I reevaluated the story during this time off and I think I'm going to spice it up a bit cause it is a bit dragging.
So bear with me as some changes are being made and the consistency isn't there, but I assure you in the end, you'll be saying, that was pretty good Sylvia.
Enjoy...
***********
When Rachel entered the office that morning, Laura was there looking cheerful and refreshed.
“Good morning,” she said with a bright smile to Rachel.
Rachel said something, but she wasn’t sure what came out of her lips. She had been in Children’s Hospital with the twins up until six that morning before she could take them home and get ready for work. Robert was up when she walked in the door and looked pissed.
“Why the fuck didn’t you leave a note telling me where the hell you were?!” he yelled as soon as she walked in the door with the sleepy twins still in her arms. He made no effort to assist her in getting them over to the crib.
Keeping her calm, Rachel said, “He had a high fever and I didn’t have time to leave a note, Robert.”
He snatched the keys out her hands and started for the door to leave.
“I’ve got to go to work!” she exclaimed in frustration.
Robert turned to her and took out two dollars. “Catch the bus. I got business.”
She had felt like breaking down and crying, but she didn’t. When Mrs. White came for the children, Rachel had a cab waiting for her and used a secret stash of saved up money to get to work on time.
Trudging to her classroom, she hoped the day would go by quickly. Keeping a cheerful manner would be very difficult today, but she would do her best.
Derrick was the same as always with his friends and acting like a teenager. It was as if he was a different person around them and not the same mature young man she met last night.
She didn’t let this bother her and she didn’t address it at all. Rachel was his teacher and the thoughts she had last night about Derrick James she would keep to herself. Her ethics and morals would never get in the way. She would maintain the strict code of conduct of a teacher because she loved her job so much.
On her last hour, Dwayne Davish entered her room just as all the children were filing out. He was carrying the folder for Derrick James and he placed it on her desk.
“I’ve already graded the paper and I expect you to mark his grade in your books,” he said.
She opened the folder to see that most of the grades given on the assignments were C’s or D’s. Frowning, looking up at him, she said obviously, “But those grades are not worthy of those assignments, Mr. Davish.”
“Are you saying I don’t know how to do my job, Mrs. Herlong?” he challenged.
“I’m saying that I’m his teacher and given the assignments and my grading, those grades are wrong. The student’s know I don’t’ grade on a curve. All my assignments are based on percentages. Percentages that clearly go by what is on the syllabus and any student following the syllabus correctly will receive the grade befitting the assignment.” She took out the research paper. “Mr. James followed the directions and included all the requirements into his page. He went above and beyond the page count and he even exasperated with interest about his subject’s work. I was entertained and informed. That grade of C does not even come close to what he should get.”
“But that’s the grade he will receive, Mrs. Herlong.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or did you forget the March teacher evaluations coming up? You are still on probation.”
Flinching in disgust at his deceit, she put the research paper neatly back in the folder and placed the folder in her drawer. ‘I didn’t forget, Mr. Davish.”
“Good, I’ll be checking your books before you submit them for report cards. You won’t disappointment me will you, Mrs. Herlong?”
She didn’t answer, but he took her quietness as her acquiesce. Mr. Davish walked to the door triumphant. “Dwayne, how’s that wife of yours doing?” she asked casually.
Looking over his shoulder at her this time it was his turn to flinch. “I wouldn’t know, Mrs. Herlong. Maybe she’s out with your husband who never comes home,” he responded coldly.
That was a low blow and she didn’t get into a verbal tear down match with him.
Mr. Davish walked out and she was glad when he was gone. Putting the file for Derrick James in her drawer, Rachel pondered what to do in order to prevent his grades from dropping. The contact at the school board was expecting to receive the grades for Derrick soon and if they were what she had touted them to be, Derrick wouldn’t get the opportunity to get to take the GED like she had planned to arrange for him.
* * *
Derrick moved away from the doorway and looked down at the corridor in the direction of Davish’s office pissed as hell. Tightening up his fist, he bit his lip trying to control what little restraint he had. Taking the steps two at a time, he made it around the large school to the photography lab where Arwin was at.
