He caught up with Brigid after the bell, and walked with her toward the new wing for their last period, Chemistry. But they didn’t get there because Ms. Kleinfelter stopped them. She seemed nervous and rushed.
“Miss O’Dierna, sorry for imposing again, but . . . new uniform . . . changes . . . why don’t we go into my office here. It will only take a minute.”
Ms. Kleinfelter whisked Brigid into her office. Rod waited in the hall, looking at the fashion teacher’s door, photos of stick-thin high-fashion models in flowing dresses.
The door opened and it was Brigid, without her bookbag. “You come in too, Rod.”
This teacher’s office was cluttered. Clothes hanging from hooks and rods and hangers, a mannequin in the corner, stacks of magazines. A full-length mirror only made the clutter seem doubled. In the midst of all the fabric, Brigid looked even more naked as she stood there in her bits and wisp, waiting for Ms. Kleinfelter to say something.
“We’ve devised a cover-up for you, to wear over your uniform, for non-parade settings, such as tonight’s concert, and going to and from the parade location. . . Something to put on when you’re not actually marching.” Ms. Kleinfelter reached up behind a hanger. “It can also afford some protection from the cold.”
The hanger she brought down looked a lot like the hanger for Brigid’s old uniform, from the bits of material on it. “To start from down up, here are the sandals. They’re just like before.”
The flat, leather-bottomed sparkly flip-flops dropped onto the floor. Brigid obediently slipped her feet into them.
“Now, to go over the wisp, we’ve devised this elastic covering, we call it a mini-breech.”
Actually only the string part was elastic. It had tan flaps in front and rear, each about two inches across and six inches long. Brigid held it up. She looked at Rod with bewilderment. The flaps were shiny but leathery. Nice, but weird, like a tiny loincloth of animal skins.
“It just slips on. Go ahead.”
Brigid’s breasts and bits dipped as she bent down to pull the string around the flip-flops. She shimmied it up to her hips, her breasts wobbling to and fro, then straightened it out so that the front flap was in line with her wisp, covering it. She looked in the mirror, turning her butt to it, to check that the rear flap was O.K. It just did cover her butt crack, ending right below where the “snowflake” would be.
“Now, the most interesting part, not that I’m not modest,” Ms. Kleinfelter said, with a little smile. From the top hook of the hanger she slipped off two white things that were like shallow cones with holes in the middle. They reminded Rod of the muzzle his neighbor put on his dog when he walked it, only much smaller.
“These are an adaptation of the old circlets,” Ms. Kleinfelter said, poking her index fingers through the holes as the cones slid on like rings. “The lattice work of the bits is too delicate to have something put over them, so these circlets -- we call them gromlets, because they are similar to grommets -- fit around them without covering them. And they have a ratchet mechanism that keeps them securely on.”
With one hand she made a screwing motion around one of the shallow cones. The hole got smaller. Then, turning in the other direction, the hole got bigger. It reminded Rod of an old-style camera shutter.
“Let me demonstrate,” Ms. Kleinfelter said. She slid her glasses down her nose so she could work at close quarters, and carefully placed one of the “gromlets” on Brigid’s breast, so that her nipple poked through the hole. She pressed a little bit, so that Brigid’s areola bulged through. Then with the other hand she carefully twisted the inner part of the gromlet. Brigid looked down with curiosity and a little bit of concern. Slowly the hole closed, one inch shrinking to half an inch.
The Fashion Design teacher took her spindly hands off the gromlet, which now was more or less firmly grabbed onto the end of the boob. “Hmmm . . .” She looked at it with a furrowed brow, the white gromlet, the inner pinkish ring around the nipple, then the green bit on the very end. It looked like a target, with the bit being the bull’s-eye. “Part of the areola is still showing.” She tightened the gromlet a little more, down to about a quarter of an inch.
Ms. Kleinfelter turned Brigid to the side to get a profile view. “The nipple is still showing.” Indeed Brigid’s nipple, except for the very tip covered with the delicate, tiny bit, was still exposed. “That can’t do.” Rod wondered why that should be such a big deal -- after all, according to that strange lawyer guy, Henry Cross, all Brigid needed to be legal was just to have the bit on.
“Breathe in, dear,” the teacher said. Brigid inhaled, causing her round, firm breasts to rise and stick out even more. Carefully Ms. Kleinfelter adjusted the gromlet and turned it another quarter turn until a little clicky sound came out. As the hole got smaller the gromlet grabbed Brigid’s nipple and pulled it out. Brigid exhaled a bit more, suddenly. There was now a tiny part of nipple showing between the inside of the gromlet and the bit. Another eighth of a turn, with some effort, another click . . .
