The muscle-burning peddle up into the base of the Thompson Gap had helped. I'd had to think about what to do next—what to think about and what not. Mom wanted me to stay a couple of more weeks before leaving for Wake Forest for my first year there. The university coach had suggested that guys trying out for track and field couldn't show up early enough to start working out and giving the coaches a look at what they could do. I had my own reasons both to stay and to go.
The encounter the last week of school at the Steven Academy in Benton had me tied up in knots. I knew what I wanted, but I'd fought against it this long. Damn Coach Wilson. I thought I had this licked—that it didn't matter. But he'd brought it right back to the surface again. I wanted to stay, to maybe see him again, with the surprise factor gone. What would I do with the surprise factor gone? I don't know. Could I go off to the university without knowing?
I knew I probably should. I probably should peddle right back home, throw my gear into my car—I already was packed up—and drive off to Winston-Salem and continue choosing to be normal.
I paused at the side of the road at the Green Hall grocery store. It was all sharp uphill from here, up to the Thompson Reservoir and the swimming hole in the stream feeding that, near the top of the gap, where I liked to go and swim and think.
Maybe I needed a break—and a drink—a sugar-laden drink to give me the energy to peddle on up the hill. I peddled over to the porch leading up to the country store and propped it against the wall. The cooler was just inside the door. I opened the top and reached in for a Coke.
"Here, let me buy that for you. You out training on the cycle?"
I froze, but then turned. "Coach Wilson," I said. I hadn't seen him since that day of the last meet at Stevens. But that was burned into my mind—the encounter in the locker room afterward. The sudden, unexpected kiss. The hand on my jock pouch. Me staying there with it a moment too long, in the kiss and with his hand on my package, before I pulled away, grabbed my clothes, and left the locker room. Hearing him laugh and muttering, "I knew it," as, in embarrassment, I escaped.
"So, can I buy you that Coke? And then maybe we should go outside and around back. We've needed to talk."
I stood there, dumbly, as he paid for our drinks, brushed past me, and left the building. Equally dumbly I followed him around to the back of the building. He'd taken the Coke out of my hand as he passed me, so I followed him. And he'd been my coach; I was programmed to do what the coach told me to do.
At the back of the building, he was facing me. He'd maneuvered my back against the wall and he stood in front of me. He handed me the Coke and I took a big gulp. He took a swig of his too, but his eyes were boring into mine.
God, he looked good. Still. Of course it had only been four weeks since that encounter in the locker room. He'd been a Marine before becoming a geography teacher and track and field coach at Stevens, and he looked it—tall and wiry, muscular, rugged looking. A buzz cut, and a "no nonsense" look in his steely gray eyes. There wasn't an ounce of fat on him, the veins in his arms popping out on the surface because they had no fat to run in. His hard chest was the same way, I knew. He liked to go bare chested when he coached—as an example for his guys of what they were striving for in development. That had had an arousing effect on me. Somehow he had figured that out—and taken advantage of it.
I had fought against it. I was fighting against it now. He raised an arm and planted the heel of his hand in the wood to the left of my head. I wondered if he could tell that I was trembling.
"You're trembling," he said.
"Sorry, Coach," I answered, like it was something was doing wrong and could control if I wanted to.
"I didn't see you again. I hope you weren't avoiding me."
"Uh, it got busy those last days of school," I responded, lamely.
"Did you talk to anyone about it?"
"About what?"
"You know what, Chris. Did you talk to anyone about it?" His addressing me by name jolted me into the here and now. This wasn't some sort of hypothetical. He was challenging me to face the here and now—with him.
"No, Coach."
"Do you want to talk to me about it?"
I didn't answer.
"You know what you want, don't you?"
"I don't know what I want, Coach. I just know it isn't right."
"It's natural. There's no right or wrong to it. You want it. You want it now, don't you?"
"No, Coach. I don't want it. I'm leaving for Wake Forest now. I've got trials for the track and field team. There's a scholarship on offer if I make the team—even the reserve squad. I need to just get on with my life."
"I agree you need to get on with your life, Chris," he said, leaning in to me, whispering it into my ear. "You need to be honest with yourself—honest about what you want. You can't study or be any good on the track without being honest with yourself in this."
He kissed me on the neck. I moaned. "Coach, no, don't. I don't—"
"Yes, you do," he murmured.
I didn't get any farther, as he moved his lips to mine and we were kissing and I moaned. He had lost the Coke can and I let mine fall to the ground too. His free hand went to my basket. I couldn't help myself. I jutted my hips out from the wall and widened my leg stance, giving him full access to fondle me. And he groped me, becoming increasingly intimate. My moans deepened and my crotch began to move against his hand.