Erotica I AM JACK'S LIFE

[Mink]

This is a coming of age story. Which means first it starts out when the characters are too young to have sex (on xdreams) So there's no sex for a couple chapters. I hope that's okay. Second, this is a novel length story, including the prologue and epilogue, there are twenty-one chapters in all. Some are longer than others, and there is not a sex scene in every one. (Though some have more than one.) More importantly, sex is a thing that happens, it's not written to be titillating, but rather just as events in Jack's life.

So there you go. It's a story with sex in it, not a story about sex. I think it's pretty good anyway.

So here you go, enjoy.

*****

 

[Mink]

PROLOGUE

Sunlight woke me.

Warmth spread across my face and golden red light flooded through my closed eyes. I rolled away from the intrusive, bothersome light; pressing my face into the naked back of my wife. I inhaled deep through my nostrils. She smelled deliciously like her. Slightly sweaty, with under tones of musk and sex and yesterday's perfume.

My friends, there is no scent on earth like that of your lover the morning after.

I flopped my arm around her waist. She stirred and nuzzled against me.

We lay like this for a few more minutes. The sun rising, the heat of it falling across our exposed skin. We lay there, coupled together, and the rest of the world fell away for a few more moments of not-quite sleep. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew the rest of the world was rising with the sun; outside our bedroom children were waking, pets were getting into their food bags, the paper was soaking in the dewy grass, commutes were starting, and school buses warmed up. The work day itself rose from its own slumber and hit the button on the eternal coffee maker. The day was stirring. I lay against the naked flesh of my wife, my lover, my partner, my best friend forever, and blissfully willed myself ignorant of it all. I lived in her scent and the sticky feeling of her perspiring skin against mine.

This was all of the world I wanted, the whole of my deepest desires made flesh and bone.

"You're hot," she moaned, her voice doing that cute little whiny nasally thing it does when she's sleepy I find so irresistibly cute.

"Mmmm, so are you lover," I responded amorously, once again kissing her spine and moving my hand against her hip suggestively.

She pushed my hand away with something between irritation and playfulness and said, "You're sweating all over me; gross." She giggled sleepily, though. My wife is in her mid-thirties, and she still giggles like a school-girl when we flirt.

I kissed up her spine again and planted another one moving up to the back of her neck. She sighed with smug pleasure.

Hot damn, I was going to get lucky this morning.

Abruptly, the door opened, and a six-year-old girl blurted out, "Mommy, Miss Mittens is getting into her food bag."

Both my wife and I moved in unison to cover ourselves.

So much for morning sex. Welcome back to the world, Jack.

"Honey, you know you're supposed to knock before opening Mommy and Daddy's door," my wife said. Mom voice, not giggly school girl. Sigh. Ah well.

"But Miss Mittens isn't su-Posed to be in her food bag!" our daughter said as if this violation of the house rules validated another breach of conduct.

"I know, but you still need to knock sweetie," I said, propping myself up on my elbow.

"Da-Ad!" she replied. Clearly we were not understanding the egregiousness of the food bag violation.

"I'll take care of it. Now close the door, honey, so mommy and daddy can get dressed," I said. Dad voice. Sigh, the moment was definitely gone.

That appeared to satisfy her and she backpedaled, pulling the door closed behind her with a harder than normal slam.

My wife rolled over and looked up at me. The morning light caught her eyes. There was a slight lock of hair stuck to her forehead with a light sheen of sweat. Her lips were pouty and full of mock disappointment. How the fuck can this woman be so damn cute, sexy, and make me grin like a stupid idiot every time I see her? I put my arm around her and looked down at her body which disappeared beneath white sheets. My cock stirred, still not convinced the moment could not be recovered. I kissed that lovely spot between her breasts and neck and started working my way up.

"I think Miss Mittens deserves a chance for the meal she has rightfully earned don't you?" I said between kisses, "We should give her a few minutes to enjoy the fruits of her labors."

My wife giggled again. School girl back, yay! She ran her fingers up my arms and tilted her neck back for my lips to explore further.

I did.

We were just finding each other's lips and beginning to get with some serious making out and heavy petting when a crash came from somewhere downstairs.

"Miss MIT-ENS!" cried a six year old.

My wife and I looked at each other and sighed. Yup. Moment toasted.

We rolled out of bed and retrieved our clothing.

She must have sensed my leer and threw me a smirking glare over her shoulder. She tossed my boxers at me with a flip. "Later, Don Juan. Go fix your children breakfast."

"Yes dear," I replied with a smirk of my own.

"And get the cat out of the food bag please, before she barfs it all over the floor," she added as I pulled my shirt over my head. She disappeared into our bathroom.

There is nothing like the word "barf" to kill your amorous intentions. Sighing, I went downstairs to face the day.

Judging from the sounds of cat hurcking, my day was starting with cat barf, instead of sex with the most amazing woman imaginable.

Sometimes that's just life.

Thirty minutes later found me dishing silver-dollar pancakes onto the plates of our previously met six year old, Amber, and our four year old, Kimmy. Kimmy clapped with approval and gave a little cheer. Girl loves my pancakes, what can I say?

"Yay pancakes!" she exclaimed.

"Yay pancakes!" I echoed, because... hey, pancakes.

Footsteps stomped down the stairs accompanied by bickering voices. Into view came my wife pushing my eldest daughter in front of her. My wife's face was frowning, though her eyes said laughter. The rest of her expression was trying to hold onto some sort of stern disapproval.

It didn't take much to see why. Liz had attempted to put make up on.

Liz is eleven (and a half), and apparently never attempted to apply make-up before. She looked like some sort of clown-hooker. Red lipstick was caked on and mostly in the lines. Blush was painted in like she was auditioning for the part of a French madam in a burlesque show. Eyeliner and mascara formed black outlines, thick around her eyes, which were framed with at least two inches of emerald green gemstone eye shadow. I winced a little; my wife always complained about the cost of that stuff.

"Guess who decided she was old enough to get into my make-up kit?" my wife demanded.

I tried, with varying degrees of success to hide my smile, swallow any laughter, and attempt to find the stern father-face the situation required.

"Liz, we talked about this. No makeup until thirteen," I somehow managed to get out while keeping a straight face.

"Dad! That's not fair, other girls in my class get to wear it!" she nasalized, more than said. Only a pre-teen can get that tone, I think. It was fingernails on chalkboard to most parents, my wife included.

"Oh, none of that young lady! You know better. Plus, that's my good make up! For going out, not for everyday use, and certainly not for eleven year old little girls!" said my wife, pushing Liz forward a little toward the bathroom.

My wife had apparently found her mom voice again.

I cringed and attempted to intervene before this escalated. Liz had a way of getting under my wife's skin in a hurry.

"Honey, that make up belongs to your mother. Also..." I said. I was just about to go into the 'jump off a bridge' lecture that had been so ineffectual on me as a kid, but somehow I felt would hit home with my eleven year old; when words I had been dreading for a long time spewed forth into the kitchen.

"It's not like she's even my real mother!" Liz spat out, with the voice only those in the venomous onset of puberty can muster.

My skin froze against my flesh and my hairs stood on end.

I glanced at my wife and she had lost all of her color, leaving her pallid and sick-looking. It was quickly replaced with an angry flush however.

I stepped up before she could say something which would make both of them feel worse.

"Liz," I said in a quiet voice that brooked no discussion, "go up to your room. Stop at the bathroom and wash your face off first, but then go to your room and don't come out."

"Fine!" she shouted, somewhat surprisingly offering no argument. She turned and ran past my wife and stomped her way up the stairs.

I was still holding the pan with the pancakes and I turned to set it back on the stove with a defeated sigh. I wasn't ready for this yet. I thought I had a few more years. I needed a few more years.

My other daughters were quiet. My wife straightened her shoulders and turned to follow Liz up.

"Babe," I said, "Give it a minute, I'll handle it."

She turned and gave me a cold look, "I was going to our room, Jack, is that alright?" she bit my name off. No pet name. I was in as much trouble as Liz.

"I've got to get ready for work," she continued.

"Right, fine, sorry," I said, trying to squeeze apology into my tone as well.

She turned and walked upstairs

There was a few moments of awkward silence. Then the part of this I had really dreaded came up.

"Daddy... what did Lizzy mean when she said Mommy wasn't her real mom?"

It was Amber, asking with the sort of quavering innocence I wanted to preserve for as many years as possible.

"Liz is just upset honey, she didn't mean it."

"So, she was lying?"

I sighed and gripped the edges of the sink. Years. I was supposed to have years. Maybe forever, if my secret wish be told. I never wanted this conversation. Lie now and confess later? That had its own problems. Try to explain the truth now? Without the full context of the story, the truth sounded horrible. There was no way a six year old could understand the full context. Hell, I'm thirty-six. I lived it, and I'm not sure I understood the full context.

"No, she wasn't lying sweetie. But her real mom is gone."

Even after nine years, thinking about that night made my throat tighten and my chest constrict like I was drowning.

"Oh." A pause. Now the next question, Amber is way too damn smart. Takes after her mother. "Are you her Daddy?"

Sigh. Context, context was everything.

"Yes I am."

"So you were married to her Mom before you met mommy?"

"No, and that's enough sweetie, finish your pancakes."

Context.

Context is everything.

She had one more question though.

"I thought you said you and Mommy met in school?"

"We did, we met when we were just a little older than Liz is now. We were just kids. Now. Eat your pancakes."

I headed upstairs. Wife first.

I opened the door to our bedroom. She was sitting on the bed, crying. Or at least, trying not to.

I close the door behind me softly.

"She didn't mean it baby," I said.

"Oh yes she did. It's been coming for a while, since we told her two years ago," my wife said, sniffling roughly and rubbing her face with her hands. She always hated it when she cried. "The way she's been acting toward me all year? I've been waiting for this."

I came over to sit down next to her, but she got up and walked away. I sighed.

"I'll talk to her," I said. It sounded lame. I had no idea what to say and we both knew it.

"And say what? Not to be mean?"

"That's a good start. She's eleven, she blurted out the first mean thing she could think of. Not a great habit to have."

"Jack, I'm trying to tell you, she's been acting strange for the past few months. Refusing to hold my hand, ignoring me when I ask her to do something..."

"She's a pre-teen, you think you're the first mother of a prepubescent child who started asserting their independence."

"This is different."

"Alright. I'll talk to her. I have no idea what I'll say. But I'll talk to her."

"For all the good it will do you," my wife sighed, "I can already see her mother in her."

"That's not all bad." I said softly.

That was apparently exactly the wrong thing to say.

My wife walked to the bathroom. In a cold voice she said, "Get the girls ready, I'll drop them off on my way to work."

Sigh. This was a different voice. Amazing how so many things can be expressed by which voice you use. Mom voice. School girl voice. Cold-hearted bitch queen. All voices my wife had mastered. I got up and went to get Kim and Amber ready for school.

Twenty minutes later, my four girls were piling into the SUV in our driveway. I watched from the front window. Liz and my wife were not speaking, but Liz was helping with Amber's car seat, as was her job in the morning. My wife buckled little Kimmy in without looking up at Liz, but still managing to check her work. They got in and drove off. To school, to work; the four most important women in my life rolled down the street.

Context is everything friends. For stories. For relationships. For life.

I needed Liz to understand the context of her birth, but eleven was far too young to hear the tale. Besides, the full context began over twenty years ago, with four girls not much older than her. My entire life pretty much. I needed her to understand the context of my life, so she would be able to make sense of hers. It - like most life stories, was full of heartache, confusion, elation, victories and defeats, discovery, and failure. Love and sex, and the distinctions between the two. Casual friendship and the kind of bond that carries you through the worst of tragedies. How can you explain relationships in the context of these things that would make sense to another adult, let alone an eleven year old?

God the things I wish I'd known when I was fifteen.

 

[Mink]

CHAPTER ONE

I was fifteen when I finally figured out it was easier to get girls to talk to you if you did their homework for them. Oh, at the time I'd have told you I was helping them with their work, but the reality was I would do the work, and in return they'd let me ogle them while they sat around and gossiped.

It wasn't a bad trade for me really. I was lucky enough to have the brains and attitude required to make school easy for me. Believe me, you need both. I knew plenty of kids just as smart as me who didn't have the attitude to go with it, which made school a struggle. Me, I never minded the homework, or the studying, so school was easy for me. As a result, by the end of my freshman year I was well on my way to a perfect GPA. Trust me when I say luck had as much to do with it as anything. On the other hand, I was not fortunate to also be blessed with the natural sense of style and athleticism that created the kind of casual good looks which were far more valuable in the high school social hierarchy.

Also I was completely hopeless when it came to speaking to the opposite sex.

Oh, I had charisma enough I suppose, looking back with the benefit of twenty years of hind sight. But all the charm in the world is useless if you forget your own name, the name of the person in front of you, and some of the subtle nuances of the English language; like grammar and, you know, words.

Beth changed all that.

The high school I went to posted the GPA of all the students above a 2.0 in the hall outside the administration offices at the end of every semester. Incentive they said, though state sanctioned public shaming was more like it. I suppose the kids whose names didn't make the boards feigned indifference, or sometimes celebrated it.

As I said, I was lucky enough to be good at the whole school thing, so at the end of my freshman year my name was at the top of the list for my class. There were seven of us at the time that still had a 4.0; four girls and three guys. I knew all of them. I guess you figure out pretty quick who your competition for Valedictorian is in four years. Not that I cared really, not at that point. I was still just trying to survive the lunch line and make it through the day without ending up in a dumpster. But you still acknowledge the other kids in your league I guess. I wouldn't say I was friends with any of them except, Tomas Johnston, but Tommy and I had been friends since 4th​ grade, so it hardly counted.

I knew who Beth Jenkins was, though. Oh, she wasn't one of the girls in the 4.0 club, but I knew who she was. Every straight male and secretly bi-curious girl and lesbian knew who Beth was. She was easily the hottest girl in my class. Long brunette hair, slender figure, the most amazing eyes of any living being on the planet; and breasts like...well, she had perfect ones, by any standards. Not too large, not too small. She knew how to dress to show them to their best advantage without being remotely trashy, and still manage to show enough to cause male teachers to lose their train of thought when she'd raise her hand in class.

Yeah, I had the hots for her. So did everyone. They either wanted to fuck her or be her. At least, that's what I often assumed. So when she came up to me after class near the end of term our freshman year and said my name, I naturally assumed she was talking to the other Jack Wallington behind me.

"Jack!" said the most perfect pair of breasts I'd ever seen in my short time on this planet.

I casually glanced behind me to see who this lucky Jack person was.

"Jack?" she said again, stopping right in front of me.

"Me?" I said, the epitome of wit and class.

She laughed lightly with a sound that should have been accompanied by naked winged sprites sparkling around her and ringing bells.

"Yes, you. You're Jack Wallington right?" she continued.

"Uhm. Yeah." Yup. I was right on track. Sweeping her off her feet any moment.

I blushed. I have no idea why I blushed. She'd just identified me correctly out of a line up, that's all.

She smiled, clearly aware of the effect her presence had on my mental capacity, and perhaps even counting on it. But she didn't verbally acknowledge it.

"Listen, I was wondering if you do any tutoring?"

What is this tutoring word? My brain was running in a continuous loop. Beth-boobs. Beth-boobs. Beth-boobs. Wait, she's waiting for a response. She looks like it should be a yes. I should say yes. Beth-boobs.

"Uhhhh... yes?" I managed to get out.

"Great. I'm stuck taking summer school for Algebra and it's totally going to mess up my eligibility for Cheer next year if I don't pass, so I was wondering..." As she said it, she held her books up against her chest, causing the round, soft objects of my desires to press up and swell outward slightly. I gulped.

She bit her lower lip in the sexiest manner possible while waiting for me to remember how to speak. She was obviously used to this projected aura of gibbering stupid she oozed around her.

"Uhm. Sure. I'm good at algebra." I said. Jack good at math, Beth-boobs.

Her smile could have lit up a small city. "Great, why don't you give me your number and I can call you to set up some dates."

The only words I processed were, "number" and "dates".

I numbly wrote down what I prayed was my home number on a sheet of paper for her. She folded it up and stuffed it in her front jeans pocket. I gulped again as I watched her hand squeeze into her tight pants.

She winked and headed off down the hall. I was left in a stupefied daze. What had just happened? Did I just get a date with Beth Jenkins? No. But... wait. Algebra. Tutoring. I agreed to tutor her in algebra for summer school. I wasn't going to summer school though. No wait! She was! I was tutoring her for her summer school math course. I was going to spend my summer in the company of Beth Jenkins, the hottest girl in our class. Perhaps of any freshman class in the world. Perhaps even in the history of the world.

I grinned like an idiot the rest of the day.

When my friends asked me what was going on I didn't tell them. I was afraid merely speaking it aloud would cause fate to remember such things weren't supposed to happen and my good fortune would unravel. As the week progressed, elation turned to doubt. Had I imagined her flirting? Of course I had. She had just flirted to get my attention. She had no interest in me. Likely as not I was going to end up doing her work for her.

Then doubt turned to fear. Maybe this was a trap. I was going to show up at her place and her very large and scary boyfriend and his goons were going to deposit me in a dumpster. Fear then turned to resentment. Why the fuck did she do this to me? Didn't the popular, good looking kids have enough good things going for them without having to step on us lower social order peons?

And finally, resentment turned into outright anger. Fuck Beth Jenkins and her luscious tits. Fuck her and her boyfriend and his squad of brain dead jocks. I wasn't going to fall for this crap.

By the time the year ended, I refused to even look in her direction when she entered the cafeteria, or the parking lot, or whatever. Beth Jenkins did not exist for me. Assuming the whole thing wasn't a hoax, if she did call me, I was going to tell her to go fuck herself. Totally. I was in command of my life. I would not live in fear of her charm, looks, and undeniably perfect breasts.

Three weeks after the last day of school, I had pretty much forgotten all about the fact the hottest girl in school had asked for my help. So when my phone rang, I was caught unprepared without the elaborate speech I'd devised to disarm her and make her feel terrible for trying to trick me.

"Hello, Wallington residence," I said. My parents were sticklers for phone etiquette.

"Hey Jack, its Beth," a bubbly female voice said on the other end.

"Beth who?"

A light giggle. It was the giggle that brought it all back.

"Beth Jenkins, you said you'd help tutor me over the summer in algebra."

"Forget it Beth, there's no way," I said. It was easy to be stern when I wasn't staring at her. Ha, her aura of afflicting gibbering stupid couldn't reach me over the phone! "I'm not stupid, if you and your friends want to humiliate me, they'll just have to wait until school starts again like everyone else," I continued. Somehow, my voice had become shrill. Not angry. Shrill. Overly defensive, irrationally upset, fearful of rejection, and stupidly agitated. Shrill.

"Forget it Beth," I said again, "There is no way."

I hung up with enough force to rattle the end table our phone sat on.

And that would have been it. That was the cross road of my life. Had it ended there, I have no idea the direction it would have gone. Perhaps I would have continued on as I was; shy and studious. I still probably would have gone to a good college. But there's no way I would have married my wife, or even spoken to her. All of the good things in my life for the next twenty years would vanish in a puff of possibility.

Life is funny. The simplest things are crossroads. Choosing to meet someone for coffee, asking the girl in front of you if she's busy later, having the courage to smile back at the boy in English. Helping someone with their algebra homework. Every moment is followed by another, and every passing moment we can chose to change the next. Our lives are such an impossible tangle of quantum chance, you simply cannot predict what your life will be like in twenty years if you pick up the phone.

My advice. Pick up the phone. Take a chance. Even if she says no, even if he stands you up, you never know where the new road will take you. Frost said it better than anyone when he wrote: "I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

Thank God Beth called back. Thank God I answered.

Just, thank God. It changed my life forever.

The phone rang again as I was walking away. I stopped. I didn't want to answer. I didn't want her to yell at me for yelling at her. I didn't want it to be Beth.

But I answered anyway.

"Hello?" I said. I forgot to say the rest.

"Hey..." said the same female voice as before. "Look, I think there's been a mistake," she continued before I could open my mouth again. "I'm not trying to trick you, Jack, I really do need help."

She sighed softly. It was an honest sigh. It caught me off guard.

"Look, I can pay you, okay? I really need help with this stuff. The first class was today and I didn't understand any of it. I don't think I'm stupid but... I dunno, maybe I am. Either way I need your help. I need to pass this class or I won't be eligible for tryouts in August. I'll pay you," she said again.

I paused. She sounded sincere. Moreover, she sounded desperate. Earnest and honest; and as far as she could see, I was her only chance at continuing Cheerleading. Which, I guess was a big deal or something. She was a girl in distress, and I had the opportunity to be her knight in shining mathematical armor.

