Summer Trouble
by Chessman
[continued from Sitter Trouble]Bruce asked his parents if he could escort Lara to Gramma Finn’s birthday party at the senior center. The Wilkes knew of how Bruce came to his relationship with Lara; while not fully approving, they believed in second chances. “The girl,” his mother had said,” is not a bad girl in the criminal sense. She is a typical teen who made some very poor choices.”
Mr. Wilkes concurred, “She could be one of our daughters, or our son,” he looked Bruce in the eye, “particularly if our son does not get his yard work done by dark tonight.”
Services ended at eleven thirty. The party was from noon until two thirty. Bruce agreed to be home by three and have the work completed by six, or dinnertime.
The senior center was across the street and down the block from the church, an easy walk. “You know, the pastor wanted to be the one who gave you relief. He thought it would be a true humiliation and a lesson learned by all the children in his congregation. When I heard that, I had to volunteer, sweetie, I would rather you be embarrassed by someone you love than humiliated by a stranger, and a man at that,” her grandmother chatted with the still weak-kneed Lara.
“Right now I love you and hate you equally, Gram. I love you for taking charge of the situation and doing what you did. My relief was mind blowing, heavens be you have technique and touch and I’m glad it wasn’t our first time either. I was too busy in my moment to notice, what was the reaction of those people in the pews?”
“Most of my age group and some of the older parents of children tried to look away, they felt I think like those called to witness an execution. Most did not want to see the actual decisive moment. Many of the teens were fully attentive yet looked horrified. As you kids say, it was an OMG moment. They realized the pastor and board of deacons was completely serious about any of them found under discipline having to undergo the same treatment. I also think there was a smattering in all age groups that found this voyeuristically stimulating. Several hands were working in several laps, Mr. Jensen among them. Yes, I know he is a grabber and groper - everyone does, but it overlooked because of his palsy and dementia, not quite Alzheimer’s, but slipping in that direction. He still thinks it is nineteen forty-four when pinching a girl’s bottom or slapping her behind was a complement. He probably thought he was lucky enough to wander into a girlie show at a carnival or some such.” Gramma Finn giggled.
The party was uneventful. Balloons, strung about black and silver, along with the usual sandwiches and salads, and a large sheet cake reading Happy Birthday Silvia. The girls circulated in the room and Gramma’s friends readily accepted both girls as they were. The older women told Kayla so many times, “Why don’t you get comfortable and join your sister?” That finally Carla whispered, “you are under rules, they are your elders.”
Kayla unsnapped the neck strap of her sundress and for the second time since arriving home found herself nude in public. She handed her mother the dress and continued on as if nothing happened. Lara looked, “Mom, told me this might happen. The old gals told you to take it off, huh?”
“Yeah, these rules take some getting used to,” Kayla grinned, “Want to cause some mischief?” She whispered in her sister’s ear. Lara responded, “You devil, THAT is something I should have thought up.” Both girls laughed.
Two naked girls were soon seen whispering in their grandmother’s ears. Gramma Finn broke out into a grin. She called Carla to her side, and whispered into her ear. Carla jerked upright her jaw dropping and Silvia patted the table in front of her. Carla unsnapped her sundress and joined her daughters, totally naked.
Gramma Finn had whispered, “As your mother-in-law and the girls’ grandparent, I have authority over you. I suggest you join your girls in their nudity, since if you had provided more discipline to them neither of them would find themselves having to be naked in public.”
When Carla jerked upright and began to protest, she was simply told, “You can strip and be done with it or argue, be stripped anyway AND be spanked.” Gramma had patted the table demonstrating she was serious. Carla had removed her dress. Her untrimmed pubic hair fluffed out and the ends of her slightly sagging breasts presented stiff eraser pointed nipples.
Bruce wandered over to Lara, “Hey your sister is cute, but your Mom, wow, I see now where you get it from.”
“Actually I take after my Dad and my Gramma,” Lara said. “Kayla is closer to my Mom in looks and shape. My guess is this is your first naked MILF and you had better stop staring or Gramma will have you stripped naked next.”
“If I could be naked next to you while you are naked, that would not be too bad,” Bruce smiled and pecked her on the cheek.” Then looking at his watch, “OMG I promised my folks I’d be home to do yard work. I have to get going or I WILL be naked beside you.”
