Seamus Ch. 03

*

I was half an hour early to rugby practice. I usually am, so that I can have a longer warm-up time. After several injuries over the seasons before, my physio had recommended that I do this or face more torn ligaments, tendons and muscles, and some painful surgery. I swiped my access card at the changing rooms and entered. Someone else had dumped stuff on one of the benches, but I hadn't seen them around the park. It didn't phase me; often guys leave their gear overnight, since it's only us that has access to the room, it's pretty safe.

I pulled on my shin-guards and my long woolen socks, striped in the university colors. I put my box on – most guys don't bother at practice, but after seeing a guy on Dad's team lose a testicle, I was not taking any chances. Then my shorts, my practice shirt. I tied my bootlaces and headed out to the field.

As always, I did a slow lap to warm myself up, then returned to the front of the grandstand to start my stretching regime. I was doing a typical calf stretch when something hit me from behind. I didn't even have time to turn around before the next punch to the small of my back. My attacker was very strong. He dragged me back my shirt and slammed me to the ground, stabbing his boots into my side. I rolled over in time to see a boot hurtling for my face. Lucky for me, I was fast enough to grab the leg and stop it, unbalancing my attacker at the same time.

His face hit the grass. "Fucking fag," I heard him yell. He swiveled onto his back, kicking out with his feet, the nubs on the bottom of his boots cutting into my face. Blood spilt from my left eyebrow. I forced his legs down and punched him a couple of times in the soft part of his stomach. His hands clawed the front of my shirt, pulling me back down with him. He pushed me into the ground.

Liam kicked me again as he got to his feet. I dragged myself up by the back of his shirt and rammed him into the grandstand wall. He spun and I avoided his punch. My own fist struck his hard cheekbone, then his lip, and he spat blood down his front. I blinked to clear my sticky blood from my left eye. He struck me in the chest – he was too short to get to my face. We grappled and ended up on the ground again.

Somehow he managed to momentarily pin me, face down in the muddy grass. "You like that fag, you like that?" I heard Liam grunt. To be honest, I wasn't all that scared (I'm a lot bigger than he is), until I felt his hard cock rubbing into my back. At first I thought I must have imagined it, but when he did it again, this time grinding his hips down as well, I really freaked out. I clawed the ground and rolled, forcing him into his back. About thirty seconds later, the coach and half the team arrived to find me towering over Liam, my fists pounding his chest.

A few guys cheered, but mostly they were just trying to pull us apart. Liam was still kicking, punching and spilling blood as Nathan and two other guys towed him away. I guess I was no better. It's all a blur. What was clear, however, was that the war had started...

*

I couldn't believe it. Coach had kicked me off the team. Next to my Dad and Neill and Jill, rugby was probably one of the best things I had in my life. My degree program was a sham, everything had always been about building myself up, increasing my skill, so that one day, yeah, I'd be on an international side. It was a big dream, but I was damn sure I could do it. And Liam had taken that away from me. And from my Dad.

Running through my head was how Dad was coming to see me play in the finals. I hadn't seen him in two years and I knew that he could hardly afford to get all the way here to watch me. Now, that money would be wasted. He would never see how much I had improved. I didn't want to disappoint him like that, especially over some stupid, fucked up fight. I would never be able to explain to him why the fight had happened. God, I didn't even know myself.

I felt so dirty and scared about what Liam had done. I just didn't get it at all. I sat parked up on the side of the road, crying my eyes out, blood and tears all over my shirt. He had a hard-on, what the fuck was up with that? Why had he done that to me? What would he have done if there was no-one else there? I thought how I must've baited him, and blamed myself for everything. Why had I let any of this stuff happen?

Shit. Shit. Shit.

*

I couldn't really put into words how I felt when I got to my room. Jill was there, practically sitting in Neill's lap, as they went through his textbooks. She was doing thesis work on something to do with the psychology of the way women are treated by society, and was trying to find some sort of biological explanation to add to her work. I think that's what they were doing anyway. Neill had her hand in her silky hair, she had her face so close that they could have been kissing. They didn't jump apart like people that have been caught at it, and Jill has always been one of those touchy people, so I didn't read too much into it. Still, I felt incredibly jealous, like I was the third world and didn't count for shit, especially after what had just happened to me.

Jill was the first to look up. "Holy Fuck," she swore. "What happened to you?" She rushed across the room to take my bag of gear, which she dropped on the floor, then guided me to sit on my bed. Her blue eyes flickered with worry under their dark layers of cosmetics. Before I knew it, she had one hand on my chin to tilt my head in the light. The other hand brushed my dark hair off my forehead as she examined my war wounds.

"Got kicked off the team," I whispered. I made eye contact with Neill. He was very pale all of a sudden. He didn't have to say anything, he knew who I had fought with.

"Over a fight?" Jill exploded. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I wasn't," I muttered.

I really had wanted Neill to come with me to the Emergency Department, but it was Jill that did. Neill said he had work to do and didn't want to come. I only needed a few stitches, I was a big boy, I could handle it. Still, Jill was good. She chattered her way through the two hour wait for assessment, flirted with the student doctor who did the stitches, and held my shaking hand while I screamed with a closed mouth (As I said, I don't do pain). She really helped lift my spirits, and didn't push me to elaborate on details that I didn't want to share, like who I had fought with and why.

*

Later, I lay on my bed and talked to Neill.

"I hope he looks worse than you do," Neill said.

"I'd be surprised if he can walk straight," I replied. I told him everything, including the scariest bit, Liam's erection. At that point, Neill got really angry and started talking about how we were going to make him pay. I wish we'd stopped and actually thought about what we were doing. Things were escalating way out of control. Of course, an act of war is usually accompanied by a retaliation. That retaliation is usually far worse than the original act itself... I can never thank Jill enough for pulling me through the time after the retaliation, when I had lost everything I cared for...