Teacher, Friend, Lover, Wife

When I was eighteen and a senior within a couple months of graduating from high school, I thought about sex a lot and especially in chorus. That was because of the chorus teacher.

Her name was Gena Bartis, though we had to call her Mrs. Bartis even though she wasn't married. Well, she had been married, but her husband had passed away ten years before. Mrs. Bartis was about thirty-five at that time, and just seeing her walk into the room would make me stop doing anything except watching her.

Mrs. Bartis wasn't like the other women teachers. They all wore dresses that came down below their knees and fit loose enough that unless they did this thing with their arms, you couldn't tell how big their breasts were. Mrs. Bartis wore long dresses too, but they fit tight enough I didn't have to imagine how big her breasts were. They were just there, big mounds that stretched out her blouses and dresses. Breasts were a big thing for me then. Still are.

She seemed to like dresses and skirts that fit pretty tight around her hips too, and her hips were something to watch. They weren't much if she was walking toward me, but if she was walking away...well, what I figured out after watching Mrs. Bartis was that I also had a thing for wide hips that swayed back and forth when the woman walked. I spent a lot of time fantasizing about how Mrs. Bartis would look naked with her wide hips and her big breasts.

Mrs. Bartis was also pretty much the talk of the small town where we lived. She'd married John Bartis when he was forty-one and she was nineteen. John Bartis had been the band teacher in our school system. Mom and most of the other women in town thought it was just scandalous that Mr. Bartis would marry a woman so young. Now, to be fair, I think at least some of them were jealous because Mrs. Bartis was really pretty and wasn't even a little fat. They didn't like her because she was a threat to their marriages. Most, though, just thought no man should marry a woman young enough to be his own daughter.

Most of the men in town had a different idea about Mr. and Mrs. Bartis. When Dad had his friends over to play cards, Mrs. Bartis would usually come up in the conversation, especially after a couple rounds of beer.

"Saw Gena Bartis at the hardware store yesterday. She was buying a new drain hose for her washin' machine. Well, that's what she told Ray, but I think she was buyin' that hose for something else. I mean, she fucked old John to death an' I figure she misses his cock. I'd like to give that killer pussy o' hers my hose once just to see what she's like. If it killed me, I'd die with a smile on my face."

"Did you see Mrs. Bartis at the spring concert? Maddy had a conniption fit because she was showin' her tits. Well, it really wasn't her tits, just the line between 'em, but Maddy said she'd never wear anything that showed her tits, not that she's got much in the way of tits to show. I think she's just jealous. I keep tellin' her that more than a mouthful is a waste, but she never listens.

"Maddy thinks Mrs. Bartis is the reason John had a heart attack too. She told me the other day that the way Gena swings her ass when she walks means she's fishin' for another man to fuck her. Maddy'd kill me if I fucked Gena, but I can dream, can't I?"

I didn't believe any of what they said. Mr. Bartis was a big guy who seemed to get winded just walking from his car to the music room at school. I knew I was the result of my parents having sex and neither of them died because of it. I couldn't believe Mrs. Bartis had caused him to have a heart attack.

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After high school came college and a completely different experience for me.

I had decided I'd become a music teacher too, not because of Mr. or Mrs. Bartis but because I loved everything about music. I loved playing trumpet in the band and I loved singing in Mrs. Bartis' choir. I'd taught myself to play guitar and my junior and senior years, five of us had formed a little band. We played mostly for ourselves, but we did get to play in a couple talent contests. Playing in front of a bunch of people was great, and that's when I decided I wanted to be the guy in front of a band and leading them.

For the next four years, I was away from home except for the first summer. After that, I stayed at the college and earned some money working in the dorm cafeteria. The college hosted all sorts of special events like workshops for businesses and those people stayed in the dorms and ate in the cafeteria.

It was a good job for a couple reasons. One was I ate for free and the other was that the food the cafeteria served during the summer was a lot different than what the students got served. I ate steak about once a week, and Fridays were always shrimp or lobster.

