Chapter 1: Meeting Alex
I wasn't much to look at when I first got into school, I was average size, if not a little small, I wore glasses, and I loved computers. From the time I was little I loved computers. I never really cared that many people didn't like me, I didn't need many friends, I had no siblings so I had learned long ago how to get along alone. Once I hit high school I guess you could say I sold out. I got contacts, dropped computers, at least publicly, and started working out. I don't really know why I did it, I just eventually got tired of being my only friend.
I really didn't want to start going up to people like the loner looking for a handout. Instead I got my body the way I had always wanted, I never liked being small, and I dropped the one thing I loved that kept people away. I figured if I at least looked approachable, I might get maybe a friend or two, not to mention, I had always wanted to work out. There is something about fitness that I like, and I hated never being able to lift much as the small kid.
I ditched the glasses because they were annoying mainly, and once we could afford contacts I jumped on it. By the end of sophomore year I was running every day, and working out at the gym 3-4 times a week. My parents loved it, my mom said I was
"becoming a nice looking young man"
My dad did that awkward patting my back when he wanted to hug me, telling me, "your becoming a real man, I'm proud of you."
It was unnerving.
It didn't take long for people to notice me. I worked in the field outside our house with my dad, and recently hadn't minded taking my shirt off so I've got a pretty nice tan. It actually started when I had got to the point I could bench 200, and my legs were so toned nothing even moved when I walked.
"Hey, Alex, you got a minute?"
Jacob Horn from my biology class was flagging me down. I had to fight not to look behind me and make sure I was the one he was talking to as I walked over, a small frown on my face.
My voice had dropped long ago, a little deeper than most people's, so I sort of sounded growly if I didn't watch it.
"Hey Jacob what's up?" I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Jacob was one of the star athletes we had at my high school, not as big as the quarterback but damn good anyway.
"Hey, the guys been talking, you wanna hang out with us after school?"
I smiled, I knew it was going to happen eventually, but football players just weren't the kind of friends I really wanted.
"Sorry man, got plans. Thanks though."
Almost every jock in my school was an asshole, and the only reason they would want me to hang with them was either as a joke, or because they wanted something. I wasn't a jock, I wasn't an asshole, we didn't have much in common. Jacob looked surprised, not many people turned them down, but he shrugged,
"Alright man cool." He said, clapping my shoulder lightly as he walked away.
A couple months later I was a pretty all around guy, I had friends in just about every group there was. I was friends with some of the jocks, Jacob included, a few of the Goths, though there were only so many I could take, I even had band geek friends.
The girls started when I hit junior year. I would get a wink from a girl at the lockers, a blown kiss from the football cheerleaders when I was running the track, stuff like that. I started questioning my own sexuality when it didn't do anything for me. Girls eventually got the hint I wasn't a first move kind of guy, or that's what they chalked it up to, and came at me. I got propositioned almost every Friday, but I always found a way to blow it off. Emily Peirce however, wasn't quite as slow as the others and one day she walked up to me at my locker and asked me a question that rocked my world.
"Alex are you gay?"
I gaped at her, my mouth opening and closing like a fish,
"What? Why would you ask that?"
She smiled a knowing smile, leaning close,
"Heres a hint, most straight guys don't ask why, they just automatically say no."
I blushed like an apple and after that day she became my best friend.
It took a while before I fully admitted to myself that I liked guys. I knew I wasn't girly, not in any way. I was romantic, I was a softy at heart, and I wasn't aggressive, but I wasn't really the girly type. Emily said there doesn't have to be a guy and girl persona in every gay relationship, there is just usually one who is more brute and one who is more romantic. Sometimes there both one or both the other. One night we were having one of our ritual movie nights when she asked,
"So what do you think your type is?"
I was startled, I hadn't really thought about it until now.
"I don't know Em. I haven't really given it much thought."
She laughed, sitting up straighter on the couch to give me her full attention, yay.
"Ok well are you like a Vin Diesel type, or a Orlando Bloom type?"
I laughed, I couldn't help,
"Is there no middle ground between a muscle man and a pirate?"
She laughed, "Come on Al try."
I sighed, Emily was damn stubborn when she wanted to be.
"Well I don't want a girly guy. I don't want someone rippling with muscles, but I want someone stronger than me, I know that."
She raised her eyebrows and I blushed a little,
"I'm not into like pain and torture and shit, but I like a little dominance, and it'd be cool if he wanted to hold me down or something."
I felt silly but Emily smiled like a chestier cat,
"Ok, blonde, brunette, raven beauty? Blue eyes, green, brown? Tall or short, jock or drama major?"
I think I just stared at her for two minutes,
"What is this a profile or something, you setting me up?"
She had that gleam in her eye I had begun to hate and I set my jaw,
"No Em, absolutely not."
She sighed dramatically and sunk into the couch again now that I had ruined her plan.
"fine...Ill wait till after graduation but then I have to at least try you know me."
I sighed, "Fine, ill figure out a way out of it then. To answer your interrogation though, hair isn't a factor, neither is eyes, tall, not a jock, like at least not one of the asshole ones, but not a twink, couldn't deal with that."
She had a calculating look in her eye I didn't like at all but she nodded, leaving it at that.