Corrupt Me

The month with Angel after Braden’s party, it was… God, words can’t describe how amazing it was.

Every day I became more and more comfortable with what we were doing, and I don’t just mean sexually. I mean in our general relationship. I was happy being with him. I learned more about him every day and I enjoyed spending time with him and finding out his quirks and about what makes him tick, and I suppose he was finding the same about me. We found that, although we grew up in completely different circumstances, we had a lot in common, namely music and movie taste, what shows we like to watch on television, stuff like that. We spent a lot of time together just hanging out at his place, watching something on the tv and cuddling. We also spent a lot of time becoming further acquainted with each other’s bodies. I never imagined that I would be so comfortable with being naked and being touched by another person the way that I am. It didn’t happen overnight, of course, and I still sometimes get self-conscious about being exposed after we’ve fooled around, but overall I’ve really enjoyed the sexual side of our relationship. We haven’t got to full-blown sex yet, but I feel like that’s okay. At least it’s okay on my part. I’m happy just doing what we have been doing but I’m not sure how Angel is feeling about it. I mean, he’s already had sex before, and a lot of it. I don’t know what I’m missing, but he does. There are times that I want to bring it up and ask him what he thinks about it all but I always chicken out. I kind of don’t want an answer if it means that he will tell me he’s unhappy with how we’re progressing sexually. For the most part, I’ve just been enjoying what we have been doing and trying not to think too much.

---

Towards the end of our first month together, Angel and I were informed about a birthday party that Braden’s brother Jesse was throwing for his 21st birthday. It had been mentioned before around the time that Braden had his birthday get-together but it seemed to sneak up on us a little bit. Maybe we were so focussed on our relationship that we didn’t think about it. Whatever had happened that made the party sneak up on us, we realised that we had less than a week to sort out how we were going to manage me being allowed to go. I knew that telling my parents the truth was completely out of the question, especially since it was going to be held in a nightclub in the city and I would be spending the night in a hotel room with my boyfriend that they don’t know I have.

I had been toying with the idea of telling one of my friends about my relationship for a while; just to test the waters on what “coming out” might be like for me. I knew that I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling anyone at school because if they took it badly they could easily tell whoever they wanted and it would definitely get back to my family. As much as I liked my friends at Hillcrest, I wasn’t completely sure I could trust them not to throw me under the bus if I told them something they didn’t agree with. There was only one friend I could think of that I felt like I could trust with anything, and that was James. I hadn’t seen him since the day I broke up with Isabelle, but I had texted him a couple of times and it was obvious he still thought there was something strange going on with me because he had asked about it each time we chatted. Of course, I avoided his questions like the plague. He always told me that he would support me no matter what was going on, and with the party looming over us and no other ideas on who could cover for me; I decided to confide in James about everything that had been going on lately.

I had run my idea of telling James by Angel, and although he wasn’t sure, he trusted me that we could trust James, and so on Friday afternoon, after I told my parents that I was hanging out with him, I was headed to my best friend’s house. Being a fairly small town, it didn’t take me long to walk from school to James’ place. His school lets out ten minutes before mine so he was already home when I knocked on his front door. He had pulled open the door with a huge smile on his face mere seconds after I knocked, and hugged me tightly. I hugged him back, only then realising how much I missed seeing him every day like I did before I moved schools.

“How’s it going, MJ?” he asked me as he pulled out of the hug, and I suddenly became quite nervous.
“I – good, um… you?” I replied awkwardly. James gave me a weird look before mumbling “good” and allowing me to step into the house.
“I’ll ask again; how’s it going, Micah? And don’t just say ‘good’ cause I know when you’re hiding something, and you’ve been hiding something for a while,” he said, raising his eyebrows which told me that he meant business.

I sighed. “Can we go to your room?” I asked. He nodded, and led me down the hall to the room I spent a lot of my childhood hanging out in.
We sat down next to each other on the edge of his bed. My eyes were cast to the floor as I thought about how I would say what I wanted to tell him.
After a minute of silence, James spoke up. “Speak, Micah,” he said simply.

I took in and let out a few deep breaths before I felt ready to start talking.
“Okay… so you know the day you came round and I just broke up with Isabelle?” I questioned, looking up to see him nodding. “A-and you know how you asked why and I just said it was cause I wanted to be friends with her?”
“Yeah, and I knew you were lying.”
“Um, well…yeah, I kinda was. I d-didn’t want to say. Not with Isabelle there…”
“You were seeing someone else, weren't you?” he asked, showing me how perceptive he is. His tone wasn’t accusatory, just curious.
“I – well, no, not officially, but I was interested, a-and it was heading in that direction. And it did after I ended things with her.”
“So you have a new girlfriend. What’s so bad about that? You could’ve just told me that, Mics,” he said, chuckling a little. He must’ve thought that I was being silly making a big spectacle out of something so small.
“Uh, um, no. I don’t have a girlfriend,” I mumbled, terrified of what his next question would be.
“Well, what is it then?” He was starting to get exasperated now. Oh God, what did I get myself into?
“I – fuck um,” I whispered to myself, before drawing in a shaky breath and continuing, “I don’t have a g-girlfriend, but I have a… a… oh God...”
“C’mon, Micah spit it out. You don’t have a girlfriend but you have a wha – oh!” The look of realisation was evident on James’ face as he stopped talking for a few seconds. I stayed silent, waiting for him to speak again.
“You have a, um… you have a boyfriend?”
The only thing I could do was nod. I was too afraid to speak at that moment.
James put his hand tentatively on my shoulder and squeezed it gently.
“Mics, that’s – that’s, well, surprising, but it’s okay. I mean, you’re still you, right? You’re still Micah, my best friend. It’s okay,” he said softly.

