DANCING ON THE TUNDRA by Bert McKenzie Copyright 2010
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real person alive or dead is coincidental and unintentional.
CHAPTER II
"Would you like to share that with the rest of the class?" the imperious voice asked.
Terry felt his face beginning to burn. He glanced up from the note and saw the beady little eyes staring at him from behind the small, wire rimmed lenses. "What?" he asked, startled by the confrontation.
"The note you just received," Sister Mary Leon said as she slowly rose from her desk in front of the dirty, green chalk board and started down the aisle toward him.
Terry quickly crumpled the piece of paper in his hand wishing the wooden floor boards would open up and swallow his desk. He glanced around quickly, trying to think of a way to get rid of the note before the nun reached him, but he suddenly seemed isolated, cut off from everyone. There was no chance he could pass it on to someone else, or even destroy it while her eyes focused on him. For a desperate moment he thought he might be able to pop it in his mouth and swallow it, but even then he knew it was too late. The nun was standing over him, her hand extended. He had no choice but to give it to her. He wished he could perform some slight of hand and substitute the note with some other piece of paper from his notebook, but he was too clumsy.
"Hand it to me," the nun said coldly, "and we'll share it with the rest of the class."
Terry could hear Paula's thoughts as plainly as if he were a mind reader. Her brown eyes were burning into him. "Please don't let her see it!" they silently screamed. "Please don't give her my note!"
The nun's pudgy, pink little hand reached out for it. Terry fought an internal struggle between handing his teacher the note and tearing it up into a thousand pieces. The internal battle only seemed to cause an outward paralysis. Sister Mary Leon reached down and firmly pulled the piece of paper from his clenched fingers. She turned and walked back to the front of the room, her beads rattling ominously with each step. Terry took a moment to give a guilt ridden look of apology to Paula. She only glared at him in anger. It wasn't his fault. After all, she wrote the note. He only got caught with it.
Sister Mary Leon turned to face the class as she uncrumpled the piece of paper. She always read the notes she confiscated out loud. Her idea was to embarrass the note passers enough that they would never do it again. At the moment Terry was prepared to take an oath never to do anything wrong again for the rest of his life if she would just not read the note. He quickly said a silent prayer to God asking him to work a miracle and strike the woman blind, only temporarily.
"I have a date with him on Saturday," the nun's strident voice began. Terry and Paula both sank lower in their seats as everyone else in the room perked up. "You see him every day in gym class. Just how big is it?" The nun looked up in amazement as the rest of the room seemed to turn to stone. Not a sound could be heard except the pounding of his pulse in Terry's ears. "Just how big is what, Miss Brown?" the nun asked, unable to comprehend the question. Unfortunately every student in the classroom understood immediately. With Sister Mary Leon's question the room erupted into loud, raucous laughter.
With the amazing swiftness of divine inspiration the nun suddenly understood and turned several bright shades from pink to crimson. She stormed down the aisle, grabbing Terry by the arm and yanking him from his desk. She then grabbed Paula and with the two guilty parties in tow, headed out of the room, down the stairs and across the hall to the office. She couldn't even speak, she was so angry. She just shoved the crumpled paper into the principal's face. Father Joseph read the scrap of paper then stared at the two offenders.
"It's all very innocent," Paula explained.
"Well?" the priest asked expectantly, his bushy, white eyebrows crawling up the creases of his brow.
"I have a date with Jim Ragsdale. You know he's the star kicker of the football team. I heard that because of his kicking the ball, one of his feet is bigger than the other. So I wrote a note to Terry and . . ."
Terry stood with his mouth hanging open, listening to the bald faced lie Paula was telling. He almost laughed and gave her away. The priest looked again at the note in his hand. "You were curious about his foot?"
"Of course," Paula answered innocently. "What else would I ask about?" She then turned to look back at her English teacher. Sister Mary Leon again turned pink and seemed to sputter, making a noise not unlike the sound of the old radiators on the third floor in the dead of winter. Paula saw her advantage and pressed the issue. "Why, Sister, what ever did you think?"
The nun slowly recovered her composure. "I want these two in detention for passing notes in class." She then turned and marched out of the main office. Father Joseph wiggled his finger to indicate that the two trouble makers should follow him into his private office.
Terry hated gym class more than anything else in high school. To begin with he was embarrassed about having to take his clothes off in front of the other boys. Not being athletically inclined he felt self-conscious. He knew he was too thin, or too weak looking, and even when the others ignored him, he was sure they were staring and laughing. But usually the others did not ignore him. They teased him and picked on him unmercifully. Consequently Terry always tried to change as quickly as possible and hurry upstairs to the gym.