Fuck, who can say no to that?

"Alright," I sighed. "Alright. I'll help you out, how many weeks is the course?"

"Five. It's five weeks, four days a week," she said.

"Alright. Fifty bucks, five sessions, ten bucks a session and I'll tutor you at the end of each week for a couple of hours. I'm not going to do your homework for you, or your tests or whatever," I said, doing my best to sound authoritative and teacher like.

"No, that's fantastic! Thank you so much Jack," she gushed.

I blushed again. Over the phone. I didn't know why.

"Alright," I said, "How is this Friday?"

"Uhm," she rustled around, looking at a calendar maybe. "Friday is fine, maybe two in the afternoon?"

"That's fine," I replied

"So, uhm, your house or mine?" She asked coyly.

Dammit, I blushed again. Then it occurred to me she probably didn't want to be seen in public with me, and the resentment flooded in again.

"Mine is fine." I gave her my address and brief directions. Hey, this was 1991, no one had GPS and Google maps in their phones yet.

"Great, see you Friday!" she said again, the bubbly voice in place again. The voice that knows no straight male could refuse her.

I sighed. Why the fuck was I doing this again?

Oh yeah. Boobs.

Friday afternoon finally rolled around. I had told my parents of course, that a girl from school was coming over so I could tutor her. I thought my dad was going to give me a high five. Jesus. My mom had responded by cleaning the entire house top to bottom; which included me helping of course, it was my 'guest'. Didn't matter that I told my mom she was paying me for lessons. I had a female guest coming over, you'd have thought I'd announced an engagement.

About ten minutes to two, a car pulled up in the driveway. Yes, I was totally watching the driveway from my room. I could see Beth in the passenger seat, and the driver... was her boyfriend. The only six foot tall freshman guy in our school, probably because he was also the only freshman old enough to drive as well. Todd Smith. Basketball player, wrestler, and depositor of nerds into dumpsters. Oh yeah, I knew Todd; and everyone knew he and Beth were dating, he made sure of that. They kissed and she got out of the car.

Alright, I get it. Show up with your boyfriend and send a message. Tutoring only. Message received, Beth. Message received.

I went out to the living room to open the door. I at least waited for a knock first though.

Opening the door I remembered exactly why I was doing this again.

Her brunette hair was down, with a cute little clip in it on one side, she was wearing a yellow print sundress that clung to her nubile frame in ways that were probably illegal for girls her age, and of course, her cleavage was on display in the most perfect way possible. Gulp.

Right, aura of gibbering stupid. Check.

"Hey Jack," she said brightly.

"Hey Beth," I said. Yay, I remembered her name!

I glanced over her shoulder, Todd was sitting in his car, glaring at me. I waved.

He didn't wave back.

Beth did though, she turned and waved at him, apparently giving him the everything's okay, signal.

"Come on in," I managed to remember to say. I stepped aside. I glanced back at my parents and was inwardly amused, embarrassed, and not a little bit proud. My dad's eyes were wide, openly staring at the teenage goddess that had just crossed our threshold. Embarrassed. Proud. My mother also had one eye raised, but at me, perhaps wondering how her quiet, nerdy, only child had managed to land such divine hotness. Amused, but also embarrassed.

"Mom, Dad, this is Beth, the girl I'm going to be tutoring," I said.

My parents recovered swiftly, and my mother smiled at Beth. "Hello dear, why don't you guys take the kitchen table here?" she said.

"Hello Beth," my dad said. Thankfully that's all he said, because he looked like he wanted to high five me again. Jesus.

"Hello Mr. and Mrs. Wallington. Thanks for letting Jack tutor me, I'm so lost." she said with a giggle that once again should have been accompanied by faeries with bells.

"Its fine, mom, I'm all set up in my room with my notes and stuff," I said. I did not want to be out here with my Dad ogling Beth and my Mom offering dowry gifts or something.

My mother pursed her lips together and then said, "Alright Jack, but," she said, and I felt color rising to my cheeks, "door open."

Dear God, mother.

Beth just giggled. "That's fine, Jack and I are just friends. And I really do need to study."

Wait, what?

Friends?

"Uhm, right down the hall," I gestured to Beth, and led her to my room.

She waved again at my parents and turned to follow me.

My room was not large, but it wasn't too small, either. In addition to my bed and dresser, I had room for a desk, a couple of bookshelves, and a closet full of comic books. All of the later having just been shoved in there the previous day. No sense cultivating the nerd image. On my bookshelves I had a couple of science fair trophies I'd earned in elementary and middle school, as well as a few reading awards. Okay, maybe a bit nerdy.

Hey, just because I wasn't a jock didn't mean I'd never won anything. Maybe I did want to show them off. God knows the next time I'd have the sexiest fifteen-year-old girl on the planet in my room to show them to.

I'd brought in one of the kitchen chairs to sit next to my desk and held it out for her. She smiled and set her book and notebook down on the desk, then hung her purse on the back of it.

"A gentleman as well as a scholar. Thank you," she said. Her voice had a lilting hint to it I'd never heard before. Wait, was that a flirt? Was she flirting? Fuck, how does one tell?

"Don't mention it." I cleared my throat and sat down in my own chair. "Why don't you show me the notes you have? And then we'll do a couple practice problems to see where you are."

"You got it, Professor. I'm your willing student." There was that tone in her voice again. Jesus Christ, does this girl listen to herself?

To be honest I don't remember too much of that first afternoon. I remember she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I remember watched her. A lot. She'd furrow her eyebrows as she tried to puzzle out what I was saying, or figure out a problem. Her eyes sparkled when the light hit them just right; like - literally fucking sparkled. She had the most amazing laugh I'd ever heard, and I started trying to make her do it whenever I could. I have a pretty decent wit, and somehow I found enough of it to make enough quips to keep her laughing, even when I could sense she was getting frustrated.

Oh also, she was terrible at algebra. Like, hopelessly bad. It'd be laughable if it wasn't so simultaneously sad. She really had no idea what she was doing.

Luckily, I was very good at algebra, and she was a lot smarter than her understanding of mathematics belied, so by the end of the first session, a couple of things were clear. One, I was going to need more than four more sessions to get her through this course. Two, she really was pretty smart, as well as beautiful, sexy, and charming. Three, I was totally in love with her.

The hopeless kind. Without hope. Unsalvageable. She was my sun and I the chloroplast in plants that makes life possible. Yeah. I had it bad.

We ended up meeting three times a week for the next five weeks, and I found out something else. I was actually pretty good at this tutoring stuff. I mean, once I got over her boobs enough to make eye contact on a regular basis (not every time though, let's be realistic), and actually started talking to her, we connected. She understood things the way I explained them, and I began to realize she was more than a walking embodiment of Aphrodite. Oh I still fantasized about her nearly every waking moment, and more than once masturbated to the smell of her perfume that sometimes clung to my bed after she'd been in my room. But I - slowly - began to uncover the personality and mind beneath the boobs.

And I liked those, too.

By the end of the summer, what she'd said that first day really was true. We were friends. Oh, I still lusted after her and nursed the King Kong of all crushes, but we were legitimate friends. We made each other laugh, we hung out after tutoring and talked about movies (she loved going to the movies; she confessed being upset when a guy would ask her to a movie she wanted to see, then want to make out during it), books (which were more my interest than hers, but I got her to read a couple of good ones that summer), and general teenage stuff. We even kept hanging out after she passed her summer course, which earned me not just the fifty bucks, but a hug and a kiss on the cheek as well. Most of it is a blur honestly. I just remember being sort of - giddy, whenever she was around, in more than just a way that had to do with hormonal reaction to her unbelievable body. I was in love.

Or at least, I thought I was. I was infatuated, at least. The first sort of infatuation that confuses you and only barely masks bitter jealousy. I was that too. I got jealous every time she was with Todd, or heard her talk about Todd or other guys she'd dated. Soul-sickeningly jealous, the kind that makes you unable to eat, and feels like everything inside of you is made of acid and bile.

Life was a roller coaster. She was a high, and I inhaled her like cocaine. She was a low, and every part of her that was not with me drowned me in misery.

When the end of summer approached, and a new school year loomed on the horizon, my stomach began churning uncomfortably every time I thought about it.

"What's wrong?" she asked me, just a week before the term started. We were sitting in her living room watching "A Princess Bride". I'd rented it and brought it over to watch with her, since she'd missed it in theaters.

"Huh?" I brought myself out of dark musings and looked up at her.

"You stopped laughing," she grinned. "You said this was your favorite part."

I glanced at the television. Ah yeah, Miracle Max. Good stuff.

"Sorry, just zoned out."

"During Miracle Max? You've only been quoting it all summer," she giggled.

"Sorry," I sighed, "Just thinking about school."

"Ah," was all she said.

"Just worried..." I started to explain.

"That I'm going to pretend I don't know you," she said. This was a new voice. Annoyed? Upset? Hurt?

"Yeah, actually."

"Why would I do that?"

"Uhm, because I'm kind of a nerd and you're..." I struggled for a word that would convey what I meant, without pissing her off.

"Popular?" She said. Yeah. It was definitely hurt.

"Yeah," I sighed lamely.

She studied me for a few moments.

"So what?" she asked after the longest thirty seconds of my life up until that point.

"Huh?" Okay, my wit isn't always on, alright. Sometimes all you got is: "huh".

"So what?" she repeated. "You're right, I am popular. Because I'm pretty. Because I'm a cheerleader."

I blushed, legitimately this time I think.

"You think I don't know people, including you, think I'm pretty?" she asked, there was something new in her voice too. Indignation.

"I didn't... I mean, what's that got to do with it?" I stammered. Brain stopping. Pretty girl I'm in love with angry. Panic. Panic mode.

"You know why else I'm popular? Because I'm not a bitch. I'm not mean to people. I could be. Lots of my friends in Cheer are. Because they can be, because they're pretty and think they can get away with it."

"I never said... I mean, of course you aren't, I..." I struggled to articulate basic words. I was shutting down. Not good.

"I'm not a bitch," she repeated firmly. "So why would you think I'd start being one just because school started?"

"I... I don't know." I looked at the floor. This was it. I'd ruined everything.

"I do," she said and scooted closer to me on the couch.

Never in a million years would I have anticipated what came next. Oh sure, wild fantasies aside, I had imagined kissing her, touching her, even hugging her, in every way, in every location imaginable. When she scooted next to me, I felt her leg touch mine. She was wearing jeans, and so was I, but I still was acutely aware that only millimeters of denim separated her naked flesh from mine.

I could smell her faint perfume, faded, because it was late in the day, but there nevertheless. A barely perceptible faint mist of scent that hung near her. I'd caught it a few times before when I'd leaned in to correct her work. Now she was leaning in to me.

Time stopped.

She put her arms around me and drew me close. She hugged me. I felt her breasts against my shoulder, covered by her tee shirt and bra, but there they were; the soft round mounds of my feverish desires pressed against me. She leaned her head on my shoulder and I felt her hair cascade over my arm. It was very soft.

"I do," she said again, moving time forward a few seconds.

I'm not sure I was breathing.

She looked up at me and turned my chin to face her. Our faces were inches apart. I could feel her breath on my cheeks. I inhaled her exhale. Her eyes were the most emerald green. The rest of the world that was not her face fell away. The rest of the summer may have been a blur, but twenty years later I can still recall the tiny blemishes of her skin, the wrinkles in her lips; practically count her long dark eyelashes. That moment is frozen in my mind forever. Wherever I travel in this life from here, whomever it's with. The moment sitting on Beth's couch, the Princess Bride playing in the background, and her face inches from mine, will be with me forever. It's the stuff the universe is made up of, friend. Moments like this one, hung in space and time like tapestries.

I'm definitely sure my heart was not beating.

And then she kissed me.

I'm going to pause here a second.

Whenever guys imagine their first kiss, at least guys of my generation, James Bond is involved.

I have no idea about girls. I've never been one, but I'd bet even money it's either James Bond or Richard Gere. But I'm pretty sure, James Bond.

You know, the kiss that he closes out every movie with. On a yacht after defeating a hundred enemy spies, and rescuing the Bond girl of the film. The bend-her-backward, doubled-over-in-anticipated-ecstasy, this-is-definitely-going-to-end-in-coitus, kiss. He's the epitome of suave, she's the avatar of sexy. That kiss. Yeah that's the one most guys think they are going to give the first time they kiss someone.

That was not my first kiss. I doubt it's anyone's, but I can only speak for me.

It was excruciatingly brief. It lasted an eternity, but it was very brief. Just a gentle brushing of her lips against mine. Her's were warm, soft, and dry. I hope mine were too. It probably lasted less than a second to be honest. I didn't even have time to close my eyes. I stared at her in shock the whole time.

Her eyes didn't close either, they fluttered down. But never closed.

"There. Now it's out of the way," she said what felt like a few years later.

I blinked.

She giggled, and blushed. Fuck, I'd never seen her blush. Holy fuck, so sexy.

"You've been thinking about kissing me all summer. Now it's out of the way, and we can be real friends. And stop worrying about me not talking to you anymore," she said, leaning back on her hands.

She was talking. (We kissed.) Process. Rewind. (She kissed me.) What did she say? (Shekissedme.) Friends. (Kiss.) We can be friends now.

Huh?

"Huh?"

Seriously, sometimes that's all you got.

She giggled again, still blushing. "Oh Jack, I really do like you, as a friend. I don't want to stop being friends just because you're not very popular. I don't care what people think, okay?"

I'm pretty sure I nodded. I could still feel the after-impression of her lips against mine.

"Cool, now stop worrying and rewind the movie okay? I don't want to miss your favorite part!" she bounced back to her spot on the couch and we were no longer touching.

And that friends, is how I got my first kiss, and friend-zoned in the same moment.

 

[Mink]

CHAPTER TWO

True to her word, Beth did not stop talking to me when the school year started. In fact, she talked to me every day.

After a couple of days, I even started talking back. Truth be told, we were better friends at school than we had been over the summer. After a week, I started sitting with her and her friends at lunch.

Beth was very popular and had a lot of people she called her friends. Most of the cheer squad, pretty much every athletic jock at school, and she'd hug all of her friends when she met them in the halls or for lunch. (Me included. I never got tired of that. Especially the first time she did it in front of my friends, but that's a different story for the moment.) But there were really only three girls that Beth really thought of as her friends. Two of them were cheerleaders; the other was a girl Beth had been friends with since kindergarten. They were all mind-bogglingly hot too. Maybe not, to my secret comparison, as hot as Beth, but still plenty hot enough for masturbatory fantasies at sixteen.

Kim was another cheerleader. Blonde in every sense of the word; she was not the smartest of the group, but she wasn't stupid. She was taller than Beth, taller than all of us really. She had a slim figure that made her a little too skinny, but she had a gorgeous face and lips, and loved to make these pouty little faces with them. Really, I can't think of any guy that wouldn't have dreamed about those lips wrapped around his thing. Maybe gay ones. Maybe.

Annabeth, who we just called Anna to avoid confusion with Beth, was the other cheerleader, and she was the jock of the group. She was also in soccer and track, and she had the longest legs ever. She was pretty smart and didn't struggle too much to keep her high C average. She could easily have been an A student, but like I said earlier, attitude was as important as smarts when it came to school, and Anna just didn't have an academic attitude. She was also easily the most outgoing of any of them. She would cheer loudly for the least things. She also liked to party and was usually the source of most party invitations.

Then there was Abby. She was the least outgoing of the four of them, which is to say she was ten times more outgoing than I, but compared to the three cheerleaders, she was practically shy. Her parents were also like super lawyers or something, and she always had money to burn. With auburn hair that she'd keep just above her shoulders, she also was the most practical and down-to-earth of the girls. Not that she wasn't a little spoiled by her seemingly unending wealth, but she didn't flaunt it too much. At least around us.

Us.

Yeah, I was included. Most of Beth's other friends ignored me. Certainly all of her male friends and most of the other cheerleaders. But those three accepted my presence almost without question. They talked to me at lunch, laughed at my jokes, and took my friendship with Beth at face value. They all also needed tutoring, or at least asked for it. I was all too happy to oblige.

And this is where we came in, with me figuring out it was easier to get girls to talk to you if you did their homework for them.

That year was a pretty good one. I was part of a group. A popular one which somehow, I guess, began to include me. I was friends with four of the hottest girls in school; they gave me hugs every day, asked my advice about boys and their outfits, they laughed with me, invited me to parties with them, and just - included me. That in and of itself was a miracle. I even got better at dressing myself with a lot of help and advice from the girls, of course. I bought some nicer clothes with the money they gave me for tutoring. Even after I insisted it wasn't necessary anymore, once they learned I was spending it on clothes, they started taking me shopping with them. I guess I wasn't completely a nerd anymore, but they were all still way out of my league for anything but friends.

We were a clique. There were problems of course. I mean my presence in their group caused a lot of their boyfriends to become jealous, and I'm pretty sure everyone else in the school thought I was their gay mascot, but I didn't care. They were my friends, and they weren't afraid or ashamed to call me theirs. Sure, I did their homework for them sometimes, but I just as often helped them figure it out on their own. Their grades improved; my social status improved. It was win-win. I never felt used or taken advantage of.

It did of course create tensions with my other friends.

The first time Beth came up to me in the halls, I was standing around with a bunch of my buddies from the Chess club (look, I already admitted I was a nerd okay?). Beth, the sexy avatar of all that was appealing in the world, came up and wrapped her arms around my neck in a sudden hug. She even lifted up one leg. She was wearing her cheer outfit and had her hair back in a pony-tail.

"Hey Jack!" she said in her everyday bubbly charm voice.

I smiled and hugged her back briefly. I thought the guys around me were going to lose their eyeballs. Beth pulled back and smiled at the other guys, "Hey guys, I need to steal Jack a sec, okay?"

Her hands fell into mine and she pulled me a few steps away.

"What's up?" I asked, trying to force the casual. Yeah guys, beautiful girls come up to me all the time. This is no big deal. Watch and learn from the master.

"Can you be a doll and give this to Anna for me after next period?" She handed me a bunch of notes. I recognized them; they were my notes I had given her for her open-book test yesterday. (This was before I'd started tutoring all of the girls, but after I'd started eating lunch and hanging out with them.)

"Sure, she's got, who, Ms. Enverton right now?"

"You got it!" Beth smiled brightly.

I smiled back. It was infectious.

"Thanks, babe!" she said and blew me a kiss as she spun on one foot and trotted off, her pony-tail bouncing back and forth in her wake. Blowing kisses was something she did a lot, to lots of people.

I composed myself and tucked the notes in my back pocket before turning around to face my fellows. From the looks on their faces I had just done the impossible. Moon landing.

Oh yeah. Rock Star nerd status.

My best friend, Tomas, gave me a subtle "low-five" and then demanded the story, which I gave to him - minus the kiss - I didn't want that getting out.

"Dude!" after I was done, "Holy shit, dude!" he exclaimed in awe.

"Yeah," I said sagely.

"No wonder Todd has been looking like he wants to put your ass through a brick wall lately," he said.

I shrugged with feigned casualness, "Todd can suck it up. Beth and I are just friends."

Truth be told I was scared shitless of Todd. Like, seriously afraid to go into the men's room and poop. They might find me alone in there.

"Still man, watch your ass. He's the scary jealous type," my friend said.

Like I didn't know that.

I shrugged again.

So that was the first term. I was a god among the downtrodden. The miracle man who had somehow transcended his social status and been accepted into the upper echelons of popular society. I was James motherfucking Bond. And oh yeah, did it go to my head.

I took my friends- my old friends- for granted. I spent every moment I could with the girls. I hung out with them at school, and by second term, after school as well. I didn't notice that by the end of my sophomore year, only Tommy still hung out with me. I didn't notice. Not then. Not yet.

I was getting invited to parties. I was accepted by high society. Part of it at least. Beth had ditched Todd, and that had been a month of running scared for me. Word was he blamed me and thought I was hooking up with Beth in his place (I wish.). I had to duck the entire wrestling team in the halls. No easy feat; let me assure you. Soon though, she was dating Jeff Olsen, the junior starting varsity half-back, and the pressure came off me.

Pretty soon, the year had come to a close.

Then another, much like the previous.

By then I was a permanent part of the gang. By the end of our junior year I had out-lasted dozens of boyfriends, break ups, tearful phone calls, and shared the misadventures of adolescence. I only barely talked with Tommy anymore; I'd even heard he'd gotten a girl-friend. One of the Asian girls in the 4.0 club. Good for him.

I was still in the 4.0 club too. Only four of us remained. Tommy, his girlfriend, her brother, and myself. When the end of junior year rolled around I was in a four-way tie for the best GPA for our school. But I still didn't care, not yet. I was Beth's friend. That was all that really mattered to me.

