enough to alert Sue that something was wrong and I panicked when she insisted on taking my temperature. It was her answer to everything, but I was relieved to hear that my temperature was normal. If she had of taken it on Friday night, she would probably have had me airlifted to hospital.

Alex had told me on Friday that the drug was Amphetamine, I had heard of it and I decided to look it up on the internet. What I managed to read helped to put my mind at rest, at least a little; it was a street drug, illegal but not a class A, like smack. I would probably live, now all I had to worry about was my sore ring-piece and self-esteem. Both of these had been badly damaged in the crazy few hours that I had spent with Alex, but while neither was beyond repair, I knew that some things healed a lot quicker than others. It was three days before I could go to the toilet without any pain but several months before I could look back at that weekend without remorse.

On Sunday, Fran popped round to see how I was feeling. I had lied to her the previous day, telling her that I was sick.

“You don’t look that well, you're very pale,” she said, but when I studied myself in the mirror I couldn’t see any difference from how I normally looked.

‘Of course I’m pale; I’ve been living in England for ten years’.

“So, how did it go on Friday, did you get up to much?” she asked.

“Huh, what do you mean?”

“You went to Alex’s house, right?”

“Oh yeah, it was all right, we just listened to some music and shit.” I had told her on Friday that I was going to see Alex that night. I wanted to keep it as close to the truth as possible, to avoid being caught out. She had been a little surprised at first when I told her that we were friends. I don’t think that she liked Alex much.

“I’ve really got into baseball lately and he’s been teaching me about the game,” I said. “On Friday we watched some old World Series games on DVD.”

“It’s okay,” she said, “I don’t need to know what you get up to with your friends, I’m not that possessive. It’s right that you should still have your own life.”

“It is?” I hadn't expected her to be so understanding.

‘How would she react if she knew the truth’?

“Yes of course, life would be boring if the only person that you were allowed to be friends with was me, wouldn’t it?”

“Terribly.”

‘I’d end up killing myself’.

“Besides, I trust you to be a good boy, even though your new friend has a bit of a reputation for sleeping around.” She put her arm around me and squeezed me while pushing my hair back from over my eyes. I didn’t like it when she did that and moved my head back. I didn’t really want her to see my eyes at that moment anyway; she may have been able to see that I was lying.

“He does?” I said, looking at the floor.

“Oh come on, you're not the new kid in school anymore,” she said. “Don’t tell me that you’ve never heard anyone talk about Alex before.”

“Well I’ve heard a bit, but I’m not sure how true it is. I don’t care much for rumours, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“That’s really noble of you, Robbie; I like it that you're loyal to your friends.”

‘I’m definitely not noble, probably the opposite, whatever that is. I’m good at being loyal though, too shit scared not to be’.

“I hope that you're just a loyal to me,” she said hugging me.

I squirmed and closed my eyes in an attempt to stop some of the regret that I felt at that moment, from reaching the surface.

“What’s up mister?” she kissed me on the cheek.

“I dunno,” I said, “I’m just not feeling myself.”

“Oh that’s okay baby, you don’t have to feel yourself, you have me to do it for you.” She placed her hand on my crotch and gave me a quick squeeze.

“Nicely done Fran,” I said, referring to her little joke, I was able to give her an appreciative smile.

‘I do the jokes around here’.

I wasn’t sure if Fran’s visit actually cheered me up, or made me feel worse; I suspected the latter was true. It wasn’t her fault though; I was the liar and cheat, not her. At least I had managed to keep her out of my pants. I wasn’t ready to be touched again yet, not even by Fran and too ashamed to even think about doing anything sexual.

I had been under the impression that people didn’t remember shameful acts that they had done while under the influence of drink or drugs. I must have done enough of both that night to warrant some kind of amnesia, but it wasn’t to be, and I was able to recall every-bloody-thing that happened, in great detail. My brain wasn’t usually that efficient in the memory department and it seemed to be so unfair that it should choose to remember something so regretful, yet somehow forget other more important things, like the promise that I had made to Rory. I had given him my word that I would go to his house after school on Tuesday to watch the football (soccer) game on TV. Arsenal was playing Manchester United, my team against his, and I had every intention of going there after my extra math class to watch it on his cable sports channel. Arsenal lost as expected, but I had genuinely forgotten about my commitment, until later that night and by that time, it was too late to call him.

