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The Repository - (Complete Story, 10/15/21)


TQuintA

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I write these up in a Microsoft Word document and then copy/paste them here.  Thanks for pointing out that I'd doubled up on Chapter 3.

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This is so well done--checking daily for the next installment has become a habit. Great job building the anticipation and the characters. Fun ride so far!

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Your muscle growth descriptions are amazing, as are you references to English Romantic poets!  It inspired me to reference Keats, especially the last two lines ----

 

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
       Of deities or mortals, or of both,
               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

- -- - - - - - - - - 

   "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

 
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2 hours ago, Mdlftr said:

as are you references to English Romantic poets

The story called for the seduction of Byron, but I've always preferred Keats or Blake myself.  Burns, if we expand it to British Romantics.  :)  Glad to see another poetry fan.

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Let out such a hard laugh at the She Walks in Beauty reference (one of my fav choral arrangements I've sang  by Paul Mealor). Great stuff!

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When they met, I thought Flynn would be a terrible boyfriend for him. He still probably is, but you've sold me on it, damn.

And you always make sex scenes so interesting, which is honestly hard for authors to do. Bravo.

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Part 2 – The College Con-Artist

Chapter 5

            The next morning, I woke up, still on the floor, to find Flynn sitting shirtless at my desk, scratching furiously in a notebook.

            “Morning,” I said, lazily and muffled.

            He turned around, a little surprised as I pulled him out of his writing.  “Morning.”

            “Thank you for last night,” I said.  “I’ve wanted to do that forever.  Next time, we’ll both last longer.  I promise.”

            Flynn stopped writing, joined me on the floor, and forced me into a seated position.

            “Time for serious talk.”

            “Oh fuck,” I pouted.  “Did you change your mind?  Do you not want to be my boyfriend anymore?”

            “You haven’t changed your mind?” he asked, a note of worry in his voice.

            I shook my head and rubbed some sleep out of my eye with the palm of my hand.  “Why would I?”

            “I’m like binge drinking.  Fun in the moment, but followed by regret and headaches.”

            I chuckled so thoroughly that my chest shook and my ribs hurt.  “Flynn, man, we’re 20.  I’m not proposing marriage.  I’m saying we have some fun with each other, have sex frequently, date some, and see where this goes.”

            “Roberto had that attitude.  He was my high school boyfriend.  I landed him in jail.”

            “What was the crime?” I asked, undaunted.

            “Grand theft auto.”

            “Okay.  I vow not to steal any cars, no matter how well you blow me.”

            Flynn pointed to my desk.  “Do you know what I was doing all morning?  Thinking of ways to sucker people out of money using your ability.  I didn’t even wait 12 hours.”

            “How many did you come up with?” I asked.

            “Three small hustles.  And brainstorms for two big ones.”  Flynn stopped himself.  “I’m not sending another decent guy to jail.”

            “I’m not Roberto.  I’m not agreeing to any scams; I’m not going to commit any crimes.”

            “You better not,” he said, practically sighing.

            Seeing his chest muscles expand and contract as his mountainous shoulders rose and fell, I suddenly grew a little sad.  What was he playing at?  “You didn’t want to have sex with me until you learned about my ability.”  I paused.  “Is that the only reason you wanted to have sex with me?”

            “What?” Flynn looked more confused than anything.

            “You’re not the only one with ex-boyfriend baggage.  My high school boyfriend Gregg only ever wanted to have sex with me when I was taking a deposit.  It was fun at first, but then grew dehumanizing.  You see me borrow 20 pounds of muscles, and immediately you want to be my boyfriend.  It felt…” I paused, searching for the right words, “unpleasantly familiar.”

            “What?  Fuck no!”  Flynn looked insulted now.  I want to be the bigger guy.  I almost never bottom.  Don’t you dare get used to that.  That way lies disappointment.”

            “Then why last night, after two years of platonic friendship, did you finally want to have sex?”

