Pride Goeth Before Destruction

I can admit it now. I'm a senior in college and realize that in high school I was an insufferable bitch. All my life I'd been told what a beautiful girl I was, and I let it go to my head. By my senior year I was not only the prettiest girl in my high school but was noticeably full-breasted. I was inordinately proud of that, too. I was the head cheerleader and lorded it over my 'inferiors.' I was also the worst of body-shamers. If you were flat-chested or spotty-faced or even a few pounds either side of ideal, you really didn't want to see me coming. Maybe I should have paid closer attention to my childhood religious indoctrination. Much later, a line from Proverbs came back to me: "Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall." I didn't deserve what happened to me, but I can understand now why it did.

Several days before our first home football game, one of the other cheerleaders, Anita, probably the smartest student in the school and an ardent feminist (if a cheerleader can even be such a thing), came up with a truly outrageous idea after practice.

"You know what we should do?" she said.

"No, Anita, tell us," I replied, rolling my eyes.

"When we run out of the tunnel to lead the team onto the field, we should run out naked."

Her suggestion was met with stares of shocked astonishment. I finally said, "And how would that help to publicize the latest bug up your ass?" (Anita was a fleet admiral in the social justice wars.)

"I'm serious. Think about it. Nowhere in the world has this ever been done before."

"And for good reason," one of the other girls said.

"Do they have high school football in Kazakstan?" another asked.

Anita, starting to work up a head of steam, said, "Football, soccer, whatever. That's not the point. This would get worldwide press coverage. We'd get so many requests for interviews that we wouldn't even have time for school. Which we would probably be kicked out of, anyway. When they interview us, we could explain that we were protesting the horrendous treatment of women over the millennia. And we could make this a bold statement for women's body freedom and female empowerment. A real blow for women's rights."

"More like a naked bimblow for for women's rights, don't you mean?" said April Tucker.

Anita," I said, "there are so many holes in this idiotic plan. First of all, we wouldn't even make it out of the tunnel. As soon as we started to undress, security would be all over us."

"Sarah, I know how to do this." She looked around at all the girls and said again, "I know how to do this. If I can convince you how this can be done, will you all agree to do it?"

Everyone laughed at her, and most expressed serious reservations about getting naked in public, but then someone said, "Okay, sure, we'll do it. But only if you really can convince us that it would work."

Well, she shouldn't have said that. Anita smiled and said, "Okay, listen up. Speed is of the essence here. We gotta get out to midfield with enough time to jump up and down and wave our arms around before security hustles us off the field. We won't be taking our pom-pons out there with us. You'll understand why later. The first thing we do is go out and get new sneakers about four sizes too large. Also, we don't wear any underwear or socks. The sneakers won't be unwieldy enough to prevent us from carefully shuffling to the front of the tunnel, but when we bolt onto the field, we'll run right out of them with our first step. And there's no way you can run any faster on grass than barefoot."

"What about the uniforms?"

"I'm getting to that. The night before the game we make an unnoticeable but radical alteration. We cut along the center in the front of the uniform from top to bottom (in straight lines, please). Then we lay the front of the uniform open and sew a three-inch strip of cloth, the same material, color and length as the uniform, along one side of the cut, sewing it on that one side only. When we put on the uniforms, we make sure that the strip of cloth is flat and overlapping both sides of the cut so that no skin shows. If noticed at all, it will just look like some kind of pleat and withstand any scrutiny short of an autopsy."

"Anita," April said, "if we actually do this, there probably will be some autopsies." Anita ignored her.

"Then we sew the front back together but at only three points, top, middle and bottom. A single stitch at each point. And remember not to make any sudden moves until it's actually time to do so. Now, when we're all set in the tunnel, and we get the word to go, we drop our pom-poms, grab a handful of material on either side of the center, give a sharp tug, letting our arms momentarily extend behind us and run like hell. We're losing the pom-poms because they could interfere both with our hands grabbing the uniform material and the sleeves sliding freely off over our hands. We'll go from being appropriately attired for cheerleading to running completely naked to midfield before anyone can blink. As the players peel off to head to the sideline, the only remaining attraction on the field will be ten naked women in front of 35,000 cheering fans."

