Sweet Dreams-9...Am I in a daydream?

Kissing Alex while just letting go I guess was kind of like going from drowning in the surf to riding the wave in on an inner tube? I don’t know if that’d be a good metaphor but…

I’m more than liking getting kissed, the scent of his body and cologne is actually nice and there is something that’s so inviting about the crush of his arms and the heat of his body is so soothing and then there’s the feeling of his lips on mine and there’s passion there and his own need for me, for something not…tainted by the other shit in his life and at the same time there’s this feeling of safety.

Being both needed and protected is a really powerful drug when it’s something you’ve been denied all your life.

I enjoy it and kind of just let it be whatever this is. Alex kind of holds me to him still even after he breaks the kiss and he sort of keeps one arm around me while the other one is out a little more from me as we move through the crowds of kids changing classes. It’s not like he’s pushing people out of the way but it’s like he’s got that arm clearing a path for me through the crowd. It’s actually kind of strange but kind of sweet. He even opens and holds the doors open for me as we move through the halls.

It’s the afternoon so there’s just two classes left for him the first being history where they’re actually talking a lot about the great depression and how there is such similarities between things then and the way that they are now but also how much they’re different too. It was so different than a class at my school was. Home you kind of listened while the teachers just kind of regurgitated the lesson plan at you and nobody cared. Here they were actually discussing stuff in class and I think I even got a bit out of it even if I’m not all that into history.

After that was Alex’s last class that was photography and composition. It was an amazing class and all about the artistic sides of photography and mostly them working on their own projects while they had the teacher giving them each instructions and sometimes calling peoples attention to what someone was doing and talking about it.

Alex is actually surprisingly upbeat and talkative in this class. He talks about photographers and people I’ve never heard of and stuff with the teacher and it’s kind of intimidating in a way. He’s really smart when he likes something. He’s an artist and not the guy that everyone thinks he is. Even me a little I guess. I like knowing stuff, I like the fact that I’m smart, it’s kinda my only weapon through life. I’m kind of feeling clueless in this class and I don’t like the feeling.

It kind of reminding me just how out of my league I am here.

I follow him after his classes to football practice and once again I’m lost in another world. I sit on the bleachers, actually they’re fold down seats and their on concrete stands almost like they’d be in a real arena or stadium or whatever. See that’s how much that I don’t know about it. I sit and watch and it’s not long before I’m being sort of joined in the seats by the girlfriends of the other players and they sit and talk and chat about stuff like the upcoming games and the dance this weekend and they introduce themselves to me or get introduced by a few of the girls that were at the table in the Caf at lunch.

Oh I so stand out compared to these girls and I feel really out of place and they don’t really try to include me in their conversations. It’s not really them being bitches to me but it’s also they aren’t going to be welcoming me into the fold either.

Not that that bothers me because listening to some of them “Like” talk they’re so into the same things because “OMG Me Too!!!” seems to be fucking contagious and I’d rather not catch it if at all possible. I sit and watch as they jaw and text and blather on and on and on…make up, sales, shopping, clothes and the dance and of course about their guys and Justin Barfing Beiber.

I do here my name being spoken once or twice in hushed but not so hushed tones and the phrase rebound girl and slumming mentioned. That kind of strikes that nerve that got exposed by my feeling so out of place and it kind of just has enough power to make me wonder if Alex is just going through some kind of phase by having me around and that I might be just the rebound girl after Jennifer or more likely between him getting back with her.

The more that I kind of try and not to think about it and dwell on it and stuff the more it’s there in my head of course and the more it eats away at me until there’s another headache coming on and I feel like crying but I can’t because crying doesn’t help, crying never helps and I’m feeling phantom pain in from the memory of Cliff and the stick pins. I end up with a bit of a stomach ache.

I get up and leave the bunch of girls who are all talking and giggling between the whispers they’re dishing out about me behind my back. I’m really tempted to just leave because they’re right. I really don’t belong here with people like them and as I walk down the stairs for the seats I feel dirty. And I feel all the good stuff that happened almost going away like the footing that I thought that I might have gotten is just sand being wash away by the tide.

