THE PEOPLE OF SHERWOOD, MINNESOTA vs. ALLISON B. APPLEBAUM
In spite of noticeable acne scarring along her cheekbones and jaw line, Allison Applebaum beamed an odd radiance from her cherubic face. She stood in the upstairs bathroom of the house Mitchell lived in with his grandmother. Yeah, Allison would give herself that pat-on-the-back. She did beam odd radiance. She did have a cherubic face. Mitchell stayed in his bedroom down the hall. She hadn’t closed the bathroom door.
Allison stood at the sink because she felt custom dictated she had to wash something. Wasn’t that what people normally did after such occasions? Wash themselves?
Mitchell’s footsteps sounded on the carpet.
Allison turned on the faucet.
Mitchell peaked through the door. “Allison?”
“What?”
“I’m not interrupting. Sorry, the door was open.”
“Nope. It’s fine. Just washing my hands.”
“I’ll say it plain. My grandma will be back soon.” He put his hands in his pockets and stared at the floor. I don’t want her to know you were he – well. I don’t want her to see me with you here.” The end result of what she’d done to him, and how his body reacted to it, was still smeared on the left sleeve of his t-shirt.
Allison Applebaum is a sophomore at Sherwood High School in Sherwood, Minnesota.
Right before he’d so tactlessly asked Allison to leave his grandma’s house, she’d given him a hand job. Mitchell hadn’t asked her to, but eagerly accepted when she offered.
Allison Applebaum runs on the Sherwood High School track team.
It started by Allison making out with Mitchell in his bed after school. They lay side by side with their arms wrapped around each other. She felt his penis harden and grow towards her crotch. The sensation of his hardness pushing between her legs filled Allison with an urgent curiosity, so she sat up and blinked her eyes.
“This is kind of bad, but there’s something I want to do to you that might be fun.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t say. You have to guess.”
“Do you want to have sex?”
SHEESH! Allison thought Mitchell had set his sights way too high. “Cold.”
“Do you want to give me,” Mitchell’s voice cracked, “a blowjob?”
“Warmer.”
“Do you . . . want to . . . give me a handjob?”
“Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding.”
Her calculated forwardness left him speechless. Mitchell stuttered all dumb and blushing.
“If you unbutton and unzip your pants, then pull it out, then I’ll do it for you.”
Even though she is only a sophomore, Allison runs varsity for Sherwood High School’s track team. Her events: 100 meter dash, 200 meter dash, four by four relay.
Mitchell’s wasn’t as big as the ones Allison had seen in pornographic media. She conducted her experiment. It didn’t take too much tugging. The fat wad of semen scotched dripping down the palm of her hand. In an act of disgust, humiliation, and panic, she wiped it on the sleeve of his t-shirt.
Everyone knows Allison Applebaum is a track star.
Julien lay on his back, on old packing blankets, covered in a sleeping bag, in a tent set up in his backyard. He brought a hand to his mouth, spit into his cupped palm, then reached under the sleeping bag to pleasure himself. In the corner of the tent, Julien had a stack of magazines and a stack of books. The magazines contained pornographic material, and the books were widely considered to be great works of literature. Julien also had in the corner a plastic bag filled with magic markers in a wide variety of colors.
He frequented his tent, afternoons once school had let out, for sessions of masturbation uninterrupted by parents or siblings. Although it may come as a surprise to some, he did not look at the pornographic magazines when he masturbated. For assigned reading, his English class was covering George Orwell’s 1984. Julien enjoyed the book so much, he’d already finished it, even though he wasn’t required to do so for another three weeks. While he masturbated he imagined having sex with the fictional character Julia from Orwell’s 1984.
After the self-served orgasm, Julien sat hunched over an opened pornographic magazine. With his magic markers, he drew clothes over the girls in their various poses. Sometimes he even drew other props or word bubbles in the scene. At the moment, he costumed a busty brunette as Little Bo Peep. He kept the art project a secret. He’d rather have people think he masturbated to the pictures. Julien drew a little black sheep next to the busty brunette. He added some word bubbles that had the girl say, “Bah-bah black sheep, have you any wool?” In another word bubble, the sheep answered, “Yes sir. No sir. Three bags full.”
Sometimes when Julien masturbated, he imagined the girls he went to school with in Sherwood High. One of the girls he thought about was his friend named – You guess it!
