The Outsider and the Rebellous Gir.

It was dusk, getting dark. We stood on the beach facing each other, just stood looking into each other’s eyes. Then he reached out and slowly unbuttoned my shirt. I let it fall to the ground. He undid my bra, took it off and placed a breast in each hand as we continued gazing into each other ‘s eyes. Then he took my head in his hands and kissed me long and hard, his tongue brushing my lips, exploring my mouth.. He kissed his way down my neck to my breasts and his lips embraced first one nipple and then the other. ”You taste so good,’ he said.
I gasped for breath, tilted back my head and closed my eyes as his fingers found the zipper to my shorts. They fell to my feet and his hand slipped under my panties and caressed my mound, my vagina. “Oh God, Chris, that feels so good.” I put my hands on his cheeks and kissed him over and over. “Keep rubbing me there Cliff. Keep rubbing and never never stop. Finally he wrapped his arms around me, drew me near and kissed me as though he was sucking the air out of me.” Oh,Cliff, “I sighed you are one great lover.

“Time to see what you’ve got down here,” I said and pulled down his shorts. He was wearing a jock strap ”This keep your balls in place?”

“I don’t have balls. I’ve got nuts.” He embraced me. “And when I have you, I’ve got three nuts.” I laughed and gave his bare bottom a slap ”Wise ass,” I said. Then I slipped off his jock strap I gazed at his rock hard cock for a second and then encircled it with both hands and rolled it between my palms. “I love your big banana,”I said and bent down and kissed the tip. You don’t have any prepuce, “I said examining it. Are you Jewish?
“ No, “he said. What’s prepuce? Some kind of disease?
I laughed. “No it’s foreskin Covers the tip of your coc…your penis if it isn’t cut off.”

“Wow, you seem to know a lot about the male coc…penis. Did you make a study of it?”

“Sure I did. What could be more interesting to a girl than a man’s , ok I’ll say it…cock.”

We began kissing again, groping, caressing each other. I was gasping for breath. I was losing control of myself.I could stand it no longer.I turned and dashed into the water. He ran in after me. He grabbed me from behind and put a hand on each tit. I could feel his big cock pushing into my backside, riding up and down my crack .I turned and faced him. “I had to get in the water, “ I said “Away from you. I was too hot, too excited. I.. I don’t want to make a baby, at least not now.”

He embraced me, kissed my gently. “ Next time ‘I’ll bring a condom, “he whispered. “And couldn’t we make a great baby together?”. 

We walked back to the beach. Then I took his rock hard cock in my hand and started jerking it back and forth. He bent down and kissed me on the lips ” I don’t want you going home completely unfulfilled,” I said. I stood holding it, massaging it, pulling the skin back and forth, faster and faster. Then I watched it spurt. We left his seed on the sandy beach, never to germinate.

Each morning after that I would go to my place, now our place, on the hidden beach. But he was never there. After a swim I would lie naked on the sand reviewing our last time together, imaging his hands on my tits, his fingers between my legs what his cock would feel like inside me. I squirmed and grew wet hoping he would show up. But he didn’t – never did and now these images in my head were keeping me from sleeping at night. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get him out of my head. I walked around all day long in kind of a fog.

One day my friend Erin called and said, “I hear your friend Tarzan has been arrested.”

“What,” I asked. “You mean Cliff?”

“Yeah, John Keats’ buddy. The police are holding him on suspicion of murder”

“You’re kidding, right? No way would he ever kill someone.”

“Don’t you read the papers? He is accused of raping and killing a black girl over in Doggerville. The paper says they have a lot of evidence against him. It says he went to an all black party with his basketball friends . There was a lot of drinking. Someone, Cliff, the paper says, took a girl into a bedroom, raped her and then, they assume, choked her when she said she would tell on him.”

When the others at the party found the dead girl they ganged up and beat the shit out of him.

“They’re wrong. Where is he”

“ The paper said he is in the Doggerville jail, waiting to be transferred to the county prison.”

I hung up and raced downstairs. I grabbed a set of car keys from the hook in the garage and jumped into the BMW. I raced to the Doggerville jail . Inside I told the policeman at the desk that I wanted to see Cliff… Cliff. I couldn’t remember his last name.

“You a member of the family”

“No, No but I’m a good friend.

“Sorry. Only family is allowed. 

Look Charlie McCay is my uncle. 

