by Mary Stone
As I neared the next corner, a black and white patrol car cruised by, slower than the surrounding traffic. A shiver raced over my skin. Had they discovered the body so soon, and if so, were they searching for me?
Not that they’d find me. The average police officer’s intelligence didn’t come close to mine. A few cities even put a cap on the maximum IQ an aspiring cop was allowed to have to join the force, and the courts had upheld that decision. I supposed it made sense in an odd sort of way. Higher IQs led to independent thinking, which led to questioning authority. Like the military, the success of law enforcement relied in large part on group think.
That was one of the reasons why Ellie Kline had been such a breath of fresh air.
My hands curled into fists. Until she’d thwarted me, like all the rest.
Ahead, the patrol car stopped at the red light, so I turned down a side street and headed for the bustling open-air market one block over. Just because most officers couldn’t begin to match wits with me didn’t mean I should make their job easy for them. Within minutes, I’d merged with the crowd milling through the stalls, turning myself into just another shopper on a chilly winter night.
I feigned interest in a jewelry vendor’s gaudy silver and turquoise wares before moving along to the next booth.
“But I don’t want to shop anymore. I’m tired! I want to go home!”
A young boy, from the high-pitched voice.
Another youthful male voice piped up. “Me too! I’m bored. I wanna go home and play Minecraft!”
“Stop whining! This is the first time I’ve left the house at night in over a month. You two will survive if we stay another twenty minutes!”
I craned my head until I spotted the thin woman with her hands on her hips. She stood by a booth that advertised handcrafted bags and purses, glaring into the tear-streaked faces of two elementary-school-aged children. Based on their almost identical heights, the kids were no more than a year apart in age.
The temptation to scold the young mother that perhaps her children would be better behaved if she didn’t take them out shopping past their bedtimes was near unbearable, but sadly, I couldn’t risk the unwanted attention such a scene might generate.
Almost like she had a sixth sense, the woman glanced up and narrowed her eyes at me, as if warning me to mind my own business.
One of the boys started to cry while the other one sniffled. The whining reminded me of another boy I’d known many long years ago…
I stood with my head bowed in the headmaster’s office while his wife, Letitia Wiggins, prowled around me in a tight circle. I could practically feel the anger radiating off her, even though when I chanced a quick glimpse of her face, her expression gave little away. Another student would have been too distracted by the mounds of fiery red hair and those lush lips to notice the tiny signs of her rage, but not me.
Not when I knew her better than anyone.
A sniffle drew my attention toward the two boys standing shoulder to shoulder before the headmistress. Both of them were much younger than me. Only year-six students, while I was in year ten. The snot-nosed one’s shoulders trembled like he was one sniffle away from sobbing, unlike the sandy-haired boy next to him, who curled his fingers into fists and glared holes into the headmaster’s wife.
“Well, Mr. Kingsley? What do you suggest we do with these rule breakers? We can’t allow fighting to go unpunished, wouldn’t you agree?”
I did, although they hadn’t been fighting, not really. Along with most of the school, I’d witnessed the so-called battle in the cafeteria. The tough kid had been picking on the wimpy one by grabbing the milk and apple off his tray, the same way he did every day. The wimpy one’s whine had been the same as usual too. More of an annoyance than anything.
I licked my lips and searched for a clue in the beautiful face that, even after all the terrible things I’d watched her do, still made it difficult to breathe. Her green-gold eyes glowed with that unholy light that told me something exciting was in store.
“Why don’t you suggest the punishment this time, Mr. Kingsley? After all, you are the one who reported the incident.”
The blood soared through my veins, injecting me with a sense of power that went straight to my head. This was it, my chance to make her proud.
I threw back my shoulders and fixed the two boys with my meanest glare.
“Let’s start with you.” I nodded at the quivering boy who went by the name of Reggie. “Tell us what happened.”
“I…” Reggie peeked at the bigger boy and hunched his shoulders like he was attempting to disappear. “He…uh…he took my milk.” The last part was mumbled to the floor.
