Chapter 1

Duke Temple was sitting in his math class in a slightly depressed mood, as he was eyeing Vanessa Elder the most popular girl in his high school,"I wonder what she would say to me if I asked her out?"he thought to himself as the teacher droned on. He saw that Vanessa stood at the five foot mark, had long blood red hair, and light jade green eyes along with her elf like ears that fueled his nighttime fantasies.

"She'd probably kick my ass if I asked her out."Duke thought to himself with a really depressed sigh, since he was a freak of nature due to his silver gray hair and gray eyes that he had been born with, and he had to take a moment to compose himself as he recalled how all the other kids since kindergarten had mercilessly taunted him and called him a freak.

Also to make matters worse, he never had any friends when he was growing up, not only due to his looks, but he also had an aura of freakishness that seemed to drive most people away from him. So much so that he never had kissed a girl in his life, and the proverbial salt in the wound was that he didn't fit in with any of the high school crowds, because his personal interests did not classify him as a nerd, even though he enjoyed computers, role playing games like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the entire Star Wars trilogy and the like.

Also he had no real interests in sports, since he was freakishly thin and gangly, and there were the twin facts that he had no stamina whatsoever or the aptitude for sports.

Music, forget that action, he had no real interests in the musical arts, and his musical and singing skill were even more pitiful then his sports skills. Academically he was just barely scraping by, and as such he was way out of his league with the more gifted students.

Art, well to put it quite bluntly, his stick figures always ended up looking like a victim of an attack of mutant hemorrhoids from hell so that was a no go for him.

He was one of the minority of boys and girls who, for whatever reason, were the silent majority of social outcasts that were doing their level best to survive the hell known as high school, and even these lost souls considered him a freak of nature, and as such would have nothing to do with him.

"What a boring day!"Vanessa thought to herself, as she was whishing for nothing more than to leave this shitass class and hang out with her circle of social elites, and lord it over the lesser students of HER high school, when she got the unwelcome feeling that she was being watched. She saw that the teacher was facing the blackboard and quickly looked around the classroom.

"What the fuck?"she thought to herself with a hateful heart as she saw a tall thin boy looking at her, and she could see that even among the freaks and fuck ups in her school that he was the worst of them.

She gave him a hateful look, and when she saw him look down at his desk in shame she felt the need to rip him a new asshole for daring to sully her by thinking his perverted thoughts about her.

Suddenly the lunch bell rang and there was a migration for the door of the classroom. Vanessa got up from her seat and walked over to the perverted freak and tore into him,"What the fuck do you think you are doing!"she shouted, and watched as a panicked look appeared on the boy's face, which just stoked her fiery hatefulness all the hotter.

"How dare you think about me, you fucking freak!, I bet you have an inch long limp dick, you fucking faggot ass bitch!"she added, as she continued to verbally castrate the boy who was looking like he was about to burst into tears.

"Hey, Vanessa, is this little prick giving you a problem?"an all to familiar voice said, and when Duke looked towards the sound of the voice he felt his heart sink even lower, as he saw that it was Brock Stone, the school's fullback and god of the jocks."Why Bret, it's nice to see you."Vanessa said, as she turned to face the missing link with a sweet as pie tone of voice, and a coy look on her suddenly angelic face.

"It's Brock."the human tank said, as he was openly leering at her.

"Whatever, to answer your question, this lowlife piece of shit was looking at me with his filthy eyes."she said in an innocent and girlish voice as she fluttered her eye lashes at Brock.

"FUCK!"Duke thought to himself, as he realized that the bitch had the walking bulldozer wrapped around her little finger, which meant that there was a good chance that he was in for another asskicking from the hairless whale ape."You want his worthless balls on a platter?"he heard Brock say in a lusty look on his face, and he knew that his time on earth was fast coming to an end.

"Oh, would you ... thanks so much, Brick!" Vanessa said in an shy and playful tone of voice as she gave him an interested look. "It's Brock, sweetie pie, don't worry, this fag boy is going to be a bad memory." Brock said, as he looked at Duke and began to loudly crack the knuckles of his hamfists. "Thank you so much, ta ta for now, Brok." Vanessa said, as she turned and left the classroom in a better mood now that Duke's death warrant was soon to be sign in his blood.

