Carl's hands were pressing down on my shoulders as his cock slammed into me a deep snarl coming from his throat. He didn't look at me, his eyes were glued to Jay as the speed and brutality of his thrusts increased. He put one hand on my forehead his fingers splayed out over my head as if to hold me in place while his cock dumped his load into me. There was a lot of pain because Carl was bigger than either Jay or his friends and my ass felt like it had been torn open.

After Carl was done he seemed almost embarrassed. He handed me my pants and said in a choked voice, "Just................get dressed, Danny................please."

But then he turned to Jay and his voice changed, became cruel. He lifted Jay's head by pulling back on his hair. Jay groaned and seemed to be trying to open his eyes.

Carl sounded exhausted but determined as he yelled right into Jay's face, "You don't fucking ever go near Danny or so help me I'll cut your fucking heart out! You see him in the halls at school or in town you fucking turn around and go the other way!" He slammed Jay's head against the wall. "A year from now I'm going to college but so help me if I hear that anything happens to him I ain't askin who did it! I'm fuckin comin here and fucking killin you!"

He still held onto Jay's hair but he turned to me. "I'm............oh shit...........please.......please stop cryin, Danny, please just stop and go get in the car."

I looked at Carl with disbelieve that he could have just done what he did. I wanted badly to be away from there, from them and rolled to the side and crawled on the floor looking for my clothes. I couldn't find my shirt and hadn't for some reason been able to get my shoes on so I half walked and half stumbled barefoot to the car wearing only my jeans. He wanted me to stop crying but that apparently wasn't gonna happen anytime soon, if anything I cried more. I had a lot to cry about.

On the one hand it was entirely possible that Carl had saved my life but on the other hand I felt violated by him more than I did by Jay and his friends. What I had done with Jay was incredibly stupid on my part but I had chosen to do it and by extension that included what his friends did to me. On the other hand what Carl did was rape, pure and simple and it even seemed that it was more about making a point to Jay than it was about having sex with me. It was almost like he was saying, "So you wanted to get fucked, huh?" I guess that it's always painful when you're certain that you know someone and you trust them totally and then it turns out that you're wrong.

The most painful thing of all was that I knew I had lost the only friend that I had and that didn't leave me with much. Even if I was okay with what Carl had done, and I wasn't, I felt certain that he wouldn't be okay with it once things calmed down.

I'm really not a crier. I mean all kinds of shit has happened to me in my life and if I cried over everything I'd never stop. But I sure cried in Carl's car on the way home and it seemed to have him worried.

"Danny, you gotta pull yourself together!" Out of the corner of my eye I could see his bloody hands on the steering wheel. I couldn't make myself look at him. I just stared out of the windshield. Now my body was beginning to shake to go along with the crying.

"Danny your parents are gonna freak."

I didn't want him to worry about that. It was a joke anyway. "It'll..............be okay. Won't.............see me." They wouldn't either. They were probably in bed already but even if they were still up it wasn't like they usually came running to the door to greet me.

When we pulled up to my house I started to get out but Carl stopped me by touching my arm. He ran his fingers thru his hair his hands were shaking and he looked like he was about to cry.

"Danny...................." He was shaking his head, "Danny..........I didn't......."
He grabbed the steering wheel hard and twisted his hands on it and then he sighed and said, "I'll........I'll see ya tomorrow."

The question was screaming in my head, "Why? Why? Why?" but I knew there was no point in asking and I was pretty sure he didn't know the answer.

My body was beginning to stiffen up and I twisted to the side and kinda fell out of the car but caught myself and managed to stand and make it to the house. Carl waited until I was inside and leaning against the closed door before he pulled away.

My muscles were really getting tight now and as much as just wanted to slide to the floor and go to sleep I climbed the stairs and somehow made it into the bathroom. Considering that I felt like I was near death I was amazed that apart from bruises on my wrists and ankles there wasn't a mark on me at least on the outside.

I turned on the shower and got in and sat on the floor cause there was no way my legs were going to support me much longer. I could feel Carl's semen beginning to seep out of my butt. He hadn't used a condom but I was pretty sure that wasn't a problem because as far as I knew the only people he had sex with were his girlfriend and I. I thought about asking him about that but instantly rejected that idea as being impossibly embarrassing.

