Chapter 32: Bowling - The Qualifying - Part One

We all crowded around lanes twenty to twenty eight (not on the lanes or the approaches of course) while the potential audience, or curious onlookers, and there was plenty of them, stood where they could (again not on lanes or the approaches).

I looked around and saw that what Sarah had told my father was true, I saw both of our male and female qualifiers for the recent world cup in Jakarta, and not only that it also looked as though they were a couple. And standing near them were another couple, both of whom I knew were ranked in the top five Australian bowlers. Heaven help the rest of us if those four got together.

I pointed out the bowlers to Sarah who just shrugged. "Well there is over two hundred and forty thousand in prizemoney available, and that's without those special prizes that the sponsors Carlton and United have put up."

Suddenly there was a tap on a microphone and we all turned to see the centre manager Andrew Marshall indicating for quiet.

"Welcome bowlers," he said. And then he turned to the bowlers I'd just been pointing out to Sarah. "And I'd like to especially welcome Tony Casey and his partner for the duration of this competition Stephanie King, both of whom represented Australia in the recent world cup, and both of whom had averages of better than two hundred and forty going into the stepladder finals."

He was about to introduce the other star bowlers when the applause started. When it died down after several seconds he did manage to introduce the other pair.

"Please welcome as well--" he said pointing to the couple standing next to Tony and Stephanie "--Peter Craven number three in the Australian standings and Debra Mills who failed by point four of a pin to take Stephanie Kings place at that world cup. So you'll see gentleman, and ladies, that the competition will be stiff for places in this league."

"Now," he said, "to the rules." He looked around to make sure he had everyone's attention.

He did, the spectators included.

"Basically the rules are simple. First of all it goes without saying that Bowling Association rules apply, as does bowling etiquette.

"As for the rest, strikes mean undressing and dressing. Two strikes by your direct opponent, on each pair of lanes means the removal of a garment while three means you can put one back on. Now as far as this is concerned one opposes one, two opposes two and so on male against male, female against female. Now each bowler will wear four articles of clothing during the competition proper, bra and panties for the girls and singlets and jockey briefs for the men. Those will be accompanied by uniforms to be supplied by our sponsors Carlton and United Breweries which are to be worn in repayment for their payment of all bowling fees and expenses and some special prizemoney which is already dated and sealed and securely deposited in a bank vault. As far as who undresses who is concerned, the partner of the bowler responsible for your loss of clothing will remove or replace the article concerned.

"Just remember that three or more strikes in a row have a compound effect. For instance if you open a game with three strikes then your opponent would have to take off two articles of clothing, one for that double, triple actually, in the first frame and a second for the double in the second and so on.

"That is of course with the proviso that you don't have any, or finish up with only one in either of those frames. Remember that doubles negate doubles and triples negate triples so that if you both have two strikes in the same frame neither of you can have you opponents garment removed and if you both have a three-strike count in the same frame then you cannot have an article of clothing that has been removed replaced." He looked around. "Is that clear?"

There was a universal nod.

"Right, now before we go on, girls I should remind you that panties means just that panties, not G-strings or thongs. They can be lace or cotton or silk or whatever but they have to cover and not expose bottoms and vaginas. You will probably be fully exposed soon enough." He turned and looked around the men. "Guys, same thing, they have to cover. Oh, now I know you're going to say what about when you get an erection?" There were chuckles, mostly female. When they died off he continued. "You'll just have to make sure you're wearing underwear of sufficient size to offer sufficient coverage.

"Now," he said, "we come to the most important part of all. Well," he grinned, "except maybe for the prizemoney. And maybe to some of you this just as important, if not more so, than the money."

He didn't say a thing for several seconds, drawing out the moment. "What happens when you, the bowlers are finally naked? Well two strikes by your direct opposition bowler will net you a minus figure, a figure that can be reduced the same way as in the stripping part of the competition, in other words bowl three strikes in a row.

"Now, should a bowler reach five his or her minus figure cannot reduce below that for the remainder of the night, which of course means he or she remains naked. And, he or she will have to perform a sexual act with the next person on his pair of lanes of the opposite sex who reaches the same figure.

