Tami Beethoven

"Speaking of therapy, Tami," Gretchen said, "if you can't go on campus -- "

"The Chalfont folks said screw you to the rules," Rod broke in. "They told Tami that her sessions will continue for the buildup. She goes again on Monday."

"Right... and..." For once Tami showed a trace of emotion as she looked up at Rod. "It's Friday. I've got to go down, you know. Do Dad's books."

"I'm coming too, Babe," Rod said.

"Yes... I've got to face Dad. I'll need you next to me, Baby."

. . . .

Rod sat in the hall next to Tami, who was suffering in her little pasties and stringy thong bottom and paper thin flip flops. They overhead John Smithers's raspy, weak voice speaking on the phone behind the partition.

"No, no, Walt, what are you doing buying rakes? It's the end of the season! Now don't go higher than five bucks per on the outdoor clocks. They don't have to be huge... Oh Christ, I don't know what we'll do. We'll have to close on Sundays then. Just keep the damn place going..."

A nurse passed them and walked behind the partition. She made him end the call. Evidently she told him about his visitors. She came out and looked at the young couple and shrugged, then went on to her next task.

Rod and Tami sat uneasily. Then her father lurched out from behind the partition in a motorized wheelchair. They stood up, out of politeness. John Smithers, thin and pale and with an IV in his arm, strugged with the controls and wheeled up to them halfway.

He stared at Tami with a look that could pierce metal. Tami gulped and drew her hands in front of her, then forced them to her sides.

He let the silence go on and on, never dropping his stare. Then he said, in a short-breathed voice, "Young lady... I am very disappointed in you."

"S - sorry Dad..."

"How COULD YOU -- " He coughed and breathed and held his chest, then made sure the I.V. was still in. "After all you've done... how could you do something... so STUPID... so GODDAMN STUPID!!"

Tami sniffled, like a little child being scolded who was waiting for the spanking.

John Smithers caught his breath and spoke now in a low scratchy voice. "To throw all that... four years of hard work... to throw all that away... Tami... is there something I don't know about? Why exactly did you slug that girl?"

Rod closed his eyes and felt like a great weight was about to be lifted from Tami's shoulders. Now was the chance to tell her father about the shame she had experienced. Not to go into detail about the Chalfont experiments, but at least to tell him of all the teasing and taunting... how it was like Hell on earth to have to go around naked... how this was why she suddenly lost control...

"Is there some reason you felt the need to slug her?" he asked again.

Tami closed her eyes and then opened them. In a teary voice, she said, "N - no, Daddy."

John Smithers's nostrils flared and he slammed his hand on the arm of his wheelchair with what little strength he possessed. "Then I am ASHAMED of you! ASHAMED!! I don't want to talk to you... ANY MORE!!"

Rod jumped up next to Tami and was about to say something. But Tami shook her head vigorously and held him back.

John Smithers worked the controls and mananged to turn the wheelchair around. In a moment he was back behind the partition. Tami stood there, sniffling, forcing herself to stand up straight, a picture of utter misery.

They waited there for a few minutes. Then from behind the partition a nurse emerged and told them Mr. Smithers wanted to be left alone. They had no choice but to leave.

Part 68

"How could he not accept her apology? With her miserable and crying like that? Can't he figure out she's been under stress?? He's just a stupid, stubborn, closed-minded old jerk!" Rod said, shaking his head at his eggs. "I'm sorry Bec, but even though he was in a wheelchair, I was about to whoop him upside the head."

Rev. Rebecca Stanton, sitting across from him tonight at the Polka Dot Diner in White River Junction, N.H., nodded. "It sure sounds like he was being jerky."

"But I stayed back because I just had to respect Tami's wishes. She always wants to keep the past a secret from her folks. Yet another thing that she holds in. Maybe she didn't want to get him even more excited, with his weak heart. Yet another sacrifice she makes for that old buzzard who's too stubborn to open up and realize what she goes through for him."

Rebecca looked different these days. She dressed more like a minister, not in her former lumberjack shirts and jeans. Longer, freer hair, and some wrinkles around the eyes. Not wrinkles of worry. Wrinkles of someone who has learned to laugh a lot.

But the helpful, intelligent demeanor was the same. "I can see how you feel paralyzed. Obviously an unfinished situation."

"Yes... and with her father's health the way it is... What if he dies tomorrow? With that... scene... being the last words between them?"