Of course the class itself was no great protection. Although the boys seemed to ignore him once class started, the gym teacher, Coach McPherson made this hour a living hell. The man reminded Terry of a marine drill sergeant. He was short and thick bodied with a round, bull dog face set on an almost non- existent neck. His head, which seemed to sit directly on his shoulders was covered with grey stubble instead of hair. He kept it shaved to a burr which rose no more than half an inch over his scalp. He always wore a perpetual scowl. Terry only saw him smile when he was yelling at someone for some minor infraction of his many strict rules. There were never any major infractions. No one would dare. The man very obviously enjoyed the power he held over the young boys. In addition to sophomore boys P.E., McPherson also taught a class in world history to seniors, although rumor had it that the class was little more than a glorified study hall. Terry often wondered if the man actually had a teaching certificate or if the administration only gave him these classes as a concession to his sadism to bribe him into coaching the football team.
Class always started with ten to twenty minutes of calisthenics. Terry managed to keep up with the others during this segment, however the coach seemed to always be watching him in particular for some tiny discrepancy in the way he performed a push-up or squat-thrust. If his body sagged toward the floor on push-ups or he didn't left his legs high enough on leg-lifts, the coach blew a shrill blast on his ever present whistle and ordered Terry to run laps around the gym as punishment. Terry really didn't mind doing the laps. In fact he much preferred running to doing the exhausting exercises. But soon the class would be broken into teams. They played basketball or volleyball indoors. On nice days in the spring and fall they went outside for baseball or football. The intervening years had made no difference. Terry was still awful at the games and was consequently teased and ridiculed, sometimes even by Coach McPherson himself.
On this one gloomy day in October Coach McPherson seemed even angrier than normal. Terry thought he earned the coach's wrath by being late to class. Father Joseph kept him past the bell, lecturing on classroom deportment, then gave him a hall pass and tardy slip to get him into gym. But the slip made no difference to the scowling athletic dictator. He glanced at the paper, grunted and told Terry to move his ass. At least the boy was able to change to his gym uniform in privacy without his classmates poking him in the ribs and jeering. Of course he had to run laps for being late, then McPherson made him do push-ups in the corner while the others divided up for basketball. The class began to play games while Terry continued to struggle through the exercises. Occasionally the coach would come over and glare, then change the exercise from push-ups to jumping jacks or to deep knee bends, but he kept the boy working hard while the others played.
At last the whistle blew sending everyone to the showers. But McPherson made Terry run three more circuits of the gym before letting him go downstairs to the locker room. Fortunately gym was the last period of the day so it didn't matter if Terry was late. After all, he had to meet Paula in detention after school anyway. Some of the guys were already starting to come up the stairs from the locker rooms as Terry finished his final lap and headed down. He stepped to his locker and quickly stripped, then grabbed his towel and wrapped it around his waist. As he walked down the damp, concrete hall to the shower room three guys suddenly stepped out in front of him. They had just finished showering and were very wet and very naked.
"Hey, it's Tutti Fruity," Mike Myers called as he saw Terry approaching. "Did you guys hear about what happened in Mary Leon's English class?" Bart Smith and Jim Ragsdale laughed in reply.
"So Tutti, does your girl friend want to know how big my foot is?" Ragsdale asked with a smirk. He balanced on one leg and stuck his right foot up in the air "Here it is. You want to measure it?"
"I don't think it's your foot he's interested in," Smith chortled as he nudged his naked friend, causing Ragsdale to lose his balance and fall against Myers.
"Oh!" the middle boy said in mock surprise. "Maybe you been looking for this?" He reached down and grabbed his penis, shaking it at Terry. "You want to measure this, Tutti? You got a ruler or would you rather use your mouth?" All three boys laughed gleefully as Terry blushed a bright red. He tried to slip past them to the shower room, but Mike Myers blocked the way.
"I got to go to detention. Would you let me by, please?" Terry said. He was acutely aware of the three boys coming closer to him, circling him with their nakedness.
"You got detention, Tutti? What for?" Myers asked as he pressed in. Terry could smell the scent of soap and sweat. He looked down, trying to avoid Myers' face, but instead found himself staring at the boy's crotch. Terry realized it was covered with curly black hair, much more than the body hair on any of his classmates. But then Myers was considerably older. "Hey, Rags, now he's sizing up my dick, and look, I think he's getting a boner."
Terry couldn't understand why, but his body was suddenly starting to become aroused. He blushed even more and tried to get away, but Jim Ragsdale suddenly reached down and yanked away his towel. "Look at the way he's sticking out from just sizing us up," the boy teased.
"Go ahead and get a closer look," Smith said as he pushed Terry down to his knees in front of them. "Check out what real men have, Tutti."
