At the 20-year reunion for the Class of 1984 at Millbrook High, you would have been hard-pressed to find a more mismatched couple than Danny Wilson and Charlie Panetta.
Danny was the archetypical All-American Boy. He was big - 6-3, 290 pounds - blond and handsome. His family owned the largest bank in town, plus one of the largest realty companies, and he was about a big a jock as you could find. He was All-District as a tackle on the football team, played power forward on the basketball team (emphasis on the word power) and was one of the top five shot putters in the state.
Despite his family's position and his status as an athlete, Danny was extremely nice and very popular, and was voted Senior Class Favorite. He was especially popular with all the creamy debutante cunts in Millbrook, and he spent most of his high school years screwing as many of them as he could handle. To top off the stereotype, because he hated to read and therefore never bothered to study much, everyone thought he was just another dumb jock. It was only later that it came out that he was badly dyslexic, and basically couldn't read. Thus the fact that he still managed to make Cs and even a few Bs was cause for wonder.
Because of his popularity, Danny could have run with about any group he chose, but he seemed to move around as far as who he hung out with. But if there was one group that he was probably closest to, it was the track guys, particularly Tom Baraszki. Tom was a middle-distance runner, but he and Danny had gotten to be friends over the course of their track careers.
Charlie Panetta's real name was Carlotta, but all anyone had ever called her was Charlie. It fit. Charlie was everything Danny was not, smallish with an olive complexion, and decidedly bookish. She had been a tomboy when she was younger, with a scrawny, boyish figure. She reached her full height of 5-foot-4 fairly early, but didn't really mature until very late in her teens. She had an unruly mass of dark curly hair that she wore well past her shoulders and in thick bangs in front, and big glasses that gave her kind of a nerdy look. She was also very smart, a talented artist and she wore the funkiest clothes imaginable. She was into the grunge look long before it was hip.
She also came from the wrong side of the tracks. She moved to Millbrook when she was in sixth grade, and if there had ever been a father around, no one knew about it. Supposedly, Charlie and her two little brothers all had different fathers, but no one knew for sure, because the family generally kept to themselves. Charlie's mom worked as a housecleaner for the wealthier families in town, but there were whispers that the bulk of her income came from working the bars on weekends, trolling for tricks.
Whatever the case, Charlie was something of a loner, a misfit who if she ever had a date, it was a well-kept secret. In fact, vicious rumors at school held that she was a lesbian. And, for some reason, there was a certain element at Millbrook High that took great delight in tormenting her. This was mostly the football jockocracy, led by the star quarterback, Dirk Bennett. A more arrogant, obnoxious individual would be hard to find, and he led a relentless campaign to belittle anyone who was the least bit "different." That especially included Charlie Panetta, whom he took a visceral disliking to from the first day of high school their freshman year.
Most of the debutantes also sneered at Charlie, and they were more than happy to spread the stories about Charlie and her family.
However, there were a few isolated souls at the school who treated Charlie with some decency. In fact, because she and Tom Baraszki always seemed to be in honors English together, they got to be almost friendly. Almost alone among the Class of '84, Tom was the one person who'd sit down to chat with Charlie and listen to her spill her guts. As for Danny, anyone who was friends with Tom was a friend of his, so he was cordial to Charlie, although he was too busy bedding the cunts to pay her much mind.
The only time he ever really paid any attention to her during their high school years came early in their senior year, when Dirk and two of his cronies had Charlie surrounded in the hall between classes, and were giving her a ton of verbal abuse, something to the effect of, "how's your girlfriend," "licked any slits lately," and other rude comments. Charlie was trying hard to fight off tears and get away, but they kept her surrounded. That's when Danny happened to walk by.
"Hey man," he said in an authoritative tone. "You guys back off, OK? She hasn't done anything to you. Just leave her alone."
Needless to say, Dirk wasn't going to pick a fight with Danny Wilson at school, not over Charlie Panetta, and not during football season, so they let her walk away. Before she hurried away, she looked back and mouthed a, "thank you," and Danny smiled and nodded in return.
It wasn't long after that that Charlie finally started to fill out a little, although with the outfits she wore, it was hard to tell. Still, the only time she got any kind of notice was at the senior awards night, when was she was named among the high honors graduates, with scholarship offers from several colleges. She surprised a lot of people that night, because she had pulled her hair back, worn a rather snug dress (for her) and put on a little bit of makeup.
