Teaching Her a Lesson Pt. 01

Author's note: All characters present for or witnessing any sexual encounters are 18+.

Part One: Behavioral Intervention Plan

"This is bullshit, Mr. Canon." Taylor Stern slapped her essay down on my desk. Behind her, her peers looked up from their own freshly returned papers, no doubt to see how I'd react to Taylor's latest outburst.

I decided to keep it lowkey from the outset. No sense escalating things preemptively. Not when this young woman already practically lived on an escalator. "Language. And what seems to be the problem?" I looked up at her as nonchalantly as I could.

Taylor briefly removed one of the hands from her hips to flip her hair back over her shoulder. Naturally. Twice as uncomfortable for me with her big tits thrust out and unobstructed, daring me to break eye contact. To give her something else to try to accuse me of.

"This." She pointed to the paper. "What the hell isthis."

"Your paper."

"It says I cheated."

"It says you violated the school's code of conduct in regards to plagiarism. Which you did."Again, I added to myself. This had to be the fifth time in these past two interminable years during which I'd been stuck with her in my class that she'd done so. More than anything, it was disappointing she hadn't learned to cheat less obviously.

"No, I didn't. You can't prove it."

I spun the paper so it was right side up for her and gestured to my hand-written comment. "If you look here, I cited the URL for the site from which you lifted portions of your paper. Verbatim."

"I did not!" She stamped her foot this time. My peripheral vision insisted I notice the way it made her breasts bounce in her top, the neckline of which trampled over the school's dress code the way her essay trampled the school's academic honesty policy. "This ismy work,my words! I don't know what you think you found, but I worked hard on this, and I want a grade for it!"

I kept my voice down, but by now, the confrontation overbrimming in hers had done more than enough to call attention to our quarrel. "Taylor, you lifted whole paragraphs from the site. If you'd taken a sentence or two, I might have left it at a reprimand, but easily half of your essay constitutes someone else's work."

"It'smy work," she insisted. "You just don't like me so you're going out of your way to punish me by saying I cheated. It's not fair!"

By now, the class had split into its usual two factions, the same ones her outbursts usually brought out. The first, comprised Taylor's friends and my detractors, watching with interest to see if she'd get away with it or at least enjoying seeing her make an awkward scene for their teacher. The second, and thankfully the larger, who were talking to friends or on their phones, thoroughly bored by the latest show of disrespect from their classmate. This was a marginally louder tantrum than the last one, but that was about all that seemed distinct about it.

For my part, I was once more at an impasse. I could validate her accusation of bias by disregarding her protest like it deserved to be. My alternative was to let her once more waste her peers' time by publicly cementing the proof. Classes were a scant fifty minutes long, and wasting five of them on Taylor's antics -- again -- always cut other things from the lesson. There was no sense to her outburst to begin with. Shehad cheated. She almost always cheated, at least on anything that took any time or effort outside of class. But then again, she was one of the brightest students in the class, and most opinionated, so why she'd cheat on an opinion essay in the first place when a topic that had clearly intrigued her during class was equally perplexing.

The assignment had practically been a softball to her personally: identify a solution to a societal ill that is inadequate or flawed. They didn't need to propose alternatives necessarily, though many had. Popular targets included big issues like the response to climate change, the drug war, or our Middle East policy, though some had gone deep with niche issues. Zhaniece had gone after student lunch debt here at our own school, and we were working on getting it published as a letter to the editor in the local paper. I'd learned more than a few things from my students, as often happened, and I hoped it provided a little kindling for their critical awareness.

Taylor had ostensibly taken on the Common Core standards, perhaps thinking she'd get a rise out of me by going after my curriculum, but I granted she might genuinely have grievances with it. I'd surprised her by cheering her on, helping steer her to authentic sources that weren't just whiny rants by parents who couldn't help their fourth-grader with math any more. After a well-written and sincere introductory paragraph following my guidance to outline the problem, the solution, and the problem with the solution, I caught the casual inclusion of the word "pedagogically," and a few keystrokes later, had the source URL on my screen. I confirmed the extent of the plagiarism, gave her her zero, and moved on.

