Teaching Her A Lesson

Part Twenty-Four: Standards-Based Assessment

For the seniors, the final was, for most of them, a formality. For the college bound ones, they’d already gotten their acceptances and rejections. For the ones joining me earlier in the so-called real world, their GPA might matter on their first, maybe second job application, and after that, might come up again in a couple decades when their kids asked them what kind of students they were back when. So long as they graduated – and with our funding dependent on graduation rates, they almost always did – their success wasn’t in question. We tried not to let them know that, but by this point, we’d taught them enough that they knew better.

Ergo, my seniors didn’t take the kind of exam that produced a solid, straightforward grade. My seniors wrote essays. Multiple choice was well  and good for efficiency, gave  easy targets for studying. With grades due less than twenty-four hours after the last finals were distributed, they were sure as hell a lot easier on me. That wasn’t how I saw things, though. These last essays were an opportunity to think like a scholar and a citizen and a human being; to process and analyze and reflect and defend and elucidate. I’d received lots of positive feedback from former students about those exams over the years, too. On a personal level, it helped me end the year feeling like I’d accomplished something and started recharging the batteries for summer.

It took days of intense review and discussion to be ready for it. I’d already been cutting it close starting Catcher  as late as I had. Although I was home from the police station before ten o’clock that Thursday, nevertheless the semester review was being handled by a substitute while I sat at home, twiddling my thumbs as I waited to hear back from Horen.

Not knowing what else to do, I wrote a thank you letter to Capaldi and put it in the mailbox, then met up with Isa for lunch. Unlike teachers, resource officers were free to take lunch off-campus. We met at my place, where I had her strip to her panties and play with herself while I filled her in on my meeting with Shipman. For all she put on a show of sulking over it, it sure didn’t slow her budding arousal any.

“So that’s it? We’re really in the clear?” she asked, eyes squinted shut.

“Sounds like. He thinks the Sterns tried to set me up, bullied Cassie and Tabitha into going along with it. Some kind of report is going to Horen. Could be there now, honestly. I was able to get my lawyer on the line after, and he said there shouldn’t be much grounds to continue pressing for my termination. We’ll see. I never got a sense that Horen disliked me or anything, but sometimes it’s hard for somebody to admit they’re wrong.”

“Especially when they’re right, master,” grunted Isa sullenly, hips bucking against her fingers.

“Yeah. Still, you did good. I wanted to bring you by and say that to your face. Kept everybody organized, put up a solid front, kept everything contained. If there’s something I can do for you to pay you back, name it. And I know you’re busy right now, so think on it  if you like.”

She didn’t respond right away, though only because she was mid-orgasm. A few shallow gasps, and the officer collapsed on my living room rug, spent. Her thighs were splayed wide, a dark spot growing and darkening at the crotch of her panties. “Just… just promise me you’ll be more careful from now, master,” she managed at last. The woman didn’t bother trying to right herself. Not like kneeling would be any more dignified than her present position. “My top priority is keeping you safe and preserving your freedom. I can’t handle another scare like that.”

I nodded. “No worries there. You and I will sit down together sometime soon, once finals are done, and come up with some protocols – starting with nothing at the school. Though I guess it won’t really matter except for Abbie.”

“You say that like Abbie’s still going to be a student next year,” Isa replied. “You can’t do the kinds of things she’s admitted to doing and not get expelled, at the bare minimum. If Shipman really is some pathetic incel like you made him out to be–”

“All I said was that he was awfully ready to mistrust the Sterns,” I protested.

“–then I’d be surprised if they didn’t land in real trouble. They’re two eighteen-year-old white girls, so, system being what it is, they might get off with warnings. Still…” She sat up, brushed some dust off of the thin sheen of sweat along the side of her breast. “Hard to say. Most likely scenario, I’d say, the two never go back to school, maybe finish their GEDs while serving time in house arrest.”

“Oh sure, because I’m the asshole, here?” I snapped, rising to my feet as if I weren’t already looming over her in my chair.

“Master, I didn’t accuse you of–”

“I didn’t know they could get in this kind of trouble! I thought it was a simple house-egging, a slap-on-the-wrist deal! I never would’ve thrown them under the bus if I’d realized…!”

“I’m only saying–”

“I hear what you’re saying! It’s not my fault! They made their beds with a dozen years of apathy, mischief, and rancor. And suddenly there’s consequences when it all bubbles over, and that’s on me ?! Bullshit!” I swung a fist at the air blindly. It didn’t come anywhere near her, but she fell back anyway as it collided with my lampshade and launched the thing into the wall. Pieces of it flew everywhere.

After a moment, Isa silently busied herself cleaning it up. I insisted she put her shoes on first for safety’s sake, and added to it that she may as well get dressed anyway. She waved me away as I tried to help, so there was nothing to do but sit back and watch her clean up my mess, blushing at my overreaction. My admission of guilt.

