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 ï>¿Rita & Rhiannon's Bet Ch.  01 byBONNIEBREAÂ(C)

   Rita and Rhiannon's Bet -- Another Telling of Rita's Bet

   Chapter One

   I began to get a sinking feeling in my stomach as I rounded the corner
that November Saturday evening in my high school senior year.  Even so, my
steps did not slow as I aimed myself toward a house on the right that I
knew quite well: Rhiannon's house.  The night was a bit chilly, but my
varsity sweater provided enough warmth for me during my short walk.  The
cool air felt good as it chilled the skin above my taut knee socks and
crept slowly up under the pleated skirt of my cheer uniform toward my
thighs.

   Rhiannon and I had been friends since first grade.  We were in class
together almost every year in grade school.  Those years that we were not
we were still inseparable on the playground.  And in junior high school,
when recess was a thing of the past, we were together almost every day
after school and on weekends.

   Rhi and Ri.  Rhiannon and Rita.

   But as our freshman year of high school rushed by a cloud suddenly
descended on us.  Enrollment in the district had been slowly and steadily
increasing each year for the decade past and the bond issue to fund a new
high school had passed three years previous.  That shining new edifice, its
bathroom stalls still free of graffiti and all its light bulbs presumably
working, would be ready for its first classes the following fall.

   Rhiannon and I hadn't thought this would affect us.  We lived only two
blocks from each other.  Just take a right out my front door and walk a
block to where my neighborhood ends at county highway 117, a two-lane,
increasingly busier thoroughfare.  Cross the highway, walk one block, make
a left and Rhiannon's house is the second on the right.

   What separated us was the decision by the local school board to use
county highway 117 as the boundary between the two high schools' service
areas.  Shocked and disappointed, we learned that I would spend my last
three years at our current high school while Rhiannon would attend the new
school.

   Sure, when we were separated at the beginning of that sophomore year we
tried to stay in touch and got together when we could.  But with academics
and clubs and sports and other activities we slowly, and I suppose
inevitably, receded from each other, our relationship becoming increasingly
tenuous.

   One girlish enthusiasm we shared from our first meeting in childhood was
what we then considered the swanky, to-die-for excitement and thrill of
being a cheerleader.  We both wanted to be one someday, and many of our
play encounters found us jumping in the air trying to see how high we could
fly and how wide we could spread our legs while shaking imaginary pom-poms.

   That last year we were together in school, freshman year, the first
thing Rhi and I did was audition for spots on the cheerleading squad,
vowing not to participate if the other didn't make the team.  Well, for
reasons no one ever had the inclination or obligation to explain to me I
was selected and Rhiannon was not.

   Talk about a dark cloud.  My heart broke for her.  And my promise to Rhi
pressed on me like the weight of the world.  How could I not honor my
agreement with Rhi?  But how could I pass up the chance to pursue the dream
and goal I had entertained since my knees were covered with scabs?  Finally
I sat down with Rhi and told her how much I wanted to cheer.  Could she
ever forgive me if I went ahead and accepted the spot on the squad?

   As I walked along the dark sidewalk in front of the house next to Rhi's
I could still hear her voice clearly in my mind, and I imagined I could
hear it in my ears.

   "Sure, Rita," I heard her voice say.  "Sure go ahead.  I wouldn't want
you to miss out on your dream." I could hear her heavy emphasis on the
words 'you' and 'your.' Now, seventeen years later, I would know exactly a
girl's feelings hearing that sentence spoken in that way.  But then I was
far too immature to understand her meaning.  Instead I heard only the
surface words: the sweet parole that set me free.  All else was dismissed
unnoticed in the swelling of sheer joy her permission had unleashed in me.

   The rest of the year went by, but even I began to notice by February how
distant Rhi had become toward me.  When I asked her what was the matter she
would smile and tell me, 'Nothing, Rita.  Nothing at all.'

   I don't know that my soul really accepted that evaluation, but in that
chilly, third quarter of the academic year any association with our broken
cheerleading deal in September had receded too far into the past for me to
link it to whatever might be bothering her.  I was a cheerleader, she was
not, and those two facts had now become just a part of our lives and our
experiences at school.

   My sinking feeling came from the eight or ten cars parked in front of
Rhiannon's house and farther down the street.  I knew the reason for their
presence, and that knowledge sparked a knot of trepidation in my gut. 
Others, the older and eighteen year old cheer squad and football team
members, were to be present.

   I had timed my departure from home to arrive at Rhi's front door at
exactly the appointed hour: eight in the evening.  From all those years of
experience I knew well by now exactly how long it took for me to walk from
my house to Rhi's.  At right on the dot I was ringing her doorbell, after
having mounted the two steps from the sidewalk to the Paulson's walk, and
then the three steps up to the small porch at their front door.  I rang the
bell and waited, the sight of those cars again tickling at my apprehension
nerve.







   While I waited a moment for the door to open a recent memory came to
mind, and it came in spite of the unease that I was feeling since turning
the corner.  The memory made me smile.  It was just a couple weeks ago, a
week or two into November.  I was in the convenience store and suddenly
there she was two aisles over.  I'd not seen Rhi for months, not since the
summer in fact.  But it was good to see her and I immediately made my way
in her direction.

   I came at her from the side and slightly from the back, she examining
the choices displayed on the magazine rack.  I gave her bottom a little
spank.  She looked up, a smile starting on her face.  When her eyes met
mine the smile faded and she said, "Oh, hi, Rita."

   Her demeanor left no doubt she wasn't excited to see me.  I guessed that
we really had taken different forks in the road after freshman year, and
that we were now far down sundered and increasingly divergent paths.  I
tried to make some small talk, tried to engage her in a conversation about
how our respective senior years were going.  But no dice.

   She answered my questions monosyllabically or with as few words as would
suffice, her body still mostly turned toward the Newsweeks, Times, Guns &
Ammos, and Seventeens.  She asked a couple questions of her own, but I
could tell her heart was not in it.

   I made a last stab before withdrawing.  I knew that after that
disastrous, strained freshmen year she had hit her new school and
immediately had made the cheer squad.  'Mission accomplished,' I had
thought when I'd heard the news.  She was off on her own adventure, her own
childhood wish fulfillment quest.  I had sincerely hoped it would be good
for her.

   "So, still with the cheer squad?" I asked.

   "Um, yeah," she said, her eyes avoiding mine.  I didn't really have to
ask: her varsity jacket told me the tale.  I was not wearing mine that day.

   "I made co-captain this year," I said, trying to make the statement
matter of fact, not wanting to seem like I was rubbing my success in her
face in case her own experience had not taken her to such lofty heights.

   "Wow, good for you," she said, real warmness and enthusiasm in her voice
for the first time.  She turned more toward me displaying the front of her
jacket: the varsity letter, the words 'Cheerleader' and 'Co-captain' in
wooly script.  "Me too.  I'm co-captain this year too."

   I leaned into her for a hug saying, "I'm so happy for you, Rhi." I was
glad when she hesitated only an instant before returning the embrace,
although not as tightly as I would have liked.

   We pulled back and looked in each other's eyes.  "All those years ago,"
I said, giving my head a sentimental shake.

   Rhiannon seemed to retreat some back into her distracted state, but not
entirely.  I could tell I had made a connection and she seemed to engage
more.  Her eyes met mine and she even smiled a little."Yeah, all those
years ago," she said, some enthusiasm warming her voice.

   I really couldn't think of anything else to say, and couldn't bear to
torture her any longer if this really was the chore for her it seemed to
be.

   "Well," I said.  I wasn't sure how to withdraw.  "See you," I offered.
Lame.

   "Yeah, see you," Rhi returned.

   I paid for my purchases and exited the store.  I beeped the car open,
put my two bags in the back, and was standing next to my car, my back to
the store, fumbling a bit to isolate the ignition key before I climbed in.

   Suddenly I felt a spank on my own bottom.  Thenarms were around my
shoulders squeezing me in an embrace, and Rhiannon's head and hair were
tight against mine.  I knew her scent and breathed it in, relished it.

   "Hey girlfriend," she said, real sparkle in her voice.  "I guess I was a
little distracted in there.  Sorry."

   "It's ok," I offered.  "We all have those days," I said, turning and
cupping her cheek with the palm of my hand.  "Rhi it was really good to see
you.  Remember all those days we spent all afternoon playing cheerleaders?
Well, I guess we've both arrived."

   She brightened.  "Both made co-captain," she said.  "One to cross off
the ol' bucket list."

   I laughed at her joke, glad to see her in a good mood.

   She got serious for a moment.  "Hey, we need to get together," she said.
"Our birthdays were a couple weeks ago."

   "Ta-da!" I enthused.  "Eighteen at last!" We had been born three days
apart, her on October 30th and me on November 2nd.

   "Well, we need to celebrate," Rhiannon said.  And we were soon into
planning our night out.  I felt on top of the world.

   I was never much into drinking and I was glad to discover Rhi had not
gotten into it either.  We ended up going out that Saturday evening.  Of
course we were not old enough to enter any licensed establishment, and not
being too interested in alcohol abuse neither of us had the fake ID needed
for that activity.  But we hung out, went here and there, drove around
laughing, and we ended up back at my house.

   I opened a bottle of wine, snatched from the pantry, and we toasted our
birthdays while watching a movie in my room.  Our low alcohol tolerance was
clearly evident: both of us got a little snockered by sharing a bottle of
wine.

   "You know what we need to do?" Rhiannon asked me at the conclusion of
the movie.

   "What, Girlfriend?" I asked in return.

   "We've got to do something wild." Rhi said.

   "I'm listening," I said.

   She thought for a few moments, but I got the sense she knew where she
was going.  That was fine with me since I had no clue where to take this. I
just knew I wanted Rhi and Ri to be together again.  The Dynamic Duo.

   "Ok," Rhi said, and her face colored.  "Remember seventh and eighth
grade?" she asked, her voice lowering.

   "Sure.  What about it?" I asked.

   "Remember how we used to play strip poker?" she asked.

   Now my face took on the same reddish color Rhiannon's was exhibiting. 
We had been twelve and thirteen in those two grades.  Both of us had been
starting to sense insistent feelings from 'down there': the promise and
potential for enormous pleasure, curiosity and an unfocused longing filling
our minds.  We shared the news of the tickle we both felt in our stomachs:
not just the curiosity of seeing another person naked, but the thrill of
having to strip for another.

   We had always used the word 'strip', rather than a synonym like
'disrobe' or 'unveil' or 'undress.' Although not invariably.  Sometimes we
would a play a game in which no clothes came off until the end of the game
and the loser was obliged to strip from scratch.  On those occasions if I
were the loser Rhi would take particular delight in loudly ordering: "Ok,
Rita, you lost.  Peel!"

   It didn't matter yet at that age that our eyes would take in the nude
body of someone of our own sex, or that our revealing of our own nudity
would be just to the eyes of another girl.  We just knew that we wanted to
experience that thrill.  The prospect and anticipation of that thrill was
mixed up somehow with those blurry waves of desire we were both
experiencing.

   So for the last couple months of seventh grade, through the ensuing
summer, through eighth grade and the summer before high school we dealt the
cards on a regular basis whenever we had her house or my house to ourselves
for an hour or two.

   The thrill had been everything my adolescent, just barely pubescent
brain had hoped for.  My stomach roiled with anticipation every time, both
and either over the prospect of our game ending with me nude and blushing,
or me giggling in triumph as Rhi was obligated to model her birthday suit.

   And the night after every one of those games my hand was in my panties
under the covers as that potential for pleasure I had sensed became a
powerful and mind-numbing reality.

   "Oh, do I ever remember," I said smiling.  "These little fingers never
got such a workout as they did at night after those games." I wiggled the
fore and middle fingers of both my hands at her.

   She laughed.  "I know exactly what you mean," she said.

   "So, should I find a deck of cards?" I asked.

   Rhiannon shrugged her shoulders and nodded her head.  "Yeah, why don't
we give it a try again.  Are you game?"

   Was I ever!  I remembered how close I had felt to Rhi all those years
ago, the two of us sharing the intimacy of revealing our developing bodies
to each other.  "I'll be right back," I said.

