Dr Gregorio Aquino awoke to the same 7am alarm he could've sworn he turned off the previous morning. Still, at least he wasn't hungover this time. Silencing his smartphone, he extended his right arm without looking round. To his mild bewilderment, his groping hand found the other half of the king-size bed empty.
Rubbing shards of rheum from his eyes, Gregorio sat up. Across the room, he could see the bare brown back of Serafina Concessao. He was a tad puzzled by the size of the skin folds around her hips; they should only be that generously proportioned with her skirt on. As his eyes worked their way down, his eyebrows raised he saw the waistband of her green-and-white plaid skirt.
The eighteen-year-old Indian was standing over the ironing board from the walk-in closet. Gregorio kept his questions to himself as he leant back against the bed's leatherbound headboard, taking in the scene that had inspired an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.
It took him back nine years, to an evening he'd spent escorting a so-called dignitary around some post-conference junket in his capacity as a United Nations interpreter. When his client had become too drunk to annunciate anything for Gregorio to translate, he'd struck up a conversation with one of the champagne waitresses to kill time.
At party's end, their conversation had felt sufficiently unfinished for Gregorio to invite her back to his apartment. After talking about God knows what for God knows how long, the pair passed out in his lounge fully clothed. The following morning, he'd awoken to the smell of hot steam.
He'd opened his eyes to the sight of his guest in a plaid skirt (with a different pattern to Serafina's) and bra, ironing the white shirt she apparently wore for both work and high school. Within a week, she effectively moved into his guestroom. Within a couple months of her graduation, he and Sachiko were married.
"Going somewhere?" he asked in English.
"Just making myself presentable," replied Serafina without looking around.
"Don't forget you'll be wearing layers."
"You didn't see the creases. It looked like a bloody Kleenex."
Gregorio couldn't help smiling at the richness of her Indian accent. It was a pleasure to hear someone not water down their native twang for local consumption, something he'd previously been guilty of.
"You could've taken it off sooner, you know?"
"Hindsight," said Serafina, waving a hand dismissively.
Gregorio grinned. Once he'd come around after firing his first salvo, the pair had disrobed and indulged in multiple encores. He couldn't remember quite how many more loads he'd shot overnight, but he wasn't about to ask whether she had the pills she'd mentioned last night to on hand. He didn't want to jeopardize any further encores by antagonizing the girl.
Sliding out of bed, Gregorio raided the suitcase lying open on the floor for clean underwear. Slipping past the topless Serafina, he visited the bathroom. Having applied a fresh coat of gel to his short black hair, he stepped out in time to watch Serafina buttoning up her shirt. He stood there, gawking shamelessly until her ample and entirely braless bust had (mostly) disappeared beneath the garment.
"Forgetting something?" asked Gregorio, eyeing the bra still lying at the foot of the bed.
"It's too bloody small. You saw how it exploded last night," said Serafina, popping her collar to put on her red necktie. She paused when she noticed Gregorio still gawping at her chest. Her umber nipples were staring back at him through the translucent white fabric, "It's like you said, I'll be wearing layers."
Gregorio struggled to break 'eye' contact with them until her emerald green blazer intervened. Returning to his suitcase, he fished out blue jeans and a white shirt of his own. Once dressed, he did a quick sweep of the floor to ensure Serafina hadn't left any other surprises for the maid before joining her by the door.
"Want me to button up again?" asked the Indian, pulling on her jade overcoat.
"Hold that thought," replied Gregorio, reaching for his wallet.
Down in the first-floor elevator lobby, a waiting bellboy nearly dropping the dry-cleaning he was holding as the doors rolled open and Serafina walked by. Gregorio followed close behind, carrying her coat and blazer over his arm. She left a trail of rubberneckers en route to the front door, where the epauletted doorman forgot to tip his top hat.
Out on the street, Gregorio proposed doubling the wager. Despite the shrill breeze blowing in off the Atlantic, Serafina gamely agreed. The duo proceeded around the block in lockstep, the wobbling umber medallions beneath her shirt clearing them a path all the way to a certain Puerto Rican café. Outside the eatery, the schoolgirl graciously accepted her blazer in addition to a $100 bill.
Once coffee and mallorcas had been consumed, Gregorio let slip he felt obliged to find a late Easter Sunday mass to attend. He was more surprised than he should've been when Serafina said she'd join him. He was still kicking himself for not figuring out her Goan background sooner when they filed into the back of the church Gregorio had frequented for a decade.
Trusting his fellow congregants (most of whom he still recognized) wouldn't mistake Serafina for a cosplaying hooker, he didn't stop her removing her coat for the mass. Afterwards, they made a beeline for the hotel where a familiar limousine was already parked in the semi-circular driveway.
Once Gregorio had settled his bill, he joined the schoolgirl on a bench while his turbaned chauffeur Mr. Jethani loaded the limo's trunk.
"Well, Miss Concessao-"
"Why so formal all of a sudden?"
"My apologies. Elephant_Rider61 it is."
"Sera's good enough for most people," said Serafina, smirking as she noticed the Honduran's gaze not quite lining up with hers.
Half an hour later, the limo was cruising through Brooklyn. Mr. Jethani had been less than enthused with the requested detour, although the $500 in his pocket had eased the blow to his professional pride. The money hadn't quite bought his passengers the absolute privacy they thought they were paying for, but a man had to look out for his upholstery.