“Mom,” Lara asked her mother, “Is it okay if I go over to Bruce’s place and help him clean his yard. You know, weeding and stuff?”
“Don’t get your party clothes dirty, young lady,” Her mother teased. Carla then twirled about utterly enjoying her nudity. Nakedness had been casual in the Finn house. Carla was now thinking it might become mandatory.
Lara kissed her Gramma goodbye, said her goodbye’s to all the people at the party and left on Bruce’s arm. His house was less than two blocks away and they made it through the gate at two fifty nine. Bruce leaned down and pulled a weed. “There. I started the job on time. Let me get changed and we can get continue.”
“Here's an idea, just take off what you're wearing and we’ll get started,” Lara smiled.
“You want me to get naked in front of you?” Bruce’s voice elevated to a squeak.
“You have seen my mother, my sister, and me naked. Fair is fair and it will save on laundry later.” Lara joked.
“Okay, but I have to warn you I’m not nearly as pretty as you are in the buff.” Bruce pulled off his shirt, kicked off the boat shoes he had on and dropped his pants. Folding both and placing them on a deck chair he removed the briefs that were is last barrier of modesty. Then he turned around slowly.
Lara looked at what she saw with awe. He was lean, not overly muscled, about two inches taller than she was and totally hairless. Pockmark scars covered his shoulders and upper back. A few more scars showed on his upper legs and buttocks and even more running from his navel to his pubic area.
“Psoriatic acne,” he stated evenly, “Before the doctors could control it the damage went this far. The cure was a cancer drug. The side effect was I lost all my hair for two years. All that has grown back is what is on my head. His crooked grin seemed to say without words, ‘I must look like a leper who should be driven from the village.’
“That’s an autoimmune disease, right? Like lupus or the Crohn's Disease that took my Dad? You didn’t ask for it and if they found a way to stop it in you, I am happy for you. Heck if it will make you feel like we are a couple I’ll shave off all of my hair, including my head. I don’t like you because of the packaging, Bruce, I like the beautiful present the packaging holds,” Lara told her boyfriend. He said not a word, just wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.
“Come on, we have until six to get this job done, or my nakedness will no longer be voluntary.”
Five forty-five came and the bushes were trimmed, the weeds pulled and the grass mowed in neat patterns both rear and front yards. The couple took turns dancing under the hose to rinse off the grass and cuttings sticking to them. Standing together wet and naked they did not hear the Wilkes’ slip out of the patio door and approach the Weber grill.
His mom cleared her throat, “Bruce, why are you naked?”
Bruce turned with his shoulders lowered and a full body blush creeping over him. “Lara convinced me it would save on laundry later?” he sheepishly replied.
His dad then said, “Lara, do you eat steak? We are grilling tonight and we would like you to stay for dinner. Dress is casual, if you were wondering. Bruce, you will stay as you are.”
“Steak is fine Mr. Wilkes, medium if possible. Mrs. Wilkes, is there anything I can do to help you? Set the table or anything?”
“No, we are fine, do you want to call your mother and tell her you are staying for dinner?”
“Good idea, I have to tell her I did not soil my party clothes, well I did, but I cleaned them right away,” she giggled.
When she went to make the call, Bruce told his parents, “That was an inside joke, last thing Mrs. Finn told Lara when she asked to come help me do yard work was for Lara not to dirty her party clothes.”
His parents laughed. Then his father spoke, “You may not have made the deadline if Lara had not helped you. I am not so sure you were in complete compliance under the rules. We decided when we saw how well you two worked together, to give you this one. But, you are to remain nude until school tomorrow, understood?”
Bruce nodded the affirmative as Lara walked back in. “I was warned again by my sister to not be late for curfew. What time does the sun set tonight? If I’m not in fifteen minutes before then the JPO can pick me up.”
“I believe it is eight ten tonight,” Mr. Wilkes said, “Just let me check that on the computer.” He returned in three minutes to say, “Sunset is eight twelve to be precise. We will drive you home so that you may scamper into your backdoor unseen if you wind up too close to your time.”
