Queer Fear

Queer Fear Chapter 1

Queer Fear, Chapter 1

"Hey, Alimah.."

"Hey! Thank God, you answered. James are you home?"

"Of course I'm home...it's the middle of the night and I told you my parents were out of town. Where else would I be?"

"James, I'm going to say something that's going to freak you out. Is your door locked?"

"Probably not. I dunno. Why?"

" I need you to lock your door."

"Why would I———"

"Now James... lock your fuckin door!"

"Ok—-ok hold on...alright it's already. What the hell is this all about Alimah? You scared the shit out of me."

"You should be scared. Go upstairs. You may see her when you get up there."

"See who?"

"You know who..."

"Alimah—-you're fuckin' scaring me right now."

"Good, you should be scared. Are you upstairs?"

"Goddamit, Alimah gimme a minute ok?"

"You may not have a minute. Are you upstairs or not James?"

"Yeah. Shit. I'm upstairs tired as shit from running. Gimme a second, Alimah."

"Ok good. Look out the window. What do you see?"

"Alimah who is that?"

"What do you see!"

"Someone's standing there, Alimah. Someone's just standing there looking at my fucking house...in a black hood...and I can't see their face."

"Fuck..."

"Alimah, who the fuck is that?"

"You know who it is James. Stop asking me that."

"That's impossible."

"Is he still there?"

"I ..."

"James! Is he still fucking there or not?"

"I...I don't see anyone..."

"Shit...uh...shit...are the doors locked?"

"The front door is locked. I think...I think the backdoor is but... WHAT THE FUCK!"

"James, what happened?"

"The lights just went off in the house. It's like the power went out. All the other houses on the blocks have their lights on except this one. It's almost as though they've been fuckin tampered with. I'm fucking scared Alimah. I'm fucking terrified."

"Hang Up the phone. Call the police..."

"If it's who it is we can't call the police and you know that."

"This isn't a game James. Don't do anything stupid. Hang up the phone and ...James...did you hear that."

"Hear what?"

"I heard something like footsteps through the phone No one is here with me James. Is someone there with you?"

"Alimah. Alimah I gotta go."

"What's wrong James?"

"...Someone is in the house..."

"Fuck James. Please get out of there if you can. Can you get to the stairs?"

"Someone is...Alimah...can you...Alimah why aren't you...Someone's...she's in the house...Alimah...help..."

"James there's so much static on your line. I can't understand what you're saying. Speak up I can't hear you."

"Someone is coming up the stairs...Alimah. Fuck. It's her. I know it's her and she's coming up the fuckin stairs Alimah."

"James?"

"I'll have to talk to you later Alimah."

"James Washington don't you fuckin dare hang up the phone. James! Baby! James, can you hear me? James!"

———————————

He's kissing me on my neck. His body is pressed up against me as I'm laying there with both my legs open as he continues to enter me over and over. I'd met him on a hookup website and I thought the pictures were fake. I mean he is 6'1" with cascading abs and arms almost three times the size of mine. His skin tone is this warm chestnut color, his eyes were dark and deep and his hair was locked in tight little curls that were perfectly placed as though he had them designed in a lab somewhere. Then there was his face. He reminded me so much of a young rapper I was obsessed with growing up. He had a swag about him. He had something about him that immediately drew me to him.

"It's so warm. So wet..."

His voice is deep as he sinks balls deep into me. I cling to his body as though clinging for dear life. He might as well be my life jacket because every stroke he does inside of me brings me closer to a slow, steady orgasmic death. I allow him to have his way, wrapping my legs around him like a boa constrictor.

"Kiss me..."

"I don't normally kiss..."

"I see."

I probably crossed the line with him. I mean it's not every day a guy like me got with a guy like him. He keeps stroking me, kissing my neck, kissing the sides of my face and running his tongue so close to my lips that I can smell his sweet breath up against my nostrils. My dick is hard and wedged in between his body.

Out of nowhere, he says, "Man, fuck it..."

