Clyde McBride was a straight up shrimp. At nineteen and in his first year of college at Michigan State, he weighed one hundred ten pounds, had arms like Frosty, and blew away every time the wind gusted - last time he got tangled in some power lines and died. RIP. He had height - six plus, which made him a jumbo shrimp - but that didn't mean much when you were built like a sheet of paper. In fact, it was worse because of all the wobbling and flopping left, right, back, and front like he had no bones. When he let his hair grow up, people said he looked like one of those fuzzy pencils girls used to trade in middle school, and when he shaved it, they said he looked like a pencil with the eraser worn down. It's always something with people, you ever notice that? They just love roasting you and if they can't grab onto a low hanging piece of fruit, they'll dig for it. He once got into a debate with somebody on Facebook, and this dude literally went to Clyde's profile and spent an hour looking through old photos just to point out that he was wearing a dumb shirt on January 15, 2021, at 5:38 pm.

He gave the guy an A for effort then blocked him because that was some stalker behavior.

Being made fun of didn't happen much anymore and Clyde had finally reached a point where he accepted his twig-like physique. It's just how he was. He might as well complain about being black. He couldn't change his boney bod anymore than he could his race, so why not embrace it? To be fair, he never thought Gee, I wish was a little whiter but he did entertain fantasies of getting jacked and walking around on his hands like Spongebob with Anchor Arms.

In high school, Clyde hit the gym every afternoon in hopes of getting more cut than an Italian zombie movie, but nothing ever came of it. See, in order to build muscle, you first have to pack on the pounds, and that's where Clyde's dreams of Hulkdom fell flat. No matter what he ate, no matter how much he ate, he just couldn't gain any weight. He ate fast food, chocolate cake, fried dough, fried chicken, fried fish, fried hamburgers, fried cake, he'd even buy a bunch of meat and only eat the fat. Nope. Didn't work. He didn't understand it. Why? Why did his body work against him? He wasn't a jealous kind of guy, but when he saw someone who couldn't even be near McDonald's without gaining weight, he got sick with envy. Look at that stomach! It's like a trash bag full of fresh mango pulp! I wish I had that.

Howard and Harold McBride, his foster fathers, raised him to love and believe in himself. They told him that everyone is different and that you should accept who you are. "You only get one you," Harold said. Clyde tried so hard to live by that mantra, but it was hard sometimes. He was fine with the "him" he had. He just wished there was a little more.

Other than that, Clyde was 100 percent adjusted. His parents gave him up for adoption when he was little and he spent time in a group home before Harold and Howard adopted him, but that was life. He was a geek who loved fantasy, science fiction, and MMORPGs and that was okay. Some people said that stuff was lame, but he didn't really care what they said. He was secure in almost every facet of who he was and didn't stew in angst like a lot of geeks his age. He considered himself an average person. He was not shy or nervous around new people, he could be witty when he wanted to be, and he had a network of friends across all racial, social, and cultural bounds.

Things were great.

Except when it came to the football team.

MSU's football team was legendary and the guys on it were basically rock stars.

Rock stars who enjoyed picking on him.

Every day on his way to class, Clyde would pass a few of them on the commons, and they'd mess with him, calling him names and stuff. One day, he wore a nice sweater to class and a black dude who played offense called him Carlton. The captain of the team, Kyle Ross, drilled him in the back of the head with a football, then said, "Sorry, bro, you're so skinny I didn't see you there."

Clyde let it go and let it go.

But it only got worse.

One day, Kyle snatched him up by the front of his shirt and pinned him to the wall. "I know you heard me calling you," he said.

Clyde's eyesight wasn't the best but his hearing was on point. Kyle Ross did not call out to him.

"Put me down," Clyde whined.

"Oh, I'm gonna put you down," Kyle said and cocked his face. "I'm gonna put you all the way down, McBride."

There was no way Clyde could squirm out of this one, so he closed his eyes, turned his head to the side, and gritted his teeth. He hoped Howard's health insurance plan covered reconstructive face surgery.

