Troubled Thoughts and the Self-Esteem to Match

Bill

"So what the hell are we supposed to do?" Brendon whined from his spot in the group as we sloshed through the snow, heading back toward the block. We had all made the unanimous decision to just go into the block with Gabe instead of staying outside and 'freezing our balls off' as Danny had put it, since the temperature had dropped even more during the night, but that posed the problem of what we would do to entertain ourselves for an hour. There was usually the television to keep us entertained, but all the channels were locked during break since Gabe was banned from it during Ground, so we couldn't turn to that. What else could we do?
We had all just gotten inside and kicked off our shoes at the backdoor when people started tossing ideas into the air around their frozen breath, voices quaking under the sheer intensity of the chill in the air.
"We could always sleep." Gabe suggested, leaning against the wall to cross his arms over his chest. I hadn't been able to sleep very well last night myself, so I wasn't about to argue with this suggestion, but Danny was automatically shooting it down. "Yeah right. We should do something risky." This had everyone unsure about even coming in at all. Risky? With people like Danny and Gabe? That was a formula for disaster, and add that to the fact that Mr.Way was at the doctor with his wife today only meant we had free reign in the block because, honestly, Ms.Dougan wasn't going to 'keep check' on us; she could care less.

"Yeah, play truth or dare." Bob snorted sarcastically, tearing his coat off and tossing it over his shoulder before re-situating his beanie that covered what used to be short blond hair that was now curling out to his jawline. "That's a great idea!" Frank retaliated in a reciprocal tone, excited about the idea, but no one else was buying it just yet. "That's a game little girls play." Brendon snorted, inching toward the living room as if to encourage everyone to follow, so we all did, flooding into the room and piling onto the couches or on the floor close by. "No, we can make it like, extreme truth or dare!" Frank argued back, moving Bob's hands from his lap so that he could take their place. "Not sissy dares like 'ooh, I dare you to lick the floor!' but like, the best you can come up with, and no matter what it is, we have to do them."
This finally seemed to spark interest in the majority of the group, though I didn't like the idea. I knew that it would end in disaster, or I would end up in a predicament that I didn't enjoy, but I didn't want to be the one to speak up and say I wasn't into it, so I just listened as everyone else gradually agreed. "That sounds good enough." Gabe sighed, a devious smirk beginning to tether into his face, which worried me a bit.
Just when we thought it was settled though, Bob was, of course, going to put his opinion in. "I'll just sit back and laugh at the stupid shit you guys get yourself into. How about that?" Frankie whined for a minute and tried to beg him into participating, but it was a lost cause, so we were seven players for a ridiculous game of truth or dare.

"Okay, I wanna start the first one!" Gabe yelled above everyone else before anyone could even think to claim the first turn, which didn't surprise me in the slightest, and no one argued because it was to be expected. We all waited patiently for him to choose who he was going to pick as his first target, I praying that it would be Danny or Brendon or anyone else, but when I shot a quick glimpse up through my hair to see what was taking him so long and saw that devious grin tacked onto me, I lost hope. A sigh managed to pass my lips before he recited the expected words, tapping his chin as he came up with what he wanted to either ask or dare me.
"Guillermo, truth or dare?"
Of course I wasn't going to pick truth, no matter how badly I wanted to because how ridiculously immature and cowardly would that be of me if I did? I forced myself to keep from glaring, already knowing that this was going to be torture but uttered "Dare." which sent an even bigger grin shooting across his face. "Good. I dare you to give us a nice strip tease. Ya know, show us how well you'd do in the strippin' business." This caused an obnoxious laugh from the group at just the thought, and a hole to eat the bottom of my stomach out. Strip tease? Seriously? That wasn't even right! Before I could say anything, he jumped up and took off in a jog, leaving everyone curious as to what he was doing.
He returned about two minutes later with his ipod and a chord, hurrying to the TV and turning it on to the blue screen. "What music is our lovely stripper dancing to today?" Brendon chortled, unable to keep from almost roaring with laughter at the thought on my expense and I shot a pleading look toward Travis, but he seemed to be expecting to see what I could do just as much as everyone else. "Oh, thanks." I mouthed, getting a shrug from him as if to say 'well, it's not like we can do anything.'
"Something In Your Mouth by Nickelback." Gabe snickered in response to Brendon as he got the music to work, pausing it and glancing my way. I groaned before pushing myself to my feet, questioning "How long do I have to do this, you jackass?" But instead of a definite answer, he simply smirked, teasing "Depends on how well you please your crowd, Bebito." before pressing play. The music started to my dismay, and I tried my best to pretend like it didn't bother me as bad as it did, though I'm sure it was obvious.

