The Computer Camp Experiment
by chester
PROLOGUE
As he lay on the bed he listened to the silence. It wouldn’t be long now and his plan would be complete. So far there hadn’t been a hitch, and soon it would be all over - the grand experiment. He didn’t know where it was going to end and he didn’t care. The power! - that was what was important - the power! And he had it. He thought back to the months that led up to it and he smiled. It had always gone so well.
Because it had not come in an unmarked package, Robbie had been very glad that he had arrived home from school before either his mother or father had discovered it. He had no real reason to worry about his father coming home before the mail, but his mother could turn up any time, the real estate business leaving her free to pop in or out any time.
He had taken it up to his room and opened it carefully so not to bend the package in case its contents could be ruined. His life savings were here, he had remembered.
Only a month ago he had seen the ad in the latest edition of his favorite computer magazine. Two different companies had offered somewhat similar programs and he had wanted both of them. Already in his mind he had planned the strategy - well, not completely, but if the programs worked he would get to the serious stuff later.
He opened the package of software on ‘subliminal perception’ first. He had laughed at the structure of the ad for it. It was very careful to tell people that this was no “1984” Orwellian project that could make someone your willing slave, but a powerful tool to get to your subconscious and give you the will power to study harder and better, stop smoking, eat less, and a myriad of other uses. I large print at the bottom, it said: THE MESSAGE WILL ALWAYS BE SHOWN ON THE SCREEN AT SOME POINT LONG ENOUGH SO THAT THE USER WILL BE AWARE OF IT. Oh well, thought Robbie... that could be programmed out easily enough.
By the time he got the package opened and held the accompanying booklet in his hand, Robbie was almost shaking. He had looked through it quickly - it seemed a pretty easy technique. He could have come up with it himself, and not spend his hard earned savings on it. But... why reinvent the wheel.
The other package... odd, he had thought, how they both came on the same day... contained two disks of programs on the techniques of self-hypnosis. These had also been touted as a panacea fro just about every problem known to man. Similarly, Robbie had been quite well-read on the topic and probably could have worked out something very similar himself, but... interesting, he had thought, a few really unique things here - probably well worth the money.
Time had been so short. He would be going to computer camp again in just 8 weeks. He had been sure his parents had been counting the hours till he was gone. They seemed to breathe a sigh of relief each summer that they had sent him away. He always hated his summers until the computer camp. It was bad, too, but at least he got to work on something worthwhile that he really did enjoy. He still hated the participatory sports and bonfires and all... but to spend a good chunk of the time on the computer without being bugged to stop and do things around the house made the whole thing worth while.
His father had been the inspiration for the camp that had been started four years before. A wealthy friend of his dad’s - Henry G Thrush - had been looking for a new gimmick to use up some of the land he had invested in. The idea had been so successful that Thrush now had ten camps set up over the country and was thankfully too busy to work at the first one, as he was always away making sure things were going well in the other, newer camps.
This year Thrush was going to put Brad Lofthouse in charge. Brad had been a counselor at the camp the first year it opened and Thrush had been really impressed with the boy’s business sense, he is energy, and the fact hat he would do it on so little pay. Not a bad guy, Brad... just a little - outdated- for a guy of twenty-two or three.
Robbie’s dad had been on the phone with Thrush earlier that month. Robbie had hoped he might be a counselor up there this time now that he was sixteen, but his father had said it was out of the question. The camp was for boys from 10 to 16, and how would Robbie look trying to discipline a kid his own age. Robbie had argued saying that he knew as much about computers as any of the teachers, and that at a place like that, knowledge is a kind of power... but it was useless. Once his father had made up his mind...
Thrush had been talking legal business with Robbie’s father. Grant Foster was a senior member of the team of Stetson, Foster and Horn, and had been handling Thrush’s affairs for years. As far as Robbie could tell, Thrush was the type of man who only thought about himself. His father was always saying the same thing, and yet there seemed to be a little envy there, too. Thrush could con anyone into anything, use them till they were dried out, and then convince them that it was all worth the experience. He never paid his people much money and he avoided any type of union. The ‘teachers’ he got each year were not teachers at all, but usually college students who were clever, Robbie admitted, but who were also desperately hard up for any money and experience. They usually ended up with only the experience. Also, he hired only certain types of guys at the camp... guys who were not ‘rebels’ in any sense of the word. He didn’t want trouble or complaints from these guys and so the typical Camp Micro teacher was a God-fearing, non-drinking, nonsmoking, bright but timid character that followed the ‘rules’ and expected everyone else to do the same. For this ‘experience’ they got room and board and a small bursary to help them out the next year. It didn’t matter that they worked fourteen hours a day, had course preparations all summer, had to discipline and interest ten student campers, got one weekend off in the eight week summer session and were hid away from civilization for the rest of the time... at least Thrush was making his bundle!