Why had he done it? What was the whole point of making sure that Jay saw what he was doing? How could he have done that to me? This was the guy that I had talked to, really talked to. I told him my deepest secrets. I didn't do that with anyone else. I really needed friends. I needed to make more friends and quit pushing people away.

I didn't even want to think about Jay. I didn't want to think about what he did or what Carl did to him and I sure as hell didn't want to think about what Jay might have done.

Well, at least the crying had stopped. I got out of the shower and checking the hall for parents, slid into my room. My cell phone was sitting on my desk and I flipped it open. There were four voice messages.

The first was my brother. "Hey, Chief, how they hangin? Give your big brother a call." The second was also from him. "Ace, call me!" Since my name wasn't Chief or Ace I erased both messages.

The next message was from one of my track teammates, Tom Caulder. ""Danny! I dunno if you remember you and me talking about the drama club? I know, I know, kinda lame.............but the thing is there gonna be doing a new play and we need another guy. I mean I know you didn't say yes but you didn't like totally reject the idea and you'd be so fucking great. So anyway like gimme a call or I'll see you in school." Tom must be doing drugs.

The last message was from Carl and it was only about fifteen minutes old. He must have called on his way home. "Danny!..............Man..........I'm so fucking sorry."

I sat down on my bed and stared at the phone while the tears started running down my face again. I rolled over onto my side and then into a ball.

I stayed home from school on Friday and in fact stayed in bed the whole day. I felt like I could sleep forever, when I sat up it was like I was being dragged back down under the covers. That night I raided the refrigerator and Saturday I stayed in bed that whole day too. Sunday I either had to get out of bed or risk my mother's suspicion. Not that she seemed to particularly care but she was curious but seemed to buy the idea that I had a 48 hour virus. You'd think being a doctor's wife that she know better but go figure.

Sunday morning at six I was out the door and running. When I ran I almost got the feeling that I could outrun my problems, like I could feel myself pulling away from them. I ran down our street for eight blocks and then cut thru the park and then due south for three miles. Laurel street quickly became rural route 132 and I ran to the big Bunge grain elevators before I turned around and headed back. Actually the grain elevators reminded me of the smell in Jay's equipment building and the realization of just how close I might really have come to being killed hit me. I sure wouldn't have been any kind of problem for a guy with a farm to hide a body. God, I'm an idiot!

Tom Caulder's blue eyes have the most amazing sparkle to them and I found myself with my chin propped up on my hand staring into them while he talked.

"Danny, I love sports, I love track, I love the fucking locker room and talking shit with the guys and the parties and all that shit." He sighed. "But, Jesus, don't ya sometimes just wanna get away from it? I'm not talking like permanently but like for a couple hours a week. I love those guys but they can kinda be assholes too.............am I right?"

I could barely pull my eyes away from his but managed to mumble, "Tom, I can't act. I'm not even very good at playing me."

Tom grinned. "That's the beauty of acting, ya got a script, for your regular life ya gotta wing it." Geez he's got pretty teeth.

"But, Tom, I know like nothing, no, less than nothing, about this. I've never even seen a play!"

"Danny, I've seen the way you move, you've got great control over your body, you've got a good voice and your good looking. What the fuck else is there?"

I smiled. "What if I get on the stage and like fucking wet my pants or something?"

Tom ran his fingers thru his warm brown hair and grinned. "We'll deal with it! Besides, that ain't gonna happen. Danny, you'll be great! C'mon man, say yes."

How could I say no? "Okay, you talked me into it. I hope to fuck I'm not gonna regret this." The truth was I would have done about anything he wanted me to do. Why had I never noticed how cute the guy was?

"Tom, just so I know, what's the name of the play?" Please God, no Shakespeare.

Tom and I were both getting up to head back to class. "It's a musical, Pajama Game."

I stared at him stunned. "Man, I can't fucking sing!"

"Danny, relax! We only got one scene, it's with Carol Kellerman and she does all the singing. They said it's like a solo. We just kinda stand next to her and snap our fingers."

That was a relief! "Oh...........fucking cool. She got a good voice?"

"So they tell me. Everybody's gonna be looking at her rack anyway."

I grinned. "Fer sure on that! What'll she be singing?"

"I dunno, something called Steam Heat. We got a meeting in two weeks, we get to hear all the songs then."

