Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Housekeeper - Chapter 1 (Part 2 of 2)



I have a minor little surgery that got rescheduled for tomorrow morning so I'm pushing this out now.  Hope you enjoy it... and have a great weekend.  - Karen
 

The Housekeeper
By Karen Singer

Chapter 1 (Part 2 of 2)

     He went into the classroom, back toward his desk, but when she got there, she stopped in the doorway.  She stood there, staring at him, but not doing anything else.  Finally she spoke.  “I’m waiting.”
     He still couldn’t believe it.  He still couldn’t believe what this sick girl was making him do.  But standing next to his desk, he quickly undid his belt, unfastened his pants and pulled them down to his knees.  She waited a few moments longer before she closed the door and walked back to him.  “Next time,” she said, “I’m gone for good… and you soon will be too!  Understand?”
      “Yeah,” he replied sullenly.
      “Not yeah…  it’s ‘yes Miss Carol’ from now on!  Say it!”
     She had surprised him yet again.  “Yes, Miss Carol,” he repeated.
     She stared at him for a moment, making him wait, making him wonder.  Then she only nodded.  “Take your jacket off.”  He took his sport coat off and placed it on his desk.  “Now your shirt and tie.”  A minute later, his bare chest was completely exposed.  Except for his underwear, he was naked from the knees up.  His pants kept threatening to slip all the way down so he grabbed for them to help keep them up.  “Just take them all the way off,” she commanded.  “Your shoes and socks too.”
     He had already gone this far, removing his pants the rest of the way wasn’t much different.  He slipped them off and piled them with the rest of his clothes.  Only his underwear kept him from being totally naked in front of her.  He put his hands down in front of him for modesty.  She slapped his hands away.  “Don’t bother!”  His hands went back to his sides. 
     She walked around him then, slowly examining his hairy body.  It was all the hair she found so surprising.  None of the boys that she knew had that much body hair.  None!  But he had hair… everywhere!  Even covering his back!  She found it all… ugly.  She went all the way around until she got back in front of him again.  “Do you have a pair of scissors in your desk?”
      “I think so.”
      “I think so, Miss Carol!” she barked!
     Her ferocity actually scared him for a moment.  “I think so, Miss Carol,” he replied.
      “Well get them!”
     He hurried back to his desk, opened it and grabbed the scissors.  Then he hurried right back to the side of his desk again.
      “I don’t want you to pull your underwear off.  I want you to cut them off.  Do it so that you can’t ever wear them again.”
     What she was asking would leave him totally naked in front of her.  “But…”
      “Did I tell you that you can speak?  No!  You don’t say anything unless I give you permission!  You just do it… or else!”
     Her yelling once again frightened him.  He quickly glanced down at his briefs and tried to figure out the best way to do as she had commanded.
      “What do you say, Maggot?”
     He looked back up at her.   “Yes, Miss Carol?”
     She nodded, then stood there waiting again. 
     He glanced down at his briefs to figure out how he wanted to complete her command. 
     As he pulled out the side of his waistband, she grabbed his cell phone from where she had set it down earlier.  She quickly found the setting for taking pictures and she raised it up toward him and put her finger on the button to snap a picture. 
     Slowly, he cut down the entire side.  As he was about half-way through, he heard the electronic click of her taking the picture.  He gasped in disbelief as his scissors stopped right where they were.  “Keep going,” she commanded, still keeping the cell phone’s camera aimed at his task.  Hating every second of it, he allowed the scissors to complete their job.  It was a good thing he was still holding onto the waistband because otherwise his underwear would have fallen off. 
      “Now the other side,” she commanded, the cell phone still aimed and ready. 
     Carefully, he changed his grip on both the scissors and his waist band, now pulling them out on the other side.  As he did so, the front of the side he had already cut, flopped downward, nearly exposing him completely.  He hesitated to do as he knew he had to, but he didn’t hesitate very long.  With one bold cut, the scissors parted the other side all the way down.  He felt the back of his underwear falling down between his legs.  The front actually stayed mostly in place because he was still holding it there.
     She took another picture.  “Just drop them in the trash,” she commanded.
     He turned his body as he did so, trying as much as possible to not expose himself too much to her.  The cut-up underwear landed in the top of his trash can, on top of everything else.  He only hoped that nobody would ever see them there.  Hopefully, he could grab them before he left later.
      “I’m waiting,” she said.  He really hated doing it, but he turned back to face her, fully exposed.  She snapped another picture.  “Now play with it!” she commanded.  “Make it hard!”
     Her command was so outrageous that he couldn’t believe she had said it.  But then, wasn’t everything she had said and done so far just as bad?  He hated her so much for this.  This was so wrong!  Yet he could think of nothing that he could do about it.  Grabbing his member, he began working it, massaging it, trying to make it do what he didn’t want it to do. 
     All the while he was masturbating himself, she was snapping more pictures.  She moved back to the middle of the room and held the camera up again, taking in more of the room, including his desk and the blackboard.  Then she moved off to the side and took another one showing him and the wall clock above the classroom door.  Several pictures later, she came closer to him again.  His cock was definitely larger now.  She stared at it, fascinated, even as she kept snapping more pictures. 
     He hated himself for giving in to her.  He hated his body for responding under these circumstances, but despite himself, he was growing ever more aroused.  He felt himself growing closer and closer to climax.  Nearly there!
      “Stop!” she commanded.  Confused, it took him a moment to realize what she had said, and then follow her order.  With his hand still on his member, he looked up at her quizzically.  “Get dressed,” she commanded.  “We have other things to do today.” 
     As he was pulling his clothes back on, she moved several rows back and took a seat at one of the desks.  She went though picture after picture, pushing buttons over and over again as if she was actually doing what she really wanted to be doing.  He just couldn’t know that she wasn’t actually doing it.  When she was done, she looked up at him again.  He was totally dressed.  “I’ve just sent all those pictures somewhere else for safe keeping,” she told him. 
     He suspected that’s what she had been doing, he just didn’t want to believe it.  She now had absolute proof that would land him in jail any time she wanted to press the issue.  He was trapped worse than before! 
     She stood up again and slung her purse over her shoulder.  “Come on, you’re buying me a cell phone.”