She took advantage of my brief moment of consideration to press her attack. "Look, you guys. He doesn't even have a response. He knows he made it up!"

So be it.

It only took a few more minutes to resolve it. With her paper displayed on the front board via the document camera, I steered my computer to the address on her paper, then turned my back from the wall and read from the site. Those paying attention to the charade snickered openly, though whether it was at Taylor's antics or at me for being baited into responding to them, I couldn't have said.

"That's only part of my paper," she insisted once my point was made, leaning over my desk from the far side as if she were the aggrieved teacher and I the misbehaving pupil. One last chance to try to throw me off my game with her cleavage, though, and it was a good try. "You're cherry-picking. I just used a source. That's not cheating. You're--"

"Taylor, you plagiarized. You were caught. You lied about it, and were caught in that, too. If you persist in this behavior, I'm going to have to send you to the office. I believe next time you're up for a Saturday class. Now you can take your seat and let me get on with class, or... see you tomorrow for the Saturday class." It wasn't the most productive punishment, thatBreakfast Club-esque tradition of stuffing a bunch of angry and unruly kids in a room for Super Detention, but it was five hours of easy money for me. I got to mostly sit back and grade, plan and otherwise do the work I would be doing anyway, and looked up every so often to nudge them awake or keep them off their devices. I doubted it had any corrective effect -- the students got enough tedium during the week already -- but the Principal Horen believed in it, and I wasn't so opposed I was unwilling to cash in.

There was a tense moment with a truly malevolent glare, and she drew it out long enough that I began to think she really might force my hand. Finally, as I snapped my laptop shut and made for the pad of referral slips on my desk, she growled in bestial aggravation and stalked to her seat, her matching dress-code-defying skirt twitching with each stride so violently that anyone looking learned the color of her underwear.

Red. It was red. So very red.

With that image as far toward the back of my mind as I could push it, I began class.

Taylor Stern. Three years into my teaching career, she was hands down my greatest challenge. There were other discipline problems, and many of them were easier to empathize with. Students with absentee parents, substance abuse in their households, a host of other problems. There were brighter students, too, if not an abundance. She didn't like to give evidence of it -- a special combination of too lazy, too disaffected, too self-righteous -- but she could be a straight A student if she wanted. Her other teachers had said as much to me, too.

But are therehotterstudents? my subconscious pressed. Maybe one or two. It wasn't something we were supposed to notice, but I had eyes. That was about all it took with her. And Taylor liked to press the envelope there, too, showing herself off like a trophy in a display case. Like a lot of my colleagues, I had issues with the existence of a dress code. What could be more sexist than punishing females for male failings? Many teachers, most really, ignored the policy, to our Mr. Horen's irritation. Yet Taylor made it a game, seeing how much of a distraction she could make herself. Today's display had been above average, but hardly novel. She'd friended me on facebook, as a lot of my students did. I had no idea why, given her transparent contempt, but I wasn't about to invite a debate about favoritism by blocking her. No matter how many of her bikini pics flooded my stream.

(Yes, I could hide her posts. I know. And I would, someday, if she crossed whatever line I hadn't yet identified.)

My classroom had no seating code, and if a student wanted to sit on the windowsill, on the floor, hell, even at my desk, I didn't care. But Taylor? Not two months ago I'd had to almost physically push her off the stool in the front of the room because her skirt was so short it was flashing the whole class.But why?! she'd whined a hundred times as I insisted, defying me to say I'd noticed, to admit in front of God and everyone that I'd seen my student's panties. Which I couldn't, of course. At that point, the war would be over, my waving flag as white as the panties she'd worn that day. None of these insecure kids were going to take my side and admit they'd been looking too, had had no choice but to look considering how flagrant she'd been about it. That meant her feigned outrage would paint me as a lecherous pervert rather than conveying the truth, that she was a shameless flirt. Or maybe an exhibitionist. Truth be told, I had no idea what she got out of it all, what psychological issues fed into her behavior. I doubted I ever would.