As a result, I lost track of Mrs. Bartis. When I did come home for the fall holidays, I'd hear a little about her though.

She'd never remarried. Mom said she figured Mrs. Bartis had loved John so much that no man could ever take his place. Mom was a romantic like that even though she'd been critical of their age difference. Dad just chuckled and said that Gena hadn't remarried because no man wanted to take a chance that he'd die in the saddle like John did.

By that time in my life, Mom could talk about sex in front of me. When Dad said that, she slapped him on the arm and frowned.

"You never seem to mind taking that chance with me."

Dad just grinned and didn't say anything.

Mrs. Bartis' daughter, Penny, had grown up, gone to college, and was teaching music in a town about a hundred miles away. Mom said she looked like her dad in the face, but she had her mother's figure. Gena was still teaching, but she'd moved to another school because the school board had decided they couldn't afford both a band teacher and a chorus teacher.

I finished college and got my teaching degree in 1985, and I started teaching at Lakewood High School that fall. Lakewood was one of three high schools in the county but it was still a big high school. I had a hundred kids in my band and it wasn't just a marching band. I had strings, two oboes, three bassoons, and a marimba. That meant we could play some really great music.

Like most county school systems, every fall the school system had a "teacher's workshop". The kids had a vacation day. The teachers spent the day listening to guest speakers on a range of topics that were designed to improve our teaching methods, from how to recognize students with learning disabilities and how to cope with them to ways to challenge gifted students. It was interesting, but most of the material wasn't new to me because I'd just graduated.

We'd taken an afternoon break for coffee at two, and I was filling my coffee cup when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"Ricky Warren, is it really you?"

I turned and saw Gena standing there smiling at me. She hadn't changed much. She had maybe put on a couple of pounds, but she was still the woman I'd fantasized about in high school.

It's funny how when you meet someone who used to be over you, you revert to being a kid again.

"Mrs. Bartis, I didn't know you taught in this school system. Mom said you'd changed schools, but she didn't say where you went."

Gena put her hand on my arm.

"I thought I recognized you earlier. Now, let's not have any of this Mrs. Bartis stuff, not since you're all grown up and are teaching now. You call me Gena.

"Yes, when the school board decided they couldn't pay for both a band teacher and a chorus teacher, they decided to let me go because I didn't know anything about band instruments. I didn't mind really. It was time I moved anyway. Penny had gone to college so I was all alone in that big house. What have you been doing? Find a girl yet?"

I said I hadn't really been looking for a girlfriend because between studying and student teaching, I'd been too busy. Then a question popped into my head that I wouldn't have asked if I'd thought about it.

"How about you. Are you married to some lucky guy now?"

Gena chuckled.

"Heavens, no. I've let myself get fat and I'm too old. In case you haven't noticed, most men my age seem to want younger, skinnier girls. I'm happy being by myself for the most part. I do what I want, when I want, and I don't have to explain what I do to anybody."

By then, I'd about run out of conversation because Gena was affecting me just like she had before. No, my cock didn't start to stand up, but I was still imagining her naked and in bed with me. If I'd kept thinking that way, I would have developed an embarrassing problem. I needed to change the subject.

"So, what do you do when you do whatever it is you want to do?"

Gena shrugged.

"Well, not much really. I read a lot at night. I don't care much for television these days. All the shows are about young people acting silly. I like eating out, but not when I'm by myself. When Penny comes for a visit, we go out to eat though."

She sighed then.

"It's been a while since Penny came home. She's all tied up with her job. She teaches band too, did you know that? She takes after her dad that way."

About that time, the workshop sponsor called everybody back to their seats.

Gena smiled.

"Well, it's been really nice meeting you. I wish we could have talked longer. Hey, since Penny hasn't been home for a while, what would you think about having dinner together tonight? It's Friday so we don't have school tomorrow and we could talk for as long as we want. I want to know all about what you've been doing since you graduated. You think about it and we'll talk after the workshop is over."

Gena walked back to her seat then, and her ass swayed just as seductively as it had when I watched her in high school.