Before the killing blow could come, someone crashed into Kyle from the side, and his grip on Clyde's shirt released. Clyde spilled to the ground and his eyes flew open. I get to keep my face? From his position, all Clyde could see was legs. Kyle stumbled back and his attacker - whose legs were bare, toned, and white - kicked him the stomach. Kyle spun around and fled, looking back over his shoulder with wide-eyed terror. "You're crazy!"

Clyde's benefactor stood over him. "You alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, thanks, I -"

He recognized that voice.

Pushing to a sitting position, he adjusted his glasses and looked up.

Lynn Loud grinned. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail like always and her freckled face was cast in shadows. She wore a pair of red gym shorts that bared her silky legs and a white tank-top. Clyde was an advanced and civilized man who respected women and their rights, but he was also human and couldn't help but notice the way the fabric of her shirt clung to her tiny, perfectly formed breasts.

Clyde's throat swelled shut and for a moment, he felt like he was going to pass out.

Growing up, Clyde wasn't exactly good with girls - they made him nervous and he got all shaky and flushed when he tried to talk to them. The only females he had any sort of positive relationship with her his best friend Lincoln's sisters. He had a huge crush on his oldest sister Lori, but he also kind of liked Leni, Luna, Luan, and Lynn too. Lynn most of all. She was tough, upbeat, and dominant, all traits that Clyde found sexy. For a while there, he crushed on Lynn just as hard as he had Lori, but then he and Lincoln drifted apart and he didn't see much of the Loud girls anymore. He couldn't recall the last time he saw Lynn, but she was just as beautiful as ever. Freckles swirled across her cheeks like constellations and her brown eyes bewitched him just as they had when he was a boy - nothing's changed there.

"I thought that was you," she said. She held out her hand and helped him to his feet.

"What are you doing here?" Clyde asked.

The last Clyde knew, she was going to school somewhere in the south. Like...one of the Carolinas or something.

"I transferred," she said simply. "I know what you're doing here. Getting your ask kicked."

Clyde started to defend himself, but in typical fashion, Lynn steamrolled him. "You really need to learn self-defense. If the way you handled yourself back there is any indication, you're basically defenseless."

"Well -"

"Kind of like a baby. Or a kitten."

Clyde blushed. They were aimlessly walking now. "I wouldn't say -"

"Yep, you are totally vulnerable. Anyone could do anything they want to you and you wouldn't be able to stop them."

Clyde's face fell into a hard glower. Now he was starting to get mad...because it was true. He really was weak and defenseless. He was practically a baby duckling and had all the menace of dryer lint. A twelve year old could beat him up. Heck, a nine year old could beat him up. It wouldn't be hard. One punch to the middle and he'd shatter like a brittle pane of glass.

And on and on Lynn went. "I mean, you're totally vulnerable. You might as well just give up. What point is there in being a weak, sniveling -"

She saw his expression from the corner of her eye and stopped herself. "Sorry. No offense, it's just...you know...you're a weakling."

Clyde drew a heavy sigh. "I know. I'm a loser. I've tried to bulk up but I can't gain any weight. I'm pitiful."

"Oh, you don't have to be big," Lynn dismissed, "you just gotta know how to fight." She came to a sudden halt and looked like she had the most astounding and revolutionary idea in the history of humanity. "I'll teach you," she said.

"No, that's -"

"I know a lot about fighting," Lynn said, cutting him off. "I'll teach you everything I know." She looked around to make sure they weren't being watched. "Even my secret moves." She threw up her hands, and Clyde jumped reflexively back. She laughed heartily. "It'll be fun. And when we're finished, you'll actually be able to protect yourself from bullies."

Hmmm. That did sound appealing. And hanging out with Lynn? Count him in!

"Alright, you know what? Sure. Sign me up."

She punched his arm and a pain hissed slipped through his teeth. "Great. Meet me at the gym tomorrow at four. And don't be late."

