I woke up not having a clue. It was just another day in the middle of nowhere.
I got dressed, did the morning chores, and then showered. I was starved and breakfast was good.
It was the third day of my first year in high school. The day went slowly. In gym, I changed, not looking around or thinking about what was going on around me. I wanted to look around, but kept myself from doing so. It was still so new to be changing clothes with all the other boys. I got hard but hid it I hoped.
We had a choice of basketball, tag football, or wrestling today. I hated basketball and football. I wasn't even sure what the rules were. I wasn't all that sure about wrestling, but at least I kind of liked it and knew something about it.
I was matched up with Dale Howard, who was about the same size and weight as me, but he was a city boy, and I was a farm kid. Most of his weight was softness, where most of mine was muscle. I won easily. And it was really fun. I mean, grabbing him and being grabbed, and all that. I got hard, but I didn't think he noticed. I wasn't all that big down there and our gym shorts didn't exactly accent that area. And my shorts were large, on purpose. Plus the jock strap kept it from being noticeable.
Then I was up against James Wilson. Same thing again, a city boy who played video games against a farmer's kid. I wasted his ass. And I really liked doing it. It was really hot.
I went through all the guys the same weight as me, so next was Kevin Masters. He weighed eleven pounds more than me, and it wasn't all softness, either. We wrestled around for ten full rounds, neither of us really getting ahead of the other. And eventually, my hand went there on him, totally by accident. I didn't want to do that, it was too risky. But it happened. He wasn't hard, and I really liked what I did get a feel of. I got so hard it was embarrassing, I was sure he could tell even if his hand only brushed past there a couple times by accident.
"You could make the wrestling team," Coach Smith said to me after ten rounds. "I'll put you up against a team member next."
Oliver West was a sophomore, and kind of skinny, but was on the team. That was a real challenge. He knew the moves and all, but I was able to overpower him a lot and get out of his holds. His hand went there almost right off, in the first round. It happened in wrestling, I'd seen it happen a lot. I knew he knew I was hard. His hand went there a lot. By accident, mine went there on him. He was so hard. It was insane. I kept wondering if he was hard for the same reason I was. Health class said it was pretty normal for it to get hard at weird times, even embarrassing times, even times we didn't think it should. But we both stayed hard the whole match.
Coach watched and gave me advice. In round six, I pinned him and won. When I stood up, I was totally embarrassed. It was so obvious. I glanced and saw that his was, too. We were both red-faced from wrestling anyway, so I didn't know if he was as embarrassed as me or not. No one was watching us, they were all doing their own matches, only coach and Oliver saw.
"Not bad, dude," Oliver said to me as he shook my hand. "You really should think about the team."
"Uh, thanks."
I noticed he glanced down at me when he shook my hand. I sort of held my hands in front of me to hopefully hide it as much as possible.
"He's right, too. What do you think?" coach asked me.
"The team? Me?"
"You're in good shape already. The weight training would put you in even better shape. And you've got a sort of talent for it. Oliver is good, one of the best in his class, and you out wrestled him. I really think you'd be a good wrestler."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. Why don't you come to my office after classes and we can talk about it."
"Uh, me?"
He laughed and patted my shoulder.
"Yes, you. Think about it. I'll be in my office after last bell if you want to talk about it. I hope to see you there. Meanwhile, keep practicing with Oliver. Pick his brain and see what you can learn. Don't hurt him, Ollie."
"I won't, coach!" Oliver said with a laugh.
