Chapter Six

Mrs. Robinson – Shannon – was, of course, an older woman, trying desperately to hold on to her beauty. She had a husband who was never home, a huge house with no guard dogs and a king-sized bed. She also didn't talk much during sex – she was perfect.

When Puck pulled up in her driveway, raising his gaze to take in the concrete and glass monstrosity Mr. Robinson called a house, he felt a shiver of something deep down in his belly; the remnants of the person he stopped being earlier that afternoon.

He locked the truck, then made his way to the front door and pushed the doorbell. He wasn't surprised at all when the door opened immediately and she stood there, striking what was apparently supposed to be a sexy pose, hair pulled back and dressed in ill-fitting lingerie.

"Hello, dear," she fisted a hand in the front of his shirt and pulled him in, probably hoping he didn't notice what he was pretty sure was a very badly faked French accent.

"Bedroom?" he asked, cutting straght to the chase. Her pupils widened leading him out of the hall, up the stairs and into the master bedroom to the right. Puck had been here before; he remembered every tacky detail, including the plastic palm plant and a framed picture of her and her husband turned to face away from the room in a pathetic attempt to…something, Puck didn't even know what. If Shannon was sorry, she wouldn't let Puck fuck her - simple as that.

"Come at me, baby," she said, laying out on the bed and he willed himself to find her attractive. He still was a teenage boy – a teenage boy who hadn't had sex with anyone but his right hand in more than six months. He could get hard rubbing against a tree.

Still, the little, suppressed, quivering part of him supplied, her wrinkled, fake-tanned skin, thin lips with way too much lipstick, sagging eyelids painted pink - she was the exact opposite of what he used to want; to love.

That wasn't coming back, though, and Puck just had to settle, like he's been doing most of his life.

He dropped his shirt immediately, not really caring about Mrs. Robinson's outstretched fingers that apparently wanted to do it. He kneeled on the end of the bed instead, leaning forward and bracing himself on the sides of her head.

She licked her lips and looked up at him like he just brought her the stars; he almost felt sad for her. When he kissed her, though, he had to force himself to linger. Everything was too soft, too old, too different and he wasn't used to it anymore.

She whimpered and thrust her tongue into his mouth; it was long and intrusive, like a snake. Her hands sneaked downwards at the same time, scratching his chest just for the effect, sliding further to squeeze his ass in a way that felt more sleazy than anything else.

Mrs. Robinson's breath hitched slightly and she inhaled, like she wanted to say something, but stopped herself. Her fingers made their way underneath his waistband instead, popping the button of his jeans and pushing them down, heavy denim immediately sliding to his knees.

Puck figured he should probably do something when she hesitated again; he was usually the one leading the action and she was obviously unsure what to do, kissing him with fervor instead and getting saliva all over his chin.

Breathing in deeply through his nose, he slid one of his hands under her back and undid her bra, stopping to think how he really wasn't used to this anymore. He'd have to earn his sex shark title back.

Shannon smiled like a lioness. One of the hands slid underneath Puck's boxers and palmed his ass and fuck if that wasn't the most repulsive feeling ever – her hands were cold, her palms dry like paper and nails sharp. Puck slid down her panties, pointedly looking nowhere but her face.

And, then, suddendly, she stopped.

It took Puck more than a minute to realize her hand had moved to the front of his boxers, probably expecting to find him ready to burst out of them as usual. He looked down, feeling strangely disconnected, and, of fucking course, he wasn't even hard.

Fuck. There went his teenage boy theory.

"Baby…" Mrs. Roberts half-whispered, half-moaned, taking him in her hand and trying to stroke him awkwardly – she wanted it bad.

And really, maybe that was the problem. Maybe she was too eager, too willing, and Puck was so used to courting, being in bed with her threw him off.

Or maybe it was just her; because she was a woman. Because her body was too thin and too soft, skin too delicate, because she had boobs that pressed against him in all the wrong places. And her eyes – her eyes were…

Too brown. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Of course that was Puck's problem – after being deprived of sex for six moths and having his heart broken by the fucker, Mrs. Robinson still wasn't Kurt.

Puck jumped to his feet, ignoring the protesting noises and yelling, pulling his jeans up and throwing on his shirt, not bothering with the buttons. He was in the hall and out of the door in mere seconds, the need to get away overriding all his senses. He heard Mrs. Robinson running after him, tripping on the stairs and throwing a badly aimed shoe at his head when he was outside and too far away.

