Categories > Original > Mystery > The Allure of Virginity

St. Leonard's College

by arkayz 0 reviews

Chapter 5

Category: Mystery - Rating: R - Genres: Romance - Published: 2008-07-13 - Updated: 2008-07-14 - 2829 words

0Unrated
St. Leonard's College

When I woke up at six in the morning on Tuesday—the next day—I saw Eddie standing near my bed.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“You forgot to lock your window. I climbed that tree in Lily’s house.” Eddie saw Lily on my bed and pointed to her. “What’s she doing here?”

“She’s sleeping over at our house. She was supposed to sleep down there.” I pointed to the red mattress near the base of my bed.

“I came here to get the porno,” said Eddie. “Remember you told me you’d give me free porn if I don’t touch Lily?”

I lowered my voice. “Don’t say ‘porno.’ If people find out I’m giving pornography to an underage child, I could go to prison. Use the word ‘onrop’ instead.”

“Why ‘onrop’?”

“It’s ‘porno’ spelled backwards.”

“Alrighty, well, gimme my onroppers.”

“How do you want them? On a floppy disk? On CDs? I’ve got a CD burner.”

“Floppy disk. I don’t have a CD-ROM driver. How much porn can you fit on a floppy disk?”

“Quite a few images.” I grabbed a floppy disk from my desk. “The disk’s empty now. I’ll fill it up and give it to you some time tonight.”

“Be quick. I want my onroppers.”

My ears were very receptive. I heard footsteps approaching and knew that one of my parents was walking outside the bedroom door.

“My parents are coming,” I said, grabbing Eddie by the arm. “Hide under the bed.” I literally threw the little boy under my bed.

Just when my mum opened the door and entered, Eddie was safely hidden. Mum walked in and smiled when she saw Lily sleeping on my bed. She slept on her back. Her eyes were shut. The blanket on top moved up and down with her breathing. Mum looked at me and spoke.

“It was nice of you to sleep on the mattress last night so Lily had a bed to sleep on.” My mum thought I had slept on the mattress.

“The mattress wasn’t very comfortable,” I said, stretching my back.

“We’ve got to wake her up now.” Mum laid a hand on Lily and softly shook her body. “Wake up,” she said lightly. “Today’s your first day at your new school.”

Lily yawned and rubbed her eyes.

“Did you have a nice night, Lily?” asked Mum.

Lily nodded.

“Time to have a shower then. Off you go.” Mum pushed Lily out the door. My mum didn’t leave though. She stayed in the room. It looked like she wanted a private discussion with me.

The only problem was it wasn’t a private discussion because Eddie was under the bed.

“Guess what your father told me last night,” said Mum.

“What?”

“He says he saw you...uh…with someone’s underwear…a young female’s underwear.” Mum seemed just as uncomfortable as I was. “Were you, uh, doing anything with this underwear? You can tell me anything, Keith. I’m your mother. Whatever you say is between me and God.”

I shook my head. “No way. I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t touch her or anything last night?”

“No, I slept on the mattress the whole time. I’d never hurt a child, Mum.”

Mum stared at me for a while. I knew she wanted to believe I was innocent, and I had a feeling I had succeeding in convincing her. Mum walked up and gave me a hug before carrying the camping mattress out to the garage. My mum’s hug was awkward. That must have been the first time she had hugged me in nine or ten years. Throughout my childhood my mum had always been nice. She never screamed or hit me like other mums do, but unlike other mums I had trouble talking to her. I was always afraid that if I opened up she might not like what she’d see within me, so often the communication between my mum and me would consist of basic statements and commands, such as “Mum, I’m hungry,” which is a statement that also doubled up as a command.

Eddie came out from under my bed when Mum left. He went on about how close he was to being caught before climbing back out the window. Eddie needed to get back to his house and change into his school uniform before the bus came.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After breakfast, Ella and Lily Jenkins waited outside at the bus stop with me. The two girls faced their first day at a new school. Ella seemed confident. Even though she was new to the neighbourhood she already had friends. Lily, on the other hand, was visibly nervous. The little girl looked very pretty in her school uniform. She wore a dark blue jumper, a black cardigan with green stripes, a short black dress, and ankle-high black socks.

Ella seemed eager to talk to me at the bus stop that morning.

“Guess what I did yesterday,” she said.

I wrinkled my brow for a few seconds. “What did you do?”

“Went out with Mark. He’s me new boyfriend. He’s much better than the other one.”

“What’s so good about Mark? He’s a bully.”

