Chapter 8

Several days before the end of the holidays, Angela received a thick packet of materials in the mail from an independent London school which her research had turned up. She had been searching for highly rated independent schools located within close-in London boroughs with good housing and easy access to central London. She had found a good school in the Southwark-Lambeth area which met her criteria and had requested that the school send an application package. From the published government’s student test-score results, it was a good school, and being independent, didn’t have to run the Program. The enrollment information had just arrived.

Lynette came into the room.

“What’s all that, Mom?” she asked, looking at the papers and brochures.

“I’ve been checking out some other schools for you guys,” she answered. “You know how Tom is terribly unhappy with this ‘remote class’ arrangement the school is doing with him—he really misses the interaction with the other kids.”

“Yeah, he talks about that a lot. What did you find?”

“There are a number of independent schools in London; they don’t have that naked Program but I had to eliminate most; either too far to travel, too expensive, or academically limited. This one would be a great candidate, except for what I just read here—it specializes in performing arts and to be accepted, you have to audition or send a video of some kind of performance you were in.”

“Oh. Neither Tom nor I were in any plays ... we don’t play instruments...” She paged through the brochure. “Hmmm, Norwich Academy. But ... yes. Look, Mom.” She pointed to a page. “They have a choir and voice classes.”

Angela looked at her daughter. “Your school has a choir too. What’s your point?”

Lynette struck a pose and began singing.

“So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me

Cause you might screw around and find your dreams come true with me

Spend all your time and your money just to find out that my love was free

So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me, me...

“Ta-da!” She stretched out her arms as she finished. “Singing. We both did choral music in Munich, remember? Ever hear Tom sing? He’s got a pretty decent voice—we also sing together a lot when we’re riding to school. He’s got a deeper voice than many boys and with his big chest, well, when he sings he sounds kinda nice. Smooth. Mellow. Sexy even,” she giggled.

“Oh yes,” Angela exclaimed. “Now that you mention it, I’ve heard him. You’re right, honey. And you too. Your voice is also very good, you know.” She giggled. “Cleaned up that verse a bit, didn’t we?”

Lynette laughed. “Yeah, wasn’t sure how you’d take Justin Timberlake’s original blue word in ‘Not a Bad Thing.’”

“Ha. Not a problem in that song. Well, I suppose you both could audition since you don’t have any performance recordings to send. Would you like that?”

“Sure ... but, well, are you certain they don’t have the Program? I’ve got my ‘bye’ ticket for the Program here right now.”

“You’re right. I’ll call now, maybe there’s someone at the school now even though it’s still holidays. Schools are close to starting up again so maybe I can get some info.”

Angela made the call; there was no answer so she left a message on their voice mail system.

“No one to take the call so I left a message,” she told Lynette.

About an hour later, Tom returned from a run with Andrew. The two of them were pretty tired, since they had spent part of the morning lifting weights. Andrew went for a shower first.

“Lynnie,” Tom spoke to her as he stripped off his jacket and hung it up, “Andrew’s talked me into running with our school’s cross-country track team. The season’s about halfway over and the last races are middle of March, he said, but the coaches should be pretty open about kids joining late in the season because the results are about how you perform as a person. No team stuff to learn. I think I’ll try it. Just need to see if they make kids run naked,” he grimaced. “I’ve been spending my P.E. class time in the weight room or on the track. So far, I’ve avoided any naked crap—and you remember that Coach McGallager lets me use the teachers’ shower in the office.”

“Yeah, well, in my regular P.E. classes, the teachers let the naked Program boys wear jocks to run and sports bras for girls. But if you run against other schools that have the Program, there could be some kids...” she began.

“Hell, I know, but I can’t keep running away from my problem forever, sis, you know? If that happens, I don’t know, maybe I’ll just run faster to get away from them,” he smirked as she took a swipe at him. “When school starts, I’ll get up early to run, but Andrew can’t run with me then ‘cause he has to be at his school early.”

“Um, Tommie...?” she asked. A thought had occurred to her.

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“Um, can I run with you when you go? That is, if you don’t think I’d hold you back when...”

“Hell, Lynnie, no prob! I’d love your company and you ran just as good as me when we used to do it. You keep up just fine when we bike, too. It’d be super to have a regular running partner.”

“Wow, thanks, should be fun. More time together too.” Lynette suddenly recalled the independent school materials. “Oh, hey bro, Mom’s checking out a new school for us. They have several different performing-arts programs and you need to do an audition to get in...”

Tom started to interrupt. She put her hand up.

“ ... and since you can sing pretty good; me too, Mom says, so we could try out. The school doesn’t have the Program so you could go to classes like any student there.”

“Really? No shit, I’d like that a whole lot. Where’s it at?”

Lynette got the brochure and showed it to Tom and he flipped through the pages.

Then Andrew shouted, “Shower’s yours now, Tom!”

“Be right back.” He kissed Lynette but she pulled away.

“Eeww! Take your shower first! You’re all sticky with sweat!”

When Tom came back to the family room, his mom was sitting next to an end table holding her phone and taking notes. Lynette was on the couch, listening. She looked up at Tom.

