Chapter 1 (Cam)
The anonymous footsteps of hundreds of students shuffling through Melbern on their way to class was like white nose to Cam. It had been six months since he’d become a student at Texas A&M. Officially an “Aggie”. Joining 11,000 others in what he’d bitterly started to think of as some sort of cult that he’d only signed up for because of the student aid.
Another football game in a stadium with thousands standing and the floor shaking like an Earthquake. Another bottle blonde sorority girl that looked at him like he was something to pity, or at best be a cute accessory. Another guy in a hoodie and shorts talking about the next keg, or Sunday church, or military life. Eleven thousand people, and he could count the ones who knew him by name on one hand. The well-wore tightness stayed as he listened in on a conversation of frat boys, eyes and ears fixated on one in particular.
“Tell me you studied for Ms. Swaller’s,” said Jake, the shortest, sweater vest and curly blonde hair, to the last guy.
A stocky guy with permanently furrowed brows spoke. “Yeah, I studied her tits. That counts?” his voice was always deep, short, like fists were better at communicating than words. His name was Owen.
Ron’s grin widened. “Man, when you end up at the back of a Wendy’s sucking dudes off for a $20-“
“Told you, I don’t need to hear about your Mom’s retirement again,” Owen said.
Tyler and Jake ooo’d.
“Bring up that fag shit again,” Owen growled. “Let’s get you a new set of shiners.”
Cam watched in devotion, the tightness growing. Cam had felt the tightness that first day of fish bowl, freshman orientation, when the group leader commented how soft and high his voice was. And the laughter of everyone else. It followed him like a ghost. Guys telling him to smile more, loosen up. His classmates in the nursing school, 90% girls, eyeing him wordlessly, or with a “you’re so sweet to be a man and want to be a nurse.” A teacher asking him not to dress so colorfully. Never loud, never direct.
He just wanted someone to say it.
Maybe that was why he had fallen for Owen.
Owen, who’s dead eyes and sulking broad shoulders felt like he was always one touch away from knocking someone’s throat in. Whose voice was low, rough, like talking was energy better spent on booze or sex. Who smelled of PBR and department store deodorant. And who said “fag” like a bullet being shot from a gun.
Since the start of spring semester, Cam had watched Owen behind him in their shared Theatre History class, a general req roadblock filled with 100 equally uninterested freshman. His frat boy housemates and business major friends. Learned every inch of the back of his head, his dirty Aggie hoodie, every failed test score. A sick obsession addicted to the mold.
At night, Owen started to show in his dreams, just so Cam could be broken by someone better than him.
They picked up their tests that day as Cam sat in the filled lecture hall, the teacher droning about Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Another 100%. His eyes rested on Owen’s desk in the next row, test flung to the side and fingers swiping a phone. 34%.
After class, Cam gathered the same book five times until Owen got up. The familiar warm feeling of red shame coursed through his body as he followed him out.
As Owen walked through the hallway, Cam felt his mind snap together and he strode in front of Owen. The 6 foot man stopped for a moment.
“Hi,” Cam said. Heart pounding like a meteor crash. “I’m Cam.”
Confused annoyance passed his eyes and his head jerked forward towards Cam.
“Sorry,” Cam said, eyes flicking away. His hands scrambled in my backpack, mind moving like a lit fuse to try to figure out what to say. “I… I wanted to offer to tutor you.”
Papers fell out to the floor as he showed Owen his test. 100%. Like an offering in exchange for countless unspoken gazes.
“You some kinda program?” he asked with a gruff voice.
“Y…yes,” Cam said, lying. “With the school. Academic Success tutor. I, it’s like, so we basically, I come to your house and tutor. For free.”
“Fucking weird,” Owen said.
Cam nodded. A tiny confession.
Owen started to walk past him. When Owen shoulder pushed against his, strong, confident, Cam let out the word that had been pounding in his mind the entire conversation. “Please.”
His movement stopped. A flicker of something dark, blissful passed Owen’s face as he stared at the leafy freshman.
“Please,” Cam said again, unable to meet Owen’s eyes. “I want to help.”
Students moved past them, each step out of thousands drumming a climax. Two boys in this ocean, one drowning. He grabbed the test from Cam’s hands. Eyes narrowed. Then crumbled it into a ball.
