Tami Beethoven

"I won't be marching with you, I'll be on the reviewing stand. Watch Brigid. Like always, but especially tonight. She has a headset and will be hearing my directions. Remember," he said, lowering his voice to the majorette next to him, "if my voice is too low, turn left. Too high, turn right. I don't want you going deaf for our sake."

A short old lady appeared next to Sarge. He said, "Now you voted to donate our marching fee to the disabled learning center, as you recall. Good choice, though all the choices they gave us are worthy programs at our school. Here's the director, you've seen her around the school, Dr. Bellamy."

To his surprise Tommy Blackwell appeared next to her and everyone felt about to choke up. Tommy, who had been one of the most popular guys in the school, his ornate dreadlocks a daily sight swinging down the halls, the quarterback for the freshman football team, who was in a car crash, who since then hadn't been able to put a complete sentence together. His parents were optimistic but it was obvious he just wasn't getting better.

Dr. Bellamy said a few words, thanking the band "from the bottom of our hearts." Then she gave the floor to Tommy.

"Th - thank... you... g - guys," he said, struggling with each sound. Then a labored wave of his hand, and through his surgically repaired lips, a little flash of his old smile.

Some of the girls sniffled and probably some of the boys too. Then suddenly, loud applause.

It made Rod proud, once again, to be a Tunemaster. Sarge gave them ten minutes until lineup time. Ron went back to his soda at the table.

And felt his left boot go out from under him. Then a quick view of the ceiling and an awful pain in the back of his head, like being hit with a baseball bat.

It seemed like a week later when he woke. For a moment he thought he was as messed up as Tommy, but he blinked and realized he was OK except for a headache. He looked up from the floor and saw Brigid's T's, dancing gently above him, as she bent down and placed her hand behind his head.

Her breasts were so round and firm and white... he looked up past her bare shoulders at her concerned and helpful face.

"Are you OK, Rod?"

"Oh Brigid..." He was about to tell her he loved her. But then saw the sea of concerning faces standing behind her and thought better of it. He tried to help himself up. Brigid, her toes flexing in her flip-flops, put her strong arms around his wool jacket. He placed his gloved hand on the upper slope of her hip, which helped revive him a lot. The next moment he was standing up, taking deep breaths...

"What happened?"

"You slipped and were out cold for a few seconds," Jared said.

He shook his head quickly and felt a quick chill all over. "I'm OK, gang!" he announced. A sigh of relief all around.

"All line up!" Sarge shouted from somewhere in the distance.

"That was some spill," Brigid said as they lined up, he and Brigid and Debra and Virginia near the front, waiting to get into the vestibule and then out into the loud, light-filled nighttime air.

"You mean someone spilled soda?" he said.

She laughed enchantingly, tapping her baton against the bell of his trombone. "No, I mean you fell backwids, gave us quite a scay - uh."

They talked about the crowds outside, how the whiff of hot dogs was making them hungry, whether their parents would see this event on TV. Meawhile Debra and Virginia spoke among themselves. He and Brigid were having the most relaxed conversation they'd ever had. It was a good feeling, he told himself, as he looked down at his long braided trousers and boots next to her bare thighs, her bare feet in the clear-strap flip flops.

During a lull they looked at the night scene outside. For the first time they noticed the lights of the village down the hill, sharp and clear over the bluish tinge of snow. A bank thermometer said it was minus seven degrees. It must mean Centigrade. He wasn't sure he should be mentioning her plight but he said, "Are you going to be all right out there?"

She took a deep breath, causing the T's to rise and fall, then looked down as she wiggled her toes. "It's only a shawt time. Afterwids I'll run back heah and get into my clothes."

"You can wear my jacket," he said.

She laughed. "Thanks but I don't think that'll do it."

They waited and waited. Everyone was getting fidgety. From the front Sarge said, "There's been a delay. They can't get one of the floats to start up. Hang on, crew."

Then they had to move out of the way as some men rolled dollies by carrying what must be float stuff. The four of them moved aside into a little hallway with a water fountain and a door that said, "Custodian". They had run out of conversation and were getting seriously impatient. He twiddled with his spit valve and slide. Virginia played with her clarinet keys. She was using a size four reed and let Brigid try to play a few notes. "Wow, that's a thick reed," she said. "It's hahd to get a note out!" She gave it back to Virginia. They watched as another dolly went by.

