Colleen and Nathan's First Time

As they began their senior year, they both celebrated their eighteenth birthdays that were only one day apart. Nathan gave her a boxed set of Beatles CDs, and Colleen gave him a set of socket wrenches to work on his new car, a vintage Mustang convertible that was a gift from his parents.

Colleen and Nathan had been best friends since they were three years old, when the Bakers moved next door to the Quinns in a quiet neighborhood in the small city in Illinois where they lived. The Baker family consisted of Bob and Betty and their two children, Nathan and Susan, who were two years apart. Susan was the oldest. The Quinns were Mark and Mary and their three offspring, Kathleen, Rob and Colleen, who were also two years apart. Kathleen was the oldest, Colleen the youngest.

Colleen and Nathan were like two peas in a pod. Both were extremely precocious. They started walking at ten months, talking at a year old, and speaking in complete sentences before they were two.

She was a complete tomboy, matching Nathan stride for stride as they played. They climbed the oak tree in the Baker's yard, and pushed each other on the swings at the Quinn's. They talked Bob into building them a tree house in the giant oak. All four parents held their breath at the thought of them falling and injuring themselves, and were relieved to see them scampering up the rope ladder like a pair of monkeys.

The tree house was their fortress, their refuge. On warm summer nights they slept up there in the branches. They filled it with books; both of them were learning to read, sounding out words together. They both had library cards and carried home a fresh stack every Saturday morning.

Colleen was fascinated with dinosaurs, whales, jungle animals and almost anything in the natural world. She could proudly identify a Triceratops, a Velociraptor or a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Nathan was interested in space ships and anything to do with space travel, ships that traveled the oceans, and almost anything of a mechanical nature.

Colleen shared her DVDs of the whole Jurassic Park series and didn't even close her eyes during the really scary parts. Together they watched the Star Wars movies and the Star Trek Series, the original being their favorites. They adopted a stuffed Tribble as their official mascot.

They eschewed the normal childhood toys. Instead of blocks, they built things with Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. Colleen was never interested in dolls, and had a Barbie still in its unopened box gathering dust on a shelf in her closet. Instead, she enjoyed Nathan's Erector set, and they constructed an array of impressive machines.

When they weren't at Nathan's house, they were at Colleen's, along with Lucy, a two year old golden lab. Lucy technically belonged to the Bakers, but could be found at either house, depending on where the kids were. She wagged her whole body like she was hinged in the middle. Scratch her behind the ears, and she'd flop down on her back, hoping for a tummy rub. They played hard and usually got filthy dirty, especially after a mud puddle splashing contest. At the end of the day, Mary or Betty would strip off their dirty clothes and throw the kids in the bathtub together.

The school was close enough so they could walk. Lucy faithfully tagged along with them and curled up and slept under a bush until they got out at the end of the day.

School bored them to death. They were so intellectually advanced compared to the other kids, that they spent their days huddled together in a corner, chattering away like a pair of magpies.

Their teacher and the principal called all the parents together to discuss their children. The school wanted to send them to a psychologist to be tested for ADHD.

When she had finished her evaluation, Dr. Keegan called the parents back in to discuss her findings. "I don't see any signs of attention deficit. They are both totally aware of what goes on in the classroom. They're just so advanced for their age, they're just bored. Have you thought of letting them skip a grade or two and letting start in at maybe the second or third grade?"

Both sets of parents had discussed this, but decided they wanted the kids to be socially integrated with children their own age. It didn't work then, and never did, all the way through high school. They never knew what to say to the other kids. They we a pair of lone wolves, always preferring each other's company.

Nathan began taking piano lessons when he was five. He, in turn, taught Colleen. By the time they were eight, both could sight read anything. They could hear a piece and play it back by ear. Colleen developed an affinity for the guitar. As she grew older, her repertoire expanded. She moved from classical acoustic to rock, blues, and jazz. She particularly liked the twelve string and studied the old delta bluesmen, from Robert Johnson to Mississippi John Hurt. She could finger-pick and play the bottleneck with the best of them.