     As he drove her into town toward the cell phone store, he tried desperately to think of a way out of his predicament, but she had managed to cut off all escape with a frightening finality.  Since she had sent those pictures off to somewhere… or possibly to someone else, no matter what he claimed now, she had proof that he had exposed himself to her – no matter that it had never happened before.  The fear of prison weighed heavier and heavier in his stomach the further he drove.  “Isn’t there anything we can do to end this?” he finally asked.
      “Shut up!” she yelled quickly.  “I didn’t give you permission to speak.  Besides, we both know now that you’re going to do whatever I say, no matter what!”
     After that, he was silent all the way out to the store.  Once inside, she looked around at all the different cell phones till she found one that she liked – naturally one of the most expensive ones.  She pointed toward it, “Buy me two of those!  One in pink and one in purple.  And make sure you get a plan that includes unlimited everything!  You can add them to your own account if you like, I don’t care.  You’ll be paying for it all anyway.”  He knew he would.
     When they left the store, her next command surprised him even more.  “Drive me to your house now!”  He dared not say a word as he drove out of town, all the way out to his own house.  She had him pull straight into the garage and close the door behind them.  Then she got out of the car like she owned the place.  He followed from the garage through the door that led directly into his kitchen.
     He watched silently as she went from room to room, examining his home in minute detail.  Every room was closely looked at, every closet was opened and searched.  She even opened every drawer in his dresser and briefly rifled through everything.  “No guns?” she asked as if she was disappointed.
     He shook his head.  “None.  What would I need one for?”
     She only nodded her head in reply as she looked around one more time.  “What are you doing with the place?” she asked.  “Half of it looks like a construction zone.”
      “I bought a fixer upper,” he replied.  “I’m fixing it up.  It’s kind of my hobby.  I’m hoping to finish it and resell it. Then buy another one to do.”
     She just nodded again as if she didn’t really care.  She glanced at her watch.  It was time to do something with him.  She had other things to take care of now.  She headed down the short hallway where the bedrooms were to one of the rooms still under construction.  All the walls were nothing but exposed boards.  The ceiling too was nothing but exposed beams.  The light above was just a single bare bulb hanging from one of the beams.  The floor wasn’t finished either, it looked like nothing but old scared boards.  One of the walls between the rooms was nothing but studs.  She could walk right through it into the next room if she wanted to.  “Lay down over by that wall,” she commanded, pointing at the stud wall between the rooms.  When he hesitated, she shouted at him.  “Do it now!”  Reluctantly he did as he was told.  “Put your back to it!” 
     As he got himself into position, she walked through the wall into the next room and set her bag on the floor.  She pulled out a set of handcuffs.  “Put your arms behind your back,” she commanded angrily, letting him know that there would be no disobeying her.  As much as he didn’t want to do it, he again had no choice.  Laying on his side, he worked his arms behind him.  He felt her pulling them both harshly backward to the other side of the wall.  The wall stud between his arms dug into his back.  Then suddenly, he felt the metal cuff snap into place on one wrist.  Fear ran through him once again.  He tried to pull his arm back, but she held it too tightly.  His fear grew worse as she locked the cuff on his other wrist too.  She has shackled him to the wall!
     Carol relaxed slightly as she dropped his now bound hands.  The cuffs had been a lucky bonus.  She had accidentally discovered them when she was at her friend Michelle’s house when the two of them had gone into her mother’s bedroom to look for something else.  As her friend quickly searched her mother’s dresser, she had checked the drawers in the nightstand.  Seeing the cuffs with the key still in them had somewhat shocked her.  But knowing about her mother’s plan and what she would soon need to do, she had palmed the cuffs and managed to get them out of the house.  She had felt a little guilty about it then since Michelle was her friend, but now she was glad she had done it.  The cuffs made things much easier.  She only wished she had a few more of them.
     She would have simply left him like he was, but she didn’t know how strong that board was between his arms.  And thanks to all the disastrous scenarios that her mother had mentioned over the phone, she now had visions of him pulling the whole thing apart and coming after her.  The board wall between the rooms was simply a lucky break that she hadn’t even planned on, so she had taken her mother’s advice and prepared something else to keep him secure.  She went back to her bag and pulled out a short length of thin rope that she had found in the basement at the foster home where she lived.  She tied a large loop in one end of it… then after thinking for a moment about what she was wanted to do, she tied another one in the other side of the rope.  She dropped it on the floor behind him.
     She walked back through the wall… back in front of him.  Quickly bending down, she grabbed his ankles and started pulling them back toward the other side of the wall.
      “Hey!  What are you doing?” he yelled.
     She dropped his legs and hurried around to his front side again and kicked him – hard!  She was rewarded to hear his yelp of pain.  “Shut up!” she yelled.  “I didn’t give you permission to speak!”  She watched for a moment as he writhed in pain.  Then she grabbed his ankles again and continued pulling them through to the other side of the wall, two boards away from the board between his bound arms.  This time there was no protest.  She dropped his legs and grabbed the piece of rope, slipping one of the loops over one ankle, she closed the loop tightly over that ankle.  Reaching out, she grabbed his handcuffed wrists and pulling as hard as she could, she brought his ankle all the way up to his outstretched arms, pulling the rope from his leg over top of the cuffs on his wrists.  She ignored his groaning, not caring in the least about his pain.  She had to reach hard to grab his other leg, but a minute later, that too was connected to the rope between the cuffs behind his back. 
     She stood up to survey her work.  He was bent backwards very uncomfortably, wrapped around all those wall boards.  She watched as he struggled, but there was very little he could do.  There was no way he could get out of the cuffs, and chained around the wall like he was, he certainly wasn’t going anywhere either. 
     Without saying another word, she grabbed her bag and closed the door behind her as she walked back out to his living room where he couldn’t hear her.  She sat on his couch and checked her watch again.  It was not only time, it was past time.  Using her new cell phone, she dialed the number her mother had made her memorize.  Someone on the other end picked up.  She had to ask to speak with Janice Stokley, but the wait was only moments.  “Mom?” she asked when she heard someone picking up the phone.
      “Carol!” her mother’s voice returned.  “How did it go?”
     Carol sat back on the couch and relaxed.  “I’m calling from my new cell phone.  Does that answer your question?”
      “Good girl!” Janice exclaimed excitedly.  “Where is he now?”
      “Chained up on the floor to one of the walls he’s still building.  He looks very uncomfortable the way I did it.”
      “Tough!  Let him rot there!” her mother declared.  “As long as it won’t kill him.”
      “No danger of that,” Carol replied.
      “Good.  So did you manage to get any pictures?”
      “Yes!  Tons of them!  Great ones!  I can’t wait to show them to you.  When we’re done here, I’m going to transfer them all from his phone to our new ones.”
      “Good girl!  Now you know what you have to do from here?”
      “No problem.  Like you said, I should have a little fun with him.  I just wish I didn’t have to keep going back to that stupid home every night.”
      “You have to – for now!  But that will all change soon, Honey.”
      “Yeah, I know,” she replied, sullenly. 
     When her call finally ended, Carol wandered outside to his workshop and looked around carefully.  She looked at everything she could to make sure there were no guns in there.  She paid particular attention to the small area where all his fishing stuff was located, but fortunately, no guns there either.  He certainly did have a lot of tools though – and machines.  She didn’t even know what half of them were.  There were stacks of wood everywhere too.  She wandered over to his workbench.  A roll of duct tape hanging on the wall caught her eye.  She grabbed it and went back into the house. 
      “Please release me,” he begged the minute she got near enough for him to see her.  “I’ve got to pee!”
     Quickly she hurried over to him and kicked him swiftly in his groin.  He writhed in pain, cursing and moaning loudly.  “Did I give you permission to speak?  No!  You don’t say anything unless I tell you to!  And if you have to pee, then you’ll just have to do it right where you are.  Anything else for that matter too.”
     She pulled a length of duct tape off of the roll and pressed it firmly across his mouth, making sure to seal it as well as possible.  “There, maybe that will help to keep you quiet for a while.”  She reached into his pocket and fished around for a moment, finally pulling out his car keys.  Then she reached into his back pocket and removed his wallet.  She stood up.  “If you’re good, maybe I’ll bring you something to eat.”
     She turned and walked away from him.  Two minutes later, she was pulling out of the garage in his car, leaving him behind to his own miseries. 