"What the hell's going on here?" a voice barked. Coach McPherson had just stepped into the hall.
"Nothing, Coach," Ragsdale and Smith both said in chorus.
"Tutti was trying to get hold of my balls, Coach," Mike Myers said as he stepped back. "Look at him. He's got a boner."
The man didn't say anything while the three boys quickly dashed to their lockers. Terry tried to quietly rise and slip inconspicuously into the shower. His unwanted erection was rapidly shrinking from his embarrassment. But just before he reached the shower a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and spun him around. Coach McPherson was standing so close Terry could smell the stale cigarette odor on his breath. "If you ever get that thing hard in my presence again I'll break it off," the man growled. "Now go get your ass in that shower, you damned pervert. I better not ever catch you trying that kind of shit around here again. I'll get you expelled so fast it'll make your head spin." The man then turned and stalked off.
"Okay, so he can be a jerk," Paula admitted as they sat in Mrs. Frank's classroom. This was where detention was being held this week. Mrs. Frank was the foreign language teacher, teaching Spanish and French. She was a jovial, rolly-polly woman with broad features and silver hair whose real name was Frankenfield. But all of her students and eventually the whole school shortened it to the nickname. It was a considerably nicer nickname than most of the teachers had, but then Mrs. Frank seemed to be considerably nicer herself. Normally detention was an after school study hall that permitted no talking presided over by various teachers throughout the year. However, Mrs. Frank had forgotten that she had scheduled a French Club meeting in the cafeteria, so she asked the prisoners to behave, leaving them on their honor. She promised to return before their time was up, lest anyone try to sneak away early.
"And you really have a date with that jerk?" Terry whispered back to his friend.
Paula felt the need to defend herself, something she rarely had to do with Terry. "I like him. I think he's cute. And besides, he asked me out which is more than any other boy has done."
"I ask you out all the time," Terry argued.
"It's not the same," the girl replied. "This is a real date."
"Is that why you wanted to know how big he was?" Terry lashed out. "Are you planning to do it with him?"
"Why? You jealous?" she retorted.
"Of him?"
"No, of me."
It took him a moment to catch her implication. Terry turned away from her and tried to look at the book that sat open on his desk, but the page seemed to be swimming under water. It wasn't until a salty drop fell onto the paper that he realized his eyes had filled with tears. To stop the crying Terry thought of snow and ice. For some odd reason this always helped calm him in the past. The boy then grabbed his books and stood up, leaving the room. He could hear Paula whispering loudly to his retreating back. "Where do you think you're going?"
Terry ran down the hall to his locker, quickly dialed the combination and threw his books in. He slammed the metal door shut with a tinny bang then quickly started down the stairs to the side door. By now the parking lot was fairly empty with only a few cars left belonging to the others who had detention or the ones involved in extra curricular activities like French club. As Terry crossed the concrete lot he suddenly felt someone watching him. At first he thought it was his guilty conscience for skipping out on detention, but then he glanced up and saw the observer. It was Jim Ragsdale, sitting behind the wheel of a beat up pickup truck staring at him as he walked across the empty lot. Terry put his head down and kept walking, quickening his pace. He was just about to cross the street on the far side when the rusty, primer colored truck pulled in front of him.
"You want a ride, Tutti?" Jim called out the open window.
"No thanks," Terry said and waited for him to drive on.
"I want to talk to you," the boy said from behind the wheel. "Get in."
"I've got to get home."
"I'll take you home. Get in."
Terry wanted to turn and run but he knew that would only increase his reputation of being a coward. He gulped nervously, opened the door and climbed into the cab. He shut the door and sat against it on the edge of the seat so he could jump out if necessary.
Jim started up the truck which had died while he sat waiting on Terry. They pulled down the street and headed north. "Look, I'm sorry about this afternoon . . . in the locker room. We were just . . . you know . . . it was just a joke."
"It's okay," Terry answered, feeling strange. None of the 'popular' guys ever noticed him unless it was to make him the butt of their jokes. Now one of the in-crowd was giving him a ride home and apologizing for teasing him as well.
"I heard what Coach said to you. I guess it was kind of our fault. For what it's worth I think Myers went too far."
"Yeah," Terry said. It wasn't so much of an agreement as it was an acknowledgment that he had heard what was said.
"I seen McPherson when he gets down on somebody. If he really thinks you're queer he'll come down hard." Jim gave Terry a quick, sympathetic glance as he turned the corner onto Elm.
"It's okay," the boy replied as he began to relax a little.
The two rode along quietly until Jim pulled up in front of Terry's house. "Can I ask you something?" he said as Terry opened the door. "Did Paula really ask you how big I was?"
