Chapter 2: School Walk Through

The next day Thomas saw his face everywhere he went. A flash in the crowds between classes, the back of his head in the computer suite. He was dreading English and by the time it arrived he was ready to ditch the class all together. Having butterflies in his stomach was the least of his problems. They'd all decided to start a mosh pit in there, or at least that's what it felt like to the boy.

The previous evening he'd spent a good hour in the shower, scrubbing grass stains off his knees and invisible dirt off his skin. He'd felt awful once the afterglow had passed, leaving him cold and confused and feeling violated. His parents hadn't missed the dullness of him, asked him how his day at college had been. Those questions he could answer easily enough, but when his father had asked him what he'd done in his free period he'd choked half to death on a mouthful of mashed potato and declined pudding. The creamy white semolina reminded him of a substance he'd rather not think about.

Thomas had spent a sleepless night wondering what excuse he could come up with not to go to college the next day, but he could hardly pretend to be ill for a whole weekend. The other option was to drop English, but that was the subject that was going to get him into university and he couldn't afford to do that, no matter how desperate he got. What Thomas could work out was what had come over him in the gardens yesterday, why he'd let Sera do those things to him.

He'd been awfully sore when he'd woken up that morning, gingerly pulling on boxers, anything to shield himself from the roughness of denim, and wondering if he'd ever feel the same again. It was a bit late for that. One thing was for certain, he sure as hell wasn't a virgin anymore.

Thomas was deliberately late to class, to avoid having to wait outside and possibly actually talk to Sera. Seeing the other boy was bad enough, but talking to him would be awful. Thomas didn't know if he could actually not hit him. But it wasn't like Thomas could claim rape, he'd been plenty and perfectly willing yesterday. Today was different matter entirely.

He walked in, rich watercolour blue eyes scanning the class. Sera was there, tucked into his seat by the window and obviously not paying the blindest bit of notice to anything the lecturer was saying to the class. Granted neither was Thomas, who gave some bland off the rack excuse as to why he was late and sat in his seat without meeting anyone's gaze. Today he'd dressed himself, unthinkingly, in long sleeves that fell almost to his knuckles, long jeans, boots and a bandana round his neck. Ghost memories of kisses crawled coldly over his skin under his clothes, despite the heat of the day.

The lesson passed Thomas by in a haze. He couldn't concentrate on anything he was supposed to be doing and every time his eyes wandered they ended up in the same placed. Fixed on Sera. Of course, Sera was never looking back, always out at the window or down at the page that definitely wasn't what he was supposed to be working on. But there was a flickering in his chocolate brown eyes that suggested sudden movement and Thomas came over a little more chilled when it finally dawned on him that he was most definitely being watched.

When the lesson finished he got up in a hurry and dashed out of the room before anyone could stop him. Heading straight for the library, Thomas grabbed a thick book and seated himself in one of the little walled off working bays and attempted to burrow into his chair. Perhaps he could get himself nicely lost in the rigours of medieval history. He might even find something useful for his latest unit.

It was not to be. Thomas had been concentrating hard on reading the same two lines over and over again for about ten minutes when a sheaf of lined paper, folded in four, was dropped on his desk. Whoever had deposited however walked swiftly on and was lost around the end of a bookcase. Thomas picked up the paper gingerly and unfolded it as though it might try and bite him. He was presented with four or five sheets of pencil and inked sketches, of himself. Sitting in class that day, looking out the window, from the back while he was eating lunch, ones from the week before when he'd been laughing and joking with his friends outside in the sunshine, lying in the gardens with his shirt off, and the last, the biggest and most detailed sketch, of him lying on his side, head on one arm. The lines only descended to his hips, but it was easy to recall when this was. Yesterday, naked on the grass after their exertions. Thomas was surprised, and shocked, to see how detailed it was, the composition of body and face perfect, the lines around his eyes, the lay of his eyelashes, the fall of his hair, neither long nor short. Everything, even down to trail of fine blond hair trailing up to his navel and the tiny scar on the inside of his right elbow.

Thomas leapt out of his seat, part horrified, part annoyed, and in some way flattered as well. Taking the folded drawings with him he stepped around the corner of the bookcase where the figure that had to be Sera had vanished. Sure enough there he was, leaning against the wall at the end of a dead-end row of books, cunningly cut off from the view of the majority by another shelf. There was a door behind Sera with the words "Staff Only" printed on it. Sera was smiling, a smug sort of smile with his eyes half closed, looking at Thomas with a seductive gaze.