Robbie had heard his father say all this many times and yet every time Thrush called or wanted something, Robbie’s father would jump. I guess, thought Robbie, his father wasn’t much different from Thrush’s faculty.
Everything was going so smoothly now that Robbie couldn’t believe all that had happened over the past six weeks of summer. He rolled over on his bunk and waited. The others had not returned from the computer room, but they would soon. Then he could carry out the last part of his plan.
Chapter 1 - THE FIRST EXPERIMENT
Tad Theriault was more than the boy next door. He was a nerd. In all the years that Robbie had known him, which was since he was a little boy, Tad was so easy to lead into trouble. Whenever a window was broken or something was missing, it was so easy to blame Tad, and Tad always took the blame seemingly without care. You see, from the beginning, Tad worshipped Robbie Foster.
Robbie was everything Tad was not - he was smart and knew things beyond his age, he knew all the fun things to do and how to do them, and he had so many things to play with, things beyond the imagination of Tad Theriault. Robbie’s parents had realized early that Robbie was brighter than most children, and had provided him with as many experiences (read toys and games and building sets and science kits) as they could. It also kept Robbie out of their hair.
So Tad would follow Robbie along and try to keep up but never quite make it. Tad’s parents realized quite early that Robbie was a ‘bad influence’ on their boy but as enlightened parents they knew that no friend was ever good enough for a son or daughter and they would have to let him choose or reject his own friends. That is, until he was nine.
Two days after Tad turned nine, he was told that he was not to see Robbie Foster again... not ever. The edict lasted for two years although there were secret meetings and visits over that period.
The last straw had been the gerbil. Robbie had convinced Tad that they should experiment on Tad’s gerbil. Robbie had decided to freeze the gerbil and then try to rejuvenate it by unfreezing it quickly in the microwave. The process was similar to a story that Robbie had just read in a recent science fiction book. The difference between Robbie and Tad was in their reaction to the experiment. Robbie had known from the beginning that it wouldn’t work and what the consequences would be. Tad, however, believed that they would be totally successful. He wasn’t worried about his ‘prize’ gerbil because it would be fine in another couple of days. It would just disappear for a while. When Tad’s mother found the gerbil two days later, she almost had to be hospitalized. That’s when the edict came crashing down. “Robbie is a bad influence and you never get into any trouble unless you are with him.”
It wasn’t until Robbie got his computer that Tad was begging his parents for visiting privileges again. His parents finally broke down, hoping that there was not much trouble the boys could get into playing computer games up in Robbie’s room. It might even be educational.
So the boys were allowed to be together gain. Robbie honestly didn’t care. He never did have much feeling for Tad, burt he also didn’t have many friends either.
At times he was flattered by Tad’s hero worship and at other times he was bored by the whole thing.
Tad always wanted to play games even though Robbie had grown out of that phase by the first six months. He still played games, of course. So many more games had become available over the last few years, and he wanted at least to try them, but the newness soon wore off and he went back to creating his own games and learning machine language.
At sixteen Tad had begun to come into his own. He was a better than average looking kid, and had always looked neat and clean (his parents had never allowed him to be otherwise), and he fit in very nicely with the preppie kind of kids at school. There were more than a couple of girls interested in him, but he wasn’t bright enough to see the ‘signs’ yet - as Robbie kept kidding him.
The experiment started five days after Robbie’s packages had arrived. And, of course, it was to involve Tad.
Tad knocked on the front door at 6:30 as Robbie had planned it. His parents were out for the evening and his sister Josie was out practicing for her swimming meet next weekend.
“Hi, Tad. c’mon in.”
“I hope this is going to be as good as you said. I’ve got a Physics exam on Friday and if I don’t start on it soon, I’m going to fail the damn thing.”
“Did your mother say anything about you coming over?’
“No, I told her I finished all of my homework - which I did except for
studying. So what’s the name of this one?
