My Friend and Protector - 1. Schoolmates and Secrets Kept

I'm sixteen now, just started as a junior in high school. I have blond hair and blue eyes, remnants of my Northern Italian ancestry. A little shorter than average, not puny, but 5' 7 1/2". Same weight-wise, a little lighter than average, 125 pounds. Thin. Between my size, eyes and hair, a lot of people think I look like a girl. Lucky me. Karl, however, started out bigger than me and the difference just kept growing. He's about 6'1" and 190 pounds. Dark brown eyes and hair. Definitely doesn't look like a girl. He gets an awful lot of looks from girls, though. But more on that later. Maybe me looking like a girl dictated that I'd be gay. Maybe it's the other way around. Either way, I'm a gay, girlie looking boy. Looking, but not girlie acting. Nobody but Karl knows that I'm gay. I suspect my parents might be suspicious, but they've never said anything. Good thing.

I think I figured it out when I was 9. Dad was watching the 2016 Summer Olympics on TV. Men's swimming was on. I'm sure he was waiting for basketball or boxing to come on; something macho. He was complaining about the tiny bathing suits they wore. Me, on the other hand, I was completely enthralled with them. They were switching back and forth between that and men's diving. More swimsuit complaints from him, more ogling by me. I later saw men's gymnastics and was completely convinced. The gymnastics caused this stirring in my groin that I'd never felt before. I knew what it meant though. The tiny swimsuits and tight body suits were turning me on. Or maybe it was what was inside of them.

I had just entered high school when Karl discovered my secret. I didn't realize he was behind me, looking at me, when he caught me staring at one guy's package in the showers after gym class. I guess I looked in the same direction too long. I was getting a stiffy, so I started turning around. Big mistake. Karl looked from where I was looking to me, my now hardening cock sticking straight out. The way he looked at me, I thought I had just lost my best friend. I didn't know what else to do, so I quickly dried off, and threw on my pants before realizing I'd skipped my underwear. Well, it was commando mode the rest of the day. After I was dressed, Karl came up to me and whispered something.

"We should talk later."

It didn't sound like he was angry, upset, or freaked out. But that didn't mean he wasn't one or more of those things. The high school was close enough to our houses that we'd walk home together when we didn't have some kind of practice after school. Wednesdays were off days for his football and my cross-country practices. He played outside linebacker and tight end (and boy did he have one). I wasn't sure what was coming on the walk home, but a pounding to end our friendship was foremost in my mind. Thankfully, I was wrong. More thankfully, we were walking alone.

"So, Carlo. Has anybody ever given you a hard time about being gay?"

"Um. What makes you say that?"

"Staring at Kyle Gardener's dick for like two minutes straight kind of made it pretty obvious. That and turning around with a boner right after, just confirmed my suspicions."

"Oh. How long have you suspected?"

"Probably since 7th grade after you took art as your elective, and I happened to see your self-portrait in your sketchbook, probably. And not the sketchbook you bring to school. Your nude self-portrait. You did a pretty good job on it, I might add."

"Fuck. You hate me now, don't you?"

"Why? I don't have anything against gays. I didn't think I even knew one for sure until this morning. I'm more disappointed that you weren't comfortable enough to tell me yourself."

"Well, don't feel too bad. I haven't TOLD anybody. I think you're the only one who ever even suspected. Maybe my parents, but I don't think even they do, thank God for small favors."

"Well, back to my initial question. If anybody ever does, you let me know and it'll be the last time they do."

Cool. He not only didn't hate me for it, and he was also going to keep the assholes from making a stink about it.

"Um. OK. Thanks."

"I mean it. We've been friends since day 1 in town for me. Someone bothering you will bother me."

"Thanks again. I was sure you were going to pound me into the ground and hate me forever."

"I might still pound you into the ground. But if I do, it'll just be for fun."

"Such a nice guy."

"Haha. Let me ask you though. Have you ever checked me out the same way as Kyle?"

I'm guessing my silence answered for me.

"I guess it's cool. The girls are hot for my bod, why shouldn't gay boys be as well? What's my best feature?"

"You're serious, right?"

"100%"

(Blushing badly) "I like your ass the best. Especially in those tight football uniforms."

He laughs loudly, but I could tell he wasn't being mean.

"I have heard that before. But from a couple girls. No offense."

"No problem."

We continued the walk talking about 'safer' subjects. Even though I couldn't play it for shit, I liked football and went to all the home games if we didn't have a meet. Watched it on TV, even though the Jaguars have sucked pretty much every year of my entire life. Dad even took me to one game every year since I was 10, which was really pretty much their high point so far: again, my lifetime being the important window. He said he couldn't stand to watch them lose in person more often than that. I hear ya dad, I hear ya.

I had tried out for cross-country because dad pretty much forced me into taking some sport. He knew I wasn't big enough for football, soccer confused the hell out of both of us, so cross-country it was.

