Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 22:16:17 +0100 (BST)
From: nder pants <nderpants@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: The Mastery of Table-Turning (Chapter Five) [Gay - Authoritarian]

  THE MASTERY OF TABLE-TURNING

[THE STORY SO FAR  -  English public schoolmaster Alan
Watson is now firmly under the control of a section of
his sixth-form tutor group who are enjoying inflicting
ever-increasing humiliation upon this mild and
sensitive thirty-year-old. Under threat of blackmail,
he continually finds himself more entrapped and
consequently forced to obey the degrading demands they
heap upon him.]

CHAPTER FIVE  -  Full Media Exposure


How I survived the next few days, I just don't know.
News had spread like wildfire. Of course, the
headmaster did much to excite further interest and
unwanted speculation by making direct and, in his
opinion, amusing references to the incident during the
following morning's assembly in front of the whole
school. He made me stand, ostensibly to take applause
for my "courageous follow-through" praising my "intent
upon victory at all costs" eulogising my "throwing all
caution as well as kit to the winds", particularly
laudatory of my effort to overcome all adversity in
"it was a spectacular try" with confusion being my
"only cover", and that all could learn from the
"revelatory nature of Mr Watson's impressive tackle".
I had to grin ruefully through these rather laboured
and over-emphasised puns, crimson in the face as
colleagues and schools alike chortled appreciatively,
and wishing the stage floor would open up to consume
me. I was roundly cheered though at the end as I had
to step forward and publicly shake the Head's hand.

On the main staff notice-board in the Common Room was
a cartoon put up by the art master, Derek Bamforth,
entitled: "We wuz robbed!" Naturally, I was depicted
stark naked with a pink shiny bottom, hurtling to the
ground on the touchline. The caption to the cartoon
read: "We were deprived of a triple score! When Watty
crossed the line, three balls touched down!" Scarlet
to the roots of my hair, I had to appear amused, when,
in actual fact, I felt abused. I simply hated all this
attention. That I was a hero of the hour there seemed
to be little doubt, but, at the same time, I detected
a definite undercurrent of derision - and even glee -
that stuffy old Watty had had to sprint bollock-naked
across the First XV rugger pitch.

" 'Morning, Mr Watson, sir. I didn't recognise you
with your clothes on," a cocky fourth-former greeted
me loudly as I walked down the corridor to my first
lesson, amidst loud brays of laughter.

"Very funny, Farnworth. Button your collar and tuck
your shirt in," I responded as I hardly broke pace.

"Didn't think you'd be in for the rest of the week,
Sir. After all, we saw so much of you yesterday!" and
yet more similar comments and heart guffaws assailed
my progress through the school throughout the day.

I was in the middle of "Romeo and Juliet", introducing
fifth-formers to the lustier aspects of Mercutio's
dialogue with Juliet's nurse, when there was a knock
on the door. Everybody stood up as Frank Hartley came
into the room. It was he I was substitute for in the
previous day's infamous match.

"Mr Watson, Man of the Match," he said with a chuckle
much appreciated by my fifth-form group, "I am sent to
deputise, for you are required instanta upon your
field of glory where - even as I speak - our venerable
Headmaster and some gentlemen of the press await your
immediate arrival." He bowed elaborately towards me
then turned to the boys and said: "Watty's going to
get his piccy in the paper!"

"It's a good job they weren't here last night, or we
might have seen a piccy of Watty's botty in the
paper!" he added, very pleased with himself.

I smiled at him murderously, brushed past his sling
nudging him slightly, and absently apologising as he
winced with pain, I left the room in uproar of his
making. As I crossed the quadrangle, I heard a sash
window go up.

"As quickly as you can, Mr Watson. The Headmaster
asked that you hurry across," the flute-like tones of
his horse-faced secretary floated on the early
autumnal air.

As I approached the games field I could make out four
men. One was the Head, another was David Whalley the
head of games; the other two I assumed to be a
reporter and photographer. Oh dear, my inner dialogue
was groaning, I don't want to do this! Nevertheless I
had been summoned by my headmaster, and so I quickened
my pace when every natural instinct told be to turn
and run.

