Chapter 9A

The next morning, I changed my routine. Instead of giving Bud his wake-up fuck, I stripped out of my jammies and pulled on a short terry robe before going downstairs to feed the dog.

It was a cool morning, and there was a light fog hanging over the neighborhood. After I had prepared Brute's food and water, I slipped off the robe and stood barefoot and naked on the grass. I shivered slightly in the wet, chilly air and my flesh broke out in goosebumps

I looked around the yard, but Brute was nowhere to be seen. I figured he was off hunting in the woods, keeping us safe from squirrels and mice. I ran down the slope to the edge of the woods. I was just about to pass beyond the tree-line when I heard Brute crash out of his hiding place and come running toward me.

In the dim light and mist, he looked like a creature out of legend — a giant hound, bent on mayhem and destruction, with fiery eyes and slavering jaws. I thought if there were ever a local production of Hound of the Baskervilles, Brute would be a cinch to get the title role.

The fiery eyes and slavering jaws part of the description was dead accurate, but it wasn't mayhem that Brute had on his mind when he spotted my naked form on the verge of the woods, it was play. When he was only a few yards away, I took off into the trees, weaving and dodging between the rough trunks.

The trees were mostly pine and the canopy of green needles was high overhead. The ground between the trees was covered with a thick layer of soft brown pine straw and there was no undergrowth to speak of. As I raced through the woods like a nymph being chased by a satyr, I felt wonderfully excited and free. I laughed happily as I leaped and ducked between the pines with Brute bounding along behind me, trying to keep up.

Brute and I played forest spirits for longer than I had planned. It was so primal, running through the woods with the cool morning air making goosebumps on my skin and the fresh smell of the pines in my nose. I just wanted it to go on and on, to somehow lose my human form and become a sprite or a fairy; to merge with nature and no longer have to deal with the responsibilities and obligations that were being heaped on me.

As much as I loved the fantasy of becoming a dryad and living in the woods, I felt myself being pulled back to the real world and the weight of it coming back on my shoulders. I stopped running and sat down to rest in a bed of soft pine needles, with Brute sitting beside me, my faithful protector keeping guard against some unknown danger while I recovered.

When I had my breath back, I braced myself on the dog, pulled myself to my feet and started walking back toward the house. Brute walked right alongside with my arm around his neck.

After a couple of minutes, I became concerned as I realized that I had no idea which way to go to get back to the house. The forest seemed endless in all directions and each direction looked the same as another. I was worried needlessly. I had to hand the finest expert on navigating these woods that could be found. I pulled myself onto Brute's back and sat astride his broad shoulders, holding onto his collar.

"Brute. Home." I said. He took off at a quick walk, threading expertly through the trees until we arrived in our own backyard again in just a few minutes.

He took me all the way back to the family room doors, where I put on my robe, hugged him goodbye and went inside to get ready for school. On my way, I passed the kitchen door and Bambi saw me.

"Good morning, Sam." She said. I stopped and leaned against the doorjamb.

"Good morning, Mom." I said with a smile that came very easily to my face. A little romp in the woods can do wonders for your state of mind.

She beamed back, happy to have me acknowledge that part of our relationship. She walked over to give me a hug, but stopped and reached up to pull a pine needle from my tousled hair.

"What on earth is this? Have you been in the woods?" She asked.

"Yeah." I answered, grinning happily. "Brute and I were pretending to be fairies. Well, I was a fairy, I don't know what he was pretending to be."

"Heavens! Are you all... nevermind. Silly question." She giggled. "I'm sure the two of you had a wonderful time." She sounded vaguely disappointed. "You better run get cleaned up, now. Breakfast is almost ready."

"OK," I said, and dashed upstairs to my room. A rich fantasy life is a wonderful thing.

My classes before lunch seemed to drag by. Nothing blew up in Physics and Dina and I competed as usual to see which of us could ask the smartest question in Miss Connor's Algebra class. After a satisfying detour to the Girls' room, I arrived in my third period class just as the bell rang.

