The Student Teacher Blues

The Student Teacher Blues

by Robert Lubrican

zbookstore Edition

Copyright 2010 Robert Lubrican

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to zbookstore.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Rights to use cover art purchased from iStock.com

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Table of Contents

Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight

Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Epilogue | Afterword

Foreword

We've all heard of cases where a teacher gets sexually involved with a student. In most cases (the famous ones, anyway) both participants insist that there was no coercion and that both are in love with each other. Society doesn't examine that claim to see if it's true or not. Society simply says "Sorry, not allowed."

But what happens if the student grows up and the attraction is still there? Can society still forbid the relationship? Is there anything intrinsically wrong with a teacher and his former student falling in love?

The concept seems to make some people feel uncomfortable for some reason. And that bears exploration.

So let's explore!

Bob

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Chapter One

Bob Hawkins sat at his desk, staring at the list of students for his summer school history class. He sighed. As usual, he had all the "losers" to deal with for two months when most of the other teachers were going to Mexico, or on extended camping treks in Yellowstone or whatever. He sighed again. It had to be done. The mortgage on his house strained his resources, but he wasn't about to get rid of the relatively opulent place. It sat on 1.8 acres, which provided him with all the room he needed for his gardening obsession.

His eyes ran down the list again. It would be all right. These would no doubt be like the last bunch and the bunch before that. He knew how to deal with them. It was a lot of work and called for a lot of patience, but experience had taught him what worked with kids like these. While fashion and the language of teenagers always changed, what motivated them didn't.

He frowned again, but it had nothing to do with the list of students who had to pass his class to graduate. They were the ones under the real stress. He was known not to cut anybody any slack in his class. You learned the material and passed the tests...or you didn't.

His frown had to do with the fact that he was being saddled with a student teacher during summer school. He'd skated on that little duty in the past but it was his turn and complaining wouldn't cut any mustard with Horace Grimes, the principal. Horace usually left him alone, for the most part, and Bob wanted it to stay that way. It was going to be a pain in the ass, but it was only for two months. It was actually seventy days, but it was easier to think of it as just two months, during which he'd have some gung-ho, recently-indoctrinated, by-the-book, starry-eyed kid under his feet while he used relatively unorthodox techniques to get kids to learn.

At least it was only during summer school. During the fall semester he'd be back to what he loved most - inspiring young minds to remember facts, figures and the true import of history that would repeat itself unless they stopped it from doing so.

But first there was summer school to get through. He reached for the pile of lesson plans he'd be using with the kids who, for this or that reason, resisted learning.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

As she opened one of the big double doors Cecelia Carter realized she was nervous. That irritated her because it seemed silly to be nervous.

While she hadn't exactly been filled with trepidation at being assigned to Harper High for her student teaching, she had to admit it was a bit unsettling. She was the first student teacher in a pilot program that took place during summer school. It hadn’t been done before and she felt like the success of the program rested entirely on her shoulders. But worst of all was the instant she walked through the front doors she felt seventeen again. Everything was exactly the same as it had been when she'd walked out those doors for what she thought would be the last time after graduation.

On her way to the office she stopped at the trophy case in the main hall. She stared at the tall, golden trophy, won when the Harper Penguins took state in her senior year. It had seemed excruciatingly important, back then. The trophy looked a little tarnished now. Her eyes fell to the photograph of the team, with the cheerleaders lined up on their knees in the front. There she was, in the middle with Mandy McKinley. She recognized all the smiling faces, though they had faded in her memory like the image had faded a bit on the paper. As she saw the various faces again she wondered what had happened in their lives since high school.

She knew about only a few of them. She had stopped by Mandy's trailer each of the few times she'd come home from college to see her parents. Mandy now sported the last name of Dunham, had three kids and smoked like a chimney. She'd gained at least fifty pounds and cursed like a sailor. She claimed to be happy. Jeff Dunham, whose smiling face was right above Mandy's in the photograph, was a salesman for a water softening company and was gone a lot, but Mandy said they were getting along okay. There had been no talk about how their plans to go off to college together had been derailed when Mandy came up pregnant just before graduation. At least Jeff stood by her, forgoing his football scholarship to marry her and be there when she needed him. If he could have walked on a pro team in his freshman year he could have taken her with him. But it usually took four years of stellar performance for a pro team to pick you up and they couldn't survive in a college environment for four years.

As she looked at the trim, fit, non-smoker kneeling next to her own young image in the photograph, Cecelia couldn't get Mandy's overweight, smoking, harassed present-day appearance out of her mind. "There, but for the grace of God and a firm resolve to keep my legs closed, go I," said Cecelia under her breath.

She shivered and then went on to the office. She pushed open the same door that led to the same office she had been in dozens of times in what seemed both like the distant past ... and just yesterday. There, behind the counter was the same Mrs. Miller, who looked up and smiled the same smile. Cecelia knew exactly what she'd say. Mrs. Miller didn't disappoint. "Good morning. How may I help you?” It was probably the umpteenth time Mrs. Miller had said that to Cecelia. Mrs. Miller treated every visitor to the office the same way, whether student, parent, teacher or whatever.

"I've been assigned here for student teaching," said Cecelia.

"Welcome back," said Mrs. Miller with a bright smile. "It's so nice to see you again."

Cecelia was surprised that the woman remembered her, but it made her feel good, too.

"Thanks. It's good to be back.” Cecelia looked around. "I think," she added. "I'm a little nervous, to be honest."

"You'll do fine," said the woman. "Let's get you in to see Mr. Grimes so you can get started."

Cecelia also remembered Mr. Grimes well. It occurred to her that she had no idea what either Mrs. Miller's or Mr. Grimes’ first names were. That was something students had no need to know. He looked the same too, with thin black hair combed over his bald pate and owlish eyes behind thick spectacle lenses. He looked up and actually smiled!

"Cee Cee!" he said happily. "I was so glad to hear you'd been assigned to Harper."

She kept her face straight. Cee Cee had been the nickname her girlfriends had given her in the eighth grade, based on the first letters of her first and last name. She'd been quite happy with it initially. It sounded hip and bouncy, at first. But then her body blossomed and she became a cheerleader. For the boys, Cee Cee had taken on an unwelcome new meaning as they joyously greeted her in the halls or wherever. The vast majority of them looked first at one of her breasts, and then at the other, during those greetings. It had been a ritual, and they always laughed after performing it. Why they thought addressing each breast by part of her nickname was funny or cute, she didn't know, but they all did.

