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Bx Drops Chapter IV
🕑 Added 2020-07-24 18:32:01 +0000 UTCHey everyone! I finished Chapter IV. Hurray!
It's another long one, but I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. The shift to first person was a huge relief! It allowed me to better recapture some of what I really liked about The Infinity Device.
For those of you wondering when I'll get back to The Infinity Device, I'm currently thinking after 2-3 more chapters of this story. The wait is almost over!
Okay, that's it for now! I'm looking forward to posting more shenanigans in two weeks!
Your cheerful erotica writer,
Barker.
PS. Here's my (SFW) nearly-canonical image of Emily!
PPS. I'm hoping to post a 'Behind the Scenes' in a few days!
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CHAPTER IV
EMILY
“C’mon Wei,” I said to Xiaowei, “Help me get the last of my stuff?”
“Sure,” he said. We headed back out to the driveway. The screen door slammed behind us. So, uh, what exactly was Jake doing here? That was super weird to be honest. Not like I was too flipped out right now or anything, he seemed like a nice enough guy. No panicking. Em, I mean, remember how much of a gentleman he was when trying to slide into my DMs? More than I could say for the other guys, geez, they kept finding me, trying to strike up these conversations… I shook my head.
Beep beep. I opened the trunk of Wei’s car. Jake, a gentleman? Was that right? I rested a hand on my hip, trying to think. But my thoughts mostly kept wandering toward that (queerly excellent) ass of his. Hah, maybe I would get to see it before he left.
Wei came by and bent down into the back of the sedan to reach for my blue backpack. I massaged his ass thoughtfully. His wasn’t too bad himself. He came out with my backpack, blushing. But not complaining, I noticed, smiling. I have him a hug. He was so dainty.
He was a physics major, from Beijing. Wicked smart. More importantly, he was an amazing violin player. Seriously, like awards and everything. A YouTube video of him busking in Beijing that had several hundred thousand views. I could feel his hands on my back. Such beautiful hands, well formed, with delicate, thoughtful fingers.
“So… what’s going on?” he asked me. He was gamely improvising for me, which I appreciated. I just shrugged in response. You know. A stranger in your house. Sister’s body maybe already under the porch. Whaddya gonna do?
“Just hang around until I say so?” I said. I wasn’t really that worried. Not seriously worried about Hannah, just something feeling off about this entire thing. Like, what if Jake was a bit weirder than he seemed?
Shake it off Em, my brain told me. Stop being so paranoid. It’s Jake. Your family has known him since forever.
Wei opened the backseat door and pulled out his violin case, and then he squeezed my hand. He hoisted his bags—his violin was super expensive, it made me nervous and excited to see him carry it around with him—and I indicated the stoop stairs. He was so quiet. I loved that about him, wrapped up in his own thoughts, endlessly gentle, accommodating, chill. What did he think about our neighborhood? Pretty modest to what I knew he was used to in Beijing. I knew for a fact his violin cost twice what our house cost. Dude was stacked.
At the door, before we went in, I kissed him. He kissed back, a bit shyly. I was pretty short, but he wasn’t much taller than I was. I pressed against him a bit, feeling inexplicably horny, and a bit frustrated we had social events upcoming. Somehow, Hannah not being there, mom not being there, Jake being there. I guess I was in a lightly cross mood. So much for a triumphant return.
Wei pulled back slightly, he was still embarrassed to show affection in public, but I pulled him back. He was not particularly strong and unassertive—his shyness really turned me on. He was getting excited by me too, I could feel it, pressed against my crouch.
He was my first real boyfriend, dating just a month, but we had been… discovering things about ourselves. Like when he had shyly suggested I tie his hands. His shameful blush when he mentioned it. And I sudden felt this wild little flame in me. He loved it when I took charge. And that honestly made my head feel like it was on fire. And pretty soon we had started looking through a whole weird world of erotica and porn that I had never ever thought I would…
Okay. Focus. Focus on Hannah. Make sure Jake’s not like, her boyfriend or anything. I mean, we had joked about his butt, Hannah and I, and it was nice feature sure, but he was still kind of a nobody. Right? Hannah deserved the greatest man of all time. I felt that. I was determined not to let her compromise. God, I loved her. She was the best sister anyone could ask for. After our parents divorced, I… well, who could imagine life without Han?
I separated from Wei and opened the door, and he went into the foyer. I followed in.
“Em?” Hannah said.
“HANNAH!” I cried, bounding up to her and giving her a sweeping hug. “I’m so so so glad to see you! Omigosh!”