     Roger struggled angrily once again, but all it brought him was more frustration.  His arms ached, his shoulders ached, his legs ached, and his back ached.  And the metal cuffs on his wrists just plain hurt!  How had this happened?  He tried to open his mouth, but the tape was too firm.  He tried to yell, but all that would come out was more moaning that wouldn’t carry anywhere.  Not that there would be anyone around to hear him.  His house was fairly isolated and sat on a rather large lot.  Images of him being left there like that to die flashed though his mind.  He forced them away. 
     And he really did have to pee, a need that only grew worse the more he thought about it.  He tried to push that away from his mind as well.  He was only partially successful.
     He wanted to kill her – badly!  As much as he was against violence, he was now contemplating exactly that – violence against a child!  A child?  Ha!  A monster!  Would it be better to go to prison for murdering her… or go to prison for the trumped up bogus things she was blackmailing him with now?  Well, he guessed they were no longer so bogus.  She now had all those compromising pictures of him that she had sent off somewhere.  That wasn’t good!  Was it possible that there could be any way he could get out of this without going to prison?  As far as he could now see, his only hope was in going along with her… for now.  He would have to see what he could come up with in the future to fix things and get out of this mess.  Besides, he was fairly sure that she had some kind of distinct agenda on her mind, and he wanted to know what it was.  Once he knew that, then maybe then the authorities would believe him!