As I put my bag away and got out my Social Studies textbook, I noticed that Mr. Locke had moved his lectern from the side of his desk to the front. This put him almost directly in front of me. I was very flattered at the attention and the risk he was taking by accepting my offer to let him look at me as much as he liked. I tried not to tease him too much, but whenever he came to the end of a section and he looked around to see if there were any questions, I leaned forward and dropped a shoulder to give him a good view down my top.

When the bell rang, I grabbed my bag and was about to bolt when Mr. Locke called me over to his desk.

"Miss Kramer, there is something I need to discuss with you. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding between us and I think it is important that certain things be clear."

"Yes, Mr. Locke?" I had been about to lean over the desk, but I sensed he was uneasy about something and I did not want to distract him.

"Miss Kramer... Sam. I wanted you to know that your work in this class lately has been exemplary. Your test scores over the last few weeks have climbed, even soared and your avid participation in the class discussions have been refreshing and at times even challenging for me. I just wanted to make it clear that none of your improved grades has anything to do with our, ah, understanding with regard to your, ah, endowments. Any grades you receive in this class are marks that you have earned."

"Mr. Locke, I want to assure you that it had never crossed my mind that I might influence you in any way at all other than through academic achievement. It was certainly never my intent to attempt any such thing. I know my grades have improved in this class, and I think if you discuss it with my other teachers, you will get similar reports from all of them. It is simply a matter of being motivated to take a greater interest in my studies and spending more time with the material. The more I understand, the more interesting things become and the more interested I am, the more I participate in classroom discussions." I looked around to be sure the room was empty before I continued.

"As for your admiration of my... assets..." I stepped between Mr. Locke and the door to prevent anyone from seeing what I was about to do. "I understand that there is no quid pro quo expected..." I put my hands under my breasts and squeezed until they bulged out of my halter and the areola were visible above the cups. I leaned over far enough for Mr. Locke to be able to see them crinkle up in response to my stimulation. "... or offered."

I picked up my bag and rushed off while Mr. Locke tried to get his eyes back in their sockets. I was pleased to be able to set his mind at ease. I was also pleased that I wasn't going to lose one of my biggest admirers over some foolish misunderstanding.

I gulped down one of the energy bars in my bag as I raced across campus to the gym. It was, ironically, one of the type sold to body builders as a means to pack on bulk quickly, and so had more nutrients and more calories than the typical dining hall lunch. The fact that is also tasted better than much of the dining hall fare was a definite bonus. I had expected to have to make sacrifices so I could spend time with Steve, but being malnourished didn't seem to be one of them.

At the gym, I ran down to the girls' locker room to change. I had put on my version of the wrestlers' outfit and was about to put my school clothes into my own gym locker for safekeeping when an idea occurred to me. Instead of using my locker, I put my clothes into my bag and carried it with me to the weight room.

As usual, there was no one in the hall and, to all appearances, no one in the gym. It wasn't until I got to the weight room that I realized that it was all a matter of acoustics. The floor in the weight room wasn't the gray concrete of the rest of the basement, it was a wood surface similar to butcher's block with cork floor-tiles on top of that. Obviously some thought had been given to what would happen if someone dropped a heavy weight on a flat concrete floor. The wood and cork kept everyone from having to wear eye-protection against the chance of flying concrete chips. A side benefit was that it absorbed much of the sound in the room that otherwise would have echoed down the hall.

I walked in like I belonged and dropped my bag on the floor inside the door with the rest. Steve was talking to his teammates over by the free weights, so I strolled over.

"Hey, Steve. How're they hangin'," I said, somewhat loudly, and slapped poor Steve on the ass hard enough to make him jump.

I expected my greeting to provoke laughter and defuse the tension that I was sure would be caused by my presence in this formerly male bastion. I was disappointed when no one laughed, giggled, tittered, or even chuckled. Instead, I was treated to exactly the kind of stares and stony silence I had expected as a worst-case scenario. This was going to be just as much an uphill fight as I had feared.