   I descended the stairs and made my way down the hall to the kitchen.  My
mood was light, made that way by this opportunity to share closeness and
familiarity again with Rhiannon.  I thought that perhaps this experience
might reset our relationship: take us back to seventh and eighth grade. 
That it might take us back to a time before we went to our separate high
schools and on our separate ways.  Maybe it would give us a second chance
to align our paths with each other.

   I found a deck of cards in the first kitchen drawer I checked, but it
was a pinochle deck.  Two drawers later however I found my treasure, and I
turned and trotted out of the kitchen with a glad bounce in my step.  I
made a detour through the dining and living rooms just to see if my parents
were home.

   The hour was still fairly early, just a little after midnight, and I was
not surprised to find them still out.  Rhiannon had a younger brother and
three younger sisters which, although the youngest was now twelve, still
kept her parents pretty homebound.  But I am an only and it has been years
since my parents have had to stay in or get a sitter on my account.  They
take advantage of their freedom.  They have close friends (just how close
is a question I have recently begun to consider) and are seldom home before
two or three o'clock on a Saturday night.

   I came through the door and held up the fruit of my search: a deck of
bicycle-back poker cards.

   Rhiannon and I settled onto my bed and we took a quick inventory of what
we were wearing: making sure we were even and the game was fair, just as we
had as giggling middle schoolers.  Six losing hands stood between either of
us and our birthday suit.

   I saw Rhiannon look to one side toward my closet, the folding doors
halfway open.  I followed her gaze and saw what I was sure had drawn her
interest.  At the back of my clothes closet, partly obscured by shoes and a
few other odds and ends, was a wooden paddle.  Rhiannon's eyes found mine
again.  She looked around as if she thought there might be prying ears that
would overhear her next suggestion.  "Want to make the game a little more
interesting?" she asked.

   "Yes," I said, my voice hushed and almost breathless.  I answered
immediately, as if I were in a trance.  I knew I should ask first what
'more interesting' meant, but I knew Rhi would have to explain anyway.  And
considering the object that had drawn her gaze it didn't seem a great leap
to suppose what she had in mind.  I knew that whatever she suggested it
would bring us closer: it would be a secret only we would share.

   She took the couple of steps over to my closet.  She bent down, reached
to the back, and came out with the paddle in her hand.  As she moved back
to the bed she hefted it.

   "Loser gets her ass smacked," Rhiannon said, a bit of a smile on her
face.  "A little butt warming for being the loser." She smacked the
paddle's hard surface menacingly against the palm of one hand.

   I think I gulped!  But my mind raced back to a time about fifteen months
in the past.

   Chapter Two

   It was the end of the summer, our vacation cheer practices were coming
to a conclusion, the school year, my junior year, just over a week from
commencing.  I was at my locker after cheer practice pulling up my jeans
when Charlotte, a varsity cheerleader last year and one of the
newly-elected varsity co-captains for the coming year, was suddenly pushing
the door of my locker closed.

   My first two years I had been a junior varsity cheerleader.  I was now
about to start my junior year, and I would soon discover whether I would
continue with one of the junior varsity squads or be promoted to the
varsity.  Everyone knew the competition to advance would be fierce this
year.  The varsity football cheer squad, the choice and prestigious crew
that everyone wanted a place on, consisted of fifteen girls.  Usually about
half of them left at the end of their senior year creating that many
openings on the next year's squad.  But the previous spring only four girls
from that squad had graduated.  As a result, only four openings were in
need of filling this year, greatly increasing everyone's odds of staying JV
or getting a spot on one of the less exalted squads.

   Charlotte leaned with her back against the now closed locker door, and
she seemed to be coolly appraising me.

   "You know how to cheer, Selwyn.  You know the moves and the cheers.  But
the thing is: you really put yourself out there.  You're a spark plug," she
said.

   "Well, thanks, Charlotte," I said, blushing a little and feeling a rush
of pride.  "You know, I always..."

   "Shut up," Charlotte said.  I was a bit confused but I obeyed
immediately.

   "There are four openings for the varsity football squad this year," she
said.  My heart began to race.  "You're our first choice to fill one of
them." Just whom the pronoun 'our' referred to went unexplained, but I
assumed some consensus among the eleven girls about to begin their senior
years was in play.

   "Oh, gosh, Charlotte," I said, and I was surprised I managed to get the
words out: my throat was tight with pride and excitement.  "I can't tell
you how...."

   "Shut up," Charlotte said again.  "You know where DeeDee lives?" she
asked.  I just nodded my head.  "Tonight.  Midnight.  Be there.  Don't say
a word to anyone." She leaned toward me and whispered a few more
instructions in my ear.  Then she was gone.

   I don't know how I kept from fainting, but as I finished zipping and
buttoning my jeans my excitement knew no bounds.  I knew I was being
summoned for an initiation.  Everyone knew that every girl who was accepted
onto a varsity cheer squad was initiated by the returning members.  There
were rumors.  But none of the younger girls knew for sure what the
initiation entailed: whether it was standard, or changed from time to time,
or was planned special for each girl.  The belief seemed pretty generally
held that the initiation for the football squad was especially intense and
challenging.

   In about eight hours I would find out.







   The dashboard clock read eight minutes before midnight when I parked my
car down the street from DeeDee's house, across the street from the
neighborhood park and exactly opposite the swing set.  I looked back toward
DeeDee's house, the front porch light just visible about one hundred yards
away down the deserted street.  I took a deep breath and did what I had to,
squirming around in the driver's seat as I pulled off my shoes and socks,
unbuttoned and pulled off my shirt, opened my belt and unbuttoned and
unzipped my jeans and pulled them down my legs.  I blew out a nervous
lungful of air and then reached behind my back.  I unhooked my bra and
pulled it down my arms and off.  Then I scooted my hips upward and pulled
my panties down and off.

   There.  That covered most of the instructions Charlotte had given me:
where precisely to park and to show up on DeeDee's front porch at the
stroke of midnight ("And don't be late," she had said.) without a stitch on
("Not panties.  Not shoes or socks.  Nada.").  I cautiously opened the car
door and took a careful look in every direction.  Convinced that the
immediate vicinity was free of any peeping eyes at this late hour I crept
out of the car.  I put my bundled clothes on the driver's seat.  As
instructed, I put my keys under the driver's seat and then closed the door
unlocked.

   I immediately began to run down the street toward DeeDee's.  The feel of
the cool late summer night air on my bare skin was refreshing and actually
quite pleasant.  I ran down the middle of the street, the better to see
what my bare feet might be stepping on.  My arms tightly encircled my boobs
to keep them from bouncing, and I was half bent over, prepared to dash
behind a car or tree at the first glimpse of headlights approaching.

   When I slowed and stepped onto DeeDee's front porch I was panting, but
not from effort: the short run was nothing compared to the exertions we all
had regularly been expending at practices.  I decided my breathless
condition must be from some mental state.  Fear?  Nervousness?  Being for
the first time ever outside, nude, and separated from my clothing by quite
some distance?

   I rang the bell, seeking to be admitted as soon as possible since I was
standing almost under the porch light that seemed like an impossibly bright
beacon.  Immediately I could hear footsteps inside approaching the door. 
Then more than one person was at the other side of the portal.

   "Yes?" I heard Charlotte's voice ask.

   I hushed my voice and said, "It's me!  Rita!  Let me in!"

   "I'm afraid I can't do that," said Charlotte's disembodied voice.

   My eyes flew wide in panic.  "What?!" I said, almost forgetting to mute
my voice.

   I heard Charlotte's voice inside, apparently speaking to someone else.
"What time is it?" her voice asked.  There was a muffled reply I couldn't
catch.

   "Sorry," Charlotte said.  "You were told to show up at midnight."

   "Right!  Well, I'm here!" I said.  I was now checking the street, trying
to see any pedestrians or cars that might be approaching, and I had
suddenly begun to feel a little chill.

   "Ah, but you didn't," Charlotte said.  "The time is 11:56.  The door
will open only at midnight and remain open for sixty seconds."

   Great.  I scanned the street again and said, "Shit.  Whatever."

   Standing there I felt exposed like I had never before in my life.  At
the side of the yard, about twenty feet away, was a large willow tree of
some sort with long thin branches covered with small oval leaves, the
branches draping down to the ground from the top of the tree.  I scampered
over to it, went around to the unlit side, and melted into the concealing
branches.  I hoped it provided all the cover I needed, but I immediately
noticed that speckles of light dotted my too white skin: light from the
porch lamp filtered through the tree's leaves and branches.  I realized
that it wouldn't be hard to spot me were someone looking.

   But feeling safe enough and sufficiently obscured I settled down to wait
for the door to open.

   I sensed an approaching presence before I heard a sound, but it was soon
obvious to me that someone was walking down the dark street and was close.
Whoever it was came to a stop at the curb right in front of me.  He or she
could not have been more than fifteen feet away.  I couldn't actually see
the person without sticking by head out, and I didn't dare do that.

   "Well?" I heard a man's voice say.  "What are you gonna do?  Are you
gonna piss?  Shit?  C'mon let it out."

   What?!  OK, someone had spotted me, but what in the fuck was he talking
about?  Why would he want me to pee or poop?  Did he think I was standing
here stark naked amid these tree branches because I needed a place to
relieve myself?

   "C'mon," the man said again, the impatience in his voice more obvious.
"Are you gonna squeeze out a log or not?"

   I had no idea what to do or say.  I began to open my mouth, seeking the
right words to explain why I was standing there in the middle of the night
and as naked as the day I was born.

   Just as I was about to offer some lame, still unformed explanation the
man spoke again.  "You are just the damned stupidest dog I've ever run into
in my life.  Would do your business so I can go back to bed?"

   It was only then that I heard the shake of a leash and the light tinkle
of aluminum tags on the dog's collar.  I let out my breath with relief, the
breath that a moment before had contained words that would have revealed
me.

   There was a noise to my side and I looked over in time to see the front
door opening, not stopping until it was as wide as it would go.  For the
first time I took a peak around the tree branches toward the street and saw
an exasperated middle-aged man with a small dog at the end of the leash he
held.  I could understand his impatience: a dog that small had to be the
wife's, but here he was at zero dark thirty o'clock, a pajama top tucked
hastily into jeans on which the fly was half open, waiting for the animal
to do its business.

   The man was looking at the door, I suppose wondering why the front door
of the house he now stood before had just seemingly opened on its own and
now stood gaping.  I was acutely aware that the sixty seconds I had to get
in that door were rapidly passing.

   The man scratched his head.  Then he gave the leash a tug and he and the
dog continued down the street a few feet.  But they stopped again directly
in front of DeeDee's house, nothing but a naked expanse of lawn between the
man and the canine object of his annoyance and the front door.

   The dog was now hunching its back and backing up, putting its bottom
right down to the curb.

   Shit!  Both literally and figuratively!

   There was no way the dog could finish taking its crap and the two of
them could proceed far enough down the street before my quickly waning
window of opportunity (and the front door) closed.

   I made a couple of tentative motions to round the tree and dash to the
door, but I lost all my steam each time.  Finally I knew it was either make
my dash right now or watch that door close and spend another year as a JV
cheerleader.

   I held my breath (I have no idea why) and got my feet moving.  I
gathered up my boobs in my arms and dashed out from behind the tree and
into that glaring porch light.  In my peripheral vision I saw the man
glance up, a startled look on his face, as I covered the distance to the
door.  As I scurried my bare ass in through the entry portal I was actually
a little pleased to hear a whistle that sounded like one of awe and a
single word, "Damn!"

   What the heck, I was certain I had made that man's midnight dog walking
chore more interesting and rewarding.  I even wondered if his sleeping wife
might not be in for a little wooden surprise when he got back.  Could my
bare butt be that good looking?

   As soon as I was in the door one of the girls pushed it closed behind
me. "Four seconds to spare," she said.  "Try not to think about that old
fart whacking off thinking about your ass." Thanks.  Now I knew I'd never
be free of that mental image.

   I slowed myself to a walk as I came to the entryway into the living
room. I assumed that DeeDee's parents were away somewhere.  Charlotte and
DeeDee were standing near the far end of the room in front of a mantle and
fireplace.  The girl who had closed the door entered the room behind me.  I
did a quick count and discovered that only ten girls were present.  With
four openings on the fifteen girl squad I had expected all eleven of them
to be here, but I didn't bother to wonder about the missing girl.

