The Puzzle: Chapter 2: A New Discovery
So, this is the second chapter to The Puzzle. I actually started a little later than I planned because of an accident with my wrist. I hope that I didn't keep anyone waiting too long. A big thank you goes out to Master_Splinter for putting me on his watchlist and voting five stars on my first story posted EVER! It means a lot dude.
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Chapter 2- A New Discovery
*Buh, Beep, Buh, Beep, Buh, Beep*
*Stayed awake all night tossin', turnin'; Now my bloodshot eyes are burnin'...*
I rolled over in my bed to turn off my alarm and was surprised to see that it was already 6 A.M.
"Hmm, must be off." I thought to myself. I got up and stretched as I prepared to get ready for the day. Looking down I realized that I must have had a really good dream last night from the size of my erection in my boxers. "Too bad I can't remember it."
I walked into the bathroom running my fingers through my dark hair, flipped on the light and examined my ram-curled horns. I smiled to myself as I thought about all the girls that either wanted to play with my hair or my horns. I had to admit that they were an arresting combination. I mean, if I were to see them on another guy I would feel attracted to them.
The thought actually surprised me as it flashed through my head. I knew I had a thing for gay yiff, but I had thought that was only sexual. Maybe it was because I haven't seen any guys that were my type at school that I felt my sexuality was divided between my sexual thoughts and, eh, aesthetics in terms of face and hair.
"Oh, god, that reminds me. I've got to clear out my history. Shit!"
It would literally be the end of the world for me if my dad were to see my browsing history. He didn't approve of porn whatsoever (even though I believe that's what he's looking at when he thinks there's nobody around). I would have to find some excuse to get on sometime soon before my dad makes a surprise inspection of my history.
"Dammit, I need to feel less guilty about using the private browsing feature that that they have on web browsers. I wouldn't have to worry about clearing it out unless I need my hard drive space."
I brushed my fangs and got out the hair gel to control my wild forest that grew on my head. I squirted a mound into my hand and began to massage it through my hair. As I did, my mind drifted back to yesterday, during chorus. I thought about Mary-Ella. As I thought about the golden retriever, I had the sneaking suspicion someone was observing me. I turned around to see my younger brother, James, standing in the doorway smirking.
"So, what you thinking about? Or, rather, who?" he said, nodding toward my crotch.
I looked down and saw that my erection had come back and wanted to peek through the fly in my boxers. I placed my clawed hand over my fly and muttered, "Shit."
James left the doorway, smirking all the way to breakfast.
It hit me that I did not even remember what I had thought about Mary-Ella and that I did not even register a concurrent thought the entire five minute period I had thought about her.
"Oh, crap. What was it that I thought about her? Hopefully it wasn't anything bad and rather just the thought of her." I thought. I stood there until the erection reluctantly subsided and then brought up a picture of her in my mind, but nothing happened. I tried again, this time, her in a bikini. Still nothing. Lingerie brought nothing up. Nor nudity. I finally tried pounding her, but that wasn't it. "Wow, what did I think about her? What would cause me to get so immensely horny?"
I stood in the bathroom for another minute lost in thought about why I couldn't get an erection up when they would so easily happen when I least expected or wanted them. After another minute of thought I head back across the hallway to my room to get dressed. I grabbed a pair of Lee's and slipped into a Metallica shirt. I then laced up my converse's and headed downstairs with my backpack to breakfast.
I walked into the kitchen and was greeted by the sight and smell of waffles and syrup. I looked over at the toaster and was surprised to see no Eggo Waffles box lying next to it. Instead, there was a waffle griddle I had never seen in my entire life sitting next to the stove top and an empty bowl with some leftover batter lying in the bottom.
Apparently I had been standing with my jaw dropped, because just then, my dad came up behind me and wrapped his arm around my neck while attempting to give me a noogie, "What? Your mother can't cook up some homemade waffles with the new griddle her husband picked up for her yesterday? You look like it's the end of the world or something."
I looked at him and gave him a dirty look before replying, "Actually, I've never even heard of Mom making homemade WAFFLES. It's new that's all."
He laughed and took his customary seat at the table and I took mine right across from his. My youngest brother John came bouncing down the stairs, nearing the bottom he opened his greenish wings and parasailed down the rest of the way.
My dad's already scarlet red scales went a deeper dark as he called to John, "I thought I told you to cut that out. Do you realize how many times I have to repair the ceiling where your horns have made those gashes they are world-famous for."
I smirked as I thought about the stiletto thin horns he had on his head. They were all the time getting him in trouble at school and at home. There had been several times that our parents had considered buying some horn safeties.
