Jim's 1st Day of Physical Education

This story is a work of fiction. All of the characters are at least 18 years old. The story is set in 1970 and describes the first day of a boy's high school physical education class. It is told by the female P.E. teacher as she and her male assistant take the boys through an orientation on the first day of class. I set the story in this period because it was a much different time than the one in which we live today. Having grown up in the 1960's and 70's myself, I know that it was a time in which a teacher's authority was not questioned and a different standard of what was considered acceptable behavior existed, for the teachers as well as the boys. On occasion, this manifested itself as P.E. teachers that might be considered cruel and even sadistic by today's standards. Primarily, this is a story about control, submission and embarrassment. I've tried to create a scene that evokes the feelings of anxiety, helplessness, and embarrassment that boys of that time may have experienced in the steamy, homoerotic world of a typical boys P.E. class. There are no sex scenes in this story. If you're looking for such a story, you'll need to look elsewhere. While there is a brief medical scene, this isn't solely a medical fetish story, since that's not its primary theme. The story is presented in 12 parts.

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{*Part One: Introduction*}

I arrived back at my office after finishing lunch. Since I've been teaching here at St. Bartholomew's for so long, my seniority allowed me to choose which lunch period I'd like. I usually choose the late period, as I did again this semester. It runs from 12:35 to 1:25, right after my fourth period class. Personally, I liked the later lunch period since it seemed to shorten the afternoon for me. At this point in my day, I only had two more class periods and then I was done for the day.

I looked at my watch and realized that I still had about ten minutes until the next class began. That should be plenty of time to review the list of students and prepare for the class. I unlocked the door to my office, stepped inside and immediately found the class roster for the fifth period class. As I opened the folder of paperwork on my desk, I thought about all the years that I had been teaching high school physical education, all of them here at St. Bart's. It's hard to believe that it's now 1970, January 3rd to be exact, and that I had been doing this for almost 10 years. Yes, it was somewhat unusual for a female like me to be the primary instructor for a boys P.E. class. I was originally hired to teach the girls, but the male instructor left in the middle of my first year here at St. Bart's. I had to quickly take over for the girls and boys. There were some initial complaints about a female teaching the boys, being with them in the locker room, observing their showers and such. But the administration seemed to like the results I was getting, and never bothered to hire a male replacement. They did hire another female teacher to teach the girls, and they also very recently hired John to assist me with the boys. But I've really been in charge of things for these past 10 years.

I remembered a time when I actually enjoyed teaching P.E. early on in my career. But lately, I had become bored with it. It just seemed like the same thing, over and over again, class after class, semester after semester. And that was especially true on a day like today, the very first day of a new semester. While that first day of class was certainly different, it still became rather boring for me, since the procedure was always the same. We'd review the same procedures, discuss the same rules and answer the same questions each and every semester. Even the boys that I taught all seemed to be the same every semester. There was nothing really striking or different about them.

But as I looked at the list of male students in front of me, I was reminded that this was my very favorite class of physical education to teach each and every year. I actually looked forward to it all year. It was what I had started to call my "last chance" P.E. class. It was always a very small class of boys, and all of them were seniors. As I reviewed the list of names and birth dates in front of me, I saw that all of them were 18 years old, the youngest having turned 18 just a week ago. Normally the boys at St. Bart's took physical education during their freshmen or sophomore year, just to get it out of the way. After all, the one credit hour for P.E. was a requirement for graduation. Most students didn't wait until the very last minute to satisfy the P.E. requirement.

But each year, the guidance counselor's office reserved this class for seniors only, just to make sure that all of them had the opportunity to earn their P.E. credit and graduate. So for whatever reason, all of the seniors in this class waited until now to take P.E. Over the years, I've heard different reasons for waiting this long. Some students were college-bound overachievers and loaded up their schedules for the first few years with more important core classes. Others simply procrastinated and waited until now, when it was almost too late. But most of the boys in this class didn't take P.E. earlier because they were trying to avoid it for as long as possible. Some of them might have even been hoping to find a way to skip it altogether. St. Bart's generously allowed students that participate in team sports to count their sport as the necessary P.E. graduation credit. So I knew that none of the boys in this class played any sports during high school, otherwise they wouldn't need to be here. Most of them weren't very athletic, and didn't like the idea of forced, regimented exercise. And some of them talked to other students, and didn't like some of the rules and procedures that I enforce in my P.E. classes. Some of them were actually fearful of physical education, since certain aspects of it are embarrassing.

Well, the joke is on all of them now. They all must have a P.E. credit hour in order to graduate, and this is their last semester before graduation - their last chance. They're all finally mine now!

The other thing I really liked about this class is that it occupies the fifth and sixth periods of the day - a double period. Normally, students earn their P.E. credit hour in a single period class that meets every day for an entire year, two semesters. But since these boys have waited until the very last semester, we have to use two class periods back to back to earn that same credit hour. That means that instead of a normal class period of only 55 minutes, these boys will be with me every day from 1:30 until 3:25, that's almost two full hours! That extra class time is what really makes this fun. Each day I can work them harder and longer than I normally would - making them really work up a sweat. And the extra time even comes in handy today, during class orientation. It allows me to really take my time with the boys and go over the class rules and procedures. The boys don't know it yet, but instead of just reviewing the rules today, they'll actually get to see what a normal class period is like. Starting today, I'll make them all regret that they waited this long to take P.E. By the end of the day, I guarantee that they'll all wish they had taken it as a freshmen.

