Kicked Around

Erik was frozen, like a Deer in headlights. The blue sky was crisp and reflected through the window over Erik's eyes. He was still holding himself with his right hand and covered himself slightly with his shirt in the other hand. He inched himself closer to the desk and leaned into his laptop slightly to provide more cover. His pants and boxers were still around his ankles, and his legs were exposed. In what amounted to microseconds, his bliss turned into sheer panic and dread, once again, as he waited for his mom to exit his room.

Erik's mom was just about to leave the room and then stopped. Erik's heart was pounding as his face went white in terror. "You OK honey?" she asked. An awkward silence filled the room as Erik mustered the courage to speak. "Yeah mom, I'm fine," Erik said quickly. Erik's mom sighed and walked further into the room. She moved slowly over to the edge of the bed and sat down.

Erik's mom calmly looked outside and then closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and then said, "Look, we need to talk." Erik still was frozen, eyes getting wider stared blankly back at his mother. His mind was racing about what her next words were going to be. But he just wanted her to exit this room right now without saying another word.

"I know things haven't been easy," she started. "And I know you've found your own way... Of coping... with everything. I... I'm just.... I'm really going to miss you, Erik."

Erik's nerves were shattering as his mother continued to talk. Every word she said was like a million hot needles stabbing him in the stomach repeatedly. The cum was liquefying, dripping down Erik's hand, making him even more conscious of the fact that his mother was having a heart-to-heart talk with him while he held his dick in his hand, full of cum, under his desk. "This is a fucking nightmare," he thought. Erik continued to stare at his mother with a pleading look. His only response was: "OK." Erik's mom looked at him troubled. "Erik, I know I haven't been the best mother. I know I haven't always been there, but I'm really, really going to miss you. It's going to be hard not to see you every day. In my eyes, you're still my baby boy."

Erik realized that he needed to say something, or she would continue to pour her heart out to him while he sat there with a wet hand. "Mom," Erik said. "Can you give me a minute? I need to take a shower and get ready."

Erik's mom looked hurt. "Erik, I just... I'm having a hard time letting you go," she continued. "I just... I really just want you to know how much I love you, and that I'm so proud of you and I just want the best for you." She smiled at him hoping for a better response from her son who continued to be frozen and staring at her.

Erik was now sweating. He had no idea how to get out of this situation. He tried giving her the cold shoulder, he tried being polite, but she persisted. "Mom, I really need to get ready," he responded.

Erik's mom looked down, feeling defeated. "OK," she said. "I guess, I'll just...," she paused. She noticed that there was a small pile of clothes at Erik's feet. She looked further up and realized that he was hunched over, completely hugging the desk. Then, she looked at the laptop and saw a popup screen for a "Camgirl" website, featuring "Live nude women."

Erik's mom was now frozen, not sure what it was she is seeing. "Erik?" she started. "Are you...," she realized what she was about to say and stopped herself. She could see that Erik was not wearing anything below the waist. Her eyes widened. "Oh my god!" she screamed out. She stood up and darted for the door. She walked through the entryway and then stopped.

She turned back through the door with her face toward Erik's desk. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..," she was cut off at the sight of her son standing, with no pants on, his wet hand reaching for the door but touching her shoulder instead. The dampness quickly seeped through the shirt leaving a damp stain. They both looked at each other, eyes wide. They stood there for a second, either one not sure what to do next.

Erik's mom backed up out through the door and said, "I'll let you get ready." She glanced at Erik's hand touching her shoulder. "And I'm going to change." She moved backward, with a handprint on her shirt and then closed the door behind her. Erik stood there, blank-faced...

"What the fuck just happened?" he thought. "What the fuck..."

Today. Today is going to be the start... of a new beginning... This can't be real... This must be a dream... Shit like this just can't happen. Or can it?

Chapter 2

The car was driving down the highway as the daylight was coming to an end. Erik's mom was driving, and Erik was in the front passenger seat, still in shock from the events of the morning. The low hum of the motor was the only sound that broke the silence inside of the car. No one said a word.

