He first saw it live on his aunt’s computer screen. She had always lived with his family, and after she had realized that she shared the same (weird) hobby with him, she had begun to draw him closer to herself. They both loved studying. She first noticed the traces in his curiosity as a growing boy. He would ask her all sorts of questions that she considered more than his age. She had first discouraged him and explained that such behavior would make him to be tagged as a nerd and to become an object of caricature by/for his peers. She however realized that it was a passion that he could hardly control (like hers) then, she began to encourage that habit. She would invite him into her room to study when she was, and afterwards, they would discuss the key points from their study material. Whenever his siblings’ play disturbed his study time in his own room, she would invite him into her room to evade such distractions. After a while of observing him and concluding that he had no pilfering habits, she granted him access to her room in her absence.
One solo study day in his aunt’s room, he grew tired of serious study and wanted something a bit unserious and entertaining. He mopped around for anything that would catch his attention, but nothing seemed forthcoming. He dived on the bed to rest a while as an alternative and as he bounced on the pillow, a novel flew up. He was about to return the book to its position when the cover caught his attention. He had seen his classmates exchange novels with such covers but was never really interested in finding out what they were all about. He considered them too unserious for his taste. This day was different. He was ready to engage any unserious stuff; especially something from his beloved aunt’s room.
As he flipped the pages, it got more interesting. He was excited about the sensual descriptions he met on the pages of the book. It was his first time coming across such. He had never really considered that his body could work in the way that was being described. Nothing that was taught in his biology class really prepared him for this experience. He got to what he considered to be the core of the book: the description of the coitus, and that was when he caught himself wishing he was the man being described in the book. As his insides swelled with excitement, he heard footsteps approaching the door. He quickly returned the book to its position and returned to his serious study position. His life had however, already began to change.
His reasons for solo study moments in his aunt’s room began to change. His mind had begun to wander and to imagine all sorts of sensuality even at odd times. Whenever his aunt stepped out, he would neatly search her room for more unserious stuff. Initially, he wouldn’t find any, which frustrated him. He however learnt to put his frustrations to good use. He would pen down his own fantasies and read them instead. He also began to steal some glances from his friends’ exchanges at school. It gradually stopped being about the love stories between the characters of the book. It became more about the accompanying sexual experiences and about broadening his sexual fantasies. As he kept penning down his growing fantasies, he became less interested in the novels such that when he finally found a couple of them lying around in his aunt’s room, they could no longer match up to his expectations. He soon started to wonder if this wasn’t too much for his fourteen years, so he decided to pedal down a little bit. But it was already late: he couldn’t easily let go.
One day, his aunt had asked him to help her assess some serious stuff on her laptop. He had afterwards, diverted to mopping around his aunt’s system. He found his first video there and naturally preferred it to the novels. So he watched some more. He also memorized the computer’s password and would assess it whenever it was available for more.
The end drew near on the same day he considered himself a genius. His aunt had naturally first called him a genius because of his smart mind. His family had learnt to call him the same and would challenge him to several smart questions beyond his age, of which he never failed. He however considered their reasons very normal and wouldn’t address himself as such. He would only address himself as a genius after he had successfully innovated some serious stuff. So, on the day he saw it live for the first time on his aunt’s screen… the day he saw a clip exactly as one of his penned down fantasies, he accepted the genius title, but he was too afraid to be excited. It suddenly felt wrong. He knew this wasn’t any of the innovations he had aspired towards. This was solely supposed to be unserious stuff. So, it got him very worried and ashamed. As he closed his aunt’s computer, he began to panic. For the first time ever, he felt like a failure. He felt like reaching out for help but couldn’t share with anybody. He felt chained. As he walked out in shame, he bumped into his father.
It was his shivering that caught his father’s attention. As his father asked if all was well with him, he wished for the floor to open and swallow him up. He couldn’t look his father in the face so he bent his head and said nothing. Throughout that day’s dinner, he was morose and didn’t hear his mother ask him a smart question. While his siblings celebrated that their brother wasn’t that much of a genius, the elderly family members knew that something wasn’t really right.
The elderly ones were right because as the father walked across his son’s room later that night, he heard him sobbing. He listened closely and heard him ripping some papers. Confused, he tapped the door. After much silence, the father tapped the door again, and then tried the door knob. It was locked and the silence grew. Out of fear, his father jacked the door open. He found his son drowning himself in his bath tub.
…
After his return from the hospital, he explained his shame and fears to the elderly family members. His aunt felt bad and soon moved out of their house. His mother felt shocked and wouldn’t speak to anybody. His father however felt glad: glad for the chance to school his son that he was still normal and hadn’t really disappointed the family; glad for the opportunity to let his son know that he was just in the right phase of his teen life; and glad for the opportunity to be able to guide his own son through life experiences and disappointments.