Pitiful. So pitiful that sympathy flickered to life inside me. I slid my gaze to the headmistress to gauge her reaction, flinching when I spotted the curled upper lip and narrowed eyes.
Shame spread like oil through my veins. Here she was, handing me an opportunity to prove my strength, but instead of rising to the occasion, I’d almost blown it. The headmistress loathed weakness. I’d spent enough time around her to realize that. In her eyes, if I defended a wimpy boy who allowed himself to get picked on, then I’d be guilty by association, and she’d be right.
I turned back to Reggie with a hardened heart and a sneer. “How is anyone supposed to take you seriously when you speak like that? Stand up straight!”
Reggie’s pale face turned even more ashen, but he obeyed. His shoulders snapped back, and his head jerked up. Controlling him was so easy, like pressing a button on a doll to make her talk. Beside me, Headmistress Letitia purred her approval, and my chest puffed with pride.
Skin flushed with renewed confidence, I advanced a step closer. “Now, tell us again what happened without muttering like a mouse. Enunciate.”
Reggie’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and cleared his throat. “I said that he took my milk.” His shoulders still trembled, but he spoke with more volume this time, his voice high-pitched and clear.
Her chin lifted. “Took my milk…what?”
The Adam’s apple bobbed again. “He took my milk, Headmistress.”
That was what she wanted everyone to call her, even though she was really only the headmaster’s wife. I didn’t care.
“Much better.” I shifted my attention to the bigger boy a few feet away, who was pretending to be bored. Sean. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”
Sean met my eyes with a defiant glare and shrugged. “I was thirsty for milk, and I didn’t have any, so I took his, um, Headmistress.”
Pleased at how quickly I’d gotten to the bottom of the incident, I turned to Headmistress Letitia to discuss the punishment I’d decided upon. Before I could make the suggestion, though, she leaned in and murmured in my ear. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you that Mr. Tanner didn’t fight back?”
“Uh…”
My first instinct was to say no. Not really. Even at my age, I understood that the world was full of Reggies, and they never fought back. But I worried that the headmistress would be displeased if I disagreed with her. Plus, I was struggling to focus.
Up close, the musky-sweet perfume she wore was even more distracting, leading my thoughts down forbidden paths. For a dizzying instant, I breathed in her scent and toyed with the possibility that the headmaster’s wife realized the effect she had on me, or better yet, felt the same about me.
“‘Uh’ is not a complete sentence, Mr. Kingsley. You disappoint me. Would you care to try again?”
As she retreated and space opened up between us, I gouged my nails into my palms until the pain snapped me back to my senses. Idiot. If I wanted to impress Headmistress Letitia, I had to prove myself better than the rest of the horny teenagers who walked the academy halls. Superior. Uncommon. Strong. “Yes, Headmistress.”
It was the correct answer because she edged closer again. “Don’t you think we should ask a few more questions and find out what made them play out these particular roles?”
I whipped my head
up and down, eager to show my agreement and climb back into her good graces. “Yes! Exactly. I’m sorry, I should have thought of that right away.”
She skimmed my jaw with a fingernail and smiled with so much warmth that I desperately wished for a pause button so I could live in the moment forever. “That’s why I’m here, to give you the training you need to succeed in life.”
I drank in her validation the way the lacrosse team guzzled stolen beers and probably felt every bit as inebriated.
“Go on, then.”
The headmistress gave me a playful little nudge. Cheeks burning from her attention, I began pacing in front of Reggie, more to snap my brain out of its Letitia-induced haze than anything else. “When Mr. Foster stole your milk, how did that make you feel?”
Reggie licked his lips, his little mouse eyes darting between the headmistress and me as if he might find the correct answer written across one of our faces. “Bad?” He offered the word in a tentative voice, but when neither of us reacted, he found the courage to elaborate. “I like milk.”
A heartbeat passed. Then five. Enough time to allow Reggie’s forehead to bead with sweat. I’d absorbed enough of the headmistress’s tactics to learn that playing with the mouse was half the fun. “If that’s true, then why didn’t you fight back when he stole it?”
