“Yes, ma’am,” they answered in unison, grabbing their bags and jogging just beyond the buses before slowing to a walk. I turned to find Trevor still there waiting a few feet behind me, his black T-shirt and jean shorts making him sweat profusely in the sunlight.
“Jerks,” Trevor said, trying to give me a knowing smile. I squinted, reconsidering everything about him. His cheeks were rosy with heat, his hair almost entirely dampened. I’d gotten myself worked up in the hopes of a three-way wrestling match that hadn’t developed—was it so improbable that the universe was now giving me Trevor as a consolation prize? He was surely too hot in those clothes; shedding them would feel divine.
But I reminded myself of all the ways he was likely dangerous—I tried to imagine that the glossy sweat covering his body was actually venom. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Trevor.” I gave him a perfunctory smile, then turned and started walking toward the parking lot, but my voice wasn’t entirely dismissive. I suppose I wanted to see if he’d follow me to my car, and was pleased when he did indeed bound along up beside me.
“I saw this TV program … I mean it was on TV but it really happened in real life … these kids were forbidden by the girl’s parents to see each other, so she and her boyfriend killed her mom and dad.” Trevor nearly whispered this, trying to infuse the story with the excitement of a secret.
“Attraction creates powerful feelings,” I mumbled. “It overrules intellect.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I guess that’s, like, the point of the play, right?”
“You could argue that’s one of the themes.” When we reached the yellow line marking the edge of the faculty parking lot, I spotted AP Rosen moving alongside the string of buses with his walkie-talkie. I couldn’t lead Trevor to my car in front of other faculty members, no matter how badly I wanted to see what might happen if I did. He was like a puppy dog that needed an invisible fence, and I had to train him that this was the edge of his yard.
“Last question.” He smiled. “Is Romeo and Juliet your favorite Shakespeare play?”
I laughed far louder than I meant to. When I glanced up to see if any of the leaving faculty were staring over at Trevor and me, no one seemed to be looking. “No. My favorite’s Hamlet. It’s the most realistic.”
His hand shooed away a buzzing insect that had come to inspect the salt and oil pouring off his face. If we were alone, I might have offered to wipe down his sweat with my hair. From certain angles Trevor was indeed very cute, but I had to resist him—he was low-hanging fruit. With a dull roar, the buses began rolling by and my eyes followed them like I was watching a shell game at a carnival: all of them looked identical, but one had a prize inside. Which bus was Jack’s?
“Doesn’t Hamlet start out with a ghost? How is it the most realistic?” Trevor wouldn’t shut up. I badly wanted to reach out and place a finger against his lips just to see what he’d do—would he simply quit talking? Or would his lips then part just a little, letting my finger slide between his teeth and move across his tongue?
“Because everyone acts disingenuous,” I said. “And then they all die.” Trevor continued talking even though the tandem sounds of bus engines drowned out his words. My eyes switched back and forth between his mouth and the hovering exhaust smoke from each bus. The haze was gathering together to create a singular black cloud that I hoped Jack might appear from like in a magic trick.
I had to admit that Trevor was all wrong for my purposes. But the roar and the stink of the passing buses made me feel like Trevor and I had been placed inside a dangerous war zone together and needed one another to survive—I was impressed by the way his lips managed to look pristine, like inner meat, despite the smog filling in around us. I could feel the growing wetness between my thighs in the wind. The way Trevor was looking at me now, his wry smile, made it seem like he was reading my mind. Perhaps we were sending one another chemical signals. His growing body surely smelled upon me the dank catalyst of experience that could take him from theory to practice.