   The girls, all in their cheer uniforms, quickly rearranged themselves to
make a U stretching from in front of the left side of the fireplace toward
me, curving back near the entryway and ending before the right corner of
that fireplace.  Since it seemed what was intended I walked forward to a
point in front of the hearth and turned around, the soles of my feet on the
cool flagstones of an apron that extended two or three feet out from the
fireplace.

   They seemed like they were trying to be serious, but instead were having
trouble holding in snickers.  One of them let out a little 'bark-bark'
noise and we all dissolved into laughter.

   As everyone settled down Charlotte looked at me and said, "That's the
first time anything like that has happened.  I'll bet he's plugging the
wife right now." We all had another giggle.  Then Charlotte said, "How
about you drop your load there?"

   She was speaking to me.  "I'm sorry," I said.  "Do what?"

   "Let your boobs go, we want to have a look," Charlotte said.

   I flushed but took my arms down to my sides.  My boobs will fit into
either a DD or an E cup, depending.  When I used to play strip poker with
Rhiannon at the end of seventh grade and through eighth they had already
been feeling a little confined in a C cup.  One of the things that had been
a side attraction of playing strip poker with Rhiannon at that age was that
we could compare the development of our bodies on a regular basis.  We had
played quite a lot for over a year, but then near the beginning of freshman
year Rhiannon had lost interest and declined my invitations to play.  I had
wondered about that.

   "Mama Mia!" one of the girls exclaimed.  "I knew they were big, but I
had no idea."

   I had been self-conscious about my boobs in middle school and the first
years of high school.  Now at East there were finally perhaps a dozen or
more girls with boobs as large as mine, and that took some of the attention
away from me.  I was grateful for that since from fifth grade until high
school I had always had the biggest boobs of any of the girls in my classes
and the scrutiny got to be oppressive at times.  I still held onto that
self-consciousness, but to a much lesser degree.  Still, the semesters when
I had physical education it happened to be my last class of the day.  So
those days, and after cheer practice, I always elected to shower when I
arrived back home.

   Suddenly one of the girls observed, "No more beard on that clam."

   "Yeah," said DeeDee.  "No whiskers on that biscuit." Then I couldn't
keep up with whom the observations were coming from.

   "Cape Horn has been clearcut."

   "There's a nice clear view of mount pleasant."

   "I can see happy valley!"

   "Yeah, no trouble finding that bone yard!"

   "Hey, Rita, you forgot the lettuce on you tuna taco."

   Charlotte ended it with, "That's one bald snake charmer, there Rita."

   Their eyes were all glued to my crotch.  I had obeyed to the letter the
other of Charlotte's instructions: "And make sure there isn't a hair on
your body below your neck." I felt crimson and heat spread all across my
face.  This had been the first time I had ever shaved my pubic hair.  In
fact, I had never so much as trimmed it before, and the absence of that
cover made me feel especially bare and exposed.  The fact that it had the
undivided attention of ten pairs of eyes ramped up my embarrassment
considerably.

   "Well, let's see how well you can follow directions," DeeDee said.

   "Huh?" I asked, not at all sure what she might want me to do.

   Charlotte supplied, "Lay down on the coffee table."

   I moved to the low table in front of the couch.  The surface was bare
and I sat hesitantly on it.  DeeDee made a motion with her hand: it hanging
limply by its wrist and pushing the back of her hand and fingers at me,
wagging the hand.  I got the idea and tentatively lay back on the surface
of the table, ending with my head at one end, my hips at the other, and my
legs bent at the knee with my bare feet flat on the floor past the end of
the table.

   DeeDee stood past my legs where I could look up at her.  She put her
index fingers together at her waist and then slowly and deliberating moved
them apart, farther and farther to either side.  I got the idea
immediately. My face must have taken on the color of a beet, and I had
never, at least to that point, felt such deep embarrassment.

   I opened my legs until they were as wide as they could go and formed a
straight line.  Even though these were other girls and team mates my
mortification was immense.  But I wanted not to have to be told to spread
them wider.

   They all gathered around DeeDee, their eyes now on my wide open and
exposed vulva.

   "What do you think?" DeeDee asked Charlotte who stood next to her.  She
spoke in an appraising way.

   "No bad," Charlotte evaluated.  Then they both bent down and leaned in,
their faces not two feet from the most private part of my body.  DeeDee
produced a flashlight from somewhere and switched it on.  She trained the
strong light onto my privates.  "Hmmmm," she said.  "Why don't you girls
have a look."

   DeeDee and Charlotte withdrew and the other girls took turns using the
flashlight to make the same inspection DeeDee and Charlotte had.  No one
ever touched me at all.  I heard a lot of "hmmmmm"s, but no words.  I
mostly looked up at the ceiling.  But then I felt a chill near the center
of all this attention.  The eleventh girl, Audra, had come in from
somewhere and was making her inspection, some coolness from the outside air
coming off her uniform.

   "So what do you think, Audra?" DeeDee asked.

   "Well, I think she might have missed a few." This observation was met
with general agreement.  My face and head by now felt so hot with
embarrassment I thought an explosion might be imminent, like an overheated
thermometer might burst in a cartoon.  But I was sure I'd gotten them all.
Audra was pointing.  "Yeah, you see way down there." I think she might have
been indicating a point near the very back of my vulva.

   Charlotte nodded her head.  "Yeah, I saw them too," she said.

   "Well," another of the girls said, "maybe they're just butt hairs."

   "I guess," said DeeDee, "but butt hairs are supposed to go too."

   I couldn't believe my privates were being talked about in such graphic
and objective detail.

   "I don't know," Charlotte said, a magnanimous tone to her voice.  "I
think they're butt hairs.  But what do you say?  Think we can probably let
her slide for a few butt hairs.  Don't you think?"

   There were general sounds of agreement all around, and with that DeeDee
extended her hand.  I grabbed it and she pulled me up while saying. 
"Congratulations, you're halfway home."

   I waited, the only one nude in the middle of eleven girls in their cheer
uniforms.  I had an instinct to gather up my boobs with my arms just for
the sake of covering something but thought better of it, having been told
not to.  Presently all the little side discussions about my privates came
to a conclusion and Charlotte was talking to me.

   "Are you ready for the last part of your initiation?" she asked.

   Chapter Three

   "I guess so," I answered.  I had no way of knowing if I was or wasn't
since I had no idea what was still in store for me.

   DeeDee walked up to me and my eyes grew wide as I saw the paddle that
she held in her hands.  It was the same one that Rhiannon, sitting on my
bed, now held in hers.  After initiations at the beginning of senior year I
had been the co-captain entrusted with its keeping until it was time to
hand it on at the end of the year.  And that, of course, is how it came to
be leaning against the back wall of my closet for Rhiannon to discover.

   The paddle was perhaps a foot and a half long and four inches wide,
excluding the handle.  It had EAST painted on it in alternating navy blue
and scarlet letters - epsilon, alpha, sigma, tau: stylized as uppercase
Greek characters.

   "Sorry, Honey," DeeDee said, "it hurts like hell, but we all had to go
through it.  This has been part of the initiation for decades" She tapped
the paddle against the palm of her hand, as Rhiannon had just done and as I
had done when facing the new initiates this year.  DeeDee said by way of
explanation, "Don't know where it came from.  It's been handed down for
forever I guess."

   DeeDee pointed out years scratched or carved into the handle.  The
earliest was 1961.

   "You willing?" Charlotte asked.  I wasn't sure.  My stomach was in knots
as I tried to imaging the pain a piece of wood like that could inflict on a
bare ass.  I had never been spanked or paddled as a child and had not the
remotest idea what a piece of wood applied with force to the buttocks might
feel like.

   "OK," I said, but heard my voice barely squeaking out.  That wasn't
alright.  "I'm fine with it.  Whatever it takes," I said in a much firmer
voice.

   "OK, Patty, you're first." DeeDee said.  She held out her hand to me and
I saw there was a die in it.  "Roll the die on the coffee table.  It will
show how many swats Patty gives you.  You know, you're getting off easy. 
Most years when there are only seven or eight girls staying each girl gets
the roll of a pair of dice.  But we thought this year since there are
eleven of us swinging the lumber we would limit each girl to one."

   I can't say as I felt terribly relieved over that news.  I took the die
over to the coffee table and let it fall from my cupped hand.  It clattered
on the table top for a moment before coming to rest and showing a four.

   I followed each of Charlotte's instructions as she gave them.  "OK,
stand in front of the fireplace with your toes up against the stone apron.
Now reach forward and grab the mantle with both hands." The stone apron was
about two and a half feet deep and I had to lean forward to grab the
mantle. My boobs swung beneath my chest.  The position naturally made my
butt stick out in back: an inviting target.

   "OK," DeeDee said.  "Patty's going to give you four.  Every time you
lose contact with the mantle or the floor you get an extra." I nodded my
head at her to indicate my understanding.  She withdrew and I waited for
Patty's first swat to fall, my buttocks clenching and unclenching.

   I registered the sound first, an intense slapping noise.  Then the pain
finished its journey from my butt cheeks to my brain and I sucked in
breath. The second came and the sound was the same but the pain doubled.  I
could feel heat invading my ass cheeks.  With the third crack my boobs
began to sway under me and I let out a little "mmmm" sound as the
accumulating pain was beginning to catch up to me.  Patty's fourth swat was
her last and she took advantage.  The paddle landed with such force that I
let out a little screech of pain.  But I managed through it all to keep my
hands and feet where they were supposed to be.

   Patty came up behind me and gave my shoulder a squeeze and said, "You
did good, Rita."

   It wasn't until sometime later that I learned that the girls evaluated
each other afterward, and those who the others felt did not swing hard
enough had to strip and take their own paddling.

   Audra was next.  I took my time making the trip to the coffee table and
back.  I knew I would be glad of the break between each girl as my paddling
progressed.  The die showed a two and I sent up a little thank you to the
god of the dice.

   I took up my position again and Audra stepped up behind me.  When the
paddle landed it was as if I had never felt one before, as if Patty had not
even taken a turn.  The pain washed over me and I bowed my back in,
twisting my torso.  When the second came I felt nothing at all until a
tsunami of agony filled my mind.  Again I twisted my body and bounced up
and down on my toes, my boobs wobbling.  I settled myself and then pushed
back from the mantle.  I paused to make sure they understood I was not
moving out of position because of the pain but because Audra's turn was
over.  She also gave me words of encouragement and an arm around my
shoulder.

   I stalled as long as I could, rubbing my backside and flexing my legs.
Then I was reminded by DeeDee that it was time to roll the die and that
Rachel was next.  Again I dropped the die and observed as it came to rest
showing a five.

   Was there no one on this die?!  I ambled back over to the hearth and
again assumed the prescribed position and waited.  After the first swat I
bowed my head down as deeply as it would go.  The second made me bend my
knees and lower myself to the point that I could barely keep contact with
the mantle.  I came up again and thought to prepare myself but Rachel swung
for the fences before I expected.  The crack was as loud as all the rest,
but unprepared as I was my right knee bent taking my right foot back and
off the floor and I knew I had earned myself an extra swat.  Rachel took
her last two prescribed swats and then the extra one very deliberately,
pausing long between each and letting my anticipation come to a boil before
she swung.  The pain accumulated in my bottom, and by the time she had
completed her whacks tears were thick in the corners of my eyes.

   How many different ways can I describe having my ass smacked by a
paddle? Eight more girls took their turns.  I never again let my hands or
feet wander in spite of the overwhelming aching agony.

   Laura and her six strokes came next, and by the time she was done those
tears that had been accumulating sprang free and ran down next to my nose
and down my cheeks.

   Next I rolled the die for Yolanda and found myself staring at another
six.  Like most of the others Yolanda would tap the paddle against my
backside before hauling back and swinging the paddle forward and into
contact with my ass.  I could feel how my buttocks were being flattened
each time, to spring back and begin to radiate new pain.  When Yolanda had
finished my tears were flowing freely and I was sobbing.

   Each of the girls, after she had finished her turn, gave my shoulder a
squeeze, put an arm around my shoulder, or hugged me.  They each had
encouraging words.  "Good job." "You're so brave." "I was crying a lot
harder when I got my swats." "You're getting closer to the end."