She came to stand at attention in front of me, her hair back up in its tight bun, body hidden away in her uniform. “Master…”

“Don’t. I know what you’re going to say already, OK? Obviously it’s my goddamn fault. I know it. So yes, I’m the miserable piece of shit who’s ruining the lives of these innocent girls, just like you’ve said a hundred times before. You win, OK? Tell Candy you were both right about Canon. I’m a monster. I get it.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” she said softly. “If you’ll let me…”

“Fine.”

She lowered herself to her knees. “Sorry, this is hard to do standing up, master. But you know what? Yes. You do bear a significant burden of responsibility for what you did to those girls over the past month, master. Whatever your intentions, you did exactly what Horen accused you of. You fucked your student. Then three more. That’s on you. But what happened in your classroom Monday?”

Isa shook her head. “What happened Monday was those girls showing no common sense at all. They were impulsive and careless and stupid, and you were very nearly the one who burned for their idiot mistake. Now the way the system works, mistakes have consequences. For Cassie and Tabitha? The consequences are going to be the awkward conversations they have with their parents.” She glanced in the direction of the Browns’ house. “Well, for Tabitha at least.”

“Yeah, pretty sure Megan’s not losing sleep over it.”

“But for Taylor and Abbie? No, they didn’t bully the other two into being in there – they turned those girls into sex slaves, and enslaved  them into being in there. And their harsher consequence comes from a lifetime of being deviant little hellspawn, and frankly, they probably had something like this coming for a while now.”

“So you’re saying I’m not a monster, I just created monsters?”’

“I don’t do metaphors, master. I’m only telling you how it is.”

I folded my arms. “Bullshit. You’re really trying to say those girls are to blame for this and I’m not?”

“Were you going to turn Cassie into your sex slave before the Sterns blurted out those obscenities?”

“Well, no.”

“Did you lure Tabitha into a room at a party and force-feed her Serenex so you could fuck her?”

“No. I didn’t. I thought you didn’t believe me about all that, though. You’ve been on my case about it since the beginning.”

“Fuck what I told you I believe, master. I didn’t want to believe it because it complicated things. It was easier to imagine you as the lecherous teacher preying on helpless students. Which you are,” she added, fretfully mashing her tits at her contempt for me. “But… well, I do appreciate that it’s also more complex than that. Nothing like standing over the printer for twenty minutes while it spits out the Sterns’ combined discipline records for Shipman to make you appreciate what rotten little bitches those two have been.”

“Careful, Isa, you almost sound like this isn’t one hundred percent my fault.”

“Your percentage is high, master,” she said bitterly, then trailed off as she was unable to resist squeezing down on her nipples. “But my top priority is keeping you safe and preserving your freedom. Those girls are bad news, and they’ve been bad news since long before you came along.”

I imagined the size of those files. I’d probably sent Taylor to the office, assigned detentions or filed reports leading to her suspension almost weekly for two years now. I had a folder in one of my desk drawers where I kept my copy of those forms. My sixth period, Taylor’s class, was thicker than my other five classes combined, and at least half of it was that one student.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re probably right.”

She pried a hand away from her lewd display and patted my knee sympathetically. “Look, master. Just because you sharpened your monsters’ claws doesn’t mean you created them. If you prefer figurative expression.”

My scowl faded to a pout, and after another moment, gave way to a grudging smile. “You know, you might do halfway decent on the Frankenstein  question on my final.”

“Thank you, master…?” She rolled her eyes derisively, then squirmed as her display of disrespect hit her right in the clit. “Though Frankenstein didn’t have claws, just bolts in his neck and a bit of a slur.”

“He didn’t have bolts or a flat head either,” I said, my teacher persona unable  to resist surfacing after days of neglect. “Actually…”

“Frankenstein wasn’t the monster,” Tabitha interjected, speaking even as she raised her hand. As she often did. “He made  the monster, then it turned evil all on its own.”

It was Friday, and I was back in my room in time for a bit of last-minute final exam preparation. It felt like a month since I’d stood in this room, not four days. Entering this morning had been surreal, and six hours later, it was barely less so. I’d been all sorts of nervous about what to expect. Teaching can be a bit of a fish bowl, oftentimes, yet to my immense relief, as near as I could tell, people had enough of their own drama to worry about without needing to worry about mine.

I’d taken lunch in the teacher’s cafeteria, where Amy and the rest of my department were at their usual table. Their curiosity was plain, and I answered it without being asked. My tale of being seduced and subsequently framed was met with fretful gasps, women mortified by what those no-good Sterns had put one of us through this time. Most of the rest of lunch went to sharing tales of their misdeeds, pure gossip. Considering I’d taught Taylor for the entirety of the past two years, hearing about her sophomore year hijinx was laughably tepid. Wild offenses like wandering the halls instead of going to the bathroom, using the b-word at a fellow student, and (oh my!) spreading a rumor that Melinda Scott-Wallace was bulimic.

(There was the story of the time she beat up another girl at lunch for refusing to vacate Taylor’s preferred table. That was more on brand.)

