Utterly Fuced

Fate had dealt Stuart some odd hands, he often thought. In the long run, they were generally unfavorable ones.

Back in high school, he was what one might call... a gigantic geek. Not that this had changed as much as he might’ve hoped since he’d graduated and moved on to college. Still, the fact that at least he wasn’t getting his ass kicked on a daily basis anymore seemed as if it ought to count for something to that end.

Said ass-kickings were administered by Daniel Gordon, a senior when Stu was a freshman, and one of the biggest jerks he’d had the misfortune to encounter. He was any nerd’s worst nightmare: a walnut-brained, over-muscled – frustratingly popular with the ladies, the prick – ridged-forehead mistake of evolution with a penchant for inflicting public humiliation… the very worst public place guaranteeing the most humiliation, of course, being anywhere in the vicinity of Jennifer.

Jennifer, conversely, being any nerd’s greatest wet dream – actually, any living male’s wet dream – actually, the one and only decent reason for bothering to breathe.

Certainly not the sort of girl one would want to get gut-punched in front of. Repeatedly. On a daily basis. With his friends standing by laughing. And a hot girl on his tormentor’s shoulder, fawning at him, the fucking devil’s spawn.

Stuart had known Jennifer since the wee years of elementary school, when she’d been the prettiest girl in class with her shimmering brown eyes… always smiling, wonderfully gregarious and talkative. The crush hadn’t worn off in time, nor had his awkwardness, making her more unapproachable in high school than ever before. She still had her big brown eyes and her jet black hair, and she was still the prettiest girl in class – in school – in existence – but as of reaching high school she was also a cheerleader, possessing the delicately lithe kind of figure associated with that activity, and the ravenous attention from males associated with that kind of figure. Stu had known she was the most gorgeous being on the face of the earth since he was ten. All these other jerks only figured it out after her curves had started to settle in to their proper places. And none of them, not one, could possibly feel as strongly for her as he did. It just wasn’t possible.

And Jennifer was still wonderfully gregarious and talkative, in fact. Quite the social butterfly, and perennially surrounded by aggressive male butterflies that could kick Stuart’s ass. And although Stu knew that Jennifer was definitely… well, she was a girl of solid moral character, you might say… in spite of that, he would’ve liked to strangle to death every guy she ever dated. If he couldn’t have her, no one could. Not even for hand-holding trips to the movies.

But if she was turning them down, he had no chance himself. He at least got a little of his dignity back when Daniel Gordon (curse his name!) graduated and went off to work as a burger flipper or a janitor or whatever loser job he was surely doing. But poor Stuart was still the same old geek: short, skinny, bespectacled, long on calculus skills and short on social skills. He stuttered a word to her from time to time, but he could never really talk to her. So he suffered in silence, gazing at her from afar, nursing the heartache.

But one day… not long before graduation, the end of senior year… something miraculous happened. Something out of a fairytale, something totally impossible, without precedent.

It started with the most awkward moment of Stuart’s life of awkward moments. Jennifer needed help with math, Jennifer came to Stu for tutoring in math – it was something right out of one of his daydreams, but in reality it was horrible. They were the only two people in study hall that afternoon, and as he explained some of the finer points of factoring polynomials to her, he felt as if he were going to faint at any moment.

Tutoring her was indeed the most awkward moment out of his life of awkward moments. But it was topped just a few moments later.

They got to talking… and Stu started feeling a little more at ease… and she was giggling… and then, without consulting him, his mouth started off by itself, saying things, secret things about his innermost feelings, things that he could never, ever say out loud. And he went on, and stumbled and it stammered, and it wasn’t anything like the grand love confession speech he’d written and re-written in his mind a thousand times over.

But none of that mattered. Only one thing mattered: the fact that when that awful moment was over, after the words hung embarrassingly in the air just a moment longer than he would’ve liked, she pointed her beautiful brown eyes right at his and said: “I… I feel the same way about you, Stuart”.

Long story short: a few short months later – the best time of Stu’s life, without question – they moved in together in an apartment at the start of college. Stu had to pass on his first choice of schools so that they could be together… but that didn’t matter. This was his greatest dream come true.

Which is why it was so awful that he was so miserable, now that he’d settled in.

