Naked in School-Kevin and Denise
I woke up and had to think to figure when and where I was. I had been having some nightmares that people were coming to take me away and then joyful dreams of making passionate love.
Wait—those weren’t dreams; that stuff happened yesterday! And this is Thursday. Shit, am I ever screwed up!
I went through my morning routines almost mechanically and then realized that I had forgotten to check my emails from yesterday. I looked and there was one from Dan Hollander in Jakarta that had come in overnight and one from Bob from late afternoon yesterday. Dan’s email had a secure attachment and he had used the same passkey, my overseas aunt, for it.
I unlocked the file and printed it and then printed out Bob’s email too. No time to read them now; I’ll do that later.
After a quick breakfast, I left to get Denise. Today the weather was foul. The wind was blowing and the rain lashed the windshield as I drove. Denise dashed to the car wearing a light plastic raincoat. Despite the nasty weather, she was really happy this morning and greeted me with a huge hug and kiss.
“‘Mornin’ darling,” she cooed, “I guess we can be considered to be an official ‘item’ now, right?”
I looked at her blankly.
“Oh, you know, sex? When high school kids are just dating, they’re simply friends, but if they hook up, then they’re an ‘item.’ In terms of our having sex, we went ‘all-the-way,’ right?” she laughed.
“Yeah. Right.” Who am I to question American high-school customs? “I see. That’s not one of the customs we have on Mars, you know,” I joked.
“Ohmygod. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you, I’m afraid.”
“That’s funny. Fletcher said the same thing about me. I guess I gotta start all over again somewhere else. I’m being rejected everywhere.”
She really laughed now. “Seriously. Any chance today will be a normal day?”
“Normal? In a school running the Program? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”
“Well said. How about, um, random calls to the office, random teachers demanding random illegal acts, random bullies doing gropes...”
“Oops. Thanks for reminding me. I gotta run home for a sec.”
“Why?”
“Today I forgot to bring my most important tool: my crystal ball.”
“Maybe I need to trade you in for this year’s model, Kevin. You’re the old model, a broken down comedian.”
I guess we really are an “item” now. Denise and I are talking much the same way Mom and Dad would crack their private jokes together. God, do I ever miss them so much!
We pulled into the parking lot and wriggled out of our outer clothes in the car, locked them in the trunk, and dashed for the school. When we reached the doors we were soaked, but with what we were wearing, it didn’t matter much since we would air-dry quickly. But it was a cold rain and we were chilled. Sarah and Andrew then ran in through the doors, wet and naked.
“Hi, guys,” Andrew said, “took your advice and left the clothes in our cars.”
“Cool.” I responded. “Speaking of that, you look cold. What do they do for the Program when it’s winter here, anyway? I grew up in semitropical countries; I wouldn’t be able to walk around naked if it’s cold.”
Sarah replied, “Good question. Glad it’s not us.”
Then the other two couples arrived, wearing raincoats, and other students were coming through the doors looking wet and uncomfortable. The freshmen and sophomore pairs whispered to us, “Follow us,” and walked swiftly down the D wing and stopped at some lockers.
“These are our lockers,” Nelson said, opening his. He took off his raincoat. He was naked under it. “Jimmy’s idea. He figured we could sneak in and strip and avoid the gawkers today.”
“Cool move, Jimmy,” Andrew said as the others came over, now also naked.
“Yeah. We have our outer clothes in plastic bags in our lockers now.”
“See y’all at lunch,” Barbara said as she left with Nelson, her butt cheeks twinkling at me as she walked away.
Cute ass, but Denise’s is way better, I reflected.
As we went our respective ways to home room, I realized that this was how a high school day should begin. Calmly walking off to class. No stripping theatrics, no sexual exhibitions, no random groping. Oh well, it’s a new world with the Program running the schools.
No one stopped us for a Request; everyone we passed was looking wet and uncomfortable. A thought flashed through my mind and I snorted a laugh.
Denise looked at me. “What?”
“Ha. Had a funny thought, instant cure for groping. Use a fire hose to soak everyone between classes. Look at them; they’re too uncomfortable to bother with Requests.”
She laughed. “Funny. Yeah, you’re right. Clever thinking, honey.”
We got to home room and went to our desks. I took out Bob’s email to start reading it when our teacher came in and came to my desk.
“I have a note from Mrs Raymond. She wants to speak to you now. You can go to her office and take your backpack.”
Denise looked at me. “Mrs Raymond—the counselor,” I whispered. She nodded.
I assumed that Raymond just wanted to talk about my graduation credits, but just to be careful, I got out the voice recorder and slipped it in my tights unobtrusively.
I found her office, wow, that first Monday seemed so long ago now. And that’s when I had first met Denise and really had a chance to talk with her. What a sweet kid she is. Again I thought about how lucky I am.
When I walked into Mrs Raymond’s office she looked at me in surprise.
