Class Conflicts (Introduction)

"Are you sure you are okay wearing that outfit?" said my father as I was about to leave.

"For the last time, yes. I've been wearing it for the past few weeks without trouble. Please stop worrying."

"Alright, well, as always I want you to be careful today."

"I will Dad. Bye."

I closed the front door behind me and began walking to school, but despite how I did this every morning I still felt uncomfortable. I had lied to my father just now.

The door closed shut behind me. I made my way to the sidewalk and then turned and began towards the direction of my school. Despite how this was how I began every morning five days a week for several weeks now, I had lied to my father just now, as what I was doing was still extremely uncomfortable. as much as it always was. And it wasn't going to get any better.

At St. Bartholomew, my private college, all students and staff are required to wear school issued clothing while attending, adding to the already steep price students were expected to pay to get in. For most of the students this wasn't a problem, as they were all from rich families who could afford to burn money for amusement. I was different. I had been accepted through a scholarship which had paid for most of my tuition, an opportunity my father didn't want to waste. He agreed to pay the remaining amount, but that left us poorer than usual and with very little money for additional expenses. However, there was a loophole. You see, students are required to have a gym uniform to change into, but while there was a rule against wearing the traditional uniform in gym, there was no rule against wearing the gym uniform in regular class. This was because sometimes the traditional uniform was lost or damaged during the day and students would be allowed to attend in their gym-wear. So if I bought just the gym uniform and wore it the entire day, then it would technically fit within the perimeters of the dress code. My father ran this idea past the school and, while they weren't thrilled with the idea as it would be highly unprofessional, they were willing to make the exception in my case.

Even then we still couldn't buy a new uniform and so we settled for a used one instead. When it arrived and I picked it up it turned out to be really old. It was actually a discontinued model, apparently from the days when the school was less concerned with the modesty of its students, because it showed much more skin than what the other students wore. It only consisted of a shirt, shorts, and shoes.

The shorts had to be the least comfortable. They consisted of a thin white fabric sewn together so poorly that it would have been better if I had done the job myself. The stitching was beginning to come undone and the elastic had worn out long ago, but that didn't seem to cause too much trouble at the moment. I was more concerned with the material. It was so light that I felt as though I was wearing nothing at all because I wasn't wearing any underwear underneath. In fact, I never wore underwear at all. I didn't own any. Growing up in a poor family meant that any layer of clothing deemed excessive was then deemed unnecessary, and between socks, shoes, coats, and hats, all multiples by the amount needed to replace each item because it was outgrown or worn out, and a piece of clothing which did the job that shorts and pants already did starts to seem insignificant. So the only thing between my most private areas and the rest of the world was a single layer of cheap white cloth, held up with worn out elastic and stitching. And all of that might not have been so bad if the shorts weren't so damn short. I had to be extra careful to make sure that my penis and/or balls (yes, they are THAT short) didn't fall through one of the leg holes where everyone would be able to see them. And don't even get me started on erections. If I ever pop a boner in class there will be no way to hide it unless I am sitting down under my desk.

The shirt was about the same. It was made of the same cheap fabric with the same poor stitching. Its elastic wasn't worn out because it didn't have any, the sleeves were about as useless as the shorts would imply, and the bottom of the shirt stopped right at my waist, so if I bent over or turned or the cloth rode up just a little bit you would see some of the skin of my midsection. The shoes were actually swimming shoes because, as you can probably guess, they were required and they were the cheapest pair we could find. They were made of a floppy rubber and were very tight so they be worn with socks, but on the bright side they had good traction when the floor was wet.

But despite all of this, please don't consider me ungrateful. This is all a small price to pay for being able to attend a great school as well as keeping food on the table. My father has made such an effort to help me go to this school that I couldn't bear to break his heart by making him think I am not happy or grateful.

I think about this the entire time I am getting to school. I walk for quite a distance before getting to the front gate. You would think the students would be used to me now that we had been in class for several weeks, but they still stare at me every time I arrive. I don't talk to them. I don't have many friends. The way our school works is that we actually only have one teacher who covers a few subjects, which means we are stuck with the same twenty to thirty classmates for the entire year. I knew the names of everyone in my class, and they definitely knew who I was, but they didn't make much of an effort to make me feel welcome, and I am usually to shy to interact with them. It's not their fault that I was poor, and if it made them uncomfortable then I don't want to bother them.

I made my way upstairs and into my classroom. Everyone ignored me without ignoring me, staring at me but otherwise not acknowledging me presence in any way. I took my seat as the bell rang. The teacher, Mr. Manning, stood up from the front and began taking roll call. He got to my name:

"Richard Thatcher," called out the teacher.

"Here!" I said.

From behind me I heard one of the students whisper a nasty little nickname that people had begin to call me behind my back.

"Dick Thatcher," he whispered, loud enough for me and a few others to hear, but it went unnoticed by Mr. Manning who was busy talking loudly to the rest of the class to see who was and who wasn't there that day.

I had heard that name before, and thinking that it was a fluke I hoped it would leave, but I had accepted by this point that it was going to stick. Still, just because I had accepted it didn't mean that I liked it. Hearing it and knowing that there wasn't a thing that I could do about it made me squirm in my seat. Then I felt a strange but unfortunate familiar sensation. I looked down and saw the head of my penis poking through my shorts. I tried ot be as discreet as possible, but I'm pretty sure that the people around me all knew that I put my hand under my desk to adjust myself. I managed to do so just before attendance was finished, and good thing too, because I wouldn't have been able to move my hand down to my crotch with Mr. Manning looking. And in a few minutes I was called to come to the front to solve a math problem to start the lesson. I really with Mr. Manning wouldn't pick on me to come up to the front. But the only reason he did that was because I was otherwise a very bright student. So it was either I get called in front everyone or I start flunking on purpose.

It was going to be a long day/week/year.