She flushed slightly, hoping Mr. Grimes was unaware that the nickname had been adopted by teenage boys to refer to her cup size. She'd been stuck with it, and almost everybody, including teachers and staff, had used it. At least Mr. Grimes hadn't looked at her chest as he greeted her.

"I go by Cecelia now," she blurted.

"Of course," said the principal, his face resuming its slightly pinched look. "In public, however, we'll refer to you as Miss Carter or Ms., if you prefer."

"Either is fine," said Cecelia, feeling foolish. He'd given her a friendly greeting and she'd thrown it back in his face. She tried to soften that rejection. "I'm just trying to act a bit more grown up than when I left."

She was rewarded with a slight smile. "As it should be! And you have grown up. That is certain. And I really am sorry. It was just habit. I should have known better. I expect that nickname caused you some discomfort, back then."

Cecelia felt her cheeks get warm. He did know!

"Kids," she said hastily. "They can be the cruelest members of the human race."

"You got that right," said Grimes firmly. "Please, sit down. I'm sure you're chomping at the bit to get to some real teaching. We really are delighted to have you back. You were an outstanding student, and I'm sure you'll be an outstanding teacher as well."

"Student teacher," Cecelia corrected, and then felt foolish again.

"Humility can be a valuable asset," said the man, his face stern. "But from our perspective," he said, opening a file, "and from the reports on how you've done in school, we're going to treat you just like any of the other teachers.” He closed the file. "Student teaching is a formality, really. It does help some folks weed themselves out of the teaching profession. They find out it isn't what they expected it to be, or that they're not well suited to perform that very important task. But we don't expect that to happen to you. We have a great deal of faith in you and high hopes for your success. As you said, you're all grown up now, so let's have no more talk about you being ‘just’ a student teacher."

"Thank you," said Cecelia, a little dazed by both the length of his speech and the warmth with which it was delivered. She was pretty sure that, other than at an assembly, she'd never heard Mr. Grimes say more than ten words in a row.

She sat in one of the hard-backed wooden chairs across the desk from the principal. Her buttocks seemed to want to slide forward and she had to use her abdominal muscles to stay upright.

"Not that one," said Grimes, waving her to another chair off to the side of his desk. "That one is for parents or students I have to come down on. Makes them uncomfortable and off kilter.” He grinned. "It has an inch sawed off both front legs. One of the tricks of the trade I learned from an acquaintance of mine in law enforcement. There are a number of tricks of the trade you'll become familiar with, Ms. Carter."

She stood and couldn't help looking at the legs of the chair. Sure enough the front legs were squared off where they touched the floor. The ends of the back legs were more rounded. She could see what he was talking about, now that she knew what to look for. She sat in the other chair which was, in fact, much more comfortable.

"All right," said Grimes. "I'm supposed to give you a speech about all this but I know you, so I'm just going to say that this is your opportunity to identify those areas that will need a little fine tuning before you take on a classroom all by yourself.” He sat back in his chair. It took several seconds before Cecelia realized he wasn't going to say anything else.

"That's it?"

"In a nutshell," he said calmly. "You wouldn't be here if your advisors didn't think you were ready. As I said, I know you. You were a serious student. Hopefully you sowed all your wild oats in college. In any case, I'm quite confident you'll be a fine teacher. Additionally we've paired you with one of our best staff members, who will teach you the kinds of things they don't teach at institutions of higher learning ... some of those tricks of the trade I was mentioning. Good luck. It's great seeing you again. Rah, rah, sis boom bah! Gooooo Penguins!”

He stood up, grinning again, no doubt in reference to his cheer. He stuck his hand out to be shaken. On auto pilot she gripped his hand and immediately wished she hadn't. Not only was it distinctly odd to shake Mr. Grimes' hand in the first place, but his hand had a cool, limp feel that sent a shiver down her spine. She smiled weakly at him, said "Go team," less than whole-heartedly, and took her hand back as he said, "Anything you need...anything at all...just ask."

Back out in the main office she realized he hadn't told her who her supervising teacher was. She was so unsettled that she didn't want to go back in there to find out. Mrs. Miller looked over at her and waved a piece of paper.

“We need to get your forms filled out next,” she said.

Cecelia penned things neatly on the lines provided: address; medical insurance; license number and type of car that would be parked in the teachers' parking lot; spouse or next of kin, and so on. She handed it back.

"I think you’re all ready to go," said the woman.

"I'm not sure where exactly that is," said Cecelia.

"I'll take you there," said Mrs. Miller. "He's using a different classroom than he does when school is in session."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

As Cecelia followed Mrs. Miller down familiar hallways, things from her “interview” with Grimes bounced around in her mind. One of those things was his reference to her "sowing her wild oats" in college.

Men at college had been a big disappointment to Cecelia. In high school, the girls had had a code name with reference to a boy who was ... exuberant ... in his attention to his date. She remembered one of those in particular. Kathy Wilson had showed up at her locker one day only minutes after Cecelia had agreed to go to the movies with Jeff Dunham. That was before Jeff and Mandy had started going together.

"Be ready to be Captain Nemo when you go out with Jeff," Kathy had said in a matter of fact voice.

She'd been right too. Jeff seemed to have more arms than a squid, giant or otherwise, and having to fight him off had ruined the movie for her. She'd ended the date before Jeff could get her somewhere alone.

She'd expected college men to be more mature, but they weren't. They all seemed to be interested only in what boys had interpreted "Cee Cee" to mean in high school. When her first few college dates all turned into attempts to get her drunk or naked, she began "washing her hair" most nights. As a result, she hadn't sowed any wild oats at all during her college years. Instead she'd stopped wearing makeup and adopted loose jeans and sweatshirts as her primary wardrobe. She'd even gotten horn-rimmed glasses, abandoning her contacts in favor of a look that, along with only rare smiles, was crafted to suggest she was unapproachable and uninterested in the males of the species. To her abject horror, it had gotten her a little attention from other young women instead. Then again, they were much easier to discourage, and a heck of a lot more polite about it.

Her previous drab attire had served its purpose. When she brushed off the occasional invitation it usually stayed brushed off. She got a work study job, too, which made it easy to turn down dates because she could claim she had to work on any given night. At work, where she digitized written records on exhibits in the university museum, she interacted with few people. The men she met there were more serious than the average college guy, but also weren't all that interesting, for the most part. The few who were, were married, which put them off limits in her mind.

For a while she felt a little lonely on Friday and Saturday nights, in her room, while her roommates were out sowing their wild oats. Her studies, a long list of good books, and some truly awful television had gotten her through it, though. She was perfectly aware that her biological clock was ticking away but she was also convinced that she had plenty of time left before any alarms might go off or that clock might need servicing.

