Part Twenty: Indoor Recess
The first thing I did that rainy Sunday morning was to head out to the strip mall and buy myself another new phone. In hindsight, I could have simply asked Megan to use the burner phone she'd used to blackmail me, but in the meantime the folks at Sprint got to fleece me all over again. It was ironic, in a way. I mostly used my phone for social media and email, but this whole past week, I had been totally unplugged. No news from the outside world, no updates on middle school acquaintances' babies or memes about political grievances had penetrated my bubble. Evidently when one is busy maintaining a stable of seven, there simply wasn't time to squander updating my status. (Seven, I insisted to myself. The eighth didn't count.)
The saleswoman recognized me, to my surprise. It had only been two weeks since replacing my last phone, the one whose screen had shattered when Megan's all-caps threats caused me to drop it. This new one was prompted by a text from Tabitha that was waiting for me when I dragged my rather sore butt out of bed.
Do you like it when girls send you nudes?
I left her on read - but only long enough to get the second phone and conduct a little belated clean-up. Something about the too-casual offer of career-ending generosity had finally jarred something loose. All this time I'd been corresponding with my women using my own phone. Taylor's fake confession, taped in the school bathroom. The video of Candy playing with herself in the shower. Myriad nude and semi-nude selfies from the lot of them. My phone was a cornucopia of evidence against me should it ever fall into the wrong hands. I certainly hoped it would never come to that, but I didn't even have my Serenex on hand to deal with any problems that might arise. I had to be more careful, if only for another two weeks. Then my girls would graduate, and anything we did would be merely scandalous, but not a violation of my contract. Or state law, which Isa had reminded me was also the case.
I spent some time purging every bit of incriminating data and each illicit conversation from my regular phone, then updated Tabitha on the new number. Finally, I responded to Tabitha's question.
Depends on the girl. Depends on the nude. Whatcha got for me?
Alerted by the message explaining my new number, she was already on hand, the pic ready. It arrived only a few seconds later. The shot was set in what had to be her bedroom, an austere, off-white place full of bookshelves, with one such shelf set aside for a slew of ribbons and trophies that were too well-centered to be coincidentally in the shot. As to the centerpiece, it was surprisingly elegant, her body captured in a sunbeam from an open window - one which I could only hope didn't have neighbors with a good line of sight through it.
Tabitha rested on her hip, torso upright and twisted to face the camera. Her nipples jutted out pebble hard, though otherwise the only "indecent" part of her showing was the suggestion of buttocks partially visible behind her feet tucked up beneath her. One hand teased down her lower lip, the other thrust into her hair, which I couldn't help but notice was more unkempt than usual. There was a wildness to it. She'd even gone with a black and white shot, though had filtered it so that the blue in her eyes shone like diamonds.
I approve of the girl. It's a little pretentious, the whole B&W thing, but then, pretentious suits you. Solid A.
The original's still on my laptop if you want the full color version. I thought it looked more interesting contrasting the eggshell walls, cream bedspread, the pearls.
I hadn't even noticed the pearls.
Shall I send them to your photography teacher? I bet Mrs. Tandberg would be impressed.
Did you know it's illegal to send someone else's nudes without their consent? In this state, anyway. Though if you went across state lines and sent them to her from there, it wouldn't be. (Though I think it would still suggest certain other crimes.)
I did know about the first part, but not the technicality. Thanks for the tip...?
Yeah, maybe don't joke about that and you won't get lectured, Mr. C. She attached a bitmoji of her holding out a trophy that read "You're The Worst."
Maybe don't distract me from my planning so we have fresh material for tomorrow.
Tomorrow? When/where? Gotta add it to my calendar.
After school. My room. I pictured the look on Taylor's face when I kicked her out so Tabitha and I could get to work. Served her right.
Do I need to bring anything?
I considered. Was there? She had her body, and that was really all she needed, but...
Wear a thong. And no bra.
No bra all day...??? Or just take it off after seventh period?
I left her on read once again. Truthfully, I didn't care, but she had to learn to interpret my preferences for herself. With that, I passed on the new number to Candy and Isa, the latter of whom replied to compliment me on taking some added precautions for once. Then, after a brief consideration, I sent it to Megan and Cassie in the same text. That was it, though. The Sterns could find out my new number when and if I deemed they needed it.
Megan's response was a simple thumb's up. Cassie replied separately.
are you still mad at me??????
I sighed. I'd seen it coming, but still, the girl had a pitiable way about her. Even so, consoling someone for being party to that obscenity was not in me yet.
A little, yes. We'll talk about it later.
She responded in a flurry of mini-texts, which in my book was a literal microaggression.
I told them not to!!
I said you'd be mad
but they didn't care
Abbie said you deserved it
and I guess she made me feel bad
which is so stupid because why would I
even though you made her have ff sex with couch salad
*coach
*Salata
sorry gotta proofread better
but I'm sorry!!
My new phone's vibrator didn't crap out on me through all of it, which was impressive.
I accept your apology. I need to get some work done, though.
There. That was as magnanimous as I could make myself be about it. She responded only to assure me she'd be happy to help with my work or offer a breather, but like Tabitha, I simply closed the window on it.
I'd not been lying, either. My workload was still copious. The journals from
Night
were still piled high. It was one of those labor of love gradings, where the rubric was pretty fuzzy and the grade was largely a completion score for making sincere effort. Still, breaking the book into five sections meant five journal entries, times one page each, times eighty-four students, which all told made for four hundred and twenty pages of handwritten text to skim and comment on. I tried to make sure each of them got at least a comment or two. It had been almost two weeks and I still had almost half to go. Today, I'd do my damnedest to finish them off. Then I could whip up a simple reading check quiz for the weekend's
Catcher
reading, review last year's vocab unit 34 tests to make sure they didn't need updating, respond to some parent emails, and hopefully be in bed by eleven. Another glamorous Sunday in the life of a-
"Heya, C-dawg."
I screamed, leaping out of my chair so fast I banged my knee on the underside. That'd be a hell of a bruise, for sure. "Damnit, Taylor! What the hell are you doing here? Wait, and how the hell did you get in? I don't leave my doors unlocked!" I did sometimes, actually, but I'd made it a point to lock up so I wouldn't risk Cassie sneaking over to distract me.
She shrugged. "I used a key."
"What key?"
"My key." She fished it out of her purse, jingled it for me.
