Chapter 16: Sophomore Year, Jocks, And Bryn

I headed home, feeling both exhausted and exhilarated. In the garage, I again hid the pizza uniform, and put the remaining condoms in my pocket. I knew what would happen as soon as I stepped inside.

“I’m home.” I dropped the bag on a kitchen chair and opened the fridge, because that’s what my mother would expect. She came in, spied the bag, and sure enough, pulled it open and sniffed.

“Why do you insist on leaving your dirty clothes all about, you know where the hamper lives,” and she dumped the contents of the bag in the hamper. “Did you have a good time? Why do video games work up such a sweat in boys? Are you hungry?”

“No, I guess not,” I said, still working on suppressing a smile at the video-game-as-sweat-inducer comment. Best she not suspect the real reason.

I grabbed my bag and headed upstairs. “I’m gonna lie down for awhile, Mom. We were up most of the night.”

I secreted the condoms in my hidey-hole, and was unconscious in moments.

I am going to skip most of the rest of the summer. It was fun but aimless. I hung out with my friends, I slept, I read a lot, I fantasized a lot, but the sad fact is that Karen and I never found a long enough time together alone to repeat those amazing two days. Her parents had signed her up for ‘activities’ to keep her occupied and intellectually engaged, which I’m sure were fun and stimulating for her, but I had another kind of stimulation in mind.

I did get invited over to her place a couple of times over the summer for more cookouts (her dad was clearly preparing for his second career, where he would be a famous grill chef). On one of those occasions, she got me into the woodshop again for another fabulous blowjob.

On the other occasion, she happened to be wearing a skirt and after an intense bout of tonsil hockey and linkcasting serious arousal at her, I got to feel her butt under her skirt and actually got her panties (white, little yellow buttercups, cute) off, and finger-fucked her until she came. Her mother was just upstairs in the kitchen, and I watched Karen cumming, her face squished up, mouth open and eyes closed, breathing hard. It must have been exquisite agony trying not to make a sound while she came.

She staggered to her feet and into the bathroom off the den just as her mother came downstairs with a couple of iced teas and some chips. At the last minute I saw the panties on the couch and slipped them under the seat cushion.

“Where’d Karen go?” she asked, as she set the food on the coffee table.

“She just stepped into the bathroom,” I said. My hand was still damp from Karen’s pussy. The knowledge that we’d almost been caught was very erotic.

The other important thing that happened that summer was that I finally ran into Melissa Cooley again, looking as gorgeous as she ever had, but with a hangdog look on her face like her cat had died. I said hi, and she just nodded. I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“We’re moving.”

“What? What do you mean?” I felt like the ground had opened up under me.

“My dad got a new job, in California, close to a hospital that specializes in treating what my mother has. I know it’s the right thing to do, but I hate to leave here. I’ll miss everybody. I’ll miss you.”

It turned out she would be gone in just a few days, there was a new house waiting in California, the movers would pack and move everything here, and her family would drive out. I was nearly struck dumb.

She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek. “So long, Carter, I’ll try to write and send you my phone number. Call if you’re ever in California. Thanks. For everything.” And like that, she was gone.

The next few days were pretty bleak and I felt like I was on the verge of tears. I had always just assumed she’d be around school and that we would finally find a time to be together, perhaps finish what we’d started. I hadn’t realized how much I would miss her. I hoped she’d be happy there.

Almost before we knew it, Labor Day was upon us and school right afterwards. First day of school I assumed my elevated status of sophomore. Well, elevated to everyone in elementary and middle school; all the upperclassmen still looked at us like we were slugs crawling out from under a rock. Except for a few of the better developed freshman and sophomore girls, of course, who were treated to the dazzling charm of junior and senior attention.

Of course, Karen bore the brunt of the attention, which she was doing her best to deflect. She had her mind focused on her schoolwork, so the first few weeks she suffered pretty unrelenting attacks of charm from the male upperclassmen. After a month or so, they mostly gave up and moved on to other, easier targets, probably deciding that she was a lesbian. Why else would she decline an invitation to a party with a junior?

