srs bidness, srsly

[boodie]

We won't talk about today, at all, least said soonest mended.

However I do have for your delectation a short story I wrote some seven years ago, I have cast my now professional proofreading and editing eye upon it, re written some stuff, fixed up punctuation, some grammar and tightend it all up. Be warned it has some scant mention of *SEX* in it.



Rites Of Passage



Every high school has them, every school in the world has them; the group of people who are the outcasts, the weirdos, and the ones who do not fit in to any of the other established groups. My high school was the same, the group usually consisted of the really short kid, the really tall kid, the fat kid, the kid who wore glasses, the kid who just seemed to be a little bit strange, the really intelligent kid and the kid with the really bad acne, that everyone avoided just in case it was catching. In addition, some were blessed with more than one of these attributes.

That is how it was in my high school; I know this because I belonged to that group, the not quite fitting in-group. Alone we would have been a target for all the other more popular groups, but in Grade 7, we all found each other, the weirdos. Moreover, we soon realised that strength did indeed lie in numbers, so we became an established group of our own, always looking out for the kids who did not quite fit in anywhere else.

By the time we got to Grade Ten we'd melded into a tight group of eight, we'd managed to still stick together in spite of differing classes and teachers, the still slightly strange ones, and come next year we would all be going to College together.

Finally, it was here, the last day of Grade 10 and we had arranged to meet one last time before the summer break began. Through the years, we had always hung around in one of the withdrawal rooms at lunchtime and this was where we held our meetings. There were plans to make for the next year; most of the rest of the Leavers were wandering about looking like they were off to face an execution, all in varying stages of lachrymal distress, but not us.

Let me introduce my group of misfits, names changed to protect the innocent, of course.

Cathy was the first to turn up, she would always have been the first, had a phobia about being late for anything. She belonged because she was weird, had an accent, smelt ever so slightly of mothballs and been obsessed by Viv Richards, the West Indian cricket captain.

Then there was me, taller than just about anybody else in the school including most of the teachers, thick granny glasses, a favourite of the headmaster and always the one the teachers got to run errands, which meant I got out of class a lot.

Then came Scott; tallest boy in the school with worst case of acne anyone had ever seen, wearer of glasses and supremely intelligent.

Next to arrive was Neville; main problem was the name his parents had saddled him with, disturbingly intelligent and he had the distinction of being the first boy who kissed me in grade three.

Joanne was my best friend, she was also a hypochondriac always off sick, usually came to school wearing a neck brace, face full of acne, and dumb as a post, but she had the best boyfriends, due to her 'friendly' nature. She is how I met my first boyfriend that my Parents actually forbad me to see.

Debbie was smaller than your average 10 year old, whiny voiced and always put upon. Her obsession was boys, which was a pity because to a man they avoided her like the plague.

Andrew was the smartest kid in the school even smarter than the teachers were, his main failing was that he had a clever mouth and was prone to talking back without thinking. An incredible show-off; he even annoyed us, but we stopped him from spending much of his time at high school with his head shoved down the toilet by someone he'd pissed off.

Last of all was Ian, thick as two short planks. He had managed to make it through primary and high school with no literacy skills at all, failed math at level one and only ever wanted to work with his hands on his Daddy's farm. Daddy however, was the eternal optimist so Ian was off to college and then Uni. We all knew that was never going to happen.

During all our time together as a group we'd never ever looked upon each other as possible romantic interests, probably because each of us, deep down inside thought of themselves as the most normal one of the weirdos.

In addition, normal people do not go out with weirdos, even weirdos who were your friends, so we made plans to meet on the first day of semester at College in the Quadrangle at 8.30 am, the 26th February.

Over the twelve weeks of the long summer break, I only saw a couple of the group, very fleetingly. I was busy doing other things as they were, so when February rolled around I was rather impatiently waiting to see them all. When I thought about it, I realised that I had actually missed them; and hoped that they had missed me.

Sixteen and leaving the restrictions of high school for the freedom of College, we were going to have so much fun. When the 26th finally came, it was with an air of expectation that we all met up.

The holidays had been kind to most of the group, Scott had stopped growing, and his acne had almost gone and he was definitely getting very good looking.

Debbie had grown a fair bit, and she had somehow learnt to stop whining, Greg had thinned down, and he was looking good too, Joanne had thrown away her neck brace and said that she had not been sick once during the summer, Cathy and Ian were still just Cathy and Ian. Andrew was looking forward to dazzling the Tutors with his brilliance.

As for me, well I was here for a GOOD time.

I had realised in the short time I had been standing in the Quad, waiting for the others to arrive that what was weird in high school was never going to make the grade in college.