I apologised the next day as soon as I saw him, but Rory just shrugged it off and gloated about his team’s victory. I decided that he deserved some recompense and allowed him his little cheer; I would have felt really bad had they lost.

I also saw Alex every morning of course in homeroom, but we barely acknowledged one another and the most that I got from him all week was a smile as I passed by his table at lunch one day. I had tried staring at him a couple of times to try to get a response. Usually, if he caught another boy watching him, he would confront him, asking what he was staring at, but whenever he saw me looking over at him, he quickly diverted his eyes away from me, as if he were shy. I didn’t understand why he had chosen to ignore me; after all, I had left his house on relatively good terms.

‘Does he think that he’s gonna be found out, simply by talking to me, or is he ashamed’?

I had expected some kind of apology from him and it would have been nice to hear it, even if it wasn’t genuine. I was going to tell him how much pain that I was going through, because of his over bullish approach to sex, and there was also a bite mark that I discovered on my shoulder, after I had examined myself on Sunday night. I was sure that it hadn't come from Fran and I hoped it would go, before the next time that she saw me without a shirt.

Maybe Alex was just feeling a bit embarrassed and couldn’t bring himself to talk to me. He could have been trying to forget about that night. Him and me both.

I was sure that when he was ready and feeling in the mood for some more same sex adventures—which would definitely happen—he would find a way of talking to me and attempt to lure me back to his den for another session. If he did, then I was going to take a lot of pleasure in turning him down. I had decided that Alex wasn't worth all the pain that accompanied him, both mentally and physically, if I had realized that a week earlier, things might have been different.

* * * * *

Up until that weekend, my relationship with Fran had been going quite well, and I was actually starting to think of her as my girlfriend. It was a nice feeling to be able to be open about our courting. I was seeing Fran, and yes, we were a couple. I could shout this out from the rooftops, and no one would bat an eyelid. What we were doing was acceptable, even if they knew we were having a sex. We were underage and breaking the law, but nobody seemed to be that concerned. I could do whatever I wanted with her, because she was a female.

It wasn’t enough to stop me from cheating on her though and however convenient Fran was proving to be; when it came down to raw sex, she wasn’t able to compete with the boys. Not even Alex, a boy who had no interest in me other than using me as a part time, unpaid rent boy, to service his occasional gay fetishes. He didn’t even like me, but when he clicked his finger’s I came running. I had betrayed her trust, big time, but not because I had suddenly met the love of my life, that might have been understandable. I had betrayed her, for one night of sex with a boy that I didn’t really like and who wasn’t even gay, and that was the bit that haunted my conscience.

I tried to blame it on the drink and drugs that he had loosened me up with at the time, but I knew that neither of those evils had been responsible for luring me over there in the first place. I had gone over to his house that night to have sex with him and when I made the decision, I wasn’t stoned, high, drunk, hypnotised, delirious, mentally unstable or impaired in any way. It’s no wonder that I found it difficult to look Fran straight in the eye or even talk to her, in the way that I had done before. When I was with her, it was impossible for me to get Friday night out of my head. I would have constant flashbacks, accompanied by a dark cloud of guilt that followed me wherever I went. Alex had been a mistake, I even knew it at the time but in the week following our liaison, it was easy for me to see, just how big a mistake it had been to allow myself to be drawn into the dark side. That was exactly how I saw it, and I was ashamed of what I had done.

In comparison, what Fran offered seemed as natural as it was acceptable. I had never had to leave Fran’s house by the back door, scared of being recognized, and I had never felt ashamed of anything that we had done together. Being her boyfriend made me feel happy and when I left her house, we generally walked out together holding hands. I had even kissed her in full view of her daddy, the Godfather, and lived to tell the tale. Admittedly, we didn’t realize that he had walked up behind us, at the same time as his daughter had decided to put her tongue down my throat, but to his credit, he just coughed to alert us of his presence and politely looked the other way.

