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Next up: Stan is testing his poker skills...and asks Kyle an inappropriate question:

The Test

Nerves were practically dancing through my arms and legs when I rang the doorbell of Token's house. Today was the big day I was finally seeing if my poker skills were any good and if Kenny's lessons had paid off. Even if we had gotten distracted during the last of our sessions.

The afternoon before going over to Token's place I had looked over Kenny's notes on the game again. His scribble now familiar and readable to me. It almost seemed as if he was there with me as I read them. His exclamation points and underlined words nearly sounded in his voice in my mind: the way he would happily or enthusiastically explain certain tactics to me. His notes were a reassurance to me, not just in making me more sure of that I could actually play the game but I also had the feeling I sort of had Kenny's spirit, his good luck charm with me. I hoped that I would remember how to bluff properly and maybe even deceive Cartman as I did that. That was a thing even Kenny was curious about: Whether or not I could fool Cartman. Because if I could fool Cartman, I could fool anyone.
At home I had even practiced my bodily reactions and facial expressions in front of the mirror. A horrifying mixture of shame and arousal had crossed me every time I caught sight of my own face in the mirror. Shame, because it was just a ridiculous thing to do: act all surprised or happy while not being it and arousal as I remembered Kenny's body behind mine and the things he had done when he had realized I had been very, thoroughly aroused by his actions. The fact that I had had to stop my practice twice to jerk off did nothing to ease my mind.

Was it normal for a friend to jack off another friend? I would have to ask Kyle about that tonight, I figured. And I had to make sure not to think about Kenny touching me too much when playing. Trying to explain away a boner in the showers after gym, as happened to every teenage boy, was already horrible, let alone trying to do the same while at a a poker table.

I quickly put a neutral expression on my face as I saw Token's silhouette draw closer through the matted glass of the window door. He opened the door for me and stepped aside to let me in.

"Hey dude, you're early." I knew I was, the nerves had made me restless all afternoon and I had decided to just come over as soon as possible.

"Yeah, sorry. "

"That's okay, let's have something to drink first." Kenny had warned me in a text message to stay sober for the first time we had a practice. Booze might make me too much of a daredevil who would give into Cartman's nasty comments. We went into some study room, books all around the walls and a square wooden table in the middle. It all looked really distinguished and I felt myself remembering learning how to play poker on Kenny's shabby sheets. Somehow that had more appeal to me.

We were barely seated when the doorbell rang again. Token frowned.

"I'll be right back." He said to me and motioned towards the bottles of soda and other drinks on the table. "Help yourself." He left the room and I poured myself a glass of Sprite. Bearing Kenny's advice to heart. I took a sip and looked up to see Cartman and Clyde entering the room together.

"Huh, looks like the Jew ditched you too, right Stan?" Cartman grunted.

"I wasn't planning on seeing him tonight."

"Well, I was." Cartman growled angrily. "We were supposed to work at that math project but he ditched me." I remembered Kyle telling me how he had had to work with Cartman, nearly in tears over such cruelty in the world.

"I better hope for him he had some good excuse." Cartman finished before sitting down on the table. I looked up and caught Clyde's eyes. He blushed and sat down too. It was obvious he was embarrassed by being at the same table of his new girlfriend's ex.

We all took our places at the square table and Token shuffled the cards he picked up from the table. Cartman took a cigar from his coat pocket and lit it. I wrinkled my nose at the smell.

"Do mind not blowing that in my face?" I said as he blew some smoke straight ahead of him, right in my face.

"Cigars and poker go together, Stan. Get used to it." Clyde nervously poured himself a drink as Token dealt us our hands.

"Uhm, I haven't played in a while. Can we just have a few practice rounds maybe?" I was torn between still being angry at him and thanking him for voicing my own concern out loud.

"Hm, yeah I guess." Token said, Cartman just scoffed and shook his head in annoyance. "Jason just texted me and it looks like he isn't going to make it to night." He held up his phone as if to demonstrate it. I took my cards and looked at them, a king and an 8, not bad at all. But I tried to keep my face neutral, in spite of Kenny telling me to be ecstatic about every hand I would get. But we kept to Clyde's request and didn't play for any money that round. Just chips with no real value behind them. I immediately understood why he had requested we played like that. If there was one person bad at lying then it was Clyde. He was shifting constantly, fidgeting and humming under his breath.
At first I thought he might be trying to fool us the way Kenny had taught me to fool people but very soon it became clear he wasn't. Clyde was too honest and even while I hadn't been taught yet how to notice people's tells, I sure as hell noticed his. But of course I wasn't the only one who noticed: Cartman and Token did too and used it to their very best advantage.

