Corrupt Me

This story is a fantasy based loosely on actual events and real people. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Growing up I was what you would now call straight-edge. No drinking, no drugs, no sex. It wasn't because I was deeply religious; it was just the way I was. I remember times in my teenage years that I wished I was more like the cool kids, but eventually I found my own niche, and I stopped caring about them. Most people would have classified me as a geek or a nerd. I got good grades, I played the cello, and I was involved in theater. I joined a Sunday morning bowling league with my friends. Everybody talks about discovering themselves at some point in their lives. That was who I was, and I was content with it.

College turned out to be more or less the same. I sought out my own crowd. I was placed with a group of clean-living, hard-studying types clustered together in a section of the dorm for freshman who requested an alcohol free dorm. I found out that I didn't really mesh with most of them. Some were deeply religious. Others studied so much they rarely saw the light of day. Then there was one girl who had requested an alcohol free dorm because she was basically an alcoholic and she hoped that it would help her stay away from it. It didn't. She would disappear for days at a time. It was a diverse group with many different backgrounds, and in the end none of us really had all that much in common.

Eventually I found myself running with a bunch of different crowds. In high school people seemed to be involved in many different things. In college it seemed like everybody tried to focus on just one thing, so I made some friends that were into music, some friends that were into theater, some friends that were into bowling, and so on. At times I felt like the only person out to experience everything that college had to offer.

I knew the "party" crowd was there too. I would hear some of the other kids talk in some of the elective classes I was taking. They talked about partying, booze, women. I listened impassively, finding myself getting a vicarious thrill listening to their crazy stories, and yet feeling somewhat glad that I didn't have those crazy impulses.

I found myself struggling in college academically. I guess since I was basically a dabbler I had never really decided what I wanted to do once I got to college. At the end of my freshman year I sat down with my advisor and he asked me what I thought I might want to concentrate on. I didn't want to be a music major, I thought to myself. I enjoyed it but I wasn't really good enough, and what kind of living would I make anyway? I didn't want to be a theater major for similar reasons. I really enjoyed the creative writing class I took in my senior year of high school. I suggested that maybe I could be an English major. I enrolled in British literature for my third semester and promptly flunked it. I enjoyed writing my own stuff but epic poems written in Middle English didn't interest me at all.

It was kind of a shock to me. I had never really failed a class before. Being an English major wasn't going to happen, obviously. I was a great mathematician growing up, I thought to myself before my third semester was even half over, maybe I should give math a try. I was granted a meeting with the head of the math department. I was great with numbers, I remember telling him, but I had struggled with trigonometry. Maybe you could become an actuary, he suggested. Unfortunately I would still have to get through calculus. I signed up for calculus 101 and probability and statistics for my fourth semester.

To my horror I didn't understand calculus at all. I think my aggregate test score was in the 20's when I finally decided to drop the class and take an Fx halfway through the semester and cut my losses. I was demoralized, lost and adrift. I didn't know what I was going to do next. I was open to suggestion, ready to go off the rails of the life I had built for myself.

From time to time I would meet somebody who would hear that I didn't drink, smoke, party, have sex, or whatever, and decide that they were going to corrupt me. I usually laughed them off. I was strangely impervious to peer pressure. I knew what lines in my personal life that I would and would not cross, and stuck to them. Eventually these people would get bored or frustrated and leave me alone. It was possible that Seth just came along at the right time, when my life seemed like it was over at 19.

I had never met anybody like Seth before, but few people ever will. You just don't come across many people like him. He had a black father and a Jewish mother. He was also gay, or bi-sexual, I wasn't really sure. I had seen him with women once or twice, but Seth was very open about the fact that he liked men. He was somebody who used to push the fact that he was different on everybody. In my head, I used to call him the poster boy for discrimination. I forgot how I even met him. I think he might have been in one of my third semester classes. He lived in a different dorm, but I would still see him around campus or in the dining hall every once in a while. He was hard to miss, a black man wearing a yarmulke, dressed like a punk rocker.