In any event, I did my best with her, engaged her in the lesson when I could and minimized her detriment to the class when I couldn't. She was a chore to deal with and a tragic waste of potential, but if she kept doing the minimum to scrape by, I wasn't going to ruin her future by getting her suspended over and over until she got expelled simply because she enjoyed causing a scene and flaunting a set of objectively breathtaking teen tits. So even if she got on my nerves to no end, I put up with it. She got her daily warning, and we both moved on. Soon she'd graduate, or not, and I could go back to dreading the presence of her younger sister in my senior English class next year.

(My department head swore that Abbie was twice the handful Taylor was. From what I'd seen in the halls, I could attest that this was absolutely true, at least in a literal sense.)

Today, however, Taylor decided that the warning wasn't enough. With twenty minutes to go in sixth period, a little pink plastic egg flew through the air and bounced off of Jesse's left temple. As if I couldn't have immediately guessed who would be inconsiderate enough to throw a container of lip balm across the room -- inaccurately, no less -- Kate hustled over and scooped it up from where it rolled to. "Thanks, Tay!"

"No prob, bae," answered Taylor. When she saw my expression, she looked up, annoyed. "What's your problem?"

I ignored her. "Jesse, are you OK?"

"Yeah. Stings." He caught Taylor's reproving glare. "It's fine, though," he amended.

"Kate, hand it over." I walked over and held out my hand. Kate looked to Taylor, but her loyalty to her benefactor was quickly outmatched by her fear of her instructor.I'm sorry! she mouthed as she handed me the ovoid chapstick.

"Taylor, to the office. Now." Anyone else might have gotten a lecture on why throwing things around in a room full of distracted people was dangerous, why copping an attitude about it was the wrong way to respond, but Taylor had heard it all before.

Her referral was waiting for her by the time she packed up her things and made her way to the classroom door. She stopped, however, to hold out her hand expectantly. "Give it back."

"No. We'll discuss it later. Now go."

After a final challenging stare-off, she snatched the slip of paper from my hand and stormed out the door, slamming it behind her with enough force that Mr. Hallett from next door came over to make sure everything was OK. I assured him it was, and with Taylor out of our hair, the other students and I salvaged what we could from the final minutes of class. Thankfully, it was my final instructional period of the day, with seventh period as my prep. My patience for teenage tomfoolery had been picked clean for the day. As ever, Taylor and her shenanigans were the brat icing on a stress cake.

The bell rang. Students filed out. I closed the door behind the last of them, suppressing my guilt at shirking hall monitoring duties. I needed to take a few deep breaths and relax before I could get back to the endless pile of grading, the parent contacts, and preparing everything I could for Monday so that I might actually have a day of weekend to myself. Part of one, at least.

I had just slumped down in my chair when Taylor returned.

"Give me back my chapstick," she demanded as the door slammed shut behind her.

"Taylor, why aren't you in the office?" There had been no real need to ask. I hadn't expected them to keep her, but there was plainly no way she could have made it down there, received her consequence, and returned this quickly. It hadn't been ten minutes even. "You never went, did you."

"No. You stolemy property. You can't punish me when you're the one who took my stuff."

"Did you make it to the office?"

"Give it to me.Now."

I could already feel a tension headache setting in. More than that, I decided then and there that I'd had my fill of her attempted bullying. "No. For crying out loud, youthrewit, Taylor. You hit Jesse in the head. You could as easily have hit him in the eye. You didn't even apologize! Then you defied--"

"Give it to me!" She took a step closer, looming over me. Or shoving her breasts in my face to throw me. I was never sure how conscious of that tactic she was, but as self-conscious as girls her age tended to be, I'd be surprised if she wasn't aware of what she was doing.

Either way, I wasn't about to cave. "No. Go to the office. I'll be telling Mr. Horen that you--"

"I'm not going anywhere until you give it to me. You'restealing, and it'smine!"

The bell rang. "And now you're late for seventh period, too. Get yourself to--"

But she only took a step closer. Perilously close. "Not without my property!"

