JAZZ UKULELE

by Holly Rennick

AUTHOR'S NOTES

You need no organized dogma to know that lying is wrong.  Nor do you need a particular creed to understand confession.  This story is about telling the truth.

And if you don't believe that it's the truth that the ukulele's a proven jazz instrument, load

    http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/Holly_Rennick/Chong_Romance.rm

into your RealOne player to hear Benny Chong's "I'll Take Romance".  Who won't take romance?  (The RealOne free version is sufficient, but if anyone can change the audio to mp3, I'll post it to bypass the dot com tyranny.)

PART I

I'm Ruthie Collins and I suppose I'm more-or-less regular.  I go to school, have friends, pay attention to things, try to be nice and have fun.  I seem not to have had many boyfriends, though.  None, really.  In some cultures, tall women are desirable because they'll bear tall, strong warriors.  My high school is more into little cheerleaders who are sexually experienced, though.  If I weren't so gawky, maybe I'd play basketball and at least get a college scholarship.

So maybe it's obvious, but I was a virgin for a pretty long time.  Lots of 11th grade girls are and it's really about ourselves deciding.  Plus it's safer.  Plus we're not supposed to before wedlock.  Some inexperienced girls might think maybe they're lesbian, but everybody knows they're just waiting.  At least your sexually-active girlfriends don't rub it in, not like they say boys taunt their virgin buddies.

So maybe I started to fall in love with Mr. Rampton because I'd decoded that I needed sex.

It started as a joke.  All us girls liked Mr. Rampton.  Math's hardly anybody's favorite, but at least it was tolerable with him teaching.  He wasn't into pounding formulas into our heads; the math seeped in because he kept the class moving.  Nobody in a million years would want to pull a mean trick on the guy.

Of Mr. Rampton's six periods, one was "Math for Life", two were algebra, two were trig and one was calculus.  He probably liked the calculus one because of the level, but told the rest of us that that algebra was what made the difference.  Students waylaid by algebra would end up derailed in more than mathematics.  Students for whom algebra opened the window to problem solving could keep solving problems, and not just problems with x's and y's.  Algebra to Mr. Rampton was about discovering new things with old principles.  None of us will invent new principles, he'd say.  We just discover how they explain pretty complicated-looking stuff.  Keep watching and trying.  Nobody ever pressed Mr. Rampton about x's not being relevant entities.  He knew we were smarter than that.

Our field trip to where the Army Corps of Engineers controls dams was "Math in Action", Mr. Rampton promised.  When the guards wanted to search our purses for bombs, Mr. Rampton thought it ridiculous.  More so, it was demeaning to us girls, he told us afterwards.  Math in Action wasn't getting our backpacks rifled; it was women deciding hydropower.  So Mr. Rampton told the guards that he, pursuant to Standing Orders, personally assumed responsibility for the Army guests.  Afterwards he told us that Standing Orders just meant that some General said that something was OK.

Maybe I too could run a zillion kilowatt dam, I decided, though all the meters looked complex.  Later, Mr. Rampton told us that computers do the work, but they'll always need a person with common sense to know if it's right.  I sometimes have common sense, at least.

Mr. Rampton's appearance -- maybe 5-foot 7, wiry, sandy hair, usually the same sports coat -- wouldn't explain him being still single at 27.  (Add his two years teaching to his years in the Army to four years in college to 18, our estimate, anyway).  Not gay or anything.  (Girls know by how a guy talks to us.)  The guy was actually funny sometimes, but most kids missed it.  He was quiet, for a teacher at least, but then some of us were quiet for students.

Part of why we liked Mr. Rampton (and probably why he was single) was that he liked strange things, which to us made him not strange at all.  We'd go down the halls singing, "When you're Strange" by the Doors.  They were a band our parents grew up with.  "Faces come out in the rain."  Mr. Rampton knew the words too, but wouldn't sing in the hall.

Mr. Rampton liked McDonald's cheap-o hamburgers, black and white movies and driving a VW Beetle so old that it had a little rear window.  Most teachers were more into barbecues, TV miniseries and motor homes so they could escape in the summer.

But Mr. Rampton's greatest strangeness was ukulele jazz.  I had no idea until my folks went to some jazz place where saxophonist Ron somebody announced that his old Army buddy was in the audience.  "Would Mel Rampton come on up?  The dude's a wizard, folks!"  So up went Mr. Rampton with this little ukulele and he sat in with the pros on "How High the Moon".  Anyway, my folks told me that it was my math teacher.  I never told my friends because I wanted a secret for myself.

The trick wasn't aimed at Mr. Rampton at all.  Wendy Katz used an alias to e-mail the teachers they'd won a free dinner at Stampede Steak House.  Of course the faculty compared notes and caught on.  But they didn't catch Wendy.

All I was doing was Googling.  "Jazz" and "Ukulele" got tons of hits.  Maybe Mr. Rampton wasn't that weird after all.  One of the links was to a discussion group and right there was, "The ukulele is so simple that only our ears make us get better.  Four nylon strings contain the principles for the whole jazz genre.  What's new is in the old.  Keep listening and strumming, UkeManMel".  The analysis was totally Mr. Mel Rampton about algebra.  This was my teacher!

I'm not even sure why Wendy's idea came back to me at the time.  Maybe I was bored.  Maybe it was the challenge of fooling someone in authority.  Now, though, I wonder if I just wanted somebody to be in love with.

I invented a user Patty and joined the group.

If my Patty were into jazz uke, she'd need opinions.  Google helped me plagiarize the merits of LA session man Lyle Ritz.  Group member Patty then observed that while Ritz moved the instrument forward, of course, perhaps he remained a bit too tied to a mandolin style.  (I'd downloaded an mpeg and it sounded like a mandolin to me, but I didn't suggest that Patty's critique was based on a sample of one.)  Someone else came to Ritz's defense because he played bass guitar for the Beach Boy's "Pet Sounds".  Playing ukulele didn't pay the bills.  Actually, his "Pet Sounds" bit is totally impressive.  I once saw the Beach Boys perform "Good Vibrations" at the State Fair and one of the Beach Boys was original.

But because Ritz wasn't my curiosity, Patty, a.k.a. me, Ruthie, let slip an allusion to teaching math as her day job.  "It just seems to fit with playing a uke."  I wasn't at all sure why, but I knew who'd maybe have an opinion.

This wasn't the type of discussion group where fat 40-year-old men say they're 21 and 14 year-old girls say 18.  (Wendy once chatted with a guy who wanted her to guess the length his penis!  She said 11 inches and he didn't respond.)  Uke players just give their e-mail and say, drop me a note.  Uke players won't attach their nude photo gallery.

That's how it started, UkeManMel e-mailing that he taught math too!

