Chapter 1: The weird thing about my mother

I've always liked gym class. I like getting hot and sweaty, and even feeling sore all over, but in a good way, you know? I think that's why Miss Squires and me are such good friends. Or at least as much friends as a fifteen year old high school sophomore can be with her gym teacher and cheerleading coach. She likes to make me feel like that too – Hot, sweaty, and especially sore!

That's why Miss Squires talked me into becoming a cheerleader. Not that I wasn't going to try out in the first place! I was born to be a cheerleader, I think, because I have long legs, a tight round butt and really firm boobs, even though they aren't really big yet. Miss Squires says they're the perfect size though and she doesn't much care for those "overdeveloped girls with udders instead of tits" to put it in her own words. But boys seem to like those kind of boobs, so I don't know for sure if Miss Squires really feels like that, or if she just likes to say the opposite of what a man might say. She's like that sometimes.

Miss Squires has small boobies too, which might explain a lot. They're just a little bigger than mine and so firm that she never wears a bra at all. So her nipples are almost always right there in your face, especially since they're really dark and she just wears a plain white t-shirt, but it's about two sizes too small and really tight, and tucked into her black nylon shorts. They're pretty tight too usually. Miss Squires can do that though because first of all she's the coach, and second of all she says she's 5'6" and 130lbs of hard female muscle. She says she can bench press 200lbs and I believe her, although I'm not sure what a bench press is exactly. She keeps a chart to keep track of how much weight she's lifted, starting a new one every year with a resolution to lift more.

But don't think Miss Squires is unattractive! She's very attractive, just not in the usual way you might imagine. She has a pretty face with high cheekbones and a narrow, tapering chin. Her nose is straight and strong, like on one of those old Greek statues, a classical profile you could call it. And her hair is auburn and silky fine, but styled and cut so it's short on the sides and sticks up straight on the top, but curling over like a wave sorta, and the effect isn't unpleasant at all. It comes back to a small curling ponytail that hangs just between her shoulder blades, usually tied with a little ribbon of leather studded with little spikes of silver, each barely bigger than the tip of a pencil.

Miss Squires even has a tattoo, a long string of barbed wire in black, with little drops of red on some of the barbs, like it was really pricking her skin, but you can't see it unless you know where to look. It starts in the soft hollow of her left thigh, just to the side of her pussy, and it curls up and around her clit, so that it looks like it goes right into one of her lips and inside her pussy. Then it comes out through the other pussy lip, finishing the loop around her clit before curling into the soft hollow of her other thigh. It is pretty amazing and I'm not sure why she wanted that, but it definitely fits her somehow. I like it a lot, but I want a little Power Puff Girl on my shoulder. My best friend Jenny thinks that's dumb though, she wants to get a little rose on her thigh. Miss Squires said I should wait until I'm older, until I'd experienced something that tattooed me on the inside, and then I would know how to express it on the outside.

She's really smart like that.

Miss Squires keeps her pussy shaved too and she makes me and Jenny and some of the other girls keep ours shaved as well, not that I have a lot of hair yet anyway. But it does feel nice and it looks nice too, at least I think so. Miss Squires' pussy is darker than mine, more red than pink and her lips are brown almost, especially when she gets excited. That's when they get fat and rubbery so that they hang down and spread a little bit. Sometimes I wish my pussy was like that, just because it would be so much fun to be able to play with those lips anytime I wanted. My labia are always small and trying to stay closed, even after I've had them split by something really big and thick, they just close right back up again and don't hang down hardly at all. Miss Squires said she loves the way my pussy does that, so sometimes I just think God got our pussies mixed up when he was handing them out.

Every now and again Miss Squires competes in those female bodybuilding contests. She has a bunch of trophies and medals and certificates in her office. Sometimes before a contest she'll have a little 'Posing Party' after school for a few of us girls, and she'll turn up the music real loud and come out in her thong bikini and do her routine so we can see it and tell her if something looks wrong.

One time Miss Squires had a Posing Party for just me, Jenny Hart, and Miss Holsum, the school nurse, who is also Miss Squires' best friend and roommate. She didn't wear a thong bikini that time, and me and Jenny got to oil her up before she started posing. In fact we had so much fun oiling up Miss Squires that Miss Holsum wanted us to oil her up too! So we did. And then they oiled me up and then we all did Jenny just for giggles. It was a lot of fun and we all posed and pretended we were bodybuilders like Miss Squires.

