T.1

If you really stop to feel it...  Being naked is actually a really fun experience.  The way the fashion industry is now, you sometimes forget that you can go around without clothes on (and what girl isn't aware of that stuff?), and until you take 'em off, you never realize how...  Confining they are.  It's really nice to feel the sunlight on your skin, the wind.  You feel...  Liberated.

Hi, I'm Arie Chang, and I'm naked in school.

I don't really know how this program came about.  The Program, I mean.  Well, didn't know, at least—on Monday, Mr. Wu used me as a launching pad to talk about the changes in sexual attitudes over the past twenty years.  That's my Current Events class, third period.  The gist of it is, about five years ago, a certain scientist named Janine Graves—yeah, that Dr. Graves.  This is all her fault.  Anyhow, she invented a cure for AIDS, right in time to stop what would've been a worldwide epidemic.  Nobel Prizes up the wazoo.  They're already planning this ceremony where, once AIDS is completely eradicated the world over, Dr. Graves will be the one to lock two bottles of it away, next to the smallpox.  Anyway, since then they've also made enormous strides against most of the other STDs, as well as in non-invasive birth control—by which I mean, methods where you don't have to fit something in or strap something on or whatever.  The Shot, for instance, which is so widespread nowadays that no one remembers what it's actually called.  Estoserodopramazinide?  Then add the giant bathroom wall we call The Internet, on which anyone can find anything.  Finally, toss in a bunch of ultra-liberal politicians into office (a tidal rush in the other direction after the neo-conservative disaster George Bush the Second made of his presidency), stir, bake for forty-five minutes at 350 degrees, and voila—more and more, people are getting away with doing things that used to be considered risqué or dangerous or outrageous.  And, as they tend to, those once-outrageous things are becoming more and more normal.  Witness the legislation President Rodham pushed through (maybe part of some convoluted plan for revenge on her ex-husband?), changing the indecency laws.  For the past ten years or so, guys have been able to run around naked and not get arrested.  Most don't, except on dares or something, but what with The Program, that's starting to change.  Slowly—not everyone listens to the ultraliberals—but it's changing.

This is The Program's eleventh year.  There's a growing list of students who have gone through it more than once.  The infamous Karen Wagner graduated long ago, but it's still going strong.  And now it's come to Mount Hill, and they snagged me.  But that's okay.  It's kind of fun.  More guys have looked at me in twenty four hours than in the rest of this year.  You can't argue with that.

My mom doesn't know, of course.  God, I'd never hear the end of that.  She's really—well, not so much conservative, but...  It's hard to describe.  She just doesn't take it well when people do things differently than she did.  She never went naked in school, oh noo (never mind how that was thirty years ago and they didn't have The Program—hell, they practically didn't have AIDS!), and if it was good enough for her, it's good enough for her daughter.  What she doesn't seem to understand, is that, well...  She's not her daughter.

But let's talk about something else.  I'm in a good mood today.  The sun is shining in speckled patterns through the trees, the grass is green, people are giving me less weird looks than before—or maybe I just don't care as much.  It's cold out, and I can feel the breeze on my nipples and across my pussy and around the crack of my ass.  Do you have any idea how tingly that is?

Where is Brandon, anyway?

See: last night, when I was up in my room and talking to people online, I realized that he had really been a nice guy yesterday, and now I want to thank him.  Well, maybe not realized myself—people keyed me onto it.  This one friend of mine, she calls herself Violetta, she was like, OMG Taina (that's what I call myself online) he was such a  nice guy standing up for you yesterday!

I was like, what?

RedVioletta:  Think about it. He's standing up for you, he's telling people your story when YOU were too scared to tell it, he let you meet his friends.
RedVioletta:  Didn't you say he was like the class freak or something?
TainaGrrl0085:  LOL no thats me
RedVioletta:  Well, him too, right? Tai, if yOU were over your issues, would YOU want to get dragged back in?
TainaGrrl0085:  o hhell no!
RedVioletta:  And what did HE do?

Uhm, yeah.  I think I really owe him a lot.

So that's what I was doing this morning, here half an hour before school started: roaming the halls, looking for Brandon.  He wasn't at the same place he and his friends were yesterday at break (the Stetsen building, south end, under the balcony that services the second-floor classrooms); in fact, no one was there, this early in the morning, except that one girl—Kelly, was that her name?  It wasn't the Indian girl and it wasn't that Jane person; it was the tall one with the boobs and the red hair.  She's like seriously taller than Brandon is.  And it's not really that her boobs are big, they look just fine on her, it's that all of her is big.  Not fat, not overweight, just...  Large.  Statuesque?  Oh well, whatever.  Best keep looking.

I made one more orbit of the school.  It was pretty cold, since it was seven in the morning, and I was getting chilly when I gave up.  Goosebumps, perky nipples, the whole deal.  People gave me surprised looks, and a few of the friendlier people smiled at me, but no one said anything or made any requests.  Maybe it was because school hadn't started yet.

My original plan was to head to the library, which was at least indoors and warmer.  But when I passed the Stetsen building again, Kelly, or whatever her name is, noticed and waved to me, and I was feeling good enough that I just went over there, just bounced over and flomped down cross-legged on the ground near her.

Kelly gave me an amused look.  "Wow, you seem cheerful."

I giggled.  "I'm hyper."

Kelly considered that for a minute, and then shrugged with her eyebrows.  "Well, beats being dour.  What can I do for ya?"

Dour?  What does that mean?  I plunged ahead anyway.  "Nothing really, I was just looking for Brandon, do you know where he is?"

Kelly shrugged.  "Don't look at me, I don't have him.  He hasn't got a zero-period class, so he isn't here yet.  Doesn't normally show up until about ten minutes before school starts."

"I'm really stupid, but I forgot your name," I said, "I keep thinking you're Kelly."

"Close, it's Kelsey," she said, looking at me a bit skeptically.

"Thanks," I chirped.  Oh, who cares what she thinks.  I'm me, I'm Arie, I'm forgetful sometimes.  Especially when I've known this girl for less than twenty-four hours.

"Why do you need Brandon," Kelsey asked.  "You seem to be, uh, doing just fine on your own."

"I wanted to talk to him," I said.  Which was the truth.  I also thought I might jump him or kiss him.  It seemed appropriate.  It sounded fun.  Wheeee!

"Oh, well.  He'll be here soon."

After that, conversation sort of fizzled a little bit, but I was feeling way too excited to let it die.  I shifted a little bit—concrete's cold at seven in the morning.  Plus I had to sit carefully unless really I wanted to get dirt and little pebbles and shit on my pussy lips.  I glanced over at Kelsey, who was transferring some sort of information between a textbook and a notebook.  "What are you do-ooing?"

"Math homework," Kelsey said.

"Shouldn't you have done that last ni-iiight?"

Kelsey gave me a brittle look.  "Do you do your homework when you're supposed to?"

I shrugged, innocent-eyed.  "I have to.  If I don't, Mommy won't let me watch  TV."

Kelsey gave me an unreadable look for a second, and then grinned.  "You're a trip.  You can stop with the kiddie voice now, I get that you're in a good mood."

I giggled and grinned like a puppy expecting a reward.  The sad thing being that I wasn't really playing around.

"So, uhm," Kelsey said, putting her book aside.  "I...  Well, I don't mean to pry, but it's been on my mind ever since yesterday.  What is with your scars?"

"They're mine," I said, still in child-mode.  (Astute readers will recall that Sajel was supposed to brief Kelsey on them.  I guess she hadn't.  Bad Sajel.  No biscuit.)  "I made them."

Kelsey blinked.  "You...  Made them."

"Yeah."

"Did you make them yourself?"

"Yeeaaah."

Kelsey stared at me.  "On purpose."

I held up my arm proudly, playing it to the hilt.  "A-aall mine."

Kelsey let out a heavy breath.  "I...  See."

"See, it's when you're really unhappy," I said.  "Because it feels better to have your arm hurt then to have your heart hurt."

Kelsey looked at me like I had turned into a gazebo.

"Sooo," I said, "you find something sharp.  Like a razor.  Aaaand..."

"You're not...  Trying to...  Kill yourself," Kelsey said.

"Ohhhh no," I said.  "I have other ways to do that.  This is just because it feels good."

Kelsey's eyebrows climbed into her hair.

Of course, that's not the entire truth.  It's not like I'm a masochist or anything.  I don't enjoy cutting.  It hurts, just like you'd expect; it doesn't cause pleasure.  But it's preferable to the alternative.  I mean...  Well, depression sucks.  Things assail you from all directions.  You're never quite sure where something's coming from, what's causing you to feel bad.  At least if your arm is bleeding, you can point to that and say, "See, see, that's what's wrong with this.  That's what."  Whereas, if you were to ask me a year ago, even six months ago, why I was depressed...  I wouldn't've known what to say.

See, depression is...  Times like this, it creeps up on you.  It's gradual.  One day you're going along fine, and then the next day—  Wham.  You suddenly realize that life sucks and you haven't got the faintest idea why.  Because you've been just chalking up all these little factors and things to, well, whatever—you let them slide.  You ignore them.  And all these bits of straw eventually break the camel's back.  Sorting through the straw is bad enough; even worse, most of the time you've just been living your life, ignoring the straw, figuring things will get better.  But they don't.  And while you're flailing around with a broken back—while you're still shocked by the fact that it's broken—it can be really easy to lose track of the straw.  What caused this?  What am I doing here?  Where the hell did all this straw come from?  Shit like that.

When you're carrying around all these burdens that just seem to have materialized on top of you...  Well, a burden you can trace back to its source, even if self-inflicted, is almost a relief.

And then there's the rest of it—coping mechanism, stress relief, endorphins, etc.  Those help too.  It's like a desperate man's massage or something.  But really—and I can tell you this now, now that I'm on my way out of the Hole, as Brandon calls it—it's hard to say why depressed people do anything.  Just call us crazy.  Sometimes that's really the best way to look at it.

Of course, I didn't know a lot of this yet.  And Kelsey was still giving me weird looks.

"So, uhm," she said.  "You.  You like the pain?"

I nodded solemnly.  That was a bald-faced lie.  I was playing with her mind, that was the simple fact.

"Uhm."  Kelsey swallowed.  "Why?"

I considered that for a moment, tilting my head, looking skyward, my mouth slightly open.  It was an appropriate gesture.  Partially it showed that I was annoyed—so many people had asked me that yesterday; was it going to continue?  You think I want to think about this?  So I fell back on my old answer.  "I already told you.  Because a pain in your arm hurts less than a pain in your heart."

Kelsey nodded, more to herself than anyone else.  "There's some truth to that."

After that she went back to her homework, and I amused myself by running around on the grass, chasing imaginary things.  I was so hyper that day.  Well, maybe hyper isn't the right word...  High, maybe?  It's like, when you're with your friends, and everyone's really having fun, and then you start doing stupid things like unscrewing the cap on the salt shaker or putting sugar on the tip for the waiter or tossing pickles into the water glasses, and everyone gets into it and you're all on this group buzz and everyone's a little drunk?  That was me.  Except without the restaurant.

But Brandon never showed up.  The Korean boy, Tim Kwan, did (he's really quiet, but I bet he's a firecracker in bed), and Jane Myers walked by at one point (giving me a startled look), but no Brandon.  And before I knew it, the bell had rung, and that was that.  Go figure—the one time I'm looking for him, he doesn't show up.  I think the universe hates me.

I finally caught him in second period English.  "Where were you?"

"I got caught in traffic," Brandon said.  He made as if to tuck his hands in his pockets, but he didn't have any—just skin.  He has blueish eyes and bronze hair and right now he looked just a little bit sarcastic.  "I live in Red Plains, and I have to take the 220 south to get here."

"Huh?" I said.  I don't drive.

He rolled his eyes.  "The 220 is a freeway.  I presume you know what a freeway—"  I hit him on the arm to shut down his condescension, and he continued.  "Red Plains is a suburb on the far side of Skyton Heights.  Skyton Heights is where a lot of people live.  Whereas here, in Mount Hill, is where a lot of the businesses are.  But the people who run those businesses live in Skyton.  (Or Red Plains, if they're rich.)  So every morning there's traffic jam on 220, heading south from—"

"Mr. Chambers," Mr. Cavanaugh said loudly, and I realized that class had started around us without our noticing.  "Unless Shakespeare's Verona has suddenly sprouted a freeway, I'd appreciate if we'd stick to the subject matter."  And Brandon apologized and fell silent.  I had the picture, in any case.

Before class ended, though, I realized I hadn't even managed to explain to Brandon why I had been searching for him.  After class, there wasn't time either; he headed north to the Minelli Building whereas I went off to D wing of the Norter Complex for Current Events.  I barely had time to ask, "Are you going to be at the same place at break?"

"What?"

"Where you were yesterday."

"Yeah, we're always there."

"Good.  See you then."

Current Events wasn't the greatest.  Mr. Wu expects us to keep track of, well, current events—read the newspaper, watch the news, stuff like that, and he launches into each day's discussion on the assumption that we have.  Which, uh, is not an accurate assumption as far as I'm concerned.  So, there was this context I was missing.  Mr. Wu explains things, of course, if necessary, but he keeps track of who needs that information, and we lose participation points.  (I bet I have negative participation points.)  Anyway, Mr. Wu pulled out a newspaper and pointed out something amusing—a number of hard-right conservatives were going to try to put a strong voting bloc together to knock out the current spate of extreme liberals in the upcoming elections.  This was only sort of news; they've tried to do that for the past two elections, with basically no success.  At first I didn't get what this had to do with me—what did I care who the next President would be?—but when Mr. Wu gave a rather direct look at my titties (not leering, just to make a point), I realized what he meant.  The general prevalency of highly-liberal legislators nationwide was one of the only reasons he could see my titties right now.  The Program is still controversial, and even moderately-liberal politicians might vote to take it down.  But the youngest of The Program's first participants is twenty-five now, and responses to The Program have been strongly positive, if cautious at first.  Don't ask me about the nation, but when it comes to our little corner of the universe, Westport and Skyton and Mount Hill and all that, I give it even odds as to whether someone greets the next president naked in school.

Mr. Wu's theory is: Everything is connected.  It's hard to see that sometimes.  We're so used to dissecting things to see how they're put together, that we can forget how to look at the organic, gestalt whole.  But when it comes to you and the understanding blossoms in your mind and across your face...  It's a pretty cool feeling.

Then it was recess, and time to face down the bullet.

"Brandon, can we talk for a second?"  "Sure, what's up?"

But once I had managed to drag him away from the others...  I couldn't.  It was a little easier not to say anything.  A little easier to not open my mouth, to not reach out and grab his dick, to not say, "Hey, you stood up for me yesterday and I wanted to thank you in the most mercenary and blatant of ways, mostly because I couldn't think of a better way, but I really do mean it, now stand still and let me jack you off," a little easier not to actually do that in full view of the world and all who wanted to see.  Like, for instance, Jane Myers, Brandon's girlfriend, who was right now headed in this direction, where she might see me standing far too close to him, with a look in my eye she might recognize.  Go figure—the one time it'd be nice for her to not be around, she shows up.  I think the universe hates me.

So instead I said, "Uhm.  Would you like to hang out later today?  Come to my house, maybe."

"Why?"

Oh fuck it, what a question.  Offer the man sex, and he asks why.  Well, not that I'd actually offered him, but I was going to—  Damn him!

"Well, I'd like to talk to you," I said.  'Kay: Arie, hon, must be just a bit more forward.  "And thank you," I said.

"For what," he asked.  He has a sort of mid-range voice, not too high and not too low, and blue eyes, and at the moment everything on his face read of skepticism.  He's only a little taller than me, but sometimes I feel like he towers over me.

"For...  For being a friend," I said.  "And protecting me."

"Well, you're welcome," he said, sounding almost grudging.  I couldn't say I blamed him, since here I was, making such a big deal out of something that seemed so minor.  So I'd thanked him, so what?  I'd have to make my point clear.  Crap, where was Jane?  Oh good, she was standing over there, having caught on that we wanted to talk privately.  Time to put the nail in the coffin.

"I'd like to thank you," I said, stepping closer, "in more ways than one."  And I slipped my hand across his penis, pulling it up with me so that my hand stroked across the underside.

He hissed breath at the unexpected stimulus, but he didn't lose it—I'll give him that.  His eyes narrowed speculatively.  "You don't have to."

People of course were watching by now, some of them even commenting, but I ignored them.  "I want to," I told him, and that was the unbridled truth.  I used to date Patrick Slade, and he was in it for only one thing.  I let him have his way with me, more or less (and it could've been worse, he was pretty good to me the rest of the time), but in doing so I discovered something interesting: that I like sex too.  Okay, maybe adore is a better word.  I like all of it—the panting, the groaning, the way my lover fills me, the skin-on-skin—but I really like the oral.  I hadn't had a boyfriend since Pat, and sometimes seeing Brandon's cock makes me drool.

"Well," he said.  "Come to my house instead.  We'll have privacy.  My parents are still out of town."  He sounded a bit reluctant, but that was okay.  I might get some action today!

"Okay!" I said, reverting back into delighted-child mode.  Yay, sex!  Weeee!  "But I have orchestra practice after school."

He gave me a speculative glance.  "You haven't noticed me around the music building?"

"Why, are you around the music building?"  What, am I supposed to know everything?  Cut a girl some slack here.

"I'm in the choir.  We've got a dress rehearsal today for the Open House tomorrow."

Oh, yeah, did I mention.  Since they use Open House to show off and get parents interested in the school for the year, our music program will be making a strong showing.  That means the choir, that means the orchestra; that means me over at stage right, right at the front of the semicircle with my violin.  I'm first violinist—basically the acknowledged leader of and best musician in the violin section—and, since it's a school function, I'd be naked.  Go figure I have to do it on Open House week.  I swear, the universe hates me.  Though of course Brandon would have to face the same problem.  And so would Steve Proust, the footballer.  I wondered if all eight of us Program participants would be there—they're selling The Program too, no doubt about it.  Maybe the freshmen wouldn't, since they weren't in any of the organizations, but since Shannon Salvolestra is a cheerleader, Brandon and I are both musicians...  What do those two sophomores do?  A corner of my brain made a note: Why were we chosen to be in The Program this week?  Bring this up tomorrow in Current Events.

Anyway.  That solved that problem.  We're playing for a couple of the choir efforts on Wednesday, and then we split off to do our own thing, then the choir comes back and does their own thing.  Since we'd both be in the dress rehearsal this afternoon (Shouldn't it be naked rehearsal for me and Brandon?), we'd be able to find each other after.

"Oh," I said.  "I hadn't noticed.  But okay.  That's fine."

"All right, I'll catch you after school then," Brandon said.  And that was that.

...Except, that that was not that.  But we only found that out later.  But really, that's Brandon's part of the story.

