Daring Young Man

by Ellwood, Leigh

  She felt her heart skip, but swallowed back the unsettling feelings so as not to worry her class. She hoped this wasn't about a student's illness or death; there were two absences in her class today.

  "Certainly, Mr. Yost," she said, then turned to the redhead in the front row of desks. "Nellie, why don't you continue reading aloud through page forty-two, then Darryl will take the next page, and on down the row. I'll be right back."

  As Lauren approached the hall, however, she noticed a thin figure wavering behind the portly principal. She recognized the waifish Emily Steele, a regular substitute teacher at Dareville Primary Academy.

  "What's going on?" she asked, flustered, as Emily brushed past her with an apologetic smile into the classroom. Emily took her place behind Lauren's desk, and when Lauren moved back inside the classroom to protest a cold touch to her shoulder silenced her. "Lauren," said Mr. Yost. "Let's go into my office." Lauren didn't feel her heels echoing against the tile, couldn't hear her principal's labored nasal whistle as he walked along side of her. This was about her, and it wasn't good. A simple "word" with the principal wouldn't necessitate a replacement, and a replacement wasn't required for good news.

  As she followed Mr. Yost's guiding arm into his office she prepared herself for the worst possible scenario that might have instigated this meeting. Her mother was dead, her father was dead, her sister or brother…any combination of the four. She wanted to scream, and cry, and found she could do nothing but twist her face in surprise when Mr. Yost took one of the chairs in front of his desk rather than his imposing Levenger catalog bought throne behind it.

  Mr. Yost folded his hands into his lap and fixed on a spherical marble paperweight. He nodded forward. "Lauren, there's something I'd like for you to look at on my computer. Could you move the mouse and erase the screen saver for me?"

  "Uh, sure." Lauren carefully walked crab-like around the desk and took the fancy swivel chair. When no alarm sounded, she placed a trembling hand on the computer mouse. She didn't have to move it far, her hand shook just enough to trigger the sensor, and illuminate the screen with a large photograph of an exposed, pink pussy. "Oh, God!" Lauren turned away. "Not quite," Mr. Yost sighed. "Lauren, Miss Churchland found a number of your yearbook students in the computer lab not thirty minutes ago," he began, referring to the school's media specialist, "crowded around one of the monitors looking at this. Would you like to explain how they ended up there?" Lauren blinked. "I-I know some of the students on my staff share a study period. I

  wrote them a pass granting them access to the library so they could—" "I mean the pictures, Lauren. Take the CD out of the tower unit, would you? It's by

  your right foot." "Hm?" Lauren leaned to one side to see the unit underneath the desk. She depressed the proper tab and out slid the CD-ROM, along with what little reserve Lauren had left. The handwriting on the disc's label was unmistakably Sue's.

  Lauren squeezed her eyes shut to keep away tears. The room seemed to swirl move around her. Mr. Yost's voice was hollow.

  "One of the students we talked to told us that you gave him some CD-ROMs to work with during his free period," he said. "Mr. Yost, I can explain everything..." "Lauren, it's not my place to comment on your personal life. When you walk out those front doors, it's not my concern what you do, what you watch, and with whom you watch and do it," Mr. Yost kept his voice even, "unless there's a chance it will reflect badly on the school, and especially if you bring it here."

  Lauren didn't dare open her eyes. She knew that chubby face with the whistling nose was staring right at her, appraising her, maybe shaming her. Yost probably thought she was some kind of pervert. Her fondness for adult entertainment had always been something she kept quiet—even Ellie and Sue hadn't known about her entire toy and video collections until the other night.

  How many pictures had her students seen before the disc was confiscated? How many had Yost seen? The picture onscreen showed no evidence of her face...God forbid, had anybody seen that she was the owner of that dripping, pink pussy? Lauren hadn't the chance to inspect the disc herself; she didn't know what pictures were there, if she could be identified.

  How did it get into the school, anyway? Everything she had from Sue was at her home desk...

  Except for the CD-ROM Sue dropped off, the one Lauren asked to have placed in her bag. Sue must have slipped it into her school bag instead of the other tote she had hanging from the chair by the front door.

