Turning Eighteen, Part One

Summary: (Complete; R; Slash) Jason has had a crush on Mr. Mendes for years. But now that he's eighteen and out of high school, he makes up his mind to do something about it. He can get out of his Mom's house, come out of the closet and go talk to the guy. How hard can that be? But life and family have a way of making things more complicated...~I woke up on the morning of November 10, 2007 and glanced at my clock. It was just after six—there was time yet. I closed my eyes and started on my favorite fantasy. He was taking off his belt as he ordered me to bend over a table. I would have to put up with a lecture in addition to the punishment, but I knew that it’d be worth it.In the back of my mind, I was afraid that I was some sort of freak. Not because I was fantasizing about another guy—I had made my peace with that—but because I wanted that guy to discipline me. I didn’t want him to cripple me or anything, but I did want to feel his hand and his belt punish me. But maybe I wasn't so freakish. There were spankings in porn flicks all the time.Once I was spent, I sat up and stared at the Far Side calendar next to my bed. This was the day. I was eighteen.I got up, showered and dressed and then I packed my stuff—no use hanging around for goodbyes. I’d been kicked out of my home five times since I turned fifteen. Why wait for it to happen again?All the things I cared about fit into my backpack: a few change of clothes, some official stuff like my birth certificate, the iPod my Mom got me when she was on one of her guilt trips and a bunch of baseball cards. It was too bad I couldn’t take the computer—but I’d have one of my own soon enough. Maybe a Play Station and a Nintendo too, if I played my cards right.By now it was just past seven. And it was a Saturday, so I knew no one else would be up. I put on my jacket, slung the backpack over my shoulder and walked downstairs. I left by the front door, stopping long enough to throw my house keys into the mailbox. I wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t coming back.I didn’t bother catching a bus; the place I was going to was less than a mile away. I just had to cross the avenue and walk down a few blocks until I got to this monstrous old house.I’m not sure why he owned such a big house—he lived there alone, except for his dog. At least I hoped he still lived there alone. For the first time I felt some nerves in my stomach. What if he’d already found himself a pretty boy?I stopped and stared into the window of the nearest parked car. Not to brag, but I was decently hot. I had my Irish Mom's dark hair and hazel eyes. My Dad was a mutt, but I had his height and sharp features. Altogether it was a good combination. So even if there was another pretty boy in the picture, I had nothing to worry about.Pretty soon the house was in sight. I sprinted up to his front door, eager to see his expression when he answered it.I rang the bell and heard the dog barking, but no one answered. I threw my backpack down on the porch. Where was he? His car was in the driveway and it was only eight in the morning—he should be home. I rang the bell again, but all I got was more barking. Fuck, I thought. I took a seat on the porch steps and folded my arms in disgust.Mr. Mendes must have gone out for a walk. No—not Mr. Mendes. He wasn’t my teacher anymore and he hadn’t been for two years. I could call him Aaron now, right?Aaron wasn’t as hot as I was. But now that I was an adult, I knew that didn’t matter. Besides, he was ok—he was tall, fit and I liked his black mussy hair. He looked a little Latino, but he was really Jewish. Actually I think he was Portuguese Jewish or Moroccan Jewish or something like that. Sephardic, they call it.I had made his life hell when I was his student. I knew he was gay and that gave me an excuse to torment him. At the time, I couldn’t have explained why I knew. He didn’t talk with that gay accent and he didn’t have the limp wrist—there was nothing about him to give him away. He should’ve been able to pass.But I knew in my gut that he’d never looked at a woman. Now I know why I knew—I never looked at one either, except to keep up appearances. Jesus, all that wasted time pretending to drool over Girls Gone Wild, just to make sure that I’d never get beat up in the locker room. High school is brutal. It’s no wonder I dropped out at sixteen.I didn’t always give Mr. Mendes hell. Sometimes I got along with him. Once, when we were going over vocabulary words, he explained what ‘provoke’ means. “Jason,” he said, “if you get into another fight with your cousin, just tell your Mom that he provoked you.”I grinned and looked him straight in the eye as I answered. “If I said that, my Mom would slap me upside the head and tell me to stop using that fucking fancy language.”He laughed along with the rest of the class. “All right,” he admitted. “You might have to tailor your language at home. But you can use ‘provoke’ the next time you’re in the principal’s office.”And then one day when I was on his last nerve, I heard him mutter under his breath. I’m not sure what he said, but it was something like, “God, if he were my son…”That’s all I heard. But I was familiar with that phrase. I usually heard it from my Mom’s boyfriends: “If you were my son, I’d tan your ass!”I should have been furious, but I wasn’t. I stared at Mr. Mendes, wondering what it’d be like if he tanned me. This may sound crazy, but that’s when I realized that I was into him. Ok, I know that high school kids get crushes on their teachers all the time. But this wasn’t a crush. This was the real thing.I didn’t pursue anything though. Even I knew that he wasn’t going to start something with a student and a minor. So I’d have to wait.I still made his life hell—except when there were no other students around to impress. Whenever I saw him during help period or detention or in-school suspension, I was golden. I’d do any work he gave me and then we’d talk about stuff like baseball, current events, movies or the history stories that we’d read in class.I missed that after I dropped out. He must have missed it too, because he tried to convince me to come back to school. And when I refused, he offered to help me get my high school equivalency diploma. We started meeting at the library a few times a week. Every once and a while we’d meet at his house instead. Things didn’t change between us, though—he still treated me like a student. But I could understand that. I was still a minor.But now I was eighteen. He didn’t have to treat me like a student or a kid any more.Those nerves started up in my stomach again. Something was warning me that he’d never look at me as anything other than a student. But I squelched that thought. Last year, when a girl in town graduated and turned eighteen, she married one of her high school teachers. And nobody thought anything of it. So as long as I was out of school and over eighteen, there was no reason for Mr. Mendes—for Aaron—to have a problem.I’d just have to find some way to convince him that I wasn’t a kid anymore; that was all. And I’d have to convince him to let me stay at his place for a while. I didn’t think he’d turn me down—but I was afraid that he’d agree and then treat me like a son instead of a lover. God, please don’t let him do that. I knew for a fact that he was only thirteen years older than me. He wasn’t old enough to be my father.Inside the house, the dog was still barking. That was Tybalt—he sounded fierce, but as long as he knew you he was ok with you. I wasn’t afraid of him. It was just too bad that he couldn’t let me in. But that was impossible, so I made myself comfortable on the porch and practiced what I was going to say to Mr. Mendes.