Tiny Tim

Chapter 1

Just after 3 PM on November 15th, I walked through the front door of the house I grew up in and, for a short moment, took in the silence greeting me. After dropping my backpack and getting rid of my shoes, I made my way into the kitchen. My mind on the report I’d have to write at the firm. School and work was really all I did anymore. On the kitchen table I found a note in my mother’s handwriting; they all went out with Uncle John’s family, since my parents’ favorite child was back from college for the weekend. Just like last year, when they forgot about my birthday, they made plans that didn’t include me. At least this year they didn’t blame me for disturbing their fun time by coming home.

A quick survey of my surroundings revealed two recently used but empty pots on the stove, as well as four plates in the sink. No leftovers in the fridge or oven. I did, however, find the leftovers in the trash can. I was used to it. By the time I finished cleaning up the kitchen to make myself something to eat, my appetite was somehow gone, and I just felt droopy. So, instead of cooking, I went up to my room to grab a soda from my own little fridge and boot up my PC. I found an email newsletter from the delivery service I frequently used regarding my birthday. A coupon code for a free muffin (if I pay for a pizza). I looked around and saw no presents and no cards. I wasn’t surprised. At least, with that coupon code, lunch was taken care of without me having to move. At least, by next morning, I would finally be out of that house.

Despite what people might think, I preferred being left alone by my family. The alternative wasn’t really appealing to me. My name is Timothy, and I prefer to be called Tim. Though most people, especially members of my family and all their friends, simply called me “Tiny”.

Ever since my sister, Ava, walked in on me while I was ... doing what all healthy boys in full blown puberty do the most, things had changed. Back then, I was barely 5 feet tall and maybe 95 pounds soaking wet. I didn’t even notice her barging into my room, until she screamed upon seeing me and ran out of my room. And, of course, when she explained the reason for her outburst to the rest of the quickly assembling family, she had to comment on how glad she was that the thing was so small it was completely covered by my fist, so she didn’t have to actually see it.

You know how people say “We’ll laugh about it tomorrow”? Well, my family didn’t want to wait a full day and started making jokes about it as soon as we sat down for dinner. That evening, my new nickname of “Tiny Tim” was born, and they thought it was hilarious. Back then, this hit me hard. I was insecure enough without having people throw jokes about my dick size at me, but my family saw it as harmless ribbing and simply ignored my desperate pleas to stop calling me that damned name.

My fourteenth birthday was still pretty normal. I had friends over, got gifts, and Mom even baked a cake. I did suffer from the nickname, but, other than that, they clearly cared about me.

Something I only understood much later was that my brother, Logan, had always been exceptionally talented at getting what he wants, while making his behavior look completely innocent and his demands absolutely reasonable. He was always good looking, charming, and outgoing. That caused people to let their guard down and open up to him, so he easily learned what they liked and how they responded to things. Everyone would tell you how good of a friend Logan was, even though I never saw or heard about him actually doing anything for anyone but himself.

Until then, he never chose me as a target for his games, though I did already suffer the indirect consequences as our parents clearly favored him over me. Whenever decisions had to be made, they chose what he asked for because he knew how to make them think it was the reasonable choice. Consequently, whenever we got into an argument, they took his side without even questioning what caused it, because he was always perceived as the reasonable oldest child while I was seen as the jealous kid. The longer this went unnoticed, the more his wants outweighed my needs without them even realizing it.

During the half year leading up to Logan’s sixteenth birthday, however, something in his treatment of me changed. Under his subtle influence, the penis jokes were slowly taken up a notch, continuously pushing the boundaries of how far they could go before I lost my temper. Meanwhile his jokes, particularly when nobody else was around to hear them, had taken on a malicious tone. He also spent a lot more time with our parents, especially Mom.

After his birthday, he suddenly accompanied them when they went out with Mom’s brother, John, his wife, Danielle, and our cousin, Maggie, who was about Logan’s age. I also started catching him in whispered discussions with Ava that stopped when they noticed me being around. It was then I also started noticing him looking at me in a different way, especially when I was spending time with Ava or Mom (which, by that time, I was already trying to keep to a minimum. Simply to avoid hearing them address me as “Tiny Tim” again). Even when I needed some help with homework, he would show up and make sure I wouldn’t get too much of their attention.

My way of dealing with the alienation and sadness was to stuff myself with sweets and junk food. I put on more weight than the growth spurts could compensate for, and thereby provided even more ammunition to the family criticizing my body. I spent more and more time in my room, playing around with my computer and reading fantasy novels. But it was then I discovered my real talent for programming, and had, after a few months of self-study, reached the point where I could do small jobs I found on Craigslist and fiverr.

What I hadn’t realized at that time was that I had effectively turned into the fat geek in a family of athletic achievers. And athletic achievements were all they cared about. I once saw a rerun of that old 80s show “Married with Children”. Al Bundy reminisced about that one time in high school, when he scored four touchdowns in a single game. That is basically the best way to describe my father, Aaron. For him, talent in sports is what gets you a scholarship for college and dates with cheerleaders. With that, he was talking about my mother, Claire, who was captain of the cheer-squad at his high school.