Lynn bounced off, and Clyde watched her until she was gone, his eyes glued to her butt, the way it rolled beneath the fabric of her shorts hypnotizing him. When she was out of sight, he crossed the grassy commons and went to his next class, where he sat in the back and took notes as the professor spoke. His mind drifted back to Lynn's body. The freckles peppered across her chest and shoulders, the devious upward curl of her smile. In his vision, she crossed her arms over her chest in an X and pulled her shirt up. The cottony material grazed her warm, sun kissed flesh and slipped over her stiff, pink nipples. She tossed it away, hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and wiggled her hips. The shorts slid down and -

Clyde realized everyone was filing out of the room.

He grabbed his things and waited for the others to clear the aisles before scurrying away. Later that night, in his dorm, he sat on the edge of his bed and kicked his shoes off. A lamp on the desk cast a cone of muted light that bravely held back the shadows and cool air squeezed in through the window, which he kept cracked for ventilation. He pulled out his phone, checked his Facebook, then closed out after setting an alarm for 3:30 the next afternoon. Just in case he forgot he had an appointment with Lynn.

Which he doubted he would. Lynn was the only thing he'd been able to think of all day, and the more he did it, the more he looked forward to seeing her.

Stripping to his underwear, he slid in between the sheets, leaned over, and turned the lamp off. Afterward, he lay awake for a long time, too excited to sleep like a kid on Christmas Eve. Finally, shortly after midnight, he fell into a thin and fitful sleep.

That night, he dreamed of Lynn Loud.

The next day, Clyde met Lynn in the gymnasium on the extreme southwest corner of the campus. A brick structure nestled in a grove of trees and set just off one of the many cobblestone walkways that crisscrossed the commons, it looked more like a place of reading and quiet contemplation than a citadel of sports and physical fitness. In addition to a full size basketball court, the building housed a swimming pool, a weight room, an indoor track, and other facilities related to sports and working out. Clyde found Lynn in what appeared to be a dance studio. Mirrors covered one wall and a railing hugged another. The woods were polished and glossy and reflected the sunlight streaming in through the transom windows, stinging Clyde's eyes. Lynn, wearing tight yoga pants, a white tank top, and nothing on her feet, was pulling mats into the middle of the room when Clyde came in. He helped her and when it was in a position she liked, they let it fall to the floor.

"Alright," Lynn said, "let's get right into it." She took up a fighter's stance, bare feet far apart and fists up, protecting her face. "Do like me."

Clyde copied her pose as best he could. "Bend your knees," Lynn ordered. "And brace yourself. That way it's harder to take you down."

He did as he was told.

Bouncing from one foot to the other, Lynn faked a punch and Clyde ducked back. She came, got her foot behind his, and took him down. "That's why you don't flinch," she said smugly.

She helped him back to his feet. "Focus, alright?"

"Okay."

His eyes went to the mirror behind her.

Man, her butt looked -

The heel of her palm crashed into his chest and he fell onto his butt with a breathless oof. "Dude," she said disappointedly, "you were supposed to be focusing."

I was...on your butt.

"Sorry," Clyde said and got up. He dusted himself off and tried not to look at her breasts. He bet she was wearing a sports bra. Those aren't exactly hot but what was underneath -

Lynn took him down again. This time, he whacked his head on the floor and stars burst across his field of vision. "I'm not mad, Clyde," Lynn said, "I'm just disappointed."

Clyde got back up and shook his head. His brain throbbed against his skull but he was determined to go on, if for no other reason than not looking weak in front of Lynn. "Alright," he said, "my head's in the game."

"Your head's in the game?"

He nodded. "Yes."

But he was wrong. They sparred for another hour, and Lynn mopped the floor with him - almost literally. He would have felt really down on himself for not eventually getting the hang of it (come on, Clyde, even lab mice learn after a while) but he consoled himself with the fact that he could never give the matter at hand his full attention. His attention was, instead, on Lynn's butt in the mirror, on her eyes, on the cute and serious expression she wore when she charged him, on, basically, everything about her.

"Alright," she said when it was over, "you're not doing too well, kid, but we're gonna make a fighter out of you yet...or you're going to die trying."

Gulp.

