5435 words (21 minute read)

Standing Out

Joseph Tandlin approached the darkest, unlit part of the wooden, backyard fence, and peered over it. He saw that there were groups of kids on the other side talking, a good distance away from him. He could tell a good number of them were already drunk, and wouldn’t be paying too much attention or care if he stealthily climbed over the fence. He easily made the climb it over without anyone even looking his way. At the age of 18, Joseph thought of himself as the most average white small town teenager that anyone could ever know. Of course, he was not invited, but his successful, unnoticed entry emboldened him so much that he strolled right into the house as if he was the guest of honor. He had taken a couple steps into the party when he saw her. His eyes were drawn to her as she stood out from the other girls in the room. She stood up against a wall alone, puffing on a cigarette, and in her own world. Joseph was a white kid with a stocky build and stood 5’ 11” with short brown hair compared to her as a “little person” being 4 feet even. She was white with blonde hair, but wore it in corn rolls with the ends tied in a rat tail, and every other roll was dyed silver gray. She wore deep blue lipstick and fingernail polish on her nails, and clothes that didn’t seem to fit any style commonly worn by the other girls that he was used to seeing. He decided that he would talk to her, but felt awkward just walking up to her, until he saw unopened beers sitting in a bucket of ice on a nearby table. He cautiously stepped over to the table as to not draw attention to fact that an uninvited guest was pilfering drinks, and grabbed two from the bucket. He began making his way over to her, and, without thinking, opened both of them. The girl began to notice him as he approached, and eyed the opened beers in his hands. He walked up with an attempt at a sly smile on his face as he presented her with one of the open beers as if he just expected her to take it.

Joseph, being one who didn’t talk to the opposite sex that often, looked awkward to her in his nervous attempt not to look awkward, and his presumptuousness was causing her to give him a suspicious eyeing over. The thought then hit him. “Why would a strange guy hand a girl an open beer, idiot!”. He started becoming nervous as she made no move towards his offering, and he had to think quick to save himself before his nervousness became obvious. With a knowing nod and desperate idea in his head, Joseph threw back his head, lifted the can above his mouth, and poured some of the offered beer down his throat. After the quick demonstration, he turned to her with a satisfied look on his face. “See, nothing wrong with it.”, he said to her. He immediately noticed her look had now shifted to a mix of being perplexed and disgusted. He decided to push through this weird moment.

"Joseph.", he introduced himself.

"Cheyanne.", she replied after a second of thinking about it.

"I just saw you here. Figured you could use a beer.", he said.

"I’m good, thanks.", she responded as she tapped her cigarette on the edge of an ashtray of a nearby coffee table.

"You with your friends?", he asked out of his secret fear that someone could point his presence to someone who knew who was supposed to be there. Without moving her hand, she pointed a single finger at a girl that was across the room with her back to Cheyanne. She was talking to a group of other partiers. Joseph got the vibe that she as much a stranger here as he was. He continued to talk to her. He asked about her school which led them to talk about their schools and nearing graduation. He would learn that her full name was Cheyanne Stamberg, but her few friends called her “Chey”. They were both 18 and had a lot of common interests. In conversating, she would go on to tell him about how she did her own hair, made some of her clothes and sold t-shirts with her own designs online which he found fascinating. They figured out that they had always lived a couple miles from each other, and they went to high schools on the opposite sides of town. She slowly overlooked his weirdness as she noticed something about him that interested her. He talked to her and not through her like most people that didn’t have her condition if they didn’t outright ignore her. This was usually after pretending not to stare at her. He just talked to her like she was anyone else.

This usual treatment was one of the many reasons why she had almost not come to the party. The only reason she had come was because she had been talking to one of her friends earlier that day when a boy walked up and interrupted them. He began talking to her friend, completely ignoring her as she had expected. When he invited her friend to the party, he threw out a “You can come too.” as the only words he was going to say her as if she had been part of the conversation, accompanied by a fake smile as not to seem inconsiderate. Her friend encouraged her to go so they could hang out together, brought her to the party that night, and completely ditched her during it.

They talked for awhile, until Joseph started to sense people starting to eye him. He decided it time to leave. He got her number and texted her a quick "Hi.", so she would have his. He said a good night to her before slinking out the front door. In the following days, they would cross each other’s minds, but would never say as much in the flurry of text messages that flew between them. They would eventually setup a date for the movies on the following Saturday.