Ava had, in every aspect, inherited our mother’s beauty and was at fifteen already almost a carbon copy of her. Roughly 5’3’’ at about 125 pounds, with long golden blond hair and green-blue eyes. The only real difference between the two, apart from Ava’s more youthful skin and Mom’s few extra pounds that three back-to-back pregnancies bestow upon a woman, were their cup-sizes. If Ava had a B-Cup, Mom must have had a D-Cup. Logan and I were more like our father, though. We had his dark-brown hair, brown eyes, and our height would hopefully also top out at his 5’11’’, though at that time I was more around 5’3’’.

So, while Logan and Ava followed in our parents’ footsteps, I was the fat geek my father couldn’t relate to. And, no, that wasn’t just my impression. He straight up told me one day how he still remembered all the beatings he handed out to the nerds in his schooldays, and simply couldn’t fathom “how my own son could turn out to be one of those losers”.

When I started my first year at the same high school Ava and Logan went to, my personal hell was complete. My loving siblings had made their way to the top of the popular crowd. Logan, becoming the star football player our father once was, and Ava, achieving the position of captain of the JV-Cheerleaders our mother once held. Following our father’s example, they despised me for now soiling their image, simply by being their fat geeky brother.

Ava wasted no time telling all of her friends why they only called me “Tiny Tim”, and, of course, all of her friends took a liking to that genius choice of a nickname. All the while Logan made sure all of his friends knew how much he wanted me nowhere near them.

Now, when the cheerleaders make fun of someone, it doesn’t take long for the jocks to join as well, simply to try and please the hot girls. Especially since Logan, the head-jock, even encouraged them. I was a free-for-all within a few mere days. It started out small; being tripped and pushed around in the hallways and constantly called names. Then the thefts started, when I went into the locker room after gym classes to find my wallet and/or phone missing. And then it evolved into full blown beatings.

Two guys caught me on my way home and wanted to teach me a lasting lesson, simply because I apparently had looked at a girl they were interested in. They came up from behind me and had me knocked to the ground before I even knew they were coming. As one of them gave me a final kick in the ribs, I noticed Logan’s car standing right next to us, with Logan in it. He was watching the whole thing, smiling. I fucking hated the bastard.

Needless to say, my pool of friends was rapidly diminishing as the whole thing turned physical, because nobody wanted to become a target by association. My parents noticed the bruises, of course, and Mom was alarmed for a while. She wanted to raise hell at school, but Aaron and Logan were both convinced I needed to simply learn to stand up for myself. They assured her, that’s just how boys are and something they needed to go through to “grow a pair”.

When I turned fifteen, I got a single present from my parents. Logan only cared about the occasion when Mom brought out the store bought cake. The only thing I got from Dad was a comment about me not needing any more calories. Ava, however, suddenly handed me a big, wrapped box, wishing me a happy birthday with a big smile on her face. By that time, I had already noticed how Ava was trying to please Logan and Dad, so being presented with a gift from her seemed like we may be going back to how it was before. It made me extremely happy. That is, until I unwrapped her present to find myself holding a penis pump.

I heard Mom comment a loud “Oh! No, you didn’t!”, but she was laughing instead of scolding. Logan and Aaron thought it was absolutely hilarious. I was absolutely speechless. I got up from the table and walked to my room, trying to keep it together, but failed miserably. I didn’t know why they wouldn’t realize how much all this hurt me. About two hours later, Mom - Claire - came to my room and handed me her present I had left behind. I took it out of her hand without saying a word, carried it over to the trash can, and dropped it in there without even unwrapping it.

“What did you do that for!?” Claire asked. Her expression looked confused, but her voice sounded like she was offended by me throwing her present away.

“Thanks,” I answered in a tired voice “but I don’t think I need any more ‘gifts’ from you all.”

“Oh, don’t be a baby. It was a joke. No need to mope around.”

And then she left the room before I even had a chance to try and explain how this was anything but a joke for me.

I finally learned what this was all about when Ava’s sixteenth birthday came around, not quite three weeks after my own. Just like Logan, when he turned sixteen, Ava got a nice bunch of presents, including her own little car. I kept to myself hidden in my room, which was slowly but surely voiding itself of personal items, when Claire knocked on my door.

“What are you sitting around in your room for? Have you even congratulated your sister yet!?”

“Ava asked ... told me to stay out of sight while her friends are over. So, no, I haven’t.”

“No present either, I take it?” The disapproval was thick in her voice.

“Why would I get her a present after the crap she got me!?”

“OH MY GOD! Are you still hung up on that!? It was a joke, Tiny! Learn to live with it. If you ever find yourself a girlfriend, she WILL make a comment about your small size too, you know? And what then? Are you going to come running home, crying? You might find a woman willing to put up with a small pecker, but if it comes attached to a Crybaby, even those women won’t want you.”

I could only stare at her incredulously. It was that exact moment I realized that I would never be able to rely on her for anything again, as long as my siblings were involved. She sighed before she continued.

“Ava is going to drive us to Johnny’s. Maggie has a present for her, and we’ll take the opportunity to see them again. You stay here! And when we’re back, I expect you, young Man, to have AT LEAST a card ready for your Sister!”

And just like that, she was gone. I couldn’t help but wonder about that statement. I liked my Uncle John, he and his wife never joined in on the torment I received from my direct family, though they did seem to be amused by it at times. Especially his daughter, my cousin Maggie, never got the difference between some harmless ribbing and tasteless insults. But what irritated me was Claire’s comment about the opportunity to see them again. The family has always been quite close with the other relatives, and especially John. He was Claire’s brother, they lived close by, so they met at least twice every week.

