Things went from bad to worse. The word going around was that Mr. Taylor had suffered a heart attack and was at home recovering. The school board assigned an assistant coach, Henry Felton, to take most of Taylor’s classes, but it seems that my class in the last period got the unwanted prize. They evidently considered us to be the bad boys of Westfield High and since Felton had a Biology class in that period, they assigned Victoria Gaines to run our gym and swimming sessions. Evidently, they had forgotten the fact that we swim naked or they just didn’t care. There were only twenty of us in that doomed class, and since we were all seniors, we were unlikely to complain for fear of not graduating.

As it turned out, Victoria wasn’t happy about being assigned to extra gym and swimming sessions. It meant she had to work extra hours because she still had to run all of the girls’ sessions. This was a fact of gender disparity. Women teachers were considered less qualified than men teachers with the same credentials and were often saddled with extra duties. The women’s movement was still a ways off.

I got to the boys’ locker room and immediately stripped, stuffed my clothes and shoes in a locker, fastened a combination lock to the door latch and entered the shower room. I took a quick shower and stuck my feet in the disinfectant bath before making my way down the stairs to the pool.

I saw Neil, Nelson and Josh and standing by the shallow end, and I could plainly see that they weren’t happy at all about the situation.

“I don’t get it,” Nelson said. “Why’d they have to put miss pimple tits in as our substitute instructor?”

“She must like getting her jollies seeing us naked,” Neil said.

“Somehow, I doubt that,” I said. “Women don’t get excited about naked men. I’ll bet they didn’t even consider the fact that we don’t wear suits.”

“Speaking about women,” Josh said. “What happened to you and Julia? I haven’t seen you hanging around her of late.”

“She’s avoiding me. I have no idea why.”

“She’s not the only fish in the sea, Kramer,” he said, sounding as if he were lecturing me. “There are plenty of willing girls out there.”

“You sound like my mother,” I said with a mocking grin.

“Cheer up, Kramer,” Nelson said so that only we could hear it. “The bitch is coming.”

“Line up you guys,” she yelled before she even got down the marble tiled stairs on the girls’ side. She stepped up on the barrier that separated the bleachers from the pool and walked back and forth on the narrow wall, balancing as if she was used to it.

We lined up, each of us trying as best we could to protect our modesty.

“Hands at your sides, boys.”

We moaned, but we reluctantly complied.

She looked at her clipboard. “Anderson?”

Charlie held a hand up.

“Baker?”

Dale held his hand up.

She called each name and when she got to Nelson, she gave him a scolding smirk. “I know your glad to see me, Mr. King, but relax that thing.”

Nelson turned fifty shades of crimson.

We laughed, but we could commiserate with what he was going through.

After she called attendance, she blew her whistle. “In the pool, you guys.”

We gladly obeyed. She made us swim in place while holding on to the scum troth just like Mr. Taylor. Then she blew the whistle. “Out of the pool,” she yelled. “Line up to dive.”

We lined up with half of us on one side and the other half on the other. She blew the whistle again, and our side dived first and swam to the opposite side, and when we arrived there, the other side dived and swam to our side. She made us do this for five more cycles.

Then, she did something we hadn’t expected.

“I’m giving you a break today. I have tests to score, so you may do your own swimming exercises.”

She turned and walked back up the marble steps to the shower room and disappear into the girls’ shower room doorway.

Some of the guys jumped into the pool while others practiced dives off the low level board. A few nuts did cannon ball dives from the high level board. Neil, Nelson, Josh and I hung out in the shallow end.

“Wow!” Nelson said. “I didn’t expect that at all.”

“They saddled her with these extra classes,” I said. “She’s just going through the motions.”

“We must not be sufficiently entertaining,” Neil said with an ornery grin.

We chuckled.

“So, what about the ghosts, Kramer?” Nelson said. “Have you been seeing any of late?”

“No, I haven’t. Even the ghosts don’t want anything to do with me.”

“That’s why I like cars,” Neil said. “They aren’t fickle like women. Treat it with loving care and a car will do your bidding every time.”

That didn’t make me feel any better about Julia. I was growing even more depressed than before, but I tried my best to not show it.

To make matters worse, three girls appeared at the doorway to the girls’ showers. Obviously, Victoria hadn’t thought to close that door when she went back to her office, and three girls dressed in gym clothes had found a gateway to forbidden fruit. What’s even crazier is the fact that they came in and sat down in the bleachers on the girls’ side and began talking and giggling while pointing at us. They feigned shock by holding hands to their mouths, but it was in reality a vein attempt to conceal their euphoria about seeing us in a compromising situation.

“What the hell?” Nelson cried. “Girls aren’t supposed to be in here.”

“This proves that this school doesn’t give a damn about our privacy,” Neil said.

A few of the guys made efforts to shield their private parts, but other didn’t. Charlie, Tim, Earl and Karl continued to make dives off of the mid-level board, almost going out of their way to exhibit their manhood, which only enticed the girls to screech and giggle.

Vincent and Barry entertained the girls by doing cannon ball dives from the high board. The three girls applauded when the smashed into the water and sent spray all over. When they climbed out, both of them took bows to express their gratitude and then ran to the ladder that led to the high board to do it all over again.

Julius, Larry, Xavier, Phil and Ralph ran around the pool laughing like fools while halfheartedly shielding their privates. The rest of us stayed in the water and stared at the unwanted spectators.

I considered this puerile behavior to be insane, and I knew that it would soon end, mostly because of the noise. Miss Gaines came through the girls’ shower room doorway and bawled those girls out, ending their impromptu entertainment. She didn’t even offer us an apology, simply aiming a stern look our way before she went back to her office. It was as if she considered it to be our fault. We’re not the ones who left the door to the girls’ side open.

“I’m surprised that the bitch didn’t bring the entire girls gym class in here to gawk at us,” Nelson said.

“She’d have caught hell for that, I’m sure,” I said.

“Don’t bet on it,” Nelson said. “Gains is a feminist. She thinks that women should run everything and that we men should be relegated to second class status.”

I hadn’t heard the term ‘feminist’ used before, but it sure fit the situation.

“Yeah, but she can only go so far,” I said. “She probably cautioned those girls about telling what they saw. At least we had better hope so because if this gets around, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Kramer’s, right,” Neil told Nelson. “We’re already the laughing stock of Westfield High. This would make us the class clowns for sure.”

We laughed, but our laughter was tainted with concern.

And, we had good cause. Miss Gains came out near the end of the session and blew her whistle. “Line up, guys.

We stopped what we were doing and lined up. We noted that she was holding a paddle. It wasn’t as ominous as the one that Wells uses. It seemed to be thinner and more flexible.

“I’m disappointed in you boys. You’re not supposed to be exposing yourselves to female students. I could punish you by making you attend an additional makeup session, but I can’t spare the time for that. I should give you swats, but . . . “ She smacked the paddle against the palm of her hand several times and stared at us with a blank expression before she sighed. “I’ll let you off this time. Go take your showers.”

Each of us exhaled a relived breath as we watched her walk away. She obviously came to her senses and realized that she could be in big trouble for doing something like that.