Of course now that she was going to be a student teacher things had changed. For one thing she was wearing a light summer blouse with an appropriately modest, but stylish skirt. It had felt strange to put on such feminine clothing after years of suppressing her femininity. And, perhaps, she might start meeting men who were mature enough to respect a woman for her abilities, instead of just the fact that she had a willowy figure with full thrusting breasts and waves of shiny auburn hair cascading down her back. Perhaps they might not center on the touch of lipstick on her lush lips, or the fact that it was impossible to keep one's buttocks from rising and falling as one walked.

As Mrs. Miller turned to a familiar looking door and gripped the knob, Cecelia reflected that for the foreseeable future she needed to pay attention to student teaching, rather than think about men and the role they weren't playing in her life.

Which was why, when she saw the man sitting at the desk and realized just who her supervising teacher was, she was completely unprepared for the weakness that suddenly assaulted her knees. She had to stop and concentrate on standing up, so that she didn't sink to the floor.

"I've brought you your student teacher, Mr. Hawkins," said Mrs. Miller. "And I need to remind you that I'm still missing the eighteen-oh-three reports on your sixth hour class for last year."

Cecelia saw him turn his head and look at her. His eyebrows were raised, almost in a frown, until it was obvious he recognized her. They dropped and the corners of the mouth above that devastating cleft chin she'd forgotten all about went upwards, revealing white teeth that took her back as if high school had been yesterday.

"Cee Cee!" said Bob. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you again."

 

Chapter Two

 

Memories assailed Cecelia’s mind for what seemed like ten minutes, but was in reality only fifteen seconds. She hadn't thought about Mr. Hawkins for years, but it all came back like an overpowering wave of surf. She'd had a killer crush on him when she was in his class. Part of her mind heard Mrs. Miller talking to him, and his reply about the reports she had mentioned, but most of it was taken over by feelings she had thought were both silly ... and long gone.

He'd been twenty-five when she was in his class. On the one hand, that had seemed old at the time, but on the other hand she hadn't cared. That he was married hadn't mattered either. As she sat in class, over the months, she'd had disturbing ... but delightful thoughts about him. His smile, his soulful eyes, and especially that cleft chin had drawn her eyes like magnets. The first time she'd heard a particular song on KY-104 Golden Oldies, it had instantly become "their song," though he of course had no knowledge of that. Seeing him brought it all back.

That song, Joe Elliott's "Pour some sugar on meeeeee," popped into her mind in what seemed like full stereo. Her left arm jerked out to her side, taking up the unconscious fingering position of the air guitar she'd played wildly in her room as she whirled to the beat and lyrics of the song. She'd fantasized that it was Mr. Hawkins singing that song to her. She'd watched the video of the band playing that song exactly once, and then never again. She hadn't been able to fit Bob Hawkins into that visual rendition. She also hadn't been able to get a clear vision of what happened in her fantasies as she "poured sugar" on Mr. Hawkins, but she knew it was delicious and wonderful. She got a taste of how delicious and wonderful it was as, in the dark of night, her fingers had slipped between her legs and played another instrument - her teenaged sexual organ - until she felt the release that was required so she could actually get to sleep.

She blushed with embarrassment and dropped her arm as she realized what was happening. Mrs. Miller chose that particular time to say, "Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I'll expect those reports in a day or two."

"I promise," said Bob, looking earnest. His eyes went from the older woman to his new student teacher.

"Cee Cee, is that really you?" he said. He was grinning again. "Wow, what a difference a few years can make!"

Cecelia tried to get control of her mind and body. "Um ... hi," she said weakly. "I didn't know it would be you.” She felt like a teeny bopper all over again and felt a surge of frustration. Schoolgirl fantasies were a thing of the past. And even though he looked just like she remembered him, she was irritated that she was feeling like that schoolgirl again.

"Same old dude," he said with a smile. "I am so glad it's you. I had visions of having to ride herd on some...” He stopped. "Never mind. I'm just glad I have a good one to work with. Come in. Come in!"

Cecelia realized she was just standing there, where she'd stopped when she’d first entered the room. She took a deep breath and made her right foot move. Taking a step she realized she was headed for one of the student desks in the room and she swerved drunkenly to avoid sitting in the same seat she'd had when he was her teacher. Her frustration surged as she looked around for somewhere else to sit. Other than his desk chair, which was occupied at the moment, there was nowhere else to sit with dignity.

He seemed to recognize the problem.

"Hang on a sec," he said.

He got up and went to the supply closet, which he returned from with a hard backed chair just like the one in Principal Grimes' office. Her eyes slid down to examine the bottoms of the front legs before she jerked them back up to Bob's face.

"This is more fitting for a teacher," he said, smiling.

"Thank you," she said. She felt like she should say something else but couldn't, for the life of her, think of anything intelligent to say.

"How’s college?" he asked.

That turned out to be only the first of a string of questions he peppered her with. It wasn't until ten minutes later that she realized she had relaxed – that by basically interrogating her he'd calmed her down. She wondered if he'd somehow known what she was thinking, though he gave no direct evidence of that.

"And now here you are," he finally said. "I can imagine how this must be affecting you."

She looked at him sharply, while he went on.

"It's a little like coming back home after you've gone off to college. Your parents remember you as their little girl and they treat you just like they did when you left."

She blinked. That's exactly how her parents had treated her. That very first time she'd come back home they'd even told her what time to be home when she'd said she was going out with some of her friends from high school. It had taken her two years to break them of that behavior.

"Not to worry," said Bob. "I know what you've been through, and none of the kids will remember you. Now you're one of us, the evil administration, and you get to strike terror in the hearts of unruly teenagers.” He grinned again. "I'm proud of you, Cee Cee. It's good to know that sometimes a kid gets it and goes on to do great things."

Cecelia suppressed her urge to ask him not to call her Cee Cee. From his lips it didn't sound so bad. It sounded normal, in a way. She felt more relaxed and tried to say something adult.

"Well, it's kind of weird to be back, in a way, but it's kind of exciting, too. I just hope I'm up to it. I have to admit I'm a little nervous."

"I'd be worried about you if you weren't," said Bob. "But that kind of nervousness will go away. I'm quite sure you'll be fine, with time. I won't throw you to the lions right away. You'll have a chance to wade in the alligator pond before we make you swim in it.” He grinned again. "Sounds like you've arrived in a zoo, huh?” Then he chuckled. "Actually, it is a zoo sometimes."