I didn't want to look like a complete idiot, though I was sure there wasn't any getting out of that predicament when I was doing a strip tease to a shitty Nickelback song in front of a bunch of teenage boys, but still..I didn't want to look like I didn't know the first thing about dancing, so I at least tried to focus on that instead of the embarrassment of having to do such a stupid thing in the first place, focusing on the beat of the rabid beat of the music and setting my hips to move with it like a metronome.
Just don't think about it. My mind repeated as I lost my coat, tossing it away before continuing, getting back into the beat as I'd faltered. "Take it off, Guillermo! Take it all off!" I vaguely heard Gabe chanting over the music, as well as a back-up chant of the others though it was just an incoherent cry, and I felt like crawling under a rock for the rest of my life. This was so wrong.
I peeled my jacket off as slowly as possible, trying to feign authenticity, dropping it as well. The cold air in the block gnawed at my arms now that I was down to my shirt, making it harder to tell myself Just don't think about it.
"She loves the night scene, bar queens, Living for the fun. Taking over every dance-floor like she's the only one. In the spotlight all night, kissing everyone, Try to look so innocent while sucking on her thumb. You're so much cooler when you never pull it out,
(You're so much cuter) with something in your mouth.

The music stopped abruptly, almost a jolt to my brain considering I had been concentrating on it so thoroughly. I froze, hand halting with my shirt half-way exposing my torso for everyone so that they could see my unnaturally white skin. I peeked toward the television to see Gabe staring at me, dropping my shirt back down as quickly as possible while letting go of a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding onto. I stole a glance toward the rest of the group hoping that they would say something, anything, but they were silent. I didn't like it, so I said the first thing that came to mind. "Think you tortured me long enough?"
"We tortured you?" Gabe snorted, disbelief lining his voice as he unplugged his Ipod, eyes staying on me as he did. "I don't think there's a single person in this room not suffering from a boner now. Where the hell did you learn to dance like that? Did you actually work at a strip joint before you came here or what?" It wasn't until then that I finally allowed myself to stew in the embarrassment, an intense heat engulfing my face as blood pooled into my cheeks. I'd overdone it then? I plopped back down in my former seat, choosing to pretend it didn't happen for the sake of my well-being before pushing it to the back of my mind and thinking of who I could call on.
Of course I chose Travis. Who else would I choose? I could tell Gabe expected me to turn around and ask him, but what was he expecting? Me to say 'oh Gabe, I dare you to sit there and take a second strip tease, and like it!'...Definitely not. "Travis, truth or dare." I recited, catching his attention. He seemed hesitant to say it after what I'd just been put through, but chose dare before I thought of what he could do. I didn't want to do anything humiliating, but how about grueling? "I dare you to run to the cafeteria and get a jar of Jalapenos from the lunch ladies and eat as many as you can." His eyes bulged upon hearing this because he could barely even eat the cafeteria's sausage because it was too 'spicy', but jalapenos? that was going to be a task. "Aww, my poor Travis." Danny cooed, but didn't seem too worried about it considering the smile on hi face. "Okay..." Trav hopped to his feet and left, we listening as he slipped his shoes on and hurried out the door, taking what felt like hours to get back. When the door opened again and a frigid draft carried the ginger back into the room, he was cradling a small jar of the peppers, and though there were only about ten in it, it would be plenty.
When he sat back down, he popped the lid off and pulled the first one out, sniffing it unenthusiastically before touching the tip of his tongue to it. Just doing this caused a look of alarm to shoot across his face, but he took to his bet and bit it in half, chewing it up. We watched, trying not to laugh as he reflexively tried to spit it back out but had to refrain from it, swallowing it before allowing himself to screech "OhmyGod, what the hell! This is fucking insane!" He began sucking air into his mouth rapidly in a failed attempt to quill the burn, Danny advising "A word of advice? Eat 'em as fast as possible. Eventually the burn will just stop cause your taste buds will get used to it." Trav paused to bite the other half of the jalapeno off, leaving the stem in his fingertips. "Really?" He mouthed around the pepper, but to his horror, Danny gave a small shrug, leaning back to mumble "Hell if I know. I don't eat the damn things."
We watched him chew that half up as well before grabbing another jalapeno, cramming the whole thing in his whole mouth this time in hopes that Danny's made up tatic might be true. Again, he gagged and almost spewed the pepper right back out all over his lap but managed not to, even chewed it up and swallowed before beginning to suck in more air, before reaching for his third. It was a small one, so it wasn't as bad as the others, but he still faltered.

