Thou Shalt Not

by Jj Rossum

  As the fourth period students began taking their seats, one of them noticed my phone on the desk and made a mock attempt to grab it. I didn’t remember locking the screen, and if Holly had sent something, Samuel would have been in for a pleasant surprise.

  “Touch that and you write a ten page paper on how the lighting in the movie affects the overall plot and success of the film,” I said, shooting Samuel a gaze that meant I wasn’t playing around.

  Samuel sheepishly returned to his seat, and the rest of the class settled in. The lights went off and half of the students rested their heads on the desk, making no attempt to hide the fact that they intended to sleep through the video. I made no attempt to pretend like I cared. Sleeping through videos was one of the sacred rights of high-schoolers.

  I leaned back into my chair, feeling a little tired myself. I hadn’t slept well. My mind had been full of thoughts about April. I was conflicted, but the most conflicting aspect to what I was feeling was that I wasn’t conflicted that she was married. It was mostly because anything that happened between us could cost us our jobs at the very least and get one or both of us hurt. I imagined it was frowned upon in most workplace settings to begin a relationship with a married coworker. Working in a Christian school turned the phrase from “it was frowned upon” to “it would likely get you beheaded.” Slight exaggeration, but only very slight. Which, in essence, meant I was more afraid of the consequences of being caught than I was about the actual lack of morality. What did that make me? Maybe I didn’t want to think about that right now. I was in the habit of overthinking everything. This time I could just choose to live. I liked that idea.

  I picked up my phone and saw that I had three messages. Two were from Holly, and the other was from April. Most men would be damn happy to be able to call either one of these women their own, and I found myself fluctuating back and forth on how I felt about them, even though neither could I technically call my own.

  I read April’s text first.

  Did you start reading the book at all last night?

  No, I passed out pretty quickly once I got home, I replied.

  Then I switched over to the texts from Holly, and for the first time in a long time, she was sending me pictures.

  The first picture said “new Dream Angels bra” and showed her from the chin down to her belly button. The bra had white cups with black along the outer edge and underneath. The straps were black and there was a small white ribbon in the middle. The bra seemed maybe a size too small, or perhaps that was how it was supposed to look, making her breasts seem even larger than they were. I very much approved of this bra, if she was seeking my approval.

  The second picture said “matching panties” and my eyes got very wide and I instantly began feeling the growth along my left thigh that I knew she was hoping for. The picture showed her from the chin down to her feet this time, and her caption didn’t lie because the panties were the only article sof clothing on her body. The bra was on the floor between her feet. I didn’t even look at the panties for a minute at least. Seeing her breasts always made me stop in my tracks, and stare for a while. Her pink nipples were hard, pointing toward me. For a second, I felt like telling the students to go to lunch very, very early and then finding Holly so I could eat her for lunch.

  I looked around the classroom to make sure no students were watching me stare down my phone, and most were still sleeping at their desks. A few intrepid ones looked like they were working on other class homework and maybe four were actually watching the movie.

  A third text came through from Holly as I returned my eyes to her breasts.

  Well...what do you think?

  I won’t be able to stand up for a few minutes at the very least...

  Just as I had hoped :-)

  I wholeheartedly approve of your Victoria’s Secret discoveries.

  I bought a few other things you might like.

  If you send them to me, I won’t be able to walk the rest of the day.

  Don’t worry. You need to see the others in person. A little Show and Tell for Mr. Harper.

  God, this woman could turn me on in a second and keep me turned on for a long damn time. I remembered now that when she sent these pictures, my brain would become distracted for the rest of the day. I had a feeling I would be returning to the pictures for a while.

  When is this show and tell going to take place?

  I work tonight until 2. Maybe I’ll stop by afterwards. ;-)

  I might have to take a nap so I can be ready for you.

  I got a text from April, so I switched over. I wasn’t sure if she was next door in an empty classroom, or if she was wandering the campus during her off period.

  I should put a time limit on you. Make you submit a book report to me, her text read.

  God, I had one woman planning on coming over and having a show and tell session with me, and another woman talking about making me do a book report and turning it in. When did I suddenly become twelve again?

  Holly had made sure my mind was in her panties, so I was tempted to reply “Would this be oral?” to April’s comment about the book report. I hated oral book reports though. If I sent a text like that I might get a flirtatious reply and then we would spiral downward once again when all I wanted to do was end things before they went any further. No, I didn’t. Yes, I did.

  I was the king of book reports back in the day, I texted, keeping things very surface level.

  Not the king of humility, though.

  Hey, if you got it...

  And that was before the days of copy and pasting on the internet. I bet you wrote some impressive papers.

  I like to think I did. I still have a box in my closet at home full of old reports and papers I wrote in high school and college.

  I bet there is some pretty neat stuff in there. Maybe I will have to come over and read a few sometime. :-)

  Did she just invite herself to my house? What a difference twenty-four hours can make. Yesterday I would have been on cloud nine had she insinuated coming over to my house. But, now that I had been at her house, and heard her interact with Marco, it all had become more real and my feelings had seemingly done a 180. I needed to redirect the conversation.

