A FAMILY AFFAIR
My Badboy Foster Brother
By Abriella Blake
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A Hearts Collective Production
Copyright © 2015 Hearts Collective
All rights reserved. This document may not be reproduced in any way without the expressed written consent of the author. The ideas, characters, and situations presented in this story are strictly fictional, and any unintentional likeness to real people or real situations is completely coincidental.
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A FAMILY AFFAIR
My Badboy Foster Brother
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By Abriella Blake
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
September 9th
Sitting in my puce-colored chair towards the back of the class, I attempt to stifle a yawn. This room is too hot, the breath of my classmates too close—and as usual, Mrs. Krenshaw (the lamest English teacher in the land) is droning along in a monotone voice that could beat the GPS in my Dad's car in a boring contest. Still, I try to focus. This is senior year, and if I don't ace AP Lit it could actually matter to some stuffy, Ivy League admissions counselor.
I doodle Mrs. Krenshaw's witch face onto a stray piece of notebook paper—after all, Eric says I should be trying to “capture all the memories from this special time,” because high school “goes by so fast,” and the four years I've spent racing from the newspaper room to the orchestra pit and back are apparently some of the “best life has to offer.” IMHO, if moments like these are supposed to represent the best years, I'd like to just stop now, please.
I hate when adults try to sell high school as this dreamy, innocent time. Still, a thought occurs to me: So, Eric wants me to make a scrapbook of beautiful lessons learned? Okay, then. Pleased with the fact that I suddenly have a task, I sit up a little straighter in my chair, and hunch over my blank notebook. I'll tell it to him straight. Here's what I really know about high-school, now that I'm almost free from its miserable clutches.
Four Totally Crucial Things I've Learned in High-School
- Girls can be vicious, especially if you're smarter than they are, and especially if your boobs are smaller than the national average, for your age.
- That whole Mean Girls thing, about “sexually active” band geeks? Total joke. I've been first chair in Frederick Douglass High's award-winning school orchestra for three years, and my being boss at classical violin has never exactly been a turn-on with the gentleman folk. I've never sauntered up to a guy at a party and seduced him with my fiddling skills.
- The Ivy League is, apparently, Mecca. If you're dorky and committed enough, and if you happen to be blessed with nouveau-hippie-hyper-academic parents—you can just forget about going to parties, or going on dates. Because you're supposed to be studying. ALL. THE. TIME. Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth...that's the name of that tune.
- It's true what they say, about high school boys and bad sex. There's nothing special about popping one's cherry in the backseat of someone's mom's Subaru. If you want to learn about sex, I say, go to an expert. For instance? One's career counselor.
Oh—did I not mention my single bad-ass secret? I'm dating my guidance counselor, the aforementioned Eric. He's an adult man, with a wife, and yes, it's a huge fucking mess.
“Joanna? Joanna Prine?”
My attention snaps backs into the room—it's as if someone's dropped a book on my desk. When I look up, I see Mrs. Krenshaw, glaring at me over the tips of her horn-rimmed glasses. She's clearly displeased with my little trip down memory lane.
“You need to pay attention to the material, if you hope to excel in my course. I know that Dartmouth looks rather carefully at the student grades in the fall semester.” My teacher peers at me a little more, until I obligingly turn a page in my copy of Charles Dickens' Hard Times. My best friend Claudia swivels in her seat two rows ahead of me, a smirk of apology on her face. Bitch, she mouths, rolling her eyes in Krenshaw's direction. I snort.
Hard as I try to pay attention, I find my mind wandering again—towards its usual subject, in fact: my career counselor. Or more specifically, the oriental rug in my career counselor's office on which I lost my virginity last May. Don’t worry, I’d already turned eighteen that month due to starting kindergarten a year late.
Anyway, I started up with Eric—Mr. Mahoney, to most—during one of our meetings at the end of my junior year. I'd always had a bit of a schoolgirl crush on the guy, just because we liked a lot of the same books (Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh...) and movies (Wes Anderson, all the way), and Eric was just so much cooler than my peers. He'd let me talk his ear off about my big, silly dreams to play all the classic operas to beautiful, sold-out crowds in Paris.
Of course, as my career counselor, he also liked to punctuate these little rants by saying “of course, life as a classical musician is an unstable, impractical path—but you should always think of music as a very special hobby.” Though, this is the same line of reasoning that my parents like to spew just about every night at the dinner table, I usually took the condescension easier when it came from him. There was just something about that Silver Foxy, salt n' pepper hair. And his crisp navy suits with their pressed jackets and skinny ties. Or his blue eyes, which remind me of icicles, they're so pale.
So in part, because of the fact that I've spent four largely-friendless, ambitious years being queen of the dorks at Douglass, last semester I started going to his office even when I didn't technically have to. It was the end of junior year, which anyone will tell you is the other crushing semester for those of us on the Ivy League track. I was really sad and stressed, in fact—mostly because I was struggling through an AP Philosophy course that was kicking my allegedly college-bound ass. So I'd come to Eric's office after school, and he'd help me parse all the heady books my inscrutable teacher Mr. Roybal was always assigning.