I was at a loss. Nothing in life had prepared me to deal with this level of entitlement run amok. A few more failed attempts at asserting myself were met with more looming, to the point that my chair was forced further and further back just to keep her from actually making contact with those things. Her chapstick remained clenched firmly in my fist. With no other apparent recourse, I grabbed my desk phone and pressed the button for the main office, and with Taylor shouting in righteous indignation over me, I managed to convey that I needed assistance from the school resource officer.

Officer Louisa Barbour arrived only a moment later than I wish she had, right after Taylor gave up shouting and began attempting to pry her purloined lip balm from my hand, and right before it occurred to me that the optics on this were terrible. My profound gift of hindsight belatedly pointed out that it would have been better to let her have the stupid thing and then deal with consequences for her antagonism after. Instead, Officer Barbour walked in on Taylor fully straddling my lap, her chest pressed hard against mine as she tried to reach my clenched fist stretched out behind me. It was easily the most compromising moment of my professional career.

Barbour separated us swiftly and easily. Taylor was strong, but caught unawares by a trained officer, she was easily displaced from my lap. The chapstick was still somehow in my hand, and we were both breathing heavily. I probably looked afraid to have been caught with a student in that position, even if it was clearly not anything intimate, but really, I was hoping neither of them noticed the blood rushing to parts unmentionable. The last time a woman who'd been in such a position relative to my person had been the stripper at my friend's bachelor party summer before last.

The resource officer took point on figuring out what in the hell had been going on. I had to hand it to her, she did a good job redirecting Taylor's anger and bringing her back to the point of making comprehensible statements. Recognizing that asking her to take my side would only get the girl's hackles back up, when she turned to me, I kept my end brief and as unemotional as possible.

"So are you going to make him give my property back or what? That's illegal, right?" the student demanded, arms folded impetuously.

"Taylor, I understand you're upset. And yes, you'll get it back." Barbour turned to me. "Right?"

"Yes. Tomorrow. Or, well, Monday, since we're not here tomorrow," I said. Taylor's eyes smoldered, but she'd gotten a concession and a timeline, and didn't press the matter further. That was good. It'd get her off my back, and I wouldn't have to reward her in the here and now. Not like I'd ever meant to keep the stupid thing anyway. I simply hadn't been in the mood to be bossed around by a bratty teenager. Well done, Louisa.

"There. Now, you know you can't get physical with a teacher like that, right? We've talked about this. You have to find ways to deal with your frustration. Remember?"

The glare diminished, though only a hair. "Yeah. I remember."

"All right. I want you to head on down to my office, and we'll talk about this, figure out the next step. I need a minute with Mr. Canon first, though, OK?"

With one final withering look at me, Taylor pivoted and flounced out of the room. Was that a smirk I'd caught on her lips? Maybe. After all, she'd engineered a way to ditch seventh period.

I had to hand it to her, Louisa Barbour was a heck of a smooth operator when it came to de-escalating situations. We'd all seen the videos of uniformed brutes body slamming mouthy preteens, but our Louisa was a genuine asset. This wasn't the first time I'd seen her work her magic, but the first time it had been done to rescue yours truly. Only a couple years out of the academy, but she had a hell of a great head on her shoulders.

"Thanks, Louisa. I have no idea how things went sideways like that. She's been in a heck of a mood today -- I caught her cheating, and she made me prove it in front of the whole class. Must have really set her off."

She laughed and took a seat atop a student desk near me. I rebuked my students for doing that, but she'd earned the right. "You'd think for someone who cheats as often as she does, she'd be better at it. So much for practice makes perfect, right?"

"Evidently. Man. Really, you were great with her. Though I suppose you and Taylor have had plenty of one-on-one time, eh?"

"That's for sure. Girl spends enough time in my office I think my girlfriend's starting to get jealous." I laughed. Her relationship with the new social studies teacher had been a source of quite a little bit of gossip when it started last fall, but by now it was old news. "And don't worry about the scuffle, OK? I'll make sure it's clear in the report you didn't initiate anything."

"Thanks. Thanks again, I guess. I can't believe she pounced on me like that. I had no idea how to react. I mean, what's a guy supposed to do?"