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From: "S Jacobin" <jacobin_11111794@hotmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Year on the Hook [MF]
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 11:10:03 -0500
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   Title: Year on the Hook
   Author: Jacobin
   Keywords: MF, rom
   Date first published: 12/20/2002
   Redistribution: No

   Boring Stuff

   Standard disclaimers regarding sexually explicit material apply.
The good reader is reminded in particular that works of fiction often
neglect real-world risks and consequences which should be taken into
consideration in any re-creation or work-inspired acts.

   This is my eighth story. Feedback, comments, questions, are all
welcome at jacobin_11111794@hotmail.com

   You can find my other stories at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/jacobin/www

   This work is copyright (c) 2002 by the author. You may download
and keep copies for your personal use as long as the author's byline,
disclaimer, e-mail address, and these four paragraphs remain on the
copies. Posting to newsgroups or on websites (with the specific
exception of www.asstr-mirror.org) is not permitted unless you have my
express written or email consent, and then only as long as no money
is charged for access and the author's byline, disclaimer, e-mail
address, and these four paragraphs remain on the story. Please
respect my work as much as I've tried to respect the reader.

   Jacobin




   "Pop quiz tomorrow," I called as the class ran for the door,
tossing sheets of paper at me as they dashed to their next class. Air
churned in their wake, the burnt rubber twang of an accidental hose
scorching by one of the lab groups. "If you're paying attenion, which
no one is."
   "I know who you are," Maria said.
   "It's not hard," I replied, clipping the stack of assignments
together. Joe set an apple in front of me as he left. Fucking smart
ass. "I'm pretty open guy."
   "You know what I mean," she said. I stuffed the bundle of
assignments into my satchel and looked up at her. Maria was grinning
widely, her cheeks balling, brown eyes open and expectant.
   "I don't." I picked the bag and ducked into the back room. The
science wing of the high school had a little warren in it, a couple of
offices, the chemical store-room, equipment shelving, and I took a
right and a left and walked into the back of my biology class.

   Registration at my school, I sat behind a folding table in the gym
next to one of the other science teachers. The only thing that had
changed from my time was that few students had acne, at all. I'd been
forced to be a picky eater, shower twice a day, clean my face even
more often, spend the money from my shitty job on snake oil with
benzoyl peroxide. These kids had prescriptions for Accutane(R),
Benzamycin(R), Sulfacet-R(R)... Retin-A(R). If Satan had come to me at
fifteen and offered me a supply of Retin-A(R) for my soul, I would have
weeped for joy at the chance. God damn Satan, never there when you
need him.
   "I'd like to sign up for fifth hour chemistry," I heard, and I
looked up to see a tall girl, long twisting brown hair. The curve of
her cheeks like the turn of a hand. Brown eyes, expectant. Long limbs,
like a colt. She could have told me she was a new student teacher
fresh out of certification and I would have bit. Her lips hinted at a
pout, or amusement.
   "I'm a hard teacher," I said. "You may want to consider Mr.
Arnold's chemistry class, taught by Mr. Arnold here, which I
understand is much easier."
   "Shut up," Mr. Arnold said, glaring.
   "I'll be fine. I'm Maria Solli." She smiled.
   "I'm Mr. Marshall."
   She held out her hand and we shook. Her hand was cool. She leaned
forward to take the ninth slot in my fifth hour class.

   I found the principal after hours, writing notes longhand at her
desk. Her office smelled of pencil shavings.
   "I've got something I need to tell you now," I said, "so we can
make sure it's not an issue later."
   Angel put the pen down and with both hands on the pad sighed, her
shoulders sagging. I swallowed. My eyes started to water.
   "Good thing you closed the door behind you."
   "You find that people ever listen..."
   "No," she said. "But if you want, we can go out to the parking lot
and sit in a car. But what if someone's under the car?"
   "This is serious," I said. Her face reddened.
   "Yes, now tell me, would you?"
   "Maria Solli --"
   Her face screwed up in rage. "I swear to God, I've had it with you
assholes who can't keep your hands off the merchandise. Last year I
had to run Fitzgerald out, and now I've got you and Jennifer Sta--" I
started, and her face went from rage to embarrassment in a crash, her
carefully arranged expression all askance. "-ns...." The half-name
hung in the center of the office, rotating in front of me to be afraid
of knowing.
   "It's nothing like that," I said.
   "Ah. You know I like you, right?"
   "No."
   "I do. You're a good young teacher, you'll have a great career here
if you want it."
   "Thanks."
   "Can you forget I just got really angry and said something I
shouldn't have?"
   "Yeah."
   Angel sighed, relaxed in her chair. "Now what can I do for you?
What's the deal, you're coming in here looking like that."
   "Maria Solli believes that I wrote some stories she found on the
Internet, and I'm afraid she won't keep a secret."
   "Uh huh. Let me guess as to the nature of these stories."
   "You're going to guess right. Fortunately they're nothing weird,
but I'm still worried..."
   "... no minors involved?"
   "No," I said, shaking my head quickly.
   "Not a big deal," she said. "It gets out, it'll be embarrassing for
a week, but it'll go away on its own."
   I exhaled in relief and felt the sweat I hadn't noticed. "Thanks."
   "I'm glad you came to me to warn me. Too often I don't hear about
things early, and it's too late for me to do anything. I'll get Maria
in here, put the fear of God into her."
   I felt myself smile in relief, almost laughed. "I don't think
Maria's religious."
   "She'll be religious when I'm done with her," Angel said. "We'll
talk again this week, okay? Keep me informed." I didn't get up and
thought about how to continue. Angel spoke before I started. "You're
wondering why I didn't ask if they were your stories or not," she
said. "It won't matter if they're yours or not."