She meant it, too. For the next two weeks (it felt more like two hundred), she ran him ragged with a constant and gruelling training regimen that started promptly at 5am and ended at 8pm, when she chased him off to bed because early to bed, early to rise makes a man an ass-kicking machine. Each day started with a survivor series of events specifically formulated to turn arms to jelly, knees to water, and high spirits to suicidal ideations. First, she made him jog two miles around campus in the crisp predawn chill, wearing nothing but shorts and a T-shirt. When that was over, it was time for push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and throw-ups - Clyde literally threw up after all that. For breakfast, he got a raw egg in a glass, and for lunch, a protein shake. After class, Lynn dragged him to their dance studio off the basketball court, where he skipped rope, ran drills, shadow boxed, and got his butt reliably kicked. He felt dirty for this, but he loved the feeling of her body crashing into his. One day, she shoved his face into the mat, scrambled onto his back, and twisted his arm behind his shoulder blades. Her knees planted on either side of him and her crotch straddled his back. He imagined he could feel her heat soaking through their clothes, and popped a painfully large erection.

Despite Lynn's best efforts, Clyde didn't improve much. Part of it was him sucking, but perhaps a much larger part was his inability to focus. Lynn was a huge distraction. Had his teacher been a guy, maybe he would have gotten better, but it wasn't a guy, it was Lynn Loud, and over the course of that two weeks, he rediscovered that old boyhood crush.

It didn't help (or did help, depending on how you look at it) that they spent almost every waking moment together. Lynn didn't know anyone at MSU and Clyde got the sense that she was sticking with him because he was familiar. Maybe the whole training thing was just her way of giving them a reason to hang out, or maybe the training prevented her from meeting and hanging out with new people. Either way, they were constantly around each other, and like quicksand, Clyde sank deeper and deeper every second. He did a good job at keeping it hidden. He also tried really hard to keep from wishful thinking. Sometimes she'd look at him from the corner of her eye and he'd swear he saw interest there, but he'd quash that. Wishful thinking is a dangerous thing, you know.

Three weeks after they began, they met in the dance studio for another end-of-day lesson. It was an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon and the light falling through the window lay on the glossy floor like puddles of melted gold. Lynn wore a pair of gray sweat shorts that barely covered her crotch and her breasts made small mounds in her white T. Clyde wore shorts too...with no underwear beneath. With all the running and activity, it got damp and sweaty and bunched in his crotch and ass.

They started with a few lunge-thrusts with Clyde on the offense. Lynn easily dodged him, but Clyde was able to dodge her counterattacks, so he felt pretty good about himself. When he went on the defensive, however, things fell apart. He watched Lynn's butt and thighs in the mirror and she creamed him. He started getting hard and willed it away, but his penis wouldn't go fully soft and made a slight bulge in his shorts. Lynn didn't notice.

But then it happened.

Like usual, he wasn't paying attention and Lynn took him down. He sprawled on his back and Lynn straddled him, her middle coming to rest on his and her hands pinning his wrists to the floor. Clyde's heart jolted, and much to his horror, so did his erection. 100ccs of pent-up passion, maybe even twenty, surged to his member and it gave a mighty jerk against Lynn's unsuspecting groin. Panic overcame him and he started to thrash and kick in an attempt to buck her off. She held on tighter and braced herself to keep her balance, perhaps on pure instinct. Clyde's dick got harder and smooshed against Lynn's middle, and from the way her eyes widened and her cheeks blushed, she felt it and knew what it was. He bucked again, and Lynn bucked back, an evil smile spreading across her lips. Clyde rocked his hips to the right, trying to roll to his side, and Lynn countered by rocking hers to the left.

It was only then that Clyde saw the fire in her eyes. He fell still and Lynn rocked her hips again, grinding herself against his erection. She cocked her head to the side and ran her hands down his arms to his chest. She sucked shallow breaths and bit her lower lip, girlish amusement dancing in her hazy eyes. Clyde swallowed thickly and just lay there, not knowing what to do or even what was happening. Was...she enjoying this?

She rocked her hips forward once more, slow but firm, and her breath caught with a quiet hiss. Sharp ripples of sensation cut through Clyde's stomach and his dick pulsed hotly into Lynn's middle. Only a few thin layers of fabric separated them. All they had to do was move them and he'd be there, knocking at her entrance.