She collected the albums of Koerner, Ray and Glover who were part of early folk/blues explosion in the 1960's. The band featured Tony "Little Sun" Glover on harmonica, "Spider" John Koerner and Dave "Snaker Ray" on guitar and vocals. They inspired her to don a harmonica rack and add blues harp to her repertoire.

She put a pick-up on an acoustic guitar and accompanied Nathan in some jazz improvisations. They both had beautiful voices and harmonized well with each other. Colleen loved the vocalists of the sixties and seventies, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Carol King and Joni Mitchell.

She also liked country music, with a particular fondness for some of the early recording artists like Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, Loretta Lynn, and Dottie West. Emmy Lou Harris was her idol. They both knew all the lyrics to Bob Dylan's songs.

Junior high provided Nathan and Colleen a whole new era of angst. Puberty hit kids of this age. Unfortunately, nobody matured at the same time. Colleen was skinny as a rail and her breasts failed to fill out like most of the other girls in her class. She wore a tee shirt under her clothes until she was fourteen, when her mother bought her a bra and insisted that she wear it. It was a padded A cup that she didn't begin to fill out. One morning she entered the bathroom just as Kathleen was coming out of the shower. She looked at her older sister's full, ripe breasts with envy. "Do you think mine will ever grow like yours?" she asked.

"Give it some time, sweetie. Some girls just take a little longer to develop."

"Well, if I was a joiner, I'd belong to the IBT club."

"What's the IBT club?"

"Itty Bitty Titties," she answered with a frown.

Nathan, on the other hand, shot up a foot. His voice deepened and peach fuzz appeared all over his face. Bob bought him a razor and taught him how to use it. He developed in other areas as well, growing man-sized equipment. He could tell, by comparing himself to other boys in the locker room, that he was larger than average. He soon discovered masturbation. Betty was amused the first time she washed his sheets.

Both the kids were ostracized and taunted for being different. Bob and Betty took Nathan to a martial arts studio, so he could stand up to a bully. Both of them were pacifists, but believed a person should be able to defend themselves. Bob had earned a third degree black belt in his twenties. He had never used it against another person, but he relished the discipline and grace that it gave him.

Mark and Mary were hesitant to let Colleen participate, but she was insistent, and the instructor convinced them that girls could use the training as well. Besides, Colleen had an enormous crush on Ralph Macchio and had watched The Karate Kid at least a dozen times.

She also adored him in Crossroads in which he played Eugene Martone, who has a fascination for the blues while he studies classical guitar at the Julliard School for Performing Arts in New York City.

Eugene breaks Willie "Blind Dog Fulton Smokehouse" Brown, an ancient bluesman, out of a nursing home. Together they make an improbable journey to Mississippi, in search of the fabled missing song by Robert Johnson.

Colleen was captivated by the head-cutting duel Eugene played against famed guitarist Steve Vai, in the role of Jack Butler. She borrowed a Fender Stratocaster from the local music store and picked her fingers raw before she was able to match him, note for note.

High school was more of the same. Colleen and Nathan were the nerds, the geeks at school that all the kids ostracized. They shrugged it off, content with each other's company. They ate lunch together, always at the end of a table with no one else around.

Nathan's clothes were as non-conforming as Colleens. He wore baggy cords when the other boys all wore Levi's. He had a pocket protector and carried a briefcase instead of wearing a backpack. His shirttails always hung out of his pants and his socks would never stay up over his high-top Keds. His shoulder length hair was always unkempt. He wore John Lennon type granny glasses.

She wore her natural light blonde hair tied up on her head with a variety of scrunchies, combs or pins. She wore thick glasses with huge frames that hid her beautiful blue eyes. She had never worn makeup, not even a hint of lip gloss. Colleen had always worn shapeless, baggy clothing that concealed her figure.

Nathan and Colleen did everything together. They walked to and from school with each other, took the same classes. They made fun of the popular kids, but only between themselves. They couldn't understand the swaggering jocks or the brainless cheerleader types that wore too much makeup and flaunted their bodies in too-tight clothes.

"Have you noticed that the girls with big boobs get all the guys?" she asked as they walked home together.

"Seems that way. Also seems that those relationships never last too long."