   I muted the TV and picked up the phone without looking. "Hey."
   "They're great stories."
   I blinked. "Are you on your cellphone?"
   "Yeah," Maria said.
   "For a smart girl you're pretty fucking stupid. You think your
parents are going to wonder why there's a call on there to me?"
   "They don't look at my bill."
   I held the phone in front of my face. "They fucking well will if
they think we're seeing each other!" I yelled. "Hang up and call your
cell company. Demand a refund for the call, try and get it off your
bill if you can. And you're not going to be able to say it's a wrong
number if this call lasts more than a minute!"
   I hung up and threw the phone across the room.
   "Fuck!"
   The phone rang. I let it go.
   Maria paid attention in chemistry as I started the new chapter,
answered a question correctly. Ah, sweet organic chemistry. I love
organic chemistry. Biology, I can teach well. Physics, I'm pretty
good. Chemistry, I'm awesome, and organic chemistry -- I should win
awards.
   As the bell rang, Joe put an apple on my desk, fucking wiseass, and
Maria stopped on her way out. "I was joking," Maria said. "I'm not
that stupid. You should know me better."

   My desk was stuffed into what had been a weirdly sized adjoining
classrooms, now textbook storage and office space for new teachers. It
was underlit, smelled strongly of the ancient copy machine. I went to
my desk, cracked on the PC. I had an hour between first hour biology
and heading back out for physics. I put my feet up, dumped my satchel.
Yawned, stretched out.
   "This place is a real dump," Maria said. I jumped in my creaky
chair. She walked in, her mouth turned down. "Isn't it enough you
don't get paid anything? They have to take your dignity?"
   "Don't you have class?"
   "I have so much class," Maria said, "that I should have a desk in
here." She sat on Ryan's desk in front of mine. Jeans, loose. "I don't
mean to interrupt, you're obviously busy."
   "Thanks, I appreciate that." I found a pen, took out the first
biology paper.
   "Why is it empty here?"
   "No one wants to come in and have hour two for a conference period.
Hour one, you can come in late, shortens the day. But one class on and
then one off, then four on? Nobody likes that. I drew the short straw.
It's okay, I come in for zero hour freshman science so I have two
classes before this, and then I get sixth off so I can--" I stopped.
"Sorry."
   "Did you actually draw the short straw?"
   "Yeah, we got them from the cafeteria and everything."
   "You want to know how I found out?"
   "Find what out?"
   She smiled, swung her legs. "It was the jokes," she said. "I read
the last one and it was funny, and I've got a strange sort of humor."
Oh fuck. "So I went back, right, read them all. And way back there was
this great story about this guy in grad school and a girl he liked..."
she trailed off, leaning forward to look at me, her hair coming
forward around her ears. "And he makes this joke, this weird joke, and
I remembered hearing it before once, talking to you."
   Fuck. She knew.  "Weird," I said.
   "Yeah, that was the clincher. I'd have bet before I found the joke,
but after..." She shook her head, strands of hair spilling forward
across her shoulders. "The college stories were when you'd have been
in college, pretty much -- there's the one that goes back when you'd
have been student teaching. Then there's this guy who's obviously
exhausted, and I think, hey, the author might be working two jobs."
   She looked for a reaction I was trying not to give. She went on.
   "Orestes was this myth, but he was also the hero in a play by..."
   I shook my head.
   "You know, don't pretend. Jean Paul Sartre. The play had a strong
anti-authority theme going."
   "You're in AP Lit, aren't you?"
   Maria smiled at me. "Yes," she said. "And I've seen you reading
Essays in Existentialism."
   My hands felt cold, flat on the scarred metal top of the desk.
   "In fact..." her smile widened, eyes dancing. "Last week I flipped
through your copy. It's got notes in the margins. References to other
books. Now I'm thinking why would you lie about not even knowing who
Orestes was. You know. You're trying to deny everything now, but
you're giving away everything to me. The way your mouth goes dry when
I talk about this. You might sell this to someone, Mr. Marshall, but
not me, not while I'm standing right here and I can watch you."
   "Look, Maria, I'm not sure what you're trying to say."
   "Yes you do," Maria said.
   I wanted to deny it and didn't, just looked at her.
   She hopped up, nodded. "See you around, Mr. Marshall."
   "See you tonight," I said, waving.