     Carol glanced at her watch.  Unfortunately, she would have to make sure she was back at the foster home before it got too late.  But Momma had said that some things absolutely had to be taken care of, no matter how unpleasant.  Actually, this wasn’t all that unpleasant.  She drove into the drive through at Burger King and ordered dinner, paying for it with his money.  Then she headed straight back to his house again. 
     He was still there, right where she left him.  But then, where else would he be?  She walked into the unfinished room and set the bag of food down on the floor.  Then she went all the way out to his kitchen and dragged one of the chairs back with her.  She set the chair well back away from him.  Then she knelt down next to him and ripped the tape off of his mouth.  He screamed in pain as she did it.  She didn’t really care.  She walked back to her chair, picked up the bag of food from the floor and sat down.  She pulled a chicken sandwich out of the bag for herself, opened it and took a bite.  She pulled a French-fry out of the bag, held it up, and looked at it.  Then she threw it at him.  It landed on the floor in front of his face.  “Eat it!” she commanded.
     Roger looked at it.  It was close enough to his face that he could probably just get it into his mouth.  But it was laying on the floor that was not just dirty, it was filthy from all the deconstruction he had done in the room.  “No thanks,” he replied.  Before he knew what was happening, she was up out of her seat and delivering another wicked kick directly to his groin.  He cried out loudly at the pain as he writhed helplessly.  And then, as she was sitting back down again, the dam on his bladder gave way.  It had been a long time since he had been to the bathroom and there was simply no holding it back anymore.  He heard her laughing at him as she saw the spreading wet patch growing around him.  He began to cry – for so many reasons. 
      “Baby!” she said as she took another bite of her sandwich.  She watched him crying for a few moments.  Then she commanded again.  “Now eat that fry!”
     With tears blurring his vision, he again turned to the French-fry on the dirty floor in front of him.  With a great deal of effort, he finally got his tongue on it and was able to pull it into his mouth.  He tasted the grit and dirt and sawdust from the floor as he chewed and swallowed.  And then another fry bounced off of his face.
     Carol finished her sandwich while continuing to throw him the fries.  Then she pulled another sandwich out of the bag and began breaking it up into little pieces and throwing those at him to eat too, until finally he had finished it all. 
     She ripped a fresh piece of duct tape off of the roll and pressed it to his mouth again, then she stood over him.  “You’re going to learn to do as you’re told.  One way or another, you’re going to learn.  Now I’m going to leave you here like that to think about things tonight.  I’ll be back real early tomorrow to help you get ready for school.  We have some more things to do then.  By tomorrow, I hope you’ll be a little smarter and show me a little more respect!”
     She left him again, taking his car.  She drove back to the foster home but parked his car a block away where nobody would see it.  When she got inside, she told Mrs. Faye that she would be leaving very early every morning for a while so she could work on a school project with her friends.  Mrs. Faye really didn’t care.  With a house full of foster children, she had enough other kids to worry about, and Carol had never been a problem.



Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The Housekeeper - Chapter 1 (Part 1 of 2)



The Housekeeper
By Karen Singer

Chapter 1 (Part 1 of 2)

      “But Momma,” Carol complained, “I don’t know what else to do!  There’s just not much around here!”
     Janice Stokley listened to her daughter’s voice over the phone and realized that her daughter was limited in what she was capable of arranging from where she was.  “I’ve only got a little more than a week left, Honey.  We need to think of something.  Otherwise, you know it’s going to take that much longer.”
      “I know Momma, I’ve been trying!  But I’m all out of ideas.”
     Janice thought for a few moments.  Things were getting desperate!  It was time to start grasping at straws.  “How about that math teacher of yours?  Are you still seeing him after school?”
      “Mr. Brinkley?”
      “Yes.  You said he was helping you.  Is he married?”
     Carol thought about it.  “I don’t think so, but I really don’t know for sure.  I think I remember there was some talk a while back about him dating Miss White, the art teacher here, but I haven’t heard any more about it for a while now.  So I guess… he’s probably not married.  And I think I heard recently that Miss White was seen out with one of the other teachers, so he’s probably not going with her anymore.”
      “Okay,” Janice replied, “that at least sounds a little promising.  Tell you what, can you still borrow your friend’s car?”
      “Michelle’s car?  I think so.  She’s let me borrow it before.”
      “Good.  Then here’s what I want you to do….”

     Roger Brinkley finished grading the last of his student’s tests and shoved the whole stack into his expandable case that he used every day.  His last class had ended an hour earlier and the county High School building was quiet and felt empty.  He grabbed his case, closed the door to his classroom behind him, and headed out to his car.  The cold mid-March wind that assailed him did little to forecast the usual blistering summer that would be blanketing Georgia a few months from now.  As he drove out of the parking lot, he didn’t notice the car that was following him. 
     He turned onto the main road that ran right though the center of the small northeastern Georgia town and followed the twisting rural highway out through the small city area and out into the rural countryside.  Ten minutes later, he turned off onto a smaller country road.  Five minutes after that, he slowed down and turned into a long dirt driveway that ran up to his house.  He pressed the garage door opener before he got there and drove straight in, pressing the button again to close the garage door behind him.  Grabbing his case, he hurried inside.

