Chapter 3

I was told afterwards by more than one person that Robin's striptease was the highlight, not just of her division, but of the entire first day. Of course, maybe they were tired of seeing women wearing bikinis. They'd certainly seen enough by the time the day ended. At the state competitions, women had to strip in bikinis (actually the rules called for swimsuits, but I've never yet seen a one-piece at one of these shows). The local and intercounty contests also had mandatory outfits: evening gowns.

At the national level, though, the only rule was that you had to wear the same outfit for both days of competition. And unlike the state and local shows, where up to thirty or forty women could be stripping at the same time, each woman at the national show would have the spotlight to herself. So why you'd want to look like everyone else — almost all the contestants last year had worn bikinis, too — was beyond me.

Robin and I had actually spent a good deal of time discussing what she was going to wear. Once she finally bought into the idea, she decided that what she really needed to do was create, or more likely re-create, fantasies for the young men judging the competition. The "pool fantasy" — he's the lifeguard, she's the mommy come for a swim with her kids — had been done to death. And for the 18-and-over division, it just wasn't all that successful anyway. None of those women had ever finished higher than fourth place at the National Show.

So Robin decided she wanted to go for what she called the "garden fantasy." Pretty standard stuff — older woman gardening outside the house, lawn boy puttering around with the weedeater or the lawnmower or whatever. But no one had done it last year, or the year before as far as I could tell, and Robin figured it might be a good way to get her a little extra bit of attention. So she marched into the arena in a somewhat-too-small white men's shirt whose top buttons were torn off and whose shirt-tails were tied just under her chest; the shortest pair of khaki shorts we could find; and bright white sneakers. We'd even gone the extra distance by putting a couple of small smudges of dirt on her face, her chest, and legs, and by spraying her with a light oil that gave her the look of someone actually doing manual labor. That, incidentally, is why the grooming had taken so long; you didn't think I'd actually done her hair, did you?

The other nine women in Robin's division were, naturally, wearing bikinis. And, oddly, high heels. Which was part of the pool fantasy only in porno-land. There was no doubt that Robin stood out. And she sold it, too. The handler can't dress his part; he has to wear a white smock. As Robin said, he's simply a stand-in for the judges. So it's completely up to the contestant. When it was Robin's turn, she turned away from me and leaned on the show stand as the music started. She waited a few beats, and then turned to me with a look of surprise. That was quickly replaced with a feral expression as she raked me up and down with her eyes. And then she started.

The shirt came off first, the few remaining buttons flying as she grabbed the shirttails and just yanked the shirt open and over her shoulders. The front-closing bra underneath it went next. Robin's tits weren't huge, but on the screen above the arena that most people were watching, popping open that bra had the effect of letting them explode into view.

I still have no idea how she got rid of her sneakers, but by the time she tore open the button-fly on her shorts, and kicked them over my head, leaving her in nothing but a pair of black mesh panties, the place was going nuts. I thought the hardest part would come next, maintaining her energy while she worked the panties down her legs. But Robin had a surprise for me. She'd cut most of the threads along the seams of the panties, so she just stood there for two beats, her hands on her hips with her thumbs hooked inside, and then straightened her arms. The little piece of fabric fluttered to the ground.

The other women had just stood there after that and waited for the applause to die down. Robin stepped forward, ripped open my smock, and dropped to her knees for the blowjob. Well within the rules, and the applause never did die down. Wow.

I suddenly realized that if I didn't concentrate, I'd be shooting a load down her throat in a matter of minutes. And at this level, that would be disaster. Because as soon as the blowjob ended, we were supposed to go into our compulsory routine. That wasn't going to be very successful if I was soft. So while this woman was busy making love to my dick, I started thinking about how far we'd come — actually, how far Robin had come — to get there.

"May I please come in, Kenneth?" the woman in my doorway asked, slowly lifting her face as I realized that the woman standing in front of me was Wally's mom. I hadn't seen her in five months or so, ever since I'd been warned away from the house.

"Yeah," I said reluctantly. "Sure."

I closed the door behind her and invited her to take a seat in the living room. I sat across from her and finally raised my eyebrows. You first, lady.

"How have you been, Kenneth?" she said in response.

"Kenny," I said. "I prefer Kenny."

She swallowed.

"Kenny, then," she said. "How have you been?"

"I've been fine, Mrs. Kennedy," I said. "And you?"

"Fine, thank you, Kenneth, I mean Kenny," she said. "I've missed seeing you and Wally together."

"Well, it wasn't actually my choice," I said, growing angrier.

"Mine either, Kenny," she said, finally looking directly at me.

I just sat there.

"Kenny, when Allen — when Mr. Kennedy overheard Terry's roommate talking about your, um —"

"Performance?"

She reddened.

"Anyway, he wanted to forbid Wally from even seeing you," she continued. "I fought for you, Kenny, for your friendship."

"Thank you for that," I said coolly. Fought for me? What was he going to do, send Wally to military school? Put little shock collars on us to make sure we stayed fifty feet apart?

She sat there wringing her hands together.

"Can I get you some coffee, Mrs. Kennedy?"

She looked up gratefully.

"Thank you, Kenny," she nodded. My mom had left some coffee in a carafe, so I prepared a little tray and brought it out for us to share. She apparently had taken the time to compose herself.

"Kenny," she finally blurted out after we'd each sipped at the coffee, "I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to be blunt. And I would ask you, please, not to tell Wally. I've kept this from both kids. If you say no, please just forget I was here."

She took a deep breath, and plunged in.

"Allen has invested all of our money in some kind of computer business, and then borrowed more money on top of that to invest. He insists it will pay off, and I have to believe him. He's my husband. But it hasn't yet. And Allen's still making money at his regular job to pay for the house and all, but with the new monthly payments on what he's borrowed and our other debt, we... we..."

I fetched a box of tissues from the bathroom and waited until she was ready again. She sniffed and blew her nose and finally looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

"Terry's and Wally's tuition payments for the fall semester are due next week."

Yeah, no kidding. Mine had been, too, at least the part not covered by financial aid. I still didn't see how this had anything to do with me, so I just nodded.

"You're not going to make this easy for me, are you, Kenny?" she asked.

"Make what easy?" I finally said. "I still have no idea why you're here!"

"I need to borrow twenty thousand dollars," she said meekly.

I'm sure my jaw dropped. The idea of an adult needing to borrow money from a — well, from a kid, was beyond my comprehension.

"Wally said that you made a fair amount of money on your, um, show thing."

"The MILF Show," I said.

"The MILF Show," she acknowledged.

"And he told me that you had a scholarship to college," she continued.

"That's true," I agreed. "For the most part. So let me get this straight. You want me to lend you twenty thousand dollars, basically because you and your husband are so tapped out that you can't get anyone else to loan you the money, is that right?"

"Yes," she finally said, looking everywhere but at me. "I just can't tell Terry and Wally that they can't go to school next year. Wally worked so hard to get into Northwestern, and Terry is actually doing well at school for the first time in her life. I never got to go to college, Kenny, and it's the one dream I always had for my kids."

"Seriously?" I'd gotten caught up in her story. "I always thought you were pretty smart."

"I am," she gave me a wan smile. "Or I was. I was actually valedictorian of my high school. But then I got pregnant, and Allen's father insisted that we get married or he'd cut Allen off."

"Wait a minute," I grinned. This story was better than I thought. "You mean Terry is —"