Before long we were exchanging comments on the plight of math education.  I at least had an inside view.  From Mr. Rampton's classroom comments, I'd make Patty's thoughts in reasonable agreement.  "In my algebra classes, anyway, making story problems so eco-sensitive usually means we never get to the math."

I didn't want to appear too eager, e-mailing more than weekly.  Plus I needed to do my research.  Once I had to read way ahead in my book to learn about matrices.

But of course, I couldn't leave a simple trick simple.  It was too tempting to make Patty more than a math teacher and uke strummer.  Patty, like me, liked to cycle.  I knew Mr. Rampton biked to school.  "The Smithsonian bought my bug to put under the Wright Brothers' plane," he'd lie.  Patty was Catholic.  I'd see Mr. Rampton at early Mass most Sundays.  He might even guess that Patty lived in the Midwest by her comments about the winter.  Patty didn't say she was unattached, but she'd never mention anyone else.

Patty was interested in knowing more about him.  What did he enjoy?  Did he like to go places?  What was his family like?  And eventually, Patty being revealingly straightforward, was there anyone who might be uncomfortable with this correspondence?  I didn't know how else to ask if he were dating.  I wasn't prying to get something up on him; I was just curious.

He enjoyed doing things outdoors, music (not just ukuleles) and going to flea markets with $10 that had to cover lunch, too.  There was just his mother, still in Ohio, and no, there wasn't anybody who'd mind.  I (or should I say, Patty) responded in kind, except for lying about my mom, who would have impounded my computer.

"Are you on the rebound?" Patty asked.  "Because if you are, we should go slowly," from that month's Seventeen.

"I told you I was in the Army.  What a waste of time.  Fortunately, my unit didn't have guns, because we'd have forgotten how to load them.  I did know a girl there named Linda, but nothing came of it.  C'est la guerre, if you speak French."

Had they made love?  I was sure of it.  Linda would have be cute and tiny, had her own apartment.  He'd get above and tease her until she could stand it no longer, pull him onto her and wiggle until she climaxed with deep breaths and felt their baby start.  (Janice McCarthy said that a guy can shoot a foot into the air, so I figured you'd feel it get to your egg.)  Mr. Rampton making a baby in Linda was more erotic than girl-talk about parking in a Subaru.

If I joined the Army, for sure I'd have a sex life.  The military is one female to seven males, so I'd have a boyfriend for each weekday.  Monday the missionary way.  Tuesday is oral.  Wednesday wants me to tie him up.  You get the idea.  (Just kidding, any kind of orgasm would be fine.)

But of course I couldn't ask about his ex-lover, if she really had his child.

After Mel would close with something innocuous, "Patty, I so much enjoy your notes.  Thanks for taking the time.  Your friend, Mel," I'd be petite, witty, beautiful, on my back with legs closed, pulling my vulva tight and apart, middle finger circling my bud, at last slipping downward.  As I'd start to climax, my thighs would swing together and apart.  Then I'd slow, feeling it more and making less noise.  "Oh, Mel!  You were wonderful!"

Both correspondence and masturbatory charade should have died a natural death, Patty running out of believable things to say about math and ukes and me sooner-or-later realizing that I was by myself in bed.

Mr. Rampton wasn't trying to fool anybody.  He wasn't rubbing his bottom raw like some girl who'd never made out, never even been felt up except by a boy behind her on the bus who pawed her on another boy's dare.  They knew she'd be scared to tell.  I giggled and even raised my elbow while he fondled me, but sat up front from then on.

Mr. Rampton was just happy to chat with a new friend.  That's all I should be feeling too, being sort of his friend, anyway.  But after logging off, I'd reach downward.

In class, I'd squeeze my legs together to feel the warmth from last night.

Anonymity is just so powerful.

    * * * * * 

Patty told Mel she was 24.  I made her 5-foot 6, four inches less than the tape measure said about the real me.  Patty believed in Catholicism, but also "expressing affection".  As Patty became better defined, Patty's availability and my imagination fed each other.

   Mel deserved her hug of admiration for giving exams without multiple-choice questions.  (I got an 82, I found out the next day!)  I pictured Patty prolonging the embrace for that telling moment.

   Did Mel like to play Scrabble?  (I figured so from his use of words like "adage".)  She loved to play, if you didn't use a timer and could stop to stretch.  When Patty stretched, I imagined Mel noticing her curves.

   She'd finally gotten her apartment fixed up the way she liked it.  Did he like natural wood?  I envisioned him touching her headboard.

   Patty liked lasagna.

   She enjoyed dressing up for school, but Saturdays she'd "just kick back and not bother with stuff that feels tight."  Patty would have gone that way with Mel to Italian restaurants.

He seemed not to sense as Patty's familiarity tentatively crossed boundaries.  Now it was, "love, Patty."  Maybe Mel just thought that's how girls write.  It is till maybe 12, but not in high school, not when you're 24.

Patty finally used the "L" word in the message, referring to the growth of friendship.  One couldn't love someone unseen, but could feel ready to.

Patty was at times still a little theoretical.  The reality, of course, was that I, Ruthie, saw him every day, smitten by love in the visceral sense.  I was rather amazed at my calmness when called upon, my ability to transition from fluttering heart to a quadratic equation.  Maybe prettier girls master the boy-stage over time.  The rest of us just wing it.

I knew so much that he didn't know I knew.  Of course, other than the Linda reference and a few of his opinions about teaching and music, I really didn't know much that couldn't have been guessed.  But I had the link, albeit a fictitious one.

I finally let Patty say, "make love".  One should make love where the earth's fertile.  Making love is about fulfillment.  Making love maybe shares what words can't say.  Making love is a facet of relationship.  How obvious could she get?

"Mel, I picture you here with me."  Patty didn't add, "making love," the context, but what else could she have been talking about?

I'd more to add: "You lead me to your bed.  Bare my breasts and make me naked.  Lay me on the sheet and press against me.  You enter..."  But I'd loose my train of seduction and masturbate, sparing him the fantasies.  Just as well, as he'd have quit answering.

But at least fewer of Mel's notes dealt with ukuleles and public schools.  More and more dealt with books or opinions or just interesting tidbits.  And more of what I wrote was really real, why I liked a book, not what Google said.  I just couldn't talk about intercourse, was all.

Patty's idea of relationship alluded to communication, mutual interests, being broadened, physical intimacy.  She'd had sex before, she admitted, but never completely made love.  To broach the subject, I had to give Patty an aura of sexual expertise.  Why would Mr. Rampton listen to a know-nothing?

Mel didn't directly respond, but wondered, "Is waking up together what separates having sex from making love?"  This was the first time that he'd ever written, "making love".  In my solo that night, my thoughts centered on being penetrated, but I recognized the distinction.