The attorney general ?

Yeah. You want me to call him?

Don’t bother. I’ll let you in. But only for fifteen minutes.

He called to another cop standing nearby. “Frisk this girl. Then take her down to that kid’s cell.”

The cop looked like a teenager. “ Right this way,” he said. Gotta make sure you’re not taking something into the prisoner. We walked down a hall. Gimme your purse. He opened it and examined the contents. Get up against the wall there. Now lift you’re arms up – straight up. He felt under my arm pits ran his hands down my sides and brought them back up to my breast. He pushed them, squeezed them, jiggled them. “ I was incensed. “Get a good feel?” I asked. 

“You got the wrong idea. We gotta be careful. Some women tape drugs or razor blades under those jugs and sneak them in that way. Guess your tits aren’t big enough to do that though. Now lift up your skirt.”

“Look I’m not trying to sneak anything in. Just let me alone and take me to the cell.”

“Can’t take a chance. I could get in big trouble if you sneaked something in. Now pull up your skirt.

I was angry but I was desperate to see Cliff. “Ok. “I said , but hurry up”.

“Don’t get your self in a tizzy. This is just routine. We can’t take any chances.”

He had me turn around and checked my crack with his fingers. Then he turned me around again and reached under my panties. “There’s nothing up there,” I said. “Get your sleezy paws off me.”

“Not something I want to do. Just something I have to do. Sorry if you don’t like it.”

I sneered at him. ”You must love your job. Now you can go in the back room and jack off.’

“Oh, that’s not nice. Come on.” We walked down the hall and stopped in front of a cell. I looked in. Cliff was sitting on a bunk bed, his head in his hands. He heard the Click of the lock being opened and looked up. “Oh, Cliff. Oh, Cliff. What have they done to you?” His face was black and blue, his eyes almost swollen shut. Tears filled my eyes. I rushed into the cell and threw my arms around him “Oh Cliff, my love. My darling.” I kissed his face. He stared at me as if he had never seen me before. He had a far off distant look in his eyes. I began to sob. Oh, my love, my love. Come back to me. Don’t you know me? Your love, Kathy?

‘Kathy?’ he said straining to remember. “Do I know you, Kathy? Kathy. Kathy. I never knew a Kathy.”

I went to the cell door. “Guard. Guard. I want this inmate taken to the hospital right now. Get your ass moving and get an ambulance right away. “

‘We can’t do that ma’am . we need authorization . “

“ Get the fuck out of my way, “ I marched down the hall and grabbed the phone on the cop’s desk.

“Hey, you can’t do that , “He rose to his feet.

Back off or I’l l smash that fucking nose right off your face. My eyes were blazing “I held up the phone ready to swing it. Then I called 911. An ambulance arrived within five minutes. “ Take that man in the cell down there to the hospital right away. I’ll meet you there.” 

In the emergency room a doctor examined Cliff. I stood nearby, watching. When anyone tried to tell me to get out I answered “I’m his wife and I have a right to be here. “

Finally the doctor finished his exam and came over to me. “He’s had a serious concussion. He’ll have to be here for at least a week. We will do all we can for him.”

An agnozing week . I visited the hospital every day. In the meantime I called my uncle and told him I needed a good lawyer.

After the fourth day Cliff’s head began to clear up. We laughed and joked and reminisced. The day before he was to be released, I visited him again with great news. Someone had come forward and confessed to the girl’s murder. Cliff was off the hook. I told him the news and we rejoiced together. 

Just before I was to leave for the day I said,” I have a special present for you..actually for both of us.
I held out my hand. “Guess what I have.”

“Let’s see. It fits in your hand so it must be really small.”

“Well, yes. It’s kinda of small. But it rapidly grows when it’s put in the right place.”

“It’s a seed. Some kind of seed.”

“Well, you’re close. It does have something to do with seeds. But not the kind you’re thinking of”

“I give up. What is it?.”

I opened my hand and the object rested on my palm. Cliff stared at it, not sure what to say.

“It’s a condom, Cliff. A euphemism for, and I lowered my voice to a whisper, a euphemism for- let’s fuck.”

. 

ich to live as rated by one of the national magazines for the fifth year in a row. My family and I moved to Ralston five years ago when my father was given a million dollar bonus by the Board of Directors of the Alsomex company where he is the CEO. I know his salary is more that a million a year so the bonus was like pocket change.

