New school year, new school!

To be honest it was quite daunting to come to the huge High School from our smallish Middle School. Fortunately there were two of us. Me and my fraternal twin sister. Why do people talk about “fraternal twin” when it’s about a girl? Anyway, there we were. Cary and Katherine against the world. Well, not really. Even if the big school scared us, which we’d NEVER admit to anyone else, we didn’t really have anything to fear. We usually found it easy to find new friends or at least gET along with people. We had very good grades without being pegged as nerds since we were good at sports as well. Both Sis and I had selected courses geared towards science and technology with future engineering degrees in mind.

As expected, there was a huge crowd milling around. Sis and I got lost at first and then we ran into an Audrey Hepburn look-alike. She really owned the style. Short hairstyle, black turtleneck, slim black trousers, and ballet flats. Body language was similar as well as far as I could see. Sis could hardly keep herself from laughing. As it happens, I’m a great fan of Audrey Hepburn. As it turned out “Audrey” both was heading to the same homeroom as Sis and I AND she’d been smart enough to print out a map before coming. We happily followed her lead. In my case very happily as I walked behind her and Sis.

Black Cat Investigations – that’s what it says on the door to my downtown office.,

I’m Black by the way. No, I don’t mean that I’m black. Do I confuse you? What I mean is that my name is Black but I don’t have any African roots (that I know about). Actually, I’m white, almost albino white, blonde (nice wavy hair), 6’4”, 200 lbs almost purely muscles apart from the skeleton, firm chin, chiseled features, snappy dresser and so on.

I hadn’t been home for a very long time. Actually, I hadn’t been home since I went away to college more than ten years ago. My parents and siblings preferred to come to the big city, New York, instead to see me. Much more exciting than our little town. The town could have been the model for a Hallmark movie. Everyone knows everybody and all that. The church socials, the Christmas market. Well, you get the picture(s).

Since I was going to move to Paris (France, not Texas) I finally decided to go back once before I moved. Of course, my family would love to visit Paris with the excuse of visiting me, so we’d still see each other but it was Christmas and all that… Also, I have to admit that part of the reason I went back was so that I could brag about my new position as the manager of our Paris office. Quite a career move for a young woman, especially one born as a boy.

I had not expected to be almost killed during the first lecture when I went to university. At least not by the professor.

Recently I mentioned in a comment that I wrote a blog many years ago where the fictional characters from my stories had a get-together. Someone suggested that I write another one. Given that the number of characters has increased significantly since, I thought it would be impractical (and inadvisable during the pandemic).

However, I just noted that there were 99 Bru stories up on BCTS. This story will make it an even 100, or as the Romans wrote: C. Then I thought about the get together again but modified it. We meet most of my characters in high school (or equivalent). It’s reasonable to assume that many of them will continue to college/university. What if some of them, by no means all of them, happened to wind up at the same university?

It all started with Cory’s Grand-aunt. As it turned out she really was Cory’s Grand-uncle if you had a strict legal view of things. Unfortunately she was extremely rich and equally extremely convinced that Cory really was a girl inside. Admittedly Cory wasn’t exactly the alpha-male type and some of his interests, such as ballet, were considered by many as a bit girlish but being a girl? No way!

For years Cory had been able to duck most of her attempts while at the same time avoiding insulting the old lady. That was Cory, ever polite and NICE but always managing to glide around obstacles, like water, and finally get his own way. Then the old lady passed away and Cory found himself the heir of a substantial fortune. Provided he spent one complete year as a girl of course.

Reading Beoca’s blog about the annual (English) School Uniform Protests I just couldn’t help myself. Despite having written a couple of stories on this theme before I just couldn’t resist. Addiction is a terrible thing isn’t it?

It was a Monday, I had just showered after PE and was alone in the middle school locker room. I usually was since I almost always helped coach tidy up after class. Coach had reminded me many times that “sucking up” wouldn’t get me any better grades. That didn’t matter, I LIKED helping people. Why shouldn’t I? It wasn’t like I lost anything by doing that. Coming into the locker room late meant that I didn’t have to deal with the crowd in the rather small locker room. Much less stressful. After PE I had lunch break and coming late meant that I didn’t have to hustle in the queue in the canteen.

Anyway, I was sitting there alone in the locker room scratching my chest that had been bothering me for some time. Maybe I had some kind of inflammation since I had developed mounds there. I didn’t like to see doctors but if this continued I just might have to. That was when coach happened to come into the locker room.

This story differs slightly from most of my other stories.
a) It's one of the longest stories I have posted here
b) It's more of story/tale than usual
The r rating is for violence, not really graphic and mostly referred to. NO graphic sex

I was very surprised when I got a call from Philip. He invited me to be his date for the premiere of his sister’s new action movie. I had not expected him to invite me, his old high school girlfriend. Admittedly that was only a couple of year ago but I had dumped him with some very harsh words. Not that he wasn’t a macho jerk fixated on martial arts but, anyway, there was no need for me to be THAT cruel to him. Actually he was a rather pathetic figure always in the shadow of his older, gorgeous and popular sister Anne. Well, Anne really enjoyed putting him down. Partly from guilt but mostly because I’d never been to a big Hollywood premiere I accepted.

