Sweet Dreams-10...Am I in a Daydream?

Chapter 10

“Found you ya fucking faggot.” Cliffs hand was wrapped around the back of my neck and was pressing me into the hallways clean gyp-rock wall. I can smell the dirt on him, the unwashed smell of body odor and the releasing of the toxic garbage in his system out through his skin. There’s whiskey on his breath and it mixes with the reeking choking smell of rotting teeth.

Mom’s there stoned and giggling as she goes through my and Alex’s things. She gives me this look like those girls up it the stands today. “Y’know it’s you’re fault Billy, it’s always been your fault, if I hadn’ta had you, you fake little bitch I’d have all of this…this shoulda been mine, mine not yours.”

Then Cliff laughed and punched me hard in the ribs…!

I wake up pain shooting in my side from a cramp in my side right in the deeply still bruised areas of my ribs. I gasp and double over in pain and start to cry from the nightmare. It was real, too real and something that still might happen.

I try to breathe without crying out loud and it’s quiet, too quiet and dark. There’s no angry shouting, not fucked up smells and no pop of gunshots in the dark. I’m in a clean warm bed and in a safe place but it almost feels wrong. I feel like the nightmare is still my life and this, this is something, someplace that I don’t belong.

I’m curled in the sheets that are a complete mess after my nightmare just trying to fight past the bit of fresh hell that came lunging at me like a mugger from the dark spots in my psyche. I huddle a bit in the sheets chilled. It’s not that it’s cold but its nerves I think body memory too. There’s part of me so used to being freezing I think my body thinks that I’m still cold.

I’m there for awhile just barely hanging on when I hear this whine come out of Alex from the front room. It’s faint and muffled. I get up and pad into where he’s sleeping again to find him sitting up awake but on the floor there in the dark. His hair’s a mess and there’s a sheen of sweat on his body and in the gleam of the little light from the appliances I can make out the scars. Biting my lower lip I go over and climb over the back of the couch and straddle sit behind him with my legs on either side of him.

I lean down and hug him and there’s a twitch and that double intake of two sharp breaths as he almost cries. I can feel this unconscious ripple of his body tensing up. I put my head on his shoulder and sigh. “Nightmare?”

“Yeah…” Alex’s voice is husky and rough from just waking up.

“Me too. Cliff and Mom showed up here and it was just like nothing changed, it felt just too fucking real.”

He leans his head slightly so his head’s resting on mine. “I was little again, reliving when my mom used to get hammered on wine before lunchtime and popped enough pills that I couldn’t wake her up.”

I nod but don’t say anything but just end up running my fingers through his hair. We just sit there like that for a good twenty minutes and we watch the clock slowly change from after one until two in the morning.

I yawn, I try not to but it happens anyway. “We should try and get some sleep, C’mon Alex.” I tug on his arms and pull trying to budge him. He exhales but gets up and sits up on the couch and lets out a sigh like he just climbed a hill. I sit beside him well more in front of him on the couch and lean on him then pull up the blanket he was using. This time he doesn’t really protest or argue about it and he slowly wraps his arms around me.

It feels nice to be held right for a change. I actually aren’t sure about the right part but it feels right. It feels good. I vaguely remember they squirmy feeling of us both snuggling down further into more of an actual sleeping position and me rolling over to lay on top of him more or less.

Better than the patter of sleeping when it’s raining out was the mixed sounds and feeling of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest and the strong pumping of his heartbeat. I’ve never slept like that in my life.

When his alarm goes off on his phone its pretty much torture. Three and a half hours of the most real sleep I’ve ever had just doesn’t cut it. It’s a headache inducing kind of tease. My one little victory out of it was this whispered mumble of Alex saying. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” I can tell he really doesn’t want to move either. I get up careful of where my legs and knees might hit even if by accident and kiss him good morning. I’m not even sure why, It just happened like I was running on auto-pilot.

I pad off to use the bathroom before he does. We pass each other as I leave and head for the kitchen and he’s doing his necessaries. It’s still very not my life as I ever knew it going through the kitchen and digging out the stuff for breakfast. Actually having things is just. It’s really, really cool. I almost get a lift from the caffeine coming off the smell of the coffee beans as they’re grinding.