"Don't think you're getting paid!" she shouted after him.

And then, driving home in a blaze of carlights and snow, he felt the tears come again.

~*~

Sunday mornings were a bitch – even without experiencing the first hangover of your life.

When Kurt stumbled out of bed, it was a little after eleven. In the first moment, he didn't even recognize his own room, sat up sharply on the bed, only to end up with his head in his hands. The headache started behind his eyes, spread and pulsed in his whole skull. His stomach was literally swimming and minutes later, with the first circuits in his mind starting to function, he realized this is probably what a hangover feels like – complete with the fog in your brain that makes it difficult to remember anything.

After managing to drink and keep down a glass of water, Kurt shut the blinds and crawled back to bed. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember what happened.

He was absolutely certain Adrian and a few other guys have come to get him the morning before. They took the bus to Westerville, walked over to a place called Gloria's and met Gloria, the owner.

For a second, there was a fleeting taste of cinnamon on his tongue that completed the memory – Gloria, of course. She made amazing pastries and tea and all that other stuff, because her grand-something grandmother had a bakery in France and gave her the recipes and... Yeah, he also talked to Baline for a while.

Afterwards, though, it was all a blur of faces and long, blonde hair. Girl's hair. Kurt frowned behind the hand he was holding over his face. There were no girls at Gloria's when they came in...were there?

There was a sudden memory of Blaine, telling him Gloria has a daughter, and the fog on his brain lifted a bit. Emma, right? He talked to Emma, she was nice. And she was a lesbian, which was awesome.

And Emma had friends. Three...no, four friends. Cathy, that was the one he was pretty sure he remebered sucking Sebastian's face off. Jenna, Grant's almost girlfriend, Na—Naya? Yeah, Naya. And...

Oh, hell.

Alona.

The second everything came rushing back, Kurt was back in the bathroom, throwing up everything he had in his stomach - which was very close to nothing - tears of shock already streaming down his face. He wiped at his face, disgusted, let it flood back to him and the fog dissapear.

He remembered, now. Remembered fumbling hands and sharp nails and a wet, hot mouth, smelling lavender and pulling at her hair...Alona's hair. A girl's hair. He had sex. With a girl. He got drunk and had sex with a girl in a dirty bathroom stall. There was probably no way he could stoop any lower – until a certain very important fact registered.

Noah.

He got drunk, had sex with a girl, and cheated on Noah. Who was probably still waiting for Kurt to say yes and let him touch him for more than fifteen seconds.

Yeah, he was a blushing virgin, all right.

He didn't even bother standing up and getting to the bed – going over last night's events, he threw up three more times, disgusted with himself, the world, everything. He cheated on Noah. It was dirty, shameful and he'd liked it.

It sounded so surreal his boyfriend would probably laugh if he told him. Kurt has been turning him away for months, still not feeling ready for such a big step, always apologizing and promising next time.

Maybe...maybe the guys in See the Light have been right, after all. Maybe he couldn't give himself over to Noah because he didn't want to.
Maybe it was that simple – maybe he was straight.

And maybe he was just a disgusting excuse for a human being.

The last time he emptied his stomach, white spots dancing in front of his eyes and his tears hitting the cold porcelain, the only thought in his head was call Noah.

~*~

On Sunday night, after getting voicemail for what felt like (and probably was) the hundredth time, Kurt gave up. He shut the blinds he'd barely opened, ignored his growling stomach and crawled to bed.

Noah wasn't picking up. Maybe he'd decided he'd finally had enough of waiting and pining and wanted to get back to the way he used to be, popular and sleeping with every girl that crossed his path – it wasn't so far in the past, he could still revive his badass reputation and consider his 'relationship' with Kurt a momentary lapse of judgement.

Any maybe, just maybe, somehow, he knew.

It was the worst scenario Kurt could come up with, but once he did, it overshadowed everything else in his mind. Noah was standing, back against the wall of a room Kurt didn't recognize, his chest heaving and eyes wildly searching for something that wasn't there. "How could you?" he was saying. There were tears in his eyes; probably the last moment he'd ever let Kurt see his vulnerability. Noah's fists clenched, and for a second, Kurt flinched and dropped his line of thought. He'd fully expected a punch in the face.

