For Fern, the worst and best part about coming back from summer vacation was the people. Now he was a very tolerant guy but if there was one thing he couldn't handle well, it was attractive people. The first day back from the summer after sophomore year he already knew that everything had exploded. Abs, thighs, asses, (his self-esteem had also exploded but that was just him), hair, hormones, and breasts. They were all either gone, bigger, or more shapely. The following few weeks of school was an all you can eat buffet and the members of his class were the ones being served.

Rarely was it that he didn't dare a peek at someone's body or face. A two-second glance was never enough for his hungry eyes. The words of his mother about the objectification of women were hushed by the hormones in his body begging him to take as many peaks as he could. Whether it was ignorance or dumb luck he managed to get away with most of his transgressions, until the third week of school.

Fern sat towards the back of the room, his desk pushed all the way next to the opposite side of the room closest to the door. It was a Thursday afternoon and his brain was beyond fried. There were two pieces of paper in front of him. One was a mix of numbers and words demanding him to solve their problems. The other was a wide ruled piece of paper, blank. In an attempt to at least look like he put effort into his assignment, he rewrote one of the questions in his own messy chicken scratch handwriting. During this process was when his first problem arose.

There was a small noise like a pencil hitting the ground, a quick turn to the left confirmed that theory. Up rose Brittany Starling a girl he had gone to school with since the 2nd grade. Fern even had specific memories of her covering him with thick yellow finger paint. Britney Starling like many of the girl in Junior year had exploded as well. Thick thighs, well-formed abdomen, nicely formed chest Fern would rate her a ten out of ten on his attraction scale. She rose and bent down to pick up her pencil. Now Britney was in what Fern liked to call the danger zone for him. She was right in his line of sight, bent over giving him a perfect view of her ass in all its rounded glory.

Fern was so focused on her ass and the number of wondrous things he could compare it to, including bread, juicy fruit...more bread. He ignored the movement of her head turning directly to look at him.

"Are you staring at my ass?" She asked in clear English, cutting through the silent tense atmosphere of the test taking math class. Even the usually blissfully oblivious math teacher looked up at them. Fern briefly had an almost PTSD like flashback to his early childhood. The night he had watched the movie the Exorcist with his family. His mother's warning that all women had the ability to turn their heads 360 degrees to catch any stupid thing he did. That threat stuck with him for almost a year scaring him away from risky seven year old decisions like stealing cookies, and rubbing the dog in mud. At that moment in seventh period math class he remembered that warning from ten years in the past and nearly choked on his spit.

Fern ruffled through the response folder in his mind, throwing out suggestions like 'Hell, yes and it's a fine one at that,' and 'Yeah, please don't punch me'. He finally gave up and just turned his head the opposite direction hoping that by some luck she might disappear. This is where the second problem happened. During the ten seconds it took for Britney to question Fern's ass looking motives, and for Fern to turn away another one of Britney's pencil had fallen and rolled under the desks (she had a lot of them). Mason, another child Fern had gone to elementary school with, had bent over to pick up the fallen pencil. Mason was also in the danger zone. It was like time had frozen for Fern and it was just him and Mason's ass. His eyes looked over, admiring it, taking mental notes, comparing it to Britney's. At some point in that frozen moment, a voice cuts in again.

"Are you staring at my boyfriend's ass too?" Fern's muscles tightened, his inner thoughts screamed. He realized then that time had not frozen, it was not just him and Mason's ass. Time had continued to move and he had spent the last six seconds giving Mason's ass a hard stare. Despite his dark skin tone, his face darkened red enough to be noticed. Mason turned around and stood up properly, he looked between Fern and Britney at a loss for words. His face read somewhere between shock, confusion, and appreciation.

"Is there a problem?" Mr. Teen asked standing up from his desk. Fern's head turned to him as well, he now not only had an angry teenage girl staring at him, a confused teenage boy staring at him, and the entire class staring at him, but Mr. Teen screwed him further by acknowledging all three of them.

There wasn't a time that Fern thanked whatever crazy God was up there more than when the bell rang that day. He shot up, all but threw his unfinished (barely started) test at the girl in front of him and raced out of the room. Evading both Mason and Britney.

That was the beginning of a common theme that had arisen during the school year. The Ass Trap, people bending over, Fern looking followed by Fern trying to justify his actions. The first few months of school were spent trying to evade the title of pervert. He had very many more things to worry about, that did not include being alienated for his affliction. By January of Junior year, he had hoped he'd have it under control. He would be able to control his hormones better, he would get used to being surrounded by attractive people, and everything would be right in the world.