Well, I did think about it. I thought about it for the next three hours and my thoughts were pretty confusing. On the one hand, Gena and I were both adults and just having dinner and some conversation seemed innocent enough. I was pretty sure none of the other teachers knew her history, so nobody would think there was anything going on even if they saw us together.

On the other hand, I couldn't get the vision of Gena naked out of my head. I kept wondering what she'd look like and how I'd react. It was a stupid, juvenile thing to think, but I couldn't shake it. Like I said, sometimes you meet someone from your past and you go right back to being eighteen again.

When the workshop ended, I saw Gena walking toward me and knew I had to give her an answer. I wanted to say no, but I couldn't because of her smile when she asked the question.

"Ricky, did you decide to have dinner with me tonight?"

I didn't make myself smile. Gena did.

"I think it would be fun, but you have to let me pay. I owe you at least that much for making high school chorus so much fun."

Dinner with Gena was really nice. When she led the chorus and I was a student, we'd never really talked. That night, I learned a lot about Gena.

I knew she could sing and that she knew how to teach kids to sing. I didn't know that she was a pretty smart woman, but after that night I did. I also learned that she was well aware of what the people in my town thought of her. She didn't like it that they thought that way, but she said the people just didn't understand.

"Ricky, I know people talked about John and me because there was so much difference in our ages. What they didn't understand was that when you're in love with someone, age doesn't matter all that much.

"We met the spring right after my freshman year in college. John was taking a summer class toward his master's and I was repeating a class in music theory that I'd failed. We happened to be in the same line to register for the summer semester, and that line was long. We started talking and when he found out I'd had trouble with music theory, he said he could help me if I wanted.

"He tutored me all that summer, and what I found out was that he was a lot better teacher than the professor teaching my music theory class. John could put it in words I could understand. By the end of the summer, I'd passed the class with an A. I'd also fallen in love with John and he'd fallen in love with me.

"We weren't sure what we should do about it. John had tenure so the school board couldn't do anything to him. I still had three more years of school to go and I was ready to drop out but John didn't want me to. We talked a lot over the next school year, and John finally said it didn't matter to him if I finished school or not, but it did matter that we stayed together. We got married that summer and Penny was born a year later.

"It was four years later that he had the first heart attack. Scared me to death. It wasn't a bad one though. His doctor put him on some medication and told him to start walking around the block after dinner to help strengthen his heart. The doctor also told him to stop eating fats and eat more vegetables. John tried to do all that and we thought he was getting better. It was two years later that he had another and died.

"You probably heard the story about how John died, you know, the story that he died in bed with me while we were...

"Well, we were in bed together, but the rest isn't true. That night, he got up to go to the bathroom and just fell over right there beside the bed. He didn't make a sound or stumble or anything. Just one second he stood up and the next he was lying on the floor.

"I heard him fall and got up to see what happened. When I saw that he wasn't breathing, I called an ambulance. They said one was on the way and I should start giving him CPR. When the ambulance driver got there, he tried CPR too, but it was no use. The doctor who did his autopsy said he had a massive heart attack and was probably dead before he hit the floor.

"I went back to school after John died and finished my degree. His life insurance paid for that and for Penny and I to live until I got my degree, and then I started teaching. It was hard to come home and be without him, but that made Penny and I closer.

"I knew what people said about me after he died, including you boys at school. A couple of the senior girls in the chorus told me. I don't remember ever hearing that you said anything like the other boys though. I always liked that about you. You didn't judge me by what I wore or the way I looked or by what other boys said.

"I know you looked at me. All the boys did, but when you looked at me, it was different somehow. The other boys, well, it wasn't hard to figure out what they were thinking when they looked at me. They were thinking the same things their dads were thinking. They were thinking I'd be easy because I didn't have John anymore.

"Just so you know, that wasn't the case. I wasn't out looking for sex or even a boyfriend. It takes a while to come to grips with losing your husband. Yes, I did miss the intimacy we had, but I wasn't going crazy for lack of sex. Women don't work that way, or didn't you know that. Most of us like sex, but it has to be with someone we feel something for, not just any guy off the street, and he has to feel something for us too.