Mom came over to the table with the plate of waffles she had been withholding until everyone had sat down. Her nautilus-shell horns grazed the ceiling fan and the lights glittered off her midnight blue scales that some of my friends had a hard time not staring at. I was sort of peeved that the only one to inherit the color was James, the dunderhead of the family who didn't know what to do with them. John had gotten emerald green scales that nobody knew where they came from. All horns in any dragon are completely random, so it wasn't surprising that no one in our family had any that matched, with dad having slightly curved horns and James having c-ish shaped ones.
Well, horn shapes aside I piled into my waffles and was once again lost in a train of thought that didn't stop until I had my last mouthful and was heading out the door to meet the bus.
Also once again I could not remember a thing I thought about.
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My bus ride was a very normal one as bus rides went. You know, talk to your friends (well, those that weren't plugged into iPods, MP3 players, PSP's and whatever else you can think of that plays music.
I got to school and walked into the gym to what for the admittance bell (that is what you would call it, isn't it?), right over to the part of the bleachers where I usually sat. I looked around and realized that half of my friends were missing and that the other half was absorbed in playing a game of Mario Kart. I smiled to myself as I thought about how they played that both Honors trips for the past two years. I couldn't believe that they were still THAT interested in it.
I sat down and got ready for the thirty minute wait that accompanied my arrival time, when Mary-Ella popped up at my side.
"Hi!" She yipped into my ear.
"Yah!" I jumped back and took a tumble into the next row of bleachers.
Mary-Ella leaped down next to me and started to pull me up as she babbled, "Oh, I am so sorry! I didn't mean to startle you! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, it was just a little tumble. The bleachers took more damage than I did," I replied as I examined the scratches my horns left on the row of seats that constituted the bleachers, "Anyways, I was too deep in thought to notice anything else, so it's not your fault at all."
She looked relieved as I sat down where I originally planned to, and sat down next to me. Her tail was thumping away at the metal and plastic seats and her eyes played up and down my wings. I gave her a smile and said, "So, how was your afternoon yesterday?"
She looked at me in surprise as I broke her from her stupor. She scrambled for words to say, replying, "Oh, um, it was good. I didn't do too much. Just stayed at home reading."
I smiled again with a bit of a knowing gaze. I knew she hated when I did that, but, I was always leading her on just a little, that was also something I knew she liked. She was quite flirtatious, but I knew she was eager for me to pop out the question, "Will you go out with me?"
I would've a long time ago, when I first started noticing that she had a crush on me, but something would always change the words as they slid off my tongue. I would be looking her in the eyes, about to say the most profound thing in the world for her, when something stupid would slip through and I would miss my chance to because I had ruined the atmosphere for both of us.
Mary-Ella gave me the usual dirty look as I gave her that oh so loved smile and I started to zone out as she talked to me (Yeah, I know it's rude, but I had gotten to where I did it quite easily). I thought about stuff that seemed profound but when I ran them through the scenario of saying them to my friends, I found they sounded quite stupid. So I moved on to other thoughts, all the while smiling, nodding, and commenting on what Mary-Ella was saying so she wouldn't know I wasn't the least bit focused on the conversation.
I surprised myself when I thought about the puzzle and how much trouble I had with it last night. I suddenly creased my eyebrows and apparently muttered to myself.
"Hmm? What was that Jallanthaen?" Mary-Ella turned and looked concernedly at me.
I sat up in surprise as I replied, "Oh? Nothing, just thinking out loud to myself." (Crap)
She raised one of her furry eyebrows at me and asked, "About what?"
I started to panic in my mind as I replied, outwardly calm, "Oh, about this and that. Mostly tests that are coming up."
I panicked inwardly to myself as she continued to raise her brow, "Oh, really? I know that I'm going to pass them all so-"
Just as she was about to finish her sentence, the admittance bell rang and everyone got up and headed for the door. I flashed another smile and told her goodbye as I headed out the door to my first period class. I felt guilty as I nearly fainted from relief. She was really starting to pressure me now.
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My first period crawled by as usual. The ins and outs of math were just not my thing and I was having a harder time each year as more and more stuff was piled on me. I nearly ran out the door when the dismissal bell rang and was into my second period in thirty seconds. I took a seat and hung out, watching furs enter the classroom.
About ten seconds before the tardy bell rang, Daniela stepped through the door. Her dark purple scales flashed in the light of the projector that was still going from last period and, I might have imagined it, her hair breezed back from her face.
I must have been drooling pretty hard, because, just then, my friend, Tony the Malamute, said into my ear, "Jallanthaen, jaw off the floor."
For the second time that day, I gave a cry and fell back on to the floor as he startled me.
"Tony! Gosh, give me a friggin' heart attack will ya!" I panted as I looked up at him from the floor.