“Who does he bully on?”

I didn’t want Ella to think I was a victim. “Uh…smaller kids. He’s that sort of person. Couldn’t you tell?”

“He seemed kinda confident and strong to me.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much how bullies behave.”

“Well, I don’t date wusses. Mark is not a wuss. He tells me that all the other guys at school follow him. He makes heaps of money as well. I don’t know how. He doesn’t get it from his parents though.”

“Maybe he’s a drug dealer.” I had a smirk on my face when I said that.

“I doubt it.” Ella walked to the middle of the road and checked to see if the school bus was coming. She walked back with a look of disappointment on her face. “Keith, can I ask you a question?”

“What is it?”

“Do you have a girlfriend yet?”

“No.” I started to wonder why she often asked these weird questions.

“Why not?” She seemed as if she were disappointed in me.

“There’s more to life than…you know…that stuff.”

Ella laughed. “Keith…you are weird. I bet you anything that by the time you’re thirty, you’ll still be living with your parents.”

I didn’t know how to respond. Ella seemed to suggest that living with parents was bad, but I never knew there was anything wrong with living with parents.

I spoke. "If I live with my parents, I save money because I don't have to buy a house."

Ella rolled her eyes. "Chicks don't like guys who live with their parents. You'll never get a girlfriend if you don't move out, and you'll never get married."

I shrugged. "I don't want to get married."

"Why not?"

"What for?" I asked. "What's the point?"

Ella paused for a few seconds. "You know, if you want, Keith, I can introduce you to some of my friends. There's this one chick...her name's Janine...you heard of her?"

I shook my head. "No, not really."

"She's been out with heaps of guys already, so she might be willing to try you out. She's free now 'cos she just dumped a boyfriend. She dumped him because he had girly fingers."

I watched as Ella started laughing.

The school bus came and Ella went on first. She sat down next to Mark, whose brown hair was nicely gelled. I rolled my eyes when I saw them kissing and hugging. Everyone on the bus stared at them.

The bus arrived at the school twenty minutes later. The school I attended, St Leonard’s College, accommodated children from Kindergarten to Year 12. It was an Independent School of the Uniting Church. I had been here for thirteen years and this was my last year. Ella was in Year 10 while Lily and Eddie were in Grade 3. What distinguished my school from other schools were the school’s surveillance cameras and the many trees planted all over the place. St Leonard’s College was perhaps the greenest school in Australia. Nearly everywhere I walked I saw a hedge, a massive tree, or a green field of grass. The school also had cameras spying on students, mainly as a deterrent to drug use and bullying.

I walked straight to the lockers and saw Mark, the bully, talking to his new girlfriend Ella. I hid myself behind the corner and listened to the conversation.

“I was with me mates over the weekend having a beer,” said Mark.

Ella’s voice seemed cheerful. “Which pub do you go to?”

“It’s the pub near here…we call it the Edgy. You wouldn’t believe how bloody hot the chicks are there.”

“And you were looking?”

“Hell yeah. Some of ‘em have tits even bigger than yours.” He laughed.

Ella shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Men…how typical.”

“You don’t like me now?”

Ella seemed afraid. “Oh, no, I never said I never liked you.”

Mark went silent for a while.

Ella tried desperately to start up the conversation. “Do you know Keith?” asked Ella. “I told him about you and he said he knew you.”

“You know Keith? What do you think about him?”

“I don’t know,” said Ella. “He’s a bit weird, but he’s a nice guy. Did you know he’s a virgin?”

“I’m not surprised. How do you know?”

“He told me. I asked him how his first time was and he said he was a virgin.”

“Shit…”

“I know. He even said he never kissed a chick before.”

“Fuck, what a loser.”

“Do you think he’s gay?”

“There’s Eddie,” said Mark, pointing to the distance. “I’ve got to go now. Got some business to do. I’ll see you later. Remember, you’re my bitch.”

I followed Mark after he kissed Ella on the lips and walked away. He walked out of the locker room and outside to the quadrangle where Eddie was talking with a bunch of his friends. I stood behind a bin and tried to listen. Since I was outside, I couldn’t quite hear what Eddie and Mark were talking about. If I went closer, I’d risk being seen. Even though I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, I knew Mark wasn’t happy. I could tell from the body language and the facial expressions. Eddie was telling Mark something that disturbed him. After the brief discussion, Mark walked away from Eddie and entered the toilets. Since I had nothing to do this morning but wait till classes began, I stood outside the toilets and waited for him to come out.