     Carol continued past his house till she could no longer see it, then she pulled to the side of the road and stopped.  She looked around.  Nothing but trees… and no traffic.  Feeling safe enough, she got out of the car and walked cautiously back toward the house.  The house sat on a fairly large lot that was surrounded on three sides by trees.  She realized that as she had driven past, she hadn’t seen any other houses along the road for quite a ways.  It looked just like many of the other remote houses in this part of the country. 
     Hiding just inside the tree line, she moved ever closer, till finally, she ran out and hid up against the side of the house itself. 
     The outside of the house looked more than a bit worn and was hurting for a decent coat of paint.  She cautiously moved to the front of the house and the first window she came to.  Standing on her toes, she was just able to peer inside.  What she saw surprised her.  She saw nothing but bare board walls, totally unfinished.  She ran to the next window and looked in there too – the same thing!  Two rooms that were totally gutted! 
     The sound of a door closing at the back of the house scared her into motionless silence, but after a few moments, she relaxed and continued her tour.
     She jumped up onto the small cement porch to look into the next window and got another surprise.  From what she could see of the living room through the small break in the curtains, the furnishings looked to be fairly modern, a stark contrast to not only the unfinished rooms but also to the drab looking exterior of the house.  To her, the furnishings appeared to be a bit sparse, but otherwise it all looked fairly nice. 
     She hurried around to the side of the one-car garage and ran down the length of the building, cautiously watching for any sign of anyone else around.  There didn’t appear to be any windows in the garage at all, but there was one near the very back of the house.  It was fairly high, but by jumping, she could just see into the kitchen.  She couldn’t see it well, but she got the impression that it looked fairly nice too.  Even the few quick looks she got by jumping brought the impression of “new” about the kitchen. 
     Turning the corner to the back of the house, she noticed a large building in the yard a good distance away from the house.  To her it looked like an old garage or a barn of some sort.  Noticing that the side door to that building was open, she quickly ran to the far side of the house where she was less likely to be seen before continuing to look in the windows.  This time she saw a bedroom.  And again, the room looked fairly nice.  Not huge and not a lot of furniture, but at least it was finished. 
     A tiny, frosted window was next.  Bathroom, she guessed.
     A loud noise from the building in the back grabbed her attention and she ran back to the rear corner to look.  The noise ended, then a moment later, it came again.  She couldn’t figure out what it was.  She moved closer to the backyard and glanced around.  She saw nobody.  The coast seemed to be clear.  She hurried over to the outbuilding and peered into one of the few windows.  There he was, Mr. Brinkley.  He was dressed in jeans and an old work shirt.  As she watched, he grabbed a long board from a stack and carried it over to one of the machines inside.  He measured the board, made a mark with the pencil from his shirt pocket, then he started the machine – the noise she had heard before.  A second later, the board was cut in half. 
     She left him to his work and ran back to the main house.  Did she dare look inside?  What if he was married?  She didn’t think he was but she didn’t know for sure.  But her Momma….  Throwing caution to the wind, she ran up the back steps to the small wooden deck and opened the back door. 
     She found herself in the laundry room.  The washer and dryer looked fairly new.  There was a closet next to them and hooks for coats along the opposite wall.  The kitchen was next, the impression she had gotten earlier about everything looking fairly nice was quickly confirmed.  The appliances all looked new and there was even a table with four chairs in the room as well.  But she dared not linger to look closer.
     She hurried through the house, glancing into every room as quickly as possible.  Most of the inside of the house looked fairly nice.  Much of it looked new.  But there were still those two rooms that remained completely gutted.  She guessed that he was probably rebuilding the house… fixing it up. 
     She hurried out the front door before he could discover that she had been there and went back to her car.  She knew enough.  It was time to go home and wait for Momma’s phone call.