He flashed me a toothy grin as he said, "I was just giving you some advice so you wouldn't look so awkward in front of all the girls."
I shot him a dirty look as I took my seat again and turned my attention to the front of the classroom. The teacher had started droning on about the Columbian Exchange, and in the exchange of wits between me and Tony, she had covered some pretty good ground.
So I settled back into my seat and began taking notes. A good fifty minutes later, the dismissal bell to third period rang and I was once more out the door in a flash.
Once out in the hallway, I headed toward the central hub that all the hallways in the school branched off of. I glanced up at the skylights that were stationed way up above our heads as I passed through what I guessed the exact center of the giant atrium to be.
I headed down the hall labeled seven hundred and one hundred (On opposite sides, of course) to the gym for P.E. Instead of hurrying to be on time, I slowed down just a bit, to see if I could catch a friend of mine that I had not seen since she had moved. I scanned the hallways but I came up with nothing.
Feeling rather sad, I continued down the hallway and soon found myself in the boy's locker room, dressing out for fifty minutes of hell on earth.
After stretching, jogging, and playing a couple rounds of volleyball, I found myself with the perfect chance to slip back into the locker room to make sure no one had rifled through my bag.
I opened the door into the locker room and slipped inside. As I looked around to locate my bag, I thought I heard sounds in the room that were not coming from my heavy breathing after the last round of surprisingly active volleys during my team's final game of volleyball.
I creased my eyebrows and looked around the locker room to see that I was the only one there. I walked out into the hallway and saw that there was no one there either.
I scratched my head and shrugged. I had to go take a piss anyhow.
I walked into the restroom and I found the source of the noises. In the corner of one of the urinals was a couple of guys making out. I had walked in and had surprised them apparently, because they were scrambling to get away from each other as they made excuses as to why they were in the same urinal. I just smiled and took my piss.
They stared, puzzled at my behavior as I exited the restroom.
As surprised as they were, I guess I had left them with a little more confidence, because, before I was out the door and on the gym floor, I heard them going at it again. I slightly smiled to myself as I thought about how they had found someone they could shamelessly love in public (Well, that was sort of not true, they had been making excuses).
My friend, Jack the Doberman, walked up to me and asked, "What's with the stupid smile on your face?"
I jumped; he had been the third person to catch me off guard today. I looked at him blankly before replying, "Oh, I just took a really good pee."
I looked at him as I thought, "Stupid!"
He looked at me with a strange stare as he said, "Why shouldn't I be surprised?"
I smiled at him as I laughed, "So that's what you think of me? I should strangle you, you stupid fur ball!"
He laughed in reply and ducked under my attempt to wrap my hands around his neck and tackled me to the floor. We wrestled there for a few seconds before the coach yelled, "Break it up! We don't need the pansies mating in gym!"
Jack blushed as he broke his arm-lock on me and stood up. I tried to look embarrassed and was helped by the fact that I was blushing at the thought of the Doberman's penis.
I stopped for a moment as I tried to figure out where THAT thought had come from. It wasn't something I normally thought about friends. Thinking about it made me blush even more furiously. I could hear the girls and guys alike giggling at this and I couldn't help but flash a bit of a smile as I teasingly put an arm over Jack.
He made at he was uncomfortable of this and ducked out from under my arm, giving me a swift jab to the ribs. I lost my breath as I shot another smile and mad a grab at him, but was blocked by the coach's arm.
"What did I say? No horseplay!"
After that, we just sat and talked as we watched the other teams played their rounds of volleyball until it was time to change and go to fourth period.
My mind had never left the topic of the two guys I had saw making out in the restroom and how hard it had made me.
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By the time lunch had rolled around I had been thoroughly pissed off. Between a couple of class mates in English and Mr. Johnson, I had finally lost all the energy that I had woken up with.
English was spent batting off insults about the incident in the gym; even though everybody knew Jack wasn't that way. Since I hadn't come out yet, some people argued that I wasn't either.
As I thought back to what my thoughts had been, I was surprised to find myself thinking about how to come out. I wasn't even sure if I was truly gay or bi.
It hadn't gotten much better in Chorus. Mr. Johnson had walked into the room and immediately announced a sight-reading quiz out of nowhere. It wasn't that I was bad at it or anything; it's just that I hate not knowing the dates of tests, quizzes, or whatever else a teacher will throw at you.
It was an annoying habit of Mr. Johnson's to give some sort of pop-quiz every so often, and it was even more annoying that they didn't follow any pattern what so ever. Hmm, I don't know, maybe that's why they're called pop quizzes.
I sat down at my usual table and began to dig into the crap that this cafeteria called food. I never once said a word through the entire meal and just sat there with a pre-occupied look as I absent-mindedly shoved food into my muzzle. After I finished I dumped the tray and headed to the library to unwind a little before sixth period. I signed in and headed towards the game room to see what sort of things they had laid out for today.