   Phone rang in the dark. No caller ID available. Breathing. "Huh?" I
blinked the fuzz out of my eyes and looked at the clock. After one.
"Who is this?"
   "Mmmm. You know what I'm reading right now?" she said.
   "No."
   "That one about sex in the library. Unh. I love this story. It's
not - unh- one of those dumb secret sex club things. No, it's sexy,
it's got this tension, and the sneaking. Unh. You know what I'm doing
right now?"
   "It's a good thing you're 18, or I could be in big trouble for
writing something like that if you read it."
   "What a dumb thing to say," she said. A sigh. "Ah, you've ruined
it. See you."
   She hung up.

   "Why'd you go into teaching instead of being a chemist or doing
drug research?"
   "The pay's not that great but they offered me a stock option
package I would have been stupid to turn down."
   Maria punched me in the arm. It hurt. "Come on."
   "Okay. When I was in school, my friends and I had great teachers
who were hard on us, and my friends and I got smarter, and that got us
into college. And I saw the other side, teachers who went out of their
way to screw kids they didn't like. They'd base half your grade on
participation. I hated those teachers. If you were cute and wore
skirts, you had a B minus if you couldn't spell your name."
   "I'm cute. You want me to wear skirts?"
   "It'd certainly liven things up."
   Maria didn't wear a skirt the next day. She gave me a week to think
about it. Maria would look at me in class as I tried to lecture, and I
could see in her eyes she was considering her options. Which meant I
thought about her options, and she would hint at a smile.

   Two guys, both looking north towards the doors to the parking lot,
walked right into each other, forehead to nose, and I stepped in to
stop the bleeding. Maria strode towards us, helixed hair to her
shoulders, in white stockings, and a high black-and-white plaid skirt,
understated, and you could see the calves, the start of the strong
thighs, the whole package that gave her an almost two foot vertical
leap. And a just-tight white blouse.
   I could taste the fillings in my mouth as she walked by. The kid
with the bloody nose moaned. I moaned, softer, my pain dull and
engulfing.

   Maria caught me on our way to the gym for practice.
   "Talked to the Principal," Maria said.
   "You a National Merit Scholar?"
   "Yeah, but that's not what it was about."
   "Congratulations."
   "Thanks. You told her about me."
   "It was the smart move. Talking about it now saves my job later."
   "It also means we can't find a compromise. I have to back down or
go public."
   "We weren't going to find a compromise, Maria."
   "We were, Mr. Marshall. Now I've only got one option, and it's not
good for you."
   "What if you bring this up, convince people, get expelled?"
   "You worried about it?"
   "I'm worried about you."
   "I get my GED, goof off, work. I've got a good transcript and I've
already taken community college classes. I get into the U anyway, life
goes on."
   "And high school's boring so you wouldn't mind leaving anyway."
   "No," Maria said.
   "I'm the only one who would lose if we went to the mattresses."
   Maria arched an eyebrow. "I think we'd both win if we went to the
mattresses."
   "We'd both lose if you followed through on your threat."
   "Yeah," Maria said. "But let's go to the mattresses instead." She
peeled off for the women's locker room.

   "I'm eighteen." She stood, leaning against the desk next to mine,
arms crossed under breasts. I could have turned my head to look over
my shoulder and half my view would be her legs below the plaid skirt.
I had a notebook on my lap, as if I was grading quizzes instead of
concealing a world-class boner. I felt my skin might split open. Maria
noticed I had no pen.
   "That doesn't change anything," I said.
   "I barely missed the deadline, I'm probably the oldest student in
my class. I went out, bought cigars, lottery tickets, Playboy--"
   "What'd they say when you bought Playboy?"
   "It wasn't so much what he said as how he looked at me."
   "Oh."
   "So, Mr. Marshall. These stories.... generally written in summer,
which you would have off from student teaching," Maria said.
   "Are we still talking about this? I'd be working full-time to try
and get through the rest of the year," I said.
   "Ah, but that wouldn't occupy that brain in there," she said, and
came forward to muss my hair. "Why can't I TA for you next semester?"
   I looked at her.
   "I'm serious, I'd be a great TA, and I'm going to have an open
period. Don't make me take some social studies elective."
   Ryan came around the bookshelf next to the door, walked towards us.
He had a paper cup of coffee in one hand, which meant he'd just come
out of the adjoining... ah. Maria arched her off eyebrow at me.
   "Lord forbid you should take an extra social studies class," he
said. "Maria, Mr. Marshall."
   "I didn't hear you coming, Ryan," I said.
   "You need to protect your hearing," Maria said. "You've been going
to too many rock shows."
   I coughed in surprise, caught myself, had some water.
   "I came through the textbook storage, I didn't feel like walking
all the way around, and I had a key made for that door... you want a
copy?"
   "Sure," I said. I looked back to Maria. "I don't take TAs. It's my
experience they're bad grading people they know, and I won't have
that."
   "I'm insulted that you think I would do anything immoral," Maria
said, her voice angry but smiling with Ryan's back turned. "Would you
at least give it some thought?"
   "Okay, I'll think about it."
   "Great. Bye Mr. Marshall, bye Mr. Reed."
   She winked at me before Ryan could look over to nod, and bounced
out. Ryan waited, sipped his coffee loudly.
   "I wouldn't say this if we hadn't gone to Central together, but
honest to god..."
   "Yeah."
   "Fuck yeah," he said, shaking his head. "Fuck yeah. Seriously,
Peter. God damn."

