Teaching Her a Lesson Pt. 24

"What, so you're worried they'll find out what she was really up to? Is that it?" She scooted a little forward. The air of the room rapidly cooled the pussy-dampened spot she had been occupying. After the paddling I gave her for her verbal tantrum in class earlier, that thing had been leaking like a sieve ever since.

"No, it's not that. They can't tell anybody anything. We all made sure of that early on. But just... I don't know. I feel awful about the whole thing. I started all this to try to help drag Taylor across the finishing line, and instead I wound up tripping her in the home stretch."

She was quiet for a moment, letting her fingers do the talking to remind me that even though we were arguing, she was still my devoted teacher's pet. Guilty or no, it was relaxing. I had almost drifted off to sleep when she at last spoke.

"You know, it's going to be all right, Mr. Canon," she said softly. "I get that you see things differently with the Sterns, but they'll take their licks and move on. Worst case scenario, they do a few months' time and come out the other side a little more cautious. And that'sworst case - more likely they'll get some slap on the wrist and be back to their old tricks before you know it."

"Maybe..."

"Meanwhile, look at you. You're back at your job, which you're great at. You have Ms. Barbour to keep you safe, Mrs. Brown to take care of your house and your stuff. Next weekend Cassie and I will graduate, and then you can do whatever you want with us whenever and wherever you want. We'll happily see to your every sexual need, at any time, in any way you would like, individually or together, however you would be best pleased."

"But Abbie and Taylor-"

"Think about it, Mr. Canon. Aren't you better off like this? Abbie used you for her own kicks, and Taylor merely tolerated you."

"She definitely did more than tolerate me, which I think you know."

"Sure, when you have no choice, may as well play ball lest it become something... vulgar. It was a little dirty, a little dangerous, which no doubt appealed to her juvenile sense of attraction, but once the thrill faded, you'd have had to hunt her down to make use of her. And Abbie, you'd have to forever worry that she was going to fuck you over in some fresh new horrible way every time you met up."

"She wasn'talways so bad. This one time, we-"

"I know. I know, because I asked them, because I wanted to know as much as I could about you. Because unlike them, I care. And yes, I appreciate that you can't be sure whether I care about you or just care about fulfilling Serenex's requirement that I gain your approval, but I don't make it your burden to tell the difference."

She bent down to murmur in my ear, her nipples like two extra fingertips grazing the skin of my back. "I care about being with you and pleasing you and being the perfect sex slave for you, and you make my pussy wetter than any man ever has or ever could, and I love the things you let me do to you, and for you. And to other girls near you."

Pretty soon, my cock was going to break off if I didn't shift and let it stiffen like it wanted to. "Sweet of you to say, Tabitha."

"Maybe, but I do mean it. You have my utter, steadfast, sincere devotion to your happiness and satisfaction. You have that from Cassie, if not quite in the same way. From her mother, too. I don't understand the dynamic with Ms. Salata and Ms. Barbour as well, but it sure sounds like they're reliable for what you rely on them for."

I gave my dick what it wanted, pushing up and rolling over. Without my needing to say a word, Tabitha settled back down slit-first, wrapping herself around the fresh offering with a quiet, deferential smile, then a gasp of sexual excitement as she was penetrated. "Yeah, I suppose."

"You have a great thing, Mr. Canon. Two great things, if you'll permit a coarse joke." She swiveled her hips to make sure I caught her meaning, as if her mounting my cock had been too subtle. "You have more than I bet most men ever dream of. Five beautiful women committed to your pleasure and well-being. So why risk messing it all up by going out on a limb for two-"

"You made your point." That was plenty of that. I grabbed her by the nipples and dragged her mouth down to mine, and didn't give her the chance to talk again until she'd fucked me right to sleep.

I woke up Saturday morning before she did. Stealthily, I threw on some clothes and grabbed my keys, leaving a post-it note on the bathroom mirror.

A on comforting distraction

A+ on your cuntwork

B+ on counsel

I have a lot to do today, so just head out when you wake up. Feel free to shower or whatever first, of course. Thanks for everything this week.

Some hours later, I was still grading papers at the coffee shop, at the very table where I'd enslaved Isa and Candy weeks earlier, when I received Tabitha's reply in a pair of texts.I'll work on the counsel and the distraction, and you never have to thank me. I'm yours.

