Chapter 1: Introduction & March 15th, 2002

I'm Tom Ferguson; I'd doff my hat and bow, but the gesture is pretty meaningless when you're writing an introduction to people as opposed to actually standing in front of them introducing yourself. Plus, I don't hardly ever wear a hat.

I am sixteen years of age, sixteen and a half, more precisely, when the events I'm about to relate happened. A high school junior, attending North Phoenix High.

I am five ten, very skinny, barely a hundred and thirty pounds. I have short brown hair, what my dad calls a 'business man's cut.' I don't know; I'm not a businessman, but it's what I like. Blue eyes.

I'm a good student in school, but nowhere near a grind like some I could name. I'm not a jock, a nerd or a dweeb: just average in looks, above average in grades and below average in social skills; like I said, average. This is about the change in my social skills, first and foremost.

Before I go on, I want to give an initial dramatis persona. Be advised that it quickly changes; I leave it as an exercise for the reader to keep track of the new names.

My dad is Dave Ferguson, an aerospace engineer, thirty-eight years old, married to my mom, Ellen, a year younger. Mom is an economist and mathematician; she's worked at home for years and years, before my sister and I were old enough to go to school on our own. At the time this happened, she was working Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from ten to six.

My sister is Joanna; I've always called her JR, no one else does. That's a story all by itself, and I'll get to it in due course. Joanna is thirteen, skinny like me, but eight inches shorter. Way skinnier; not even a hundred pounds.

Mom is best friends with Kim Wells, who is mom's age. Kim's daughter is Penny; thirteen like JR and Penny is JR's best friend. Penny is taller than JR, not as thin. Penny is a little taller, a little heavier than JR. I'd never heard anything about a Mister Wells, but Kim and mom have been friends since college. Kim looks like she could be mom's sister.

My best friend is Tony Richardson, a junior like me; that's about all we have in common except being friends. Tony is the co-captain of the football team, a running back. Not only taller than me, but forty or fifty pounds heavier, very blonde, very crew cut. For all that Tony is a certified jock, he's really a nice guy; we've been friends since third grade. Tony and I average out to normal in the introvert/extrovert categories; he's more outgoing than I am, I'm more cautious. As a result, a time or two I've kept Tony from going off the deep end and doing something completely dumb; on the other hand, Tony has encouraged me to do any number of things I'd probably have passed up, left to my own devices. Dancing comes to mind.

Tony's girl friend is Sue Ellen Wilson; she lives next door to Tony. Once upon a time, back in third grade, Tony lived next door to me; in sixth grade, he moved next door to Sue Ellen, about two miles away from where we live.

A year after Tony moved I learned some important lessons. We were at Rosalie Sanchez's house for a New Year's Eve party for us seventh graders; my hormones had really started to kick in and I was eager to find out more about girls. I'd come on my own, Tony had come with Sue Ellen; I'd been at the party for about an hour, when the giggles and titters from the kitchen drew my attention.

I heard someone mutter something about mistletoe in the doorway; I glanced up and saw the sprig. Then Tony appeared, having heard the same news. With a big, shit-eating grin he left, coming back a minute later with Sue Ellen, who he proceeded to kiss a whole lot more hotly than I'd ever seen in real life. Sue Ellen got into it as well, and they caused more than a few blushes in the room.

A few minutes later Tony was standing next to me, as people were debating who might go next. "You should try it, Tom," he told me. I looked around; my eyes settling on our hostess, Rosalie. Short, dark, exotically beautiful. I'd had a crush on her since forever.

Kismet, Karma, fate... call it what you will. I started towards her, she started towards me. I wanted to kiss her; she was on the way to the bathroom. I put my arms around her under the mistletoe, and kissed her the same way Tony had kissed Sue Ellen.

Abruptly I was pushed away, and Rosalie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Eeew!" She exclaimed, "You put your tongue in my mouth!" She turned and stalked away; I was left non-plussed, not understanding why it had worked for Tony and failed for me.

Later, Tony kind of hinted that he and Sue Ellen had been doing a whole lot more than kissing for some time; that he couldn't tell people he was going with her, because everybody thought they were too young. Tony wasn't happy about that. And I realized that you can probably kiss a girl you're going with a whole lot more friendly than you can kiss someone you barely know, no matter how many times you've thought about her while jerking off.

In truth, that first exposure to the facts of life, however cursory, was a formative experience. Rosalie never invited me to a party again; was barely civil at school. I felt bad and would have apologized, except Tony convinced me that guys should never apologize. I learned later that sometimes Tony is full of shit.