The past winter in Minnesota had been brutally inhuman. After months of gray snow and early nights, spring hit sudden with fertile green leaves. Allison Applebaum had almost forgotten what green looked like, and the fresh foliage tickled her eyes. She’d just finished track practice, and her muscles felt rubbery and good attached to her bones. Sitting in the grass behind the bleachers, she changed out of her spikes and into sandals. Sherwood’s track and field facilities shared the parking lot with the Sherwood Branch library, which sat a couple dozen yards away across the expanse of asphalt.
Not that Allison was a slacker, but her athletic superiority allowed a free pass during practices. Aside from a single relay practice heat, she’d spent the whole time jogging laps, and taking numerous breaks to pick dandelions. Like most people who effortlessly excel at something, Allison didn’t want to be a track star. She wanted to be an expatriated traveler who had affairs with dark men in exotic countries.
A sad looking boy walked out of the library. Allison, recognizing him instantly, stood and yelled, “Hey, Julien.” She ran to him. Crossing the parking lot (even in sandals) she made good time, and due to her peak physical fitness, arrived in front of him with no shortness of breath.
“Hi Allison, what’s up?”
“Woo, I saw you walk out of the library, and I thought, ‘Oh god, who is that sad looking boy?’ Then I thought, ‘Wait, I know him. That’s Julien.’”
“Yeah, I picked up this book by an Eastern Block Jew. He’s compared to Kafka, and I’d seen some stop-motion animations based off his stories, so I thought I check him out.”
When completely bored with a topic, Allison had a way of smiling, batting her eyes, and sweetly cooing, ‘hmmm, interesting.’ She did just that. “Hmmm, interesting. Hey! What are you doing this afternoon?”
He held up the book, “Oh, you know, I think I’m going back to my tent to crack the covers of this bad boy.”
“Tent?”
“Sure. In the woods behind my house. I go there after school to read, draw pictures. You know, just relax.”
“Yeah right, sure-sure. You go there to masturbate in the woods.”
“That’s true Allison. Sometimes I do go there to rub one out. How was practice?”
“Eh, whatever.” Her face lit up and she grabbed his wrist. “Speaking of rubbing one out, I have to tell you this, but you can’t tell anyone.”
“If you say so.”
“Promise not to tell?”
“Cross my heart, hope to die. Loose lips sink ships.”
“Okay.” She leaned closer. Their forearms were touching. “You know Mitchell?”
“No.”
“I was at his house. He lives with his grandma. We were up in his room . . .”
“And?”
“You promise now, you won’t tell anyone?”
“I won’t, and get over yourself. If you’re going to say it, say it. I can see you’re itching all over to confess, and I’ve still got homework to do.”
“Okay. We were up in his room, in his bed, and I helped him to rub one out.”
It was pleasant, the new feeling of spring. Nothing but blue skies and sweet breezes.
“My-my-my. That’s our girl, Allison Applebaum. Dreamy-creamy. Moony-swoony. Little Allison had a big adventure.”
“It was an adventure. Not a big one, if you know what I mean.”
Across town, in the bottom of the second, Sherwood’s baseball team squared off against Cumberland High. Even without the home field advantage, Sherwood expected an easy win. Already in the second inning, there were runners on first and third. When Mitchell stepped up to the plate, all his teammates thought an RBI was certain. Mitchell, placed forth in the batting order was a dependable clean-up hitter. Cumberland’s pitcher was shaken, after giving up a walk in the first inning, and narrowly striking out the last hitter on a full count. As he took his stance, legs parted, bat tilted over his shoulder, Mitchell expected, like his teammates, no less than an RBI out of himself.
On the first pitch, he swung and missed at a ball that landed way outside. The second throw came certifiably within the strike zone, but floated nice and easy and slow. Mitchell again swung away at empty air. On the third pitch, tight and inside, but with no real speed, he flailed with another dumb swing to rack up a third strike from a pitcher any self-respecting Sherwood player wouldn’t dare to be seen with. For the rest of the game, his every at bat, he struck out in three quick swings. Mitchell couldn’t even muster a lousy foul ball.
His fielding was just as bad. Normally a nimble and quick-thinking short-stop, a position that demanded such qualities, Mitchell was haunted by errors, missed grounders, and dropped balls. He even committed the cardinal sin of failing to throw out the runner in advance.
In the end, Sherwood pulled out a win by three points. Still the coach knew something was off. “What happened to you out there today?” He asked as Mitchell packed up his gear. “It was like someone stole your mojo.”