Sometimes now I could come twice if I lay still enough during the first.  Mel never telling me how many times Linda climaxed told me that he wasn't a braggart.  Wendy met this chat-room guy who promised to made her come three times, once with his finger, then with his tongue and then with his cock.  Liar, we decided.  The asshole's name was Cum4Ever!  I didn't tell Wendy that I could twice, just by myself.  Maybe with somebody helping, three was possible.

Mel never led me sexually, but he never requested I desist.  To my admission that, "as a single, not currently dating, I sometimes touch myself," he said our bodies don't lie about what's in our hearts.

To the follow-up, "What's in my heart lasts afterwards," he acknowledged that his dreams "had their real part, too."  He masturbates, same as me!  Does he touch himself the way I touch myself?  Janice says that guys want you to push and pull them like donkeys, but in my mind Mel was as light as I'd become.

Could we pretend our touches were each other's, I wondered?  Might we even be rising at the same moment, our knees swinging in unison?  These things I didn't ask.

Why did Mel stay with my juvenility?  Some guesses:

   Guys have their natural needs, too.  Even if he'd never admitted the carnal, he'd tacitly told.

   The unseen seems safer.  Wendy tells this guy online which panties she's wearing.  She even makes up colors, or sometimes says she's going without, just for him.  Chat rooms make her an e-stripper, she laughs.  A lying one, anyway.  Corresponding unseen provokes the illicit.

   Some women teachers grocery shop tee shirts, nothing underneath.  I've seen them.  Maybe this was Mr. Rampton's braless equivalency, an hour out of the mold.

   Patty's attention emboldened him, not to talk dirty like Wendy's virtual jack-offs, but at least to acknowledge sex.  Maybe everybody needs a place to say dirty words.  Perhaps the Internet helps us be truthful.

   Belief that Patty didn't know him surely fed his license.  He'd have never told anything to a girl in 4th period algebra.

But all good things must end, a trite transition I'd never use in my English class.

Mel asked to meet Patty in person.  How could he not want that, I realized?  Ms. Perfect.  Uke player.  Math teacher.  Catholic.  Open about love, her willingness.  Of course he'd want to meet her.

Mel even knew how Patty could still protect herself.  (I guess he knew tales of Internet deception.)  She could see his picture on our school's web site.  He said where he went to Mass.  They'd phone first.  Here was his home number.  (Of course I never called.  At Confession, Father Stikes knew exactly.  You can't change your voice.)

It didn't seem necessary to Mel for verification the other way.  Why would Patty be fooling him?

If they did get together, they'd have lots to figure out, of course.  It was fun to think, at least.

   Lovers right away, given what they already knew?  "No," I'd have Patty say.  "We need to take the steps in order, face to face.  Only a goodnight kiss on our first date."

   Then who'd move?  Patty, of course, since she wasn't really from anywhere.

   A wedding with acres of flowers?  Absolutely!  Patty had a dozen girlfriends who'd be bridesmaids.

   Babies?  Maybe three.

But there was nowhere for Patty to go.  I could string him on a bit more, I expected, but for what?  Like Wendy, and e-mail how we'd do daring things to the other?  How we'd finish.  Janice says they want you to suck them dry while they lick your clit.  But Mel wouldn't fuck with me that way.  And I wouldn't fuck with him that way either.  Maybe I'd like oral sex, but I wanted to climax like we were in love.

At least I, Ruthie, had my imagination.  If Mr. Rampton couldn't love a student, he'd still want her body.  I daydreamed of kisses interrupting our math lesson, him unhooking my bra while I did a derivation, air on my boobs, the bulge of anticipation in Mr. Rampton's trousers.  I'd chase his excitement with my elbow, find it, take possession.  He'd press its hardness against me, his hand on my thigh, his fingers drawing upward as I substitute x's for y's in the equation.  As penalty for losing a square root, he'd make me masturbate on his desk.  But as I began to climax, in passion he'd force himself into me.  I'd pull him down, holding him.

But the dreams were empty.  Girls get jealous, but usually not at their pretend half.

Could I have taken advantage of his gullibility?  Blackmailed him about exploiting a 17-year-old?  Demanded an A grade?  Probably, as most any allegation would end his employment.

But I'm not a shit.

    * * * * * 

It was near the end of our frustratingly-intimate correspondence that I tried in my clumsy way to transfer my persona.  I wanted Mr. Rampton to love Ruthie, me.

There's no way that Mr. Rampton would have seen me as a future mathematician.  I worked too hard at it.  But I was willing to labor.  Checking my answers raised my grade by half a point.  Reviewing completed chapters, probably another half.  I was almost doing A work, most of the time, anyway!

But it would take more than calculations.

When Mr. Rampton came down my row to monitor exam progress, I'd be immersed in the math.  But he couldn't glance at my simultaneous equations ("Start neat.  End correctly," his adage) without noting that my blouse was carelessly buttoned.  I suppose it wasn't a big deal for a teacher to see down our dresses, but I knew my cups were round, maybe the one advantage of my build.  I'm not pointy like the waifs who do gymnastics to show their nipples.  After he'd move on, I'd re-button.  It wasn't that special of a bra, but I knew he paused.

Some girls even flash panties, pretending it to be inadvertent.  But that seemed a little crude to do to a grown man.  I've heard that some girls flash not-panties, but I don't believe it.

I brushed Mr. Rampton in the doorway.  Again, I suppose it wasn't that big of deal with so many of us pushing by.  But I let it slide and I'm pretty soft.  I think he noticed because later when I passed him the same way, he said, "Good job on your derivation, Ruthie."  Did he mean anything else?  Probably not, but what counted was that he knew who was squeezing by.

I basically held my breath the first time I went to his desk after class, purposefully to his side so we could both see the problem right side up.  The second or two it took me to trace my solution with my far hand, my breast nuzzled the shoulder of his sports coat.

They say that real nipples come with breastfeeding.  Mine were sometimes visible when I'd wear my seamless soft cup.  (I'd always wear a sweater or sweatshirt at home, so Mom wouldn't notice.)  The first time at Mr. Rampton's desk left me more apparent than I'd probably ever been in public.  It was lucky the other kids weren't looking forward.  Mr. Rampton couldn't have missed, though.  I wondered how they compared to Linda's.

After that, I became (if I can say so) rather good at rubbing.  His seeming not to notice was encouragement enough.  Going out the door, I'd give him both sides if I could.  (The reason I claim to have been rather good was that not even my girlfriends caught on.  Other girls are pretty astute.)

But maybe the tactile just looked like schoolgirl cluelessness, I suppose.  Ruthie wasn't sexual because she's too tall, he'd think.  She'll be cuter in a few years if she stops growing.  "In a few years."

Or maybe, I dreamed, he secretly found me incredibly seductive, the 11th grader with whom he'd want to do Wendy's entire printout of copulation positions.  If Mr. Rampton and I were somewhere else, not with everybody watching, he'd seduce me.  If I spurned him, he'd gently force my surrender.