Erik's little sister, Hannah, was in the backseat texting on her phone. She finished her text and then switched off her phone, now realizing that there was an awkward silence in the car. The silence was making her uncomfortable. Hannah leaned forward between the driver's seat and front passenger's seat. Hannah stared at her mother in the driver's seat for a moment. Erik's mom was looking straight ahead with a look of anxious terror. After a few seconds, Hannah slowly turns her head to look at Erik. Erik stared forward with a look of shock and amazement as if he saw a ghost. After another few moments, Hannah does the same as the other occupants and stares straight ahead out through the windshield with a confused, tense look. "This is fun," Hannah says slowly. "Can we at least turn the radio on?"

Erik and his mom both reach toward the radio at the same time. Erik's mom's hand makes contact with the dial first, followed by Erik's sweaty, clammy hand that touches his mother's hand. The two turn their heads toward each other with a nervous look; both of them quickly recall the events from the morning in a flash, as if they just relived them together once more 12 hours after they occurred. The warm gooey feeling on her shoulder was still crawling underneath Erik's mom's skin since their morning incident. The simple touch sparked the memory once more as they both panic and re-curl their hands quickly toward themselves.

Hannah sees that they both attempted to turn on the radio and then stopped. She waits a moment. Then, Hannah gets annoyed. "Well?" Hannah asks, talking louder. "Can someone please turn on..."

"NO," Erik and Erik's mom yell in unison. Hannah froze. She was not sure what to make of the loud, abrupt response from her family in the front seat. Her eyes darted left to study her mom and then right to glance at Erik. After a moment, Hannah joined her family once more, looking straight out through the windshield, with a look of shock. The car continued down the highway with its passengers silently looking forward, hoping for the journey to come to an end.

An hour later, the car arrived at the destination and pulled up in front of the dorm. "I'll go get the key," Erik says jumping out of the car just as Erik's mom was putting the car into park. Erik nearly jumped out while the car was still in motion. He couldn't wait to exit the silent torture that he had endured all day long, culminating with a 2-hour drive to college with his mother and sister. These last 2 hours ranked very high on Erik's list of the most uncomfortable times of Erik's life.

Erik walked into the front lobby area of the dorm. To the left was the front desk for registration and to the right was typical lobby furniture with sofas, loveseats and nice cushioned chairs. In one of the chairs, there was a college student with a very baggy green hoodie, typing on his laptop. Next to him, there was a freestanding antenna that stood 4 feet tall from the ground. Erik stared at him for a second thinking to himself, "There's people here that are even nerdier than me. Finally." The young man had an electronic cigarette that he was taking puffs from randomly.

Erik went to the front desk and gave the girl his name and student identification card, which he received a week earlier when Erik and his mom attended the "Day on Campus" event. The event was to introduce all incoming freshman to the campus, the dorms, and to create the necessary accounts for them to access the student resources.

The girl at the desk informed Erik that he would be on the 8th floor of the dorm. "You're going to have most of the floor to yourself," she said. "There are only two other guys on the 8th floor, so it's going to be mostly empty for the summer. Go back through those doors on the left and take the elevator up to the 8th floor. The elevator will bring you to the middle of the hallway on the floor. Follow the numbers on the doors to find your room. Also, there are two stairways on each side of the hall of each floor." Erik thanked her and turned to leave. Erik wasn't paying attention and walked right into the guy who left his computer and antenna at his sofa chair to talk to Erik.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Erik said.

"No problem." the guy said. "Hey, I'm Hank. Who are you?"

"Uh, hey, I'm Erik," Erik said, taken off-guard after the near collision and immediate question.

"Nice to meet you," Hank said. "Hey, what kind of cell phone do you have?"

"Cell phone?" Erik asked. "I just have a dumb knockoff phone."

"Can I see it?." Hank asked.

"Sure," Erik said taking the phone from his pocket and showing it to Hank. "It's a Nokital."

"Cool," Hank said. "Do you like it?"

"It was cheap, but it does the job I guess," Erik said.

"Cool," Hank said taking a puff from his electronic cigarette and exhaling a large cloud in the air. "Did you root it and install custom firmware?"

"Yeah actually," Erik said surprised. Erik had never had anyone ask him this type of question about his phone in real life. Only on internet forums or chats with other tech enthusiasts. "Yeah, I run the popular mod for the phone. The stable release version, not the nightlies."

