Chapter 105: Bowling

Sunday, April 24, 2005 (Continued)

I drove Donna, Julia and Carol to the bowling alley, arriving about five minutes before noon. Robert followed us in his car, curious to see me play. There was a good turnout of pretty girls waiting for us at the alley:

• The three 10th grade Liaisons: Lily, Pat, and Laila (with her girlfriend Hannah, and sister Gabriella whom I hadn't met before).

• Katelin, Linda (Julia's good friend) and Savannah (the attractive Black girl who'd caught my attention with her question, "Is his sister as hot as him?")

• A goodly number of the girls who'd been in the original fourteen from whom the Liaisons had been picked.

• And several other classmates of ours.

[In total about twenty five girls turned up, most already there when we arrived, but some joined us over the next several minutes. They must not have been exposed to Julia's punctuality training yet.]

Julia went to get our shoes while I introduced Carol, Donna and Robert to all the girls. All of whom were definitely - if you'll excuse the arrogance - Mark-worthy. Julia had done a good job choosing whom to invite. All of these girls were well over my minimum standard, although I must admit to not being fussy. The only noteworthy introduction was Carol to Savannah. After the exchange of names I said, "I was looking forward to introducing you two. A few days ago Savannah asked Julia and me whether you were as hot as me. I'll be interested in seeing how well you two get on today. I hope you'll hit it off."

Carol was wearing a denim miniskirt and a cut-off top. Neither was very short, but she looked mighty good to me. Carol dresses very nicely every day now, in the clothes Julia bought her, so every day it's a treat for me to see her. I don't know what Savannah looked for in a 'hot' girl, but it was hard to believe she wouldn't find it in Carol. Savannah was less sexily dressed, in tight jeans and a tight yellow T-shirt. She's tall and slim, so the jeans looked very good on her. But more importantly - because I have what would previously have been unbelievably high expectations for what can happen in my life - it was easy to see that she'd also look good with nothing on.

While describing how people are dressed, I might as well admit that I'm dressed very embarrassingly. Did you expect otherwise? Fortunately Julia saves my most embarrassing outfits for school, where most people know I'm not gay. For walking around town, Julia lets me dress only half as bad. She was nearly always hanging off my arm, so that stopped many of the nasty anti-gay comments I could've got. [Those that I did get occasionally in the future, Julia had fun responding to. For her, it was yet another advantage from dressing me the way she did.]

Savannah said to me, "I'm surprised you remembered that. That was days ago and plenty of other people were yelling questions at you."

I remembered it because it made me horny, which I can't publicly admit to getting when my sister is involved. Knowing that everyone listening to us now had heard my "I Love Carol" speeches (except for Robert, Carol and Donna, who knew already), I said, "It caught my attention because I like to hear things that might make Carol happy. She's only just come out, and anything that brings her happiness, and ESPECIALLY that supports her lifestyle choice, is great with me."

Savannah said, "Carol, why don't we spend some time talking today, and see how we get on?"

Carol answered, "I'd like that."

We carried on with the rest of the introductions. At the end of which Julia stood up on a chair and announced, "I want to run a little competition. I'm going to pass around a pen and paper. All the girls here who want to can write down their name and their guess for what score Mark will get. The girl who guesses the closest gets to ask Mark for a favor. Only a short duration favor though; no asking Mark to marry you because that'd disappoint me too much, haha. To be fair, I should tell you that Mark hasn't played a game for a few years, and he wasn't very good back then, getting about 100. But - and it's a BIG but - since then he's become incredibly athletic. Many of you saw him play soccer yesterday and know that he made everyone else on the field look silly. So it's anybody's guess what score he'll get. Sorry, no entries from Liaison girls because you've got better access to Mark already, and no sisters because Mark does anything for you already."

Donna called out, "No he doesn't!" I was about to tell her to cool it when Donna added, "He won't do all my homework no matter how hard I ask. I could get A's in every subject and it'd be REALLY easy for him. What a mean brother!" Donna occasionally asks for help if she's stuck, but that's all. She was just pulling my leg. She got a few laughs from the crowd, including from me, and a wink to tell her I got her inside joke.

Julia pulled a small notebook and a pen out of her pocket and passed it around, telling the first girl, "Rip off your guess and I'll collect them in a couple of minutes. Pass that on."

Robert said to me, "I might as well have a game while I'm here." Julia already knew that, so the center of the three lanes was for Robert, Donna, Julia and me. The rest of the girls sorted themselves out for who was playing in their lanes. A couple of them had come with their families, so after making their guess about my score and giving their slips to Julia, they went back to their groups.

I noticed that Savannah was playing, but Carol (who wasn't) had chosen to sit in my lane, so I moved to sit next to Carol and quietly asked her, "What do you think of Savannah?"

Carol responded quietly too, "I guess you're asking whether I'm attracted to her?"

I nodded, and Carol continued, "She's pretty enough to attract me. What's she like as a person?"

