Chapter 5: Award and Reward

SCHOOL STARTED and I was immediately inundated with homework and photographs. What’s more, the State Fair started that weekend and I wanted to get down there to see how my photos did in the State Competition. Football practice was going strong, but the first game wasn’t for two weeks. Anna met me first thing Monday morning and started with a list of photos that we’d need to get. I wanted one great photo to post on the bulletin board the day we got back after Labor Day. Getting it the first week of school was going to be a challenge.

Into the breach rides Anna. She and Chris and Ronda were all in my first period class, US Government and Economics, taught by Mr. Turner. It looked like it would be an interesting class, especially with Chris and Anna flanking me and Ronda next to Chris. It would have a massive amount of reading, though.

As soon as the bell rang dismissing class, Anna hooked my arm and marched me down the hall to where she’d posted a backdrop next to the bulletin board. It was the spot where we’d put the mugshot station last year. This one was a huge poster of a two-lane road with a forest on one side, a farm on the other, mountains in the distance, and a sunny sky above. A rather geeky looking freshman was standing in front of the backdrop and Anna handed him her little chalkboard and it had “Lunar Landing or Bust!” written on it. He held out his thumb like a hitchhiker and I took his picture.

Then I rushed to Senior English Lit with Miss Kellogg. Most of the kids I knew well were in this class, including Anna, Chris, Ronda, Andy, Karen, Pris, Debbie, and Patricia. Miss Kellogg was our speech teacher last year and I liked her straightforward and direct way of running her class. She didn’t start with a roll call, but immediately started talking about the meaning of life and asking us what we thought it was. It got into a lively discussion as people came up with different concepts—some of them well thought out and some obviously off the cuff. Then she quoted Hamlet’s ‘To Be or Not to Be’ speech and introduced the concept of the search for meaning in literature of the ages.

I had a choice for my fourth year of math and chose statistics instead of trigonometry. I didn’t really expect to take any math in college and thought understanding statistics might actually be useful. Mr. Jacobs was a pretty dry instructor and I’d need to almost force myself to pay attention in class. There were only a couple of students I hung out with who were in this class.

Which was more than the number of students in my art class. This was the class they wouldn’t let me take last year and sent me to gym instead. The class would be a survey of art materials and styles that included creating several works of art during the course of the class.

Lunch found me back in front of the hitchhiker poster and Anna kept writing up clever destinations for each of the kids who posed. It would be a good set. I went to my bookkeeping class after lunch and found Vicki was in the class. My senior friends had already taken the course, but after Anna had explained my profit and loss statement to me, I decided I needed to have this course. And it only took me half the class to get the image of Miss Sullivan naked in my arms out of my head.

We had a new science teacher named Mr. Darwin. He taught band and physics. What a strange combination. But I could tell from the beginning that I’d like physics better than I had biology. Patricia and Judy were in the class and immediately jumped to be my lab partners. That would be good and gave me a chance to check in on Patricia each day to make sure she was holding together. I ended the day with my second year Spanish class. Hola.

“I’m dying to know how I did in the competition at the State Fair,” I said as I walked Chris and Ronda home after school. I glanced over and saw that we were walking Anna home first. We’d been standing together at the hitchhiker’s board after school when Chris and Ronda hooked our arms and got us headed home.

“Why don’t we have a field trip,” Ronda said. “Let’s all go to Springfield this weekend for the State Fair!”

“That would be fun!” Chris said. “I’ll ask Mum and Poppa if I can have the car Saturday.”

“Do you think they’d let us go without them?” I asked.

“We’ll take Anna as a chaperone,” Chris laughed, giving Anna a squeeze.

“And Patricia,” Ronda added. “That girl needs to get out and do something. She looked terrible in school today. It will give her something to look forward to.”

“You’d let me come along?” Anna said. “That would be really fun!”

“You should get permission for at least one other of us to help drive,” I said to Chris. “It’s over 200 miles and takes about four hours or more to get there. It wouldn’t be a good idea to have just one driver going all the way there and all the way back.”

We all agreed that we’d do it. Now it was just a matter of getting our parents to all agree.

