Wednesday: Time By Myself

It hasn't been the best of mornings. I arrived downstairs, clothed, with my bag, to find both my parents waiting for me. By the time I leave for school they should both have already gone to work. I look between them, my mother smiling, my dad looking somewhat reserved. They already knew. Well, they already had suspicions that I was gay. That's why they put me in The Program. If anything, that hurt more than all the accumulated humiliation of the previous two days. They did it because I had secrets. To my pride I didn't scream at them, hadn't they realised that they'd ruined my last year at school? After the end of this week, the problems won't just go away, I have to be around my peers for a lot of time over the coming year, and there are no promises that it'll get any better. They've meddled in my life, and now it's costing me.

Wednesday is one of my least favourite days, due to the fact that I have to sit through citizenship for the first hour. It's just a fancy way of getting us to do some religion in school time. We have to push all the tables out of the way and make a circle in the middle of the room. I sit down while Chris gets his notebook out of his bag, fully expecting him to come and sit next to me like he always does. Instead he goes and sits, along with Brett and Michael, on the other side of the circle. Leaving me alone. Trust me, I'm not used to the idea of being naked yet, not by a long way, but it's only the first class of the day and there hasn't been much opportunity for things to go too drastically wrong yet. Mostly because I don't fancy any of the guys in my class, and if I can keep any reactions down there to the absolute minimum I might just make it through the day without being beaten up. On Monday I'd begun to think that being naked wouldn't be so bad if I could rely on Chris and my other friends, but as I watch them smirk from across the room, the three of them, heads down together, I think that I might have been wrong.

Here I am, singled out, the only student in the school participating in this program. I don't understand why they couldn't have picked someone more outgoing, or someone with less secrets. As if that wasn't enough, I am being made an example of in class yet again. Today's discussion is on the fair treatment of nude students and, as a sideline, bullying in school. Strangely, no one wants to hear my opinion on the subject. I am merely a prop, something to be discussed. I sink into my silence, my isolation made more complete by Mike's glares, Brett's shifting, suspicious looks, and Christian's refusal to look at me at all.

In the short interval between classes I make my way to the boys bathroom upstairs. A group of fourth years I only vaguely recognise are hanging around the urinals and the window, watching people make their way to classes in other buildings. They turn to stare at me as I come in, and I vanish into a stall, out of the way of their hard glares. Somehow by being naked I have interrupted their privacy, although I think perhaps it may have something to do with Jeremy. I'm not surprised he's told everyone, but deeply hurt. I barely even know him, but still. Christian's sudden shunning of me hits me hard. With my blanket I sit on the lid of the toilet, my head in my hands and try to make my tears inaudible as I hear the fourth years leaving for class. This is so incredibly unfair.

I had hoped that History would be an easy session for me, not something that would allow me to be stared at. I hadn't counted on my teacher, a rampant feminist who often wears summer dresses and doesn't shave her armpits. She smiles at me and calls me up to the front, handing me a white board marker. If it is possible to feel more exposed, other than being naked and alone, I do. She commands me to write down on the board all the valid points the class came up with and begins to talk about the causes of the Second World War. I can feel several people staring at my arse and my only solace is that they can't see my face.

Outside the bathroom I am apprehended my Mr. Johnson, a copy of The Program pamphlet in his hands.

"What now?"

"Good Morning to you too Aaron. How are you getting along?"

Having my head teacher look at me while I'm naked, dark eyes scrutinizing what he sees is starting to get on my nerves.

"I hate it, now can I please go in?"

"Afraid not Aaron."

"What?"

"I was reading this earlier," he hands me the pamphlet, "And I discovered anew that you are supposed to be using the girls bathrooms and the girls changing room for your sports lessons."

"You're kidding?"

Johnson looks at me, of course he's not kidding, no one has ever known the man to make a joke in his entire life. Sometimes I think he is humourless.

"I'm not."

"But I don't even know where the girls bathrooms are!"

"Then I suggest you go and find one."

A girl or a bathroom? I don't ask, but turn on my heel and stalk down the corridor, eyes peeled for an unfamiliar doorway. Five minutes later I'm still looking, and I'm running out of time. Break will be over soon. I've walked halfway around the school already. But then I run into Debz, the petite happy-go-lucky gothic girl from my English class. She's far too bright to be wearing so much eyeliner.

"Debz!"

"Oh," she grins at me, and there's something predatory and vaguely unsettling about it, like she wants to eat me alive, "Hello Aaron. Have you lost something?"