As Tom and I were walking out of the cafeteria Carl was walking towards the cafeteria door that was down the hallway from us. He didn't look up and I'm sure didn't see us and I don't know what I would have done if he had. I didn't know what I was supposed to feel towards Carl. I didn't know how I did feel, horrible I suppose.

My body still hurt from what had happened. Not like I was in fucking agony or anything, just that there were reminders. My wrists and ankles still had fading bruises from the ropes and handcuffs but my ass healed quickly.

I hadn't seen Jay but that didn't surprise me. The degree to which Carl had beat him meant that he was gonna take a while to heal. I honestly had a feeling that I'd never see him again.

After the last bell of the day had rung I was walking down the hallway on my way outta the school when Tom grabbed my arm and jerked me into the Drama room. Well that wasn't actually its name but it's what we called it.

He dragged me over to an old guy before I had a chance to complain.

"Danny, this is Mr. Tolleridge. Sir this is Danny Larkin my buddy from the track team."

The older man had pure gray hair and a mustache. His eyes were a clear blue. "It's very nice to meet you Mr. Larkin. Tom tells me you're willing to help us out with the Pajama Game."

I started to stammer and then forced myself to speak slowly. "Yes, Sir. Tom convinced me that'd be a lot of fun."

"Well, Danny, it usual turns out to be. Not that there isn't a fair amount of hard work in the beginning but I think that most students end up feeling that it was time well spent."

Tom had this huge grin on his face. "See Danny! You're gonna love it!"

Mr. Tolleridge held out his hand and said, "We can count on you then, Danny?"

I shook his hand. "Yes, Sir, I'll do my best."

"Well the trickiest part'll be the dancing but we'll work with you on that."

"Dancing?" Oh fuck! Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!

He laughed. "Oh nothing dramatic. Wait I've got a tape you can look at but don't worry we can show you how to do it." He walked over to a desk grabbed a VHS tape and handed it to me. "You boys might want to take this home and watch it it'll give you a good idea of what we're looking for but it's not something to worry about. We'll help you. It is after all one of the most important numbers in the show."

I was stunned. "Most important?"

We were walking fast. "I'm gonna fuckin kill you, Tom!"

"Danny I didn't know! Look it's not so fucking terrible, how bad can it be?"

We were walking quickly to Tom's house because it had the nearest VHS player. "We don't know that, Tom! He said it was their biggest number! Fuck!"

"Danny, he said one of their biggest numbers, not the biggest!"

"I'm gonna fucking kill you, Tom!" I had to not look at him to stay mad because if I looked at him I'd forgive him and I wasn't in the mood for that. I slapped my forehead. "Why the fuck did I listen to you?"

Since he Tom lived only three blocks from the school it took no time to get there. As we burst in thru the back door his mom was standing there in the kitchen.

We tried to run upstairs to his room but his mom stopped us. "Hey, hey, hey! Can't you boys stop and say hello?" We both froze and turned around. Parents that actually wanted to talk to me wasn't something that I was used to dealing with.

Tom said, "Ah, Mom this is my friend Danny. Danny this is my mom."

I nodded and said, "Hi Mrs. Caulder." I couldn't help it I was sliding into that barricaded place that I go to when I have to deal with my parents even though I know fer sure that the rest of the parents in the world aren't like that.

She gave me kind of an odd look but then seemed to dismiss whatever idea she had and said, "Tommy, why don't you take some cookies upstairs with you. I'm reasonably sure you boys are hungry." She took a plate down and loaded it with cookies and then handed it to Tom.

We instantly spun around and took off upstairs. I follow Tom because I had never been to his house. His room was way different than mine but then pretty much everyone's was.

"You got a VHS player in your room?"

"Yeah." He turned on the TV and then bent down and slipped the tape into a machine. His shirt was riding up in the back and his underwear said, Hanes. I started to get hard.

Pretty soon there was a girl and two guys on a dark stage, everyone was dressed in black, they were singing Steam Heat and all three were moving in rhythm and snapping their fingers. I knew that we were so dead.

I just dropped backwards onto the bed and laid flat on my back staring at the ceiling. In a moment I heard the music stop and then Tom laid down next to me. After a minute or so he rolled on his side facing me and stared at me. I turned my head and looked at him.

He said softly, "It'll be okay, Danny."

I gave him a twisted grin. "You think I can learn to dance like that?"

"I wasn't talking about the play."