This story deals with betrayal, cheating, and infidelity. If that's not what you like, then you'll probably want to read a different story. This chapter was originally intended to be part of chapter 5, but the scenes in chapter 5 wound up running long and so I split it in two.
If you're one of the people who has expressed concern for the way Kyle's been treated, then you might want to skip this one, because this time we get to see how bad things are for him, in some respects. And if you're the person reposting these stories on other sites without permission, kindly eat a bowl of needles.
As ever, many thanks to the reader who proposed the idea for the story and whose input has helped guide me as I wrote. Thanks, as well, to all the other fans who've had kind words for my writing.
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Headknocker
Kyle lifted his head from his desk and rubbed his bleary eyes. Someone was shaking his shoulder and talking to him. He batted the hand away and mumbled something unintelligible. His head hurt, and his neck and back were stiff and sore. Belatedly, he realized that the person talking to him was his girlfriend, Jess.
"Are you okay, baby?" she asked, her face displaying nothing but concern.
He mumbled something in reply—his tongue felt like it was swollen, and his mouth was dry. Jess had thought ahead, though, and offered him a glass of water, which he accepted gratefully. Kyle downed the water quickly, and tried again to answer her question. "I'm fine, Jess. I must have fell asleep at my desk."
Jess stepped behind him and started to rub his shoulders. Her hands felt glorious, and Kyle felt the knots and tension in him draining away. He tried to think of the last time Jess had touched him like this, and was mildly alarmed to realize he couldn't recall. But then again, his memory, like most everything in his life, seemed to be coming apart, thanks to his asshole roommate Ian.
Last night had been especially bad. First had come the music—loud, pounding music, from speakers that seemed to be set right against the wall. Kyle left the room, as he often did when Ian was playing his music, and went to the library. But when the library closed he had nowhere to go. He'd fallen out with most of his friends, thanks to his ever-worsening temper and increasingly odd sleep habits (and while he didn't want to admit it, his declining standards of personal hygiene didn't help). Jess wasn't around. He walked around the campus for a while, but people were giving him odd looks, and so after a stop by Jess's dorm (no one had seen her for hours) he gave up and went home.
Ian's music was still going when it made it back to his room. It was a small comfort when Ian finally came home with his newest conquest; they turned down the music, but then the fucking started. And this time, it was especially loud fucking. When Kyle banged on the wall, begging Ian to leave off for just one night, it was Ian's partner who had yelled abuse back at him. The two of them continued on well into the night, the noises from their energetic coitus even overcoming the earplugs Kyle had bought (he'd bought some noise-canceling headphones, too, but the first pair vanished and Ian stepped on the second).
Kyle eventually groaned in disgust and left; he wound up wandering around town until he found a bar, where he drank until he could barely stand and was thrown out at last call. Everything else was a blur; he somehow made it back to his room, but he had no idea how or when. And now he was feeling the effects of the worst hangover of his life, combined with sleep deprivation, the net result being that Kyle felt like God had kicked him in the balls.
But Jess's hands on his shoulders felt good; after a few minutes, and another glass of water, he felt almost human. That's when he realized that Jess was dressed to the nines, in a red halter top that bared more cleavage than she usually displayed and a short black skirt that would give anyone behind her quite a show if she bent at the waist. Jess had been dressing sexier lately, but this was a bit much even for her, and Kyle was just about to ask her about it when she said, "We've still got some time before we need to get to the party. Why don't you hop in the shower and clean yourself up?"
Then he remembered: Jess had been invited to a frat party tonight by one of Ian's meathead asshole friends. The arrogant douchebag had just ignored Kyle entirely, but Jess asked if it was okay for her to bring him along, and the guy—a bit reluctantly, Kyle thought—said yes. Kyle just knew that the asshole had wanted to get Jess alone and try to seduce her. Recently he'd found himself getting increasingly jealous, and even found himself harboring suspicions about Jess's fidelity. But the way she insisted he come along with her helped calm his fears quite a bit. After all, if his girlfriend was cheating on him, why would she want him along at the party?
Kyle rose up out of his chair and promptly fell against his desk—his legs had gone to sleep during the night. Jess stifled a giggle and Kyle felt a flash of hot anger, which he quickly squelched. It was funny, he thought to himself. She wasn't putting him down; it was a good-natured laugh, he reminded himself. And it mostly worked.
His second attempt to get on his feet was more successful. He rooted around in his dresser and closet looking for clothing that was both clean and appropriate and found none. He settled for a pair of jeans he had only worn twice and a t-shirt that mostly fit—his recent weight gains had left him short on clothes.
Overall, he didn't look like someone who'd be going out with a girl like Jess. He was a tubby, bland looking guy, in his ill-fitting t-shit and his slightly grubby jeans, with his shaggy brown hair and dull brown eyes. Jess, in contrast, looked like the kind of woman who should be on the arm of a movie star; she was petite but busty, and her skin practically glowed with life. Men had all but drowned in the limpid blue pools of her eyes.
