Ladies and Gentlemen.
Welcome to the first part of my first published story. Just a little forewarning, there is no 'erotic' element in this part of the story. I have always preferred stories with a slow burn, decent character development, and an actual narrative. Hopefully, this first chapter will get the ball rolling on that and leave plenty of room and time in later chapters for the fun stuff.
Any comments or constructive criticism, or any offers of help with the editing process would be gratefully received.
I hope you all enjoy it.
There are so many stories out there; stories of love and laughter, loss, tragedy, death, and war, but -- if you look closely -- most accounts have small parts of all of them; mine is such a story. The 'when' and the 'where's' are not necessary, and the names of the 'who's' have been changed to protect the guilty. But my story, like so many others, starts in a bar.
I guess I'd better start with my name; it is always polite to introduce yourself, or so I'm told. So, I'm Pete; I was 20 at the time that this story takes place and halfway through my second year of college, intent on breaking into the world of computer game development but having little realistic prospect of succeeding. That night - as with countless others before it -- had been spent in a bar with a guy whom I had never met until starting my studies. A guy that had risen from a stranger to the closest friend I had ever had.
His name was Jimmy, and he was everything that I was not. We were both dark-haired, but that was where the similarities ended. He was tall, easily over 6 foot and a good head taller than me, he was attractive -- at least the ladies thought so, he'd had more than his fair share of luck with the opposite sex in the time I had known him -- I was less so, not unattractive, just extremely average. He had a charm, a wit, an air of earned self-confidence that I could never quite master. He could strike up a conversation with an absolute stranger about almost any topic imaginable and would be loved for it. I could barely say boo to my reflection. A life of involuntary social isolation had not gifted me with the skills that Jimmy seemed to possess in spades. In every measurable metric, he was... more. Every metric except one; in terms of intelligence, I beat him hands down. Logical thinking, understanding of the course materials, in almost every way intellect could be measured; I beat him, although I was never sure if it was a fair trade.
That was how we met. On the first day of our first year, our professor bunched our class into groups that we would stay in all year; it was completely random, he would call out a name off the register, drag that person down to the front of the class, then read another five names to join them. Once all six strangers were in the group, they were stuck there, no appeals, no recourse, no choice, nothing. The student didn't like it? Quit! Jimmy and I had been put into the same group; as it happened, the four other people in our group either flunked out or did quit, but Jimmy and I stuck it out and became pretty decent friends as the year progressed. Spending 14 hours a week with someone will either turn you into good friends or hated enemies. I guess we were lucky in that respect. After passing the first year's final exams, Jimmy insisted I come out to one of the parties he regularly attended, but I was never invited to, where -- to a multitude of smiling faces -- he announced that
I
was the only reason that he had made it through the first year, that he had learned more off me than he had off
any
of the professors and that we were - from that night and forever more -- 'best buds.'
Of course, I had assumed he was drunk, primarily because he was! E
xceedingly
drunk, excessively, mind-numbingly, speech slurringly, vomit inducingly, forget-everything-that-happens drunk, but, much to my surprise, he meant every word of it and acted on it. I wouldn't go as far as saying we became inseparable, but we became what I had always imagined a close friendship would be. Life throughout the second year of college was the best for me that it had ever been, all of it culminating it that one night at the bar.
"Dude," I'm not gonna lie," Jimmy said in a drunken slur, "but I'm fucked!"
"I know exactly how you feel," I said back, squinting through the alcohol-induced fog that clouded my vision. "However, you CAN NOT..." a banged a fist into the table, knocking one of the empty glasses over, "...even
think
about leaving until..." I blinked a few times, "...I forgot what I was going to say."
"Your train of thought left without you."
"My train of thought is an asshole!"
"Trains are all assholes, but..."
"Pick up a chick!!" I interrupted him with a triumphant shout, "That's what I was going to say; you cannot leave until you have picked up a chick!"
"Errr... why?" he frowned in confusion.
"Because I can't do it, and one of us has too."
"Dude, you need to have more confid... cofiden.. condef... you need to have more faith yourself. I told you, the worst they can say is no."
"Prove it!"
"What?"
"Prove it!" I repeated, "Call it part of my ongoing training."
"Fine," he huffed after a pause, he turned in his seat and surveyed what was left of the bar's female population. He spotted a girl walking towards a table to the side of us; her outfit just screamed sexuality, and any curve that was not on display was probably not worth seeing. "Hey you!" he shouted over to her, trying his hardest not to slur. The girl looked up with an arched eyebrow. "wanna come back to my place?"
The girl looked him up and down with an odd expression for a few seconds, "sure." She shrugged and started making her way over to our table.
"Oh, for fuck sake!" I huffed before emptying the last of my drink into my mouth.
"Hmm... I genuinely thought that would go another way." Jim pondered with a thoughtful grin. "oh well, never look a gift pussy in the mouth." He stood up in one swift motion -- albeit a reasonably unstable one -- and downed the last of his beer in time for the girl to arrive and link her arm with his. "I'm Jimmy." He said with a beaming smile.
"I'm chastity." The girl replied.
"You have got to be shitting me," I muttered to myself.
"And this..." Jimmy swung his arm in a grand gesture towards me, "...is Pete. Think any of your lovely friends would be interested?"
The girl looked me over in the same way you would examine roadkill. "Errr..."
"He's joking," I said with a weak smile of my own, saving us both from the embarrassment of her saying no, or worse, her saying yes for one of her friends to say no instead.
"Oh, good," she mumbled. Even Jimmy caught onto that one.
"What do you mean?" he asked with a frown. "Any of you bitches would be lucky to land this guy." Another gesture to me didn't stop me from noticing the complete lack of reaction the girl gave to being called a bitch.
"I... err... I think they all have boyfriends." Chastity answered a little too quickly.