*

Jennifer always had a crush on Stuart, ever since she could remember. He was, without a doubt, the smartest person she’d ever met, but he carried himself with a kind of humble humility. He was a special person – it seemed that he’d turn into someone important, with all of his brilliance. She’d frequently tried talking to him, over the years, but… he wasn’t the most receptive person in the world. In fact, he seemed almost miserable talking to her. She was an intelligent enough person, she thought, and her grades were always great, but maybe she just wasn’t intellectual enough to carry on a proper conversation with him.

And communication became a greater problem as time went on. High school had its social currents; they carried her one way and him the other. She knew, though, better than most, that the hierarchy that developed there was just an accident of circumstance. She hated Stuart to get excluded or picked on (that asshole Daniel Gordon was the worst, she hated him like nobody else) but she knew Stuart would have his day. He wasn’t a hotshot quarterback or self-assured stud – the sorts of guys she guiltily flirted with then shrugged off – but he was a great person, someone who would really be somebody, someday.

Finally, one day, the poor guy came out of his shell and revealed a piece of himself to her that she hadn’t suspected the existence of. It was so sweet and romantic and perfect, like in a movie.

Well, it was for a while.

*

Stuart had been imagining and re-imagining what his first time was going to be like since his voice started to change. It was going to be with Jennifer: that much was set in stone. It was going to be absolutely incredible: there could be no doubt of it. Fueled by porno and the imagination of a teenaged boy, and fermenting for a number of years, the fantasy had finally reached epic proportions: possessing raw sexual talent without peer, belying his unassuming appearance and modest penis size, he would take his love away on a wave of orgasms that would leave her panting and begging for more. He’d run through the scenario so many times in his mind that he knew it like the back of his own hand – well, the palm of his hand, maybe? – and he was sure that everything would go exactly right.

Reality was a little different. It wasn’t

her

first time, it turned out, and in spite all her assurances that it only happened once, that it meant nothing, that knowledge was like getting stabbed through the heart. He didn’t know who it was with. He didn’t

want

to know. And she didn’t seem especially eager to volunteer the information.

Stu and Jenny had fooled around a bit since that fateful day in study hall, and they’d done enough talking, but Jenny being the rather modest girl she was, they didn’t finally do the honors until the night they moved in together. His eyes nearly leapt from their sockets and bowed down before Jennifer’s naked body… it was everything he’d dreamed of and more, so petite and pleasantly curved, her breasts as cheerfully perky as her disposition. It was the very image of beauty itself, burned right into his mind’s eye. Nothing could be more perfect. Then there was some fumbling, some red-faced awkwardness on both their parts (but especially his), and almost as suddenly as it began, it was over.

She was loving, she was supportive. She was happy just to give him the gift of her body. And who gets it right the first time, anyway? Or… the second time… or the third…

If anything, he got worse the harder he tried. She didn’t say it, but he knew it. His pathetic, soft, skinny body felt so inadequate compared to what she was offering him, ugh, and his pathetic dick, he doubted she even felt much of anything. Sex quickly acquired a bitter taste for him, and he began to resent the whole situation. He finally got the one thing he wanted most out of his life and it brought him nothing but shame. He loved her so much and he could barely look her in the eye.

But all of that… all of that inadequacy on his part… it wasn’t even the worst part of it. Not by the tenth part. No, something else happened – was happening – that was rubbing more salt in the wound than Stuart thought possible

*

Jennifer had some vague moral feelings about sex buried away in the back of her mind, picked up from television and speeches from her parents, maybe, then half-forgotten: sex was for the person you really loved; it’s your gift to him; it’s the most beautiful expression of your most important feelings. Blah, blah, blah. There was probably something about saving yourself for the right guy tucked in there too – should’ve paid more attention to that one, she though, as her first time was in retrospect, totally humiliating and a complete mistake. Water under the bridge, not even worth counting. Stuart was her

real

first time.

There had been other guys that impressed her on a purely physical level, sure… she took in a little eye candy from time to time, to fuel the odd daydream, she was only human after all and she could be a bit of a flirt… but there hadn’t been anybody that

really

impressed her. With Stuart, on the other hand, there was a seed of love that had been growing in her since she was just a little girl, and now that it had grown to fruition, she had what she’d really always wanted: a soul mate.