(We played all our home games at the local college's stadium, and as defending conference champions in football-crazy Florida, we could expect an overflow crowd.) When Anita finished unveiling her plan, we sat in stunned silence. Probably, all of us were trying to find reasons that it wouldn't work. No one did. Anita looked around at everyone and said, "Well?"

I really didn't want to do this but knew I would have go along if everyone else acquiesced. If I alone refused, they'd give me no end of grief for being a prude. And I'm not a prude. But I'm no exhibitionist, either. I was sure that someone would object and was worried and puzzled when no one did. So I ended up going through all the preparations with a growing sense of dread, and Friday night found me at the head of the tunnel with butterflies the size of pterodactyls fluttering in my stomach. When the team manager yelled for everyone to go, we dropped our pom-poms, easily tore off our uniforms and ran right out of our shoes as I lead them in a mad, naked dash for midfield.

When I reached midfield and turned to face our sideline, bouncing about and waving my arms in the air, I looked over at the other cheerleaders who had trailed me onto the field and got the nastiest shock anyone could imagine. Every one of them was wearing her uniform and gaily waving her pom-poms. I froze. I stood like a statue as the other girls frolicked around me, not smiling out at the crowd but focusing their disdainful smiles on me. In doing so they probably convinced everyone that this was my idea alone. And they were only indicating their support for my bold public nudity, making me even more the center of attention (if that were possible).

I had never gone into actual shock before, but I think this was definitely it. It was like stalling your car on the railroad tracks with a train coming, being unable to unbuckle your seatbelt and looking out your window to see the headlight of a speeding locomotive about 10 feet from your car. You just know that you are going to die. Anita had even come up with a legitimate reason for us (me) to drop the pom-poms and lose the shoes. And because I dislike any kind of jewelry, I was as perfectly naked as I could be.

The only one.

Despite an almost irresistible impulse to cover myself and race off the field, I was paralyzed with fear and too numb to move. It was one thing to have uneasily agreed to participate in this madness with nine other cheerleaders, but finding myself the only one naked in the middle of the field and in front of a roaring capacity crowd was a nightmare.

My mind was racing at light speed. So many things flashed through it: My ostensible friends who had pulled off a brilliant but vicious prank. From start to finish, each one had played her role flawlessly, with Anita clearly the mastermind. Their feigned reluctance before pretending to agree with Anita's scheme. The detailed plans that were meant for me alone. Their understanding of my personality, knowing that if they all agreed to go along, I was constitutionally incapable of refusing. My pride would force me to join them rather than be taunted as a prude. They had worked it all out beautifully, and I hated each and every one of them with every fiber of my being. Still, I realized I couldn't run off the field. My excruciating embarrassment would be evident to everyone. They would all know that I had been pranked somehow and suspect that I was suffering this breathtaking humiliation at the hands of my fellow cheerleaders. It was better to be thought a blatant exhibitionist than a pathetic loser whose peers despised her enough to do such a thing to her. And I would never give the other girls the sheer pleasure of seeing me cringing in embarrassment as I scuttled off the field with one arm over my breasts and a hand over my vulva. They had set me a monkey trap, using my own pride as the bait, and I couldn't release that bait and free myself.

But security? Where was security? We (as it turns out only I) had relied on them to seize us and escort us off the field. But none of them came for me. It was only later that I learned why. Ms. Carroll, our principal, was down on the sideline to greet the team when they ran out and was standing very near the head of security. When he started to signal his men to charge onto the field, she stopped him, and he waved them back. He turned to her, incredulous, and said, "What? Why don't you want her off the field?"

"Look at her," Ms. Carroll said. "She's terrified. I'm not sure what's going on out there, but it's not going according to plan. This is definitely not what she expected. She'll be punished, of course. She'll be expelled from school, but she'll easily get her GED and go on with her life. She thought this would all be over by now, but I'm going to tack on a little extra punishment that will stay with her every day for the rest of her life. I know her. She's so obstinate and vain that she would never admit that someone got the better of her, but, clearly, someone really, really did. And another thing. Her punishment will be something that she absolutely brought on herself. Leave her out there for the rest of the game."

"The whole game?"

"Until the final whistle. If we're lucky there'll be four or five overtimes."

