The Ballad of Leo

My name is Leo, I celebrated my 18th birthday before I graduated high school.  This story starts a few months after that, as we were preparing for graduation.  It was already a cluster of college applications, hard classes and overall feeling simply done with the high school life.  I was a adult now, and I wanted to have the freedom of one.  But it was manageable, I got my applications in and my classes passed with flying colors, until one day late in the year...

Olivia: Hey man, how are you doing?

Me: I'm good, how's Drew. 

Olivia was my best friend, we had tried dating in the past, but we decided to stay friends instead.  She was now dating a guy named Drew.  Drew was on my football team, but yesterday he fell down an escalator breaking his arm.  It must have heart falling being brought back up, falling again.  It had gone on for about a minute before I realized I could help by going down the other side and catching him.

Olivia: Oh, he’s fine!  He’s actually here today surprisingly.  But forget him... I’m more worried about you right now...

Me: Me? What’s wrong with me?

Olivia: Did you not see the video?

Me: Video?

Olivia: oh, god…  here…

Olivia a pulled out her phone and opened a video.  I watched in horror as I saw myself in it.  I was a large, hairy young man.  I was somewhat muscular, but not toned.  I had dark hair, and didn’t really look handsome to most people.  I was very self conscious.  In the video I was naked shoving a dildo up my ass.

Me: Oh, my god!  Olivia I’m so sorry you had to see that!  I promise that is not-

Olivia: I don’t care what you did Leo!  I care about why this is being shared around the school.  I know you didn’t upload it.

Me: I didn’t even know I was recorded.

Olivia: Whoever did this is going to pay!  No one messes with my friends!  Do you know who it was?

Me: I… well…

Olivia: who’s house is this?  I know it’s not yours.

Me: It was at Zack’s.  We got drunk at the mall after you took Drew to the hospital.  We went to his place and he fell asleep, then I…  well, you saw.

Olivia: I’m going to kill Zack!

Me: Zack is my oldest friend!  I can’t believe he’d do this.

He really was.  We were friends back when we both lived on the other side of the country.  He moved here just before graduating middle school and I moved just before starting highschool.  Our moves had nothing to do with each other.  Just coincidentally happened.  One day I was at football tryouts, and he showed up suddenly and recognized me immediately.

Olivia: Was anyone else there?

Me: No…

Olivia: Then let’s go find Zack!

Olivia stormed off, I followed.  She went right up to the boy’s locker room and entered.  She didn’t even hesitate.

Me: olivia! You’re not-  oh, never mind.

I entered and raced down to Olivia who seemed to have caught Zack’s scent and was moving faster the closer she got.  I heard a bunch of shouting as she approached the end of the lockers.  I got there a little just after here and there was already a heated argument that was way too loud and echoey to understand. Zack was there as expected, but Drew was there too.  Drew’s arm was bandaged.  Both of them were naked having come out of the shower.  I suddenly heard the coach’s voice behind me.

Coach: Shut Up!

The room went dead quiet.

Coach: This is not appropriate! Olivia, get out of my locker room now!

Olivia: I am here to serve justice to this creep!

Coach: I know, but you are 18, an adult woman.  You can’t enter a locker room full of minors.  Leave now, this is your only warning.  I will take care of this.

Olivia huffed and stormed out.

Coach: Okay.  I assume this is about that video everyone is talking about.

Zack: yeah…  you see coach Leo here was at my h-

Coach: Save it!  It’s not okay to publish such videos without permission.  You’re all adults so what you do outside school is on you, but here we have strict rules.  Sending pornographic videos to under age students is definitely breaking the rules.  So Zack…

Zack looked at me, then Drew, then to the coach again.

Zack: It was me… I was responsible for this.  

Coach: Pack your locker Zack.  You’re off the team.  And by the end of the day, you’re probably going to be expelled.

Drew: Coach, please!  That’s a bit harsh isn’t it?  He’s graduating soon.  He has the chance for a scholarship!  If you kick him off the team, that’s all gone!

Coach: I’m aware…

Silence.

Zack: Yes sir.

The coach put his hand on your shoulder.

Coach: Come here Leo.

The coach led me away back to the front of the entrance to the locker room.

Coach: Are you doing alright?