As we packed up and made for our rooms to begin the second half of the day, Amy even took me aside after and apologized for her role in the whole misunderstanding. I swallowed down my self-loathing long enough to reassure her that I had already forgiven her, and that she was right to report it. That I would have done the same.

Maybe I would have, once upon a time.

The rumors hadn’t hit the student body yet. Finals were stressful, the allure of summer vacation loomed large, and graduation was a far more pressing concern to the senior class than whatever fresh antics noted misanthrope Taylor Stern had whipped up, and expecting the juniors to be surprised at Abbie being suspended was like expecting my sixth period to be surprised Tabitha was correcting someone.

I nodded to her point. “That’s right, Tabitha. Though remember, evil is a value judgment. Was Frankenstein’s creature truly evil? What do you folks think?”

I looked around for answers, scrupulously avoiding gazing in Tabitha’s direction, where eye contact would be considered permission to take over the discussion with her own thoughts. Useful sometimes, but not today. To my surprise, it was actually Justin who answered. “I mean, just ‘cause he’s huge and ripped, that don’t  mean he ain’t a kid, right?”

It was so unheard of for him to participate in a class discussion, I could have fainted. “Go on. How do you mean, he’s a kid?”

His usual cocky grin returned upon being given the spotlight. What I wouldn’t give if someone could have helped him appreciate the merits of positive attention at an earlier age. “Right, well like… he doesn’t really know anything, right? Like yeah, he can think like a grownup, talk smooth and stuff, but he’s not, like…”

“Socialized?” I prompted. When cognition didn’t register on his face, I added, “He doesn’t know how to relate to other people.”

“Yeah! Exactly. Like, OK. So my little brother used to piss himself. Like all the time I’m sayin’. Couldn’t take the dude anywhere or he’d go pss pss pss all over himself. Was so gross. Smelled awful –”

“Get back to the point, Justin.” Lucky for him I’d had for days to build up patience for this kind of crap.

“Right, but I mean, he didn’t know, and he couldn’t help it. Has some kind of anxiety disorder, I guess. But like, see how I mean?” Suddenly – too suddenly – his grin faded and he looked at me pointedly. “The person who’s s’posed to have the monster’s back hung his ass out to dry. Way I see it, our boy Victor is the evil sonofabitch in that story.”

“Language, Justin.”

I took his meaning all too well, though it was lost on the rest of the class, naturally. The rest of the class, minus one, at least, one who immediately took it upon herself to reply. “Yeah, Mr. Canon talked about that at length while we were reading it,” Tabitha said dryly. She had condescension down to a science. “Still, I’m not convinced, personally. Dr. Frankenstein might not have been a very good parental figure, but he wasn’t a murderer. I mean, what’s more evil, being a bad adoptive parent, or murdering your adoptive parent’s loved ones. It’s easy to sympathize with tales of woe and bad upbringing, but somewhere you have to draw the line and let the creature be responsible for his own crimes.”

“Yeah, well, nobody expects a monster to not do what monsters do. He’s just being what he is. Frankenstein – the doc, I mean – is the one who fucked – sorry, fudged – up. He’s a grown-ass man, ought to know how to treat somebody who cares about him.”

“Did the creature care about Victor? If it did, it sure had a strange way of showing it.”

“Victor’s the thing’s dad! You gonna blame this dude who’s been alive for like an hour and not the guy who had a lifetime of socialism to know better?”

“I think you mean socialization,” I pointed out, though Tabitha was already composing her next rebuttal. The class watched with interest at this strange but tense debate between the honors student and class clown.

“That sounds like a double standard. Victor is supposed to instantly know how to be a father to this disgusting thing, but the creature, which has the faculties of a full-grown adult even if it was still fairly stupid, can take as long as it needs to figure out not to be a rampaging psychopath?”

“Psychopath!” Justin barked a rhetorical laugh. “Bullshit! It only lashed out because Victor crapped all over it and never apologized, hid from him, acted like his life got to just go on smooth while his innocent little creature got bent over and–!” He didn’t finish the sentence, but we all filled in that blank easily enough.

The two were glaring daggers at one another, and mercifully Jesse raised his hand. I nodded permission. “Not to get off-subject, but like… isn’t it crazy how much better discussions are when Taylor’s not here throwing us off subject?” He grinned around at his peers, many of whom nodded in agreement.

Before I could process what was happening, Justin reached into his pocket and retrieved something, then whipped it full speed across the room. It thwapped solidly into Jesse’s temple, then bounced across the floor until it rolled right up to my feet.

Chapstick.

Justin stormed away to the office before I even needed to tell him to go. Jesse rubbed his head for a minute but promised he was all right. His grumbling about the on-going hazard of flying chapstick was only barely audible as I transitioned the discussion to our next text.