By some miracle, the parents all agreed. Mr. Evans went out with me to drive the Belvedere to Huntertown and back before he agreed to let me be a designated driver. Saturday morning, we all packed up into the station wagon, with thermoses, a picnic basket, and a cooler, and headed south. We got to Springfield at eleven o’clock. This trip was a fun escapade with four girls and a guy, but it was really my idea to get to see my photos on display. I paid for the gas, parking, and admission to the fair. Anything anyone wanted at the fair was paid for by that person.

That meant the first thing we did, just like when I’d been to the fair with my parents, was find a place where we could all get coffee, cocoa, or tea. As soon as we were fairly satisfied that we were awake and ready to look at stuff, we headed for the exhibition hall to find the photography exhibit. We found it and I couldn’t believe that the picture of Avery had the purple “Best of Class” ribbon displayed. Kat’s picture and Lori’s picture both had blue ribbons next to them. Amy’s picture ... wasn’t there. I couldn’t believe they’d just refused to display it. It was absurd. Chris, who had been with me through the entire ordeal of Amy’s sitting held me tightly.

“Where is it?” she asked, as if I had told them to put it somewhere else. I just shook my head. It was a great honor to win best of class and was worth $300, but I felt bad for Amy that after giving me permission to enter her photo, it wasn’t even on display. I turned to leave when Anna and Patricia came running up to us. They’d stopped to go to the restroom and said they’d join us right away.

“Did you see?” Anna shouted.

“See what?” I asked.

“The other picture. It’s over there.” She pointed back the way they’d come and Patricia grabbed my other arm to drag me that direction with Chris and Ronda following behind.

We came to a display marked “Best of Show.” Four items were displayed. A beautiful piece of pottery, an extremely creative quilt, and an oil painting of the Chicago skyline. And Amy’s picture in the center with a bouquet of flowers, marked “Governor’s Award for Best of Show 1967.”

People were stopping to look at the display and I heard comments as they became aware of what had won the award.

“Gutsy.”

“Heart wrenching.”

“What a commentary on our society.”

“Did the photographer help her or just leave her like that?”

“I can’t believe the governor was brave enough to put his name on this award.”

“I’ll vote for him again.”

Chris took my camera from me after I’d taken a picture of the display and motioned me to stand beside it. She took my picture.

“I saw the picture in the studio and it still slays me,” Patricia said. “I can see the life of every woman I know in her eyes.”

She started the procession by kissing me, right there in the exhibit with people standing around. Then Anna knocked my socks off with a kiss and I felt her tongue lick my lips, then she darted away. Ronda’s kiss was significantly more passionate. And Chris nearly ended up laid out naked in front of the flowers while I fucked her. It was that passionate.

We realized we were making a spectacle of ourselves and apologized to people as we moved away. I held all four girls in my arms as we stood on the other side of the aisle and looked back at the people stopping to stare at the display.

We came to the fair to have fun, not just to see my photos. I never thought that four teenage girls would want to sit and watch every cooking/cookware demonstration in the commercial building. We did sample some good food. And we made it to the rides.

We had what we considered to be a good meal of fair food and were on the road headed home by six. We’d stopped at the exhibit twice more to see the display. I still couldn’t believe it.

Friday night was our first football game at Huffington. It wasn’t all that far away, so Chris and I rode the fan bus. Ronda, of course, had responsibilities as the head cheerleader and only senior on the squad. Anna was on the bus, too, and chatted with us. We sat in the stands, but I needed to go down nearer the field to take some pictures.

I’d convinced Miss Sullivan to just get Tri-X Pan film so I was shooting 400 ASA all the time in the 35mm. The film was just all around better than using the slower Plus-X Pan film for the kind of on-the-spot photography I was doing for the yearbook. I did still like to use a slow film in the Hasselblad for studio work sometimes, but mostly I was shooting 400, or 1600 film, or even pushing it to 3200, even though that sometimes resulted in pictures that looked as fogged and grainy as the candid shots of Omaha Beach on D-Day.

I got a couple of good shots and our team actually won the game 6-0. Neither team was really very good, but we chalked it up as the very first Tenbrook football victory. Coach Hennessey was strutting the entire next week.