One day, Eric and I stayed late, having gotten caught up reading Heidegger passages. He was helping me translate some especially cloudy paragraph, and I remember him glancing up from his copy of Being and Time with a coy look on his face.
“Should we order dinner?” he smirked. I could hear the janitors out in the hallway, puttering by with those noisy floor waxing machines. I sensed that the whole school was empty, but for us and them.
“I'm not super hungry,” I lied. “But I'll wait with you.”
“I bet you'll be hungry, if I order something.”
“Oh, c'mon,” I said, and from some weird little well of bravery deep inside, I remember I bit my lip, all sexy. “I don't want you to see what a sloppy eater I can be. That's third date information.”
The minute I said this, of course, I turned beet-red and buried my face back in my textbook. We were silent for a while after that. You could hear the clock ticking above his desk, and a lone custodian
rummaging through the hall trash.
When I looked up again, after what felt like minutes and minutes, Mr. Mahoney was staring at me.
“What is it? Do I have something on my face?”
“You have nothing on your face, Joanna,” he told me. Then he stood up. “Lucky thing, too. Your face—it's Botticelli-esque. Has anyone ever told you that? So symmetrical. 'Empirically beautiful,' as they say.” He made a drowsy gesture with his hand, then began walking towards me. By this point, my heart was leaping up and down, fast as a frightened guinea pig's. I was sure he could hear the pounding across the small span of his office. Also like a frightened guinea pig, I remained stock still as he approached me, his movements loping and slow as a big cat. I swallowed, hard.
It should be noted that Mr. Mahoney has this great walk. He's like a model. There's a way that he moves through space that makes it seem like he's always at an acute angle with the floor, like he's always just about to fall. I was watching this saunter, full of admiration, when I noted with shock that my career counselor had a sharp tent in the front of his slacks. And he wasn't trying to hide it or anything.
Eric caught my wide-eyed gape, and then he started to laugh. I met his ice-blue eyes again and got dizzy. My philosophy book slid off the arm of the chair, and I made as if to grab it—but by then he was standing right in front of me. By then I was just about eye-level with the bulge in his pants.
“I know you want to,” my guidance counselor said, confident. That was the amazing thing—how (pardon the pun) cocky he was, just baring his erection in front of me. He inched his hips just the slightest bit closer to my face, then he looked down at me with a challenge in his eyes. Reading something in my expression, Mr. Mahoney reached down and took one of my hands in his. His grip was warm. His fingernails were perfect half-moons—clean and smooth. He handled my fingers for a moment, rubbing them the way you do when someone's cold. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he took my open palm and pressed it against his rigid crotch. When his hand was fully flexed across mine, applying just the teensiest bit of pressure, I regarded his wedding band. It looked so burnished in the aluminum light. Un-powerful.
“Don't be afraid,” he said. “I'll show you what to do.” He started to knead the back of my hand, and I became more aware of the shape in his pants—Mahoney's got a strong rod, and it was full by then, already pulsing with desire. Band geek that I was, I'd never come into such close contact with a man's penis before. In fact, up to that point, I'd never even been kissed before. But I was familiar with lust. I felt it at the height of violin solos, and I kinda felt it when I got an A on a paper, or answered a problem exactly right. I felt it always, looking into the hard, glittering pin-pricks of my his eyes.
And from that same odd well of inner-bravery, I pulled something new. The sounds in the hallway had fully died down by then; the janitors had sailed off into the night. So it was a hot evening in May, and my high school was empty, and after a few seconds of my watching how my hand affected him (his eyes rolled up into his head, and he began to press against my touch. His knees bent, and his cock flexed below the fabric), I pinched the zipper of Mr. Mahoney's pants. Sweating with anxiety, I unbuttoned him first. Then, I unzipped him, and eased his manhood out of his pants. I encircled him with my palm, and started to move my fist slowly up and down his shaft. He looked down at me with the most amazed, joyful look on his face. Like a kid on Christmas.
It's funny to recall now what was so surprising about the first time I saw a man's dick, up close and personal like that. I remember being fascinated by the little pearl of pre-cum rising out of his tip. Or the pleasing little indentation, where he'd been circumcised. I was surprised by the smooth, vulnerable look of his full scrotum—and I was more surprised by my urge to kiss this part of him. His member was on the thin side, but it was long; it passed his navel once freed from pants. Holding him in my hand, I was briefly floored by the power. I was literally cupping a man, in my palm. And the man was my guidance counselor...
