Author's Note: This story involves some unrealistic sexual acts involving some obscenely well-endowed centaurs and humans (and eventually, possibly some other fantastical creatures). If that's not your bag, thank you for your consideration! Furthermore, all characters contained herein are at least 18 years old, which is actually quite a bit older in horse years.
Abbigale
*****
Cinnamon's First Date
Chapter 01
The final bell rang, echoing through the halls and across the fields of Derby Senior Secondary High School, signalling the passing of another school week.
Up on the second floor, doors opened and student stormed out, eager to end their interminable time in the halls of higher learning. History 12, where the worst of the last sixty years was examined in excruciating detail. Math 12, where the intricacies and hidden agendas of the universe itself were expounded upon, and with any luck three or four students per class would use those lessons again. AP Bio 12, genetics and evolution with a steady undercurrent of pre-med organic chemistry.
Those exiting this last room tended to have a wide-eyed, shell-shocked expression, and it wasn't entirely because of the subject matter.
Once the second to last of the students had filed out, swinging their bags over their shoulders and racing for the stairs, there was a long pause. Some of the others in this hall knew their Friday schedules well, and they posted up at their lockers, huddled in twos and threes at the smattering of water fountains. Four large boys in matching lettered jackets crowded around the vending machines, taking great care when deciding which brand of Mountain Dew would slake their lust for thrills and excitement.
Heavy, yet hesitant, footfalls drifted out of the AP Bio room, and a great shadow fell out onto the well-worn linoleum.
No-one actually said 'here shi comes', but they were all thinking it. The atmosphere of anxious expectation was practically condensing into droplets in the air. It wasn't as though this was a particularly NEW sight, not so late in the year, but that never stopped this weekly ritual.
Cinnamon Philips stepped into the hallway, ducking to get hir head through the door. Shi had hir pack slung over hir shoulder, as had all of hir fellow students. Shi wore a light and breezy sundress, as did most of hir fellow female and femme-presenting students. Shi was wide-eyed and smiling, hir explosion of freckles contrasting with hir sky blue eyes.
Where shi tended to differ from hir classmates was the fact that emerging from the hem of hir sundress were not two long, slender, coltish human legs, but the thick barrel and four sturdy equine legs of a chestnut-furred bay stallion. Cinnamon was a centaur, and the first ever to attend Derby High.
Positive that shi was not about to accidentally crash into anyone, Cinnamon moved hir long body carefully through the door, pausing just as hir hind legs passed the jamb. Shi wore a cheery pink quarter blanket that mostly covered hir hindportions, hanging down to roughly hir hocks, which kept hir within the school's somewhat poorly-worded dress code.
All eyes were on that blanket, though, which seemed to be covering a lot more than it ought. Derby High was quite rural, more than fifteen miles from the city center, and less than eight miles from Cinnamon's home, the Magic 8-Ball Ranch. A considerable number of the students had grown up around horses and other livestock, and were reasonably aware of just how similar Cinnamon's lower body was to a standard Cleveland bay.
And were just as aware of how shi differed.
Cinnamon waggled hir fingers at the other students grouped up and down the corridor, well aware of why they were still there after the final bell. No-one made eye contact, but they didn't need to. Shi knew. They knew shi knew. Shi knew they knew shi knew. Sometimes, though, the charade was what kept things running smoothly.
All four legs moving with graceful, practiced ease, Cinnamon trotted over to the janitor's freight elevator and awaited hir ride down to the main floor.
---
The late spring sun was heaven on Cinnamon's sides when shi eventually made it outside. Hir passage through Derby High was a little tricky, given hir height and weight restrictions. Shi could make it up the main stairs in the office wing just fine, but getting back down again was always treacherous. The only elevator was clear on the other side of school, but shi didn't mind the travel. As shi liked to remind folks, shi was
built
for travel.
Sadly, there was no way around two of hir classes being located on the second floor. AP Bio and AP Chem both had specialized labs. The school had been more than helpful accommodating hir other needs (and finding some compromises when it came to the dress code), but on this issue there was little they could do.
Hir rubberized horseshoes made little squeaks on the polished cement steps, but there were only three here leading up to the school's double doors, and they were large and wide. Even a 'regular' horse wouldn't have had much difficulty. Still, shi breathed a tiny sigh, half relieved, half victorious, when shi felt grass beneath hir once more.
The urge to break into a run was strong, but shi resisted. Shi'd been shouted at enough times for one year already. Apparently, twelve hundred pounds accelerating up to highway speeds was just
wrecking
the grass, and the landscapers were complaining.
"Cinna!"
Cinnamon's human torso swivelled. Tucked into a shady hollow against the side of the school were two other seniors, Millie and JoAnn. Millie was the taller of the two, a willowy young woman with pale skin and dark hair, wearing the finest in discount almost-goth couture that the Derby Mall could supply. JoAnn was quite a bit stockier, the dirty blonde seeming not just poured but
crammed
into her jeans and plaid riding shirt.
