Teaching Her a Lesson Pt. 28

"I got it as soon as I saw him get his out! You know, you are such an ungrateful bitch!" She winced. "You didn't swallow any, did you? Shit, I don't want you bitching out on me any worse than you are now."

"Nah, only got my arm."

I listened to them discuss with a sense of growing calm. My time crunch felt more distant by the moment. The fact that I was this vulnerable in front of them hardly perturbed me. All my thoughts felt like they were going through ten filters before they fully formed. The dominant train of thought went something like:This is a setback. I do not like it. My neck is tingly. Serenex smells bad, but not as bad as it tastes. I wonder what they're going to do to me. Can I run, or... no, one step at a time. Don't make waves. If this were scary, surely my adrenaline would be pumping. Must be OK. So. A rapidly closing window in which to get back to school. Unfortunate. Ah well, whatcha gonna do. They'll figure it out. Someone will cover for me, and I'll just be here, getting my mind scrambled by the Stern girls. No big whoop.

Yeah, I was dosed all right.

"What do you want me to do with him? He still got more of his stuff? I could use it on him." Abbie asked.

"There's none left," I answered. I wanted to point out that she was the reason for the shortage, but not like it mattered. She had a canister of her own somehow. Hmm. Would it be too confrontational to ask...? Nah, not for my fantasy slut. She'd tell me if I stepped out of line. "Where did you get that, out of curiosity?"

"You think you got the market cornered on this crap, C-dawg?" She laughed tauntingly. "Hell nah. Isa's got her connections. She hooked us up."

Strange. It seemed like she would have told me that. They must have done something else to her. No, notthey. Taylor must have. Abbie wasn't the boss. It was so obvious now, seeing them interact. An overlord and her minion. They'd really duped me good, I had to hand it to them.

Hmm. What to do? I was really boned here. I might have gotten Taylor, but she could still speak, which meant she could have Abbie enact her will. They had me dead to rights. I'd pissed off two of the most unhinged women I'd ever met, tried to drug one of them, and failed, leaving myself drugged in the process. I was so fucked here. Very unfortunate.

"The brats are going to burn if you don't take them off," I blurted.

The two of them looked at me like they thought I might have gotten a concussion.

"Don't gawk at me like that. I know, this is a tense situation, but a grease fire isn't going to make it any better. Do what you want; I'm just sayin'." I shrugged. That shrug took real effort.

"Grease fires." Taylor rolled her eyes, but gave a nod. "Yeah, go take care of it. We're not going anywhere."

Abby tugged up her baggy sweatpants so they didn't fall down while she hustled toward the back of the house. For a moment, Taylor and I were alone. She was frowning at me. Not glaring, quite, but a frown. For my part, a look of mild rebuke was all I could muster. Neither of us said a word.

Abbie strolled back in, the two partially blackened brats on a paper plate in front of her. "Got 'em. Crisis averted, a town saved. You're welcome, yo."

Taylor wrinkled her nose. "Gross. They're burnt to shit."

"They look fine to me," I said casually. Casual was pretty much all I had in me at this point.

I waited for Taylor to say something. This was easily the dumbest plan I'd had since the beginning of this whole mess. It shouldn't work. It didn't deserve to work. It was stupid for a dozen different reasons. All I had was the faint hope that some of the Serenex had gotten on the brats, that it hadn't been cooked right out of them, and that-

"Mm, crispy. Abbie likey." Abbie snatched one and took a bite. Taylor opened her mouth to stop her, but with her spirit dampened by a mist of Serenex, she didn't react in time. I said nothing as the girl chewed with relish, swallowing it down and taking a second bite.

Seeing it was too late, she shook her head contemptuously. "You fucking idiot. I swear to god."

About three chews in, Abbie's jaw went slack, her eyes glassed over, and a vacant stare settled onto her face. Thank the lord for my crappy aim and Taylor's instinctive mistrust.

What followed was simultaneously the most epic battle of my lifetime as well as the most pathetic attempt to exert authority in recorded history. With Herculean force of will, I gently grabbed Abbie's brat from her hand. She was barely holding onto it, but it took everything in me to spread her fingers and liberate the thing. Taylor countered by narrowing her eyes and stating, with low to moderate firmness, "Hey, stop that."

I didn't stop it. I amnot a pussy.