Other than my clothes?

"No, Debz, I'm looking for the girls bathroom."

"Oh, er... this way." She leads me down the corridor and left, and there it is. I can't believe I've never noticed it before. But then, girls have never been high on my radar.

The girls is a lot cleaner, and newer looking, than the boys, and is quite different. I don't know what I'd been expecting, I haven't been in a girls bathroom in my life, not that I can remember anyway. There are a lot more cubicles, and all of them have doors, and there are twice as many sinks as in the boys, and a huge mirror and surface running the length of one wall. There are about a dozen girls in here, all doing various things to their hair or make up. I lock myself in a cubicle and listen to them giggle. I also listen to them listen as I take a piss, clean off, flush and unlock the door. Chatter resumes instantly.

I could feel more alone, it would be hard though, as simultaneously all the girls stop what they're doing and turn to look at me. Here I am with no defence and nothing but air between them and all my secrets. One of them is Laura. She is holding a hairbrush, it looks like a weapon. One look at her face tells me she has it in for me. I'll take my chances with the corridor. I make myself scarce. Luckily for me the bell goes not sixty seconds later and I duck out a side door and walk all the way around the outside of the building in the cold to get to English, rather than face the crowd in the hall. It could be worse, it could be raining.

In English Mr. Gill asks me if I would mind sitting up front again to act as a prop for the class's descriptive skills. I don't have the heart to refuse him, as he seems to be the only teacher who cares how I feel. I spread my blanket over the stool provided, perch on it and lean back against the chilly blackboard. He tells the class as they file in, that they will be using me to hone their poetry skills. Christian, I notice, abandons his normal seat up front for one at the back, near Darren and Justin and the rest of their friends.

Being written about is a lot like being drawn, only more intrusive. But not nearly as bad as being stared at in the hallway or harassed at lunch. I stare out of the windows at the rolling grey skies while everyone else scribbles away. My thoughts swing back to Christian, my friend of four years, and his sudden distance from me. I know that he's worked out my secret, I'm surprised it's taken him this long, despite how well I've learnt to lie, and it has worried him. I thought he was made of stronger stuff.

Neil Gill calls a halt to lesson and collects in everyone's poems, anonymous despite the fact he can recognise all of our individual styles of handwriting, shuffles them into a pile a hands a few of them to me. I have to read them. The first is a haiku, a tiny Japanese style poem, which means it can't go into any great detail.

On his stool he is nude

Posed and composed

Our classical statue.

I have a feeling that the next one, which I have trouble deciphering, comes from one of Justin's friends.

I'm bigger than that, he's small fry.

We're forced to look at him, put it away.

I'd rather see a chick up there, all breasts and pussy.

A slut, a whore.

They shouldn't force us to look at him.

I have no doubt that the final poem came from Debz, she is grinning like a Cheshire cat.

So much skin, kinda like a blank canvas.

Oh how I would love to see you bleed.

Not to cause you pain.

Just the brightest pleasures.

Steel needles through white skin, red flesh hidden underneath,

A spark plug in your veins.

So much skin to draw on, to trace ink across, underneath.

Patterns reflecting the sky,

All leading to your center.

Not you heart or belly dear boy,

Everything points to your crotch.

I hand the poems back to the teacher and give Debz a look. I'm not sure whether to smile or glare at her considering what she's written. Is this really what people think when they see me? I feel empty and slightly sick, kind of like the feeling you get after you've been sick, still wanting to hurl but knowing nothing will come up. The bell goes for the end of class and I let everyone leave before gathering my things. Neil Gill looks at me, his gaze steady and firm.

"Just survive the week," His voice is sincere and sad, "Keep your head down, do your time, and survive the week."

I thank him and as I do, I get the feeling that he knows what's going on inside my head better than I do. It's not an entirely pleasant feeling.

Physical Education is not, thankfully, a repeat of Monday's debacle. I dump my stuff in the girls changing rooms before they even got there and go out into the gym. We get spilt up, divided by gender, and the girls stay downstairs to do gymnastics while we go up stairs to do weights. I am also allowed clothes, only gloves, but by now I'll take anything I'm given. I take a seat on the chest press and begin to do reps on a middling weight, nothing too straining, while most of the other guys crowd around the window that looks down onto the gym. As for myself, I can't much see the attraction of watching the girls tumble around. Luckily for me, neither can Josh, whose girlfriend would kill him if she found out that he was looking at other girls. That doesn't stop him from joining in their sex talk.