Sherry Smith was the perfect example. A member of the "popular" clique, she applied bright red lipstick, heavy eye shadow and eyelash extensions that she batted shamelessly to flirt with boys and teachers alike. She wore low cut tops and frequently bent over to purposely display her lacy bras and ample breasts. Her jeans looked like they were painted on and showed everything from the cleft in her ass to an outrageous camel toe.

Their friendship was purely platonic. They never touched each other unless they were skating. Neither of them had ever dated; both of them said they were "holding out" until just the right person came along.

They could talk about sexual matters, but it was always in a clinical manner, never personal. One day Colleen asked "do you know what going to second base means? I heard a girl say she and her boyfriend went to second base last night."

"Oh yeah, I heard some guys in the locker room talking about it. It's a 'scoring' system using a baseball analogy. First base is feeling her up through her clothes, second base is getting 'bare tit', third base is finger fucking, and a home run is going all the way."

"That sounds terribly sexist to me. What's the girl's part? Let's see, first base would be feeling his cock through his pants, second base could be jerking him off, third base a blow job, and a home run being the same as the guy thing." They both laughed and shook their heads.

Their Friday nights, and most of the day on Saturdays were spent at the ice skating rink. They started skating when they were five, clumsily holding each other up as they staggered around the rink.

As the years went by, they got better and better, gliding around the rink with style and grace.

Watching the Olympics, they became enamored with ice dancing. They recorded the dancers on their VCR, studied their moves and learned to duplicate them. They mastered progressives, swing rolls, chasses, crossovers, mohawks, and dance spins. Then they moved on to dance lifts.

Dance lifts differ from freestyle lifts, as dancers are not allowed to lift their partners above their shoulders. Lifts are done using her arms, waist, or hips. Neither of them could even contemplate an overhead freestyle lift, where the man lifts his partner by her crotch.

A perennial late bloomer, by the time she turned eighteen, Colleen's body began to fill out. Her hips rounded, her buttocks became beautifully sculpted globes, and her breasts, high and firm, all but overflowed a C cup.

Almost embarrassed by her "new" body, she continued to wear the shapeless, baggy clothing that concealed everything. Underneath her clothes, though, it was a different story. She developed a passion for sexy underwear, brief and lacy, that she bought at Victoria's Secret in the mall.

Nathan filled out as well. Still lean and lanky, he added pounds of muscle mass, shaped by the exercise equipment his father kept in the basement. He didn't quite have washboard abs and buns of steel, but he came close.

One afternoon in study hall, Sherry Smith sat down across from Colleen. "Hi, Colleen." She was taken aback; Sherry had never greeted her before. Wringing her hands nervously, she continued, "I know I've been mean to you, and I'm sorry. But I really need some help."

"What kind of help?"

"I-I'm flunking algebra. I just don't get it, and if I can't pass it, I won't be able to graduate in June. Could you maybe tutor me? I can pay you."

Colleen pondered her request. Although she could use the extra money, she didn't feel right about taking it. "Okay, I guess I could help, but I don't want your money. Come over to my house about eight o'clock. I'll give you my address."

Sherry rang the doorbell promptly at eight. She was dressed a little more modestly. She still wore the skintight pants, but she had put on a turtleneck sweater that didn't show her cleavage, but was still tight enough to prominently display her attributes. She certainly got Rob's attention.

She had been raised by a single mother who had one boyfriend after another. The sounds they made when they were having sex reverberated through the small house. One night, with her mother passed out cold, her current boyfriend, a man named Kevin, entered Sherry's room. He ripped off her nightgown and brutally raped her. She was fourteen. Her mother blamed Sherry for being a cock tease. Her father deserted them right after she was born and she was desperate to find a man who loved her. Colleen led her up the stairs to her third floor loft. Nathan was working on a term paper on her Power Mac. It was lightning fast and had a thirty inch panoramic screen. All he had at home was a hand-me-down laptop that was painfully slow. He was listening to Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant Massacree with the volume cranked way up.

Sherry entered the room and said "hi, um, um...gee, I don't even know your name." Her locker was right next to his, and she was always dropping something, then bending over to pick it up. She called the game "flashing the geek." Being male, he took a good look, blushing when she looked up and caught him at it.

"It's Nathan," Colleen said.

"Hi, Nathan."

