There's this word in the English language, "Apocalypse."  It doesn't mean what everyone thinks it does.

Well, actually, that's not true.  It does mean what everyone says it does, because that's how language works.  If everyone suddenly decided to call a pig a tree, then "tree" would mean pig, and the dictionary can go fuck itself.  Kind of like how when someone bitches out a bush or a shrub, they mean the president, not the greenery on their lawn.  But when the word "apocalypse" was first invented, it meant "vision," or perhaps "revelation," not "armageddon" the way it does now.

So "Apocalypse" has always been one of my little code words, which I use to myself whenever I mean that something has just been discovered, that's about to blow everything out of the water.

Today was one of those days.

When I came in to school, I could tell that everyone was excited.  Which really wasn't surprising.  Today's the first day of the Naked In School program here at Mount Hill Public High, and eight unlucky losers were going to pulled out of ranks to parade around naked all week.  The Program's spreading.  What do you expect?  We don't hear much about Central High, which hosted the original Program, because Central's, what, sixty miles from here?  But it was a massive success over at Westport High last year that they're doing it again, even though they started it three years ago, and it took until the third to get it right.  We don't see much of them, though, because Westport's fifteen or twenty miles from us.  But it's spreading.  Slowly, but surely.  I mean, let's not even talk about the rumors I've heard about a new high school in Westport.  Mandatory Programs for all, they say.

But we're talking here first.  I don't go to Westport; my parents finagled and got me into Mount Hill instead.  Mr. Trineer, our school's primary advocate for The Program, pitched it to the sports teams first, and they went all-out for it.  They loved the idea.  Naked girls?  What more do you need to say?  (The baseball team, it was whispered, was especially enthusiastic, along with nods and winks that meant I was supposed to understand what they were talking about.)  The Associated Student Body wasn't quite as keen on the idea, though, and the PTA even less so, but it got through.  And today was the first day of its implementation.

Fine with me.  I didn't sign up.  No, thank you.  I have bad hair and no muscles and too many pimples and nobody looks at me twice.  The only people who'd touch me would be the ones trying to rip something off.  That's what everyone seems to think I'm good for.  Look, it's Brandon!  Let's mutilate him!  Which is why I'll be keeping my clothes securely on this quarter, thank you.

But as I was packing things into my locker, Principal Zelvetti's voice echoed out over the PA system: Would Brandon Chambers please come to the principal's office immediately.  Brandon Chambers, please come to the principal's office immediately.

Everyone near me looked at me.  I looked back.  I didn't get it either.  What had I possibly done in my three minutes on-campus to get myself in trouble?  But when the principal calls, you come.

When I walked into the office, there were seven other people already there.  There were a few people I didn't recognize—maybe they were freshmen.  They'd only been around for a few weeks, and it's not like I'm a social butterfly.  One of the girls I recognized, Candace Bernholtz, a sophomore, because we'd had a class together last year.  And I recognized Steven Proust too.  Of course, you'd have to be blind-deaf-and-dumb not to know him 'round these parts.  Any organization worth being in, he's part of.  Big man on campus.  Interestingly enough his girlfriend was there too.  Shannon Salvolestra.  What, exactly, had we all managed to do to bring us in here?

I also recognized a girl.  Arie Chang.  I didn't know they made Chinese goth girls until I met her.  Not that she's, like, studded with piercings and wearing fishnet stockings or anything.  I dunno if that'd fly in a Chinese family.  But she does have the long black hair and the all-black clothes and the sort of overcoat thing, so that we can't see her arms and legs at all, and what she lacks in eyeshadow she makes up with bags under her eyes.  She's really weird.  And the funny thing is that schedules don't seem to apply to her.  We have English together, among other classes.  If I'm three minutes late, Mr. Cavanagh will give me a pretty thorough chewing-out.  But he just turns a blind eye if she's late.  And according to my friends who have her in other classes, it's much the same there.

"All right, everyone," said Dr. Zelvetti.  She looked way too cheerful.  "Now that we're all here, we'll start the procedures.  As you all know, you've been selected to participate in The Program this week—"

What?

"Uh, Dr. Zelvetti," I said.  "I didn't sign up."

"I'm aware of that, Mr. Chambers, thank you," said Dr. Zelvetti.  "Here is a copy of the pamphlet, which I'm sure you've all heard of—"

"Dr. Zelvetti," I said again.  "I didn't sign—"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Chambers," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "If you will all open your pamphlets, we'll review the—"

"Dr. Zelvetti..." said Steven Proust.  His face was troubled.  "I'm pretty sure that if he didn't sign up, and if his parents didn't sign him up, he shouldn't be—"

"Thank you, Mr. Proust," said Dr. Zelvetti, stern anger on her lined face, and I knew the argument was over.  "As it just so happens, Mr. Chambers is facing a...  Special situation.  I'm not at liberty to explain it to him just yet, but he will be informed.  At that point, he'll have the option to enter The Program or remain out of it.  But first—we need to review these rules."  Her face brooked no insubordination.  "Are there any more questions."

A bated silence was her only answer.

"Good.  Please look at page two, where Rule One is spelled out in detail.  As you know, The Program is about..."

The rest of it washed over me.  We were keeping the pamphlets, I didn't need to listen.  Besides, I wasn't going to need it.  I was getting out of here.  In the meanwhile, Dr. Zelvetti was discussing an innovation in The Program.  Along with the Buddy system, Mount Hill was implementing a sort of Mentor system; the seniors, Steven and Shannon, were supposed to look out for the other participants, guide them, take care of them, etc.  Of course, that meant leading by example, so they lost their clothes first.  Then the freshmen disrobed, and then the sophomores, and they all followed Steve and Shannon out the door like a nervous flock of chicks.

And then it was just me and Arie and Dr. Zelvetti.

"Brandon," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "We have...  Something of a special situation here."

Oh great, I thought.

"Arie is...  Well, you've been in school with her for a year, you know that there are things she does that are...  Different.  Her excused tardiness or absence from class, for instance."

Or the fact that the principal stands up for her while she just sits there hunched over looking dead, I thought.

"We were all very pleased when she decided to go through The Program," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "Sometimes it's hard for her to...  Muster up any enthusiasm for an activity.  But here she is.  And she needed a partner.  We picked you, because of...  Certain experiences you two have shared."

Dr. Zelvetti looked straight at me when she said that, with those deceptively mild black eyes in her cocoa-dark face, and when she said it, I understood exactly what was going on.

And when Arie took off her clothes, I understood why she always wore long sleeves.

"Let me guess," I said.  "You say your cat did it."

She spoke for the first time.  "I just wear long sleeves."  And looked at me, too.  It was the first time she had looked directly at anybody all day.

"Even in summer," I said.

"You get used to it," Arie said, her voice dead.

Arie Chang had long black hair and tilted green eyes and the flat, smooth face of most Asians.  She calls herself Chinese, but my friend Tim Kwan says she might have some Japanese in her too.  She barely reached five and a half feet in height and wasn't the most curvy of people, but she was still pretty.  Her skin, with clothes gone, was pale and clear and smooth.  Her breasts weren't large, but they were shapely and capped with small, brown nipples.  And her arms and legs were marked with parallel rows of diagonal scars.

"You know," I said, feeling deadened, "you could have stuck to your shoulders."

"I thought of that," Arie said.  "But it was too late."

"I see you're familiar with the situation," Dr. Zelvetti said in tones of dryest satisfaction.

"Just a little,"  I said through numb lips.

"With that in mind, you can understand why we've made a special dispensation," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "Ms. Chang needs a Program partner.  There is no one else with your—unique qualifications—in this school, much less who has entered in The Program.  No one else who can help her."

I said nothing.

"Mr. Chambers," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "Would you consent to be entered into The Program voluntarily, and be chosen to be Ms. Chang's partner for this week?"  And she fixed me with her steely eyes, and there was no way I could say no without seeing that flare of instant disapproval in her eyes.  And I knew I was caught.

After I disrobed, Dr. Zelvetti sent us to the library until second period, with notes excusing our absence.  Well, my absence at least.  Arie hardly needed it.  "Talk," she said, "get to know each other.  I want this to be a fruitful week for both of you."

Then why you keep piling disaster upon disaster, I thought.  This is an explosion waiting to happen.

There's this rule, it's an addendum to Murphy's Law.  Not only is it, "If something can go wrong, it will," but also, "and at the worst possible time."  My life is the epitome of that law.  Not only am I just about the worst candidate for The Program—who's gonna give me the eye?  Not my girlfriend, I can tell you that—but I do not want to sing the choir concert naked on Wednesday.  Which is how life works.  It slugs you upside the head every chance it gets.