T.2

And it wasn't a whole lot later.  Because the moment Arie and I came back, and Arie got herself involved in some other conversation, Jane pounced.  Though maybe 'pounced' isn't the right word.  More like, fidgeted.  And scuffled her shoes on the concrete.  And sort of lingered near me in a way that told me something was up.

I turned to her and said, "Hey, you okay?"  And, for the moment, everything else fell away, all the other constrictions and definitions.  It didn't matter that I was Brandon Chambers, suddenly friend of Arie; Brandon Chambers, class freak show; Brandon Chambers, naked in school.  Instead, it was just me—Brandon—and Jane.  Whom I loved (or at least cared about a hell of a lot), and who was clearly unhappy.  Whom I wanted to be happy.

So, "Hey, you okay?"

She looked at me for a moment, and I thought that she might not say anything, which would just clutter things up.  See, the thing about Jane is, she wears her emotions on her sleeve.  I don't think she realizes it (she'd probably stop if she did), but she does.  It's pretty easy to tell when something's bugging her (though it can be a lot harder to figure out what, or why).  If she chose to deny that something was up, I'd have to respect her privacy—that's what I do—but it'd be a waste of time, because I knew, and since I too wear my emotions on my sleeve at times, she knew I knew.  Who did she think she was fooling?

But she decided that it was worth the go, and said, "Can we talk?  Alone?"

"Now?"  "Y-yeah."  "Umm, okay."

We went halfway down the stairs to the basement (same place as my English class, for those who are wondering), where we'd have a little privacy.  No one uses those stairs by choice, because homeless people pee there sometimes.  I was glad to be wearing shoes.

What did Jane want to talk about?  I doubted it'd be the same thing Arie had just said to me.  In fact, I'd lay good odds on it being the opposite.

"What was that between you and Arie?" Jane asked.

I shrugged.  The truth is best.  "She wants to hang out after school today."

"Did she say why," Jane asked.

This wasn't like her.  I've never known Jane to be at all possessive.  She's very blasé about our whole relationship—take it or leave it, it's fine with her.  (As you can imagine, that doesn't make me feel particularly special.)  So part of me simply marveled.  Hallelujah: for once she's paying attention to me.

"She said she wanted to thank me for being a friend."  Which was the truth, though not strictly all of it.

"Does this have anything to do with the way she touched your...  Uh.  Your.  You know.  Down there."  Jane blushed solid red.

I looked at her, motionless, for a few seconds.  "What, my hmmhmm?  My pecker?  My dork?  My cock?  My penis?  That thing?"

"Yes, that thing," Jane said in a strained tone of voice.

"It's not like you can't talk about it, they do have words for it, you know."

"All right, your, your penis," Jane said, her face mottled, "okay?"

I didn't say anything, and there was silence for a long moment.

"So what are you concerned about," I asked.

Jane gave me this look, a look I can't describe.  Well, that I can try to describe.  It was annoyance, partially, and chagrin, and maybe even some...  Attraction?  There might have been some of that.  That too would be a first.  So, yeah, I can dissect it for you, cut it up into little pieces, but you ask me to put it back together?  Give you the whole, This is what her face looked like: no, I can't do it.

"Why was she touching your...  Penis," she asked.  The word dripped from her mouth like a distasteful morsel.

I decided not to answer that directly.  "Well, it's not like I can stop her.  Rule Three and all that.  Why, does it bother you?"

"Doesn't it bother you," she asked.

It took me a moment to put my answer together.  It was a complicated answer.  "Well, yes, but...  Yes, because I'm not quite sure why she was touching me, and what she meant by it."  Did she have a crush on me?  Did she really just mean to thank me in such a blatant, mercenary way?  Did she habitually take friends to bed with her?  "Maybe in the province of China she comes from, if a guy lets a girl touch his dick, it means he's agreed to marry her."  That got a giggle out of her.  "But if you're asking if it bothers me that she touched my penis at all...  No, it doesn't.  It's there, it's what God gave me, it's meant to be touched, you know?"

"Well," Jane said slowly.  "I don't like it."

"Don't like what?"

"Her touching you."

"Why?"

Pause.  "Because she shouldn't."

"Who should, then?"

"Well," Jane said, uncomfortable.  "I don't know.  Can't she find someone else to touch?"

"Why," I said wryly, gesturing down at my privates, "is this supposed to be yours and yours alone?"

She colored again.

"Because if it is, you haven't hardly been taking advantage of it."

She said nothing.

"And regardless, I'm kind of in The Program right now.  I have had people touch my penis—Ruby Berringer yesterday, though I'm never gonna let that happen again.  And Zach too, though I think I'm going to have to kick him in the balls to get back at him.  And if someone does stop me with a reasonable request, well...  Rule Three."  I snorted.  "Let's not even talk about Psychology class yesterday.  Felt like a fucking lab rat, dashing around through a maze or something."

"No, that's not...  That's not what bothers me," Jane said.

"Then what," I asked, keeping my voice patient.

It took a while for this to come out.  "Well, it...  It bothers me that...  You'd let her.  That you said yes.  Because it sounds like...  Just from what you've said, it sounds like she wants to...  You know.  Do something...  Sexual.  With you."  God, the way she had to hesitate over that word every time.  "And she wants to because you're friends, and she wants to...  It means something, see.  If someone just stops you in the hallway with a request, they're just playing around.  But this is...  Different."

"You don't like that I may do something sexual with someone I have an emotional connection with," I said softly.

"Yeah!  Yeah.  That's it."

"You want it to be you."

She didn't answer, just nodded, but she didn't blush either.  In fact, all in all she just looked miserable, which made me feel bad.  I wanted to reach out to her and comfort her, but I wasn't sure how she'd react—I didn't want to rile her up by doing anything which could be construed as sexual, and I was naked.  Honestly, I thought it was a major breakthrough for her to admit that she had any interest in sex with me at all.

I could've comforted her, verbally at least.  Things would've probably turned out different if I had.  This was one of the great pivots on which my life turned.  But I chose the other recourse: instead, I made my point.  "Well..."  Not meanly, mind you.  I don't do that.  "Jane, if you...  I dunno.  We've talked about this before."

Jane doesn't want to have sex before she's married.  Period.  And we just don't discuss it.  I would stand for less-than, handjobs or oral or whatever, but again, I'm not sure she's even aware of those alternatives.  Once I asked her if she masturbated, and she said, "No, why on earth would I do that?"  And I thought, Oh boy.

I do want to have sex before I'm married.  Well, not like, you know, I wanna go out and get laid or anything.  I could do that, and I don't.  I wouldn't be attracted to Jane, to people like Jane, if I did want that.  As it is, I probably won't have sex until I'm married, because that's just the kind of person I'm attracted to.  And I've more or less made my peace with that.  Besides, it's not exactly sex I'm looking for.  I dated Jane because I knew that, if we did have sex, it would mean something.  It would be special.  It would be two people who loved and trusted each other, sharing something special with each other—specifically, certain body parts—that we didn't share with anyone else.  (Disregarding The Program, of course.)  If you gave me a choice between having sex, and having that...  Well, I'd pick that.  Heartbeat, flash decision, no second thoughts or considerations on my part.  Because I've been masturbating since I was seven, and it's not really special anymore.  Sure, it feels nice, but it's nothing to write home about.  If sex is ever something to write home about, it'll be because of the person I'm having it with.  So I better find the right person.  And at the time, I figured that was Jane.

And Jane knows all this.  She's heard it.  It doesn't change the way she treats me.  She sees sex as...  God, I don't know.  Something crazy.  Something bad.  I see it as...  An acceptance, a reaching out.  I want her to reach out to me.  The same way it hurts when she's indifferent to me, it hurts when she categorically refuses to consider us getting physical.  We've never made out.  I've never touched her breasts except on accident.  Heck, we almost never see each other.  We chatter in school, sure, but that's hardly social; and she's busy, busy, always busy with school, with Girl Scouts, with more school, with SAT preparations...  I get brushed off for schoolwork.  90% friendship, 10% romance.  We've argued about this before too.  I feel like I'm being rejected.  Armor in place, shields up, clothes on.  And it's getting harder and harder to accept.

"Jane, I don't...  I don't want you to, you know, touch me in places just because you feel like you have to.  I want you to do it because you want to.  And if you don't want to, well, that's okay.  But it hurts when you turn me down.  I feel like you're pushing me away."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.  Her head was down, her tangled hair spilling around her face, and I thought she might be crying.  I felt terrible.

"It's okay," I said.  I know how hard it is for her to open up.  Which is part of the reason I've been so patient with her.  "I love you."

"I love you too."

And that, pretty much, was that.

...Except, that that was not that.  But we only found that out later.

T.3

The next fun thing to happen was Psychology class.  You know, it's kind of funny that Dr. Schlemmer never noticed all the scars on my arms until Tuesday.  Maybe he was paying more attention to my breasts.  Yeah right.  What breasts.  I don't have any.  I'm Chinese, we just don't have them, kind of like we don't have body hair.  It kind of sucks.  Remember that one moment in the Lord of the Rings movies where the dwarf guy is joking that nobody call tell dwarf men and dwarf women apart?  Well, you put a Chinese guy and a Chinese girl in a bikini and have them stand next to each other, and it'll be the exact same.  Which is why it's weird that so many people are staring at my tits, 'cause, I don't have any.  I'm Arie Chang, and I'm naked in school, and I have no tits.

But Dr. Schlemmer, when he was steering Brandon and I towards the front of the room for Human Sexual Response, Part 2 (the Sexual Response Cycle, and oh how I was dreading how he might want us to demonstrate that)...  While he was setting us up, he happened to put his hand on my arm.

And then stopped and said, "What's this?"  He has a deep, resonant voice, though sometimes it hitches and gasses with phlegm, and everyone heard.  I could feel the warmth of his palm on my arm; the scars beneath it burned and itched.

I was feeling a little quieter at that point, not as bouncy as before.  I didn't answer as flippantly as I had Kelsey.  I just said, "Scars."

"Let me see," Dr. Schlemmer said, which was a reasonable request, and he held my arm up higher.  They're diagonal, in neat rows, and there are quite a few of them—mostly up near the elbow, but some lower.  I don't do my upper arm as much, it's got less range of motion.  The far side of your lower arm, you can cut by pulling your hand up to your shoulder, but you can't reach the same place on your tricep the same way.

"Where are these from," Dr. Schlemmer asked.  His bluff face was unreadable behind his glasses.

The class was silent.  Those who hadn't heard (I wasn't sure how many of them there were) were staring just as avidly as those who had.  I could feel their eyes on me, on my shoulders and back and ass.  "I did them," I said.

"How?"

"Mostly with a razor blade.  I think I used a safety pin once."  There were winces and hisses of indrawn breath across the classroom, a plethora of pale faces and white eyes.  Brandon, poor boy, looked ready to sick.  I found out later that he was imagining this all happening to himself, and he's simply not at all a fan of self-inflicted injury.  His self-preservation instinct is strong.  Which just tells you how bad things were that he once took a razor to himself at all.

"Why," Dr. Schlemmer asked.

I shrugged.  "The safety pin?  Because I couldn't find my razor blade."

"No, why do you do it at all."

And that was really the question, wasn't it.  Why do I cut?

A lot of people had asked me that, even in the less-than-48 hours people had known I did it.  I guess Brandon's not the only one with a self-preservation instinct.  Why.  Why?  Why do you do it, Arie?  Why?

Well, I'll tell you one thing I've learned since: being depressed destroys your self-preservation instinct.  You don't care.  You won't go to school, you won't eat, you won't take showers, you won't not cut, even if all those things are good things to do...  Because it's too tiresome to shove your ass out of the chair and get moving.  Everything looks tiring and dreary when you're depressed.  Nothing looks good.  And I'm not kidding about not eating.  I don't, sometimes, because it's just too exhausting to chew.

But that didn't help me figure out why I cut.  Though, when I thought about that, I realized where Dr. Schlemmer had it wrong.

"No, it's not like I'm a masochist or something," I said.  "I'm depressed.  I'm under a lot of stress.  I don't have friends who..."  What's the right word?  I wasn't sure.  Some of this I was putting into words for the first time ever.  "I don't have friends who support me.  It's a...  Brandon, what did you call it?"

"A coping mechanism," Brandon said mechanically.  "Stress relief."

"Hell of a form of stress relief," someone grumbled from the back of the room.  "Punching walls is one thing.  This..."

Dr. Schlemmer's face was closed.  "I think we'll be having a very different class than I planned.  Perhaps it's time to bump up the unit on depression as well.  Thank you, Brandon, Arie, you can sit down."

We did.  I could feel the speckled pattern of the plastic chair against my thighs and back and ass.  Because of the lack of seating chart, Brandon and I had ended up sitting on different sides of the room, but as class went on I noticed he was looking in my direction a lot.  Not that Brandon's the fidgety type, but it did happen pretty frequently.  At me?  Oh, no, wait, not me.  There was a girl to my right, the next row over, a girl with blonde hair and large, dark eyes.  It seemed to be her he was looking at.

Hmm.  File that away for future reference.

"How many of you know what depression is," Dr. Schlemmer asked the class.

Quite a lot of hands went up.

"Then what is it?  Can someone explain?"

"It's when life sucks and doesn't stop," someone said without raising their hand, and there was laughter.

Someone else actually raised their hand this time: "Isn't it a physical condition too?"

"Yes," Dr. Schlemmer said.  "Well, enough chattering, let's get this definition on the table: Depression is a mood disorder..."  We immediately began taking notes.  Later, when finals came around, we pooled our resources to help with the studying.  Brandon, who scribbles quickly and well, has probably the best of the lot:

Depression is a mood disorder caused by both environmental and physical factors.  Depression is a physiological state - lack of certain neurotransmitters creates general bad moods.  Hopelessness, lack of self-esteem, loss or reduction of energy / enthusiasm, thoughts of suicide / self-harm.  Can lead to or increase the impact of other disorders (eating, anxiety, etc).

Dr. Schlemmer lectured for a few more minutes, laying out what Brandon ended up scribbling down (see above), and then opened the floor to discussion again.  "How many of you," he asked, "know someone who was or is depressed?"

What startled me was how many.  Thirty or so of the thirty-five person class raised their hands, and the remainder were squinting and concentrating, as if trying to recall something.  There were murmurs from other students—were they thinking the same thing?

Someone was, because the same voice as before spoke up from the back: "Jesus Christ, that's a lot."

"It is," Dr. Schlemmer said.  "We've all heard about the potential AIDS epidemic, and Dr. Graves (may her name be praised) saved us from that, but in the 1990s and even today, the real epidemic is depression.  The rates have risen pretty significantly; there's a lot of concern about it.  Not coincidentally, a lot of new antidepressants and mood stabilizers have been developed over the past twenty years or so: Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Paxil, Celexa...  And of course you've probably all heard of Prozac."  There were nods all over.  "Though that one was introduced in '86."

"How come we never heard about this," someone asked from my right.  The dark-eyed girl.  She had a clean voice and shadowed eyes.  "I mean, the spread of AIDS was all over the newspapers, but no one talks about depression."

Dr. Schlemmer took that up.  "How many of you have talked about depression with your family or friends?  I mean, really talked about it—not just, 'Oh, yeah, my sister's depressed, she doesn't get up in the mornings,' not just acknowledging that it exists?"

There was a dearth of hands.  Mine went up, and a few others, and that was it.

"Arie, who do you talk to?" Dr. Schlemmer asked.

"I have friends on the Internet," I said, feeling the gaze of every eye.  "They cut also.  We...  Trade notes sometimes."  That's not the half of it.  I'd have a lot more scars if not for people like Violetta.  We look out for each other.  In ways others just...  Can't.

"There's been a stigma on depression for a very long time," Dr. Schlemmer said.  "It doesn't help that anyone with a psychological disorder is still stigmatized.  Even today, in our era of sexual freedom.  I guess liberals haven't freed us of everything.

"The simple fact is, mental disorders are taboo.  And depression is a mental disorder.  At least, it's not a physical disorder, the way a broken bone or epilepsy is.  It's somehow related to the mind, you can't see the evidence on someone—excepting Arie, of course, but normally we wouldn't...  America has always had an overt reliance on the physical, and the mental scares us."

"Epilepsy affects the brain too," someone said, "how is that not a mental disorder?"

"But it's not the same," Brandon said.  He's very sharp, that one.  His blue eyes burned with a strange fire and his voice was firm.  "Epilepsy is...  Well, it's like diabetes, maybe.  It's something you just either have, or you don't, and it has specific physical causes.  Sure, with epilepsy, those causes involve the brain, or the nervous system, or whatever, but that's not the same as depression.  With epilepsy you can pin it down, you can say, 'Okay, here: if you changed this about me, I'd be better.'  You can't do that with depression, because there are a lot of things that can cause it.  You can be depressed without having a distinct lack of serotonin, or dopamine, at least not a distinct enough lack that they'll slap you on meds.  It could just be that someone rubbed you the wrong way today.  And maybe you can have lower-than-normal serotonin levels and still feel okay.  Depression is much more hazy in its cause-and-effect."

"Maybe that's the thing we don't like," a new voice spoke up.  It was a tall, striking black girl with long hair in narrow strings of braids.  "We like things to be logical, we like things to make sense.  With this, you can't tell what's going on all the time, not physically and not emotionally.  Maybe that's what people don't like."

I sighed.  "I know what to change to make me not-depressed.  It's my parents.  But I can't just walk up to them and say, 'Mom, you fucked me up, I need you to stop doing that.'"  There was laughter at the idea.  "I'm not really sure how she did it.  And even if I did, I know she wouldn't listen."

"Well, couldn't you just take Prozac or something?" someone asked.

"Of course not," the black girl retorted, "that's ridiculous.  That's like if you were getting beat up every day, and someone gave you a Band-aid and said, 'Here, this will solve all your problems.'  It won't.  Maybe she has physical symptoms, but they're being caused by her parents.  Maybe Prozac will give her more...  What did he say?" she asked Dr. Schlemmer, gesturing to Brandon.

"Serotonin," Dr. Schlemmer said, "and dopamine.  They're neurotransmitters in your brain that, well, make you feel good.  Prozac, specifically, is an SSRI—a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor.  It—  Well, time for a bit of a lecture."  He scrawled something on the whiteboard quickly, two sideways teardrops with the bottoms facing each other.  "This is the synapse between two nerve cells.  Neurotransmitters are released from this cell—"  He drew an arrow.  "—to this one, crossing the synapse and—"  The class was looking at him in bewilderment.  We hadn't yet learned how nerves worked.  "Well," he said, "forget what a synapse is, just know that nerve cells aren't physically connected to each other, and this is how they bridge the gap.  By releasing neurotransmitters.  The transmitter attaches to the second nerve cell and makes it do its thing.