Stuart, however, was something of a tricky soul mate. Jennifer was ready to hang a “happy ever after” sign over her life just a couple of weeks ago, but things had gone downhill fast since moving to college. Stuart loved her so much, deep down, she knew it, but he just didn’t understand feelings the way he did numbers. He was hard to communicate with. And sex…

Jenny only wanted one thing out of sex: to give the man she loved what he wanted, her body her greatest gift. Stuart was not a gracious gift-accepter, though, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to convince him that she really did love him and was really happy just the way things were. It was as if he wanted to be hard on himself. He was so sullen, so hard to be around.

But part of that was her fault, she was sure. And an even bigger part of the problem… well, blame it on a big cosmic joke.

The first glimpse she got of their next-door neighbor in the apartment complex was actually a couple days after they’d already moved in, just a little before the semester started. She was with Stuart at the time. They were just coming back from the store, having picked up a grocery bag or two of food, when the door of the apartment to the right of theirs opened up and out stepped… a magnificent physical specimen. He was tall, and nicely, nicely muscled, as clearly revealed by his black tank top and tight blue jeans, with short black hair and a nice tan. Jennifer took a moment to enjoy the view as he closed and locked his door, too long of a moment, it turned out, because she realized Stu had spotted her looking. She was embarrassed of herself and felt guilty, and then things got even worse. The man turned to face them, and he was none other than Daniel Gordon from high school.

“How’s it going compadre?” he said to Stuart, his voice twanging with sarcasm. Stu muttered something under his breath… and Stu and Jennifer both went into their apartment without another word.

*

“Don’t let him get under your skin, Stu,” Jennifer said, as if she had the right to say anything after staring at Daniel’s body like that. “He might be a total asshole, but this isn’t high school anymore. He’ll probably be a quiet neighbor.”

Irony.

It was that very night, in the awkward moment that inevitably followed coitus – she was trying to reassure him, coddle his fragile male ego – that Stuart heard a soft, feminine moaning coming from the other side of the wall. Daniel’s side. He hoped to hell it was a television show.

But he knew it wasn’t. And it was getting louder. He tried breathing a little louder, talking a little, about nothing really, just pointless small talk, hoping to cover up the noise, hoping that Jennifer didn’t hear it, hoping if she did that they could just both pretend that they didn’t.

It was pointless, though. Soon the moaning was too loud to ignore. There was no way to pretend it didn’t exist, let alone the tapping sound of the bed posts hitting the wall. “Yes, yes” the voice kept moaning – couldn’t that slut shut the fuck up? Respect some noise pollution laws? Some people were trying to sleep.

The tempo increased, the moaning slowly rose in a crescendo to screaming. She cried his name, over and over; she screamed that he was the best, the greatest, that it felt so good, over and over again, in this breathy voice. She had a slight accent – Mexican? Meanwhile, back on Stuart’s side of the wall, there was nothing but a pained silence. Again and again, he was sure that they were almost finished, but it seemed to go on endlessly.

“I’m going outside for a minute,” said Stuart, irritated.

“I’m coming,” said Jennifer.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” screamed the Mexican chick on the other side of the wall. Stuart winced; Jenny probably did too.

“You stay right here! I want to be alone.” Stuart was practically lashing out at Jennifer. If she hadn’t made him feel so inadequate in the first place… oh Christ, who was he kidding? She didn’t deserve that. He grumbled to himself and walked out the door.

The sound was still clearly audible outside. Nearly livid, Stuart walked went for a brief walk in the night, making a circuit or two around the apartment building, then, bored and tired, returned to his apartment. They were still at it. “Fuck me up the ass… yeah, fuck me, fuck me.” Yeah, fuck you.

He waited a while, furious… they seemed to go on forever, screaming and bumping. And then, at last, silence.

“I’m gonna go out and have a smoke” – it was the chick with the accent. “Whatever” – that was Daniel. She opened the door, and Stuart caught himself staring. She was gorgeous: maybe mid-twenties, the ideal of Latin beauty, curly hair cascading around her shoulders, nothing more than a very ill-fitting baby doll shirt and a wisp of panties covering her. Stacked as hell. Exactly the kind of girl that Stuart would want; well, if he didn’t have Jennifer that is.