Tonya was with him working on a project and she followed them into the dark room.
“What’s it going to take to get something on Davish?” Derrick asked.
“What do you mean?” Arwin asked confused.
“I mean something incriminating tha could get rid of his ass,” Derrick said barely containing his anger.
“How good would it have to be?”
“Godd enough to have him gone by the end of the school year.”
Tonya said, “I think we can get something for you, Derrick.”
“Like what?”
She smiled wickedly and looked at Arwin who still looked confused. “Trust me, Arwin and I can have something really good.”
* * *
On Derrick’s way up to Rachel’s classroom after practice the next day, Laura who was blocking his path suddenly stopped him.
“Hello Derrick,” Laura said pressing her body close to his.
He moved away in disgust. “Doesn’t your day end at three-fifteen?” he asked.
“Yes, but sometimes Dwayne has me to stay to help him out. I don’t mind. It’s all a learning
experience.” She moved in close to him again. “You thought about my offer, Derrick?”
“No. There’s nothing to think about,” he said. “I don’t want you like that Laura.” Although he was no stranger to women throwing themselves at him since he was ten years old, he didn’t want to get involved with Laura, but this bitch had been dogging him since he had stepped foot in the main office the first day.
His refusal didn’t phase her one bit. “But it doesn’t matter what you want.” Lustfully, she grabbed his crotch and her eyes twinkled in delight at what she felt. “You’re a big boy, Derrick.
You can see life has dealt you a fucked up hand. Let me make it all better for you. Let me take away the monkey on your back.”
Derrick forced her hand away. “And you can do that?”
“Yes!” Laura relished greedily. “By helping you get that GED early? By making sure the right things get down to the board that will approve you instead of what Davish wants to be sent. You know he’s out to make sure you get back in the juvie home as quick as possible?”
He roughly grabbed the back of her head. “And you’ll help me out if I fuck you?”
She gasped, but she was clearly aroused at the forcible treatment and the wild angry look in his eyes. Gritting her teeth in carnal passion and licking her lips, she whispered desperately, “Yes!
Yes!” Laura’s manicured nails clawed at his shirt as she desperately gyrated her hips against his groin.
Teasing her, Derrick allowed himself to be affected by her wantonness. He leaned his face close to hers, seeing her lips pout filling with arousal, wanting to mesh with his. No matter how he tried to imagine, he couldn’t’ get Rachel out of his thoughts.
Releasing Laura abruptly in disappointment, Derrick stepped away. There were footsteps coming down the steps from the third floor.
Gathering himself, so his emotions wouldn’t show, he said, “I’ll think about it, Laura.”
She was still breathless from the turmoil of arousal he had brought her to with just “Don’t take to long, Derrick,” she said before walking away.
Continuing on to Rachel’s room, he paused before entering. She looked deeply stressed about something and he saw she was looking down at his file again. Should he help her with her stress?
Or should he allow Davish to send him back where Montgomery wanted him?
Coming into the room, she was so deep into the file, she didn’t hear him enter. He was able to make it to the desk and look over her shoulder at what she was exactly so involved into looking at.
Finally hearing him, she jumped a little. “I-I didn’t know you’d come,” Rachel said flustered trying to close the folder.
“If you wanted to know about me, why didn’t you just ask?” he questioned.
Rachel was honest in her words to him. “I didn’t think you would tell me the truth.”
“Why do you want to know about me and what I did in the juvenile center?”
“Because I want to know why is everyone so scared of you? I want to know why on paper you’re a different boy than what I have in my class everyday, but when you’re not around your peers you’re a different person?”
“That last one should be easy to answer, Mrs. Herlong. I have an image to keep up.”
“You want people to believe you should be feared?”
