Loving Teacher

by Jade Stratton

  Trying to forget about Parsons, about Nikki, about Jerry and the other assholes he had to deal with, he picked up his pace, bobbing and weaving through the sea of teenagers rushing to make good their escape for the weekend.

  It was only when he’d reached the parking lot and saw her car that he realized he’d forgotten to give Nikki the final draft of the current essay the class had been working on, which had been due today. He’d been so intent on being invisible that he’d completely forgotten it. He didn’t remember her reminding everyone to turn it in, but she must have; she always did. He must have just tuned her out. You’re such a dumbass. He stopped in his tracks, his mind trapped in a loop of indecision. He knew she would cut him some slack if he turned it in on Monday. Even if she didn’t, his average for the class was ninety-eight percent and a few points marked off on a single assignment would hardly hurt his grade.

  On the other hand, he hated to disappoint her, even in such a minor way. And, despite his vow not to do the slightest thing to explore what had happened between them the other day, he couldn’t deny the intense desire to see her without the rest of the class around.

  “Fuck,” he cursed. Despite his better judgement, he turned around and headed back into the circle and Nikki’s classroom.

  By the time he got there, the circle had completely emptied out. The only person in sight was Mrs. Tyler, who did double duty between the cafeteria serving line and after hours on the janitorial staff. Mentally girding his loins, he reached for the doorknob of Nikki’s room and tried to turn it.

  It was locked.

  “Crap,” he said. She must have gone to the office. He probably should’ve just hung out by her car, but…no. On reflection, that wouldn’t have been such a good idea. Figuring that she probably went to the office before heading home, he decided to check there. If he couldn’t find her after that, he’d just wait until Monday.

  He was just turning away from the door when he heard a noise from inside the classroom that sounded like a chair scraping the floor. With a frown, he leaned close to the door and put his ear against it. A cold chill ran through him as he heard male voices speaking in quiet tones. One of them, he was positive, belonged to Jerry Kennedy.

  Dropping his backpack to the floor, he raced over to where Mrs. Tyler, who stood all of four foot eight and might’ve weighed eighty pounds, was just entering another classroom to clean.

  “Mrs. Tyler!”

  She looked up at him, her eyes blinking rapidly. “Yes?”

  “Can you open Ms. Baumann’s room?”

  “I can,” she gestured to the set of keys on a huge ring that hung from her cleaning cart, “but I haven’t gotten to it yet.”

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, snatching the key ring. “I’ll explain later!”

  “Hey, come back here with those!” While she might have been petite and forty years older than Mark, Mrs. Tyler was no pushover: she charged right after him.

  As Mark ran, he flipped through the keys. Fortunately, Mrs. Tyler was a stickler for orderliness, and all the keys were on the ring in order, the room numbers stamped into each one.

  He grabbed the one for Nikki’s room and, skidding to a stop in front of the door, rammed it into the deadbolt and turned it before flinging the door open.

  Stepping inside, he saw exactly what he’d feared: Jerry’s two goons were holding Nikki down over her desk. They’d taped a gag over her mouth, and she looked up at Mark with wide, terrified eyes. Behind her stood Jerry, face flushed with lust, his hand frozen in the act of unzipping his pants.

  Everyone froze.

  “You little shit!” Mrs. Tyler cursed as she came huffing up beside Mark, snatching her keys from his hand. “I should…” She looked at what was happening at the front of the classroom and blinked. “…call security!” Turning, she pumped her arms and legs as she ran back to her cart and her walkie-talkie.

  With a metallic rip, Jerry zipped up his pants and stepped around the desk. “I’m going to kill you, you little fuck.”

  “How the hell did you think you could get away with this?” Mark asked. “Parsons won’t be able to cover for you this time like he did when you raped Cynthia Torres.”

  The larger of Jerry’s companions, who played center for the football team and outweighed Mark by at least eighty pounds, left Nikki in the tender care of the third boy, who held her arms painfully twisted behind her back. Her eyes widened further and she shook her head, her voice muffled by the gag.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Jerry hissed as he and his partner in crime quickly advanced.