            Flynn shrugged (and I was momentarily distracted again by his rising shoulders).  “When we first met, you struck me as a goody-goody.  Mr. Plays-It-Safe.  Then, I friend-zoned you, and you stuck around.  That made no sense.  I had to figure you out.  I threw the works at you.  You used the fake ID.  You adapted to casual sex with strangers.  You accepted all my gifts, without asking how I got them.

            “Then it clicked for me.  I had you all figured out again.  You were taking a walk on the wild side.  Sowing a few wild oats.  Dancing close enough to the fire to see it glow, not close enough to get burned.  I like you, don’t get me wrong.  But I thought you’d drop me when you got a boyfriend.  Come back to your senses.  Settle down with Mr. Straight-And-Narrow.  Last night, all that changed.”

            “How?”

            “You kept a giant secret from me.  For two years.  There is more to you than I thought.  A guy who can keep a secret like that?  That’s a guy who has his head on his shoulders.”

            “Then what was that whole speech about Roberto and how I’ll end up in jail if I date you?”

            “One last chance to stay friends.  Forget the whole thing.”

            I pulled in Flynn for a kiss.  “You’re the idiot who needed two years to come to your senses.”

            Flynn smiled, and then tousled my hair.  “Get dressed for work, boy,” he cheered.

            “How’d you know?”

            Flynn wagged his phone at me.  “You text me your schedule.  You always text me your schedule.”

            “You actually read that?”

            Flynn smiled.  “Of course.  Had to keep track of you.  But I pretended not to read it.”

            “Are you actually going to visit me at work today?”

            Begrudgingly, Flynn said, “Cafeteria food?  Not since freshman orientation.”  He sighed.  “For you, I’ll brave it.”

            I jumped up and hugged him.  I felt like a lovesick puppy.

            Flynn even walked with me to work.  I tried to hold his hand a few times to complete the cornball cliché, but he pushed mine aside every time.  “When it’s you and me alone.  When we’re at the bar.  When we’re someplace off campus.  Every goofy romantic thing you can think of.  I’ll do it.  On campus, though, nothing.”

            “Are you scared of PDA in front of the breeders?”

            “I’m scared one of the frat bros will pick a fight.  I’m scared of me punching him in the face.  Losing my scholarship.  Ending up behind bars.  Meanwhile, he can brag about getting the queer kicked out of school.”

            “That does sound like a fatal chain of events.”

            We kept our PDA for non-campus venues, but we settled into couplehood rather quickly.  It was easy since we were already close friends.  He’d walk me to work when his schedule allowed, we actually synced out workouts to spend more time at the gym together for real, and we fucked like rabbits.  True to his word, Flynn preferred to top.  And I was okay with that, as if my smile wasn’t any indication.

            It was just over a month later when things changed irrevocably.

            Flynn walked me to work, nothing special there.  He walked me into the cafeteria, all the way up to the door that says “Staff Only Beyond This Point,” nothing special there.  But, when we parted ways, he kissed me goodbye.  Special.  He’d never done that before.  It was a reflex.  He wasn’t even thinking.  I, for one, wasn’t going to point it out to him.

            But my customers certainly saw it, especially these two jackasses named Steele and Rhodes.  I only knew their names because I bumped into them in the gym from time to time.  They were constantly—and loudly—jockeying to be the alpha of their social group (and by extension, the campus), but neither ever completely dominated the other, at least not for long.  I thought of them as the consuls of the Roman empire: each had veto power, but they ruled together. 

            Steele was decently muscular and lithe.  His face screamed money from his over-coiffed blond hair, to his baby blue eyes, to his aquiline nose and dimpled chin.  He looked like a fairy tale prince, and he bragged that his family could trace their lineage back to English royalty.  If he wasn’t such an asshole, he would’ve been beautiful. 