“Don’t waste my time,” Owen said.
For the first time in months, Cam felt his heart soar.
The next day at 3pm he showed up at Owen’s house, a two-story squad on North Campus. Textbooks wrapped around one arm, a button-up and bowtie on like an offering, he knocked. After a few minutes and knocks later, the door opened. Owen stood, stained t-shirt and baggy sweat-shorts. He rubbed his face.
“Oh… right,” he said, and gestured Cam in.
Cam nodded, and stepped carefully inside. For Cam, it was like stepping inside a temple. The living room had a 72 inch on the floor, box still in the corner and couch covered in beer cans and a stack of at least 3 grease covered pizza boxes. In the distance was the kitchen, a makeshift bar of half empty bottles and a sink piled with crusty dishes.
After leading him up the stairs, Owen opened his room and sat on the bed. Dirty socks and underwear were scattered like paint splatters, and crushed beer cans were pushed to the corner next to takeout boxes and textbooks.
“Just… find a spot,” Owen said, hand half-hearted to the floor.
Cam bit his lip to hide how intoxicating the musk was. This wasn’t what normal people thought, he told himself. A normal man would leave here already. A normal man would tell this guy to fuck off.
He wanted to beg Owen to let him live in this.
Between a half-full warm Miller Light and crushed accounting 101 notes, Cam sat and pulled out his laptop. His heart pounded, as he stared up at Owen on the bed. He wanted to confess his sins. He wanted Owen to punish him for looks that could inspire sonnets in the 1800s.
Instead, he handed Owen the textbook and reviewed Hamlet Act 3.
Thirty minutes in, and Owen had the online quiz on his phone. Cam nodded or shook his head as Owen clicked on each answer.
“Speak up and tell me,” Owen said by the third question. Cam’s throat quivered as his mind filled in the space. Tell me faggot.
“I think you could… You’re really smart,” he said, wincing at the look Owen gave him. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
Footsteps stomped past. Tyler, the frat boy leader, looked into the room as he paced, his eyes narrowing in amusement when he saw Cam.
“Bro,” Tyler said with a laugh. “Gay.”
Mike’s nose flared. “Fuck off cumbreath!” he shouted.
The silence felt like a volcano. Owen clicked the phone to the next question. Eyes narrowing, breath hitching. Then, he took the textbook in his hand and Cam saw vein’s bulge. His eyes went wide. For a millisecond, Owen locked onto him like a sniper.
The crash of book against wall exploded the room a moment later. So fast Cam felt the gust of wind as it passed millimeters from his face. He turned, staring at the drywall now dented with bend cardstock of “Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction”. His heartbeat in his ears like a rabbit.
“FUCK!” Owen yelled. Chest rising and falling like a landmine. His hand yanked Cam’s laptop out of his lap, eyes cold and furious. Cam braced involuntarily. The worst part of him feeling blood rush to his nether at the thought of the impact.
But with a toss, it ended on the edge next to clumped pillows. Owen got up, bare feet stomping the floor with vibrations that shook Cam.
“I’m sorry,” Cam said, voice quivering. Remember why you’re here. Not for your perverted little fantasy. “I’ll do more. I promise, I’ll help you.”
Owen laughed, low and bitter. “It’s not-“ He shook his head. “Whatever. In four years, I’m making half a mil annual at Goldmans Sachs.”
“Is that your dream?” Cam asked, soft smile at hearing the man’s conquests.
“Why do you care?” Owen said.
Cam’s smile vanished. “I… You’re right. I’m in the nursing school.”
“Wow,” Owen said with a thudding laugh. “Is sucking dick a requirement to get in?”
A normal man would fire back, Cam thought, drunk on Owen’s vitriol. “It is mostly girls I guess.”
“Mostly? You probably grown a vag by now. God.”
A normal man would leave. “I guess I wanna… help people.”
“Mother Teresa of fags.”
A normal man wouldn’t be fighting wood. “Thank you.”
Owen’s eyes narrowed at Cam. The boy’s heart skipped a beat, realizing he let his twisted desires slip. His mind scrambled for a moment, trying to catch a glass before it shattered.
“I, there was this video I watched,” he said. “That said you could relieve stress by kicking soft objects.”
“What, like your balls?” Owen said with a snarl.