If you did want to thank me though, send for me again soon? Please? I hated waking up without you this morning. But I understand.

That girl laid it on thick, all right, but she was almost too good at saying what I'd like to hear. I'd thought my head was pretty full when I left home that morning, but that text brought it to the brim.

It shouldn't. I knew that. Tabitha was only ingratiating herself by being servile because she had (correctly) surmised that it was a turn-on. She was sincere in service to her own self-interest, twisted though that self-interest had become. The A's in the gradebook - which, per her insistence, I had actually begun keeping, including a loose scoring system that I meant to refine once I had some free time over the summer - were all she was in it for. That high from my approval. Whatever feelings she expressed were nothing more than her way of gaining more points.

That is, unless all the sex and intimacy was actually cutting through her shrewd exterior. Simply because she was bright and ambitious and cutthroat didn't mean she was incapable of genuine affection. It was only human to develop feelings for the person you were sleeping with. Cassie had. I'd thought Taylor had, once. Maybe even Abbie. Lord knew I'd gone soft on these young ladies, even if I had no idea how to assess that tangled jumble of threads. Could Tabitha mean it? She was a teenager after all, not some grizzled veteran of years of hard relationships. Lovestruck was certainly a possibility. Hell, I was only twenty-six; I hadn't gotten jaded yet myself. Probably why it was so easy to believe she might actually care about the man behind the red pen.

Which was ridiculous.

Wasn't it?

________________

With my employment crisis over, it was also time to address the insensitive dickheaded move on my friend Jay's part. A bit of distance from the den of debauchery that was my home helped remind me that it would be good if I didn't punch him in the face next time we met up.

I called him up and gave him a firmly encouraged lunch invite, and we met at Gooses. The bar was sparsely packed, and he'd taken a table in the section to one side with all the taxidermy stuff in it. Those animals, frozen in time, always made me a little more aware of my mortality than I liked in my place of relaxation. Jay waved me over, and I took the seat opposite him.

He didn't take long to get curious about what occasioned the call, and why only him, though I could tell from the sheepish look on his face that he had a solid guess. After all, I'd already asked him to take down the video, but other than that, I'd had no contact with any of my friends since I left them to go pick up the hottie jailbait in her prom dress weeks earlier.

"Now let me start by saying I know you didn't intend it, but... let me get real with you, OK? That video you posted, me and that young woman?"

"Yeah, I thought maybe... go ahead. I took it down though. But yeah, go ahead."

I started nibbling at a chicken wing, pacing myself so my intolerance for spice didn't overwhelm me too quickly. "Yeah, see, that young woman turned out to be a student at GHS."

His eyes went wide. "Whoa. No fucking way. You serious? Like, graduated? Or... that's not acurrent student, is it?"

"She's a junior, actually. You remember me mentioning that girl with the chapstick, the loudmouth one?"

"Taylor, yeah." Man, I must have vented about her a lot. "That was her?! Did you go home with the nightmare slut?" A term of Alice's invention, after months of hearing my tales of her mischief.

"No, it was actually nightmare slut's younger sister. Stepsister, technically."

He crunched through a celery stalk, a bit of blue cheese dribbling down his chin. "No freaking way! Shit, I knew she looked too young, but... shit, man! You two...?! Oh god, was that some planned thing, her showing up like that?"

"No, it wasn't planned." True. "And no, we didn't." Untrue.

Damn. Lying diminished my sense of righteous indignation.

"But you two kissed! Like, you were just gonna make out at a bar with a student? That has to be way across the line?"

"She's a student at GHS, but not one of mine. I didn't recognize her until after we'd left, and then I was so freaked out I didn't want to come back yet." By which I meant I took her to a cheap motel nearby and fucked her brains out in that slutty prom dress of hers. "I think her sister, Taylor, pressured her to try to set me up or something. I don't know. But yeah, my department head saw I was tagged in your fucking post, recognized the girl, told my principal, and... ugh. I almost got fired, man. No, I did get fired, but I managed to fight it and convince them it wasn't how it looked. That was my whole week last week."

"Dude. That's so... I don't even know where to begin with all that. I am so sorry, man. I only put it up to rib you. Sylvia didn't believe me when I told her you left the bar with some babe. Crap, I guess I shouldn't talk about some sixteen-year-old like that. Anyway, I had to show her the video and she just laughed herself giddy at you studding it up. I don't remember what we said that I thought it'd be funny to put it up. She made this joke, but... man. Not funny any more. I'm sorry, buddy. I mean it. I am so, so sorry."