As a general rule, they were the only two humans at Derby High who could be counted on to hang out with Cinnamon and not immediately spark torrential flooding of rumors and innuendo.
Cinnamon waved and trotted over to hir friends. "Yo-o-o," shi said tiredly, shaking out hir long and perpetually-frizzy light brown mane. "My head is going to explode before final exams, I fucking swear."
"Ooohh, wah wah, the AP nerd is whining," JoAnn grinned. "Always the overachiever."
Millie thwapped JoAnn's shoulder, but it was a playful gesture. "We can't all hang out with
you
in Remedial Art."
"We get to use cray-yuns next week!"
They laughed, and Cinnamon counted hirself grateful once more for hir childhood friends. JoAnn Bawsey and her family ran the Lazy Barrel, a couple rural roads over from the Magic 8-Ball, and the pair had known each other for more than ten years. Millie Jorunn, despite the spooky-chic aesthetic, was also a farmgirl, though she tried mightily to separate out her family life from her social life. She could just as easily be seen throwing hay bales into a truck as she could be seen posing for selfies in the Old Town cemetery on the outskirts of the neighborhood, wearing monochromatic lingerie.
Of course, as far as her parents knew, she was either at JoAnn's house or Cinnamon's house, or hanging out at the mall.
"Weekend plans?" Millie asked, pulling her phone out of her purse.
"Myeh," JoAnn shrugged. "Wanted to go to see Dead Rising now that the crowds have thinned out, if y'all are up for it." The horror movie was the third in the Dead Walking series of films, and was reported to be delightfully gory.
Cinnamon's ears perked. "I could be down for that. And no, you don't need to sit at the back with me, you can sit in the good seats."
"We're not going to abandon you!" Millie protested.
"It's not abandoning me, I can see you from the back!" the centaur laughed. Due to hir height, and hir general inability to sit easily, Cinnamon typically stood at the very back of the theatre, taking up five or six seats but not bothering anyone around hir.
"It's still rude. If we're all going, we're all going together, and that's that." JoAnn set her mouth firmly and nodded her head, once. Cinnamon and Millie exchanged a glance; when JoAnn made that familiar gesture, her mind was set, and nothing short of high explosives was going to change it.
However, there were extenuating circumstances, and one such circumstance was sidling nervously towards the trio.
"OK, Dead Rising it is. Early show? Late show?"
"You can't go to the EARLY SHOW of a horror movie!" Millie squawked. "Were you raised in a barn?"
"You know, funny you mention that..."
It was a familiar patter, and Cinnamon never tired of it. Shi'd only attended public school for this year, hir senior year. The rest of hir life, shi'd taken courses via distance education, watching pre-recorded lessons on hir computer and writing multiple-choice final exams that were almost hilariously easy. The state didn't offer AP courses via distance, though, and if shi was going to medical school, shi was going to need the benefit of an in-person, rigorously-proctored high school diploma.
For the first month at Derby High, shi'd been the new local freak, stalking the halls. JoAnn and Millie had hung out with hir, bless their hearts, and that made a huge difference, but it was still a long time before even some of the teachers would address hir directly.
All throughout October, shi'd been treated more as a curiosity. Strangers would walk up to hir constantly, and ask questions like "Is that real?" and "What's it like?" and "Did your mom fuck a horse?" Cinnamon tried to respond to all of these as honestly and politely as shi could, but even shi had limits.
By Christmas, though, shi'd apparently passed whatever unofficial acceptance process the school had, and was now a new and welcome addition to the team. After the New Year, shi was treated more like the school's treasured mascot. The graffiti of hir went from sketchy and ill-proportioned to positively flattering. Shi was invited to the occasional house party (though shi mostly just hung out in the back yard), attended a couple dances (though shi mostly just hung out by the wall), and even helped other students study for AP Bio and AP Chem tests.
But there had always been a slight moat of emptiness around hir. The other students were kind, but shi didn't fit in well with them. The Derby locals had gotten used to hir, but treated hir diffidently rather than warmly. Except for JoAnn and Millie, shi could go days without sharing a casual word with anyone. It was a polite, but quiet and somewhat lonely, existence.
Millie's eyes flicked over beyond Cinnamon's heavy barrel, widening slightly, but she said nothing.
"Also, I'm down for some shopping. It's gonna be summer soon, and I don't have a lot that really fits me right anymore." JoAnn grimaced and tugged at her shirt, which was pulled very tightly across the middle of her extremely ample chest.
"If you'd just stop growing, you know-" Cinnamon started, hir eyes twinkling with mirth.
"You're one to talk! Just because you focused all your hormones below the waist..."
Cinnamon smoothed hir hands down the front of hir dress, highlighting hir slender, almost waifish human aspect. Even for a regular Derby senior, shi was considered below-average in that department. "Trust me, this wasn't my first choice," shi grumbled. "I'd have liked some more, you know...
