It all started when Kyle and his family moved to town. It was a small town, with only one high school, and pretty much everyone knew everyone else. Kyle's dad had gotten a job at the factory, and it sounded like it was his first job in years. The factory was just barely hanging on, so no one made much money there, and it seemed like everyone in town knew your paycheck, your credit history, and your personal life.
Kyle was short and thin, and his mannerisms were never quite right for a small town in Georgia. His accent was perfect, and his hair was standard "unkempt southern boy", but he looked many years younger than the rest of us. His doctor had written a note excusing him from P.E. for some kind of bone disease, but that just got the rumor mill going even more.
At first, when Kyle went to study hall during P.E., the rest of us just assumed he was gay. After a while, though, his easygoing manner and sense of humor won him friends easily. It helped him a lot that girls liked him. All the guys in school were well-aware that picking on Kyle was a sure-fire way to keep yourself from getting laid.
That is how I got to know him anyway.
Kyle was good friends with Christy, and I was too shy to figure out any way to talk to her. Christy was short and blonde, with a move-star white smile and a tight athletic body. I was on the football team and the basketball team, but I didn't have the ability to talk to girls. Kyle was the perfect go-between. He was smart, and he seemed to be able to talk to anyone about anything.
One day between classes, I saw someone bump him pretty hard in the hallway, and it seemed to be on purpose. I wasn't the biggest guy in the school, nor the most popular, but I was big enough to intervene without risk. I didn't confront the guy who started it, I just stopped to help Kyle pick up his things.
"Are you OK?" I asked.
The hallway had gotten a lot more quiet, not only from the juvenile assault, but also because people were waiting to see what Kyle would say.
"Yep," He looked up at me and laughed it off. "I can be pretty clumsy sometimes."
The hallway returned to normal, and after that Kyle and I were friends. I started hanging out with him and Christy, and really started to enjoy my senior year. Kyle moved easily between the "In" group and the various "out" groups, and he actually knew more people from both groups than I did.
Christy has always treated me like a dumb jock, and Kyle became my wingman for Christy. Kyle was the one who told her I had been accepted to Georgia Tech, which clearly raised my value in her mind quite a bit. She was planning to attend nearby Georgia State, so the possibility of future romance was still open.
Susan was assumed to be the high-school lesbian, but she was always very quiet about it. The girls must have picked on her, but she never let it show. She wasn't particularly "butch" looking, and in fact was really cute. But she would occasionally wear black make-up and black fingernail polish to school, which was about the most unusual thing you could do in rural Georgia without actually wearing a t-shirt that said: "Trying not to fit in."
When Kyle started hanging out with Susan, most people in the school seemed to ignore it, or even approve. The two of them hanging out actually boosted both of them in everyone else's eyes, as if they were suddenly harmless.
On the first Saturday night after the weather got warm, I invited Kyle and Christy to a barbecue at the lake. I could tell Kyle didn't want to go, but he went along because he knew Christy wouldn't go otherwise. When they showed up, Kyle showed up with Susan, leaving Christy basically all to me. I wish I could afford a present for my wingman, but the best I could afford was a few beers and some BBQ pork.
The first thing I noticed when they stepped out of the car was that they looked like an odd cast of characters. Kyle was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, even though it was already pretty hot, and Susan was wearing black slacks and a ripped black blouse. The two of them looked they they had just come from a "Nightwish" concert.
Christy, on the other hand, was wearing running shorts and a bikini top. She looked like a supermodel, and every curve of her body was thin and tight. Her breasts were a little on the small side, but absolutely stunning in the blue bikini top. Her legs were toned and smooth, as if she had been working on her beach body all her life.
I couldn't take my eyes of Christy, and it became a joke pretty quickly. I talked Christy into swimming with me so I could see her ass, and it was everything I had wanted. Susan and Kyle were content to sit it out by the cooler, and laugh every time I got caught staring at Christy.
By the late afternoon, the crowd at the lake had died down, and Christy had warmed up to me more than a bit. In fact, she had asked if I would give her a ride home, and after I readily agreed, she moved her clothes to my truck. This may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but to me it was like a first date with the hottest girl in school.
We had built a small campfire, and another couple had joined us by the fire. The other couple was Steve and Linda, also from the school, and they had been dating for years. Steve was one of the captains of the football team, and Linda looked like a cheerleader, even though she wasn't. Linda was tall and thin, with bigger boobs than Christy. Linda usually wore make-up at school, and I was actually a little surprised that she was just as attractive without it.
Steve and I had been friends for a while, and they were not bothered at all by us looking like an odd group.
