I’m Brigitte and I am a dork. I’m not saying that in a mean way, I just am well aware of my limitations when it comes to any sort of physical activity. I’m clumsy, which doesn’t help and extremely uncoordinated. I mean how many people do you know can trip over their own feet while crossing an empty gym floor? But after years of being selected last for team sports and always seemed to hurt myself through the first couple of years of high school trying all those sports they kept trying to teach us.

I was dangerous to the people around me in volleyball, I was a hazard trying to dribble a basketball, and the first time the gym teacher saw me holding a field hockey stick, she relegated me to the less-than-enviable position of ‘timer’. Do you get the idea? I was a sixteen-year-old dork.

However, things changed a bit in my junior year. Our new gym teacher, Mrs. Russel, heard all about me and decided to do something about it. She assigned Julia to turn me from a complete and total klutz to someone with some degree of physical fitness. The downside was if we both failed at this endeavor I might not graduate because a passing grade in Gym was a state requirement. With the old teachers, it was pretty much a ‘bird’ course, in other words, an automatic passing grade. Mrs. Russel was not that sort.

After the rules were explained to us, I felt pretty awful. Not for me, but for Julia. Not only was she saddled with me, but her own grade in Gym was also going to be determined by my progress. That’s why I felt sorry for her. I think Mrs. Russel must have given her a heads up because she never blinked an eye at the whole deal.

I need to tell you about Julia. She is athleticism personified, which is why she was given this less than enviable task. She is a gymnast first and foremost, even though she’s about five-foot-nine. She says she’s ‘huge’ for a gymnast. She is also the head cheerleader, which pairs well with her gymnastic ability. Now, I know you may have heard many stories about cheerleaders and their ‘attitude’, but Julia was nothing like that. Under her leadership, the cheerleading squad was not only a top contender in state competitions, but they were a positive and actually cheerful group of ladies. They were nothing like the stereotypical ‘I’m better than you are’ attitude. I never heard them say a harsh word about anyone and I ended up hanging around with a number of them for my last two years of high school.

Well, to start, Julia and Mrs. Russel ran me through a test they got from somewhere. They explained it as a baseline for the rest of the year. They ran me around, we played tennis, volleyball, softball, and a few other activities included calisthenics. I would have sworn I saw them wince more than once, especially after I struck out three straight times at slow-pitch software and the less said about my tennis serve the better.

So for the rest of that semester, instead of me being lumped in with the rest of gym class, Julia would take me away from the group and work with me one-on-one. I didn’t realize it right away, but a large part of my problem, which Julia explained much, much later, was my own self-image and how self-conscious I was in front of the rest of the class. I knew I was a klutz who was going to get picked last and put in a position to do the least damage to the team effort.

Even back in elementary school, I would allow myself to get pointed out in dodgeball just because it was a foregone conclusion anyway. What I hadn’t realized was Mrs. Russel knew that was one of my many problems and she and Julia talked about a number of approaches to building a little self-confidence in me. If they had told me that from the beginning, I would have written myself up as a lost cause and their efforts probably wouldn’t have done much.

As it was Julia and I started working out together before school as well. It wasn’t anything too sweaty, just some stretching and some yoga. Four days a week we would meet after school and run or swim. Three times a week we had Gym class and we would go off working on whatever skills the class was working on, we would just do it ourselves. The only reason we didn’t work out after school five days a week was because of football games and her cheerleader activities.

I was astounded at Julia because, in addition to her regular schedule, which involved cheerleader practice every evening, she found time to workout with me. The other cheerleaders were actually supportive and once in a while would join us before their regular practice once Julia finished with me. I started hanging around and was just being amazed at her level of physical activity and it also showed me how far down she stepped her levels to workout with me. But every time I started feeling bad about it, she would get that look on her face and work on buoying me back up mentally.

This went on through football season, and I thought she might get to taper off, but then gymnastics season overlapped a bit, plus cheerleading activities never really ended. They were the most visible with football, but the rest of the year they also worked with the other cheerleading groups, the junior varsity, freshmen, and even junior high school cheerleaders. Still, she made time for me, which took forever for me to accept.

We spent so much time together we became close friends, closer than anyone would have predicted, especially me. Part of it was her personality, which still amazes me when I think about it. The other part was her success at making me feel more like a human being than a complete and total dork. We would study together and often hang around on weekends. See what I mean about the attitude of her squad? Could you picture most cheerleading squads tolerating an outsider like me? I never felt like a hanger-on or some sort of mascot. The squad was a great group of girls and I became close to all of them.

This stretched over into our personal lives as well. Of course, Julia had her pick of guys, only she rarely did. Oh, she dated, but she never seemed to get serious about anyone unlike most high school girls, myself included. She rarely dated anyone a second time and even then nothing seemed to go past kissing. She wasn’t religious, she just didn’t take the guys seriously.

