With apologies to writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton, it was a dark and stormy night. The novelist may have written those words more than 150 years ago, but I have always wanted to begin a story that way.
Yet it was not a dark night a couple months back, the sun was setting but there was still enough light to see things as I gazed across at room 23 at the inexpensive Friendly Motel owned by my friend Jake's family.
Nor was it stormy, as in fact we were in the middle of a southern New Jersey drought. Normally this time of year the corn was six to eight feet high, the flowers blooming in wonderful colors and the watermelons humongous.
Still, I had always wanted to write that line, which somehow came to mind because I was so darn bored. I kicked myself for having to be at the seedy motel, known as a No Tell Motel by teenagers and others with a bent for discretion, but it was something I needed to do. See, I had lost $2,800 on a "sure bet" at the race track and I needed to pick up a few bucks in addition to my regular job as an accountant at a local insurance company.
I told Jake of my troubles, he asked me to fill in for a couple months, a day here and there, and both of our problems would be solved. I got the money I needed and he had someone reliable to relieve him until his wife got back from helping her mother in Pittsburgh. Simple and convenient, if not dark and stormy.
So why am I telling you all this? Simple, it was the person who left room 23 at 6:32 p.m. this Wednesday evening. I remember checking the guy in earlier in the afternoon, about 3, but didn't see his "company". But when "he and she" emerged that night from the room a whirlwind of memories wisked through my brain like a Midwest wind storm.
It was Mrs. Jennifer Sinkinson, my 12th grade homeroom teacher, leaving the motel room in early evening with a man I was betting was not her husband.
Oh, she was a bit chunkier, her hair was lighter and she seemed smaller than I remembered, but there was no way I could ever forget that face.
I hated the bitch.
Okay, okay, I know, 12 years was a long time to hold a grudge, but Mrs. Sinkinson caused me nothing but heartache my senior year. It wasn't enough that she was on my case about this or that for the entire school year, but with just a month to go before graduation she scored a triple play of trying to destroy my life.
Let me back up. I was never a great student, but I got Bs and Cs in all my classes. The one Mrs. Sinkinson taught, an elective course in the political election process, was an easy B for everyone in the class ---- except for me. I got off on the wrong side of the woman the first week of classes, and it got worse as the year went on. Nothing I could do would satisfy her, everything I did was wrong. I was barely holding on to a C through midterms and struggled over the second half of the year.
Still, things were going on well for me. I had plans to travel the west for the summer, I found an unbelievable girlfriend in Tiffany Dawson, and had already decided to spend the next year at a local campus of Penn State.
Tiffany was a heck of a find. I had been with two other girls before meeting Tiff, and she was a whole lot different. While I had gotten lucky with Barbara Ann Fahey and Connie Whelan, Tiffany didn't believe in sex before marriage. So why was that good? Tiffany was one hell of a cocksucker. Uh huh, while she wouldn't have sex with me she had no problem sucking me off nearly whenever I desired.
The girl was a natural born cocksucker, and I found that out on our third date when she gave me a fantastic blow job in the parking lot behind Lone Star. That was followed by an equally incredible head job the following Saturday, and soon, why, while I wasn't getting any pussy I was getting the mouth of a pro four times a week. This was a once in a lifetime babe, a girl who enjoyed pleasing a guy as long as that pleasure would in no way make her pregnant.
Which brings us to that fateful day in May. Mrs. Sinkinson had hated my essay on the Senatorial race, and the F she gave me brought my average down to near failing. What's worse, she came into home room when Jill Berger and I were in the midst of a word fight over some stupid thing or another. Jill was a know it all who was the teacher's pet, and when she told Mrs. Sinkinson I had smacked her (I hadn't) the teacher marched me down to Principal Sloan's office.
The ensuing circle jerk turned into a free for all where my mouth got the best of me, and I was sent packing on a three-day suspension. That caused me to miss a test, and Mrs. Sinkinson promptly gave me a zero only to be moved to a 60 when my parents complained. Still, one-two-three, that sunk my year. I was sentenced to six weeks of summer school, effectively killing my summer plans.
That was the least of my problems, as Mrs. Sinkinson told Tiffany that not only had I smacked Jill, but that I had also been caught in the act of fondling the girl. She said that Jill and I had been an item, sneaking around behind Tiffany's back.
Why, I will never know, but Tiffany believed the teacher and not me, and she sent me packing from her life, sans blow jobs and summer fun.
Just as I had begged Tiffany to reconsider dumping me, I pleaded with Mrs. Sinkinson to give me a passing grade and let me out of summer school hell, to no avail. Whatever it was the woman hated my guts. In one day I had essentially failed a course, got sent to summer school and lost my best of breed, cocksucking girlfriend for good.
I despised Mrs. Sinkinson.
Still, things worked out pretty good for me. I eventually got over all the senior crap, found other (but not as expert at beejays) women and breezed through college into a decent paying job and career.
So there I was that fateful evening spotting Mrs. Sinkinson slithering out of a No Tell Motel with a man who was not her beloved husband. How did I know? The two had been written up a couple months before in the local newspaper for their generous work with an area charity, he decked out in a tuxedo and she in an evening dress complete with a diamond pendant. At the time, I didn't think much about it, but when I saw her, and the man, emerging from the motel room I put two and two together and realized Mrs. Sinkinson was being a naughty girl.
People like her did not frequent my friend's motel to discuss lesson plans, unless those lessons were of the sensual kind and involved a rustling of the sheets.
As they drove away I wondered about the liaison, what was going on and how often. The teacher had always seemed so prim and proper, but on this day the now, well, 50-year-old was dressed like a girl half her age. She had on a low cut top, an above the knee skirt and the stockings she wore had a black seam up the back.
No, this wasn't her teaching attire. And yes, they had been up to something.
Over the next week I checked on the woman, found her still to be teaching at the school, married, and a pillar in the community.
Oh, and on the following Thursday I found out she had a regular rendezvous with the same guy as the week before. This time I remembered him from the preceding week, watched as he signed the register as John Smythe (how cute) and slip back into his late model dark blue car. I gave him the same room and watched as Mrs. Sinkinson glanced around before exiting the car and scurrying into number 23.
Waiting a few minutes to get them time to settle in, I imagined what might be going on in the room. Finally, my mind got the better of me, and I forwarded the phone to my cell, put out the "Be back in 10 minutes" sign, locked the office door and let myself in to room 22. Listening through the thin walls I heard their cries of passion as they rocked the bedsprings for more than an hour. I left, went back a while later, and they were at it again.
And I got an idea: revenge on teacher.
It wasn't easy, because when I confronted the woman at a charity outing she denied everything. She called me a few names, said she had never been to and such place, and said if I ever came near her again the police would be involved.
Obviously, without proof, I couldn't so a thing. The coupling twosome would never come to the motel again, obviously, and undoubtedly would cool their jets until the coast was clear. Damn. I guess I just wasn't cut out for a position as a blackmailer.