   Phone rang in the dark. No caller ID available. "Unjabah?" I
blinked the fuzz out of my eyes and looked at the clock. I still
couldn't make it out, but there were two digits, which was good. "I
swear to God I'm going to start turning my ringer off if you don't
stop this."
   "Why not go out with a 18-year old woman?" she said.
   "You don't know who you are yet."
   "I've known for years who am I am."
   "You don't. That's what high school and college are about. You try
on different people, you hang out with different groups of friends."
   "I don't. I've worked through that already. I've been a punk, I've
hung out with stoners, I was popular in junior high--"
   "How that go?"
   "I'm not that popular now, so not that well. My point is that I
know who I am."
   "Goodnight."

   "They're such lonely stories," Maria said, crossing her dangling
legs. "That's what I don't get. You're a good looking guy, I know you
don't make the money but there are women who go for teachers. Can you
cook?"
   "A little, yeah."
   "Do you have some sort of deformed penis?"
   "No."
   "Can I check?"
   I laughed. "No."
   "So I don't get it. Is that the whole lost-love regret thing you
had going for those two years? Some woman break your heart? Cheated on
you?"
   I glared over my sheaf of quizzes.
   Maria gave me an apologetic look. "Do you like being lonely?"
   "Not really," I said.
   "Then why don't you do something about it?"
   "Why don't you get out this office before someone realizes you get
a bathroom pass during American Government every day and then swing by
here? What do you know about it anyway?"
   "A lot," Maria said. "You ever stop to think to yourself 'wow, Mr.
Marshall, I wonder why Maria's so mature, why she's well spoken, knows
what she wants, why she's looking a couple years out?'"
   "I do," I said. "Except I don't call myself Mr. Marshall when I
think to myself." I set my papers down. "Let's talk."
   "Not today," Maria said. "I need to get out before someone realizes
I get a bathroom pass every day and then swing by here."

   Angel stopped me. "You have anything to tell me about the Maria
situation?"
   "No," I said. "She hasn't said another word about it."
   Angel cackled. "Boy, did I put a scare into that girl. Glad to hear
it worked out."
   "I'm glad I talked to you," I said.

   "I'm not going to seduce you," Maria said. "Not right away."
   "I won't do it," I said.
   "What's the matter with me?"
   "I'm not going to get into that," I said. "It doesn't matter if
you're smart, and beautiful. I can't, it's no good for you. There's a
power imbalance, and it could warp your little mind." I wanted to
reach over and pat her on the head. She might have broken my wrist.
   "I'm a pretty mature 18-year old," Maria said.
   "It doesn't matter. Even if I thought I should, I couldn't. Not
allowed."
   "Not allowed. We could get away with it. We're smart."
   "It doesn't matter."
   "Don't you trust me?"
   "It doesn't matter if I trust you or not. It would still be too
risky."
   "So that's a no."
   "It's a no. Why don't you go out with somebody your age, like Joe?"
   "Joe's a prick."
   "He's smart."
   "He slacks off, he's totally sarcastic... I don't see it."
   "Let me tell you, in four years Joe's going to turn into me right
now."
   "Uh huh. So tell me why I should wait four years when you're right
here in front of me."
   "Because we can't."
   "We can."
   I shrugged, shook my head. "I guess we'll just have to disagree."
   "That is such fucking bullshit," Maria said, "and you know it."
   And I did, and she stomped off.

   The guidance counselor was pretending to work when I came in, which
meant I'd made too much noise in the hall.
   "Hey, I need to look at a file."
   "Why?"
   "Maria Solli wants me to write her a recommendation letter."
   "She does?" her face brightened. "Where to?"
   "I don't know. I haven't said yes."
   The counselor handed me a vanilla file. A stellar SAT score, way
above what mine had been, transcripts... and the contact address had
two names that didn't match hers.
   "Did her parents..."
   "It's sad, isn't it? I've met her grandparents though, they're both
wonderful."
   I nodded, turned a page over, not seeing the record I looked
through.
   "What do I write?" I asked. "I've never done this before."
   "Well, for someone like Maria, talk about what an enthusiastic
student she is, and what a great student she'd make, how she makes the
most of what's in front of her."
   "Sounds pretty obvious."
   "For her, yes. It's not like you're asking about Joe Kaufman." She
rolled her eyes.
   "What do I write about Joe?"
   "Well, for someone like Joe, you don't want to say anything bad, so
you say you think he has potential."
   "He does have potential."
   "But you see what I'm saying. And you say that you think if he
applied himself he could do well at the school. Like that, you see?"
   "Yeah," I said. "Thanks, you've been quite helpful."
   "Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you," she said,
and, I'm sure, sat back down to resume playing Solitaire. As I walked
back to my desk, I realized why I'd been turned down at the colleges
I'd really wanted to get into.