“He wasn’t wrong, you know,” I told my pillow some ten hours later. A very naked Tabitha was straddling my own very naked self, her fingertips grazing sweetly across my back. It had begun as a massage, but true to form, she’d discerned that this gentle tickling was every bit as relaxing.

“That’s one reading of the text,” she answered. “Admittedly, it’s more in line with the apparent intent of Shelley, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only one.”

“I’m not talking about Shelley or Frankenstein or the damned creature and you know it.” The sting in my voice was dulled by the filtration effect of my pillow.

“I know. Which is all the more reason he’s wrong. You only feel like he’s right because your profession predisposes you to agree with lines of reasoning supported in the so-called Great Books of the western canon.”

“Really? Well thank you, Ms. Freud. Please, do go on, explain away the rest of my thoughts using your crack armchair psychology.”

I could tell she was bending down when her hair draped down onto my shoulders, followed a moment after by a kiss on my cheek and a soothing murmur in my ear. “I’m sorry, Mr. Canon. I didn’t mean to be glib. Still, he’s not right about you and the Sterns. You have to understand that.”

“How so? I’m the one who provided the Serenex; showed them how it worked; planted the ideas in their heads. Then I threw them to the wolves to save my own ass. You know Officer Barbour said that–”

“That they could go to jail, yes, you’ve said so several times already. And it’s very sweet of you to be preoccupied with two girls who so clearly spend next to no energy worrying themselves over you .”

“They’re two dippy kids who flashed their boyfriend and egged a house.”

“They’re two adults who violated your wishes and forced two sex slaves on you just for kicks. One of them put you in a position where your affair was caught on video and handed over to Principal Horen. Do I really need to point this out to you?”

“She didn’t mean for that to happen. Nobody meant for Horen to walk in on you all, either – which, while we’re on it, let’s not forget you also voluntarily took part in, remember?”

“I misread the situation. I assumed that as more experienced sex slaves, they would have some understanding of the protocol, and mirrored their behavior so as to meet your expectations. It was a mistake, clearly, but the mistake was trusting those two. As it so often seems to be.”

“Keep using your fingers,” I commanded, and she obeyed as if by reflex. “They don’t deserve this. Taylor’s so  close to graduating. I still have a big pile of all her make-up work for her classes, all ready to go. The only thing that’s going to stop her is this stupid investigation, and they’re not even investigating her for what she actually did wrong anyway!”

“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 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’s worst  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’t always  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 a current  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 am not  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’t always  a teacher.)

“I am… pretty sure she would have,” I said guardedly.

“Damn. You really  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 than that ? 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 the least  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 look too  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 for not egging your house?” she asked, though more bemused than accusatory.

“You did  egg my house, and yes, for that. I thought they’d yell at you a bit, and maybe I could get word of it to Shipman. Thought maybe he’d see we weren’t in cahoots.”

“Who the fuck is Shipman, and what the fuck is a cahoot?”

I ignored the latter question. “Shipman. The detective?”

“Oh, right. Sorry, been  hounded by so many cops, they all start to look alike.” She sat up, still grinning broadly. How could she not be pissed? If I didn’t know where my Serenex was hidden back home, I might have worried she was baiting me, letting me get comfortable before flooding mouth  with another dose of the crap.

“Guess so. Um, anyway, all I wanted was one more little piece of evidence to nudge him in the direction of deciding you two had it out for me. I figured it’d end with… I don’t know. But not this.”

“A stern talking to? Pun intended.”

“Something like that. Really, I… I don’t even know what to say. But I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about it all. I had to come over and… I don’t know. I really figured I’d be talking to your parents right now, but… do they even…?”

“Tay and I are handling our own shit, if that’s what you mean. And no, we didn’t turn them into vegetables. They just…” She pointed. I followed the line to her desk, where, after a moment, I picked out what she was referring to. Two slightly crumpled pieces of paper covered in two different sets of handwriting. I trust my daughters. They can do whatever they want.  I didn’t stop to count, but I was guessing there were a hundred such lines repeated on each.

“Jesus, Abbie. They’re your parents.”

“Yeah, well, we haven’t done much with it. Just score gas money and dodge questions about the time we been  spending over at your place.” Her lips pursed momentarily. “Or that Tay has been, anyway.”

“We can address your feelings of neglect in a minute, but first, talk to me. I haven’t heard anything from you guys since Wednesday. What’s going on? How bad is it?”

“What, like with the egging thing?”

“Yeah, with the egging thing, and that whole ‘the police think you tried to frame me’ thing.”

She sat up, folded down her laptop and casually shoved it to the floor. A rolled up bath towel broke its fall. “They… what?”

I gaped. “Do you really not know? Holy hell! Abbie, the detective who was looking into that whole stunt Principal Horen walked in on, he bought our story, but too well. He thinks you and Taylor threatened Tabitha and Cassie to make them participate, and that you were on some vendetta to end an innocent teacher’s career.”

“Well… yeah. Like, that was the play, right?”

“He’s got you in his crosshairs. Both of you. When we spoke the other day, he made it sound like he was throwing the whole book at the two of you.”