   "Oh no, Mr. Rampton!  I've never had a man kiss me so!"

   "Oh, Ruthie, my love.  Just this once let me worship your body."

It's just that consummation at school is too risky.  The law held him back.  I liked this explanation best because it at least worked for masturbation.

Maybe Linda had returned to his life and every night they stripped and climbed upon one another.  Maybe Linda already bore his child.

But for whatever reason, Mr. Rampton never seemed to single me out for what a man might want to do with a willing, if not that knowledgeable, girl.

    * * * * * 

Patty, of course, signed the e-mail, but I was typing.  "Mel, I appreciate your openness.  You're a good person.  But I'm not.  Some of the things I wrote aren't totally true.  For one thing, I'm still a virgin.  You should find a friend who's right for you.  Your friend, Patty."

The "I'm still a virgin" told him I was too young, jailbait.  The same four words would lure some guys, but I knew that Mr. Rampton wasn't out to pop cherries.  I wished I hadn't invented things about Patty I thought would impress him.  Having made love already just sounded so sophisticated.

Mel wrote back that same evening.  "Patty, That's OK.  I hope I didn't mislead you as well, but who knows?  So don't worry about it being your fault.  We both probably twisted things to the positive to seem more interesting.  Do be careful though, because there are predators.  Why go to so much work to be someone you're not?  Good luck in your future.  Still your friend, Mel."

I cried.  He was my friend; the sex stuff was the fake part.  He didn't want me to feel bad for wasting his time, even if he was grown up.  He teaches math and likes ukulele jazz.  That's enough.  Sure, he's lonely, but maybe he wanted Patty not just for sex.  Maybe he wanted someone to take to ukulele jazz concerts, someone who'd have fun there.

But if sex was really a fake part, I wasn't sure.  I didn't plan on masturbating, but I did, really sweetly, hardly moving more than my hand and knees.  Coming just once was just right.

Patty needed a week to get up the courage, but she did.  "Hi Mel, I'm still alive.  Thanks for your note and again I'm sorry.  I don't teach math and can't play a ukulele, so I'm not very much like you.  Please keep playing your ukulele.  At first, I thought it was sort of a weird hobby, but now I know a lot about it (listening, I mean) and I think it's pretty neat.  If you ever give a concert, tell me.  Your friend.  P.S.  I will never tell anyone about e-mailing."

He responded, "Patty (that's a name I've come to like), It's very nice knowing that somebody out there is nice enough to be honest.  Lots of what we said was probably just fantasy because we were just typing to ourselves.  If you're really a Catholic, you know that confession is nothing to do with the priest.  It's about knowing that you're still a good person.  Maybe I'll be a little bit nicer to a bunch of people because somebody somewhere is you.  Your friend, Mel."

I so much wanted to reply that the Catholic part was true, but didn't.  But it did seem like he was nicer to us at school.

There's no way Mr. Rampton would have ever deduced that student Ruthie Collins was almost-lover Patty.  In the band I played clarinet, nothing that might have triggered, "four stringed instrument."  I didn't need more math to graduate, so he'd not be my teacher for my senior year.  Wendy got away with her fake invitation e-mail, but nobody bit.  At least I got a long nibble.

Whoever she had been in someplace virtual, Patty was no more.

    * * * * * 

It was in the foyer after Mass.  Father Stikes hadn't talked about confession; it was something related to fellowship with the charismatics, I think.  Maybe Communion got me thinking about being a sneak.  It wasn't that I'd done anything that terrible, I knew.  I'd even vaguely mentioned something generic to Father Stikes through the little window and he'd rightly observed that the computer can be as tempting as drugs.

But maybe it was time for me to sort things out to the person that mattered.  I wasn't going to say anything, just "Hi, Mr. Rampton," but it sort of came out, "Mr. Rampton, I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

I wasn't going to explain anything, but did, "I don't play the uke."  But the gap was too broad between uke and being sorry.  I couldn't leave him mislead.  "Mr. Rampton.  I'm sorry for what I did on the computer."  There I said it!

The premonition of realization took a moment.

"But how'd you...?" he started, then seemed to realize the irrelevance of mechanics.  I watched the weight of implication descend.  He'd shared with a kid things intended for an intimate adult, things I'd no business knowing.  Surely he thus connected my feeble classroom maneuvers: the gapped blouse, squeezing by in the doorway, me against his shoulder.  There'd be a name for girls like me.

He could have said something accusatory.  He could have just turned away, relegating me into oblivion.  But he must have recognized that I was indeed sorry.

His acknowledgement was almost blameless, "Kind of got away, I guess."

"That's why I'm sorry," I managed.  "I deleted everything."  I hadn't, but would.

"Well, it's good you dealt with it."

"Yeah.  Thanks," turning in awkwardness.  But just like I hadn't planned to say anything at all, "You know, Mr. Rampton, I did sort of get interested in weird music."

"You're of course not referring to the ukulele."  I didn't even catch the wryness.

"No, I mean, it's not weird at all, it's just not that common, you know, like maybe a guitar or..."

He rescued my retreat.  "Maybe it's something Father Stikes could learn?"  Father's tone-deaf celebrations were appreciated for their speed, not harmonics.

There'd been no Patty, just a liar, but the liar wasn't irredeemably bad, I heard behind the irreverence.

That night I did delete his letters.  What I'd remember would be part of me, not on some disk.

When your body is accustomed to sex, though, according to Janice, it can't just let go.  That's why she dates a lot.  It's not about the guy; it's about her need.  Pretty self-centered, but she's right about the body.  That night I felt it so much so that I almost climaxed standing up in the shower.

When I got into bed, there'd be a new way, one discovered in lost love.

I lay on my stomach with a pillow bunched in the middle, legs apart and around it and humped it until it was wet with me.  I hoped my brother couldn't hear, but didn't really care.  I put my middle finger as always, but let my weight push my palm against my pubic bone.  My other hand found my vagina and I slid a finger in.  Palm on my mons, finger on my front, vulva against my pillow and another finger within me, it worked like four climaxes once.

That's how I made love to Mr. Rampton that night.  And the next.  And the next.  Could he have known?  Not by anything in the classroom, unless maybe in my knees.

"You know?" Mr. Rampton said several weeks later.  "Fire me an update now and then."

Ruthie now, not Patty, did so, but just about clarinet, not fantasy.  How could I discuss lovemaking with a teacher who saw me every day?  A teacher who knew that I don't know diddle about love and that I masturbate.  But we were still able to e-mail about interests, jazz and teaching for him, school for me.  He said to still call him "Mel".

Fame was eluding him, he joked.  "I've not discovered any new algebraic principles and uke jazz remains top secret.  If Ron hadn't gotten famous and come to town, you'd have never found out."

"Then I'd not have figured out how to e-mail you," I justified.

