Call Out Your Name Ch. 01

"Look at the bright side," he laughed. "You'll be the track star, the big man on campus."

"Har-har, so not funny," I sneered. "I already was the big man on campus with a decent rep. I hate it here."

"Yeah, but you only have five months before you're out. Maybe you can come back over the summer."

I contemplated this, knowing my life in Rancho Martinez was completely in my mom's hands. "Maybe," I answered in an uncertain voice. A guy could always dream, I guess.

"So is living with the other 'rent as bad as your mom?" Gordie wisely switched subjects.

"Nah, he doesn't give a shit. He's, like, never home, so once I find someone to hang with up here, if that's even possible in this hell hole, I'll be free to do whatever I please and he won't fucking know the difference."

"Sweet," he judged my situation, seeing only the positives. He didn't have to spend all his time by himself.

"So how is the crew?" I asked, tracing my finger over the square pattern on my navy quilt.

For the first time Gordie didn't have an immediate reply. "Uh, ah man, I hate to have to be the one to break it to you, but Danae is already going out with someone else."

"Who?" I screeched loudly.

Danae was my girlfriend. One of them. My most regular girl, the one at Sacred Heart. I had barely been gone from Rancho Martinez for four days and, from what he was saying, it didn't sound as if she had wasted any time finding someone to take my place. Not that I had any intention of being faithful, but I thought she'd at least have the decency to be less public about it.

"Randy Dawson," he said in a diffident voice. "They showed up at school yesterday morning holding hands."

"What the fuck, Gordie. That bastard!" Randy was another of my best friends, make that former friend. "How serious?"

Another pause. "According to gossip straight from Danae, you don't want to know, Shane."

"Fuck and double fuck," I swore heatedly. It was bad enough that Randy couldn't stay out of her pants, but for her to be happy about it? Damn, they were trashing my creds.

We bitched back and forth for awhile about the capriciousness of 'out of sight, out of mind' friendship. Then we zeroed in to encompass slutty-ass girlfriends before he changed the subject to general gossip around school and what the sports teams were doing. By the time he hung up, I was feeling sorry for myself and in a foul mood. Foul enough to call my mother and beg her to let me come home."

"No, Shane," she stated with finality in her voice. "You stay up in Calberia. You can't live here."

"Why?" I cried. "What about all that forgiveness the church preaches? It's all fine when you're talking about other people but you can't even forgive your own son?"

"This isn't about forgiveness. It's about the way you act and the example you set for Roxie and Suzie."

Oh my god, did she mean what she just said? "You're afraid I'm going to turn them into lesbos, Mom? That isn't how it works. Besides, Suzie has already slept with half the freshman basketball..."

"Watch what you say about your sisters, young man!"

Okay, I guess that was the wrong tact, seeing as she'd never believe anything negative about Whit's darling girls, so let's try this again and begin with an apology. "Sorry, but... What I'm trying to say is that this isn't a choice of mine. It's the way God made me."

"You leave God out of this, Shane. That is a terrible thing to say."

What the fuck! Mom is an intelligent, college-educated thirty-nine year old woman. How could she be so closed-minded and ignorant about my lifestyle? You would think she'd be willing to take the time to go online and investigate, at least for the sake of her own son.

"Mom, please don't do this to me. I hate it here." I begged, near tears and feeling the conversation getting away from me. "You're messing up my entire life. Gordie says that Danae is already dating another guy. There are no AP classes up here. No sports teams. Just some stupid hicksville country school with less than a hundred seniors. What about my scholarship for college? I'm losing everything I love."

"Well maybe you should have thought about that before you jumped into bed with Owen Turlock."

Now I was crying. "Can't you give me another chance? What if I promise not to... uh, do anything like that again? You know, just stick to girls." I wasn't sure I could live up to such a promise but it was worth a try.

Mom actually paused a moment to think. "No, Shane, this is the best solution for everyone. Stay up there with your father. I'm sure your scholarship is secure. You graduate in June and will be on your way to college in a little over six months. Then you can live however you choose and I won't have to deal with it."

Deal with it? It sounded as if Mom was willing to write me out of her life completely.