Xiaowei
Emily’s voice always got a little squeaky when she was happy. It was adorable. I watched, standing back shyly, not really knowing what to do with myself. I had no siblings, so I wasn’t entirely sure what was appropriate for me as a spectator. Emily had insisted I would be welcome. She told me to just act like I was family.
That made me more nervous.
I looked at Hannah curiously. I had heard a lot about her, of course. Emily thought the world of her, and she was excited to introduce us as fellow musicians. Hannah was taller than Emily by 10 centimeters or so. And they both looked like sisters in the truest sense. Like they were the same person—different flowers from the same bush. Same clear skin and blue eyes and blonde hair. Although Hannah didn’t look as excited as I expected her to. Was she nervous, or something?
“I’ve missed you missed you!” Emily said. “I… Oh. Han. Han. You have a tattoo.”
Hannah adjusted her sweater self-consciously. She opened her mouth, like she was going to deny it. But it was clearly right there. It extended past the hem of her sleeve, a tattoo of a vine or something, going all the way to the web of her fingers. Hannah held it up to her face, twisting her hand to look at it, looking both mesmerized and frightened. Did she not realize it could be seen in that sweater?
“Hannah. Let me see,” said Emily, full of a kind of imperious curiosity. Emily pulled back Hannah’s brown sweater and Hannah turned a deep shade of pink. Emily admired the forearm. “This is… cool!”
“Em, it’s nothing… really…”
“Nothing my ass. This is a huge piece of work! How’d you even afford it! I’m honestly a bit shocked, Han. I mean, I’m not shocked that it’s cool, I’m shocked that… I mean, I never would have… a tattoo. Like… this.” She pulled the sleeve back further.
I stepped forward to look. It was cool. It was mostly a feminine floral pattern, but with with some edgier shading throughout, and some thorns, shapes that were distorted clocks, what looked like women’s eyes. It was artistically done. It had a kind of dangerous, hyper-confident look to it.
“Holy shit Han!” Emily breathed, as she saw how far it went up. Emily peeled off the sweater, Hannah wasn’t really resisting, and she had a white tank underneath. The tattoo covered much of her shoulder. It was… cool. The only word I could think of to describe it, that strange American word.
I thought it made Hannah look really attractive. Forward women had always turned me on, authoritative ones. How confident did Hannah have to be get a tattoo like that? I shook my head. “Meek” my mother had once called me, and I was a bit embarrassed by it, aroused by it, it felt wrong, alien. Emily had been impatient when I was too shy to ask her out, despite her inviting herself to hang out with me for weeks. “We are GOING on a date,” she had finally said, and that had kind of defined our relationship… I felt myself stir, and I shifted uncomfortably, shamed. It would be bad to get an erection while meeting the family. And it would certainly be bad to imagine Emily with that tattoo, or a forward Hannah, without that top on, looking at me straight in the eyes, nearly my height… Don’t think about it. No erections.
I headed back to the foyer to grab my backpack, the violin case still tightly in my hand. I wasn’t going to bring my violin, but Emily had said it was non-negotiable. At first I thought it was impossible how much Emily seemed to like my playing, but for weeks she has never gotten tired of listening to it. Honestly, it was almost impossible to think of how good Emily made me feel, in every way.
I dropped the bag back into the living room, and Hannah and Emily were sitting down. Emily had pulled her legs onto the sofa and they were chatting. And Hannah was talking and smiling, finally. Emily was talking about school, her scholarship, the mentors she had found. So academically focused. Driven. And Hannah was almost checking Emily out. But that couldn’t be right, right? I watched her eyes flick down to Emily’s thighs, which were emerged flawlessly from out of her short denims.
Honestly, Hannah wasn’t all what I had expected after hearing so much about her. Maybe it was an American thing.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned. It was Jake, the man who had put Emily at unease. But he smiled, and his demeanor immediately relaxed me. Someone to trust here.
“Always awkward being at someone else’s family reunion, isn’t it?” Jake asked sympathetically.
“Yes!” I say.
“C’mon,” Jake said, heading into the kitchen, and I followed him in. He about a head taller than me, which wasn’t surprising. Most people were. I was a fairly delicate sized person, even in China, skinny. The way Emily carried herself, directed me, I sometimes had to remember that she wasn’t actually taller than me.
Jake was asking me about school, about Emily. How nice of him to include me in the conversation. He was preparing a drink.
“Here, drink?” he said, handing me a mug, smirking.
“Thanks!” I say. It was fizzy and purple. And looked at it uneasily.
“So is that a violin case?” Jake asked, pointing to the case in my hand.
