Practicum

"You think I care about that anymore?" Steph snapped.

"We know you do, dear," Kris said. "Look, it's nothing to be ashamed of. He's a nice kid and he's really smart. And can't you have any other guy in the school besides him?" The answer was no, for Stephanie had many enemies; but Kris knew she believed otherwise.

"What makes you think I want him anymore?!" Steph demanded. "Yeah, I had a thing for him, but that was a lifetime ago!"

"You think we don't see the way you look at him in Beth's class?" Cherie pushed. "Heck, I'll bet even Beth notices."

"Especially her," Kris agreed. "She's the one facing the class, after all."

"That's not why I look at him like that!" Steph insisted. "No, that's because he's such a sanctimonious little shit, always kissing Beth's ass."

"I don't think it's her ass he's thinking of kissing," Kris said, dissolving into giggles on the last word.

"Not after what he said today, huh?" Cherie added. "You know, Steph, that's another reason for you to want nothing to do with him anyway. You're...you know, bare."

"I could stop shaving," Steph said. "But I mean, yeah, that's a perfect example. He sees she has dark hair and big eyebrows, of course he guesses she has a big bush and he tells her he loves that."

"Some guys really do," Cherie said.

"I don't trust him," Steph said. "He doesn't trust me, after all."

"Why should he, after the suitcase thing?" Cherie said. "I mean, I'm sorry, Steph, but --"

"I was cleared in that! And ever since then, I'm this evil bitch to him." Stephanie lowered her voice and leaned in conspiratorially between her two friends. "That's why I've got an idea. Since we know he's so gullible anyway. April Fool's is coming up, and I want to give him something to remember like I remember him rejecting me."

Cherie was hesitant. "Steph, come on! It's less than three months to graduation. You don't want to get in any trouble now."

"I never have before, have I?" Steph asked. She looked back and forth between the two best friends who had watched her get away with murder time and again since freshman year, occasionally at their own expense.

Kris and Cherie both knew there was no point in trying to dissuade her. And so they both assumed their usual position, flanking her and a step or so behind, when Stephanie went on the attack. "Robbie, you like hairy pussies?" she asked as he and Jane approached the world lit room.

"What's said in Beth's class stays in Beth's class," Robbie reminded her of the oft-repeated mantra without looking at his nemesis.

"Hey, it's only between friends," Stephanie retorted, while her two minions giggled as if on cue.

"Since when are we friends?"

"Robbie, how many times have I apologized for the way I treated you freshman year?" (None, Cherie thought to herself.) "Yes, I was a bitch, but that's over!"

Robbie laughed but still didn't look at her. Neither did Jane, whom Stephanie had been smart enough to avoid picking on -- she'd always known even she couldn't get away with that.

"Anyway, I was just wondering if you really do like hairy ladies, or if you were just saying that to flatter Beth so she'll go easy on you in your practicum."

"Practicum?" He laughed harder, and at last he did turn and look at her. "Do you really think I'm still that naïve, Steph?"

Behind Stephanie, Kris quipped, "Yes!"

"Shut up, Kris, you know it's true, don't you?" Stephanie said, resisting the temptation to wink at her most loyal friend. Turning back to Robbie, she said, "No, of course I don't. It's true! Everyone in that class has a practicum, the boys with Beth and the girls with Coach Stone, to show you really have learned something about sexual technique. The only way out if it is if you're not eighteen yet, and I happen to know you are." She paused and allowed her nastiest smile to pass over her face, both of them recalling the rumor that had reached every ear on campus about his hope of a date with Paula Edmonds for his birthday back in February. Officially, no one knew how the word had gotten out. Unofficially, Cherie and Kris knew all about Robbie's chess club buddy John, who had a crush on Stephanie and had spilled the beans when she let him believe she might reconsider going out with him.

"Yeah, so I'm eighteen," Robbie said. "Most of the seniors are by now."

"Precisely. You get a note from Beth or Coach Stone to see them at their apartments, and you have to show them your ID so they know you're legal, and then you'd better be ready to prove you've learned something in Beth's class! You just don't hear about it beforehand because they keep it really quiet, to avoid making anyone uncomfortable or letting anyone's parents find out!"

"Right, and how do you know all about it, then?"

