Wrong call and family time
#3 of Not ready yet!
Still Keith's PoV
Peers and family pressure
"Well, well... look who's decided to finally call." He speaks in a tone half way playing half way menacing.
Shit. Is it him?
I hear him chuckle, almost inaudibly through the phone.
_ Shit! _ It IS him!
_ _
Ok, ok now... calm down. It's just a guy so let's not squeal like a teenage girl. First thing to do: confirm this is that Doberman I'm talking with.
"...Alphonse?"
"Do you have anyone else to call you at these hours?"
Uhm... yes that's him. But...
"What?" I ask under my breath... I mean, what does he mean? Does he know I'm single and... I shake my head, there is no way he knows anything about me, right...? Not yet anyway. I need to think coherently, no need to say something I don't need to.
"Why do you...? I mean, what if I had someone?"
"That... that would be cool, I guess." Oh nice answer! "Of course if _ that _ would be true."
I feel my mouth drying, I did hear his words and... and I feel a chilling sensation runing down my spine, making my fur fluff.
Does he know?
"So is it?" He says playfully and confident, but still his voice carries that fuming expectation every bully puts up when cornering someone, it's like he wants to hear me speak up something and counter it... and that worries me.
I hear him openly laugh, not caring if I hear... "Well?"
"That's not your business." I realize it wasn't the best answer I could give but I hardly care, I just want this conversation to end. "You're the one who texted me and called first, so what do you want?"
I'm tired, I'm tired and now I'm beginning to stress. Part of me knows I'll be sorry for treating this prick the way he deserves, but... meh, being home makes me feel like I can say whatever I want. "Speak, I want to sleep."
"Hmm..." He rumbles into the auricular.
"Are you even listening?!" I snarl at him, motherfucker gets me to talk only to... meh... whatever; it's his money going to waste.
"Yeah, I'm just... thinking."
There's a long pause, and I reverie on what he just said... moreover in the tone of voice he used. There was this uncertainty in it... that certainly picked my curiosity.
"Can I ask about what?"
"Yes, you can." I hear his snappy answer.
"So you can say: I let you ask but I didn't say I would answer?" I mock over the phone; Alphonse's known to be even more popular than Clayton the football captain, because the dobie Doberman have in charisma what that wolf have in ego but... seriously? That's one of the oldest in the book.
"Touché."
"Good night." And I hang up. Who the hell does he think he is anyway?
But almost immediately feel a tad bad for hanging up like that... maybe I did because of my stress, it's been a long day, I got berated and scolded for not driving Mary back home, then I got to lead a bunch of crappy kids ruining my favorite MMORPG and now... well, Alphonse wasn't exactly winning points with me right? ...right?
Still I shouldn't have hung up like that. I feel... disappointed.
*RING*
"Fuck..." I say under my breath.
I breathe deeply and exhale with a long sigh, then watch the number... I don't want to confuse the call, that has happened to me twice before and, luckily, I learned my lesson. I glance over the screen. It's him again.
"What is it now, Alphonse?"
I wait for an answer but all I can hear is his breathing. He's hesitating to speak, and I can't help but think I can hear his heart beating over the phone... mind you, I read a lot of cheesy porn on the net and... isn't this scene familiar? Big closeted homophobic jock themed stories? Maybe I'm just rushing into conclusions but it did ring a bell for me...
"What's in your mind?" I ask a lot more calm. Maybe he's trying to come onto me? Can it be? Could it be? That'd be totally... WRONG! Was this bastard using Mary just to get a hold of my number or something?! Ok, ok... NOW I'm jumping to conclusions.
I hear him gulp and gag with his own saliva. I can't help but chuckle a bit, I begin to really think it is exactly that... and that maybe he's trying to muster the will to tell me, right? Maybe he's just nervous thinking I'm not really gay... Maybe he...
"So you laugh at others disgraces, eh?!"
Maybe he's just angry. Part of me wanted to apologize, really, but a bigger part was mad at this dog because I remembered that 'maybe' he was using my only friend to get a hold of me, I wouldn't dare facing her if a week after her date I'm walking holding paws with her crush. "You're wasting our time here, dog. So..."
"Let's not begin with the names, dog!" He barks back. "I called to propose something."
"Propose?" I say under my breath. That world could imply many things... but I'm adamant against believing now. "Well, speak up before I fall asleep!"
