31. Georgia
THIRTY-ONE
Georgia
“No, Max, that nose is not a slingshot—give it to me immediately… Do not make me revoke Rudolph privileges, so help me, Goddess?—”
“I don’t want to be Rudolph, I want to be Santa ?—”
“I’ll be Rudolph,” Kyrie pipes up.
“You can’t be Rudolph. You’re Dasher ?—”
It’s our last dress rehearsal before our holiday performance, and I’m about ready to rip my hair out and throw myself from the rafters of our auditorium.
We tried to make it easy on ourselves this year, the other third grade teachers and I. Instead of an elaborate interpretation of the Nutcracker, each class would sing one holiday related singalong on stage. Three minutes each class, max.
Chaya and Emmanuel (well, just Emmanuel now, since Chaya had her baby a few days ago) are doing the Dreidel Song, each student wearing a dreidel made from cardboard boxes hot glued together. Their performance involves a lot of spinning in place.
Tamika’s class is doing Happy Kwanzaa, with the parents of a child in her class donating tons of traditional garb for the students to wear.
Mia is doing a general ‘winter’ theme, her class singing Frosty the Snowman, except she is calling her students ‘snow people’ and just having them wear all white with a button on their nose.
I decided to take on Christmas with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. But because I am me, I have arranged and choreograph an elaborate song-and-dance performance, with various character assignments, using costumes I’ve made or hoarded over the years. I lament this today, as I watch Prancer and Vixen shove each other on the stage, fighting over the order in which they are attached to Santa’s sleigh.
“YOU STAND NEXT TO EACH OTHER,” I scream. “DASHER AND DANCER ARE IN FRONT OF YOU, AND COMET AND CUPID ARE BEHIND!”
“Who knew she was such a dance mom?” I hear Emmanuel mutter to Tamika, as I orchestrate the movements of thirty students with the diligence of an army commander.
Oliver strides into my classroom after school that day. I lift my head from its former position, which was flat on my desk. I feel the skin of my cheek peel away from the wood composite of the cheap table. I glare at him through the lights of the tiny Christmas tree I have on my desk.
“Uh oh,” he says. “Bad day?” He gets tangled in a jumble of tinsel I haphazardly stapled to my bulletin boards.
“The fucking worst. Do you think it would look bad if I jumped on stage during our performance and strangled an eight-year-old Santa Claus?”
He sits far away, as far from my desk as possible, on the other side of the room. Unfortunately, Oliver is still my supervisor, and we still have to meet for our weekly coaching and feedback meetings. This is typically how we conduct them. Seated far, far away from each other, so that if anyone peeked into the room, they wouldn’t get any ideas. I’ve grown to enjoy looking at him this way, too, all serious and suited, gorgeous face and hair neat.
He hums. “Maybe don’t do that. Anyway, I have some good news about your data that may make you feel better,” he tells me casually, as if his dick wasn’t stuffed down my throat a mere nine hours ago. “I just looked at your screener scores, and almost 90% of your class is projected to demonstrate proficiency or higher on the state tests. Both in math and ELA.” He beams at me, golden eyes shining with pride.
It’s contagious. I can’t help but smile back. “Fuck, yeah,” I tell him. “I’m the fucking best. Are you impressed now by the wonder and magic and delight of my unorthodox teaching methods?”
“I’m proud of you, Georgia. And yes, extremely impressed.”
I melt.
“There’s more good news,” he says. He lowers his voice. “Superintendent Daniels stopped by. He still doesn’t know. He’s heard nothing from your classroom, from Max’s dad, Dorothy’s parents, not anyone.”
I grin despite the twinge of something in my chest. “We’re really doing it, then. It’s working. We’re… both going to keep our jobs.”
“We just need to keep doing this until the spring. That’s when he’ll take me on, and then we won’t work in the same building anymore, and we don’t have to do anymore of this bullshit, where I’m one hundred feet away from you at all times.” He is radiant.
I think I’m making a face, or at least he’s getting very good at reading me, because he frowns .
“What’s wrong?”
