*Author's Note: Any persons engaging in sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
Chapter 1
Mary Farmer sat out under the oak tree and ate her peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich. In the August heat, she would have preferred to eat inside, in the school cafeteria, but had learned on her first day at DeGarde High School that there was nowhere for her to sit.
"Get lost, nerd girl."
"Um, excuse me, this is the senior table."
"Sorry, saving those seats for my friends."
She sat out under the oak tree on sunny days. On rainy days, she sat under the awning of the gymnasium. On bitterly cold days, she would go inside the gymnasium and sit on the bleachers.
It wasn't her fault she was weird, an oddball. She was the product of a loveless marriage between a drunkard father and an overly religious mother. Her father often caved in, let her mother run the household.
Their religion forbade the cutting of women's' hair, or the wearing of make-up, or of exposing any flesh. Her dresses went from her throat to her ankles, her brown hair hung down to mid-calf.
Standing at four feet, eleven inches, if her odd manner of dress had not earned her ridicule, her short stature would have.
She pushed her large glasses up her button nose and smiled; Jack Rogers and John Ridgelow had obviously finished their lunch early and were outside throwing a football back and forth. She sipped her water and watched the two eighteen-year-old boys.
Her heart did a little flip-flop; Thomas 'Tank' Kowalski came outside and intercepted a pass intended for John.
He was the handsomest boy she knew. He was also the biggest boy she'd ever seen. He stood at six feet, six inches and tipped the scales at three hundred pounds. ) Once, she'd seen in without a shirt on and nearly swooned; his muscular chest and washboard abdomen fueled her masturbation fantasies ever since then.) He kept his brown hair cut short, instead of following the trend of long, straggly, greasy looking hair, and he dressed neatly; his pants weren't hanging off of his hips, his shirttails weren't hanging out.
Whenever he smiled, his blue eyes would crinkle up, and his lips would part, showing his white teeth.
"Give me the ball, bitch," John demanded and Tank just laughed and tossed it back to Jack.
Her smile faded; the cheerleaders were outside too. Of all those that tormented her, they were the worst.
There was Peggy Morrison. At five foot eleven a lot of people said she would have a career as a model. Mary didn't think she was very pretty; her face was hard, unfriendly. Most of the male population of DeGarde High School, most of the males of DeGarde, Louisiana would disagree with Mary. Her long blonde hair, hazel eyes and pouting lips got their attention, got their blood boiling.
Then there was Amber Waterson. No one kidded himself or herself; Amber wasn't pretty. She had a voluptuous body, and was willing to fuck anyone, male or female, so long as they were popular and that was the only reason the pig-faced girl was popular.
Mindy Laporte was the third cheerleader outside. She was just as short as Mary, was very slender like Mary, but there the similarities ended. She kept her blonde hair styled in the latest fashion, slathered on a pound of make-up, and dressed in extremely revealing clothing.
She was Jack Rogers' girlfriend and was quite vocal about the things that they did when they went out to Huvall's Levee, the local make-out spot.
The other two cheerleaders, Britney and Tiffany Wertmuller, obviously had enough sense to stay indoors, stay in the air-conditioning.
Mary looked at her watch, an eighteenth birthday present from her daddy, and sighed. It was almost time for Chemistry class. To get to her locker, she would have to walk right by the cheerleaders, would have to endure their taunts. With a final glance at Thomas, she gathered up her lunch bag and water bottle and got to her feet.
"Oh Mary," Peggy called out. "I just love your dress! Very fashionable! For the eighteen hundreds!"
"How do you fuck in that get-up?" Amber sneered.
Mary blushed hotly, but did not respond, just kept walking toward the corridor.
Grace Breaux came out of the corridor and roughly shoved Mary aside.
"Oh, I am so sorry, Holy Mary," she sneered. "Will I go to Hell for that?"
Mary had earned the nick-bane 'Holy Mary' by committing the grievous faux pas of blurting out 'That's a sin!' when two of the popular girls were discussing a third girl's lesbianism. The moniker fit her overly religious upbringing so it stuck.
Mary blinked back the tears that threatened to spill out, pushed her glasses back up and made her way to her locker.
Tank frowned darkly when he saw his girlfriend shove Mary. He didn't really know Mary all that well, even though they were in many of the same classes, both being Straight-A students, but was sure that the diminutive girl had done nothing to deserve physical abuse.