Cecelia found herself staring at that damned chin dimple. She jerked her eyes up to his nose and stared at that intentionally. With almost regret, she decided even his nose was handsome.

Then, as if an invisible switch had been flipped, Bob Hawkins was all business. He described what class they'd be teaching and showed her the text book, which was a different one than what she'd had when she was in the class. Then he handed her the academic records of the fifteen students who would be in it.

"Take a look at those, so you know what to expect when the kids get here next week."

Quite suddenly he was ignoring her, going back to the stack of papers on his desk that he'd been looking at when she first arrived. She wondered why he wanted her to look at whatever was in the folders. Students were students, right? They were in your class and you taught them. What else did you need to know about them?

She opened a folder and her eyes scanned the unfamiliar format. There were test scores and grade reports. There was a synopsis of disciplinary actions taken. Attendance was recorded, as well as participation in extracurricular activities. She was astonished to see there was a page with notes on potential problems at home. The one she was looking at, for a girl named Haley Simpson, had a note that said Haley's mother was single, worked nights and wasn't there to supervise Haley's homework. She opened another one, for a boy named Theodore Johnson. He had a peculiar mixture of very high and very low grades. His standardized test scores suggested he was very intelligent. The notes section said that he was the primary caregiver for a younger brother and sister, and that his parents had been arrested multiple times for drug violations.

By the sixth one she knew that these kids were the ones that she and her friends in high school would have labeled "losers.” She couldn’t call them that now, of course.

"Mr. Hawkins, this is going to be a tough crowd," she said.

"Bob," he responded.

"What?"

"You can call me Bob, now.” He smiled.

She was flustered again instantly. "I can't do that!" she blurted.

"Why not?" he asked, still smiling.

"I just don't think I can do that. I mean it just seems so wrong. You've always been Mr. Hawkins," she said weakly. "Maybe Mr. ‘H’...but never Bob!"

"You keep thinking of me as your teacher," said Bob. "I get that, because it’s easy for me to think of you as my student. I need to get over that. The fact is that you've become much more mature in your outlook on life. And, while I am kinda-sorta still your teacher we’re both adults now, so you need to get over it, too.”

"I've had a lot to think about lately," she said somewhat vaguely. "I'll try to work on that, though. I want to think of you as a colleague, but that seems so...I don't know...pushy maybe?” She frowned. "I mean I am just a student teacher. It seems presumptuous to try to put myself in the category of being your peer."

Bob was quite willing to have a serious conversation with this delightful girl. It helped take his mind off how "delightful" she was.

"At what point do you decide we're peers?" he asked. "It has to happen sooner or later. Is it when you graduate? Is it when you get your teaching license? Is it when you're hired for a full time position? Or is it after you've completed your first year and decided to subject yourself to that torture for another year? Seems like now is as good a time as any to me."

Cecelia tilted her head and stared at him. She seemed to be deep in thought.

"You always were one of the best teachers," she said suddenly. "I never thought about why that was until now, but I realize now it’s because you treated us like grownups. You gave us credit for having a brain, and let us use them."

"I made you use them," he said, grinning. "That's why some kids thought I was one of the worst teachers."

She shook her head. "Hardest, maybe, but even that's not fair. I don't remember your class being hard. I liked it. You gave us a lot of homework but I usually didn't mind doing it. I liked coming to history class.” She looked away, blushing for some reason.

“Okay, then,” he said. “We’ll split the difference. To the kids, I’m Mr. Hawkins. To you, when speaking of me in the third person to the kids, I’m Mr. Hawkins. The rest of the time, when it’s just you and me, you’ll work on calling me Bob.” He waved his hands in the air. “Abra cadabra...presto! You, Cee Cee, are now my peer."

He saw her flinch, and thought about that for a few seconds. He was good at reading people, particularly young people. Her negative reaction couldn't be the reference to her being his peer. Young people in her situation wanted desperately to be considered peers of those older, even if she was resisting it.

Then he thought he got it.

"Oh," he said softly. "I'm sorry. Old habits die hard. Here I am doing the same thing I was talking about...treating you like my student...using your high school nickname. I shouldn't even have called you that back then, to be honest.”

Her face turned so red that he was afraid he'd said the wrong thing.

"Did everybody know?" she almost moaned.

"Know what?" he asked, sounding puzzled.

"What that meant," she gasped.

"What it meant?” He was obviously confused now. "It was just your nickname ... wasn't it? Cecelia Carter ... C-C."

Cecelia wanted to crawl in a hole and hide. Her assumption that he knew what the boys had made the letters stand for, back then, had caused her to get into a situation that she didn't know how to handle. She couldn't just tell him about her breasts. She felt tears gathering in her eyes as embarrassment almost incapacitated her.

"Hey," he said softly. "Don't worry about it. Whatever the wound, it's over and done now. I'll be sure to call you Cecelia, okay?"

She felt a surge of relief as she realized he was giving her a pass on explaining what was so horrible about her nickname. He'd always been so cool. Her relief was followed closely by a resurgence of those silly romantic emotions she'd been captive to, four years earlier. She clamped down on that and wiped her eyes.

"Cecelia is fine," she said softly. "I'm sorry. I feel stupid."

"Maybe someday you'll tell me about it," he said. "But like I said, that was then and this is now. Nobody besides me probably even remembers that nickname."

"Mr. Grimes did," she said, before she could stop herself.

"I'll have a word with him," said Bob promptly.

"Please, no!" she said. "He apologized too. Don't say anything to him. It really shouldn't be a big deal. I don't want to make a fuss."

Bob's face was serious. "Listen to me. We're going to be working together ... closely together. I'm not going to pry into your private affairs but the way you just reacted looked like it was a big deal. I don't want you distracted by anything that will have a negative effect on your performance here. Student teaching can make or break a career; not because of your skill set, but because of the emotional strain it can cause. If eradicating that old nickname will help remove an emotional stressor, then that's what I want to do."

Cecelia had visions of Bob going around to everyone, frowning and ordering them never to call her anything but Cecelia or Miss Carter.

"I really don't want to make a big deal of this," she pleaded. "It was stupid. The boys just...” She stopped before she blurted out the rest.

Bob saw her getting upset again and gave her another out.

"We'll worry about what we call each other later. I was just going over lesson plans. That's as good a place for you to start as any. What do you say?"

He smiled and again her eyes gravitated to the lips she had had fantasies of kissing as she hugged her pillow at night. When he smiled like that the cleft in his chin deepened.

"I'm ready!" she said, eager to get her mind on something other than that dimple. She felt hot, suddenly. "They still haven't fixed the air conditioning in this building, have they," she said grumpily.

