The Participants - Chapter One

Tiffany Jones pulled her suitcase along behind her down the concourse of the airport in Denver, worried that she might not be able to make her connecting flight to Arizona. At twenty-three, the former cheerleader, with her lustrous head of blond hair, hanging just past her shoulders, and her full hard breasts, wasn’t overtly aware that practically every man she walked by turned to stare after her. Subconsciously, of course, she knew she was attractive. Boys had chased her in High School, and then young men in college, and she had learned how to walk, stand and sit in ways that teased those men. Her walk was confident, with a long stride that was a little hurried, and her breasts bounced enticingly under the silk blouse she was wearing. She had chosen to fly in a skirt, but wished she’d worn pants as soon as she sat down on the first plane. She didn’t mind if some leg showed, but the skirt kept creeping up until it was showing too much.

She felt a little frazzled as she hurried along. She’d completed one full year of teaching, which had gone pretty well, though her work load was much more than she’d anticipated. Her boyfriend, from college, had decided to stay there to work on a masters degree, and the distance had slowly killed the relationship. She’d hung on for eight months, but she knew there was nothing there now. His letters and calls had begun to space out, and then he’d suggested they “see other people.” She was pretty sure he was already “seeing other people”, based on the sex drive she remembered him having. He’d been her first. Originally, she’d vowed she’d stay a virgin until she married, but that all went out the window at a frat party, when she had a little too much to drink, and her boyfriend had used that as an excuse. She’d found out what she’d been missing, though. She wasn’t too drunk to remember that. She’d demanded he use condoms, after that, because she found out the pill made her retain water.

She’d maintained her fabulous figure, at first because she thought her boyfriend would miss her so much that he’d abandon college and run to marry her. She wanted to look good in her wedding dress. But his waning interest had killed that dream, and her work load had kept her social life to a dismal low. She still had her fabulous figure, and she knew she was bright and intelligent, but when the field of men to choose from was so sparsely populated, even her own sex drive wouldn’t force her to seek frivolous dates. She was interested in having a real mate ... someone who was dedicated to her above all others ... someone she could give everything too, and get everything from. She’d seen too many young women in college throw themselves away in meaningless relationships that went nowhere. She wasn’t a shallow woman, and she didn’t want a shallow relationship. She was beginning to wonder if there were any men who actually wanted that too.

Maybe she’d meet someone interesting at this seminar, she thought as she hurried along, leaving men with sagging jaws in her wake. She’d jumped at the chance to attend the continuing educational seminar, even if that meant teaching sex ed the next year. She still remembered what High School life was like for a teenager, and she thought she had something to offer those girls who, like her, were trying not to turn into sluts.

Besides, at least she could spend a week meeting new people and doing something interesting, instead of sitting around her apartment, trying to figure out how to meet men who weren’t over forty, with sagging bellies, and thinning hair. All the good ones had been taken when she got to the little town of Hawkins’s Point. She didn’t even mind submitting to a blood test, though she thought that was taking things a bit too seriously, at least as far as she was concerned. She wondered if that was part of the new curriculum. Maybe they were finally going to start testing students, and catching problems early.

Charles Bradshaw was traveling light, with only a carry on bag hanging from his shoulder. His single suitcase was being transferred to the new plane by the airline. He wasn’t in a hurry, and was engaged in one of his favorite pastimes ... girl watching. The airport was a good place to do that. Crowds of people kept the scenery changing constantly and, since he was meandering along slowly, women passed him, so he got a good look at wiggling hips and didn’t have to worry about them seeing him looking. Fantasy played a big role in Chuck’s life, which was why, truth be known, he was still single. He was twenty-eight and taught phys ed at King High School, where he was also the football coach. His team had a respectable win/loss ratio. It wouldn’t get him to State Championships, but then nobody really complained about it either, so there was no real stress. He believed, deep in his heart, that the district had used this seminar thing to get a sample of his blood, to ensure he wasn’t using performance enhancing drugs. He had smiled at the thought. He wasn’t doping, and none of his kids were either. All anybody had to do was look at their win/loss record! He knew he had a problem, but doping wasn’t it.

Part of his problem was that, off the field, he was shy. The bigger part of his problem was that he had a thing for cheerleaders.