"Eve tricked Adam before they had computers," he agreed.  I don't think he remembered that Eve tricked Adam so they could have sex.

I never did renege, though, on signing off with "love".  I backed away from showing him my bra as much and felt too exposed to press close at his desk.  But in the doorway, not by design, just where we were sometimes, we'd still brush.

It went without saying that we'd keep our correspondence to ourselves.  A teacher and a junior aren't supposed to pass notes.

Why Mr. Rampton stayed engaged eluded me.  I wasn't a math whiz, a semi-legitimate reason.  He knew he was dealing with a fraud, an ex-one, anyway.  He was way older.  Shoot, I wasn't even 18.

Knowing I was Ruthie pretty much invalidated all the reasons he'd fallen for unseen Patty.  Even libido didn't explain much, as he could have done better with someone like Janice, someone who didn't need an undone button.  I wasn't even close to being sexy without some tart gimmick.

Were I smarter, maybe I'd have thought how to be old like Patty.  But I was just Ruthie, a tall girl who masturbated.

I wrote that maybe I might go into retail.  Places like K-Mart provided good benefits, I'd heard.  I'd use my math there.  What did he think about retail?  I was too sleepy to decide, I said, as I'd stayed up too late last night cramming for his test.

He must have been online, as right away he responded, agreeing that he was pretty ready for bed, too.  He'd started grading and I was hardly missing anything, so maybe I was studying too much.

Probably I read too much into his acknowledgement of going to bed, though, but it seemed to me a vestige of intimacy once held with Patty.  He'd told her that waking up together would be what made it love.

Lacking any more than that bridge, I typed the truth, "Even if it's not for real, I still sleep with you every night.  It's not your fault, though.  I'll outgrow thinking it's love.  This is from Ruthie, not Patty.  The one who's tall."

The next day he looked right past the one who's tall every time, but I was glad.  I didn't know the answers.

Then, almost a week later, "Ruthie, could you maybe stop by after school?"

PART II

Quartermaster Corps PFC M. Rampton wasn't at Ft. Lewis to win wars.  Monitoring acronymically-obfuscated items (his terms, not the Army's) from depot to depot was meaninglessly mind-numbing.  PFC Rampton figured that battalions of paper pushers like himself endlessly circled paper BFV's through the armored units: 4 from Ft. Irwin to Ft. Riley, 4 from Ft. Riley to Ft. Polk and 4 from Ft. Polk to Ft. Irwin.  The metal ones never moved.

Army expectation about off-base deportment also lacked meaning: "Appropriate public presentation befitting a member of the United States Armed Forces."  A few drinks at a dive marked one less week in uniform.  Just don't go there in a BFV.

Tacoma, like most base cities, was of three zones.  The largest was where normal people reside.  Soldiers had been boys in such a zone and knew how it worked, how kids hurry off to school, dads go to the office.  But this zone was alien to uniforms.  Citizens don't invite soldiers in.

The second zone invited everyone.  It was the malls, the drive-in banks, Cheney Stadium, the Circle K with Hostess Cupcakes always in the middle aisle.  To the warriors of Ft. Lewis, this was Tacoma.  Sears was more expensive than the Exchange, but had a selection.

The smallest zone was military driven -- apartments simulated grooved-wood paneled and avocado shag carpeted, littered fast food outlets, bygone motels with "Military Rate" marquees, "M" having blown off some years back.  In this zone were the clubs where the band cycled through "Proud Mary" every 70 minutes.  The MP number was penciled on the phone behind the bar.  Such clubs were not PFC Rampton's preference, but shooting the bull was the saving grace of Army life.  Too bad there weren't any places that played jazz.

Mel and Ron hadn't a clue why the club was called the "Title Bout".  The band played flawlessly, ignored by everyone but the two privates.  "It's the water" meant Olympia beer "is just water," according to Mel's buddy.

There were no back rooms; the girls at the Title Bout weren't that type.  They were just locals looking for an evening out too.  In pairs or trios, they'd chat with the GI's, find out where they were from, accept a drink.  Everyone might pause the chitchat and together belt out, "Stuck in Lodi Again."  They'd always laugh when Mel said he'd got gas in Lodi.  It's on Highway 99, what I-5 replaced.

Guys like Ron, of course, had lost their virginity years ago.  Mel would find the right girl sooner or later, but he'd actually never gone out much, never pushed.  Maybe the ukulele marked him as an oddball, he'd wondered.  Ron said in Hawaii he'd get all the girls in grass skirts, but he was at Ft. Lewis.

Mel didn't sense any ukulele tie to Linda after Sandy (or whatever her name was) went to dance with Ron.  Linda worked at Payless and was studying court reporting.  You can always find work.  When the band got stuck in Lodi again, Mel recited his Lodi story and Linda laughed.  One less week till discharge.

The four got into Mel's car, Ron and Sandy in the back seat already giggling.  At the Puget Sound overlook, Ron chided him until Mel produced his ukulele from the trunk.  "Remember Arthur Godfrey?" Ron asked the girls.  They didn't.  "OK, you know Creedence Clearwater, anyway."

Mel rolled his eyes, but nobody could tell in the dark, and lit into, "I see the bad moon arising.  I see trouble on the way," with the punch that Fogerty intended.  Linda laughed and poured herself some more brandy.

Then, no surprise to Mel, Ron walked Sandy into the dark to "see the big ships."  Linda seemed accustomed to the setup, scooting against Mel and asking how many times he'd driven through Lodi.  Maybe six.  Want a drink?  No, I'm driving, I guess.

Linda's mouth he could hardly ignore and they kissed as he found her pullover.  While she unbuckled his belt, he ran his palm over her thigh.  She worked his trousers down.  He'd never touched another's pubic hair before.  He climaxed quickly, but she finished in bouncing style and said he was fun.  He knew he wasn't, but she was a nice person, he supposed.

He'd see Linda at the Title Bout on later occasions, but always talking or dancing with somebody else.  Once she waved, but Mel wasn't sure if she actually remembered.

The priest treated it pretty lightly at Confession, a few words about honoring marriage, but then Mel hadn't told him it was his first.

After they'd dropped off Linda and Sandy, the two soldiers self-congratulated palm-to-palm.  "We did it on a picnic table," Ron remarked.  "Left a little mayonnaise," a witticism remembered six years hence when Mel's Ft. Lewis buddy gave him a call.  He'd be in town for a gig.  Did Mel still have his ukulele?

Sure.

    * * * * * 

Being older than his fellow freshmen deprived Mel of some of the college fun, Mel acknowledged, but being in his 20's gave him license to be a little quieter, a little more focused.  He'd be that way anyway, but at least now he had an excuse.  A math teacher was what he'd always wanted to be.  The quantitative part came easy.  He knew he'd find handling kids a challenge, but at least a dynamic one.

