Chapter 11: Sponge Toss

My rushed getaway from Josh meant I arrived the Sponge Toss booth ten minutes early, so I had an opportunity to get a feel for the game before I started getting hit with wet sponges.

Mr Mitchell the P.E. teacher was on-deck, his wet and smiling face mounted above the brightly coloured body of a clown painted on the outside of the booth, while a line of senior boys tried and mostly failed to hit him with large, wet rectangular sponges. It didn't take long to work out that this game was a lot harder than it looked. The size and shape of the sponges made them hard to throw, they wouldn't fly straight, and if you threw them too hard then the water would all fly off in transit.

Notwithstanding the fact that the game was clearly rigged to get people coming back for more (it would be no fun if every throw hit the target), I wanted to have a go too.

"Can teachers play?" I asked the supervising parent who was collecting money and making sure that most of the rules were followed.

"Sure thing, Miss Granger," he said (well that was embarrassing – I didn't recognise him at all). "Your money spends just as well as the kids'. Two bucks gets you two sponges, or five bucks for five," he said with an ironic grin. "But making good with Mr Mitchell afterwards is your own lookout."

"This isn't going to make for an awkward moment in the staff room, is it Mr Mitchell?" I joked to the face in the booth.

"Only if you hit me Jeannie," he said dryly. "Just remember whose turn it is next."

"Oh, I'm well aware," I laughed, paying my two dollars and arming myself with a sponge. "I just want to have a go now before I lose my sense of humour."

I find the expression 'he or she throws like a girl' pretty offensive, but whoever came up with it was probably watching me throw at the time. In my defence, I spent most of my childhood reading books, not playing cricket or softball or skipping stones on a pond. Rather than enduring the crowing from the boys that would surely come if I tried to throw over-arm, I looped a gentle under-arm lob in Mr Mitchell's direction and I almost got him. The look on his face was in some ways better than a bullseye; he braced for the direct hit, but it just dipped at the last moment and hit the chest of the painted clown to a cry of "O-o-o-h" from the crowd of onlookers.

"A bit more pepper on the next one, Jeannie," he teased, obviously trying to goad me into a rash throw that would surely spray wide.

"Just finding my range, Mr Mitchell," I called, still using his surname in the presence of the kids. "Hold your breath for the real one!"

I threw my second sponge with the same underhand loop and this time I got him! "Yes! Woooo!" I celebrated perhaps a little too grandly with the gathered group of seniors as it plopped wetly into his face. I admit that it wasn't as satisfying as the loud THWACK of a full-blooded throw, but I'll take my wins where I find them.

"The sponge I can forgive, Jeannie," Mr Mitchell spluttered, blinking water from his eyes. "It's the victory dance you're going to pay for when I get out of here!" Uncowed, I did another little lap of high-fives and danced an arms-in-the-air backside-wiggle to the universal cry of the poor winner: "Oh yeah-eah! Uh ha-aa!" All of this to the great delight and cheering from every boy who had ever been ordered by Mr Mitchell to run extra laps before they hit the showers.

I watched a few more kids try to hit him with varying degrees of success, and then Mr Smith approached carrying a large, flat cardboard box. This would be my surprise, I suppose.

"You're excused, Mr. Mitchell," the principal said in his most commanding baritone. "We need to prepare the booth for the soon-to-be Mrs Marsh." All eyes were on me now, but I wasn't nervous; it was a good kind of attention and everyone was smiling and having fun.

They all gathered around the principal to see what was in the box, but I already had a fair idea; it looked like exactly the type of thing you might use for long-term storage of a dress ... a wedding dress, for instance. Sure enough, Mr Smith lifted the lid and drew from within an atrocity of white tulle and satin that we can only pray time will forget. With enormous puffy sleeves and every square inch fairly bristling with frilly adornments, it was almost physically painful to look at.

"Why Mr Smith," I said as deadpan as I could manage. "That looks just like the one I'll be wearing next month!"

"Then my sympathies go to your fiancé, Miss Granger," he shot back with Dumbledore-like understated mirth. "This belonged to my dearly departed maiden Aunt Beatrice. And yes, before you say anything I do understand the paradox of a maiden aunt with a wedding dress."

In the bottom of the box was a hammer, a few two-inch nails and a pair of bulldog clips. As he was talking he began to hammer nails into the Sponge Toss booth at the top of the painted clown's shoulders.

"It was Aunt Bea's great unfulfilled dream to have an enormous fairy-tale wedding," he continued. "And to that end, in her impetuous youth, she bought this enormous fairy-tale wedding dress, anticipating the day when a dashing young man would sweep her off her feet and make her his bride."