   While Andrea took her three swings and then Dallas her five I thought my
fingers would leave depressions in the wood of the mantle, I was gripping
that tightly so as not to let go.  I had come close on many of the swats to
lifting my feet and earning an extra wallop, but during these two turns I
learned to dig my toes into the carpet as a substitute.  I hoped I would
never again have occasion to apply my newly discovered knowledge.

   Finally after Dallas was done I got a bit of a break.  Between each girl
I had always hesitated, rubbing my flaming ass and stretching, anything to
give myself a respite.  But DeeDee or Charlotte, always the co-captains and
traffic cops, would soon tell me it was time to roll the die and get back
to business.  But this time I was allowed about five minutes.  I just
assumed they did this at some point on all the girls' initiation paddlings.
During these minutes for the first time I noticed a wall mirror hanging in
one corner of the room.  I turned my back to it and looked over my
shoulder.

   My eyes bugged out when I saw the deep red beacon my ass had become. 
From the tops of my thighs, just below where they met my buttocks, to just
above the top of my ass crack the skin was a severe looking fire engine
red. Some stripes, likely from the edges of the paddle when not applied
perfectly squarely, added some visual interest.  I know I had found the
swats that hit near the top of my ass to be a lot more painful than the
ones that hit lower, perhaps because the skin was tighter up above while
below the fatter nature of the cheek could better absorb the shock.

   DeeDee noticed what I was doing and said, "Sorry you saw that already. I
meant to take the mirror down before we started.  It's better if you don't
see the damage until it's over." I didn't say anything, but I suspected she
was right.

   Finally I said, "Let's get this over with," and, quieting my sniffles as
best as I could, picked up the die and dropped it.  Finally a one showed
its shy face and I silently exulted.  Veronica was next and I was able to
easily withstand her one swat, although she tried to make it hard enough to
do for several.

   At last a light seemed to be gleaming at the end of the tunnel.  Just
three more girls were left.  Teresa would go next, and then the co-captains
would put the finishing touches on my bottom.

   I rolled again and Teresa had four swings at my ass.  I got into
position and couldn't help thinking about the glowing state of my bottom.
By the time I had endured her smacks to my ass my tears were flowing again
and I had resumed my miserable sobbing, but now my breath was coming
shallow and fast.  As I pushed myself away from the mantle I hoped I had
only two more agonizing swats to endure, but I knew it could be as many as
twelve.

   The die said DeeDee had three swings at me.  I took my position again. I
couldn't reach the mantle with my head so I put my hands right next to each
other, my arms touching, and I was able to bury my face between my upper
arms.  DeeDee made solid contact with my ass three times, all of them in
that lower fleshy part that, in spite of the tormenting and excruciating
pain, took the impact better than higher up.

   By the time she was done my vision was entirely blurry: my eyes so
filled with tears, my nose clogged with snot.  I smiled anyway as I wiped
my tears to show my courage and at the knowledge that I would have to
endure no more than six more.

   I bent double, my hands on my knees, as I slowed my breathing.  When I
was finally somewhat back in order I advanced to the coffee table and
picked up the die.  Thinking 'one, one, one' I dropped it from my hand and
when it came to rest I saw an X in my blurry vision and knew I had five
more to endure.

   Without any encouragement I paced over to the mantle and got into
position.  When Charlotte's first whack hit my ass I finally lifted my
face, which had again been buried in my upper arms, and put it to the
ceiling and screamed.  After each of the first four swats Charlotte came up
to me, put her arm around my shoulder and her head close to mine.  She
would tell me how many were left and then ask me if I was ready for the
next.

   The same sequence was repeated four more times.  Charlotte swung the
paddle in a tight, fast arc, and the wood flattened my butt.  My grip on
the mantle would become as strong as a vice, my toes would dig into the
carpet, my face would look to the ceiling and I would scream out.  When my
scream ended I would breathe hard and deep for a while.  Then Charlotte
would be next to me and the whole process would start again.

   Finally her last stroke fell, and after I managed to silence myself I
went to my knees on the stone fireplace apron, the flagstones cool to my
knees' touch.  The girls were around me in an instant shaking my shoulders
and ruffling my hair.  After a minute I was able to get to my feet aided by
many hands.  Then the girls were embracing me, laughing and cheering for
me. Many a 'congratulations' and 'you made it' were flung my way.

   Soon the celebration settled down and the comments became those that
were in the nature of memories.  Only DeeDee and Charlotte had been varsity
since sophomore year.  All the other nine girls here tonight had gone
through this a year ago.  They told many stories and revived many memories:
how many one or another girl had been obliged to endure, how many extra
swats some of the girls had gotten for letting go of the mantle or lifting
a foot.  I gathered that under the pair of dice system a girl could
typically expect to get anywhere from forty to sixty.  When I worked it out
later I discovered I had endured forty-five, including the one extra swat
from Rachel.

   Apparently I was somewhat remarkable.  No one, to anyone's knowledge
(and certainly not last year), had gone through the whole paddling while
getting only one additional smack.  It was laughingly recalled that
Veronica had earned seventeen additional whacks the previous year, so many
more than anyone else that everyone began to suspect she was enjoying the
paddling.  At this observation Veronica smiled and blushed but didn't say
anything.

   A dull and constant ache was settling into my backside.  I was assured
that my bottom didn't look any worse than any other girl's ever had, and
was less colorful than many.  Still, I knew it would not be back to normal
for many days.  I was right.  By the next morning my ass was entirely
scarlet with streaks of purple where the lines from the paddle edge
occasionally crossed my bottom, and there was some bruising, mostly around
the edges of the area that had been under attack.  Two weeks passed before
my bottom was back entirely to its original pink color.

   I was aware suddenly that we as a group were all moving toward the
hallway and the front door.  The thought had not entered my mind yet that I
still had to make my way nude (and now with a flaming red butt) back to my
car.  Just getting through the mortifying inspection of the shave job on my
privates and the paddling had been my only immediate goals.  Anything
beyond those events had fled from my mind.

   Dallas was now opening the door and that wide expanse of lit lawn was
before me, seen through the frame of the door.  They all stood around me,
telling me how they would see me at practice the next afternoon, and
waiting for me to make my move.

   This time there were no false starts.  I just decided to take my chances
without looking.  I really couldn't see far, or with any certainty, down
the dark street anyway.  Again I doubled over slightly as a leaped off the
porch, my boobs held tight to my chest by my arms.

   It had to be somewhere near two o'clock and the street was utterly
deserted.  A short time later I arrived at my car.  I opened the driver's
side door, ready to get my clothes on and get home.  When I looked at the
front seat, though, they were not to be found.  I couldn't see them on the
floor on either side.  Had I left them on back seat?  I didn't think so,
and a quick look confirmed that they were not anywhere in the car.

   Then a truly alarming thought caused adrenaline to pour into my veins
and my heart to race.  My keys!  I quickly bent down and in a panic felt
under the seat.  I was instantly relieved and comforted when my hand
settled on them and recognized their shape.  I pulled them out from under
the seat and held them up before my eyes, just to confirm to myself that
they were really in my hand.  A giggle of relief escaped my lips.

   Now that I had the keys I checked the trunk for my clothes.  I was
disappointed, but not surprised, to find them absent.  However, sitting
squarely in the middle of the trunk, dimly lit by the single bulb of the
trunk light, sat a large navy blue E, trimmed with a scarlet border.  My
varsity letter!  I gathered it up and walked to the front of the car.  As I
did so I suddenly remembered Audra: how she had joined the celebration
after the others and how she felt cool as if she had just come in from
outside.  Obviously she had taken my clothes and I supposed they would be
returned to me tomorrow.

   With nothing else to do I took another look around for spying eyes and
without thinking settled into the driver's seat.  I grayed out for a moment
and immense pain flared up from my poor abused, but now fully initiated,
varsity butt.  I was several seconds in mastering the pain, but once the
worst of it had passed the coolness of the seat actually felt fine.

   My drive home was uneventful.  I saw only a dozen or so cars, but I
drove with my window down.  The cool air had my nipples pointing the way
the whole time, but the air felt good and I propped my elbow on the sill of
my lowered window affecting nonchalance.  Not a stark raving nude girl
driving home, just a girl wearing perhaps a strapless dress or a tube top,
leaving her shoulders bare.

   When I arrived home I parked my car at the side of the garage, and
glancing around for spectators.  Finding none I dashed to the side door,
keyed it open casually and walked in.  It was a Saturday and my parents
were almost never home this early on a Saturday night.

   Unconcerned, I padded around the kitchen nude and poured and drank two
tall glasses of water.  Then I sauntered down the hall, occasionally
rubbing my battered bottom, and stopping to look at the mail on the hallway
table.  Finally I hopped up the stairs and made my way to my room and
closed the door soundly.  I tossed my prized letter on my dresser with a
smile. "Is that you dear?" I heard my mother's voice ask loudly so she
would be heard from my parents' room.  I hadn't yet turned on the overhead
light.  Only the lamp on my night table provided a feeble illumination. 
Again that almost painful jolt of adrenaline hit my system.

   Holy shit!  If she or my dad had seen me come through the door buck
naked, my pussy as hairless as a xoloitzcuintli, and with my ass on fire
they would have never let me out of their sight again before I was ready to
file for social security!

   I quickly pulled on a pair of panties, my ass reminding me of its tender
state, and slipped a night shirt over my head and into place.  As I
expected my mother tapped lightly on my door, opened it enough to admit her
head and shoulders, and smiled at me.

   My ass was on the edge of the bed sending me complaints, but at least it
was out of sight.

   "Have a fun night?" she asked.

   "Great, Mom," I answered, "it was a blast.  We were hanging out at
DeeDee's." You know what the detective stories say: 'The closer you stay to
the truth, the better.'

   My night table lamp was within arm's reach.  I had left it on and now
reached over and turned it off.  Hopefully my mom would get the message
that I didn't want any mom and daughter bonding talks tonight.  She smiled
at me again.

   "OK" she said.  "Goodnight my angel." She blew me a kiss, withdrew, and
the door closed.

   I arranged myself under the covers, lying on my stomach, my least
favorite sleeping position.

   Yeah.  Did you mean the angel who two hours before had been lying on a
coffee table, her legs spread wide, while almost a dozen people closely
examined her sphinx kitten-like privates with a flashlight?  Or did you
mean the angel with the flaming red, agonized, paddle-smacked bottom?  Oh
wait.  They're one and the same angel.  But as I snuggled into the pillow I
smiled and thought: no, this angel, the one with the varsity letter and a
place on the holy of holies: the football cheer squad.

   I let out a satisfied sigh and settled my body into the softness of my
bed.

   Chapter Four

   It was the same bed I now sat on, Rhiannon looking at me with a
questioning look.  All these recollections had flashed through my mind in
an instant, but Rhiannon could tell I have been lost in thought or memory
however briefly.

   "You too?" Rhiannon asked.

   "Me too what?" I asked in return.

   "You know what I'm asking about, Rita," she said, and did I note just a
hint of impatience at my reticence?  "You got your ass roasted at
initiation too?  Didn't you?"

   I could feel myself color, dropped my eyes and nodded my head.  Then I
realized that the initiation for the West football team cheer squad must be
about the same as East's.  After all it was only three years ago that some
of the East cheer leaders would have migrated to West, taking the East
traditions with them.  They would have had to procure and christen their
own paddle, but I supposed the general outline had remained the same.

   I told Rhiannon my story in abbreviated fashion: my enforced hundred
yard midnight streak, my absurd encounter with the dog walker, my
inspection, my paddling, my naked drive home, and the near naked close
encounter with my mom.

   "Ouch!" Rhiannon exclaimed.  "It sounds pretty much the same as mine."
And she proceeded to tell me her story which was similar to mine, but not
identical.

   She, of course, had been initiated into the varsity the same year as me.
We had a laugh when we realized that we had both been initiated the same
Saturday night.  She had been required to give her extra set of car keys to
one of the cheer co-captains.  She was to follow her instructions to the
letter and told she was going to be watched.

   While I was parking my car near DeeDee's, Rhiannon had been parking hers
in the lot of one of the recreation department's ball fields.  She had been
told to park at the end of the lot near a huge, old tree, and right at the
base of the light pole there.  As I stripped in my car, she was standing
outside hers as required and stripping, the glare of one of the lot's two
sodium vapor lights brightly illuminating her sordid performance from
directly above.  She had been incredibly thankful that no one happened to
be around the lot or field at the time.  She locked both of the car doors.
Then she put all of her clothing and her car keys into her car's trunk and
closed the trunk top solidly.  Then she was to wait: nude, and with no
access to her car or clothing.  She was told she could go as far as under
the tree, but no farther.