Debra began to contemplate Brigid's T's in a way that only a close girlfriend was probably allowed to do. "It's hard to believe that those things stay on."

"They feel a little strange, but they're on good," Brigid said, sticking them out a little and looking down at them. "It's spirit glue and a little twist." With a push of her finger she gave the corner of one T a little turn, maybe five minutes on a clockface, and it wiggled and came to rest back in place.

"Don't they hurt?" Debra said.

"No. Well just a little. These little circles, they're called microcirclets. I fit the T's on and the microcirclets snap on last." Ron felt it was O.K. to look along with the girls. The T's, like that microbottom, were black with white borders, though there was a little lining of gold inside the white. Halfway up each T, in the middle of the black, was a little black circle, about the size of a pencil eraser. You couldn't tell unless you looked real close. Which he was thankful he had the privilege to do.

"Still seems dicey," Virginia said.

"Not at all. Look." Brigid made sure no one was looking in from the main hall, then shimmied her bare shoulders side to side to make her breasts shake and wobble vigorously. Ron's mouth opened.

Now with two quick pings, the microcirclets flew off, one after the other. They bounced into the hall unnoticed and were immediately crushed into a thousand pieces under the wheel of a passing dolley.

The nubs of Brigid's bare nipples, bright and pink amid the blackness of the T's, poked out at the world like little penlights.

"Oh Christ!!"

Part 57

The three Tunemasters in full band uniforms, Rod, Virginia and Debra, and the nearly naked majorette herself, stared speechless and in shock down at the bright pink nipples, poking slightly out from the little plastic T's. It was as jarring and indecent as if Rod's own dick had been hanging out the fly of his braided trousers. It was horrifying, it was disgusting... Brigid was as modest as the next girl, and was deeply shamed by having her nipples showing...

Brigid's fingers quickly flew up to cover them. She looked at her friends in panic and misery. Only two fingers were needed for each nipple. The four high school kids turned quickly to the hallway. Fortunately nobody was looking. "Oh... God..." Brigid saw Rod looking at her most private nipples and, in an uncharacteristically pleading voice, said, "Please don't look, Rod!"

Reflexively he directed his glance up and met her anguished face with his own look of empathy and concern.

Debra thought quickly. She tried the "Custodian" door and it was unlocked. "Let's get you out of sight. Rod, tell them we went to the bathroom." And the three high school girls closed the door behind them.

Oh man, what a fix we're in, Rod told himself, compulsively working his slide. Only minutes away from our big moment, the Tunemasters' biggest and most lucrative engagement yet, that would bring thousands of dollars to the Special Learning Center to help kids like Tommy Blackwell. And Brigid, who would be leading the band, getting instructions from Sarge through her headset, out of commission! Disaster!

Fortunately no one from the hallway was looking in at this little alcove. Sid, one of the other trombonists, sauntered by and nodded. Now here came the three faculty chaperones, the old shop teacher Mr. Tucker, with Mrs. Toriello the social studies teacher and Ms. Chen, the science teacher. They were talking among themselves. Rod was worried. If the girls came out of the custodian closet they would be noticed immediately.

Brigid, Brigid... How could he show his love for her in this crisis? He felt helpless, standing out in the hall with the suffering majorette trapped in that closet. He decided to be heroic. To hell with the band, it's Brigid's welfare first. She could not emerge as she was. He would give her his jacket, which would serve to cover her nipples. Then he would go out with her, and she could act sick with the jacket draped over her, and he'd tell Sarge that Brigid was ill and he was too, they just couldn't march tonight. The Tunemasters would have to go without their majorette this time. And Sarge would have to march alongside them as usual, shouting instructions whenever needed.

He bit his lip but congratulated himself. Yes, a gutsy thing to do, but I'll do it, dammit!

But of course it was not up to him. He wondered what Debra and Virginia were planning with Brigid in the closet. As the moments went by he got uneasy. Making sure no one was looking, he put his ear to the door. No sound. Now there was a shot of something like compressed air, and Brigid's gasp. His ears were burning now. He knocked. "Brigid?" he whispered loudly.

The door opened and Debra pulled him in.

It wasn't a closet, it was a whole office, with shelves of cleaning stuff and tools and paint. Debra and Virginia checked his face. He answered, "No one knows we're here." "Good."