I make coffee and take out the stuff to make Alex his smoothie and pour myself one too as I get his water bottle out for his morning run. This time it’s the powder stuff, chocolate ice cream and lots of cocoa powder along with this stiff he calls flax seed and some drops of ginseng stuff too. There’s weight gain stuff in it and I need the weight, I know I’m too skinny, but until now nothing else has been an option.

He comes out and takes his smoothie and downs it with a smile and heads out kissing me and grabbing a bottle of water. I sigh and lean against the counter kind of feeling nice, the coffee is kicking in and the chocolate and Alex just kissed me like we’re in a normal life and a normal relationship. There’s this very nice almost sated feeling going on like I’ve got the sneaky feeling that life just might not suck.

I quickly take out a package of hash-browns and bacon and line them both on two cookie sheets and put them in the oven at a decent temperature. I toss some frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts in the microwave with a bit of water and cling film and go and take my shower.

I know I keep bringing this up but it’s So Effing good to stand there under the jet of hot water with a shower puff and nice soap and just be able to wash, and take my time at it. My bruises are fading more each day and the hot water in so soothing. Washing my hair leads to me thinking about Alex as the suds slide down my body in and almost tickling way. I get aroused enough at these erotic flashes of him in the shower with me, that I take matters into my own hands…hand and still with shampoo in my hair I find release whimpering his name and panting. I cry in a mixture of shame and longing as I’m back to being at war with myself. William might not be around so much but he’s going down fighting Hunter all the way. I’m that messed up that the shampoo stinging my eyes overrides my inability to cry. I kind of hang onto the shower caddy and sob for awhile with the water pouring down over my head.

It sounds pretty effed up and like I’m having a shitty morning but once I’m finished my little freak out I feel better. I feel Effing bi-polar actually but better, like I washed some of my nightmare left over’s down the drain.

I actually shave while I’m still in the shower, There’s not a lot to shave, nothing on my face and stuff but I still run my ladies razor over my legs and my pits and just make sure there’s nothing there. Another scrub down to wash off the lather and step out to dry off, slathering baby lotion on myself before the moisture from my shower is wasted. I read about doing this in some magazine a while back and after blow drying my hair and coloring the tips purple and slinking into new panties and a pair of black low cut skinny jeans tucking myself away and slipping on a black lace training bra and a red t-shirt with a Pontiac fire-bird logo on it and the matching ball cap. I’m a proud Detroiter in a lot of ways there’s a shitload wrong with things here and most of the great auto jobs and plants are gone but there’s just something about all of it.

I’m fifteen faking sixteen, a guy who’s always been more of a girl, from a shitty world and a life I wouldn’t have wished on Hitler so me being funny romantic about a heyday of a time I wasn’t really alive for is actually pretty normal. Or as much as I get I guess.

I barefoot it out to the kitchen and I take the bacon and hash-browns out of the oven and make a mess of scrambled eggs and cut up two tomatoes and toss them into the frying pan with butter. Hali kind of mentioned something like this. I add an onion chopped up fine give it a few minutes then flip the tomatoes lightly browned and then add some of the bacon and hash brows and then pour the eyes over it and give in a bit before covering it and taking it off the heat.

I make toast and more juice from a can, and while the stuff’s nearly done I take out the poached chicken breast and chop it into slices or chunks, then chop some lettuce and toss in some olives from the fridge and chunk up a green pepper and a yellow one then to finish it off the chicken and the rest of the bacon and the hash browns and put it in two zip-lock bags and some bread with butter in another one and I pack a pull top can of veggie-soup and two cups. I add in a bag with three cut up apples with cinnamon and sugar and finally several bottles of water enough of both for both of us.

He’s coming in all damply sweaty and I pass him some orange juice. He downs about half of it before sniffing the air. “You cooked breakfast again?” he’s smiling at me, in a much better mood now that his own caffeine and the endorphins from his run have started to kick in.

“Uhm, yeah of course I did. One (I kiss him) you’re my boyfriend and I like doing it. Two I’m living here pretty much free so… (I kiss him again.) Three it frees you up for your run and working out. (Another kiss.)”