I get to the bottom of the steps and I’m feeling like this skinny loser boy dressed in drag and just some faggot loser front the wrong side of town that should be over there turning a trick just like my mother is probably doing right now.

I could go left or right and leave the seating area but instead I keep going down the stairs that leads down to the field. All the guys are there doing all the various odds and ends about football and practices that you’d see on TV. My school had a football team but they were next to useless, my old school was basketball and hockey really even though I don’t think we really ranked high in anything. If running from the police were a sport we’d have Olympic funding.
I’m kind of got my hands in my pockets and I’m sort of hugging myself, it’s not cold but have you ever hurt inside you kind of feel just cold in your soul? Yeah it that kind of cold, like that.

I try and lose myself in watching the game or the practice or whatever. I trance out and just sort of fix my vision on Alex. He’s running plays? And doing pass drills? And I think working more on the guys that are supposed to be his blockers? Like I said I’ve no clue what they’re doing and half of it looks just alien to me.

His aim is true every time though, he let’s that ball lose and it spins just as tight as a bullet. Me? The few times I’ve tossed the ball at things with the step-shit and his psycho nephews it did that pathetic end over end wobble thing.

Alex is big and fast on his feet he avoids the guys trying to take the flag from his belt like he was dancing or something and other times he can and does just shove guys down or out of his way until he’s clear to make a pass or even run the ball himself. I’ve heard those sports caster guys talk about people who were poetry in motion but this is the first time that really makes sense. I mean things are happening so fast out there and he seems so capable, so strong and calm through the entire thing.

I think I might be getting a little fan girl on him or something. And when he takes off his helmet and shakes out his already dark hair all sweat damp it’s as…it’s as sexy as anytime I’ve every seen a girl or a woman take her hair down and shake it free. And there’s those eyes of his all charged up with the endorphins and adrenaline all just so...so...intense. Then to watch him pull off his jersey and all the pads all in one go when he’s done and take a bottle of water and open it and pour it out over his head and his body.

Wow…I mean like….God I’m not supposed to feel this way right it’s like all gay and stuff but I can’t help it. I can’t tear my eyes off of him, the water, the droplets on his skin the rivulets of it running down his body, his ab’s…I’m not hard either it’s something so different like my body is partway asleep? Like pins and needles of awareness, like some kind of electrical current that runs through my body.

Whatthehell? WhatamIfeeling?

I feel warm, flushed even and there’s this strange flutter somewhere in my guts that’s not there but it is and it’s not nerves but it is? Alex walks over to me and out of that intenseness that he’s just giving off like smoke from a fire there’s this bit of that kinda smile that comes out and he kinda hugs me and wraps his arms around me and he leans down and kisses me.

I’m kissing him again, he’s kissing me again and I…I …like it. I like the way that he’s holding me and it’s like he’s washing or chasing all that bullshit from that hen party up in the stands. Fucking cunts, let them cluck away. Actually the thought of them getting all bent out of shape and stuff over me and him kissing kinda makes me all happy in a really petty sort of way. He breaks the kiss. “You couldn’t stand it up there?”

“No, it was kind of really their mission to make me feel as unwanted and out of place as they could. Apparently I’m not good enough.”

“Good enough for what?”

“To be here, to be with you, hell just not good enough for anything.” Just talking about it kinda hurts and brings those feels back enough that I’m kind of staring at my feet.

Alex kind of makes this huff sound like a ticked off Rottweiler would and his hands rub up and down my sides making my skin cascade with all sorts of sensations my brain doesn’t know how to process. Then a hand slides up to my face, I can’t help but to flinch at the first touch which just upsets me further because I flinched when he touched me and I’m right on the edge or past it where my eyes are burning because part of me wants to cry but it’s just not happening. My headaches back a bit and it kind of hurts in my chest like it’s hard to breathe. His hand moves some of my hair away from my face and he looks me in the eyes.