Back in the Army, he and Ron had picked up chicks, not often, but ones that were screwed, what Ron thought life was all about.  Mel could picture each girl, but not as clearly as his first.

Maybe it had to do with coeds being more sophisticated.  In any case, the ones he dated tended to be interested in guys with more pizzazz than an ex-PFC who wanted to be a teacher.  Just two stayed with him long enough for sex and neither seemed concerned with more than orgasm without pregnancy.  Both wanted him to wear a condom, but seemed to find him less manly for quickly complying.

Mel dated a girl, also Catholic, who'd never let him touch more than her blouse.  Mel assumed it was her beliefs, something to respect, but then he heard (maybe not true) that she was fucking the priest at Newman Center.

    * * * * * 

Learning how high schools really work was a different sort of challenge, but the Army had taught Mel how to slug through adversity.  He wasn't that bad a teacher, actually.  Once his kids realized that they already knew the principles, they just needed guidance fitting story problems to them.

Two years wrestling with lesson plans and improving exam questions at last gave him enough evening time to again work on his ukulele.  Well, maybe not professionally, he recognized, given the history.

   Cliff Edwards, a.k.a. Ukulele Ike, the voice of Jiminy Cricket in "Pinocchio", sold 74,000,000 records and died broke.

   Lyle Ritz played bass in 5,000 studio sessions.  Lots of others could have played the bass on Herb Alpert's "Taste of Honey", but nobody played the uke as well as Ritz did in the 50's.

   Herb Ohta had to become Ohta-San and speak Japanese to find an audience.

   Herbert Khaury became Tiny Tim who married Miss Vickie who had a daughter Tulip who wouldn't speak to her dad who died a religious kook performing at car shows.  Tiny Tim just 3-chorded, made the uke into a camp joke.

Playing uke is serious business, Mel realized, but not one he'd give up a salaried career to pursue.

Patty on the Internet had pretty much understood.  In a world of six billion, Mel reflected, maybe it's not odd that there'd be one other so similar.

And it wasn't just math teaching and uke chords.  When Patty mentioned love, he almost knew to what she referred.  Her "Mel, I picture you here with me," left "in bed," unsaid.  She didn't need to refer to intercourse.  After rereading, Mel would masturbate too.  She'd all but told him that she would too.

Patty's confession that she wasn't truthful saddened him more than he let on.  He'd never know how much of her was just putting him on and how much she liked him, if at all.  The positive spin of his reply took a lot of work.

Mel was shaken when Ruthie, his student, told him that she was the one.  An allegation and the District would find a math teacher who was not a pervert.  In dealing with potentially being fired, though, he could be almost objective.  He knew she wouldn't go to the authorities.  Diminishing the blow to his esteem was harder.  He didn't want to know what he knew about the kid any more than he wanted her to know what she now knew about him.

But he wasn't astonished that it was Ruthie, someone he'd noticed the first day of class.

He'd then just seen a girl inches taller than himself.  Her hair probably should be longer, he'd thought.  Online Patty was as beautiful as he'd wanted her to be.  Ruthie was pretty too, not in china-doll fashion, but in her big-boned, fresh-faced way, the type that shouldn't wear lipstick.  But those were the girls who inevitably thought they should.  Mel could picture her skiing, playing field hockey, something where being strong counted.  The way she hunched her shoulders, maybe she thought made her less tall.

Ruthie was one of the few girls who'd undertaken to write the number 8 as tangent ovals, not the connected-S swirl that was pretty.  Two circles was the way Mel did it on the board - a strong digit.  Only a math teacher would notice.

Mel could see Ruthie catch on when he was spoofing the class a little.  When he said to skip all the even-numbered homework problems that were prime numbers, she'd grinned while classmates scanned for work to eliminate.

Then there was the sexual.

Her breasts were as high as they'd be on a pubescent, but full enough to fill her sweater.  Sometimes strolling the aisles, he'd see Ruthie's bra, always white.  Girls could be so self-conscious about designer labels, yet blind to a simple missed button.  Some girls wore colored bras under white blouses or tops so tight that Mel could see the lace beneath, but how Ruthie's bra creased the insides of her breasts was what always caught him.  Probably she hadn't been so high chested, a missed top button wouldn't make such a difference.

He'd sense her whereabouts.  She didn't slip around wisp-like.  Maybe because she was bigger, she could shoulder herself forward, sometimes wedging against her teacher just for a moment.  At his desk afterwards, his knees would rock together and apart, friction from his fly prolonging her brush of softness.  With one hand below the desktop he could climax, but there were always students present.  He came enough times thinking of his new friend Patty, but had never come thinking of a student.  It wasn't that hard to almost intercept Ruthie, feeling her fullness against him as she passed.  He knew he shouldn't.

When Ruthie would come to his desk, he'd place the assignment so that she'd move behind him to follow his solution.  So diligent was she about the variables that by the QED, she'd be touching.  Sometimes he'd even see the emergence of nipples, just like the gymnastics team when they stand to receive ribbons.

Safely alone, his nightly practiced method was four fingers below and thumb above.  But envisioning Ruthie, three, then two fingers, were more in keeping with a girl so pure.  Mel knew she still was; teachers read their students every day.

Mel imagined guiding Ruthie into womanhood.  White bra removed.  His minute thrusts surmounting her involuntary constriction.  Wetness, lots of it.  Her rhythm.  Her whisper.  Sliding inward.  In orgasm, the smile made when catching onto him teasing the class.  His seed.

It took Mel weeks to realize the rest.

   That after he passed her desk, Ruthie rebuttoned.

   That if he stood near the doorway's right, she'd pass on the right.

   That if he stood to the left, she'd move accordingly.

   That if he didn't place the paper facing him, she would.

   That when she leaned, her breast always touched the same way.

   That when returning to her seat, she'd cradle her book in her arms if anybody were looking.

Did she thus know how he'd pause to gaze?  How he moved toward her?  How he was hard by the time they'd placed the paper?  In bed, Mel projected his student abandoning her pencil, drawing her hand from the worksheet to the desk's edge and then onto his lap, telling him she knew.

This girl, he realized, had thrice captured him.

   By fraud.  She'd just been fooling around and he'd been gullible.

   By physicality.  How could he deny that she was sensual?  Of course he came to anticipate it.

   In confession.  "Even if it's not for real, I still sleep with you every night.  It's not your fault, though.  I'll outgrow it.  This is from Ruthie, not Patty.  The one who's tall."

Just say no.  He knew that much.

But why was it so difficult to say?  It had to be something even more basic than his thumb and forefinger, scarcely moving as even now as he slept with her in return.

    * * * * * 

Mel wasn't sure.  He perused her homework grades, thinking to ask about missing assignments.  But hers were complete.  Could he perhaps make a recording error and need to confirm if his entries were correct?  Why pretend?  Ruthie would know a summons was about more than marks.

