The 'Cousins'

Part Three - Jess's Dilemma and Torment

 

This contains a scene of gay coercion!

 

Jess didn’t notice the pain in his leg as he strolled into the School House and made his way  slowly up the stairs to his dormitory. His mind was filled with the events of the day; the accident, losing the store job and meeting Mr. Mitchell. 

He wondered what might come of working with this man. He’d heard that Brits often start out well- intentioned and well meaning, but tend to drop out before things were finished. Jess had taken more than his fair share of knocks and tumbles since he’d been at Bamptonville Community College. He’d not raise his hopes too high or too soon, and see how things developed. He liked Mr. Mitchell, it was fun being with him. 

‘Start small’ he said to nobody.  ‘If I can just get the $320 I need to cover my expenses here, that will be good enough.’

Jess was resigned to going back home to work on the farm at the end of the semester and didn’t want to go home with a bill he knew his folks couldn’t pay. He breathed a sigh of relief and held his  full stomach as he climbed to the top landing and turned into his dormitory and mumbled.

‘And I won’t have to go to Felix Gleitner.’

After losing the job at McKendricks and while he was half listening to Melissa’s preachings he had racked his brains to find another way to settle that bill before school closed at the end of the fourth quarter in just 5 weeks time.  

However hard he thought  for a way out his mind came up with but  one solution – Felix Gleitner. It made him feel physically sick just to think about it, but that now seemed to be his only way out. 

He lay with his face slumped on the table at Harry’s and was psyching himself up to the inevitability that he’d have to go through with it. It added mental pain to his physical distress after the accident. He tried hard to shut out what Melissa was saying and then Mr. Mitchell had arrived and offered  him an alternative. 

Jess smiled ‘Maybe he was sent by God. Like he told Melissa?’

Jess felt comforted as he limped into the dormitory. He stopped just inside the door. Something was wrong.  It was too quiet and too dark. Most of the overhead lights were out. This long dormitory housed 30 boys, partitioned in their own bed spaces with no doors by 6 feet high walls for privacy.

 He glanced into the nearest ones. The occupants were all in bed and under the bed sheets. Their bed lights turned out as if they were asleep. It was never like that. There was always banter and laughter and joshing until after midnight. It was too early for them all to be turned in and asleep. 

His space was near the far end. He saw all of the overhead lights were switched off at that end; only those at the entrance were switched on. With a lump in his throat and butterflies in his stomach he crept on into the increasing gloom towards his bedspace. 

Something odd was happening here and he didn’t know what it was. Somehow he believed it was to do with him. He’d regularly suffered from bullying as he came from a poor, out of town family and was a ready-made target. It was mostly names and ostracism. Jess had got used to that.

He expected something to happen with each step he took, but nothing had happened by the time he had reached his bed space and he breathed out in relief. Jess hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath. He switched on the bunk light and began to undress. 

He’d got down to his tank-top when they appeared. Three seniors walked into his space and blocked him in.  Kyler, Leon and Billie-Joe  just stood there leering at him.