I saw people wearing nothing but black with vivid red hair, people with pierced noses, eyebrows and other things, people dressed like refugees, people who wore army uniforms to school. All manners of shapes, sizes and sexual orientations; and in the scheme of things our little group was decidedly normal.

I was not sure I liked that idea.

I found out during the course of the next few weeks just how normal I was and by extension how boring it was to be normal. I had spent all high school yearning to fit in, to be normal and to be thought of as normal.

Now I knew that I did not like it not one little bit. I liked being thought of as weird; sadly, for me most of the rest of our little group did not have the same feelings. They loved being the normal ones; fitting in.

After a few months, we realised that we did not need each other any more, we did not need the support group to survive, and normal people always survive.

Though we all had different classes and free periods we still got together at lunchtime occasionally, but it was not the same anymore and we slowly all drifted apart. I saw Scott and Joanne the most; Joanne shared three of my subjects and Scott 2, so we saw each other for several hours a day.

Through all this time, I could not help noticing that Scott was turning into a very good-looking man, a real spunk.

About halfway through second semester I ran into Debbie and Andrew, there was a party on for Ian, it seemed his Father had finally seen the light and realised that Ian would be happiest on the farm so Ian was quitting, and did I want to come.

Of course I did, it had been ages since I had talked properly to the others, other than a few quickly snatched hellos as we passed in a corridor, on the way to class.

The rest of the group were revelling in being normal for the first time they fitted in. On the other hand, well I didn't like being normal, so by this time I'd gotten my ears pierced again, which was hardly radical compared to some of the people wandering around campus, but was very much out of the ordinary for where I grew up.

My hair at this stage was a very vivid bright green, so I rather stood out a little, I had decided that I had hated wearing shoes and so went about in bare feet, summer and winter.

I had also acquired along the way some surplus army shirts and camouflage trousers. This was what I wore all the time, multiple piercings, short green hair, bare footed and wearing military surplus; weird even by the standards of our little group.

The must have fashion accessory at this time was a Poncho, I had one of those, I'd sewn a string of Tibetan bells onto my bag and you'd certainly hear me coming.

Scott and Joanne were used to me, they saw me in class every day; however the rest I'd hardly seen at all for most of that year. I caused a sensation when I turned up at the party, bare footed, wearing a pair of combat trousers and a bright purple cheesecloth top, with green hair and a poncho.

I'd like to say that the silence I caused as I arrived was due to how stunningly gorgeous I looked. I know it looked stupid, but I didn't care, I was enjoying being different and this time by my own standards, rather than the stilted and restrictive standards of high school.

This time I HAD decided to be weird, rather than having someone else decide I was weird and treat me accordingly. For the first time in my life, I was enjoying NOT FITTING IN!

I had taken the tag of being weird and run with it, much to the dismay of the people I had gone to school with. Now that they'd finally found a place that accepted them as normal they did not want to be reminded of the years when they did not fit in.

I could understand that and I accepted it, however I knew that deep down this was only a stage I was going through; a rebellion. I was going to have a good time revelling in my weirdness before my innate good sense took over.

I knew that I would hardly get into the career I wanted to pursue if I stayed looking like that, so I was having one last wild fling before I had to divert my weirdness into slightly more acceptable channels.

Life was full of all sorts of possibilities and I was going to explore all of them.

So back to the party and the stunned silence that greeted my arrival. By this time, most of the group had acquired boyfriends/girlfriends and I was positive that the respective partners had not been filled in on the history of our little group.

Therefore, to them I was like this strange being that had no right to be there, they were so normal I was so weird, how did we ever get to be friends. I was not going to be the one to spill the beans, after all these people were still my friends and had kept me sane.

Scott and Joanne were not fazed, since they had seen me in far far worse fashion disasters. I got the impression that they were enjoying it all; the expressions on every ones faces and the stunned silence.

Which was broken by the sound of my laughter then Scott and Joanne joined in. The looks on their faces was priceless and something I will never forget.

Then the questions started, "What have you done to your hair?", "Are they army trousers?" then Ian said, "I wish I had the courage to dye my hair green". I was stunned, HE got it, the one person I would never have suspected, GOT IT.

That one comment hit the nail on the head, all it was a show of bravado, on my part, and only Ian, the boy who could barely read and write had seen it.

The party went as parties usually do, though without the usual choruses of 'Do you remember", those years of being outcasts at high school didn't exist anymore.

No one got drunk did anything stupid or said anything that they would regret, and as the party ended we all made promises to keep in touch more often. Deep down I knew that barring unforseen accidents we probably would not see each other as a group again.

