CHAPTER 18

Actually, much like Nicole, I got to know May better through text. She was nowhere near as bold as Nicole was, but she made up for it with her bubbliness. She loved watching TV, and wanted to become a TV star when she grew up, which was why she wanted to take drama class. Unlike me, though, she didn't particularly like Mr. Salvador. She didn't dislike him, she just felt neutral. Nevertheless, she felt determined to really do well with this project, and I was behind her 100%.

Like me, she was an only child, and seemed to sympathize with my loneliness growing up, since she apparently was overweight when she was younger and got teased for it a lot. Now she was tired of the people who teased her only years ago asking her out and 'drooling over her,' her words not mine. In the back of my mind, I felt really guilty for liking her. I could see that if I truly wanted to win her heart, which I really did, I needed to prove to her that I wasn't just objectifying her and liking her for her looks. Although I would have to prove that to myself first.

She was impressed with my grammar though. u talk really proper, i like it lol

Ugh. I think maybe teaching her wouldn't go amiss. I chuckled to myself as I read that message. Nicole made a monster out of me. My laugh faded as I realized that wasn't the only way she made me a monster. I wasn't able to stop more fantasies of May brewing in my mind now that I knew what she would have sounded like giving me a blowjob. I imagined her kneeling before me, my cock right in her face as she took it in her hands with hungry eyes. Her impressive C cups jiggled slightly as she worked my cock back and forth in her hand, her eyes locked on mine for approval, before slowly taking me into her mouth. The warm sensation of her mouth, the way her eyes seemed to beg for it. How she would actually get turned on herself from sucking me off, until she could take no more and her hand would snake under her green dress she wore the first day I noticed her.

I shook the image from my mind. I felt terrible. I was totally objectifying her. I need to get to know her better before I have desires like that, I scolded myself in my head.

***

The following week flew by without anything of real significance happening. Mr. Carrozza's class, to my surprise, was boringly easy. I was normally a bad student in the sciences growing up, and everyone else was still confused to some degree, so I guess I worked well with his teaching style.

Mr. Graves' class was just about the same, though at this point most of the time in that class was spent chatting with Carson, who I found to be interesting in his own right. The guy had confidence some people could only dream about. I'm not talking the 'swagger down the hallway thinking you're the king of everything' kind of confidence, that's just sort of being a douchebag. I'm talking about the type of confidence where you were absolutely sure of every action you did, every word you said, and you were never afraid to tell people you don't care about what they were doing or saying. You were never afraid to have people judge you. I had to say, I admired him for that, and I envied him more than a little.

Mrs. Jackson's class was the only one I really disliked. There was never really anything interesting to report from that class, and I found her cheerful outward personality to be really two-dimensional, like she couldn't be a teacher and a human being at the same time. I found out quickly that this would be a pet peeve with teachers. Not that I'd ever say anything of that to her face. I wouldn't be able to.

Easily, my favorite class was drama. Mr. Salvador wasn't teaching us anything this week since we had to practice for our pieces, but he still was around, looming over us, inspecting our work. Every so often, he'd stop a group practicing and give them his input, but aside from that, he made us rely on our own initiative to work. I was on to his tactics.

Despite seeing Nicole's obvious softer side on Monday, on Tuesday she reverted back to her normal, sassy self. Luckily for me though, she was being true on Monday night and we still texted and hung out. Because of her busy schedule we could 'only' hang out on Wednesday and Friday that week, but I certainly wasn't complaining. I guess for a social creature like her it wasn't much, but I hung out more with her that week than I ever have with any friends in my whole life. On Wednesday, of course, things eventually and inevitably led to her taking her top off (with her excuse this time being how she spilled water on her top between rounds of Team Fortress 2 while I watched her play), me sucking on her nipples, and both of us on the bed, me grinding into her while she ground back and moaned my name. On Friday, though, curiously enough, we did absolutely nothing sexually the whole time I was there. I realize out of context it wasn't that impressive or strange, but ever since I met her when we were alone we ended up having sex, and frankly… It felt really right that we could just enjoy an afternoon together as friends, without feeling an obligatory need to feed off of each other's horniness. For our whole time together, we just watched a movie in her room, she taught me a few more karate moves, and we lay together in her bed, making small talk. It felt really right.