Maybe he could tell her that the school suspected something and they'd no choice but to end.  Maybe he could lie that he was living with somebody.  Hell, he could tell Ruthie just to go masturbate to some other teenage dream!

But he couldn't dismiss the reality of what they'd anonymously corresponded, the music of surreptitious touches.  Jazz is very real.  He wanted her to play jazz on the ukulele.  Grading her paper, he could smell her perfume, a reality.  Love is real too.  Feeling it.  Making it.

The day's last period, Math for Life, dragged on, but at last the classroom emptied.  Realizing that he should be doing something, Mel busied himself with last week's newsletter.  He was in the third read-through when Ruthie entered.

"Oh, hi," Mel volunteered, as if just remembering his request.  "Have a seat while I finish this," skimming again about the Deputy Superintendent for Curricula position being split into an Assistant Superintendent for Competency Skills and an Assistant Superintendent for Auxiliary Skills.  He looked for his grade-book, but forgot why.

"Ruthie," he started.  "Maybe you need to...  Maybe we need to rethink what's been going on."  Mel could tell by her stillness that she knew where he was going.

"It's OK," Ruthie offered after a moment.  "I guess I was just trying stuff.  Being big boned maybe makes me look older."

Stuff?  Does she have any idea what it does to him, night after night?  Big-boned?  She means beautiful.

She thought a moment more.  "I'm just in school still.  Kids dream, I guess."

Mel looked at her.  School?  But a teacher wouldn't feel so transparent.  Kids?  He wasn't that much ahead of her.

But he now knew why he'd beckoned her.  "Oh no, Ruthie," without processing the implication.  "Teachers dream too."

"About Linda."

"Linda?"

"In the Army.  You told me."

"She found some sergeant," Mel remembered.  "No, about now."

Then Mel did a brave thing for a quiet guy, maybe a stupid thing for a smart teacher.  He rose, walked to where Ruthie sat and kissed her cheek.

Ruthie turned away.

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking," he mumbled.

"Mr. Rampton, it takes two dreamers to end up like this."

Ruthie, not Mel, thought of closing the classroom door as the pair moved away from the window.  Undoing her first button, he whispered, "My turn," and she giggled.

As her leg worked its way between his, he overcame pulling away in modesty (his first instinct) or thrusting in desire (his second).

He wanted Ruthie to decide.

Her eyes told him she had.

Her blouse now open, he cradled her while her thigh, and then knee, crossed and re-crossed his front.  Can she tell, wondered Mel?  But the trace of her knee already spoke the answer.

Backing her against the chalkboard, Mel steadied his hands against the surface on either side, rolled himself side-to-side on her abdomen, and then as she pulled herself upward, up and down against her mons.  Lifting her to full stature, he worked his way between her thighs.

They only broke their kiss when she began to shudder and even then she held her cheek to his.  Mel came only seconds later, her perch on the chalk tray supporting them both.  He'd no idea that she'd climax, but neither that he would also.

Ruthie gasped in disarray, then grinned.  Her skirt had ridden to her waist, corporal desire to shed impediment.  Her bra was likewise shoved upward, pink areola on cream breasts.  Auburn tuffs escaped the hem of her underpants.  She'd even kicked off her shoes.

When his eyes returned to hers, he'd never seen eyes so lovely.

It was when Ruthie's gaze reflected concern that he thought to look at himself.  His trouser front evidenced his orgasm.

"Oh, wow!" she blushed.  "We both did!"

Mel grasped for excuse.  "Maybe we weren't thinking."

"No, Mr. Rampton, I was thinking about us."

She knew he was too, Mel realized.  More than the physical.

"But we, we shouldn't have got this far," Mel worried.

"It's not like we don't know how," Ruthie countered.  "It's the next safest thing to abstinence, but they skipped over it in Health Ed," her juxtaposition of innocence and assessment.

Unabashedly, her palm explored Mel's wetness for its source.  "I just didn't know there'd be so much, Mr. Rampton."

"Maybe I'm 'Mel' now, Ruthie," kissing to prolong her touch.

As she discovered him, Mel brushed chalk dust off the back of Ruthie's disarranged attire.

    * * * * * 

For after-school romance, Ruthie would linger in the hall, then slip in the door, locking it behind her and wanting a kiss (as did Mel).  Unlike their electronic introductions, they could hold hands, sitting on the bench in the back of the classroom.  Eventually she'd climb into his lap.

When Mel first drew his hand up Ruthie's thigh, she climaxed as soon as he found her through the cotton.  "I guess I was sort of primed, maybe," she volunteered, catching her breath.  Then looking down, "Like how'd you know that's where, though?" pressing his finger once more into her nubbin.  "Linda?"

Mel shook his head.  Those with whom he'd had sex hadn't the time to educate him.

"See then?" Ruthie confirmed.  "It means we're wired the same!  You just knew, I mean, to reach around to exactly right here," starting him again.  "Like how I have you make love to me riding my pillow.  You're on my back to hold me down," somewhat clarifying intercourse without proximity.  "But we can't really do it that way here," looking about.  "The carpet's too grody.  It's better on your lap.  Keep going, OK?" further spreading her legs to help him.

"Know what your other finger does?" she suggested as an afterthought.

Mel didn't know how to describe sex without proximity from his perspective, but Ruthie didn't ask.  "Doing it to each other pretend-like was sure more fun than just doing it to ourselves, right?" she justified.  "Do you get on your stomach, too, and let your pillow be me?"

Why, he wondered, is it so hard say it's on his back in the darkness?  He didn't think less of Ruthie because she told of her gyrations; it helped him appreciate her, even.

Fortunately, he recognized, she didn't need instruction.

"I don't know exactly how to do it," reaching behind to close her grasp on his slacks, "But I can guess.  At bedtime, right?  And not fast, like a donkey."

The beast-of-burden comparison eluded Mel, but she was right -- not fast.

Sliding to his side, she undid his belt and opened his fly, enclosing his freed erection between her palms.  "Outside, so I can see," working his trousers down enough for Mel to spread his legs and she could cup his testicles.  She peered closely. "You're OK?  You'll let me try?" tentatively testing his mobility with just her fingertips.  "I'll be careful.  Like a little dance, maybe.  Want to lie down?"

Mel shook his head.

"We're the same, but we're different," she acknowledged, kneeling beside and drawing against him as if she'd watched him every evening.

She lifter her sweater with her free hand, Mel mentally forestalling ejaculation by helping with her bra.  When she wet her nipple with his premonition, Mel watched too.

She captured his outpour between her breasts, as would a long-familiar lover.

They relaxed together, watching him soften.  He wondered if she were disappointed he couldn't stay ready, but she seemed happy, occasionally squeezing to monitor, as intrigued in his retreat as she'd been in his advance.

