Cat squirmed on the hard wooden chair and watched the seconds tick by on the clock. 4:55 on Friday afternoon. Five minutes until doomsday. She worried at an almost non-existent hangnail, nibbling it smooth. Was she a glutton for punishment? Had a death wish, perhaps? She smiled ruefully to herself. Why, oh why, was it so hard to get kicked out of school?
The school secretary, Mrs. Graham, stared disapprovingly over her glasses as she locked her desk and gathered her things. "I wouldn't go smirking and thinking I was so smart if I were you, young lady," she snapped. "You seem to think that rules don't apply to you. No wonder your parents gave up on you and sent you here." Cat narrowed her eyes and slumped down in her seat, refusing to respond. She folded her arms across her chest and stretched out her legs in front of her, crossing them at the ankles. Mrs. Graham slipped on her coat and tucked her huge purse under her arm. "Hopeless, you are positively hopeless." She shook her head and left the office.
"Bitch," Cat muttered under her breath as she heard the door click shut. Can't really blame my parents, she thought. They tried. They tried grounding her, sending her to psychologists, and local private schools -- and she'd promptly been expelled from three of those. But no matter what they tried, Cat just thought of a shocking new color to dye her hair, or a worse yet, a shocking new body part to pierce or tattoo. She continued to do what she wanted, when she wanted, and her parents were convinced that she was running with the wrong crowd and needed to be protected. That thought really made her laugh because she knew that other kids' parents were worried that their children were hanging out with her. And so, dear old Mom and Dad finally sent her here, The St. Agnes Boarding School for Girls -- Our Lady of Perpetual Agony, as the students called it -- well known for strict rules and getting the "wild child" under control. Located in a rural, thickly wooded area, the nearest town was almost thirty miles away; even if she broke curfew and left campus, there was nowhere to go and nothing to do. She'd had to be extra creative and inventive when she began her current "Let's Get Cat Expelled" campaign. Cheating on tests (even if she already knew the answers), starting a riot in the dining hall over oatmeal again, refusing to do her homework, altering her uniform in a non-regulation fashion -- the old headmaster, Dr. Mitchell, had lost all patience with her...she could feel it. The next time she got called to his office would be the last. He was going to expel her; freedom was within her grasp.
But then, the old bastard retired. What. The. Fuck. She'd spent half the school year wearing him down, had him right where she wanted him -- and he left the school, didn't even have the decency to finish out the term. Of course, that might have been her fault -- at least in part. Now she had to start all over again with the new headmaster, Mr. Rowland. He was a lot younger, probably not even thirty, and much more resilient -- this wasn't going to be easy. It made her sick how some of the girls got all cow-eyed and stupid over his piercing dark eyes, or gushed about how sexy his clipped British accent sounded when he told them to quit dawdling in the halls and get to class. OK, he was kind of good looking, in that trouser-creases-pressed-just-so-every-hair-perfectly-in-place kind of way, if you were into that kind of thing. Cat had to admit she secretly liked his precisely trimmed goatee because it made him look a little bit like the devil. Whatever...he was just a controlling asshole who thought he could tell her what to do and when to do it, just like all the rest of them. She sighed in exasperation and stuck out her lower lip to blow her straight black bangs straight up and out of her eyes...and had a flash of inspiration. Maybe a different tactic might work? She deftly rolled the waistband of the plaid uniform skirt she despised, hiking it up enough to show another three inches of bare thighs between the tops of her knee socks and the pleated hem. Pleased with the result, she discretely unbuttoned the top two buttons of her white cotton blouse, just enough to show the lace of her bra and the edge of the heart tattoo on her left breast that had royally pissed off her father and had nearly sent her mother into hysterics. She pinched her nipples hard -- since they had insisted she remove the rings, she could do that again. Glancing down, she was satisfied that the little peaks pushed prominently against the thin cotton -- there, that was seriously in violation of the dress code. She giggled to herself as the clock chimed 5:00 and the office door opened.
*******
Marcus Rowland's glance took in the secretary's vacant desk, the closed outer door, the nearly empty room, and the student's defiant posture. "Catherine, come in please," he said, gesturing to his wood-paneled private office.
