Chapter 37: The Program Unraveling

“So how do you want to work it with the kimonos, lover?” Denise asked me as we pulled into the student parking area on Tuesday morning.

“So today is a partial touching day,” I mused, “I wonder how much emotional support our kids will need. Tomorrow will be the worst of the week, that’s how it was for Sarah, Barbara, and Jane last week. How about we change at our lockers before home room? We can leave our clothes there. Tomorrow we may be needed out front when they strip and have the groping begin so we could change out here.”

“Yeah, that’ll work. Oh, look; the crowd’s gathering.”

We pushed our way through the circle of kids surrounding the Program group as they stripped. They had decided to do a round-robin strip; that was so cute. They alternated boy-girl in a circle; each boy removed an article of clothing from the girl to his right and the girl removed one of his; then they switched and turned to their opposite sides and repeated with the next garment. There was lots of laughing and touching going on and the senior girl, Melanie, even gave Kyle a quick blow job before everyone went into the building.

We arrived at our lockers.

“Now you’re sure you want to do this?” I asked Denise as we opened our lockers.

She took a deep breath. “Let’s do it!”

The two of us quickly stripped; we were only wearing loose warm-up pants and tops so it only took seconds before we had the kimonos on. No one was paying any attention to us; they were all trying to get close to the Program kids as they headed to their lockers. We had our kimonos on and were heading for our home room before anyone noticed.

On the way there, it was a different story. Kids stopped and stared at us, thunderstruck, and most gaped, openmouthed, as we swept regally past them. Two kids did manage to collect their thoughts to ask if we were some kind of promotion for a theater event or something. I was absolutely loving the effect that Denise was having on the boys. There was a long line of boys following her, actually us, but who was watching me?—as if she were towing them behind her with a rope.

We got to our room and slipped into our seats quietly without causing a stir. The room gradually filled up as the kids walked in, shooting curious glances at us. Sitting down, it looked like we were wearing these odd-looking tops, but nothing special. Soon the announcements began, and Fletcher began speaking about the student advisory body, that the school staff had interviewed the final candidates and the group members were mostly identified. The group would consist of two students from each grade and a number of “at-large” members for a total of fifteen students.

Fletcher finished his announcements by instructing the home room teachers to notify those students in their home rooms who had been selected for the group to leave their classrooms and go to the room where he would meet with them.

Denise and I were astounded when our teacher opened an envelope and then looked up at us.

“Kevin and Denise, you’re on the advisory group list. You’re excused.”

We looked at each other in shock, but the greatest shock was to the class when we stood to pick up our backpacks. The classroom exploded in noise; whistles and shouts rang out as we dashed out the door, leaving behind a thoroughly bemused teacher and a stunned group of students.

Denise grabbed my arm as we hurried along. “What’s this all about? We didn’t sign up and we weren’t interviewed. This is crazy!”

“It is indeed. We’ll see when we get there, darling.”

When we walked into the classroom where the group was meeting, we created another sensation.

We were greeted by shouts and people clamored, “Hey, guys, what’s with the getup?” “Wow, cool threads!” “Woooo, seeexxyyy!” and other comments, too.

We saw a few familiar people. From the first Program group, Sarah Parr was there, but not Andrew. Also, Barbara and Nelson. There were a few people from our website committee; they had done the Program in the spring, and some of the rest were Guardians we knew.

Barbara ran over to us. “My god, you guys, what are you wearing? That’s the hottest outfit I’ve ever seen. Hey, I love the Program greeting idea you started; we’re Program buddies, so can you do that with me?”

Nelson had come over too. “And me, too, guys. That greeting thing is cool.”

“The greeting is the reason for the kimonos,” Denise said. “I’ll demonstrate,” and she dropped it off her shoulders and, now naked, she embraced Nelson. “Nelson, buddy, you’re overdressed, you know,” she chuckled.

I dropped my jacket on a chair and embraced Barbara. “Yeah, these clothes need to go too, kid.”

They quickly stripped and we resumed the “official” greeting embrace and kiss. The other kids around us were watching bugeyed when Fletcher came in and looked around.

“Ah, I see that Denise and Kevin are initiating the ignorant,” he remarked. “I understand that this is to be the way Program participants, and apparently veterans, are to greet each other now. So anyone, feel free to join in if you’re so inclined. I’ve been told by an astute psychologist, who happens to be present in this room, that it’s a wonderful way to build camaraderie.”

Heads swivelled around looking for a psychologist, and then I realized Fletcher was referring to me.

About half of the group had shed their clothing and were now embracing and kissing others. Way cool.

He continued, “You can continue your greetings while I’m talking, guys. Almost everyone in the advisors group is here except for the two freshman reps. One is still making up her mind and we’ve haven’t finished interviewing all the boy nominees yet. The ‘at-large’ members were chosen from students who have some leadership role at school and that’s why...” he named several kids, “ ... are here from the student council and varsity sports. I’ve also created another special Program student position. The first people to fill the positions of student Program Counselors are Denise and Kevin, the role of the position is to provide moral support to the students in their Program week. You’ve already seen the results of their ideas here in this room and I must say I approve of how the Program is working now that we’re adopted Denise and Kevin’s suggestions.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the group, who had mostly finished with their hugs, and still naked, had seated themselves to listen.

