Saturday

El Hopper could not figure who thought this crap up. "Tour the small towns and villages of Indiana in a week."

Seriously? Who the hell wants to live in a small town in Indiana? When she saw the list of towns she knew that at least one of them was a town that nothing ever happened in. Some random town. And if nothing ever happened in that town. Chances are nothing ever happened in any of them.

That's what made learning about whatever did happen in them would be boring. But she was going to be the tour guide for this chartered tour so she had to learn about them in mind numbingly dull detail.

And it wasn't like she was going to get laid in each town either. She'd promised herself a long time ago that she would not sleep with anyone unless she loved them. She wasn't like her friends that would drop their panties at the first guy who took an interest in them.

El had set the bar a lot higher for herself. Her dad always told her that she was smart, and she was pretty, so getting a boyfriend was never going to be an issue with her, but he also told her she was damaged, and assholes would take advantage of that.

Sure, she was lonely, but she didn't want to be lonely and heartbroken. So she waited. Maybe the right guy would come along, maybe not, but she was not going to undermine her principles.

It was probably the reason she decided her summer job away from university should be as a tour guide for chartered buses. She would get to meet people, which she really liked doing. Who knows, maybe the right guy felt like touring the armpits of Indiana.

That's not fair El… she thought to herself. You are just bitter that you get to see new places and beautiful towns without actually sharing it with somebody.

Instead of going out Friday night with her friends, she studied brochures and maps, local history books on the towns.

The first one they'd be stopping at was Dyer, really just a suburb of Chicago, but it was night and day from the Windy City.

There were two things that bothered he about her upcoming job. One, her boss told her to wear a tight skirt with high heels, keep her hair down with her dark framed glasses. And maybe wear a sheer white top that you could almost see through. And a push up bra. He'd actually said with a straight face, could she wear a push up bra and maybe undo another button on her top.

She was furious, she asked why the change from her usual company uniform, and he said the tour was specially charted for university kids getting working on their Geography Major. There wasn't going to be any alcohol allowed on the bus, but you know, "university kids will sneak on booze."

Great, so in between getting her ass grabbed, she would be ogled the entire time. Because it was a special request from the university she was getting paid by both her company and the university, she'd make almost four times what she usually made for tour. She made her whole months rent for this week alone.

So she would put up with it. As degrading and sexist as the whole thing would be she'd do what she was asked. She wasn't shy about her body, she'd spend the first ten or twelve years of her life in a hospital gown and nothing else, so she'd gotten over body shyness.

She made herself a quick stir fry, got her clothes ready for the morning and went to bed early. The bus was leaving at five in the morning, and she had to be at the university by then. She had no idea how long it was going to take to get there but she was going to leave herself two hours to get dressed and get there. Traffic might not be too bad at that hour.

XXXXX

"Arggh! This can't be happening to me."

El had squeezed into the tight skirt and saw that her panty line looked like she was wearing somebody's granny panties. Every single line and seem could be seen. Not just the university students but anybody who saw her would laugh. Some of the girls would be sympathetic.

There were two fixes for this kind of emergency. One was to wear a thong. But she didn't own one, and besides she didn't feel like having her assed flossed the entire day. She didn't know how other girls did it. She like to think she wasn't that vain.

The other fix, was to forego panties. Her cycle was finished for the month, so she was safe there. Once she put the skirt back on she felt much better. She had to admit her bum looked pretty good in them… of course the reason for that was the skirt was so tight you could read the date on a dime stuck to her ass cheek.

She felt humiliated. But… sort of sexy at the same time. This was a new experience for her. She usually just wore dress slacks for the tours, jeans at school, and track pants in her tiny apartment.

"If my skirt rips I'm in trouble." She grabbed her high heels and put her running shows in her luggage.

El didn't own a car and the buses weren't running this early. Well, if they were she didn't have time to wait for one, so she took a cab.

It was still dark out when she was dropped off. She quickly pulled on her high heels, and stuffed her runners into one of her bags. The coach bus was waiting, running to get warmed up. The driver leaning against the side smoking a cigarette. A few yards away were a group of students. Only five… a few yards away from that group were two others. Obviously not part of the bigger group.

She walked up to the bus driver. "Small town tour."

"That's the one," he said. "You ready Miss Hopper?"

"Call me El, pease." She gave him a smile.

He smiled back, "Ok, call me Benny… please."

