The Guidance Counselor - Chapter VIII (Patreon)

It took me a good hour to come up with a username that I liked. I’m serious. One full hour. I sat there at my desk at home after dinner coming up with what felt like “me”. I may have gotten distracted by YouTube videos, masturbated quickly, and then tried to do my calculus homework. That was when it hit me.

HornyDaydreamer

Hm.

Nah.

Something about the word “daydreamer” came off as “soft” and not really my style. There were so many usernames in the early 2000’s with the word “daydreamer” in them, often relating to something emo. Being that I’ve had experience with Catholic school and the Christian religion, my thoughts strayed towards something with demons. The idea enticed me. A name that would represent my deepest, inner desires that normally would not be seen by others since I come off as unassuming, the same way the Devil is often depicted nowadays as a simple dude in a grey suit. I really wanted to stick with something there because I knew that my insatiable lustful thoughts were deemed sinful. Yeah. Yeah!

Asmodeus – demon of lust.

Okay, but how about…

Assmodeus?

Perfect. It had meaning and also a touch of that Internet charm.

I browsed through The Forum, a niche online website centered around gas fetishes. Its real name is something I would never reveal. I want to forever keep it as a secret. I was what people online called a “lurker” – someone who did not have an official login, never said anything, and browsed the forum anonymously to read and watch. Being a lurker was something I excelled at. The very notion of talking to someone made me cringe. Somehow though, Ms. Johnson’s suggestion was enough for me to get over it. I secretly wanted to impress her, to please her. That thought was so secret that I myself cringed when I admitted it to myself. I kept telling myself that this was instead my idea, not hers. I agreed to do this. I agreed to take the step forward.

I looked at the thread listing everyone’s introduction. It came off to me as an AA meeting. I sat on my introduction, typing and backspacing and re-typing and then revising and wondering how much or how little I should say about myself.

It took me a week to finally make my first damn post. I listed everything I was into – the bloated bellies, the burping, and the farting. A few people said hello, and others messaged me privately. It became apparent to me, without knowing the term at the time, that many people into these fetishes were gender-fluid. Some people still found it attractive when people of the same-sex burped or fated. Some people who were gay still found it attractive at times when people of the opposite sex burped or farted.

I fiercely wrestled with that at the time. I had seen videos on YouTube where the person never showed their face but ripped amazing, sonorous farts or loud obnoxious belches. Their voices could be ambiguous at best, or they said nothing at all. I found myself stroking to one such video, and then realized in a comment below that the person farting was a man. I immediately recoiled and closed out of the video. The sensation was like that to when I think a piece of candy is going to taste amazing but instead it’s fucking licorice.

Here though, in The Forum, people openly talked about that. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that conversation yet.

Instead, I posted my artwork. That would be a good start to my online career.

And of course, I showed the first drawing I ever made of Ms. Johnson.

It didn’t occur to me the possible debate in ethics of putting that up at the time. It wasn’t like I took a picture of her unsolicited and posted it online. Yet, she had no idea that I was drawing her and sharing these “images” of her. Still, they were black and white sketches and it would be a one in a million chance that somebody out there would squint at their computer monitor and mutter, “Hey, that kind of looks like...”

I became an overnight sensation. Literally. The morning after I posted that drawing I had gotten over a hundred notifications on The Forum, a quarter of which were inbox messages. They consisted of people bombarding me with messages about drawing Misty from Pokémon, Lara Croft, Princess Peach, Princess Zelda, Tifa Lockhart – each as annoying as the next one.

The only message that didn’t ask for a commission was somebody by the name of “RosyReina”. Their avatar was a blood-red outline of a rose with a yellow outline of a crown over it. The avatar also had some dark stains or whatever around it, possibly to look like tears. A bit emo for my taste but whatever. Their message caught my attention.

“hi. Welcome to the forum!!! I saw your drawings and I absolutely loved them. I tried to draw in the past but it never stuck. Lol. Im jealous! Anyway. Im 18/f/WI. Bi-curious. I have the fetish in case you’re wondering”

A girl who was into the fetish. They were relatively rare. The scene was mostly dominated by boys. This was my first ever message from a girl who had the fetish. She phrased it like it was some kind of illness she had caught and couldn’t cure.