“Or, since you are already dressed for school, if you wished to sleep over here tonight that is also a possibility. Bruce has bunk beds; he can clear the action figures off the top bunk for you.” Mrs. Wilkes suggested.
Bruce went from flaccid to fully erect when his mother made the suggestion. Mr. Wilkes looked, rolled his eyes, and said, “Honey, that might not be such a good idea.”
“Stand up, Bruce,” his mother ordered, by her tone he knew it was not a suggestion, “Show Lara what the thought of her spending he night did to you.”
Bruce stood and his erection stood tall and straight and out from his stomach by four inches. His mother pushed it in to his abdomen and it stopped one inch shy of his navel.
“Nice, isn’t it?” She said this to Lara, “One of the side effects of his treatment he may not have mentioned is he is sterile.” Bruce flinched at her touch when his mother said that. “The doctors say he MAY resume producing sperm in the future, but he is tested every six months and thus far nothing. So, even if you two find yourselves so deep in lusty rut that you cannot stop yourselves, your Mom and we have no worries about early grandparenthood.”
“She’s saying she’s okay if we have sex,” Bruce said with a tone in his voice that was more than upset but less than angry. His father smiled over his shoulder and added, “Even if you were not sterile, son, there is plenty of contraception in the house. Between your sisters and brother, you could find what you need in any bedroom in this house.”
His twenty-year-old brother was at Parris Island in the Marines. His two sisters were away for the weekend with friends at the shore. One girl was nineteen and the other eighteen. Bruce was the youngest in the family.
Dinner was uneventful and full of lively conversation about Bruce and his siblings growing up. One girl, the older one, was now entering sophomore year at Templeton University; the younger would start at Ammerville College in the fall. Bruce also wished to go to Ammerville, but his safe school was Central University West Hamlin, where Kayla Finn attended. Lara admitted she had slacked off so badly in her junior year she did not know if she could get accepted to CUWH and she might have to stay home and go to community college first.
“It is all about the tests and the admissions thesis,” Mrs. Wilkes told Lara. “If you can score highly enough on your college boards and write an exceptional essay, most schools will admit you even with one slumping year grade point average. Use your essay to explain your slump. Plus you still have finals this year to use to pull up your grades.”
“What would I need to go from a 2.3 GPA to a 3.0 where I was second semester? Lara asked.
“Probably 4.0 across the board on your finals and papers,” Bruce answered her. “It is not impossible and if we work hard, together we can make a good try at it. My folks are both educators, Mom edits textbooks and Dad is finishing a dissertation on Etruscan romantic literature for his doctorate in ancient languages. Between the three of us, we should be able to tutor you back up to a solid B.”
“Bruce won’t admit to it but he is the math and computer geek in the family,” Mr. Wilkes added. “So your world history, English and math are covered. What else do you need help with?”
“Sciences, I was lost in Earth Science and totally lost in chemistry,” Lara said. “I had to take Earth Science this year because of the mix up in freshman year.”
“Oh, you were one of the bridge kids,” Mrs. Wilkes said, “The ones who came in to West End when South Bend was closed with mold.”
“Yeah, and West End did not have enough science lab space for us so we were told we would make it up once we got back in our school building.” Lara said.
“Vera can help with that, if we can get her on board,” Bruce suggested. His oldest sister was a sciences major/pre med at Templeton.
“She will help, no question.” His father stated as though he had something to hang over the older girl’s head.
* * *
Lara spent the next three weeks naked in school. After the first day of gawks and some sly touching, it became the new normal for Lara to present at the front of the class or write on the dry erase board and soon no one seemed to notice her nudity. The biggest change was Lara participating and involving herself intelligently in class. Her answers were mostly correct when called upon, her papers were flawlessly worded and in proper format, and somehow she had begun to grasp the elements of fundamental trigonometry.
Drilled on the eras of geologic time she now knew that rock was of three basic types, Cambrian was much older than Quaternary, and could explain the basics of soil erosion. She walked through the chemistry practicum exam, understood the formula for the chemical composition she would make, added and heated her solutions correctly and finished with a solid crystal of potassium iodide. Her English paper on the Scarlet Letter referenced such obscurities as Meredith Wilson’s use of Hawthorne’s characters in the Music Man’s song, ‘A Sadder But Wiser Girl”, and the possible biblical reference of the A to the mark of the Beast in the book of Revelation.