  Not taking his eyes from his quarry, Mark reached over to the white board nearest him and picked up a pair of wooden pointers, taking one in each hand. His parents hadn’t always just been philanthropists. His father had served in the Navy, and one of his assignments had been as a liaison to the Philippines, where Mark had picked up on a few of the local traditions. One of them was Eskrima, the national martial art of that country that typically involved the use of two bamboo weapons about the same length as the pointers. He was far from an expert, but had learned enough from the kids he had hung out with to be dangerous.

  “Get him,” Jerry ordered, and the Big Guy charged forward…

  …only to collapse to the ground, screaming, under a flurry of blows Mark delivered to the boy’s hands, knees, and then — in a high leap, bringing both pointers together in his hands — to his head.

  The goon still holding Nikki paled, and suddenly he let her go. Holding up his hands, he pleaded, “Look, man, Jerry made me do this, right? He…”

  “Get out,” Mark hissed, knowing that the police would deal with him later.

  Without another word, the boy dodged past him and fled.

  Nikki, in the meantime, tore off the tape over her mouth and took up a pair of scissors, holding them like a dagger. “You son of a bitch,” she shouted at Jerry.

  “Are you hurt?” Mark asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Jerry made a feint toward her, then whirled back around, scooping up a chair and hurling it at Mark. Caught by surprise, Mark’s guard was down and the chair caught him full on the chest, with the edge of the seat slamming into his forehead.

  He stumbled backward as Jerry charged forward, grabbing for one of the pointers. Mark let him take hold of it, but only to use it as leverage. Yanking hard, he drew Jerry off balance before striking him so hard across the side of his head that the second pointer snapped in half. It was enough to stun Jerry, but not enough to bring him down. Bigger and stronger, he tore the first pointer from Mark’s grasp and brought it up, ready to strike.

  Mark raised his arms to defend himself, but before Jerry could hit him, Nikki attacked from behind, smashing one of her potted plants over Jerry’s head. Jerry sank to his knees, not far from the still-moaning football center. His eyes were just rolling up into his head when Nikki landed a vicious kick between his legs that finished him off. He fell face first, unconscious, onto the floor, his nose shattering with a wet snap.

  “Good one,” Mark said with an appreciative grin. “Remind me to never piss you off.”

  Nikki smiled in return, then broke down into sobs. Forgetting everything he’d told himself about maintaining his distance, he took her in his arms and held her.

  ***

  Much later, Mark and Nikki watched as Jerry, his two companions, and Mr. Parsons were arrested and taken away by the police before a crowd of disbelieving teachers and about a hundred students who had happened to be there after school when the police cars had arrived, sirens wailing.

  “Bastards,” Mark muttered. The dark clouds overhead, heralding another storm that had rolled in, reflected his mood.

  A police lieutenant approached. “Mark,” he said, nodding his head in greeting. He wore a pained, regretful expression.

  “You should have enough evidence now, I would think.” Mark told him.

  “For what?” Nikki asked.

  “To reopen Cynthia Torres’s case,” M
ark said. “I overheard Jerry talking about what he planned to do to her when I was in the locker room and he didn’t realize anyone else was in there. I told the police about it, but they didn’t do anything. And after she reported the rape, Parsons covered it up by giving Jerry a cast-iron alibi.”

  “We’re obviously going to reopen that case,” the lieutenant said grimly. “Thanks to both of you.” With a nod, he turned away and headed toward his car to follow the caravan of other police vehicles that were finally pulling out.

  “Well,” Mark said, glancing at Nikki, “I’d better get going.”

  “Sure,” she said, holding out her hand.

  With a sad smile, he shook it. So that’s how it is, he thought. As it must be.

  As he walked away, the teachers and students began to applaud.

  It made Mark want to cry, even as the first drops of rain began to fall.