   I tried to imagine how exposed she must have felt.  I had felt extreme
unease at having been out at night on a dark and deserted street, a hundred
yards from my clothing sitting on the front seat in my car.  But Rhiannon
had been nude, having stripped under what amounted to stage lights, and now
stood outside, her clothes and car keys impossible even to retrieve, her
car's doors locked.

   Just as she slammed her trunk closed the whine of car tires on the
nearby pavement made her duck down behind her car on the side away from the
road.  When the car had passed she made a dash for the darkness at the far
side of the tree's immense trunk.

   And so there she waited for what seemed like hours (but turned out to be
about thirty minutes).  The lot and the tree were on a bend in the road and
a few times per minute a car would drive by on the nearby road.  As the
cars came from the two directions Rhiannon had to shift her position behind
the wide tree trunk to keep out of the headlight beams.

   For cars coming toward and past the lot from the lot's far end she could
easily wait on that gloomy and concealing side of the tree.  For a car
moving in that direction the road curved to the left at the end of the lot,
just about even with Rhiannon's tree.

   The problem was cars coming from the other direction.  As they
approached from their route, nearing what would be for them a curve to the
right, their headlight beams lit that otherwise shaded space Rhiannon could
use to conceal herself.  She was then obliged to avoid those spotlights by
edging around the tree.  But the more she crept in that direction the
closer she came to entering the glare of the sodium vapor light and a point
where she could be seen by cars from the other direction.  When cars came
from both directions, as they did several times, Rhiannon had to find a
spot between her two positions, partly exposed in from both sides, press
her body against the tree trunk as tightly as she could, and remain totally
motionless and hope both cars' drivers were more concerned with watching
the road than a stately old tree off to the side.  Apparently they were all
attentive, eyes-on-the-road drivers.

   After fifteen or twenty minutes a car turned into the lot and pulled
into a parking space at about the middle of the lot.  Rhiannon peaked
around the tree but could not tell who might be in the car, whether or not
it was her teammates.  She had hesitated, thinking it must be them.  She
had been waiting, nude and exposed, for what seemed an eternity.  She was
just about to step out from her place of concealment when all four of the
car's doors opened simultaneously and out stepped six high school boys,
five of whom she recognized from her school.  Shit!  What stories would she
have had to live down starting at eight o'clock in the morning on the first
day of school had they waited five more seconds to exit their car?

   The kids wandered over to the ball field and under the curved shell of
the backstop.  Lighters sparked and the sweet and pungent odor from their
joints soon wafted her way.  They were mostly quiet, passing a joint or two
around.  She could hear murmured conversation but could not recognize
words.

   Then the headlights of a car dimly lit the dark side of the tree, their
illumination quickly growing as the car they were on closed the distance
toward Rhiannon's tree.  She edged around toward the lit side of the tree,
but in that position she was even more exposed to the backstop than she was
to the road for cars coming the other way.  Again she stayed absolutely
still.  She pretended the backstop was a tyrannosaurus rex whose vision
reacted only to movement, and she hoped the same principle might work with
reefer-addled stoners.

   The car swept around the curve and on its way and her side of the tree
was dark again.  She crept slowly back around -- no sudden movements --
into the shadows.

   "Holy shit!" one of the boys exclaimed, and Rhiannon had no trouble
understanding their words now.

   "What the fuck's a matter with you?" one of the others asked.

   "Over by that tree!  I just saw a naked girl!  I swear it!" the first
boy said.

   Rhiannon said she could imagine all of them craning their necks to get a
good look in her direction.  She didn't dare peek out.  She couldn't even
know if they had decided to come over and see if there was any truth to
their buddy's claim: wouldn't know until it was way too late.

   There was an extended silence, and she didn't relax until she heard
another voice say, "Enough loco weed for you, Prince Albert."

   Another five minutes or so passed.  She heard the giggles over by the
backstop grow louder and more numerous.

   "Hey, Rhiannon!" a voice shouted.  It was loud and split the night air,
coming from some distance away but not the direction of the backstop.  She
looked around the other side of the tree, the one away from the boys, and
could see down the length of the parking lot and the street in front of it.
Across the street from the far end of the parking lot sat a blue car.  The
doors were all open and a gaggle of girls in cheer outfits were standing
around it or sitting on the hood or back.  She had seen the car before,
when she had pulled into the lot.  It had been sitting there the whole time
at a distance of maybe seventy or eighty yards

   "Rhiannon!" one of the girls screamed again.  Rhiannon stepped out and
made herself visible to them, the tree trunk still between her naked body
and the backstop and the now red-rimmed eyes near it.

   "Rhiannon!" the shout came again.  "You've got exactly thirty seconds to
get in this car or we're out of here without you.  So get your entirely and
completely bare fucking naked body in gear and get over here!"

   She hesitated for only a second before bolting into the clear toward the
safety and shelter of the car.  There was a ten yard dash across grass to
the edge of the parking lot.  Then she had to slow to a careful and wincing
walk to cross a portion of the parking lot since the surface was of gravel
and stone and even her shoes had been denied her.  Then after she had
carefully stepped past the sharp and annoying stones she reached the other
side.  From there it was all well-lit paved sidewalk or road surface and
she turned on the afterburners.

   From the time she had left the shelter of the tree she had put her hands
up to her face, just leaving a small vertical opening to see through.  She
didn't care if the boys saw her bush or ass or tits, just as long as they
couldn't see her face.

   The boys had exited the backstop, no doubt their curiosity aroused by
the words "entirely and completely bare fucking naked body".  They were now
standing by their car and trying to discover what was up.  "You see?" said
a loud and frustrated sounding voice.  "I told we shoulda gone an' checked
it out!"

   There were other voices with other comments, some about her body, some
the stoners grumbling about their missed opportunity for late night,
all-naked-all-the-time entertainment.  Rhiannon didn't hear the comments,
just concentrated on the quickly dwindling distance remaining to the
concealing interior of the car.

   As she climbed in she heard one last comment: "Hey, I know a Rhiannon."
Then she was in the backseat wedged between two girls as the car sped away.

   They went to one of the girls' houses.  Rhiannon was ushered in.  She
told me she had the same feeling of extreme exposure as the only naked
person amid eight uniformed girls

   They spent a few minutes gabbing, the girls who had been in the car
filling in the ones who had remained back at the house about the utterly
hilarious goings on at the ball field.  When all of the stories had been
told the girls settled down.

   Rhiannon had three tasks to perform.  First the girls blindfolded her
and made extra sure she could not see past the edges of the covering. 
Then, one of the girls guiding from the back with her hands on Rhiannon's
shoulders and another pulling her hands from the front, they led her to the
bathroom.  She felt the cool tile on the soles of her feet and got a strong
whiff of methane.

   Rhiannon had smiled inwardly.  Even without ever having gone through an
initiation she knew about this trick: take a blindfolded person into the
bathroom, have them kneel down at the toilet and tell them to reach in and
grab what they find in the bowl.  Then the unwitting victim would be told
to squeeze it and let it ooze out through their fingers.  Oh, and be sure
to set the stage beforehand by having some people go into the john and rip
some farts, just for atmosphere and to get the initiate's mental image
factory working overtime.

   But Rhiannon didn't let on that she knew about the trick.  She knelt at
the porcelain throne, reached into the toilet bowl and grabbed the pealed
banana she knew the girls had put there, making a disgusted face and
ewuu-icky sounds just to not let on that she knew what was up.  She noted
that they had even broken off the ends for extra authenticity.  On command
she squeezed hard and let on that she relished the feel of the mashed up
banana as it seeped through her fingers.

   Rhiannon showed a big smile and asked, "C'mon you guy.  You didn't
really think I was going to fall for that one, did you?" She made a show of
bringing her hand up to her face and sticking her tongue out to lick at the
banana goo with great bravado.  One of the girls managed to get out a
panicked "Rhiannon!" before the tip of Rhiannon's tongue made contact with
the shit that covered her palm.

   Half an hour, half a tube of toothpaste, and half a bottle of Listerine
later Rhiannon had recovered sufficiently that the girls could all gather
in the living room.

   While I had lain on the coffee table to display the shaving I had
previously accomplished, Rhiannon had been obliged to sit at the edge to
make a show of shaving herself: her second task.  A towel was under her
ass, a bowl of warm water nearby.  The other girls watched intently as
Rhiannon snipped away at her pubic hair, the loose hairs falling onto a
towel on the floor.  Then she spread extra wide and wet the disposable
razor and began to run the blade smoothly through her stubble.  She had
blushed a bit as she had been obliged to open and move and stretch her
outer lips to get at all the hairs she could find.  When she was finished
she got the same flashlight-aided inspection I had.

   Her initiation ended with a paddling, similar to mine.  The differences:
Rhiannon had to bend over and not lose contact with a chair.  Each of the
eight girls rolled a pair of dice.  But the result was the same: Rhiannon
told me she had gotten the lumber laid on her butt sixty-two times.  By the
time she was done her ass was in agony: her description sounded like mine
only worse, and she reported it had taken two weeks to heal.  I couldn't
imagine getting the paddling I had and then taking seventeen more. 
Impossible!

   When she was done and fully initiated Rhiannon was driven back to her
car, given her extra car keys, and she was able to dress and go home, now a
full varsity member.

   Sitting on my bed Rhiannon and I looked at each other.  I don't know
what she was thinking, but I felt very close to her, having shared almost
the same experience for the same purpose.

   "So, how many times are you willing to get your butt smacked,
Girlfriend? I asked.

   She got a thoughtful look.  "How about ten smacks for every piece of
clothing the winner has left at the end of the game?" she suggested.

   "Fine by me," I returned.  Unless one of us ran into some monumentally
bad luck it seemed that the penalty would be no more than ten or twenty or
thirty smacks.  Compared to our initiations it seemed a walk in the park.

   Call me evil if you have to, but smacking a bare bottom is something
that I have come to discover appeals to me.  At the beginning of the
present school year I was a returning varsity member.  Only the four of us
who had been initiated the year before were retuning squad members, so we
had eleven new members to initiate.  I had gotten to know to one degree or
another all the girls who had been selected.  I'm a pretty easy person: I
tend to like people, and a person has to be incredibly disagreeable for me
to not like them.  These girls were no different.  They were all pleasant
and I genuinely liked all of them.

   I don't see myself as a whip cracking (or paddle swinging) femdom at
all. But still, when it came time to initiate the new girls I really
enjoyed the experience.  As with my class, each girl was initiated
individually.  Just before graduation at the end of last year DeeDee had
passed the paddle on to me when the graduating girls had selected me and
another as the next year's co-captains.  And when each girl's bare bottoms
was in front of me I swung hard and enjoyed the job.  It gave me a sexual
charge that needed attention when I returned home.  Is that terrible? 
Well, whether it is or not that was my experience and my reaction to having
the paddle in my hands and applying it to another girl's bare bottom.

   I looked at Rhiannon now and realized that as much as I liked her and
wanted to resume our friendship, her bare butt would make an inviting
target.  I would find it satisfying and, well, just plain fun, not to
mention a hot and sexy jolt, to lay some wood on her ass.  I would relish
the experience of her, nude and I hope disappointed at losing and nervous
about her fate, obligated to bend over and present her ass for warming.  I
knew I would watch with interest and satisfaction as her butt grew redder
with each swat.

   "So deal," Rhiannon said, impatiently.  "I hate to say this Rita but I'm
looking forward to winning and getting you bent over and have your bare
butt to smack."

   "You took the words right out of my mouth, Rhi," I said.  This was ideal
for me.  Knowing that she was so looking forward to warming my buns would
make every swing I took with the paddle that much more satisfying.

   I dealt the cards and the game began.  It was not a long game.  I lost a
couple hands immediately, but then Rhiannon started losing.  Soon she was
sitting across the bed from me in her bra and panties, I only barefoot.  I
felt relief that this seemed likely to end the way I wanted it to.  I gave
her a superior and condescending look and dealt another hand, which she
also lost.