But I'll tell that story some other time. Right now I want to think about the time I got invited to go to cheerleader camp. This was last autumn, about a month before cheerleading tryouts for sophomores. Since freshman can't be cheerleaders, I'd been waiting a whole year for this. Miss Squires came by my locker at the end of gym class to talk to me. It was still warm outside, we were having a real Indian summer, and we'd been playing Lacrosse for an hour, so all I wanted was a nice hot shower. I was just starting to undress when Miss Squires came by and sat down on the wooden bench right behind me.

I wasn't nervous because Miss Squires was always real nice to me, but I did wonder what she was doing. I stopped undressing and looked at her and said, "Yes Mistress?"

Miss Squires chuckled and looked around, but the only other person nearby was Gloria Perkins who's so fat she was sitting on the floor trying to get her socks off, but her hands wouldn't reach her toes. She was always asking for help, but mostly we ignored her. Like who wanted to touch Gloria's stinky socks? Ugh!

"You only have to call me that after school, Amy. Not in school, okay?" Miss Squires reminded me and I nodded and felt my face turning red because I'd forgotten. Sometimes I think that just being close to Miss Squires makes me forget lots of stuff, but I can't remember what.

I started undressing again, because I really wanted a shower and the bell was going to ring in about ten minutes. Miss Squires watched me kick off my shoes and take off my socks, and then my shorts and t-shirt. She told me to turn around and I did, so that I faced away from her.

"Take off your panties without bending your knees," she said. "I want to see how ... uh ... limber you are."

"Yes Mis, uh ... Ma'am," I replied and bent over slowly at the waist, feeling her eyes on my pert round butt as I did what she wanted.

I hooked my thumbs in the waistband of my pink panties and dragged them down my legs, as I bent at the waist. I kind of enjoyed that little clinging sensation when the part that was wedged sorta deep in my butt crack stuck for a second. Probably Miss Squires thought I was wearing a thong, but then my panties came loose, exposing my puckered rosebud and then my slitty sex to Miss Squires' gaze.

"Wider," she whispered and I complied, spreading my legs slightly and continuing with my slow reach for my toes.

As my hands pushed my panties below my knees I peeked at Miss Squires between my legs, seeing her eyes focused a little farther up. I felt a little shiver and my butthole clenched a little tighter and Miss Squires laughed at me when she caught me looking at her.

"You bad girl! Get those panties off. I need to talk to you."

"Yes ma'am," I said, pushing them all the way down before I straightened back up, and stepping out of them as they lay in a pink satin puddle on the floor.

"Lose the bra too, Amy," she told me and I twisted my sports bra off, over my head and dropped it on top of my underwear.

"That's more like it." Miss Squires looked me up and down. I was sweaty and naked and a little dizzy from having been bent over for too long. "You're going out for the JV Cheerleading squad this year, right?"

I told her I was, yeah.

"Well, I'd love..." she rubbed the inside of my left thigh lightly with her fingertips, " ... to see you make the squad, Amy, but I have to be fair. There's twenty-two girls competing for six spots and that isn't very many."

"Oh." I frowned at that news.

"Being the coach, I have to pick the best girls for the team, not my personal favorite people." Miss Squires reached up and flicked my left nipple casually. "Now, I know you've got potential, but you need practice. You need some coaching to build your confidence and give you the edge during tryouts."

"I do?"

"Uh-huh. That's why I'm starting a little cheerleader camp and inviting only those girls I really want to see make the squad, but worry that they won't." She stood up and her hand touched my cheek. "Girls like you, Amy."

I didn't know what to say. Finding out that I might not make the junior varsity cheerleading squad was like finding out that Christmas might be cancelled. I thought it was a sure thing!

"I'll do it!" I said, without a moment's hesitation.

"Good!" Miss Squires smiled at me. "I knew you would. Miss Holsum will be helping me and I know she's going to be so happy when I tell her you'll be there with us!"