“I’ll tell you in a minute. C’mon out back first. I want to have a cigarette before we get started.”
“Haven’t your parents figured out that you are smoking yet?”
“Nope. I don’t think so.”
“I’m sure my parents would know right away. They’d have a fit. I don’t know why you smoke anyway. It’s so bad for you.”
“I don’t know,” said Robbie leading the way through the kitchen to to the pool patio. “It relaxes me, I guess. Wanna try one?”
“No way. God, even the smell of it is bad.”
Robbie lit his cigarette and took a long drag. A smile pushed out across his lips and he turned away so that Tad wouldn’t notice.
“Did you hear that Carrie is going out with some guy from the college? noted Tad. Carrie was a girl from their class that they both pretended to have crushes on at one time or another.
“Nope. It serves him right, though. Wait’ll he finds out what she is really like!”
“So what’s this new game anyway?” Tad picked up the rubber ball on the deck and started twirling it on the tip of his forefinger.
“It’s called “Tension trap” and it’s a cross between “Motor Mania” and “Pit Stop”. The graphics are great. You decide at the beginning that you’re gonna make a trip from New York to some other major city in the States. You get to plan out the route that you are gonna take and everything. The trip never runs smoothly though. You’ve got these hoods from New York following you, trying to submachine you, and you get caught in traffic tie-ups and your car breaks down and you have to find a new one. They give you some money to start, but if it runs out, then you have to find ways to make or take some, and buy a new car, and you get to pick up hitchhikers and all sports of neat things on the way.”
“Neat.” Tad threw the ball across the pool and listened more closely.
Robbie took another drag and watched Tad’s face. he was a real pushover for car games. The one thing he wanted most in the world right now was to get his driver’s license, but there wasn’t a chance with his parents right now.
“The game can take up to forty hours to play through, and you can save it along the way so you can come back to it. “ Robbie had pirated the game from Pete Strachan four days ago. Again, everything had fallen into place just like magic. the game had been relatively easy to break into and add his own touches to it - even easier with his new programs as models. “OK, let’s go now.” he crushed his cigarette and carefully carried the dead butt back into the house where he deposited it under garbage already in the can.
Robbie’s room was indeed his castle. Unlike many guys he knew, he kept his room immaculate so that no-one would ever come into it. Even Mrs. Dagleish, the cleaning lady, had express instructions not to enter his lair. All right, his mother had said, but only on the condition that you do the cleaning yourself and I never see a mess there. Certainly Mrs. Dagleish never minded. She had enough to do to keep up with the mess in Josie’s room which seemed to take longer than doing the whole rest of the house.
The two boys walked into the room and Tad threw his coat over the foot of the bed and practically ran over to the computer corner. The program was already loaded and the words “Tension Trap” flashed across the screen with the word “Tension” changing colors and looking like the print a lightning bolt might make if it could write.
“Now there’s a number of decisions you have to make before starting and there’s a pencil and paper over at the side to keep track of some of them. The computer will keep track of your money. Just press Shift M to see how much money you have at any given time. Also there’ll be a little warning sign in the bottom left corner that will flash on in green when the money’s gotten too low.” Robbie explained the program in detail and didn’t get impatient as he usually got when explaining things to Tad.
Tad started to play. It only took four days for the experiment to work instead of the seven that Robbie had expected. Robbie couldn’t have been happier with the results.
During the first evening Tad found himself incredibly interested in the game. He couldn’t believe how good it was - it was the ultimate in that type of game. The evening went by so fast that he couldn’t believe it when Robbie told him it was 11:30. Even then Robbie wouldn’t have said anything but he expected his parents home soon. His sister had come in about two hours before, but Tad hadn’t noticed because he had been so occupied.
Robbie had never see Tad so upset at having to quit a game.
“Aw, come on! Only a little while longer. I’m just about out of gas and those bastards are tailing me!”
“Tad, it’s 11:30 for shit’s sake. I thought you wanted to get some studying in?”
“Who gives a fuck. This game is great, Robbie! Look, can I save it and come back tomorrow?”
“Well, I don’t know...” Rob pretended, “I’d been planning to work on something tomorrow night.”
“What! Look, you just can’t let me leave it like this! Come on, be a friend - just one more night!”
Robbie reluctantly agreed, but after Tad left he lay on his bed and laughed aloud. “Damn it. It’s working. It’s working!”
