Author’s Notes

First, this story is slotted in the non-erotic category as there are no sex acts described here. Otherwise, it could not appear on this website. However, they can be implied.

Second, this story is based up on an amusing anecdote a co-worker once told me. He claimed he saw something similar happen to a classmate of his son during a middle-school play. Poor kid!

Part One

My name is Jefferson Martin, but most everyone calls me Jeff. In 1972 I was an eighth-grade student who was fairly strong academically. I grew up and was educated in a community in upstate New York whose large and excellent elementary school encompassed a wide range of pupils aged five to 14.

There was very little fluctuation in my classmates from year to year. The kids who were in my first-grade class in 1965 were generally the same bunch who were in Mrs. Pattison’s eighth-grade class with me seven years later. Our school famously had one major attraction each year: Drama Night. Each May, Mrs. Pattison organized performances of short plays that were put on by members of the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Tickets were sold to the general public who got about two hours of entertainment from the youthful thespians. It was undeniably a highlight of the school year—and had been for about two decades.

Mrs. Pattison’s enthusiasm was the key to its success. A much-beloved educator, she was also heavily involved in our city’s amateur theater group—and she eagerly shared her acting passion with the students in our school. Mrs. Pattison would have been about 60 years old in 1972 and was close to retirement age. Once she left the teaching profession, there would likely be no one of the same caliber to take her place, so each year’s Drama Night was a special occasion.

Mrs. Pattison also wrote one play per year as part of the festivities. It was her policy to vary the grade level she chose. In 1972, she had written a 20-minute play for the eighth-graders. It was a play titled “Shared Shyness”. However, it basically had just two roles, one male and one female, supported by a handful of extras who had very few lines. Its plot was about two 14-year-old classmates who are secretly smitten with each other but who are both too timid to express their feelings. In theory, there were to be open tryouts for the roles, but before Mrs. Pattison had even announced what the eighth-grade play for 1972’s Drama Night would be, she asked me to remain after school for a few moments so we could have a chat.

To my utter amazement, Mrs. Pattison told me that she had written “Shared Shyness” with me in mind as the male lead! This took me by complete surprise because I had never acted in my life—unless one counted the couple of plays in which I appeared as an extra in previous Drama Nights where I had no lines whatsoever. At first, I didn’t know if I wanted to star in a play at all, but Mrs. Pattison quickly convinced me to say yes. All it took was for her to tell me, “Jeff, I wrote the part of the female lead with Jennifer Marlowe in mind.”

Jennifer Marlowe was one of my classmates who had attended my school as long as I had. She was a cute blonde with gorgeous blue eyes whom I had always secretly admired since about the third grade. When puberty struck me in the sixth grade, Jennifer was the target of my desires. As an eighth-grader, she was even more appealing. She had become quite a fetching young lady with, by far, the best figure of any girl in the class. “Well, in that case, you can count me in!” I quickly said to Mrs. Pattison.

She laughed at my eager acceptance, fully understanding why. Somehow, Mrs. Pattison knew that I was truly smitten by the lovely Jennifer. I guess it had come from her years of teaching and observing adolescents. She handed me a copy of the script with my lines highlighted. I’d have to memorize plenty of dialogue, but Mrs. Pattison was confident I could do it despite having zero experience delivering lines on stage. She added with a smile, “If you skip to the last page, Jeff, you’ll see that the play ends with the male and female leads sharing a romantic kiss. Are you okay with that?”

I could hardly suppress my enthusiasm. “Now I’m definitely interested!” I blurted out.

“So is Jennifer,” Mrs. Pattison casually informed me. “I spoke to her before class started and told her she could have the lead female role and that I had you in mind for the lead male. This pleased her very much. She likes you a lot, too, Jeff.”

Mrs. Pattison was just full of news that startled me. Apart from polite hellos, I seldom spoke to Jennifer. Like the character I was about to portray, I was too shy to tell Jennifer that I was attracted to her.

“When do rehearsals begin?” I asked. “I am very anxious to master that important final scene!”

Part Two

The rehearsals for “Shared Shyness” began two days later with just Jennifer and I working with Mrs. Pattison after school on the stage that was adjacent to our school’s gymnasium. The extras’ roles were so insignificant that their preparation for Drama Night could be adequately done a day or two in advance of the performance. That first day, Jennifer and I accidentally called each other by our real first names rather than using Norman and Shirley—the names of the characters in the script. Mrs. Pattison wisely decided then and there that the script would be altered so that our true names matched the characters’ names. We read through the entire play and did all the actions associated with it. I was pleased there was quite a bit of physical contact between the two leads, even if it was just shaking hands, or touches to the shoulder.

However, as our reading progressed and the final scene of the play approached, I could clearly sense than an erection was building within my trousers. Such things are involuntary and can rarely be controlled—especially by a 14-year-old. Nature had blessed me with larger-than-average male equipment, so by the time I approached Jennifer for the climactic smooch, I had a clear “tent” below my beltline. Even standing 30 feet away from us, Mrs. Pattison couldn’t help but notice my high level of sexual arousal. She abruptly halted the action and said, “Uh, Jeff. That’s fine acting you’re doing. It really is. I like how you’ve gotten so deeply into the character you’re portraying, but we can’t have that when Drama Night comes.” She felt compelled to point at the source of the trouble. I suppose I should have been embarrassed about the situation, but I wasn’t.