"Um, hi, Sherry," he said and quickly put on a set of headphones that quieted the room, and went right back to the project he was working on. He had no idea how to make small talk. Lucy, who had been sleeping in the corner, stretched and got up to examine the stranger. She wagged her tail furiously and, true to form, stuck her nose right in Sherry's crotch.

She hugged the wriggling creature around the neck, and true to form, Lucy flopped down and exposed her belly. She lay down on the floor beside her and they wrestled together. It was hard to tell which one of them enjoyed it more. "I always wanted a dog, but my Mom would never let me have one."

Sherry and Colleen worked at her desk for two hours straight. She had a way of simplifying the problems and Sherry began to understand some of it. Colleen took off her glasses and rubbed her tired eyes. "I've had enough for tonight. Come back Thursday night and we can do some more."

"You know, you have a really pretty face. Maybe I could help you with some make-up tips."

"Thanks, but no thanks, I'm not really into that." As she showed her to the door, Sherry impulsively gave her a hug. As she got ready for bed, Colleen noticed a big smudge of mascara on her cheek.

Later that week, Colleen saw Sherry and Brad walking down the hall toward her, their arms around each other's waist. They were the hot couple on campus. Brad was captain of the football team, a real "catch". Sherry stopped for a minute and greeted her and chatted with her a bit.

"What are you talking to that nerd for?" Brad said, with a disgusted look on his face.

"She's really nice once you get to know her. Besides, she's helping me with my algebra.

"Humph," he snorted and dragged her away. Several weeks later, when Sherry showed up for her tutoring session, Colleen noticed that she was trembling and not wearing her usual make-up. "Is something wrong? You look like you're upset."

She started to sob and the tears ran down her face. "Brad broke up with me."

"Why? What happened?"

"W-we went all the way, and then he dumped me. He told me he loved me, but it was a lie, all he wanted was my body." Colleen wrapped her arms around her and held as she cried. Nathan quickly put his headphones on and stared at the computer screen. "Do you and Nathan do it with each other? It seems like you two have been going together forever."

"Oh, we're not a couple. I mean he's not my boyfriend or anything, we're just friends." Sherry looked incredulous. The fact that a guy and a girl could be just friends was beyond her comprehension.

****************** The phone rang again. Kathleen answered and it was Nathan, calling for Colleen. "I'm sorry, Nathan, for some reason she doesn't want to talk to you. I don't know what's going on with her." For three days Nathan had called, emailed, always with the same result. His last email said, "I'm so sorry, Colleen. I promise it will never happen again."

The phone rang once again and Kathleen gave Nathan the same story. Tiring of this, she marched up to Colleen's room to get to the bottom of it. She knocked on Colleen's bedroom door in the loft and walked in without being invited. "All right, what's going on between you and Nathan?"

Colleens sniffled and the tears began to flow. "N-Nathan kissed me she stuttered. "And I k-kissed him back. Then I ran away and hid from him."

"What's the matter with that?" Kathleen asked. "You've been best friends all your lives."

"Th- that's the problem," Colleen wailed. "I don't want to lose the friendship."

"I don't understand. How can a kiss ruin a friendship?" "W-well, if you get romantically involved with someone and you break up, you end up hating each other. It happens all the time at school."

"You'll never lose your friendship with Nathan. God, I wish Tray and I were that kind of friends." Kathleen spoke of her fiancée, Tremont Belknap Covington the Third, of the banking Covington family. They called him Tray, after the Roman numeral behind his name. He was an investment banker in the family firm, played polo, and was devilishly good looking. He had the reputations as having been quite the playboy until he became engaged to Kathleen. He still had secret trysts on the side.

"How do you really feel about Nathan," Kathleen asked. "I-I've been in love with him since the seventh grade." "Does Nathan know this?" she asked. "God no," Colleen wailed, "I could never tell him that." And a fresh round of tears streaked down her face.

"How do you know he doesn't feel the same way about you?" That stopped Colleen dead in her tracks. "I-I don't know," she said nervously.

Kathleen held her sister in her arms until she quit shaking and the tears subsided. "You need to go talk to Nathan and fix this."

"You think so?" Colleen asked.