I whirled on Taylor - but gradually, so as not to cause a fuss or anything. Her instinct, spot on, was to back away. She technically did, taking a simple half-step back. I pursued, taking a three-quarter step after her. I told myself I wasn't being combative; I was feeding her. The lie did nothing to make this easier, raising the contaminated brat toward her lips. She stumbled backwards, well aware of what I was trying to do.

"Seriously, Canon. Not cool."

I didn't slow, in part because it was difficult to go any slower and still be moving. How much time did we have? I glanced around for a clock, and eventually saw the time on the TV screen, paused on a scene of a generically handsome fifty-something and what could only be his young daughter smiling at a frazzled-but-elegant woman who probably split the difference in their ages. The scenery had all the trappings of an office Christmas party, or the Hallmark version of one where bringing an eight-year-old was no problem. Oh, Abbie.

Oh, right, force-feeding Taylor. Focus.

Eventually, it reached her lips, smearing grease across them when her teeth refused to let it pass. She couldn't talk though. That was the main thing. I didn't need her throwing a tantrum and further fucking up Abbie's head. If Taylor's sarcasm could turn her into a fantasy slut, I'd hate to see what her active malice could do.

Anyone watching would have seen a man nonchalantly smudging a brat on a girl's mouth as she made an attempt to politely decline. Inside, though, I was a hero.

"All right. Now let's get you dressed. In the meantime, you open your mouth and I'm going to shove this in there." I very much doubted that would be how my pathetic, fumbling attempt to gently place the butt-end of a bratwurst between her lips could look like, but her defenses were no more robust than my attack. "Maybe you'll swallow some and maybe you won't, but it's your choice if you want to gamble."

As the blunt sausage gradually wormed between her lips, I was ashamed to feel a bit of deja vous. At least she had the sense not to unclench her teeth.

She refused to budge, however. Crap. I hadn't counted on that. I managed to nudge her - really more herding her ahead of me with my larger bulk - but pushing someone was suddenly sodifficult. By the time I got her to her bedroom, the class would be lined up outside my room, wondering why they were locked out. Shit.

This... had not gone like I had hoped. Why they had their own Serenex and what they'd done with it, I would ponder later. For now, Taylor and I were both too doped to drive anywhere, especially not in any sort of hurry. Abbie had her mind split wide open to suggestion. If we left her here in the living room and that Hallmark movie started playing again, she could be a very different sort of man's fantasy by the time we got back. I had no intention of bringing her along to the faculty holiday party.

"Hmm mm mm mmhmm?" Taylor tried behind clenched teeth. She put her hands on her hips to show her strained, but enduring, patience.

I narrowed my eyes. "Forgive me if I don't trust you not to further warp the poor girl's mind." I looked around, but there was no miraculous headset or earphones sitting nearby. Crap. What to do? The final exam would be resuming shortly and we were a mile and a half away, the path riddled with stop signs and traffic lights with a very compromised driver. For Abbie's sake, I didn't dare risk removing that Serenex-soaked bratwurst. Yet for my own sake, I had to dosomething.

Nearby, the front door of the house creaked open, then closed again.

Taylor and I watched the door to the room, and moments later, preceded by heavy, booted footsteps, entered Mr. Stern. His shoulders were stooped, and there was mud, or maybe oil, caked under his fingernails. Night shift, just now getting home. He looked at me, at the girls, back at me, back at them. I braced myself to fail to brace myself for the coming onslaught that... whatever this must look like would provoke. A strange man alone in his home with his teenage daughters, one obviously zonked out on something, the other with my sausage being thrust into her face.

"That your car in the driveway, buddy?" he asked.

I nodded.

"You left it running."

"Ah... yep."

Right. Dad was as screwed up in the head as the rest of us.

But notpresently.

"Mr. Stern, we met the other day, remember? I'm Taylor's English teacher, Mr. Canon," I reminded him.

"Oh right. You stopped by to poke my stepdaughter." The words, however, did not match the tone.I remember you, he was saying, notI'm going to kill you. The extent to which I owed the manufacturers of Serenex was getting to be rather cumbersome.

"Um, right, well, here's the thing. I dropped by to take the girls in for their final exams. And they're happening really, really soon, like right now actually. Only, you see, none of us are actually in a condition to drive, so..."

"You guys need a lift," he supplied. Then, after a sigh, he nodded to the door. "Let's get going then, before I kick my boots off."