"Your arms are clear," Arie said to me.  "I don't see any scars."

Without comment, I turned my wrists up.  There were only two of them, parallel to the lines where the heel of my palm met my arms.  As far as I'm concerned, that's two more than I need.

"I'm surprised you hadn't heard," I said.  "It was big news freshman year."

"I just moved here last year, remember," Arie said.  Oh yeah.  She hadn't been here freshman year.  Hadn't been there when I'd been late to school, tardy, declared completely absent; hadn't been there when Mrs. Krenshaw, annoyed at the school's interruption of her morning schedule, annoyed to be listed as my emergency contact, had come into my room and found me where I'd passed out, my wrists sloppily opened, barely bleeding.  Hadn't been there when they'd rushed me to the hospital and pumped my stomach free of Valium.  Hadn't been there for the meeting Dr. Zelvetti called in the auditorium, where she told the freshman class the sad news, where she asked for their prayers on my behalf, when she offered the school counselors for anyone who felt the way I did.  Hadn't been there the next day, and the next week, and the next month, when whispers followed me everywhere I went, when people came up and asked in hushed tones whether they could see the scars on my wrists.

Just remembering it made my stomach turn.  Holy God in heaven, how had I survived that?

"So," I said to Arie Chang.  "What's the deal?"

"The deal," she asked, with barely a break in her monotone to indicate a question mark.

"The deal," I said.  "Why are you doing this?  You're goth girl.  You're not entirely out of the Hole yet.  Parading your scars around is just gonna cause trouble.  Nobody understands SI."  I was being more blunt than I ought to have, but...  Dammit, I just felt tired.  The Hole.  How many days had it been since I escaped it?  Not nearly enough, that was sure; there is no number large enough when you ask that question.  And why was Dr. Zelvetti pairing me up with this girl from the grave, who was already threatening to drag me back into it?

Arie looked away, clearly displeased, but she drew breath and said, "Just that.  It was part of what I'd have to do to get some leeway in my schedule.  Dr. Zelvetti said, you know.  'You can miss class as much as you need to, except for this one week, when you're gonna do The Program.'  And here I am."

"And here you are," I repeated.

"You don't have scars, but you know what SI is," Arie said.

"I had a friend on the Internet who did it," I said.  "I never picked it up, thankfully, but there were times when it was close."

Conversation just sort of pittered out after that, and we sat there for a while, not really saying anything, our minds wandering.  I found myself, not by any intention of my own, looking at her body.  She'd never be a supermodel, but she was pretty in her way.  She was definitely a natural black—how often have you heard someone say that?—and she didn't shave.  That was okay.  With her Chinese ancestry, she didn't have a lot of body hair, and normally she wore clothes that covered her from the collar down.  No one would be able to see anything.  But now it was all out there.  And I doubted anyone would be paying much attention to her underarm hair, because there were a lot more interesting things on her to notice.

Arie's eyes flashed.  "What," she said.

Startled, I realized I'd been staring at her tits the entire time I was zoned out.  "Sorry," I said.  "I was...  Thinking."

She gave me a narrow, cross look.

I rolled my eyes.  "Fine, then.  I wasn't having improper fantasies about you, but you're not going to believe that anyway, so who cares.  Come on," I said, standing up, "let's head to English."

Heading to English early—we got there five minutes before passing period started—turned out to be a stroke of genius, because English with Mr. Cavanaugh is down in this basement, and not a lot of people would come past us.  For some reason, I didn't want people to see Arie—because then people would connect it to me.  And they'd ask questions, and they'd make inferences, and everything they said would remind me about the Hole, and then the Hole would reach out its scaly, sucker-covered tendrils, and yank me back in.  And I didn't want that.

My two best friends share English with me—Sajel Malhotra and Zachary Crane.  Zach, when he saw me, gave a whoop and said, "Wow, Brandon, strutting your manly stuff, aintcha!"  There isn't a moment of the day when Zach isn't smiling, and while sometimes it's galling (Damn him and his innocent glee!) today I found it strangely comforting.

"Nonsense," said Sajel.  "That's not Brandon.  It's a pod person with no dignity.  The real Brandon must be kidnapped somewhere."

"So, where'd your clothes go," Zach said.  "Got lost in your closet and had to come out naked?"

"No, I got...  Railroaded into The Program, basically," I said.

"What do you mean," Sajel asked.

"What, so is this your partner then," Zach asked, glancing at Arie.  His constant grin slid off his face as he got a closer look at Arie-with-no-clothes-on.  "Whoa, dude, what happened to her arms?"

Arie said nothing, just sort of looked off into the distance, and I spoke up for her.  "Maybe we'd best leave that for class.  A lot of people will probably ask.  I'd rather do that than explain it to everyone individually."

I was right, too.  Mr. Cavanaugh had sharp eyes—of course, both of us had ended up near the front of the classroom, because his seating chart went alphabetically—and he asked what was going on.

"Ask Brandon," Arie said flatly.  "He knows."

I gave her a glare.  Thanks, hon, pass the ball to me.  They're your scars.  It's your Hole.  I'm not even supposed to be here.  But I stood up and explained, angry at Arie, and feeling vaguely foolish, like someone giving a book report.  On the most outrageous subject imagineable.

"Arie engages in an activity known as self-injury, or SI.  Some people call it self-mutilation, but that's not the same thing.  It's not self-destructive in intention, it's a coping mechanism.  SI is a response to depression or excessive stress.  It involves pinching or burning one's skin, pricking onself with needles, cutting oneself with knives or razors...  Intentional injury.  Besides being a form of stress relief, the resulting injury triggers the body's natural endorphins, which creates a slight natural high."

"How the hell do you know all this," Zach said aloud.  "What are you, a psychologist?"

Before Dr. Cavanaugh could round on him, Sajel swatted him on the back of the head and said, "Shut up, dipshit."  She pointed at my wrists.

I could see the understanding turn in Zach's eyes, in the eyes of my classmates.  It was like a door swinging shut.

"Thank you, Brandon," Mr. Cavanaugh said, "sit down.  Arie, I take it you're clinically depressed, then."

Arie didn't answer, and Mr. Cavanaugh said sharply, "Arie."

"Yes," Arie said sullenly.

"Can you explain what clinical depression is," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

"It's a chemical imbalance in your brain that makes it hard for you to feel positive about anything," said Arie in a monotone.  She was sitting sideways at her desk, her hands folded above her knees, hunched over, staring at her ankles.

"How long has this been going on," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

"Since I was fourteen," Arie said.

"What caused it," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

Arie didn't answer.  This was my area of expertise, so I felt like I should speak up.  "It can be a lot of things.  Some people have a genetic predisposition to it.  It can be situational—something in your environment that makes you feel bad about yourself.  Maybe someone's mean to you; maybe you just have bad luck and things keep going wrong.  Sometimes it just happens for no apparent reason.  It's hard to pin it down."

"Which of those do you think fits you, Arie," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

"The situation," Arie said.

"What about it," Mr. Cavanaugh asked, and suddenly I saw the reason behind all this question, penned up but barely visible—grief, leaking out around the corners of his eyes.

"My parents," Arie said.  "They don't love me."

"What makes you say that," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

"The way they act," Arie said.  "They always expect me to do what they tell me to.  And not complain.  I have to be perfect for them."

"Are you in counseling?"  "No."  "Why not?"  "Because I know my parents wouldn't pay for it."  "Have you asked them?"  "No."  "Then how do you know they won't pay for it?"

"Perfect daughters don't need counseling," Arie said.  She gave Mr. Cavanaugh a dirty look, as if to say, How stupid are you?

Mr. Cavanaugh's eyebrow twitched, and something turned in his eyes, like walls coming up.

"Well," he said.  "This is no fit talk for Arie's and Brandon's first day in The Program.  And I have a class to teach.  Brandon, do you need to request relief?  Arie, the rules have been changed so that you can request it as well."

"After that little discourse," I said, letting my eyebrows raise.  "I think everyone's forgotten to get turned on."  And indeed, everyone looked a little pale and skittish, about as far from horny as you could get.  A glance at Arie, sitting there mutely in her own little world, showed that she was in much the same boat.

So Mr. Cavanaugh started his dissection of Romeo and Juliet.  But I don't think any of us were paying attention.

M.2

At break I was finally able to meet up with the rest of my friends.  Zach and Sajel, of course, already knew what was going on; and so, like as not, did Tim and Kelsey, because they'd heard the announcement.

"Well, hello," Kelsey said when I walked up, "look who lost his clothes on the way to school."

"I stole 'em," Zach jumped in.  "Just yanked him behind one of the portables, bonked 'im on the head, took his clothes.  They're in my locker."