“Good-bye, Trevor,” I whispered. I could feel the start of tears stinging my chest; it was hard to turn down such certain pleasure. How easy it would be to stand and chat with him just a bit longer until the parking lot emptied out, then offer him a ride. He’d sit a bit awkwardly in the car at first, his legs bent up too far as he tried to avoid touching the tender skin behind his knee against the seat’s hot leather. After two blocks, we’d be on one of the main roads leaving town; after ten minutes we’d be outside of town completely, surrounded by the undeveloped grass expanse of land fenced off for future suburbs. Then I would turn down the radio and tell him to pull off his shorts, stressing that I was serious. At the first rural stop sign we came to, I’d instruct him to say my name when he saw a car coming from any direction. Then I would turn the radio back up and bend over into his lap, filling my mouth with him until I felt his tentative fingers brush my head, heard his voice say, Mrs. Price—quietly at first, a conflicted admission, and then again more loudly with panic, Mrs. Price, I see a car.
“Mrs. Price?” Trevor had his cell phone out; he was trying to show me something on the screen I couldn’t see in the bright glare of the day. I pretended he was trying to show me a photo he’d taken of his penis held up against the length of a ruler and gave him a smile filled with gratitude.
“Till tomorrow, Trevor.” I turned toward my car and didn’t look back. The rage of lust was like an IV drip in my veins; I felt it beginning to spread inside me with the helpless awareness of someone realizing she’s been slipped a drug. I tried to gain some release by pounding my heels into the asphalt as hard as I could. I felt like I might rip my car’s metal door off its hinges if I wasn’t careful. Inside, I lifted my hair up into a quick bun and let the seat burn at the back of my neck. With a shaking hand, I reached up to the rearview mirror and turned it to face me directly. “You will go home and snort a small amount of the cocaine you keep in the Altoids tin in your pajama drawer. You will robotically fuck your husband until your box feels like a gaping wound. You will be so aggressive that he will be frightened, and his fear will keep you from being completely repulsed by him. You will get this bothersome spark out of your system for long enough to buy you a little more time with Jack. Jack needs to know you before he can trust you. Jack needs to trust you before you can trust him. You need to trust him before you can fuck him. The end.”
“Hey, hey, Celeste!”
I jumped in my seat; Janet’s pork-chop fist was suddenly raining down on my window in a repeated knock. Had she heard any of what I’d just said? I quickly turned on the car and rolled down the window. She leaned her head inside until her long tapestry of neck was guillotined below from the windowpane. Taking a few congested mouth breaths, her eyes began to rove in an exploratory survey of my car’s interior. “This thing is in mint condition,” she warbled. When placed into direct sunlight, I’d noticed, Janet’s major systems began to shut down almost immediately. Her mouth now involuntarily hung a bit open. From her vitals it seemed like she’d just been shot in the back.
“So I don’t know, my van won’t start. I guess I should’ve seen this coming. They say bad things happen in threes.”
Rather than ask about the universe’s other two injustices against her (her looks and personality?), I decided to cut to the chase. “What do you need, Janet?”
“Triple A will spend upward of an hour just trying to pull their heads out of their asses. Can you give me a ride? I’ll call from home and have it towed. From my air-conditioned living room. I can’t even think about it until I get into the air-conditioning.” Our faces were so close they were almost touching, yet she managed to look past me instead of making eye contact. Did she have cataracts? I was in awe of her as a creature in sum; every one of her parts had its own individual defect, yet here she was, a basically functioning unit.
“Sure, just get in.” I reached over and gingerly unzipped my gym bag, trying to worm out the towel without the dildo springing out too. “Let me put th
is down so the seat doesn’t burn you.”
I felt the car ominously lower as she transferred her weight inside. Her abdominal bumpers extended out against the gearshift. When we began to drive, each time I went into third, my hand disappeared into the borders of her stomach. “Excuse me,” I mumbled. Janet shrugged.
“I can’t even feel that side of my body,” she said.
*
Although Ford’s affinity for gender roles meant he hated women smoking (“Nothing’s more masculine than puffing smoke. That’s the business of men and tailpipes”), after sex he’d consent to just about anything, and if Ford had touched me for any length of time I usually needed a good half a pack to calm down.
