Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Liaden
F or the love of Margaret Atwood, this itches.
I’m at the stage where I need to moisturise the tattoo regularly.
Unfortunately, it’s not in an easy place for me to reach, so, as I’m currently single and also not a contortionist, I’ve been going to my next door neighbour so she can do it for me.
Mrs Stylianou clucks over it like a mother hen, telling me off for getting it done, but I’m not fooled.
She’s an empty nester whose children live clear the other side of the country, and she’s dying for someone to fuss over.
I could cover myself head to toe in tattoos and she’d be all too happy to rub Bepanthen cream into each and every one.
And she also insists on feeding me a full roast dinner with the leftovers of their Sunday lunch before I go as well.
And now I’m sat at my desk in my bedroom, digesting the most delicious lamb with garlic and rosemary, and marking the last few essays in my latest marking pile.
And thinking about how toe curling it would feel to have Dean massaging lotion into my skin .
He hasn’t texted me again. I normally don’t bother with subtleties and games, because they’re a convoluted waste of time that get in the way of getting my needs satisfied.
But even I can tell that texting Dean, ‘hello, would you like to fornicate with me until we’re both seeing stars’, isn’t going to land well.
I close the coursework I’m marking and sigh.
I give in. I’m too preoccupied by sexy daydreams about my tattoo guy to give this the undivided attention it deserves.
I thought Jon Bon Jovi had the best arse in history; I was wrong.
Dean’s is picture perfect in his rumpled old jeans.
And that mop of coppery brown hair would be perfect for clutching and tugging while in the throes of ecstasy.
And his smile … And those mesmerizingly expressive and warm eyes…
I wonder how he’d seduce me if he chose to. Slowly, undressing me inch by inch until I’d want to scream for his hands on my naked body? Or fast and furious, his mouth welded to mine as he ripped my underwear in his hurry to get to my wet pink fairy dell…
And there’s something more. Some quality he has, some secret behind his eyes that I desperately want to get to. It’s an unfamiliar feeling. I’m not normally so distracted by people I’m attracted to. But I’m leaning into it, because it’s highly enjoyable.
Most of my students would say that step one in trying to gain information is: “Google it”.
I did my homework before booking an appointment at Wishbone, so I’ve seen their Instagram displaying their work, and their impressive 4.
9 Trustpilot reviews, but I didn’t actually research Dean the man .
I may not get a huge amount of detail from Dr Google, but if I check it out before I start thinking about doing some more of my online ASL course this evening, I’ll possibly uncover some small tidbits about him.
Or maybe a nice photo for me to… ponder over this evening when I’m in bed and settling down for the night.
Facebook seems like a good place to start.
There’s only one Dean Gastright, but there’s no profile pic, just a greyed out silhouette.
The rest of it is locked down so tight that I can’t confirm it’s the same man, but his name isn’t terribly common.
I may friend request him in a bit so I can make sure that it’s definitely him .
He has an Instagram page, but I already knew that, and there are only photos of his work.
None of him. Not even a hand in shot. Once again, I’m amazed at the precision and exquisite detail on them all.
None of his letters are so much as a hair out of alignment.
Here is a man who takes pride in his work.
Otherwise, there’s not much else to find out about him from here.
I type Dean Gastright into Google.
I get a few hits, and it’s easy to see they’re all my Dean on the first page. Wait. The Dean. He’s not mine. People aren’t possessions, that’s absurd.
About halfway down, after the Wishbone website and their social media pages, the sites concerning the Nolan High School shooting from approximately fifteen years ago start cropping up.
I check the date of the incident, and indeed, the fifteenth anniversary is mere weeks away.
I wonder how much the anniversaries affect him, or if they do.
I imagine they would. If the scar tissue on his throat and his muteness is any indication, that tragedy was a significant part of Dean’s past. I’ve yet to look into the finer details of what happened, but it seems prudent to do so now.
If I’m going to get naked with him, I need to know what his triggers are so I don’t accidentally set one off in the middle of fun time.
I click on the Wikipedia page for an overview.