They sat and looked out the big windows at the parked cars in front of the diner, then out into the night, down at the river, flush with the melting snow from the mountains. Further on, the trucks boomed by on the interstate.

"So..." Rod lurched himself into a smile. "How's the... conjugal life? What's his name? Rodrigo?"

Rebecca blushed and her eyes crinkled. She flung back her long hair. "Oh Lord... Sex... I've never known such pleasure. Wow!!"

She and Rod laughed together. Rod reached across and patted her on the shoulder. "Good for you! You deserve it, after all the helping people you do."

Rebecca these days was doing mission work in Kenya. She was "in the States" on a two-week leave, to see her brother and the rest of her family. She was going to stop by the Campbell - Frank area next week. But Rod had called her ahead of time and arranged this meeting, 30 miles out of town, because he needed what he called "some pastoral counseling". And of course to say hi and catch up on things.

"I don't mind being frank with an old friend, if you don't," Rebecca said. "But feeling Rodrigo's penis stretching me, going way up into me, riding him like a cowgirl... it's heaven on earth. And he's such a good man."

Rod smiled. It was so weird to hear Rebecca talk this way. "Are you going to tie the knot?"

"That is a question for next year. But we sure fit together." She giggled naughtily, something Rod had never heard from her. "In so many ways."

They both smiled and then looked out into the night again.

Rod exhaled and said, "John Smithers... what a jerk."

Rebecca said, "Let me ask you something... That incredible strength Tami has. Where do you think she gets it from? Do you think it suddenly sprung up inside her at age 18 when she was forced to go naked and forced into all those trials? No, it was already in her. She got it from her dad. She's just as stubborn and mulish as he is. In the context she was in, that quality turned into courage and sacrifice, being brave when no one could see she was being brave. That inner stubbornness allowed her to survive, allowed her to keep her scholarship and get straight A's and make her parents proud. A weaker girl would have gone crazy, or cracked. But not the daughter of John Smithers."

Someone got into one of the cars to leave. The headlights turned on and illuminated Rod's face.

"If he's as Catholic as he sounds," Rebecca continued. "Have there been any divorces in Tami's family? Or annulments?"

"No." It was a point of pride with Tami. "We Smitherses marry for life," she once said.

"Well, then, to him marriage is forever. You can't stop being Tami's husband any more than Joe can stop being her brother. It's not a question of you coming between Tami and her dad. You have every right to intercede... And say what you think is the right thing to say."

After a few moments Rod said, "It's time to step up. And be brave like Tami."

"A form of being stubborn."

. . . .

Wanda Percival, Suffolk County (Mass.) Assistant D.A., put her arm around her old friend's bare shoulders. She looked down at her slacks and her fashionable pointy-toed heels next to the hard, tanned bare feet. Then looked out with her friend at the blinking lights of the runways out here at Campbell County Airport.

"I wish I could help you," she said, looking down at her rum and coke, "but I'm not admitted to practice law in this state. And from what Jen's dad says, there's no research to be done. I wish you the best. You deserve it."

Tami took a sip from her martini. The bar here made really big ones. Her glass was like a cereal bowl. "How is life as an A.D.A.?"

"Not like I hoped. I thought I could be mean in a good cause. But a lot of these criminals, they remind me a little of myself. They just grew up on the wrong side of town, that's all. Or were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Tami's toes rubbed Wanda's shoes, whether in curiosity or appreciation or envy, Wanda couldn't tell. "I think I liked you more when you were Wandabitch. You've gone all squishy now."

Wanda laughed. "Maybe it's because right now I wish I was naked and you were clothed."

Tami's big toe pushed on the points of one of Wanda's shoes. "You could still kill someone with those."

It was called a "solidarity dinner" for Tami Smithers, here at the Skyview restaurant, the scene of that horrible orgasmic torture Tami had undergone, though of course tonight she wasn't about to wear that tail. Marcus McIntyre, who arranged it and paid for it, had decided on an out of town location. And, Tami being "persona non grata", no one official was here from the college.

Except George Halifax. "Tony Noyes wishes you the best," the college's lawyer said as he drank up a diet soda and drank in Tami's naked charms up and down. "He can't say so, of course. But they wanted to, uh, strip you of being valedictorian, so you wouldn't give that speech, but he said, Not while she's a student here. You are a fine young woman, Ms. Smithers."

