Session 1
It was a bright May morning in West London. Shifting beams of light shone through the leaves of the giant oak tree adjacent to the staff car park projecting a kaleidoscopic pattern onto the dash of Alex's car. He shifted into reverse and then backed into his usual space on autopilot, his mind was on other things. More than eight months had passed between his first day as a qualified teacher and today. Throughout the intervening period the unsettling prospect of this week's events had lingered in the background—a nagging source of anxiety.
As he walked towards the school entrance he remembered back to the lecture at college:
"Education board rules state that the youngest male and youngest female members of staff are contractually obligated to teach the P. S. E. course to all students who have reached 18 years of age, in their final year of school."
Arriving at the Maths department breakroom Alex was relieved to find it empty. He settled into his favourite armchair and reached into his bag to extract the P. S. E. guidelines booklet. Turning to page three he began to read through the course summary for the umpteenth time:
The Practical Sex Education course consists of five sessions:
Session 1 -- Sexual Anatomy (separate male and female student groups)
Session 2 -- Masturbation and Orgasm (separate male and female student groups)
Session 3 -- Foreplay and Oral Sex (all students)
Session 4 -- Sexual Intercourse (all students)
Session 5 -- Q&As (all stu...
"Hey Alex," he looked up to see Phil standing in the doorway. Phil was Head of the Maths department, he was mentoring Alex though his first year teaching and the pair had become good friends.
"Hey," replied Alex, forcing a half-hearted smile.
"Cheer up!" said Phil, "I know that you've not been looking forward to this week but at least your partner is Sarah, I wasn't nearly that lucky."
It had taken Alex several weeks after starting at the school to find out who the youngest female member of staff was. Eventually Phil had provided the answer—Sarah Reilly.
Nine months later Alex's knowledge of Sarah was still pretty limited. Her Art department was at the opposite end of the sprawling school campus to his Maths department, as a result their only significant contact came at the weekly general staff meeting. However, he had discovered two pieces of information—she was twenty-four years old and in her second year of teaching. Occasionally on his journey into school he'd seen her jogging to work and couldn't help but admire her figure as he drove past. She stood a head shorter than Alex and usually gathered her shoulder-length auburn hair into a youthful ponytail. Her physique, well-toned by regular exercise, was further enhanced by a generous chest, feminine hips and an undeniably cute butt.
Perhaps Alex wouldn't be so stressed if he'd had the courage to actually talk about P. S. E. with Sarah. Instead, he'd resorted to the far less productive coping method called denial—pushing the whole subject to the back of his mind in a futile attempt to pretend it didn't exist... now it was too late.
At least he wouldn't have to teach any of his regular classes this week.
"Don't forget to leave your lesson plans out for Lisa," said Phil disappearing back around the corner.
Glancing at his watch Alex could see that he had just under an hour before the start of the first session, he felt the knot in his stomach tighten. At least he didn't have to go first—Session 1 was split into two parts, his job in the first part was to be the presenter while Sarah was the model, then after a short break their roles would be reversed.
Alex couldn't imagine how Sarah must feel about all of this. In their few brief encounters she'd come across as a quiet and reserved girl and he found it hard to believe that she'd be particularly thrilled at the prospect of intimately exposing herself to hundreds of teenagers.
Ten minutes later, Alex arrived at the entrance to the main school theatre. Peering through the doorway he could see that all of the window shades had been pulled down. He also saw roughly one hundred seats set up facing the stage (a platform elevated three feet off the ground with an inch-thick rubber foam mat covering its surface). Also on the stage there stood a video camera on a tripod, the camera was connected to a projector which cast a live image of the platform onto the twelve-foot screen hanging above.
Situated directly across the hallway from the theatre entrance was the door to the men's locker room. There was a notice attached:
8:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. No entrance allowed except by P. S. E. members of staff.
Alex opened the door and turned towards his usual locker.
He was just beginning to undress when he heard a noise coming from the shower room. Moving towards the noise Alex noticed a towel hanging over the door of the first shower stall, the sound of splashing water confirmed a presence inside.