  Damn it . Lauren knew she couldn't blame Sue for this. Thinking everything in her school bag was benign, she had a student fish out the discs before leaving for the lab. Lauren hadn't bothered to look herself. She had nobody else to blame. She should have taken the disc from Sue's hand rather than get drunk and argue with a talking sex doll. "This is very serious, Lauren." No shit. "I realize that, sir." "Contributing to the deliquency of a minor," Yost added. "Lauren, you could wind

  up on the state sex offenders list for this." "I-I—" What? This opened her eyes. Lauren's heart fell to the floor. "Mr. Yost, it was an accident!" She held up the disc. "This wasn't supposed to leave my house, and I didn't intentionally give it to my students."

  How Mr. Yost managed to contain his anger, if he felt any, was impressive. His voice was calm, as if discussing the weather or his favorite football team. "Nonetheless, they got it. Some people won't care how."

  "Do some people have to know about it at all? I get on that list, I'll never be able to teach again."

  "That would be the least of your worries, you could be facing jail time." Yost's expression was emotionless.

  No . "You would let that happen to me? One dumb mistake and you want to send me to prison?" Panic set her voice up an octave. "Lauren, I don't want to—" "It's a picture of a naked woman, Clay!" Lauren ignored the wince as she addressed the principal by his first name. To hell with protocol. "These kids see them all the time in the National Geographics kept in the same damn media center."

  "Tribal women seldom spreadeagle for National Geographic and..." he looked uncomfortable away, "touch themselves, Lauren."

  Lauren swallowed. Please, God, don't let my face be seen in any of those pictures. Just let them think I'm into lesbo porn.

  "Now, if you'll keep quite for two seconds, I'd like to tell you that you need not worry about criminal charges," Yost was saying. "We want to make this go away as quickly as you do."

  "Well," Lauren wheezed, coming down, "that's better." She pressed a hand to her breastbone to still the pounding. "We will, however, have to ask for your resignation." "That's not." What else could she expect, though? Such a breach in morals couldn't be swept completely under the rug. And pictures like these wouldn't be quickly forgotten, or kept quiet among her students.

  "Effective immediately," Yost added. "Miss Steele will teach the remainder of your classes."

  "What?" There were only two weeks left to the school year, and the yearbook had to go to press. Would a substitute with no knowledge of the publication process see to that, too? Why not just let her finish the year?

  That question went unasked, for the look on Mr. Yost's face told Lauren that all loose ends would soon be tied.

  She sighed, resigned to her fate. Better, she supposed, she be removed entirely than have to endure clandestine glances and whispers in her direction for those two weeks, like Ellie had to deal with for the time she was with Brady before she finally quit. Removing her would stifle gossip, she believed the DPA board had decided.

  Numbers scrolled endlessly in her mind as a quick survival plan formulated. She had only so much in savings, and so much in monthly alimony coming to her. It was cheap to live in Dareville, but she would still need an income. Perhaps if she reverted to her maiden name she could get a few resumes out to Virginia Beach...would Yost even give her a recommendation? "Lauren?" "Hm?" One brow raised and wrinkled the principal's high forehead. "My chair?"

  * * * Just like that, fifteen years of her life were negated, brushed to one side with not so much as a thank-you.
Mr. Yost simply helped her to stand, escorted her out of his office, and sent her home for the day with the request for a letter of resignation, effective immediately. Her things would be delivered to her by somebody in maintainance, he'd said as the heavy front doors closed on her tears and her career.

  Lauren had shivered at that cold remark. It hadn't mattered that she spearheaded the annual yearbook project, or that she had helped organize the benefit concert with Brady Garriston that brought in the funds to refurbish the whole damn building. One computer disc, meant only for one pair of adult eyes, engaged a virus that caused everybody to forget everything good Lauren had done for that school.

  Her things would be sent to her by the freaking janitor. They didn't even want her in the building anymore, fearing the children would be infected with some strain of immoral leprosy.

  Lauren slumped behind the wheel of her sedan, glassy vision blurring the red light hovering above her, and snorted at the recent memory. To think, too, her downfall came about in the computer lab, the very one she had set up in the media center! She would laugh at the irony if she weren't so upset.