When Saturday came, he drove up, in his 4 door sedan that was almost as old as he was, to her house to find, to his surprise, that Chey standing outside near the street. He could tell she was waiting for him. He pulled up to her, and started to get out as he brimmed with an excitement that a week of a text messaging her and the general anticipation had filled him with. She jumped in before he had the chance to get out. He had expected to at least say something to her, before they left. He figured he would get to say "hello" to start with.

“Hey.”, he started.

“Hey.”, she replied nervously.

“No meeting your parents or opening your car door?”, he joked dryly.

“Nope.”, she responded flatly. Joseph’s excitement began melting into nervousness as he drove away from the house. Chey had her own nervous energy swirling about her as well. When her house had disappeared behind them, she began to relax. “Sorry about that. My parents… are not the most understanding people.”

“Things we have in common.”, he replied sympathetically.

“So...”, she said after a couple seconds had passed and some of the initial tension had lifted. "Do your friends call you, ’Joe’?". She caught the viseral reaction to the name from him that he tried to catch himself and tamp it down. "No, ’Joe’"?, she said, sightly interested in his reaction.

“That’s what my family calls me," he sighed. "Not a fan. ’Joe’ is the guy that pumps your gas or retars your roof." She chuckled a little.

“I get it, got a family nickname too, but Joseph’s a little too formal.". She tossed a couple ideas around in her head. "How about ’J’?"

“’J’?", he thought out loud. "’J’. ’J’! ’J’... Sure. That one can be all yours."

“I like that.", she smiled. They continued to talk as he drove and began to notice her for the first time as she sat next to him. She had her hair in a crown braid with the gray and blue streaks and decorated with colorful custom jewelry, dangling earrings rested on her shoulders. Her lipstick was red, her eyeshadow was light blue, and her fingernails were clear acrylics. She wore a tight blouse with blue jeans, and knee high black boots that gave her a couple extra inches of height. Joseph tried to not to stare at her as he pondered how incredible she looked, and felt a little underdressed with his t-shirt, kaki pants, and knock off “brand name” sneakers. The movie they went to see was the current drama action-fest that everyone was talking about. After twenty minutes into it, in close up whispers, they both realized that the other was completely bored. That was until he started whispering his own commentary about the movie in her ear. He would wait for just the right moments of dramatic tension or sadness to inject his own words. At one point, he made her burst into laughter so uncontrollably that people in the theater began openly shushing her. After the movie, they went to a nearby fast food restaurant where they sat in its outside dining area. She smoked a cigarette as they talked to the point of losing track on time, and had to be kindly escorted out by the staff who were trying to close up for the night. The night ended when he dropped her off in front her house. She thanked him for great night, quickly got out of the car, and urgently waved at him to go. He completely understood, and waved back as he drove off.

The texts would keep passing between them over the next couple days, and the subject of the next date eventually came up. Joseph has no idea where to take Chey this time, since there really wasn’t much to do in their town, and she had no suggestions she could think of. The lack of suggestions on her part was secretly done on purpose to see what he would come up with. She didn’t really care where they went, as long as she got to spend time with him. The place or activity didn’t matter. She would never admit this to him though. Joseph would decide to take her to one of his favorite places. He knew that there was a high risk that she would hate it, but he figured that if she did hate it, then the second date would have probably been the last no matter what they did.

“Do you trust me?”, he texted her.

“?”, she responded.

“Do you trust me?”, he texted her again.

“I barely know you.”, she responded after a couple minutes has passed.

“I know,”, he wrote back. “Will you take a walk with me then?”, he said in a following text.

“I guess. Where?”

“That’s where you have to trust me. Wear something you can walk in.”

“!?”

When Joseph picked her up for the second date, Chey, again, was standing at the street in front of her house. She immediately jumped in the car when it pulled up, and Joseph immediately pulled off. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and a decorated braid coming down from each temple. It was the first time he had seen her plain faced, and found her natural beauty to be more attractive than any other time he had seen her. She was wearing a loose flowing white t-shirt, black spanx, and dayglow orange sneakers that seemed to match her hair. His look hadn’t changed much since the last date, except he replaced his t-shirt with a nicer button down shirt and greased back his hair. It was not long before Chey realized that Joseph was driving out of the town. He had been secretive about where they were going during texting, and part of her was concerned about where they are going and part of her wanted to trust him. She settled somewhere around having an apprehensive patience. They drove for a couple miles out of town, until there was just forest as far as the eye could see. The street lights eventually become non-existent, and their way was lit by the car’s headlights and the light of the full moon. They saw no cars behind them or coming in the opposite direction as if there was no one for miles around them. While the conversation between them steadily flowed, he still continued to be secretive about where they were going. After what was close to an hour of driving, Joseph pulled over onto the side of the road. The area around them was indistinguishable from any other part of the forested area around them.