"Ah, Mr Watson. Splendid! May I introduce you to . . .
?" The names were instantly forgotten as,
automaton-like, I allowed my hand to be shaken by each
of these men.
The Head had already given them all the details of my
complete exposure, the successive failure of each and
every garment including my athletic support leaving me
very publicly laid bare. He had even made a weak joke
that he had stepped into the breach with a Sir Walter
Raleigh-like gesture, cloaking me in his own
mackintosh. I think the laboured reference to the
Queen Elizabeth I incident with the puddle proved too
abstruse, for it never appeared in the press. Such
were the investigative skills of the cub reporter sent
upon this assignment, that I was asked how I felt to
be naked. Embarrassed, I told him.

"Anything else?" he persisted.

"Cold," I lied. I had had no thought for the weather.

"And how do you think the rest of your team felt when
you went on to score like that?" He smiled and nodded
encouragingly and raised his eyebrows at me.

"Probably very glad it wasn't them," I hazarded, after
what had seemed a couple of minutes as I stared in
disbelief at each of the four men. Each had nodded and
smiled in the same sort of vacant way, and I began to
wonder if I was the only person to find the questions
banal to the point of insanity.

It was then that the photographer stepped forward. He
said he had a very funny idea.

"Wouldn't it be funny, don't you think," he dug the
Head in the ribcage with his elbow conspiratorially,
"to take a picture of Mr Watson between the goal
posts, stark naked and holding a rugby ball in front
of his fiddly bits?"

I groaned inwardly and my mouth went dry. Even
Whispering Tim could not have dreamt up so fiendish a
humiliation, I thought. And then it hit me that all
this was as a direct result of him and his cohorts in
the first place. The Head asked if such a thing was in
the best of taste. I shook my head and started to
speak but was interrupted by the photographer who
loudly assured him that all would be carried out in
the best possible taste, adding as a rider that such
an interesting and amusing picture would guarantee a
better position in the paper thereby earning maximum
publicity for the school. That was the seal of my
fate. The Head had recently been to a headmaster's
conference on the wide-ranging benefits of publicity.

With a noisy sigh of resignation and in full
realisation that any objection upon my part would be
totally overridden by both the Head and Dave Whalley,
who seemed to be very amused at the prospect of my
undraped appearance in the local press, I asked when I
was to be subjected to this indignity. The answer of
no time like the present floored me.

"I can't stand here posing for photographs like that
with children on the premises," I said flabbergasted.

"Why not?" Dave asked. "You did yesterday."

"Well . . . where do I change for a start . . . and
what can I put on to get back out here?" I stammered.


The photographer looked at his watch.

"We've got to be sharpish. We're at another job in
twenty minutes. Why not strip off out here? We'll act
as look-outs for you."

The headmaster looked nervous at the thought of losing
such a publicity angle because time was running out.

"It'll be all right, Alan. They say it'll be
tasteful," he said, willing me to go ahead.

"Oh it'll be tasteful all right. We're a family
newspaper," the newshound added.

"I can't strip off out here!" I floundered. My ghast
was even more flabbered.

"Why not?" Dave asked again in the same tone of voice,
but with a grin.

In chorus, the four of them said: "You did yesterday!"

I looked round as if seeking some form of escape - as
if wondering whether the fifth cavalry were even then
riding to my rescue. The rest of the pitches were
deserted. Not even a groundsman stirred abroad on some
menial task.

"Come on. I'll hold your clothes for you," Dave said
encouragingly.

I looked at the Headmaster. He smiled and nodded
supportively.

"It'll be excellent publicity for the School," he
murmured.

Like a condemned man, I shrugged off my jacket. As I
tugged down my tie with one hand and began to unbutton
my shirt with the other, the enormity of what I was
being asked to do hit home. Here I was, a fully-grown
man of thirty, being required to undress in the open
air whilst my employer, together with three others
looked on.

"How about a head and shoulders shot of me with the
ball?" I asked as I slipped my shirt off.