And it was. The first step of the experiment was to establish inordinate interest in the game. The subliminal lines that Robbie had programed into the game simply re-enforced how much the player liked the game and how he couldn’t stop playing. He also threw in the idea that Tad couldn’t stop thinking about the game until he played it again.
It was a good game, though, thought Robbie. Maybe it wasn’t the subliminals after all, but just that Tad really liked the game. No - he was too excited, too absorbed. It had to be the subliminals. Well, he’d know soon enough. The important stuff started tomorrow.
He stayed up until three that morning - not just programming, for that took only about an hour to get the wording just right, but he couldn’t sleep with the excitement that was coming over him. It was making him so hard. Today was Wednesday - no Thursday morning. Tad would start the new set of subliminals that night. His own parents were taking Josie to the swim meet on friday night, and if she did well, probably wouldn’t be back till Sunday evening. If Tad could just get away he would have two full days to get it to work. As it turned out, he didn’t need it.
On Thursday Robbie kept talking about the game all day. Every time they passed in the hall, all during lunch and on the bus ride home. Not once did he ever mention the Physics exam on Friday. he dashed over at five o’clock after lying to his parents and convincing them he was going to Rob’s to study Physics and needed an early supper.
Muriel Foster was not too pleased to see Tad that early. She had taken the day off and had actually fixed a decent supper for the family. her husband called to say that he would be late, Josie didn’t feel like eating (nerves probably, she said, about the meet) and Tad arrived to take Robbie away.
“I give up,” she complained. “I go out of my way to fix a nice meal and nobody cares. Just help yourself when you want it and clean up your mess. I’m going out.” Where she went when this happened Robbie didn’t know or care, but it happened quite regularly.
By the time Robbie grabbed some supper, Tad was already deep into the game. He didn’t even hear when Robbie came into the room. Robbie lay down on the bed and took out some history books he had to read for a project that was rapidly coming due. He kept looking at Tad and going over his plan and wondered whether the subliminals had been worded carefully enough.
The subliminals this evening contained the same messages as the previous evening so that Tad would keep his concentration up and his fascination with the game. The additions were to prepare Tad to become a smoker. This would be a true test, Robbie thought. Tad hated smoking, but hadn’t tried it. He disliked the smell of smoke and was opposed to the very idea of it for health reasons. The subliminals took all of this into consideration including some very positive stimuli that were directed at certain weaknesses of Tad. Tad longed to be popular - well, not popular exactly, thought Robbie, but to be accepted. As far as he knew Tad had no close friends except himself, and only nodding acquaintance with his classmates. It was partly that he was shy with new people and partly because he seemed so innocent and immature that people tended to make fun of him and think him worse than he really was.
Robbie knew that he really admired Gary who was a year above them. Gary was very bright and fairly popular and Tad probably didn’t have a chance anyway, but he wouldn’t even talk to the guy. He was always so down on himself. Robbie wondered if Gary even knew who Tad was. The key was that Gary smoked. Robbie saw him almost every day in the Smoking Pit near the school at lunch. If Tad thought he could meet him that way or that smoking might make him more successful with her, the subliminals might work.
This wasn’t his only way, though. He had covered himself from many angles - using the cute male jock smoker named Gary in case Tad might be gay - probably? maybe? - planting the idea, the acceptability, negating the bad effects, stressing the positiveness of the odor, the pleasantness of the experience and so on. He figured it would take about six days to catch him... maybe. He would just have to wait and see.
The evening went quickly for Tad, but not for Robbie. Tad was just as excited about the game and just as irritated when it was time for him to go. He made Robbie promise that he could come over again just until he finished the game.
The Physics exam had been a disaster for Tad, but he didn’t even care. He spent most of his time thinking about playing the game, and the remaining time thinking about Gary. He even went out for a walk past the Pit during lunch to see if he could see Gary there. Robbie saw him but didn’t call him over. He merely smiled and went on talking to Tony and Bill. So it was Gary, huh. Hmmmm.
Robbie’s parents left at 6 o’clock with a list of a dozen or more items for him to remember over the weekend. He got their okay to have Tad over.
“But no-one else,” said his mother as she quickly checked the stove and the downstair’s windows. “We’ll call you tomorrow night and see how everything’s going. And don’t forget to pay the paper boy. It’s been three weeks since he’s been paid. Bye, honey. be good.”