"Yeah, that explains it," Hank said. "Well, maybe I'll see you around!" Hank began to walk back to his seat.

"Uh, yeah... See ya," Erik said as he watched Hank sit back down on the chair and work on his laptop.

"That was strange," Erik thought to himself as he walked to the elevator. "What the hell did he mean?" Erik decided to shake off the odd encounter as he walked out of the lobby and past the entrance into a new section of the dorm where there was an elevator. Erik walked through the open elevator door and pushed the number 8 on the panel, anxious to check out his new room.

Erik took the elevator up to his floor. Erik could hear the sound of heavy, thrash metal music as he walked down the hall. He passed the room where the music was coming from and found his room number. Erik opened the door and stepped inside. "Alright," he said to himself. "I can work with this." The room was a standard dorm size small rectangle, almost a square. The long sides of the room were the walls to the left and right of the doorway. The wall across from the door had a window. Erik looked out the window, which looked down to the parking lot. There he could see his mom's car. Erik's mom and sister were on the outside of the car waiting for Erik to come back.

Erik smiled to himself. "I'm finally here," he thought. Erik walked out of his room and back down the hallway. There was a community bathroom on the floor, and Erik walked inside. There was a guy in the bathroom drying his hands in front of one of the sinks. The boy looked at Erik as he walked into the bathroom. "You the new guy?" the boy said. "Uh, yeah, I'm moving in now," Erik responded.

"Cool. I'm Steve," the boy said. "I'm Erik, nice to meet you." The two shook hands.

"Hey, do you got like $20," asked Steve.

"Umm, yeah, why?" responded Erik puzzled.

"I just need $20. And I need it... like now."

Steve stared at Erik intently. Erik looked back at Steve, conflicted about giving money to a person he just met. After a short time, Erik decided that he should be polite and felt compelled to lend Steve the money. At the very least, Erik thought lending Steve the money would help Erik make friends with his new floormate. Erik reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He took out a 20 dollar bill and handed it to Steve.

"Cool," Steve said as he took the bill and walked out of the bathroom. Erik peered around the corner and watched Steve head into the room with the heavy metal music. Then, he faintly heard talking.

"Alright here's the money."

"Don't you know how to knock?"

"Your door was open."

"No, it was closed."

"It wasn't locked."

There was an awkward pause with some mumbling. After a short break, the talking continued.

"Next time knock."

Steve exits the room. He sees Erik and does a reverse nod, acknowledging that Steve sees Erik. Then, Steve turns to his right and goes down the hall, opens another door and enters the room.

Erik stands there for a few seconds unsure of what to make of this. Then, the music turns off, and the door opens again. Another boy exits the room. He walks toward Erik.

"Oh, hey there!" the boy says to Erik. "You the other guy living on the floor this summer?"

"Uh, yeah," Erik responds.

"You been here for awhile or you moving in now?" the boy asks.

"Umm, now.," Erik says. "I, uh, well I just came up to see the room first."

"Ah, cool man.," says the boy. "I'm Bret."

"Erik. Nice to meet you," Erik says shaking Bret's hand.

"Good to meet you too Erik," says Bret. "I'm going to head out for a bit, but we should get together and talk after you move in."

"Sounds good," says Erik.

Bret walks past Erik into the shared bathroom on the dorm floor. Erik turned and walked back to the elevator and rode it down to the first floor. He exited the front door of the dorm and walked back to the parking lot. Erik's mom had already started unpacking the car and putting Erik's stuff on the sidewalk. Then, Erik, Hannah, and Erik's mom picked up some of the items and brought them upstairs. They continued to make several trips as they moved all of Erik's stuff into his dorm room.

After all of Erik's belongings had been transferred from the car into Erik's room, Erik and Hannah began unpacking the boxes. Erik's mom went back down to the car to grab her purse. As she walked down the hallway toward the elevator, she smelled smoke coming from somewhere on the floor. Erik's mom knew the smell very well. It was marijuana. She turns around and walks back to Erik's room where Erik and Hannah are unpacking.

"Do you guys smell something?" Erik's mom asks.

"No," they both respond.