Brigid was facing away from him, giving him a full body rear view of her utter, total nakedness, from her pinned-up hair down to her heels of the backless flip-flops, interrupted only by the curvy V of the tiny clear strings sloping into her butt crack. Her elbows up, she seemed to be still covering her nipples with her fingers.

"Show him, Brigid," Debra said.

"Oh... God..." Brigid showly turned around, fingers on her nipples, afraid to meet his gaze. Then she cleared her throat and looked up at the ceiling and brought her fingers down, just a few inches.

The T's were back to being all black! No more pink!

"How did you do that?"

Debra held up a can of black spray paint.

He looked closer, and saw the nubs of Brigid's nipples, now jet black. "Wow!"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Brigid said in misery.

"No... it doesn't look bad at all... They just look like... part of the T."

"Exactly!" Debra said. As the three friends looked at the black-painted nubs, Virginia said, "It looks like rubber cement. Black rubber cement. To keep the T's on."

Indeed it did look just like some kind of glue to keep the T's on, colored black to match. If one didn't know...

Brigid forced her arms down straight at her sides, her fingers rubbing her hips. Looking up as if praying, she said, "You guys GOTTA look at me like that??"

"OK, OK," Rod said quickly, his eyes shooting down to the floor, where he contemplated their boots and Brigid's squirming toes.

Through the door they could hear Sarge's muffled voice out in the hall. "The floats are fixed, people! Line up in five minutes! For sure!"

"Let's get out there!" Debra said.

"I just -- can't!" He had never seen Brigid like this, so shy and queasy, though he could well understand.

"You know you have to," Virginia said.

Brigid gulped and shook her head in misery. "Yeah... What choice do I have?"

"Of course you have a choice," Rod said. "Tell them you're sick. Here, take my jacket." He began the laborious task of undoing the fifteen buttons down his front.

"No, no..." Brigid walked forward and gingerly opened the door. With a deep breath, a heave of her breasts and a rise of the T's they supported, she walked out into the alcove.

They got out there and Brigid once again reflexively covered her black-painted nipples with her fingers.

"You have to put your hands down," Debra said. "Don't give the slightest sign..."

Brigid nodded and straightened her arms down her sides. She got her baton from where she had laid it down before. And the four of them walked out the alcove into the hall.

The band was roughly in line but more or less hanging around. After all, they had five more minutes in this endless wait. The four friends stood around and tried to act relaxed. Rod allowed himself just fleeting glances at Brigid's T's. He felt Debra and Virginia under a similar stricture. The four of them tried to look everywhere but... Everyone else was going to see the T's, of course, the rest of the band and the hundreds of people lining the route, but only the three of them knew what they would be looking at...

"Hi Debra, Rod, Virginia, Brigid," Ms. Chen said. She and Mr. Tucker and Mrs. Toriello came up to them. The three teacher chaperones, expecting to be outside in a moment, were in their coats and winter hats, carrying gloves. "I could make you nervous and say 'ready for your big moment', but you're all old pros at this."

The four Tunemasters smiled politely, unable to think of anything to say.

"Your new uniforms are positively resplendent," Mrs. Toriello said.

"Thank you," Virginia said. They all felt the need to look down, if only quickly, at their new duds. Even Brigid. With the heavy coats on the teachers and the new uniforms, the rest of them looked twice her size.

"Looks good," Mr. Tucker said in his gravelly voice. "The majorette uniform keeps getting... more interesting." He looked down at the tiny T that covered and also separated Brigid's lower lips.

Brigid blushed, as if being gushed over, which was not surprising to the three chaperones.

Ms. Chen, a very short Chinese woman, looked at Brigid's T's which were almost at her eye level. Her eyebrow furrowed. "I thought these were all plastic. This looks like -- " The four friends almost died with fright as the three teachers gathered closer.

"It's -- rubber cement," Brigid said.

"Seems like it's coming out," Mr. Tucker said. "Excuse me dear." He gently held one of the T's and -- poked his rough old shop teacher's finger into Brigid's nipple!

Rod could hear the sudden intake of breath, could see the quaking tummy below --

"I'm afraid it might fall out," he said. "We don't want that happening, don't we?"

"Rubber cement?" Mrs. Toriello said.

"Looks like xanthum gum, a good choice I' say, but it doesn't look too good," Mr. Tucker said.

Ms. Chen said. "Excuse me, dear..." She held the other T and gently poked the other blackened nub...