For a second, I felt like ripping his head off—For fuck's sake, I've just been railroaded into this!  Let's have some fucking sympathy here!—but my sense of humor made a comeback from somewhere and I shuddered theatrically.  "God, I've been manhandled by Zachary Crane.  While I was naked, no less.  I have got to take a shower."

"Hey," Zach retorted, grinning.  He held up his hands.  "There's a lot of girls around this school who'd love to have these hands all over 'em."

"Yes," I said, "and seeing as how I'm not a girl..."

"What are you talking about," Zach said, "you are too a girl, just take a look at—  Whoops."  And the crazy man actually reached between my legs and held up my penis.  "Looks like you are a guy after all."  He dropped it again and held up his hands innocently.  "Sorry, man."

It would have been so easy to kill him right then.

No, play along.  No matter how much you'd like to punch him.  Play along.  No matter how deeply the sanctity of your person has been defiled.  Zach Crane is automatically exempt from Rule Three, no request from him is reasonable, everybody knows that, but play along.  I gave my dick a dubious look and then said, "Thanks, Zach.  You know, I may need that later in life.  But now you've permanently contaminated it.  No one will touch it again."

"Whoa, zing," Kelsey laughed.

I slung my arm over Zach's shoulder and leaned against him.  "That's my buddy Zach, always looking out for me."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Zach said, hastily ridding himself of my arm.  "Off with the naked man!"

Yeah.  That's Zach for ya.  If I touch him again before break ends, it will be to snap his neck.

Sajel, thankfully, took some pity on me.  Well, sort of.  "Where's Jane," she asked.  Jane's my girlfriend.

"Dunno," I said, trying to keep my voice calm.  "Probably scared off by the sight of dick."

"Who's your partner, then," Tim asked.  Tim Kwan is Korean (I think) and he's still got an accent.  He's really very quiet, most of the time, but he's a lot more reliable than Zach is.  At least, if he hasn't got anything nice to say, he shuts up.  Right, Zach?

"Arie Chang," I said.

"Whoa, really," Kelsey asked.  "That goth girl?  I don't think anyone's seen an inch of her skin since she was born, and now she's naked?"

It gets better, I thought, and for an instant's malicious hesitation I considered spilling the beans—but years of keeping secrets, mine and others's, won over, and all I said was, "Yeah."

"How do you think she's dealing with getting felt up," Kelsey asked.  She's a sweet girl, is Kelsey Waters, but tact?  Not her strong point.

"I dunno," I said.  "She was dating that one guy, what...  Patrick Slade.  Back at the beginning of last year.  It's possible she knows what all that stuff is for."

"What, you mean like her haha," Sajel asked.

"Yes, Sajel, her haha."  That's been our group's pet word for vagina ever since Sajel coined it in a burst of either ironic brilliance or dazzling sexual repression.  She was scrambling around for a word when trying to ask what life would be like if little girls' dolls had sexual organs, and after the dust settled, we just kept saying it.

"So what are you suggesting," Tim asked, giving me an overly-leery smile.  "Are you besmirching her honor or something?  Because she went out with Patrick Slade, she's automatically depraved?"

I laughed.  "Well, you know Patrick."  He's our school's resident horndog.  "He'll fuck anything that walks."

"Anything that's on four legs and isn't a table," Kelsey interjected cheerfully.

"But that doesn't mean she let him," Tim said.

"Yeah, that's true," I said.  "But, still.  I mean, you never know."

"Hey," Zach said suddenly, and the tone of his voice—all the normal jest and cheer gone—made us turn our heads.

It was Arie Chang.  You could tell pretty easily because she was naked, because of the bowed head, because of the long black hair in a curtain around her.  But the other thing that made people up and take notice...

"Dude," Zach said in wondering tones.  "Nobody's touching her."

The scars, I thought to myself.  Poor kid has more lines than a zipper.  Everyone's scared off.

The halls were pretty quiet now, everybody staring.  I wasn't sure what to do at all.  Zach, bless his heart (or maybe curse it), took matters into his own hands.  He waved them around and shouted, "Hey, Arie!  You need some fondling?  I gotcher fondling right here!"

His echo rebounded on itself.  The entire school stared at him.  Zach didn't even blink.  He's got balls, that one.  (Mostly because when he was in the womb, he worked on growing those and neglected his brains.)

Arie just gave him a look, with the rest of the school in silent, frozen motion around her.  Then she walked over.  And around her, the school came back to life.

"Hey, baby," Zach said, the sort of grin on his face that would make a father reach for his shotgun.  "What's cookin'?"

Kelsey was having none of it.  "What happened to your arms?"  Tim, for his part, just looked wide-eyed clueless, like someone had just taken something very important from him.

"I don't want to talk about it," Arie said stiffly.

Kelsey blinked, and I knew her mothering instinct was kicking in.  "What, is it something in your childhood, did your cat—"

"I don't want to talk about it," Arie said, in a tone of voice that brooked no argument; and thankfully, Kelsey shut up.  And Sajel leaned over and said, "I'll explain it to you later," which made Kelsey look a little more comfortable.

"Is nobody, like...  Touching you," Zach asked.

"No," Arie said.

"That kinda sucks," Zach said.

"I don't care," Arie said.

"See, if I were in The Program, I'd be all like, parading—" and he did this crazy thing where he looked like he was surfing, just sidling around grooving like nobody's business. "—and it'd be all like, Come on, ladies, and get the—"

"Well I'm glad I'm not you then!" Arie said loudly, and Sajel and Kelsey burst out laughing.  Zach, for his part, simply looked miffed, as if to say, Who wouldn't want to be me?  But that's Zach for you.

"You don't want to be touched?" I asked Arie.

"Do you," Arie retorted.

I shrugged.  Well, there was one girl I'd like to be touched by.  ...But she wasn't going to, whether I was naked or not.  And others were going to feel me up, that's just the way it goes.  Since I'd been roped into it.  By Ms. Chang over here.  And friggin Dr. Zelvetti.  I might as well take some pleasure in it, I guess, since nothing else is going to go right this week.  And to be fair, no small number of people had come along with 'reasonable requests' for me (more, in fact, than I had expected), so maybe some good might come out of this week.

But I didn't feel like explaining all of that, so I shrugged.

"I feel like I'm being used," Arie said.

"Well, hey," Zach injected, "if they wanna use me, I don't mind.  At least it's fun."

"And seeing as how I am not you..." Arie retorted.

Somebody spoke up behind me.  "Oh, Arie, are you in The Program this week?  Wow.  Who's your partner?"

There was a bit of a silence at that one.

"Me," I said, turning.  "I am."

Jane, who was standing behind me, just sort of stared at me and got really pale.  "You."

"Hi, yeah, good to see you too," I said.

"You're in The Program," Jane said in strangled tones.

"Why hello, Jane, how are you today, Very well, just fine, thank you for asking Brandon, you're such a nice boyfriend, always looking out for me," I said.  I know I shouldn't've been so sarcastic, but once I started it was really hard to stop.

"You're in The Program," Jane said, somewhere on the border of Heart-Attack Land.

I had no patience with her right then.  "Well, unless I'm about to get slapped with a detention for indecent exposure, yes, I am."

"You're in The Program," Jane said.

"Are we going to get past this sentence any time soon," I asked.

"You're not wearing any clothes!" Jane cried.

Sajel said to me, "Brandon, if you're dating her for her brains, I have to say, you made really bad choice."

Jane just stood there, looking shell-shocked.  She hunches over all the time so she has no shoulder definition, and she isn't a looker in any sense of the word.  Her face is one they used to call 'handsome,' of all things, and she doesn't take very good care of her hair, which is a deep, subtle bronze and otherwise might have been her best feature.  She simply isn't one for physical appearances.  But she's a good friend, and I like her.  Most of the time.

I said, dryly, "Yeah, but she's got the best grades in the school, so maybe some of it will rub off on me."

"I can't believe you're not wearing any clothes," Jane gaped.  "I can't believe you're..."  Her eyes trailed miserably down my body and then jerked away precipitously once they reached my crotch (something had stood up to say hello, if you get my drift) and she colored visibly.

"Oh, come on," Zach said, "it ain't like you've never seen it before."

Jane just blushed.  Actually, it is like she ain't never seen it before.  We don't tell Zach about our sex life for two reasons: One, it'll be all over the school within twenty-four hours; two, there isn't exactly anything to tell.  Jane is not what you'd call adventuresome.

"I don't get it," Sajel was saying.  She knew the truth about Jane and I, and I think she was working to change the topic.  "I've got the same grades as she does.  You don't date me."

"Oh, well," I said, temporizing.  "Who'd want a perfectly normal, boring girl when you could date Jane?"  And Sajel pouted playfully.

