by R. R. Banks
Grabbing her by her hips, I turned Gwendolyn around and shoved her forward until she bent over the desk. I stepped back and gathered the skirt of her dress in both hands. I leaned forward over her as I pushed the skirt up over her hips and held it in a tight ball on her back.
"I hate these dresses that you wear," I growled into her ear.
I reached into my pocket and fought the condom out of my wallet where I had taken to carrying it weeks before and had never removed it. Tearing it open with my teeth, I rolled it into place. I used my free hand to try to pull her panties aside, but there was too much fabric covering the dripping opening. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the handles of scissors sticking up out of the pen holder. I grabbed them and cut her panties, tearing them away from her body as soon as they hung free. Without another moment of hesitation, I plunged into her. Gwendolyn gasped and arched up, propping herself onto her elbows and hanging her head. I knew that she was trying to stay as quiet as she could, holding back her sounds so that no one in the halls or the nearby classrooms could hear her.
I didn't want her quiet. I didn't want her controlled.
I grabbed onto her shoulder and used it for leverage to fuck her as hard as I could. Her ass bounced with each hard thrust and I growled, taking my hand from her shoulder to smack one cheek and then squeeze it, digging my fingertips into the lush flesh so I could keep up my pace and intensity. I had no intention of slowing down and within seconds I felt my entire body tense just before I exploded into her. I impaled her with a final thrust and felt her collapse around me in an orgasm that left her shaking and gasping for breath. I pulled out of her and zipped my pants back up. Balling up her cut panties in my hand, I walked out of the classroom and back to the parking lot.
Gwendolyn
I still felt raw, my emotions confused and tangled the next day as I sat behind my desk looking at the test paper in front of me. I had never felt something as explosive and earth-shattering as my encounter with Garrett the day before. I felt completely consumed by him. In one instance I was infuriated by him and wanted nothing more than for him to be out of my sight. Yet my body tingled with desire for him from the first moment that I saw him walk into the classroom and my passion and need only grew the longer he stood there in front of me. I wanted him nowhere near me and yet I wanted him inside me. His power and dominance were breathtaking, and I felt myself submit to him.
But it wasn't just Garrett that had affected me. Jason touched something within me, swaying me in a way that I never thought that I would have been able to be swayed. I had spent so much time thinking that I was doing what was right for him and putting so much effort into reaching out to him and trying to push him toward the achievements I thought he needed. While I was doing that, though, I was overlooking the most important thing about him, and that was who he was as a person. When Garrett said that this one choice could take Jason's potential from him, could alter his entire future, I felt a stab of pain go through me. I knew what that felt like. I had felt it for myself and I had seen it in the eyes of a person who lost himself and a family torn apart by it. I couldn't let that happen to Jason, even if it wasn't the same. He was too young to be told that his dreams were worthless or that the future he saw ahead of him would never be his.
When class ended I waited until most of the students were out of the classroom before getting Jason's attention. I gestured for him to come up to my desk, not wanting those students who hadn't yet left to notice. He sauntered up to me and I waited until we were alone to point at the test paper in front of me.
"You know what you did wrong on this test," I said.
His face hardened and his lips pressed tightly together, but he nodded.
"Yes," he said.
"And you know as well as I do that you could have done far better than this if you would just have applied yourself a little more."
"Yes," he said.
I could hear the aggression in his voice, but I commended him for the control he held over himself. There was a change in him, and I appreciated how hard he was trying not to lash out.
"And I think that you can."
It seemed to take a few seconds before what I had said sank in and then his eyes widened.
"What?"
"I've been thinking about it and I think that considering the importance of you being successful on this test and in all of your classes, you should have the opportunity to do a little bit of damage control here. So, what I'm going to do is give you that opportunity. I will have a retest ready for you tomorrow afternoon. You come here right after your last class and you take that test. If you promise me that you will apply yourself to studying and to doing well on that test, I can promise you that I will grade it as soon as you're done and report to the front office and the athletic director if there is a sufficient change in your grade to alter your current situation. What do you say? Do we have a deal?"
Part of me expected Jason to argue or to push back against me, but he didn't. Instead, he nodded enthusiastically, the first real smile I had ever seen on his face cross his lips.
"Deal," he said. "Thank you."
I gave a single nod, trying to keep my face serious.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
Garrett
"You look happy," I said when Jason came home from school that afternoon.
"I am," he said. "I'm going to get to play in the game next week."
He was smiling widely, and he looked like he was holding his shoulders up higher than he had in days.
"That's fantastic," I said. "Your teacher finally backed off?"
"Kind of," he said.
"What do you mean kind of? Didn't she have to give you some extra points so that your grade was high enough for you to play?"