“Hunter, you’re good enough, hell you’re a sight better than they’d ever though of being to people. You’re an amazing person. You’re probably the most amazing person that I’ve ever met.”

“No, I’m not Alex. I’m not. I’m just this fake whatever the hell I am and just some piece of white-trash that blew into your life. They know it and hell I know it.”

“Hunter?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

I stare at him and he’s looking at me with those intense coffee/chocolate eyes of his… “Wh...What?”

“I said shut the fuck up. I’m not the kind of guys who is into bullshit remember. And that’s what this is its bullshit. You have survived shit that none of these people can even imagine, they think getting their credit card limit peeled back is a fucking crime. You’ve not just been through more than they have but you came through it a better person than they’ll ever be. I’m not going to let you tear yourself down because they’re threatened by having to look at a decent person. That thing with Jen in the Caf, they’d never have that kind of class and they fucking know it! Stop tearing away at yourself okay, you’re hurting somebody I really care about when you do that.”

He kisses me again and this time I’m kind of hungry for it. I’ve never had some one just stand up and tell me despite everything in my own head and what the crowd is saying about me and stuff…tell me that I matter. I’ve never mattered to anyone before. It feels better than I thought it would. It’s something that my brain is processing that he told me off without tearing me down about me tearing myself down.

Who does that?

He keeps kissing me and folding his arms and himself almost around me like he can shield me from all the hurts and pain in the world. He kisses me with just so much…feeling and care that it’s swamping me, oh fuck it I happily drown in it. He kisses me until the rest of the team starts to shout at us and pelt him with their sweaty towels. “I’ve gotta go shower, are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

I watch him leave and I pull my jacket around me and hug myself. It’s not the cold this time it’s that good hugging? How…I feel that good that I’m grinning and I’m shaking too.
I’m so not used to this. I’m used to being just down, I’m not even sure that I can handle happy. It just seems that I’m up and down and up too much. …I guess it’s not too far a stretch I guess that I’m so fucked up that I’m shaking when I’m this happy. I’m freaked out but I think It’s happy.

I’m there waiting and start to notice the cheer team I see them in their little skirts with the sport panties built into them and the halter top things they wear made out of lycra with what has to be a bra built in. I watch them and they’re so athletic and graceful as they dance and cheer along to music belting out not so much cheers but lines from pop and rock songs all to a mix that’s really good like it was put together by a decent DJ.

I get lost in in with it oddly, well not oddly hypnotic because I’m watching cheerleaders and the way they move and dance and the bounce and jiggle of all the right things in all the right places their bodies getting shiny with a sheen from the efforts they’re putting in. I hurt, my tucked part not really protesting my jeans but…honestly? I’m not sure if it’s the fact these girls are all hot looking and I’ve never though of myself as gay so…or if it’s the fact that I want to be that, be them.

It’s just something that I really identify with, the athletic way they move and glide and sway and dance. I don’t and have never been able to move like a regular guy. It’s like seeing this thing deeply part of you in someone else. I’ll never have the curves they do, but there’s something about the whole thing that stirs something in me. Seeing some of them doing these hard gymnastics that kinda yanks the girly silly vibe out of the whole thing but the femininity is still all there.

I’m actually torn between being attracted to some of them and wanting to be some of them. I’m that keyed up by the thoughts and confusion running through my head so I light up a smoke and get a few glares and looks from some of the other people there watching or doing other things. One of the cheer coaches gives me a frown and stares at me hard before pointing at a non-smoking sign. I stomp out the smoke, Ah well I got a 3rd of it smoked before I had to stop.

Alex comes out a few minutes later looking all…wet hair doing that getting that bit of curl up as it’s drying thing, my black wool knit cap, a big black tee-shirt with this logo on it in a heavy metal style to it saying “Wired” the sleeves have edges done like barbed wire or razor wire as the hems. It clings to him and then there’s the sweet faded jeans he’s wearing and with him carrying his bag of gear over one shoulder and his book bag in the other he looks just so…I feel my tucked part twitch in an ow but good way. I almost go into the confused place but he smiles at me that Alex smile and honestly I think my heart and not my groin just said ow.