Since I usually just keep to myself, my lack on input in these discussion isn't usually mentioned and everyone just lets me get on with it as long as I'm not using a machine they want. So while they trade comments on the girls breasts and possible, and unlikely, sex escapades, I do my turns on the leg extensions and the shoulder press, my personal favourite. Our school gym is small, so we don't have any cardio equipment, just weights and room to stretch.

"Hey Aaron, what do you think?"

I pull down the bar, lifting the weights, and hold it at chin level for a moment before raising the bar again. I feel my muscles starting to burn now, I've been at this for almost half an hour.

"What do I think of what?"

"Who has the best tits," Toby, brown hair, brown eyes, not my type, too much muscle, half turns his head to catch me in his gaze, "Katie Reed or Laura Ami?"

I pull on the bar again, keeping my gaze on the weights, rising and falling.

"Not really my place to say," I am glad for my gloves, my skin is slicked in sweat from my workout, "I haven't seen either of them naked. Lot of support in a bra, not to mention padding."

It's a satisfactory response, I'm quite good at those, and Toby turns his attention back to the girls below.

"Hey," Josh finishes his legs presses and is just as sweaty as I am, "Aaron, I heard that you got a hard on in front of some third year kid."

Oh no. I look to the door, trying to work out if I can make a break for it before they can get at me and the chances of slipping and breaking a bone on the slippery concrete stairs. It doesn't weight up well.

"Really?" The guys at the window seem interested now, "What happened?"

Josh starts speaking before I can try and formulate some kind of believable lie.

"My brother told me, it was some guy in his class, Jeremy something."

"A guy?" Toby's joking buddy-macho tone drops away in an instant, replaced by ice cold steel, "You're shitting me," he turns his gaze on me, and suddenly I can see that his body, which is not to my taste, is full of strength. Enough strength to try and break me, "This is true?"

"Aaron's not gay," Ben says, but his voice is worried, as if he's not so sure anymore.

"You seen him with any chicks lately?" retorts Jamie, and suddenly the air in the room goes cold. My sweat is clammy on my skin. I stand up, picking up my blanket in one hand, feeling very, very exposed.

"Um..." I cannot for the life of me think of a way to end that sentence and my actions now are going to have serious effects if I don't think fast enough. I am the luckiest boy on earth when our coach comes through the door half a tense second later and announces the end of the session, go and change. I don't need telling twice and I race for the changing rooms, glad, for the first time, that I have to go with the girls.

While the changing rooms have a big attached shower room, it's not always in use. We have showers after football or rugby games, or anything where we get dirty, or after weights. As far as I know, the girls are never actually required to shower after sports. The female teacher is waiting just inside the door with the key to the showers. She turns on the water main once I arrive and leaves me too it. The shower room is dank and big with no one else in it. I turn on three shower heads and stand under the water, eyes closed, my hair slicked back by the water, and cool off from my workout. At least there is no one there to watch me. I hear giggling and duck out of the water, rubbing my eyes. Nearly all the girls are standing in the doorway to the shower room, all craning to get a look at me. I grin to myself and turn on as many shower heads as I can reach, full heat. Within seconds the room is full of steam. I move to the back to finish off, not that I have any soap, or in fact a towel, and wait until I hear them all leaving before I shut off the water and make my way out. I dry myself of with one end of my blanket and twist the water out of my long hair. It leaves little droplets sliding down my back that tickle and make me shiver.

After the tense session in the weights room I figure that being in a crowd has got to be better than being alone and vulnerable, so I head to the cafeteria, hoping to run into Chris, or Debz, or anyone who isn't likely to kill me, just so I don't have to walk in there all on my own. No such luck, and everyone goes quiet. I make my decision at the door, turn around and bolt to the upstairs boys bathroom. I am not ashamed to say that I really need Christian right now. The guy is my oldest friend, and surely if I can just talk to him, talk things out with him, surely he can bring himself to trust me again, to be my friend. I find my way barred by Justin and his crew of soon-to-be-drop-outs.

"Hey gay boy!"

"D'your parents know you're a fudge packer?"

"You come any closer and I'll beat you into a pulp you hear?"

"Fucking shirt-lifters."

I don't stick around to listen to anymore, but turn on my heels again and make my way downstairs. This early in lunch the corridors are mostly empty, people having not yet brought food out from the cafeteria. I wonder idly how many more mistakes I can make in one lunch time and decide to get out of the hall before people turn up. So I go to the part of the school that's both inside and deserted during non-lesson times. The art rooms.