   When she took off her bra I did an appraisal of the boobs she revealed
to me.  When we had played years go in middle school her breasts had been
just budding, and by the time we played our last game around the end of
summer vacation before freshman year she had been a good and full A cup. 
Now I could see she had, like me, become no slouch in the boob department.
I supposed she had a healthy and round C cup to boast.

   Her face had gone a bit red, and she put her hands, fingers splayed, to
her chest to cover her breasts.

   "You haven't seen these in a while," she said.

   "You look great!" I said with complete honesty.  I also noted some
admiration in my voice.  My body was lusher than Rhiannon's, wider and
rounder hips and larger and more generous breasts.  But I liked Rhiannon's
body better than my own: I thought my boobs too big even though they were
proportional to everything else.  And Rhiannon's body seemed better
balanced, sleeker and more functional: a more compact package in which no
one element dominated or drew attention away from the other parts or the
whole. "Thanks, Rita," she said.  "Well, I guess we might as well get this
over with," she continued, seemingly realistic about how the game would
end. She picked up the cards, shuffled and dealt again.  She won two hands
and I was soon out of my shirt and jeans and had only my bra and panties
left.  I felt the first twinges of anxiety.

   After the next hand though Rhiannon revealed a pair of fives to my pair
of nines.  She sighed, resigned, and then she stood and pulled her panties
down and off.  She did a little stylized pose: one knee bent above pointed
toes, and a hand on her hip and the other hand in the air, her panties
dangling from a finger.  Her face took on some extra color.

   I looked her up and down with real appreciation.  Her body, between
thirteen then and eighteen now, had become that of a woman.  Her hips were
narrower than mine, but still had an appealing swell to them that had not
been there five years before.  I already mentioned that her breasts had
grown from buds to the full, lush, and sensual bosom of a young but mature
lady.  Her dark hair fell about her shoulders.  I noted that she kept her
pubic hair in a neat little triangle above and completely bared below. 
Frankly, I was not surprised to feel the first stirrings of arousal.  But
Rhiannon broke the spell before I could pursue the thoughts developing in
my mind.

   "Well," she said with a little shrug of resignation in her voice, "I
guess I have a good hard paddling coming.  Twenty hard cracks in my
immediate future?"

   She had calculated correctly: I had lost four hands and had two pieces
of clothing left.  But I heard her words and knew immediately the meaning:
she had just extended her permission to swing away, to not hold back and
make this only a little perfunctory paddling, but to see how red I could
make her ass and how many tears I could get leaking from her eyes in the
space of the wagered twenty smacks.  Was she issuing a challenge?

   Falling into the narrative she seemed to be advancing I smiled at her
with what I hoped was a look of satisfaction and superiority: the look one
who has the upper hand uses toward someone obligated to submit.

   Chapter Five

   Here is the other version of Rita's Bet that I had mentioned I was
working on.  When I had first though about the premise for Rita's Bet I was
undecided about where to take the story.  There were two possibilities that
appealed to me.  While writing the first idea (published as Rita's Bet) I
decided to write the second premise too when I finished, and this is that
story.

   This story follows the same two main characters as Rita's Bet, Rita and
Rhiannon, and essentially the same broad plot outline.  You will notice the
first chapter in this story as mostly identical to the first chapter of
Rita's Bet.  However, near the end of this first chapter this version of
the story diverges from the first version.  The plot of this version
rejoins the plot of the first version near the end of the last chapter.

   This story is considerably longer than the first version of Rita, and
many of the character motivations are different from the first version. 
Also, this version fills in some of Rita's and Rhiannon's immediately
relevant backgrounds.  There is also a third major character, Lena, who
makes her appearance in chapter five, and she drives the story the rest of
the way.

   As I mentioned at the foreword to Rita's Bet, I love comments and
observations about my stories.

   However, once again: I don't really have an interest in hearing about
how a chapter is submitted in what you feel is the wrong category.  And I
don't really care to bother with comments from burgeoning junior lawyers
who just have to tell me all about the dire potential legal consequences of
the action in the story -- just enjoy the story (or don't) for what it is.
I also don't have an interest in hearing from unfortunate boys whose woman
done him wrong at some point in his life and now he just has to lash out
and vent his anger at women in general and find an excuse to call them
skanks or whores.  And for those who like to post with the hope of
influencing the story line -- my stories, including this one, are finished
before I start submitting them.

   But your comments and observations on the literary aspects of the story
(and especially in this case the differences between the two versions of
the story), plot, character, mood, foreshadowing, etc, are all welcome and
eagerly addressed and responded to, whether posted in the comment section
or sent privately

   Please enjoy the story.  It is presented in eight chapters.





   Rita and Rhiannon's Bet -- Another Telling of Rita's Bet

   Chapter Five

   Rhiannon took a few steps to the foot of my bed and faced it.  She moved
close, her knees and lower thighs against the headboard, and deliberately
bent at the waist.  She continued to lower herself until her forearms
rested flat on the surface of the bed, her face barely above them.  This
position put her head and shoulders below the level of her hips, and her
ass jutted out in a vulgar way.

   I stepped directly behind her and found all of Rhiannon exposed to my
eyes, her lower lips, secreted below her buttocks but still visible, plump
and fat, red and engorged and exhibiting a little moisture.  After I moved
a bit to one side I rubbed the paddle on Rhiannon's bottom and tapped it
lightly a few times.  Then I pulled back the paddle, as far back and up as
I could reach and brought it forward with all my strength.  The crack
surprised me with its volume, and I put my hand to my mouth in surprise and
amusement.  A red patch immediately sprang up from Rhiannon's ass where the
paddle had hit.  Rhiannon hadn't made any sound or said any word.

   A feeling of self-consciousness filled me.  The sound had been loud and
filled the room, and I couldn't image how people had not heard it two
blocks away.  But I realized that the sound could hardly travel past these
walls, and I settled into my happy and erotic task, feeling my excitement
growing with each loud smack.  Before that first smack was the only time I
touched Rhiannon's butt before smacking her.  I never again rubbed the
paddle on her backside before swinging.  I also varied the timing between
my deliveries.  It turned me on to know that Rhiannon could have no idea
when a blow might fall.

   As I proceeded Rhiannon's ass became progressively pink, then red, then
took on a deeper red.  The paddle covered a large expanse of her ass and so
drew out the color quite evenly.  And the size of the paddle made it
possible to land a smack across both cheeks.  The paddle, when it impacted
Rhiannon's ass, made the same sharp but oddly heavy and muffled sound I
remembered from my own initiation and from dealing out the initiation
paddling to the new girls this year.

   Rhiannon made no sound for the first four or five swats.  Then she
started to respond to each whack with a reactive sound that started just
barely audible but grew by the end of the paddling to barely controlled
grunts.  At a couple points I gave Rhiannon three hard swats in quick
succession.  At those points the sounds she made became more panicky and
rose in volume with each smack as the pain accumulated quickly and
dramatically.  When I stopped one of these quick series Rhiannon breathed
in and out very rapidly trying to regain composure she had perhaps come
close to losing.  And those were the points in the paddling I enjoyed best:
when my victim was close to losing it under the pain of the ass smacks I
was delivering to her.

   The last series of quickly administered smacks brought me to eighteen.
Rhiannon's ass was a deep red and her breathing was shallow and fast, her
grunts seeming to my ears to be taking on a tone of anxiety.  I think she
was hoping I might just continue with the last two and be done.  But I
stopped and let her calm herself a bit.  Then I very deliberately added two
more whacks, delivered as hard as I could make them, and we were done.

   Rhiannon lay still for many moments.  I took the opportunity to move
directly behind her again and I noted immediately the change in her sex:
her vulva had become a darker color and more full and swollen.  The fluid
that leaked from it could not be missed.  Then she suddenly came to her
feet, her hands on her ass and rubbing.  She faced me and while I had heard
no actual sobs I saw now that her eyes were wet and red and her cheeks
streaked with tears.  She had the look of the chastened: like someone who
had been required to submit to an unpleasant and painful punishment and now
felt humiliated and subjugated.  I remembered how we had danced around how
this would go beforehand: how Rhiannon had sent signals that she wanted her
ass roasted and how I had played into that desire.  But I was unsure if the
look she displayed now was part of that fantasy sham or was real, or some
combination of the two.

   She had held her head, chin up, seeming to want to show her punisher she
was unbroken, and she regarded me with that look for about five seconds. 
Then she broke our eye contact and walked around the bed to her clothes. 
She pulled on her socks and underwear, then her shirt and jeans and shoes
without a word.  When she was dressed she made for the door, not looking in
my direction.

   I put a hand inside the crook of her elbow and stopped her, confused and
unsure what to say.  After a second I managed, "Rhi, I had a great time
with you tonight." I reached in and gave her a kiss on one cheek.

   Rhiannon made a motion to leave, but without warning she wheeled around
and she was up against me, one hand at the back of my neck and the other at
my chin.  Her mouth was on mine, her lips loose and her tongue prying at
mine.  Her tongue slipped into my mouth and began to enthusiastically
explore.  I had been entirely unprepared for this and it took a moment for
me to know what to do.  Then I just went with what my body felt.  I leaned
into her kiss and let my tongue enjoy intertwining with hers.  I had done
this for just a few seconds, Rhiannon had just elicited this reaction from
me and the kiss had lasted perhaps a total of ten or fifteen seconds, when
she suddenly broke it.  She turned and was out the door and gone in a
couple of seconds.

   My mouth and body missed her and I felt a hard pang of regret that the
kiss had not gone on forever.  Then I heard her footsteps on the stairs
descending, and a few seconds after the front door closing with a thump.

   A backed up to my bed and sat down, dazed.  My face felt hot and I was
breathing deeply.  I knew I was turned on.  I sat like that for some
minutes.  Then I stood and began to get undressed for bed.  I took off my
shirt and bra, taking a few moments to cup my breasts and play at my
nipples after they were bare.  Then I took off my skirt.  I thought about
leaving my panties on for sleep, but then I thought how I wanted to be
nude. I pulled them down, and I noted how the crotch came away from my
vulva in a sticky and reluctant fashion.

   Pulling back the bedspread I got into my bed and pulled the covers tight
just under my chin.  After a few minutes, as my body heat began to
accumulate and warm my cocoon, I reached a hand down between my legs and
felt a sloppy, sodden wetness there that I had seldom felt before.  I began
to work my fingers around, playing with my inner lips.  Then I stopped and
very deliberately withdrew my hand.  I decided I wasn't going to take my
excitement any further on my own.  Snuggling my head into my pillow I went
in search of what I hoped would be clarifying slumber.







   The phone on my night table was ringing.  Groggy and disoriented I
pushed myself up on an elbow.  I think it had rung several times before I
became aware of it.  I blinked my eyes stupidly, drowsy, sleep glue making
them seem sticky, and looked at the phone for another ring and then reached
out slowly to pick up the receiver.  As I did this I looked at the clock
next to the phone: 8:53.

   I brought the receiver to my mouth and ear and said, "Um, what?" I'd had
no idea whom it might be.  This was in the days before the telephone would
tell you in advance the identity of every caller.  You had to live your
life dangerously and pick up the phone for just anyone!

   "Get over here!" It was Rhiannon's voice, insistent.  "Hurry."

   "What?" I asked, still foggy and unable to comprehend much.  I at least
knew it was Sunday morning, and pretty early by my Sunday morning
standards.

   "Come over now, Girlfriend," Rhiannon demanded again.

   "But," I began.

   "Look, I did a Ferris Buehler this morning," Rhiannon said.  Then she
took on the voice of a young Matthew Broderick and said, "Worst performance
of my entire career, but they never doubted it for a second.  Incredible!"
Resuming her normal voice she said.  "My family just went out to church and
I convinced my mom I was too sick to go.  We've got about three hours, so
get your ass over here!"

   Then she hung up.

   I wasn't at all sure why she wanted me there, but there was no way I
wasn't going.  I hopped from bed.  My clothes from last night were on the
floor and I gathered them together and stuffed them in the hamper that was
already almost full to overflowing.  Then I pulled on some fresh underwear
and climbed into a skirt and top.

   I exited my room, moving as quietly as I could.  My folks would not be
up before noon.  I had no idea when they had come in last night, certainly
after I was off to sleep.  Church was not on the family agenda.

