The bathrooms were halfway down the main corridor and when he reached them he found them empty but for one person. Will's friend, Robert Fehn, had just had double math in the classroom across the hall.

"Yo, Billy," he said as Will pushed through the door.

"Hey, Bobby," said Will back.

Then he took his place beside Rob and unzipped. Silence prevailed for a moment, but then Will noticed Rob's eyes beginning to wander. He'd always prided himself on his peripheral vision.

"Billy?" said Rob.

"Yes, Bobby?" asked Will.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes, Bobby," replied Will.

"Billy, what's the difference between a dick and a cock?"

Will frowned. "Is there a difference, Bobby?"

"Well, Damon said there was, and he knows things."

Will nodded. "Well, I've always thought a dick had extra skin at the end-"

"Like mine, Billy?"

"Yes, Bobby."

"And a cock?"

"And a cock, well, doesn't."

"Like yours, Billy?"

"Er, yes, Bobby."

Rob seemed satisfied. He zipped up, rinsed his fingers and then flashed them beneath the drier on his way out. Before he pulled open the door, he hesitated and turned back to Will.

"Billy?" he said.

"Yes, Bobby?" said Will.

"Are dicks always bigger than cocks?"

"Fuck you, Bobby," growled Will. "FUCK... YOU..."

Rob escaped with a snicker before Will had a chance to hit him. Will quickly washed his hands and chased him out without drying them. Rob had waited for him outside and grinned sheepishly as Will emerged. Will flicked water in his face and scowled back.

"That better be water," said Rob.

"Sorry. Bad aim today," he retorted. "You got practice tonight?"

"Yep," said Rob. "You heading my way?"

"Yep," echoed Will.

So they walked together. They got caught in the middle of the mass exodus from the building that marked the end of the school day but by the time they reached William's stop the crowd had all but cleared.

The door to the room his tutor had commandeered for today's session had a clear window in it. They could see the costumed occupants through it. Will wished Rob would just keep walking, but he'd already got an eyeful of Melissa Jordison and was now transfixed. He moaned with unforced pleasure.

"Fuck me," he said. "I think I need to go back to the bathroom."

"That's about as close as you'll ever get to her, cocksucker," sighed Will.

He hated it when his friends came along to ogle his ballet classmates. Right now Rob was drooling over Melissa, who was leaning against the far wall and stretching her leg toward her shoulder. He didn't hate it because they were perving, though. He hated it because he worried they might catch him doing the same thing if they hung around too long.

"God, I know everyone calls you a fag, Billy," said Rob. "But now I know why you do this shit. You are one clever son of a bitch. Why didn't I think of it first?"

"What? Who calls me a fag?"

"Well, everyone."

"You mean Damon and those jocks..."

"Hey, we're footballers," claimed Rob. "We've gotta be all macho and shit. It's like in the rules or something. We can get put on the bench all season for being pussies, you know."

"I'm not a pussy!" Will protested.

"I know, I know," said Rob. "I do now, anyway. You just come here to get your jollies looking at those tiny sweet asses, like two little apples in a pink sling, whispering so only you can hear, 'Fuck me! Fuck me!'."

"No, Bobby, that's not-"

"Oh, yeah, I know you, Billy boy, I know you. You must really get off on all this shit, huh? How d'you, you know, like, uh, keep the old boy down? I mean, don't ya just wanna give 'em all a good grinding?"

He was now leaning so close to the window his lolling tongue splattered across the glass, leaving an excitedly wet smear when he leant back again. Melissa spotted him and stopped stretching. Will pushed Rob away from the door.

"Look, Bobby, I just come to dance."

Rob snorted. "God, maybe they're right. Maybe you are a fag, after all."

"Fuck you, man," said Will. "At least I don't wear a jock strap to hide the boner I get from all that hot guy-on-guy action!"

Rob laughed. He was always teasing Will. Will always set out to rise above it, but Rob knew how to press his buttons. Everybody did. He knew if he didn't react every time they would stop, but he couldn't stop reacting, so they didn't stop pressing.

Rob slipped his bag onto his shoulder and prepared to leave.

"Why don't you come and see what we really do?" he offered. "I've seen what you do here, so now you come and see what I do after you finish."

"Yeah, with that fuckwit Crahan there," snarled Will. "Real likely, Bobby."

"He'll be too busy humping the ball, I promise. He won't even notice you."

"Hmm, well, we'll see."

"We better," he said, going to leave. "See you later, Billy boy."

"Don't drop the soap in the showers," Will called after him.

Rob turned, walked backwards down the hall. "Why? You gonna be there?"

Will cocked an imaginary pistol, but Rob dodged his imaginary bullets. Then he pulled his own imaginary guns and blew Will away. Will feigned death and fell through the door into the classroom. Melissa scowled at him as he entered, but otherwise ignored him. He quickly stripped down to his leotard and joined the others.

You're a real man, William Hudson, he told himself, if only because you do what you want and take all this shit for it. And then, feeling satisfied with victory in a battle he never even fought, he broke into a pirouette across the classroom.

NOTES:
Well, how else was I going to start a sequel to "Hudson's Tale" than with a small dick and circumcision joke? Two themes emerge in this chapter. The first is the naming of pretty much all the characters after members of Slipknot (Fehn, Crahan and Jordison), who I loathed with a vengeance back then. Alas, I'm sorry to say they've grown on me since and I have their three albums, but I still find the regular Slipknot digs amusing. The other theme that pops up from time to time is my naming of things after posters at the AvPNews forums where the original "Hudson's Tale" was first posted. Damon is one particularly prolific poster and everyone's favourite anorak.