Miss Squires went on to explain all the details and the one hitch in the entire plan would be getting my parents to give their consent. It was going to a four day long camp and I'd miss school on two of those days. My parents were kind of big on school, you know? This wasn't going to be easy.

The bell rang and I was still standing there, naked and hot and sweaty.

"You'd better get dressed, Amy. You only have five minutes to get to your next class!" Miss Squires laughed and slapped my butt playfully and we both knew I was going to be dirty all day long.

"Yes ma'am," I nodded as she picked up my panties off the floor, damp from an hour of hard exercise, and held them to her nose, inhaling deeply.

"Don't worry. You smell fine, Amy," Miss Squires said. "I'll hold onto these for you."

I sighed as she walked off, leaving me nothing to wear under my skirt but happy thoughts as I dressed quickly as I could. I lost more underwear in gym class that way and I'd spend most of the afternoon trying to think of a good excuse for when my mother asked me where my undies were.

I spent the next week trying to convince my parents to let me go to cheerleader camp. Daddy said it was okay, if it made me happy, and if I could make up the two lost days by getting my reading and homework assignments ahead of time and doing them at cheerleading camp. But my mother absolutely refused. She told me that missing school just so I could dance around in front of a bunch of people in my panties wasn't her idea of a good education.

Especially when she found out Miss Squires was the one who would be running it.

"That woman is a bad influence!" she'd say at the dinner table. "I don't know why the school hired her in the first place! She looks like a man and what kind of example is that for the girls?"

Daddy would nod and roll his eyes at me when mother wasn't looking and I'd stifle a giggle or hide it behind a swallow of milk.

"What kind of example is she for our little Amy?" my mother would demand, staring at Daddy until he answered.

"Well, she's certainly, uh ... healthy," Daddy would say. "Kind of strict too, from what I understand."

"Yeah, Daddy. Miss Squires is real strict sometimes," I said, thinking about the time she'd given my bare bottom ten good strokes with her paddle for running in the locker room. "But she can be nice too, I like her."

And then I was remembering how afterwards she'd rubbed my sore butt all over with lotion until it didn't hurt anymore. Miss Squires had put me over her thighs and squeezed my cheeks with both hands, kneading my tender bottom with her strong fingers. That had felt amazingly good, even when she'd pushed her long middle finger inside my butt. I tingled in my seat thinking about that and I took a big drink of milk.

"I've known that woman since I went to Virgin Mary's and she was never nice!" my mother said and I was a little shocked to hear that. I hadn't known that she and Miss Squires had gone to school together.

"You went to school with Miss Squires?" I asked. "I didn't know she was that old!"

Daddy laughed but choked it off when he saw my mother turn around. She looked kind of mad.

"I mean, not old ... Just, uh, older. I guess," I offered with my best apologetic smile.

I really didn't mean it the way it sounded. My mother is only thirty-one and I'd been born while she was still going to Virgin Mary's. She and Daddy didn't get married until I was almost four, when mother graduated a year behind. I know Daddy isn't my real father, physically I mean. It was somebody else's sperm that made me, but mother never told me who. As far as I know she never told anybody who my sperm father is. Sometimes that bothers me, but not very much, because I love my Daddy more than anybody else in the whole world, even my mother sometimes, and I know he loves me too.

"Brenda was a freshman the year I graduated," my mother said.

I did the math in my head and figured that would make Miss Squires about ... I frowned because numbers get a little mixed up sometimes if I don't have some paper to write them on.

"She's 26 now, or maybe 27, but it doesn't matter," Mother continued. "The point is that Brenda Squires isn't a woman I want teaching my daughter anything and I don't want you spending too much time with her. The next time the PTA gets together I'm going to have some things to say, you can bet the farm on that!"

When mother said that, I knew the conversation was over. Daddy just shrugged and squeezed my thigh under the table. I knew he wanted to fight for me, but there are some fights you just can't win and we'd both been around my mother long enough to know that. I didn't blame him for not trying harder. I rubbed his hand a little bit on top of my thigh so he'd know it was okay.

Later that night, when Daddy came into my room to tuck me in like he always does, I asked him about my mother and Miss Squires.

