I'm a 26-year old teacher at a private girls' school on the south coast of England. I've been there two years and I'm the youngest of the three men on the teaching staff. Naturally, surrounded by 200-odd teenage girls (not to mention a couple of dozen mostly young female colleagues), you get the odd kid trying to flirt with you, but I'd always managed to avoid any awkward situations – until last Autumn.
It was half-term and one of my fellow geography teachers, Shirley Stringer, had arranged a trip over to Brittany in France for some of the girls. It was a regular thing, and I'd agreed to go as well, but only because I'd spent the previous six months trying to get into Shirley's knickers. As we waited to board the overnight ferry to Saint Malo, where we were staying, the cow told me with tears of joy in her eyes that she'd just got engaged. I had to give her a big smile, a big hug, and try to avoid my big erection pressing against her.
There were 15 girls on the trip, aged from 15 to 18, Shirley, me and our French language teacher, Mademoiselle Mouthillon. I suspected she had a crush on me, but I wasn't remotely interested. She's a little dark, mousy thing with black framed spectacles and a faint moustache. She reminded me of the Greek singer, Nana Mouskouri. Anyway, on the first full day we did a trip to Bayeux to see the celebrated Battle of Hastings Tapestry, which I'd seen when I was 11. The second day, despite the girls begging us to sign up to a locally organised excursion to Paris, we visited Rennes Cathedral and a local museum. On the last full day we went to Mont Saint Michel, the location of a very famous, and very photogenic, historic abbey.
The place is one of the top visitors attractions in France, and it was a blisteringly hot, dusty day, airless, and the village around the foot of the Mont was packed like a sardine tin with loud, sweaty tourists. After three days of dry culture, surrounded by screeching, giggling schoolgirls, frustrated in my lust for Shirley, irritated by la Mouthillon's simpering attempts to beguile me, and wound up by kids who were amused by the French teacher dogging my every step, I was, hot, bored and totally, totally fed up. Leaving the girls to run riot, I skulked near the entrance arch to the village, mooching around tacky, overpriced, overcrowded souvenir shops. After a while I treated myself to a huge expensive ice cream cornet and found a stone bench in a cool, dark recess near the entrance arch to the village to sit and enjoy my purchase.
I had only just sat down when I heard an ear-piercing argument between several young women. Sure enough, it was three of our girls have a screaming fit at each other. I tried to sink back into the shadows, but two of the girls flounced off and the third one slumped on the other end of the bench to me. It was Charlotte Evans, one of the school's 'it girls'. Popular with everyone – most of the time – five feet eleven tall, deep blue eyes, long golden blonde hair, slim, shapely body, long, long legs, star of the netball team. One of my fellow male teachers had the hots for her something rotten, and I was aware of at least one female colleague who felt the same way.