"That's the main reason I never remarried. I never found a man who could accept me for who I was, a widow with a young daughter. There weren't any men in town who fit. The unfortunate thing is, by the time I moved and then Penny grew up and left for college, I was forty and too old. I've learned how to live by myself now. It's not too bad, a little lonely sometimes, but I get by."

When I said forty wasn't old, Gena frowned.

"I'm forty-four now and I don't feel old, but according to how men think, I am. Men my age don't want a woman who's had a baby and still has part of her baby body. They're looking for women who haven't had kids and still look like they did when they were twenty."

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All in all, it was a great evening. I liked Gena when I was in high school, and after that dinner I liked her a lot more. I liked her enough that I asked her what her plans were for the summer.

Gena gave me an odd look before she answered, and when she did answer, she was pretty vague.

"I haven't really thought that far ahead. I'll go see Penny at least once and I might do a little traveling. Why do you ask?"

I shrugged.

"I don't know. I was just curious."

Gena grinned.

"Curiosity killed the cat. You might find out something you don't want to know. What are you doing over the summer?"

What I'd planned on doing was driving to Sioux Narrows, Ontario and renting a cabin for a week. I'd done that with Mom and Dad a couple of times. The scenery was enough to make me want to do that again. The fishing just made it more appealing. I'd fished in Illinois a lot when I was a kid, but the fishing on Lake of the Woods was fantastic.

When I told Gena what I'd planned, she smiled.

"I've never been to Canada, but I hear it's really beautiful. Maybe I should go up there one of these days and see for myself. John and I used to drive to Lake Shelbyville a couple times in the summer. He'd fish and I'd just sit by the water and enjoy the scenery. It was really relaxing. I haven't been back since he died. I had too many memories of the place to go back."

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When I drove home that night, I was a little sad for Gena. She seemed like such a nice woman and I knew that lonely feeling she said she had sometimes. In college, I didn't have many friends. Most of the guys were into hard drinking on the weekends or spending time with their girlfriends. I didn't have the money to go out drinking or for a girlfriend. When I started teaching, I was around a lot of people every day, but they were all in their teens. I'd been lonely for the last five years.

Fall turned into winter about Thanksgiving, and right after that was Christmas. Parents expected to see the results of the cost of the musical instrument they'd bought and having to endure their kids practicing at home, so like every other music teacher in the US, I scheduled a Christmas Concert for the Friday two weeks before Christmas. Janice Parsons, the chorus teacher, and I worked out a program for both the band and the chorus including one song of the groups combined. That song would be the last song of the night and was "Sleigh Ride", by Leroy Anderson and lyrics by Mitchell Parish. Sleigh Ride had been recorded by several current pop stars, so the kids loved playing and singing it. We figured the parents would too. Several of the stars of the parent's generation had recorded it as well.

The parents did love it. They stood and applauded when we finished, and Janice and I were ready with an encore if that happened. As soon as the applause died down, we led the band and the chorus in "We Wish You A Merry Christmas". That was the end of the program, and fifteen minutes later, the last parents and their kids were filing out of the school gym. I was picking up music when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned and saw Gena standing there smiling at me.

"Ricky, you should be proud of yourself and proud of your kids", she said. "I heard almost every parent saying they really liked the concert."

I'd been standing there with my mouth hanging open, and Gena chuckled.

"Didn't expect to see me tonight, did you?"

"No, I sure didn't. I'm happy you came, but why did you?"

Gena grinned.

"Well, I didn't have anything else to do so I thought I'd come see how good a band teacher you are. It looks like you're pretty good. Your chorus teacher knows what she's doing too, and the way she hugged you before she left, I think she likes you. Anything going on there that you don't want to tell me about?"

"No, Janice is married with two kids. Not much chance of anything happening with her. She's just one of those people who hugs everybody."

I didn't know what else to say, so for a few seconds, we both stood there looking at each other. Then, Gena smiled again.