This is a quick story I put together in a small burst of inspiration
about two long-time acquaintances rediscovering each other at the
start of high school. It doesn't really go anywhere and there's no
sex at all, so it may be a unfulfilling read for some.
Sections: High school, beginnings
All the usual disclaimers apply. This story is fiction. None of it
is true; any resemblance to real people (alive or deceased) or
places is coincidental. If you're under 18 or it's illegal where
you live to possess stories where kids actually express their
sexuality, you should leave now.
Please support Nifty to keep this useful resource alive. You might
be using it for your pleasure, but for readers discovering their
sexuality it can be a resource as well.
Comments are welcome at ethanflowers98@protonmail.com.
Corwin's Nudie Pic
by Ethan Flowers
Just after 7:30 p.m. one Wednesday evening in November the QueShare app on my phone blew up. Half a dozen "Qs" came through in quick succession, all with a similar text ("LMAO! You gotta look at this!") and a link to the same attachment. Of course I opened it.
It was a picture of Corwin Sarno. Now Corwin wasn't the most popular boy in school. In fact, he was pretty close to the bottom of the social pecking order. He was shorter than average, black untamed hair that he wore at about ear length, and eyeglasses. Outside of class he was quiet and distant. In class he was always at the front, answering a lot of the teacher's questions and often posing tough ones. He preferred eating alone in the cafeteria, browsing the web on his tablet computer. Rumors about his sexuality abounded, but always with no evidence other than "someone said."
The picture? It was from a few years ago, because he looked like he was only 10 or 11 years old. He was on a beach. Naked. And with a full-on boner sticking straight out from his young body. It was also obvious he wasn't circumcised, which put him in about the bottom twenty percent of boys in our state.
More Qs came through:
"I bet u he doesnt even know its here"
"Boy is he gonna get a surprize at school tmw!"
"if this doens't prove hes gay i dont know what wll"
"man this kids rep is soo dead now"
"always knew he was wierd this just proves it"
And finally:
"WARNING: Possession or further distribution of this image is a felony. Anyone retaining this Q on his or her device may be criminally charged. Random checks will be made of student devices tomorrow and anyone found with this image will be suspended."
That message killed the Queue, although others popped up talking about "Corwin's nudie pic" without linking to the image. Not that it would do Corwin any good. The toothpaste was out of the tube, and there was no way to get it back in.
Unsurprisingly, Corwin wasn't in class on Thursday. The picture, though, was the talk of the school. The administration made a general announcement, and without mentioning Corwin's name or the picture reminded everyone such material was illegal, and severely damaging to both the student's and the school's reputation. The police had launched an investigation.
Corwin was absent on Friday as well. The rumor mill went into overdrive. Someone said he was in hospital. Someone else said he'd tried to kill himself. There was talk his parents were going to sue the school, the school board, and QueShare.
What almost no-one in the school knew was Corwin lived just across the street from me. But we didn't really know each other, for the street was a dividing line between school divisions. He'd attended different elementary and middle schools than I had. Only when we got into grade nine did we cross paths. We recognized each other a couple of days into the school year and exchanged a few words, then I went on to hang out with my friends from middle school, and I assumed he'd gone with his.
On Saturday afternoon, I gathered some of my courage, crossed the street and walked three houses down to his. I rang the bell and waited anxiously. The door was opened by rather tall lady with a short haircut, barely below her ears.
I started with a carefully prepared sentence. "Hi, I'm Lance Hollmeyer. You might know my mother Jean. Is Corwin home?"
She looked at me, obviously recognizing who I was. "Oh, yes, I've known your mother for years, and I remember you, too. Why are you asking about Corwin?"
Suddenly I found myself wondering just how much I should say. It was entirely possible Corwin hadn't breathed a word about the picture, and had left the house these past two days on the pretext of going to school but going somewhere else. I didn't know a thing about his interests or hobbies, so I couldn't come up with a convincing reason he'd want to have me over. I decided to bluff my way through.
"Well, we kinda connected when we started going to Tamarack High this year. He, well, he asked me earlier this week if I wanted to come over today. Did he say anything about that to you?"
"No, but he's been pretty quiet these last couple of days. He's spent a lot of time in his room. It's nice to see he's making some new friends. Come in, and I'll ask him to come out and see you."
I stepped inside and his mom closed the door behind me. She disappeared down the hall. I could hears sounds of a quiet conversation but couldn't catch what they were saying. Then his mom returned.
"Corwin must be rather tired. He seems a bit confused, because he can't recall asking you over today. But since you're here I asked him to get up." She pointed to a chair in the living room. "He'll be out in a few minutes. Please have a seat." With that she disappeared into another room.