"Thanks." The apology did help. Jay's wife had always thought I was a total pussy - it was why she was so willing to introduce me to her friends, because she thought I was the most placid flower in the meadow, a bright yellow daffodil. (I amnot a pussy.) "I think it's all worked out now, but... yeesh. Hell of a week, I'll tell you that much."

He downed his glass of Mountain Dew in a slug. No idea how the guy kept in shape like that. "I can imagine, dude. Why didn't you say something sooner? I mean, I got your text to take it down and I did right away, but about the rest!"

"If I actually got perma-fired, I was probably going to punch you," I answered, half-joking. "Since I didn't, I figured... well, just for future reference, apparently I'm some kind of public figure slash role model, so maybe don't share stuff with me hooking up with floozies at the bar. Even the legal ones." Yes. Being straight with him felt better. I had too many secrets these days. The less I had to bullshit my own friends, the better.

"Yeah, for serious. Won't happen again, man. I swear." We bumped our forearms together, our group's weird semi-ironic bro-code high five, then went to work on those wings in earnest. Good food at Gooses, even if I was presently preoccupied by the sight of the stuffed namesake of the bar in a case over Jay's shoulder.

"So... you really didn't sleep with her?" he asked a few minutes later, a faint grin teasing at the corners of his buffalo sauce stained lips.

"No, I really didn't," I lied. Not for over a week now, anyway. Damn. That feeling came right back.

"Do you think she would have? I mean, you're not a bad-lookin' dude. I bet plenty of those schoolgirls have their eyes on the Big Gun."

"Big Gun" was an old code for my cock. Whether or not it was apt, it had started as a pun on my name. I wasn't about to talk them out of using it, though. Reputation mattered, sometimes.

(Yes, most of my male friends had seen my cock. I wasn'talways a teacher.)

"I am... pretty sure she would have," I said guardedly.

"Damn. Youreally didn't? I know it's not PC or whatever, but that girl was insanely hot. Can't imagine how hot she'll be when she finishes puberty. I swear I won't tell if you did. I just... I gotta know. Seriously. Did you...?"

Important as it was to keep the secret (after all, I will not let anyone find out about my relationship with the Stern sisters), it was almost tempting to be vague, let him imagine. I wasn't banging sex slaves to boost my street cred, but the gleam in Jay's eye at the mere suggestion felt oddly flattering. I worked at my bone, taking a moment to bask, before finally answering. "I really didn't. She is eighteen, though, so if you can make it around your marriage vows, lust away. For what it's worth, she's not even the hotter Stern."

"What? Nightmare slut is hotter thanthat? What, she have a third boob on her forehead or something?"

"Wow. No, she's just... she's a good-looking young woman. Conventionally speaking." True again. True felt better.

"Hey, she's about to graduate, right? Play your cards right, maybe you can catch her using a fake ID like her little sis somewhere and actually seal the deal, huh?"

My gnawing went on at length, picking every bit of that wing clean.

"Dude, I'm joking. Relax. I know you're not some creeper or anything. I was only playing, man." He gently backhanded me on the bicep. "Besides, who am I to judge? Hell, you pick up some eighteen-year-old and you guys'd be closer in age than me and Sylvia. As long as you don't wait too long."

"Taylor got the boot for what she and her sister pulled, trying to screw me over like that. Pretty sure she doesn't wanna fuck me any more, if she ever did."

"Plus she's basically Satan," Jay responded, mouth full.

"Exactly."

He studied me for a moment. "But hey, fucking female Satan doesn't sound like theleast hot thing I've ever heard of, huh?"

"Believe me, I have no intention of trying to sleep with that girl. I can't wait to be done with her."

I waited for that rising and fading sense of moral superiority that accompanied my respective true and false statements, but this time, there was nothing to confirm anything for me. Merely words that I barely understood.

________________

"Good afternoon. Mr. Stern?" We'd never met, and only once or twice spoken on the phone, but I could see a little bit of Taylor in this man's eyes.

The man who opened the door looked me over for a moment. I wasn't dressed to make much of an impression, nothing more than a simple pair of jeans and a plain black t-shirt. They were both of them tight; I figured it wouldn't hurt to try to look decent. Though standing here on the front steps of the father/stepfather of two eighteen-year-old students I'd been covertly sleeping with and had recently gotten thrown out of school, I didn't want to seem like I was trying to looktoo good.

