Author's note: All characters in this story are 18 years old or older.
*****
Mrs. Jamison gestured to the diagram she'd drawn on the whiteboard. It looked sort of like one of those heart monitors one saw in hospitals, straight, then abruptly up, then down, then straight again. As had happened already during that morning's class session, as had happened every year of the past thirty, the aging school marm feigned excitement about the plot diagram.
It wasn't even news to her class of seven miserable summer school students, who'd heard this information for years now. Not well enough for any of the seven of them to pass the class the first time around, but still. Their teacher was just happy the class was so small; usually they didn't convene with fewer than twenty, but these were all seniors who needed it to graduate, and graduation rate determined funding. It was sacred.
They did their best to hurry her along, naming the points as she gestured to them, trying to preempt her long-winded explanations. It was no good. The script was hard-wired in her bones by now, and she delivered it as she always had.
"And this point here at the top. Do any of you now what that is?" she asked blandly.
"The climax," the students droned as one.
"And what is that, the climax?"
There were snickers at this question, some students at one of the possible answers, and a few students with a bit more evolved senses of humor at the teacher needing that answer explained to her. She pretended not to notice, like this morning, like last year, like the 80's.
Finally, Hailey raised her hand. "It's the highest point of action," she said by rote, having heard this line a thousand times.
"Oh my no!" Mrs. Jamison replied. "You see, 'highest point' is debatable. In many stories, even bright minds like yours may disagree as to what that may be. You see here," she said, pointing back to the point where the line initially spiked upwards, "as we discussed, this is the point in the story where a conflict is introduced. Right?"
There was a pause, then her room full of thoroughly dulled bright minds realized she was waiting for an answer. "Uh huh," they droned.
"That's right! You see, the climax is actually the point in the story where the climax is resolved. It may not always be a point of high action. You remember in our reading of London's 'To Build A Fire.' There, what was the conflict?"
"Person vs. nature. He was trying not to freeze to death," Jeff said. That had been a brutal one for all involved. Read in the winter, she made an event of the reading - the students brought in blankets and they opened the window to the elements, feeling the cold as they read about it on the pages.
In summer school, during the hottest summer in recorded history... well, they'd read it, at least.
"Yes. So, forgetting the climax, what was the high point in the action? What do you think?"
No one cared enough about the story to have vivid memories of it, but they were eager enough to finish this tedium and move on to the next bit of tedium. Indeed, this anticipation was the only thing keeping many of them from jumping out the window. Eventually, a few threw out answers, each hoping theirs would be the one she sought.
"When he falls into the water."
"When the spit freezes before it hits the ground?"
"When the dog tries to burrow in under the snow."
Mrs. Jamison smiled. "You see? We all have our own opinions, and none of them are wrong. Now if the conflict of the story was his struggle to warm himself with a fire, how did that struggle resolve?"
"He failed. He froze," Brandy replied.
"Right! And that right there is your climax."
A few students laughed. Not in good humor at her enthusiastic analysis of the story, but at a doodle Chelsea was drawing in her notebook, showing a caricaturized Mrs. Jamison falling lying back in bed. There was a crude expression of rapture on her face, evidently from holding a book between veiny thighs. It read "To Build A Fire" on the cover, and a word balloon announced "you light a fire in me, Jackie Boy!"
Most days, this would have been the high point of the class, and no one would have argued otherwise.
"What happens if a story doesn't have a conflict, Mrs. Jamison?" a student asked. It was Victor.
Victor was something of a legend around the school. He was flippant with administrators, lazy in class, rude to the girls and boorish to the men. Yet unaccountably, he managed an impressive GPA, never got detentions or suspensions, never got slapped. In fact, he was popular - invited to all the big parties, hooked up with many of the hottest girls in school. With his inexplicable good grades, what he was doing in summer school surrounded by kids repeating the class was anyone's guess.
Mrs. Jamison frowned at the question. This was not part of the script. Students didn't ask questions. They weren't curious. They didn't care. Still, it was a stupid question - or would've been, if she let herself believe in such anathema. "Victor, every story has a conflict."
"But suppose one didn't."
"They have to - or else they're not a story."
"Well it's still a plot, isn't it?" he pressed. "Things are still happening, still might be something to be told."
She shook her head. "Then it's not a story - just a list of details or events."
"Why not? Some people might want to read that."
"Oh heavens no," said the elderly teacher. "It would be like reading a grocery list."
"Well can we try it?" he asked.
