The school started rehearsing months in advance for the end of year musical. It was the obsession of drama teacher Miss Cuff: a big brassy production called Cowgirls and Indian Braves, a pastiche with athletics, dance, poetry reading. With her sassy glasses and blue stockings it was clear the flamboyant teacher saw herself as a real bohemian. Her big circular earings were a hallmark and she had once been seen out of school smoking a cigarette in an elegant long holder. She may have aspired one day to graduate herself to the world of theatre. To Broadway or off-Broadway. Girls loved her, boys feared her. Something about her made the boys, kinda...shrivel. But all knew it would be part of their school assessment. They had to take her seriously.
So the rehearsals went on, twice a week with the whole cast and some smaller sessions. On one occasion Rodney was required to stand in a a circle of 10 girls sitting on the floor and recite part of The Song of Hiawatha. Of course, being gawky, shy and awkward he felt foolish, standing there facing their whispers and smirks.
His terror was getting an erection, or even a half erection, while standing up in front of them. His penis, with its thick head, could not be concealed if it stiffened and poked forward. It would froce a big "tent" in the front of his pants. On this occasion he was spared an involuntary erection but not an unpleasant surprise.
"Miss, when do we get our costumes?"one of the girls asked.
"I'm working on the designs right now,"Miss Cuff replied.
"I know what cowgirls wear. But what will the boys look like?" another girl wanted to know.
"Well, what Indian braves always wore. Nicely decorated loin cloths...made out of animal skin."
Rodney reddened and looked at the floor.
There was a thoughtful silence.
"Just that? Nothing else?"
"Just moccasins and head band. And a neat little loin cloth. Like a real young Indian fighter."
They were silent...all looking intently at the poor boy's midriff and...imagining. He kept looking at the floor, his face crimson.
Then a girl asked, thoughtfully, "Will they wear underpants?"
There were some subdued giggles.
Miss Cuff dismissed the notion."Have you ever see an Indian brave wearing boxer shorts...under his animal skin flaps and his waistband? Don't be ridiculous. Our boys will want to look the real thing. Won't you Rodney?"
He nodded glumly, still looking down because he couldn't look any girls in the eye after this conversation. The rehearsal continued.
Flaps? Just flaps in front and back? Wasn't a loin cloth a kinda...a kinda little apron that might more or less cover a fella's front? But if you just had a flap there, dangling from a waistband, wouldn't those girls see everything? Especially if he was leaping around and dancing on the stage? And if his cock started stretching! Jeepers! Started to lift up, even a little! An apron would be bad enough. A flap would just get shoved aside by his stubborn cock with its swollen head!
Then one day Gloria, an attractive well-developed blond Rodney liked, spoke to him across the aisle."Hey, Rodney! You seen Miss Cuff's designs for what we're going to be wearing?"
And she pulled out a couple of roneoed pages. There was a sketch of a girl in a cowgirl suit, the skirt with pleats, a bow and lace. She had boots, hat, gloves. And on another page there was an artist's sketch of a male wearing an Indian brave costume: just a string waistband and a narrow flap- a real narrow flap- hanging in front, no more than a few inches wide and very short. Tiny! The sketch did not indicate the boy's penis and scotum but it was clear they would be easily revealed by the token cover. A rear view showed an ever shorter flap, the curve of the bottom and the lower part of the crack totally revealed!
His stomach flipped. He reddened and his eyes watered with anxiety.
"Nice, hey? Let's see, it gives measurements here. That thing in front...that flap...it's two and a half inches wide...and it says, five to six inches long. Gee! We expect to be seeing a lot of you!"
And she chuckled, looking him right in the eye. She seemed to be in possession of some very lurid thoughts. And enjoying making a boy get excruciatingly embarrassed. Yes, Rodney got the sense that she relished making him turn red and making him panic.
That afternoon in the privacy of his bedroom he stripped and took a ruler and pressed it to his privates. He blanched. The proposed measurement would afford him no protection worthy of the name. Every other boy in the class- for word of the drawing with its measurement had spread fast- was doing the same. And, like Rodney, sinking into despair- and immediately jacking off with fast and furious motions, sending spunk dancing in the air, the only relief from the terror of the impending public humiliation. Under their covers Rodney and each of his classmates repeated panicky masturbation throughout the night, soiling sheets and staining pyjamas.