I was clutching at straws like the proverbial drowning
man, and I knew it.

The photographer screwed up his face and shook his
head.

"Not the same impact," he said by way of explanation.

"Not as eye-catching either," added the cub reporter
with a knowing nod.

I shot him a baleful stare as I kicked off my shoes
and began to unbuckle my belt. I do not like taking my
clothes off in public. Recent events had made me even
more sensitive, I think, rather than less so, and to
be so closely watched by all four of them as I was
unfastening my trousers was extraordinarily unnerving.
Knowing I was hotly blushing, I crouched forward and
stepped out of them, handing them to Dave Whalley.

"If I hold the ball now, it'll cover up my
underpants," I said, the tone of my voice sounding as
though it didn't believe what I was saying.

"Let's have a look," the photographer said,
scrutinizing me through his viewfinder.

I took the rugby ball and held it pressed to my groin,
trying desperately to arrange my forearms into a
position to conceal the sides of my underpants.

"No, 'fraid not," he said. "They'll have to come off.
A pity you didn't have a pair of those little bikini
type briefs on. We could have probably managed then.
But those big old white Y-fronts, they show up far too
much."

My instinct was to turn away to take them down, but I
couldn't. Their instinct surely should have been to
avert their eyes and look elsewhere, but they didn`t.
Four pairs of eyes unblinkingly stared at my
unveiling. Trying to grab the ball with the same hand
I was handing my underpants for Dave to hold, I
knocked the ball out of his grasp and it bounced away
in its unpredictable oval ball manner. I quickly
clasped my hand to my naked groin as I darted to
retrieve it. In an effort to cover my embarrassment as
quickly as possible I brought the ball up hard into my
groin.

Doubling over and with my eyes watering with the
sudden pain, the reporter put his hand on my naked
shoulder.

"I felt that," he said in supposed sympathy.

"Well, next time keep your hands to yourself, my lad,"
the photographer said, and laughed heartily at his own
joke.

For what seemed ages I was kept in a state of nature
posing for the camera.

"Just a little lower, Mr Watson, please. We only want
one ball in shot, eh Headmaster?"

The photographer again dug the Head in the ribs and
guffawed at his own wit. That reminded Dave Whalley of
the cartoon in the Senior Common Room and he regaled
all three of them with a graphic account of it.

I was in a dreamlike trance. Here I was, stark naked
in broad daylight, out of doors at my place of
employment, with my headmaster and another senior
colleague looking on, whilst posing for endless
photographs holding nothing other than a Rugby Union
football to conceal my reproductive equipment. I even
had to stand there while he changed the film in his
camera. Action shots of my throwing myself to the
ground between the posts were ruled out after five
attempts because as the photographer cringingly put
it, it was impossible to prevent my "dangly bits", as
he called them, from flying into shot. I was asked to
lie down on the line with my arms stretched out, hands
holding the ball, as though having just touched down.
Several of these were snapped also. The final
indignity was to have to run up the pitch with my back
to the camera with the ball under my arm, and
therefore with no concealment whatsoever to protect my
modesty from the three onlookers.

Humbled, demeaned and utterly, utterly devastated, I
stepped into my underpants and hauled them up my mud
bespattered thighs.

The Head tried conciliatory remarks about what an
ordeal he had put me though and that it was a pity I
couldn't go and take a shower before getting dressed
again. The press left with a hearty wave and a promise
of complimentary photographs. Dave Whalley dumped my
clothing in a heap on the damp grass and said he had
better get back to supervise the changing rooms as it
was getting near the end of the lesson.

At morning break there was a large crowd round the
board, and much laughing and jeering and wolf-whistles
as I entered the room. Another cartoon of me had been
put  on the Common Room noticeboard following news
getting abroad of my photography session on the
playing field. In it I was portrayed as a male pin-up
in some girl's magazine. Pinkly naked again with a
very painful expression on my reddened face and with
hands pressed to the bits the art man, Derek Bamforth,
 had not dared to draw for public consumption, the
caption read: "Guess where the bloody staple is???"

             *          *          *