Some of the other band members approached in curiosity. Soon there were about ten of them gathered around, watching the teachers fix Brigid's T's, maybe to prevent a "wardrobe malfunction" during the parade?

"What's wrong?" Jared said.

"Xanthum gum fastener, I think she put too much on," Mr. Tucker said, continuing to try to poke the black nub in, but it kept springing back out. Ms. Chen was having a similar lack of success with the other one.

"Oh... I didn't notice that before," Jared said. As indeed none of them had, when they were viewing all the new uniforms in the big cafeteria room. They had not been examining the T's too closely, their attention naturally being directed to what the T's were covering (or not covering).

This can't be happening, the three friends told themselves as they looked at each other. They watched in horror as Mr. Tucker and Ms. Chen kept gently poking as Brigid looked down with widened eyes and gulped. Seeing the faces around her, she suppressed her natural body reactions and said, "It's -- really - - O.K. We'll be mahching in a minute -- " Her fingers fidgeted against the baton, her toes wiggled and squirmed...

Ms. Chen and Mr. Tucker gave up on poking and stood there, contemplating Brigid's T's. "Maybe we can fix it."

Mr. Tucker saw the word "Custodian" on the closet and said, "We've just got to get this xanthum flush with the rest of the T's. Otherwise it looks like -- well..." He didn't want to say it but they knew what he meant. "She'll be on TV, you know. We've got to act fast."

"Where are you going?" Ms. Chen said.

"There should be some sandpaper in here," the shop teacher said, walking into the custodian's office. "Some steady buffing with 150 or so grit will probably do it."

"Get some for me too," Ms. Chen said.

Part 58

Before Brigid and her friends could decide what to do, Mr. Tucker had come out of the custodian office with two little sheets of sandpaper.

Actually there was nothing they COULD do. Everyone was watching them, standing around waiting for the old shop teacher to emerge. Brigid couldn't run. She couldn't tell them the truth, that it was actually her bare nipples sticking out in everyone's faces. That would be indecent exposure, detention for sure, telling her parents... as well as shame that would last for years. The incident would stick to her name for years. And they were about to go out to march. She and her friends were frozen to the spot, terrified.

Now Mr. Tucker gave one sheet to Ms. Chen. "Only 220 grit, but let's see what we can do," he said. He wadded his sheet up into a little section, then grasped Brigid's left T around the edges. The T was only three inches high and was dwarfed by his rough, burly hand. "This should only take a moment, Miss O'Dierna..."

The first rub of 220 grit onto the majorette's most sensitive spot caused a little strangled gasp and a quick intake of her bare tummy. He slowly drew the wad all the way across, then back, then forth, back and forth --

In a full band uniform one can always hide the manifestations of one'e emotions. Tummies shake with nervousness, butt cheeks clench with cold, arms and legs and chests sweat with exertion or heat, toes squirm in their boots, and of course also hidden are male erections, which for a teenage boy are frequent events. But a Tunemasters majorette cannot hide her body. As they watched in sympathy and horror Rod, Debra and Virginia looked their suffering friend up and down and noted the twitching shoulders, the flushed collarbones, the quaking of the flat tummy, the flexing of thigh muscles, and the spreading of her meticulously painted toes as poor Brigid tried to withstand the unbearably intense stimulation.

Ms. Chen started working on the right T, holding it in her little hand as she began sanding what she took to be the black gum adhesive. It was almost at her eye level and she peered in very closely. Seeing no progress, the two teachers became more vigorous, brushing back and forth faster, faster, harder, rasping away at the nipples. Behind the T's, Brigid's breast flesh jiggled in response to their motions.

Rod shut his eyes. He couldn't look. But of course he opened them again. Brigid's eyes popped open and she seemed about to cry. She looked at her friends with pleading. But they could do nothing. They were horrified at what it must feel like. Debra and Virginia folded their arms tightly across their chests, as if to protect their own nipples, which lay hidden from the world and protected by bras, thermals, blouses and jackets. Four layers of covering that Brigid was denied. For Rod's part, he pictured the sandpaper going over the end of his dick, his most sensitive part, so sensitive that he himself never touched it, not even when jerking off.

Around them, the other band members drew closer, curious about whether the teachers could get that extra gum off. The buffing grew more furious. Mr. Tucker, a bit winded, stopped to tighten his grip on the T. So did Ms. Chen. Then they bore in and rubbed harder, faster, with lightning speed back and forth, back and forth --