"Thanks."

As she stood next to Rod, he in his best suit, she with a new manicure and pedicure and pretty flecks of sparkles in her plum-colored hair, both above and below, and greeted the line of well-wishers, one could tell she was blushingly shy about all the compliments but also glad she had so many friends. Now some of the TL's came up, Barbara and Myra and Rosaria, and also Sessu, hugging her and complimenting the sparkles in her lower hair. This got a smile out of the naked woman. As Rod held her martini she spread her lower lips and waved with her clit. "Hi hi!"

Now a look of surprise. Yvette!

"Merci, merci," she said, almost tearfully, hugging so hard that Tami's breasts squeezed out to the sides against Yvette's blazer.

Tami took a deep breath, her breasts heaving, as she looked Yvette up and down. She also had on a button-up blouse, long skirt, and black sneakers. And had cut her hair and permed it. "What are you doing these days?"

"I thought a long time, a very long time, after you saved me. I told Pierre to stay away. I went up to his house in St. Hubert, and told him so. Then I went back to the pere, the priest, with the closet of clothes, remember? Now I have a job, a real job, being a secretary at his friend, he has a lumber company in Grafton. So nice people."

A genuine smile from the naked woman. "I'm so glad!" Another hug.

A few moments later, the line of well-wishers was finished. People stood around in small groups, drinking, chatting, eating the snacks brought around by waitresses in their long black slacks. Rev. Stipend came by and apologized for being late. He had to counsel a battered woman for whom he had arranged transportation to a shelter. "I pray for you and for Lorinda too," he said.

"Reverend, I will accept all the responsibility for what I did," Tami said, gravely, as those near her turned and watched. "I'm glad I have so many friends, but what I did was..."

"I pray it turns out well for you and for her," the gray- haired minister said. "So does my congregation."

After he left, Rod and Tami sipped their drinks and looked out onto the nighttime airport. They were approached by Gretchen, in a sensible long black dress, who had been staying in the background. The two young women looked at each other.

Gretchen's eyes reddened and she sniffled. "I share a little of your pain, I suppose."

They didn't hug but instead clasped hands. Rod looked down and gently shook his head. They had heard the news earlier today. Roger's tour had been extended at the last minute, just as Joe's had. It was worse when it's a fiance, as opposed to a brother. He thought of the intimate moments Gretchen and Roger had been looking forward to. Now, put off till next year. That is, IF he came back at all.

Trent came by with a revised "Tami Original" logo. The girl holding the coat was more obviously naked now. One breast could now be seen. "I think Jeffrey would have gotten a kick out of it," Tami said. "It's the least I could do," Trent said. His new boyfriend Cyril came up and put his arm around his shoulder. "Life goes on," Trent continued. "Tam, you're coming to the end of another phase of your wonderful life. I get the feeling this one's going to end happy. Maybe surprising, but happy."

Jen and her father stopped by. Jen wordlessly hugged her naked old friend, then playfully flicked a nipple, then looked admiringly down at the flecked pubic hair. She whispered in Tami's ear, "I SO want to lick you right now!" "Stop!" Tami said. "Please have mercy. I had to take a cold shower before we came here!"

Rod looked around. It was not exactly a happy occasion, but people could get their minds off Tami's predicament and talk about other things. Of course, her situation didn't apply to them. There was no uproarious laughter but the conversation was lively.

There was an observation deck above the restaurant, a glass- enclosed bubble, reachable by stairs. Homer Winant sat up there in his wheelchair with the lights off, listening to the hubbub below, taking in the 360-degree view of what stars could be seen in the glare of the lights, watching the occasional small plane land or take off. He put his martini on the railing that ran along the sides. He sensed someone behind him and turned. It was Tami, who had crept up silently on her bare feet, looking up at the sky, her toes twisting against the cold hard marble floor.

Somehow she didn't know he was there. She placed her heel up on the railing and leaned her head down onto her leg, a ballet stretch.

Homer watched the play of muscles in her perfectly formed butt, the turn of the jiggling breast, the gentle valley of the spine. Then he decided to not remain covert. "Hello, Miss Smithers."

Tami turned. "Oh hi, Homer," she said quietly, continuing to stretch.

"Best of luck to you," he said.

"Thanks."

"Also, best of luck on the experiment to get you into clothes. I've heard something about it. From what I understand, it might work, it might not."