The rest, as they say, is history—i.e., I spent the whole summer lying to my parents (for the first time ever, basically) about alleged SAT prep tutorials I was teaching for summer school students, when in reality I was meeting Mr. Mahoney—who now insisted I call him 'Eric'—for secret sex sessions in his office. He's a gentle lover. You can tell he's a guidance counselor, actually, from the way he does it. He's very respectful, always asking how it feels, if he can touch me there. We go slow. He holds me like I'm breakable –even when he's hovering inside me, seconds after he's come. Even when I'm buck naked, splayed out across his desk. I guess this is a little ironic, given what certain social psychologists might say about the power dynamics of our relationship, but I like always feeling in control. I like the safety, in that. And of course I also like the intrigue of doing it on school grounds. It's sexy, how we could always maybe get caught.
Someone coughs beside me, and just like that I'm jarred back into Krenshaw's torture chamber of doom. I eye the industrial clock, perched above the lintel: forty whole minutes to go. Just a few doors down this very hallway, Eric Mahoney is ensconced in his office. He's probably coaching some antsy new freshman boy, or even calming some other poor kid on the Ivy League track. He might be speaking from his typical counselor's script, murmuring helpful things like Just keep calm, and we'll get through this together. I wonder if he says things like this to his wife.
I know I ought to feel worse, imagining him in the role of the perfect, helpful husband—but in fact, Eric's wife's face is one picture that evades my imagination. So what if he's twenty years my senior, and married, and my guidance counselor. I scrawl, along the margins of my English notebook. What Eric and I share transcends the world outside of us. We have an unspoken understanding, about our future. One day, when the stars align, I bet we'll find our happily ever after. In the meantime, I'm too busy for a full-time relationship anyway with college applications, working on the newpaper, orchestra, and everything in between.
Plus, I can't deny that it feels good to have one bad girl secret. I've been so good all my life. I don't go to parties. I don't really drink. I sit around listening to opera in my spare time, for god's sake. And even though the epic feeling in amazing music sometimes makes me think that I'm destined for an incredible life, full of adventure and unpredictable joys—well, hey, I realize I've made my bed, and it happens to be on the floor of the guidance counselor's office. And don't get me wrong. I love Eric, and I love studying, and I'm totally happy with all of my decisions. I'm cool with being the brainy girl who's got a single dark secret. Like a lady out of Jane Austen, or Edith Wharton...
Out of nowhere, a crisp bell starts to rattle and echo around the English room, jolting those of us daydreaming at our desks back to an uncomfortable reality. Claudia flashes another grin at me, and wiggles her eyebrows in the direction of the fire drill. Literally saved by the bell. How do you like that?
“Form an orderly line,” whimpers Krenshaw, her eyes widening at this slight break in routine. “Be considerate to one another.” Standing to gather my things, I chew on the inside of my lip. For whatever reason, her advice is easier said than done.
* * *
At dinner, my beaming parents inform me (over an ominously grey-colored “quinoa surprise...”) that they've got “big news” to share. My Dad sits down heavily at the head of our creaky old table, then looks at me and mom like he's a benevolent Santa—the eyes twinkle and all.
“Joanna Marie Prine,” he begins, taking his sweet time: “Last night, I pulled the winning ticket at the bodega.” With a flourish, Dad removes a lottery ticket from a pocket in his vest, and places this on the table. “Thirty thousand dollars. And boy, have your mother and I got big plans for this money.”
A little bit of a background story on my parents: they're these totally granola, wonderfully loving academics. My Dad (Earl) teaches history at the University of Maryland, and my Mom (Janice) teaches physics at Johns Hopkins. They met doing something too boring to even reme
mber. I grew up as the anointed only child in a house that prided itself on “not having a T.V.” Lots of quinoa, lots of books, and lots of tedious Thanksgivings full of dull professors. I love the pair of them to the end of the earth and back, but I hope to God that I'm not like them when I grow up. For one thing, I can't imagine these two being teenagers, which is to say—having fun, or having sex. My Dad's big grey beard, bobbing up and down—gak, anyways.
“Dad, that's so fantastic!” I cry, jumping up to hug the geyser. “So, what's the plan? College fund? New addition on the house?” Maybe buy your dutiful, fantastic daughter a Stradivarius violin? Or a car? Hell, I'd settle for a car.
“Actually, we were thinking of something a bit more altruistic,” Dad says. “Your mother and I have been mulling this over for a while, and we've decided to use this money to furnish the room above the garage. So we can host, drum roll please: a foster child!”
“There are so many troubled children in the inner-city who need stable homes,” Mom continues. “And you've never gotten to have a sibling! Don't you think this could be a wonderful experience? Playing big sister to someone?” Her eyes glow through her big bifocals. These two don't get excited about a lot of stuff that isn't first published in The Atlantic, so I know to take their faces seriously. It appears that I am finally getting a sibling.
At seven-frigging-teen.
“Well here's the thing, Janice,” my Dad interjects, simultaneously attempting to wiggle a bit of casserole out of his big, grey beard. “A lot of the kids in foster care who really need attention are a little older. So Jo, we might be talking about someone closer to your age. How does that sound?”
A Family Affair: My Bad Boy Foster Brother Page 1
