Chapter 6

AH, THE SUMMER OF BLISS. I was eighteen, had my own car, and was fifteen hundred miles from home. And there were girls.

With help from my guidance counselor, I found an intern program that was a perfect fit for me and by some miracle, I was chosen to spend the summer at the Colorado Rocky Mountain Theater Summer Camp in Glenwood Springs. No matter how I pushed it, I just couldn’t do the trip in less than three days. Five hundred miles a day was as much as I could handle. I pulled into campgrounds in Missouri and Kansas and pitched a lean-to. The Corvair was just too small to sleep in. Besides, it was loaded with about all the junk I owned. I’d be headed from Colorado straight to Athens for the beginning of school after Labor Day.

I was glad it didn’t rain, but Memorial Day weekend it was still damn cold. I pulled into the ‘campground’ in Glenwood Springs and was welcomed by an elderly woman I later found out was Mrs. Oppenheim, the wife of the camp director. She showed me to an apartment and told me the next few days would be staff days as they had a lot of prep to do before the campers started arriving. Half a dozen of us would be housed in the little efficiency apartments. Plus, there were dorm parents for the boys’ and the girls’ dorms. Those were both married couples. The rest of us were expected to be available for campers to talk to. We were to cruise the dorms and theatres daily to make sure we had pretty constant contact with the campers who ranged in age from fourteen to eighteen.

The theater camp was an adjunct of the Colorado Rocky Mountain Repertory Theater. There was a limited schedule during the winter months that started expanding rapidly for the summer. Those first two weeks were spent pulling scenery and props for the shop, pulling costumes, and scrubbing down just about everything in the ‘Little Theater’ that would be used for the camp. I met the other counselors and interns. In addition to the dorm parents, there was a counselor assigned to each dormitory who was responsible for making sure everyone knew where they were supposed to go, how to practice lines, and generally be sane students studying under the renowned Alfred Oppenheim.

I was going to be working directly with the famous director as his assistant. I soon found out that ‘cream and double sugar’ was part of the job as I ran to get him coffee a dozen times a day. I also discovered he was a lot older than his picture in the brochure. At first, I’d thought Mrs. Oppenheim who assigned my room must be his mother, but no. Alfred was at least seventy-five. What hair he had was white, as was the big bushy beard he wore.

He also gave me a petty cash box and I was responsible for seeing there was a fresh pack of Benson & Hedges 100s on his desk each morning. I bought them by the carton but he insisted that I give him only one pack a day. If it happened that he ran out of cigarettes, he seemed to always have a supply of clove cigarettes that stank to high heaven. He’d come into the office at precisely eight o’clock in the morning while most of the campers were still at breakfast. He’d reach for a cigarette and a swig of coffee. Then, after taking his first long drag, he’d cough his lungs out for about ten minutes before he was ready for anything.

Oppenheim taught the campers two one-hour classes per day and directed rehearsals. Three of us on the staff were responsible for organizing appropriate theatrical activities during all the other hours. Those activities included everything from vocal exercises to improv sessions. It was pretty wild.

When I looked at the brochure, I thought the campers would all be junior high kids. I guess at one time they had been but the camp felt that age group required too much supervision and instead of being half the weeks of the summer, all the weeks were now senior high kids. They could even get high school credit for the classes. Martin, one of the more experienced counselors, pulled me aside before the first week of camp and handed me a huge box of condoms.

“Anybody who asks for one or a dozen gets them with no questions asked. There is no way the twelve of us on staff will keep seventy-five high schoolers from fucking. They’ll go through these like candy. When you need more, let me know.”

All righty then. I figured he was right. I’d been having sex since before my senior year and some of these kids were only a year younger than me.

The camp was designed to be a summer repertory experience. That meant that every two weeks, another show would go into rehearsals and it would be three weeks between openings. The campers were responsible for everything—sets, lighting, costumes, acting. One might be the lead in one show and pulling the curtain on another show. I wished my guidance counselor had found this camp when I was eligible to attend it instead of intern at it. When campers began to arrive, it was pretty evident that there were close to two girls for every guy. And some of these girls were knockouts.

The first three weeks were nothing short of exhausting. Everyone had to audition. From the auditions, Oppenheim would cast all the shows on a complicated chart he had. I sat beside him through the auditions writing down his casting choices. By the end of the first week, all the shows had been cast and scripts were handed out. Rehearsals for the first show started the next week. After two weeks, rehearsals for the second show commenced. I noticed he had cleverly alternated complicated and simple shows. Big casts and small casts. He was opening small with The World of Carl Sandburg, in which four people recite poetry and sing songs from the poet. Not much of a plot, but a fun show, nonetheless.