Seven minutes later, Mark still didn’t come out from the toilets. It was implausible for anyone to take this long in the toilets, even if they were doing a poo. I got up and walked inside. The place stunk of urine. There were two urinals and about ten toilet cubicles. Each one of them had its door open. I walked around and realised that the toilets were completely empty. But that was impossible. I saw Mark enter seven minutes ago and no one had left since then. The windows seemed intact, so Mark couldn’t have climbed out from the windows. The windows couldn’t be opened anyway. I couldn’t understand. I walked around the toilets again and double-checked.

Mark had disappeared.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had a double period of biology in which I learned almost nothing. Too much occupied my mind during the lesson, such as how Mark managed to disappear. It was now recess. I walked to the lockers and saw Mark staring at me from the other side of the room. Now that both Mark and I had gone through puberty, I was slightly taller and bigger than he was. Mark, however, had more friends and therefore still thought he was better than me.

Mark came up to me. His friends stood around him. I stared at Mark. If I had to describe his appearance, I’d say Mark looked like a typical bully. He looked aggressive. Even though he was shorter than I was, he was rather muscular. He was the cocky type, the type interested in sports, the type who preyed upon more vulnerable kids, the type confident around girls, and unfortunately the type girls often fall for.

“I saw you at the bus stop with my bitch this morning,” he said. “She says she knows you. Explain yourself.”

“Ella lives next door to me.”

“You think you can take her off me?”

“I don’t care about her.”

“She’s blonde, slim, good-looking…she’s got massive tits…if that’s not what you want in a chick, what do you want?”

I remained silent. Unlike Mark, I wasn’t emotional. I took pride in my lack of emotion.

Mark continued. “Every guy in our year level who’s not a nerd has a bitch. Where’s your bitch?”

I shrugged. “No idea.”

“What’s wrong? Don’t have what it takes to get a bitch?”

“I could if I wanted one.”

“You’re all talk but no action.” Mark pushed me against the lockers. The padlocks bruised my back. I pretended not to feel the pain and pushed Mark back. My push was ineffectual. I didn’t want to hurt Mark too much. If I did, his friends would beat the crap out of me. I just wanted to show Mark and his friends that I wasn’t a complete wimp.

“Don’t touch me,” I said.

“You know what you ought to do, Keith? You gotta get yourself some pussy.”

I grinned lightly. What he suggested was silly.

“I’m not joking, Keith. No bitch has the right to refuse a man. A woman should know her duty. That’s the problem with men nowadays: they let women walk all over them.”

“What would you know?”

“What would I know? I’ve got bitches all over me. Every day some chick hits on me. They can’t get enough of me.”

“I don’t need your advice,” I said

“You should thank me, Keith. I’m trying to turn you into a man. Remember when you were little? Remember how much of a pussy you were? Don’t you want to be a man?”

“I am a man…anatomically speaking.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Keith. You don’t have a bitch, so you’re no man.”

I started to feel uncomfortable.

Mark kept talking. “You don’t have a life. You will never have a life. You are a loser.”

His comments hurt much more than I thought they would hurt me. There was only so much pretending I could do because my face was heating up. I must have looked really red. I tried to ignore Mark and actually started walking away.

“Yeah, that’s it!” said Mark. “Just walk away like a woman. Why don’t you be a man for once?”

I kept walking. But Mark finally said something that made me freeze.

“Yer so much of a wuss you can’t even hit on bitches your own age…so you go hit on bitches half your age!”

I turned around. “What are you talking about?”

“Eddie refused to buy porn from me today,” said Mark. “He said you were giving him free supplies. Then he told me he walked into yer room this morning and found you in bed with a 9-year-old. He told me you like to smell her undies. Mate, you must be desperate.”

Inside, I panicked, but on the outside I tried my hardest to appear calm.

Mark spoke. “What do you have to say about that?”

“Eddie’s a liar.”

“He told me yer dad caught you smelling the undies as well. We already have two witnesses. If I go tell the police, imagine what’ll happen to you. You might get on the sex offender’s registry.” Mark paused. “Your life is in my hands. I could stuff up your future if I wanted to.”

He was right. I was defeated. My voice no longer had any trace of confidence. I spoke in an empty and hollow monotone. “What will I have to do for your silence?”

“I make quite a bit of money selling porn magazines to children,” said Mark. “Don’t give away free porn to Eddie and I won’t tell anyone about your sickness. Is it a deal?”

I nodded and accepted the deal. I walked up to him and we shook hands.
Sign up to rate and review this story