Was this cause for sadness maybe, maybe not? I had outgrown them, they had outgrown being weird, perhaps it was best that we did not mix anymore. Soon it would be coming up to third term; everyone was too busy to worry about friendships that were disintegrating.

In the first seven months at college I'd not bothered with a boyfriend, I was having too much fun being weird. To be frank the sort of people that were attracted to the way I looked I would not have touched with a barge pole.

There was one exception; Steven he was in my Social Psych class and very gorgeous.

When I was fourteen I'd deliberately set out to lose my virginity, as I grew older I realised what a physical and emotional risk I had taken, so sex was a no go for a long while.

I realised that Steven liked me when he kicked me under the seat, I looked around and he threw a sheet of screwed up paper at me, a short message from him telling me he liked me; asking me to meet him outside the College office at lunchtime.

After that my grades were never the same again; we skipped classes and missed whole days spending them together. In summer, we went to Botanical Gardens most days, lying on the grass in the warm sunshine, kissing and light petting.

It got so bad that I was called in to see the College counsellor who warned me that unless I started attending more than three classes a week I would be kicked out, since my Mum had no idea that I was not attending classes we decided to be more circumspect.

In spite of the distractions I did pass and so did Steven, we spent summer holidays together and I was looking forward to going back to College after the holidays.

However, as with most things when you go back, it is never the same. I was in different classes to Steven as well as Scott and Joanne and we never saw each other, so it came as no surprise when I heard from someone that Steven had dropped out of college.

Though it did come as a shock when I ran into Scott in a corridor and he told me that Joanne was also dropping out. Her Mum had gotten her a job in a shop and as they needed the money, she was taking it; so another party was in the works.

By this time, I had modified my fashion sense, so I no longer looked like a refugee from the 70's, so my appearance would not have quite the same effect as last time.

Scott somehow managed to get everyone together; Andrew was in his first year of Uni, proving to all of us that he really was as intelligent as he always said he was by passing his HSC in one year.

Debbie was off doing the first year of a two year course in Child Care (this was the course I wanted to do myself), Ian was very happy working on his fathers' farm and had managed to do what twelve years of schooling had failed miserably in teaching him, how to read and write properly.

So there we were, eighteen months on give or take, down the track from the group who had left high school together and none of us was the same people who had met for the first time in 1977.

We had all grown and changed, when we were twelve, all we had wanted was to be accepted, it had taken five years, but most of us had managed it. All that crap people say about school years being the best years of your life is just that, crap.

We had spent four years in a place that did not accept anyone or anything that was slightly different, yet all it had taken was one year in a place where diversity was something to celebrate and enjoy, to realise our dream.

On to the party, unlike the last one when I caused a stir by dressing so unconventionally this time I caused a stir by dressing, for me, very conventionally. Gone was the green hair, bare feet, army clothes, black was in, black skirt and top, hardly over the top fashion in any sense of the word, sometimes I just couldn't win.

Someone brought a bottle of vodka, and fairly soon we were all slightly drunk and somewhat maudlin. This time there was lots of reminiscing, all tinged with a slightly ironic edge as we realised that in high school we were not that different from everyone else at school.

Nevertheless, just enough so that any difference was magnified thousand fold. We raised our glasses in a symbolic Up Yours to our high school and all those kids who had made our lives hell.

Somewhere between one drink and the next, we went from being slightly drunk to being very drunk, the noise level increased as did the music and I found myself dancing with Scott.

During the course of the past two years Scott had turned into a very dishy looking guy, I was drunk, and he was drunk and we were exchanging "do you remembers" he'd just finished one slightly rambling story about a camping trip in primary school that we'd been on.

(Primary school was the best school years for me, I loved primary school)

Scott noticed that I was staring at him, he asked why and for some reason I blurted out the fact that I found him very attractive.

Unfortunately, it was one of those moments that sometimes occur in a party, a song ends and no one is talking and there is dead silence, well my comment dropped into this pool of dead silence, and everyone heard.

I had been talking rather loudly to be heard over the music and the noise, the blush started at my feet and worked its ways upwards, I wished for the ground to open up and swallow me.

Everyone stared and then music started again, and so did the other conversations, I looked wildly around for a door to escape out of. There was one that led to the back stairs and I sat out there, alternately going hot and cold as I remembered my gaffe. Totally stone cold sober and wanting very much to go home and forget that the night had ever happened.

The door opened and it was Scott he sat on the step next me and I started to apologise, he stopped my apology mid sentence by leaning over and kissing me gently on the lips.

For the second time that night I was blushing furiously, he did not say anything, kissed me again and left me sitting there.

I managed quite successfully to avoid Scott for the next two months, it was rather easy since we did not share any classes anymore, and I had shifted to doing part time.