"Now, in depressed people—"  The arrow bounced off the second nerve cell.  "—they believe that nerves don't receive neurotransmitters the way they're supposed to.  The first one releases chemicals that say 'Happy'—specifically serotonin—but the second one doesn't accept them.  If the transmitters don't attach to the second nerve cell, they get absorbed again by the first one.  This is called 'reuptake.'  Think of it like..."  He drew a hasty but recognizeable car on the whiteboard.  "A bunch of people come to a parking lot, and there's just enough spaces for all of them.  But some of those spaces are blocked off with orange cones, so the ones that can't find a parking space, just go home.  The cones are depression.  The cars are serotonin.  Prozac—"  More arrows.  "—stops the cars from leaving, so that they just sit around, waiting for someone to finish what they're doing and drive away and open a parking space.  That's what SSRIs do.

"And Rebekah is absolutely right," he added (evidently that was the black girl's name).  "Arie could take all the Prozac she wanted, but if she's right about how her parents treat her, then that's addressing the symptom, not the disease.  What really needs to change is her environment."

"And that's even harder," Brandon said, "because no one likes admitting they screwed up.  Especially parents."

"That's not true," a boy spoke up.  He was tall and broad-faced, pleasant-looking.  "If I told my parents, 'I'm sorry, Mom and Dad, but the way you've been treating me makes me depressed,' they'd try to change the way they behaved."

"Well, you're lucky then," I said crossly.  "Mine wouldn't."

"Sheesh," said a girl somewhere behind me.  "What kind of parents are they, that they wouldn't stop damaging their girl?"

Brandon and I spoke at the same time.  I said, "Bad ones."  He said, "Misguided."

We glanced at each other, wondering who should go first.  Eventually, Brandon did.  "Arie, your parents screwed you up, sure, but I bet that if you asked, they'd say they were doing it for your own good.  Music lessons, extra tutoring—did you go through that?"  I nodded.  "Well, under other circumstances, I'd say, Good for them, they're trying to better your future.  Which is what they were trying."

I held up my arm, to show him exactly how much my parents had benefited me.

He smiled suddenly—a joyous, brilliant smile that bathed the room in its shine.  "I didn't say they did a good job.  I'm just saying...  In their own minds, this makes perfect sense, and they'll be confused when you tell them how fucked up you are."

"Yeah, that's an understatement," I said.  "They'll wonder where their perfect daughter went."

The dark-eyed girl spoke up beside me.  "Religious mindset."

"What?" Dr. Schlemmer asked.  I was surprised he was letting the conversation evolve like this, but I didn't mind.  Behind me and to my left, others echoed his confusion.

"My physics teacher was telling us about this," the dark-eyed girl said.  She had very pale, very fine skin and a wide, rounded chin, and her hair, a rich shade of gold, was strapped down the back of her head in two short braids.  I didn't understand why she should turn Brandon's head.  "Mr. Janda said that there were two ways of looking at the world: with a religious mindset or a scientific mindset.  The scientist tests a hypothesis against the facts, and then alters the hypothesis to fit what he finds.  The religious mind, on the other hand, changes the facts to fit the hypothesis.  Belief is more important than truth."

I laughed.  "That sounds about right."  My voice changed to a parody of clumsy, uninformed stupidity.  "'We're raising the perfect daughter, because we say so.'  Yeah, that sound about right."

"Mr. Janda, you said, Meredith," Dr. Schlemmer asked, smiling, and the dark-eyed girl nodded.  "I'll have to talk to him, see what other bits of wisdom he has."

"Don't your parents notice," the broad-faced boy asked me, gesturing at my arms.

I snorted.  "They're religious.  Religious the way she said it," gesturing at Meredith with a toss of the head.  Though my mother does have a Catholic streak in her.  "Scars on my arms aren't part of the plan, so they're blind to it."

"What," Brandon asked, "so they have seen?"

"No, not that I know of.  But if they did, I'd pass it off as...  I dunno, going to Lisa's house and getting scratched by her cat, or something.  And they'd buy that.  They wouldn't wonder if it was something else.  They'd ignore the fact that I haven't been to Lisa's house in years.  They wouldn't check my room for razor blades or whatever.  They don't believe that I could possibly be unhappy.  So I'm not."

"What exactly do you do, anyway," Meredith asked.

"Ask Brandon."  I giggled.  "He seems to know more than me."

Brandon tossed his hands in a shrug, and then gestured to Dr. Schlemmer, who blinked in surprise.  Brandon blinked too.  "Can you explain it?" he asked.

Dr. Schlemmer nodded.  "I figured you might want to explain yourself, though."

Brandon shook his head.  "Oh hell no."

Dr. Schlemmer gave him a wry smile.  "Leave me with the depressing work.  Okay, let's see here..."  He turned back to the board, erasing it quickly, and then stood contemplating his project.

First he struck two terms across the top: Self-injury and then a term I'd heard but didn't use, Self-harm.  To this he added a third term beneath, which he promptly crossed out: Self-mutilation.  Then he turned back to us and started talking.

"First off, there's a big difference between self-mutilation and the other two.  We'll call it self-harm because that's what it's called in the DSM, but self-injury works too."  (Later in the year we found out that the "DSM" is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychology's official encyclopedia.)  "'Self-mutilation' is a term ascribed by outsiders.  'Self-harm' is what people who actually do it call it.  You can see the difference.  The outsiders think of it as some sort of bizarre ritual where you, you know, reconfigure yourself or whatever.  Insiders know what it really is.  It's a coping mechanism.

"Arie, what drives you to cut?"

Aiya.  The same question, always the same question.  Why, why, why.  Is anyone going to stop any time soon?  It's not like I like thinking about it.  At least, this time, I felt like people would listen, and believe.  Dr. Schlemmer is right, outsiders just don't get it.  "I...  I do it when I'm really stressed out, when I'm really depressed."

"But why that?" Dr. Schlemmer asked.  "Why not...  I don't know, punching a wall, or playing loud music, or, or screaming at the moon or something?"

"I...  I don't know," I said.

"Attention, maybe," Brandon offered.  The dark-eyed girl shot him a look.  "Because if someone notices, it's a sure sign that something's wrong."

"Yeah, if someone notices," I said.  "And I don't know about endorphins, like you were talking about yesterday, but maybe that's part of it."

"Actually, it probably is," Dr. Schlemmer said.  "Brandon, how do you know about this?"

"Internet friends," Brandon said shortly.  "I've only taken a blade to myself once, thank you very much."

Dr. Schlemmer nodded and continued.  "It's a good theory and it makes sense.  You've heard about the runner's high, if you want to call it that—the natural rush of endorphins that come with exercise.  It makes your body feel better.  Well, the body releases those when it's injured as well.  So cutting is a crude way of making yourself feel better."

"That's sort of backwards, isn't it," someone remarked.  "Hurting yourself to feel better."

It is, but it works.  "I dunno, sometimes I feel like..."  I squinted at the wall, trying to put the thought to words.  "Like all the pain and anxiety and hurt is gushing out with the blood," I said.

"Same here," Brandon said.  When we all looked at him, he said, "Well, not bleeding, but...  Sometimes, when I feel bad, it feels like my heart is just really heavy in my chest, like there's a ton of stuff weighing it down.  And I take a deep breath and let it out, and it feels like it carries away a lot of the pain.  Just gets exhaled out.  Maybe it's all imagination, but it still feels better."

"And then there's...  Well..."  I fell silent.  Here was an idea I had long tried to articulate but never once succeeded.  Maybe it would work here.

"Maybe?" Dr. Schlemmer prompted.

"You have to understand, I don't talk about this," I said.  "I can't, not to my parents.  They wouldn't believe me.  Why am I upset with my life?  My life is perfect.  At least, perfect to them, and who else's opinion matters?  So, nobody knows.  Some Internet friends who don't know me in person, but no one I know in-real-life.  At least, not until now."

"Seriously?" Meredith said.  "This is the first time anyone has seen your scars?"

"And you came to school naked?" Rebekah said.  "Damn, girl, you are brave."

"Hmm, well," I said, pleasure lighting my cheeks.  "The point is, though...  I can't talk to anyone about my problems.  About how my parents treat me, about how bad I feel.  I'm not sure why I feel like I do.  And it's like, you know, maybe I'm having the world's hugest hallucination and I'm just imagining all this.  No one else sees how my parents treat me.  No one else sees how I could be sad.  Much less this sad.  Maybe none of it's true.

"But then I have scars.  And...  I can point to those, you know, I can say, Look, this is real.  This happened.  I have the physical proof of my...  Depression.  This thing that's totally mental, that's all about, you know, my feelings and how people treat me, none of which is tangible...  Well, there is a tangible consequence.  It's here, on my arms.  And somehow that's such a relief.  It means I can stop doubting myself."

The class was silent for a moment, digesting all this information.

Then Dr. Schlemmer spoke again.  "What happens if...  Well, I don't know.  But I know that there are associations.  Like, when I was your age, my friends and I went to a restaurant, and my best friend narrated the story of a bottle of ketchup having sex with a bottle of mustard, complete with squirting and some truly interesting sound effects.  And after that I couldn't look at either again without laughing.  So, let's say you're helping your mom chop onions, and you're using a knife."

I rolled my eyes.  "That gets interesting."

"Does it make you want to..." the broad-faced boy asked.

"Sometimes, yes," I said.  "We...  Around the Internet, we call that 'triggering.'  It's a really strong association.  I'll be at my friends' websites and certain things will be marked, 'Warning, Triggery,' and that means you had better not read it unless you're in a safe place, because it may make you want to cut.  It's like a reminder."

"Well, so what," someone asked.  "—I'm sorry, that sounds bad.  But if the urge strikes you, just...  Don't."

"No, it's not like that," I said.  "I can't 'just don't.'  It's...  It's like an addiction, almost.  A compulsion."  Which was the truth.  "That's why triggery material is so dangerous, it's like waving an open bottle in front of an alcoholic."  And let me tell you, you feel awful after accidentally pushing someone in that direction.  Seriously.  This sort of thing I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

"Yikes," said the broad-faced boy.  "I help out in the theatre, building sets, but now I don't know if I can look at an Xacto knife the same way again."

That was as good a place as any to end the class on, which is probably why the bell rang.  These things happen sometimes.  On the way out, Dr. Schlemmer caught me.  "I don't suppose you're in therapy," he said.

"Perfect daughters don't need therapy," I said.

Dr. Schlemmer thought for a moment, and then said, "Come with me to my office for a moment, will you?"  Seeing my look, he said, "No, I don't have a reasonable request for you.  But consider it that, if it makes you agree.  I request that you come with me to my office and see something that's hanging on my wall."

It turned out to be his diploma, certifying that he had graduated from Whitehill University with a degree in psychology; and a certificate proclaiming that he was a fully-qualified therapist.

"I can't...  Well.  I'm your teacher, there are rules about these things.  I mean, for one, I'm supposed to report you and have you hospitalized, all of your teachers are, that's the rules about self-injury...  But that would really screw up your Program standings, wouldn't it, being stuck in the hospital for the rest of the week, I'll talk to Dr. Zelvetti but I bet we're supposed to ignore that rule...  I can't be your therapist, but if you'd like me to help you get started—help you find your own, figure out who might be a good one for you..."

"I don't know," I said.  A part of me, the depressed part, was balking.  Too much work, too much risk, it won't help, don't try it.  Another part of me, the rational part, had reasons.  "I can't pay for it.  I don't have enough money personally, and I seriously doubt my parents would subsidize it."

He laughed.  "Subsidize.  Right.  Well, that is a problem, and no mistake...  I'm not sure what to do about it, the public school system doesn't offer full-time counseling...  Maybe they have scholarships for...  Well.  That's all well and good, but...  Arie, indulge me, please.  Sit down.  Talk to me.  Or we can go get lunch while we talk, if you'd prefer.  I want to know where you come from.  You said it's your parents that are behind all this, and I didn't ask in class—I couldn't, that would've been inappropriate—but I'm curious.  Please.  Talk to me."

I looked at him, so serious, his bluff face and slim rectangular-framed glasses, the honesty about him.

I talked to him.  And it was a good discussion, and I learned quite a bit, though I didn't put any of it into practice.  I figured, No, it's not going to work, and that was that.

...At least, as far as I was concerned.  Because on the way back from the cafeteria, we saw something that made me stop agape mid-sentence.  But that is a whole 'nother story.

T.4

Well, it's not a very long story.  I can probably summarize it in about a sentence.  Here goes:

Hi, I'm Brandon Chambers, I'm naked in school, and some people have some objection to that.

Not to the fact that I'm naked.  Unless you're Jane, but that's par for the course.  No, these people had objection to how I was naked...  But not really letting it bother me.  See, some people think it's appropriate to go around with a wagging hard-on at all times, inviting people to stroke it.  Some people also think that lung cancer is cool.

After lunch, I didn't really feel like being social—didn't feel up to the task of constantly deflecting Zach, of dealing with Jane.  So I went wandering around the school.  Sajel, bless her heart, decided to accompany me, and we talked.  Sajel's a good listener, which is (unfortunately) not something that can be said about anyone else in my group.  (Actually, that's not true: Jane is a good listener too.  Just, not about what I wanted to talk about.)  So we puttered around, just chatting, getting occasionally stopped by someone with a reasonable request.  Rather as I'd suspected, most of them were to see my scars.  But some of them copped a feel too.

Of course, others came out to jeer.  "Hey, Chambers, is that a thumbtack in your pocket or are you happy to see me?  Whoops! I forgot you aren't wearing pockets!  Hyuck hyuck!"  I just gave him a sardonic grin and kept walking.  That guy wasn't the only one, though.

"You aren't going to answer?" Sajel asked.

"What would be the point?" I said.  "They want to see me get steamed up.  It's all the same, it's been happening since first grade.  I'd rather just not react.  That way they leave me alone."

"No, that wasn't the point," Sajel said.  "With the right comeback, you could've taken the wind right out of his sails."  She grinned, and I laughed.  Me?  Proper comeback?  Jane'll give me a blowjob before that happens.  But she had a point.

To top it all off, though, one person, Claire Redecker, asked if I'd let her photograph me after school.  Sajel laughed.  I've seen some of Claire's work—it's only on display all over the school—and it's all very good.  I was flattered.  I had to say No, though—not to the photo request itself (I can't turn down a Rule Three) but to the timing, because I couldn't miss the dress rehearsal this afternoon.  Before I could explain that, she jumped on me with Rule Three and a bunch of other stuff about ruining artistic vision, sabotaging careers, etc.  She said she'd seen me walking down the pavement and thought, You know, I could probably make something really interesting of that, interesting enough to maybe even be the centerpiece of her exhibit at, guess what, the Open House.  (Yikes, even more flattering!)  But now we Philistines were going to ruin that.  But once Sajel and I managed to convince her we were all on the same side, things went much more smoothly, and we agreed to meet at lunchtime tomorrow.  If she hurried, she said, she might have her exposures ready in time.

"See, this is why I like rationality," I said, unknowingly setting the stage for the coming confrontation.  "It's better to keep control and listen to the whole story, not let your heart or your temper lead you around."

"Or your dick," Sajel said, unknowingly adding to the fire.

"Exactly," I said.

We ended up out on the sports field, on the far side of the sports field.  At first, I thought this would end up being a mistake.  The only people who come out to this side of the field are the people who have something to hide.  They can't be trusted, especially here on their home turf.  Sajel and I weren't hiding; we were talking, letting our feet take us where they willed.  As it turned out, they led us straight into Gehenna.

We were walking orbits of the football field, watching the casual lunchtime game—manned, interestingly enough, by one naked Steve Proust—passing behind the bleachers stacked with girls watching the casual lunchtime game, passing that netherland where the troublemakers lay.  Troublemakers didn't bother me; I'd faced their ilk every year of my life.  I know what they want now: a response.  Bullies try to make themselves feel good by making you feel bad.  Fortunately, the reverse holds true as well—if they can't make you feel bad, they feel bad.  Or at least they leave you alone.  The best response to a bully, then, is to just ignore them, let their taunts bounce off you.  They'll go away eventually.

But it's also wise not to stray across their path.  Which Sajel and I had unintentionally done.

It happened on our third orbit.  Two guys stepped out from somewhere and quite deliberately stood in our path.  Sajel and I exchanged glances, consulting silently on matters of policy—specifically, Now what?  I don't trust it when people put themselves in my way; they're probably trying to obstruct me.  But Sajel shrugged and kept walking, and I followed her out of faith.

"You're in The Program, right," the first one said.  He was tall and hairless, with about five pounds of steel protruding from various locations on his body and clothing.  His voice was surprisingly high.

The other one looked positively normal, in a plaid shirt of conservative coloring and khaki pants, until you saw how threadbare those clothes were getting, noticed the dark ringed circles under his eyes, realized how much he smelled.  "Of course he's in The Program, dumbass, look at him.  He's naked."

Sajel said, "That doesn't mean he's in The Program.  Anyone can go naked nowadays.  The way the laws are, you could live your entire life without putting clothes on and never get called on it."

"'K, we didn't ask you, bitch," long-bald-and-ugly said.  "So what's going on, kid?  You in The Program, or didja just decide to spread some farts around?"

"I'm in The Program," I said.  "What's it to you?"

"Isn't he the kid that tried to kill himself," Smelly said.

"Kid!"  An imperative bark, demanding an answer.  "That you?"

"I do have a name, you know," I said.

"It's Breakduckface," Sajel said.

"What a—" Bald said.  Then he stopped.  "It's what?"

"Breakduckface," Sajel said.  "Which exactly what your mom calls you when she fucks you."

"Sajel, you're not helping," I said.

"Nothing's gonna help," she retorted.  "This is going nowhere.  Let's just leave."

Bald said, "Fine.  What's your name, kid?"

"If I tell you, can we go," I asked.

"Sure, fine, tell us," Bald said.

"Fine, I'll tell you, it's Br—"

"So are you the one who killed himself or not?"

I let him stare at me for a moment, concentrating on keeping my breathing calm.  If there's one thing that makes me angry, it's disrespect.  I'll be honest, I put up with a lot of shit in my life.  I don't have parents, I don't have friends, and my girlfriend is a terror-case throwback from Puritan times.  I have to fend for myself, there's no one I can count on, I spend my days alone.  If life was a game, I'd say it was rigged against me.  But it's not a game.  It's just rigged.  And despite that, I try my best to be a considerate, respectful, interesting human being, to contribute something back to a world and a population that has given me nothing.  With that in mind, respect is something I demand and, frankly, think I deserve.  You don't give it, I chew you out.  That's all there is to it.

"First off," I said.  "I didn't kill myself.  I'm not some sort of walking dead zombie.  I—"

"Yeah, right, whatever, just get to the point," Bald said.

Deep breath.  In with anger, out with love, or however the fuck you wanna say it.  You may be an asshole, but I will be better than you.  Watch me be holy, bitch, just fuckin watch, and then weep later, when it's my fuckin tax dollars keeping your bed made in prison.  'Cause someone'll be laughing then, and it sure as fuck isn't gonna be you.