   At the bottom of the stairs I slipped on shoes and exited into a sunny
and refreshingly cool morning, closing the door quietly behind me.  I made
a right and walked the block to the highway.  Then I walked quickly down
the street on the other side for one block.  I rounded the corner to my
left and made for the second house on the right.

   Once on the porch I rang the bell and pounded the knocker once.  In just
a couple seconds the door opened.  Rhiannon was nude, but she was not
cowering shyly behind the door.  Instead she stood in the wide opening
between the door and the door frame.  Her one hand was up near the top of
the door, and her other hand in the same position on the door frame.  In
between the door and the frame she stood gloriously nude, open to my eyes
and the eyes of anyone who might be passing on the street behind me.  No
one was, but I got the feeling she had not stopped to check before opening
the door.

   Rhiannon's one knee was bent, her foot up on its toes.  She smiled at me
and then giggled and twisted her hips back and forth.  Only then did she
step back from the door and let me in.

   She turned and lead the way up the stairs to her room.  As I looked up
toward her I saw that her ass was still a heavy red from her paddling and I
smiled to myself.  When I was in her room she closed the door firmly. 
Before I could say anything we were both sitting on the bed and Rhiannon
was talking.

   "Same bet as last night?" she asked.

   "Um, yeah, sure, I guess," I said.  Then I pointed out the obvious. 
"You don't have any clothes on, Rhi." I whispered this last part, like I
was passing on information of which she might be unaware.

   Rhiannon bounced off the bed and put her hand into a contained on her
dresser.  "How many pieces do you have on?" she asked.  I told her six
after doing a quick inventory.  Then she came back and sat down.  She put
down six pennies on the bedspread.

   "I'm not going to bother putting anything on," she said.  That was fine
with me.  She looked fabulous, and I could feel the first stirrings of
desire inside me.  "You lose clothes and I lose coins.  Whoever's is gone
first loses.  Same payoff as last night."

   "Shit," I said.  "I didn't bring my paddle."

   Again Rhiannon got up, went to her closet, and she reached up onto a
high shelf.  She came back with a paddle that was almost identical to the
one I kept, although hers was far newer looking.  "I'm the keeper of the
paddle for our squad too," she said.  She was tapping the polished wood
surface against the palm of her hand.

   "OK?" she asked.

   Before I could respond she picked up the deck of cards already sitting
on her bed and began to deal.  I was sure I'd feel very bad for her if she
lost and had to get her ass hammered again.  More hard wood applied to a
bottom as red and sensitive as hers would be utter agony.  I smiled at the
prospect: shame on me.  Those first stirrings of arousal, lit by Rhiannon's
nudity, now swelled with the thought of the possibility that she might have
to again submit to me, have to bend over and present her already ruby ass
for more swats administered by yours truly.

   But the game went quite differently from last night's.  We stayed even
for the first four hands.  Then she lost another and had a single penny
left.  I quite distinctly felt my pussy gush with lubrication.  But then I
lost two in a row and it was done.  I took off my bra, my breasts revealed
to Rhiannon's appreciative eye.  Then after the last hand Rhiannon gave a
little cheer of triumph and smiled as I pulled my panties off.

   I was a bit disappointed: a repeat of last night's result would have
been fine with me.  But I let out a sigh and made sure to take this in the
direction Rhiannon had last night.  "Ten hard cracks?" I asked.

   "Oh, Girlfriend, you have no idea how hard," Rhiannon said, smiling and
laughing.

   I took the same position over the end of her bed she had taken over the
end of mine about eight hours earlier.  Aware of Rhiannon's movements I was
sure she took the same opportunity I had to go directly behind me and have
an unobstructed look at the goods.  I felt myself get a bit lightheaded at
the thought and knew the evidence of my increased arousal would be plain to
her eyes.

   Rhi didn't tap at all on my bottom with the paddle.  Suddenly a hard
smack sounded as the paddle unexpectedly made hard contact with my ass. 
But Rhi didn't stop, didn't give out the paddling deliberately as I had. 
Instead, ten hard smacks fell on my ass, she only taking long enough
between each to reach back for plenty of swinging room.  The whole event
took less than twenty seconds.

   I had felt pain like that before during my initiation, although that
agony had been distributed over a longer span of time.  Even though this
involved only ten impacts on my ass it was much more painfully intense. 
With the swats coming so fast and unrelentingly the pain didn't double each
time; rather, it seemed to increase exponentially with each loud smack. 
For the last six I gave out loud, sharp screams, and just a few more beyond
ten would have had me screaming at the top of my lungs.

   I stayed in the same position for some time, I don't know how long, as I
felt the pain move through and suffuse my body and mind.  My consciousness
became an expanse of white nothing, as if I were inside a snow globe after
a vigorous shake.  The experience seemed like a dam had suddenly opened,
the pain a huge deluge of water that rushed into a lake; then the water
finding its new level and beginning to even out.  Finally, when those
sensations were distributed around my body, my ass now just the hot and
sore focal point, I pulled myself up over the footboard and crawled toward
the head of the bed until my body was entirely on the surface of the
mattress.

   Rhiannon came up behind me -- I was still on my front -- put her hands
on my hips and turned me over.  She brought her face down and it was lost
in my breasts, her kisses and licks driving me wild with desire.  I
gathered up my breasts and offered them to her.  She played at them briefly
and then her head moved south, briefly toying with my navel.  Then
Rhiannon's lips and tongue were nipping all around my sex, placing little
kisses and licks randomly, but always with the purpose of moving closer to
her target.

   When I couldn't stand the teasing anymore I reached down and guided her
to where I wanted her attentions.  She let out a little giggle, as if she
had gotten from me the urgency she had been trying to elicit.

   Then the light and teasing kisses, licks and nips were gone.  Her tongue
was flat on me, wiggling, burying itself forcefully between my labia.  The
tip of her tongue began to push into me, then it stopped, and her whole
tongue was slowly and with delightful pressure riding directly up my sex
toward my clit.  When she reached that goal I was suddenly over the top.  I
began to groan and buck my hips and an orgasm more intense than any I had
ever felt was on me.  Tears leaked from my eyes and my breathing was ragged
as the waves of pleasure overwhelmed me.

   When I recovered I looked down to see Rhiannon looking up at me from
between my legs, a big smile on her face.  "You're easy," she said.

   I flushed in embarrassment.  I thought back to the first time I had
given a boy and handjob.  It had been during that confused freshman year.
We had found ourselves alone outside at a party in the spring, and neither
of us had any idea whether or not we liked each other.  But there was some
sort of undefined attraction and we had been spending time with each other.
In the middle of kissing he had loosened his pants and then a boner was
suddenly before me.  He put my hand on it and, really just for the sake of
having the experience, I began to pump it.  My hand had not been in contact
with it for more than three seconds when thick squirts of cum had started
shooting from it.  I hadn't really thought anything about it, but the boy
had been ashamed of how quickly he had cum.  He thanked me for my
attentions, but begged me not to tell anyone how quickly he had cum.  I
promised I would not say a word, and I never did.

   But now I felt a bit like him: ashamed at having been so quick on the
trigger.  I gave Rhiannon a shame-faced smile and covered my face with my
hands.

   When I looked again I found Rhiannon above me.  Her knees straddled my
torso and she was walking on them up toward my head.  I had never been with
a woman before, but I knew immediately what was expected and what was about
to happen.  Rhi stopped with her pussy some inches above my face.  From
this new angle I had a view, as I had the previous night, of her bare,
shaven sex.  I reached up with my hands around her thighs and put my palms
firmly on her buttocks.  I pulled her down toward me.  As her sex came
close I pushed my chin up and extended my tongue.  I licked the length of
her vulva before I began to squirm my tongue into her moist and hot folds.

   I heard Rhiannon's reaction to my ministrations: a low but insistent
moaning.  Her breathing deepened and I could feel a gush of moisture and a
doubling of her heat.  She began to move her hips back and forth and I
pulled her down toward me more tightly as I concentrated my attentions on
her clitoris.  I sucked her small nub into my mouth, rolling it around a
bit with my tongue.  Then I very deliberately flicked the tip of my tongue
over the little sprout.  Rhiannon's moaning took on a higher pitched
urgency.  As I burrowed with my tongue I felt the surprisingly hard nub of
her clit as folds of flesh moved to allow access.  Her clit's hard core was
exposed.  When I pushed my tongue against this hardness, so surprising
after all the soft folds and creases discovered along the way, Rhiannon was
over the top and she became stationary.  Only very small flicking motions
with her hips betrayed her struggle to pull from my tongue's contact every
ounce and wave of pleasure.

   I kept my tongue entirely still and allowed Rhiannon to use the contact
as she pleased, and the contractions in her vagina were easily apparent to
me even with my mouth inches away.  In a few moments her muscles relaxed
and she settled onto my face more heavily before pulling herself up and
off.

   She swung a leg over my face and moved her body to the edge of the bed
and sat there.  I was a little surprised.  I had thought we might share a
kiss after our mutual attentions to each other and the satisfaction and
pleasure we had each imparted to the other.  I wondered as I discovered my
surprise turning into a feeling of relief.

   All of this had been quite unexpected.  Even twelve hours ago I never
could have imagined the experiences Rhi and I had recently shared: last
night's and this morning's paddlings, and the pleasure we had gifted to
each other.  We both seemed to enjoy playing the dominant role of dealing
out a bare-bottomed paddling.  Don't lovers do these sorts of things? 
Share their kinks?  But the realization was dawning in me that I wasn't at
all sure that Rhiannon was my lover or that I wanted her to fulfill that
role.

   The experiences of these recent hours had been unique and enjoyable, but
I was beginning to grasp that Rhiannon was not essential to them: I could
have those experiences with anyone, for that matter even a boy.

   I had been lost in these thoughts and had not heard or felt Rhiannon get
up from the bed.  Suddenly she was above me again, but this time standing
over my upturned face which was near the edge of the bed.

   "C'mon," she said.  "I'm hungry.  Let's go get something to eat." She
had her bra on and was now stepping into her panties.

   I smiled at her.  "Good idea," I said.  We both dressed, made a trip to
the bathroom together for a quick wash up, and then made for the door.

   Chapter Six

   We drove a half mile or so to the local Denny's.  Had I known that the
conversation we had over this breakfast would have so much import I might
have somehow better prepared for it.

   After we placed our breakfast orders we sipped our coffees, and I saw
that Rhiannon's eyes were on me almost constantly.  This seemed like a good
time to try to straighten up some long ago business: something that had
been bothering me since just after I had run into Rhiannon at the
convenience store.

   "Hey, Rhi," I hesitantly began.  She renewed her gaze, her eyebrows
rising in expectation.  "You know a few years ago?  You know, when we were
freshmen?"

   "You're just consumed with guilt," Rhiannon supplied to my amazement. 
She let out a little laugh.  "What you did really sucked," she continued.
"And, you know, it hurt me a lot.  But it's water under the bridge, Rita. I
was pretty much a mess for the rest of that year, at least in relation to
you and me, but I got over it.  Really"

   "Are you sure?" I asked.

   "Hey, there are no problems between us, Girlfriend," Rhiannon said. 
"I'm sort of sorry we had to be separated after that year because if we had
seen more of each other sophomore year we would have been back together.  I
got it behind me by then.  I fact, you know, if the situation had been
reversed, there is no way I could have resisted taking that place on the
squad."

   I was surprised and delighted to discover that a subject that had made
my stomach do slow turns whenever I thought about it had been resolved so
easily.  Never would I have imagined a resolution like this.

   "Still," I said, "I want to tell you how sorry I am," I said.  "I know I
hurt you, and I really didn't want to.  I've never wanted to be anything
but your friend."

   "Well, that's exactly the way I feel," Rhiannon said.  "Even now," she
added.

   The thought struck me then that both my last comment and hers seemed a
trifle odd given that we had within the previous hour had our faces buried
in each other's pussy.  Just then the waitperson came with our breakfast
plates, one in each hand.  The comments hung in the air.

   When our waitperson had completed her tasks and freshened out coffees
Rhiannon looked up at me and smiled.  "Hey, Rita, I'm sort of," she said
hesitantly, and then trailed off.

   I thought I would try to fill out her thought, as she had completed mine
a few moments ago.  "You're just not sure we're a couple of lesbo dykes who
are gonna be sucking each other's pussies on a regular basis and finding
true love together?"

