The long walk home

She had always been a bit of a tomboy, little Stacy Lee, kicking mud around with the boys. But then so had most of the girls around her, until puberty hit like a steam train. Slowly every interaction with the other sex started being judged by a thousand newly-mascara’d eyes. The correct thing to do had apparently become to suddenly stop hanging around and talking everyday to the boys you got on with, but to instead simply drift in and out of their lives with a swish of product-filled hair.

She’d even let herself get suckered into it for a year or so. Spending most of the day with various girlfriends, one of them her bestie in particular. Yet the politics of the schoolyard were not so forgiving, her old propensity for fighting boys and playing sports was not forgotten. Rumours started. Small ones she ignored, bigger ones she spat at, whenever one faded, another only replaced it. It was almost decided overnight, with no say given to her whatsoever: she was a lesbian and her best friend her lover. They laughed at it at first, played up to it sometimes, as a defense... Only her friend's family didn't find it funny, church going and prim, she was raised to be a suburban princess, clearly it was the stubborn little Stacy who was a bad influence. They moved away. Not because of her, but certainly in spite of her. Her best friend was gone, her others having faded away. Stacey was set alone and adrift, languishing under a title, that in all honesty, she couldn't understand… She HATED girls.

Peter and Mark had been a collision of fates then. Outcasts too, but in that socially unaware boyish way where they hadn't actually noticed. They didn't get bullied as such, just passed over. Ignored for their nerdy interests and absent minded habits. Only ever really talking to each other because no-one else had a clue what they were on about. Trudging home on her own everyday, through the same alleys and fields, she just sort of bumped into them enough. They’d heard some trace of rumors of course, but what did they care? If anything she thought it helped them get past their own natural fear of talking to girls. Soon enough she was wandering into their houses to watch corny old movies and be doted on by two mothers looking slightly relieved in their own rights.

Stacy was swept away into a world of out of date music and deep conversations about cyber-ninjas or space-dragons. Trying desperately to keep up, but loving every honest second of unfiltered enthusiasm for fundamentally stupid things. There might have been three parties that weekend that none of them were invited too, but who cared? The local cinema was having an old sci-fi marathon and Peter’s brother could get them in free.

And so things settled. Stacy returned to her tomboy roots. Dyed her hair bright colours and wore whatever comfortable, black and battered things she wanted. Comfortable was the operative word for her life in fact, she joked and jostled with the boys without a single care for any dividing physical lines between them. Till one hot day Mark declared:

“ ...Stacy, I swear, if you ruin one more episode for me with your god-damned eye for plot holes I will kick you square in the balls!”

Peter was quick to pick up the plothole here. “She doesn’t have balls… she's a girl.”

“Girl my ass! Haven't you heard? Our little lady in waiting has a meat and two veg hiding in there bigger’n both of us combined.”

Stacy snorted, knowing that this was just Mark’s attempt at distracting away from the dissection of an awful show that still lay close to his heart. Still, it hurt a little to hear one of the more vicious rumors about her having reached even these deaf ears. Suddenly she had the urge to shut the boy up with a bit of short, sharp shock treatment… She quickly looked around for any bystanders on this quiet outer-town road.

“Oh yeah? Well what do you call this?!” The girl reached down fluidly with both hands, tugging her pleated school skirt up with one and black-cat printed panties down with the other.

Immediately, she knew she had gone too far… Both boys were frozen like rabbits in headlights, staring down between her legs with abject fascination. She felt the cool breeze dance against her little patch of hair down there almost as much as the burning pressure of their gaze. The intensity of the moment seemed to send little shivers up her spine, but also served to annoy her even more. Boys did this kind of thing all the time, didn't they? She’d heard them boasting and laughing as they fell out of the gym locker rooms and had caught an unwanted vision of more than one pair of ass cheeks over the years. Why then were these two idiots frozen gormless with their jaws around their ankles at a little vag-flash?! They'd seen enough porn, they weren't shy about that. The seconds ticked by and no-one said anything. No joke, no insults, no laughter. She was furious! The anger fuelling her to push even one step further.

With a great huff, she reached down even lower and tugged her feet through the holes in her panties. Screwing them up in a ball she threw them directly in the goggle-eyed faces before her.

“Well if you're going to stare so much you may as well keep a memento! Slack-jawed dicks!”

Then she stormed off home, ignoring the dazed pair of idiots she left behind, but unable to quite deny the thrill of feeling nothing but air swishing between her stomping legs.