I saw a puzzle that caught my interest and I started laying out pieces. I wasn't anywhere near serious enough about it to actually be surprised when I didn't make any progress what so ever by the time the bell for sixth period rang and I headed out the door.
I walked straight across the atrium to the hallway where Technology was. I walked in and was immediately knocked back by a flying tackle from Joey, a Labrador retriever. He smiled at me as his tail wagged and cried, "Jallanthaen! How's it hangin'?"
I grinned widely as I accepted the high-five he was offering and I replied, "What's up my man! I've been great, how 'bout you?"
So we discussed events of the day as we headed for our seats at the back of the rather empty room. I dropped my stuff on the floor as I plopped into my seat and turned to Joey to listen to the next big hoopla he had gotten into over the weekend that he hadn't informed me on yesterday. I laughed as he recounted a tale about his first time at a rave and about one dude who was teaching him dance moves such as Chernobyl Child and Milk the Bull. ;-P
The teacher came in; a Mastiff named Chinkle, and waddled his way over to his desk. He slowly sat down and surveyed the classroom as he waited for the tardy bell to ring. Joey and I didn't pay him any attention as we laughed and joked on in the back and got into a punching match. When the bell rang, we turned to the front of the room, rubbing sore spots on our arms. I don't know how he does it, but he always manages to get me in the exact same spot every time. Judging by the way his rubbing his upper arm, I apparently also had that talent and I smiled to myself as I thought, "Heh, well he started it."
The rest of sixth period just played out to be a video over some viaduct in France, so I and Joey were once again going at our little punching match. Mr. Chinkle shot a withering glare at us as we tried to control the giggling that had been on the edge of all out laughter and we turned to the front of the room to 'pay attention' to the video that turned out to be incredibly more boring that it had seemed at first.
As we had been bumped into being silent I turned my thoughts to the movie as long as they could stay there before I began to ponder how my day had played out so far. I smiled to myself at all the bust a gut things Jack had been telling me during 4th period, but soon I discovered the dark corner of my mind was seething with ideas that had not been there before.
I must have been concentrating pretty hard on the thoughts that I never knew existed, because, before I knew what was going on, everyone was up and out the door. Unlike before, I hung back a little while to digest more of what had ran through my mind. The top question being, why had they been mostly about guys?
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I walked into 7th period a little more reservedly than I usually would. I looked around the room and sighed to myself. Why was I suddenly so tired and feeling a bit gloomy?
I took my seat and waited for the teacher to start the class in complete and udder concentration on my thoughts only. I must have been deeper than I normally went, because, once again, class was over before I knew it had begun. I looked around dazedly as everyone headed out the door and was surprised that I had actually taken notes. I scanned over them quickly and was relieved to find that they were just a review for a test coming up and that I had all the concepts down already.
I grabbed up my bags and I headed towards the door when Mr. Ben stopped me.
"Are you okay Jallanthaen? You didn't seem as focused in class as you usually are." He looked into my eyes with that concerned look that only adults can seem to master.
I smiled tiredly at him, replying, "Oh, just been lost in thought recently. No need to worry though, thinking about how much homework has seemed to have increased."
He seemed to be convinced by that and said, "Well, okay. If you say so. Go home and take a nice long nap, right after you study for that test tomorrow."
I muffled any surprise that came from me not knowing anything about the test by laughing and answering, "Of course, you have a nice day Mr. Ben!"
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I got home half an hour later and immediately started to study for the fifteen minutes it took me to remember all that I would need for tomorrow's test. I sat up and looked around my room and thought about my darker thoughts that I never knew existed. Or had I and I just never registered them?
I thought in the same loop for another couple of hours as I worked over the puzzle my grandpa had given me and only came out of the stupor when my mom called me down for supper. I sat up from my hunched over position and was surprised to see only ten more pieces fit together on the table. It came as a surprise to me that I couldn't get any more than that in two hours time.
"Hmm, maybe I need glasses."
I did not stop and consider anything that had transpired in my thought process the entire time I had spent on the puzzle. It didn't even hit me until the middle of the night I had discovered that I knew I was bi.
I stared at the ceiling for what felt like was innumerable minutes before my eyelids finally closed for the night.
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After note: So, it's taken longer than I thought it would, but I've finally finished it. Whew, between school and a bit of writer's block I have muddled to the final part of this chapter. I know there may be some inconsistencies in my written dates and the date I set up my account, but I am writing in my little discovery with some more recent events just to give my story a bit more of the flavor I would like it to have. I hope you all enjoy this. (Oh, and I know it was bried adult content, not much, but I was just going to be safe.)