But of course, there's more to it than that.  It's...  I don't tell a lot of people.  Actually I don't tell anyone this.  Especially not Jane.  She'd probably be offended.  But the thing is...  Girls attract me when they're hiding something.  Girls who, you know, haven't quite got it together—they light up my radar like a Christmas tree.  I don't know why, exactly, but I know I like being the dependable one, the one who offers the shoulder to cry on.  Jane knows about those benefits; she's had my shoulder a number of times over the ten or so months we've been dating.  But I like that sense of being...  A guide, almost, a mentor.  Someone who's been there, done that, and can help you out.  I like being dependable.  I like being needed.

Sajel's not that kind of girl.  She has it together.  (Now.  There was some stuff in the past, but that's over now.)  Whereas Jane...  Well, she has the facade in place, like we all do.  You take a look at her and you can tell...  Nothing, actually.  She keeps to herself.  It's a defense mechanism, because in case you haven't noticed—if you can't see something, you assume nothing's wrong with it.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and we assume everything is unbroken.  Well, Jane is definitely not unbroken.  You just have to get past that wall of isolation she cultivates before you can see it.  Because she doesn't want anybody to see it.  Who does?  That's part of why people will eventually come to admire Arie—because she deliberately took that armor down.  Off.  Whatever.  But Jane's not like that.

It's a challenge to get inside that armor sometimes.  But hey—it must be protecting something pretty special, right?

At least, that's what I'd figured.  Now, after ten months, I was starting to rethink my assumptions.

"Jane," Kelsey said kindly.  "Maybe you had better close your mouth before you catch flies."

"Or before your boyfriend gets any ideas," Zach called.  That just made Jane blush harder, and her eyes dipped precipitously again, before jerking away (now I definitely had a hard-on).  Though her mouth snapped closed and she glared at Zach.

"Excuse me," she said, sounding angry.

"You're excused," Zach said glibly, and turned away.

"I would never—"

"Jane," I said.  "Shh.  It's okay.  It's Zach.  You know how he is."  She was going to say something about how she would never think of touching my cock.  Well, that's all right, dear.  No need to splash my your sexual hang-ups all over the school.  Though the fact that she had some idea of how my erect cock and her mouth could be combined, might be a good sign.  Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if she hadn't understood that particular option.

Kelsey saw.  She gave me a sympathetic look.  And so, of all people, did Arie.

"Why are you in the Program," Jane asked me.  "I thought you didn't sign up."

"Yeah," Sajel asked, "how'd that happen."

Anger boiled back in an acid wave.  I glared at Arie.  "Little Ms. Chang over there needs special help."

"What," Jane asked.  But Sajel got it.  She caught Jane's eye and gestured obliquely to her own wrist.  "What," Jane said again, and I realized she hadn't heard about Arie.  She wasn't just missing a piece of the puzzle, she was missing the puzzle.

I sighed.  God, would this day never end?  "Take a look at Arie's arms."

Jane did, stepping around me to get a look.  Her jaw dropped.  "Oh my God.  Arie, what—"

"Would you please stop asking me that!" Arie shouted.

"Well, I'm sorry, I just—" Jane said, starting to get offended.

"Leave me alone!" Arie yelled.

Oh, hells and devils.  "Jane."  She turned back to me.  "She got her scars for about the same reason I got mine, okay?  But nobody else in the school understands that, evidently, so..."  My anger bubbled back.  "They yanked me into it.  I have to be her partner for the week."  Virtually spitting the word.

"But..." said Jane.  "If you didn't sign up, and they can pull you into it just like that..."

"Wow, that's not good," Sajel said.  "They could throw just about anyone into it."

Jane paled a lot.  I rolled my eyes.  Jane and her body are not close friends.  She's very shy with it—she's pretty shy in general, actually—and if they threw her into The Program, she'd probably go insane.  And I say that in complete seriousness.  Really, she's shy about all bodies, which means that I'm not likely to get any sort of Rule Three action from the person I really want it from.  Jane.

It's not that Jane has no urges; it's that she keeps them on a really short leash.  They simply can't be allowed to see the light of day.  They have, occasionally, on dates we've been on; once or twice, she actually kissed me with some passion.  (Yes, that counts as 'urges' to Jane.)  And she came down on that hard, and she was near tears for the rest of the day.  Being around me with no clothes on, might have an effect on those urges.  And frankly I didn't want to see what would happen.  Maybe Jane would give up on the short leash and let something come out.

Yeah, I thought humorlessly.  And maybe angels will fly out of my ass.

So.  I'm the class freak and I'm stuck with the other class freak.  One of my two best friends is as apt to fondle me as he is to draw the pressure off, and my girlfriend is as likely to run away screaming as she is to help me out.  And it's not even lunch time yet.

You see what I mean about disasters piling on disasters?

M.3

Lunch itself was a whirlwind of activity.  The story of Arie's scars was getting around—but not as fast as the existence of Arie's scars, and we found ourselves plagued by a constant flood of people dropping in to ask where she had gotten them.  That's right, we; she roped me into having lunch with her.  Ostensibly, we were going to talk.  Realistically, almost nothing of the sort happened, because we were too busy fending off the curious, the well-wishers, the tourists, the vultures, all that lot.  I felt like we should just post a sign up.  You Must Be At Least 40' Tall To Ride This Attraction or whatever.  Yeah, like that'd solve anything.  People would come piling in anyway.

And, of course, there was attention on me too.  I was the school freak, wasn't I?  That bizarre kid who'd been late to school one day because he'd plagued himself with a bottle of Valium.  That kid nobody ever really spoke to, because he freaked people out.  Yeah, I'd heard that whispered in corners where no one thought I could hear.  I freaked people out, I was too quiet, I didn't talk enough, they didn't like the way I looked at people...  Christ, they'd be coming with Bibles and holy water next and claiming I'd need an exorcism, that I was giving them the Evil Eye or something and screwing up their crops.  Because, God only knows that's why I tried to kill myself.  So that I could blight my neighbors' backyard.  Riiiiight.  Fuckers.

This, I thought to myself, is why I didn't want to be attached to Arie Chang for my week of The Program.  This is why I didn't want to be in The Program at all.  This is why, at one point, I didn't want to be alive at all.  Because people see me as a museum attraction.  Or maybe someone from the sideshow.  Bearded Lady on your right, the Crocodile Man on your left, and then over here we got Arie Chang, who's got all sorts of scars on her arms, and next to her is standing Brandon Chambers—oh yeah, hasn't he got scars too, didn't he try to kill himself two years back?  Poke and prod him all you like, ladies and gentlemen, that's what he's here for.  Christ.  Someone get me out of here.

We'd just come out of Psychology class, it's one of my electives—and one of Arie's too.  I knew it was going to be a mess when we walked in, and I was right.  Dr. Schlemmer had, of course, used Arie and myself as crude demonstrations of the human sexual response.  He'd obviously put some thought into it too; he demonstrated a variety of different ways to provoke sexual arousal.  I knew we were in for it when one of his PowerPoint slides, instead of the traditional bullet-point notes list, displayed a pretty raunchy hardcore photo.  Dr. Schlemmer just kept talking as if nothing was wrong.  After lecturing on about something for three minutes (I hope it wasn't important, because I doubt anyone was listening) he asked Arie and I to come up to the front of the room, in what would become a pretty standard pattern, to see if we had gotten aroused.  With me, it was pretty obvious; Arie, however, needed some further investigation.  The simplest way to find out, of course, was to run a finger across her slit and see how moist it was, and guess who he picked to do that?

There were other traps as well.  He produced a vial of semen and let the smell waft around the room.  (I do not want to know where he got it.)  He maneuvered himself into position to manage to run his hand lovingly down my thigh.  And, at the end of the class, after I had done several "wet checks" on Arie, he asked me to smell my hand for about thirty seconds.  Of course, after that he didn't have to ask whether I was turned-on; everyone had seen it happen.  Thankfully, the bell rang before he could ask me to taste it.

So here we were at lunch, feeling somewhat violated, and trying to hold a conversation despite the constant barrage of kids dropping by to see Arie's scars (and occasionally mine).  Most of them moved on, but a few lingered to talk some more.  I wasn't sure I liked that; someone would, inevitably, ask about how I'd gotten my scars, and I didn't want to think about that.

"So," Arie said to me in one of the few quiet moments, "what about you?  How'd you get your reputation?"