“Oh,” Fletcher laughed, “the psychologist I mentioned—Kevin seems to have a natural grasp of human nature. You probably know of his rep in the school already...” loud laughing, “ ... and he’s already psyched me out too...” more laughing, “ ... so that’s why I’ve deliberately and deeply embarrassed him by making what he’s done into such a big deal. Back at ya, Kevin! Payback time.”

“Dr Fletcher, is that—the counselors, that is—why they were wearing those things?” a girl asked.

“What things?” Fletcher said uncertainly. “What do you mean?”

Denise rose, slipped on her kimono, and turned around in a full circle modeling it. “Yesterday we found ourselves in a few situations where being naked with our Program kids gave them a huge confidence boost. But all the repeated undressing and dressing that we were doing was a real pain, so I thought of this. Also, Kevin and I were getting Reasonable Requests and even though the green armbands were a possibility for us to wear, wearing those was more for Program volunteers. The kimono is so distinctive and easy to slip off that I thought it was a good solution.”

Fletcher was shaking his head. “That’s ... well, you’ve done it again, guys. You never cease to amaze me. What do you think, Advisors? Shall we declare that the red kimono is the official Program Counselor uniform?”

Cheers rang out in the room. Denise blushed. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Ok, then. We need to discuss why I called you all together here and we’ll try to finish before the end of home room period. First, I assume you’re all comfortable with being on this committee...”

Fletcher went on to have each of us introduce ourselves and then began to outline the way he envisioned that the advisory body would work. He had a list of suggested duties and responsibilities for us to consider, and also a collection of facts that had been extracted from Request complaints to be used as examples of the fact-finding process in considering student questions about the interpretation of the Program rules. He ended the session by telling us that this room was to be our new home room. The advisor’s group would meet here every morning, sometimes with him and other times with an assistant principal or a teacher counselor. And at tomorrow’s meeting he wanted us to select a chairperson for the group.

The meeting began to break up and Fletcher left the room, giving Denise and me a “thumbs-up” sign and a wry grin as he went through the door. I slipped on my kimono while a number of kids surrounded us asking all kinds of questions—about stuff they had heard about the Monday morning Program intro in Fletcher’s office where Denise and I had invented the Program greeting to wild rumors of crazy sex acts during relief times. Denise and I tried to play dumb. I’m good at that; I’ve mentioned that before, I think.

The rest of the morning went normally, if you count being the center of attention of the entire school during class change times being normal. Hell, it appeared that people were going way out of their way to catch a glimpse of us; Denise and I were laughing at the idea that we had drawn so many kids away from the naked participants that they must be feeling lonely. True; last week we could hear calls of “Reasonable Request” floating down the halls during the class change times. Today we didn’t hear it. Be interesting to hear from the kids at lunch how their morning went.

So Biology and Calculus passed without anything of note happening apart from the stir that our odd garb caused. Our biology teacher, Mrs Payton, eyed us thoughtfully—a “use them for a demo” thoughtfully—but then must have realized we weren’t in the Program now and just went on with her lesson.

Health class was kinda weird today. Miss Stevens passed out a page listing the demonstrations that she planned for the sexuality unit. Many demos appeared to involve some form of penetration of the girl—using medical devices like examination tools and even a video probe, or a boy’s or girl’s fingers. Stevens was really pushing the idea that the live demos were crucial for proper learning and the reasons she gave were so contrived, like seeing it happen a few feet away would make a powerful and unforgettable impression or that it would sexually stimulate the student viewer and therefore the student would learn about his own sexuality—reasons like that. Huh. So now it’s an educational objective to teach someone how to be a voyeur?

Obviously my protests about penetrating activities from last week had emboldened at least some of the students in the class, since a few began to object, saying that no one, even on the Program, could be made to take part in stuff like that. One girl raised her hand.

“Miss Stevens, last week you said you were going to have students demonstrate sex play with each other, even intercourse. It doesn’t look like anyone will volunteer. I wouldn’t, anyway. And in the Program rules it says students can’t be made to do a lot of the things you have on your list.”

Stevens answered that she hoped to get volunteers by giving participation credit but otherwise would use videos. Whatever. Like we couldn’t see the same stuff on internet porn sites. In fact I heard a boy a few seats over whisper, “This class isn’t ‘Health and Psychology,’ it’s ‘Health and Pornology.’”

He got that correct.

When we arrived in the lunchroom and went through the line, we found Kimberly waiting for us.

“The others are delayed a bit but should be here soon,” she said, and took us to the Program table whereupon she pulled my kimono off and climbed onto me for a hot embrace while Denise looked on in amusement. Then Kim grabbed Denise and hugged her; I was surprised and very much aroused when their kiss suddenly turned into a sensual tongue-wrestling session, however.

When they separated, the two girls looked at each other with expressions of surprise and a little embarrassment. Denise sat down next to me; she was flushed and breathing hard.

“What gives?” I whispered in her ear.

“Wow, I’m not sure. Kim is really hot. She whispered to me that she’s incredibly attracted to me. I’m not sure I’m interested in girls, though.”

“Hey, it’s not a big deal—the Program’s all about stretching your horizons. If you want to explore, go for it, honey.”