   She laughed loud enough that the general conversation around us seemed
to fade a little in reaction to the outburst.  She looked at me.  "I really
like you, Rita," she said, "and I hope we can be friends again.  I'd really
like to get together every now and then like we did this morning.  And last
night," she added.

   "But you're not looking for a relationship," I supplied.  Rhi nodded her
head with some hesitation.  I suppose she wasn't sure if she was
disappointing me or dashing my romantic hopes.  "Well, that's fine, Rhi,
because I feel the same way.  I really enjoyed last night and this morning,
but after you got done cumming all over my face this morning I realized
that, well I don't know how to put it; I guess I feel the same way you do."

   Her hesitation was gone and she broadened her smile.  She reached out
with her hands to cover mine and squeezed them.  Then we turned our
attention to our breakfasts.  I found that between the calories I had
expended this morning and the general relief I was feeling that neither of
us would be left hurting from our encounter that I had worked up an
appetite.  I was famished.  My breakfast called to me and I ate with
abandon, giving the meal all my attention until my plate was mostly empty.

   Rhiannon seemingly felt the same way, deeply engrossed in her meal. 
Finally we both looked up from our plates to find we were gazing at each
other.

   Rhiannon was masticating some egg, and in between chews she said,
"Besides, you know Rita how it would look: we're each co-captains of our
cheer squads.  I don't think we can be lovers and maintain a healthy
rivalry at the same time."

   "You're probably right," I said.  "The homecoming game is coming up this
Thursday, and I don't know if it would be good for a relationship between
us when we clean your clocks."

   "Oh, I know, I know," Rhiannon said, more than a trace of mocking in her
voice.  "You guys are going down in a big way, and I just couldn't stand to
sit my pussy down on such a disappointed looking face.  I don't suppose
you'd care to put your ass where your mouth is?"

   I understood her meaning immediately.  Our initiations.  I thought back
to the previous summer, and how I had helped initiate the new girls onto
our squad.  I had felt a little guilt at the pleasure I had taken swatting
their asses, but that guilt had been overwhelmed by the rush I had felt.  I
suppose that's why they call it a 'guilty pleasure', but this was a lot
better than chocolate.

   The sensation had been one of being on top of the world, a feeling of
superiority and dominance.  I wielded the paddle, swinging it with abandon,
and my poor victim was entirely subordinate, obliged to grit her teeth and
shed her tears, to find strategies to keep her body and limbs from moving
out of position so as not to accrue additional smacks.  The feeling was
intoxicating.  I had the sense of being in command, exhilarated and elated.

   My eyes found Rhiannon's and I understood the look I saw there.  I was
as certain as I could be that the same thoughts were passing through her
mind, that she'd had the same experience when initiating her new girls.  I
sensed a challenge and a threat: I knew what would come out of this was one
of us submitting to the other.  I knew that one of us would have the
experience of visiting on the other deep humiliation and embarrassment and
would enjoy every second of the experience.  The other would have to submit
to a shaming experience that would deflate her ego and strip her of all her
dignity.

   Great!  What could be more perfect!

   The desire to come out of a bet on the homecoming game on top was a
deeply and passionately desired goal, a source of erotic energy.  And the
feeling was intensified exponentially by the dread of defeat: placing
myself at risk of being the loser and on the receiving end.  How sweet it
would be to emerge from our wager the victor.

   A smile emerged on my face and my mind began to work and contrive.  I
thought back to our experiences of the night before and earlier this
morning.  I thought of how I had used Rhiannon's mouth for my pleasure and
how I had paddled her ass with abandon.  In both instances I was taking my
satisfaction without regard to her feelings.  And I knew that I had sensed
the same feeling from behind me as Rhiannon had laid the paddle on my ass
and as she had pressed herself into my face.

   We weren't lovers.  We might be friends.  We were definitely opponents
looking at an opportunity to make fantasies of power and control real,
willing to use the other as the object of the dominance and superiority we
each craved to win and wield.

   "An initiation," I said.  Rhiannon looked at me a bit uncertainly.  "An
initiation.  The loser gets the initiation paddle."

   A look of understanding and agreement passed over Rhiannon's face.  She
seemed to know exactly what I was talking about and where I was coming
from. "You're on," she said.

   The waitperson was back then to refresh our coffees again, and by the
time we had drained our cups our bet had taken shape.

   We were both on our own for the coming weekend.  Rhiannon's family and
my parents were off to visit their respective relatives for the long
Thanksgiving weekend, we forced to remain behind because of our
cheerleading commitments.  The loser would walk to the winner's home on the
Saturday evening following the game, and would bend over and present their
ass for a paddling.  And until the end of the game neither of us would know
who would be on the receiving end or how much that poor unfortunate would
be getting.

   We decided we would let the final score determine the loser's payoff: a
swat for every point the winner's team scored and three swats for every
point the loser's team lost by.  The best case situation for the loser
would be if her team lost on a safety two to nothing: eight swats, two for
the winning team's two points and two times three, or six more, for the two
points the loser's team lost by.

   When we had settled on this a moment of hesitation fell over me and the
fire in my stomach cooled, but the feeling was just transitory.  In a
minute my zeal was rekindled.  I saw Rhiannon - poor unfortunate loser that
she would soon be, who had risked too much and now faced paying the price
-- sheepishly making her way to my basement.

   At the bottom of the stairs she would see scarlet and navy uniforms,
both football and cheer.  We had decided that the winner would enjoy the
experience so much more if the loser were paying off in front of males as
well, if the winner got to share the spoils of the victory she'd achieved
with her friends and teammates.

   But we also decided that all of this might just not be right for some of
the younger kids.  We were our squads' co-captains, older and aware of some
responsibility to our younger charges.  We didn't feel quite right exposing
them to something like this.  Besides, it would reveal to those who'd not
been initiated yet just what part of the initiation entailed.  The varsity
members were sworn to secrecy, had honored that commitment, and we wanted
to preserve the suspense and mystery of one of the squad's rites.

   So we decided only football team and cheer squad members who had reached
the magic age of eighteen would be invited as the loser's audience.  That
meant four of my squad mates and about a dozen or so football players would
attend if Rhiannon lost.  The numbers worked out almost identically from
Rhiannon's side.  And in Rhiannon would walk, a wisp of gold and white.  I
hoped she would seem nervous, and in my fantasies she was actually
shivering, as she perceived for the first time the magnitude of the
embarrassment and humiliation she faced because of her misplaced faith in
her school's players.

   We were about to put our jackets on and leave when out of nowhere a blur
of gold and white was sitting next to Rhiannon.  I wasn't surprised at the
gold and white colors on her jacket, but the girl who shoved Rhiannon to
the side with a push of her hip had hair every bit as starkly white as the
pale color of her jacket's lettering.  The platinum blonde of her tresses,
the short style ending around her neck, seemed frigid and brittle.

   The girl leaned into Rhiannon and gave her a short smooch on the cheek.
"Who's this?" she asked.  She didn't look at me, just jerked a thumb in my
direction when she asked the question.  I was surprised she asked it right
off rather than greeting Rhiannon with any words first.

   "This is my friend, Rita," Rhiannon said.  "We go back a long way."

   "First grade," I interjected.

   "This is Lena, our other co-captain" Rhiannon continued, completing the
introduction.  I stuck out my hand toward Lena, and Rhiannon finished her
thought.  "Rita's a co-captain on the East cheer squad."

   Lena's hand, which she had begun to extend to me, shot back and out of
reach.

   "Rhi!" Lena said, disbelief in her voice.  "That's the enemy!  How can
you be sitting here drinking coffee with her just a few days before the big
game?"

   "Well," Rhiannon began.

   "Forget it!" Lena said, her voice not loud but containing unexpected,
and to me unexplainable, vehemence.  "I was gonna have a coffee with you,
but not with her sitting right there.  Later!"

   With that Lena was gone, another blur of gold and white.

   Rhiannon looked at me and rolled her eyes, as I turned my head to watch
Lena stomp her way to the exit and out.

   "What was that all about?" I asked, turning again to face Rhiannon, I'm
sure a perplexed look gracing my face.

   "Lena takes this whole school rivalry thing maybe a step or two too
far," Rhiannon offered.

   "Ya think?" I asked.  Rhiannon's evaluation seemed accurate enough.  In
a way it was also prophetic.  I was to discover just how much so in a few
days, but I felt no sense of foreboding sitting in the sun-washed
restaurant interior.

   Rhiannon gave me a sheepish little embarrassed smile.  She put a finger
to the side of her head and circled her ear with it and crossed her eyes at
the same time.

   "Imagine how she'd go off if she found out we were sucking each other's
pussies this morning," I observed.

   Rhiannon cracked up.  She took a look out the window and I followed her
gaze.  A car, Lena's severe and bleak hairdo near the steering wheel, drove
past on its way to the parking lot exit.

   "Weird," I said.

   After we had given Lena a chance to get a ways down the road we took our
bill to the cashier, paid and left.

   As we drove back to our neighborhood we decided that we would not get
together or phone each other again that week, decided that our next meeting
would be when one of us showed up at the other's house to pay off her lost
bet the following Saturday night.







   Thanksgiving Day was cool but far from cold.  Low clouds progressed
across the sky in a manner that could not be called stately because they
were far too undistinguished.  Their pace might be described as sluggish
and their look as lugubrious.  But as cheerless and mournful as they looked
they held in the warmth nicely.  When the sun would briefly flash through a
thin fissure between cloud masses the gridiron scene took on a wintry look.


   The inharmonious nature of the scene entertained me: when the sun
flashed out for a momentary appearance I shivered because the tableau of
players, goal posts, fans, and bleachers took on the bright-edged look of
objects seen on a day in deep winter.  Then when the solar spotlight
shuffled back behind the intervening canopy of cloud I felt the warmth of
the light breeze again.

   What can I tell you about the game?  Well, this was the last game of the
season for both teams, and offense had reigned supreme for both of the
squads all season long.  Out of eight games that each team had played so
far our team had lost four and West had lost three.  And the score of all
those games had been quite sizable.  In none of the games either team had
played that season had less than fifty points been scored by both squads,
but no game had been won by more than eight points.

   As good as our offenses had been, both of our teams featured struggling
defenses.  So when one of our teams caught a lucky break or two on defense
then they would win that game.  Both of our teams had averaged over thirty
points per game.  Rhiannon and I had considered this when negotiating our
bet.  I had mentioned this to her: that the loser was likely to get quite a
butt warming considering how high scoring our games had been that year. 
She had nodded her head enthusiastically, her eyes lighting up and a smile
crossing her face at the possibility of dealing out all those swats.

   We had three seniors, our quarterback, a running back, and a wide
receiver, all of whom had made the all-state team the previous year and
were shoo-ins this year too.

   West kicked off to us to open the game.  On the first drive our
all-state quarterback was sacked.  In fact, he was knocked unconscious and
had to be taken to the hospital to be checked for a concussion.  Two drives
later our all-state running back was upended at full speed and had to be
helped off the field between two teammates since he could put no weight on
his left leg at all.  For the rest of the game our all-state wide receiver
rambled all over the field, mostly wide open, while the second string
quarterback could not place the ball within ten yards of him.

   With no running game and no passing game and a defense that spluttered,
the events of that afternoon were not pretty to watch.  At least not for me
and our side.  We cheered like we were far ahead, cheered as if the 44 to 0
tally on the scoreboard with thirty seconds left in the game would be a
snap to overcome with the right encouragement from the cheer squad.

   I'm not at all bad in math so, even while I made a determined effort to
put multiplication tables far from my mind, instinctually I was able to
work out in some back, unoccupied corner of my brain that forty-four times
three is one hundred thirty two, and adding another forty-four to that
makes one hundred seventy-six.  As I perceived this calculation I was
watching the ball slip from the grasp of our quarterback to be picked up by
a West defender who raced with the ball to the end zone for one last
touchdown.  The numbers on the scoreboard changed to display a final score
of 50 to 0.  The officials didn't even bother to stop the clock or prepare
for an extra point and both teams left the field, those in gold and white
uniforms receiving the adulation of the partisans in their stands, and
those in navy and scarlet walking dejectedly toward the field house.

   As I walked along with all the others in that same direction that corner
of my mind was busy again.  Unbidden, it helpfully calculated for me that
fifty times three is one hundred fifty, and that fifty more added to that
makes two hundred.  Shit.