I could tell this was news to her. I supposed that made sense. Not like the police needed to call you up and explain that you were under investigation. Thank goodness Abbie had given me the Serenex back before she did something else even more reckless with it.

“Well, I guess we have to dose  the detective then, huh.”

Something like  that, for instance.

“It’s not that simple, Abbie.”

“How’s come?”

“What? Are you serious?” I took to my feet, pacing across the cluttered floor. “Oh, let’s see. In no particular order, we have… logistics. Getting close to him, with the canister, without him reacting, with no one else watching. The fact that you’d need to be sure nobody else was going to see him like that for hours afterward. The fact that the principal, half the faculty, and who knows how many other people also know about it, too. It’s morally wrong. It’s–”

“Pff. ‘It’s morally wrong.’ Says the teacher who had no trouble banging a seventeen-year-old student.”

“You’re eighteen, and I did have trouble with it, and that still doesn’t invalidate my point!”

“But… I can use the Serenex if I want, right?”

“Obviously. You can use my Serenex any time you want. I just think you might want to consider this before you dive into a bad plan – which this certainly is.”

“Just making sure you were still my guy.” She grinned. “Come on, have a seat. You can join me on the bed, if you want.”

My hands went to my hips. “You’re taking all this awfully calmly.”

“I mean… what’s to freak out over? I been  kicked outta school before, ain’t no thang. Plus, if I’m not a student any more, we can play around, nobody getting up in our shit over it. So kind of a win-win, right?”

“Not finishing high school is not a win!” I snapped. “Abbie, the way he was talking… it sounded like this could be serious. Like jail serious . I know you’re tough and all, but do you really want to put that to the test, see yourself locked up with murderers and drug dealers?”

“Drug dealers ain’t so bad, in my experience. But I get you. So, hm. OK, if you’re saying the juice is out, what else do we got ? We all of us already told everybody the same bullshit story to cover for you. Now what? Thoughts and prayers?”

Her simple question took the wind out of my sails. It was the reason I’d put off coming over here – the fact that I had absolutely no idea what they could do about it. I’d expected to explain to her parents that I was sorry for letting minor incidents culminate in such dire consequences. I hadn’t anticipated being forced to come up with a means to counter them. Shipman had said I didn’t need to press charges for his investigation to go forward, and he already had Cassie and Tabitha on the record that they’d been coerced. Lord knew Horen wasn’t going to let it slide. I knew neither how bad things were going to get, nor what to do about them when they did.

With a sigh, I accepted her offer and slumped down onto the edge of her bed. The springs creaked under our combined weight. “I wish I knew.”

She nodded. “Cool, cool. So… you wanna fuck me, or what?”

Of course I did. Since the second I stood in the  threshold of her bedroom. “How are you not as worried as I am about this? Abbie, this is the rest of your life we’re talking about. You can’t just ignore it and hope it goes away.”

Abbie leaned forward, and by now I knew her body language well enough to know that the way her biceps pressed her breasts together was no accident. “Why not? Ignoring it and letting it walk away worked for you with Tay.”

I’d been reaching for her without even realizing it, but that gave me pause. “What’s that supposed to mean? We were keeping our distance because of the situation. I wasn’t ignoring her.”

“Right, sure. Like you didn’t ignore Cassie, yeah? And her mom, and that twat Tabitha, and Barbie?”

My eyes narrowed at her very specific list of the women I’d slept with in the past week. “What do you know about that? Have you been keeping tabs on me?”

“I don’t need to keep tabs on shit. Your face just told me everything,” she countered, trademark smirk blossoming. “But whatever. Tay wants some dick, her skank ass can fetch it herself. Now come on, gimme gimme gimme already, C-dawg!”

I gently rebuffed her as she reached for my belt. “Abbie, we can’t. For crying out loud, your parents are right down the hall. Jesus, I shouldn’t even be in here with you! They might not care what you do, but if Shipman comes around to talk to you, who knows what they might tell him!”

It was her turn to stop me, seizing my hands and stopping me from backing off the bed. It was a tender thing, insistent and needful. She really could be sweet and gentle when she–

“ MOM! ” I was so startled that this time, I tumbled backward onto the floor. Her grip was nowhere near strong enough to stop me. That laptop didn’t stand a chance, though I suppose it was not the most precious GHS resource I had violated.

“Yeah, what’s up?” came a woman’s voice from elsewhere in the house as I picked myself up.

“Oh fuck! You OK, babe?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just–”

“IF ANYBODY ASKS, MR. CANON NEVER CAME OVER, OK?!”

“Okey dokey, Princess!”

I waited. Finally, Abbie thrust out an impatient hand. “ You  climbing back up or what?”

I accepted her help, but didn’t let her pull me back into bed. “I think I’m going to go. You’ll tell Taylor I stopped by though, yeah?”

“Come on, don’t hate. Shut the door if you want, but get those pants off and let’s get to it.”