"I've already had my practicum! Coach Stone, whew, it's a workout with him! Maybe Beth will go easier on you boys, but I doubt it. Anyway, if you really do like them hairy, you'll love Beth. I've seen her in the locker room. But don't be such a kiss-up!" She, Kris and Cherie burst into giggles and sauntered off.

"When did you see Beth naked?" Kris demanded as soon as they were out of earshot.

"I didn't say I had," Stephanie replied. "I said I'd seen her in the locker room. I have, but she was in a swimsuit at the time."

Robbie was, as he said, not as naive as he had been back in the days of the suitcase incident. Though he half-wished the practicum were real and he definitely hoped Stephanie's claims about Beth's body were real and he was already imagining the variations on his next fantasy about her, he wasn't fooled. That was a hard won victory. And it felt especially acute every time he saw Steph with Cherie, who had been one of the very first friends he'd made at Spinard, back when he was a scared kid from a crummy public junior high who didn't feel he belonged there at all. He'd thought Cherie was one of the few who understood him, and then the suitcase incident had taught him otherwise in the worst possible way. Of course, he'd gotten his revenge working with her at the library those past several months, but he still wished they could have worked together as friends.

A hard won victory indeed, but a worthwhile one. After living through the suitcase incident and getting over the humiliation of the whole thing, he'd given up on trying to fit in and remembered why his mother had pushed him so hard -- and worked so hard herself -- to see to it that he got into Spinard. Burying himself in his books and homework had paid off, and three years later he was on the wait list at Princeton with half a dozen nearly-as-prestigious acceptances already on the table.

But he was still the victim of the suitcase incident.

"I don't like it, Kris," Cherie said later that afternoon as they walked to the library, where Cherie was on duty and Kris was going to study. "Robbie is a nice guy, and he never really did anything wrong."

"He said no to Steph," Kris said. "Would you do that?"

"I'm beginning to wish I had, the day I met her," Cherie confessed.

"Cher!" Kris grabbed her arm and forced her old friend to look her in the eye. "You think you and I would be as popular as we are around here if it weren't for her? I don't know about you, but I enjoy being one of the beautiful people. And I know how we got there."

"But what she's talking about now..." Cherie said. "It could get us in an awful lot of trouble. Her pranks usually do get someone in an awful lot of trouble, actually!"

"Not us," Kris said. "And it's only a few more months. Prom, graduation...I want all that to be a magical memory when I'm a fat mom with a dead end job somewhere. That's not going to happen if we get on Steph's bad side now of all times. And after this, we'll never have to bother with it again."

Cherie sighed. "I don't like it. But I'm in."

"Look on the bright side," Kris said. "It probably won't work anyway. Robbie isn't stupid, and I'm pretty sure he learned from the suitcase thing."

She was right, Robbie wasn't fooled. But Jane, who had overheard every word of the conversation, was.

It made all too much sense to her, really, that it would fall to Coach Stone. He had the coveted top-floor apartment in the South Dorm, the only one with direct access to the dorm's hot tub, where various sports teams were rewarded with access after a big win. There was a door to the tub room from the hallway, but that was kept locked and only Coach had the key. Beth's apartment in the North Dorm had the same arrangement, and although there were technically no gender restrictions, they were known as the "boys' hot tub" and the "girls' hot tub" respectively. Of course Coach Stone and Beth would both see a nice, relaxing soak as a wonderful prelude to having their way with the students! The whole thing made Jane's skin crawl!

Having turned eighteen a few weeks before, she wanted nothing to do with sex just yet, with Coach Stone or any other man. And so Stephanie's words had her thoroughly immersed in a cold panic for the rest of the afternoon. By the time she got back to her room after world lit, she was in tears of horrid anticipation. Coach Stone, her freshman-year gym teacher who also headed up Spinard's perpetually losing football team, was a nice enough guy, especially for a coach. But she did not want his hands all over her body, or...or more.

But whatever her troubles, Jane was never one to back down from an unpleasant situation. And so that very evening found her knocking politely on Coach Stone's door, clutching her ID in her sweaty left hand...she was eighteen, but this would not stand!

He opened the door and smiled. "Well, hello...Jane!" It took a moment, but names always came back to him eventually.