   Phone in the dark. Breathing. "Who's this?"
   "Hey. Do you know what I'm reading right now?" she said.
   "Survey of Chemistry, because you've got a test tomorrow." I hung
up.

   How do you get to chaperone a school dance? Couple ways. One is to
be say "yes" when the principal asks you for a favor before disclosing
the nature of that favor.
   Tolo never went well for me. I was asked by girls who considered me
a project, to be broken and accustomed to the bit. As it turned out,
that was the responsibility of the state's teacher certification
program.
   Maria had asked Joe.
   I'd gotten into trouble myself at dances, so I kept others out of
it: confiscated flasks, walked the buildings to break up doorway
dalliances, went into the bathroom repeatedly to make sure joints were
flushed and not smoked, tried doors to make sure people couldn't get
where they weren't supposed to. I was probably the most effective
chaperone ever, but there's no money in it, so I decided not to make
it a career.On the gym floor, in a beautiful red dress that came off
the shoulders and showed her volleyball muscle clusters in a tasteful,
toned way, if you knew what to look for, Maria slow-danced with Joe.
Joe didn't know how to dance any more than I had in high school, it
was shuffling in circles to awful, awful music. Maria was barely two
inches shorter than Joe, who was almost as tall as me when he stood up
straight. I had never seen him stand so straight.
   Each time I would return from doing a round, Maria was closer,
Joe's hands dropped from high back to mid back to low back, coming to
rest just over her hips, offering lumbar support she certainly wasn't
getting from the dress. The shuffling acquired a minor extra motion to
it that would go unnoticed if you weren't looking at them, especially
given the more blatant rubbing being policed by the parents and
administrators.
   And then Maria and Joe were gone.

   "Hey, Mr. Marshall, I have a couple questions for you." Maria
looked at me and waited.
   She pulled her hair behind her which at once showed off the slope
of neck to shoulders, the working muscles across her shoulders to
arms, pushed her breasts up for more attention.
   "What?" I said, and was relieved I'd managed that much.
   "Four years ago, did you go to Tolo?"
   "Yeah, I did."
   "Did you go with a hot, smart girl?"
   "No," I said. "I didn't."
   "After Tolo, did you get the blowjob of your life?"
   "No."
   "Then you're wrong," she said, her blank face cracking into a
smile.
   "About what?"
   "In four years Joe won't be you right now."
   She hopped off Ryan's desk and walked out, and me, I sat and
watched, jaw open.

   A brief digression: I wouldn't want me for a teacher. I grade
blindly. My tests start easy and eventually achieve a level of
difficulty that would enrage Sisyphus. I don't change grades for
anyone, for any reason. I get away with this because the other two
science teachers are awful, grinding out the last years to retirement.
   Best score yet on any of my chemistry test: 105, every question
right plus a 5 point bonus question, was turned in by.... yes.
   I could take one of my own tests and would score around 90. Except
the organic
   chemistry tests. If I took one of my own tests on organic chemistry
I would kick that test's ass. Me and carbon go way back.

   Ring in the dark.
   "Huh?" I blinked the fuzz out of my eyes and looked at the clock.
Midnight. "Who is this?"
   "Hey. Tell me a story," she said.
   "I have to get up early and teach eager young minds."
   "When do you teach eager young minds?"
   "I have a second job at the community college, teach the 6AM," I
said, and yawned.
   "Then tell me a short story."
   "Will you let me tell it, and not interrupt?"
   "Sure," she said.
   "For a long time, I was living with a woman, and we'd go on long
bike rides on breaks. A couple years ago, we were in the South, on
this rural highway in the morning. It was still cool and a little
clammy, but no wind, pretty easy going, and we crested this hill and I
saw miles of straight road ahead, woods and farms as far as I could
see.
   "It got hotter and stickier and harder to keep going. We saw maybe
ten cars all day, and we didn't say much because.. I don't know, we
were that close. When the sun set we found this park on a tiny lake,
it'd been kept up as a reservoir or for watershed quality, or
something. There was nobody there, so we got off our bikes and laid
out on the grassy bank, and I kissed her and we made love, exhausted,
barely able to get our clothes far enough off, and it took forever, we
were so tired and our muscles so slow, but it was so good, to be so
comfortable with each other, to feel what was happening, not rushing.
I felt like we'd melted together, that we were connected everywhere we
touched, and we would never be apart, because it would last forever,
the two of us, alone in the shade together.
   "Is that the kind of story you wanted?"
   A long silence passed and I laid in bed, listening to the sound of
her breathing.
   "What happened to her?" she asked
   "She left me. Left me for a rich kid."
   "Oh, I'm sorry."
   "I'll see you tomorrow."