It was an undertaking, getting everyone into the car. At some point we managed an amicable exchange, swapping a brat to the face for my hands over Abbie's ears. As Mr. Stern drove a pickup truck, that left Abbie sitting on my lap in the cab, Taylor sliding around in the cargo bed. With her still taciturn as ever and the knowledge of my exam countdown in mind, if not the appropriate level of panic, we never did get another outfit for her. I simply couldn't make myself put my foot down.

"I appreciate your doing this. I know this is all really, really unorthodox, but it's a huge help. Not to rush you or anything, but we do have about eight minutes to get there, so anything you can do to hurry will be a big help to me and to Taylor's exam, Mr. Stern."

He slowed, slightly, for a stop sign, but judged that nobody was coming and ran right through it, heeding my request for haste. "Stan's fine. And don't mention it. You know, they told us they were kicked out of school. Even had the principal, or I guess must've been some lady pretending to be. Should've known it was bullshit, just ditching. Again." He shook his head.

Ordinarily, I would grimace, or wince, or anything but nod placidly as he ran a red light with traffic close enough to cause a screeching of brakes, honking of horns. "It's... complicated," I replied. Even the cliché, verbal ellipsis and all, didn't spark a grimace on this English teacher's lips. This stuff was potent. "You should know that theyare suspended, pending expulsion, at least last I heard. I wanted Taylor to take the exam anyway, though."

"Why, didn't get to punish her enough when you had her, now you gotta drag her back in?" He chuckled, glancing at where Taylor's was ricocheting off the side of the truck bed as he rounded a corner at thirty. Abbie's head banged against the window, but after a momentary frown at her stepfather, she went back to comatose.

"Something like that."

"Yeah, well, don't let her get away with snowballing you. That girl will plant a knife in your ribs then demand an apology for dulling it if you let her. Same as this one." He nodded to Abbie. "Should've had my head examined, letting that kid into my home. Taylor used to be a good kid before she came along. Did good in school, grade-wise anyway, and she wasn't getting into scrapes so much. Did better than I ever did."

I made sure to keep Abbie's ears good and covered before a casual utterance ofAbbie's a bad influence woke her up long enough to absorb something and did who the hell knew what to her. Between the roar of the pickup's engine and my hand placement, she seemed pretty safe. Not that I could manage to worry any more than I was. Theshit happens, meh attitude from Serenex was intense.

"So I've heard. Hard to imagine."

"Yeah, well, they're lucky they got me with that stuff, that... whatever you call that junk. The crap you tucked in your briefcase."

I didn't supply him a name. The less anyone knew about it, the better. It was somewhat troubling he recognized the canister. Leave it to Taylor not to bother with subtlety. Could've slipped a few drops in his coffee, but no, they wanted to march up and spray it down his throat. "It's potent stuff all right."

"Gotta say, been looking forward to them two being out of school for a while now. My dad kicked me out when I turned eighteen. Stung at the time, but nothing teaches you to get your feet under you like a good hard shove."

My thought was that a good hard shove seemed like a good way to knock someoneoff their feet, but he was giving me a ride, and between my very tangential affiliation and the Serenex clinging to his brain cells, I very much doubted I was going to be improving his parenting at this point. I simply held Abbie in place as best I could and let him continue.

"I've been counting the days, myself. Literally, on my calendar and everything," he said with a little laugh. "Finally a little peace and fuckin' quiet, no more strangers coming and going. Emphasis on the coming," he added dryly, glancing at me and Abbie as we careened wide around a woman on a bike.

I was quiet for a moment. There was no defense to be made for my having sex with his stepdaughter right down the hall from him, but as for the rest of his casually cold commentary, it didn't sit right with me at all. I wasn't about to start an argument with Stan Stern about how to raise his hellion daughters - couldn't if I wanted to - nor did I feel especially of a mindset to defend Taylor at the moment.

Nonetheless, I had come today as Taylor's teacher, and so as her teacher, I had to say something.

"Taylor's not always so bad, you know. Some girls, they aren't wired for high school. Sitting still eight hours a day, doing what they're told all the time, raising their hand to speak, permission to use the bathroom, all the tedium and the drama... Taylor's a very smart and ambitious young woman, but I think she may simply need a little time, and patience, and love. Some people don't really figure themselves out until they step out into the real world and find their tribe, so to speak. A place to fit in."