Besides, Gregorio was much too distracted by the bare breasts bouncing in front of his face (among other things) to notice a three-centimeter gap at the top of the divider.
"Thanks for everything, Sera," Gregorio half-whispered as the car pulled up outside JFK.
The bottomless schoolgirl climbed off his lap, flopping into the cream leather seat beside him. Her bare chest still heaving, the best she could manage was a dopy smile and limp wave as he fixed his jeans and exited the limo. It was past midnight when he finally reached San Toribio.
After his obligatory trip to Easter Monday mass the next morning, Gregorio spent the afternoon in his lounge. He kept one eye on whatever soccer game the local UniMás affiliate was showing, and the other on a heap of ungraded practice test papers on his coffee table. The sport was forgotten completely as he picked up the paper bearing the name of Xiomara Qinallata.
He read each scrawled answer almost reverentially, marveling at the quantum leap her English had taken in under two semesters. Then, having drawn a D on the cover page, Gregorio got up and walked through to his dining room-cum-stationery cupboard.
Grabbing a pad of yellow Post-It notes, he began to carefully write something. Ten discarded notes later, he peeled off the eleventh and slapped it on the inside cover of Xiomara's paper. Depositing it into his briefcase, Gregorio was disappointed to find the act didn't do more to calm his nerves.
He awoke the next morning feeling as tense as the elastic on Serafina's old bra. His briefcase was checked on three separate occasions to ensure that all-important test paper was still there. He'd just put the key into the ignition of his Ram pickup truck when he had to run back inside and retrieve the other papers off his coffee table.
Not finishing them all last night proved to be a blessing in disguise. Between periodic sweeps for illicit translator app usage, they provided a welcome distraction from his internal monologue, making the wait for the lunch bell marginally less tortuous. Gregorio forewent his customary lunchtime cigarette, aware that he might smoke a half a carton in his current frame of mind.
When the bell rang, Xiomara was again one of the last girls to drift in. As was the way with most twelfth-grade classes at Zumárraga Prep by this point of the school year, the Peruvian wasn't the only one with a bun in the oven, though she was the furthest along. Coming to the end of her second trimester, her standard blue-and-black plaid skirt had been exchanged for one with an elasticated waistband.
Besides the abdominal bulge, there was little to tell Xiomara apart from the girl he'd fucked in October. Though clingier in places, her sky-blue polo shirt remained neatly tucked in and buttoned to the neck; her thick black hair was still divided into two symmetrical breast-length plaits; and her legs remained unseen beneath her knee-length skirt and white knee socks.
Gregorio watched the girl maneuver into her seat in the front row, no more than two meters in front of him. She went through the usual motions of avoiding eye contact as he briefed the class on their assignment. With no papers left to grade, Gregorio spent most of the ensuing ninety-minute lesson clockwatching.
With seconds to go, the teacher positioned himself by the classroom door, holding a pile of graded practice papers in hand. After the bell, he called each of the twenty-five girls by name. They made all manner of noises -- joyful squeaks, incredulous gasps, mournful sighs -- upon seeing their grades. True to form, he didn't hear a peep out of Xiomara.
After the final bell, Gregorio paid homage to an old ritual, waiting a full fifteen minutes before departing his classroom. The instant the clock's long hand twitched onto the three, he was out the door, treading the familiar path to a certain fourth-floor classroom. Finding it as empty as it usually was, he didn't let it faze him.
The walk up here from the science department was a traipse at the best of times. He could only imagine how much more of a slog it would be with a passenger aboard. Such thoughts, plus a view of the school's softball diamond where a team was practicing, sustained him for half-an-hour. That was until the rumble of thunder drew his gaze skyward.
When the ominous grey clouds cut short softball practice, Gregorio bowed to the inevitable. Picking up his briefcase, he made a break for the parking lot before he risked being washed away. Shortly thereafter, he was sitting in his lounge. Clothes still damp from the run indoors, he pensively watched water streak down the window as he fought the urge to feel completely crushed by her no-show.
If Xiomara wasn't out of his head in a couple months, she would at least be out of his eyeline. By way of distraction, Gregorio took out his phone and opened up Holler, the hook-up app he'd found Serafina with. Blithely scrolling through local prospects, he soon realized he was specifically looking for faces he'd seen walking the hallways of Zumárraga Prep.
Deferring to his subconscious, Gregorio went on scrolling until he struck gold. Mayan gold, in fact. 'ChelDorada', a Guatemalan girl better known around school as Miguela, had even used a profile picture with the oversized sky-blue collar of her uniform polo in frame. Skimming through the do and don'ts in her profile, he was happy to note she too was no fan of watersports.
Optimistic a girl outgoing enough to be on this app wouldn't be averse to fucking a man with the authority to give her detention, his right index finger drifted towards the big orange Holler button. Then, his doorbell rang. His digit hovered over the touchscreen, hoping it was just a ring-and-run. A frenzied burst of follow-up rings put paid to that.
Grudgingly, Gregorio put his smartphone back down on the coffee table and trudged into the hallway. Intending to keep it ajar, the door swung wide open under its own momentum when he saw who was standing in his porch.
"Miss Qinallata?"
"This had better be good," said Xiomara flatly, rainwater dripping off the tip of her aquiline nose.