And she'd probably let him in.

Her hands slipped under his shirt, and the scrape of her warm skin over his made Clyde jump. His boner jammed into Lynn and she sucked a quick intake of breath through her teeth. Of their own accord, Clyde's hands fluttered to her hips and her fingers curled into his skin, making him gasp. She rocked her hips back and forth, faster now, and Clyde's shorts worked their way down until they pulled tight on his dick. He shifted his hips, and they slipped over his tip, baring him to the world. A second later, Lynn's crotch rubbed against it, the cottony fabric of her shorts tickling his fevered skin.

Lynn's eyes darted down to it and she brushed her teeth over her lower lip. She flicked her eyes to his and their gazes locked. Clyde wasn't very in tune with women, but you'd have to be blind to not see that she was enjoying this.

She closed her fingers around his shaft and his back arched off the floor. She skimmed her thumb over the tip, then let him go and leaned over, her hands splaying on either side of his head. Her face hovered inches above his and her breath filled his mouth, making his heart race faster than it already was.

Molding his lips to hers and kissing her wasn't a conscious decision. When you're backed into a corner, Lynn told him again and again, you have to react. Lynn's tongue swirled around his and her chest flattened against his. She thrust her butt into the air like a playful kitten getting ready to pounce a ball of yarn and Clyde snaked his hand around her hips and clutched her butt. She pulled away from his lips and grinded his bare dick. In time, it pushed her shorts aside and her full lips slipped over his head. He barely realized what was happening before she jerked herself down on him, taking him all the way to the hilt. Her body's wet heat knocked a moan from him and she let out a hitching gasp. She pressed her hands to his chest and started to thrust. Clyde slipped his hands under her shirt and cupped her breasts in his hands. Her heart pounded furiously and her hard nipples raked his palms.

Somehow, Lynn wound up on her back with Clyde on top of her, her shorts dangling from one ankle. She wrapped her legs around him and he slammed into her, her walls closing around his shaft and her muscles crazily expanding and contracting. Lynn threw her arms around his neck and pulled his lips to hers, kissing him as she lifted up to meet his thrusts. She hugged him tightly and started to shake, and Clyde's heart jumped into his throat when he realized he was going to cum. He tried to pull out but Lynn held him in place. With no other alternative, he gave one final thrust and released into her womb.

They held each other until the aftershocks stopped, then pulled apart. "There," Lynn said breathlessly, "your final lesson is complete."

"Final?" Clyde asked archly.

Lynn sat up and snapped her thighs closed to keep the mixture of their fluids from leaking out. "Well," she said, "maybe we can pick up later on. Right now, I'm starving."

Later on, after eating, they went back to Lynn's dorm. Kissing and touching, they undressed one another and got into bed. Lynn got on her hands and knees and arched her back. Clyde gripped her hips and prodded her center with his head, the hot, velvety touch of her opening making him dizzy. He thrust into her and pumped until he was almost there, then they changed positions. She got on top of him and braced her hands against the wall behind his head. Clyde kneaded her nipples as she sank herself onto him. "Tell me when you're almost there," she said.

A few minutes of her wild rocking was all he could take. "Almost there," he grunted.

She got off, got between his legs, and took him into her mouth. She lapped his shaft as she went down and when he touched the back of her throat, he came undone and filled her mouth. She drank every last drop, then snuggled up to him and had him play with her pussy until she came. Clyde had never touched a girl there before and didn't know what to do, but she taught and guided him in a strained, breathy whisper. "There...like that...oh yeah, just like that...go faster...don't stop, don't stop…"

After that, they held each other and floated on the edge of sleep. "Do I have to keep training?" Clyde asked.

"Hmmm...I don't know. I guess since you're my boyfriend now, I can protect you."

Boyfriend?

Maybe it was lame for a man his age to say this, but Lynn calling him her boyfriend made him proud.

"Works for me," he said.

"I figured it would," Lynn said and kissed him.

And from that point on, Clyde never had to worry about bullies again.