   I saw Maria as I waded through the crowds after school, towards the
gym. I coached the girl's volleyball team because the football coach
was insane, and had me tossed when I'd pointed out that asking the
offensive line to remember 32 separate possible actions at snap was
more than most colleges and many pro teams. Maria was on the
volleyball team.
   I like volleyball. I played intramural in college, I'm a tall guy
with a brutal overhand and an eye for exploiting my opponents. I'm a
good coach: we run drills, we play scrimmages, I try and get them to
play together better, to see two, three moves down to open up scoring
plays. They listen to me, which is fine.
   Maria plays like I do. She's a killer when the ball's in play, on
dead ball she's smiling, laughing.
   She pays attention when I talk. Glances at me no more than any
other girl, but with more mustard.
   I see her every night during the season, work with her for an hour,
two hours, three, and she wears shorts on long legs, a top that shows
off the strong lines of her shoulders, her hair up, her neck showing.
And I have to wear shorts myself. An erection could result in the end
of my coaching career, which is one of the only viable ways for a
teacher to supplement their salary.
   My volleyball team is headed to State, they're that good. Also,
Maria spiked a ball directly into the face of our cross-county rival's
star player so hard the poor girl broke her nose, suffered a
concussion from falling back on her head, and had to sit out the final
month of the season.
   Maria and I would be an amazing co-ed tandem. Maria and I cannot be
a co-ed tandem.
   I never offered to give any of my players rides to or from
practice, or to or from games, and they never asked. Fitzgerald had
been run out not a year ago.

   "You doing anything interesting tonight, Mr. Marshall?" she asked
as practice broke up.
   "Going to see a show," I said.
   "Have fun."
   Box had been called something else before they'd been hit with a
cease-and-desist from some fast-growing viral chain out of the Midwest
with a vicious team of underfed lawyers and a prior claim. It was, for
a club, relatively smokeless. I knew the management from my time in
school, they had a good ear for music. It was where you could go to
catch bands just before they'd turn up in local music listings with a
star-for-recommended next to the date.
   I came by myself to see Causticks, a bunch of slightly-overweight
garage kids with no influences who rocked. I had two beers talking to
one of the owners, and then headed to the stage as the band came on,
full-bore. The club was long and narrow, the band on a stage at one
end, and to come around from the bar and see the whole thing go up
together finding the downbeat, I smiled despite myself.
   I found Maria. There was no volume for talking, she just smiled and
gave me a hug, the sweat already sticking us together, foreheads
touching.
   The band was in rare form. They'd have been signed instantly if
there'd been a rep there, or if they'd given a fuck. Maria stayed in
front of me in the crush of people, and when the rush would come I'd
stand them up, when the meth kid with the Jesus hat tried to start a
mosh circle I doubled up on a low right to the kidneys and he went
down as sure as any, and through it all Maria pressed back against me,
her jeans against the tension in mine.
   Between songs when Causticks would stop to replace the guitar
strings they'd broken, Maria would look back at me and smile.
   "We've got a pop quiz tomorrow," I said when they stopped for
water.
   Maria turned around. "What's it on?"
   "Ions," I said.
   Maria laughed. "Ions. Fuck ions."
   And we smiled and looked at each other and didn't say anything.
   When the set was over and the band walked off the cheer was louder
than they'd been, amplified, all night, continuing, even though they
don't play encores, not ever.
   On the cold streets, our breath hanging, I smiled at Maria, her
chest moving after two hours of a workout.
   "How'd you get in there?" I asked.
   Maria fished in her pocket and produced a driver's license. It was
perfect, she was 21. I pulled out my own license, held it up.
   "That's a quality license," I said.
   "It should be, I paid enough for it," Maria said, taking it from
me. "You want to go down the street, get something to eat?"
   I stopped myself from saying yes. "Yes," I said anyway.
   Something to eat took two hours. I paid cash and took the receipt.
Outside, I stood, looked around idly, and Maria stood in front of me.
   Maria stepped in and I didn't move, my hands going to hold her hips
but then stopping, and eyes open she came in and as my heart pounded,
pulled back not even brushing my lips, but I could feel the air in the
gap between us.
   "Goodnight," Maria said.
   "'night," I said.
   She turned and walked off backwards, facing me.
   "Young teacher," she sang softly, her voice clear, high, and
beautiful in the night, "the subject," and Maria stopped, smiled, and
turned away.

   "Whaaaaaat?" I blinked the fuzz out of my eyes and looked at the
clock. Quarter to one.
   "Who is this?"
   "Hey," she said.
   "Good morning to you, too."
   "No stories tonight. I've got a question for you."
   "Yeah."
   "Are you going out with Miss Mason?"
   "No."
   "Why not? I've seen you talking, she's cute."
   "I don't know, I'm not interested."
   "If you're not going to sneak around with me, why not see someone
else?"
   "I'm waiting for the right woman."
   "Are you waiting for the right woman, or for the right woman to
turn eighteen?"
   "I thought you said you had one question."
   "Goodnight."
   "I'll see you tomorrow."

   I glued Joe to his chair on the last day of class. It was easy,
we've got mismatched chairs in the classrooms. I swapped the hard,
smooth ones to his table, glued the shit out of it, the glossy
superglue only noticeable against the shiny seat if you looked
closely. Joe did not.
   "My final lecture is on epoxies," I said. "How does glue work?
Haven't you always wondered?"
   "Uh, I guess," read the expression of twenty-two students.