“Shhh ... sit here,” she patted the seat next to her. “She’s talking to the new school,” she whispered.

Tom couldn’t make any sense of the conversation just by listening to his mother, so he looked at Lynette.

“What’s happening?” he whispered.

She shook her head, smiling. “Later.”

He shrugged, but about a minute later, Angela said, “Thanks for calling back; I’ll be in touch. Bye.”

She disconnected and turned to the kids, then looked at her notepad.

“Hi, Tom. Good that you’re here now. Lynette told me she told you about this school—it sounds really good for both of you—that was the head teacher who just called me back. They’re busy at the school doing some remodeling and they’re doing some kind of teacher training sessions there too, so he’s been out of his office a lot today. So here’s what he told me. First, they do need an audition and can’t do that until mid-January and then a committee meets to decide if the person will be accepted. That would be in February at the latest. But the term would be so advanced that it would be too late to transfer over to there; they only run two terms—not the three terms your school has. They end classes in mid-June, not mid-July. So the two of you can’t switch schools till late August, when they start the next year.

“And they definitely don’t have the Program. They have a firm exemption from the London Ed Authority from having to run it; in fact, he told me that they’re doing a pilot trial of something else, it’s much better, he said, and there’s no nudity involved. They have high academic standards and the school’s median standard test scores are above average. I told him you guys sing, but haven’t sung solo or anything, just in a choral class, and he told me not to worry about that; they work with kids of varying experience levels. They’re looking for kids with either talent or a basic ability which can be developed. We discussed a few other things, curriculum, activities, tuition costs, stuff like that, and there were no surprises. He invited the family to come see him and to interview you two. Interested?”

“I think so. I’ll read the brochure again and look at their website,” Tom said.

“I looked already,” Lynette told him. “It looks like a nice place. We’ll need to go there by tube, though. If we go, no more biking to school. It’s South London, like an hour or so on the underground.”

“Ah, kids, our lease here runs out in August so we’ll be moving,” Angela told them. “We want to buy a house anyway. If you get in, we’ll move closer. There are some really nice neighborhoods in that area; I’ve worked on a few homes in Southwark.”

Angela had her own interior-decorating and design business.

When Tom returned to school after the break, he found the track coach before home room began; the coach was delighted that Tom was interested in running with the team.

“I’ve noticed you running on the track,” he told Tom. “You run with fairly good form. Our races are 5 K. Do you know your 5-K time?”

“I haven’t timed my longer runs; I go at a comfortable pace and run for 30 to 40 minutes. I run five miles usually, so that’s like a seven minute mile. Here at school on the outdoor track, I’ve timed my metric mile at about 5:30 when I run hard but not going all out. I don’t think I could keep up that kind of speed while running on rough ground for 5 K, though. Okay, let me think. I could run a mile, um, maybe at about, let’s see, 6:00 to 6:10? A little more? For 5 K then ... maybe ... ah, 18:15?”

“Blimey, boy, if you can do a 5 K at under 18:30, I definitely want you to run for me. You’d have finished in the fourth or fifth position right off the bat in some of our earlier races. Even as a sweeper, you’d help our team.”

“Um, what’s a sweeper?”

“A runner who finishes outside of the top five. His placing faster than our opponents’ runners pushes their scores up and the team with the fewest points wins the meet.”

“Oh. Okay.” Tom vowed to himself to look up cross-country scoring.

“I need to ask about runners in the Program,” Tom asked diffidently. “I ... um ... have a problem with the naked stuff ... you might have heard.”

“Oh right, you’re the boy who’s been segregated,” the coach looked at Tom sharply. “I know a little about a certain ‘incident’...” he made finger quotes, “last autumn, only a little, about what supposedly happened, so I’m aware of your situation, I think. As well, the Head mentioned in a staff meeting that you were doing a kind of ‘distance learning’ trial and that got you neatly out of the classrooms. As for your question, we run cross-country on race courses which are in public areas. Many of our meets are held on golf courses, so there are always random people around. The people who came up with the Program thought that the kids should do everything, and I mean everything, stark bollock-naked, regardless of the kids being in open public areas. But if we forced kids to run cross-country starkers, both the boys and girls would instantly drop off the team. My boys told me that, back last year when the Program was announced. Anyway, no one runs naked on any of the teams in the league we’re in because the meets are in public areas as I said, almost all golf courses, and the golf clubs are pretty conservative and wouldn’t allow that kind of nudity on their property anyway. But don’t you have that other issue ... taking showers? After the meets, we return to the school where the team showers and changes, but I’ve heard that you use the teachers’ shower. I don’t know how the team members would accept that, though.”

“Um, I thought of that. I’d just go home. I don’t live far and I bike,” Tom replied.

“You’d have enough energy to bike home after running hard like that?” the coach asked.

“Well, I noticed that I recover pretty quickly, sir. I’ve biked about 30 miles in under two hours and that’s a pretty stiff pace.”

