A note: I've never created a story in this style before; where it's written in the first person but with alternating characters. We'll see how it goes.
This is a heterosexual young love story, so if you are looking for incest or cross-dressers, maybe this isn't for you. I would ask though, even if you don't normally comment on stories, to leave a few words at the end. Without feedback, I'm in the dark as to whether I'm doing the right thing or not. Thank you. xxx
Prologue:
Callum and Grace are your classic nerds. They exist to learn, whether that be mathematics, science, music, poetry, the arts or any other academic subject. Sport, especially competitive sport, holds no interest though they do recognise the importance of a healthy lifestyle and diet. Instead, they swim, cycle and occasionally run. Callum helps at his father's farm in Somerset so is naturally strong with unkempt curly brown hair. Grace is the daughter of the Reverend Charles Martin, vicar of the 13
th
-century church at Little Comingford. Despite shunning makeup, she is potentially pretty with green eyes but conceals it by wearing black-framed spectacles and her blonde hair swept back tightly in a ponytail. Some people find her brusque. Boys generally view her as cold and unapproachable.
Both are a little over eighteen and are approaching the end of their second year of 6
th
Form at Minehead Community Academy where both are predicted to graduate with 4 excellent A-levels. As a result, they both have provisional places at Oxford, though at different colleges. As often happens, nerds stick with nerds. They've been friends since the age of eleven though Grace refers to Callum as her 'academic associate'. They sit together, eat lunch together and study at each other's homes. Grace, living two villages further away from school than Callum, always saves him a seat on the school bus, not that anyone else would be interested in sitting next to her.
.....
Grace:
Where the hell was he? Not even a text message. I checked around my room again. Perfect, as always, though the Anderson Trophy for student of the year could do with a polish. Then, through my open bedroom window, I heard Dexter bark. I smiled. Callum is the only person he ever barks at. There was a clunk as he leaned his bike against the old cast iron drainpipe, followed by the rattle of his key and the creak of the kitchen door. Being three hundred years old, everything in this house creaks. He has a key because as mother put it, "You spend more time here than I do, Callum."
That was factually correct. Mother has a small apartment in Bristol where she stays when working as a QC at the law firm of Dexter, Willmott and Hepplethwaite. Actually, following the demise of Her Majesty, that should be KC - King's Counsel, not Queen's Counsel, but I still think of her as a QC. Sometimes, if she's involved in a major case at the Crown Court, I don't see her for weeks.
In my mind, I could see Callum taking off his trainers and leaving them on yesterday's copy of The Times by the kitchen door. His mother had trained him well. Then the stairs creaked and he knocked on my bedroom door. He always knocks. "Come in!" I called, checking myself in the mirror. Why had I started doing that?
Breathless, he burst in saying, "Bloody dog, mad as a bucket of bloody frogs." Despite being easily the most intelligent boy I'd ever known, he still spoke like the son of a Somerset farmer.
I wrinkled my nose and said, "You're late and you smell of cows."
"Bloody hikers left the gate of the top meadow open. Nine out on the road. Had to stop and get 'em back in. Some of 'em needed a shove."
"Phone not working?"
"Not without battery power. Can I plug it in?"
I nodded towards the iPhone cable on my dressing table.
"Thanks. Your mum and dad not about?"
"Up at the church, Palm Sunday tomorrow, you ought to come."
"You know me, I go to the Christmas Carol service to keep mum and me nan happy. That's enough religion for me."
"It's the only day of the year I get to see you in a suit."
"Got a new one for my cousin's wedding next month. Mum said the arms and legs were too short on my old one."
"You've shot up this last year or so." He had too. One of those odd facts you learn; a standard English doorway is 6'6" high, and he passed through with about four inches to spare. "Cello or violin? I got both out."
He sat on my bed and said, "Cello I think, I played my violin last night."
.....
Callum:
Bloody hikers. Bloody cows. Shouldn't complain, tourists boost the local economy and buy bread, cheese, cream and cider from our farm shop. Still..., bloody hikers and bloody cows. I watched Grace move the two music stands into place and open the drawer of the office filing cabinet in the corner. Gone was her usual baggy school uniform and her stare that could extinguish a blazing fire.
But we got on okay. Grace helped me with my slight weakness in biology, whilst I was able to support her in mathematics. Together we made a good team and even liked each other to a degree. Away from school, she relaxed and could be kind and funny. She once confided in me that her demeanour at school was largely an act, designed to ensure that she was left alone. By then though, I'd figured that out for myself.
This afternoon, in anticipation of our bike ride later, she was in spandex shorts, contact lenses and a tight t-shirt that accentuated her incredibly firm-looking B-cup breasts that didn't seem to move whatever she did. And her ass. Oh my god, what a pert ass! The miles I'd cycled behind staring at that! And, to be honest, the vast amount of jizz I'd shot over my chest as I imagined kissing those breasts and buttocks. But our relationship wasn't like that. I knew with absolute certainty that any attempt by me to introduce affection into our relationship would drive a wedge between us. In the seven years we'd been friends, we'd never even shared a hug.
"Bach or Schubert?" said Grace looking over her shoulder. We practiced here because of her neatly filed collection of sheet music.
"Bach I think. How about Sleepers Wake?" I said, waiting for her to uncase her cello and pass it over.
We practiced that for an hour before switching to Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. "You were a bit shit today," she said when we'd finished. Grace believed in honesty in all things.
"Tired arms. Moved about three tons of old railway sleepers this morning. We're building a new silage clamp. Your tyres pumped up?"
"Uh huh, though when I go down a gear it skips two."
Grace isn't very mechanically minded. "I'll tweak and lube your rear derailleur," I said.
"Sounds very rude," she laughed. She lights up when she laughs.
As always, I rode behind, as a gentleman should, to protect the lady from traffic. It also meant that I could watch her strong legs and ass as she rose out of the saddle to drive up the hills. I smiled to myself, recalling the reaction of Mrs Bradshaw, our English teacher, when some years ago I'd submitted a poem entitled 'The life and times of a bicycle saddle'. Her response was a letter to my parents but my dad thought it was hilarious. At Dunster, we stopped at the Castle Tea Rooms for tea and cream scones.
.....