She gave her practiced complaint in a rush: "Coach Stone, please, I'm here to ask about the practicum. I am eighteen, but there must be some alternative for us if we don't want to." She thrust her ID at him to prove she wasn't trying to weasel out of it. "Please! What can I do for Beth's class instead of this?!"

"Practicum?" Coach Stone was stumped. "For Beth's class?"

"It's okay, I know you keep it a secret, but I've heard all about it!" Jane said. Her breathing was growing heavier, and she felt tears welling up again. "The boys go to Beth, the girls go to you. I understand, Coach, but please, I'm just not ready! Surely you can understand!" With that, she began to cry.

"Practicum..." he repeated again, and as the poor girl dissolved into tears, he put the pieces together. "Jane, I'm afraid you're the victim of a nasty little joke of some sort. There's nothing like that here. In fact, Beth and I would probably be fired immediately if we ever tried anything like that!"

"It's not real?"

"No, of course not!" He touched her shoulder and, sensing that she believed him and wasn't going to panic, he hugged her. "Jane, I've seen the boys on the football team pull some pretty nasty tricks, but this is really out of line. Tell me who did it. Was it Randy? I'll have him off spring track and scrubbing the gym floor until graduation for this!"

"It...no, it wasn't any of the boys. It was Stephanie."

"Stephanie?!" No last names were needed; all the faculty and students alike knew who Stephanie was. "Good heavens, this doesn't sound like her! She's always been a model student! But she does have a knack for getting mixed up with troublemakers. Always have wondered how that kept happening. I'll bet this was just another case of that, Jane. She's an angel, but she doesn't have the best taste in friends, you know."

Jane couldn't tell if the coach was only being diplomatic or if he truly was so clueless. She'd heard the teachers fawning over Stephanie enough times to know it was probably the latter. But she was too relieved to learn she wouldn't have to have sex with him to care about that.

"That little bitch," Beth said the next day in the faculty lounge, when Coach Stone told her of the prank. "I might've known she'd try to pull something like this one last time before graduation."

"Beth!" Coach Stone was taken aback. "This is Stephanie we're talking about!"

Beth looked ever so slightly contrite. "Pardon my language, Coach. You're right, I shouldn't use words like that about a student."

"Well, I suppose you shouldn't, but I didn't mean that," the coach said. "What I meant was, Stephanie has always been such a great kid! I can't believe she's really responsible for this."

Beth looked at him in a mixture of disbelief and exasperation. There was a great deal she wanted to say, but she had no clue where to even begin.

"No offense, Beth, but you're relatively new to Spinard..."

"I've been here since Stephanie's sophomore year," Beth reminded him. "That's long enough to know plenty about the little dear."

"Then even you know she's always been a star pupil! Like her mother before her, always a great asset to the community. It's just that she runs with a bad crowd for some reason."

"Is that what it looks like from where you stand?" Beth asked.

"That's the way it is! Ever since her freshman year, when someone pulls a stupid, hurtful prank on someone else or an ugly rumor gets started, it always turns out to be one of Stephanie's little clique that was responsible. But she's always kept her own hands clean. That's why I admire her, even if I do wish she'd get better taste in friends!"

"Good Lord..." Beth couldn't think of a diplomatic way to say what was on her mind, and was still groping for one when the coach once again misinterpreted her.

"In any event, Beth, I just wanted you to know one of her obnoxious little hangers-on has started this rumor about you making the boys sleep with you as homework or something, so you won't be too shocked if that Robbie kid shows up at your door."

"Thank you, Coach, but I sincerely doubt Robbie was fooled." Beth couldn't help but imagine Robbie in bed with her; but she kept her poker face with Coach Stone. "He's a very smart young man, and he knows Stephanie."

"And her friends."

Beth sighed in resignation. "And her friends."

"He may be smart, Beth, but he's one gullible little kid, frankly. There was a thing his first year, before you got here --"

"The suitcase incident, I've heard all about it," Beth interrupted. "He's older now and this is different, and I'm sure he learned from that anyway. Especially since Stephanie had her finger in that, too!"

"She was cleared of all wrongdoing," Coach Stone said. "She always has been."

"Right." Beth forced a smile.

"Anyway, Beth, I think you ought to let Robbie know -- just to be certain -- that it's nonsense, okay?"

"You're probably right," Beth admitted. "Thanks."

