Speech and Debate Pt. 07

"It took all of 23 minutes. You wanted to go for hours."

He laughed, his strong arm coming to rest over my chest and play lazily with my nipple.

"I'll let it slide this time. I may have over estimated how much pleasure I can take at one sitting. Those two damned near killed me."

I could have fallen asleep right there, naked and satisfied on Daniel's bed, his soft black hair tickling my shoulder and brushing against my nose when I leaned in to kiss the top of his head.

But the universe is a cruel mistress.

For the second time in an hour or so, a knock on the door sent me scurrying to retrieve my clothes from where Daniel had removed them and frantically searching for my backpack. Daniel crawled easily from the bed and picked up a pair of boxer shorts, apparently at ease with near total nudity around whomever was on the other side of the door.

By the time they knocked again, I was sure they would hear me rustling to get dressed. Daniel gave me only a moment of breathing room, just barely enough time to zip up my jeans again, before he pulled open the door.

"Dinner's ready hun." Came his mother's voice. "You two have a good study session?"

"The best," Daniel said. "I'll be down in a minute, Mom."

"David?" she asked from the door, "you're more than welcome to stay."

My heart pounded fit to beat the band, from my anxiety at almost being discovered naked in her son's bed, covered in his cum, my own leaking from his thoroughly fucked ass,AND the offer to stay for dinner.

"I'd love to, ma'am, but I really have to get home. My mamma's got her own dinner plans tonight, I'm afraid. Another time, I hope."

"Consider it a standing offer, Sweet Pea." She turned and headed back downstairs.

Daniel closed the door.

"She likes you," he joked boyishly, that half smile giving me a run for my money again.

Could I go for a third? Better not risk it.

"I'm glad. I like her too. Way different than I expected." I offered as I straightened myself and gathered my book bag on my shoulders.

"She's an old hippie. Peace, Love, and Sunshine, and all that stuff from the 70's or whatever," Daniel said, with a tone that hinted that he had already tried and failed many times over to understand his mother and her history but that it was a lost cause at this point.

"She's great." I made ready to leave.

"We're still on for our run in the morning, Nerd," Daniel informed me, not hint of question. Declarative statement.

I rolled my eyes and held back a disappointed groan but nodded.

"Fine. See you in the morning."

Daniel leaned forward to kiss me again, softly.

Whatever this had become, wherever it had started, it was something entirely different now. There was emotion building up between us, a history and a past that could crush us if we didn't handle it carefully. I felt...something... for him, when he brushed his lips to mine. Something deeper than mere caring.

It was almost love. Maybe it was love. The Greeks say Love comes in many different forms. I am not sure what "Love," this was, but it was growing rapidly. It was already to a point where denying it was beyond pathetic.

"Bye." Daniel said with a smile and turned back to his room to find suitable clothes for dinner.

I made my way downstairs and to the entryway without much effort. I only got turned around once when I missed a connecting hallway and ended up in a room that I can only assume was designed for piano concerts of some kind, given the Baby Grand piano it housed. But I soon found the front door and was about to open it when Adam's hand on the handle halted my exit.

"Don't forget your jacket," he said, holding it out to me. In my haste to get upstairs with Daniel, I had left it on the stool in the kitchen.

"Thanks," I said, dropping my eyes to his feet, unable to look him in the eyes after my rambling and his mysterious warnings.

"Thank you." He put an odd emphasis on the second word. "Sounded like you took good care of my little bro."

He smiled at me and winked again.

I could have died right there. Adam KNEW.

My face felt like a furnace and I booked it past Adam and down the front walkway to my car in a flash. If my Mamma ever found out that I left without saying "goodbye" or "thank you" to my gracious hosts, she would have made it impossible for me to sit down for a solid month.

Despite feeling my impending demise rapidly approaching, I woke the next morning and arrived at school with no negative consequences. The school day passed as it always did, slowly and with my mind reliving my exploits with Daniel in a vivid technicolor loop. My two periods with Daniel were becoming a welcome distraction and I silently thanked my mother for instilling a strong work ethic in me. I was somehow able to juggle my course load with my expanding sexual fantasies and distracted interactions with Daniel and not see a decline in my performance on any level.

In my final class of the day, while I watched the clock slowly tick down the minutes and seconds until my parole from my academic prison, as I'd come to consider it, since it kept me from my truly encompassing desire of Daniel, I was daydreaming of what lay beneath his jeans when a pastel pink slip of paper was placed on my desk by the teacher.

I knew what that meant.

It was the "official" slip that meant a student was summoned before someone of authority. Someone needed to see me; the principal, a teacher, administrator.

My name was on the top in a neat script, and the lines underneath scribbled out my instructions:

David,

Please come see me in my office ASAP after school today. Thanks. Coach B.