Alex kisses me back with all this sexy sweetness on that last kiss. It’s deep and I feel his hands rub up and down my sides and down to my butt and he squeezes me gently. It’s so much better than I though it’d be and there’s the just nothing there that’s saying ”No” right now. It’s really, really nice more than I could have thought it’d be. He even smells good despite how sweaty he is. I push him away gently and smiling. “Don’t you got exercises to do?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to thank you.”

“Well I consider myself thanked.” I smile as I kiss him just a little bit again. He goes to the living room closet and pulls out the mat he uses for padding and the bow flex thingy and peels out of his hoody and his shirt. I can’t really stop myself from looking at him. I’m really nothing like that. He’s broad shouldered and his arms and his torso is just sculpted like…He’s like another species really. Definitely….Yeah…Can there be like a third gender? Because I’m not really a girl but I’ve never been like the other guys. And then there’s this guy that just is so different than I’d ever be that and I find myself enjoying kissing him, being in his arms and just being with him like this…me…Hunter.

Yeah I’m kind of rambling about the whole subject because I’m watching Alex doing things with his shirt off like all these crunches and his ab’s are rippling and unrippling and there’s this kind of sweaty palms thing going on and a feeling like a mild electric tingle running through my skin and my mouth’s kinda dry.

I think Uhm…Yeah; is covering about seventy percent of my available brain power at the moment.

I start to serve things up when he’s in the shower and take the kinda frittata like thing and turn in upside down on a plate and dig out stuff for the toast and was going to check my e-mails but not on Alex’s computer. Adam’s such a control freak I’m sure there’s spyware in there and other things. No. I’ll see if I can use a computer at school.

Alex comes out in a clean set of tartan printed boxers and we sit down to eat and he shovels really big mouthfuls onto his toast after smearing it with cheese-whiz. It’s a nice morning we grab our things and I toss the laundry into the washer and the dishes in the sink, well I wash most of them really quickly while he’s getting his things for school.

It’s just nice. I like nice, I’ve never really had nice. Alex even stops in at Wired and got some brownies and doughnuts in a box and we pull into the school. We get out of the car and there’s I guess the typical groups of teens gathered in the different areas of the school the stoners and nerdy types the goths and the smokers plus the gearheads and a few of the racial clumps, a few black kids and some latinos and some orientals too. It’s weird not having any of these kids looking like their into the gang thing. It’s strange to have the white kids outnumbering everyone else. It’s like 90210 Detroit really and lord help me if I’m not headed over to the tables in the Caf where the princesses and the jocks all hang out.

I completely never ever thought that this’d be the crowd that I’ve ended up hanging out with. I’ve got nothing in common with these people except maybe a coffee addiction. Alex plops down the box of baked goodies and opens the top to the ravening horde. The jocks clearly having no problem stuffing their faces while the cheer girls and the other girls hem and haw over that I don’t wanna get fat inner battle that they’re having. Cynthia smiles and gives me a hug? And I even get a casual nod over her starbucks ten dollar foamy whateverthehell she’s drinking from Jennifer. And that earns me a few looks of the others still not really knowing what kind of box to put me in now that I seem to have this kind of sort of acceptance.

There’s a lot of the crowd from up in the stands from yesterday afternoon there in the princess part of the crowd. Nose jobs, big breasts, designer clothes and make up and jewelry. Then there’s me. Black skinny low cut jeans, old sneakers, Firebird hat and t-shirt in red, a black leather jacket on and the ends of my hear this kind of reddish purple color that I’ve matched up with a reddish brick color lipstick and that’s it. I don’t fit in but I keep getting looks from the girls and the guys seem to like the ball cap and t-shirt which pisses some of the princesses off I think.

Yeah some one should tell them guys don’t care if you’re wearing some designer brand stuff unless it’s slinky-wear. Most guys don’t know or care who Donna Karen is, but they recognize the car type and actually know it’s something that they can comment on.

Oh yeah I’m the new and cool chick and prove that I’m more secure than some of them by boldly taking a brownie and eating it. Actually most of the girls don’t touch it except for the cheerleaders who kill the brownies with me. I need the fat and they’ll burn that off between practices and trying to keep warm.