I did NOT want another discussion with my caring ‘Mother’, so I quickly went on Amazon and bought Ava a $25 gift card and printed it out. I was sure, if I merely dropped it on her pillow or something, it would spark another discussion. So, I’d walk over to John’s house, hand Ava the damn gift, and leave again.

The walk took me maybe twenty minutes, and the first thing I noticed when I arrived were the drawn shut curtains. Thinking they might be watching a movie or something, I made my way around the house to the backdoor, leading into their kitchen. And as soon as I stepped through that door, I heard it all. The moaning. The sound of flesh slapping. Even the wet squishy noises. When I quietly and carefully walked towards the passthrough to the living room, the whole scene unfolded as it came into view.

I saw Ava on all fours, being fucked doggy style by Aaron. Our own father! Ava’s face was buried in our cousin Maggie’s crotch, who was lying beneath her on her back in a sixty-nine position. Maggie seemed to be eagerly alternating between sucking Ava’s clit and licking Aarons balls.

Right next to them, on the sofa, was Uncle John. He wasn’t alone either. Bouncing on his lap with her back to him, was my mother – his sister – Claire. Both of them blissfully fucking while watching the others in their threesome. Aunt Danielle and Logan were cuddled up in the loveseat, both covered in a thin layer of sweat. I thought they were probably taking a break, when I heard Ava’s scream.

“GOD YES, DADDY! FUCK ME! I’M COMING! I LOVE THIS! I’M COMIIIIIING!!!”

What followed was as entrancing as it was disturbing. Ava’s high-pitched scream slowly devolved, like a balloon running out of air, as she clenched her teeth and her head flew back. Aaron kept pumping into her slowly for a while, until Ava calmed down and slumped onto Maggie.

I was still unable to fully process what I had just witnessed, when Aunt Danielle got up from Logan’s lap, and walked over to the three people in the middle of the room. She leaned down next to Ava’s head and softly spoke into her ear.

“Ready to have your Daddy pop your last cherry, sweetheart?”

Upon hearing Ava’s moan, Aunt Danielle crawled over to Ava’s rear. Maggie, who was still eagerly sucking on Ava’s clit, slid her hands along Ava’s hips to her Ass, and pulled her cheeks apart. Without another word, and with Aaron only scooting back so far that the tip of his dick would remain inside his daughter, Danielle started kissing and licking Ava’s little puckered butthole.

Right there, in the middle of the living-room floor, Aunt Danielle was rimming her Niece’s asshole. Her daughter was sucking on her cousin’s Clit with loud slurping noises. And right in between those two mouths, Aaron was fucking his cock into his sixteen-year-old daughter’s sopping wet hole.

When Danielle finally stuck her tongue into Ava’s ass, she moaned again, which seemed to be the cue for the others. Aaron finally pulled his dick completely out of Ava’s pussy, just as Claire lifted herself off John’s pole. She grabbed a small bottle, walked over to her husband, and started slowly lubing him up while watching Aunt Danielle and Maggie continue to work Ava’s holes and smilingly whispered something into her husband’s ear. I couldn’t hear anything she said, but Aarons sudden moan of anticipation spoke volumes. She’s been egging him on to fuck their Daughter!

When she felt like she had done a sufficient job in lubing him up, she tapped Danielle’s shoulder, who leaned back to make room for Claire to add more lube directly to Ava’s Butt. Then, Claire, still holding onto Aaron’s hard cock, lined it up with their Daughter’s slightly opened brown hole, slid her other hand onto his ass, and then pushed it forward. Like this, guided by his wife, he slowly penetrated their Daughter’s asshole with closed eyes and a loud groan.

As he did that, Danielle slid one of her hands over Ava’s butt cheeks towards her crotch and then stuck two fingers into her now vacant pussy. Ava now had a dick in her ass, fingers in her pussy, and a mouth on her clit. Though, they were not in sync. While Aaron’s movement was gentle and careful, and he didn’t seem to want to push her limits too far too quickly, Danielle went absolutely wild on Ava’s pussy, pumping and turning her fingers with vigor.

“Yes, sweetheart! Come for us, you little slut!” Danielle said loudly, not skipping a beat in stimulating Ava. “Come from feeling your Daddy in your tight little ass!”.

At first, the only sounds coming from Ava were admittedly cute little squeaking noises. But after Aaron got maybe half a dozen strokes into her Ass, those little noises rapidly grew louder before she exploded in a deafening scream. Her body was violently shaking for a few moments before she finally collapsed on top of Maggie, who quickly extracted herself from that position and moved over to Uncle John. As Ava was lying there, her body periodically spasming and a long drawn-out moan escaping her mouth, Danielle was stroking her hair, Claire was stroking her back, and Aaron was whispering something while kissing her forehead and caressing her cheek with a proud smile on his face. But then my attention was drawn back to John, as he moaned himself. While I was watching my immediate family care for Ava, Maggie had gone down on her knees in front of her own father, and was now swallowing the seed he shot into her mouth.

I had the foresight to try and stay hidden throughout the whole ordeal, though I don’t think any of them would have even noticed a SWAT-Team busting into the room at that moment. They were all totally engrossed in their act.