That's when he kisses me. The kiss is something like fireworks blasting out into the atmosphere on July 4th. We're all seized at the moment waiting for a nothing pop of emotion that will light up the industrial-style loft that he lives in. He pulls out but doesn't stop kissing me. His tongue wraps hard mine when he starts to release his load all over my stomach.

"Mhmmm...man mayo..." I state.

He releases off of me.

"Can I suggest something?" he asks.

His voice is like velvet when he talks. He's so cool. I don't know how I got so lucky when I see him back off of me slowly and looking down.

"What's that?"

"Never refer to cum as man mayo again."

"Sorry I just get nervous sometimes," I admit.

I feel my face get flushed with embarrassment as he leaves walking out and returning with a rag. As I clean myself off he doesn't really talk or say anything. There are boxes stashed off to the side of the room. He just silently does his own thing.

I start wearing my underwear and notice him turn to me and look at my body. I didn't have much a body. I felt like I was a bit on the chunky side. I had all this baby weight that never seemed to go away and honestly the self-awareness of him staring at me makes me want to crawl into a hole and die. In my mind, he was picking apart everything about me. I was way too dark, my forehead was too big, my eyes were too narrow and these fucking love handles were something I couldn't handle.

I struggle to find something to get his attention off me, "What's our name?"

"I don't give that out."

He didn't have to. All over his room, I can see his name. Omari Santomeyer. It even sounded like the name of someone who was going to do big things. By all the swimming trophies I can tell that he was well on his way.

"So you a swimmer?"

I don't expect him to answer it. I just wanted to distract at this moment from him looking at all the flaws in my body. The truth was he was probably regretting hooking up with me now that he saw I wasn't on his level.

"How'd the fuck do you know that?"

He was thrown off a bit. I can tell. I'd been with other DL guys before. I live in a more conservative area in Minneapolis and it's not rare to see guys who are DL.

"Trophies man."

I point. There's a bunch of them and it's kind of hard to miss. He had a swimmer's body. He was tall, lean and ridiculously shredded. When I say shredded, I really meant it. His muscle tones were distributed evenly throughout making me realize he probably spends a lot of his time focusing on these different muscle groups.

"Oh damn sorry. Yeah, I swim," he states.

"My favorite swimmer is Ben Roethls."

"You know Ben Roethls?"

I shrug, "I like sports...I'm not the biggest loser known to man at all times."

I laugh but I'm assuming my self-deprecating joke went right above his head as it usually does with all the sexy boys that straddle into my life for a moment of pleasure before never seeing them again.

"Actually I think it's cool you like Ben. He's my favorite swimmer too. Most people gave up on him during that Olympic scandal..."

"So he paid for a prostitute. So the fuck what? He's single he's allowed to do what the hell he wants. It was in Vegas."

"Man that's what I say!" he laughs, "They expect athletes to be these saints. Ben is most definitely somebody I idolize. It's dope as fuck that you still support him."

By now I have my clothes on. He has his clothes on too. The hookup was amazing and even the conversation but I knew how these things worked. You hook up with someone. You are lucky to get even a nickname from the person. If the sex was good they may text you again but it's usually ever going to lead anything past that.

"Well I should get going," I state.

"Wait..." he stops me.

I'm confused.

"Huh?"

"How do you feel about John Mitchell as a swimmer?"

I don't know why he asks that question but he does and before I know it we are talking for hours. We literally spend the day together fucking like rabbits and talking about swimming. Before I know it I'm lying naked in his bed trying my hardest not to understand what is happening.

I remember almost drifting off to sleep wrapped in his arms as we talk when I hear a door slamming. I turn at that moment and see the shock in Omari's eyes.

Fear.

The way he jumps up freaks me out. The door opens and there is this burly man almost as big as Omari standing at the door. They resemble and it doesn't take long for me to realize what's happening.

"You bring this to my house?"

The shadow is cast over the room. My heart is racing when I turn and see just how frightened Omari is. The confident sure boy who talked hours almost boasting how good he was at swimming didn't seem to be so confident now in his own life. I feel the sweat dripping down my back as I turn to the man at the door. The man is just looking at me with this look that scares the living shit out of me.

