Yesterday's Gone: Season One

and had never treated him like the poor kid he was.  
    Well, at least until she started hanging out with the Bitch Clique.
    Charlie trudged up the stairs to Josie’s room, and opened the door.
    She had redecorated since he’d last seen it. She used to be obsessed with stuffed penguins, which once lined her shelves, closet, and even her bed. Now, her room was more adult with pinks, blues, and the sort of furniture his mom circled in the catalogue but never bought. No childish stuff anywhere, save for one lone penguin standing guard at the foot of her unmade bed. His name was Percy, Josie had once told Charlie. That was something else he’d liked about her. She wasn’t afraid to be goofy, one of her most endearing qualities, actually.
    Charlie sat by the headboard and picked up her pillow. He lifted it to his nose and took a deep breath. It was soft, fluffy, and smelled just as he remembered her.
    He closed his eyes and sent his mind to a time when they were sitting on the floor in the room. They were both 12, and she’d asked Charlie to give her a neck massage. It wasn’t sexual of course, he’d barely even thought about sex at that age. And she wasn’t that kind of girl. But sitting behind her, with her long hair spilled in his face and his hands on her shoulders, along with a glimpse down her shirt, gave him a raging erection.
    When she lifted her shirt, and asked him to rub her back, he was painfully erect. Then, to his utter horror, he ejaculated in his pants, and had to make an excuse to rush home.
    So, technically, Josie was his first, and only sexual experience with another person , even if she never knew.
    Thinking about Josie as he sat on her bed, he was hard again.  
    He began to look around her room and found a photo album she’d made. He thumbed through the book and saw pictures of her, taken recently at the beach. Her lips were full, her skin the color of honey, and her breasts practically falling out of the pink bikini. He was rock hard.
    He went to her dresser and thumbed through her drawers, investigating her underwear, surprised to find such lacy numbers. He wondered if her mother knew what Josie was wearing under her skirts. In the mirror, he caught a glimpse of the expandable hamper in the corner, pink, of course.
    Charlie retrieved a pair of pink silky panties from the top and smelled them. The faint scent of piss and perfume made him wince, then smile. He closed his eyes, imagining the prettiest of her pink that he’d never see, then went to her bed, dropped his pants, wrapped her underwear around his staff and started stroking.
    He lasted three seconds longer than he had when he’d given her a back massage.
    Charlie caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, denim snaked around his ankles and wiping himself with her underwear. Shame flushed his face. He threw the panties into the hamper and yanked up his pants, then glared at himself in the mirror, angry at his lack of self control. Josie was right to shun him — maybe some part of her had sensed his perverted thoughts. Maybe she’d only become a bitch to him because he was such a creepy geek.
    The thought depressed him and he went downstairs to her fridge. Rich people always had good food.
    He grabbed a piece of birthday cake. It was half gone, but enough remained for Charlie to imagine the “Happy Birthday Mom!” scrawled across the top. It had a chocolate ganache frosting, at least he thought that’s what it was called, and it tasted better than delicious. Maybe even the best cake he’d ever had. He was about to grab a glass of milk, when he thought better. Though the contents of the fridge were still cold, the milk (even thought it was soy milk, whatever the hell that was) might’ve already started to spoil. The last thing he wanted to do was get sick, especially if no doctors were left in the town, or hell, maybe the world!  
    Instead, he found himself eyeing a four pack of red wine coolers.  
    He’d never drank before. As a child, he’d never had the urge. And Bob was a living poster for why NOT to drink. But he knew a lot of the kids in school did drink. Mostly the dumb jocks, cheerleaders, and the “Fiesta Crowd,” as they were called. Charlie considered them all about as smart as a hot dog and didn’t want to be anything like them, even if that meant being a pizza faced geek, but they did seem to enjoy their lives. His life, on the other hand, was a constant broadcast of misery.
    It didn’t take long to do