"It's been fixed for years," he said, sounding surprised. He went to the thermostat on the wall. "Says here it's seventy-two.” He looked at her.

She blushed as she realized there were other things that could make a woman feel ... heated. It was obvious that her feelings for this man weren't anywhere near as buried as she'd thought they were.

"I'll be fine," she said, somewhat stiffly. "Shall we get started?"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Bob explained that it would probably be fruitless to try to cover five thousand years of history in two months, particularly with students who were scholastically challenged. What he wanted to do was try to teach these kids how to properly study history, should they want to do so at some future date.

"The only reason to study history at all," he said, "is to learn lessons from it that apply to your current or near future situation. If all history amounts to is a bunch of dry statistics it doesn't do you any good at all. But history really does repeat itself, and what happened decades, hundreds, or even thousands of years ago really can have an impact on your life as it recycles itself into the new generation."

She felt like telling him he was preaching to the choir but only nodded while he went on to explain that his intent was to inspire the summer school class by reviewing the major world shaping events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. That history could be brought alive because it could be shown how those events created the culture these kids now lived in. Understanding why things were the way they were was what he thought might grab their attention.

In other words, he'd abandoned the official curriculum for the class and was teaching what he thought would result in scholastic success. Cecelia was astonished, and it showed.

"I wouldn't do this during the regular school year," he said. "At least not to this extent. But these are kids who have to be here for summer school while their friends are out having fun, and this might be their last chance to get a diploma before just giving up on the idea. I guess what it breaks down to is that in my opinion the true art of teaching is to teach kids how to learn and then motivate them to keep doing it. After that they can learn on their own."

It made all kinds of sense to Cecelia, but it went against everything she'd been taught. Curriculum and approved lesson plans were the rule! That's what you did! You weren't supposed to just decide what was important and what wasn't. You had to teach it all! What he was talking about, though, sounded like it would be fun, because it really could illuminate aspects of their current lives. She swallowed her arguments and told him to go on.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

They kept at it for an hour, reviewing each day's plan for the first week of class and discussing what techniques would be used to teach it. Some of what she'd heard as theory in college took on more meaning as, for all intents and purposes, he lectured her. Except it wasn't like a lecture. It was more like a philosophical discussion, or debate in which he was presenting a view he was trying to get her to accept. She remembered his style when she was in his class, and how a student could disagree with him about some interpretation of a historical event, and finally understood why she'd loved coming to World History. His style was loose and, if you wanted to, you got to participate in the conclusions of the discussion.

The classroom door opened and Mr. Higginbotham, one of the vice principals, stuck his head in.

"Bob, didn't you get the memo about them fumigating today?"

Bob sat up straight. "Yeah. I just forgot."

"Well you weren't the only one," sighed Higginbotham. "Hence the need for me to traipse around the whole school running people out.” He glanced at Cecelia and his eyes showed appreciation. "You must be the new student teacher," he said, and then by way of introduction: "Don Higginbotham, Vice Principal in charge of discipline, among other things."

"Cecelia Carter," she said automatically. She knew him, but he obviously didn't remember her. Then again, she'd never gotten detention, which was Mr. Higginbotham's special area of expertise.

"Carter," he said. "Sounds familiar. Do I know you?"

Bob laughed, and Higginbotham looked at him questioningly.

"She's an alum," said Bob. "She was one of the good ones ... you know ... the ones you never had anything to do with?"

Higginbotham's eyebrows rose. "Carter," he repeated. "Cheerleader ... right?"

Cecelia's cheeks darkened a little. Was that the only thing anybody would remember about her?

"Yes sir," she said.

Higginbotham grinned widely. "Sir! She actually called me sir! Miss Carter - is it Miss Carter? - never mind - Cecelia, you have made my day. Welcome aboard!” He kept grinning. "Now leave. It wouldn't do to have our new student teacher gassed like all those people in the concentration camps that Bob here teaches students all about. Bob we could probably do without, but the school board frowns on killing off student teachers.” He kept grinning, no doubt at what he thought of as his clever repartee.

"Okay, we're out of here," said Bob. He stood and collected the papers they'd been going through. "We can move this to my house. I have air conditioning.” He grinned.

 

Chapter Three

 

Cecelia looked grim as she drove, following Bob's older model Chevrolet. While she didn't actually know all that much about Bob Hawkins she knew he was married. All the girls had known he was married. It had been the bane of their fantasies, back when she went to school at Harper High. His age hadn't dissuaded them from fantasizing about him, but it was a little difficult to pretend you could compete with a wife.

A slight smile of reminiscence came to her lips as she remembered wondering what it would be like to be in his arms with his luscious, smiling lips pressed to hers. That was about as far as her really detailed fantasies had ever gone, though she was aware that some of the other girls would have gone much farther if there had been an opening. But there never had been an opening, because Mr. Hawkins was very married and he’d made it clear, somehow, that he was very happily married.

What she was worried about now, as she trailed him to his house, was that Mrs. Hawkins would see through her hopefully calm exterior and recognize that Cecelia Carter had the same crush on Mr. Hawkins now that she'd had back in high school.

She stopped daydreaming and noticed that they were in a very nice part of town that she had always associated with being where the rich people lived. She got more and more curious when Bob's car turned into a long tree-lined driveway that led to a large house surrounded by lovely ornate gardens. When he parked his car on the brick horseshoe drive in front of the house and got out, she put her car in park and left it running, assuming he had some errand to run that he'd remembered during the drive. He stood looking at her for a few seconds, and then came to her window. She rolled it down.

"We going to do this here in your car or something?" he asked.

"This is where you live?” Her voice rose.

"Home, hearth and gardening. That is my life outside of school," he said. "It's a long story. Don't get the idea you'll be living like this on a teacher's salary any time soon."

"Wow," said Cecilia as she got out. She noticed that his eyes fell to her bare thighs as her skirt slid up, but when he offered her his hand to help her get out of the car she thought she'd imagined it.

Her amazement—and her vocal expression of it—only increased when they went inside. A vaulted entryway with a mirror-like terrazzo floor presented two curving staircases that led to the second floor. To the right was a living room and to the left was a dining room with a table that could easily have seated twenty people. He led her through that room and a kitchen that would have made any professional chef's mouth water, to a library that, other than one wall that was almost entirely glass, contained wall-to-wall bookshelves packed with both hard and paperbacked volumes. The only thing that seemed out of place was a cheap pressed-wood computer hutch that had been put in one corner of the room. Along with the computer, it was covered with piles of books and papers.

"This is where I do my homework," said Bob, putting his briefcase on the round hardwood table in the middle of the room.