Since we rode the bus, we got back to school about nine and I walked Anna, Ronda, and Chris home. None of us stayed out late. I got three very nice kisses—one of them was quite unexpected, but Anna was taking every opportunity to make contact. Chris and I each kissed Ronda goodnight at her door and then I walked Chris home and had a nice long and loving goodnight kiss with her before I headed home. Chris and I would go out Saturday night and find a nice place where we could make love.

When it came time for the next football game at home, Chris begged off completely. She was cramping and just wanted her heating pad. When I walked her home after school she told me I needed to get back to the game and go to the dance. Ronda would be very disappointed if I didn’t dance with her.

Maybe I should have insisted that I stay with Chris and not go to enjoy myself at the game and dance, but I went to the game and dance and enjoyed myself. A lot. I discovered quickly how much girls had been avoiding me because I was going steady. But being at the dance stag and dancing with Ronda brought several others out to play.

Of course, I had fun dancing with Ronda, and Anna wanted a share. But Judy and Janice were apparently missing their boyfriend, who was going to a technical school in Oglesby. They wanted time dancing and plotting when they could come to the studio for photos ‘and stuff.’ It was the first I’d heard that word was already out about seniors being able to have their photos taken in my studio instead of on the stage during photo week.

Roxie even came to me for a dance and told me we had ‘unfinished business.’ She suggested that we pick up where we left off. We could do it on weekends when Chris wasn’t available. She said that with a dance move that could have gotten us thrown off the dance floor if anyone had noticed her humping against my stiff cock as we clinched.

Vicki wanted to show me how far she’d come in her dancing since our last turn on the floor.

“How are things with you and Jon?” I asked.

“Can you believe that he’d already started going steady with Joanie?” she said. “I got to him too late. I’ve had a few dates with guys, but nobody has really turned me on, you know?”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure there are other guys that would be happy to date you,” I said.

“I’ll get there. But you know what that means? I haven’t managed a third date with anyone! I’m horny as hell. Could you, um ... help a girl out a little? Say, if maybe she got tickets to a concert at Loras? The 5th Dimension is playing in three weeks. And you know my tight little butt will be waiting for you in the back seat.”

“Geez, Vicki. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but you might want to tone down how much you promise when you ask guys out. You’ll have them going out with you just so they can fuck your ass,” I said.

“Well, I don’t mind if that’s what you think. You’ve been there before and I’m inviting you again. The 5th Dimension is just a way to get us out of town,” she said.

“I’ll check my calendar and if everything is clear, you’re on. First weekend of October, right? Geez! I’ll be eighteen!”

Then Pris wanted a dance. She got up very close to whisper in my ear.

“Can you put me down for an afterschool photoshoot on Tuesday the third? I want to get a head start on my senior photo and get the full Attic Allure treatment. And you know what? I’ll be eighteen that Sunday, so you can take nudes of me in any position you want me. And then show the world!”

“Do you really want me to show the world pictures of you nude?” I asked, a little bewildered.

“I know girls who are planning to schedule their senior photo and Attic Allure shots as late as next spring so they’ll be eighteen when they come in. The whole idea is a real turn-on. God! You should feel my pussy right now, just from talking about it.”

“As lovely a thought as that is, you know the rules. No sex in the studio. And no, I won’t date you. You’re a model.”

“I don’t actually want to ... you know ... go all the way. But I’d like you to put me in a position where ... um ... where I know you could go all the way if you wanted. I’d be stripped and vulnerable and at the mercy of a strong and powerful man who will hold pictures of me, so I’d have to do anything for him he wants in order to keep them from being shown. I could be blackmailed in five years—when I get married and have a child—and I’d have to have sex with you any way you want me in order to keep the photos from being delivered to my husband.”

Her breathing had increased to the point where she was pretty much panting in my ear as she rubbed her breasts against my chest. I thought she was about to come.

“It sounds like you’ve been reading trashy romances,” I said. “Where are you getting them? I might want to read one or two.”

“I’ll bring you a couple during our photo session.”

“Okay. I’ll put you on the calendar.”