   First week of summer. I sat on the deck of my rented townhouse and
looked out on the postage stamp yard, the view of houses, apartment
buildings, streets, poles, wires. I didn't touch a keyboard. Didn't
pick up a pen. I wasn't a chaperone on senior cruise, didn't coach a
summer sport. I drank beer, closed my eyes.
   Second week of summer, I heard the door open. Footsteps. I didn't
look. From the kitchen, sounds of ice in glass. Footsteps. I craned
around in my cheap plastic patio chair, and Maria set her drink down
on the cheap plastic table next to me.
   "Maria, I am so happy to see you," I said.
   "Better to see you, Peter." She leaned forward. I put my hand along
her face, heel of palm to jaw, and it fit perfectly, exactly as I'd
thought it would a year ago. Maria's breath was ragged, and she came
in further to kiss for the first time, softly, almost without
pressure. Jittery, our eyes open, looking at each other, smiles
developing and then both of us too needy, mouths open, kissing deeply,
she swooned onto me. I put my arm around her, she sat on my lap and my
hands were up on her back, under her T-shirt. I was wearing sweat
shorts and a wife-beater, my erection went sideways. Maria reached in,
the move so fast it was almost a brush, and pulled my dick straight
up, so she could grind against it in her soccer shorts. Hands on my
shoulders, we moved together against the bend of the complaining
chair. Maria moaned softly each time we hipped up together, and her
short breaths sounded like laughter. I was laughing too, my eyes
starting to flow, and when we bumped heads we wiped hot tears on each
other's cheeks. I came violently, jerking back, Maria smiled and
ground into me hard, trembling. Our drinks on the table shook, ice
cubes ringing on glass.
   "Oh, fuck!" Maria yelled, gasped, and leaned back. Her chest rose
and fell and my ears rung. I had never seen the expression on her
face, like awe and glee and relief with a warmth I'd only had seen in
glimmers.
   Someone clapped. I lifted an arm and waved, looking into Maria's
eyes.
   "I'm going to get you evicted," she said, cheeks flushing.
   "We should..." I nodded towards the living room.
   "I hate you for denying me this for so long," she whispered, and
bit my ear. She stood, offered me a hand. I took it, pulled myself up.
   She was only a little shorter than me, maybe a hair under six feet.
   "This is nice," she said. I kissed her softly, felt her smile
crinkle against my lips. She picked up our drinks and walked inside.
   "Booooo," someone called.
   I closed the door behind us, lowered the slats. Maria sat on my
couch, put her legs up on my coffee table.
   "This is a nice place," she said. "You live alone?"
   "For now." I sat down next to her. "What brings you here?"
   "I got this graduation present," Maria said. She took a drink.
"Custom-printed book, and after the last page, envelope with an
address and a housekey."
   "That's a weird present for graduation. How was the book?"
   "Book was great. Together, it's the best present I got. Not even
close. Got a car once." She shook her head. "I'm betting the car will
turn out to be a distant second."
   "You want to go out, see a show tonight?" I asked. "I can hold your
hand and
   everything."
   "Tonight? We're not going out tonight," Maria said. She tugged at
my shorts.
   "You want to take our time?"
   "Do I look tired? How long does it take you to come around...." she
tugged at my shorts again.
   "I was just thinking we should savor this."
   "Peter, maybe, if you had half a brain, we would have been sneaking
around all year, and we could take our time. But you had to do the
hard way. Now quit it."
   I raised my hips up, and Maria pulled the shorts down with both
hands. "If they'd caught me fooling around with you this year they
would have filled me with jelly, put sprinkles on my head, and tossed
me into the police station."
   I felt a little embarrassed, limp, slick, staining my couch
cushions.
   "You're a mess," Maria said. "Let's get you into the shower."
   She peeled her shirt off, her dark pink nipples, the drop of the
curve. I stood, pulling my muscle shirt off. Maria came up from the
couch and we were chest-to-chest, looking at each other, and then
kissing. I ran my hands along her hips, the smooth curve of her
stomach, and she reached down to cup me.
   "I'm not seeing much life there," she said, giving me the eyebrow
again.
   And then it was there for her, and she smiled, and I reached a hand
down. Leaning into each other in my living room, I ran my hand across
the cropped curls of her pubic hair, and she ran her hand under and
around my length, and we kissed slowly. As Maria started to find her
grip, I put more pressure, rubbed a little harder. She put her left
arm around my shoulder, kissing my neck as I leaned forward, working
my dick harder, opening her legs a little so my hand could run all the
way down, work a finger past her slick lips. Maria moaned softly, a
sigh, and I pulled back up to run my palm along, and Maria forgot what
she was doing. I could feel her lean into me more, see her thighs
start to tremble. I tried to pick up more of her weight as her
breathing came and went, and she squeaked and remember her other hand,
tight around the base of the impossibly hard rod that poked her
stomach. The room smelled so thickly of Maria I could taste her
sweetness in my mouth.
   "Oh, Peter, sorry," she said, and her hand started to work me
quickly, her rhythm starting and stopping as she'd come and rub her
forehead on my shoulder, or bite my neck, and when she found it I
wasn't long, kissing her cheek as I came. Maria kept at it, the first
and then the release again.
   "You want me to keep going?" she whispered.
   "Gently," I said, and she did. We looked down as we straightened
up. Wet slicks across her ribs and stomach, white and gobby, streaking
reluctantly. Tired semen kept coming, running across the head of my
penis and to her thumb. This erection could last forever. It would be
immortal and outlast me, and I didn't care.
   Maria switched hands, softly stroking, brought her thumb to mouth,
sucked it. I gasped and jerked again in her hand, and she smiled. She
traded hands again, bringing her left up. I had come all over it. She
licked it while looking me in the eye.
   "You, uh, always get this excited?" Maria asked.
   "For you," I said. I could play at this. I found my hand. My
fingers tasted of her. "I don't think I've ever had something so
good."
   "You're right, you haven't." Maria brought her hand to her
lips to get a bean-sized drop on the back of her hand between
thumb and forefinger. Palm up to me, thumb and fingers on opposite sides, 
she ran her lips back leaving clean smooth skin, and softly
I felt another tremor.
   "I think that's the last of it," I said.
   "For now, anyway," she said.
   And then we showered, soaping and not yet ready.
   And then we fumbled into the bedroom, naked, warm, and wet. Falling
on each other, we squirmed and tumbled and then, erect again, laying
on top of her. We hesitated and then I pushed forward as her hips came
up, and "Like we were made for each other," she said. "This is... oh,
Peter."
   "It's all the chemistry," I said. We moved slowly. "It's organic
chemistry." I held out, tip against silky warmth, and Maria moaned
under me, reached up and pulled me back in, and we both gasped.
   "Don't do that," she said. "I've had this itch for a year, it's
been driving me insane."
   "You too, huh?"
   We'd been perfectly matched, for every nerve there was another
twin, the warmth and electricity flowing through countless
connections.
   I'd come twice in an hour and I still couldn't hold back, couldn't
keep a slow rhythm even if I'd wanted, we were yelling and panting,
moving together as quickly as our muscles would twitch.
   "Finally, Peter, finally," she said, her fingernails digging into
my shoulders, her thighs tightening against my hips, and I came too,
as if I'd pour entirely into her, and then I was back, and I came
again, softly. Maria kept on, gasping, grinding, opening her eyes and
smiling and then closing them again as she'd hold her breath and
shudder again, and she would say "Peter" and I would say "Maria" and
she'd smile, close her eyes, and tremble under me.