"Hi, Sam!" Steve managed to get the huge lump in his throat swallowed before the silence became too overpowering. "I see you decided to join us after all." A master of the obvious was my boy Steve.

"I don't want to be a bother, so if you'll let me know your routine, I'll be happy to work around you."

"Sure!" Steve said. And then belatedly decided that it would be a good idea to introduce me around. "Uh, this is Doug, Roger, Lamont, and Bruno. Guys, this is Sam. She's going to be working out with us."

I thought he might have mentioned something to his teammates before I appeared, but he must have been hoping that I would chicken-out and not show up, so his announcement was news to everyone. They took it well. By 'well' I mean no one barfed or ran for the door. The looks of astonishment on their faces would have made a great candid photo for the school yearbook.

None of them was prepared to make the first move, so I had to. I walked over to Bruno and stuck out my hand. Contrary to what you would expect from the name, Bruno was the smallest person in the room other than me. He still had 40 pounds on me, so it was a relative thing. After looking at it like it might have cooties on it, Bruno decided to be brave and shake my hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Bruno." I said cheerfully.

"Sure thing." Bruno replied and moved on smartly.

Having the procedure laid out for them, the rest also shook hands with me in a perfunctory manner. The sole standout was the only black guy on the wrestling squad, Lamont. I really wanted to ask where he got the name Lamont, but I was afraid the answer would be what I expected and I didn't want to embarrass him on our first meeting. Not that it did me any good. Instead of a quick shake, Lamont chose to try to intimidate me by squeezing my hand. He couldn't have known that pain and I were practically best buddies, or that I could have mashed his hand to a pulpy mess if I had chosen to. He stood there, squeezing tighter and tighter, trying to get a reaction out of me so that he could laugh and make some comment about girls not being able to 'take it' like boys. The temptation to break some bones was strong, but I kept smiling and returned his grip with only a mild pressure in return.

Pretty soon, the tendons on Lamont's forearm started popping out and I realized that he was bearing down at almost the limit of his strength. Still, I kept smiling and squeezed back only a fraction of what he was giving me. After a few awkward seconds, he quit trying to hurt me and tried to let go and take his hand back. Of course, things got even more awkward - for Lamont, anyway — when he found that I was holding on too tightly for him to get free easily. I kept smiling just the same as before and cocked my head to one side quizzically as he pulled and yanked without trying to let it be seen that I had him trapped. After a few more seconds or that, he stopped trying and I let go.

As Lamont stepped away, I saw a look in his eyes that told me I had achieved a partial victory already with at least one team member. The look in Lamont's eyes as he massaged his hand couldn't be anything but respect. Grudgingly given, but respect nonetheless.

As I expected, the team members had a rotation worked out so that everyone worked a different set of exercises to benefit a different muscle group. The quick research I had done had told me that you didn't stress the same muscles over and over, you spread it around as much as you could to get the broadest benefit. This meant that I would be working with whatever equipment was left over. As it happened, that turned out to be the dumbbells, the one piece of equipment I felt comfortable with and also needed to no setup or cooperation from the members of the wrestling team to use.

I saw them watching me at the weight rack. I was sure they either expected me to go for either the lightest weights or the heaviest I could lift. I surprised them by doing neither. I picked up the pair of 20 pound weights and turned to face the center of the room. I put my feet shoulder-width apart and squared my shoulders, then I started a warm-up and range-of-motion set that Jim had shown me. As I worked through the reps, I saw the eyes of the guys on me, gauging me. One by one, they went back to their own workouts.

I worked through a few sets with larger weights, resting and walking around between each set, as I saw them do to keep the lactic acid from building up. I was sitting on a bench doing bicep curls with a 35 pound dumbbell when Doug spoke up from the weight bench next to me.