As she walked up to receive her honors award, there were several boys in the crowd who noticed that Charlie wasn't bad looking at all. She still had the big glasses, though, and she still had the really long hair that she hid behind.
Unfortunately, one of the boys who noticed that Charlie had gotten worthy of attention was Dirk, and that seemed to set him on edge. He was also angry because he hadn't gotten any scholarship offers because of his poor grades, and was going to have to try out for a junior college team if he was to continue doing the only thing it seemed he was capable of doing, which was play football.
It was a Friday night in late June, not long after graduation, when the events transpired that threw Danny and Charlie together. Danny had broken up with his girlfriend of the moment several weeks earlier, and he was frankly not looking for another one. He was tired of superficial relationships, and had decided he'd been through about everyone Millbrook had to offer. He was looking forward to going to college in the fall, at a nearby small-division state university, where he'd gotten a football and track scholarship. Maybe the scenery would be different there, he thought, but somehow he doubted that things would change.
In fact, the rather acrimonious breakup with his last girlfriend had kind of soured him on women. He was convinced that most of the girls in Millbrook were only interesting in him for his family's money and his family jewels, which were considerable. He was looking for a woman who wanted him as a person, not an object. He was about to find just that, in the unlikeliest of places.
Danny and Tom were out cruising the boulevard on that hot Friday night. Darkness had just fully descended and the moon hadn't yet begun to rise, so it was quite dark out. Danny decided to check out the large park at the edge of town to see if there was anything happening, a party or something. Not finding anything, they had stopped just to look at the stars for awhile and continue the deep conversation they'd been having while driving around.
He and Tom had just laid back on the hood of Danny's car, the same old beat-up Toyota he'd driven all through high school, when they heard a shriek come from the farthest corner of the park. It was the sound of a female in distress. Danny and Tom jumped off the car and dashed off in the direction of the sound. The closer they got, the more they realized that they were hearing the sounds of one-sided struggle between a woman and several men.
It came from the pavilion where picnics were usually held. When Danny and Tom closed in on the pavilion, they were met by a stunning sight. Dirk Bennett and five of his buddies surrounded the picnic table, and they had a nearly-naked Charlie Panetta held down, with great effort. Her baggy pants had been pulled off and discarded, the crotch of her panties had been ripped open, her shirt had been torn open and her bra sliced in half.
Dirk was already on the table with his pants around his ankles, seconds away from pushing his hard cock into Charlie's frantically struggling body. Two guys held down her arms, two held her legs, and another was trying to stifle her screams while groping a nice pair of pale-olive tits. Charlie's glasses were nowhere to be found and her hair was being held tightly by the guy that was mauling her tits. It was crazy, but all Tom could think about at that moment was how good she looked.
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, ASSHOLE?" Danny bellowed.
Dirk turned at the sound and gave Danny a smirk.
"We're going to show this lezzie whore what cock is all about," Dirk said. "If you guys want some, get in line. Otherwise, fuck off. This is none of your business."
"LIKE HELL IT IS!" Danny yelled, his face red as a beet. Tom had known Danny Wilson a long time, and he had never seen him like this. "YOU LAY ANOTHER HAND ON HER, AND I'LL KILL YOU!"
Just then, one of Dirk's friends let go of a leg, turned around quickly and whipped out a switchblade. Danny's response was equally quick. He sent a size-14 shoe squarely in his attacker's nuts, then smashed his face on his knee. He turned to Dirk, who was franically trying to pull his pants up, and cold-cocked him with a haymaker right that dropped him in his tracks.
"Danny, look out!" Tom exclaimed as he swung the tree limb he'd picked up over the back of another of Charlie's attackers, who also had a knife out, and that gave Danny a chance to turn and throw the third assailant over his shoulder hard onto the ground. With three of their number down, the other three backed away warily.
"You motherfuckers get the hell out of here, and take this lowlife scum with you," Danny said, giving Dirk a swift kick in the gut. "I'm sick of all of you."
The threesome pulled their injured fellows up, and as they left, Dirk groggily looked back at Danny with pure hate in his eyes.
"You'll pay for this, Wilson," Dirk mumbled.
"No, YOU'LL pay for this," Danny responded.
With that, they left, and Danny and Tom turned their attention to Charlie, who had sat up and pulled her torn shirt together to try to cover her breasts, but she couldn't see where her pants were and had her legs tightly closed to prevent any more exposure than she'd already had. She was shaking from head to toe, trying to hold back the sobs. She'd always prided herself on not showing the hurt when she was tormented, but this was the worst thing she'd ever experienced.