Speak of the devil.  Speak of the fucking devil.  I'd be screwed if someone tried to invoke Rule Three on me—though it's questionable whether startling personal revelations fall under its umbrella.  What's Rule Three?  Well, "reasonable request."  The pamphlet says, specifically: Participants must comply with Reasonable Requests.  Participants are to consider themselves on display for any student who expresses a desire to examine the nude form, and cooperate in that examination, providing only that it does not interfere with etc etc etc.  Basically, it means, if someone comes up to me and says (preferably in an English accent), "Hello old chap, might I be allowed to perform a methodical and scientific inspection on your weewee," I have to let them.  Thankfully, my life story does not fall under the category of 'desire to examine the nude form.'  Unless someone decides to ask me about the scars on my...  Which Arie had just...  Oh, shitfuck.

"Look, I don't really want to talk about it right now," I said, and some of my anger must've worked into my voice, because she said, "Oh," and sort of didn't say anything again.  There wasn't even the benefit of the local crowd of gawkers anymore; the sideshow was over, and they'd gone back to their fun or their friends or whatever.  All that was left was these two girls, who were lurking with an intensity that made me nervous—remember what I was saying about crucifixes and so on?

So Arie didn't even have anyone else to look at, just her lunch, and that made me feel a little bad.  "Look, if you really wanna know, ask some of them," gesturing to the two girls.  "They could probably tell."

"No, we couldn't," one of them said.  She had bleached hair (her roots, dark brown, were growing out) and a silvery, kind of unctuous voice.  "We haven't heard anything, and we certainly didn't see it coming.  One day you were fine, and the next you were in the hospital."

That was complete bullshit.  Did they really know so little as that?  Surely someone knew.  It was a fact of life for me, and now it seemed to be a fact of life for everybody, since I was in the fucking Program now.  Good job, assholes, coming to class without doing your homework.  Surely somebody understood the story.  Surely I had told someone—Who had I told, anyway?—surely I had told...

Anger ebbed out, sapped by startled understanding.  I had told Sajel.  Once.  Not to Zach, certainly not to Kelsey or Tim...  And Sajel wasn't here.  Even that had been iffy, because sometimes Sajel's so sarcastic, it's hard to pin her down on a serious subject.  When you speak of these things, you don't want people to make light of it.  Had I really spoken so seldom of my past?

"We didn't understand it," the girl continued.  "I didn't understand it.  I thought you were normal.  A little weird, maybe, but...  Normal."

"You have to tell," someone else said.  It was a girl with a pale clear face and blonde hair and, of all things, dark eyes.  I think she'd come with us from Psychology.  "We can't.  You have to tell."

My first reaction was to say, Thank God no one invoked Rule Three.  My second was to say, No, I had better keep this a secret.  Shit's gonna hit the fan.  If I tell, it'll cause...  Well, I'm not entirely sure how it's gonna happen, but it will cause disaster to rain down on me.  This entire delicate life I've built for myself—my friends, my girlfriend, my grades, even the somehow compromise I'd made about being naked on a cold metal chair in a cold plastic cafeteria—would collapse with the fanfare of a house of cards.  A pfoof maybe, or a kerfuffle; quite a drastic fanfare for a man's life disintegrating.  Such adulation, such dignity.  This is the way the world ends, as dear old T. S. Eliot put it.  Not with a bang, but a whimper.  And all because I couldn't keep my big mouth shut.

But I caught myself on that reaction.  And I was glad I did.  It's extremely negative thinking, if you look at it: If I tell my story, the universe will implode?  What sort of bullshit is that?  For one, the four people asking have all chosen, voluntarily, to eat lunch with me—and even more so, with Arie, who is definitely up there on the Freak-Show scale.  My tale would be grisly and depressing, but they were probably its equals; if they could stomach Arie—and me—both of us, together!—I could probably scare them no less.  For two, they're asking.  They want to know.  If they aren't prepared for a grisly, depressing tale, that's their problem, not mine.

For three: That sort of negative thinking is part of what put me in the Hole.  I'm out of the Hole now (thank God) and free of it, but I'd rather put as much distance between me and it as possible.  If the impulse to clam shut was a step towards the Hole, then its telling would be a step away.  And, really, what better reason could I have to tell my story?

It doused the last of my anger.  Which was good, because I'd been on a slow boil all day.  And it set a lot of other things in motion too, though I wouldn't learn about them until later.  The point was, I'd gotten some perspective.  No, Brandon.  You're here.  And there's no point in being angry about that.

I took a deep breath and began.

"I haven't seen my parents in three months.  The last time was July.  And that was only because they probably got banned from the office on Independence Day."

"Why don't you see them," Arie asked.

"I don't want to," I said.  "And they don't want to see me either.  I stay in my little bit of the house, they stay in theirs.  Most of the time they're at work anyway."

"What do they do," the dark-eyed girl asked.

"They're both in politics.  Spend most of their time at the capitol, when they're not traveling around to their constituencies—which aren't local, I might ad.  Plus, my dad's in real estate, always looking for new plots of land.  And they'd rather be doing that than raising an incontent sixteen-year-old, I can tell you that."

"So, you don't see them," the dark-eyed girl said.

"No.  They're not a lot of fun.  For my birthdays I get, like, educational software or a thesaurus or something.  They want me to, you know, make something of myself or some shit like that.  And they figure sixteen is already a slow start.

"They've been on business trips continually ever since I was ten and able to look after myself.  We have this huge house, it's got like fourteen billion rooms and we waste so much money keeping it warm in the winter, and out of those rooms I use three.  The rest of the house is always just...  Dark, and silent.  I cook, I clean, I take out the trash, I get groceries, stuff like that.  I've been doing it for a while.  The gardens, most of the harder housekeeping, we have hired hands to do that.  And my parents would come home and maybe have a present for me, which was kind of cool, but more likely they didn't, and they'd complain about how I cooked dinner, and the next day they'd be off again."

I sighed.  Anger was gone now, replaced by a deep, abiding sadness.  "It didn't use to be like that.  I don't really know what changed.  Until I was ten...  Well, we were a happy family.  At least I think we were.  I don't have any siblings, so I guess I was spoiled a little, but they kept me on a stern leash all the same.  And...  They were home.  Mom cooked, and Dad mowed the lawn on the weekends—we didn't have the huge house we have now—and we'd go out to see the movies or..."  I sighed.  "It was pretty normal, I guess.

"But then I turned ten, and everything changed.  I guess they hit the big-time, politics-wise.  We moved into where we live now," that sepulchral crypt of a monstrosity of a house, "and...  And then there was this three-week period where Mom taught me to do everything.  Cook, wash, clean house, run the sprinkler system and the air conditioning.  Because then she was off to that madcap hub of chaos we call Washington DC.  And then they were gone.  And when they came back, it was only to complain."

"My parents are like that," Arie said.  "Except that they don't go anywhere."  She sighed.  "I wish they'd be more like yours."

I gave her a look and continued on.  "They asked a friend of the family to look after me, too, which they did, sort of grudgingly.  It wasn't a lot of fun.  Mr. Krenshaw would come over every now and then and just make sure things were going okay and I hadn't burned the house down or anything.  I was friends with his son, Rob, but I don't think Mr. or Mrs. Krenshaw ever quite liked me.

"I thought it was kind of cool, personally.  Being left in charge of the whole house all by myself.  You know how eleven-year-olds are.  And gradually I forgot how things used to be with my parents.  They stopped being...  Parents, they started just being these random visitors who would wander through every now and then.  But I learned to live with it.  At least, until I remembered.

"Once, I was over at Rob's house and we were biking around the neighborhood with his little brother Timmy.  And Timmy got into a spill—the kid was like ten at the time—scraped his knee, bruised his arm, stuff like that.  And I raced back to tell Mr. and Mrs. Krenshaw while Rob stayed with him, and they came out and brought him back to the house and got him patched up.

"They gave me these looks, like, This is all your fault.  That didn't bug me so much, I knew they didn't like me.  But I saw how they treated Timmy—they picked him up and got his bike together, and Mrs. Krenshaw was kissing him on the forehead every three seconds and going, you know, My baby, my baby, I'm so glad you're safe, and Rob hovering around looking anxious and not being sure how to help out.

"And it struck me that, if I were to crash my bike, no one would come out to help me.  And suddenly I remembered a time when the reverse would've been true.  And I realized just how alone I really felt."

No one said anything.

"I did.  Crash my bike.  That evening, going home from their house to mine.  I got a scrape on the elbow for my trouble—I still have the scar—and a confirmation that I really shouldn't have looked for.

"Over the next three weeks, things just went from bad to worse.  I started school in a new place I'd never been to before—my parents, between running in and out the door, had pulled some strings to get me into Mount Hill, even though we don't live in this district; supposedly there's better faculty here or whatever—and I was a freshman, and the teasing was going like it always was.  That's been another constant in my life.  No parents, empty house, people picking on me.  Except that it was stronger than normal, since I was a new freshman and I didn't have any friends.  But even if that hadn't been true, it would've happened."