"Oh, come on Trav! Stop being a pussy and eat the damn things!" Gabe hooted, laughing spaztically as his words spurred the red-head to cram the third into his mouth. He began to chew it up too, but this time he really did spit it back out, crushed up pepper being deposited back into his hand. "Okay, okay! I'm out!" He cried, hurrying to the closest trashcan to throw the deposit away. He left to go get a drink from the bathroom sink before we could continue the game, but when he came back, he seemed to know exactly what he wanted to happen. "Ryan, truth or dare?" He spoke as soon as he was walking back into the room, though his words were broken apart by him gulping down air. Apparently the water didn't help, as I was sure his gums were blistered considering his lips were bright red from the irritation. I felt a little bad about it, but couldn't deny it was amusing. Ryan chose dare as well, so Travis threw out what he was to do.
"The girls are on their block right now, so I dare you to go out there and talk to one and get her to slap you." This didn't seem as bad as stripping for everyone, or eating jalapenos, so he nodded and stood, all of us following because there was no way we could miss this. We all pulled our shoes on, Gabe complaining for me to hurry while I pulled my jacket and coat back on as well before we all made a bee-line for block 1, one of the girl's blocks in the facility other than block 4. When we closed in on said block, the rest of us hid so we wouldn't be spotted and could watch the events unfold from where we were, Ryan continuing on with a bit of encouragement from Gabe about how to catch a girls attention. He walked into girl territory and plodded up to the closest female, a tall and particularly fierce looking blond that had her hair pulled back in a taut in a hairband. She was only about an inch shorter than Ryan, and looked uninterested from the moment be started talking to her, but as the five minutes dragged on, she looked even more bored than before he had joined her. Suddenly, a forced smile turned his features as his mouth moved and whatever he said pissed her off, her mouth forming a perfect 'o'. Her arm reared back to gain more leverage as she swung, her palm connecting with his cheek loud enough that we could hear it from the edge of the building we were at. That had to hurt.

