Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Note: This story contains very little in the way of sex, there is some,
it's towards the end of the story, however it's on this site with the rest
of my stories because it also contains under aged sex, which is dreadfully
frowned on, even though we all know it happens.







   Rites Of Passage





   Every high school has them, I guess every school in the world has them,
the group of people who are the outcasts, the weirdos, the ones who don't
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, the kid with the really bad
acne, that everyone kept away from, just in case it was catching, and some
of these kids had more than one of these attributes.

   That's how it was in my high school, I know this, because I belonged to
that group, the not quite fitting in group, singularly we would have been a
target for all the other more popular groups, but somehow in Grade Seven we
all found each other, the weirdos, and we realised that strength did indeed
lay in numbers, so we became an established group of our own, always
looking out for new people, for kids who didn't quite fit in anywhere else.

   By the time we got to Grade Ten there was a core of eight of us, over
the years Teachers had tried to break the group up by moving us into
different classes and time sessions, but we'd still managed to stick
together, weirdos to the end, and come next year we would all be going to
College together.

   Now it was the last day of Grade Ten and we'd all arranged to meet one
final time before the summer break began, we always hung around in one of
the withdrawal rooms at lunch time, and this was where we held our meeting
today, we had plans to make for next year, most of the rest of the Leavers
were wandering about either crying or looking like they had just stopped
crying, or were just about to, but not us.

   I'll name them as they come in.

   The first one to arrive was Cathy*, she would always have been the
first, she had a phobia about being late for anything, she was in the group
because she was weird, she had an accent and the poor girl always smelled
ever so slightly of mothballs and she had this obsession with Viv Richards,
the West Indian cricket captain.

   Second to arrive was Me, taller than just about anybody else in the
school, glasses that didn't suit and were thick, headmasters pet and a bit
of a swot as well.

   Next came Scott*, tallest boy in the school, face that looked like an
old ruin, pitted with acne, also wearing glasses and highly intelligent.

   Then came Greg*, whose main problem was the name his parents had saddled
him with, also intelligent, not very good at sports, and he had the
distinction of being the first boy I ever kissed in grade three.

   Then there was Joanne*, she was a hypochondriac, always off sick,
usually came to school wearing a neck brace, she was also my best friend,
face full of acne, and dumb as a post.

   Next to arrive was Debbie*, 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.

   Then there was Andrew*, smartest kid in the school, smarter than the
teachers, they hated that, main failing he had a clever mouth and was prone
to talking back without thinking, incredible show off, he annoyed us, but
without us, he would have spent the whole four years at high school with
his head being shoved down a toilet by someone he'd cheeked.

   Last and quite possibly least, there was Ian*, thick as two short
planks, couldn't read properly, failed math at level one, his main ambition
was to work on his Daddys' farm, however Daddy had other ideas, Ian was off
to college and then Uni, none of us saw that happening, neither did Ian,
but his father insisted, so Ian was off to college with the rest of us next
year.

   It was funny, but during all our time together as a group we'd never
ever looked upon each other as possible romantic interests, possibly
because each of us, deep down inside thought of themselves as the most
normal one of the weirdos, and normal people don't go out with weirdos,
even weirdos who were your friends, and so we made plans to meet on the
first day of semester at College in the Quadrangle at 8.30 am, the 26th
February 1981.

   Over the summer break I only saw a couple of the group and that was a
fleeting meeting, I was busy doing other things, so were they, so when
February rolled around I was getting rather impatient to see them all,
truth be known I'd missed them, and hoped that they'd missed me.

   We were Sixteen, leaving the restrictions of high school for the freedom
of College and we were all going to have a ball, so 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 it struck me that he was definitely getting very good
looking, Debbie had grown a fair bit, and she'd 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 hadn't 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, and me, well I was out
for a good time.