"I've hardly ever talked to her, but she seems nice enough in class. She's outgoing, maybe a little too much for my liking, but not badly. Buckets of self-confidence and she's aware of how good looking she is, but that's hardly surprising. Average student intellectually, and into sports quite a lot, I think. That's about all I know about her." I'd downplayed one aspect, as Savannah is VERY aware of how good looking she is and tends to look down her nose at less attractive girls, which is nearly every girl in Savannah's over-inflated opinion. She naturally treats boys with contempt because of how they chase after her. I didn't think my downplaying that to Carol would cause any problems, and the thought of Savannah and Carol getting it on together was HOT. Even hotter if I could somehow get involved. It was worth a little downplaying to get things moving in that direction.

"Thanks. I'll make sure we talk and we'll see how that goes."

"What do you think of me introducing you to girls? Do you like it or don't like it? I should've asked you first." I didn't want to say it, in case we were overheard, but I really meant " ... because you're not really a lesbian."

"No harm in introducing me. I've only had good experiences so far, but that's only with Julia and Ava. No need to tell you how well Julia has worked out for me, and Ava's fun to play with. I LOVE the way my life is working out, Mark. Mainly because of the three of us of course, but the other parts are good too. I like that we can have fun while still feeling secure with each other. That's very nice."

"Good for you. And I DEFINITELY agree with your last point. I LOVE that I can do that too!" For me it was far beyond "very nice". I obviously got a lot more out of it than either girl, who weren't into sex with other girls (other than each other) as much as I was. Julia probably got the least out of it. She liked it somewhat, but I was pretty sure she enjoyed the power of making it happen more than she liked the actual itself. Other than with Carol, and Julia's feelings for Carol are still climbing.

Meanwhile Julia had collected all the slips of paper and put them in her pocket, and Robert had set up our lane's scoreboard-computer-thingy (whatever it's called). Donna was first up, then Julia, then Robert, then me. I understood the "girls first" principle, but was surprised that he'd put himself before me. I didn't mind at all, it just seemed strange. It was one of those social things you hate to ask about in case you make the other person feel bad, so I kept my curiosity to myself. [Julia had told him to put me last to build the tension before my turns.]

I won't bother giving a ball-by-ball breakdown. Throughout the game Donna was pretty good, Julia poor and Robert very good (in my opinion, which probably overstates his ability).

After they'd had their first bowl it was my turn (fairly obviously). I was quite nervous, especially as all the girls around halted their games to watch. If I fluffed this then the 300 score would immediately become impossible to reach. And if I was going to fluff any bowls, it'd most likely be this one. I knew I could knock over all the pins with my TK even if I bowled a gutter ball, but clearly that wasn't practical. Ideally I wanted my ball to strike pin number 1 (the forward most of the triangle of pins). Pins 2 or 3 (either side and just behind pin 1) would be acceptable as the first point of contact of the ball, but not ideal. Any farther to either side would make all ten pins falling over look odd.

I was very careful to get my stance correct and to release cleanly, to avoid a major screw-up. All I was going for was a nice, slow bowl down the center of the lane. I released it, and was ready to try TK'ing the ball back toward the center of the lane if it erred to the side, even though the ball's weight and rolling would make that difficult. Fortunately that wasn't necessary, as it was on target the whole way down. Unlike 'cool' bowlers who can walked back to their seat immediately after releasing their ball, I have to stay looking at it, ready to start TK'ing at the moment of impact.

Unsurprisingly (to you), my fairly slow ball knocked down a surprisingly (to everyone else) large number of pins. Ten of them, to be exact. Cheers and claps from my audience. One ball down, eleven to go.

I had been the only person among our group's twelve players to get a strike first up, so I got plenty of claps. Being the center of attention for a bunch of pretty girls - for a reason other than wearing clothes that embarrassingly flaunted my body - was nice. Our group totaled about thirty people (the twenty five invited girls plus my core group), and virtually all of us knew each other, so there was plenty of noise after each person's turn.

A latecomer arrived to join us. To my surprise, Julia didn't make a fuss about it. I guess because she'd never made an issue about their being on time today.

Soon it was my second turn. Equally unsurprisingly (to you), but more surprisingly (to most of my spectators), my second ball was another strike. Maybe helped by my bowling faster and more confidently. Or maybe not.

I heard a couple of girls exclaim, "Wow, two in a row!" If they were getting excited after two, heaven help them by the end of the game.

The scoreboard-computer-thingy showed no score for me yet because a strike in frame 1 is scored depending on what I get on my next two balls. If I keep bowling strikes, the frame 1 score wouldn't be known until after I'd bowled my third frame. I overheard some of the spectators explaining that to other spectators. I was reasonably sure I understood the scoring system, but it was nice to get a confirmation of that.

No one else had two strikes. Savannah had a spare in her first frame and a strike in her second, which was pretty impressive. Robert had two spares. Scattered among the rest of the players were one more strike and spare, which I thought was a pretty high standard.

There was a hush for my third ball. I bowled it more confidently, even putting a little spin on it so it curved more impressively.

The hush turned into loud cheers when it unsurprisingly/surprisingly turned out to be a strike. While the cheering was going on I was very pleased to note that no one was the least bit suspicious of the way my pins were falling. Even though I was TK'ing them from the front to the back, their falls didn't look too regular as the ball was causing all sorts of mayhem at the same time, randomizing the process nicely.