No, I did not suddenly notice how hard I was. Because I wasn’t. And I certainly didn’t run home to masturbate. I was shocked. While I absolutely knew that the women in my family were objectively attractive, I never fantasized about any of them, and what I just saw didn’t change that. Up until that very point, I somehow knew they had sex. But certainly not with each other! For me, the women in my family were A-Sexual entities filled with marshmallows. No, what I saw actually made me sad. I turned and left the house, as quietly as I entered it, through the back door. My mind was in stunned shock as I walked back home.

I sat in front of my computer, but never turned it on. After I arrived, my mind was no longer stunned, it was racing. So many clues I missed ... or couldn’t catch. Who would expect or even consider the possibility of something like that? But I now knew why they were so eager to drive me away for so long. Claire had Aaron. Ava had Logan. I was convinced I was the odd one out. I would only get in their way. I didn’t even realize at the time that Maggie didn’t have a brother herself, so if we were to combine the two families like I had just seen, it could have all fit together.

For a while, I felt incredibly betrayed for not being included. Why wouldn’t they even tell me? But then I remembered that I was still nothing but a fat geek for them. A fat and unattractive geek with a small dick. They simply didn’t want me. And while it hurt, I couldn’t exactly demand them to be attracted to me. But it wasn’t sex I was missing in this family. I was envious of them for something else.

When I saw Aunt Danielle stroking Ava’s hair, while Claire was stroking her back, it looked so ... loving. And caring. And before that, it was obvious the four of them worked together to make this an unforgettable experience of pure pleasure for Ava. Meanwhile, I hadn’t received so much as a hug, or even just a damn back rub from any of these assholes since I was twelve! My parents were embarrassed to have me as a son. Ava ridiculed me in front of her friends. Logan wouldn’t help me if I was dying. And the envy vanished. Instead, I fucking hated them at that moment. If they didn’t want me, I could do just as well without them.

True to my new resolve, I withdrew myself further from the family over the next few weeks. While Claire seemed to notice, and made at least some half-assed effort to draw me out again over Christmas, she still didn’t see the need to at least stop calling me “Tiny”, causing me to lash out until she left me alone. I also didn’t look at the one gift addressed to me, probably from Claire again. Conversations were one-sided, with me never initiating them and only answering the absolute necessary minimum. I did my chores, but that was as far as I was willing to contribute to this household.

By the time New Year’s came around, and the parents were hosting a party for their friends and a few colleagues, Claire seemed to have fulfilled her quota of parental duty. It was then that Claire and Aaron started laughingly introducing me as “the smallest in the family” to their guests. Of course, at first most of them assumed it was about me being the youngest of their children. By the time the countdown was over and most of the champagne was consumed, however, even these total strangers suddenly addressed me as “Tiny Tim” while snickering, thinking the whole thing was just as funny as my family had always claimed.

I had thought about asking to move to my Grandparents. Their home was a three hour drive away, which would have been perfect. They lived far enough away to ensure I wouldn’t run into anyone from my current school, but close enough so the parents wouldn’t have many reasons to complain. The problem was that, ever since Grandpa retired, they spent more time traveling than anything else. They were barely around anymore, and what little contact I had with them was through phone conversations, so I didn’t think they’d be eager to take in a new teenager that would only tie them down again.

In mid-January came the event that would finally put me on a path to make things a little better for me. Someone, with a little help from Ava, figured out how to get into my school locker, and used it to play another ‘prank’ on me. After they had covered everything in my locker in wet coffee grounds on a Friday afternoon, the result I discovered the following Monday morning included quite a few destroyed textbooks that needed to be replaced. Like usual, the school wouldn’t help in any way, not even when it came to cleaning up the locker. When I went to the parents and showed them the letter from school, accompanied by a price list for the books, Aaron wouldn’t have any of it.

“For fuck’s sakes, boy! Learn to stand up for yourself! You already lost two phones over the last month, and now we need to replace textbooks!? Did you see what they cost!?”

I was numb. I didn’t expect anything from them anymore, but he still managed to surprise me. Did he honestly believe that I lost those phones? He knew full well they were stolen! And how the fuck was I supposed to stand up for myself when they never came at me alone. And with the full support of my siblings, no less!

“This can’t go on like this.” He continued, “Maybe it’s time to start taking responsibility and find yourself a job. Then you can take care of those things either by learning to defend yourself, or by paying the price for chickening out.”

I snatched the price list out of his hand and walked back to my room. I had finished several programming jobs by now and could indeed pay for the textbooks myself. Though if this kept up, I still needed a regular job with a more regular income. Then again, I was still only fifteen and didn’t think a paper route would pay enough to replace my phone every month. Though, thinking about it, why did I even bother replacing them? Because of the bullying in school, I barely had any friends left. And I refused to invite any of them into this house to witness what was happening here.

So, the next day, I went to a Diner on my way home from school that had a “Help Wanted” sign at the counter, and got myself a job waiting tables. Minimum wage ($7.25/hour) for fifteen hours per week would not make me rich. I calculated that, if I kept it up without spending any of it, I could buy myself a cheap used car in about 64 weeks. Isn’t that a motivating thought? Well, it didn’t come to that. I was fired after a single week because of me “causing disturbances”.

Since the Diner was so close to school, quite a few of my fellow pupils stopped by regularly. I couldn’t work a single shift without someone recognizing me and shouting “Tiny Tim”. Not even just other kids, there were even a few vaguely familiar adults among them I thought were friends with the parents. People throwing dick-jokes at me, much to the other guests’ displeasure, or intentionally tripping me while I was carrying someone’s order, much to the Diner’s owner’s displeasure. He recognized that I didn’t actively cause any of it, but I was still the cause of it. Simply letting me go was the easiest way to deal with the disturbances in his Diner, so that’s what he did.