"Dad----I'm sorry----"

WHAM!

I don't expect it. I jump back off the bed to get my bearings when Omari's father backhands him straight to the face. He falls to the ground and at that moment I swear I don't understand what is happening.

I'm standing there shaking in fear as I see Omari hit the ground. I look down and notice my clothes are all compiled next to the bed. I grab them but as I turn to the door Omari's father is there! He looks at me. The look he gives me is the look of anger and frustration. Something tells me this man didn't know his son was gay until today. Something tells me as well this man really, REALLY didn't want his son to be gay.

"What are you doing?" Omari asks me, "Get out of here."

I turn at that moment and make a mad dash to the door. The man reaches for me. His heavy hand clawing at my body to grab me. He manages to get a hold of my shoulder. Without much of a toss, he throws me into the nearest door. I hit the door with a loud THUD. I almost lose consciousness. My naked body turns and sees the shadow overhead.

"I'm gonna fuckin kill you," he states.

Something tells me that this isn't an empty threat. Something tells me that this is a real promise. I feel my body getting almost tense as I struggle to get my feet. It's as though my body stopped listening to me. My legs feel like jello beneath me and my mind is struggling to comprehend that I was just attacked by my hookup's father. He leans over to me. I can his eyes addressing my neck as though aiming for it.

I knew at that moment I couldn't outrun him. I couldn't overpower him. He was three times my size at the least. All I could do was sit there...waiting and praying that something happened...

And that's when I see Omari jump on his father's back.

"GET OUT OF HERE!"

~

"You're joking," Alimah states.

My best friend Alimah can't believe the words that are coming out of my mouth as she sinks back into her chair. Summer was beginning and earlier that year I told her about my weird hookup with Omari, the swimmer.

"Dead ass," I tell her showing her my lip as confirmation of the attack.

Alimah crosses her arms and looks at me like I'm crazy, "You need to stop hooking up with people online. You could have really fucking hurt yourself."

"Well, I'm glad we have the summer off to go camping. Maybe I'll be able to meet guys in person."

"About that..."

Alimah looked concern. She was a pretty girl with long brown hair. Her family was Native American and Alimah always seemed to take real pride in her heritage always wearing Native American jewelry and clothing. Because of her penchant for native clothing, a lot of kids made fun of her growing up. It never really stopped her even when she was ostracized for it. I'd known her since I was 8 years old and even back then she was so goddam confident. She'd just walked up to me and said, "We're going to best friends" and somehow she was right. Ever since then we were.

"Don't tell me you are having second thoughts. Don't you want to see Chad?"

Chad was our other best friend. He was in a military family who traveled a lot so we only get to see him when we go to Crystal Lake. We'd all met when we were younger. Chad was obsessed with Alimah and we all knew it. Back when we were 8, Alimah asked Chad to marry him and he said yes. Somehow Chad has always held onto that even years later.

He was perhaps the nicest and most supportive person I knew. Even if Alimah may have taken back the proposal of marriage she made when she was 8, I knew she had to miss Chad even a little bit.

"This isn't about Chad. I'm 17 and I don't know if I want to go to the same camp...especially with what happened with James..."

"What happened to James didn't have anything to do with Crystal Lake."

"Are you so sure about that?"

James was Alimah's ex. One day he was found dead in his house when his family was out of town. What's strange is that no one knew what the cause of death was. The police ruled it a suicide but the marks on his body seemed to be consistent more with a homicide. Alimah was one of those people who thought that it was something more, but she never really did say why.

"Unless there's something you don't know that I do," I state before pausing and looking at her, "Is there something that I don't know?"

Alimah looks at me and shakes her head, "No. It's just...I have a bad feeling about that place. Every year we went as kids and I hated having to go. Now I'm grown and you want me to go back to a place I hate to be a camp counselor?"

Alimah and I met at Camp Crystal Lake. The camp was located in the mountains and it had been a tradition for my family to go to Camp Crystal Lake growing up. My dad went and my grandfather went before him. Ever since I was 8 when I first met Alimah I had gone to Crystal Lake. However, you can't go as a kid any longer once you hit 14. It was when we were 14 that Alimah had met her boyfriend James while attending Camp Crystal Lake. Once we returned back that summer three years ago, James committed suicide.