Back in the made up little world in his head, Kurt could hear himself apologizing over and over, barely breathing over the stabbing pain in his chest. Noah punched a wall, gasped at the pain that no doubt shot up his arm, then turned to Kurt, his gaze lifeless. "Fine, whatever you want. Not like I expected anything else." Imaginary Noah walked away and shut the door with a bang.

Kurt more heard than felt the tear sliding down his cheek. With Noah, all his issues and his temper, this was probably the only possible way it could go down if Kurt confessed.

Noah was going to leave him.

He was going to rip Kurt's heart out, tear it into pieces and stomp over it, completely justified and if Kurt wanted to be honest, there was no way around it.

There'd been enough pain, of both the physical and psychological kind; his mind foggy and hung over, not thinking clearly, what popped into his head next was a knee-jerk reaction.

Noah was going to leave him and he was going to get hurt.

Unless Kurt left him first.

His phone lay all the way across the room, silent in invitation. Kurt choked on a sob.

"Noah, I, I—I want to break up. You hear me? I don't want to be your boyfriend anymore!" he shouted into the empy room and buried his face in the pillow, cursing himself for being too much of a coward to actually dial. He didn't really need to. He'd just take the easy way out like the lying bastard he was, and not call. Or pick up. Noah wouldn't, either.

Two hours later, half asleep, it never occured to Kurt that Noah had changed everything for him; changed who he was, who he wanted to be, and maybe, just maybe, wouldn't want to let go.

~*~

The next See the Light meeting was on Tuesday.

The day had started out with a storm, rain hitting the ground and turning dirt to mud that sloshed underneath Kurt's shoes every time he crossed the yard – somehow, he couldn't really find it in himself to care. He was squinting into the sun, hidden by the almost-transparent gray mist that was clouds, unaccustommed to the light after spending Monday in bed, putting on a very decent performance of a patient dying of headache for the school nurse.

Tuesdays used to be his favorite days, with just three classes and a lot of free time, just last week – before everything went completely to shit. Dragging his feet behind him from corridor to corridor, class to class, he only felt numb; empty. There was seemingy nothing left to go on being nice and cheerful for – not when he'd destroyed the one shot he'd ever had at being happy.

Kurt must've radiated a lot of teenage angst, judging by the worried glances Mrs. Downey kept sending him in History. During one of the breaks, Sebastian, rushing in the opposite direction, reached for him and squeezed him shoulder for a brief moment before running off. Kurt also ran into James and Kevin in front of the Chemistry class; the both smiled at him in what they apparently thought was a supportive manner.

When five o'clock rolled around, he was just about ready to fall into bed and cry himself to sleep, but he couldn't. The guys from See the Light have been nothing but nice to him the whole day, and, even on Saturday, they probably meant well; it wasn't their fault Kurt let his guard down and let himself get drunk.

Knocking lightly on the ancient door, looking like every other in the corridor, he fidgeted with his shirt collar. He was only wearing some of last season's pieces that were basically thrash; he didn't feel like dressing up in front of the guys who would neither appreciate or welcome it. And they'd seen him in a worse state.

Kevin's shaggy head appeared in the doorway, grinning wide before letting him in. The rest of the guys were already slouched in their seats, their spines way more rigid they were supposed to be in the 'watching sports on the couch' position. Seeing Kurt, they immediately straightened up, the ones wearing a uniform tucking their ties back into their blazers.

"Kurt!" Adrian abandoned a conversation to stand in front of him and give him an asessing glance. "Welcome back, you don't look that good...I'm really sorry you have to go through this, but it's all part of the process."

Tired of arguing, Kurt barely managed to hide his glare before sitting down.

Adrian, before taking hold of his writing pad, clapped to get everyone's attention.

"Guys! I'm glad we're all enjoying ourselves, but, as some of you know, our newest member is having some troubles. He'd hit the shock phase," he said sympathetically, the looks on all the faces immediately turned solemn and sad.

"Don't worry," Michael, sitting next to him, squeezed his shoulder. "We'll help you through this."

Kurt wanted to snort, but the sound got caught somewhere between his lungs and his throat, turning into a small, hard lump when he tried to swallow. There was a room full of people who weren't paying attention to anything but him, waiting for him to open up and share. Their gazes were soft, affectionate and—God, how could he have misjudged them so much? They weren't the bad guys; they were his friends. They took him to their favorite place in town, introduced him to their favorite people.