That kind of money isn’t unique in Ralston. There are few in Ralston who don’t make as much and you can tell that by driving through the community and checking out the houses. A $500,000 house would be considered a glorified shack by the denizens of this town and if there are any homes worth less than a mil I haven’t seen them Indeed the builders of new houses in Ralston try to outdo the standing structures as a matter of pride. The town zoning board requires that each home be situated on a least three acres. Behind the three or four door garages you might expect to see a Jaguar , a Mercedes or maybe a Lexus and one or two sports cars like BMW’s or MG’s for the teen kids. 

The people all appear to be made from the same cookie cutter. If they don’t conform when they arrive, they soon fall into line.That means being white, Republican , Presbyterian or Anglican. Catholics and Jews are not particularly welcome they belong to the Country Club, drink the same brand of liquor and vote the same way. The men commute to work by car or train, are gone from home ten or twelve hours a day and marry the same kind of women. If the wife they have doesn’t fit the mold they trade her in for a younger svelte version to model their prosperity. The women are not there to cook or clean house. Labor is performed by citizens from Doggerville City, a blue collar community on the outskirts of Ralston, that is mostly made up of black and Hispanics with some professionals in the neat suburban areas . Often mothers and their daughters will he hired as regulars to clean a house or two each week. It’s not unknown for the parents of a son to slip a couple hundred dollar bills to a maid, who has an attractive daughter, to have the daughter stay the night as a present for the boy’s 13th birthday. Depending on how the evening went, the daughter would also be given several hundred dollars when she left. With that kind of payment the boy’s mother had no trouble lining up a black or Hispanic teen girl for her son’s first sexual experience. Sometimes the mother would hide a video camera in the boy’s room so she can vicariously experience her son’s first lay later on

Though the town of Ralston provides employment for the citizens of Doggerville they resent the treatment they sometimes receive. For example, a car full of high school boys from Ralston will periodically drive to Doggerville and cruise the streets at night until they spot a black or Hispanic girl walking home from work or whatever and force her into the car. They would drive to the park, strip her and take turns with her until they grow tired of their sport. The girl is warned what will happen if she resists. When they are through with the girl they would her drive back to Doggerville and shove her out of the car with a warning not to tell anybody. No need to warn It would be useless for the girl to report the abuse. At best they would file a report with the police but nothing further would happen. When it came to the rich and powerful the rule is ‘No harm, no foul.’ 

The men from Doggerville take care of the mansions’ grounds in Ralston, walk the dogs, clean the cars and do any manual work as needed. Whites live in a much more exclusive section of Doggerville. They are the store owners and clerks of the stores located in Ralston. Most professional people livein the white section too- teachers, doctors, law enforcement officers and the like who compute to Ralston to service the people there. Buses transport them to Ralston and on weekends the buses run well into the night to accommodate workers at the many parties and other social events that often terminate well into the wee hours of the morning.

The offspring of Ralston’s parents can best be described as pampered brats. From an early age they learn they are the privileged, the special, the ones who are entitled. If a teacher reprimands a student outside the classroom for misconduct that teacher may find herself on the disposable list. The high salary paid to teachers makes it easy to find an immediate replacement.. Thus, for instance, if a boy is seen fondling a girl in the hall, the teacher is expected to direct the students to their classroom without comment about their conduct. If the girl resisted the fondling and reports the incident to her mother, the mother will generally brush it off as a rite of passage, something every girl experiences in her school years. Inside the classroom, however, students are expected to be orderly, polite to the teacher, and attentive. Learning is a high priority among the parents who expect their progeny to be well prepared for the admission requirements of the prestigious colleges they will apply to after graduation.