The room was too silent. Owen grabbed the lukewarm Miller can next to Cam and downed it. “Pick up my shit. We’re finishing the quiz.”
The man sat on the bed as Cam crawled on his hands and knees across the room to the impaled textbook. Owen’s eyes on him felt like the sweetest fire. He grabbed it, then continued to the papers. Being on the same level as Owen’s feet… He tried to close his eyes to stop the thoughts.
“God, you’re pathetic.”
Cam felt a cold sweat of desire. He could drown in Owen. Drown in this.
“It’s just…” Owen said, pausing, lip moving to the side. “It’s stressful. People expect a lot from me. This stupid class, it’s nothing. But my family…”
“You said it yourself,” Cam said, staring at the wall and breathing heavy. “I pretty much have a vag, so my balls are useless.”
He knew it was too much. That he’d be hurt. But the promise of Owen’s backlash was the very pheromone that made him spill out the words.
“What the fuck?” It was slow, tense. Deadly.
Cam didn’t move an inch.
“You disgusting... Bringing that – that’s all you fags are, aren’t you?” Owen’s cool was burning off. His words beginning to slip.
Cam tried to breath a “sorry” but was frozen.
“Get out. Before my wall has a red print of your skull.”
The air was heavy. A strange mix of fear and gratitude overtook Cam as he put Owen’s things down and walked to the door. Eleven thousand people passed him by each day. Owen at least had seen him for what he was.
His hand on the knob twisted, when another command reached his ears. “Wait.”
He turned. Owen’s mouth was snarled as his eyes pierced Cam. Like he was a brat that had stolen a cookie and not been grounded yet.
“Get on all fours.”
Time slowed a second a mile as Cam got to the floor. The smell of beer and musk making him drunk. Each footstep coming closer a reckoning.
“Drop trough gay boy.”
Pure malice without hope of anything more than cruel, anonymous pain. The words to Cam were sweeter than “I love you.”
The air was cold against Cam’s exposed balls as they hung loose in that small college room. He stared ahead at the wall, only able to imagine Owen’s disgusted fury. All of Cam’s obsessive need culminating in this retribution.
And then, the first kick.
It felt holy. Cam cried out. Pain worse than any he’d experienced. A baptism of crushing red.
“SHUT IT.”
The boy bit his arm as more kicks came. One after another, swift, hard. More kicking a soccer ball or concrete. Each designed to break.
Tears began to fall from his eyes. The horrible rhythm breaking his body. Kick. Kick. Kick. And his own head, pounding its own rhythm. Fags. Deserve. Pain.
“Stupid!” Owen yelled. And kicked with such force Cam’s entire body flipped. His mouth flew out from his arm, and he ended chest up. Staring at the man with his face glowing a jagged deranged smile at the broken boy below him.
The tears tasted like bitter salt as Cam swallowed them.
“I’m done. Get out.”
Cam swallowed hot pain and scrambled up. Fingers shaking like wind as he hurried to grab his tutoring things – objects that felt foreign now. He closed the door and took each step like they were made of paper. Not breathing until the last moment he had in the house, one last breath of Owen.
The campus was scorching bright in the January cold as Cam biked back, each stride a painful reminder of the dark act he had committed. For the first time since he arrived, Cam felt loose. Free.
That night, he hadn’t meant to touch himself. When his roommate was asleep, Cam applied arnica cream on his blood red balls in the darkness. But the vision of Owen’s face, the dead eyes and jagged smile staring down at him as he was crumbled to the floor… He brushed his cock. Stiff.
In shamed silence, Cam stroked his cock. Each stroke sending shockwaves to his bruised balls. A demented positive reinforcement cycle. As he climaxed, he closed his eyes, and remembered the straight man’s words. Fag. Disgusting. That was all Owen saw him as. A disgusting fag.
Cam spilled all over his chest. Breath hitched in a daze.
As the high fell, the tightness crawled back into its familiar home. He had ruined it. Ruined any chance to actually be of service to that man. Instead of passing tests, he’d provoked him to assault. All because he was himself.
He wanted to rip the skin of himself. Feel Owen’s pain ten times worse. Something to calm the crushing feeling inside him.
At 3am, a text buzzed.
Owen: “next tutoring session. Wed 3pm. don’t make me wait.”
