by Cole Parker
Circumstances 3
“What the Sam Hill are you doing?!”
I jumped off the sink. My face couldn’t decide whether to be bright red or pale white. I think it decided to be white. Mr. Johnson wasn’t someone you messed with. He was huge, the school’s football coach as well as vice-principal, and as the school disciplinarian, he had a reputation for sometimes stepping over the line with kids physically. I’d never faced him before, and found I was shaking, him yelling at me like he was.
“Well?”
“Uh, I was trying to dry off my pants, sir.”
“No you weren’t. I saw what you were doing.” He pointed at my crotch, where my recent hard-on was deflating but still pushing against the wet part of my pants. He scowled, then yelled, “Pervert! Come with me!”
He turned and slammed out of the restroom. I had no choice. Wet pants, tented pants, whatever, I followed him. At least there was no one else in the hall.
He strode rapidly down the hall toward his office, a force no one would want to confront. I meekly followed behind. When we got into his office, he grabbed my shoulder and pushed me into a hard chair in front of his desk, then sat in his own chair. My shoulder hurt where he’d squeezed it.
“You’re Keith Perryman, aren’t you?” I nodded.
“I heard you were jacking off on the bus today. Then I see you doing the same thing in the boys’ room—I guess that’s what you were doing even if I’ve never seen anyone else doing it quite like that—when Mrs. Bowerman reported you’d left her room without a pass.” His voice was angry and very, very loud. I winced when I heard him shout out I’d been jacking off on the bus. I wondered who else could hear him through the walls.
“What the hell’s the matter with you, boy? Jacking off on the bus, then in the boys’ room where anyone can see if they walk in? Answer me!”
What could I say? I wasn’t good at talking to adults, especially ones who were yelling at me and red in the face. I did the best I could. “Uh, well sir, I wasn’t. Not on the bus, not in the boys’ room. I wasn’t.”
“Don’t lie to me, boy! That’s not what I heard, and not what I just saw. I guess I’ll have to have some of the kids that saw you on the bus come in here and we’ll find out. And if you weren’t getting yourself off in that boys’ room, just what the hell do you call it? I saw your hips rocking back and forth. Tell me? Huh?”
“Well, sir, I was drying my pants,” I said shakily.
He scowled. “And why were they wet?”
“I was trying to clean them off.”
“And they needed cleaning off because..?”
He was still angry, and I was still scared. I’d never faced an adult that was this mad at me before, except my mom, and I knew what was what with her. I had no idea what this man might do.
“Uh, they got stained. On the bus.”
“But you just told me you weren’t jacking off on the bus. So, what was this stain you were cleaning off? You’d better not be lying to me here, boy. I don’t like liars any more than I like boys playing with themselves at school. Or on the bus where all the girls can see.” His glare was constant, his intimidation very real.
I shuddered. “Can I tell you what happened?” It came out almost a whisper.
“God dammit, boy, that’s what I’ve been trying to get you to do! Tell me!”
“Well, I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I fell asleep on the bus. Then I had a dream, one of those dreams, uh, I’m sure you know about them. When I woke up, all the kids were laughing and the front of my pants was wet. I guess I had one of those emissions I heard about in Sex Ed class. Then, Mrs. Bowerman wanted me to go up in front of the class, but my pants were stained and I just couldn’t. So I went to the boys’ room to clean them the best I could, and you came in when I was trying to get them dry.”
I stopped and looked down at the floor. This day kept getting worse and worse. If he kept yelling at me, I was afraid I’d cry, and I desperately didn’t want to do that.
I don’t think Mr. Johnson and sympathy had ever met. Maybe it was because of the job he had, and the type of kids he dealt with every day. I wasn’t a kid like that, I wasn’t a kid who was used to being in trouble, but how was he supposed to know that?
“Some story! But I know what I saw. I walked into that bathroom and saw you pumping your hips. Explain that, buster.”
I couldn’t. I’d told him the truth. I just hadn’t said anything about what that warm air on those moist pants felt like. If he thought about it, he’d have to know. But I wasn’t going to tell him. How could I?
“I can’t. I wasn’t doing that.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” His voice’s pitch rose about two octaves. The volume went up with it.
“No sir. I just can’t explain something to you that I wasn’t doing.”
“You’ve got detention for a week. I’ll think about this. Maybe have you explain all that about your emission to the school at our next assembly. How’d you like to do that? Huh? Huh?! I’ll think about it. Detention all week. Get back to class.”
“But my pants are still wet. Can I at least dry them?” Where I got the nerve to ask that, I don’t know. Maybe it was the thought of returning to class with wet pants after what he happened on the bus this morning. Maybe it was that I was getting a little angry. That stuff he’d said about talking about this in an assembly was simply mean.
“No. Back to class. The wet pants are your fault. Live with it.” He glared at me. I didn’t have the guts to glare back. I got up and left. And with the last ounce of defiance in my body, I went back to the boys’ room, took off my pants, and held them in front of the hot air nozzle. I didn’t have long till the bell, and I needed those pants dry.
I was standing like that, no pants on and wearing wet briefs, when two football players walked into the boys’ room, joking with each other. They stopped joking when they saw me.