Robert Jabez put his computer on the empty seat next to him and stepped into the aisle of the tour bus carrying him and his fellow musicians north toward Buffalo and the Canadian border. He glanced at the bus they were trailing and started back for the rest room, ignoring the whist game going on across the way between the director of music, Dr. Paul Sella, aka "Don Paolo," aka "the Godfather;" Mrs. Dunnigan, one of the chaperones; and two of his fellow students. He passed the rear door on the right side of the bus, keeping a wary eye on the other students. At eighteen years of age and having been associated with some of them for twelve years of schooling, he'd been the butt of far too many jokes to trust them.
The rear of the tour bus had once been a bar area, now modified for instrument storage and as a space where a person could lie down on a nest of pillows and nap - two, if they were friendly - known as the Love Shack. He noted the white rag that indicated it was in use was not in place and idly wondered which pair of steaming teenage hormones would next occupy it.
He felt a hand shove him sideways from behind as a foot tripped him. Losing his balance, he fell across the lap of Denise Danton, a voluptuous 18-going-on-25 girl with shining black hair and bedroom eyes who was known as 'Double D' for a couple of reasons; two of which, unfettered by a brassiere, were an inch from his face behind a transparent silk blouse unbuttoned almost to the navel, hard nipples poking against the thin fabric.
"Like what you see?" she purred, black eyes gleaming with amusement alloyed with lust.
"Very much. They are magnificent, bordering on spectacular. The erect nipples are particularly alluring."
"Wouldn't you like to suck them?" she asked, moving so they were almost in his mouth.
"Certainly. If the locker room rumors of your sensuality are anywhere near correct, I'm certain we'd both find it enjoyable. However, I surmise that the person blocking the light behind me is your boyfriend Mark. Were I to so much as touch them, he'd take it as an invitation to drive me into the ground like a tent peg. I am not so foolish as that. So, Mark, if you'd be good enough to help me up?"
The kids in the nearby seats laughed as Mark, who when he wasn't playing the tuba wrestled in the light-heavyweight division, plucked Robert out of his awkward position and set him on his feet. He brushed imaginary lint off Robert's green school blazer.
"Smart decision, Mr. Spock."
"Under the circumstances, it was the logical decision to make. However, I suggest that as at the moment the Love Shack is available, you and Denise should repair to it. Certain olfactory indicators are utterly reliable in the human female. Right now she really
is
horny. Now, if you will excuse me?" Seeing Mark's jaw drop and Double D's eyes widen with surprise, Robert stepped into the rest room. Mark shook his head and grabbed the door handle, holding it shut.
"How long will you need?" he whispered to Neil Taylor.
Neil held up a thumb drive. "A couple of minutes ought to do it, provided he didn't lock the keyboard." He walked forward to Robert's seat and sat down. Plugging the thumb drive into the laptop, he got onto the desktop and set to work uploading its contents and typing in a change to the startup procedure.
Inside the rest room, Robert washed his hands and looked at himself in the mirror. He was pleased to see his face was its usual color, even after a setup plainly meant to embarrass him. He combed his hair to conceal his pointed ears, visible legacy of a childhood accident, and spent two minutes performing a yoga breathing exercise to insure his blood pressure and emotions remained low. Then he tried to open the door. Nothing happened. He pushed against it and felt the resistance he knew from past experience meant someone was leaning on it. Pressing against the opaque tinted window, he brought up a leg and tried to snap-kick it open. It popped for a second, showing a sliver of daylight, and slammed shut again.
"Very funny, assholes," he thought. He repeated the kick for the same results. Outside, Neil was sliding back into his seat, smiling in anticipation. Mark stepped away from the door. The third kick slammed it open, bouncing it off the wall, just missing Mark.
"Lock stick again?" he asked in mock sympathy. Butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth.
"No, just excessive resistance from the door closer," Robert shot back. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting." He eased past the wrestler and walked forward, not looking either at Double-D or the Love Shack. Sitting down again, he picked up his laptop, intending to continue working on the paper that was due two days after the Buckthorn High School Symphonic Wind Ensemble was scheduled to return from their Canadian trip. He tapped the spacebar to reactivate the machine, which was set to fade to black after 2 minutes of no input. Instead of the document he expected, a movie materialized on the screen and sound came from the speakers.
A well-built, big-titted starlet with bleached blonde hair knelt on hands and knees while a muscular stud fucked her from behind. She moaned deep in her throat as he held her by the hips, ramming his huge cock into her hard enough to make her boobs sway.
"Oh, you're so bad!" she panted as she thrust back against him. "So bad... so baad... so baaaad... so baaaa.... baaaa... baaaa... baaaa... baaaa..."