  Did Mr. West talk to you more about the job? I asked. I was genuinely curious, and actually figured that if the board voted to bring her on, West would let me know around the same time he let her know. Robin had been the high school’s English department head, and I imagined with her gone they would likely turn that responsibility over to me. No mention had been made of this though.

  No. I haven’t heard anything yet. When I spoke to him about it last, he said I’d find out next week probably.

  Will Marco be okay with you taking on a full-time job?

  The period was nearing an end and I was already over the day. I wanted to be done showing videos. I wanted to go to the classroom next door and tell April that as much as I enjoyed spending time with her, we should definitely back off things and keep our relationship professional. I wanted to have an enjoyable evening. And I now wanted Holly to come over after work, and I wanted to fuck the night away with her.

  He will have to be. He knows I want to get back to teaching. He knows I need it for my sanity. So, he might argue and fight me over it, but I am doing it. If they offer me the job that is.

  When I read her text, I began to realize that maybe I was losing my mind, my grip on sanity. I wanted to go find Marco and stand up for April, tell him that she was a wonderful woman who deserved to be taken care of and treated right. She deserved the opportunity to do what she loved, and if he was going to try to keep her from it, he was going to have to come through me.

  I imagined if I actually said this he would turn the color of a radish and chase me around while wielding a baseball bat. But this showed me how quickly I could jump right back into wanting to defend her, come to her rescue.

  You should probably just stop texting her altogether, I told myself. You get more connected and draw
n in with each text.

  I’m sure he will see that it would make you happy.

  But, what did I know? I had never spoken a word to him in my life. Nor did I hope to have to. Although I probably would, if she was hired full-time. At the very least, Staff Christmas parties brought everyone out for a night.

  Guess we will see :-) she answered.

  Holly stopped responding and April did as well, so I suffered through the end of my class in textual silence. I could have continued the conversation with both of them, but I hated being the person who kept texting when the other person hadn’t responded yet, so I put my phone down and finished watching the video with the students.

  “Rays are back in town tonight, Mr. H,” Michael Killian whispered to me from his desk, which was to the left of mine.

  “Yeah, they are. You going to the game?”

  “Eh, I don’t know. My dad stopped going to the games after the All Star Break. Said if they weren’t going to try to win, he wasn’t gonna bother going.”

  “Your father is a wise man,” I said.

  Michael laughed and turned his attention back to the movie, which had reached the final scene. The bell went off to end the period, and all of the students immediately got to their feet to leave. No one bothered to stick around to watch the end. Bastards. Although, I didn’t expect them to. Or really blame them.

  At lunch, I grabbed a chicken Caesar salad and joined my coworkers at the table. They were all caught up in what each other was doing over the weekend, the normal Friday routine.

  I absently moved pieces of lettuce around, playing with my food more than eating it. I wasn’t particularly hungry and didn’t know why.

  “What about you, Luke? Anything going on this weekend?”

  My weekend plans had mostly revolved around whether or not Holly was in my life. If she was, we usually did things together. One of the advantages to living in the Bay area was that there was always something to do. Because Holly was a bartender, she got to listen to her customers talk about all kinds of stuff, and occasionally one of them would mention a place in town or an event we hadn’t yet heard about, like a wine festival or something. She would find out the details, relay them to me, and we would usually go check it out for ourselves. When she wasn’t in my life, I became kind of reclusive. I might go to a movie or a baseball game alone every now and then, but I often found myself hanging out at home, reading mostly. There was always a book or two to be reading. I usually had three or four going at once.

  “No plans really,” I said, picking this as the time to begin eating my salad. I remembered that April had given me Dubliners to read, so between bites of lunch I added, “I will probably just do some reading. Have a book I have been meaning to get into.”

  “Oh yeah, which one?” Jessica asked.

  “It’s called Dubliners. James Joyce.”

  “Sounds good,” Dave Hart, the boys’ gym teacher, said. “Is it new?”

  Dave Hart had probably not read a book in his life, unless it was about how to build muscles faster. And even then he probably had to have someone read it to him. Dave was great though, so I resisted the urge to make him look like the literary fool that he was.

  “It’s new to me,” I said, and he nodded like he completely knew what I was saying.

  “Where’s April?” Jessica asked. “She’s not sick, is she?”

  “No, she’s here,” I said. “Well, not here right now. She went to meet her husband for lunch.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” she answered. “I couldn’t get my husband to leave work and meet me if I was having a baby.”

  We all knew Jessica’s husband, so we laughed with her despite knowing that she was probably right.

  “Oh, Luke,” Ken said from down the table. “I was meaning to ask you if you were going to the Rays game tonight?”

  “No, I hadn’t planned to. Why?”

