The Humper Game Pt. 02 Ch. 18

"Thus, we have great need of people able to reason from apparently unconnected data. You've shown this capability, and a number of very desirable practical skills, such as the means you chose to pass information to Ms. Miller. That is, the choice of means was very good, but the ability to improvise and see the possibility is something we need.

"We have no way of looking into the future, to see what you'll be like in a few years. We have what we think are good ideas about it, but they'll have to be measured against your college work and particularly your job performance for a few years. We hope you'll do very well, and that you'll see the value of what we do here and want to protect it. That's even more important than any skills, however crucial they are to us.

"As far as we reasonably can, we recruit from graduates of our school, for many reasons, but for two above all. First, we have a lot more information about them than about anyone else, and thus have a much better idea how they will do. And second, the converse. They know us, to a good extent. You are quite aware that not all staff members are former students, since you have shown you know my own background.

"I'm telling you this, now, so that if someone comes to you in a few years to ask you to come back here on staff, you will have had some time to be forming an answer. Our need may be urgent, and we may not be able to wait while you think everything through ab initio.

"Do you have any questions right now? And should you think of any over the rest of the year, please ask to see me and raise them."

I thought for a moment. "I have at least a couple, one directly related, the other nosy curiosity which may help me understand. First, you make it sound as though the need is particularly crucial right now, or will be in the near future, anyway. Is that right?"

"It is. We are always in danger, but the social and political climate has been tilting more and more rapidly toward a general instability, and toward official hostility toward us and what we stand for. We have no military means to defend ourselves, we're far too small, and that would be a disastrous distraction for us in any case. We're quite concerned. I'm afraid, very seriously, that we will need you before you can be ready."

"How did you, yourself, come to be on staff here, particularly in your present roles?"

"The entire process was complex and not something I may discuss. I think this may answer your real question. If it doesn't, ask again, in more specific terms. I found myself more and more concerned about trends I saw, and fearful for the future of my country. I didn't see any way I might oppose what I saw, not with any real effect. I didn't consider running for high office an option, and I thought it unlikely to help. Apparently, I came to someone's notice as I looked for a way."

"Finally, at least maybe this is the last, Ms. Miller. I'm not very sure why you're here right now, since you haven't said anything. As I said, this is really simple curiosity, but it may tell me something I need to know. Quine, say, is an entertaining writer, but he and Wittgenstein and others you've been studying at your station are hardly light reading. And it's hard to imagine any of them as directly related to either PhysEd or security. Why on earth are you studying them?"

She and Mr. Miles looked at each other and smiled. "Excellent question. You may be right about their direct relevance, certainly you are as far as being a gym teacher goes. But they raise important questions, and if nothing else, the exercise of thinking about those in depth may be valuable. In much the same way that Miles's skills at chess are, and I believe you're aware of those.

"But beyond that, I would have thought that you'd have recognized by now that I'm not by nature anyone's first choice as a PE instructor. I did well enough at it in school, and I've always been more active than most of my peers, but it's not where my real skills and interests are. I also tutor students in philosophy. I hope that doesn't seem impossible to you. I might have worked with you, in the one independent study course you did, but Mrs. French did that time.

"But I too often approach things in abstract terms. You've seen one case, where in many ways this was a disaster or near disaster, because I didn't think about real people as real people. At the beginning of this year—. Excuse me. During the last year, we—Miles and I and several others—noted that your class, in particular, was not remaining physically fit. And you probably have figured out that the trend away from physical activity is one of the cultural changes we are concerned about, which Miles spoke of earlier. We all felt something had to be done. I came up with the idea of this game as a means of doing so.

"Well, as you saw, there were serious problems with it. Possibly the most serious, which I should never have ignored, was that in attempting to use a, um, playful simulation of rape as motivation, on both sides, it actually allowed, and perhaps encouraged, something approaching the real thing to take place. I was allowed to learn that, and several other problems, firsthand, as you saw. I was outraged at Miles for letting that happen to me, until he managed to drive home that I had not had the least concern about its happening to any of the girls in your class. The rules did not protect them, but I expected them to protect me, and I was very wrong in this. It was a humbling experience, over and above the physical pain involved, and I hope I have learned from it. And once again, I thank you for your part in seeing that it ended and that some other people also received a needed lesson. From the bottom of my heart."

