Brigid’s wardrobe malfunction

As you know, she is a very modest girl, and this was nothing short of horrifying.

Debra began to contemplate Brigid’s T’s in a way that only a close girlfriend was probably allowed to do. “It’s hard to believe that those things stay on.”

“They feel a little strange, but they’re on good,” Brigid said, sticking them out a little and looking down at them. “It’s spirit glue and a little twist.” With a push of her finger she gave the corner of one T a little turn, maybe five minutes on a clockface, and it wiggled and came to rest back in place.

“Don’t they hurt?” Debra said.

“No. Well just a little. These little circles, they’re called microcirclets. I fit the T’s on and the microcirclets snap on last.” Ron felt it was O.K. to look along with the girls. The T’s, like that microbottom, were black with white borders, though there was a little lining of gold inside the white. Halfway up each T, in the middle of the black, was a little black circle, about the size of a pencil eraser. You couldn’t tell unless you looked real close. Which he was thankful he had the privilege to do.

“Still seems dicey,” Virginia said.

“Not at all. Look.” Brigid made sure no one was looking in from the main hall, then shimmied her bare shoulders side to side to make her breasts shake and wobble vigorously. Ron’s mouth opened.

Now with two quick pings, the microcirclets flew off, one after the other. They bounced into the hall unnoticed and were immediately crushed into a thousand pieces under the wheel of a passing dolley.

The nubs of Brigid’s bare nipples, bright and pink amid the blackness of the T’s, poked out at the world like little penlights.

“Oh Christ!!”

The three Tunemasters in full band uniforms, Rod, Virginia and Debra, and the nearly naked majorette herself, stared speechless and in shock down at the bright pink nipples, poking slightly out from the little plastic T’s. It was as jarring and indecent as if Rod’s own dick had been hanging out the fly of his braided trousers. It was horrifying, it was disgusting . . . Brigid was as modest as the next girl, and was deeply shamed by having her nipples showing . . .

Brigid’s fingers quickly flew up to cover them. She looked at her friends in panic and misery. Only two fingers were needed for each nipple. The four high school kids turned quickly to the hallway. Fortunately nobody was looking. “Oh . . . God . . .” Brigid saw Rod looking at her most private nipples and, in an uncharacteristically pleading voice, said, “Please don’t look, Rod!”

Reflexively he directed his glance up and met her anguished face with his own look of empathy and concern.

Debra thought quickly. She tried the “Custodian” door and it was unlocked. “Let’s get you out of sight. Rod, tell them we went to the bathroom.” And the three high school girls closed the door behind them.

Oh man, what a fix we’re in, Rod told himself, compulsively working his slide. Only minutes away from our big moment, the Tunemasters’ biggest and most lucrative engagement yet, that would bring thousands of dollars to the Special Learning Center to help kids like Tommy Blackwell. And Brigid, who would be leading the band, getting instructions from Sarge through her headset, out of commission! Disaster!

Fortunately no one from the hallway was looking in at this little alcove. Sid, one of the other trombonists, sauntered by and nodded. Now here came the three faculty chaperones, the old shop teacher Mr. Tucker, with Mrs. Toriello the social studies teacher and Ms. Chen, the science teacher. They were talking among themselves. Rod was worried. If the girls came out of the custodian closet they would be noticed immediately.

Brigid, Brigid . . . How could he show his love for her in this crisis? He felt helpless, standing out in the hall with the suffering majorette trapped in that closet. He decided to be heroic. To hell with the band, it’s Brigid’s welfare first. She could not emerge as she was. He would give her his jacket, which would serve to cover her nipples. Then he would go out with her, and she could act sick with the jacket draped over her, and he’d tell Sarge that Brigid was ill and he was too, they just couldn’t march tonight. The Tunemasters would have to go without their majorette this time. And Sarge would have to march alongside them as usual, shouting instructions whenever needed.

He bit his lip but congratulated himself. Yes, a gutsy thing to do, but I’ll do it, dammit!

But of course it was not up to him. He wondered what Debra and Virginia were planning with Brigid in the closet. As the moments went by he got uneasy. Making sure no one was looking, he put his ear to the door. No sound. Now there was a shot of something like compressed air, and Brigid’s gasp. His ears were burning now. He knocked. “Brigid?” he whispered loudly.

The door opened and Debra pulled him in.

It wasn’t a closet, it was a whole office, with shelves of cleaning stuff and tools and paint. Debra and Virginia checked his face. He answered, “No one knows we’re here.” “Good.”

Brigid was facing away from him, giving him a full body rear view of her utter, total nakedness, from her pinned-up hair down to her heels of the backless flip-flops, interrupted only by the curvy V of the tiny clear strings sloping into her butt crack. Her elbows up, she seemed to be still covering her nipples with her fingers.

“Show him, Brigid,” Debra said.

“Oh . . . God . . .” Brigid showly turned around, fingers on her nipples, afraid to meet his gaze. Then she cleared her throat and looked up at the ceiling and brought her fingers down, just a few inches.

The T’s were back to being all black! No more pink!

“How did you do that?”

Debra held up a can of black spray paint.

He looked closer, and saw the nubs of Brigid’s nipples, now jet black. “Wow!”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Brigid said in misery.

“No . . . it doesn’t look bad at all . . . They just look like . . . part of the T.”

