Home from school Kerry had retreated to his bedroom, to the knowing looks and stifled giggles of his two sisters, Samantha and Cassandra. The girls had prurient grins. They were looking forward to their brother's impending humiliation. To make it worse they had been joined by their cousin, Veronica, who sat with them, sprawled in the living room. A wicked fire flickered in the eyes of each of the young ladies. Also there- a mature presence and a threatening one- was the neighbour, Mrs Nancy Claverback.
Entering the house Kerry had not been able to meet the stares of this all-female conclave: the three girls and the lady from next door. The girls had gathered as soon as school had finished. And Mrs Claverback, heavy-breasted mature lady with her dyed blond locks in a beehive hairdo, had drifted in on some mission to see Mrs Fulbright, with a lighted Chesterfield, a fug of smoke and lingering musky perfume.
"She's picking up the photos," had come the reply from Cassandra, breaching a swarthy grin, when Mrs Claverback had asked about the girls' mother.
"Ahhhhhhh," had mused Mrs Claverback. She had given the impression she had known all about the timetable of the Fulbright house this important day. That she had known about those photos. The special photos. The photos taken at the boys' swim meet. The boys' nude swim meet.
That's why she was here. Pound for pound Nancy Claverback had as lively an interest in sexual possibility as any of these 19 and 20 year old youngsters. Peyton Place sat on her bedside table. She had found her husband's stash of Physique Pictorials and had lingered on the black and white photos of G-string wearing young athletes, bottoms bared. While he was out at work, she had gazed at them as longingly as he apparently did when she was at bridge or church committee.
In fact, when she looked at the pics of those teenage boys in their G-strings posing in front of motorbikes or in desert scenery she always thought of the handsome 18 year old- the fella with the swimmer's build and the long eye lashes, Kerry Fulbright. One day she had caught a glimpse of him shirtless in the backyard and her crotch had instantly wetted, at the sight of the ultimate "boy next door" with swimmer's torso and nipples like medallions on each rounded pec.
What might Kerry look like completely naked- naked as a jay- was the question that had then begun teasing her imagination.
This was the day that mothers all over Brewer picked up from Mrs Guelf's or Mrs Donovan's photo stores the pics they had taken of their boys at the recent swim meet.
Kerry knew about it as well. Indeed had suffered acutely as Mom and the girls had talked about it over breakfast.
In fact with the girls out of earshot he had begged his Mom as she had stood washing at the sink.
"Don't be silly, Kerry. You have a very manly physique. That's the first thing. And second, males have always swum in the nude, in their birthday suits. Your father used to say all males like getting around naked as jays. Positively enjoyed it."
Naked as jays. That phrase, like birthday suit, made him shrivel.
"And excessive modesty is unhealthy. Even Reverend Bugle told us moms that there is nothing to be ashamed of about family seeing their males in the glory of their health and fitness. Coach Compton too."
"But Mom! Both those guys are getting us to go naked all the time! Reverend Bugle at the Church Summer Camp...even had us nude at meal times in front of the lady church volunteers! And Coach Compton's a damn nudist! He loves going naked...and forces it in us! You just can't show the girls!"
She just smiled.
"Pleeeeeese!"
Tears welled.
But to no avail.
Now in his bedroom he heard the front door open and his mother's greetings and the scurrying of the girls and excited whispers which he could not decipher and a whirlwind of human movement shift itself from hallway to living room. The sound of an envelope being opened. Silence. And then, a full voiced squeal. And his mother telling his sister to hush, but with suppressed laughter in her voice. Some more muffled laughter.
They were...laughing at him, at the naked pics from the swim meet.
His stomach flipped with the shame.
The giggles gave way to some low whispering. Some female cackling. Another squeal. "Look at this one," came Mrs Claverback's voice in very lubricious tone. "My oh my!" There was incredulous laughter as the photo was passed around. Then some urgent questions- girls to his Mom and some reply from his mother, in a low voice, so he wouldn't hear.
Then, louder, Mrs Claverback saying, "Believe me, I was a navy nurse, in another life."
Kerry shrivelled. They were seeing pics of him naked. Top to toe. On the diving board perhaps. Oh god, his mother had stood so close, pointing the camera right up at his groin...and, yes, he had been rock hard. There must have been some with him at the edge of the pool. Swimming backstroke. Doing stretching and warmups. And in just about all of them he was stiff as a board.
And his body had lost its proud, young pubic bush because of the shaving for Miss Cuff's musical.
Bald down there, and with a boner.
He wanted to die.
From the foot of the stairs rang out his mother's voice.
"Kerry...we want you down here...the pics...ARE PERFECT!"
Girls giggled.
He froze.
He was speechless.
From higher up the stairs, his mother's voice penetrated, lower so only he might hear but more insistent, "If you don't come down this instant I will let Mrs Claverback take the photos home with her...to show Dorothy."