As the week passed, May grew her enthusiasm for our drama piece. It was really coming together, I had to say. She knew what she was doing, which really put me at ease. We had worked up a way that her knees could bend in such a way that it looked like something was making a dent in her, which meant I ended up playing the ax. I wasn't complaining, it seemed like an easy thing to do. The hardest part was drawing out the motions and making the whole thing last five minutes, but May's ideas about raising tensions with slow movements proved to be a good idea. On Thursday, we spoke with Mr. Salvador about using the lights, and he nodded with approval after we told him how we were thinking of using it. He then paged the office and asked them to bring in Zac.

Zac was a grade 12 drama veteran. A bit short, a tad on the pudgy side, but really friendly, or so Mr. Salvador said. From the moment he walked into the audience, without needing an explanation, he climbed the ladder leading up to the lighting booth and told us to follow.

"So, what kind of lighting do you guys want for your performance?" Zac asked us once everything was booted up.

"Well…" May and I began together. We stopped, looked at each other, and she giggled.

"You can say it." I said sheepishly.

"No, it's okay, you go." she offered.

"It was your idea, you say it." I said back.

"No really, it's fine, go ahead." She replied.

"Someone just tell me, please. I'm missing a bio for this." Zac interjected.

"Okay." May, always the one to pipe up first, replied. "Basically we are doing a play- well, a short piece I guess, about a tree getting chopped down.

Zac smiled a warm kind of smile. "Ah. I did that in my first year too."

"So we were thinking that every time our bodies collided onstage, there'd be a quick flash of red, then it would fade back to normal lighting."

"Hmmm…" Zac hummed, hitting a few buttons. I looked out the booth windows to see other groups working on the stage.

"Like this?" Zac asked, as he lit up the stage in pure red. Many of the groups onstage audibly groaned and covered their eyes as the bright red lights flooded the stage. The lights only seconds after faded back into the original stage lighting.

"That would be perfect." May beamed.

"Cool! When's your performance?" Zac asked her.

"Monday, period four." she answered.

"Alright, I'll ask Mr. Carrozza if I can miss bio for a few minutes to help you guys." Zac said, standing up. "And that's every time you guys collide, yeah?"

"Yup!" I answered, nodding. Zac looked at me as if he forgot I was in the room. I didn't blame him.

"Alright, cool." he said, moving to leave.

"Thanks, Zac." May said happily, giving him a squeezing hug. A knot formed in my stomach as I watched the two, and I could feel my knuckles clench as my heart deflated and fell downwards in my body. It was just a hug, but still. I could tell he was not used to hugs and just sort of stayed there as she hugged him, then started to move down the ladder.

"No offense, dude." he added towards me as he moved down the ladder. "But one hug is enough."

It was meant to be humorous, which I understand, but I still felt some sort of anger towards him. I don't get why, he seemed like a perfectly nice guy, it was just… the hug, dammit. I wanted that to be me. I wanted May to hug me, I wanted to be special to her, I… I don't know. It was hard to explain.

After he left, still in her bubble of giddiness, May danced over to me and gave me a big squeezing hug too. "And thanks, partner." she told me as she hugged me. "This is going to be the best piece ever. He's really going to like it."

Trying to swallow my nervousness down, I added, "We make a great team."

She let go of me and looked me in the eyes. "We do, don't we?" she agreed with a smile on her face. We stood there in silence, not taking our eyes off of each other, before she added, "I guess we should get down the ladder. Not much to do up here, plus I bet Mr. Salvador doesn't want us up here alone, huh?"

I'm sure that comment was innocent. Or joking. Or both, I bet it was both. She could never mean it like that, we were just friends.