Hero For A Day

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” 

Lalit liked this quote of Shakespeare and it had a special meaning for him. Neither was he born great, nor did he achieve greatness, but he did have greatness thrust upon him when he took the blame for a prank instead of his whole class getting penalised for it. He was a hero, a saviour and fearless to his classmates for it. 

He had hit a high note at fourteen and there was no going back into obscurity now. He now had to maintain this aura of a selfless patron saint of his classmates, which was quite a turn from being the guy who could get you porn videos for a price. 

Horny teens needed their porn and he was the one who supplied it to them. He would rent it for twenty bucks from a video library near his home and make copies on the multiple VCRs he had at home, courtesy of the video library that his parents ran, which he sold for three hundred bucks each. 

He ran a pretty good racket and always delivered. He made quite a hefty profit which he spent on buying treats for his whole class. 

Money did not have any more use for him than that. He was young and had still to develop insecurities about money. 

He had a clean image with the faculty and hoped word would not get out about his little business enterprise. 

He could have been the next Larry Flint, but Indian laws did not permit pornography. God knows he was a horny toad himself and would have loved it. But that was not on the horizon. 

The worst thing that could happen was if the parent of a client found the pornography, that would shut him down and probably screw him up. He had been lucky so far and his luck had continued to support him. 

It never nagged him where his fourteen year old clients were getting the three hundred bucks from. They were in all probability stealing it from their parents, but it never occurred to him. This kind of thinking was to come later, not now. 

For now he had to deal with his newfound image with his classmates. 

He did not know the concept of milking something for all it is worth as he was a young man of integrity and quite naive. 

He was called to the Vice Principal’s office and was let off with a warning for the prank that he had taken the blame for. 

He was free and the class of students escaped punishment. 

There was no parade, it just went back to life as usual. 

That was it? Hero for a day? He was disappointed, but he had tasted the heady feeling of admiration from his peers and that was still something.

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