“Seriously, Abbie. I didn’t come over for a booty call. I just wanted to see if you two were doing OK. Apologize.”

“Oh come on, don’t make me beg for it,” she pouted, crawling forward on her bed, granting me an incredible look down her neckline. “You left me high and dry Monday when that cunt Horen interrupted us in Barbie’s play place, and my ass had to wait all week. Then you come into my bedroom, get me all wet and ready, and wanna just walk out on me?”

“What? What on earth did I do to get you ‘wet and ready?’”

She saw that my words were directed straight to her tits, and held her pose with a broadening grin. “You came into my bedroom, C-dawg. This is a fantasy motha fuckin’ zone, yo. C’mon, when’s the last time you fucked a big-titted teenage hottie, tryin ’ to  be all quiet like so her folks don’t hear you making their baby squeal like a little slut?”

“Um, well… never, actually.”

“Aw, you kept your V into your twenties? That’s so sweet.”

“No, actually, but we didn’t do it at my girlfriend’s house with her parents down the hall. I’m not an animal.” The jury was out on whether or not I was a monster.

“Well here’s your chance. C’mon. You know you wanna. Stuff Stanley’s stepbaby  right down the hall from where he’s watching Property Brothers . See if you can fuck me without making me scream for once.”

A smile crept out despite my best efforts. “You sound awfully self-assured.”

“So prove me wrong. Walk out that door, give up the opportunity to sprinkle a few fresh cum stains on my mattress. My mom, next time she does my sheet, she’ll wrinkle her nose and go ‘what’s this then’ and it’ll be what dribbled out of my pussy after you pumped her youngest daughter full of your cum, stud.”

“Good lord, that’s fucked up.”

“That’s what a week of being left hanging half an inch from an orgasm does to a bitch, C-dawg. Now please , climb into this bed and fuck me already.”

Her shirt was coming off even as she posited her plea. It was a simple black bra she wore beneath, matching the volleyball shorts she removed next. She shot them at my face like a rubber band, though I’d already been more than amply provoked. I leapt right at her, tackling her backward onto her mattress and burying my face in those satin-covered breasts as we jointly worked on my own pants. We didn’t even bother with her panties. I just shoved the patch of yellow fabric aside and dove right in.

Once upon a time, foreplay had been one of my favorite parts of sex. It built suspense, prolonged sex for that extra stretch. Plus, it was necessary. Most women I’d been with didn’t get me hard just by looking at me, nor were they dripping down their thighs simply from the prospect of a few thrusts, Big Gun or no. Now, foreplay was something I only did if I felt like shoving a tit in my mouth, squeezing a girl’s ass, sampling the taste of her pussy. When it came down to it, these girls all had me on a hair trigger, and that Abbie’s pussy would be gushing wet by the time I shoved my dick in her was something I took for granted. These girls’ pussies drooled for me like a bunch of fat kids at the fried oreo booth at the county fair.

“Fuck, I love the way you stare at my tits while you fuck me,” she murmured elatedly as I did just that. They were mesmerizing, bobbling around in the confines of her bra. I could take it off, but for now, it was amusing watching their struggle for freedom. It was a game, waiting to see which would burst free first. “Cause that’s what girls like Taylor and me are to you, right, Mr. Canon? Tits and ass. Sex objects. We’re supposed to let you ogle our bodies, be your little fantasy sluts.”

True to her proposed scenario, she was keeping her voice down, as if afraid that her parents might discover us. I followed suit. It was easy for me to pretend, really. Simply because they’d been dosed with Serenex didn’t make fucking their youngest offspring two rooms away from them feel any less dangerous. “You know, thank god your sister has a penchant for sarcasm. If, back on that day you first got dosed, she’d gone ‘you’re a pig and we hate you,’ I’d have really missed the chance to fuck you.”

“Thank god my sister had a crush on the hottest teacher with the biggest fattest dick in school,” she panted.

“Not so much a crush as threw a tantrum over her chapstick on the wrong day,” I amended, helping myself to a hard squeeze of her tit. It might be rigging the game in favor of Lefty, but I couldn’t resist.

“Yeah, sure, she totally wasn’t into you before that.” Her eye roll transitioned into hard squints of arousal as I pressed my handful out from its cup and sucked her nipple into my mouth. First place ribbon for Lefty.

“Your sister made my life a living hell before that,” I managed after some time. Sucking on tits like these really never got tiresome. God, I’d missed them. Maybe I ought to have Tabitha get hers done after all. She wouldn’t hesitate if I gave her the nod.

“Duh. Fuck, C-dawg, you never had a bad girl flirt with you bef–” She must have heard something I didn’t, because suddenly she froze, her body rigid with tension. It took me right back to when Horen had interrupted us in Isa’s office on Monday. “ Shhh ,” she whispered.

