Rita & Rhiannon's Bet

Here is the other version of

Rita's Bet

that I had mentioned I was working on. When I had first though about the premise for

Rita's Bet

I was undecided about where to take the story. There were two possibilities that appealed to me. While writing the first idea (published as

Rita's Bet

) I decided to write the second premise too when I finished, and this is that story.

This story follows the same two main characters as

Rita's Bet

, Rita and Rhiannon, and essentially the same broad plot outline. You will notice the first chapter in this story as mostly identical to the first chapter of

Rita's Bet

. However, near the end of this first chapter this version of the story diverges from the first version. The plot of this version rejoins the plot of the first version near the end of the last chapter.

This story is considerably longer than the first version of

Rita

, and many of the character motivations are different from the first version. Also, this version fills in some of Rita's and Rhiannon's immediately relevant backgrounds. There is also a third major character, Lena, who makes her appearance in chapter five, and she drives the story the rest of the way.

As I mentioned at the foreword to

Rita's Bet

, I love comments and observations about my stories.

However, once again: I don't really have an interest in hearing about how a chapter is submitted in what you feel is the wrong category. And I don't really care to bother with comments from burgeoning junior lawyers who just have to tell me all about the dire potential legal consequences of the action in the story -- just enjoy the story (or don't) for what it is. I also don't have an interest in hearing from unfortunate boys whose woman done him wrong at some point in his life and now he just has to lash out and vent his anger at women in general and find an excuse to call them skanks or whores. And for those who like to post with the hope of influencing the story line -- my stories, including this one, are finished before I start submitting them.

But your comments and observations on the literary aspects of the story (and especially in this case the differences between the two versions of the story), plot, character, mood, foreshadowing, etc, are all welcome and eagerly addressed and responded to, whether posted in the comment section or sent privately

Please enjoy the story. It is presented in eight chapters.

Rita and Rhiannon's Bet -- Another Telling of

Rita's Bet

Chapter Two

It was the end of the summer, our vacation cheer practices were coming to a conclusion, the school year, my junior year, just over a week from commencing. I was at my locker after cheer practice pulling up my jeans when Charlotte, a varsity cheerleader last year and one of the newly-elected varsity co-captains for the coming year, was suddenly pushing the door of my locker closed.

My first two years I had been a junior varsity cheerleader. I was now about to start my junior year, and I would soon discover whether I would continue with one of the junior varsity squads or be promoted to the varsity. Everyone knew the competition to advance would be fierce this year. The varsity football cheer squad, the choice and prestigious crew that everyone wanted a place on, consisted of fifteen girls. Usually about half of them left at the end of their senior year creating that many openings on the next year's squad. But the previous spring only four girls from that squad had graduated. As a result, only four openings were in need of filling this year, greatly increasing everyone's odds of staying JV or getting a spot on one of the less exalted squads.

Charlotte leaned with her back against the now closed locker door, and she seemed to be coolly appraising me.

"You know how to cheer, Selwyn. You know the moves and the cheers. But the thing is: you really put yourself out there. You're a spark plug," she said.

"Well, thanks, Charlotte," I said, blushing a little and feeling a rush of pride. "You know, I always..."

"Shut up," Charlotte said. I was a bit confused but I obeyed immediately.

"There are four openings for the varsity football squad this year," she said. My heart began to race. "You're our first choice to fill one of them." Just whom the pronoun 'our' referred to went unexplained, but I assumed some consensus among the eleven girls about to begin their senior years was in play.

"Oh, gosh, Charlotte," I said, and I was surprised I managed to get the words out: my throat was tight with pride and excitement. "I can't tell you how...."

"Shut up," Charlotte said again. "You know where DeeDee lives?" she asked. I just nodded my head. "Tonight. Midnight. Be there. Don't say a word to anyone." She leaned toward me and whispered a few more instructions in my ear. Then she was gone.

