Chapter 37 Performance of a Lifetime
Matt felt slimy just thinking about what he had to do: kiss Colton Langley’s ass and arrange to betray William. Sure, it would be an act, but it had to be convincing enough to fool Colton, which meant more than just suppressing the urge to deck the guy for his role in Debbie’s firing.
Now that the SGA meeting was finally over, it was almost showtime. Matt remained seated, waiting for everyone but Colton to exit the room. This would be hard enough to do without an audience.
Colton stood at the front table, officiously shuffling through papers, stealing the occasional nervous glance at Matt.
Matt pretended to read one of the resolutions they’d debated earlier. It was a pompous word salad, peppered with “whereases” and “therefores,” before petering out with a mealy-mouthed request that the administration maybe, possibly, consider adding vegetarian options in the cafeteria.
Unlike previous SGA meetings, where Colton and his toady, Mike Huebsch, had orchestrated everything, pushing through their agenda, this time Colton had given the parliamentary procedure geeks free reign.
They had creamed themselves with their rhetorical circle jerk, gumming up progress on any real business, including gleefully tabling the vegetarian resolution.
Colton, chairing the meeting, had gavelled their motions and moderated their mayhem with a bemused smirk on his frat boy face—as if reminding everyone else that without his enlightened despotism, the gremlins would muck up everything.
Matt had not joined the fracas. He had long ago accepted that he would never “masterdebate.” He knew two of Roberts Rules, which seemed sufficient.
When he took up the gavel—after Colton’s March 22nd take-down, in a mere 43 days, parliamentary game playing would come to a sudden and ignominious end.
Matt’s days, in addition to classes and chapel, were crammed with preparations for March 22nd.
Ground zero would be the old farmhouse road where William had given him his first blowjob and later fucked him.
It was rural and secluded, but also within Oklahoma City limits, which meant Oklahoma City police would respond to any incidents there—not Bliss’s fCOC friendly ones.
Matt had located a pay phone at a gas station about a mile away from ground zero and confirmed that it was in working order. Had checked 11 items off his to-do list already.
Luckily for him, there was no soccer—practice or games—during the spring semester.
Another reason to look forward to March 22nd: everyone’s conditions and counter-conditions regarding their participation in Colton’s take-down would expire! Matt’s life would become decidedly less complicated.
Molly and another SGA member ambled past Matt’s chair, heading towards the exit. As Molly passed Mike Huebsch, who, with his back to her, was straightening chairs and tidying the room, she stuck out her tongue.
Matt stifled a laugh. Good old Molly!
All of Molly’s conditions regarding Colton’s takedown had been met: Lesbian access to the GM clubhouse?
Check—albeit far less than she had wanted.
Introduction to the editor of the Daily Oklahoman?
Check. (Through Matt’s connections with Nicholas—and Nicholas’s connections with the Oklahoman, Molly was now interning for the crime reporter there.) She was perfectly positioned to snap the photos that would be Colton’s undoing—and make Bella Bottoms a star.
And, yes, Bella was also solidly on board with the plan. She’d seen samples of Molly’s work and approved. She’d agreed to pay Molly for use of her photos after a one-year freebie.
There was still the issue of Bella’s third condition, but Matt felt confident he could pull that off as well.
Matt looked around. The room was almost empty. Two of the holdouts were a girl and one of the parliamentary geeks, both of whose names escaped him. The girl was flirting with the pimply geek, flipping her hair and batting her eyelashes. Poor thing. She was wasting her time.
Geek guy had already shot his wad—verbally—with one too many motions. Mentally, he was smoking a cigarette, drowsing off to sleep, oblivious to the hot girl in front of him.
Matt’s dorm was packed with guys like this one—earnest, straight guys who’d never been kissed—except by their mothers and saggy-breasted aunts.
Guys who wanked in the shower, making love to fantasy women, but couldn’t interact with the live ones all around them.
Guys who believed that the man was the head of the house but expected a woman to take the initiative physically—until marriage, after which point she was “to submit to her husband as to the Lord.”
Valentine’s Day was less than a week away. There was little chance Matt would get to spend it with Adam. He decided to play Cupid for this couple. Maybe if geek guy had to spend more time with this girl, he might trip and fall into her embrace.
“Hey you two!” Matt said, walking over to them.
“Mustang!” said the girl.
“Hey,” mumbled the guy.