But somehow he'd managed to land her and keep her, or at least that's what he thought. Kyle resolved to make tonight a fun night for Jess and offered her his arm. She took it, a cute little smile on her face, and they set out for the party.
They walked across the campus to Greek Row, where most of the frat houses were. It was clear which one was hosting the party—people were hanging out on the lawn, the front porch, scattered around the side in small knots. It wasn't too loud, but it was crowded. Kyle found himself scanning the crowd, looking for familiar faces and finding almost none. Certainly, none of the people he recognized were friends.
Jess also looked out on the crowd, but she was looking for one person in particular: Ian. He told her he'd be there, and she hoped that they'd be able to sneak away for a furtive encounter in one of the house's many bedrooms. But she didn't see him among the people gathered around outside. Jess turned to Kyle and said, "Let's go inside and get some drinks." Kyle nodded warily and the two of them pushed past a group of people milling around the door.
Inside, there was music and dancing and more people that Kyle didn't recognize. Jess seemed to know plenty of them, both men and women; she waved across to room to a pair of girls, got stopped by a pair of guys—favoring them with a dazzling smile—and exchanged quick greetings with a half-dozen other people, all before they'd gone twenty feet.
Jess and Kyle made slow progress through the house to the common room, where a bar had been set up. Music was playing throughout the house, and people were dancing anywhere they could find space; around the edges of each room, there were people talking excitedly to one another.
The trouble started when they got to the bar.
Kyle had kept Jess on his arm possessively as they'd navigated their way through the crowd—which hadn't made things easier for them. But when they got close to their destination, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "Get me a beer, please, honey?" she asked, and slipped away to go say hi to someone she recognized.
He made his way through the press of bodies around the bar, getting jostled by frat boys and others. It took him a few minutes to find his way up to the bar proper, and a few minutes more before he could get the bartender's attention. And Kyle found himself getting increasingly angry during the whole ordeal. He suspected that some of the people who'd bumped into him had done it intentionally, and he was certain the bartender (a cute blonde girl, with a bottle opener on her belt buckle) had seen him and was ignoring him.
But eventually he got two beers, one for him and one for Jess. He turned and made his way back out of the crowd—a bit of the beer wound up sloshing out of the cup and on his hands, but he couldn't do anything about it until he found Jess and got a hand free. She was initially nowhere to be seen, but he could hear her laughing; he looked around, and eventually spotted her.
Jess was talking to Ian, the man who'd been tormenting Kyle all year. She was laughing, her head thrown back, her blue eyes sparkling. Her hand was resting lightly on his chest. He had a cocky little smirk on his face. Kyle started making his way toward them as Ian bent down and whispered something into Jess's ear. She gasped and pushed away from him, playfully. Jess didn't seem to notice Kyle's approach, but Ian did—he even gave Kyle a mocking wink as he kept whispering to Jess. Jealous anger flared in Kyle's breast and he pushed in between a dancing couple, glowering at Ian and Jess.
"Hey, roomie," said Ian as Kyle approached. Jess turned and beamed at her boyfriend, gratefully reaching out to take one of the beers. But then Ian grabbed the other one from Kyle's hand—he was too shocked and angry to resist. "Thanks, chief," Ian said, and took a drink. Jess took a drink as well, mainly to hide her own smirk at seeing her lover bully her nominal boyfriend.
Kyle sputtered in inarticulate anger as Ian drank his beer. "Listen, asshole..." He didn't get much farther as Ian narrowed his eyes, and Kyle remembered that Ian was much bigger than him, and seemed to be all muscle where Kyle was decidedly not.
So Kyle turned his anger on Jess. "What the hell are you doing talking to this shithead?" he shouted. "And flirting with him?" He grabbed her wrist, pulling her away from Ian and starting to walk away. He kept ranting, increasingly incoherently. "You know what he's put me through all year. He's made my life hell and you're acting like you want to fuck him right here in front of everybody!"
Jess wriggled out of his grasp. "What's wrong with you? We were just talking!" People were starting to take notice; some were staring. Ian was making his way over to the arguing couple as well, wading through the crowd with ease.
"You were touching him!" Kyle retorted. "You were practically groping him."
"So? I can touch who I want. It doesn't mean anything. You're acting crazy."
"You're acting like a whore!"
Jess's eyes went wide. Kyle froze, mortified. Everyone was staring. "I'm sorry, babe," he said, his temper quickly cooling. "I didn't mean it." Her lip trembled, and tears appeared at the corners of her eyes. She turned and ran out, the crowd parting for her. Kyle watched her go—and so did Ian.
Kyle spun on his heel and found himself face-to-face (face-to-torso, really) with Ian. Ian pushed him, and Kyle staggered back a step. "You made a big mistake there, asshole," Ian said. "You think you can get another girl like that? You're throwing away the best thing in your life." Kyle just stared at Ian for a moment, dumbstruck.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?" he shouted in reply. "You've been fucking with me all year, and now you want to give me advice?" He pushed Ian, or at least tried to, but only ended up forcing himself back half a step.