Erik's mom turns around and begins to sniff like a bloodhound hunting an animal. She sniffs as she walks slowly back to the elevator. As she reached the elevator, the smell was stronger, and she walked past the elevator down the other side of the hall, still on the trail of the origin. Finally, she stopped at a room across from the stairwell. Erik's mom smelled the door to the stairwell up and down and then turned around to smell the room door up and down. She was having a difficult time determining where the smell originated. Erik's mom then started to backtrack her steps, smelling the walls and each door she came to, up and down the frame.

Bret exits the elevator and walks to the long hallway. He was about to turn right towards his room when he saw someone out of the corner of his eye to his left. Bret stops and sees Erik's mom inhaling the air and then each doorway, like a dog. She turns around from sniffing the current door while Bret is staring at her with a perplexed look. Erik's mom freezes. They both stare each other down for a second.

"Can I help you with something?" Bret finally says to her. Realizing that she must look foolish, she straightens up.

"No," she says. "I need to go get something... From the car... "

Erik's mom walks to the elevator, enters through the open doors and presses the button to go down. Bret stands there, very confused about what just happened, watching the doors close slowly. Then, Bret shakes it off and turns around to walk to his room.

As Bret turns back toward his room, he catches the scent of weed in the air. Bret has a eureka moment, as the explanation of what he just witnessed comes into focus. "Dumb mother fucker...," he says under his breath. Bret walks toward Steve's room, shaking his head faster and faster as the smell gets stronger. Bret knocks on Steve's door and then opens it. "You got 2 minutes to clear this room and get the fuck out of here before the cops come," Bret says to Steve as he rushes into the room.

Steve was laying on his bed when Bret walked through the door. Steve sits up after hearing Bret's warning. "What? ... What you talking about?" Steve asks.

"You didn't vent anything.," Bret says. "The whole hallway smells like a fucking Deadhead concert. The other guy's mom is going downstairs now to call the cops."

"Shit," Steve says. "I'll crack the window."

"Fuck that man," Bret says. "The smell is everywhere. If the cops see you, they'll know that your high and you were smoking up in here. You need to get the fuck out of here, now."

Steve looks at his closet and then digs through a gym bag on the floor. He puts on a light jogging hoodie and earbuds in his ears. Then he puts his shoes on and walks toward the door.

"Wait," Bret stops him. "You have got to clear the smell out of here man."

Steve turns on a box fan and points it toward the window. Then he opens the window as they both leave the room. Steve walks across the hall and opens the stairway door. Steve looks down to see a wood block wedge and sticks it between the floor and the door to hold it open. Then, Steve starts down the steps as Bret walks back to Erik's room. Bret gets to Erik's door and looks again to make sure Steve is gone. Then, he turns to Erik and Hannah. "So, where are you from?" Bret says as he walks into Erik's room.

Steve stops halfway down the steps and slips on his hood. He exits the stairway at the ground floor just as the cops pull up to the front door. Steve sees them and turns around, putting the earbuds in his ears and walks to the side exit. Steve exits through the door to the outside of the building. Just as night air touches his face, the impact of the weed hits him hard and his reaction time slows to a crawl. Steve looks down and sees that his earbuds are not connected to anything, so the cord dangles down in front of him. Steve slowly grabs the wire like he's pulling a rope hand over hand. When he finally gets to the end, Steve slowly shoves it down the front of his shorts. The wire dangles down through his boxer and runs down his leg. Steve hears movement on the other side of the door. He realizes that he can't stay there. This is where Steve begins the slowest jog of his life, trying not to fall.

Erik's mom, the girl at the front desk, and the campus police take the elevator up to Erik's floor. When the door opens, Erik's mom leads them to the left of the elevators and toward Steve's room. Erik's mom points at the room, and the campus police knock on the door. After a 5 second wait, they knock again. The front desk girl unlocks the door and the campus police walk in. The police search the room, but they don't find anything except a stick of incense burning on the desk.

"This door wasn't open a minute ago," Erik's mom says pointing at the stairway door. "It was closed."

"It should have been open," the girl from the front desk says from inside of Steve's room. "We opened all of them for move-in day." The officers were looking around the desk and the bed for drugs.

"It was closed when I was up here," Erik's mom says again. "Maybe you could take fingerprints from the door handle to the stairs and match them to the fingerprints on the door handle to the room." The two police officers stop what they were doing and look at each other, trying to contain the laughter.