But the downside of her focus on her schoolwork was that I, too, was left out. I mentioned it one day at lunch when we happened to be sitting together without a lot of people nearby. She said she had decided that at least for the first part of high school, until she got comfortable with the schedule and the workload, she wanted to study, keep her grades up.

“You understand, don’t you?” I said I did, but to tell the truth I was a little disappointed, and not just because of the absence of sex, but because I really liked being with her, her smarts and her sense of humor. But she knew what she wanted and I had to respect that.

As in freshman year, I was finding that I was able to “read” the teachers, to understand what they were trying to impart as long as they understood it themselves, so I could anticipate the answers to questions asked in class. By using their understanding of the subjects they taught, I was able to learn quickly myself. I realized that I couldn’t just do that, that I’d need to do some work on my own, but I had that edge of almost understanding something as I studied so that the rest of it came quickly.

So, while I had to do some studying at home, it was way less than others in class had to work to gain the same level of achievement. Thus, to my great pleasure, and my parents’ overjoyed relief, I was getting A’s in almost everything. Except Physical Education. Apparently I could not develop muscles and athletic ability by tapping in to the instructor’s mind.

So I quickly got the reputation of being the “smart one”. You’d think that would make me admired, someone to be looked up to, but you forget, this is high school. Nerds are a lower form of life. I didn’t consider myself a nerd, but most everyone else did: I was smart, ergo, I was a nerd.

So the teachers liked me, because it made them feel like they were good at their jobs if I picked up the material so quickly. The administrators loved me, because the teachers liked me and I did well on tests, and if the teachers are doing their jobs it must mean that the administrators are doing their jobs well, too.

Who didn’t like me? Well, the jocks, who comprised a good portion of the school. Sports are really big in high school. Sports are supposed to teach teamwork and hard work and persistence, in order to achieve a common goal (winning).

To me what it taught was that winning was everything, that failure was unacceptable, and that team members were superior to lesser mortals, and therefore it was okay to lord it over your inferiors. Seeing certain guys on the sports teams, particularly footballers, swagger through the halls while their admirers swooned in their wake I found really toxic.

So I ignored it as best I could and went about my business. But nerds, nerds are an easy target. So some of the jocks liked to torment me. Mostly it was insults, something beyond good-natured ribbing. And they fed on each other, one would do it and the others would laugh, then someone else would have to try to top it. I could mostly deal with that. I just smiled and walked away.

But sometimes, sometimes they didn’t like it if I didn’t respond to to their barbs, because they didn’t like not being the center of attention, and then it became physical. They were big guys, many of them, and spent a lot of time bodybuilding, so it wasn’t like I could duke it out with them. I didn’t really get beat up, because there were enough school staff around to keep that from happening, but I would get my books knocked down, I’d get “accidentally” shoved into a locker, I’d get an elbow in the ribs. It got old fast.

So I started thinking about the interactions, and trying to tap into their wavelengths, so to speak, in order to understand them and anticipate them. I started by thinking about how I interacted with the teachers, almost like I was reading over their shoulder and sharing their understanding. I tried doing that with the sports guys and got ... nothing.

It was like listening to the static between radio stations, there was no logic there. I wondered what it was, maybe a surplus of testosterone or something, that was muddying the connection. I wasn’t able to connect with them the way I was with a more mature mind, like that of a teacher.

I did find that I was able to anticipate attacks, in the sense that I knew when one was coming, much as I could anticipate when a teacher would call on me, but not what the attack would be, at least not yet. So I could brace myself, which helped.

On my way to my next class one day I turned a corner and and ran into a trio of basketball jocks, pushing each other and laughing loudly. The ocean of students parted in front of them as they walked. The alpha jock, a bright light named Rooney Cullough, noticed me and started shouting “Nerd alert! Nerd alert!” to the amusement of the people around him.

He stopped right in front of me and looked down at me. “Carter, you’re a nerd. I hate nerds. You know why I hate nerds, Carter? Because they take up space.” He reached down and grabbed the front of my shirt, and pulled back his fist. “You’re no use to anyone and I feel like breaking your nose.” He wasn’t joking around, either, at least I could read that much.