Middle school children take sex education, not in the classroom but in their homes or the homes of their friends. These teens generally spend a lot of time alone in their bedrooms during the winter, where they may have a private adjoining room with desk and computer , a stereo system and a small refrigerator where they keep cold drinks. Generally a TV is in the bedroom so they can watch it while lying in bed. Girls often invite their male and female friends over to help alleviate their loneliness and boredom Parents may be home during these get together but generally let the party group alone. They think it’s good for children to get to know what each other’s bodies are like, to learn that boys have erections, what causes them to have an erection and what happens when the erection is stimulated and boys learn what the female body is like and how to stimulate females.
When one or two boys come along with one or two girls to the get together, a routine is usually followed. The hostess will often have taken a bottle of vodka from her father’s cabinet and serve vodka and tonic drinks to her guests. With the music beating a sensuous piece and after three or four drinks, the couples may all lie down on the king sized bed, talk,tell dirty jokes, wrestle, and begin kissing. The girls come prepared. They wear no bra and it is expected that boys will massage their breasts After some heavy petting including the girl rubbing the boy’s penis while it is under his clothes the girl may decide he needs some relief. The girl with him typically smiles , gratified that he desperately wants her. The routine is that she will unzip his pants and take out his swollen penis. She will play with it for awhile while the others watch and cheer her on until finally he ejaculates. She will grab one of the hand towels conveniently placed nearby to avoid a mess The other couples may do the same. Occasionally one of the girls will say ,”Let’s have a contest.” Then each one will take out her partners penis and when the hostess say,” Go,” the girls will begin to jerk off their partner. The couple that ejaculates first is the winner. If someone should question one of the girls about her conduct she would likely answer,” It’s no big deal . We’re just having some fun and it beats playing scrabble.”

Much of the same conduct is carried on in the high school except both boys and girls are much bolder. Many girls wear short denim skirts with skimpy panties underneath. A handsome male teacher is likely to see several girls in each of his classes slouching in their seats with their legs spread enough so that the teacher will have a good view of their panties. Usually at least one will wait after class to talk to the teacher and flirt at bit without being too obvious. If the teacher complains to the principal about the panty exhibition he is reminded that the school has no dress code and to just live with it. The school halls are the playgrounds of the privileged. Girls know they are likely to be groped by boys if they are caught alone in the halls. 

Because of their fathers’ positions in the community boys feel entitled to do what they want with females. For example, a young attractive female was hired right out of graduate school to teach art in the Ralston High School. One day two boys went to her classroom after school and made suggestive remarks to her. When she tried to leave they blocked her way and forcefully took off her sweater and bra. She struggled and cried and they just laughed as they played with her boobs. Then they pushed her down on a desk and pulled off her panties. Just then the Vice-Principal walked in, saw what was going on and told the two boys to leave. The teacher was then reprimanded and later fired for not being able to control her students. 

Such is the school I attended. I’ll never forget that April day in my senior year that Cliff McCann was enrolled in our school. I say was enrolled because it wasn’t his idea to enroll. Apparently Cliff had been showing up every day at the library and spending most of the day there, reading all kinds of books. After a week or two the librarian became curious and asked him why he wasn't in school. He didn’t have a credible answer so she checked with the school administration which in turn had the truant officer pick him up. 

The first class he attended was my English class. He stood in front of the class while he was introduced as is true of all new students . He had long dirty hair, uncombed and hanging down below his shoulders and facial hair that was trying to be a beard without much success. He wore an old pair of blue jeans that looked like they had never been washed and a red checked flannel shirt with holes in the elbows. Grubby was perhaps the best word to describe his overall appearance. Students sitting close to him reported later that he smelled and his fingernails were crusted with dirt.

Mrs. Powers couldn’t hide her disdain for this trampy looking alien as she directed him to sit down. Girls giggled as he walked down the aisle and boys made remarks like, ‘Ho, cave man.” One of them stuck out his leg and tried to trip him. Cliff evaded a fall by reaching out to grab a desk .“Thought you might like to take a trip, animal, “ the boy said with a smirk. Cliff looked at him without reaction as he continued to make his way to the back of the classroom. Mrs.Powers watched and heard the remarks without comment. 

Cliff reported every day to class but never said a word. No one talked to him and Mrs. Powers simply ignored him. A couple weeks later the class was discussing the poets of the Romantic period Near the end of the period, Mrs. Powers said, “Now let’s review. Who wrote ‘ Ode to a Grecian Urn?” No hands went up. “Anybody/ she questi0ned.”A girl called out, “Shelly?”

“No, Virginia, it wasn’t Shelly,” Mrs.Powers said. Then she looked to the back of the room where Cliff was slouched down in his chair with his head on the desk. “Maybe Mr. McCann can help us out if we can wake him up” she mockingly said with a sly grin, “How about it Cliff. Who wrote ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn?”

Cliff sat there, silent. “Well, Cliff. Aren’t you going to help us out,” she said in the same condescending tone. “Maybe Cliff never heard of the Romantic poets,” she said to the class.

