Hard Lessons (Book 1): Tutor's First Touch
By Abbey Kypner
Cover Art by Pockyrum
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012
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This work is intended for adult audiences only, and should not be read by individuals age 17 or younger. All characters herein are entirely fictional and of age 18 and above.
~~~~~
Tutor's First Touch
I really wish I had some gum.
Mind you I don't have any particular oral fixation, it'd just be a great way to keep from grinding my teeth.
My pen taps against the binder paper, leaving specks of ink on the otherwise blank sheet. Mr. Tobias' lecture on King Lear is washing over me. I'm trying to pay attention, but the vibrations being conducted through my seat are too distracting. DJ is fucking doing it again.
His pristine hundred-dollar sneakers are perched on the empty book tray that hangs from the underside of my seat, and the nervous twitching of his feet is shaking both our desks. It's barely audible to the rest of the class, but the faint squeak of metal and plastic and the rattle of change in his pants pocket drowns out everything else for me.
“I hate him I hate him I hate him,” is all that goes through my head.
His fingers tap against his desk to the rhythm of whatever song is rattling in his skull at the moment, head bobbing quietly in tandem. I don't have to look at him to know he's doing it... he's one-dimensional enough to figure it out.
You know the type. The slouch. The prettyboy. Even if he's a slacker his popularity is so ubiquitous that even the faculty has to soften the rules a little: Despite the general no-hats rule he gets to wear his black woolen tuque in class because it's become such an integral part of him, the fucking douche. He never takes it off.
On a purely intellectual level I can understand why the girls like him. He's pretty, with soft blond hair that drapes over his scalp just so. Silver stud earrings and a tongue piercing put just a touch of rebellion on display, even though he's quiet as a mouse. His eyes are always half-lidded, as if disconnected from the world. Long blond eyelashes frame silver-gray irises and give a softness to his face. Angular features... alabaster skin... replace the baggy khaki shorts and the tight white T-shirt with something more feminine and he could probably pass as a girl.
And chicks love that shit.
I've always hidden my fondness for girls under a stoic and hard exterior. It's just who I am, and the frustrating part is that the ladies don't go for my type anymore. It's no longer about the confident guys, or the ones with a future. Now it's all about the emo kids and scene boys: the tools, the slackers, the brainless twats that flock to the oxymornic genre of Indie pop.
I'll admit part of my loathing for DJ Faustin (his family was Russian, I think) came from his popularity, but you know how it is. It's just that natural guy instinct to get territorial and hate those who compete for attention from girls. I hated him the moment I saw him in my first-period History class freshman year, and each year my loathing of him grew. When he was just a mousy little kid girls would giggle over him. Now he's a teen heartthrob. At first he was just an annoyance. Now the idea of strangling him with his own designer belt is a constant subject of my daydreams.
During lunch he'd be leaning against the wall with a couple girls around, and he'd coerce them into giving a casual hug. After school he'd be sitting under the tree at the front of the school with a pair of headphones and an MP3 player, staring off into the distance. He'd bob his head to the music, lips murmuring the lyrics with a pencil in hand to tap out the rhythm against his knee. There's a reason he's stuck with being called DJ. I don't think even the teachers know his real name.
I prefer to avoid the inanity of the high school rumor mill. Yet I can't help but hear snatches before I pack up in disgust and move to enjoy my Kafka elsewhere.
Lisa Miller was the first to lose her virginity to him, well before he became popular.
He gives great cunnilingus with his tongue piercing (plus all the details of how awesome that hard little stud felt along with his slick tongue... yech).
A while back three names were passed around regarding which girl he'd lost his own virginity to. Each of them just smiled and tried to be coy. They weren't sluts (they were still young enough to be afraid of daddy's rage about his sweet baby girl being deflowered after all), but they still wanted the credit of being the one to usher him into manhood.
Gina Wallace almost got caught giving him head in the handicap stall of the boy's restroom.