  CHAPTER SIX

  As Nikki watched Mark go, something inside her crumbled and washed away as the rain came, hard and heavy. Several people had offered to drive her home, but she had politely refused. She couldn’t trust her fragile mood right now with anyone.

  Anyone but Mark, you mean, her devil-voice said. No, not him. Or her. Nikki realized with a shock that the thought wasn’t argumentative or accusatory. It was simply the unvarnished, undeniable truth.

  Returning under a borrowed umbrella to her classroom, refusing to be cowed by what had happened that afternoon, she gathered up her things just as she normally would have, then locked the door. By the time she returned to the parking lot everyone else was gone, either having driven home or having retreated into the admin office to escape the pelting rain. It was coming down in sheets now, driven by a rising wind. The sky periodically lit up with flashes of lightning punctuated by crashes of thunder.

  Despite the umbrella, everything but her hair was soaked by the time she managed to get in her car. The rain wasn’t cold, and in fact was almost warm, and yet she shivered. Adrenalin, she told herself. But she knew that wasn’t really true. It was anticipation.

  Starting up the car, she pulled out and headed toward the east entrance. She wasn’t going home straightaway. Or maybe she was.

  Nikki kept driving, out the lot and left down the main street. She had to go slow because the rain was coming down so hard, making it impossible to see more than a few dozen feet in front of the car. She began to worry that somehow she’d gone too far, or maybe…

  There. She saw a familiar figure running along the sidewalk, oblivious to the storm around him. She pulled up alongside, and he slowed to a stop. She stared at him a moment through the rain-streaked window, this young man who’d somehow stolen her heart.

  Undoing her seat belt, she leaned over and opened the door. “Get in.”

  He hesitated, standing there with his arms at his sides, fists clenched.

  “Get in, Mark.”

  At last, he did, slamming the door closed on the rain before dropping his backpack to the floor.

  She pulled away from the curb and drove on. Neither of them said anything, but the air in the car was so charged with tension that Nikki half expected bolts of lightning to start arcing between them.

  She brought the car to a stop in front of his house and turned off the engine. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands, afraid to let go, afraid of what trouble her hands might get her into. She was shaking, but it wasn’t from the rain cooling against her skin. “Look,” she began in a raspy voice, “I think…we…” She licked her lips, wanting to scream in frustration, for she had no idea what to say. “I just wanted to…”

  Before she could finish, Mark slid across the wide seat. Gently taking her face in his hands, he kissed her. It was the kiss of someone who knew little of the art of kissing, but whose passion was undeniable.

  Alarms exploded in her head, but she knew that her response to his kiss would mean more than any words she could say. Silencing the warnings, she wrapped both arms around his neck and drew him closer, opening her mouth and freeing her tongue to seek his. Pulling her legs up from the footwell and tucking them beneath her, she turned toward him, pressing her breasts against his chest. His hands moved down her neck, his fingers brushing against her skin, then over her shoulders and down her arms to her waist. As they kissed, her tongue and his engaged in a passionate duel of wet caresses, his hands began to slowly move up from her waist. She shuddered as his fingertips brushed across her lower ribs through the thin, wet fabric of her blouse, to at last cup her breasts. Silently cursing her choice of pants to wear that day rather than a skirt, she spread her legs, still folded at the knee, and straddled him even as their lips remained locked together. Her cunt was on fire, and became hotter still as she ground her hips against him, feeling his hard cock straining against his jeans.

  Breaking the kiss for a moment, she breathed, “Pinch my nipples.” She kissed him again before he could breathe a word, but he eagerly obeyed. Her bra was only lace, and his strong fingers had no trouble grasping her nipples through the flimsy intervening fabric. She gasped as he touched her, but she could tell his fingers were hesitant, unsure. Once again breaking their kiss, she rasped, “Pinch them. Hard.”

