Only it was everyone else that was getting changed!
Squires
Chapter 5 by Bailey Summers
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Image Credit: anime couple
Honey was very surprised at being included with the group. They were really never the kind of people she’d thought she’d ever hang around with. Jessie the hero type, Daniel a seriously sweet guy so far and Johnny this cross dresser gay guy or girl that looked better than she did. She didn’t want to lump Johnny in with the “girls” like her on Maury or Jerry Springer.
They went into the cafeteria together and got one of the tables and the guys went over to the line up and came back with coffee’s and fresh made cookies. She smiled shyly taking a coffee and shook her head at the offered cookies.
“I can’t I don’t want to get fat…fatter.”
All three of them looked at them with cookies in their mouths. Johnny shoved the rest of her cookie into her mouth in one of those improbable mouthfuls and walked over and put her hands around her waist. Honey blinked in rapid succession them blushed.
Johnny stepped back and eyed her over making her nervous and finally washed that cookie down with some coffee. “You’re what a twenty six waist?”
“No…twenty eight.”
“Okay still that’s pretty good.”
“Good, that’s not good. I’m fat!”
“Please a twenty eight inch waist isn’t fat.”
“Yeah well you don’t get mooed at.” Honey sniffed and looked down.
Jessie fished his cookie and sipped his coffee and made a face. “I carried you Honey trust me you’re not heavy.”
She looked at him wide eyed and she blushed and a few of the kids around had caught that and were whispering and it all lent to Honey realizing that he had carried her from the parking lot into the nurses office and had even scolded them.
It was going to be all over school. Oh Lord it likely was.
Johnny looked at her. “No they call me freak or tranny or fag and a whole bunch of other nice things. Words hurt, of I know people just say to ignore them but they hurt because they hit us right in the worst spots we have. And that’s the way we see ourselves.”
Honey looked at her a little bit but then down again. She was feeling kind of bad because while she had her problems the other kids around here really had it out for her she supposed.
Jessie sat up actually on the bench styled table and took another cookie and looked at both of the girls.
“Everyone has self image problems and self confidence problems absolutely everyone and it’s alright and it’s normal because people are screwed up. Heck I think people are wonderfully screwed up and weird. It’s the ones that deny that and call themselves normal and feel the need to enforce conformity to the way that they seem to think normal and right is…those are the ones that you have to watch out for.”
Dan grinned. “Like bitchy alpha dogs like Britney.”
Jess grinned gesturing over to where she was holding her little court together all of them drinking waters and looking very good after what was most of the morning break re-preening, some still doing it. They seemed very interested in stuff on a laptop and on their phones.
“Exactly, she’s exactly the type. She needs to be reassured so badly that she’s the shit she surrounds herself with less strong willed versions of herself. They all aspire to be her or like her and they want to have someone’s approval because she’s “just sooo like cool.” that she brings them in and they’re so thrilled that she saw that they were one of the “cool kids” they worship her.”
Johnny smirked. “I think that’s why they call them cliques.”
Daniel snorts. “That’s because clique is more polite that calling them cults.”
Honey wasn’t even sure where it came from. “Like but we sooo like didn’t like drink the Kool-aid ‘cause it’s got like sugar in it and that’s like a carb yanno!”
They all cracked up laughing at her bimbo imitation and she was so surprised at that, that the laughed with her and that she even said something and she smiled as Jessie offered her one of the cookies. She took it and bit into it and it tasted better than she’d remembered cookies tasting like. It’d been awhile since she let herself even enjoy something like this without the guilt.
They kept talking and just talking all of them still new to the school except for Johnny who had transferred in last year but hadn’t gotten to go to a lot of classes because health reasons and Daniel knew a lot of the kids here in his gaming group because they all went to the same three or four hobby shops.
Honey had never really known anyone who had been to as many places as Jessie or spoke as many languages even though he admitted to not being actually fluent in any of them. It was even cool when the boys walked her and Johnny to their classes.
Johnny’s first since biology was closer and her accounting class was a bit further out. It was nice and even nice to see the stuff in her bag all cleaner up and wiped down and was there a dryer sheet in her bag? She sniffed. It smelled like one. She hadn’t really made friends since she had started to bud out and was very shortly singled out ever since.
Accounting, that was a safe class most of the kids that took it weren’t really the types that spared the time from their studies to harass other kids.
………………………………………………………..Jessie parted ways with Daniel as he went off to physics and Jessie headed to math. He wasn’t sure what exactly his whole high school plan was or even after he graduated but math classes were usually a good idea. Most things really wanted you to have good credits in math from going into sciences or going into a technical area like his dad they usually wanted math more than any other credits.