“We’re here. Follow me”, Joseph said as he got out of the car. Chey got out of the car with her apprehension rising to a lite fear.

“This guy could do anything to me out here!”, she thought. “I can’t fight him. I can’t even get away from him on my dumpy ass legs.” She noticed that Joseph was standing near what appeared to be a walking path leading into the forest, waiting on her with what appeared to be a welcoming smile on his face. She fought with herself for a split second. She could have demanded that he take her home, and hopefully, for her sake, he would have complied with her wishes. The second passed, and the part of her that won was backed by her own courage. “You only live… or die once. Might as well make it memorable.” Joseph started down the path as she followed behind him. They walked the path for a short while through a shroud of trees, until the trees began to thin out, and eventually open up to an area around a pond.

“This is it.,” said Joseph. “One of my favorite places to come.” A wave of relief washed over Chey as the horrible scenarios playing in the back of her head faded away. She still stayed in an apprehensive state since she had no idea of his intentions. “I like to come out here when I have to think about stuff.” He picked up a rock and expertly skipped it across the surface of the pond.

“Oh my gosh!”, Chey exclaimed out of sheer relief. “This is like something of out of a lame teen movie. We are either going to start talking about our feelings or be murdered by a serial killer.”

“Feelings!?”, replied Joseph sarcastically, still looking over the pond in preparation to skip his next rock. “I’ve been dead inside for years.”. He heard only silence coming from her behind him. When he turned around and looked at her, she was biting her lip as her eyes watered and face contorted in an effort to halt an explosion of laughter. Joseph made no attempt to stop his own rush of laughter at her which broke hers. Their combined raucous laughter rang out across the quiet woods. When their laughter began to die, Chey was looking up and noticed the sky for the first time. She hadn’t been outside of town this late at night for as long as she could remember to see the night’s sky without the ambient lighting of the town. She caught herself staring at the multitude of stars. There were stars of different sizes that simply shined alongside others that twinkled while others sat in a stream of translucent white.

“How did you find this place?” asked Chey.

“I came out here with some people once,” Joseph answered. “In the summer, kids come out here to camp and drink.”. His answer was a half-truth. About a year ago, he had been friends with a group of kids from his neighborhood, and they had brought them out there with a cooler full of beers stolen from their parents. Joseph had gotten so drunk that he passed out. He woke up with a terrible hangover, lying on the ground, and was completely alone. He spent the better part of the day walking back into town. His “friends” thought it was funny when they saw him again, until he broke one’s nose. He never spoke to any of them after that, and never told anyone else about it. His animosity toward them was not extended towards the area, and he would return there multiple times to find some peace when things were not going well for him. Chey reservations faded away as they started talking, and Joseph began to show her how to skip stones. She started off just lobbing it, but eventually got the hang of angling and arching her throws.

At some point, she pulled out her cigarettes, and lit herself one. That was the one thing Joseph didn’t like about Chey. His own parents were both smokers. At any point or any time that he walked into any room of his house, he could enveloped in a noxious cloud of secondhand smoke. He wasn’t going to talk to her about it that night, deciding not to ruin the mood. The night went on with more laughter and talking, until Joseph noticed that Chey was being to shiver. He looked at the time on his phone, and was shocked that it was already passed three in the morning. They had completely lost track of the good time they were having. He decided it was time to go, and took her home. When he dropped her off, it was the same as last time, he drove up to the house, Chey immediately jumped out, and Joseph immediately drove off as he waved to her.

The next day in the middle of their normal texting back and forth, he decided to all about the smoking.

"Wondering about the cigarettes. How long you being smoking?", he texted her.

“Don’t like, kick rocks.”, she responded. The prickly reply from her seemed to come from nowhere. Joseph was slightly stunned by the reaction.

"Hit a nerve?", he returned.

"Just letting you know what’s up.", she texted, having previously picked up on his dislike of her habit. She decided to make it clear that it’s not a thing that was going to change anytime soon.

"I bet when you’re irritated, your cheeks get all cutie and puffy.", he texted, deciding to drop the subject from then on, and return the discussion back to something lighter. She rolling her eyes at the text, seeing it for what it was, but moved on with him into a lighter conversation.