  "Let's move it! Today!" Another driver's anger easily surpassed his chirping car horn, sounding behind her. Her limbs shaking, Lauren clutched the wheel and plowed her car through the stale green light, unsure of where to go. She was in the town square, passing shops she would likely never patronize again…because she was broke…because people would see her and whisper…because she was a whore…

  No. She wasn't that. A tad daft, perhaps, for having thought up the picture scheme in the first place. Sue had been right when Lauren initially proposed it; she had warned Lauren that something like this could happen. Why hadn't she listened to her friend?

  As Lauren rolled past Sue's studio storefront, fresh tears slid down her cheeks. Maybe if she plowed straight through, the glass would slice her to ribbons, then she would be deaf to future taunts and downcast eyes.

  "Don't think like that," she then grumbled to herself. They were just pictures. She would weather this storm. Hopefully in a few months one of the local ministers would get caught with a parishioner and the town would move onto to juicier topics. Why was she getting ahead of herself, anyway? Yost said he would make the situation go away, if only to keep the school free of scandal. The kids were still in school, so who would know now what they had seen?

  She had to go somewhere, but not home. Going home would only bring a sad finality to the day. She was fired today, any letter of resignation coming from her was mere dressing. This wasn't quitting, it hadn't come on her own terms. She wasn't wanted at Dareville Primary anymore, and the last thing Lauren wanted to do was go home and lick her wounds, or drink and be taunted silently by Blowjob Bob.

  Good night, she had left that thing lying in the middle of the living room floor! Lauren remember stepping over him on the way out the door this morning. How careless…and fitting.

  A brief glance in her rearview mirror told her the chirping car behind her was gaining, its driver not amused. Who needed to blast through Dareville at this time of day? She didn't need anymore aggravation. She executed a sharp turn with no thought to where she might go… …and whirled right into the parking lot of Jake's Organic Market. Jake! Would he learn of this mess? Of course he would—everybody who worked at DPA shopped at Jake's, and Jake knew everybody who shopped. Yost could only do so much in keeping a scandal from breaching school property. Lauren had to wonder if she would soon see Jake's grim smile of disapproval greeting her from now on. It was a small comfort to know that nobody could link the pictures to her crumbling plan to win Jake.

  Still, if word did indeed get out, Lauren doubted she could concoct a Plan B. Not that she cared that the whole town might think her a tramp, only Jake's opinion mattered. Lauren doubted he'd go for a so-called porn peddler.

  Well, hopefully she still had time. She would stock up on chocolate milk and those mint crème sandwich cookies she loved, destroy every bit of evidence that she had dirty pictures taken of her, then gorge herself into a diabetic coma.

  Jake's truck was in its usual spot…she would go inside for one last look at that handsome, silver-framed face and try not to make a spectacle of herself. Amazing how the most innocent of smiles brightening that man's face could make her pussy ache and throb with want.

  In the cookie aisle, she found no love. Every flavored crème sandwich cookie was shelved, except for mint. In the space reserved for those packages stood only a discarded paper cup containing a crumpled napkin, trash from a previous shopper left for somebody else to clean.

  Lauren nudged the nearest stock boy, a wiry boy nearing twenty with one ear studded like a dog's collar, a bit too roughly at that. "Do you have any more Mint Crème Delights?" she demanded.

  The stock boy stretched lazily to one side to glance at the gap in the cookie aisle. "We're out," he said. "Thank you, Sam Spade. Do you have any in the back that you haven't shelved yet?" The boy gave her an odd look, as if to say his name was not Sam but something else. He wasn't wearing a tag, but Lauren was past caring at this point. The boy instead shrugged and returned to his cart. "Nope. What you see is what you get. New shipment of stuff's Wednesday, but I don't know what's gonna be on the truck, lady. I just unload the food."

  Lauren didn't feel her hand grab the scruff of his neck, didn't feel her feet planted on the linoleum floor as she swiveled the surprised young man away from his cart and headfirst into the gap where the mint crème cookies should have been. Her body and her mind were no longer her own, usurped by her anger and frustration.