At the next rehearsal Miss Cuff handed out appointment slips for visits to the town's dressmaker and costume designer, Mrs Carruthers. That was why Rodney found himself walking gloomily up Elm Street one day after school, to a two floor whiteboard home with a neat garden. A sign read: Mrs Una Carruthers- Sewing Dress Design Theatrical Costumes.
The porch was deep and as he approached the steps he noticed a big gathering of females in one of the front rooms. Closer, he saw that they were girls from his class- this made his tummy turn over- helping one another try on their costumes. A middle aged lady- he guessed Mrs Carruthers- was kneeling with pins between her lips, adjusting Janice Gooley's pleats.
He knocked. A couple of girls flattened their faces at the glass. One of them squealed. "Oh, my God! It's Rodney Ricketson...here for his fitting!" He heard laughter.
Mrs Carruthers opened the door and told him to come in. She thanked him for being on time unlike some of the other boys who had come for fittings. She explained she had to finish the girls' dresses but "Yuela" would tend to him and led him down the corridor.
As he slouched past Rodney carefully avoided glancing into the front room. He had butterflies raging in his tummy. How do you take measurements for...a string waistband and an animal skin flap? Would he have to...undress? All the way? Anything, he guessed, was possible if Miss Cuff had laid down the requirements. Miss Cuff was unsympathetic to males, he had decided. How else could she had come up with that shocking design that had so tittilated Gloria? So terrified him.
Yuela was Miss Carruthers' Negro maid, broad bosomed in a black dress. A black dress- a maid's dress- with a stiff starched white apron. It looked as stiff as cardboard. She was perhaps in her early 20s. She had rather thick lips and dark darting eyes. "I'll leave you with Yuela for your measurements and be back to help with your fitting," said Mrs Carruthers.
The boy and the uniformed maid were in the sewing room, a wide room with sewing-related clutter everywhere.There was indeed a big window, curtains wide open, looking out on the side porch. A wooden stool stood in the centre of the room and there were two tables, with sewing machines and material and patterns all over. There were tape measures, he noticed with apprehension. There was a full length mirror in a mahogany frame.
"Alright..." said Yuela.
Rodney noticed her eyes seemed to be dancing. She seemed excited.
"Mrs Carruthers needs you to take down all your clothes..."
The boy went weak at his knees. His stomach was turning over. Sweat started to pour from under his arms. His eyes, watering desperately, were drowning in fear. Totally naked...in front of a Negro maid! A young Negro maid! And later Mrs Carruthers! With girls lurking in the house eager to glimpse him! No! No! No! He...would...not...strip...off! He would simply refuse.
Then he thought of Miss Cuff. The teacher was terrifying and she was supposed to be coming here later. He thought of his mother and how she would react when she heard he had revolted. And the refined punishments she was capable of concocting- with his sister and cousin. God, that day in the changing booth showed what she was capable of.
He stuttered out a request.
"Can you..."
His plea hung in the air.
Yuela smiled.They always had one request, she thought, always. Could they at least keep their underpants on? Would she please let them strip in the corner? Could she please close the curtains? Could she turn her back, go out of the room? One desperate 18 year old had begged, close to tears, for a screen! And the answer- she had been coached by her mistress- was always the same. She was to look the frightened male right in the eye and, with a hint of a smile...slowly shake her head. As slow as she could manage, and the little smile was important as she did it.
"Can you...close the door?" he squeaked.
This time she took pity- he was a nice nervous boy- and complied.
"I'll take your clothes," she said, standing right in front of him. So close he could smell her soap. And...something else. An intimate smell. A woman's smell.
With quaking fingers he picked at his buttons. Half way down his shirt front began to part. He stole a glance- and saw to his terror Yuela was staring at his exposed white flesh. She seemed deeply interested. He slowly hauled his shirt tails out.
His heart was thumping. His legs shook and his knees knocked together. His insides turned to water. He felt terrified, and strangely, deeply warm all around the lining of his stomach. It was a funny feeling. It was horrible...and oddly thrilling at the same time.
He peeled off his shirt. She reached out and he gave it to her. He was now half nude. This strange woman could feast her eyes on his naked torso, his pink stick-out nipples, the fuse of red hair running from his belly button into his pants.
"Shoes and socks."