This story was inspired by ”What Happened” by Daphne Xu. The premise there was reality shift. I wondered if I could come to the same scandal without a reality shift.

My sister is a bastard.

No, she isn’t a bully. Being a bully would mean that she cared in one way or another about another person. She’s completely egocentric and she does what she thinks is necessary to get what she wants. If I happen to be collateral damage, if I’m hurt or humiliated, too bad. That’s why I was appalled to learn that I was going to spend the summer at the beach in Florida.

It all started one morning in Home Room, soon after I had started Sophomore year, when Mrs Black announced that a new foreign boy would be joining our high school. She looked at the paper and said that she thought he was from Germany since he was named Gerd. At that moment the new boy arrived. He conformed to the stereotypical German in that he had blond hair and the most amazing blue eyes. He wasn’t tall, probably some eight inches shorter than me. Overall “Cute” would be an apt description. I also noticed his long gorgeous legs. I was determined to enjoy them as much as I could that day, since there was no way the school would allow him to wear such a ridiculous short skirt more than the first day.

When there was an announcement that Amy Amstel should come to the school secretary’s office urgently since there was a call waiting for her from her modelling agency my class-room exploded in laughter at the obvious joke someone had managed to pull. Everyone looked at the boy in the second row – me. My teacher is in on it and said:

- They must mean you, Andrew. Off you go.

I hated the fact that I looked like the young teenage girl model Amy Amstel. More precisely I hated the ribbing I got for looking like her. I could, just, accept that my fellow students joked about it but teachers?

I was a professor of law at a small Catholic university. I preferred the title professor to “father” even though I was an ordained priest and a theologian as well. Some would say that I was a rather well-known theologian. Others would spit and call me infamous and the spawn of the devil. In the context of the Catholic Church I’m considered a raving mad leftie. I prefer liberal. While I don’t think I question the basic tenets of the Faith I certainly question that the social system of the first centuries AD in the eastern Mediterranean basin should dictate how the Holy Church is organised today. Recently I had been involved in some rather heated debate.

That was probably the reason why the Dean was falling to pieces when he received the message that His Holiness Johannes XXIV had requested my presence in Rome AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

End of Junior year in High School: Peter

"Anything you can do I can do better; I can do anything better than you."

I hate whenever my sister sings that song. It means that she managed to get one over someone, usually me. This time she spent all of ten minutes gloating. She really isn’t better than I. She just lies and cheats all the time. The problem is that our parents, our teachers, our class-mates and everyone else think that I am the cheat, and not a very good one at that. Mary and I are in the same year. We are NOT twins. She is gorgeous. I’m no great specimen of a man. When Mary wants to really set me off she calls me her little sister. Mary is born in January and I in December which makes her the big sister. Something she never tires of reminding me. She is the most popular girl in school, cheerleader, girlfriend to the next Quarterback. Anything you can think of she’s got it, or to be more exactly, stolen, lied or cheated to get.

Just in case you hadn’t noticed – this is an “Advanced Bru reader” story

My mother had always wanted to have a daughter that she could do all those girly things with. Unfortunately for me I only had two brothers and no sister and since I was the “pretty” one I was IT.

I just hated it when she brought home dresses, skirts, hose … and insisted that I wear it. And all those long hours when she taught me how to apply make-up, make the best of my hair and so on. I cringed every time she brought me to the Salon. It was so embarrassing!

Two teens entered a shop specialised in “slightly” provocative clothing for girls. The rather skinny girl was very pretty in a girl-next-door way. The boy looked very much like the girl. They obviously were siblings. The boy more or less dragged the blushing girl into the shop.

The boy addressed the gorgeous and very seductively made up girl (whose dress had required minimal material) working in the shop.

I’m not a girl but I like girly clothes. Dresses and skirts swishing, the soft materials … So much better than the usual boy stuff. However, even as a twelve year old I should have known better than come to school in a dress. My classmates were rather dense and just couldn’t appreciate how pretty and comfortable it was. That was the beginning of a rather unpleasant time in school. I had hoped that things would be better when I started high school but my old classmates went to the same high school and one day the first semester I forgot that we had PE and wore my prettiest panties…

My big break came when my family moved away to a new city. A new beginning and a clean slate! I’d make sure to be a macho, macho boy.

Lately I had actually enjoyed going to school. It had started when a group of documentary filmers had chosen our school to do a documentary about every-day high school life. This would be their fifth week here. The first week everyone tried to get their attention. They strongly discouraged that. Their goal was to be as unnoticeable as possible. Blending in into the background while filming with their carefully disguised cameras, as well as some fixed cameras. By the fourth week they had succeeded quite well. The students didn’t take more notice of them than they did of the poster for the Chess club’s next game in the state championships. Quite a pity, I had spent quite a lot of time making that poster.

So given that the film team wasn’t interested in any drama queens why did my best friend Phil come to school dressed as a girl?