Author's note:
This is, in all its seven parts and their many chapters, one very,
very
long story. If long stories bother you, I suggest you read something else.
No part of this story is written so as to stand on its own. I strongly suggest that you start with
the beginning of Part 1
and read sequentially—giving up at any point you choose, of course.
All sexual activity portrayed anywhere in this story involves only people at least eighteen years old.
This entire story is posted only on literotica.com. Any other public posting without my permission in writing is a violation of my copyright.
Thursday morning Jenny and I ran together and then did some general fitness calisthenics As I'd expected, we saw Claire and Barbara as we ran. I wasn't sure which of them was faster, though I'd have guessed Claire, but they were running together and talking. They passed us over and over, waving and saying hello most times. Once or twice they told us laughingly to get out of their way and stop hogging the whole course. We finished and headed in just a minute or so before the warning signal.
Jenny and I got to the cafeteria at almost exactly the same time, and collected food together. As we looked for a place to sit, Ellen Chan flagged us down and invited us to sit with her and a couple of other girls, so we did. I knew Jenny was surprised that Ellen addressed me as Phil, and I thought Ellen's friends were too. I gave Jenny's hand a squeeze under the table and muttered, "Tell you later," at her. Claire and Barbara came up a couple of minutes later and joined us, too. When Molly came up, we squeezed her in as well.
Ellen's friends were Ellen Manning and Deedee Cox. I'd been in classes with both of them, but hadn't talked to them much. They were both kind of above my level, but I thought closer to me than to Ellen, who I've mentioned was all-round outstanding. Manning was very tall and blonde, plumper than I prefer but still very pretty. Cox was rather small in height and build, dark, with a really nice figure. I mostly kept quiet as they continued their discussion with Ellen, although the other girls were talking, too, and I tried to pay attention to both conversations. As usual with that kind of thing, I got only a fragmentary, impressionistic idea of either one.
We all hurried a bit, eating, to go get ready for math class. But I was startled when Ellen gave me a hug, and stood up on tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek, when we all got up. And if I was startled, I think most everyone else was in shock. Ellen looked at them all and laughed. "OK, I meant that, but it was partly an announcement, too. I'd always known Phil was nice, but yesterday he really went out of his way to be extra nice to me. I'm grateful, and I thought I owed it to him to say it to you all." I felt flummoxed, even more so when she kissed my cheek again and said, "Thank you, Phil."
I was walking on air as I headed back to my room for my stuff, I can tell you! I didn't think this meant that Ellen would be asking me to study with her any time soon, not any of our regular subjects or biology either. But having the most beautiful girl I knew, and smartest and most talented too, first practically order me to go on first-name basis with her, and then to publicly announce the fact and kiss me on the cheek, twice! I didn't know what to think, but I was still euphoric after the study time when I went off to math class.
I realize that I call these 'study times,' because that's what we all said, and mostly we all used them for that. Some of them, the short one after breakfast and the one before supper, were technically free time, unscheduled—and even the ones officially labeled as study times were really free, so long as work was done well and on time. But we had enough work to keep up on that we needed them for study, and that's what they were always called. This is where I'd gone to high school, the only place, but my very strong impression was that stateside high schools are almost all less demanding—a lot less. There, you have lots of actually free time, and outside demands on your after-school time too. I won't belabor this any longer, but you may need to keep it in mind. If we decided to go outside and just walk around or talk, we could do that occasionally, but either only for a few minutes or not very often. You'll see shortly that this example is not chosen at random. And there were occasional concerts and plays, put on by choir and drama classes, too.
Anyway, I reviewed my math once more, the parts I'd found hardest, but I was still having a hard time not bouncing all over the place when I got to class.
The test, though, did tamp that down a lot. It was hard and thorough. It was plenty fair. If you'd paid attention and participated in class, and done the reading, making sure you understood all that, and worked the assigned problems, making very sure indeed that you understood them all, then you knew everything that was asked. But the test was designed to probe for anything you hadn't really understood completely.