True As It Can Be - 1. Chapter 1

My name is Beau Cocteau, I think I am related to some famous French writer or something. With a name like that, it’s weird to tell people I was raised in the little town of Lake Elmo, Minnesota, which had more farm land than people and usually just one kind of people. My family like to tell people that my grandfather left France in the 1940’s and settled in the town for a quiet life, but when I dug around my grandfather’s old luggage trunks, I found his old Vichy French passport and pictures of him shaking hands with some Nazi soldiers with the noticeable swastika and SS insignia. I was slapped in the face, when I showed the pictures to my dad for digging through my grandfather’s things for a show and tell project at school. I think it was that act at 7 years old that soured my family’s relationship with me, because I learned the truth, my grandfather was a French collaborator fleeing to the US to escape prosecution. I kept my grandfather’s Vichy French passport and never showed that to anyone else. It still reminds me of where I came from and what lies people are willing to tell themselves to make reality fit their fantasies. I’ve learned sometimes the despairing truth is more preferable than delusional fantasy, like the story of my grandfather.

However, all of that is in the past, I love my present. Living in a college dormitory is exhilarating, I love the freedom of living on my own without having to worry about how others, especially my estranged parents, can restrict me. I also get a chance to interact with people of different backgrounds, like there was almost no ethnic diversity except one Asian family that owned the local American Chinese fast-food restaurant in my town. I probably only made one black friend in my entire life before college. That was during a Christian youth summer camp I used to attend, until I came out to everyone and was no longer invited to return. Thus, my roommate Morris is my second black friend, but he is totally cool with me being gay. I lucked out on the random roommate draw, except for one aspect about Morris.

I keep getting sex exiled by him. Including this time, it is the 12^th time Morris has locked our room and flipped the
“occupied” sign on our door to indicate he’s having sex with some girl. I understand playing the field and being in college, but he’s already gotten a very public case of the Clap, which he argues just proves how experienced of a lover he is. Morris is fairly good looking and well endowed. After the STD pronouncement in our 1^st month of college, which earned a lot of flak from the guys in our dorm. Many of the guys in our freshman dorm made jokes about me, too. Despite steering clear of Morris, his clothes, and any personal items, it’s like everyone assumed I am sucking him off or something, just because I outed myself as gay. I thought people in New England are supposed to be more open minded, but I guess tolerance and acceptance doesn't mean there's no prejudice. The girls from the other floors of our freshman dorm are really nice to me, though. They liked that I am petite and non-aggressive. Some even tried to flirt with me, despite me telling everyone I am gay. A few of them even claimed, they can convert me if I give them a chance. I started avoiding the "flirty" girls, because the sight of them made my dick soften and retract like I was swimming outside in the middle of winter. I don’t think I will ever understand girls, or straight guys for that matter.

Despite all the trouble he brought me, Morris is actually an awesome roommate. He pays for pizza and beers, protects me from homophobic assholes who try to mess with me, and even lets me use his Netflix account. Morris was also completely sympathetic with me being disowned by my family from Minnesota to the point that he got his parents to send me a care package filled with things like toothpaste, shampoo, pens, and notebooks. Those were things that families are supposed to send their kids, when they go to college, just to show they cared. I was still shell shocked on my first day of school, coming on campus with everything I owned, but Morris jumped to be my friend and made me feel like family.

The school offered me a pretty decent academic scholarship award and work study job for cash, so I was set for basic things. Things, like the toothpaste, notebooks, and pens, were really helpful on my tight budget. Luckily for me, I don’t spend much money. I have a really good tolerance for alcohol, which I found out through parties Morris took me to and beers we had in our mini-fridge. I don’t enjoy drinking alcohol that much, because I prefer to keep my mind focus and it would cost me too much to get buzzed. I am usually a very quiet guy, who prefers to read and don’t really enjoy any kind of physical activity, despite the best attempts of Morris. He got me to try Apple picking, since it’s a New England thing in the fall and relatively cheap. A few hours and thirty pounds of apples for $5 later, I can’t argue with him that it was a fun and cheap, but my arms and legs were sore.

With my room occupied by Morris' sexual activities, I moved myself to the common room of our dorm's floor. Our freshman dormitory has 6 floors, top 3 floors are female only and bottom 3 are all male, each floor has one large open space for students to gather. Morris and I lived on the 2^nd floor, which is also home to certain unsavory students, who sadly were in the common room as I made my way to the couch. I lay my backpack on the common room couch. I had piled all my coursebooks and laptop into my rugged backpack, when Morris told me he was going to need the room for a while. Luckily most things are accessible online, so course books are only for literature and history book readings. In the other corner of the room, a few guys were playing a game of poker. They are a group of second-string freshman college athletes, backup players on an athletic scholarship who didn’t qualify for the actual teams or dorm rooms yet at prestigious Brady Hall due to being freshman. I really don’t like any of them. I’m not into big muscular guys by nature, they remind me too much of my own dad, uncles, and cousins who mocked me growing up for looking wimpy. There’s one guy in particular I really dislike, who seems to have it out for me ever since word spread, I am gay.