When she returned to her dorm suite shortly afterward to change clothes for track practice (she volunteered as assistant coach for the girls' team), Beth had every intention of writing Robbie a note to hand to him discreetly in class the following day. That was the one thing Coach Stone had been right about, she knew: better safe than sorry, and of course she didn't want even the slightest risk of anyone thinking she was assigning sex to the kids as homework, especially not sex with her!

But as she sat down at her desk and set pen to paper, her resolve began to slip. "Dear Robbie," she wrote...and then gazed down at the two words on the otherwise-blank note. Dear, dear Robbie indeed, who reminded Beth so very much of herself at his age. Shy, a bit of a misfit, but a great student who took learning so seriously, and such a pleasantly mellow personality as well...and at eighteen, he was as legal as he was cute! His participation in class, hard-won though it was over his shyness, had also shown he shared her intellectual curiosity about all aspects of sex, while still retaining just a touch of the innocence Beth so cherished from her days of marking down those safe spots in her house. Topping it all off was the lovely memory of his apparent fondness for bushy pussies like hers. The things they could share in a one on one session! And if she could actually overcome her ethical reservations and coax him into her bed?

Beth set down her pen, and with both hands free she reached under her dress to confirm what she had already been quite sure of. The forbidden thoughts of Robbie had her wet as the morning dew!

A glance at her watch confirmed that there was just enough time before track practice, and she needed to change clothes anyway. Beth stood up and reached behind her, and she had her dress unhooked and unzipped before she even got across the tiny living room to her bedroom door. As she slipped the dress off, she stopped and pondered the metal door leading from her bedroom to the girls' hot tub room. It had been too long and she was in just the mood for a soak...but there wasn't nearly enough time for that. She settled for sliding her wet panties off and admiring herself in the floor-length mirror as she fluffed out her pubic hair, letting her mind run wild with conjecture on what Robbie might have to say about her nice full bush.

Imagining a shy smile and a twinkle in his eye and a bulge in his pants, Beth flopped back on her bed and basked in the glow of his imaginary adoration, and spread her legs. Pretending they were his gentle fingers instead of her own, she teased her moist lips for a bit and then slid her middle finger inside, all the while rubbing her clit with her other hand.

With a joyful sigh, Beth gazed at the ceiling and imagined Robbie undressing before her eyes. A nervous laugh, a comfortable meeting of the eyes as she took in the view of his taut young body and he tossed off some clever comment about a technique they had discussed in class. Then she felt his hard cock in her hand and his arms around her, and his fingers ruffling through her bush...on that thought, Beth felt herself nearing the point of no return, so she slowed down her rubbing and let her mind linger on his delightful touch. A reverent caress all through every bit of her triangle and a soothing pontification on how the guys in class had no idea what they were missing, while his blue eyes drank in every inch of her body with admiration. His pleasant prattle devolved into even more pleasant inarticulateness as she caressed his hard cock expertly, and soon their voices offered up a harmony of pleasure and nothing else.

But it was his gentle touch down below that thrilled her most of all. Three more times Beth worked herself into a lather and slowed down just in time, preferring to savor the illusion of his fingers frolicking all about her vulva. On the fourth time, she misjudged a bit and allowed one stroke too many, and felt the telltale tickle that meant the dam had burst. Giving in to the inevitable, she rubbed harder and closed her eyes to savor the most intense orgasm she'd enjoyed in quite some time.

Reason finally began to take over once the moment passed and Beth got up to wash her hands. He's your student, for heaven's sake! But the promise of intimacy she'd felt did not go away, even after she'd dressed in her running garb and made her way to the track, where a number of the girls commented on how cheerful she looked.

"You think Robbie fell for it?" Stephanie asked Kris and Cherie, late the next afternoon in her room. "He looked awfully uptight in class."

"Of course he didn't," Cherie said. "He's not stupid, I keep telling you! And it is April Fool's next Friday, which means he'll probably looking out for something like this. Especially with us."

"Suitcase," Kris sing-songed.

"That's exactly why you'll never trick him this time," Cherie said. "Because he knows he can't trust you. Or me," she added sadly.

"It wasn't you who told him about the practicum, it was me," Stephanie reminded her. "And I was cleared in the suitcase thing."

"Stephanie!" Cherie snapped.