He wraps his arms around me even with all the stuff he’s carrying and I turn my head away. “Hunter?”

“Sorry, I just had a smoke and I might have ashtray mouth.”

“Oh, well in that case.”

He drops his bags and then he takes a packet of gum out of his front pocket and there’s this yay thing going through me at the sight…it’s hot in this weird way. Not weird but I don’t get it. He pops a few clear and chews them a bit smiling as he stares at me through his hair and slides the gum back into his front pocket…ow..again. Why the fuck is that so sexy…He pulls me into his arms making me squeak and kisses me with this long, sweet, chilly-cool, minty gum kiss that just floods my mouth with the flavor of peppermint and the cool menthol like feeling combining with the feeling of Alex’s buttery suede soft lips and the fact his tongue is inside of my mouth and doing the tango with mine and his hands slip around my waist and hips and my bum and into my back pockets and massages a bit then squeezes and my brain is bubbling away in this puddle that he’s turned to goo…girly goo with little popping bubbles of yayness.

Yeah it’s that oh fuck I’ve really been kissed kiss.

He breaks the kiss. “I’ve gotta go to work, you coming?”

“Y..yeah, wait you work?”

“Yeah, I have a part time job. Adam thinks it’s good on paper, me I’ve been saving up.”

“For what?”

“For when he pitches a fit and figures out I’m not going to be his bitch.”

“I did that, I hid stuff in a private safety deposit box from Mom and the step-shit.”

“That might be a good idea.”

“It kept me alive, hell it kept me sane even.”

“I should start thinking about that.”

“Yeah we should.”

“Hunter…”

“Yeah, Alex?”

“I liked the We part.”

“Yeah me too.”

I find myself chewing the gum in my mouth instead of his with a silly smile on my face as we head away from the school and put stuff into the trunk of his car and we drive a few blocks away before pulling into this kind of mini-mall kind of place. Called Harrington court. It’s like this four story big place with a Compu-college over it and a De-Vries like vocational school place and some other offices and stuff. The place we end up going to is inside on the ground floor just off the lobby called…”Wired.” of course and it’s a cyber-café but bistro as well. It’s kind of edgy and there’s computers at tables and there’s a coffee counter with baked goods as well as a kitchen.

“I’ll get you a table and a computer.”

“Okay, uhm how longs your shift?”

“Four hours from five until nine plus clean up.”

“Okay.”

He kisses me and I kiss him back and he sets me up with one of the tables and he gives me another kiss before starting to work. I net-surf and look up stuff to get marks transferred over. And actually end up chatting with the old vice principal, Mr. Powers who used to actually teach the computer courses at my school and I tell him about my mix up with my gender and he kind of new my home situation wasn’t good and he thought there was something off about me. I admit to pretending to be a guy at school because it was safer, so when our school made the mistake of calling me William Hunter instead of Hunter Williams I went with it.

“Well kiddo I know the school you’re switching too and it’s a good one. I’ll go into your files and change everything and e-mail your transcripts to the school tonight.”

“Thanks Mr. Powers but you don’t gotta put yourself out.”

“Hey it’s not a problem Hunter, besides it’s saving me from another boring staff meeting and grading projects.”

“Are you sure?”

“No problem and Hunter?”

“Yes Mr. Powers?”

“Even online you sound better, more relaxed and at ease than I’ve ever known you to be.”

“Yeah, thanks Mr. Powers, It’s having a new chance, and getting away from the home situation.”

“I can tell, look you do what you have to do to hang onto that. I’m not supposed to say stuff like this but so few kids from here get out and do anything with their lives. You’re getting out and I’m proud of you kiddo. I’ll get your stuff set up for you and you live Hunter. You grab this chance at something better and don’t let go.”

I get that tearing up a bit feeling and I wish I could hug him through the screen. “Thanks Mr. Powers you’re going to be one of few people that I’m really going to miss.”