“Hey Sleeping Beauty, did Morris kick you out again? Trouble in paradise, or you want to chase after another bug now?” Gary Gaston cat calls to me.

Laying down on the couch, I open a book and try to ignore him. Gary Gaston has been going after me for the last 2 and half months. I know he’s from a family with a lot of deep connections and almost everyone gives him anything he wants. He’s too classy to use stuff like the F-word, but he finds new and fresh ways of denigrating me, while reminding folks I am gay. In terms of the campus social order, Gary is on the short list of being put on the main roster for our university’s football team. He is one of the few freshman guys, who has actually seen the field and ran several successful scoring plays. Our senior running back was injured before the last game; he was drinking and accidentally fell down several flights of stairs. Interestingly, some people say that Gary was seen near the athlete dormitory right before the incident, but no one has questioned him. He’s already considered a minor sports hero and quite frankly half the freshman class idolizes him. The guy has a reputation as someone who gets what he wants sexually too. Usually it is from girls, but it is rumored he’s allowed a few gay boys like me to service him, despite his claim of being completely heterosexual. Many of those gay boys got unexplained bruises and black eyes. None of them have lodged complaints against him and many still praised him despite what he probably did to them. Whatever it is about his magical blameless personality or sexuality, I’m definitely steering clear of him for my own sake.

I can see my own appeal to someone like Gary, I’m petite and small with long brown hair down to my neck. I have one of those androgynous faces, large puffy red lips for kissing or other oral activities, and naturally no history of facial hair at all. I know I look like a stereotypical effeminate gay guy, especially with my tight-fitting pants and brightly colored shirts, but honestly, I never had the urge to act bitchy or do anything remotely girly, nothing wrong with gay guys who like to do that, it’s just not me. As for my wardrobe choice, my parents wouldn’t spend money on clothing for me, so I either wore my old clothes from when I was a kid or bought new clothes from discount stores with money, I made doing odd jobs, like shoveling snow or shucking corn. Since I am short, small, and I bought the cheapest clothes. It turned out my best choice was the more colorful young boys’ shirts that cost 1/3rd the value of adults for the same size. I am not ashamed to be the same size as a 12-year-old. My dick and balls are just as big as Morris, so no one can doubt I am an adult if they get to know me beyond just how I look.

Gary continued, “Come on Beau, we all know what you want? My friends would probably enjoy their knobs washed. You just have to gargle some mouth wash first.”

Knowing I couldn’t concentrate on my reading in the common room, I packed up my books into my oversized hiking backpack. I ignored the jeers and lewd moans being made in my direction as I left the common room. I checked my dorm room, but the status on the door still said “occupied”. I left my freshman dormitory hall and sought out the library for a quiet place to study and perhaps sleep a little. I know it’s open 24 hours a day and it’s meant to be quiet refuge for studying. Still, at 11 PM at night without any major exams or papers due, it would be strange.

It's a 10-minute walk from our dormitory to the library. There are a series of freshman dormitory building on our massive campus. The campus is composed of a series of buildings arranged in different circles, with the administrative buildings at the center of the circle. Freshman dormitories are located in the 4^th to circle from the center, while the senior dormitories and athletic dormitory are located on the outermost circle, where the stadium, gym, and open field is. There are food venues scattered throughout each circle, mostly coffee shops and sandwich shacks, where we pay with our student credits. The main dining room with a buffet and food court is located in the 3^rd circle near the freshman dormitories, which many people blame for causing the infamous “freshman fifteen”, an urban legend that every freshman will gain 15 pounds of weight by the end of their first year. The library is located in the 2^nd circle along with most of our classroom buildings.

The walk was uneventful initially, but I had to walk through a wooded area with no lighting and no security cameras. This particular area always makes me nervous, like it’s the place where people are usually found dead in horror slasher movies. I am half expecting Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers to come out. Another bad thing about this particular route at night. It’s hard to navigate without any lighting, but I knew I will eventually make it into the 3^rd or 2^nd circle by bisecting these woods. After reaching an open lighted path, I can find my bearings for the library. I could have gone the long way around the 3^rd circle to reach the 2^nd circle, but it would have taken 20 minutes and I’d be tempted by the smell of pizza from the food court. I thought I was heading in a straight line initially, but I avoided several down trees, so I was likely making left angle turns.