And they were off.
At one point during the evening Robbie worried that the game might soon be over because it looked like Tad was going to make it to his destination. Ordinarily, he probably wouldn’t have, but his concentration was so intense, he managed to spring back and avoid the mob again.
The new subliminals contained most of the old ones, but concentrated more particularly on the desire to try smoking and the pleasantness of the experience when he did.
The initial subliminals certainly did not wear off, because Tad was there bright and early on Saturday morning, again lying to his parents that they would be studying. Tad was sure his mother didn’t believe him so he even told them to come over at ANY time and see if that wasn’t what they were doing. It was enough to convince his father at least.
By five o’clock Tad had finished the game and had made it to Los Vegas by car and had wiped out the mob. He seemed exhilarated to have won and kept babbling “Great game! Great game!”
Robbie said, “Hey, look Tad. I’m getting a little bored with this. I’m gonna go down and have a cigarette. You can start in again if you really want to.” he figured he would want to start again right away so the reply came as a real surprise to him.
“Okay. I can use a break anyway. Mind if I go down and try one, too? I’ve been wanting to try it and see what all the excitement’s about.”
Robbie’s heart and cock did a tailspin. “Sure, I don’t care.”
At the pool side Tad lit up with him, and to Robbie’s surprise smoked like a pro almost immediately. Robbie remembered what his first few cigarettes were like, and wondered why he had even continued considering how badly they had made him feel. Tad was inhaling and talking about how good the brand was, and how he’d seen jocks like gary in he smoking area, and how this might be a good way to get in with them.
In a week he was smoking more than Robbie.
CHAPTER TWO - THE SECOND EXPERIMENT
Tad almost got to know Gary very well, too, but the second experiment intervened and lost the chance.
The second experiment was unprepared for and proved to be a real fluke. Robbie had really not thought about another test. Instead he wanted to work on how to use the first experiment over the summer months. What actually happened was quite unexpected.
Tad came over on Sunday at about three and wanted to play “Tension Trap” again. The subliminal had worked very well. He said he hadn’t been able to sleep last night just thinking about it. Robbie wasn’t quite sure what to do. He wanted the time to himself to work now on the program and do some reading on subliminal perception that he had picked up from the library, but there seemed to be no dissuading Tad. The only thing that he seemed to want to do as much as the game was smoke, as Robbie found out when he suggested they go out and sit by the pool for a few minutes and take in the sun before they went upstairs. He didn’t even have to offer this time. Tad was the one who asked to bum a smoke even before they got outside.
“I’ve been thinking about some new strategy to cut down the time element and to make more money,” said Tad excitedly as he drew in on the cigarette.
Jeeze! One would think he had been smoking for quite a while, thought Robbie. Certainly it wouldn’t work this well on everyone. He had read that the subconscious would reject any suggestion that it didn’t find appealing and he knew that he had done his best to make the smoking appealing, but it had seemed to work so well, so quickly! Tad was mumbling on about his new strategy, but Robbie barely heard what he was saying. They were just about to put out the cigarettes when the front doorbell rang.
Quickly and guiltily they got rid of the evidence and went to the front door. Standing there was Mark (the Streak) Benton. Although Josie had been dating Mark for some months now, Mark had seldom come to the house. Usually he would wait in his car at the front and honk for Josie, a fact which his parents kept complaining about and making snide remarks about his suitability and what youth today was coming to.
Mark was only a year older than Robbie, but looked at least four. Where Robbie was short and very thin, Mark was over six feet tall and weighed over two hundred. Despite his build or because of it, he was one of the best players on the school’s football team, and a real ‘catch’ according to Josie.
Whenever Robbie saw him around the school without Josie he barely acknowledged Robbie’s existence. When he was with Josie he barely grunted. Because their interests were so widely different they seldom crossed paths.
Robbie knew that Mark’s reputation was a good one as far as the students in the school. What their parents thought about him might be another matter if they knew. He was reported to be a heavy drinker - a fact which Josie put down to his just wanting to have a little fun. His marks were okay and he was looking toward getting a scholarship to a small college in another state where he could again be a big fish in a little pond.
“Hey, kid,” he started. Robbie bristled immediately. “Did Josie say what time she was getting back from the meet today?”
“Probably not until later tonight. Mom said that they’d be back by now unless she made it to the finals. If it’s too late they may even be staying over.”