“Keats,” he bluttered out, a touch of anger in his tone. “John Keats.”

Surprised, he class turned to look at him . Mrs. Powers looked stunned. “That’s right, “ she said. “What a lucky guess.” Just then the bell rang and we moved on to the school cafeteria. I went to lunch with my dearest friends, Polly and Agnes, and Rosy May. As I carried my lunch tray to our table, I saw Cliff sitting in a corner in the back of the cafeteria, by himself, with no lunch, absorbed in a book he apparently had taken from his rear pocket. My girl friends immediately got on his case, indignant that the school administration would allow such a disreputable animal in our pristine school, with our pristine student body. I remained silent as they carried on about his presence. 
When I next saw Cliff, he had been cleaned up. Apparently the gym teacher had been instructed to take him to the showers and have him shower. He was now wearing clothes that were several sizes too big for him and faded from having been washed so frequently. But at least they were clean. Cliff had rolled up the bottoms of the pants and the sleeves of the shirt and a belt had helped pull the pants tight around his trim waist. His hair no longer looked dirty but was shaggy as ever, and there was sadness in his eyes and a beauty to his face that were endearing, at least I thought so. The next day he had on his old clothes but now they were clean – washed and dried by the home economics teacher in the school washer.

Cliff was in two of my classes, English and history. In class he would just sit, slouched in his chair, silent, but occasionally I observed him after class talking to Mr. Henry, our history teacher. Mr. Henry had always treated him with respect and when students made mocking comments directed at Cliff, Mr. Henry would not tolerate it and warned them to keep their remarks to themselves. From overhearing bits of their discussion, I concluded that Cliff had a real interest in history and wanted to discuss further some points Mr. Roberts had made during his class lecture. I began to suspect Cliff wasn’t the clod the students assumed he was.

One day after school I was looking for my girlfriends to board the school bus when I saw a group of students circled around some one and shouting “Get the hairy bastard “ and “Beat the shit out of the Neanderthal,”

I pushed my way through the crowd and saw Cliff in the middle of a ring of boys with girls on the outer edge. The ringleader seemed to be Kevin Short, a tall muscular junior, who repeatedly shoved Cliff until he fell down. When Cliff got up he was pushed down, again and again. I was incensed. I pushed my way to the center of the circle and shouted, “Let him alone you brute, you big bully.” Kevin dropped his hands to his sides. The crowd grew silent, waiting Kevin’s response. He turned toward me and said, “Oh, what have we here. A little lady coming to the rescue. Will bug off, Kathy. I like playing with your tits but I don’t like your big mouth.” The crowd let out a collected “Oh”

Then I heard a voice from the crowd that I recognized. “What are you doing, Kathy? Why are you defending that scum bag?” I looked toward the voice and saw my girlfriends who had been cheering Kevin on.”

I was furious, not only about what he said about me but what he was doing to another human being – someone I didn’t even know. As I moved closer, Kevin reached out, put his hand over my face and pushed me hard. I fell to the ground. Suddenly Cliff charged toward Kevin, hitting him first with one fist and then another. Kevin went down, muttered an obscenity ‘ and sprang to his feet. As he rushed toward Cliff, Cliff hit him again and again, fending off punches launched by Kevin, ducking and weaving and lashing out first with a left and then a right. Kevin was bleeding now and with one powerful upper cut, Cliff put him down again. Kevin was stunned. He shook his head and struggled to his feet. He found his buddies in the crowd. “Get him,” he said. Three or four boys grabbed Cliff’s arms and held them as Kevin steadied himself. His face-hardened into a hateful scrawl and he lashed out at the defenseless Cliff, battering his face again and again. Cliff fell. Then Kevin lifted his foot and kicked Cliff in the crotch. Cliff groaned in agony and rolled into a ball, holding his crotch “Ok, let’s go. Maybe he learned not to mess with me,” Kevin said. The raucous crowd broke up and walked away, laughing and joking. Cliff lay alone on the ground, groaning and holding his hands between his legs.

I walked over, knelt down and turned his face toward me. Both eyes were swollen; his nose and lips were bleeding. He opened his eyes, tried to focus and said, “Hi.” Then through thickened lips he whispered, ”Are you my guardian angel?”

“Well if I am I’m not doing a very good job. Can you get up?”

