Stuffed: Chapter 6 (Patreon)

Sucking Eris was my first sexual experience, and I wasn’t sure what to think of that. I felt like a part of me should have been embarrassed… but I couldn’t stop smirking about it.

I’d spent so many years fantasizing some perfect first sexual experience—but with Eris, there was no ‘overthinking’ anything; we just did it and it was fun and it meant nothing.

At least I thought it meant nothing. I was pretty sure that it meant nothing to her… The next day, I realized I was probably right—and I wasn’t sure what to think about it. 

A group of guys were hanging around the mall. I had to tell them to stop skateboarding in the hallways, because their wheels were leaving black scuff marks on the polished floors. They all laughed at me and called me ‘Ohio’—whatever that meant. 

Later, I saw them in the food court, eating popcorn. The popcorn stand always sold off their remaining stock at half price in the last hour before close, and these guys had waited around until that moment. They were mall-rat regulars.

I sauntered by, making sure they were trying to smoke weed in the mall or anything. I overheard them talking. “You see the girl with the black hair?” one guy said.

“Eris,” said another. “She did this dagger on my arm.” He held up his arm to show his friends his dagger tattoo. 

“Yeah—I knew it was an E name. She’s cute.” 

“She’s a dude,” laughed the friend.

“Man, if she looks like that—I don’t even care.” 

“Would you suck her dick?”

The guys all laughed. “Maybe. I don’t give a fuck.” 

“You going to ask her out?”

“Maybe.” 

“You guys would make a hard couple, not gonna lie. She’s got some mean BJ lips.” 

The guys laughed. My blood was heating up listening to the men. I didn’t like the way they were talking about Eris… but I disliked what I heard next even more.

I was doing my rounds outside and saw Eris and Cara together, smoking cigarettes and goofing off on their skateboard. “That one guy is kind of cute,” I heard Eris say. 

“I can see him being your type.”

The girls didn’t see me walking by. I kept my presence unknown, keeping towards the growing evening shadows. 

“I like his moustache. It’s kind of sexy.”

The guy with the moustache was the guy who was apparently thinking of asking her out. 

And honestly… he was a much better fit for Eris than me. They both had tattoos. They both wore t-shirts of metal bands I’d never heard of. They both liked skateboards and cigarettes and they both shared that same slang-ridden language.

He was carefree, like her—and I was definitely not. He was… cool. I wasn’t brave enough to grow a mullet, and I couldn’t grow a trendy moustache to save my life. 

I looked down at my tattoo. Suddenly, I felt like a poser. I felt like I was trying to be something that I wasn’t, to win the admiration of someone who probably didn’t even want anything to do with me…

But if she wanted nothing to do with me, then what did that scene in the food court mean last night? Was that just a much-needed sexual release? Would she have done that with anyone? 

The rest of my shift passed in a blur. I tried to focus on my rounds, on the mundane tasks of checking doors and making sure no one was smoking weed in the bathrooms, but my mind kept drifting back to Eris. To the way she’d looked at me last night, the way her voice had softened when her fingers pushed into my hair and she pulled my head into her crotch. Had that meant something? Or was I just reading too much into it, like I always did?

Maybe sex didn’t really mean anything to her…

By the time my shift ended, I was exhausted—not just physically, but mentally. I felt like I’d been pulled in a dozen different directions, and I didn’t know which way was up anymore. I needed to clear my head, to talk to someone who wasn’t Eris or Cara or one of the mall rats who seemed to live in their own little world.

So in the morning, after sleeping for just a few hours, I texted my engineering friends. We hadn’t hung out in months, not since I’d started working nights at the mall. They were all enjoying their summer break, still living the same lives they’d been living when I left. They all had support from their parents, helping to pay for their college tuition; I wasn’t so lucky, I guess. I wasn’t sure if I’d even fit in with them anymore, but I needed to try. I needed to talk to someone about what was going on in my life…

We met up at a coffee shop near campus, the kind of place that was always packed with students studying for exams or working on group projects. I hadn’t been in a place like that in a long time. I used to love places like that. I used to spend most of my free time in those calm, quiet spots, enjoying the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of fingers tapping on MacBook keyboards… But now, there was something so off-putting, so sterile, like I was walking into some sort of morgue. Everything about the place just seemed so… dull.