As it turned out, Beth and I had the same birthday: August twenty-ninth. This year we'd both be turning eighteen. All of the other girls had already turned eighteen, so we were the last. They- the girls I mean- were planning quite the bash.

It was simultaneously to celebrate Beth and I "getting legal" as they joked and start our senior year off with a bang. Abby's parents had a huge beach house, and they had given permission for the place to be used for the party in question. I have no idea why, or how she'd managed it, but we were going to have a three story house right on the beach for what the girls called "The Party of the Century".

A bit cliché I know, but hey, it wasn't my idea.

A couple days before the party, we were at the house putting up decorations, and as usual, the girls were teasing me.

I don't mean verbally, though that too. I mean teasing me. Flirting. Flashes of skin, pouting to get me to do stuff with implied promises everyone knew would never happen. I was the token guy. I was so firmly friend-zoned by these hotties I wasn't even in the same country as the boyfriend field. I think Kim even thought I was gay. In other words, I was totally safe for them to be flirty, teasing, and even a little bit mean to. I didn't mind, most of the time. Really I was still crushing on Beth hard enough to make diamonds out of carbon, and who minds a bit of flirting with four of the hottest girls in school?

The only time I did mind really was when they brought up my single status.

See, they all had boyfriends. Most of them had had more than one during the course of our friendship. Anna had had close to half a dozen, maybe more. She was pretty outgoing and not afraid to bring the flirt to the guy she had her eye on. Also crazy hot, but whatever. Point is, I was the only one in the gang who hadn't had so much as a movie date, ever.

Beth remained the farthest I'd ever gotten with a girl. That one kiss, and countless "friend hugs". The girls constantly pushed me to ask girls out.

Look, it's not like I hadn't tried. Sure I had an undying flame for Beth, but I had actually been interested in other girls, if only to get some kind of experience. The problem though, was complicated. Four-fold really. Yeah. The problem was Beth, Anna, Kim, and Abby.

You can't be friends with four examples of divine hotness on earth and then ask out a girl of lesser mortal status. She says no. She's either afraid it's a trick, or that you're settling, or that she's going to be a beard for your rumored homosexuality. I'd tried, a few times. Okay, three.

First was right before the end of my sophomore year. Julie Perkons. She was cute, in a sophomore girl kind of way. She was smart; I'd met her in my Advanced English class actually. And she was single. I guess when you're half-way cute and spend your days surrounded by guys that aren't sure which end of a girl is up, but they're threatened by your intelligence to the point where they have to compete more fiercely with you than each other, you don't get asked out a lot. At least that was the impression I'd gotten by her startled expression when I asked her, stammering, if she'd like to get coffee sometime.

"Er... I thought you were going out with Beth Jenkins?" she said.

I blushed. "Ah, no, Beth and I are just friends." Despite whatever else I might wish. Hell it was Beth who'd urged me to ask Julie for coffee in the first place.

"Ah," was all she said, probably able to figure out the rest on her own. Settling then. "No thanks Jack; see you in class tomorrow."

Strike One.

Next had been Felicia Jones from my AP U.S. History course. She was a grade higher than I. I'd made the mistake of not noticing she was not, in fact, single. Strike Two.

Most recently had been at Junior Prom. I'd actually gotten Tasha Mellin to agree to go with me; we had our picture taken and everything. But once we showed up, and I was showered with hugs and cheek kisses from my friends, who were, honestly, twice as hot as Tasha could ever hope to be, and that was all she wrote. I'd ended up driving Tasha home early with her in tears and me being about the most uncomfortable I'd ever been in my young life.

Strike Three.

So they teased me. Flirting, and 'innocent' brushes against me.

"You need a date."

And again with that.

I looked up. It'd been Anna who said it. She was currently on a step-stool and was hanging banners above the Malibu style arches of Abby's family's beach house. Stretching up like that showed off her sexy midriff and belly button. I looked back down.

"Why?"

"Cause we've all got one, silly," Beth this time. She was bringing in a box of something. She had a slight sheen of sweat on her chest and forehead. "Besides, it's your eighteenth birthday party; gotta have a date to help you celebrate," she grinned mischievously. Sexy, but I also knew I was getting none of it.

"Any of you volunteer?" I said. I kept the humor in my voice. It was the only way to get the teasing to stop; roll with it. Lessons learned over two years of hanging with them.

They laughed. Not harshly; they weren't mean, not intentionally anyway. Not to me.

"We've got dates; we said that already," Kimmy said. Delectable, blonde Kimmy and her tank-tops. Her breasts were small enough she often skipped bras 'in private'. I'd been in the private club for over a year now. I never got tired of her nipples poking against the cloth of her tops.

"Well, I guess I've exhausted my options then," I said with a chuckle. I tried not to force it. Beth could tell when I was.

"Oh Pshaw. You just need to ask a girl, can't expect one to fall in your lap," Beth said, putting her box down and wiping her brow.

"But isn't that the start to every romantic comedy ever?" I asked with mock confusion in my voice.

They laughed, and for the moment, the subject was dropped.

With not unremarkable foresight, Abby's parents were having us take out a lot of the fragile lamps and stuff from the house, to replace with cheap Wal-Mart ones. Smart really.

I was loading stuff into the back of my car a couple of hours later when Beth came out.

"Hey," she said brightly, coming up out of the house with her fingers stuck in her pockets.

"Hey," I said back distractedly, as I carefully loaded what was probably a thousand-dollar lamp into my backseat. Abby's parents were, if it wasn't obvious by now, quite rich, and I guess they trusted me with their stuff. Parents read the weirdest things into a good GPA I guess.

"So, seriously, how come you aren't going to try and get a date to our party?"

With the other girls, it was "The Party." With Beth, it was "Our Party." Hers and mine. Most of the time I liked that she did that, made it feel special, and gave me another connection with her.

Now however, it just reminded me that she was so close but still so way out of my league.

"I dunno; no time I guess. It's not like I know a lot of girls besides the four of you outside of school, and it's summer, so my options are a bit limited."

Fuck me if that almost didn't sound plausible.

She bit her lip and played with her toe in the gravel on the side of the driveway. They had this super expensive white stone gravel that lined the three-car driveway. Like I said. Loaded.

"Alright, if that's what you say it is," she said, though her tone said she didn't believe me.

I sighed and backed out of the car and turned to look at her.

Sometimes her good looks still caught me off guard. There she was, standing in the driveway, her hair was up in a pony-tail, she had an old dirty tee-shirt on, ripped up jeans, and simple canvas shoes, but she still could have been a supermodel.

I had it bad. But she also was very worthy of crushing on.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "It doesn't come as easily for me as you guys; you know that."

She nodded and bit her lip. Was that pity?

I didn't want her pity.

"Hey, it's no big deal. You guys will still dance with me and stuff, right? Even with dates?"

Another thing. You do not get to stay friends with pretty and popular girls and not learn to dance. They all loved to dance, and they got invited to lots of parties. They usually invited me too, and after a couple of those I started getting dance lessons. Maybe so I'd stop embarrassing them, maybe because they just thought dancing was fun and wanted me to have fun with them. Either way, I'd gotten pretty good at it. I wasn't a stage show kind of guy - I'd never be in the middle of a ring of people showing off my moves or anything - but I could dance with any of them and not make a scene for anyone.

She smiled and nodded, "Of course, you and I have to have a birthday dance."

I returned the smile and shrugged my shoulders, "So what's the big deal then? I get four girls to dance with as it is, so why do I need a fifth?"

She brushed a lock of hair out of her face and studied my expression carefully. I kept my smile in place.

"I just don't want it to be super awkward for you or anything," she said after a bit.

"You guys having dates? That's nothing new. You guys always have boyfriends."

"Yeah, but not always all at the same time, and not during a party that's supposed to be, at least partly, for you."

I shrugged again.

She stepped up and hugged me. It was more than one of her hello hugs. She really wrapped her arms around me and put her head on my shoulder. I couldn't help it; my heart still skipped a bit. I was very aware of her body against mine. Fuck.

"You're my best friend, Jack; I don't want to see you hurt," she said softly.

Sigh. Oh yeah. That.

"Hey, don't worry about me, okay?" I pushed her away a little but left my hands on her shoulders to hold her at arms' length a bit. I leaned down a little to make eye contact with her. In the last year I'd gained a few inches on her, more than a few actually. Since our freshman year I'd gone from five-foot-nothing to about six feet. She was still about five-foot-four. I really had to lean down now to get eye contact.

"It's your party too. Don't worry about me. Promise?"

She smiled which made me smile. Because not only am I a sucker; she really was my friend and dammit if I really didn't want her to be upset over me.

"Promise," she said and leaned over to peck my cheek.

But she missed; I was in the process of straightening back up, and I guess she misjudged my movement, and our lips met. We kissed. Lips against lips.

It wasn't much more than the first time, a second, maybe two.

We parted a little bit, and my whole life surged forward. Destinies are forged by choices made in the aftermath of moments, and I was going to make mine right now.

I leaned forward and kissed her again.

She didn't pull away.

I moved my lips against hers and felt them move back. She was kissing me back. Two seconds lingered into three then four. My world exploded. Yeah, fireworks baby; that's how a first kiss should be.

Then she pulled away. Fast.

She looked shocked. And scared.

Fuck, I'd misread her. Shit shit, I'd broken the friend-zone rule: never make a move. Fuck fuck fuck.

I started to apologize, and she put her fingers on my lips.

"Don't, Jack." She said.

I moved her fingers away, "I was just going to apologize. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..."

"But you aren't sorry, so don't lie to me Jack, okay?" Her voice was firm.

Well fuck, she had me there. I wasn't sorry. For four brief seconds I'd been the happiest I'd ever been in my life.

"I... uh..." I flailed around for words. I'd mostly gotten used to her aura of afflicting gibbering stupid by now, but sometimes, like now, it would hit me and I had nothing.

"Just... can we..." she started saying as she extracted herself from my hands, which were still holding her. I let go, shocked at myself.

"Let's just pretend this didn't happen, okay?" she looked at me imploringly.

I nodded.

I guess it's not a lie if you don't speak. I'd never be able to forget this. Which is true. Twenty years later and it still makes me flush with embarrassment. A grown damn man, with a wife, and kids, a million years more experience in kissing, and I still cringe at my fumbling and my rejection. No Beth, I've never forgotten. Sorry for that.

She walked back to the house and didn't look back at me. I hung my head in shame and finished loading the thousand-dollar lamps. Somehow I didn't break any of them. My hands were shaking pretty badly.

The next couple of days were agony. Beth didn't call me, and I didn't call her. It was the longest stretch of time I'd gone without speaking to her in almost two years. I was worried I'd ruined it, worried that I'd show up at the party and my friendship with Beth would be over. Not just Beth either, but the other three too. To say I was plagued with self-doubt is to say that Europe had kind of a problem with the Black Death, or that Native Americans adapted poorly to smallpox. I was wasting away. I needed someone to put me out of my misery.

That someone, as it turned out, was Kimmy.

The night of the party, I was supposed to be getting ready, but I was laying on my bed languishing in my imagined exile from my friends.

My mom knocked on my door and opened it, "Shouldn't you be getting ready?"

"Yeah, I don't know if I'm going."

Now, I dunno if my mother knew I'd been locked in the friend-zone with these girls. She certainly knew who they were. All of them at one time or another had come over to hang out, to pick me up, or for tutoring. She'd even taken a group photo for us on the lawn for junior prom. She knew, probably, that I had the most serious crush on Beth, and that I spent the most time with her. But I'm pretty sure she thought I had dated at least one of them.

Maybe not, though; my mother was pretty smart.

"Oh? Well, Kim is on the phone; you should let her know then." My mother said simply, and then handed me our cordless phone. Hey, it was '93. I didn't have a cellphone.

"Yeah, what's up?" I said, attempting to shove all the misery of self-inflicted agony I'd put myself through in the last couple of days out of my voice.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Uhm, nothing. You called me."

"Right. So hey, last minute I know and all, but my date has some funky strep thing, so I can't go with him."

"Oh, sorry about that."

"Oh I don't care, he was really not a great date anyway. Very cute, but not boyfriend material, you know? Kind of a jerk really."

Erm, okay. That's Kimmy for you. Blunt and honest.

"Sorry to hear that."

"So anyway, I was thinking about what you said earlier, how you don't have a date, but you needed a volunteer. I volunteer."

I think my brain skipped a beat.

"Huh?"

Again, you go with what you got sometimes.

"I mean, I'd be your date. If you want."

I blinked a few times.

Now, Kimmy was very cute. All of them were. Tall, pretty close to six feet, skinny, long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. I certainly had fantasized about her before. Especially on the days she skipped a bra. Usually that particular fantasy also involved Anna, or Beth, or all three in some kind of cheerleader foursome that I will not go into, but yeah. I had thought about it before. Maybe not dating her, but certainly having sex with her. Not that I thought I was going to have sex with her tonight, but a date was a good first step with any of them.

"Uhm, sure. Great!" I said, catching myself and realizing that this was actually perfect. If I showed up at the party with Kim as a date, then Beth would relax and not be weird around me. Plus, hey, hot girl as a date. Bonus.

"Cool, pick me up in like, what, an hour?"

"Yeah, no problem!" I said.

"Cool, see ya," she said and hung up.

I had a date with Kimmy, the hot, blonde cheerleader.

Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad birthday after all.

 

[Mink]

CHAPTER TWO

True to her word, Beth did not stop talking to me when the school year started. In fact, she talked to me every day.

After a couple of days, I even started talking back. Truth be told, we were better friends at school than we had been over the summer. After a week, I started sitting with her and her friends at lunch.

Beth was very popular and had a lot of people she called her friends. Most of the cheer squad, pretty much every athletic jock at school, and she'd hug all of her friends when she met them in the halls or for lunch. (Me included. I never got tired of that. Especially the first time she did it in front of my friends, but that's a different story for the moment.) But there were really only three girls that Beth really thought of as her friends. Two of them were cheerleaders; the other was a girl Beth had been friends with since kindergarten. They were all mind-bogglingly hot too. Maybe not, to my secret comparison, as hot as Beth, but still plenty hot enough for masturbatory fantasies at sixteen.

Kim was another cheerleader. Blonde in every sense of the word; she was not the smartest of the group, but she wasn't stupid. She was taller than Beth, taller than all of us really. She had a slim figure that made her a little too skinny, but she had a gorgeous face and lips, and loved to make these pouty little faces with them. Really, I can't think of any guy that wouldn't have dreamed about those lips wrapped around his thing. Maybe gay ones. Maybe.

Annabeth, who we just called Anna to avoid confusion with Beth, was the other cheerleader, and she was the jock of the group. She was also in soccer and track, and she had the longest legs ever. She was pretty smart and didn't struggle too much to keep her high C average. She could easily have been an A student, but like I said earlier, attitude was as important as smarts when it came to school, and Anna just didn't have an academic attitude. She was also easily the most outgoing of any of them. She would cheer loudly for the least things. She also liked to party and was usually the source of most party invitations.

Then there was Abby. She was the least outgoing of the four of them, which is to say she was ten times more outgoing than I, but compared to the three cheerleaders, she was practically shy. Her parents were also like super lawyers or something, and she always had money to burn. With auburn hair that she'd keep just above her shoulders, she also was the most practical and down-to-earth of the girls. Not that she wasn't a little spoiled by her seemingly unending wealth, but she didn't flaunt it too much. At least around us.

Us.

Yeah, I was included. Most of Beth's other friends ignored me. Certainly all of her male friends and most of the other cheerleaders. But those three accepted my presence almost without question. They talked to me at lunch, laughed at my jokes, and took my friendship with Beth at face value. They all also needed tutoring, or at least asked for it. I was all too happy to oblige.

And this is where we came in, with me figuring out it was easier to get girls to talk to you if you did their homework for them.

That year was a pretty good one. I was part of a group. A popular one which somehow, I guess, began to include me. I was friends with four of the hottest girls in school; they gave me hugs every day, asked my advice about boys and their outfits, they laughed with me, invited me to parties with them, and just - included me. That in and of itself was a miracle. I even got better at dressing myself with a lot of help and advice from the girls, of course. I bought some nicer clothes with the money they gave me for tutoring. Even after I insisted it wasn't necessary anymore, once they learned I was spending it on clothes, they started taking me shopping with them. I guess I wasn't completely a nerd anymore, but they were all still way out of my league for anything but friends.

We were a clique. There were problems of course. I mean my presence in their group caused a lot of their boyfriends to become jealous, and I'm pretty sure everyone else in the school thought I was their gay mascot, but I didn't care. They were my friends, and they weren't afraid or ashamed to call me theirs. Sure, I did their homework for them sometimes, but I just as often helped them figure it out on their own. Their grades improved; my social status improved. It was win-win. I never felt used or taken advantage of.

It did of course create tensions with my other friends.

The first time Beth came up to me in the halls, I was standing around with a bunch of my buddies from the Chess club (look, I already admitted I was a nerd okay?). Beth, the sexy avatar of all that was appealing in the world, came up and wrapped her arms around my neck in a sudden hug. She even lifted up one leg. She was wearing her cheer outfit and had her hair back in a pony-tail.

"Hey Jack!" she said in her everyday bubbly charm voice.

I smiled and hugged her back briefly. I thought the guys around me were going to lose their eyeballs. Beth pulled back and smiled at the other guys, "Hey guys, I need to steal Jack a sec, okay?"

Her hands fell into mine and she pulled me a few steps away.

"What's up?" I asked, trying to force the casual. Yeah guys, beautiful girls come up to me all the time. This is no big deal. Watch and learn from the master.

"Can you be a doll and give this to Anna for me after next period?" She handed me a bunch of notes. I recognized them; they were my notes I had given her for her open-book test yesterday. (This was before I'd started tutoring all of the girls, but after I'd started eating lunch and hanging out with them.)

"Sure, she's got, who, Ms. Enverton right now?"

"You got it!" Beth smiled brightly.

I smiled back. It was infectious.

"Thanks, babe!" she said and blew me a kiss as she spun on one foot and trotted off, her pony-tail bouncing back and forth in her wake. Blowing kisses was something she did a lot, to lots of people.

I composed myself and tucked the notes in my back pocket before turning around to face my fellows. From the looks on their faces I had just done the impossible. Moon landing.

Oh yeah. Rock Star nerd status.

My best friend, Tomas, gave me a subtle "low-five" and then demanded the story, which I gave to him - minus the kiss - I didn't want that getting out.

"Dude!" after I was done, "Holy shit, dude!" he exclaimed in awe.

"Yeah," I said sagely.

"No wonder Todd has been looking like he wants to put your ass through a brick wall lately," he said.

I shrugged with feigned casualness, "Todd can suck it up. Beth and I are just friends."

Truth be told I was scared shitless of Todd. Like, seriously afraid to go into the men's room and poop. They might find me alone in there.

"Still man, watch your ass. He's the scary jealous type," my friend said.

Like I didn't know that.

I shrugged again.

So that was the first term. I was a god among the downtrodden. The miracle man who had somehow transcended his social status and been accepted into the upper echelons of popular society. I was James motherfucking Bond. And oh yeah, did it go to my head.

I took my friends- my old friends- for granted. I spent every moment I could with the girls. I hung out with them at school, and by second term, after school as well. I didn't notice that by the end of my sophomore year, only Tommy still hung out with me. I didn't notice. Not then. Not yet.

I was getting invited to parties. I was accepted by high society. Part of it at least. Beth had ditched Todd, and that had been a month of running scared for me. Word was he blamed me and thought I was hooking up with Beth in his place (I wish.). I had to duck the entire wrestling team in the halls. No easy feat; let me assure you. Soon though, she was dating Jeff Olsen, the junior starting varsity half-back, and the pressure came off me.

Pretty soon, the year had come to a close.

Then another, much like the previous.

By then I was a permanent part of the gang. By the end of our junior year I had out-lasted dozens of boyfriends, break ups, tearful phone calls, and shared the misadventures of adolescence. I only barely talked with Tommy anymore; I'd even heard he'd gotten a girl-friend. One of the Asian girls in the 4.0 club. Good for him.

I was still in the 4.0 club too. Only four of us remained. Tommy, his girlfriend, her brother, and myself. When the end of junior year rolled around I was in a four-way tie for the best GPA for our school. But I still didn't care, not yet. I was Beth's friend. That was all that really mattered to me.

As it turned out, Beth and I had the same birthday: August twenty-ninth. This year we'd both be turning eighteen. All of the other girls had already turned eighteen, so we were the last. They- the girls I mean- were planning quite the bash.