He turned and left her then, stumbling as he walked back to join us and by the time Gabe reached out and pulled him into our little huddle, there was already a very clear and obvious bright red mark on his face, with the distinct shape of this girls hand. "Holy fuck!" Danny laughed, touching it before guffawing even louder. "What the hell did you say to get her to slap you like that?" He questioned, patting Ryan on the back as if he were truly proud of his skills. "I told her I liked her because she was different than the rest of the girls. She basically had the chest of a boy, and I liked that, then she slapped me." We all laughed at this, even me. How could I not? It was cruel, but I could only imagine what was going through that poor girls head when she heard that. "Okay, now Brendon, since you can practically pee on command, I have to choose you next." Ryan spoke, putting a damper on the laughter. "Truth or Dare?"
It was obvious what he chose, so Ryan hurried to point at the girl that had just slapped him, snickering "I wouldn't mind it if you peed on her feet or something." Brendon nodded his head quite seriously, as if he were in the army before scoffing "I can do better than that."
What did he mean by that? I hoped he didn't over-do it. "Don't harass the poor girl!" I called after him, but he either didn't hear me, or chose to ignore it as he snuck off after the girl, closing in on her with his hand on his pants. He unbuttoned himself when he was close enough and with no shame, pulled himself out of his boxer and began peeing in the snow dangerously close to her feet, beginning to whistle Proud Mary. "What the fuck, this is the greatest thing ever!" Gabe laughed, cupping his hand over his mouth as if his damn chicken laugh would ruin everything, but if she wasn't going to turn around to the sound of Brendon's whistling, I doubted Gabe's laughter would make anything worse. "Oh shit! My bad. What am I doing?" Brendon suddenly began thrashing around, making it a point to pee all up he poor girls legs as far as he could before she finally turned around to see what the hell was soaking through her jeans. "What the fuck?!" She screamed, catching all the other inhabitors that went to this block's attention, all of them seeing the incredibly fucked up sight. Brendon turned and began sprinting our way while tucking himself back into his boxers and zipping his pants up, motioning for us to run for our lives, so we did, hurtling back to our block as fast as we possibly could before even thinking to say anything to him. When we were back inside our own block behind safe doors, Frankie slapped his shoulder before kicking his shoes off, yelping "He said to pee on the girls feet! Her feet, Brendon, not her legs!"
"But Holy shit, it was too great not to! Her face when she finally turned around! Holy God that was priceless!" He collapsed on the couch in the living room, wailing with how intense his giggling was.

We waited for several moments to let the craziness of what just happened die down before continuing our game, Brendon picking back up where we left off. He scanned everyone in the group, pausing on each one of us and giving himself time to come up with possible scenarios for each before landing on Danny. When he did, an obvious glimmer lit up his espresso eyes, which didn't go unnoticed by Stevens. "Okay, now I'm scared." Danny whispered loud enough for us all to hear before Brendon mocked "Okay Danny, I pick you and all that shit, and it's truth or dare, but we all know you're going to pick dare, so I'm just gonna jump to the chase." Danny gave a quick nod of approval before letting Brendon continue, waiting to hear what he was to do. "You have to run butt-naked through the facility." This caused everyone's heads to snap toward Danny, whose eyes bugged out of their sockets further than I thought possible. "My dick is gonna freeze off, dude! That's just unfair!" He gasped, waiting for Brendon to finish, which he did afterward. "I'll go easy on you. Take the Block 8 pathway down to the cafeteria, run the length of the cafeteria, take the walkway to Block 3, circle it, come back. Easy." Danny thought on it for a second before deciding it could be worse, stood, and began stripping. I felt weird watching him throwing all of his clothes off like it was nothing in front of us, but I supposed it wasn't a big deal considering what he was about to do. He slipped his boxer-briefs off before covering his 'importants' and motioning for someone to get the door, giving his best smug grin while striking a pose at Gabe. "What do ya think? Next Play-Girl magazine cover?" Gabe proceeded to push Danny toward the now open door, chuckling "I'd buy that magazine if you were on the cover dude," before lining him up at the door and slapping his ass. "Go get 'em Tiger!"

