Southern Hospitality Ch.01

Ash gawped at his mother, incredulous as to what she had just said. He understood the basic premise of what had happened, but the reasoning she must have had absolutely baffled him.

“Why?! Why would you do that?!” He pleaded, voice light and desperate.

She shrugged, looking across at him with a raised eyebrow, chewing on a mouthful of her food. “I don’t see what the big deal is.. You agreed to help her?”

“I agreed to help her but I didn’t agree to that! Ugh.. You’ve no idea what you’ve done.” he said with a soft huff, looking down at his plate and spearing a piece of penne, taking a bite.

“No, I suppose I don’t.” She laughed airily and smiled cheerily as she ate, enjoying her ignorance on the matter.

Their neighbour, and his moms best friend, Laura, had recently entered the modern age by acquiring herself a laptop, and while this on it’s own didn’t present Ash with an issue, what his mom had offered most certainly did.

She had quite happily surrendered to Laura Ash’s mobile number so that if any tech related issues arose, she could text or call him for support.

Ash himself was a relatively geeky guy, ever since he could remember he had been bullied at school for his accurately perceived effeminacy. This status as a social outcast among the boys and his growing up in a budding world of technology had allowed him to slip quite happily into an introvert’s lifestyle, spending every second he could on his computer. In time he’d come to need glasses, which only served to frame and accentuate his already feminine features.

Things hadn’t been so bad since his move to college. While he still struggled to make male friends he fit in very well with the girls, a bunch of the popular sophomore crowd taking him under their wing, adoring him for his unintentional feminine charms. While to his disappointment none of them were interested in him like that, he had become one of the girls. Which certainly came with its bonuses.

For a start, he got to hang out with one of the colleges more popular girl squads, which had at least afforded him protection from those that would usually pick on a freshman like him. That and the sheer number of beautiful women willing and in fact, eager to spend time with him made his would be bullies somewhat jealous of him. If only they knew his situation. His life was the friend zone. They all loved him. Just not like that.

At eighteen now Ash couldn’t really say he’d ever had a real girlfriend. He’d certainly never been intimate with a girl. The limits of his real world experience being the various times he’d seen his friends in their pyjamas and underwear during sleepovers and after parties. It was something, but it left him sorely lacking companionship.

Ash blew air out between his lips and shook his head. “Whatever. It’s done now. Hopefully she knows the basics?” he asked, voice hopeful as he started to eat again.

His mother eyed him with no short amount of skepticism.

After he had eaten and helped to clear the table he made his way upstairs to his retreat, enjoying the familiar drone of his computer as it hummed into life, his screens alighting with cinematic images as it loaded up. It may not have been real, but the comfort he found in his games, internet and the online communities within gave him peace and satisfaction.

He had been sat at his PC for no more than ten minutes, just catching up with his subscriptions on YouTube when his phone buzzed. He didn’t think anything of it, guessing it was one of the girls in their Facebook group chat dropping a line or posting a link and scooped up his phone, unlocking it and peering at the dim screen.

“Hey is this Ash?”

He paused eying the message, glancing between the message and the video on his screen. He didn’t recognise the number, but a growing sense of dread gave him a clue as to who it would be.

“Hey, yeah, is this Laura?”

“Yes. My laptop won’t turn on.”

Ashley let out a groan and drooped his head. His worst nightmares realised, he glanced at the clock, it hadn’t even been fifteen minutes and already here he was. Tech support.

“Is it plugged in at the wall?”

“It’s wireless.”

On the bright side he might be able to get some funny screencaps from this, he could give a couple of his online friends a laugh. On the downside though there was a very real chance that this was his life now.

“That means it can connect to the internet wirelessly. It still needs to be plugged in to charge. It should have come with a plug.”

“Oh.” A long pause.

“Hey it worked! Thanks Xx”

He rolled his eyes dismissively and set his phone down, returning to his subscription feed. He had managed to get in a couple more videos without being interrupted but before long, his phone buzzed, again.

“It won’t connect to the internet.”

He should’ve seen this coming. He placed his face into the palms of his hands and despaired. Whose idea had it even been to get her a laptop anyway? Who had encouraged her?

“You have to go into network settings, find your network and connect to it.”

“I can’t find my network?”

“Who’s your ISP?”

“ISP?”

He should’ve seen that one coming a mile off.

“Internet Service Provider, like Comcast or AT&T.”

“I don’t have one :-(”

Ash let out an audible sigh of frustration. He looked at the clock again. Twenty-five minutes since his mom had dropped the ball and dropped him into this hot mess.

“You can piggyback on ours until you get one. We have a good signal, you should be able to connect.”

He sent her over the network name and password, it took a little more explaining, retreading the same ground more than once, but she eventually seemed to get the idea.

“Thanks sweetie! Xx”

He shook his head again and set his phone down. It felt like it was going to be a long night.

To his pleasant surprise, his phone remained silent for the rest of the night. Maybe he’d gotten lucky and she’d figured out how to operate her new machine. Though that seemed highly unlikely. Maybe he’d gotten lucky and she’d given up on her whole affair with technology? Somehow he didn’t feel lucky.

His evening progressed at least with a semblance of normality. The next few times his phone buzzed, though he felt a pang of fear at checking the cause of the buzz, though thankfully, each time it turned out to just be one of his friends on facebook.

As the evening drew onto into night he let out a yawn, leaning back from his computer as the screens darkened and the noise of his computer, a background hum that he didn’t even register faded out leaving him in an eerie silence. He stood and stretched, making his way through to the bathroom to get himself ready for bed.