“Yes,” I said, hefting it. “I’ve been playing since I was four. It’s one of my favorite things. I wasn’t going to bring it, but Emily insisted.”
“She do a lot of insisting?” Jake asked, eyebrow raised. I blushed.
“Sometimes,” I said. On your knees, Xiaowei, she’d say to me sometimes when we were alone in my apartment. Emily, I don’t… and she would insist. Fascinated that I would. I would probably do anything. I shivered.
“So are you good at violin?” Jake asked. “Win any awards?”
“Yes,” I nodded. I didn’t like to talk about it. But junior year I had won a province-wide award. It gave me a full scholarship to any music program in China. I had been so nervous. I remember how it felt, standing in the wings, wishing I wasn’t sweating so much. My hands were shaking as I looked over Glass’s Concerto No. 1. There had been a girl in a pretty black dress, her slender fingers on the neck of her violin. She had frowned at me, and then turned to talk to a handsome cellist.
Lost in memory, I took a sip of the fizzy purple drink. Hmm. It was a confusing mixture of sweet and bitter. What was this? But I must have been thirstier than I thought, because I drank the rest of it before I could stop myself. It left a kind of feathery feeling in my throat. Wow. Powerful aftertaste. I could feel it reach my fingers, then my toes, and then a kind of backwash up into my head.
“How’d you two meet, anyway?” Jake asked, looking at me oddly.
The feathery feeling began kind of pulsing through me. I felt strange. My head felt strange. Almost squishy.
“Talent show,” I said, almost embarrassed. “I was playing a piece by Razel. She was just sitting there, kind of memorized. And then she came up to talk to me afterward. Sat in the chair next to me.” I blushed again.
“And what’s your major? You spend a lot of time studying? Are you a senior?”
“Junior, and I’m a physics major,” I said. “Studying and practice, that’s me.” I smiled.
“That’s funny,” Jake said. “I could have sworn you were a football player.”
“Me? Football?” I said. I almost laughed. “You mean, American football?”
“Why, they don’t have that in Japan?” Jake said.
“Actually, I’m from China,” I said. Americans could be so frustrating. “And no one has American football except for Americans.”
“Really?” Jake said. “So what would you say your main extracurricular is?”
Football.
“Foo…” I started to say, before I caught myself. “Violin.” I loved violin. I gripped my case tighter. Each weekday I’d go to the practice rooms after my last class, and I would practice for two hours. It calmed me down, made me feel peaceful. I’d sway to the music, all the endless practice for advance bowing, playing Bartok and Brahms.
Remember how after the talent show and Emily had just sat down and crossed her leg, staring at my face? So can I come watch you practice sometime? she had just straight up asked. She was almost shockingly beautiful, so cute, so intimidatingly bold for a freshman. I had stammered in response, dying inside, and she had finally rolled her eyes and asked when I practiced. So I told her. I told her my favorite practice room.
I was sure she wouldn’t show. But then the next day, there she was. On the bench outside the practice room. Her yellow hair in a ponytail, a jacket over a white shirt, transparent enough that her t-shirt bra was lightly visible. Hiya. And she came in and just sat at the piano bench, she kept setting there, for hours sometimes, several times each week. At first he felt self-conscious about it. But after a while, he could feel her presence making him play extra beautifully. Inspired. She was a kind of perfect muse…
“Yeah, but you like, like to work out. Don’t you?” Jake asked.
“No,” I said, annoyed. I had always disliked exercise, even as a kid, didn’t like all the running around and push-ups and the time spent on athletics. In middle school they made us to a sit-up competition. Our gym teacher, Zhang Xiansheng. I made a face.
“Not at all?” he said.
I shifted, uneasily. I was feeling feathery all over.
“Well, I guess I sometimes do,” I amended. Had I forgotten? I did used the free-weights sometimes, didn’t I? And some lunges. The university had a nice gym, it was free so why not? I would practice violin for an hour and a half, and then go to the gym.
Football.
How had Jake known that I had liked Football growing up in Beijing? It was kind of a secret. While my friends were into the NBA or followed other games, I would idly check ESPN once in a while, something about the clash, the strategy, the stats, how foreign it seemed. An exotic game played by Americans.
Football.
No, I had loved football as a kid, who was I kidding? I spent hours pouring over the stats, I followed several websites religiously. My dynamite fantasy team once won me an $1,000 prize. I had to exchange it into RMB. It was kind of a relief to admit to myself just how much I loved football.
In fact. One of the main reasons I had chosen Swarthmore over UCLA was because I was a Steelers fan. Not that I would ever tell anyone that. Not ever ever.
“But as a kid,” Jake said, confused. “You must have been athletic if play football.”