Jessie liked cars and machines and he’d really enjoyed working on the car with his dad this summer so he was leaning toward maybe mechanical engineering? And made a break in there somewhere to actually get his automotive mechanics license. He was good with his hands and his dad had said that there will never be enough people that really know what their doing with stuff like that.
Maybe work abroad like his dad did. Some of those places had been rough to live in and dangerous but most of them paid really well. Even Africa paid well it was just a lot of the time his dad worked to help others for free.
That gave him ideas and stuff about things he might do. Of course those things changed but dreaming and playing around with the possible kept you going.
He liked the class well enough and went from there to American history and then gym.
Gym class.
He knew it was coming and he saw the guidance councilor sitting up in the stands for the gym as he came in and there was someone else with her. He headed to the locker room when the coach stopped him.
“Hey Stone is it wait a second.”
“Yes sir?”
“You shouldn’t be going in there.”
“Excuse me?”
“Y’know with your condition. Are you even sure that you want to be taking gym at all son?”
“Yes sir I am certain that I want to take this class. Are you saying that you don’t want me in your class?”
“No, no nothing like that people come in all shapes and sizes and what not. Maybe it might be a better idea if you changed in my office given the circumstances?”
“Well that might be true but it won’t change a thing sir because sooner or later people will find out and the situation you are trying to avoid will happen anyway. Look I’m actually sorry that it’s going to happen in your class sir but it will have happened eventually.”
The coach blinked a few times and nodded. “Well that makes sense but maybe I should be in there to keep an eye on things?”
“No that will just make things worse actually. I don’t want or need any special treatment.”
The coach looked at him. Chewed on his moustache and slowly nodded again. “Okay…okay but I will be right outside this door.”
“That’d fine sir.”
“And it’s coach not sir.”
“Yes coach.”
Jessie took his bag and he headed into the locker room and there was the normal hustle and bustle of the guys getting changed. It was a lot different that the other times he’d been in a gym class. This was high school that means that you actually took gym as a class credit. Which meant that all the kids that were in this class wanted to be in this class.
He got a few looks and then he got a lot of looks as he took off his shoes and pants. He was sort of used to that too. He was above average but he wasn’t sure to what extent he was above average. It’s not something that was talked about in the other places he’s gone to school at especially after…
He took off his shirts and everyone saw his bra.
“Holy shit the new guys got titties.”
“Freak.”
“She-male!”
There was this tall built blonde athletic kid getting changed. “Dude, in here like what the fuck?”
That was better a WTF question he could answer. “I have something that’s called gynocomastia, it’s a kind of genetic thing that causes a glandular disorder that well…”
Jess gestured at his bra.
There were a couple of. “Yeah right!” and “Bullshit!” and of course. “You’re a freak and you hang out with that tranny freak!”
Of course the ones saying it were keeping back in the crowd that was gathering to watch and stare at him. Jessie looked at them and just like it was a regular thing unhooked his bra and took it off showing his small but actually very nice breasts to all the guys.
Okay maybe he sort of liked sending them into a tizzy. Yeah and tizzy was the right word.
He took out his sports bra and started to slide into it. “Look Johnny is a nice girl.”
“He’s no girl!” Someone in back shouted.
“Actually gender and sexuality is way more in the brain than just in your body. Johnny’s a girl to me if she feels like she’s a girl on the inside. And actually if some people here weren’t so freaked out and uptight about people just being people and different you all might find that she’s one of the nicest people that you’ll likely ever meet.”
That same voice that had just yelled spoke up again. “He’s going to hell and so are you god hates fags.”
“And I’m sure that you believe that but how about you keep your religious ideas to yourself and you can rest comfortably in the knowledge that when I die I’ll be cooking like an overdone meatloaf.”
“Jesus said all fags are going to hell!” The guy shouted back and Jessie could see some of the kids moving away from the boy and he was standing there looking very red faced and angry as were two of his friends.
“Actually that’s Old Testament Jesus never said anything about gay people.”
That didn’t look like it was sitting well with this guy and his friends and they had clenched jaws and fists. “Like you’ve read the bible freak.”
“Actually yes and I’ve worked with Christian missionaries in Zimbabwe and they didn’t have a problem with who I am.”
“Bullshit!”
“Give me your e-mail I’ll send you the pictures.”
The guy shut up and turned and stalked off with his friends and left the locker room cursing and they heard him yell outside the locker room. “Coach Flynn!”
The other guys were still shooting him looks and the big blonde guy that had asked what was up with his condition said. “Nice bruises, those from the fight online?”
“Fight online?” Jess gave him the eyebrow.