When the cheerleaders finished jumping around and headed to the sideline, I was jolted from my paralyzing reverie and began to lope after them. The idea of being left out there alone was too much to bear. When we reached the sideline, every one of them, unlike on the field, totally ignored my nudity, not even deigning to gloat (I was sure that would come later). They acted as if nothing were remotely out of the ordinary, and I wasn't about to give them the satisfaction of broaching the subject myself. They were, as usual, briskly efficient. We were adept at making a neat pyramid, and they saw to it that we did so at every opportunity, naturally hoisting their naked head cheerleader to the top, where I'd balance, arms outstretched, for a full minute. They were doing their best to add to my embarrassment, but I refused to crack. Periodically, I looked over at various security guys, but they just stared back at me. It was only when I looked at Ms. Carroll and saw the smug look on her face that I began to understand what was going on. The girls must have been immeasurably delighted that I was not being removed from the field. It gave them so much more time and so many more opportunities to torment me.

As the game progressed, we were winning with ease, but as halftime approached, I recalled with stinging dismay that we would be returning to midfield for about 20 minutes of fairly suggestive dance routines. We were the halftime show. This meant that the field crew would be wheeling out the moveable stage. We had used it on several occasions over the past three years when we danced at halftime. It was about 12 feet tall, 12 feet wide and 30 feet long. It had stair steps on either end and a red velvet skirt to hide the wheels and scaffolding underneath. It looked like some giant, mutant high school cafeteria table. We used the stage for two reasons. It gave us a better surface for executing dance steps (the field could get pretty chewed up by halftime), and it elevated our visibility. And I was going to be up there dancing naked.

When the half ended, I steeled myself. If I could just get through this, the worst would be over. The second half should be much like the first with maybe a couple of extra pyramids thrown in. As we ran out onto the field toward the stage, I reached it first, bounced up the steps and skipped to the center, acutely aware that my breasts were going ahead and dancing without me. As I once again stopped and turned to face our sideline, I glanced over and saw that the rest of them hadn't even broken stride. They had all run right past the stairs and on to the opposite sideline, stopping there and spinning around to look at me. I should have known that they weren't done with me yet, and when I had seen them whispering together before halftime, I should have suspected that they were plotting yet another humiliation.

Gasping at this new, even greater shock, I wheeled to face them. Now, for the first time, they began to openly celebrate their humiliating victory over me. They stood on that sideline, laughing so hard that they had to hold one another up, jeering, mocking, pointing at me and clapping their hands exuberantly. This was exceeding their wildest expectations. What should have been an exquisite but short-lived prank had, thanks to my boundless pride and Ms. Carroll's unexpected collusion, turned into a festival of humiliation, and it wasn't even halfway over yet. It killed me to imagine what they were saying to one another about me as they looked on, exulting in my total nudity and reveling in my equally total humiliation. My bladder gave way, unleashing a stream of pee that I thought would never end. I wondered how far up in the stands that could be seen.

Then they cupped their hands around their mouths and began shouting at me:

"Hey, Sarah! How does it feel?"

"Sarah! You're gonna strip the varnish off the stage!"

"Everyone is staring at your titties!"

"And your bush!"

"Sarah! Turn around so we can see your ass!"

"Touch yourself!"

"Is this making you wet?"

"Spread your legs!"

"Sarah! Dance naked for us!"

Even worse, the crowd now knew exactly what was happening. By continuing to run past the stairs and leaving me standing atop a raised platform, naked and alone, and by their jubilant reaction on the sideline, the other girls had made it clear that they had orchestrated everything. They had set me up and tricked me into all of this. The crowd was now in on the joke. And the laughter began. A subdued tittering at first, it quickly exploded into gales of laughter, cascading over me like a torrent of ridicule. There are no words, at least none in my lexicon, that can describe the feeling of having thousands of people not only gawking at my helplessly nude body, but also laughing uproariously at me. Laughing at the dim, clueless bimbo who had somehow let herself become a publicly humiliated naked fool.