A few days later, Joseph and Chey were texting each other as usual, and she mentioned that she was failing Chemistry class which she needed to graduate. She was currently working on a project for the class that she needed to get a good grade on. It would bring up her class grade to something that would allow her to pass. Joseph already had Chemistry at his school, and, while he barely escaped it with a “C”, offered to help her out. They agreed to meet at the library that afternoon. Joseph would find that helping Chey learn anything would be difficult a prospect with her appearing to be almost reluctant to grasp things. It didn’t make it easier on Joseph that Chey would lean in close to him every time they looked at the same book. Due to her height, Chey would often sit on her knees in the chair next to him allowing her to partially lay her upper body across the table in front of him. There were many times where all he saw was the top of her hair that she had up in a French twist or a shot of her cleavage in her purple bra from above in her loose tank top. He did his best to avoid looking so he wouldn’t get caught. She could sense his discomfort when she noticed what was happening and began to enjoy setting him up for it. By the time the library closed, Joseph felt they had made some small progress. Chey was going to call her mom to pick her up, until Joseph offered to drop her off. It was close to 10 at night when Joseph pulled up to the house. He expected Chey to jump out as usual, but she didn’t. She turned to him instead.

“Thank you, J.”, she said with a warm smile on her face.

“No prob.”, he replied graciously. She started to get out of the car when she noticed the curtain on one of the windows of the house had moved slightly to the side. She realized they were being watched. A wealth of emotions started stirring up within her, and she decided not to get out of the car.

“Can you step out of the car?”, Chey asked Joseph. Joseph was perplexed by the question. “Just turn off the engine.”

“You want me to come in?”, asked Joseph as he turned off the engine. “Meeting your parents, huh?”. He went ahead, and got out of the car. He was standing with his back to her as he faced the house with the door of the car still open. He was trying to prepare himself for what he thought was about to happen.

“J, turn around, “. He turned around to see Chey crawling across the front car seat towards him as she motioned for him to come closer. Joseph was not sure what was about to happen, even as Chey reached up to the button of his pants. His initial reaction was to back away from her. “Stay right there.”, she said in a softened tone.

“Chey, what are you doing?”, he meekly protested as he looked around for anyone who might see them. Luckily, her street was usually devoid of any life on a weekday night and the only light came from the street lights due to the cloud covered moon. She began to unbuckle and unzip his pants and pull down his underwear to reach in and pull himself out. A scared Joseph was already close to a full erection as she started to manipulate it. She played with it as if inspecting it. He breathing quickened as tried to make himself put a stop to this, but he didn’t. She massaged it, until it ripened to its full length and its rigid thickness stretched across the palm of her hand. Joseph, while wanting to pay attention to what she was doing to him, kept looking around nervously for anyone that would see them. He felt the rhythmic movement of her hand for a time, and his breathing completely halted as he felt the touch of her lips on him, waiting in anticipation. A shiver of pure ecstasy run through Joseph’s body as he exhaled, and the all the tension in his body released itself as felt himself sliding into her mouth. Joseph had never been given oral sex before. The sensation was enough to make his head swim. He feared his inexperienced body would embarrass him with a quick and untimely release. He made himself hold back by trying to concentrate on making sure they were not seen.

Chey paused to examine this moment. The feeling of a man’s cock in her mouth, the taste of it, the sight of the curly black hairs at the base of his manhood, and the pleasant smell from whatever soap Joseph used that still lingered on him. This was the first time Chey had performed oral sex on anyone, so she tried to figure things out as she went. When she first tried to get a rhythm, her teeth scrape against he’s skin. The shock of pain that hit Joseph caused a visceral reaction where he started to slam his fist on the top of the car, but stopped himself. Chey felt a tinge of embarrassment, but carefully continued on. Joseph’s breathes got heavy, and he made himself stare forward. He could not allow himself to look down at the scene happening below his waist for fear being propelled into a finish. Joseph was holding on the frame of the car as passage of time became a foreign concept to him. In actuality, it had only been several seconds of this before she stopped and moved backwards from Joseph, allowing his rigid self to pop out of her mouth. Joseph’s breathing started to normalize with his penis, wet with her silva, pointing out in front of him. The night’s air blowing gently across it. Chey looked at him for a second, and thought to herself. Those feelings were still there.

Chey scrambled over the front seats into the back while kicking off shoes with socks in tow. She slid her pants and panties off in quick, fluid motion that weirdly reminded Joseph of a move from a martial arts film. Joseph’s mind was boggling at this, he didn’t know to make of any of it. Chey lay splayed out across his backseat, and was naked from waist down.