I don't know how I kept from fainting, but as I finished zipping and buttoning my jeans my excitement knew no bounds. I knew I was being summoned for an initiation. Everyone knew that every girl who was accepted onto a varsity cheer squad was initiated by the returning members. There were rumors. But none of the younger girls knew for sure what the initiation entailed: whether it was standard, or changed from time to time, or was planned special for each girl. The belief seemed pretty generally held that the initiation for the football squad was especially intense and challenging.

In about eight hours I would find out.

The dashboard clock read eight minutes before midnight when I parked my car down the street from DeeDee's house, across the street from the neighborhood park and exactly opposite the swing set. I looked back toward DeeDee's house, the front porch light just visible about one hundred yards away down the deserted street. I took a deep breath and did what I had to, squirming around in the driver's seat as I pulled off my shoes and socks, unbuttoned and pulled off my shirt, opened my belt and unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans and pulled them down my legs. I blew out a nervous lungful of air and then reached behind my back. I unhooked my bra and pulled it down my arms and off. Then I scooted my hips upward and pulled my panties down and off.

There. That covered most of the instructions Charlotte had given me: where precisely to park and to show up on DeeDee's front porch at the stroke of midnight ("And don't be late," she had said.) without a stitch on ("Not panties. Not shoes or socks. Nada."). I cautiously opened the car door and took a careful look in every direction. Convinced that the immediate vicinity was free of any peeping eyes at this late hour I crept out of the car. I put my bundled clothes on the driver's seat. As instructed, I put my keys under the driver's seat and then closed the door unlocked.

I immediately began to run down the street toward DeeDee's. The feel of the cool late summer night air on my bare skin was refreshing and actually quite pleasant. I ran down the middle of the street, the better to see what my bare feet might be stepping on. My arms tightly encircled my boobs to keep them from bouncing, and I was half bent over, prepared to dash behind a car or tree at the first glimpse of headlights approaching.

When I slowed and stepped onto DeeDee's front porch I was panting, but not from effort: the short run was nothing compared to the exertions we all had regularly been expending at practices. I decided my breathless condition must be from some mental state. Fear? Nervousness? Being for the first time ever outside, nude, and separated from my clothing by quite some distance?

I rang the bell, seeking to be admitted as soon as possible since I was standing almost under the porch light that seemed like an impossibly bright beacon. Immediately I could hear footsteps inside approaching the door. Then more than one person was at the other side of the portal.

"Yes?" I heard Charlotte's voice ask.

I hushed my voice and said, "It's me! Rita! Let me in!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Charlotte's disembodied voice.

My eyes flew wide in panic. "What?!" I said, almost forgetting to mute my voice.

I heard Charlotte's voice inside, apparently speaking to someone else. "What time is it?" her voice asked. There was a muffled reply I couldn't catch.

"Sorry," Charlotte said. "You were told to show up at midnight."

"Right! Well, I'm here!" I said. I was now checking the street, trying to see any pedestrians or cars that might be approaching, and I had suddenly begun to feel a little chill.

"Ah, but you didn't," Charlotte said. "The time is 11:56. The door will open only at midnight and remain open for sixty seconds."

Great. I scanned the street again and said, "Shit. Whatever."

Standing there I felt exposed like I had never before in my life. At the side of the yard, about twenty feet away, was a large willow tree of some sort with long thin branches covered with small oval leaves, the branches draping down to the ground from the top of the tree. I scampered over to it, went around to the unlit side, and melted into the concealing branches. I hoped it provided all the cover I needed, but I immediately noticed that speckles of light dotted my too white skin: light from the porch lamp filtered through the tree's leaves and branches. I realized that it wouldn't be hard to spot me were someone looking.

But feeling safe enough and sufficiently obscured I settled down to wait for the door to open.

I sensed an approaching presence before I heard a sound, but it was soon obvious to me that someone was walking down the dark street and was close. Whoever it was came to a stop at the curb right in front of me. He or she could not have been more than fifteen feet away. I couldn't actually see the person without sticking by head out, and I didn't dare do that.

"Well?" I heard a man's voice say. "What are you gonna do? Are you gonna piss? Shit? C'mon let it out."