She was a year older than me. Then again, it could have been a lie. The Internet was very different back then. Age was a nebulous thing and anyone could simply lie. It’s not like that anymore. I say that like it’s a good thing, by the way. I’m not complaining. Everyone makes sure people 18 and over are corralled appropriately and separated from the minors. But looking back, there was a certain gray area. Look, back then everyone knew what they were using the Internet for. Sure, there were terrible things that happened. They still do. For all I knew, this girl who messaged me was maybe 17 or 16 or a 60-year-old hairy man. She could have just bumped up her age a couple years to make it sound better. We all did that back then. But I can tell you that a majority of us weren’t serious about meeting up. I never messaged back thinking I would meet with her. We were just lonely horny kids looking to read something we could jack off to.

I bumped up my age too.

“Hey, thanks! 18/m/NJ. Straight. What did you used to draw?”

Instant response. I’m talking no more than 2 minutes.

“burps first, then farts. I just became too critical of myself to continue drawing lol.”

I asked:

“any chance you’d share those old drawings?”

“not anytime soon, no. sorry lol!”

“How long have you had these fetishes?”

“as long as I could remember to be honest. You?”

I talked to RosyReina until 2 AM that night. We went deep into a conversation about how our fetishes developed, including the awkward days when we were 7 or 8 years-old and were “excited” when a family member burped or farted. I never told that to anyone before. Ever.

We then went to the “good stuff” and I openly asked her what exactly about her fetishes turned her on. Her answer aroused me like nothing before.

“honestly nowadays I turn myself on. I think I’m lactose intolerant because I ripped a 20 second fart after drinking three glasses of milk. I was lying on my bed feeling sick and thought I was going to throw up. Then I let out the biggest longest fart of my life!”

It sounded made-up. I didn’t care though. Thinking about it was hot as fuck.

Thinking about Ms. Johnson doing that was hot as fuck.

I asked her for more stories – asking if she ever had to life her leg to fart, or burped while talking, or grossed someone out in public when burping or farting.

Each paragraph I read, I imagined Ms. Johnson telling me it was her experience. I closed my eyes and pictured being in her office again, her massive wide-load of an ass pressed against my lap...

It was a Friday night, so that was my way of “partying”. I stayed up munching on cheap popcorn, drinking a Snapple, with all the lights off in the house except my desk lamp. Life was simpler then. I had eased into talking to a complete stranger about my feelings; but I don’t think I was really thinking about how I was talking to a stranger about this; it was more talking to myself, saying it out loud, acknowledging it.

My experiences sounded less weird to me.

This was before smartphones. I feel like I should keep reminding you this. I wasn’t able to have a magical tablet in my hands to constantly log into The Forum and check my messages and reply back. Going to school meant suffering long droughts of not logging onto The Forum and talking to people and sharing more artwork.

I didn’t think about how online popularity, even as minor as mine at the time, gave me confidence. I drew my first ever request – it was Tifa Lockhart farting while doing a hi-jump kick. While waiting for the day to start in homeroom one morning, Tom Rizzo turned around to watch me draw, and then asked, “What the hell are you drawing?”

“Shut up, Tom,” I said, not looking up. “I’m in the zone right now.”

He gave me a weird look, went “Tsch”, and turned back around.

I had to go see Ms. Johnson that day.

The first thing she said was, “You seem different these days. Has anything been going on?”

I subconsciously ran a hand through my hair, and then brushed my nose with a finger. “What? How do I look different?”

She was glowing that day – rosy cheeks and gentle smile. A little bubblier than normal too. She shrugged innocently and said, “I don’t know. You just seem more confident.”

I shrugged in return. “I dunno. Maybe senioritis?”

“Hopefully not. We still have to make sure you won’t get a C in math like last year.”

I paid little attention that meeting. All I thought about was her incredible ass sitting in that chair right across from me, the impression still deep and warm.