She stood and stretched lazily, making sure he got a good look at her breasts straining against the fabric. "It's Cat," she corrected. He bit his tongue and steeled himself, watching as the girl sashayed past him, the blue plaid pleats of her skirt twitching back and forth across her curvy bottom. Exhaling as silently as he could, he ran his hand through his hair. It was going to be a long damn night.
He closed the solid office door with final, ominous sound. "It's 'Catherine', according to your disciplinary file," he replied dryly, tossing a thick manila folder on the heavy oak desk, "which is...substantial reading." He yanked out a straight backed chair in curt invitation before circling around his desk to sit in his own leather upholstered chair, facing her. It was safer to have that distance, that barrier, between them. He silently regarded the girl for a few moments; she stood stubbornly in the middle of the room, arms crossed, staring at the ceiling. "Please, sit down," he said. Clearly, it wasn't just a request.
She flounced into the indicated chair, which was designed to encourage perfect posture; but somehow she managed to slouch, causing her too-short skirt to ride up even higher. The headmaster's thoughts and gaze wandered south, to the light shadowing between her legs, imagining the softness of her bare skin, how warm she would feel under his hands, as he pried those luscious thighs apart, and slid...
Abruptly, he shifted focus to her face, forcing himself to maintain eye contact. He measured his breathing, carefully regaining his composure and his impassive expression. Had she noticed his indiscretion? Could she tell what he'd been thinking? It seemed that a faint, knowing smile crossed her lips briefly, but it passed so quickly he couldn't be certain. Damn it, he should have taken the post at the boys' school instead. With no woman for companionship except for the female teachers who were all either married, elderly, or spinsters for good reason, and all of these lovely young girls around...constant temptation...so ripe for the picking...and so absolutely, positively off-limits. Nearly every night he was masturbating to the forbidden fantasies in his head.
He cleared his throat. "Do you understand why you were sent to my office, Catherine?"
She tucked a wayward strand of her smooth black hair behind one ear; Marcus found himself wondering if it was her natural color, and if it will feel as soft on his fingers as it looked. He mused briefly that she reminded him quite a bit of Snow White -- a naughty, petulant, juvenile delinquent Snow White, who probably didn't traipse around the campus waiting for her prince to come. "Uh, I think it has something to do with my little birthday celebration last night," she replied blandly, her round blue eyes the picture of innocence.
"Your little birthday celebration. Indeed."
Cat leaned back in her chair and tried not to smile too triumphantly. Yes, this was the icing on the cake -- her birthday cake, in fact. Surely this was it...she'd gone too far, and would be expelled this time. And god, his British accent made him sound so fucking smug.
"I understand it involved drinking alcohol with other underage students?" he continued.
"Hey, everybody there was over eighteen."
"Yes, I see that all of the young ladies involved were under the age of twenty-one." He made mental note of her birth date while flipping through the pages of her extensive file. She's eighteen now. At least that's one law that he wouldn't be breaking. Wait, bad thought. He closed his eyes briefly and willed his mind to be clear of such things.
"And in order to provide liquor for your little soiree, you...picked the lock on the door of the teacher's lounge?" he continued. Creative, he had to give her points for that, and gutsy, too.
"Where else was I gonna get booze?" Cat laughed. "It's not like there's a party store across the street -- we're out in the middle of bum-fuck Egypt."
"Interesting choice of words, Catherine," he murmured, "but hardly befitting a young lady of good breeding." Marcus ignored her snort of derision, and flipped through a few more pages in the report, paused, and raised his eyebrows. "And you offered sexual favors to the custodian?" he asked incredulously. Mr. Walker, the school janitor, had to be nearly sixty.
Cat rolled her eyes. "Jeez, not exactly...I was just trying to talk him into getting us something more to drink. Not like I showed him my tits." Wait, Stupid, shut up, shut up -- this is not the time for self defense, let him think it's even worse than it is -- all the better reason to expel you. "Well, I mean, I guess I did rub up against him a little. But I was really wasted." Cat bit the inside of her lip to keep from laughing hysterically.