“Wait, flirting with me? What do you–”

She clamped a hand over my mouth and shushed me again, this time soundlessly. Was this part of her little don’t-get-caught fantasy game? When she was satisfied I wasn’t going to reply, Abbie removed her hand from my mouth, but pulled my head down until she could whisper right in my ear.

“She’s home.”

“Taylor?” I mouthed.

She nodded. “Her bedroom door squeaks.”

So that was what she’d heard. “OK, and…? Not like she doesn’t know we have sex.” I kept it to that faint whisper, though.

Abbie shook her head. I stared, entranced, at the accompanying jiggling of those colossal tits of hers. “If she hears you in here, she’ll go berserk. She’ll ruin the fantasy.”

“Berserk? Why?”

Somehow, Abbie’s apathetic reaction to my news today had made me forget the obvious answer. I’d called the cops on her, gotten her thrown out of school a week before graduation, and ghosted her all the while. And if Taylor even suspected the situation with Detective Shipman…

“Because she hates your ass,” she summarized succinctly. Then, as if to remind me we were still mid-coitus, she flexed her pussy around my cock. Yet another trick I needed Tabitha to study up on.

“Hates? What happened to the crush?”

“Died on contact with those riot cuffs, babe.” She copped a squeeze on my ass, then, her smile returning faintly. “But keep going. Just… fuck me quiet-like, OK? She can’t know about this.”

My hips pulled back, automatically accepting the invitation until I paused, considering. “Aren’t you the boss of her? We could just have her stand and watch us, right?”

“Yeah, well… she ain’t always the best employee,” she murmured. “Trust me.”

“If you say so…” Sure seemed like it had been working well so far. She’d had Taylor marching in lockstep with her since day one.

She grasped my ear lobe between her teeth and pulled me down close against her body. “Now fuck me, OK? I still need it. Bad.” She did her best to wrap a pair of short, thick legs around my waist, holding me inside her. “But shhh.”

I wasn’t about to deny the poor girl her request. Myself, it had been months since I’d last gone six whole days without sex. It wasn’t easy, controlling our breathing, trying to thrust enough to create some of that slick, wet friction while not prompting the springs in her mattress to give us away. It was working though. Her fingernails sunk into my back as I struck a rhythm in which I could glide against her clit with each little mini-stroke.

“Abbie, you up?”

Taylor’s voice, right outside the door. Instinctively, I pivoted, giving her voice the least obstructed path I could. As someone who routinely caught students whispering in class, I knew full well how those little details stood out to the ears.

“Yeah, I’m just picking out an outfit. Gimme like ten, K?”

“Nobody gives two fucks what you wear, little miss T&A, Jesus. Hurry the fuck up and get your ass out here before we leave without you. Justin and LaTara and Josh and Aiden are waiting in the car already.”

“I’ll get there faster if you quit yelling at me, bitch,” retorted Abbie. Not sharing her dread of the woman in the hall, I gave her exposed nipple a hard twist right as she was talking. She weathered it well.

“Are you alone in there?” Or so I’d thought.

“No, I brought over a few friends to help me get dressed.”

The handle twisted, but evidently it had been locked already when I closed it, because it didn’t budge. “Open the door, Abbie.”

I picked up the pace, pounding her buttery cunt as fast as the physics of stealth would let me.

“I’m half-naked, Tay, hold the fuck on!” Then, to me, in a whisper, “Don’t stop. Oh shit don’t stop. Don’t fucking ever  stop.”

There was a brief pause, but evidently Taylor wasn’t giving up. “Open the mother fucking door, Abbie. Right the fuck now.”

Man, as rough as it had been teaching Taylor Stern, I suddenly imagined what it must have been like growing up as her little sister, and a stepsister at that. I could see Abbie was getting close to her long-awaited orgasm. She really must have been craving some attention. I bent to her ear, urging her on as I pistoned in and out of her. The springs expressed their yearning to betray my presence.

“Come for me, Abbie. Come right now. Come, you big-titted thicc-ass slutty fantasy sex object.”

Sometimes, permission was all it took.

Abbie grabbed her pillow and threw it over her face to muffle the minute squeal she failed to suppress. Then Taylor’s hand slapped the door open-palmed. “I’m not leaving until you open the goddamn door, bitch!”

The girl on the bed took mere seconds to regain her wits, suddenly pushing me off of her. Before I knew what was happening, I’d been shoved into her closet, the door slid swiftly but silently closed before my eyes. Then I heard the door open.

“Oh gross, your fucking tit’s out!” groused Taylor.

“You were the one who just had to see me. Happy, you dumb bitch?”

There was a pause. “It reeks of fucking sex in here. Were you…”

“It’s none of your fucking business what I dot dot dot. Now shut your fucking hole, go to your room, and fucking wait like a good little twat muffin, K? That’s a goddamn order from your fucking boss , understand?”

Another pause. “I… understand.”

“So, what, you wanna take a picture, or can you piss off and let me get some fucking clothes on?”

“Yeah. Sure. Just don’t take too long. Please.”

