Lover's Spit

FULL STORY SUMMARY Being an artist is a bitch when you’re a nothing berated by an everything. Auguste is living the life of a poor man with health and social problems he can count on both of his hands; it’s only natural to hate the everything and his beautiful, arrogant ass, right? Especially when he’s staring at you like a piece of fresh meat and you know exactly where that mouth has been.

Although Damien is a perfect, chauvinistic asshole it’s hard to hate him when you spend your life surrounded by him. It’s even harder when you learn the shocking story behind his genius and realize, even though he’s cruel and selfish and abnormally beautiful, he’s might not be so awful after all.

A/N: I absolutely never write high school stories.
I dropped out of high school for a reason, so I tend to avoid writing about it at all costs. But I’ve had these characters for six bloody years and I figured … well, maybe I should actually try to write something. So this is me trying.

Hopefully it isn’t quite as cliché as it sounds.

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I hate someone.

This is no secret. It’s not uncommon either, no, I’m aware. Everyone hates someone, except maybe saints, but since I don’t believe in that sort of thing I’m sure even saints, deep down in the rotting cavities of their purity, hate someone too.

This guy I hate. He’s in my graduating class, and he is nineteen years old. You heard me right. I suppose it’s not quite as outrageous as a twenty year old senior but he is still above the normal age cut off; I mean, I’m only seventeen, and here I am in the same class as this abomination. Harsh word, but that’s just what he is. He is an abomination. He should not exist in my world, my little cushiony bubble of comfort.

Everyone is constantly talking about him. Idle teen gossip, you know: did he fail a class, did he just start late, is he rebelling against the system? No one knows. They usually move on from this to his looks within three minutes because when someone is that beautiful and that intelligent – honors with distinction every year – no one really cares that they should technically already have their diploma. Beautiful British man – sounds like a paradox to me, but, you know, I’m French – with his long, sleek black hair and piercing green eyes and luscious lips and perfect slender nose – he can’t have a crooked one like me – he’s the center of attention. Everywhere. All the time. His ass gets checked out more times in one quick stride down the hallway than mine does in a month. Then again, I don’t really have much of an ass.

Even Wynn wants to tap him.
She’s supposed to be my best friend.

If this wasn’t bad enough – beautiful, intelligent and mysterious – he is a genius painter. I’m not talking some hyped up child prodigy that can splatter non-toxic acrylic paint on a cheap vinyl canvas and call it art – he really is a genius. Photographic memory or some shit, that’s what Ms. Castillo says, constantly comparing him to Rembrandt and all the other art gods and making the rest of us – the art students – feel like fuckups.

So here’s this nineteen year old senior, he’s supposed to be the freak of the school by some unwritten law of self-absorbed teenagers, and he may as well be the next fucking messiah. I solemnly believe everyone is one step away from worshipping the ground he walks on and he eats it all up like a mutt being fed scraps off the table. Wynn always tries to tell me that he isn’t perfect like I think he is. He fucks up too. I say I’d like to see it. I never have.

I mean, he isn’t exactly polite. Not rude, but you know all this praise and perfectionism goes to his head because when you approach him he looks at you like you’re a guppy, standing their looking stupid with your lips all pursed and gums flapping, like your only purpose in life is to avoid being eaten by the sharks –him, I mean. He’ll answer you and nod and feed you a little bit, only to walk away and pretend like he never really knew you existed. I’ve never seen him accept or decline a girl – he gets a lot of girls – but I have seen him laugh at them, not uproariously but he’ll shake his head and chuckle like he thinks he’s just the hottest thing, and that’s just shitty. He doesn’t know how to treat women. I tell Wynn she’s too good for him and she laughs and says I’m the only man for her.

It’s funny because I’m gay, you know, we’ve known each other since grade school and she had me outed before I even knew myself. She’s always been really intuitive and really brash, the sort of person who knows everything about you and isn’t going to take any shit when you argue otherwise. I secretly think she’s a gypsy. She’s always accepted it, told me when I first came to terms with it, “It doesn’t matter if you love a dude or love a chick, it just means we’ll never get to experiment on each other before we really get laid.” I mean, we still fool around all the time. I like her boobs. They’re fun to play with.

