Parent-Teacher Confluence

If you looked up the word gifted in the dictionary, there is a half-chance you would find his picture there, young Aditya. Such a smart little boy. Such a good little boy -- one who learned to walk at five months, speak at eight, and to earn a mastery of the alphabet before the dawn of his second birthday. In fact, since the day of his birth onward, he had been more -- better -- a wunderkind, if there ever was one.

Such unchecked success continued into his first years at a world-renowned New York private school for the gifted. The brilliant child receiving as high of marks as were possible, in every class he sat in.

Beyond just the technical, his teachers loved him, without exception. And in each of those teachers' minds, Aditya's path to success -- both in his education and thereafter, seemed certain. Inevitable.

But then came the divorce -- one that changed everything.

It is so often a destructive thing: divorce. But for Aditya's mother, Riya, it was doubly so. For the only income in the family's home, came from Aditya's father. A father who was more monster than man. He being not only controlling and cruel but a drunkard -- one with a penchant for infidelity. He making sure to find the bottom of whatever bottle sat next to the arm of his bourbon-stained La- Z-Boy, as he cursed and chided his family for even the smallest of inconveniences and irritations.

Like those stains, which aged by the day, so too did Riya's desire to leave him, as undeserving and potential-endangering as he was. That growing desire fueled by his loudening shouts and worsening threats -- sharpening insults and increasingly brazen cheating -- each getting worse and worse, without end or ebbing.

She should leave him, her friends told her. Just take Aditya and move, others begged. But such advice, well-meant and wise though it may have been, left Riya with so many questions to answer.

Where would she move to? How would she afford to feed not only herself but her child? Where would it leave little Aditya's education? Each of those questions, and without fail, even their answers, the thirty-something mother found terrifying.

Yet still -- in the end, despite so many avenues for failure and suffered-through-moments of frailty, brave Riya had no choice but to leave. Not just her husband. Not only his home. But the city of New York, the state of it, and everything she and her son had ever known behind. They two, with not but their car and their clothing, moving far, far away, to a place called Granbury in Texas.

It was not her first choice, or her second, or in fact, even her choice at all; for it was the only place she was able to find a job. At least one that would pay for her moving expenses, and then enough to find a one bedroom apartment for herself and Aditya to live in.

It was small town compared to New York City -- in fact, it was a small town, compared to most. One where everyone had an accent, and some even wore cowboy hats. Worse yet, in what seemed to Riya almost as a comical cherry on top, some there even rode horses. "HORSES!" She texted her girlfriends back in New York, wanting to share with them the hilarious quirks of her new home.

Those quirks, along with the people who lived there, made it feel to Riya as if she and Aditya had traveled back in time -- or stepped onto a western movie set. Still though, for both she and her bright, beautiful boy, it was a fresh start. A chance for she -- for them, to build a new, safe, and stable life, without an alcoholic, abusive husband torturing them day in, and day out.

To Riya's surprise, before too long, the distracting backwardness of the place seemed to just fade into the background, and it all just became normal. The dirt roads. The trucks. The lack of taxis. The ten-gallon hats. The horses. Each and all of it becoming nothing more than the quaint backdrop to their new world.

Into that world, Riya began to sink, quickly getting accustomed to her new role as not only head of household but a working mother. Better yet, and much to her own joy, Aditya, even removed from his father and friends, seemed happy too -- at least at first.

Until the day his teacher retired mid-year. The story was, as Riya heard it, that the elderly instructor had suffered some sort of heart attack or something to that effect, and had been replaced. That replacement, somehow, and in some way, seemed to put Aditya off. His mood upon coming home from school quickly changing from glowing and excited, to depressed and quiet. Riya, only in her early 30's, remembered well, the tension that a new teacher could instill in students. And so she waited to address whatever the issue may have been -- hoping it would resolve itself. But that decision to wait and see was shown to be a mistake when Aditya brought his first report card from this new teacher.

"F," it said on it, in bright red, stamped ink. "F," as if Aditya were even capable of such a failing.

"What is this...?" Riya asked as she held the card out for her shame-faced son to see.

"Momma, I don't know. She hates me. It's Ms. Saunders, she just..." The boy choked out, before finding himself overwhelmed by emotion.