I knew I was going to get it, and not one person looking on would interfere, because he was a sports god. So in desperation, just before he launched his fist, I linkcast a feeling of shame (which I wasn’t sure he would understand) and channeled “really gotta pee, right now”, and awaited the fist impacting my nose.

It never came. The look on his face changed from mindless anger to acute embarrassment, and he looked down, eyes wide. There was a wet spot spreading at his crotch, and he let go of my shirt and turned and walked very quickly to the nearest bathroom. It did not go unnoticed by the crowd, but no one would say anything. Not there. They’d talk about it later and soon it would be all over school.

So I had a momentary respite. I gathered my books and proceeded to class, only slightly late. But it got me thinking. I knew that I couldn’t linkcast a nebulous feeling like ‘fear’, because it was non-specific. It had to be a specific fear. I wondered what it was that athletes, and more specifically athletes who were bullies, feared.

I played with it for a couple of days and then thought that it might be something as simple as not being thought of as a winner, not having the self-esteem of the leader of a group, of being a loser. I didn’t know, it was just hypothesis and speculation, but it was something to start with.

I found out a couple of days later. when Cullough and a buddy encountered me in the hall. “Carter. Are you still a nerd? Looks like it.” And more in that vein, while his buddy chuckled at the razor wit and shuffled his feet. I didn’t have much time, so I started linkcasting “no self-esteem, loser” at him pretty hard.

His tirade continued, but the level of intensity started dropping off, until he was mumbling, then just walked past me and continued on down the hall, leaving his buddy scratching his head until he hurried after him, calling, “Roon, hey, Roon!”

Well, that was something. It seemed like a pretty generic type of signal, and I wasn’t sure it would work on everyone, but it was an avenue of investigation. I’ll have to give it more thought.

But all was not gloom and despair. High school is very social, with groups and cliques within groups, and sub-groups within that, the in-people, and all the people on the outside who would like to join one of those groups.

If it hasn’t been clear up to now, I’m not a person who has to be in one of the accepted groups. Don’t care, and I try to get along with everybody because people are interesting, mostly, and I like to keep my options open. But the groups do hang together and have fun of one type or another, so lots of parties.

And so that’s why, on an October Friday, I was knocking on the front door of a ranch house a mile or so from where I lived. This was the house of Wallace (“call me Walt”) McConnell, who lived in the strange nether world that existed between nerd and jock. He was smart, which is how I got to meet him (we argued in class about the meaning of one of Hamlet’s soliloquies, and neither of us was a decisive winner), but he was also athletic, playing basketball and baseball. So he could travel unmolested between both camps.

This party, down in his parents’ den, was loud and crowded. There were a few athletic types, but I think most of the jocks were boycotting the party because he allowed nerds, so more of the latter. And surprisingly, a fair number of girls. Which camp they belonged to was unclear; we ‘nerds’ were willing to be open-minded.

Noise, lots of it from a too-loud stereo, plus chatter and yelling across the room. People dancing, or trying to. Lots of laughter. Walt shouted, “Hey, Carter, glad you made it.” I think. I only heard every other word. But I smiled and waved. I saw a few others I knew and waved at them.

I found a soft drink and drained half of it, ‘cause it was hot down there and I was thirsty. A group of girls were dancing together, and one of them broke off and came over, and said, “You gotta dance before you can drink and eat, those are the rules. I’m tired of dancing with my girlfriends, dance with me.” I shrugged and put the drink down and started dancing with her.

I’m not much of a dancer, but I can kinda fake it, and the point of her asking me to dance with her was so she could show off. Her friends had seen her moves, so she was showing them off for me. Kinda cute, black curly hair, shorter than me, petite, nice butt. She looked up and said, -- well, shouted -- “I’m Bryn.”

“Hi, Bryn, I’m...”

“I know who you are, you’re the brain, Carter, and you’re Rooney’s nemesis.”

“Say what?”

She opened her mouth to respond, then shook her head and beckoned me to a quieter corner. “I can’t yell anymore, I’m getting hoarse,” she said. “I said I knew your name and also that you were the guy that Rooney Cullough used to bother. Until that little accident he had in the hallway. You didn’t do that, did you?”

“How could I do that? I’m sure that was just the result of some mild urinary tract infection caused by massive overdoses of steroids.”