And that was all I was gonna say about that.  I know why they pick on me—because I was easy to pick on.  I made a big fat target for the bullies; and bullies may be stupid, but their radar is always sharp.  They came, they saw, they conquered.  So yes, it was my fault I got picked on—not because I was somehow responsible for the bullies, but because I did nothing to narrow my profile, did nothing to camouflage myself.  As far as I'm concerned, shit will always hit the fan.  Period.  There's no way to stop it.  So my job is to have as few fan-blades out as possible.  As soon as I figured this out—or rather, once my therapist pointed it out to me—I started doing my best to cut down on my visibility, and it's mostly worked.  Not that going naked in school helps cut down on visibility, but I'm used to it now.  The teasing, not the nakedness.  "Heh, wow, Chambers," all snide, in the nasal tones of the comedy-skit nerd, "if that package was any smaller, it wouldn't need postage stamps."  I can shrug that off.  (There's only one person whose approval of my package I actually want.  Too bad she won't give it.)

I don't hold with blame, though.  People are people.  People will be what they are.  Bullies will be bullies, and Brandon Chambers will be stupid.  It's the bullies's job to get their shit together and stop taking their issues out on hapless kids.  And, since that's about as likely as Jane stamping my package, it's Brandon Chambers's job to take the fuckin bullseye off his back.  It's just that.  I don't hold with blame, but I do hold with responsibility.

"So," I said.  "There I was, no friends, no family, no guidance, getting picked on...  I couldn't even go back to Rob's house, because I'd remember what I'd seen, what I didn't have.  Life...  Sucked.  That's all there was to it.  So I found a bottle of my parents's Valiums, and an X-Acto knife, and...  You know the rest."

"You wanted a way out," the dark-eyed girl said, in a distant tone of voice, and I knew that she, at least, had understood my story.

"That may not be true," Arie said.  She drew all eyes with that statement, and when she saw us looking, she looked down and kicked her legs like a fitful girl.  "According to a lot of psychologists, suicide attempts aren't really suicide attempts.  They're cries for help."

I thought about that.

"I mean...  Look at what you did.  Look at how you did it.  You didn't jump in front of a truck, you didn't jump off a bridge.  You did it in a way that people would find you and maybe rescue you.  You wanted...  Attention."

"You make him sound like a whiny child," the dark-eyed girl said.

Arie paled and looked away.

"But..." said the other one—I think I recognized her from my English class.  "That'd still be a way out, wouldn't it?  Maybe he didn't, you know, get out the way he wanted to, but...  People noticed, didn't they?  You got...  Well, I don't know what they do to kids who are m—  Who are like you, but they're doing it to you, right?"

I gave her a cynical grin.  " 'Who are messed up,' you meant to say.  'Doing what they do to kids like—'  Thanks."

Her eyes widened.  "I'm sorry—  I didn't mean it like—"

"It's fine," I said, letting a real smile come.  "I was messed up.  That's the truth.  And...  Well, I don't know what I was thinking.  But Arie's theory...  Well, she's right.  Whatever I was thinking or planning, it got me attention.  It made people sit up and take notice and say, you know, 'Holy shit—  Brandon's fucked up!'  And do something about it."

"Therapy," Arie said.

"Yeah, and they recommended meds too, but I didn't want 'em."

"And so now you're...  Better?" the dark-eyed girl asked.

I thought about that for a minute.  "Better...  I don't know.  Sometimes I feel all that old pessimism coming in, or it's hard to get out of bed in the mornings.  Sometimes I feel normal and happy and all that.  I'm still in therapy—my parents basically don't question my expenses anymore, and he's fun to talk to.  Sometimes it's hard to find someone who'll just listen.  And...  More and more, we just chat.  Nothing really weighty comes up.  And I like that.  I could probably stop going, except that I don't know anyone else who listens that well.

"But...  I always feel that I could fall back into it.  The Hole.  If I'm not careful...  I know I'm out of it now, and O Holy God do I wanna stay out of it.  I just...  Have to be careful."

Heads nodded around me.  I guess they understood.

And I was glad, then, that I'd gone and told them.  Because I realized that, somewhere along the line, they had stopped being strangers to me.  They had become my friends.

"Arie..." said the dark-eyed girl.  "You said that...  Suicide attempts sometimes are...  Cries for help."

Arie nodded.

"Is that what...  You do," she asked, gesturing at Arie's arms.

Arie's eyes moved slowly to her own arms, and then back up again.

"Because, you know, that means you're really brave," the girl said.  "Not to make you look bad, Brandon, but...  I think I like Arie's way better.  She's standing up and saying, 'Okay, you, look at me.  I have problems.'  She isn't...  You know, hiding behind anything."

Arie blushed bright red.

But then the bell rang, and there was no more time to talk.

M.4

As Arie and I and the dark-eyed girl walked away from the cafeteria, it suddenly struck me that, for the most part, I hadn't noticed all day that I was naked.  I hadn't asked for relief, I'd barely had a hard-on.  Considering the circumstances, that was probably okay.  Arie and her stories—me and my stories—were hardly conducive to things getting hot and bothered.  Basically the only time I'd gotten an erection all day was during break, when Jane was near.  (I wonder why Zach hadn't teased me about it.)  And I'm okay with people looking at me funny; I just shrug it off.  So, basically, The Program hadn't given me any trouble all day.

Then I realized what I'd been thinking and said, "Oh crap."

The dark-eyed girl looked at me (she's in my next class too, as I recall).  "Something wrong?"

"I think I just jinxed myself," I said.

And I was absolutely right, because in my next class (pre-calc) was Ruby Berringer.  The back of whose head have been staring at in starstruck wonder for a long, long time.

She's one of the most attractive girls in school.  She has a cheerful round face and lively blue eyes and very nice bosoms and hips; she also has, shall we say, some meat on her bones, and it stands out because she's quite short; but it works to her advantage.  When other girls are spiteful and jealous, they call her fat, but no one really believes them, not even the girl herself, because (1) Ruby's not, and (2) it gives her the tits and ass and figure those girls are jealous of.  She draws eyes wherever she goes.  She's certainly drawn mine.  And the fact that I suspect armor—suspect that, like Jane, she's hiding a realer face under that starshine smile—doesn't hurt either.

Of course, there's some nasty stuff that goes around about her at school too—rumors, whispers, talk of crazy things she's done.  The fact that everyone says it, consistently—and that she hasn't ever denied it—worries me, but some of this stuff is just so...  Wild.  It's like, you couldn't really believe that someone would do that.

And my desk was in the back of the classroom, near the door, and she was almost certain to stop to say hello once she noticed that I had no—

"Well, hello, Brandon," came the singsong voice behind me.  I felt hands on my shoulders, curly female hair brushing my temple, a chin on one of those hands.  "Oh!  Well, you're missing pockets, so I can't ask if you're happy to see me."

Down, boy, down.  Forget about it.  Forget it.  She's the prettiest girl in school.  She wouldn't be talking to you if you weren't in this colossal state of insanity known as Hi, I have no clothes.  No chance.  No chance.  Forget it.  So down with you now, don't stand to attention, don't tempt fate, don't make—  Goddammit, he's not listening to a word I'm saying.  He never does.  Treacherous organ!

"Oooh," Ruby said.  "He is happy to see me."  And now, of course, the entire class (those who were here already) was turned in their seats, watching us—watching me, sitting there looking rather uncomfortable and hot under the (proverbial) collar; watching Ruby bent over, one of her breasts pressing against my back, watching as one of her hands left my shoulder and ran over my chest.  "You know, Brandon, you're actually not bad with no clothes on."

I found my voice.  "Hi, Ruby, nice to see you too."  I felt extraordinarily conscious of myself, of my position in the classroom, of walls around me, of desks around me, of students around me.  I felt extraordinarily...  Exposed.  My eyes twitched around the classroom (deer in headlights, anyone?), and I noticed that the dark-eyed girl was among the audience.  That made me blush.

"So, how has your first day of The Program been so far?" Ruby asked.  "Hopefully not too...  Exposed?"

"Well," I said, trying to keep my composure (her hand was doing things to my chest I hadn't believed possible).  "When you've been on display for the last two years of your life, not having clothes on isn't such a big deal."

"Yes, but...  Certain signals are...  Easier to read, aren't they?" she asked.  As she did, her hand slipped below my desk.

I won't explain to you what happen next.  You probably already know.  I'll just tell you  what Mr. Bhajra, the teacher, and the dark-eyed girl and the other people saw: Ruby, slumped over me, smiling, her hand trailing down my body and then disappearing below the level of my desk, where no one could see it anymore; and then me, my eyes shooting open, and me suddenly sitting bolt-upright in my chair, Ruby's head riding my shoulder like a boat cresting a wave.