It was simultaneously to celebrate Beth and I "getting legal" as they joked and start our senior year off with a bang. Abby's parents had a huge beach house, and they had given permission for the place to be used for the party in question. I have no idea why, or how she'd managed it, but we were going to have a three story house right on the beach for what the girls called "The Party of the Century".

A bit cliché I know, but hey, it wasn't my idea.

A couple days before the party, we were at the house putting up decorations, and as usual, the girls were teasing me.

I don't mean verbally, though that too. I mean teasing me. Flirting. Flashes of skin, pouting to get me to do stuff with implied promises everyone knew would never happen. I was the token guy. I was so firmly friend-zoned by these hotties I wasn't even in the same country as the boyfriend field. I think Kim even thought I was gay. In other words, I was totally safe for them to be flirty, teasing, and even a little bit mean to. I didn't mind, most of the time. Really I was still crushing on Beth hard enough to make diamonds out of carbon, and who minds a bit of flirting with four of the hottest girls in school?

The only time I did mind really was when they brought up my single status.

See, they all had boyfriends. Most of them had had more than one during the course of our friendship. Anna had had close to half a dozen, maybe more. She was pretty outgoing and not afraid to bring the flirt to the guy she had her eye on. Also crazy hot, but whatever. Point is, I was the only one in the gang who hadn't had so much as a movie date, ever.

Beth remained the farthest I'd ever gotten with a girl. That one kiss, and countless "friend hugs". The girls constantly pushed me to ask girls out.

Look, it's not like I hadn't tried. Sure I had an undying flame for Beth, but I had actually been interested in other girls, if only to get some kind of experience. The problem though, was complicated. Four-fold really. Yeah. The problem was Beth, Anna, Kim, and Abby.

You can't be friends with four examples of divine hotness on earth and then ask out a girl of lesser mortal status. She says no. She's either afraid it's a trick, or that you're settling, or that she's going to be a beard for your rumored homosexuality. I'd tried, a few times. Okay, three.

First was right before the end of my sophomore year. Julie Perkons. She was cute, in a sophomore girl kind of way. She was smart; I'd met her in my Advanced English class actually. And she was single. I guess when you're half-way cute and spend your days surrounded by guys that aren't sure which end of a girl is up, but they're threatened by your intelligence to the point where they have to compete more fiercely with you than each other, you don't get asked out a lot. At least that was the impression I'd gotten by her startled expression when I asked her, stammering, if she'd like to get coffee sometime.

"Er... I thought you were going out with Beth Jenkins?" she said.

I blushed. "Ah, no, Beth and I are just friends." Despite whatever else I might wish. Hell it was Beth who'd urged me to ask Julie for coffee in the first place.

"Ah," was all she said, probably able to figure out the rest on her own. Settling then. "No thanks Jack; see you in class tomorrow."

Strike One.

Next had been Felicia Jones from my AP U.S. History course. She was a grade higher than I. I'd made the mistake of not noticing she was not, in fact, single. Strike Two.

Most recently had been at Junior Prom. I'd actually gotten Tasha Mellin to agree to go with me; we had our picture taken and everything. But once we showed up, and I was showered with hugs and cheek kisses from my friends, who were, honestly, twice as hot as Tasha could ever hope to be, and that was all she wrote. I'd ended up driving Tasha home early with her in tears and me being about the most uncomfortable I'd ever been in my young life.

Strike Three.

So they teased me. Flirting, and 'innocent' brushes against me.

"You need a date."

And again with that.

I looked up. It'd been Anna who said it. She was currently on a step-stool and was hanging banners above the Malibu style arches of Abby's family's beach house. Stretching up like that showed off her sexy midriff and belly button. I looked back down.

"Why?"

"Cause we've all got one, silly," Beth this time. She was bringing in a box of something. She had a slight sheen of sweat on her chest and forehead. "Besides, it's your eighteenth birthday party; gotta have a date to help you celebrate," she grinned mischievously. Sexy, but I also knew I was getting none of it.

"Any of you volunteer?" I said. I kept the humor in my voice. It was the only way to get the teasing to stop; roll with it. Lessons learned over two years of hanging with them.

They laughed. Not harshly; they weren't mean, not intentionally anyway. Not to me.

"We've got dates; we said that already," Kimmy said. Delectable, blonde Kimmy and her tank-tops. Her breasts were small enough she often skipped bras 'in private'. I'd been in the private club for over a year now. I never got tired of her nipples poking against the cloth of her tops.

"Well, I guess I've exhausted my options then," I said with a chuckle. I tried not to force it. Beth could tell when I was.

"Oh Pshaw. You just need to ask a girl, can't expect one to fall in your lap," Beth said, putting her box down and wiping her brow.

"But isn't that the start to every romantic comedy ever?" I asked with mock confusion in my voice.

They laughed, and for the moment, the subject was dropped.

With not unremarkable foresight, Abby's parents were having us take out a lot of the fragile lamps and stuff from the house, to replace with cheap Wal-Mart ones. Smart really.

I was loading stuff into the back of my car a couple of hours later when Beth came out.

"Hey," she said brightly, coming up out of the house with her fingers stuck in her pockets.

"Hey," I said back distractedly, as I carefully loaded what was probably a thousand-dollar lamp into my backseat. Abby's parents were, if it wasn't obvious by now, quite rich, and I guess they trusted me with their stuff. Parents read the weirdest things into a good GPA I guess.

"So, seriously, how come you aren't going to try and get a date to our party?"

With the other girls, it was "The Party." With Beth, it was "Our Party." Hers and mine. Most of the time I liked that she did that, made it feel special, and gave me another connection with her.

Now however, it just reminded me that she was so close but still so way out of my league.

"I dunno; no time I guess. It's not like I know a lot of girls besides the four of you outside of school, and it's summer, so my options are a bit limited."

Fuck me if that almost didn't sound plausible.

She bit her lip and played with her toe in the gravel on the side of the driveway. They had this super expensive white stone gravel that lined the three-car driveway. Like I said. Loaded.

"Alright, if that's what you say it is," she said, though her tone said she didn't believe me.

I sighed and backed out of the car and turned to look at her.

Sometimes her good looks still caught me off guard. There she was, standing in the driveway, her hair was up in a pony-tail, she had an old dirty tee-shirt on, ripped up jeans, and simple canvas shoes, but she still could have been a supermodel.

I had it bad. But she also was very worthy of crushing on.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "It doesn't come as easily for me as you guys; you know that."

She nodded and bit her lip. Was that pity?

I didn't want her pity.

"Hey, it's no big deal. You guys will still dance with me and stuff, right? Even with dates?"

Another thing. You do not get to stay friends with pretty and popular girls and not learn to dance. They all loved to dance, and they got invited to lots of parties. They usually invited me too, and after a couple of those I started getting dance lessons. Maybe so I'd stop embarrassing them, maybe because they just thought dancing was fun and wanted me to have fun with them. Either way, I'd gotten pretty good at it. I wasn't a stage show kind of guy - I'd never be in the middle of a ring of people showing off my moves or anything - but I could dance with any of them and not make a scene for anyone.

She smiled and nodded, "Of course, you and I have to have a birthday dance."

I returned the smile and shrugged my shoulders, "So what's the big deal then? I get four girls to dance with as it is, so why do I need a fifth?"

She brushed a lock of hair out of her face and studied my expression carefully. I kept my smile in place.

"I just don't want it to be super awkward for you or anything," she said after a bit.

"You guys having dates? That's nothing new. You guys always have boyfriends."

"Yeah, but not always all at the same time, and not during a party that's supposed to be, at least partly, for you."

I shrugged again.

She stepped up and hugged me. It was more than one of her hello hugs. She really wrapped her arms around me and put her head on my shoulder. I couldn't help it; my heart still skipped a bit. I was very aware of her body against mine. Fuck.

"You're my best friend, Jack; I don't want to see you hurt," she said softly.

Sigh. Oh yeah. That.

"Hey, don't worry about me, okay?" I pushed her away a little but left my hands on her shoulders to hold her at arms' length a bit. I leaned down a little to make eye contact with her. In the last year I'd gained a few inches on her, more than a few actually. Since our freshman year I'd gone from five-foot-nothing to about six feet. She was still about five-foot-four. I really had to lean down now to get eye contact.

"It's your party too. Don't worry about me. Promise?"

She smiled which made me smile. Because not only am I a sucker; she really was my friend and dammit if I really didn't want her to be upset over me.

"Promise," she said and leaned over to peck my cheek.

But she missed; I was in the process of straightening back up, and I guess she misjudged my movement, and our lips met. We kissed. Lips against lips.

It wasn't much more than the first time, a second, maybe two.

We parted a little bit, and my whole life surged forward. Destinies are forged by choices made in the aftermath of moments, and I was going to make mine right now.

I leaned forward and kissed her again.

She didn't pull away.

I moved my lips against hers and felt them move back. She was kissing me back. Two seconds lingered into three then four. My world exploded. Yeah, fireworks baby; that's how a first kiss should be.

Then she pulled away. Fast.

She looked shocked. And scared.

Fuck, I'd misread her. Shit shit, I'd broken the friend-zone rule: never make a move. Fuck fuck fuck.

I started to apologize, and she put her fingers on my lips.

"Don't, Jack." She said.

I moved her fingers away, "I was just going to apologize. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..."

"But you aren't sorry, so don't lie to me Jack, okay?" Her voice was firm.

Well fuck, she had me there. I wasn't sorry. For four brief seconds I'd been the happiest I'd ever been in my life.

"I... uh..." I flailed around for words. I'd mostly gotten used to her aura of afflicting gibbering stupid by now, but sometimes, like now, it would hit me and I had nothing.

"Just... can we..." she started saying as she extracted herself from my hands, which were still holding her. I let go, shocked at myself.

"Let's just pretend this didn't happen, okay?" she looked at me imploringly.

I nodded.

I guess it's not a lie if you don't speak. I'd never be able to forget this. Which is true. Twenty years later and it still makes me flush with embarrassment. A grown damn man, with a wife, and kids, a million years more experience in kissing, and I still cringe at my fumbling and my rejection. No Beth, I've never forgotten. Sorry for that.

She walked back to the house and didn't look back at me. I hung my head in shame and finished loading the thousand-dollar lamps. Somehow I didn't break any of them. My hands were shaking pretty badly.

The next couple of days were agony. Beth didn't call me, and I didn't call her. It was the longest stretch of time I'd gone without speaking to her in almost two years. I was worried I'd ruined it, worried that I'd show up at the party and my friendship with Beth would be over. Not just Beth either, but the other three too. To say I was plagued with self-doubt is to say that Europe had kind of a problem with the Black Death, or that Native Americans adapted poorly to smallpox. I was wasting away. I needed someone to put me out of my misery.

That someone, as it turned out, was Kimmy.

The night of the party, I was supposed to be getting ready, but I was laying on my bed languishing in my imagined exile from my friends.

My mom knocked on my door and opened it, "Shouldn't you be getting ready?"

"Yeah, I don't know if I'm going."

Now, I dunno if my mother knew I'd been locked in the friend-zone with these girls. She certainly knew who they were. All of them at one time or another had come over to hang out, to pick me up, or for tutoring. She'd even taken a group photo for us on the lawn for junior prom. She knew, probably, that I had the most serious crush on Beth, and that I spent the most time with her. But I'm pretty sure she thought I had dated at least one of them.

Maybe not, though; my mother was pretty smart.

"Oh? Well, Kim is on the phone; you should let her know then." My mother said simply, and then handed me our cordless phone. Hey, it was '93. I didn't have a cellphone.

"Yeah, what's up?" I said, attempting to shove all the misery of self-inflicted agony I'd put myself through in the last couple of days out of my voice.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Uhm, nothing. You called me."

"Right. So hey, last minute I know and all, but my date has some funky strep thing, so I can't go with him."

"Oh, sorry about that."

"Oh I don't care, he was really not a great date anyway. Very cute, but not boyfriend material, you know? Kind of a jerk really."

Erm, okay. That's Kimmy for you. Blunt and honest.

"Sorry to hear that."

"So anyway, I was thinking about what you said earlier, how you don't have a date, but you needed a volunteer. I volunteer."

I think my brain skipped a beat.

"Huh?"

Again, you go with what you got sometimes.

"I mean, I'd be your date. If you want."

I blinked a few times.

Now, Kimmy was very cute. All of them were. Tall, pretty close to six feet, skinny, long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. I certainly had fantasized about her before. Especially on the days she skipped a bra. Usually that particular fantasy also involved Anna, or Beth, or all three in some kind of cheerleader foursome that I will not go into, but yeah. I had thought about it before. Maybe not dating her, but certainly having sex with her. Not that I thought I was going to have sex with her tonight, but a date was a good first step with any of them.

"Uhm, sure. Great!" I said, catching myself and realizing that this was actually perfect. If I showed up at the party with Kim as a date, then Beth would relax and not be weird around me. Plus, hey, hot girl as a date. Bonus.

"Cool, pick me up in like, what, an hour?"

"Yeah, no problem!" I said.

"Cool, see ya," she said and hung up.

I had a date with Kimmy, the hot, blonde cheerleader.

Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad birthday after all.

 

[Mink]

CHAPTER THREE

I pulled into Kimmy's driveway almost exactly an hour after she'd called me.
Kim lived in the same part of town as Anna and Beth: nice, but not in the same class as Abby; none of us lived there. It still was on the other side of town from me though, so I'd had to rush to get ready. I'd showered, changed, and put on just a tiny bit of cologne. I'd heard the girls complain about the guys who splashed it on heavy. I actually listened a lot when they thought I wasn't.
Kimmy met me half way up her porch and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Hey Jack."
"Heya, uhm, ready?" Okay, lame question, because she was standing out on the porch waiting for me, but I was still gathering my wits. She was dressed to party at least. She had a tight, sapphire blue strapless dress on; it came far enough down that it covered everything fully, but not so far down that it threatened to get near her knees. With as tall as she was, it showed off her long legs very, very well. I gulped. Okay, she was damn hot. I often forgot just how hot when Beth was around.
"Yeah, let's party, Birthday Boy!" she grinned at me and went around to get in the passenger side of the car. I'd meant to beat her there and open it, but that didn't seem to be working out.
"Uhm, shouldn't you tell your parent's you're leaving?" I asked, going to the driver's side.
"Nah, they know I'm going with you. Everything's cool," she said offhandedly.
Ah. I see. This was still going to be a friend-zone date after all.
I sighed and pushed disappointment out of my head.
I was going to have a good time. I was not going to ruin Kimmy's evening at least. I remembered how I'd felt driving my prom date home early. I wasn't going to do that to her. Just another evening out with my friend. I could do that.
I settled back in the driver's seat and she leaned over and planted a kiss right on my lips.
I was, needless to say, a little shocked. I might have even flailed my arms a little. Straight up Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future in the 'parking' scene.
And she kept kissing me, moving her lips against mine softly. They were warm and slightly tacky; her lip gloss I guess. They tasted faintly of cherries. Somewhere in the middle of what had to be the longest thirty-second kiss in history, I started to relax and kiss back. I moved my lips in a matching motion to hers and leaned into it a little. Okay. Okay this was a real fucking kiss. I liked this. I really liked this. I could smell her perfume, light and flowery. Her breath was minty.
She pulled back, and her lip gloss was only slightly smeared; I'd been imagining much worse.
I was breathless and very relieved to see she was smiling brightly.
"What..." I gasped, okay, still breathless. I wiped my lips; they were wet. "What was that for?"
She shrugged which, by the way, was awesome in a strapless dress.
"This is a date. I figured we should establish that right from the start, otherwise it wouldn't be different from any other time we hung out."
I couldn't help it, I laughed.
She looked confused.
"Sorry, Sorry, Kimmy, but after that kiss - there's no way I could think of you as a friend tonight."
She smiled again then hesitated, "But we can go back to being friends after, right? I don't want it to be weird."
I smiled, actually; truth be told, I was more grateful for that question than the amazing kiss she'd just given me. I didn't want things to be weird either.
"For sure," I said with the first smile I'd really meant all week.
"Good," she leaned back in and we kissed again. This time, when I didn't start the kiss flailing in shock, it was pretty damn great. Her lips definitely tasted like cherries.
She broke away with a big grin, and I'm pretty sure my face was about to break; I was grinning so hard.
I pulled out of her driveway and headed out to what was shaping up to be the best birthday party of my life.
By the time we arrived, the party was in full swing.
Heavy club music pounded out, even out by the driveway. We pulled in behind at least two dozen cars, maybe more. As we got out, Kimmy started grinding her hips to the music and put her arms in the air and gave a little cheer. I laughed. She danced her way to the front of the car where we met, and she put an arm around my shoulders. I slipped my arm around her tiny waist and felt her moving against me. Holy hell that was sexy.
We made our way inside, and I was hit by the wall of bodies and music. There had to be at least fifty people in here. Kim pulled her arm from around me and we held our arms up to make our way across the living room which had become the main dance floor. I followed Kimmy (my date, haha!) until we got to the other side where there were a bunch of couches set up against the wall. There we found Anna and her date, a guy I sort of knew from previous parties. Alan I think his name was. We shook hands. Anna got up and hugged me; she shouted something that was probably, "Happy Birthday!" into my ear, but I'm not sure. She also had what looked like a pink martini in her hand.
Now don't get me wrong. All of us had drunk alcohol before. Like I said, we'd been going to parties together for two years. We'd even all got wasted together one night which is the closest I'd ever gotten to making out with any of them. But Anna really liked booze while I was kind of indifferent. So I was a little concerned, but it was nowhere near my place to say anything. Besides, she looked perfectly fine.
I smiled and shouted back a "thanks". I looked around for the others. Abby was on the dance floor with a guy I didn't really recognize, but she danced happily away with him; I smiled and waved. She waved back. Another scan through the crowd though and I was pretty sure Beth was nowhere down here.
All in all I recognized maybe seventy-five percent of the people at the party which was pretty good I guess. I never knew where all these people from parties came from, maybe other schools I guess. There had to be at least sixty people here just in this room, and I could see people moving up and down the stairs. I knew the girls had wanted another dance floor up there, plus the pool table was up there too. I wouldn't have been surprised if over a hundred people were here all told. Jesus. This was definitely the biggest party I'd ever been to.
The girls really knew how to throw a bash.
Kim hooked her arm in mine and jerked her head at the dance floor. I grinned and waved at Anna and her date. Anna raised an eyebrow at the two of us and I just shrugged with a smile as I let Kimmy drag me away. She pulled me by the hand into the middle of the dance floor and we started to dance.
I'd danced with all of the girls, and even a few of their other friends several times. Both at parties and when it was just the five of us hanging out. Like I said, they loved to dance; three of them were cheerleaders and I think being a good dancer is a prerequisite or something. So I had long since gotten over my self-consciousness about dancing with a girl. Besides, in the middle of a big dance floor, no one is paying attention to you anyway.
Besides, the best thing about dancing, in my opinion, was watching the girl you were dancing with.
All of them loved to dance, and they were all really good at it. Normally when we danced, or more accurately, when I danced with one of them, they would stand a little ways away from me and just kind of put on a show- sometimes for me, sometimes for themselves, sometimes I guess even for their date who was usually not far away watching. Either way I got to watch one of my sexy friends move her body provocatively and with the kind of self-abandon you really could only get away with on a dance floor. It was always worth watching. Plus, it was an excuse to stare at them without being weird about it. After all, I was supposed to watch my dance partner, right?
This time, when I went to stand a little ways apart from Kimmy, like we'd done many times before, she put her right hand on my shoulder and stayed close. She began moving with the music and put her other hand up in the air over her head. She stayed close enough that we kept bumping into each other a little bit awkwardly.
I guess they'd never taught me how to dance with someone, just next to them.
Luckily, Kimmy was a sport, and just grinned at me. She put her hands on my hips and got me moving with her, and then we were really dancing together.
Friends - it's a totally different experience than just watching.
One song bled into another, and she turned around and put my arms around her as she wiggled her sexy body up against me from behind. At first, I felt a little of my old self-consciousness returning, as this was a new situation, and I wasn't sure how to respond. Once again, Kimmy saved me and put my hands in the right places, which were her lovely hips, and she moved her ass up against my crotch.
And yes, dammit, I got a damn hard-on.
I was pretty embarrassed, but that was apparently what she was after, because she just looked back over her shoulder and smiled at me with a little wink.
Fuck it, I had no idea if this would ever happen again, I was going to enjoy this. Besides, she started it. So I went with it. I ground my erection against her ass in time with the music.
We danced for at least four songs, during which time she'd rubbed not just her ass but her hips against my crotch and then her breasts up against my chest. This was definitely not dancing a little ways away while I watched her visually tease me; this was a whole new level of tease.
By the time the fourth song was over, I needed a break, both from the rubbing and the exercise. I jerked my head slightly in the direction of the sidelines, and she nodded in agreement. She took my hand, and we moved back out to the couches. On the way, she grabbed a couple of red plastic cups that had been filled from the keg and handed me one of them. I was not a fan of beer, but fuck, I was hot and thirsty. I gulped it down gratefully.
We didn't see any of our friends on the couches, so we headed up stairs. Upstairs the music was noticeably quieter.
"Having a good time?" she said to me with obvious flirtatiousness.
"Wasn't it obvious?" I said back with a wry smirk.
"Oh yeah," she laughed and kissed me again. A guy could get used to this spontaneous kissing thing.
She pulled away from the kiss, and I could see all three of our friends staring at us with varying levels of surprise. Anna just laughed and cheered a little, Abby had a smug amused grin on her face, like she had a secret in-joke only she was privy too. Beth though had naked astonishment on her face.
For a second, I felt a twinge of guilt, like I had cheated on her somehow. But then I saw the guy she was with, Todd Smith. Yeah. No guilt. Guilt gone.
He smiled at me though and even held his hand out to give me a bro hand slap. Normally I wouldn't, but I was still feeling weird about the look Beth had given me.
"Hey man, happy birthday," he said. Like we were buddies and he'd never thrown my ass in a dumpster full of rotten cottage cheese.
"Thanks man," I replied like I had never gotten my ass thrown in a dumpster full of rotting cheese.
"So you and Kimmy, huh? Nice, bro." he said.
I forced a smile out.
"Just a date for the night, birthday and all," I said.
"Totally," Kimmy said with a pleased smile on her face, "Besides, I've been thinking about planting a wet one on this guy for a while; wanted to give it a try."
Okay, now it was my turn for naked shock.
Kimmy hooked her arm in mine and smiled, "This is cool right, no one is weird? I mean, we're all friends still right?"
Anna laughed. "Well it's about time he hooked up with one of us; way to go Kimmy!" She gave Kimmy a high-five. Okay, that was a little awkward, 'about time'?
Abby grinned and kissed me on the cheek with one of her typical hugs. "Happy birthday, Jack; make it a good one," she whispered in my ear.
I smiled back, but I held myself apart from her hug a little. I still had the erection Kimmy had given me earlier. That would have been weird.
Beth also came up and hugged Kimmy and then after the barest hesitation, me. "This is great; I'm glad you found a date, Jack." she said. Though there was an odd note in her voice I'd never heard before. Jealousy? Relief? Awkward embarrassment from my earlier fumbled kiss?
Whatever.
I put my arm around Kimmy, and she laughed and kissed me again.
For the next few hours, I enjoyed the hell out of myself.
I danced with all of the girls as was typical party behavior with us. Though it was definitely weird with Beth, and we danced only once. Kimmy and I though, we danced a lot, and it drove me crazy each time. She made it her mission to torment me to new heights each time we touched. Soon it wasn't just her ass that she taunted me with; her fingers caressed my neck and the back of my head, her lips danced across my neck, and toward the end of the evening, during a slow song on the dance floor upstairs, her hand fell between us and she squeezed my cock through my pants.
I admit, I have pretty good restraint. By that point in my life I was no stranger to my own hand and teasing myself. I could hold it off a while (at least it felt like a while when it was just me) and I wasn't afraid of losing it early with a girl my first time. But I swear to god I almost lost it right then. I gasped and clenched up against her which took her for surprise.
She pulled her hand away and put it on the back of my neck. Her fingers delicately caressed my neck as we swayed together.
She leaned in and kissed my ear then whispered softly into it, "Everything okay baby?"
Baby? We were on pet names already?
I turned to whisper in her ear, "I think I need a break from the torment Kimmy, it's really nice, but..."
"You almost just lost it in your pants?" She leaned just far enough back like she was going to kiss me but instead caught my eye and bit her lip provocatively
Goddamn, that was hot.
"You could say that." I tried to laugh it off. It was embarrassing, but I really did need a break or it would be more than just an 'almost'.
Her eyes twinkled with delight. At least she was enjoying herself. She kissed me again. A real kiss again, not a lip brush. Her mouth opened and parted my lips as well. I felt her hot, little tongue flick in and brush against mine. We were french kissing. My first french kiss.
It was slow too. Testing, exploratory, unhurried. We swayed against each other and kissed for the rest of the song. Exploring each others reactions and covering new ground. For me at least. I had no idea what her experience was, but she didn't complain.
The song ended way too soon and we parted. She looked almost bashful. She blushed even and looked down. She took my hand and led me away from the party. We found a quiet corner in a hallway upstairs and she slid onto my lap. She didn't say a word and leaned in to pick up right where we left off. We kissed. We french kissed. We made out.
I made out with a girl.
A fucking hot girl.
One of my best friends - and it wasn't weird. In fact, it made it hotter. Our hands didn't move around much. I gently pet her thigh, and her fingers teased my neck and the hairs on the back of my head. We mostly just kissed. A lot. Slow kissing. The kind you see in movies. I didn't rush her, and really didn't feel any rush myself. We just kissed. Sometimes there was tongue. Well, most of the time really, but sometimes there wasn't. I can honestly say I lost myself in it. For once I wasn't fantasizing what it would be like; I was there, doing it, and I was loving every second of it.
And because it was Kimmy - that is, I think because it was my friend, I wasn't seeing it as a gateway to sex. I just wanted to enjoy the moment, and I wanted her to enjoy it too. I didn't want her to look back on this night with regret. So I did my best to follow her leads and hints about what I was doing that she liked and wanted more of.
My first hint things were going far better than I could have hoped for was when she moaned.
We'd been making out for, I dunno, at least twenty minutes, maybe forty. I honestly had no idea. She moaned against my lips. It was the first sound she'd made, and we'd found a pretty quiet corner, so it was the first sound besides the faint beat of music and wet smacking of lips.
"Everything okay?" I asked, a bit breathless.
"Fuck yes. God Jack, this is so fucking sexy," she breathed against me. Unlike our first kiss of the evening, her lipstick was definitely messed up now.
"Yeah, yeah it is." I looked down at her lips and started to go back to kissing.
"I know I got you hard earlier," she breathed around the next kiss.
"Mm-hmm" I affirmed. More kissing.
"That was hot," she moaned again slightly as I kissed down her neck. I hadn't explored there much yet, and if she wanted to talk, it left her lips free. Far be it from me to interrupt a lady.