"Benny it is, give me a few minutes to round up our charter."

Walked up the steep stairs of the bus.

She walked up to the group of five students one of them was a girl, but asked the tallest one, "Small towns?"

He turned to look at her. And she was very happy that she was wearing no underwear because they would have been an instant mess.

He was more than good looking. His shaggy black hair fell around his shoulders, his smile made her knees a little wobbly.

But his eyes.

His eyes had known pain. They were confused and smiling at the same time as he looked at her. Her heart hammered in her chest and she stammered out in a squeeky voice. "small towns?"

"Yes, sorry, the five of us, and those two guys over there. Um, I will wait till everyone gets on."

She gestured for everyone to get on the bus. The two guys who stood by themselves… she found out they would be her oglers… always some in a crowd.

She and the tall university guy were the last two.

"He said after you." She nodded politely. Oh great, he was going to stare at her ass while she walked up the steep bus stairs. She'd read him wrong after all.

Once at the top of the stairs, she took a quick look back hoping to catch him staring, but he was looking down at the stairs politely.

Her heel broke and she fell out of the bus sideways. He head would either hit the bottom metal stair or the pavement just outside of the bus.

Instead, her head hit something hard, but not bone crushingly hard. She heard a grunt and fell on top of the university guy. He broke her fall.

She was lying outside of the bus, both his and her feet were still resting on the bottom step. He had his right arm around her waist, and his left hand holding on to her right breast as she lay sideways on top of him. Her head rested on his.

"Are you ok Miss?" The guy said. Benny came rushing out of the bus to help her up. She looked back at the student, who was clearly embarrassed to be holding her like that.

She held out her hand to help him up, "are you ok? You completely broke my fall."

She got close to him, "I'll confess that usually I like to know at least a guy's first name before I let him get to first base." She smiled but was then horrified that he turned so red his face was almost purple."

"I'm sorry," she said immediately, "I didn't mean to embarrass you. I think you saved my life."

He nodded, "I'm Mike Wheeler."

"El Hopper. Again, I'm sorry, that was a little crude on my part. I'm not really like that."

"It's ok Miss Hopper."

"El, please."

XXXXX

"Ok, everytime we get on the bus, I make a head count."

"Ah, she gives head." One of the two students from the other group said from the back of hte bus."

"Say that again Troy. I want to kick the shit out of you again. Go ahead."

El looked at Mike, shaking his head looking like he wanted to crawl deeper into his seat. Looks like we have at least one loser and one gentlemen on the bus.

She checked off Mike Wheeler's name on her clipboard. And Troy Walsh's. The girl had to be…

"Maxine Mayfield."

"It's Max. Nobody calls me Maxine."

"Ok, Max…. Dustin Henderson?" A curly haired student held up his hand.

"Will Byers?" A smallish student held up his.

"Lucas Sinclair." Another hand raised.

"James…"

"Present and account for head mistress." He snickered with his friend. A quick look at Mike and she saw he would not meet her eyes.

"Ok" She walked down the aisle to the back of the bus.

She looked at the two of them, "I'm sure the driver and the other students don't mind if you two make out back here, but keep try to keep the noise down? Deal?"

She leaned forward and said in a low voice , "So keep your pants on, I don't want you to throw off my head count."

James and Troy stopped snickering.

Max tapped her arm on her way back to the front seat. "Don't let them bother you."

"They don't bother me Max. I've dealt with much worse than that."

"You shouldn't have to."

"No, we shouldn't. But we do don't' we. It all comes down to how we deal with it."

Max gave her a smile. "You don't let anyone screw with you do you?"

"And you don't either do you Max."

Just like that. El Hopper was friends with Max Mayfield.

Mike was sitting in the second row, the tour guides always got the front seat.

"I want to thank you again and… oh… oh" She saw that Mike had a large black eye must be where she'd hit her head. It didn't not take away from his looks whatsoever.

"Benny can you stop at a gas station in the next few minutes, I want to get Mike some ice for that eye."

"El, if the only thing I got was a black eye from saving a pretty girl's life. I'd consider that a good compromise.

Somehow El Hopper got to the first row. She didn't know if she walked their, floated there, or melted through the seats to get there. But she found herself sitting in the front seat wearing white running shoes.

The grin on her face was so wide she knew her cheeks would be sore in no time. Benny gave her a wink in the mirror.

"Smile looks good on you."