"This is just gorgeous," sighed Cecelia.

"Trust me," said Bob. "This place takes every penny I make. I just couldn't bear to give it up, that's all. I have a little more than an acre of land to use to pursue my love of gardening, which is what keeps me sane."

"Well, your wife must spend all her time just cleaning," said Cecelia, thinking about how big the house was and how much there would be to do in routine upkeep. She couldn't imagine Mr. Hawkins having servants. Then again, she would never have been able to imagine him having a house like this either. "Unless you have a maid, of course," she added.

"No maid, and no wife," he said. His voice sounded heavy. "My wife left me about a year after we got this place."

"I'm sorry," said Cecelia, who felt instant guilt because she wasn't sorry at all. This information was too new to fully process, so she’d simply said what she was sure she was supposed to say in this situation.

"It was a good thing, actually," said Bob. "We only got this house because she was climbing the corporate ladder and she said we needed to present a 'suitably successful' image. She wanted to be able to have dinner parties and such that would impress her bosses and clients."

"Well she sure got that," sighed Cecelia.

"Not enough, apparently," said Bob. "She’d tried talking me out of the classroom from the moment I met her. I had a little money I inherited from an uncle and she wanted to parlay that into a fortune in the stock market while she drove toward a vice presidency. She had visions of me doing the same thing and couldn't understand that I loved my job. She got tired of trying to talk sense into my stony brain and finally gave me an ultimatum. By then I was pretty sure it had all been a mistake from the beginning. But you can't talk sense to hormones and she was a beautiful, interesting woman.” He sighed. "She got her vice presidency and suddenly this place wasn't good enough. Her new job was in Chicago anyway and I didn't feel like moving to Chicago to continue being the man she was embarrassed to be married to."

"I'm so sorry," said Cecelia. She really was sorry this time. She thought Bob Hawkins deserved much better than a grasping cutthroat corporate and social climber.

"Like I said. She was a sweet girl before she got greedy, but she wasn't the woman I thought I'd married, so when it ended it wasn't as bad as it sometimes is. I decided to invest all my savings in this place and bought her out," said Bob. "That let me refinance, which is the only reason I can afford this place on my own at all. This is my retirement fund, so to speak. When the time comes, I'll sell it for a pretty penny and live the life of Sluggo in my golden years."

"Isn't that supposed to be the life of Riley?" she asked automatically.

"Riley lives high on the hog," said Bob, smiling. "Sluggo lives in a trailer somewhere but has enough to eat and can afford a case of beer now and then.” He looked around. "Speaking of which, you want a beer or something?"

Having Mr. Hawkins, her history teacher, offer her a beer seemed so bizarre that the only framework of understanding she could fit it into was that, like the fraternity boys in college, he was trying to get her drunk. That led to conflicting reactions. On the one hand, getting drunk ... and loose ... with Mr. Hawkins didn't seem like it would be all that horrible. On the other hand, she knew it was ridiculous to believe he'd try something so juvenile. She didn't like beer all that much anyway.

"I'm not much of a beer drinker," she finally responded.

"What a shame," he said. "I get mine from a company called Pyramid. My favorite is their Apricot Ale. It's a wheat beer, but flavored with fruit. I'm not much of a beer drinker either, except for this stuff."

"Maybe later," said Cecelia. "I'm not really thirsty right now."

There were comfortable, padded chairs around the circular library table and they sat while he got the lesson plans out so they could pick up where they'd left off. At one point they got to a note that reminded him to look up more information about the origin of cloning and genetic surgery.

"I don't have any books on that," he said. "You want to research it on the internet for me?"

Cecelia got up and went to the computer. When she was seated, he leaned over her shoulder, reaching past her to push the button that supplied electricity to all the components. Her nose twitched as she inhaled the fragrance of ... Mr. Hawkins. It was difficult to break down, but he smelled good. She felt her face flush and almost jerked when he laid his hand on her shoulder briefly.

"There you go," he said, lifting his hand. "I've got broadband, so it shouldn’t take you long."

She spent the next two hours searching the web, printing information, and making notes in the lesson plan before he said they'd done enough for one day.

"Want to see my gardens?" he asked with a hopeful note in his voice.

"Sure," she said, more to be polite than for any real craving to see plants. The front yard had been beautiful but she didn't think she'd ever sit and contemplate it like art.

He led her through French doors in the glass wall of the library to a patio that curved off to the right and became the deck of a swimming pool. The blue water looked good as the warmth of the sun soaked into her body. There were flowers, bushes and trees everywhere and she followed him as he pointed out various plants and named them. She thought it was funny that certain trees had to be this or that distance away from the pool, and that some types of plants couldn't be placed at the bottom of the eight foot privacy fence that surrounded the pool, patio and garden area, because the roots would interfere with the fence posts.

"Sounds like you need a degree to know all this," she said at one point.

"Actually they do have degree programs for horticultural architecture," he said quite seriously. "If I hadn't gotten my teaching degree before I got into gardening, I would probably have ended up going that way."

"That would have been a terrible loss to the students of Harper High," she said.

"Thank you," he said, bowing. "I suspect someone will say the same thing about you some day."

They ended up by the pool and Cecelia idly kicked off one shoe. She wasn't wearing pantyhose. She drew the line at that and was willing to shave her legs regularly if that was what it took to keep them looking smooth. She bent a knee and dipped the bare foot in the water.

"How can water always feel so cool when the sun is shining on it all day?" she asked.

"You like to swim?"

"It's one of the ways I kept in shape in college," she said.

"It worked."

She glanced at him and was shocked to see frank male appraisal on his face. She felt tingles of familiar excitement ripple through her body and she looked away. The prospect of Mr. Hawkins not being married was finally sinking in, and she suddenly felt jittery. She wanted nothing more than to just fall in the cool water to relieve the heat that suffused her body.

"Feel free to use the pool any time," he added. He turned away. "I'm going to get me a beer," he said. He didn't offer her one this time—he just walked away.

She looked around the garden, her eyes flickering past or settling on splashes of color while she got her breathing under control and reminded herself that the thoughts she was having about the owner of this garden were completely inappropriate and needed, somehow, to be banished from her mind.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Cecelia's emotional condition would have suffered even more had she known what was going through Bob's mind as he got a chilled beer from the stainless steel refrigerator in the kitchen. As he opened it, he wandered back to the doorway to the library, looking through it and the French doors at the figure of the woman in the garden.