            Rhodes was less handsome, largely because he was the school’s best boxer.  His arms were works of art, thick, powerful, and fast.  But his face always had a cut, bruise, or scar healing, and his nose had clearly been broken numerous times.  He kind of looked like a muscular potato, complete with brown hair and pale eyes.  He was the heir to some car company or something like that—he wasn’t particularly articulate and I wasn’t particularly listening—and he was bound and determined to be the bad boy black sheep of his family.

            Of all people, Rhodes and Steele had seen me kiss my boyfriend, and they were not happy about it.

            A gaggle of students came up to my work station—Rhodes and Steele possessively dangling their arms over their girlfriends’ shoulders.

            “The poor kid is gay,” Rhodes said.  His words slurred together as though he was punch drunk, even out of the ring.  “I knew there was something I didn’t trust about you.  You been lying this whole time.”

            “I haven’t exactly hidden that I’m gay.  There’s a rainbow flag on my door.”  I tapped my pin.  “And my nametag.”

            Rhodes pulled his girl in closer and laughed.  “Like I’d ever be caught dead in Hinde Hall.”

            Steele slithered in to join him.  “You’d think a homosexual gentleman would dress better.”  He leaned in to his girlfriend’s ear and pointed at me.  “He’s wearing polyester.”

            “I’m wearing my uniform.”

            “I’ve seen you wear flannel too,” Steele continued.  “No one forced you to do that.”

            “You look like a normal dude,” Rhodes interjected, “but I knew there was something off about you.  Something… not quite right about the way you walked around the gym.”

            “With my feet?” I tried.

            Rhodes sneered.

            I cheerily asked, “Is there something at my station you would like for lunch?”

            “I’ve lost my appetite,” Rhodes snarled.

            “Is there anything else I can help you with, then?”

            Steele perked up when he heard that.  “Yes, yes there is.  Can I see the manager?”

            “I’m the manager,” I said.  “Shift manager. What can I help you with?”

            “They made you the manager?”  Steele disdainfully swirled his hand in the air, drawing an imaginary circle around my body as if the mere notion that I was the manager was somehow preposterous and upsetting.

            “I have been for a year now.  What can I help you with?”

            “It’s insulting enough to come to this place and see one of my classmates working in a synthetic uniform.”  Steele was revving himself up.  “But to discover they made him manager out of some bleeding heart, affirmative action nonsense.  It really makes you question the school’s standards.”

            “If you’re unsatisfied with my service or the quality of the food, I could…”

            Rhodes interrupted, leaning over the counter that separated us.  “There’s nothing you can do for any of us.  There are other places to eat on campus, and there’s a whole world out there.”

            “Good day, ma’am,” Steele called out, and then the whole passel of them were gone.

            The rest of my shift was uneventful, so I was surprised when the general manager asked me to see him at the end of the workday.  Partly, it was because the general manager almost never left his office; he left the nuts and bolts of everyday tasks for the shift managers.  More importantly, I could tell I was in trouble.

            Rhodes and Steele had gotten a large number of students to promise to boycott the cafeteria unless I was fired.  They claimed I was rude and unsanitary.  My manager knew it was a lie, but with the number of students threatening to boycott and the fact that some of them were the children of the school’s biggest donors, he had to let me go.

            When I told Flynn, he was livid and wanted to beat Steele and Rhodes senseless.  I, however, just got another job at the deli counter of the supermarket in town.  It didn’t pay as much, but the hours were better.

            Then, on my first day, Rhodes and Steele and their whole crew came in to laugh at me.  Seriously, that’s all they did.  Just laugh.

            I offered to ready their lunchmeat and cheese, and they just laughed.  They came back three more times my first week.  The store let me go because the laughter was disturbing the other customers—and they secretly and incorrectly suspected I was in on it, like it was some sort of prank I had masterminded.

            Flynn was now actively plotting the bloody deaths of Steele and Rhodes, but I just got another job at a restaurant.  The pay, the hours, and the commute all sucked, but I needed a job, and I was getting desperate.