“Who’s acting?” I replied. “I’ve admired Jennifer since we were both little kids. Jennifer has turned me on sexually since we were in the fifth grade. I can’t control this.” I had never said anything remotely like that out loud to any adult, much less a female teacher. It just spilled out of me.

“Really, Jeff?” Jennifer asked in astonishment before Mrs. Pattison could say anything. There was definite delight in her remark.

“Well, please try to control it,” Mrs. Pattison urged me. “I have two sons. They routinely had this issue when they were your age and saw a pretty girl at the beach. I’ll give you the same advice I gave them: When you feel an erection coming on, Jeff, try to think of something horrible, like a train wreck, or someone with leprosy, or maggots crawling on rotten fruit.”

I learned that Mrs. Pattison knew what she was talking about. That suggestion had the desired effect. I envisioned maggots swarming over a bruised banana. My erection subsided for the moment and I happily kissed Jennifer who really seemed to enjoy it. Of course, I really enjoyed it myself—and I couldn’t wait to tell my envious eighth-grade buddies about the wonderful experience I had locking lips with the prettiest girl in the entire school.

Mrs. Pattison’s sage advice served me well for the next three rehearsals. However, for some reason, I became supremely aroused at the fourth one. There was no horrible sight I could imagine that was going to shut me down this time. Not only was my erection apparent to both Mrs. Pattison and Jennifer, had the custodian walked into the gym at that moment, he would have seen it too—from 100 feet away. As was the case four days earlier, Mrs. Pattison stopped the play. However, this time it was Jennifer who took care of matters.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jeff!” she shouted. “Come backstage with me!” She added, “Mrs. Pattison, let’s take a ten-minute break and I guarantee everything will be fine when we return.”

Jennifer took me by the hand as if I were one of the school’s kindergarten pupils. She led me to a long, dusty bench where we promptly sat beside one another. To be discrete, let's just say that Jennifer immediately took care of the problem. Once my erection subsided and I regained my composure, Jennifer sweetly asked me, “Do you feel better now, Jeff?”

“Oh, yeah! Thank you so much, Jennifer!” I stated and gave her a very romantic kiss. As planned, the two of us were back on the stage to complete the final scene within ten minutes. I suspect Mrs. Pattison had a reasonable idea regarding what had happened between us during that unscheduled intermission, but she didn’t dare ask either of us for confirmation.

That night I made a special trip to Jennifer’s house—a place I had never visited before. I brought her a bouquet of fresh flowers and an enormous box of chocolates. It was quite an expense for an eighth-grader who relied on an allowance for his income. I didn’t care, though. After I handed Jennifer her gifts, I gave her a long kiss even though her mother was watching me closely. “I absolutely love your daughter! She’s a doll!” I told Mrs. Marlowe honestly. Then I quickly departed.

Part Three

Further rehearsals proceeded without incident, as that one uncontrollable erection seemed to have been an outlier. The last four rehearsals had the extras onstage, too. Jennifer and I knew our respective lines by heart. Everything seemed ready for opening night—which was also closing night as Drama Night was a single-day event.

As usual, Drama Night sold out quickly. “Shared Shyness” was the last item on the program. The plays were staged in ascending age, with the fourth graders beginning the show with a play about a genie. It was followed by shows starring the fifth, sixth and seventh grades. The audience seemed to love them, judging by the applause I could hear from backstage. Moments before Jennifer and I entered the stage to perform the night’s grand finale, we kissed each other for luck. This silly play had brought us together romantically—and I was thrilled.

Everything was going as smoothly as it could possibly go for the first seven-eighths of the play. However, as the romantic climax approached, I could feel an enormous bulge building in my nether regions. It was the stiffest erection I had experienced since starting puberty. Absolutely no amount of bad thoughts I could conjure up in my mind could make it go away. To make matters worse, the final scene of “Shared Shyness” required me to walk from one corner of the stage to another facing the audience most of the way. I swear I could hear Mrs. Pattison let out a gasp from backstage. It was matched by similar gasps from most of the audience, too. There was nothing I could do about my misfortune, so I just finished my walk and embraced Jennifer for our passionate kiss to end the play, poking her all the while with my enormous stiffie.

Of course, much controversy followed. Some audience members complained to the school the following day with angry phone calls. Many of them crazily believed that my embarrassing erection was meant to be part of the play and accused the school—and Mrs. Pattison specifically—of staging a lewd performance with minors. It was mildly amusing that I was accused by some critics of placing a prop within my trousers to give the impression I had a massive erection. It was the real thing, of course. Therefore, I took these erroneous assumptions as an indirect compliment to my manhood. For a while, my male school buddies jokingly referred to me as “Armed and Dangerous”. My parents, who unfortunately had been proudly seated in the center of the third row, tactfully said nothing about it for the rest of their lives.

On the bright side, Jennifer and I became inseparable for the rest of the eighth grade and throughout our four years of high school. About a week after “Shared Shyness” had passed into theatrical history, we scampered off to a secluded area just beside our schoolyard to be intimate. It was at Jennifer’s request.

In June 1976, on our last day of high school, the moment our final class was dismissed, I took Jennifer aside and proposed to her. She happily accepted. We delayed our wedding until 1980 when we were both 22, but we’re still together to this day. We are the parents of two well-endowed sons.