This was after the holidays, sometime in January. I’ll never forget it. I had noticed that she had been gaining a little more weight lately. In that meeting, her stomach practically bulged from her pencil skirt, begging to be free. Tight and taut. I imagined it with gas. A ticking time-bomb wanting to explode but not ready yet.

While talking about how to study for my next calc test, she stifled a belch and said, “Excuse me. Sorry.”

“Bad lunch again?” I said, smirking.

“No, it’s just that the end of the year is just constant eating with all the holidays. From Halloween until New Year’s. I had so much during the holidays that I don’t think anything fits me anymore.” She made direct eye-contact with me and said, “The button on my skirt even popped off! Can you imagine that? I must have some kind of intolerance. People are talking all the time now about gluten. Maybe I have that.”

Holy fuck.

She admitted to me that she was so bloated she had undone her skirt. Was that inappropriate? Was that even legal? That’s the thing – needing to unbutton your pants because you ate too much is such a common, innocuous comment that nobody would ever think it was sexual except for people who were into that. Maybe it was a bit weird she admitted that. But we were on friendlier terms by then. It wasn’t SO weird to admit that openly, right? Right? Was I dreaming?

She sat back to sigh after going over my grades. I caught a peek of her belly – and it was true! She did unbutton her skirt! That beautiful money shot of her gut overflowing the edge of her skirt, almost the size of a balloon now that it was free to roam. She noticed that her blouse was riding up so she quickly lowered it and covered up the unbuttoned portion of her skirt.

I crossed my legs to hide my boner.

I was beside myself.

I had a free period after our meeting, and I knew exactly what I was going to do. I bee-lined to the computer lab and logged onto The Forum.

I shared my experience, typing away at lightning-fast speed. I went on and on describing every detail about Ms. Johnson, though by simply calling her “my guidance counselor”. After a brief moment’s respite to proofread my post, I momentarily thought about becoming a writer. It’s amazing how emotions can make you splurge everything.

Across from me, beyond a divider, Mrs. Bernot began instructing a freshman class on basic computer lessons. I sat in the section designated for free periods, where people could come and go as they pleased to use a computer. I was the only one there. Most students my age used up their free periods fooling around in the senior lounge playing ping-pong or video games. Computers were still seen as a nerdy activity back then. Little did they know, I was having the time of my life online.

RosyReina, or simply “Rosy” as I started calling her, was excited to hear about my experience. We messaged each other for a while until I lost track of time looking up my artwork and others’ on DeviantArt.

It didn’t occur to me that the bell rang and Mrs. Bernot was dismissing her students. It didn’t occur to me that she was walking past me, probably to head to the bathroom, and it didn’t occur to me that I had my back turned to her.

“Mr. Gallagher!”

I jumped from my seat and swerved. At this moment, I had no idea what was up. I thought maybe she was going to crack a joke or something.

But she had her hands on her hips and her face was contorted into a puffy mean expression. Her eyes were warning me. I realized what had happened but there was no going back, even as I haplessly tried to x-out of the window.

“Don’t! Stop right there! What are you looking at?”

I closed my eyes.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Please tell me this is a dream. This is a goddamn dream. It has to be.

I opened them again.

Artwork of naked fictional characters filled the screen, some burping, others farting, some simply bending over looking at the viewer with an innocent look.

Mrs. Bernot hovered over me to look at the lewd images. I stared down at the keyboard, wondering if I would be disowned by my father that night.

She then huffed and diffused her anger. She massaged her temples for a second and then blurted, “I’m going to have to talk to your guidance counselor.”

Ah fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Mr. Gallagher, I’m surprised at you. And using a school computer? Don’t you know that everything is monitored?”

I didn’t. That was how I learned the hard way to never to look anything like that up in any setting like a school or a workplace.

“Close out of that right now. Get up, and go to class.”