I stuck in, "There were a lot of other serious problems—though it does seem to have had some effect in the direction it was intended to. And though I personally benefited immensely from it, in many ways."

"You're right, there were many serious flaws. Do you mind telling me which ones you are thinking of?"

"For one thing, the incentives weren't well designed. More than one girl told me, for example, that the prospect of my catching her was no incentive to becoming a fitter runner—though there were other boys in the class of whom that wasn't true. But in general, after a little time to get used to it all, I think most of the girls found the prospect of having to have sex—with some random boy—to be no great penalty. And while the prospect of having a dildo stuck up one's ass was probably a good negative incentive for the boys, the prospect of applying this was generally not all that attractive to the girls. So the boys were more highly motivated than the girls, by this game.

"Possibly worse, though, it rather preempted the official hands-on sex ed. I think I gained from this, though it may have made my life more difficult too. But I think this was a serious problem for most of us. Even given the quality of most peoples' instruction, from what I've seen. If it's worth instructing us, you need to instruct us before we do it for weeks on our own."

"Can you come up with something better? We're still facing the same problem regarding fitness."

"I haven't thought of anything, and I have tried, some. But I do honestly think in this case the cure was worse than the disease, even though, as I said, for me it worked out spectacularly well."

"We don't disagree with you on that, at all, including the point about yourself."

I looked at her. "Thank you for taking me seriously at almost every point, not today, but through this year. In doing so, you inevitably exposed information I probably shouldn't have had. Thank you for trusting me so far, as well as for certain very enjoyable, but completely unexpected, times.

"I don't know of any other questions to ask. The time will come for telling me where I'm likely to be going to school, or what my options are, however that is handled. I won't be dumb enough to ask you about that now. Is there anything else I need to know now, or that you need to ask me now?"

Mr. Miles stood up, followed by Ms. Miller and me. "I believe that's all. I personally feel sure that we will meet here again in a few years, but time will tell. Use your time wisely, Morris." He shook my hand again.

Ms. Miller, on the other hand, gave me a hug, albeit brief, and a kiss on the cheek. "Morris, the game was indeed a flop if not worse, though not an unmitigated one. I find I can't regret the degree to which it put me into contact with you. I also fully expect you to be back here in a few years. I don't foresee that kind of contact, then, I'm afraid. But if you are here as a colleague, I'll be pleased."

"Thank you both for your time." I meant it. I was pretty sure that knowing all that would be helpful.

I left, checking out with the monitor, and finding no one waiting for me in the cafeteria I went back to my own room to study. I truly was mostly caught up, but some of the newer assignments still needed work, and reviewing for Monday's and Tuesday's classes would be helpful. I had lost rather a lot of the study time I'd been expecting that morning.

After a good while, though, there was a knock at my door. One of the other boys had been asked, by the monitor, to tell me that someone wished to speak to me. I left my stuff and went out. Sam, Jenny, and Ellen were there. "We thought you would come over and let us know when you got back," Sam told me. "Come on and we'll study in the cafeteria."

"Let me get my stuff," I said. I hurried to my room and collected things, and then hurried back. We found that our usual table was vacant, with no one close enough to be bothered by us. We dug into studying. The girls were working on different things than I was, Ellen because her classwork was just different, the others mostly because they'd already worked on what I had left, and vice versa. Nonetheless, the back-and-forth helped, and we got help with questions and problems.

Eventually, lunchtime rolled around. We collected our stuff and then went off after food. Ellen and Deedee again came and sat with us. I got up to greet each of them with a hug.

When the signal sounded, we collected things to take back. Some stuff had spilled, and Ellen (M) got a sponge and wiped the table off. We all quickly gathered to talk about the afternoon.