What?! OK, someone had spotted me, but what in the fuck was he talking about? Why would he want me to pee or poop? Did he think I was standing here stark naked amid these tree branches because I needed a place to relieve myself?

"C'mon," the man said again, the impatience in his voice more obvious. "Are you gonna squeeze out a log or not?"

I had no idea what to do or say. I began to open my mouth, seeking the right words to explain why I was standing there in the middle of the night and as naked as the day I was born.

Just as I was about to offer some lame, still unformed explanation the man spoke again. "You are just the damned stupidest dog I've ever run into in my life. Would do your business so I can go back to bed?"

It was only then that I heard the shake of a leash and the light tinkle of aluminum tags on the dog's collar. I let out my breath with relief, the breath that a moment before had contained words that would have revealed me.

There was a noise to my side and I looked over in time to see the front door opening, not stopping until it was as wide as it would go. For the first time I took a peak around the tree branches toward the street and saw an exasperated middle-aged man with a small dog at the end of the leash he held. I could understand his impatience: a dog that small had to be the wife's, but here he was at zero dark thirty o'clock, a pajama top tucked hastily into jeans on which the fly was half open, waiting for the animal to do its business.

The man was looking at the door, I suppose wondering why the front door of the house he now stood before had just seemingly opened on its own and now stood gaping. I was acutely aware that the sixty seconds I had to get in that door were rapidly passing.

The man scratched his head. Then he gave the leash a tug and he and the dog continued down the street a few feet. But they stopped again directly in front of DeeDee's house, nothing but a naked expanse of lawn between the man and the canine object of his annoyance and the front door.

The dog was now hunching its back and backing up, putting its bottom right down to the curb.

Shit! Both literally and figuratively!

There was no way the dog could finish taking its crap and the two of them could proceed far enough down the street before my quickly waning window of opportunity (and the front door) closed.

I made a couple of tentative motions to round the tree and dash to the door, but I lost all my steam each time. Finally I knew it was either make my dash right now or watch that door close and spend another year as a JV cheerleader.

I held my breath (I have no idea why) and got my feet moving. I gathered up my boobs in my arms and dashed out from behind the tree and into that glaring porch light. In my peripheral vision I saw the man glance up, a startled look on his face, as I covered the distance to the door. As I scurried my bare ass in through the entry portal I was actually a little pleased to hear a whistle that sounded like one of awe and a single word, "Damn!"

What the heck, I was certain I had made that man's midnight dog walking chore more interesting and rewarding. I even wondered if his sleeping wife might not be in for a little wooden surprise when he got back. Could my bare butt be

that

good looking?

As soon as I was in the door one of the girls pushed it closed behind me. "Four seconds to spare," she said. "Try not to think about that old fart whacking off thinking about your ass." Thanks. Now I knew I'd never be free of that mental image.

I slowed myself to a walk as I came to the entryway into the living room. I assumed that DeeDee's parents were away somewhere. Charlotte and DeeDee were standing near the far end of the room in front of a mantle and fireplace. The girl who had closed the door entered the room behind me. I did a quick count and discovered that only ten girls were present. With four openings on the fifteen girl squad I had expected all eleven of them to be here, but I didn't bother to wonder about the missing girl.

The girls, all in their cheer uniforms, quickly rearranged themselves to make a U stretching from in front of the left side of the fireplace toward me, curving back near the entryway and ending before the right corner of that fireplace. Since it seemed what was intended I walked forward to a point in front of the hearth and turned around, the soles of my feet on the cool flagstones of an apron that extended two or three feet out from the fireplace.

They seemed like they were trying to be serious, but instead were having trouble holding in snickers. One of them let out a little 'bark-bark' noise and we all dissolved into laughter.

As everyone settled down Charlotte looked at me and said, "That's the first time anything like that has happened. I'll bet he's plugging the wife right now." We all had another giggle. Then Charlotte said, "How about you drop your load there?"

She was speaking to me. "I'm sorry," I said. "Do what?"

"Let your boobs go, we want to have a look," Charlotte said.