“I’ll try,’ he mumbled.

“Here, I’ll help you. “ I put my arms around him and lifted. After a struggle he got to his feet. We slowly made our way to the school steps where I told him to sit. I glanced toward the buses and saw my three dearest friends watching. 

‘You’re pretty well battered, “I said 

“”Yeah, guess someone around here doesn’t like me .”

“Who can I call to come and get you?”

“Ah! Nobody. You can go home now. I’ll be all right in a bit.”

‘I can’t leave you like this. I’m going in to get the school nurse.”

The nurse came out and helped him inside. That was the last I saw of Cliff for several days. In the meantime I took lots of heat from my girl friends who couldn’t understand why I would defend a someone like Cliff, trailer park trash for sure.

Cliff and I didn’t speak to each other again for weeks. Actually he didn’t speak to anyone. He was completely ignored except when one or the other made a disparaging remark about his appearance. When he and I passed each other he would smile and nod and I would smile back but that was all. That was the only time I saw him smile. Most of the time he was grim and his face showed anger or helplessness. He was an outcast and he felt it.

As the end of the school year drew near, Mrs. Powers assigned the class one last project- a major paper that would count for a third of our grade. We had a choice of three different topics. I choose one in which I had to analyze the psychological and societal influences on Lady McBeth that motivated her to act as she did. I finished my paper days before the due date and turned it in. On the day before the deadline I was in the computer room completing another assignment when I saw Cliff examining a computer as if he had never seen one before. I walked over to him and asked what he was doing. “I have to type my paper for English, “ he said. “I don’t know how to turn the computer on.”

“You don’t know how to turn the computer on and you’re going to type your English paper?”

“Well yes,” he said. “Can you help me?

“Do you know how to use Microsoft Word?” I asked.

“I don’t even know what it is. But I’m sure I can teach myself. You just type, don’t you?

“Cliff, there is no way you can learn in time to type your paper. Give it to me. I have a computer at home. I’ll type it for you”

“I can’t let you do that? Why would you ? I can’t pay you. I have no money. “

“Give it to me, “I said. “Who said anything about money?”

The next morning just before class I handed him the typed paper. “That’s a great piece of work,” I said. “I’m really impressed. How come you know so much about T.S. Eliot?”

“He’s a favorite of mine. “The Love Song of J.Arther Prufrock is such a great statement about life.’

‘I’ve read it, but never really understood it. After reading your paper I know a lot more about what Eliot was saying. “ In the paper Eliot mocks the trivialities of life, man’s fears and lost opportunities. Cliff explained the meaning of the symbols utilized by the author and alludes to the poetic beauty of the opening lines of the poem and the figures of speech he uses. I thought it read like an article from a scholarly journal.

A week later the papers had been corrected. Mrs. Powers called each student to the front of the room and commented as the student was handed the assignment paper. When my turn came, she said I had done a fine job and gave me a grade of A. Cliff’s name was the last to be called. Every one grew silent, waiting in anticipation as he slowly made his way to the front of the room, unkempt as ever. Mrs. Powers looked at him sternly and said, “Your mark is F. I don’t except plagiarized work to be handed in as if I were stupid or something. Did you get this off the computer? Find it there and pass it off as your own?”

I sat in my seat aghast. Cliff looked at her with hate in his eyes. He seemed about to say something but then took the paper from her, ripped it in two, threw it on the floor. As he walked out of the classroom, he turned to her and said,” Asshole.” 

I was enraged. I jumped to my feet. ”Mrs. Powers,” I shouted. “He wrote that paper himself. I know he did. I…I typed it for him. I have his handwritten copy at home. I can prove it.”

Mrs. Powers smiled her condescending smile.” Sit down, Miss Kearney. Always trying to be the do gooder. I heard about how you tried to protect that…that person when he started that fight a few weeks ago with Kevin. “ Her voice took on a mocking tone. “ Good old Kathy. Always on the losers side.”

The class laughed. I felt my face turn red with rage. “ You’re not fair. You’ve had it in for him ever since he embarrassed you by…by knowing Keats wrote that ode.”

“Kathy, you be quiet or I’ll send you to the office.”

“Go ahead. Send me. And I’ll tell Mr. Casey about how you accused Cliff of cheating when I can prove he didn’t.”