Me: yeah… I suppose you saw the video too, huh?…

Coach: Absolutely not.  I would never invade a student’s privacy like that.  Even if you were not a student, I would never watch such a video if it was taken without you knowing. You’re an adult now, so I don’t need to lecture you about being careful about sexual dangers, but if you need anything, like advice, information, or just talking out any problems, my door is open.  When I was your age I had something similar happen to me.  I understand how invading this can be.

Me: Thank you coach, but I’m okay.

Coach: Glad to hear it, but if that changes let me know!  In the meantime we’re working on getting this situation under control.  You can take the day off if you want.  I’ll clear it with the principal.

Me: Thanks coach.

Later that day I went to Zack’s house.  I wanted to hear what he had to say about what happened.  I went up to his door and knocked.  The door opened.  Zack was in a bathrobe.  His parents were away on a tour of Europe, and his house was massive, so I knew that Zack was rich, but a bathrobe, really?  Zack’s face lit up.

Zack: You’re here, umm… come in!

Me: okay… this isn’t some kind of trap.

Zack frowned.

Zack: I didn’t know you were even coming…  and I would never do that to you… you’re my oldest friend.

Me: That's not how it feels right now…

Zack: I know. I need to apologize.  Come in and I’ll explain everything.

I entered and took a seat in the living room.  Zack grabbed a rock & rye soda from the mini fridge.

Me: Dude this is my favorite!

I forgot for a moment that I was supposed to be angry, but it was hard to be angry at him.  He was a good guy, and a major lady’s man.

Zack: I know… it’s been your favorite since you were a kid.

Me: Okay Zack, this is nice and all, but I’m not about to go down memory lane with you.  I always believed you were a great guy, and still do, but why would you send that video out?  I mean, yes, I was creepy too doing that in your house, but you should have confronted me!

Zack: No, I mean, well… Let me explain.  This is all my fault, I take responsibility for that.  You did nothing wrong.  I got you drunk by sneaking hard liquor into the mall when we were out.  When I woke up on the couch, I got up and saw you playing with that dildo…  I took a video of you.  But I didn’t plan on it going public!

Me: okay then what were you planning with it?

Zack: I was going to keep it for myself…

Me: you mean… to jerk off to?

Zack: Yes… I know that’s weird!  I was drunk and would never have made the video if I was sober!

Me: Then why didn’t you delete it?

Zack: Well, the next day I went to my room and saw that you left out one of my magazines.

I thought hard about it.  It was a bit blurry, but I suddenly remembered what he was talking about.  I had snooped through his porn stash and found a gay porn magazine.  It had a dildo add in it that inspired me to use the one I had drunkenly purchased as a joke.

Me: Zack I’m sorry! I forgot all about the pornos!  And I thought you got that one by accident or something…  it was in what looked like a box from a rummage sale.

Zack: It's fine Leo!  That one was given to me by Drew.  he put it in as a prank if anyone found it.  I found it, put on the fake cover and dropped it into the rummage box.  So if anyone found it who I didn’t want to know about my tastes, I could say I got it in the box.

Me: So you're into guys…

Zack: And girls…  I can go both ways…  that’s why I took that video of you…

Me: So you- …wait okay, how does this explain how the whole school got it?

Zack: After I found out you were looking at the magazine I decided to take a chance…  I sent the video to Drew.

Me: So you did send it out!

Zack: look… Drew and I have been a little more than friends.

Me: But Drew is dating Olivia!  She’s my best friend!

Zack: Yeah, but she isn't the most active lover.  She leaves him hanging a lot.  And he and I started messing around when I didn’t have a girl over in a while.  We’ve been hooking up for the past 6 months.  I thought he may be interested in adding you into our hookups.  He got upset.

Me: Why? Drew likes me.

Zack: Drew hate’s you! Olivia is constantly talking about you hoping you’ll ask her out again.

Me: Really?  But she’s the one who wanted to be friends. Ballaid 

Zack: Women are odd.  Anyway, when Drew saw me gawking at you he got mad so he let the video out in some kind of revenge.  I guess he was jealous that both of us wanted you more than him.  But it doesn't matter now.  I’m to blame for all this.

Me: I agree, but Drew is also to blame!  You both are horrible.

