Very cute, guys!!!

They both knew perfectly well that I was willing and certainly able to apply whatever form of corporal punishment was required. I had already put them on notice that I wasn't having any spoiled-brat behavior from them. For all practical purposes, I had taken over the role of Mother in their lives. This freed Bambi to be their friend or sister, whichever they felt more comfortable with.

Jim thought it over. He was a year older than his brother, and he might have a harder time making the mental adjustment to a new status quo. While he turned it over in his head, I saw a smile on his lips.

"OK," he said. "I'll give it a try. It sounds strange, but, if she's willing to try it, I am. It will be hard to change, but I can see it will be a real load off to not have to look away every time she walks by practically naked. Sam, you've already helped a lot just by being there. We've been able to relax around you. Before, we always had to censor what we thought and what we said and we felt guilty anyway for even thinking it.

"Hell, I can't believe I'm standing here talking about this stuff. I would have died of embarrassment before. It feels good to get this stuff out in the open and deal with it instead of pretending it's not a problem."

When he finished, he seemed to be standing a bit straighter and smiling bit wider than before.

"Good!" I said. "Then the next time she walks by you practically naked, whistle. Stamp your feet. Clap. Let her know that you think she's sexy and attractive. That's why she dresses that way, after all. Hey, that's why girls spend so much time on clothes, hair, and makeup. We all want to be appreciated. If she hears it from you two, she will appreciate it that much more. Trust me."

The bell rang and we had to run to our separate rooms before I could think of a way to work Neeka's problem into the conversation. Hopefully, now that Jim didn't need to pretend that abstinence was a virtue as a way of justifying his living in denial, perhaps he would stop being so romantic and start being more predatory.

In the meantime, I tried to console Neeka by sending her wave after wave of love and mental hugs. She returned each one and added a few embellishments of her own. I got so wrapped up in our psychic love-fest that I missed answering the role and got poked by the girl behind me to snap me out of it. Still, it reminded me that it had been too long since Neeka and I had shared some quality time together. I told her as much and she reminded me that we would be together the whole weekend and should have plenty of opportunities to sneak off and be alone.

My morning classes were spent taking weekly quizzes. All of them seemed suspiciously easy, and I went back over each one carefully to check for trick questions. When I didn't find any, I started to wonder if my teachers were slacking off. This stuff had seemed much harder earlier in the year.

The solutions to the Algebra problems seemed self-evident. Also, they followed the format of the workbook exercises almost exactly. I kept wanting to add additional conditions to make it more interesting.

Social Studies was just a big bore. Remembering names and dates and filling in the blanks was no fun at all. The homework had been much more interesting. While reading the textbook, I had tried to imagine what life was like for the people I read about. I tried to picture me doing the things they did and I made up little stories about their day-to-day lives. My homework papers had started to come back with marginal comments like "Good Insight!" and "Keep up the good work" which was embarrassing because all I had done was to try to make something I hated interesting enough to be able to wade through it. I couldn't see how knowing the names of all the Czars was ever going to do me any good later on.

The only thing that kept my attention in Social Studies was watching Mr. Locke carefully enough to be able to let him have an occasional peek down my blouse without making it obvious what we were doing. That alone kept me focused. Otherwise I would have drifted off and missed his reminders of the portions of the material that he planned to include on the tests.

At lunch, I gulped down a granola bar and ran off to change into my weightlifting uniform. I toyed with the idea of trimming more material off the already cropped t-shirt, or cutting the shorts higher so my rear end would show, but I resisted the temptation. Steve already thought I looked sexy in anything. I didn't need to be any more of a distraction than I already was.

Again, I was the last one to get to the weight room. Steve seemed happy to see me, but all the other guys just nodded and got on with their workouts.

Today it appeared I would be using a piece of equipment that I had never tried before. Since I had worked my upper body the day before, today they put me on the leg curl/extension machine. It was a big frame with a bench that I could sit or lie on, with padded braces to put my legs into and steel cables that ran to a stack of weights behind the machine.

Lamont offered to get me started on it, which I thought was nice of him since he had tried to break my fingers the first time we met. He had me sit down on the bench and put my legs between the braces with my knees bent. He explained that the idea was to straighten my knees against the resistance of the weights and then bend them again. When I had done fifteen reps I was to turn over and use the upper braces to lift the weights by bending my knees. This would work my thigh muscles front and back.

It looked pretty simple and I sat back against the small seat to get started. I should have known something was up by the way it suddenly got quiet in the room, but I was trying to make sure I was setup on the machine properly and didn't notice the heads turning in my direction or the smirks on some of the faces until it was too late.

When tried to straighten my knees against the pull of the cables, it seemed a little heavy. I put this down to the unfamiliar equipment and that I had never isolated a group of muscles like this before. I pushed harder and straightened my legs all the way and then let them bend again as the weights behind me slid down the rails.

When I looked up at Lamont to see if I was doing it right, he had the funniest expression on his face. I did another rep and only then noticed that everyone was looking at me.

"What? Am I doing it wrong?" I asked. When I got no answer I did another rep. It was hard, but I thought I could do the whole set without cramping. I looked back at Lamont. He was looking at the weight stack behind me.

Thinking there might be a mechanical problem; I looked back at the weights as I straightened my legs again. When I saw the whole stack go up the rails I figured out what was going on.

"Very cute, guys," I said. "Real funny. Now, would you please take some of that off before I tear a muscle?"

No one said anything, but Lamont went behind the machine and moved the key about three-quarters of the way up the stack and put it in at the 50 pound mark. When I looked at the bottom marking, I saw that I had been lifting the whole 200 pounds that was the maximum setting on the machine.

I was tempted to tear into someone for setting me up like that. I was mad that they had so little respect for me that they would let me sit there and hurt myself by using more weight than I should have. When the room stayed quiet while I finished the first set, it dawned on me that whoever had set the weight that high hadn't expected me to be able to lift it at all. I was to have been made the butt of a joke that badly misfired. After all, they could hardly laugh and say, "Hey, you're a lot stronger than we thought! Don't we look stupid!"

Just to rub salt in their wounds, and because I was sure they would have done the same to me, after I finished the first set I went back and made a lot of noise moving the key down to the 100 pound mark before starting the next set. I had no idea what the normal weight load should have been, but they had already seen me lift it all without a problem, so I had no choice but to carry on as though I knew what I was doing.