I knew what happened would surely repeat itself with any student job I could get. Even if I got something further away, it would happen less frequently, but it would still happen. I needed an actual job, but for those I needed a reference since I was still fifteen. Asking my direct family was useless. So, I decided to give Uncle John a call. He was a corporate consultant, so he had a shit-ton of contacts. I figured he might know someone.

“Well, what are you good at?” he asked, after I explained my dilemma to him.

“I already made some money programming and designing stuff over Craigslist. I’m pretty good at that.”

“Really? That’s new. Anything you’d care to share?”

I sent him the links to the sites I created, as well as the names of my Apps that were already available in Google Play and the App Store. He called me back the next day, with the offer that would finally start the new chapter in my life. An old friend of his ran a security firm and needed, at the very least, a completely overhauled website. He’d vouch for me to overcome the problem my age presented, but I’d have to convince them of my capabilities myself. The appointment was made for the following Friday, and I had compiled a portfolio outlining all the noteworthy characteristics of my previous projects, as well as my skill set.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to put in so much effort. John’s friend, Bill Carter, was indeed skeptical at first because of my age. That was, however, already solved by Uncle John simply asking him to try me out as a favor. And since he, as he phrased it, “doesn’t know shit about this computer stuff”, I agreed to simply start working on it. When I had something presentable, he would send it around for people to try.

I worked on it the entire following week, and was able to create a nice and expandable CMS that would allow them to edit the pages themselves, and included all the needed APIs for their accounting and staff-Apps to exchange data over it. I sent him the login data on a Sunday evening, and he called me to discuss salary two days later.

I offered him thirty dollars per hour with flexible hours. He offered me to go fuck myself, but he was laughing while saying it. In return, I asked him to check with his accounting for the rate he paid the agency that made his previous system, and how long it took them to deliver a finished product.

To my surprise, that actually worked! We settled on a lump sum payment of $4,500 for the work already done, and an hourly rate of thirty-five dollars for all future work. All of that as a freelancer, for now, since the hours I was allowed to work as an employee would be strictly limited and regulated by labor law until I turned sixteen. My first job would be to rework the apps his men used to upload photos, surveillance-videos, and to log their hours. I was fully prepared to get stuck with minimum wage again, since I was ‘just a minor’. Gladly, Bill didn’t care about that in the least. As long as the work was done right, I would be paid like any other employee who did their job.

The next day, Claire accompanied me to the bank to open an account. As we were sitting in that bank, the idiot teller tried to make her open a custodial account for me, which basically means that the account would be in my name, but I couldn’t do anything without either Claire’s or Aaron’s signature. She was all for it, but I told her in no uncertain terms that, since I was working for that money, it should be my money. She compromised with a joint account with safeguards for reckless spending. I could live with that. At that point, I was seriously worried about getting money transferred into an account the parents had access to. Sadly, contrary to Bill, the bank did absolutely care about me being ‘just a minor’, so I didn’t have much of a choice.

The single debit card and the login data for the online banking were sent directly to me alone, so the only way for them to check my account balance, or make withdrawals, was to actually walk into the bank and ask for it. My hope was, since they didn’t know about Bill paying me more than minimum wage, they wouldn’t feel the need to go through that trouble. At least as long as I didn’t give them reason to. So, no reckless spending for me. Back to feature-phones and cheap snacks.

I also had no idea how taxes work for freelancers, since I never made enough before to file for them. So, I would save as much as possible until I found that out. I made only two mentionable investments: A small fridge for my room to store my food in, and a nice gaming chair. The fridge didn’t cost nearly as much as I thought it would, and I figured, if I’m going to spend a lot of time in front of the computer, I might as well sit comfortably while doing so.

The fridge, though, did not go unnoticed. When I carried it inside, Logan saw me and his eyes grew wide immediately. Last I saw before reaching the stairs was him pulling out his phone. I learned whom he called when Aaron stood in my door as soon as he arrived home.

“Boy! If you’re going to put a fridge in here, you’ll have to pay rent. Those things burn energy like a hair dryer running non-stop!” he told me in an annoyed tone.

I didn’t know if this was yet another attempt to piss me off, or if his children were demanding personal fridges of their own now, so he wanted to nip this in the bud. Either way, I looked at him for a while, contemplating my options. Then I took all the bills out of my wallet that were left after my shopping spree, counted them, and handed him seventy-five dollars. I made sure he saw I only had a whopping six dollars left, hoping he wouldn’t think I wasn’t hurting for money.

“That should cover the rest of the month. I’ll set up a money transfer order starting from the 1st. I hope three-hundred bucks a month are enough for this room?” I asked him, with my now usual tired voice.

I waited a little for a reply, but he just looked at me confused, so I closed the door in his face. He apparently didn’t expect me to readily pay up without complaining. And certainly not such an amount. However, as far as I was concerned, this interaction had finally officiated our new relationship. I hadn’t felt like part of this ‘Family’ in a while. Now I was officially nothing more than their tenant. Too bad nobody else would rent out a room to a fifteen-year-old kid, regardless of him having an actual taxable income. I’d have been out of that house in a heartbeat.