   I had realised in the short time I'd been standing in the Quad, waiting
for the others to arrive that what was weird in high school, was never
going to pass as weird in college, I saw people wearing nothing but black
with vivid red hair, people with pierced noses, eyebrows and other things,
I saw people dressed like refugees, people who wore army uniforms to
school, all manner of shapes, sizes and sexual orientations, and I realised
that in the scheme of things, we, as a group, were for once, decidedly
normal, and I wasn't 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, I'd spent all high school yearning
to fit into normal, to be thought of as normal, and now I knew that I
didn't like it, one little bit, I decided that I liked being thought of as
weird, unfortunately most of the rest of our little group didn't have the
same feelings, they loved being the normal ones, they fitted in, and after
a few months we realised that we didn't need each other more, we didn't
need the support group to survive, normal people always survive.

   Of course the fact that we all had different classes and free periods
didn't help, we still got together at lunch time occasionally, but it
wasn't the same anymore and we slowly all drifted apart, except for Scott
and Joanne, Joanne shared three of my subjects and Scott two, so we saw
each other for several hours a day, and through all this time I couldn't
help noticing that Scott was turning into, in the parlance of my day, a
real spunk.

   About halfway through second semester I ran into Debbie and Andrew, and
they said that Ians' father had finally seen sense and realised that Ian
wasn't going to be able to complete College, let alone Uni, and had finally
consented to let Ian leave and work on the farm with him, so there was
going to be a party and did I want to come, of course I did, it had been
ages since I'd talked properly to the others, other than a few snatched
hellos as we passed in a corridor, on the way to class.

   As I had said, the rest of the group were reveling in being normal, for
the first time in their short lives they fitted in, me, well I didn't like
being normal, so by this time I'd gotten my ears pierced again, this made
three in each ear, 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, and my hair at this stage was a very vivid bright green, now this
wasn't due to an innate urge to shock, but simply due to the fact that one
of my subjects was Drama, and we were doing a play, and my hair needed to
be bright green, they'd suggested a wig, but that looked stupid, so I
decided that I'd just dye my hair the required colour.

   Which sort of made me stand out somewhat, along with the fact that
somewhere along the way I'd decided that I'd hated wearing shoes and so
went about in bare feet, summer and winter, I'd also acquired along the
way, about six or seven military surplus army shirts and camouflage
trousers, I wore them all the time, so there I was, multiple piercings,
short green hair, bare footed and wearing army shirts, weird, even by the
standards of our little group.

   At this particular time and place ponchos were the required item of
clothing, I had one of those, also I'd sewn a string of Tibetan bells onto
my bag, you'd certainly hear me coming, I guess by that time Scott and
Joanne were used to me, because they saw me in class every day, but the
rest I'd hardly seen at all for most of that year, and to say that 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, would
be a understatement.

   I'd like to say that the silence I caused as I arrived was due to how
stunningly gorgeous I looked, but I can't, I know it looked stupid, but I
didn't care, I was enjoying being weird, and this time by my own standards,
rather than the stilted and restrictive standards of high school, this time
I'D 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'd taken the tag of being weird and run with it, much to the dismay of
the people I'd gone to school with, it was as if, now that they'd finally
found a place that accepted them as normal, they didn't want to be reminded
of the years when they didn't 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, so I was going to have a good time reveling in
my weirdness before my innate good sense took over.

   I also 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 this party, and the stunned silence that greeted my arrival,
by this time most of the group had acquired boyfriends/girlfriends, and I
was almost positive that their partners had not been filled in on the
history of our little group, so to them I was like this strange being, who
had no right to be there, they were so normal, I was so weird, and how did
we ever get to be friends, I wasn't going to be the one to spill the beans,
so I kept quiet, in spite of the audible comments I heard.

   Scott and Joanne weren't fazed, since they'd seen me in far far worse
fashion disasters, I got the impression that they were enjoying it, the
expressions on every ones' faces, the stunned silence was broken by the
sound of laughter, mine, and then Scott and Joanne joined in, the looks on
their faces was priceless, something I will never forget, and it made up
for the four years of high school, when I was forced to be friends with
people I didn't really like that much, but without whom high school would
have been an unending horror.