Just then I heard my assistant John walk into the office.

"Have a good lunch, Margaret?" he asked.

"Yes, mine was good, how about yours, John" I replied.

"It was just OK, I thought the fish needed something," John said.

"You mean flavor?"

"Yeah, something like that," John replied with a laugh. "I see you're going over the roster. This is the last chance class of seniors again, right?"

"Yes, that's right, so we'll have a busy two hours ahead of us. I guess you remember this same class from last year."

"I sure do, that was a bit of a surprise last year. At least I know what to expect this time, since this is my second year at St. Bart's."

John Moore joined me as my physical education assistant in the fall 1968 semester, so this is only his fourth semester at the school. We have a pretty good working relationship and we've actually become very good friends. John had served his time in the army before joining us here at St. Bart's. He's fairly young, I think he's only around 23 years old, about 11 years my junior, and he's friendly and pretty good working with the students. I actually think he's a great role model for the boys, since he did his duty in the military and has now resumed civilian life. He's also in great shape, which sets a fine example for the boys.

"Will the school nurse be helping again this year?" John asked.

"Yes, John, I asked Nurse Draper to come by around 2:00, we should be ready for her by then."

Just then we heard the bell ring, signaling the end of the fourth period. We should be seeing the students for our next class any time now. I quickly placed my copy of the class roster and other forms into my clip board to prepare for class. I grabbed the thin stack of 3x5 locker assignment cards that I had prepared this morning during my free period. I also prepared a second clip board for John which I handed to him as I stood up.

"Here you go, John, your copy of the class roster."

"Thanks, Margaret," he replied with a smile. He quickly scanned the list to see how large the class would be this year. "Only 17 boys this year," he said. "That's a little smaller than last year, isn't it?"

"It varies by a couple of boys either way. I think we had 19 last year," I answered. "Either way, it's small enough where we can give these seniors our undivided attention."

As we were talking, the doors to the gym opened and we saw our next class of boys begin to file into the gym. Since it was such a small class, it seemed like just a trickle of students as they entered the gym, instead of the larger mad rush of boys that we see for a normal class period. As we watched more boys straggle into the gym, we decided that it was time to go out and meet the "last chance" senior class of 1970.

"Time to get started," I said to John. We both walked out of the office that was adjoining the gym with our clipboards in hand. As usual, John and I are both wearing our coach's uniform, consisting of light tan coaches' shorts and a navy blue polo shirt. And most importantly, we both had our trusty whistles hanging around our necks. Just as we began to walk toward the group of boys, we heard the bell ring again, signaling the beginning of the fifth period.

{*Part Two: Getting Started*}

The boys were all just milling about in our end of the gym, just inside the doors. They weren't lined up in any way - they were just standing there, talking with each other. Two boys were actually sitting down on the gym floor, as if they were too tired to even stand up. Normally, I'd try to get them all lined up in some organized fashion, but today I didn't need to. We'd have plenty of opportunities to instill some order into these boys today. As John and I walked toward them, most of them at least stopped talking and carrying on with each other. That was a hopeful sign. Once in position in front of the boys, I blew the whistle that was hanging around my neck.

"Let me have your attention, boys," I said in a loud voice. Everyone, except for two boys to my far left, stopped talking. "I said I need your attention, right now, that means you stop talking immediately," I said in an even louder voice. At last the two boys stopped talking. I looked out upon the group of senior boys and saw that I now finally had their attention. Every young face was looking directly at me. It was a conscious decision on my part to always refer to them as boys, rather than men, or gentlemen. The boys before me were all seniors, they were almost fully-developed, adult men. But I refused to acknowledge that in front of them. If they were in my physical education class, they would have to earn my respect by their mature behavior. And that typically never occurred, certainly not in a single semester class like this.

"Boys, this is fifth period physical education. If you're in the wrong place, this is your opportunity to leave," I told the crowd of boys. I waited a few seconds to give them a chance to respond. I don't think I've ever had a boy make that mistake, at least not one of these senior boys. With a normal class of freshmen, I'll usually get one or two boys in the wrong class.

"As I call your name, step forward and I'll hand you your locker assignment," I said as I held up the stack of cards. "Once you receive your assignment, you are to proceed immediately to the boy's locker room and locate your locker." I pointed in the direction of the locker room door, which was just past our office. "Once your find your locker, sit quietly in front of it. We've go over class expectations and give you further instructions once we're all in the locker room. Understand?" I saw heads nodding in the affirmative in front of me.

"Jake Adams," I called the first name. As a tall, lanky boy walked forward, I checked him off of my attendance sheet, and simultaneously handed him the card that I had prepared with his name and locker number.

"Michael Brenner". Another boy came forward.