            My first shift, Rhodes and Steele and their fan club were there.  “What is this?” I thought to myself. “Some ‘80s movie with rich bullies?”  As if he was answering my question, Rhodes tripped me while I was carrying a big tray of dishes, and I went sprawling into the floor, shattering half a dozen plates.

            I stood up haughtily, and confronted him.  “Why do you keep harassing me like this?”

            “You don’t belong at our school,” Rhodes answered simply.

            “You never belonged there,” Steel echoed.

            “I’m not at the school right now.  I’m at work.”  I really wanted to scream, but I was keeping a stern but civil tone.

            “You should really back down,” Steele’s girlfriend said in a voice barely above a whisper.

            Rhodes repeated, “You don’t belong at our school.”

            “Why?” I asked.  “Because I’m poor?  Because I’m gay?”

            “There she goes, making this a political correctness issue,” Steele groaned.  “This has nothing to do with politics.  People like you just shouldn’t mix with people like us.  We come from entirely different worlds, and any attempt to mix them just does us both a disservice.”

            Undaunted, I pressed on.  “People like me who?  People like me poor?  People like me gay?”

            “People like you who are constantly crossing the boundaries of polite society.  I have nothing against gay people, I have nothing against poor people.  As long as they stay where they belong.”

            “People like you ruin everything,” Rhodes chimed in.

            It was getting harder to maintain civility.  “Is that what this is?  I don’t know my place?  I act as though we’re equals?  I don’t act inferior to you?”

            “You are inferior to us,” Steele said.  There was no malice in his voice; to his mind, he was stating a fact as uncontroversial as “two plus two equals four.”  Then, he raised his hand to flag down their waiter.  When she showed up, Steele said, “this busboy,” he pointed at me, then added, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly, “excuse me. Busperson.  This busperson has been bothering my entire party, and she dropped that whole tray of plates.  See to her.”

            I was fired again.

            I couldn’t get out of that restaurant fast enough.  I changed in the employee bathroom and headed back to my car.  Steele’s girlfriend came up to me in the parking lot.  “It’s not about you.  Not really.  It may have been at first, but now it’s about their never-ending pissing contest.  You stood up to both of them, something most guys on campus wouldn’t do.  If you back down, they’ll stop attacking you.”

            “I stood up to them?  This started because they harassed me about kissing my boyfriend, and I didn’t take the bait.  How is that standing up to them?”

            “You didn’t apologize.  You brushed off their insults.  And you weren’t scared of them.”

            “That’s all it took?”

            She nodded.  “They’re used to people treating them like gods.  So now, whoever makes you crack, whoever gets you to beg him to stop, he wins.  Once you surrender, they’ll get bored and move on to some new way to measure their dicks.”

            “Why should I surrender?  They’re wrong, not me.”

            “Does that really matter?  Aren’t you tired of fighting?  When you surrender, it’ll be an unpleasant couple of days, but I promise you they’ll get bored and move on.”

            “Just to give them what they want?  That’s terrible advice.”

            She made a noise of frustration.  “I’m saying this for your benefit.  Give up.  If you don’t surrender soon, they’ll make you lose your scholarship.” 

            All of the blood rushed out of my head, and all of the sounds around me turned into hollow echoes.  I was at their mercy, wasn’t I?

            When she saw that she’d gotten through to me, she went back into the restaurant.  Pale and shaking, I drove back to campus.

            Flynn was in my room.  I’d texted him what had happened, and he was waiting to comfort me or disembowel Rhodes and Steele, whichever I wanted.  By the time I’d gotten back to my room, my terror had hardened into resolve.

            After he kissed me hello, I asked, “Can we use my skills as The Repository to scam Rhodes and Steele out of a lot of money?  I mean, a lot of it?  Like, an embarrassing amount?  Like, I don’t have to worry about tuition a lot?”

            Flynn’s eyes lit up.  “About fucking time.”

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