“Shit. That’s what I was afraid of. I was hoping she’d be back so we could go over to Gary’s tonight.”
Tad face seemed to light up on hearing Gary’s name.
“Sorry.” said Robbie. But he wasn’t. How could his sister go with a Neanderthal like that, he’d never understand. If Mark was what excited anyone, Robbie knew he would never have a chance.
He was about to close the door and get rid of Mark when suddenly Tad started in - not his usually shy self at all. “Hey, do you want to come up and see this neat new computer game that Robbie got? It’s really ex!
Robbie couldn’t believe the nerd! He rattled on about the game in such a way that even a moron would get excited. Mark seemed to be listening.
“And we could try the two player game. Rob here never seems to want to play with me.”
“Okay, I guess. I’ve got some time to kill anyway.
Robbie couldn’t believe that this was happening. He had a moment of panic when he realized he couldn’t remove the subliminals from the game before they stated playing.
“Is that okay, Robbie?”
“Well, uh...uh...my mom said I wasn’t supposed to have anyone in but you and...”
“She’ll never know, kid. I’m not gonna like mess up the place.” Mark had already come in and closed the door behind him.
“Yeah. Well, okay, I guess. Come on up.”
They played the game for hours. Even when Tad went home for supper, Mark stayed on raving about how great the game was and hoping that the creep would come back quickly so he he could beat his butt. He did.
While they played, Robbie read through some of those articles he had been meaning to read. When he got to some interesting things he made notes but he couldn’t keep his mind totally on what he was doing. He was trying to figure out in his mind what was going to happen with the subliminals and Mark. He didn’t think that Mark smoked. At least he didn’t seem to want to stop for one, but perhaps he was just too interested in the game to stop. Actually, he couldn’t ever remember seeing Mark smoking in the Pit. He was there, of course. The jocks who did smoke, like Gary, gathered in one corner and made sure they had the place to themselves - kinda like having their own lounge - and no-one dared to step into their space. They just stood around and ogled the girls and relived the last game. Seldom would they drink in the area. The cars would be the place for that. And then there would be the subliminals about Gary. That could be a problem, too. He already seemed to have Gary as a friend - they were supposed to hang out that night - or if that subliminal would have any effect.
By eleven o’clock it seemed clear that his parents and Josie were not going to be home that night. Robbie was breathing a little more easily now and was actually getting excited by the prospect. At eleven-thirty he broke up the game.
Surprisingly Mark had not even mentioned the party he was supposed to go to and actually seemed excited when Tad proposed that they finish the game the next evening. Mark remembered that he had to do something Monday night, but then suddenly said that it didn’t matter - he was having so much fun that he’s be back. No-one even asked or consulted Robbie.
After Mark left, Tad asked Robbie for another cigarette before he left for home, and then he took off.
Robbie couldn’t sleep. At one-thirty he got out of bed and added a few subliminals tot he program he already had. He took out the ones about loving the game so much. Too much of a good thing, he thought. I’ll never get Tad out of here - or even Mark, at this rate. The new subliminals suggested that Robbie was a great kid and fun to be with, quite clever and so on. By the time he was finished he was feeling quite self-satisfied and went to sleep quite easily.
Monday went by very quickly. His parents would get home some time during the day and he was quite certain that Josie must have done quite well at the meet.
At lunch time he watched carefully to see Mark, but he didn’t appear. Tad did though. He had bought his own cigarettes and was fitting in quite comfortably with the usual group of smokers. No-one even mentioned the fact that this was the first time Tad had ever been seen smoking in the area. He surprised Robbie when at the end of the period he ran up to talk to Gary, ostensibly about some math question, but it was the first time he had ever seen Tad take the initiative for anything.
At home he heard nothing but news of the swim meet over and over again. He casually mentioned that Mark had been over the previous day but made sure that only Josie was aware of the fact.
“Mark was here? When?” She seemed both anxious and relieved. “Did he say he was coming to see me tonight?”
“Yeah, he’s coming over, but I don’t think it’s as much to see you as it is to go on playing this new computer game that Tad talked him into playing with him yesterday.”
“Tad?” Josie looked puzzled. “How did he ever get talked into playing game with Tad? I didn’t think he could stand him.”
“I don’t know,” Robbie was able to answer truthfully. I guess he just had a lot of free time without you around. Lover boy needs his girl.”
