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 Four
It was the same bed I now sat on, Rhiannon looking at me with a questioning look. All these recollections had flashed through my mind in an instant, but Rhiannon could tell I have been lost in thought or memory however briefly.
"You too?" Rhiannon asked.
"Me too what?" I asked in return.
"You know what I'm asking about, Rita," she said, and did I note just a hint of impatience at my reticence? "You got your ass roasted at initiation too? Didn't you?"
I could feel myself color, dropped my eyes and nodded my head. Then I realized that the initiation for the West football team cheer squad must be about the same as East's. After all it was only three years ago that some of the East cheer leaders would have migrated to West, taking the East traditions with them. They would have had to procure and christen their own paddle, but I supposed the general outline had remained the same.
I told Rhiannon my story in abbreviated fashion: my enforced hundred yard midnight streak, my absurd encounter with the dog walker, my inspection, my paddling, my naked drive home, and the near naked close encounter with my mom.
"Ouch!" Rhiannon exclaimed. "It sounds pretty much the same as mine." And she proceeded to tell me her story which was similar to mine, but not identical.
She, of course, had been initiated into the varsity the same year as me. We had a laugh when we realized that we had both been initiated the same Saturday night. She had been required to give her extra set of car keys to one of the cheer co-captains. She was to follow her instructions to the letter and told she was going to be watched.
While I was parking my car near DeeDee's, Rhiannon had been parking hers in the lot of one of the recreation department's ball fields. She had been told to park at the end of the lot near a huge, old tree, and right at the base of the light pole there. As I stripped in my car, she was standing outside hers as required and stripping, the glare of one of the lot's two sodium vapor lights brightly illuminating her sordid performance from directly above. She had been incredibly thankful that no one happened to be around the lot or field at the time. She locked both of the car doors. Then she put all of her clothing and her car keys into her car's trunk and closed the trunk top solidly. Then she was to wait: nude, and with no access to her car or clothing. She was told she could go as far as under the tree, but no farther.
I tried to imagine how exposed she must have felt. I had felt extreme unease at having been out at night on a dark and deserted street, a hundred yards from my clothing sitting on the front seat in my car. But Rhiannon had been nude, having stripped under what amounted to stage lights, and now stood outside, her clothes and car keys impossible even to retrieve, her car's doors locked.
Just as she slammed her trunk closed the whine of car tires on the nearby pavement made her duck down behind her car on the side away from the road. When the car had passed she made a dash for the darkness at the far side of the tree's immense trunk.
And so there she waited for what seemed like hours (but turned out to be about thirty minutes). The lot and the tree were on a bend in the road and a few times per minute a car would drive by on the nearby road. As the cars came from the two directions Rhiannon had to shift her position behind the wide tree trunk to keep out of the headlight beams.
For cars coming toward and past the lot from the lot's far end she could easily wait on that gloomy and concealing side of the tree. For a car moving in that direction the road curved to the left at the end of the lot, just about even with Rhiannon's tree.
The problem was cars coming from the other direction. As they approached from their route, nearing what would be for them a curve to the right, their headlight beams lit that otherwise shaded space Rhiannon could use to conceal herself. She was then obliged to avoid those spotlights by edging around the tree. But the more she crept in that direction the closer she came to entering the glare of the sodium vapor light and a point where she could be seen by cars from the other direction. When cars came from both directions, as they did several times, Rhiannon had to find a spot between her two positions, partly exposed in from both sides, press her body against the tree trunk as tightly as she could, and remain totally motionless and hope both cars' drivers were more concerned with watching the road than a stately old tree off to the side. Apparently they were all attentive, eyes-on-the-road drivers.
After fifteen or twenty minutes a car turned into the lot and pulled into a parking space at about the middle of the lot. Rhiannon peaked around the tree but could not tell who might be in the car, whether or not it was her teammates. She had hesitated, thinking it must be them. She had been waiting, nude and exposed, for what seemed an eternity. She was just about to step out from her place of concealment when all four of the car's doors opened simultaneously and out stepped six high school boys, five of whom she recognized from her school. Shit! What stories would she have had to live down starting at eight o'clock in the morning on the first day of school had they waited five more seconds to exit their car?
The kids wandered over to the ball field and under the curved shell of the backstop. Lighters sparked and the sweet and pungent odor from their joints soon wafted her way. They were mostly quiet, passing a joint or two around. She could hear murmured conversation but could not recognize words.