Her daughter, Dorothy...he had a crush on the pretty, blond Doris Day lookalike. She could not be allowed to see him nude! See his cock! His balls! Dorothy get to study his balls! In close-up! And shaven! The shame! Dorothy see those photos! Never!
He opened the door and descended, like a farm boy to a grandmom's spanking.
He noticed his mother's eyes were...aflame. She kissed him on a cheek and breathed reassurance into his ear, "C'on. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Just part of being a fella."
Part of being a fella? Letting them see me in nude photos? Me? Kerry Fulbright, former platoon leader in the Brewer Boy Scouts of America? Methodist Sunday school prize winner?
The girls and Mrs Claverback were crowded on the sofa, photos splayed all over the glass coffee table. They were holding pics, peering hard. They didn't look up.
"It's like...a little bag." His cousin held her photo so the others could see.
"It's his scrotum," offered Mrs Claverback, breathing out a swirl of cigarette smoke, her Chesterfield jutting from her cigarette holder.
"What? Scrotum?"
"Yes, the sack that holds the testicles- the two little stones. It's called a scrotum."
Kerry wanted to die.
"The detail!" purred his cousin.
"All those...little wrinkles!" said Samantha equally in awe.
"Little furrows but his one here- see it?"
They nodded as she showed it off.
"This is known as his raphe, his scrotal raphe. A ridge line, slightly dark that runs around his sac. We can see it clearly because there is no hair. Often boys grow fuzzy hair on their testicle sacs," opined the knowledgeable Mrs Claverback, former Navy nurse. "I'm sure Kerry has been no exception. But the poor boy has to be shaved for the school musical."
As one they looked up at him.
He blushed a beetroot red. He wanted to melt into the floor. His...scrotum. They were discussing his balls. In all their detail.
His mother was holding several photos splayed like playing cards in her hand.
"Yes, he is playing an Indian in the school musical...wearing only a little loin cloth designed by that wonderful Miss Cuff, their drama teacher...and she's determined the boys be as hairless as Red Indians. Kerry is shaved once a week by that nice, shy Lucy Song."
"Oh, I bet he loves that," said Mrs Claverback with a lubricious titter. "And I bet she loves it even more!"
The women laughed. They imagined Kerry nude, in front of the girl, having his intimate parts lathered...shaved...wiped clear of cream...loving and slowly dried by Lucy.
Sam rootled in the photos.
"Mom, look at this one. On the blocks! Oh my, he must have been embarrassed!"
His mother, seated in the arm chair, peered across at the photo.
Her eyes blazed. With an excitement that Kerry was noticing whenever she insisted he strip for a spanking...whenever she entered the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bath and chatted to him...whenever she opened a conversation about his masturbation. On all these occasions her eyes now fired with excitement.
"No, Samantha, all the boys were in the same condition..."
His mother was looking at the photo as she spoke.
"But in front of their Moms! Without a stitch!"
"I think your brother can be very proud of his athletic physique. Those broad shoulders, his flat tummy, the muscles in his biceps. Look, Kerry, see how nice this one is. One of my favourites."
And she thrust up into his hand a photo of him, hands rigid by his sides, facing the camera, his nudity on view top to toe, his groin hairless and his penis...fully engorged. With a total boner! Not a detail of the rod seemed to be spared, not even the fat vein running its under-length. His ballsac was as smooth as a billiard ball.
He withered at the thought the females had seen his secrets. Blushed like a fire hydrant.
"Might have it framed. For the living room."
Wise Mrs Claverback took over. "We are seeing Kerry suffering 'an erection' which means his penis sticks out and up." She patted her dyed blond locks and blew a breath of cigarette smoke into the air.
"Suffering." Kerry wanted to die. They were talking about how he "suffered" erections.
"In fact all the boys in these photos can be said to be 'suffering erections.' It's because they are excited at being without their clothes..."
Mrs Claverback smiled indulgently, through the smoke from her Chesterfield which shrouded her middle-aged face and piled blond hair.
The girls giggled.
"Suffering! Oh, that's so funny!" exclaimed Veronica, running her beady eyes up and down his length.
"...excited at being in the buff," continued Mrs Claverback, the former Navy nurse, relishing this smutty talk and the wretched boy's obvious shame. "Of course they are. Young men...full of male energy...brought up on full strength milk, here in the mid-West..."
Mrs Claverback laughed at her own eloquence.
Kerry felt like a specimen. He felt their eyes all over him.
He felt as if he were standing naked.
"Suffering" an erection.
"...and having ladies around them. So it seems they all got stiff..."
Mrs Claverback relished the word "stiff." She paused to inhale on her cigarette.
Hell! He wanted to die, standing there, hearing this talk!
"Mum, can't I go?"
"No, Kerry, not yet. You've got to learn to be less bashful about anything to do with nudity. Being nude in front of females."
Truth was, his mother was suffused with a wicked excitement. Her frilly, lavender panties were now soaked through. In this respect, in this female company, she was not alone.