  He did, and she was rewarded with a spear of pleasure through her core. Mark paused his ministrations and began fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. Gently batting his hands aside, she tried to undo them herself, but between the uncooperative wet fabric and her trembling fingers, she wasn’t having any better luck.

  Mark decided the issue by gripping the blouse below her neck in both hands and yanking it open, sending the buttons flying. He pushed it back from her shoulders, momentarily binding her arms behind her. He stared at her, his eyes mesmerized by her body in the glow of the light from across the street that filtered through the rain cascading over the windows. Then he pulled her to him and began kissing her while gently holding her arms behind her, his hands entwined with hers. First he kissed her lips, then her cheeks and throat, her shoulders, her upper arms, then her upper chest. His kisses moved down over the swell of her breasts, then her cleavage, and she buried her face in his hair, kissing him as her entire body trembled under the assault of his kisses.

  His hands sought release, and she grudgingly let go. His fingertips trailed up the skin of her back as he continued to kiss her breasts, and she wanted to scream, it felt so good. He found the catch for her bra, and after a moment of fumbling managed to undo it before again clasping her hands.

  She sighed as the bra, which was strapless, fell away. She arched back, thrusting her breasts toward his mouth while grinding her cunt against his cock in an act of futility as long as they had their pants on. But she was so excited now that she was sure all he’d have to do was touch her clit or put a finger in her pussy and she’d come.

  But it turned out she didn’t even need that. A few seconds after Mark took one of her nipples between his lips and started to suck on it, running it between his teeth — in and out, in and out — her body spasmed in an unexpected orgasm.

  Startled, he let her nippled go free. “Did I hurt— ”

  “Don’t stop!” she panted. “For fuck’s sake, don’t stop!”

  Without another word, he quickly took her other nipple in his mouth and began to suck on it the same way, and her orgasm soared even higher as he held her captive. She could feel a rush of wet heat from her pussy as she came; she often gushed when she orgasmed, and she hoped that Mark wouldn’t be turned off by it like some of her former boyfriends had. “Enough,” she finally told him. As good as it was, she’d had enough of foreplay. She wanted to get to the main event. “Get my blouse off.”

  Mark pulled her blouse the rest of the way off, freeing her arms. Then she grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and yanked it up. As he raised his arms, she pulled it over his head, then flung it onto the floor. She leaned forward, gripping his shoulders as she kissed and nipped at his throat, mimicking what he’d done to her, but with a more experienced mouth.

  “Jesus Chris
t,” he gasped, shuddering as she went lower and sucked his nipples between her teeth. She knew it wasn’t the same for men as for women, but even male nipples were packed with sensitive nerve endings. She nipped one of them just hard enough to cause him some real pain before she clamped her mouth over his, sucking on his tongue.

  Then she scooted back against her door. Unzipping her pants, she managed to wriggle out of them, the wet fabric fighting her every inch of the way. The panties came off with them, and she threw them both onto the floor boards. She sat there for a long moment on the seat, facing Mark. She spread her legs wide for him, giving him a good look at her shaven pussy and distended clit. Reaching down, she parted her swollen lips. Her mound and inner thighs were glossy with wetness, but it certainly wasn’t from her rain-soaked pants.

  He stared at her, transfixed. “I…I have no words,” he whispered. “Except that you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  Mark began to slide toward her, but she held up a hand for him to stop. “In the back seat,” she said with a sly, knowing smile. “There’s more room.” Mark nodded his head in a jerky motion. “I’ll go first.”

  In a slow, sensuous motion, like she was doing a striptease, she began to roll her body over the back of the front seat, leading with her left leg and arm, her ass facing Mark. She paused midway, her body draped over the top of the seat. She wanted him to get a good, long look, just to drive him even more crazy. But just as she began to finish the movement and take her place in the back seat, she felt his hands clamp down on her thighs, pinning her in place on the top of the seat. Then she felt his lips on the back of one of her thighs. She moaned as he sucked her skin into his mouth before gently nipping at her. The sensation was incredible.