© Justin Cumberland 2007

Chapter Nine

Jason knew that Garth was his friend. He knew the guy had gone to a lot of trouble to set things up for him today. He knew that Garth had flown all the way to Colorado on the weekend to speak to the producer, setting things up for today so that everything would work out well. But, despite Garth’s efforts, Jason realized, when he saw the panties in the locker that there might be a problem.

Jason had felt a sudden shiver; but dismissed it. He had forgotten, even, why he had opened the locker in the first place. He had thrust the panties back inside, not thinking – not wanting to think. But as he walked down the hall with Jock, a series of thoughts and images flooded his mind, recurring again and again; and, by the time he reached the green room, Jason knew that there was something that neither he nor Garth had thought about. Something which might wreck Garth’s planning. He suffered from vertigo. He was afraid of heights.

Garth, obviously, had put the panties there as a joke. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that his other clothes – the clothes which should have been in his pack – were missing. He told himself he had left them in the infirmary but this wasn’t the case. He had got changed in the locker room. He had put the clothes in the pack himself; and there had been other clothes – spare clothes – in there as well. Someone, some jerk – one of the other competitors perhaps – had come into the locker room and taken his clothes when he was in the stall, leaving nothing but his lunch box and the panties.

It was designed, he supposed, to put him off.

And it did.

Jason saw a sudden vision of himself driving home that very afternoon, sitting beside Garth in the Firebird, having nothing but the panties on because there was nothing else for him to wear, Jase.

He was a eunuch. He had been nullified. He had been humiliated and, even though he was a football star, there might be someone – some jerk – somewhere in America, who would react the way Garth did.

‘Sanitized!’ Garth would say when he was watching the show and some guy had just lost everything. He would smile and laugh with sudden glee. ‘Purified!’ And then he would strike his hands together, lean forward and make a consoling voice, ‘Oh well, not to worry. It’s just a boo-boo.’ He would push his bottom lip out and make a sad face, rubbing his fists in his eyes and then looking at the guy on show. ‘Poor diddims! Want big brother kiss boo-boo better?’

Jason had had his clothes stolen before.

When he was fifteen or so, Jason had gone to the beach with Garth one day. They had caught the ferry over to the island; and had had a good day together, smiling, laughing, and playing around in the surf. At two-thirty they had had to get out to be ready to catch the ferry at three. Jason had gone to the locker room to have a shower and change, while Garth went for ice-cream. Garth didn’t, he said, need a shower, and liked the feel of the salt on his skin. He said to Jason, ‘here, take off your wet things, Jase,’ saying it would be better to hang them up in the locker room so they could dry while Jason showered in the stall.

Jason was happy. He was enjoying the shower; and did not hear anyone come into the locker room; but when he came back out of the stall, he found that all of his clothes, his pack, his wet trunks and shorts – everything he had brought with him that day – had been stolen; and he had nothing, other than the colorful beach poncho, which he had taken into the stall to dry himself with, to wear.

When he realized his clothes were gone, Jason put the poncho on, naturally. It was short. It only just covered his butt and it had a split up the sides, only being joined at one place, above the waist. He didn’t want to walk outside in it because he thought it would look silly. He thought people would laugh at him. And so he had waited for Garth to come back, sitting in the technicolor poncho on the wooden bench, feeling the bench against his bear arse, trying to hide his kit. He hoped that Garth would come back soon, trying to find him. Jason was supposed to go and meet the guy, but he thought it would be better to wait. He remembered the swim meet, and did not want to be the subject of that sort of laughter, again.

Eventually Garth did come in.

‘What are doing, Jase?’ he said.

‘Someone took my clothes.’

‘What?’

‘Someone took all my stuff when I was in the stall.’ Jason said. He stood up and separated the poncho at the sides, showing Garth that there was nothing underneath. ‘This is all I’ve got.’

‘Oh, fuck! We gotta go.’

‘I can’t go like this.’

