Predator Prey - 6. Broken

A medium sized state university wasn't necessarily the worst place to be homeless in, but it still sucked. Everyone knew about the problem of being "sexiled;" that is, being temporarily without quarters while one's roommate gets laid or does the laying.

But this was different. He was afraid. He was furiously angry – with his traitor roommate, with Ted, with all the people who had used him – and with himself, too. He experienced harsh self-recrimination for his own stupidity, acid self-castigation for his own blindness. But this led to deeper, darker moments of reflection, of self-loathing. Something inside of him was broken. His reactions ranged all over an unfamiliar emotional map.

Perhaps his injury was to his confidence, his easy defiance of the world. Possibly his conscience, long neglected and inflamed and sore, was the culprit. Or maybe it was just fear. For the first time in years, he was scared. Terrified of what would happen when – if - he let himself back into the suite. Frightened of who would be there, and the past that waited for him.

He crashed in the 24/7 study section of the main library for about four days, and used his student ID to get meals through the dining service. He constantly looked about him, searching for Ted or the redhead. He thought he might have spotted Ted in the Library Reference section, peering around. He didn't stay to watch. Around campus, he stayed in public places wherever he could. Any time he thought he might return to the suite, he somehow managed to talk himself out of it. He actually shook at trying to make the decision. In the end he just could not bring himself to return.

He had no place to go.

He reflected bitterly that even after four years at the University, there was nobody he could trust to take him in for a few days. He had plenty of business acquaintances, but he didn't feel close enough to anyone that he could let it all go.

That same ID allowed him to shower at the main gym on campus. He actually attended his classes – out of anxiety, boredom, or a need for something that looked like normality and safety – or all of the above. He could tell the video from the party was out there – he'd gotten some very unusual glances from a few people on campus.

One of his contacts, someone who lived in the dorm, stopped him in the quad one day.

"You know your roommate's looking for you, right?" the guy had said, squinting into the December sunshine.

"No. Where'd you see him?" No need to go over what had happened. Just learn what places to avoid.

"Said he had something you were looking for. Maybe you might need it."

What the hell could that mean? That Ted and redhead had his phone or credit cards? What would they make him do to get them back? And even if they were going to do that, how could he make sure they'd keep their end of the bargain? No, too dangerous. Way too dangerous. But he hadn't been listening, and the guy was saying something else.

"…oh, and Campus Security was on the floor, looking for you, too. Woke me up at noon to ask."

He almost expected that. The suite had been a disaster area. It probably smelled like dead bodies.

But hell, that meant that someone would probably get the bright idea to start tracking his ID card and where it got used. He didn't know what Security would want, but it couldn't be good.

And then the security guards at the library started getting suspicious of him. It didn't do to be a regular sleeper in the late night portion of the library. He'd been told not to come back last night when he crashed on chair in the study center. They put up with students who came to work – it was not a homeless shelter, he was pointedly told.

Later in the week, he made a trip to the campus health center. He had no idea if the blood tests would show anything, or if it was too soon for that. Really, he was just too numb to care.

He'd spent some of his time assessing the damage to his credit and bank accounts – not surprisingly, he'd been cleaned out, pretty much. Almost mechanically, he closed his bank accounts, cancelled his missing credit cards, reported his phone as stolen – his business wiped out in the space of forty eight hours.

Funny, how he'd thought about trying to follow the lessons from his Business courses – grow the enterprise by plowing profits back in. He'd been looking at off-campus property where he could host bigger gatherings. He'd had a big old house in the downtown area all scoped out – even had a big fenced yard, so parties could be discreet, and not attract the unwanted attention of the local police. That was all done, now.

He still had his car, his computer and the clothes on his back.

He doubted that the library people would actually make him leave the building – fall semester finals were coming up, and they weren’t going to throw out students getting ready for exams. But he'd have to put up a show of actually studying.

Maybe he'd wait until winter break started; it wasn't very far away now. Everyone would go home, and he'd just slip into the residence and get re-established. Ted would have gotten bored with his roommate, moved on. His roommate would go home to Long Island for Christmas. Surely, nobody would care if he was there, laying low and minding his own business.

So the days passed. To keep library security off his back, he parked his car in a distant lot and slept there. The seats were less comfortable than the library couches, and the car was colder – but nobody disturbed him.

He worried about money.

He didn't have any to speak of. Of course, it had been like that before. When the shit had hit the fan at the end of high school, and he'd been forced out to his parents, they didn't take it very well. How could he have deceived them so? How could he tarnish the image of perfect son they'd built for him? There hadn't been violence or anything like that. But an already distant relationship became impossibly frosty, and they made it clear that once high school was over, there would be no further financial support. He was expected to move out and find employment. They were done with him.

Angry and bitter, he'd left his stony-faced parents behind, and gotten work – a whole year of working shit jobs, often two or three at a time, taking out his fury and resentment on earning enough money to be independent. He spent much of this time in a quietly controlled rage.

He sublet a room in a rental house from a couple of college guys. They were straight, but they were cool with his being gay. He watched and learned. He observed how they acquired pills and better kinds of weed. They weren't in business, but they passed stuff on to their friends.

He picked up on how to throw a party from them, too. His parents had never, never allowed their golden boy to do anything like that. He noticed how people got more revved up and less inhibited under the influence. He'd gotten laid that year, a number of times. He even managed to screw one of his straight housemates when the guy was high enough to throw darts at a satellite.

It was during this time that he first discovered how sex could make somebody crumble.

Some high school kid had wandered into a party – a pretty tame affair by his own later standards – and they'd bumped into each other in the kitchen. The kid was cute, maybe a couple of years younger. Who knows how he got to be there. They'd talked, while the kid smoked and drank. He was nervous being at a house party. They retreated to his upstairs room, where the kid got giggly and tickly. One thing led to another.

One of those other things the boy discovered was the joy of having a cock in one's ass.

The next day, the kid fled the house, undone by the enormity of staying out the whole night and of getting wasted at a forbidden party. And of getting fucked by another guy.

That should have been the end of it, at least as far as the kid was concerned. But the lure of getting high brought the boy back another Saturday night, this time with a friend. He discovered them down in the basement area, drunk, swaying and kissing. The phone snapshot was taken in an instant.

Of course they wanted the photo. They got it, for a price. He plied them with Jim Beam and took them upstairs to his room, where they splayed out, side by side, toasted and barely able to move. He had them both that night. He offered them to a couple of almost equally wasted partygoers.

He discovered how easy it was to get them under his thumb – cover for them with their parents, play on their shame. The weed didn't hurt either.

They paid him not to tell.

His conscience wrestled with him for a while, but the desire to put his parents in their place outweighed and overpowered it.

By the time he entered the state university on a small scholarship, he had some capital, a business model and a plan. He was going to be wealthy enough by the time he graduated to flip off his parents forever, and live life as a proud gay man, whatever the hell that meant.

Only, now it had turned out differently.