“So you’re actually a teacher?” He pistol grips his chin and then taps his index finger against his cheek. A slight smirk follows.
“Yes.” I laugh.
“Is it bad this information turns me the hell on?” He wipes his brow in an overstated way.
“No.” I shake my head. Men! Nurse, teacher, librarian; turn on.
“So what happened?”
“For that information, we’ll need another round. Go on. Shake your money maker and get me another drink.”
His eyes widen. “I love your smart mouth.” His hand runs through his hair as his eyes lock to mine.
“And I love that tight money maker you’re sporting. Now drink me,” I reply before I can claim the words back, horrified. I guess being a little tipsy and happy for the first time in forever led to those words coming out the wrong way.
“How I’d like to do that.” He casually takes a mouthful of beer.
My legs squeeze together under the table and my chest begins to heave.
“Are you hot, Miss McMillian?”
“It’s the alcohol,” I retort.
The grin on his face says everything. “Another Mudslide?”
“No. No more milk.” I hold my stomach and scrunch my nose. The thought alone causes my gut to turn. “I’ve already had too many of them. Surprise me.”
As he stalks to the bar, I can’t help wondering why he’s spending time with someone like me. After all, I’m a plain Jane, and he’s the epitome of male beauty.
When he clears his throat on his return, I eye a coloured drink. It’s somewhere between pink and red and gets my mouth watering immediately.
“That looks good. What is it?”
“A Climax,” he states with a shit-eating grin.
“Well. A Climax it is,” I say, knowing full well he’s playing a game with me, and I’m eating right out of his hand.
“Every girl needs one of those now and again, don’t they?” His voice is so seductive it seriously has me considering ripping my clothes off and fucking him on this very table. “It’s got a lot of strawberries. I hope you like strawberries?” he asks, interrupting my very wrong thoughts.
“Love them,” I declare, trying to get images of what I think he would look like naked out of my head. “Okay, so I’m guessing you’re wanting your payment now?” A distraction to this moment is more than necessary.
“Yes, I would.” He places his hand back on top of mine and looks at me eagerly.
“So my teaching career … where to start?” My fingers tap against the table and I try to think of a way to explain what happened without appearing to be an evil person. I soon discover one does not exist. “You know there’s no way I’m going to come off looking good in this situation?”
“Spill,” he demands.
“Righto, Mr Pushy. So, firstly, I’m a high school teacher at a Catholic private school. Well, I was. You’ll need to keep this in mind—”
“Oh. That visual is now definitely in my mind. You do realise you’ll be the current visual for all teenage masturbation sessions, right?”
“Um … ew.”
“Sad, but true. Those breasts and thighs, that tight arse. I would be masturbating over you if I were your student.” He licks his lower lip.
“Double ew.”
“Just saying it how it is, Miss McMillian. Even saying Miss McMillian makes me want to flog off right now, actually.” His gaze has me spellbound and my panties become wet from his words. “Abigail.” His voice is warm, inviting.
“Yes?”
“Where were we?”
“Oh, yes. Your lewd remarks. If you don’t stop them, there’ll be no more story for you.” Pulsating in my nether regions be gone.
“Fine.” He playfully sulks.
“Okay, so, I teach years eight through ten in business technologies and accounting. There’s this one kid in my year-nine class, Billy Bradshaw, who is a pain in my butt. His parents are benefactors of the school. He’s an only child, of course, and he thinks he’s a stud. You should see him walking around the school like he owns the place. The biggest problem I have with him is he never listens, always interrupts, and makes lewd remarks about everything …” I pause for effect “… a bit like you,” I tease. “He, too, is an arsehole.”
Marcus’s top lip curls upwards. “Yeah, I know that type of kid; every school has one. Continue.”
“I’m guessing you were yours.”
“Nope. I was a nerd.” His eyes tell me he’s lying, but I play along.
“A lot of crap went down six months ago in my life. It broke me, to be honest. I really should have taken the day off and not gone to school. I was definitely not in the right frame of mind to be teaching or doing anything. I got super drunk the night before, so there’s a good chance I was still wasted when I actually showed up. You can imagine the other teachers don’t take that lightly.”
His eyebrows lift, yet he doesn’t seem to be judging me.
“Billy just got up in my face. He debated every situation the entire morning lesson. He made me boiling mad. I snapped when he declared in front of the entire class, and I quote, ‘I put Miss McMillian over my knee and spanked her hard last night, didn’t I, miss?’ He then blamed my absentmindedness that morning on my inability to take my eyes off him because he took me so hard the night before.”
“Wow,” he gasps.
“Well, yes, wow. I snapped. I got in his face and began screaming, telling him he was a worthless human being who planned to ride his life out on his parents’ coattails. I threw a white board marker at him and then left the school grounds and my class unsupervised. Currently, I’m on unpaid leave to sort my shit out and will return at the end of January next year if that’s what I want to do.”
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah, I degrade children instead of helping them. Fucking great teacher I am.” Sadness makes my shoulders droop.
“What happened to make you snap?”
“Nothing I plan to talk to you about.”
There’s a sudden and awkward silence, but it soon lifts.
“Okay. I see.” He pauses. “Well, I think his punk arse needed a beating. What you did was a lot less than he deserved.”
“What I did was plain and simply wrong. Regardless of how much of a piece of crap that kid is, he’s only a teenager and I’m an adult. I still don’t know if I’ll return. But hey, there’s the dirt.”
Marcus does that head tilt thing, but soon gazes into my eyes. “Maybe the moment you had with that kid will make an impact on his life. He probably hasn’t had anyone tell him off before.”
“Doubt it. Anyway, enough about me. Let’s talk about something else.” My heart is heavy. My gut swirls. My palms are clammy. I’m opening up, but I’m not sure I want to—Should be—We need to change the conversation now.
“I can tell you about the time I spent the night in the lock-up if it’ll help you feel better?”
“Well, this I have to hear.” The lock-up? Are you a true-blue bad boy, Marcus?
“You’ll have to earn it.”