The Fruits of Indifference Ch. 6

After a long, arduous day of dealing with every obstacle her rowdy and incorrigible students could put in front of her, all Debra Stallings could think about, as she lugged herself out to the school parking lot, was to throw the two heavy leather bags full of homework in her arms into the backseat and then head home.

Scattershooting her mind, trying to decide which takeout place to order dinner from, Debra knew it would be a long night of grading papers and hoped her family would understand if all they got to eat was either Chinese or Italian on paper plates.

"MMMPPHH... you ain't as young as you used to be," Debra gasped as she tossed her book bags into the backseat and sat down behind the wheel.

Just as she was about to slip the key into the ignition, a large business sized envelope placed underneath her driver's side windshield wiper caught her attention.

"Those kids and their fundraising," Debra initially muttered, familiar with the students' practice of placing fliers for school related events on teachers' car windows.

"But that's an envelope... not a flier, " Debra said to herself, with a modest level of curiosity as she swung her feet back out the door so she could reach for the strange delivery.

Taking a look around the nearly vacant faculty lot to see if any of the remaining cars had a similar package on the windshield, Debra began to get a queasy feeling in her stomach when she saw that the few cars left had no such envelopes.

"Humm," Debra groaned as she stood up on her tippytoes to retrieve the delivery.

Cringing immediately from the tangible weight of the package, being a sales rep for Tupperware, Debra's next inclination was that it must be an order from one of her co-workers. Flipping the envelope over however, after she returned to the comfort of her driver's seat, a cross expression drifted across her demure features when she saw that it was addressed to ,"Mrs. Stallings".

"It must be from one of my students," Debra stoically whispered to herself.

Digging her right index finger into the seal, Debra carefully ripped the envelope open. From the moment the contents of the letter spilled out onto her lap, Debra Stallings lost all comprehension of space and time. Sitting in the driver's seat of the family's SUV, with the letter and its contents spread out across her lap and the bottom edge of the steering wheel, the married Mother of four felt as if she was stewing in front of the Gates of Hell as the reality of her situation slowly engulfed her.

Trying to tame her trembling hands enough to unfold the one page letter so she could study further the gravity of her newfound predicament, Debra anxiously pressed the note down against the front of her dark blue skirt and read the short but succinct offering.

It said simply, "As you can see, several items of interest pertaining to your indecent and hypocritical behavior has come to my attention. If you do not wish to have any of this material offered up to the general public, meet me at the truck stop motel out by I-79 at noon tomorrow to negotiate. "

Debra's already pale Victorian face turned a ghostly shade of white as the threat in the blunt message dug like a leech into her psyche. She didn't even have a chance to chalk the threat up to empty verbage when several Polaroid pictures spilled out of the envelope as well. Scouring her numb fingertips across the glossy squares of film, Debra immediately recognized the hazy images in the photos. An arctic chill infected her spine when the middle aged teacher began to piece together the depth of her peril.

Whoever had done this her had taken the time to take several Polaroids of the photos that Debra and her husband had concealed under their marital bed. Pictures of her in various stages of undress, playing with numerous large and imposing phallic instruments, and to her horror, even a few digital vid-cap camera scans from one of the home movies Debra and her husband had made.

Sitting there alone in the family vehicle, in the middle of the desolate school lot, Debra trembled in the driver's seat for nearly a half hour as the typed letter and photographic evidence of her "behind closed doors" indecency stared back at her from her lap.

To complicate the fear and helplessness she was already feeling, the sickening reality of violation that comes when you realize your house has been robbed also sunk like a led ball inside Debra's belly.

"Who could have done this... when... and... why," She cried loudly, dropping her forehead against the steering wheel until her stinging tears were dripping down on the paper and pictures below.

* * * * *

The trip home and subsequent evening was nothing more than a jumbled blur for the married woman. It took her Husband, Ben, asking her three separate times what was for dinner before Debra found the wherewithal to look up the Chinese takeout place's number and call them so her family could eat. It was a meal that Debra didn't even touch.