She sighed and shivered slightly; it wasn't at all cold out, so I assumed it was a good shiver.
"Only fair I guess, then," she said tilting her head back.
"What is?" I kept kissing her neck. I didn't suck, I didn't want to give her hickies. I always thought that was a little rude. And ugly.
"Cause I'm really wet right now," she said.
Friends, that is the best kind of encouragement a guy needs.
I slipped my hand up to the front of her dress slowly. Too slowly for her, I guess, because her hand dropped down and pulled my hand up to her breast. Small as it was, it was still a pleasant round handful. I could feel her nipple hard against the palm of my hand and she dropped her mouth back down to mine kissing me with a groan. She squeezed my hand so I squeezed her breast. More moaning.
Thus, we added petting to our making out.
It was not to last though.
We were just really getting going again with a definite new element of urgency to what had been previously just a slow paced make-out session when a slight clearing of the throat caught our attention.
We both looked up and Abby was standing in the door of the hallway we'd stashed our little trysting session in, and she had the biggest grin on her face.
I blushed - badly. But, so did Kimmy, and that made me feel pretty damn good.
"If you two don't mind, I need some help with Anna. She's passed out," she said.
"Uh sure," I said, and helped Kimmy slide off my lap. Luckily I'd been so focused on Kimmy's enjoyment that I was not, in fact, erect. I was kind of surprised really. Turned on, yes; hard and ready to rock, no.
"She's on one of the couches downstairs," said Abby as she followed me out the hall and down the stairs.
"Got it," I said and wiped my face off as best I could.
The party was still going pretty well, but Anna was not on any of the couches.
We asked around as best we could with the noise, but no one had seen her leave. Beth was upstairs watching Todd play pool with his buddies, but Anna wasn't up there with them.
I began to get a bad feeling. I started knocking on doors. As large as the beach house was, there were only about six bedrooms, an office, and three bathrooms, all three of which had lines of people waiting to use them. No one had seen Anna, and most were pretty upset about me interrupting what was going on behind closed doors. I didn't care.
I got to one of the last unlocked bedrooms upstairs and knocked on the door.
"Hello?" I called against the door.
"Go the fuck away!" said a male voice.
"Hey, I'm just looking for my friend Anna. Is she in there with you?" I asked.
"Go fuck yourself! Piss off."
That was not a no, and there was really nowhere else in the house she could be.
"Anna, if you're in there, just say something and I'll walk away!" I called out. Kimmy was behind me, and Abby had come up behind her.
There was no response.
My stomach twisted. Something was wrong.
I rattled the door. It was locked.
"Anna!" I shouted, pounding the door again.
"Fuck - Off!" the male voice shouted again.
"Open the fucking door! Anna!"
"What the fuck, Jack?" said Beth as she came up the stairs with Todd.
"I think Anna is in there passed out with some asshole," I said and rattled the door again.
Kimmy started looking scared, and Abby said, "I'm going to the office, there's a master key in there."
"And call the police too, Abby," I added pretty loudly.
That must have got his attention, because a moment later, before Abby could even get all the way down to the office door, the locked clicked over and a guy's face that I didn't recognize stuck his head out. He didn't have a shirt on.
"Piss off, we're fucking around! Now if you don't mind, get lost, okay?"
"Why hasn't she said anything then?" I tried to push the door open further, but he had his foot against it.
I did, however, get a look inside.
Anna was indeed in there, but she didn't look conscious. Her shirt had been taken off and her bra undone. She was down to just her panties actually. He hadn't gotten those off yet.
She wasn't moving. He was undressing her without her consent.
I lost it. Someone was trying to rape my friend.
I - roared. I think. I shoved past him and we both went down in a tumble. I think he shouted in pain, I dunno. I might have broken his foot with the door. I scrambled on top of him and started strangling the life out of him. He flailed his fists at me, but he mostly was just hitting my face indirectly; I didn't feel any pain at any rate. I think I was yelling something, probably something along the lines of, "I'm going to kill you, you fucking asshole!"
At least, I think. It's really a little blurry.
Next, I remembered people were pulling me off him. I think it was Todd who got his arms under mine in a full nelson. Wrestler, go figure. He was yelling at me to "Ease off, ease off!"
I fought him. I was going to kill that fucker.
I'd like to say it was bravery, or chivalry, or some shit like that. Really, it was just rage. He was about to violate my friend. I was going to kill him. It was really pretty much that simple.
A bunch of Todd's friends took the guy out back and sent him on his way. I'm told he accidentally fell down the stairs a half dozen times on his way out. Pity.
Abby and Beth got to Anna and covered her up with a blanket. She was actually semi-conscious, and had been trying to say "no" but couldn't make it work. She was crying. They helped her up and were starting to walk her past me when she heaved and blew out what I can only assume was about a gallon of pink martini. All over my pants.
All in all, a great addition to the night.
She blubbered something that might have been an apology, and Beth and Abby got her to the bathroom. From the sounds of it, there were a couple gallons more in there.
Kimmy just looked at me and laughed. She was crying too.
"Hey, shh, it's okay," I told her. I put my arms around her. I was careful to keep my pukey legs well away from hers.
She lost it, sobbing into my shoulder. I held her as close as I could with puke pants. Truth be told I was starting to come down myself. I was more than a little rattled.
Todd came back up the stairs with a couple of his teammates. "Ass clown is gone," he said.
"He's lucky I didn't kill him," I said. I felt like I was going to lose it myself, but I held onto my emotions in front of these guys.
"Heh, good thing I was here or Kimmy would be slow dancing with you at your next birthday in the state pen." He grinned, then held out his hand for a real hand shake, not a bro slap.
I took it. He met my eyes and nodded. That's right, we were Men, the nod said. We'd protected the girls. We gripped hands and shook. Man to man.
It made my chest swell up. I pursed my lips together and gave him another nod.
"Good job, man," he said, and there was no bravado. He meant it.
I nodded back again and just said thanks.
He pulled his hand back and looked down at my pants. "Looks like she got ya," he laughed. The moment was past. Party on, friends, party on.
I laughed a little, too, and again, almost lost it. But I just shook my head and grinned.
He gestured to one of the underclassmen that was a part of his entourage, "Hey, go get Jack some pants out of my gym bag in the trunk. He's about as tall as I am."
He called me Jack.
Not nerd, not dweeb, not ass-clown, or any of the other half dozen names he'd had for me the last seven years. I'd earned my name, I guess.
The guy nodded and headed out. I continued comforting Kimmy and within a few moments I had a pair of sweatpants. Not my good, black slacks, but hey, pants.
"Thanks man," I said as they got tossed to me.
"Don't worry about it. Alright, go get cleaned up; we'll see you later, birthday boy," He grinned, and he and his posse turned and left.
Abby was coming out of the nearby bathroom. She'd pulled her own hair back into a pony-tail haphazardly.
"How's Anna?" I asked immediately
"Drunk. Drunker than I've ever seen her. Beth and I are going to take her to the hospital to make sure he didn't slip her something as well."
I nodded, "Good plan. Let me change, and I'll get my car."
She shook her head, "You're all blocked in. It's fine. You and Kimmy stay here for me, okay? I can't leave the house unattended. Beth and I will take Anna in. I parked my car down the street."
I frowned but nodded.
Abby smiled and gave me a hug, a very tight one.
"You're fucking awesome, you know that Jack? Seriously. Thank God you figured out what was going on," she said and squeezed me tight.
Goddammit, I was going to lose it.
"Hey, no problem. I'm good for more than math tutoring right?" I said hoarsely, making a lame joke in order to cover up the emotional roller coaster I felt like I was on.
She pulled back, "You're good for a hell of a lot more than that. Kimmy's very lucky," she said in earnest seriousness.
I swallowed and just nodded. Kimmy tightened her grip around my arm.
"Take your man and go get him cleaned up, Kimmy. You guys can use the master bedroom. I kept it locked. It has its own bathroom," she handed Kimmy a set of keys.
"I'm going to go flash the lights and have Todd and everyone take last calls and stuff. Can you guys check in about forty minutes to make sure everyone's out and lock up for me?"
I nodded. "Of course. Call from the hospital if you need anything."
She nodded and squeezed my neck again, then squeezed Kimmy, who squeezed back.
Abby turned back to the bathroom, and she and Beth started getting Anna ready to go. I ended up helping them out to Abby's car which was parked down the street in front of a neighbor's house. I offered once again to go, but Abby shook her head and told me to get my pukey-pants ass inside and away from her car.
So I did. Todd and company were doing a fine job of getting everyone rounded up with Kimmy's help, so I went up to the master bedroom, retrieving my borrowed sweat pants from the hallway. The bedroom was huge - it took up most of the third floor actually, along with its bathroom, which was almost the size of my living room.
I stripped down and found, to my disgust, that the puke had soaked through my pants and gotten my socks and feet. My leg hairs were caked down with the ooze of pink martini vomit. It stank pretty badly.
I stripped down completely and got in the gigantic shower. It was one of those waterfall over-head ones, where the water comes from a wide spigot directly overhead. It was also hot almost instantaneously. I got in and shut the glass door behind me. The water sloshed over me like, well, a waterfall. So I guess the thing was aptly named. I washed up pretty mechanically, trying not to think yet, but that didn't last very long. It's what I did. Think.
The walls were stone, and I just leaned forward against them.
Then, I lost it.
The confusion from earlier worrying about Beth. The high from making out and dancing with Kimmy. The rage and adrenaline from trying to kill someone who'd been about to rape one of my best friends. The aftermath. I shook from head to toe and sobbed a couple of times.
It didn't take long, but I was still sniffling when there was a knock on the door.
Someone said something, but I couldn't hear them over the shower and fan.
I shouted at them that I was almost done, because that's what you shout when someone knocks on the door while you shower.
Then the door opened.
"Hey," I exclaimed, "In use!"
"It's just me, Jack," said Kimmy.
"Oh, uh... sorry."
"No problem, it is a little loud in here isn't it?" she said over the fan and water.
"Uh, yeah." I tried to see through the frosted glass of the shower. It was pretty steamed up, so all I could see was the blue of her dress.
"Everyone's gone. I locked up like Abby asked."
"Oh good. That was fast."
"You've been in here almost forty-five minutes. I was starting to get worried."
Oh, damn, okay, maybe it hadn't been quick. Great water tank.
Through the frosted glass, the blue of her dress slipped to the ground, leaving fair pink skin in its place.
Uh. Gulp?
"Room in there for two?" came a quiet question.
No shit fucking gulp.
"S...sure." I said. I wiped my face as best I could, then covered my cock, which was you know, just hanging out there.
The door opened and Kimmy poked her smiling face in. Her hair was still up, but she was completely naked. She opened the door all the way and stepped inside.
Now. Let me pause a second again. I know you're all anxious to hear the description of naked Kimmy and trust me, I'll get to that.
I'm going to take a second to talk about myself.
Look, everyone has issues about their own body that they're self-conscious about. Doesn't matter whether you're male, female, gay, straight, bi, curious, or confused. We are our own worst critics. Trust me. My four female friends were the most gorgeous people I knew personally, and hell, really all of them were a match for any supermodel I'd ever seen. They were stunning.
And every damn one of them complained about her body. Like, constantly.
Boobs are too big, not big enough, fat, pudgy, too skinny, arms too long, cheeks too pinched, hair too flat, too curly, thin, thick. I'd heard it all from all of them.
I, too, was pretty self-conscious about my body. Especially around them. With their help I'd gotten better at dressing in nice clothes and fixing my hair in a way that was easy and still pleasing to the eye. But I wasn't Todd. I wasn't an athlete. I wasn't fat or anything; I didn't have any pudge. If anything, I was too skinny. I had some definition but no mass. I was six-feet-tall and maybe a buck fifty.
Like I said, pretty skinny.
Also, in the, ahem, male department, I knew I was a bit above average. I'd measured myself. Every guy does. Seriously. Every guy. Maybe not with a ruler, but with his hand and then later measures his hand. Fully erect I was about six and a half inches. I counted the half inch. Of course I counted the half inch. The same way six-year-olds count the six months when they say they're six and a half, not merely six.
So, I wasn't, you know, afraid of that, but, yeah, I had body issues.
So when one of the four most beautiful girls in the world stepped naked into the shower with me, I was torn between awe, wonder, lust, and total abject terror.
Unpause.
Kimmy stepped naked into the shower. Her hair was still up and bound tightly on the top of her head. Naked, totally naked. Her small breasts were exposed and her pink nipples stood erect and hard against the air. Her tummy was flat and toned, but I'd seen that before; she wore a lot of shirts that showed off her midriff. But below her belly button and navel, that was new territory
I feasted my eyes on the first 'in person' naked girl I'd ever seen.
She was trimmed neatly and probably waxed on the sides - it was summer after all - and she loved bikinis. But her pubic hair, such as she had, was darker than I expected and did not do much to hide the red lips below.
Holy. Shit.
I followed her naked body past her crotch and down all of her sexy, long legs to her cute little painted toes. And back up.
Holy. Shit.
She was biting her lip when I met her face again; she stepped all the way inside and shut the door behind her with a click.
"Hi," she said softly.
"Hi," I replied just as softly.
She stepped forward and got under the water with me. She turned her face up and rinsed her face off, scrubbing slightly. She still had cry-face, and her make-up was smeared. She looked at me and spit a little bit of water out gently. Water droplets cascaded down her naked breasts and off the tips of her nipples.
She closed her eyes and kissed me.
Her body was warm and wet against mine, and I could feel every inch of her naked flesh against me.
Yeah, for the curious, if you aren't sure, naked, wet kissing is exactly one hundred thousand times sexier than fully clothed kissing. One hundred thousand. That's a scientific measurement by the way.
We wrapped our arms around each other and continued our slow kissing from earlier. Her hands gently traveled down from my arms to my hips and then lightly up my sides. I jumped and tensed a little. I was ticklish.
"What?" she asked, I think afraid she had hurt me.
I smiled quickly, trying to reassure her, "I'm just ticklish, sorry."
"Oh." she smiled, and it was a very sexy smile. Like she'd just learned some perfect little secret about me. She went back to kissing, but she kept her hands on my hips and chest. I moved my hands down to her naked ass and tried to keep the hand shaking under control as I gently squeezed one of the asses I'd been secretly ogling for two years.
Yup. Erection returning.
I felt myself getting hard and tried to casually pull away from her so maybe (ha) she wouldn't notice.
Never breaking our kiss, she reached between us and gently pulled me straight up and against her belly. I hissed with pleasure as the first hands not my own in my memory touched my cock. Her fingers were slender and warm, and she handled me very delicately. It was very, well, erotic. She moved her hand back up and left me pressed between us and up against her taut belly. She snaked her hand around my neck and opened her mouth up. I followed her lead, and her tongue found mine. Pretty soon we were back to the fully exploratory wet kissing. She liked to dart her tongue in and out of my mouth and play a kind of gentle 'tag' with the tip of hers against mine. It was nice and not at all like the tonsil hockey I've heard of.
"Is this the farthest you've ever gotten with someone?" she asked quietly after a while.
"Oh yeah," I breathed quietly into her.
"Me too," she said, shyly.
Honestly, I was pretty surprised. The way the girls talked about their boyfriends and dates, I didn't think any of them were virgins still. Not that I really cared; I'd never thought of them as sluts or anything. Hell, a girl can like sex and sexy things without being a slut. Slut is a male word. I didn't like it.
"Really?" I asked.
She nodded and pulled back a little, "Is that okay?" She sounded worried.
"Yeah, of course; why wouldn't it be?"
"Just, things are going really great, and I really like what we are doing a lot," she blushed. "But I... I'm not ready to have sex yet, so I don't want you to be disappointed..."
"Shh," I said and kissed her. Good god, she was worried I was going to think she was a bitch if she didn't sleep with me. She was worried about Me.
"You don't mind?" she asked again after a few seconds of kissing.
"Not at all," I said.
Truth be told that would have been a little fast for me too. I mean, we just got to kissing tonight.
She pressed herself against me. That, apparently, had been the right thing to say.
"God Jack, you're so great. You're so great! You don't even know how great you are," she said between smothering me with a fresh round of kisses.
"Uhm, okay?" I couldn't help it; I laughed a little. For some reason, Kimmy worried about my reaction to her telling me we couldn't sleep together tonight was terribly ridiculous in light of all the other events of the week.
She started giggling too. And then we were both giggling like little kids. We clung to each other, our naked, wet flesh sticking and slipped as our emotions defaulted to silly in what was probably revolt for making them run through everything else in a single night.
The kissing moments were gone, and soon we helped each other out of the shower and got towels. We dried off, and I won't lie, I admired her nakedness again. She didn't appear to mind and just smiled over her shoulder at me. I smiled back.