He was careful not to expose that at school, but it leached into his personal relationships. Three women had dumped him now, because of his repeated attempts to get them to role play being seventeen year old cheerleaders. They thought he was a bit too odd to keep dating, though their opinion came nowhere near thinking he was a disgusting pervert. That was good, because any of them who would have gone to the school board would have gotten him fired. It was not worth taking chances to have a teacher who had a “thing” for girls he was around constantly. In actuality, he wasn’t really interested in girls that young, because they were all mindless drones, who wouldn’t do anything if everybody else wasn’t doing it too. He just liked the idea of pretending to be the star quarterback, who managed to get between the legs of the head cheerleader.

A young woman hurried by him, her butt wiggling under a short skirt, as she took ground-eating strides on two inch heels. He admired her butt, and the cascade of blond hair that fell past her shoulders. He wished he could see her front. If it was anything like the back, she’d be good for hours of cheerleader fantasies.

Sighing, he walked on.

Roberta Tinsdale rode the escalator, examining the people going down, while she went up. She liked looking at the men, mostly, because she always examined them to see if they were the man she SHOULD have married, instead of the one she did. She’d met Phillip in her senior year of college, and he’d swept her off her feet ... literally. He was a charismatic man, which was probably why he was doing so well in business. He was a go-getter, and when he saw Roberta, he went ... and got her. Though not a virgin, when she’d met him, she wasn’t promiscuous, and tended to hold to a five or six date rule, where she didn’t have sex for at least that long. Her theory was that, by then, she’d know enough about the man to know whether or not it was worth the risk. Roberta was a good, Catholic girl, and for her, sex was risky.

Phillip had her in bed four hours into their first date.

He was hard to resist in other ways too. When he told her they were getting married, instead of asking her to marry him, she should have recognized that as a trait of his that wouldn’t fade away. She hadn’t, and now, she was paying for it. Phillip was almost never home. His business dealings consumed all his time, energy and attention. He planned on being a millionaire by the time he was thirty. That was three years away, for both of them, and it looked like he might make it. On paper anyway.

That didn’t do her much good now, though. She didn’t, for all practical purposes, have a husband. All their money was tied up in his business ventures, which were risky in the extreme. She taught, not because he wanted her to, but because he needed the money she generated for his schemes.

He had unleashed the passion in her and she needed sex a lot more than she had before she met him. That last year in college had been fabulous, with him giving her all the attention she wanted, except when she was especially fertile. He laughingly said that, after he married her, he wanted his wife barefoot and pregnant. He’d married her, but then, for four years, did nothing to make her that way. He kept saying they weren’t financially ready for children yet. She felt like his expensive golf clubs, which he never used, or the magnificent stereo system he’d bought, which only she played.

She thought about the seminar she was on her way to. Marge, a teacher friend of hers had said she couldn’t stand being gone from home for a whole week. It would be lonely. For Roberta, it wouldn’t be any different than being home.

She had finally admitted to herself that her husband’s fidelity was in serious question. He was gone so much, and the people he worked with were as cut-throat as he was, and would do anything to succeed. Especially the women. That’s why she didn’t mind doing the blood test for the seminar. She wasn’t exactly nervous about the results, but it would be good to know Phillip hadn’t brought anything ... unwanted ... home. If he was cheating. She didn’t have proof ... only circumstantial evidence. But she didn’t mind submitting her blood. It was better to know.

She didn’t want to think about that any more, and looked at the people around her.

She saw a man going down, reading the Wall Street Journal in the few seconds he was standing still. She snorted. He obviously wasn’t the one she should have married.

He was just like Phillip.

Jeff Watts jogged through the terminal, not because he was late, but because he could use the opportunity to get in a little exercise. He jogged every day, when he could, and just figured that humping his carry on would make up for the fact that it would be a short jog.

He also needed to work off a little energy. That was, in the main, why he jogged in the first place. He had completed the first year of his first teaching job successfully, teaching art at West High School. Unfortunately, that was about the only thing in his life that was successful. Melanie, his young and beautiful wife, when she found out what his salary was going to be, and looked at the house they would have to live in on that salary, went home to Daddy. He’d known how spoiled she was during their courtship. When he couldn’t afford things, her father bought them for his baby girl. When they’d gotten married while they were both still in college, he’d tried to put his foot down. He was the man of the house now, and they shouldn’t depend on his in-laws for luxuries. They were starting a new life, and should work their way up.

