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Teaching her a lesson 141
I attempted to defuse the tension by praising each of them on their journal entries. Tabitha had gotten a perfect score, like usual; Taylor had actually managed an A herself, though that was only because I'd had her re-write them during our after school sessions when her pre-Serenex effort had yielded two off-topic paragraphs and ended with "this is stupid and I don't care." Her re-try had been better, and if it was objectively unfair that their scores were a mere three points apart, Tabitha was used to it by now. My praise did less than nothing to mollify either of them, and the three of us climbed into my bed, one naked, flawless girl curled up on either side of me, and went to sleep without another word. "That's the vinegar, mama. I told you we were out of your usual dressing last week, remember, but you said you didn't wanna go grocery shopping until we made space in the fridge," Candy explained over lunch. Isa made a face but kept eating in her place kneeling beneath my desk. I
Teaching her a lesson 142
With a last snicker, he strutted out the door. I took a few deep breaths as the class sat in idle discomfort. "OK. So today we're talking about the reading from the weekend. Everybody get out a half sheet of paper - we're going to do a quick reading check." A chorus of groans fired back at me. "Relax. This isn't a quiz; it's a reading check. If you took your notes or at least paid attention, and you finished the reading from Friday, it should be a joke." I waited for them to get their materials ready, sheets hastily torn in half and shared with neighbors. Tabitha had stored a half sheet for herself from the last reading check, the tear a perfect line across the top of the page. Taylor had forgotten a notebook. And a pen. And to do the reading, as was plain from the look on her face. "Question one: which of the major themes we discussed - remember, you can use your notes on this - was the dominant theme of these two chapters?" I gave them a minute to flip through notes, issued the s
Teaching her a lesson 143
Too late to walk it back now. "I know some of your friends, Abbie. If you keep this up, someonewill notice, and then your only option is going to be to use it on them. I can attest firsthand that it can and will spiral beyond your ability to control it. And that's best case scenario. It's not hard to envision others that end a lot worse." Little by little, I could see my words sinking in. Good. So she had some imagination after all. "You're saying you wouldn't go all Liam Neeson and use your particular skills to bail my ass out if I got tooken?" "I'm sorry, 'tooken?'" She merely nodded. "If you keep abusing my language like that, I'm going to root for the tookers." Abbie sighed. "OK fine. You can have the rest back. Wasn't enough to do anything too cool with anyway. I'll drop it off." She caught my skeptical expression. "I will! What, you think I'm gonna go on a rampage in the next twenty minutes of the school day? Short-ass rampage. Almost nothing left anyway." "And again, did yo
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Most students thought teachers disappeared into the ether with the tolling of the last bell, and I channeled that belief into my response. "Outside of class?" A place I'd never been, never heard of, my face said. "I think I've seen her in Saturday class here and there. Usually kind of a pain in the tush about it, too, but that's what you pay me the big bucks for, right?" I chuckled.She did not."And nothing beyond that?""How else would I know her? From what I hear, she's not exactly Spell Bowl team material." (I coached Spell Bowl in the spring. Too nerdy for the Sterns, too intellectual for Cassie, too low-brow for Tabitha. It was a fantasy-free zone.)Usually Mrs. Horen let her glasses hang from a cord around her neck. Presently, she raised them to her face. I recognized that maneuver. I'd seen it before in conferences with difficult parents, where she was done listening to them bloviate and was about to lay down the law. I have to say, it was doing work.Without a word, the princ
Teaching her a lesson 145
I am not a pussy, but I wasn't superhuman either, nor did I cleave to that tired but persistent belief that crying is a sign of weakness. I owed Isa big time, though. The fact that I was trying and mostly failing to stop sobbing with self-pity in the seclusion of my own home instead of festering in a jail cell was entirely her doing. Maybe a small nod to me for having the foresight to enslave her in the first place. (Yes, enslave. No sense pussyfooting around the term now. Not when the whole city - the whole country, maybe, if this thing got traction - was going to be using it to describe me soon enough.Acclimate, Canon.) Still, no matter Isa's insistence that they couldn't arrest me for something the girls had done, their exposure (pun intended) had done more than enough damage. I didn't know how much Principal Horen had overheard of their damning greeting, but she'd certainlyseen plenty. The girls had been dragged to the office by Horen in anticipation of contacting their parents.
Teaching her a lesson 146
She clicked her tongue reprovingly. "First off, they're not children. You're all adults in the eyes of the law. If you weren't their teacher, you could fuck them all day every day and nobody could say boo. Second, that's not what you're accused of. The charge is a teacher engaging in sexual conduct with students. What they've seen doesn't look good, but they didn't walk in on... well, any of the hundred-odd incidents that would be damning." Hearing it that way was at least some relief. Not much, but some. "How do you rate my odds?" She was quiet a moment; I could hear Candy in the background prodding her to admit she'd just come in her panties, Isa shushing her. "It's hard to say, master. Horen wants your head, that's for sure. Still, all she has is girls who will all swear you knew nothing about their state of undress, and a grainy video of what's probably a student kissing you in a bar. If I were you, I'd be getting in touch with my union and contesting the charges. You'll look a
Teaching her a lesson 147
Tuesday morning I contacted my union rep to appeal my dismissal and for legal counsel. They rushed somebody out before noon, a tired-looking fellow named Capaldi with wire-frame glasses and only a few lonely hairs left on his head. I explained my situation using the lies I'd settled on with Isa. We were still talking over what to expect when I got the call from someone at the police department asking me to come in for questioning as soon as possible. The appointment was set for that afternoon. I'd driven past the place a thousand times without a second glance, an old brick building next to the courthouse. It was on my route to the high school. Nonetheless, it was a daunting thing, walking into that police department with all that guilt weighing me down. I couldn't escape the feeling that I would never leave, like they would ask the perfect question and I'd be left with no choice but to confess all my sins and throw myself at their absent mercy. Capaldi and I were led to a sparsely d
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I'd meant it as a joke, but Tabitha nodded austerely. "I mean to. That is, at least as long as you're out of jail and all. Do you really think that'll happen? Because I'm going to have to make more corrections to my five-year plan if that's the direction this all goes." Touching. "I don't know. My lawyer didn't laugh in my face and tell me I'm fucked, at least, but I suppose we'll see how our little fiction plays out. How were things in school today? Are we trending?" "Nah, I haven't heard anybody talking yet. Can't believe the principal could walk in on me showing you my bare butt and not even get in trouble for it. I guess Mrs. Horen kept her mouth shut about it though, because I wasn't even getting weird looks. So far, so good, I guess." I got to work on my own clothes. "That's a relief. If we can actually somehow keep this under wraps, coming back will be a lot easier." "Yeah, it'd be nice not to graduate with an asterisk. 'Most likely to whore her way through college' doesn't
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