“Yeah it’s all over the school, you tube and the school’s Facebook page and it’s even on this page that’s exposing some of the shit that goes on here.”
“Really, well yes I got these in that little off the grounds scuffle with Keith. But I didn’t know that it was online.”
The guy tossed him his smart-phone after bringing it up. Jess watched it and he grinned. He especially grinned at the fact that whoever had set up this page had also put up this footage of the girls that had harassed Honey.
He showed that to the blonde guy. “Does the administration have a way of watching this?”
The guy got up and leaned over and showed him. “The school’s homepage and go to the guidance office tag and see where you can post stuff we just copy and paste the video like this…and they have it now.”
Jess smiled at the guy and passed him back the phone. “Thanks I’m Jessie Stone.” He offered his hand. The blonde jock nodded and shook hands with him and smiled back. “I’m Kenyon McLean.”
“Interesting name.”
The guy smiled and shook his head. “Yeah maybe but try going through school with a different name kids get great kicks out of trying to do the play on words thing.”
Jess nodded. “Jessie wasn’t exactly common in the countries that I lived in.”
“Yeah I can see that. Nice scars, what happened there.”
There was some more interest in that once they were mentioned and people looked. Jessie looked at Kenyon and the others. “I was living in Cape town when I started growing breasts and that didn’t go over too well with a bunch of kids that didn’t like me for that and some other things and they jumped me as a group and left me in a coma.”
“Shit…” and “Dude” and things like that were being repeated. Jessie looked at them all and sat down to put on his sneakers.
“They beat me just because I was different, because they could and because I upset what they thought was normal. The only difference really between them and Keith and the three that left here in the laws and the fact that while they might do something really nasty they’d get caught. There they just hit me and they were just going to fade into the wood work and the slums.”
“Dude that’s not right.” Some one said.
“No, it’s not and it’s happening all the time even here in this school.”
“Really?” He heard someone say.
He looked at them and showed them the bruises again.
“That was yesterday, it would’ve been worse with that Britney girl calling for my head if her boyfriend had have listened. How many people are just going to get crap from people who think they can just get away with things because they’ve always gotten away with things?”
Some of them were nodding and talking hushedly.
“Look this is for most of us our first year in a new school you don’t think that some of us are going to catch it from the older kids or the ones that have showed up here too with their little entourages?”
There were a few. “No’s and some mutters”
Jessie finished dressing. “Okay that just us talking about us here but what about the kids not here in this class. You all went to school with some of the kids that didn’t sign up for Phys. Ed. some of those kids were bullied too at your old schools and they’ll definitely get it here because while this is high school it’s also hell for some of these kids.”
He looked at them. “I almost ran into Honey this morning because she was being bullied and she was that broken hearted that she ran out blindly into the parking lot. She was nearly killed. She fell and that was an accident but just how long will it take before someone does it and it’s not an accident, or does something some other way?”
They were staring at him. Okay he might have taken this a little far. He leaned his back on the lockers and sighed. “Sorry…just sorry guys between being in a new school and a fight on my first day and this today I’m a bit would up. I just hate this shit.”
There were some voices saying. “Yeah…” and “Me too.” And a few. “It won’t matter nothing changes, they just keep getting away with it.”
Jessie smiled still with his eyes closed. “No, there’s that web page…we use that. Most of us have phones and most of them record video or take pictures we don’t even have to say who’s putting something up but if we see some thing messed up going on and for some reason we can’t stop it from happening record it. Post it and we let them hang themselves.”
There’s a few chuckles and murmurs. Jessie opened his eyes and headed out and smiled at them. It was a start, most of them won’t but some of them might tape and post some one being a douche to people and it would spread.
The worst of the bullies dragged other along in their wake. If they stopped because of them looking bad then that worked the sheeple would follow.
The worst ones he was pretty sure were like the top ten percent of the social groups. The ringleaders and the rest of them around these people were wannabe’s and followers. If it got to be where these people weren’t really all that cool then…
And the nest thing it they are that bad and vicious to others that they’d see no problem in jumping to socially attack one of their own when they got caught doing something wrong. It’s what they did, the pecking order as it were.
Kenyon stepped into place beside Jessie and looked at him. “You mentioned if we can’t stop something bad from happening? You’re not going to be recording things are you? You’re going to get involved aren’t you Jessie?”
Jessie gave him a side long look. “More than likely, it’s just not in me to let things slide and act like someone doing something shitty to just slide.”
……..Kenyon looked at Jessie. He wasn’t really that tall but not short a bit under six feet slender and wiry built too like a swimmer or a runner. Back hair that just came down to his shoulders…but he wasn’t really one of those guys that passed as a girl right off the bat or the classic chiseled guy either baby faced and just the average side of good looking really but what drew you in was the intensity of his personality.