The boy froze. Less a mouse and more like a deer in the headlights. “I…because fighting isn’t allowed.”
I double-checked Headmistress Letitia’s reaction. Her lips turned down, and I agreed. Rules were for wimps. For the dimwitted boys and those without an original thought in their heads. “I understand that, but Sean took something that belonged to you. He stole from you. Don’t you think that’s grounds for defending yourself?”
“I…” Reggie’s freckles stood out in his face like splatters of brown paint on a white page. “My dad gets really mad whenever I break a rule. I’d rather lose my milk every day for the rest of my life than make my dad angry. We’re not…he’s not going to hear about this, is he?”
His legs started trembling again, but I ignored him and pivoted toward the sullen boy beside him. “What about you, Mr. Foster? Is there something in particular about Mr. Tanner that makes you want to bully him?”
Sean Foster jerked his chin at Reggie’s shivering body and sneered. “Yeah. Look at him. He’s a wuss. My stepdad would beat me with the belt if I walked around like him all day, scared of my own shadow. You don’t stand up for yourself, then you deserve to get beat down, that’s what he says.”
The larger boy pushed out his chest, and his chin lifted defiantly.
The headmistress made an excited noise in her throat and clasped her hands together. “Wonderful. Now we’re really getting to the heart of the issue.” When she addressed Sean, her voice was husky and encouraging. “Mr. Foster, why don’t you show us how you stand up for yourself?”
Sean blinked up at her. “Headmistress?”
She nodded. “That’s right. I’d like you to hit Mr. Tanner.”
The room filled with silence. Electricity raced along my nerves as I waited for the boys to react, but neither one of them moved. Not even Sean, who’d just been granted a get-out-of-jail-free card to take a swing at Reggie.
She sighed. “Please, don’t be shy. Did you know that, inside every little boy, there’s a beast just waiting to be released from its cage? Even the smart boys have one. Even the sad ones. Even the scared ones.”
Letitia strolled forward and began to circle the two boys. Their bodies tensed, but neither of them dared to turn to follow her path as she walked behind them, her left hand extended so that her fingers could graze their backs.
The room temperature shot up. Conscious of the sweat staining my shirt, I tugged at my collar and lifted my arms away from my sides when she wasn’t looking.
“Once upon a time, all men were beasts and magnificent in their unabridged, natural beauty. Sadly, as societal structures evolved, we began imposing rules and laws on our people, forcing the beast into hiding.” Her voice was like honey and warm milk, seductive in its smoothness. “They only hibernated, though, never disappeared. A good thing, if you ask me.”
She prowled in front of the two boys, who both held so still, I wondered if they remembered to breathe. “We need our inner beasts, sometimes. During wars, for example. Or if we’re being attacked at knifepoint. The problem is, when we keep our beasts locked up for too long, they slowly starve to death, the same way our bodies would. We need to nourish them whenever possible, lest our beasts wither away and die.”
As she weaved her seductive story in that perfect voice, I stood rooted to the office floor, transfixed. I’d learned about sirens in our Greek mythology studies, and it wouldn’t have surprised me one bit to learn that the headmaster’s wife was a descendent of those seductive beauties.
“If the beast languishes from lack of nourishment, boys will become meek and frail, which is an abomination against God and nature. Men were crafted to be strong.” The headmistress trailed her fingers along Reggie’s shoulder, making my gut twist with jealousy.
“Powerful.” She sidled up to Sean next, allowing her fingers to linger a bit longer.
Jealousy raised its ugly head, and my fingers twitched as I pictured grabbing a steak knife from the cafeteria during dinnertime and stabbing the boy at that same spot.
The rage eased when she drifted back to my side to finish the story. “From the dawn of mankind, women’s power has resided in their ability to procreate and perpetuate the human species by bearing children, so it makes sense that they would be the gentler of the two sexes. Whereas men’s power resides in their ability to serve as providers for their mate and children. Protectors too. To become a true man, you must be able to overcome the people around you and take what you desire. And to accomplish that goal, you must make sure to feed your beast.”
