He still didn’t move. The world stopped and it was just us—me wondering what he was about to do, and him breathing heavily over me, every breath of his crashing over my fearful face.
Then it happened. The mortifying thing. The worst possible result from a boy crouching over me, pinning me to the ground as I was. The most humiliating humiliation a thirteen-year-old could experience in a bathroom full of other boys.
He felt it before I did. The anger in his eyes seemed to deplete at once, and then it was a sort of confusion that took him over instead.
He was sitting on it—but he felt it. It was there as certain as his hands were holding down my wrists, as certain as our gazes were locked on each other, as certain as breath still circulated between our heaving bodies.
Yes, it was as hard as a big steel bat.
And now, I would like to present a boner soliloquy:
Thank you, boner. I will never, ever forget this terrible time you chose to make your stately entrance—a particularly far more terrible time than any other known to teenkind in the history of ill-timed erections. The Eiffel Tower doesn’t know steel this hard. A million knights fought and died with swords hardened by the fires of forges that hold no match to yours. Couldn’t you have, perhaps, waited until tonight when I’m alone in my bedroom to visit me instead of arriving right here in the middle of a fight with the world’s cockiest shit pinning my wrists to the ground by my head while straddling me in front of half of the baseball team? Maybe next time, you might think to supply me a little warning before springing into action while I’m trying to spring into a different sort of action. Ring a bell, perhaps. Or write me a memo on penis-pink parchment paper and mail it via carrier pigeon to my overworked secretary. I would be most appreciative.
Sincerely, the mortified thirteen-year-old you’re attached to.
The coach was upon us in the next instant. He pulled Stefan off of me so fast, I nearly came off the ground with him. The good news was that we were now separated, and Stefan wasn’t going to plant knuckles into my cheek.
The bad news was what Stefan’s departure now revealed.
“Holy crap!” shouted one of my teammates, Parker, as he pointed at it. “Caulfield’s got a stiffy!”
I kicked off of the ground as fast as I could, squeezed my legs together, then bolted from the bathroom amidst an eruption of laughter and jeering and mockery. My face was so red, I could feel the blood boiling on my cheeks.
It was the worst day of my life.
Which was followed by the second worst day of my life: the very next morning when my dad sat me down on the couch for a little talk. “Ryan, the coach told me everything.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” I was already in tears. “P-P-Please. I don’t want to play ball anymore. It’s stupid. I suck. I never want to see any of those boys ever again.”
“I don’t raise quitters,” my dad spat back. “Oh, and you will be seeing them again. All of them. And you’re starting with Stefan.”
“NO!” I cried out. “I can’t see him! I won’t!”
“You don’t have a choice, Ryan. I’m taking you to his house right now, and you will apologize to him.”
I gaped, my dad’s face made blurry by the sheen of tears that still filled my eyes. “But he’s the one who tackled me!”
“After you called him a name.”
“He threw a catcher’s mitt at my face!”
“Ryan, I won’t hear any more.” He rose from the couch, then nodded down at me. “Get your shoes on. We leave in five.”
The car ride that followed was emotional agony. I shook in my shoes the whole time. Just the thought of facing Stefan for the first time since our “incident” had me pissing my pants with ghost pee. I had sweated straight through the pits of my t-shirt before we even left my neighborhood.
How could I possibly face Stefan after what happened? He had me in a schoolboy pin, straddling my waist with my wrists held to the ground on either side of my head. I was completely at his mercy, underneath the star of the team … and then my own little “star” decided to show up.
The whole scene had to have replayed in my head fifty times on the way over to Stefan’s house. I had no way to explain what happened. I didn’t even know what happened. I wasn’t a homo. It was just the friction in my boxers, or the pressure of him sitting on it, or the adrenaline. I was definitely, totally, not at all turned on by him. Just the thought had me angry all over again.