As her speech changed, so did her appearance. Her face and body morphed. Her face lengthened, her hair shortened and curled, and her body shifted until the starlet was transformed into a ewe. The camera panned and zoomed in on the stud's face, which also began to morph. His mustache disappeared and the eyebrows and ears took on a decidedly satanic slant as the actor's face changed to his. The camera pulled out and showed 'him' eagerly fucking a bleating sheep before the screen froze in mid-thrust.
Laughter burst around him and he looked up to see the Godfather, Mrs. Dunnigan and about six of his fellow students crowded in behind his seat looking at the screen. Robert stood up and pushed his way through them, heading unerringly toward Neil Taylor.
Neil saw him coming and raised his hands, but before he could say anything Robert hauled him out of his seat with one hand, spun him around and frog-marched him to the rear bench seat behind the rest room, heaving him into the corner. Neil squirmed around and looked up at Robert, his face red with rage, a network of normally invisible scars standing out in sharp relief.
"I suppose this is your idea of humor. You're the only person on this bus who is skilled enough with CGI software to have created that little scene. While I admire your talent, I'm not amused.
"I want to make one thing crystal clear to you. If that footage escapes onto the Internet, I will not file a complaint with the principal. I will not sue you for defamation of character. I will not beat you to a pulp. But I will destroy you.
"You had better make sure that movie and all your working files are wiped and deleted ASAP. Do we have a meeting of minds here?" Ice cold blue eyes locked onto brown eyes filled with terror. Neil fumbled in his pants pocket and held up a thumb drive, which Robert took. Opening a box marked "Percussion BHS," he lifted out a wooden mallet normally used with the chimes and put the drive on the floor before smashing it into shards of metal and plastic with the hammer. Tossing the mallet into Neil's lap, he swept the bits into his hand, yanked open the rest room door, and tossed them down the toilet before stalking back to his seat, his fellow teenagers shrinking aside from his horrible visage. He took his seat and set to work deleting the file and searching out the instruction that had activated it. When he was done, he looked up to see the Godfather watching him.
"Do we have a problem here, Spock?"
"Not any more, sir. The situation has been - dealt with." Dr. Sella studied his xylophonist/keyboard player, noting that although the facial scars were mostly invisible now, the ones above the eyes could still be seen.
"I'd be very unhappy if something were to happen to Neil Taylor, Robert."
"I'm sure you would be, Godfather." Robert's expression did not change as he delivered his reply with no more emotion than he'd have shown ordering in a restaurant.
"I'll have a word with Neil. He owes you an apology. Some practical jokes just aren't funny."
"Don't bother, Dr. S. As I said, the situation has been dealt with." Robert looked back down at the screen and resumed writing his paper, closing up and closing out the outside world where he fit in so poorly.
The two buses stopped at Niagara Falls so the Buckthorn students could see that natural wonder. Some of the kids chose to take a Maid of the Mists cruise to view the Falls close up. The rest preferred the walk through the Cave of the Winds. Robert chose to visit the museum where the feats of the daredevils who had challenged Niagara Falls were chronicled and preserved, alone.
A safety protocol set in place by the Godfather long before was that students went out in groups when they were on the road. It was the only rule governing the behavior expected of Buckthorn musicians that Robert routinely ignored. He was well aware that while he was with the group he didn't truly belong, even though he was one of just three students in his class who had made the by-audition-only Wind Ensemble all four years in high school, a remarkable achievement. The sole teen in the ensemble without a boyfriend or a girlfriend, group social activities served only to rub his nose in his apartness when all the others were paired up. The Godfather could see his position, but knowing of no solution didn't make a point of his solo adventures.
After lunch and clearing customs, the small convoy continued to its destination, the Kensington Secondary School. As they neared the town, a bedroom suburb of Toronto, a buzz of speculation about what they'd find, if so-and-so would remember such-and-such from the two week long exchange tour the Canadians had made to Buckthorn in October and November and similar burning questions arose. They pulled up in front of the school, a 1980s-Modern brick complex that could as easily have been a factory, a research facility or an office block, and were directed to the auditorium.
Dr. Wycombe, the Godfather's opposite number, met him on the front steps. They shook hands, exchanged pleasantries and trailed the horde of students looking for seats on the left side of the auditorium, pointed that way by Kensington seniors acting as guides and traffic cops. Other Kensington students under the direction of the Buckthorn chaperones were unpacking the cargo bays of the tour buses and the inside instrument storage areas, ferrying the contents to the stage.
"Did you solve the dilemma of what to do with my problem child?" asked Sella.
"He turned out not to be a problem after all. I had a request for him, actually."