Mr. Stern seemed to mull that over for a few blocks. Or maybe he was just focusing on the road. That was good, considering he was doing forty down an alleyway and had already hit a couple trash cans. "Evidently you found someplace you fit just fine." I didn't miss his not-so-casual glances to his stepdaughter and at where Taylor was clinging for dear life in his rear view mirror.

He rounded a corner, and GHS was visible in the distance. "The north entrance would be fine, Stan." Good talk.

Isa met us at the door; I delivered Abbie into her custody with explicit instructions to keep her in strict quarantine, and to say nothing to her. We'd find out soon enough if Isa was truly as obedient as she'd made herself out to be, I supposed. If she took revenge on the girl in her compromised state, I would simply have to add it to whatever punishment I devised for supplying them with Serenex. It wasn't truly her fault, but still, she liked being punished. Win/win.

The halls were empty as Taylor and I far too gradually made our way toward H121, the site of our final class period together. We'd made good time, though. Only four minutes late. Plus two more, because even sneaking in the north door so we wouldn't pass by the front office or the watchpost of Mrs. Pedretti, we couldn't make ourselves walk faster than a casual shuffle. Someone could have pulled me along faster, but there was no one left to do it.

"This is really fucking stupid, you know," commented Taylor as we rounded the corner into the H hallway.

"Why? Because you're used to giving up before you start, or because you got yourself expelled?"

"Because it's even more pointless than if I was still a student here. I can't pass, so why bother?"

"If you need a reason, then it's because I said so. Take the goddamn test and try not to call attention to yourself."

"People pay attention to me. Not my fault."

We were outside my room. Apparently in my haste to leave, I'd left it unlocked. Muted voices issued from inside, students no doubt perplexed why their teacher wasn't present on the austere occasion of the final exam. "Buck up. You can do this, Taylor. You're smart, and you're articulate. You've at least been in the room when we talked about this stuff, so... try, OK? Just try for once."

I patted her on the butt, gave it a little squeeze, and in we went.

"Sorry about that everybody," I apologized. "Had to track somebody down. If you need extra time, you'll get it, but now that the gang's all here, let's all please settle in and get to work." Did I sound like I was still in charge? I couldn't even tell.

Justin brightened considerably at seeing his friend and waved her over to the empty desk beside him, greeting her with a hug. The other males in the room watched in only mildly disguised envy for him as the half-naked self-proclaimed goddess bent down to reciprocate the hug. I couldn't appreciate it from where my desk was situated, but I knew exactly what he ass looked like in those shorts. Or without them, for that matter. The skimpy boob tube received as many leers when she sat down, though at least they had the class or the sense of urgency to get back to work ere long.

Tabitha's reaction was less obvious, but nevertheless discernibly in the other direction from her male peers. No matter. I grabbed a pen, an exam and some paper, set it all on Taylor's desk, and put her to work.

For a time, I let myself simply sit back and breathe. For a chemical that had been designed for riot suppression, the stuff sure seemed to cause more chaos than it had ever quelled. I sent an email to Isa to explain the whole mad situation I'd once more put myself in. Much as I was nervous to expose my vulnerability to her, I couldn't send a vegetablized student into her custody and not explain myself. I really hoped she didn't lash out at Abbie. It would be as good a test as any to see if she could be trusted to obey her master.

I tried not to think about what might happen if she failed the test. She responded promptly, at least, promising that she'd keep Abbie secure until my prep next period.

It was easy not to focus on Taylor as she scribbled words confidently, purposefully across her paper. (It was hard to focus on much of anything, actually.) At least she was making an attempt. Still, she was going to have a lot to answer for after the exam, not the least of which was that other canister. Was hers contaminated like mine was, or was it the standard issue? Abbie had said something about wishing she'd had access to mine, hadn't she? That would seem to suggest mine was distinct, or rather, that it had been before I used the last of it on Taylor. If I'd even heard right. Everything was so fuzzy. If the building caught fire right now, I'm not sure I'd make it outside without someone carrying me.

Happily, time passes quickly when one is in a drug-induced stupor, fading in and out of the present. Thanks to my delay, Taylor's late start and Tabitha's usual fastidiousness, there were students working all the way to the bell. When it rang, I did my best to issue a few kind words on my seniors' way out the door, and again, the customary few handshakes and hugs from the more sentimental ones. Justin waited until he was in the hall before yelling out, "suck ya later, C-dawg!" The will to chase him down and rebuke the little bastard was miles away. Let him have the last word. After all, in his weird little world where he'd gotten the best of me becausehe had suckedmy dick.