He’d never been that intrigued by someone before.
He looked at Jessie again and asked. “So the beating really changed you huh?”
Jessie looked at him and there was this look sad yet something fierce there too and those eyes just sort of shone? “Yeah, they beat the indifference out of me.”
He’d never met anyone that talked like Jessie did.
“Yeah, I can see that…”
Jessie smiled and went into the gym. “So what sport do you play?”
Kenyon blinked. “Sport? No I don’t really play sports.”
He saw Jessie look him over and he felt kind of self conscious about it. “Uhm yeah no offense but you sort of look like one of the jocks.”
Kenyon blushed, he blushed he couldn’t believe he was blushing around a guy. “Uhm no I started in on my growth spurt last year and instead of being like the rest of the guys in my family and being all tall and lanky I hit the weights and got into a bit of body building over the summer. Well that and getting a summer job.”
“Oh what did you do?”
“Construction.”
“Isn’t that a union thing?”
“My dad runs a small company so I spent most of the summer doing stuff like shoveling concrete or cement or sand or gravel and carting wheelbarrows of bricks and stuff for the guys that worked for dad.”
“That’d do it.”
“Thanks…I guess.”
Gym class was pretty tame just actually a mixture of the coach running them through all the general fitness stuff then going over the course work. Kenyon was surprised at there being course work and so were a lot of the students that took the class as a gimme class. It turns out that they’d be learning about sports rules and mechanics as well as learning what kinds of rules there’d be for tournaments and stuff along with some sports history.
And there were class fees for the away trips. Since there was a swimming requirement and they’d be trying different sports throughout the year.
Who knew that some people thought that bowling and golf and canoeing were sports?
Jessie was sort of the talk of the class when they were doing the physical stuff like laps. The stuff he said was being passed around but not as much as the fact that Jessie had breasts.
That he had breasts and he’d changed with the guys. It was sort of actually less of a deal with the guys as some most of them had sort of gotten over the freaking out part of Jessie getting changed and stuff but the girls were all talking and whispering about it.
He had to admit Jessie definitely had stirred things up here. He was pretty sure that he was actually like this school and that things here might be really interesting.
After class and hitting the showers was an experience and even if the freaking out part was less than it was there were still tons of stares from people watching Jessie getting showered.
The three churchy guys were not happy the entire time and had spent part of class with some girls that looked pretty scandalized by Jessie having breasts and being in the changing room with the guys and at the end of class they’d trooped over to this lady that had been watching the class and had been sitting up in the stands.
There was definitely going to be trouble coming. He really didn’t like the looks they were giving Jessie either and there was no way he’d let a bunch of people try something like what had happened to him before.
Jessie…He liked him, a lot.
He was actually surprised when Jessie walked up to him as they were getting out of class. “Plans for lunch?”
“Uhm no actually.”
“Well c’mon and join me and the rest their good people you’ll fit right in.”
He blushed. Nobody had said that kind of thing to him before. That he was good people or that he’d fit right in.
“Sure I’d like that.”
Comments
Nice to see more of this
Nice to see more of this story, Bailey! I was set to chide you about the dated reference to Jerry Springer. After all, I thought, that crap was a generation ago, and a kid in high school today shouldn't know it, but then I checked, and found it's still on the air?! The world is dark and mysterious place, sometimes.
Yep Jerry and Maury are still doing damage:)
It's actually creepy too I'll agree. Though I'm pretty sure Maury's a zombie and Jerry well Satan has to have a hobby right?
*Big Hugs*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
Unfortunately...
I don't think either of those guys are going anywhere any time soon. Dunno about Maury... He seems to be a decent enough and sensitive enough guy, his show is just... yeah... Jerry OTOH... He's intentionally mean. A real bully and devil. I guess I can understand some of us showing up on Maury... but why the hell would any of us EVER want to show up on Jerry EVER?! I'll never understand anyone willingly and wantonly subjecting themselves to abuse. I just have to question the motives and the legitimacy of anyone willing to go on that show.
Abigail Drew.
Jerry is evil but we all know that:)
Maury though I think he might just have a fetish or is a closet chaser. Unfortunately they get the desperate and in need of the money or vain enough for their 15 minutes of fame.
*Hugs*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
I'm desperate and in need of money...
But not THAT desperate...
Sigh... I'll just never understand it...
Abigail Drew.