   "How come you didn't get up to meet me?"
   "It was going to be you or your parents, and if it was your parents
I wanted to finish my beer so I'd be relaxed when I saw the wrong end
of the shotgun."
   "Peter?" She nuzzled into my neck, ran a hand down my neck. "Why
did you wait, really? Not what you told me, but..."
   "They were all good reasons. But you know what I thought of, when I
was trying to go back to sleep after you'd call me?"
   "Tell me."
   "I wanted you to be able to trust me and know that if you were with
me, that it was you, and it was all about you, and not... something I
did, or that if we were together, you'd have to worry about..."
   "I never thought of that," Maria said. "Mmmmm."
   I looked at the clock. It was two in the morning.
   "Goodnight," I said.
   "I'll see you tomorrow morning," Maria said, and smiled. "And then
after that," she said, quietly.
   And we fell asleep.

   "I'm going to blackmail you." Maria was confident for being alone
with me in the teacher offices, where she shouldn't have been, sitting
cross-legged on a desk where she certainly wasn't supposed to sit.
   "With what?"
   "I've caught you. You wrote those stories. I put some bait on a
hook and you bit. You were so easy to read, it was kind of cute. If
you hadn't written them, I wouldn't be here, negotiating terms with
you."
   "I'm not going to bargain." She snorted, rolled her eyes. "What if
I'd like to see it get out? I've got a reputation as a heartless
asshole, maybe this would help."
   "Even if you managed to make convincing denials, a lot of kids
wouldn't respect you. Parents -- you know parents. Rumors would get
distorted. They'd tell their kids not to take your classes, but not
why. They'd assume that meant you were a sex criminal or something,
maybe sue the school to keep you from teaching their babies."
   "I don't want those kids in my class."
   "You'd punish the kids for their parents?"
   "No. That's your harm, then? Enrollment? You're not threatening me,
you're threatening those kids."
   "Think of the pain you'd be saving yourself."
   "I will. What do you want?"
   "I want you to tell me a story."
   "Any story?"
   "No, I have something in mind."
   "What's that?"
   Maria leaned back, arms behind her, and looking at her was long
jeans, a crease of belly, the swell of breasts, index finger on chin,
as if thinking, her smile, and her eyes watching me watch.
   "I want to read a story about a senior in high school who's fallen
in love with her teacher, he's this smart, funny guy, and he's just
out of grad school and not that much older than this girl, who he
loves in return."


   -- Jacobin, 12/2003



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