Repulsed and sickened by what was in the letter she received at school, Debra spent the entire night in a foggy abyss until her Husband finally cornered her and asked her what was wrong.

"Just a headache and a stomachache, Honey," Debra told him, as she rested in a heap under the covers, never once making eye contact with Ben, wishing she could just find a hole to crawl into.

Occasionally checking the digital clock on her nightstand, Debra couldn't help but count down the minutes until noon the next day when she had been summoned to appear at the seedy truck stop all the way on the other side of town, to answer for some sins that she was now brutally ashamed of. Even as her Husband snored away beside her, Debra forced herself to stay awake, scared to fall asleep for fear of what her nightmares might hold.

As the fear and uncertainty of darkness gave way to dawn however, the deep seeded fortitude of a woman who had successfully navigated her way into her mid thirties kicked in and Debra made the decision to ignore the threat, to go to school like she was supposed to do and to live her life in the face of the awful threat to her station in life.

Even though she was sleeping on the same bed that the thief had pilfered her and her Husband's most embarrassing possessions out from under, Debra Stallings found the strength to drag herself up, dress her kids, get them and her Husband ready for their day, collect herself for school as well and charge out the door to meet the day head on.

Despite all the positive thinking she could muster, Debra's workday turned out to be a surreal experience. Traipsing through the day with as much confidence and denial as she could, it didn't prevent the distraught teacher from looking hard at every male face she encountered, wondering if that person was the one responsible for the threatening letter on her windshield.

By the time noon had rolled around, Debra was a nervous wreck. Staring at the clock above her desk, Debra let out a audible sigh when the minute hand tipped the top of the hour, right along side the small hour hand.

"Nothing happened.... Thank God," Debra mouthed over and over as if she were a death row inmate that had just been given a stay.

* * * * *

With the school day finally ended, Debra eased her way back out to the same parking lot where a day before, she had been confronted with the most shocking moment of her life. Making sure she exited the school with several coworkers beside her, Debra felt a warm sense of insulation until she got close enough to her SUV to see that its windshield was clear of any new deliveries. A massive weight was seemingly lifted off of her demure shoulders as she crawled into her vehicle and drove home.

After making a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner, Debra Stallings found herself easing her SUV over to the far corner of the store's lot, where a series of large blue dumpsters sat. With a great deal of haste, Debra pitched away the note and revealing photos, eliminating any evidence of the harrowing letter she had received a little over 24 hours earlier.

That night at home Debra descended into a further depth of normalcy after fixing a huge lasagna dinner for her family to make up for the shoddy meal she had ordered the night before. After topping off the evening with a few glasses of wine, Debra even found the energy to make love to her husband before turning in and catching up on the sleep she had lost the night before.

By the time the next morning rolled around, Debra had pushed the events of the past two days into the darkest recesses of her repressed psyche. As she walked into school on a sun filled Thursday morning, Debra held her chin high and her chest out as she entered the school's front doors.

She held that carefree pose all the way down the main first floor hallway, until she saw a small but bustling congregation of kids converging around one of the large kiosks where students often posted club or fundraising announcements.

"They must have just announced when the next after school party's going to be," Debra thought to herself as she approached the gathering only to stop cold in her tracks when several of the students turned to see her standing behind them, each with a strange tint of shock in their collective eyes.

Before she knew it, Debra found herself clutching her purse and briefcase tightly against her chest as the assembled students scattered in a spontaneous exodus.

"WHA... " was all Debra could manage to gasp as the wave of pubescent youth drifted past, snickering at her in a strange mocking tone as they fluttered away.

Standing alone now in the early morning silence of the high school's main hallway, Debra looked up at the place on the kiosk where the kids had just been gawking. Staring straight at the cluttered mass of stapled, taped and thumbtacked pieces of colored paper, she easily picked out the two square Polaroid pictures that stuck out like sore thumbs in the midst of all the other school related material.

Taking a hypnotic step closer, Debra's eyes widened in horror as the realization of the photo's content registered in her mind.