Brigid exhaled and then inhaled between gritted teeth. Her nipple had disappeared behind the gromlet; only the green bit appeared at the center, a green topping on a little white cone. In the process, the nipple had been stretched out and elongated. The gromlet made the bit push out maybe an inch further than without it.
Now Ms. Kleinfelter carefully applied and tightened the gromlet on the other breast, this time it being a quicker process.
When this was done, she turned Brigid to the mirror in profile. The majorette’s breasts stuck out a lot more than before. They certainly were a lot pointier, as if the gromlets and bits were guns shooting out at the world.
“How’s that?” Ms. Kleinfelter said.
Brigid tried to control her breathing, her concave tummy heaving in and out over the string that passed well below her cute belly button. She looked down at her now-pointy breasts with some concern. “They’re . . . stretchin’ me out.”
“Do they hurt?”
“Well . . . not really . . . ”
Ms. Kleinfelter was satisfied with this answer. “I’m sure it’s better than the old circlets, with the clips.”
“Oh G - Gosh yes. Anything’s better than those horrid things!”
“Now let me take them off.” Ms. Kleinfelter unscrewed the grommets and they fell off into her spindly hands. Brigid exhaled with relief. Her nipples bounced back into her areolas, her areolas returned to their normal flatness at the ends of her breasts. She looked down and soothed them with her fingers, touching only around the bits so as not to disturb them.
“Let’s see you take them on and off.”
Brigid gulped and did what she was told, only on the left breast. She tried to get the gromlet on straight, but after a couple of tries, she said, “I’m comin’ at it from the wrong angle. I can’t see.”
Ms. Kleinfelter looked at the gromlet in Brigid’s hand. “Maybe a friend can do it.”
Rod felt the hairs on his scalp prick up as both females looked at him. “Yes, Rod,” Brigid said, handing it to him. “Can you put this on?”
His mouth was dry and his hand shook. Like an idiot he dropped the gromlet. It bounced off Brigid’s toes and hit his boot. He carefully bent down to retrieve it, hoping he wouldn’t somehow step on it.
Now he faced Brigid’s glorious, firm breasts. His dick hardened in his Tunemasters trousers as she raised her arms over her head to make her boobs stick out even more. In this tiny room they almost hit his nose. He could feel her body heat. Tucking his tongue into his cheek with concentration, he placed the gromlet over her areola. He touched her warmth.
“Oohhh!” Brigid laughed, her boobs shaking. “Your fingas is cold!!”
Rod smiled and pressed the gromlet against her boob, so that the bit, and most of the areola, stuck through. Now he turned the inner part, steadily . . . There were tiny clicks he could feel as it ratcheted closed. He watched closely as the white area enclosed around the nipple. He wanted to be as gentle as possible. Slowly, click, click . . . he felt like a safecracker in an old movie. He could not avoid pressing against her breast with his fingers, a little. It was both soft and firm at the same time. It was a turn-on, his black fingers against her pale white skin that seemed luminous in the brightly lit office.
There was no avoiding it. To get the gromlet fully closed around the bit, he had to tighten it so that it grabbed the nipple and stretched it out. Stretch, stretch . . . he could feel the resilience in Brigid’s firm, tight nipple, it became harder to turn the gromlet once it grabbed her. He looked down and could see Brigid’s flat tummy and navel, framed above the delicate hip bones, heaving in and out with the stresses of her shallow breathing. It was now so hard to turn the gromlet, his finger almost slipped off trying to crank that final eighth of a turn, achieving that final ratcheting click.
When the gromlet finally closed in tight against the bit, no nipple showing, he drew his head back. He looked up at the majorette and their eyes met -- his in sympathy, hers in discomfort but determination to endure, and also thankfulness in the acknowledgement that he had performed this procedure in the least painful way possible.
He looked down at the pointy white cone with the threaded green dot in the center. Then drew his attention to the other breast. He finally got the other gromlet on too, with a final, forceful twist.
When he was finished, Brigid looked over at Ms. Kleinfelter, then at herself in the mirror. She drew her shoulders back, standing straight up, which made the pointy cones stick out even further.
“There -- your cover-up,” Ms. Kleinfelter announced.
“Well thanks, Ma’m,” Brigid said, looking down as she began to slide the sandals off. “I’ll be sure to be wearing’ this -- “
“No no,” Ms. Kleinfelter said quickly. “You wear this in the hall, the rest of the day, for ‘uniform day’. And tonight at the concert.”
Rod thought he saw Brigid begin to blink back tears. But she controlled them and said, “Um . . . O.K.”
“You two should be going,” Ms. Kleinfelter said, putting her glasses back on her nose, the eyeglass chain around her neck sparkling in the light. “It’s almost eighth period.”