I put the sweat pants on, and she just kept her towel wrapped around her and we went out to the bed and lay down. We cuddled. That was pretty great, too.
"Have you ever kissed a girl before?" she asked after we'd been lying down a while. She had her towel tucked up tight against her chest, but one leg stuck out and wrapped around one of mine. Her head rested on my arm, and her free hand was absently running circles over my bare chest.
"Yes." I said, not really wanting to go into more detail about with whom, but there was no way I was going to lie to her. Maybe I should just supply some detail and hope that's enough. "Nothing like what we've been doing though. Both times it was just lip brushing that only lasted a few seconds.
"Oh," she said simply. Then after a few moments, "Well you're a natural then. I've kissed a few guys, and you're the best kisser I know."
I blushed.
"Thanks," I mumbled.
"Seriously. You don't try to push your tongue down my throat and suffocate me. You don't have bad breath or exhale right into my mouth. It's nice. And you let me kiss you back." she said, drawing little circles on my chest.
Okay, damn, that did my ego as much good as her telling me earlier how wet she was getting.
"It's really sexy," she said again softly.
"Yeah, it is." I replied and petted a strand of her hair.
"I want to keep doing it," she said. Ah, lovely, blunt Kimmy.
I chuckled a little, "Me too, but I'm a little tired to be honest, and I think my lips are getting chapped."
She giggled, "Oh me too. But I didn't mean tonight, silly. I meant tomorrow and the day after. Maybe for a while."
I turned to look at her. "You mean, you want this to be more than a one-time date?"
She nodded against my arm, "Yeah, I think I do. Do you?"
Kimmy, sexy, slender Kimmy, dating me. Wanting to date me, because I was an awesome kisser.
Beth who?
"Yeah, of course."
"I know I'm not Beth, but I think we could have fun together," she said casually.
I wasn't going to let that stand. I sat up a little.
"Hey, look at me," I turned her face up with a finger under her chin, "Yeah, I have - had a crush on Beth for a long time. All of you at one point really. How could I not? You guys are all super sexy and you know it. And all of you have had fun teasing me for two years."
She blushed and looked down, "Yeah. We have been kind of mean haven't we?"
I pulled her gaze back up and continued, "I haven't minded. Hell, it's been a lot of fun. You guys are my best friends. Seriously. But I also never dreamed that me nursing torches for you guys would go anywhere. Any of you." I emphasized the last part. "Understand? I don't want you to be Beth; I want you to be Kimmy, okay?"
She bit her lip and smiled. She gave me a little nod.
I smiled and leaned down to kiss her.
That started another good fifteen minutes of making out.
Chapped lips be damned.
"I wanna do something for you, Jack."
"Mmm?" I said, somewhat sleepily. It was close to three a.m. at this point. I was starting to nod off.
"Yeah, I wanna use my hand on you, okay?"
Okay. Uh. No shit okay.
"If you want to," I said carefully. I didn't want to sound too eager.
"I do. I think it could be fun; don't you think?"
"On one condition," I said.
"Uhm, okay."
"I get to return the favor afterward," I breathed against her neck. I was pleased her eyes fluttered closed at the suggestion, and she just nodded softly. "Okay," she said dreamily.
She propped herself up, and I settled back a bit. We kept kissing, and her hand trailed down my stomach. She reached into my sweat pants and very gently, ever so softly wrapped her fingers around my cock.
This was more than the gentle moving of it she'd done earlier. This was her full hand wrapped around me. She started to move up and down and stroke me very gently. It was fucking amazing.
I was as hard as a rock in seconds.
We kept kissing. Softly, slowly. Honestly I didn't need much attention. My poor body was so confused I felt myself getting close in less than a minute.
"Kimmy," I said hoarsely against her lips.
"Yes?" she was panting a bit herself; this was turning her on too. Good.
"I'm really close," I panted against her. Really. Really close. I fought it off as long as I could, but my body was having none of it. Too much frustration in too short of a period.
"Okay," she panted and sped up a little, squeezing me a little hard in her own excitement.
That did it.
I came.
There was a lot, not gallons like you read about in smut mags, but enough that it took me by surprise, and this was hardly the first orgasm I'd achieved by hand. Certainly the first by a hand besides mine, though...
She kept pumping, panting audibly, maybe even whining a little as she pressed her lips hard into mine. I struggled to catch my breath around her kiss. She was very turned on.
"God Jack, that was so damn hot," she whispered. She was flushed. Her towel had come loose and her breasts were exposed again. I could see one pink nipple standing proud and tight against her skin. Her flush went from her cheeks to the very tips of her nipples.
Friends, the sight of a girl at the peak or arousal is infinitely sexier than a picture of a naked girl posing for a camera. It was all the motive I needed for further action.
We cleaned up the mess I'd made with her towel, and I pulled it completely away from her, leaving her naked on the bed next to me. I leaned over her and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around me and was trembling slightly.
"Kimmy," I breathed into her neck as I started kissing my way to her breasts.
"Yeah?" she panted.
"Do you trust me?" I asked. I lightly licked her nipple. My first nipple. Nice. I took it gently in my mouth and rolled my tongue around it.
She apparently liked that and arched herself against my mouth with a gasp.
"Oh yes."
"Then just lie back and relax. Trust me, okay?"
She nodded.
I kept up my attentions to her breasts and nipples and then began kissing my way down her tummy.
I was no stranger to pornography. Both the written and video kind, and I knew what I wanted to do; I'm pretty sure Kimmy was not going to mind.
I kissed her belly button. Her breathing was coming quickly now, and I looked up her naked form to see her looking down at me with a mixture of greedy anticipation, curiosity, and not a little bit of nervousness.
I slid down even further and kissed the spot between her navel and the top of her pussy. I could smell her now, and it smelled like nothing else I'd ever breathed in. She was very aroused; there was a lot of musk, sweet, and a little sour.
"Uhm, Jack?" her voice quavered a little.
"Shh," I said softly and lowered my mouth down to her slit. I parted her gently with my tongue.
She gasped very loudly.
She was very wet inside, a slippery fluid that was not at all unpleasant. With my tongue I explored this new landscape. From my reading, I knew where to find her clit, the hard little nub at the top of her slit, and I teased it with the tip of my tongue. She gasped again and grabbed big handfuls of the comforter we were lying on. I took that as a good sign.
I continued to run my tongue up and down the length of her slowly. Her wetness spread rapidly, and soon her whole pussy was wet and slippery. She was gasping pretty rapidly now and mixing in a lot of moaning.
I flicked my tongue inside of her entrance and past the boundaries of her labia until I was slightly inside of her.
"Oh my God!" she gasped.
A few moments later, she was bucking against me, all shyness forgotten.
"I'm coming; oh fuck you're making me come!" she gasped out, her eyes squeezed tight and her hands grasping at my shoulders.
I let her ride it out until she settled down and then gently withdrew. I wiped my mouth off on the towel and then slid up next to her. We kissed again, and it was a much dreamier kiss on her part. She let me take the lead, and I gently teased her tongue with mine.
She moaned sleepily and giggled, almost drunkenly. She had a huge smile.
"That was - amazing. Oh my God!" she said, blushing furiously.
I was too, but I didn't care.
"Glad you enjoyed yourself," I said with more than a little hint of smug satisfaction in my voice.
"Yeah, that doesn't even come close to describing it. I've gotten myself off before with my hand. That was a whole new level."
"I know what you mean," I said and settled down next to her.
She giggled again.
And with that, we drifted off to sleep together.

 

[Mink]

CHAPTER FOUR

The next morning, we were woken up to a knock on the bedroom door. Kimmy was still wrapped up around me, fully naked. I was still in just the borrowed sweat pants.
"Hello?" came Abby's voice from the other side of the door, perhaps the sound of a giggle too.
"Uhm, one second!" I yelled through the door.
Another giggle, "Okay, I brought you guys some clothes. I'm leaving them out here in the hall, okay?"
"Uh, yeah, sure," I said through the door again. Kimmy was starting to stir as I gently extracted myself from her entangling limbs. "How's Anna?" I asked.
"She's home. And fine. Was just way too much booze. They had to call her parents though," Abby said, still from the other side of the door.
I winced.
"Oh crap," Kimmy said sleepily rubbing her face.
"No kidding," I agreed.
"Walking away now," Abby said. She was definitely laughing.
I blushed.
I looked back, and Kimmy had pulled the sheet up to her chest; she was as bright red as I felt.
"Oops," she said softly, "We kind of over-slept."
"Yeah, I guess so," I replied. I waited a few more seconds and then opened up the door. Just outside on the floor was a couple of tee-shirts and folded up pairs of jeans. I recognized my own clothes on the top and the other pair as Kimmy's. Abby must have stopped by our houses. Shit. What the fuck had she told my parents?
I pulled the clothes in and handed Kimmy hers. She accepted them without comment and headed into the bathroom to change. I was a little disappointed she covered herself with the sheet on the way in. But the light of day is different than the wee hours of the morning, so I guess she was a little more bashful than I thought.
Which was good I supposed; I didn't really feel super comfortable dressing in front of her myself yet. I noticed Abby had brought me a clean pair of boxers too, which made me blush again, or rather, deeper. I got dressed quickly.
I was just pulling my shirt over my head when Kimmy came out of the bathroom. She'd changed into the jeans and tank top (she wore a bra, I noticed) and she had her dress from last night draped over one arm. She smiled at me and walked over. On the way she lay her dress down on the end of the bed, and when she reached me, she slipped both of her arms around my neck.
"So, uhm," she said softly, "Good morning..." and then she kissed me softly.
"Good morning," I breathed in reply after the lengthy kiss.
"So, are we okay still? Not weird?" she asked tentatively.
I shook my head, "Not weird for me. You?"
She bit her lip, considering, "A little, I mean I guess. You're my best guy friend, but I've been sort of thinking about what it would be like to go out with you for a little while now."
"Really?" I was honestly a little surprised. I mean she'd mentioned something about it last night, but, that was last night. I was still reeling from a lot of things about last night.
She nodded. "Yeah, I mean, you've gotten awfully cute this last year."
Okay, dammit, enough with the blushing.
She grinned, "I've always liked your eyes. I've never seen a guy with green eyes as light as yours; it's pretty sexy. And I like that you're tall. Taller than I am. Most guys aren't."
I was pretty tall now- six foot even, maybe a little over now. She had to be at least five-ten, maybe eleven. We were very close. I didn't know what to make of the eyes thing though. I mean, being sexy was great, but, hell I dunno; I was grinning like an idiot and blushing what was probably a shade of purple.
She ran her fingers through my hair; that was very nice. She continued, "And you're super nice. Most guys are kind of jerks, especially the cute ones. And smart, I'd totally fail school without you, but you aren't a dweeb about it. I dunno. You make me laugh more than anyone except maybe Abby. I just..." she shrugged, "I like you. I like you as a friend a lot, but I think maybe I want more now."
The only response to that was to kiss her again, so I did. It was another long few moments before we spoke again.
"I like you a lot too. Honestly, I'm looking forward to getting to know you even better," I said after we broke apart again.
She smiled. "Now let's just hope everyone else is cool with us hooking up. I mean, none of us said specifically that we shouldn't date you, but sometimes I wasn't sure. Sometimes I think Beth is a little jealous of you."
"Well, Beth had plenty of chances. I'm done with waiting for her to make up her mind. She wants to just be friends? I'm cool with that. Just friends," I said.
Kimmy nodded.
I sighed, "Well, shall we go down stairs and starting getting them used to the idea of us together?"
She nodded, and pulled her arms back from around my neck. Her hand still slipped into mine though, and we walked downstairs.
The place was trashed. Seriously trashed; it looked as though a hundred people had rioted. Or that they'd had a huge party. Red plastic cups were everywhere, on every surface. A lot of them were still full of warm, flat beer. There were spills all over the place and more than one case of vomit in the corner. I winced; this was going to take all week to clean up.
Abby and Beth were downstairs in the kitchen. Both had showered and changed from the night before, and there was a bag of fast food sitting on the counter.
"Morning sleepy heads," said Abby in a sing song taunt.
"Yeah, yeah," I said. I was still holding on to Kimmy's hand as we walked up to the counter.
"So, are you two a thing now?" Abby asked as she took a swig from a bottle of water.
I glanced at Kimmy. I was going to let her say it; I wanted it to come from her not me. I was also just a tiny bit afraid she was going to deny it and brush it off, regardless of what we'd just said and done.
Kimmy nodded, "Yup."
"Cool," said Abby.
And that was that I guess.
I dug into the food bag and came out with a couple of breakfast sandwiches; I handed one of them to Kimmy, who thanked me and slid up onto a bar stool
I avoided making eye contact with Beth; she was apparently doing the same with me, which made it easier.
"So how is Anna?" I asked as I unwrapped my sandwich
Abby sighed, "Okay I guess. We checked her into the ER. She was blowing well over the limit, so they had to call her parents. I also told the nurse what had happened, so I think they did a rape kit on her, to see if, you know..." she trailed off.
I stopped chewing for a moment, only resuming when Abby shook her head no.
"Everything was fine, he hadn't gotten that far yet, and there were no drugs in her system besides the booze. Thank God," Abby said.
I nodded.
She shrugged, "Anyway, they released her to her parents a couple of hours ago, so Beth and I went home, showered and changed, then I swung by your guy's houses to pick up clothes and stuff for you."
I inwardly cringed but braced myself for impending parental wrath, "What did you tell my parents?"
Abby smirked, "The truth."
I blushed thinking immediately of Kimmy and what we'd done. That was silly of course, but hey, guilty conscious.
She rolled her eyes and continued, "That we'd partied pretty hard, Anna had got herself nearly date raped, you saved her, but she blew chunks all over your clothes, and that you were staying at my parent's beach house for me until I got back. And that you guys were going to help me clean up. Your dad was pretty cool about it actually. You're supposed to call him when you wake up."
Oh. Hey that didn't sound bad at all. You know, except for the cleaning part.
"Well, thanks for that. I'll call him when I'm done eating," I said.
Abby gave another smirk, "Well, I guess I did lie about one thing."
I arched an eyebrow. Kimmy give a little snort.
"There's no way I'm cleaning this place up. I called a house cleaning service; they should be here any minute," Abby said.
Well, I guess that's yet another benefit of your parents being rich. Your own credit card.
"Oh. Well. Awesome," I said with a little laugh. Kimmy giggled too, but Beth just rolled her eyes.
Abby grinned, "Hey, actually it was my mom's idea. There's no way the five... well, four of us could clean this place back up again to her standards, so she told me to call this place she knows after the party."
"Damn that was cool of her," I said, raising both my eyebrows.
Abby just shrugged, but the other two girls agreed with me.
"Now," she said, "Let's blow this Popsicle stand. We've got a day to blow while your parents think you're being my cleaning minions. I say, beach, shopping, and dinner out for the birthday kids."
All of us cheered.
That day was spent with me following the girls around shopping, which wasn't terribly unusual. Except this time, I got to do most of it holding hands with Kimmy (or holding her bags). We'd steal little kisses from each other when the other two weren't looking. She was very playful about it too. I mean, I'd always known she had a playful streak, but I'd never been on this end of her playful flirting before. It was, I gotta say, way more fun than the normal teasing-flirting-to-nowhere the girls usually did with me. For one thing I mean, Kimmy's sly promises and teases actually meant something now, which made me spend a good chunk of the day tingling with anticipation. But for another, I actually got to flirt back.
It's not that I'd never flirted with them before, but I'd always kept it on the lighter side of caution. Never daring to overstep my boundaries and offend one of them. But now, I got to unleash the full power of my wit and, not inconsiderable if I may humbly say, charm, on Kimmy. I had her blushing more than once, which was its own reward; but the kisses afterward were an even better sort. We stole kisses and touches whenever we could. By the end of the shopping trip, I'd even gotten over my self-consciousness about initiating those touches; slipping my arm around her waist, or playing with the back of her neck while we were sitting down waiting for something. I was on top of the world.
Also, Beth finally relaxed, at least, on the surface. After the first hour of awkwardness, she seemed to get over it and be back to her normal bubbly self. I did notice that she flirted with me far less than she had before, at least directly; after a while her flirts became suggestions for Kimmy, who then put them into action.
We went out for dinner that night, and Abby and Kimmy made the waiters sing happy birthday to Beth and I. It was like things were back to normal, which took a huge weight off my shoulders.
Except I had a girlfriend.
If it wouldn't have been so unmanly, I'd have been squealing from the rooftops. But I was squealing internally. In a manly sort of way obviously.
Anna, unsurprisingly, was on restriction for the rest of summer, which wasn't much longer at least. Worse though, she'd been barred from going out for the cheer squad again, which was devastating to not just her, but Beth and Kimmy as well.
Kimmy and I spent the rest of the summer joined at the lips. I spent every day with her, and as many evenings as I could get away with. We never got as far as we did that first night, but we came awfully close a few times. By the time school started two weeks later I was intimately familiar with the feel of her breasts in my hands, and the taste of her nipples in my mouth. She got her hands inside my boxers a few times, but never quite got me off again. I didn't care, it felt too good to just be with her to complain.
We did more than just make out though, we talked a lot as well. Kimmy had always been kind of an 'add-on' to the group to me I guess. Certainly a part of it, but my attentions had almost always been focused on Beth if she was around, or split evenly between the other three if she wasn't. Plus Kimmy wasn't nearly as talkative around her friends, she generally just went with the flow and was content to let other people take the lead. Once it was just the two of us though, it was like I was discovering this whole other person.
She was very funny. Not necessarily in a razor sharp wit kind of way, but just in general silliness. She wasn't afraid to make funny faces, or silly noises, or ridiculous voices to aid in joke telling. She often had me in stitches from just generally being a goofball; she really enjoyed making me laugh. Every time she'd get me going, she'd give me this bright beaming smile like she was super pleased with herself.
She was also surprisingly insightful. I guess being the non-talker of a group of five gave you a lot of time to watch people and figure stuff out by reading in between the lines. She was also bluntly honest when asked direct questions, so I learned a lot more about the other girls than maybe I thought I wanted to know. Either way, it was illuminating talking to her.
Mostly though, she was just fun to be around, even without the physical stuff (which was great fun too, and we did a lot of it, but it was more than that.) We cuddled a lot and watched movies. I'd become a huge movie buff over the last few years, and had expanded my interests from the geekdom cult classics I'd been a fan of when I met Beth, to a much wider range of genres. From some of the more modern contemporary stuff, to some pretty esoteric indie flicks. I fell in love with dialogue really. Good banter could give me chills. This had a side benefit of improving my own witty banter skills as I learned what worked by watching it on screen. Sometimes I'd have to explain the more out there stuff too her, but she never blanched at even the most esoteric art film or the old classic film noirs I'd want to watch. Though I think she got bored pretty quick with foreign films, because that's usually when the necking would start. Sometimes, I have to admit, that was deliberate on my part.
School started, and we continued to be a couple. I was nervous at first, I'm ashamed to admit. Summer flings are one thing, but back in the social hierarchy of school is a different story. The wee hours of the morning verses the light of day I suppose. But Kimmy didn't even flinch. I was her boyfriend, and she was proud of it.
Boyfriend.
It takes on a different perspective from thinking about it that way.
It's one thing to say, "I have a girlfriend!" Hell, that's a milestone, like running a marathon. You did it, you got the girlfriend achievement, congratulations.
It's really pretty one sided.
But being someone's boyfriend - that's a different story. That has responsibilities. You have to be there for her. You have to not just take pleasure in her company, you want her to take some in yours. I dunno, I think I was lucky to have figured this out this early on, I guess a lot of guys never do. Maybe it's because I was smart, maybe it's because I'd been friends with four girls who went through boyfriends like water, so I got to hear the aftermath of the whys and why nots.
Maybe it's just because I was stupid lucky.
I'm going with that.
I was a pretty good boyfriend I think. I went out of my way to brighten her day when she was down - which wasn't often, or encourage her when she got frustrated - which was all the time with school work. In fact, I'd gone to tutoring Kimmy in all of her classes. She was struggling pretty badly if the truth was to be told.
I myself was starting to have issues of my own. Between generally spending time with Kimmy, both helping her with her classes, and being lip locked with her, my own studies were starting to suffer for it. By the middle of the term, I was in serious danger of slipping to a B in my calculus course.
Oh no! You gasp in mocking derision, a B!
That was huge. I was still in the 4.0 club, a perfect GPA for my high school career, which meant I was in the running for Valedictorian, a prestigious award that I'd be able to put on a college application and scholarship forms. It was a big deal. Besides, I'd been working on it for three years now. I didn't want to lose it in my last year.
Previously, I'd been fortunate to be smart enough that any slippage of studies was made up for by my excellent test taking skills, and ability to cram a final project home in the last 72 hours. That didn't happen often, but it had happened. I was also generally pretty good at getting homework done before I'd even left school. Now, my free time at school was filled up with Kimmy, so homework started having to come home. Which was fine, until I started helping Kimmy out with all of hers, and mine got pushed until I got home late that night, and I had to finish mine in the wee hours of the morning, missing out on sleep.
To stop the hemorrhaging of lost time, I'd started just bringing my homework over to Kimmy's and while she worked on hers, I worked on mine. This helped some, but my courses this term were much harder than previously. I was in advanced placement for nearly every class; chemistry, calculus, advanced lit, and world history. My only 'free' period, I was a TA for my advanced lit teacher during her basic senior English course, and Kimmy was in that class. I got some work done there, but I spent most of it grading the papers and tests of students who probably should not have been in a senior English class, even the most basic one. Luckily, thanks to my help the previous two years, Kimmy wasn't one of those, but only just.