"Dare I ask what happened?" I offered. This had all the hallmarks of a funny story, but with references to a dead aunt whose dreams were unfulfilled, I think we were all waiting for permission to laugh.

"Well, my sainted mother had a saying about how their parents' genes had been divided," Mr Smith finished hammering in the nails and began hanging the dress on bulldog clips beneath the hole from which my head would soon project. "She would say that she had inherited the good-looks..."

"Whereas Aunt Bea had inherited the brains?" I finished for him.

"Well, that's what I used to think," Mr Smith turned and smiled through his false beard. "But my mother tactfully never finished that saying. When I received this dress and some other items from Aunt Bea's estate, I began to understand why not. Perhaps we can just say that Aunt Bea was an impetuous woman and an ambitious woman, however she was not a woman especially blessed with either looks or brains."

There was polite laughter all round.

"Why did you keep it?" I asked.

"It was simply too hideous to donate to Good-Will," he shrugged. "And you never know when something this unique will come in handy."

"Today being a case in point," I said flatly, imagining the moment a minute from now when I would be appearing to wear it.

"Precisely," he answered brightly. "Now get thee into that Sponge Toss booth, Miss Granger. These students have money burning holes in their pockets and the Building Fund is a few thousand shy of buying us a new technology centre."

I suspect that our school's Sponge Toss booth was built and donated by a civic-minded parent, one with a tendency towards over-engineering would be my bet. I've seen Sponge Toss games before and they're just a vertical wall with a hole cut in it. Ours really is a "booth" though and it's built with a much grander vision in mind. It's a small, self-contained, collapsible room with a door in the back, and instead of a hole to show just the victim's face, it has this recessed box in the front wall with a hole in the bottom. From the front it looks a bit like a ticket-window. From inside the booth, you duck underneath the box and pop your head up through the hole, then fit a couple of foam batts around your neck to stop the sponges dropping down through the gap. From the outside, the effect of a disembodied head sitting on a shelf is quite creepy, but it's mitigated by the painted clown body underneath.

I let myself in and shut the door behind me. It wasn't exactly spacious, but then I wasn't exactly there for a zumba class, either. There was a bar stool to sit on with a gas lift to get you positioned just right regardless of height. Over-engineered it may be, but it looked like you could sit there comfortably for half an hour or more; and that's not something that can be easily said for a simple hole in a plywood wall.

Ignoring the stool for the moment (it was wet and carried the imprint of Mr Mitchell's ass), I ducked down and popped my head up through the hole like a tank commander. I was almost the perfect height; I just needed to stand with my feet apart and didn't even need to stoop.

"Peek-a-boo!" I called to the small crowd.

"There she is!" someone called in a Monty Python angry-mob voice. "Let's ge' 'er!"

"Wait a minute," I stopped them. "I'm not ready." This whole disembodied head thing reminded me of one of those stage magician tricks with the woman in the box, and I'm always a sucker for a visual gag.

"Hey," I called out, casting my eyes down through the hole. "I wonder what this button does." I pretended to press something. "Uh-oh!" I widened my eyes in mock panic and slowly twisted my neck to the left. "Erk! Help!" When I couldn't twist my head any further, I moved my feet to keep my head rotating from the crowd's point of view, twisting in a full circle a-la that creepy little girl in The Exorcist.

"Blarrrrgggg!" When I rotated back into view, I lolled out my tongue and rolled my eyes up into my head. A few girls yelled "Eeewww!" and there were a couple of shutter-noises from camera phones along with some polite laughter. Maybe Dad was right; there really was no future for me in vaudeville.

"Stop stalling Miss Granger!" somebody yelled.

"Wait," I called back. "Somebody take a photo. I want to see the dress." About ten phones appeared but one kid walked straight up with a photo from my Exorcist gag. Oh God, between the rolled eyes and the hideous dress, I looked like the Bride of Frankenstein. But otherwise it actually looked quite realistic with my head perched on the wedding dress and the shoulders of the painted clown. The only thing spoiling the image was my hair, which was hanging down through the hole. I quickly wound it into a loose bun and positioned the foam batts around my neck to cover the hole and pronounced myself ready.

"Okay, batter up!" I called happily, ready to wind up the small crowd.

"Me first!" someone called, and stepping forward I saw it was Craig Wellman, class clown.

"Better get five-bucks worth, Craig, if you throw anything like you do Integral Calculus," I teased him.

"Keep laughing, Miss Granger," he grinned. And then to the parent helper, "Five bucks, thanks," as he handed over his money.