She chuckled at that. “I would not be surprised. He’s very competitive, wants to go pro, but I don’t think he’s that good.”

“I’m probably the wrong person to ask about his chances. But good luck to him.”

“Yeah, right. I hope he breaks both his knees, the jerk.”

“Bryn, do I detect just the faintest hint of animosity?”

“We girls have a nickname for him, ‘Rooney The Looney’. There’s something not right about him. He asks girls out, and they tend to be the younger ones who are maybe a little naive and aren’t hooked in to the grapevine. And when they go out they always wind up some place where there’s no one around and he’s all over them and will not take no for an answer. He can get very physical, even violent. He hurt one of my girlfriends enough that she had to go to the ER.”

“I didn’t know,” I said. “Couldn’t she press assault charges against him?”

“Are you kidding? He’s a basketball star, he’ll get the team into the state finals, nobody will follow up on any charges against him, especially not now. And it’s not the first time, either.”

“I don’t like bullies, not when he bullies me, especially not when he bullies people who can’t easily defend themselves.” I would have to think more about Mr. Cullough.

“Anyway, didn’t mean to get on a soapbox. Enjoying yourself?”

“Just got here, but yeah.”

“Okay, enough rest, back on the floor. Move it.” And she pulled me back to the dancers. We danced for half an hour or so, me trying to keep up, her just enjoying the pleasure of expressing herself. I had to admit, I was enjoying watching her. She had nice legs, and the butt had a mind of its own when the music was going. It was an education to watch it. I wonder what it felt like, was it as firm as Melissa’s?

It was odd, I hadn’t been quite as sex-obsessed as I had been earlier that year, with Melissa and Karen. I’d been caught up in the school grind and actually enjoying some of my classes, which had tempered my sex drive. But watching this particular butt in front of me had me reviewing my priorities. I found myself linkcasting some arousal at Bryn as we danced.

I was noticing that her pelvis was remarkably flexible, and her butt and her hips seemed to have the ability to move in at least two different directions at once. Fascinating. From an engineering perspective, I mean.

She was looking at me while she was dancing, smiling almost lasciviously, with a glint in her eye, and clearly showing off. I wasn’t quite sure what the object of it was, but it was nice so I channeled a few pinches to her nipples.

I noticed that some of the other dancers had gotten very physical, with some of the girls grabbing guys’ butts as they danced, and vice versa. Some of the girls were caressing their breasts with their hands while they danced. These dances were a lot more stimulating than in middle school.

As the current song ended, she grabbed my hand and said, “That’s it for awhile, I’m pretty much wiped.”

“You were working hard out there. You looked good. I wish I could dance as freely as you do. It was very expressive and sensual.”

“That’s a good word, I like that.” She took two cans of soda out of the cooler and handed me one. Root beer? Oh, okay.

Let’s see what happens when I change things up. The feather sounds good. I channeled a feather brushing lightly across her breasts and nipples. I noticed her arms pull in closer to her body and she gave a little shiver. Odd, because it was really hot down here. I changed the linkcast to “nice guy, funny, smart” and waited.

She moved a little closer, so our hips were touching, and said, “The drink tastes good. I was really thirsty, and hot. Let’s take up a collection so they can get air conditioning.”

I laughed, and said, “I don’t think the A/C could keep up with this sweaty crowd.”

“You may be right. How ‘bout we get some outside air, cool off. Whaddya say?”

“I’ll grab my compass and pith helmet and be right behind you.”

She apparently knew the house because she led me out the back door, saying hi to Mrs. McConnell in the kitchen.

“So, not your first time in Chez McConnell, Bryn? And what is your last name?”

“It’s Rowley. And Walt and I grew up in the neighborhood, so we’ve been friends since we were kids.”

There was a single Adirondack chair in the back yard under a tree. If you stuck your head out from the chair, you could just see the house.

She said, “Well, there used to be two chairs here, so I don’t know how comfortable this is going to be. Let’s try it.”

I sat in the chair, which was deep and angled back. I never thought them very comfortable, but it was what was available. I squeezed as far to the right as I could, and she attempted to sit next to me. The process of her trying to wiggle her butt into the limited space was interesting, but clearly doomed to failure.

