THE MASTERY OF TABLE-TURNING
[THE STORY SO FAR - Could it get any worse? Used and abused by members of his sixth-form tutor group entirely for their amusement, English public schoolmaster Alan Watson has suffered the ultimate in embarrassment - being deposited at the local swimming pool clad only in swimming trunks guaranteed to go transparent the moment they touch water.]
CHAPTER ELEVEN - The Nightmare Continued
Consternation reigned. Hands flailing to keep me afloat until my feet found bottom, I finally stood up to discover myself only mid-thigh deep and consequently on full display to all and sundry. My white trunks had been rendered translucent by the absorption of water and all my reproductive equipment and pubic hair was clearly visible. Clasping myself in alarm, I ducked down in an effort to conceal myself. As I shot anxious glances all round, it was clear to see I was the butt of everybody's humour. All were revelling in my humiliating exposure.
"Go on, mister, show us all your cock again!" and "Haven't you got a big one, then?" were screeched across the water by the ghastly girls whose initial screams of outraged glee had alerted me to my see-through condition. Hotly embarrassed, I strove to ignore their hysterical screams of delight at their own pathetic attempts at wit, and instead searched the pool for Richard and my tormentors. It took me ages to realise they were not there. I ran my eyes round the sides. They were not there either. A sinking feeling suddenly hit me. After I had hit the water, they had obviously turned tail and had beaten a hasty retreat.
I had to walk through the water past amused and braying occupants to the far end of the pool - the shallow end - to get out of the water up the steps. I glanced down at myself as I had to remove my hands to steady myself up the steps hanging on the steel hand rails. I was alarmed to see that the overall effect was as if I were completely naked, the fabric somehow enhancing this by giving a darkly matted look to my pubic hair, and a plummy squashed look to the head of my penis pressed up against it. Firmly cupping myself once more, I proceeded alongside the pool's edge; there was nothing I could do to conceal my buttocks, apparently equally laid-bare. I had to walk the length of the pool, echoing to a chorus of caterwauling and wolf-whistles, every eye feasting libidinously on my starkly exposed physique that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Stepping once more through the shower towards the male changing area, a sense of panic rising within me, I moaned aloud as I realised my worst suspicions had been confirmed. My locker door lay open and empty. I had been deserted. All my clothing, and even my towel, had been removed. I was alone, in nothing but a pair of see-through swimming trunks.
I was swamped by a massive sense of impotent helplessness and hopelessness. Even cruel sniggers from some youngsters getting changed could not increase my sense of utter desolation. I was going to have to walk out into the public foyer, apparently nude, where everybody else would be fully-clothed and wholly judgemental. Screwing up my courage to venture forth unclad, I swallowed and drew a deep shaky breath before flinging open the door and striding purposefully out.
A shocked grandmother shielded a child's eyes as I emerged from the male changing area. I couldn't help but notice that she didn't stop looking herself though. Mortified, I made my way to the booking office door. It was locked. I tried knocking on it, but a voice yelled out after my second fruitless attempt to attract attention there: "You'll have to go round to the front!"
There was a large queue; men, women, children of all ages. All turned with excited, amused, and even scandalized interest to examine my apparent nakedness. Feeling excessively foolish in the glare of their brazen and unbridled curiosity, I beg-pardoned' and excused-me'd' to as near the front of the queue as possible, ruefully grinning at each robust and ribald remark as they rained down upon me. And all thinking themselves so original! It is part of the human psyche, I think, to make very obvious and fatuous remarks at the expense of others. How many times does the bearer of a black eye have to endure the question what does the other fellow look like?'? I lost count of the number of witty ripostes on the theme of haven't you forgotten something, mate?' together with pats, tweaks, observations about `not getting many of them to the pound'. Even the man in the ticket office would not spare me.
"We've got changing rooms inside, mate," he said, chuckling at his own humour. "No need to strip off on the car park."
I quickly explained what had happened, and had to repeat it louder as he couldn't hear me through the plate glass divide. A great crow of amused jeering went up from the highly amused spectators in the line behind me when they discovered the cause of my predicament.
"Well, you don't look as if you've got anywhere for your car keys or bus fare," he said, enjoying himself immensely at my expense. He even paused, soliciting a response in the form of encouraging applause from his eagerly listening audience, and then proceeded to give me a loud lecture on the advisability of keeping my locker key with me at all times.
I quickly found myself in the rôle of a teaching aid as he upped the volume of his little homily to point out that the municipal authorities could not be held responsible for any loss of personal property as I had quite obviously not fulfilled my contract by obeying their rules and regulations stated quite clearly on the reverse of each and every ticket of admission, and posted on the backs of all doors in the changing areas. I stood there, naked, sheepishly, shivering, teeth chattering with nervousness, and feeling exceedingly foolish as he rambled on endlessly.