After only a few games we decided to play for money, but just keep it light and casual. Everybody just changed 10 dollars into chips and we started playing again. I managed to win quite a lot of games and I started to feel good and confident about myself. And when our new hands were dealt I even boldly raised a few times, even when the cards turned out to be quite in my disadvantage. I decided to really try and give bluffing a shot. Token and Cartman joined in on me, but Clyde seemed really distracted by our aggressive gaming.

He shifted uncomfortable next to me. With a shaking hand he scratched his head and tugged on his shirt. A dark red spot came into view when he did that and with a jolt I realized what it must be. A tremendous hickey that was visible just below the line of his shirt. I knew he was thinking nobody saw it but as he fidgeted in nerves it jumped in and out of view the entire time. I felt as though struck by lightning. Wendy never gave me hickeys. She said it was a way of showing your dominance over people and she didn't like that. But I felt I could have known Clyde liked to be dominated like that.

"Stan?" Token's voice called from afar.

"What?"

"Dude, pay attention." Cartman snapped. "Call, raise, etcetera! Remember?"

"Call." I decided quickly, even though my hand was the worst I had had all night. I could see Cartman smirk in front of me. Apparently I had made the wrong decision by deciding that.

"Good." He smirked, taking another puff from his cigar. Man, those things disgusted me. He knew that of course and was only using it to his advantage.

"Read 'em and weep." He threw his cards down onto the table with a dramatic flourish. I barely had to look at them, my own were so bad that practically any hand would beat mine, my bluffing tactic had all but melted when I saw that hickey on Clyde's neck. Token took his loss relatively well but Clyde groaned in defeat.

"You only had a 6 and a 9?" Token asked. "Then why did you follow through?"

"I don't know!" He pulled at his hair. "Craig was right. I'm just not good enough for this." Even I felt sorry for him when I saw his sad expression.

"Don't worry dude, we'll get you better." I said while simultaneously ignoring the smug look Cartman had on his face as he collected all our chips. I had really hoped that I would have won, luckily it was just 7 dollars that I had lost. Cartman just huffed at my comment.

"I don't know, Clyde. You suck ass at this game." Clyde flushed an angry red.

"You don't have to be such an asshole about it!" He exclaimed.

"Get used to the real game, you pussy!" Cartman snapped back.

"Come on, you guys!" Token quickly interrupted. "Let's keep it cool okay? We're trying to win from West Park in a few weeks. We won't be any good when we continue to bash each other's head in, now will we?"

"I don't want to play anymore." I decided. "I think we have practiced enough."

"Sure, Stan! You're just a sore loser, just like Clyde here!"

"Hey!" Clyde exclaimed offended. But I knew that in order to win we would had to get Clyde better. But somehow, sharing my lessons that I got from Kenny with him, just felt wrong.

"Maybe Stan is right." Token said. "Let's practice again next week, shall we?"

"Don't know if I can make it yet." Cartman shrugged. "I might have a date then." I rolled my eyes. He was so desperate for us to believe he was dating that it was starting to annoy me.

"Whatever." I said, and took my phone out of my pocket, I saw two texts from Kenny. "I'm going over to Kyle's."

"Tell that bitch that he better had a good excuse for ditching me tonight!" Cartman barked.

"Yeah, yeah." I said, not looking at him but instead reading Kenny's texts:

"DUDE! I hope you beat Cartman!" then, the second text from a just a little while back:

"If you didn't beat him you might need a new lesson though ;) Lemme know." Again that flirtatious behavior! I was used to it, it was Kenny after all, but ever since he had given me a hand job I felt weird about it. I really needed to ask Kyle about it.

I pocketed my phone and said my goodbye's to the other guys and quickly left Token's house.

XXX

On my way to Kyle's house I texted Kenny:

"Hey! I did beat him in the beginning but he beat me at the end. At least I'm better than Clyde.."

His reply was instant, as if he had been waiting for me to say something back to him.

"Good, we'll get you better though. Lemme know when ;)"

I smiled and pocketed my phone because I had arrived at Kyle's place. He must have seen me walking down the street because he was already waiting for me in the doorway, already in only a shirt and his boxers.

"Hey dude, how did it go?" He asked as I entered the dimly lit hallway and hung up my coat.