The door shut. Abbie opened the closet a moment later. “Sorry,” she mouthed, her eyes settling immediately on my conspicuously still-twitching cock. She continued in a whisper. “You didn’t finish! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!”

“It’s fine,” I assured her. “Taylor’s in a mood, all right. You go do whatever you’re gonna do. I’ll give you a head start, then show myself out behind you. Guess your parents won’t care.”

“No way – totally not cool if I leave you hanging, C!”

“You think I can’t find someone to take care of that? Remember who you’re talking to.” I pulled her in, squeezed her ample buttocks, then patted her away. “Go on. Don’t sweat it. I had fun, OK? Good fantasy.”

Abbie plainly didn’t like it, but boss or no boss, Taylor’s wrath wasn’t something she felt like braving if she was being offered an out. She grabbed a pair of shorts and a halter top and threw them on, pausing only to pull my face between her tits and slap me around a bit once her bra was off. With a last giggle, she blew me a kiss and hurried out the door.

“‘ Bout  goddamn time,” grumped her sister, their voices retreating down the hall. “Jack yourself off on your own fucking time next time, OK?”

“Oh blow me, Tay.” The front door slammed shut behind them.

I gathered my clothes, then counted slowly to a hundred. It wasn’t really necessary; even in this room with its windows facing the back of the house, I could hear their clunker shift into drive and pull away. There was no sign of Mr. or Mrs. Stern as I let myself out of Abbie’s room.

I was halfway down the hallway before I paused, turned, and went back. Instead of opening Abbie’s door, however, I went for the one across the hall.

Taylor’s bedroom stood in stark contrast to her sister’s. It was immaculately tidy, every surface clean and organized. The floor showed fresh signs of vacuuming. It adjoined a private bathroom which was no less neat save for what looked to be a recent outfit kicked off on the floor by the shower. Her makeup and accessories were neatly lined up on the vacant counter space. My house wasn’t anywhere near this well put together, and I had a personal maid service in Megan. For a girl who looked like she brushed her hair every third day and seldom seemed to have a clue where her required class supplies were, it surprised me to learn she was such a neat freak.

I couldn’t have said why I spent as long as I did inspecting her stuff. It took me back, somehow, to that first day, when I’d sprinkled those droplets of Serenex onto her chapstick and held her in my room, staring at her round, flawless ass in those blue athletic shorts as she bent over and scribed her penance at the white board. It was thrillingly invasive, observing her secondhand like this. Or maybe being left hanging by Abbie was making me pervier than usual.

Her underwear drawer happened to be the first one I opened. A long row of multi-hued bras lined the back half, while three stacks of panties – sorted by cut, I realized as I pawed through them – occupied the front. I’d only seen her in a small fraction of them. Such a waste. I supposed I could still get a lingerie fashion show any time I pleased from Tabitha and Cassie.

My head was still swimming (and my cock still throbbing) at how much I missed Taylor’s body as I sneaked out past her parents. Mrs. Stern was on her phone in the living room as I slunk past; she waved absent-mindedly when she saw me but went right on talking.

My grin faded when I got to my car, where I found all four of the tires were slashed. A long horizontal scratch that had to be from the same implement that had done the slashing now marred the paint on the driver’s side of the vehicle.

It was over an hour before I could get anyone out there, then three more as I waited in the long weekend lines at the auto shop for the tires to be patched. They stayed late just to accommodate me; I passed along an extra fifty bucks in gratitude and made an appointment to come back for the paint.

The Sterns. Why did  I bother? Isa was right. They  were dangerous. And Tabitha was even more right. I had her and Cassie and Megan and Candy and. They didn’t spin me about with mixed messages. (If Taylor had harbored a crush on me, I’d hate to see how she behaved for the teachers she hated.) No. The Sterns were bottled chaos, except the bottle didn’t have a goddamn cork on it and splashed all over the place.

Still horny, I went straight from my garage over to the house next door, where the Brown ladies were only too happy to be instructed to perform a team blowjob. They asked no questions, balked not at all, and gave excellent service aside from a brief mother-daughter squabble about who got to drink down my spunk. It was hot as fuck, enough so that I brought Cassie home with me to stay the night. Her guileless chattering was a welcome distraction.

It occurred to me as I lie awake reliving that brief, intense stealth sex with Abbie, imagining being a fly on the wall for when Taylor dirtied her living space with those discarded garments in her bathroom, that I could train Tabitha to do everything they did for me. I sketched out rudimentary lesson plans in my mind.

I’m nothing but tits and ass, Mr. Canon , she’d coo as she posed for me, waiting for my next direction. Not slashing my goddamn tires, or egging my house, or spraying anything down my throat. That was the hottest part. Then she’d roll her eyes and let me fuck her face like she resented it, call me a pig and then plead for me to use her pussy next time instead. A choreographed game, one I knew all the rules to. One where the opposition played by them.

Nothing wrong with my little monsters having claws, so long as they knew when to use them, and on whom.