"Holy fuck! It's fuckin' freezing!" Danny screamed back after bursting from the door and taking off down the snow-covered concrete path toward the cafeteria. In the distance, an uproar of all the other blocks could steadily be heard yelling and hooting and screaming their 'what the fuck?!'s as they spotted this random nude maniac sprinting through thirty degree weather, in nothing but the hairband holding his long hair away from his face. We reacted appropriately, even after he disappeared around the cafeteria and we couldn't see his bare ass anymore, all of us guffawing so hard that we were doubled over, clutching our stomachs in sheer pain and I was even to the point that I couldn't breathe when we heard that familiar baritone voice returning to scream "Oh My God! My nutsack is frozen to my leg, I swear!" He was barreling back down the path from the cafeteria, coming in fast so we all got out of the way just in time for him. He cleared the steps and skidded back into the hall, feet so slick from the snow that when the met the linoleum, he automatically fell on his ass. "Oh...My..God...That was terrible." He moaned, rubbing his hands together and sitting up to examine his precious cargo. "See? My dick is literally frozen. My poor, huge dick." Brendon ruffled his hair as he walked by, jeering "Have Trav thaw the poor thing back out. That's what he has a mouth for, don't you know?" We hurried back into the living room, Danny crawling because apparently his feet were so frozen that he couldn't stand back up.
"I feel so bad though guys! When I went to round back around Block 3, there was this tiny little guy there and I just completely plowed him over. I mean, like, we both busted our asses and I could tell he was traumatized by what he saw cause I obviously had to let go of my junk to get back up and I mean...He was just staring at me like I was about to kill him and I didn't know what to do because he looked so damn terrified, so I just took off running again..." A few of the group laughed about this, but I couldn't blame the mystery boy. I'd be traumatized too if some random streaker plowed me over like that, then just ran off.

"Okay, anyways, I suppose it's Gabey Baby's turn." Danny chortled, patting Gabe's leg as if he had something pleasantly gruesome planned for him in return for what he just had to suffer, but instead of telling him what it was right away, he made us all wait so he could get his clothes back on before finding his seat and pointing a finger at me, drawing it out. Fuck. Why was he pointing at me? He just said he picked Gabe so why the hell was he pointing at me? I was no doubt panicking when he finally began to speak. "See this pretty little lady here? Give him some lovins." I saw Gabe raise an eyebrow from the corner of my eye, confirming that I wasn't the only one thinking 'what the fuck?', so Danny specified. "Kiss him, and I don't mean some little pussy kiss, Gabanti. It has to be at least twenty seconds, and get sloppy if you want. Your choice. Tongue? Optional, but give the lovely stripper some quality lovin."
Now I was internally freaking out worse than before. Kiss Gabe? For twenty seconds? Tongue? "Danny, What the hell?!"
I felt like roaring, but kept it to myself while peeking over at Gabe. He seemed indifferent about it, like it wasn't important one way or the other, which further dismayed me. Seriously? Was I the only one that thought kissing your friend was a bad thing? But it was a damn dare, and I wasn't going to be the damn chicken today, because if I bailed out, Gabe would fail too, so....It wouldn't be that bad...right? Twenty seconds wasn't really that long..

"Don't worry Guillermo." Gabe murmured, while scooting closer to me, which sent a pang of anxiety through my chest. "I brushed my teeth this morning." And even worse, I had to do this in front of the whole group! I could deal with the damn stripping, but kissing someone? That was too over the line, really. It wasn't even- My breath caught in my throat, all thoughts escaping me as his fingers found my face, forcing me to face him. He looked all seriousness now, which was more strange to me than what we were doing perhaps. Why- The breath rattled from my lungs in a quick rush as he moved closer, I scared to but knowing that I should search his face to see if I could read anything that he was planning. Maybe this was a sick joke. I tried to do so, but as soon as my eyes caught onto his, they couldn't move away, so I didn't fight it. I watched him closing in until I could feel his breath breaking over my mouth, causing a quiver to bound through-out my whole body. This was wrong, so wrong, so why the hell was I doing it? I could back out right now, before a single brush of our mouths even took place, but something told me not to. His head turned to line our mouths up perfectly, eyes still on mine and it was just now that I realized what he was saying to me in them. "Just say no, Guillermo."
He knew that I was freaking out over this, and for some reason, that made me mad. Was I really that cowardly that something like this had him telling me it was alright to back out? That was pathetic, but it was the push that I needed to get this over with.
I let my eyes fall shut, exuding one more breath in hopes that he would take the hint and get on with it; the quicker he was, the quicker this would be behind us.