As a Professor, I loathe Wikipedia normally; too many Bachelor’s students, and even some doing their Master’s, seem to think their lecturers are too stupid or ill-informed to recognise an essay that’s been copied and pasted from the Wiki entry.
But for something like this, it’s an ideal place to start.
…The perpetrator was William Howard Whitmire, a disgruntled former teacher at Nolan High who had been fired for physically attacking the Headteacher two days prior.
After detonating homemade bombs at every exit, Whitmire, armed with ammunition and weaponry stolen from the collection of his Vietnam veteran father, opened fire on the Senior Prom in the gymnasium where the Prom was being held.
Of the 215 students, teachers, and volunteer chaperones present, only 8 survived …
I shiver, feeling cold as I read more of the article. My brain reflexively works out the percentage of survivors.
Eight out of two hundred and fifteen equals a survival rate of three point seven two percent. Attendees at the Nolan High Prom had a just under four percent chance of making it out alive.
Ninety six point two eight percent of them died.
That’s a chilling figure.
I almost don’t want to read on, but I know in my gut it’s important that I do.
…considered one of the worst mass shootings in American history…
Whitmire’s elderly parents were found shot dead in their homes by investigators after the shooting…
Armed with a variety of guns, including an antique fletcher gun, an M-16, a Remington 7600, and submachine guns and assault rifles apparently brought into the school in several large canvas bags and concealed in different places inside the building immediately prior to the attack…
Whitmire used hollow pointed bullets and flechette rounds.
His manifesto stated that he wanted to “ensure maximum carnage” and “rip up those snot nosed little sons of bitches as much as I can before the end…so that they suffer the way they all deserve to”.
.. He reverted to standard ammunition when he ran out of HPBs…
After using his tenth and last Molotov cocktail, Whitmire committed suicide by firearm at the scene moments before SWAT teams were able to enter the school building…
Three of the eight survivors died by suicide within two years of the tragedy…
Unlike other school shootings, in which survivors have cooperated with documentaries on the subject, none of the remaining Nolan High Prom attendees have ever been willing to talk about what happened that night, and have repeatedly declined or refused to be interviewed, or to contribute to any articles on the incident…
The President’s comments in a speech to the nation expressed sorrow and -
I don’t give a rat’s arse what the President at the time thought or said.
My stomach tightens unpleasantly. I normally have a high tolerance for graphic descriptions of violence, but it’s very different when you know one of the people directly involved.
Mental images of Dean lying in a pool of blood, fighting to stay alive and trying to breathe through a torn throat until help arrives, flash through my mind unbidden.
No wonder he refuses to discuss it. He can’t want to be thought of in that way, or to be reminded of such a horrifying event.
I flick through some other sites. I remember some of the photos from the time - I was newly teenaged myself when it happened, and it made international news just like Columbine did - but they’re hitting harder now.
The fires in the doorways, preventing anyone from leaving, are straight from a hellscape.
And the iconic award winning Nolan High photo of the school hallway, after the bodies were removed, with blood spatters up the wall and over the student lockers and trophy display cases… Is any of that blood Dean’s?
I gulp hard. I don’t want to see any more photos. I know there are shots of other school shooters’ dead bodies from a different, equally high profile shooting readily available for consumption on the net. I wouldn’t want to see anything similar for this.
Back on the Wikipedia page, on the list of the eight survivors, Dean is the last one.
Dean Gastright, 18, senior student. Shots sustained to neck and upper back from an M-16.
He shot him in the back.
I’m a linguist, and I am unable to think of any adequate words in any language to describe how horrifying that is. That bastard . What kind of cowardly monster shoots a fleeing teenage boy in the back ? Murders over two hundred people because he was annoyed ?
I don’t remember the last time I was this angry, or this nauseated.
I’m not a huge fan of brandy, but my father gave me some for Christmas a couple of years ago, and I need that soothing warmth right now, so I pour myself a tumbler and sip it slowly.
I knew, of course I knew, that being involved in any school shooting would have been traumatising.
But I had no idea just how bad it could get.
Hollow pointed bullets .