"Show me your homework," Riya demanded, trying to find the sweet spot between being supportive and trusting, and constructive and stern.

"Yes, momma." He said obediently, before running off to his room. It took only a moment for him to return with his homework from the last year. All of it neatly organized and filed. Stabled and labeled. The very sight of such precise and neatly kept documents spoke to how unlike Aditya a bad grade was. It just wasn't in him to give a class anything less than everything he had. And everything he had, was usually nothing short of perfection. An "A+" in academic vernacular.

Still, however, Riya examined and poured over his assignments. Comparing answer to question, and then correct questions to grades. Before she was even three assignments deep, she had found a definite pattern. Regardless of the answers provided, or how meticulous Aditya was in answering even the hardest of challenges, the score was the same from this new teacher: "F."

It is a common practice for parents go over their child's homework with them, but with all that had been going on, and with Aditya's history of scholastic excellence, Riya had abandoned the practice. Letting him, the wunderkind of the family, draft and submit his own work, without parental guidance. But that allowance and trust had been taken advantage of, not by her sweet little Aditya, but by his teacher -- this Ms. Saunders.

The discovery filled Riya with such rage and confusion that in an instant she knew what she had to do. She needed to meet this teacher -- this woman, face-to-face, and find out why her son had been given "F's" when his work clearly deserved "A's." With that in mind, she called over to her neighbor's home and asked their teenage daughter if she would come and watch Aditya.

Within only moments, the young girl arrived, and after giving her a short list of instructions to follow, Riya left. Storming out to her car in precisely what she had worn to work, a pair of black heels, and an emerald green dress. In that outfit, and with her hair draped softly across her shoulders, the thick-thighed Indian woman slipped into her car and drove -- gripping her steering wheel tightly as she traversed the small town, barely able to contain her boiling anger.

When she arrived, the green grass field in front of the school was empty, and the sky overhead had already begun to darken in an early sunset. In the distance, Riya could see a guard talking to a departing teacher, his keys already in the press-lever of the front door of the school.

"Excuse me!" Riya shouted, as she briskly and carefully ran up the sidewalk to the school and the soon-to-close door, an assortment of her son's homework and report card in hand. "Wait! Don't lock it!" She begged as she neared.

"Ma'am...?" The heavyset, African American guard asked, confused at the sudden appearance and shouting of Riya, who had only just reached the distance to hear him. "Sorry. I'm Aditya's mother; is Ms. Saunders still here!?"

"Aditya? Ah, he's one of my favorite students. A bright future waitin' for that boy; not that I'm much'a judge of that. But, Ms. Saunders...? Hmmm, yessum; I think she's still here. In fact, she's the last one." The man's voice was comforting and soft, and within only a few words had convinced Riya that whatever else might be going on here, this kindly only guard had no role in it.

"Wonderful, I really need to speak with her." With her quickened heartbeat and stressed breathing coming to a slow, Riya smiled at the news and the guard who gave it to her.

"Well, I'm still going to lock up, but you can go on in. When you leave, just make sure the door shuts behind you. It'll open from the inside without a key." The guard allowed and explained as he lowered his gaze from Riya to the door lock, stepping just far enough to the side for the Indian mother to step past him.

"Thank you!" Riya half-shouted, as she scurried down the hall, the sounds of her heels clicking and clacking against the checked floor, each such sound echoing off the walls and lockers that lined her surroundings.

As she passed into the distance behind him, and with nothing more added than a friendly smile, the gray-haired guard stepped out the door. Then without giving another thought to what Riya may have wanted with Ms. Saunders, he left, pressing the heavy metal door of the school shut behind him.

At about the same moment he made it to his car, Riya stormed into Ms. Saunders' classroom, finding the platinum blonde instructor, with her black, thick-rimmed glasses, sitting behind her desk. She seeming, after a quick, glaring examination, to be a woman of the same age as Riya. One who wore well, a black and red-striped dress that pulled tight to her healthy figure.

"Ms. Saunders..." The name was thrown down like a gauntlet by Riya, who marched over to the instructor's desk. The former's mind already filled with fury, and her heart with malice -- she needing no more evidence to be sure that this woman was actively trying to hurt her son's future.

"You're that little raghead boy's momma, aren't you?" As comfortable as wearing a blanket in winter, the blonde threw out the slur raghead, not caring one bit how the child's mother might take it.