The living room was extremely tidy. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. A low coffee table in front of the sofa was completely clear, unlike the one in my house that always had magazines and books stacked on it. Overall the space was quite sparse; there were no plants, no books, no computers; just the carefully spaced furniture.
Finally Corwin came out. He'd tried his best to look presentable, but as always his hair was a bit wild. He regarded me carefully, then simply said, "Hi."
"Hi," I replied. "Uh, how are you doing?"
There was a long pause. I couldn't really figure out what he was thinking. If our roles were reversed, I knew I'd be uncomfortable if Corwin had showed up out of the blue on my doorstep after such a disastrous week.
"Ok, I guess." He went silent again.
"You guess? Uh, I know you haven't been at school for 2 days, and I know why. I'm thinking you could use a friend right about now. What do you say? Can we go out somewhere? Maybe get a burger or something."
Another long silence. But now it looked like Corwin was thinking, possibly weighing his desire to be left alone against snubbing someone who was making an effort to reach out to him.
Finally he said, "Yeah. Uh, would it all right if we went to the Lighthouse Care Home?"
It seemed like an odd place to recommend, but if it meant I could chat with him it was as good a place as any. "Alright," I said.
"Ok. I'll tell mom I'm going out for a bit." He left the living room, and came back within half a minute. Without saying anything more, he put on a light jacket, glanced in my direction and nodded at the door, and opened it. I followed him out.
He didn't say a word on the short walk to the care home. When we arrived he said simply, "Grandma's here. She's not in a good way, pretty much out of it all the time." We entered and he led the way to her room. His grandmother lay in the bed, asleep. "She sleeps a lot these days," he told me. "And when she's awake she's not much better."
There was a small table in the room as well, with two chairs. We sat down. I figured the best thing to do was get to the point.
"I'm sure you know about the picture, right?"
"Yeah. Mom said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to school for a while after it showed up on QueShare."
"Oh, so your mom and dad know about it."
He surprised me. "Yeah. Mom's got QueShare on her phone so she can Q me at school if she needs to. She got the picture, and I did, too."
"Wow! You must have been embarrassed."
"Not really. She kinda likes that picture."
That really surprised me. "She knows about it?"
"Knows about it? She took it."
"What?" I asked in astonishment.
Corwin paused again. I could almost see the gears engaging in his brain. "Ok, here's what happened. I guess like most families we like going to the beach a few times every summer. But we go Starlight Beach on the other side of Honeydew Lake."
"Never heard of it," I said. "What's so special about it?"
For the first time his somber expression softened and he smiled a little. "Isn't it obvious? It's a nude beach. Mom and Dad have been going there since before I was born. I think they met there. I've been going there all my life."
The pieces fall into place. "Oh! So you're there on the beach and, well, things happen when you're a kid, right?"
"Right. So she had the camera all lined up for the shot, called out my name, and I turned around and she pressed the shutter. With my penis really hard and sticking straight out."
"Oh! Well, it's certainly one for the private photo album. But I don't think I'd share it outside the family. How'd it end up on QueShare?"
He shook his head. "No idea. The police and social services came around on Thursday. The police are investigating."
"Why's social services involved?"
He smirked. "Social was all ready to remove me and send me to a foster home. Fortunately the police officer recognized Starlight Beach and knew the picture wasn't, well, bad. Just kind of an embarrassing shot. He told the lady from Social Services that if she removed kids from the home of every parent who went to that beach she'd have half the town in foster care."
"A bit of an exaggeration, I think."
"Yeah, probably. All the time I've been there I think I've seen only one or two other kids I knew."
"Any idea when you'll go back school?" I asked.
"Not sure. The school's got me on correspondence and remote learning right now. Probably for the rest of the semester. Not until after Christmas, at least."
"You know," I said, "even after Christmas I'd be afraid for your safety. I'm sure you read the comments on the original Queue. But have you seen any of the others?"
"There are other Queues as well?"
I got my phone out and opened QueShare. At least two new Queues had been started after the original was removed. Looking at them closely, I noticed they were invite-only and Corwin wasn't on the list. I was, but that was because I happened to know one of the more popular guys at school. I was in one of his groups, so was auto-invited when he was.
I explained that to him, then said, "I'm not sure if I should show this to you or not. The original Queue was pretty bad, but there's some awfully cruel stuff in the new ones."
"Uh, like what? Don't read them; just summarize."
"A lot of them are calling you a fag, saying you're gay and how they're going to beat the shit out of you when you're back in school."
After a moment, Corwin said, "Big bully bravado talk. All bark and no bite."
"You're sure about that? It only takes one dog to bite and then the whole pack's on you."
Corwin thought some more. "Well, no-one's beat me up yet."