I was also dating a girl that most of the guys in school considered to be quite hot; she wasn’t a beauty queen, but no straight boy would turn her down, that’s for sure. We had recently moved to the next level of our relationship, and it was probably obvious to most people that this was the case. Fran was a lot touchier than she had been before the Easter weekend. She would want to hold hands with me whenever possible, and sneak a kiss whenever she thought that she could get away with it. It didn’t matter who was there to see this, as long as it wasn’t a teacher. Even the way that she looked at me was different now, her looks were more intense than they had been, and definitely more erotic. It was a pity that I wasn’t able to reciprocate.

* * * * *

Nathan too, had been quite scarce that week and up until Thursday, I had only seen him a couple of times in school surrounded by his usual bodyguards. Then as I waited at the end of normal lessons for my math teacher to show up, he approached me out of nowhere to let me know that his drama class had been cancelled and he wouldn’t be at the bus stop that afternoon.

“I didn’t want you thinking that I stood you up,” he said with a cheeky smile.

“That’s really cool of you to let me know, Nathan,” I said, “I guess we’ll talk next week or something.”

“You don’t have to wait until next week to talk to me,” he said. It confused me and he saw it. “Pick up the phone dude.” He made a phone sign with his index and little fingers as he walked away giggling to catch his bus. I smiled back at him.

‘Wait a minute; he’s the one who doesn't pick up the phone’.

Despite giving him my number, so that he knew whom it was that was calling, I had yet to try it out. I played with the idea of calling him that evening, but I couldn’t think of anything that I needed to talk to him about. I had never called anyone before without an actual reason and I was sure that it would sound too contrived if I tried to make something up as I went along. As well as that, he always seemed to be so busy with his other friends; I doubted if he would want to have to listen to my bungling attempt at conversation.

‘What if he really does like me the same as I like him? Last week he missed his bus just to talk to me and today he risked missing another bus, so that I’m not disappointed later when he’s not there’.

I would miss our weekly chat at the bus stop, but I thought it was really sweet of him to let me know. He had gone out of his way to look for me and that meant a lot. It cheered me up, just knowing that he cared enough to want to do that, and I thought about it all the way home. It was something that I couldn’t imagine anyone else doing, we had never arranged to meet up, it was just coincidence that we had to catch a bus at the same time.

* * * * *

Friday was even warmer than the previous few days, reaching a modest 22º and making it the hottest day of the year so far. For the first time that week, I went to school in a good mood and as I walked with Fran from our final lesson, the day was about to get even better. Daniel, I already knew, was going to Doug’s house straight after school and wouldn’t be home until late, and Nicola, was on a school trip to Montreal, so she wouldn’t be back until the following day. Then, as we left our art class, I switched on my cell phone to find a message from Sue, telling me that she was visiting a friend, and had taken Amy with her, they wouldn’t be home until after eight. My face must have lit up as I realised that Don, didn’t usually get home on a Friday until late. The outcome of all of this was that for at least the next five hours, I would have the house all to myself. It was something that happened very rarely, and I knew that I had to make the most of it.

It had been nearly a week since my sleepover with Alex and during that time, I had only had the one sexual release. That was on Wednesday, when Fran had jerked me off in the downstairs bathroom at her house, after we had finished our history homework. I still felt ashamed, but by the end of the week my penis had fully recovered and ready once more for action.

An evil grin spread across my face, as we walked downstairs to our lockers. I looked over at Fran, winked at her and made a few pretend kisses. She shook her head at my antics.

“What’s up with you all of a sudden?” she smirked. Then a little more seriously, “Don’t forget to do your math homework tonight.”

“Fran, do you have any idea how sexy you are when you talk like that,” I said.

“What?”

“Don’t muck about Fran; you know how much that turns me on.”

“What turns you on?” she said, narrowing her eyes at me with obvious suspicion.

“Math.”

“Math turns you on?”

“Shush,” I said, looking around us. “People will think that I’m crazy or some kind of a pervert.” There were two girls from our art class walking directly behind us, and I was deliberately talking loud enough for them to overhear.

“If you come over tonight, then we can do math together…naked!” She hit me with the back of her hand.

“You’re crazy,” she said, rolling her eyes at me.