“I don’t play football!” I said annoyed. Although it was true, I was athletic from an early age. I rubbed a hand on my abs absentmindedly. My favorite teacher, Zhang Xiansheng, had let me climb the stage when I won the sit-up competition. The way my classmates were annoyed thrilled me.
Maybe that was one of the reasons I loved football so much. Remember during violin lessons? My early morning Sunday classes, whenever my famous violinist teacher would leave the room to let me practice, I would quickly pull out my phone and scan for updates. I felt so guilty whenever she came back…
This didn’t feel right. I remembered doing that. But it just somehow… didn’t seem like me.
“So would you have rather have been playing football in high school, rather than violin?” Jake asked conversationally.
“No!” I said, horrified. “I spent every spare moment on the violin. It’s my vocation.”
“Yeah, but c’mon. You’re just saying that, aren’t you?”
Feathery.
Football.
“Maybe a bit,” I said cautiously. It was like I was admitting a secret for the first time. My parents had pushed violin on my pretty aggressively. No choice in the matter. And they had been so exasperated with my love of football. They had shamed me when I had asked for a Ben Roethlisberger lunchbox. And remember when I would pull out my phone whenever my instructor left? I would spend ten minutes or more, checking stats. It was costing my parents hundreds of dollars each week in wasted time. I didn’t even feel guilty about it.
“So is that why you spent so much time working out?” Jake asked.
“Well, I’ve always liked working out,” I said, shrugging, “but maybe.” I had been obsessed with the NFL combine. His parents didn’t understand why I spent so much time working out. A little bit is healthy, they said, but why all this powerlifting? It was good to feel strong all the time. Never felt like a pushover. That confidence was something you carried with you. That you were strong. Substantial.
It impacted my violin performance. I thought back to my junior recital in high school. I had prepared Glass’s Concerto No. 1. I had such a distinct memory of waiting in the wings of the auditorium, realizing I was one of the few buff kids there—well, the only buff kid there. I just stood there awkwardly. A girl in a pretty black dress had smiled shyly at me, her delicate fingers on the neck of her violin. She had crossed her legs.
Weight training wasn’t good for violinists. It made your arms heavy in exactly the wrong ways. That must have been why he didn’t win that award like he thought he would. The sorrow of that loss still hurt deeply. He rubbed his bicep through his shirt wistfully. That award would have definitely have changed his life had he won it. Vindication, you know?
“You must have played football high school,” Jake insisted. “Otherwise, how would you have made the college team?”
“I said, I didn’t make the team at university,” I said. Why did he keep saying that? This was my shame. The shameful walk-on tryouts. The coach shaking his head, perplexed. “But it’s true,” I told Jake. “I did manage to join a team at an international school. Mostly scrimmage stuff. So many Americans in Beijing these days.” I loved those leagues. It was like a pickup games, none of us had the right equipment. They were bloody games. I still felt elated, and the sensations came back – the sweat and stench of the helmet and jersey, the soreness from the endless conditioning. Even at university, Emily would come and sit on the grass, watching me do shuttle runs.
Jake looked me up and down approvingly.
“And you’re big for a Chinese guy… no offense,” Jake said. I looked down at him confused.
“What do you mean? I’m not big at all!”
“What are you, six two?”
I converted that into meters in my head. 1.9 meters? No way. I shook my head. Emily was like 1.6, 1.7 meters. I wasn’t much taller than her. We were perfect at 69ing. She had laughed at me the first time I had undressed in front of her. “You’re kind of waif-ish!” she had said. I had to ask what that meant.
“Are you sure?” he asked, using his hand to compare heights with me.
Feathery. I had to be tall, right? After all, I was so good at
Football.
“Yes,” I said, leaning against the counter, sitting on it. All counters were kinda like benches to me. More so in China. I was just huge in China. I was so confused. Why was this so surprising to me? Of course I was six four.
“Something’s not right…” I tell Jake. I put my hands on my head.
“What do you mean?” Jake said, curiously.
“I don’t like football,” I insisted. “I don’t. I’m not tall, I don’t work out.” I felt enormous relief saying so. It felt true.
But then again. Remember when I undressed for the first time in front of Emily? “You’re buff, Jesus!” she had said, throwing a pillow at me. I had to ask her what ‘buff’ meant. And she came up, this admiring look in her eye at my physique, I felt so embarrassed and turned on, the way her tiny body came up to me, the way she put her arms around my thick trunk. Our size difference was so big my penis pushed above her bellybutton. And her head had tilted up to look at me, those blue eyes, mischievous and confident. She drew a finger across my pec in fascination, and I shivered. I love how delicate your fingers are, she told me, leading me to my bed. C’mon like a good boy.