"You want to do those as slow as you can," he said. "You get better results from going full-range and as slow as possible."

The truth is, I had gotten a little bored, just sitting and working by myself, and I had allowed myself to speed up on the curls to get through the last set. Doug didn't need to know that, and I wasn't about to toss the olive branch back in his face.

"Thanks!" I said, slowing down and counting out the last three reps. "Yeah, I can feel it makes a big difference."

"Anytime," Doug said as he lay back down under the barbell. I did a quick count and saw that he had it loaded with a good deal of weight for someone his size. Or actually for any size. He had 240 pounds on there.

I got up and walked over to Doug. "Need a spot?" I asked.

He looked around quickly to see if he was being setup or if someone was watching, but everyone had gotten into their own heads by now and I was no longer the focus of attention in the room.

"OK," he said, and I assumed the position at the head of the bench, behind the bar with my knees close to his head. He got settled on the bench and then reached up for the bar. "Jeez!" he said, suddenly and sat up.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

He looked around at me and I could see a red flush over his face and neck.

"I, ah." He began, and then changed his mind. "Nothing," he finished and lay back down.

As I looked down at his upside down face, it hit me what had Doug upset. From his point of view he could see right up under my cropped t-shirt. From that perspective, and the fact that I wasn't wearing a bra, he could see my breasts all the way from one end to the other.

As soon as I twigged to this, I smiled down at him and pulled my shoulders back to improve his view.

"Anytime you're ready," I said.

Doug put his hands on the bar and I put mine in between to provide support and balance if he had a problem getting the bar off the stand. Unless you are doing something stupid, if you are going to strain something, most of the time it's going to be when you first take the weight.

As he picked it up, I supported about half the weight for him, then slowly transferred it to him as he got comfortable. Before I took my hands away, I looked down to see how he was doing. He looked back up at me with a question in his eyes, unsure if he had just seen me in effect stiff-arm 120 pounds.

I watched Doug for signs of distress as he pumped the heavy bar through ten repetitions. He looked steady but tired as he tried to push the bar back onto the support bracket. For the last couple of inches, I took the bar from him and settled it on the support. After a few seconds, he took his hands off the bar and sat up, sweat pouring off him. 240 must have been close to his limit.

"Way to go," I said, as nonchalantly as I could. I reached out and clapped him on the back. He didn't flinch.

When I looked around, I saw Steve watching from the leg press machine. When our eyes locked, he got up and walked over, a towel around his neck.

"Time to hit the showers, guys!" He said, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

We all picked up our bags and walked out of the weight room and down the hall. Lamont and Roger were telling each other some mildly raunchy jokes and laughing. Doug was still breathing hard and pouring sweat and Steve and I walked along side by side until he turned in to the boys' locker room entrance. I hesitated. I had been prepared to invite myself in and have a shower with the team, maybe even a little towel-snapping, maybe a little orgy. On second thought, I turned and walked quickly around to the girls' room on the other side. I had made some headway today and I was not prepared to mess it up with an ill-conceived stunt. As long as I was exercising, it seemed appropriate to exercise restraint as well; as unusual as that was for me.

It was a lonely walk to the other side of the gym. I consoled myself with the memory of looks I had received that told me that a couple of the team now had doubts about their opinions on girls and their places in the world.

As I stood under the shower, I thought about what I had hoped to accomplish by going into the weight room and trying to be one of the guys. It became more important than ever for me to succeed. These were some of the most respected, popular, and well-known guys at school. If I could show them that girls were just guys with different equipment and different hormones, it would have an impact far beyond the gym.

Stepping out of the shower, I toweled off briskly, reapplied some antiperspirant, and ran a brush through my bushy blonde hair. I thought back to when I would spend a lot of time standing in front of a mirror, fussing with my makeup. Things were so much easier now that I could set it and forget it. I laughed sharply when I thought that if Max Factor or Revlon knew what I could do without their help, they would probably send an assassination team after me to keep me from teaching it to anyone else.