“That’s about as awkward a position as I can imagine,” I said. “I’ll get up, you sit.”

“No reason for one of us to be uncomfortable. If you don’t mind, I’ll sit on your lap.”

“We could try that. Should I frisk you for sharp objects, in the interests of public safety?”

She raised an eyebrow, but smiled. “I think you’re safe, Carter. Unless it would set your mind at ease?”

“I’ll trust your judgment, Rowley.” But I did switch the feather to her ass.

I moved to the middle of the seat, shifting my legs to the left, then she positioned her butt in front of me and gently dropped onto my lap. She wiggled to get comfortable. I almost asked her to do it again.

“Better,” I said. “Almost comfortable, in fact. You okay there?”

“Yeah, if I can lean up against you.”

“Be my guest. And take a complimentary hot towel, courtesy of the management.”

That got a laugh. “You’re funny, Carter. They were right.”

“Who was right? Have those blabbermouths down at the police station been talking again?” I changed the linkcast to growing arousal in her pelvic area.

“Around school, I mean.” She squirmed again, then took another sip. “That’s your rep, smart and funny.”

“That’s it? Smart? Funny? I will be having a pointed discussion with my PR firm in the morning. I distinctly ordered debonair, dashing and devil-may-care, as well.”

She reached out and patted my cheek. “There, there,” she said, “I am sure you are all of those things, and more.” Flick of the feather on the clit.

She sat up straight and took another gulp of soda. “Do you mind if I have a sip of yours? I seem to have finished mine.”

I opened my palm in the direction of the can on the arm of the chair and she grabbed it and took a sip. She put the can back and wiped her lip with the back of her hand and looked at me. She took a breath.

“Carter, you don’t mind if I try this, do you?” She leaned down and locked lips, pressing hard. I chanced a little tongue on her lip, and got it back twice over. Now I had her tongue in my mouth as well as my own.

I pulled away and looked at her. I smiled and said, “I like these parties. You get to meet new people, exchange ideas, explore philosophies, suck tongues.”

“You got that right, Carter. Let’s exchange tongues some more. That was nice.”

So we did. And while we did, I exchanged the feather for the brush of a finger on her clit, and felt her catch her breath, then dive in harder. I was rubbing her back, squeezing her arm, and brushing her face with my hand. This time she pulled away, breathing harder.

“I must say, Rowley, this is very nice. Not the first time you’ve done this. But as my grandfather always says, ‘Practice makes perfect’. Should we practice some more?”

She nodded quickly, took a breath, and dived back in. She really had a nice tongue, quite long, I think, and strong. We hadn’t really met, so I wasn’t sure how receptive she was going to be, but I moved my hand down to her butt and squeezed. She was very receptive. She started squirming, and humming in her throat. I brought my hand up and down her side a few times, the last time brushing her nipple with my thumb.

She pulled away and gasped. “Sorry,” I said, “it slipped.” She jumped back on my face and sucked my tongue some more, then reached down and nipped my lip with her teeth.

“Kinky, Rowley. But I kinda like it. I’d like to try nipping you. Where should I start?”

She pulled away again, her eyes really intense, and looked at me for several seconds. “You’ll do, I think. Come with me.” Huh?

She pulled herself free from the chair, then reached down and pulled me out. I was grateful for the help; it was an awkward chair.

Now she was half running, pulling me. “Rowley, slow down, what are you doing?”

“We’re taking a walk, Carter. Just about a block. To my place. Don’t talk, just walk.”

And two minutes later we were there. She pulled up abruptly. “Here’s the deal. My parents are home, but they go to bed early. There’s a guest room over the garage, hardly ever used, so we’ll go there. My parents’ room is on the other side of the house, so it should be fine, But keep your voice down, just in case.”

She led me down the driveway, stopped at a side door to the garage and pulled a key from under a fake rock, then let us in. It was a double-cylinder deadbolt, so she locked it behind us. Without lights we fumbled up the stairs.

She stopped me at the top of the stairs and said, “Don’t move.” She fumbled around then found a small lamp by the side of the bed and turned it on. Couldn’t have been more than a 15-watt bulb, just enough light so you wouldn’t fall down the stairs and kill yourself.

