Ophelia, part three

I must have nearly fallen asleep, the heat winning out over my discomfort, because my mind rambled to something that had happened earlier that day which I’d already mentioned to Jessica. The stuffiness and smell of the boys’ changing room this morning had somehow made me hot and bothered even before the PE lesson, so it was no wonder I felt doubly so after it. But it was only in PE that we got to undo our too-tight uniforms and feel at least a tiny bit like real boys, if you ignored the fact that winning against the girls was out of the question. Getting to go bare-legged in T-shirts we could be a bit plucky and defiant, even tease each other a bit, or at least the more daring boys in our class tried to. I myself wasn’t much use, and I sure wasn’t ready for that yet anyway. I’d left my white underpants on for the lesson because I knew how sweaty they’d get in the game, and brought a clean pair for afterwards into which I’d been changing when it happened.

With me were a few of my friends. We stuck together because it made it easier to complain about school, which was what we were doing. I’d started with how unfair it was that we had a uniform that made us swelter on days like this, while the girls could waft around in light blouses and short skirts. Once we’d all had the chance to agree with that we moved on to the subject of PE with the girls, and how that was unfair on us too.

“You’ve got more to moan about than that!” suddenly sang a smug boy I didn’t like, as he walked past in his own underpants. “Going out with Jessica and not allowed to touch her!”

Of course, he didn’t have to put up with a girlfriend like Jessica. That was how he could get away with making fun of me like that. With a blush and a pout I went back to getting changed, quiet and sullen now, not wanting that boy to know how his words had stung me and how true they were.

All at once I was back to reality, and I must have been almost dozing because it startled me when Jessica rose out of the pond with a splash. I scrambled to my feet as she stepped dripping onto the bricks, holding her hair up again. Her blouse and panties were clinging to her. I couldn’t take my eyes away.

Immediately she lay down on her back and stretched herself out along the grass. She arranged her dark hair behind her head in a halo. It looked like she was all ready to drop off again, out of the water this time.

“Fan me while I dry,” she said lazily to me. “It’s in my bag.”

I hurried over and unzipped it. Schoolbooks, crumpled and smelly PE kit – my hand fell on her damp gym-knickers, giving me for a second an all-consuming thrill combined with crushing disappointment I couldn’t give them a good sniff here and now – then more schoolbooks, panty-liners, two fashion magazines, a small glass bottle of perfume, her hairbrush…and at long last, a pretty pink fan folded up. Boy, I sure didn’t need to watch Jessica’s “What’s inside my schoolbag” on YouTube, much as any boy would enjoy listening to her teasing commentary! What other boys called Jessica’s “What’s inside my schoolbag,” I called my life!

I hastened back to where she was lying. Some of what she was doing had started to make sense to me now, though not all of it by a long shot. I could see at least how she’d made sure not to get her dark hair wet, so it would stay as clean and silky as ever, and that she’d taken off all the garments that would have still been wet by the end of lunch. That blouse wouldn’t take any drying at all, there was so little of it. I knelt down by the sleepy-looking girl, fumbled her fan open, and began to waft her diligently but probably not very well. Girls were better than boys at using these things.

She, stretched out on the garden, all comfortable and cooled by her damp drying clothes and from my added little wafts of air, was only making me hotter and hotter while my arm started to ache more and more. That wasn’t why I was feeling so annoyed at Jessica though. I couldn’t take my burning eyes away from her blouse, which I could still see all the way through, down to the two tempting round swells that were entirely visible and steadily driving me insane with the desire to touch. It was infuriating enough when she had a bra on, and I could see the shapes of them curving behind the lace and the flowery print. Even then, they drove me wild with the yearning to touch them. But today, when Jessica wasn’t wearing a bra at all…!

I knew all too well I was forbidden to do anything but look, but her blouse had never been transparent before, and she’d never put what I so badly wanted literally within arm’s reach. I was breathless. I’d never touched those parts of a girl. I didn’t even know what they’d feel like. And there were the nicest two any boy could imagine, close enough to put my hand on right now, except the girl they belonged to wouldn’t let me.

Sometimes Jessica could just be too much. I looked and looked at the desired and impossible sight. My rapturous gaze had become a glare.

Finally the girl looked up, and caught the expression on my face in time. I could tell in that moment she knew exactly how I was feeling. She giggled and stretched herself out.

“I’m a tease,” Jessica said luxuriously, putting great emphasis on the last word.

“Yes you are,” I thought to myself, knowing I’d never dare say it out loud.

As I’d predicted, Jessica’s thin white blouse dried in no time in the sun. So too, it seemed, did her underwear. So then it was back on with her garter-belt, skirt, stockings and shoes, and also her sweater, though at the time I was amazed seeing as the day was so hot. She primly fastened everything up, then after a quick sweep of her shiny black locks with the hairbrush from out of her bag, the bell rang and it was time for afternoon school.

END OF PART THREE