Panic took hold immediately and I looked around the room like an animal caught in a trap. There were still five minutes left of class, and in those five minutes, I imagined every possible horrible scenario that was surely about to come crashing down around my ears.

Adam had somehow told the Coach what he suspected of me and Daniel. Coach was going to put an end to the distraction of his star athlete. Daniel's parents would be in the office when I arrived. They would scream at me for corrupting their son with my homosexual ways. Daniel would be there, unable to end our dalliance himself and turning to his Coach and mentor to bring us to an abrupt end.

Over and over they played in my mind, always ending with me alone, standing against several very angry and hate-filled adults who judged and sentenced me, leaving me beaten and broken, lower than I'd ever been before.

I wanted to cry, to scream, to run and hide. I was in fight or flight mode, full-scale.

The bell finally rang and I lifted myself on shaky legs and made my way to the courtyard.

Could I just run to my car and pretend I hadn't seen the paper? Would the Coach call my house? Were my parents already in his office right now?

My body carried my mind like a snail in its shell, stumbling towards the Gym Complex. I felt like people were talking about me as I walked, like they knew where I was headed and why. They would surely be there to witness my downfall. How could a nerd like me expect to remain on his rising social path? I would get what was coming to me for deigning to reach above my station.

Numbness eventually settled in and like a living coma patient I ambled towards my final punishment.

The two dozen or so times I had been in the Locker Rooms, all of them in the company of Daniel, a guide and protector in the strange realm, there had been no one else present. When I opened the heavy double door and shuffled in, I was met with a vast array of my athletically gifted peers, all in various states of undress.

There were the expected quick movements to cover themselves under the gaze of my gay eyes. Towels were wrapped quickly around bare waists and hands covered teenaged packages. I paid them no mind. They could have been in the midst of the worlds most intense gay orgy and I wouldn't have noticed a thing.

Thankfully no one spoke to me as I wound around my classmates. They must have been as surprised to find me there as I was to be there. They all towered over me, or seemed to despite their actual height. These were the top echelon of this school. I was in a forrest where every tree could, would, and sometimes had made it their mission to torment me. And I was willingly, in so far as I had a choice in the matter, placing myself on their turf and at their mercy.

My eyes must have been as wide as saucers, but I saw nothing. I was nearly to the far door where I knew I could find Coach B's office and where my fate lay. I passed the opening to the Varsity Locker rooms without noticing.

"Hey! Nerd!" Daniel's voice shouted from off to my right, echoing in the open spaces.

I turned to him, my body naturally responding to the sound of his voice and the pet name he had lavished on me since our first night together. Even in my zombie state, Daniel still held sway.

"Woah, David. Are you okay?" Daniel asked as he approached me. He was naked from the waist up and wore a white towel to cover himself. My lower lip trembled.

I would not cry in front of him, not in front of him or his jock confidants.

I. Would. Not.

"I...I'm..." I stuttered, unsure if I should speak or what to say, terrified that speaking would let loose the floods I was desperately keeping locked inside be with everything I had.

Daniel's strong hands rested on my shoulders and squeezed gently, a sign of encouragement. He had come to recognize when I was on the verge of something new, something terrifying; in his growing connection to me, he sought to make it better. I could have kissed him for it. If it wouldn't have meant being torn limb from limb by the entire varsity baseball team, that is.

"You'll be fine," he said quietly to me. A few pairs of eyes turned towards us, Daniel's hands on my shoulders and his gaze holding mine. I trembled at the openness of it all, the vulnerability.

"Coach B is a good guy. You've got nothing to worry about."

"But what if he...what if...," my mind started the horrible montage of all the ways this could end terribly. Then I realized that Daniel...

"Do you know why I'm here?" I asked, suddenly aware that he was not at all shocked to see me here where I never should have been. Daniel smiled and winked at me.

"Coach is waiting for you. Chin up, Nerd. Don't worry."

He turned from me with a gentle shove in the direction of Coach B's office. As he walked back into the Varsity Locker room he dropped his white towel and sauntered slowly to his locker, making sure I got a full view of his muscular back and perfectly round ass as he moved.

Even that site didn't completely erase my fear.

It helped. A little. Okay, more than a little.

I knocked timidly on Coach B's door and entered when I heard a firm, "come in."

"David," Coach B said, seated behind his utilitarian desk, surrounded by file cabinets and shelves full of trophies and ribbons from his distinguished career here.

"Good to see you again. How've you been, bud?"

Well, that certainly wasn't what I had expected.

His voice was friendly and open. And he'd called me bud. Did he not remember me from 9th grade P.E and the humiliation of my legendary attempt at anything involving coordination of any kind?