Duke knew that the teachers were of no use to him, because he had gone to them many times about the 'roid monkey's bullying, but since the school's football team was on the verge of taking the high school championships, they were not going to do anything to put that victory at risk.

In fact Brock was such an all around sportsman, that he knew in his pea sized brain that as long as he kept winning games the teachers would not hassle him. "See you after school, Dog Meat!" Brock said, as he could see that Duke was looking like he was about to lose all control over his bladder and bowels. That put him in a far better mood then he had been in since the school day started, and he left Duke to make peace with God before the day was done.

"I'm so dead." Duke thought to himself as he gamely picked at the lunch that been made for him, as he was having visions of all the ways a person could die, with him in the lead role.

"Fuck it!" he said to himself, and threw out his partly eaten lunch and left the lunchroom to find a quite place to ponder the mysteries of death that were going to be revealed to him at the end of the last day of his life.

When the last bell of the day rang, Duke finally understood how a death row inmate would feel as he was being taken for a long, hard ride on Old Sparky, because he knew that there was no way he could escape from the beating from Brock, he had tried before and failed every time.

As he was walking to the front doors of the high school, he could have sworn that the students in the hallway stood off to one side like he was a leper, and that they were whispering things like, "So that's the freak that's going to get his ass kicked," or "Dead Man walking, Dead Man walking." and the like "It's a nice day to die." he thought to himself as he saw that it was bright and sunny out and that the air was still but cool.

"Here we go!" Duke thought to himself as he saw Brock waiting for him, and a large crowd of students who had came to see him be turned into an ugly red smear on the high school's otherwise pristine front lawn, suddenly there was the sound of a car horn that shattered the tense and expectant air.

"Dukey it's Mommy!" a voice said, and Duke did not know if he should be thankful that his mom had come up to pick him up, of if he should hide under a rock and never come out due to his shame at having been rescued from certain death by his mother, as he saw the looks of scorn on the faces of the other students.

Once he quickly made his way into the car, he sank as far down as he could in the passenger's seat as his mother pulled the car out of the high school's parking lot, Susan looked at her son and saw the really depressed and stressed out look on his face, "Why so glum, chum?" she asked, in a voice that sounded like she was stuffed to the gills with happy pills, as well as having a pot of coffee to wash them down.

"It's nothing." she heard Duke say in a frazzled tone of voice, and she could tell that some was deeply troubling him. "It's ok, Bunky Poo, you can tell mommy what is bothering you." Duke heard his mother say in an insufferably sweet tone of voice, and for a moment he had to fight down the urge to put his head through the windshield.

"MOM! I'm not a child any more, damn it!" he snarled in an exasperated tone of voice, not that he didn't love his mother, but it was most of the time that she treated him like he was a baby that was lighting the fire under his ass, "Aww don't be cross, Snuggle Wuggms, you know that you will always be my little baby boy." Susan said in a slightly hurt tone of voice.

Duke looked at his mother, and when he saw the loving and motherly look in her dark green eyes, he knew that no matter what he would say to her, nothing would ever change the way she was, and he took a deep breath, held it in for a minute or so, and slowly let it out. "Now, do you feel better my wittle Dukey?" he heard his mother ask, and he just sat there and sulked as they continued the long drive home.

"What is troubling you, Dukey?" he heard his mom ask, and he knew that if he did not tell her what she wanted to know, that she would keep asking him until he gave in and spilled the beans. "Well there is this girl at school." he said, and watched as a slightly troubled look appeared on her lovely face. "Oh, who is this girl?" Susan asked, as she felt a deep pang of motherly concern, and a slight fear as well.

"Her name is Vanessa Elder, she sexy, but she's a mega bitch from hell." she heard her son say, and she felt a stab of anger well up in her normally peaceful heart. "I see." she said in a slightly displeased tone of voice that made Duke roll his eyes as he thought that tone of voice was one of disapproval, as they pulled into the driveway of their home.

"Welcome home, Sir." an eerily quiet voice said, and when he looked to the front door of his house he saw Girl standing there as she bowed to him, and he began to feel an all to familiar sense of unease.