Matt addressed the girl. “Weren’t you one of the speakers in favor of that vegetarian resolution?”
She nodded.
“I thought so! Good speech,” Matt said. He wanted to tell her that his boyfriend was also a vegetarian but couldn’t—for obvious reasons.
“And this guy—” Matt playfully jostled the pimply geek “—had the nerve to table your resolution!”
Geek guy blushed and stammered.
Vegetarian girl ramped up the fake indignation. She was a quick study.
Matt slipped a reassuring arm around geek guy’s shoulders, like they were best buds.
“I think,” Matt said, giving the girl a conspiratorial wink, “that if I were the guy who had tabled your resolution, the least I could do to make it up to you would be to have dinner with you tomorrow night and see what it’s like trying to eat without true vegetarian options.”
The girl looked expectantly at geek guy, who stood there blinking, suddenly lost for words.
Matt turned to him and whispered: “This is the part where you ask if you can join her for dinner.”
It was awkward, but geek guy managed to arrange his first date, then beamed triumphantly like he’d just discovered the cure for cancer.
Matt ushered them towards the exit, promising that, once the vegetarian resolution came up for consideration again, he would vote for it.
Vegetarian girl mouthed “thank you” to him on her way out.
Matt closed the door behind them. Now he was alone in the room with Mike Huebsch and Colton Langley. He took a moment to center himself before turning around.
“What do you want?” Colton snarled.
“I was hoping you and I could have a private conversation,” Matt said.
Huebsch was indignant. He puffed out his chest and stretched himself as tall as he could, none of which made any difference on his 5’6”, 95-lb frame, a Chihuahua in a big dog world.
“Anything you’ve got to say to Colton, you can say in front of me,” Huebsch yipped. “We’re a team.”
Matt ignored him, gave Colton an imploring look. “Please?”
Colton sighed. “Fine.” Then he turned to Huebsch. “Beat it.”
Huebsch’s face registered surprise, as if he had never considered that he, too, was expendable where Colton was concerned. His shoulders slumped.
“Suck it up, buttercup!” Colton snapped. “You’re acting like a girl.”
Matt remembered when Colton had called him buttercup as well. Turnabout would be fair play in 43 days.
Huebsch gathered his things and trudged out of the room.
Matt watched him leave. He had zero sympathy for the guy. Huebsch was the slimebag who had pretended to befriend Paul, then threatened to tell the dean he was gay.
Colton glared at Matt. “Start talking.”
Matt tried—not for the first time—to imagine Colton as a loveable person, someone worthy of William’s heart. Couldn’t fathom it.
Tried picturing him as a likeable person. Again—nothing.
The best that could be said of Colton Langley was that he was physically attractive. Not drop-dead handsome, but a solid “8.”
His eyes, though, belonged on a pit viper, specifically a copperhead. They were soulless, predatory—and deadly.
Matt had to tread carefully.
“I need your help,” he said, trying to sound appropriately plaintive.
“The great ‘Mustang’ wants my help?” Colton sneered. “You sucker-punched me in the library and tried to attack me again that time in the men’s room.”
Matt grimaced. No good would come of revisiting those encounters, and there was no way he would be able to feign remorse.
He plowed ahead instead. “When I started school in the fall, I didn’t know anyone.
William seemed like a nice guy. A bit effeminate, maybe, but a nice guy. I made the mistake of befriending him.”
“You weren’t the first person to fall into that trap,” Colton said, as if his own history with William could be rewritten with himself as the victim.
Matt nodded in fake empathy. He’d seen the ring Colton had given William their senior year of high school, had read the Christmas card, in Colton’s own handwriting: “With all my cock and all my love.” But, sure, he’d play along.
Matt had his own alternate history to peddle.
The story he was telling had nothing to do with William, everything to do with the youth minister who had raped him.
He needed to tap into those feelings when conjuring the lie that William had been anything but a friend to him.
He needed emotional truth to ground this performance, to slip past Colton’s bullshit detectors, to trick him into falling for the queen sacrifice.
“William took advantage of me….” Matt paused. Broke off eye contact. “… physically.”
“Did you let him fuck you?” Colton asked. His voice was husky.
“Something like that,” Matt mumbled. He channeled his thirteen-year-old self, let the shame and fear wash over him—again.
Matt felt Colton’s reptilian eyes roving over his body. Guessed the guy was picturing him on his knees taking William’s thrusts. Knew, without looking, that Colton was titillated.