“It just seems like a lot more pressure on me than it is for you,” I tell him, point blank. “I’m over here with my letters and all you have hanging over your head is a promotion.”
“I know,” he says, taking me seriously. “But it’s just a few more months of this. I’m going to make sure nothing happens to you. Do you trust me?”
I nod, because I really do.
“We’re going to get through this,” he says quietly, and it’s the way he says “we” that really convinces me that we will. Because we’re a team, and he’s Dependable Label Maker Rule Follower, and he’s perfect.
“Okay,” I tell him.
He smiles. “Great. You’ll be receiving your reward later,” he winks, then walks out of my classroom. When he shuts the door, the lights I’ve strung across the doorframe collapse. I resume my previous position and mash my face against my desk.
Turns out that reward is dick. His thick one, in particular, and he pounds it into me from behind while I’m bent in half over his bed. “Take it Georgia; good girl; I’m so proud of you,” he mutters, slapping my ass for good measure.
I’m wailing, so close, but not getting quite what I need. “I need more, Oliver,” I groan.
He uses his hips to shove both of us further up the bed, so that he can reach his hand into his bedside table and take out the vibrator he bought for me to keep at his place. Now we’re both on our hands and knees, his huge body bracketing mine from above, and he’s grinding deep, looking for that spot with his dick and finding it almost immediately. He holds the vibrator over my clit, and that’s all she wrote .
I explode, stars behind my eyes, my spine bending in half, toes curling. He takes me by the neck and lifts me up, both of us on our knees and vertical now, as he grinds me through my orgasm with a hand collaring my throat.
“Fuck, baby, you feel amazing. I’m gonna come in this pussy,” he groans, and does so, almost immediately. He collapses on top of me, crushing me into the bed with the full weight of his body. We lay there trying to catch our breaths.
“Can’t. Breathe,” I manage, and he laughs and rolls us over and drapes me on top.
“That was a fantastic reward,” I tell him, as he peppers soft kisses down my neck.
“Only the best for my star teacher,” he says.
I smile, listening to our heartbeats slow.
“What are you doing on Christmas Eve, Georgia?” he asks suddenly.
I tense. “Why?”
“Well, Christmas Eve is kind of a big deal for us. We call it Noche Buena. Lots of good food and karaoke. We go over to my rich Tita’s place out on Long Island. My family is so big that we do a White Elephant game for gifts, so you only need to buy one.”
“Sounds nice,” I say.
“It is.” He repositions us so that he can look directly into my eyes. I hate when he does this, usually when he has a completely honest or serious point to get across. Something about it makes me feel… stripped bare. Vulnerable. “Do you want to come? My family would love to see you.”
Uncomfortable now, I try to move away, but he holds me in place.
“Talk to me, Georgia,” he commands, reading me.
“I…” My brain whirrs. “The holidays are tough for me. Especially… especially after my parents died. They used to make a big deal for Christmas. It used to be my favorite time of t he year.” He listens, patiently. “I like to spend Christmas at home alone, by myself. I don’t know if I’m ready for something like… like your family. So full of love and warmth and kindness. I feel like it could make me hyper aware of what I’m missing. I’m extremely overwhelmed just thinking about it.”
He kisses my hair. “Well, I’m extremely depressed at the thought of you spending Christmas alone, but I’m not going to force you. Think about it, at least, Georgia. We’d all love to have you.”
“What happened to ‘just one night’, Oliver?” I ask him, point blank.
He smiles, kissing me softly on the lips. “We tried, and we failed. Zero out of four on the rubric. Did not meet benchmarks.”
Warmth spreads through my entire body.
This seems big. This seems like the last piece, the last chip on the wall. If I go, if I agree, this will be me ripped open, stripped bare. All my cards out on the table. Completely vulnerable. Catering to Oliver’s every whim.
Or is it the opposite? If I think of myself as an incomplete puzzle, will this be the last piece? To make me whole again? Filling the last bit of the empty space in my soul with Oliver and the Flores family and Christmas and holiday cheer?
Either way, it might be worth it.
Either way, this is going to be a test. The most ultimate of tests. The final boss. I hope he passes.