He stood in front of the mirror, staring with his half-lidded, tired emerald eyes at himself as he brushed his teeth, toothbrush grasped in his small graceful hands. His raven black hair was just shy of being long enough to be tied back into a ponytail, it fell around his undoubtedly feminine face with his delicate soft features, cute nose, small ears and his full lips, which were currently drawn back to display his perfect white teeth as he went through the practiced ritual of brushing them.

He was rather pale, all said, with the majority of the light he got being from his computer screens, but as much as it had bothered him, his friends had all insisted that they were, in fact, jealous of his flawless, fair skin it added to a sort of beautiful contrast between the lightness of his skin and the darkness of his hair.

He wore only his boxers, displaying the smooth form that his friends all envied in some small way. He was slight of build, with narrow shoulders sidling inwards to a slender waist before curving outwards at his shapely hips and long desirable legs.

Holding the toothbrush between his teeth he looked down at his legs, brushing his fingertips across them. He had thought that puberty would finally give him the edge of masculinity that had always evaded him in his early years, but his formative years had merely bestowed upon him few small tufts of hair above his cock and below his arms. His chest, back arms and legs remained smooth and hairless, another aspect to which his female friends expressed the unfairness of life.

He didn’t spend anytime pitying himself in the mirror, he had done that enough in his life already. While it was true he would’ve preferred a more masculine look, a lifetime in this body had driven him to lower his expectations and he had become content with the way he appeared. Hardly the pinnacle of self-confidence, but enough to get by on day to day.

Washing his toothbrush he set it down in a glass beside the sink and rinsed his mouth out, leaning over to spit it into the sink before standing and turning to make from the bathroom. He ran his hands through his soft hair, padding barefoot back to his room.

Cautiously, he checked his phone one last time but was relieved to find it mercifully void of requests for tech support. He settled down to relax, snuggling into the soft, welcoming embrace of his plush, familiar bed. He sighed comfortably, reaching out to plug his phone in for the night to charge, tucking it up beside him before letting the alluring hold of sleep take him.

The following day proceeded as so many before it had. He passed the day’s most difficult task, dragging his sorry butt out of bed and proceeded on autopilot through his practised, morning routine. Teeth. Wash. Clothes. Breakfast. Walk. College.

College was, as it usually was a quiet simple affair. He applied himself to his studies and spent his breaks in the company of whichever of his squad was around, chatting, laughing and generally just enjoying themselves. He found the giggles and smiles of his friends enchanting and captivating, which in its own way made him feel a little more lonely, as he knew his position with them would never pass beyond the boundaries he already felt.

He was just leaving his last class at the end of the day, heavy bag slung over one shoulder when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He expected it to be one of his friends, offering to meet up with him, or inviting him around to theirs, but the feeling was short-lived.

“Hi Ash, my internet was acting weird so I left my laptop with your mom, she said she would leave it on your desk to fix when you get in 🙂 Xx”

He stared at the writing on his screen in frustration, he didn’t really have any plans, but if he had this would’ve gotten in the way of them! It annoyed him. A small, minuscule part of him had begun to believe that he was in the clear, that his IT services wouldn’t be required. But more and more he was coming to realise this might just be his life now.

As he got in he shot his mom an irritated glance, shrugging off his college pack and grabbing a drink before making his way upstairs. He closed the door to his bedroom maybe a little harder than he intended, in an attempt to convey his annoyance with the whole situation.

Lo and behold as he looked towards his desk, PC dark and switched off, sat a laptop. It was a new looking model, not a gaming machine but a sleek, modest home laptop. Sighing, he popped the tab on his soda and took a slow sip, glaring at the machine as if to try and make it and the problems associated with it, vanish.

The sooner he fixed it and gave it back to her the better. From his experience so far, it would probably be a small issue regardless.

Sighing, resigned to his fate he sat down and opened up her laptop, pressing the power button as it hummed into life. He watched as it booted up, loading into the Windows screen without any password protection to stop him. It took a little long to load up, the startup seemingly slowed by something. After having to wait, sipping his soda, he clicked open the browser.

The browser, Internet Explorer, had maybe five toolbars sitting at the top, obscuring damn near half the screen, which was slowly loading in a website he hadn’t seen before, some third rate search engine which incurred half a dozen pop-up advertisements that choked the system.

Shaking his head, he got to work. He began fighting off the advertisements and installing a different browser, from which he then installed a number of programs to search for and remove the offending spy and malware as he worked to uninstall all the crap she had put on her PC.

As he waited for a scan to complete curiosity overcame him and he found himself wondering just what sort of websites she had visited to accrue such a high number of issues in such a small frame of time.

Idly, with his head resting lazily on one hand he opened up her internet browser and started to scroll through the list of websites and internet searches;

‘boy fuck; young white boy; white boy sex; teen boy sex; definition twink; black hair twink boy sucks cock; Teen twink green eyes glasses sucks cock.’

Ash found his mouth hanging open as he stared at the ever growing list of terms and phrases that slowly grew eerily closer and closer to a description of him sucking dick. He could see the progression of her thought process, delving deeper and deeper into a lewdness that, oddly, had male porn starlets closely resembling him servicing cocks, almost worshipping them.

He swallowed, his mouth going dry as he felt his cheeks burning a bright red at what he was reading. It had to be a coincidence, didn’t it? That she was searching for someone so akin to himself? And why in gay scenes? If she was interested in him at the very least it would make sense that she would be looking up some normal porn movies?

He wiped the history, opting to go with the time tried method of, ‘Nope. I’m going to pretend I never saw that and carry on with my life as if everything’s fine. This is fine.’ and finished cleaning her computer, adding a couple of programs to try and prevent her from downloading any more malicious programs.

It had taken close to an hour all told to get her computer clean and protected and despite himself he found his thoughts to be brimming with curiosity. Not to the porn she had consumed en masse, but to why she had been searching for boys like him.

Shaking his head he shut the laptop down and closed the lid.