He looked at Girl and saw that she stood four feet nine inches tall, with long platinum hair with no blond in it and that was in a singe braid, and when he looked into her light gray eyes he still could not get over the fact that she looked like she was twelve years old, which was impossible because she had been the family's maid and domestic servant ever since he was a baby.

"Girl, inform my husand that we are back." Susan said in a slightly cool tone of voice, "That is impossible, Sir is busy and does not wish to be disturbed." Girl said in a lifeless tone of voice, and her trade mark deadpan look that still spooked him to this day despite the fact that he had grown up with her.

"Girl, make me a cup of coffee." Duke said as he was trying and failing to understand how Girl was still spooky to him, despite the fact that she had been a major part of his life.

"This girl hears and obeys." Girl said in a deathly quite tone of voice that gave him goose bumps, and went into the house. Once he had his cup of coffee, he made his way up to his bedroom to chill out, as he felt like his entire life was nothing more then an exercise in utter futility, as his mind's eye painted a grim picture of him being utterly alone, friendless, and a virgin until his dying day.

"Fuck it, why the hell do I go on with this fucking shit for? he thought to himself, as he was seriously considering suicide as an escape from his torment.

"If I offed myself, Mom would go to pieces." he mused to himself as he was laying on his bed and looking up at the dark ceiling of his black painted bedroom, and then sat up on his bed so he could drink his coffee.

"Dad ... Dad would curse me for being so weak if I took my own life." Duke muttered to himself as he thought about his father, Dr. Alistair Temple, and he felt a lump in his throat, because his father was not only so strict that he would make the most anal retentive Russian Spetnaz commando look like a drunken man-ho, but was one scary ass motherfucker, for he had seen how, with a look, he had made a hardass cop flee in fear.

But what really pissed him off as well as depressed him about his father, was the fact that even though he had never come out and say it to him personally, whenever he tried to talk to his father about his troubles he would give him a look of contempt that all to clearly told him that his father considered him a weakling.

Between his cold hardassed father and smothering mother, Duke had to wonder why he hadn't offed himself sooner.

"Girl ... who the fuck knows what she would think if I decided to blow my brains out." Duke snarled, because he had learned at an early age that not only was Girl even more of a freak then he was, but that confiding in her was pointless, because no matter what he told her about his feelings and problems, she would just look at him with that cold deadpan look until he took the hint and stopped bothering her with his problems.

However, the one thing that really puzzled him about Girl, was that she would do just about anything he would tell her to do. A case in point, when he was seven years old he had noticed that she was always doing the household chores around the house, and so out of bored curiosity, he intentionally messed up his bedroom as best he could, and as any one man or father knows, seven year old boys are the masters of mess making.

Once he had finished making his bedroom look like a mega-mall that had been blown to hell and back, he walked up to Girl, who had just finished polishing the family silverware, and said to her, "Girl, go and clean up my bedroom." and for a moment the two of them looked at one another for what seemed like forever.

Then, without saying a word, she turned and made her way up to his bedroom with him in tow to see what she could do. Once she had seen the natural disaster that was his bedroom once they got to his room, he watched as Girl surveyed the war zone that had once been his bedroom, and she then started to pick up his clothing. As she was cleaning, he had decided to try ordering her around, and really made the cleaning of his room a nightmare as he belittled her and verbally degraded her as she went about cleaning up his room.

When she was done, she turned around and gave him such a strange and spooky look that he felt like a major shit heel for being such a childish asshole towards her, and that was the first and last time he had ever tried to order her around like he had done.

After an unknown amount of time pondering the matter of his self inflicted death and how it would effect the few people he knew outside of his family, there was a soft knock at his door, "Come in," he said. He thought it was most likely that it was Girl knocking on his bedroom door to inform him that supper was ready.

Sure enough, it was Girl at his door as it opened to reveal herself to him, "Your father wants to see you." she said to him in her trademark lifeless tone of voice, but he could see an apprehensive look on her face that surprised him, and he realized that when his father had told him through Girl that he wanted to see him, he meant like yesterday.

"Oh shit!" Duke thought to himself, as he felt his guts turn to ice water at the thought of his father being angry with him for some reason, because the first time he had made his father angry he had paddled his ass so hard that he thought he would have to go to see a doctor. But what really scared the ever living shit was the cold hard look on his father's face that made him think that his father was going to kill him.

Chapter 2 »