As a result, after that I was even more cautious than I had been, socially speaking... with girls anyway. At the time of these events, I'd actually gone on one date, when I was a sophomore, right at Halloween. I took Ramona Duncan to the Halloween costume party; Ramona was the daughter of a woman mom knew from work. Her mom and mine arranged the whole thing. Ramona was significantly more shy than me; our moms knew that but had wanted to see if propinquity propinqued. It was a date filled with silence, as neither of us could think of anything to say to the other. We did manage to exchange a half-hearted, 'Good night' at the end of the evening.

One last piece of set dressing: our house. Mom and dad had gone to college together in the early 80's. When dad graduated he got a decent job and then he and mom got married. They looked around for a place to live and found this place, a two-bedroom duplex, somewhat unusual then in Phoenix as it had two stories. Down stairs was a living room, and a kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom; upstairs were two generous bedrooms and another bathroom.

Mom was pregnant with me when they moved in; three years later, pregnant with JR, mom and dad decided then that they needed a bigger place. They already knew JR was a girl and wanted her to have her own room. Right in the middle of house hunting, the family in the mirror image duplex next door moved away. Dad decided that we could buy it cheap, and did. They renovated the entire duplex, the room that had been our kitchen became a dining room, the living room became a family room; the other half pretty much remained like it had been. Because the upstairs bedrooms shared a long wall, there was no way to go between them. The only way to go from the upstairs bedrooms on one side to the bedrooms on the other side was to go downstairs, then up the other set of steps.

Mom fretted about that, when I was little; because they were now in the new bedrooms, while I was in their old room, and JR across the hall from them.

We had fire drills once a month; where I'd run down and meet them at the bottom of the steps and we'd go outside. We had smoke detectors and all of that. Personally, I liked the arrangement; my parents didn't 'drop in' all that often, unexpected like, to my room. The guest bedroom was across the hall from mine, but usually if there was a guest, JR got sent to sleep there and the guest moved, temporarily, into her room.

A typical day at that point in my life was to get up at 6 am, go down the hall to the third bathroom in our house, shower and dress for school. At half past six, I'd have breakfast with everyone else, then at 7:30 or there abouts, I'd drive myself to school; JR usually rode with dad, as the junior high JR went to was in the opposite direction from the high school. While mom's schedule was regular, pretty much, she pretty much didn't leave the house until 8:30 or 9:00; even the days she worked. She was consulting with a major local bank, doing economic forecasts.

Anyway, schedule: I'd come home from school, usually picking up JR and sometimes Penny around three from the middle school. When we got home, JR and I would change clothes, and then we'd study until 6 or so, then start dinner preparations. After dinner, at 8, we could watch TV, read, or do what we wanted. Mostly I read; JR frequently went to visit Penny, or Penny came over to our house; JR reads a lot too, Penny not so much.

A word about JR: She's three years younger than me. My earliest memories are helping mom take care of her; I even helped change JR's diapers, although I doubt if I was that much help. JR was my little sister, and I was her big brother. Our relationship meant a lot to me and I was proud of it. I was there to help, advise, and make sure no one bothered her. I took to the role with a will; far more extroverted in it than I'd ever managed any place else.

We were friends, we talked a lot, played all sorts of games with each other and our parents; we had a lot of fun together.

The closest thing we ever had to a fight was when she decided that she would use some hydrogen peroxide she'd found and turn herself into a blonde. I convinced her, after much argument that she should wait for mom to come home and ask her. Sure enough, mom explained that it had to be done carefully or it would look... bizarre. Not then, but a week or so later, JR turned blonde for about a month; she hated it and applied a rinse to go back to brunette.

Enough setup!

Now to the actual events of the day it all started...

Friday, March 15, 2002

I was reading on my bed, lying on my back, book overhead, when JR knocked on the door to my bedroom. "Phone call, Tom. Tony."

I got up, headed downstairs, wondering who it could be, not even slightly aware how much my life was going to change, all stemming from that phone call.

"Tom old buddy!" Tony was in a jovial mood. Which meant, I figured, that Tony wanted something.

"You doing anything, Tom?"

"Reading," I replied. I heard the snort on the other end of the line.

"You remember I was telling you this week about my Uncle and Aunt from Seattle coming to visit us; that this was spring break up there, so my cousin Marsha is with them."

"Yeah," I said, curious. "I remember."

"They got in earlier than we expected. Did I mention my Uncle works for the Seattle Supersonics?"