"Phil and Deedee are taking a nap. I'm taking one too," Sam said. "I think we're about as studied up as we can get, and, um, the usual activities aren't available. I have some things I need to discuss with Phil, and Jenny and Ellen need to be there for that, so we should be in my room, soon after the mid-afternoon signal. If someone comes up with something for all of us to do, I'd say come by my room maybe an hour after the signal."

No one objected. I hugged them all goodbye, except Deedee. Deedee and I stopped in the lavatory, heading for her room. I had my class stuff with me, which made things a little awkward, but I was used to it.

When we got to her room, she closed the door. She held me and gave me a kiss. She said, "Phil, we're here to sleep. I wish one more quickie were on the program, but it's out for a week, and then you'll be back to someone else if you get a nap at all. Right now, you lie down and let me do something to help you get to sleep."

I had a pretty good idea where this was heading. I said, "Deedee, you don't have to do that."

"I know. But I want to. I owe you, pretty big. The first time, I wanted you in my ass, and I knew you don't like that much but you did it. I wanted to see if it could ever actually be good. And it was."

"By the way, for your future reference. It generally works better for the woman if one of you can work on your pussy. Your position didn't let me do that, or I would have, but it didn't let you, either."

"Not the way you're thinking, no, and probably not as well as my fingers or even yours would have done, but I could rub against my foot, and that was all I needed." She gave me a slightly naughty grin, which looked beautiful on her. "If you want to do that now, we can try any position you want."

"Absolutely not."

"Well, how many times did I come last night? You had me to the point where I couldn't think about anything like keeping count. So I owe you a few, and you're going to collect one now, one way or the other."

I lay down on my back, and she unfastened my shorts and pulled them down with the briefs. She was careful in getting them over my cock. She licked a few times up and down, and took it in and sucked for a moment, then came off and said, "I really ought to tease you for a while, after last night. But I owe you some sleep, too, so let's keep this short." She added, after a moment, "Remember, deep throat is out."

As she started in, I told her, "One time, um, during our afternoon practice session the second day, Sam teased me. That's really where I got the idea. I got so frustrated I finally grabbed her head and forced myself down into her throat. I'm not proud of that, I'm telling you as a warning for you, and not about you with me. I hope."

She kept going. I did really want this nap, so I tried to hurry things up, and it didn't take very long.

When she was done, she went to the sink and rinsed out her mouth, while I pulled my shorts back up and fastened them. She set her alarm and lay down next to me. We snuggled together, and we were both soon asleep.

When the alarm woke us up, I was deeply asleep, and it took me a while to know where I was and what was happening. Deedee had turned the alarm off well before I was really awake.

She kissed me, and we got up. It was about fifteen minutes shy of the mid-afternoon signal. I washed my face, and started to feel like maybe I knew what I was doing again.

She said, "I'm not going to insist on paying back another installment now. I hope I'll get another chance at something for me, sometime, but that's up to you and your partners. For right now, kiss me, before I send you back to Sam." She added, "I hope the nap was enough to catch up on what we missed last night. Thank you for not making me sleep alone." She kissed me, or I kissed her.

I said, "I didn't want to get you that interested."

"That's fine. I'll get over it. Thank you for last night."

I went out to the monitor's station, via the lavatory. She took one look at me and said, "Have a good nap?"

"Not nearly long enough." I gave her Sam's room number, 32, and she checked me out and back in.

I went down to Sam's room and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, and a minute later Sam, looking very sleepy indeed, opened it. "Oh. Is it that late already?"

"Didn't you set an alarm? We did. You look about like I felt maybe fifteen minutes ago."

She yawned. I said, "You said, 'Tell you later.' It's later."