I stood stock-still in my abject nakedness, hands at my sides and balled into fists, glaring at the other cheerleaders with malevolent defiance but burning with shame. They all really hated me, and that hatred had bloomed and blossomed into the most fun that they had ever had. Solely at the expense of my conspicuous nudity. I was too shocked and angry then to see anything from their point of view, but I guess that if there were one girl in your high school that you really loathed, who was a lot better-looking than you and proud of it, who treated you with contempt every single day, and if you had figured out a way to trick her into standing on a little stage at midfield during a big football game, naked, trembling and crushingly humiliated, and if she was so afraid of acknowledging her victimhood that she couldn't even cover herself and run away, and, best of all, if you were right there on the sideline to savor every sweet second of her agony, well, you would have gone for that in heartbeat, wouldn't you?

What a treat that must have been for them, seeing the girl who had for so long bullied and belittled them standing naked on that stage, hundreds of lights powerfully illuminating her motionless body, with unfathomable humiliation and impotent rage boiling off it like so much steam. It had to be the thrill of a lifetime for them. There was no way that anyone else on earth could have ever felt more exposed and vulnerable than I did at that moment. I despised them for their exhilaration, and I just knew that they would be telling this story forever:

"Hey, did I ever tell you about this stuck-up bitch we went to high school with? Her name was Sarah Flanagan, and you're not gonna believe what we did to her. Actually, what we tricked her into doing to herself. Wait, you gotta see the videos of this. . . ." I didn't think I'd be attending any high school reunions.

After the band mercifully struck up the song for the first of the dance routines, there was only one thing I could do. Ignoring the other girls, I launched into the first dance, which called tor a lot of hip swinging and pelvic thrusting. All the songs did. I danced my ass off for twenty minutes, trying to avoid the puddle of my own piss, but I have no idea how well or poorly I danced. It was, by far, the hardest thing that I'd ever done, probably the hardest thing that I'll ever do. My legs were rubbery, and I was hyperventilating so badly that I felt faint. About halfway through the dances, I began to hallucinate or disassociate or something. And that made it worse. I was suddenly seeing myself as if I were among the spectators, seated way up in stands. And down there on a stage in the middle of an otherwise empty field, surrounded by the fully packed stands, was this voluptuous, naked girl. And she was dancing. Her hips were gyrating provocatively, her breasts bouncing hypnotically and her thick, black patch of pubic hair was so dark in contrast to her pale skin that it became a focal point, like a vulva out there dancing on it's own. I was flooded with a sense of shame and disgrace so profound that it nearly staggered me.

When the last song ended, I somehow pulled myself together, dashing down the steps and back to our sideline with forced jauntiness. I actually felt a little bit triumphant over getting through this until it hit me again like a sledgehammer—you just essentially did a 20-minute naked table dance in front of 35,000 people, including pretty much the whole town and everyone you know.

The difference between a brief instance of public nudity with nine accomplices and a couple of hours of individual public nudity, especially in a setting like this, is beyond human comprehension. There must have been thousands of phones and video cameras there, and every one was trained on me, most of them surely zooming in and out, capturing every facial expression, zeroing in on my breasts and my vulva and my ass, and preserving a permanent record of my naked, dancing body for posterity. And eternity. And every image of me was certain to be posted on multiple porn sites by the next morning. It was no consolation that it had to have been the most popular halftime show ever. (Except among the concessionaires. I heard later that they were pretty pissed at me. They sold, like, one hot dog and one Coke during the whole halftime.)

As I had hoped, the second half was much like the first until, with a few minutes left in the game, Anita blew it. She looked at me after one cheer and said brightly, "Sarah! You were brilliant at halftime! Looking at your naked body was such a special treat for every one of us," she gushed, sweeping her arm to indicate the overflowing stands. "I can only imagine what a turn-on that must have been for you, showing off your impressive titties with their cute, pink nipples and your tight, curvy ass and your furry little pussy to sooo many people. I can't wait to see the videos. Like everyone else, I've been scoping out every inch of your unadorned body. You're not wearing any jewelry. And no sneakers? That's odd for a cheerleader. I guess when you decide to get naked, you don't fuck around. Tell me, what's it like being so publicly, totally . . . naked? Have you always been an exhibitionist, and are you going to be doing this for all the home games? I really do envy you. You looked like you were having the time of your life out there."