It was a hot summer day, and the students of Bayville Secondary School were sweating profusely as the school had yet to install central air conditioning. This however did not stop young Darren Liu from smiling; it was his last year and he already had received conditional acceptance letters from many ivy league universities, where he planned on studying software engineering. He was very confident that he would keep his 90s average going into the finals, was excited to return to a summer in the US naval reserves for a brief tour of duty, and was extremely thrilled to finally be graduating and leaving this phase of his life.
Darren was a typical American-born Chinese boy with strict immigrant parents who pushed him to study hard to get a good job. Although this was typical with most immigrants, his high school was primarily Americans descended from the original English settlers. That, along with his below-average height, general ugliness, and lack of fashion sense, made Darren stand out like a sore thumb.
As Darren walked to his next class, he was abruptly knocked down to the ground by the tall, handsome captain of the school basketball team, who angrily told him to stay out of his way. Darren picked up his backpack and glasses, and retraced his steps, realizing that the basketball captain deliberately changed his path to push him. Being the school nerd, Darren was frequently the target of bullying; another reason why he was looking forward to the last few months.
Darren quickly decided to focus on the future, and got to his calculus class in time, taking his usual seat at the front of the class. Soon the class started, and Darren carefully took notes and listened to every word from the teacher. Near the end of the class, the teacher announced there would be assignments that would be done in pairs, and that the teacher would pair the students off.
Darren's heart sank. He was the most unpopular student at the school, and the last thing he wanted was to partially depend on another person for his calculus grade. He was scoring straight 90s in calculus and didn't want to be paired with a student that would bring his grades down. He shivered in his seat as the teacher announced the pairings one at a time. About five minutes through, he heard his name called out.
"Darren Liu, you are assigned to work with Sarah Brown," the teacher commanded.
Darren almost fainted from fright. His face turned pale and he looked over his shoulder to Sarah Brown, who sat near the back of the class.
Sarah Brown was the popular captain of the school cheerleading team. She had golden long blonde hair that she usually wore straight or in a bun, a beautiful radiant face that made every student and teacher in school smile when they saw her, and a lean fit body that could stop traffic. Today she let her hair run straight down beyond her shoulders, wore a tank top that accentuated her small but firm breasts, and a pair of casual short shorts that displayed her long, lean and athletic legs. She was the most beautiful woman in school and the long-time girlfriend of the captain of the basketball team.
Sarah looked in his direction but didn't acknowledge him, which terrified Darren even more. He was paired with the leader of his school's ruling elite, the self-proclaimed popular caste who went out of their way to make his life miserable. Darren began shivering in his seat and couldn't wait for class to end.
When the teacher dismissed class, Darren quickly grabbed his books and jogged off to his locker to grab his things and hopefully catch the bus home. He never participated in any extracurricular activities since he was constantly bullied throughout his years at Bayville, and just wanted to return home to the safety of his family.
Later at home, Darren was happily completing a programming assignment when the annoying alert popup window appeared on his browser that was opened to Bayville's collaboration website. Frustrated at the annoyance, he quickly looked at the alert to just close it, but when he saw who triggered the alert, he froze in panic. It was Sarah Brown, and she was requesting a video call.
Darren knew he had no choice, as the assignment was done by the teacher. Of all the people he could have been paired with, he had to be stuck with the leader of the Karens, who would never work hard because she had too many man-bitches willing to do everything for her. All he wanted to do was escape the hell hole that was Bayville and work for a technology company where he would hopefully be surrounded by people who appreciated him. However, his evil socialist teacher just had to screw him over one last time for being a capitalist and a member of the US naval reserve.
The alert went off again, and Darren knew he better answer else he risk the wrath of his teacher if Sarah reported him. He quickly tapped the Star Trek: The Next Generation communicator badge he was wearing and the browser opened the video channel.
It took a while for the channel to fully stream the video, but when it did, the picture on his screen both terrified and aroused him. There was Sarah Brown, beautiful face in full view, with her long blonde hair tied behind her. To his shock, she was wearing glasses. So sad, thought Darren, that she was so beautiful on the outside but likely a Karen on the inside. She always hung out with that clique of egotistical bullies that made his life miserable, so even if she hadn't done anything directly to him, as far as Darren was concerned, she was guilty by association.
"Good evening, ma'am," Darren began nervously, afraid to offend the Queen Karen.
"Am I supposed to call you sir?" teased Sarah.
Darren shook his head obediently.
"Then please, just call me Sarah," she said.
Darren nodded obediently.
"You don't have to be so polite," giggled Sarah.
"So how do you want to do the project?" asked Darren nervously; he could feel the jittering in his teeth.
"Are you OK, Darren? Are you sick or something? You look very pale," noted Sarah.
Darren just shook his head.
"Look, tomorrow night I have cheerleading practice, but Friday night I'm free. Let's meet at my place and talk then," suggested Sarah.
"Sure," replied Darren.
Sarah texted her home address and mobile number to him.
"I just put my address and cell phone in the meeting chat," said Sarah.
"OK, I will see you then," said Darren.
With that, Sarah ended the video call and Darren quickly turned his attention to the tiny erection in his shorts. He hated his life so far: while he worked hard and strived to do the right thing, he was relegated to having to jerk off while lazy spoiled men spent every weekend getting laid.
Far away, Sarah could not help but wonder why Darren seemed to be so intimidated by her. She was used to men constantly catering to her every whim, and overly enthusiastic to see her come by. The way he looked at her seemed as if he was afraid for his life.
Sarah took a moment to review what she knew of Darren in her head. Nobody really knew him, and a lot of the other students, including herself, often made fun of him; she however was discreet enough to keep it behind his back. Perhaps he knew?
Sarah dismissed the possibility as highly unlikely, as everyone in the school noticed he was always by himself. Well, given he always made the academic honors list, she thought Darren would be smart enough to see who she associated with and make the connection.
Sarah thought back to earlier in the day when she was surprised by the reaction of her social circle when they heard she was teamed with Darren for the all-important calculus team project. Her closest girlfriends, whom she could confide with, were thrilled, which shocked her. They did make two very important points: her calculus needed to improve if she wanted to get into college, and since Darren seemed to be a genuinely nice genius, he might be able to help her get her grades up.
The others, especially the men, felt otherwise. They just wondered how she was going to put up with that loser nerd that nobody wanted around. Up until this year, Sarah had felt the same: that she was better than everyone else around her because of her beauty and school social status. However, life changed dramatically for her family in the past year.
Her father was a senior steelworker who worked at the big steel mill at the far end of town, and a petty officer in the local naval reserves where Darren also served. This year, the steel mill was shut down, and her father was let go, with severance that didn't compensate for his length of service with the company. Since her stepmother was a housewife, this impacted the family severely. Her father managed to switch to full-time service in the navy, but the pay was less, and her stepmother had to get a job to make ends meet. The saving grace was that Sarah didn't have to move and start over at a new school because her father's severance was enough to cover the mortgage.
