Chapter 2

In regard to Tim's group of friends, Joseph lost most after the orgy but found his calling. A monk devotes himself through various sacrifices, everything from tasteless food to self-imprisonment to scarification, to gain a patient focus towards the goal of a purity of faith or the achievement of enlightenment. Unlike an apprentice craftsman devoting years to a specific craft until, once he has achieved master craftsman status, he knows everything about it or has gained a vast pool of knowledge to solve any unexpected problems while living a life outside his occupation gambling or drinking or womanizing or being a good father or husband or benefactor, there is a complete emersion for a monk, a narrow tunnel of experience in which the monk must be embedded. Joseph's calling, the number of his Order being one, him alone, placed him between the apprentice and the self-sacrificing monk. His obsession with the moment of ecstasy at the orgy, the exponential increase in the bliss of cosmic enlightenment which he experienced occupied his mind. When he was alone, he focused on it, studying literature on how to intensify and elongate orgasms, creating exercises to accomplish those goals via masturbation, and repeating and reliving in his mind the event that began his quest, making the event as real and detailed as when it was happening, in fact making it more real and detailed than when it was happening as if he was studying a movie by examining each frame with a magnifying glass.

When he was with his parents or his peers, or when he needed to shift his attention to homework or bussing tables at his job, he taught himself to split his focus. After months of drifting back and forth from his inner contemplation to the needs of outer participation, the separate foci became more and more simultaneous until he accomplished the task, the exultant epiphany occurring during the meeting of his Modern Problems study team putting together a presentation about the starving people of Bangladesh and how to end the tragedy. The epiphany was so powerful that he was forever transformed. His mind became suddenly clear, his thoughts quickened and became more organized; the already smart and clever Joseph had stepped into the realm of genius. The witnesses to his transformation, though they had no understanding of it, saw a light switch on, from shy and retiring darkness which he had been slowly crawling out of, to brilliant confidence. Being a tall, buff, good looking young man made him attractive to women and a couple of men, though he never benefited from it at school until he began his peculiar relationships with his study group, but his attractiveness multiplied an incalculable amount the instant of his epiphany, and those witnesses couldn't help noticing and succumbing to it.

Timing is everything, and the study group could not have been more perfect witnesses to the epiphany. There were four of them: Joseph of course; Sarah, the beautiful raven haired head cheerleader with a perfect slim curvaceous body with jutting medium sized tits, girlfriend of the BMOC, who, since the school had a less than stellar football team but a championship swimming team, was the best swimmer in school; Candice, a big girl, not fat but tall and on the heavy side with blonde hair and a plain face but with shining, intelligent, sometimes mischievous eyes; and Jordan, a wiry dark haired young man with a pale, soft, pretty face and an effeminate, pouty, obviously gay demeanor. What made it perfect is that these three students had been attracted to Joseph as much as anyone was at his school before his epiphany, and, one by one, had done something about the attraction soon after the study group formed. The project was nearing completion and the class was nearing its end when the epiphany happened. There was an impasse to finally finish the project which Joseph in his new brilliance had solved but hadn't let his partners know.

Glancing from the clock on the wall to Joseph, revealing in her look not frustration, but lust, Sarah said, "We'll never finish in time, and we should rehearse." It was as if he had spoken through her, and in a way the wave of lust capturing the group like a catamaran speeding through the water on a crest containing just the four of them was his creation and caused her perfect statement.

"We need a place to meet," said Joseph, "where we can be without distractions."

"My parents are going to a dinner party tonight," said an excited Candice. "They won't be home until late."

"When is the earliest we can meet there?" asked Joseph.

"I have practice until 4:30," said Sarah.

"My play rehearsal should end by then," said Jordan.

"Would six be too early?" Joseph asked Candice. She shook her head.

"Let's have pot luck. I'll bring the salad," said Joseph.

They quickly agreed on what each of them would bring. Joseph could smell their excitement. His cock was stiff and tight in his pants, and when he adjusted it, he discovered Candice looking there, licking her lips. The other two were as well.

He stopped at the drug store so he could bring to the meeting not just a salad, but a box of condoms and a tube of KY jelly, hoping for a truly fun night.

Preparation for the event had actually begun over a month before when the study group was chosen. Joseph had signed up first for the topic and the other three had soon followed. It could be said from the beginning the three were his followers. After several of the Modern Problems classes ended, following the last twenty minutes of class set aside for the study group, Joseph would find himself in the company of one of his group. Being the last hour of school, there was no rush to get to the next class.

The first to meet with him was Sarah which was the last one he would have expected. Like Joseph, after the bell rang she was slow to gather her stuff together.

"Which way are you headed?" she asked in the doorway. The hall was raucous with fellow students celebrating the end of another day; lockers opened and closed with a metallic chaos; conversations were shouted over the din, amplifying the din. Somehow their brief conversation quietly pierced through.

"My locker's that way," he pointed to his left.

"Are you in a hurry?" she asked.

"Not really."

"Good. I want to talk to you."

"Okay," said Joseph calmly. He didn't know Sarah well, mostly from an appreciative distance. He knew how she would affect boys who weren't her athlete friends, making them tongue tied thus avoiding this was essential. Not being attracted to her was to lie to oneself. Joseph had been to enough schools to have been ignored by several of the beautiful girls; there were always at least one usually two or three who were beautiful and knew they were beautiful and hung out with the stud boys, the leaders of whatever sports were big. Unlike these attractive, unattainable and seemingly vacuous beauties (though truth be told, Joseph wouldn't know for sure how uninteresting and empty the minds of these babes might have been, having never exchanged a word with them and having rarely heard them say anything), Joseph was impressed by Sarah, her intelligence and her openness, her willingness to contribute to class discussions and respond thoughtfully to any challenges to her opinion. Being self confident was a given in her situation, but her rare take on it was a magnanimous cheerfulness. She was neither stuck up nor shallow.