Julia’s efforts on my self-esteem also opened me up to dating. I think hanging around with the cheerleaders may have helped raise my ‘datable-quotient’ among the high school guys. Luckily, I had a bunch of cheerleaders as my dating coaches, I didn’t do anything stupid. I won’t go into details, but I learned a lot about guys and not all of it was pleasant, especially the one guy who thought my fairly newly sprouted tits were communal property! I thought Julia was going to kick his ass when she found out about it.

This was another issue, now that I look back on it, I know I was growing up and all the physical activity was also shaping my body. It’s funny, I wasn’t that conscious of it, other than the weight gain. The first time I really started becoming aware of it was actually toward the end of our junior year and I got picked for softball, one of the skills Julia and I had been working on. Julia wasn’t in class that day, even the healthiest girl can get laid up with tummy trouble during ‘auntie flo’ days.

Since the other girls didn’t realize things might have changed a little, I got picked last, as usual, and relegated to right field. You know, the spot which hardly gets a ball hit toward it since most of the girls were right-handed and tended to pull the ball toward left field.

Nothing much happened until the second baseman muffed a ground ball and accidentally kicked a ball toward me and I actually threw the ball to third-base and prevented the runners from advancing. Two of the other girls stared at me like I had grown a new head. I was also the last batter in the order and there were two outs when I got to the plate. The opposing team played the infield in and the outfield barely on the grass in anticipation of an easy out.

No, I didn’t hit a home run that would have been much too much like a bad movie script. However, while the rest of the girls were gathering their gloves to go back on the field and the two on first and second were resigned to getting left on base, I pushed a hard hit past the second baseman and actually past their right fielder. Only one run scored, mainly because the girl on first didn’t move right away, I think she was in shock. I know I was!

Julia heard about my very first official RBI and when I saw her the next day she hugged me and even kissed me, right on the lips in her exuberance. Then she did something I had never seen, she blushed. I couldn’t believe how excited she got over that hit. I thought I was the one going crazy about it, but she looked more like a proud Mama than my best friend and personal trainer.

While we spent lots of time together through the end of the school year, still working out, even Mrs. Russel did something shocking and not only passed me in Gym, she gave me an ‘A’ and Julia got a well-deserved ‘A+’. I sort of felt like an ongoing project, but I didn’t feel bad about it in any way. Hanging with Julia and some of the other cheerleaders as the summer got really going was much better than my last summer.

I think I spent most of it trying to avoid being noticed, reading through as many books as I could cram and avoiding chores around the house and yard. Even my parents were surprised at the amount of time I spent off with friends. I think they thought it was simply a matter of me growing up, they didn’t seem to realize all the changes Julia had wrought in my body and, more importantly, in my own head.

I was no longer a complete dork, only a part-time dork, and even then only the fun part of dorkiness. We hung out at the lake, at various houses, and all the typical high school kids’ hangouts in our small town. We even did something I never had been invited to before; sleepovers. I would have never really thought that nine or ten girls staying up late watching bad movies, sneaking a little alcohol, and becoming giggling fools would be any fun, but it was, it really was.

It was something like our third sleepover. It was at Julia’s house and we were all exhausted. She had a pool so we spent the afternoon having a pool party and then after a dinner of the teenager-favorite: pizza, we settled down with a couple of horror movies and several big bowls of popcorn. Julia’s brother and Dad were camping somewhere. Her Mom was doing her best to avoid us while we annoyed her with squeals, screams, and not a few giggles.

We crashed at some ungodly hour and this time there were only four of us, the number varied each week as various families took vacations. Julia and I crashed on her floor while Janet and Ann won the toss and took her bed. We didn’t care, we were all exhausted and deliriously happy.

Something woke me up, it was a noise I think. But next to me, I realized Julia was awake as well. When I moved she touched her lips to keep me quiet as what we were hearing sank in. Janet and Ann were making strange noises and lots of stifled sounds. It took me a minute to realize what they were doing, not the specifics, just sort of the overview. I wanted to laugh, but I also didn’t want to interrupt or embarrass them.

Julia smiled when she realized I wasn’t going to do anything and she snuggled against me as we listened to our impromptu show. After a while, Julia just looked at me in a way they didn’t make sense to me, then she kissed me.

I’m not talking a little peck on the lips, she kissed me and after my shock went away, I think I kissed her back. By this time I wasn’t a dork about kissing, after being coached by the whole cheerleading squad I had done some dating and been kissed by three different boys. Even to my surprise, there was a lot different about that kiss.

My first kiss with a boy was Andrew. I’m not even sure how we ended up going on a group date and just seemed to gravitate to each other. There were six different couples and I really thought Andrew might have drawn the short straw — remember I wasn’t over my self-image issues at that point. Well, he kissed me as I got dropped off at my house. It was awkward, we bumped noses, it felt weird, but in a nice way. It was a little rough, but I think that was my clumsiness reasserting itself more than anything. But it felt good. We went out, as a group, several times and it was fine. I know, not a ringing endorsement, but that was the word for it, fine.