The second show was Inherit the Wind by Lawrence and Lee. There are over twenty speaking roles, though several are one-liners, and Oppenheim cast fifteen extras for the town and courtroom. The third show was Marriage Wheel by Joel Climenhaga. It was a farce with only four men and three women in one setting. You get the idea. There were six shows all told and audience response determined which would be dropped as the season progressed and which would survive.

“Mr. Reichert?” one of the boys asked when I answered my door in the middle of the third week.

“Hey. I’m just Terry. Leave the misters to the old folks. What can I do for you Jim?”

“Um ... At orientation they said we could get a condom from any staff. I ... You ... I mean...”

“Here you go,” I said, grabbing the bowl of condoms I had beside my door. “Don’t ever be embarrassed to ask for condoms. There’s too much weirdness going on in this world to not use one every time. Better take a few. If you’re good the first time she’ll want more.”

“Gosh! Thanks. I was afraid they were just spoofing or trying to catch us.”

“Not a chance. Just never force a partner and always use a condom.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, thanks, Terry.” The condom business picked up after that. Apparently, they’d chosen one lucky guy to test the water and then suddenly all the guys were brave enough to ask for a condom, even if they didn’t need one. I guess just having one proved you were a man.

It was two weeks later, though, that the first girl came to me for a condom. It was mid-July and even in Colorado it was plenty hot. Saturday morning was a lazy time for me and I was lounging in my apartment in a pair of cutoff sweats and nothing else. When I opened the door, I saw Beth. She didn’t have much more on than I did and it looked good.

“Terry, I was wondering if I could have a condom. Please?”

“Sure, Beth. I’m glad to see girls taking the initiative. It’s everyone’s responsibility.” I turned away to get the box and Beth followed me into my apartment, allowing the door to close behind her.

I’d noticed Beth before. In fact, I noticed her the day campers started arriving. She was a fifteen-year-old who could convince you in a minute she was twenty-one. First of all, she was stacked. I hesitate to guess what her bra size was. It was definitely missing under the shortened T-shirt she wore. She didn’t quite show the underside of her boobs with the cut of the shirt, but if I’d been sitting down, I’d definitely have had a view. An acre of skin, including her tight tummy and little innie navel, was exposed before the elastic band of a pair of gym shorts. I held out the condoms for her and she took one and looked at it.

“Um ... I don’t want to make a mistake with this. Could I practice? Putting it on you?” She sounded so pure and innocent and looked so much like a devil that I collapsed back in my desk chair.

“Well,” I said, “I’m supposed to help campers with rehearsals. So, of course I’ll help you practice.” She wasn’t going to have much trouble getting me hard to practice on. I was already well on my way. She grinned at me and I winked back.

“Maybe this will help get you ready,” she said, lifting the crop top over her head and letting it drop to the floor. Yeah, that definitely helped. She stepped right up to me and presented a rosy nipple at my lips. I started tonguing it and caressing the other boob with one hand while I ran the other down her bare back to hold her ass. “I knew. I knew,” she whispered. “I knew you’d know just what to do.” After a minute of sucking on her nipple, she leaned down to kiss me. No, she didn’t compare to Sue, but she was enthusiastic and I had both her boobs in my hands. I felt her hands at my waistband and lifted slightly so she could pull my cutoffs down.

I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be a simple demonstration of putting the condom on, so I tugged her shorts down, too. She kicked out of them. Shaving pubic regions didn’t become popular until a few years later, though I thought theater girls picked it up sooner than some. Beth’s bush was trimmed for a bikini and she stood in front of me, giving me a good chance to look at it while she opened the condom package.

“The first thing you need to do is make sure it’s set on right,” I said. “When it comes out of the package, you’ll see the reservoir tip. Hold onto that while you smooth the rest down the erection. If you get it inside out, you and your boyfriend will both regret it.”

“Like this?” First, she licked my cock and then engulfed it in her mouth for a couple of bobs. Then, she correctly placed and rolled the condom. I didn’t think she really needed any practice. “Is that all there is to it?”

“If you want to stop there, it is. But maybe you’d like to know what it’s like when it goes in.”

“Yeah. I’d like that.” She took a step toward my bed and then turned when I didn’t follow. “Don’t we need to get on the bed?”

“Not really. Why don’t you try doing it right here? You can control exactly how far and how fast it goes in.” She walked in front of me and I pulled her toward me, running a finger through the trimmed hair of her bush to find out if she was lubricated enough for this. There was no question that she was. She followed my finger and moved forward over my cock. “You should hold it steady so you know exactly where it is as you put it in.”

I was sure by this time that Beth was experienced sexually, but the range of positions might be limited. Nonetheless, she went about positioning me and started to slide down enthusiastically.

“Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Mmm. You go so deep this way. Can I move?”

“Of course you can. Take it at your own pace.” I was happy to have my hands holding her butt and my tongue flicking out to capture a nipple as she lowered herself and raised back up.