“That’s true. Well, for the team, you’ll need to begin conditioning, so for your P.E. classes from now to March when our season ends, I want you to run on the outdoor track—four laps, inside lane, is a track metric mile—you knew that—but for a 5 K distance, it’s twelve and a half laps in that lane. Do only twelve laps each session but run in lane three; twelve laps in that lane is almost exactly 5 K. You don’t mind running outdoors in the winter, I reckon. Do you have a timepiece where you can see seconds?” Tom nodded. “So keep track of your times; see if you can do an 18:30 time or better. I’ll try to get out there to watch and make any needed suggestions about your running form if I see anything. Sound good?”

“Sure, Coach. I can start today, in fact.”

“That’s ace, son. Glad to have you. I’ll see you later. Hey, you’ll need a late pass to class—let me give you one.”

Later, at Tom’s first practice session, the coach came out to time Tom’s run and he came in at a bit over 18:35. The coach was grinning ear to ear at his time.

“Armstrong, good run. You can only improve, too. I noticed a few details about your form...”

He gave Tom some pointers and had Tom jog a lap using his suggestions.

“Yeah, Coach. That feels a little better when I do it that way.”

“Good, it’ll help your stride in the middle distance. Now go get cleaned up.”

That evening, Tom and Lynette were doing their homework together; ever since their first romantic session, doing homework together had become their normal routine, although they both had carefully steered away from another romantic encounter. They both felt somewhat embarrassed at how far they had gone. Lynette was very jittery tonight, however. Tom noticed.

“Sweetie, what the hell’s bugging you that you can’t keep still?”

“Damn. Tommie, today at lunch—well, when lunch was done—ohmygod ... Can’t stop thinking about it...”

“Shit. Must be sex stuff again. Well, if y’think talking about it will help, maybe I can see if I can listen without getting my sensibilities too damaged,” he winked at her.

“Funny you’re not,” she pouted. “Yeah, well, when half the lunch period is over, the Program kids become fair game for the gropers—you knew that, I think?”

Tom nodded. “You mentioned that fact once or fifty times, I believe.”

Lynette stuck out her tongue at him. “So this guy goes over to where the naked kids sit; they all sit together—for mutual support, I suppose, and he asks one of the guys to do oral sex on a girl there. The girl said, ‘That’s not a reasonable request!’ So he goes, ‘But if you both agree, then it is.’ He turns to the guy and gives him that reasonable request, to lick the girl, and the guy makes a disgusted-like face.

“Then the girl asks the other kids at her table what they think they should do. Well, they seemed to all agree that if both parties were okay with doing it, then why not? One said, in fact, ‘I saw a relief session in class once where a guy went down on a girl.’ Then several of the naked girls pulled the naked guy aside for a minute and were yakking at him; he began shaking his head but eventually shrugged and then they kissed him. Well, the two kids finally did agree and they started in and after a bit of hurried whispering, they got into a 69 on the table top. They looked uncomfortable; the girl was on top and must have pressed down too hard on the guy under her—it was a hard table, so she lifted up her hips so she was off his chest. Now her ass was sticking up and the guy had to lean up a little to reach her pussy.

“One of the other naked guys, I later found out he was the girl’s partner, was stroking his dick and she looked over and saw him doin’ it. I heard her call out something like, ‘I’m so fuckin’ hot, Sam, I’m gaggin’ for your cock. Shit, I need you in my fanny!’ Heh, see, I’m pickin’ up those funny British slang words ... Anyway, he climbs up behind her, right over the guy’s head, and just pushes his cock right into her pussy. She screamed when he thrust into her. And shit, if that guy on the bottom didn’t look like he was licking his balls as the boyfriend went in and out of the girl’s pussy, I’d think I was blind.

“Then I heard someone closer to them call out, ‘Blimey, look, it’s goddamn blood—he took her cherry!’ That was totally what happened! Her boyfriend took her damned virginity on a lunchroom table. The scene was incredible. Some boys even creamed their pants; I could tell when I saw them rubbing their crotches, then grimace, and then run out of the lunchroom—to the loo, I assume.” She giggled. “Girls were red-faced and had their hands under their clothes. So fuckin’ hot!”

Lynette didn’t realize that her own hand was under her waistband, stroking her vulva, until she noticed where Tom was looking. She blushed, pulled her hand up, and looked at him.

“Tom, your face is all bright red. You okay?”

“Shit, Lynnie, now I’m horny as all fuck!”

“Ooooo, maybe it’s time for some self-help again,” she cooed seductively.

She got off her bed and stood in front of him.

“No scarf now, okay, darling?”

Tom gulped and nodded.

She bent down, hooked her fingers in the waistband of Tom’s pants and pulled them down, urging him to lift his butt. Then she pulled his underpants off, freeing a rampant erection. His shirt was next. Then she pulled on his hands, prompting him to stand up. She pulled him over to her closet door to the full-length mirror there.

“Look, Tom, look in the mirror. You’re naked. A girl undressed you. How do you feel?”

Tom’s head was spinning; he felt dizzy and disoriented. His penis was standing proudly, hard as an iron bar, and he was trying to sort out the sensations he was feeling, because Lynette was running her hands over his entire body: chest, abs, penis, butt, nipples, cheeks, hair, everywhere.

“Tommie, darling, time to undress me now,” she murmured in his ear and stood on her tiptoes to tickle his ear with her tongue.