“You’re on the Program. Why are you wearing those?” pointing to my lower body.
I sighed. Nobody ever talks to each other here, do they? I dug my sheet out of my bag and wordlessly handed it to her. She read it and looked up.
“We discussed this last week when you were here. I can’t pass you for the Program if you’re not participating.”
“You’re the person who determines that? I thought it was Abover or Fletcher.”
“No. Me. I’m the Program teacher for the school. Mr Abover can override my decision but only if I pass the student.” She looked at her screen and hit some keys. “I also see that you never turned in the Program participation forms.”
“No, and I don’t intend to. My attorney said that I mustn’t sign them because they’ll cancel my legal rights.”
“Then you won’t be allowed to graduate.”
“Listen, ma’am. I have a document that is signed by the school’s principal and three federal Program officials that states specifically that my participation, and Miss Roberts’ too, by the way, is sanctioned and approved by them for this week. If you think you can withhold a ‘Program completed’ endorsement on my record, or on Denise’s, either, then you will be subjecting the school and yourself to lawsuits in both civil and federal courts and I will sue you personally for violating my rights, not under the Constitution, which you think gives you Program protections, but under another federal law which takes precedence over the Program. If you don’t believe that, I strongly suggest you speak to Mr Overland, the school’s lawyer. He knows just how badly the school would lose if he had to defend the school at trial. And so does the school board president. You could lose your job too, you know.”
“You’re incredibly impertinent, young man! You have no right to talk to me like that!”
“Mrs Raymond. Listen to me. If I were, say, in college, or older, and I were speaking to you in that way, would you call me impertinent? I happen to be in high school but I also happen to be a legal adult, and I will not allow anyone to treat me as if I were a child. Now I’m going to ignore what you just said and pretend that I just entered this office. I’m to see you for the purpose for which you called me. Please, what is it?”
She shrugged. “Ok, then. I’ve looked at your prior schooling records and the classes you’re taking this term and intend to take for the three following terms. If you keep that schedule, you’ll meet all the requirements for graduation plus have earned twelve credits in A-P participation. That would place you at an upper freshman or lower sophomore level at most colleges in the country, depending on your placement test scores. You are academically highly qualified and should be proud of your achievement.”
“Thank you ma’am, I am. Much of that achievement is a result of my parents’ support, I assure you. They instilled in me the values of hard work. Is there anything more?”
“Yes, I have the lists of the placement testing dates and handouts on college fair dates, test prep classes, and college representative visits to give you. The school also has a college prep section on the website and I urge you to read that; it has all sorts of advice on the college application process.”
I accepted the papers. “Thank you again. Anything else?”
“Let me check.” She paged through her screen a few times and then opened a folder and looked back at her screen again. “Mr Coris, I see here that so far, in your Program week, you’ve not taken Relief even once.”
I bent over and held my head with my hands and broke out laughing.
“What’s so funny about that? You can’t pass the Program if you don’t demonstrate evidence of becoming comfortable with your body.”
I was now laughing so hard my sides were hurting and she was looking at me in confusion. I tried to gather my composure.
“Ah, Mrs Raymond, this is hysterical on so many levels. First, that you actually need to keep track of how many times each student masturbates in class. Second, that masturbating in class is considered to be educational. Third, that you seem to have a minimum threshold for what is an acceptable amount, that is, you are placing an quantitative, objective value on a subjective topic. Fourth, you’re assuming that one’s comfort with one’s body is easily demonstrated by having him perform multiple instances of an act that most people consider to be humiliating in public. Fifth, you’re establishing an unpublished rule that’s not even alluded to in the booklet of Program rules. I could go on and on. Tell me, let’s assume the school has a rule that to graduate, every student has to walk unaided fifty meters. And they have to demonstrate that skill to some random people, who report it to the person who maintains the records. It’s in the public interest to have such a rule, because we want to ensure that every person can get to a fire door unaided in the case of a fire. Would that be a fair rule to enforce?”
“Um, sure? Yes, that could be fair.”
“Ok, let’s go with that. We have a fair rule; so we can now enforce the rule that a person must demonstrate a certain ability, an ability which having, is clearly in the public interest, is certainly a matter of public health and safety, which provides protection to emergency personnel by freeing them up from having to make excessive rescues in emergencies, and costs little to nothing to implement. That’s an almost perfect rule. Everyone has to do it, costs hardly anything, is in the public interest, serves society’s needs. Kind of like what the Program does, right?”
“That’s just about the best example of a quick justification of the Program that I’ve ever heard, Mr Coris. Did you study that for a report or something? If you did, it would deserve an ‘A.’”
“Thank you. No, I never heard about the Program until I arrived in the States about eleven days ago. Getting to my example. A person comes to school. He’s unable to demonstrate that he can walk unaided fifty meters. Is it proper to deny him the right to graduate if he completes all of the academic requirements for graduation?”
