Darren

Darren was fed up. He had spent his whole life suffering under the banner of modesty. Alone in his room as he perfected his craft, he tried in vain to continue to quell his growing frustration, but as it was borne out of an unquenchable jealousy he was no longer capable to refrain. He penned another line of his poem but as he searched for the perfect ending he faltered, unable to avoid the memory of the day’s events.

Earlier that day Cindy had been sitting next to him in math class and to his unbelievable good fortune she was in need of a spare pen!

“Do you have a spare pen?” she drawled with exquisite lack of interest and a touch of uninflected irony.

“Sorry?” Darren replied, annoyed that he had overdone his politeness tenfold, but happy his voice hadn’t cracked.

“Do you have a spare pen?” She redrawled, notable agitation replacing the disguised irony. Darren had heard perfectly what she had said but was wont to hear it again; this could be the last time they speak for the rest of the semester.

“Umm, yea-ah“ there was the undesired fault he had predicted. He cleared his throat for round two. “Yeah I do” he said deeply, so deep in fact one could suspect that he had just endured his final testie pop. He may have dreamt it, but he could have sworn he saw her eyebrow rise just a little. Perhaps an animalistic response to his new found manly tone.

“Thanks hun,” she smiled (she hadn’t smile but her beautiful irony, or was it sarcasm? – her beautiful sarcastic irony had returned and smiled for her).

Darren nodded idiotically, eyes wide and bewildered, and had to use all his might to stop himself from getting whiplash from excessive inclination. Cindy rolled her deep brown eyes, shifting their attention back to the page of math problems in front of her as she tongued the 4 hour old chewing gum in her mouth, moving it gracefully from the left molars to the right. She held his pen - that lucky tool of inscription which had ventured into fields Darren could only fantasize about - and twirled it in her delicate hand, flawlessly avoiding the jumper sleeve she had pulled long in response to the winter chill.

Back in his room that night Darren was toiling over his latest work. Scribbling and scratching with his pen, the elegantly scented pen that had lingered while fingered by the bewitching temptress. But as he racked his brain for the perfect rhyme to his couplet he couldn’t get over the anger caused by that fool Wilfred. Wilfred! That moronic phony! The guile to do what he dares do, a dozen done a day!

As the fruitless math lesson continued to fall awkwardly from Mr. Sansky’s square brain and out his trapezoidal mouth, Darren found it hard to steady his hand after the conversation with his beloved, undiscovered Cindy.

“If pond one always attracted one third of the ducks as pond two how could you make an algebraic equation to represent the number of ducks in pond two in relation to pond one?” Sansky quizzed suddenly, "Anyone? Darren?"

Blankly Darren stared at the short, well kempt, goody two shoes scholarly looking douche bag. The douche bag sighed, “You would let the ducks in pond one equal x, and then…” he prompted.

“It seems a little callous and inhumane to mark these ducks with a uniform brand. Is this 1984? And to brand them with an x? Perchance you plan on shooting these ducks after you surmise your pointless hypothetical?” Darren had impressed not only himself with his outburst but as he turned to Cindy he caught her muffling laughter into her hand heating sleeve. The teacher, for the benefit of all parties involved, sighed again and proposed the question to a student of more geometric foundations.

“Pond two equals 3x,” replied Molly Bingwall in her nasally high pitched voice.

“That’s correct!” exclaimed Sansky, his faith in today’s youth, and humanity abroad, momentarily restored.

As Darren’s brain twisted itself into a knot inside his head, like a party tricked cherry stem, his search for the crucial couplet boiled over and he threw his book across the room. He knew there was only one thing to do when he reached this level of anger. He quickly undressed and felt himself already hardening in anticipation. He had jerked off twice that morning and once after school, so he was surprised at the eagerness of his reddening penis – Was it red for a rush of blood or a rash of abuse? He had no time to ponder this. Naked within moments he pushed his chair against the door, and wedged the opposite end against the adjacent wall. He turned up his stereo a little louder and closed the curtains.

The bell rang for the end of the period and Darren walked casually out of the classroom. He saw Cindy look up as he exited and smiled at her. To his amazement she returned the gesture, this time with her lips and teeth and not her sarcastic temperament. He slowed his walk as he left and decidedly stopped at a bubbler sipping mildly at the uneven water stream it delivered. In his peripheral he caught Cindy leaving the classroom and stood up. This was his moment. This is what would change his life.

He straightened his posture and walked with a purpose he had never experienced before. His heart raced and his feet were light. A tornado of emotion whirled through his body but his exterior maintained the calm of its eye. He was within five casual paces of her and he turned on a smile, half with his lips and half with his eyes, as she turned to see him approach. He had caught her off guard and her shocked face displayed the first unfiltered emotion she had ever delivered to the outside world.

He was about to reach for her hand and serenade her with his finest sonnet as he held it tightly between his own. He had earned it; it was his turn to be happy. But as he reached out it was taken by a larger and smoother hand - the hand of Wilfred Petterson. That hack! That scoundrel! That thief in broad daylight spun her on her heel without even heeding the right of claim Darren had so dutifully and patiently garnered. With a wink and a smile he had her undivided attention.

“Cindy, my love, I have a ballad I scripted for you in my free period! Would you permit me to enchant and entrance your attention but for a moment?” before she could muster a reply or remember her interest in the curious Darren Edgars, Wilfred, his voice loud and confident but never yelling, began his poetic expression.

“Cindy my dear
So close; yes we’re
As you await the day
That I take you away
From this world, this place, and all your fear”

A limerick?! This fuckface stole my heart and soul with a fucking limerick!

He grabbed his pen and put it up to his nose, absorbing the intoxicating aroma of Cindy’s scent and his own ingrained sweaty residue, both adding to his horniness. He jumped on his bed, balancing on one hand and two knees, with his face close enough to the mattress to smell the pen as he placed it directly beneath his nose. Tissues carefully positioned and eyes closed, he furiously ran his hand up and down the raw penile skin – years of erosion were caused in the space of that single day - the rapidity lathering up the hand cream. He pictured Cindy in her school clothes and imagined ripping them off, he saw her raise her eyebrow again like it was happening for the first time a hundred times in his head. Do you have a spare pen? she asked with a raspy edge in her voice. She laughed into her sleeve. Was she laughing at him?

“Fuck it, laugh at me you bitch. I don’t care” Darren growled, going a full octave deeper than he had ever gone before. She looked up at him with all the innocence and shock and surprise of a young girl about to encounter her first sexual conqueror. He was about to climax all over her face and then out of nowhere, right as he came, he saw Wilfred’s stupid, amazingly chiseled jaw and cheekbones steal the frame of his mind’s eye; winking at him and flashing his trademark smile. Those perfect white teeth and ocean blue eyes, one lid closing without even a flinch of any other facial feature. What little juice Darren had mustered in the last three hours shot out, some of it reaching his pillow; all of it missing the carefully arranged tissues.

He rolled over, making sure he didn’t lie in the scattered damp patches on his bed, and stared at the ceiling, too tired to still be angry, but definitely still feeling like a piece of shit. His heart began to slow down again and his breath became more controlled. A fucking limerick…


Wilfred's Story (Part 2)


-Eden