"Oh... NO," Debra mouthed, immediately harkening back to the note she had found two days earlier on her windshield.

Looking at the two tamest and least incriminating of the photos that the thief had stolen from under her bed, Debra felt several bitter and angry tears drip down her cheek as she stared at the two pictures of herself in a one piece bathing suit tacked to the kiosk.

"Those were taken in Atlantic City... almost 10 years ago," Debra told herself as she reached out to pull them down off the board. "And now everyone in school's gonna be talking about them... and talking about me. "

After mentally cataloguing what the thief had stolen however, Debra knew that the pictures of her in her bathing suit, sitting demurely and smiling for her husband on the beach, was only the tip of the proverbial incriminating iceberg.

"What if he had posted some of the.... others," Debra thought to herself, now in full sob. "I'm ruined!"

Having the students see those pictures was bad enough, but Debra's blood ran cold at the thought of all those kids, as well as her coworkers and bosses, getting a peek into the innermost secrets of the Stallings' bedroom.

Vacillating there for several moments, massive amounts of acidic adrenaline sizzled through Debra's veins as she gritted her teeth together. Finally, the spastic teacher stuffed the recovered pictures into her purse before retreating quickly to the safety of her second floor classroom to calm her nerves before first period.

She knew she should probably go to the Principal about what was happening to her but Debra couldn't bare to even mouth the words to him about what kind of situation, and the background to it, that had befallen her.

Trying to mentally picture the faces of the students that surrounded the kiosk before she interrupted them, Debra was heartened slightly by the fact that she didn't recognize any of those kids as ones that she taught. Still, she inherently knew how the grapevine in high schools worked and sure enough, as the day wore on, the snickers and whispers grew louder and more potent with each passing hour.

Somehow Debra had survived all six periods and by the last bell at 3:30 she was ready to escape and de-compress.

"It was just a couple of pictures of you in a bathing suit for Godsakes Debra... just relax!" a soothing and rational voice inside the woman's frantic head tried calming.

"But you know what else is missing don't you... you know what he still has to use against you?" another sinister but brutally honest voice warned. "You ain't out of the woods yet!"

Every bit of rational calm and control that Debra had been able to muster throughout the day was shattered as she got within 50 feet of her SUV in the parking lot. Just as it had been two days earlier, a large white envelope was placed securely under her driver's side windshield wiper.

Stopping dead in her tracks, Debra felt an incredible jolt of foreboding fear shudder through her entire being as she stared helplessly at her vehicle.

"Not again... no... not again," Debra cringed over and over as she robotically walked up to the side of the SUV's fender.

Reaching her trembling hands up to grab to well placed delivery, Debra involuntarily shrugged her left shoulder up to wipe away a tear that was tickling her cheek.

The first thing Debra noticed about the new package was that it was much lighter than the one from two days earlier.

"No pictures in this one... Thank God," Debra whispered soberly to herself before ripping the seal open and removing the small handwritten note that waited inside.

"I told you so Bitch... I fuckin' told you so," the angry message read. " You think everyone in school is giggling now over some stupid old pictures of you in a bathing suit... how do you think they'll talk if they saw the pictures of you with a foot-long rubber cock jammed up your nasty cunt. I'll tell you one more time... meet me at the truckstop motel at 8 o'clock tonight or you will regret it. "

* * * * *

In an ironic twist of fate, suddenly the teacher felt as if she was a 15 year old kid having to come up with a good lie to explain why her homework hadn't gotten done, when she racked her brain to come up with a good explanation to give to her husband about why she wouldn't be home until late.

Speeding home immediately after picking her children up from daycare, Debra spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in a bubonic daze, trying to think of an way to excuse herself from the house before 8 o'clock.

By the time Ben had arrived home from a long day at work, the last thing Debra wanted to tell him was that he would have to look after the kids all night. Still, getting him to do that large favor would be much easier than having to explain to him the real reasons why she was taking the ultimate step of self preservation in going to meet her blackmailer.