He gave me a cheerful spank, followed by a satisfied wink. When I noticed the ring he’d left on, I crammed a second cigarette in my mouth and began smoking two at once. There had been a time in college when I’d told myself, as a cardinal rule, that I’d never have sex with any guy who was wearing a man ring. Ford had plenty—high school, college, fraternity, police academy, gemstone. It was a purely adult form of male sleaze and I abhorred it. “Babe, I know I give you shit sometimes for not giving it up more,” he announced. “But when you do, goddamn.”
“See,” I said, my face expressionless. I felt like I’d sufficiently beaten him up and gotten beaten. I’d managed to choke out, just for a few hours, the angry desire inside. “When I say ‘no’ I’m just protecting you. You need time in between to recover.” I blew a long puff up at the light on the bedroom ceiling, remembering the weightless shine of Trevor’s lips. I’d have to start being crueler, less encouraging to Trevor. I couldn’t let him tempt me that way again. Today in the parking lot, I’d gotten the feeling that he was pursuing me. And if he could pursue, he could tattle. He could barter and leverage and blackmail. Some student chasing me down wasn’t what I was after. What I needed, what I desperately hoped to find in Jack, was a student whom I could wear down. One who, even if he initially felt like running, would gradually slow his pace and let me catch him.
chapter four
By the time fall open house arrived at the end of September, I felt like I had a legitimate virus. Every erogenous spot on my body was inflamed and aching. Between classes I often went to the faculty bathroom and stood, one knee resting on the toilet seat, to dully finger the already sore heat between my legs. Romeo and Juliet provided an outlet to talk about sex in the classroom, and I often sat behind my desk and pressed the swollen nest of my genitals against the chair with a friction that nearly made me moan. Most of the kids, drunk on the freedom of speaking about the subject aloud with openness, were eager to discuss. Marissa, for example, was certainly a vocal ringleader. Her teeth stained in ombré shades of red from a fruit punch drink, whenever she thought of something to say she’d boost herself up in her chair, sitting on one leg, her arm waving with the desperation of a plane crash survivor hailing a rescue chopper.
“I think, like, if they’d never … you know …. done it …” She paused, smiling with glee as the class erupted into giggles. Marissa was an instigator, pushy. If Jack ever became her target, I recognized her as the type who might relentlessly pursue.
“Had sex, you mean,” I added. More giggles.
“Right. I think if they’d never had sex, they wouldn’t have killed themselves and stuff. I saw this video about how sex can, like, release stuff from your brain and make you crazy.”
“Interesting.” I surveyed the room; most students were now taking the conversation to its less-appropriate further conclusion in whispers to friends. “What do people think? Does sex make you crazy?”
A variety of jocks eager to imply they had firsthand experience spoke up. “No doubt,” Danny’s low voice boomed from the back of the classroom. His meaty face had drawn upward into a not-so-subtle grin.
“I dunno,” another football player said. I confess I didn’t trouble myself with learning their names or distinguishing one from another. Physically, they were far too developed to be appealing—their growth spurts were finished, their muscles already wrought into the structured mold of the finished male form. “I think not having sex is what makes you crazy.” Shrieks of faux disbelief sounded through the classroom; when the bell rang moments later, it seemed like an alarm set off by the high-pitched screams.
Jack’s face was flushed when he walked by me toward the door, his eyes trained shyly down at his shoes. I stood and said his name very softly—so quietly that he easily could’ve failed to hear me, or could have pretended not to hear. But he turned. I beckoned him over as the class emptied, staring warmly into his eyes but not speaking until the door shut for the final time and we were alone.
I continued to speak in hushed tones, enunciating, exaggerating each movement of my lips as I spoke. “You’re very quiet in class, Jack Patrick.” I gave him a wide smile to show it wasn’t a criticism.