"When a bowler reaches the magic figure of minus ten, if he or she does, because at the end of the night everything starts again the next week from scratch, then he or she draws a raffle ticket from a box holding tickets purchased by members of the opposite sex in the audience. The number of that ticket is then announced and the owner of the number comes down and claims his... er... or her, prize.

He looked around. "Are there any questions?"

Stephanie King promptly put her hand up. "Andrew, are there any controls over what these members of the audience, men in our case," she said indicating the other female bowlers, "can do to us, or" she attempted a smile "what the male bowlers in our group can do to the ladies who hold the winning tickets where they are concerned."

"Thank you Miss King," Andrew responded, "I had forgotten that. In both cases the men are limited to whatever the ladies will allow. Now," he looked around the bowlers, "if there are no further questions." He waited to see if there was any response and when there wasn't said, "okay then for those who don't know on what lanes they are bowling the board is behind me. Once you have checked your lanes and settled in you will have two balls per lane before qualifying proper starts."

"Oh, just a couple of more things," said Andrew Marshall just before the bowling departed. "Bowlers are to remain in their dressed or undressed state and are to remain in the area of the lanes until any minus ten commitments are completed. And the last thing. We've had three qualifying sessions already, Sunday afternoon, Sunday night and last night, that's eighty four pairs trying to qualify to be one of the fifty-six pairs that will eventually make it. Now as it stands at the moment the combined average of the fifty sixth pair, in other words the couple in the last qualifying spot is 361. That suggests to me that by the middle of next week, when qualifying comes to an end, that as a pair you will probably need a combined average in excess of 400. Now good luck to you all."

I was about to walk to the board with Sarah to check on who the other two couples were when a young male voice came from behind us. "We're on lanes twenty-one and twenty-two, our names are down for twenty-one, and we're together."

We turned and saw a smiling Allan Morris and his girlfriend Anna Wilson standing behind us and grinning as they introduced themselves to Sarah.

"That's the good news." Added Anna. "The bad news is that Tony Casey is your direct opponent Justin and Stephanie King is yours Sarah. You see they are on our pair of lanes along with Sandy Morgan the mayors daughter who's my opponent and very good from what I've heard, and her boyfriend William McKinnon, Allan's opponent who just happens to be..."

"State champion? Yes I know," I said stifling the urge to panic.

Vikki and Madeleine, who had been standing to one side, chose that moment to introduce themselves. Then Vikki said, "Well that could be a good thing or a bad thing," she said smiling as she turned to me, "if, as you're probably thinking, that Casey guy strips you fairly quickly, then isn't it possible, or probable, that Stephanie King will do the same thing to Sarah and that maybe Sandy Morgan will probably do the same to Anna."

"Not to mention that McKinnon will probably just as easily strip me."

"Your point being?" I asked trying to find a positive out of all this.

"That if the worse comes to the worse you'll be fucking either Anna or Sarah. Tell me that doesn't wet your... er... appetite!"

"Well when you put it like that..."

"And if it's Sarah, put it any way you like," came the voice of Robin Ottoman as he joined us. When Sarah introduced him he added, "I've bought a ticket and if my number comes up I hope to talk the lucky young lady into spreading for me."

"Yes, we've bought tickets too," said Vikki indicating Madeleine.

"And so have we added Vikki's mother indicating my mother standing next to her.

"And no matter who the guy is the four of us have agreed that they are going to get lucky," said Vikki as she patted us all on the bottom. "Now get going you've got some... er... bowling to do."

Allan turned to me as we walked towards the lanes. "Is Vikki your girlfriend?"

I couldn't help but smile. "Yes she is."

"In that case tell me that she met you at the school and that Julie saw the pair of you."

"She walked me to school this morning and then both her and Madeleine met me this afternoon. And yes your sister did see us."

"Fantastic!"

When Sarah and I walked up to the lanes with Allan and Anna, Tony Casey and Stephanie King immediately walked up and introduced themselves.