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way," she said, an unusual tension tightening her forehead and her eyes. "You know I'm with Adam." Joseph nodded. He immediately realized the disadvantages of being the future homecoming royalty. Joseph would never worry about who he was seen with even if he was dating someone, which he wasn't.

"I understand. Where can we meet?" he said, smiling.

"You are so cool," said Sarah, the tension instantly gone, replaced by an energetic smile. "Meet me outside on the other side of the swimming pool in ten minutes."

She was gone before he assented.

As soon as he found her behind the wall hiding from the passers-by, she said, "Follow me."

He did, up a steep hill, through some trees, across railroad tracks, through someone's yard, across a suburban street and to a medium sized suburban house with an appealing modernity, angled glass and wood where apparently she lived. Despite both of them being in good shape, the quick walk and an emotional tension had them panting when she sat him in the kitchen.

"Beer?" she asked, reaching for a couple Miller long necks and handing him one.

"I guess we're safe now," said Joseph. She laughed, and then shook her head.

"God, I can't wait to get out of high school," said Sarah, sitting across from Joseph. The rush of effervescence escaping from the two unscrewed bottles punctuated her statement.

"You seem to be getting more out of it than anyone else," said Joseph. "Not just being popular; you seem to want to learn."

Sarah nodded. "I really like Mr. Simonson's class," she said, referring to Modern Problems, the class where the two were working together. "Actually I like most of my classes. Most are challenging, a couple maybe not so much and a couple are maybe a little too much, but it's not that."

"I know. I guess I have the opposite problem. If we were actually seen together outside class, everyone would wonder what was wrong with you or whether you lost your mind. Me, if they noticed me at all, they would wonder who the hell I am, this stranger in not a strange land but a perfectly normal land where everyone is there fitting in in some way or other."

"Have you read 'Stranger in a Strange Land'?"

"Yeah, I'm the stranger that 'groks.' Or I'm the 'Invisible Man' or Camus' 'Stranger, ' the black man in the land of whites, or the European in the land of Arabs, making myself known only by doing something truly repellant, and maybe not even then."

Sarah shook her head. "You're not though, at least not anymore. I noticed you from the middle of last year when you first came to Golden Valley High School, looking as tough as you could without being mean."

"Yeah, well, I've had the misfortune to be enrolled in three successive high schools; my parents at least decided to let me finish up here, but you have to be resilient, to go it on your own, which I'm afraid you wouldn't know anything about."

"Maybe not, but you always interested me. I don't know why it took me this long to even say Hi. The way you are, you're obviously brilliant, but not stuck in your head, good looking but not conceited about it, witty and charming, but not mean spirited or, unfortunately for me, particularly social. Last year there was sadness about you wrapped around you like insulation. But this year you've changed. There's calmness and wisdom. I had a sense it was there before, but now it has come out. People are noticing you. My girlfriends have talked about you. You know, 'Who's the hunk, ' sort of thing. But what I'm getting at is the understanding. You seem to grok what's around you."

"They think I'm a hunk?"

"Don't be going down that stream, Joseph, it's much too shallow."

"And of course I've noticed you. I know you know you're beautiful, but what I love about you is your passion, and not so much the cheerleader sort of passion because though you're good at it, the movement and the rousing of school spirit, I can't help noticing you have a sense of the silliness which, I hate to say it, makes you not the best of the group, only the most attractive."

"Good save," said Sarah with a genuine smile.

"I'm talking about a passion for life, an energy and awareness and 'Joie de Vivre, ' you know? You're bubbly, but in a good way, in an intelligent way. You're like a cheerleader for what matters. I love that you chose to be in my study group."

"Have you ever been in a study group?" asked Sarah.

"No, but I think mine is unique."

"We just started, so who knows how the others get it together, but I couldn't help noticing the lack of unity; the way people are is the way they are in the group: those that want to rule the world take over; those that can't bother do nothing; those that are used to being not listened to hate the big mouth and hate the do nothing because neither are on their side. But we're different. Immediately we have roles and we chose our leader: you. In fact..."

" ... you all wanted to be in it with me."

"Didn't you just call it your study group? And here I thought you weren't the conceited type."

"I've had to develop self-confidence to..."

"I know, Joseph. I'm teasing. I love your self-confidence."

They stared into each other's eyes. Joseph felt the pressure in his pants as his libido grew. Sarah pressed down on her dampening pussy.

"I agree that our group is something special," said Joseph, temporarily interrupting the sexual tension. "We immediately took roles: Candice is the artist, bringing the proper vision, the specific colors, the unique perspective; Jordan is the performer, honing the work, organizing it so it flows, making it presentable; you are the cheerleader, encouraging the flow of thought, throwing away the crap in a painless, reinforcing way, and glorying in every brilliant new idea, including your own, Miss Conceited."

"And you are the one who makes sure we stay in focus, that we stay in our roles, that we do what needs to be done. And of course you have most of the brilliant ideas and make it seem like it's all ours. Then there's the fact that all three of us are in love with you."

Joseph didn't know how to respond. He had a sense that what she said was true, but it was a new way of looking at others. He felt he needed to develop any love from someone towards him, and he'd had little practice in that. But the way these three had looked at him, he could see her point. Even before the study group, he had noticed the way Jordan and Candice glanced with interest. Looking back, he remembered Sarah looking his way with interest, but thought she was beyond his reach and thus figured it was just wishful thinking on his part.