After a weighty gasp, Riya replied to the woman's outrageous comment. "What did you just say...? How dare you!?"

"How dare I!?" The teacher replied as she stood up behind her desk, letting Riya see her full-figure. One that was remarkably similar to Aditya's mother; each woman having an emphatic Coke bottle figure, one with a thicker lower half than most, or almost any. "How dare you, missy!? You come to this country to take a job from some hard-working American, all, while you're country, is stealing the rest of those jobs? Then, to make it worse, you're breeding! Bringing your little spawnling to take another one!? No way! Not if I can help it."

As if she had been hit by a sledgehammer of madness, Riya paused, trying to make sense of what was just said to her. "So..." Riya, began with her eyes closed, she trying to remain calm enough to speak. "... that must be why you're giving my son F's, even when he gets all the answers right! You're some kind of racist!"

The words spoken by Riya, which most would take as an unbearable accusation, brought a smirk to Ms. Saunders' face. An expression she wore proudly is as she stepped out from behind her desk and towards Riya. "No, it's because I'm a patriot. And a lover of America. And YOU and your cow-worshiping son, are just scum. Dark-skinned. Eight-armed, she-devil-loving scum. And there is NO WAY, that Ay-dat-yoo, or whatever his name is, is getting anything other than an F in my classroom. Not while I'm teaching here; not on your life, missy."

"Ok, so... You're an idiot. Because: A, his name is Aditya!. B, he and I were both born in Brooklyn. And C ... I can't believe I AM HAVING THIS CONVERSATION WITH YOU! GOD!! WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM!?" She tried, Riya did, to make it through this conversation without letting herself completely abandon the temper she had already planned to lose. Not wanting to give this obviously bigoted piece of trash a reason to continue being a bigot, but as the moment of confrontation continued, Riya found that goal impossible. She instead stepping forward, and up to the woman, each the same height with their matching black heels on.

"Don't you dare take the Lord's name in vain in my presence! This is a god-fearing classroom, and you will respect that, even if you are a heathen." At every word, Riya found it harder and harder to keep her composure. Feeling her blood boil hotter and fists clench tighter with every word spoken by the woman standing before her.

"Look... You're free to a hold a grudge against the people in India, for existing in the world economy. But you CANNOT take out that anger on my son, by jeopardizing his future with false bad grades, just because his ancestors were born somewhere else, do you understand me...?" As Riya made her stance clear, her onyx eyes narrowed, and she took another step forward, wanting to impress upon this woman how serious she was.

"Oh, I'm sorry, is this your classroom, Shiva? One where we teach little boys how to run gas stations, hate steak, and grow chest hair...? No, it isn't. This is Katie Saunders' classroom, and in it: I make the rules. So feel free to take your little dot head child out of my classroom, my school, my TOWN, and go back to whatever hellhole you crawled out of. Do you..." Katie said with intentional drama, taking one, final step forward, closing the distance between she and Riya, before finishing. "...understand ME ... bitch...?" The words were spoken at such a short distance that Riya could feel Katie's breath on her face, and smell the woman's peach-scented lip gloss.

In that closeness, and at the blisteringly rude question, Riya's head turned, her eyes closed, and her teeth grit -- not to restrain, but to endure what had just been said to her. As the words passed from lip to ear and then dissipated between the two women, whose chests lingered only a centimeter apart, Riya made her decision. A decision which caused her right hand to fire up, and then splash across Katie's face in a hard slap. One that knocked the glasses clear off her face, and across the room.

Upon the landing of those spectacles, they shattered, but before such had even occurred, Katie and Riya were already distracted. Busy. They being locked together, body to body, with fingers buried deep in each others hair. Each stumbling slowly, their wonderfully thick thighs and calves flexing like steel, each trying to keep balance in their heels.

"You're gonna regret testing me, you Hindu cunt!" Katie promised, as her and Riya's chins pressed together at their tips, each woman pulling the others head back so far with their grasps of hair, that they each had to strain, just to avoid falling backward and apart.

"Don't FUCKING call me that, you white trash BITCH!" Riya shouted back, as she and her son's teacher struggled to overpower one another. Each almost snarling between taunts, as they continued to pull violently at their enemy's hair, Riya's black and Katie's a light, platinum blonde.