The next two weeks followed a pretty set pattern: Get up in the morning. Go through the motions while getting slapped around in school. Pick up some groceries or take-out on my way home, so I would have something to eat. Go to sleep while trying to ignore the occasional bed-squeaking coming from one (or more) of their bedrooms. Repeat.

That is, until my workload changed. Apparently, being a programmer and doing things with computers others don’t understand, makes you the default go-to guy when someone’s hardware refuses to comply. So, whenever the printer in accounting didn’t work, I was called over. When someone accidentally hit F11 and put their Pornhub browser window in fullscreen-mode, that someone showed up next to me and discretely asked for quick help. Same went for their personal and private devices. I soon made it a habit to come to the office directly after school and stay for at least one or two hours. Normally I would do all the programming and maintenance from home, so I’d only come in if we had something to discuss. But I could do that just as well while in the building, and this way I could actually look at the stuck printer.

It didn’t take too long for the others in the office to get friendly with that chubby kid that was fixing their stuff. For the first time in more than a year, I had people I could have an actual conversation with, even if they were more small-talk, since we had little in common because of the age difference. That helped somewhat. It also didn’t take long for Bill to notice that something was wrong with me and called me into his office.

“Alright, kid. The fuck’s up with the bruises?” he asked in a gruff voice.

“School stuff” was all I could say to that.

“School stuff. As in ‘you’re part of the wrestling team and just bad at it’? Or ‘the wrestling team is using you for sparring matches without you being a member’?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I did not want to tell my boss, who employed me in a security firm, that I was incapable of defending myself against other kids at school. Even if I was just the IT-Guy and not part of his operative staff.

“I’m pretty sure John said he had two nephews ... Doesn’t your brother go to the same high school as you?”

“Logan, yes, he does. So does my sister. You could say they’re part of the wrestling team. My family ... doesn’t like me very much.”

Bill didn’t say anything for a moment. I also couldn’t see any change in his expression. Did he already know? Or maybe it was just his character. Or he did the job long enough to not find this unusual anymore.

“How long you gonna be here today?” he finally asked.

“Well, I like to stay ‘till five, when the office-dwellers leave, so I’m here if something comes up.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. I’m still only paying you for actual work done, not for sitting around.” I smirked at that “Come back in here at five.”

And that’s what I did. After meeting him in his office, he led me to the gym. As it turned out, unbeknownst to me, the operative part of his employees met every day after the others left for their training sessions.

“All right everyone, listen up!” he called out to them. “This is Tim. Most of you probably seen him around by now fixing your shit on company time. He’s gonna join us in the afternoons from now on. Be nice to him, he still has soft bones. Drop him on his head and it’s probably gonna leave a permanent dent.”

Most of them laughed at that, I was still a little confused.

“What is it you train here? Something like Krav Maga or something?” I asked excitedly. To my even greater confusion, most of them laughed even harder at that than after Bill’s joke.

“Listen Kid,” Bill started in an exhausted tone while pointing a finger at me. “If you want to learn how to throw a killer punch, go boxing. If you want to learn how to use your knees and elbows to strike, learn Muay Thai. If you want to learn how to throw people around, learn Judo. And if you want to learn all of those things, just not even half as good, learn Krav Maga. We don’t do that crap here.”

“But ... wasn’t that, like, some army thing everybody learns now?”

“Yeah, once upon a time it was that legendary martial art the IDF teaches.” he explained with much sarcasm in his voice. “But ever since it got popular in Los Angeles, it’s more of a means to slim your waistline using a punching bag. In the end, all popular and widely known martial arts you can learn in schools or dojos are either meant for competitions, against a single opponent and judged by a guy who makes sure everybody abides by the rules, or are simply a collection of made up scenarios you can’t apply to the real world. The drunks at a bar always come with friends as backup, burglars in Texas are most likely carrying, and the desperate ones will use whatever they can to take you down. Martial Art styles will give you some degree of confidence in a real fight, but that’s it.”

“Sooo ... what are you training then?”

“Our own little style. Call it MMA if you must put a name to it, but it’s simply a mixture of whatever we all learned works best in the field. What we train in these sessions is meant to teach you how to take an attacker down as quickly and effectively as possible, so by the time their buddies try to help him out by jumping you from behind, you’re already done with him and ready for the next one.”

“Nice!” I commented. This sounded awesome. Bill, however, made quick work of my enthusiasm.

“Now keep in mind, this is going to be very different from what you’ve seen in ‘Cobra Kai’ or some other shitty show. We don’t really concern ourselves with the future health of someone who tries to kill us. If you break his arm and rip his tendons, tough shit for him, but he’ll sure as hell won’t use that arm to pick his knife back up and try again. BUT! We train this for self defense. So, if you use any of this on someone who’s not ACTIVELY attacking you, it’ll no longer pertain to self defense. It’ll get you thrown in jail, and we will not bail you out for that. So, we’ll also include some lessons in discipline.”

After this little speech that left me in a mixture of excitement and downright fear, he introduced me to the other participants and assigned me a partner. From then on, for 90 minutes per session, five days a week, I learned how to defend myself. On three days a week we spent an additional hour lifting weights.

I’m not going to lie, it was fucking hard! Even though the training started out easy, teaching me how to stand properly and then how to apply and get out of choke- and handholds, I was in constant muscle pain for the first two weeks. It felt like the lactic acid buildup in my muscles would never go away. By the time we moved on to A LOT of grappling, and finally all the way to ‘disabling’ armed or unarmed attackers, I had thankfully gotten used to the daily exercises.