Yvonne (she doesn't need a last name, everyone knows Yvonne) says the boy likes it dirty... anal. Don't let that sweet face fool you, the guy's obsessed with it. Even that wasn't the most shocking one.
But it isn't enough that this little idiot has to be the school stud while I'm still a virgin. No, what really makes me want to murder him is when I heard Kat gossiping about how she went on a date with him just last week.
Katherine Shelby. God I've had a crush on her since fourth grade, and she knows it. She knows I like her, and for years she's kept me at arms length. We're friends of course, and I'd endured the teasing from having a crush on a girl throughout elementary school because it was worth it. With her it was always a matter of playing coy: trying to be near her without looking like a creep. But to hear about her getting close to him... I had the smarts, the depth, and dammit I'm pretty handsome myself. Yet ever since I heard that he was slipping her some tongue last Friday I'd go to sleep troubled, wondering what I'm missing if Kat would reject me for that... that little turd.
It used to be that I could take solace in the fact that ten years from now I'll probably be making six figures and he'll be stuck living with his parents, bagging groceries at the local supermarket during the day. I'd wear my three-thousand dollar suit to go shopping and I'd buy a cantaloupe or something, just so I could take pleasure in watching him stick it in a paper bag. Yes, bag my groceries you little fuck. Bag it. And I'd better hear a nice little “yes sir” from you when you hand it to me.
And now I don't know if that'd be enough.
~~~~~
Mr. Tobias wanted me to talk to him after class. Everyone knows I'm going to be Valedictorian, and seeing me get called to talk to a teacher after class is kinda humiliating. As I walk up to his desk I imagine dragging DJ into the woods with a baseball bat in hand.
It's a happy, fuzzy thought.
“You've been a little distracted, Adrian. Is everything all right?”
I twitch, “Yeah. Sorry, DJ was just shaking my seat and I couldn't focus.” Part of me hopes he'll offer to change my seating arrangement, but by the look on his face he dismisses it as inconsequential.
“Oh I wasn't referring to that. I mean is everything all right at home? You've been very tense this past week. I don't want that to affect your schoolwork.”
“I'm fine.”
He nods, “Well I don't mean to pry. I'm happy to write a letter of recommendation for your applications, but I need to know that you're doing well.”
Blaming DJ again would be petty, and would expose way too much drama. I like Tobias: he's tough but fair, but I don't like him enough to open up about my personal problems. Worst case scenario, he'd put me on some sort of watch list or send me out for counseling, afraid I'd shoot up the school or something.
“Oh, no, just a little insomnia. Hope it's not senioritis,” my throat tightens with the lie and I flush a little. I hate lying, but Mr. Tobias raises his eyebrows and smiles. Looks like he accepts that answer.
“Well good. In any case that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm actually wondering if you'd be interested in tutoring one of your fellow classmates. It'd count as an extracurricular, of course, and you'd get paid.”
Paid? Nice. Brushing away my troubles I grin, suddenly elated, “Great. Uh, how much should I be charging?”
Mr. Tobias matches my grin. When I first heard the name in Junior year I'd expected a paunchy, balding man with horn-rimmed glasses... the kind that makes people of that body type look like pedophiles. I wasn't expecting this curly-haired drama teacher with a salt-and-pepper beard. “Well I wanted to leave the terms up to you, but I've talked to the mother and she seems willing to pay thirty dollars an hour.”
My eyes widen. Thirty dollars an hour? Holy fuck.
I grin, and my voice sounds lighter already. “Sounds great. Who would I be tutoring?”
“DJ.”
I should've expected that. With everything I've been railing on you can only ever expect the shit momentum to keep rolling forward. My fists tighten, and I clench my stomach to keep the tension from my face. I'm seeing red, and I for a moment I'm afraid that I'd tear up.
Thankfully, Tobias continues without noticing, “His mother emailed Principal Suzuka a few days ago. She's concerned that with his grades he won't be able to pass high school at all. His attitude doesn't help either. He needs to pull up to at least a B-average.”