The woman herself was less captivated by Stuart. “What the fuck are you looking at, asshole?” she said, lighting up a cigarette. Even angry, she had a beautiful accent, Stuart though. He averted his eyes. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

At that, Stuart went in and tried to get some sleep, with moderate success.

* Jennifer couldn’t stand to see Stuart suffer, especially, not at the hands of that jerk Daniel Gordon, who’d already done so much to hurt him, taken so much away from him. Back in high school, he did so much to make his life a living hell, and now he was going through it all again. And he wouldn’t let her talk to him… no, he was too embarrassed. She wished they could just move away, but the odds of their being able to find another place so close to campus at a price they could afford were astronomically low.

She hoped that one night of screaming and moaning and carrying on was an isolated incident. It wasn’t: almost every other night, it seemed, there was another all-night orgasm party next door. The screaming voice didn’t always have that Mexican accent, though. There were repeats, but Daniel got around. He must have had a way with women, Jenny thought. Well, weaker women, desperate women that couldn’t see what an idiot he was.

Beautiful, sexy women. She had to admit that. She’d seen a few of them, going in with him at night (Daniel would see her watching and wink; she’d quickly turn away), leaving in the morning… or leaving in the night. Some of them were stunning. Jennifer was pretty herself, she knew. But just pretty. Cute-looking. The girls he had were often knock-outs, playmates, centerfolds. Strippers? Maybe a couple. They had the kinds of bodies she’d always wanted to develop when she was little, but never did. She supposed she was good looking, but…

Daniel must have been a smooth talker, as he seemed to have his choice of whatever girl he wanted. Something Stuart never had.

No, don’t think that, she told herself. Stuart’s a good guy.

But it wasn’t just smooth-talking. Night after night, they kept on coming. Ha, coming, get it? No, that’s not funny. He might be a little more… experienced than Stuart, but he was still a total scumbag. She truly hated him. He was… he was ruining Stu’s life, she thought. He seemed so depressed all the time, so distracted, almost broken.

*

Stuart hated his job.

He’d gotten a part-time job at a tiny electronics store to pick up a little extra money at college. He seemed to be about the only person there that actually knew much of anything about electronics. His manager, Enrique, an arrogant punk with neon yellow hair, got his job out of nepotism, and he was usually stuck on the same shift as Clyde, a sniveling, greasy little dweeb. Clyde seemed to be friends with Enrique, though, which effectively left Stuart on the bottom of the totem pole.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, of course not – that would be too easy. Stuart needs to suffer more, of course. The universe will not be happy until ol’ Stuey was lying on the ground, broken and beaten…

You see, Enrique was a friend of Daniel Gordon’s – Daniel was apparently an avid consumer of electronics equipment, and Enrique would occasionally hook him up with items that had “fallen off the back of the truck”, so to speak, at a discount price. Stuart guessed that Daniel had a lot of “friends” that he mainly kept up with to get something for himself. He didn’t tell Enrique that he was Daniel’s next door neighbor… he didn’t want to discuss the issue one way or the other. He didn’t even want Daniel to know that he worked there… he kept dreading that one day he was going to show up at the store to pick up something from Enrique and he’d have to deal with him. But it never happened – all their deals were done on personal hours.

What did happen was actually much worse.

Daniel took the conquest of women seriously. He didn’t want to just fuck them, he wanted a record. And so, with the help of some discount electronics he’d pilfered here and there, he set up an elaborate hidden digital camcorder system in his bedroom. One flip of a well-placed switch, never to be noticed by the girl he was with, and he had himself an amateur porno with himself in the starring role… with the co-star being none the wiser.

But these movies weren’t just for personal use. They were for bragging rights. Who better to brag to than the electronics dealer that hooked him up with the equipment in the first place?

He’d let a movie or two come into the possession of Enrique, here and there. He charged him an exorbitant price for each one, but Enrique evidently bought all he could afford, or matched his trade with electronics. And Enrique would show them to Clyde on the computer in the store, in the early hours just before they opened. And when Stuart showed up early too, as was often the case, he got to see them himself. Goody goody.