Finally Debra decided to use the pending fight with the county school board and the need to huddle with several of the other members of the teachers' union that night as an excuse to get out of the house. It was an excuse that Ben Stallings hesitantly but willingly accepted.

* * * * *

When she finally arrived at the crowded and seedy interstate truck stop/motel at a few minutes before 8, Debra could literally feel her skin crawl underneath her clothes as she nervously scanned the surroundings. The loud and incessant diesel whines of the countless trucks lining the lot unsettled Debra even further as she contemplated her fate.

Picking up the letter her blackmailer had left earlier on her windshield at school, Debra felt her stomach roll as she double checked the time and room number.

"You've got to do this to save your family Debra... to save yourself," She whispered, unable to bring herself to look in the rear view mirror to measure her seething emotion.

With that, Debra somehow found her way out of the vehicle and walked gingerly across the rain soaked asphalt until she reached the steps of the rundown motel. The dull thuds of her short heels echoed through the foggy darkness as she consciously shielded her face from the on looking truckers with her heavy coat.

Nearly tripping twice as she nervously made her way to the motel's second floor, Debra continuously prayed to God for the strength to face her violator.

"244... 244... 244," Debra repeated to herself as she walked the length of the second floor balcony, trying to find the room she had been ordered to meet whoever was putting her through this ordeal.

"220... 221.... ," She hummed internally, growing more weary with each step she took until she turned the far corner of the motel's upper deck and saw the 240's.

"It would have to be all the way here in the back," Debra groaned, feeling a foreboding sense of dread as room 244 came into view to her left.

She could see that a light was shining behind the closed curtain of the room as she jittered her feet closer to the door. Not knowing whether to knock or to simply walk in, Debra teetered in place for nearly two minutes, praying the whole time no one from any of the other rooms would walk out and see her standing there.

"Be a woman and get this over with," Debra's inner strength convincingly begged. "And if worse comes to worse you and always hit the 911 button on your cell phone. "

Putting her right hand against the rickety and stained door to room 244, Debra grazed her sweaty palm down the cold, cheap particle board until her grip tightened around the metal knob.

"Its unlocked," She whispered to herself as a choking knot drifted up into her throat.

Peeking her head inside the door, Debra was prepared for anything ranging from a three headed Hydra to Satan himself to be waiting there for her. Instead, all she saw when she looked in was a poorly made bed and a tv on. Holding her breath as she strained her neck to investigate further, Debra was unsettled even more by the hushed silence inside the room.

Trying her best to keep her heart from pounding straight out of her chest, Debra inched her right foot forward and started to enter the seemingly vacant motel room.

"GET YOUR ASS IN HERE AND CLOSE THE DOOR," A growling male voice rose from out of nowhere, causing the pale and withering married woman to flinch from near shock.

Casting her eyes instinctively to the far corner of the room to see where the voice emanated, Debra Stallings came face to face with the hulking young man that had forced her to come.

"So you decided to make it this time after all, " Kevin hissed sarcastically, slightly surprised that the woman, who was more than twice his age, had actually given in to his threat. "I guess you really didn't have a choice did you?"

"Who... why... why," Debra painfully blathered as she closed the door behind her, shutting herself alone in the room with the heartless 18 year old boy.

"You don't remember," Kevin replied with feigned hurt, enjoying the way he was making the scared teacher squirm "Come on... your not old enough to have Alzheimer's yet. "

"Are you the one that broke into my house?" Debra tentatively asked.

"Yeah... sort of," Kevin smiled back.

"Well... I could just go to the police... ," Debra started before Kevin rudely cut her off.

"And tell them what... you've got the balls Bitch to reel off to them everything I took... huh... you wanna stand in the police station and explain that all that got taken was a bunch of sexually explicit shit under your bed... not any of your jewelry, or your fine china... just a couple of naked pictures and a few dildos... that would look real good in the paper wouldn't it... and besides... go ahead and turn me in... I ain't got nothin' to lose... I'm not working alone... if I go away... there's still a ton of shit left that could hit the fan. "