"Such as...  When a boy's particularly happy to see someone," Ruby said, her voice a warm breath in my ear—in everyone's ears.  "Wouldn't you say?"

"Well," I said, trying not to squeak.  (Goddamn nearly made me a soprano!)  "They're always a little more apparent when a friend lends a helping hand, you understand."

The class tittered and I groaned inwardly.  It had been meant as a scathing rebuttal, but because all the force in my voice had gone south to join the burgeoning congestion there, it sounded more like a come-on.

"I suppose so," Ruby said, sounding unconcerned.  "Would you...  Like a helping hand, Brandon?"

Surprisingly, Mr. Bhajra took that moment to show mercy.  "Ms. Berringer, the class is about to start.  If you'd take your seat, please..."

Ruby sauntered off, and I concentrated on getting some mastery over my glands.  Pre-calc is tricky enough as it is, I couldn't afford a hard-on screwing me up further.  (This I have from personal experience, from staring at Ruby Berringer for the less-than-a-month school had been in session.)  Ruby, I noticed with some surprise, was sitting next to the dark-eyed girl.  The two leaned their heads in close and giggled.  Friends, I suppose.

Mr. Bhajra was still calling the roll; he didn't have everyone's names down.  There I was, "Chambers, Brandon;" "Berringer, Ruby" had passed already.  The dark-eyed girl answered to "Levine, Meredith."

I took a closer look at her as Mr. Bhajra scrolled down the list.  I already knew she was fairly tall—a damn sight taller than Ruby, to be sure—and she had that strange but arresting combination of dark eyes and blonde hair, which at current was twined into two braids laid down the side of her head.  Her skin was pale and clear.  (Did she have freckles?)  Because she was sitting some ten feet upwind of me, I couldn't see her face, but I remembered it from lunchtime—round, with wide cheekbones and a chin so tall it made a dimple with her lower lip.  She was...  Cute wasn't the word, unless you applied it the same way you did to little kids.  And there was an element of the young to her, of the childish, to the shape of her face, to her slim frame and the innocence of her eyes.  I liked her.

And there she was, sitting next to that most remote of angels, Ruby Berringer.  Good job, Brandon, two girls out of reach.

"Mr. Chambers," Mr. Bhajra said after he'd discarded his clipboard.  "I understand I'm supposed to offer you an opportunity for relief at the beginning of the class."

I blinked at him.  So much for showing mercy.

"Would you like this opportunity, or shall we get started," said Mr. Bhajra.

What happened next was an extreme surprise (to me, at least; 'Levine, Meredith' might have seen it coming from a mile away).  Ruby raised her hand, turned towards me and said, "Ooh, pick me!"

"I see you have one volunteer at least," Mr. Bhajra said, smiling at me.  "It's your week in The Program, Mr. Chambers.  Might as well take advantage of it."

He had a point.  I needed to take care of my hard-on, there was no question about that.  I'd go up there, Ruby would go up and do her thing...  In front of the entire classroom...  Oh, my God, what if I, you know, was so embarrassed that I couldn't, you know, stand to attention?  That would be the—

Well, then, the rational part of me said, you won't have your hard-on anymore.  Problem solved.

...Oh yeah.

I felt that part of my mind give me a little push on the shoulder.  Go up there and get hand-jobbed.

I stood up.  Ruby, the only person who'd volunteered, joined me at the front of the class.

Again, I won't bother with the details.  It was like masturbating, but...  Not.  There's a big difference between your hand and everyone else's hand; your body just knows, and I'll tell you one thing else—your fuse shortens when it's someone else lighting the match.  It didn't take long for Ruby to need the box of tissues Mr. Bhajra handed her.

Meredith Levine watched from the front row with unreadable eyes.

But Ruby didn't use the tissues.  Instead, she cupped her hand around the head of my cock like a bowl and collected what came out.  And then, while I braced my unsteady knees and held myself up by the little metal shelf on the bottom of the whiteboard, she inspected my output like a farmer at his produce.  "Hmm," she said, "good volume, nice temperature..."  She rolled it around on her palm (or tried to), and said, "I like the viscosity.  But not a lot of it.  Very disappointing, Brandon."  There was laughter.  I felt like a science experiment.  Or, more accurately, at least a science experiment being run by a freak show.  Here we go again, Brandon Chambers, here to be poked and prodded!

"You know," Ruby said thoughtfully, "I was really hoping for a bit longer duration, but I guess when you've never had much experience, it's..."  More laughter.

Then, of all things, she dipped her finger in my spunk and tasted it!

"Mmmm," she said, clearly displeased.  "Okay, Brandon, what have you been eating recently?"

ha ha ha ha ha.  oh my god did she really say that?  hee hee.  ha ha ha.

"I don't know," I said, tottering away on trembling legs, "but I hope it's not whatever you eat, that turns you into a first-class bitch!"

Laughter died with the echo of my words.

"Mr. Chambers," Mr. Bhajra said sharply, but he let me return to my seat in peace.  Ruby, for her part, wiped her hand disdainfully on her pants, and then sat down.  A second later she and Meredith Levine were in silent discussion again.

My God.  Talk about blowing your preconceptions out of the water.  I think I know now what that realer face Ruby Berringer is hiding is all about.

And that was that for blowjob adventures—at least, for the rest of the school day.  I wasn't complaining.  If Ruby was going to set the standard, the next person to offer might yank something off.  Mr. Bhajra came to the front of the class and started the day's lectures, and I subsided with my slack penis and anger in my heart.  Bitch.  Stupid bitch.  Bloody, stupid...

All through last-period Chemistry (with Tim on one side and Arie somewhere else in the room) I stewed over the situation.  I was really pissed off.  I guessed I'd gotten what I deserved in terms of Ruby Berringer, or at least what I asked for.  What I was really pissed about was 'Levine, Meredith.'  I couldn't believe that of her.  I couldn't believe that she could be so cruel.  I couldn't believe that...

Riiight.  'Levine, Meredith.'  Who had sat there and done nothing, said nothing, maybe not even thought it was funny, maybe hadn't agreed with Ruby Berringer at all.  Who just happened to be sitting next to her.  Yeah.  What a bitch.  Absolutely malicious.

The teacher was talking about molarity, whatever that was.  Wasn't he the villain of the Sherlock Holmes books?  I wasn't listening.  The problem was...  The problem was 'Levine, Meredith.'  The problem was that, maybe, there might have been a friendship there.  Someone who stops to listen to your horror story...  Well, I mean, there are much more fragile foundations for a friendship.  The problem was that, now, after Ruby "Hah You Suck" Berringer, I wasn't sure I could trust her.  Who was she, anyway?

Chemistry is my last period, but after school, there's another thing I do.  And I know you're going to laugh at me, so fuck off—I'm proud of this.  Mount Hill has a very strong music program, including one of the best choirs within fifty miles.  Which includes, way over in stage right in the bass section behind the altos, me.

Zach Crane, when he first found out two years ago, couldn't get over it.  "You're in the choir?  You sing in a choir?"

"I like singing."

"So join a band or something," Zach had said.

"I like singing," I'd said again.  And Zach had given me this confused look, so I explained.  "I like singing.  Not this ridiculous wailing shouting shit that comes out of the radio.  Actual music.  Chords.  Complex harmonies.  You know what a harmony is, right?  It's when two voices—"

Zach, who has yet to manage Mary Had A Little Lamb on any instrument, said, "Yeah, yeah, I get it, shut up."  And that had been the end of that.

And it's the truth of it too.  Interesting chords—you don't hear those often on the radio.  Just major chords, C-F-G-C....  Booooring.  D-flat add9, now that's a cool chord.  You know how, like, at Disneyland on the Star Tours ride, there's that little chime that prefixes every radio announcement?  It's like, what, Do-Re-Mi-So.  Find a piano, hit all four of those together: that's an add9.  You just don't hear that on the radio.  (Except at Star Tours.)  And what a waste, what a god damned waste.

I know there's that whole, you know, sacred strait-laced choirboy image going, and honestly, I like that.  It makes people think.  You've got me, you've got my image, you've got the slashes on my wrist, the way I seem to turn people off just by breathing...  They figure, you know, God, what a freak.  He must be screwed up, there must be no redeeming features about him or anything like that.  Then they find out that I'm in the choir, which causes a double-take.  Most people figure I'm just faking through it—you know, hiding my iniquity or whatever—but at least it's one thing positive in my favor.  It makes a few people think.  And maybe it'll make them be a little nicer to me.  Or at least leave me alone.