She'd always been cute and vivacious. Sitting in his class in her cheerleading uniform, she'd caused him emotional distress of his own. While she had been undeniably good looking, she didn't seem to have the clique mentality that a lot of her good looking friends displayed. Moreover, she was smart and witty. And he'd never seen her acting slutty. He couldn't count the number of times some girl in his class had "let something show accidentally" as she sat in front of him. He'd learned to ignore those little gifts, though he knew, even then, that his marriage was in trouble. He was aware that while candy was sweet, it was also very bad for you.

Cecelia, though, was more along the lines of fine chocolate. She was a good example of the difference between Brachs and Godiva, and while it was no problem to take a pass on Brachs, well … eschewing Godiva took a lot more self control.

Cecelia had been what he thought of as the quintessential budding woman, who had the potential to rock the world, not to mention some man's love life. He'd tried not to have sexual thoughts about her, and the few others like her, back then. It had been impossible, of course. She was the flower, and his subconscious male mind was the bee.

He'd been tempted on several occasions, both back then and since, particularly after Sherry had scorned him, but teaching was his life, and it wasn't worth hazarding that for some quick action with a young woman who probably had no idea what being made love to was really all about. He could get off with his hand when he needed to - no fuss, no mess, no complications.

He knew he could have climbed back on the dating roller coaster. A lot of his students were being raised by single mothers, and more than a few of them were ardent about getting to parent/teacher conferences, particularly since word got out that he was now unattached. But there were hazards associated with the possibilities that raised, too. He couldn't give the appearance that he was flitting from one flower to the other, and he couldn't be sure that any of the candidates would work out for a longer term relationship.

His eyes followed movements of the young woman out in the garden and he felt himself twitch and begin to become erect. She was so delectable, and still seemed to have all the qualities she'd had when he’d admired her so much. An office romance was out of the question, of course. It wasn't fair to her and it could get him in a lot of trouble. It wouldn't be legal trouble, but having enemies on the school board was never a good thing, even if they had no real right to disapprove of who he had a romantic interest in. They’d simply label it “bad judgment” and his career would be over in that district.

He saw Cecelia wander over to the big, covered hot tub under the gazebo at one end of the pool. She ran her fingertips across the cover, almost idly, and he wondered what those fingertips would feel like drifting across his skin like that. He was almost fully hard now and cursed himself under his breath for letting his imagination run wild.

She turned toward him and began walking purposefully toward the library doors. He took a deep drink of his beer and left it on the counter while he headed toward the bathroom that was built to serve the kitchen staff. He couldn't let her see him with this kind of lump in his pants, saluting her desirability. He’d just made it into the little room when he heard the French doors open and then close again.

He felt trapped in the bathroom. He hadn't had a boner like this in a long time and was pretty sure the only way to get rid of it would involve some arm work. He couldn't very well do that while Cecelia was left to wander around the house.

Or could he?

He pushed the door open and stuck his head into the kitchen. Cecelia was examining the beer bottle he'd left on the counter. She looked so fine!

"Hey, nature calls," he said. "If you want to explore, feel free.” He ducked back into the bathroom and his fingers went to his belt. If he was going to have to do this, he might as well enjoy it.

Closing his eyes, he called to memory what Cecelia's blouse looked like, hugging those delightfully firm looking breasts. He imagined her going into his bedroom and lying on the bed. It was July, and it was hot. She opened her blouse, fanning it to cool her skin. The bra was hot, too, so she reached under herself to unclip it. Doe eyes looked at him in his fantasy and she said, “I’m so hot. Help me, Bob.”

"Oh damn," he sighed. "This isn't going to take long at all."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Cecelia did explore, though only tentatively, at first. She felt oddly out of place, like she was sneaking around in her teacher's house. Reminding herself that she was trying to act like his peer, she went into the living room and looked around. There was a sterile kind of feel to the place and she made the assumption that he didn't spend a lot of time there. There were French doors in that room, too, that led to more gardens outside, with statuary as points of central focus. She noticed that most of the statues were nudes but didn't assign any particular relevance to it.

Moving back to the vestibule she looked up the staircase on the side nearest her. The heels of her sensible shoes made sharp clicking noises as she climbed the stone steps. At the top, she found a hallway extending in either direction. She worked her way down the hall, peeking through doors, finding bedrooms and powder rooms that had that same sterile feel, as if they were just for show.

When she found his bedroom it was obvious immediately. It reminded her of a college dorm room, with posters on the walls and the clutter of being lived in everywhere. She caught herself sniffing the air, as if she expected to smell locker room odors, but the only thing she sensed was a slight lemony scent.

Her eyes were drawn to one poster and she gasped as she recognized an action shot of Rick Allen, drumming one-armed, beads of sweat captured by the camera, midair as they flicked from the tips of his flying hair. It was surreal to find a Def Leppard poster on the wall of the man she'd fantasized about while listening to that band's music.

Her eyes finally drifted away from Allen's image and fell on the bed, which was unmade, the covers tossed carelessly aside when he’d gotten up. The impression of his head was still left on the pillow. A pair of pajama bottoms had been dropped negligently on the exposed sheet. They were covered with little hearts in neon colors in a pattern she recognized as an overlaying rainbow. She couldn't help but imagine Bob, dressed only in those pajama bottoms, getting out of bed. She almost giggled as she thought of the treasure at the end of that rainbow. The mirth faded as she closed her eyes and the image of Bob took the bottoms off and stood up. Though covered by her eyelids, her eyeballs rolled downward to look at what her imagination had exposed.

Her eyes snapped open and she actually jumped off the floor with a shriek as someone touched her elbow.

Trying to turn, with her body in the partially opened doorway, resulted in her left elbow smacking the door frame solidly at about the same time she saw Bob take a step back, concern on his face. His "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," was almost drowned out by her cry as her funny bone complained vociferously about what she'd just done to it. It was the kind of pain that demanded she bend over and cradle the elbow in her other hand, while she whined.

She felt his hands on her shoulders and marveled that, while she was in so much pain, she could still get a little thrill at that touch.

"Are you okay?" he asked anxiously.

She raised her head, still unable to stand back up, and found herself looking right at his zipper, which wasn't quite all the way up, for some reason. Her mind was in turmoil.

"Yeah," she groaned. "I just hit my funny bone. Give me a minute."

"Why do we call it a funny bone when hitting it never seems funny?" he responded.

Her whimpers turned to laughter and her body was suddenly released to stand. Her face was flushed and some of her hair, which had fallen forward when she bent over, remained draped across her right breast.

"I'm sorry," she finally said. "I was snooping and you caught me."

"I gave you permission to snoop," he said carelessly. "You want some ice for that elbow?"