No. She hadn’t said that. Not how delicate. Feathery. She had said I love how big and strong your hands are. I loved the way she admired my body.
Football.
“Maybe that’s true,” Jake said frowning. “But how much time did you say you spent playing violin?”
“About half an hour a day,” I said. “… And about an hour and a half working out. And that’s not even including morning practice on the field.”
There was a pause while he let me think about this.
“So you do all that,” he said, surprised, “and you really don’t like to work out?”
I suddenly felt lost, and a bit panicked. I felt like I had suddenly slipped into a different reality. This wasn’t who I wanted to be.
You don’t like being strong? my brain asked. You don’t like that Emily likes your powerful body, how fascinated she is by it? You don’t like being an athlete, a competitor? Scoring a touchdown, the crowd cheering?
No, no no. But you’re so good at being a runningback. Remember your walk-on tryout? The coaches approval, such an American feeling, finally shedding that horrible violin? There was a spate of articles about you in China, quite a fan club…
“NO!” I said. “Stop this. This is all wrong. All wrong.” And for a moment, the fog all disappeared. I could see what had happened, and my jaw just gaped opened. And existing like a vague dream, that I could feel this visceral connection too—there was the tiny me, the one Emily could nearly match pound for pound, with my love of Ravel and my lovely violin, all those thousands and thousands of hours of practice… award-winning, a stand-out talent…
I looked down at myself, suddenly feeling lean and muscled, long-bodied. I looked at my big hands. Flashes of plays ran through my head, coach Elison, my teammates, my friendship with Anthony and Pete, the quarterback and kicker, the loud jokes on the bus, the way tiny Emily crawled on me, had made me crawl toward her, me obedient, powerful, hers.
I grasped at my love of violin. I tried to hold onto it. I clutched my violin case tightly. But I felt an ache… I liked the feeling of being an athlete, even at a small school, the way girls looked at me, shirtless, tossing the ball with the team, the way I had to squeeze into desks…
“I like violin,” I said definitively, frightened. “I’m not tall. I don’t like football. I had never even really thought about football until today. I hated the football players, the way they walked around, it’s just a liberal arts school anyway…”
“But if that’s true,” Jake asked slyly. “Why are you holding a football right now?”
I looked at my violin case. Only it was a football. I felt panicked. That violin cost a hundred thousand dollars.
“Where is it?” I asked, seized with terror.
“Where’s what?” Jake asked.
“My violin!”
“What violin?” Jake asked confused. (But did he have a strange glint in his eye?)
“I brought it in! I’ve never even touched a… a… football before…” that was such a lie. It fit perfectly into my hands.
“Think back,” Jake said encouragingly. “When you got the stuff out of the car. What did you get?”
“Emily’s blue bag,” I said. She had squeezed me. Then I want to the back seat and…. and… pulled out a… a football. And then I tossed it in the air, a clean spiral, and snatched it. Emily had laughed delightedly. She had mocked me that I still sometimes played violin, just out of habit. That scratchy noise you make? she told me, eyes laughing. My extraordinarily cheap violin I had picked up for less than a hundred dollars. She was a much better musician than I was, we both knew. Playing Suzuki book V.
Remember I had met Emily at Homecoming? I had scored the only touchdown in the third quarter. And then she just walked up to me after the game, this beautiful freshman girl. She said she was enchanted by the way I ran, juked. Could I watch you work out sometime? she had asked with earth-shattering coyness. My face had never turned so read. I had still been a virgin at that point—not that I would have ever, ever admitted that to the guys.
But she showed up to the gym the next day, lying on a bench, looking up at her phone, in athletic wear, like she was in camouflage. He good it felt to have such a perfect freshen, watching me with fascinating from the bench. When I was benching, she had come over and conspicuously leaned her boobs over the rack between sets, I was nearly blinded with sweat, her eyes gleaming. Next time you’ll wear a tank top, she had practically ordered.
“I’m a football player,” I said thunderstruck. I sat down on a kitchen chair. Dimly, I noticed how tiny. “This is my new life.”
“It’s always been your life,” Jake corrected. “This is your reality.”
I felt different. I was different. Physics wasn’t very important, was it? Not compared to football. I watched it on TV. Of course. There was some dim memory of me as a violinist, but it made this more exciting. What was going on? Football. That was me. Just the word thrilled me.
“What just happened?” I asked Jake.
“What do you mean?” he asked innocently.
For the first time that day, I didn’t really trust him. I needed to talk with Emily.
