Perfection Is Overrated
by Bradley Scott

 

Chapter 2
Ted

Ted didn’t know why he kept the shirt. It was creepy, but he couldn’t make himself throw it away. It’s not like he sniffed it or anything, so at least he wasn’t a complete stalker.

He’d taken partly because he didn’t want Darren to see the revolting, un-emptied mess that was the kitchen trash-bin. He’d also done it so Darren could leave more quickly and stop making Ted act like an idiot.

He had never done anything like this before. It wasn’t like he’d had a reason before. Sure, Kyle slept with a lot of hot guys. Hell, Kyle only slept with hot guys. Most of them were idiots. Some of them, while not exactly rocket scientists, weren’t completely clueless. But it was always easy to dismiss them, to tune them out.

Ted often got some kind vindictive pleasure from listening to the ones who thought that, because of the previous night, they were on the brink of some kind of relationship with Kyle. Ted almost felt sorry for them.

That didn’t happen often though. Most of the guys, modelesque and beautiful though they were, were just as sleazy, if not more sleazy than Kyle – if that was even possible. A lot of them, too, were “just experimenting”. Which was a whole other story.

Ted and Kyle had met at high school. It was sort of a forced friendship, at first. Ted had come out in Grade 10, since he had a really good group of friends at the time.

When Kyle Willis, the new gay guy from another part of the country, arrived, Ted’s friends basically tried to get them together. It didn’t turn out so well. Kyle started rubbing Ted’s crotch the minute they were alone. Ted then grabbed Kyle’s fingers and threatened to break them.

Kyle kept a respective physical distance between them after that.

He was cute. Ted had realized that eventually. He wasn’t attracted to Kyle, not even in any subconscious way – not after the… incident. He just wanted to be like him – the hot, rich, blond and blue-eyed soccer jock.

Kyle also just had this personality that let him take everything in his stride, a trait which Ted really envied. He had even come out to the soccer team with out too much fuss. He was just that kind of person – he didn’t let petty things get in his way.

He probably even had some steamy encounters with a few team-mates. Ted only knew about one of these though.

One night, he answered his front door, and there was Kyle, black eye, lip bleeding, stinking to high hell of beer, smoke and what smelled suspiciously like weed. He dragged Kyle inside, got him a pack of ice for his eye, let him crash on the bed.

Kyle had been fooling around with a team mate – Eric Thompson, who had serious sexuality issues. They were both drunk at a party and had snuck into the closet (Ted still remembered how badly he wanted to comment on this part – but, regretfully, he held it back.) and they started making out wildly. But then, the door opened, and their teammates saw the two of them lip-locked.

At which point, Eric promptly turned on Kyle and accused him of being a “fag” and trying to stick his tongue down Eric’s throat. Kyle was to proud to say it, but he probably only narrowly escaped needing a trip to the hospital.

He took the fall for Eric – whether he wanted to or not. And, funnily enough, there never was a clear explanation as to what exactly Kyle did to get Eric into a tiny closet with him in the first place.

But Kyle had escaped mostly unscathed – except for the fairly minor beating, and, as Ted gathered, very hurt feelings – which he refused to talk about, ever again.

He quit the team, after that – they weren’t exactly making it easy on him – it seemed like every other week “FAG” was sprayed across his locker or they wolf-whistled whenever he walked past.

But then, in typical Kyle fashion, he did something that made them leave him alone forever. Something serious, Ted guessed, because Kyle wouldn’t tell him what it was.

Eric ended up transferring schools at the end of that year, so obviously it was something to do with him. No one from the football team was able to look Kyle in the eye ever again, let alone make his life difficult.

Ted didn’t have that much excitement back in his high school years. Not being nearly as reckless or confident as Kyle, he had stayed a virgin throughout high school. He was a fairly big nerd back then – glasses, acne, weird hair. That sort of thing.

Well, he  was – in the beginning, anyway. Before he met Kyle. He started getting better – he got contact lenses and the acne went away. Kyle taught him about fashion and skin care, and hair products, which he only used when Kyle made him.

His self confidence had still had major room for improvement though, and by the time he sorted all his issues out – when he was attractive enough to fool around – he was determined not to settle for a lousy first time.

He wanted to wait for the right guy. Not necessarily his soul-mate who he would spend the rest of his life with. Just the right guy to lose his virginity to.

He’d managed to come to a clean conclusion in his own head that he was gay – no messy fucking-girls-then-fucking-guys confusion – and he wanted his sexual activity to be just as uncomplicated. He wanted Mr. Right.

Or Mr. Right-Start, at least.

He’d met that guy in college – James Wyatt, a post-graduate who had done the same Maths course he was going into. They had met at the gay student union, during one of the parties. Ted was standing on the edges, dressed in dull clothing that looked completely out of place. He was watching Kyle make an idiot of himself on the dance floor when James had come up and said something clever.

Ted didn’t remember what it was, but he remembered that he had laughed. James had introduced himself, and asked Ted if he wanted to get out of there. He did.

They went and sat in a quiet little coffee shop, and they had talked for hours.
James was amazingly charming, and he spoke of everything with such exuberance and passion that Ted found amazingly arousing. He felt himself get hard every time he looked at James’ lips, his features, his bright and animated eyes. They sat there talking until the owner of the coffee shop had asked them to leave.

It was raining that night. They had run, trying to find a place that was still open nearby so they could wait out the storm. They couldn’t find anything. Ted, in his usual style, stepped on a muddy puddle and almost slipped.