  “A friend of Beth’s at work gave her two tickets, but we can’t go because her parents are coming in tonight. You are welcome to the tickets if you’d like them.”

  I almost said “thanks, but no thanks” before he was finished talking, but then I stopped myself. I hadn’t been to see a game since the arrival of Marco Batista to the club, and thought it might be fun to go watch him in action. Plus, I had nothing to do until Holly got off work.

  “Sure, I will take them. I mean, as long as you are sure you are not going to use them.”

  “If I snuck away to the game while her parents were here, Beth would have my head. The tickets on are on my desk. I’ll bring them by your room later.”

  “Thanks, Ken.”

  The rest of the afternoon continued on as slowly as the morning had. Only I had no relief or distraction from either Holly or April, other than the brief few minutes Ken came by to drop off the tickets for the Rays game. I still hadn’t seen April, but she had said she would be busy teaching and I knew that was why I hadn’t heard from her. Holly was probably taking a nap before work, or dealing with more of her brother’s drama.

  I went back and forth between looking at the pictures Holly had sent earlier, to planning out what I was going to say to April. I was going to make it short and sweet and get right to the point. I needed to do it right after school let out too. I knew that if I waited too long to do it, I would probably chicken out.

  Don’t over think things, I told myself. You know what you need to do, just do it. Don’t worry.

  I didn’t have to keep replaying what I was going to say in my head. If I did that, it would end up sounding like a script instead of what I wanted it to sound like, which was genuine concern for April, and wanting to do it because I had both of our best interests in mind.

  So, I stopped thinking about it, and let my mind return to Holly and her “matching panties.” I needed to see her. I didn’t think I would be able to wait until she got off work.

  Whatever, I knew that wasn’t true. I could wait. Whenever people said something like that, it was always an exaggerated lie. I could wait until she got off work, but I didn’t want to.

  As if on cue, like she was reading my mind, Holly sent me a text.

  Hey, sorry. Was finishing up an exam.

  It’s okay :-) What time do you go in tonight?

  I’m going in around 5 tonight. Was going to be 4 but didn’t know how long the exam would be, so I got the hour covered.

  Class got out at three-fifteen, and I needed to talk to April before leaving. If I could get to her by four, that wouldn’t give us much time. But I wanted her. I would make it work.

  Can you be ready for work by 4?

  Sure I can. Why?

  You know that park near the bridge? Meet me there!

  Lol. Why am I meeting you at the park?

  Can you or not?

  Yes, Luke, I can meet you. But why??

  See you at 4!

  God, you’re being weird.

  I didn’t respond to her last text, but it did make me smile. When I first met her, Holly had not known the difference between “your” and “you’re” and seemed to always get them wrong in texts. I could only take it for so long before I sat her down one afternoon for an English lesson. She willingly listened, but she also had said, “You know, this kind of makes you an asshole for pointing this out.” To her credit, she picked it up pretty quickly after that, and I didn’t remember noticing any more mistakes. Every correct usage made me very happy. And in this case, it kind of turned me on. As if I needed to be any more than I already was.

  The last bell of the day was five minutes away when my mind went back to April and the conversation we were about to have.

  Keep your cool, Luke. Let her know you care about her. This is for your own good.

  I kept telling myself that over and over as the clock ticked closer to three-fifteen.

  Normally, at the end of the day the students would already have their books and supplies and be ready to shoot out the door, even more so on Fridays. In years past, I would have dismissed them early on a day lik
e today, but the school had cracked down on early Friday dismissals because certain students had wreaked havoc in the hallways and distracted other classrooms. So, now we had to keep them until the bell rang.

  I wanted to grab them by their collars and toss them out, but for some reason the kids who hadn’t slept though the movie were taking their sweet time getting up and leaving the room. The kids who had fallen asleep were being nudged awake by their friends, but they seemed to not want to move either.

  “What’s with everyone being a slug?” I asked. “It’s Friday! Go home!”

  With that, they picked up their pace a little bit, but not much. It wasn’t until three-twenty that the last of the students had left the classroom.

  Okay, Luke, you can do this.

  I quickly turned everything off in the room, and then grabbed my phone and keys and shut the lights off. I went out my door and walked into April’s classroom, entering more loudly than I had anticipated.

  Mr. West was sitting in one of the student’s desks, right in front of April’s desk, where she was seated. Her hair was straight, and down to her shoulders, and for a second I stared.

  “Hey Luke,” West said. “I was just going to see if you were next door. Sit down for a second.”

  Shit. He was not supposed to be here. I needed to talk to her.

  I sat down instead of asking West to leave like I wanted him to.

  April smiled when I glanced her way while sitting down, and my heart started racing quickly like it always did.

  Focus!

  Mr. West informed us both that April had been approved by the board, and would be officially recognized in the staff meeting on Tuesday morning. I wondered why he couldn’t bother telling us on Monday. It could have waited, and then he wouldn’t be here and I would already be finishing up my conversation with her.