He struggled with his left foot and fell back on the stool. Struggled again and drew off a shoe and sock. The air filled with smell of warm leather and wool as he exposed big boney feet.
He rose again. He sneaked a look from under his downcast brows. She caught his eye. He read her look. It was a command. She did not have to utter a word. It was- for any boy- the most frightening order in the language.
Her look said one thing: take...down...your...trousers.
He unbuckled the belt and unbuttoned the trousers. He unzipped the fly, blushing even redder. He loosened the waist and the trousers started to sag. Soon, he thought, she would be examining me naked as the day that I was born, bare as a board, stripped to the buff. She would stand there just looking me over. The shame curdled in his tummy and the trousers slithered down his legs.
He stepped out and handed them over.
He stood in his worn, frayed boxers.
Again her glance told him what to do next.
But Rodney, head down, had frozen.
Her voice was just above a whisper. She now pronounced the order.
He looked at her face grimacing, on the point of bawling like a child. This desperate look was his final plea.
"Down," she repeated softly.
He could not face her. He swung his body, turning his back to her at a three quarter angle, facing the big windows. He bent slowly. He eased his shorts down his thighs and over his knees. In doing so he shamefully exposed his bottom, his deeply cleft bottom, like a youngster shyly undressing for a bath under the watchful gaze of a governess or nurse. His bottom was now on display looking very vulnerable but at least he had kept his front averted.
Without looking he stuck his arm back and handed the pants over.
"Thank you. Now wait and I'll come back..."
She paused, cruelly.
"...to...measure you."
She let it sink in, sounded like she was grinning.
She left. With the shameful bundle of his clothes. Leaving him standing there. In the buff.
The afternoon sunlight poured in the window from the porch. A car purred up Elm Street. The conversation between Mrs Carruthers and the girls drifted from the front room. Apart from this, silence reigned.
Rodney's thoughts stirred.
He found himself thinking of Yuela's maid's apron: white against her black uniform, stiff with starch, looking hard as cardboard. Thoughts of the apron were getting him...aroused.
What if...? His thoughts snaked their way to a fantasy, a delicious fantasy. He knew he shouldn't be entertaining it- jeepers! it could make him get stiff- but it was beyond his power.
What if...?
What if he, Rodney, were an 18 year old boy in a rich southern household? An ante-bellum plantation. A rich spoilt white boy. What if the family had a maid like Yuela? Exactly like Yuela. Dressed exactly like Yuela.
And, he pushed the fantasy further. Imagine, he thought, that one day all the family is out visiting relatives, a long way out of town. A very long way by horse-drawn carriage. And that he, this spoilt white son, stands in his big bedroom with its four poster bed, its rich coverings and carpets, and strips off all his fancy clothes to take a hip bath. Soon he is nude, as nude as Rodney is right now in real life. The boy is stripped to the buff. In his birthday suit.
Already standing there in the room thinking these unbidden thoughts, Rodney's penis is starting to inflate, to lengthen and thicken.
And in his fantasy the boy is also standing and beginning to stroke his penis, up and down, faster and faster. When suddenly the bedroom door opens- and it's the household maid with her feather duster. And she sees everything. She sees a red-haired white boy...white all over...shockingly white...totally, one hundred percent stripped off...his clothes abandoned in a mess on the floor..his penis pointing to the ceiling...and the boy's hand pleasuring it, rubbing his penis shaft. It's a disgusting picture of male depravity and filth. She is furious!
The next minute the boy is lying on his back on his bed, legs up in the air. Yuela's left hand is forcing his ankles high and her right hand is wielding the feather duster in slashing cuts on his exposed bottom. It's the old "on his back, legs in the air" spanking position, beloved of grandmothers and obviously witnessed at some time by the maid, a position good for getting at the tenderest spots...also good for totally nude humiliation. Because the female spanker can see right into the tilted bottom and,with a turn of the head, into the groin with the bunched-up genitals. While she thrashes away.
And then she's got him- oh, what a exciting prospect- over her lap, pressing the small of his back so that all his midriff is flattened into the stiff, starched white apron. Flattened forcefully, and his stiff dick is flattened as well, so that it feels the warmth of her thighs. He smells her soap. And something more intimate. That woman's smell. Down comes the firm flat palm! Then again, and again...Owww! It stings! Ouch! Owww! Ouch!
