"What is my most embarrassing experience?" Justine repeated in a puzzled tone.
Justine and three of her friends were sitting around the breakfast nook in Kathy's kitchen for their weekly get together. They had been discussing their childhoods and out of the blue Sara, the newest member of the group, has posed the question to Justine.
"Did Kathy put you up to asking me that?" Justine continued after a glance left showed Kathy sitting there grinning.
"Well, she may have mentioned that if I could get you to tell the story I might enjoy your answer," Sara confessed.
"Can I ask what's going on?" Liz asked in a confused tone. Liz had been around longer than Sara, but she had never heard the story.
Without answering Liz' question Justine turned to Kathy and asked, "Do you still have the video?
Kathy nodded with a big smile, "And better yet I had it transferred to DVD."
At the puzzled looks on Sara and Liz's faces Justine pretended to give a resigned sigh and said, "Let's refill our coffee cups and go to the living room. Then I'll tell you the story."
When everyone was seated in the living room Kathy inserted a DVD she got from its hiding place behind some books on the shelves next to the TV.
"Worried about your kids finding that DVD?" Sara jokingly asked.
"No, my husband," Kathy answered.
"Before we watch the DVD let me give you newcomers some background information," Kathy said. "Many years ago the high school that me and my sister, Katie, and Justine attended would stage a show every spring. Being that it was such a small town virtually everyone in town was either involved with the show or they would come to watch it. This one year the show took place a couple of weeks after Justine and Katie and me had turned eighteen."
Seeing the others were listening she continued, "A neighboring town's TV station decided to broadcast the performance live. Now you have to keep in mind that this was back before TV stations had the seven second pause that they all use now. So back then whatever the camera was seeing is what went out over the air."
Justine picked up the story, "Katie and I were scheduled to do a song as the last performance in the show. We had come up with the most beautiful outfits and despite our nerves we were both raring to go. It was almost time for us to take the stage when everything started to unravel.
We were standing in the hallway behind the stage when a couple of drunk husbands came running down the passage carrying buckets of water. It seems that they and some of their drunk ass friends were having a water fight in the area outside the auditorium and these two had decided to step up the level of their attack from squirt guns.
The problem was that when they was a few feet from us they ran into each other and ended up with the two of use getting doused. The good news was it missed our hair and make-up, the bad news was that our costumes were totally drenched. To the point that we were dripping water."
Kathy jumped in, "My mom was the school secretary back then. She happened to come around the corner at that point and instantly realized what had happened."
"Katie and I were on the point of tears and we were both ready to quit the show at that point," Justine added.
"My mom told them not to worry and that between the three of them they would come up with a solution," Kathy said.
Justine said, "She told us that things like this occurred to help us build strength of character."
Kathy continued, "So Mom took Justine and Katie back to the dressing room. On the way was a supply closet and Mom grabbed a couple rolls of paper towels."
"She told us to dry off and she would get us something to wear," Justine said. "We had to strip off everything we were wearing since the water had soaked us all the way to our skin. We wrung as much of the water out of our clothes as we could and hung them over the costume racks. Then we dried ourselves off with the paper towels Liz's mom had provided."
Sara held up her hand to stop the conversation and said, "I want to make sure I have this right. The two of you were standing there in a dressing room in the back of a theater where virtually everyone in town were sitting and both of you were naked as jaybirds? What if someone had walked in?" She paused and giggled as she asked, "Did you perform in the nude?"
"Don't try to get ahead of the story, Sara," Kathy warned in a kidding tone.
Her comment caused Sara's face to register shock, "Did you really . . .?" she asked Justine hesitantly.
"Just wait," Kathy suggested.
"As you said we're both standing there completely naked and we hear the door opening. We both figured it was Katie's mom coming back so we're not really concerned. Then we hear male voices. When Kathie's mom left she had never expected anyone else to come in since the show was going on out front and she hadn't locked the door," Justine said.
"Did they see the both of you naked?" Liz asked breathlessly.
"Just wait," Justine answered. "It was the mayor with the two guys who had doused us. He was chewing them out for getting the inside of the city auditorium wet. Fortunately from where he was standing he would have had to turn his head ninety degrees to the left to see us where we were hiding between a couple racks of old costumes. The men were out of sight of us."
"Then what happened?" Sara asked.
"When we first realized that it was males who had entered the room we had both crossed our arms over our goodies. However we were afraid to move for fear of attracting their attention. In the meantime we can see him plain as day. Luckily his attention was fully centered on the two dumb asses. When he got done telling them off he told them to go home and some to his office Monday morning. We could hear them turn around and head for the door. The mayor followed them out. We were both thinking 'wow we really got lucky'. And that's what would have happening if he only hadn't felt the need to repeat that he expected them to be in his office Monday morning."
When Justine paused Sara demanded to know what had happened.
Justine told her to calm down and continued, "When he said that the second guy was just getting to the door. He turned his head and BANG he was looking right at us."
"Oh wow," Liz said.
Justine went on, "Two things happened in the same moment, one good and one bad. The good thing was that the principal was pushing them out so he only had a second to see us. The bad was that since they were all leaving we had both dropped our arms. Actually looking back on it, I'm surprised the principal hadn't notice when that guy's eyes bugged out at the sight two of us standing there full frontal, buck-assed naked."
"So what happened then?" Sara asked quickly.
"Katie's mom got back right then. From the look on the guy's face she instantly knew what had happened and pushed all them out the door and locked it."
"So Katie's mom realized you both had been naked? Holy shit, what did she say?" Liz begged.
"She said, 'I thought you two were only putting on one show tonight. We could have asked for a lot more money if we'd have known you were both going to do a striptease too. You girls are turning into real professional performers'," Justine answered. "And she was giggling her butt off while she said it."
"She wasn't upset? I'd have thought she would have been having a hissy fit," Sara said.
"Actually she thought it was about the funniest thing she had ever seen," Justine replied. "The funny thing is she was laughing so much that she got us laughing and that defused the tension we were feeling."
"So what did she bring you two to wear," Sara asked.
"A picture is worth a thousand words," Justine injected with a grin. She punched one of the buttons on the remote and the show began.
It started near the end of a dance number. The Justine and Katie walked in, one from each side of the stage and began their song. There were wearing what looked like choir robes.
Justine hit the pause button and said, "Those were some old robes that had used in a church based performance recently. Now if you'll watch carefully you'll notice that the robes only fastened at the back of the neckline. It wouldn't have been so bad normally since it was expected that the person in the robe would have other clothing underneath. The problem was that we were both naked underneath since all our other clothes were still wet. Notice the way we're swaying back and forth in time with the music and watch the others on stage behind us."
She hit play and the show resumed.
Sara and Liz paid particular attention the swaying and the looks on the faces of the other people on stage. At first everything was normal, but as the song progressed more and more of them were staring at the back of the singers with looks ranging from smiles to shock depending on the person doing the looking.
Toward the end of the song the singers approached the center of the stage and when they finished each started to bow like they had practiced in rehearsal. Each of the four women watching the TV could see the gasps on the others behind the singers. Luckily two girls stopped before they bowed too far.
Once again Justine hit the pause button. "Did you notice the others' reactions during the song?" she asked Sara and Liz.