He became the latest person to start telling me he was going to take me out and corrupt me. I always wondered about the possibility that he took an interest in me because he thought I was gay. Frankly I had no doubts about my sexuality. Even though I had virtually no experience with women up to that point in my life, I knew that it was women that I was attracted to and not men. Whatever the reason, my life was spiraling downward, and for once I relented. Yes, I told him, I'll hang out with you on Saturday night.

My first indoctrination to how the 'other half' lived was that we weren't even meeting up until 10pm. I rarely went to bed before midnight in college, but those evenings were spent with friends in the dorm watching movies, playing video games, or just sitting around talking. If I left campus it was during the day to go shopping for groceries or to the local mall, or out to dinner or the movies when my tight budget allowed it. It was a blustery March evening, and I wore my heavy winter coat to meet up with Seth. He led me to the park and ride area where we met up with his friend Toby, a white man probably in his 30's who introduced himself to me as gay. We piled into his boxy old Chevy and headed toward the city.

We headed straight to the waterfront area, a section of the city dubbed fraternity row, full of bars and clubs or whatever. I had never been there before, I had only heard about it from overhearing stories from my classmates. Toby drove us straight through a crowded and well-lit area full of partying kids from all of the area colleges. Soon we were driving down a darker, quieter street. Toby parked in front of a dilapidated, boarded up building. I glanced around nervously. We were getting out here? Seth and Toby were already out of the car and walking away, so I leapt out and hurried to keep up with them. Despite the run-down neighborhood, the street wasn't deserted. There were some people milling about, people who looked like they might have been extras in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

"Do you think we'll run into your mom tonight?" Toby asked Seth. I thought maybe it was a joke but he sounded serious.

"No, I already talked to her, she's not coming out tonight," Seth replied. I tried to picture my own mother hanging out in a neighborhood like this, and failed.

We walked a couple of blocks. Between the buildings were dark alleys that seemed to lead nowhere. I shuddered when I thought about what might be awaiting me if I ventured down one of them. I felt completely detached from reality, like we were walking on a movie set or something, and there really was nothing beyond those dark alleys. Finally we arrived at a two story building at the end of a block. The building was completely nondescript. I couldn't make out its color in the darkness, and it had no signage to identify itself as whatever it was. We walked inside and I found it was a little bar. The entire left half of the room was the actual bar and a narrow row of tables were along the right side of the wall. I could make out pool tables in the back. I got a quick glimpse of leather jackets, and rough-looking people of both sexes, and then set my gaze at the floor. I was determined to not draw any attention to myself.

Toby and Seth led me to a table and sat down. They ordered drinks. I told them I didn't want anything. I sat there silently, just trying to stay out of everybody's way. The drinks arrived and Toby and Seth drank and chatted. Occasionally they would say something to me, but for the most part I just sat quietly. Eventually a friend of theirs came over and they chatted with him for a few minutes. I didn't even listen to the conversation. I was too busy trying to be inconspicuous, even though I probably stuck out like a sore thumb in the place.

"Hey," Seth said, breaking me out of my stupor. It must have been obvious I wasn't paying attention. "We're going to go to a friend's place across the way. They're having a party. Are you coming along?"

To me that seemed like a stupid thing to ask. I wasn't going to stay here all by myself. If nothing else, they were my ride. "Yeah," I mumbled, and we stood up and left the bar. I followed Toby and Seth as they crossed the street and entered a park that I wasn't even aware was there. Later, when I told my local friends where I was, they would tell me that it was amazing that I survived the trip, because apparently I was in the most dangerous part of the city. I knew I wasn't exactly in utopia, but I had no idea how much danger I was actually in. Score one for ignorance!

We survived the trip through the park, and walked a couple more blocks into a neighborhood full of narrow row homes. It was a quieter, better lit neighborhood, but it still felt to me at the time like the part of a slasher movie when the unsuspecting kids were heading to the wrong place at the wrong time. Ominous music played in the soundtrack of my mind. I was already past the point where I was expecting to relax and enjoy myself, or even where I could appreciate the experience with an air of detached curiosity. I was just terrified, and hoping to make it through the night unscathed.

