Chapter Thirty: Dance Classes
Somewhere along the line, Joyce decided that I needed to take dancing classes so that I could learn how to be a real gentleman. With little fanfare and lots of pressure from my mother, I was enrolled in Mrs. Rice's Dance Studio.
Great! I already had a well-established reputation as a nerd. In the age of rock 'n roll, I didn't think a course in ballroom dancing was going to improve my social standing.
Mrs. Rice must have been a Marine drill Sergeant in a previous life. Her commands were crisp, precise, and relentless.
Mrs. Rice was a small woman of demure stature and unlimited energy. She always seemed to be dressed as if she was going to a funeral or returning from a wake. She wore her clothes like a uniform. With black ankle length pleated dresses and high heels, she would march around the dance floor with her blond hair in a tight bun. She was the image of a perfect porcelain doll with her figure hidden under a cloud of white ruffles and lace.
She would snap her fingers in time to the music and much of the time her snapping fingers and clicking heels was the music.
Her commands sent us wheeling around the dance floor. Mistakes on the dance floor generated waves of wrath worthy of any of the goddesses out of Greek mythology. It was like learning to dance at gunpoint.
One benefit emerged from dance class. I found a girlfriend. Donna Frisk was a beautiful and shy teenage girl a year younger than I was. Donna was knock-dead gorgeous. Shoulder length brown hair framed her face and dark green eyes. She wore bright red lipstick with just a hint of blush on her cheeks. The rest of her body was as beautiful as her dimpled smile. She was about two inches shorter than I was, and she looked stunning with petite well-developed breasts accenting an hourglass figure.
As the dancing class progressed, we became steady dance partners. Holding Donna in classic ballroom style was a thrill. My hormones went into overdrive as she put her arm around my waist and held my hand in her hand.
Much to my aggravation, Mrs. Rice demanded that there always be daylight between dance partners. In the awkward fashion of two shy teenagers, Donna and I quickly became an item, and within a few weeks, we began dating.
Our dates were heavily chaperoned. The watchful eyes of her parents limited any opportunity for sexual shenanigans while they provided taxi service. I could not help but notice that her father kept the rear view mirror angled in such a way that he had a better view of the back seat than he did on the road behind us.
As luck and hormones would have it, Donna played a starring role in my first wet dream. The dream was as about as tame as it was lame. If it had been a feature film, it would have barely rated PG-13.
In the dream, I was sitting fully clothed on a bench and Donna, also fully clothed, walked up to me and placed a neatly wrapped present in my lap. As I watched her fingers unwrap the bright ribbon from around the gift, I ejaculated and woke up as a very confused boy in a warm puddle. Sigmund Freud would have had a field day with the symbolism.
Dating Donna was a frustrating experience. She wore her chastity like a suit of armor and consented only to chaste kisses - brief closed mouth lip-to-lip touches and no more. When it came to physical contact and getting to first base? Forget it: I was not even allowed into the ballpark.
I was dating a professional virgin.