I feel my head begin to palpitate with the building stress. I don't like the way he's been treating me, even if this is the hottest, richest man on earth I won't accept being treated like this. So I make up my mind, I won't risk over something that may not be real.
"You're friend, after we... never mind..."
"...My friend?"
"Yeah! She was unbelievable, dude! Truly a beast.... doesn't matter though, that corgi said..."
...doesn't matter? THAT CORGI?!
"That corgi you say?! She's got a name! What the hell is your problem?!" That dickhead! The more he speaks, the more I want to just hang up again. And what's he implying... that he had sex with Mary? There's no way she would agree to that. No way, no fucking way! "What the hell did you do to her?"
As I wait for his answer, I can barely hear his steady breathing over my own enraged one. It feels like an eternity when he finally speaks.
"Calmed down already?"
I feel myself growl...
"Whatever you want to say you're gonna say it to my face!"
And I hang up. Fuck him, fuck him and his stupid purposes. Whatever they are I want no part in them. He might be hot and shit but people like him are not worth coming out, or even give them a hint that I might be gay, much less that I'm interested... might , might be interested.
But again that feeling of disappointment invades me, I'm not really angry I don't feel it like that. I guess it... it have more to do with what Mary might think, what could happen to us if I try to "steal" Alphonse from here. Fuck! This is all his fault, couldn't he just grow some balls and walk to me and say something?
I wait to see if the bastard calls again. *RING* There it is. I quickly turn off the cell phone and call it a night. Fuck Alphonse and his well toned pecs and steel buns, and his handsome face and nice bulge and that adorable little docked tail that wags insatiably when spotting a hot bitch. Damn that dobie's hot but, is he really worth trying? This call is prove of something, but that something could be a bad "something".
Like baiting!
If memory serves, and it does, I did hear he was involved in the beating of an apparently gay kid last year, he and the rest of the soccer team got off of it with just a warning since the kid refused to speak. That is something I cannot overlook.
Whatever. I prefer them bigger anyway.
To start with I feel fucked up. I couldn't sleep all night, well, maybe just a bit but it was still awful. Plus I can't take this taste out of my mouth, I haven't felt something like this ever since that time I ate that overdue egg salad as a dare, I'd been puking all night after that... now I know this is just in my mind, because my gums just hurt from so much brushing.
"Keith, come down already. You're going to be late."
Mom calls, but... meh. I just ignore her.
"Keith if you don't come down this instance I'm taking that computer out of your room."
I sigh... a mother always knows how to blackmail you. Anyway, I already had a bath and I'm already dressed. And I'm already back and curled under the comfortable blankets of my bed... fuck school today, fuck Alphonse, fuck Mary and fuck myself for not getting up already.
After a few minutes of dragging myself I walk down to the dining room to begin the ominous breakfast's rituals.
"Sit young man." My dad calls. Earl Burton, a timber wolf two inches taller than me (which he likes to show while standing together) is you're average blue collared family man, a proud and bulky wolf who can bask on his accomplishments, little or otherwise meaningless to others. But he has always ached for more... and that's where I come into the picture.
"So how is it going at school? Any great news yet?"
Dad... he wants me to live the dreams he couldn't accomplish or rather he's trying to live them up through me, it doesn't help that he's one of those sweet talking guys, the type to get their point through people and make them act on them, my own honest John dealer to suffocate me. But I know his tricks, or at least I try not to fall for them. I know what he wants to hear, what he wants me to do...
"Nothing to report."
A plain and simple answer, that's the best way to deal with him. I know it exasperates him and that it is one of the ways to make him lose his façade of understanding father...
"How is it again no news?"
But I prefer to hear he's disappointment right from his mouth, it's all over his voice. It felt harsher than just a second before.
"Stop that Earl." Mom enters the scene. Michelle Burton, I took after her on species side, she's such a special woman... a kind person even if she's somewhat silent.
Mom places the set of dishes and cups for us to eat. Milk, eggs, bread and so on... I won't deny I'm well fed; this weight and muscle mass have to be kept somewhere, eh?
So comes the time to say the blessings. Mom directs it this time, and I'm glad for it... I was supposed to do it today. I just close my eyes and mutter along with what she and dad say. Don't get me wrong I'm also a Christian, but I believe God loves even us gay dudes... aren't we all sons and daughters of God? Faith is such a strange thing, eh?