By the time January actually came he was faced with the same problem, but somehow over the course of Christmas vacation, it had gotten worse. Aside from that problem, he still had the same one he planned on fixing in the beginning of that year. Fern had almost no friends. He had many acquaintances, many people he recognized from earlier youth and who recognized him, but it had been a very long time since anyone had actually gone home with him to say play a game. Shoot some hoops, even study together (not like he'd be caught dead doing that). One day in January, Fern planned on changing that, he had made his decision during lunch.

Fern sat alone in one of the circular lunch tables inside the cafeteria. It was still too cold to eat outside not that Fern ever really did. He was slowly eating the leftover enchiladas from the previous night's dinner when he was approached by what he was pretty sure was a boy. Fern looked up at the kid, he was carrying a heavy handful of books and seemed to be sweating a bit, but the first thing that popped out about the kid was the bright red lipstick he wore. It didn't look bad by any means, it actually made the rosiness of his cheeks stand out more. He quickly looked down at the table before he was caught gawking again.

"Is anyone sitting here?" The kid asked putting down his stack of heavy binders and books. Fern looked back up at him, now with the beginning of a conversation, he had a reason to look at him.

"I am." He said before he could stop the stupid from slipping out of his mouth. The boy's painted lips turned up into a small smile.

"Does that mean there is no room for me?" He asked rubbing his arms that were no doubt, probably sore.

"Why don't you carry your books in a backpack?" Fern asked instead his eyes wandering to his own backpack.

"I had to burn it." The kid said his eyes shifting around for a chair to pull over to the table.

"Burn it?" Fern made a note that this kid was probably an arsonist.

"Burn it, it was a menace to society and it had to be treated as such." The kid said matter-of-factly. Fern added lipstick wearing arsonists to the list of people to stay away from.

"Do you often burn menaces to society?" Fern asked instead of asking him to leave him alone.

"Only when I can. Look, can I sit here or not?" The kid gestured to the only available seat open, that was currently being filled by Fern's backpack.

"My backpack's there." He said instead, the kid gave him a look as if he was about to pull out his lipstick and scribble on Fern's face.

"Whatever." The kid sighed and picked back up his thick stack of books and binders. Without saying anything else more to Fern he went off, probably to find another place to sit. Fern wondered if the kid would come back with a torch. After two minutes and no screams of fire, Fern leaned his arm on the table and began eating again. Out of the corner of his eye, a flash of bright orange caught his attention making him turn his head (to the side, not 360 degrees). Near him, where the large stack of books used to be was an orange pamphlet.

"Arsonist must have left it." He mumbled putting down his enchilada and instead of picking up the paper. He scanned over the words, a smile growing across his face. "Drama club!" He said loudly, the portion of the lunchroom that did hear him turned in confusion. Fern looked around blushing a bit and mumbling a sorry.

"Drama club, it isn't a sport, there are a ton of people, this is perfect." He said out loud again, he looked around at the empty table. "I really need some friends." He sighed and packed up all his items into his bag, throwing out the partially eaten enchilada.

He walked out of the cafeteria and to the main lobby where the signup boards for spring sports and activities were located. On the bright orange paper were drama club sign-ups. He looked around no one else was there and only a few names were actually written on the paper. The pen hung loosely on an elastic band from a clipboard, Fern picked it up and put the tip of the pen to the paper quickly writing his name down before he could psych himself out.

The warning bell rang, Fern turned away from the paper and quickly began his way down the hallway that leads to his next class. If he joined drama club hoped he would not feel as alienated as he usually did. It was possible that he'd find other people that....well were more like him. Maybe even accepted him for what he looked like. That thought put a stupid grin on his face as he walked into math class. Grinning and math class were two things that didn't exactly go hand in hand, this is something Mr. Teen probably picked up on pretty quickly.

"I hope you're planning on behaving yourself, Fern." He said in a warning tone. Fern snapped out of his thoughts and looked at him. His eyes automatically giving him a one over. Blue button up shirt fitted, pants that hugged his muscled frame, his gold watch made his dark skin look warmer. Fern mentally gave him a ten out of ten on his scale of attraction.