I looked up for the first time since the beginning of our conversation to see his face full of sincerity.
“Really?” I whispered, my eyes slowly filling with water, although I wasn’t quite sure why.
“Really,” he replied firmly, pulling me into a hug, and before I knew it, I was soaking the shoulder of his t-shirt with tears. I cried on him for at least ten minutes before I felt the tears dry up. I think that I had just let out everything I was feeling at once and I felt exhausted.

“Are you okay?” James asked as I pulled away from him.
“Y-yeah, I think so. I was so scared, you know? I didn’t want you to hate me…”
“Why would I hate you?”
“I dunno… cause it’s wrong?” I mumbled.
James considered me for a moment. “Do you think it’s wrong? Does it feel wrong?”
“No.” I was sure of my answer to that question. I had never had something feel so right.
“Then it isn’t wrong,” he said simply. I smiled. My best friend was accepting. “So… how did this all happen?”

I let out a bark of a laugh, and tried to figure out how to say it.
“Um well, when I started at Hillcrest, for some reason he took a liking to me and he kept saying dirty things to me, and I –”
“Hold on a second, I don’t even know his name yet,” James interrupted me.
“Oh, sorry. It’s Angel. So anyway I –”
“Whoa, wait. Angel?!” he asked incredulously.
“Yes?”
“It’s just that… well Isabelle said that he drove you nuts…”

It was my turn to be surprised then. “When did you and Isabelle talk? I didn’t think you knew each other.”
James’ face turned red. “Crap, uh, I guess I forgot to tell you. We kind of met again at one of those youth group gatherings they have sometimes where a bunch of groups come together to hang out. It was a few weeks ago now. We kind of stayed in contact…” he trailed off as if he was afraid of my reaction.
“Do you mean stayed in contact as friends or..?”
“Originally yes, but we’re kind of seeing each other now, anyway continue on with you and Angel. He was… what was he doing?” he said all in one breath very quickly, making it obvious he didn’t want to talk any more about him and Isabelle.

I smirked at my best friend’s very red face, but continued on with my story on how Angel and I got together. When I got to the part about Braden’s get-together, I decided not to mention the extra-curricular activities we got up to in the spare room that night. That’s something that I didn’t think James would want to hear. I skipped over most of the details of the past month as well, seeing as a lot of that time consisted of Angel and I being naked and horny together, and it was then that I came to the question of how I was going to ask James to cover for me while I was at Jesse’s party.

“So…yeah, that’s how we got together,” I had finished lamely.
“Wow. So you really like him huh?”
“Yeah, I do,” I replied quietly.
“Does anyone else know about you two?”
“Yes, his friends do. And Elise kind of knows. None of my friends do, though, which is kind of why I was wondering if you’d be able to do me a favour?”

James raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Um, so next Saturday, one of Angel’s friend’s brothers is having a party that we’re invited to, and Mom hates that I’m even friends with people like Angel and his friends so I can’t just say I’m going out to a party with them cause she’d never let me go. And my other friends don’t like Angel much either and think he’s like the Devil or something so they’d never help me and…”

“Micah,” James cut me off. “Just say it.” He had a half-smile on his lips, amused that I was rambling so much.
“Okay. Would you please be able to cover for me while I go to the party? Like can I say I’m spending the night at yours if my parents ask where I’ll be?”
“You want me to lie to your parents?”
“No! Yes. I don’t know; only if they actually call you to ask where I am or something. You won’t have to say anything unless they do.”
He started laughing and I frowned. I didn’t know what was so funny.
“Micah, it’s cool. Really. You think I haven’t snuck out to a party before? I’ll cover for you, don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you!” I said, and enveloped him in a hug. He chuckled and hugged me back.

When he pulled away a couple of seconds later, he looked at me with a half-smile on his face.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. It's just… I never expected my best friend to end up being gay, that's all.”
“I'm not gay,” I said quickly. James frowned, clearly confused.
“You're not?”
“No. It's hard to explain. Like, I like Angel, but I'm still kind of attracted to girls, I guess. But I never really like liked anyone before him. I don't know what that would make me.”
He looked thoughtful for a few moments, but then he just shrugged. “Who cares? You'll figure it out when you figure it out.”
I smiled, agreeing with him.

“Thanks, James,” I said quietly. He knew that I was thanking him for being so cool about everything, and he pulled me to his side in a hug.
“All good, buddy,” he replied.

We were silent for a minute or two before I pulled out of the hug and looked at him. “So,” I began, “You and Isabelle, huh?”

James’ blush when I asked that told me that he really liked her. Despite being a little bit of a ladies man, when he likes someone, he becomes a shy little school boy when he's asked to talk about them. It took him a few minutes to get into the flow of his story of how they met, but it wasn't long before he was practically gushing about her. He said that they met again at the youth group function and that he had overheard her talking to one of her friends saying that she thought he had a cute butt. Being the confident guy he is, that led him to thanking her, which made her nearly die of embarrassment since he wasn't meant to hear what she'd said. Then, once he'd assured her that he was messing around and that it was fine she thought his butt was cute, they realised that they'd already met once before at my house. Basically they spent a lot of time that evening talking about me, but it didn't stop them from exchanging phone numbers and meeting up a few days later for a coffee, and a few days after that for dinner. They were officially ‘dating’ but he said that he hoped to make her his girlfriend before too much longer. It’s cute how much he's into her.

While James was talking, I briefly wondered if I was meant to feel jealous about any of the things he was saying. I mean, after all, my best friend is dating my ex-girlfriend. Isn't there some sort of bro code about that?

I found that I didn't care. Well, I did care that James was happy and that he found someone he really likes, but I didn't care that it happened to be my ex. I had no feelings of jealousy, no thoughts of ‘why weren't we like that?’, nothing. I only felt happiness, and it was only then that I fully realised why.

I had completely fallen for Angel Jerome.