Near the end of the first term, just a couple of weeks out from finals, I was over at Kimmy's house late on a Friday evening. Her parents and long since gotten used to my coming and going, and frankly, they loved me. After three months, I was actually the longest boyfriend she'd ever had. I was polite, I was a good student, I treated Kimmy well, and I was helping her with her school work. Thanks to me, Kimmy was probably going to make a high C average for the first time in her life, maybe even score a few B's.
I'm going to pause again a second. It may seem like I was down on Kim for only being a C+/B student, a C- student really, before I started helping her out, but I wasn't. I was damn proud of her in fact. She wasn't dumb, but her reading level wasn't quite up to par, and she'd get confused if the teacher would go too fast, then she'd get lost when they moved on without her, and be too embarrassed to ask them to repeat anything. When this goes on for eleven years of school, you just sort of accept that you are stupid I guess, and give up until you're just putting out the minimum effort to get by. That was Kimmy. She kept her grades up just high enough to stay on the cheerleading squad, and then didn't care about anything else.
This year, she was really trying. Maybe because she thought it was important to me, maybe because it was an excuse to spend more time together, maybe because she really did want too. I dunno. Maybe all of them. I was really proud of her. I didn't think less of her at all because she wasn't a perfect student like me. That's just another kind of elitism, the kind Beth and Anna, Abby and Kimmy had helped me overcome socially. Now I was helping Kimmy academically.
Anyway, back to where we were.
I was over late on a Friday near the end of the term, helping Kimmy study for finals. It had to have been after midnight, and her parents had been in bed for a few hours. Like I said, they loved me and trusted me. Most parents did.
My brain was somewhere between trying to understand my own material that I was studying for chemistry, and helping her with her upcoming history exam. At the moment, we were both reading quietly, but we had notes spread out all over her room. She was laying on her stomach on her bed, feet kicking up in the air. I was sitting on her floor with my back up against her wall with my book between my legs and my notes fanned out around me, I had a page in each hand, and I was trying to complete chemical bonds with mental pictures.
I missed whatever she said first, as my brain was not in the room with my girlfriend, but trying to hold equations in my head.
"Jack," she said, in the tone that said I'd missed the first thing.
"Hmm." I replied without looking up.
"My brain is mush," she flopped her head forward over the edge of the bed until her hair flopped even farther forward onto the floor.
I chuckled. I looked up and she was oozing her way off the bed. She was going to land in a heap on my carpet of notes. "Uh, Kimmy, baby..." I said as she oozed forward with increasing speed.
"Muuush," she whined and slid off the bed in a slow motion somersault that ended up with her laying face up and spread eagle over all my notes.
I was torn between laughter and exasperation, I'd spent the last hour organizing those. "You fell off the bed." I said with wry amusement.
"Mush," she said again, her lips pursed in that oh-so-sexy pout I loved.
I sighed. Break time I guess.
"Had enough?"
She nodded.
"Fine," I said with a sigh and closed my Chem book.
She rolled over on her side, crinkling my notes beneath her and propped herself up on her elbow. I let my head fall back against the wall with a dull thunk. She picked up a page of my notes and looked at my scribbled notes for equations regarding the forming of chemical bonds between high energy protons.
"How can you understand this stuff?" she said, turning the page upside down and giving it a mock frown.
I smirked, "Who says I do? Why do you think I'm studying?" I chuckled a little.
She smirked and turned her eyes back to the paper. She put it down and picked up a different one, then said, "Well, you understand enough of it to figure out the stuff you don't."
"Well that's true I guess." I was a little brain dead myself, so a witty reply was not in the cards.
She pulled herself up to her hands and knees. She carefully crawled over to me, avoiding further paper crumpling. I could see directly down her top, which was always worth the look. She didn't have a sexy expression or anything, just an amused smile, maybe even a little smug. She pulled herself up between my legs and kissed me. Just a soft brush of the lips, but she had a way of making even that simple touch feel charged with electricity
"How can one guy be so damn smart?" she said softly after she pulled back.
I opened my eyes and looked at her bright blue eyes.
She blinked her long lashes slightly as she looked back down at my lips, then went back in for another kiss. This time our mouths opened and our tongues played their now familiar game of gentle tag. We'd gotten pretty good at this dance since our first one. We kissed for several long minutes before she pulled back again.
God I loved kissing her. The whole world would fall away and it would just be the slow motion of our lips and tongues. She loved kissing, I think that was her favorite thing we did together. She'd mentioned several times that she loved kissing me because unlike other guys, I'd "let her do some of the kissing" rather than her just being on the receiving end of their slobbering. I may have taught Kimmy math and grammar, but she sure as hell taught me the best of everything I know about kissing.
We broke apart after a few minutes and she straightened up and scooted up all the way between my legs. I put ran my hands up her bare thighs and cupped her perfect ass. She was wearing just a thin pair of cotton shorts and they did nothing to disguise the equally thin pair of panties she had on underneath. Her lips were far out of my reach now, as she'd straightened up and was now running her fingers through my hair with a thoughtful expression. She looked down at me as if considering something.
"What is it?" I asked, feeling a tiny bit self-conscious.
"I was just thinking," she said as she played with the ends of my hair.
"I thought you said your brain was mush."
"Only when it comes to thinking about school work," she said with a cute little smirk.
"Oh-ho," I said with a knowing chuckle.
She leaned down again and brushed her lips against mine, her hair fell around us like a tent.
"I'm always able to think about you," she said after the kiss.
That made me blush, luckily it was pretty dark in the hair tent.
"So what were you thinking about?" I asked.
She straightened up again and considered me once more. After a moment she said, "Remember on our first date how I said you've gotten pretty cute?"
"Yeah."
"I changed my mind I think," she ran a finger along the outer lobe of my ear. Chills ran up my spine. Damn that felt good.
"Oh yeah?" I said, my voice softer than I intended.
She nodded. "I think you're pretty damn sexy."
Okay, full blush now.
She grinned, "I like it when you blush."
More blood to the face and I looked away.
She pulled my face back up with a finger under my chin. Her other hand brushed my bangs out of my eyes, and she said, "I'm serious though. I guess I didn't realize how much smart turned me on until I got to watch you in action."
I laughed a little (still blushing like a fiend though).
"In action?" I asked.
She nodded, "I was always sort of in awe of the way you could make me understand stuff, even after teachers had given up trying, and I thought that made you pretty smart. But now I watch you do your own work, all this stuff," she reached down and picked up one of my pages of notes, "This stuff isn't even in language I recognize, I mean, it kinda looks like math, but it's like, weird symbols and letters and numbers with funny lines, and you just look at it and make other numbers out of it. And I just know you're right, because you're that damn smart."
Okay, I was seriously blushing now. I'd never heard of intelligence turning a girl on before. Muscles, sure. Athleticism, obviously. Good looks, charm, wit, even humor. But 'smarts'? No way. Not in a girl that looked like Kimmy.
"Yeah, Jack, it makes you fucking sexy as hell," she said, maybe even reading my thoughts, "Because I know that even as cute, funny, and nice as you are, that's not even the best thing about you. Its this." she gentle tapped my forehead. She leaned down again and kissed me. It was a turned on kiss, she was seriously turned on. After making out with someone for a few months, you learn the signals.
Holy shit batman. She was turned on.
"God, and you don't even know how great you are, that's even hotter," she breathed against me.
I gulped. Fuck me, I was actually getting emotional.
My whole life, I've known I was smart. I mean, you figure this shit out pretty quick actually; one of the benefits of being smart. Teachers tell your parents at conferences, you begin to notice you figure things out way easier than your peers, and pretty soon, it dawns on you that you are, "Smart." At first this is pretty awesome. Figuring stuff out is kind of a rush really. That moment of comprehension when everything clicks, and that happens a lot when you're smart. So you start finding more stuff to figure out, and wonderfully, this makes you even smarter as you learn more stuff.
But then other people - your peers - start figuring out you're smart, and figuring out that you are smarter than them. Sometimes this is a good thing; you get attention as they ask you to help them figure things out. Sometimes - most times - they get annoyed when you figure things out before them, because it makes them feel lesser. When you are very smart, you become an ape with a stick among so many chattering monkeys, and you begin to resent them back. Why the fuck can't they figure even the easiest things out? For fuck's sake, a monkey could get this people! You start treating your intellectual inferiors as just that, and elevating yourself above them, and suddenly they aren't your peers anymore.
And now you're the kid getting thrown in a dumpster full of rotten cottage cheese.
So after a decade of the roller coaster of the high that comes with the joy of discovery and learning, and the anger and resentment that forms between you and your former peers, to be told by a girl that you really, honestly care about, and is so far your intellectual inferior that you're helping teach a class she's barely passing, that the sexiest thing about you is the source of all of the above.
Well fuck, my friend, you'd get emotional too.
I looked away before she could see the first tear fall.
"Hey, what's wrong?" she asked, suddenly concerned. She lifted my face back up, her blue eyes full of worry.
I sniffled. In what I hoped, was a manly kind of sniffle, which is probably an impossibility.
"Nothing, come here." I pulled her down and kissed her pretty hard. This wasn't me letting her kiss me, or slow sensual exploration. This was me kissing her. Trying to block out a sudden flood of years of torment and confusion, of resentment and rejection. Of feeling alone in a crowded hallway. She kissed me back, surprised, but just as hard. I wanted to make the world go away with our kissing again. I wanted to lose myself in her lips, and her tongue, and her breath. I wanted to lose myself in her.
We broke apart long enough to pant a few times, then we were both helping her pull her top off. Her small naked breasts sprang free and I covered them with my hands. Her nipples were hard against my hands and fingers. We kissed again, breathing hard into each other. She wrapped her arms tight around me and I moved to hug tight around her waist. For a few moments we just clung to each other. She opened my mouth with hers and our tongues danced feverishly. She moaned against my lips and I tried to pull her even closer. I was overwhelmed with desire for her. Her tall but slender body, her tiny breasts and her long blond hair, I wanted to pull her inside of me.
She pulled far enough apart to tug at the bottom of my shirt, and we broke kissing once again, long enough to pull it off, then we mashed our bodies together again. For the first time in three months, our naked flesh pressed together, and it was even sexier this time. She was warm and dry; smooth and soft. Her mouth sought mine out again and we frantically kissed. Her hands alternated between pulling on the back of my head or running up and down my chest. Mine wandered just the same, clinging with one to the back of her head, afraid to let her pull away; the other cupping her breasts or clenching her naked waist.
We fell forward onto the floor, crushing my notes, though I didn't notice. I was a little busy. We pulled and pawed each other. This was so far beyond our curious explorations, this was need; this was passion. We let it consume us.
I'm not sure when her shorts came off, or when my pants had come down, but I noticed when I felt her hand on my rock hard cock and she guided me between her legs. Reality began to crash against the waves of my desire and need, and I realized what was about to happen.
I could feel her wetness against the tip of me and her fingers fumbling to help me find her entrance. Distantly I was aware that she was on the pill, and that she was a virgin, but I still panicked.
"Are you sure?" I managed to whisper hoarsely against her.
She nodded vigorously, "Yes, oh God yes!" she panted, and her fingers pushed me forward.
I slipped into her.
Warmth and wetness engulfed me.
Nothing else existed. I was only dimly aware that she'd gasped out in shock herself, or that her wet mouth was sucking against mine as we both attempted to keep her moans quiet.
Nothing else mattered. Warmth and wetness were my whole world. My existence was buried in her. Again and again. It was unbelievable
I tried to hold on, to slow down and make it good for her, but she was just as eager as I was. I'm pretty sure that she managed to come with me, but I'm not positive. I didn't think to ask. She didn't seem disappointed when it was over.
We lay there for a while, sweating, breathing, and just - being. I rolled off her and we lay next to each other and feathered each other's bodies with light touches.
"Thank you," she said softly after a while. She was petting my hair gently, running it through her fingers in the way she liked to do.
Of all the things she could have said, I was not expecting that.
"What for?" I asked softly.
"For being my first. For making it amazing," she said. Her eyes locked on to mine and held my gaze.
"My first time too," I said.
"That made it even better. I was afraid it was going to be like Anna's. Drunk, not able to even remember the guy or anything about it. Or stupid awkward and embarrassing, so it wouldn't be any fun."
I swallowed, I hadn't known that about Anna. "I'm glad it was with you. You're amazing, Kim."
She smiled and lightly kissed me. "I didn't want to wait until I was married or anything, but I wanted the first time to be special. I'm glad it was with someone I really care about. Someone I'll want to remember."
I could only nod. Kimmy, for all of her academic struggles could be the Zen fucking master of wisdom sometimes. This was one of those moments.
We lay there for a while longer, and then the crumpled papers began to get uncomfortable.
"We're crushing your notes." she said apologetically.
I laughed, "So worth it."
She bit her lip and smiled. We sat up and began pulling crumpled and ripped chemistry notes off each other with chuckles and giggles.
I passed that chemistry final with an A, barely; and only I think because my instructor liked me a lot. I got more credit on the essay question than maybe I should have. Kimmy passed her history exam with a B- and was elated, she'd come running out of her class room and leapt into my arms with a whooping cheer.
We spent most of winter break figuring out that once the first time is out of the way, the second, third, and fourth times can be more fun oriented, and less emotionally intense. The fifth, sixth and seventh times can start to be about our normal exploratory relationship, and by the time the second term began, we were old hats at fucking each other blind every chance we got. She was an amazing lover, willing and eager for anything I dared to suggest, with quite a few ideas of her own. I couldn't have asked for a better first partner.

 

[Mink]

CHAPTER FIVE

Let me back up a second.

It's the first term of my freshman year. I've finally got the route to my classes down. I'm still a dear in the headlights when I see a cute girl, especially one of the more developed upperclassmen seniors or something. I'm still a nerd who's never had a girlfriend, kissed a girl, or even attempted to speak with one since hitting puberty.

Before I met Beth.

I didn't ride the bus home from school. I rode it too school, but not home. I didn't live very far really, only about two miles. It was a pain to walk in the morning, but walking home was fine.

Besides, Todd Smith rode my bus.

Our freshman year, Todd was not the giant around school that he was by the time we were seniors. He was tall, sure, a head taller than me in fact, and a year older. I think he'd gotten held back third grade. But he wasn't on the basketball team yet, he wasn't on the wrestling team yet, he wasn't dating Beth Jenkins yet; though he was going to be doing all of these things later this year. It just hadn't happened yet.

What he was though, was a bully.

We'd been going to the same schools since 4th​ grade, when he'd moved into my neighborhood. His first week of school he'd made friends with John Nelson, the other bully of our elementary school, and the two of them tormented me all the way through middle school. It took the two of them less than two weeks before one of them was holding my arms back and the other would punch me in the stomach as hard as he could.

I guess because that was funny or something.

The summer between 8th​ and 9th​ grade, John Nelson had gotten shipped off to juvie (so I'd heard) and Todd was left as sole commander of the posse of jerks and malcontents they'd co-led up until that point. This was sort of good, because John had been the real bruiser of the two, but it was also pretty bad because Todd had been the brains, such as they had. By the start of our freshman year, Todd was a head taller than any other guy in our class. He had started working out too, so he was also about twenty pounds of muscle up on most of us as well.

Let's see: tall, good looking, athletic, and a jerk to pretty much everyone. Except cute girls, where he had just enough charm and charisma to disarm them.

Yeah, pretty much my anathema.

Todd and I lived just a few blocks from each other. Far enough away we had different bus stops, but not so far away that he was entirely avoidable. In the mornings when I'd get on the bus, he was already on it, but he and his friend's generally sat in the back, so I could avoid that encounter by sitting up near the front or middle. Usually my best friend, Tommy, would save me a seat, so that wasn't an issue most of the time. After school though, my sixth period class was about as far as you could get from the buses and still be on the same campus, so I had to run to make the buses after the bell rang. As a result, the seats were almost always full. Tommy's mom picked him up for piano lessons after school three days a week, so he couldn't save me a seat.

So obviously, that meant sitting in front of Todd and his cronies was inevitable roughly 100% of the time.

After a couple of weeks of spit balls, gum in my hair, wet-willies, getting poked, taunted, and otherwise tormented beyond what was reasonable for any rational human being to bear; I'd started walking home after school. It was only two miles or so and it wasn't a bad walk really. Hell half the time I could get there just before the bus did anyway, because of the route it took. Also, walking took me right past one of my favorite places in the world: Elliot's Coins and Collectables.

Elliot was a fifty-seven year old super geek. He was the sole owner and proprietor of Coin's and Collectables. C&C was really more of the 'Collectables' side of things than 'Coins'. The coins part was just there for the yellow pages and people looking to off load grandpa's buffalo nickels. His real trade was baseball cards and comic books.

It was comic book nirvana really.

He had thousands - tens of thousands maybe. Back issues going back to the 1940's of every title you could imagine. He had all the new stuff too; Marvel, DC, and a half dozen Indies. Image comics wasn't up and running yet, but he carried them too once they were. He had it all, including Heavy Metal magazine, which was my personal favorite. If you aren't familiar, Heavy Metal was (is) a science fiction mag that had graphic violence, dark fantasy, and erotica. Impossibly proportioned men and woman spilled each other's blood across its pages in every state of undress. There was nudity - lots of nudity - both men and women; and more violence than a slasher movie. But there were good stories too, and some of the best artists in the business. It was most certainly an NC-17 publication, but I loved it, and Elliot would sell it to me anyway.