"I always do Mr. Teen." He mumbled quickly taking a turn into the row of his seat. He ignored a suspicious look from Brittany Starling and sat down. He almost wanted to tell her he already looked at her ass today in English. But he felt like that wouldn't tide over well with her boyfriend who still looked at him strangely since that day in the beginning of the year. Fern hunkered down and did his best to not let his hormones get the better of him. The only cooldown thought he had left was his mother (who he did think was very beautiful a 10/10 in fact), whose stern look always turned down the heat in his body.

Fern was able to power through two more periods switching from the potential of success from Drama club, and the stern look his mother gave him as focusing tools. A buzzing noise came from his pocket as he walked towards the auditorium. He reached into his pocket and checked the screen. His mother's face popped up she was smiling holding the stuffed dog that Fern had given her during a trip to the fair. After pushing the call button he put the phone to his ear ducking into the bathroom.

"Mama?" He said in a hushed tone, careful so others didn't hear him. He waited as she spoke to him in rapid Spanish about where he was, who he was with, and how long he would take. Fern kept his voice low as he replied back in slower more articulate Spanish giving her the status of his whereabouts and when he needed to be picked up. After some hushed back and forth Fern told his mother he loved her and hung up. Holding the phone to his chest Fern peeked out of the bathroom stalls to make sure no one had heard him. After he gave himself the all clear he slipped his phone back into his pocket and continued to the auditorium.

He didn't hear it from the outside but as soon as the auditorium door opened he could hear a mush of voices that almost sounded like worker bees. One look around he could tell the 'drama club' had already been in session for quite a bit. A few kids in the corner were singing, others were dancing in groups, some more were cutting and painting, and the rest were being sent here and there by a man in the middle of the room, orchestrating the whole thing. Every part of him told him to leave, this was like everything else. Groups had been made and he was going to be left out again. He began to turn around when a voice cut right through the chaos.

"You!" Fern froze looking behind him. The man who was once in the middle was now approaching his finger outstretched like he was about to give a commandment. Fern pointed to himself like an idiot and turned to look at him fully. He had a tight fitting shirt that accented the bulge of his stomach, his hairline was a bit back, not helped by the tight ponytail he had, his glasses were square making his face seemed smashed and his pants were too tight for his frame. Despite his outward appearance, Fern couldn't help but still think there was something handsome about the man, maybe it was his work ethic. Either way, Fern mentally gave him a ten out of ten on the attraction scale. He mentally scolded himself for checking out a probably middle-aged man.

"Yes, you. Are you um..." He looked down at a paper in his hand. "Ferdinand Oliver?" Fern almost laughed, Ferdinand was a new one.

"Uh yeah. Fern." He said not bothering to correct him, it wasn't like it mattered either way.

"You want to join Drama Club?" He asked Fern shrugged in response unsure if it was even worth joining at that point. "Well, you signed the paper so it's too late welcome to six months of stress, yelling, and working your ass off. I'm Mr. Seppe." Fern blinked a few times absorbing that information, he almost felt like he just signed his soul away for ten years.

"Uh, okay."

"Now Fern. Can you sing?" Fern shook his head, there was no use lying to him. Unless he counted singing foreign songs while taking a cold shower, then Fern could barely sing a note.

"Dance?"

"No."

"Can you...move your body in a series of quick movements?"

"Uh...not that either." Fern was beginning to feel even dumber here.

"Can you walk in a straight line?"

"It depends really..." Mr. Seppe gave him a strange look but was silent. His put his hand to his chin thinking for a moment.

"You're on prop duty, come with me." He turned around and began walking to the stairs that lead to the back of the stage. Fern quickly followed behind him, trying not to stop and look at the props as well as the people. Mr. Seppe opened a door that leads to a decently big room with all sorts of wood and cardboard strewn around.

"Is this the prop room?" Fern asked priding himself on asking at least one not stupid question a day.

"Yes. Yes, it is, now are you good at working with your hands?" Mr. Seppe asked. Fern nodded, he had plenty of experience working with his father, cutting gluing, and moving heavy objects. "Good, as long as you work well, play nice, and have fun everyone should get along here. Right kids?" Kids moved their bodies out from behind pieces of cardboard or lifted their heads off the floor. Fern was suddenly aware of how many kids were actually in this room.

"Where do I start?" Fern asked as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

"Hmm, well...oh Ani. Ani is a good start." Mr. Seppe leads him to a corner of the room. A figure was bent over an archway, she was wearing a loose fitting shirt and shorts, splotches of paint covered her arms.