     Janice smiled at the prison guard like she always did before she entered the room with the telephones.  The guards didn’t usually spend much time listening in on conversations, but she still tried to be as careful as possible.  She was praying that Carol would have good news for her today, and if so, then today she would have to be more careful than ever. 
     She dialed the number she had memorized over a year ago.  She heard the operator asking the woman who answered if she would accept the charges – fortunately, she always did… but then she should, the woman was getting reimbursed for all these calls by Janice’s lawyer.  “Hello, Mrs. Faye.  . . .  Yes, I’m doing fine.  Looking forward to getting out of here.  It can’t be soon enough for me.  Is Carol there?  . . .  Yes, I’ll wait.”
     Janice had never seen the foster home that her daughter now lived in, but Carol had said that it was okay – but mostly just annoying.  Janice didn’t doubt it for a moment.  It was only a minute till she heard someone picking up the phone again. 
      “Momma?”
      “Hi Honey,” Janice said cheerily.  “How are you?”
      “I’m fine, Momma.”
     Janice dropped her voice.  “Can you talk?”
     Carol looked around.  She was alone.  “Yes,” she replied softly.  “No problem.”
      “Good Honey.  What did you find out?”  As Janice listened to her daughter, her hopes began to rise.  It didn’t sound as good as she would have liked, and there were some definite problems, but still, it sounded as if it might be workable.  “You’re sure of all this?”
      “Yes!  And like I said, I even went through his house, so I saw it all myself.”
      “Excellent!” Janice replied.  She had to stop to think a moment… to decide.  Time was running out and she didn’t want to waste even more time unnecessarily.  She hated certain aspects of what they would have to do, but desperate was desperate.  She made her decision to move forward.  “Okay, Honey, now it’s time for you to be the brave and resourceful daughter I raised you to be.  Are you ready?”
      “I can do this, Momma.  I hate him anyway!”
      “Why dear?  I thought he was helping you?”
      “He is… sort of.  I just hate algebra, that’s all!  Why do I have to learn something I’m never going to use?”
     Janice could have given her daughter lots of reasons… millions of reasons… literally, but it was probably better if Carol continued to hate him.  Besides, her math teacher was a man and Janice had no decent use for any man!  If this wasn’t so important, she would have avoided this plan like the plague!  “We’ll worry about that after we get past all this.  Besides, if you do this right, you won’t ever have to worry about failing his class.”
      “All the more reason I have to do this!” Carol declared firmly.  “I hate him, Momma!  I can do this.  I’m ready!  I want to do this!”
      “I know, Honey,” Janice replied with a small smile on her face.  She dropped her voice to almost a whisper, “Now, here’s some things you need to think about….”