"I'll call you ... whatever I... OWE!" Katie cried out mid-response, as Riya yanked harshly at her hair.

"Like that, bi--FUCK!" Riya let loose the same cry, as Katie tugged back hard in retaliation.

"Let go of my fucking, hair! UNNNGGGHH" Katie demanded, even while she continued to pull Riya's black hair without mercy. But then again, as the blonde teacher's words continued, the Indian mother again pulled as hard as she could, causing Katie to groan out loudly in pain,and cease her sentence.

"No! You let go of min--AaaAAAHahahh! BITCH!" Once more, even as words were being spoken, one of the two enemies screamed, this time, however, it came not from a sudden yank of hair. No, instead it was a surprise stomp, as Katie lifted her powerful right leg and then drove it down, heel-first into the heel-exposed toes on Riya's left foot.

In only the passage of a single grain of sand or two in an hourglass, Riya released her grip on Katie's hair, and bent over, reaching for her wounded toes. And though mother released, the teacher held tight, using that grip and Riya's quickly descending head to her advantage, by slamming the same, hard into an alabaster-hued right knee.

Hard and dizzying though the blow was, Riya did not collapse, if only because Katie, still with grips on hair, kept her from falling. Not out of any sense of altruism, but instead to walk the olive-skinned parent, in a stumbling, wobbly-legged drag, over to her desk. Onto that hard surface, Riya was thrown, with her chest and face landing there atop it, her ass stuck out in a full bend. At that heavy impact, pencils and pens -- papers and stamps, were sent flying off the table in random directions.

"You look just like that little fucking dot-head floozy that took my husband..." Katie explained in a hateful growl, in response to no call or question. A comment made as she grabbed the bottom of Riya's strapless green dress. "She was just another Hindi bitch like you. One I didn't get the chance to hurt..." Like a low, shamed whisper behind a dust-covered screen in a Catholic church booth, Ms. Saunders continued to speak unprompted -- confessing to her real reasons and motivations, without even knowing it herself.

As such confessions were made, but before penance could be asked or demanded, Riya, only just coming to, began to listen and hear Katie's voice. Consequently, and even with she being in her still bewildered state, the Indian mother started to put the pieces together. As she did, she also focused on something more pressing, removing herself from her enemy's four-legged workspace. But just as she did, Katie struck and began to pull and retreat backward. Taking with her Riya's dress, which slid down the same's thick, rage-warmed body, until, after traversing her powerful, muscle-etched legs, it came free.

In shock and outrage, and finally having rid herself of the little chirping birds that flew in a circle around her head, they having been summoned by the devastation of Katie's knee, the olive-skinned mother fired back up from the desk and tried to face her enemy. But somewhere between raise and round, Katie returned, and with two hands sent with force to the back of Riya's shoulders, Aditya's mother found herself pushed back down to Ms. Saunders' desk.

Not willing to accept being dominated or controlled by her son's racist instructor a moment longer, Riya fought to stand back up. Upon making that stand, and the front of her thighs still pressed to the desk, the outraged mother felt the front of Katie's still dress-covered body press against her back, and the hands of the same reach around her and rip down her lacy white bra.

Katie's plan had been to grab and twist -- pinch and rake at Riya's beautiful breasts, but just as her firm, white hands returned to lay claim to her new targets, a shrill scream rang out. This one, coming from Katie's previously sneering lips, as Riya decided to take a page out of her enemy's book and use her left heel to stomp down on the attacking instructor's equally heel-exposed toes.

At the attack, and due to the effect of it, Ms. Saunders stumbled backward, she too bending over to check her poor, wounded toes. As she did, and after Riya kicked her own heels off, and away from her, the same stormed forward and grabbed at the bent over Ms. Saunders. The hands of the former landing and taking two firm handfuls of the middle of Katie's black dress. Then, with those grasps, Riya pulled hard, wanting to not only even the score but to then leave the dress pulled over the teacher's head, to blind her as the fight continued. But Katie, blinded by rage already, did not do as expected, and mid-pull charged forward. As she did, she drove her dress-covered right shoulder and head into Riya's soft stomach and pushed her until the lower back of the same crashed into Ms. Saunders' desk.