Chapter 13

Francine

Being an 'army brat' stinks. Actually I'm not, but everywhere I've gone, that's what I was called. Well, except in Fairfield ... where there was a certain sophistication in the school. There they call us 'Base Brats'. The good part was that I had never felt as comfortable in any other schools, I don't know why but there we were a minority overall; odd for a school district surrounding a big base but maybe it's because Dayton is a big factory town and between the outright civilians and the kids of more or less permanent civilian workers at the base, we got a pass as more or less 'normal'.

Oh there was still a lot of snotty competition among the dependents, but that more or less stopped at the gates. We had to observe the pecking orders when we went to the teen functions at the O Club but those were minor overall; unlike what I saw at Clark where we always had to watch out for RHIP. If your dad was a junior officer, you got at the end of the line. I felt really sorry for the few kids of non-coms who lived there. Their lives were hell, relatively.

When we got transferred from Kelly in San Antonio to Wright-Pat, I was relieved because I'd heard great things about Fairfield from the other kids. Mainly that it took about a week to find friends and fit in. And it was true. There were a few girls, of course who resented competition for the boys but both the boys and the girls liked meeting new people and showing them around. Well, in Dayton there really wasn't much to see. It was just an ordinary medium size city. Oh, the science brains liked it because there was a big engineering club and some history types liked it because there was a connection to the French-Indian war, whatever that was, but for the rest of us it was just a good place for parties and socializing.

But I'd made a stupid mistake at Kelly and lost my cherry to some jerk who screwed me and then bragged about it to all his friends at school. I was only 14 and he was a 16 year old sophomore, and to me he seemed like a prize catch. I already knew girls who he'd screwed and left. I don't know why I thought he would treat me different. And when I got to Dayton, my rep got there soon after.

The good thing was I wasn't shunned as some base brat whore. The bad thing was having sex wasn't considered unusual and I thought I was expected to put out for anyone who asked me out more than once. And I quickly found out it didn't matter whether I did or not. Everyone just assumed I did. So, after I figured that out, I just did. At least anytime I was the least bit horny.

After the first few times I put out for my dates, I got to like it. And needed it. What I didn't like was I still didn't feel like I was in control. If a guy touched my nipples or my ass in a certain way, I was a goner and I might as well just flop on my back and spread my legs because that was how it was gonna end up, anyway, no matter how much I pretended to resist. If I let him touch my crotch or we dry-humped, even worse; I'd start breathing hard and get so wet I ruined more than one front or back seat.

The reason we got transferred to Wright-Pat was dad's friendship with the base Commander. When he retired, there, Dad decided to retire as well. In the military though, especially in the 'logistics' and technical fields that just means taking off the uniform and working for a civilian company doing business with the military.

When dad's friend, the General, hired on as a senior VP with some big supplier in Culverville, he called dad in to serve as his Director of Military Liaison. Meaning dad just worked from the other side of the conference table, as he put it.

So now I'm gonna finish up my last two years of high school with a pretty good chance of doing it all in one place. Just two schools in four years wasn't unusual but I had friends who moved almost every single year.

I laid low the first two weeks in the new place. The house and neighborhood wasn't all that different than I was used to, the kids were.

It was more 'California Laid Back' than I was used to and there was a new kind of enclosed Shopping Center called a 'Mall', rather than a huge downtown, like Rike's in Dayton, or a string of stores and shops clustered around a big store like Dillards around San Antonio.

There were about 20 little stores in that mall plus a Sears at one end and Penney's at the other and it was sort of neat to be able to stay out of the sun or occasional rain the whole time you were there. It also was a good place to people watch and I learned a lot from just watching the kids my age walking around and hanging out in the food area. There was more 'boy-girl' grouping than I was used to.

I found out about the neighborhood pool by accident. I guess if I'd paid attention to the plat brochure we got when we moved in, I'd have known about it but, because I had got a real bad sunburn when I was about 13, I was never much one for laying out at the pool and sunning. But being bored one day I was out riding my bike and found it at the end of the plat. It was a nice little pool if way smaller than the O'club, and there were a lot of little kids and my age up to about 19 or so, there so I rode back home to get a suit and towel.

And on my first visit I met Sally, Mary Ann and Larry. They rescued me from several older guys who'd evidently come to the pool to pick up pussy. I'd decided not to allow myself to go that route in Culverville. If I was gonna change my rep I figured, if I didn't do it now, I never would because college made it just too easy to get laid anytime you wanted.

I liked them. The girls were both good looking but friendly and Larry was different from most of the guys I knew. Oh, he looked at my bod, and I could tell he appreciated it but he didn't leer at me like he was seeing through my suit. And he didn't get an immediate hard-on.

Despite myself, that did bother me, though. So against my better judgement I did tease him while we were playing in the water and I felt good that he did 'get a rise' from rubbing against me.

I guess we all clicked because Mary Ann invited me to a Saturday cook-out and sleepover.

I enjoyed myself and was more comfortable with them than I was the last time I moved. Or maybe it was just because I was more mature. The guys who flirted with me kept it decent and none of them tried to feel me up. That was cool, and I got to do what I wanted which was play up to Larry. The part that bothered me about that was I didn't know what his relationship was with Mary Ann and Sally, but I noticed they didn't stare holes through me when I was playing with him so maybe they were just friends. I noticed that Larry disappeared a couple times with Sally, I guess maybe they were talking about me. I hope.

After everyone had left ... including one of Mary Ann's girl friends, we settled down to just girls in Mary Ann's room. Damn it is huge, must be at least 12 by 15 ... and there was no bed in it, just a big mattress and several sleeping bags. That was neat, I hate slumber parties where half the girls are on a bed and half on the floor.

Once we got down to the girl talk I tried to keep my cool but I asked them what I had to about Larry. And if he was available, and if he liked me at all.

I sorta hinted, too, that I had a rep at my old school and didn't want to get one here. Something the girls said made me wonder; they talked about how Peggy, one of them, had gotten talked about and how they embarrassed the hell out of the guys who talked. And 'now she was like a virgin', again. Whatever that means. And they wouldn't tell me if Larry knew anything about sex, but they also said they didn't care about my rep and I could be 'as virgin as I wanted to be'.