Finally, after subjecting me to this interminable lecture during which I was alarmingly goosed by some anonymous groping hand I suspected to be male, the box office attendant agreed to telephone for a taxi.
"Here, you're Mr Watson, aren't you?"
I turned in my bemused trance-like state to see a thin anaemic-looking girl with damp hair and an unappealingly toothy Cheshire cat-like grin.
"You teach my brother," she told me. "I saw you on the telly when you got your rugby kit all torn off. We did have a laugh seeing you naked!"
The ghastly child had a voice like a corncrake and a laugh like a jackass. That I was the centre of attention due to her stentorian triumphalistic diatribe aimed at me made me shrink in horror. I felt almost like a rape victim must, as her goggle eyes raked my naked flesh.
"Of course, we didn't get to see your willy on telly," she addressed me as though I was a public meeting, "but I got to see it in there!" and she pointed towards the pool. "I can't wait to tell my brother I saw you."
Nobody seemed prepared to move. Those queuing for admission had obviously decided that if they were to move off into the actual pool area they might miss something. Likewise, those who had finished and were homeward-bound were reluctant to leave the premises and hung around to await further amusing developments at my expense. The foyer filled with gawping bystanders, not afraid to voice comments and opinions loudly.
"Not a good colour, white, for swimwear," opined one young woman with tight-mouthed smugness. "I came out of the sea at Scarborough in a white one-piece from M. & S. a few years back, and if it hadn't've been for our Hayley, I'd've never got back up the beach without everybody seeing everything. I clung that child to me for dear life!"
"He's got a nice bum," a middle-aged woman ventured, and her comment at my expense was greeted with noises of agreement and even a few handclaps. It was appalling. "I like a nice bum on a man. I like to squeeze a nice handful of bum, if I have a weakness," she went on to volunteer and was greeted by cackles of outraged delight.
"I prefer I nice handful at the front!" a woman in her mid-sixties bawled out lewdly.
I was so utterly humiliated, standing before the crowd of interested and fully-dressed spectators, clutching my genitals, scarlet in the face at the indignities being heaped upon me.
"Go on, give us a quick flash," another woman suggested with a vulgar wink and gesture, and this was met by an enthusiastic cheer.
"I know you!" a young man pointed at me and turned to address the crowd. "He's that geezer on the telly last night! Remember? That rugby match where all the kids tore his kit off."
I was an instant celebrity. The magic word "television" had been mentioned. They pressed nearer, I was jostled eagerly by some, suggestively by others, all keen to revel in their moment of reflected fame.
Fortunately the taxi arrived and, to a round of farewell applause, I was finally able to scuttle into its dark and comforting confines. Of course, I had to recount every lurid detail of my ordeal for the delight of the taxi-driver. As we approached my home, the prospect of another nightmare loomed. Mrs Wilkinson, the old lady who lived next door, and I had a reciprocal arrangement whereby we kept each other's spare door key in case of emergencies such as this. I begged the driver to collect the key for me so I could then go and get some money to pay him. Reluctantly he agreed. After what seemed to be an eternity, but in fact cannot have been even five minutes, he returned to the car.
"She won't give it to me," he said.
With a heavy-hearted sigh, but at the same time recognising that the old girl was acting in what she genuinely thought were my best interests, I swung my bare legs out of the car and trotted self-consciously naked up her path. She had closed her door again. Frantically I knocked and rang. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her curtains twitch in her front bay window.
"It's me, Mrs Wilkinson," I called reassuringly.
With a look of astonished horror, she slowly and unbelievingly looked me up and down, somehow emphasizing my nudity as her old eyes pored over my naked flesh.
"What on earth's the matter, Mr Watson?" she called through the closed window.
"I'm the victim of a robbery," I called back.
A passing couple stopped to watch the drama unfold. A man walking his dog in the opposite direction also came to a halt.
"You mean they stripped you stark naked?" the frightened old lady wanted to know.
"No, no, nothing like that. I was at the swimming pool, and had all my things taken while I was in the water," I explained, all too conscious of a growing audience as my neighbours front doors began to open. "If you could just give me my spare key . . . ?"
After an almost interminable time during which the dog grew restless and had to be severely reprimanded by its rubber-necking owner who obviously wanted to stay to the bitter end, old Mrs Wilkinson opened the front door and gave me my key.
"Oh, you poor thing," she said in a motherly tone. "Tell me all about it."
I managed to extricate myself from too lengthy an explanation, other than that I had been the victim of a cruel prank, with the excuse that the taxi-driver was waiting to be paid, and that his meter was still running. I let myself in, got money for the driver, closed my front door with a sense of enormous relief, leant against it with my eyes closed and tried to get my breathing back to normal.
The lounge door opened.
"What's this?" Tim Robey's voice asked querulously. "You know you must be stark bollock naked at all times in the house. Get those trunks off immediately."