Edd Interrupted
Chapter 2 - Summer After Freshman Year
In September, Double D left the quaint, quiet life of Peach Creek and
flew to the coast to attend a university on an academic scholarship.
College, he found, was nothing like high school. Here, you were alone
in a sea of faces you didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Most
everyone was as smart as him, and sometimes smarter. He’d never felt so
average, nor been the target of such bullying. Being heckled by Eddy
or Kevin didn’t hold a candle to this. One might think older students
would have better things to do than torment a new freshman, but they
didn’t.
By the time February rolled around, Double D had taken to sleeping at
the library. That didn’t stop them from replacing his slippers with
sports cups, cutting the crotches out of his underwear, and peeing in
his milk carton.
Finally, April came, and he could go home. His parents would be
spending the summer in Prague, and he was grateful for that. He’d had
enough of roommates, parents or not.
One week after being home, he saw Kevin’s black SUV arrive. He never
actually saw Kevin for the next few days, just noticed the car come and
go. Sometimes he would hear its engine roar to life at two in the
morning, yanking him from sleep. Then Double D would lay awake for an
hour or so, wondering what Kevin was doing at such an hour.
He hadn’t heard from Ed or Eddy and he wouldn’t be the one to call them
first. Eddy’s archaic Honda wasn’t in the driveway, so he could
probably count on a lack of his two comrades for the summer. He wasn’t
sure why that was a relief. He could stand a bit of loneliness.
Alas, one Thursday morning, Kevin came out to get his mail just as
Double D had finished gathering his.
“Hey, Double Dork.”
He pasted a smile on his face and turned around. “Hello, Kevin.”
“How long have you been home?”
“Today, or . . . you mean the summer?”
“For the summer.” Kevin was smirking slightly as he shuffled through his
own mail, sorting the junk from the magazines, bills, and his grades.
College had changed Kevin, in Double D’s opinion. He had a darker tan,
body more defined. He was wearing a pair of flip flops, black and red
board shorts, no shirt, mirrored sunglasses, and his trademark, red
baseball cap. He looked older, full and mature, but he still had that
conceited, smug attitude of his that put Double D on edge.
“I’ve been home a little over two weeks now,” he managed.
“Yeah? Hanging with your partners in nerd-dom?”
Double D knew without question who he meant. “Ed and Eddy are away this
summer.”
Kevin grunted, preoccupied with opening a letter. Double D waited a few
moments, hoping Kevin would continue. It took a while, but eventually .
. .
“You’ve been alone the whole time?” Kevin asked, mail tucked under his
arm now.
“I do a lot of reading--”
“Yeah, Nazz is gone this summer, too. You wanna come over?”
It was happening again, being invited to Kevin’s home, where unpopular
dorks dare not tread. “Why?”
“To swim. You never learned.”
“I never needed to.”
“On more thing you’ll know.”
“The sun’s rays are most harmful between the hours of--”
“Just get over here,” he laughed, eyes surely smiling behind his
sunglasses.
“I . . . I can go . . . get my suit.” He’d purchased one on whim just a
few days ago.
Kevin cocked his head and turned back up his driveway. “Gate’ll be
open.”
When Double D finally arrived, he was wringing his hands nervously,
standing beside the pool in his orange swim trunks, white T-shirt,
socks, sneakers, and black hat. Kevin was doing laps in the pool, a red
bullet back and forth, back and forth, until he came up for air and
spotted his neighbor.
“You’re over dressed.”
“I don’t own any sun screen.”
“Of course you don’t,” he sighed. In one fluid gesture, Kevin pulled
himself out of the pool and went to the covered porch for his bottle of
SPF 30. Even the muscles of his back were defined, sleek, fluid, and
powerful. Double D felt his lips part as he watched Kevin walk away.
But then he turned around, uncapping the bottle, and was squirting
lotion into his hand. Double D snapped his mouth shut again.
“Shirt off, dork.”
He paled. “I’m not comfortable--”
“You’re pale as a damn marshmallow. You need this or you’ll burn.”
“My shirt will be sufficient, thank you.”
Kevin frowned. “Take it from a guy who spends a hell of a lot of time
outside.”
“I must insist,” he all but cried when Kevin reached forward to grab the
hem of the thin, white shirt.
“Yeah, I don’t care what you insist,” he said and gave a viscous tug on
the shirt, ripping it away, leaving Double D horrified and feeling
utterly exposed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been shirtless
in front of anyone. Middle school, perhaps. Maybe junior high. Still
cupping a dollop of sunscreen in his free hand, he smoothed it over the
dork’s slender, creamy shoulders. He rubbed it in roughly, grunting in
irritation.
A short while later, Double D found himself face down in the water,
floating, with Kevin’s arms secure around his waist. He was trying his
best to follow Kevin’s directions, trying to coordinate the movements of
his arms and legs, but all he could really manage was noisy, violent
splashing.
“Why are you slapping like that? Knock it off.”
Double D froze. He’d thought he’d been swimming. After only a few
moments, he was wheezing and breathless. He looked over his skinny
shoulder.
“You’re supposed to be swimming, not beating up a third grader.”
“You told me to move my arms--”
Kevin set him on his feet in the waist deep water and stood behind him.
Double D vaguely registered that Kevin was much taller than him. His
chin could touch the top of his head. Ed was bigger, but Ed wasn’t
here.
Suddenly, Kevin’s large, slender-fingered hands were sliding up Double
D’s sides, under his ribs, the side of his chest, until he had forced
both of Double D’s arms up and into the air. Instead of continuing with
the lesson, he gripped Double D’s wrists and pressed the front of his
hard body against the softer one in front of him.
“You’re so smooth. Like a girl,” Kevin mused softly.
Double D froze, not sure whether to be insulted or afraid.
“Kevin?” He sounded afraid.
“Fuck. You’re bald like a girl. Nothin’ anywhere.” He slid his hands
around that thin, hairless body, admiring the smooth, white dork. Not a
blemish, not a pore, and even under the chlorine and sunscreen, he
could smell that flawless skin. It probably tasted better than most
girls he’d been with, and he’d been with a lot.
“Have you even been through puberty yet?” He dragged the pads of his
fingers against Double D’s tummy.
“Kevin! That’s . . . that’s personal!”
He snorted. “When a guy goes through puberty, everyone knows. It’s not
like it’s subtle.”
“I am still uncomfortable--”
“You need to lighten up, Double Dork,” he chuckled and gave one of those
pink nipples a pinch.
Kevin was laughing when Double D flew out of the water, horrified.
“Really lighten up.”
“That was entirely uncalled for!”
“Now you’re overreacting.”
Caught between humiliating and the twisting pain in his pelvis, surely a
side effect of mortification, he snatched up his sneakers.
“Come on, dork. You know you liked it.”
And Double D fled with Kevin’s laughter chasing after him.