...Okay, maybe not so much with the out-with-anger.  But that's my attitude.  I'm not going down quietly.  You wanna give me lemons?  Fine.  I'll make my fuckin lemonade, and sell it, and do a damn good job, and people will come from miles around to buy my lemonade.  And when you come back in two days and you have no idea what happened, I will simply laugh at your confusion.

"What do you want with us," I said.

Smelly must've seen that things were rapidly getting out of hand, because he said, very mollifyingly, "Just to ask a couple of questions."

"Then ask, and quickly," I said.  "You try my patience."

From the glances they shared, I'm not sure they understood what I meant.  Sajel, smiling sweetly, stepped into the gap: "He means you're pissing him off."

Clearly that didn't impress them, but at least they got to the point.  "Why'd they pick you for The Program?"

Sajel and I glanced at each other.  Frankly, I didn't trust these guys further than I could throw them—I didn't think Sage did either—and I wasn't sure telling them the deal about Arie was wise.  Not to mention the fact that 'picked' was right—I hadn't signed up, I'd been roped into it.

Finally I said, "To help out a friend."  Which was, for the most part, the truth.  Ignoring how she hadn't been my friend at the time.  Ignoring how I didn't really care to help her out.  Just as well; they had their ammunition.

"To help out a friend," Baldy said, "aww, ain't that sweet."

"How many times have you asked for relief," Smelly asked.

"What business is that of yours," Sajel retorted.

"I don't recall inviting you into this conversation, bitch," Bald said.

"I don't recall you having any authority here," I said, even louder.  "You're asking me personal questions, which is not covered under Rule Three, and if you want the answers, you'll be polite to my friend."

There was a stubborn, standoffish silence for a moment.  Then Baldy made a curt gesture with his hand and said, "Just answer the question."

We had reached the final fork in the road.  I didn't need to answer this—I hadn't needed to answer any of this—but let me be honest, I wanted to see where it was going.  So, I think, did Sajel.  We were sticking our heads in the noose to see what would happen.  And for the most part, I felt confident that we could get out again before any harm was done.  And it wasn't that personal of an answer; anyone with some friends could probably find out, since my life—and my orgasm count—wasn't exactly my own anymore.  So I answered.

"Three times.  Twice yesterday and once today in fourth period.  Probably again before I go home."  I let a wintry smile creep across my face.  "Why, you having some sort of competition?"

Bald turned to Smelly and, with great bitterness, pronounced his verdict.  "I can't believe it.  I seriously can't believe it.  They give him the chance to strut his shit naked, and he doesn't take it.  He doesn't even take it."

"Take what," Sajel asked.

"And then that thing with the naked girl," Smelly commiserated.  "She touches his dick and offers to do it more later and he says," and he made a mincing mimic of my voice, "'You don't have to.'"  Yeu don't HYAAVE tyu.  "What the fuck, man.  Are you gay?"

"Somebody's gotta explain this to me," Sajel was saying, "because I am completely lost."  Trying for humor: "You aren't gay, Brandon, are you?"

I closed my eyes.  My God, of all the things to be called on.

"Arie wanted to talk to me before school," I said.  "But I didn't get there until—"

"She offered to fuck him and he turned her down!" Bald shouted.

A deep, audible breath.  "Until just before the bell rang.  At recess she said she wanted to thank me for supporting her, and as far as I can tell, she means to do it physically."

"And he turned her down!" Bald repeated.

"She did," Sajel said, surprised.  "And you...  Does Jane know?"

"She saw.  We talked about it.  Nothing conclusive."

"Oh, by the way, boys," Sajel said, turning to our assailants with a truly dangerous smile, "Jane is this fellow's girlfriend."

"She in any of your classes, then?  You getting relief from her?"

I snorted.  "Jane?  Fuck it.  You couldn't get her to touch a man's dick if they were the last two on earth and they needed to reproduce."

There was a silence.

Sajel rolled her eyes.  "And, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner, Brandon Chambers, who has succeeded in digging his own grave."

"You know," Bald said conversationally, "there's only so much a man can take."

"Yeah," Smelly agreed.  "There comes a point where a man has reached his limits."

We were dead.  I knew it.  We were dead.  I knew signals, I knew what was lighting up my radar.  And why?  Because they felt like making us die.  No other reason.  So fuck it, why not deserve it?

"Too bad I'm not talking to men then," I said.  "'cause boys like you reach your limits just like—"  A snap of the fingers.  "—That."

Sajel looked at me for a scant instant, horrified.  Then her mouth opened and she just let go.  "You know, Brandon.  The reason you don't ask for relief that much.  Maybe it's because you can last about ten times longer than them?"

I laughed.  "Yeah, obviously.  I bet they have tiny dicks."

It was chickenshit, and we knew it.  We were tense, we were worried, that was the best we could do.  The sad thing is, the two fellows in front of us were so off-their-rockers already, that it worked.  Taunts that would've bounced off a fifth-grader...  Completely unmanned these two high schoolers.

"Okay, mister fuckwad, you asked for it," Bald said, his voice trembling, his hands convulsed into fists.  "First you parade around all high-and-mighty, wasting time in the fucking Program.  Then you turn down that naked chick.  Now you're—  We're not the boys, you are!  We're men!  Real men!  And we aren't all chickenshit like you!"  And I was startled to hear his voice break, to see sudden tears glistening in his eyes.

"But we figure," Smelly said, eerily calm next to his blubbering pal, inspecting his fingernails.  "If someone's stupid enough not to take advantage of The Program..."  His hand curled to fist, hammered down into his other palm.  "Then maybe we should take him out of it."

"That may not be a good idea," I said, surprised at the calm in my voice.  Oh fuck, these guys plan to hit us.  They plan to—  "If I'm injured and taken out now, I may have to do The Program again later, which might deprive you of your second chance."

There was a terrible glint in Smelly's eye.  "Then we'll have to do a real thorough job, won't we."

Sajel's voice rang loud and clear across the football field.  "Hey football players! we got big trouble!  Twenty yards away, a dozen heads came up.  "These guys are planning to—"

That was when the first punch landed across her face.

The next two minutes were a confused jumble.  I'm not sure where Sajel went, exactly, only that she went down, and suddenly I was in desperate motion, hoping to somehow distract both of these assholes until Sajel could get herself back on her feet, at which point I would seize her hand and drag her, bodily if need be, away from our two assailants as fast as possible.  But all I could see was Baldy, his eyes glittering, his fists like smith's hammers, advancing on me, delirious rage on his face, while I tripped and stumbled and did God knows what.  Behind me was the thunder of twenty clomping feet.  And then suddenly someone was there, as tall and as large as Baldy but about on his feet as light as a sparrow—it was Steve Proust, naked as a jaybird, naked as the day he was born, naked as the day I was born.  And then Baldy was out of there, his face bleeding, and Steve was moving on Smelly.  I found Sajel and grabbed for her, my hands fumbling, yanking her to her feet, stumbling away.  Almost we got run over by the next wave of the cavalry—basically the entire football game—but they swerved around us; and besides, that was it.  Smelly was out too, too focused on Sajel to notice that freight train of terror known as Steve Proust; and the other players were just moving in to secure them, make sure they weren't going to try anything new.

"Sajel?  Sage?  Are you all right?"

"Oh, fuck," came a new voice—Shannon Salvolestra, just as naked as Steve, her tits heaving from her heavy breathing, from the momentum of the run she had made, all the way across the football field (shortwise) from the stands to here.  At any other time I would've stared, nodding like a bobblehead.  "What the hell just happened?"

"Strayed across the path of some jerks," Sajel said thickly.  She spat blood.

"I can see that, what the hell were you thinking, wandering out into the badlands...  Come on, let's get you to the nurse's office.  Are you hurt, can you walk?"

"Come on, you," Steve Proust was saying.  He and one of his pals had a secure hold on a struggling but disenheartened Baldy.  "That may be a nasty lump on your forehead.  Maybe you ought to talk to Dr. Zelvetti about it."  Behind him, two more footballers were bringing in Smelly.

We were a bizarre procession—Shannon and I supporting Sajel (somewhere along the line she'd twisted her ankle) and Steve and his four behind us, handling their writhing prisoners, and then most of the rest of the footballers, and the girls that had been watching, behind them.  And four of us naked, though we didn't care so much about that anymore.  People stared.  Arie, for instance, who was walking back from the cafeteria with Dr. Schlemmer.  Tim Kwan, who immediately rushed over to make sure everything was okay, abandoning an important student-teacher meeting without a second thought.  His heart's in the right place, is Tim's.  (We assured him that the situation was under control, and Sajel urged him to get to his meeting.  "They already gave us problems," indicating the combo of Bald and Smelly, "don't let them screw you up too.")

It didn't take long for Nurse Chaplain to check up on us.  Bald and Smelly had been totally focused on taking me out, so Steve hadn't taken a scratch.  A single knock on both of them—Baldy on his forehead, Smelly in the gut; he was a lot smellier now, with vomit down his shirt—had put them away.  Sajel, poor dear, had suffered the worst of it; the inside of her mouth was cut, and her ankle would be sore for a few days.  Sajel couldn't accurately describe how she twisted it, which implied the worst, but the nurse declared it intact and undamaged.

Dr. Zelvetti arrived within a few minutes.  She pulled Nurse Chaplain out for a moment to consult, and when she returned she appeared to have the entire situation, because she flushed everyone out the door except me, Sajel, Bald and Smelly, and Steve, holding us in place by name.  Interestingly enough, Shannon didn't move at all, and just as interestingly, Dr. Zelvetti let her stay.

"Now," she said, all seven of us crammed mercilessly into Nurse Chaplain's small office.  "Mr. Proust.  Talk."

"Not much to say, Dr. Zelvetti," Steve said.  "I was out on the football field with Jordy, Eric, Ramon, couple others, maybe eight or nine."  The ones with names were, presumably, the ones who had helped bring Bald and Smelly in.  "Kent had just made a pretty sweet touchdown and we were resetting for the play, us in possession.  Then I heard a yell.  It was..."  He gestured at Sajel, apparently unaware of her name.

"Sajel," Dr. Zelvetti filled in.  "Sajel Malhotra."

Steve nodded his thanks.  "She was yelling something about how the football team suddenly had trouble.  Or maybe she was telling us she had trouble.  We all turned and looked, and I figure most of us saw what happened.  She and this other guy here—Brenda?"

"Unless Mr. Chambers has switched genders while I wasn't looking," Dr. Zelvetti said dryly, "no, that isn't his name, Mr. Proust."  She made a big show of looking over the section between my legs.  "Nope, still a man.  His name's Brandon, Steven."

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to scream.

Steve nodded again.  "Sajel and Brandon were standing there facing off with these two.  She was yelling.  He—"  He gestured to Smelly.  "—slugged her.  I wasn't sure what was going on, but since he was naked, I figured it related to The Program in some way, and that I should probably step in.  So I went over."

"'Went over,' hell," Shannon laughed, "I think you broke land speed records."

"I, uhm.  I nailed that one on the forehead, and he went down," Steve said, clearly a little more abashed now that we were on grounds that might get him expelled, "and then I took care of the other.  Brandon scooped up Sajel and got her out, but it was pretty much done at that point.  Jordy and Eric and Ramon helped me keep a hold on these two, and then we brought them in."

"Shannon," Dr. Zelvetti said.

"I was on the bleachers with my friends, some of the other cheerleaders, some of the players's girlfriends.  I'd seen these two walking around.  They looked like they were talking.  They used the old footpath—you know, the one that rings around the football field—and I thought that might cause trouble.  But I was...  A little distracted at that point, so I didn't really pay attention."

Dr. Zelvetti didn't ask what she meant that, and neither did Steve.  What was that?

"The next thing I know," Shannon said, "someone's yelling.  I looked up, saw what Steve saw, saw her get hit, saw Stevie take off, and followed.  The rest of the girls came too.  I helped Sajel walk here.  And that's basically that."

Sajel, on her interview, said only, "I was helping out a friend."  Which left the burden on me.  I didn't mind a bit.  Poor girl.  Actually took a punch for me.  Forget Arie's gratitude—I might have to take Sajel home and thank her.

"We were walking and talking," I said.  "Sajel and I.  We just wandered around, talking about whatever we felt like.  It isn't often I can just talk with somebody and have them listen or understand me.  We ended up at the far side of the football field, where these two were hanging out.  They stepped out in our path and made conversation with us."

"What sort of conversation?" Principal Zelvetti asked.

I shrugged.  "I have no idea.  I was wary that they might be laying for us, because of the circumstances, and I think Sajel was too, but we decided to talk to them and see what they wanted."

"What did they want," Principal Zelvetti asked.

"Evidently...  They had objections to how I was deporting myself in relation to The Program."

"Why, you weren't—" said Dr. Zelvetti, looking startled.

"No, I wasn't," I said shortly.  "I wasn't going around shoving my dick into people's face, I wasn't flaunting myself, I was attempting to maintain some dignity.  Which was basically what they were complaining about.  They said I wasn't taking advantage of the, uh...  Physical possibilities that The Program has to offer."

"Meaning..." Dr. Zelvetti said.

Sajel spoke up.  "He needs to ask for relief more often."

Steve and Shannon exchanged amused eyebrow quirks.

"Uh, Mr. Chambers," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "How often...  Have you asked for relief?"

I rolled my eyes and gave her the same answer I had before.  "Three times total, twice yesterday once today.  Probably once more later today, unless we get more space in choir practice."

Smelly made a smirking sound.  "Choir practice.  What kind of pussy-assed—"

"Mr. Hoffman!" Dr. Zelvetti said sharply, and Smelly shut up.  I didn't care.  Let him get his kicks now.  He'll be sorry later.  Wake up and smell the lemonade, fuckwad.

"I...  See," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "And they found this...  Disagreeable?"

"Apparently," I said.  "They complained that putting me in The Program was a waste, when my spot could've gone to someone more sexually adventurous—specifically, them.  Evidently it's some sort of duty, as far as they're concerned, to spread my seed around as much as possible."

"Well, that is the strategy males are intended by evolution to—" Shannon began, but Dr. Zelvetti cut her off sternly.

"They also said that they'd decided to take matters into their own hands," I said.  "Since I was wasting my spot, they, uh.  They proposed to remove me from it, physically if necessary.

"At that point Sajel spoke up.  She yelled as loud as she could, something like: Hey, football team!  There's some trouble over here!  She kept going, but this one here—"  Indicating Smelly.  "—hit her, and she fell down and stopped yelling.  I wasn't entirely sure where she'd gone, I didn't dare look away from the other one.  I just wanted to get both of us out of there.  But I'm not sure how I would've done it.  So it's just as well Steve showed up.  The rest of the game followed him to, uh, secure the area, and then Shannon came in and helped me with Sajel.  We walked here, Nurse Chaplain checked us out.  And now we're here."

Dr. Zelvetti was silent for a time, deep in thought.  Then she said, "Mr. Proust.  Ms. Salvolestra.  Ms. Mahotra.  Mr. Chambers.  Please go to my office and stay there until I return.  That shouldn't be very long.  I need to talk with these two privately, then I'll come and speak with you.  Will I see you all in my office?"  This punctuated by a direct look.

"Yes, Dr. Zelvetti," we said in unison.  Then we filed out, leaving her to her two prisoners.

T.5

It was a short walk, only a couple minutes, between the Nurse's Office and Dr. Zelvetti's.  None of us said anything, and Steve and Shannon, one of the school's most recognizable couples (completely aside of their lack of clothes) weren't holding hands.  I guess we were feeling subdued.  It was only in the actual office (Had we truly all been in here only thirty-six hours ago?) (Oh, and fancy that: as it turns out, she too graduated with a degree in Psychology) that we finally spoke, and it was Shannon.

"Damn," she said, "talk about chivalry.  Taking wounds to keep your friend safe."

"Uh, Shan, isn't chivalry the other way around, where the men protect the women?" Steve asked, amused.

Shannon gave him a look—How clueless are you?—and turned back to Sajel.  "Talk about standing up for your friends, hon."

Sajel said nothing, curled up in an armchair and staring at the floor.

"And you, Brandon," Shannon said, flashing me a smile.  "Three times in two days?  You know, you can let your hair down more than that.  Or maybe it's 'let your pants down.'"  Now her grin turned truly wicked.

"Well, I do have a girlfriend," I said.

Steve shrugged.  "So?"

I blinked.

Shannon smiled and snuggled closer to him.  "It's The Program.  We're both getting looked at and felt and all that.  He has my permission to do what he wants, and I have his."  She gave us wry grin.  "Kelly had her hand down there while we were watching, and I was about three seconds from coming when you guys yelled.  I hope you appreciate what I've sacrificed."

Sajel and I exchanged glances.

"But the point is, sure, you can have fun, even if you're seeing someone.  Though Stevie's supposed to check with me first if it's something he thinks I won't like, and the same in reverse.  But you don't have to let it get in the way."

"Yeah, but that assumes my girlfriend's okay with it."

"So, ask her.  'Honey, is it okay if someone touches me?'"

"Probably not," I said, sighing, "since she's not okay with her touching me."

Shannon and Steve gave me speculative looks.

"It's okay," I said.  "It's not like I constantly need relief or anything."

"Yeah, but...  Brandon, it's not really about what you need, it's about what you want," Steve said.

I shrugged.  "I don't care, one way or another.  Sex, no sex...  It's all the same to me."

Shannon looked at Sajel speculatively.  "He hasn't ever had any, has he."

"I..." I said.

Sajel looked at me.  "Do you want to tell 'em?"

"Oh, fuck," I said.  This was all starting to give me a headache.  "If you want to."

"Well, we kinda have to, to answer that question."

"We could just not answer it."

Steve said, "Uhm, from the drift of the conversation, I take it the answer is Yes, but."

"That's about the short of it," I said.

"What's the long of it," Shannon asked.

Sajel and I traded a long glance.

"Yes, he has had sex," Sajel said.  "Once.  Just like me.  Because of whom it was with."

Steve and Shannon looked from one to the other of us in silence.

"Please keep this under wraps," I said.  "Almost no one knows.  I have just...  Two friends, online, who have heard about this, and then Jane—"

"Jane?" Sajel asked in surprise.

"I thought I told you," I said, "I kind of had to tell her, to explain where I was coming from."

"Well, hell, if anyone's gonna know my secrets, might as well be a prude," Sajel said.  "But yeah, between the people he's told and the people I've told, you two are only the, uh...  (Lessee, three plus...)  Seventh and eighth people to know about this.  Not counting myself and Brandon, of course."

Steve nodded.  "Our lips are sealed," he said.

Well, okay then.  Time to tell this tale.

"We were freshmen," I said.  "It was right after I'd come out of the hospital—"

"Hospital?" Steve interrupted.