He was no stranger to physical abuse; his father was a hard-drinking police officer, who thought the best way to get his point across was with a punch to the face. When his two sons got too big for that, he switched over to verbal abuse. Sometimes words hurt more than fists do.
Grace Breaux wasn't the most attractive girl in DeGarde High School, but at six foot two, it just seemed destined that she and Tank would hook up. Her bushy brown hair, broad nose, and mean little eyes earned her no long line of admirers. But as Tank pointed out to Jim, his older brother, 'She sucks dick.'
Chapter 2
The bell rang and Tank raced to his locker and grabbed his Chemistry book. He ran to the class and sat down in one of the few available seats. He flipped his notebook open and began to scribble.
He shook his pen and tried it again. Nothing. He searched his pockets for another pen, but there was none.
"Need this?" a squeaky voice asked and he looked to see a small hand holding out a well-chewed pencil.
"Thanks," he smiled and Mary's heart stopped for a moment.
"Uh, uh, Miss Farmer, think you could wait to uh talk to your uh boyfriend after class," Mr. Cousins stammered, earning him the laughter of the rest of the class.
Tank looked at the small girl, head hung in shame, face beet red from embarrassment and looked at the smirking teacher, basking in a rare bit of popularity.
"You miserable old fuck," he bellowed and stood up. "She was loaning me a pencil, all right? Want to embarrass someone, why don't you try me, huh?"
"Uh, uh, Mr. Kowalski, uh, uh, maybe you should be uh better prepared for my uh class," Mr. Cousins stammered, very frightened.
He opened his desk drawer and felt around for the can of pepper spray.
"Uh uh, maybe you should uh uh bite me," Tank sneered.
"Thomas, please sit down," Mary begged.
"Tank looked at her, eyes pleading with him and felt his anger dissipate. He nodded his head and sat down.
"Uh, there's no uh need for profanities, uh Mr. Kowalski," Mr. Cousins stammered.
"Whatever," Tank sneered.
At the end of class he smiled at Mary and handed her back her chewed up pencil. She smiled back and quietly gathered up her books.
He ran to his locker to pick up a pen and his Western Civilization History book, and then ran to class. He slipped into a vacant seat just as Mr. Boudreaux was beginning roll call.
"Ah, how nice of you to join us, Mr. Kowalski," Mr. Boudreaux intoned.
"Oh, sure, sure, wouldn't want to miss my nap time," Tank smiled.
It was a running joke between the student and teacher; Tank had actually fallen asleep in one of Mr. Boudreaux's classes back in his freshman year and the teacher enjoyed ribbing him about it.
"Need this?" Tank heard a squeak and looked over to see a well-chewed pencil being offered to him.
"No, thanks, got my own," he smiled and showed Mary his pen.
Brace's eyes narrowed to mean little slits.
"Want me to leave so you two can be alone?" Mr. Boudreaux asked.
"Hey, would you?" Tank smiled. "That'd be great!"
"Shut up, Mr. Kowalski," Mr. Boudreaux smiled, finished calling the roll and launched into the lecture on Grecian influences on modern culture.
Grace wasn't sure what her man and that little Holy Roller were smiling about, but she vowed to put it to a quick end. Tank was her man; no little bitch that dressed like a farmer's wife was going to steal him away.
Chapter 3
Mary was putting her books away when Grace and Amber and Peggy and Mindy came around the corner.
"Hey, bitch," Mary heard and turned around just as Grace reached out to shove her backward.
"Stay the fuck away from Tank, hear?" Grace snarled, pushed Mary backward again, and to back up her threat, flicked open her switchblade knife.
Mary felt physically ill and fought the urge to urinate as Grace waved the point of the sharp knife millimeters from her face.
Hear?" Grace snarled.
Behind her, Peggy and Mindy giggled. Amber looked a little sick herself. Grace closed the blade, stuck it in the back pocket of her jeans and sauntered off.
Mary gathered her books and looked around to make sure the coast was clear before dashing to the bus. She found an empty seat and nervously looked around to make sure that Grace wasn't lurking around.
----
Football practice was a disjointed effort and finally Coach Benoit dismissed them. Tank joined the five other males that did avail themselves of the showers.
"God damn, is that a dick or an elephant trunk?" Carter McDonald asked.
"Elephant trunk," Jack laughed. "That's why Tank doesn't like peanuts; damned thing keeps shoveling them up his ass."
"Hey, I don't look at your little pee-pees, don't be looking at my dick, okay?" Tank grumbled.