It wasn't their fault he'd fucked up.

"You guys know what I...what I did, right?"

Most of them nodded, sending each other looks Kurt couldn't quite decipher.

"Well, and I have—had, a boyfriend and I just...feel like the biggest jerk on the planet." Huh. Three days of angsting in a nutshell.

Adrian glanced at Blaine for a second, then turned his eyes away and zoomed in on Kurt again.

"Look, Kurt, this might be shocking to hear...but, well, it's going to lift a weight off your shoulders. What happened wasn't your fault."

"What? How could it not be my fault, I'm the one who had sex with a girl in a bathroom!"

Sebastian almost managed to hide his giggle behind his palm and only stopped after several slaps over his head from various group members.

"Kurt. Remember what I told you the first time you came into this group?"

Silently, Kurt shook his head. There were way too many things Adrian could be talking about.

"I told you there is no love that can exist between two men. That your...boyfriend, he doesn't love you, not the way a woman could. He doesn't care for your wellbeing or happiness, he's just using you, wants to get you into bed and make another notch in his bedpost, this time a different one, because you were a guy."

Shaking his head, Kurt stuttered. "He's—he's changed."

"No, he hasn't. It's all an act, Kurt, and you, your real you, still locked down somewhere deep inside, can feel that. Did you ever feel with him the way you felt with Alona on Saturday?"

"No," Kurt whispered, already feeling tears well up in his eyes. Was he really so stupid?

"Look," Adrian's voice was gentle as he walked over to Kurt's chair and crouched in front of it, "there is no easy way to realize you've been lying to yourself. Tell me, how many times have you tried to call him in the past three days?"

Wordlessly, Kurt shook his head. Adrian probably knew anyway, judging by his confindent expressions and calm, honey-smooth voice. It enveloped him and pushed the tears back for a while; it was nice to hear nothing was his fault, for a change.

"I thought so. Had he picked up?"

Another shake.

"And doesn't that tell you anything?" Adrian waited for a beat or two, apparently soaking up the tense silence. "He's not who you love, Kurt. You don't even like him; you don't want to give yourself to him physically. Look, Alona is a nice girl. She only lives a few minutes away, and hopefully you'll be spending this year and the next in Dalton. You've got a shot here, at a real thing. Don't you want to at least try?"

And really, hearing it laid out like this, Kurt was hit by a moment of sudden clarity.

Noah still hadn't come to visit him, didn't as much as mention it. He wasn't picking up his phone, not even on the thritieth ring. Before they've gotten together, he used to run after every skirt, and now he was supposedly waiting for Kurt, not even complaining that much.

Kurt couldn't believe he hadn't seen through it from the beginning. It was all an act, thrown to make one of them look macho and completely destroy the other. Their months toghether in glee club didn't matter; Puck didn't stop at banalities like that.

He'd spent the past weeks with Puck, thinking it was Noah, a boy who probably never existed. Fooling himself and falling into something that wasn't there in the first place. He's probably been sleeping around behind his back since day one, revelling in Kurt's easy trust.

Adiran was right – no wonder he'd felt the sense of unease and wrongness whenever Noah – no, Puck – so much as touched him anywhere but his face. His body knew, was trying to warn him and not let him make the biggest mistake of his life.

With Alona, on the other hand...she made him hard and made him feel so, so good. She didn't need to take control; he just let her, and took over when he wanted to. It was easy and flowing, no fear or anxiety, nothing but pleasure and the pulsing heat running through his veins afterwards.

He could feel a wall in his mind, put up last minute by the part of him that loved Noah, the boy he'd dreamed up, loved his girl friends in a completely platonic way, enjoyed fighting for his rights as much as he could. It was crumbling, stones falling off one by one with every revelation, shattering like they were made of glass.

Adrian smiled; patted Kurt's forearm, stood up and fished a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Her number," he said, pushing it into Kurt's palm and closing his fingers over it.

There were more than twenty pairs of eyes trained on him, shaded by the last evening light; the room was suddendly quiet and peaceful like never before. It felt like home.

Heart on his sleeve and not stopping to let his mind wander, confused, battered and broken, Kurt let the wall fall.