Oh bloody hell.  "When I was fourteen I tried to kill myself," I said, a little more impatiently than I had intended.  "You probably remember.  That's why no one talks to me, they think I'm insane and that it's contagious."  Calm, Brandon, calm.  "Anyway.  I'd just come out of the hospital, I was on the rebound, slowly climbing out of the Hole.  Because my parents weren't home, I was able to set up a sleepover at my house—Sajel, Zach, Rob, some other friends that I don't really talk to anymore..."  Anna and David and some others.  Jane and Kelsey and Tim hadn't yet been part of our circle.  "They all came.  Sajel was being a nice person, for once—"  Sajel rolled her eyes and flipped me off.  "—and Zach put away the make-fun-of-you vibe and was, like, sensitive and caring and all that."  That's part of the reason I put up with his shit.  A major reason.  Because the one time I really, really needed him to be serious and a real friend...  He was.  And there's simply no way I can thank him enough for that.

"So, Sajel and I had cause to happen to be together, overnight," I said.  "And...  Things happened."

"I think we were both being stupid," Sajel said.  "We'd had, you know, like, a, a brush with death, or whatever.  Supposedly when there's funerals, the people in it have more sex.  I think that was us.  And so..."  She shrugged.  "Things happened."

Steve and Shannon nodded slowly.

"We didn't actually have intercourse that night," Sajel said.  "We didn't have protection, and for once we weren't stupid enough to try it anyway.  And it was our firsts, both of us.  Like, our first anything.  I think we had enough to work on."

"Honestly, I wasn't really thinking of sex at all," I said.  "I was just...  In a state of wonder.  I thought I was head-over-heels in love with her, and it was one thing to be able to hold her, to have her next to me in this sleeping bag on the cold carpet floor.  It was quite another to...  Well, Steve, you know.  A woman's body is just something else."  Steve nodded wordlessly.  "And getting to explore it...  Just...  My goodness."

"I came back two days later," Sajel said.  "He'd managed to get his hands on some condoms.  His parents were still out.  Everything looked pretty dandy.  Except...  I didn't really want to."

Only silence greeted that proclamation.

"I'd realized that I didn't really think of him as a lover.  I mean, I loved him, and I still love him, but I wasn't in love with him.  He just isn't the sort I fell in love with.  But he was...  Insistent."

Steve's and Shannon's eyes went to me, disbelieving.

"No, not like that, no" Sajel said, "he was very polite and caring and all that happy shit.  Kinda stupid, if you ask me, but then, I guess he and Jane deserve each other.  But...  It was clear he had his mind on only one thing."

And what a fool I was, I thought.

"I said, all right, fine, sure.  If we have to."  Sajel tossed her hands.  "It's like giving a child candy because she won't stop throwing a tantrum about it.  Though, this was a little bit more than candy."

"Yeah, just a little," Shannon said.

"She went home that afternoon," I said, "and I didn't hear from her again until the next night.  Needless to say, she was...  Not pleased."

"And he wasn't pleased either, once he heard what I had to say," Sajel said with a smile that didn't light her eyes.

"The next few months were...  Icky," I said.  "I felt bad about myself, I felt bad for her, our friendship was on pins and needles...  It was like, every time I saw her, I just remembered, and it was all I could think about."

"I just got my ass out of there for a month," Sajel said, "went and hung out with other people."

"But eventually we sat down and talked about it and said, 'No, we want to keep this friendship together, let's try and put it behind us.'  And I think we sort of have."

"Sort of?" Sajel asked me.  "If it's only 'sort of,' then we need to go and have more talks."

"No, it's not...  I dunno.  Sometimes when I look at you, if something reminds me of the way you looked that night—maybe the way your eyes look, or the way you're standing—I remember, and sometimes I wish I could go back to that night."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Sajel said.

"Uh-huh," I said.

"No, look."  She leaned forward, her eyes clear, and suddenly I realized she was being serious.  "Yeah, bad things came out.  But we're over those.  We're best friends, we talk, we stand up for each other."

"You stand up for me," I corrected, smiling.

"Whenever I remember that night, I smile," Sajel said.  "Because it was wonderful.  There was nothing bad going on, there was no pain, no confusion, no anger.  I was with someone I loved very much, and he was touching me in all those places, and it felt so good.  We were pure then, Brandon, that's why you remember it and that's why you want it.  Because we hadn't fallen then.  We hadn't been cast out of the garden."

I sighed.  "Yeah, and why did we get cast out?"

"What do you mean," Sajel asked.

"Whose fault, exactly, was it, that things went awry?"

Sajel's face closed, and she sat back in her chair.  "Oh, no.  No.  Don't you fucking start that again."

"It's the truth," I said.

"It is not!  Who said Yes?"

"Yeah?  Well, who meant No?"

"Now hold on a second," Steve said.  "Brandon, are you telepathic?"

"No," I said, confused.

"Then there's no way you should've been able to know she meant no when she said yes," Steve said.  "She should've—sorry, Sajel, but it's the truth, and I'm sure you know it—she should've said No if that's what she meant."

"She did say No," I said, "she changed her mind."

"Or at least appeared to," Sajel said.

"Okay, so maybe that's grounds for caution," Shannon said, "but...  Honestly, Brandon.  If she says Yes, it's not your fault if she's lying.  Sometimes when Steven wants it, I just tell him Yes because—"

"You do?" Steve asked, startled.  "You don't have to."

"I do because it's important to you, I can tell," Shannon said.  "And if it's important to you, I can stand it."

"Don't do that, don't bend yourself on my account, I can hold it back."

"No, it's okay, I can hold it back, I—"

They stopped, staring at each other in strange confusion and wonderment, while Sajel and I glanced at each other.  She rolled her eyes and twirled a finger beside her ear, but she was smiling.  I knew that she was thinking the same thing I was: Wow, we said, are those two into each other.

"This isn't the time," Steve said finally.

"Yeah," Shannon said, in a soft, smiling voice.  "Anyway.  Brandon, if she tells you Yes, it's not your fault if she's lying."

"See that's what I keep telling him," Sajel protested.  "And I bet you this is a big part of why he isn't whipping his thing out more frequently this week.  Maybe he should've listened harder when I said No, but I should've stuck to my guns and kept saying no.  It was an accident.  He knows that, I know that, I've made my peace with it.  But he blames himself."

"Not for the accident," I said, stilling the room, "that's not what worries me.  What worries me is just what you said—that I didn't listen when you said No.  I don't like those kinds of people.  They're careless.  They think only of themselves.  They don't care what happens to other people.  I don't want to be that.  And yet I was.  And I can't let that happen again.  Especially not with something like sex.  So, yes, you're right, this is why I'm not—what'd you say—whipping my thing out more frequently.  Because I'm scared that I'll accidentally hurt someone with it when I do."

"Oh, come on," Sajel said, "you made the mistake once, I really doubt you'll make it again.  You're not a careless person, Brandon, you do care, at the deepest level of your being you do care, and you want people to care back.  You let it get out of hand once, you learned from it, I know it won't happen again."

I sighed.  Maybe.  Maybe.

"You're scared," Sajel said scornfully.  "You're fucking chicken.  You're scared of the fucking consequences."

"Yes I'm scared," I said, surprised at the vehemence in my voice.  "Goddamn yes I'm scared.  It got out of hand once, okay, just once—  And I hurt my best friend for life.  I took her virginity, she took mine, and it turned out to be a mistake.  When you find the guy you really wanna give it to, oh God whoops! it's already gone.  And all the while I just thought everything was going fine.  While it was all slipping out from under my feet.  How could I not be scared!"

I wiped at my face.  Damn.  Didn't mean to cry.

There was a long silence in the room.  Everyone fidgeted, playing with shoelaces or the arm of the couch or the arm of a significant other, respectfully pretending I wasn't there.

"So, Sajel," Shannon asked.  "How was it?"

"How was what?"

I could hear the grin in Shannon's voice.  "The sex, silly.  With Brandon.  How was it?"

Sajel was quiet for a while, thinking.  Then she said, "Honestly.  I thought it was pretty good.  I've never been with anyone else, but I've heard horror stories about painful first times, and I wasn't sure what to expect."

"There's some truth to them, unfortunately," Shannon said, sounding rueful.

"But..." Sajel continued.  "Hell, if that's what it felt like with someone who was just a friend—and while I wasn't quite into it, to boot—then when everything really falls into place?  It'll be really something."

"You enjoyed it?" I asked.

Sajel looked at me, and for once there was no sarcasm on her face.  "Yes, Brandon, I did."

I sniffled.  "Fuck, that just makes me feel even worse."

Sajel's brow wrinkled.

"Because you didn't wanna be there.  Because you didn't wanna do it.  And then you did, anyway, just to appease me, and then you actually had fun.  Doing something you totally didn't wanna do.  I feel like some sort of terrorist or something."

Before Sajel could answer that, Dr. Zelvetti stepped into the room.  I hadn't heard the door open.  Startled, I realized she might have heard a whole hell of a lot of that conversation.

"I'm not sure what to make of the statements I got out of Mr. Patini and Mr. Hoffman," she said.  If Hoffman was Smelly, then that made Bald Mr. Patini.  "They didn't match up with what you four said, they contradicted themselves and each other, and they never overtly denied what any of you said."  She gave a wintry smile.  "With them trying to accommodate their own tales, each other's, and yours's, it ended up being quite a muddle."

She sat down at her desk.  "One thing is certain, though: they harassed a member of The Program.  The minimum penalty is suspension.  We'll not be seeing them around for a while."

I breathed a private sigh of relief.  Dr. Zelvetti had evidently ruled in our favor.

"Mr. Proust, Ms. Salvolestra," Dr. Zelvetti said, "I'm glad to see we picked the right people for the job.  You looked out for your fellow Program participants, as we asked you to, and managed to keep them safe."

Steve shrugged.  "It was pure luck, Dr. Zelvetti.  If they'd been over by the gym, for instance, we couldn't've stepped in."

"Nonetheless, when it was your time, you stepped in," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "It's what you're there for, and I'm glad it worked.

"And Mr. Chambers, Ms. Malhotra," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "Aside from the obvious misjudgment of stopping to speak to them in the first place, you two acquitted yourself very well.  I'm proud of you both."

"Thank you, Dr. Zelvetti," we murmured in unison.

"If you hurry, you'll make it to your classes, so I see no reason to give you notes; but if you're a bit late, ask your teachers to consult with me, and I'll set them straight.  I'll be making an announcement, either today or early tomorrow, about this incident, to reinforce the penalties accrued by abusing a Program participant."

But before I was able to leave, Dr. Zelvetti said, "Brandon, if you would please remain, I'd like to have a word with you."  When everyone else had left, she indicated the chair in front of her desk and I sat in it, feeling a little nervous.

"I thought it would be wise to check up on you," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "Steven and Shannon have a great burden on them, since they keep an eye on the rest of you; but you have one almost as great.  It's been over twenty-four hours.  How have you fared?"

"Well, aside from getting waylaid by two idiots out past the football field today," I grumped.  But my heart wasn't in it, and I think she could tell.

"Brandon, I want you to understand," Dr. Zelvetti said.  Her eyes were grave and still.  "I didn't make this decision lightly.  I would have supported you if you had chosen not to step in, and I'm very glad you decided to help.  I hope you're not angry with me."

A sharp retort leapt to the tip of my tongue—Of course I'm pissed off, I wouldn't be here if you hadn't practically shoved me into it—but there it died, unsaid.  In a way, she was lucky: had she had asked even twenty minutes ago, I would have said yes.  But having to relate my past with Sajel had taken all the energy out of me.  Frankly, I was too tired to be mad.  A quiet part of my brain put up a warning flag—Skirting the Hole!  Very, very close to the Hole!—but I put it aside.

A question occurred to me.  "If I hadn't said yes, who would've replaced me?"

Dr. Zelvetti said a name I didn't know.  At my reaction, she gave a dry grin.  "Yes, that's another reason I'm glad you're on board.  You're a little more...  High-profile than he is."

"I guess the other question is...  Why me?"  I looked up from the floor at Dr. Zelvetti.  "You have to know how hard it was for me to get out of the Hole.  And how much closer I get to it, just having to deal with Arie.  It's a slippery slope.  Honestly, you're threatening my peace of mind."  I said it, not as a threat, but as a simple fact.  Because it was.

Dr. Zelvetti sat back in her chair.  "I know," she said, her face closed and impassive.  "And I thought long and hard about it, and watched you for a long time, before I decided to ask you.  What if it doesn't work?  What if, instead of you pulling her out, she pulls you in?"

"Wait a second," I said, "me pull her out?"  That was the first I'd heard of it.  "You expect me to try and dig her out of the Hole?"

Dr. Zelvetti said nothing.

"First off, that's impossible, and you know it.  Use your fuckin psychology degree!"  That probably should've gotten me in trouble, but...  I mean, honestly!  I'm just a high school student, and I know this!  "Everyone's Hole is personal.  The best I can do for Arie is stand at the edge and throw flowers in.  She has to dig herself out.  It's about her realizing that life can change, and about her choosing to change it.  I can't make her do that.  No one can.  She has to choose it."

Dr. Zelvetti said nothing, her face working in mysterious ways.

"Jeez," I said, sitting back in my chair.  I ran a hand over my face, through my hair.  "I'm not a miracle worker here.  Sure, I'll try to help.  I like the girl.  She's nice.  There's a nice person struggling to get out in there.  But I can't do it for her."

"I never expected you to," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "I've only expected you to do exactly what you've done.  Be supportive.  Be compassionate.  You care, Brandon, you care about other people.  It's part of who you are.  It's part of why you're so lonely sometimes, having so few friends, having so little respect from your peers.  All you want is for them to care—because it's the same thing you do to them."

I said nothing.  Sajel had said the same thing not ten minutes ago.  Did a lot of people know this about me?  For the longest time, I'd assumed that only I did.

"But it also means you're willing to reach out to someone in the same boat.  Arie.  You've been where she is, and you know the way out.  More than anyone else at this school does, you know where she is.  And that's why we asked you."

"Well, that's all well and good," I said.  "But what about my Hole?"

"Your Hole," Dr. Zelvetti said, her voice suddenly amused.  "Do you really fear it that much, then?"

I glared at her.  "Don't make light of it.  I only tried to kill myself because of it."

She smiled.  "I'm not making light of it, Brandon.  I considered that too, and decided it was worth the risk."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said acidly.  "Would you say the same thing if it was your hide on the line?"

"It is a vote of confidence," said Dr. Zelvetti, ignoring my question.  "Brandon, I've watched your progress since that first day two years ago when you didn't come to school.  I think you've come a long way.  Far enough that, even this close to the Hole, you won't fall in it.  I think you can resist it."

"Yeah right," I said.

A rueful smile crossed her face.  "Do you really have so little faith in yourself?"

"I prefer to be careful," I returned.

"The time for caution is over," Dr. Zelvetti said.  "No, Brandon, I don't believe you'll fall to the Hole again.  I wouldn't even have considered this if I didn't believe that."

Her face was serious and grave.  I could see she believed what she said.  It was strange.  No, I didn't have a lot of faith in myself, especially not where this was concerned—the Hole, the great faith-zapper, the thing that makes a ruin of men.  (And women too, if you insist on being sexist; actually, more women than men, if you believe the statistics.)  But clearly Dr. Zelvetti did.

It was strangely elating to know she believed in me so strongly.  It felt good.  After all, she was the first person who had believed in me in my entire life.

But was she right?  I didn't know who was right.  But I could tell she wasn't wrong.

"You'd better run along to class now," Dr. Zelvetti said, and I did, feeling a little numb.  "Oh, and, Mr. Chambers."  That customary twinkle had returned to her eyes.  "Only three requests for relief?  It's your Program week, Brandon; there'll never be another one like it."

Groan.  "I'll keep that in mind, Dr. Zelvetti, thank you."

T.6

The next time I saw Brandon, after that bizarre procession across campus, was seventh period Chemistry.  For the most part, I had forgotten that I was Arie Chang, naked in school; mostly I wondered what the hell had gone on while I was talking to Dr. Schlemmer.  I bumbled through school in a daze, agreeing without thought to any requests.  If someone had come along and asked to have their way with me, it's possible I said yes without even realizing it—or noticing.  God, I hope I don't get pregnant.

But we didn't really have time to talk, because class revved its engines and took off; it was only until the day had ended, and we were heading to the music building under a crisp, bright fall afternoon, the trees shifting in the breeze and the sun angling down in amber lines and making bright the patchwork quilt of red and brown and yellow leaves on the ground, that I got a chance to ask him what had been going on.

"Oh," he said distantly.  "Some guys told me something I needed to hear."

It took me a while to get out of him what he really meant by that.  He seemed very distracted; his eyes looked through everything, seeing something far away.  Was he just trying to avoid the topic or was he really thinking?  Regardless, eventually he told me about the party on the football field, and then about a conversation he'd had in Principal Zelvetti's office, where everyone asked him why he didn't ask for relief more often.

"The truth is...  I don't know," he said.  "Yeah, it scares me, somehow.  But why?  Am I just...  Afraid?  Is there something deeper?  I mean, I'm a take-it-or-leave-it guy when it comes to sex, and I'm proud of that.  But..."

"Well, I think you should be proud of it," I said.  "Those guys on the football field sounded like they wanted to use The Program as an excuse to shove their dicks in everyone's faces.  It's okay not to want that."  I said.  Conveniently ignoring the fact that I had earlier in the day seduced him into having sex with me because I was, quite frankly, horny and desperate.

He sighed.  "It's funny.  I always figured I was pretty sexually aware."  Huh.  Had he even listened to me?  "Of my body, of my needs, of...  You know, all of that stuff.  I thought I was okay with it.  But now...  It seems like I'm not as okay with it as I thought.  If I always feel weird when someone fondles me or touches me.  I don't want my sexuality to be available to everybody.  I want it to be for me."  He made a wry smile.  "This Program.  They covered almost everything, but...  What if the participant's just an introvert."

"Are you an introvert," I asked.  Sure, he was trudging through the muck of his own soul right now, but he was doing it verbally, not keeping it all to himself.  That didn't sound like an introvert to me.

"...Well," he said, probably getting the same idea.  "Kinda.  I can be extroverted around certain people.  A few certain people."

I didn't really know what to say to that.  I'm exactly the same way.  So I made something up.  "So maybe," I said, "the point of The Program is for you to widen that range of people you can be extroverted with."

It was such bullshit.  That was the sad part.  I was just parroting this bullshit.  I needed something to say, and I blurted out something random.  But the crazy thing is, I think he actually considered it.  Considered it long and hard.

But in the meanwhile, I wanted to change the subject before he noticed all my bullshitting.  "So, what's up with this Meredith girl?"

His head jerked and he stared at me, startled.  "What?"

"You know," I said, "the girl next to me in Psychology class.  You kept looking at her."

"I did?"

"Uh-huh."

He was quiet for a while, as if considering what to say.  The silence stretched, and I filled in:  "She's pretty, isn't she?"

"I think so," he said, but something caught in his voice.

"What, is something wrong with her being pretty?"