Somehow, I end up in front of an odd-looking three-story brick building. It didn’t look like an administrative building, café, or dormitory. It resembled a large house, there was even an extension that looked like a garage. I was perplexed by the appearance of such a structure in the middle of our campus, so I surveyed it a little more closely. The name in the front of the building had the name Keller Hall emblazed in stone above the large wooden entryway, but as far as I knew, there wasn’t any place called Keller Hall on campus’ directory. There were at least two dozen rooms in the building, but the windows were all tinted black, so I couldn’t see what was inside. I rounded the building and noticed an adjacent garden filled with bushes of beautiful blue flowers under an awning with a side door. I approached the beautiful flowers, realizing they were in fact roses by their smell and the fact that when I touched one of them, they had thorns. I knew from reading nature magazines, roses did not naturally have a blue variant, it takes a lot of genetic engineering and specialize breeding to generate these kinds of rare flowers. Someone went to a lot of trouble to get these, plant them here, and care for them like this. As I realized the rarity of these flowers, their implied value, and their requirements, I felt like I was being watched and judged by what I presume was their owner. However, the voice that met me was familiar.

“So, Beau, is this where you want to blow me?” Gary’s menacing voice echoes behind me.

I stand to attention immediately and respond, “Fuck off, I am not interested even if you are gay or bi or whatever. I am telling you no. If you don’t stop stalking me, I’ll yell and campus police will deal with you.”

Gary’s face breaks in a wide grin, “Really, it would be a first for them after all the others. Here’s the pecking order Beau, guys like me get whatever we want. Pussy of course is free for the taking, so are asses and mouths from anyone like you. Doesn’t make me queer, just means I can get whatever I want when I want it.”

I yell and look around me, but there is no one. I realize too late that my choice of route was a bad one, since there was no campus police box anywhere to be found nearby. Whoever in the building, if it was even occupied, could probably hear and see me, but would they dare intervene on my behalf? I’m just a freshman, I am alone, and I am gay, so Gary could do whatever he wants with me. He could claim it was consensual and make my life hell if I dared to speak up.

My dawn of horror is not missed by Gary, “You see Beau, I always get what I want.”

I wouldn’t surrender without a fight, even if it was a hopeless battle against a much bigger and stronger opponent like Gary. I swung my backpack at him, missing him by a few inches as he dodges. Then, in a swift motion, he slaps my face with enough force that I saw stars in my eyes. Gary then punches me in my stomach, causing me to wince and fall to the ground in agony. I land on several of the precious blue roses.

As I stare up knowing I would be one of Gary’s many victims, I heard a loud roar. Before I could figure out what was happening, Gary had fled in fear for his life at the inhuman sound, while I remain motionless on the ground awaiting the appearance of some monster. Knowing my history of bad luck from being kicked out of my home by homophobic parents to nearly getting raped by a closet-case jock, it wouldn’t surprise me if monsters existed and I was about to be part of a really gory murder scene with me as the victim.

The side door near the awning opens and a figure appears, it is human-like in form, but when I spot its face, I am shocked. The nose is flat. The mouth is completely open exposing not only teeth, but also bones. The eyes bulge out. The hair on its head is long and blond, like it is a lion’s main. It’s arms and legs appear to be strong and probably very muscular, but the movements are unnatural as if it isn’t used to them. It stares at me with its beautiful blue sapphire eyes.

Then a gruff and angry voice booms at me, “Son of a bitch, you crushed my blue roses. Why are you in my garden? Why did you bring him here?”

I try to stand, but found myself collapsing back to the ground and my arms wrapping around my stomach in pain, “Please help me, I’m hurt. My stomach is on fire. Can you lend me a cell phone, so I can call my roommate? I don’t want to go back the way I came without someone.”

The creature growls at me, “Fuck you, I don’t care what you want, you got what you deserve for being with him and crushing my blue roses.”

I glance at the broken rose bush on my ass, “I am really sorry, please can you get me some help. You don’t even have to report Gary, I just need to call my friend.”

“You destroy my blue roses and bring that bastard to this place, now you expect me to help you bring God knows who here. What’s in it for me? Why should I stick my neck out for you?”

I had no money. Even if I did, I could never replace something like blue roses, so without thinking, I offered what I could in exchange for help, “I’ll do whatever you want for as long as you want me, please help me. I am really sorry for everything. Gary lives in my dorm and I’m really scared to be alone.”

Nodding his head, the creature gives me what I thought was a concerned expression, “You can’t go back there, no one can protect you from him. You are too small, too weak to stand a chance.”

Without saying anything else, in one swift motion, the creature bends down and carries my small body with his muscular arms in a fireman’s lift. He carries me inside the building. I do not know what fate awaits me.