   Then choruses of "What have you done to your hair?", "Are they army
trousers?" and so on and so on, broke the silence, and then Ian, whose
party it was, said something that made me question my opinion of his lack
of intelligence, he said "I wish I had the courage to dye my hair green".
That one comment hit the nail on the head, all it was 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 on as parties usually do, though I noticed that there
was not the usual choruses of 'Do you remembers", it was like I said, the
years of being outcasts at high school didn't exist, which was fine by me,
no one got drunk, did anything stupid or said anything that they would
regret, as the party ended we all made promises to keep in touch more
often, but deep down I knew that barring unforseen accidents we probably
wouldn't see each other as a group again.

   Was I sad?, maybe, but maybe not, I'd outgrown them, and they'd outgrown
being weird, perhaps it was best that we didn't mix anymore, soon it would
be coming up to third term, and the big exams, everyone was too busy to
worry about friendships that were disintegrating.

   During my first seven months at college I'd not bothered with a
boyfriend, I was having to much fun being weird, and to be frank, the sort
of guys that were attracted to the way I looked, I wouldn't have touched
with a barge pole, except for Steven and Tony, they were both in my Social
Psych class and both totally gorgeous, Tony has made an appearance in one
of my other stories, he was one of the Twins, and I had a supreme crush on
him.

   When I was fourteen I'd deliberately set out to lose my virginity, it
was something in the way of a birthday present to myself, I pursued and
seduced a man almost three times my age, I'd never once regretted it on an
emotional level, as he was kind, gentle and very loving, however as I grew
older I realised what a physical risk I'd taken, so from that time until I
was about seventeen, or maybe a bit older I'd never had sex again.

   Until Tony, but that didn't last very long, he was far to popular to tie
himself down to one girlfriend, so I was between relationships when I
became aware that Steven liked me, he made this known one day whilst
sitting in the film room watching some doco for Social Psych, he kicked me
under the seat and when I looked around he threw a sheet of screwed up
paper at me, since it was dark in the room, I didn't realise there was
writing on it, it was only when I got outside that I realised that both
sides of the paper were covered in writing, a letter, which basically
boiled down to him telling me he liked me, and 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, laying on the grass in the warm sunshine, kissing and
light petting, it got so bad that I was called in to see the College
counselor who warned me that unless I started attending more than three
classes a week then I would be kicked out, since my Mum had no idea that I
wasn't attending classes we decided to be more circumspect.

   In spite of the distractions I did manage to pass and so did Steven, we
spent summer holidays together and I was looking forward to going back to
College after the holidays, but as with most things when you go back, it's
never the same, and it wasn't, 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.

   But 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'd modified my fashion sense, so I no longer
looked like a refugee from the 70's, so I guessed that I wouldn't have
quite the same effect as last time.

   Scott somehow managed to get everyone together, by this time Andrew was
in first year Uni, having managed to do his HSC in one year, proving to all
of us that he really was as intelligent as he always said he was, 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 also learning to read and write properly.

   So there we were, it was April 1982, and none of us were the same people
who had met for the first time in February 1977, we'd all grown and
changed, when we were twelve all we'd 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'd spent four years in a place that didn't 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.

   But back to this party, unlike the last one when I caused a stir by
dressing so unconventionally.  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
weren't really that different from everyone else at school, but 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 drunk, the noise level increased as did the music and I
found myself dancing with Scott, now as I mentioned before 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) when he 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, as
I'd 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 at me, us, and then music started again, and so did the
other conversations, I looked wildly around for a door to escape out of, I
found one that led to the back stairs and 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 didn't 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 didn't share any classes anymore, and I had
shifted to doing part time, I have no idea what Scott thought of this
because I certainly wasn't 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
hadn't quite counted on the rumour mill, by the time the rumour got back to
me, it appeared that I'd basically thrown him bodily to the floor, ripped
off his clothes and we'd had sex in front of everyone, and THAT was just
the tame version, other versions had all of the girls conducting a
competition to see who was best at sucking cock, amongst other things, so
you can guess why I was avoiding him.