"This one's for Calculus, Miss Granger!" he yelled happily, winding up with a wet sponge and letting loose a powerful but wild throw that splattered against the wall two feet from my face.

"Better make the next one for quadratics, Craig," I called back. "You know that parabolas describe the path of a thrown object, right?"

"Why weren't you ever this funny in class, Miss Granger?" he yelled, winding up again with another furious throw that sailed low. The spray coming off it was on target though, so I did get a little wet.

"There's only room for one clown in class, Craig," I teased. "And the job was already taken. Say, do you want me to keep talking so you can aim for my voice? Where did you leave your guide-dog, anyway?"

Splat! The next sponge hit high, but not by much, and I got another face-full of spray that did little to dampen my humour.

"Maybe try underarm, Craig," I tossed out my next barb. "Leave the over-arm throws for the big kids." It was a bit disingenuous, after all I'd been throwing under-arm earlier.

"Deep breath, Miss Granger," Craig called with a grin. He hurled the next sponge truly and it hit with a wet splat square between my eyes. The small crowd erupted, led by Craig Wellman in a victory dance every bit as unsporting as the one I'd performed earlier.

"Arrghhh!" I cried out, shocked by the sudden wet contact, blinking water from my eyes and blowing drips from my nose. "Eeek, it's dripping down my neck!" This drove Craig and the rest of the gawkers to even greater heights of celebration. The foam batts around my neck were a long way from waterproof and I could feel little trickles running down my neck and between my breasts, soaking into the bodice of my dress. Crap! I didn't have anything else to wear and I'd be drenched after half an hour of this.

As Craig was winding up for his final throw, I was trying to flick water off my neck and chest without much success. The fifth sponge was off target again, but I got sprayed and now that I was already wet, new trickles found their way down that much more easily and I shivered as a rivulet made it past my breasts and soaked in at my sternum.

There was only one thing for it: off with the dress! I didn't even think about it very long, I was in an enclosed room and nobody could see me ... I could be stark naked for all they knew. Keeping my head still, I unzipped, slipped off the shoulder straps and shimmied it over my hips, letting it fall to the floor before I kicked it into what I hoped was a dry corner.

"It's time for a spot of revenge, I believe." It was Mr Mitchell, dried off now and dressed in a fresh T-shirt. Why didn't anyone tell me to bring dry clothes? "You make a lovely bride, Jeannie," he called out. "I will take no joy from this."

"You're a terrible liar, Mr Mitchell," I teased.

"I wasn't lying about the first bit," he laughed, picking up his first sponge.

"Well then you're terrible liar," I shot back. "And a lousy flatterer ... OOOF!" He scored a direct hit with his first sponge. Sadly Mr Mitchell didn't suffer the same lack of forethought as his students; he wasn't trying to knock my head off with it, he just looped a lazy but accurate overarm throw straight at my face.

"I beg your pardon, Jeannie," he called out above the cheering of the boys. "I didn't catch that last bit." He was lining up with another sponge.

"I was just saying how much all the kids will miss such a fine teacher as yourse- ... URGH!" Another direct hit right on my nose. Now I had water streaming down my chest and over my stomach, wetting the lacy edge detail of my red panties. Knowing that my underwear was getting wet made me hyper-conscious of my position; I was standing almost naked before a growing group of teachers and students who were all looking at me.

It felt amazing! Exciting! Just like when I was flirty-talking with Kevin on speaker phone that morning. I gently pinched my nipples and imagined a mysterious someone in the crowd who had x-ray vision. All the normal people could only see my head and the wedding dress, but Superman would know I was in my underwear ... AND he'd be watching me touch myself, knowing my secret but telling no-one lest I stop and spoil his private show.

Oh my goodness, there was more wetness in my panties now, and it wasn't from the sponges!

"Hey, not fair," I complained, Mr Mitchell was picking up another sponge. "I only threw two!"

"Sorry Jeannie," he apologised, not sounding the slightest bit sorry. "I only had a fiver and they wouldn't make change."

"Betcha can't hit me left handed," I challenged. My nipples were fairly buzzing now beneath my bra and I was overcome by the excitement of my helplessness and near nakedness with everyone around me.

"Go on, Mr Mitchell," someone backed me up. "Chuck it lefty! She's already as wet as she's gonna get." Oh, now that's where you're wrong young man. I felt with two fingers down my panties and although I was wet, I was getting a good deal wetter by the minute. On top of my adventure with Josh on The Enterprise, I was feeling so turned on! Throwing caution to the wind, I shrugged off my bra and then skinned my panties down my thighs to leave me completely naked and unutterably horny in the Sponge Toss booth.