"Well, my grade had to be higher. And it will be. She told me that I can take a retest tomorrow."
I stared at him.
"A retest? You not only have to miss a baseball practice, but you have to miss it to take a test again when all you needed was to answer two more questions correctly and you would have passed?"
His face fell slightly, and he looked at me quizzically.
"It's not just about passing, Dad. If I take the test again I can get a better grade and that will make sure that my grade stays high enough the rest of the season."
"You shouldn't have to do that," I said. "I'm going to talk to her."
"Don't," he said. "This is enough. She could have done nothing, but at least she's going to let me do that. I'm going to go study now."
I tried to let it go. I tried to do as Jason asked and just let whatever was going to happen happen, but I couldn't. The painful, burning knot of emotions swelling in my chest brought me back to the school the next day. I had waited a few minutes longer so this time there were no students still in the classroom when I arrived, but Gwendolyn still looked startled see me standing at the door.
"You have to stop coming here," she said.
"And you have to stop being so insufferable."
She scoffed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.
"Do you seriously think that storming in here and insulting me is the way to make me listen to you?"
"You make it impossible for me to think of any other way to persuade you."
"Why do you think I need to be persuaded? Didn't Jason tell you that he's taking a retest this afternoon? If he has applied himself like I told him to and put in the effort required, he'll earn a grade that's good enough to get him out of this tight spot."
"But why did you have to put him through all of this?" I asked.
"What do you suggest I should have done?" she asked.
"You said that he only had a couple of questions to get him a passing grade. Why couldn't you have just spotted him a few points."
"Spotted him a few points?" Gwendolyn asked. "Is that really what you think of your son's education?"
I rolled my eyes.
"Don't get into this again. I don't need to hear your lecture about how he needs t
o make amazing grades and strive toward academic excellence."
"Why not? Don't you think he's capable of more?"
I hesitated.
"I don't know."
"You don't know? That's how you think that you're going to encourage him or help him to make the most of all of the opportunities that he has?"
"That is exactly what I'm trying to do," I said. "I want him to be able to make the absolute most of the opportunities that baseball can give to him. He hasn't had the easiest way in life and if I can figure out ways to make something easier or to put them in a better place, then I will. He just needs a break. If he can slide this time, then he can apply himself later."
Gwendolyn was glaring at me, but there was more than anger and frustration in her eyes. She was opening her mouth to say something, but I silenced her with a kiss. I felt like I couldn't resist her. I couldn't keep myself from touching her. Frustration snapped inside me, and I tore my mouth away from hers, turning and stomping out of the classroom before she could say anything else. I was nearly out of the school when my phone rang in my pocket. I picked it up.
"What?"
As soon as I heard the voice on the other end, I broke into a run toward the parking lot.
Chapter Fourteen
Gwendolyn
I looked up at the clock above the classroom door, then opened my desk drawer and looked at my phone to make sure that the clock was right. It was fifteen minutes after I had told Jason he needed to be in the classroom to take his retest and I hadn't seen him. A bitter mix of anger, frustration, and disappointment filled me, but there was also something in the back of my mind. Something told me that this wasn't right. Jason had been receptive to the idea of taking the test again, even excited about the opportunity. Worried that something might have happened, I jotted a note on a piece of paper just in case he showed up in the classroom while I wasn't there, left it on my desk, and hurried out into the hallway.
I made my way up and down all of the hallways in the Humanities wing and then crossed through the open common area in the center of the school. There were a few small groups of students still gathered there, and I scanned their faces to see if maybe Jason had stopped to talk to some friends and simply lost track of time. But when I didn't see him, the nervous feeling grew stronger. It seems strange for me to react this way. It wasn't the first time that Jason had fallen short of expectations, yet something about this situation struck me oddly. I made my way out toward the baseball fields, wondering if he might have decided to go to practice anyway, or had possibly forgotten to let his coach know about the retest and had just gone down there to talk to him. When I arrived at the field, however, I didn't see Jason.
I approached the coach and ask him if Jason had been there that afternoon. He shook his head at me.
"He told me that he had to miss the beginning of practice because he had a retest with you," the coach said.
I nodded.
"We had a retest scheduled for this afternoon. I told him to be in my classroom right after his last class, but he hasn't shown up yet. I looked for him in the school, and I couldn't find him, so I came here."
"I haven't seen him."
I started back toward the school, but something out of the corner of my eye stopped me. I rushed down the sidewalk and through the small parking lot in front of the school's football stadium. The field itself was empty, but the track team was running around the track warming up. I made my way toward the stands and stepped under them. Just as I thought I would, I saw a dark figure sitting on the ground, leaning back against one of the support poles. I approached it and looked down into Jason's face. He was holding a paper-wrapped bottle in one hand and when he looked up at me his eyes were watery and red.