I wondered how many fantasies I was going to need to fulfill for the girls in my class. Pris disappeared, headed toward the restrooms, and I found a very cute little girl standing in front of me. I say little girl because she was only about five feet tall and she looked like she might be a freshman. I didn’t recognize her right away though she looked sort of familiar.

“Mr. Nate, may I have a dance?”

“You have an advantage over me. I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

“I’m Sandra Gottschalk. You know my sister, Pam.”

“Oh! You’re Pam’s little sister? That’s great. Please, let us have a dance. How is Pam doing down at State?”

“You know Pam. She’s managed to work her way onto the varsity cheerleading squad already and is dating a senior. But I want to talk about something other than my sister.”

“What would you like to talk about?”

“Pam showed me all the pictures you’ve taken of her and I want pictures like that—sort of.”

“Um ... I can’t really enroll you as a model,” I said. “If you are under sixteen, I’d need your parents to sign the release, and I still couldn’t show any photos of you like Pam’s until you were eighteen.”

“I get that. I’ll pay you for the sitting and you’ll keep the photos to yourself, except the ones you give to me.”

“You seem to have this all worked out.”

“I talked to Pam about it. For as much a slut as she is, she’s pretty smart, too. You see, a few years ago, I started noticing how my sister was developing. I mean, you’ve got to admit, she has pretty spectacular boobs. At the time, I had nothing. Pam said I had two raisins on a breadboard. But I got real interested in how a girl’s body develops. I took a bunch of Polaroids of Pam and she took several of me. So, I’ve got pictures that show the first development of buds on my chest. When I got hair around my vagina, and how my butt is changing shape. I didn’t used to have a waist at all. Now it’s staying narrow while my butt gets bigger.”

“I see. But what do you want from me?”

“I think this will be a year of big changes for me. I can feel the itching in my breasts that says they’re growing. I want you to do a photographic record of how I develop this year. It is strictly for my personal use, but I want something better than Polaroids.”

“I see. How often do you want this done?”

“Oh, every other month for now. Probably once a year when I’m more mature.”

“Once a year? You know I’m a senior and will be leaving Tenbrook next year.”

“Yeah. But I’ll find you.”

“Okay. When do you want to start?” I was interested in this. I’d fantasized about girls since I was in eighth grade and started noticing they were developing. I’d always been curious about what the difference were from year to year. This could be cool.

“I could come to your studio tomorrow.”

“Let’s make it two o’clock.”

After the dance, Ronda and Anna latched onto me to walk them home. That would keep me from being attacked by anyone else. I’d seen Judy and Janice heading toward me but they veered off when Ronda and Anna got to me.

Both girls held my hands as we walked to Anna’s house. Ronda started by kissing Anna goodnight, much to Anna’s surprise. That might have been a little more of a kiss than she was prepared for. Then I kissed her, and her lips immediately parted, offering her tongue to mine to touch. That was pretty intense for a minute. I think it might have been Anna’s first French kiss and it was obvious she didn’t want it to end. Maybe it was her second, based on what I’d just seen with Ronda.

I walked Ronda home and we bypassed the porch entirely. Instead, we slipped into the back yard and went into the playhouse. We quickly rolled out a sleeping bag and Ronda wasted no time getting us naked.

“Watching you get hit on by all those girls made me horny. Not to mention kissing Anna. That girl is like dry tinder waiting for a match. Did you think about fucking her when you kissed her?”

“Um ... I might have had a stray thought about it.”

“Put your thoughts in action and fuck me, lover. Remember, Chris said I needed to fuck you when she was on the rag. All those other bitches will have to wait until your cock isn’t busy in our pussies.”

I sank into heaven. Ronda was hot and wet and immediately started clenching on my cock with her pussy.

“Oh, Ronda! This is so amazing. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Nate. And I love you fucking me. Give it to me, baby. Give it all to me.”

She lifted her legs and wrapped them around my waist. I supported my weight on my elbows and thumbed her nipples while we kissed and pounded at each other. Ronda was ready and when I started flooding her pussy with come, she screamed into my mouth and clamped down on my cock in a spasm. Even covered with my mouth, I thought her screech might have been heard all over town. In the aftermath, everything seemed very quiet.