I flipped my cell phone closed, the desire to throw it against the wall strong, but I fought it because if I broke the damn thing, Dad probably wouldn't pay to replace it. I stomped around the house for half an hour and finally settled for gulping down half a tumbler of Dad's cheap rum. It burned going down and then it turned me maudlin, but at least I was able to cry it all out before I fell asleep in my clothes.

I slowly settled in to Calberia life but I was pretty lonely for awhile.

To give me something to do I approached Mom's brother, my Uncle Carl Weatherby, who owned a sports fishing and diving enterprise, and asked if he'd hire me on. He looked like an aging hippie with flinty eyes and his graying hair tied back in a braid and he smoked a fair amount of weed. His wife, Elaine, was ten years younger than him and owned a 1960's-70's boutique in downtown Calberia. It fronted a supposedly legal head shop and catered to the arts and crafts crowd.

Despite his liking for herb, Carl was a conscientious boat pilot and a decent businessman, and he was well-liked by his charters. He had two identical boats which I called yachts, but he said were trawlers, tied up in the small Calberia harbor. He already had a flock of young men who were eager to crew for him and were very loyal to his business. Not that I expected special favors, but I needed a job. I hoped he would teach me all about running the boats so I could help on weekends when he took them out.

I had approached my uncle after my second day of school. He was sitting in his office that gave off the pungent scent of slightly-off skunk, and I figured my timing couldn't have been better. Carl would be mellow.

He at first didn't think I was serious, but I told him I had to earn some money and find something to do before I lost my mind with the tedium. He smirked at that.

"Calberia not your cup of tea after the high life of Rancho Martinez?" He didn't look angry so I knew he was teasing and wouldn't take offense if I was truthful.

"Seriously, Uncle Carl, what do people do up here? I mean it's pretty and all..." Which it was, the Santa Barbara area was a lot greener than Orange County. "But it's hard to make friends starting school in the middle of the year. And this town has absolutely nothing for entertainment except watching the grass grow."

He pursed his lips and looked at me with wide, slightly hazy eyes. "Okay, Shane," he said.

"Okay?" Even with him being high I expected a lot more of a fight to get a job. I guess there are a few small advantages in having his sister as my mom, nepotism and all.

As I would learn over the next couple of months the Sorsha Lynn and the Tammany Jo, named for his two daughters, were Bayliner 3388s, both thirty-three feet long, each with a spacious flybridge, wide side decks and an open, drop down aft so divers could drag themselves back into the craft with ease. They had a live bait tanks, owner-installed shelves for diving gear and each carried a small, attached dinghy. Carl did his best to teach me all the intricacies of the radar but what I was most interested in was how to work the twin 330hp diesels to make it move through the water.

So I went to work for my uncle on weekends, doing the grunt chores nobody else wanted. Hosing down the decks and getting all the fish guts washed off—Uncle Carl was strict about his ships being both clean and as sweet smelling as possible. It was my job to go to the wholesale bait markets early on Saturdays and buy the fish for the tanks and dispose of what was left at the end of the day. I was the fetch and carry boy aboard the Sorsha Lynn, helping the fisherman with small tasks like gutting their caught fish and storing it on ice until we got back to shore. I actually enjoyed my work.

As far as I could tell I was the only teenager in my neighborhood. My dad's house was in a medium-sized tract of similar dwellings, but what had been young families buying when the community was first developed were now middle-aged empty-nest couples.

I wasn't much better off at school; it's true that many of my peers had settled into their cliques long before my arrival, and I was the unlucky bastard who was encroaching on them and had to break in as the new kid when none of them could pigeonhole me.

What was I? Jock in a school where I wasn't participating in school sports? A brainiac who was afraid to show up the less grade-conscious because I didn't want to ruffle feathers? My intermittent drinking and use of weed did not make me a stoner, and the skater crowd was a closed assembly.

As for Jesse, I soon learned he had last name to go with the first. Capps. Jesse Capps, which came from Mrs. Coates in English because she insisted on using our full names all the time as if we'd forget them without hearing them every day. But I wasn't any closer to getting to know him, much less being his friend, because Jesse had this habit of looking right through me. I was the invisible man.