"The Crystal Lake scholarship means something," I state, "It can help pay for your way to NYU. Isn't that what you want?"

She shakes her head, "It's easy for you to say, Jarvis. You didn't lose someone..."

I still remember what she's talking about. I still remember the fear when I got the call that James Johnson was dead. When people die at a young age you always try to make sense of it. I remember being at his funeral and still not understanding how any of this made sense. Camp Crystal Lake was always someplace that people went to be at home. It was always someplace that we used as a way to escape the pains of our average life and enjoy nature. That wasn't the case three years ago.

James Johnson wasn't just an attendant at Crystal Lake. His family, the Johnson family owned the campsite that we used. Three years ago things happened at Camp Crystal Lake. Things that a lot of us still don't talk about and the fact that so many of us were still choosing to return to Camp Crystal Lake to be counselors were damn right lunacy.

Deep down inside I feel like Alimah has extra reservations for returning to Camp Crystal Lake. Fears just as much as I have.

"We don't have a choice. We both need the scholarship..."

Every year people who attended Crystal Lake as children get the chance to return to be counselors. This year, in honor of James Johnson, a scholarship was going to be granted to the best camp counselor. The truth is I was being selfish for my friend but I wanted her to have the chance to get that scholarship. If anyone deserved that money it was Alimah.

~

The time comes when we are sent off. My parents are so busy that they aren't even there to see me off. There's nothing really unique about that. I always sort of felt like I was a burden to them. Every summer they'd ship me off to Crystal Lake as a way to get me out of their hair so that they can go live life. I think it's the fact that my mother is only 15 years older than but she'd remarried a man named Austin that was 22 years old. Having someone sleeping with my mother who is almost my age was a bit disturbing but it was even more disturbing when they got married and he became my stepfather.

"I'm going to be in Bali so I probably will have bad reception," My mother tells me, "But Austin's parents are going to be here if you need anything."

"I'll be fine."

My mother is relentless in trying to act like she was a good mother in front of other people, "Did you take your motion sickness medicine for the helicopter ride?"

I immediately felt embarrassed. Crystal Lake was surrounded by something called the Dead Forest. The Dead Forest was some of the thickest woods in the world. A strange mist sets all along the campground. An eerie moss covers the trees and has evolved to give the trees a broken dead look to them which is why the forest got its name. The forest is so dense that it stretches and blankets the grown giving even the ground a thick green moss. People are prone to get lost in the woods and because the trail through the Dead Forest always gets covered with the thick moss most times we are helicoptered into Crystal Lake instead of driving. The name speaks for itself: this creepy forest is truly unique and I remember being so spooked out at the age of 8 seeing it for the first time. Year after year the spookiness of the Dead Forest never really let up. However, the camp at Crystal Lake itself became like a second home to me.

"You still haven't gotten used to the damn helicopter ride? Ma, I think you might just need to go with him at this point."

I turn and see Alimah.

"You came..."

Alimah sighs, "You were dead set and I didn't want my best friend going alone. Plus I had someone call and talk me into it."

I turn at that moment and I see him. Chad. Except Chad looked completely different.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Late puberty," Chad says, "Plus I started running track."

"Is this really Bad Chad all grown up?" My mother exclaims.

She embarrasses me by fanning herself, which irritates the hell out of me because I knew that my mother liked them young. I thought it was sick if she found herself attracted to Chad of all people but I had to admit...Chad looked different then he did 3 years ago when I last saw him at James' funeral. The first thing I notice is the acne that seemed to plague Chad going up was completely cleared up. The second thing I noticed was his body. Lastly, I notice he's dressing completely different. He's swagged out.

"You look..." I start off.

"Superfine?" he asks, "Yeah I know. Figured if my gay best friend thought I was hot then I made it. Gay guys always have good taste."

Bad Chad was what we called him because well Chad was trouble. He was so bad that Alimah's parents on multiple times tried to have interventions to get her to stop hanging around him. It was that and it was also the fact that Chad was ridiculously in love with their daughter and has been for most of his life.

