* All characters in this story are of legal age. *
"Hey Jaleel; you gotta minute." I was pulling my US History book from my locker near the end of my day anticipating a trip to my girlfriend's house after school.
"Ricky, I gotta get to class man." Ricky Arias had been my best bud since freshman year.
We'd bonded as brothers of the struggle through mutual incidents where we were bullied mercilessly by our peers. Ricky was chided for his pale skin and short, light brown afro along with a weird androgynous build. A lot of people joked that he lived on Sesame Street because he looked like a humanoid Muppet in their opinion. Me, I was a standard issue nerd awkward clothing provided by clueless parents labeled as "Chocolate Clark Kent" for the first three years of my student tenure. Ricky was my Ride or Die buddy without a shadow of a doubt.
"Uhm, you was talking about going over Kimberly's house this morning, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Well maybe you should take a raincheck on that shit."
"What're you talking about?"
"I'm saying you should come over and hang; in fact, it's imperative to your mental stability that you come with me. Seriously man, come with me if you want to live." My friend tended to quote Arnold Schwarzenegger during times of duress, but my mind was already made up.
"Ain't nothing at your house gonna beat out my girl; I'm getting some pussy." I slammed my locker door intending on leaving him there as I hurried to class.
"YOU AIN'T GETTING NO PUSSY TODAY!!" Ricky yelled after me quickly covering his mouth with both hands as other students, mostly females shot him disparaging looks.
"Man, I gotta get to my last class; what're talking about?"
He closed the distance between us trying to put his arm around my shoulders in confidence, hunched over. I wasn't as perceptive swiping his arm away a few times before he got the message. There were a few gossip hens watching and I didn't need the false narrative following us around the halls.
"Look, I'm just calling in a friend favor; don't go looking for Kimberly." My brow furrowed at the unusual request. Ricky wasn't much of a gambler with no poker face to speak of, so I was anxious to say the least.
"Don't fuck with me man, spill it."
"Look, you're my homie so I wanna give you the option of not knowing."
"Well, I say fuck that option."
Something gripped me tight in the chest as I stared at his goofy looking features. It was really bad that he was pegged as a goof between lack of declared teenage masculinity and a hand puppet. But sometimes I got it when you looked at him in a certain light. The shitty thoughts filtering through my head were making me side with our mutual antagonists in that instant.
"She gone man, just gone." The last class bell sounded making me late for US History. It was a class I shared with my girlfriend of two and a half years, Kimberly Bivens.
"What do you mean, she's gone?"
"Off campus, with uh...a person." Ricky shoved his hands in his pockets, contrite as we stared at one another.
I looked down at the textbook and folder in my grasp, before staring at my friend who just shrugged. I shook my head in mute denial of what was being suggested. I looked away down the open floor corridor of our school which had formerly in the far flung past, served as a warehouse. US History was just at the bottom of the stairs on the second floor. Kimberly Bivens was a straight A student meticulous in all facets of her life as a member of the student council and a cheerleader with a fair share of popularity.
"She ain't here, Jaleel." Ricky reiterated.
It was like having an out of body experience as I found myself bolting to the crowded stairwell stuffed to the gills full of high school students coming and going. I ignored the verbal abuse and irritated shoves from some of my classmates as I negotiated the stairs ending up at the border of the second floor. My last class was second from the stairwell, but I hesitated. Ricky's raised eyebrow expression lingered in my empty skull.
"Jaleel, she ain't there." I found Ricky at my back. He'd followed knowing where I was going amidst the thinning crowd of students entering their myriad classrooms.
I took a deep breath steeling myself before glancing at the half opened door of my last class for the day. I was in the zone now, measuring my steps to the door peering inside finding everyone present...except for Kimberly Bivens, my girlfriend of two and a half years. She'd insisted that our relationship remain private opting to always take the first seat adjacent to the class door while I sat dead center in class.
That seat was empty.
I turned to Ricky who looked away with this hunched over posture that spoke to his embarrassment for me. Earlier in the morning we'd been talking nerd politics in the school cafeteria and I'd casually mentioned hooking up with my girlfriend. Kimberly's strict parents were forced to leave her at home under the watchful eye of her shut-in older sister to deal with a sick relative one state over.
She'd slyly mentioned it and the opportunity to have sex fully nude. Our previous couplings consisted of fooling around when the opportunity presented itself due to a militantly strict father and religious, church going mother. We'd hatched a plan to go to her place after school and do the deed au naturel in every sense of the term.
"Where is she?!" My hands were full of Ricky's shirt almost throttling him in ragged volcanic emotion.
He looked nervous motioning over his shoulder with a thumb to the hall monitors stationed there. These were student members of the police explorer outreach program. The male and female student were presently engaged in flirtatious conversation oblivious to our actions a few feet away.
In fact the student desk which served as an impromptu office was occupied by the uniformed student officer, while his rotund female partner sat atop it, her big, chunky ass obscuring his view of us. I noticed a hand caressing the curve of her derriere. Ricky managed to gently disengage my hands, looking anxious for his own safety.