We reached the place we were looking for, and knocked on the door. It was answered by an overweight guy, probably in his 20's. He let us inside, into a living room sparsely furnished with tacky 70's style furniture. Music was booming, I recognized it as The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails. There was something on the television that I eventually identified as the movie Naked Lunch. I had never felt so out of place in my life. The wish that I could be just about anyplace else right then was so overwhelming it was paralyzing. I was offered a place to sit, a half-deflated beanbag chair in the middle of the room, and I sank down into it, still wearing my coat, and just wished the night was already over.

There were a handful of people there. One was another overweight guy that I took to be the first overweight guy's brother. Besides my traveling companions, there were a couple of other nondescript guys and a couple of women as well. I wondered if they were all gay, or bi-sexual, or on drugs. Most of them were drinking, but nobody was visibly drunk or acting crazy. The minutes crept by. At times I wondered why I was so scared. Was I that much of a control freak? These people didn't seem all that bad really. Did I think that these people were going to pressure me to drink or take drugs, or engage in sexual acts, straight or homosexual? Maybe I was overreacting, but anytime I started to relax a little I would think about the thumping music or the homoerotic movie on the television and remember how out of place I felt. I stared at Seth and Toby when they weren't looking at me, trying to mentally will them to decide it was time to go home.

Eventually one of the guys came over to me and tried to make some small talk. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I was too creeped out to do much more than give him the cold shoulder.

"Hey man," he said, "Why don't you relax, have a beer."

"I don't drink," I replied peevishly.

"Have you ever tried beer?" he asked.

"Yeah," I sighed, "I can't stand it."

"Well, maybe try something else," he offered, "We got plenty of drinks here."

"No thanks," I said tersely.

The first guy gave up and wandered away. A few minutes later a second guy came over.

"Hey man," he said, "Why you like this?"

"Like what?" I replied.

"Why don't you like to have fun?" he asked.

"I do like to have fun," I said, "This just isn't my idea of fun."

"Hey, whatever man," he mumbled, and he too walked away, leaving me to go back to counting the minutes until we left.

The time crept by. The Downward Spiral ended and started up again. Naked Lunch played on. A couple more people showed up, another man and woman. Eventually there were people leaving. To my great relief, Seth and Toby decided that we would get a ride back with them. They said their goodbyes and we filed out into the night, me, my two companions, and a man and a woman who had pretty much ignored me up until then. The guy we were getting a ride with had a compact four-seater, and there were five of us.

"Is it okay if she sits on your lap for a few minutes?" The guy said, gesturing to his female companion.

I took a good look at the woman for the first time. I guessed that she was around my age. She was caramel skinned, maybe 5'4", not fat but had some meat on her bones. She had a wide, friendly face. I shrugged. "Sure," I said.

We piled into his car. I sat down and the girl sat down on my lap. I was far from skinny, being 6'1" and 230 pounds, so I was easily able to support her weight. What I wasn't expecting was that the girl wasn't content to rest herself on my knee or my thigh; she sat right on my crotch. Her buttocks pressed right against my dick. As we drove away she started to wriggle, causing me to get an erection.

The ride back to the car lasted about five minutes. All the while I was virtually getting a fully clothed lap dance from a woman whose name I never bothered to learn. She would wriggle a bit; she would stop for a bit. She was holding onto the back of the driver's seat in front of us, and she would lift herself up and back down onto my crotch. I could feel her butt cheeks flush against my hard-on. It was obvious she knew what she was doing. I wasn't sure what to do with myself. Do I enjoy it? Do I try to get her to stop? I was mortified, sitting there with an erection in a car next to homosexual men.