Her words were like arrows, piercing my skin and shooting straight into my soul. The truth in them resonated on the deepest, most primal level, in a way that nothing had ever come close to resonating before. I’d experienced so much guilt and shame over the years, from giving in to my inner beast. Now this beautiful, cunning, vibrant woman was telling me that there was nothing wrong with me. That the actions others regarded with disgust were actually signs of strength.
I was tempted to kiss her feet. I might have, if we’d been alone and she hadn’t raised a pale, delicate hand toward Sean.
“Do you understand now? If you don’t learn to be strong, you will always suffer.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sean’s hands curled into fists, and Headmistress Letitia smiled her pleasure. “That’s it,” she breathed. “Release your beast. You know you want to.”
Sean’s chest lifted and lowered, which was his sole warning before he whirled to Reggie and struck. His fist sank into the other boy’s gut, hard enough to make Reggie wheeze and wince, but not to knock him off his feet or inflict any real damage.
Headmistress Letitia’s tiny frown conveyed her opinion.
Not nearly enough beast.
Skin buzzing, I raced over to the desk, pulled open the drawer, and with shaky hands, withdrew the strap stored there. After a loving stroke of the silky leather tassels, I hurried to Sean and offered him the headmistress’s favorite weapon.
Sean stared at the tawse cradled in my hand but made no move to accept it.
I sidled closer, crowding the younger boy. “You can either take this and use it on Mr. Tanner, or I’ll use it on you. The choice is yours.”
My warning did the trick. Wide-eyed, Sean flinched but reached for the tawse.
I chanced a peek at Headmistress Letitia, who gifted me a luminous smile, her eyes gleaming their approval. Heat mixed with the buzzing sensation in my cells, turning my body into a lit firework, a match strike away from exploding.
“You don’t have to use that. Please!” Reggie cowered from Sean as the larger boy approached him with purposeful steps and the tawse clenched tight in his hand.
The leather whistled and landed with a loud slap across his shoulder. Reggie squealed and jerked away.
“Again, and harder this time.” Headmistress Letitia pressed her hands together, and air hissed in and out of her ripe lips. Until then, Reggie’s mouse-like squeaks had disgusted me, but the headmistress’s excitement triggered my own. Blood pulsed in my ears, and there was a new tightness in my groin. “Remember, if you don’t show strength, you will end up broken. If you don’t take power, you will end up suffering. Do you really want to suffer?”
She uttered the words with conviction, but her glittering eyes seared right into Reggie’s.
The truth took another moment to sink in. Not Sean. Reggie.
Stunned, I performed a mental rewind of her speech. It checked out. Her talk of taking power and channeling inner beasts had never been meant for Sean, but Reggie.
I could have kicked myself because, of course! In retrospect, this made perfect sense. A bully like Sean already knew how to access his power. Meek, mousy little Reggie was the one who needed the wake-up call.
The strap whistled again, and the resulting slap cracked like thunder. Reggie screamed, but Sean didn’t stop, not now that the seal was broken. Lips bared from his teeth like a wild animal, he lashed out again and again, striking the other boy across the back, shoulders, neck. He struck everywhere he could reach while Reggie did his best to curl his body into the smallest possible target, covering his head with his hands.
“Good.” Headmistress Letitia clapped her hands. “Again. Let your beast out or suffer the consequences!”
Sweat beaded on Sean’s forehead, but he kept swinging. The strap hit Reggie one, two, three times more.
Blood running hot, I curled my hands into my thighs to curb the urge to yank the tawse away from Sean’s hand and take over. Beside me, the headmistress’s breathing quickened too.
“Soon,” she whispered. Only loud enough for my ears. “Very soon.”
After the fourth strike, a scream ripped from the smaller boy’s throat. It was so full of pain and explosive rage that the sound reverberated off the walls like a jungle cat’s roar. Reggie whirled and launched himself at Sean, headbutting the larger boy in the chest. As Sean staggered backward, Reggie charged again, pummeling Sean’s chest and gut with his fists.