I flushed but took my arms down to my sides. My boobs will fit into either a DD or an E cup, depending. When I used to play strip poker with Rhiannon at the end of seventh grade and through eighth they had already been feeling a little confined in a C cup. One of the things that had been a side attraction of playing strip poker with Rhiannon at that age was that we could compare the development of our bodies on a regular basis. We had played quite a lot for over a year, but then near the beginning of freshman year Rhiannon had lost interest and declined my invitations to play. I had wondered about that.

"Mama Mia!" one of the girls exclaimed. "I knew they were big, but I had no idea."

I had been self-conscious about my boobs in middle school and the first years of high school. Now at East there were finally perhaps a dozen or more girls with boobs as large as mine, and that took some of the attention away from me. I was grateful for that since from fifth grade until high school I had always had the biggest boobs of any of the girls in my classes and the scrutiny got to be oppressive at times. I still held onto that self-consciousness, but to a much lesser degree. Still, the semesters when I had physical education it happened to be my last class of the day. So those days, and after cheer practice, I always elected to shower when I arrived back home.

Suddenly one of the girls observed, "No more beard on that clam."

"Yeah," said DeeDee. "No whiskers on that biscuit." Then I couldn't keep up with whom the observations were coming from.

"Cape Horn has been clearcut."

"There's a nice clear view of mount pleasant."

"I can see happy valley!"

"Yeah, no trouble finding that bone yard!"

"Hey, Rita, you forgot the lettuce on you tuna taco."

Charlotte ended it with, "That's one bald snake charmer, there Rita."

Their eyes were all glued to my crotch. I had obeyed to the letter the other of Charlotte's instructions: "And make sure there isn't a hair on your body below your neck." I felt crimson and heat spread all across my face. This had been the first time I had ever shaved my pubic hair. In fact, I had never so much as trimmed it before, and the absence of that cover made me feel especially bare and exposed. The fact that it had the undivided attention of ten pairs of eyes ramped up my embarrassment considerably.

"Well, let's see how well you can follow directions," DeeDee said.

"Huh?" I asked, not at all sure what she might want me to do.

Charlotte supplied, "Lay down on the coffee table."

I moved to the low table in front of the couch. The surface was bare and I sat hesitantly on it. DeeDee made a motion with her hand: it hanging limply by its wrist and pushing the back of her hand and fingers at me, wagging the hand. I got the idea and tentatively lay back on the surface of the table, ending with my head at one end, my hips at the other, and my legs bent at the knee with my bare feet flat on the floor past the end of the table.

DeeDee stood past my legs where I could look up at her. She put her index fingers together at her waist and then slowly and deliberating moved them apart, farther and farther to either side. I got the idea immediately. My face must have taken on the color of a beet, and I had never, at least to that point, felt such deep embarrassment.

I opened my legs until they were as wide as they could go and formed a straight line. Even though these were other girls and team mates my mortification was immense. But I wanted not to have to be told to spread them wider.

They all gathered around DeeDee, their eyes now on my wide open and exposed vulva.

"What do you think?" DeeDee asked Charlotte who stood next to her. She spoke in an appraising way.

"No bad," Charlotte evaluated. Then they both bent down and leaned in, their faces not two feet from the most private part of my body. DeeDee produced a flashlight from somewhere and switched it on. She trained the strong light onto my privates. "Hmmmm," she said. "Why don't you girls have a look."

DeeDee and Charlotte withdrew and the other girls took turns using the flashlight to make the same inspection DeeDee and Charlotte had. No one ever touched me at all. I heard a lot of "hmmmmm"s, but no words. I mostly looked up at the ceiling. But then I felt a chill near the center of all this attention. The eleventh girl, Audra, had come in from somewhere and was making her inspection, some coolness from the outside air coming off her uniform.

"So what do you think, Audra?" DeeDee asked.

"Well, I think she might have missed a few." This observation was met with general agreement. My face and head by now felt so hot with embarrassment I thought an explosion might be imminent, like an overheated thermometer might burst in a cartoon. But I was sure I'd gotten them all.