Putting his bag on the desk and sitting next to her, he said, “It keeps the wrong people away and it gives me some peace from the people I don’t’ want to be bothered with. What am I going to say to them? The truth? That I’m some guy that wants to get back the attention his father isn’t giving him so I offered to take a large shipment somewhere? I didn’t do it for the money. And I sure as hell didn’t’ do it because I was pressured. I did it for the attention, but I didn’t think the judge would give me so much time. Bottom line, Mrs. Herlong, I know I didn’t think.”
“So you know it was all wrong to do what you did, but you did it anyways without any regards of what it might do to your relationship with your father.”
“There was no relationship with him until I did this, Mrs. Herlong.”
She got his point and then asked, “So what happened in the center? Why were you in the infirmary for three months? Why are the records missing?”
He stiffened. The incident hadn’t been though of in so long. Derrick had told himself to never think about it. He had convinced himself that it really hadn’t happened. Not to him. He was supposed to be a healthy young boy. No one had picked up on the fact that the records were missing for the three months of his life at the infirmary – not even the judge or the probation board. No one except her!
Had he wanted her to know? Derrick felt compelled to tell her, but he knew he couldn’t. Not when it had been so much work to make sure no one knew the truth.
“They must have gotten lost,” he said unyielding. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen my own records and I certainly couldn’t have gotten to them in the center.”
She must have realized this flaw in her accusations and apologized. “I didn’t mean to imply-“
Derrick cut her off because he wanted to stand firm for her not to treat him like a child. “I was struck on the back of the head. It was a revenge thing with some Arian punk and I wasn’t having that. I tried to break off the motherfucker’s dick when he tried to make me his bitch. They jumped me in the shower and tried to shank me in the groin. I went down with a fight taking five of them with me to the infirmary, but I needed a lot of medical attention. I almost bled to death.”
“That must have been hard at thirteen,” she surmised with pity. “It must have been painful.”
He wanted to really drop the whole subject. Speaking about his experience in prison brought a lot of cold feelings over him. “Let’s get to work, Mrs. Herlong.” Derrick opened her laptop and turned it on.
“You are presumptuous, Derrick.” She typed in her password an he secretly watched her long fingers wondering about the feel of them against his bare skin.
“I just want to finish and hurry this up,” he lied.
They proceeded to get to work and he found her creativeness honorable. She had done her homework and could match wits with him toe for toe. He was impressed and an adult had not impressed him in a long time.
When she was able to print out their completed project and he read it over one more time, she sipped on a juice while he waited. Derrick really wasn’t reading it. This just gave him a change to study her out of his peripheral vision.
She happened to catch him staring and just assumed he was finished. “How is it?” she asked. “Do you think they’ll like it?”
“The students or the school?” he questioned.
“Both.”
“Yes,” he assured her, handing the pages back to her. Their hour was almost up, but Derrick didn’t want their time to be up.
Rachel checked her watch. “We finished thirty minutes and two days earlier than I thought, Derrick.”
“Can I ask a favor, Mrs. Herlong?” he said going over to the window to check the teacher’s parking lot. Only Rachel’s car was left in there along with the maintenance staff.
“It depends, Derrick. I’m not changing my mind about that A minus I gave you on the test today.”
Derrick looked back at her and smiled remembering their earlier debate over something he had just barely paid scant attention to – yet it was just another opportunity to engage in conversation with her. His thoughts had been elsewhere while he took the test and as he usually did, he didn’t go back and check his work. “No, it’s not that. It’s about your birthday. Could you come with me?” Holding out his hand, his heart raced to hear her acquiesce.
Warily, she came to him. “What do you have in mind, Derrick?”
“Trust me?”
Without hesitation, Rachel took his hand and allowed him to lead her out the classroom down the hall to a double door. There was a chain on it, but the lock wasn’t closed. Every moral fiber screamed for her to not go with him, but curiosity was killing her. His hand felt so strong and powerful and she could almost see the electrical currents as their palms rubbed together.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked suspiciously.
He only grasped her hand a little tighter as he opened the door and led her through a darkened passage way.
Teach Me To Love - Chapter 5 Part 1 (c) 2005 Sylvia Hubbard
No comments:
Post a Comment