"Mark Brown". And another.

"Sam Byron". Now that I was making progress with attendance and locker assignments, my assistant John walked toward the boy's locker room. His job was now to monitor and assist them in finding their lockers if necessary.

After just a few short minutes, I called the last boy's name and watched as he followed the others into the locker room. I double-checked my class roster and verified that all 17 boys assigned to the class were here today. Great, I thought to myself, I can cover all of the class rules at one time today, and won't have to worry about reviewing things later due to an absent student. I looked at my watch again and saw that we were right on schedule. I'd have just enough time to go over the rules with the boys and get them ready before Nurse Draper arrived. I decided to give the boys one additional minute to get situated before I entered the locker room to begin their orientation.

I walked through the narrow door marked Boy's Locker Room and into what is normally the exclusive domain of males. As I entered the room, I heard the loud talking, laughing and excitement of the boys. For many of these non-athletic boys, this may have been their very first time in a school locker room. Just being here was a brand new experience for them, but I knew that there would be many such firsts that they would experience in the next two hours.

The locker room itself wasn't anything special. As the school was fairly old, so was the locker room and shower facilities. The room itself was situated directly under a set of heavy concrete bleachers that covered one of the long sides of the gym. There were three long rows in the room, with each row being almost the entire length of the gym. Each row had a fairly wide aisle with lockers on either side of the aisle. The concrete base that the lockers were mounted on jutted out a couple of feet into the aisle, so it served as the bench that the boys could sit on when changing. The shower facilities were located here at the near end of the room, just past the entrance, and were directly in line with the middle aisle. At the far end of the locker room, we had a small open area that trainers used for their teams, and we used in P.E. to address any injuries.

I walked toward the middle aisle, which is where I had assigned all of these boys. I usually try to keep the boys in each class located close to each other, rather than spreading them throughout the locker room. I think being closer to each other forces them to quickly get over any modesty issues they might have. This class was no different. As I turned into the middle aisle, I saw the group of boys in front of their respective lockers, located about half-way down the aisle. About half of them were standing and half were sitting in front of them on the concrete bench. My assistant John was standing at the far end of the aisle, just past where the boys were. The good news is that there didn't appear to be any stragglers wandering around the locker room. They all appeared to be right where I wanted them, in front of their lockers.

"Listen up boys," I said as I approached them, "everyone take a seat in front of your own locker." I watched as the boys who were still standing up walked to their locker and sat down. As they settled down, the noise level in the locker room immediately diminished. I assigned lockers so that the 17 boys were equally divided on both sides of the aisle, eight on one side and nine on the other. I always felt this was better than putting them in one long row, since it allowed them to more easily talk and interact with each other. More importantly, being across from each other forced them to actually see each other, as well as be seen, while they were changing. I didn't want my boys changing in some far-off, isolated corner of the locker room just so they wouldn't be seen. If there's one thing that I don't tolerate, it's false modesty. Before the end of the day, these boys would understand that.

"Boys, my name is Margaret Evans, but you will always address me as Miss Evans," I began. "Welcome to fifth period physical education. I am your instructor. And this is John Moore, he will be assisting me. You will always address him as Mr. Moore. Understood?"

As I pointed in the direction of John, the boys all silently nodded in agreement.

"I didn't hear you boys, do you understand?"

"Yes, Miss Evans," the crowd said loudly.

"Much better. Whenever Mr. Moore or I give you an order, we expect a verbal response. Nodding your head is probably OK for your mother, but I'm not your mother and neither is Mr. Moore." I looked out at the boys and saw that a few of them were snickering at my comment. I made a mental note of those that thought my comment was funny.

"We have a lot to cover today, boys, so I'm going to get right to the class rules. Please pay attention, as I don't want to waste any time repeating myself. " I looked out at the group of boys before me and saw that, at least for the moment, I had their undivided attention. That's probably because they had spent the last three and a half years hearing just how bad P.E. was from their friends. Now it was finally their turn and the scared shitless look on their faces said it all. They were all hoping that the rumors that they heard weren't true, but they were beginning to suspect that they were.

"The rules are fairly simple," I began. "When you arrive for class, you will immediately come into this locker room, get changed for class, and then head out into the gym for attendance. Mr. Moore will discuss the P.E. uniform that you will wear in a few minutes. By the end of the day today, all of you will know what squad you're assigned to and exactly where you will line up for attendance. Once the fifth period bell rings, signaling the start of the class period, you will have an additional three minutes to be in the gym and ready for class."

"Three lousy minutes?" I heard one of the boys mumble to himself.

"Jim is it?" I said to him as I looked down at my class roster.

"Yes, Miss Evans, Jim Johnson," the boy replied.

"Well, Jim, I would appreciate if you would hold your questions and comments until I ask for them. I will give you all a chance to ask any questions after I finish with the rules. But to answer your question, yes, over the years I've found that three minutes is plenty of time to get ready. Provided you don't piddle around with your friends and waste time in the locker room. As long as you get to class promptly and go about your business of changing for class, you will all be fine with three minutes. Understood?" I looked directly at this Jim Johnson character as I spoke.