I have no idea what Scott thought of this because I certainly was not going to track him down; I had hoped that since he was drunk he might not remember some of it, or even all of it.

However, I had not quite counted on the rumour mill, by the time the rumour got back to me, it appeared that I had thrown him bodily to the floor, ripped off his clothes and we had had sex in front of everyone. Moreover, THAT was just the tame version.

Eventually however my good luck ran out and I ran into him figuratively and literally, in the corridor outside the library.

I was walking along with an arm full of books, not really watching where I was going and WHAM he walked out of door and I walked into him. At first I did not realise who it was, then I looked up and gee guess what, I started blushing again.

That was when I realised that he was also blushing, I guess he had heard some of the rumours, we looked at each other and then burst out laughing, and there was nothing else to do.

After he helped me deposit the books in return slot at the library we went and had a drink at the coffee shop up the street from the College. I was not quite sure how to broach the subject, so we rather skirted around the subject.

Scott did not really remember much about the party, he remembered what I had said (of course, my luck is not THAT good) and he thinks he remembered kissing me, but he had heard the rumours and because he could not remember what had happened he wasn't sure if some or any of the rumours were true. So he had been doing just what I'd been doing avoiding them, which is quite easy to do with 1700 students.

Over the next few weeks, we spent more time together, coffee here, lunch there; him waiting for me to finish my last class, walking me to the bus stop, that sort of thing. All very pleasant and nice and non threatening, and during all of this I was falling in love with him.

Towards the end of winter when the weather started to warm up a little and the frost stopped hitting the ground quite so heavily, I introduced him to my favourite place, the Botanical Gardens.

Since it was still a bit nippy there were never many people there, it was easy to find some secluded spots, with a rubber-backed blanket and some money it was very easy to spend the whole day at the gardens.

After some weeks of this it was spring and that's was when this young woman’s' fancy turned not so lightly towards thoughts of love, lust and things in between.

The blanket was spread out between two trees, up in the far corner of the gardens, a place not much visited by any one other than couples wishing for some privacy.

He was lying down, I was sitting next to him tickling his ear with a long stem of grass, and we were talking about what we were going to be doing next year.

I'd put in my application for admission to the Child Care course, had one preliminary interview and was waiting to hear if I'd made it to the next stage. Scott was coasting through his second year of college, not bothering to attend, finding that time spent at the gardens and other places were much more fun.

He had already been accepted into a job at Myers, a sort of traineeship, with the good ones being fast tracked for managerial positions.

During the course of the past few weeks, we had only exchanged a few kisses and lightly grappled with each other when hugging. I wasn't prepared for the moment when between a comment on the colour of the sky from me and a non committal grunt from Scott, he reached up grabbed the stem of grass from my hand, threw it away and pulled me down on top of him.

He started kissing me very seriously while his hands were doing all sorts of warm tingling things to the bare skin on my back.

I managed to disentangle my lips from his for a short while to get some air and to look at him he smiled up at me and I just could not help myself, once again my tongue started ignoring orders from my brain.

It blurted out those three words most teenage boys run a million miles away from, "I love you" my tongue said and the only thing my brain could do was engage the blush reaction, I went a very unattractive shade of red, AGAIN.

Much to my delight Scott did not immediately throw me to one side, mutter some excuse about having to go to the dentist and leave at a rate of knots.

He just lay there looking up at me; he did not look like he was going to burst into fits of hysterical laughter either, which was also good. Just when I was wondering if for some strange reason he had not heard or understood, he pulled me down again and started kissing me once more.

Well who was I to argue, I had said the magical words to a boything and he had not run, so I was counting my blessings.

During the course of the next couple of hours, we made love several times on the blanket under the trees in the Botanical gardens.

Impossible to do now as the gardens are under video surveillance.

Then we gave the birds a thrill as we sixtynined under the clear blue sky. No one but the birds, or perhaps an inquisitive possum saw us as we fucked on the blanket under the trees, in the botanical gardens.

It would be nice to say that the romance had a fairy tale ending but this was real life, not a fairy tale; we trysted for several months at the gardens. Scott had to start work, I started my new course and we just did not get the time anymore.

I will always have a soft spot for the botanical gardens, and I will always be grateful for College, and the two years I spent there were indeed the best years of my school life.

Funnily enough out of all the boythings I have had, I still dream about Scott the most, I have not seen him for years and years, but there was something magical about that year of college.

(c) Teddy 2000, 2007



Ahh, college was such a FUN time for me.

Comments

[elektron.livejournal.com]

You lead an interesting life...

Kinky boo ;)

[dharawal.livejournal.com]

yah, college was a great deal of fun.