She hugged me and kissed me, but the kiss dissolved into a yawn. "I'm sorry, I guess it will be a few minutes yet." She yawned again. "Well, I need to tell you, but I need to tell Jenny and Ellen, too, or I'll have to say it again, and if any of you has comments they'll kind of get lost." She kissed me again, and it felt a little more like a kiss. "And I've got to pee. Phil, can you go get them, or at least check their rooms? Here. You take this." And just like that, she handed me her key. "Please don't lose it. You come back here, with both of them if you can. I'll come back pretty quickly. You wait in here for me, or else you'll find me waiting for you outside and very unhappy about it."

"Then you'd better take your key back. I'll go with you to the lavatory, and we'll both go look for them. We'll either come back here or talk in one of their rooms." She took the key, tucked it in her pocket and buttoned it, and went to the door. I put my stuff on her desk, and we went out.

"Mind you, it makes me love you even more, every time you trust me with your key," I said softly. She looked at me in surprise, but didn't say anything.

I took the chance to pee again, myself, and then washed my hands and waited for her. It took her a few minutes, and then she washed her hands. As we walked back, she said, "Come in my room instead. I told them I'd be there about this time. Remember? I was too sleepy to think, a few minutes ago."

We went in and sat. This was Sam, remember. I knew she was still dead asleep, because she just sat. She didn't come and sit in my lap or anything suggesting affection. Finally, she said, "We'll give them a while longer. If they don't show, I don't know whether we should go out and look or I should just tell you. Phil, you know I love you. Don't you?"

It seemed pretty obvious what she had to tell about, general outline but no details. "I know. Tell me when we get to the right point. I probably know what, but not how and who, after all this buildup. And I love you."

A few minutes later, she said, "I think I'm about waked up. Thank you for just letting me sit. And I was thinking about coming and sitting in your lap, and I realized that would turn us both on, and I shouldn't this week. At least, not without discussion. I know you'd welcome me anyway, though."

At about this point there was a knock on the door, and it was Jenny and Ellen together. They looked chipper enough. "The ones who got enough sleep last night didn't wake up groggy from a nap. I'm glad you two waited long enough for me, and especially Sam, to wake up a little. Sam's really not up to par yet, though. I've had a little longer."

Jenny said, "Actually, I could have used another hour or more. Someone next door was busy with her partner a lot last night. Grabbing their last chance for a week, I think. And that girl knows how to keep it quiet—I'm going to have words with her." She was smiling as she said this, though. She saw me grinning at her. "And no, I was being good, in my own bed by myself. I kind of hope I get a night with you, soon, though, even if it is just sleep. Or almost."

Sam said, "I promised this morning to explain to Phil why I needed a nap. I know you all know, in general. Here are the details. After Ellen took him away, and then later he came to kiss us goodbye after their nap, I was kind of at loose ends. My classwork was pretty much done, plenty far along anyway. Phil was out of reach, for good reasons, and I was going to have to wait more than a week for him, the way I wanted him and still do. So I went out to the cafeteria and kind of wandered. I sat down on the outsides of various little groups and listened.

"And do you know what?" she said, sounding almost like she was about to start crying. "Almost without exception, all except a few where everyone was studying hard, they greeted me and made me welcome. They asked where Phil was, just asking why he wasn't there with me. They brought me into their conversations, if they really were just talking. It was wonderful, people never treated me that way before—before—"

I was afraid she really would break down. "Before it all happened."

She looked at me gratefully. "Thank you, that's it, exactly. Too many things to list, but you know them all. But anyway, I was so happy!

"But at one group, after I'd gone through the where-Phil-is stuff yet again—and Phil, I made it plain every single time that I was happy for you!—well, it was all couples except this one guy. You remember the guy who was with Jenny, in that swapping assignment? We all thought he was pretty nice, then, you remember. Art Gumby. Anyway, the two of us were at the edge of the group, and he and I kind of sat and talked, the two of us.

"He told me he had learned so much from watching you that time, you know, that was Barbara and Nancy. He said it looked like Barbara was scared or at least hesitant, for some reason, and I didn't let on that I knew anything about that! But you obviously had agreed on what she would allow, he said, not on what you wanted, and you kept consulting her before going on. And in the end, she came, and he had seen that this was something of a minor miracle.