“Yeah, yeah just e-mail me photos when you graduate and another one when you get your degree.”

“Deal.”

I’m a bit sad but I’m charged up at the same time. It’s one of those weird moods where I’m saying goodbye a little to stuff in my own life while being excited about the future and at the same time confused by the fact that being Hunter seems to be more real to me and those around me. Maybe part of it’s while I’m not sure who Hunter is I’m not burning off all that energy being William anymore.

The rest of the time I goof off and net surf and watch some stuff on the school website where Alex goes and stuff getting familiar with where I’m going to be going to school.

And I watch Alex. He’s good, he make’s coffee and waits tables and busses them it’s one of those places where all the staff does all the jobs. He makes me a coffee every once in awhile from his tips and I try a few of them. I like the whole milk latte cappuccino without any sugar but just a bit of cinnamon. He gets us supper too with these cheese-steak stuff pitas with lots of green stuff that isn’t lettuce as I know it and a basket of stuff called falafel? That are actually awfully good with this stuff called hummus to dip them in and this sesame peanut butter sauce to put onto it. We share a big veggie smoothie to wash it down with my first with carrots and a bunch of other stuff in it. I’m kind of flying after that and dessert which was this crumbly like nothing I’ve ever had oatcake cookie thing with this lemon glaze ontop of it.

I want to lay down for awhile and just go numb because I’m so stuffed, I actually doze in the booth wrapped up in his big jacket for an hour before I’m off too the ladies room to fix my make up and then outside to have a smoke. Then back inside where he smiles at me and digs into him front pocket again for the gum. God that’s sexy…but I’ve really got to quit smoking.

I wander around the court looking at the place, there’s a comic shop/gaming shop that’s neat looking and I sort of shop but don’t inside just being curious. I’m getting the OMG it’s a gurl! Look from the guys that are there. I only know the broad strokes stuff at all like Spider-man, Superman, Bat-man and stuff like that. There is a section of indie stuff that catches my eyes. Hey I’m a geek but these are local stuff and others trying to do their own thing. I like that. There’s some flyers and a few free comic samples that I get just because and who knows right.

There’s a music store that sells instruments and cd’s as well, again with the vocational school upstairs and stuff they can sell a lot of indie stuff. I see several things I’d love to try including this sweet, and yeah girly Daisy-Rock guitar. I can’t play but seeing her she made my fingers itch…it was expensive? Six hundred dollars and change, I’m not sure if that’s expensive or not.

I check out the hair salon and piercing place and there’s a computer and video game shop called the “Gremlin.” a news stand and a clothing resale shop in the basement. There’s a help wanted sign there.

I take a deep breath and step in and boldly take the sign off the window display and head over to the counter. “Hi, I’m Hunter, I’m here about the job.”

The woman behind the counter looks at me she’s Arabic of middle eastern with the skin and the facial structure giving her away but she’s got this sort of desert goth thing going with her make up and a hijab that’s made of what I think used to be a Guns and Roses tee-shirt and lots of earrings and a few hoops in her eyebrows and a nose ring. I have the nail polish and lipstick she’s wearing a shade called black copper. Black flannel oversized shirt over a camisole but a long skirt in almost a gypsy like way. I look at her and she looks at me and my clothes, there’s Led Zeppelin playing in the background and she crosses her arms under her chest with attitude and a jingle of bangles.

“Fine, when can you work?” She’s got a bit of an accent like she’s liked in the UK for awhile.

“Anytime, I’m in between schools and if I’m gainfully employed then it’ll be easier to set my classes around that.”

“And the Jersey?”

“Boyfriend’s Alex he works up at Wired.”

“Oh, though he was seeing some blonde Steppford something or other.”

“Was.”

“What happened?”

“He’s not so much into the bullshit, he won’t even take mine.”

“Your’s?”

“My EMO shit, he actually gives a shit it’s weird.”