I turn away from him struggling to know that I find my own best friend to be ridiculously attractive at this moment.

"You...you look good," I admit.

He throws his hand over me and he reaches up and gives me a kiss. Not on the cheek. That wasn't Chad's style. He gives me a kiss right on the lips.

"I missed you best friend," he states.

He means it too. That's what the kiss on the lips is for. Chad was misunderstood. He was all about truth to the point that it was overbearing to people who didn't know him but his righteousness always came from a good place. It always came from love.

Alimah is quick to humble him as usual, "You finally have your Cinderella moment, princess...congratulations...now come back to Earth."

"You trying to say I'm not super fine?" Chad asks, "Look at these..."

"Very nice," my mother laughs, "You are going to be such a problem at 18/

"Austin please get your wife out of here before I call child protective services on her," Chad grunts.

That's another thing about Chad Michaelson. He spoke his mind. My mother laughs it off trying to be the young, cool hip mom but I'm glad when Austin listens to Chad's advice. At this point, most of the parents are saying goodbye to us including Chad's parents who came over to say hello to us. Everyone was sectioned off in the same groups that they usually were at camp when we were growing up.

You had the rich kids. These were the kids whose parents sent them to Camp Crystal Lake in order to get good with the Johnson family. These were people like Chad's family. They were so wealthy and sending their kid to this camp was just another way to win favor with an even wealthier family.

There were the smart kids who were only here for a scholarship so they can go to some fancy school that the rest of us didn't have a chance in hell of attending.

Then you had the athletes. These were people like the Queen bee Anais Rodriguez and her partner in crime Lonnie Lefour and Eddie Gonzales. They were all gathered together in their jock group. They were here on an athletic scholarship and back in the days, they took advantage of all the sports that were played at Camp Crystal Lake in the summer. Truthfully this group was a bunch of assholes to me. They'd always felt as though they had to fulfill the stereotypical jock role and bully other kids growing up. I'd always been spared for the most part because I was friends with Chad and they respected how much money his family donated to the camp. But three years ago, Alimah started dating James who was the boyfriend to Anais at the time. Let's just say life became hell for Alimah and some of that negativity trickled over to the people in her life.

Then there were people like us. The left-behinds. Chad, Alimah and me. Chad was rich but his personality kept him out of the rich kid's group. Alimah was smart but she was socially a bit of a loner so she didn't fit in the smart kids. And then there was me who was so into sports but my body didn't fit the mold to qualify for the athletic kids. So we stuck together. We became a little village of our own. And it worked for me.

I find myself looking at Chad and Alimah and knowing that this summer would be different. I just didn't have any idea back then how different.

"Be careful and if you need anything call me," my mother calls off.

"He's in good hands Ms. Gravely," Alimah promises her.

"We'll make sure we won't get him in too much trouble," Chad says.

I elbow Chad. The time has come though to get on the helicopter. I notice the other camp counselors are already on the chopper for the most part.

"Where are all the kids?" I overhear someone ask Anais.

Anais Rodriguez felt like she knew everything. She wasn't that smart which made things a little bit more interesting but she shrugs and just says, "Don't you know anything? The camp counselors go to the camp a few days early before the kids arrive for training."

She shoots the girl, Jessica Robinson...one of the smarts, a look that makes Jessica melt into the chair. The truth is it was impossible to know this as we haven't gotten any real communication about how this all was going to work out as of yet.

The helicopter is about to take off but then we hear a voice.

"ONE MORE!" Chad calls out stopping the helicopter.

We all turn to notice someone running up to a helicopter.

"Who's he? He didn't come to camp with us..." Anais states.

She was right when the person walks onto the helicopter. My eyes dart over to him and immediately I see a familiar face.

It was the boy who I had the one night stand with. He was boarding the helicopter. I stand there looking at him wondering what the chances are. He seems to have the same reaction when he stares back at me.

Omari was also a camp counselor...

To read the next chapter in advance go to www.crushedcrown.com