Maybe a million times. "Yeah." I replied.

"Marsha is a few days younger than me; she's a basketball player. Anyway, Marsha wanted to know if she could come to the game with us tonight. I told her Sue Ellen and I were going with you."

A fig leaf for Tony with his parents, I knew. How many times in four and a half years had Tony pretended to be visiting me, or out with me, when he'd really been inside Sue Ellen's panties? I hadn't any idea, but I was sure it was a lot. I was the perpetual third wheel that he trotted out to show that he wasn't having sexual congress with Sue Ellen. From the number of times I was trotted out, I assumed he was a busy beaver. He was my best friend, Sue Ellen was nice; I'd never, ever had a problem covering for Tony. And, of course, since we'd both gotten driver's licenses, the number of times and excuses had increased an order of magnitude.

"No problem," I told Tony.

"Ah, there's a problem," he said limply.

"A problem?" I sighed, thinking I had a glimmering of the problem.

"They're loaning my car to my Uncle and Aunt for the weekend, so they can go up to Sedona and scope out houses; they're thinking about getting a house there to stay in during the summer."

I'd heard often enough about snow birds, and I murmured assent, although anyone expecting warmth in Sedona was going to have a big surprise their first winter there. "So, I was hoping you'd be able to drive Marsha, Sue Ellen and me to the game tonight."

"Yes, sure," I said a little miffed he hadn't understood my grunt the first time; then realized that was probably a bad way to go about deciding such things.

"And could you, ah, escort Marsha?"

"Is this ah, like a blind date, Tony?" I asked sarcastically. "She's ugly, right?"

Tony came right back. "Marsha isn't ugly! She's really nice, Tom. I promise." I could tell there was something else. "Like I said she plays basketball, right?" He went on defensively.

"That's what you said." I knew there was something else; it only remained to find out what.

"I mean, aside from the fact her dad was a player, she is too."

"Tony," I said, getting a little exasperated, "what?"

"Tom, she's six six."

I tried to imagine a really nice, six and a half foot tall girl. My imagination failed me.

"Please, Tom! Please! I mean, we can leave early if it's a problem."

Sure, leave early. Drop Marsha off, he'd go to Sue Ellen's house and play doctor or something. I sighed, "I guess this is what friends are for, right?" I asked.

"Yeah, Tom. Thanks, you'll do it?"

"Sure, why not?"

"I owe you, guy. I owe you!" Then Tony said he had to run, he was at the airport waiting to pick up his Aunt and Uncle's bags.

In the meantime, I was left to contemplate what to wear on a date with a giantess. I decided, like I always decide when going out, to wear dockers and a long-sleeved sports shirt. Tony says I'm sartorially challenged, I asked him to spell either word, which he had problems with. Yeah, Tony dresses better than I do, but I once pointed out to him that I'd dated as many girls as he had. That broke Tony up, as of course, I'd been on one date with one girl, and he'd been on a million dates... or more... with just the one girl.

I drove over to Tony's a little before six and got out. Tony was there at once, smiling, shaking my hand. A minute later I met Marsha Richardson; Tony had been right about her, low-ball if anything. She was drop dead beautiful, if a little tall. She smiled shyly at me, I smiled shyly back.

She was thin, but had a really cute face, and her dark blonde hair was done up in a ponytail. She was wearing a flower print blouse and black stone washed jeans. Sue Ellen was abundantly sumptuous when it came to breasts; Marsha had a full plate as well, although nothing like Sue Ellen.

Tony went next door to get Sue Ellen, and as soon as she and Tony were in the back seat the two of them immediately lip-locked. They were kind of like Romeo and Juliet, with only half the family baggage; Sue Ellen's parents worshiped their daughter, nothing she wanted was denied her. Tony's father wanted his son to be a NFL super star, and didn't want any 'distractions.' Tony's mother was much nicer, but more quiet and reserved than her husband. Tony and Sue Ellen were star-struck tragic lovers, who could never get enough time together.

As I drove I glanced at Marsha to see how she reacted to the back seat frolics. Marsha flicked her eyes back towards Tony and Sue Ellen, and mock-grimaced. Tony and Sue Ellen had passed the kissing stage and were now feeling each other up.

I nodded, and a few minutes later we were at school.

Marsha was much easier to talk to than Ramona, and we traded a lot of anecdotes about our schools. Like Tony, Sue Ellen and I, she was a junior, and as Tony said, a jock on the varsity girls B-Ball team, majoring in pre-college athletics.

Chapter 2 »