"Is that Ani?" Fern asked crossing his arms trying to think back to past painting experiences. This leads him to think about 2nd-grade finger painting with Brittney Starling, which eventually leads to Britney's ass again.

"Yessiree, this is Ani lead actress in our play and part-time tech crew by choice." The said person in question picked up her head to look at them. Fern's breath caught and thoughts of Brittany Starling and asses escaped from his mind. As Ani stood up the view only got better from there. She had paint on the side of her face, but the makeup underneath looked immaculate freshly put on as well. She had a creamy skin tone close to pale heightened by whatever sparkly stuff was on her cheeks and lips. Her body was to what Fern could describe as molded by the hand of an angel. Ani officially became Fern's very few, most prized eleven out of tens.

"Hi, I'm Ani." The girl said extending a hand towards Fern. Fern pushed down every immediate, dirty or pleasant thought he had about her and took her hand shaking it.

"Um, Fern is my name I mean." He said quickly his cheeks heating up. Ani fell right around his nose, she was pretty tall for a girl. He didn't mind one bit, she could have been the grumpy old troll and still somehow stay an eleven out of ten.

"Like the tree?"

"Like my name," Fern said without thinking through the obvious joke. Before he left to find a nice building to trip off of, Ani chuckled softly either thinking he was joking or finding humor in his stupidity.

"Well, Fern welcome to the drama club." Fern nodded eagerly only then he realized he was still shaking Ani's hand.

"Sorry." He mumbled letting go and wiping his hand on his thigh. Ani shrugged and waved her hand dismissively.

"No problem. So Fern what made you want to join the drama club?" Fern had to pause and think of an actual reasonable answer that didn't involve him being friendless.

"I uh, don't really know it sounded good."

"Well it is pretty cool, I personally started because I figured out around freshman year I really had no friends. So I figured I'd find a cool group of accepting people here and I did." Ani said simply, showing no qualms about the part where she mentioned that she ever had no friends. Fern wanted to believe it but he found it impossible imagining someone as gorgeous as she could ever not have friends.

"So what are you working on?" Fern asked unsure how to end the last conversation properly. Ani showed no sign of offense and looked over her shoulder.

"Just painting the archway for a scene, why don't you grab a brush and help me?" Ani reached into her back pocket pulling out a thick white covered paint brush. "Just add white in between the black lines and paint over the black with brown when we're done. Pretty simple huh?"

"Yeah, I think I can keep up with that." Ani gave him another warm smile and bent over again dipping her brush in the white paint and began painting. This immediately set off alarms in Fern's head. This was a familiar situation he felt like he was often faced with. An attractive person in front of him bent over, in his line of sight. The pressing question became, to peek or not to peek. The only tangible answer that he could make out in his head was yes. Fern got as much of an eyeful as he could, again feeling like the world was freezing around him.

"Need any help picking out a brush?" Ani asked abort mission bells rang in his head. He flinched as he waited for the outraged cry of 'are you looking at my ass?', after seconds of nothing he opened them again only to see Ani still painting. Oblivious of the objectification that took place. In an odd way, he felt a bit guilty, especially since he had gotten away with it which he rarely managed to do.

"Uh no, I'm a big boy I can figure it out." He said stepping towards the chair that held an array of brushes. He chose the thickest one and bent down next to Ani. He became aware of how little space there was between them. He only hoped he didn't smell like enchiladas. He dutifully began painting in the blank parts in between the black lines. After a beat of silence, he decided to continue a conversation. "So you're the lead huh?" After a few seconds of silence, she answered.

"Uh yeah, the female lead."

"So uh...how's that going?" Ani chuckled some more this time Fern was sure it was at him.

"Do you even know what play we're doing?" Ani asked him, putting down her brush to look at him. Fern looked back at her, light brown eyes a shade lighter than her hair.

"Not exactly, but I am almost positive it has singing in it." Ani rolled her eyes.

"We're doing La La Land, I'm playing Emma Stone's character."

"Oh oh yeah, the one with the singing right?" Fern smirked a bit this time knowing it might bug her just a bit.

"Guessing you've never heard of it?"

"I've heard that there's singing involved." He almost laughed at the irritated look Ani gave him, he knew this wasn't the best way to charm a girl but it was fun.

"It's a drama that shows the struggles of making it big in show business and the sacrifices that need to be made to get there. I'm playing Mia, an aspiring actress who's fallen in love with the town and a--" Ani sighed a bit rubbing her nose getting white paint on the bridge. "Just watch the movie."