“Chey, what the fuck?!”, he exclaimed, trying not to be loud. She cocked her head to the side, and looked him straight in his eyes intently. She did her best to look more desire filled and determined, and trying not to betray the scared nerviousness coming from multiple possibilities including Joseph rejecting her in this moment. “This is not how I wanted this to go down.”. Chey could sense the sincerity in the tone of that statement, and could appreciate it. She thought about eating her embarrassment, getting up, putting on her clothes, and slinking away from him. She pushed that scenario out of her head and made no plans to relent.

“I wanted you to fuck me, J.”, she whispered to him in a tone that was soft and sweet. “Don’t make me wait. I know you like me. I know you want me. Don’t disappoint me.” Joseph was having his own moment of fighting with himself, and it came down to one thought. Joseph was never a religious person, but believed in a higher power. He said a quick prayer to whatever power made him carry a condom that night and on previous dates in case the remote possibility of sex coming up. He decided not to put further consideration into a thought in the back of head posing the question of should he being doing this at all.

“When I am 50, and I look back on this moment fondly, then I will think about how stupid I was,” thought Joseph. He moved to and opened the back door of the car. Chey lay before him, waiting with oddly calm demeanor about her. She was surprised when he bent down, and slide between her legs headfirst. He was acting on instinct, putting his face inches away from the fine blond hairs of her sex. He paused to think of what to do next, since it was also his first experience with oral sex. The sudden frantic movement that started between her legs, hit her with jolt that made her body jump. Joseph got an interesting taste in his mouth that, in his mind, somehow combined with the pleasant smell of her skin to become intoxicating to him. She had to immediately put one of her knuckles in her mouth and bit down to stop from screaming. It wasn’t long before something began to rise up within herself. It was an overwhelming, all in composing feeling that caused her heart to race, her vision blurred, and her mind reeled, losing all sense of anything else. She had no concept of what was happening to her, and, as it reached an unfathomable intensity and she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, Joseph stopped. His raised his head up with his mouth glistening. The feeling that had taken over Chey rescinded from its intensity, but didn’t fully go away. During the time Joseph had his face buried in Chey, he had been putting on his condom, and it was finally, firmly in place. He tried not to look awkward as he climbed over top of her, trying to find a good position since he towered over her small frame. She looked him in his eyes and he in hers as she waited in anticipation for him to enter her. When he thought he was positioned properly, he thrusted forward, thinking he would just enter, and ended up poking her in a very sensitive spot. She gave out a grunt of pain.

“Sorry”, Joseph whispered as he reached down, took his self in his hand, and rubbed himself up against her, until he found her entrance. Chey was about to say something to him, until she felt him enter. A shock ran through her body, her muscles tensed, and her mouth was left hanging open. Her hands reached out and grabbed hold of Joseph’s side as he slowly began.

“J,”, she labored to say through gritted teeth. “S-Slowly.” It took a second for him to understand what she had said, but he nodded, and complied. This had actually been fortunate for him, since he felt as if the finish line for him might be closer than he would have liked. He was gentle with her, his movements slow and careful, allowing their bodies gently touch and move together as one. That mysterious feeling from before began to return to Chey even stronger and faster than before. Her heart raced and vision blurred as beads of sweat formed all over her body, she could only take short burst of breath, and she lost all ability for rational thought. She realized that she was experiencing her first orgasm as it rose up in her like a tidal wave blocking out anything else. She had just enough sense to cover her mouth to muffle an uncontrollable scream that escaped her lips. Joseph watched this display underneath him, and it pushed him over the edge.

Joseph’s head came to rest next to Chey’s on the car’s leather backseat as they both returned to reality, and basked in the fleeting afterglow. Joseph felt himself whither, retracting from inside Chey. She motioned for Joseph to move off of her, so he sat up in the chair still trying to recover him self. She was still recovering also, but was urgently fishing around for her clothes and shoes. She found her pants, and quickly slid them on as she, without saying a single word, pointed at her shoes that were on the other side of Joseph. It took the weary Joseph a second to piece together what she wanted. He handed them to her. She threw them on her feet, and immediately climbed over him to get out of the car. He, with myself still exposed, had no understanding of what was going on. He would not be surprised if he just woke up in his bed with it all being some weird dream. Chey walked towards the house for few steps before stopping and turning back towards to car. She quickly walked back to him. At this point, nothing she could have done would have surprised him, until she kissed him. The kiss was so much more than the sex could have wished to be. Their lips touched and there was no beginning or end to it, it was a simple beautiful thing that seemed to have no length of time attached to it. She pulled away from him, and she hurried away to her house. Joseph gathered himself together, disposed of the condom in a nearby gutter, and left with many things running through his head about what just happened.


Next Chapter: Broken