"Well honey, I don't really know. I went to school over in Silverdale and didn't really know anybody from Virgin Mary's, except your mother." He was sitting on my bed and stroking my hair. "She was so pretty then, almost as pretty as you."

He smiled and rubbed a finger down my nose, tickling me so I laughed. "She's still pretty, Daddy. Everybody says so!"

And they did say that too. My mother looked more like my big sister than my mom. Her hair was more strawberry blonde than mine though, and cut shorter, but her heart shaped face and blue eyes, even her lips that kind of pouted all the time, were all reflected in me. She hadn't put on any weight either, not like a lot of moms I knew. Maybe having a little baby like me when she was just sixteen helped, because I bet mother only weighed about 100lbs soaking wet.

She was really narrow in the hips, almost boyish, but her boobs were big and firm, like I wanted mine to be. I tried her bra on once, when she was out to the grocery store, and those 36C cups seemed huge compared to my little tits. I had to stuff half a roll of toilet paper in there to make it look right! And her butt? Well, I've seen guys walk into parked cars at the mall when my mother wears her real short shorts. Her butt is every bit as firm and pert as mine, and I'm half her age!

"Oh yeah," Daddy had to agree with a smile. "Jessica is still a beautiful woman." Then he leaned down close and put his hand on my tummy, giving me a little kiss on the cheek. "But not as pretty as you're going to be, Amy."

I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him close, he smelled so good with just a lingering hint of the aftershave he used in the mornings, and the natural manly Daddy smell from working all day in his office.

"Give me a movie kiss, Daddy," I whispered.

That was a little joke that started a when I was little and I'd seen how people kissed in movies and on TV, those long, long kisses that I hadn't understood then. We didn't do it very often, but I felt like I needed one right then.

"Amy," he laughed at me. "I told you girls and their daddy's don't get to kiss like they do on the TV."

I was still hugging him, refusing to let go. "But we did it before!" I protested.

"That was before. Now you're..." he stopped and rubbed my tummy a little more through the blanket while he thought about it. "You're a big girl now, getting all grown up."

"Please Daddy? Just one?" This had become part of the 'Movie Kiss Game' too, his reluctance and my eagerness. It was a pretty fun game and sometimes it took a long time to finish, but tonight Daddy gave in quickly.

"Okay, okay. Just one though!" he smiled down at me. "You're just like your mother!"

And then he was kissing me, but softly at first. The tip of his tongue just barely touched my lips, then a bit more, running between them, slipping a little further inside as they parted slowly. Daddy's hand on my tummy was moving higher, moving gently over my hidden breasts and back down, between my legs as I spread them under the cool sheets. His tongue entered my mouth and rubbed across my teeth and over my gums while I wriggled my own against it.

I was moaning into his mouth and we kissed like that for a long time, our faces angled against each other, our mouths open and hot with our wet probing tongues. Sometimes we played in my mouth, sometimes in his, and all the while Daddy's hands would touch and squeeze and rub my covered body in all the right places until I was almost bouncing on the bed beneath him. Then he'd slowly pull his mouth away, sometimes sucking my bottom lip while I lifted my head until he let go, and then I'd sink back to my pillow, sighing softly.

"You're getting to be a good kisser, Amy," Daddy smiled and licked his lips.

"I want to be the best kisser in the whole world, Daddy!" I'd say and we'd both laugh and he'd stroke my hair one last time before leaving and closing the door. "Someday," I whispered to myself, "Daddy isn't going to leave."

And that thought brought me a rush of heat so good that I shivered all over. I pushed my stuffed bear between my thighs and squeezed and rocked and rolled until I thought I'd wet the bed, I was so creamy.

"Someday ... Soon..." I promised, listening to my mother moaning as their bed creaked and banged against the thin wall that separated our bedrooms. I fell asleep hoping that Daddy was thinking about me when he was cumming.

The next day I had the almost unbearable task of telling Miss Squires that my mother refused to let me attend the cheerleading camp. I put it off until the very end of gym class. I'd finished showering and dressing and I lingered outside her office, knowing I had to do it before the bell rang, but not wanting to. Finally I knocked and went inside when she told me to enter, looking down at the floor and shuffling my feet a little.