"I... I'm okay, I guess. Coach." The word still felt foreign to me.

"Thanks for stopping by," he said. "Have a seat. I have a proposition for you."

That could mean anything. I could still be in for a world of hurt. I numbly took a seat in one of the two folding chairs he set up across from his desk. I kept my hands on my knees and tried my best to stop their trembling from becoming too noticeable. I took a deep breath and readied myself for the blow.

"As you may know," Coach B began, "Jason is out for the rest of the semester with a case of mono."

I had heard about Jason's unfortunate medical dilemma. We all had. He had made the mistake of going to a party with the infamously held-back walking petri-dish of virus and bacteria known as Katy. I was of the opinion that he got what he deserved, but I kept that to myself.

"Yeah," I said, keeping my reply short, sweet, and too the point.

"Well, Jason is...was...the Varsity Baseball Team Manager. Now I have to replace him for the rest of our season, which as you may or may not be aware, starts this coming weekend. I was wondering if you might be interested in the position?"

He let the question hang between us for a while. I had come expecting to be demolished, but instead I was offered a job. Had I fallen through a worm hole on the way here and landed in bizzaro-land?

"Ummm...I..." I stammered in my haste to say something, but unsure what to say.

Coach B rescued me from my ramblings.

"You'd get a uniform, of course. First initial, Last name. Take care of travel arrangements, ensure the equipment is packed and stored well, make sure everyone has what they need. Basically take care of the team when we travel and when we play here at home. There's some math and stats involved as well, but as I understand it, you far surpass Jason in that field already, so I think you'll pick it up pretty quick. What do you say?"

My mouth hung open.

"Did I mention, when we travel, everything is covered? And we each get private rooms."

I wasn't sure what he was hinting at, but there was something in his tone that indicated he had just sweetened the deal with that offer.

"Why me?" I asked and was just as stunned as him to hear the words come out of my own mouth.

"Daniel tells me you are a very...capable...young man and we'd be lucky to have you."

He stared at me over folded hands.

He knew. I could tell that he knew. Why wasn't he getting angry, yelling, screaming, shouting and calling me names?

"Individual. Rooms." He repeated each word slowly, enunciating them to the fullest.

"Sure," I said. It wasn't until I saw him smile that I realized I had just accepted his offer.

"Good," Coach B replied as he shuffled some papers around on his desk. He found what he was looking for and handed the sheet of paper across to me.

"Here's a general schedule. We'll get the rest of your paperwork and uniform specifications set up tomorrow after practice. You'll start tomorrow after school. 3:45. Cool?"

I held the schedule and glanced down at the list of times and places. Times and places I would now be spending with Daniel. I felt the smile creeping up my face.

"Very cool," I said.

"DANIEL!" Coach be suddenly roared, startling me a bit so I dropped the paper and had to scramble to pick it up as it floated to the ground.

Daniel's bare torso poked through the semi-cracked door. I had forgotten to close it behind me in my nervousness upon entering.

"Yeah, Coach?" He asked.

I turned to see his face, shoulders and chest in the doorway, the rest of him still in the locker room. He met my gaze and winked at me. I smiled back at him. I would have to think of some way to repay him for letting me suffer in my head when he obviously already knew what this meeting had been about. My cock began to swell in my jeans as I thought of the possibilities.

"Made a good call on David, here," Coach said. "He's gonna be our new team manager."

"Oh yeah?" Daniel said with mock surprise. He maneuvered himself into the office and I was faced with the full glory of his body. He wore his baseball jock and something I would come to know as a cup. But that was it. His hands came to his hips and he expanded himself to his full height and girth.

He never looked at me, but he knew exactly what he was doing. He was showing off for me. His abs tightened and I watched the muscle ripple down the lines of his adonis plate and gently shift the bulge in his jock.

My mouth went dry again.

"It will do us some good to have a little brains amongst all of y'alls brawn." Coach said. "Maybe he can make y'all shower more too. The smell of you is nightmare inducing sometimes."

He chuckled at his own joke. There was truth to his statement. The smell of the locker room now that it was full of jocks was more...pungent...than when Daniel and I came here to shower together in the mornings after our runs.

"I'm glad it worked out," Daniel said as he extended his hand towards me. I rose from my chair to take it. I met his eyes and refused to break that gaze. It was something I never would have thought possible, not in a million years, but I had just been ushered into his world. I was a part of it now, truly a part of it.

As mind boggling as that was, I was looking forward to the possibilities.

"I look forward to working with you, Nerd," he said, taking my hand firmly in his.

"You too, Jock." I shook his hand with equal firmness and watched his eyes widen a bit at my show of strength.

He had opened the door for me.

With that handshake, I stepped through it with new-found confidence and into a strange and unfamiliar world.