Melanie disagreed. She got money behind his back, always promising that was the last time she’d do it. She wasted the money on clothing she didn’t need, shoes she didn’t wear, and furniture that wouldn’t fit in their college apartment. He’d thought he would be able to break her of that when they moved away from her parents.

He’d been wrong. She’d lasted a whole three weeks, and then, in an overly dramatic wail, said she couldn’t possibly live in “these conditions”. Not only that, she’d taken their only car and gone back home to mommy and daddy with it, leaving him with just his bicycle, to get to and from work.

She didn’t file for divorce. She simply wrote him a letter that said, when he got a REAL job, to let her know. Until then, she was staying at home, where she belonged. It had been embarrassing for him. He’d had to go to all the faculty events stag, where people asked him where his wife was. What could he tell them? Not the truth. He’d be the laughing stock of the whole school.

By the time the first year was over, a rumor had started that he’d murdered her, and hidden the body. Nobody had ever seen her after the first week of school. It wasn’t a serious rumor, but it lay there, in the back of everybody’s mind, non-the-less. It caused people to shy away from him.

It was for that reason he was glad to be going to this seminar. Along with art, he taught sex ed. He felt singularly unqualified to teach it. If he couldn’t even keep his wife at home, where she belonged, what business did he have talking to teens about relationships? He hoped he could become friends with someone at this seminar. He needed someone to talk to. If he was alone much longer, he might go crazy.

Crystal Smith settled into the cheap seat uncomfortably. She was so tall that flying in coach was always a pain in the ass. At six feet and almost four inches, her head stuck up too, and she couldn’t even lay it back without craning her neck. She’d brought a book, another in a series of romance novels. She knew they were silly, stupid even, but she was hooked on them. They almost always had happy endings. If she couldn’t have a happy ending in her own life, at least she could read about other women who found romance, and happiness and satisfaction in bed. She knew that would never happen for her.

She looked at the cover of the book and frowned. She knew she was jaded, particularly about men. Divorced for five years, and having just “celebrated” her thirtieth birthday, she felt her biological clock ticking away the seconds. After the divorce, she’d gone back to school, and thought a teaching degree would give her a fresh, new start. It had, for that matter, in everything except her love life.

“What am I thinking,” she thought, staring at the ravishing young woman on the cover of the book, being held by the equally ravishing young and shirtless man. “I don’t HAVE a love life!”

That was what had made her so mad about having to submit to a blood test to continue teaching Sex Ed. It was ridiculous, but she couldn’t complain about it. How do you go to your principal and complain that you don’t need a blood test because you haven’t had sex in five years, and you’re not having sex now!? Besides, there were new diseases around, that had long incubation periods. People were finding out now, about mistakes they didn’t even know they’d made ten years ago. She’d had sex ten years ago. So, she’d gone to the lab. She wasn’t worried about the results, though. She’d told herself that at least two dozen times.

She’d met men when she started teaching, but they were mostly married, and all short. Shorter than she was anyway. She didn’t mind being at school, where things kept her busy, but at home, in bed, in the still of night, she longed to have someone there next to her, to hold her, and whisper to her ... someone to share life with ... someone to make her a mother. She’d had that, in the beginning, when she married, but it hadn’t lasted long. He was addicted to gambling, and had been the whole time they’d dated, even though she didn’t know that. Things fell to pieces, and he chose his habit over his wife, when push came to shove.

Someone sat down next to her and she glanced over, just out of the side of her eyes ... not making real eye contact ... not inviting conversation ... but just to see what her seat mate might be like. It was a man, and he was looking right at her. He’d caught her sideways glance, and smiled in return, destroying her attempt to keep him at arms length.

“Hi,” he said.