"Don't believe we've met."

"I'm Mr. Canon. I'm here about Taylor and Abbie."

I didn't bother with more of an introduction than that. With all that was going on, my last name ought to be plenty. My legs were ready to throw me out of the way of a punch, or whatever he threw my way. I hoped it wouldn't come to a fight, but after the predicament I'd helped land his daughters in, I wasn't about to flinch in the face of danger. I am not a pussy. In fact-

"ABBIE!" he bellowed, turning his back to me and walking a few steps into the house. "SOME MAN HERE FOR YA!"

"WHO IS HE?" cried a familiar voice from deeper in the house.

"I DUNNO! LOOKS LIKE A COP OR SOMETHING!"

"I'm Mr. Canon," I reminded him. "Taylor's English teacher...?"

"SAYS HE'S MR. CANTON!"

"Canon," I corrected gently. He didn't bother with an update.

"JUST SEND HIM BACK, STANLEY, GOD!"

At that, Mr. Stern - Stanley - Stan Stern? - gestured without turning toward a hallway and retreated through a living room in another direction. He didn't say another word, just let a strange man into his house to meet with his teenage daughter.

"You Serenexed your dad?" I asked as I rounded the corner into Abbie's bedroom.

The place was a sty. At base, there was a twin bed, a desk, a dresser, and a shallow closet. Covering all of it and spilling out of still more, however, was what looked like months', if not years' worth of accumulated junk. Dirty clothes - crumpled clothes, anyway, whether or not they were clean - concealed most surfaces, leaving doubts about the color of the carpet underfoot. Candy wrappers, assorted books and papers from school, a modest doll collection, a dartboard with a cutout picture of Kanye on it, a paint-spattered metal ladder, and what looked to be some sort of goddamn assault rifle half-buried under a denim skirt and discarded panties were only a portion of the eyesore that awaited me.

Abbie was lying on her side in her bed, one of the school's laptops - which I knew full well we did not loan out to students - sitting in front of her. She looked tantalizingly sexyin a pink spaghetti strap tank top and a pair of black spandex shorts. The shorts were riding low on her hips, revealing the yellow strap of what promised to be a thong.

"First off, Stanley is Taylor's dad. My dad lives in Pensacola. That's what my mom says, anyway. I haven't seen him since I was twelve or something. Second off, I forgot your question."

I shut the door behind me as I let myself in. "I asked, did you Serenex your dad. And is that a goddamn machine gun?"

"Oh, chill, it's just for paintball. And dad-wise, I mean... Duh. Yeah, she did that way early on. Well, I. We. Whatever."

"What on god's green earth for?"

"I know just 'cause Tay and I got reps you think we come from a broken home and all, C-dawg, but believe it or not Stanley and my mom don't let us have sleepovers with our teachers - especially on school nights. So it was either lie our asses off and wait to get caught, or..." She shrugged, folding the laptop closed. "We went easy on 'em. Just made them let us do what we want, go where we want, not get nosy about our shit. Best way to keep shit under wraps."

I'd called Taylor's parents quite a little bit early on last year. When the results hadn't followed, I eventually wrote them off as that ilk of parents who sided with their kids against teachers. By December, I'd given up beyond the usual litany of grievances in the comment codes of her report cards. I supposed I'd been ready to assume they really didn't care what the girls did. Though I guess now I was right.

"Well, that's messed up, all right. Is Taylor home? I wanted to talk with both of you. Or, well, I wanted to talk to your parents, but I'm sensing there's no real point to that, so you two will do."

"Nah, she's out rounding up some peeps, having a little party for last weekend of the year. So for now, you're stuck with me." She grinned at that. Considering the week I'd given her, I don't know if the grin was more or less off-putting than the silent treatment she'd subjected me to after the gravy dinner debacle.

"Fair enough. Mind if I...?" She gestured permission, and I took a seat, sweeping a mixed pile of laundry, stuffed animals, and a couple pill bottles (neither of which bore the surname Stern on the labels) off a bench in front of her dresser. "Look. I'm sorry about what happened the other night. I never thought it would go as far as it did."

"You mean us getting dragged downtown fornotegging your house?" she asked, though more bemused than accusatory.