During the monotonous praying... I can't help but feel bad already, these guys here, my parents, they have so much faith in me, they wait so much from me, and I certainly can provide much of that... but not what they wish the most. Grandchildren... they even had a few names already chosen for me so I "don't stress over it." I certainly had my little episodes of funny thinking over adopting kids and changing their names to those they chosen... meh, even in my mind that did not work out.
"Amen."
Mom's voice beckons from the living world calling me out of my thinking stupor. Between last night and what's going by this morning I can certainly say this day could not go any good, and in all honesty I'm not really hungry. The fried egg sat in front of me looks like vomit for some reason... I let out a small sigh, maybe later I'll have something in the school's cafeteria.
"What's wrong, Keith? You've been playing with that egg for the last minute."
Dad's speaking... gosh, I'd tell him if I... well, I'd rather not tell him, not what's really going on.
"I'm not feeling well lately."
"Well, you haven't been sleeping properly either."
There we go again. He's gonna spill out all his rage and try to make me quit WoW... and truth to be told, I want to... Gesh that game is just too soul consuming, but... there's Voj and Darigan. It's certainly sad but I feel more dependent in people I met about six months ago than in my parents in front of me now.
"Earl, we've talked about this before." Mom tries to calm him down. She's being a little overprotective, ignoring the fact that what dad wants, say... doing football, is healthier than my butt-sitting hobby. It's like she thinks I'm perfect the way I am... and I have been actively nurturing that image for years... fuck I'm such a nasty jerk of a son.
"He's wasting his chances to get a scholarship, Michelle. At his age I was already star of the team."
There we go again, his tale of past but suddenly interrupted glories. One that I'm just too fed up to care to listen anymore, so he speaks up, he relates how much were this tiger and his panther friend trying to injure him to take his spot and how he prevailed only to find the one and only thing to make him fall... a child, his child. ME!
"Don't you dare say our son is responsible for your "downfall" again, Earl!"
"I'm not saying that. I'm trying to put my case in perspective. I don't want him to run onto things like I did."
Such a case, right? And sure I could learn from it, that would be cool and all but what he fails to realize is that he utterly blames me for it, it is in his eyes when he's right after the part where he's about to graduate, it is in his voice as he gets to the part where Michelle got thrown out of her house and in how his body trebles with contained rage when he's to the part where she went to his parents and... in the hypocritical way he called ME"the things he ran onto." FUCK!
"The problem here, dad , is that I met someone at school. I'm just overstressing about this... chick, I can't get her out of my head."
There... a glimpse, that will take him out of the gaming issue and the perspective shit, at least for this morning.
"I thought you were already banging Mary."
Silence... silence, so dense I think I'm breathing molasses.
" WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING?!"
After mom's understandable outburst, subsequent argue and barely avoided fight, I eat my breakfast as fast as I can, ignoring the fatherly advice of "chew properly, son" funny he says that with a mouth full of bread. I bid them farewell and get out of the house. Any day and any time I prefer to be just out and alone than to have to see their faces... the deceptive but still disappointed face of Dad and his broken dreams courtesy of yours truly, and mom's loving and caring... shit, mom... how would she take something like this? When she had to see his beloved and perfect boy turned out a tail raiser and... fuck, I feel like shit for what's coming to her, and by extension for what's coming to me.
I climb into my car and begin the day, the sky's clear, the sun is rising, and the wind over my furry face feels great. I've always loved driving, feeling I'm in complete control of where I'm going, even if it is a fleeting feeling. It's kinda cool you know? Being out here, out and free... I like to think one day I'll be just like that... at all times.
But all those feelings of greatness and freedom sunder when I remember what today have in store for me. I'll have to confront Alphonse at some point, and Mary... I'm certainly nervous about what talking to her about this would result. I'd rather not go to school today... maybe I can call sick and return home in about half an hour and just pretend I was sick... I can even see if Darigan's online, Voj must be in classes but that old fart of a rhino must be either asleep or gathering carapaces or doing whatever old men do with their time.
"Fuck..."
I'm cursing under my breath again. Last night was hell after Alphonse call. I could not sleep and when I managed I dreamt about being beaten to death, and think Dwight was there too. I don't know...