Nothing was going right for me at first. But for some reason fate finally decided to start treating me decent and be less than a fickle bitch. Rumor had it that Jesse Capps was gay; rumor being a big blonde knucklehead of a bruiser named Mark Butler.

Four days into my second week of school I was passing the quad between 3rd and 4th periods on my way to Physics when I noticed a commotion off to the side. Mark had chosen to get up in Jesse's shit by planting himself firmly in front of him with five other muscle-bound boys just like him, all of them sneering at Jesse calling him a fag. While the boy of my dreams didn't confirm or deny, it was obvious there was bad blood between the two of them going way back. Jesse gave them a pitying smile, turned and walked away but not before several of his friends took up in his defense. They dished it right back and started aping the bully, calling him a loser who didn't dare confront his victims without his posse. Mark scowled, and I think he was angrier that Jesse was ignoring his taunts then the way the others were so aggressively defending him.

Truthfully, I didn't know whether Jesse was gay or not. I had been keeping my ears open in school and listening for his name to be mentioned, but I wasn't in a position to ask anyone about him without stirring up trouble for myself. I did overhear that he was enrolled in dance and drama, and some people would think, oh, he must be gay for sure. But just as not all male hairdressers or figure skaters are gay and not every man who designs clothing or home interiors sleeps with men, being a dancer meant nothing more than he liked to move his body to music. There was nothing in the gay stereotype that matched Jesse one bit, and the only thing I had to go on was a few taunts by some prick who might have any number of reasons to be calling Jesse out.

That night I was lying in bed, weary with anxiety. Mom had called the house while I was at school and left a message on the answering machine about some important form that my previous high school counselor had neglected to send to the admissions departments of three large universities back east. Now it was too late, and I could take them off my list of potential schools I might be attending in the fall. I was so mad I called Gordie to bitch and moan, but he didn't have time to listen to me. Less and less it seemed like I had anyone I could count on, and seeing boys who had been my friends for years so easily forget me only two weeks after exiting Sacred Heart was sobering.

My hand found its way to my hard cock, and I began to stroke it, slowly at first, then more forcefully. Tonight was not the time to take it easy and torture myself lazily; I needed fast and firm to get off so I could relax and rest. Focus, I told myself with a hard squeeze to my dick, and I let my mind settle into a fantasy. The face I saw in my head was at first was that of Danae, my Sacred Heart ex-girlfriend but, truthfully, it was hard conjuring up her image with any emotion pleasant enough to speed along a handjob. So I tried to reflect on Owen, sweet Owen from Rancho Martinez. Then his face morphed into Jesse's.

Imagining Jesse's lips wrapped around my rigid staff, I gripped it with my palm, flicking fingers over my balls and around the head as tingles danced up and down my legs. I gave in to them with a deep groan, continuing to pull on my weeping erection and let the pleasure take me under. I could almost physically feel his wispy black hair tickling my thighs and soon passed the point of no return. I didn't even try to hold off when the muscles in my abdomen began to ripple under my skin.

"Fuck," I hissed as intense contractions overtook me and sticky cum shot out to paint my chest in streaks of pearly white that pooled in my navel and pubic hair. Eventually, my hips stilled, my breathing slowed back to normal and my eyes began to close before I hooked a towel off my bedroom floor and wiped myself down. Only then did I give in the creeping exhaustion and let myself sleep.

Another week and a half went by since my transfer in. I was determined to make friend with Jesse Capps, but he was acting odd around me. For instance, we high schoolers had many opportunities to pass each other in the halls every day because of the way the campus was laid out for the upper division students. However, he looked like he was doing his best to avoid me.

If he looked down a corridor and saw my approach in time, he started veering off. Jesse tried to be inconspicuous and pretend he wasn't making a wide circle around me, but I could tell by the alarm in his eyes. When I greeted him before or after our lone class together he would throw me this frown as if he expected me to devour him... which I would have liked, but not in the way he imagined it. He thought I was some kind of threat and wanted nothing to do with me.