Tabloid talk show
Of course, these shows are still popular because they attract the same people that avidly latch onto whatever celebrity misdeeds feature in tabloid newspapers and celebrity gossip magazines. It's hard to see what they see in such shows, other than rubbernecking and deriving some form of pleasure from seeing people blow their tops. It's harder yet to see what motivates people to appear on such shows, other than perhaps the pay cheque and their Warholian fifteen minutes... (although I can think of more pleasant ways to be remembered than headbutting your ex on TV, as notoriously happened once during The Jeremy Kyle Show...)
-oOo-
Meanwhile, Jessie's group gains another member, while another group of idiots plot their revenge on Jessie (presumably for the crime of being friendly to social outcasts... which, ironically, is something an ancient Galilean preacher spent a lot of time doing...)
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
an so the revolution...
gains rumors, ideals and a new recruit.
great chapter, thanks
Jessie has the idea of if he can just plant the seeds.
And just let the kids silently and anonymously post videos or pictures of the assclowns in the school being just that...assclowns then sooner or later it'll be juniors using it as a defense, the cliques using it on each other as weapons and after awhile they might not feel safe to be their shitty selves to people.
Jess likes Kenyon he's an honest seeming guy.
*Hugs and Howls*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
now, Kenyon
Interesting boy. What will Jessie do when he finds out Kenyon is sort-of crushing on him?
If the crush comes to light:)
We'll just have to wait and see:)
*Great Big Angel Hugs*
Bailey...A Proud Big Brother.
Bailey Summers
So our little troop is still .....
Growing! Jessie's attitude about various things is refreshing, and is really uniting the oppressed in school. Ms Bailey, I'm really enjoying this one! TY. (Hugs) Taarpa
He's lived abroad and homeschooled and...
there is nothing like a good properly committed comic, science fiction and fantasy fan to have a certain skewed perspective of life.
*Great Big Hugs*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
Squires of the Round Table?
So the Table grows!
hugs
Grover
Actually the round tables in the Caff are too small
for the group and they use these long bench style tables that are the mainstay for a lot of schools.
...............And prisons.
*Big Hugs*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
Knights of the
rectangular table? Wouldn't be more fitting for them to have a hexagonal table given so many are gamers? :)
Hugs
Grover
Daniel would love that:)
It would still have to be a pretty big table.
*Hugs*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
A Counter-culture club
(with apologies to Boy George)
Fight da powah! Sigh
Sighs are the natural language of the heart.
-Thomas Shadwell
Kind of sort of:)
Though that would likely have the kids go... "Who?"
And Fight da power's an old rap tune I think:)
*Big Hugs*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
Calmer Chameleon
with apologies to Boy George n Sigh Jessie seems to have a calm ability to take on the insecurities of whatever environment he's in n whichever individual he's addressing k-jo
I was lying down minding my own business when life came by and drove right over me
That's true Jessie can kind of adjust well.
Some kids can do that as a thing they picked up while moving around. Not all of his experiences abroad were bad.
*Great Big Angel Hugs*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
Positive direction
From tiny acorns grow mighty oaks and it appears that Jessie is slowly making progress in changing things. That being said, I get the feeling the forces of status quo are going to be striking back soon!
Great story as always Bailey.
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Oh there will likely be a backlash.
Those in power rarely want to see things change unless it suits them.
Glad that you liked it:)
*Great Big Hugs*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
Gym class, God help us...
I really hated Gym class, Not because of my boobs but because I was so inept at sports. I was a pretty good batter in baseball, but I ran the bases like a girl, and that describes my running ability in all sports. And I really didn't like being naked with a bunch of guys in the locker room or showers. I don't think I compared unfavorably, I just worried that they could read something in me, no one ever did though, I was a good chameleon by then.
Isn't it odd the personal memories stirred up by a well written scene even when they don't follow the story line, which is great, by the way,
Ole
We are each exactly as God made us. God does not make mistakes!
Gender rights are the new civil rights!
I hated the gym class favoritism.
My school was pretty good but for that class...our gym teachers were the classic former jocks who praised all the little jocks while teasing the rest of us. Both also made lots of allowances for the monied or popular kids.
We had a good teacher one year...so good to all they didn't re-hire him. After his contract was up.
*Big Hugs*
Bailey Summers
Pied piper
Jess is like the Pied Piper, everywhere he goes someone pops off and he comes back with how people should be treating each other. And the loud mouth calms up and stomps off in disgust.
It was nice to see how Jess put the religious zealots in their place by offering proof to his claims. Proof has a way of making people back off. And why did they find it so hard to believe Jess lived in Africa? Just because he has a genetic disorder which causes his body to develop beasts?
And now the girls in the other class are getting into the act? What's to become of that?
Kenyon is another lost person being asked to join the merry little band. And like Honey, he too is shocked someone is asking him to join others for lunch.
All Jess needs now is a flute.
Others have feelings too.