Again, he didn't answer.  Leaves rustled over us, boughs leaning over the sidewalk, shifting in the autumn wind.  The sun came speckled down through the trees.  Brandon's and my footsteps made parallel lines of noise.

"Is this about Jane or something," I asked.

"Jane?  Oh God no.  I don't tell her when I find somebody attractive, because it'd make her insecure, and what's the point?  I can't stop myself from doing that.  But I can stop myself from acting on it, and I do.  I bet you she runs across guys she thinks are attractive too, but she doesn't act on it, and that's all that matters."

"So.  What's wrong with Meredith?"

The silence stretched, as before.  It struck me suddenly that Brandon, who always seemed to know what to say, was stumbling on this an awful lot.  That was interesting.  What does it mean when the guy who always has an answer, doesn't right now?

"What's wrong with Meredith is...  That I don't know what to think of her.  Yeah, she's pretty; yeah, she seems nice.  Yeah, she's friends with Ruby Berringer—"

"She what?" I yelped.  Holy shit.  You do not stray across Ruby Berringer's path if you value your life, what the hell was this nice kid Meredith doing associating with her?  Voluntarily?

"Yeah, exactly," he said dryly.  "Did you hear about what she did to me yesterday in Pre-Calc?  She shut me down by jacking me off."

"What?"

"I needed relief, and she volunteered, and I let her."

"Biiiig mistake," I said, my eyes wide.

"Shyeah, I know that now, but I'd never had reason to talk to her before this.  You hear things, and you learn to be wary, but you takes your chances too."

"Kinda like this afternoon."

"Huh.  Yeah, kinda like..."

"You know, it strikes me that, sometimes, you're a terrible judge of character."

He colored at that, and I wondered if I'd hit some raw nerve.  "No," he said, "it's not that I'm bad at...  I knew those two guys were trouble.  And I'd had hints about Ruby Berringer.  I think it's that...  I ignore the warning sirens in my head.  I figure, God, I dunno.  I figure I can handle it.  And mostly I'm wrong."

"No, that's not fair, you handled those two guys—at least, mostly."

"Steve Proust had to rescue us."

"You think you could've gone on getting beat up on by those two lunkheads without someone noticing?  Rescue was inevitable, Brandon, and before that you had the right thing in mind."

"Chuh.  Yeah, running."

"Pfft.  Brandon, can you fight?"

"No, not really."

"And Sajel can't either.  So what sort of idiot would try to stay and fight, instead of running?"

He didn't answer, his face motionless, and I think he'd taken my point.

"What were the alarm bells screaming when you came up against those guys," I asked.

He smiled ruefully.  "Run, run, run, get away, get your frickin ass out of there, and hurry."

"And what do the alarm bells say about Meredith?" I asked him.

Again, he was silent.  Maybe checking up with those alarm bells as we walked.  One thing I've learned about Brandon since then: all of those things, his brain, his heart, his instincts—get submerged into the background noise of his life.  In some ways he lives mostly without guidance—just himself, bereft of all consciousness, stumbling his way through school.  If he wants to know what his heart says, what his brain thinks, he has to go and ask them.

"They say..."  He sighed.  "They think she's a nice girl."

"And you're only worried because she associates with Ruby Bitchinger."

"Yeah, more or less..." he said, reluctant.

"So, give her a chance.  The next time you see her, talk to her, find out what she's made of—  Don't just let your panic over Bitchinger take over.  Listen to the alarm bells, Brandon.  I think they know what they're talking about."

And speak of the devil.  As we approached the doors of the music building, someone reached them first and held them open for us: Meredith Levine.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," said Brandon.

Sounds good to me, I thought.

T.7

The rehearsal itself was routine.  We'd only been in school for a few weeks, but they'd chosen relatively easy pieces for everyone to learn, and we picked it all up pretty well.  It was a learning experience too: When Mrs. Bickson started up the orchestra for one of our double numbers, only two or three people from each section played.  And yet when we choristers came in, she turned to Mr. Gunderson and said, "Can you guys sing louder?"  Eight string instruments can make a lot of noise.

I didn't ask for relief, but maybe I should have.  Because it was a little hard to concentrate on the music, on the sound of the instruments.  It was hard to be a singer and forget that I was Brandon Chambers, naked in school.  Because within eyeshot were two girls that I was starting to think of as quite attractive.  One was Arie Chang.  The other was Meredith Levine.

Arie...  Well, there she was, with that violin poised on her shoulder, making some really nice noise.  I couldn't see much more than that, her shoulders and her face and the violin she was holding, because the rest of the orchestra was arrayed basically between her and me, but I remembered the appointment we'd made, and—with Shannon's and Dr. Zelvetti's and Sajel's advice in mind—I had to admit that I was looking forward to it.  And I'd been seeing Arie's naked body for a while, and if I wanted to, I could imagine what she might look like lying beneath me, her breasts in easy reach of my hands, moaning and gasping as...

Well.  Maybe we should think about that later.  But suffice it to say, it was inherently possible for me to get excited.

And Meredith...  Well, we've talked about her.  I wasn't thinking of her sexually; I was just looking at her, looking at the way she stood there, her eyes flicking between the music and the conductor, those large beautiful eyes.  Her hair was being held back by a large bronze clip at the nape of her neck.

You know some of that shit they say about how God put an angel on earth just for you?  I think I understand some of what they mean.

Derek said to me, indicating my erection, "Is this going to continue?"

"Probably," I said apologetically.  "Unless something changes drastically in the next twenty-four hours.  I'm just glad I'm not in the front row."  Tomorrow we'd have an audience.  At least in the second row I had people's bodies to hide myself behind.

Derek grinned.  "Well, if you were, it'd be a really good attention-grabber.  If, you know, if Dr. Zelvetti needed to say something, she could just stand in front of your dick.  Everybody'll be looking at it."

"Everybody's parents," I said.  "Not what I'm interested in."

He laughed.  "Hey, they say that an experienced woman can be quite an adventure..."

I covered my eyes with my hands in play-acting terror.  "No, no, no thank you, augh, oh God."  And we laughed together, and I suddenly began to wonder if I ought to see about making Derek a closer friend.

The real kicker, though, was what happened with Meredith.

I think Arie was determined to make my life a living hell, because when we were on break, I went out to the corner of the lobby to see if I could convince my hard-on to shut up.  And then next thing I know, here comes Arie, wandering along as casual as you please, chatting with Meredith.  I don't know how girls make friends that quickly.  They can just talk to anyone.  You ask a guy to strike up a random conversation with a random guy and he can't do it.  I guess it's genetic.

"Oh, Brandon," Arie said in tones of purest surprise, "there you are!"  The look in her eyes told me that this was anything but unplanned.

"Hi," I said.

"Is something wrong?" Arie asked innocently.  "You look uncomfortable."

"It has to do with being near a naked woman all the time," I said darkly.

"Oh-h..." said Arie, her eyes widening in pantomime.  "I get it!"  Then, to Meredith with a light giggle, "He thinks I'm pretty."

Meredith smiled distractedly.

"But!"  Arie stood bolt upright.  "I'd better leave him alone, then, so that I don't disturb him anymore!  Oh, but...  It wouldn't be appropriate to leave him all alone.  So, Meredith.  You talk to him.  Byeee!"  And, fwit, just like that, she and I were alone.

Meredith and I were silent for a time, not looking at each other.  Then Meredith said, "Did she just...  Do that on purpose?"

I expelled breath in a huff.  "Yeah.  Yeah, she did."

Silence.  The vague echoes of people in the choir room around the corner.  The slap of shoes on linoleum floor.

"She's quite a character, Arie," Meredith said.

"Yeah.  Yeah, she is."

I think that set us back at least another minute.

Finally Meredith said, "...I'm sorry about...  Yesterday."

"Oh," I said, not sure how to respond.  Which thing yesterday?

"I'm...  Not sure what I did to offend," she said.  "But..."

Okay, that was lousy.  "Nothing," I said.  She was walking on eggshells here trying to make conversation.  The least I could do was help out.  "You did nothing.  It was just...  Me.  Being psychotic."

She cocked an eyebrow at me.  "Psychotic?  So does that mean I should run away screaming now?"

"Noooo," I said.  "People who are psychotic just live in their own little world."

"Ohh-h."

"Yeah," I said.  "It wasn't your fault."

"Okay."

"Yeah."

Somebody was yelling in the choir room.  Random bursts of string instrumentation filtered through the building.

"Do you mind if I..."  She gestured at the bench I was sitting on.

"No, fine, go ahead."

But that didn't help either.  I wasn't looking at her, and she wasn't looking at me.  I just felt...  Really awkward.  I still didn't know what she was made of, and everywhere I looked I could see the angry flash of Ruby Berringer's eyes.  What had Arie said?  Ruby Bitchinger.  My greatest fear was to turn back to Meredith and see that same look in her eyes.

Something was touching me.  My eyes jerked downwards, and I saw a pale, slim hand tracing over my down-turned wrists.

With gentle fingers, Meredith turned my left hand over, palm up, until she could see the scar there.

I hadn't done a very good job.  I now realize I probably should've cut lengthwise, down the arm, instead of across.  All I'd managed to do was put a line on my arm; the bones of my arm had prevented me from getting into the arteries, which is really the point of slitting your wrists.  That's the sort of thing they don't really tell you in encyclopedias or—

"You're turning green," Meredith said.

I turned my hand palm-down.

"Thinking about that...  Isn't pleasant," I said.

"I'm sorry," Meredith said softly.  "I just...  Had to see them with my own eyes."

I looked away again, but I could feel the touch of her eyes on me.  Gentle, and worried.

"Did they seriously..." she said.  When I didn't respond, she continued: "Did they seriously make you do The Program even though you hadn't signed up?"

"Well, they didn't make me do the...  Dr. Zelvetti says I could've said no."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her expression.  "Say no.  To Dr. Zelvetti.  The kind of woman who looks like she could kill you with a glare if you did something wrong.  Riiiight, I can see that happening real easily."

I snorted laughter.

"Isn't that sort of a bad precedent?  I mean, it's kind of scary if she can just decide to pull people into The Program like that.  I mean, your girlfriend—"

"Huh.  Yeah, Jane'd...  God, I dunno.  Didn't a couple people at Westport have nervous breakdowns?  That'd be Jane all over again."

"So..."  Her eyes were full and serious on me.  "Maybe you should say something."

I shook my head.  "I don't...  Guh.  Honestly, I just don't care right now.  Let me live through this week first.  After that, it doesn't matter anymore—I'll have done my week in The Program, it doesn't affect me what she does."

"Unless she made you go through it again."

"Oh fuck!"

She giggled.

"I think someone would step in," I said.  "I mean...  Like you said, that's really dangerous.  There'd need to be some...  God, what's the term?  Checks and balances.  Someone would need to have veto power."

"Exactly," said Meredith.

Privately, though, I wondered.  Dr. Zelvetti, as it was, had practically dictatorial powers over The Program.  It was unprecedented.  But...  I trusted Dr. Zelvetti.  Sure, she might be stern, not exactly the person to cross, but...  You just can't see her abusing her powers.  I believed her when she said she'd thought long and hard about asking me.  And I believed her when she said the Hole had lost its power over me.  ...Well, maybe not believed, but at least I was willing to admit it might be true.  Fuck, at least I liked hearing it.

"So," said Meredith, and I realized I'd been sitting there for nearly a minute, just woolgathering.  Startled, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"I'm sorry for being such a crab yesterday.  I was...  After that thing in math class, I wasn't sure what you were up to."

"Ohh," she said.  "Yeah.  I thought it might be that.  ...Was that what you meant about...  Being psychotic?  You weren't sure if—"

"Yeah, I thought about it later and I was like, 'Wait, she just happened to be sitting next to Bitchinger, maybe she didn't have—'"

"Yeah, I wasn't really pleased when she...  I thought it was mean."

I sighed.  Someone walked past on their way to the bathroom.

"Bitchinger?" Meredith asked, a smile in her voice.

I laughed.  "Yeah.  Yeah, that was Arie's idea."

"Sounds about right to me.  God, she says some of the funniest things...  But mostly by insulting other people.  She'd make a good stand-up comedian, except that her audience would hate her by the end of the night."

I smiled, meeting her eyes for maybe the first time all day.  She had a lovely smile.  "How do you know all this, if I dare ask?"

Meredith laughed (Oh, that laugh; I could listen to it forever).  "Sitting next to her for a month in class?  She talks a lot.  Whether I'm listening or not.  It's like—"

"Ooh, that rhymes," I said, grinning.

Her eyes rolled heavenward and she slapped me on the arm, "Shut up," and conversation disintegrated into a train wreck of giggles.

Mr. Gunderson was yelling for everyone to come back into the rehearsal hall, we've only got an hour, folks, and we have to run through the entire program, so let's hurry up!  Rolling our eyes in unison, we stood.

"You're Meredith Levine," I said.

"You're Brandon Chambers," she said.

And we smiled, and we were glad to know a friend when we saw one.

T.8

Goddamn Brandon and all his sappiness, hurry up and get to the sex!

—Oh, yeah, hi, I'm Arie Chang, naked in school, and I'm getting horny.

The crazy thing was, this was a new development.  Though not an unexplainable development.  I stay out of people's way, I spend lunches and passing periods and breaks in out-of-the-way places so that people won't talk to me.  The less people there are around you, the less chance there is of you getting pasted with a reasonable request.  Though I haven't yet visited the computer lab this week; God only knows what those geeks will have for me.  How many of them have actually seen a naked girl in the flesh?  Damn good question.  I should ask.

But this wasn't the computer lab; this was the choir and the orchestra, the music program, and after I had flang Meredith and Brandon together—What?  Flang.  It's the past-perfect tense of 'fling.'  I fling, she flung, he had flang.  I'm all for the regulation of verb conjugations.  Anyway.  After I had flang Brandon and Meredith together, a bunch of guys banded together with a bunch of reasonable requests.  As Brandon said later, "Maybe they finally noticed you're a perfectly respectable hunk of womanflesh."  Gotta love that Brandon; the soul of tact, he is.  Anyway, I'm surprised Bran and Meri didn't notice all the whooping and yelling, 'cause this was right in the middle of the choir room, and basically anyone who wasn't at their instruments was watching and cheering.  And I won't tell you what they did, but let's just leave it at: when we resumed, I was eyeing my bow and wondering just how bowstrings would react to pussy juices.  Brandon was going to be hit by a raw animal.  I needed sex!

Except that, Brandon didn't notice.  He was over the moon.  He and Meredith didn't make out, they didn't kiss, they barely touched—and he calls it the really important thing that happened that afternoon.  That man.  Sometimes.  I swear.  Anyway.

He stopped with his shirt half-on, and said, "You know, I'm not so sure we should do this."

Oh, for the love of all that was slippery!

"I mean, I feel like...  God, I dunno, I feel like I'm slipping off with a whore or something."

Excuse me!  "What," I said, dangerously close to lodging a foot in his balls, "are you saying I'm a whore?"

"NO," he said, "I'm saying that I feel like I'm being compensated or something.  It feels dirty."

"Sex is supposed to feel dirty," I retorted, "come on."

"Would you stop joking around for a minute!" he said.  "I'm serious!"

"And so am I," I said.  Though, not really.  I just wanted him to stop arguing and get on with it.  Get it on.  Whatever.  "Look," I said, "I'm already on birth control—I've been getting The Shot since last year.  I don't have any diseases.  Hell, there are no diseases.  There's no harm in it.  We're just friends.  It'll be fun.  Why not?"

I was glad I'd put my pants on first, because it allowed me to sidle up to him and let him feel my breasts pressed against him.  And he with his shirt half over his head, too.  "There's nothing to worry about," I cooed.  "Just take me home, and let me...  Thank you."

And I was glad he'd put on his shirt first, because it was quite obvious how much the idea was working on his glands.  And we looked down at that thing bobbing to attention in front of us, and I knew I'd won.

Brandon's car was clearly only a few years old.  Both of my parents's cars are on the verge of disintegrating, and here was Brandon, driving this silver SUV thing.  The car was surprising.  It looks like an SUV, sure—but it's not; it's more like a large, lumpy station wagon.  You stamp the pedal to the floor, you're not gonna go skyrocketing off like a sports car.  It's not flighty.  It's not half as tall as most SUVs, either, nor half as large, nor half as gas-intensive, because it doesn't have two or three extra cylinders.  It's not really that flashy, once you get used to it.  It's very solid.  It's dependable.  I see why Brandon likes it.

He drove me back to his house.  It was a pretty long commute—fifteen, twenty minutes, a lot of them on the freeway.  He wasn't kidding about his parents pulling strings to put him in Mount Hill; from the looks of things, he ought to have been at Westport.

I wondered what my mom was doing, and I laughed.

"What's so funny," he asked.

"I wonder what my mom's doing," I said.  "She comes to the north parking lot," right near the music building, "to pick up me and my sister."  Trina's also in the orchestra, over in the woodwinds section with her flute.

Brandon's eyebrows bobbed.  "And you just walked off with me" (to the south lot, get our clothes and then his car) "without saying a word to either of them."

I giggled.  "Yeah.  Mom's gonna have such a cow."

"You know, I've always wondered," he said.  "When people say, 'have a cow,' do they mean it in the same way as 'have a baby?'  'cause the saying actually makes sense that way.  I mean, I wouldn't want to give birth to a cow."

I laughed—everything was funny to me right then—but I think he was dead serious.  Which really just tells you about Brandon, doesn't it.

Red Plains is rich-person country.  People don't have houses there, they have estates, and Brandon's was no exception.  Unless, by exception, you mean, 'Even bigger than average.'  Because it was that too.  It must've been like a mile between the front gate and the house, over a manmade version of the Great Plains—grass, endless, endless grass.  My face was pasted to the window, and my nose left a smudge.

"I have never seen this much open space before," I said.

"Wait until you see the backyard," he said, with a cynical grimace.

The house was just as he'd described it: a sprawling, thousand-roomed complex in straight, austere lines and white paint and red shingle roofs.  It was the largest single-family dwelling I'd ever seen in my life.  They had garage space for six cars.

"Do you want something to eat, something to drink?" he said, and he lead me through a myriad of rooms and hallways.  Quickly I was lost.  The kitchen alone was practically half the size of my entire house.  I probably could've gotten lost in there.

He gestured.  "Dining room's through there, though my family normally eats here—"  Waving haphazardly at a smaller table.  "—when they're here at all, at least.  Down the hall past the dining room is our TV room, if you wanna take a look.  All the way down the hall.  Lots of multimedia equipment."

I did.  It took a couple of minutes to walk all the way down, but it was well worth the walk: a huge entertainment center, all the latest in visual entertainment.  My male cousins would love this.  (I'd say my brother would too, but I don't have one, just a younger sister.)  It was practically a tiny, twenty-person movie theatre.  All this equipment must've cost a fortune.

I stood in the middle of the room and twirled on my toes.  I would've given my left leg to live in this house.  I should talk Brandon into marrying me.  Look at all this!  So much room, so much space, so much money...  It's everyone's dream!