“Ummm,” said Crystal, in as uncommitted a way as possible. He was short, of course. They were all short ... or taken. She opened the book to the middle and pretended to take up reading there, even though she hadn’t actually started this book yet. She stared at the pages, but didn’t see the words. Her legs were already feeling cramped. While she actually had a curvy figure, her height seemed to stretch those curves out, somehow, and she thought she looked like a scarecrow sometimes. She wished she could go into a lotus position and meditate, during the flight. She lost hours and hours to meditation, and never missed them. She was so limber that folding her body into strange contortions didn’t hurt either, though there was no position she could assume in a coach seat that would be comfortable. She could clasp her ankles behind her neck, folding her entire body in half, with the back of her knees behind her arms, but if she did that, the passengers would freak out. Most people freaked out if they saw her do that. She could even lick her own pussy if she wanted to. She did that a lot more often than she thought she should.

But, when you’re horny, and have no man, what else can you do?

Woody Buckholtz found his seat and edged into it after putting his carry on bag in the upper bin. He looked at the woman who was already sitting by the window. She was a tall one, probably a basketball player on her way somewhere. Nice looking, but VERY tall. He thought about the two of them trying to dance. Woody loved to ballroom dance. It was part of his fitness regimen, which he pursued with single-mindedness. If he danced with this woman, his face would be right in her breasts, he guessed. He grinned. That might not be so bad. Her blouse looked nicely filled, though he wasn’t hooked on big breasts. Every woman had something, and more than a mouthful was wasted ... right?

She glanced over at him while he was assessing her. Her eyes skittered past his, and a tense look came on her face as her eyes drifted back and locked, for a fraction of a second, with his.

“Hi,” he offered. Woody was a friendly, happy-go-lucky kind of guy, who enjoyed talking to just about anyone, about any thing. He’d even struck up a conversation with the technician who drew his blood for who knew what reason, for the seminar he was going to. He didn’t know it, but he was exactly the kind of passenger nobody wants to sit next to, because he always tried to engage them in conversation. It didn’t matter about what. He didn’t care. It was just a fun way to pass the time. What else were you going to do while a twenty-thousand pound pile of wires and metal defied gravity?

“Ummm,” she said. Her eyes went back to the book in her hand, like she hadn’t meant to look at him at all, and she opened it and started reading.

He sighed. Some people were so suspicious of others that they were stand-offish. He had plenty of time. He’d get her talking sooner or later. Maybe she’d tell him about her team. Maybe he could tell her about Mandy, and how she’d left him, because he wanted something deeper and more important than a casual fling. How could she be like that? When he’d been growing up, he’d been taught that you didn’t have sex with someone until you got married. He’d kind of changed that. His opinion was that you didn’t have sex with someone unless you were WILLING to get married to her. And when Mandy had spread her beautiful thighs for him, he’d thought he’d found his life mate on his very first try! She strung him along for two years, but when he started insisting that they talk about “the future”, she’d finally frowned and said “There is no future, Woody. I’m not ready to settle down. I want to see the world.”

Maybe this globe-trotting basketball star sitting next to him could explain that to him. What was it that made some people want to flit from place to place, like a butterfly? Wasn’t it much better staying in one place, with someone you loved, and could care about, and take care of? That’s why he loved teaching. He got to stay in one place and, though the kids moved through, he got to take care of them ... help them ... make their lives better.

He’d give her fifteen minutes, and then try again.

Jane Watson was excited as she boarded the plane. Until she’d gotten out of college, she’d never been outside of West Virginia. She had a big family, an old fashioned family, and she had no idea what the “outside world” was like. That changed dramatically when she took a job teaching in an upper Idaho. She’d been recruited while she was still in school, and the thought of getting out of West Virginia ... to be able to see someplace different and meet new people ... was too much to resist.

She’d caught hell for it from her family, from her father on down. Jed Buchannan wasn’t happy either. He was her fiancé, and had been since she was sixteen. Not that she’d chosen him. Her family had chosen him. He had three hundred acres and a small herd of cattle. He was a man of means in Juniper, where everyone in that neighborhood got their mail.

But, she’d already signed a contract, and her word was her bond. It was her Daddy who had said that on many occasions, and when she threw it back in his face, it felt good. Then it felt bad, because he looked sad. She could barely stand that. She loved her Daddy. She loved him too much, really. When she’d discovered the hard little nubbin between her legs, and how much fun it was to play with that, she’d thought about her Daddy every time she’d ever done it. That was because the way she discovered her own little nubbin, was by peeking at the one between her mother’s legs, which her Daddy happened to be sucking on when she was peeking.