Chapter 1

Cole Irving was the jock to beat all jocks. He was big and tall—six feet, two hundred and fifty pounds—with heavy, log-like limbs, an under-bite, and a bulbous nose that resembled a particularly pimply scrotum. Unlike the other athletic stars of his grade, who could, in years to come pass for something other than a jock, there was no doubt as to what sort of man Cole Irving would grow up to be. It seemed cruelly unfair that the big fish on the sports teams always had something else going for them. Taylor, the captain of the football team, had the all-American golden-boy good looks that came with the job—he could be a businessman one day, charming and suave. And Castle, the captain of the basketball team, with an IQ rumored to be over 160 and Stanford University lined up for the coming autumn, was known for his brains. And Shawn, captain of the lacrosse team, was naturally good at everything, and would be able to forge for himself an identity beyond high school sports in the years to come.

But Cole Irving was the jock, the common jock of high school, the jarhead, one of the pack of grunts that slapped high-fives in the weight rooms and drank copious amounts of beer and Gatorade and was struggling to bring his physics grade up to a C- from the D+ he'd had all year. He smoked weed behind the library after school, made out with sloppy drunk chicks at parties, and whipped his jersey off after games not because people particularly wanted to see his body, but because it was the done thing, and the more attractive, more winsome teammates did it first. Cole Irving also was prone to heavy sweating, and generally stank ferociously.

And at school, he and the other grunts travelled in packs, clogging up the halls and making noise, hooting jungle sounds. At least one of them wore a letterman jacket on any given day, proclaiming their status as high school athletes, false idols for all to worship. They kicked freshmen into lockers, shoved at the fags—or who they thought were fags—and patted babe ass in the hallways. At least once every decade in their school, some brave lass would report a sexual assault on one of their band, and would be shuffled into the archives as naught but an extra slip of paperwork for the community to forget. More frequent were detentions or suspensions for bullying, roughhousing—it was easy to punish big boys for pushing little boys into walls, taking their bus fare.

One favorite target of Cole's was Chris—five-five, approximately one hundred pounds, a fairy boy in waffle thermals and cuffed jeans. Chris was the perfect punching bag—he was a senior, in the choir, in the musical, and a bit on the geeky side. Thin, he was, very thin. His dad wanted him to have at least a little physical activity, to beef him up a bit, so Chris was a benchwarmer in varsity—Chris was too good for JV because he could aim, but not good enough for real varsity play—basketball in the winter season. He cried prettily when he found a shoelace twisted into a noose dangling from his locker. His eyes and nose went pink and his lips, slick with bubbly spit, blubbered piteously.

It was last January that Chris had first come under his radar, after a game when the entire team hit the showers. Spirits were high because their win had been dearly secured, an upset in the fourth quarter that would buzz around the hallways for the next week. Blood ran hot.

Cole remembered it as if it had happened only the night before. He showered next to Castle, the captain, after every game, and ask him about his sex life. Castle was a taciturn sort of guy, only speaking when spoken to, and seldom about anything other than basketball or his girlfriend.

Castle was an interesting person. When Cole asked about math or physics, Castle could talk on and on, rambling about numbers and formulas, even when nobody really was paying attention. That was the only time Castle really talked, and Cole had every excuse to ask him about those topics, as he was tutoring him to a passing grade. Normal shower conversations those were not, but Castle had no hindrances about it, and Cole was not opposed to chatting with him longer, even if he himself didn't understand the material. Seth Castle could talk forever, naked and glistening with the sheen of body wash, his hair plastered against his head—Cole was in no position to deny his team captain a chance to talk about his favorite subjects in school.

It was an odd sort of occasion that time, for Chris had only just run out of his cheap shampoo body wash, and chucked his empty bottle into the trash. He stepped into the showers, on the other side of Castle.

Castle interrupted his soliloquy and addressed Chris: "Chris, do you want to use some of my shampoo?"

Cole jumped on the opportunity and took the bottle from Castle's hand. "Hey, Castle, what are you, a fag? Nice shampoo you got there!"

Most guys could not get away with having pink, grapefruit-scented shampoo-conditioner. Seth Castle could. He was the captain, he had a girlfriend, and he would be getting laid in about an hour.

"It's my girlfriend's, Cole," said Seth, "And I'd rather smell like grapefruit than Axe."

"He means he'd rather smell fruity," somebody called. The room burst into guffaws, but Seth Castle was beyond caring about it anyhow and resumed lathering his hair up with girl shampoo.

It was one thing entirely for Castle to smell like fruit than for Chris to smell like fruit, and the homoerotic subtext was not wasted on Cole, even if Castle was oblivious or immune to it.

Evidently, most of the team within earshot took the hint. "He means," said the point guard a few boys down, "You look like you'd appreciate some pink shampoo."

Chris ignored the heckler and said, "Uh, sure, I guess."

At which point Castle turned around to face him. He stood casually, with his hip cocked and weight resting on one leg, and squirted a quarter-sized dollop of shampoo into Chris' hand. It was obviously suggestive enough for the entire team to erupt into laughter—the stone-cold Seth Castle went on with his hair-washing, evidently distracted now from his post-game plans, while Chris stared in furious embarrassment at his own stone-hard cock.