The latecomer girl, presumably after some other girl had told her about the Guess Mark's Score Sweepstake, tried to enter. Julia told her, "It was only open to girls who were here on time. You should've been here on time anyway, but in this case it wouldn't be fair to the other girls because you've already seen Mark's first three scores." That point was inarguable, and equally successful on the two other girls that showed up a bit later too.

After my fourth strike the atmosphere started changing a bit, especially among the girls who knew the game well. Rather than fun yahooing at my good luck, they started suspecting something interesting was developing. There was some quiet excitement and anticipation mixed up with the loud yahooing. It was early yet, but they were getting an inkling.

My fifth strike created a lot more "Wows!"

I now had 90 points for my third frame score. The next highest third frame score, across all twelve players, was Robert, who'd bowled: spare, spare, strike, 9, spare, which totaled 57. Savannah had spare, strike, 9, 8, strike, for 48 points. So I was significantly ahead. I was questioned, "WHEN was the last time you played?"

"I honestly haven't had a game in more than two years! You saw how cautious my first bowl was." I said, hoping some of the audience remembered.

Strike number six took my fourth frame score to 120, even further ahead of Robert's and Savannah's scores. Six out of what should be twelve balls bowled, so I was halfway there. It would be easy. My nervousness over my first ball was long gone and I had no fear that my well-coordinated body would fail to keep sending the balls down the center at a very nice speed. I could probably even get quite a few strikes without TK, but I'd leave that experiment for another day. I noticed that the girls we knew who'd been playing with their families had abandoned their games, as they were now among the audience I had around me. I noticed a few strangers starting to pay attention to my lane too.

Everything ramped up during frames seven, eight and especially nine. Everyone - now meaning not just my group, but by frame nine damned near the whole bowling alley - were watching avidly.

Julia would come and sit on my lap when we were waiting for Donna's or Robert's bowls. She was smiling from ear to ear, and was whispering things like, "This is going perfectly", "Look at the audience. They're getting really worked up", and, "You're impressing the panties off the girls." That was my favorite comment.

#2: <We've still got three more balls to go, so hopefully the rest of their clothes will be off by the end, haha.>

Carol was sitting beside me, which let Donna claim my lap while Julia was bowling, which I didn't mind. I hadn't bothered to mention to Julia or Carol how I was able to unfailingly bowl strikes, but either they guessed it for themselves or they just assumed that I was capable of anything, because they were just as happy and excited as everyone else. Robert had been told that I'd get 300, so he should've been unsurprised when it was happening, although his behaving that way would've been a false note. Happily, he was behaving very much like an excited schoolgirl, so that was good. The leader in the excitement stakes was Donna. She didn't know about my TK so she was blown away by how incredible I was. She was a very excited, young girl. She wasn't so much sitting on my lap, as bouncing up and down with glee on it. Otherwise I was surrounded by excited girls. Life can be good sometimes.

Julia made sure the Liaisons got preferred positions so they could stand close to me while I was sitting between my turns. Beyond the Liaisons were all the other girls, and a rapidly increasing number of the alley's other patrons.

There was a hush all around me while I bowled my tenth ball. It was another strike and there were LOUD cheers from half the alley. No one else in my lane had bowled a strike or spare in their last frame, which meant their games were over. To finish my game I had two more balls immediately, to find out what my tenth frame score would be.

Both of our other lanes, to my left and right, had a two or three balls to go, as they'd been slowed down watching me. I invited them, "Go ahead and finish your games before I bowl my last two balls, otherwise you'll probably not get a chance to finish because of all the chaos that'll happen soon."

"Are you sure?" asked one of the bowlers.

"Sure. I don't mind sitting here cuddling Julia."

The girls turned to finish their games, and a couple of strangers yelled out for me to bowl right away, "While I was still in the groove," or similar. I ignored them, as "grooves" didn't have anything to do with my playing style. In fact, I was trying to avoid them (the gutters on either side).

One of the opinionated advice givers repeated his advice, louder. Almost certainly a jock, as he thought yelling the same thing louder was a smart idea.

I was sitting down so had no hope of seeing him through the throng, and had no interest in standing to see him. I yelled back, "Whoever it is that keeps yelling at me: I'm trying to be polite to the young ladies who're my guests here today. If anyone puts me off my game, it'll be your rudeness."

I heard about thirty people making shushing sounds back in the throng somewhere, and that yeller was not heard from again.

While the adjacent lanes were finishing their games I joked around with Julia, whispering to her, "I just visualize the pins as pretty girls, and I try to knock them onto their backs with their legs in the air. I find that VERY motivating!"

"I think it's working for real. You've got twenty pins to go, with almost exactly twenty girls ready to lie on their backs for you, if you don't count the girls you've already seduced into that position."

"I'm not sure having you push them into my bed can really be considered 'seduced'. As I recall, you told to me say as little as possible, preferably nothing, when Lily & co. arrived at your house. That doesn't sound very seductive to me."

"That's because you already seduced them with your wonderful clothing sense, haha." Using heavy sarcasm on me was a low blow!