Granted, there weren’t that many people coming after me with knives and guns in school, and there wasn’t much in those training sessions I could reasonably use against untrained bullies without being arrested (“Or worse, expelled!”), but it gave me confidence. I could now look my attackers in the eyes and actually see what they were trying to do, instead of cowering away and be taken by surprise with every single punch. And as long as I could see it, I could defend against it. At least that was what Bill kept telling me.

My favorite part about the training, however, was Tess. She worked in accounting and claimed to only train with the guys because she wouldn’t have to pay for a gym membership that way. Twenty-eight years old, 5’4’’ tall, and always holding her long raven hair in a ponytail. I thoroughly enjoyed having her as a sparring partner when we had to get handsy, because she seemed to enjoy herself with me as well. At least that was the impression I got from the genuine smile she gave me while we were going through the different holds. Despite what I hoped, with me being fifteen and all, I didn’t seriously expect to get anywhere with a woman thirteen years older than me. But I did look forward to each time we met, either during training or in the coffee kitchen, talking.

After roughly nine weeks of daily training, I was ultimately forced to use in school what I had learned in the Company. During break time on an unusually lousy Monday in April, I was on my way to my locker to switch books, when I had to walk past Jack Miller, one of my chief-tormentors and best buddies with Logan. He and one of his bully-buddies were making the moves on a petite freshman girl with ash-brown hair whom I only knew by looks. At least I’m pretty sure they thought they were flirting. The girl’s face and comments showed that she had a distinctly different opinion on that, and would rather be left alone. I hadn’t even decided if I wanted to interfere or not, when Jack noticed me standing there, watching them.

“What you looking at, Tiny Tim?” he mocked me.

I noticed at that moment that Bill was right. Those guys were big and bulky football players, but they were in no way comparable to the men I had been training with for months. I wasn’t even nervous about what he and his friend might try. They must have noticed my attitude and decided that I should receive a reminder of why I once feared them. Jack walked over to me, grabbed my collar with his right hand and forcefully pushed me into the lockers.

“I asked, what you looking at!?” he snarled.

I placed my left hand on the one holding my collar, and, for the moment, just looked at him and my surroundings. Like usual, there were quite a few people stopping when passing us, but nobody cared to do anything. When I still didn’t answer, he started raising his other arm, pulling back his fist. He took so long, I think he simply didn’t expect me to do anything about it anyway. Or he wanted to enjoy the fear he usually saw in my eyes when they advertised the pain I could expect. But not this time.

Quickly, I grabbed the thumb of the hand holding my shirt and pulled and overturned it outwards. This caused him to first lose his grip, and then follow with his torso in the direction I was bending his hand, exposing the entire left side of his neck to me. As I was bending his hand, I quickly raised my right arm to face level, and then slammed my elbow down on his jaw before he could think about what was happening. His head violently jerked clockwise before he fell to the ground like someone cut the strings of a puppet.

When his bully-buddy saw that, he moved in on me. Scowling at me with his torso low, ready to charge like I was an opposing player on the football field he wanted to tackle. When I saw that, I took a quick step to the side away from him, so he had to step over Jack and couldn’t run full force at me. As he did, he looked at his feet for just a split second, to make sure he wouldn’t step on Jack, and I used that moment to attack.

I stopped his advance with a quick and light left jab to his face, throwing him off long enough for me to instantly follow up with a strong right hook to his liver. His body basically shut down and he went down on his knees. Then, my left knee found its way into his face. He fell backwards on top of Jack and just groaned in pain, not moving much. His nose and mouth were a bloody mess. I reached down, grabbed Jack’s arm, and pulled him out from under his friend and onto his left side, like we did at the training session whenever a chokehold was held too long and someone passed out. Then I looked around.

The hallway was filled with gasping faces staring at me, and one of those faces was Logan’s. That fucker looked disappointed at his buddies! My heart was going at roughly 300 beats per minute, but I needed them to think I was unimpressed and ready for whatever they might try next. I wanted them to think I could take them all if they forced me to. I needed them to know, I was no longer their punching bag. And it worked!

The whole confrontation was over quickly. From the moment Jack raised his fist at me, maybe twenty seconds had passed, and yet, two incapacitated football jocks were lying on the ground. It was also brutal and merciless, way above the level of fights any of my fellow students were used to. But most important of all, it was super effective!

Logan and a few other guys looked at the two lying on the floor, unconscious and incapacitated. They clearly wanted to get to them, but Logan’s eyes kept flicking between the two sleeping beauties and me. They were afraid to come near me! I took a closer look at the people surrounding us and saw more than one of my bullies just standing there unmoving.

I didn’t get to relish in my accomplishment, though, since the next thing I knew, Coach Jenkins grabbed me by the arm and all but threw me across the hallway towards the principal’s office. The entire way he was raising hell about me attacking other students and threatening expulsion. When he dragged me in front of the principal’s desk, we noticed that the freshman girl had been following us the entire time.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her, still angry.

“Ah, Sir, he wasn’t attacking nobody! Jack and his friend wouldn’t leave me alone, even after I told them to. When he...” she said, now pointing at me “ ... just walked by and looked at them. Then Jack suddenly grabbed him, pushed him into the lockers and tried to punch him. He was just defending himself!”