He scratched the back of his neck and grinned while his face blushed to a deeper red. Perhaps he continued looking at the ground because the heat in his cheeks embarrassed him. Reaching out, I placed my pointer finger upon the tiny cleft at the bottom of his chin and raised his head upright until he was looking directly at me. In heels I was taller than him; the top of his blondish hair was level with my mouth. “There,” I whispered, barely speaking, trying to simply exhale the words. “That’s better, isn’t it. So tell me, Jack, since you don’t speak up in class and leave me guessing at the thoughts inside that head of yours. What do you think makes someone crazier—having sex? Or not having it?”
His eyes widened; it seemed to take a moment for his brain to confirm I’d really asked him that question. He laughed and lowered his head a little, shaking it nervously.
“Ah-ah,” I cooed, this time using all my fingers to cup his chin in my hand and guide it back upward. His fuzzy cheeks had a downy softness. If I squeezed, I would be able to lift apart his top and bottom jaw, open his mouth and lower mine down to meet his. “Here,” I offered, “I’ll hold your head up so you don’t have to worry about eye contact.” Staring at him, Jack returning the stare as the pulse of his throat began to strike against my finger, I felt as though someone were licking my inner thigh.
“I … um,” he started. When he swallowed, his throat strained against the gentle pressure of my fingertips.
“I know you have an opinion,” I teased, my words silken. “Everybody does.”
He cleared his throat and sent vibrations up my wrist. “I just wouldn’t know about the having-sex part,” he said. Then, with an afterthought that nearly made me move my hands to his neck and force him against the wall, he added a foreshadowing phrase. “I mean,” he added quietly, now speaking even more quietly than me, “not yet.”
I let out a long breath; it was involuntary. Nearly a whimper. Worried he’d seen too much in my reaction, my hand slipped from his jaw and I took a step back. “Of course.” I nodded. There was a long beat of silence. “But the not having sex, just between you and me—I’m curious. Does it make you crazy? I forget what it’s like to be your age. You’re fourteen, right?”
“Yeah.” On his brow I noticed the beginning of the slightest glimmer of sweat.
“Juliet was going on fourteen. You can tell me, I won’t judge you. Does it make you crazy?”
Perhaps fearing my guiding hand again, he did his best to continue looking me in the eye; ultimately, though, he couldn’t do it. His glance wandered to the left. “I guess it feels that way sometimes,” he said. “When I let my mind run with it and stuff.”
My composure regained, I stepped forward, closer now than even before, touching my face against the side of his head as my lips found his ear. “And when you do let your mind run, Jack Patrick,” I whispered, asking him in secret so that not even the walls of the room could overhear his answer, “when your mind is running as fast as it can … do you ever feel like if you don’t get relief you could physically die?”
Placing my hands on his shoulders, I lowered my head and moved my ear against
the warmth of his mouth, awaiting a response. For several moments I could hear nothing but labored breathing that sounded like an answer in itself.
“I don’t know,” he said, his breath hot upon my hair. When he stopped talking, I pulled more tightly on his shoulders, drawing his mouth so that it actually pressed against my ear. “It can feel intense,” he admitted.
Just as my right hand began to move from his shoulder down his left arm, the tardy bell for lunch rang; in the silence of the classroom after our whispered voices, it sounded so loud as to seem internal. We jumped in unison. It felt as though the noise had just caught us there, standing too close. He looked up at me, worried—late to lunch meant a write-up, three write-ups meant in-school suspension. I gave his shoulder a final squeeze, then quickly moved toward my desk as though nothing had happened.
“Don’t worry,” I said, my voice back at normal volume, “I’ll write you a pass. I appreciate you staying and sharing your point of view with me.” He was silent as I wrote, but I could feel him looking at my body in a revised manner, his assumed boundaries having just been proven wrong. “Do you already have any write-ups?”
He shook his head. When I handed him the pass I felt an enjoyable sense of commerce, like I was giving him a check for his services. “Good boy.” I smiled.
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