I spotted them right away—Mark, Jake, and Priya—sitting at a table in the corner, their laptops open and their faces lit by the glow of the screens. They looked exactly the same as they had the last time I’d seen them, and for a moment, I felt a rush of nostalgia.

“Eric!” Mark called out, waving me over. “Long time no see, man. How’s the mall cop life treating you?” They all chuckled. 

I forced a smile, sliding into the empty chair at their table. “It’s… fine. Just trying to make it through the summer.”

Jake smirked, his eyes narrowing as he looked me over. “Dude, what’s with the tattoo? Since when are you into that kind of thing?”

I glanced down at the compass on my arm, suddenly self-conscious. “It’s just something I got on a whim. No big deal.”

Priya raised an eyebrow, her expression suddenly skeptical. “Since when do you do anything on a whim? You’re, like, the most calculated person I know.” They all chuckled again—but their laughter almost seemed… mean. When the tattoo girls giggled at me, I knew they were teasing. I knew that it was just fun and games—but with my friends, I could tell that they were actually judging me. I had a sense that they’d been talking about me before I came.

I shrugged, feeling my face heat up. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to try something different.”

Mark leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “Different, huh? So, what’s next? You gonna start skateboarding and listening to death metal?”

The others laughed, and I forced a chuckle, but it felt hollow. I’d always known my friends were a little judgmental, a little set in their ways, but I’d never really noticed how much until now. I’d been part of a few of their little ‘mean girl’ type gatherings. ‘Did you see what so and so wore? She’s obviously trying to get Professor Andrews to jack up her grade.’ Stuff like that. Now, I felt a bit guilty for ever having been part of conversations like that. Who was I to judge someone else?

I looked at my friends as they glared at my tattoo, rolling their eyes. It just seemed so… mean.

They were so… predictable. So sure of themselves and their place in the world. And suddenly, I felt like I didn’t belong at that table anymore.

“So, what’s new with you guys?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

Jake started blabbing off about some coding project he was working on, and the others chimed in with their own updates. I listened, nodding along, but my mind kept drifting. I couldn’t stop thinking about Eris, about the way she’d looked at me last night, her eyes glistening as my mouth slid up and down her throbbing shaft. 

Priya kept eyeing my tattoo, grimacing as if it was some sort of highly infectious skin infection. 

Then, I remembered what she said when our other friend, Anders, dropped out of engineering to pursue acting school. “Does he actually think he’s going to make it as an actor? He’s so delusional.” They were probably saying similar stuff behind my back. 

“Eric?” Priya’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “You okay? You’ve been kind of quiet.”

I blinked, forcing a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… tired, I guess.”

Mark smirked, leaning forward. “Tired, huh? Or are you just too cool for us now that you’ve got a tattoo?”

The others laughed, but there was an edge to their voices that made my chest tighten. I wanted to tell them about Eris, about the way she’d made me feel, but I knew they wouldn’t understand. They’d just make jokes, call me names, tell me I was being ridiculous. Then they would talk behind my back about how I was having some sort of mental breakdown. 

And maybe they were right. Maybe I was having a mental breakdown.

“I should probably get going,” I said, standing up abruptly. “I’ve got a lot of studying to do—and another shift tomorrow.” 

My friends exchanged glances, but they didn’t try to stop me. “Alright, man,” Jake said, his tone light but his eyes sharp. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

I nodded, forcing another smile. “Yeah. I’ll see you guys around.”

I was standing up when Priya took one last look at my tattoo. “You know, there’s always laser removal.”

I smiled at her, but said nothing.

As I walked out of the coffee shop, I felt weird. Those people in there… they weren’t my friends. They didn’t really care about me. I’d changed, and they hadn’t. 

And maybe that was okay. Maybe I didn’t need friends like that.

But then… who were my friends?

My mind kept drifting back to Eris.

I spent a few hours before my shift in the security office, studying for exams, but it was hard to focus. I felt like I’d lost something that seemed like such a fundamental part of me. My friend group was such a core part of my identity, in a weird way. Those friends were the ones who had kept me believing that engineering was life, like it was the most important thing in the world, and to veer away from it, even just for a moment, was somehow some idiotic mistake.

They were mocking me now; I could feel it. 

But were they living their lives? What were they doing that they could tell their future grandchildren about? What experiences were they having now that they would cherish for the rest of their lives? They were just… going through the motions, doing what they had been told to do by their parents and teachers.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, if that’s what they wanted to be doing—so be it. I wasn’t going to judge them for it.