  "You see this hole, bucko?" she hissed. "I got quite a few holes that need to be filled, but I really, really want this one taken care of first. Now, I don't want to wait for Wednesday, I don't want to wait for some fucking truck…" Her voice rose with each word, darting glances in her peripheral vision told Lauren that an audience was growing, but she didn't care.

  "…all I want is one fucking bag of Mint Crème Delights, which I will take home," she continued. "Then I will eat every single one and jump on top of my life-size sex doll and masturbate with it until I pass out, but I can't do that without the cookies."

  She pressed the stock boy into the shelf; his face turned red from the pressure and he gasped for breath. Her arms were numb from the elbows down as she slowly banged the boy against the shelf. Boxes rattled and shrink-wrap bags crinkled in the surrounding, shocked silence. "Who. Do. I. Have. To. Fuck. To. Get. Some. Fuck. Ing. Mint. Crème. DELIGHTS?" The last, high-pitched word had the stock boy reeling backwards into a display of cheese crackers. The bright pyramid of red and orange toppled before at least a dozen agog spectators. Lauren's enraged state allowed her to watch the scene unfold in slow motion, and it wasn't until she truly focused on the dazed young man slumped on the floor, clutching a box of crackers to his chest, that sanity returned and she realized what she had done. "Oh, God," she whispered, and reached out to the boy. "I-I am so sorry…" The stock boy flinched and scrambled to his feet. "Lady, you are really fucked up,"

  he said, holding the box as a shield. "Jimmy, you know I don't like that kind of talk here, especially to our customers." A soft touch to Lauren's shoulder accompanied that stern, deep voice. Lauren felt the dam break on contact—tears spilled down her cheeks, her pussy flooded and soaked her panties. Even scolding an employee, Jake's words easily seduced her.

  Jake's firm hand now gripped her waist to keep her standing straight, but all she really wanted to do was fall back into his arms and savor the heat of his body and let his scent wrap around her. Let the people around them fade into a blurred background while she willed his hands south to caress her thighs and cup her pussy, stroking it to orgasm. "Lauren," he asked, concerned, "is everything okay here?" "Oh, yes," she purred, now smiling. She tilted her head back to look at Jake, he

  looked so cute with his brows furrowed and his lips twisted in wry confusion. "Right. Why don't we go sit down somewhere and figure out what we can do to help." He steered her from the aisl
e, nonchalantly through the small throng of onlookers. "Jimmy, could you clean up this display, then meet me in my office in about fifteen minutes?" "Mr. Marbury—" "Please, Jimmy?" Jake winked, then nodded to his patronage. "Hope everybody is

  finding what they need." With that, they were away. Lauren glided on air beside him to his office, past a

  surprised Marlene Robeson, and settled into the chair behind his desk at his insistence. "What's all this, then?" Marlene demanded. Lauren stifled a laugh; the older woman sounded like a mother hen clucking about a security breach at the Old MacDonald Farm. She looked just as hen-like, leaning forward and casting Lauren a pointed, disapproving glare.

  "Just a little customer dissatisfaction, nothing that can't be swiftly resolved," Jake said. His back was turned to both of them as he poured coffee into a paper cup. "Marlene, if you're done here, I need a word with Lauren." "Jake…" Jake turned slowly, the look on his face strongly requesting Marlene's exit, regardless of whether or not she was finished with whatever she did here. Marlene's dark gaze stabbed once more at Lauren before she marched out of the office without another word.

  "How do you take your coffee, dear?" Jake carried on, calm as ever. Lauren's heart leaped at the endearment and took the cup as was. The warmth of the liquid as it slid down her throat was welcome, but did little to quell the burning want she kept pressed between her thighs.

  "Jake, it's all my fault…" she began when she came up for air. "I didn't mean to…I mean, I was just…"

  Jake was at her side, gently shushing her and rubbing her shoulder. His concern was comforting, and as Lauren followed his gaze she finally noticed how badly her hands shook. Coffee erupted within the cup, licking the rim and spilling down one side, staining her fingers. The heat didn't faze her at all. She carefully set down the cup and twined her fingers on her lap.