Zack: I know.  But I’m glad I got to tell you what happened.  I hope you can forgive me.  Please don’t confront Drew.  I’m no longer talking to him.  That’s punishment enough for him.  Plus he also just broke his arm.

Me: I wish I didn’t save him from that stair hell…

Zack laughed.

Zack: Don’t be mean.  But he did kinda deserve it in retrospect.

Zack looked at me.  His eyes were sad, with a glint in them.  He was always the happiest person I knew.  This was painful to watch.

Zack: So now that you know my side of the story, what are you going to do?  If you leave now and I never see you again, I’ve accepted that.  It’s what I deserve.  But I would like to make it up to you.

Me: I don’t know what you could do to make it up to me.

He moved closer to me.  He placed his hand casually on my lap.  As he did it I became acutely aware of the boner growing in my pants.

Zack: Maybe I can convince you…

I moved away.  His hand dropped to his side and I stood up.

Me: Ummm… Yeah! I need to get going!  I will see you maybe…  maybe not.  Have a good night!

I turned and ran out of the house without looking back, boner flopping under my belt. I felt like he was super hot, but I was still mad at him and needed to process everything.  Besides I didn’t know if he was taking advantage of me or not.  I needed to report back to olivia.  The next day I was at school again.  I found Olivia and told her what happened.

Olivia: Drew?

Me: yeah, he’s upset with me and used the video to get revenge in some way.

Olivia was angry.

Olivia: That’s it.  I’m dumping Drew.  He has gone too far with this!  We should tell the principal!

Me: no, I know that he is a jerk, but Zack took the blame for him.  Zack isn’t coming back from being expelled.  And Drew has already suffered.  Let’s leave them alone.  It’s not that big of a deal to me anyway.  People are already moving on the new news.

She was not happy but excited to give Drew what was coming to him with her making a plan to break up with him in the cafeteria.

Olivia: So what are you going to do about Zack?

Me: I don’t know…  He has been my friend my whole life.  I don’t want to throw that away over a mistake.  

Olivia: Sounds like he’s giving you two options.  Sex or end of friendship.  That’s not a healthy relationship at all.  He hurt you.  You need to take the next on your terms or walk out.

Me: thanks.  That is reassuring.

Olivia: On that topic, you said he is attracted to you, and who wouldn’t be but you never said whether or not you're attracted to him…

Me: Well… I mean he’s handsome, but I’m straight-

Olivia: Bullshit!  You’re so gay!

Olivia started laughing.  Other people started looking at us.

Olivia: Straight! Ha ha AH!  You actually think you’re straight!  You took Tina Lancer to Prom, had sex with her and then, like, never made eye contact with her again!  You ghosted the hottest girl in school after she had totally fallen for you!  NO STRAIGHT MAN WOULD EVER DO THAT!

Me: Well, we just didn’t work well together.  And keep it down…

Olivia: She certainly didn’t think the same.  She’s always asking about you.

Me: Did you ever consider maybe she was the one who disappointed me?

The only response Olivia gave was more laughing.  I got up and walked away.  I felt far more hurt and embarrassed by that conversation than any video could.  It was true that I had ghosted Tina, but I felt awkward because I had trouble having sex with her, it was my first time and I made mistakes.  She also only used me to get back at her old boyfriend.  That is why she always asks about me.  After they got together she wanted to make a big deal about how other men have advantages and that he is easily replaceable.  Even if she was into me, I’d never want to be in a relationship with someone like that.  I didn’t talk to Olivia anymore after that.  I sometimes wish I hadn't walked out on our friendship, but she was too much for me at the time.  Soon I was graduating.  My parents had found out about my video and said that after graduation I was to leave, but wished me the best.  I wasn’t really close to them, so I wasn’t too upset by it.  I had planned on moving out as soon as I could anyway. The night after graduation I was out on the streets.  I didn’t have any friends or family to stay with.  I decided I had no other choice.  I knocked.

Zack: Leo! It’s great to see you!

Me: If you want to make it up to me, now is the time.  I need A place to stay until college starts.

Zack: Of course!  You’re my friend and I would offer that to you anyway.

Me: In that case.  I need you to wait on me hand and foot until I move out; if I say jump, you ask how high; if I want a sandwich, you make it…

I paused for a moment…

Me: If I say I’m horny, you drop to your knees.

Zack: I think I’m gonna like this arrangement.