"Fine, I won a couple of times. But of course, Cartman beat us all big time." He rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, I figured."

"Why did you ditch him anyway? He said the two of you were supposed to meet up?" He flushed an angry and embarrassed red, no doubt ashamed of having been caught.

"He's an asshole, I wanted to have a nice night. Not a night of being ripped on for being a redhead...or a Jew...or from Jersey." We made our way up the stairs.

"So, how did the others do?" I stepped inside his room and started changing into some PJ's I had taken with me in my rug sack.

"Oh, you know. Token was pretty good, he must have been practicing with some friends of his parents or something." He snorted at that. We went into the bathroom to brush our teeth. Kyle was still strict when it came to hygiene.

"And Clyde was very nervous. I think he even looked guilty when he looked at me." I frowned at the realization.

"Probably because of Wendy and everything." Kyle mumbled around his toothbrush, a blush on his cheeks. No doubt he thought he looked ridiculous right now. He was always strangely conscious about his appearance.

"Yeah, maybe." I started to brush my teeth too, wanting to drop the subject. Kyle appeared grateful for that. My emotional outbursts whenever it came to Wendy must have been tiring for him too.

We went to bed quickly, both exhausted from the long day. It wasn't until he had turned off the lights and we had snuggled under the covers that I realized I still hadn't asked him that question about jerking off. For a fleeting moment I wanted to let it go. But I was too curious to find out more about Kenny's motives, maybe it was a normal thing to do, maybe it wasn't. And if it wasn't normal...then what? I couldn't sleep anymore and decided I just had to know.

"Hey dude." I whispered.

"Hey man." He turned to his side to face me and I had kind of hoped he wouldn't.

"What's up?" He said when he saw my face.

"Nothing, just-." I trailed off and then I decided to just go for it.

"Have you ever had a guy jack you off?" He frowned at me and blushed a dark red.

"NO! Why are you-." Then he panicked and scooted away from me horrified. "We're not experimenting, Stan!" Just then did I realize how weird my question must have sounded to him. And now I heard it how he must have heard it: as a proposition. Then the idea of doing that to Kyle or having him do to that to me the way Kenny had done forced itself into my mind and I panicked just like he did.

"NO! No! No, no, no!" I scooted back, just like he had done and tried to yank the sheets up to cover myself, but he was trying to do the same and we were nearly ripping the sheets apart.

"I didn't mean it like that!"

"How the hell did you mean it then?" He had gone even redder and I knew I must be the same.

"It's just, I heard about some guys doing that." He made a panicky, whimpering sound.

"And I just wanted to know what you thought about that." His eyes widened as I kept talking.

"Because I think it's really weird, okay?" I whisper-shouted at him. "I really, really think it's weird."

"Why did you ask me this in bed?" He still looked short of crazy.

"I don't know! I wasn't thinking!" We were both silent and looked at each other. Both scared of the other. He was probably still scared I would try to make a move or something and I was scared he would ask me to leave.

"I think it's weird too." He said in a small voice. "Unless you're gay or something." Or something...Did I have to put myself into that category? But I didn't have time to think about that. I had a distressed friend to comfort.

"Yeah, I think so too." I said back. "I'm sorry for freaking you out."

"It's okay, just, don't ask those types of questions when we're in bed together in only our shirts and underwear, okay?" He asked weakly. I nodded. He visibly relaxed at that.

"Who have you heard did that?" I was taken by surprise at his question before I realized.

"Oh, uh. I think Craig and those guys." I made up quickly. Kyle frowned.

"Really?"

"Yeah, but they were just vague rumors so I figured I would ask you if you had ever heard of guys doing that."

"I have heard that guys to that, you know, in general. Not specifically guys from our class or anything." That sounded like it had been a better excuse.

"Oh."

"Hm."

"Are we okay?" I asked.

"Sure." He scooted back a bit and let go off the covers. "Just, don't ever-."

"I know, I know." I shushed. Tentatively he lay next to me and I put my arm around his shoulder and pulled him onto my chest.

"Shame though." I said, and grabbed his hand.

"What?"

"That you don't want a piece of this." And I pushed his hand down. He yelped and sprang back. I could only laugh and he hit me with a pillow over and over.

"Don't. Ever. Do. That. Again."

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" It took a while before his fury had calmed down.

"Kenny is rubbing off on you!" He murmured, cheeks still flushed an angry red. But he scooted back up to me anyway. I put my arm around him and pulled him against me again.

"Yeah probably." I said, while grinning to myself.