“Why can’t he demonstrate.... oh, I see; you tricked me.”
“No trick, there are such students in most every school, even here, and they use wheelchairs or crutches. They can’t walk unaided and can’t use the stairs. Would you still deny them the right to graduate? Remember, under our scenario, you accepted that the rule is fair and proper, possibly even enshrined into law.”
“Well, no; there would have to be an exception made for individuals with handicaps.”
“Ahah. What if that law neglected to include such a handicapper exception? Then you’d be stuck, right? You’d have to get the law changed and then the regulations rewritten before you could graduate any handicapper, correct?”
“Ummm, wait, no! There’s a disability law. It gives disabled people special rights so that they can be treated like anyone else.”
“Good. You already know the answer. So now let’s apply that answer to the Program, which you agreed was exactly analogous to the walking rule. Instead of walking, let’s substitute masturbation, for which demonstrating mastery, you point out, is required to graduate. One can’t walk, another can’t masturbate. Is that a fair substitution?”
“No, both boys and girls both masturbate.”
“What about an emasculated boy? What about a girl who’s had a clitoral mutilation? What about a child who has undefined sexual organs which don’t function properly? How would you expect them to demonstrate mastery of masturbation?”
“Those cases are rare...”
“Nevertheless, they exist. Do you deny such a child the right to graduate because they are physically unable to demonstrate a skill that has no relationship to the academic program they are studying? Is that fair? Or even proper?”
“Well, then the disability law would protect them, of course.”
“Thank you. I rest my case.”
“Wait a minute. Are you saying that you don’t participate in Relief because of a disability?”
“Precisely correct. Miss Roberts, too.”
“But you both look normal....”
“Ah. Many disabilities are invisible to a bystander. If you look at a deaf person who’s sitting in a bus, would you know he’s deaf?”
“But this is different...”
“How different? Can you look at a girl with a clitoral mutilation and tell that she was damaged in that way?”
“You’re too good at this, young man. How do I know that the two of you have a disability?”
“That’s actually an excellent question, ma’am. The law that you cited is known as the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA and defines precisely what a disability is and who and what criteria can establish its existence in a person. In our case, this was established by doctor’s letters, one of the law’s specified criteria.”
“So the two of you have letters that say you’re disabled so that you can’t masturbate.”
“In essence, that’s correct. The two of us have medical conditions which preclude us from normally having orgasms.”
“Oh, that’s awful!”
“I heartily agree. It’s awful to be blind or not to be able to walk, too, but many people endure living with those disabilities. If I have to have one, it would seem that mine is far preferable to most other kinds of disabilities. Now back to the initial question. Do you now agree that setting a quantitative standard for a subjective ideal is an invalid measure of the ideal?”
“You know, Mr Coris, I don’t think I have ever felt like I’ve been cross-examined by anyone before—let alone by a high school student. You sound like you’ve been arguing legal matters in court cases for years and I just don’t know how to deal with you. It seems that however I answer, you’re able to take that answer and twist it into something I didn’t intend, but I can’t see how you’ve managed to do that. So in self-protection, I’m not going to answer your last question, because I sense a trap in whatever answer I give.”
“Well, I made my point, I believe. When you speak to Mr Overland, which I urge that you do soon, he’ll enlighten you about the applicability of the ADA in public schools pertaining to disabilities. I know for a fact that he’s already done research on this topic. I assume I’ll need a late pass for first period? The bell rang about ten minutes ago. Thanks. And thanks for the college info.”
She shook her head as I walked out. “I’d love to see what he does to his college teachers when he gets there...” she murmured. I have good hearing.
While I walked to my Civics class, I remembered to turn off my recorder and put it away and then I recalled those emails. Well, they’ll just have to wait. I wondered if my tape of the conversation with Mrs Reynolds would be useful for Bob, so I resolved to send him a copy because if we needed to sue, a record of that conversation could be useful.
Miss Wilson looked at the late slip as I handed it to her. “Hope this isn’t becoming the new norm, Mr Coris,” she intoned.
“So do I,” I responded, “getting called out of classes is getting real old.”
The class tittered.
Denise looked at me in concern. I mouthed to her, “It’s ok.”
I got caught up in the class and the rest of the period passed quickly. Then I suddenly realized that we’d likely have a showdown in Biology next period, so I got my recorder ready and checked its memory. We were expected to be naked for Mr Wilbur when the class started. Yeah, right.
During class change, we got off really lightly on Requests. Denise said it was because we weren’t interesting anymore and people couldn’t ask us to do much, although I did get a Request from a heavy-set younger girl who wanted to feel my butt on my bare skin, so I turned to her and lowered the back of my tights so she could stroke my ass. Denise was surprised, but I pointed out that if she put her hand down the back, it would stretch the fabric tightly across the front and...
Her eyes grew wide. “Oh yeah...”
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