"Hey, Castle," hooted the same point-guard, "Don't drop the soap!"

From then on, Chris never showered with the rest of the team. And after the basketball season, he avoided anyone basketball-related and retreated into his other interests.

The erection in the locker room became an oft-told piece of gossip—such was the way of high school, it seemed.

"Just look at the way he looks at me," crowed Mitch, a basketball buddy of Cole's, "The little fag wants to suck my dick so badly."

Chris shrunk into the lockers and Cole hollered, "I bet he's going to go and jerk off in the locker room now, since the tennis guys are in there."

They punched each other in the shoulders and Mitch wondered aloud if ever Chris masturbated while taking a shit: "He probably likes that feeling of something thick in his ass, if you know what I mean!"

Everyone knew what that meant, and from thence on, Cole found it amusing to shove Chris into bathroom stalls in the locker rooms. They incorporated phallic objects into their jokes. When Chris lost his voice, Cole attributed it loudly to the excessive deep throats the poor boy must have been giving. A scrape on the knees were further evidence to that theory. When the basketball season ended and Chris had vanished into the sanctuary of spring musical, Cole turned to Larry.

Larry's hair was long and greasy, and he talked with a lisp. He took AP Calculus BC as a junior, headed the Dungeons and Dragons club, and had clearly never even touched a girl's hand. Cole found him walking by the swimming pool every day after school, presumably because he lived a block away from the aquatic center, but it was too clear that he was ogling the boys' swim team.

"Tight little undies, makes you hard, huh?" he grunted against Larry's shivering head. "You're filthy."

But neither Chris nor Larry were even out. There were the out-and-proud ones that were popular and had the backing of the GSA and had the cushion of popularity—Erin, who was skinnier than a heron and wore a beret every day; Jake, Castle's own cousin, and best friends with Castle's girlfriend, who was the undisputed queen bee; and Perry.

Perry was something else. He was taller than Cole by four or five inches, making him even more untouchable. He enveloped himself in a perpetual aura of mystery, just by carriage and demeanor alone. He turned heads as he walked down the hallway, a tall, slim, blond deity descending upon mortals, an angel, maybe, with a halo and a herald to deliver.

And he was a legend. Half the upperclassmen girls claimed to have given him blowjobs, and somehow, being kissed by him was like being marked by some supernatural being. Perry did a lot of that—spontaneous kissing. Once in a while, he would find a new person, usually someone shy and unassuming, unconfident and quiet, and kiss them—just a quick peck on the lips—and they would be his new plaything. And they would transform under him, blossom into a new creature, reborn by the touch of a god. Every week or so, a new person was spotted hopping into Perry's truck after school every single day. Girls and boys alike, and though the implication was very real, Cole and his friends kept their distance from Perry's claims, for they had received from that being divine protection, a shimmering badge upon their breast. In fact, the Boulanger High School newspaper's smart phone app kept a section in the gossip column specifically for this purpose, but for the most part, rumors were rumors.

Perry didn't have friends in the normal sense of the word. He sometimes ate lunch with a cheerleader Cole had pretended to jerk off to, and he studied with Shawn because they were both self-studying AP Latin. There were those who would try to win his favor, freshmen, mostly, who heard about this strange and wonderful deity on campus, and dared to approach him. Other than that, he was alone.

Nobody taunted him about his sexuality. Nobody dared. Perry had kissed Taylor in the locker room before—Perry was about to change into his cross-country gear and Taylor had come out of the showers—in front of everyone, and walked away as if nothing had happened. Taylor was about to make a retort, but clammed up, staring straight ahead as if he had just been told the president had been shot, and didn't say anything for the rest of the day. And nobody asked him anything, or brought the topic up again. And even when he got a new girlfriend—he had been in between relationships when Perry happened—nobody mentioned it.

And last year, the same thing occurred—Perry, about to change into his track stuff, caught Shawn in the showers and kissed him. Right in front of the entire lacrosse team. Cole could have sworn that he saw tongue, and most of the others with him could vouch for that same observation, but they never talked.

And in January, the same thing occurred again. Perry was already in his soccer uniform when he put his hand on Castle's shoulder and kissed him. Cole had been standing right next to Seth Castle, and witnessed it all. Perry brushed a strand of dark brown hair away from Castle's forehead, took him by the chin, and kissed him on the lips.

And in that instant, Cole thought he saw something pass between the two of them, Castle to Perry, an incomprehensible look, a message. Castle's face betrayed nothing, and in a flash, it was over.

Castle turned the water off, and said to Perry, "Your socks are going to get wet if you stand there," and then left to go get dressed. Cole stood there, stock still, suddenly self-conscious of his pink and flabby body, drenched hair, and pimply back.

And then Perry flashed him a smile—a smirk. He tossed his blond head, laughed, and said, "Later, Cole," before walking off. His laugh was like the tinkling of bells, and Cole thought for a moment that his fairy wings would reveal themselves and Perry would fly away.

And no matter how many scrawny fags Cole pushed around in the hallways, he couldn't bring himself to ever, ever touch Perry. And no matter what the other jocks said about that tall, creepy, blond demigod when they were away from school, away from the throngs of his worshippers, Cole couldn't join in.

Perry knew his name. And that made him nervous.