"Sounds pretty interesting," Fern said honestly. "Just to be clear, there will be singing involved. Right?"

"This will be a long couple months with you won't it?" Ani mumbled, she shook her head and continued painting. Fern hoped he hadn't said or done anything too annoying. Judging by the closeness that remained between the two of them they were still okay.

"An aspiring actress playing an aspiring actress, isn't that pretty meta?" Fern asked still painting.

"I guess so, but I think it adds more flavor to the role. Makes it more spicy, gives it more life." Fern smiled a bit at that he could see the excitement in her eyes as she spoke.

"You seem a bit...pale to be talking about spiciness." Fern teased, praying to all that was good that that wasn't crossing the line. Ani gave him an indecipherable look and shrugged.

"Looks are pretty deceiving. Like how that white paint it obviously going over a black line." Ani said her paintbrush pointing to a mistake Fern had made with the brush.

"That's not deceiving that's true." Fern pointed out as he dipped another brush in some leftover black paint running over the mistake.

"And looks can be true too, so good luck figuring that mess out."

"But the entire human race is a deceiving mess."

"That's probably why we haven't figured much out," Ani said with a chuckle beginning to go over some dried black lines with brown.

"Probably." Fern agreed and peeked at Ani's ass once more before continuing his painting.

After about two hours Fern was covered in white and had his backpack on ready to leave. In his entire high school career he wasn't sure if he ever spent that long in a club, somehow the time seemed to speed up the more he talked to Ani. She waved to him as he opened up the door to leave.

"Same time tomorrow?" Fern called out before stepping through.

"Yeah, but hopefully I see you in school before then!" Ani yelled from the bottom of the stairs. She waved, threw up a peace sign and left through the right of the bottom of the auditorium. Fern smiled and walked out towards the back of the school. He really hoped he would see Ani again in school, and every day, even if they just remained acquaintances it would be worth every peek. At that point, he was on such an emotional high that he felt like he could even ask her to the next school event.

When he stepped outside the cold air cooled off his thoughts and his body. He could see the green truck waiting for him in its usual spot. He approached it and climbed into the passenger seat slamming the door and throwing his backpack into the backseat.

"When you slam your door like that it's hard to tell if you're excited or pissed." His father said turning the key in the ignition. Fern shrugged and buckled in.

"It was a pretty good day I guess. Why's mom not picking me up?" He leaned over giving his father a quick kiss on the cheek before sitting back.

"I have a landscaping job and just need some help, my backs been killing me."

"Do I get anything out of it?" Fern asked immediately earning a look from his dad.

"Isn't helping your poor crippled father enough for you anymore?" He said a tad bit dramatic. Fern rolled his eyes.

"Of course but a father's love won't buy me new games." It was his father's turn to roll his eyes.

"I'll give you fifty and not a dollar more for less than a day's work." He said pulling the car out of the parking lot. "You'll be home in time for dinner. You'll still have time to do your homework." Fern nodded running his hand through his hair feeling paint on both his hands and portions of his hair. He cringed as he imagined how much shampoo it would take to wash it out. "Not like you do it anyway." His father mumbled under his breath.

"What was that Papi?" Fern asked innocently clearly hearing him.

"Just that my son is a hardworking A student who tries his best in school." Fern scoffed a bit and glanced at him.

"You should be happy I take after you." His father rolled his eyes even more than before.

"None of the good parts mijo."

"And what are the good parts?" There was no reply from his father. "Papi?" Still no reply just a soft chuckling. Fern groaned, "you're the worst you know?"

"And what does that make you?"

"Your son. I know poor me."

"Oh, you love me." His father chuckled turning into the neighborhood opposite to theirs.

"I know I signed a contract."

"Willingly?" His father asked turning to him before looking back at the road.

"Of course, they didn't even have to bring out the hog ties."

"Yeah?" Fern nodded, and the car stopped.

"We're here." Fern looked out the window noticing dramatic lions on either side of the walkway.

"They look rich."

"That's what I'm hoping for. Be nice or else."

"Or else what? You'll sell me to the mob?"

"I was thinking human trafficking this time."

"You won't make much I don't have much of a culo." Fern's father groaned and opened the car door.

"If only your mouth could make us money." He mumbled stepping out of the car. Fern smirked a bit opening his own car door.

"It still can." He mumbled under his breath and climbed out of the car.