And people leave me alone there.  That's just that.  I have some respect there, because I can read music, I get the notes right...  I lead, because if other people are screwing up and I can help them, there's no reason not to.  And so I'm respected, at least.  And people are a little more forgiving there, more friendly.  They're used to me.  They don't give me as many weird looks.  They accept me.  And it's good to be that.  It's good to be part of something larger than yourself.  It's good to be welcome.

Among other things, Mr. Gunderson is teaching us Stravinsky's Ave Maria (so many seventh chords!) and we started with that.  We're also working this gorgeous piece, Sicut Cervus, by some dead guy named Giovanni Palestrina.  That one was a little harder.  Talking to occasional friends online, I've discovered that Mr. Gunderson pushes us pretty hard.  Most choir leaders will generally sit down at the piano and plink out everyone's part, one at a time.  That's time-consuming.  The Stravinsky is two minutes long, with four parts (soprano, alto, tenor, bass); if Mr. Gunderson has to play each part twice—once as an introduction, again to make sure everyone has it—that takes sixteen minutes.  Then we have to sing it again maybe two times to make sure everything's in place.  Total, twenty or maybe twenty-two minutes.  For a two-minute song.  That's a little long, you know?  So Mr. Gunderson doesn't do that.

But that means that all we underskilled, feeble high schoolers have to sight-read through the entire piece, maybe getting things wrong, maybe getting it right.  Come concert time we might not even know how the piece is supposed to sound like; we're just making noise and hoping it all fits together.  It'd be like if four people had to build four parts of a house without being able to talk to each other—here, you do this wall and that part of the roof, I'll take care of the bathroom and the (etc)—and then get it all to fit together perfectly.  Not gonna happen!

But still he makes us sight-read through it, and let me tell you—after my first year in choir (last year), I was much better musician than I was when I started.

The Palestrina in itself wasn't very hard; it's pretty easy to learn, and it sounds glorious if you know how to sing.  I had other problems.  Other things were hard.

Namely, Little Brandon.

Like I said, jinxed.

I talked to Arie and Sajel about this later (yes, girls!  What, you think I'm gonna ask Zach?) and we figured out that, much to my surprise, I'd been really tense through most of the day.  Arie asked why I hadn't noticed.  I had no idea.  Much later I realized that, most of the time, I'm just constantly tense—being wary, watching out for assholes or dick-rippers like Ruby Berringer.  My radar is constantly working overtime, keeping tabs on potential threats.  I'm always tense.  A little bit of extra nervousness, caused by a minor impediment such as nakedness, was easy to deal with; I didn't even notice it.

But once I got into choir, everything changed.  Because I feel like I can relax there.  I feel like I can let my proverbial hair down.  There was a protective layer of twenty people between me and Ruby Berringer's maybe-bitch cohort, diagonally across from me in the soprano section; plus there are a number of pretty girls to look at—including a certain 'Levine, Meredith.'  And once everything was down to normal and my shoulders weren't in constant knots...

Derek Strong, the tenor who sits next to me, leaned over and said, "Hmm.  I've heard of foot fetishes, but never choral-music fetishes."

"It's not that."

His eyebrows bobbed, and he turned to me slowly: "Uhm.  Brandon, is there something you need to tell me about yourself?"

I rolled my eyes theatrically and let my shoulders slump.  "No, it's not that either."  It's funny—Zach would've gotten my back up with something like that.  But because Derek was a fellow chorister—because Derek was safe—I could take it gracefully, even joke back a little.  "I'm, I'm sorry, Derek, you, you know I love you, but just not in...  That way."

"Chyeah.  That's what they all say, but they come around eventually," Derek said, grinning, and we got back to our singing.  But that didn't mean I could stop fidgeting.  It's weird having a hard-on with a binder full of music in your lap.  (It would've been much easier if we'd stood up to sing, as we sometimes do—you sound a lot better standing up anyway, posture and all that—but Mr. Gunderson, maybe trying to take pity on me, kept us seated the entire time.  Well, thanks, coach, but wrong direction.)  And, even worse, it wasn't going away either.  That one puzzled me for a long time.  I eventually pinned it down to the fact that I was crammed in right behind the alto section (butts and boobies and flowery fragrances and fronds of long, shining hair) and practically knee-to-knee with Derek Strong on one side and Bobby Finch on the other.  Go fig.  We get tons of funding to the music program but they still cram the choir like sardines into this closet of a room.

The fact was: I needed relief.  But by now we were already half an hour into the two-hour practice session, deep into the intricacies of Palestrina.  Mr. Gunderson wouldn't appreciate me disrupting class.  Plus there was that whole five-minute rule thing; either you call for relief at the beginning of class, or you don't get it.  I hadn't called; I hadn't think I'd need it.  Mr. Gunderson hadn't even asked, because you'd only needed a glance to see I was flaccid.  And now I wasn't, and I needed relief, and I was stuck.

By just throwing myself into the music and ignoring my nether regions as best I could, I managed to make it through to the one-hour mark, when Mr. Gunderson let us out for a stretch break.  I went out into the lobby of the building and hunched over, trying to get my dick to shut up.  Maybe I should just slip into the bathroom and deal with myself.  God forbid there be some sort of Program rule against—

"Hi," someone said to me.

"Hi, 'Levine, Meredith,'" I said, not really thinking.

"What?" she said.

"Sorry.  Never mind."

I don't now how she got those dark eyes, but against her pale colorings, it was like permanent eyeshadow.  They looked large and wide against her face.  I liked that.  I liked the rounded curves of her cheek, the seriousness of her eyes.  Yes, those were freckles—sparse and few and impossibly adorable.  She dressed simply, in subdued greyscale, in a sparse coat that emphasized her slim frame.  She had small breasts, clearly nothing that would win awards but nothing wrong with them.  I thought she looked like an angel.

Does the angel have claws?

"You seem...  Uncomfortable," Meredith said.  Then, coming in line with me so that she could see into the shadows under my chest: "Oh."

"Yeah," I said darkly, "bad choice, didn't ask for relief, whoops!"

She looked at me for a moment while I looked somewhere else.  She was probably chewing the inside of her cheek—she does that when she's thinking.  But I didn't see it.  All I heard, after a moment of silence, was, "You know..."  And then there was movement, and I turned my head back to find her going to her knees in front of me, reaching between my legs.  "I could probably—"

I was grabbing her elbow, slamming my legs closed, sitting bolt upright, my eyes shouting fire.  "No.  That's okay."

Meredith rocked back on her heels, her eyes wide.  Her arm fell nerveless from my grip.

I stood.  Like I'm going to let Ruby Berringer's cohort anywhere near me.  "That's.  Quite alright."

'Levine, Meredith' scuttled back to the choir room with unfocused eyes.

Claws: Check.

As for me, I eventually did go into the bathroom and take care of my business.  Urinals are actually pretty useful for this sort of thing.  Aside from the pee smell.  As I stroked, I thought about Meredith, about the air of innocence around her and the venomous company she kept, about her pale, beautiful face and how light her body would be in my arms, and I cursed and banged my fist against the partition as I came.

An hour later, I was dressed and out at the parking lot, going home.  Going back to my empty house, which was no one's home.  I've been in people's rooms before, working on group projects maybe or (on rare occasions) being invited over for fun.  Kids my age hang stuff on their walls.  They have things on their dressers, on their shelves.  Books and CDs and little knickknacks and things from their girlfriend or boyfriend and little reminders of the special times.  They live in their rooms.  They have homes.

Our walls are bare.  There's nothing in our house to talk about who lives there.  China cabinets, sure, and huge fancy paintings, even some freestanding statues.  Closets hung with a multitude of monotone clothes.  Alabaster walls and marble floors, echoing dimly my footsteps as I cross.  My shadow stretched long before me when I look out into empty, unlit rooms.  A thousand rooms, arching vaulting ceilings, skylights, terraces and verandas, pools and fountains and jacuzzis, an acre of landscaping and pristine lawns.  It's all very perfect and pristine and palatial, like a museum, untouched and perfectly kept.

I go into someone's house and sit down on a couch worn and sagging from overuse, on carpet splotched by years of spills and stains, coffee and grape juice; I look into rooms cluttered and messy and a little too full, beds rumpled and unmade, last night's pajamas strewn carelessly on the floor with the cat curled up in them.  And I think, THIS is a home.  Someone lives here.  Someone has made this their sanctuary, their place of rest and residence, the heart of their locality.  This is real.  This is family.  This is home.

So maybe my house is my home after all.  Because, just like my life, it's empty.  I could leave at any time, and no one would know I'd been there.

Sometimes the Hole is close to you.  Some times like now.

I drove away as the early October afternoon sank towards the dusk.