James reacted fast, and grabbed his arm to steady him. It felt like electricity shooting up his arm, even though he was drenched. He looked up at James, who hadn’t let go, and smiled.  He grabbed Ted and kissed him. It was amazingly romantic, almost too unreal for Ted’s cynical mind. It was everything he had been waiting for, for years.

Ted had taken James back to his dorm, where, to his embarrassment, he could hear Kyle in the throes of sex with another guy in his room, across the hallway.

He blushed, and tentatively led James to his own room, and he was so glad that he wasn’t Kyle room-mate, and that his own room-mate had dropped out a week earlier.

He told James that he was still a virgin, and James just smiled gently and kissed him, unbuttoning Ted’s sopping shirt, gently removing his pants and underwear. He gave Ted a blow job that left him gasping and smiling broadly, lying back on his bed.

Then, cautiously, he asked James to fuck him. James agreed, and pulled out condom’s, which melted any last inch of fear Ted might have been feeling. They had an amazing night together, and Ted had finally had his perfect first time.

Ted spent three weeks in a happy daze. He couldn’t remember much of it, just that he always seemed to be floating in a cloud of utter bliss.

He got to the dorm one day, after his class had ended early, thinking of what he and James we’re going to do tonight. Ted was thinking that cinema that showed the foreign films – he wanted to see something with people speaking French. He pulled out his laptop and put it on his desk.

Across the hall, there were the same noises coming from Kyle’s room. Ted had gotten used to it, mostly – he still really wanted to sound-proof that room. It’d just be awkward, if he wanted to bring friends to the dorm living room, which was right there. Or, god forbid, have his parents over.

The noises stopped. Ted sighed with relief. It was bad enough that Kyle had to fuck guys at top volume their almost every other night – why did he have to get an afternoon booty-call every Thursday, when he had a free day? Was he really that bored?

Ted heard Kyle’s door open. He looked over his shoulder to see the latest contestant on the “Who wants to fuck Kyle?” show.

The guy stepped out of the door, and Ted felt his heart drop.

It was James.

The look on his face was exhilarated, but it dropped and turned into shock and horror as he saw Ted sitting there, blankly staring at him.

Nothing moved for a few minutes. James just stood there, caught in the act, his shirt still only on his upper arms – since he hadn’t pulled it over his head yet.

Ted, with tears beginning to run down his face, with his body twisted in the direction of Kyle’s door, his plans for a night with James still there on the computer screen. Kyle’s came up behind James, opening the door more widely, wearing only a towel.

“What are you still doing here? Ted will be back-” His face was an odd mix of emotion, panic being prominent. His words died on his tongue when he saw what was Ted sitting at his desk.

Ted slammed the cover of his laptop down, picked it up and threw it at them. Luckily, his aim was terrible – as always, so it just hit the door-frame and burst into pieces. James and Kyle stood in shocked silence.

Ted grabbed his back pack, stormed out the apartment, slamming the door behind him. He had made his way to a cheap bed and breakfast, and stayed there for a week.

He never thought he’d speak to Kyle again.

***

He’d taken off school, and was in the process of organizing his new apartment, which his uncle had managed to get for him, and booking movers to pack up all of his stuff that was still in the dorm. Too close to Kyle.

The apartment was cheap – but he’d still have to get a job. But it was better than going back.

He had just gotten back from the place one day. It was nice. A bit dingy, but definitely better than a dorm room – even one without Kyle. There was another room – so he could get a room-mate, and make the money issue a bit easier.

There came a knock on the door. Ted thought it was the landlady – a sweet old grandma-type, who occasionally brought Ted some baked goods, that he though must somehow worked into the exorbitant room price he was paying.

Ted sighed, and went to open the doors. She was a nice old lady, but he really wasn’t in the mood for talking.

But it wasn’t her. It was Kyle, his face red, tears streaming from his eyes.

“I’m – so – sorry.” He gasped between sobs. “I – never – meant – to — he – he – just -”

Ted couldn’t help but feel sorry for him – He was like a child who didn’t know any better, trapped in the body of a horny teenager. He hugged Kyle, without even thinking about it.

As Ted hugged Kyle, he saw a gigantic gift box, sitting in the garbage can. He let Kyle come in, at which point Kyle had broken down some more and told him the whole story: How James had got there, while Ted was still at class.

Kyle had told him Ted wouldn’t be back for an hour, and James had said that he would wait, so they sat down, had a beer and watched TV together. Then James had kissed him, and he couldn’t think and he knew it was wrong and he didn’t want to hurt Ted but it was hard to even think of anything else.

Ted pieced this together, through the sobs. It wasn’t Kyle. It was James. And Ted definitely believed Kyle. He wasn’t exactly a good lier – Ted had known him long enough to know he was telling the truth.

All he had done, really, show Ted what a scuzzball James was – and how could he could he hate him for that?

He hugged Kyle, and began to sob openly – something he hadn’t done at all, not even the night that it had happened.

Ted realized he had only loved the person he thought James was. Too bad that guy didn’t exist. He then realized it was stupid to let someone who wasn’t even real come between him and Kyle.

He asked Kyle what the gift was. Kyle looked surprised, but then he smiled and they went to get it out of the trash can – which it was too big to fit into anyway.

It was a top-of the range laptop. In green, which was Ted’s favorite color.

“I… I thought you might hate me, if I gave it to you. You were already so angry at me for doing.. what I did. I thought you’d think I was just being a stupid, insensitive rich kid again.”

Jared looked so put out that Ted hugged him again, and thanked him profusely for the gift.

The next day, Ted asked Kyle to be his room-mate.

 

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