I did so, without ever turning around to look at her again. I could sense her glaring at me even after I walked out. Thankfully, nobody was there to witness that embarrassing breakdown. The remaining hours of the day went by in a dead blur. I didn’t feel alive anymore. I had my high with stardom on The Forum, got cocky (literally), and now this. The last class of the day was math, and even Tom Rizzo noticed me saying, “Hey what’s wrong? You look like you just shat your pants.”

I said nothing. I went home, half-expecting to hear my mother shrieking at me like she did ages ago when she found my artwork. Instead, she picked me up with a wide smile and asked me how my day went. She would know soon enough, but I lied, saying everything went well. I locked myself in my room and when I heard my father come home I half-expected to hear him roaring at me, calling me from downstairs to face him.

Instead, we had dinner as if nothing happened.

Soon they would know though, they had to. I would instead savor these last few moments of normality.

The next day during homeroom I sat with my head on the desk muttering curses to myself. Any minute now I would be called to the principal’s office. Or maybe just the Dean of Student Affairs. I actually had no idea what the process for something like that was. I even wondered if what I did was illegal. Was a cop going to suddenly enter my homeroom and ask for my name?

Then the next day came, and still nothing. I started to realize that whatever was going to happen would happen during my next meeting with Ms. Johnson. For the first time ever, I didn’t want to go. She was going to close up on me. Worse, she would hate me. We were doing so well and I had to go and do something stupid like that.

I entered her office but she wasn’t there. I did the same thing I did before my first meeting with her – enter the chapel.

Nobody was there, as usual.

“Ah fuck, I screwed up,” I said, to nobody in particular except the Big Man himself.

At that age, I kind of didn’t believe in God as much as I did before. However, the cultural taboos still pecked at me. I know it sounds illogical. Why should I worry about that if I didn’t even believe in God anymore? There was still the morality aspect of it that affected me. The taboo about sex and masturbation still made me feel like the guiltiest, worthless, piece of shit in the world. I was somebody who couldn’t control himself. Somebody who masturbated way too many times. Somebody who was addicted. The very notion of feeling horny felt punishable. When I was in middle school, I tried giving up masturbation for Lent – the 40 days before Easter where you should give up a vice to better yourself for God or some shit like that. Nothing made you feel more guilty than your priest saying how you should sacrifice yourself to God because he did the same for you.

“I’m sorry...God,” I murmured in the silence. “I’ll try harder. I’ll be better.”

Tack, tack, tack, tack.

Ms. Johnson was coming.

I eyed her through the crack in the chapel door.

She wore her classic tight business suit this time. I couldn’t tell from her face if she was upset or not. She looked neutral, lost in thought if anything. She held a coffee in one hand and a folder in the other.

When she entered her office, she appeared confused at seeing it empty. She was looking for me. She popped her head out back in the hallway, looking both ways. She checked her watch.

As she was closing the door, the unthinkable happened.

She stopped midway and stood very straight, as if suddenly realizing something. I wondered what was up when I heard the loud drone of a deep fart.

PPPPPRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTT!

It sounded angry, like it was shouting about how dare she kept it in for so long and was letting itself known to the world.

And her expression! Oh that expression! I never knew just how much I loved seeing a woman’s face when she blew ass like that until then. Ms. Johnson grimaced for the entirety of the fart, and then sighed when it was over, closing the door. Even after it happened, I replayed it in my head over and over, enjoying every single frame. Such a professional and yet so candid. You would never think a sound like that could come out of her, but then again, she was always so poised that she might have often held in gas for hours on end. I liked to think she did. And there I was, practically invisible, witnessing this candid moment where she relaxed and relieved herself of the basest bodily function. She did not hold back that fart at all; I knew by that sound. That was the kind of fart anyone would casually let out knowing they were alone, maybe in the shower or the bathroom stall – another moment of anonymity. I had caught her at such a private moment that my mind went wild, neurons sparking everywhere.

I hid there for a good couple minutes processing what I had just witnessed. Ever since I started seeing Ms. Johnson, I had those moments of disbelief, of questioning reality. This was the strongest yet. I nearly collapsed thinking I had been having a long series of dreams within dreams.

I turned to the crucifix of Jesus on the altar and said, “You’re not making this easy at all.”