I was expecting it, should have been, but it still jolted me when I felt the first contact of his lips beginning to move in closer to mine. At first, it was just the slightest hint of an encounter, almost as if it wasn't even there to begin with but after an unsure moment, he craned forward, his presence automatically the only thing that I could focus on. My fingers twitched in my lap as they wondered what they should do, if it would look weirder to stay there or to move to his shoulders, but for the time being, I kept them there to see what he did. The tension seemed to drain from him as he realized that I was okay with this, at least more so than he thought I would be, so he decided to set to what we were to do, his hands pulling my face closer still while his lips closed in around mine, ensuing a steadfast adhesion that felt strong enough to last forever and though I was repeatedly telling myself to hurry through this as fast as possible, when he did this, I melted into it against my own will. Admittedly, I forgot about the fact that we were being monitored, so as he abruptly started leaning away and weakening the mold between our mouths as he did so, I chased him, not willing to let go of that unexplainable feeling so soon. There was no way that was twenty seconds, so where was he going.

I heard someone snickering and temporarily found my mind, thinking it was absolutely stupid to watch someone kissing and definitely idiotic to laugh about it, but I could only imagine how bold of a move I'd just made.
Despite this though, he retracted his lips from mine regardless, mine feeling particularly lonely and I was about to open my eyes, thinking he must have been finished when he caught me off guard again, smashing our mouths back together with even more force than before. This time, I didn't care how weird it looked, because they didn't care to sit idly in my lap anymore. My hands lurched up to twine into his thick curls, and it caused him to push the boundaries, but I didn't much care. What would have been a gasp was inspired in my chest when his mouth moved to re-situate a more open connection between our mouths so that he could trace my bottom lip with the very tip of his tongue. Maybe this was too far for just a stupid little dare, but I found I wasn't pushing any distance between us. A knot formed in my stomach in anxious exhilaration from the feeling this caused. How long had we been doing this now?
"Wait, is he actually trying to shove his tongue in that poor boys mouth? That pedophile." I could distinctly hear Bob jeer, but if anyone laughed or responded to this, I didn't hear because Gabe did. His tongue dipped in to meet mine in full contact and I froze for a moment. I could tell he'd had his fair shair of kisses, but me? Not even. Chizzy was my first kiss, so what was I supposed to do, dammit? The most we'd done was nowhere near this heated, and definitely didn't involve making out, so what if I made a fool out of myself? An ambrosia of a new taste I'd never experienced rocked me then, one that was enthralling to say the least but how in the world could it belong to Gabe? His tongue began moving to some strange tango that I didn't understand at first, but gradually considered. A map. After this kiss was over, he would walk away knowing that I had a nervous habit of biting the inside of my cheeks at least, and had a scar on the inside of my bottom lip from where I fell off of my bike when I was six and busted my mouth open, but I was worried as I tried to at least move with him. What if I was terrible at this?

"Okay Lovebirds. No more or William's gonna walk out of here pregnant!" Danny's voice called and Gabe back-stepped out of the kiss with lightning speed, breaking the bond for good this time and leaning away to sit back up so fast that it nearly knocked me over as I tried to move my hands from the back of his head. "How was that for lovins?" He threw back, a grin spreading from ear to ear like it hadn't been a total make-out session when it definitely had. I combed my fingers through my hair nervously, not wanting to look at anyone after the way he just jumped back up like it was nothing. "About forty-eight seconds of entertainment, I guess." Danny shot back, glancing at his wrist-watch to give the most accurate time. We both shot surprised gazes his way, throwing him a "What?!", Gabe adding "I thought you said twenty seconds, you fucker!" "Yeah, I did, but you were getting into it so much, I felt bad to interrupt." That was too far. I shook my head, visibly agitated and I let everyone know it but it wasn't just that. Why was I so pissed off about Gabe being so quick to shrug off a damn kiss? It was stupid of me, and I didn't want to play this stupid truth or dare game anymore. I was opening my mouth to voice this when a very loud, definitely foreboding knock rapped onto the back door. Everyone turned to look that way.