“Exactly!” Debra said. As the three friends looked at the black-painted nubs, Virginia said, “It looks like rubber cement. Black rubber cement. To keep the T’s on.”

Indeed it did look just like some kind of glue to keep the T’s on, colored black to match. If one didn’t know...

Brigid forced her arms down straight at her sides, her fingers rubbing her hips. Looking up as if praying, she said, “You guys gotta look at me like that??”

“OK, OK,” Rod said quickly, his eyes shooting down to the floor, where he contemplated their boots and Brigid’s squirming toes.

Through the door they could hear Sarge’s muffled voice out in the hall. “The floats are fixed, people! Line up in five minutes! For sure!”

“Let’s get out there!” Debra said.

“I just -- can’t!” He had never seen Brigid like this, so shy and queasy, though he could well understand.

“You know you have to,” Virginia said.

Brigid gulped and shook her head in misery. “Yeah . . . What choice do I have?”

“Of course you have a choice,” Rod said. “Tell them you’re sick. Here, take my jacket.” He began the laborious task of undoing the fifteen buttons down his front.

“No, no . . .” Brigid walked forward and gingerly opened the door. With a deep breath, a heave of her breasts and a rise of the T’s they supported, she walked out into the alcove.

They got out there and Brigid once again reflexively covered her black-painted nipples with her fingers.

“You have to put your hands down,” Debra said. “Don’t give the slightest sign . . .”

Brigid nodded and straightened her arms down her sides. She got her baton from where she had laid it down before. And the four of them walked out the alcove into the hall.

The band was roughly in line but more or less hanging around. After all, they had five more minutes in this endless wait. The four friends stood around and tried to act relaxed. Rod allowed himself just fleeting glances at Brigid’s T’s. He felt Debra and Virginia under a similar stricture. The four of them tried to look everywhere but . . . Everyone else was going to see the T’s, of course, the rest of the band and the hundreds of people lining the route, but only the three of them knew what they would be looking at . . .

“Hi Debra, Rod, Virginia, Brigid,” Ms. Chen said. She and Mr. Tucker and Mrs. Toriello came up to them. The three teacher chaperones, expecting to be outside in a moment, were in their coats and winter hats, carrying gloves. “I could make you nervous and say ‘ready for your big moment’, but you’re all old pros at this.”

The four Tunemasters smiled politely, unable to think of anything to say.

“Your new uniforms are positively resplendent,” Mrs. Toriello said.

“Thank you,” Virginia said. They all felt the need to look down, if only quickly, at their new duds. Even Brigid. With the heavy coats on the teachers and the new uniforms, the rest of them looked twice her size.

“Looks good,” Mr. Tucker said in his gravelly voice. “The majorette uniform keeps getting . . . more interesting.” He looked down at the tiny T that covered and also separated Brigid’s lower lips.

Brigid blushed, as if being gushed over, which was not surprising to the three chaperones.

Ms. Chen, a very short Chinese woman, looked at Brigid’s T’s which were almost at her eye level. Her eyebrow furrowed. “I thought these were all plastic. This looks like --” The four friends almost died with fright as the three teachers gathered closer.

“It’s -- rubber cement,” Brigid said.

“Seems like it’s coming out,” Mr. Tucker said. “Excuse me dear.” He gently held one of the T’s and -- poked his rough old shop teacher’s finger into Brigid’s nipple!

Rod could hear the sudden intake of breath, could see the quaking tummy below --

“I’m afraid it might fall out,” he said. “We don’t want that happening, don’t we?”

“Rubber cement?” Mrs. Toriello said.

“Looks like xanthum gum, a good choice I’ say, but it doesn’t look too good,” Mr. Tucker said.

Ms. Chen said. “Excuse me, dear . . .” She held the other T and gently poked the other blackened nub.

Some of the other band members approached in curiosity. Soon there were about ten of them gathered around, watching the teachers fix Brigid’s T’s, maybe to prevent a “wardrobe malfunction” during the parade?

“What’s wrong?” Jared said.

“Xanthum gum fastener, I think she put too much on,” Mr. Tucker said, continuing to try to poke the black nub in, but it kept springing back out. Ms. Chen was having a similar lack of success with the other one.

“Oh . . . I didn’t notice that before,” Jared said. As indeed none of them had, when they were viewing all the new uniforms in the big cafeteria room. They had not been examining the T’s too closely, their attention naturally being directed to what the T’s were covering (or not covering).

This can’t be happening, the three friends told themselves as they looked at each other. They watched in horror as Mr. Tucker and Ms. Chen kept gently poking as Brigid looked down with widened eyes and gulped. Seeing the faces around her, she suppressed her natural body reactions and said, “It’s -- really - - O.K. We’ll be mahching in a minute --” Her fingers fidgeted against the baton, her toes wiggled and squirmed . . .

Ms. Chen and Mr. Tucker gave up on poking and stood there, contemplating Brigid’s T’s. “Maybe we can fix it.”

Mr. Tucker saw the word “Custodian” on the closet and said, “We’ve just got to get this xanthum flush with the rest of the T’s. Otherwise it looks like -- well . . .” He didn’t want to say it but they knew what he meant. “She’ll be on TV, you know. We’ve got to act fast.”

“Where are you going?” Ms. Chen said.

“There should be some sandpaper in here,” the shop teacher said, walking into the custodian’s office. “Some steady buffing with 150 or so grit will probably do it.”