It was the middle of February, and we were studying English writers from the early-to-mid 19th century. Yeah, this is a mainstream class, not advanced like down south, so they move at a snail's pace, and I doubted we'd get through the whole textbook by the end of the term. I could do the class work in my sleep and I wasn't paying any mind to Mrs. Coates until I heard her say my name.

My head popped up to find her staring at me. "Shane Elliott," she repeated sternly now that she had my full attention, "the assignment for you and Mr. Capps," she glanced over at Jesse who was lounging at his desk, "is to compare the works of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë." I nodded and flicked a quick glance at Jesse but he didn't acknowledge me at all.

The bell rang a few minutes later, and I moseyed over to his side of the room, trying to act nonchalant and hide how excited I was over being teamed up with Jesse for this project. I could scarcely believe my good fortune: a legit reason to spend time with my Totally Hot Cutie. I didn't even object to being given female authors like the Brontës to write up. It was worth landing them instead of someone more interesting like Browning or Carroll or Lord Tennyson if it meant Jesse and me getting to know each other and becoming friends... or more. Having studied the sisters previously at Rancho Martinez and using the notes to draw from would help us get a good grade and maybe make some points with him.

Jesse visibly flinched when he looked up and saw me standing next to him and then settled into a guarded reserve. Refusing to meet my eye, he stared down at his desk, gripping the hell out of the wooden edge as a flush covered his cheeks. Shit, what was up with this dude? What could I have inadvertently done that made him act so panicky? He never let me get close enough to say one word, good or bad. It wasn't like my rep preceded me nor did I have BO.

Well, I guess it was going to suck to be him because we were working together on this project over the next ten days whether he liked it or not. I'd be damned if I was going to get a bad grade simply because he wanted to play games and hate on me for no reason.

"We need to get together and divide up tasks for the essay," I suggested cautiously.

He nodded and refused to lift his eyes; otherwise, he would have seen me smiling at him in a charming attempt to be friendly. I tried again.

"So when and where should we meet?"

Actually I was having a tough time getting the words out because being this close to Jesse for the first time, I could smell him. He was a definite Cool Water fan. I recognized the scent because I bought a bottle strictly on seeing the Josh Holloway ads on television. It smelled much better on him than it ever did on me, and my dick made a crazy little flop in my jeans. I sternly reminded it that I was standing in a public school room and didn't want to embarrass myself in front of my Totally Hot Cutie, and when it wouldn't listen I shifted my books to hide my crotch.

Jesse nodded, finally raising his head to stare straight at me as if in challenge. "How about tomorrow after 6th period in the library?"

I had anticipated going to my house where nobody was home and we would have more privacy, but I wasn't going to insist on it. If he wanted to use the library, that was fine by me. In fact, it was probably a better idea since we'd have study materials at our disposal. Waiting the extra day would also give me a chance to find my notes and essay on the Brontës. In the meantime, we decided to each check out one of the principal books, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, by the sisters.

The next afternoon, it was fifteen minutes after the last bell, and I was sitting at a large table in the back of the library with my information and several reference books spread out in front of me. My whole body quivered with anticipation at spending time with Jesse, and it just seemed appropriate that today was Valentine's Day. Then here he came, stomping through the library door acting angry and distracted, and that killed my good mood straightaway. He glared at me in suspicion.

"How long have you been here?" His face was dark as a thundercloud.

I shrugged not knowing why it mattered, but he didn't look like he was in any frame of mind to be riled up so I held my tongue. "Since school let out," I answered pleasantly. "My last class is in room two-oh-two." I didn't need to explain that it would take me less than a minute to walk from one location to the next.

He grumbled as if he didn't believe me, and I tried to let it pass for now because it made no sense to pick a fight with a study partner I would have to work with for the next week plus. Despite the fact that Jesse was the cutest boy I'd ever seen and I got instantly hard just staring into his amazing latte-colored eyes or hearing his deep voice rumbling in his chest, I was beginning to think he was also one of the snobbiest kids in our grade. My assignment was to work with him on our essay, but it was going to take all my strength to remain cordial and not punch him out if he didn't stop treating me like dog shit on his shoes.