"What are you doing out here?" I asked. "Don't you know that you could get expelled for drinking alcohol on school grounds?"
"Why would it matter?" he asked.
"Why would it matter?" I asked. "What about your retest? We had a deal."
He shook his head and brought the bottle back up to his lips. I snatched it out of his hand and tipped it over, pouring out the rest of its contents onto the ground. I grasped him by the wrist and pulled him up. Suddenly he looked so much like a little boy I wanted to wrap my arms around him, to tell him that I heard his screams for help and that I was there for him.
"Come on," I said. "We're going inside."
"Are you going to take me to the principal's office?"
"No," I said. "I'm going to take you to my classroom."
He shook his head.
"I can't take the test now," he said.
"I wasn't going to ask you to," I said. "We're just going to talk."
I dropped the bottle into the trash can before we walked out of the stadium, feeling at once like I was betraying who I thought I wanted to be as a teacher, and living up to it in the most meaningful way that I ever had. I rushed Jason through the hallways, hurrying him along so that none of the other teachers could catch enough of a glimpse of him to know what was going on. When we got into the room, I closed the door. He dropped down into the desk that he always sat in during class as though it was the only place in the room that he could imagine sitting. I went to my desk and opened the bottom drawer, reached in and pulled out a bottle of water and a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. I brought them to him and set them on the desk in front of him.
"I'm sorry," he finally mumbled.
"Eat," I said. "Drink your water."
He guzzled most of the bottle of water and filled his mouth with a handful of chips.
"Why did you come find me?" he asked. "Is it just because of the test?"
"No," I said. "It's not just because of the test. Don't get me wrong, I'm mad about that, but we'll talk about that later. I came to find you because whether you want to accept it or not, I care about you. I can see that you're going through something. You have been since the first day you walked into my classroom."
"I'm not going through anything," he snapped.
It was an almost comically classic teenage response, but the pain was so evident in his eyes that I couldn't bring myself to even smile.
"Alright," I said. "Then you aren't going through anything. So why did you skip out on the test? Just to piss me off?"
He looked startled, but at least it got his attention.
"Why would it matter if I took it anyway?"
"What do you mean?"
"I heard you and my father talking," he said.
My stomach sank.
"You did? What did you hear?"
"That my father doesn't believe in me. He doesn't think that I can accomplish anything for myself. It doesn't really matter anyway. No matter what I do or how hard I try, I'm always going to live in his shadow. I'm either never going to live up to him because he's this amazing man who served in the military and is a hero fire chief, or I am doomed to be exactly like him because he was wild and out of control as a teenager, and ended up with me and a completely messed up marriage."
"So, which one of them is worse?" I asked.
He looked at me as though no one had ever asked him something like that. It was as though he always felt like no one cared about his thoughts or what he was going through.
"I'm not sure," he said. "I never had any interest in being in the military or being a firefighter, so everyone who says that I could never be like him is probably right. But I also feel like I don't have any way of escaping being like him. I am like him. I'm exactly like him." He hung his head. "I don't want to be like him."
"What about him?" I asked even though I thought that I probably already knew the answer.
"I don't have a mother because of him," she said. "She left when I was just a little boy because she couldn't stand to be married to him. And she said that she never wanted that life. She never wanted me." He looked down at his desk again. "But I still miss her."
"You do?"
"Sometimes. Part of me hates her and I know that I can't trust her, but it's like I m
iss something I didn't have. Like I miss what I could have had. Does that make any sense?"
I reached out and patted him on the back.
"It does," I said. "I think I understand that more than you could ever know. But there's something that you need to understand, too."
"What?"
"You said that you don't have a mother because of him. You don't have a mother because of her. You do have a father because of him. You're so afraid to turn out like him, but the truth is that he is who he is because of how much he loves you. He might not know how to show it sometimes, and he might be really misleading, but there is one thing that is absolutely undeniable and that is that you mean everything to him."
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
He laughed.
"For not taking any of my bullshit."
"Well, that might just be the most surprising thing I've ever heard." I sighed. "Alright, so I think that you should probably head home and get some rest. I heard that this nasty flu that you're dealing with can make you feel pretty sick."
"Absolutely," he said.
I reached for my phone and called Garrett. The phone rang several times and then switched over to his voicemail. I looked at the screen and pressed redial. It again went to voicemail.
"Your father's not answering the phone," I said.
"Why do you have my father's phone number in your phone?" he asked.
I was stumbling over my attempts to find the words for some sort of explanation when the door to the classroom burst open and Mr. Jefferson rushed in.