"I didn't know how else to catch it," Ruthie admitted.  "I'll bet you don't shoot it on my boobs when you do it alone," she challenged, sliding a forefinger through the slickness, still trying to figure out telepathic sex.

With Ruthie, Mel realized, you talked.  When he conceded her correctness, Ruthie nodded.  "You're inside me.  And you're on your back when you do it, right?"  He should come on her boobs again tonight, she offered, now that he knew she liked it.  "I'll try to imagine when, to see how well we're connected."

Another thought caught her.  "And I'm not going to shower so I'll be still sticky with your goo in class tomorrow!"

But next day, fourth period, she mouthed, "All clean," and wiggled her knees under her desk.

    * * * * * 

Ruthie sat on Mel's lap, facing away.  Reaching into her panties, Mel already had her damp.  He now knew enough to open her petals and tease her to orgasm over minutes, not seconds.  She would arch her neck over his shoulder and breath signals.  His other finger was poised to enter her as her breathing quickened.  They'd work her panties sufficiently down to together watch.  Coming together takes more communication than just the carnal.

She'd undone his buckle and zipper to fit him better under her, his undershorts sliding against her bare behind until he'd climax against her driving butt.

But when Ruthie entered her final slippery stage, she somehow swung herself around, shoving her undies off one leg in the process.  Shushing his mouth with hers, she pushed away his pants, letting his erection ply her curly hair.

Does she want me to come against her front, he wondered?  Not between her breasts, but lower.

But he knew the inevitability of her mount as she rose and then thrust downward, their kiss not broken until they were fully mated.  First rocking as one, then increasingly driving their flesh in opposition, they merged into sameness.  He could feel her contractions as his final sperm were loosed.

"Was it good?  I couldn't wait," in her straightforwardness, still coupled.  "Next time I'll warn you so you can put on a rubber, maybe.  It's really rare to get pregnant the first time.  Or I can put it on you.  They say it's easy."

Mel thought the impregnation odds the same for any random insemination, but didn't correct her fertility folklore.

Afterwards, Mel wondered if she'd climaxed.  He'd masturbated her enough to know that she'd not manifested her full orgasm, at least.  Surely her first time would have been uncomfortable.  If he could have slowed, he would have helped her more.

After her assurance of escaped impregnation, she'd simply promised, "I'll get better, really good.  And someday we won't want a rubber."

    * * * * * 

Making love properly took more planning.  As Mel's fourplex had a common carport, Ruthie could slip her bicycle behind his bug.  If neighbors noticed, they'd not have guessed that his visitor was on her way home from school.

 "Want to learn to make lasagna, Mr. Chef?"

"Sure."

"We'll need aprons.  This sweater isn't very washable."

"How about me washing you up afterwards?"

"An apron, crass seducer, or no Italian.  You got a baking dish?"

And when the creation was in the oven, the reversal.  "So now you owe me a ukulele lesson.  I'll sit in your lap."

"And not pay attention to the chords," his protest.  "No, you park your butt in this chair until you know the augmenteds."

She'd get the chords in a jiffy and get onto his lap until the lasagna was done.  "My favorite way because I invented it at school," her boast.  "Actually, before that.  On my pillow."

Evenings posed a challenge, but not beyond what Janice and Wendy could facilitate.  "Bye, Mom.  Janice and Wendy and me are going to the mall.  Back by ten.  I won't buy anything, don't worry."

They'd use the peephole to make sure the Pizza Hut delivery boy wasn't from their school.

"Mr. Rampton," Wendy once said when the four of them were watching "You've Got Mail", not Mel's favorite, "Like we're going to tell the principal if you hold her hand?"  He sheepishly did.  Friends of Ruthie were his friends too, albeit also his students.  Afterwards, he didn't mind the two seeing how he wrapped Ruthie so she'd not reach the biggest pizza slice.  How he kept his arm around her chest while she ate her piece.

"You know, Mr. Rampton, if we were bad girls, we'd make you check out X movies," Wendy added.

Sometimes Ruthie would put on ukulele music.  In Wendy's opinion, "Four suits on stage playing different tunes, one being hula.  They need a girl in a grass skirt playing bongo drums, though, to get a hit."

Janice would shoo the couple to Mel's room "for a little ukie" while she and Wendy worked on their American History timeline.  If Mr. Rampton didn't take good care of poor little Ruthie, they'd write on their timeline where they were working on it.

"We promise not to listen," pointedly looking at the hollow-core door, "because we're really concentrating on getting the Civil War onto our charts."

Behind the door, Ruthie giggled, finger over lips and pointed to the rug.

We're not letting those two goofs decide where, decided Mel, laying Ruthie on the bed hard enough to make the mattress thump and dropping his shoes like twin drumbeats.  Realizing his intention, Ruthie pulled her heels to her hips, lifting him high enough for each slam to rattle the footboard.

When the two emerged, blushing despite their resolve, Janice and Wendy were still on 1863.

"We all got to Gettysburg at the same time," Janice grinned.  "Hey, a lot happened in 1863.  Uh, the Emancipation Proclamation!  Yeah!  I'll put a little star right here on my timeline to remind us."

The irony of youth, Mel realized.  He had written so thoughtfully about lovers waking up together.  But really, he and Ruthie never had time to more than doze before Janice and Wendy were banging on the door, saying that the mall was closing and they needed Ruthie.  He and Ruthie would waken to morning light someday.

But they were indeed making love; he knew that much.  Two in love don't need to invent anything new at school.  Sure, Ruthie had a printout of alternative positions, but that was just about having sex.  They'd never get all those ways done, but so what?

Here was his Ruthie, deciding to take trig next year.  From him, but that wasn't the reason.  They had his bed.  She'd probably become something like a hydropower engineer.  Not for the Corps of Engineers though.  He'd help her with the calculus.

Here was his Ruthie, as careful as was he about birth control.  But as she'd said that one time they'd gone without, "Someday we won't want a rubber."  He'd bring their baby from the crib someday and watch her nurse.  Her?  Him?  How about one of each?

Here was his Ruthie, no first-row clarinet, already getting through "Light my Fire" on his uke.  He really needed to get her off the Doors, onto something more like Stan Getz.  The thing about a uke, he'd always said, is that the principles are so simple that only innate talent makes a difference.  He wished he could tell Stan Hake, the band director, what this kid can really do, given the right instrument.

Ukulele jazz seemed a strange passion to Janice and Wendy, but playing it together was almost as fun as having sex.

THE END

Holly on the Web

Wherever you found this story on the web, thank you to the server.  My problem is that I've no systematic way to update the various servers.  As literary errors (or just poor word usages) are made known to me, I'll repair that which is salvageable on http://www.asstr.org/~Holly_Rennick.  If you take the time to read me, don't wade through an early version.
 
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Holly