The second boy I kissed was more of an official date. Alan actually asked me out. Julia was a little iffy on him, but the other girls were more encouraging. So we went to the movies and at the end of the evening, he kissed me as well, only this kiss wasn’t so great. He tried to push his tongue in my mouth and that wasn’t something I was ready for. Other than that, the date was alright and Alan seemed to get the idea, until date number two, that’s when he decided my chest didn’t just belong to me. I ended up in tears, but two of the other cheerleaders were there and they took care of me. I swore when Julia heard about it, she wanted to rip his face off!

I tried to swear off dating after that fiasco, but for some reason, boys kept asking me out. I finally accepted an invitation to a party from another ‘A’ guy, Albert. Albert appealed to my dorky-side. He wasn’t overly popular, and he was also pretty smart. He was actually a really fun guy and while we kissed a little, he was never forceful or demanding. I liked him a lot more than Andrew and certainly more than Alan. Julia didn’t seem to mind him as much.

But back to this kiss; Julia’s kiss. Her lips were so incredibly soft, that was the first thing I noticed. She wasn’t forceful but lightly pressed her lips to mine. It was so light I could have imagined it if she wasn’t right there in front of me. Then I felt her tongue, it was a small thing, a tiny touch of the tip of her tongue. There wasn’t any pushing, no force, nothing Alan. My lips parted and I felt her slip into my mouth. I don’t know how or even why, but in a few still hazy moments, both our mouths were open and our tongues were — dancing was the only word that still comes to mind to this day.

She turned her body toward mine and pressed against me, her thigh pushed between my legs and pushed as gently as her kiss, but by then I had my arms around her and was pulling her tighter to me. I heard more noises and realized we were making some like the ones that had awakened me from Janet and Ann. It didn’t register at the moment, only in retrospect.

I felt strange, but in a really, really good way. The feeling was getting close to the one I would get late in the night all by myself. But it rapidly got better and better. I didn’t know what to call what we were doing and I really didn’t care. All I knew was I didn’t want Julia to stop, ever!

She brought me to orgasm. I knew the terms from sex-ed class and my own research into books my parents wouldn’t have wanted me to read. But it was unlike any I had experienced up to that point. I felt it, I felt it strongly, and still, Julia didn’t stop.

I knew why; I felt her own need against me, her movements were stronger, more forceful, but still in a way that seemed to make sense. She came with her mouth pressed against my neck stifling a cry that seemed to go completely through my body. It was a wonderful feeling one that easily surpassed my own orgasm. Her body relaxed against mine. She looked at me, sort of shyly for the first time since we started spending so much time together. I couldn’t help but smile at her and when she smiled back, we both started laughing. That’s when we heard “It’s about freaking time, you two!” Janet said.

Ann and Julia laughed while I laid there more than a little surprised. How did everyone else see this except for me? Maybe my self-confidence wasn’t where it could be, even though it was light-years ahead of where it was. That set the stage for the rest of the summer and our senior year, we became a couple. The rest of the cheerleaders didn’t even blink at us when they saw us together. My folks seemed to take it in stride as well, at least they didn’t seem to have much of a reaction at all. Her parents simply started treating me like another daughter. Her brother was a pain-in-the-ass, but then younger brothers are like that.

We made love often, exploring our bodies in so many interesting ways. We taught each other so much, but there was one very special thing, Julia did one day she called an ‘English Lesson’. No, it doesn’t involve anything overly kinky, not that I would have even known what that meant back then. One of our activities that we both enjoyed — a lot — was oral sex. No, I’m not talking about us discussing sex, although we did lots of that as well. She went down on me the first time and I really liked it. I really enjoyed doing the same to her.

Her English Lesson involved saying the alphabet during oral sex. She did more than just recite the letters, she would sing The Alphabet Song against me and it would drive me insane! She would sing it slowly, with exaggerated mouth movement until she had me squirming all over the bed, or table, or stairs, wherever! It was incredible and she loved doing it to me! It got to the point she would start humming that song to me or reciting a few letters and it always gets my attention.

One day, shortly before we both went off to college, we were having a lovely dinner at a very nice restaurant. Shortly before dessert, she leaned over and started reciting the alphabet in my ear. I felt myself getting very wet for her. It’s not like we would ever be going back there. I mean how were we to know the manager’s office shared a wall with the Ladies Room?

I mentioned college, yes we were each going to college, different schools. Julia was going out of state. She got a full ride for gymnastics and cheerleading. She is majoring in sports medicine and physical therapy. I was staying in the state and actually going to State. Julia’s influence helped me discover a second love, running. I even joined the Track team and lettered in the longer distances. Yes, me, the consummate dork became an athlete. I even got a partial scholarship for Track. Our lives parted gently and we always remained friends. It’s been almost thirty years and Julia is living in Southern California coaching gymnastics. She’s married with three wonderful kids and I see them all every chance I get.

It might sound like not a very happy ending, but there is one small thing. To this day, I get wet whenever I hear a cheerleader say “Gimme an A!”