Miss Squires knew something was wrong right away and she told me to sit down on the hard plastic chair in front of her big wooden desk. I did and looked around nervously, not wanting to look at her and not knowing exactly how to start. Miss Squires' office was big and filled with stuff she'd collected from her bodybuilding. There was a little trophy case that was full of gold and silver statues, mostly shaped like naked women holding wreaths or torches over their heads.

She had some plaques and certificates on her wall, like her college diploma in Physical Education and another one that said she was a Massage Therapist, whatever that meant. And she had pictures of herself and other women posing for the camera in flesh colored bikinis. Their bodies were tanned and glistening with oil as they flexed, showing off muscles that I never even knew existed. I always felt intimidated looking at those pictures, but I didn't know why. I knew I didn't want to look like those women when I grew up, but still ... I did like looking at them and feeling the little knot in my belly.

"What is it, Amy?" Miss Squires sat there, writing something on her clipboard.

She was wearing her too tight t-shirt and I could see her nipples plain as day. She looked up suddenly and I jerked my eyes someplace else, feeling a little rush of embarrassment. Miss Squires put her clipboard down and leaned back in her chair, lacing her fingers behind her head and stretching her t-shirt even more. I saw the muscles in her arms seeming to swell a little and I bit my lip.

"Is it about cheerleading camp?" she asked.

I nodded and let it all come out in a rush. How my mother wouldn't let me go and that she thought Miss Squires was a bad influence. How my mother had known Miss Squires before, in school, and said she wasn't very nice. I told her that my mother had said she was going to talk to the PTA about Miss Squires and I felt really bad because I didn't understand any of it!

Miss Squires listened to me and then asked me who my mother was, since they'd never met before. I told her my mom was Jessica Welch and Miss Squires thought about it for a minute.

"Jessica ... Jessica..." Then she looked at me, almost as if seeing me for the very first time and she smiled. "Jessica Tate?"

I said I guessed so, since my mother's daddy was my Grandpa Tate. I told Miss Squires the story, since she remembered my mother from before. I think I was hoping Miss Squires would be able to explain things a little.

Grandma Tate had run off with the circus when my mother got pregnant, at least that's what Grandpa Tate had told me. Mother never talked about it and Daddy never would either. I think the whole thing was a very sensitive issue because my mother never hardly ever talked about her parents or what it was like growing up. In fact, I only remember seeing Grandpa Tate once in my whole life, and that was when I was about nine. He'd just knocked on our door one day and I remember Grandpa Tate had wanted me to sit with him in his rocking chair, but mother wouldn't let me.

She made me sit with her, all the way on the other side of the porch. I asked Grandpa Tate were Grandma Tate was and he laughed and said, "She joined the circus, honey. Run off and joined the circus." But my mother didn't think it was funny at all and she told Grandpa Tate she never wanted to see him again in her whole life and if he tried to see us again, she was going to tell the police. I felt bad for Grandpa Tate and I could tell he felt bad too when he left our front porch and never came back.

When I finished telling that story, Miss Squires just shook her head and got up so she could get close to me, pulling me to her stomach as I sat there and hugging me tightly. It did feel good all of a sudden, being hugged, and I hugged her back.

"Oh baby, don't you worry about none of that. That's all over with and you don't need to be worrying," Miss Squires said. "You're mom's just got a lot on her conscience, she always has, and sometimes it won't let her think right."

She hugged me some more, not like she does sometimes, when I get all warm and sparkly inside, but softer, more gently and I knew she really cared about me.

Miss Squires wrote a little note and put it in a school envelope, writing 'Jessie' on the front and licking the flap so it would stay closed. "Just give this to your mom and make sure she reads it."

"Okay," I nodded seriously and took it from her, tucking it safely into my book bag.

"I think I can persuade her to let you go. Don't you worry, Amy. Now off you go, you're already late for your next class." She slapped my butt and sent me on my way.

I was so happy about what Miss Squires had said that I could barely wait to get home and give my mother the letter. I didn't know what it said and I was sorely tempted to take a peek and find out, but I didn't want to take the chance of ruining whatever plans Miss Squires had for getting my mother to agree.