     Roger’s last class ended and he watched the student’s hurrying out.  School was over for the day.  He had no tests to grade, but he still couldn’t go home yet.  Twice a week he stayed behind to offer extra help to any students who might be interested.  Lately though, the only one who regularly showed up was Carol Stokley – when she bothered to show up. 
     Carol had transferred to the school last year and was now in her Junior year, but she just couldn’t seem to understand the concepts behind how to do the work.  And if she didn’t pass his course, then she would be a Junior again next year too.  But she was desperate not to fail his class and more desperate not to stay behind in school. 
     It wasn’t that she wasn’t smart, in fact, Roger had the impression that she was very smart.  It was more like she had somehow learned it all backwards… most likely because of some lousy math teacher in the past who didn’t give a damn.  Carol was capable of doing the work, but there were just so many things she seemed to have learned wrong, that consequently, she was struggling horribly.  She was getting better, but despite the fact that she usually met with him once or twice a week, it was still very slow going. 
     He glanced at the clock, she was later than usual.  He’d wait a bit more for her, knowing that sometimes the kids got delayed with their friends.  Of course, it wasn’t unusual for her to not show up at all.  He continued to wait, the noise from the building emptying out slowly abated and everything got quiet once again.  Just as he was about to give up on her, she walked in and closed the door behind her.
      “There you are.  I was just about to give up and go home,” he said.  There was something about the smile that she gave him then that sent a tiny chill down his spine.
     Instead of taking a seat at one of the desks in the front row, she walked up and leaned across his desk toward him.  Very softly but clearly she spoke.  “I’m about to blow the whistle on you.  When I walk out of here today, I’m going to tell the police that you raped me in here!”
      “I what?”  He was startled beyond belief.  “Don’t even joke about such a thing!”
      “Oh, I’m not joking,” she replied as she stood up straight again, a wicked smile back on her face. 
      “You know perfectly well that I’ve never touched you… nor am I interested in ever touching you.”
      “But you see, that doesn’t matter.  Everybody knows we’ve been meeting here for quite some time now.  It’s only natural that they’d believe me.  And I know how to be very convincing!”
     He was so shocked he couldn’t think straight.  “You wouldn’t!”
      “Oh, I not only would… I’m going to!  Unless…”
      “Unless what?”
     She leaned back over his desk towards him again.  “Unless you agree to do absolutely anything I tell you to do… no questions asked!”
      “Like what?”
     She stood up again and shrugged her shoulders.  “Well, we’ll just have to see what comes up.”
      “This is crazy!  You can’t do this!”
      “Oh, but I can.  Believe me, I can.  And no matter what you say, there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
      “This isn’t right!  It’s not fair!”
      “It’s not supposed to be fair.”
      “They won’t believe you!”
      “We’ve already been through that.  You know they will.  In this kind of situation, they always believe the student.”
     He knew it was true.  He had just never believed that something like this could happen to him.  And even if he was eventually found innocent, the scandal alone would get him fired.  “This is blackmail!”
     She just shrugged.  “That… and probably a lot more.”
      “You want money?” he asked.
     She shook her head.  “No, not really.”
      “Then what?”
      “Like I said, I want you to agree to do anything and everything I tell you to do.  No complaining, no questions, no putting it off.  You do what I order, or you go to jail.  And I’ll bet you really wouldn’t like jail very much, would you!”
     No, he wouldn’t.  His whole life would be gone.  Everything!  “So if I agree to do what you want, you won’t press charges… or even mention this?”
      “Not as long as you behave yourself.”  She giggled a bit.  She had him and she knew it. 
      “Okay,” he replied.  “So what do you want me to do?”
     The smile left her face.  “Let’s get this straight.  Are you, or are you not agreeing with my terms?”
     He stared back at her for a moment, anger seething within him.  It was all bogus!  It was all a lie!  Yet there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.  Frustrated, he threw his hands up in the air.  “Okay!  I agree!”
      “Say it!  Say it out loud that you agree to do whatever I tell you to do!”
      “Okay!  I agree to do whatever you tell me to do!”
     She nodded.  “Good.  Now that we’ve got that straight… let’s start with some simple tests.  Stand up.”
     Exasperated and having little choice, he pushed his chair back and stood up. 
      “Move around to the side of your desk,” she ordered.
     He walked around and stood next to his desk.  She moved over to stand in front of him. 
      “Give me your cell phone.”
      “My cell….”
      “No questions!” she yelled.
     He reached into the pocket of his sport jacket and pulled his cell phone out and handed it to her. 
     She opened his phone and looked over it.  Yes!  It was a fairly old one, but it had a camera – perfect.  She looked back up at him.  “Now we’re going to do something to seal the deal.  Drop your pants!”
      “What?” he exclaimed angrily, not believing what she had just told him to do.
     Carol put a very disappointed look on her face, hoisted her bag to her shoulder, she set his phone down on one of the desks, and started walking out.  “I’m sure the police are going to be very interested,” she said without looking back. 
     Roger could almost feel the handcuffs being slapped on his wrists as he watched her leave his classroom.  In disbelief, he quickly followed her.  The part that disturbed him now, was that she didn’t head for the door to go outside. Instead, she headed the opposite direction, down the hall toward the school office.  He followed her, but at a distance.  She turned the corner, still heading for the office.  He followed, but he couldn’t make himself go any further than that corner.  She never even looked back at him.  He couldn’t believe it!  She was really going to do it!  She was really going to report him to the school… and they would immediately have to call the police!  It was bogus!  Totally bogus!  And there wasn’t anything he could do about it.  Never pausing, he saw her reach out to grab the handle of the door leading into the office.  He had visions of being harshly arrested and thrown into jail – where he didn’t belong and didn’t want to be.  His whole life would be over!  He’d never be able to teach again!  “Okay.  I’ll do it,” he called.
     She stopped, her hand still holding the handle of the door.  She looked back at him but she made no move to come back.
      “I’ll do it,” he said again, totally exasperated with the situation.
     She turned and slowly made her way back toward him, never once taking her eyes away from his eyes.  When she got close, she stopped.  “I’ll do it,” he said again.  The expression on her face never changed.  To him, she still looked angry.  He turned and headed back toward his classroom.  He didn’t look, but he knew she was following somewhere behind.