Lucky we arrived at Toby's car before I got too excited. The girl climbed off of me. I climbed out of the car after her, quickly adjusting my coat to hide my erection, even though it was probably too dark to see anything anyway. "Bye," the girl said as she climbed back into the car and it drove away. It was pretty much the most sexual thing I had ever done with a woman, and just like that, it was over and she was out of my life. I watched them drive away into the night. But, I thought to myself, at least it was finally time to go home.

"Hey," Seth said, "We're going to go back to the bar for a bit."

I groaned. I was so sure that the night was over and we were going to be on our way home. Dejected, I trudged after them back down the street. It seemed even darker and more deserted than before. We reached the bar and walked inside. It was pretty much just as I remembered it being when we were last there about an hour ago. I followed my companions as they walked through the bar and tables and towards the back. Suddenly Seth turned and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"We're just going to go upstairs to buy some drugs," Seth said casually, "You can wait here."

Overwhelmed with fresh mortification, I watched them disappear into the back of the bar. It turned out that where I was standing beyond the tables there was an old sofa against the wall. It was unoccupied, so I sank down into it. Drugs? I imagined us getting pulled over on the way back and me being thrown in jail just for being in the same car with the drugs. Please just let me get home safe... please just let me get home safe... I started repeating in my head over and over again.

A few minutes passed. I started idly wondering how long it took to buy drugs. Suddenly movement caught my eye. I glanced up from the spot on the floor I had been staring at, and found myself staring at a woman. She had just come from somewhere inside the bar and sat down on a barstool across from me. She was turned sideways and staring at me. I guessed that she wasn't much older than I was, maybe in her early twenties. She was wearing a tight brown dress which went down to just above her knees, and black stockings on underneath. She had shoulder length brown hair and deep brown eyes. And she was staring at me. It was a deep, smoldering stare that I would remember for the rest of my life.

I wanted nothing to do with anybody in there. I just wanted my companions to come back so that they would take me home and I could go back to not going to places like this. The problem was that I couldn't look away from her. Our eyes locked and we stared at each other. She kept giving me a sexy stare while I probably looked like a deer staring at approaching headlights. Then she smiled. It was something more like a predatory leer than a friendly smile. I flinched. I was finally able to tear my gaze away from her and back down to the floor.

I heard the sound of heels against the floor, and then I felt the couch move as someone sat beside me. I glanced involuntarily. It was the woman. She sat beside me and turned toward me, her right leg crossed over her left and pointed toward me. She propped her head on her left elbow, her drink dangled from her right hand. My vision drifted to the point just above her knee where her dress ended and her stockings began, and then followed her right leg to where her heel dangled from her foot. I would have found her incredibly sexy if I wasn't so freaked out.

"Hi," she said to me.

Part of me wanted to ignore her and wait for her to go away, but I wasn't capable of that level of rudeness, even in the situation I found myself in. "Hi," I said, staring at the floor.

"You seem nervous," she said, "Is this your first time?"

The way she said it brought a movie quote to the forefront of my mind so forcefully I couldn't hold it back. "No, I've been nervous lots of times," I blurted out.

She laughed. She had a wonderful, musical, infectious laugh that caused me to start chuckling despite myself. I relaxed, if only slightly. Then she held out her hand. "Come with me," she said.

A chorus of NO welled up inside me. My mind scrambled to find the best response, and finally I blurted out the easiest, most concrete excuse that came to mind. "I have to wait here for my friends," I said, "They just went upstairs..."

"It's okay," she said, silencing me by placing her hand on mine. I stared into her dark brown eyes, and suddenly nothing else mattered to me except for following her. I stood up and let her lead me toward the back of the dimly lit bar. I noticed the stairs, and I half expected Seth and Toby to appear and tell me it was time to go. They didn't, and I was led to a door against the back wall. The woman opened it and led me inside.

It was a small, cramped room. There was a bed against the wall that was fully made up with sheets and pillows. A plush chair was against the other wall with an equally plush sofa beside it. The room was as dimly lit as the bar outside, but it glowed purple. Mood lighting. I noticed a small chest of drawers with a lava lamp sitting on top of it. It was like walking onto the set of a porno.