I ended up being pretty good at it. Especially when we had meets that went through the woods. I could eke through tighter places, cutting off distance where it was OK to do so. I was usually the second quickest on the team, which was good because I was a freshman and the fastest was a senior, Bart Hamilton. He liked me because I was the only other member that could come close to keeping up with him. There were quite a few meets my freshman year that we finished 1-2. That was worth a few invitational victories.

Usually, a team was lucky to get more than 2 runners in the top 10. Our third wasn't too much slower, so, when there were 6 or more teams, we usually placed 3 in the top nine. Three times that year, Bart looked around coming into the home stretch in the lead, saw me far enough ahead of the runner behind me, that he slowed down just enough to let me win by a step or two. He was pretty good at looking like he was gassed when he still had something left in the tank. The coach never let on he knew what was happening. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. The team finished 1-2. I'm sure he didn't really care which of us was first.

I never tried to find out exactly what he meant, but after he graduated, Bart told me he wished I would have opened up to him outside of running. He said we could have had fun. Opportunity lost? I'll never know for sure.

Anyway, it was a week into our junior year before Karl got the chance to live up to his promise. Up until then, I had hidden my sexual orientation pretty well. Once again, it was Kyle I was staring at. Except this time, he caught me looking at him again one Tuesday. I couldn't help myself. Kyle wasn't a Greek god in disguise like Karl was, but he was awfully cute. He had mostly straight, sandy brown hair, with just a little bit of curl to it, and the brightest green eyes I'd ever seen. A little taller than me, maybe two inches or so. Thin as well, but his body looked great just like it was. A real wide receiver's body. I knew I was in trouble when he looked up and saw me staring. He yanked his underpants on and started walking toward me.

"Keep your faggot eyes and hands off of me or..."

That's as far as he got before he was suddenly a foot and a half off the ground and about to slam into a wall of lockers. Thankfully, Karl didn't slam him hard. Hard enough to make sure he took the hint, though.

"You call him that again and you won't just be up against these lockers. You'll be looking through the bent-up ones I just crushed with your body."

"Damn, Karl. I didn't realize he was your boyf..."

Kyle had just made his second mistake in as many minutes. Karl pulled him away from the lockers and slammed him back. Much harder.

"The term is best friend. That's all the hurt you get right now. But you wait for practice later. I get the chance to take you down hard, believe me I'll take it."

"Shit. Sorry Karl, I just thought..."

"Going for the triple?"

"N-n-no."

"Then shut the fuck up. Now."

The whole conversation was held with nothing louder than a library voice. I could tell Karl considered just dropping Kyle, but he changed his mind and slowly lowered him to the floor. I had cross-country practice that afternoon, so I didn't see what happened. I have another friend on the football team, not a good friend, but good enough. I had asked him if anything interesting happened at practice.

"Yeah, your buddy Karl nailed Gardener with a hit that threw him about 5 feet and knocked him on his butt so hard you could hear his teeth snap together halfway across the field. Karl got laps after that. That was weird. He ran 10 laps between the 50 and a goal line, smiling the whole fucking time."

Karl told me later that he was going to pretend everyone on the opposing team was Kyle for the game Friday night. We didn't have a meet, so I was able to go watch the game. I couldn't wait. I try to sit about halfway up the bleachers, somewhere between the 40's and was in the perfect spot for Karl's first big hit. It was a running play to his side of the field. The QB pitched the ball backwards to the running back and Karl was right on top of him as soon as he got the ball. The play broke slowly, and it was telegraphed the whole way what was going to happen. Karl put the guy down on the ground hard for an 8-yard loss. He didn't really hurt him, but it was probably the most solid hit I'd ever seen in a high school football game. The kid was hunched over, trying to catch his breath the whole way back to his bench.

Next came third and 18 and their idiot coach called a passing play to Karl's side. Once again, Karl read the play perfectly, stepped in front of the receiver at the last second, and practically flew 48 yards for a touchdown. After that, the other team avoided plays to their left, but Karl still led the team in tackles with seven. He got the game ball. 7 tackles, an interception for a TD, and two forced fumbles, both recovered by our team. One he recovered himself. If it wasn't for a late mistake by our QB throwing an interception at our own 25, it would have been a perfect game. As it was, 42 - 3, was pretty damn close to perfect.

I started hoping someone would call me faggot in Karl's presence a couple days before every game. We'd be undefeated.

We got through the rest of the football and cross-country seasons without another confrontation. Karl had a pretty good season, he wasn't much of a tight end on pass plays, he only had 6 receptions in the 9 regular season games. But he was named defensive player of the year for our team and was one hell of a blocker on offense. He even made the all-county team as one of the two top OLB's.

I won 6 of our 13 meets, 3 of those being tournaments. I finished in the top 5 in the other 7. All in all, quite a good year. I was looking forward to track in the spring. No sport really suited me in the winter, so I focused on schoolwork and improving my art skills.

January brought another opportunity for Karl to show his skills as protector. It also brought me a somewhat serious partner.

Next up - "Another Jerk Plus Another Mistake Equals Pain."