“Oh shut up, Robbie. What time is he supposed to be coming?”
“He didn’t say. Don’t you have a lot of work to catch up on anyway. I heard Mom say you better not go out for a few nights until you do.”
“Smart ass!” She threw a pillow at him. “I’m going down tot he den to study tonight. Tell Mark to drop in before he goes upstairs.”
“How come the den?”
“I don’t think Mom will appreciate having him going into my room plus she’s going to be around “all” evening. She grabbed her books and went downstairs.
Tad was the first to arrive. He seemed as eager as ever but he was genuinely pissed off when he found they didn’t have the house to themselves and he wouldn’t be able to sneak a smoke. Mark came at seven and although he did drop down and see Josie for a few minutes, he ignored her for the rest of the evening and managed to win the game.
“Hey, look, man. I can’t be coming over to play this every night. Do you think I can borrow the disk for a few days?” Mark looked almost like a puppy as he asked.
“I don’t know, Mark. I don’t like letting my disks out, you know. They cost...”
“Look. I promise I’ll take really good care of it. I really get off on this game and until I can pick up a copy of my own...”
“I guess so.” Robbie looked to all the world as though he wasn’t quite sure about the arrangement but inwardly he was more than happy. It couldn’t have worked out better.
“You’re an all right guy, you know. I guess I didn’t give you much a chance before.”
“I’ll give you the game on Thursday, okay?”
**********************
Mark looked around him as he paraded into the Pit with Phil and Doggie. It was early in the period and not very crowded. The sauntered over to the east corner of the area bounded on three sides with walls, far out of the view of the public who might get the impression of the school, were they to wander in.
Only juniors and seniors were actually allowed off campus and came to the Pit, although being off the school property per se, no-one ever really checked the area to anyone’s knowledge. In fact, the teachers knew about, but avoided the Pit as though it were above them to be seen wandering through the groundlings with their dirty habits and rock music.
As much as Mark enjoyed being with Phil and Doggie, he didn’t frequent the Pit very often. Only when he was a freshman and was smoking a little in order to feel like a big man did he ever come there regularly, but all day today he had the nagging desire to have a smoke. It wasn’t even though it was a conscious thought like God, I need a smoke! - but more just a feeling of unrest or unease, and a picture in his mind of Gary smoking, and a cigarette might be able to alleviate it.
“You’ll never believe what Cory did then,” added Phil who was just going over the main events at the party that Mark had missed on Sunday night. “She got up on top of the dining room table and pretended that she was gonna strip - just as Finch’s old man walked into the room. Shit, I thought he was gonna have a heart attack right there.”
“Yeah? hey, can I bum one of those. Thanks. What’d he do?” interrupted Mark.
“When did you pick up the habit again? Hey, bad for the wind, Streak. What’ll Coach say?” kidded Doggie.
“Season’s over. Shut up, will ya, and let him go on with the story,” said Mark trying to change the topic. “So what happened?” His eye caught Gary crossing the field and coming to join the group. He smiled.
While Phil continued with the aftermath of the party, Mark was hardly listening. He drew in on the cigarette and it tasted really good. He was surprised because he hadn’t really had one for well over two years. He half-listened and was half aware of enjoying the cigarette, but his mind was also on Gary and wanting to spend some time with him.
Across the Pit he saw Robbie Foster and his group at the far end from him. Once, he was aware that Robbie was looking at him or seemed to be, but when caught he turned away very quickly. Not a bad kid, really, pretty damn clever with the computer too, he remembered hearing from Josie. Pretty good for him to lend out his game like that, too.
His mind quickly forgot all that as Gary came over to him. He felt a strange stirring in his cock. “Hey, man! How’s it going?” Mark had interrupted the end of Phil’s tale although he wasn’t aware that he had.
“Not bad.”
Mark let the cigarette dangle from his mouth and put his arm around Gary, leading him away from the group, ignoring them totally and leaving them puzzled. “Gary, my man...let’s talk.”
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By the time Thursday night rolled around Robbie had done all he wanted with the subliminals in the game. He presented Mark with the game on Thursday and didn’t get it back till a week later. Every day he saw Mark in the Pit for longer and longer. Every day he saw him go off with Gary.
His sister broke off with Mark the following Sunday. Robbie didn’t ask why.
CHAPTER THREE - Setting Up the Camp Experiment