"I'm drying off over here Mr Mitchell," I called happily, cupping one breast and slipping a finger into my pussy. "If you're going to chicken out, let someone else have a go."

"I have three left, Jeannie," he retaliated. "How would you like them all at once?"

"I can take whatever you're dishing out," I shot back, grinning happily while I fantasised about Superman watching me with his x-ray vision. "Bring it!"

"Volunteers?" Mr Mitchell offered sponges to two of the senior boys standing closest who took them with uncontained delight. "On 'three', boys," he said, playfully winding up like a baseball pitcher. "One! ... Two!..."

As he yelled 'three', his two partners hurled their sponges as hard as they could manage – one splatting to my right and the other almost sailing over the booth – but Mr Mitchell sent in another gentle overarm that hit me directly in the mouth, making me spit water as I shook the spray from my eyes. As it hit, I plunged a second finger into my pussy, and the adrenaline rush from the cold sponge combined with the pleasure in my love canal sent warm explosions of lust and ecstasy through my naked body.

"You okay, Jeannie?" Mr Mitchell called.

"Never better, Mr Mitchell," I smiled, blowing a drip from my nose. "Isn't there somewhere you need to be?"

"Keep up the banter, Jeannie, and we'll have that new technology centre in no time," he called back, walking away with a smile.

Some more kids had a go and some of them scored hits. I didn't care; I was secretly masturbating in front of them and nobody knew. It was such a powerfully erotic feeling!

I was just contemplating whether I should give in to the temptation to climax when I heard a furtive movement behind the booth. My breath caught in my throat and my blood turned to ice; oh my God, I was going to get caught! With the worst possible timing, a sponge hit me and I ended up swallowing some water. As I was coughing and snorting and trying to get some air, I heard the door behind me open and quickly close again.

And then ... nothing! Silence in the Sponge Toss booth. What must I look like from outside? My eyes were probably the size of dinner plates. I made a conscious effort to appear relaxed. How long had it been since the door closed? Five seconds? Ten? Was there someone inside with me? Or was it a casual passer-by looking for the toilets?

I unconsciously covered my breasts and groin with my hands, but I had the strongest feeling of déjà vu. Why was this familiar? It wasn't every day I was trapped naked in an amusement park sideshow. Trapped naked! Then it came to me; that time when Kevin blindfolded me and tricked me into thinking there was a stranger in the room while I was tied to the bed. This was just like that! And this exact thing was something Kevin and I had joked about earlier on the phone: me helpless in the booth and a stranger creeping in to have his way. Oh my God, Kevin was playing another sexy game with me, but this time he was going to make me come in front of the entire graduating class!

My body immediately pricked with goose bumps all over. I know I had been contemplating bringing myself to climax just a few moments earlier, but to have it done to me – forced to an orgasm almost against my will – well I think I just found my new gold-standard erotic fantasy. Oh, was I horny before? That was nothing! Every second I stood there with nothing happening, my excitement mounted and with the hand covering my pussy I could feel the heat pouring from my core.

C'mon Kevin, take me! Only vaguely aware of the occasional sponge splatting against the booth, I wasn't engaging the crowd anymore; all of my concentration was focussed inwards on the booth. I reached behind me with both hands, feeling for Kevin with fingers splayed. I was so confident he was there I didn't even jump when he put his hand in mine and gently squeezed, giving me what I imagined to be a silent 'Atta girl, go you crazy sex goddess' for the pleasant surprise of finding me naked and ready for him.

And ready? Goodness, I felt like a whistling kettle, I was so ready! I placed the hand I was holding on my breast, showing him how hard my nipples were. For a moment he just cupped me lightly, moulding to my shape with his warm fingers as he basked in the sexy surprise of finding me naked, but then lifted the small weight of my breast as if testing it for firmness while he brushed a thumb tantalisingly across my areola.

"Mmmmm," I sighed. "It's quite nice in here," I teased the crowd of boys outside who hadn't hit me with a sponge for a while. "I think I might stay a while." Of course the message was laced with a second meaning for Kevin; it meant "go for it, I'm ready".

He cupped my other breast and I could sense him standing close behind, not quite touching me with his body. Unable to talk to him directly, I placed my hands over his and slowly rolled my torso in what I hoped was an erotic fashion to let him know how he was making me feel. Running my fingers down his forearms, I broke contact and tried reaching behind to stroke him through his trousers, but he took a step back to dodge me and then – holding my wrists – he gently directed my hands to the wall in front. The implication was obvious: you're trapped; you're my sex toy; brace yourself and leave the fucking to me.