Terry turned back to stare at the boy behind the wheel. At first he thought Ragsdale was about to make him the victim of some more vicious humor. But the boy's face seemed openly curious and perhaps a little bit hopeful. There was no trace of the cruel humor in his soft brown eyes.
"She said you have a date for Saturday," Terry replied evasively. Although he was beginning to trust this boy he still didn't want to admit what Paula had asked. But since he didn't deny it Jim took that as admission.
"So what did you tell her . . . I mean about how big I am?" Ragsdale asked with a smile.
"I didn't," Terry said, slamming the truck door shut and turning to go up the steps to his house.
Sunday morning after church the phone rang. It was Paula calling for Terry. "Meet me," was all she said, then hung up. He knew instantly what she meant. She wanted to meet him out in their secret spot behind the bushes against the garage. They still used the same hiding place they had for years. Only now the secret meetings were much rarer. The area seemed to have shrunken as well. What had once been a spacious clubhouse was now only a tiny spot which barely contained the two of them. They had to huddle extremely close together just to fit.
Ten minutes later Terry walked behind the houses back to the garage, then after a glance around to make sure no one saw him, he slipped behind the bushes. Paula was already there, perched on the old concrete block. "Well?" Terry asked.
"I wanted to tell you about my date," she said. She pushed her long black tresses out of her face. Terry thought her new hair style made her look a bit like Morticia Addams from the TV show.
"I don't want to hear about it," he lied. Actually he was dying of curiosity, but he would rather expire than let on. And he was still a little miffed about her treatment of him in school last week.
"We went to a movie and then got a soda and then he brought me home," she said. "You know, it was really kind of boring."
"Didn't you find out how big he was?" Terry said, striking out in anger.
Paula thought of several retorts, but tried to find the one that might hurt the most. "Not this time," she said with a smile. "Maybe next weekend. I think he's going to ask me to go steady."
"I've got homework to do," Terry lied. "See you later." He quickly turned and ran back to the house and up to his room. Once inside he shut the door, put a new Beatles album on the record player and laid down on the bed. He couldn't understand the ache he was feeling inside. He tried to analyze his emotions, to know what was going on--but everything seemed so confused.
Maybe it was because he loved Paula, he thought. They had grown up together, lived next door to each other, been best friends since kindergarten. He figured they would eventually get married, so he knew he must love her. After all, there wasn't any other girl he even liked. So maybe he was jealous because she was dating Jim Ragsdale. But when he thought of Jim Ragsdale he felt like crying. He told himself he was stupid. He knew that a real man wouldn't lie in bed and cry because of . . . well he didn't know what. Terry grabbed a kleenex from beside the bed and wiped his eyes. Then he tried to compose himself and think about why he was crying.
This time he thought about Jim. The guy was actually nice to him last week, giving him a ride home. He pictured the soft brown eyes, the perfectly shaped nose, the curly brown hair. Jim was really very handsome. Terry knew that Jim could get just about any girl he wanted with his looks; why did he pick Paula. She was okay, but she was no beauty. Her face was too long and the way her jaw jutted out made her appear a bit masculine. On top of all of that she didn't seem to have any bosoms. All the guys talked about bosoms so he knew her lack of them must be a real disadvantage to her.
Terry again thought about Jim. But this time the image that popped into his head was the naked boy in the locker room. He thought about the broad bare shoulders, the muscular chest capped with tiny nipples, the flat stomach with the navel that was an 'outty' rather than an 'inny.' And he again played the scene before his mind's eye that had occurred in the locker room. He watched Jim grab the sizable phallus, waving it toward him and asking him to measure it with his mouth. Terry suddenly realized that again he had an erection. He thought something was wrong with him. It seemed like his penis was always getting hard, and sometimes at the most inopportune moments, like that day in the locker room.
Terry knew why. He knew he got hard so much because he played with it. For the past couple of years he had played with himself, but only recently in the past few months had his body actually responded. The first time it did, it terrified him. He had never felt so good and then so guilty in his life. And he had messed in his underpants. He had to wash them out in the bathroom sink so his mom wouldn't notice the unusual stains. Since that eventful night, Terry had done the same thing to himself several times a week. He didn't want to; he knew it was a sin. He had even heard rumors of masturbation causing blindness, insanity and all measure of other problems. But he couldn't help himself.
He slowly pulled his zipper down and reached inside to open the fly in his underwear. Then, Terry began again to think of Jim Ragsdale. The more he pictured the boy naked, the faster he moved his hand over his swollen erection. He could feel his body approaching the climax.
"Here! What are you doing!?" a strident voice shrieked. Terry's mom had opened the door to ask him to turn down his stereo, and in the process caught him in the act. He jumped up from the bed, trying to hide his rapidly wilting manhood while his mother continued to scream for his father.