Anyway, because of this freaky gypsy intuitivism going on with her, she has this phenomenal gaydar. That’s how she says she knew I was queer. I didn’t know ten year olds had gaydar, but I guess she did. She says that no matter how hard she’d tap Damien – that’s his name, Damien Lewis, he even sounds pretentious – that he would rather be tapping me. Even though I should know by now to believe everything Wynn says I still think she’s wrong and just trying to make me feel better because no matter how much I hate him – without any justification, other than I hate his gorgeous, pompous face –

I know I’d tap him in a heartbeat, too.

===============

It is Wednesday. It is a tradition for me to loathe Wednesdays more than is possibly fathomable because since I started middle school I have had nothing more than a horrible lineup of classes on hump day. Twelfth grade is no exception. The way our school works, as long as you have a certain number of credits by the end of the year you will still graduate. You don’t have to have to be enrolled in twelfth grade courses as long as your credits match the requirement – it makes the system happy.

I’m one of those students that cheats the system just so they can say they graduated. Everyone has a little more respect for you if you have a high school diploma.

I hate school. My motivation for life does not extend past pleasure and music. These are my passions. I had some really bad fucking issues – ‘had some’ is bullshit, I still have them, but everyone else thinks I don’t, except Wynn, she knows everything about me and more – when I started high school and basically missed out on my sophomore and junior year, so here I am in twelfth grade living off of work experience and taking all of those loserish, low stream eleventh grade courses filled with other degenerates just like me. Except French, I am in advanced, twelfth grade French, because I’m one of those snotty Frenchmen that never really bothered to develop an affinity towards English. I can speak it fluently and I only have a little accent, but I am also dyslexic and mastering one language was hard enough. So fuck that.

Anyway, I am pretty much the king of all of my classes. I know I hate Damien because he is the lord almighty of our entire school and this makes me a little hypocritical, but I lave in it. I lave in the fact that I am the king of the degenerates. They all come to me to learn of my ways, how I ended up just how I am today. I look like one, too. I am rail thin with this scruffy blue hair (it’s not really blue, it was, but I can’t afford hair dye weekly so now it’s this gaudy blue-green-puke colour and you can see my dark brown roots, basically, I look like shit) and a bridge piercing. It works on me, because like I mentioned earlier, I have this huge, crooked nose. Well, it’s not huge. Big. But it is crooked. I received a punch directly to the nose in fifth grade and it has never been the same ever since. I dress in baggy, ratty clothes because my thinness unnerves people, you know, they think I have an eating disorder and always ask if I’m hungry and I hate it. Because I never am hungry. I have a stomach the size of a pea.

People never assume that I really want to sing opera when I graduate because I look like garage band trash. That’s all I really am right now, anyway, so they are not that far off. I am in a garage band – right now we are calling it ‘Anonymous,’ but it changes very periodically - with Wynn and Aero. Aero’s real name is Klaus but if you call him that he will literally rip something off your body. He is a hippy without any of the drugs and he is always very obscure but with solid advice; he is also the bassist. A brilliant one, for all his ambiguous abnormalities. Wynn is our drummer and she’s pretty damn good at it too, and I have the lead guitar and lead vocals. Sounds cliché, trashy indie garage band, I know, but

I have a fucking amazing voice. It’s all I’m good at. I won’t lie, I sound like a fucking angel. I know I talk like an uneducated moron – I am, really, I’m not very smart at all – but when I open my mouth and belt out that first syrupy note people instantly forget that I am a cretin. It’s like my voice is some celestial veil that banishes all my wrongs and, for a few short moments, makes everyone, including myself, forget that I’m too far gone to save.

See, this is why I’ve given up on school, other than the fact that school has given up on me. I know in the end my voice will take me somewhere.

Or maybe that’s just me being cocky.

I think one reason I hate my Wednesday schedule this year is because I have no choir. I can’t spend time with my favorite fucking teacher in the world and the rest of the day I have to sit in frigid classrooms with stuffy teachers and dead beat students always asking me if I want to come get stoned with them during break.

I always say yes.

That’s what us degenerates do. We skip class to get high and then step back through the cheap glass doors like we own the entire god damn world. We laugh at everyone who passes because everything is funny when you’re high. I think we may have even laughed at Damien once. I assume it wasn’t loud enough for him to hear because if he had I have a theory he would have beat the shit out of us. He seems like the type.

