Chapter One
WILSON
It’s Thursday night, and even in a room full of people, it’s bitterly quiet.
In ten minutes, I can dismiss the students, if that’s what you can call them, go home and have a beer.
But, the last few minutes of every night shift are always the worst. They say you shouldn’t watch a pot boil…
Since when does that apply to the hands of a clock?
Worst of all, this alone time leaves me pondering the colossal fuckups that got me into this mess. A life well-lived turned into a shitshow.
Christ, I used to be a king. A god among men, and the very soil I walked upon was worshipped. I stood toe to toe with giants and watched them crumble on one bad word. I was the mean motherfucker the bad guys came to when they needed a problem solved.
And now?
My talents are wasted in the backwoods of Buttfuck, Alabama, helping snot-nose kids, who couldn’t get into a good college, and failed adults learn business administration. What the fuck do I know about business administration?
If there’s one piece of knowledge I could pass on to these troglodytes, it’s that in the real world there’s only one rule: kill or be killed.
Doesn’t matter if you’re running a company, or slinging drinks at your local bar.
If you let someone outshine you, well, they’re going to make it while you drift off into obscurity.
Coffee rings stain the old wooden desk in front of me.
The faint odor of cigarette smoke wafts in from an outside window, stinking up my classroom.
I’m struggling through a few reports, handed in by the students.
Generating an operations report for a small, locally-owned, family-run business should’ve been an easy task.
It’s a problem triggered by supply and demand.
This fictional old codger has limited stock.
He’s currently the only person supplying heating gas to a small town, in the middle of winter.
He’ll run out of stock within three days.
Should the owner, an old man with a gambling problem, take out a loan to increase stock?
Answers should include justifications for his actions.
A perplexing dilemma? No. It’s as simple as breathing. The old man holds a monopoly on heating gas and people will freeze without it. He can increase his rates and he’ll still make a killing while using the profits to bring in another shipment of gas.
That’s what I wanted to see. Lateral thinking and an understanding that we do what we must to survive.
Always be on the lookout for number one: yourself.
Instead, I was handed essays explaining the dangers of taking out a loan, since the old man’s a gambler.
Or how the old man can eat the interest because he’ll profit in the future.
What a travesty. The freezing cold won’t arrive for months yet, but maybe weak minds don’t need winter to crack. Their imaginations are weak. They’re barely thinking about what tomorrow will bring, let alone four months from now…
A sudden cough draws my attention away from the stack of papers in front of me. I’d accept any distraction, no matter how brief, just to get away from the incredible chore of explaining why these answers are wrong.
I’m met by the sight of a young woman, sitting in the front row.
Her name’s… Hope. Hope Ward. The only one of this lot I’ve seen with a valid excuse for being here.
In my introduction to teaching, I decided to get to know these rag-tag wasteful beings.
Most of them thought life would turn out differently, and now they’re stuck doing night classes to better themselves.
However, Hope Ward started working straight out of high school. She needed to make money to help her sick mother. An admirable trait for a beautiful young woman. She’s probably the only good thing about being in the boonies.
God knows there aren’t enough pretty women like her around.
She’s got a tight, firm body. Her full breasts strain against her tight, thin shirt.
Toned, slender legs extend out from the bottom of her short, black skirt.
Two twinkling, golden eyes peer at me from underneath a layer of expertly painted eyeshadow.
Her top teeth sink into her lower lip. Did she cough to catch my attention just to flirt with me? Interesting.
I’m probably looking too deeply into this. Any second now she’s going to say “Excuse me” and make some request for help based on whatever she’s doing. She doesn’t. She barely makes a sound, tilting her head downward, expecting my eyes to follow.
They do.
Beneath the table, Hope’s fingers dance across the skin of her smooth inner thigh. Her hand drifts higher before sinking back down, taunting and teasing me with every action.
The twelve others in the class keep their heads down, scribbling whatever nonsense on their sheets of yellow paper, unaware of what’s happening.
A show. For me?
Slowly, seductively, she shifts her left leg, and then her right, exposing lacey white panties. Her fingertips glide ever closer to the material. A sharp pulse of excitement shoots straight to my core. My cock hardens enough to tent my Tom Ford trousers, threatening the seams.
I lean back in my chair, jamming the end of my pen into my mouth to make it look as if I’m thinking. In a way, I am, but mostly about what’s hidden beneath the white lace.
As I said, any distraction to help pass the time. This isn’t the first time I’ve had indecent thoughts of her, and this spectacle is going to serve many more, I’m sure.
A smug, satisfied grin tugs at the corner of Hope’s mouth.
With a firm tug, she moves her panties aside, exposing her clean-shaven cunt.
She wiggles her hips as she sinks lower in her chair, giving me the best possible view.
Her fingers tease through her slick folds, and she bites her bottom lip, apparently to hold back her urge to moan.
Time’s running out for tonight’s class, and she’s not screwing around. From slow and sultry to fast and vigorous, her fingers circle her entrance before one finally takes the plunge. Her body writhes in sheer pleasure, and so does mine.
My arm reacts on its own, dropping beneath the table.
This is the closest thing I’ve had to a sexual experience since arriving in Decatur, Alabama, eight months ago, and I’m not about to waste it.
With Hope’s actions as my guide, I grip my shaft through my pants and slowly stroke myself.
Another one of those sexy grins spreads across Hope’s face.
She doesn’t have to see it to know what I’m doing.
She flings her head back, her black hair bouncing from side to side.
Her legs split further apart and one finger becomes two.
For the first time, since I started giving these classes, I don’t want the time to run out. I want to be locked here, watching Hope fight her urges to get noisy. That struggle is part of the fun. Hell, the whole scene is amplified by the deathly silence.
This has to be some kind of fever dream. Any second now I’m going to wake in a cold sweat beneath the noisy air conditioner of my pre-furnished rental apartment.
Or worse.
I don’t want to think about the worst option, not while I’m watching Hope get busy.
I want to stay lost in my hallucinations of her tight body and all the things it could be doing to me.
If only I didn’t have to keep my wrist under control.
Then again, I’d probably have finished by now and ruined the show with post-nut shame.
“Mister Delaney,” someone says from the back row, tearing my attention away from Hope. A once-promising football star, turned vacuum salesman, by the name of Dick Haverford.
The hand still gripping my erection darts upward, knocking into the desk, and I catch everyone else’s attention. Fright isn’t the right word, but I got so lost in Hope’s open display that the smallest break in focus was enough to startle me.
“What is it, Dick?” The words come out in a sneer. Of course, it’d be the door-to-door salesman who ruins my day. How just like them.
“It’s eight o’clock. Can we shove off?” he asks. He wipes the balding spot above his forehead with the back of his wrist.
Shove off? More like fuck off.
Dick’s interruption makes heads lift from their papers. Most of those cold, dead eyes take me in, eagerly awaiting my permission for them to leave. Many of them are my age; some are even older, so having them act like good little lapdogs, awaiting dismissal is deeply unsettling.
I check my watch. “Don’t have to ask me twice. Good job on the papers, everyone. Have a good night.”
My dismissal sends a tsunami of movement through the room. Chairs slide against the floor, and people rush to pack their things and leave.
“Hope, can you stay behind a moment? I’ve got something I’d like to discuss with you,” I say. No one pays any attention to my request as they shove off, as Dick so pathetically put it.
I suspect that even without asking her to stay, Hope planned on doing just that. While the rest of the class starts packing immediately, she keeps her tight ass firmly planted in her chair.
Good girl.