In a moment they were out in the hall, hiking quickly to Chemistry class. The bell rang just as they got in the door, Brigid dashing in first, her flip-flops slapping against the floor, the rear flap of the mini-breech swaying back and forth with the motions of her hips, her butt crack peeking out as the flap swayed.
Naturally Brigid’s new cover-up got everyone’s attention as she went to her lab table. But Mr. Santosky took no notice. He was a likeable teacher who looked like he might be Denzel Washington’s father. “Today is the big day,” he said. “The lab where you try to make a bar of soap. Let’s try to do this right this time, O.K.?”
The kids got the aprons from the hooks on the wall and returned to their tables. It was a contest, no doubt about that. They had tried it last week with disastrous results, but were ready to go for it again. Who could make the soap bubbles appear first? Not like most labs, this one was fun.
There were six lab tables in this big room, Rod and Lorenzo and George and Star at one, Brigid and Millie and Debra and Susie at the next one. They all got busy, mixing things into the big tube in the sink in the middle of their table, then lighting the Bunsen burner. Rod looked over at Brigid, whose totally bare backside was facing them. Well, no, not totally bare. Beside the string from the mini-breech around her hips, she now had that heavy black apron on, and from the rear you could see the loop around her neck, and the apron string tied around the small of her waist. And that flap that swung around her butt crack. She looked downright covered up, for Brigid.
Now, she moved to the side of the table, and Rod got a view of her in profile, the sides of her breasts pressing out against the apron. And now she moved opposite him, and she looked weird, covered with that apron, just her bare arms and legs sticking out.
The whole class was excited and there was an air of fun and competition. Of course, being the last period of the day, everyone was geared up anyway.
Lorenzo turned up the flame and it bubbled! The guys cheered, being the first. Brigid and her friends looked over. Mr. Santosky patted Rod and Lorenzo on the shoulder and said, “O.K., guys, not so loud. We don’t want Mr. Poznik coming in here and shushing us. . . Good work!”
“Oh sh*t! Sorry!!” Millie exclaimed and then covered her mouth, laughing. She had knocked over their tube, spilling proto-soapy fluid all over the table. Brigid and Debra jumped over to the supply closet for some paper towels, Brigid’s leather flip-flops sliding and smacking against the floor.
When they cleaned up the mess the girls came over to Rod’s table to see bubbles. Brigid stood next to him and he got a quick look at her profile. Heavy as the apron was, it did not crush Brigid’s braless breasts in the least. And the conical gromlets poked the apron out so much, it looked like she was carrying around a sideways tent on her chest. He thought of making some kind of comment but couldn’t think of one that wasn’t crude.
Rod thought of her nipples, stretched outward by the gromlets. They must still be uncomfortable. Maybe she’s gotten used to it by now. . . The apron was rough fabric, meant to be worn over clothes. . . it must be rubbing and frictioning her nipples with every movement she made. Surely she must feel that keenly, through the single-layer thread of the bits? He thought of the night of that ski resort parade, with Mr. Tucker and Ms. Lee rasping poor Brigid’s nipples with sandpaper, thinking they were smoothing out adhesive used to keep those “T’s” on. Wait, that was a dream . . .
The boys cut the flame and everyone wandered around to the other tables. Sharon, Lawanda and Lucia, working one of the rear tables, got their soap bubbling after Rod and his friends but ended up with a bigger yield. Well, call it a tie then . . .
Some words from Mr. Santosky, and it was back to the equations. Everyone put their aprons back on the wall and got to their notebooks. Rod looked over at Brigid, sitting on a stool facing away from him, her sandals dropped onto the floor, her toes gripping the cold metal of one of the lower struts of her chair. A big contrast to Millie next to her, in her jeans and sneakers and white socks. Now Brigid stretched out her left arm, pencil in her hand, and as she turned Rod could make out the half-moon of one breast.
The bell rang. The school day was over.
He packed up and went out into the hall. Brigid was showing her cover-up uniform to a circle of friends and other curious people, including a few teachers. Smiling as if proud of the new outfit, yet secretly uncomfortable. She must be. Her nipples must be on fire!
She was going to extra help math. He obviously couldn’t go. The all-district concert was four hours away, and the Tunemasters, the last act, wouldn’t go on until an hour and a half after that. So he’d be going through a few hours of “Brigid withdrawal”.
He knew she had younger brothers and sisters. Were any of them in the elementary school band? Those bands were first on the program, followed by the middle school band. If so, then she’d be there early. Should he go early too? Maybe they could sit in the audience with her parents and listen. Would she be wearing her cover-up outfit?
She’d be in that extra help class till about four. He’d been with her most of the day, yet he couldn’t get enough of his dear Brigid, the brave Tunemasters majorette. Maybe, around five, it would be time for another bike ride . . . What would she be wearing? . . . !