‘Well, you’ll have to. There’s nothing else for you to wear, Jase. The ferry’s gonna go in a minute.’

‘Haven’t you got anything in your pack?’

He hadn’t.

‘Haven’t you got any shorts on?’

He didn’t. All he had was the trunks and the T-shirt he was wearing. It was all he had brought with him.

‘Just don’t worry about it. It’s not like it matters,’ Garth had said.

And it didn’t of course, as Jase had to admit. Plenty of people walked around with all sorts of things exposed. Hadn’t he seen people on the beach today, naked; and no one had anyone said anything, had they?

Jason shook his head.

It was unusual, certainly, to see a fifteen year old walking around like that, but he was, after all, big for his age, and looked older than he was. No one would care, and anyway, look Jase, here are your runners.

They were way up in the corner under the bench. The socks were gone, but still, at least he had shoes. People wouldn’t really notice. It wasn’t that strange. It wasn’t school. It wasn’t the swim meet.

Jason sat down and put them on, taking a deep breath.

He would just have to wear it, Jase. You couldn’t even tell, not really, that he didn’t have anything on underneath, and there was no point being a pussy about it. The best thing he could do was to simply act like he was wearing it on purpose. No one would say anything. No one would think it was that strange. And they really, had to go.

Jason agreed. It really didn’t matter.

They got on the ferry and Jason forgot about it. It was just like Garth said. No one laughed at him. No one seemed particularly concerned, looking the other way and ignoring him, really, if it came right down to it. He had felt the air spin between his legs on the deck of the ferry. It had felt good; and at one point he had leaned right over the rail, dropping some bread to feed the fish, without even worrying about the fact that his arse was being exposed. It didn’t matter, as Garth had said.

It was only, when the ferry finally docked, that the problem started.

Jason suffered from vertigo, as he later discovered, after an accident on his sixteenth birthday. But at the time, as he walked down the gangway from the second floor of the ferry, he had no idea why he felt suddenly giddy and ill, no idea why he slipped as Garth put a hand on his back to steady him.

There was no rail and he fell.

Fortunately Garth managed to grab one of his arms as he went down, but he was too heavy, and, though Garth managed to keep a grasp on his hand for a few moments, as Jason flailed in the air, gripping the gangway with his other, Garth couldn’t hold on forever as he later explained. Jason’s legs were flailing. He was trying to bring them up onto the gangway; but at the moment Garth let go of him, his legs were hanging, apart, and he fell, landing one leg either side of a pair of mooring ropes.

It wasn’t a long way down and it didn’t much hurt. He hadn’t seen the ropes, however, and had expected to land in the water. The sudden jolt came as quite a shock. His fall was broken partly by his kit, but it wasn’t that bad – not then.

The mooring ropes were slack; and, as he landed, he fell sideways toward the lower gangway, stretched out a hand and managed to grab hold of it. He was trying to balance and steady himself, wincing, trying to breathe, his mouth open while his body twisted one way and another on the ropes. His gear worked its way between the ropes as he struggled to keep his balance on them. The thick ropes became pressed into the hollows of his groin, his kit dangling between them.

He was fine. He hadn’t even hurt himself – not really. But then, a sudden swell caught the ferry and pulled it out from the wharf. The mooring ropes flung up, becoming suddenly taught, trapping his kit between them in a vice-like grip, and making him lose his hold on the gangway. He screamed as he was flung up and flipped sideways. He managed to keep a hand on the rope but his legs flew down beneath him, toes pointing towards the foul and polluted water in the bay. He was suspended by his kit and one hand. His legs arched down; but automatically, in reaction to the pain, his knees swung up and he managed to lock his ankles over the rope, bringing his other hand up at the same time.

He couldn’t understand what had happened. He had had a violent shock. There was a lot of pain and he was sick with it. He tried to breathe, winced and groaned, not taking cognizance of anything that was happening around him.

