Circumstances 23

I went home later that afternoon.  Mom wasn’t home, so I could have stayed longer.  I wished I had.  Gary and I had continued talking.  I felt pretty sure he was as eager as I was to see what sex with another guy was all about.  It would have to wait till our next sleepover, which we’d already decided would be next weekend.

I was expecting my mom to be home, but the house was empty.  There was a note on the kitchen table saying she’d be home later that evening, and I could fix my own dinner.  Great!  Well, not really.

It pissed me off because I could have stayed at Gary’s house.  Could have eaten dinner there.  Maybe even could have spent the night again.  And that might have meant sex.  Probably would have meant sex.  Hell, stop quibbling!  It would have meant sex.

I didn’t have any schoolwork to do, and watching TV on a Saturday afternoon didn’t appeal to me at all.  I decided to go ride my bike, just to get out of the empty house, just for something to do.

I lived in a residential neighborhood.  There were always kids around, but I hardly knew them and rarely mixed with them.  They were all into sports, playing touch football in the street, shooting baskets in their driveways, wrestling together on their lawns.  I was smaller than most other kids my age and had no interest in anything athletic.

I was riding about two blocks from home when I saw a bunch of kids I sort of knew, four boys in my grade, also riding their bikes.  I decided it might be better to avoid them because I didn’t much like the guy who led them, so I turned around, hoping they hadn’t seen me.  I started riding in a different direction, then glanced over my shoulder.  They had seen me, and were pedaling faster now, coming after me.

I’m not sure why, but I began to panic.  It might have been the rough week I’d just had, maybe it was my natural cowardice, but I felt I needed to get away from them.  I started pumping my bike as fast as I could.  At the end of the block, I turned, turned so I’d be riding toward my house, and looked back behind me.  The four boys were much closer.

I was going as fast as I could.  It wasn’t fast enough.  They were all bigger and stronger and could pedal faster.  Before I reached my street, they had caught me. 

“Stop,” the one I didn’t like said.  His name was Tony.  I ignored him and kept pedaling. 

“Stop or I’ll knock you off your bike.”

So, I stopped.  They all formed their bikes around me.  Tony did the talking.

“I saw you up on the stage at school.  All that talk about jerking off on the bus.  You must like to do it in public.  You like an audience, huh?”

I didn’t say anything, and he poked me in the shoulder, hard.  “Huh?” he repeated, wanting an answer.

“No.”  I was panting, partly from riding fast, partly from my current state of panic.

“Oh yeah, you do.  Doing it on the bus, then running in the hall naked.  I think you like to show it to people.  Well, go ahead.  Show it to us.  Right, guys?”

He looked at his group, and they nodded and made comments agreeing with him.

“I’m not going to do that,” I said.  “None of what happened was my fault, and I didn’t want any of it to happen.  Now, let me go.  I’m late getting home and my mom will be looking for me.”

“Aw, he wants his mommy!  Sure, you can go.  Just pull down your pants first.  You know you want to.”

I was scared now, and couldn’t think of any way to get out of this.  I didn’t know what to say, so didn’t say anything.

Tony got off his bike.  “Well, if you aren’t going to do it, we’ll do it for you.”

He grabbed me and yanked me off my bike onto the closest lawn.  He pushed and I fell down.  Tony got down on his knees, one resting on each of my shoulders.  He weighted a lot more than I did.  One of his friends quickly grabbed my legs so I couldn’t wriggle.  Then Tony told another friend to pull down my pants.

I was struggling, but it didn’t do any good.  The only thing I could think to do was talk.  “Stop,” I yelled.  They didn’t stop.  “HELP!” I yelled, as loudly as I could.

“Do that again and I’ll slug you,” Tony threatened.

I only had one thing left.  “If you pull down my pants, I’m telling my mom and the school who all four of you guys are.”

The guy working on my belt, a kid named Richie, stopped then and glanced up at Tony.  Tony looked down at me and said, “If you do that, we’ll get you bad.”

“No you won’t.  You’ll be in juvie, waiting for your case to be heard.  You all will.”

“Bullshit,” Tony said.  “It’s our word against yours.  Go ahead, Richie.”

So Richie finished with my belt, and then yanked my shorts and briefs down around my knees. 

They looked at me, and no one said anything until Tony made a couple remarks.  I felt humiliated and got tears in my eyes.  I couldn’t help it.  Only Tony said anything.  It looked to me, through my blurry eyes, like one of the guys, the smallest of them, a kid named Darryl, looked embarrassed, or ashamed, or something.  He was looking into my face, seeing my reaction, while the other guys were looking at me somewhat lower down.  He hadn’t done anything other than stand there.  Maybe they weren’t all jerks.  But they sure all did what Tony wanted them to.

Finally, Tony got up, and all of them got on their bikes.  I just lay there, then started to struggle my pants back up.  They started to ride off, and I stood up and yelled at them, “You guys must all be queer.  You like looking at guys’ dicks!”

The other three looked at each other, but Tony got back off his bike, walked over to me and punched me in the stomach.

When my mom got home that night, I told her what had happened.  I never knew how she’d respond to me.  This time, I was hoping for a hug, or at least some sympathy.  What I got was a disgusted look and then, “Keith, you need to act like a man.  This acting like a little boy is getting tiresome.”

I was shocked, and then furious.  “Act like a man?  There were four of them!  Each one was bigger than I am.  How is getting pulverized trying to fight when I have no chance against them acting like a man?”

“You didn’t even try to fight back.”  She was yelling now, too.  “They might have stopped if you’d hit one of them!”

“Mom!  Look at me!”  She did, and the disgust was still there.  The look made me even angrier; I was now as mad as I could ever remember being.  I stared into her face, and then, I just did it.  I started taking off my clothes.  While doing so, I shouted at her, “These guys would have liked me to fight, Mom.  They like fighting.  They enjoy it.  Especially when it’s someone as small as I am.”

I don’t even know if she heard me.  Her disgust with me had changed to confusion.  “What are you doing?”

I kept undressing.  And I didn’t stop till I was done.  All done.  Completely done.

“Keith!” she said, embarrassed and confused.

“Mom!” I replied, sarcastically.  “Look at me.  LOOK!  Do I look like a man to you?  You want me to fight?  Me?  Look at my stomach.”  It was already starting to bruise.  “I just said something and I got hit.  You want me to fight them?  You want to have to come visit me in the hospital?”