"I don't think so," she said, rubbing it. "It feels better now."

"Good," he said.

"You have a poster of Rick Allen on your wall!" she blurted.

"Amazing guy," said Bob. "They're one of my favorite bands. Despite all kinds of tragedy they made it big. It's a testament to their talent."

"That's my favorite band, too!" she said, feeling her face get hot.

"Then you have excellent taste," said Bob. "Are you sure you don't need that elbow looked at?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I should probably be going home."

"I meant to ask you if you'd found a place to stay yet," said Bob.

"I'm staying with my parents until I can find my own place," she said. "My mother is ecstatic and keeps telling me there's no need to find an apartment because my student teaching only lasts three months."

"Horace might offer you a permanent position," said Bob.

"Horace?"

"Sorry.” He grinned. "Mr. Grimes to you."

"Mr. Grimes is named Horace?” Her voice rose a whole octave.

"Now you know why he goes by Mr. Grimes," said Bob, smiling. "Besides, you need more privacy than you'll get at home. What about your boyfriend? Isn't living at home going to cramp his style?"

"I don't have a boyfriend," she said.

Bob blinked. How could this lovely young thing not have a boyfriend? Were all young men insane? His confusion must have shown on his face, because she went on.

"I haven't had good luck with men. They're kind of a pain in the ass..." she blushed at the coarse word, but continued. "I just decided they were more trouble than they were worth."

Bob wondered if that was just her rationalization for having decided she was a lesbian. He felt something very near pain at the thought that she might have gone that way, but it wasn't any of his business.

"Hey, not a problem. Your sexual orientation makes absolutely no difference to me."

Cecelia was astonished as she saw her hand shoot out and push at his chest.

"I'm not that way!" she yelped. "Don't even talk that way! My mother would have a heart attack if she heard that!"

Bob was almost ashamed at the relief he felt at finding out she hadn't given up men permanently. He reminded himself it was none of his business. "It's really none of her business either," he offered.

"My mother is an old fashioned kind of woman," said Cecelia. "She wants to be a grandma because that's what she thinks she's supposed to be, and that’s my department. If she got the crazy idea that I like women instead of men - even though that's not true - she'd go over the edge. Don't even joke about that!"

Bob stepped back, his face suddenly serious. "You're right. I shouldn't even have brought it up. I'm sorry. I guess I still have a little difficulty adjusting to the fact that you're a grown woman. I'll work on that, I promise. And I promise never ever to mention anything even resembling your social life to your mother, should I be so fortunate as to cross paths with her again."

Cecelia was also having trouble adjusting to her change in status ... or his change in status, perhaps. She kept thinking of him as her teacher, rather than the man she would be working with for what would be almost three months. Still, her upbringing required that she respond appropriately, so she did.

"Thank you," she said. Then, his obvious honest contrite feelings required that she say more. "But I think you're wrong. I mean one of the reasons everybody liked you was because you treated us more like grownups than all the other teachers. You made us want to be more grown up."

The grin that appeared on his face made her feel better.

"I know," he said. "I've always believed that if you expect the best from kids, most of them will try to give it to you. Instead of enforcing the rules I try to make it clear I expect kids to honor them. You wouldn't believe how much hot water that's gotten me into with Horace and some of the others."

Flutters were starting to run through Cecelia's body again. This man was so attractive, and so thoughtful, that it seemed to do things to her even though she tried to fight it.

"I'd better get going," she said.

"I'll see you out," he responded.

 

Chapter Four

 

Bob had fallen into the habit of getting to school two hours early. Many of the other teachers shaved that to thirty minutes, a few even less, but Bob had found over the years that having more time to get ready for the day to "start" made for a much calmer frame of mind. That calm frame of mind could set the tone for the students, too.

He was sitting, thinking about what it might be like having Cee Cee around all day, instead of just for an hour, when his best friend Denny Nelson opened the door and sauntered in.

Bob had, on more than one occasion, wondered why Denny and he were such good buddies. Denny often reminded him of Al Bundy from that goofy TV show "Married with Children." Denny was basically an amoral man caught in a moral situation. He was married to a delightful woman named Helen who was fully aware of Denny's wandering eye and took advantage of it during their bedroom games ... at least if one was to believe Denny's description of events. Bob had no idea if Helen knew about the excruciating detail in which her husband described those bedroom games to his best friend but she never blushed or seemed uncomfortable when Bob visited, which was a frequent happening. Bob was the adopted uncle of their three small children.

"Dude!" said Denny as he rushed into the room. "I just found out about Cee Cee. You fucking lucky dog!” He struck a pose. "What I wouldn't give to be able to tap that regularly," he sighed.

"It's not like that and you know it," laughed Bob.

"Maybe not, but it can be!" said Denny excitedly. "Man, it's just not fair. I get a pimply faced geek named Rodney as my student teacher and you get the cheerleader who was responsible for lowering more blood pressure than an alpha blocker."

"I thought cute girls raised blood pressure," said Bob.

"Not when every drop of blood in a man's body rushes to his aching dick," moaned Denny. "And whenever she sashayed down the hall in that short little skirt, it was everything I could do to spare a few drops of blood to keep my leg muscles working.” He frowned. "This just isn't fair. And you're probably going to take the fucking high road and ignore prime pussy. Bob, I swear, if I didn't know better I'd think you were a fag."

"Gay," said Bob, smiling. "They call them gay these days. You have to be politically correct. You have access to fine young minds, and shouldn't corrupt them with stereotypes."

"The only stereotype I'm thinking about right now is the horny male teacher flipping up the short uniform skirt of the cheerleader to find her not wearing any panties. You should be pounding that pussy into the ground, mister, and swelling that belly until her uniform doesn't fit anymore."

"Don't tell me," groaned Bob. "You've gone and knocked up Helen again."

Denny got a puzzled look on his face. "Not from lack of trying," he said. "I'm beginning to think she's sneaking the pill or something. Do you know I made a special effort to bang her drum every single night for two months and she still didn't catch? I would have kept it up but she got tired of being the captive princess to the barbarian.” He sighed. "Man, you ought to see her in that little getup I found on the internet. It's nothing but gold straps that barely cover all the good parts. It's even got rings on it to use to tie her up, though she drew the line at that.” He looked disappointed.

"You know, she's going to dump you some day for a normal man," said Bob.

"Nah," sneered Denny. "She loves me, warts and all."

"Yeah, well wait until some guy comes along and treats her like a lady," said Bob. "Once she finds out there are men who are horndogs only part-time, she'll start thinking about what life might look like off her back."