Rodney realises what his moment of dirty thinking has done.
He is suddenly sporting a 45 degree erection!
Bolt hard. A real boner. One- he knew this from experience- that would not fade fast. Shit! Yuela would be back to measure him around the waist. He couldn't show her this! He needed a plan...
He heard a noise from the porch. He looked up. There were girls walking by...who any moment would glance his way!
He had to cover up! He lurched for the sewing table to grab the first material he could lay his hands on.
But a glance at the window showed the sudden movement had drawn the attention of the girls. They looked...at the funniest sight any of them had EVER seen. EVER! Rodney Ricketson! It was him- the tall, skinny, awkward red-headed boy in their class! Stark naked, yes NUDE! And desperately moving across the room with...OH MY GOD! His thing- his penis- sticking out and up, jutting right out in front of him, stiff and hard as he made the dash!
The four of them shrieked.
Rodney made the table and grabbed a lilac pleated skirt and clamped it to his middle. A little skirt! Must have been made for the most petite girl in the class.With bow and lace and pleats. He clamped it over his midriff.
Laughing out loud they flattened their faces to the glass. One of them was the blond girl he liked- Gloria, who sat across the aisle. Laughing out loud at his nudity! As if she were looking at the most hilarious sight in the whole world. She would never take him seriously again.
"Oh Rodney, you look pretty! Those laces...that bow...lilac is your colour!"
"And look at that bulge! Oh my God! Rodney, you are a sight!"
"He's got something under that skirt alright!"
"He likes the sight of us!"
"Did you see it? Like a broom stick- or a rolling pin!"
Shrieks of laughter.
Rodney could not turn his back. If he did they would see his naked behind. His bare bottom. His crack. That would make them really shriek with laughter. No, he would not turn around. that would be even more shameful. He was stuck. Trapped. He just stared back at them, mournful and despairing. He pressed the pretty skirt tighter.
They waved and blew kisses and told him how pretty he looked and suggested he wear girls' panties as well and pursed their lips and blew more kisses and pointed at his middle where that bulge was as hard as ever.
Then he heard the door open. Yuela was back.
She entered the room and quickly shooed the girls away.
"Bad girls! They always do that! Bad breeding. Baaaaad breeding."
She looked him up and down, just suppressing a smile. The effect was so...fetching. Especially the way he trembled and shivered with shame as he held that little skirt to his front.
Oh my God, he thought, I can't let her see my boner.
He had an inspiration.
"I...need...to...go...to...the...bathroom."
In the bathroom he would quickly jack off and banish the hardon. Return for the measurement...without the embarrassment.
"You can go to the bathroom...after the measurement."
" I need to go now...bad. Miss...please."
"Umm. Well...first, put that skirt aside."
"Miss!"
"Aside!"
"But...I've got nothing on."
"Oh, I think I know that."
"Miss, I'm embarrassed. I need to go real bad!"
"Aside." And she looked him in the eye, made him wilt and with surprising force took hold of the skirt and wrenched it free.
He was totally nude- in his birthday suit- and totally erect.
Yuela was looking down at a mushroomy cockhead, well-shaped and pink, with a big slit. Which seemed to be grinning at her. On an eight inch stem, white with several prominent blue veins, decorative underneath the very white skin. And a burst of ginger pubic hair- which she had never seen before and which made her gasp. She took in the low hanging ball sac with its two little pears. For some reason that did not seem to surprise her.
She must have stared for a full minute with the boy's pleading gaze directed straight at her.
"I see. You really do need to go to the bathroom," she conceded. "Well, it's down the corridor to the left."
Nothing about getting dressed.
"Please Miss...can you bring back my clothes?"
"Oh no, stored them...at the other end of the house. And we haven't got all afternoon."
There was a solution to the boy's fears for his modesty, ideal in so many ways. She knew Miss Carruthers would approve. And Miss Cuff, when they told her.
"Just put this on."
She handed him the skirt.
He quailed at this. Begged. Pleaded. Beseeched. But she told him Miss Carruthers would be here in a minute.
Of course, if he wanted to walk naked to the bathroom he could. But, it was fair to warn him, there were girls all over the house getting their fittings, trying on their costumes, loitering on the porch. Right now he was the only boy. Again, as so often, he saw no way of resisting female authority.