She reached out, grabbed my belt, and pulled me close, then locked tongues once again. She moved her head back. “I don’t know why I am so turned on right now. No offense, Carter ... what is your first name, anyhow?”

“Tom.”

“No offense, Tom, I went there looking to hook up because I’m horny, and I was looking for one of the older guys with more experience, but then I got talking to you and decided I like you. I don’t know what it is about you, but you have me very turned on right now. So you’re it.”

I really am too much of a wise-ass sometimes, I can’t help myself. I looked at her wide-eyed, and said, “Coach? I made the team?”

She reached out and grabbed my earlobe and pulled, hard. It hurt. “Carter, consider this your try-out. Do good and maybe you can play varsity.”

I channeled a lick to her clit as I brushed the side of her neck, and answered, “Coach, I promise I’ll give a hundred and ten percent.”

She jumped forward and started unbuttoning my shirt as fast as she could. I couldn’t get at her buttons with her hands in the way, so I pulled the shirt out of her pants and fumbled with the button in front. She was much faster than I. Excellent digital skills, probably a piano player. My shirt was unbuttoned and she was on her knees pulling my pants down before I finished unsnapping her jeans.

My pants and shorts were around my ankles as she examined my dick. She stuck her tongue out and licked and I sighed. She didn’t wait, just dropped her lips on it and started sucking. “Christ, Bryn, that’s wonderful, but wait, please.” She didn’t look quite happy, but she stopped.

I pulled my shoes and pants off without falling down, then stood up. I faced her, reached around and grabbed her hair and pulled her head back gently, then kissed her hard again, counting her teeth with my tongue, and channeling a slightly more rapid lick at her clit as I rubbed my hand above her crotch.

She gave a moan, and I said, “Now, let me finish what I started.” I stood her against the side of the bed and worked the buttons on her shirt until it fell open. She had on a black nylon bra, sturdy but kinda lacy, holding in two lovely breasts, not large, but better than a handful. I pulled the shirt off and tossed it on the bed, leaned down and kissed the top of her breasts. Now the arousal linkcast was getting serious, and her breathing was heavier.

I finished unsnapping the button on her jeans, then found the pull tab for the zipper and slowly pushed it downward, mentally brushing on her clit, ever so lightly. Her lip was trembling. Oh, that was so cute, I like that. At the bottom of the zipper I let my fingers continue down, pressing lightly. She closed her eyes and groaned. I put my hands inside her jeans, caught the edges with my thumbs and pushed down. I followed them to the floor.

I said, “Sit on the bed.” She dropped her butt straight down, and I unlaced her shoes, slipped them off, then tugged her jeans, which were pretty tight, off her legs. Her legs were as I had guessed, very nice, smooth, and good muscle tone. Must be all that dancing.

I don’t know why, but I was feeling that she wanted to be controlled, told to do things. I really hoped that I didn’t get this wrong. This could be over before it really started. But I swallowed and said, sharply, “Stand up.” She jumped right up and stood there, waiting for me. “Turn around and fold your arms.” She did.

And her ass was beautiful, even better without the jeans. It was wrapped in black nylon panties, also lacy and quite sexy. I ran her hands up and down her sides, increasing the arousal linkcast and making it pulse. Her breathing was getting quicker, more shallow. I moved to the back of her thighs and she moaned slightly.

I dropped down to my knees and squeezed the cheeks of her ass. They were very firm, almost elastic, no extra fat at all. I fondled and prodded and squeezed, and now she was breathing in short breaths. I couldn’t wait any longer. I hooked my fingers in her waistband and pulled her panties to the floor.

God damn, it was wonderful, really perfect. And this was a surprise, she was shaved, completely bare pussy. I hadn’t seen one close up before, not in real life. I grabbed the bare ass in both hands and squeezed it rhythmically. It was hypnotic.

“Rowley,” I said, “I do believe I have discovered the secret to your magical dancing. It’s right here.” And I gave her butt another squeeze. “Bryn, lean forward and put your hands on the bed. I need to examine this discovery at length, and the light is bad.”