I see a familiar face and snatch three doughnuts and a brownie and kiss Alex goodbye. “I’m gonna go and get registered, I’ll see you at lunch.” I saunter off but stop at the table with Todd the guy who showed me around the other day. I smile at him and two of his friends he’s talking to at what looks like one of the “Geek” tables, they look like an academic group.
“Uhm hey Todd.”

He looks up and kind of stares at me, the others at the table do too. I feel like the cat that just walked into a room full of unsuspecting mice. They’ve got that we should run look to them. “Y…y..Yes?”

“I just wanted to thank you for showing me around the other day so Alex and grabbed a bunch of stuff from Wired before class and I though I’d snag a few before the goon squad eats them all.” I set a doughnut down for him and each of them. “Hey I’ve gotta go to register and see if my transcripts are in, you know if Mindy’s in the office? I scored her a brownie.”

He nods still shy and quiet like. “Y..yeah, I..I..think she’s d..d..down at the office.”

I smile at them. “Thanks Todd, nice to meet you guys.” I wave at the rest of them as I leave the Caf and head to the office.

Mindy see’s me first and does this girly laugh-squee-giggle thing like seeing me was a shoe sale or something. “Hunter! Good morning, you’re transcripts from your old school came in by fax over night! That’s so cool that you’re gonna be like going to school here! And like everyone is so talking about you and Alex making out in the hall and like on the football field and…Oooh chocolate! Excellent!”

Mindy snatches the brownie I was holding out for her and takes a huge bite and I can’t help but smile at all of it. Her excitement and being glad to see me and stuff. I never thought I’d find myself being friends with someone like Mindy. Before I started over a girl like Mindy wouldn’t really give Will the time of day I think and honestly I would have been contemptuous of her bubbly kinda ditzy ways. Now it’s just…I think I’m actually liking her as a friend.

It’s funny that I’m looking at her so differently. She hauls me behind the office counter and I get introduced to the three girls in the office and then introduced to the school councilor Doctor Briggs. An actual Doctor that seems to know what she’s doing not some cheap yahoo of a teacher who couldn’t hack being a teacher but they couldn’t fire because of tenure.

I liked her almost immediately and she was kind of intense but odd too. A dress jacket over a simple scoop necked top kind of like a t-shirt and pressed dress jeans? But she was intense too, she interacted with us like we were people and even the kids that came up to the counter to get served she helped even if it was just something the secretaries would have done normally instead of feeling it was below her.

It does take me awhile to get my classes figured out. I’m a geek, so I’m looking to actually get into somekind of computer or engineering degree and something that I can go into and still have a job at some point in the future. I want out, really out and I’m not going into debt by going to college just to say hello welcome to MacDonalds.

I end up taking only a morning’s worth of classes, that’s five of them, Math and English are mandatory, I take media arts and computer programming and graphic arts and design. It’ll get me to lunch where I can take off afterwards to work for Hali. Dr. Briggs and I talk about where I’m living and stuff and signs me through and approved for something called a Turner grant where the fees were getting paid for to go here and stuff with like lab fees and stuff like books that parents usually pay for but where I’m on my own and stuff it’s all up to me.

Not having to pay out close to twelve hundred dollars really get’s me in a good mood and I end up getting to go to graphic arts and designs before lunch starts. It’s a brain class and a bit of an art crowd course too but I guess I’ve already been assigned my box that the other kinds try to fit you into. I get lot’s of looks and whispers from the other kids there who seem to think I don’t belong there.

That changes as soon as my fingers hit the keys and the stuff on here I know, I really do know. I don’t ask stupid questions and I really apply myself.

I enjoy the class, I really enjoy the class and I’m really far behind the others and don’t know some of the programs they’ve got access to here and I’m getting shown more and more things by the teacher, like any good teacher Mr. Simpson is as into it as I am and we both lost track of time until there’s a cough and Alex is standing in the doorway. It’s lunchtime and I’m ten minutes late.

I’m given a whole bunch of books and three flash drives to get me up to speed on the programs we’re working with to take home on loan and stuff. I’m smiling as I’m carrying my books and Alex has an arm around me as we walk into the Cafeteria together. I can almost see this oncoming glimpse of what my future might be.