"That's because until now there've been only rumors you might be gay. Nothing to say you actually are. I mean, I have no reason to believe they're true. But some people say the picture proves it."
Corwin dropped a bombshell. "Only rumors?" he asked. "I thought it was pretty common knowledge I'm gay."
My eyes bugged out. "You actually are?"
He looked at me, somewhat confused. Or was he just really, really naive? "You didn't know? I told my friends at school last year. But all the kids there were really supportive."
"Wow! I had no clue! Well, we went to different middle schools, right? So one kid at Redwood saying he's gay probably wouldn't make its way over Hawthorne."
He nodded. "Yeah, that's it. And since you still hang around with that group I guess they didn't hear about it from the Redwood students."
I shook my head. "Wow ... just, like, wow. Redwood must be one hell of a different school than Hawthorne. Anyone at Hawthorne saying he's gay would probably need police protection."
"So I guess that's why you never told anyone."
I gasped. "Wait--what? What do you know about me?"
"Well, just because I don't have very many friends at school doesn't mean I don't have any. I hear rumors too. What's different is my friends wonder why you're not more open about it. They say the clues are all over you. I'm guessing your group isn't, uh, that observant. I mean, if you don't make the stereotype of a total flaming fag they probably wouldn't notice."
I kind of sank down in my chair. "Is it that obvious?"
"I'd say 'no,'" he replied. "But I was thinking that's why you may have come over today--you know, test the waters because of the picture and the Q chats. And, well, just now I only guessed more than anything else. All you had to do was deny it and I'd have believed you. Instead you practically put a neon rainbow flag over your head and turned it on."
"This so did not turn out the way I was expecting it to!" I mused. "I was thinking I could give you a shoulder to cry on, tell you everything's going to be ok, be strong and all that crappy stuff. Instead you're not embarrassed about the picture, you've not turned into a quivering heap of jelly, your schooling's moving forward, and to top it off you're gay and alright with it."
His demeanor had changed from the guarded fourteen your old I'd met an hour before. He seemed a bit more open now. "Yeah, and it looks like you're the one who could use a pep talk."
"I think so, yeah. Uh, you seriously thought I came over to see you because I might be looking for a boyfriend?"
"Well, it crossed my mind, but I figured you were probably visiting to find out about the picture. Why'd you come over instead of just Queuing me?"
That was easy to answer. "There are things that just don't work very well over QueShare. Or any mobile app, for that matter. And it was really easy because we live so close." I paused, then had another thought. "Well, I guess you've figured out I wasn't looking for a boyfriend, because I had no idea you were gay. But now that you mention it ... not I've never had a boyfriend before."
"Same here. Do you think you'd be alright dating a aspie?" Corwin asked.
"A what?"
"An 'aspie.' It means I have Asperger's syndrome. I don't interact well with people and I have a pretty narrow range of strange interests. When I was growing up it was all about cups: coffee cups, tea cups, juice glasses, wine glasses, things like that. Show me any of those and I can probably tell you its capacity within 5 milliliters.
"People tell me I talk a bit funny; not quite a monotone but pretty close. And I totally miss social cues that normal people get right away. I can't, well, 'hear' things like sarcasm or even joking. Normals tell me it would be, for them, like carrying on a conversation when everyone's face is behind a sheet of paper and they're using a computer generated voice. It used to be really frustrating because I had a lot of trouble making friends. The internet's helped a lot. Email and chat groups and even things like QueShare are a lot easier for me to read."
I went quiet for a few moments, processing his unexpected information dump. "Oh," I said at length. "I guess that's why you spend lunch hour by yourself. You probably can't follow what a lot of us are saying."
"Yeah. I mean, I hear the words, but a lot of times they don't make sense. It takes a lot of work for me to follow a conversation with three or four other people."
"You know, I'm thinking that's part of the reason you're not all that, well, concerned about being gay. For you it's just another fact. You may not cue in to the idea a lot of people are uncomfortable about it."
"Pretty much, yeah. My parents couldn't figure out why I just up and told them one day. No big deal for me. But I'm lucky they understand."
"You think it could work?" I asked. "I mean, you--me--boyfriends?"
"You tell me. I'm no good at this stuff."
I grinned. "There's one way to find out. For our first date, how about we go get a hamburger? I mean, we might be totally incompatible, but I won't know that if I don't even take time to get to know you."
"Yeah," he replied. "Just getting a new friend would be nice. The idea of a boyfriend's a bit beyond me right now, but I could use a hamburger."
He got out his chair, went over to his still sleeping grandmother, and whispered something to her that I didn't catch. We walked out of the room together.
We started on a half mile trek to a nearby burger and chips place. How much further we would go would be anyone's guess, but I found myself hoping we'd eventually make it all the way to Starlight Beach.
- The End -