Nano 2012 Day Nineteen

Menelaus settled into his lounge chair in front of the tv. Three times. He had jerked off three times, and it was as soon as he got home. He felt a little guilty and a little ashamed of himself. But he just couldn't get Tina's arse out of her head, or her breasts hanging in front of his head, or her tight little body. If he wasn't physically in pain this thought would probably drive him to do it again, like it had the last two times. The first time was just because the erection she had left him with had lasted the entire fifteen minute drive home and he was worried about it being priapic for the rest of the afternoon.

He sighed, it was time to ring Peter at the hospital anyway. He looked up the number for the hospital on his laptop, bringing it over from the kitchen counter and plugging it in at the power point near his set of lounge tables that he had gotten as a gift from his grandmother. Not that he ever used them but one of them was just the right height for his laptop. So, he supposed he used one of them. He found the number and dialled. Eventually someone picked up and he asked where his friend Peter Tenagris was currently being held. He was told a ward and a floor number, which he promptly forgot and then was told he would be put through. He made a mental note to have a pen handy next time he rang. Or just to ask Tina who would likely be much more organised than him and actually remember it or write it down. At the thought of Tina his penis throbbed and then a sharp pain hit it. Menelaus winced.

"Hey there, Menelaus?" It was Peter. He sounded pretty good, though slightly out of it.

"Hey Peter! How are you feeling? They have you on painkillers?"

"Yeah..yeah... they do. I'm not too bad, though when the painkillers wear off it hurts when I breathe. They say I only just missed out on having a punctured lung, how about that? I just missed out on a whole range of stuff so looks like I'm not dead yet. I'm pretty relieved to be honest!"

"I can't say I'm surprised" Menelaus said, a smile creeping across his face

"Hey Tina rang up before, she seemed surprised you hadn't already rang up" Peter continued, still sounding like he was talking from a dream colony in the clouds, "I explained that you had moved down to b-grade friend status and she was now my bestie" at his own use of the word "Bestie" , Peter began to giggle. It was in short bursts and ended with a painful sounding hacking cough that Peter seemed to be trying his best to stop dead in its track. "Haha cacakhask argh oh man that sucked. ow."

"Is everything ok?"

"Yeah i can't laugh unfortunately. Feels like a knife digging into my lungs. Not too dangerous apparently but if i don't watch it I can still do, you know, something something."

"yeah I understand"

"so, you stayed over tina's last night, huh? She said you kept her company."

"Um yeah" he wondered whether to tell him. Maybe once he was off the drugs, "We were both worried about you, it was a shock to see you get hit by that car all of a sudden!"

"Noone was more shocked than me, buddy."

"Oh.. right. yeah, sorry"

"No, no, don't worry about it. I was kidding. You'd know normally because I'd be laughing my stupid goofy laugh but right now that laugh causes me a lot of pain, so you know..."

"Yeah I know. How annoying! How long do you have to stay there recovering?"

"About another week apparently. They want to make sure I don't start coughing up blood or anything. You know, the usual stuff."

"Jesus Christ"

"Hey don't worry man. It'll be cool. Hey you're still avoiding my question..."

"Question?"

"Yeah... you, tina, staying over?"

"I told you, she wanted some company so I stayed with her."

"ah comfort. I get that."

"Yeah."

"Alright well I'd better get back to sleep and get myself some of that rest I keep hearing about from the doctors and nurses here! Seems like all I've been doing is rest. Do you think you can come and visit me later on? Maybe around dinner time?"

"Yeah sure, Peter that'd be fine. I mean, depending on visiting hours?"

"Oh yeah... visiting hours... oh hey! hey! Yeah, please, what are visiting hours?" Menelaus could her vague talking on the other end, a professional sounding voice, "alright then. Thank you. Ok, Menelaus?"

"I'm here"

"Visiting hours are between 10am and 8pm. So maybe come at like 5:30 or something? If you want?"

"No worries Peter, of course."

"And can I borrow your handheld thingy? The sony?"

"Yeah sure."

"You're not in the middle of a game or something?"

"Peter, I haven't played that thing in close to two years. You can have it while you're in the hospital. Hell, if you get addicted to something you can have it afterwards as well."

"Oh well thanks buddy, you're in a good mood!"

"No I'm just worried about you"

"Anyone would think you've just gotten laid, huh? Heh. We know better though, right? Woah, ok dizzy here! I'm gonna go but I'll see you later on, right?"

"haha, right Peter. I'll see you then."

"And bring the sony!"

"I'll bring it!"

"And games! Don't forget games."

"I won't forget games. there are lots on the card in there, alright? I'll show you everything. Go to sleep." Part of Menelaus wanted to tell Peter to lay off the digs about getting laid but he realised that was stupid. Peter had just gotten hit by a car. He had just had sex with the hottest member of their friend group. Who had gotten the better end of the deal. Well... at least, he thought she was the hottest member. Now he thought about it, he hadn't really heard Peter say much about her outside of the usual group planning and politics.

"Ok Menelaus. I love you, man. I'm sorry I ruined your birthday."

"Go to sleep you doped up fool, you didn't ruin anything."

"And?"

"And what?"

"You didn't say it back." he could almost hear the pout over the phone. After a couple of seconds he realised what he was talking about,

"Oh you don't mean.."

"I thought we were friends."

"I love you too, Peter. Get some rest now. Jesus."

"Yes my son, goodday to you and see you later." The line went dead and Menelaus hung up shaking his head. What a weird dude he had as his best friend. Still, he wouldn't have anyone else in his place, they had been through a lot together. He sat back and turned on the tv. Looked like it was cricket season. The other channels had bad sitcoms and cooking shows. He flipped off the tv again and pulled the little table he had put the laptop on back towards him on the couch. He logged back into the IRC room he was in the night before. It really didn't feel like just one night. the room immediately went alive with hellos.

"Hey there!"

"Hey there Mele"

"What happened last night, M?"

"Yeah what happened with the little girl?"

"I called the police and they sent an officer to interview her. He did, and he took her away."

"What happened after that?"

"after that I went and stayed at a friend's house, I was shaken up."

"Well that's fair enough I guess" Said one. Another, "Why were you shaken up?" A third piped in with "His friend was hit by a car last night. How is he anyway?"

"He's doing a lot better" Menelaus typed, " I spoke to him on the phone just before I logged on."

"Are you going to visit him?"

"Yeah, he said to wait till around dinner time so he can have some rest."

General chatter resumed in the room with a few people aiming different questions at him about the situation that he answered as he could or ignored if they wanted too much detail and he hadn't really talked to them before. He remembered when he was a teenager and felt safe just giving away everything personal that was happening to him in his life, feeling secure that these faceless, nameless people would never meet him and if they did would never see him on the street or recognise him past his 'handle'. Of course, now he knew better with people being able to track you with your specific address and other places insisting on you registering to use the room with your real name, or vendettas being formed over small things said and people actually being "hunted" cross country and in some cases killed. It paid to be more private now. Although generally the world at large's response to that was defiant further sharing of everything. The concept of privacy was becoming antiquated. He wondered if in ten years high schoolers would even recognise it as a 'thing', if they just expected all their personal information to be shared and disseminated and for everyone to know 'everything' about everyone. The problem with that, he mused, was that what they might think was everything there was to know about someone was likely to only be the information they could glean superficially. It did not tell of context or of thought process or of the feelings behind anything that occurred. Everyone was reduced to being the star of their own little reality show, except that they weren't bankrolling the writers. He zoned back into the conversation and noticed that one of the operators in the room was dressing down one of the new members for a rule violation.