   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 didn't realise who
it was, then I looked up and gee, guess what I started blushing again, but
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,
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
wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject, so we sort of skirted around
the subject, and it emerged that in fact Scott didn't really remember much
about the party, he remembered what I'd said (of course, my luck isn't THAT
good) and he thinks he remembered kissing me, but he had heard the rumours
and because he couldn't remember what had happened he wasn't sure if some
or any of the rumours were true, and he'd been avoiding all of the
remaining group at the college, which is quite easy to do with 1700
students.

   I put him straight about the rumours, after all I asked him, could you
really see Joanne, Debbie or Cathy being involved in a cock sucking
contest, and that if I'd been involved then there was NO way he'd have
forgotten about it.

   That was when he looked at me and started blushing again, oh dear, I'd
embarrassed him, and that was when I realised that I was falling for him.
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 more and more 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, and it was easy to find some
secluded spots, with a rubber backed blanket and some money it was quite
easy to spend the whole day at the gardens, this time the effect wasn't so
drastic on my grades, since I was only taking three classes this year, as
opposed to six the year before, I could manage two free days a week
completely.

   After some weeks of this it was spring and that's was when this young
womans' fancy turned not so lightly towards thoughts of love and 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 laying down, I was sitting next to
him tickling his ear with a long stem of grass, 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, and I'd 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 really bothering to
attend, finding like me that time spent at the gardens and other places was
much more fun, and besides he'd already been accepted into a job at Myers,
a sort of trainee ship with the good ones being groomed for managerial
positions (I could see Scott doing this, as he was tall, good looking and
wore clothes very well for someone not quite 18 yet).

   During the course of the past few weeks we'd done little else but
exchange a few kisses and lightly grapple with each other when hugging, so
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 also look at him, he smiled up at me and I just couldn't help
myself, once again my tongue started ignoring orders from my brain, and it
blurted out those three words most teenage boys run a million miles away
from, "I love you" my tongue said, the only thing my brain could do was
engage the blush reaction, which I do so well, and I went a very
unattractive shade of red, AGAIN.

   Much to my delight Scott didn't 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 also didn't look like he was going
to burst into fits of hysterical laughter either, which was also good, but
just when I was wondering if for some strange reason he hadn't heard or
understood, he pulled me down again and started kissing me once more, well
who was I to argue, I'd said the magical words to a boy and he hadn't 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, I guess now it
would be almost impossible as the gardens are under video surveillance, but
back then, we gave the birds a thrill as we sixtynined under the clear blue
sky, I screamed in chorus with them as Scott licked and sucked on my clit,
his yell of ecstasy was drowned out by a passing truck as I sucked his hard
cock to orgasm, and no one but the birds, or perhaps an inquisitive possum
saw us as he fucked my brains out on the blanket, under the trees, in the
botanical gardens.

   Of course it would be nice to say that the romance had a fairy tale
ending, but it didn't, we trysted for several months at the gardens,
fucking each other just about everywhere, but then Scott had to start work,
I started my new course and we just didn't get the time anymore, but 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.

   Scott now works for Myers as Manager in one of the mainland stores, Greg
is a Manager at Pizza Hut, Andrew is a lecturer at Uni, Debbie is a
director of a child care center, I have no idea what Cathy is doing, Ian
still works on the farm, but he runs it now, Joanne is married with a
couple of kids, and me, well I'm divorced, with two kids, no job..  but
that's the way life goes I guess.



   *Names have been changed to protect the somewhat innocent

   (c) Teddy 2000