Tami straightened up and faced her drink on the railing. "I'm sure it will," she said. She had gotten a second martini and tookg the first sips. She idly scratched a nipple and continued to look out.

Homer plucked an olive out of his. "I see we're both martini people."

Tami looked his way.

"Too strong for most folks."

This got a little smile, which pleased him.

"How did those new ice skates work out?" The ones made out of wood, that he had designed so that they could bear Tami up without covering any part of her foot.

"Excellent. You're a genius. Everyone knows that."

"Thanks," he said, turning to face her head on across the circular deck. "Ever since I lost the use of my legs, my mind has improved. That's how I invented the full body flexor, that you tried out when you were a freshman, that gives everyone a real workout now at the Rec Center."

Tami took a big sip. "The hamster wheel."

"What?"

A pause. "When I was sweating on it, up at the Dixon Mill, when I was eighteen, all stretched out. And anyone who wanted could just come by and look at me, every part of me. I used to think of it as 'the hamster wheel',"

"Well, I didn't know your true situation then."

"Of course."

He paused. So much unspoken, but they understood each other. "That was another life. You won out over those creeps and came out naked and happy about it."

He was gauging her reactions. This comment elicited none. So he went on with what he was going to say.

"Back when I had my legs, I was just another stupid wrench, working on tractors and lawnmowers, the low man on the totem pole over there. Then I slipped off that icy roof. Now I've invented that body flexor, and those skates... and I've patented those, and seven other designs, all in what they call these days 'ergonomics'. Professor Konrad might be the world's biggest fruitcake but he knows his stuff.

"Stuck in this chair, I learned to watch people. And in the back of my mind I'm always thinking about how people move, how their legs work. That's how I get the ideas. I lost my legs, so now I keep thinking about how it must be to have them. It turned my mind on."

Tami sipped and looked out as if trying to make out Orion in the glare. The lights of an incoming mini-jet played faintly over the slopes of her breasts, then along the hollow of her tummy. "I'm sure you'd rather have your legs back."

"True. But they're gone. In their place, I've been given a big gift. How could I not use it? Being legless AND stupid, that would be the worst of both worlds. It's my role in life to be legless and smart. So I grab that gift and make the most of it. That's the way to happiness."

Tami and Homer remained up there in the observation deck for some time, Homer glancing over at Tami from time to time, Tami looking at the stars.

Finally Tami said, "See you later, Homer," and descended the stairs with the gracefulness of a trained gymnast, holding her drink.

Gretchen had been holding Tami's cell phone. Now it rang. "Tami! It's your dad!"

Tami stood in the corner with it for a few minutes, then sat cross-legged on the floor, her bare butt cheeks pressed against the polished coldness. Then she closed the little clamshell and went over to Rod and hugged him.

"Thanks Baby," she said. "Dad is OK. He says he's sorry." She had a lump in her throat for sure. "That's not easy for him to say."

Rod felt good, having stuck his neck out, been brave for Tami, for a change.

Now Tami, her mood having totally changed, ran her toes along the leg of his pants. "I think I owe you..."

Part 69

She had gotten him naked in the kitchen, and they had hugged there, then walked hand in hand through the living room. It felt unusual. He didn't usually walk around naked, but it felt nice, like an interracial Adam and Eve, about to walk into the world and procreate a race of tan-skinned children.

She had something in mind and he didn't know what it was. He thought of that "solidarity dinner". She was melancholy until that phone call from her father. That changed everything. He was so proud of himself for getting up the courage to make that long trip down to Providence, unbeknown to her, taking a personal day while she thought he was at work. Good thing she didn't call on the cell. On the way back from the dinner, she had said, "I can take anything now. I've got you, Baby, and my dad and the rest of my family, and all my friends..."

Now she was up to something as she led him naked into their bedroom. It had to be for his pleasure, not hers. She was determined to stay unsatisfied until the great status orgasmus expriment, the shock treatment that would reverse her clothing allergy, scheduled for this Saturday. It had been a while since she had taken charge of giving him pleasure, not since that disastrous week when she had tried greeting him upon his return from work with a different idea each day.

It was with a lot of nervousness that he agreed to be tied to the bed. Of course he trusted Tami, so he was surprised at his hesitation. "Just let go," Tami said, as she tied his ankles to the little posts below and his wrists to the tall posts at the head, with soft cords that she seemed to have bought for the occasion.