She turns and opens a fridge and passes me a Dr. Pepper and takes one herself. “I’m Halima by the way, but if you’re going to work here you’re going to have to call me Hali okay?”

“Sure, sounds good. When do I start?”

“Day after tomorrow sound good? I basically need just extra hands sorting stuff as it comes in and to put stuff away. From five until nine, Mondays till Wednesdays sound okay?”

“What’s the pay?”

“Seven bucks and hour plus ten percent commission.”

“Sounds good. That way I can travel with Alex most of the time.”

“Yeah that’s kinda the idea, Lets get your paperwork started…”

“Hunter, Hunter Williams.” I extend my hand.

I spend the rest of the time getting stuff filled out and the particulars and stuff as Hali shows me around. I know it seems fast me just walking in and stuff but it’s just clicking with our attitudes and stuff she’s Muslima but as she’s been told not a good one but she’s not going to let the others dictate who she is either.

Born in Iran and lived there until she was seven then her father moved then to northern England to a job up there in the mines till she was ten and then they moved here where he had a job as a crane operator at one of the factories. She’s way cool and she’s so her own person.

“You? Where’re you from Hunter?”

“Oh me I’m a D-D-L girl.”

“DDL?”

“Davison-Dexter-Linwood area.”

“Ooooh, fuck that’s a shitty place to grow up.”

“Yeah, it’s why I got out, I have to.”

“Have to?”

“Yeah, recently.”

“How recently.”

I look at her and lift my shirt enough to let her get a look at the funky colors that are still there but fading. Then pull my shirt down. “I met Alex earlier, and I was probably half dead or dying when he got me out of there.”

“Shit Hunter, you okay?”

“Am now, sort of, a work in progress?”

“Gotcha, y’know I kind of get it. I might have been young but I seen a few thing living in Byker as a kid.”

“Byker?”

“A bit of a rough side neighborhood of Newcastle or it was when I was living there. There’s more than a few bastards idea of child care is the backhand and the bottle.”

“Add in a pair of drug addicts, one a skinhead and one being his whore and just about every drug the couple take and yeah.”

Hali gives me a gentle hug. “Well shit, you’ve got a job here unless you turn out to be a total fuck up. Now, how about a cuppa?”

“A cup of what?”

“Tea? What’d you think I was talking about.”

“Alright sounds good.”

We sat and talked about stuff and she made tea and set out some cookies but she called them biscuits. She mostly talks like she’s from here but she’s slips in some Brit and some Arabic, we talk about stuff growing up like they’re war stories. I was just a little kid when September 11th happened but she and her family hadn’t been in the country that long and she had a brother that got shot by gang members who took out their shit on the foreign families. Neither one of us has had it easy.

Does anyone?

Alex smiles at us when he knocks at the shop doors and smiles and comes in. “Hali how goes it?”

“Good Alex, I just hired our girl here.”

“Good for you, you two Bird should get along right proper then.”

I look at him. Birds?, Right Proper? “You guys know each other?”

He smiles. “We use her Mom’s falafel recipe upstairs. You ready?”

“Yeah. Thanks for the cuppa Hali, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”

“Have a good night you two.”

We make our goodnight’s and walk her out to the parking lot and her car just to be careful and then we go back to our place….okay…I just said our place. The lights are off in the main house and both cars are in the lane. It’s about twenty after ten and we put stuff away and we both take turns showering, well I have a bath so while I’m having a bath the washer can do out clothes and stuff.

I’m in my Snoopy Pj’s watching as Alex is making his bed on the couch. Part of me want’s him to sleep in his own bed. Part of me want’s to be asleep him with in the bed and part of me is scared of that. I really should be the one sleeping on the couch.

“Alex…Why don’t I…”

“G’night Hunter.” He cuts me off, looking at me. Like don’t argue with me written all over his face then that bit of a smile. “G’night Hunter.” more softly.

The way he said my name…

“Goodnight Alex.” I pad into his bedroom and curl around the pillow and hug it and myself and stare at the open doorway to the living room where Alex is sleeping until I fall asleep.