All of my friends – my good friends, like Wynn and Aero – they know how to treat me better. They look out for me. They don’t let me get high. I tell them it’s just weed and she tells me I’m stupid because I always lecture her about how she can’t smoke because it will irritate my lungs. I know it’s stupid because marijuana and cigarette smoke are still the same thing in the end, and technically Mary Jane should irritate my asthma too. But it doesn’t.

I say, anyway. I’m always too gone to really notice.

She also says that even if it is ‘just weed,’ drugs are drugs and given my history any minor progression can set me back a year. I tell her I have no desire to start hard drugs again. It’s true. I don’t. They fucked me up. I fucked up. Even if no one believes me I don’t want to be fucked up anymore.

Speaking of Wynn, she is coming towards me right now. I squint at the clock; I’m not wearing my contact lenses today because I was too lazy to roll out of bed and put them on this morning. It’s a quarter to twelve – until lunch – and she doesn’t look very happy that I’ve skipped fourth period.

“Skipper,” she clicks her tongue disapprovingly as she takes a seat at our lunch table, tossing her bag noncommittally onto the dirty floor. I wave my hand, dismissing her. She pulls in and kisses my cheek. I take in the scent of her delicious coconut shampoo. This is how all our lunch hour greetings go. Everyone thinks we are dating.

“You sound surprised,” I drone, pulling her dusty bangs out of her face and behind her ear. She shakes her head and lets those messy fringes fall back into place over her hazel eyes. I don’t know how she can stand those tiny strands obscuring her vision all day.

“I thought you said you were making an effort,” she sighs, propping her feet against the lunch table. Now it is my turn to voice my disapproval. I move them off. Even if I am the king of degenerates, people still eat on these tables and that is just vulgar. She smirks.

“Don’t say it,” I warn, then continue, “I was. You should know by now not to believe me.” She nods like, ‘I know, but I keep hoping.’ We don’t always need to talk. We know what the other is thinking. I don’t have that creepy gypsy intuitivism going on like she does, but when you know someone for as long as I’ve known Wynn you start to develop a sense of how the other’s mind works.

There’s a little silence while Wynn drums her fingers against the table, waiting.
I give in and ask.

“How’s Damien?”
She lets out a little snicker of glee and I feel my cheeks heating; she says I’m crushing on him but I’m so not. It’s normal to be curious about the people you hate, I mean, just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I fall in love with every fucking gorgeous guy I see. That’s not how I work. I mean. Really.

Either way they share fourth period together, introductory art history, like, go fucking figure. He’s really a nerd if you look at it. Completely consumed by art. “He’s just glorious, as always,” she answers, like she’s my own personal fucking spy and it makes me a little sick to think that. I’m really obsessed with him. I don’t mean to be, but it’s hard when you’re completely surrounded by him.

I think maybe I am crushing on him, but I veto that quickly.
I hate him. I want to punch his face in. He doesn’t know I exist and I’m not the type of person to develop fantasies over someone I know I’ll never have. Despite my irrational life I do have a logical side to me.

“And?” I press her for more details. She shrugs.

“And he ignored me straight up, as usual.” I can’t help but smirk a little. Wynn can usually get any man she wants, but not Damien. Damien ignores her like everybody else that isn’t included in his little world of perfection. I guess maybe it makes me feel a little better that even Wynn is nothing more than a fly buzzing outside of his window.

“Perfect.” My word choice isn’t circumstantial. She knows it and snorts uncouthly. I decide to end our conversation about Damien here, you know, because if I let it hang any further I’d really start to be a stalker.

I slouch in my seat. I watch my clothes completely engulf me and I see the loose torn jeans sink down around my thighs or lack there of. I’m a fucking skeleton.

I smile.

Wynn leans forward and stares at me with that omniscient look in her eyes. “Did you eat?” She asks. I nod mechanically. She hits me upside the head, like, ‘Don’t lie to me, you shit.’ I correct myself and shake my head.

“I’m buying you lunch.”

“Ew, don’t.”

“I’m buying you lunch,” she repeats.

“Here?”