“I’ll let you play with my big…calculator.” I looked back at the girls behind us who were giggling and gave them a polite mind your own business type false smile.

“We can even try algebra if you want,” I said, “I know that you said that you wanted to try that with me.”

“You need a psychiatrist,” Fran said, trying not to laugh.

“No Fran, I need a mathematician, like you,” I said, as I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her towards me trying to kiss her. “Talk math to me baby,” I managed to kiss her quickly on the lips, before she pushed me away.

“I know what you want,” she said, “but you can’t keep expecting me to come over and do it for you every night.” She had a smug grin on her face as she turned the tables on me. “You’re just going to have to do it yourself for once.” It earned a laugh from the girls behind us, and I turned towards them.

“It’s not funny,” I said, “It’s awfully hard you know. Would either of you girls be willing to help me out? I really have to do it tonight.” They looked at each other and laughed. “Maybe if you both came over, then the three of us would be able to do it together, and I wouldn’t need Fran.”

This suggestion was met with more laughter, and a few choice comments from the girls.

“Keep dreaming,” said Fran.

“Look I’m desperate here; I’m even prepared to pay for it…oh fuck.” I turned around and found myself standing face to face with my nemesis, Miss Pringle, the school secretary and she had an expression that could melt ice.

“Young man, your language leaves a lot to be desired and sexual harassment of the female students is a serious offence in this school.” She had a horrible squeaky voice that made her sound like a cheap doll. I wondered who pulled her string.

‘Why is this woman so annoying’?

“Actually, I wasn’t sexually harassing anybody; Miss Pimple. I was…”

“Miss Pringle,” she snapped.

“Sorry, I mean Miss Pringle, I was just asking the girls here, if they would come over to my place tonight and do it for me, as for a favour,” I said. “But I’d be happy to pay them for it, if they wanted. But I have to get it in.” Miss Pringle looked like she was about to burst a blood vessel, as she narrowed her eyes at me. “You see, Fran usually comes over and does it for me. It’s more enjoyable if we can do it together, but sometimes she makes me do it myself, while she watches, because she likes that.” I could hear a few suppressed giggles from around us and Fran had to walk away with her hand over her mouth, but Miss Pringle didn’t have a sense of humour, and she just stared at me, as if she was trying to work out ways of killing me. Her expression never changed from dour.

“I hope you manage to find someone to do it for you tonight, Robbie,” said one of the girls as she walked away. “I know it’s really frustrating having to do it yourself.” She laughed and waved at me, as Miss Pringle spun around and shot her an evil look before turning her attention back to me.

“I’ll be reporting your behaviour to the principal, I suggest that in future, you try to keep your mind on your schoolwork, and away from the female students,” she said as she marched briskly away.

I called out to her, “I’ll try Miss Pringle,” before whispering to myself, “nosey old bag.”

“Serves you right mister,” said Fran, who stood next to me as I sorted through my locker, looking for anything that I needed to take home for the weekend.

‘How comes Fran always manages to do this in half the time it takes me to do it’?

As I closed the door and turned to face her, she had a quick look around before kissing me long and hard on the lips. I could hear a few wolf whistles around us, and someone shouted for us to ‘get a room’, but I knew that we wouldn’t have to.

We held hands as we walked to the exit, and out into the bright sunlight. “You can be so outgoing when you want to be,” said Fran. “I like it when you’re happy like this, it doesn't suit you to be sad.”

“I don’t ever want to be sad again,” I said, “I want to be like this forever.”

“Good,” she said, “I like that.”

“How much do you like it?”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Do you like it enough to come over tonight and have sex with me?”

She was blushing. “Of course I do, you know that,” she said. “But you know that it’s not possible.”

“It is.”

“How is it?”

“They’ve all gone out.”

“Who has?”

“Everyone.”

“How long for?”

“Until eight.”

“So you’re on your own.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say?”

“I just did.”

“So this is why you’re so happy all of a sudden eh.”

“Maybe.”

She smiled at me, and then kissed me gently on the lips, before turning to rush off towards her bus. “I’ll be around at five, take a shower.”

I waved and then lifted up my arms to smell under them.

‘What did she mean by take a shower? I showered this morning and my clothes were clean’.