Elliot was a nerd's nerd. He knew all the facts, all the artists and writers, all the characters of every imprint. I was in awe of him really. C&C was a home away from home, and I spent many afternoons there hanging out, reading back issues, chatting with Elliot, his one employee and the other patrons, buying sodas from the small mini fridge he kept to sell to kids like me. I bought tons of stuff from C&C, but moreover, it was a refuge from the social ecology of school. In school I was just a smart kid who was a little short, way too skinny, and painfully shy. At C&C I was one of the guys. A fellow geek, one of the people who knew the secret code and handshake. (Excelsior!)

Heavy Metal released only every other month, so I was always fiending for the next issue. The first of November, I hurried after school to get to C&C's to pick up the new release. Elliot had it waiting for me on the counter.

See, the system we had worked out, since he wasn't supposed to sell it to minors, was that he would leave a copy of it on the counter. You'd put your four bucks on the counter next to it and then walk off with your copy. If the cops ever asked, he'd say you stole it and that you'd must have lost the four bucks in his store. Now, he probably could have legitimately gotten away with selling it until someone complained, but this way, it was like a secret agent thing. Underhanded and conspiratorial; something only those in the know got away with. It was awesome.

I snaked my copy, casually dropping up four crumpled up bills on the counter while his back was turned to get me a coke, and slipped it into my open back pack. He must have waited to hear my zipper, because he gave me a full ten seconds before turning back around.

"Here you go Jack," he said in his ever amused gruff old man voice.

"Thanks Elliot," I said with a knowing smirk. I paid him the fifty cents for the soda. My four bucks for the magazine got swept off the counter as well and dropped in the cash box.

"New Spider man in," He offered.

"Nah, maybe next time, I'm already broke for the week," I grinned.

He just smirked, and I was out the door.

I didn't quite run home to read it, but it wouldn't have been out of the question to say I speed walked. I was in such a hurry that I cut back into the loading alley behind the supermarket and pizza parlor that was just a few blocks from my house. I normally avoided this way, because Todd and his thugs hung out at the pizza place a lot. It had cheap arcade games, and they'd steal cigarettes and porno mags from the grocery store.

It was a risk to cut back there, but I figured I was safe, after all they were still on the bus right?

Murphy's Law said there was about a 100% chance that I was going to run into Todd.

I was almost through the alley when a familiar voice called out, "Hey, it's Ass-clown."

Sigh.

I turned to look. Todd and two other guys were stepping out from around the side of the pizza place. They'd probably gotten off a few stops early. Shit.

I turned back around and kept walking. I tried not to break into a run. They were like wild dogs, they could smell fear.

I must have been like a bouquet of fresh, warm meat to them.

Laughter and a couple of more taunts were flung in my direction. Nothing I'd never heard before, but that didn't make it suck less.

Footsteps slapped against the pavement behind me as they hurried to catch up. I started picking up the pace.

"Hey Jack, seriously man, wait up."

I knew better, I really did, it was a trick. I knew it was a trick.

But, like an ass-clown, I turned around to look and wait. Maybe if I demonstrated I responded to my actual name, they'd learn to show some respect.

Billy Miller and Keith Haverton lunged forward and each grabbed an arm.

Maybe I was just an idiot.

Todd walked up to me in a lazy fashion, cocky expression on his face; he was fully in command of the situation and everyone here knew it.

"Where you running to buddy?" he said and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Just walking home, can I go please?" I tried to sound defiant, but there was an undertone of pleading there.

"First I think you little reminder of stuff. When I call your name, you stop and wait for me, understand?" he said, squeezing my shoulder, hard.

"I did," I said defensively.

"No, you didn't, you see, your name is 'Ass-clown'" he poked my chest with his middle finger. The two holding my arms sniggered like hyenas

"No it isn't. It's Jack," I said, trying to keep my chin up. That's what you were supposed to do right? Keep your chin up.

"Maybe that's what Mommy and Daddy call you, but out here, between you and me, it's Ass-Clown," he said getting his face right in mine. His breath smelled like stale onions.

Sometimes, a man has to make a stand. Hold his head up and refuse to budge on his principals. "No it isn't, it's Jack." I said again.

He delivered a hard jab to my stomach. Stars exploded in my eyes and all my air whooshed out of my lungs in a sudden gasp. His friends laughed again. Because I guess it's funny when it's not you.

"Ass-clown. Your name, is Ass-clown."

He hit me again.

I coughed, trying to catch my breath.

"Say your name, Ass-Clown," He demanded.

Sometimes a man just has to make it home in one piece.

"Ass... Ass-clown..." I gasped, tears from both pain and humiliation burned in my eyes.

"Good Ass-Clown, the whole thing, 'My name is...'" He demanded once again in a mocking voice that personified everything I despised about adolescence

I sniffled, my eyes burned, I didn't want to say it.

Thug one and thug two started to twist my arms back painfully.

"Ahh! Ow! Ass-clown, my name is Ass-clown!" I cried out.

"See, was that so bad?" Todd asked in a mockery of sympathetic intonations.

"Let's see if Ass-clown has any cash, I'm hungry," grunted one of the thugs, Billy, I think.

Todd nodded and Keith let go of my arm to rip my back pack off my shoulders. Billy re-gripped my now free arm as I tried to flail it around to fight them. It was a pretty useless gesture.

Keith opened my bag up and dumped the contents on the ground. Out spilled my notebooks, my school books, a couple of Amazing Spider-mans...

And Heavy Metal.

The cover was a scantily clad, gray skinned, well-muscled elven woman, with a giant black panther. Her tits were barely covered by the tiniest triangles of cloth, and she had strip of cloth that couldn't have been charitably called a loin cloth by even Mother Teresa. Keith picked up the magazine and stared at it. My cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Heavy Metal had some great stories in it, but for a fifteen year old nerd, it was also porn in comic form, and I used it as such a lot of the time.

"What's this, Clowny?" Todd asked in a tone of curious delight. He took the magazine from Keith and started leafing through it. Page after page of gore and nudity flipped by, and he got a big shit eating grin on his face.

"I think Ass-clown likes cartoon porn," he laughed, "Do you watch porno's little Ass-clown?"

"Shut up, and let me go!" I struggled against Billy, but I might as well have tried to free myself from a steel bear trap.

"Be nice Clowny, or I'll have to straighten you out again," said Todd. He flipped to the center of the book, where there was a full color picture of a similarly scantily clad girl surrounded by these werewolf goblin things, Heavy Metal didn't shy from the horrific and dark, so you could see the male members of some of the monsters. Things didn't look good for the heroine. Things looked even worse for me though.

"Does your Mommy know you read this smut Clowny?" Todd taunted.

I shook my head.

Billy, who'd been craning his neck to see, laughed out loud, "You can totally see their dicks. I bet Ass-clown likes looking at dicks."

"Is that true, do you like dick, Ass-clown?"

"No!" I shouted. Nerd humiliation was bad enough without being thought of as even less of a man for being gay.

"Well, I'd better keep this so Mommy doesn't find out what a naughty boy she has," He folded the magazine up and stuffed it in his back pocket.

"Yeah, he's a dirty boy alright," laughed Keith.

"We'd better put him with the rest of the garbage," said Todd.

They laughed and started to drag me to the Pizza parlor's dumpster a few yards away.

Now I really started struggling. The Pizza place also did a lot of Italian food, and had lots of nasty rotting tomatoes and stuff in their dumpster. Being tossed in a school dumpster was one thing. It was mostly soda cans, wrappers and paper trash. The back of a restaurant was another matter.

I shouted in defiance and tried to get away. But it was futile, like most struggles in nature. The weak and the young are separated from the herd, and the hyenas circle in and feed. I was going down like a gazelle that's been caught by the pack. I bleated for the herd, but no one came.

Keith flipped the lid open and I could smell the most disgusting aroma of rotting dairy products mingling with the odor of meat gone bad, stale beer and wine, and a dozen other dumpster smells that were probably even more foul that I didn't have names for.

"No! No! Help!" I shouted in vain.

"In you go Ass-clown!" said Todd and heaved my legs up and over, so I ended up somersaulting into the pit of refuse.

I screamed.

A word of advice. If you ever find yourself getting dumpster tossed. Don't scream. Keep your mouth shut.

I landed on a bag of something squishy and foul beyond words, and rolled off it, face first into a container of rotten cottage cheese, getting more than a little in my mouth. My gag reflex was instant. I puked. And because the container was still in my face, my own puke over flowed the funky cheese and ran down over the side, past my cheeks and onto my clothes. I heaved again. I could hear them making disgusted sounds and laughing themselves to the point of tears.

I struggled to free myself, and ended up further entangling myself in black plastic trash bags. Fully in panic mode I thrashed and succeeded only in ripping open the bags and pouring more foulness over myself.

I struggled to pull myself up and out, and with a herculean effort, I ripped myself free from the maw of the dumpster and fell, ass-over-tea-kettle, onto the concrete below; which itself was a cesspool of split wretchedness. I scrambled away and heaved again, the taste of vomit and rotted cheese curds still on my tongue.

To this day I still can't eat cottage cheese.

They were running as fast as they could, I could still hear their laughter as they rounded the corner and disappeared out of the alley.

Standing up I cried out at a sudden pain in my leg, I must have twisted my knee somewhere in the process, because stabbing agony rippled through my left knee every time I tried to take a step forward. It was too much, I started crying.

Through tears, pain, humiliation, and rage; I gathered up my school books and notes, trying not to get cheese slop on them and limped my way slowly home.

I have no tolerance for bullying as an adult. Not among children, not among adolescents. Not from adults. Twenty years later I'm a loud and vocal advocate for anti-bullying campaigns. The suffering we inflict upon our fellow human beings in the name of "Coming of Age trials" is vastly under estimated by those who've never felt the stabbing emotional anguish of being dropped in a dumpster and then having to limp another mile to get home.

Bullying is not a rite of passage. It's socially accepted torture. Never tolerate it.

After I saved Anna, I guess Todd and his goons figured I was no longer a target, I'd stood up to someone, picked a fight, and saved a girl from a horrible fate. Maybe it was just because I was dating Kimmy, and when a hot cheerleader identifies you as her boyfriend, you get indoctrinated into the upper echelons of society. Maybe it's because they'd finally started growing the fuck up.

Probably not.

In all fairness, Todd and I actually started getting along after incident with Anna. Not so much with his friends, but they treated me well enough. At the very least they stopped treating me like a peon. But Todd though, he was dating Beth again, and Beth was being sickeningly nice to me once more. So between Kimmy, pressure from Beth, and the fact I was generally accepted by the rest of the popular clique by then, he started actually talking to me.

The funny part, is I actually started talking back.

I guess at some point you have to forgive someone for being a stupid asshole, or you just can't move on; so I quietly forgave Todd, I guess. Besides, he was also treating Beth pretty well. They acted happy together at least. So by the time the first semester of our senior year was in the bag, Todd was the sixth member of our five person gang. He hung out with us, not as much as he did with his buddies I think, but enough that I stopped blanching at his presence and got used to having him around.

Truth be told, I was kind of glad to have another guy around.

He was a man's man too. Fully machismo and oozing testosterone, he was a surprisingly welcome balance to the presence of four girls and their auras of estrogen. He was crude a lot of the time, but crude in a guy way I kind of missed, without being actually offensive to the girls. (Though they often pretended to be, enough to hit him playfully in the shoulder at least.)

I give this to the guy, he was Mr. Charisma. He had a way of getting under your skin and being likable even when he had previously been the anathema of your existence for seven years prior.

Maybe I was growing up too.

I won't pretend we were best friends or anything, but alright, I got used to the guy. And in getting used to him, I grew to kind of like him. He was the guy I was cheering for when we went to basketball games, or wrestling meets. Beth dragged us along. Besides, it was a senior school spirit thing. I was dating one of the cheerleaders, so school spirit was unavoidable. When a D in algebra threatened his academic eligibility for basketball, Beth suggested I tutor him; to my surprise - and his I think - I agreed.

#

I know a lot of kids who sort of slack off their senior year, especially the last term.

I wasn't one of them.

A full load of advanced placement classes, tutoring Kimmy full time, and Beth and Todd in a couple of classes, going to basketball games, hanging out with my friends, going to parties, and of course, having sex with Kimmy every moment we could steal alone; I was running ragged. By the end of February I was averaging probably four hours of sleep a night, sometimes less. I was in a constant state of exhaustion. If I stopped moving I started to doze off. It took a couple of lattes to get me through the school day, and a couple more No Doze to get through studying and tutoring. I once saw a saying posted on the wall of my college dorm; 'Grades, Social Life, and Sleep: Pick Two'. It's so true.

Also, I was still in the running for Valedictorian.

It was down to Tommy, Christina Wu - Tommy's girlfriend, and myself.

Of the three of us, only Tommy and I were really in the running, because Christina had taken a couple of skate courses her sophomore year, and our principal weighed class difficulty in the case of ties. So assuming we all finished with a 4.0 GPA, Tommy and I had the better class load

I hadn't really spoken to Tommy much in the last year. When I'd become friends with Beth and the gang, I'd let myself drift apart from Tommy and those guys, the Scholars and C&C crew. I hadn't even been in C&C for almost a year, and the last time had been to sell Elliot a bunch of my old Spider-mans. I forgot what I'd used the money for. A shirt and some pants that Beth had liked I think. They didn't fit me anymore.

By some twist of fate, it was at the ticket sales table for Prom that I ran into Tommy again. Even though we were both in all advanced placement classes, we'd basically reverse ordered them, so the classes I took last semester, he was taking now, and vice versa. I still saw him around school in the halls and stuff, but we didn't even nod hello any more.

I was in kind of a rush, like I always was really. I needed about twenty two hours a day to get everything done I wanted too, but was unable to make due on just two hours of sleep, so I had to rush everywhere to find the two extra hours I needed for sleep. So I ran up toward the end of lunch to get in the line for tickets and stumbled a bit into the person in front of me. It was Tommy.

"Oh sorry... ah, Hey Tommy," I said as I recognized the person who I'd shouldered into.

"Hey Jack," he said indifferently. I think it was the apathy in his tone that stung and brought out the guilt.

He was wearing the same style of loose tee shirt and baggy jeans he'd been wearing when we were freshman. They fit him poorly and I could see burrito grease stains on the bottom hem of his shirt. He'd let his hair grow out and get shaggy, and he had a day's stubble on his cheeks and neck. After two and half years of hanging out with the image and fashion conscious crew I had been, I noticed this stuff. I couldn't help but notice. And judge, to my distaste, I judged.

I myself was dressed pretty well, I had a fashionable button down shirt on, and some kakis, my hair was trimmed pretty short and well groomed in a stylish manner. I still didn't need to shave much, so I had no visible stubble, and I had about two inches of height on him, but he had probably fifty pounds on me. It wasn't muscle either.

I caught myself thinking that he was still kind of a slob, and should take care of himself better. That he didn't look like valedictorian, he looked like underclassman slouch. Then I remembered that this was Tommy Johnston, his parents were not all that well off, and his dad was kind of a jerk about spending money on new stuff for his kids, and that he had three little brothers that were always getting into his stuff.

But I still found myself wondering how he'd gotten a girlfriend. Christina Wu was not exactly super model material, but she was thin, and cute enough I guess. She was always immaculately dressed and was the picture of organization. Kind of a stereotype I guess, but she fit it well.

I felt bad for judging him. I guess it showed on my face because he started to turn around again.

I decided to try and talk to him. Hey, he'd been my best friend from 4th​ grade until our freshman year, the least I could do was hello.

"So, uh, how's it going?"

He shrugged, "Alright."

"So, senior prom huh. Finally. Almost done with this Popsicle stand," I said, forcing some lightness in my tone.

"Yeah, can't wait. I fucking hate this place," he said with a lot more venom in his voice than I remembered

"So, uh, going with Christina right?" I offered, trying to change the subject. Every guy liked to have his girlfriend brought up right?

He shook his head. "We broke up over the summer."

Crap. "Sorry to hear that man."

He shrugged again, "She dumped me for some other chink guy, Yinn."

I frowned, that was awfully damn racist. I didn't remember that about him.

"Yinn? Alex Yinn?" I asked. Alex was a nice guy. And he wasn't Chinese, he was Korean. I knew because he was on the baseball team, and Kimmy loved baseball, so she was friends with a lot of the players. I'd met and hung out with Alex a couple of times at parties. Like I said, nice guy.

"Yeah." he said simply.

"So, who are you going with?"

"Ellen Sanders."

I somehow managed not to make a face. Ellen was in band, and no one would accidentally call her pretty. She was about sixty pounds overweight, and had an acne problem. I won't repeat the names a lot of the people I hung out with had for her, but I'm ashamed to admit they crossed my mind.

"Cool, she's nice."

He frowned at me, like he was suspicious of my statement. He was probably right to be so, but I kept my face neutral.

"You?" he asked after a second.

I couldn't help but smile, "Kim Allison." Hey, I was proud of my girlfriend.

He raised his eyebrows slightly. I could tell he was impressed, but he didn't want to admit it. That kind of pissed me off. Two and a half years ago he'd been high fiving me in the halls because I was going to tutor Beth Jenkins. Now I was going to senior prom with Kim Allison, the exceptionally hot cheerleader, easily one of the sexiest girls in school and all I got was raised eyebrows and naked jealousy.

He was jealous. In a bitter way, not a mildly envious of your friend's good fortune way.

Well fuck him, I'd earned my place where I was. It wasn't my fault if he couldn't be bothered to clean up and take care of himself long enough to get a decent girlfriend.

Holy hell, had I just thought that?

I was saved from further troubling thoughts by Todd coming up to me and interrupting

He slid up next to me, cutting ahead of probably a dozen other people at this point. But no one said anything, because he was Todd Smith, captain of the wrestling team, starting point guard for the basketball team that was taking us to finals.

"Hey dude," he grinned at me.

"'Sup." I replied. I was used to Todd. Heck, we were almost friends really.

"Think if I gave you the money you could pick up tickets for Beth and me? I gotta run," he asked. He was actually asking. Not demanding; not asking in a way that said he was going to dumpster me if I said no. I had his respect.

"You haven't gotten them yet?" I smirked, "You told Beth today at lunch you'd picked them up yesterday when she asked."

He chuckled, "Welllll what Beth doesn't know isn't going her hurt her, am I right bro?"

I just shook my head and chuckled. It was typical of him really. I'd gotten to know him well enough to know that he hadn't lied to Beth out of maliciousness, he was just terrible about remembering to do things, and he'd been put on the spot by his girlfriend.

"Sure man," I said with a grin. I dunno why I did. Maybe it made it seem more like we were friends. Why was I acting like this?

He pumped his fist down a little, "Yesss, you are a life saver bro. I gotta dash." He pulled out his wallet and passed over two twenties. Doubles tickets were thirty five bucks, a single was twenty.

I took his money and put it in my wallet.

He gave me his trademark bro fist slap, which I had down by now, and he dashed off.

I looked up from putting my wallet back in my pocket and Tommy was staring at me like I was a total stranger.

"What?" I asked.

"You're friends with Todd Smith now?" he asked, more than a little bitterness in his voice.

Tommy knew about the Dumpster incident. He was the only one besides me who did. Well, Todd and his friends knew of course, but I hadn't told anyone else.

I shrugged, "He's dating Beth, I'm friends with Beth. We hang out sometimes. I'm tutoring him in Algebra too." I added, because, I don't know, I felt like I needed to justify my acceptance of Todd with something else. Maybe I wanted to demonstrate I had power over him, maybe I just wanted more social status. Todd Smith was an athletic god around campus. He was captain of the wrestling team, point guard for the basketball team that was about to go to state, and dating the hottest girl in the county.

And I was his math tutor.

I guess.

Even twenty years later it sounds lame. But what can you do?

Tommy looked at me in obvious disgust and turned back around to wait in line in silence.

During the next ten minutes, three more people came up and said hi to me in line. Two girls, one of them a cheerleader, came up and gave me hello hugs; both asked if I was going with Kimmy. I said yes of course. I swear one of them looked disappointed. Matt Ethan, one of the basketball starters and probable prom king just gave me a bro fist slap on his way past the line.

No one said anything to Tommy, or even acknowledged his presence.

When they asked him for his money, I noticed he only gave them a twenty.

All this because I answered the phone two and a half years ago.

Maybe. I just don't know. Maybe I'd have become popular anyway. Maybe I'd have found a way out of the quagmire of nerdom and being beat down by bullies. Maybe I'd have broken free of the mold I'd been cast in all on my own.

Maybe I'd have been just as alone and bitter as Tommy.