Now it was Mrs. Powers turn to become enraged. “ Listen, girl. I won’t take that from you. You’re being insubordinate and why you are defending that piece of trash I don’t understand.”

“ I guess you should know trash. You live with it every day.”

“Out! Get out of my classroom. I don’t want you ever in here again.”

I picked up my books and went to the door. “Asshole,” I said as I walked out.

Mr. Casey rejected Kathy’s arguments and abraded her for speaking as she had to one of the most respected teachers in the school. He refused to even look at Cliff’s hand written paper. He then suspended her for three days

It wasn’t long before every student in the school had heard about my confrontation with Mrs. Powers. They in turn took it home to their parents, all of whom couldn’t believe a daughter of the prominent Kearneys would speak to a teacher like that. They had been flabbergasted when they had heard about me defending this undesirable, this scum, during the fight. That had generated a few phone calls to my home. Now they were dumbfounded and wondered if there wasn’t something more going on between Kathy and this tramp who so recently had come to their tightly knit community. Some thought it was time Kathy saw a therapist. Some demanded their daughters no long associate with Kathy. “A bad influence, “ they told their daughters. “She should know enough to stick with her own kind and not fish in the swamp.”

Cliff was not exactly the country club type and the girls had little trouble accepting the strictures of their parents. They too were confounded by Kathy’s continual defense of Cliff. They stopped welcoming her at their lunch table and her best girl friends no longer sat with her on the school bus. 

My mother pondered about how to handle her wayward daughter. She heard about me where ever she went, mothers expressing sympathy, fathers offering advice. Finally, after she had had a few martinis, she called me down to the den and told me to sit down-that she wanted to talk to me. She took a sip of her martini. “Kathy, I… I have had a lot of people tell me about your ah… your infatuation with the new boy in your classes, - the shaggy one. You know whom I mean.

“Cliff, Mother, Cliff McCann.”

“Yes, that’s the one. I know… I understand how a young impressionable girl can become…ah…fascinated with a daring unconventional macho man. I know it can be exciting –someone breaking all the conventional rules and all. I can understand that. Lord knows, in my day girls were enthralled by the James Dean type, and the Beatles, and Elvis. They would yell and scream at their concerts, wet their panties even. But that’s as far as it went. But you, you’ve made a fool of yourself over this lout, this backstreet Romeo who just wants to seduce you, get into your pants.” She took another sip of her drink. She was obviously more than a little tipsy 

I sat there and listened, growing more angry with every word. “ Mother, let’s get something straight. We are just friends – hardly even that. I’ve only spoken to him a couple times and only exchanged a few words. And he’s not trying to get in my pants.”

My mother smiled as she sipped, “Maybe you wish he were.” 

“End of conversation,” I said. I was fuming. ”I’m outa here.” I rose from the chair and made my way up the stairs.

Cliff seemed to have disappeared. No one saw him after the incident in Mrs. Power’s class and no one seemed to care that he was no longer attending school
I usually took a seat near the back of the bus. Having been abandoned by my girl friends and treated like a leper by the rest of the student body.I sat by myself. If someone sat next to me it was because no other seat was available and then they would not speak to me except to make disparaging remarks. 

One day Kevin saw me sitting in the seat in the back alone and sat down next to me. “Ho, Kathy, you look kind of lonely “he said. “Want some company?”

I ignored him “Is that tramp boyfriend of yours keeping you happy-filling up your cunt with his dick?”
I could feel my face redden but I didn’t look at him, didn’t respond. After we rode awhile and he was sure we were out of the view of the bus driver when she looked in the rear view mirror, he put his hand on my knee and before I could react, he pulled up my denim skirt. I furiously pushed his hand away. “Just wanted to see what color panties you’re wearing. Blue. I think they’re just right for you. But I liked the silky white ones you had on the last time you showed them to me.

“You horny bastard,” I said. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”

At my stop, I stood up to get off the bus. As I tried to push past Kevin to get into the aisle he slid his hand up my leg and tried to slip a finger under my panties. I jammed my elbow in his face, pushed past him and got off the bus.”You bitch,’ he yelled after me.

After that I looked for an empty seat next to someone else. Often that someone would put a hand on the empty seat and say “Taken.” When all my options for seating next to someone had run out, I waited until I saw Kevin take a seat in the very back of the bus before I found an empty seat. After my previous experience, I had stopped wearing skirts to school