Every thing she turned in had the quality and content of something done at a higher academic level than junior year of public high school. When Carla Finn was called to explain the turn around, she smiled and said, ask Bruce Wilkes. Bruce told the principal that Lara was his steady girlfriend now, and as a member of his family by extension academic failure was not an option. The principal compared her work of the first and second marking periods to the work now. It was consistent and slightly improved. The period the girl was with Todd, as her boyfriend, seemed to explain her slump. She finished the year with a squeak by 3.0.
When Carla Finn told her daughter her reward for turning her life around was the return of her clothing, Lara responded, “Thanks Mom, but no thanks. Life naked has been good for me and at least until September I’d like to stay this way.” Her temporary D in marker her mother replaced with a sterling neck chain with a D pendant.
That was what she wore to prom; well that and a wrist corsage of lilies. Ignoring the beauty and the beast references tossed by some other cruel teens there, Bruce joined her in nudity. The two danced every dance and obviously enjoyed each other’s company the whole evening. When friends become lovers it is a line that can never be retracted. They had waited, though all parents were fine if they had, to have sex until prom night. Bruce spent the night at the Finn house. Lara had a full size bed and it did not squeak as Bruce’s bunk bed did.
They say revenge is a dish best eaten cold. Ellie Kmetko was proof of that by example. On her way to her middle school formal dance celebrating the end of year Lara, and Bruce with his video camera, stopped Ellie at the car door. “Ellie, may I ask you a question?”
“Well, I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“Ellie, I wish to ask you a question.” Lara repeated. Mrs. Kmetko looked at her daughter and told her, “You will not go anywhere until you answer Lara.”
“Go ahead and ask,” Ellie replied.
“Did you shoot video of me the day I went under discipline?” Lara asked.
“NO!” Ellie shook her head and tried to go to the car.
“If not you, then who did shoot video of me going under discipline from your parent’s bedroom window?”
Rolling her eyes and thinking as fast as she could the girl screeched, “Emma”.
“Oh, Emma shot the video,” Lara waved to Mr. Kmetko and Bud brought his already nude oldest around to the front of the house from the side yard.
“Emma, did you shoot video of me being stripped in discipline from your parents bedroom window?” Lara asked her.
“Yes, ma’am I did, and I’m very sorry about it.” Emma replied honestly.
“Sorry you did it or sorry you were caught at it?”
“Truly sorry I did it, ma’am, and I know you will be paddling me for it at some time soon.” Emma responded.
“Now, then Ellie, did you post that video on YouTube?”
She was caught; Lara and her parents both knew the answers to the questions she was being asked, “Yes, yes I did. I thought it would be funny. I thought when we showed it to you the night you sat with us that we could embarrass you into letting us do what we wanted. If that is all the questions you have I am late for my party.”
“Not only late, but very overdressed. I had four items of clothing when I was stripped for discipline, I would like four items of clothing from you, now, please.” Lara held out her hand.
“Strip little girl, or I will do it for you, and paddle your rear end raw before you go to the dance instead of later,” Mrs. Kmetko told her daughter so sternly that she knew disobedience was not an option.
“Mom, I…” the blubbering began. “Bud, get the yardstick,” from Gloria.
Buttons unbuttoned and the lacy party frock that once covered Ellie from shoulder to knee was a puddle at her feet.
“That is one, you owe me three more articles of clothing.” Lara told her.
“All I have are my panties and knee socks,” The girl wailed.
“Off with them then, and we shall be even.” Lara stood firm.
The girl raised one foot then the other to remove her shoes and then pulled down and off each sock in turn. She stood in frilly lace party panties and nothing else.
“Well, you still owe me one more piece,” Lara tapped her foot and Gloria Kmetko hefted the yardstick Bud brought her.
Thumbs at the hip sides of the waistband Ellie wiggled out of her panties, folded them on the rest of her clothing and handed the pile over to Lara. Tears streaking her face, the youngest Kmetko daughter knew what was next.
“Okay, get in the car, you have a party to get to and you are already fashionably late.” Lara told her.
Ellie’s wails of protest to her mother as they drove off could be heard even through the closed windows of the car.
{that’s all, folks}
The End