"I'm sorry, no - we have too much to cover to squander an hour proving a point that really ought to be obvious. And we still have to cover falling action and resolution, after all."
"I think I'd like to pursue it."
Now it may seem like there is a conflict brewing here in the telling. The character of Mrs. Jamison, set in her ways and just determined to plow through her lesson, opposed by the defiant and inquisitive Victor. A classic Person vs. Person - or Man vs. Man, as it had been called when she'd begun teaching.
Before Mrs. Jamison could reply, Victor continued. "And we're going to. Right, Mrs. Jamison?"
Just like that, the clouds parted, and the gathering storm was no more. "Right you are, Victor." She smiled. It was nice to have students so interested in her curriculum. "So how do you propose we explore the question?"
"Well, I figure we need something interesting to happen - but with no conflict. Something that would be grabby, but doesn't cause problems. Luckily, that kind of thing is just my specialty."
The class listened with muted interest. "Oh, how so?"
"Well, let's see. How about we start by having the girls take their tops off."
Now the interest picked up as the four girls each stiffened at the suggestion. "Go fuck yourself, Victor," said Rachael.
"Language, young lady!" said Mrs. Jamison harshly. "And Victor, that was a rather uncouth suggestion, and I can't imagine what possessed you to think you'd get away with it."
He nodded, immune to the frosty glares of the women in the room. "Well you see, I'm a bit like that semi-barbaric king in that other story we read. The one with the tiger, and the lady."
"'The Lady or the Tiger,' you mean," Mrs. Jamison pointed out. "How so?"
"I remember there was a line, something about how 'nothing pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight and crush down uneven places.' And that's like me. I smooth things over."
"I'm afraid I don't understand," she said.
"Here, I'll show you." He looked around at the small gathering. "Ladies, front and center. This time, I mean it - tops off. Now."
The girls shared a look, and then slowly stood and shuffled to the front of the classroom. They turned to face Victor and the other two boys, Jeff and Henry, then without fanfare began to remove their shirts.
Victor watched calmly, unsurprised to find they complied. They always did. Jeff and Henry were a bit more excitable on the subject. In fact, they had been delighted to have to retake the class just for the women alone. Hailey, Rachael, Chelsea and Brandy were easily among the sexiest girls in school, and a hot summer was a damn fine room to be locked in a room with four teenage babes.
There was Hailey, from the cheerleading squad, the classic blonde goddess. Tall and gorgeous, massive tits and a big round ass that had single-handedly boosted attendance at sporting events 10% since she joined the squad. No one was surprised to see her in summer school, though everyone was pleased to see Hailey's bounteous boobs bursting from her bra.
There was Brandy, a brainiac and outspoken feminist who had run for student council (and lost) on a platform of Grrl Power. She was only in summer school because she'd insisted the curriculum was too male-centric in its selections, an opinion she shared loudly and often. Still, even with her unshaved armpits and legs, she was gorgeous, and considered displaying her cleavage an act of empowerment. The girl was short and curvy in all the best ways.
There was Chelsea, an angry goth girl with pale skin and pale blonde hair. She'd still dyed her nails black, a large ring dangling from a piercing in her nose, and had a series of web-themed tattoos up each of her arms. Her peers now saw just where the tats ended, or would have if not stupified by her gigantic tits, enough to dwarf even Hailey's.
And finally, Rachael, the shy and quiet one. Most of them didn't know anything about her. Just that she was pretty, with long brown hair almost to the top of her tight little ass; she had coltish legs and small but pert breasts; and she never liked to talk if she could avoid it.
"Uh... Victor? Does the teacher have to strip to?" asked Henry.
Oh - and there was Mrs. Jamison, who had removed her blouse to reveal an expanse of droopy, saggy, floppy breasts sagging in a bra that was helpless to correct them. Jeff hadn't even noticed her alongside his classmates, but once Henry pointed it out, he couldn't stop looking.
Victor considered. "You know, you're right. With her up there looking like that, we may wind up with a conflict on our hands - Person vs. Nature, right? As our nature makes us not want to look?"
Mrs. Jamison nodded. "That's right, Victor. See? You can't do this without... without... oh my."
There was a tingle spreading through her body, and as they watched, the years rolled off of her like disinterested student eyes off a poorly constructed simile. The steel in her hair darkened to auburn; the wrinkles smoothed; her skin became firm and youthful; her breasts regained their elasticity and rode so high and proud on her chest that they lifted right out of the bra.