“Yeah, here.” I open my mouth to protest but she usurps me. “A little fucking fat isn’t going to do you any harm, Auguste. Jesus Christ, what’s your BMI, like, -1?” I have to stop myself from smiling at that prospect. Yeah, right. That would be just heavenly.

“No, it’s –“

“I don’t want to hear it. I’m buying you lunch.” We have this unspoken rule, if someone says something three times then it’s going to happen. So I sign myself to my fate and nod, like, ‘Okay, but I’m not going to enjoy it.’ That’s good enough for her. She sinks back into her seat and crosses her arms awkwardly over her giant tits. This silence is awkward, and this is us, we don’t have awkward silences. She breaks it.

“I’m worried.”

“Don’t be.”

“How can I fucking not be? Jesus Christ Auguste, you’re sick. You promised me you’d –“

“I’m not sick.”

“You’re almost 100 pounds!” I’m quiet. I didn’t know she knew.

“That doesn’t mean I’m sick,” I argue lamely, because we both know I am. I’m really fucking sick. I’m fucked. But I’d rather be sick than fat.

Wynn sighs and glares at me and then gives me this vice of a hug. She buries her head in my bony shoulder and kisses my cheek again. “You look so frail,” she murmurs, and I can almost hear the sadness in her voice. Wynn is usually so strong. It freaks me out. I bring my hand to her hair and stroke it gently.

“I’m okay,” I lie. She knows it. She buries her face deeper and heaves another sigh. “I’m gonna be okay. Let’s go get lunch, the caf is opening.” She pulls back and looks at me and knows this is the best she’s going to get out of me, so she nods and stands and takes my hand like if she doesn’t I’m going to turn into dust and blow away. I take it and stand up with her and follow her to the cafeteria.

The lunch lady gives us an awkward look, but she’s dealt with skippers before so she smiles back when we smile. Wynn turns to me and points to the menu.

“You choose,” I tell her, because we both know it won’t matter what she orders, I’m barely going to eat any of it anyway. She shrugs and orders a vat of fries and a burger and two cokes and we wait for about three minutes when they shove the grease out to us on two paper plates. I take the cokes. She takes the fat.

We sit back down at our table and she shoves the food towards me. She watches me, placates me, urges me to take something. I mean, like, this is what they did in the hospital, except then it was fat disgusting old women and this is just Wynn. Beautiful Wynn. She’s not thin but not fat, she’s voluptuous like girls should be and she has the most amazing face. If I wasn’t queer I know I would love to be with her.

I wonder if me degrading myself like this makes her feel like she’s fat, and she must catch those worry vibes from me because she shakes her head and I nod and she nods and then I take a fry and I put it in my mouth. I chew once. I chew twice. She gazes at me. I swallow. I open my mouth to show that it’s gone and she smiles in approval.

“Another,” she says, and I do it. It’s nauseating. But she won’t stop fucking looking at me like she’s so worried I’m going to die and I hate it so I do this just for her, I chew and I chew and I chew and I swallow until I think I’ve eaten around thirty fries and that revolts me in ways I cannot even begin to describe.

She knows. She takes the plate away from me and eats some. She gives me a coke bottle. I don’t want any. She sighs, stands up, goes to a vending machine and inserts two dollars and out pops a Dasani. She comes over and gives it to me. I thank her in French and give her a little kiss with my greasy lips. She smiles.

“You do so much for me,” I say, and I mean it, despite the circumstances where I’m loathing her for forcing grease down my throat. Her smile gets bigger because she knows when I’m being honest. She kisses my cheek back. We’re the most affectionate gay-straight couple ever, I swear.

“I know, babe.”

When we’ve eaten the food between the two of us, mostly her but a little bit of me, I wait a little bit until the bell rings and then I tell her I have to go put my shit away in my locker and go see the counselor about work experience. She nods and says she’ll go to find Aero and expects me to meet them here when I’m done. I kiss her on the cheek and promise I will.

I then go straight to the bathroom and vomit.

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A/N So that was the tangent of a first chapter.
... I don't really have anything to say, hurh hurh. I know eating disorders are serious shit and male eating disorders are pretty uncommon, but there's a reason for his and I'm not an uneducated douche bag when it comes to this topic. I don't think.

You'll hear more about Damien, obviously.
I just needed to get this out of the way.