Allan made the introductions for him and Anna and then I went to introduce myself and Sarah, but before I could Tony held up his hand. "Justin Robertson and Sarah Pendleberry. I would've known who you were. Justin, your reputation precedes you, Kim and the manager Andrew Marshall have been high in their praise of you." He turned to Sarah. "As for you Sarah, I know your father, I'm sorry to hear about his broken leg by the way..." She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "Anyway, your father taught me for a while so I know how good he is." He smiled. "And if he's passed any of that knowledge on to you then things could be..."

"... Interesting," put in Stephanie joining in for the first time. "And then," she said pulling the first of two balls out of her bag, "there's the unknown of bowling either partly or fully naked." She smiled, but it seemed forced to me, lacking in confidence.

"Seems to me that the joker in this particular pack is exactly what Stephanie here says," said Sandy Morgan placing a ball on the rack. "If it hadn't been for my father I wouldn't have even contemplated entering a competition like this. But I'm in uni and he won't pay my funds past this year. Bastard said I've got to stand on my own feet. That's when he suggested this league. Told me he'd pay if I entered," she took her partners hand, "and that's when lover boy here put in his ten cents worth." She finally managed a smile. "I mean what choice did I have? Anyway William here thinks it'll help loosen me up. Personally I think he just wants to get into you girls panties."

"Oh can't be all bad," said Sarah putting her ball on the rack "you might enjoy some of these guys getting into yours."

"That's what my dad said." She laughed as she began to relax. "And until all this business started he was just a staid old stick-in-the-mud. Now we have a maid who wears just panties and an apron and who he has sex with on a regular basis."

"And what about your mum?" asked Allan looking around and then looking at me.

"Well," said the mayor's daughter, "we do have a gardener, and we do get a weekly visit from the pool cleaner."

"So does he plant some seed when he's not mowing the grass?" Sandy cracked up and could only nod her head. Allan then turned to me. "By the way Justin are you missing anything?"

That's when I realised that I didn't have both of my balls or my shoes with me. "Oh yes," I said embarrassed and ran off to my locker to retrieve them.

When I went back Tony Casey looked as I pulled my Quantum Raven out of the bag. When dad had bought it for me a little over nine months ago it had been one of the most expensive balls in the shop and had taken me a while to learn how to control it.

Tony who obviously knew something about the ball asked, "Do I assume that you can control the back-end on a ball like that?" He moved up to the approach of lane twenty one and calmly bowled a strike, came back and sat down and looked up waiting for my response to his question.

I looked over to where he was sitting wiping a small towel over his ball. "It took me a couple of weeks but once I got the hang of it felt really good."

"Until you stopped bowling. Why did you do that?" He saw immediately the pained questioning expression on my face. "Sorry, forget I asked that. It's just that after what Kim told about your four game series with a house ball and house shoes. I think if you can handle that like I've heard then I'm," he looked at Stephanie, "we're in for a hard time."

"I hope so," said Sarah coming back after bowling her two balls on lane twenty-two.

Keeping my ball in my hand I walked up to lane twenty-one, took a deep breath, made my four-step approach, threw the ball out and watched as the ball held its line until about two thirds of the way down the sixty plus feet of the lane and then began to bite as its big 'back-end' took hold and brought it right into the one-two pocket scattering all ten pins.

Tony and Stephanie were both laughing as I came back. "Well," said Tony, "this afternoon is going to be fun indeed. And I'm not talking about the nudity and sex, to me that's secondary now. This I think is going to be a fun two and a half hours of bowling with maybe some relaxing sex thrown in for good measure."

A few minutes later we had all completed our two balls per lane and were ready to start having made a pact to ignore anything happening on the other lanes unless any of us were nude and in the minus ten points situation.

When the bowler on lane twenty-three had finished his first ball Tony Casey walked up, picked up his ball and calmly rolled a strike."

The bowler on lane twenty was about to move up and bowl at the same time as me, but with me on his right he gave way. Thanking him I took my position, mentally told myself that this was just another afternoon of social bowling (yeah right!) and matched, how I did it I don't know, Tony's strike. Two-handed high-fives from everyone. That was another thing we agreed upon, double high-fives for strikes and singles for spares.