But on the way back, I met the downside to having a large house.

It was...  Well, frankly, I don't know what room it was.  But it was large.  And strangely shaped, too, in sort of a quarter-circle, though more of an eighth—it was as if someone had cut a smaller circle into a large one, removed a quarter, and then removed the quarter of the inner circle, the resulting shape resembling something like half of a letter 'C.'  A large, wide, tall room with nothing in it but marble floors and white sheetrock walls and curtained windows, through which filtered the last light of a dusking evening.  The hallway I'd taken lead straight through this room, but I detoured a little, wondering what was in here.

Nothing was in here.

I stood with nothing between me and the cold floor but my socks, listening to the faint echoes of my feet as I moved around the room.  It was cold in here, despite being only September; I saw heating vents high on the walls, but they didn't seem to be helping.  Aside from my own breathing, the silence was complete; I couldn't even hear Brandon puttering about in the kitchen.

It was alien in there.  Cold and stark white and not a soul in sight.  Frigid floor, walls, ceiling, totally unmarked, and curtains that sat absolutely still.  The wind moaned past the window, and it was as if the room sighed with loneliness.

"Not so impressed with the TV," Brandon asked, looking up from his tray, which now contained two soda cans and some dishes of snack food.

"Not so impressed with the lack of people to watch it," I said, shivering.

Brandon gave me a speculative glance, but handed my Coke to me without a word.

It was then that everything started to come crashing down.

It was just looking at Brandon, reddened by a sun most of the way down the sky; the shape of his eyes, the total seriousness in them; the steady hand offering me that glass with its payload of syrup and clinking ice; the cold, frigid inhospitability of this entire house, warmed only by his presence, his movement within its bowels.  This was not a place for my frivolity.  This was not a place for my headstrong delirium.  This was not a place for me.

For a moment I stared at nothing, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the sin I was contemplating.

Then there was rebellion.  There was rationalizing, there was argument, there was whining, and most of it was subconscious; all I had to play with was a sourceless but beating, undeniable fear.  What won was, mostly, a backwards sort of logic.  I had come here to seduce Brandon, to have my way with him as much as I could—and it would be a complete mistake to do so.  I could see that now.  But the realization so depressed me that I knew I had to take immediate action, do something to counter my downfall.  Preferably something uplifting, something fun.  Something like sex.  Screw the wrongness—maybe we could make it rightness.  Maybe it'd be so good that it'd turn out to be right.  Maybe it might be the rope I'd need to climb out o this hole.

All this was subconscious.  All I had was a searing panic and then an increased resolve to get into his pants.

And all of this occurred in the two seconds it took to transfer the glass of Coke from his hand to mine, and then from my hand to my mouth.

"Would you like to sit down," he asked.

No, actually, I'd like to yank your pants off and ravish you over the kitchen counter.  "Sure," I croaked.

We ended up facing each other on this recessed window seat thing—a section of the wall pushed out, with a padded bench built into it and windows facing.  Outside was a rolling eternity of lawns, tilted gold in the light of the sun.  Brandon put the snack tray between us.

"I've been meaning to ask you," he said.  "Where'd you go after Psychology class?  I saw you talking with Dr. Schlemmer."

"Yeah, he played therapist for me."

"Oh."  He sounded impressed by that.  "How did that go?"

Urgh.  Talk.  Yuck.  "About what I expected.  Which wasn't much."

"I thought you hadn't been in therapy before."

Urgh.  Thinking.  Yuck.  "My online friends have.  None of them are really enthusiastic about it."

"What did Dr. Schlemmer say."

Urgh.  Remembering!  Yuck!  This guy better be worth it in the sack...  "Uh...  Something about...  Well, we mostly talked about my parents.  He said something about perception versus reality, uh...  He said that, uh, who I am, and who my parents see when they look at me, are two different people.  Which, actually, was a really good point.  Because it's true."

He gave me a bemused, cynical look.  "Yeah, they don't see all those slices on your arms."

"And, uh...  He said I should try to correct that."

Brandon's eyes changed, looking past me.

"He's saying you should confront them," he said in a distant voice.  "That you should tell them."

"Yeah," I said.  That was about what I expected him to say.  It wasn't good advice, as far as I was concerned.  My parents would never listen.  Well, maybe my dad would, but he's completely and totally whipped.  He doesn't take a piss without my mom's say-so.  And my mom...  Well, what Meredith said.  To her, belief is more important than the truth.  She's self-delusional, basically.

I'm supposed to stand up to them?  To a completely-cowed father and a mother who will only listen to what she wants to hear?

"It's a good idea," Brandon said.

Okay, I've never known what it feels like to have your mouth just completely fall open.  And I still don't, because when he said that, I think everything fell open.  My jaw tumbled to the cushioned bench and then to the floor and my arms and legs fell off and my guts and lungs and heart dripped out of my chest and my eyes and eyelids and hair flaked off.  For a scant second I was a bizarre caricature of a human, in perpetual agape at this truly perplexing comment.

Then I said, "What??"

"It's a good idea," Brandon said again, fixing me with a direct gaze.  "You said it yourself.  Your parents are the ones who are screwing you up.  Even if they could put you on meds, it wouldn't help much, because the real problem is the way your parents treat you.  So, you need to get them to change."

What??

"Uh, Brandon," I said.  "My mom is the most delusional woman on the face of the earth.  She thinks she knows everything, regardless of what's actually the truth.  And changing her mind is a long, painful and tiring process.  Do you have any idea what you're proposing?"

"No," he said evenly, "I don't.  I only know what has to be done."

"How do you know what has to be done?  You barely know me!"

"That's true," Brandon said.  "I only know what you've told me.  Have you told me truly, Arie?  Have your words been true?  Or has it all been lies."

"It's been true," I said sulkily.

"Then my response is valid.  Either you can wait for two years until you're going to college and use that time to break their hold on you...  Or you can do it now."

The thought of living like this for another two years—in secret, blood seeping down my arms, hiding in corners to cry—made me feel extremely tired.  But the alternative...  Well, that made me feel tired too.  There just didn't seem to be any good choices.

"I dunno," I said.

He gave me an odd look, but said nothing.  And there didn't seem to be much for me to say either, so I said nothing.

"I mean, seriously," he said finally.  "Arie, you need help—and I'm not saying that as an insult, I'm saying that as a fact.  Isn't there some law that you have to be stuffed into the hospital if a teacher notices that you're harming yourself?  Everyone thinks you need help.  You think you need help.  If nothing else, you need to confront your parents so that you can stop things from getting worse."

Damn him and his logic.  Damn him and his ever-fucking logic.  "It's not exactly easy, you know."

He shrugged.  "You just march up to them and say, 'Excuse me, Mom-and-Dad, stop fucking me up.'  What exactly do they do, anyway?"

"They..."  I paused in mid-motion, words halfway out my mouth.  What did they do?  "I..."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know," I said.  "I'm just...  Used to it."  Remember what I was saying earlier, about how depressed people sometimes forget what made them that way?  Well, in my case...  "Whatever it is, they've been doing it for ages.  This isn't, like, new, it's just a case of continual pile-up."

"Straws across the camel's back," Brandon murmured to himself.  That's where I got that description.

"Yeah, I guess.  I think..."

"Well," he said.  "Think about it.  Figure out what they do.  And then, once you've figured it out, you can ask them to stop.  And, if they won't, you can show them the cuts on your arm."

"You're so mean," I said.  "Just sitting there with your, your fucking soda, telling me what to do.  It's like, 'Oh, it's easy, it's all just a matter of...'  And it's not, it's hard.  Don't you have feelings? don't you care?"

I swiped at my eyes.  Damn.  Didn't mean to cry.

He looked at me with his distant, expressionless face—so cold, that face, so frigid in its immobility—and something changed there, like a lock had been removed and he could show emotion again.  "Yes," he said.  "I do care.  I wouldn't be telling you if not."  He sighed.  "Arie, you're a friend.  I don't like seeing friends in pain like you are.  Yeah, maybe it'll be more pain to change something, but...  Isn't that worth it?  A few moments of a lot of pain, traded for, God, I dunno, years and years of not-pain?  Isn't that worth something?"

And when he got no answer aside from the tears trickling down my cheeks, he came and sat beside me and took me into his arms.  His arms were warm and strong, and I could feel the warmth of his body.  I put my head on his shoulder and cried.

"You make me feel horrible," I said eventually.  He started to protest, but I kept going.  "Because you're right.  But I can't.  It's too hard.  It's just too hard.  Except that I probably could, if I wanted to...  So I guess I don't want to.  And that makes me feel horrible."

"It's just being depressed," he said, his hand moving up and down my arm.  "It makes you feel...  It makes everything look bad."  I could hear the wry smile light his voice.  "Let that be extra incentive to break out of it."

I didn't say anything.  I didn't agree.  Looking back, it seems the height of insanity—but also totally, completely typical of my experience with depression.  Because Brandon was right, I did need help...  But here I was, refusing?  A man hiking on a mountain has broken his leg.  The helicopter comes up to rescue him, and he says, "No, go away!"  The newspaper reports the next day: Insane Hiker Left To Die On Mountain.  And then the caption, He Was Depressed.

And then below the title, as newspapers do it, the face of the hiker, in full color on the front page.  My face.

And, looking back, I'm so glad that my friends (Brandon, though later there would be others) continued to have faith in me.  Because if they hadn't, I'm not sure where I'd be today.

There wasn't a whole lot of talk after that; we just sat there, and he held me, and I was glad to be held.  We trade a lot of hugs on the Internet, but (don't tell anybody this) that just makes it worse—it makes you realize just how few "IRL" (in-real-life) hugs you get.  But it also makes you appreciate it when you do get one.  As I was getting from Brandon, now.

Brandon might've kept talking.  But I was clinging to him, close to him, feeling the thin play of muscle beneath his skin, his wiry arms, the beat of his heart, and realizing that, if I really wanted to make a move on him, this would be the time to do it.

So I moved.

"So we're still heading for that," he said.  I tried to kiss him again—I did kiss him again—but it didn't take.  He wasn't responding.  He just sort of sat there and let me mash my lips against his.

"Is there somewhere else we could go," I asked, "as opposed to this little seat?"  It was all of five feet wide and only two or three deep; it was simply not going to do.  Brandon rose and gestured for me to follow.

I was gambling on a long distance between his room (where else would he be leading me?) and the kitchen, and luck was with me.  The real trick was ditching my clothes without him noticing.  Fortunately, since it was a balmy September, I wasn't wearing much.  Though I'll never recommend walking around on cold marble without shoes or socks on.  At least the cold air helped raise some goosebumps...  And some other things.  I needed a reaction from him.  I needed him to react.  I needed to get him turned on.

When Brandon turned to usher me into his room, he stopped and stared for a moment, taken completely unawares.  I tried to give him my most innocent smile, but only (purposefully) managed to look guilty.

Then he chuckled.  "You're something else, you know that."  And he pulled me into his arms again, still smiling.

"I try," I said cheerfully, desperately striving for that same irreverent energy that had possessed me in the morning.  I needed that.  I needed that!  Though, in substitute, I'd take his touch, his hands, his mouth instead...  Ooh, I'm starting to warm up!

But was he?

"So, mister," I said, once he had let go.  "Now you've got me.  What do you plan to do with me?"  I twined my hands at the back of his neck, lifting my breasts up, to prove my point.

"I dunno," he said, clearly playing hard-to-get. (God, what a reversal, I'm chasing him!)  "What would you like me to do?"

"Oh," I said, "I dunno..."  A step closer, letting my breasts begin to brush against him.  "Maybe...  We could get you out of these clothes..."  Plucking at his shirt.  "And you could help me conduct some in-depth investigations of human sexuality."

There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye.  "How deep did you want to go?"

I stepped again closer.  My body was practically wrapped against his, my nose hovered an inch from his.  (I was on my tiptoes.)  "As deep as it'll go."

Somebody was happy to see me.  I could feel even through his jeans.

Of course, I was kind of playing with him.  I wasn't going to have sex with him.  That would be ridiculous.  I blow him, he eat me...  That'd be the end of it.  And it'd be fun.  At least, assuming he was any good.  I dismissed that thought entirely.  Everyone's had sex by the time they're sixteen.  It's fun, it's enjoyable—why wouldn't you do it?

(Of course, I knew that wasn't true.  Intellectually.  But in my heart, I didn't really believe it.  Even Jane, who by all accounts is a strait-laced prude—she's waiting for someone special, right?  Well, what would be the point if she didn't know what it was she was delaying?  If she seriously is holding out without knowing, then she's just an idiot.)

(...Had Brandon had sex?  He never got any from Jane, I think we're clear on that, and I don't know if he ever dated anyone else.  Of course, by now, he's probably gotten it on with...  But that's getting ahead of myself.)

I helped Brandon out of his clothes.  Or maybe just hurried him on.  If you've never tried it before, undressing is really not a two-person activity.  You trip over each other.  But about as fast as humanly possible, he had nothing on either.  And it was pretty clear that, now, he was into it.  The old soldier was standing up and ready to march.

Just looking at that made my mouth water.

"Oooh, what's that," I said, forcing some sort of cheerfulness out of my voice.  (It's a true fact: if you're unhappy but you force yourself to smile, you'll actually feel better.)  I sank to my knees and gaped at his penis in feigned curiosity.  "I've never seen one of these before!  What does it do?"

I've used that line several times.  Most of the time, its owner says, Girls.  Brandon said, in a dry voice, "It's called a trouser snake.  It likes girls.  When there's a pretty one nearby, it stands up to take a look."   (Sadly enough, that's pretty accurate.)

"So it thinks I'm pretty," I asked, all solemn innocence.

"It seems to, yes," Brandon said, still in that dry tone.  Later I found out what was going through his mind, but didn't come out of his mouth: Except that sometimes it gets fooled when naked girls throw themselves at me.  That, as Brandon put it, was one of the revolving points upon which our lives turned.  If he had said it, things would've been...  Well, I don't know if things would've been worse.  Or if they'd've been better either.  Arguably, his silence set into motion the events of the rest of the week, and I will never, ever regret those.  But the point is, if he hadn't stayed silent, things would not be as they are today.  And that's just simple fact.

But in the meanwhile, I was on my knees on the carpet of Brandon's room, and his trouser snake was standing up to say hello.  And it had given me quite a compliment!  I must repay such generosity.  "Well, that's very nice of it!  Hello, Mr. Trouser Snake, I think you're pretty too!"  (And that too seems symbolic of the insanity of the times.)  "How would you like me to kiss you."

And then, while Brandon twitched in alarm, I did just that.

I've always liked dicks.  They're warm, and tasty, and their skin is really soft even though the rest of them is hard.  Don't ask me to describe their flavor, I can't do it, it tastes like all skin—except, maybe a little saltier, maybe a little warmer, maybe a little better.  What comes out of them is fun.  And how the guy reacts when you lick them...  That's the most fun of all.

Within a few seconds, kissing turned into full-on swallowing, and his head was in my mouth, that spongy mushroom helmet, while I ran my tongue over it.  Brandon was being vocally appreciative in a way I doubt I could explain.  Then I took him deeper, caressing his shaft with my tongue, running over and over the ridge at the bottom.  According to the WWW—World Wide (bathroom) Wall—that's one of a man's most sensitive places; and by the noises Brandon was making, he was no exception.

I moved up and down his shaft slowly, savoring the unique experience of having this half-squishy, half-hard, wholly-yummy thing in my mouth.  Then I focused my lips around him and sucked.  Brandon stiffened, his hips jolting upwards, and I followed him, not losing him for an instant.  My tongue ran across his shaft in swift, short movements, and I began to move up and down his shaft again, now maintaining the suction for all I was worth.

Brandon found words from somewhere.  "Uh, Arie, watch out, I'm gonna—"

And then it was gushing out of him, into my mouth, across my tongue, splashing the back of my throat—his cum, pouring uncontrolled from his cock as he twitched and groaned and whispered and I swallowed and swallowed and swallowed.

"Oh man," Brandon breathed, "Oh Jesus."

"What do you want with him," I asked.  He didn't just blow him off.

"Oh man," Brandon said again.

"Was that your first," I asked, standing for the advantage of height.

He shook his head, and I remained silent, hoping he'd elaborate.  But he said nothing more.  Maybe he was simply beyond speech at this point.

"It's been a long time, though," he said finally.

"Nothing out of Jane, I suppose."

"Chuh," he said.  "Jane.  Let's not talk about her."  His eyes focused on me, suddenly and shockingly.  "Let's talk about you instead."

"Uh?"

"You, Ms. Arie Chang," he said, moving forward, a predatory gleam in his eye.  I backed up.  "You have just given my arguably the best blowjob I will ever receive.  It seems...  Only polite, you understand...  To return the favor."

"Uh," I said, slightly unnerved.  I had never seen him this...  Focused.  "What did you have in mind?"

Then—and I have no idea how he did this—I was on my back across his bed, my legs dangling overside, and he was leaning over me, an almost crazed look on his face.  "To do just...  Exactly what you did to me," he said.

Then there were hands between my legs, and I jumped.

Now, the thing is, I was already wet.  Hell, if he wanted to hop on, I was pretty much ready to go.  I've had men in there when I've been less turned-on.  What startled me was how intent he was, how focused.  How aggressive.  Ten minutes ago, if you'd asked me if Brandon Chambers could be aggressive, I'd've laughed.  He's just not like that.  He'll stand up for himself, sure, he's determined and he's got guts, but he doesn't attack like that.  He talks.  He reasons.  He bargains.  Aggressive just isn't in his emotional vocabulary.

...Or, so I thought.

I'd tell you what happened next, only...  I'm not entirely sure.  Um.  It felt really good, though!  See, first there was just his hand down there, cupping my sex and getting pretty damp—I was turned on, remember—and then he spread my lips and began running a finger up and down my slit, which felt really good, and then he noticed my clit, and then...  Well, that's about when I lost track of what was going on.  He was clumsy, not quite accustomed to finding his way around a girl's nether regions, but he was determined to make a good showing, and it was working.  At some point my nipple got involved, and at some point his mouth got involved too, but I only figured all this out in retrospect.  The rest of the time, my eyes were clamped closed, and I was moaning and howling and whimpering, and the touch of his hands and tongue and mouth and lips were driving me mad, rashes of pleasure spiraling across my body, up and down like ripples in a pond, leaving every nerve tingling and screaming, until the pressure built and built and then burst, and I cried out, pressing up to him, as everything exploded into showers of pleasure.

"Brandon," I was moaning, I was whispering.  "Brandon, put it in me.  Put it in me.  I want you...  I need...  Fuck me."

Boy, did things get out of control.