This had quickly turned into a quite uncomfortable situation for the school, and it showed on their faces. Not just Coach Jenkin’s, but also the principal’s. Making unwanted advances at a girl, in this day and age?

“That still doesn’t warrant violence! And especially not at THAT level!” the principal commented heatedly. “I’m afraid I will have to call the authorities over this assault, Mr. Brown.”.

“Assault. Is that so.” I said “Tell me, how many times have I been in here, after one of his assholes used me as a punching bag?” I asked, pointing at Coach Jenkins. “And how many times did ANY of you do shit about that!? I TRIED to get help from you and the teachers, but NONE of you could be bothered to do something. But now that I was FORCED to defend myself, NOW he starts threatening me with expulsion and the police!?”

“We told you before, Mr. Brown, there wasn’t much we could do. They always had witnesses placing them somewhere else.”

“And I told you before that I didn’t beat myself up! There would’ve been other things you could’ve done when the complaints about your valued team members piled up. But you didn’t. And now, when those guys get hurt themselves while trying to assault someone else, the victim gets threatened. I’m sure there will be a few people highly interested in that! First of all, my family’s lawyer. So, go ahead, call the police. There is more than enough proof of what’s been going on over the past eight months in my health records. And I’d be surprised if you could point to ANYTHING you did to stop it.”

I tried to keep my voice leveled and steady, though it was hard. This was months of frustration finally breaking loose, and it took everything I had not to lose it completely. Finally the principal and Coach Jenkins exchanged glances and seemed to wordlessly agree on the needed procedure.

They called the counselor and had her take the girl to a different room. Then the principal had me write down my “version of the events”. When the counselor came back ten minutes later, she was holding a paper that looked suspiciously like they gave the girl the exact same assignment. The principal quickly went over both statements, though his mood was not improving. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Damn it ... wait here!” I heard him mumble, before he got up and left me alone in the room.

About five minutes in, my phone started buzzing and I was elated when I saw what I had just received. This day couldn’t get any better! Craig, one of my last remaining ‘friends’, if I could still call anyone that, had started filming the whole thing as soon as he had noticed that the girl was not too receptive to Jack’s advances. It showed everything! I could now watch myself knock out Jack and his friend, and relive that beautiful moment, as many times as I wanted. But most important of all, if the principal chose to screw me over, I had solid proof!

Just to be on the safe side, I quickly created a new YouTube account, made sure the password was not saved in my phone, and uploaded the video to it. This way, it was definitely backed up in a way they could not get to, even if they took my phone from me, and I could easily share it if needed. Another twenty minutes later, the principal returned and sat back behind his desk. He fixed me with a look, still seeming anything but happy.

“Well, Mr. Brown, I just checked the security tape. It does indeed show that you didn’t initiate the fight, but instead reacted to threatening behavior from another student. It still doesn’t...”

“Threatening behavior!?” I interrupted, clearly irritated. “Are you saying the tape didn’t show Jack physically assaulting me when I just stood there? Pushing me into the lockers? Holding me by the collar, while raising his fist? Are you claiming, based on what you saw on the tape AND what you read in the witness’s statement, I didn’t have every reason to fear for my safety?”

The way the principal’s eyes narrowed told me that I had said the right thing. I had been left alone with my thoughts in this room for long enough to anticipate this. Working in a security company has quite a few benefits. One of those was hearing all the stories the guys at the firm told me. They are regularly threatened with legal actions whenever a drunkard they threw out of an event felt humiliated, or a spouse that got caught fucking around on our surveillance cameras felt like they were installed unlawfully. These people would make up the most fantastical tales of misconduct and excessive violence to somehow discredit us. So, as soon as the principal started talking like a cheap lawyer, I knew he would try to spin this any way he could to discredit me.

But I also knew I had the advantage, since I was holding all the proof. After two different beatings, I had been forced to see a doctor, and in both cases he noted all the “defensive wounds” I had. Quite telling abrasions, cuts and bruises I got while trying to shield myself. And as I just pointed out to the principal, even if the surveillance tape somehow went missing, I still had a witness.

The principal watched me for a few seconds before he took a deep breath and continued.

“What I wanted to say, Mr. Brown, is that I acknowledge you felt the need to defend yourself. Albeit you did so excessively. So, we will not expel you. Instead, you, as well as the other two boys, will receive a three-day suspension. I will notify your parents of what happened here today. Please accompany Coach Jenkins here off the school grounds to make sure there aren’t any more incidents today.”

And just as if on cue, Coach Jenkins entered the room and walked me out. I stopped by the door to get one last point across, though.

“You know, it’s interesting how the school suddenly has a surveillance system you could check. Makes one wonder, what happened to your need to call the police over this incident? After all, someone still got assaulted. Don’t tell me the police aren’t necessary any longer, now that the victim turned out to be someone other than one of your players?”

“Don’t overdo it, Mr. Brown.” he glared at me. “I might not see the need to call the police on you, but those boys’ parents just might!”

“In that case, let me remind you that we live in the age of smartphones. The whole show is already on YouTube. I suggest you keep that in mind when you talk to their parents to explain exactly what happened.” I deadpanned, and let Coach Jenkins lead me off school grounds.

I couldn’t have given any less of a shit about his threat. I achieved what I wanted to and had the proof that I merely defended myself. That was a good day.