When I got home, Daddy was still at work and my mother was in the backyard, working on her rosebushes. She spends a lot of time back there alone and sometimes I wonder why she doesn't do things with her friends more often. Most everybody's mom that I know is either working or spending all their time raising babies, but of course my mother doesn't work and she only had me for a baby. So I guess she doesn't have a whole lot to do during the day, except take care of her garden. The whole thing seemed kind of sad and lonely, especially since I'd been thinking so much about her and Grandpa Tate that day.

Mother looked up when I came through the gate and gave me a little smile. That was a good sign, I thought, at least she wasn't still mad at me for saying she was old without meaning to. My mother was always my mother, but never really my friend, if that makes sense. Sometimes I thought she resented me a little and I thought it was because she'd been so young when I'd been born. I wondered how different she'd be if I hadn't been, if she hadn't missed a year of school because of me, and if Grandma Tate hadn't run off to join the circus. I'd be somebody else too then, not me at all. That thought always made me a little dizzy, like I was trying to understand the mind of God, and I knew that had to be a sin. So I tried not to think about it too much.

I walked over and gave my mother a little hug and she didn't hug me back because she had her gardening gloves on and they were all dirty, but she smiled and asked about my day. I told her it was fine and then I said I had something for her and pulled the envelope out of my book bag and held it up.

"What's that?" she asked, taking off her gloves and putting them in her little gardening basket. "You're not in trouble, are you?"

My mother looked at me sharply, like she almost always did when I brought home something unexpected from school, as though she was always waiting for some bad news.

"Uh-huh! I'm not in any trouble!" I shook my head and extended the envelope out so she could take it from my fingers. "It's a note from Miss Squires."

As soon as I said that my mother let that envelope go like it was on fire, but she picked it up again right away, almost catching it before it even hit the ground, I think. She looked at her name 'Jessie' written in Miss Squires' neat cursive and kind of flipped it back and forth for a minute.

"You, uh ... You go on in the house and get cleaned up. I'm making some, some ... pot roast for dinner," she sounded like she'd almost forgotten about it. "Set the oven to 375, okay?"

I got up, wishing she'd read it while I was there with her and knowing she wouldn't.

"And make sure the oven's empty," my mother said. "Take the cookie sheets out."

"Mother!" I sighed and went into the kitchen to do as I was told. I'd almost melted a cookie sheet once, almost two years ago, and she never let me forget it.

Mother never did tell me what was in that note. In fact, it was like there'd never been any note at all. It just disappeared and when I started to mention it to Daddy, my mother shushed me up good about talking gossip at the dinner table. I didn't think it was gossip at all though, since there was a note and we were all family, and it was about me going to cheerleader camp anyway, but Daddy gave me a warning squeeze on my thigh and said it wasn't any of our business. And my mother seemed like she was far away. She'd even burned the roast a little, and she never did that before.

I found that note a few months later, by accident. I wasn't trying to find anything at all really, just looking through some of the cookbooks in the kitchen. I was baking brownies and waiting for the little timer on the stove to buzz, and just looking through the cookbooks, wishing I could make some of that stuff, when the note from Miss Squires fell out. It was still folded up and in its envelope, but I could tell it had been opened a whole bunch of times. The creases were worn and frayed a little, the way they get when you fold and unfold paper over and over again. I knew I shouldn't read it, and the whole episode was long over and done with, but I was curious to find out what Miss Squires had said to my mother in that first little letter.

"Dear Jessie, I've missed you! I had no idea Amy was your daughter, although now I wonder how I could have missed it! Don't be mad at me. What happened wasn't our fault and there's nothing to be ashamed of. Please Jessie, meet me in my office at 7pm tomorrow night, we need to talk. I've missed you so much and I know I should have looked for you sooner. Let me try and make it up to you, Jessie.

Love, Brenda"

The letter made a lot of sense, knowing what I knew when I found it. But if I'd read it the day Miss Squires had given to me, I would have only been confused. It gave me a new appreciation of the confusion my mother must have been feeling. I wondered if Daddy had ever suspected any of it and decided he had. My Daddy is pretty smart and he knows my mother too well to be fooled by anything very long. One of the reasons I love him so much is because he might know something that makes him mad, but he's more concerned with understanding why than just throwing a fit like some people do. That's a big difference. Knowing and understanding, I mean.