Suddenly he heard Garth. ‘Here Jase, give me your hand.’

His friend was standing on the gangway beside him, crouched down, offering his hand to Jason.

Jason reached out and took it, while Garth used all the strength in his legs to pull Jason up so that he was sitting on the top of the rope again.

‘Here, Jase, I’ll slide you along to the wharf,’ Garth said.

Jason didn’t know what he meant but Garth turned, gripping Jason firmly and started dragging him along the rope, not looking, not able to see the pain on Jason’s face.

Jason tried to scream but he couldn’t. He twisted his hips as Garth pulled, trying to release his gear. Suddenly there was a sick pain as his testicles popped up between the ropes and he slid forward in a sudden movement, stopped again by a sudden jolt as his dick caught and stretched. He gripped Garth’s hand tighter; but the guy couldn’t see him. He didn’t know what was happening and Jason couldn’t scream. He couldn’t make a sound. Garth kept tugging, and, after it had reached an extension which couldn’t be sustained, his cock was released and Jason slid forward suddenly, sliding along the rope with all of his gear trapped under his weight and burning on the ropes as he slid.

As he reached the wharf Jason found his voice and started screaming. Garth pulled him up and he lay there on his side, cradling his kit in his hands, not caring about the people walking all around him.

His gear was bleeding, and the blood was all over the insides of his thighs.

He started to whimper and Garth put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Sorry, Jase, I didn’t realize,’ he said.

And he hadn’t, of course. Jason could understand that.

Still, he was in a lot of pain, and he had to sit there on the wharf, cross-legged for quite some time, rocking forward and cradling his kit, the fact that he was only wearing a beach poncho and runners the least of his concerns.

‘How did you do that?’ Garth said eventually, meaning the fall.

Jason shook his head. He didn’t know. Somehow he’d just lost his balance. He sniffed and knew his face was stained with tears. He looked around him suddenly and realized where he was, the position he was in.

‘Oh, poor baby,’ Garth said, patting his back.

Jason smiled. It was a bit silly.

After they had caught the train home, Jason had gone to look at himself in the mirror. He realized then what a fool he’d made of himself that day. The poncho had probably looked okay on the ferry; but, after the accident his cock had swollen and it had hung below the bottom of the poncho – in fact, his head had probably even been visible on the ferry. He hadn’t realized it when he was wearing it because he couldn’t see it, but from straight on, the head of his dick had been probably been visible the whole day, on the ferry, and, then, of course, all the way home on the train when he had had other things to worry about. It had obviously been worse, because he had had to stand, gripping onto a handle above his head, pulling the poncho right up over his arse.

By that time, of course, he had been beyond caring. He was in pain, he felt sick, blood was staining his thighs, his dick was swollen, while no one on the train bothered to offer him a seat or ask him if he was okay. He couldn’t cover his dick. He couldn’t even touch it. All he could do was keep one hand near it while people smiled and whispered to each other, pointing, and laughing in sudden bursts. But they didn’t offer to help. That was the sort of world he was living in.

It was humiliating. It was a bad memory; and Jason had shut it down soon afterwards.

But, as he walked down the hall, it came back vividly along with a whole train of associations and memories. Images which flooded his mind like the flickering frames of a film, recurring again and again: humiliating situations, painful accidents. He hated those memories. It wasn’t fair to him to have to suffer that sort of humiliation.

He was older now. He was a quarterback. He was a big guy. He wasn’t going to let himself be made a fool of.

If they played Fire-Man he could fall and be nullified in one go. It would be humiliating. It was an all or nothing game; and Jason thought, he really needed to see Garth and make sure that they wouldn’t play Fire-Man. If they did, then neither Garth nor the producer could stop what would almost certainly happen. He would be a football hero, purified, and he would be wearing the panties home because there would be nothing else for him to wear, Jase.

He wasn’t going to let that happen. There was no way anyone wanted to see that happen.

He had to speak to Garth.