He was hesitant moving into me—maybe this was his first time—no, that couldn't be, he would've said something, he's considerate like that—but that only made it worse.  I lay there, tingling, feeling the head of his cock slowly slide past the entrance of my pussy, slowly pushing its way up my sheath—  Goddammit, hurry up already!  I grabbed at his ass with my hands, and he took the hint, plunging the rest of the way in, until he bottomed out against my hips with a jarring thump.  "Oof," I said.  "Aah."

"You okay?"

He'd come down right on my clit.  "That felt gooood."

His eyebrows quirked in confusion.

I didn't give him the chance to recover.  "Now," I said, lacing my fingers behind his neck, my ankles across his back.  "Is this in-depth enough for you?  Or would you like to plumb the depths several times?"

His face still showed confusion, and hesitantly—ever so hesitantly!—he began to move within me.  But I wasn't having any, and I hammered down on his ass with my heels, forcing him in more quickly.  I didn't want something slow and delicate, I wanted a good—  Hard—  Pounding.  Come on already.  Fuck me!

Something changed in his eyes, understanding blooming in them, like a door swinging shut.

He fucked me.

It was hard, it was fast, it was glorious.  I felt every stroke as his hips rammed into mine, the tremors shaking down my body, paralleled only by waves of pleasure.  He was grunting wordlessly with each breath, pumping like a madman.  In his eyes, I saw, not Brandon, but the animal—unclothed, unchained, and horny.

Fine with me.  I want.

With a final exclamation, he thundered into me, and his cum poured out into my waiting pussy.  I could feel it pooling deep inside me, splashing against my walls.  I wasn't cumming, and that was fine—I loved it, loved the feeling of his release, loved knowing what I could do to him.  What he could do to me.  It was a heady, throaty power, stronger than any orgasm.

For a time there was only our breathing, and sweat, and the slow chant of rapidly-beating hearts.

"Oh wow," he said finally.

"Yeah," I said, looking beyond him at the ceiling.

"Oh wow," he said again.  "Look at the time."

Time?  Was there time?  Was it late?  Where was the sun?  He'd turned on the room lights when we came in; only the faintest of blue hues shone through the window.  It must be pretty late.

"Maybe..."  He was still panting a little.  "Maybe we should get you home."

"Yeah," I said.  Another girl—Sajel, Meredith, me at another time—might have been offended at how quickly he seemed to be rushing me out of his house.  I...  Had other things to worry about.

(It was wrong It was wrong It was wrong It was wrong)

See, I don't think Brandon enjoyed himself.  I'm not quite sure what happened—he got so aggressive suddenly.  Is that what he's normally like?  I mean, I've never had sex with him before.  Maybe he's always like that.

Maybe he's not.  Maybe I had angered him somehow.  Maybe that's what he does when he's...   I dunno, when he just wants to get things over with.  I was expecting him to be more...  You know, gentle.  Slower.  Kinder.  He would've been like that with...  I dunno, with Meredith.  (With Meredith?)  With Jane.  Why wasn't he like that with me?

...Well, it's pretty obvious.  I mean, he loves Jane.  And I bet he loves Meredith too.  Well, at least he's attracted to her—I mean, she's pretty and all.  And so he'd be gentle with them.  He'd be kind.  But not with me.  Because he's not attracted to me.

...Oh, is that why I took him to bed!  That explains a lot!

But it also made me feel a whole lot worse.  It's kind of terrible to realize why you did something by failing to do it.  And shit—you take the man to bed and he still isn't attracted to you?  You must be really fucked-up.

"You haven't said a word," he said as he pulled up in front of my house.

I didn't answer.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No," I said, putting on the best face I could muster.  "Nothing's wrong."

But I don't think he believed me.

My sister answered the doorbell.  Trina's fourteen, and she looks more like our father—her face is less flattened and though she fights hard against it, she has a killer case of acne at times, which is definitely Dad's influence.  She's a freshman, so she knows about The Program, and God forbid she's told my parents.  "You are so dead," she said, a huge grin across her face.

"Yeah, shut up," I said.  Damn her, she must've stolen my good mood.  Most of the time we don't cross each other; she spends most of her time in her room, where her computer is, and I do much the same.  My mother complains a lot about how little we eat.  She'll turn on first one of us, then the other, asking why we let so little food pass our lips.  I don't tell her that if I were any fatter, I might have to start purging.  That's what we call it on the Internet.  Purging.  Very polite name.  We don't hold with established psychological names online.  Besides, can you spell bulimea nervossa?

"You should've heard her while we waited in the car," Trina said.  She was enjoying this, the little bitch.  "O my GOD I can't believe it what if my daughter has been kidnapped and is locked in someone's trunk being driven to another STATE aiya it's the most horrible—  Trina!  Do YOU know where your sister is??"

Despite myself, I had to laugh.  Trina imitates our mother really well.

"Arie!" said Mom, in a voice that meant business.

I sighed and turned.  "Yes, mother?"

Sometimes you really stop and notice the people you've been seeing all your life.  I did then.  I'm taller than my mom—so's Trina—and a lot slimmer, to boot.  She comes charging in like a juggernaut, shaped like a barrel and less than five feet tall, but there isn't anyone on the face of the earth who can stand up to her.  Though reportedly Dr. Zelvetti might be able to give her a run for her money.  She dyes her hair so that no one can see the grey in it, but it suddenly occurred to me that her face is starting to sag and wrinkle—lines of stress, lines of pain, lines of age.  She's only forty-nine.

"Where have you been!  I waited and waited and you didn't come out!  I had to go to the main office and they didn't know where you were!  Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

Making notes on this incident later, I noticed: One thing Mom does to annoy me is assume I'm only about five years old.  Yes, Mom, I did have any idea how worried you was.  That's part of why I didn't tell you where I was going.  That, and I have to make dinner tonight.  That will be fun.  Remember what Dr. Schlemmer was saying about triggering?  Yeeeaaah.

"I was at a friend's house," I said.

"Whose," Mom asked.

"Brandon's," I said.

"Who?" Mom said.  "I don't know that name."

I sighed.  "Mom, remember Lisa?  My best friend through eighth grade?  You didn't know her name for a long time as well.  Brandon's this guy I met in English class.  We hung out together with some of his friends at his house."

"Why didn't you call me?  I always tell you to call if you're not going to—"

Making notes on this incident later on, I noticed:  Actually, my mom's quite permissive.  If I had fed her that lie over the phone, or simply come out and told her in the parking lot, she probably would've let me go.  I know people whose parents won't let them leave the house on a school night.  Period.  Good thing they tend to have nice houses, because they have to host all the group projects.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I said, trying to mollify her.  "I forgot."

"Well, don't forget next time!  There's a reason we bought you a cell phone!"

"Sorry, Mom, I think it just gets bad reception at school.  It just doesn't work well there."  Which is the truth, since I leave it uncharged in my room.  Doesn't perform well at all at school under those circumstances.

"Well," said Mom, clearly not willing to get into that.  We'd had massive arguments about the cell phone and gotten nowhere.  "Did you remember that tonight you have to cook dinner?"

Making notes on this incident later on, I noticed:  You know why my mom annoys me?  (1) Because she assumes that I'm totally stupid, or at least can't remember anything for longer than five minutes; (2) Because 90% of the time, she only speaks to me to tell me to do something; and (3) Because 80% of those are to remind me of something I already remember.  It's not conducive to self-confidence to have someone lurking over your shoulder, telling you everything you have to do.  You'd actually think it wouldn't foster independence, but it does—Trina and I are responsible and conscientious on the vague, distant hope that my mother will notice and actually shut up.

"Yes, Mom," I said, grasping for patience.  "I did."

"And you need to practice violin for the Open House tomorrow—"

"Yes, Mom, I remember that too."  Oh shit I have to be naked at the Open House.  So I have to tell my parents some time between then and now.

I turned around, facing the door.  Facing away from my mother.  That's what I do.  It took quite a while to work the system out, but eventually my mother realized that, when I turn my back on her, it's code for, I need some space.  I keep expecting her to just ignore it, to come grabbing my shoulders and shaking me, but she never has yet.  Praise God for minor miracles.

"It's almost six," my mother said in a quieter voice.  "You barely have time for all of it.  You'd better hurry, Arie."

"Yes, Mom," I said.  Dinner would be in half an hour, and I'd get quite a bitching-out if food wasn't on the table when...  Ooh, that's an idea.  "Since it's so late, maybe Trina should help me with dinner."

If looks were swords, Trina would have stabbed me on the spot.  Mom, however, saw a good idea in it.  "Yes, Trina, go on, both of you.  Hurry up."

Trina grabbed the rice maker first.  Why?  Because when you've got a rice maker, making rice is easy.  It's like a bread maker—you throw the rice in and some water, close the lid turn it on, and voila! all done.  Sighing, I dug into the refrigerator.  Mom shopped, but you never knew what she'd brought home; what was in the fridge determined what I'd cook.

I dismembered a couple of chickens while Trina chopped up vegetables.  She leaned close to me and said, "Is it just me, or do you smell cum?"

It wasn't just her.  Brandon had come inside of me and the smell of it, if you're not careful, can leak out.  But more importantly, it wasn't just me either.  Trina had had a boyfriend.  But clearly that hadn't stopped her.

I didn't say anything, and Trina grumbled to herself and fell silent.

But she wasn't done yet.  When Dad and my mother had sat down and we were beginning to eat, Trina said, all innocence and light, "So tell me, Arie, is Brandon your partner in the Naked In School Program?"

I felt like the floor had dropped out from under my chair.  I hadn't asked her not to tell—actually, I hadn't said anything.  If I had asked her to keep it a secret, she would've done the exact opposite.  So the only option was to hope it didn't come up.

Some hope.

"What is this," my dad said mildly, but he was overridden by my mom.  "What?!"

Trina gave me a sweet, deadly glance—Oops, have I said too much?  Heehee.—and contentedly served herself a piece of chicken.

Can I turn my chair around?  I think I need space again.

"Arie, explain," my mother said.  They knew what The Program was, same as everyone; how could you not?  It's been on the nightly news, it's been in the newspaper, it was in the PTA letters every parent got at the beginning of the year.  They knew.  But they didn't know I was in it.

Some part of me spoke up—maybe nurtured by Brandon, because it was speaking in his voice.  Well, you were going to have to tell them anyway.  Now's as good a time as any.

Now's not as good a time as any, now they're suspicious and defensive!  And the Brandon-voice didn't have an answer to that.  Nonetheless, it (he) was right.

Should I try and pad it?  No, might as well not.  "I'm in The Program," I said.

"What?!" my mom said again.

"Don't you need parental consent," my father asked.

"No, you don't," I said.  "Only one of the two parties—student or parent—needs to sign.  Though it's nice if both do."  Parents had been able to shove their children into The Program against their will since the days of Karen Wagner.  The ASB had wrangled on that point long and hard before deciding to support The Program.

I like talking to my dad.  At least, more than my mom.  He's rational and he doesn't get overexcited.  Compared to my mom, who reacts like a hyperactive dog.  Twiddle a finger at her and her adrenaline peaks through the roof.  But my mother can cow Dad like no one's business.  He can't cross her; that's just one of the facts of life.  The seat of power in his house is under Chang Jingwei, Melissa Chang—my mother.

"What?! my mom said again.

"Why did you choose to go in," my dad asked.

Now that was a question I definitely couldn't answer.  My parents didn't know about my deal with Dr. Zelvetti.  They didn't even know I was depressed, which was why Dr. Zelvetti had made the deal.  So I just shrugged, very blasé, and said, "It looked like fun."

"What?!" my mom said again.

Peeling a page out of Brandon's book, I said, "Look, mother, are we going to get past that sentence any time soon?"

My mother's mouth opened and closed like a stuck fish.  Trina giggled.

"I can't believe it!" my mother said.

"Upp."  I held up a hand, speaking quickly.  "You can't say that sentence again tonight."

"Why?"

"Because if I let you, you'll repeat it all night and try to call it a conversation," I said.

"No, why did you enter The Program?"

"Didn't I just tell Dad?"

"She said it sounded fun," Dad volunteered.

That probably was not the smartest of answers I could've given.  I think "fun" and "Melissa Chang" are, like, polar opposites.  And Mom seemed to agree.  "'Fun'?  'Fun'?  Fun to...  To walk around in school all day without clothes on, to...  To be pawed at by nasty American boys who can't keep their hands to themselves, to..."  A sudden thought made her jaw drop.  "To be touched...  There!"

I rolled my eyes.  In retrospect, I really wish I'd had Sajel's term—my haha—to throw at Mom right then, because the results would have been memorable.  Except, maybe not.  Mom would probably have started actually using it.  The term, not her haha.  I bet you they haven't had sex since Trina was conceived.

All this talk of hahas had my dad's panties in a twist, though.  "Can't you tell them not to?  The boys, I mean."

"Not under Rule Three," I said.  "It's like...  It's something like, 'You have to let people do whatever they want with you—'"

"You're getting it all wrong," my sister said.  "It's reasonable request.  '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.'"  Holy shit, did she have that pamphlet memorized?

"So they can't do anything they want with me," I said hastily, before my parents (my mother) started making mountains out of molehills.  "I'm like...  One of those Invisible Woman things.  Except that I'm not invisible.  I'm the Visible Woman."  Which, really, was much the truth, since I wasn't wearing a damn thing.  Very visible.  "Besides, there are three other girls in The Program.  And four other boys."

"Like Brandon," Trina asked, the picture of wide-eyed innocence, and I decided privately how she was going to die.

"Yes," I gritted, "like Brandon."

"Is he hot," my sister asked, transforming on the instant from bright-eyed angel to shining-eyed temptress.

"Trina! my mother cried.

"I think that's beside the point," my father said.

"Yes," my mother said, regaining her stride.  "Arie.  Tomorrow you must go to your principal—Mrs. Zamboni—"

"Zelvetti," I said, marveling once again at the foibles of people who learned English as their second language.  "Dr. Zelvetti."  I mean, where the hell had she gotten zamboni?

"—and ask her to remove you from The Program!" my mother said.  "Tell her that your parents demand—"

"Mom, I can't," I said.  "Once you're in, you're in.  They don't take you out.  If you miss, or if you do something they don't like, you have to do it again."

"Again?" my mother said.

"Again," I said.  "Probably next week."

"Then I will talk to her," my mother said.  "I refuse—"

"Mom," I said loudly.  "I made the decision.  Not you.  So I doubt she'll allow you to reverse it."

"Nonsense," my mom said, and I knew she was set on it.  Oh boy.  "While you still live in this house, while I still feed and clothe and shelter you—"  Feed?  Who cooked tonight, again?  Ugh, this was going to be miserable.  "—then I still have some say over what my daughter does or does not do."  How was I going to wriggle out from under my mother's glare in front of Dr. Zelvetti?

Mom was still going.  "I cannot believe how my daughters act.  My brothers and sisters and I didn't ask for these wild things when we were in school.  No, we praised God that we had a chance to learn.  And when I finally had a chance to come to America, I worked hard to save my parents' money and sent back as much of it as I could, so that my sisters could come too.  None of this...  Ridiculous Program business.  We had to—"

Ugh.  Next thing we're gonna hear is her talking about walking barefoot in the snow to school, uphill both ways.  Whatever.  I've heard this schtick many, many times before.  And you know what?  It's boring.  Sure, maybe she had to graduate from college in three years, because it takes ten times as much Chinese money as it does American money to go to college.  But you know what?  We're not paying with Chinese money.  It's a new world, Mom, wake up and smell the roses.  Times have changed.

And though Mom kept going, that about shut it down for the night, and I carried my violin upstairs to practice and do my homework.  Though, first, I wanted to check my e-mail, see if anything had come up.

The site I'm part of is called Candlelight Vigil.  Our founder, Sara, started the website because there were none others, not for people who cut.  A place to be understood.  A place to be welcomed.  It's been my only real social life for almost a year—I don't have any friends whom I can talk to about my real problems.  Well.  Didn't have.  Now there's Brandon; now there's Sajel; now there's Meredith.  But that's getting ahead of myself.

But the point is, people at Vigil have kept me safe more times than is probably wise to admit.  Sometimes when I'm contemplating cutting, they hold me back—just keep me talking, keep me thinking, keep me distracted, until it's too late and I go to sleep.  At, like, four in the morning.  There are people who do this who live in different time zones than me, it's not exactly a small commitment.  And—though I won't say whether I have or not—if I were to contemplate suicide, they'd talk me out of that too.

I kicked my computer out of Sleep mode; but in the few moments when the screen was black, the image of Brandon's face appeared to my feverish brain.

And it was then that everything finished crashing down.

It hit me like a ton of bricks—what had I done?  I'd...  Well, basically, I'd taken Brandon to his home and had my way with him.  True, he'd been a willing conspirator, but...  How would I like it if he'd done to me what I'd done?

That had been horrible of me.  Forget the whole consent problem—what kind of friend thinks only of her own pleasure?  Thinks only of her own wishes?  Uses somebody like that??

And that was really it for me.  My sister knocked on my door once, trying to talk to me, and I know my mom yelled several times about the copious lack of violin sounds coming out of my room.  I yelled back non-answers.  I was gone to them.  They might have been flies buzzing around my ears, they might have been yelling from the moon.

Through my head, revolving, over and over, the same thought: He'll hate me.  He'll never speak to me again.  It was wrong It was wrong It was wrong...

I understood what I'd done.  At least, now I understand.  It was a dim shape in my mind at the time, but I've done a lot of thinking about it since.  Brandon was basically the first person to be nice to me in a long time.  I was lonely and desperate; I wanted to see if I could make it into something more.  I took the most drastic action available to try and get him to love me.  But I'd already known, somewhere deep in my head, that it wouldn't work.  That he didn't love me, even though I'd given myself to him.

It made me feel like a complete and total failure.

Now, that isn't true.  If I'd talked to Brandon about it, he might have been able to save me.  He would've pointed out that it was depression talking, not me.  When something goes wrong, depression says, "This is your fault," regardless of whether it is or not, and you believe it.  Brandon could've pointed out that sex isn't the way to his heart; that he did love me, even if he wasn't in love with me; that I'm simply not his type.  That it wasn't my fault, in other words.  But I didn't talk, and he couldn't help.  And down I went.

All I could see was my own abysmal failure.  I had given him everything I could, and it hadn't been enough.  I must be totally fucked up.  There must be something really, really wrong with me.

And that was just about it for me.  Nothing could save me, nothing could pull me out—not thoughts of my homework, not my parents' nagging, not the violin in the corner, not all the cries and pleas of those distant, disconnected people online; nothing could save me.  And the razor dipped into my skin, drawing forth that old familiar stuff, red tears to replace the ones that couldn't fall from my eyes; drawing forth the red of my pain—except that nothing could, nothing could stop it, nothing could stop the constant clamor in my head: It was wrong It was wrong It was wrong...

But at least, if someone would ask, I had the proof of it on my arms.  Yes, it was wrong, look what it made me do.  And that was a victory.  A dim, hollow one to be sure.  But a victory.

And when you're this fucked-up, you'll take what you can get.